Tere and Em's Continued Adventures

MAP

2008-11-13T09:37:00.003+08:00

Here's where we went, starting in Hanoi, Vietnam.

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Home

2008-11-12T08:31:00.002+08:00

We're home now folks. Its a nice day in Wellington, and we're in recovery and timezone readjustment (jetlag) modes. This site will stay up. I may add photos and videos to previous posts I may have missed. Feel free to have a browse anytime, and thanks alot for participating. See you in person soon!

- TERE and EM

Singapore

2008-11-09T23:51:00.002+08:00

We're in Singapore tonight. Watching TV in a comfy room in a fancy place courtesy of the airline. Thrown in with our tickets. On TV is a discovery TV show about The Venetian Macau which we went to yesterday.

Our flight home is 9pm local time so we get home Tuesday late morning I think.

Airpork

2008-11-09T07:11:00.001+08:00

At HK airport right now about to board flight to Singapore. We're there just one night, then home. Hoorah.

Macau

2008-11-09T07:10:00.005+08:00

We took a very quick jaunt to Macau yesterday. Its about a 1hr ferry ride from Hong Kong. We got going late so didnt make it over until about 3pm. On the ferry we saw posters for Cirque de Soliel which is showing one of their shows in Macau. We decide to see if we can get tickets.

Through immigration and customs - Macau is an autonomous region of China, like Hong Kong. WE jump on a free shuttle to the Venetian, which is where the show is playing. We hadnt heard of the place until that moment, but turning up there a short time later confirms this to be a different experience for us once again. This place is ostentatious, huge, ridiculous, tacky and preposterous. Its modelled after the Venetian in Las Vegas, that hotel/casino complex built to replicate Venice. The Macau version is 3 times bigger. It is arguably a small city in itself. 3000 rooms, 1200 staff (5% of the population of Macau!), the biggest casino floor in the world, apparently the biggest habitated building in the world, it was built in only 2 years so probably one of the biggest construction efforts ever. It has several canals within the building on the second floor which is above the casino floor, so you can take gondola rides complete with tenor singing gondola drivers. The cost of all this? I dont actually know, but I do know how much our modest lunch cost. One piece of lasagne and a small pizza? $50NZ. Youch. And that was in the foodcourt, i.e. where peasants like us dine, not in any of the numerous opulant restaurants.

The experience of being in the place for us was an eyeopener. Going with no expectation or prior knowledge of it probably helped, but it really highlighted once again the extremes that exists within Asia, or even within China itself.

The show tickets were not as expensive as I expected - we decided since we had come all the way we may as well get good seats. The show itself was great as you'd expect. Zaia is the name of it. It looked like the theatre itself was built for the show, and will probably be permanently staged there indefinately I'd say. They do 2 shows per day. Look it up on the net if you want to find out more.

Once the show was done it was about 9pm, and we wanted to see atleast a bit of the other thing which Macau is well known for (other than being the Asian Las Vegas) - its Portugese colonial history; as well as something real of course. We caught a taxi to the main street of the old section of the town, and did a quick stroll of several streets to take in some of the colonial architecture. Its a very nice place, and a very different look and feel to the ramshackle of Hong Kong. Almost like a very clean and controlled version of Hanoi. We were off to the airport super early the next morning, so unfortunately had to get going and was a shame we could check out more of the place.

Macau from tgoodwin on Vimeo.

Still here

2008-11-08T11:53:00.004+08:00

Hi folks. We're still in HK. We've been exploring around. Mainly various shopping areas. I found some interesting back streets with street markets 5mins from our hotel. We're staying at North Point, which is not too far from Causeway Bay, on HK Island itself. Today is our last day. We're going to go see something a bit different today. More on that later.

We faxed our voting papers yesterday, so we've done our bit from over here. Should be an interesting evening over there.

Last night I went to see some live music which was interesting. I'll elaborate a little more on it later.

Honkers

2008-11-05T14:48:00.006+08:00

Just arrived in Honk Gong, following a 12hr overnight ride on the train from Guilin. Was a comfortable cabin which we shared with a Chinese man and his 4 year old son. The 4 year old was a hoot, and enjoyed interacting with us. All items of clothing he sported were Ultraman branded. He also was very good at playing Counter-Strike on his Dad's laptop. He knew all the keyboard shortcuts from what I could see and was ducking, weaving and killing terrorists gleefully. A crazy sight. Other than that we slept through the ride, woke at 8am, I had Chinese breakfast in the restaurant cart which was tasty.

We hopped off at Shenzen, and went through immigration and customs for both sides. I noted the two sides were seperated by a moat of sorts. Changed our RMB cash to HKD before crossing, bought an octopus card for the metro, which we jumped on and 3 line changes and a shortish walk with backbacks and a lift to the 11th floor later we arrived at the hotel, only to find a note on the door saying they are temporarily now at a different building further down the road. We ended up finding it finally, and our now pretty wacked. So will take it easy for a bit before deciding the plan of action. We're here 4 nights. Keep tuned, I'll also be doing some updates for previous days too.

