The Friendship Highway

Tibet

The last 5 days of our Tibet itinerary were packed with drives over 5,000 meter mountain passes, turquoise-colored lakes and Tibetan villages with yaks and sheep grazing the neighboring fields. The icing was our visit to Mount Everest Base Camp, the base of the world's tallest mountain.
Our drive on the first day started from Lhasa at an altitude of 3,200 meters. As we ascended the neighboring mountains, we reached our first high mountain pass at 4700m. From the top of the mountain, we looked down at Yamdrok-so Lake, the third largest lake in Tibet. It was a deep turquoise color and the sun's glimmer on the body of water made it look otherworldly. We stopped for lunch in Nagartse and had some Tibetan staples, such as vegetable momo (vegetable dumplings with a spicy sauce) and butter tea (Chinese brick tea with yak butter and salt)
We then visited Pelkhor Chorde Monastery in Gyantse, which is home to the largest chorten in the world. Within the chorten are 108 chapels, with each one dedicated to a different protector of Tibetan Buddhism's 3 religions. As foreigners must always be accompanied by their guide while in Tibet, we were taken to delicious Tibetan restaurant.
The following day led us to Shigatse, Tibet's second largest city. As the police station in town closed by noon, we needed to leave Gyantse early enough to ensure that our guide could register us at the Shigatse station. This is necessary protocol throughout Tibet and there were frequent checkpoints along the highway asking for the guide's license and our traveling visa papers. We visited Tashilhunpo Monastery where we saw the world's largest gilded statue. As we were waiting for the main temple to open, our guide spoke very frankly to us about his disdain for the Chinese government. He was understandably quite angry and upset.
The third day, we took a side trip off the Friendship Highway to Mount Everest Base Camp (EBC). The ride to EBC was a bumpy 120 km dirt road. On the drive, we stopped at the top of a mountain pass to admire the Himalayan mountain ranges and got our first look at Everest. When we arrived at Base Camp, we were at 5200 meters and stayed in a hotel run by the highest monastery in the world, Rongphu Monastery. As the rooms lacked heating, we spent the evening in the nearby resturant, which was heated with a yak-dung stove, very common in Tibet. We had tsampa for dinner- the meal most frequently eaten by Tibetans. Tsampa is barley flour hand-mixed with butter tea to make large dumpling-like balls that are then ingested. That night, we slept under 2 comforters and 4 layers of horse blankets and were still cold.
Even though Everest was covered in clouds the following day, we still had a beautiful drive to the Tibetan bordertown of Zhangmu, a town at much lower elevation of 2000 meters. We were relieved to no longer be light-headed or winded after walking up a flight of stairs and spent the day reminiscing with Brandon and Jill about all the amazing sights we had seen on our Tibetan adventure.
Yesterday, we crossed the border into Kodari, Nepal and sadly said goodbye after 2 and a half months of traveling in China. We really loved our time in the country with a quarter of the world's population.

Lhasa, Tibet

It is an incredibly daunting task to try to summarize our 10-day trip in Tibet. As I was uploading photos yesterday, S started to write the blog and, after an hour of serious writing, the power went out on our block in Kathmandu and his work was lost. Here, I will try to capture the highlights of our trip but there will always be so much left unsaid or not fully explained.
On the night of the 8th, we boarded a 24-hour train to Lhasa, the capital of the Tibetan region. We were part of a 4-person group and were so delighted to be put together with Brandon and Jill, an American and Scot who were the best possible couple for us. The train was a wonderful first glance into Tibetan life- Tibetan women were wandering into our train car offering us Tibetan treats, such as yak cheese, sheep cheese, biscuits, and candies. They were wearing sheep skin dresses and had colorful ribbons tied into their very long braided hair, which was wrapped around their head. Dozens of women came over throughout the course of the day and we were very appreciative of their kindness. Halfway through the ride, all of the women started dancing and singing to Tibetan music, fillng the car with laughter and smiles. We have never experienced such a spectacle on a Chinese train before.
In addition to the cultural immersion, the train provided us with some of the most beautiful views I have ever seen. 80% of the train ride was over 4000 meters and the train also crossed over 3 mountain passes over 5,000 meters, the highest S and I have ever been.
To most Tibetans, they think of their province as a separate country from China- they have a different language, food, culture and religion than the 96% of percent of those on mainland China, which are the Han majority. In addition to all of this, they look completely different, with darker features, wind-burned cheeks and a Tibetan style of dress. When we got off the world's highest altitude train, we knew we were in a different world as our guide placed white prayer scarves around our necks and greeted us with the Tibetan "Tashi Delek".
The Tibetans are very religious and it is their tradition to make an anuual pilgrimmage to either Lhasa in the east or Mount Kailash in the west. Throughout our 4 days in Lhasa, we were surrounded by Tibetans from all over the province, circumambulating religious sites (called a kora) while spinning their prayer wheels, bowing and praying before the monasteries and offering gifts of melted yak butter to the temples within. We visited very beautiful religious sites, such as the Jokhang Temple, Potala Palace, Norbulingka Palace and the Ramoche Temple, but by far the best part was watching the intensity with which the Tibetans practiced their religion.
A stark contrast to the deeply spiritual pilgrims was the high police and army presence around the Tibetan quarter, especially around the religious sites. The army were posted in front of the Jokhang Temple and the other sites with their rifles cocked and were also patroling rooftops around the area. We were told that the number of armed forces strongly increased after the the riots in Tibet in March 2008. Beyond the intimidating presence of these officers of the law, there is also a strong control over what can be worshipped. Photos of the present or past Dalai Lamas are prohibited inside and outside the temples. All artifacts and artwork in the temples must be approved by the Chinese government before being installed. A Tibetan town's temple was recently burned because it was built without governemtn permission. Additionally, Tibetans worry for their safety when speaking about their struggles with the government. Most are strongly for their independence from China however, as the likelihood is close to zero, most hope for autonomy from the Chinese government. We met several English-speaking Tibetans who spoke of the Chinese government's desire to Han-ify the Tibetans. The government has offered financial incentives for the Han to migrate to the Tibetan region and open businesses. As a result, Tibetan businesses are pushed out for the Han to sell Tibetan wares to the pilgrims and tourists. Our guide told us that Lhasa was becoming very Chinese and told us he feared that his homeland would soon no longer be a place he and his community felt safe and comfortable. He told us that he wished to move to India but feared the consequences that the government would give to his family as punishment for his migration. Another woman we met told us that she felt "Tibet would no longer be Tibet anymore" as the Chinese are trying to squeeze out Tibetan culture and lifestyle. Our time in Lhasa was loaded with incredibly difficult and complicated conversations as we tried to understand the Tibetan perspective. It was very upsetting as we saw the tension and witnessed the suppression of Tibetan culture.

