Thursday, April 28, 2011

Stairway to Heaven

That's sure what it felt like when I was hiking Mt. Emei. I arrived there at noon yesterday, not really having any clue about anything on the mountain. I was really mad at myself for that, throwing myself at the mercy of my misinformation. It's always good to be prepared. Especially, it seemed, for Emei Shan. The first part of the park seemed to be horribly disorganized; there were no signs telling you where to go, in a park that receives hundreds of thousands of visitors per year. The maps that you can buy at the bottom were totally mickey mouse, I got somewhat lost twice because of the wrong information on them, and I'm even pretty damn good at direction finding. That and the oppressive heat and humidity made for a grueling afternoon. I think I dropped twenty pounds of water weight alone.

Halfway up, things did improve. Thankfully the hoards of Chinese tourists stick to one specific route down (after they bus up to the stop of the mountain), which wasn't the route I was taking up. The only part I had to deal with lots of people was at the stone Buddhist carvings (which were amazing, literally life size people skillfully carved out of a rock face) and the monkey valley. Speaking of those critters, they generally left me alone. Mostly because I had my bamboo walking stick raised in strike position. They recognized. I did see quite a few of them climb on top of and swipe at Chinese tourists who were stupid enough to feed them. I tried explaining to a couple what happens when we feed bears in Canada, and how it usually concludes with the crack of a ranger's rifle.

I arrived the first day to a Buddhist temple at a roughly midway point, where I crashed for the night. It's pretty cool, all the temples on the mountain have rudimentary dorm rooms for tourists, and even have hot showers! The rooms themselves are a little run down (ours had a couple really big spiders in it, the same kind that I had run in front of my face in Nepal, if you recall that story) but do the trick. This temple was in a really secluded spot with the only thing to be heard for miles was the singing rain forest birds. The only downer was the prayer ritual that starts and 5am, which includes bell ringing and drum banging.

The second day's hike was a total bear. I pounded out roughly sixteen hundred vertical meters, not including the times I had to descend and the subsequent ascension. One leg of stairs I counted three hundred and twenty six. I'm tired today. I pounded out thirty six kilometers of that shit in an impressive six hours and forty five minutes. I'd planned to take the cable car right to the top of the mountain to see the temple up there, but the combination of the cost, the haze obstructed view and the multitude of temples I've seen on this trip, I passed. Instead I opted to laugh at the Chinese maintenance worker walking precariously on the edge of a huge cliff to pick up garbage left there by the monkeys, who he threw some rocks at in retaliation. Then I caught a bus back to Chengdu. End of the adventure.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Pandas!

It seems the more time I spend in China, the more I like it. Chengdu marks the first time I've been in a major Chinese city. I was expecting it to be just that: major. Loud, dirty, noisy. It's none of the above. Last night I walked around the downtown core and along the main shopping areas and was once again loving the city. It's a clean, organized show. Even walking around the streets today at peak hour was a little busy on the streets but nothing close to the amount of traffic that I thought there would be. Parks and paths line the river that snakes through the city, and even the traffic noise is barely noticeable. Once again while on this trip, I found myself thinking China is one of the few places I could live.

Today also marked the first time I've used a public bus in this country. It was very easy, all the bus stops are labeled in English, and all stops are announced over a speaker inside the bus. At first I didn't notice that they're briefly stated in English, but after a while I picked up 'the next stop' through the Chinese accent. My destination today was the Panda research centre, which is basically a big zoo for pandas, where they conduct research. It was a really cool place; I found myself walking around it twice. The pandas themselves are adorable, it's hard to believe that they're even in the same genus as the bears we have back home, which are some of the most dangerous animals in the world. But underneath those cute layers black and cream fur they do have claws and teeth, I suppose. It was really cool to see Red Pandas, too. They're more like red raccoons than anything, but still incredibly cute. I filled up an entire 4G SD card taking pics of them, and hopefully my blog's email capacity limit will allow one of them to come through on this post.

Tomorrow, I head to Emei Shan to hike along hilltop temples for two days, and hopefully not get any of my things stole by monkeys!

Trains For Days! Trains For Days!

