Heaven and Hell

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First of all sorry for not finishing my story about the Kyrgyz horse trip but I got really disillussioned by writing it, hopefully I will finish later when I get the time. For now more about the present time and what has been happening. Thanks for reading and writing me back, it's great to hear from everyone.

When you travel you have bad days and you have brilliant ones, excuse my British. Sometimes you just want to pack it all up and go home, but the really good ones make you want to live that same day over and over like Groundhog's Day, you know the one with Bill Murray where you see it five times for every time you actually watch it. Well in simple terms you could call these polar opposites, the days of heaven and the days of hell. Believe you me I have had many of both and a lot of in between. This is a short post about heaven and hell, both on earth and both equally amusing, I hope.

The other day just after checking into the hostel I was talking to these Chinese girls and I asked them why they had come to Hangzhou and they told me that Hangzhou was paradise on earth. I doubted them and even made a stupid two-cent joke in return because it seemed preposterous for all we had seen was a big polluted city. We had come to meet up with a friend, Christian from Norway, who I had met years ago in Thailand. His Chinese is superb and we had a great time exploring the city. In fact, little did I know this but after the fact I read that Marco Polo had described Hangzhou as the most beautiful city in the world and know it serves as the biggest toursit attraction for the Chinese in the whole country. After a beautiful two point five days exploring the city I came to almost agree with those girls. Hangzhou is unbelievable and I can hardly be put into words. The city is on a lake, a large one at that and all around the lake are temples and beautifully laid out parks. The weather was been perfect, a little hazy at times, but perfect for riding bikes around the whole lake and out into the countryside. The countryside becomes a maze of wide, nicely paved roads with signs that inevitably get you lost. We got trapped in a touristy place full of touts that got us to drink two dollar cups of what Chinese claim to be the best green tea in the world. The local leaf was fresh but the subtle difference in taste is beyond my reach. These were days in heaven and now to describe some days in utter hell.

This part of my trip starkly contrasts what I have written above, this is the deathride across Mongolia and back. It all started in the capital, Ulan Bataar where I met up with my younger brother Taylor. We went to the market and found a ride to the far west of the country to the city of Khovd. We got the driver's phone number and waited four hours for him to pick us up. Darkeness had fallen and we were driven in a different car to meet up with the van of despicable demise. We climbed in and found our seats to be nothing more than some bags with very little beside a horizontal pole as back support. It was an older Russian van and we were sitting four rows of four across. It was quite amazing considering that there was seating for only 11 and we had 16 crammed in there. I sat down and realized the guy next to me was totally drunk and wouldn't shut up until he finally passed out on my shoulder late into the middle of the night. We drove all night across bumpy dirt tracks and when the sun rose at 8 the next morning we were in the middle of the Gobi and another guy was driving. It had been a hard night and we still had another night ahead of us. After 46 gruelling hours of straight driving we had finally made it to Khovd. It had been one of the worst experiences of my life and we knew that soon we would have to repeat the process, all in order to save a few dollars to eat in a better cafeteria.

So our time in Western Mongolia was nice, riding around in other Russian vans and jeeps seeing the landscape and meeting the local people, we even got robbed, of our candy! We met up with a French/Belgian couple who were travelling the world giving local people free tandem flights with their paraglides. (www.airborneplanet.net) Taylor caught a lot of fish and we had a big fish fry with the Kazakhs in their yurts. These were days of heaven but we dreaded the hell that we would soon encounter. We went to a huge festival of eagle hunters, men on horses with eagles on their arm. They showed their skills and posed for a million photos. Then a trip to explore an ancient cave fell through and we were soon boarding the bus for another hellish trip. This time it turned out to be 48 hours but this time we were facing forward. It was a miserable experience that is beyond words. To say the least we were very happy when we were back in Ulan Bataar because we knew soon we would be eating Chinese food.

A terrible train ride overnight to the border and then an overnight sleeper bus and we were in Beijing. Unfortunately we arrived somewhere in the suburbs at the three in the morning so we took a cab to a hostel Taylor had stayed at before. The next morning we switched hostels. This time it was on a back alley in a city of ridiculous porportions and this made all the difference because it felt like a small town. Honestly Beijing is not that great of a city for a tourist but there is one thing that makes a trip there very special, the Great Wall. Mao said something to the effect that no man is a real man unless he has climbed the Great Wall. Well I knew I had to make myself a real man so I went to climb the wall. We had been told by a Dutch couple that there was section near Beijing where no one goes, we jumped on the tip. Unfortunately it was very hard to find, hence the few people. We also heard on the way that it was under construction and couldn't be visited. Well we finally found the right bus to take after walking around a really nice suburb town for a few hours. We got off when we saw the wall up close and trek through an orchard up to the wall. Darkness fell as we climbed up through an old staircase. We had made it and we were going to sleep in one of the watch towers. It seemed that we had come upon a part of the wall that had been somewhat restored, yet there were no tourists. We were there the whole next morning and didn't see a single soul. It was an unbelievable experience, one I will never forget. We headed back to Beijing and saw Mao caked in a million layers of wax, or was he just a wax staute laying down? Anyways we headed down to the former capital, Nanjing. The most extensive walls in the world surround the inner part of the sprawling Nanjing and we had quite a time climbing a tower and trying to see the walls through the smog. It was a pleasant city with a good student community and good cheap food. We stayed with some Australians who were studying traditional Chinese medicine and had a good time meeting all their friends. Then it was on to Shanghai. I must admit and I haven't been to Hong Kong yet but the riverfront in Shanhai must be one the most spectacular in the world. Every major company has their name flashing in neon and there are people swarming all over with boats floating by both tourist cruises and huge flat barges carry who knows what.

Then we took the train two hours south to Hangzhou, which I mentioned above. We couldn't get a bed on a train unless we waited for a week so we had to get an overnight hard seat on the local train. Hell came on strong as we realized that this was the type of train that you can never get a relaxing ride on for it was smokey and crammed with peasants all staring at us, maybe the only foreigners they have ever seen. The train finally came to a halt twenty four hours later and we were both mentally and physically exhausted. I had read 400 pages in my book and was ready to find a bed. We were and still are in Xian, the city of the terracota warriors which we saw yesterday. They were spectacular but it is too surreal of a tourist experience to really savor and enjoy. They are somewhat dug up and covered by an awning that reminded me of a European train station, somewhat reminiscent of the Musee D'Orsay in Paris. So tomorrow we will ride bikes around the city and then tomorrow head of to the borderlands of Tibet. Hopefully this part of the journey will be more like heaven than hell, we'll see.

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Photos

The Great Wall
No need for a caption

Comments

[Tarsha Jump]

wow
the photos are beautiful! and it is a joy to see Taylor! what an exciting experience!!

[judegrrl]

travel
sounds amazing what you've been thru. If i cld shout across the bandwidth and make my voice be heard, I'll do that just to cheer u on... Keep up the distance, soldier!1