urban interior occupation

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a walk in the park

Run? Ha!There was no way span and i were going to go for a run considering the hangovers we were nursing the next morning. That night we played ping pong on the balcony and had a drink there before heading downstairs for ‘cross the bridge noodles’, a steamy concoction where you add the raw meat and veges to about 2 litres of soup and it cooks it – definitely would not comply with victorian health and safety but this is china! And as span and i have been saying – it is the chinese way – but more examples of this later.Anyway, i scored some across the bridge noodles and added my raw meat (minus intestines) while span scored us some 70c tsing taos (big beers). I ate my noodles and span drank the soup while we polished off half a dozen beers between us. Feeling like we should show the chinese our dancing style, we headed to ‘crystal disco’ where we joined the dancefloor. Hell we were the dancefloor.We showed off moves never to be seen again in china, and embarrassed ourselves in front of the pouting girls and the sleazy guys. And span became my wife. And then someone elses wife. Then another girls wife, and from there its a little hazy.Needless to say a run the next morning was out of the question, but food, of course, was not. We spent the next day not getting a visa extension (becase the psb takes 5 days, we will do it in dali) eating, walking, shopping, holding cute puppies probably destined for cross the bridge noodles and chilling... before we caught the sleeper bus to jinghong.Arriving in jinghong in the morning meant nothing was open in this sprawling wannabe tropical city near the laos border. So we huing for a while, ate (der) and got our bearings before choosing a 3 day hard trek from the limited options available. Again we would explore and eat, me finding muslim noodles (the best!), jiaozi, baozi and sticky rice. We took bikes out into the countryside and got safely lost before finding our intended desination of thermal pools.Apart from the stench of sulphur they were quite nice: a tiled pool with concrete border, concrete seats with tiled tops, fake concrete bamboo and real palm trees (at this point ben stops typing, gagging the close the window of the internet cafe to stem the stench of urine eminating from outside). We were also joined by two chinese (*dare i say*) dickheads, who wanted to play and splashed span with the filthy bacteria infested, sulphuric water. We did go in and it was hot and stinky. Quite strange actually. That night at peacock pack back in jinghong, we witnessed mass dances in the square of old chinese swaying, clapping, chanting and singing, alledgely an old minority tribe dance which the elders are trying to keep alive. Didnt make sense at the time. Span and i tried to get money out at an atm, in front of a huge queue at the Chinese Agricultural Bank, and subsequently froze all their atms. Oops.3 days ago in the morning we left jinghong on a 3 day walk (trek) through the bush (the jungle). We went with mark and johanna, a french couple, and our guide anipa. Its hard to describe each experience day by day, but i’ll give an account of the entire experience in general.We hiked quite hard, about 20 kms a day (which was half a day on day 1 and 3) up and down valleys, over rivers, down paddy fields, through tropical rainforest, maize, sugar cne, giant bamboo, old villages (wit satelite tv) and dusty one way roads. The terrain was quite varied and there were paths leading in every direction, thus had we not had anipa, we would have been sorely lost. Anipa was a lovely guy, friendly, a little quiet, but generally forthcoming with information and willing to answer any question. On the first night we stayed with his family in a small village where he grew up, visited the temple where he was a monk for a year when he ws 12, and then stayed with his 3rd cousins on the second night. It was fascinating to be welcomed into their culture so openly. Of course we couldnt communicate at all, let alone understand what was going on, but we could converse in our conversation while they did in theirs, as we all sat around the fire in the middle of the large room which is their house. The food was fantastic, tasty, if not a bit oily, but all fresh ingrediants from their garden or the market. Tea, rice and cornwine from their farmland. Lovely. I think staying with these generous and open people was one of the highlights of the walk, if not the trip so far. On the morning of the second day we survived a harrowing downhill slide/walk to a nearby waterfall where i washed my head! Was goig to go for a swim, but it ws definetly too cold.... was magic though!During the day we walked together, but span an i were a bit faster and fitter than the rest so tended to meet them at the top of the hill. On the last day we walked 12 kilometres downhill down a dirt track and it was quite hard. Then when we arrived in dalou last night i smashed 1 and a half bowls of tang mian (rice noodles with soup), and the french bought a metre of sugar cane for 2 yuan and 12 bananas for 1 yuan (16c) . we got a bus back for 3 hours.After washing off about a kilo of dirt we had a beer at Mekong cafe where we had met anipa, and then headed to the barbeque down the road. They had everything from frog to liver, to sparrows, fish, intestines, vegies, nuts, trotters, and beer on offer. We grabbed the safest stuff, and sat down with the frenchies to enjoy our feast, especially the sweet sticky rice in pinapple.Today we have been relaxing after our walk, intending to go to dali tonight (18 hour sleeper bus). From there i think we will walk and explore the countryside while we wait for extended visas and then we will be able to book our passage to kathmandu.