Chongqing

With a metropolitan area of 32 million people, Chongqing is probably the largest city you've never heard of. It sits on the scenic peninsula at the confluence of the Jialing and Yangtze rivers. The city is somewhat gritty, and certainly crowded, but we've been enjoying our time here. At this point we're pretty exhausted from our whirlwind tour of China so we've mostly been taking it easy here, walking around the downtown.

Tonight we are boarding a 24 hour train to Xining, capital of Qinghai province, basically in the physical dead center of China, although psychologically Qinghai is considered to be very deep into the wild west of the country. From there we will travel to south to Nepal, arriving in Kathmandu approximately on the 18th. In this part of the country the government requires foreigners to have a official guide, so we've found another couple to split costs with us on our guided tour. Our email access may or may not be restricted in this part of the country, so you may not hear from us until we reach Nepal.

Chengdu, Chongqing & Xining

Finally out of the Mountains

After our last three days of very long bus trips, we have decided that we will NEVER do this again. The morning we left Xiangcheng (day 2 of bus travel), we again could not get on the bus without some other driver making a joke about us, again causing the whole bus to erupt into laughter. It was not much more pleasant when the bus got going either. The bus was really crowded, dirty as people were throwing their leftover food on the floor and there was constant spitting and smoking. The bus ride was 14 hours and the seats were horribly uncomfortable. To top it all off, I was nauseous for the first four and a half hours of the trip. S was very supportive and the orange juice he got me made me feel a lot better. When we finally arrived in Kanding at 8 PM, we were surrounded by 15-20 touts outside the bus station trying to get us to stay in their hotel or wanting to drive us another 7 hours to Chengdu. We were tired and frustrated and, even as we followed one tout to a hotel, the others kept following us and slapping our bags to get our attention. The icing on the cake was the tout gave us a freezing cold room with no hot water. We woke up yesterday morning deciding that we needed to get out of the mountains and close this exhausting chapter of the trip. We got a 10AM bus to Chengdu and we were so relieved when we arrived in the Sichuan capital, swearing off long bus rides forever!
The last few days of traveling have felt more difficult than any other part of the trip. We both felt like people had been going out of their way to be mean or unhelpful to us. It felt very strange because we have found that the Chinese often go out of their way to help and are incredibly gracious. We brushed it off the first day but felt something strange was going on as we continued to see and feel it happening. When we were in Qiatou after Tiger Leaping Gorge, we met a French couple that told us that they had experienced hostility from the Chinese while they were traveling in the Northwest. Like the southwestern part we were just in, the northwest is home to a large percentage of one of China's ethnic communities. In both areas, there is a history of tension between the minority community and the Han Chinese. We believe that it is this tension that has been causing people to be sometimes unhelpful or aggressive towards us.
We are happy to now be in Chengdu and plan to spend a few days recovering from the long and difficult journey. Today marks day 94 of our trip and have been to 35 different cities/towns in China and 50 places in total. This morning, we got up early to visit the Giant Panda Breeding Research Base. We arrived during feeding time and so we saw the pandas during their most active part of the day, feasting on bamboo shoots and leaves. There were giant pandas as well as red pandas, which kind of look like raccoons, and we visited the nursery where were saw very small and adorable baby pandas. As Sichuan is home to spicy food, we had a fiery hotpot for lunch. As of now, we plan on spending 2 more nights here before heading off to Chongqing.

