Jen & Clare Flee the Western Hemisphere

Jen and Clare sadly depart from the Eastern Hemisphere

hopperq — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 00:46:00 GMT

We're in Tokyo and have 3 minutes to post this before the internet dies on us. It's been fun but we're glad to be coming home. Hopefully the 12 hour flight back to Chicago will fly by (pun intended).

Hail to the King

hopperq — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 13:25:00 GMT

Country number 5! We have decided not to be too ambitious in Thailand because we're both worn out. We took yesterday and today to explore Bangkok, and we will spend the next 3 days on the beach. Bangkok is a refreshing change from Phnom Penh: we watched Harry Potter in a large, stadium-seating cineplex! The Pad Thai is delicious. Real cabs instead of tuk-tuks, and a mass transit system that we have put to good use! One funny note about the movie is that after the previews but before the show started, we all had to stand up for an on-screen tribute to the King. Today we saw a few last wats (temples) next to the Royal Palace (closed), and are looking forward to a break from temple hopping for a while.

It's hard to believe six weeks is almost up. We will try to post one more time from the beach, and we fly back to the United States on Friday night!

The other side of Cambodia

hopperq — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 13:23:00 GMT

After our Tour de Angkor we spent 2 nights in Phnom Penh. Overall, it was a depressing experience. We visited the Genocide Museum, or Killing fields, which is the site of many mass graves from the Khmer Rouge regime. From there, we went straight to the Tuon Sleng Prison, which is where the Khmer Rouge held and tortured people before transfering them to places where they would be executed. The prison was at one time a school, so all the classrooms are either transformed into cells or they now hold mugshot upon mugshot of the people who were detained there. We learned a lot about the takeover of Phnom Penh in 1975 and Pol Pot.

Other activities in Phnom Penh were the National Museum, which houses many artifacts that were removed from Angkor for preservation, the Royal Palace, and the Russian Market. To be honest, we got out of the Russian Market as quickly as we could. It was dark, claustrophobic, smelly, and dirty. We'll leave it at that. One highlight of our time in Phnom Penh was finding a restaurant called "Friends" which had the most delicious and fresh food. It is run by an NGO which trains former street children for jobs in the service industry. We ate there twice!

We probably wouldn't have minded our time in Phnom Penh too much if it weren't for the totally frustrating experience of having to fend off tuk-tuk drivers at every corner. These are little carriages pulled by motorbikes, and the drivers seem desperate for business. They tend not to listen when you tell them you don't need a ride anywhere. Being people that like to walk around and get the lay of the land on foot, we rarely needed tuk-tuks and the constant barrage of solicitations put both of us on edge.

Tour du Angkor

hopperq — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 14:27:00 GMT

In our effort to see as much of Angkor as possible in three days, we hopped on bikes and, like Lance, pedaled hard through the wind, rain, sun, and hordes of small children. Angkor is actually the name of a huge complex of temples (over 50) spread out over miles and miles and built at different times (but generally in and around 900-1200 AD). We began our tour with Angkor Wat, where we were trapped by a torrential rain storm that knocked down a full-size palm tree while we were watching. Luckily every outer wall of Angkor Wat is covered by detailed bas reliefs that depict mythological battles, Hindu gods, and the king who built Angkor Wat with his generals. The Indian influence is evident throughout Angkor, where Hinduism and Buddhism intermingle in carvings on every temple. After Angkor Wat, we proceeded to Angkor Thom which contains Bayon, possibly the most interesting temple if we had to pick one. Every spire has 4 faces on it, one on each side, so the entire building is covered with over 50 identical faces, all with a creepy, knowing smile. We rounded out day one of our tour with quick stops at the rest of Angkor Thom including climbing to top of a pyramid shaped temple that looks rather like Mesoamerican pyramids. The steps on all these temples are incredibly shallow making climbing a four-limbed endeavor. When you look down from the top, you begin to question your sanity in climbing up to begin with.

