Guilin, China - Day 1 Raft Ride

Having arrived very late (or early depending what kind of person you are), I declared myself the right to sleep in a little. I woke at 10 and by 10:30 we were in a van on our way to float on a bamboo raft down the Li River. It was a 90 minute drive where the oncoming lane of traffic was really just our third lane. We wondered if drivers here get a callus from hitting the horn so much, and the bumps made me bonk my head on the ceiling a few times. 

Pretty soon we started seeing mountains. Not like mountains in Colorado or Switzerland where as you get nearer the foothills start and then the big guys form a visual wall of rock. These mountains were solitary hits out of the ground. Everything was flat and then BAM mountain. It was quite interesting and beautiful to look at.

We were traveling with a couple from our hostel. She was Chinese but had studied and lived in London and he was an Italian that had lived all over. She was very helpful as a translator and just knowledgable about the area. We coasted down the river with our guide for about two hours.  

He would point out mountains and tell us something which our Chinese friend would translate. The river and mountains were very beautiful. Our guide gave us a melon to try and Carlos the Italian did the honors of breaking it open for us. 

After becoming thoroughly sticky it was time to just sit back and enjoy the ride. I took the opportunity to catch some restful zzzs and stuck my feet in the water.

As we approached our destination our guide asked if we wanted to have lunch at his house. We, of course, took him up on the offer. This was our view as we disembarked from our raft. 

 We had stir fried pork with green chili peppers, fried egg, sliced potatoes with vinegar, simple soup with greens, and fresh tomatoes and cucumbers. It was all very delicious and refreshing as we listened to the chickens click and overlooked the garden filled with tomatoes, cucumbers, green chilis, potatoes, and a local green that I don't know the name of. After our lunch which was washed down with a green mint tea, we took a short shuttle to the town of Xingping. (X in pinyon makes a SH or TS sound. So this was shingping). 

Xingping was small and considerably touristy. We were followed by many woman harking goods and services. Nancy practiced her abilities to say buyao (booyow - I don't want it) xiaxia (shayshay - thanks) and duabuchi (DUAYboochi - excuse me/sorry). We did finally find a part of town that was a little less touristy and purchased some silk scarves and handmade jewelry.

 Our jeweler. He was only an apprentice but all of the pieces that we bought were done by him and not his instructor. We didn't know this until after we purchased. We just happened to be drawn to his work much more.

 We also saw this interesting fellow who was sitting in his shop jamming away on his xylophone. 

It was hot. Very hot. So incredibly hot. After being sweaty and in the sun for so long we decided to catch a bus back to Guilin instead of going to Yangsao as we had planned. The woman selling tickets for the bus tried to charge us extra but we didn't fall for it and with the help of some other backpackers got the right amount of change. The two hour bus ride was bumpy, fast, and loud. I tried to sleep most of the way and when I couldn't there was usually something cool to look at. In China, stores are usually grouped together by what they sell. So if you want to buy a wedding dress you go to one specific street where all the dress shops are. And usually the next street over will be where the flower shops are. We passed the ceramic tile section of Guilin: a row of 15-20 shops all selling tile and then another 10 selling carpet (not a big thing here) and another 10 selling doors. They group things together by purpose. It is an interesting layout that we don't usually subscribe to so specifically in the states. I think an argument could be made on efficiency for either system. 

We made it back to the bus station in Guilin and we wanted to take a cab back to our hostel. Given that it was rush hour it was a little difficult but we eventually came upon a group of 5 female cabbies having a break, sitting around eating mango Popsicles. The idea of a female cabbie is interesting. No where in the world that I've been have there been as many female taxi drivers as we've seen in China. We got overcharged, even though I bargained the price with her in Chinese, but it was still only about $1.50 to get us back to the hostel. 

After some rest, a shower, and some dinner we called it a night. I write now as we take a three hour drive to the rice terraces so we can do some hiking. It is lightly raining and as we climb the side of a mountain we are regularly seeing cars and trucks in ditches, smashed into walls, and one truck was completely on its side facing the opposite direction of where it was going. Our driver is going quite slow, thankfully. 

