Just to finish off, here’s a (heavily abbreviated) list of some of the highlights of our honeymoon…
- Watching the mists swirl in the wind and finally, in the end, reveal Machu Picchu (Peru) early in the morning of our last day of the Inca Trail
- Having the hike to Condoriri (one of the peaks in the Cordillera Real, near La Paz) base camp all to ourselves and watching the spectacular Andean landscape change as the snow laid down overnight melted throughout the day
- Watching red flamingos go about there business at the red coloured (and aptly named) Laguna Colorado (Bolivian Altiplano)
- Catching a glimpse into the crater from the rim of Vulcan Lascar (near San Pedro de Atacama, Chile) at 5480m and looking up to get an incredible view along a chain of other vulcanoes stretching off into the distance
- Having the stunningly varied hike around Refugio Frey and Refugio Lynch (near Bariloche, Argentina) all to ourselves on a beautiful sunny Xmas day
- Watching the sun rise over a cloudless Cerro Fitz Roy (anyone who’s been to Los Glaciaros NP in Patagonia can attest to how hard it is to catch a glimpse of the peak through ever-present clouds, let alone catch it on a cloudless morning)
- Walking into the natural amphitheatre formed by the peaks at the end of the (wind-swept) French Valley, having passed cascades, sliding waterfalls, crystal-clear streams, beautiful forests and dramatic (and regularly calving) hanging glaciers (Torres del Paine NP, Chile)
- Glacier walking at the base of Cerro Torre (Los Glaciaros NP, Argentina) on a beautiful sunny day
- Watching a deep red sunset envelop Manhattan, and in particular the Empire State building, from the top of the Rockefeller centre (New York)
- Waking up to find snow falling on the balcony of our guesthouse in Lower Pisang and walking through a stunning winter wonderland for most of the morning (Annapurna Circuit, Nepal)
- Early morning ascent up to the Thorung-La (pass), the highest point (5416m) of the Annapurna Circuit (Nepal) and and afternoon descent into Muktinath, on a perfect (and very bright!) day. Actually, the whole week from Manang to Marpha was pretty hard to beat. Spoilt for choice of highlights, I had to pick one
- Watching our plans for a walk up Bessho-san disappear under two inches of snow (laid down in about half an hour!). Very scenic though (near Fukuoka, Japan)
- Walking through a snow covered gorge with crystal-clear streams and waterfalls called Sandan-kyo (near Hiroshima, Japan) on a beautiful sunny day
- Staying at a secluded and ancient monastery (with sleeping quarters just out the back of one of the temples!) on Emei Shan in China (although had mixed feelings about being woken up by the chanting monks at 4am )
- Watching the sun rise over the rice paddies and karst limestone peaks in Chaolong (near Yangshuo, China)
- Lazing about on a picture-perfect beach on Koh Samui (Thailand)
- And last but not least: sharing all these highlights (except for one or two of the sunrises perhaps, a bit too early for some ) with Justine, who every day makes me feel like I’m the luckiest man alive
And, of course, just as important, our food highlights:
- Asado (barbeque) lamb in El Calafate, Argentina
- Some salmon dish prepared by our friends in Vancouver, Canada
- Cup Cakes in New York (somewhere close to the Library)
- Cold Stone Creamery (icecream) in Times Square, New York
- Some pork dish prepared by our friends in Groningen, Holland
- Sushi in Kyoto, Japan
- Okonomiyaki in Hiroshima, Japan
- Hida beef in Takayama, Japan (apparently similar to, but less established than Kobe beef)
- Steak in Hong Kong (after 4 weeks of trekking in Nepal )
- Some fish dish in one of the restaurants in the Muslim quarter (Xian, China)
- Most of the food around the Sichuan province… spicy! (Chengdu, China)
And finally, yes, I’m working on posting the photos… house- and job-hunting just might have to come first unfortunately
As the more observant readers (both of you) would’ve noticed by now… we’ve actually been home for a couple of days now. Thailand was great, but we didn’t do much touristy stuff. And by “much”, I mean “any”. Pretty much exactly what the doctor ordered, topped off nicely with catching up with some good friends who live there or were passing through. On the other hand, definitely a place we want to go back to and do it justice, from what I’ve seen, there’s a lot to see there.
So I guess that’s it. Best thing is that we’ve been gone from Australia for so long, I almost feel like a tourist here. Everything feels new or different, and therefore exciting again in my mind . I guess they always say a change is as good as a holiday!
Alright, last lot of things that make one go “Hmmm…”
Apart from the dozens of (rather amusing) examples of what is commonly referred to as Chinglish (Chinese badly translated into English, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinglish, one example I can remember was a sign that warned us to “Slip Carefully”), I have to admit there weren’t actually that many What The’s… here goes anyway…
- A bunch of warnings on the Great Wall to be careful around the edges, not to stray from the path, etc and of course… not to use your mobile during thunderstorms. Fair enough. You’d probably need both hands to fly your kite properly?