Sichuan Mountains

Stuck in the Southwestern Mountains

After Tiger Leaping Gorge (more on that later), S and I made the decision to travel overland via bus from northwestern Yunnan to Chendu in central Sichuan province. The book advertised this as a "5-6 day trip", involving several bus transfers, daily 10-hour bus rides and driving in the mountains at an average altitude at 3600 meters. It warned that sometimes the roads might be closed due to snow but we thought this journey would be a better way to see more of the country. The plan was to go from Shangri-La to Xiangcheng to Litang to Kanding to Chengdu. From our calcuations, we expected it to take no more than four days but we didn't really understand that this area is where you still see real examples of pure inefficiency.
We got on a bus yesterday morning at 7:30 AM from Shangri-La to Xiangcheng. The drive took the estimated 8 hours and we were surrounded by beautiful scenery the entire way- small ethnic villages and tremendous mountains covered in trees changing color along the winding dirt road we took. True to form, our driver was completely insane, chain-smoking the entire time and speeding around blind curves honking the car horn with all his might. It was legitimately scary as an accident would have sent the van tumbling down the side of a 3200-meter mountain. On top of that, we could not feel our toes as it was freezing cold until about noon. Even though we bought several more layers of clothes the night before, it still was not enough.
When we arrived in Xiangcheng, we tried to book tickets for the following morning to Litang but received conflicting information about whether or not the bus was still running to Litang and when the office opened. We decided to get up early the next day and try to get tickets for the 6AM bus. This morning, the driver kicked us off the bus after making a joke about us, making everyone erupt in laughter. He told us there were no buses to Litang, even though at least 5 people on the bus told us it was going to Litang. The nasty man told us to come back at 1PM to buy the ticket even though the ticket office was open. We went back to the "ticket office" at 12:30 and waited around with another 20 people for an hour and a half until the office finally opened at 2 o'clock. As the employee opened the gate, all the men rushed to the counter, shoving each other out of the way. They were waving money in her face and demanding tickets. I managed to squeeze my way through the mass of people as I knew the men would not shove me out of the way and was the second person to purchase tickets for the following morning. It did involve a fair amount of pushiness on my behalf but the idea of being stuck here for another day was painful. Tomorrow we head for Kanding, which was actually supposed to be the 3rd leg of our trip so we hope to get to Chengdu in two days and stay on schedule. By skipping Litang, we are avoiding what we have heard is the "most unhelpful bus station staff in the country". The bus ride should be at least 12 hours and we are driving at higher altitudes than before. Hopefully, our feet and bodies can endure the cold. We are very glad to have purchased all these warm clothes as we will be needing them over the next few weeks in China and Nepal.
Before this, we spent a day and half hiking Tiger Leaping Gorge, which definitely ranks as one of the best memories in China. It is 10-mile hike over a gorge that is sandwiched between two roughly 5,500-meter mountains. Over this part of the Yangtze River, there is a series of strong grapids that can be hiked down to. As tourist season is over, we basically had the entire hiking trail to ourselves. On our first day, we hiked up 900 meters on a winding trail known as "24 Bends" before arriving at a comfortable guesthouse with great food and where our room overlooked the mountains. On the second day, we hiked down to the middle gorge, which was swarmed with Chinese tourists, and then back up to Walnut Grove where the trail ends. The entire trail was picturesque. There were several waterfalls along the trail, locals tending to their mountain goats and the immensity of the mountains never stopped amazing me.
On another note, we were involved in minor car accident (no one was hurt) on our way to the gorge when our huge bus reared a small van cutting us off in the passing lane. It created quite a scene as all the locals came out of their houses and wanted to be eye witnesses for the police. S and I have already discussed numerous safety precautions to be taken should we be involved in future crashes. Hopefully, the drivers are less crazy in Nepal.

Tiger Leaping Gorge

China's Southwest

Kunming, Dali and Lijiang

Yangshuo was really amazing. Our last day there we hiked for 4 hours by the Li River, which was very picturesque. In town, there is a very popular light show directed by the guy who choreographed the 2008 Beijing Games' Opening Ceremony. When we looked into getting tickets the day before our hike, once the travel agent told us it was 130 yuan a ticket, we politely declined and started to walk away. She called us back and told us that she knew about some cheaper tickets for 50 yuan each. She vaguely explained to us that we would not be sitting with the show's audience but would be watching from a nearby mountain. She said a bus would take us to the show from the ticket office the following evening. It was pretty unclear but I really wanted to see the show so we got the tickets. When we showed up later on at the travel agent's office, there was no bus in sight and she was standing outside with two dudes on motorcycles. She told us to hop on and, as my driver zipped in and out of car traffic, I clutched on tight for my dear life. We passed the big tour buses parking by the show's entrance and went down several back alleys until we came to a big group of people standing by a well-lit desk. Steve's biker stopped and handed the woman in charge 50 yuan and she let us pass. We were led to a gate where there were many seats on a mountainside overlooking the left side of the stage. In the main seating section, there were about 30 Chinese people watching the show. Using his cell phone light, my biker led me down a path left of the "main seating area" to a "left wing" where there were two foldable chairs. We had our own special section and, though we were far away from the main stage, we enjoyed the show and the hilarity of the entire situation. Steve's biker stayed with us the whole time and kept informing us when a special part was coming up and insisting that we take photos. Before the show was fully over but after the main finale, the biker told us we had to leave and and we followed as all the other attendees on our side of the mountain were leaving too.

After that, we headed back to Guilin where we thought we were getting on a 6 hour train to Kunming in Yunnan province. A few hours into the ride, we realized we were really behind schedule and a nearby passenger informed us that the ride was actually 18 hours. We adjusted pretty quickly by purchasing some instant noodles.
Kunming was very beautiful. It was the first day in China that we had really clear blue skies and we spent the afternoon walking around the city. As it was Sunday, the city's largest temple was packed with worshippers and the nearby park had many music bands performing. The bands were so close to each other that each band was drowning the other nearby groups out.

From Kunming, we headed to the old town of Dali, a quiet city sandwiched in between Cang Shan mountain and Erhai Lake. The area around Dali is home to China's Bai ethnic minority. The older women wear traditional clothing, which I think looks very similar to ethnic clothing of the Quechua people in Peru. We walked through Dali's outdoor market where farmers were selling fruits, vegetables, chilis, old tires made into baskets, and traditional and trendy clothing. We even saw some dentistry being performed next to the fruit sellers. There were several dentists working in the market and I had to turn away when I thought a guy's tooth was about to get pulled. After the market, we took an afternoon trip to Xizhou, a nearby small town that has retained much of its old Bai architecture. All the children said "hello" to us as we walked by and we saw many farmers working on their land. We spent the next day climbing 1 km up Cang Shan, which had some amazing views of the entire area.
This morning, we left Dali for Lijiang, a 400 year-old town that has preserved most of its architecture. We spent the day walking through its cobbled-stoned alleys and had a leisurely dinner by the Yu River. We have one more day here before we hike to Tiger Leaping Gorge.

