We continued our trip south through Vietnam with a stop in Nah Trang about 10 hours by bus south of Hoi An. This is a city with a gorgeous beach front devoted to tourists, and is probably Vietnam's premier party town. We however decided that rather than devoting ourselves to a few days practice in the art of personal pickling we would go back to school and complete our open water diving certificates so that we can go diving during the rest of our trip with fewer restrictions.
The PADI course that we signed up for took 3 days, with half a day of studying and half a day of diving each day, Vietnam is probably one of the cheapest places in the world to do this course, and it only cost us about NZD$300 each. The primary goal is to teach you how to deal with any of the emergency situations that you might get into and get you practiced enough that you wont panic if something does start to go wrong. Pool dives first day followed by reef dives on the last two days made it good fun, though the studying put a bit of a damper on nightly boozing. Having completed this course we can now go diving to 18m depths, looking forward to putting this into practice in Thailand where there is purportedly some of the best reef diving in the world.
To combat the relatively high expense of doing this diving we naturally had to economise in other areas. Primary means for accomplishing this was Bia Hoi (ie Beer Hoi, the Beer part being obviously the most important element). These are small dirty little establishments with plastic chairs and tables intended and sized for three year olds in which you can purchase a litre of beer for about NZD $0.25, or about a fiftieth of what it costs in NZ. Obviously the bar tabs never run too large. On top of this they are very social and a great way to meet similarly tight-arsed people with marginal personal hygiene as you are forced to share the lilliputian furnishings. On the food side of things we made an additional discovery of Bo Ne, and variants, where you get a simple meal of steak, egg, salad, bread/rice for about NZD $1.00 served at the same sort of furniture as the Bai Hoi on the footpath by mobile vendors who show up after presumably finishing their day jobs. So consumables can be really cheap. Accommodation was also only about NZ$15 a day for the double room with air conditioning, cable TV and ensuite 100m from the beach. You are probably getting the idea that this is a very cheap place to hang out, and you would be right, we've been told that it is similar to what Thailand was like 10-15 years ago.
We decided we had to take a day off from our course to sample the nightlife, and went out in search of the crowds. We met a number of interesting bods at Bia Hoi and wandered off to a bar/resort on the beach (the "Sailing Club"with 100's of Europeans sitting out under the stars in the hot night air. We got chatting with a group played some pool and sat out at the palm-thatched bar on the sand with swings instead of bar stools and a speedy little crab that scuttled back and forth on the bar looking for new hiding spots. Here things started to get a little wiggly as we discovered that great Asian institution the "Cocktail bucket" which is basically a poorly thought out concoction of fruit juice or softdrink with industrial grade alcohol and ice served in litre quantities. Three of these later and it was time to gracefully depart the field. Not sure exactly how we got home, but the next day was a total right-off.
We completed our diving course (both passing final exam), had a more subdued night out and then had to spend the day on the beach waiting for our night train to Saigon. The Nah Trang beach is fantastic, with massive crowds of Vietnamese showing up at 5am and 5pm, but otherwise not too busy. However the continual harassment by hawkers every 5-10 minutes really started to piss us off, was tempted to pay one of them to keep the others way from us. After our bad sunburn from an hour on the beach in Hoi An we had to stick strictly to the shade of a hired beach lounger.
Saigon (No-one except government and business calls it Ho Chi Minh city, as the Northern invaders really aren't popular, and Communism has been a total screw-up) is just another big Vietnamese city, with the same mad and massive population of motorcyclists putting you in fear for you life anytime you walk the streets (and you do have to walk ON the street as the sidewalks are appropriated for every other use and activity by businesses). We were advised that to cross the street you simply start walking and ignore the traffic, as they will swerve around you as long as you don't do anything silly like pause, stop or notice them. So after getting our accommodation sorted we quickly booked a tour to the Meekong Delta for three days.
The Meekong is SE Asia river #1 Starting in Tibet and winding through six countries on its way to the sea. In the delta area it is divided into Numerous branches, connected by thousands of canals to each other and every habitable scrap of land. Some of the branches are over a kilometer wide, and anywhere up to 25m deep. It is also home to an entire civilisation of boat people, with floating houses, floating factories, floating markets, aquaculture and massive numbers of boats and lost Jandals floating around everywhere you go. It produces prodigious amounts of rice and other food for export and serves as a conduit for trade with all the countries along the navigable portions of the Meekong. We spent three days traipsing around on a ridiculously cheap tour (NZD$35 each including accommodation) transferring from bus to boat to bus to boat to boat to boat to motorbike to rowboat to boat to van to boat to bus to Saigon. I finally got to ride in an Asian long-tail boat in which a propeller on a long angled driveshaft is hooked straight to an engine that is muscled about on a pivot by the driver to steer. However, the highlight of the trip was being taken to a Mosque (Vietnam is 86% Buddhist) by our knob of a guide who explained to us how the school next door taught Arabic to the children so that they could talk to Osama and Saddam. This did not go over that well with the Mullah standing nearby, and there was a bit of a shouting match before our guide retreated saying "I ******* hate minorities".
We finished up our time in Vietnam with a couple of lazy days in Saigon as Jane waited for her replacement Visa to finally come through (we ended up getting it 1 hour before we left for the airport, and Jane in her usual charitable mood saw fit to educate the persons responsible for this in some of the richer and more evocative terms of emphasis and imperative that English has to offer). Meanwhile I was getting over a cold and while dosing up on antibiotics (standard antimalarial treatment) on an empty stomach I distinguished myself by projectile vomiting all over the road in front of our cafe table during lunch. Fortunately it was raining at the time so it washed away quickly, but I suspect the cafe owners were not totally impressed at this advertisement for their services.
So here our time in Vietnam comes to an end. Vietnam has been great (apart from Jane having her bag snatched in Hanoi), and probably the highlight of our trip so far. Friendly, helpful and funny people, nice weather (almost no rain), and interesting to boot, this place is going to move ahead in leaps and bounds over the next couple of decades. If they can just get their population growth in check (90 million now) , so do try to see it before its all gone.
If Thailand can match what we have had here then we will be very pleased.
Monday, July 23, 2007
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Does the wet suit you? (With apologies to Whit Deschner)
Jane and I travelled seprately to Hoi An (her by bus and me by air) meeting up again in Da Nang airport in the evening and catching a taxi with another couple ot Hoi An half an hour away.
Hoi An is a rapidly developing beach resort town with some offshore islands and probably the most tailors per square km of anywhere in the world (literally hundreds). Needless to say when most women get a sniff of this place their eyes roll back in their heads, their jaws widen into an attack-gape and they start salivating uncontrollably. We managed to spend $900 dollars on clothing in four days, including:
Jane: 2 suits (each with jacket, 2 pants, 1 skirt), 3 sets of pants, 5 blouses, 3 dresses, a woollen felt jacket,
Robert: suit with two sets of pants, great coat, five shirts.
It really is incredibly cheap, suits less than $100 and shirts/blouses/dresses for under $20. Most professional women could probably justify a trip to Hoi An from anywhere in the world simply on the money they would save over a year or two's clothes shopping.
Of course we had to fill in the time we weren't in the shop (averaged about 2 hours a day, with return trips for minor fitting alterations).
First day we cycled to the beach and swam and sunbathed for 2 hours. Big mistake as in our conceit that NZ has the worst sun in the world we didn't lather up with the sunscreen and got horribly burnt. This put an end to time in the sun for the rest of our Hoi An stay, we had to soak in the hotel pool for a few hours to take the sting out of it and found that the pool was a better bet for swimming from then on (necessary in the 30-35 degree hot sun and high humidity days).
Second day we hired a motorbike and took turns driving to travel 20-30km up the coast to marble mountain, where a big hill of marble sticks up out of the otherwise flat land, it is covered in a number of temples and caves with statues etc in them, and overall pretty good (better than the nepalese/tibetan JAM), but would have been better if the weather wasn't so hot and sunny. Surrounded by a huge number of marble working businesses churning out statues, furniture and objets d'art for very reasonable prices. This is another place that we will likely be back to one day to buy at - eg a marble table and 6 stools for $2000, shipping is easy to organise and cheap at only about $100 per cubic meter to New Zealand.
Third day was a real highlight; we went out on a "Discovery dive" where we were taken diving under strict supervision of a Dive Master for two hour-long dives on a coral reef, all for $90. This was very cool, lots of fisks (nearly put my hand on a scorpion fish - which would have been bad) brilliant visiblity, and lots of technical bits to pique the engineer's interest :-). We had enough of a taste from doing this that we are now going to do a dive course. Much cheaper than NZ at about $NZ300 vrs more than double that in NZ and still have good safety with western teachers. This should allow us to enjoy the best diving spots in the world when we hit Thailand in a few weeks.