Day 2 of our Tour du Angkor was a 25 mile tour du force in which we visited 9 temples, not including ones we just biked by but didn't actually dismount to see (out of sheer exhaustion -- we had rusty old single speed bikes). The highlight of the day was probably Ta Phrom which is the only temple intentionally left unrestored so you can see what the temples looked like when the French originally "discovered" them. This is the classic Angkor temple with trees growing out of it and stones covered in moss and lying strewn across the grounds. The temples are all covered in intricate carvings. You can't tell from distant photos, but the lintels, pediments, moldings, walls -- nearly every surface -- is covered in bas reliefs, Sanskrit inscriptions, and other decorations.

On day 3 we put aside the bikes for power and performance: we hired a tuk-tuk. We saw Banteay Srei and Banteay Samre which are further afield (over 25 km away from Angkor Wat) and have lots of well-preserved carvings. Along the way we stopped at the Landmine Museum which describes the devastation inflicted by landmines in Cambodia and how landmines are removed and deactivated. People really do search for landmines by hand, probing the ground very carefully with sharp sticks. The museum also acts as a school and home for as well as a moving tribute to children injured by landmines.

And so concludes our time in Siem Reap. We are templed out, we love amok (a Khmer coconut curry dish), we took a cooking class and learned to cook amok, spring rolls, and banana flower salad, we conducted a conversation with three guys on a motorcycle while biking, we love Cambodians' friendliness, and now we're off to Phnom Penh.

1001 Wats

hopperq — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 10:42:00 GMT

We've only been Luang Prabang for two full days but we've already come to love it. It's small, quiet, easy-going, beautiful, tasty, and it has so many temples that we've lost count of how many we've visited. All those iconic photos you see of monks in orange robes amongst golden temples are accurate. Nearly every temple (wat) is tended by monks, who are often quite young (kids and teenagers). Unlike the temples in China and Vietnam, these are painted in gold and gleam in the sun. The Buddhas, boddhisatvas, and temple artwork also look different: they remind us more of India than China. Rather than try to remember all the wats we visited, we'll just list a few highlights. 1. Being led by two monks, one of which spoke English, down into a cave to see a wat. He gets up at 4 am everyday to pray. 2. Quiet. A very nice change of pace from Hanoi. Plus you can cross the streets without getting run over. 3. Fresh fruit smoothies for 5000 kip (60 cents or so). 4. Crossing the Mekong to see a few wats on the other side. There were no other tourists! 5. Food with lots of herbs and spices. 6. A decrepit old wat on the other side of the Mekong that was on the top of a hill and provided great views of the river and the city. 7. Bright orange robes everywhere. If not on monks then hanging out to dry. 8. Sticky rice with ice cream. 9. Snails everywhere. But not for eating. 10. A huge night market with beautiful goods and much less aggressive vendors. Our time is running out at the internet cafe so that's all for now folks.

China and Vietnam: A Comparison

hopperq — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 04:22:00 GMT

We've been talking and thinking a lot about how China and Vietnam are different from one another. Here are some (we hope) interesting notes on that:

1. More Vietnamese people speak a little English, so it's easier to get around without knowing the local language

2. In China there are many more signs and menus with English translations

3. The people in both countries are very friendly towards foreigners, but in different ways. For example, in China people came up to us all the time wanting to chat in English. That hasn't happened to us in Vietnam. But the people at our hotel have gone way out of their way to accomodate us and make us feel at home.

4. China seems to have a booming domestic tourism industry, while Vietnam's is not as prominent.

5. Chinese vendors are much more aggressive, whereas Vietnamese vendors will listen to you if you say you're not interested.

6. Almost no one wants our picture in Vietnam dispite the fact that we still stick out here.

7. Fake rip-off products seem to be a bigger industry in Vietnam. We see Vietnamese people wearing rip-off Calvin Klein and Dolce & Gabbana with blatant spelling mistakes.

8. China has indoor shopping malls and a much bigger consumer culture. Most products in Vietnam appear to be sold in small independent stores or stalls.