Rice Terraces and Limestone Peaks

Guilin and Dragon's Backbone Rice Terraces

We are now in Guanxi province in the South and have spent the last few days enjoying the gorgeous natural sights here. Two days ago we visited Dragon's Backbone Rice Terraces. They are high mountains about 2 hours away from the provincial capital, Guilin, that are covered in rice terraces. There are many paths through these mountains that connect the small villages where many minority Chinese groups reside. We stayed in the town Ping'an where the local women have very long hair that stretches to the floor. They tie it up using a combination of different wraps and buns that, from afar, look like a decorative hat. We spent our day there walking from Ping'an towards the next village, through the rice terraces, around lakes and over bridges. The sights were quite impressive and I am left feeling nothing but respect for the laborers who spent centuries constructing these terraces into the mountainside. Under one of the biggest bridges on our walk, we ran into a bunch of teenagers who were very friendly towards us. One guy proudly told us, "I am the Dong people" and invited us to a perfomance that evening in the village. The young girls were literally screaming "hello" to us at the top of their lungs and had black ash all over their faces. They were all smiling and laughing.
Yesterday, we spent 5 hours on three different buses to get to Yangshuo. It is very beautiful here and it is understandable why this is one of the biggest tourist spots in the south. The very small town, walkable in 5 minutes, runs by the Li River and is surrounded by breathtaking limestone peaks that jut out of the landscape. As it is low season, we are staying in a very nice Chinese business hotel for an affordable price.
The best part of Yangshuo is the surrounding area. Today, we rode our bikes 9 km to the Dragon Bridge, a 600 year old stone bridge over the Yulong River. As we were walking around the village, some woman approached us and asked, "Lunchie?" My first instinct was to say "no", as we had previously been continuously harassed to go for a bamboo boat ride and wanted to be left alone, but we were hungry and thought it was better than eating the unappetizing steamed corn offered by the vendors by the bridge. The woman led us down a few narrow alleys and through a straw storage room to a simple restaurant with a nice riverside view. We had an enjoyable lunch as we watched fisherman work in the river and heard the Chinese men on the bamboo rafts below us partake in a competitive card game. Trying to take a different path back, we rode through small rural villages on our way back to Yangshuo. Chickens and ducks crossed the path before us and little children poked their heads from their home to say "hello". Men and women carried bamboo satchels over their back filled with fruits and vegetables and bulls were led through the town by a rope strung through their nostrils. We were surrounded by rice farms and the amazing karst peaks in every direction. We were very lucky that today was such a gorgeous day as it has been raining for most of our time in China, making outdoor activities less desirable.
Tomorrow we are going for a 4-5 hour hike along a stretch of the Li River that is over a 1000 years old and supposed to be quite stunning. The following day, we will take an 8 hour train to Kunming in Yunnan province. We plan to spend a day or two there before heading to Dali Lijiang and Tiger Leaping Gorge.

Hong Kong and Macau

Hong Kong and Macau

S and I are excellent. We spent the last 4 days in Hong Kong and Macau. We spent our first two days exploring Hong Kong Island, which is the first modern city that we have seen that has not demolished many of its older parts. On the first day, we took a tram up to Victoria Peak for beautiful sights of the city and ate in the trendy SoHo district (the Mexican was disappointing), riding the world's longest escalator to get there. On the second day, we explored the city's traditional markets: dried seafood, traditional medicine, ginseng root, bird's nests (used for soup), antiques and fabric. Hong Kong is a beautiful city that certainly has a very different feel from mainland China. It goes beyond the English-named streets- the city is clean, efficient and diverse. There seems to be a coexistence between the old and the new in Hong Kong that feels natural. In Shanghai, the old parts of town were torn down to make way for big skyscrapers and, in Seoul, the old parts of town felt as though they were hidden away down back alleys. On our 3rd day in Hong Kong, we went to Hong Kong Disney World, which was something else. While it is not as big as its American counterparts, they had some decent live shows and S and I had our photos taken with Belle and Sleeping Beauty. Sleeping Beauty asked us what kingdom we were from. We spent the entire day there, eating Mickey Mouse-shaped ice cream and pizza, watching the parades, nighttime fireworks show and going on all of the rides. We enjoyed analyzing the "It's a Small World" ride, swirling around really fast on the teacups and Space Mountain, which got faster as the day went on. During our three nights in Hong Kong, we stayed in Kowloon, a very diverse neighborhood of Indians, Chinese and Africans who are all trying to sell you tailored suits, fake watches and purses. We stayed in Chungking Mansions, a huge complex in the center of the city known for its low-cost accommodations. We stayed in a closet room with no windows. It was certainly an experience. While it had AC, it would make the room freezing in 2 minutes, so we opted for the blistering heat instead of freezing to death. Also, we were able to find several bookstores that had great books about China, which are impossible to find on the mainland. We made sure to stock up.
We spend yesterday in Macau, the former Portuguese concession. The small city is known as the "Vegas of the East", with loads of casinos along the waterfront. There was beautiful colonial architecture and we spent the day walking through the side streets and visiting old churches, temples and government buildings. We had Portuguese for dinner.
We are now back on the mainland and planning on taking a train to Guilin this evening at 7PM. Crossing the border into China was refreshing. While we loved Hong Kong and Macau, there is something more exciting about the chaos on the mainland. Looking forward to explore the South over the next few weeks.

Have Uploaded Photos

Now that we are in Hong Kong, I have spent the last 6 hours uploading all of our China photos. They are all under previous blog entries. Hong Kong is great- too tired to write, as it is 2AM. Must get some sleep for a busy second day here.