Hoi An had fantastic food and great night life in it's sleepy little waterfront area. We stayed in a nice hotel with a pool, air conditioning, free breakfast tv etc for just $10 per night each and food and drink cost less than $20 each for the day even when we had a big night out, so living is pretty cheap. Having finished up our time in Hoi An we packed all the swag and headed off to Nah Trang, Vietnamese beach party town a 12 hour NZ $11 overnight bus trip down the coast.
Hoi An is a rapidly developing beach resort town with some offshore islands and probably the most tailors per square km of anywhere in the world (literally hundreds). Needless to say when most women get a sniff of this place their eyes roll back in their heads, their jaws widen into an attack-gape and they start salivating uncontrollably. We managed to spend $900 dollars on clothing in four days, including:
Jane: 2 suits (each with jacket, 2 pants, 1 skirt), 3 sets of pants, 5 blouses, 3 dresses, a woollen felt jacket,
Robert: suit with two sets of pants, great coat, five shirts.
It really is incredibly cheap, suits less than $100 and shirts/blouses/dresses for under $20. Most professional women could probably justify a trip to Hoi An from anywhere in the world simply on the money they would save over a year or two's clothes shopping.
Of course we had to fill in the time we weren't in the shop (averaged about 2 hours a day, with return trips for minor fitting alterations).
First day we cycled to the beach and swam and sunbathed for 2 hours. Big mistake as in our conceit that NZ has the worst sun in the world we didn't lather up with the sunscreen and got horribly burnt. This put an end to time in the sun for the rest of our Hoi An stay, we had to soak in the hotel pool for a few hours to take the sting out of it and found that the pool was a better bet for swimming from then on (necessary in the 30-35 degree hot sun and high humidity days).
Second day we hired a motorbike and took turns driving to travel 20-30km up the coast to marble mountain, where a big hill of marble sticks up out of the otherwise flat land, it is covered in a number of temples and caves with statues etc in them, and overall pretty good (better than the nepalese/tibetan JAM), but would have been better if the weather wasn't so hot and sunny. Surrounded by a huge number of marble working businesses churning out statues, furniture and objets d'art for very reasonable prices. This is another place that we will likely be back to one day to buy at - eg a marble table and 6 stools for $2000, shipping is easy to organise and cheap at only about $100 per cubic meter to New Zealand.
Third day was a real highlight; we went out on a "Discovery dive" where we were taken diving under strict supervision of a Dive Master for two hour-long dives on a coral reef, all for $90. This was very cool, lots of fisks (nearly put my hand on a scorpion fish - which would have been bad) brilliant visiblity, and lots of technical bits to pique the engineer's interest :-). We had enough of a taste from doing this that we are now going to do a dive course. Much cheaper than NZ at about $NZ300 vrs more than double that in NZ and still have good safety with western teachers. This should allow us to enjoy the best diving spots in the world when we hit Thailand in a few weeks.
Hoi An had fantastic food and great night life in it's sleepy little waterfront area. We stayed in a nice hotel with a pool, air conditioning, free breakfast tv etc for just $10 per night each and food and drink cost less than $20 each for the day even when we had a big night out, so living is pretty cheap. Having finished up our time in Hoi An we packed all the swag and headed off to Nah Trang, Vietnamese beach party town a 12 hour NZ $11 overnight bus trip down the coast.
Thursday, July 05, 2007
Vietnam - Stuck in Hanoi
So from my end and three weeks of being in Vietnam. I spent my first 2 days in Hanoi, hiring a bike one day and peddling around the town, and just wandering the old quarter the other day. The 2nd evening I headed, by overnight train, to Sapa (just south of the Chinese border in the Yunnan province) where I went trekking and homestaying in some local tribes houses. It was beautiful scenery, but unfortunately things have changed since my uncles 1993 Lonely Planet, which I was using and advised that not many tourist go here. It is very touristy and the tauts are much worse than in Hanoi. Worth it all the same.
Another overnight train was taken to get back to Hanoi and it was on the morning after this that my stuff was stolen. Bad luck, a lesson, and a pain in the ass. I was planning on heading Halong Bay that same morning, but this was obviously cancelled and the day was spent sorting out a new passport. The new passport took just under 2 weeks to get here, but during that time I was able to head out of Hanoi, just not to far, because I had to come back anyway.
So I went south to Ninh Binh for 3 days. Had a look at Tam Coc (some rock formations that you reach by a boat and go through these caves, very beautiful), went by motorbike along backroads to Cuc Phong (a national park) where I spent the night. I was the only visitor here which was quite nice, but also a wee bit weird. The trip back from Cuc Phong was also by motorbike and through backroads, this was definitly a highlight so far. I was also taught to ride a motorbike by my guide when I got back to Ninh Binh, which was very exciting.
From Ninh Binh I went to Vinh and spent the night at a beach close called Coa Lo. This is a Vietnamese resort town and they obviously don't get many foreignors here because everyone was shouting out Hello etc even thought they couldn't actually speak english. It was a beautiful beach despite the massive numbers of Vietnamese crowding it, but it was a bit disturbing and I left early that morning back to Hanoi via local bus.
Partway through the trip a man got on the bus who had a pet monkey with him. This kept the bus amused for a while, until we got a flat tire. They didn't seem to have the tools necessary to fix the flat tire and had to send someone into the closest town. It was fixed pretty quickly though and we were off within 1/2hour.
The following day I went to Halong Bay. This is a beautiful bay off the East Coast of the north of Vietnam and has hundreds of these odd linestone formations protruding out of the water. It was pissing down with rain most of the time, but was beautiful all the same. I was lucky enough to have a great group of people on the boat who were all keen for a bit of a party and so we partied and swam into the night. Great fun. The following day we headed to Cat Ba Island. I don't know whether it was due to the weather or whether the Island is just not that great, but I wasn't really able to enjoy this and spent most of my time in the hotel. I did pop out to head to Monkey Island (where there are obviously monkey's) and go for a swim, but it was still pretty horrible weather.
The following day I headed back to Hanoi to collect my passport and sort out my Visa's. I was able to get my British one within the day, but apparently, like Rob, I need to have some proof that I'm leaving the country before Vietnam will issue a new Wietnamese visa. All a bit odd considering I came in without needing this proof. So at present I'm travelling without a visa and will sort this out in Saigon.
So far Vietnam has been great. There are heaps of tourists everywhere, unless you truly get off the beaten track, but this seems to be quite expensive. Hanoi has got a great feel to it, I certainly could have been stuck in a worse city.
Another overnight train was taken to get back to Hanoi and it was on the morning after this that my stuff was stolen. Bad luck, a lesson, and a pain in the ass. I was planning on heading Halong Bay that same morning, but this was obviously cancelled and the day was spent sorting out a new passport. The new passport took just under 2 weeks to get here, but during that time I was able to head out of Hanoi, just not to far, because I had to come back anyway.
So I went south to Ninh Binh for 3 days. Had a look at Tam Coc (some rock formations that you reach by a boat and go through these caves, very beautiful), went by motorbike along backroads to Cuc Phong (a national park) where I spent the night. I was the only visitor here which was quite nice, but also a wee bit weird. The trip back from Cuc Phong was also by motorbike and through backroads, this was definitly a highlight so far. I was also taught to ride a motorbike by my guide when I got back to Ninh Binh, which was very exciting.
From Ninh Binh I went to Vinh and spent the night at a beach close called Coa Lo. This is a Vietnamese resort town and they obviously don't get many foreignors here because everyone was shouting out Hello etc even thought they couldn't actually speak english. It was a beautiful beach despite the massive numbers of Vietnamese crowding it, but it was a bit disturbing and I left early that morning back to Hanoi via local bus.
Partway through the trip a man got on the bus who had a pet monkey with him. This kept the bus amused for a while, until we got a flat tire. They didn't seem to have the tools necessary to fix the flat tire and had to send someone into the closest town. It was fixed pretty quickly though and we were off within 1/2hour.
The following day I went to Halong Bay. This is a beautiful bay off the East Coast of the north of Vietnam and has hundreds of these odd linestone formations protruding out of the water. It was pissing down with rain most of the time, but was beautiful all the same. I was lucky enough to have a great group of people on the boat who were all keen for a bit of a party and so we partied and swam into the night. Great fun. The following day we headed to Cat Ba Island. I don't know whether it was due to the weather or whether the Island is just not that great, but I wasn't really able to enjoy this and spent most of my time in the hotel. I did pop out to head to Monkey Island (where there are obviously monkey's) and go for a swim, but it was still pretty horrible weather.