Hong Kong from tgoodwin on Vimeo.

Guilin again again only briefly

2008-11-04T18:42:00.007+08:00

Just arrived back in Guilin, only a 1.5 hour bus ride North from Yangshuo. Had a great time down there. Just in Guilin for another 3 hours.

Dropped our bags at the hotel we stayed at a few nights prior, and I went for a quick jaunt around areas nearby. I wanted to see what was going on at the restaurants, as someone had told us there are restaurants here that offer just about any type of meat on the menu, and the animals are kept live in cages at the front. I didnt see anything too shocking to my Western sensibilities, other than snakes and toads which we've seen alot of in Asian restaurants. There were some kind of Rodent type creatures I've never seen before. Kind of large rabbit sized but almost spherical with a puggish face. They didnt look too happy about being in the cage. I did get to witness a customer picking out a nice healthy looking Duck, which gave a few final quacks of protest and flapped its wings furiously before the girl, who was quite short and probably not much older than 18, swung it at the pavement. I saw a few fish being prepared this way also. The damage to the duck was devastating but not quite fatal, it lay in a pile of blood for a bit writhing away before it was chucked in a bucket, still writhing and sent to the kitchen. The fact that I found this shocking made me realise I've never actually seen an animal being killed, highlighting once again how removed we can be in the West from the realities of where our food comes from. In our various bus rides on this trip, I've seen a number of chicken and duck farms, and they all appear to live free range in pretty natural setups. The ducks and chickens here are huge and plump, but humaneness is not the reason for this, rather the Asian demand for good food I would say. The animals in cages outside these restaraunts - chickens, ducks, pheasants, rodents, snakes, toads, fish of multiple kinds, toads, fresh water prawns - looked pretty stressed mostly. Not that I can tell when a snake or a fish is stressed.

I've tried to witness and understand more of the attitude toward animals in food here. I figure either I should be a Vegan or I should be able to eat anything, otherwise its kind of living by double standards. I'm still sitting in the middle however, my conditioning, or my culture if you like, obviously runs pretty deep. I guess I only speak for cityfolk.

Catching overnight train from here to Shenzen, which is closest city on mainland to Hong Kong, which is our destination. We think we're there 4 nights. Need to double check our flights. Alot of updating of photos and vids to do, so should have downtime in HK to do so.

Guilin again from tgoodwin on Vimeo.

One Night In Yangshuo

2008-11-04T14:47:00.002+08:00

We spent a night in Yangshuo - the town itself - last night. Yangshuo is a town of great character as it is nestled in between the distinctive Karst peaks. So within the town you are surrounded by them. They're like giant rocks that have just been dropped from the sky. On one of the peaks there is a pagoda on the top.

Once again it is a touristic destination, and rightly so. The centrepoint of this is one main walking street lined with old buildings containing the obligatory travel souvenirs and other items. There are bargains to be had they, as Em and I both got ourselves some good outdoor jackets - real Northface ones from the factory and not fakes - for about $20NZ each. Not bad I reckon. Not really sure what they fetch in NZ, but wouldnt be surprised if it would top $200.

Also become short term locals at a bar/cafe called "Loove". I was attracted by the sign which read "F**king Good Food". There I met a guy who would turn out to be a drinking buddy for the evening, an Indian man who had moved to China a year and a half ago to retire - at the ripe old age of 39 - and was in Yangshuo for a few months for the hell of it. He described it as "his paradise". We chatted for some time at Loove, and decided to let it go from coffees to beers (Pijiu). From here the evening was extremely entertaining and included taking part in birthday celebrations for a local girl with her somewhat-drunk-but-keen-to-practice-their english pals; playing drums with a Chinese Pop Covers group (for the 2nd night in a row) - video evidence of the show will be posted later; sampling some damned fine late night street food; leading a pinkfloyd acoustic singsong circle - not knowing the songs or lyrics didnt prevent anyone from singing at the top of their lungs; being joined by possibly the funniest drunk I've ever witnessed, a middle aged Chinese man with excellent american english but who takes a liking to dancing and singing loudly to the jukebox, "if you dont know the words make them up" he yelled at us. So he would insert any obscenity he could think of here and there amoungst the proper lyrics. His dancing I cannot begin to describe.

So an extremely entertaining evening. The next day, after a well deserved sleep in we did some shop gazing, coffee sipping, tea sipping then jumped on a bus. Oh, we were walking along the street on our way to the bus depot, and the bus actually caught us. Woman was hanging out the door yelling "Guilin" at us, so we jumped on. Didnt need to find the bus station, they found us.

Yangshuo1 from tgoodwin on Vimeo.