The Joys of Golden Week

We had a crazy last 3 days. October 1st was the Communist Party's 60th anniversary. There was an all-day long celebration in Beijing that was on every single TV channel. There was a military parade, followed by speeches, songs, dances and quite an elaborate fireworks display. We watched parts of it on TV and I videotaped part of the military parade for later viewing.
On the 2nd, we couldn't book another night at our hotel because it is Golden Week here and couldn't find anything on the internet. We decided to walk around and, after turning down a side street, I walked into what I thought was a hotel. When I asked for a double room, she asked me if I wanted to buy it. When I told her it was for one night, the real estate agent told me to wait a moment. She called up a friend and she then told me that she had a room for two in a nearby apartment building for 150 yuan (24 dollars), which was much better than the 308Y some guy wanted to charge us at a dingy hotel up the block. We decided to take a look at it at and it was a really nice, large one bedroom in a huge Chinese apartment complex. We had a kitchen and big living room with a DVD player. It was the most wonderful treat. We spent the day at a nearby temple, having literally about 15 different groups of people ask to have their photo taken with us and another 10 take photos of us as they walked by. After that, we found a very cheap DVD shop and bought two to take home. We ordered in dinner and after spending 30 minutes fiddling with the broken DVD player, we got it to work. We had a very relaxing night and it was nice to stay in a place that felt like a home.
As a side note, I have recently become obsessed with the bubble tea drinks here. Yesterday, the 3rd, we took the bus to Yongding to see the roundhouses, which are either round or square, and were designed as a fortress and apartment building in one. They are huge and some can house up to 100 people. On the bus ride there, this man from Fuzhou started talking to us and told us he could get us into the roundhouses for free if we followed him. He was traveling with his wife and daughter to his parents' home for the mooncake festival, which was that day. Summarized nicely by Wikipedia, the mooncake festival is one of the few most important holidays in the Chinese calendar and is a legal holiday. Farmers celebrate the end of the summer harvesting season on this date. Traditionally on this day, Chinese family members and friends will gather to admire the bright mid-autumn harvest moon, and eat moon cakes and pomelos together. When we approached the entrance gate to the tulou town of Liulian, all the security guards were telling him that we needed to buy a ticket. He kept saying we were his friends but the security guards ignored him. After trying to sneak us in through back entrances and being caught everytime, we wound up buying the ticket and then he invited us to his home for the mooncake festival and said we could sleep in his family's tulou. His family was very generous to us. They gave us lots of fruit and snacks when we arrived. His daughter and her younger male cousin took us on a tour of the tulous. Keep in mind, they hardly spoke any English. We had a grand feast for dinner, with about 15 different vegetable and meat dishes on the table. The guy kept clanging my beer cup and saying,"Gan bei" and kept telling me to finish my cup. After I finished the not-so-cold glass, he would refill it and shout "Gan bei" again. After the 3rd glass, I covered my cup so he could not refill it but he poured through my fingers. The 4th time, I filled my empty cup with Sprite and he left me alone. After dinner, we played cards for hours and thanked them profusely for their generosity. We spent the night in one of their rooms in the tulou.
The next morning, we ate breakfast with them and they said they would take us to the bus station. Before the guy flagged down a bus for us to Longyan, he gave us an extensive tour of the tulous.
Now in Longyan, we are heading to Guangzhou this evening. As it is the national holiday, we could not book a seat on this evening's train. So, we have 9-hour standing tickets on the 11:45 PM train. S is excited about the train. I think it will be brutally painful but it will certainly be an adventure.

Xiamen and Liulian, Yongding

Heading to Xiamen

S and I decided to spend an extra day in Hangzhou. It is a beautiful city that has the tremendous West Lake in the center. It is quite a sight and we spent the whole day walking around it yesterday. Today, we spent many hours looking through the guide book and figuring out what the next two months will look like. We had originally planned to head to rural towns just south of Hangzhou and take 3 days to get down to the southern coast but today we made the radical decision decision to change our plans and to just head straight down. We were warned this afternoon that finding a train would be impossible, as October 1st marks the 60th anniversary of Communist China and begins the national 7-day holiday. Luckily enough, tomorrow morning we will get on a 22- hour train to Xiamen in Fujian province. We have plenty of reading material, a deck of cards and intend to head to Carrefour tonight to stock up on water, noodles, fruit, bread and peanut butter. I am very excited for this train ride experience although I am sure there will be points of boredom. We plan to stay in Xiamen for a day, visit the roundhouses in rural Yongding county, then make our way to Guangzhou, Hong Kong, then Macau. As we are traveling during the busiest vacation time of the year, our plans might be subject to change but we are willing to roll with it. If this evening is any indication, it will take about an hour of research to find a hotel within our price range. Looking forward to the challenge!

Suzhou and Hangzhou

Venice of the East

We are now is Suzhou, the "Venice of the East", which is a canal town about an hour outside of Shanghai. It is very beautiful and a nice break from the big city lights. Last night, we took a walk around the city and the canals and bridges were illuminated- very romantic. Also, in some of these public spaces along our walk, older women were performing these simple choreographed dances to music blasting from a boombox. A man rollerblading by us told us the women do this frequently "for healthy". Today we took a bus out to a smaller canal town Luzhi this morning and it was very picturesque with cobble-stoned streets, quiet alleyways and aging canal boats. We ate lunch in the modern part of town and, as I followed S out of the restaurant, he was stopped by 3 of the waitresses and they all posed for pictures with him. They kept giggling and showing him the pictures. Once they saw me, they took one with me but then went back and took several more with S. This evening we are having dinner with a girl ShuLu from Suzhou that we met through couchsurfing.
We had an excellent time in Shanghai and our hostesses Sarah and Becky were so wonderful . As a thank you for hosting us, we took them to this delicious vegetarian restaurant where they tried their first fake meat dishes. As we left their apartment, they gave us the little blue mascot for the Shanghai Expo 2010. The Shanghainese have a lot of pride about the upcoming expo- they say it is the 2nd most important world event after the Olympics. There are posters about the expo and pictures of blue man Hei Lu is everywhere. What they don't realize is that nobody cares or knows about the expo. Sarah and Becky say that all of their schools have countdowns to the event posted and the kids are working on projects about the expo.
Tomorrow we head to Hangzhou where we will visit the West Lake, a popular tourist destination for the Chinese, and meet some couchsurfers for coffee.