Unfortunately and fortunately, I've vacated Shangri-La. Fortunately in the sense that it's damn cold there. Not like a freezing cold or anything, it's just a damp, windy cold that settles right into your bones. Not exactly a great thing for a place that has no central heating in any of it's buildings. Our hostel was always cold, and thankfully some restaurants had wood burning stoves in them. In that sense it reminded me of trekking in Nepal. In the unfortunate sense, I was sad to leave due to the people there, who are incredibly friendly. The nice lady that taught us to make momo's even told us we're always welcome back as friends.

I spent one night back in Lijiang before heading out in the morning on a long train journey up to Chengdu, in the Sichuan province. To get there, I first had to take a morning train to Kunming, where I would catch a night train to Chengdu. The train to Kunming went well enough considering the hangover I had. The oddest part about it was the fact that I bought a ticket for a chair car, which should be exactly that, a chair. Instead we were seated in three bunk compartments, but not allowed to use the middle or top bunks. I found this out when I tried to climb up on one to sleep and the conductor lady kicked me back to the bottom.

The second train however, was more interesting. I booked the ticket at the ticket booth of the Lijiang station, and told the guy I wanted a sleeping berth ticket. I even showed him what I wanted in Chinese characters. The dickhead booked me into a chair car, an unpleasant surprise when I got to the platform. The chair cars are basically a row of three chairs, facing another row of chairs with a small table in between. I was seated in the middle between a group of late teen Chinese men and women. Not the most comfortable sleeping arrangement, especially when the one guy kept trying to rest his head on my shoulder, only for me to check him. It wasn't a total loss, however. The cool thing about the chair car is that it's the lower class of people that ride them, and hardly ever seeing a foreigner ride in their car makes them love said foreigners. Some nice, older Chinese gave my some chicken to eat, which included a chicken foot. Of course I couldn't be rude and refuse, so I ate some of it. It had a really rubbery texture, but I think had it been marinated in something better, it could have been ok. The same people also had some tasty desserts that more than made up for the greasy chicken foot taste that haunted my mouth. Thankfully I had some Dramamine left over from Laos, and I was able to sleep a little bit during the ride, which lasted four hours longer than the timetable said it would.

And now here I am in Chengdu, checked into what seems like a cool hostel. Maybe I'll go see some pandas tomorrow...

Monday, April 25, 2011

Trains for Days! Trains for Days!

Unfortunately and fortunately, I've vacated Shangri-La. Fortunately in the sense that it's damn cold there. Not like a freezing cold or anything, it's just a damp, windy cold that settles right into your bones. Not exactly a great thing for a place that has no central heating in any of it's buildings. Our hostel was always cold, and thankfully some restaurants had wood burning stoves in them. In that sense it reminded me of trekking in Nepal. In the unfortunate sense, I was sad to leave due to the people there, who are incredibly friendly. The nice lady that taught us to make momo's even told us we're always welcome back as friends.

I spent one night back in Lijiang before heading out in the morning on a long train journey up to Chengdu, in the Sichuan province. To get there, I first had to take a morning train to Kunming, where I would catch a night train to Chengdu. The train to Kunming went well enough considering the hangover I had. The oddest part about it was the fact that I bought a ticket for a chair car, which should be exactly that, a chair. Instead we were seated in three bunk compartments, but not allowed to use the middle or top bunks. I found this out when I tried to climb up on one to sleep and the conductor lady kicked me back to the bottom.

The second train however, was more interesting. I booked the ticket at the ticket booth of the Lijiang station, and told the guy I wanted a sleeping berth ticket. I even showed him what I wanted in Chinese characters. The dickhead booked me into a chair car, an unpleasant surprise when I got to the platform. The chair cars are basically a row of three chairs, facing another row of chairs with a small table in between. I was seated in the middle between a group of late teen Chinese men and women. Not the most comfortable sleeping arrangement, especially when the one guy kept trying to rest his head on my shoulder, only for me to check him. It wasn't a total loss, however. The cool thing about the chair car is that it's the lower class of people that ride them, and hardly ever seeing a foreigner ride in their car makes them love said foreigners. Some nice, older Chinese gave my some chicken to eat, which included a chicken foot. Of course I couldn't be rude and refuse, so I ate some of it. It had a really rubbery texture, but I think had it been marinated in something better, it could have been ok. The same people also had some tasty desserts that more than made up for the greasy chicken foot taste that haunted my mouth. Thankfully I had some Dramamine left over from Laos, and I was able to sleep a little bit during the ride, which lasted four hours longer than the timetable said it would.

