Magic and Fireflies

I am back from amazing Cuc Phuoc National park. Stayed in Ninh binh for one night and then Christiaan and I hired a motorbike to take us just over 2 hours to the National park. From the entrance to the park it was another 20 km to the Pillar house, where we spent the night....away from all other tourists and backpackers (yes they are different) It was SO amazing and magical. We trekked for a few hours just before it got dark...there were so many new sounds and sights.....the highlight for me was the fireflies that came out at sunset..........I could have watched them all night, they are such amazing things. Had noodle soup for breakfast...that was a first (of many Im sure) for me and it was actually Okay. We took another motorbike to a small town where we caught the local bus back to Hanoi...it was far more exciting than the 'tourist' bus that we were convinced to take to Ninh Binh!!!! I think they are not used to having tourists there because when I went to buy lychees they only charged me 1 dollar for 2 kg.....so incredibly cheap!!! The people here are so lovely, contrary to what most people say, and they DONT spit!!!!! The food is really good although Im on my 5th or 6th week of nothing staying in my stomach!!! Perhaps I should get that checked out :) Later, Megs

Vietnam

Hello everyone!!! I am sitting at a small hotel in Hanoi writing and waiting for a bus to Ninh Bing, where I will be heading to a national park to do some trekking.

I am not feeling particularly creative, so this blog may be less than entertaining!
First, I must back track to China.....I have been so organized with all my things and HAD not lost anything in 11 months, however as I was packing up my things up in Dali I packed an extra bag (something I NEVER do) In it I put my shawl, my new shoes that were so so ugly that they were cool, other things AND my lonely planet southeast asia....I arrived in Kunming and began looking for my shawl and realized that I left that whole bag in Dali!!! Oops....so I lost my lonely even before arriving in SE Asia....oh well...I can just buy a fake copy here :)

Back to Vietnam.....It rained most of the days in Sapa, but still it was amazing...ended up renting a DVD player and buying some VCDs....they were hilarious...bought 'memiors of a geisha' which was in English but had vietnamese voice over....so you could here the english and right after the vietnamese...even better was a 'Paradise now' in Hebrew with vietnamese voice over!!! Ha ha.
After 3 or four days of rain I took a 3 hour bus to Bac Ha, a lovely village with a beautiful market amidst rice terraces and lovely mountains....the people were so colourful and lovely. Next stop Lao Cai where I caught an overnight train to Hanoi...it was a great train except that it arrived at 5 am.....SO i went on my first motorbike taxi....It was scary, new and exhilarating.....found another hotel in Hanoi for $4 (including fan, tonnes of stairs, ants and even house lizards!!!)
Headed to Halong bay for a 1 night boat trip through the amazing limestone peaks...went swimming!!!!!!!!!!! (the highlight of my trip :) ) ate good food, watched amazing stars....the room was so lovely, had I known it would be as good as it was I would have stayed longer!!!

Im exhausted and am going to chill out in a chair for awhile :)

RAIN

Well I am in Vietnam....I took a 12 hour sleeper bus from Kunming, China...something I had been avoiding the whole time I was in China......had a small bed, lots of people smoking and no toilet. I didnt sleep AT all.....the road was so so bad...if any of you had ever been on the road to the cabin at the okanagan, it was pretty much like that, and it was pouring rain....there were some bumps that we went over where I went completely airborne in my bed...it was quite hilarious...I was just happy to make it safely to the border crossing!! I met up with a Christiaan, who I met first in Lijiang, and we decided to do the journey together!!! As we were crossing the border from China into vietnam they decided to take his lonely planet China, they do this to everyone because the map excludes taiwan and says too much about tibet!!! So they gave him a choice to surrender it or have it confiscated...he chose to have it confiscated so that he could have a souvenir....an official document!! and of course to make them work for the book!!

