Travel Heart

~ Hello Tomorrow ~

travelheart24 — Sat, 8 Nov 2008 04:36:00 GMT

Two years ago when I applied for Intrepid I was hoping that they would send me to France… pretty obvious how that worked out for me! hahaha. Two years later I am so glad they didn’t. I would’ve loved to explore Europe, and I still plan to, but this has been so much more of an adventure and a challenge! Not only have I got to see nearly every place in China I could’ve wanted to, but I also got to go to Vietnam, Mongolia, Khazakstan, Thailand and Cambodia. WOW. Six years ago when I first visited China I thought it would be fun to come back for the Olympics ~ little did I know how involved I’d get to be! I saw TWENTY GAMES, plus the Opening and Closing Ceremonies! (and yes, you’re still allowed to hate me for that ;-) ) The past two years have been unprecedented in my life. Its not often one can truly say that they’ve had their dream come true – and that it was everything they could’ve wanted it to be.

None of it would have been as much fun without the people I met and the fantastic friendships that came out of it. I remember our first morning of training, looking around the room and thinking, “how did I wind up here with this crazy bunch?” and then realizing I was totally one of them :-) My dear friends, drinking buddies, confidants, teachers, and co-adventurers… EJ, my worst influence and best friend in China; Jordan, my little brother; Ann Thai, our little Thai Chili!; Spark, who liked to borrow my stories for his blog when he didn’t have any interesting ones of his own, and with whom I shared a great adventure travelling through Xinjiang and Khazakstan; Paul, the original “Rough Guide” to China; Stuart who lets me whinge, and then comforts be and keeps me going; Sharon, dear friend, mentor and commiserater; Zef,”Jiu shifu” whose little bar became my second home and whose advice always hit the heart of the matter; and Daniel, “Da niu” who constantly makes me laugh at the most random things! I have to say a special thanks to the guys, Spark, Paul, Zef, Dan and Stuart, because when Sharon left China in August I essentially had no girlfriends left in the country that I could call up whenever I wanted to chat or needed advice, so between these four great guys they shouldered the burden of… well, Me. Haha :-) To all the others, there are too many to name, how many awesome and fun friends and passengers I’ve crossed paths with during this time.

I would love to write down here all the things I’ve learned in the past two years, about China, about my work, about people, but its too great to quantify. I can tell you the thing I’m most proud of, hands down, is having taught myself to speak Chinese! CHINESE! Are you kidding me?? LOL. The process has been equal parts fun and frustrating, but now I am so stoked when I can ask questions in complete sentences, and understand the response! hehehehehe :-) The other thing that impresses me (now let me pump my ego for a second), is being able to have intelligent conversations with people about Chinese politics, history, culture, language, and world affairs as well. I have learned so much about the world and where other people come from, not just Chinese, but my passengers as well, and I determined early on to be a good ambassador/representative of America, to go against most people’s perceptions of us. I’ll admit though that it still makes me a little happy when people cant pick out my accent, and have to ask if I’m British or Australian J It makes me feel multi-national, like I cross borders. By far the most fulfilling part of my job has been when I’m having one of these conversations with a passenger, explaining China, and I see that they get it. Not just that they comprehend it, but that they absorb it and let it affect their perceptions; they get it. That to me is the most important impact of my work, besides all the good times and seeing really awesome places.

And oh the places I’ve seen and crazy stories I’ve lived! :-D I’m so glad you guys have enjoyed reading them and laughing along with me (or at me) ;-) You really have made this possible for me by being not only supportive but INTERESTED as well! It means SO much, all of your blog comments and emails make me very happy. So, thank you for casting your votes for Favorite Story!! :-D It was a close contest, but after much deliberation the Winner was……. The Wild Wild West! Which garnered extra points for descriptive qualities, LOL. I appreciate all the votes and I was truly surprised at the variety of responses, which also made me happy because lots of people liked lots of the stories for different reasons. I was also surprised because I honestly thought everyone would go straight for the “headfirst in a rice paddy" story LOL!! I think the one I had the most fun writing was either “But Where Has the Tent Gone??” or “No Rest for the Wicked” (including the rice paddy tale) because I remember laughing a lot while writing them. Without a doubt though, my Favorite Trip, with the most wonderful passengers, great adventures, and never ending laughs was……. a tie! LOL, between “It’s All a Bit Fuzzy” whom I call my Fuzzy Ducks, and “The Sun’ll Come Out Tomorrow” whom I call the Westside Pandas. I LOVED every minute of these two trips and every one of the passengers. They were the best of times. :-D

Now because I’m very silly, and have way too much time to think about these things, I’ve put together some funny little statistics to amuse you all…. :-D So here goes:

Number of visits to the Great Wall: 13 (over 5 different sections)
Number of passport stamps: 115
Number of visas: 6
Number of pickpockets: 2
Number of fans I’ve broken or lost: 5
Number of trains I’ve taken: 45
Number of passengers who survived me: 131
Number of kilometers I’ve trekked: 196km/122mi <<86km of which was on the Great Wall>>
Number of hangovers: only 2 that made me question my desire to live
Number of fights I’ve had in Chinese: 5
Journal comment that made me laugh the hardest: “Four cow turds….. almost snorted soda out m’nose, thanks” LOL, courtesy of Crystal ;-)
And most importantly….. Number of PHOTOS…….5385!!!!!!!!!

What I won’t miss about China: Spitting (and hacking), squat toilets, carrying my own toilet paper to the squat toilets, hearing “My Heart Will Go On” EVERYWHERE, ankle nylons, rice wine, bad passengers, and balancing my accounts.

What I will miss about China: Chinese food, feeling like a rock star when you walk down the street and people shout “hello!”, free wireless at every Starbucks, good passengers, speaking Mandarin, living here…

Most Random Moments / Things I Never Knew I’d Do:

Sharing my ipod with a rural farmer on a bus from Longji
Learning all about the growing process of Rice
Herding cattle in Mongolia
Driving a taxi across the desert
Fighting in Chinese
Getting a Monday morning phone call about Khazaks and yurt camps
Becoming a minorities advocate

There’s no way to sum up two years in one blog – so thank goodness I have 20 others for that! hehehe You may be wondering what’s next in my world…. Of course that answer is not one plan but 5 plans :-) That way no matter what works out I still get what I want, lol. In a nutshell, I’m flying home Nov 11^th, to my family, my friends, and my boyfriend. I’d like to find a job in a travel agency, preferably Intrepid related, but with the current economy I may have to rethink that. I am thrilled to be in my dear friend Amy’s wedding in June :-D After that the possibilities are endless – travelling around Europe with Nick, or living in Germany… or New Zealand… or London 2012, LOL! The world is my magic carpet and I’m not done exploring it yet!!

The Show Must Go On!

travelheart24 — Wed, 5 Nov 2008 10:00:00 GMT

21 days to say goodbye to the places I love (and hate) in China.... Can't say I would've really chosen this group of pax to do it with, but we had a good time overall. Bill and Sally and Charlotte, all British, were sweet people~ we made a perfect picture travelling together, everywhere we went people asked if Bill and Sally were the mama and papa, and Charlotte and I the kids :-) Bill's accent was great because on just a couple words, like "here" he sounded exactly like a British butler!

I hope this doesnt sound too pessimistic, but I really didnt have high expectations for this trip, so I guess by comparison it turned out pretty good. In each place we visited I made my farewell's, some happy and some sad. It was strange leaving Yangshuo because my brain didnt comprehend it; I mean, I always come back to Yangshuo. It was lovely there, the last bike ride, last cooking school, last light show ~ I was almost fine with it until I had to say goodbye to my friend Stuart, then I got sad. But the great thing about Tour Leaders and the lives we lead is that you can meet people, or catch up with old friends, anywhere and any time in the world.