Short walk around the village

2008-11-03T17:29:00.007+08:00

Rained all day today in the village of Aishaman. Mostly relaxed at our nice guesthouse. I took a short stroll after lunch though to have a look at things. Mostly farming going on round here. Cows, ducks, chickens, and fruit and veges. A very old and frail woman was sitting in her doorway and I greeted her and looked inside her front living room. Mostly concrete with no furniture. I gave her 5 yuan (less than $2NZ). Next door a Woman holding her baby was shouting "Hello, Hello" to me and making her baby wave. I went over and was invited into the living room. I sat with her, and her parents, and a bit later her husband for some time. Have been attempting Chinese phrases and other communications alot on this trip, and managed to communicate a few basics. I was given some snacks - a couple of roast kumara, and this citrus fruit which is very popular here - unpeeled it is the shape of a ginormous pear, but peel it and it is like a giant orange inside. Not very juicy but nice anyhoo. Unfortunately I didnt have time to go back and give a gift in return. Need to remember to carry some stuff with me when wandering in villages.

Walk around Aishanman Village from tgoodwin on Vimeo.
Nice to see what things are like outside of a city in China. These people had things pretty simple. But they had some nice furniture and TV. I would say all 3 generations were there, and it wasnt too small a dwelling.

Heres a video of the Chef at our guesthouse doing his work.

Giggling Tree Cooking from tgoodwin on Vimeo.

Bamboo Raft Down The River

2008-11-02T18:25:00.004+08:00

Rode bikes 10mins from the village to a river, and took a ride on a bamboo raft. Bikes were thrown on the back of the raft. Beautiful scenery. Karst mountains, mirror-like water, bamboo trees etc. The rafting of course is a touristic operation. Along the river there are anchored rafts with people working on them - they shout out "Hello, Beer?". You can have a beer while your cruising along.

It had been raining and as such there were no other rafts on the river which was nice. The ride was pretty smooth mostly, but there were 4 or 5 small dams which the driver took us over for a bit of a bump. Was fun and got a bit wet.

We had no idea how long the ride was though, and by the time we made our destination it was dark, and we had no idea where we were. There was no service of any kind offering to take us back to where we started. Luckily someone was walking by and I asked him where we were, turned out we werent too far from Yangshuo. So we started riding. Was about a 30min ride and we came to the town of Yangshuo. It has a very busy night life with all the tourists. We had a drink at a cafe then hired a guy with a motor bike with 4 seats in the back for us to stick the bikes on, and we headed back to the village.

Bamboo Rafting - near Aishanmen Village from tgoodwin on Vimeo.

Yangshuo - Aishanmen

2008-11-02T10:05:00.003+08:00

Yesterday we arrived in the town of Yangshuo and got some guys on trailbikes to drive us 3km out of the town to the village of Aishanmen where we are staying. The guesthouse is setup and run by a Dutch couple, and it is very nice. Great food, very relaxed atmosphere, and beautiful surroundings. More blog updates to come as I'm a few days behind. They'll be posted in roughly correct date order so scroll down.

Cruise to Yangshuo

2008-11-01T20:11:00.002+08:00

Pictures of cruising down river. Guilin to Yangshuo. Also featuring insights into Chinese tourism.

Guilin to Yangshuo from tgoodwin on Vimeo.

Back in Guilin

2008-10-31T19:21:00.004+08:00

Hello folks. Yesterday we left the city of Guilin at 8am to go to Longshen county and in particular a village in the hills called Ping'An. I will post pictures and movies soon of that. Tommorow we jump on a boat and head 4hours down the Li River to a place called Yanshuo. We'll be there 4 nights, coming to the end of things gradually as after this we'll be on a train to Hong Kong which is our last major destination apart from a night in Singapore on the way back to NZ. Heres a few shots of guilin.

Ping'An - next day

2008-10-31T12:05:00.005+08:00

Woke up at 5am hoping to catch the sunrise over the rice terraces but unfortunately it was raining. The village must be quite high as we are within the clouds. Zero visibility so we called it off. I caught a few more hours sleep then got up and took a wander around the village to get some pics and video. The village was nice and quite - tourists other than me either hadnt arrived or were staying in.

The cloud started to thin a bit offering some nice views so I dashed up to the highest point of the village. By this point several bus loads of Chinese tourists had arrived so it offered the chance to get some video of them in action for you. Their enthusiasm for the views was well justified - some dramatic views of surrounding villages, hills and mountains with clouds swirling about. We didnt get the famous views of the miles of rice terraces, however wasnt too disappointed as we've seen similar sites in Vietnam (Sapa), and what we saw today was something totally different.

Ping'An 02 from tgoodwin on Vimeo.

Ping'An Village

2008-10-30T11:03:00.002+08:00

Ping'An village is in the hills about 3 hours from Guilin, Guangxi province. Was a small hike up stone staircases and paths up to the village from where the bus dropped us. Zhuan is the name of the ethnic minority living here. The Women are distinguished by flouro headgear wrapped around their hair. Yellow, pink, green or blue. Not sure if the colour is of significance. We decided to stay the night in the village and got a cheap room - about $12 for the night. 3 story wooden structure. Large restaurant on the bottom floor. Food speciality of the area is food cooked in bamboo. For lunch I had bamboo chicken and bamboo rice. The food item is stuffed inside a large section of bamboo, and cooked over flames. The ends of the bamboo are corked with a piece of corn cob. The bamboo is split apart and served as is. The chicken had large pieces of ginger and other herbs and was very tasty, slightly smokey and woody in flavour. The rice had pumpkin and pork with it, and was a very stick and glutinous variety. Also delicious.

