From one extreme to another. We go from a road trip to the Inner Hebrides to a sporty, winter warmer in Lanzarote! We went to an old Roscoe family favourite; Club La Santa on the far side of the Island. The La Santa bubble is something that is very easy to get sucked into. Once you’re there, it’s quite difficult to leave! In all honesty, you don’t really need to! I guess we found that it was so easy for us with Frank and Helen’s parents there. Club La Santa is very familiar once you arrive and get to know your bearings, it’s very easy to navigate and this was clear for Frank too. Within a few days he was ruling the roost, dictating his direction to get us back to the apartment, the track, the play centre or the pool. It’s minimal design means you feel like you’re walking through a giant sculpture at times. But it’s hard not to be drawn in by the busy schedules of activities that are on offer, after all this is a holiday!

Dave and I really enjoyed having time to do various forms of exercise that we wouldn’t usually have time to do. This included tennis, paddle boarding, squash, ariel yoga, a duathlon and a triathlon. Add to this regular running and swimming and we were feeling pretty healthy by the end of 10 days. We had that glowing feeling that neither of us have felt for some time. The grandparents took turns to look after Frank so that we could go off and do things and we took Frank swimming every day as well as got him a balance bike to get used to whilst we were there. They also have a play group for children, although one of us had to be with Frank because he is under 3, for most parents this means that they can leave their children there and go off and do their activities. The latest facilities that have been built are amazing at Club La Santa; two Olympic sized swimming pools and a bike centre to get any cyclist salivating! We were spoilt for choice!

So while Club la Santa is expensive, once you are there all of your activities, lessons, bike hire, equipment hire and coaching is included. The only thing you have to pay for is food really! Although we did decided to do an excursion and went surfing for the day in Famara with La Santa Surf. This cost around 45 euros each for about 5 hours worth of instruction and it was well worth it. We felt that the instruction was very clear and we basically managed to surf almost every time we got onto the board! So all in all we loved it! This happened the day after we got engaged so it was an excellent way to celebrate together.

With an abundance of warm weather, and so much to do it’s difficult to get bored at La Santa. Evening entertainment is there if you want to dip into it and the kids just love it! The big kids do too! We enjoyed Halloween without all of the commercial stuff that comes with it and Frank loved watching his first magician’s show. Coming home as a fiancé definitely made it for us all! We loved it! An interesting fact told to us whilst we were there; 4 out of 5 people who visit Club La Santa for the 1st time will return. Looks like we’ve got our winter sun holiday sorted for 2016!

(All images copyright to Roscoe Rutter Ltd, shot using Nikon D700 with 35mm f1.8 and 50mm f1.4)

It was quite a drive from Franz Josef to Wanaka so we broke up the journey with an overnight stop at the DOC campground located at the top of Lake Wanaka. We had a pretty slow start to the day with some photographs of the masses of drift wood that has collected on its shores. We took in the scenery that surrounded us and then made tracks to Wanaka town.

It was only a further hours journey from that point until we reached the town where there was a little craft market taking place on the fields opposite the lake. Not much for us to buy but it is a great market for gifts, jewellery and pottery amongst other things. We then nipped over to the I-Site to get some info on the area and to see where we would be camping for the next few nights. We were interested in a Lord of The Rings tour, but at over $150 it was far too much on our budget.

We took advantage of a discount offer for the Lake Outlet Camping Ground that we found in the I-Site, it was an offer of 12% per night so we snapped this up and drove out to the camp ground. Lake Outlet is 8km out of town on the south-west shores of the lake, they have a very Mediterranean feel about the place and we instantly liked it, for $23 it wasn’t badly priced either. We found our spot and decided to hire some bikes for the afternoon.

We took the lake trail back towards Wanaka and ended up at the Rippon Vineyards where Helen had previously enjoyed a wine tasting. This time though things had changed and the vineyard have built a big wine cellar building on the top of a hill overlooking the vineyards and lake. They are in a beautiful location and we enjoyed sampling their special Riesling and Pinot Noir. On our way back to the campground we bumped into Uta and Oliver and convinced them to stay at the same campground as us.

The bike hire cost us $15 each for 3 hours which we felt was a fair price. Back at camp we worked on the blog and enjoyed another tasty dinner with Uta and Oliver before sharing our Sky-dive video with them and still feeling nervous watching it again.