And now here I am in Chengdu, checked into what seems like a cool hostel. Maybe I'll go see some pandas tomorrow...

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Word to the Thighs

I'm sitting here, exhausted and nearly unable to move my legs, simply from the sheer amount of biking we did today. I don't know how many kilometers we put on, and I don't want to know. All I know is that hitting the hot springs outside of town tomorrow is about the best idea possible at this point. The day started off with some breakfast then to a restaurant we ate at yesterday, where this very nice Tibetan girls taught us how to make momo's. Now I can take that special gem back to the west with me, free to spread around those delicious dumplings to the unsuspecting populace, and my stomach.

Then came the bikes. We rented bikes for the day for about three dollars. They looked good, but turned out to be completely unmaintained; I think about every second gear worked. The objective was to ride to a lake about seven kilometers out of town then ride around it and back, but when we got there we were told we couldn't ride around it, but only up the road then we could only walk the rest of the way to the lake. Weighing the options, we decided to head back, but first we wanted to stop at this adventure lodge we saw just up the road. It was still being constructed, but the owner gave us some info, telling us instead we could ride around the other side of the mountain, through some old villages. The towns turned out to be really cool, a window into old times. The craziest thing was when we stumbled upon a flock of vultures. This was the first time I've seen these birds, and of course they had to be chased. Chasing them, I realized just how huge those damn birds are. They must have eight to ten foot wingspans on them!

And that's where the coolness ends. The adventure lodge owners advice went sour, and the hour long ride he told us we were in for instantly turned into two when we hit a road being constructed. A passing motorist told us that was the way back to Shangri-La, so we proceeded to ride this rough road uphill nearly all the way, dodging dump trucks, speeding vehicles, buses, and construction workers' looks of pity. And it rained periodically. I can't wait for the hot springs tomorrow, my thighs are screaming for it. The good news out of this is that the activities of the past few days have been the most exercise I've got since Nepal.

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Search Results

So I was just about to go to bed tonight and I thought 'hey, I'll check my blog quickly', since a computer at my hostel has the software that allows me to access it. Curious to see who around the world is looking at my blog, I go to the stats section. There I see I have a bunch of views from India. I try to think who I know is in India right now, and can't think of any since my two friends Matt and Jesse aren't there anymore. I then go into the traffic sources page to see where the views are coming from. Most of them are from google searches, and at the bottom is a list of search keywords that led to my blog showing up on the search page. Here they are:

where the fuck is kyle
aurangabad fuck
fuck limbo
hostel rural area good or bad
indian new capal fuk
khatmandu fuck pic

Now the two at the top and the one in the middle don't seem to strike me as odd, being that the middle one is about traveling, but it's a little offputting that the simple word 'fuck' (one of the most commonly spoken English words) and my posts about my travels in India somehow link my blog with some perverted Indian man sitting at his computer hoping to have a wank at some dirty Indian porn. Congrats buddy, you have made me and a ton of people at my hostel laugh hard, and even more so now that I can publicly berate you with little to no reprocussion. Next time try YouPorn.

Trekking Like a Tiger

Here I am in Shrangri-La, now a veteran of the Tiger Leaping Gorge trek. The day before yesterday I jumped on a bus from Lijiang to Quiotou, a town at the beginning of the Tiger Leaping Gorge. I'd gone as a solo trekker but ended up being anything but. I met two guys on the bus (one of whom was in my hostel in Kunming), Yuyao from Beijing, and Adel from Finland. Then while eating a pre-trek breakfast we met another, older guy, Daniel from Switzerland. And then finally another girl Id been running to periodically on my China leg showed up: Yvonne from Ireland. We all ended up forming a multinational trekking group to tackle the gorge. A League of Nations, if you will.

