Wednesday, September 10, 2008
The stone forest rocks
Oh man, my puns are getting quite bad at this point. For day two in Kunming Jon and I headed out for our main destination, the Stone forest. David had told us that the forest is "totally awesome" and that we had to check it out so we left bright and early in the morning to spend our day on the outskirts of town among the rocks. Again this is one of those instances where it will be best to just let the photos do the talking.
Kickin' it in Kunming
Kunming was perfect, everything you could ask for from a city in the summertime. Mongolia had been hot and had burned me pretty bad, Guilin had been humid and sticky. But Kunming, Kunming was perfect. The sun was bright, which helped to build my nice summer tan, but the air was cool, which kept us from sweating like idiots like we had been earlier in the travels. But enough talk about the weather ...
Jon and I arrived at our hostel without any problems and we sat in the dining room munching on scrambled eggs and bacon while we waited for our room to be ready. Unfortunately, we were back to our standard travel routines of sharing a room with as many people as possible to save as much money as possible. Our room was an eight person bedroom, but really there was only one other person staying with us so it worked out nicely. After our post-train ritual of showering and changing Jon and I were ready to set out and start exploring the city.
Our first stop of the day was at the Yunnan Provincial Museum, which wasn't terribly interesting, but did have some cool artifacts to check out, some of which you could even touch. :)
From the museum we headed out to check out a park in the city, which was actually quite disappointing. Our guide book had hyped it up way too much and in actuality it was like almost every other park in China, which would have been fine to check out if we didn't actually live here. Oh well, live and learn.
After our park expedition we just kind of meandered around all afternoon. We had lunch at an outdoor restaurant, ducked into book shops, snacked on western food and just enjoyed the afternoon.
In the evening we continued our walking adventure and headed in the opposite direction in an effort to see as much of the city as possible. We walked for hours (we figured we logged close to 10 miles throughout the day) and just took in the beautiful summer night. Nothing too exciting came our way, but it was nice nonetheless.
Jon and I arrived at our hostel without any problems and we sat in the dining room munching on scrambled eggs and bacon while we waited for our room to be ready. Unfortunately, we were back to our standard travel routines of sharing a room with as many people as possible to save as much money as possible. Our room was an eight person bedroom, but really there was only one other person staying with us so it worked out nicely. After our post-train ritual of showering and changing Jon and I were ready to set out and start exploring the city.
Our first stop of the day was at the Yunnan Provincial Museum, which wasn't terribly interesting, but did have some cool artifacts to check out, some of which you could even touch. :)
From the museum we headed out to check out a park in the city, which was actually quite disappointing. Our guide book had hyped it up way too much and in actuality it was like almost every other park in China, which would have been fine to check out if we didn't actually live here. Oh well, live and learn.
After our park expedition we just kind of meandered around all afternoon. We had lunch at an outdoor restaurant, ducked into book shops, snacked on western food and just enjoyed the afternoon.
In the evening we continued our walking adventure and headed in the opposite direction in an effort to see as much of the city as possible. We walked for hours (we figured we logged close to 10 miles throughout the day) and just took in the beautiful summer night. Nothing too exciting came our way, but it was nice nonetheless.
Friday, September 5, 2008
In transit
We boarded our train leaving from Guilin and headed to Kunming, our next destination in our summer travels. We had an 18 hour train ride in front of us and Jon and I were pretty pooped from our running around in Guilin and trying to fit everything in during such a short stay. We were both looking forward to getting on the train and just taking a nap.
Our cabin mates had a completely different idea on how we were going to spend the afternoon traveling together. Because we were in a soft sleeper compartment it means that there are four beds (two bottoms and two tops) and it is actually pretty spacious and comfortable. The cars are always air conditioned and there is even a door on each compartment.
I settled into my bottom bed, pulled out a book and hoped to doze off. In the bed across from me there was a woman and her son who appeared to be about 10 years old. On the top bed was a girl who we assumes was traveling with them. The boy decided that instead of letting me have my peace and quiet he was just going to jump around and shout. He also just kept staring at me and saying "hello." As you know, this is totally common in China and typical of almost every trip I make. The big difference was, that was all the boy would say to me and then he would just stare at me the rest of the time.
Eventually I decided to pull out my mp3 player, put on some tunes and hope that those would drown out his fidgeting and lull me to sleep. No such luck. He decided to start running around and would climb into the top bed and then jump down, crashing into my bed on almost every occasion. Half the time he got too scared to come down and would just scream until his mom came and pulled him down.