We didn’t do much the next day, and opted for a working day. Something that we hadn’t done for a while. So we continued to work on the blog at the camp ground and drove out to get some food and fuel later on before carrying on with work! A bit of a nothing day but Helen did manage to catch up with Lois which was just lovely!

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f/2.0, Leica 90mm f/2.8, Zeiss 18mm f/4 ZM processed in Lightroom 3)

16th August and again we stretched out our legs first thing and went for a walk! There is a lot of that to be done in this part of LA, mainly as we only have one bike between us, and it costs $20 a day if we want to rent one! We are trying to budget afterall.

We reached the Venice Marina Del Ray, which was a little of an anti-climax, again the weather was flat but we did come across a few interesting spaces and shapes along the way that caught our eye. When 11.30 came Helen went off to her teacher training course and Dave stayed local to take in more amazing skateboarders, and Venice beach fitness fanatics. This time a TV commercial was being filmed for the new Sponge-bob square pants computer game, so two young boys were attempting half-pipes one take after the other. Meanwhile a tattooed, pierced and very eclectic looking young man was receiving applaud after applaud for his amazing height on jumps and tricks. The skateboard park is such a good place for people watching! We cannot recommend it enough. Also engaging were the many squash and hand-ball players who fill out the courts all day long.

After Helen had finished her course for the day we along with John (Helen’s cousin) went out to UCLA ,Westwood Village to visit the Hammer Museum. There was a strong Paul Thek retrospective taking up a third of the gallery and recent works by Ed Ruscha were equally intriguing. We also enjoyed sitting in the open air atrium. It’s a very nice space to sit and watch the world go by. The museum charges $10 admission fee for the exhibits but you can sit in the atrium or visit the restaurant and bookshop for free! A short walk away is the Fox Theater, a famous landmark for movie premiers. We finished the night at another sushi favourite, recommended by John, Sushi Karen in Culver City.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f/2.0, Leica 90mm f/2.8, Zeiss 18mm f/4 ZM & Olympus PEN EP-1, 17mm f/2.8 & 100mm f/2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

On our last day in Chiang Mai we booked to do a Thai Massage course focusing on the back, back of the legs and shoulders. We loved it and felt that we learned so much as well as received a very good massage for most of the day!

Our teacher took it in turns to teach us each part of the massage working through a booklet we could take away with us. Each time she would demonstrate on one of us and then we would practice on each other so often we received the same thing twice! We thought this would be really useful for us when we move on as so many times we have wanted or craved a massage and given bits here and there without really knowing what we’re doing! Now we felt we would be able to do something with a little more purpose. Along with Thai massage techniques we picked up some stretching moves that work together with the massage. A full body massage often covers, hands, feet and face aswell as the rest of your body. It was also good to learn of the traditions of this massage.

We chose Namo for our massage course and they also offer half day to one week massage courses along with daily yoga drop in classes, they have good sized teaching and yoga rooms in a well-thought out space. The course cost 1100 baht each starting at 9am and finishing at 3pm. We had an hour for lunch which wasn’t included in the fee unfortunately but we did go to a great vegetarian place called Om pretty much opposite the Eastern gate on the inner wall side, it was so good we decided to go back there for dinner that night!

That same evening we took an overnight bus to Bangkok which left Chiang Mai at 7.30pm and we were really surprised to find that it wasn’t full, this mean’t we were able to spread out and have a double seat each. It was a very good journey with one stop, eventually arriving in Bangkok early at 5am. It only cost 300 Baht each with pick up – a bargain!

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0, processed in Lightroom 3)

The bus was due to depart from Siem Reap at 6am and we were informed to be at the ticket office for 5.30am. We arrived on time and several other travellers were waiting for the bus which was a medium sized coach but enough room for everyone on board, even if the bags were all thrown on the backseats! We paid $8 each for our tickets which was the cheapest we could find to Kratie with a change of buses in Kompong Cham, Doug and Emma were heading for Ban Lung and had to pay $19 each for the VIP bus, hotel pickup and a breakfast. It started in the usual way, drive around the area for at least an hour picking up passengers and packages to transport and then finally one last stop, it was to pick up Emma and Doug from a tuk-tuk, two hours later than they should have set off on the coach. Maybe the bus at Kompong Cham will be a VIP bus we thought!?

