AwayAwhile

This blog is no longer being updated. All contents have been moved back to:

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If you click on the "III: Asia, Again" at the top of the page, you can find all the contents, with the addition of some photos from our trip.

Thanks for following.

Brian and Rebecca

The Arrival

Remember the package with our cold-weather gear, that we shipped to northern India after leaving Nepal? The one that never arrived, leaving us in chilly, mountainous Ladakh wearing t-shirts and flip-flops?

Well, yesterday I got a message from our guesthouse in Varanasi, stating that it just arrived there, presumably marked "Returned to Sender".

So that's convenient.

The plains of India in July...it should be positively steaming in Varanasi. Nevertheless, if anyone is in that area and looking for some toasty fleeces, knit hats, gloves, and worn-out trekking shoes, let me know and we'll work something out.

Bathams On Hold

Our train ride to Shanghai was long but enjoyable...three straight nights on trains. Shanghai? A huge city, lots of new mixed with old. Our last five days were spent there, the final two in a five-star hotel in the city centre (thanks to hotel points leftover from my working days). We were upgraded to a deluxe suite; it was paradise, bigger than the last couple apartments I've lived in!

There's actually very little else to report. We wandered, we ate meals, we hardly took any photos. Yesterday we left: slept in the airport, a 8.5-hr flight, 4 hrs in Dubai, a 7-hr flight to Birmingham. Rebecca's parents awaited us at the airport and drove us home.

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A friend commented on an earlier update, questioning my criticism of China's development, asking whether we're seeking the past instead of appreciating the present.

The answer is no, not really. It was more of a commentary...you don't visit the UK and hang out in Birmingham or Milton Keynes; you go to old Oxford or London or Cambridge or Edinburgh, and stick to the preserved parts of those places, trusting that these old parts don't get razed for modern developments. It's that disappearance of "old" China that's somewhat bothersome to observe (from a visitor's perspective). But: we were still excited about each new place and had a great time through it all!

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So here we are, back in the UK. We'd requested the Wildings to stop at a pub so I could get a Bathams Bitter (a West Midlands ale, my favourite!) and a fish and chips shop so Rebecca could get...fish and chips. A long journey, too many airport meals, and my stomach getting Shanghai'd by something I ate a couple days ago meant that we skipped these detours and came straight home last night. We'll fit this stuff in in the coming days.

It's a cool, overcast Sunday, and the grandmas are soon heading over for dinner. We've been up early, unpacked our bags, and been off to a car boot sale already. Six months (plus a week) of travel are now behind us; time in England, Minnesota, and a move to Vancouver, Canada are all on the way.

We'll probably do an update in the next weeks to post some of our top photos on the site. If anything else interesting happens along the way, we'll mention that, too.

It's been fun.

Tai Chi'd

The last week's been beautiful. We spent it practicing tai chi at a monastery up in the forest on the side of a mountain.

Tai Chi? It's a martial art that doesn't really look like one; it's all about slow, controlled, focused movements.

The setting? Well, a monastery. No electricity. Male/female segregation. A giant bone-rattling bell that clattered from 5.30am onwards. Chanting and incense that filled the air for many hours each morning, afternoon, and evening. Vegetarian food eaten communally with strict rules on conduct: we were issued a bowl and a set of chopsticks when we arrived, any grain of rice dropped had to be eaten, no leftovers permitted, no eating until the master had begun. Mornings began with a jog down to a nearby stream, followed by finding a rock to carry on your head, back to the monastery. Our training ground was a small clearing in the woods; five hours per day were spent stretching and practicing our routines. Each day, old women passed through the area, having picked handmade basketsful of wild mushrooms in the nearby forest.

It was fantastic to stay at an active temple, falling asleep to evening prayers, living this relatively slow-paced and unstressful life. A by-product of the stay was that we've been whipped into shape a bit, and the tai chi really helped to further develop my cat-like agility and grace.

We're back in Dali. We've been in this area for nearly two weeks now, and have gotten to know a lot of people. Recently, we were out to eat and ran across a Chinese guy we'd previously met. He invited us over to his friends' table, and though we'd already eaten, we were implored to join in cleaning up their feast, which included a pyramid of platters, among them: fried flowers and milk sheets, minnows, raw lake shrimp, duck necks and feet, pig intestines, and strange roots that look like grubs. Rice and plum wine accompanied, and we ended the evening at a small pub, listening to a haunting performance of a local musician. Perfect...