We met a Woman from San Fransisco, Coleen, who had befriended another Woman from Shanghai, english name Kelly, who spoke very good english. We sat and spoke into the night at a cafe, and also decided to rise in time to see sunrise over the rice terraces. Unlike the two guys we conversed with in Chengdu, Kelly was not comfortable discussing anything political about China, other than general noncontroversial issues. Its interesting trying to get the tone of things here.

Ping'An 01 from tgoodwin on Vimeo.

Yao Village - Longshen County

2008-10-30T10:31:00.004+08:00

We bought a ticket for a tour to two villages in the hills about 3 hours from Guilin. The first village is inhabited by people of the Yao ethnic group. The Yao women grow their hair long, and have customs related to this. The part of the village we visited is geared to tourists and we saw a show demonstrating the customs, music and dance.

The women only ever cut their hair twice in their life. It is grown long but hidden from view under a hat until they are married. Their husband is the first to see their hair and it is cut. They keep the cut hair and wear it with their growing hair. I didnt catch what the second hair cutting occassion is. A group of married women demonstrated the unfurling of their hair - 2 long cut sections plus their own hair - extremely long, and very well kept. They wash their hair with rice water.

I am often cynical about the use of the ethnic minorities for tourism here in China, and in SEAsia (Thailand and Vietnam), however on this trip I got a different perspective on this. The operations were run by the locals by the look of things. In the two villages we visited (more on the second one soon), there was an obvious area where the tourism takes place - restaurants, shops, hotels (the majority seemed to be run by locals). You only had to walk down 1 or 2 paths to get away from that and see that normal life was taking place in the village also. Tourism has become I would guess a healthy supplement to the traditional agriculture and other sources of income, much like in many societies. Hopefully it ensures improved health conditions, education and so on. I do know that minorities in many parts of Asia are exploited and often trafficked for tourism - even in Thailand for example - so it was nice to see what to my eyes appeared to be a healthy balance. Always hard to tell who is benefiting how much of course.

We didnt spend long in this Village, and I have forgotten its name. We jumped back on the bus and headed to the next village - Ping'An.

Yao Village from tgoodwin on Vimeo.

Guilin Arrival

2008-10-29T22:05:00.003+08:00

Literally just checked into our guesthouse in Guilin, South China. Free wireless seems to be everywhere in this country. Originally were only staying one night here, but have decided to make it 2 because it looks really nice.

The China Association for the Collection of Mao Badges

2008-10-29T19:45:00.000+08:00

Chengdu04_maos from tgoodwin on Vimeo.

All Photos

2008-10-29T00:20:00.002+08:00

If you've got nothing better to do, I've started backing up ALL our photos on flickr:

HERE

Next Steps

2008-10-28T23:01:00.006+08:00

Hi folks, we had an awesome day today including the Panda wrangling. Tonight is our last night in Chengdu. Tomorrow evening we fly to Guilin which is much further South and a bit to the East. It's in Guangxi province and has a much smaller population of something like 1.3 million. I think we're only there 1 or 2 nights then we go a bit further South to a town called Yangshuo.This part of the trip will be much quieter probably than anything in China so far which will be a nice change, and good considering we'll be spending 4 or 5 days in the futuristic madness of Hong Kong following. Hard to believe there's still 2 weeks to go, seems like we've been gone a couple months. Thanks for all your comments - please feel free to comment more.

Panda Breeding & Research Centre

2008-10-28T13:23:00.001+08:00

This morning, we did a tour to the Panda breeding and research centre - only a 30min ride from our guesthouse. The pictures tell most the story.

This is a 2 year old Giant Panda by the name of Yuanda. He was more interested in chomping his apple, than being at all concerned about us.

We didnt get the name of the red panda, but he was also intent on chomping apples. Was a 2 or so hour visit to the centre. We saw babies (a few months) in a crib, 1 year olds, 2 year olds, and 3 year olds. As well as the red pandas. The 1 year olds were very active frolicking about their enclosure, but apparently pandas are only active in the morning for a few hours then they sleep the rest of the day and night. We arrived just as they were waking up which was perfect. They went straight for the bamboo.

China09_Chengdu_Pandas from tgoodwin on Vimeo.

Hot Pot

2008-10-28T00:13:00.001+08:00

Last night we partook of the traditional Sichuan cuisine specialty, hot pot. The food of Sichuan province is well known the world over for one particular special property:

facemelting spicyness

Our selected food items - fish, veges, several varieties of mushrooms, were dropped into what seemed to be a bubbling broth of chilli, peppercorns, and hydrochloric acid. The broth was the colour of blood.