We arrived in Lao Cai and drove around in our bus to sapa looking for people to fill up the empty seats for 1 hour!!!!!!! All the mountains and rice fields are so lovely. lush and fresh!!! We arrived in sapa and headed to the queen hotel which has a lovely view of the mountains (actually its been raining and foggy, so I've only just seen the full view this afternoon!!!) We trekked to Cat cat village today...with rice terraces and waterfalls and it was beautiful!!!

Well thats about all for now.....miss you all, megs

Blood:The Last Vampire

Okay , so yesturday nanna, cecil and I came to Dali to do 3 days of Tai chi at a monastery, we were at the bird bar hostel when a lady came in and asked us to be in a movie.....they would provide food and a place to stay and they needed us for up to 15 days....since we were doing the tai chi we said no....but this morn it was pouring rain so we called her up and said okay....so in 20 minutes I am heading to a private hotel to get all dolled up and filming starts at 8 pm tonight ...its a vampire movie so I'll probably just be a dead person on the side of the road, ha ha!!!!! At our hostel someone said that tom cruise was in the movie...doubt it but it will be interesting to see who is in it!!! Hilarious!!!! later, megs


Okay so Im finished my first day of work......i guess its the same producers of crouching tiger hidden dragon....and we were told that we would go right to makeup and then filming at 8...well they picked us (25 foreigners) up and took us to a studio to show the director our kung fu skills........hahahahahahahahahahahahaha it was a beautiful gongshow...I dont think Ive even seen a kung fu movie before. we had to perform one by one with everyone watching.....it was hilarious...I did yoga!!! Not one foreigner knew kung fu.....I was just hoping to be a dead person or something.....apparently they probably wont even film in the next few days (they are so disorganized) so for now Im just gonna enjoy my lovely bedroom that has a bathroom and a TV!!!!!!! Later, Megs


Nanna, Cecil and I shared a room at a hotel (not a hostel)
On our second day of 'work' we were picked up from our hotel at 4 and taken to movie city....it was like universal studios, but better because there werent any tourists (truly amazing)....they said no photos but luckily I didnt listen.....the sets were how I had envisioned china would be before I came here! We were taken to wardrobe and given outfits....I however searched through and picked my own :) They had a good laugh when I showed them my booty (only because I was joking about it) NO pants would have fit me....so I found a brilliantly ugly dress and I dressed it up with an ugly belt.

Next we were taken to a building near where they were filming and we had our makeup done....they did a crap job but it was lovely having someone turn me into a vampire?? We hung out for ages (4 or 5 hours) in a cold building awaiting filming. At dinner time we were all excited because they had western food: nutella, bread, fruits, olives, cereal...etc..............but when we went to have some we were denied, apparently the western food was for the chinese actors and the chinese slop/hospital/bad airplane food outside in buckets was for the foreigners...ah ha ha....theres something backwards about that. So we all complained and said we would leave if we didnt get western food...so they agreed that the on the next day of filming we would have better food. We played cards and hung out until are moment to shine!!! It was surreal sitting at a table playing cards (poker, of course) with 'vampires' from all over the world!!

In Dali it has been raining for days and it was so cold that we could see out breath.....and guess what, we got to be dead people!!!!!! When we heard the gun shot we had to fall to the ground and be dead, I was curled up on the ground in the pouring rain in a dress, and to top it off they added their own buckets and buckets of rain!!! Keep in mind we could see our breath. I have NEVER EVER EVER been so cold in my life!!! We did a few takes and were laying on the ground for about 25 minutes before they let us go into the tents........they were so so so disorganized and we had no idea what was going on or when we would be shooting again that we stayed in our wet clothes, that didnt dry for another 6 or 7 hours............ahhhhhhhhhhhhh we were so cold!!!
Nanna got chosen randomly to do a second scene where she had to play dead in the rain again...poor girl.....while the rest of us just sat in wet clothes. We started at 4 pm and didnt get back to our hotel until 7 am....it was a long exhausting day and night....however we slept until 3 30 pm today and it was amazing, we awoke to get paid (yes I got paid....about as much as it cost me to live these past 10 or 12 days) They wanted us to do another shoot today but we were so cold still that we said no...It would have been cool cuz they would have turned us into monsters, but we would have had to work overnight in the rain again....so instead we did an afternoon run!!!! and now we are staying at a youth hostel!!!!! They would have been able to use us for longer and we would have been able to do a bar scene and more but I am still shivering and I'm going to save myself for Bollywood!!!!!!!!!!! The movie will be out next year and is called
Blood: The last Vampire!!!!!!!! Thats the story of my beautiful gongshow!!!!