Hong Kong - Day 3

Thursday was a lot of hurry up and wait.

We would be able to pick up our Chinese visas (if we got them) at 2 pm but we needed to check out at 10 am and we still had some stuff we wanted to see. We also needed to work out how exactly we were going to get to Guilin, China. We were hesitant to book any travel methods because the travel agent warned us that starting July 1st the Chinese embassy had really cracked down on Hong Kong granting visas to Americans.

We set about our business of packing and doing all the logistical work that physically moving one's self from one place to the next requires.
The desk agent at The Homy Inn where we stayed was fantastic from beginning to end. He was chalked full of ideas of things for us to do in Hong Kong and was incredibly eager to help. He even helped me figure out the logistical nightmare that is getting from Kowloon to Shenzhen airport as a foreigner. We stashed our bags with him for a few hours after checkout and headed to the Woman's Market at Nathan and Nelson streets.

The market doesn't really get started until noon but we perused the shops as they were getting set up, much to the disliking of the employees.

Eventually we needed a snack and so we sat down at a place that served fresh smoothies and fruit desserts. We ordered by pointing to something on someone else's table. (Traveler Pro Tip #67: ordering food by pointing or gesturing to someone else's is always a good way to go if you want to know what you will get.) What we got was a bowl of coconut milk that had been frozen solid then shaved. It had the creamy smooth texture of ice cream but still a little of the shaved ice texture. It also had pieces of shaved coconut in it. On top was an assortment of fresh fruit (watermelon, cantaloupe, kiwi, dragon fruit, and pineapple). It was lip smackin' good. So good that even though I had all intention of snapping a photo for you guys it happened to be gone before I could execute. Ah well. I'm going to try to figure out a way to make this back home, or at least something similar. A much healthy and still tasty treat.

Much invigorated by our treat we went back to the now slightly more open stalls and bought a few things. My experience with markets in Asia so far had been pretty uniform. Whether it is a night market, a woman's market, or just a street market, it is all the same. By that I mean, the little four dollar Buddha trinket I saw at the night market in Taichung was four dollars in Hong Kong too and in Guilin. Markets, except for the odd one, tend to carry a lot of the same, knock off, cheaply made, "made in china" type stuff we all know. It serves a purpose. If you need a cheap cotton dress, or a bejeweled purse hanger, or a case for your iPhone, iPad, passport, etc and you don't care about quality or uniqueness then the market is the place for you. In this case, I was looking for a cotton dress that would work for this trip but I wouldn't mind tossing if I didn't fit in my bag at some point. It fit the bill. Bought two. :)

Getting a Chinese Visa in Hong Kong as a foreigner.

This was a process but it worked. We headed back to pick up our maybe visas at 2 pm from China Travel Services. Normally I am a "direct from the source" kind of girl and have always dealt with embassies directly for this kind of thing but given the slightly complicated nature and the recent change in application approvals we decided to use a travel agent. With our applications all filled out and photos in hand we went to CTS Monday evening. Hence forth ensued a flurry of white-out, black pen corrections, blue pen corrections, formatting issues and so on and on and on. Two hours later we had applications that were mostly white out and some tape. At about the 45 minute point I started to wonder if we should have just started over again. Truthfully, it would have been a lot easier. Normal visas take 4 working days to process. We wanted to bug out of Hong Kong slightly before that so we paid a little extra to get them back in three working days. The cost for a single entry up to 14 days and for a double entry up to 30 days both times was the same and the agent suggested we apply for the double entry and then the embassy would decide  if they would give us the single entry or double entry.  Then the waiting started. Our trip was pretty heavily relying on getting Chinese visas. It wouldn't have been terrible if we had not but we were really looking forward to China. All in all the application process was pretty simple at the end of the day. We handed over our applications, passports, and fees.

