From Lijiang we took a 20 hr sleeper bus to Jinghong, which is on the border to Laos and has a more tropical climate.
In our hotel room we put on the news and found that the Yunnan Province is suffering serious drought and armies are being sent in to help. We looked out the window and the streets were wet with sprinklers watering the plants in the street.
We spent a day in Jinghong's botanical gardens and the next day went on a trip to an out of town market, tea plantations, a small village with a street gang of tiny children, some farms, a temple and a hot spring swimming pool. The Slovakians bought 10 discs of tea, spending about 25quid, and told us that in Slovakia, Pu'er tea costs 10 times this price.
We also met a German, Toby, who was working and studying the nearby protected forests. Massive thunder and rain storms opened up over the city. Kae and Toby both believe that the Chinese are setting off 'rain bombs' (firing chemicals into the air) to make it rain where there's drought. They could be, and they told everyone they've done it before in Shanghai, as well as clearing the sky for the Olympics in Beijing.
Toby took us all to a night market bbq, where he ordered food and beer for everyone, and we met some more Germans and tried some of the local specialities.
Tuesday, 13 April 2010
Back in Lijiang
After the trecherous Tiger Leaping Gorge we stayed in Lijiang for a few days. We drank yak yoghurt, ate dried yak and squid balls and explored some of the new town as well as the old.
An impecunious old Austrian woman approached us and offered us some extra work in a Chinese travelogue for Lijiang. She told us that the pay was 'miserable' and then offered us 50yuan (5quid), which we thought was good money for an hour's sitting in a bar.
That evening we met some northerners and invited them along to the extra work the next day. Two of them, Ralph and Lisa, had been teaching in China and told us a story of how a fashionable English teacher suddenly had to dive for the toilets in the middle of a class, he couldn't find any toilet paper and when the kids followed him they found him squatting and wiping his arse with some of the smaller Chinese bank notes. They thought he was the coolest teacher after that.
We went to the Amsterdam Bar for the extra work the next day and the people making the film were just looking for a couple, and as the northerners had a beer at the bar we were paid to sit at a table and kiss. 15 minutes work, so that's... 20quid an hour for my first soft core porn role?
An impecunious old Austrian woman approached us and offered us some extra work in a Chinese travelogue for Lijiang. She told us that the pay was 'miserable' and then offered us 50yuan (5quid), which we thought was good money for an hour's sitting in a bar.
That evening we met some northerners and invited them along to the extra work the next day. Two of them, Ralph and Lisa, had been teaching in China and told us a story of how a fashionable English teacher suddenly had to dive for the toilets in the middle of a class, he couldn't find any toilet paper and when the kids followed him they found him squatting and wiping his arse with some of the smaller Chinese bank notes. They thought he was the coolest teacher after that.
We went to the Amsterdam Bar for the extra work the next day and the people making the film were just looking for a couple, and as the northerners had a beer at the bar we were paid to sit at a table and kiss. 15 minutes work, so that's... 20quid an hour for my first soft core porn role?
Thursday, 1 April 2010
Lijiang, Tiger Leaping Gorge
Lijiang is a ancient city on display; full of rivers and canals and picturesque cobbled streets and bridges; a tourist hot spot and on busy days you are shoulder to shoulder, mauling through people in tribal dresses, red panda hats, weavers and jewellers, big Chinese cameras and the rare white man.
On our first night we found out how expensive the bars are - 2quid50 a pint! Hah! So we drank rice wine in the streets.
On our way back to the International Youth Hostel Lijiang we met a group of Germans and they took us into a place where we could drink cheap, home-brewed rice wine for cheap. This became our local and we returned the next day even after I fell over into their display of meat and veg.
We were planning on exploring the town for a couple of days while our blisters from the Shaxi trek healed but on our second evening we met Kate from Kidlington, and we found ourselves ready and willing to get going on to the famous Tiger Leaping Gorge hike at 7am the next morning.
The group we were setting off with included 3 typically organised Chinese chaps, who had a week long itinerary and weren't about to be put 1 minute behind schedule and they led the way.
A 2 hour bus ride to Quetou, the starting town, and a French girl called Maria joined the group. We found out that the 50yuan entry fee was waived on agreement that their liability is waived if we were injured during their ongoing road building, or in other words, explosions.
