Cruising from Chongquing to Yichang Vegan Style

I was about a quarter of the way through Peter Hessler's excellent book River Town when I decided that I needed to see the Yangtze River for myself. It took me about eight years to make it happen but during our travels in China Nick and I finally made it. We decided to book a three night cruise with Victoria Cruises because it seemed like the best way to see not only the Three Gorges but to really get a feel for the river. We arrived in Chongqing by sleeper train from Xi'an at around 5am and immediately made our way across the city by bus from the train station to the port. The cruise was scheduled to start boarding at 5pm so we left our luggage at the port so that we could explore the humid bustling port side city in comfort. Finding the left luggage office was a total mission filled with people insisting that they were in fact the official left luggage spot for the cruise (yeah, no.) and many detours around the construction happening literally everywhere. After about an hour of wandering in circles we found it and were more than happy to leave our bags with two official looking ladies and a cat.

After 11 years of vegan travel I've learnt not to trust people 100% when they say that providing vegan food will be no problem so our plan for the day was to eat, explore, and then find and purchase snacks for the journey. I always pack snacks for flights, day trips, and tours but I was especially focussed on my snack game this time. When the place you're going is a floating hotel with no access to shops you need to be extra prepared.

An Aussie Birthday Extravaganza

It was my 34th birthday last week and my first ever birthday in the Southern Hemisphere. I was working on my actual birthday but as I'm always up for having a birthday week I started celebrating early by planning an epic day out with Susan from Kittens Gone Lentil. Me and Nick started the day at Petrie station and travelled into Brisbane to meet Susan near her place. We even got to pop to her house to meet Dim Sim, her gorgeous black cat who I've known online for many years!

We had our sights set on eating copious amounts of dim sum / yum cha so we drove south to Gold Coast to eat at Easy House, somewhere I'd been reading about and dreaming of eating at for a while. Easy House certainly didn't disappoint, the food was freaking amazing and I've eaten dim sum in both NYC and Hong Kong so you can trust me. You can order from the menu but the lovely people working there also bring around trays of dim sum so that you can choose what you want to eat that way. So fun!

Adventures in and around Melbourne

I've written a couple of posts about eating vegan in Melbourne, check them out here and here, but what should you be doing in-between meals? There are a whole bunch of great non-food related things to do in and around Australia's second city and here are a few of my favourites.

• Go on the Official Neighbours Tour

You might not really be from the UK if you've never seen an episode of Neighbours. Many hours of my childhood, teenage years, and early twenties were spent watching the goings on at Lassiter's and Harold's, and for a while I seriously wanted Susan Kennedy to be my mum. With this deep love for the show a Neighbours tour was a must!

Unsurprisingly all but one person who'd been dragged along by a friend was British and everyone was enthusiastic about the tour. You get to visit Ramsay Street and check out the studio lot where a bunch of the other location sets are which was so fun. Many photos were taken! Our guide was both knowledgeable and hilarious and we learnt a whole lot of stuff about how the show is filmed including how they always make it look sunny in Erinsborough when the reality of Melbourne is a little different.

Vegan Adventures in Xi'an

After spending seven nights in Beijing Nick and I took the train to Pingyao, spent a couple of days exploring the ancient walled town, and then travelled onwards by train to Xi'an. I'd say that one night in Pingyao would have been enough, it's got enough to keep you occupied for a full day's worth of sightseeing but after that there's very little else to keep you amused. The area is very touristy during the day - the roads are crammed full of Chinese tour groups, but at night the roads are quieter and, in my opinion, more of a real reflection of what the town is like. Xi'an, the capital of Shaanxi province, was on my mist visit list because it's the home of the famous Terracotta Warriors but after reading Alys from The Wild Life's posts about the amazing food in Xi'an I was almost more excited about getting some serious eating done. The city is pretty stunning, surrounded by an enormous city wall (apparently the biggest in the world) and with bell and drum towers that are beautifully lit at night it's a joy to explore. 

On our first day in the city we decided to head out to see the Terracotta Warriors which was surprisingly easy but the site is large and 20km from the city so be prepared for a long day.