- There are quite a number of national TV stations (12 I think… makes the 3 or 4 BBC channels look a little anemic), one of which is CCTV9 which is fully done in English. Fair enough (and the only thing we watched for the three weeks we were there), but I was quite surprised to find that one of the anchors doing the news (in a rather Australian accent) was none other than good old… Edwin Maher. Who said weathermen couldn’t go places…
- I have seen some pretty full-on sales in my time, but nothing prepared me for walking down a stretch of shopping street in Xian. This 100m stretch was home to half a dozen mobile phone companies or so and to say things are competitive in the Chinese mobile market is a bit of an understatement. Each shop had at least 10-15 sales assistants (give or take) manning the entrance to what looked like department-store-sized mobile phone shops. All vying to get passing shoppers’ attention. Not often you see them do that though by what to my western ears sounded like (but admittedly could’ve been anything) chanting slogans and singing songs. I guess I noticed them, so perhaps the Chinese walking past did too.
- After having traveled around Japan and Nepal before arriving in China, we were pretty used to the squat toilets generally used around Asia. Wasn’t quite prepared for the old communal squat toilets though. That’s right. One of the monasteries we stayed at on Mount Emei had a set of communal toilets, which instead of having the usual discreet cubicle around each squat toilet, simply had a low concrete divider (about 50cm high, along the side of the squat toilet), and no door or other cover across the “entrance”. Combined with the balcony style “wall” (admittedly giving a great view of the surrounding forest due to the complete lack of wall from about 1m from the floor and up) and interesting (and generally short lasting experience).
- The ability of just about all Chinese (van, bus, taxi, etc) drivers to at the same time instill a complete sense of insanity (quite commonly found amongst Asian drivers) and complete competence. Intriguing.
Forgot to put these up, figured better late than never…
- Upon moving into our room in Kathmandu we were slightly intrigued to find a complimentary box of matches with not the hotel logo on it but… Microsoft Windows? Perhaps one of the latest initiatives of the Gates Foundation?
- When checking the expiry date on some peanuts at the local supermarket, I found that it was 3 months from the date of production. The date of production was March 30th, so nothing that strange I guess… except that that day was March 28th.
- During our trek around Annapurna, at the end of one day I found that my deodorant had moved around and accidentally been emptied. Not wanting to smell too much (always a major concern when trekking ), of course we set out to look for some deodorant around the village we were staying in. We found some, which I was quite impressed with (at 1600m), but I was somewhat intrigued that the four different types that they sold were all produced by… Playboy. Makes you wonder about some of the trekkers that had dropped by previously throughout the years (and perhaps gave the locals the idea that this was a winning marketing strategy?).
- Many a guesthouse had a dining area for breakfast, lunch, dinner, etc. Generally fairly functional areas, a (disturbingly large) number of them had spruced them up with a few posters. Makes sense, except that most of them were pictures of tanned, oiled-up body-builders or swiss chalets. One or two would’ve just been a little odd, but the regularity makes one wonder what the locals think westerners are into. Or what they’re into. Then again, Arnie in his heyday was pretty buffed…
- Cigarettes were regularly included on food menus. I’m guessing Nepal is still a couple of years away of banning smoking in restaurants and other public spaces.
- Quite a few clothes stores could be found selling the latest North Face (or other brandname) gear. At prices generally around 10% of what you’d expect to pay in western countries, the authenticity sometimes was a little questionable. Some stores perhaps made it a little to obvious though, one example I found was of some underwear made by “Calvan Klain”. Whoops.
Well, the backpacking part is well and truly over and we are now on the part of our trip which, kind of worryingly, Justine keeps calling “the real honeymoon” . The “flashpacking” started a few days ago in Bangkok in which we saw no temples, but plenty of shopping centres and tailors (actually just one tailor, recommended by a friend), mixed with kicking back in airconditioned comfort or checking out some stuff on the free wireless at the guesthouse. Hmmm, proper holidays…
I thought it was pretty good anyway… until we arrived at the resort we’re currently staying at on Ko Samui (nice tropical island off the eastern coast of southern Thailand), which kind of upped the ante! Situated on the beach, two pools, two restaurants, all you can eat breakfast buffet, ocean views from the room, etc. Now that’s what I’m talking about… and (perhaps?) the way honeymoons should be
(apart maybe from all the German tourists crowding the aforementioned beach, pools and restaurants. Maybe trekking around Nepal wasn’t all bad… )
After that, the trip was all quite suddenly over. We had a couple of nights in Hong Kong, mainly spent saying goodbye to everyone on the tour and doing some shopping (latest updates have been typed on our new laptop ). We did manage to fit in a quick visit to the Stanley markets, worth it even just to realise (for the tourist like me) that on the other side of the famous Hong Kong skyline, there are a whole lot of trees and really nice beaches. Incredible considering the vicinity to the concrete masses on the harbour side of Hong Kong island. And a visit to The Peak with its famous view over Hong Kong from its highest point. Not bad, but after having seen New York during a perfect sunset from the top of the Rockefeller centre, (and not being that fussed with big cities in general) not overly exciting…
Always figured it would be a bit tricky to get my hands on some english magazines while travelling around China, but wasn’t sure how tricky. So, after having a pretty decent look around Xian (with 8 million people), and Chengdu (with 13 million people) and not being able to find much more than some out of date National Geographics, I was a little disappointed but not overly surprised.