We followed the Chinese chaps up the hill and some men with donkeys followed us, incase we got tired and were rich enough to hire them to carry us to the end. These guys were a pain and split our group up along the single file path while asking us do we want a horse and telling us to keep moving. Kate found the walk harder than the rest of us with her heavy backpack, after lunch she shouted at the donkey men until they got the bloody message and stopped following us.
From there on in the trek became more enjoyable and our surroundings more beautiful. We split into 2 groups, with the Chinese squirming at the idea of arriving late, and the German couple being of the hardcore-multi-lingual-medical-student-hike-through-snow-for-a-week-why-does-Kate-not-give-me-her-bag-so-she-can-keep-up-with-me-carry-their-own-theme-tune variety, stuck with the Chinese.
The trek turned out to be tiring, with a section called 'the 28 bends' that was steep and long. Views were constantly spectacular, above us snowy peaks, hundreds of meters below us the blue river was rapid.
We took our time with plenty of rest and 8 hours after starting off we arrived at the Halfway House just 30 minutes after the speed walkers. One of the Chinese chaps had even hired a donkey.
We copied Michael Palin's previous pose squatting in the outdoor toilet looking out over the mountains.
In the gorge, sunrise was technically at 10.30am, so we were up just after daybreak. 3 hours of walking to go before reaching Tina's guesthouse and a taxi back. A heavy and wide waterfall ran over our cliff edge path along the way, and was easily the most risky and entertaining moment of the day's walk so far.
We arranged to share a taxi with some French and Argentinians. The road was a cliff side quarry and we bumped along slowly until after an hour we reached an impassable and recent landslide. Rocks bounced their way from up high down and over the cliff non-stop and our taxi driver stood there as surprised as we were.
After about 10 minutes of watching the stones roll our driver ran over to the edge of the rocky radius and waved at us to follow. We didn't move. 10 seconds later he retreated back after a close shave with some speedy and dusty slides.
5 minutes more waiting and a Chinese man in a suit on the other side made a run for it and at halfway a head sized rock bounded down and missed his trailing leg somehow and he made it. We clapped and carried on waiting.
10 more minutes and we all crossed, with no casualties, although a Chinese man was hiding behind the Argentinian couple just to be safe.
Back to Lijiang by bus.
On our first night we found out how expensive the bars are - 2quid50 a pint! Hah! So we drank rice wine in the streets.
On our way back to the International Youth Hostel Lijiang we met a group of Germans and they took us into a place where we could drink cheap, home-brewed rice wine for cheap. This became our local and we returned the next day even after I fell over into their display of meat and veg.
We were planning on exploring the town for a couple of days while our blisters from the Shaxi trek healed but on our second evening we met Kate from Kidlington, and we found ourselves ready and willing to get going on to the famous Tiger Leaping Gorge hike at 7am the next morning.
The group we were setting off with included 3 typically organised Chinese chaps, who had a week long itinerary and weren't about to be put 1 minute behind schedule and they led the way.
A 2 hour bus ride to Quetou, the starting town, and a French girl called Maria joined the group. We found out that the 50yuan entry fee was waived on agreement that their liability is waived if we were injured during their ongoing road building, or in other words, explosions.
We followed the Chinese chaps up the hill and some men with donkeys followed us, incase we got tired and were rich enough to hire them to carry us to the end. These guys were a pain and split our group up along the single file path while asking us do we want a horse and telling us to keep moving. Kate found the walk harder than the rest of us with her heavy backpack, after lunch she shouted at the donkey men until they got the bloody message and stopped following us.
From there on in the trek became more enjoyable and our surroundings more beautiful. We split into 2 groups, with the Chinese squirming at the idea of arriving late, and the German couple being of the hardcore-multi-lingual-medical-student-hike-through-snow-for-a-week-why-does-Kate-not-give-me-her-bag-so-she-can-keep-up-with-me-carry-their-own-theme-tune variety, stuck with the Chinese.
The trek turned out to be tiring, with a section called 'the 28 bends' that was steep and long. Views were constantly spectacular, above us snowy peaks, hundreds of meters below us the blue river was rapid.
We took our time with plenty of rest and 8 hours after starting off we arrived at the Halfway House just 30 minutes after the speed walkers. One of the Chinese chaps had even hired a donkey.
We copied Michael Palin's previous pose squatting in the outdoor toilet looking out over the mountains.