9. Vietnam has mostly sit-down toilets (with toilet paper included), whereas China has mostly squat-a-pots and you must bring your own paper.

10. Vietnam has many, many mopeds and motorbikes. China has these too, but they are mixed in with a higher number of cars and bicycles.

11. Both China and Vietnam have large populations of rural poor. But, China has a wealthier and more noticeable upper class.

We've only spent 3 weeks in a fraction of the cities in China, and 1 week in only 1 city in Vietnam, so it's quite possible that our observations are inaccurate. We just wanted to comment on what we've noticed, but please don't take it as the absolute truth.

Aquabigsea

hopperq — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 04:13:00 GMT

Rip-off brands are tricky sometimes. I didn't even notice that my water was "Aquabigsea" and not "Aquafina" til I was almost done drinking it. Another sidenote, winter melon tea is delicious!

We took a day trip to the Perfume Pagoda on Thursday. Guided tours seem to be the only way to visit the places we want to see, so we went with it. The poorly air-conditioned van was tolerable, but we felt even worse about the lady who rowed us and 3 other adults down the river for over an hour to get to the pagoda. The temperature was 38 degrees celcius.

The Perfume Pagoda is the name used to refer to a group of over 15 buddhist temples that are built near a town. At some point outsiders translated the first word of the town's name as "Perfume", which is where the name comes from. We were only able to visit 2 of the temples because of time and heat. One was in a cave that looks like the mouth of a dragon. The other was a pagoda where a prayer service was being held while we visited. Our guide said that Perfume Pagoda is one of the holiest buddhist temples in Vietnam and that 3.5 million people visit every year during a 3 month long festival. There are up to 30,000 people visiting each day during the week, and 60,000 on the weekends. Since it was not festival season, we enjoyed relative peace and quiet.

Cruising on the Canh Bum 02 (Pronounced Can boom)

hopperq — Wed, 8 Jul 2009 11:22:00 GMT

We bit the bullet and joined another tour. It's pretty much the only way to get on a boat in Halong Bay. The 3 hour drive wasn't bad, and thankfully our guide wasn't partial to long-winded multi-lingual speeches. We had been told by our hotel and by the driver that there would be 14 people on the boat. We found out, after-the-fact, that this meant 14 people sleeping on the boat. 20 other Asian tourists joined us for the day, including a group of Vietnamese Karaoke singers. This was broadcasted over the speakers for the first hour and was less than entertaining. Bad singing in a language you don't understand, and LOUD, well, we won't continue to complain...highlights of the day included:

1. Enjoying the spectacular views. Halong Bay is a body of water filled with tons of tiny karst mountain islands. You boat among these islands and watch the sun set. Really sublime.

2. A jaunt inside the "Surprise Cave." Or, as we thought, our guide was saying, the "Amazing Sublime Cave." He walked us through the cave and pointed out lots of rock formations, asking us to guess what they were. We would, of course, guess wrong and then he would tell us the story behind the elephant, the happy buddha, the lucky buddha, the sea lion, the dragon (does anyone know the difference between a European dragon and an Asian dragon?) or whatever it was. He had a sense of humor, too:

Yap (our guide): Does anyone know what this is?

Dutch guy: It looks like a turtle.

Yap: Yes, it is a turtle. Is it male or female?

Dutch guy: I think male.

Jen: I think it's a female.

Yap: It isn't a male or female turtle. It is a rock.

Hahaha, Yap! From then on when he asked what the formations were we simply said they were rocks.

3. Kayaking around one of the islands

4. Clare jumping in the water from the top deck of the boat and not getting stung by any jelly fish

5. Chatting with Yap about his aspirations for a better job

6. The other characters on our boat -- here's the line-up:

1 lone Irish traveler

2 Canadian ditzes (they didn't know why their kayak wasn't moving forward....yeah, it was still tied to the dock)

3 young goofy/talkative British college boys who are motorbiking through Vietnam

2 older Dutch women eager to coax the British boys into diving into the water naked (awkward)

1 Dutch couple who really hated the karaoke and learned on the boat that Oreos were delicious cookies and not made of licorice

1 French couple who we couldn't communicate with

4 or 5 crew members who took copious notes on our beverage consumption so they could charge us later

7. Row boat ladies who rowed up to our boat on numerous occasions to sell cookies (Oreos and others), Pringles, beer, wine, etc.

