Off To See The World

Well, we have about 4 hours to kill before we can board our boat to go down the Yangtze River so I thought I’d do a little more justice to our 49 hour trainride from Tibet.

The morning we left, I got to experience the sun rising over the mountains as we drove to the train station. It was beautiful, just like the night I came out and watched the sun set over the same setting. At the station, the excitement was building to ride on the train… it’s a new train that only started running in July so the train itself was quite clean and even the hard sleeper was quite soft. This green machine was a thing of beauty… I couldn’t wait for it to take us through the moutains of Tibet.

On the train, we passed magnificent mountain scenery… snow-covered mountains, terraced steps of crops, wild yaks, little traditional houses, sand dunes, patterns of squares made with stones to prevent wind erosion in the sand, blossoming cherry blossoms… and everything in between. It was surreal to me… another one of those moments where it dawns on me where I am.

As we reached 5100m in altitude, I could see the most beautiful view of the mountains and valleys. Luckily, they pump oxygen into the train so we didn’t have any altitude problems… it’s kind of scary thinking that there is pressurized oxygen on board though and everyone still smokes like a chimney.

We passed a few crystal blue lakes and many more beautiful mountains before reaching some of the bigger cities. My memories of Tibet will always be enchanting and I hope to return someday.

Anyway, I just didn’t want to chince out on any of the details on the ride back from Lhasa. I will try to post all the pictures when I get back to Hong Kong (April 10th).

Well, I think that train ride was the longest single train ride we’ve been on. It totalled just over 49 hours but it wasn’t that bad. They had the egg and tomato dish that I like on the dinner car of the train so I didn’t have to eat plain rice or pick meat out or my dish. The food was actually quite good.

John and I spent most of the time doing absolutely nothing… we took some pictures of the scenery between Lhasa and Chongqing, we practiced our mandarin with a couple from Taiwan on the train, we grumbled about people who don’t understand “NO SMOKING”, and we did whatever else we could to pass the time. I think we were the only foreigners on that train though… it was surprisingly empty either way. Oh, we’ve become masters of pooing on squatters on a moving train… well, almost masters…. John left a nasty one on the rim. I guess you could say I got swishes and John’s got bank shots… haha.

Even Fathead got bored so there are pictures of him getting into trouble as well… hehe.

Anyway, we are in Chongqing now. We board our cruise boat tomorrow for our 3 day ride down the Yangtze River so you won’t be hearing from me for a while again. Hopefully I will have a nice juicy blog entry at that time. I’m on the hotel manager’s laptop right now because we asked where we could get internet. The people here are extremely nice even though we can’t even speak each other’s languages.

Ok, if you couldn’t tell already, I am LOVING Tibet. There isn’t anything I could complain about right now other than my own retarded self…. for some reason, I thought it would be freezing cold here and what not… I totally forgot that we would be 3500-5000m in altitude. Sooo, since we’ve been here, it’s been SUPER sunny… not a cloud in the sky… hence, I am now sun burnt. Damnit.

Anyway, today we woke up to another amazing sunny day and Mat, Cheryl, John, a new guy, and I headed out on a one day tour to Yamdrok Lake and Nyeitan Drolmalhakang (a small monastery). Being in a very mountainous area, I was a little worried about getting car sick but the roads were quite nice and our driver was pretty good about not whipping around the corners. Speaking of our driver, this one wasn’t like Prakash but he totally reminded me of him. He was playing all sorts of music; everything from Tibetan music to Bob Marley – Legend, to… yup, you guessed it – Indian Music! He actually had a lot of the same songs that Prakash had!! AND he kind of tried to sing along to them but it was more entertaining than annoying. He didn’t blare the horn uneccessarily but he did do the fist pump… I guess it was funnier this time around because we don’t hate this place 🙂 .

Anyway, as we wound around the mountains, going higher and higher, the view became absolutely STUNNING. The mountains here are amazing… a little interesting too… the sides of many of the mountains are just covered in sand… like giant sand dunes or something. I’m not sure why that is but I’m sure there’s some cool explanation. Each corner we turned, the view got even more amazing…. all the bodies of water and all the rivers were the most incredible shade of blue (not to mention the bright blue sky about us). We actually drove up to Kambala Pass at 4794m, where we got a breath-taking view of Yamdrok Lake… I can’t even put into words how incredible/amazing/magnificent/etc…. the view was. I wish I could upload some photos!! I’m such a retard for not bringing my SD reader. I’ll do my best to describe it though…

Looking straight up, all I could see was bright blue sky and the sun was so bright that even my sunglasses didn’t help… as I scan down and around, I am surrounded by beautiful mountains… some have some snow on them but most of them are just rocky or have small grasses on them. In the distance, there is a snow covered mountain that stands 7000m high. It’s reflection can slightly be seen on the bright turquois lake but the lake is not like glass because there are still sections where there are large floating chunks of ice. Towards the shore, there are huge pieces of ice that are broken and scattered along the shore.. the ice is crystal clear and certain pieces reflect the bright light of the sun right back in your face. And then there’s me, standing on the rocky shore… mouth wide open in awe… taking a million pictures. I guess the best way to describe it is “WOW”.