In the gorge, sunrise was technically at 10.30am, so we were up just after daybreak. 3 hours of walking to go before reaching Tina's guesthouse and a taxi back. A heavy and wide waterfall ran over our cliff edge path along the way, and was easily the most risky and entertaining moment of the day's walk so far.
We arranged to share a taxi with some French and Argentinians. The road was a cliff side quarry and we bumped along slowly until after an hour we reached an impassable and recent landslide. Rocks bounced their way from up high down and over the cliff non-stop and our taxi driver stood there as surprised as we were.
After about 10 minutes of watching the stones roll our driver ran over to the edge of the rocky radius and waved at us to follow. We didn't move. 10 seconds later he retreated back after a close shave with some speedy and dusty slides.
5 minutes more waiting and a Chinese man in a suit on the other side made a run for it and at halfway a head sized rock bounded down and missed his trailing leg somehow and he made it. We clapped and carried on waiting.
10 more minutes and we all crossed, with no casualties, although a Chinese man was hiding behind the Argentinian couple just to be safe.
Back to Lijiang by bus.
Shaxi
To get away from the Chinese tourists and on advice from the Lonely Planet we took a 4 hour bus ride and 1 hour taxi to the small and secluded Shaxi village.
We were dropped off at the Dragonfly Guesthouse, a Ming dynasty house with a cobbled courtyard and even though we were the only guests the owner cooked us up a feast of half a dozen plates of meat and veg for dinner, including fried goat's cheese and sweet bamboo grubs. We were careful not to finish all the food and by extension question our host's generosity. We were still waiting on news of whether we would have a guide the next day for a 2 day hike along an ancient salt road and we sat around, had some rice wine and watched a film.
In the morning we were woken up and told that breakfast was ready and a guide was waiting for us. His name was (probably not) Dwan and he spoke no English, was shy and patient and turned out to be a fast walker.
A hot sunny day and the path full of dust and hard climbs and fresh water streams which we drank from with the donkeys. 15km later and we arrived in a small village with 1 toilet in the school for it's 8 children. The fastest way back was the way we had come. We were to stay in Dwan's farmhouse with his family. Kae impressed Dwan's folks with some drawings of the local temple while I played connect 5 with Dwan on a 'Go' board.
In the evening a friend of Dwan's made his arrival in the village known by setting off a string of firecrackers, and he was invited over. The 4 of us played a mix between dominos and a card game, and with the Chinese telling us which moves to make instead of what the rules were, we became supreme champions!
The whole family huddled around some hot coals as the night got colder. Dwan's father smoking from the typical gigantic pipe (between 2 and 3 foot in height, made of a metal tube, and smoked while squatting next to it) and everyone singing along to their 1 DVD, Chinese folk song kareoke.
We creeped outside at midnight to check the stars and there wasn't a light on in the village.
The next morning we woke up late and saw the old man peering though our bedroom window. We left, walked back the same way and on returning to Dragonfly to pick up our bags, made our way North to Lijiang.
We were dropped off at the Dragonfly Guesthouse, a Ming dynasty house with a cobbled courtyard and even though we were the only guests the owner cooked us up a feast of half a dozen plates of meat and veg for dinner, including fried goat's cheese and sweet bamboo grubs. We were careful not to finish all the food and by extension question our host's generosity. We were still waiting on news of whether we would have a guide the next day for a 2 day hike along an ancient salt road and we sat around, had some rice wine and watched a film.
In the morning we were woken up and told that breakfast was ready and a guide was waiting for us. His name was (probably not) Dwan and he spoke no English, was shy and patient and turned out to be a fast walker.
A hot sunny day and the path full of dust and hard climbs and fresh water streams which we drank from with the donkeys. 15km later and we arrived in a small village with 1 toilet in the school for it's 8 children. The fastest way back was the way we had come. We were to stay in Dwan's farmhouse with his family. Kae impressed Dwan's folks with some drawings of the local temple while I played connect 5 with Dwan on a 'Go' board.
In the evening a friend of Dwan's made his arrival in the village known by setting off a string of firecrackers, and he was invited over. The 4 of us played a mix between dominos and a card game, and with the Chinese telling us which moves to make instead of what the rules were, we became supreme champions!
The whole family huddled around some hot coals as the night got colder. Dwan's father smoking from the typical gigantic pipe (between 2 and 3 foot in height, made of a metal tube, and smoked while squatting next to it) and everyone singing along to their 1 DVD, Chinese folk song kareoke.
