Off To See The World

Well, we’ve started another leg of our trip: Southeast Asia.

Wooooo-eeeee! John and I are now in Bangkok and it is raining cats and dogs! Thunder, lightning, and torrential downpour don’t exactly make for the best sightseeing conditions so I don’t know if we will be going anywhere today… but tomorrow, rain or shine, we are going to the tiger temple!

Actually, this rain might be good for keeping the heat down. It was pretty hot when we got here last night and we can definitely feel the heat and humidity now. It’s apparently the hottest time of the year… so how that they have a songkran festival or something where everyone tries to drench everyone with water guns and stuff.

Other than that, so far, Bangkok has been great. The people here are very kind and helpful and for $5/night, the little guesthouse that we are staying at is pretty good. Hopefully, the weather will improve over the next couple of days so we can experience more of Bangkok.

Anyway, that’s all from me for now! Toodles!

Hey Everyone,

I’ve been back in Hong Kong for a couple days now…. managed to do the laundry and send a bunch of stuff home. Some of our flights on the next part of the trip are with Air Asia so our bags have to be 15kg or less…. which is pretty tough so we are sending probably like 80 pounds worth of stuff home!

Anyway, nothing new to report… we made it back from Shanghai alive and haven’t done much of anything since coming back here. Tonight, we catch a flight to Thailand for the final leg of the trip! So, for the next 50 days or so, we will be heading down through Southeast Asia, into Australia, then Fiji. I can’t believe how fast this is coming to and end… or is it? Perhaps the travels of Ev will be extended…. who knows…….

So, I guess Shanghai has an active campaigne to help alleviate some of the things that I have been complaining about. There are actually billboards and public service announcements stating the “7 Donts”… these are:
1. Do not swear
2. Do not spit in public places
3. Do not smoke in non-smoking areas
4. Do not litter
5. Do not J-walk
6. Do not pee or poo in public places
7. Do not yell excessively (or something like that)
They also have a special rule in Shanghai asking people to speak Mandarin instead of Shanghainese in certain situations or something like that. I’m not too sure what the deal is with that last rule.

Anyway, John and I found one of the Hooters Restuarants in Shanghai last night (yes, there is more than one here). We decided just to go have a beer and wings (for John of course, I had fries and a coke), and then we met up with a guy from our hostel (Jeff), who is moving to Shanghai to work. He actually speaks Mandarin, which is soooo cool (he’s a white guy). So, we hit the town but not like the night before (where John ended up playing patty cake with another grown man………….haha).

This time, we went to a Taiwanese restaurant and tried some kind of shaved ice dessert thing and Jeff, along with another girl from our hostel, talked about Shanghai and how things have changed so much. Jeff seemed like an encyclopedia of all the quirky little facts that nobody talks about China… he knew so many cool little facts…. so many so that we actually were out until 3am! Actually Meizhen (the girl), Jeff, John and I walked a pretty far distance in the middle of the night. Of course, we stopped at a corner store to buy some 3 yuan beer so we could walk down the street with some class (they didn’t have any brown paper bags though). It took us about an hour to get back to our hostel, although we did make a very interesting stop…. Meizhen studied medicine here and she actually brought us into the hospital that she studied at! It was a little awkward but at the same time very cool to see… they operate a lot looser than they do in North America. The beds were so close together and there’s no such thing as a curtain between each bed… they crammed everyone quite closely together.

It was about 3am by the time we got back but surprisingly street vendors were still out frying little snacks! It’s funny, although there is so much to see everywhere we go, I think John and I have the most interesting times doing things like randomly walking around with people. I think we were fortunate this time to meet people that knew so much about Shanghai so it was educational at the same time.

After 2 late nights in a row, John and I decided not to do too much today… we went to a bookstore and now we are at an internet cafe. We will go to the Bund and Nanjing Road tonight but that’s about it. Tomorrow morning, we will be catching a plane back to Hong Kong…. meaning, the pics from China will be up on flickr soon!