That day turned out to be a scorcher, nothing like I was expecting. It must have been a good thirty degrees C by mid day. We took the obviously best route, which is the high trail, the low trail being a paved road full of speeding minivans and buses. The first half of the trek was the toughest, climbing up almost five hundred meters from the river. The snow capped mountains tower above the gorge, a good two thousand meter drop from peak to river. Quite the impressive sight. The scenery in the first half of the trek is also the best. Around the second half it starts to become more developed, with random power and telephone lines hanging across the views of the mountains. We stayed in the Halfway Guest House, which is more like two-thirds of the way. It was a pleasant place with amazing views of the mountains, especially from the open air shitter.

The second day we headed straight down the valley to the Tiger Leaping Stone, where legend has it a tiger leaped across the gorge. That point in the trail is where it turns into a joke. To get down to the valley floor you have to pay ten Yuan to some people who claim to have created the trail. And then you have to pay to get back up. Now that is understandable if it's true they're the ones that made and maintain the trail, but once at the bottom you're charged to get into the best photo spots, which is complete bullshit, since the I'm positive that those people don't own a square inch of that land. It got even better when we went to go back up, and ran into a sign saying that on top of the ten Yuan we paid to go back up, we were going to be charged more up ahead for the maintenance of the "ladders" (there's only one), so me being the problem solver I am, I chucked that fucking sign right into the bushes. We never had to pay. That route back up was pretty nerve racking as well, you hike on a thin trail right on the side of a sheer cliff, with a metal cable bolted onto the rock face, the best form of protection to prevent you from falling to your death.

Once back at the top we hired a minivan to take us back to Quiotou on the road midway up the valley. We had to change vans midway due to the half-assed Chinese engineers blasting the rock face, thus dumping tons of rock onto the road. The funniest thing about it was as we were crossing the boulder field a front end loader starts to scoop up rocks behind us. Actually pushing them is a better description, right towards us in fact. I guess the rock > human fact didn't cross his mind. As a testament to how smart these workers were, you could see a ton of lateral cracks in the rock snaking out from where they drilled in the blasting charges, testament to their fine craftsmanship with explosives. Basically the whole rock face is visibly unstable and could go at any minute. So to whoever's reading this, take that road back at you're own risk. The idiocy didn't stop there either. The driver of the next minivan we jumped in decided it would be a good idea to pass a bus at high speed, our tire literally a few centimeters from the edge of the road, which is basically the edge of a cliff and a four hundred meter drop to the river below. I was frightened. Thankfully we arrived back at the town safe and sound, and enjoyed some much needed beer and food, and a great sleep. It was great until the next morning when I'm packing my bag and noticed a dark thing on my bed, and upon further inspection discovered it was a deer turd.

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Towards the Mountain of the Jade Dragon

One thing I love about China: it affords me to ferociously indulge in my hiking habit. Outside of Dali is a mountain range with a nice walking path skirting the edge of the cliffs. If you want to be a wuss, you can take a cable car up to the path. Me being no wuss, I hiked to the trail head, then up the mountain, then another nine kilometers across the mountain path. There my bragging stops, however. The path is a paved (or stone I guess) trail that has barely a hint of a grade on it. Then I took the cable car back down. I was hungry and there were no places to eat! It was great to get a bit of nature back into my system. There were hardly any people on the trail up, and there was a nice fresh forest smell and a lot of birds singing.

Today I jumped on a morning bus to Lijiang. What was supposed to be a short, four hour bus ride turned out be a shitty six hour ride. The sun beamed down on me the whole time due to the fact there was no curtain for my window, so I sat there and sweat the entire time. Then a dude that got on beside me had the worst case of bad breath I've ever smelled. I swear the paint was peeling off the walls. The one cool thing I can salvage out of that ride was the T-54 tanks doing exercises along the highway, that was bitchin. Due to that abortion of a bus ride and the fact that Lijiang looks pretty nice, I'm going to dedicate another day to it instead of heading straight to Tiger Leaping Gorge tomorrow. It will be worth it enough just to get a picture of the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain from the Black Dragon Pool. Apparently the photo op is supposed to be one of the best in China, one that a hobbying photographer like myself can't miss.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Old Dali, Alleys and the Valley