The facemeltingness of the 'food' we attempted to consume I can confirm with three words:

Hot (temperature) - any item i dished into my bowl I had to leave for atleast five if not 30mins before I could let it near myself. The table had a built in gas element and the large bowl was sunk into the table, so the noxious potion bubbled madly right in your face.

Hot (spice) - not only the mega chilli hit, but some of the hottest peppercorns i've been in the same room as. These gave the hotness a roundness which produced a sensation much like a soccer ball coated in battery acid being inflated within the mouth

Hot (the above combined) - i was only expecting spicy hot, but the temperature factor inflated the experience to ridiculous levels. The soccer ball coated in battery acid was kicked in there by Satan, and as such was on fire, and so was my face. The tingling sensation usually typical of the chilli eating experience was more akin to a bunch of highly skilled rats playing soccer with the aforementioned ball.

Em chickened out early on in the experience because she thought the whole fish they chucked in was alive at the time, and also because she feared for her life. There was no sign of the fish within about 30 secs - I think it just dissolved. I did a bit better, but the main thing is we're still alive folks. Some young locals had their photos taken with us, and heartily said "Welcome to Chengdu!". The rest of the restaurant, including a little girl perhaps 7 who kept coming over to our table to try her english on us, a cleaning lady who came over to check on us a few times and stir our broth, were keeping close tabs on the colour of our faces with much amusement.

Yet another factor confirming that these people are indeed crazy.

Chengdu Hotpot from tgoodwin on Vimeo.

Blobbing

2008-10-26T16:52:00.000+08:00

Taking it easy today. Both feeling a bit knackered, so recharging. Tomorrow we're going to see pandas. Tonight we're going to have Sichuan hotpot for dinner, so also psyching myself up for that. Meant to be some of the spiciest food available. Looks like we'll be here until Wednesday. Nice to be in one spot a bit longer.

Chengdu ' Gigs '

2008-10-26T15:07:00.000+08:00

Last night we made it to an area further on the outskirts of town, to attempt to see some live music. We didnt arrive until about 9.30 and the bands were already finished. Looked like they were a Rock n Roll or Rockabilly outfit. Double bass and quiff hairstyles. Nevertheless we stuck around for a few beers and ended up talking for sometime to a couple of young local guys. The conversation was wide and varied despite the fact that their English was only a bit better than our Chinese. Turned out they were both art tutors at the Chengdu university. One was a fine artist, and the other a comic book artist and traditional animator. As such between us we managed to communicate with a mixture of broken english and Chinese, pictograms and written text. Was alot of fun, and we managed to discuss the music and art scene in Chengdu and the rest of China, their opinion on freedom or lack of in China, some international affairs, their own personal music tastes, 1989 as a turning point in China, 1 child policy - and how some families have 2 or 3 children depending on how well off they are, the earthquake earlier in the year, and the fact that their is still alot of poverty in China despite the amount of money that is also here. The bar itself was very nicely setup - some great art around the walls, lots of local magazines and some good music playing.

Chengdu 01 - shopping around, pop stars from tgoodwin on Vimeo.

After saying goodbye to the guys we headed in a taxi to another bar a km or so away. We were expecting quite a different thing here, but the difference exceeded our expectations. Turned out there was some sort of Chinese Idol type thing going on here. Young local women were singing on the stage and dressed up in their best outfits and doing the whole Chinese pop star thing. A couple of them were bloody good singers. The whole thing was hosted by two enigmatic but cheesy MCs who took delight in including the only foreigners in the bar (Em and I) in the proceedings, and also including a few random english words for our benefit amoungst the announcements. "Hello" , "Thankyou", "Beautiful" . They sat with us at one point and introductions took place. Anytime they walked past from then on they'd shout at me "Jerry!, Hello!" in thick Chinese accent. Was a hilarious time. Some glamourous looking youngsters sitting at the front befriended us and we were obligated to join in the sparkler waving glorious pop singalongs.

Chengdu

2008-10-25T21:10:00.003+08:00

Arrived last night Chengdu. City of 4 million, and the ride courtesy of our guesthouse pickup service from the airport confirmed the largeness of the place. The larger metropolitan population is 12 million.

We're staying in what could be the best backpacker guesthouse we've come across. Its v

ery big, in the centre they've constructed a faux tropical area with streams, waterfalls, deckchairs, thatch roofed bungalows. They have cats, kittens, a puppy, chickens, and 3 large pigs which wander around the place during the day and are pretty tame. The owner of the place is Singaporean and he said to us that there's another

guesthouse always copying his initiatives - 1st he got a dog, and they got one, then he got cats, and they copied that too, so he got chickens, but they couldnt because they didnt have room so he won. Guess he hasn't stopped thou

gh because its pretty bizarre seeing big pigs trotting about the place. Other than the wildlife, its a pretty good place to stay too.

Today we decided to check out the shops. There must have been 1 million people doing their shopping today, I dont recall the streets of Beijing or Shanghai being that busy.