The following day I headed back to Hanoi to collect my passport and sort out my Visa's. I was able to get my British one within the day, but apparently, like Rob, I need to have some proof that I'm leaving the country before Vietnam will issue a new Wietnamese visa. All a bit odd considering I came in without needing this proof. So at present I'm travelling without a visa and will sort this out in Saigon.
So far Vietnam has been great. There are heaps of tourists everywhere, unless you truly get off the beaten track, but this seems to be quite expensive. Hanoi has got a great feel to it, I certainly could have been stuck in a worse city.
The Holiday from the Holiday from the Holiday
Just a fill in on the fun and frollics since I went AWOL a couple of weeks back. I returned to NZ to do some work and have a holiday from the holiday, but have now rejoined Jane in Vietnam. It was nice to get back to NZ for a couple of weeks catch up with friends and dose up on meat with Jane's folks (big thanks to Cathy and Tim for the hospitality and the chance to see the America's Cup).
Returning to the fray in my usual mad-rush sleep-deprived state I had all sorts of fun getting back to Vietnam; First Air NZ check-in in Auckland, where they were not going to let me fly to Hong Kong because I didn't have a flight out of Vietnam, now I informed them that this was in fact bollix because Jane had done exactly this 3 weeks back and I had a Visa and please stop being such dicks etc but unfortunately they own the airplanes and the appropriate rubber stamps. After an hour and me remembering that I had an onward ticket from Malaysia to Dubai in August (prooving intent of leaving Vietnam) they eventually relented and I was on my merry way. However the sequel to this was yet to come.
I got to Hong Kong with a ticket in had to go to Ho Chi Ming city (old Saigon) however about two weeks ago Jane got bag-snatched by a motorcyclist whilst getting out of a taxi in Hanoi and lost her passport, a credit card and some money. A real bugger and an inconvenience (not too bad as we are insured), but an object lesson in why women should always keep a BSM (big strong man) around to cry with them when it goes wrong. Anyhow the upshot was that Jane had to spend two weeks around Hanoi waiting for replacement so I wanted to meet up with her there instead. I rebooked for a flight to Hanoi, and was just in the process of checking in when they informed me that they wouldn't let me fly without an onward ticket from Vietnam. Bugger and Crap. So with 10 minutes to go before boarding I had to rush off and book a ticket out of Vietnam (cost about $300) so that I could fly in. Of course arriving in Hanoi no one checked to see if I had such a ticket (confirming my beliefs of it's inconsequentiality) but sometimes you just have to take it on the chin. I would love to know why it is that the countries that westerners have the least likelyhood of wanting to stay in long-term are the ones that make it most difficult to travel in and out of. The people's collective's of China and Vietnam should pull their collective heads out of their collective arses, the third would is nice for a visit but you wouldn't want to live there.
I managed to meet up with Jane for a few hours in Hanoi before she jumped on a 17 hour bus trip to Da Nang (halfway down Vietnam on the coast) where we hope to spend a few days in Hoi An - a nice beachy town. I am joining her today by the far more civilised means of flying.
Returning to the fray in my usual mad-rush sleep-deprived state I had all sorts of fun getting back to Vietnam; First Air NZ check-in in Auckland, where they were not going to let me fly to Hong Kong because I didn't have a flight out of Vietnam, now I informed them that this was in fact bollix because Jane had done exactly this 3 weeks back and I had a Visa and please stop being such dicks etc but unfortunately they own the airplanes and the appropriate rubber stamps. After an hour and me remembering that I had an onward ticket from Malaysia to Dubai in August (prooving intent of leaving Vietnam) they eventually relented and I was on my merry way. However the sequel to this was yet to come.
I got to Hong Kong with a ticket in had to go to Ho Chi Ming city (old Saigon) however about two weeks ago Jane got bag-snatched by a motorcyclist whilst getting out of a taxi in Hanoi and lost her passport, a credit card and some money. A real bugger and an inconvenience (not too bad as we are insured), but an object lesson in why women should always keep a BSM (big strong man) around to cry with them when it goes wrong. Anyhow the upshot was that Jane had to spend two weeks around Hanoi waiting for replacement so I wanted to meet up with her there instead. I rebooked for a flight to Hanoi, and was just in the process of checking in when they informed me that they wouldn't let me fly without an onward ticket from Vietnam. Bugger and Crap. So with 10 minutes to go before boarding I had to rush off and book a ticket out of Vietnam (cost about $300) so that I could fly in. Of course arriving in Hanoi no one checked to see if I had such a ticket (confirming my beliefs of it's inconsequentiality) but sometimes you just have to take it on the chin. I would love to know why it is that the countries that westerners have the least likelyhood of wanting to stay in long-term are the ones that make it most difficult to travel in and out of. The people's collective's of China and Vietnam should pull their collective heads out of their collective arses, the third would is nice for a visit but you wouldn't want to live there.
I managed to meet up with Jane for a few hours in Hanoi before she jumped on a 17 hour bus trip to Da Nang (halfway down Vietnam on the coast) where we hope to spend a few days in Hoi An - a nice beachy town. I am joining her today by the far more civilised means of flying.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
More Photos
If anyone is interested in more photo's I have added some to www.ringo.com, under Jane Preston, because we are limited for space on the blog.
Friday, June 15, 2007
Hong Kong - Hanoi
So I left Hong Kong last night for Vietnam. Hong Kong was great, although it was overcast and raining the majority of the time, it was a much more beautiful city that either Rob or I expected and can easily see why it is such a popular destination.
After coming overland from China we had our first meal in McDonalds (the cheapest place to eat in Hong Kong). We then headed for the ferry where we coincidently meet up Willard and Vera (a Dutch couple we meet in Everest, and again in Lhasa, and again in Xi'an). With a population or said million people who would have thunk it. But the following day, while waiting to meet Willard and Vera for lunch, we bumped into John.
Eventually we arrived at Rebekka, Andy and Izzy's apartment (my cousin and whanua) which was a much appreciated (and in Robs case needed) step into normality. Bek was a fantastic host (thanks heaps, it really is appreciated) and I proceeded to have a very lazy couple of days (I did wander the streets a bit, but when your not looking to buy it can become a bit dishearting). We went to the races on Wednesday, which was heaps of fun and definitely recommended (apparently the cheapest beer in town) and Dim Sum for lunch before I left (yum).
Today I have biked around Hanoi. At about 10.30am it absolutely monsooned down (at one point the thunder was so loud it actually hurt my eardrums) so I jumped into a cafe just in time for a drink. Once it cleared it was great fun tackling the massive puddles covering the road. I managed to tick off the 10 must-does so tomorrow will be a more relaxing day and I'll head to Sapa (up north) by overnight train tomorrow.
After coming overland from China we had our first meal in McDonalds (the cheapest place to eat in Hong Kong). We then headed for the ferry where we coincidently meet up Willard and Vera (a Dutch couple we meet in Everest, and again in Lhasa, and again in Xi'an). With a population or said million people who would have thunk it. But the following day, while waiting to meet Willard and Vera for lunch, we bumped into John.
Eventually we arrived at Rebekka, Andy and Izzy's apartment (my cousin and whanua) which was a much appreciated (and in Robs case needed) step into normality. Bek was a fantastic host (thanks heaps, it really is appreciated) and I proceeded to have a very lazy couple of days (I did wander the streets a bit, but when your not looking to buy it can become a bit dishearting). We went to the races on Wednesday, which was heaps of fun and definitely recommended (apparently the cheapest beer in town) and Dim Sum for lunch before I left (yum).
Today I have biked around Hanoi. At about 10.30am it absolutely monsooned down (at one point the thunder was so loud it actually hurt my eardrums) so I jumped into a cafe just in time for a drink. Once it cleared it was great fun tackling the massive puddles covering the road. I managed to tick off the 10 must-does so tomorrow will be a more relaxing day and I'll head to Sapa (up north) by overnight train tomorrow.
Friday, June 08, 2007
DKNY - Dali Kunming 'n Yangshou
We finished up our stay in Lijiang, and set out for fresh pastures in the town of Dali a few hours away. Dumped by the bus at the fringes of the town we spent an hour wandering around in heavy packs and oppressive heat looking for the town, until we discovered that our guide book map was out of date and the bus station had apparently moved. Back on track we found a very nice room in a hotel with ensuite for $10 per night. Dali is another small town aimed at the tourist, it is very cheap (you can survive for $10-15 a day quite happily) with lots of markets and pedestrian only streets, but not quite as pretty as Lijiang's "ancient city". It specialises in stoneware and marble, which is very cheap to buy here, stone vases, birdbaths, statues and carvings, gems and minerals etc. We re-met John, a Tibetan fellow traveller from our Jeep and an NZ beekeeper from Geraldine called Craig and an Estonian who I am sure was called Renault (it's not just Germans who name people after cars), for cheap BBQ meat skewer dinner from a street vendor.