I think last night was the first night we went out on the town in a long while. We met a Japanese-American guy from California and a couple other Canadians during the day and at night, we (along with a girl that works here at the hostel – who we call Pikachu), went out. First we went to a trendy bar called Barbarosa or something like that… it was mostly foreigners there but the vibe of the place was pretty cool… they even had Hookahs there… of all the things to find in Shanghai. Anyway, the only thing about trendy bars with lots of foreigners is that they charge you an arm and a leg for a drink… so that kind of sucked. So, we only had one or 2 drinks there before deciding to go on a mission to find a cheaper place to drink.

We ended up walking a loooong way to find another little bar district but once again, this place was for foreigners so the prices were pretty much the same… Bar after bar after bar…. we pretty much lost hope and decided to go for 4rmb noodles, dumplings, and we stopped at the corner store and bought cheap beer to bring back to the hostel. It was pretty anti-climactic but the night was fun, none-the-less.Oh, and I’m proud to say that I was able to use a useful skill that my uncle Dave taught me… that’s opening a beer bottle with a pop bottle… pure gold.

Oh, I should mention, that before that, we went to the Jing Toa (or something like that) tower to see the skyline of Shanghai… I heard it was pretty wicked. After fighting through a chinese queue, we got to the 88th floor of the tower to see a pretty nice view of the Shanghai skyline… but I’ll admit, it wasn’t as mezmorizing as I thought it would be…. it was nice though. We tried to get around the hotel to see into this cool atrium area but they didn’t let us rif-raf in.

Ummm, today, John and I went to a Urban Developement museum which was pretty cool… they have a HUGE scaled model of Shanghai in this building… you really have to see the pictures to see how huge this model really was… it was pretty detailed too. Ummm, other than that…. we didn’t do too much today… we are going to Hooters tonight with the people from our room for some beer and wings… I’ll let you know how that goes. Catch ya lata!

Well, we made it to Shanghia in one piece. Sadly (but not really), that was our last experience with the China railway system… No more watching people litter, spit, or pick their noses/ears… No more hearing people clear their throats like there is no tomorrow and then spitting it who knows where. I think that’s one thing I really won’t miss in China. Other than that, the scenery has been absolutely amazing… everything from the nature of the mountains and rivers to the vast number of huge buildings that they have.

I think China turned out a lot better than I thought it would have. After seeing how bad India was in terms of over-crowding and what not, I thought we would be facing the same kind of conditions in China but it really hasn’t been that bad. And to let you in on a little secret, they actually have sit down toilets in most of the places here… a lot of the time they will be out of toilet paper so you have to carry your own but they belief that there are only dirty squatters and that the Chinese don’t use toilet paper is just a myth.

Anyway, we haven’t found the Hooters Restaurant yet but we did go to McDonalds for lunch and a nice little mexican restaurant for dinner… I think we’ve had enough Chinese food for a while. Other than that, not much to report. We aren’t sure what we are going to see for the next couple of days but I’ll be sure to let you all in on it when we do figure it out. Peace!

Ok, I thought the sunrise from the top of Kilimanjaro was magnificent but damn, I think we have a tie for first place now. Yesterday, we went to many peaks in the Huang Shan area… and at sunset, we found ourselves on Purple Cloud Peak, watching the most spectacular sunset. The altitude wasn’t as high as Kilimanjaro but the mountains here are something else. Let me back up a little though…

So, we left the day before yesterday early in the morning to the Front Gate of Huang Shan. Apparently parts of the base are closed due to construction (getting ready for the Olympics)… so we took a bus up to the cable-car area. You would think that 2 people that were able to summit Kilimanjaro would walk up to the summit of Huang Shan…. psh..yeah, right. We dished out for the gondola up to one of the peaks… and we were sure glad we did. The mountain is really steep compared to the route we took on Kilimanjaro… like stairs straight up. I would have died if we tried to walk up.

