Chiang Mai: A very Jedi Christmas.

With four whole days off for Christmas I decided it was time to go somewhere. Jacki jumped on board and we brainstormed places to go. Our clear winner was Chiang Mai in Thailand! We found cheap flights and booked them. We flew Christmas Eve, a whole hour and a half later we landed into the amazing warmth of Thailand.

Jacki found us an amazing hostel/guest house called the Green Tulip. It's run by a woman called Stella who was described to us as "militantly hospitable" and "aggressively pleasant." Within about 2 minutes of us having arrived at the hostel we had been sat down, had our bags taken off us and had a beer put in front of us. Its an amazing hostel and Stella really is the most helpful person about.


xmas dinner

David and Lora had been in Chiang Mai for a few days before so they had already sussed out a decent drinking place. It turned out to be a handy place and became a starting point for every outing after that. Christmas eve was just dinner with a few drinks and a walk down a nearby bar street.

Bar over a market

Christmas day was pretty much panned; we met with David and Lora, exchanged gifts and went to find a cinema to watch the new Star Wars movie, after which we went to an English style pub for a full three course Christmas dinner complete with crackers, turkey and silly hats. Dinner was a traditional English affair, we started with prawns, followed with turkey and vegetables and finished off with Christmas pudding. Luckily several people didn't like their pudding so Jacki and I had several! It was a perfect meal except that Xmas dinner with Mai Tai's in thirty degree heat is a little weird but still enjoyable!



Its looks very silly when not behind the camera.

Next to the pub is a huge night market in which we bought loads of presents for people back in Kunming and still managed to treat ourselves. Lora is a bit of a ruthless machine when it comes to bargaining, so we got some really good deals. We finished up in a bar overlooking the market, had a few drinks and then went back to the hostel.

Boxing day; David and Lora had a flight that afternoon so we decided to just meet at the 3D museum. It is full of 3D paintings with spaces for people to pose in bizarre and ridiculous scenes. Its is selfie heaven! We spent hours here and took hundreds of pictures between us, it is by far the most fun I have had in a museum. We all just giggled for the whole time we were there.

David and Lora left us at the museum to go to the airport so Jacki and I went to Tesco. We could have been in a Tesco in England, we picked up loads of things that are so simple but that we just cant get in China. Getting things like moisturiser or deodorant is normally difficult in China so we stocked up and bought loads.

All that was left of our trip was some last minute shopping for friends and to try and cram all of our stuff into various bags. We had both planned on shopping so our bags were pleanty big enough. We will be back!

Hong Kong and a new VISA

Less than a week after getting back from YaDing, I jumped on a plane back to Hong Kong to get a new VISA before starting my new job.

Hong Kong was HOT! After the freezing cold of YaDing and the comfort of Kunming, Hong Kong was uncomfortable and humid. My trick was to walk about until I was too hot, find a McDonalds and sit with a drink in the aircon until I had cooled off.

The VISA process was time consuming but easy. The forms themselves took about an hour to fill in and then I had to sit with the attendant for another 40 minutes while she checked the form. She stamped it with the APPROVED stamp and sent me on my way. I could have kissed her!

After the VISA office I went and found a ferry so that I could float about the harbour for a few hours. I miss the sea so my compulsory trip to HK was fantastic! I took the starlight ferry about 4 times then wandered about Kowloon and The Avenue Of Stars. The Avenue is a 500 meter stretch of harbour wall with Stars on the floor and statues to pose with. The Avenue ends near the Science and Technology Museum so I dropped in and discovered that it is free on Wednesdays. I only spent a few hours there as I think every kid in HK was there that day. Fun but Chaos!

The next day I found a bus that was heading in the direction of a beach on the other side of the Island, jumped on it and spent hours on a beach or swimming in the stupidly warm clear water of Deep Water Bay and Repulse Bay. Like I say, I really miss the sea so I was perfectly happy. The rest of my week in HK was spent shopping in the crazy markets, sitting on a beach, reading my book in Victoria Park and watching the Symphony of lights which, according to the Guinness book of records people, is the longest running daily light show in the world.