deepfried

Seems I should keep writing from where I last wrote, if only I could access my blog…. Damn censors.I think I was talking about our 24 km walk, which we did. We took a bus out of town and met up with some american dudes (brett and rudy) who we chatted to the whole time – very interesting guys. We walked through farmland, along the river, through small towns, crossed the river a couple of times, all in the presence of the magnificent karst limestone mountains – fantastic! We had lunch with some chinese english students who were happy to chat with us and help us with the menu. We were pretty tired when we got home on the overcrowded bus, and had short nap and shower before heading out for some jiaozi and beers. We met up with rudy and brett as well, and had a chat till about 2.Yesterday we chilled out in the morning before making the 22 hour trip to kunming where we are now. there was a lady in a horible pink coat on our train and a group of funny chinese. We could talk right in front of them in english and even tried some rather rude phrases. We headed on down to the food carriage for some rice wne to celebrate the (unknown at that stage) end of johnny howard. We also chatted with a french dude, I caught up 3 days in the journal, and breathed in the cigarette smoke of train police, chainsmoking under the no smoking sign.22 hours. We thought we would have cabin fever, but it wasn't that bad, we slept a lot and ate a buttload. Mmm, snacks. That snacking continued on today when span and I explored kunming. we ate a buttload of all kinds of things at this market where they had taste testers, hot, sour, hot, cold, spicy, bland, bitte andjust plain weird… we ended the day with a massage from 2 old blind men… which sounds wrong, but that's their job!Tomorrow we will go for a run (to give the chinese something to stare at for a change), check out some tai chi and then head for visa extensions, plane tickets, and an overnight train to the jungle – whopee!

beerfish

nothing much to report at foshan, until i picked spanna up. otherside we were just chillin or drinkin or eating at the muslim place and stretched noodles! it was great to see span at the airport and i had a big sign so she's know who i was. we trekked back to foshan. the remaining time was spent drinking again, and buying bus tickets.

we had a bit of a nightmare when we went to go to the embassy to vote. it had moved, but we had the new address only in english (no chinese). so we were looking for the old place with the new address only in english. then we found the old place, discovered it was no longer there and went with a taxi to the new place (60 kwai later). BUT it was awesome to be able to vote in china, and i'm glad to know my vote will count.

after the consulate episode, we headed back to the main city and to some markets. a bit hungry we sought a noodle shop and foudn one. we ordered what looked safest and got some awesome soup, lovely noodels, scruptious vegies... and intestines on top... whihc we left. other than noodles - jiaozi have been serving us well.

for the rest of the day we chilled in the orchid garden which was near the train station. we left a bit early and had to wait a while for our train.
it was fun to be on a sleeper train again, i think we'll take heaps more of them. it was comfortable, warm and takes you to a new place overnight! i thought it was a bit like a cot and being rocked to sleep.