At the top of the gondola, the view was already incredible… peak after, after peak, after beautiful peak…. of course, with our Karma and all that, the sun was beaming down on us and there were virtually no clouds in the sky. Man, I love this trip. Anyway, it’s pointless for me to try to explain peak after peak after peak but let me just say this: Once you take the gondola to the top, there are still PLENTY of stairs you have to do to see these beautiful peaks… so if you have a heart condition, severe arthritis, bad knees, etc., you might not be able to traverse the whole area…. but I do recommend that you at least take the cable car up and try what you can. The view is worth it.

Anyway, after what felt like forever, John and I found our hotel at the top of the mountain. They had dorm rooms so we were able to get beds for under $20 but the prices of everything else like food was ridiculous… so John and I actually bought cups of instant noodles for our meals…yuck. And as I mentioned earlier, we went to Purple Cloud Peak to watch one of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen.

In the morning, we actually managed to get up at 5am to climb back up to the peak to watch the Sunrise from the other side… another spectacular view. I think it would have been more perfect if the Chinese people around us could use their “indoor voices” and stopped spitting for 2 seconds… but I guess we can’t win them all.

We made our way down the mountain in a mere 5 hours (not taking the cable car) and now we’re back at the hostel… our knees are pretty sore from the walk down so I don’t think we are doing anything today other than post this blog and play with the two cute dogs they have here.

Tomorrow is our train to Shanghai… woooo… we only have a couple days there and we told Marlon (the guy we met in Chengdu) that we were going to find the Hooters in Shanghai so that’s pretty much our only mission… haha… see you there!

Well, we’ve been having fun traveling around and making fools of ourselves trying to speak Mandarin but people have been able to help for the most part. Today, however, I had the worst day in China, I think. All I wanted to do was to cash some traveler’s cheques but that wasn’t going to happen.

First, I asked the guy at the hostel where the bank was (he spoke english) and I headed off to the bank. However, this was the Industrial and Construction Bank of China… they don’t do traveler’s cheques. Sooo, they told me to go to the Agricultural Bank of China which was just across the street… they don’t do traveller’s cheques. So, they told me to go to the Bank of China… which was apparently just down the street. Of course, when I step out onto the street, it starts raining! So I walk in the rain for like 10 minutes… no bank.

I did, however, find a post office, which I needed as well. I bought the stamps that I needed as well as a book of postcards. And for some reason, the lady wouldn’t let me leave without her putting all the stamps on the postcards in the book… I tried to tell her not to do it because she was sticking them in all wonky and the stamps were super wet but she was so insistant that she put them in that I thought maybe it was a rule? Annnyyyway, I found out later when i got back that all the postcards were stuck together and I wasted all that money… damn China. I was able to salvage one of them… but that was it.

Back onto the rainy road… I decided to go back to the hostel to ask where the Bank of China was… he drew me a little map and I hit the rainy streets again. I walked and walked and walked… found another Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and another Agricultural Bank of China but no Bank of China! Grrr… so what do I do? I got them to write “Bank of China” in chinese on a piece of paper and I hailed for a little bike rickshaw… I must admit, I was pretty excited to be riding in a bike rickshaw… so I was off to the Bank of China, FINALLY! Man, was I embarrased when my bike driver literally crossed the road and parked… yeah, the Bank of China was right around the corner… just a little hidden. What I don’t understand is why the driver didn’t just point me in the right direction! I had to pay 1rmb for him to drive me across the road! haha… it was pretty funny though. I caught him laughing when we stopped. Too bad this Bank of China doesn’t do traveler’s cheques either…. sigh… so after all that, I still have no money for tomorrow.