Shanghai

Yesterday afternoon S and I arrived in Shanghai after taking the morning train from Nanjing. We quickly dropped our bags off at the left luggage counter and took the train into the city center. We had lunch at a delicious vegetarian restaurant where we ordered lots of fake meat. We checked out the free Shanghai Museum, which had great exhibits on painting and jade. I skipped the gallery with roof tiles- can't look at roof tiles anymore, so sick of them. It is refreshing to be in a really big, modern city where you can get any type of food you want. We are staying with two English ladies who we met through couchsurfing named Sarah and Becky. They are our age and have spent the last 8 months living in Shanghai teaching English and learning some Mandarin. They are really friendly and have opened their homes to us.

Today we left the house at 7AM when the girls left for work. We walked through Renmin (People) Square and the pedestrian commercial strip East Nanjing Road. We stopped into a McDonald's for some time to look through the Shanghai tour books our hosts lent to us during our stay. I never thought I would say this, but McD's is a great place to go when you need to kill time because it is really clean and quiet. As we were looking through the book, we saw cute, young Chinese girls getting trained as workers. They were lined up in a row next to the counter and, as the manager walked by them, they all said, "Good morning!" They really freaked out the first Westerners that walked through their line. After that, we walked through the Bund to see all of 1920-30 style buildings. It looks like NYC's downtown financial district. When we sat down for a rest, we met a nice Chinese man, whose English name is Fred Li. I was interested in talking to him because he was dressed and kind of looked like my grandfather Paco- thin frame, big glasses, high-waisted pants. He was also a gentle soul. He told us that he wanted to be an engineer but had to become an accountant. He was a vegetarian and told us he thought it was just common sense. At that point, S got really interested in the conversation.

We found a great Sichuanese restaurant (spicy) to get some noodles and, on our way to this internet cafe, we met this artist who tried to scam us. He asked us if we were Jewish and, when we said no, he said that Jewish people were very smart people. He perked up when S said he worked at a bank. He kept asking us if we liked art and said his art was on display just across the street. When we said we needed to meet a friend, he became very persistent and kept repeating, "Come with me. 5 Minutes! You like to buy art?" We are going to try to see an acrobatics show while here and will spend tomorrow wandering through the French Concession and checking out some modern art.

Shanghai

Kind Employees at McDonald's

Last night, S and I got on the 9:30 overnight train from Kaifeng to Nanjing. Having spent the last 3 days in smaller cities and getting harmless constant stares and friendly "hellos" from everyone we walked by, I was excited to be in a big city again and not stick out as much. (It is exhausting to have people staring at you all the time and feel that you have to be friendly to all of them.) We arrived into Nanjing at 4:30 AM and jumped in a cab to the Fuzi Temple area, which is where a lot of hostels and hotels, according to Lonely Planet, are located. We normally don't like to stay places recommended in the guide book because they are more expensive and we want to see China ourselves, not through Lonely Planet's eyes. But it was too early and dark to be picky about accommodations. The cabbie dropped us off in front of some hotels, which were out of our price range so we started to use the guide book's recommendations. Of course, the directions and the map in the book were awful and we get lost and had no idea where the hostels were. The only thing open that early in the morning was a 24-hour McDonald's. We decided to go in and ask the employees for a particular street. Shortly after we asked the cashier, he called to his fellow employees in the back and, in a matter of moments, there are 4 guys looking at our guide book trying to help us. The manager sleeping in the corner also got up and started overseeing the matter. One of the guys, named Ming, asked us in English where we wanted to go. We pointed to a hostel in the book and he said he would call the hostel. After a several minute conversation on his cell phone, Ming told us to follow him. With the manager trailing behind us supervising the escort, the kind McDonald's employee led us on a 10-minute walk to our hostel and told us where we could get good veggie dumplings that S and I have become obsessed with. As we stopped in front of the hostel, Ming wrote down his phone number in my notepad and told us to call him if we had anymore questions. We can't see the rooms yet and so we are using their internet until 8AM.

Nanjing

Stories from Smaller Cities

We have spent the last 3 days in Sanmenxia, Luoyang and Kaifeng, smaller Chinese cities in Henan province that are not as touristed as some of the other places we have been.

On the train from Xi'an to Sanmenxia, an older couple walked over to our empty side of the car and started talking to us in Chinese. When we said we did not understand, which is one of the 3 things I know how to confidently say, the man and his wife sat down next to us and, for the next 3 hours, talked with us and tried to teach us Mandarin.

When we arrived in Sanmenxia, a city not in the guide book, we first tried to find accommodations by the train station. We figured we could pay a lot less, around 60-80 yuan (9-11 dollars), because the area did not have any tourists, The first room we were showed in one hotel was 120 yuan. It had 2 twin beds and a private toilet and shower. There were cheaper rooms but the manager said we could not stay in them. We thought we could do better than 120. At the second hotel, the room we were shown was 40 yuan. We were told there was no shower and, when I asked where the toilet was, she led us to an alley that was full of bricks and pointed down the alley. There didn't seem to be anything on the other side and the alley did not smell pretty. That was a deal breaker. At the third hotel, the room was bigger even though it looked a little dirty. We were told the shower was on the third floor and, though the bathroom looked like it had not been cleaned in months, we just decided to take it for 50 yuan (7 US dollars). Using that bathroom was a traumatizing experience and it certainly made us realize that we do have certain standards and semi- clean toilets is one of them.