We creeped outside at midnight to check the stars and there wasn't a light on in the village.
The next morning we woke up late and saw the old man peering though our bedroom window. We left, walked back the same way and on returning to Dragonfly to pick up our bags, made our way North to Lijiang.
Dali
We arrived in New Dali (skyscrapers, big roads etc.) at 5am after another comfortable sleeper train journey. The buses to Old Dali (ancient, quirky town) did not start running until 6.30am and a friendly Chinese couple approached us to share a taxi there. We squeezed into the nearest taxi and a third of the way into the journey the driver did a U-turn, saying she wanted to pick up 2 more people. There was no chance of managing this without us sitting on each others laps and so I found a slightly more expensive, legal taxi for us to share when we stopped back at square 1. We don't have much luck with taxi drivers.
We arrived in Old Dali which was still asleep apart from an old man just starting to make steamed buns. The Chinese couple spoke to him and we sat down to drink tea and watch him make our breakfast. Along with the tasty sausage meat buns we had porridge with pickled cabbage, which was OK. The Chinese couple then woke up a guesthouse for us and found us a room and then they left.
Old Dali is a bit unreal, it looks a lot like the old China one sees in films, with ornate gates, canal networks and temples nestled between misty mountains and a giant lake. All this only slightly ruined by hordes of Chinese tourists carrying huge cameras. We explored and in the evening we almost went into a bar but were approached by a kung-fu and tai ji master called xiao bin. We arranged for lessons early the next day and so we skipped the bar and went back to get some rest.
During the kung fu lesson we played a couple of balance and strength games. One where you stand, legs far apart, infront of the opponent. You put your hand on their stomach, and slowly and firmly try to push them over. Xiao Bin weighed 50kg, but he was beating us all, including a very strong French man. I asked to have another go, he said I could have 20 more goes, it would make no difference. Then I beat him! A couple of times too. And the Frenchie. I also beat him at a frog jumping race. So that's kung fu mastered then, the only thing he could do that I couldn't was kick himself in the head. We moved onto tai ji where we memorized a succession of flowing movements. After an hour of that Xiao Bin took the 2 Frenchmen and Kae and I to the market and bought some food and some beer and took it to his house where a girl cooked it for us. Xiao bin showed us how to smash the base of a glass bottle full of water by hitting the top with the flat of your hand. The big Frenchie eventually managed to do it, but might have broken his thumb. Xiao Bin also showed us his new sword, which he uses to scare off groups of drunks who want to take him on. He says unarmed he can take on 3 people but any more than that and he needs his sword.
The next day we took a cable car up into the mountains. Just before this a gypsy woman cursed Kae by flicking her boob. Luckily Kae new a counter curse and reflected it back on the old hag. We saw the gypsy earlier on and our waitresses were making fun of her, but crapped themselves and ran away when the gypsy came near them.
We checked into the only hotel up the nearest mountain, the Higherland Inn, with amazing views of Dali, friendly staff, a peaceful garden with a Taoist cave, and no electricity. We walked around on the mountain and had some strong Tibetan rice wine by candlelight. The man who runs the hotel is from Tibet and told me that all their alcoholic drinks are 60% proof or stronger. We also met a Chinese illustrator and a Brit called Lenny.
Lenny has done a fair bit of travelling in Asia, you can tell by how he talks, in a simple and slow pidgin "I go to China. China is very good. I am happy here in China." He talks to me and Kae like this too, which is amazingly annoying. Lenny had met the owner of the Higherland Inn while in Thailand 2 years previous and he had fallen for her, but they went their seperate ways. Lenny had flown to China to find her, but he was too late, she had married a Swiss after knowing him for 6 days and moved to Switzerland. So now we were stuck with him.
We hiked up into the forest the next day, not just to escape Lenny. The forest was beautiful, and we ate some snickers (chocolate is more expensive than gold, in China). We took the cablecar down (the only thing more expensive than chocolate), and left the national park. If I had been caught with my lighter during our stay I would have been charged between 50 and 100 quid, and had to sign a form 3 times stating that I didn't have one, so I smuggled it in and out. Jack 1, communist China 0.
We arrived in Old Dali which was still asleep apart from an old man just starting to make steamed buns. The Chinese couple spoke to him and we sat down to drink tea and watch him make our breakfast. Along with the tasty sausage meat buns we had porridge with pickled cabbage, which was OK. The Chinese couple then woke up a guesthouse for us and found us a room and then they left.