Just like in other cities we've been to in China, it is common to see disabled people begging for money on the sidewalk. It is quite hard to see, as these people obviously are incapable of supporting themselves. Sometimes its hard to tell what the problem is - we saw a teenage girl, crouched head in hands with a sign in front of her on the path. Many people were standing around reading the sign , and many giving her money. Perhaps she had lost her parents and was unable to support herself. So many things about this place are so different - but the sight of such things amoungst the backdrop of Western chain stores and outlets within massive glitzy malls is interesting. I guess it's similar in some developed countries anyway.

We're going to try and see a gig tonight - if we can find the place. Some skaters in a clothes store gave us directions. Will update about it tomorrow China time.

At Lijiang airport.

2008-10-24T20:19:00.000+08:00

We're in a cafe at Lijiang airport. Seems to be free wireless everywhere in China. Around us Chinese men are playing cards and smoking like chimneys, whilst the waitresses stomp on cockroaches. We're surrounded by tacky souvenirs generally ripping off local cultures, ala plastic tikis. We're flying to Chengdu in an hour.

Today we visited Black dragon pool, which was very nice. Will put up some pictures later.

Got a bit tired of being tourists with the hordes sightseeing at all the attractions, so we're both looking forward to disappearing in a big city again and just seeing normal and real life, not a blatant simulation of other peoples' culture. The portrayal and usage for tourism is very heavyhanded. Must be somewhat like how it was in NZ up until I guess the 70s/80s - with regard to portrayal of Maori culture for tourism. However we've found interacting with people here - locals and tourists - alot of fun. A girl perhaps 8 years old was chatting to me in Chinese, and I managed to say "I dont speak Mandarin" to her in Mandarin. She proceeded to give me a lesson, pointing at things and telling me the words for them. Fish in the canal, statue of dragon etc. She was entertained by the fact she was smarter than me I think.

Black Dragon Pool - Lijiang final day

2008-10-24T16:01:00.000+08:00

Here's some pictures from our final day in Lijiang before our late flight. We bought a beautiful portrait off an extremely talented local artist, and 2 charcoal portraits by his wife. The Woman with the baby on her back is Hayfan who runs the guesthouse we stayed at. The couple in marriage garb were having photos taken at Black Dragon Pool. Much of the local cuisine includes grubs, stick insect, dragonfly in the dishes.

China06_Lijiang05 from tgoodwin on Vimeo.

Commenting Enabled

2008-10-24T09:46:00.001+08:00

HI folks, commenting wasnt possible unless you had a google account. Now you can comment without one - select Name/URL under the comment options. Thanks for spotting that Maz !

Our last day in Lijiang today. We have a late flight to Chengdu tonight.

Jade Dragon Snow Mountain

2008-10-23T20:01:00.000+08:00

China05_Lijiang04_JadeDragon from tgoodwin on Vimeo.

Headed out of Lijiang about 30mins bus ride to the base of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain. Joined a horde and a half of tourists in the queue to get up the mountain. Was quite a process. Ticket, queue, bus to somewhere else, another ticket, queue, until finally on the cable car. Was worth it by then. The car took us up to about 4300m, then an exhausting walk (due to altitude and not unfitness of course) up to about 4506m. Everyone had cans of oxygen, as did we, which helped us get up. At the top was magnificent view of mountain, glacier and the area below. Something different for us - interesting considering we were in the tropical heat and humidity of Laos only on Sunday.

Naxi Ancient Music

2008-10-23T14:29:00.000+08:00

And dinner beforehand consisting of Vegetable hotpot, potato cake, and fried Yak meat. Yak was very tasty. A little chewy, but pretty good. Flavour comparable to kidney maybe - not so strong though.

After feasting we headed into the old town to go to a concert of ancient Naxi music. They hold the show every night and half the musicians are as a

ncient nearly

as the music. Five of them

in their mid 80s. The man who put

the orchestra together in the 80s gave an interesting talk regarding the philosophy behind putting it together. It is apparently a fairly pure and untouched artform - rare in

China, which he remarked on. To western ears familiar elements

of Chine

se folk music a

there, but the exe

cution is probably more

raw than we might be used to hearing. Lots of clang, bang, plonk

, often sounding quite arythmical and some

very high singing by the Women. Very

interesting music to listen to. Also included a Naxi operatic number - a more comedic one. A great show.

China04_Lijiang02_02_music from tgoodwin on Vimeo.

2nd Day in Lijiang

2008-10-22T16:57:00.000+08:00

We're still in Lijiang, Yunnan, China. Took it fairly easy today - had a wander around the town again, with a couple of drink stops, before deciding what we'd do with remaining time in Lijiang.

China04_Lijiang02_01 from tgoodwin on Vimeo.

Lijiang 1st day pictures and videos

2008-10-22T00:18:00.001+08:00

China03_Lijiang01_02 from tgoodwin on Vimeo.