From Yangshuo we went to Chengdu, a city I love in China, just because it's green and blue and ethnic and the pandas are there :-) We also watched the Sichuan Opera variety show that's one of my favorites in the country.

Unfortunately after Chengdu came the Yangtze river boat cruise.... anyone who remembers my stories from last year might recall I was not thrilled with this part of the trip. Last year though I didnt make friends with a bunch of Aussie cattle ranchers!! :-D hehehe Charlotte and I made friends with these four Aussie cattle ranchers, one of whom is an auctioneer too! The last night on the boat there was a little Talent Show (oh my), and Grant, the auctioneer, did a mock auction for..... ME! Now if you were auctioned off what do you think you'd go for? Personally I sold for 10.3 million yuan! LOL (about $1.5 million US) :-D not half bad I'd say!

You may notice in this batch of photos, a particularly glowing one, a great big smile I gave as I made my Final Visit to the Terra Cotta Warriors!! :-D hehehehe, I really shouldn't look so happy. I've got nothing against the Warriors, but the museum is a bit boring and I won't miss paying any additional visits to the 8th Wonder of the World. This was my highlight of Xian this trip, except the night we stumbled into a club... my faux "mama and papa" and Charlotte, leaned toward this club entrance as we were walking down the road but wouldn't have gone in if it weren't for Yours Truly :-) I fearlessly led the way down into the club, which was fun enough, but then two show girls came out on the stage and started to sing to Shakira. I thought they did pretty well, but after the song they spoke.... they were Thai lady-boys! How did I manage to find Thai lady-boys in China! hahahahaha

I had a little moment in Xian... its always the little things that set us off, right? I went to buy a phone card to put more credit on my phone, and the guy only had 100 yuan cards. I bought it, and then I took it back because I realized I wouldn't be in China long enough to use it! Then I got really sad... Of course in the time since then I've managed to use well over 100 yuan on my phone, and had to buy more cards, but who's counting! LOL :)

Besides visiting all the usual cities, I got to see one new place on this trip, Hangzhou. Now on the English TV station here in China they are constantly advertising "Come to Hangzhou" and it looks so beautiful! It is famous for the West Lake scenery and every poet and painter in Chinese history has immortalized the lake. The tourist map was quite funny how it listed the scenic spots; there are the Top Ten Scenes of West Lake, followed by the New Top Ten Scenes of West Lake, and finally The Third Appraisal of the Top Ten Scenes of West Lake! LOL! And the names of those Scenes, good gracious: 'Autumn Moon over the Calm Lake', 'Lingering Snow on the Broken Bridge', 'Clouds Scurrying over Jade Emperor Hill', 'Precious Stone Hill Floating in the Rosy Cloud', and my favorite 'Yellow Dragon Cave Dressed in Green'. I was looking forward to viewing these most lovely spots, so armed with said map I set out to be dazzled..... and I will say, the first evening there I was drawn into the poetry and romance of the lake. I found a park that was straight out of a fairy tale, with bamboo groves rustling and twinkle lights everywhere. Sadly the spell was broken the next afternoon when we took a boat trip around the lake. It was a GRAY day, we couldn't see to the middle of the lake, let alone the other shore. There is a place called 'Three Pools Mirroring the Moon' that is pictured on the back of the one yuan note, I was determined to find it and get a photo, but not only was it terribly gray that day it also took my twice as long to walk around the lake as I expected. Oops. Guess I'll have to be content with the one yuan note :-)

Shanghai.... oh how happy I am to bid farewell to Shanghai. Its bad enough that it's a massive and overwhelming city, but this trip was made worse by one and only CHARLOTTE. Charlotte had been sick the two days we were in Hangzhou, so when we got to Shanghai she had to make up for two days without human contact by chattering to ME! Bless her heart she didnt have anyone else to 'play' with, but she was driving me up the wall!! "whatsthat?whatsthat?whatsthat?whatsthat?" OH MY GOD. Enough said, I didnt kill her and she wasn’t the death of me either. I did have a good time in Shanghai going out with another tour leader friend for Halloween :-D I was very demure in a Chinese Opera mask.

And finally Beijing.... I've grown quite fond of Beijing during the time I spent here over the Olympics. This trip includes guided visits to the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven AND the Summer Palace, so I got to benefit from listening to a guide in each of these places I've been before but heard new stories. I made my 13th and final visit to the Great Wall, and unlike the Terra Cotta Warriors the Wall never disappoints. It is still awe inspiring. My only disappointment was in realizing it was my 13th visit and not my 14th like I had thought, haha.

So that's it, my last trip as a Tour Leader in China!... WOW. My true feelings on all that will follow in a seperate blog ~

The Wild Wild West

travelheart24 — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 17:05:00 GMT

If there were such a thing as a Uigher cookbook it would have exactly 5 recipes in it -- and 4 of them involve LAMB! Lamb is good, the kebabs are great (kawap, in Uigher), but a girl can only eat so many sheep! The nan bread on the other hand is fantastic :-)

Running a Silk Road trip is considered among the crown jewels of tour leading in the China region. The trips are in short supply and everybody wants them; to visit places like Kashgar and Turpan, to eat lamb kebabs and nan bread with locals in dupkah hats and hair scarves, to see where the Great Wall ends and to cross the Takelamakan Highway are all part of the appeal. What’s not listed in the brochures are the marriage proposals, rodeo camels, or verbal brawls! The past three weeks have not disappointed, and I had a great group of pax to share it with which made for one great trip :-) Geoff and Mary, Ross and Rachel (who were not together, despite my jokes), Ellen, and powerhouse named Dimitra were my unsuspecting travel buddies along the Silk Road.

After the usual sights of Beijing and Xian we stretched our legs and took the first steps along the Road to the Unknown. Jiayuguan was the first stop, and home of the End (or Start) of the Great Wall, depending how you look at it, haha. There is a Fort there that is just awesome in construction, with layers of walls built to defend the center. Getting to Jiayuguan was enough of an adventure, as I nearly got myself married off to a professor’s son! My understanding of Chinese seems to have grown by leaps and bounds the past few months; I can actually have a two-way dialogue and understand the gist of the conversation! Which is fun and helpful, but can get me into trouble when I’m roped into a conversation by someone who finds it fascinating just speaking to a Westerner. I found myself in this position on the train to Jiayuguan, with Mr. Wang, a professor and my future father-in-law (!) hehehe. At first he wanted to tell me all about his work, but then he started talking about his son who would like an American girlfriend…. LOL. I laughed it off, and laughed again when he gave me his son’s email (killlergrant… wow) but I was speechless when he came back and said, in English, “Would… you… like to be…. my daughter?” :-O He started busting up too so I just laughed again, whew!

Our next adventure that didn’t involve my marriage status, was a camel trek in Dunhuang. We arrived before dawn in order to see the sunrise over the Mingshan sand dunes, but the ride out to the dunes was the best part of the trek, because it was like a scene straight out of the Three Wise Men. The sky was thick with stars and there we were in a line of camels plodding across mountainous dunes. Of course we couldn’t go in peace – how boring – no, Dimitra’s camel tried to throw her off! Twice! She was right in front of me and I watched that camel buck like a rodeo horse, but Dimitra held on like a champ. Dunhuang is also where Rachel and I discovered a mutual love of Disney music, and proceeded to sing as many songs as we knew, all the way home :-) I even had a rousing chorus of "It's a Jolly Holiday with Ja-ami!" sung in my honor.