Old Dali is a bit unreal, it looks a lot like the old China one sees in films, with ornate gates, canal networks and temples nestled between misty mountains and a giant lake. All this only slightly ruined by hordes of Chinese tourists carrying huge cameras. We explored and in the evening we almost went into a bar but were approached by a kung-fu and tai ji master called xiao bin. We arranged for lessons early the next day and so we skipped the bar and went back to get some rest.
During the kung fu lesson we played a couple of balance and strength games. One where you stand, legs far apart, infront of the opponent. You put your hand on their stomach, and slowly and firmly try to push them over. Xiao Bin weighed 50kg, but he was beating us all, including a very strong French man. I asked to have another go, he said I could have 20 more goes, it would make no difference. Then I beat him! A couple of times too. And the Frenchie. I also beat him at a frog jumping race. So that's kung fu mastered then, the only thing he could do that I couldn't was kick himself in the head. We moved onto tai ji where we memorized a succession of flowing movements. After an hour of that Xiao Bin took the 2 Frenchmen and Kae and I to the market and bought some food and some beer and took it to his house where a girl cooked it for us. Xiao bin showed us how to smash the base of a glass bottle full of water by hitting the top with the flat of your hand. The big Frenchie eventually managed to do it, but might have broken his thumb. Xiao Bin also showed us his new sword, which he uses to scare off groups of drunks who want to take him on. He says unarmed he can take on 3 people but any more than that and he needs his sword.
The next day we took a cable car up into the mountains. Just before this a gypsy woman cursed Kae by flicking her boob. Luckily Kae new a counter curse and reflected it back on the old hag. We saw the gypsy earlier on and our waitresses were making fun of her, but crapped themselves and ran away when the gypsy came near them.
We checked into the only hotel up the nearest mountain, the Higherland Inn, with amazing views of Dali, friendly staff, a peaceful garden with a Taoist cave, and no electricity. We walked around on the mountain and had some strong Tibetan rice wine by candlelight. The man who runs the hotel is from Tibet and told me that all their alcoholic drinks are 60% proof or stronger. We also met a Chinese illustrator and a Brit called Lenny.
Lenny has done a fair bit of travelling in Asia, you can tell by how he talks, in a simple and slow pidgin "I go to China. China is very good. I am happy here in China." He talks to me and Kae like this too, which is amazingly annoying. Lenny had met the owner of the Higherland Inn while in Thailand 2 years previous and he had fallen for her, but they went their seperate ways. Lenny had flown to China to find her, but he was too late, she had married a Swiss after knowing him for 6 days and moved to Switzerland. So now we were stuck with him.
We hiked up into the forest the next day, not just to escape Lenny. The forest was beautiful, and we ate some snickers (chocolate is more expensive than gold, in China). We took the cablecar down (the only thing more expensive than chocolate), and left the national park. If I had been caught with my lighter during our stay I would have been charged between 50 and 100 quid, and had to sign a form 3 times stating that I didn't have one, so I smuggled it in and out. Jack 1, communist China 0.
China, Hekou and Kunming
The border crossing from Loa Cai in Vietnam to Hekou in China was like jumping from a cramped and hostile frying pan into a giant, inveterate, friendly fire.
We quickly moved on to Kunming, the capital of the Yunnan province, after a long struggle to find the bus station in Hekou, which we walked past twice, being completely unable to read any signs - our first experience of the impossible Mandarin script. The Chinese have been helpful when we ask for directions, but we have to be shrewd with who we trust, as some point in any vague direction, and smile, rather than suffer the humiliation of admitting that they havn't the foggiest.
We have spent our first full day in China now, I can't believe how quiet the streets are, and they're massive, busy streets with buses and cars and scooters, but most of these are electric and wierdly silent, much like the Chinese.