We had a comfortable night in our air-conditioned cabin. Unfortunately, we missed the sunrise (we were told it would be at 6 but that was false), but we enjoyed coasting on the boat until noon when we disembarked and headed back to Hanoi.

Tomorrow we're going to see the Perfume Pagoda, and on Friday we fly from Hanoi to Luang Prabang, Laos.

How to cross the street in Hanoi and other words of wisdom

hopperq — Mon, 6 Jul 2009 11:24:00 GMT

1. Don't worry about the Vietnamese hating you because you're American. They're friendly, welcoming, and don't hold any grudges.

2. Do pay attention to the ladies carrying entire fruit markets on their shoulders and bikes. For some reason, only women seem to carry the heavy loads...

3. Don't expect traffic to obey lights or signs, or to show you any mercy.

4. Do enjoy the exchange rate, but bring a calculator.

5. Don't try to ask for anything other than a trip to Halong Bay at the front desk. When you say you want to see more of the "real" Vietnam and get away from the tourists, you get blank stares.

6. Do look both ways before crossing the street. Then look again. You'll have missed at least a couple zooming motorcycles, but just walk forward with confidence and have faith in their swerving abilities.

7. Don't be worried if you don't know Vietnamese. People here know more English than in China.

8. Do try Vietnamese hot pot. Other than the chewy tentacles, the unidentifiable seafood is delicious.

9. Don't leave home without an umbrella in the rainy season.

10. Do drink ginger tea (in China too). It's delicious.

11. Don't expect to walk on the sidewalk. Sidewalks are for driving and parking motorcycles, restaurant seating, street vendors, and generally everything except walking.

12. Do notice the mix of brand new fancy buildings and decaying old ones. Hanoi is changing before your eyes.

13. Don't expect one-stop shopping. There's a dedicated store, if not an entire street, to each individual item (i.e. shoes, water coolers, rice-cookers, moped repair).

Hanoi in 48 hours

hopperq — Mon, 6 Jul 2009 11:21:00 GMT

Give us a city and we'll see all the major sites in 2 days. Day one of our whirlwind tour of Hanoi included 3 museums and was heavy on the American War (what they call the Vietnam War here). The Women's Museum is a tribute to the bravery and courage of Vietnamese women during the war. Imagine picking your child up at the underground nursery in the tunnels after having manned artillery all day. Hoa Lo Prison (the "Hanoi Hilton") is most famous for being where American pilots including John McCain were held during the war but was actually built by the French to house Vietnamese prisoners during the colonial era. It's interesting to compare the American and Vietnamese accounts of the war. According to Vietnam, American POWs played basketball and cooked Christmas dinner while in prison while the US sent women and children to concentration camps. But our American history classes certainly sugar-coated US behavior at times. I suppose the truth is somewhere in the middle. Lastly, after being ripped off by multiple taxis with rigged meters, we made our way to the Ethnography Museum which documents the remarkable number of indigenous peoples residing in Vietnam. In addition to the Viet, there are the Hmong, Muong, Black Thai, White Thai, Tay, Lao, Han, Yao, just to name a very few. Day two began with Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum (which is closed on Mondays but having seen a preserved Mao, we get the idea...) and museum. The museum lacked facts, which was frustrating for those of us not raised in Uncle Ho's shadow, but was big on symbolism. A deconstructed version of Picasso's Guerrnica was used to represent the struggle of the 1930s and one sign said Ho's cave hideout was "represented here by a human brain" (we never did figure that one out). After the museum, we toured the rest of the Ho Chi Minh complex including the One Pillar Pagoda and Ho's Stilt House. Then it was off to the Temple of Literature ("Van Mieu"), Vietnam's imperial college modeled off the Chinese exam system. We then worked our way east to Hoan Kiem Lake in the heart of the Old Quarter and visited the Ngoc Son Temple which is on an island in the lake and houses a preserved giant tortoise. The story goes that a tortoise took the sword that a 15th century king used to drive out the Chinese from Vietnam to the bottom of the lake, making the lake and the tortoises that call it home holy.