When I thought all hope was lost the little boy finally decided to go play in the hallway. Every sleeper car has a hallway that runs along the outside of the doors and there are also seats that fold into the wall in the hallway so you can sit outside if the people in your car are sleeping or you need a change of scenery. The little boy from our compartment found another little boy in the car and they started to play together in the hall. I figured this was perfect because it would finally be quiet in our compartment and I'd be able to fall asleep.
As soon as he ran into the hall to play I quickly slid the door shut and rolled over to catch some Zs. His mother promptly opened the door and left it opened. I rolled over, smiled at her, told her I was very tired (in Chinese) and slid the door shut again. She said something to me very fast in Chinese, gestured to her son and slid the door open.
Fine, I get it. Your kid is outside playing and you want to keep an eye on him. But GO OUTSIDE and watch him. Common courtesy tells me that if someone is trying to sleep and I have a rambunctious 10 year old running around then maybe I should go out in the hall, sit in a chair and watch him for a little bit. This was not the case with our new friends. I finally gave up the fight, sat up, drank some water and continued to read.
Early that evening, around 6, our compartment mates decide it's time to go to bed. Unlike when we wanted to sleep earlier, we were not given a choice in this matter. They started to get ready for bed and then it was time for everyone to be quiet. I was sitting in my bed reading and I look over at the bed across from me to see the boy jumping up and down. Completely naked. To me, this is completely inappropriate given his age and his proximity to people they've never met before. But alas, they did not find this to be a problem. So the boy continued to bounce around naked and Jon and I continued to shove our noses deep into our books.
Eventually the little terror fell asleep and, after staring at me read for a little while, his mother decided to turn in as well and snuggled up to her naked son. I looked out the window and realized there was an absolutely beautiful sunset taking place and the mountains around us only made the view that much more breathtaking. Unfortunately, on the trains the windows are generally locked and if you try to open them the people working on the train come around and yell at you and shut them again.
So I did what anyone in my position would do. I went to the bathroom, where they le you open the windows, locked the door, straddled the squattie pottie, plugged my nose and spent the next twenty minutes taking photos out the window. This was quite the challenge since the window didn't really like to stay open and the toilet smelled awful so I kept using my hand to plug my nose, and besides the train was moving pretty fast so I had to hold on tight to my camera. All in all though I'd say it was worth it.
After my photo excursion I listened to some tunes and read for quite some time before finally calling it a night. Somewhere around 4 a.m. I was abruptly woken up when my delightful compartment mate decided to sit on me. I wish I was joking. Apparently we were closing in on their stop and, because they didn't want us to ever sleep, she decided that she should sit on my bed while she put her shoes on and situated all of her things. I made loud grunting noises, rolled over and tried to wait patiently for them to leave. Once they finally did I breathed a heavy sigh of relief and finally fell asleep peacefully. By the time I woke up we were pretty close to arriving in Kunming so I took the rest of the morning to just read and relax before the train pulled into the station.
Our cabin mates had a completely different idea on how we were going to spend the afternoon traveling together. Because we were in a soft sleeper compartment it means that there are four beds (two bottoms and two tops) and it is actually pretty spacious and comfortable. The cars are always air conditioned and there is even a door on each compartment.
I settled into my bottom bed, pulled out a book and hoped to doze off. In the bed across from me there was a woman and her son who appeared to be about 10 years old. On the top bed was a girl who we assumes was traveling with them. The boy decided that instead of letting me have my peace and quiet he was just going to jump around and shout. He also just kept staring at me and saying "hello." As you know, this is totally common in China and typical of almost every trip I make. The big difference was, that was all the boy would say to me and then he would just stare at me the rest of the time.
Eventually I decided to pull out my mp3 player, put on some tunes and hope that those would drown out his fidgeting and lull me to sleep. No such luck. He decided to start running around and would climb into the top bed and then jump down, crashing into my bed on almost every occasion. Half the time he got too scared to come down and would just scream until his mom came and pulled him down.
When I thought all hope was lost the little boy finally decided to go play in the hallway. Every sleeper car has a hallway that runs along the outside of the doors and there are also seats that fold into the wall in the hallway so you can sit outside if the people in your car are sleeping or you need a change of scenery. The little boy from our compartment found another little boy in the car and they started to play together in the hall. I figured this was perfect because it would finally be quiet in our compartment and I'd be able to fall asleep.