A nice 5 day trip to the beach over, back to Kunming and back to work!

YaDing National Park

our hotel

The entrance to YaDing National Park is about a 2 hour drive from DaoCheng. The park has a main entrance where you buy tickets. From the other side of the ticket office there are no cars allowed, everything is run by shuttle buses which bounce between the scenic trail, YaDing town (about 6 hotels and a restaurant) and the main entrance. Karen had booked us a room in one of the hotels in the town so we checked in first and then went to start of the scenic trail. Our hotel was a traditionally built Tibetan style house, all big rooms, no windows and high ceilings. We had a private room but most people were in the main room in tents full of pillows and electric blankets. The people in the hotel were really friendly and kept feeding me homemade alcohol and yac meat stew or porridge.

(some googled background information) The Yading National Reserve at the south edge of Daocheng County has been considered as the most sacred place in western Sichuan Province by Tibetan pilgrims. Mountains and lakes in the reserve are believed holy. The three sacred mountains Jambeyang (or Yangmaiyong in Mandarin, 5958 meters high), Chanadorje (Xiaruoduoji, 5958 meters high), Shenrezig (Xiannairi 6032 meters high) has saw stream of pious Tibetan pilgrims circling them, in the hope of a better and happier life. It is said that those three mountains were blessed in the 8th century, when Buddha Padmasambhava shed his divine light on the range, and named the three elevations after three bodhisattvas.

From the town to the beginning of the scenic trail was about 20 minutes in a bus, there were thousands of buses flying past so we had no problem getting about the park. the park has 2 main routes, a longer one and a shorter one. On the first day we climbed the stairs on the shorter route to a lake.

near the top

Sadly the weather was cloudy but we had amazing views, my camera tried but the poor thing just couldn't cope. Just believe me when I say it is something else.

Bottom of the trail

The second day we tackled the longer tougher route. It was a muddy, slippery trail that at times was little more than trying not to fall over into the smelly mud. We climbed to the top past glaciers and rivers at which point I nearly passed out. It would seem I not only enjoy getting car sick and sea sick, but I can now add altitude sickness to that list. We had made friends with some guys from Beijing and had climbed up with them. One of them wanted to head back to the trail so I went with him, feeling better almost as soon as we got to the bottom. Weird and unpleasant feeling over!

The hotel from DaoCheng came and picked us up from the entrance to the park. Not at all keen to relive the bus I booked a 50 minute flight back to Kunming. It was the best 300元 I have ever spent, saved me 28 hours on a bus and nearly 2 days!

YaDing and DaoCheng

It has been 6 months since I actually went on this trip but I figure better late than never.

Ganden Sumtseling Monastery In Shangri-La

Back in August, Karen and I went on a mini adventure into the northern part of Yunnan and then over the mountains into the southern part of SiChuan. I started a few days before Karen by getting the overnight bus from Kunming to LiJiang,spent a few days there and then went up to ShangriLa. Last time I visitied ShangriLa I had fallen asleep on the bus and ended up there by accident. It was November and it snowed so I shivered for 3 whole days. This time the weather was beautiful and sunny with amazing blue skies.

I had an afternoon to myself before Karen turned up so I wandered about and chilled out. After Karen arrived we visited the monastry and walked around the old city before an early night. We had booked a bus from ShangriLa to DaoCheng which left at 7 am

view from th bus

bathroom break without a bathroom

about half way

the next morning.

The bus journey itself was the most uncomfortable and miserable 12 hours that I can remember. The bus was an old rickety thing that had no space to sit comfortably. We bounced and jumped over pot holes and gravel roads all the time swinging terrifingly close to a sheer drop. Despite the miserable bus journey, we drove through some beautiful scenery and stopped in some incredible places.   We arrived in DoaCheng stressed out, exhausted and beaten up.