Welcome to the Golden Sun

hopperq — Sat, 4 Jul 2009 14:19:00 GMT

First of all: we have lots of new pictures posted due to a fabulous internet connection (see below for explanation). Check out the Guilin, Yangshuo, Lijiang, and Funny Stuff galleries for new pics.

On to business. Happy fourth of July to everyone! It's the end of the day here but festivities should just be beginning at home. We safely arrived in Hanoi. We prearranged to have the hostel pick us up from the airport, which was good because it was quite a ways and would have been an expensive cab ride anyways. By the way, the exchange rate is 17,801 dong to 1 US dollar. We are gonna have to dig up our old division skills. Anyways, we arrived at the Hanoi Guesthouse and were told they just opened a new, nicer hotel 2 days ago. They offered us a room there, the Golden Sun, for the same price as the room we reserved. So we took them up on it, and that's why I am sitting IN our private room at a brand new computer with internet while we watch Arnold Schwarzenneger in True Lies on our flat screen tv. This place is so clean, new, and luxurious. For $8/night/per person. We are very happy with our accomodations! Gonna get some rest so we can go out and explore Hanoi tomorrow. We left to eat dinner (yummy) but that's all we've done so far.

Enjoy the fireworks and parades and pool parties!

Jennifer

PS - the time difference is now 12hrs instead of 13 if that matters to anyone (for Chicago). 11hr time diff for the east coast

Au Revoir Hong Kong

hopperq — Sat, 4 Jul 2009 14:13:00 GMT

Food in Hong Kong was great. Fresh juice and smoothies, fresh salads for lunch, and fresh (though we made sure it wasn't TOO fresh) seafood for dinner. On our one full day in Hong Kong we took the bus across the island to Stanley and checked out the market there. Crossing back over, we then walked through numerous nice shopping malls (these comprise much of Hong Kong) to the pier where we caught a ferry to Lamma Island. We enjoyed a nice hike across that island and met back up with Laura in Kowloon where we had a beautiful view of the HK skyline from the Intercontinental Hotel. Before leaving Hong Kong on Friday we grabbed coffee from Pacific Coffee and shopped a little at the Jade Market. Goodbye Hong Kong! Hello Vietnam!

Hong Kong

hopperq — Fri, 3 Jul 2009 03:00:00 GMT

Where to start? We ate authentic Indian and Middle Eastern food on the same day. There's toilet paper and soap in the public restrooms. The streets glow with neon and skyscrapers dominate the skyline. It's quite a change from mainland China -- you have to go through immigration and customs to get here -- but a nice break before Vietnam.

We met up with our friend Andrea in Shenzhen who kindly put us up Wednesday night, showed us around Shenzhen, and got us oriented in Hong Kong. Then Jen's friend, Laura, met us in Hong Kong for dinner. Many thanks to both of them for being awesome tour guides, giving great tips, and engaging in fluent American English conversations.

We went to the top of Victoria's Peak yesterday, took the Star Ferry, and walked the Avenue of Stars. We're writing from a food court restaurant with free internet (!) so we can't upload any pictures and we'll keep this short. Happy 4th of July!

Things we forgot

hopperq — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 09:28:00 GMT

In our previous posts about Yangshuo we forgot a number of details. Since today was spent mostly eating, shopping for souvenirs, and sweating, we will skip over that and talk about the other forgotten stuff.