Following day we hired bicycles to cycle down to the huge lake (Taupo sized) a few kilometers away. This was pretty miss-able except for the entertainment of riding a bike with a seat made of leather covered masonry over rough farm tracks for a few miles and then carrying said bikes cross country over irrigation systems to try to get where we wanted to go when we got ourselves a little misplaced. We stopped for a quick snack at a warf where we had a "waterbird" - think roasted sparrow on a stick - while avoiding other delights such as a huge bullfrog, and dragonfly nymphs which the vendor assured us would give us the shits (with funny hand actions). Back to town we decided against taking the cable car to see Dali JAM (just another monastry) and had a lazy afternoon wandering the streets and markets.
Kunming came after a 5 hour bus ride the next morning and with a couple of hours to kill before katching a train to Guilin we went to the Bird Market which sells pets of all types and also has a fantastic arts market. Hectares of shops with amazing furniture, carvings, stoneware, paintings, glassware, antiques etc. If I ever become one of those boring and smug home-owning types I will be coming back here to fill a container with furnishings and various objet d'art. On to the train for Guilin and remet John yet again.
After overnighting on the train we finally left Yunnan and arrived in Guilin a few hundred kilometers from Hongkong in the middle of a monsoon downpour, the first rain we had encountered since entering china three weeks ago. We got wet waiting for the taxi to take us to the city. We got far wetter unloading from the taxi in the middle of the city in the middle of a large public square. We ran for an awning and planned our movements. 1st buy umbrellas (which process got the wetness level up to the point that umbrellas were basically pointless), 2nd look for accomodation. John and Rob wandered around for 30 minutes looking for anything reasonable (nothing under $10 per person found), and getting pissed off with the city, we decamped from our awning to a nearby McDonalds where we started to dry and gorged on bad food for $3 each. Decision made we left the city to travel to Yangshou, a tourist village an hour away and nestled on the Li River in amazing countryside with huge steep rock columns of 1-300m rising all over a relatively flat river plain, a bit like Monument Valley in the US (Favorite for Western movies) but wet.
Yangshou is a great wee village of waterways, rocky spires, and cafes. We found cheap accomodation, though we had to endure the hard sell on tours from our hotel patron for an hour. Eventually got through to him that we didn't want them, and certainly not at 4 times the market rate. We went out for dinner, where we were treated to the amazing sight of two hot air balloons dipping down over the steep rocky hills surrounding the village, one of which touched down on a pond surrounded by restaurants before lifting off and flying away again. We came back to massacre the 30 mosquitos that had made it into our room (very satisfying in purported malaria country), then watched american cheerleading competitions (think synchronised gymnastics) with chinese commentary on TV, and listened to a scottish guy doing his nut at the aforementioned hotel patron at 1am about how he wanted his money back after being ripped off on something or rather.
Following day we hired bicycles to cycle down to the huge lake (Taupo sized) a few kilometers away. This was pretty miss-able except for the entertainment of riding a bike with a seat made of leather covered masonry over rough farm tracks for a few miles and then carrying said bikes cross country over irrigation systems to try to get where we wanted to go when we got ourselves a little misplaced. We stopped for a quick snack at a warf where we had a "waterbird" - think roasted sparrow on a stick - while avoiding other delights such as a huge bullfrog, and dragonfly nymphs which the vendor assured us would give us the shits (with funny hand actions). Back to town we decided against taking the cable car to see Dali JAM (just another monastry) and had a lazy afternoon wandering the streets and markets.
Kunming came after a 5 hour bus ride the next morning and with a couple of hours to kill before katching a train to Guilin we went to the Bird Market which sells pets of all types and also has a fantastic arts market. Hectares of shops with amazing furniture, carvings, stoneware, paintings, glassware, antiques etc. If I ever become one of those boring and smug home-owning types I will be coming back here to fill a container with furnishings and various objet d'art. On to the train for Guilin and remet John yet again.
After overnighting on the train we finally left Yunnan and arrived in Guilin a few hundred kilometers from Hongkong in the middle of a monsoon downpour, the first rain we had encountered since entering china three weeks ago. We got wet waiting for the taxi to take us to the city. We got far wetter unloading from the taxi in the middle of the city in the middle of a large public square. We ran for an awning and planned our movements. 1st buy umbrellas (which process got the wetness level up to the point that umbrellas were basically pointless), 2nd look for accomodation. John and Rob wandered around for 30 minutes looking for anything reasonable (nothing under $10 per person found), and getting pissed off with the city, we decamped from our awning to a nearby McDonalds where we started to dry and gorged on bad food for $3 each. Decision made we left the city to travel to Yangshou, a tourist village an hour away and nestled on the Li River in amazing countryside with huge steep rock columns of 1-300m rising all over a relatively flat river plain, a bit like Monument Valley in the US (Favorite for Western movies) but wet.
Yangshou is a great wee village of waterways, rocky spires, and cafes. We found cheap accomodation, though we had to endure the hard sell on tours from our hotel patron for an hour. Eventually got through to him that we didn't want them, and certainly not at 4 times the market rate. We went out for dinner, where we were treated to the amazing sight of two hot air balloons dipping down over the steep rocky hills surrounding the village, one of which touched down on a pond surrounded by restaurants before lifting off and flying away again. We came back to massacre the 30 mosquitos that had made it into our room (very satisfying in purported malaria country), then watched american cheerleading competitions (think synchronised gymnastics) with chinese commentary on TV, and listened to a scottish guy doing his nut at the aforementioned hotel patron at 1am about how he wanted his money back after being ripped off on something or rather.
Monday, June 04, 2007
From Xi'an to Lijiang and Tiger Leaping Gorge
So we left Xi'an in the evening for a 2 night one day train trip to Panzhihua. We had initially booked a hard sleeper and a hard seat taking turns at having a sleep. The train was nothing compared to the luxury of the Lhasa to Xi'an train. I took the first turn in the sleeper only to wake the next morning to find that Princess Robina had upgraded to a soft sleeper and had a complete compartment (4 beds) to himself. We were dropped off at Panzhihua at 4am and proceeded to negotiate with the bus drivers outside to take us to Lijiang. It was only when we were dropped off at the bus station that we realised we had been talking to the wrong people. We managed to make it Lijiang thought and what a great city. It has an old quarter which has pretty much become a tourist haven and at night there are a row of bars along either side of a narrow little canal which is lined with red lanterns and becomes very lively at night (with singing battles between patrons and staff of opposing bars, judged principally on volume).
The chinese tourists (which make us pretty much 90% of the tourist population in China). Some of the bars have got pretty good music and it is a lot of fun. You can even order Chateau Lafette Rothschild (a snip at over $650 per bottle) and NZ lamb chops ($10), however we opted for Tsingtao beer at the outrageous price of $2 per bottle ($0.50 in shops).
The day after arriving in Lijiang we headed to Tiger Leaping Gorge which is about 2 hours away from Lijiang. Arrived at around 11.30am and headed on our merry way. And we were lost. We asked some locals were we were and we had missed the turn off. Not surprising when there are no signposts, only occasional advertisments for the next guesthouse painted on rocks. The walk follows the gorge along at a high level so you get great views of the mountains. A fantastic walk the first day, but very hot in the sun. Lunch was at the Naxi Guesthouse and then a night at the Teahorse Guesthouse. The teahorse was kind enough to treat us to 2 spiders that must have been about 8cm's across as we were about to go to bed. They didn't last long, being no match for vulcanised footware. I also woke in the morning to find a centipede like insect that was about 5cm long about to nestle itself into our clothes. Again bested by the awesome kinetic power of the sandal.
Tiger leaping gorge is a steep rocky gorge between two 5000m mountains with a river level of about 1500-2000m. They are threatening to dam(n) it in a few years, which will be bad for a few thousand tourists and good for a few million chinese electricity users. It gets its name from a point in the Yangtse river where a very large rock has fallen into the middle of the torrent and divided the river into two flows of only about 15m width each, legend has it that a tiger once evaded hunters by leaping from bank to rock to bank. It is very spectacular, with steep rock cliffs rising 1000-1500m up on one side of the river. A rock-climbers wet dream and a roadbuilders nightmare.