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Everything begins to unwind. We spend the next three nights on the train, a long, long voyage eastwards to Shanghai, where we'll end what we began so long ago in southern India. I love the symmetry: our first couple weeks in an Indian ashram, studying/practicing yoga; our penultimate week at a Chinese temple, studying/practicing tai chi.

We are looking forward to our time on the train, the busy city of Shanghai, and everything in between. Our trip is down to eight days...and counting.

China's Yunnan

Wow, where to start?! A lot has happened in the week and a half. Best if I just dive in...

That super-comfy train journey left us off in southern Sichuan province at the sprightly hour of 4am. A 3hr wait in the dark preceded a 9hr bus journey across some pretty rugged country. I'd previously raved about the beautiful, clean Chinese countryside. This journey was a bit of a counterpoint to that. Gorgeous scenery - in theory: towering hills and lush green-ness, fields of young rice and corn. But really scarred. Horrible concrete buildings, a nuclear power plant with homes a stone's throw away (and on a hill, level with the cooling towers' nozzle), crumbling secondary roads that looked post-apocalyptic, gray monstrous-looking factories, and lots of trash strewn everywhere. This is the other, uncharming, side of China, built in the 1970's/80's (my guess), a brutal-looking attempt at industrialization...so much from that era would be better off completely erased I think - actually, most construction pre-2005 for that matter.

Anyway. We enter Yunnan province - nice place! First stop: Lijiang. The town's lined with canals and pretty bridges and cobbled lanes and striking facades that look like pictures from old China. Those photos...they don't quite capture modern-day Lijiang...if they did they'd be too full of tourists to appreciate! Regardless, the place had charm...getting lost in its old town, walking around before the crowds woke up, finding its local produce market, wandering at night amid the glow of red Chinese lanterns hung from awnings. And undoubtably, it was all very picturesque.

Our current location, Dali, is like Lijiang in that there are a lot of tourists and souvenir shops about. In contrast to Lijiang's narrow alleys and canals, Dali boasts wide lanes, a few tall towers, and a bit of reconstructed wall (that once surrounded the city). On one side of town, a huge lake; on the other side, big hills that have been enshrouded in clouds since our arrival. It's been a great place to hang out. We've found some fantastic places to eat, and enjoy our daily walks in the old town.

Between Lijiang and Dali, we've sandwiched in a few other destinations far from the crowds. First, Shaxi, a cute village described by a local (well, from Shanghai) travel writer as "what Lijiang was like 20 years ago." There, we stayed at the end of a skinny flagstoned lane, just beyond a cluster of chickens and a pig stable. Our loo was a hole in the ground out back by the garden. When we first arrived, as if as testament to its picturesqueness, a film crew and cast was blocking our path, evidently making a Chinese TV series just down the alley from us. Not far away, rice fields and a Buddhist temple and a pretty main square.

And Shuanglang, a nice little fishing village on the opposite side of the lake from Dali, where we stayed at a water's-edge hostel full of Chinese backpackers and had some lovely food.

And our highlight: Weishan (described by the aforementioned Chinese guy as "what Dali was like 20 years ago"). This place was fantastic! Medieval towers, old lanes and crumbling facades, and NO tourists. As everywhere in China (and much of India...and all of Europe), there was modernity surrounding the quaint old section of town... But it was still wonderfully authentic: said lanes were full of barbers and noodle-makers and family-run eateries and residences. Against the wooden buildings were street-food vendors and guys playing mah jong or Chinese chess on squat tables and stools, and singing birds hanging in cages from rafters. We visited a Ming-era mansion with a small courtyard surrounded by fantastic wooden outbuildings. Happy dogs wandered about. People smiled and laughed at us (not an uncommon event as white-skinned people in China, but much more frequent here!). At 8pm, hundreds of the town's women got together in the central square and danced together - for no one but themselves, just for the fun of it. We had some of the loveliest food we've had here as well...cheesy-tasting jaozi (steamed dumplings) and noodles cooked/served in clay pots.