I'm always on edge when someone else has my passport in a foreign country. Whether it is an embassy or the hostel we are staying in. I've been trained that my passport is my ticket to everywhere I want to go. As a US citizen I have the easiest pass to almost any country I want to visit, and without my passport it isn't impossible to leave but it certainly wouldn't be easy. I have digital copies of all of my documentation (which I suggest you do as well, even if you don't travel internationally), but my passport is valuable insofar as my safety as well as my pride. In that little book is every country (theoretically) I've been to. It shows that I haven't been a cornflower in Wisconsin fields for the last four years. Sure, eventually I will fill it or it will expire and I will get a new one. They will punch a hole through my precious little book but it will always be the symbol of weeks and months on the road, of all the memories and moments spent on mountain tops in Slovenia, getting lost in the Paris subway, and being chased by a gaggle of Chinese woman trying to sell me hats. So when I fret about giving up my passport to someone it isn't just because of the hassle I would have to go through to get out of China but because I put a lot of time, sweat, money, blood, and tears into making that passport have the scuffs, marks, and stamps that it does. Yes I have other physical trinkets and little things that have been to many countries with me, but the only thing to go everywhere with me, to have seen it all, and to be so instrumental in getting me places is that little blue book with a picture of red haired me and a signature where I didn't even spell my own name right. It's weird, quirky, a little messy, well traveled and dressed in blue. It's me.

At 2 pm I got my little book back with a full page visa telling me that I got the double entry permit. Woohoo. Of we go! We hustled back to the hotel, grabbed our bags and booked flights leaving out of Shenzhen, China later that night. We navigated a labyrinth of subway lines and reached the border between Hong Kong and China. Despite a little bit of confusion and waiting, we crossed with no problem and hopped on another subway which we took from one end of the line to the other and got to the airport with plenty of time. An upgrade to First Class put smiles back on our weary faces. We had been on subways for 3 hours. The upgrade got us lounge access which was much more appreciated as our flight was delayed. Then delayed again. And again. We finally left Shenzhen at just a few minutes shy of midnight and landed in Guilin, China shortly after 1 am. We took a very exhausting 40 minute taxi ride to our hostel, woke up the sleeping attendant, found our room, fumbled with the A/C for 15 minutes, and crashed.

Hello!

I have just a few moments of I censored Internet thanks to a free trial from a service that you can pay for that will allow you to surf the web freely.

All is well here. We are in Yangshuo for the next couple of days and then we fly to Hangzhou. It is absolutely gorgeous here and we are enjoying it very much.

The Internet has been very slow and unbelievably censored so I've been having trouble posting anything. I can email however so I will be sending posts to my mom and she will get them up for me but there might be as much as a 24 hr delay as it takes sometime to send all this stuff through the World Wide Web.

Tomorrow I am taking a Chinese cooking class. I can't wait!!!!

Bye for now.

Bess made it to China

Hello all,

This is Mom writing this blog entry, otherwise known as Janet. I am also Nancy's sister for those of you who are friends with her.  It is my first attempt at such a thing so please bear with me.

Bess has made it to China.  She and Aunt Nancy got their visas right on time on Wednesday but then had a bit of a delay with the flight to Guilin which was their first destination. 
The internet there isn't as speedy as some other places in the world so Bess has asked me to let you all know she is doing well and they are seeing some amazing things. 
She has some posts written and has emailed them to me but it seems as if it sometimes takes up to 12 hours to receive them from her.    Check back soon and hopefully I will have posts up from Hong Kong and about their bamboo rafting trip. 

This was from their trip to the rice paddies on Saturday. 

That smile makes her momma happy :)

Janet

Hong Kong - Day 2

Another very full, very sweaty day. 

Today we took a ferry from Hong Kong to Cheung Chau which is an outlying island. There are no personal motorized vehicles on the island, just a few little truck type things for ambulances and moving heavy objects used by workers. 

 It was a very, very hot day but we still wanted to hike all over. We quickly ditched the crowds and worked our way higher up some of the hills towards the center of the island. We were immediately rewarded with some beautiful views. 

