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Published: January 9th 2007
tea with the monk
just add some green leaves to the ever constant hot water supplyOh.. the rigours of travelling has meant that the pie has not gone unscathed in the last few months, but is still intact & very much enjoying notching up miles on the piedometer... Hello all …… a VERY happy new year to you.
Sorry this blog entry has been a while in coming. A few of the places we have visited have limited internet capabilities and I simply did not have the patience to upload the new piccies up to the site - and obviously I’m so busy these days time just cannot be wasted in internet cafes!
Anyway, hope you enjoy these snapshots of the trip over the last few months.
Leaving Xiahe (last point of blogging!) by firstly, the SMALLEST taxi in the world into which we squeezed our rucksacks and ourselves wrapped in many layers for the cold weather at 6am start. Clare could not see out of the taxi and her leg went dead, so fortuneately it was a short journey. Unfortuneately the bus driver didn’t turn up to work on time, so a fierce looking ticket lady disappeared for ten minutes and came back with the apologetic driver. We stretched out in relative
clare and the tibetan ladies
browsing the local OK magazine for hot gossip? comfort until that leg of the journey was over, but the connecting bus was rather sardine tin like, with Simon’s leg being used as an arm and child rest by the lady squatting in the aisle, and the by now very familiar smell of yak saturating the air.
Destination, Langmusi: another Tibetan enclave in the mountains where we experienced beautiful clear blue skies, more picturesque monastries in the mountains, cold weather and BigYak burgers (slightly more chewy than the international snack burger with a similar name). The cold weather called for an appropriate piece of headgear for me, so for a pound an attractive sheepskin bonnet was procured for instant relief from the biting wind. Striding out & about in Langmusi we followed a small crowd of Tibetans along a valley, having checked with the monk if he thought we’d be welcome or not, until we came to a small hole at the bottom of the gorge which these folks were disappearing into & appearing from. Crawling in on hands and kness, as the opening in the rock would only allow a semi horizontal entrance, we stayed in the area & just listened to the diversity of sounds ,from long
an honest sales department?
maybe they could do with some spinning lessons wails in a high pitch to a more digderedoo mumble at a low pitch, accentuated by the acoustics of the cave - a real ‘WOW’ sound. Later we learned that this is where the local people come to give thanks for the water source & that the amazing sounds is their thanksgiving chant.
Walking further on, we came to close to a sky burial site, which we respectfully avoided. The Tibetan custom is such that when you die, you receive a sky burial whereby your body is cut in a ceremonial way & left lying on a slab of stone for the vultures to feed on. Very ecologically sound I’d say. Bumping into a friendly monk on the way down, we were invited to his place for a cup of tea. His lodging, which he shared with about 6 others, was pretty basic, but his kettle was quite fantastic! We put the world to rights - well, learned & taught how to say mother, brother & other relatives names’ in Tibetan & English. The Mandarin is not coming in useful here!
Leaving Langmusi is quite difficult, firstly because the place is pretty isolated & it’s great to see folks
hop on there's plenty of room
and the air conditioning works very well to! living so simply that you could find yourself staying there for a while & spending the days walking miles around the mountains, secondly, there is no road out in the direction we wanted to go, which is probably a good thing in terms of the culture as not so many have the time to actually make their way here. We were told of one way onwards via a town where the hotels had no toilets, and also advised of a man with a four wheel drive, so pairing up with a couple of Israelis we hired him & his bright yellow truck for the ‘off road China’ experience. About an 8 hour trip across fields and onto a sealed road on a plateau where, at 4000 metres high, Simon got some of his altitude sickness symptoms back: plus a 2 hour stop in the middle of nowhere, for what looked like road building, but we never really found out.
We eventually arrived in Songpan & spent a couple of days there ambling around the town slowly, as we were still very high up & it took quite a lot of effort to get yourself along a pretty easy stretch,
mirror lake
worth the walk to get here let alone going up small inclines! The road to Jiuzhaigou Nature Reserve is a series of downhill U bends: we bumped into Jasper & Anne-Marie from Holland on the bus & teamed up to find accommodation and it took some searching until we found something suitable & on budget.
Venturing forth into the Nature Reserve we became slightly concerned about the ‘Nature’ aspect of the Reserve as we came across crowds of Chinese tourists, but we soon found out that the Chinese tourist way of visiting the park involved getting a bus to a scenic spot, jumping off the bus to take pictures (sometimes dressing in bright local costumes for the shoot) from the viewing area, and jumping back onto the next bus to the get viewpoint. So there was plenty of room for those of us who intending to cover as much of the approx 20km paths as possible on foot.