On day two we descended 200m into the gorge on a private-enterprise track which we had to pay 10 Yuan to go down ($1.60) and dipped our feet in the mighty Yangtse. The walk up was a bit scary, stung for another $1.60 at the bottom before we are allowed to ascend we climb up a cliff face on hewn rock stairs that at one part includes a ladder made of 6mm steel rod welded into a lattice and bolted, glued and tied to sticks stuck into the cliff face. Again very hot and exhausting, but definitly worth it. We stayed a Sean's guesthouse on day two which had a great deck to sit and view the stars and sunset and the massive 1000m high cliff faces on the opposite side of the gorge, we were a little dissapointed that there was no rain as there were markings for waterfalls of at least this height as well. The power seemed to be an issue in the gorge due to slips etc and the only meals on the menu where chicken vegetable burrito (very good) and fried chicken vegetable. Basically the same thing, just served a different way. The menu also boasted that "for our very special friend we have Real Good Stuff" which would tend to back up our observation of a particular plant that seemed to grow a lot around the toilets of the guesthouses. We had a great night there with lots people to have a few drinks with and enjoy the scenery. An Irish guy we were with tried to start a fight with the only English man within probably 30km which was pretty funny, but hostilities were abandoned due to a lack of firearms/interest.
The trip out was a bit scary, so say the least. There have been two massive (and some minor) landslides across the road the preceding week (we ran into a German Chick who was there for this, who had to run along the road due to lack of vehicles and fear of falling rocks). We had to take 3 minibuses in a relay to get out, with drivers of a somewhat kamikaze bent, swerving across the narrow road to avoid boulders at 60km/hr on blind corners over shear drops. Who knows how the minibuses got in there in the first place. The most scary bit was the fact that the road in many places was pretty shear and there were a ridiculous number of smaller slips and boulders on the road with the odd bit of gravel still coming down (the one thing the drivers would slow for). Didn't give us overwhelming confidence. We did get out safe though and back to Lijiang for a great burger at an English pub and a night out on the canal.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
The Man from Xi'an
Wie Gehts.
We have spent the last two days in Xi'an (a quaint little town of six million) plonked in the middle of china. This is the original seat of power of China, being the home of the Qin (pronounced Chin as in Chin-a) dynasty (300BC), and home to a few of their more extravagent efforts: Yesterday (28th May) we did a cycle ride around the walls of the city, 14km circumference on a 10m high and 15m wide modest effort in masonry, (took an hour to cycle).
Accomodations have also been interesting, we have been staying inside the city walls in a converted textile factory, now home to a hotel and restaurant, in a seemingly nuclear-proof bunker of a basement, with a large and friendly contingent of mosquitos, who have certainly been enjoying my company in particular. For the princely sum of $4 per night it is hard to complain. (moreso when considered after the consumption of several $0.50 650ml beers.) Food is excellent, though communication is at best difficult. It is hard to overestimate the language barrier when you share no commonality, not alphabet, not consonents, not phonems, not intonation. Ordering a meal last night required 15 minutes of vigorous hand waving, recourse to paper and speaking loudly and slowly, with an end result of about 50% of what we were after. Mandarin is an absolute bastard to learn, compounded by the fact that pronunciation varies throughout China.
Today it was off to visit the last resting place of the 1st Qin emperor (300BC), again an understated little affair that involved the efforts of up to 750000 people at a time over a 37 year period, but unfortunately the task at hand was a dirt rather than a stone pyramid, and so has subsided a little in the following couple of millenia (50-80m high, covering about 10 hectares). The core of this mound/hill contains the burial chamber which is apparently high in mercury (invaluable to the prehistoric dynastic ruler-about-town) to the point where it is a dangerous.
Second stop was the famous terracotta warriors, This is a massive effort (though considering the size of the aforementioned workforce they may have knocked it out in a couple of saturday afternoons). Several hectares, only partially explored and excavated, now under stadium sized roofs. They have uncovered several thousand of these uber-sized ken-dolls, and think that there are many thousand more in existance, in underground barracks extending over many hectares. Crazy thing is they were created and buried in secret, each an individually shaped and baked correspondant to an existing person. So much effort expended on creating an army that while low-cost on povisioning, would only be dangerous if it fell on you. We are beginning to appreciate that these Chin(ese) fellas don't do things by halves.
Next stop Yunnan province and Tiger-Leaping Gorge. 32hours on a train, then more climbing at altitude. Wooo. Yay.
We have spent the last two days in Xi'an (a quaint little town of six million) plonked in the middle of china. This is the original seat of power of China, being the home of the Qin (pronounced Chin as in Chin-a) dynasty (300BC), and home to a few of their more extravagent efforts: Yesterday (28th May) we did a cycle ride around the walls of the city, 14km circumference on a 10m high and 15m wide modest effort in masonry, (took an hour to cycle).
Accomodations have also been interesting, we have been staying inside the city walls in a converted textile factory, now home to a hotel and restaurant, in a seemingly nuclear-proof bunker of a basement, with a large and friendly contingent of mosquitos, who have certainly been enjoying my company in particular. For the princely sum of $4 per night it is hard to complain. (moreso when considered after the consumption of several $0.50 650ml beers.) Food is excellent, though communication is at best difficult. It is hard to overestimate the language barrier when you share no commonality, not alphabet, not consonents, not phonems, not intonation. Ordering a meal last night required 15 minutes of vigorous hand waving, recourse to paper and speaking loudly and slowly, with an end result of about 50% of what we were after. Mandarin is an absolute bastard to learn, compounded by the fact that pronunciation varies throughout China.
Today it was off to visit the last resting place of the 1st Qin emperor (300BC), again an understated little affair that involved the efforts of up to 750000 people at a time over a 37 year period, but unfortunately the task at hand was a dirt rather than a stone pyramid, and so has subsided a little in the following couple of millenia (50-80m high, covering about 10 hectares). The core of this mound/hill contains the burial chamber which is apparently high in mercury (invaluable to the prehistoric dynastic ruler-about-town) to the point where it is a dangerous.
Second stop was the famous terracotta warriors, This is a massive effort (though considering the size of the aforementioned workforce they may have knocked it out in a couple of saturday afternoons). Several hectares, only partially explored and excavated, now under stadium sized roofs. They have uncovered several thousand of these uber-sized ken-dolls, and think that there are many thousand more in existance, in underground barracks extending over many hectares. Crazy thing is they were created and buried in secret, each an individually shaped and baked correspondant to an existing person. So much effort expended on creating an army that while low-cost on povisioning, would only be dangerous if it fell on you. We are beginning to appreciate that these Chin(ese) fellas don't do things by halves.
Next stop Yunnan province and Tiger-Leaping Gorge. 32hours on a train, then more climbing at altitude. Wooo. Yay.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Seven Days in Tibet
Hi All, we can now tick off Tibet. It has been an excellent trip let down only by the operational approach of our package tour. We are here for their benefit, not the other way around, and unfortunately have no way of changing this. Oh well, its been a blast anyway.We left Kathmandu at 6am Saturday the 19th to travel 5 hours to the border on typically awful Nepalese roads, Along the way we stopped for breakfast at which time our consumer rights were explained to us (none) and oh by the way if you are sick, or
your documentation (that they sorted) has faults etc then tough it's your problem, also we are not going to the lake itemised in your itinerary due to road construction. We arrived at the border to be confronted with our first instance of beauracracy gone mad - three different sets of queues, officials and forms to run through spread over a distance of 10km and 2 hours. Due to the time taken (and the two hour time difference between Nepal and Tibet) this pretty much took us to the end of the day and we were forced to spend the night in the very pretty chinese border town of Zhangmu perched high on a forested valley side. We were informed that 
we had to start the next day at 5:30am (3:30am Nepal time) and were shipped off to the dorm rooms where we had to stay the night (package promised twinshare).Up and ready to go a 6am we awaited in vain for our Tibetan guide to arrive, finally shows up at 7am
pissed/hungover and we discover that he hasn't organised enough vehicles to transport the group. 11 of us have to wait around till 11:30am for more landcruisers (ubiquetous Tibetan vehicle) to arrive. We drive all day through spectacular gorges (like Fiordland, with huge waterfalls and all) and high arid rolling hills, 
passing through two passes during the day of 5150 and 5250m respectively, as well as amazing and sparsely populated open river valleys like the Mackenzie country of the South Island to finally arrive at our accommodation at 8:00pm in Lhatse. Loooong day, mostly dirt roads for first half of day, but then move onto sealed roads. The Chinese are doing a huge amount of road building and development and in a few years this will be just another highway, not a back country dirt road. Big annoyance is that the drivers will not stop for photos, and there is a lot that is worthy, so we have to try and make do with snaps out the window (this is where you need an expensive camera, unlike ours). However regular cigarette breaks are apparently essential. We are tired, and a bit pissed off with the tour operators, we had some food, a beer (650ml costs 50-90 cents here) and went to bed.Easier day on the 21st; apologetic guide, 8:30 start and an easy drive on highway for 3 hours to Shigatse, where accomodation is excellent (hot bath and TV etc), visited Tashilunpo Monasty where some 2.I.C lama (Panchan, Great Precious Teacher) hangs out, though the exact identity of this guy is a bit contentious since Chinese took over the selection process and dissappeared the previous selectee. We wandered the streets and grabbed a drink at a little Tibetan restaurant, where we could not prevent the hostess from refilling our shot glass sized vessels every time we took a sip - end result 15 minutes for finish our beers.
