• 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

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.

• 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.

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… )

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…?

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).

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.

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…

Especially the Golden Summit (a temple) at the top, reached by a cable car, was particularly scenic the day we were there. It was quite a cloudy day to start off with and was quite misty at the bottom cable car station. The ride on the cable car however was like being on a plane as it ascended up through the clouds to pop out on top in full sunlight. Like being on an island surrounded literally by a sea of clouds.

Another cool aspect is that (as in some places in Japan), you can stay in (basic) accommodation at some of the monasteries. We stayed at two different ones the three nights we were here, one at the base, another one a fair bit further away from it all. I have to admit the being woken up at 4am by chanting monks was not quite my cup of tea, but otherwise it was very cool. Not often you get to sleep at what to me felt like a tourist attraction, but really is (as so many tourist attractions are) a working, living environment which the tourists are lucky enough to be sharing with their usual inhabitants.

Interestingly, our original itinerary was going to go to a few places on the outskirts of the Tibetan Himalaya, but had to be rerouted due to the protests that have taken place there recently. No drama, China has plenty of scenic places to go to.

So after a few hectic days in Beijing, which was still a few days short of what you could easily spend there (managed to squeeze in Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, other odds and ends, a side trip to Great Wall and, I feel just as impressive, Terminal 3 at Beijing international airport on our way in), we were off to Datong and the Yungang caves. Datong is not so exciting. The caves on the other hand are very impressive and worth the visit. Basically a set of Buddhas carved out of the side of a hill. To clarify, that’s about 51,000 ranging in size from a couple of cm to about 17m tall, spread out over about 45 caves. Not bad if that’s what you’re in to.

Then came Pingyao. Not to do things by halves, the entire city centre has been declared a World Heritage site. I agree, why stuff around with a few things here or there when you can just do it properly once We stayed at a guesthouse smack bang in the middle that must’ve originally been the dwellings of a rich merchant or equivalent. Very cool and something different.

Now in Xi’an, famous for the Terracotta warriors (tick), massive city walls (tick), Big Goose Pagoda (tick) and Great Mosque (tick). I’m beginning to feel quite touristy for some reason…

Overall, I’m just amazed though. All the places we’ve seen have been far more modern and western feeling than I expected. Apart from a total lack of newsagencies selling western magazines, it’s almost like travelling through Europe. This might change as we get more off the beaten track over the next two weeks, but still. Construction going on everywhere of course, but plenty of brand new roads, shopping centres and gleaming new sky scrapers already completed.

Lots and lost of smog though, so they obviously still have a few challenges ahead of them. If anyone can tackle them though, I’m beginning to feel it’s the Chinese… I just hope that they tackle them before it’s too late…

As I mentioned in an earlier post we accidentally managed to leave the application for our China visas until the very last minute (at which stage the application process had of course become far tougher due to recent protests in Tibet), so we had to reroute our trip through Hong Kong for a few days. Fortunately, Hong Kong is as efficient and modern a city (with a Chinese embassy to match) as we’ve come across. 48hrs after arrival (and 24 hrs before our flights to Beijing) we were the proud owners of a one month visa to China and able to continue our trip as planned. Phew… I’m going to need a holiday when I’m done with this trip. Apparently Australia is nice this time of year. (btw, on a slightly different note, not long till we’re there!)

Firstly, it took us 18 days (which included one rest day), which is simply just a lot of walking, even by our standards . Some probably do it in much less, some trekkers never make it though. The issue is not so much the 234km of walking (according to one guidebook I’ve seen, but who knows really, and that’s with sidetrips not included), but the crossing of the 5416m high Thorong La pass. Our trip included plenty of days to work our way up to this altitude (making the whole crossing perfectly safe) and we had the luxury of superfit porters carrying the bulk of our gear. Nonetheless we were overtaken by plenty of people along the way who a few days later were walking in the other direction (ie down the mountain) because they had pushed themselves too far. They were the lucky (and smart) ones, others less lucky were on mules, too weak to walk, probably on their way to an airport to be flown home. Anyway, most people of course do make it, but overall it’s definitely the most physically demanding (and rewarding) trek we’ve done.