In Japan for instance, English magazines were freely available, but could only be found in a few select bookstores due to the lack of demand (simply not many English speaking customers). In China’s case though I’m thinking it’s not just the lack of English speakers, but its famous control over all media including the entire Internet, aka the Great Firewall of China (see eg. http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jan2006/tc20060112_434051.htm).
Then again, looking at my “magazine wishlist”, I might have been able to guess the outcome…
- The Economist May 3rd 2008, with special Feature called “Angry China” (http://www.economist.com/printedition/index.cfm?d=20080503)
- National Geographic May 2008 “Inside the Dragon” (http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/05/table-of-contents)
Then again, The Economist I have founds generally provides a strikingly balanced view of events in China especially the latest involving Tibetan protests. We also definitely saw the National Geographic in question in a few spots, but in Chinese. Perhaps it is just a lack of demand after all…?
I’m sure we all have images in our minds of what certain countries or areas are like. Mine of rural China (without thinking about it too much of course) was of rice paddies, typical Chinese straw hats, bicycles, etc. I’m sure you’ve seen the postcard. As I mentioned previously, the China we saw everywhere so far was quite different. Modern, hazy, lots of construction, even when getting well out of the cities. We obviously never made it to Inner Mongolia or towards Tibet, but still well and truly into central China, away from the affluent east coast.
So then, apart from the unique landscape (karst limestone hills, steep and towering over an otherwise flat country side) typical for this part of southern China, in Chaolong we finally saw some of the scenery that I had always had in my mind. It was only a few kilometres down the road from Yangshuo, but still seemed as authentic (with small houses and streets and locals turning up on bicycles to work their rice paddies) as Yangshuo is touristy.
Of course things are changing (in Chaolong we stayed at a local guesthouse which had hot water, airconditioning and TV, run by a Dutch guy), but compared to Yangshuo it was very scenic. I guess the problem is (just as it is in Nepal btw), that the locals welcome the advent of electricity, modern roads and everything else, whereas the tourists come wanting to see the place minus all these changes. It’s easy as a tourist to “complain” about these developments as they only have to stay in the place for a day or two. As always, I guess the challenge is to find a balance.
Yangshuo I have to say was incredibly touristy though. A great base from which to see the (very scenic) surrounding area, but not much else. Fortunately, this is what we had planned; the bikeride around the karst hills and the cruise and swim up the Li River were good fun and one of the highlights of our stay in China (and great to not be visiting a place for once to go and see another temple or equivalent).
I’m sure everyone has heard of earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale that took place in Wenchuan, 92 kms northwest of Chengdu on Monday 12th May. Going by current estimates it has killed over 60,000 people, injured many more and made over 5 million people homeless.
We first heard about the earthquake as we were floating down the Li river near Yangshuo (in southern China and obviously at a safe distance). Interestingly enough though, we were in Chengdu no less than 24 hours earlier. If our flight had been delayed by one day, we would’ve pretty much been taking off during the earthquake.
A friend of mine remarked afterwards that if we had still been there, it at least would have been a life-altering experience. I would agree, but it does assume that at the time of the earthquake you weren’t stuck in some dodgy building put together by a less-than-scrupulous Chinese construction company. There are unfortunately quite a few Chinese (school children in particular, sadly) who were.
I guess sometimes you just get very, very lucky.
After an awesome few days away from the cities, unfortunately we were back for more. Despite my general prejudice against cities, Chengdu was a pleasant surprise. A few nice parks, some great Sichuan food (spicy!) and an overal far more relaxed atmosphere made this place definitely worth visiting. The highlight without a doubt though was still the Chengdu Panda Reserve. Great opportunity to come close to these rather… uhm, laidback animals. I guess anyone would be laidback if they were forced to spend the majority of the day eating (vast quantities of bamboo) and the rest of the day sleeping it off. The only panda that put on a bit of a show was a 1 year cub wreaking havoc on its poor mum who, although she tried to keep up, was no match for the little ball of energy. Very entertaining.
Then came Huanglongxi, another historic town. Apparently quite old, I found it pretty characterless, with a lot of the old section feeling as if it had very recently been restored. Perhaps getting its house in order for some soon to be expected tourists (sidetripping from the Olympics)? The main attraction (in my mind) was the 1500 year old monastery which I have to admit was pretty interesting mainly because it felt a lot more authentic than the rest. On the other hand, by this stage we had seen our fair share of temples and monasteries…