Category: Blog

October 2026

In October 2017 we visited Inner Mongolia with a Hong Kong tour Group. Inner Mongolia is an autonomous region of China situated along the Southern Border of Mongolia. I have been reading Google on the differences between the two countries and they are vast. For example,. Mongolia ( previously known as Outer Mongolia) has a population of 3.5 million. Inner Mongolia has 25 million and mostly Han Chinese! I will let you google the differences yourself, but they couldn’t be more different.

In the past people asked me what Inner Mongolia was like. I said it was like Disneyland in the desert. There were chair lifts, sledges, and lots of rides. We visited huge dairy factories, the space museum, and saw lots of shows. Did you know China launches Rockets from Inner Mongolia and they land back in Inner Mongolia? Not like in the past where NASA needs an ocean to land a capsule.

The images here are to reflect my experiences comparing the tours of the 2 countries (9 years apart) and its not meant to be an objective view of the two countries. At times my tongue is firmly in my cheek as well.

August 2026

After our Vietnam visit we were dropped off at Lao Cai. This is the border crossing to China where we cross over the river to the town of Hekou China. the guide was a bit worried whether we can enter China even though New Zealanders didn’t need a visa. He had never dropped off tourists here before but returned them to Hanoi via a very long drive. Our only hassle getting into China was the gate monitoring our health wouldn’t let us in. Apparently we were too hot! One of the locals gestured to us to go and stand in front of the large floor standing fan for a while. This cooled us down and the machine let us pass through the gate!.

Hekou is a popular border town and in peak season it can get very busy. In the old days it was called little Hong Kong because of all the duty free trading going on with goods being shipped back into Vietnam from China. Apparently the Government changed the tax rules so it became less advantageous. We really enjoyed our stay here, partly because it was low season and not many tourists. Also the town is quite cute with the french architecture. Remnants of past colonial days.You can tell by my photos how empty it was. I photographed my favourite snack done in a tandoori . It was like naan bread but with a filling inside. We returned the next day for breakfast and met a bunch of Vietnamese girls visiting Hekou for the day.

21 May 2026

More images from Myanmar.