As soon as he ran into the hall to play I quickly slid the door shut and rolled over to catch some Zs. His mother promptly opened the door and left it opened. I rolled over, smiled at her, told her I was very tired (in Chinese) and slid the door shut again. She said something to me very fast in Chinese, gestured to her son and slid the door open.
Fine, I get it. Your kid is outside playing and you want to keep an eye on him. But GO OUTSIDE and watch him. Common courtesy tells me that if someone is trying to sleep and I have a rambunctious 10 year old running around then maybe I should go out in the hall, sit in a chair and watch him for a little bit. This was not the case with our new friends. I finally gave up the fight, sat up, drank some water and continued to read.
Early that evening, around 6, our compartment mates decide it's time to go to bed. Unlike when we wanted to sleep earlier, we were not given a choice in this matter. They started to get ready for bed and then it was time for everyone to be quiet. I was sitting in my bed reading and I look over at the bed across from me to see the boy jumping up and down. Completely naked. To me, this is completely inappropriate given his age and his proximity to people they've never met before. But alas, they did not find this to be a problem. So the boy continued to bounce around naked and Jon and I continued to shove our noses deep into our books.
Eventually the little terror fell asleep and, after staring at me read for a little while, his mother decided to turn in as well and snuggled up to her naked son. I looked out the window and realized there was an absolutely beautiful sunset taking place and the mountains around us only made the view that much more breathtaking. Unfortunately, on the trains the windows are generally locked and if you try to open them the people working on the train come around and yell at you and shut them again.
So I did what anyone in my position would do. I went to the bathroom, where they le you open the windows, locked the door, straddled the squattie pottie, plugged my nose and spent the next twenty minutes taking photos out the window. This was quite the challenge since the window didn't really like to stay open and the toilet smelled awful so I kept using my hand to plug my nose, and besides the train was moving pretty fast so I had to hold on tight to my camera. All in all though I'd say it was worth it.
After my photo excursion I listened to some tunes and read for quite some time before finally calling it a night. Somewhere around 4 a.m. I was abruptly woken up when my delightful compartment mate decided to sit on me. I wish I was joking. Apparently we were closing in on their stop and, because they didn't want us to ever sleep, she decided that she should sit on my bed while she put her shoes on and situated all of her things. I made loud grunting noises, rolled over and tried to wait patiently for them to leave. Once they finally did I breathed a heavy sigh of relief and finally fell asleep peacefully. By the time I woke up we were pretty close to arriving in Kunming so I took the rest of the morning to just read and relax before the train pulled into the station.
A little climbing and cave dwelling
Because we were trying to cram as much sightseeing as possible into our very busy summer Jon and I were already needing to move onto the next city on our itinerary. We had an afternoon train booked for July 14, but wanted to see a few more things before the wheels started rolling on to our next destination.
Our hostel arranged for a cab to pick us up in the morning, drive us around to the things we wanted to see and then take us to the train station later in the day for a reasonable price.
The first stop on our list that morning was a park in the middle of the town. The main reason we wanted to go there was to climb this tall hillside located in the middle of the park that apparently provided the best view of Guilin. We went to the park, made a beeline for the hillside, took some photos from the top and hustled back to our friendly, waiting taxi driver.
Our next destination was the Reed Flute Cave. I'm not big on caves, because they drum up ideas of bats flying around and bats are like birds that had babies with rats. And everyone knows I hate birds. But, the cave was supposed to be really cool and the photos in my book looked pretty great so I thought I'd give it a shot. I loved the cave! I can honestly say that I didn't think most of the stalagmites and stalactites looked like the description, but I still thought they were pretty interesting and the bright lights installed in the cave (although poorly hidden) did give them a cool effect.
There was also another cave within the cave that I paid an extra 10 kuai to check out. It was lame. There were these huge turtles everywhere and giant signs telling me that they were "1,000 year old turtles." Obviously. Apparently they were really like 140 years old or something, which I thought was still pretty cool.
I returned to the main cave and made my way through the last bit of the cave where I finally agreed that one of the formations actually looked like it's description ... it was supposed to be a lion standing on a rock.
After exiting the cave we made our way back to our taxi driver who took us to a pearl factory to have a look around. We had absolutely no interest in doing this, but we knew that our driver would get a commission just for bringing us by and he had been really nice so we played along. He then took us back to the hostel and waited patiently while we had lunch and grabbed our bags.