ChengGe Temple

Daocheng is at the south of Gantse Tibetan Prefecture, at the southwestern border of Sichuan Province. DaoCheng town is a tiny place, its basically a glorified crossroads with a bus station that just happens to be near a mountain national park. We arrived, found our
hotel and crashed. We had planned on a whole day in DaoCheng with plenty of time to see everything DaoCheng has to offer. We went for a walk and had seen everything before lunch time. About a five minute walk out of town is the impressive ChengGe temple. It right on the edge of town so we had amazing, uninterupted views right out into the grasslands.

We booked a bus thought the hotel for the next day, its only 2 hours over the mountains to YaDing national park.

Weekend in RuiLi

 

RuiLi River

With all my students on holiday and all my classes cancelled, I was looking at a full three weeks in Kunming with nothing to do. The threat of insanity looming; I started looking at my options. Like a bolt of lightning it hit me, Lora (the better half of David and Lora) was back in RuiLi her home town and I had been given an open invite to just turn up. I was supposed to be going there for the water splashing festival back in April but a really nasty stomach bug hit and I couldn't move.

So, permission to turn up granted, I went and bought a bus ticket to RuiLi. Reports varied on how long the bus journey would take, I had been told everything from 7 hours to a shiver inducing 14 but as it was a sleeper bus how bad could it be, right?

sleeper bus

WRONG! I was lucky to get a bottom bunk as then at least the lights didn't bother me, but unlucky as anyone on the top bunk would immediately turn off the air blower and we one the bottom would boil. It took a total of 16 hours, 5 hours of which were parked in a rest stop, and 30 minutes at a police passport check where everyone got very confused by my passport. Apparently not many tourists travel to this part let alone on a bus. The Chinese on the bus were getting angry and were shouting to just throw the troublesome foreigner off, when my knight in shining bus driver uniform came to my rescue. I have told a few people this story and no-one has ever heard of a bus driver defending the tourist and telling the locals to wind their necks in. He told the shouting grumpy people to be quiet as it wasn't my fault that China has such strict foreigner VISA and passport laws. He told them that they could expect the same problems if they are ever in someone elses country. At that he huffed and went back to sit at the front. My mouth  must have been hanging open in shock as suddenly everyone was in a very giggly mood.

river beach

 


one tree

 I finally arrived at the bus station where Lora met me, we pretty much flew to her house and then got back in the car to go to a beach BBQ that she had planned with some of her friends. After about a half hour journey and an about turn to pick up a forgotten friend, we arrived at a small beach on the side of RuiLi River. Her friends were already there cooking stupid amounts of food (we were 15 people and cold have fed 40 easily) so we jumped in the river to cool off. We had no swimming costumes but it didn't matter, we dried off very quickly in the sun. RuiLi in on the Burmese border and shares a tropical humid climate. We all got sun burnt to varying degrees and were covered in sand from the river. Her friends were all patient with my Chinese and actually remembered not to speak the local dialect (some confusing mix of Chinese and Burmese) which helped.



After the beach and on the way home Lora and I stopped at "one tree forest". Given the name I was expecting a very quick stop. Its a certain type of tree, whose name I haven't been able to work out, which grown what looks like lots of individual trunks in a close formation. It is actually one tree but it looks like anything from twenty up. Shattered after my not so relaxing bus journey we went home and called it a night stopping on the way for a Burmese beer and some tea leaf salad. It sounds wrong but it might be one of the best bar snacks ever conceived. It is basically tea leaves mixed with peanuts, carrots, spice, soy sauce and some lime served cold with beer. delicious!

The next day Lora took me to "one town two countries" which is a Burmese/Chinese village. It is all staged and is centred around a small lake across which you can get a zip line into Burma and back, with a stage for the mandatory minority dance show. It was the same as every other dance show I have seen, the performers look bored out of their minds having to perform for the third time that day. The finale was a dance of the long-neck women, which involves the local tradition of stretching women's necks with metal bands/necklaces in the pursuit of beauty.