Oh well, after all that frustration, I just had to get back to what I knew…. that’s eggs and tomatoes cooked chinese style with some rice. Good old staple food. I hope we manage to get around easier in the next few days. We catch a bus to the front gate of Huang Shan (Yellow Mountain) tomorrow at 6:30am and we hope to make it to the top in one day and just stay at the top for the night before coming back down the next day. So, there probably won’t be a post between now and a couple days from now. I’m sure you’re all so disappointed…heh heh… hello? is anyone still here? Mom? Awww… damn…

Whew! We’ve just spent the last day and a bit traveling like crazy and now we are in Huang shan (Yellow Mountain)… but I’ll let you in on everything that happened in between.

When I left off last time, we were sailing through the last gorge, Xiling Gorge. This gorge also used to be known as the gateway to hell because of the dangerous, rough waters but now, due to the river rising, the waters are mostly calm here now. And Ed, yes, there is a dam… hence the flooding. This gorge is also the location of a huge landslide which burried a whole city or something like that and a sign stands as a reminder of that on a hillside. In contrast to the beautiful nature on the mountain sides, there are many coal pits used to store coal which is mined here… it surprised me how much coal they use here for electricity so I guess it’s a good thing they will be using the damn for at least some of their electricity.

So, as we pulled out of the last gorge, it was almost dinner time. We had our last spectacular dinner before heading up to see the Cabaret Show! Yeah, the people on this boat really do earn their keep… they can serve, they can clean, they can sing, they can dance, and they can even play instruments! They show itself was quite fun… all the staff were involved and even our river guides had their own little part. And near the end, a young Danish girl, who is a tour guide for a Danish group, did some hip hop dancing… she was pretty good too. And of course, we ended our night with a group dance of “YMCA”. All in all, it was pretty fun. I think John wanted to go back to check out the Danish girl afterwards or as he put it “Ummm, I’m just going to go back to see what song they are playing now”… hehe. I don’t blame him though, she’s 18 years old, fit, and wore some pretty tight clothes…hehe…for the first time on this trip, I saw John check himself out in the mirror and fix his hair a little! haha… looks like he was out to impress her. Props to him though, he did get her email address before we left.

Anyway, on the last day, we headed out early in the morning to see the actual 3 Gorges Dam project. The dam was HUGE… but it was still very foggy/smoggy in the morning so we couldn’t see very much of it. In all honesty though, it’s a big chunk of cement that will cost many people their family homes… but on the upside it is a MUCH more environmentally friendly way to produce electricity for the area.

After touring the 3 Gorges Dam, we headed back to the boat for our farewell buffet… we said goodbye to everyone we met, to our river guides, and to the staff. The days flew by very quickly but the trip must go on. We were transported into Yichang, where we boarded a bus to go to Wuhan. In Wuhan, we headed for the train station where we had to buy tickets for Hefei… now, normally, we can find the one person that speaks a little bit of english somewhere… but this time, nobody was around… so, we had to wing everything on our own. Unfortunately, there were no more sleeper spots on the train so John and I had to buy hard seats for the 8 hour train ride! God, I never want to do that again…. not only were the seats hard, there were many people on the train car… and of these many people, there are of course the loud hoarkers and the seed eaters/spitters. Of course, I happened to be sitting across from a lady who loved her sunflower seeds… so as she spit out the shells, they always found a way to come towards me… even when the window was open, when she turned her head to spit them out, they would just come flying back in at my face! Not to mention, since there was a little bit of spit on it, it would stick to my face….ewww. Yeah, so I had to put up with that for most of the ride.

But, we made it to Hefei in one piece… although there was a wicked thunderstorm when we arrived. In Hefei, we couldn’t even find one person that spoke even a speck of english… the taxi drivers pointed us in some random direction, the train station staff ran us in a circle before showing us the bus station, and the bus station people pointed us to another bus station… it was pretty frustrating. If you come to this area of China… know your Mandarin. Regardless, we were able to find the bus to Huangshan (but it dropped us off like an hour away from where our hostel is). We had to end up hiring a guy to drive us an hour to our hostel… I think we almost died like 5 times because the people here drive like maniacs. But we are NOW here at the hostel alive… it is very, very nice. John and I decided to splurge and get a nice room with it’s own bathroom, and a tv (About $18/night). I think we will sit and do nothing for a couple days before going out to check things out.

