images and impressions

seeds seeds and more SEEDS

Each day gets punctuated in SOME way with seeds. Spices, flavours and aromas follow us at every opportunity.

Well he did say he was off to take a Zuma shower Vietnamese style....
Looking at this picture, makes me, and probably a good 60% of South Africans think he qualifies to run for the presidency. All he needs to do is purchase a "get out of jail free card" and voila!

Passing through the markets is a mixed emotion experience, guaranteed! Tomatoes, chillies and green beans are so safe!

Laundry day in the hostel.... I do hope they will supply another dry towel or two for our cold water shower... this one has absorbed all the wetness from the clothes.

Have no idea what these are... but they taste so yummy, unfortunately washed/or not in who knows what causing the JP and Rita to do the trot!

"If I can't wear my helmet without a motorbike, would this qualify?"

hot spot

An old cormorant fisherman with his birds on a bamboo raft

lotta hot spots

A slow day at the office!


NOT tomatoes.... HOT SPOTS!


The beauty of the place in the late afternoon... fortunately the aromas are not able to travel through cyberspace.

This what is called "green peppers", so when ordering a dish of "Chicken cooked with green peppers".... need I say more.... refer to the picture caption of the 'wax berries' and trot...
wot?


Very pretty - true! The noise of the celebrating frogs that lived to see another day! Oh yes, I did mention the fact that it is with mixed emotions that one visits the market place, didn't I?

Egg plant the size of skinny carrots, go figure!


Still beautiful and serene, well that is when you manage to get a shot without a motorbike, scooter bicycle or screaming child getting in front of the lens.

A lot of our day gets taken up with whats on the menu.... where it came from, what it was fertilised with.... you get the picture.

my pretty

english englishengisheshhhh

Here in Yangshuo, teaching English is a tourist pastime. So with great enthusiasm, Jean-Pierre and Rita sit down a 'teach English'. It is wonderful to spend so much time chatting with our new friends. There are a large amount of local tourists here as the country is so vast and to leave the country is very difficult for the nationals, a very popular holiday destination.


At the end of a long day of "English teaching/learning"

Joy in the Train


Baby Club Members in Nanning- 'V" for VICTORY!

Jean-Pierre spent many hours 'Speaking English" to this man.

It is with great joy and excitement that we have met new friends here. One often tends to forget that saying "Strangers are just friends you haven't been introduced to yet". This has proven to be so true.
There has been some, but not too much actual sight seeing, but we have met some wonderful new friends. Alucia keeps showing up in the most unexpected places!
She has been taking care of so many of the 'little details' too. We have decided to keep her on as our travel planner! She knows exactly what we require and sees that we get it even before we have thought of the next place we want to visit.

huh?

A good start ......... no one at the border was able to speak English and there were no signs even written using our alphabet.

We bought a direct ticket from Hanoi to Nanning 5hrs by bus to the border.

A further three hours on the bus after the border. The two buses are not the same. Due to the volume of people the bus company keeps track of you by hanging a label around your neck. I now know what it feels like to herded like cattle. As you can see there is nothing we could read and no one to explain the process. The only thing left is to hope that they know what they’re doing.

With so many buses moving about the best way to keep track of your bus is by it colour. None of the writing is readable to us. (oh yes... and on the other side of the border it was GREEN)

Want to sell something here’s a good place to advertise. Sorry no English please!

Must say very threatening to walk around in a city where you cannot read any signs and no one around seems to understands a word of English except ‘hello’!

At least I understand this one, now to get my paws on a car!.

All of a sudden you become aware of the power of branding (logos & fonts). Wow I never knew a sign could be so reassuring.

Coulda hugged the fat guy!

Yes you guessed it this is a police car, question is how did you know?

This is our ticket to Guilin ok so we can all figure out what date and even what time. Only thing is who would like to guess which number indicates the platform. Fairly important when you’ve only got ten minutes to get there and no one around can speak your language.

In Yangshou, being a tourist town, some English is spoken but even here don’t count on the translations. It becomes very evident, if mistakes can be made with major signs like these then anything printed could go very wrong at any time.

"Well the boss said it had a circle and a stripe, can't find the stripe, so I'll just use the circle" Little did the signwriter fella know that the stripe on a circle made a 'P' and without it the store became a SOECIALITY SUPERMARKET

Say what? must be really healthy this one... gimme more fries!

LANTERN!!!

Awesome

Jean-Pierre has a temporary passport! What an achievement.... all done in a two day week, due to public holidays in both countries! Thank you Paula for your concerted effort.

What a lotta wokke


yay... just the kind of face Rita wants to wake up to...


okidoki... Rita's language learning has taught her a few things, one of them being that she does NOT want to eat a bunh mi kep thit cho which loosely translated, 'puppy pie'!


What a welcome as we leave our 'hotel' early in the morning...
another newsreader


And who needs to buy crunchy bugs at the local market when Mr. Delivery sends them fresh?


So it rained, we bought R1.50 raincoats.... who said they had to fit as well as be waterproof?


While waiting for the bus, I wonder if I have time for a quick haircut and face shave? hmmm, whole face shave too, now, I wonder whether the bus driver will hold the bus till this fella's done with the knife?


point bike in a direction, follow our noses and then see what we find, haul out piddly little map and find our way 'home' again... YEAH!


Quaint discoveries


Finally.... a place that sells fuel for our bike


Two liters... is that all?


Jean-Pierre and his faithfulest follower!


Life goes on...