Next day we travel to Gyantse, again an easy drive of only 2-3 hours, and a spectacular city. With a hill fort on a hundred metre tall rocky knob (conquered by brits with four casualties to 300 tibetan dead in 1904, now a poorly maintained chinese museum with great views). Signs around the place say something like Tibetan jump cliff, which we thought was a none-too-subtle suggestion until we found a memorial to Tibetan 'martyrs' who leapt to their deaths rather than surrender to Brits. This wasn't part of the tour instead the tour visited Pelkor Chode Monastery and the Kumbum Stupa, really just another monastery; Budda, budda, budda, oh and yet another budda. The fort was far better, dating back almost a thousand years and having bizarrely laid out rooms, some with doors just a metre high, and some entertaining chinese additions (tibetan torture maniquins). But we did have some entertainment at the Monastry watching a couple of tibetan chicks in some sort of devotional race around the monastry doing full length prostration+prayers advancing one body length at a time over the course of an hour or two.
The next day was a 5am start leaving Gyantse at 6am to get to Lhasa by 12.30. Our attempts at trying to convince our driver to start later were useless. Another example of the tour not being for our convenience. The early start obviously effected the driver also because he almost fell asleep at the wheel. At first we thought he was sticking his head out the window to check on some tire issue. Rob spent the next hour into Lhasa watching him carefully ready to grab the wheel if he fell asleep. Him get no tip.
Our accommodation in Lhasa has been brilliant. We basically have a suite with living room, double bedroom and all the mod cons excepting hot water. We had the afternoon to ourselves so organised our train tickets, an epic event as train station was 5km out of town and in our eagerness to save money we spent 3 hours walking to a net benefit of maybe a dollar each. So now we were going to Xi'an rather than Chengdu. Wasn't in our initial plans, but there wasn't a train leaving for Chengdu on Saturday and Xi'an isn't far out of the way and was recommended by other travelers.
On our first full day in Lhasa we visited Jokhang Monastery and Barkhor Square (basically a big market) which was packed with Tourists, Tibetan JAM (Just Another Monastery). Extremely important to the Tibetans, but pretty horrible really with the combination of a hot weather, huge numbers of people, a confined poorly lit and poorly ventilated space, reeking yak butter candles coating everything in black grime all combining to make us eager to be out of the place. We also visited Potala Palace which is a stunning fort/palace perched atop a rocky knob in the middle of Lhasa where the Dala Lama used to reside and where the tombs of the past Dala Lama's are. This had some very impressive shrines and statues, a couple of which contained several tonnes of gold. Sorry but no photos allowed in any of these monasteries unless you pay the exorbitant extra fees to the Govt who we think makes good coin out of the picture books they can sell as a result. We met up with some Dutch friends from our Everest trek and then went out drinking till 3am. Lhasa has a pretty good night life, and is apparently also a major Chinese sex tourism spot, something we discovered after passing a couple of shops full of hairdressers who were unusually dolled up. A weigh in on the street reveals that Robert has lost 7kg since trip start.
We didn't bother doing the activities on the second day (more Tibetan JAM) as we had pretty much had enough of them already and preferred to sleep in after the previous night. Instead we went out to see the water fountain show at the People's square in front of the Potala palace which was tres cool, a large flat area covered in different fountains controlled to pulse and operate in computer controlled sequences with coloured lights and music. A definite must see if visiting.
The train trip out of Tibet to Xi'an just served to reinforce what an amazing landscape this is. Traveling at altitudes between four and five thousand meters in a train equipped with oxygen supplies for the passengers for hundreds of kilometers through vast flat wide basins and river valleys. Almost no trees and at higher altitudes barely any grass, and ultimately permafrost. There are odd marauding herds of Yaks, molesting the tundra and followed around by Tibetans in tents. The small surrounding hills are still some of the largest mountains in the world! There was also a lake we passed by that was maybe one third the size of lake Taupo at over 4500m. 36 hours on this train really isn't that bad, as the track is very smooth and the train is air conditioned and quiet with sleeper cabins and does up to 200km/h on faster sections close to Xi'an. It only cost $110 each, though the bastardly bastards at the security check in (for a train????) wouldn't let Robert take the knife he bought for $8 (Marked down from the $76 the stall owner initially tried for).
All in all, we really recommend this excellent trip. Though it would have been nice to have been with one of the other tour companies who actually care what their customers think (talking to others we know that ours was a particularly bad company), and who don't have a monastery fetish - variety is nice, though we think this monastery monomania might be either Tibetan chauvinism or a subtle attempt to push awareness of Tibetan issues.
Since leaving Nepal food has improved greatly, tastier, and with meat!! Beer is even cheaper than Nepal, though accommodation is slightly more expensive. China (as represented by Tibet) has been a revelation. These fellas are spending a huge amount of money on developing infrastructure, roads, trains, cities, the stuff they are building in Tibet looks like it is designed to support a population of millions more, even though I believe China's population isn't expected to grow that much more. The weather was hot sunny and dry, it may just turn out to be one of the best places in the world for solar power (they have many market stalls selling panels) which could be very important for the economic future of China and the otherwise unused Tibetan plains. By comparison Nepal looks massively mismanaged, underdeveloped and poor, though funnily while Nepal is dirtier, it doesn't seem to smell so much of shit as Tibet did. Oh well, after the last weeks extravagances now we have to get used to budget accommodation again.
Next week: Terracotta Barbie
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
The great white punters
So if you want Marijuana Nepal is the place to be, it grows like a weed along the streets here and is offered a number of times a night in Thamel. The bushes were particularly noticeable in Chitwan National Park where we have spent the last 3 days south west of Kathmandu, to be more precise we have spent the last 3 days minus 12 hours of bus rides at Chitwan National Park. This park is a bit of an extravagance for Nepal, mainly because it is set on highly prized lowlands where agriculture is comparatively easy compared to the heavy efforts required to grow a crop in the steep highlands. It boasts an impressive array of beasties, ranging from the Big (Elephants and Rhino's) to the small (errr... mosquito's).
We booked a package deal and stayed at the splendid sounding Royal Tiger Safari Lodge, which was actually bloody good, if rather empty. Seems in Nepal that as soon as anyone has a sniff of success then there are immediately 30 competitors offering the same product or service leaving all struggling to survive. Anyway, best food we've had all trip (we had meat, oooh yeeesss), as well as spacious room with lights that went (subject to Grid outages as per usual), ensuite and sit-down toilet! Luxury. Activities, while they sounded pretty cheezy going in, turned out to be good as well. Highlights were chasing rhinos through the jungle on elephants (pretty surreal that was), and the Tharu people cultural program - locals dancing and singing on stage, but not nearly as bad as you would expect from say "an evening of Maori Magic". These blokes had stick dances, twirly fire sticks, peacock pantomime costumes and drag queens - helluva show.Only dissappointments were not seeing Tigers or Snakes, and to be honest on the jungle walk, after having the correct procedure explained to us for running away from different animals, I was somewhat in the "hope it gets rained off" camp.
Back in Kathmandu for another couple of nights then off to Tibet early Saturday morning.
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Return of the Kiwis
This post bought to you by the bedraggled team of monkeys frantically smashing their foreheads against their keyboards to bring the the wondrous WWW to Nepal at break-neck speeds hitherto not seen since the 80's. And not forgetting their associates in the electical supply authority who are generally overtaxed by the task of attempting to keep the grid up for more than an hour and a half at a time in Kathmandu (they are collectively responsible for the lack of piccy's in the following).
We have just returned from our 20 day hike to the bowels of the Himalaya's and back, along the way we have checked off the usual notable destinations; and all learned a valuable moral lesson or two;
1/ If a chick you are trying to impress asks you if you want to get high, make sure you find out exactly what she is talking about before you agree.
2/ Drugs are good, M'Kay?
I kept a diary, but will not go crazy with detail (it bores even me).