On the train from Sanmenxia to Luoyang, the guy sitting next to us traded seats with a girl who spoke some, but very little, English. Her name was Cao Pei Pei and she was 23 years old. After chatting for a few minutes, she recommended a cheap and clean hotel that was in our price range. When we learned it wasn't close to the city center, we declined the offer. A few minutes later, she told us to move our plans for the day to tomorrow and invited us to her house. She seemed to be saying that her mother would cook for us and we could spend the night. S and I were not so sure but she was really friendly and decided that it might be cool to get a home-cooked meal. We got on the bus with her and she said she was calling her mother. After she made a few phone calls, she pointed to some blue and red building up ahead. We got off the bus and she said it was the hotel. As we couldn't really communicate that well with her, I assumed there had been a change of plans and that we would drop our bags off at the hotel and then head to her house. But something seemed weird. She walked into the hotel like she owned the place and got us a nice room in this business hotel for 50% off the rack rate. After she walked us to our room, she gave me a hug and said " bye bye" and left. We were very confused and we could only assume that her parents completely rejected her plans to hang out and, due to her limited English and wanting to save face, she was too embarrassed to say anything. We imagined the conversation went something like this, "No, you cannot bring over two American strangers that you met on the train. And I will not come home after a long day of work and cook for them and they most certainly cannot stay at our house. We don't even know them. What are you crazy?"

At the Longmen Caves in Luoyang, which was quite a sight yet overpriced, S and I decided to take a break and sat down by the river. There was some commotion behind us and, when I looked over, a man was holding his baby close to the ground and the baby was going to the bathroom in the street. They cleaned his behind with baby wipes, and walked on. This is a common sight in China as babies here don't wear diapers. There are slits in their pants that open from below the belly button to the top of their behinds. These are very common until the children are potty trained. We have only seen one diaper on a baby in our 3 and a half weeks in China. The child is just taught to tell the parents when they need to go to the bathroom and it happens, sometimes in public.

Kaifeng had an amazing night market. There were hundreds of stalls on the street, selling kebabs, bread, dumplings, soups, dessert and other snacks that we did not recognize. Most of the stalls were run by Muslims and they were selling kebabs with every type of meat, meat parts, fish and veggies you could imagine. The grossest looking kebab was one with bugs that looked like cockroaches on it. S and I ate dinner there one night, paying about $2 for the two of us- $1.15 for a plate of 35 veggie gyoza, 45 cents for a loaf of bread, and 40 cents for block of peanut brittle. We befriended the people who sold us the bread and went back several times to get more the following day. They were always veyr happy to see us.

Sanmenxia, Luoyang, Kaifeng

Taking It Easy

After a difficult overnight train from Pingyao on to Xi'an Thursday night, with the person in the bunk below me snoring and the music blasting from the train speakers from 6AM on, I have been feeling under the weather, with a stuffy nose and a slight sore throat. With the excitement of being in a new place, I ignored my sickness and S and I explored the city on our first day here, visiting the city's Great Mosque and eating in the Muslim Quarter. We have been eating lots of noodles, as they are the staple in this province. While we have been ordering spicy food, the taste here has been different from anywhere else we have been so far. It is more hot than spicy, with the heat leaving a numbing sensation in your mouth. The heat, I think, is closer to what you would get in a hot Indian curry. We are staying at a youth hostel and, at night, the restaurant area turns into a lively bar full of locals pounding down beers, smoking lots of cigarettes and playing drinking games. It also seems to be where some people from the immigrant African community come to play pool and drink also. It makes for an interesting scene and everyone here seems to know each other. Yesterday, we ventured outside the city and visited the Army of the Terracotta Soldiers, which is a 2200 year old tomb that houses over 8,000 terracotta soldiers, horses and chariots in army formation. It was built by the first unifier of China and is just about 2km from his tomb. The tomb took several decades to prepare by hundreds of laborers in 3rd Century BC and was built to protect the Chinese leader in his death. Interestingly enough, there were no historical documents of this tomb's construction or its existence so it was accidentally discovered by farmers building a well in the mid 1970's. There are 3 pits that have been excavated, with work still being done on the 2nd largest tomb. The largest tomb is quite remarkable, with rows and rows of soldiers in army stance protecting the tomb's entrance, followed by elaborate horse chariots. All the soldiers, horses and weapons are quite life-like and many of the soldiers have different facial expressions. Worth a look to check out images online. Today, I am enjoying doing absolutely nothing. I have spent considerable time on the internet and am thinking of renting a movie and doing some reading. I need to listen to my body and take it easy so I can get over this cold. I am sad not to be out exploring but I think this is what my body needs. S has been bringing me food in the room and being a good caretaker. This afternoon he is off to the Shaanxi History Museum, one of China's best museums, and then taking care of our train reservations for tomorrow. We continue to run into the same travelers at every place we stop and are getting a little tired of feeling like we are on the tourist trail. Tomorrow, en route to Luoyang, we will spend the day and night at a city that is not recommended in the guide book, Sanmexia. There aren't any sights there but we want to just check out a city that is not used to getting tourists and see what happens. If all goes well, we are going to try to do a lot more of this.

Xi'an

Pingyao's Ancient Walled City and Laura

S and I had two lovely two days in Pingyao in the Shanxi province. In the center of the city proper, there is a walled city that has been around since the 16th century. All the houses within the wall were built in Qing-style architecture and, at night, all the houses' red lanterns cast a beautiful glow on the city streets. It is exactly what you would imagine of a traditional Chinese town. While it was painfully touristy and we tried to escape all the stalls selling chotchkes, we spent our two days there with a lovely Pingyao resident named Laura, her English name, who we met through couchsurfing. Before we arrived, she told us that she was in the middle of classes at her university but would try to make it into town to meet us. When we arrived to Pingyao off the night train from Datong, she emailed us saying that she planned to cut classes for two days and going to take an hour long bus ride that morning to meet us.