As soon as we started to climb we left all the crowds behind which was very nice. The big draw was some beaches that we stopped at later but were not our main goal. The roads on the island were paved or stoned very nicely and it made for easy walking even with the hills. Before we knew it we came upon a long section of road that was bordered by cemeteries. 

Many of the graves had pictures of the deceased. It was difficult to tell the years but it seemed that some of them had been there for quite a long time!

We finally got to a very private beach with beautiful coarse sand that gave you a nice massage when you walked across it. We passed this little fellow on the way. He is actually about 6 inches in diameter. 

He was scary! 

Our beach was in a nice little cove and it was very refreshing to walk in the water for a while. 

After the beach we hiked up again and came to the Reclining Rock. At least we think this is what the signs were talking about. On top of the rock we had a nice view of the South China Sea and the little bay where we had just been. We saw many many huge ships. This is one of the largest shipping corridors in the world.  

After resting for a while and enjoying the cool ocean breeze we were on our way. The next part of our hike brought us through this little joy. 

Just through this channel and to the right we went up some really steep stairs curving through a huge boulder. Being the tall (and somewhat clumsy) person I am I smashed my head into the rock overhang. Thankfully, because it was dark, I had my sunglasses on my head and they took the majority of the blow. One lens has a huge scratch in it but better that than a huge scratch in my head, eh? 

Immediately after this photo is when the head crashing happened. None the less it was a very cool part of the hike. 

We saw very few people as we hiked but we did encounter this group of ladies who were picking up trash. It was hot. Very hot. The kind where sweat is running off of you when you aren't even moving. So naturally their outfits are totally understandable...

Could you have MORE clothes on?!  Also, that is no small hill they are walking up. I was a sweaty mess. As such

Yuck!! 

We finally came down out of the hills and were awash in groups of Asian teenagers learning how to ride bikes for the first time. Scary!!! Brakes seemed to be a concept they were not interested in exploring. 

We also saw this fellow. 

Quite the look. 

After walking around and looking in many shops we finally decided to head to the beach. I gave in and bought a much needed hat for $8. 

That stand behind me is the lifeguard tower. I have no idea how he was going to get down to the water and rescue someone in a timely fashion. He is a good 30 yards away from the actual water and his tower opened away from it. I'm glad I wasn't in need of saving. 

We spent a couple of hours laying on the beach amidst the screeches of children and floating in the salt water. I even caught a little cat nap which was really nice. Then we packed up and got on the ferry back to Hong Kong. While we sat waiting for the ferry I developed an admirer. 

He was incredibly interested in me and was very blatantly staring. I don't think his interest was anything inappropriate. He probably just hadn't seen a person quite as white as me before. 

That is my "Hey this guy is scaring me!" look. After a few minutes we boarded the ferry and guess who shows up in the seat directly in front of me? Yup. That guy. He spent the majority of the 30 minute trip alternating between snoozing and turning around and looking at me awkwardly through the gap in the seats. Finally just as we were about to get off I decided that I needed to try and catch a photo of him peering between the seats. I readied my phone, pretended like I was typing, my opportunity came and I took it. However, my flash was on. Guy got a flash to the eye ball and I was totally exposed in my plan. Thankfully we had just docked and I rushed out of there like a bat out of hell and I escaped his curious glances for good. Or so I hope. 

This is the resulting photo which is very blurry because of my reaction to the flash but you can get the idea of his peeping nature. 

It was a very fun but warm and sweaty day mixed with some salt water, so after some much needed showers we headed out for dinner. We went to a restaurant called Din Tai Fung. It is a Taiwanese chain but has excellent food and I thought it would hit some of my cravings. After having my share of yummy greens, soup dumplings, and egg rolls (all with copious amounts of chili oil of course), we meandered a few malls and called it a night. 

Tomorrow we should get our Chinese visas and then be onto Guilin, China. If everything goes according to plan. However the plan is incredibly complicated and has a lot of opportunities for things to go wrong, so we will see. 