We started out badly, a day and a half spent sitting in the Kathmandu Airport waiting for the weather and every other person in the airport to leave first so that we could finally enjoy the last flight to Lukla, gateway to Everest and a pretty scary airport. While waiting I weighed myself at 100kg pre-trip. Nice flight and fun landing (really!) on a short and steeply uphill strip perched at 2800m on a mountainside ridge. Note that tourists are charges several times the Nepali rate for many things; it cost $US35 for Arjun, our guide's flight, we were US$100 each.
Walk in was pretty good, led by Arjun, who is studying for a master's in sociology - financing his uni habit by guiding for the last 9 years. He definitely made life easier by conversing with accomodation and food providers, but a little research would eliminate the need for a guide (though it only costs $20-30 a day to have one). The countryside is a bit like the Alps in Europe but with everthing magnified in scale. Because it's a warm climate (same latitude as florida) all
the usual features of alpine environments are similar to what we know in NZ but lifted by 2-3000m. For example the treeline is about 4000m (Mt Cook is 3800m), and there is limited cultivation and farming at 4500m. Walk in to Everest base camp is at low speed, 3-4 hours per day, due to the human body's limited speed of adaption, you can only increase your sleeping altitude by about 300m per night above 3000m without risking serious altitude sickness (which is also where the drugs come in - thank you Diamox, a drug which alters your blood pH to speed adaption, at the cost of huge volumes of urination day and night).
During walk-in we spent a few hours a day slogging up hills, and a lot of time sitting around doing sod all, talking, reading or sleeping. A couple of rest days to acclimatise were included, and they are needed - a very fit dutch based polish couple we met had to turn back when Piotr came down with a bad dose of Alt sickness on second day at 4400m. Pretty disappointing for them after 16 days walking in. Surprised me a bit too as I don't have good lung capacity and am asthmatic but on this trip had no problems other than poor initial physical fitness and fatigue on long hard uphills (probably not eating enough), on one or two days at altitude I was even happier than Jane who is far far fitter than I.
Getting up to the highest point really started to drain us. Apart from planting the flag and bragging rights, above about 4000m really wasn't much fun; Fatigue, poor sleep, monotonous food (cuisine based mainly on potatoes and rice), hard breathing and cold all diminished the appeal, curious were the vivid dreams that everyone seems to get. We did the obligatory jaunt to Everest Base Camp (5360m) and Kala Patthar (5545m) that overlooks the sprawling Base Camp sitting on a glacier at the foot of Everest and affords a decent view of Everest that is otherwise curiously hidden by other mountains for almost all the rest of the 
trip. 5545m (18100 feet) is above half the world's atmosphere, you have half the avialable O2 in each breath, and after the overhead (literally) of keeping our oversized brains and other ancilliarys going, this leaves sod all for those pesky leg muscles. 5545m is also a 1 minute freefall to the sea level, over a mile higher than Mt Cook (3800m) twice as high as Mt Ruapehu (2800m) and about 3 minutes drive on the motorway. A Bloodly long way up! Everything is an effort at this altitude, and hardest by far for me was the hard 400m climb up the hill of Kala Patthar after a night at 5150m at Gorak Shep.
There were a lot of interesting things to see along the way, the amazing Porters who usually carry 70kg and can carry up to double this! All supported on straps over their foreheads. Saw one or two in bare feet and one fellow scurrying along with the usual load and two completely club feet (like 90 degees). Pretty horrible in some ways to see humans reduced to beasts of burden, but for them it's a job and an income in a country with massive under/unemployment. They compete with but far outnumber the small cattle (Yaks/Naks Male/Female - best to politely decline if offered Yak cheese, but Nak cheese is good - like a hard gouda). And the Yaks showed that yes indeed horns are a prerequisite for all Nepali vehicles.
Birds also amazed me, Goraks? - like a large pheasant living on lichen covered hills at 5500m and the ubiquetous crows everywhere up to and including this altitude. Also telling were the additions of modern technology; micro-hydro power schemes have proliferated (do a good job) but the things that have made the biggest difference to their lives are polyethylene pipe for water reticulation, steel wire for bridges, and modern shoes, clothes and radios. We saw a lot of discarded technocrap like satellite dishes and solar cookers strewn about the place.
I have lost almost all respect for the Everest climbers - physically it might be pretty clever, but it is an incredibly selfish persuit, massively expensive, kills huge numbers of people (so many Sherpa widows), and ignores the needs of families and loved ones who stand to lose so much. Met one American lady who had just heard her husband was still alive after one month out of touch, and a Swiss woman who's boyfriend was trying to drag an armless climber to the top of Everest - this is just ridiculous, lets all just try to get our kicks without needlessly endangering others I say. US70,000 for a climbing permit for six months and a 10-20% chance of dying if you attempt to summit. Twats. I could arrange a roughly equivalent game of Russian roulette for far less.
After a few days at high altitude we were keen to get back down to more manageable heights. So what followed was a quick descent back below 3000m in 3 days and then the loong 7 day walk out to Jiri (bypassing Lukla Airport and the let-your-wallet-do-the-walking set, (I guess this includes us partially), who outnumber the walk-in option probably 50:1). I found this part physically much harder, with some days climb exceeding 1000m and descents as big. Hard on knees and legs with less developed tracks and more primative accomodation. Where we had seen hundreds of tourists per day now we saw only a couple. This area from Lukla to Jiri has been hurt pretty badly by the development of Lukla Airport and the Maoist insurgency of recent years (now ended) with many empty teahouses. They survive on their ridiculously inefficient subsistence agriculture (eg individually cutting the heads off buck wheat, and in more accessible areas threshing it by laying it on roads for buses to run over), but they can only benefit from better road access and infrastructure, something that the current government has been abysmally bad at developing. The tracks and towns are covered in litter at this point, cleanliness is obviously a rich persons luxury, and the Nepali's generally don't give a crap, most common are the two minute noodle wrappers that the porters eat raw.
Finally got to Jiri, had a celebratory beer (first of trip), a night's sleep and then enjoyed the super-express bus ride back to Kathmandu at an average speed of maybe 25km/hr for 7 and a half hours on a major arterial road that would be put to shame by most NZ driveways. We are now decompressing and planning our next excursion. Haven't weighed myself yet but feels like I've lost 5-10kg.
It is definitely interesting times in Nepal, they are in the process of pulling the monarchy's teeth, with elections scheduled soon and the Maoist's look to have lost some of their impetus. On the down side they have the massive problem of excess population to deal with 5-22 million in the last 50 years. And more topically it will be interesting to see if there is any petrol left for us to drive out of Nepal next week after the Indian Oil Corporation cut off Nepal's trucked in supply this week (No trains!!!) for non-payment of bills.
Overall I would say Nepal has a nice climate, not as unpleasantly hot as India and there is incredible potential for hydroelectricity and tourism development, with a lot of English speakers and very low wages, but they will always be dirt poor unless they can get past their religious desire for massive families that is currently producing 3% population growth per year.
We have just returned from our 20 day hike to the bowels of the Himalaya's and back, along the way we have checked off the usual notable destinations; and all learned a valuable moral lesson or two;
1/ If a chick you are trying to impress asks you if you want to get high, make sure you find out exactly what she is talking about before you agree.
2/ Drugs are good, M'Kay?
I kept a diary, but will not go crazy with detail (it bores even me).
We started out badly, a day and a half spent sitting in the Kathmandu Airport waiting for the weather and every other person in the airport to leave first so that we could finally enjoy the last flight to Lukla, gateway to Everest and a pretty scary airport. While waiting I weighed myself at 100kg pre-trip. Nice flight and fun landing (really!) on a short and steeply uphill strip perched at 2800m on a mountainside ridge. Note that tourists are charges several times the Nepali rate for many things; it cost $US35 for Arjun, our guide's flight, we were US$100 each.Walk in was pretty good, led by Arjun, who is studying for a master's in sociology - financing his uni habit by guiding for the last 9 years. He definitely made life easier by conversing with accomodation and food providers, but a little research would eliminate the need for a guide (though it only costs $20-30 a day to have one). The countryside is a bit like the Alps in Europe but with everthing magnified in scale. Because it's a warm climate (same latitude as florida) all
the usual features of alpine environments are similar to what we know in NZ but lifted by 2-3000m. For example the treeline is about 4000m (Mt Cook is 3800m), and there is limited cultivation and farming at 4500m. Walk in to Everest base camp is at low speed, 3-4 hours per day, due to the human body's limited speed of adaption, you can only increase your sleeping altitude by about 300m per night above 3000m without risking serious altitude sickness (which is also where the drugs come in - thank you Diamox, a drug which alters your blood pH to speed adaption, at the cost of huge volumes of urination day and night).