On Saturday night we went to a show called "Impressions" by Liu Sanjie. He is the guy who choreographed the opening ceremony for the Olympics here. Cool, right? It's in an outdoor theater situated on the edge of an inlet surrounded by the karst peaks. It's a beautiful spot. Most of the show takes place in the water with hundreds of people doing stuff in sync with each other on boats. There was also a lot of singing, dancing, and stuff with lights. The end was really awesome with probably about 300 girls lined up in the dark in formation. They each had an outfit on that had lights which would flash on and off. Ok, the show is really hard to describe but it was very, very cool. The choreography together with the gorgeous location made it a really mesmerizing experience (for me, at least, this is Jennifer speaking). Clare thought it was more fascinating than entertaining. I bought the DVD if anyone (mom, i know you'll want to) wants to see it.

Another thing we forgot to mention was this British guy who literally turned around on his bike and pedalled back to us so he could talk to us. He struck up a conversation and pretty much carried it on by himself for a good 45 minutes. I think we know this guy's life story (he loves James Taylor and John Mayor, his wife divorced him after 33 years, he now has a chinese girlfriend half his age, he thinks the fajitas at the Rock'n grill in Yangshuo are out of this world, etc., the list goes on). Some people just like to talk.

Tonight we're taking an overnight bus. They apparently have little beds in them that are very narrow and uncomfortable. We sprang for the most expensive option with the hope that we'll actually fit in the beds. We bumped into the other 4 people we rafted here with and all 3 groups of us payed different amounts for what we think will be the same bus tonight. We'll see.

Clare apologies for mis-spelling buoyant and Gollum yesterday. How dare she.

That's all for now, folks! Thanks for all your comments! We're glad people are reading and we both say hi to you!

Photos are on the right

hopperq — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 09:00:00 GMT

Under "Photo Galleries." Uploading is slow over here but we're trying.

Attention! This entry comes before "Mud"

hopperq — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 13:55:00 GMT

Big or little, many people or few....communication with the guy who was trying to sell our group boat tickets for traveling down the Li River was a little confusing. We joined forces with 2 other pairs from our hostel (2 from NY, 2 from Canada) who were also wanting to travel from Guilin to Yangshuo on the same day as us. A raft down the river sounds nicer than a bus ride, so we grouped up with them. It can be expensive to take boats, but we managed a very cheap price and got what we wanted. It was a small (advertised as bamboo, but not quite) raft with 3 small bench seats. The ride was slow and leisurely, and the scenery was gorgeous. This region has karst topograhpy, which are these really strange little mountain cliffs that just stick up out of nowhere. Along the way we stopped at a little island that had cows grazing and water buffalo bathing in a pool of mud. Little did we know within 2 days we would look a lot like those water buffalo (check next blog entry for details). Anyways, after a few hours and then 2 bus rides we were dropped off at the bus station in Yangshuo. Our hostel was within easy walking distance, and very nice! Sunday we woke to rain outside, but were told by the hostel manager that the sun would come out soon. Once it lightened to a drizzle we rented bikes from him, and took off. We followed the road on our map that would take us by the Yulong River. That was a good choice. It really took us out to the countryside, and doing something active after so long felt great! The asphalt road turned to gravel and mud with large rocks thrown in. We were pretty much mountain biking after a while. One rain shower crept up on us and caused us to seek shelter under someone's eve for about 40 minutes. After it passed it was surprising how quickly it turned sunny and hot again! We had brought food to snack on but, needless to say, after hours of biking, we were really hungry. Quick showers and a delicious dinner of dumplings and rice ensued. A top-rate day in a great part of China.

Mud

hopperq — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 13:37:00 GMT

Although our butts were incredibly sore after yesterday's biking, we sucked it up and biked south of Yangshuo to Moon Hill this morning. Moon Hill is named after the rock formation at the top of the hill -- a large arch forming an open circle. At the base two women pounced on us trying to sell us drinks. When we refused, they proceeded to follow us up the entire mountain. Granted the hike only takes about 30 minutes if you don't stop (which we didn't because we were being trailed and there's nothing like a stalker to motivate you to walk faster), but it's entirely uphill and fairly strenuous in the Guangxi heat and humidity. It turns out these poor women follow tourists up and down this hill over and over again trying to sell water and colas for a few yuan each. A humbling realization, like many here in China.