Dunhuang gave way to Turpan, still far and away one of my favorite parts of the trip. In one day tour we managed to see two ancient cities ~ Tuyoc and Jiaohe ~, the Bezlikek Buddha Caves, the karez irrigation system, and the Flaming Mountains. We had a fantastic local guide named Momin John, from whom I learned SO much about the Uigher people, Xinjiang province, Islam, and many other things I would love to convey here but I’m afraid they’re only interesting in the context of the places we visited. The majority of the Silk Road runs through Xinjiang province, which means “New Frontier” in Chinese, and it truly is. Turpan is the first stop that really feels like a different country, or a different world. The place is a desert but grapevines grow in abundance giving a feeling almost of Tuscany as we walked among the vineyards. The people here are Uigher and Muslim, a world away from most Chinese people. They dress conservatively and women cover their heads in scarves; donkey carts equal the number of taxis in the city, and every face is a photograph waiting to be taken. Unfortunately that’s exactly what we couldn’t do, because of the Islamic belief that any image of a person is a graven image, photos were generally avoided. Not to worry though, we made up for it in the photos of the cities and landscapes. All of my pax really liked Tuyoc, an ancient city over 2000 years old that is still inhabited. It is truly a piece of living history, not to mention beautifully located in a valley of the Flaming Mountains. The karez was equally fascinating, a brilliant irrigation system built on principles of gravity and the local water tables, but nearly 2000 years old as well. <<if you’re interested I’ll explain more about it when I get home >>

And then there was Margaret….. Margaret wasn’t part of our tour group but I doubt any of my pax will ever forget her, hehehe. We were visiting Jiaohe, which is a city that was ruined in the 12^th century; another tour group arrived as we were looking around, and most of them appeared to be about the same age as the city walls, but not as sturdy…. They were wearing name tags and as they passed by us Dimitra says clearly, “Hello Margaret, how are you enjoying your holiday?” Poor Margaret was so fantastically confused – until her tour leader reminded her she was wearing a name tag, while we were trying so hard not to laugh we were nearly wetting ourselves! You would’ve thought she’d heard a voice from a burning bush, poor woman! :-D LOL

~~ When you get a phone call at work, does it ever go anything like this? "Hey Jami, when you get to the yurt camp next week can you make sure they'll still be there in a month for the next group? Cuz ya know, they're nomadic, so they might just pack up camp and head for the hills." hehehehe, I did actually get that phone call, and I had one of those "This is my job??" moments, LOL. The yurt camp was... an experience. The tents are situated next to a beautiful lake called Heavenly Lake, they're round like the Mongolian gers I visited, and the insides are decorated with such colorful rugs that I felt like I'd fallen into the Jeannie's bottle from I Dream of Jeannie -- and of course I had to take a photo as such ;-) Our two nights there were pretty much a slumber party. The tents supposedly sleep 12 people, but we were comfortable with 7 in there. For some reason the second night no one could sleep, so at 3am Dimitra and I went outside to look at the stars.... much like the camel trek, the sky was thick with them. We saw three *shooting stars*, so awesome. The peaceful surroundings notwithstanding, this was the site of my first fight of the trip. Long story short, the yurt owner, a Khazak man named Rashit, tried to rip off my group and jerk me around over the price of a lamb <<again, is this part of your regular Monday morning??>> I didn't appreciate this treatment so I stood up to Rashit, and ended up getting my way after much negotiation, whew.

The crux of the Silk Road trip is a three-day bus ride across the Takelamakan Desert - the second largest sand desert in the world, and yep, that's bigger than the Gobi. We crossed nearly 1000 miles, on a highway straight through the middle of the desert. A camel would take 8 days to cross the same distance. It was surprisingly painless, thanks to my great passengers, awesome driver, and a couple good books. The biggest downside was truck stop toilets.... my favorite was the cardboard box around a small platform -- honestly didn’t smell too bad, but the large holes in the cardboard were very badly located for privacy. Arriving in Hotan after these days in the desert was one of the highlights of the trip. In one fell swoop, we visited a bread maker, a wooden bowl carver, a carpet factory, a silk manufacturers, a water mill, and embroidery shop, and a very local bazaar/market. Our guide Helil was darling, and he told us more about the Uigher/Chinese conflict. (Again, ask me for more info if you're interested).

Our last stop on the Silk Road was Kashgar, the westernmost city in China, bordering Kyrgistan. Kashgar looks like a picture out of the Middle East or Morocco ~ mosques and bazaars and parts of the ancient city swirl around locals and visitors alike. The Sunday Bazaar and the animal market or famous in China and they did not disappoint. The colors and smells, the chaos, the faces ~if I could take a photo of ever face, every hat, every silk scarf, well I'd have a thousand photos instead of 750 ;-) We picked the perfect time of year to visit this region, not only is the weather perfect, but the Xinjiang melons and grapes were all in season. Oh and the pomegranates! In the bazaar they were making fresh squeezed pomegranate juice that was SO good.

The trip didn’t really end on a high note; I managed to get the police called on me.... ():-) We'd gone to karaoke in Kashgar, but after a frustrating hour and 1/2 in which we couldn't get the karaoke machine to work properly, we left saying we wouldn't pay the full 200 yuan for a machine that didn’t work. We'd still pay for all our beers, 125 yuan, but not for the room. That didn’t go over so well with the owner. He cornered me outside and wouldn't let me leave, but there was no way I was going to pay this creep. He threatened to call the police and I said 'by all means'. So he did, and I explained the whole bloody thing to them in Chinese, and.... they sided with me! Well, sort of, they told us to split the difference, so we paid 160, but to me it felt like a victory. 48 hours later I was in another fight (good lord!), with the hotel front desk, who were insisting that my passenger had broken the toilet seat in her room, and she's insisting that she didn’t. Round and round and round we went, because they didn’t want to give me my deposit back. That situation deteriorated rapidly, but in the end I got my way, even if I had to cry to do it! .... I'm exhausted, hahahaha. :-)

Up again and take another, tomorrow I start my LAST TRIP EVER! :-( Tired as I am of this, I'll still miss it very much. I've only got 3 pax on this trip -- since none of you signed up! :-P I hope it's significantly less eventful than the last one, that’s all I can ask. Once I get myself sorted out at the end of the trip I'll be coming home mid-November :-) See you all very soon!

Currently Reading: Jasper Fford's 'The Big Over Easy' and 'The Well of Lost Plots'

Beijing Huan Ying Ni!

travelheart24 — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 15:46:00 GMT

It only took me until Day 9 of the Olympics to recognize one glaringly obvious fact - namely that, while the Olympics have been amazing and it is incredibly cool to be part of them, they are also a LOT of Sports; SPORTS, all day, every day... Brilliant hey? Yes, well this occured to me at the same moment that I admitted I dont watch Sports all day every day in my regular life! Haha, so while it has still been AMAZING, there are also times my attention wanders.

Despite this, I have learned about a lot of cool sports from the whole thing. The most interesting new one (new to me at least) was Handball. For those of us in the States who have never heard of it, its like a combination of basketball and soccer (football for my non-American friends ;-)). It's played with a small 6 inch basketball that is occasionaly dribbled, and shot toward a soccer/football net. The first match I saw was Men's Russia vs. Iceland, and I swear to you all the Iceland guys needed were Viking hats and they would've totally fit! The second match was Women's Brazil vs. Korea, also very cool. The Brazilian goalie was c-r-a-z-y (and a bit useless), but Brazil still won because they had great shooters. The score was close all through the game, but Brazil won it at the end by a kick ass shot literally with one second on the clock! Plus it was fun cheering for Brazil because the stadium was full of Chinese and they dont care much for Koreans, LOL.