We went from there to look at the border crossing and the Jade market where Lora works. The actual border crossing is a huge gate but with only a metal fence on either side stretching on for miles.

Frequent police wagons rolled past but there were children on the other side pointing out large gaps in the fences where people would easily pass through. Fruit was being sold cross borers and just passed over the top of the fence. It was bizarre and amazing all at the same time.

The jade markets near the border are huge and packed to busting point with stands selling jade in every colour, shape size and design imaginable. That night we went to to a local bar for some beers and to watch the music. Early night as I was having to fly back to Kunming the next morning to sort some paperwork issues.

We got up early and jumped into a taxi back to the border, Lora took me to see the largest Jade market in town. This place is huge, massive, insane. We walked around half of the outside and it took about 15 minutes. On the outside of the market they sell uncut Jade. Lora explained that it is often called stone gambling as you cant tell the quality of the Jade inside it could be anything. Apparently
loosing several thousands of quai like this is not uncommon.

Inside was everything from huge partially cut stones to ready made jewellery, available in every colour jade has to offer. Lora thought I was hilarious as I really couldn't take in just how much Jade was surrounding me.

Sadly my trip was cut short but I think I had seen everything RuiLi has to offer a tourist. It was a speedy hour and a half drive to the airport in MengShi and a 45 minute flight back.

The Return of the brother: Shanghai the final days

Bund at night

After a very short train journey from Hangzhou we had little to do in the way of recovering, regardless we managed a lazy afternoon of snoozing and book reading before going to see the bund at night.


As we started our trip in Shanghai we had a good idea of where we wanted to go and what we were going to do. Our first stop was the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum which had the added bonus of being on top of one of the largest markets, a sopping list for which Tom had already worked out. the museum was a little disappointing, it was mainly look at this picture of something and read about it. We did this for about an hour before giving up and going shopping. Tom's bartering skills had improved dramatically on last year so we manged to get some pretty god deals. Day one back in Shanghai was basically killing time until our showing of the new Avengers movie. I am a self confessed nerd and was stupidly excited, Tom seemed less so but got into the spirit of the movie. We were in a tiny cinema on the top floor of a shopping centre near the hostel. I personally loved the movie but anything with explosions and dramatic fight scenes and I am all good.

shark hats

JELLY FISH!!!

The next morning we went to the Aquarium. Again, I had already been but I love aquariums and could go many times without getting bored. Unfortunately Tom decided to have both of our free coffees this morning and was a little energetic to say the least, lots of very fast talking! We spent a few hours looking at hundreds of different types of fish, spending extra time in the jellyfish, shark and penguin areas. Shanghai Aquarium currently holds the record for the longest underwater tunnel at an amazing 150 meters. We spent about half an hour just in this part. Getting to the aquarium for opening was a good idea as we had some parts completely to ourselves, meaning we had lots of time to get pictures like these.

It rained all afternoon so plans changed slightly, we went from the aquarium to yuyuan gardens but as the rain got even heavier we gave up and went to the Russian Market. By this point in the day we were fairly shopped out but I managed to get Lou a very nice picture and we avoided the rain for a few more hours.

Lou's present

The next day was my birthday and the last day of our holiday, Tom and I both had morning flights the next day. We spent the day (after opening some very silly presents from home) completing Toms shopping extensive list and getting organised for going our separate ways. By now Tom was on bartering form and even managed to get one very stupid woman shouting "180, what you have no brain?!" not a good way to get people to buy anything. we just walked off in stitches and bought the exact some tshirts somewhere else. Tom had planned a surprise birthday meal and wouldn't tell me anything about it.

We set off to find the mystery restaurant, which we found but it was not quiet what had been expected. Tom had asked the hostel girls about finding a place to get duck, instead they had sent him to a pirate themed seafood hotpot place. OK so the pirates were cool but not what we were after, not to mention the hour wait for a table. We gave up and decided to look for something else. We tried a few times before finding a little Xi'An place that sold RouJiaMuo (Chinese hamburgers, pot roast pork in gravy in a bread roll) my favourites. We ate about 6 of them and a huge bowl of noodles each before going back to the hostel for a last pack and drink.