We tried our damnest to track down a market reckoned to take place each five days in the city, where colorfully-dressed Hui and Yi minorities from the surrounding hills come down to buy and sell wares (we've been to two such markets in other areas in the last week), but this was enormously unsuccessful. We've no Mandarin phrasebook or dictionary, and I speak just enough Chinese to where people think I know what they're saying when I clearly don't. Despite numerous conversations and pantomiming, even drawing a marketplace on a scrap of paper, we succeeded only in being pointed to two different daily produce markets in opposite parts of town, not the big, more irregular market we sought.

But this is the fun of travelling in China...being in a place where no one speaks English, lost and bewildered and happily frustrated. All you can do is laugh.

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We've ordered most food by the "point at that dish" method, but I did finally talk Rebecca into ordering blindly the other day. We found a hidden courtyard full of Chinese and sat at a table, then chose three cool-looking strings of symbols from a mind-boggling 14-page menu. We didn't do too badly: a large omelet heaving with veggies, a cold noodly plate, and a heaping pile of green chilis (okay, this one wasn't quite ideal). Along with a wooden bucket full of steamed rice and a pot of green tea, it was pretty good. Actually, we did worse the next day at the same place when we tried to order something specific. We'd memorized the word for mushrooms to get at least ONE plate we'd know in advance, and ended up with stir-fried beef or pork lung (we think).

This is actually great fun, though. Normally, you order your food and a restaurant and then wait in anticipation, wondering, "How's this going to be done, how will it taste?" Here, you simply ask, "What the bejeezus did we order? I hope it's not dog, or intestines (again)." It adds a nice degree of excitement. Rebecca gets nervous at this, but we're both easy eaters so it's all generally been a success, aside from the fried lung which we ate, but only half-heartedly.

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China continues to prove it's changed so much!

Communism? Ha. Only in some strange political sense. Somehow, I think that the Chinese Marxist groups that banded together in 1921 to form the Chinese Communist Party would not be altogether pleased with this country's present state. The place is (seems to be) a conglomeration of a huge government, capitalism, and extreme cronyism, minus freedom of information (rather: selective information). Marxism? This country is a materialist wonderland! An ultra-rich Party official/friend on one side; on the other, those that make his rich life possible: a rural peasant, or the street vendor scraping by by selling fried things on sticks, or the old woman rummaging through trash to salvage plastic bottles. Shouldn't they have (more or less) identical incomes? What would those old revolutionaries think of the new bourgeouis, this emergent class of rich urban dwellers? Aren't the privileged (how different, exactly, from the old emporers, or the Kuomintang, other than there are probably just a larger class of them, with modern weapons and communication to hold things together?) precisely what communism sought to eliminate? The poor proletariat has been left in the dust; it's largely a land of have-a-lots and have-very-littles (probably a billion of the latter!). Then again, I'm only an outsider, so what do I know?!

After traveling quite a lot in both countries in 2002/03, I concluded that in a decade India would be largely the same place, while China would be completely transformed. It's only been 7-8 years, but that prediction seems spot on. India? Hotels cost more, the price of bananas has risen. That's about it. The place is still a disaster - and it always will be (but that's part of what makes it an interesting place to travel). China, however, has moved on - and efficiently (if at times misguidedly but with good intention). A big government with seemingly-infinite strength has made it possible to squeeze decades of progress into a span of mere years - the modernization I mentioned in the previous update.

One by-product of that is that travel here has gotten easy. An example. Back in Chengdu, message boards, travel information, and even a special "Tibet Travel Desk" at our hostel indicated that a trip to Tibet is THE thing to do. Get a group together, get a permit, get a flight (or now: a train!) to Lhasa. It's apparently still hard to travel independently there, but otherwise it all seems so...easy! One ad showed a three-week standard (and expensive) itinerary including Mt Kailash and the far West of Tibet. That's a standard itinerary? In 2002 a similar odyssey cost me a few cold, harsh, solitary weeks - I hitchhiked around and froze my ass off and slept on boards and got stranded. Yeah, I felt like I was falling apart after a few weeks and it was abyssmally uncomfortable - travel was TOUGH - but, it was true adventure (in so far as that exists in this modern world)... Elsewhere in China, travel wasn't AS hard, but it still presented a challenge.

The episode is just a microcosm of travel in China. Tourism, like the places, has developed. Modern China is becoming less interesting (the tool of progress here is the bulldozer...for a great but sad example, see this (and better yet, read the accompanying National Geographic article: http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-of-the-day/old-city-demolition/ ...the old city of Kashgar was one of my absolute highlights in 2002!); old things have been razed, tourists are very present, things have gotten far simpler and better connected and more comfortable.