The most FUN game I went to by far was the beach volleyball game! And I'm talking Men's, haha, although guys, there were dancing girls at every time out in bikinis, SO CALIFORNIA hahahaha. It was just great because the whole atmosphere felt like an awesome beach party, with great music too! Definitly the first stadium where I got to hear "We Will Rock You!" :-D and not only that but "Dont Bring Me Down" and "Born to Be Wild", it was awesome! Plus I discovered it really is fun cheering for your home country, as the first game was US vs Germany. We rocked it in two sets, didnt hurt that the blocker on our team was 6'7", good lord. I certainly wouldn't want to meet him across a net. The second game was great too, if only for the ending; the match was Georgia vs. Netherlands, and Georgia battled hard and won. When they won, one of the two guys jumped off the court and started running up the stadium stairs; I thought he was going to his family, but he kept running all the way to the top of the stadium where all the country flags were, straight to the Georgian flag, and raised a huge cheer! It was awesome :-D It was only the quarter final match, but just incase they didnt go to the medal round he had his moment and honored his country. So cool! Oh you won't believe this though, he took the game winning volleyball and served it into the crowd, in my direction.... the ball literally came straight at me, I put my hand up, it rolled across my palm, and the guy behind me captured it! NO WAY! I considered putting up a fight for a second but then I remember I'm a tour leader and cant carry stuff like that around! hahahahaha But it still would've been cool.

Other highlights... in Weightlifting I got watch a man lift 175 kilos over his head - that's 385 pounds.... :-o In Judo I watched an awesome Mongolian guy take down the Japanese champion with the highest scoring Judo move there is - to actually throw the guy over your shoulder flat onto his back, worth 1000 points. I also found out later that day the Mongolian guy went on to win gold. I did see a ping-pong session - not exactly a highlight, but I did shake my head and think 'oh my god, I'm watching ping-pong in China, wow'. I saw one very preliminary round of Men's Gymnastics, and one Swimming heat... but very very sadly no Michael Phelps :-( I was happy when he won the 8th gold medal, but at the same time my thought was 'There goes my last chance to see him" hahahaha

Speaking of gold medals, you may have heard a rumor about the Chinese CLEANING UP in gold medals in like every single sport! Good gracious! I love China, I do, but even I think it is a bit ridiculous how many golds they've gotten! I went to the Women's Diving final and (since the US wasnt in medal contention) I was routing for the Canadian girl :-) She came soooooo close to taking the gold, oh, but in the final dive a Chinese girl passed her point count, nooooo. And if I hear one more "Zhong Guo Jia You!"..... JK (kind of).

Overall its been a very random, amazing, TIRING two and a half weeks. I've seen 18 Games plus the Opening Ceremony :-D and you have my full permission to hate me for being such a lucky little bi-atch. I've posted photos on Facebook and Snapfish, even I get tired of the sports ones after a while, but I made myself take at least one at each event so I could remember what I saw and when.

So I've got two days left of the Games, tonight I take my group to the Athletics Final, tomorrow night is the gold medal round of Basketball (yay!!), and then the Closing Ceremonies. I'm posting this now because as soon as the Games end my boyfriend Nick is arriving and I will probably be pretty incommunicado for the next two weeks! :-D I hope you all have enjoyed the Olympics, and I appreciated all your comments on my facebook photos; I love knowing that you really care where I am and what I'm up to. Love you all!

Currently Reading: The Kommandant's Girl, and Shadow of the Wind

Modern Nomads

travelheart24 — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 07:01:00 GMT

CHINGGIS KHAN (aka Genghis)... if I could sum up Mongolia in two words it would be Chinggis Khan. For a guy who lived 800 years ago he has quite the personality cult following; he's everywhere in Mongolia! He's on all the money, his statue is in the square, the local vodka is Chinggis, you fly into Chinggis Khan Airport - truly. Granted he was the greatest leader Mongolia ever had. Between himself, his son, and his grandson Kublai Khan, they united Mongolia from a bunch of nomadic tribes into one of the largest empires in history ~ did you know at its greatest the Mongolian Empire stretched from Austria to Vietnam??

I flew into Chinggis Khan Airport two days before I was supposed to meet the group so I could look around Mongolia a little bit. Thanks to a supreme lack of planning on my part I managed to arrive at the end of the Naadam Festival, the biggest and most exciting festival of the year in Mongolia. Naadam is an annual festival, and is comprised of the Three Manly Games (seriously) - horse racing, archery, and wrestling. The wrestlers are amazing, they're built like Paul Bunyan, no sumo style here. Unfortunatly watching the wrestling isnt all that exciting because these giant guys have strategies that prevent them from making many moves or taking many risks. So most of the match is uneventful until the big finish, but it is by far the favorite of Mongolian sports. And their uniforms, oh my, essentially a blue speedo with a burgundy half-jacket, and great big boots... stylin' :-)

I joined the group and went with them on the city tour around Ulan Baatar, the capitol city of a whopping 1 million people. All of Mongolia has only 3.5 million, spread over 15 million km's. We went to the Gandantegchenling Monastery, which is a Tibetan Buddhist temple, and learned so much about Buddhism and Mongolia from our guide Nemo. Not only did he tell us about Mongolia, but he told us something very strange: Mongolians are superstitous over children, and until a child is 3 yrs old it is bad luck to say that the child is cute or handsome or beautiful -- so it's good luck to say what an ugly baby someone has! :-O This was really killing me because the Mongolian babies were sooooo cute! I mean ugly, aaagh! I didnt get any pictures of the 'cute/ugly' babies because they also believe the photos steal a bit of their soul. Mongolians believe in a combination of Tibetan Buddhism and shaamanistic religion.

The best part of the trip was getting to go with the group out to the ger camp. The vast majority of Mongolia is countryside so going out to the ger camps is the whole reason to visit this country. It was really fun because it felt like being at summer camp :-) We got to do archery and go horseback riding on tiny Mongolian horses. My horse, according to the guide, was a former racehorse! So he had to be kept on a lead the whole time with the guide so he wouldn't run away with me! I called him Speedracer and he even had a racing stripe down his mane :-) As we were coming back to the camp, the guide who had my horse's lead left us and came back a while later with a herd of cattle.... totally normal? Then he took my lead back and I got to ride along with him while he herded the cattle back to the camp! This is definitely going on the list of 'Things I Never Expected to do in my Life' -- herding cattle in the Mongolian countryside! awesome :-D On the way to the camp we stopped to try the local alchohol..... FERMENTED MARE'S MILK. Home-brewed too, mmmmmm. It literally tastes like yogurt that's gone bad a day or two before :-S But like all local horrible specialties, the Mongolians love it! In moderation; the emporer used to force people to drink fermented mare's milk as a punishment >> 5-10 LITERS at once! WOW.

When it was time for me to take the group on to Beijing, we took a 30 hour train from Ulan Baatar to Beijing, including a 7 hour border crossing... :-S It was surprisingly interesting though, because at the border the wheels (or bogies?) had to be changed from the Mongolian track style to the Chinese tracks. They actually kept us on the train while they did this - which means one by one the train cars were disconnected and lined up into the elevators, then while we're still in the cars, they lifted the carriages, pulled the bogies out and slid the new ones in! Reconnecting the cars was a little less fun because they basically rammed the cars together to secure the couplings << once or twice is okay, 16 cars worth is a lot of clanging and banging, especially at 1am. But overall, a very interesting thing to have seen.