During walk-in we spent a few hours a day slogging up hills, and a lot of time sitting around doing sod all, talking, reading or sleeping. A couple of rest days to acclimatise were included, and they are needed - a very fit dutch based polish couple we met had to turn back when Piotr came down with a bad dose of Alt sickness on second day at 4400m. Pretty disappointing for them after 16 days walking in. Surprised me a bit too as I don't have good lung capacity and am asthmatic but on this trip had no problems other than poor initial physical fitness and fatigue on long hard uphills (probably not eating enough), on one or two days at altitude I was even happier than Jane who is far far fitter than I.
Getting up to the highest point really started to drain us. Apart from planting the flag and bragging rights, above about 4000m really wasn't much fun; Fatigue, poor sleep, monotonous food (cuisine based mainly on potatoes and rice), hard breathing and cold all diminished the appeal, curious were the vivid dreams that everyone seems to get. We did the obligatory jaunt to Everest Base Camp (5360m) and Kala Patthar (5545m) that overlooks the sprawling Base Camp sitting on a glacier at the foot of Everest and affords a decent view of Everest that is otherwise curiously hidden by other mountains for almost all the rest of the 
trip. 5545m (18100 feet) is above half the world's atmosphere, you have half the avialable O2 in each breath, and after the overhead (literally) of keeping our oversized brains and other ancilliarys going, this leaves sod all for those pesky leg muscles. 5545m is also a 1 minute freefall to the sea level, over a mile higher than Mt Cook (3800m) twice as high as Mt Ruapehu (2800m) and about 3 minutes drive on the motorway. A Bloodly long way up! Everything is an effort at this altitude, and hardest by far for me was the hard 400m climb up the hill of Kala Patthar after a night at 5150m at Gorak Shep.
There were a lot of interesting things to see along the way, the amazing Porters who usually carry 70kg and can carry up to double this! All supported on straps over their foreheads. Saw one or two in bare feet and one fellow scurrying along with the usual load and two completely club feet (like 90 degees). Pretty horrible in some ways to see humans reduced to beasts of burden, but for them it's a job and an income in a country with massive under/unemployment. They compete with but far outnumber the small cattle (Yaks/Naks Male/Female - best to politely decline if offered Yak cheese, but Nak cheese is good - like a hard gouda). And the Yaks showed that yes indeed horns are a prerequisite for all Nepali vehicles.Birds also amazed me, Goraks? - like a large pheasant living on lichen covered hills at 5500m and the ubiquetous crows everywhere up to and including this altitude. Also telling were the additions of modern technology; micro-hydro power schemes have proliferated (do a good job) but the things that have made the biggest difference to their lives are polyethylene pipe for water reticulation, steel wire for bridges, and modern shoes, clothes and radios. We saw a lot of discarded technocrap like satellite dishes and solar cookers strewn about the place.
I have lost almost all respect for the Everest climbers - physically it might be pretty clever, but it is an incredibly selfish persuit, massively expensive, kills huge numbers of people (so many Sherpa widows), and ignores the needs of families and loved ones who stand to lose so much. Met one American lady who had just heard her husband was still alive after one month out of touch, and a Swiss woman who's boyfriend was trying to drag an armless climber to the top of Everest - this is just ridiculous, lets all just try to get our kicks without needlessly endangering others I say. US70,000 for a climbing permit for six months and a 10-20% chance of dying if you attempt to summit. Twats. I could arrange a roughly equivalent game of Russian roulette for far less.
After a few days at high altitude we were keen to get back down to more manageable heights. So what followed was a quick descent back below 3000m in 3 days and then the loong 7 day walk out to Jiri (bypassing Lukla Airport and the let-your-wallet-do-the-walking set, (I guess this includes us partially), who outnumber the walk-in option probably 50:1). I found this part physically much harder, with some days climb exceeding 1000m and descents as big. Hard on knees and legs with less developed tracks and more primative accomodation. Where we had seen hundreds of tourists per day now we saw only a couple. This area from Lukla to Jiri has been hurt pretty badly by the development of Lukla Airport and the Maoist insurgency of recent years (now ended) with many empty teahouses. They survive on their ridiculously inefficient subsistence agriculture (eg individually cutting the heads off buck wheat, and in more accessible areas threshing it by laying it on roads for buses to run over), but they can only benefit from better road access and infrastructure, something that the current government has been abysmally bad at developing. The tracks and towns are covered in litter at this point, cleanliness is obviously a rich persons luxury, and the Nepali's generally don't give a crap, most common are the two minute noodle wrappers that the porters eat raw.
Finally got to Jiri, had a celebratory beer (first of trip), a night's sleep and then enjoyed the super-express bus ride back to Kathmandu at an average speed of maybe 25km/hr for 7 and a half hours on a major arterial road that would be put to shame by most NZ driveways. We are now decompressing and planning our next excursion. Haven't weighed myself yet but feels like I've lost 5-10kg.It is definitely interesting times in Nepal, they are in the process of pulling the monarchy's teeth, with elections scheduled soon and the Maoist's look to have lost some of their impetus. On the down side they have the massive problem of excess population to deal with 5-22 million in the last 50 years. And more topically it will be interesting to see if there is any petrol left for us to drive out of Nepal next week after the Indian Oil Corporation cut off Nepal's trucked in supply this week (No trains!!!) for non-payment of bills.
Overall I would say Nepal has a nice climate, not as unpleasantly hot as India and there is incredible potential for hydroelectricity and tourism development, with a lot of English speakers and very low wages, but they will always be dirt poor unless they can get past their religious desire for massive families that is currently producing 3% population growth per year.
Friday, April 20, 2007
Kathmandu
We arrived in Kathmandu after a rather boring 12 hour stopover in Thailand where we basically just wandered around the airport for hours. Mind you the transit lounge was much better than usual and allowed us to get a good sleep in (essential after I did the last 36 hours without sleep).
Arrival in Kathmandu was pretty scary, not the flight (excellent), not the entry and getting visas etc (a breeze and over in 15 minutes) but leaving the front doors of the airport we were absolutely mobbed, a group of 15 guys rushed in and started grabbing our bags and trying to drag us in every direction. We had nowhere to hide so after taking a brief moment to consult we just picked one of them at random and trusted to luck. And we were OK, We had been advised to head to Thamel which is a tourist suburb with about ten types of shop repeated about 100 times (accomodation, money changer, trekking company etc.) We signed up for a night at the outrageous tarriff of $14 for a double with ensuite. And started negotiating treks to Everest.
Anyway a day later and everything is pretty well sorted. We have booked a 21 day trip to Base camp and back starting tomorrow for $1800 (we will obviously be incommunicado) and have a rough idea of movements after that (Chitwan national park and then a 7 day road trip to Lhasa in tibet).
Kathmandu has been a real eye opener for this guy, having never been to Asia before I had my preconceptions, but here is a quick rundown of first impressions:
Surprisingly not that smelly! Weather is pleasently warm, roadrules are nonexistant, horns are more important than engines or brakes. Almost no animals (see the odd sick looking dog or cow lying on the street) - I am probably going to become a vegetarian for the duration, yes really, but the vege food is pretty good. Obviously massive unemployment and everyone is looking to make a buck off you, should have bought a lot more hard cash as is expensive to get local money, and you don't always know the exchange rate so are liable to get ripped off. (Though this hasn't really happened to us)
Big lessons learnt:
-know the exchange rate before you get there - stops you getting screwed.
-have a first night of accomodation planned. You are pretty vulnerable and not very maneuverable when protecting all your worldly goods.
Monday, April 16, 2007
16th April 2007: Premature Erudition
This is supposed to be a travel blog, but seeing as how it is still T minus two days we will just have to chalk this one up as a preamble. Things are starting to get pretty bloody real. We're close to having divested ourselves of non-transportable worldly possessions, and the last minute rush to polish off all the organisation is well and truly on. It feels like I still need another week to get everything properly ticked off, luckily Jane is far more composed and sorted out, which is just peachy.
After making an effort to get walking fit since Christmas all the busy work and endless hours spent trying to negotiate the barstardly mazes of bankers and beaureaucrats over the last month has pretty much destroyed any gains made. The walk to Everest that is the first item on our itinerary will be an absolute baptism of fire. Still, as St Augustine said; "per molestias eruditio" or loosely translated, "true education begins with physical abuse." So here starteth the lesson.
Robert
After making an effort to get walking fit since Christmas all the busy work and endless hours spent trying to negotiate the barstardly mazes of bankers and beaureaucrats over the last month has pretty much destroyed any gains made. The walk to Everest that is the first item on our itinerary will be an absolute baptism of fire. Still, as St Augustine said; "per molestias eruditio" or loosely translated, "true education begins with physical abuse." So here starteth the lesson.
Robert
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