We've still had some great mini-adventures and, admittedly, have not really veered far off the beaten track in China. But even if we'd had more time and made more effort, I feel like a lot of the "adventure" in China is gone. And it's gone expensive. These nice hostels cost a lot more than they used to. Transportation's gone up at least 50%, I think. Admission fees in this country are ridiculous - in many cases more than you'd pay for an equivalent site in Europe or North America. Funny enough though, if you limit yourself to not crossing large distances and entering touristy sights, you can still live cheaply. In small towns, clean hotels are cheap - cheaper than an equivalent in India, even. And food...if you don't care for an expresso and pizza, you can always tuck down a backstreet and find a bowl of noodles or a plate of something mysterious (or not) for peanuts. Beer, too, is fabulously cheap, as is plum wine.

In summary to this aside, yeah China has better roads and plumbing, but I prefer the adventure and ruggedness of days that are apparently bygone, or fast becoming so. The change is happy for many, probably sad for many. I'm generally annoyed by people who talk of "the good old days," so I'll stop there; in conclusion, I just feel fortunate that I saw what I did when I did, and that we're seeing at least some more of that now! In one MORE decade, I'm 100% certain India will still be a cool place to travel. China, I'm not quite as sure. In any case, it's still a fantastic country, and I/we look forward to watching its progress!

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Back on subject...in short, we continue to whole-heartedly enjoy this period in China, exploring the small chunk of China that we set off to visit. Not only is it like a vacation after all that time on the Indian subcontinent, it's really enjoyable!

World Cup. The USA - Ghana game? England vs. Germany? No comment.

No souvenirs for us. Most of what's around anyway is kitsch. We did spend 18 yuan (about $2.70, under 2 quid) on a little glazed teapot from a dude at a market. And a pot of fresh honey from a Bai woman.

I hock and spit sometimes, just to feel like I fit in (EVERYONE does this here - often and loudly). Rebecca doesn't (she doesn't slurp her noodles, either). She doesn't really like that I do, but she can't really berate me when a thousand others are doing worse.

A new adventure for us begins tomorrow. We enter a monastery up in the clouded green hills...and begin some formal training.

Steamed Buns and Things on Sticks

Thailand. After leaving our island, we boated back to Phuket, which I never tired of pronouncing phonetically. A day in the city gave us a chance for some great Thai street life and street food...stuff that's lacking on a touristy island. [Those who have seen The Beach would recognize our hotel in Phuket's old town (and incidentally Ko Phi Phi, the island we were on for a week, is the island in the film).]

We flew back to Kuala Lumpur, missing the US-Slovenia match en route but catching the England-Algeria one a couple hours after we landed, at 2.30am (we slept in the airport).

Next day: flight to Chengdu, China, in the heart of Sichuan province, far far inland.

I'd been here before, and to me the city was unrecognizable. In the intervening years, a big but somehow quaint and walkable city centre had somehow morphed into enormous multi-laned roads, pedestrian flyovers, and modern shops of the Louis Vuitton variety. All new, all big and imposing and impressive. But so very far from what I remembered.

Another thing I'd enjoyed some years ago was the Sichuan opera...old men with wispy beards chatting over afternoon tea while on a stage masked singers screeched and sang and acted out stories. This, too, had changed. Now evidently, the only option to see the opera is to buy an expensive ticket to a staged evening performance that is more akin to a variety show for the short attention-spanned. We skipped it.

While I'm speaking of changes, I may as well mention the hostel where we stayed. Luxurious. DVD player and TV in the room. Free internet (I used to hunt down internet on back lanes, seeking out the Chinese characters that indicated an internet cafe - which would inevitably be full of young kids playing online shoot-em-up games). Free fresh fruit delivered to your room in a basket. Great shower. Super clean.

China? The China I remembered was so much simpler and different.

This place has been turned upside-down...or right-side up, depending on your perspective.

One nice change is that new construction in China seems to have taken a turn for the better. Instead of white-tile-and-blue-glass buildings that look terrible and seem unlikely to last more than a couple decades, what's new generally looks good. We found a few brand-new streets done up to look ancient; obviously set up for tourists (mostly

Chinese) but it is at least adding character of a certain manner, compensating for some of the tradition that was probably bulldozed to make way for all the modernity.