Beijing was Beijing, we ran our legs off for two days before the trip ended. I did celelbrate my 10th visit to the Great Wall :-) This group of pax was fun and I think it would've been cool to go the whole trip with them, which is more than I can say for the group I started the following day. The first trip ended Sat night, and Sunday night I started the next group for the same Trans-Mongolian trip going westbound back to St. Petersburg. This group was a whole bunch of oddballs (who didn't listen) and I was happy to put them on a plane this morning and leave them for the other leader to deal with :-)

So now I'm back in Beijing, for the next 6 weeks! I officially got a temporary job during the Olympics, working as a Coach Host (Coach like a big bus, not a sports Coach). I'll be picking up groups of pax at the airport, shuttling them around for three days at a time, and VERY LIKELY GETTING TO SEE SOME OF THE OLYMPIC GAMES!!! :-D :-D You have my full permission to hate me, I know I'm ridiculously lucky. So I'm stoked. The only sad drop in my cup is that one of my dearest friends in China, Sharon, is going back to England in about 2 weeks :'-( I'll be staying with her until she leaves, but then I'm all by myself in China.... not really, but it feels like it. If that's the saddest drop in my cup, then the happiest drop (or cupful) is looking forward to the end of August when my boyfriend Nick comes to visit :-D :-D :-D Hurray! Only about 5 weeks now :-D

Currently Reading: The Travels of Marco Polo << unfortunately disappointing! For a guy who got to explore some of the most amazing civilizations and see more of the world than anyone alive at the time, he was a terrible storyteller! boo

But Where Has the Tent Gone??

travelheart24 — Fri, 4 Jul 2008 03:04:00 GMT

How many adventures can three girls have in two days?? Quite a few it seems! Just off the top of my head, we rode camels across the Tenger Desert, went sledding on the sand dunes, had one of our tents blow away in the wind (!), and celebrated 4^th of July with s’mores and firecrackers! It would be just my (good) luck that this trip got rerouted from the Tibetan grasslands area, so instead we went on this camel trek in the desert :-) Straight off an overnight train, my two passengers, Olivia and Katie, and I set off with our local guide, Lionel (as in Ritchie…) and the camel driver, Lao Lu. Of course we named our camels, hehehe, so in the photos you can meet, Samuel, Oscar, Curious George, Ginger, and my Abu :-D Oscar was Katie’s camel, and a more unfortunate animal you have never seen… that poor camel looked like it’d been beaten with an ugly stick every day of its life until it gained a permanently doofy and unattractive sneer , WOW. I thought Abu was cute, but in general camels are cuter in cartoons than in real life, hehe. They look a bit like ostriches, strangely, with massive craniums, bulgy eyes, and wild hair. Their feet are big and squishy and black and looked almost like they’d stepped in four cow turds and were carrying them with them! LOL! Bear in mind, I really enjoyed riding the camels, but they were so funny. Besides, we weren’t exactly fashion plates ourselves; in our attempts to keep covered up from the desert sun we wound up with a hilarious mismatch of shirts and pants and scarves and hats, goodness. The desert was beautiful, Tenger means “big like the sky” in Mongolian ~ everywhere we went were picturesque scenes of rippling sand and smooth dunes. We spent two hours riding before lunch and two hours after. I’m a terrible rider, I lean forward when we go down hills and back when we go up, I don’t think I helped poor Abu at all. Four hours bouncing around on camel humps was enough to make us well sore and happy to set up camp. After we pitched the tents we went to find the biggest sand dunes around to sled down! So much fun!

We spent quite a lot of time out among the dunes, then came back to camp to play some card and dice games. We’d been there a while before Lionel suddenly looked up and asked, “Why are there only two tents?” Sure enough one of our tents (MINE) had blown away in the desert wind! <<Note: the guides mostly set up the tent, just so I don’t get any grief for it not being done properly ;-)>> Picture this, our campsite is in a depression with three higher dunes on either side, so wherever the tent has gone, it’s gone over a dune and out of sight! We set off in different directions and found it about 5 minutes later, none the worse for its independent explorations :-) No sooner had we gotten my tent back and secured it, when the tent that the guide and the driver were sharing fell down, LOL. Twice they put it back up before discovering one of the supports had snapped. Olivia (aka MacGuiver) tried a few solutions before suggesting they take the great big shade umbrella we had and open it inside the tent – and it worked! We had so much fun at this campsite! There was certainly no lack of entertainment, hahaha. It got dark about 8:30 and we made a campfire. Even though it was July 3^rd, I told everyone I wanted to celebrate 4^th of July, so we lit off firecrackers we’d brought with us, and roasted marshmellows for smores! Even our camel driver loved the smores :-D It was so great.

Whew, believe it or not there was more to the trip, haha. Besides the usual visits to Shanghai and Xian and Beijing, we also went to Shaolin, where there is the most famous kung fu temple and training center in the world. Of course we did a kung fu lesson while we were there – and nearly DIED, oh my god! I’ve done kung fu before, in Yangshuo, a few times even, but this was like freakin’ kung fu boot camp! The moves themselves weren’t so hard, it was the stretching and calisthenics that nearly killed us. All three of us truly almost cried when the instructors was stretching our legs, but he took no notice, despite this being our first day. Can I just say I did a standing back bend for the first time since I was 11?! GOOD GRACIOUS. And don’t even get me started on the frog hops we had to do across the mats, oy. Not surprisingly we were very very sore for about three days after. The girls recovered just in time to try the bike ride around the Xian city wall (I’ve done it before, thanks), so they were sore again. That wasn’t so bad, but from there we rode the camels = sore bums, and three days later we were in Beijing climbing the Great Wall! I swear I should be so fit by now… oh well :-)

My two passengers were great, Olivia and Katie Kit, from England. They were so easy to please, it was fantastic. Two days into the trip we took our first train, on the way there Katie goes “I like taxis!” and Olivia goes “I like trains!” and all I could say past laughing was “well everyone’s happy then!” Their only hang-up’s lay in their extreme phobia of bugs, and Liv’s fear of stuffed animals… yeah. We each bought about 3 new books in Shanghai and have our own little book trading club; we’ve been playing with daily vocab words (yes, we’re geeks, haha); and we sing songs all the time – pop and Disney, I’m so happy, hahaha. Katie I called ‘Kit-Kat’ and they called me ‘Jammy Dodger’ – apparently it’s a British candy :-) Katie is second generation Chinese from England, and she speaks Cantonese but not Mandarin. We had a crazy time because every time we went to a restaurant, or anywhere else, the waitresses would speak to her first, then they couldn’t understand why she didn’t understand them, and they completely ignored me trying to explain what was going on, good gracious. It was a little frustrating for Katie because they kept saying to her “You’re Chinese, why don’t you speak Chinese”, but she does, just not Mandarin. It was a little frustrating for me too because they completely ignored me just because there was a Chinese face among us. But oh well, it was a different experience, and the girls and I have had a great time. Plus we've been totally girly together for two weeks, talking about boys, etc ;-) and good lord they let me go on about Nick, hahaha. We've been shopping, bought shoes, got massages, had girly cocktails and generally a ton of fun!

So I had to say goodbye to my two fun girls, but I'm still excited because in one week I'm going to Mongolia!! :-D We have an interesting situation right now, normally these trips are lead by leaders from Russia, but they're having trouble getting visas too, so we're splitting the trips. The Russia leader will go with them from St. Petersburg to Ulan Bataar (Mongolia), I'll meet them there and take them to Beijing! I've got two of these trips scheduled right now, potentially three, and I'm stoked!