After the hike, we made our way to the Water Cave, which many many people had told us was a must-see in Yangshuo. Actually it's not so much of a must-see as a must-do: the highlight of the Water Caves are the mud bathes and hot springs. Though the cave was impressive in itself -- it's huge and has nice stalactite and stalagmite formations named for what they look like (think the Mini Great Wall, the Jellyfish, and the Snow Mountain) -- the tour was mediocre at best and we had a slew of little kids running around and looking like they were going to fall into what looked like the River Styx at any moment. The mud bathes, however, were lots of fun. Mud is surprisingly bouyant; it felt like floating in the Dead Sea, except that you expected Golem to creep up at any second. The Hot Springs were really really hot but very soothing after our long slog up and down Moon Hill. Conveniently, there was a cold pool right next to the springs so you could switch back and forth as necessary.

Unlike yesterday we managed to get back to the hostel before the downpour! We tried the local specialty of beer fish for dinner which was delicious. Tomorrow we catch the overnight night bus for Shenzhen and Hong Kong. It will be sad to bid the karsts goodbye.

-Clare

Forgive us, for we have sinned

hopperq — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 09:03:00 GMT

My friends, I, Clare, must confess: we succumbed to an organized tour. On a coach bus. With a tour guide bearing a yellow flag and using a loudspeaker as he switched back and forth between Chinese and English. Yes, there were mitigating factors such as the 2.5 hour trip to get to our destination and having to switch public buses multiple times if we went on our own, but these do not make up for the agony that is an organized tour. We hereby vow to avoid tours at all costs.

Our goal was to see the Longsheng rice terraces, but our tour started with a visit to the village of the Yao long-haired people, so-called because the women only cut their hair once in their lives, when they get married. We watched a performance during which Yao women "married" tourist men (both Chinese and foreign). It was excruciating to watch the foreign men perform the ritual Yao customs of carrying the women on their backs and singing love songs to their "wives." We left feeling awkward and exploitative--awkward because another Yao custom is to pinch the behind of people you like, which the Yao demonstrated on us tourists liberally, and exploitative because we were part of busloads of tourists who show up at this village for an hour to gawk at the strange people and leave without ever learning about the culture or what the Yao people think of their lives and of us tourists. That's one of the most frustrating things about the language barrier: not being able to have real conversations with locals about their country, their lives, their thoughts on tourism, etc.

Our next stop on the tour was the village of Ping'an, home to the Zhuang minority culture and the famed Dragon's Backbone rice terraces. After trying the local specialties of bamboo rice and bamboo chicken (literally cooked inside bamboo), we hiked up to the viewpoints to see the terraces. The rice terraces are truly spectacular. When the sun strikes them, the water in the paddies shines making the entire hillside glow. There's not much to say, except that our photos do not do them justice.

The bus ride back to Guilin was more of an adventure then we expected. These villages are out in remote, rural areas and a road was only extended out to them in 2002. The road winds along cliff edges and drivers honk wildly as they come around blind turns. (Although in China drivers always honk wildly as well as swerve and weave; Jen equated it to Mario Kart which is a surprisingly accurate comparison). On the way to Ping'an, we passed an accident, and on the way back that road was closed. We had to take the "old road" which turned out to have a landslide blocking much of it. Luckily a crew with bulldozer was able to clear a path for our bus.

On the bright side, we met some fellow North Americans on our tour who were also planning on traveling to Yangshuo the next day. We didn't indulge in snails with them for dinner but did hook up with them to book a cruise down the Li River to Yangshuo. More on that in the next entry.

Mama Naxi part 2

hopperq — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 08:59:00 GMT

Here's some more information on our time in Lijiang. It's written after-the-fact since it was very hard to get computer access there. This is Jennifer writing from Yangshuo.

