leogoesrawr
Robin Joined: August 14th 2009
Logged in: May 22nd 2010
Logged in: May 22nd 2010
Travel Blog Posts
I haven't updated in a while, mostly because I feel like I haven't been doing all that much. I realized in Dali that I am going to San Francisco and then basically straight to work, plus I'm going to want to be really busy for the last two weeks of my trip ( which I am now entering), so I just decided to relax a bit. Dali is a good town for relaxing- lots of good food and coffee and tea. I went on a nice bike ride down to the lake, and a walk on the mountains above the city ( the entire way was paved and flat, I hiked down from the mountain just to get something a bit more strenuous ), but otherwise it was a lot of hanging out, with the people ... read more
I'm not actually in lijiang, but there's no option for the town where I am, shaxi, or even the nearest city; lijiang was where I was last, where I only spent less than 24 hours because I couldn't get past the touristy-ness of it all. I was also trying to get here for the Friday market-this is the last surviving weekly market on the tea and horse trail and hundreds of local minorities walk for hours to get here-but I came too late in the day. Now I'm trying to figure out whether to stay another night or head to Dali. I'm left with a sort of awkward amount of time, not really enough to go to another destination, but more than enough for what I've left to see. I guess I can always spend more ... read more
I am currently in shangri la, formerly known as zhongdian (both are still options in selecting my location). Finally got here after being stuck in daocheng for 3 days, but I took advantage of it and went to Yading national park, an expensive but totally spectacular day trip- the park is the site of three mountains that are holy in Tibetan buddhism, and from their physical appearance ( and one's physical state trying to hike at 4600 m) it's easy to see why they're considered special. Now I'm back on the main tourist route, though I'm still going counter clockwise, which means I'm going to have to get to tiger leaping gorge, my probable next stop and hope that I find people there I can hike with. Then I'm not quite sure what I'm doing- I'm ... read more
I think that yesterday was so incredible that I'm not sure anything else on this trip will be able to top it. I'm in the Tibetan ethnic area if western Sichuan, where it is mountainous, cold, and spectacular. We spent a night I kangding where we ate delicious Tibetan food and avoided the rain, and then two days in tagong, really the wild west of china (people riding horses through town, Tibetan cowboys, and lots of yaks). Also an american who was starting up a cafe and arts collective, whom we happily helped out in exchange for a warm fire to escape the rain, hail, and snow. The second day started off cloudy but we set off on a walk anyway, across the grasslands to what turned out to be a monks' college. On the way ... read more
Just a quick update before I eat my dinner. My time in Chengdu is finally coming to an end. This may very well be the longest I stay on one place on this trip ( with the exception of Beijing) and I didn't really do anything (other than the very large buddha and seeing the pandas yesterday). However, this is one of the nicest hostels I've been to, and I spent a lot of yesterday running around because my camera went missing and I thought I was finally going to have to make the transition to digital ( the camera turned up at reception this morning). I also finally got a real hotpot, which was deliciously spicy, though I did end up with oil all over myself. And the weather has turned nice, though the polution ... read more
I've been away from the computer for quite a few days, but now I'm in Chengdu for a bit, realxing and planning the next part of my trip. After a brief stop in Wuhan, I went on a three gorges boat tour, with Sarah who I had met in Guilin. It was really beautiful, but also probably the most intense china experience I've had so far, as we were the only two foreigners on the boat and thus got a lot of attention. I tried as much as possible to be calm and openminded about it, but after three days of people taking my picture without asking or shouting "hello" in my face or saying something in Chinese and then running away and laughing with friends (these all from everyone, young adults through middle aged men) ... read more
Here I am in Wuhan, a city I never really thought I'd visit but seems nice enough now that I'm here. I mostly picked it as an in-between spot on my way to yichang to start a tour of the three gorges (on the Yangtze). I was originally thinking of heading south from Guilin to Vietnam but the weather was just so miserable and I had a potential travel buddy to do this so I thought I'd head north on search of sun. (now I'm also well positioned to go to Vietnam during the may 1st holiday). It is still cool and somewhat rainy here today and meant to be again tomorrow, but it should clear up by the end of the week, and anyway my hostel has a very nice place to sit and some ... read more
Mostly I'm just glad that all that rain held off until after we got off our boat tour of the li river. ( and you should be glad because it means I'll have plenty of time to sit in the hostel and update my blog.) To answer the question in my previous post, the karst landscapes were quite atmospheric in the mist, though they might not show up all that well in my pictures. And it was relatively nice in Guilin ( though clearly my standards of what constitutes nice have fallen, as it was quite cold) so even though it has developed enough in the past 20 or so years that I'm not sure anyone would say that they think it is the most beautiful place on earth, it still was pleasant enough. If yangshuo ... read more
I'm killing time in a starbucks waiting for my first chinese train experience. I apologize in advance for any weird typos, as I'm using my iPod touch, which despite some signal issues in my hostel on hong kong has already proved super useful. Going to keep this entry short, though since I want to save the battery for my 12 hour train trip to Guilin. Everything has been going surprisingly smooty so far and my expected troubles booking a last minute train ticket did not emerge. On the other hand, it is unseasonably cool (I'm glad I brought a fleece) and drizzly. It cleared up just in time for my visit to the buddah on Lantau (hong kong) yesterday but the weather seems like it's going to stay this way for a few days in all ... read more
Fancy bathroom
As I was leaving Bo'ao, the innkeeper gave me a ride to the city where I needed to catch my bus, quite an upgrade from the little local bus I had taken on the way there, packed to the gills with people. It was at the bus station that I got my first hint of the difficulties of traveling during Chinese holidays, as I had to wait almost 2 hours for my bus. Part of that might have been because I was taking the express bus, which was the peak of luxury--huge reclining leather seats, minimal music, no stops--all of which were quite welcome (I'm sure I would have enjoyed the local bus as an experience, and I might have gotten to see more of the island, but I'm always at high risk of getting motion ... read more