we found some australians on the way off the train and onto the next bus to yangshou. it was good to hear familiar voices, there are very few tourists around. yangshou is a city set in rice paddies on the river, with karst limestone mountains all around (same as halong bay). it is really nice, and kind of eerie with these huge peaks rising up from everywhere.
we hired bikes after being harrassed at our hostel and high tailed it out of town. we hadnt been anywhere rural in china, and it makes such a difference. there were still heaps of touts at the touristy places and trucks beeping at us everywhere, but the air is a bit cleaner and you feel completely dwarfed by the steep limestone cliffs.

we headed to a lookout up a huge stair climb and had a great view in every direction. we ate our $1.20 dragon fruit up there as well.

we ended up meandering home, eating beer fish (a local dish of fish cooked in beer and vegies) at a joint near the river, and then looking in at all the markets and farmers markets. we might go for a shop and some jiaozi (dumplings) now and maybe some beers at a rooftop cafe. noice.

tomorrow i think we are planning on catching a bus up to 2 towns away, walking to the middle one (24km) and coming back by boat. were really not eating that much - except for heaps of fruit - because we are always on the go. its quite hard to find safe food because its impossible to read any of the chinese. i guess in yanshou there are a lot more english menus - its nice to try the local specialities...

love to all - onto yunnan next, i think...

to china

its been a fantastic few days. we stayed at ko chang's porn bungalow (where i was on teh net last) for about 3 nights. it was quite relaxed and we walked along the coast for meals, swims and adventure. we read a lot. i think ellas read 3 books. one day we went inland to a waterfall which was beautiful. we sat on the rock ledge eating fruit and reading in the shade, occassionally going for a swim, but nothing too tiring. 3 days ago we headed to the other side of the island to the remote 'treehouse II'/ its a huge eating area set right on the waters edge (at high tide) on its own beach and tiny bungalows. there was a real hippie commune atmosphere, and we did.. nothing. really we read, and slept, and talked with fellow travellers, ate a lot and went exploring. the highlight was probably last night when we went for a sunset swim. the red sun dipping out across the clear warm waters. very nice - and fish for dinner!today we spent entirely in transit, from the half hour taxi to the boat, the 40 minute boat, the wait for the bus, the 7 hour bus, the broken down bus, but finally in our hostel at about 6pm. now we wait for jesse. we will hopefully rendevous at the lava bar in khao san, but first, ella and i will have one last dinner as just the two of us before the zanker arrives. will be great to see him! thanks for the messages!

now, off to china.

ko samet and beyond

Ahh relaxment!
Ella and I have spent about 4 days on the beach doing jack all!
We left Bangkok the next morning after we got in and jumped on a bus to ko samet, which was easy enough. We were on the island by about 3 but had a bit of trouble finding the place we wanted to stay, but it was eventually worth it! It was absolutely beautiful. Picture a small beach about 30 m long with white sand and jungle right down to the beach. We were staying in a small bungalow about 5 metres from the high tide mark. We were the only hotel on this beach. Beautiful – and the water was magic! (it was called Ao Nuan for anyone wondering). We were originally going to spend only 1 night there, but ended up staying for 3 because we didn’t find anywhere better!
We basically lay on the beach (got sunburnt – ouch!), ate beautiful thai food, slept, had a few beers, ate more, swam more, read our books and ate more. We always wanted to go out and have a few drinks but never really managed it – theres not really any reason to anyway. We saw a fire show one night, but that was about the extent of the adventure! It was seriously just a relax time.
Yesterday we spent the day travelling to Ko Chang. It’s a much larger island, about 50km in circumference and a lot more developed. We did find a nice place though – Porn Bungalows, which has a 2 tier dining area straight over the beach. Last night we sat on chairs on the high tide mark (its shallow for a long way) and ate pinapple curry with chicken, basil and chilli wide noodles, papaya salad and beers and cocktails! It was awesome. I think we might try and do some more adventurous stuff here, maybe some walking in the jungle to waterfalls, and might even go snorkeling or something. Theres so much to do – maybe even ride an elephant!
Everything is so easy and relaxing, and its great to let our hair down before we begin some serious (and colder) travel. Missing everyone, and very much looking forward to meeting up with all the trevl partners!
Photos to come!