Shanghai May 2015

All in all a fantastic; 17 days, 2 flights, 5 trains, 7 buses, 2 boats, 5 cities, 2 mountains, 1000's of beers, 1800 kilo meters,a wedding, and 1 brother. We both finished the holiday absolutely shattered but having really enjoyed our trip. I discovered a new favourite place in China (sorry JiuZhaiGou you were only the favourite for 3 months). Not sure where is next just yet, Back to Kunming to finish the semester in Chinese class then back to work in September.


The Return of the Brother: HangZhou

After a little mishap with the train ticket buying schedule, we ended up having to book a flight from ZhangJiaJie to HangZhou. It was probably a good thing as I don't think either of us really wanted an 18 hour overnight train journey, especially after our last three shattering days of mountain wandering (cant really call it climbing) and scorching weather.

We landed into HangZhou a little after midnight and jumped into a taxi. The confirmation email from hostelworld.com had given us an address of the hostel but nothing else so we were a little unsure what we were looking for. Our taxi driver was far from pleasant but did eventually manage to get us to our hostel. We checked in and immediately jumped into bed for our much needed sleep-in!

playing in the tea fields

I had been given plenty of ideas for things to do and see in HangZhou. Harry(fellow Shane worker) had supplied the things to see/places to go part of the trip and Burt(a guy I met in the hostel in Chengdu) had given me a huge list of places to drink/eat. Between the two of them we had a long list and were expecting a busy few days of wandering about and drinking. The hostel however, let us down! not only did they not have a map of the city but looked genuinely confused as to why we would want one. The hostel itself was OK but we got the impression that we guests we an annoyance to the staff. How dare we interrupt their sleeping for things like maps. After several minuted of our questions not being answered, we gave up and just went looking for a bus route. We were heading for the tea museum so we were fairly confident of finding it.

A quick bus ride, a wrong stop and a minor detour through some kind of garden and we eventually found a main road with signs. It turns out we were about 150 meters away all the time.

The museum is completely free and has several different areas all with their own speciality subject. There was a room for tea culture, one for the history of tea, another with the trade routes and one with the all of the modern day tea related merchandise (apparently there is more to tea than just tea.) The displays were in English and Chinese and was actually fairly interesting and well laid out. Round the back of the building is whats left of the tea fields. They are laid out in an almost rice terrace style so we climbed to the top and chilled out for a bit.

sunset over the west lake

We left the tea museum and jumped into a taxi. With no map as a reference point I just blundered my way through asking the taxi driver to take us to a nice part of the lake. He seemed confused and unwilling to just drop us somewhere so we settled on 'just take us to the part that's good for walking and taking pictures'. He dropped us on the North bank and just told us to walk across as its the best part for taking pictures. He wasn't wrong, It certainly had its moments. The pathway across was tree lined and frequently interrupted with little bridges where people riding little one speed rented bikes would come to a grinding halt and sometimes topple over. We sat and watched the sun go down before wandering off in search of Slims, a New York style burger place that came highly recommended by Burt from the Chengdu hostel.

BURGERS!!!

By fluke, coincidence or Divine intervention our path across the lake joined the road we were looking for. We needed 202b NanShan road and we happened across 3 NanShan road. A 45 minute walk later we found the restaurant! We ordered burgers and onion rings and waited (patiently) for them to arrive, when they finally did we were glad we had chosen this place. Burt had described these burgers to me as the best he had EVER eaten. I don't think I would go that far but they are certainly in the top 5, very good considering China.

Very full, we stumbled back to the hostel and decided to just head back to ShangHai. HangZhou was nice but considering where we had just been, the "most beautiful city in China" paled a little in comparison.

We slept in again and then just checked out and


went to the train station to get the next train back. We lucked out and got tickets for one of the fastest trains and arrived back in ShangHai after only 45 minutes.