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.