Megan the great

Hi all!!!

I am writing from Lijiang, China, it is an amazing sunny day today....looks like I left the rain behind in Dali. I'll back track to my adventures in Dali. This past week has been the week long chinese golden holiday and Dali was sooooooooooooooooooooooo packed with people. I just chilled out doing nothing for a couple days, my hostel was a beautiful gongshow, it felt almost like a tropical paradise! Dali was cool, had a beautiful useless lake, as you cannot swim in it, cool buildings and amazingly beautiful people. Some of the most beautiful old people I have ever seen.....minorities who are naxi, tibetan and more! I took the 4 hour bus from Dali to Lijiang which is bordering Tibet, the bus rides here are brilliant! its like being on a scary ride at an amusement park.....I really do enjoy them!

I am staying at the most brilliant guesthouse called Mama Naxis. I met up with Megan (who is now called number two and I am number one) at the guesthouse...... as soon as we arrived she fed us tea and bananas....mama and papa take care of everyone here like a big family...If she sees you out on the street, she asks if your hungry and then will make you come in to her place and she will feed you. Everyone meets for breakfast, which is a massively huge banana pancake (the size of a pizza and just as thick) for 50cents, and again for dinner, you sit down and they just keep bringing out food and more food and more food, and it is all brilliant and costs only 1.75.........such an amazing place......last night we came in around 1am and she came out and said to a couple of guys 'you go to tigerleaping 8am, go to bed, I wake you up early.' She speaks little english but can communicate well and everyone calls her mama. No one else here has ever stayed at a place like it!!!!! i may just stay here the rest of my trip!!!! he he!! oh yeah and my bunk bed has stairs going up to it.....amazing!!!

What else...hmmm.....I have peed in a trough, and beside people with no dividers and well Im going to take a siesta now....later, number 1

Hello from Kunming, in the Yunnan province in China. I spent the last week in Yangshuo, a 'quiet' village FILLED with tourists....not just backpackers but TOURISTS. Definitely not China. The countryside was filled with limestone? Karsts, so lovely, and the li river meandering through the town!! I stayed at a guest house named 'lisas,' met some amazing people who were staying in my dorm all from Israel. So now I've added another country to my list of must visits. It rained or rather poured most of the time I was there....I washed my clothes on Saturday morning and on monday morning they still werent dry....ugh!!!!

China is so hmmmmm.......interesting...I ate at this dumpling place a few times in Yangshuo....they always make the dumplings on the table near where you eat, on my last day there the man was smoking and making them and even better yet, they brought in the cat and started combing it.......ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!! right beside the dumplings!!!!! And People dont just spit here, they Hork (no idea how to spell it) Unlike Korea where it is just spitting and usually only men spit, here everyone does, it is so animated, loud and rather disgusting, especially when your sitting in the back of a taxi and the spit flies back and hits you!!!! And one more thing SNOT ROCKETS...so gross, heres what you do to create a snot rocket, cover one of your nostrils with your finger and then blow as hard as you can so that all the snot comes out of your other nostril....you can blow it out the car window, in the garbage can, on the sidewalk, in the stores.....anywhere you feel like it....so disgusting.

I survived my second long train ride, 20 hours long...it actually went by so so fast, even if I was like a monkey in a cage.....the old lady above and across from me stared at me almost the whole time she was awake......

I have 2 weeks left in China and then off to Vietnam!!!
Despite what I have written about the rain, snot rockets, and being a monkey, I am having an amazing time in China........Later, megs