Apparently the train station we were leaving from is pretty much abandoned and was on the outskirts of town so it took us a little while to get out there. We still got there pretty early and it became even earlier when our train was delayed about half an hour. At any rate we boarded the train and said goodbye to Guilin.
Our hostel arranged for a cab to pick us up in the morning, drive us around to the things we wanted to see and then take us to the train station later in the day for a reasonable price.
The first stop on our list that morning was a park in the middle of the town. The main reason we wanted to go there was to climb this tall hillside located in the middle of the park that apparently provided the best view of Guilin. We went to the park, made a beeline for the hillside, took some photos from the top and hustled back to our friendly, waiting taxi driver.
Our next destination was the Reed Flute Cave. I'm not big on caves, because they drum up ideas of bats flying around and bats are like birds that had babies with rats. And everyone knows I hate birds. But, the cave was supposed to be really cool and the photos in my book looked pretty great so I thought I'd give it a shot. I loved the cave! I can honestly say that I didn't think most of the stalagmites and stalactites looked like the description, but I still thought they were pretty interesting and the bright lights installed in the cave (although poorly hidden) did give them a cool effect.
There was also another cave within the cave that I paid an extra 10 kuai to check out. It was lame. There were these huge turtles everywhere and giant signs telling me that they were "1,000 year old turtles." Obviously. Apparently they were really like 140 years old or something, which I thought was still pretty cool.
I returned to the main cave and made my way through the last bit of the cave where I finally agreed that one of the formations actually looked like it's description ... it was supposed to be a lion standing on a rock.
After exiting the cave we made our way back to our taxi driver who took us to a pearl factory to have a look around. We had absolutely no interest in doing this, but we knew that our driver would get a commission just for bringing us by and he had been really nice so we played along. He then took us back to the hostel and waited patiently while we had lunch and grabbed our bags.
Apparently the train station we were leaving from is pretty much abandoned and was on the outskirts of town so it took us a little while to get out there. We still got there pretty early and it became even earlier when our train was delayed about half an hour. At any rate we boarded the train and said goodbye to Guilin.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Yangshuo
Jon and I decided that instead of heading immediately back to Guilin with the rest of our fellow river cruisers we would hang around Yangshuo for the rest of the day and then make our way back to the city on our own later that evening.
The small (you know, in China terms) city was bustling with people from all over the world and full of western restaurants and cafes. To be quite frank that was the biggest thing to do in the area. There were some mountains to climb and some temples to see, but we didn't have time for mountains and I've seen so many damn temples in China that unless there is something really special to see, I generally pass.
So Jon and I spent the afternoon meandering around, munching on comfort foods, admiring the scenery and soaking up some rays. We also managed to find a few used bookstores/exchange spots where we were able to pick up some new reading material. This basically made my life since I'm generally starved for English reading material.
It was a very relaxing day and the surroundings could not have been better. Also we got a great view of the sunset before jumping on a bus for a few hours to get back to Guilin.
The small (you know, in China terms) city was bustling with people from all over the world and full of western restaurants and cafes. To be quite frank that was the biggest thing to do in the area. There were some mountains to climb and some temples to see, but we didn't have time for mountains and I've seen so many damn temples in China that unless there is something really special to see, I generally pass.
So Jon and I spent the afternoon meandering around, munching on comfort foods, admiring the scenery and soaking up some rays. We also managed to find a few used bookstores/exchange spots where we were able to pick up some new reading material. This basically made my life since I'm generally starved for English reading material.
It was a very relaxing day and the surroundings could not have been better. Also we got a great view of the sunset before jumping on a bus for a few hours to get back to Guilin.
Old Man River
In case you are completely lost as to where we are in my summer travels at this point let me paint a point of reference: the date should be July 18, 12 days after I started traveling and three weeks until the start of the Olympics. But now onto the day's festivities ...
Jon and I woke up early to join a group of Chinese people on a cruise down the Li River. We signed up for a cruise in Chinese because the cost was drastically less and we were trying to do as much as possible on a tighter budget. We speak enough Chinese that we could get the gist of what was going on and then figured we could look things up on the Internet later if we needed to. The Li Jiang river flows from Guilin to Yangshuo and it is absolutely breathtaking how beautiful it is. I'm just going to post pictures and let them tell the story.
