South China, Bali and Northern Vietnam

We had the whole afternoon after the arrival so we spend the half of the day exploring Guangzhou. First stop was Canton Tower. You can get to the top but we didn't do it. It's around 20 USD for the observation deck on the top of the tower. But even just walking by the river in the park under the tower was great.

As from Wikipedia "... Shamian is a sandbank island in the Liwan District of Guangzhou... The territory was divided into two concessions given to France and the United Kingdom by the Qing government in the 19th century." Because of this, there is a lot of old architecture and green and it's a very pleasant walk. There is also a funny Harry Potter themed Starbucks there which is worth of few photos. Overall it's a good place to finish your first (probably tiring) day in Guangzhou.

You arrive to the "main bus station" in xingping. Xingping is more like a village, you can walk around it end-end in maybe like 20 mins. After that we climbed Laozhai Hill. It's not an easy climb which requires some level of fitness. It was raining a bit when we were there, it was a bit muddy and some parts very pretty steep and narrow. Few ladders and lot of stairs. Nothing dangerous though. The view from the top is breathtaking though and 100% worth it in my opinion

Yangshuo is larger city comparing to Xingping. The bus will drop you off near West Street which is like the main street going through the center. You can walk it to the end and back. You can grab a lunch there in one of the restaurants.

Ten Mile Gallery are several roads in between Yangshuo and Yulong river which have beautiful crast landscape all around. There are several stops, caves or views you can admire. You can read more about it here https://www.travelchinaguide.com/attraction/guangxi/yangshuo/ten-mile-gallery.htm. I would recommended to rent a scooter to drive through it. Technically you could do it with a regular bicycle as well but it's actually not that short and especially if it's hot, I would go with a scooter. We rented one for 150 yuan at the end of West Street. It was completely ok for 2 people.

After 10 mile galery, we returned the scooter and caught Uber back to the railway station.

You can use this day as a second day in Yanghuo. We didn't get the train tickets back so we did it only as a day trip and this day went to quick trip to Shenzhen, major city just 30 mins from Ghuangzhou. It was very hot so we only wandered around the center and visited Lianhuashan Park.

Since we had the private driver, we could stop wherever we wanted to. First stop on the way north was Pura Taman Ayun. Looking back, it was first temple we properly visited and it was one of the nicest we saw while at Bali.

Jatiluwih Rice Terraces is a great stop along the way north from Denpasar. It's a pretty large rice field you can walk around for 1-2 hours. There is a small entrance fee as anywhere in Bali. It will start to get anoying the longer you stay at Bali but here it's worth it.

Short stop in a water temple but worth it.

On the way to Pemuteran, we hiked around Munduk waterfalls. There is a circular trail which leads around several waterfalls and starts here https://mapy.com/s/bafavokube. You have to pay for each waterfall separately, so after 3-4 we skipped few, but at least several are well worth of visiting. We really enjoyed Red Colar, Lubuham and Melanting waterfalls.

One day in Pemuteran we spend scuba diving at Menjangan island. Menjangan island is a reservation and very popular spot for diving. As everything else, scuba diving was really cheap. We saw manta rays, turtles and lot of other fish.

Biorock is a very interesting project. It's essentially a garden of corals near the Pemuteran beach. They have been "growing" corals there for many years and it's a great place for super easy shore dive - which we did in the morning.

The next day we spent with a whole-day trip to Nusa Penida. It's a very famous small island east of Bali. We booked it through our driver who gave us some discount but you can book it through any hotel or tour agency. Our driver took us to the harbour, put us in a ferry to the island. There another driver picked us up and drove us around some of the main highlights of Nusa Penida. It was very crowded - as expected - but if you don't focus on the amount of people, it was nice.

The next day we visited couple of temples around Ubud. In Tirta Empul - water temple - you can do a purification bath. We skipped that to be honest, but even just walking around the temple was great experience.

This was probably my second most favourite Bali temple. The temple itself is carved into a rock but then next to the temple is lovely rice field you can walk through for good 20 mins which is very calming and peaceful.

Small waterfall we visited because we had some time. Bring your swimsuits as it's great for swimming

Monkey forest is kind of "zoo" in Ubud. Very famous, very touristic. It was ok, not great, not terrible.

Star Ferry runs from Tsim Sha Tsui to Central pier. It goes every 20 mins or so and you will get a great boat ride with view over the Victoria Harbour for around 1 USD. It's so great we took several rides, once even just back and forth since it was empty. Great way to start your HK trip.

We visited Victoria Peak for the first time in the evening of the first day in HK and I was happy we did. Even though the visibility was not the perfect, we could still see the city at night. At first, we tried to reach the top on foot but we quickly decided against it. It was really warm and we didn't find a nice way to the top so we decided to take the cable car instead. It's called Victoria Peak Tram and it's not expensive. Round trip costs 15USD and offers great view over the city and funny feelings in the steepest parts of the track.