We deserved a good but uneventful feed after all the exercise. Instead we experienced having a pig slaughtered over the table next to us in the restaurant & some major overcharging on their part caused a bit of a disagreement with the owner, who threatened us with
chinese tourists...
....stop for every photo opportunity police intervention but who soon backed down when we agreed that their police presence would be a good thing.
Coming slowly further south we arrived back to reality of the congested streets and neon signs in Chengdu.
Simon’s birthday treat, apart from some birthday buns and 35 nuts left by Anne-Marie & Jasper who departed early that morning, was a day out a the panda sanctuary.
Although we were slightly surprised at its’ location … on an industrial estate … inside was quite spacious and well laid out & the pandas were in a sociable mood so we got to see a lot of their antics as well as about 6 baby pandas that have been born in the last month or so …. Arrrhhhh… CUTE! Most of the pandas are sponsored by companies or benevolent folks and they are usually called something Chinese and meaningful, but we saw one panda called ‘Microsoft’ and one called ‘Pride’ after the cigarette brand!
We spent a bit of time in Chengdu trying to find a place called ‘Carols’, as it was recommended by Mr Farmer of KL, it being one of his old stomping grounds …. After quite a bit of
does that pie come in bamboo flavour...?
...because that's my favourite - yum yum! effort we find a place with the name board up outside but with boards over the doors too!
Getting this close to the infamous Yangzi River and Three Gorges, and knowing that the water level will soon be 76 metres higher as the Three Gorge Dam is completed & water level behind it raised by 2009, we felt compelled to treat ourselves to a first class cabin on 3 day river cruise. We spent some time in Chongqing before boarding the boat … the cable car over the city being the highlight of Chongqing, but all in all the place was a bit of a dump - apart from a small restaurant about 6 of us bundled into for lunch were the staff & found were FAB.
As we boarded the boat (by no means a sleek vessel) and found our basic cabin we looked over at the other boat which was moored next to ours. There was a red carpet leading the tourists on board and we could see them enjoying a champagne reception on board. We later found out that they had paid over 10 times more than we had for the experience …. Our first
not here for much longer
travelling down the Yangzi to see the Three Gorges while there's still chance class tickets were about US$100! We quite relieved when the days turned out to be quite misty! Teaming up with Hugh from Oz, Eric & Andrea from Switzerland, 2 Spanish Jehovahs’ Witnesses & a Dutch couple, we managed to seek out the less cramped parts of the boat … away from the noise & bustle of the other 300 or so passengers who seemingly were not on holiday to ‘get away from it all’ because they shrieked and shouted at each other like excited kids constantly. We did become the subject of many of their holiday snaps though - particularly the boys who were asked to pose with many of the ‘aunties’ on board! And after a couple of TsingTaos, the karaoke area became bearable too!
The first part of the journey is not too spectacular as you look out over the banks at industrial chimneys (if it’s not too foggy to see them) … but the Gorges are worth seeing, and in particular the set of smaller Gorges, which is a trip off in a smaller boat. There are regular markers showing the height of the water after completion of the Dam project… there will still be some
the 'little 3 gorges'
....also soon to be flooded small peaks coming out of the water, but obviously the imposing Three Gorges will have lost much of their majesty owing to the fact that they’ll be underwater. The scheme will displace nearly 2 million people & we visited a museum which showed us some of the huge fish which had once lived in the river but which are less common now … huge social & ecological costs but the government has focused on the incredible hydroelecritic power production capacity and flood control benefits.
Yangshuo was our main ‘backpacker’ experience in China! Where did all these people come from? We found an Aussie couple on their first day in Yangshuo who said ‘isn’t China great’ & to that we said ‘be careful, this isn’t China!’ Simon tucked into a lasagne … and was promptly sick from the richness of the food, so we were careful not to switch back to ‘western foods’ suddenly! It’s a nice place though, sprung up in the middle of a limestone karst landscape: we hopped on the bikes & road around, visiting caves, took bamboo raft rides downriver, comorant fishing (a clever odd chap has trained some comorants to catch fish & spit them
what to do at lunchtime?
join the folks in the park for a spot of line dancing out!) & did a pub quiz with Scott & Manda from Oz (as well as discussing tactics of local toilets!)