The last couple days I've been wandering the stone streets of Old Dali, marveling at the old Chinese architecture inside the city walls. Everything is pleasantly clean and immaculate here. It's actually a great place to relax; the main streets are full of Chinese tourists but once you wander off them and into the lower key areas you hardly see anyone. The main streets can be kind of humorous too. This was the first time that women, instead of men, run up to me offering weed or hash. The hostel I'm in is a nice refuge, it has an enclosed courtyard with benches where you can chill out and read a book. It's also a big artist colony. The manager here makes quite the effort to attract local and foreign artists, and apparently if you play music here, you stay for free, which makes me wish I knew how to play guitar. They threw a huge buffet bbq last night: thirty five yuan (roughly $5.15) for a plate and a beer. Speaking of food, this place is awesome for it. Yesterday I ate a plate of dumplings (same thing as momo's, which I love btw) for four and a half yuan (roughly $0.66), and today had a bowl of noodle soup and tea for five yuan (roughly $0.75). And one thing I've learned the hard way today: don't eat noodle soup with a brand new white shirt, I now have little red oil spots all over it. My brand new shirt, oh, the humanity! I rented a bike (a real mountains bike!) and rode down the valley to the lake and around some village alleys today, hung out with an old Chinese man for a bit, and am now feeling good from the first dose of good exercise in quite a while. Tomorrow I'm going to hike up into the mountains here to go see some hillside temples and hopefully get a killer view of Dali and the valley.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

The City of Eternal Spring: Redux

I tried posting the majority of this post a few days ago, but for some reason it wouldn't stick on my blog, so here's the redux version of it.

That's the handle that belongs to Kunming. It feels more summerish than springish at this point, but who's complaining? I rolled in here at 4am yesterday morning on a sleeper bus that smelled like dirty socks, with seats too small for this guy. And I must add, I've really become accustomed and comfortable with the public smoking ban we have at home. Being stuck on a bus where people are chain smoking kinda sucks. Anyways, the weather is great here, and Kunming is a beautiful, modern city with great architecture and an overall good atmosphere to it. Yesterday I strolled around the city for a few hours, soaking in the sites and giving my camera a workout. This city totally changed my impression of China for the better, so much so that I'm thinking after Australia I might actually use that TESOL certificate I earned back home, maybe spend a little time living in China. That's far off in the future though, way on the back burner for now.

Thankfully travel has become a little easier upon my arrival here. More people speak English and the locals seem a little more friendly and open towards foreigners than they were in the rural area of Yuanyang. I ended up finding a really cool hostel with incredibly helpful staff and a rooftop patio with a kick ass view of the city square. My first night night was pretty hilarious; a couple Aussie guys and I tried out the local Kunming nightlife. Hilarity ensued. We found a dance club right across from the hostel, it had pretty good tunes and was pretty busy. The great thing about being white in Asia is you catch the eye of every girl in the bar. While this is good, we noticed that we were getting a lot of looks from the greater ratio of guys in the place, which probably meant a fight would happen if we tried moving in on their women. We kept chilling, and after a little while a lot of guys were coming up to say hello and do a friendly cheers with us; this is pretty common in SE Asia. Then some guy comes up to us and tries pulling me on the dance floor. Being to polite fellow I am, I follow. Except instead of going to the dance floor he drags me over to a table where he taps this purple shirt wearing guy on the back and gestures toward me, then turns to me and makes a gesture with his hands that insinuates the guy and I hooking up. Yeah, I got propositioned in a gay bar.

After noticing the hostile looks weren't exactly hostile, we tried out another bar, which happened to be completely dead. I've been downloading and watching The Wire lately, and that bar had a sketchy of Proposition Joe in the bathroom. That was fuckin cool. After one beer there and against our better judgment, we headed back to the gay bar. Before you ask me what the hell I was thinking, we ended up meeting some Chinese women. No, they weren't ladyboys. That's the great thing about gay bars here, there's a ton of straight women in them, and they all approach you, you don't have to do shit all. Guys, if you need a confidence boost, go to a gay bar in China. And it was the only place in town that had people in it.