We're in Lijiang

2008-10-21T15:12:00.000+08:00

Jumped on a bus this morning to head to the famous Lijiang. 8 hours later we arrived. This place is stunningly beautiful. It is a city with a new half and an old half. We're staying in the old half in an old wooden 2 story building. After checking in (nice room), we headed out for explorations.

Lijiang is North east of Kunming and fairly close to Tibet. It is home to the Naxi ethnic minority mostly (well other than the han Chinese) and they are seen in the streets everywhere. It soon became evident that this is also a huge travel destination for Chinese people (hardly any foreigners), as the alleys of the old town are teeming with hordes and hordes of travellers seeking souvenirs, local foods and other sources of merriment. Despite this the place is stunning. Old style chinese buildings (sorry I dont know the history of the place yet) cascade around the hills, and are lit beautifully as it gets dark in such a way the roof shapes and wood detailing of the buildings are really accentuated. It is a labyrinth of these alleys and canals and buildings. Much bigger than I expected. The roads are stone, and there are canals everywhere with arching stone mini bridges crossing them. It is all geared at tourism. Shops, restaurants, cafes. One part of old town even has modern stores installed within the old buildings - including of all things a KFC! I'm not sure I always agree with the Chinese approach to tourism an especially the portrayal the minorities. Girls in traditional ethnic dress beckoning you into a beautiful old building converted into a hideously loud, and bright (laser lights included) nightclub with traditional local music set to a thumping techno beat. Yeh, not really my taste. But I'll be ignoring that side of things while we're here. Once again though, the beauty of the place still overcomes the tackyness of some of the merchandise.

Pictures and movies will do the job better so stay tuned. I'll put some up tomorrow our time. We'll be here for 3 days I think and there's lots to do.

Kunming Tuesday

2008-10-21T00:54:00.000+08:00

Today we headed for the famous Bird and Fish market which is in an old area of Kunming. Unfortunately things turned not so great here as Em wasnt too well. Yes we've both been hit with tummy bugs on this trip and Em's came on quite quick and we had to get back to the hotel asap. In the taxi Em couldnt hold down her breakfast any longer and it ended up on her dress. I was certain the taxi driver was going to start yelling and boot us out, but he was actually very kind and I think it helped soften the situation that I could apologise in Chinese. He quickly got us back to the hotel, and I gave him an extra tip for us kindness. He tried not to take it. People here are very nice. We've found that in stores and on the street generally.

Em is fine now however, so no panicking please. We're well equiped (and experienced) in this situation. We had the medications and the knowhow, and em spent the rest of the day in rest, rehydration, and recovery mode and was fine by the evening. It passed through so to speak. My bout was in Vientiane and lasted a few hours too. We're both good now. All a part of the adventures. Em isnt eating meat so far on this trip. I'm less discerning, but the cause of such tummy bugs for us could well be that we tend to consume ice. Its the one rule we are slack with on the list of no nos, as its hard to resist that fantastic drinks that are blended for you with fresh fruit and ice over here. Especially in the hot and humid weather.

Kunming 02 from tgoodwin on Vimeo.

While Em was recovering I had some errands to run. First to the post office to send another parcel home. Clothes we had made in Vietnam. Packs already too heavy. Next task was to find the computer district to buy and external hard drive, so I can backup all the pics and vids we're making. Finally found the area and trawled through 3 massive 4 storey markets, each with all manner of computers and computer related devices. China is actually a little behind us with technology which is surprising. However there is much more to choose from, and mostly prices are less. For other geeks out there I got a 320gb laptop sized Seagate SATA drive with external case for about $100 NZ. Next mission was to get back home. Believe it or not, these 2 tasks took me about 6 hours to perform. The reasons being: a. I dont speak Chinese, b. I dont read Chinese, c. this city is big, d. I forgot how to say Alley in Chinese and once again there was confusion with Taxi drivers over the location of the hotel. Fun fun fun.

Finally I made it, so Em and I headed out for some food (bland for Em's tummy) and a wander around the shopping areas.

Will add some pix later. We're heading to Lijiang on a bus tomorrow morning. 8 hours away.

Kunming Videos

2008-10-21T00:40:00.000+08:00

Kunming is a pretty nice city. As already mentioned, the temperature is quite cool - a welcome change of climate for us after Laos and Vietnam. It has lots of nicely laid out park areas throughout the city, and there's miles and miles of shopping streets, huge malls with all the fancy and pricey brands. We also found an area which was more youth/fashion orientated which was interesting. Although the power was out over a few blocks of this area, so the kids were waiting outside stores checking their phones, and the shop assistants were playing cards or majong. Everywhere we go there are those little Chinese toy dogs that look like little dragons. And of course you can smell food being cooked and offered every block. There's some delicious stuff on offer. I had a half doz steamed buns with chicken inside, and dipping sauce for something like 2$ including a drink . We're finding China much cheaper than SE Asia.

Also of note - all the scooters are electric, great except you cant hear them coming

so be careful crossing the road ( or the the footpath for that matter as they often take cunning shortcuts).