But I keep digressing...We spent a few days in Chengdu; Rebecca immensely enjoyed her introduction to the country. Wandering the backstreets was great fun (a lot more streets and things are labeled in English now, but it can still be bewildering). Meals were bowls of noodles, assorted steamed buns and dumplings, and fried and boiled things on sticks; we never saw an English menu. Among other things, we visited a Buddhist monastery and a Taoist temple. And...we saw pandas (not in the city; for this we had to take a short trip out)!

Very cool. They're big and white and black and playful and immensely fun to watch.

After a haircut (at 15 yuan - just over $2 - it was far more expensive than my average of 25 rupees - 60 cents - in India, but included a wash before AND after, plus a blowdry, and an obligatory photo with the barber who had obviously never cut the hair of a white guy before), we left the city.

And leaving the city...it was posh! We'd booked a Hard Sleeper class train journey. This sounds like roughing it, but it isn't. The carriage was posh. And after India, quite a change...no beggars/cripples sweeping under your feet and asking for rupees, no chai wallahs. Bedding. Comfort. Cleanliness. Order. Little/no invasion of personal space. And outside: instead of brown plains it was green and bright, with stunning rivers and gorges, as we wound our way southwards through Sichuan.

Actually, in some respects the journey (and the train station itself) was SO organized and comfortable that it seemed almost drab, but that's probably just because we're still somewhat used to India (and after India, few places on Earth wouldn't feel a bit sterile in some way). That overnight journey cost us more than a trans-India first class journey would have, but we appreciated it for what it was - an enjoyable way to connect points A and B.

13 hrs after we'd begun, the train dumped us off at 4am in a city called Panzhihua. Straightaway we hit the bus station, for a continuation of the journey, a 9-hr bus ride into Yunnan province, where we're currently stationed. More on that in the next update!

Now, we're off for a beer (we picked up a can each of lychee and pineapple-flavored lager for an evening treat).

[Postscript: this update is being uploaded by our friend Chris. China does not allow internet users to access Blogspot. More on this...and a lot more that I/we may have to say about China in general in a future update!]

The Only Problem With Paradise

Things have been really great. The air temperature...perfect; the water temperature for frequent dips in the sea...also perfect. Our private stilted bungalow...fantastic. Views of sandy beaches, limestone cliffs, and another jagged island across the way...stunning. Our favorite restaurant on an adjacent beach, 3 minutes' walk away...spectacular food. It's rainy season...so there are relatively few tourists about, and deflated prices to match...and aside from our very first day here (and today) we've had unseasonably clear, sunny, blue skies.

In all, a week of sublime weather and scenery and food, being shirtless most of the time...can't ask for more.

Really the only complaint is that mosquitos harass us each morning and towards/after dusk which limits the amount of time spent hanging in the hammock on our bungalow porch. I guess a few itchy insects are a small price to pay for what is otherwise paradise, though. Also less than perfect is the fact that the Americans failed to beat England in the first World Cup match. Alas, we settle for a tie I guess.

We've read a handful of books, got some color (Rebecca, brown; me, more of an off-white), had a Thai massage (which, in my experience, is voluntarily paying to have a meaty Thai woman pummel you with her hands and feet and elbows, with some acrobatics that border on the intimate thrown in for good measure), and I've poked beached jellyfish with sticks (Rebecca says she outgrew this when she was five; me? well, I grew up 2000 miles from the sea so never did this when I was young and even if I had, I wouldn't give it up. no way! it's fun!), and spent a fair deal of time studying the movements of hermit crabs and spider crabs (though Rebecca tells me there must be more than 5000 types of crabs and that these are probably some other type, which is likely true - but regardless, I like watching them and sitting really still until they decide I'm okay and crawl out of their holes - why do they dig these? - and go about their business unfettered).

We're rested and recharged now, ready for the final phase of our trip.

In a few hours, we leave the island of Ko Phi Phi by ferry (provided it's running...after a week of sun, today it's storming...good timing!) back to the larger resort island of Phuket. There, we have a flight back to Kuala Lumpur (tomorrow), where we'll spend a night in the airport ahead of Saturday morning's flight to...China.

When we began this trip, China was not part of the plan; but then, neither was this stop in Thailand. A web of visa issues and discounted airline tickets dictated this course, and we're happy to follow.