Now I'm typing the rest of this out from Dali, a pleasant looking little town west of Kunming. I rolled in here on an overnight sleeper train an hour ago. The trains here are pretty cool. I booked a hard sleeper ticket, a little weary of the 'hard' in that phrase, but it turned out to be quite comfortable. And for a seven hour journey, $13 isn't too bad at all. My first walk around Dali makes me think this place is quite awesome and relaxed, I strolled up a walking street that has a mountain stream concreted into it, and looks quite pleasant. That's it for now though, I'm going to bed.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Vietnam Wrap-Up

Vietnam. I remember traveling through Southeast Asia and hearing so many bad things about Vietnam. Most of the complaints were about the people and how rude they treated travelers. I hardly experienced that. There were a few, namely the hotel owner in Pleiku that tried to rip me off, and the bitchy shop owner in Hanoi (she tried waving me off when I wanted to try on a shirt, I waved her off back) and the market stall women that literally hit me when I wouldn't buy their cheap shirts, but compared to the amount of nice people I met, these experiences were trivial at best. I found Vietnam to be a pleasant place to travel. A little shadier than the rest of SE Asia, yes, but overall it was a good time. I can't say I really felt a strong sense of culture, Vietnam seems to be lacking in that department. It was more the history that was the country's strong point, namely the American (Vietnam) War.

The good: It was great wandering around Pleiku, being greeted by people who hardly ever saw tourists. The temple there was the most beautiful one I've seen so far on this trip. Partying in Nha Trang was a highlight, I met tons of cool people there that I ended up traveling with throughout the whole country. The waterpark in Ho Chi Minh City was nothing but great, and I wore the bruises I endured from those slides with honor. The War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City must also be mentioned, it was a very informative and well put together museum. Hoi An was a perfect place to relax, and get my amazing suit made. The hostels I stayed in in Hue and Hanoi were awesome, some of the best I've ever stayed in. One of the biggest highlights was the beer pong shot I made that literally defied the laws of physics, and I got a free beer for it! The Halong Bay trip was totally insane and was some of the hardest partying I've done on this trip. I was well overshadowed by the English guys that slept one hour in forty eight. Hanoi was great for buying cheap brand name clothing that would otherwise be very expensive back home.

The bad: Ho Chi Minh city was unbearably hot! Also on the weather topic is the rain. It rained right from Nha Trang to Hanoi, over a week straight. It almost never stopped raining in Hue, which sucked because after two days of it I didn't want to be in it anymore, and skipped out on seeing the Khe Sahn Fire Base, one of the sights that was high on my list. I wasn't a huge fan of Dalat. The countryside was nice, but the city was a disorganized mess and wasn't very social. Nha Trang was a little sketchy at times; seeing someone get robbed on the beach wasn't cool at all. The Cu Chi tunnel tour was kinda lame, but in hindsight I never ended up doing the tunnels near Hue because of the rain, so it was the lesser of the evils.

The money: Again, I spent a lot on alcohol. I'm sure by now everyone expects me to write that. The Halong Bay tour cost more than I thought it would, about $120 for three days. I kept my costs down a bit by staying in dorms and splitting rooms with friends I was traveling with. Vietnam wasn't as cheap as I expected, but I only went over my daily budget by a matter of cents.
Total spent: $1007.80 which include $73 for purchases, $42 for misc, $52 for a visa.
Total daily expenses: roughly $890
Average spent per day: $30.72
Total days in Vietnam: 29

I enjoyed my time in Vietnam. I don't think I would go back anytime soon, right now I don't see a huge reason to return, but I'm sure I will in the future. I met and hung out with a ton of great people who I hope I'll see in future. Peace out, Vietnam.