On our first evening here, I went for a wander and came across a huge town square, with all manner of outdoor entertainments and recreations taking place. The mass aerobic/dance session was my favourite. Must have been over a hundred people in the circle - old and young. The asian approach to exercise and wellbeing is very different to ours, and from our perspective offers much humourous visual entertainment to our eyes. Also interesting was the outdoor karaoke with some very enthusiastic participants. All good fun.

China01-KUNMING01 from tgoodwin on Vimeo.

In Kunming, China

2008-10-20T17:46:00.000+08:00

Sorry about having to switch everyone. Unfortunately wordpress is blocked in China, contrary to my pretravel research. Apparently the internet is sometimes wrong. I'll ask the library next time.

I'm going to attempt to quickly update on the last few days of Laos first. Stay tune, and scroll down coz I'll post them in their correct time order hopefully.

Kunming, China

2008-10-20T00:26:00.000+08:00

Here we are in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province, in China's southwest. It was a 2 hour flight from Vientiane, Laos. Off the plane the temperature of this part of Asia is much cooler. A very acceptable spring like climate. Probably early 20s if that. We arrived with no accomodation booked and quickly found the airport was holding no useful resources for achieving this. We also decided not to trust the tout dressed like a used car salesman despite his insistance that he had a "very nice car". We hopped in a taxi illprepared - we had a hotel address only in pinyin, which we got someone in the airport to convert to chinese script for the driver. However it turned out the address was wrong. So on a wild goose chase we went in a rather large city. The taxi driver was extremely tolerant of our lack of Chinese speaking (he had no English - like most people here), and did the detective work by yelling out the window for directions from people on the street. "Wu bu jie dou", was the common answer = "I dont know". Luckily taxis are very cheap in China, and they definately dont try and give you the run around. Took us probably 30mins to realise the person at the airport had written Mingtong Road, and not Mingtong Alley which is where we should have been going. We finally made it , the taxi driver slapped me on the back with a laugh as he saw us off, and luckly the hotel had a room for us ! Was actually a lot of fun, and in the process we got a quick look at some areas of the city, and also the notion that foreigners are not that common here. We were generally stared at, smiled at, laughed at, and waved at from bemused spectators on the street.

Vientiane - Saturday

2008-10-18T23:39:00.000+08:00

Here's some

pictures and some video of what we did on Saturday 18 Oct. We took a tuk tuk 1 hour out of Vientiane to a place called Xiang Khuan. Its a smallish park area filled with many concr

ete sculptures of a buddhist and hindu nature. One man was the mad mastermind behind it all, and I think began in the early 1950s. So nothing ancient really - but very bizarre forms and images. The giant pumpkin shape has three four levels within which can be explored. Insie on the bottom level you can circle the inner perimeter, but have to go up a level, and then down again to a representation of hell. It was quite cramped inside and kind of reminded me of a haunted house ride or something.

Often temples have murals around the walls on the 1st floor depicting the appropriate puni

shments in hell to those who get there. This thing had 3D scu

lptural depictions. Very crude sculptures, but more creepy for that reason, and because of the dim

lighting. Up a level was Earth, where we live, and above this heaven of course - where in buddhist teaching the people who attain this level a represented with the form of a half snake. I beli

eve this signifies that space/time is not the same in heaven and we dont need legs to get around.

Quite a goo

d metaphor for a complex idea I

reckon.

We ended up with a free tour guide of sorts because a guy from a local village (unfortunately I forgot his name) was there with some of his students of English. He took them there to practice their English on foreigners. It was nice to meet some local kids, and they were pretty good for having only been learning for 8 months. I also asked the guy to do a bit of an introduction to the location in the Laos language, so you can hear what it sounds like. Catch his short speech in the video below. Oh, the young girl with the blue eye we spotted while waiting for the bus that afternoon. She was in the

back of a 'Jumbo' which is basically a truck with seats in the back with her Mum and friends/siblings. They were waving at us and saying hello so I took some snaps. They found it very amusing to see themselves on the screen when I showed it to them. You can hear them saying "Sabaidee", which is hello.

Laos_Day06_vientiane from tgoodwin on Vimeo.

Vientiane Friday

2008-10-17T18:21:00.000+08:00

Rains Retreat - video

2008-10-15T18:27:00.000+08:00

LPB_Day03_01 from tgoodwin on Vimeo

Rains Retreat Festival - LPB wed evening

2008-10-15T18:15:00.000+08:00

Pixtures from our involvement and witnessing of the Buddhist Rains Retreat festival in Luang Prabang last Wednesday 15 October. Was surely a spectacle and a privelage to be there.

LPB Wednesday Day Video

2008-10-15T18:01:00.000+08:00

Luang Pra Bang, Laos. Video from Wednesday 15 October. Activities of the day. Please enjoy.

LPB_Day03_01 from tgoodwin on Vimeo

LPB Wednesday Day

2008-10-15T17:54:00.000+08:00

Heres some pictorial explanations of what happened with us during the day on Wednesday in Luang Pra Bang, Laos.