We saw an ambulance speed right past us, but the sirens were so quiet we hardly heard them. No hassling, and hardly any honking - whereas in Vietnam they honk their horns rather than brake. We had a really strange arrival last night. At the Kunming bus station we were being hassled by a taxi driver (standard practice) after arriving by long distance bus and as we tried to ignore him we asked for help from a likely looking Chinese girl. When she offered to help us take the bus to the centre of town the taxi driver grabbed her by the throat, pushed her back and shouted at her (with me, Kae and a gigantic Canadian inbetween) for so long (him being backed up by a couple of other taxi drivers) that the police turned up. The Chinese girl was going to be taken for questioning in the police hut next door and didn't seem happy with this, so we all accompanied her to back her up. Eventually, after we got our story accross, they handcuffed the sneering little bastard and made him sit on the floor. We then had to wait for a more official guy to turn up and the police were making us tea and handing around nuts, and showed us a 'magic trick' with a banknote (he showed us how to do it - rookie mistake, so I took the floor and dumbfounded half a dozen policemen and the Canadian couple with my magical ability to see through the top card of a shuffled deck).
The final drama played out when the Chinese girl's Aunt and brother turned up, had a good go at the scrote in the handcuffs on the floor and then the Aunt whacked him round the head, hard, twice, and the brother took a running kick to him knocking him over, shoulder to shoulder with the police who were pretty relaxed about this but eventually insisted that they stop. The police paid for us to get a taxi into town and that was that, we swapped contacts with the Chinese girl, shared a dorm room with our new Canadian amigos and spent the day hanging around with them today.
Chinese food is interesting, and quite tasty, once you figure out how to get some. All they have on show for us to point at from the streets is offal, chicken feet and duck heads. We would have rather eaten a blind masseuse and so we approached a busy restaurant, where you pay and probably order at the door. So we handed over 10RMB (1quid) each and made complex faces and hand gestures at the woman, communicating brilliantly that we didn't know what we wanted, what she was saying or what to do, and walked inside.
Lot's of people queuing at windows and sat around tables collecting and eating food. We stood in a queue. The Chinese don't actually queue, so we realised we weren't stood in a queue and we asked for help. I asked the waitress for a clue loudly enough and someone who spoke a bit of English came over to save the day and we were told to just sit down and be quiet.
Food was served, and we were given at least 5 plates each. One with herbs and greens, one with 2 raw quail eggs, one with a selection of sliced raw meat, one with crunchy pig skin, some cold noodles and a couple of soft white bits. We sat very still and looked around. At last a man came over with 2 massive bowls of steaming broth and we poured all the ingredients in and enjoyed the area's speciality, our first 'over the bridge noodles'.
After a second night at the Hump Hostel we arranged a much needed Chinese lesson for a couple of quid. We wrote down some of the basics which have been very useful so far. The most interesting lesson was how to count to 10 with your hands. Numbers 1-5 are standard finger counting. 6 is our hand signal for phone, or 2-legged spider with your thumb and pinky pointing. 7 is as if you were making a shadow puppet of a rabbit head with no ears. 8 is a gun or the sign for 'loser'. 9 is a hook with your index finger like a claw (angry face optional). 10 is a cross made with both index fingers, as if you were warding off a vampire.
Before leaving Kunming for the historic tourist town, Dali, we spent a couple of hours tea tasting with a group of Westerners. We learnt a bit about the different teas about town, and how to use the complicated and ceremonious tools necessary to make a brew. Here we met an English couple who agreed to join us for dinner at a food court that we had tried out earlier that day.
At the food court, you put some money on a card and find and jealously guard a table, some of you walk around an underground trail of choices and pick out what you like. Here we tried the stodgy and cheap steamed buns that always give you gas, some with sausage meat inside, some with custard.
In the end, I was happy to leave Kunming for more rural and historic towns even if we did go to see the new Sherlock Holmes film in English. Onward to Dali, and sadly, the last time we've seen any life-size statues of robocop in the streets, with a big red button on his 6 pack that either calls the rozzers or brings him to life in the name of justice.
We quickly moved on to Kunming, the capital of the Yunnan province, after a long struggle to find the bus station in Hekou, which we walked past twice, being completely unable to read any signs - our first experience of the impossible Mandarin script. The Chinese have been helpful when we ask for directions, but we have to be shrewd with who we trust, as some point in any vague direction, and smile, rather than suffer the humiliation of admitting that they havn't the foggiest.
We have spent our first full day in China now, I can't believe how quiet the streets are, and they're massive, busy streets with buses and cars and scooters, but most of these are electric and wierdly silent, much like the Chinese.