We spent quite a bit of time there before heading back (along the same road we came on). This time, however, we stopped at Kambala Pass with only one mission on our minds…. We were here to ride a Yak!! Needless to say, the mission was completed successfully!! John and I got some pictures of us riding a Yak with the beautiful lake and mountains in the background… hehe. Man, we’ve petted/ridden a lot of animals on this trip… I love it. That pretty much made our day… we were all smiling ear to ear all the way to Nyeitan Drolmalhakang (Tara Chapel?) where we did a quick stop to look around before coming back to Lhasa.

I think the rest of today will be pretty laid back… our train is bright and early tomorrow… so I guess the next time you’ll hear from me is the 27th (at the earliest)… and if I don’t get internet access before we board our Yangtze River cruise, then I’ll see you April 1st!

I went on an almost enchanting ride last night to the train station to get John and my train tickets to Chongqing. As I left the hostel, the sun was just starting to tuck itself in behind the awesome mountains…. the sky was a blue-purple-pinky color… sooo clear and so beautiful. The road winded around the mountains… it wasn’t long before the light of the sun totally disappeared and the moon shone brightly over the mountains. As I got closer to the train station, I could see the Potala Palace with lights shining on it… it was breath-taking. It was just so huge… and wicked with the silouettes (sp?) of all the mountains behind it… man… it made the long drive out to the train station so worth it. When I returned to the hostel, our 2 friends were still down for the count… John was feeling a little better. He had gone out to get some food.

In the morning, everyone was feeling much better… we could see the sunrise from the window of our hostel room as it peaked over the mountains and lit up the Potala Palace. I can’t believe we are staying here for 20 Yuan a night. After a quick breakfast, we went to the Potala Palace. Now, to see it in pictures is one thing… but I never dreamed of how great it would be to see it in person. It is a HUGE palace. The stairs up were not as bad as they looked from the outside but still quite a trek and the entrance fee was very very steep (100 Yuan!) and you can’t even take photos after paying that… BUT it was SOOO worth it. Walking through the Potala Palace actually brought a tear to my eye…. I don’t know whether it was because I was just in awe at how beautiful it is and how devoted the people who come here to pray are… or whether it was because I just realized that I am in Tibet, one of the top places I have ever wanted to see… and I am now actually here… it almost brings a tear to my eye just to write that. I can’t even explain it… if you ever get a chance to come to Tibet, DO IT! I can already see that China’s influence is coming in full force and I don’t know how long Tibet will be the way it is. There are so many beautiful and interesting people with sooo much history and culture.. and the colors! The colors of the monks’ robes, of the prayer flags, of everything is just so vibrant! I could literally just sit in the main square and watch people. I especially like the no bum/crotch pants that babies wear so that they can just pee and poop on the street… I wanted to take a picture but I thought it’d be a little intrusive…hehe.

Anywho… after the Potala Palace, we went for lunch… the food here is pretty awesome too… John had a Yak steak with mushroom sauce (it looked sooooo good)… and I had cheese momos… man, how come it always sounds like John is eating the most delicious food ever and I’m eating something that you sweep out from under your bed?? haha. The momos were quite good though… so there. We hit the market after and got everything we wanted to buy. We will be too busy tomorrow to come to the market and we leave on the train on the 25th… sigh… it will be sad to leave but the trip must go on! And incase you are wondering, the train from Lhasa to Chongqing takes 49hours! But, I hear the scenery is amazing.

Anyway, tomorrow we are going out to Yamdrok Lake… Namtso Lake is the more famous one but there was just a big snow up there and the road there is closed. Too bad. I guess we will have to settle for Yamdrok. Oh well. I’m sure it will be beautiful. Hopefully I will get a chance to tell you about it before boarding our 2 day train.

Man, I don’t know what it is but I just feel absolutely awesome today. Where should I start?

Ummm, well last night, we basically just relaxed and watched some movies for a bit… then we sat down with our new friends Marlan, Cheryl, and Mat… had some beers and talked about EVERYTHING. It’s great hearing travel stories from different people, especially when they are super charasmatic characters. We talked about everything from our favorite Countries, to the worst poos we had on the travels… it was really quite entertaining. I’m sure you all wanted to know that.