As it getting a little cold in Tibet by now, we decided to return around April next year, so will ‘finish off’ the southwest corner of China that we did not venture into this time. So we started to journey south, traveling over the somewhat basic land border to Vietnam.
Stopping in Nanning to get a visa but avoiding ‘dog street’ restaurant delicacies.
We left China with a bacon sarnie craving we were hoping to satisfy in Hanoi, but on leaving we realized what a great time we’d had there and that, by & large, the Chinese folks are wonderful and friendly but we have only really scratched the surface of trying to get to know them & their culture. China is fascinating, confusing, hair-pullingly difficult at times but rewarding at others and SO immense and seemingly powerful yet the rate of change seen particularly in the cities shows some naivety & vulnerability. We’ll be back!
Strange how in the space of a few kilometers the scenes we saw from the bus were markedly different: the numbers
being taken for a ride
the pie demonstrates the way to travel in style in vietnam of people working in the fields looking busy & active was far greater than what we had seen in China.
In Hanoi, the concentration of people seems even higher …. Most of then riding motorbikes which makes road crossing a complete adventure but in a different way to China where you would be likely to be hit if you stepped onto the road. In Hanoi the traffic simply parts around you as you walk SLOWLY across the road: slightly worrying at first, but we have both been to Ho Chi Minh a few times and have the art relatively well learned.
True enough, we found the sarnies we craved! We possibly have some French folks to thank for that? A little nibble on some cheese was also a good treat.
We did see a BBC weather forecast which mentioned that the typhoon from the Philippines was on its way to Vietnam, so asked if this could possible affect a tour to Halong Bay, but we were told it wouldn’t hit Vietnam for days and everything was hunky dory & to go ahead … so we did! Welcome to the Faulty Towers boat! To cut a long story short
(as the trip was also cut short!) we got onto a bus & were driven out to the Halong Bay marina area: we had been told that our group would be a max of 15 but we boarded the boat and found 30 people with us, there was not enough food to go around, the ‘English speaking’ guide could only say ‘yes’ …. even when we asked him if we were potentially going to die, we were woken up at 6.30 am and given 20 minutes kayaking trip and then a 4 hour ‘break’, when it was time to disembark the boat to stay on a idyllic island for the night we weren’t allowed on but more people boarded the boat & we headed back for shore a day early as it was getting ‘windy’.
My birthday, supposed to be spent on a boat chilling in the Bay where James Bond destroyed the stealth boat in Tomorrow Never Die, was relocated and a large part of the day was spent chilling & talking to staff and the one other applicant at the Laos Embassy. This is by far way the most pleasant way to obtain a visa, if you
safe to cross?
a few of the 2 miliion motorbikes in Hanoi are not in a hurry, and as I came to learn later, is microcosm of the country itself.
Strolling out of backpacker territory and into the European Quarter for a relatively stylish meal we met up with a couple of Aussie ladies: Simon tried, and failed, to out drink one of the ladies: who must have been at least 55. The excitement of it all meant that I left my camera in the restaurant but after half an hour or so we realized I was missing something & we went back to the now closed restaurant & woke up the nightwatchman - phew!! The camera was still there.
Vientiane, Laos. How laid back!? Almost horizontal I’d say! Clare had the foot massage of all times - over an hour for US$3, which got her in the right vibe for the place.
We were struck by the large number of foreign NGO / development agencies present here doing a very hard job of getting assistance to the thousands of Laotians still living in conditions of extreme poverty driving around in SHINY NEW WHITE TRUCKS. Very expensive looking trucks at that …. shame so many of them
the beer garden no longer existed
so we made do with some cold freebies in the reception area of Beer Lao are parked outside the cafes in town rather than getting out to the backwaters. And why not, it’s a lovely place to live & the food is GREAT! Despite the non-existence of the Chop Chop Lai Lai bar which had been recommended by Dave & Sophie in KL (which we spent a few hours walking around / asking about / looking for) we found some great places to eat.
The town was also very busy gearing up for the annual boat race festival, so finding a room took a while. At the river front many tat-sellers had set up stalls, as well as the traditional fayre game stalls. Simon had a successful (2 out of 3 shots) win of 2 bottles of Beer Lao by shooting the matchbox of the stand & was then banned by the stall holder from having another go. Cam & Lisa, a fab Aussie couple who we had met on the way and kept bumping into around town, were not having so much success at the fayre, so they suggested a retreat to the Beer Laos beer garden - as recommended in the good old Lonely Planet guide book - at the brewery about
equal rights
letting Clare do the heard work while Simon relaxes & takes in the scenery 12km out of town. A bumpy tuk tuk ride took us out to the brewery, but, alas no beer garden to be found & when we tried to enquire at the factory reception we found it unmanned / closed (it was 4.30pm!). Eventually a young lady appeared & confirmed that the beer garden closed 4 years ago but was very sympathetic & told us to wait in reception … returning a few minutes later with 4 BIG ice cold bottles of the freshest Beer Lao we’re ever likely to drink. She then disappeared again & left us in the reception area where we played like kids at being receptionists for Beer Lao Ltd.