Currently Reading: Persuasion and Mansfield Park -- all Jane Austen, all the time :-)

Walking Off the Map

travelheart24 — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 02:35:00 GMT

WALKING OFF THE MAP

Kashgar, Kuqa, Urumqi, Turpan.... if these names don’t evoke images of Arabian Nights, deserts, camels, silk, jade, nomadic shepherds and ancient cities, they should :-) Together these things embody the essence of Xinjiang, China's westernmost province and corridor of the Silk Road. At the end of my last trip I flew to Kashgar to meet my friend Spark and explore Xinjiang. From our first walk around that evening I was struck with the smell of smoke on the air from the outdoor street kebab stands (lamb on swords, mmm), the heat, and unusual combination of cultures. The people of Xinjiang are mostly an ethnic minority called Uighers (pronounced 'wee-gers'). Their culture and language are much different from the rest of China. Uighers are of Central Asian descent, their language is Turkic - totally different than Chinese - and some happy combination of genetics has given them the most beautiful olive skin, dark hair, and strikingly clear eyes. They are mostly Muslim and women wear head scarves. Mosques and minarets are on every street, you'd hardly know you were in China.

Spark and I explored Kashgar for a day, visiting the Tomb of the Fragrant Concubine, the old city, and the famous Kashgar Bazaar. The bazaar was food for the imagination, with heaps of spices and nuts in stalls, silks hanging from every surface, carved gourds, jeweled knives, and gaudy gold vases - it was so Aladdin! :-)

Our first (of four) overnight bus took us to Kuqa, and here we really did walk off the map :-) Well, we didn’t have a map so we drew our own as we walked around the city. We felt very Intrepid as we explored places our regular trips don’t go to, and earned our map-making Boy Scout badges, hahaha. We made friends with a local Uigher man, Mohammed, who told us some interesting things about local attitudes and ideas. They're a bit controversial for me to record here, but ask me anytime and I'll tell you about it...

We didn’t even have one night in Kuqa before we were on another overnight bus, this time to Urumqi. Our goal here was getting ourselves visas to Kazakhstan -- did I mention we went to Kazakhstan?? :-D hehehehe. Both Spark and I had a deadline when we had to leave the country and re-enter to reset our visa validity, so we opted to cross the border into Kazakhstan for a few days! And no, I didn’t tell my mom until I got back safely ;-) Our day in Urumqi was a bit crazy, running back and forth from the visa photo place to the Kazakh Embassy, to the bus station for tickets, back to the Embassy, and back to the station to take off the same night! <<That's 3 consecutive nights on buses, by the way>> It didn’t help our stress levels when, we got our passports submitted a half hour before the deadline for the weekend and were told to return at 4:00 to get them. We went to buy bus tickets on faith that we actually going to get these visas approved the same day, but when we returned to the Embassy they were closed...! They've got our passports and its a Friday afternoon, we may not see them again til Monday... boo. A guy was walking around behind the gate, he looked like a gardener, but he took the receipt we had for the two passports and disappeared.... pile on the stress. About 5 minutes later he returned with our passports complete with shiny new Kazakh visas! Hurray! and off we went to the bus!

THROUGH THE KHORGAS PASS

The road to the border took us through vast expanses of NOTHING.... not terribly interesting, but it does give quite a picture of what the ancient traders saw as they passed through these areas on camel caravans... awesome. Just before the border though in the Khorgas Pass, I woke up in time to see the sun rise over a beautiful long narrow lake bordered by mountains, and then soon after when we were in the mountains I found myself with a gorgeous green hillside dropping off on one side and a Kazakh yurt camp on the other! I almost fell out of bed trying to get a photo of it. (A yurt is kind of like a tipi, but flatter with a dome roof). They were scattered across the landscape like stout mushrooms with shorn caps. If I were the bus driver we would've stopped every two minutes for photos :-)

Crossing the border was an experience... the words 'outpost' and 'middle of nowhere' kept coming to mind. We got delayed on the Kazakh side because my passport looked suspicious -- stressful! The moment we crossed the border all Chinese ceased to be useful and suddenly everyone spoke Russian! I realize it's a former Soviet Union country, but it was still surprising because Xinjiang was so strong in the Muslim/Central Asian culture, that we were expecting that even more so in Kazakhstan, but instead found ourselves in what felt like Eastern Europe. We had no end of trouble trying to get from the border to Almaty, where we were planning to stay the few days. We bought a Central Asia Lonely Planet, but it was 4 years old -- helpful hint: a current edition guidebook is useful but subject to change; a 4 year old guidebook is a study in urban development! Not only could we not find anything we tried looking for, but the cost of everything listed in the book had gone up by 800%! Literally. The inflation was shocking -- to our budget too, haha. Case in point, the book said there was a bus from the border to Almaty for $3.50; in reality there was NO bus, and we paid $25 EACH for a taxi because there was no other option! The "taxi" hahahaha, oh my goodness, was an early 90's model Audi HATCHBACK that we travelled 350KM's, in 90+ degree weather, and there were FOUR adults in this Audi, besides the driver :-O If I never repeat that experience again I will be very happy.

When we finally got to Almaty the Russian feeling was reinforced. If I take anything from this trip (besides adventures) it's very rudimentary knowledge of how to read and pronounce the Cyrillic alphabet. Within a day and a half I learned to recognize that what I originally thought was 'pectopah' is actually 'restoran' (because a P is an R, C is an S, H is N... yeah) Of course being able to pronounce the words doesn’t mean I have any idea what they mean, but it did help that we could match the Cyrillic street signs to our English map -- much good that it did us considering most of the things we were looking for weren’t there anyway!

We spent our first night in the cheapest hotel available, inside the train station, facing the tracks, with no bathroom except the one downstairs shared by the whole station -- and even this room was 3 times more than we would normally pay in China, good lord. There wasn’t really a lot to see in Almaty, and we spent one whole day tracking down unfruitful leads in the Lonely Planet, haha. One of the few that did pan out was the Irish bar! It is truly amazing how these are the same the world over :-D I had a White Russian, it just seemed fitting, hehe. Being in Almaty gave me a good reminder of how culture shock feels. The culture itself wasn’t at all difficult, but not being able to speak the language or know how things operate, being reliant on someone else, being unfamiliar and uncomfortable, I'd forgotten those things.

After three nights in Kazakhstan we headed back towards China. Our bus this time was so posh! Air conditioned and comfy beds -- better than our hotels the last 3 nights! :-) Unfortunately all this luxury was offset by the fact that the ride was SO BUMPY that it felt like riding a mechanical bull flat on your back for 350km's. The sites on the way back were equally stimulating; the Lonely Planet summed up Kazakhstan in one line, calling it "Interesting and quirky sites separated by vast expanses of NOTHING." and it's true. Crossing the border this time we had no trouble, except getting 'tagged' at the border by some local guys. They were literally huddled in a crowd and ran forward to touch us as we walked by, like they were afraid of us! It was crazy.

TURPAN TAXI

Spark and I spent our last two days in Turpan and Urumqi. Turpan is officially the hottest place in China, and without fail it was 110 degrees the day we were there! Appropriately, one of the first sites we visited was the Flaming Mountains – so called not only because it is so incredibly hot, but also because at sunset it is said that the light plays over it like fire (we didn’t get to see this phenomenon). We did visit Buddhist cave paintings, more tombs, and stopped at a grape village for lunch. If you see my pictures you’ll see some strange and interesting looking buildings, all brick, that look like a regular house on the bottom, but have a 4 walled brick screen of sorts on the top level; these are used to dry the grapes that are the main industry of Turpan. Raisins and wine are big in this area.