After 5 hours we arrived in Kompong Cham for our next bus connection and to all head off in different directions. The bus never materialised, either it left before we arrived or was non-existent, so we had to hassle the “travel coordinator” from our bus about what to do as the station office was no use and the bus driver had no inclination of trying to help. He arranged for us to go with another bus company on the other side of town, so the bus dropped us there. We would have to wait for 2.5 hours until the bus arrived so most of the stranded passengers (about 8 of us) headed for some food, fried rice with beef or noodles was pretty much the only option. Helen wasn’t feeling too good so she had plain boiled rice.

Finally a bus arrived, which incidentally looked pretty swanky, and we were informed we were all on the bus as it would stop at Kratie and then proceed up to Ban Lung. However there were not enough seats or luggage space in the hold on the coach so 5 people had to sit on their bags in the isle. Luckily people disembarked fairly quickly at random stops along the way so we all got seats within the hour. After a long journey we finally arrived at Kratie with an ounce of sunlight left in the sky and we found our preferred option for accommodation, the Balcony Guest House, over looking the Mekong River. Success, they had rooms with shared bathroom for $5. The room at the front of the building with a double bed was very large and had a huge ceiling with fan, it felt very Mediterranean in style and we loved the 70′s retro concrete building. We didn’t go far that evening and opted for some food from the Balcony’s restaurant which was pretty nice (real Heinz Baked Beans we think!!), but a bit overpriced for the portion sizes we received, washed down with some homemade Ginger Ale which tasted pretty boozy!

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

Up early we made our own breakfast in the room and headed out to find some half decent bikes for a good price. We tried a few places that were mentioned in the Lonely Planet guide, however the bikes were knackered and wouldn’t have got us down the road let alone into the unknown terrain ahead. We finally found some bikes that were the best we had seen, and these were nothing special, at least they had brakes and what looked to be gears on one of them. We began our journey following the LP and a photocopied map that the bike rental cafe gave us. It was straight forward enough, straight down the road for 18km.

It all started off well and level, but soon we were faced with huge big dipping roads, up hill, down hill, up hill, down hill. The midday sun was rapidly approaching and the map we had did not show as far as the river that we were heading towards. Water was also running low as well as the bikes felling very tired and the chains were very rusty! We finally passed a billboard sign with a photograph of a waterfall and not much else, we proceeded as it did not look like a path that would lead us to the waterfall, the sign looked like an advert for the area. Down a huge hill, which was fun and to the bottom, success the river was there and the waterfall must be nearby. Asking the locals they said it was a few KM up the road from where we came. This was not good news and we decided to grab water and food here and try to get a boat to the waterfall.

The people are very friendly and they cooked us up a meal with our requirements of no meat. They showed us the meat and fish that they had and you would have to be a brave person to try it, cooked and uncooked meat in torn plastic bags together in a basket and dried fish that did not look very tasty. We had rice with eggs and a bowl of vegetables which was lovely and they brought us more rice however we were stuffed to the brim. We inquired about a boat to the waterfall $20. We asked about a truck taxi back with our bikes but that was $20. Due to it been New Year they were all having fun and relaxing, we weren’t going to hold it against them for charging high rates. We decided to brave the roads once more and started our assent up the hill.

The ride back was surprisingly enjoyable and we got back to Koh Kong in no time. Chill time and showers and then out for some food, where we had a great Thai curry and decent Pad-thai. Many locals were celebrating TET so we witnessed family gatherings, massive spit roast pigs waiting to be feasted upon and firecrackers were going off all over the place. For the remainder of the evening we sat at one of the sea-view bars and got the blog up to date.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

We arrived at 6.30am overnight from Hoi An, Justin and Jules were with us until this point and followed us to Perfume Grass hotel to see if they could catch John and Lisa. Off they went and we couldn’t check into our room so we walked over the road to the beach and found a spot to have some home made brekkie. We walked along the beach for an hour before heading back to claim our free tea and coffee from the hotel. Still no check in so we left the bags, freshened up and decided to rent a moto for the day at 5$ – not too pricey at all.

Our destination was Doc Let beach, one of the top beaches in Vietnam, it was a little cloudy but we thought we’d go on an adventure. We had some directions outlined in the Lonely Planet and a map from the hotel, we knew it would take us a while so off we went. After about half an hour on the high way we checked at a restaurant to make sure we were on the right tracks. Just keep going straight…so we did, passed through some small towns in the direction of going north and then eventually after stopping to get some more fuel we saw a landmark for Honda Port which was mentioned in the LP. After 20 minutes or so of riding along the coastal road we decided to turn around as we got closer to the Honda factory which we knew wasn’t the location of the beach. We decided to turn back on ourselves and ride through a few small villages, getting hungry we pulled into a small lane which ended at the sea. We saw a family cooking some local food for their stall and asked to sit down there and eat, they fed us amazingly and we even got some wonderful fresh spring rolls thrown in. It was very cheap at aroud a pound for us both and they were very welcoming indeed, they also pointed us towards Doc Let beach, so off we went in the hope of finding our destination.