Friday, April 8, 2011

Into a New Realm

I arrived into China two days ago, all safe and sound. The train to Lao Cai and subsequent border crossing went without a hitch.Hardly any people speak English here, and the few that do are an immense help. Luckily for me a Chinese guy showed me to an ATM and the bus station, and got me on the right bus to Yuanyang (I had to pay him a bit, but oh well). Once on the bus, I was lucky to be sitting in front of another guy that spoke English, and he was a great help, telling me a bit about the country and what to expect. The bus ride was interesting; it was completely packed with people, food, cargo, and roosters (that crowed all the way to Xinje). I was a little confused when the bus seemed to be taking the back roads, all the while an empty superhighway was in plain sight. There were no stops made, or no tolls missed, so I don't know what the logic was there. When we were on the highway, it was pretty impressive. Large sections of it are built like a viaduct, basically large concrete, bridge-like structures that hug the mountainside. And there were long stretches of tunnel that bored through the mountains. It made Canadian highways look like a joke. The last thirty kilometeres, however, were completely opposite. We climbed up a road precariously perched on the side of a mountain, a three hundred meter cliff right below my window. The bus tore on like a madman, dodging vehicles barely small enough to fit on the tight road. Everytime we took a corner I prayed we wouldn't tip over from the improperly sloped bumps in the road. All in all, the scariest bus ride ever.
 
Once I arrived in Xinje, main town of the Yuanyang region, I was reminded a little of Dharamsala in India. Steep roads and staircases snake up the slopes of the mountains, connecting the many two and three story buildings to one another. Tons of little shop fronts sell everything from fruit to cell phones. I was lucky enough to find another person that spoke English, and luckily she had a guest house for me to stay in. Being here the past few days has been a little frustrating. First of all, like I said before, hardly anyone speaks English, which can make things a little difficult. And the food, while good, is not geared towards a single consumer. Every time I go to eat I'm stuck ordering one single thing and getting a giant dish of it. And the hell with eating fish from now on, it seems like Chinese don't know how to de-bone it. The lack of information is trying as well, there's no form of maps or anything, so finding things in town is difficult, like this an internet cafe, which took me two days and an Irish girl to find. Unfortunately for me, a thick fog bank rolled in the morning after I arrived, dashing my hopes of seeing the famous rice terraces here. I did manage to find an afternoon break in the fog to take a walk and see a few of them, but a sunset/sunrise tour is out of question, and I can't commit anymore time here, so I have to leave somewhat empty handed. My patience has seriously been tested here, but I'm doing my best to not let these inconveniences ruin my impression of China, for there's still a massive country to see. I do have the feeling, however, that I've crossed a magic line between Southeast and Northern Asia; one that divides two different kinds of travel. In Thailand, a blind, deaf mute could find their way around the country, and in Laos, even though it's very poor, it's not difficult to find someone that speaks English. I'm almost glad to leave that behind me though. Being back among the serious travelers I met in Nepal and India will be a welcome change for me. While the university-type backpackers in SE Asia are great too, the party oriented sentiment there is something that I've had a lot and enough of, it's time to travel again.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Lingo of the Gringo

Sitting here in the hostel watching Californication, a part of the show came on that talked about the fact that nobody talks to each other anymore, it's all about the texting and IM'ing. I can say, without a doubt, that I don't miss any of that. In the past eight months my typing has been limited to this blog and the rare email, thankfully. Back home I was guilty of the texting craze, but being out here has definitely made me preferable to the old face-to-face. Real conversation that you can't delay for a minute while you think of the wittiest response possible.

Which brings me to the English language. Being out here, you converse with so many people from a number of countries where English is the native tongue. And there is a ton of diversity in it, all of it humorous to me. I'll start with greetings. In Canada, I'd say "how's it going?" is a common greeting, an inquiry to the state of a person's day. Australians and Kiwis say "how you goin?", which to me implies asking where I'm going, to which I might reply "I'm not going anywhere". A common British greeting would be "you alright?", which to me implies that something could possibly be wrong with the person they're addressing.

Of course there's the common "cheers" instead of "thank you". Other funny one's I've heard from Brits are "ming" or "munk", used to describe something as disgusting. While I would say "she's hot" to describe a gorgeous woman, Brits say "she's fit". Aussies, Kiwis and Brits all address friends as "mates", where I would say "buddies". Or how about calling things "mental", when I would say "crazy". One of the funny terms I've heard is the word "slag", which is the British term for slut, that one makes me laugh. And one of the funniest one's I've heard lately was Brits calling underwear "shorts". Shorts are something I wear on a hot day, and unless you put boxer in front of that word, they don't go underneath any other form of garment.