The best part of the day was on the way to the grape village, our driver pulled over and asked if either Spark or I wanted to drive! We were riding in a regular taxi, mid-90’s Honda something, just Spark and I, our local guide Mardan, and his dad was the driver. I couldn’t pass up such a fun chance, besides I love driving, so I jumped at it! :-) Chinese drive on the same side of the street as we do at home, so I was perfectly comfortable, passing cars, the whole works – stick shift too, thank you very much! I can hardly say the same for Spark…. he was absolutely s-h-i-t-t-i-n-g himself! Hahahaha! I was driving with one hand on the wheel and the other resting on the gear shift, and do you know he actually said to me, “Two hands on the wheel!” LOL My immediate response was “yes, Dad” :-P (no offense to my real Dad ;-) ) I only drove about 15 miles, with Spark carrying on a constant chorus of “I’m going to die” and me hurling insults at him for backseat driving and not actually knowing how to drive himself – hahahahaha, it was great fun! :-D After I relinquished the wheel back to the real driver we also visited an ancient ruined city called Jiaohe that was really really cool (see photos).

One last bus brought us back to Urumqi, officially the one place in the world that is farthest from an ocean. Pretty crazy ey? (There are lakes, but no ocean). We walked around a fantastic park our last night there. Weekends in the parks in China are an awesome thing to see :-) The whole community comes out, and this park was particularly great because they had little electric cars shaped like animals riding around, a fountain light show, bumper boats in the lake, and best of all these inflatable tubes that kinda look like big hamster wheels out on the water that water for people to roll around in! It’s like a huge carnival, and all it is is a Sunday night in the park! I knew if I left my camera at the hotel I would want it, without fail, but it was still fun and funny standing by the lake watching these kids rolling around in the tubes and crashing into each other. :-)

Twelve days and two countries later, Spark and I haven’t killed each other, and better yet we’re still friends too, hahahaha. There are still a few places on the Silk Road I want to visit, like Jaiyuguan where the farthest western remains of the Great Wall are, and Dunhuang to see the Mogao Caves, but if I never lead an Intrepid Silk Road trip at least I got to see all these cool places myself. Hurray!

Currently Reading: "Don't Tell Mom I Work On the Rigs, She Thinks I'm a Piano Player in a Whore House" -- this book is strange and funny and feels like trying to dodge baseballs from a fast pitching machine!

All in a Days Work

travelheart24 — Mon, 9 Jun 2008 16:53:00 GMT

This has got to be the least eventful trip I’ve ever run! No crazy stories, no near death experiences, how very sad… doesn’t mean I wont still write though! ;-) I had 3 days off in Shanghai before the start of the trip, oh joy. Shanghai is quickly becoming one of my least favorite places in China; in addition to its overwhelming size and inflated prices, I also got pickpocketed on the main tourist drag and lost my sunglasses! Not the end of the world to most, but I happen to like the really dark lenses those had… :-( and yes, I’m pouting, hahaha. After Shanghai we visited a water town similar to Zhujaijiao on my last trip. Again, having not been to this one I didn’t have much insight for pax. I really did research the place, but seem to have missed the fact that MISSION IMPOSSIBLE 3 WAS FILMED HERE! Oops. Don’t I feel… sheepish. (name that movie!) Xitang is a lovely town though, even more picturesque than Zhujaijiao, although I didn’t actually take any pics… maybe next time. <<I stole the above photo from the MI3 website! LOL :-D >>

This trip only stays one day in each city, so we moved quickly on to Xian. Nothing eventful here, especially because I did NOT attempt to take the group to the lightshow, LOL. We also didn’t get any aftershocks while we were there, although some hotels are still having people sleep outside, just in case. The train from Xian to Pingyao was my second worst train experience in China, and culminated with me telling off a group of inconsiderate Chinese (in my best Mandarin) for blabbing all over the train at 12:30 at night. Grrr. In Pingyao I shot a couple games of pool with some of the pax, lost all three games – shocking, I know. Onward and upward to Beijing, hit the Great Wall -- and no, that's the one things I'm not blase' about, the Great Wall is awesome every time, and this time we had a pretty cool thunder storm. If it were at all possible I would've got a photo of the lightning I saw framed by one of the ruined watch towers.... WOW.

The pax on this trip were an interesting bunch; one middle aged guy who was so Australian that I think he could’ve actually said ‘Crikey’ and got away with it!, his girlfriend who sounded like Fran Drescher in The Nanny; one cool British/German/Spanish chick who reminded me very much of my dear friend EJ, so of course I took to her; her quiet but nice German boyfriend; two single British chicks; a 72 year old German/Kiwi gentleman, former history researcher, with the largest rolling suitcase he carted onto 3 trains; and one crazy Russian girl who seriously wanted to know everything about everything, and asked ‘What is this? What is this? What is this? Where do I go? What is the plan?’ until I wanted to shake her… I think I’m actually liking the shorter trips because I don’t get nearly as attached to the pax, hahaha.

I’m much more excited now about my plans for time off :-D In a few days I’ll fly to meet my friend Spark in Kashgar at the end of the Silk Road, and we’re gonna work our way back towards Beijing along the Silk Road :-D !!!! I am so stoked! (the Silk Road is the ancient trading route between China and European countries; silk was traded for European goods. The culture out there is COMPLETELY different to the rest of China. I should have loads of photos after this trip, and hopefully some cool stories!) We were going to go to Mongolia too, but that’s been postponed to July. By far the best piece of news I got this trip was the new schedule that has me going to Mongolia to pick up a trip! So I’m gonna go a few days early, have a look around, Spark will meet me there and we’ll celebrate his birthday and the start of the Nadaam Festival! I’m not sure how I got quite this lucky in life, but I am ridiculously blessed. So when I return from the Silk Road I’ll have new stories and LOADS of photos! :-)

Currently Reading: White Teeth – apparently some big hit, all I know is it was the only English book at the book traders, hahaha.

The Bucket List

travelheart24 — Fri, 23 May 2008 14:13:00 GMT

This entire trip turned out to be one big birthday party! What a classic trip, to have a bunch of oldies for passengers and yet we had fun everywhere we went :-) Between the 8 oldies (and 4 youngers) we had 3 birthdays on a 12 day trip! Good times. One lady in particular, Jan, was celebrating her 60^th bday and told me it was part of her ‘Bucket List’ to have her 60^th bday on the Great Wall! The photos are great because she brought a ‘Happy 60^th Birthday’ banner with her to the Wall. We celebrated Phil’s birthday on the overnight train to Xian, during which I introduced them to rice wine and they were all totally down for drinking games! At one point we had all 12 pax and me in one train compartment :-D Barbara’s birthday was two days later in Xian, which we celebrated despite the pouring rain, with dinner and cake. Dinner that night was so funny because we wound up with a ‘grown-ups' table’ and the ‘kids' table’! And the conversations that went around the grown ups table…. us kids ears were burning! Jan’s actual birthday we celebrated a few days later in Yangshuo at a place called ‘The Best Coffee’ (and it really is). She’d gone out that morning to get a facial and came out with a haircut she hadn’t asked for! She shrugged it off though and told us, ‘I’ve had my hair permed in Peru, colored in Brazil, and now cut in China!”

The Funniest moments of the trip without a doubt were:

1. 1. Sitting next to Sue on the overnight train, she was a bit tipsy and we were singing ‘I’m just a teenage dirtbag, baby!’ HILARIOUS

2. 2. On the same train, Oliver, a young guy from Germany, when we had to drink rice wine for penalties (which is harsh stuff), started singing, ‘I get knocked down, but I get up again, and you’re never gonna keep me down!’ and about 5 of us had the whole chorus going :-D

3. 3. And on the same train (it was a really fun train!) when I had trouble finishing my beer, Sue admonished me that I had to finish it because ‘there are people in China without beer’! (like when your mom used to tell you to finish your dinner because there are kids in Africa without food…. It was really funny)

4. 4. I bought a roll at a bakery in Xian that was labeled in English ‘Crouching Tiger Hidden Bacon’… I kid you not.