We rode past the sign after about 5 minutes on the bike and more traveling through lovely little villages, further up the road there is a turning for the beach and we had to pay a 10,000 dong entrance fee each as well as 5,000 dong for parking the bike. Once settled we wandered off into the beach resort which has been set up a little like a summer camp, although not a lot was going on as the weather was closing in and the afternoon was a grey one. We still found beauty in the place though, the sand is powder white and the waves are very soft compared to Nha Trang. We stayed for an hour and then made our way back to Nha Trang without stopping it took us 50 minutes, both arriving with a numb bum! Later on we checked in, showered and went to grab some food – Cafe Des Amis - not a great recommendation by the Lonely Planet to say the least!!

Back to hotel, bed.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

Got up fairly early and went out for a run along the beach, quite fresh and clear air. Ran for about half an hour and then stopped to stretch on the grassy area near the beach. Helen was doing some yoga and was interrupted by a Swiss yoga teacher – dressed in nothing more than a faded pair of orange shorts and sweatband. Classic! He wanted to talk to us about Ayurvedic Yoga, we’re quite interested in Ayurveda anyway and obviously loving yoga so asking if it was free (which it was) he proceeded to talk to us for about half an hour and we went through some postures. Funny little interruption.

Back to the hotel for a good breakfast – omlette, bread and fruit salad.

We spend most of the day on the beach, Helen had been feeling unwell and we needed some down time. We found a place further up the beach called Louisiane where we were able to hire sun-loungers with umbrella for the day for a pound each including use of the pool. The sea was really rough going out with very few people going into swim so it was an added bonus using the pool.We enjoyed beer and a cocktail and stayed there until about 2.30pm. Afterwards we went for a walk up to the bridge which is around 4 km away heading north on the beach front. Many locals live in shanty town like houses around there so we wanted to head up and see what it was like. The light was quite moody which added a nice rocky feel to the images and the kids were very playful as always.

On our way back we walked via the market and eventually made our way back to Perfume Grass. Later on we went out to Cafe Cyclo – LP recommendation and joined Lisa and John who were already eating there. The food was good and not too pricey either. We went back to the hotel and packed for the following day. We had changed our open bus ticket to go onto Mui Ne as opposed to Dalat as we craved a little more beach time, plus Justin and Jules were there too so we knew we’d have a laugh meeting up with them again. It cost a furhter 100,000 between us to change the ticket which isn’t that much at all.

We finished the night with an ice-cream for Helen , some strange green yoghurt for Dave and an episode of The Peep Show.

We had our breakfast which was not very good, although they did have a lot of fruit (always a bonus). We checked out as had booked to stay at the same hotel as Justin and Jules for the rest of our stay in Hoi An. We confirmed the next leg of our journey to Nha Trang and checked into our new place, Hoi An is conveniently small so it was only a 5-10 minute walk from our last place. We decided to hire bikes for the day as a group and head to the beach, before doing this though Jules and Helen wanted to look into getting some clothes made up in town, we chose the shop that was recommended by the hotel and is also in The Lonely Planet called Phuoc An. It doesn’t look much from the outside, in fact it looks a little too smart if anything and Helen was a little dubious as to what type of clothes they would be making. After going through various cookbooks (next catalogues and gossip fashion columns) we decided on a blouse and a dress. Jules was going for a whole new wardrobe but Helen had to think about budget!!

I sketched out the dress so that they would know what style I was after and the blouse was to be kept quite loose, more like balloon style sleeves and nothing too clingy. Choosing the fabric was a nerve-racking experience. We were taken out to another shop area and Jules was swept off to a separate room, suddenly I felt a little alone in deciding what material to choose…so much choice, not exactly what I had in mind…second thoughts going through my head. In the end though I opted for a floral pattern on the dress with a green hem and a white blouse with small polka dots all over it. I was excitedly nervous about what the final garments would turn out like. We had to pay half of the money up front and the remaining amount was to be paid upon collection.