That's all for today folks. It is well after midnight here and I'm a tired little girl. For those of you just picking up my journeys, welcome!! Please, as a reminder to everyone, feel free to comment or ask questions and pass the blog along if you know anyone else who might like what I have to say. 

I will leave you with this photo of Hong Kong from Kowloon that I took today just as it started to cloud over. 

Hong Kong - Day 1

Wow. What a day! Jam packed. 

We slept in a little and then got all of our duckies in a row. 

Yesterday we spent two hours at an agency preparing, repairing, re repairing, and submitting our applications for Chinese visas. There was much white out involved.  They will reject your visa if you use two different color inks...... Sigh. Hopefully those will come through for us on Thursday and we can be on our way to Guilin. 

Today we decided to head to Lantou which is the island just west of Hong Kong. It is very mountainous but has some low lying flat spots perfect for building mini metropolises like this one. 

I took this beauty from the Ngong Ping cable car which goes up, up, wayyyy up over a mountain and down the other side to the village of Ngong Ping. Those are all apartment buildings. This is just a small town here. (Think like Waukesha, WI in comparison to Chicago).  In Ngong Ping we saw this guy:

He is the world's largest Buddha - officially the Tian Tan Buddha . He is pretty darn big but much thinner than most Buddhas I've seen. No ubiquitous Buddha belly here. 

 

You have to walk up many, many steps (200 some) to get to the Buddha. There were lots of people off to the side huffing and puffing but we champed it and went straight to the top. 

There he is. Way up there. Being all big and Buddha-y.  

We also visited a monastery. It was interesting to me that the vast majority of people were there for tourist reasons. Very few people seemed to be there for religious/spiritual reasons. There were a few people praying. More were lighting incense. It was very reminiscent of 12th-16th century European churches with alcoves along the sides owned by wealthy families. It was (and still is) very monetized. Those with the most money can worship their god better. Many idols. Many candles. Many rituals. And always things that smell. Why are there always things that smell?  

While waiting in line for the cable car we saw this guy. 

Check out that mullet!!  With the perm on the top and everything. Good entertainment for a few minutes. 

After Ngong Ping we took a 50 minute bus ride to a small fishing village called Tai O. The bus ride was...insane. Picture a big greyhound bus going down switchback mountain roads sometimes only wide enough for one direction of traffic at probably 60 mph.  I caught myself stomping on my imaginary brake pedal a few times. A number of times the driver would stomp on the brakes hard and we would all fly forward in our seats because he was about to go around a corner when another bus was coming in the other direction. It certainly kept us on our toes. (Miraculously, I somehow did not get sick)

Tai O is a very small village right on the edge of a bay. It seems to be from a different age. We saw very few signs of improvement or technology from the last 40 years. It is called the Chinese Venice because the "roads" are really only about 5 ft wide and eventually there are no more roads and instead plank ways. Half of the village is built up on stilts over the water. We walked all through the village and saw a lot of dried fish. Fish heads, fish skin, fish fins, pretty much anything. It all looked like rawhide to me. One of the shops had a bunch of plastic tubs on the ground with water and  different kinds of fish. As we walked past an Indian family stopped to admire the bucket of eels. We watched them watch their 8 year old (estimate) son take the grate off the top of the tub and stick his hand in, grab an eel and pull it out. The grandma running the shop nearly keeled over she was shouting so loud. Apparently eels can bite. (Who knew? Right?) The dad just murmured a "sorry" and they moved along. Perhaps they were just hoping to get a photo.  

Many of the buildings in the village, both on land and stilts, were very dilapidated but would be right next to newish nice buildings. 

Case and point. To be fair the house on the left was probably the nicest house in the whole village and the one on the right was one of the worst. But it shows you the spectrum. 

This was more of a typical house. 