She showed up at our hotel at 6PM and we spent the evening chatting with her in our hotel and then headed to one of her favorite restaurants outside the city walls what was amazingly delicious and very cheap. The next morning, she met us at our hotel and we spent the next 8 hours talking, laughing, eating and sharing our lives with each other. She is a senior at university in Shanxi province studying English and, as she told us many times, her dream is to be a backpacker. She really enjoys meeting people from around the world through couchsurfing and learning about others' lives and their cultures, as well as practicing her English. She hopes that one day after she graduates she can travel to America and visit NYC, Ohio (because she thinks the name sounds happy) and California. However, a sad look came over her face when she told us that she did not think it would be possible- that China is too strict and she might not be able to get a visa.

She brought her notebook with her where she jots down English phrases she doesn't understand and where she writes down conversations between characters on TV shows so she can speak more like an American and not speak "Chinglish". She went over some of the phrases and this icebreaker activity led to really open conversations with her about her life, what she thinks of China and her hopes and dreams. After we ate dinner, she told me that she had purchased some small presents for us to welcome us to China and so we do not forget her. She gave us a shear red bag (red means good luck) with 6 (6 is good luck) pieces of Pingyao beef, a local specialty, and a statue of a baby dragon (dragons are also good luck). We all were so grateful to have spent all that time with each other and we told her we would send her postcards along our travels. As she left the restaurant, we hugged and told her she will always be one of our greatest memories of China.

Pingyao, Shanxi

Six- Hour Train Ride on Hard Seats

We have just arrived in Datong, in the Shanxi province. S and I had a great time in Beijing. P and Senorita V were amazing people to spend time with. We got the inside scoop on what it is like to live in Beijing and ate a lot of amazing food! Before we left, P helped us reserve our tickets for our 6-hour train to Datong. S and I wanted to
go cheap and we wanted an experience. We got the cheapest tickets we could get. Most trains in Beijing seem to have a letter before it, signaling possibly some kind of rating system. We were booked on an unlettered train and we booked to hard seats which, according to the guide book, " have a bit of a cushion but can be hard on your sanity." We said, what the hell? This morning, we had to take a cab to the train station and the 15-minute cab ride was the same cost as our train ticket- 4 bucks. Our gate was the only one where the employees were not checking your tickets. I guess no one wanted to try to sneak onto our train. We were packed in a crowded line for about 45 minutes before we could get on and, when we got on, there was a lot of pushing and shoving from others around us.
As we boarded, we got many stares as we were definitely the only non-Chinese on the entire train (there were probably 500 people on the whole train). The car smelled like cigarettes and before we could sit, we needed to push cigarette butts and ash off the seats. No one really talked to us for most of the ride but the older couple across from us kept staring as we read our travel books and wrote in our notebooks. Throughout the whole trip, we could hear a constant sound of people getting ready to spit on the floor of the car. During the 5th hour of the trip, I was writing out some Chinese characters and the woman started slapping my left hand and pointing to my right, as others here have done when they see we are lefties.
The last hour of the trip, after the married couple left, a bunch of 20-30 year old dudes sat beside us and were really amused by our guidebook. They wanted to look through our phrasebook and were getting a huge kick out of it. We tried to ask them in Chinese how much longer until our stop and the youngest of the men responded in English. We spoke with him for a little while and, as we did, everyone within
earshot was listening even though they did not understand. As we got out at our stop and left the train station, there were many more stares. Apparently, Datong does not get a lot of Western visitors.
We are staying two days here and are planning on taking two day trips out of the city: one to the Hanging Monastery and the other to the Yungang Caves. After that, we will take an overnight train to Pingyao.

Datong

The Great Wall, P amd Senorita Vita

Steve and I have spent the last 4 days in Bejing and are loving it. We have decided to extend our visit here by 2 more days. We have been hanging out with Cheddar Ben's brother, P and his lovely girlfriend Senorita V (they chose their code names) and they have been taking us to delicious restaurants across the city. Last night, we went to this amazing dumpling restaurant where, in addition to our veggie dumplings, we got pork and shrimp, crab leg meat and pork in hot oil. Unbelievable! We are obsessed with the dumplings here and we have been getting them almost every day.
One of our most memorable experiences has been our trip to the Great Wall, which would not have been possible without P. We all got on a public bus for an hour to transfer to another bus but, when we arrived at our transfer point, we were told the second bus not longer ran. P negotiated for a driver to take us to the wall, wait for us for 3 hours and take us back to the bus stop for the equivalent of 12 dollars. Although I have seen hundreds of pictures of the Great Wall, it is quite another thing to see it in person. It is huge and built on the ridges of the mountains so there are spectacular views from every direction. We hiked on a cloudy day so it felt very mystical. We walked through an overgrown section of the wall that has not been upkept and that many people don't walk through. We walked through parts of the wall where half of it had collapsed and where the whole walkway was covered in weeds and flowers. We were the only ones on this part of the wall and had to crawl under spiderwebs and got lots of little scratches on our legs from the weeds- but it was worth every second. A funny way to end our walking over a 400-year old wall was to take a toboggan down to the bottom of the mountain. It is raining today so we are not yet sure of our itinerary but we head to Datong in the Shanxi province in 2 days. We have booked the cheapest tickets on a local train- we have heard that the seats are hard, uncomfortable and we will be traveling with lots of locals who might offer us some rice wine along the journey.

Beijing