We saw an ambulance speed right past us, but the sirens were so quiet we hardly heard them. No hassling, and hardly any honking - whereas in Vietnam they honk their horns rather than brake. We had a really strange arrival last night. At the Kunming bus station we were being hassled by a taxi driver (standard practice) after arriving by long distance bus and as we tried to ignore him we asked for help from a likely looking Chinese girl. When she offered to help us take the bus to the centre of town the taxi driver grabbed her by the throat, pushed her back and shouted at her (with me, Kae and a gigantic Canadian inbetween) for so long (him being backed up by a couple of other taxi drivers) that the police turned up. The Chinese girl was going to be taken for questioning in the police hut next door and didn't seem happy with this, so we all accompanied her to back her up. Eventually, after we got our story accross, they handcuffed the sneering little bastard and made him sit on the floor. We then had to wait for a more official guy to turn up and the police were making us tea and handing around nuts, and showed us a 'magic trick' with a banknote (he showed us how to do it - rookie mistake, so I took the floor and dumbfounded half a dozen policemen and the Canadian couple with my magical ability to see through the top card of a shuffled deck).
The final drama played out when the Chinese girl's Aunt and brother turned up, had a good go at the scrote in the handcuffs on the floor and then the Aunt whacked him round the head, hard, twice, and the brother took a running kick to him knocking him over, shoulder to shoulder with the police who were pretty relaxed about this but eventually insisted that they stop. The police paid for us to get a taxi into town and that was that, we swapped contacts with the Chinese girl, shared a dorm room with our new Canadian amigos and spent the day hanging around with them today.
Chinese food is interesting, and quite tasty, once you figure out how to get some. All they have on show for us to point at from the streets is offal, chicken feet and duck heads. We would have rather eaten a blind masseuse and so we approached a busy restaurant, where you pay and probably order at the door. So we handed over 10RMB (1quid) each and made complex faces and hand gestures at the woman, communicating brilliantly that we didn't know what we wanted, what she was saying or what to do, and walked inside.
Lot's of people queuing at windows and sat around tables collecting and eating food. We stood in a queue. The Chinese don't actually queue, so we realised we weren't stood in a queue and we asked for help. I asked the waitress for a clue loudly enough and someone who spoke a bit of English came over to save the day and we were told to just sit down and be quiet.
Food was served, and we were given at least 5 plates each. One with herbs and greens, one with 2 raw quail eggs, one with a selection of sliced raw meat, one with crunchy pig skin, some cold noodles and a couple of soft white bits. We sat very still and looked around. At last a man came over with 2 massive bowls of steaming broth and we poured all the ingredients in and enjoyed the area's speciality, our first 'over the bridge noodles'.
After a second night at the Hump Hostel we arranged a much needed Chinese lesson for a couple of quid. We wrote down some of the basics which have been very useful so far. The most interesting lesson was how to count to 10 with your hands. Numbers 1-5 are standard finger counting. 6 is our hand signal for phone, or 2-legged spider with your thumb and pinky pointing. 7 is as if you were making a shadow puppet of a rabbit head with no ears. 8 is a gun or the sign for 'loser'. 9 is a hook with your index finger like a claw (angry face optional). 10 is a cross made with both index fingers, as if you were warding off a vampire.
Before leaving Kunming for the historic tourist town, Dali, we spent a couple of hours tea tasting with a group of Westerners. We learnt a bit about the different teas about town, and how to use the complicated and ceremonious tools necessary to make a brew. Here we met an English couple who agreed to join us for dinner at a food court that we had tried out earlier that day.
At the food court, you put some money on a card and find and jealously guard a table, some of you walk around an underground trail of choices and pick out what you like. Here we tried the stodgy and cheap steamed buns that always give you gas, some with sausage meat inside, some with custard.
In the end, I was happy to leave Kunming for more rural and historic towns even if we did go to see the new Sherlock Holmes film in English. Onward to Dali, and sadly, the last time we've seen any life-size statues of robocop in the streets, with a big red button on his 6 pack that either calls the rozzers or brings him to life in the name of justice.
Wednesday, 31 March 2010
Hanoi, Halong Bay
A 30 day Chinese visa takes 6 days and cost $45 and so we had time to spend in and around Hanoi, if not money.
In Hanoi, each respectable tourist operator / hotel has a dozen copycat companies with the same name and logo and we learnt this the hard way. Three nights spent sleeping with several hundred ants later, and we had a face-off with the owners who were trying to charge us a massive $3 extra! We argued and pointed at things for 30 minutes until they gave it up as a bad job. In the last 6 weeks of bargaining I've been practising being indignant in a vaguely friendly way handing out peace-keeping cigarettes with careful timing.