Wow, these days feel so long! I got up at 6:30am today for the free Tai chi lesson but I was a little late… by the time I was all ready, we were sailing into the first of the Three Gorges. The first gorge is called Qutang Gorge… and at 6:45am, it is quite stunning. The mountains on either side of the gorge are very high and an intriguing combination of shear rock and dense greenery. The “fog” (better known as smog) wasn’t as thick this morning so we could actually see further down the river. Our river guide, Curtis, gave a nice little commentary as we sailed through this gorge (although, I was still half asleep…). The first gorge is actually quite small so it only took us about a half hour to sail through it.

After a spectacular breakfast, we boarded onto a smaller boat to see the “Lesser Three Gorges” which is an area that branches off the Yangtze River onto what’s called the Daning River. The smaller boat took us downstream for about an hour, passing many more beautiful mountains and also many small farms and homes. It’s sad knowing that in a couple of years, those peoples homes will be under water. On one of the farms, the government actually erected a waterlevel sign (showing how high the water will be), and the sign is pretty much on top of a farmers house!

Down on the Daning River, we transfered to an even smaller boat and went down what they call the “Lesser Lesser Three Gorges” (They are so creative). This is the area where they used to have trackers pull the small boats up the river because it was so shallow. Trackers, if you’ve never heard of them, are men who actually use a rope, strung around their shoulder or body to pull boats up the narrow waterway. And back in the day, the men used to do this naked… so there are many postcards from this region capturing the naked butts of these men pulling boats up the river. Unfortunately, since they already started flooding the area in 2003, the water levels are now high enough for boats to run on thier own up these streams and we were not blessed with the site of some naked butts.

So, we made our way out of the Lesser Lesser Three Gorges, to the Lesser Three Gorges and then finally back out to the Three Gorges to continue our journey to the second Gorge, Wu Gorge.

Wu Gorge starts at a huge bridge that we sailed under…. however, this bridge will be destroyed and built higher before the flood in 2009… so I guess it’s something that I will never see again. I didn’t find Wu Gorge as spectacular as the first gorge… the mountains aren’t as high and the smog seemed to thicken a bit so the scenery wasn’t as clear. Regardless, it was beautiful and Curtis gave another great commentary, pointing out the hanging coffins and all the obscure images people see in the rocks… like rocks shaped like Buddha, or Goddess Peak (basically looks like a small rock on top of the mountain). There were lots of cool caves though.

And as I type this out, we are about 5 minutes away from the last of the three gorges. With that said, i should head up to the top of the ship so I don’t miss Curtis’ commentary. Will let you know how the rest of this cruise goes later!

Well, to my surprise, 50rmb can buy me 3 days of internet on the river! I mean, that’s expensive in Chinese standards but considering I paid 5 Euro for 15 minutes in Italy, this was a steal of a deal.

So, we are now aboard the “Victoria Rose” cruise liner… it’s not a huge luxury cruise but it’s still really nice. We checked in without any problems yesterday and our room is very nice… there’s even a TV that has HBO on it! As I mentioned, there is internet on board, as well as an exercise room, a multifunction room that has mahjong, a huge dining room that serves great food, and a big observation deck to see the amazing scenery (although, there has been a lot of fog so it’s not all that clear out). In addition to the ships ammenities, we had a chance to do some Tai chi this morning…. which was actually quite nice, even at 7:30 in the morning, we attended a short lesson about the history and future of the Yangtze river, the ships doctor did a quick demonstration of chinese acupuncture, cupping, and accupressure, and after lunch, there is a “mandarin 101” lecture! haha… yeah, you can bet your butt we’ll be there. I think right after the mandarin lesson, there is actually a dumpling making lesson too… hehe… woohoo!

So, for now, I will have to say, we are having a great time. We will be in Fengdu soon to see the “Ghost Town”… toodles!