While many countries have strayed a little away from the "King's English", I embrace these little differences because they add a little humor to the situation and conversation.

Welcome to Halong Bay, Professor Hawking

I survived the Halong Bay boat tour. The one I had booked through the hostel was the infamous booze cruise on Halong Bay, the boat renowned for it's party. The first day we were picked up at the hostel in the morning, then took a four hour bus to the Halong Bay pier, where we boarded our boat and starting chugging into the bay. The boat itself was nicer than I expected; the rooms were had comfortable beds and hot showers, and the dining room was nicely decorated. After spending time jumping off the top deck of the boat (and slowly conquering my fear of heights) and kayaking around the bay into some caves, we all hit the sauce. The drinking games administered by the tour guide were epic, and with thirty of us playing, good times were had by all. The best one was playing the circle of death, where you draw a card from the circle and every card has a different rule attached to it. The best one of all was the five card, the Stephen Hawking card, where you had to act like Stephen Hawking and have the people beside you feed you drinks. I had so much fun, I spent all the money I brought with me. All of it. On booze.

The next day was the rough part. After partying all night (4am for me, some people didn't go to sleep) the boat staff woke us up at 7am for breakfast and to start the day. Half of us that were signed up for the second night left the boat and headed to an island owned by the hostel tour company. It was basically a small strip of beach with towering limestone cliffs on either side, kinda reminded me of the area around Krabi in Thailand. I tried my hand at some wake boarding, but unfortunately because my shoulder was acting up and because the water was cold as shit I never managed to get out of the water. After getting a three hour nap to top off my two hours, we had dinner and went right back to the drinking games, this time in the form of a giant Jenga tower. This night wasn't as late, 2am. Some people stayed up until 6am. We then departed the island, had lunch on the boat, then headed back to Hanoi.



One totally off topic thing I saw coming into Hanoi that I thought was hilarious was passing by a quaint little shop that had a piece of paper taped in the window with the words 'Seven Eleven', not 7-11. I guess they figured that Westerners would see that sign and make some kind of mental connection to home, convincing them they should shop there. I think they got it a little twisted. Anyways, tomorrow I have my night train to the Chinese border, where hopefully right after I cross I'll be heading to Yuanyang, where I can see some monumental rice terrace scenery.

EDIT: While I'm not sure of the status of China's ongoing feud with Google, I (and you) have to be prepared for the fact that I might not be able to access Google (and thus my blog) while I'm in China. I will, however, do my best to get my posts out there, but if it turns out to be impossible, I'll try to post them on Facebook, if that's also not banned.

Saturday, April 2, 2011

Ha Ha Hanoi!

On my overnight bus to Hanoi I woke up in the morning to sight I hadn't seen in a while. The sun! Seeing that bright gem in the sky was a great way to end a shitty bus ride, one where my legs dangled from the top bunk due to the fact that I'm too tall to fit in the Vietnamese sized bunks. I checked into the Hanoi Backpackers hostel and met up with my two English friends again. I must say the hostels in Vietnam are pretty cool, all of them have great setups and are very social places. The first night there I entered a Beer Pong tournament with another English girl, Alicia. We were knocked out first round, but I made the best shot of the tournament, if not in the history of beer pong. The ball totally defied gravity, spinning around the cup, then launching out of it, only to fall back in, spinning wildly around the edge and into the beer. That epic shot won me a free beer.

I ended up running into some other Danish friends that I hung out with in Nha Trang; Andreas, Anna and Simone. Yesterday we hit up the market street that have an abundance of clothing shops selling brand names at about a sixth of the price. I am an owner of a new, kick ass Armani shirt, for just over ten dollars. And another addition of the headphone saga, another pair crapped out on me on the bus ride up to Hanoi (the worst time to be without music). This time I finally ponied up and spent the money needed to get some decent headphones. Beats by Dre are great headphones! Hanoi itself seems kind of like a city that you say no more about. It's busy. Although I haven't done any hardcore sightseeing yet, I've been in lazy mode.

Tomorrow I head out for a two night boat trip around Ha Long Bay, supposedly one of the most beautiful places in Vietnam.