It is impossible for you to see but there was an old woman sitting at a table just to the right of the ladder eating some dinner. Think they pay more taxes for having water front property?  I snagged all of these photos from a little boat excursion we went on that took us through the village and then out into another bay. In that bay we saw some pink dolphins jumping. Pink? Yup. Pink. Like someone dumped a couple tons of red kool aid powder into the bay and they swam around in it for a couple of weeks. Obviously that didn't happen but they were quite pink. I tried to get a photo but they were fast little buggers. 

After we were sufficiently sunned out and tired we took a 60 minute bus (still hair raising but not as much of a knuckle biter) back to the Tung Chung Station where we would pick up our subway a little later on. First we had to do some shopping at the outlet malls and get some more food. There was a fantastic bakery that we had stopped at on our trip out to Ngong Ping which we hit up again for treats. Chocolate bun anyone? 

How about some happy cheese cake? Maybe the colors don't come through but this cakes was bright pink, orange, and green. I think each was a different flavor. 

We also stopped for tempenyaki, which is a food preparation style where the chef will cook your meal on a flat grill right in front of you. 

I know. Not the best photo but I was more interested in eating than photo-ing. You can see my greens, sprouts and garlic shrimp in the background. Soooo yummy. 

At the outlet mall I bought a daypack. I had been using a very basic Nike drawstring bag and it works okay but it is certainly not good for my posture and leaves most of my things to the hazard of commingling due to single compartment syndrome. FYI: camera + water bottle + humid (condensation conducive) weather = eeeeekk.  I got a great deal on it and it is a pretty green color. I'm happy. 

On the subway ride home we sat next to a mixed family of a (by our best educated guesses) Swiss  dad and Hong Konger mom (yes that is the demonym), it was interesting to see them interact with their kids. Everyone seemed to be fluent in both Swiss German and Cantonese. Swiss German is hard enough to understand as it is but throw a Cantonese accent into the mix and I was really struggling. We also saw this little man. He was a full grown guy, not a little person, and I know the photo isn't very good but if you can tell he actually would fit under my armpit. 

His arm was fully outstretched to reach the handles that my head kept banging into. Wow. 

Once we had ridden the subway for 30 minutes we were back to Kowloon and had a short underground walk to go to reach our hostel. The subway system in Hong Kong is extensive. And there are many underground passageways connecting many stations. We walked through a lot of this and found a little mall. In the mall was a sweet shop where they hand make little rolled hard candies with messages or pictures inside. Of course I forgot to take a picture of a completed candy but we stood and watched them laboriously pulling the sugar and then molding and layering it to make the perfect shape. They were making smiley faces when we watched. 

We also had to do some shoe shopping. None were purchased but they might be before I leave ;-) (I'll be taking donations if anyone would like to support the Bess Needs Comfortable Sandals fund) 

Now we are back at the hostel, enjoying the air conditioning, and discussing plans for tomorrow. 

This little fellow is waiting to be eaten for breakfast 

Flatbread with cheese, bacon and black olives. **stomach grumbles**

Sleep for now. Because I will have so much to write I will discontinue Q&A Fridays. Instead just leave any questions you have in the comments and I will do my best to address them in the next post or respond directly in the comments. 

Thanks!

 

The Little Things

Sometimes it is the little things to make your day better. 

I was feeling pretty down this morning. I wasn't too excited to say good bye to Zac for another 4-5 months. I had a painfully long and jerky taxi ride to the airport and I got searched by security (again, I'm 4/6 on this trip with that), but as I boarded my Boeing 747 this morning I became aware that I had been upgraded and didn't even know it. So although my flight to Taipei is only 75 minutes long I can relax in my lie flat seat, eat some tasty snacks and have much more leg room than most Asian airlines afford my Anglo-Saxon legs. 

Then when I touch down I will be slightly more prepared to deal with the hustle and bustle that is extremely likely to ensue in my very short transition in Taipei. If all goes well I will be wheels down in Hong Kong this afternoon and have everything in order. 

Now if only I can get upgraded on my flight to Hong Kong.......did I just jinx it?