Then, we got up at 5am to get to the airport to fly to Lhasa. Fortunately, everything with our Tibet permit and everything worked out so we didn’t land in some random jail anywhere. And coincidentally Cheryl and Mat were on the same flight so we made our Jouney to Tibet together. The flight was only 2 hours… but man… I’m so glad we flew. The view flying over China and Tibet there was absolutely spectacular. I’ve never seen such awesome mountains spanning over such a huge distance. It almost brought a tear to my eye. It’s moments like that that just make me all warm and fuzzy inside and I realize how amazing this trip has been. Anyway, we managed to get everything figured out at the airport and found a bus that could take us to Lhasa (about 70km from the airport). The drive was also beautiful… turquiose blue rivers, vast land, the most interesting little houses, prayer flags…. all surrounded by the beautiful mountains… I was loving this place before we even got to Lhasa.

Of course, when we arrived here, the first thing we saw was the GIANT Potala Palace…. it was HUGE. We were pretty beat so we decided to go find our hostel first… and surprisingly, it’s like right around the corner from our hostel! We can literally see the whole palace on the hill from our room window! Not to mention a perfect view of all the surrounding mountains (we are on the top floor). We decided to team up with Mat and Cheryl so we are actually sharing a very large room (with it’s own bathroom) for only 20rmb/person… that’s like maybe $3…. not even… haha. Man, I love this place.

After putting our stuff down, we headed out on the town in search for lunch… and boy did we find it! We found and AWESOME cheap place that served tibetan food… I believe I had the veggie bobi thing? It’s like a fajita…. and John of course had to try the local meat so he had a Yak burger… hehe. Yaks…. they rule. We had huge meals for like $4 too.. man. Then we just hit the town for a bit… visited a temple… saw the market… the culture here is absolutely fascinating…. there are so many different groups of people… so many little customs that I have never seen before…. very very cool. Unfortunately, it seems that John, Cheryl, and Mat have developed a bit of mountain sickness so they are lying in bed upstairs… and I have nothing to do… so I’m here… writing to you all… sigh.

Well, I guess I’ll go check on all my fallen comrades… see y’all later.

Oh my god… if you come to Chengdu you HAVE to go to the Panda research center!! Pandas are the AWESOMEST animals ever… they are big bundles of cute fur… that just sit and eat all day… and roll around. Oh man, I can’t even explain how exciting it was. John and I were smiling ear to ear the whole time and snapping like a million picture of them. The babies are soooooo cute. Man, it was awesome. We even got to get our picture taken with one! …although, we did have to wear like plastic gloves and covers on our shoes… I guess they are really susceptable to outside sicknesses. Man, when I get back to Hong Kong, I can’t wait to post these pictures…

Anyway, that was our whole morning (going around the panda place). I’m not sure what we are doing this afternoon… I don’t think we will have time to see the Giant Buddha here. Tomorrow, we fly to Lhasa first thing in the morning… see you there!

Well, after 16 hours on the train, we are now in Chengdu. The ride in the train wasn’t all that bad… there was a guy that spoke some Cantonese so I tried to carry a conversation with him but the more I try to talk about things that aren’t everyday conversation, the more I realize how much my Cantonese sucks. Oh well, it was a bit of entertainment on a long train ride.

Our arrival in Chengdu was fine… our hostel arranged for a pick up and we (along with an Isrealite and 2 other Canadians) made our way to our hostel. The hostel itself is pretty sweet… really chills. We arrived too late to do the Panda tour today so we will do that tomorrow… so instead, we just relaxed for a bit.

I forgot how fun it is to meet random people on the travels since we were so pampered in Hong Kong… but it’s all coming back now. My sides are in pain from the most hilarious New Yorker and his little black monkey (Ed, get your mind out of the gutter… that’s NOT what I’m talking about). This guy should be doing stand up comedy professionally. I mean, we should really be paying him for the entertainment. Not to mention he’s a big black guy in Asia so you can imagine the millions of jokes that we’ve been spitting out. Apparently somebody asked for his autograph in Beijing and asked whether he knew Shaq… haha. Man, Asians rule.

Anyway, we walked around town with Marlon (the New Yorker) for a bit today… entertainment all the way. And now, we are back at the hostel just relaxing… they have a huge selection of movies here so that’s probably what we will do tonight…

Well, I’m guessing you can guess what we did today. That’s right, we went to see the Terracotta Warriors! You can find the replicas all over China but going to see them was pretty cool. It’s almost a little eerie with all those warriors and what not but at the same time, it’s quite breath-taking. I can’t even imagine being a part of such a huge project. The only thing that I didn’t really know is that the rows and rows of soldiers are actually reconstructed because most of them were destroyed during some invasion way back in the day. I’m kind of torn between whether they should have left more of it as ruins or whether it looks better with all the reconstructed soldiers. It’s kind of the same with the wall… somebody was telling us that the places that they didn’t fix up actually look really nice now but are hard to get to. I guess it’s always a fine balance whether to create an image of what it would have looked like in the past or to leave it as a discovered treasure.