So with the little fashion moment over we met the boys a few streets down and set off to find the beach. It was around 5-6 km to the beach and the scenery was rather lovely along the way with lush riverside banks and palm trees. As we approached the seaside resort town we were whistled off the road to a parking area, this is because the locals want to make some money from those of us on bikes. We decided to ignore them and carried on, we soon realised we weren’t allowed to park our bikes pretty much anywhere on the main stretch of beach. So we went onto cycle further up the coastal road until we found a path that led to the beach without being charged to park up the bikes. When we got to the beach it was pretty wild stretch with mainly bowl like fisherman boats ready to go out to sea and one lonesome fisherman fighting against the waves. It was too rough to go in and a little too windy to play frisky, but we found a spot and enjoyed the warmth. This was the hottest it had been for us so far on our travels so it was nice to be there. Unfortunately there are quite a few spots of oil on the beach which is hard to avoid. Perhaps in the more touristy area this wouldn’t be there.

After an hour we set off back to the village to get some grub. The boys decided to take us off on a detour to other villages which didn’t appear to be serving food, so another hour later and we were back at the main strip eating at one of the first restaurants we passed on our way in. Still it meant that we had worked up an appetite. Food done and we went back to Hoi An and got ready to join up with Jules’s brother and wife for some cheap food at Cafe 43 located next door to the Phuoc An Hotel. You can eat here very cheaply indeed at around 50p for a reasonable vegetable curry and beers that cost 15p for half a pint. No drinks for Helen due to antibiotics but the rest got nice and merry and many laughs were had with the local beer staff.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

The following morning we were up early for an 8.30am cookery class with The Morning Glory Restaurant. We met at the restaurant and as a group of around 15 were split into two for a market tour. We had a delightful guide who showed us around the local market, some of which has been kept to resemble it’s original appearance and features from the 1940′s. You can buy pretty much anything at the market throughout the various levels and areas, first we came to the fruit stalls, were talked through the different fruits and their uses, then onto spices which were all fresh from their plan form, from there we went to pick out some herbs and we ended in the fish section. Parts of the market are covered under cloth and other areas are in newer built multi-story buildings. We always enjoy doing a market tour as it gives you a great insight into the local culture.

Back at the restaurant we were taken through to a class area, at the front of the class was a table with a large mirror positioned above so we could see what was happening on the head chef’s cookery area. We all had our own stations with herbs and ingredients ready to go. We started with some fresh spring rolls which we have both learned to love over here, Helen had shrimp and vegetables and Dave had some pork in his. The herbs and dipping sauces allow for a bursting of flavours and we followed this up with a pancake on a similar scale, again tasting very deliciously. Another course was fish or chicken on skewers accompanied with a spicy mango salad, reminiscent of a Thai Sam Tom papaya salad. We prepared the marinade for this and made the salad and then it was taken away to be cooked. We did some cooking with instruction from the main chef and her fellow helpers and the food was extremely tasty. The head chef also gave a demonstration as to how to make a beef pho – the local noodle dish, it was introduced as a desert which is odd to think about.

It was a pretty good class all in all but as always improvements could be made; there was quite a lot going on in the classroom with other chefs moving plates, food around and so on, this became quite distracting as the teacher was only ever based at the front of the class. We would have liked to do more hands-on preparatory work and cooking, and the head chef was a little bit of a diva…she was quite impersonal and like to boss around her fellow staff.

After we left the restaurant it started to rain, we cycled quickly back to the dress shop where Helen’s pieces were ready to collect (we’d been in the night before to make a few changes – all of which had been performed) we were very satisfied with the service and quality of the clothes. We took advantage of the rain and did some editing back at the hotel before going to our favourite cheap eats next door, we followed this up with a lemongrass ice-cream from the Cargo Club deli. Our market guide had talked about it earlier that day on the tour so we thought it would be rude not to follow it up, she was surprised and pleased to see us there that night enjoying the ice-cream – oh and it was very good indeed.

The next day the rain continued to pour, we packed our bags, did some more work on the blog and strolled around the town before getting ready for our overnight bus journey. Before we left we went back to the deli to pick up a sandwich and chocolate brownie pack lunch (we also got a piece of fruit and water with it too) so that was our treat for the day. Helen wasn’t feeling too good so we intentionally did very little.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

We had breakfast at the hotel in the form of muesli and fruit before going off on bikes for the day. At Bamboo they have a good choice of mountain and city bikes (we opted for mountain bikes of course) perhaps some of the best bikes we’ve used on our travels so far!