Secondly, I’m not sure where we go from here . The trek itself is just awesome. The scenery is stunning and incredibly varied (going from an altitude of around 1000m to 5400m and back down). The guesthouses were basic to say the least, but most had some sort of shower and all had a bed to sleep on at the end of the day. The guesthouse owners were very friendly and whipped up great meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The weather was overall, just perfect, and as varied as the scenery. Temperatures ranged from humid and 25+ degrees, to crystal clear, dry and -5 degrees, if not less. Admittedly we had rain a few times (although always confined to the afternoons when we had done most if not all of our walking), but the mornings were almost without exception crystal clear and the days sunny. Most importantly, this included the days around and over the pass. One exception though: I will never forget opening the door to our bedroom one morning, expecting another crystal clear morning, only to be greeted by… snowflakes coming down gently right in front of me onto a pack of about 2 inches put down overnight. Of course it made the scenery even more stunning than it already was and it was the only day we had it. I guess that’s mountain weather for you. Melbourne’s supposed to sometimes have 4 seasons in one day, but on this trek I feel like we really had spring, summer, autumn and winter in the space of a few weeks.

Anyway, overall one of the absolute highlights of what has been a spectacular trip so far and I couldn’t recommend it highly enough to anyone interested. For now though, I might head back to the hotel and watch TV for a bit, just because I can . I’m sure it won’t be too long before I wish I was back amongst the Nepalese mountains again though…

Seems like a lifetime since we left Japan. Not only because we have been here a few weeks now, but mainly because the contrast in everything is just incredible. I think it’s quite safe to say Japan is one of the wealthiest, efficient, clean and full places I’ve ever been too. Kathmandu on the other hand is well… just full really, and as far as I can tell, probably the poorest I’ve been too. (Then again, I’ve jokingly been told that if Kathmandu feels a little hectic, I should try an Indian city one of these days.) It’s probably just standard South East Asian fare (don’t really know, never having been much further than Singapore and Malaysia), but it takes a little bit to get used to all the touts, daily power cuts, dodgy fake clothes shops and crappy bathrooms. I guess everything is all relative, but unfortunately compared to Japan, it’s all very relative

Get out of Kathmandu though and you soon forget about all these things. The locals are incredibly friendly (although I’m always sceptic of local peoples’ friendliness towards tourists they rely on for an income, it seems quite genuine in the Nepalese countryside),  at every guesthouse they’re able to whip up a feast on something only slightly more advanced than what I’d generally make do with on a camping trip and the scenery is just stunning and incredibly varied. I imagine it’s only a question of time before we find ourselves back here.

On the logistical front, we’ve had to change our plans between here and China a little bit to include a few days stopover in Hong Kong to (hopefully easily) organise a visa for China. I know, I know (”visa, what visa?” were my words just before we set out on the Annapurna Circuit trek…). I basically stuffed up and forgot to organise our China visa’s before we left. Just slipped through with organising moving back to Oz, the wedding and the rest of our 6 month honeymoon. No drama hopefully, but it will be the first test of our usual travel style (being able to travel to a set schedule to maximise what you see along the way, but with little room for error), so see how we go…

Other than that, just a bit of souvenir shopping, catching up on sleep, catching up on news (The Economist interestingly is easier to find here than in central London, every second shop seems to sell it…) and enjoying a few last tasty and cheap meals is all that is left for us to do over the next few days… Hard work, I know

• This place is clean. And by clean I mean spotless. Trains, buses, public toilets, footpaths, you name it and you could probably eat off it. Especially the hordes of cleaning ladies in matching pink uniforms that attack the bullet trains at each end destination to ensure it’s spotless for the next trip are a sight to behold.
• These people are polite and very friendly (to tourists anyway ). Manifested in never-ending bowing, thanking (I’ve barely heard anyone say sayonara, ie goodbye, because they are always too busy still thanking you), offering (help or little gifts), it does make for an interesting experience and one that a lot of other nations could learn from.
• This place is small. Small cars, small trucks, small buses, small rooms, small chairs, small beds (my feet always seem to hang off the end) and doorways (I can’t remember ever having hit my head on things so many times in such a short time span), small slippers (come about halfway up my foot), small urinals (I quite regularly have to be careful not to pee on top of them… and no, I’m not using the kids’ urinals), small meals (fortunately sushi just keeps coming out as you order more), etc, etc. The idea of quality over quantity definitely rules here though, so not all bad.
• This place is full. This might be one of the causes for everything being small actually. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, you can never go to far without bumping into people (literally, when on public transport) or infrastructure of some kind. On the other hand, it’s incredible to see the use of space around here.
• This place is religious. Europe has a few churches but I have never come across a similar pervasion of temples, shrines, gates, etc as I have here. It makes for quite a varied landscape or cityscape along the way and in our brief stay here we’ve probably only just touched on how much day to day life must be influenced by religion. Good for the photo opportunities regardless of your views on this
• Plastic bags rule. This probably partially comes back to the clean thing they have going, but for instance go to your average bakery and they’ll put each item in a little plastic bag, after which all the items go in a paper bag which is then put in a large plastic bag to allow you to carry your two items more easily.