Ummm, other than that, we didn’t do much today. The Terracotta Warriors place is a HUGE complex so we were there for quite a while… not to mention that we had to stop at a shopping place… which happened to be a place where they make replica soldiers. It wasn’t actually that bad this time because we didn’t have to sit through a really long lecture and it was neat to see them making the replica soldiers. We also went to a little museum in the town just outside where the Warriors were dug up… it was a really small museum so that took almost no time at all.

Now we are back at the hostel with our 2 new American friends hogging up all the computers right now. I think John and I are going to call it a night and just chill here tonight.

Oh, I just wanted to mention: Mom, I must be your daughter because I had the biggest urge for roasted chestnuts (which are SUPER cheap here)… and now, my fingers are permenantly a brownish-yellow from breaking chestnut shells and eating them like Simon and I eat blueberries (in a mad frenzy). I may have to return to the Muslim quarter to pick me up another bag… hehe.

Ummmm, I think that’s all for now… our train to Chengdu is tomorrow night but we plan to practice our bartering skills at the market tomorrow before we go. See ya!

Well, I’m guessing you can guess what we did today. That’s right, we went to see the Terracotta Warriors! You can find the replicas all over China but going to see them was pretty cool. It’s almost a little eerie with all those warriors and what not but at the same time, it’s quite breath-taking. I can’t even imagine being a part of such a huge project. The only thing that I didn’t really know is that the rows and rows of soldiers are actually reconstructed because most of them were destroyed during some invasion way back in the day. I’m kind of torn between whether they should have left more of it as ruins or whether it looks better with all the reconstructed soldiers. It’s kind of the same with the wall… somebody was telling us that the places that they didn’t fix up actually look really nice now but are hard to get to. I guess it’s always a fine balance whether to create an image of what it would have looked like in the past or to leave it as a discovered treasure.

Ummm, other than that, we didn’t do much today. The Terracotta Warriors place is a HUGE complex so we were there for quite a while… not to mention that we had to stop at a shopping place… which happened to be a place where they make replica soldiers. It wasn’t actually that bad this time because we didn’t have to sit through a really long lecture and it was neat to see them making the replica soldiers. We also went to a little museum in the town just outside where the Warriors were dug up… it was a really small museum so that took almost no time at all.

Now we are back at the hostel with our 2 new American friends hogging up all the computers right now. I think John and I are going to call it a night and just chill here tonight.

Oh, I just wanted to mention: Mom, I must be your daughter because I had the biggest urge for roasted chestnuts (which are SUPER cheap here)… and now, my fingers are permenantly a brownish-yellow from breaking chestnut shells and eating them like Simon and I eat blueberries (in a mad frenzy). I may have to return to the Muslim quarter to pick me up another bag… hehe.

Ummmm, I think that’s all for now… our train to Chengdu is tomorrow night but we plan to practice our bartering skills at the market tomorrow before we go. See ya!

Happy St. Patty’s Day everyone! We met up with my Aunt Rosanna in Beijing on our last day there and after a quick lunch, we went to see the Huotong area which is like an old neighborhood, Prince Huong’s Imperial Garden, the Drum Tower, The Bell Tower, and… umm, I think that was about it. My aunt’s colleague’s niece was nice enough to take us around to see these areas. Then, we all went for dinner. Of course, being in Beijing, we (and by we, I mean everyone but me) had to try the Peking duck… it smelt really good… and according to John, it was delicious. Due to a miscommunication about which train station we had to be at though, we almost missed our train to Xi’an! We had to abruptly leave in the middle of dinner and fly across town to get to the right train station. It was no problem though, we even had time to spare.

The ride was uneventful. John and I slept like babies until we arrived in Xi’an. Xi’an is a lot more modern than I thought it would be… the last thing I thought I’d see here would be a Louis Vuitton (sp?) and Prada store. It’s quite beautiful though with a the big city wall all around it. The 2 american girls we met in Beijing actually also came to Xi’an and are staying at the same hostel too… so that was kind of cool. We spent the afternoon wandering the town together and trying some street food… which was surprisingly very good.

Now, we just got home after searching for an Irish Pub to celebrate the “holiday” but when one of the girls asked the hostel staff whether there was an Irish Pub near by, the staff member responded by saying “yes! We will have another Panda Tour tomorrow!”… haha. Soooo, we decided to go wandering down the bar street on our own. After popping into a few bars to see if anything came close to an Irish Pub (which none did), we settled for a nice little bar and restaurant where we sat down, ordered pub-ish foods and drinks, and played hearts (which I won both rounds 🙂 ). There was actually live music there too so it was a pretty cool atmosphere. I would never think I’d see two Chinese guys with acoustic guitars singing Beatles tunes in a bar in Xi’an.

Anyway, it seems like we’ve had a pretty long day today so I’m gonna turn in. We will be heading out to see the terracotta soldiers tomorrow. See you then!