We had a map with some good trails outlined and so off we went in the hopes of finding some less tourist-driven villages. Finding the right path is okay to start with as you head out of Yangshou town via the back roads and then there is a path that cuts under the bridge and from here you get to a gravel road, which is pretty tricky to ride over, although much more manageable if you have a decent mountain bike – you often see people on tandems and city bikes on this kind of terrain!! From here you go towards smaller paths which take you through farmland and villages, you just head north up the Li River towards Moon Hill, its a long journey on bikes and we often found ourselves the only people on the roads and thinking we may be on the wrong path.

After a brief stop for satsumas and snacks we went on our way to Moon Hill. When we arrived there were many tourists who were either enjoying the views, shopping, eating or planning to take a trip up the hill. It was getting close to 4pm by this time and we’d been cycling for the past 4 hours so decided not to climb the hill. But we did stop for some fresh corn and a few photos of the random tourist attractions such as a monkey dressed in an Asian suit posing along side happy holiday makers at what cost we didn’t stop to find out.

It only took about another 45 minutes or so to get back into Yangshou mostly on the high way which was in no way as satisfying as going through all the villages and countryside. When we got back we opted for a spot of Chinese food at another Lonely Planet recommendation Kelly’s. The food was fairly good and we weren’t charged too much for it either. Afterwards we went o Monkey Jane’s for a few drinks just to get familiar with the place before the big bash the following night. They also do really cheap beer!! We met a group of travellers who invited us to play cards with them…8 games of Shithead later and we were ready to call it a night. We had a good link with one of the guys as he’d been traveling with someone we’d met in Dali, I picked up on his Irish accent after Jane had said we may bump into them. Small world this traveling lark!

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

We went out for a bike ride with one of the Chinese girls’ Sylvia who was staying in the dorm with us, she was friends with another of the girls working at the hostel. It was good to have her with us as she could help us to find our way by asking the locals which way to such and such a place. She wanted to go to a specific village called Xixhou which is about 20km away from Dali old town. We wanted to cycle through some of the villages closer to the lake so we could explore the farmland, the most direct way would be to cycle along the high way for the entire ride but that’s no fun, so we compromised and spent some time cycling to the villages and some time catching up and taking the highway to the furthest place.

The farmland in Dali is very lush and extremely beautiful to photography. During our stay in Dali the sky was a perfect blue and it was a very comfortable temperature indeed, only being cold in the shade. By night it dropped significantly but we had electric blankets to cope with this!

So we took in the scenery around us, some farmland, some lake and some road. It was stunning. We got to Xixhou at around 3pm and ambled through the village market before stopping for some very good value soup rice noodles. For 3 of us to eat it cost around £2.80, and the food tasted really good. The only bad thing was a local guy pestering us for left over food and drink, he wouldn’t leave us alone and eventually got what he wanted. Still the setting took us away from this. We continued out of the village and took the road to some older parts of the area. Once more fantastic views, terraces and buildings surrounded us.

We decided to make our way back at around 4pm and set off for Dali. We were going quicker than Sylvia on her lady-like bike so we waited for her every so often, plus the drivers on the road aren’t the most reliable often overtaking two cars in one go so we wanted to make sure we were all with us. When we got back Sylvia joked about how fit we were compared to her and she said she’d only ever ridden a bike once before in her life. Considering this fact she did very well indeed.

When we got back we ate at an Indian restaurant down the road from our hostel and enjoyed more chai. Back at the hostel there were a few more travelers, Helen got chatting to Jane who she’d seen at various other places around China. It’s very easy to bump into people when you use Hostelworld for recommendations on where to stay. Many people also choose to travel through South China from Vietnam as it’s a good route and the weather is pretty good in Yunnan.

So it was our last night in Dali and we really loved the town and the hostel had a nice vibe too. We decided to nip back to Bakery 88 the next morning to get some take-away sandwiches with very good cheese and meat! Yum!! We also sneaked in a few more granola slices.

The bus back took the scenic route as part of the highway was closed but this wasn’t a bad thing as it meant we got to drive through some more beautiful countryside and villages. It was quite a luxury bus with only a few of us on board, and we got back to Cloudland at around 7pm. We had some food, chatted away and got ready for our flight to Guangzhou the following day.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)