After plenty of shopping around and bloody bargaining, we booked a 3 day, 2 night trip to Halong Bay, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, for $40 (travel, accomodation, sight entry, activities and food all inclusive). I was a spectacular trip. We travelled and ate (rice and cabbage and some tofu, which nobody ate) on a junk, a rickety old ship with 4 levels. Our first stop was a gigantic cave which we explored with an wise guy guide. We then moved on to stay in a hotel on Cat Ba Island to be ready the next morning for a hike up a rocky hill in the national park. At the top of the hill was a rusty 30m tall tower with a sign posted at the bottom that said it could hold a maximum of 5 people without collapsing. Kae and I climbed it and shared a collective nervousness with the 3 other people at the top before getting the hell back down. Back at base camp we shared our 3rd consequetive meal of rice and cabbage and climbed back onto the junk where we stayed for the night. We had a comfortable room, but the Vietnamese, ever ready to scrape every penny, turned off the electricity at 10pm just as Kae and I were halfway through our smuggled stash of rum (they charge $10 for every bottle not bought aboard).
The next day we cruised between the awesome craggy islands of Halong Bay, stopping next to a floating fishing village and poked our noses in via sea kyak. This was great fun and I didn't even mind being sold a rotten pineapple for $1 by a sweet little devil child who did rub it in a bit by shouting, laughing and pointing throughout her getaway.
The crew took us back to the harbour, and herded us to a restaurant for our 5th and final consecutive rice and cabbage, and by now everyone was tired of the budget level Vietnamese tourist industry.
We were lucky to bump into a creative couple (Kris and Neko, not to forget Kris' bro, Joel) who (coincidentally for Kae) had friends in animation studios in Bristol and a bunch of other shared interests. We spent an evening with them and were grateful to be invited to tag along for a tasty meal in a private room with their family and friends in Hanoi before we left for China the next day.
In Hanoi, each respectable tourist operator / hotel has a dozen copycat companies with the same name and logo and we learnt this the hard way. Three nights spent sleeping with several hundred ants later, and we had a face-off with the owners who were trying to charge us a massive $3 extra! We argued and pointed at things for 30 minutes until they gave it up as a bad job. In the last 6 weeks of bargaining I've been practising being indignant in a vaguely friendly way handing out peace-keeping cigarettes with careful timing.
After plenty of shopping around and bloody bargaining, we booked a 3 day, 2 night trip to Halong Bay, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, for $40 (travel, accomodation, sight entry, activities and food all inclusive). I was a spectacular trip. We travelled and ate (rice and cabbage and some tofu, which nobody ate) on a junk, a rickety old ship with 4 levels. Our first stop was a gigantic cave which we explored with an wise guy guide. We then moved on to stay in a hotel on Cat Ba Island to be ready the next morning for a hike up a rocky hill in the national park. At the top of the hill was a rusty 30m tall tower with a sign posted at the bottom that said it could hold a maximum of 5 people without collapsing. Kae and I climbed it and shared a collective nervousness with the 3 other people at the top before getting the hell back down. Back at base camp we shared our 3rd consequetive meal of rice and cabbage and climbed back onto the junk where we stayed for the night. We had a comfortable room, but the Vietnamese, ever ready to scrape every penny, turned off the electricity at 10pm just as Kae and I were halfway through our smuggled stash of rum (they charge $10 for every bottle not bought aboard).
The next day we cruised between the awesome craggy islands of Halong Bay, stopping next to a floating fishing village and poked our noses in via sea kyak. This was great fun and I didn't even mind being sold a rotten pineapple for $1 by a sweet little devil child who did rub it in a bit by shouting, laughing and pointing throughout her getaway.
The crew took us back to the harbour, and herded us to a restaurant for our 5th and final consecutive rice and cabbage, and by now everyone was tired of the budget level Vietnamese tourist industry.
We were lucky to bump into a creative couple (Kris and Neko, not to forget Kris' bro, Joel) who (coincidentally for Kae) had friends in animation studios in Bristol and a bunch of other shared interests. We spent an evening with them and were grateful to be invited to tag along for a tasty meal in a private room with their family and friends in Hanoi before we left for China the next day.
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