Jon and I woke up early to join a group of Chinese people on a cruise down the Li River. We signed up for a cruise in Chinese because the cost was drastically less and we were trying to do as much as possible on a tighter budget. We speak enough Chinese that we could get the gist of what was going on and then figured we could look things up on the Internet later if we needed to. The Li Jiang river flows from Guilin to Yangshuo and it is absolutely breathtaking how beautiful it is. I'm just going to post pictures and let them tell the story.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
On the road again ...
After a restful (haha) stay in Handan Jon and I boarded the train headed south to Zhengzhou. Luckily this trip was only a little over two hours and merely a means to an end. We were taking the train to Zhengzhou so that we could take a plane from there to Guilin instead of having to take a 24 hour train ride to Guilin.
As far as flights go ours was fine ... I slept for almost the whole time, which was only about an hour and was anxious to arrive. When we were down in baggage claim (we had to check our bags because of the liquids, even though they were definitely small enough to be carry-ons) I realized that I had left my jacket on the plane and so I had to track that down, but even that didn't really cause any problems.
Jon and I made our way to the train station as quick as we could to buy tickets for our next destination, because in China you have to buy your tickets as soon as you can once they go on sale or you face having to stand for the duration of your trip. We split up and stood in different lines to see if one would move faster than another. After about thirty minutes of standing in line I was finally just a few people away from the front. And that was the exact moment the employee closed the window down. Fast forward about an hour later and that was when Jon and I finally made it to the front of a line. We were hot and sweaty from standing in the stinky train station, but we were able to score some soft sleepers for a lot less than we thought they were going to cost.
We had directions to our hostel from the train station so we headed out to try to find our way and drop off our stuff. Turns out the directions were pretty terrible and after meandering around quite hopelessly for a while we were finally able to spot the hostel, which was located down a side street and on like the fourth floor of the building. Luckily the people who worked there were really nice and the place was also pretty good. We had been able to score a room for just the two of us, which was a nice change from sharing with lots of other people like we had been and like we would be doing for most of the rest of our trip.
After dropping off our stuff we decided to be good tourists and check the city out a bit even though it was getting a bit late and we were tired. We didn't end up staying out too late, but we had some really delicious milk tea (I would even argue that it was the best I've ever had) and saw the river, which looked really beautiful at night.
We were just about to call it a night and head back to the hostel when we noticed two huge pagodas that were aglow in the dark summer night. We walked around the park where they were located for a while and talked before all the lights were turned off and we took that as a sign to leave.
Then we made our way back to the hostel where we bought tickets on the Li Jiang cruise for the next morning and called it a night.
As far as flights go ours was fine ... I slept for almost the whole time, which was only about an hour and was anxious to arrive. When we were down in baggage claim (we had to check our bags because of the liquids, even though they were definitely small enough to be carry-ons) I realized that I had left my jacket on the plane and so I had to track that down, but even that didn't really cause any problems.
Jon and I made our way to the train station as quick as we could to buy tickets for our next destination, because in China you have to buy your tickets as soon as you can once they go on sale or you face having to stand for the duration of your trip. We split up and stood in different lines to see if one would move faster than another. After about thirty minutes of standing in line I was finally just a few people away from the front. And that was the exact moment the employee closed the window down. Fast forward about an hour later and that was when Jon and I finally made it to the front of a line. We were hot and sweaty from standing in the stinky train station, but we were able to score some soft sleepers for a lot less than we thought they were going to cost.
We had directions to our hostel from the train station so we headed out to try to find our way and drop off our stuff. Turns out the directions were pretty terrible and after meandering around quite hopelessly for a while we were finally able to spot the hostel, which was located down a side street and on like the fourth floor of the building. Luckily the people who worked there were really nice and the place was also pretty good. We had been able to score a room for just the two of us, which was a nice change from sharing with lots of other people like we had been and like we would be doing for most of the rest of our trip.
After dropping off our stuff we decided to be good tourists and check the city out a bit even though it was getting a bit late and we were tired. We didn't end up staying out too late, but we had some really delicious milk tea (I would even argue that it was the best I've ever had) and saw the river, which looked really beautiful at night.
We were just about to call it a night and head back to the hostel when we noticed two huge pagodas that were aglow in the dark summer night. We walked around the park where they were located for a while and talked before all the lights were turned off and we took that as a sign to leave.
Then we made our way back to the hostel where we bought tickets on the Li Jiang cruise for the next morning and called it a night.
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