We prolonged our visit for an extra couple of days having been told the boat race was due to start the following day, and when it didn’t happen, we were assured that it would the day after that …. But guess what? We made the bold step of moving on, as we could have stayed in that state of boat race anticipation limbo for days at that rate.
On the overnight bus to Pakse, we met Jenni from Wales and I think the three of us
we didn't kayak over this
but paddled HARD to the bank & hopped out about 40 metres before! had enough map reading prowess to realise where we were dropped off on Pakse (in the middle of town) while the remaining tourists on the bus bit the bait of the tuk-tuk drivers who explained that we had been dropped at the northern bus station. So while they were having a very early morning guidetour of all the roads in Pakse, we walked around the corner and found a hotel. To our surprise & excitement, we found out that today in the town, the annual boat race festival was very definitely happening so we headed for the river to find a good vantage point from where to watch the great event. We managed to be accepted into a crowd in a grassy bank (which later became a mud pit) were food (mainly skewers of peppery meat) & drink were aplenty! We were further surprised when Cam & Lisa came running towards us … they had left Vientiane a few days before so had not expected to see them again. The competition heated up, but we really had no idea of when we were watching the warm ups / heats / knock out rounds. When it got to the finals the
our boats becomes a bouncy castle
the youngsters of the village had great fun bouncing on our boat crowds got extra loud & raucous & THE GRAND FINAL came with hysterics around us & we came to the realization that we had happened to be in the eventual winners crowd of supporters! The boys were invited onto a boat to dance on its roof as part of the celebrations while the girls danced / slithered around in the mud! And the party kept going for a long time after……!
Teaming up with Cam & Lisa, we spent 3 days kayaking south in the Mekong River Delta area …. Some stretches were easy going, but we negotiated rapids at times, and had to jump out of the rafts to avoid a couple of massive waterfalls. We needed comfy beds after those days, but ended up on floorboards of friendly villagers’ houses. Good excuse for another massage!! The toilet experiences were also rather fun (not!) - Clare thought she had chosen a good secluded spot, but realized, a little late, that she had company of a large angry pig!! Quite an amazing experience & really off the beaten track stuff thanks to our guides Tak & Leh.
In Tad Lo we spent some time walking, getting lifts on
comfortable travels
not the fastest or most comfortable form of travel, but we can see well from up here elephants, a taking tuk tuk trips to visit some more rural communities. Clare confused the locals by asking to buy their second hand gourds. These are usually dried & used as storage pots for water, but with some local paint & a days’ effort they were turned into two ‘Gourdon the Gnomes’. One was taken back to the village to show them what she had done with it & the second Gourdon continued along our journey out of Laos & into Thailand where we were picked up in style & taken to Chez Roger & Dani for a few days of indulgence including a STEAK & KIDNEY PIE!! BUT not the Fray Bentos variety as Dani whipped up a homemade taste sensation! Gourdon stayed with Roger & Dani, as there new garden gnome & we continued on… with full tummies. A big thankyou to Roger & Dani.
Cambodia was our next destination & having been to Angkor Wat before we spent time wondering around markets in Phnom Penh & enjoyed a swim in the sea off the gorgeous quiet beaches of Sihanoukville where we bumped into Hugh who met had met in China, as well as seeing some of
these gourds....
became a Gourdon double act the harrowing remnants of the Pol Pot era.
There was a 2 week pre-Christmas visit, helping Santa get some pressies from China delivered to the UK where Josie & Bruce accommodated the backpacker in fine style & comfort, and were repayed by a fine roast cooked dinner as Clare entered a kitchen for the first time in 6 months. Clare also met up with Ceri & Andie to go walking up hills in Wales, and gossip when there was sufficient breath to allow. We also went for a surf with Santa in Bali for a couple of weeks before Christmas before returning to Singapore for a great Christmas and New Year with friends Jon & Kat.
Where next? You’ll have to wait & see! Take care until next time x
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