You get the picture. Some of it a little annoying, some of it quite refreshing, but all of it quite interesting and very different to anything we’ve come across so far and probably will on the rest of our trip. As a tourist, you just can’t go wrong here really.

Takayama is home to a reconstructed rural town called Hida-no-sata with houses as they were (and in some places still are) a few hundred years ago in country-side Japan. Pretty cool and in typically Japanese style, the meticulous reconstruction (after moving them from who knows how far away) is amazing and must’ve taken a long time.

Matsumoto is known for Matsumoto-jo, one of the best, still original castles around Japan. Castle wasn’t bad, but after having seen Himeji-jo and Nijo-jo, probably not worth the effort.

Unfortunately, the other thing we came to Takayama and Matsumoto for, ie to get a bit of a feel of the Japanese Alps, was not helped by persistent cloud cover. The snow which was still everywhere was quite scenic though.

One thing these two days in the Alps did bring to the fore (again) is how little real wilderness (ie completely unaffected by Japanese infrastructure) there is in Japan. Having not ventured further north than Matsumoto this might be different in say the northern-most province of Tokkaido, but having seen a lot of places in the southern half, there is a distinct trend emerging. I read in the lonely planet guide the other day that they estimate that only three of Japan’s over 30,000 streams, rivers, etc have NOT been dammed. I would happily believe this. Everywhere we’ve been we’ve seen power lines, communications towers, roads, houses, dams, concrete reinforcements (to stop hills eroding), etc, etc and even on our more “remote” walks, we’ve been walking on very well-maintained paths, linking temples, shrines, etc.

Mind you though, none of this is different to the U.K. and probably most of Western Europe, but I’m far from convinced that I’ll ever come back to this country to purely go for a hike (ditto with the U.K.) which is interesting for a country that boasts so many walking opportunities. Fortunately this country is cool in so many other ways that it hasn’t really mattered and we’ve had a great time nonetheless.

Finally, the last few days in Tokyo. First of all a side trip to Nikko of course, followed by a walk on a beautiful day up Mitsu-toge-yama in the Fuji-san area (with awesome views of Fuji). Yesterday we spent looking around the Shinjuku, Harajuku and Shibuya suburbs which are just incredible districts filled with neon lights, shops and people. Interestingly enough, they made our hikes that I referred to above, do seem like they were out into the middle of nowhere. Everything’s relative I guess :)

A few other hikes which we’ve attempted didn’t get very far as there was snow on the path (or falling!) or construction going on (March is obviously too early for hiking season), but this one was just do-able. There was still snow at the top (at 924m), but it was a sunny day, it wasn’t too deep and as always it really made the place (including the temple at the top, Atago-ji, look even more scenic). After the climb  (starting in Kitoyaki), the second part involved following a beautiful gorge with crystal clear water and moss covered rocks to the next village over (Takao), which had a few interesting (moss-covered) little temples to finish things off with. Very cool and highly recommended if ever in Kyoto.

On the photo side of things. Have tried to post some photos, but as always seem to be having technical issues. Hardware: no problem. Internet: faster than it will probably ever be in Australia. Unfortunately, FTP access: denied. In other words, bulk uploads of all the Japan photos will have to wait till a later date. Perhaps Tokyo

One observation though: it is very easy to overdose on temples. They are everywhere. Which kind of makes sense when you find out over 2000 of them are in just this city. Apart from the big touristy ones, there are little ones, ones with gardens, ones with other types of gardens, ones with shrines, ones tucked in between shops (think Chadstone style shopping centre, but with a handy temple tucked in between JB Hifi and MYER), ones inside of other seemingly unrelated tourist attractions, ones on hills away from it all, and ones just about everywhere in between. And then there’s the shrines, torii gates, etc. Kiyomizu-dera, Todaiji, Choin-in, Heian-Jingu, Ginkakuji, Kinkakuji, Nanzen-ji, Atago-ji and Fushimi Inari are a couple we seem to have stumbled across while walking around.  And trust me, we have stood literally outside the gates of more than that and decided not to go in because there just wasn’t enough time.

To mix it up a bit (we came prepared), we were also able to throw in a few castles (Himeji-jo, Nijo-jo), a few walks (Daimonjo-yama, Atago-san), gardens (Todaiji, Kokoen), a day trip to Nara and of course some shopping.

Topped off by sampling some of the local cuisine (sushi still rules in my mind, even having now also tried okonomiyaki, ramen, udon noodle varieties, syabu-syabu), it’s been an amazing few days. Do seem to be developing a craving for steak, potatoes, normal cereal and brown bread though.

Off to Takayama, Matsumoto and Tokyo tomorrow for more fun and games. Should be… uhm, different… to say the least (as always).