5. 5. Sue spotted a sign outside a store that said, ‘No Guns, Drugs, or Nuclear Weapons Allowed Inside’!

6. 6. We visited a section of the Great Wall called Mutianyu that I hadn’t been to before, and at this one we got to take a cable car up onto the wall, and a TOBOGGAN down! So fun! :-D

The great thing about travelling with oldies is as much as I ‘mother’ my passengers, these guys have a tendency to ‘mother’ right back, hehe. Phil and Sue in particular, who are a very sweet and fun British couple, had been visiting their son before the trip started – he’s been living in Beijing for the past year. When it came time to say goodbye to him Sue had a hard time because she won’t see him again for a few months, so she found some comfort in temporarily adopting me. Ironically though she was also the first on the trip to call me a ‘Mother Duck’ and I didn’t even suggest it – I think it has something to do with how I herd them through traffic. :-) I’ve got to give these folks credit for life experience too… Jan is recently widowed and travelling the world a bit before going home to pick up her life again, and Sue is a cancer survivor herself.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We got a dose of mortality early on in the trip with the earthquake that struck Sichuan province. We were still in Beijing at the time, 700 miles north of the epicenter and I didn’t actually feel it, but it was a 7.8 in Sichuan. 2008 has seen so much chaos already this year…. Since the beginning of the year there have been the worst snow storms in 50 years, the Tibet uprisings, the beginnings of the visa problems that will continue to the Olympics, now the earthquake, and all the madness that will come along with the Olympics in less than three months. What started out as a lucky year is turning into something we’re all just trying to survive. This morning’s newspaper reported the current death toll in the earthquake area at over 51,000 dead and nearly 30,000 still missing. They are calling for aid in supplying tents and temporary housing to the 4.5 million people who are homeless right now. My pax and I made a donation from our trip money that was originally allocated to go to another charity in Xian, but we felt it was more appropriate to send it to Sichuan, plus Intrepid will double every donation. <<If you’re interested in contributing through Intrepid let me know and I’ll send you info.>> They’re also predicting rain in the quake area this week, so please pray with all your heart that there’s no rain, or additional land slides, or anything else that goes along with that. On a positive note, out of tragedy there are always the wonderful stories of people helping out; the Olympic torch was supposed to pass through Shanghai while we were here, but a week after the quake China designated three days of mourning across the entire country. The torch relay was paused during that time; the last city that it passed through before stopping, the torch bearers collected 500,000 yuan to donate to Sichuan, and the city as a whole donated over 2 million yuan :-) Now its looking like every city that the torch passes through for the next three months on its way to Beijing will collect donations, and I’m getting goosebumps as I write this. The relay was also rerouted so that the last cities it passes through before the Olympics will be the four major cities in Sichuan province. It’s been very emotional following the news on all this the past few weeks.

I realize that was a bit heavy, but reality has been a bit harsh the past two weeks…

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So my trip is wrapped up, my pax are running free in Shanghai and I’ve got 3 days off here before starting my next trip; I’ve already spent most of today sleeping, so I should be ready to rejoin the land of the living tomorrow :-D

Currently Reading: nothing good… I’ve really got to find some better books!

Current Injury: none! Unless you count the fact that I sort of fell into a manhole in Yangshuo, but I didn’t really hurt myself….. LOL

The Luck of the Irish

travelheart24 — Mon, 12 May 2008 16:48:00 GMT

I promised adventures, and I deliver! :-D

It's not often when things go wrong and you ask 'Why? why has this happened?' that you actually get an answer. I was lucky, I got my answer the very next day, in the form of my new travel buddy, Estelle! I went to Hong Kong intending to catch a THIRTY HOUR TRAIN by myself to go exploring in Shanxi province. Along the way I ran into my friend Spark, who convinced me to stay in HK and fly out the next day (tough call). The only problem was getting my train ticket refunded, and what a run around that was, culminating in an international border crossing and 4 passport stamps just to get my money back! All in a days work, hey? lol So I catch up with Spark back in Hong Kong, and we go out carousing as we do....

The next day as we were sobering up over breakfast, Spark's friend Estelle - a crazy fun Irish chick - says she doesnt want to fly home yet, so I say, Come with me! Come explore Shanxi with me! And that's what we did :-D With no money and without even properly sorting out her plane ticket off the bat we took off for the airport, sans plane tickets, as has become my M.O. Our luck held out and we got a flight to Taiyuan, from where we continued on to Pingyao.

Pingyao is an ancient city, nearly 4,000 buildings in 6kms are from the 1500's. It's is cute, quaint, and very very old. Our best day of the trip I'd say was when we rented bikes just to ride around and explore. Along the way we inadvertantly crashed a local wedding! No kidding! we were in a tiny alley and heard a bunch of music, so we checked it out and they invited us in! We weren't even sure it was a wedding until I saw the groom, and realized, oh crap! Then, they took us in to where the bride was getting ready!! No kidding! They wanted photos of us with her, which we did, and then got out of there as quick as possible. They stopped us for another 20 or so photos before we escaped, hehehe. When we got a little distance away, we stopped and asked ourselves, Did we just crash a wedding?? hehehe, what just happened? :-D

And there's more! We kept cycling and found a basketball hoop; we were told if we came back in an hour there would be a game. So we come back with tennis shoes on and fully played a game of b-ball with a bunch of these young local guys! (we did pretty good too, although they weren't playing defense nearly as hard on us). It turned out that they were students at the performing arts college and they invited us to their show that night. This show is a big production, the tickets normally run about 300 yuan each (thats a lot here in China), but the guys gave us their family tickets and we went free! The best part was one of our basketball buddies was the star of the show :-) The guy we'd just been shootin' around with was now dancing and twirling the girl in the air! awesome

After Pingyao we went to Datong, where there are two major sites, the Yungang Caves and the Hanging Monastary. The cave network was amazing, carved into a hillside that ran about 100 yards were 50,000 BUDDHAS :-O From as little as 3cm tall to 17 meters tall, there were tons of them. The most impressive ones had intricate pillars carved inside the caves, with every inch of the surfaces covered with figures depicting different stories. Hopefully my photos convey some of it. The Hanging Monastary was even cooler :-) I've wanted to see it for years, and it was worth the trip. This monastary, when you see the photos, is 50 meters in the air, literally clinging to the side of a cliff face, and its been there for 1500 years! In the photos you can see long skinny wooden pillars that support it, but those are secondary; the actual support are the horizontal beams that are imbedded in the cliffside. The part we see is 1/3 of the beam, 2/3's is in the hillside. And we got to walk through this place, not just look at it! The pictures somewhat do it justice, but it was really really cool.

For having had nearly 3 weeks off, I'd say I did pretty well. I managed not to be by myself for more than a day or two, hehe. I spent the first whole week in Hong Kong with my passengers from the last trip, then a few more with other leaders at our apartment, and finally met up with Estelle -- who calls herself 'officially Bonkers!' which is why we get along so well ;-) I'm in Beijing now, started my next trip last night. They're an interesting group, I'll let you know how it goes; this trip is only 11 days, so you'll be getting another story very soon :-)

Currently Reading: The Bookseller of Kabul (very good, if somewhat frustrating)