We arrived in the Lijiang airport on Monday. We pre-booked a hostel room at Mama Naxi, which we found in the Lonely Planet guidebook and a traveler in Xian said it was a cool place to stay. He said, however, that it would be nearly impossible to find on our own. This is because the old town in Lijiang is a maze of winding cobblestone streets. So, we emailed Mama and she said someone would pick us up. Unfortunately, when we got there we didn't have a ride, so we hopped on the local bus to downtown instead. We then got out and hailed a cab, pointing to the chinese characters in the book under the Mama Naxi entry. It would have been nice for him to gesture in some way to show if he understood what we wanted, but he just kind of looked at us. Eventually we got in and he took us to the old town. He even drove down some of the cobblestone streets that he probably shouldn't have (he got stared down at one point by a pedestrian). When he let us out we still had to walk a ways, and ask for directions. But we finally found it.

We got the feeling Mama Naxi was not too organized because they couldn't figure out our reservation, but we got our own room so it was fine. A little strange to find huge legs of meat hanging from the ceiling outside the room, but we got used to it....the other not-so-nice part was the bathrooms. We only had a common bathroom with no toilet. Just a squat hole like you have to use at all public restrooms. Again, we got used to it...we also got used to the myriad of cats and dogs wandering the premises. Turn any corner and you're likely to find some animal curled up sleeping. I had to be sure to avoid the one dog that barked at me when I left the room at night to use the bathroom!

The awesome part about Mama Naxi was the atmosphere. Every night Mama (who refers to herself in the 3rd person as Mama) calls the guests for dinner and seats you with other travelers and serves your table about 8 main courses. It's a great spread and only costs 15Y, or the equivalent of a little over $2. The first night we ate with an Israeli couple who were traveling for 7 months after finishing their time in the army. The second night we sat with 6 other people from the US, UK, and Australia, all who had been teaching English in China and had some time off to travel.

Mama also liked to send you off for the day with little bags of yogurt and bananas. People don't really refrigerate yogurt here, and they drink it with a straw. It tastes good!

We didn't really trust Mama and her staff to make our next travel arrangements like we have at other hostels, because they seemed a little scatter-brained when it came to detailed information. Mama was also a little hard to understand. We've found that sometimes people are speaking in English to us but it still sounds like Chinese! So, we booked our flight out of Lijiang online using a website someone told us about for cheap local flights.

In Lijiang we visited a pagoda with a beautiful view of the city's rooftops, we walked around a really well gardened and beautiful park with a lake, pagodas, temples, and traditional Naxi music. One night we heard the Naxi orchestra, which was really great. It had flutes, chimes, guitars, gongs, the chinese cello (don't know what it's actually called), and singing. The conclusion of the concert was strange, however. The conductor put up a screen and showed a video of his chinese choir singing Handel's Messiah. Strange way to conclude a concert of ancient and traditional Naxi music...

Our second day in Lijiang we ventured by public bus to a small town called Baisha to see the frescoes in the temple there. That actually wasn't that impressive but we had fun getting there. An English student helped us find the corner to wait on for the bus. She had to ask 2 people for directions in order to help us. She was very eager to help. Then about 10 minutes later she came back because she realized she gave us the wrong information, and helped us again. People here are in general very friendly and eager to help.

That may be about it regarding Lijiang. We were stopped many times on this one scenic bridge for our picture, so we decided not to loiter there. We also got adventurous and sampled the yak meat (tasted like bacon) and yak butter tea (like drinking foamy butter).

Most people used Lijiang as a starting point for the Tiger Leaping Gorge trek. It's a two day/one night trek to see one of the highest gorges in China. Too bad we didn't have an opportunity, but hey it's a reason to return to China!

Mama naxi

hopperq — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 09:40:00 GMT

Blog entry will be short bc computer wants to type in chinese。 lijiang is very pretty。 Hostel called mama naxi has a lot of character。kind english major went to a lot of trouble to help us find right bus。havent tried yak meat yet but yak yogurt is good。naxi is local“minority culture。”