DALI

Looking, feeling and no doubt smelling like a tramp I finally arrive in Dali, a whole 36 hours after leaving Yangshou, which felt like another lifetime ago without so much as the sight of a proper bed.

I say ‘proper’ bed, as although the sleeper train had beds on the carriage they were approximately the size of a rasher of bacon and probably just as unhealthy!


I’m pleased to say that Dali, besides the major touristy parts has all the charm, character and interesting things to do that made advancing to here a good choice.

With arriving there, a nice Tibetan meal (Yak meat goulash – awesome!) with the guest house owner Jim, along with a couple of beers and some homemade corn whisky ((best local spirit by far!) and I set a new trip bedtime reckon…retiring dead on my feet at 10.30pm!

With Tibet in the plan still, and my promise to be in Shanghai by the 27th, I undertake some hardcore sightseeing in order to get a good feel of the place before the next move on to Lijiang.

So, on day 1 of hardcore tourism I decide to be not quite as hardcore athletically and take a horse up…. Hill to look at the various sights (pagoda, waterfall, view etc.).

As well as the sheer laziness of this option, part of my thinking was that at least with a horse I’m not in control, dramatically reducing the risk of any kind of crash.

So after payingmy 30 Yuan (about 2 GBP) I get on the horse with the guide behind us and start the ascent up the hill / mountain.
After about 10 minutes through the remaining houses and markets the journey begins to feel more like a hill climb and starts to get pretty steep pretty quickly , at which point myy horse begins to breath a bit harder due to the increased effort required to drag my heavy tourist backside up 60degree inclines!

I was starting to get a little concerned about the increasing discomfort my horse was in and was preying for a flat bit for him when he let rip what can only be described as possibly the loudest fart in the entire world.
Right on cue, I started laughing like a little kid, and carried on all the more by the fact that the guide was standing about 6 inches from the rear of the horse! Am surprised it didn’t knock him over to be honest.

Soo,as well as demonstrating my sophisticated sense of humour, the recently exploded methane bomb actually seemed to propel my horse up the ascent with greater speed, some kind of nitro boost I suppose. Amusing and productive – excellent.

After returning to a state of mind more appropriate to my age (over 12) and claming down, the track up to the top began to get steeper still, at which point my horse decided that clearly more nitro was needed for this challenge, although as I later found out it wasn’t just required for this section but for the remaining 45 minute climb at 5 second intervals!!

Needless to say I struggled not to pee myself with laughter on thet way up, especially when thinking about my guide, who must have felt like he was ascending the mountain in some kind of force 9 gale.

After the touristy activities were done at the top (photo’s attached) I got myself a painfully fast but silent horse to the bottom, filling the rest of my day with my usual random wandering around.
With being booked on the evening bus the following day, my time during that day was spent visiting the islands that sit just off Dali on Erhai lake.

IN typical style for my travels in China, I’m the only westerner on the boat although I get talking to Cyril, a Chinese student (still lovin’ those English names) and we take a look round it all together, as well as grabbing some of the excellent local seafood.

It turns out that Cyril is heading further west later that day as well, so once satisfied with my sightseeing in Dali I head off on the evening bus for an overnight stop in Lijiang before making my way to the famous Tiger Leaping Gorge.

LIJIANG

With my plan only to be in Lijiang for 24 hours, arriving at early evening was the best time to see it.
The streets were filled with Chinese glowing red lanterns and was kind of a cross between newly built tourist streets and attractions as well as the old narrow winding streets towards the mountains that have no doubt been there a bit longer.

The nightlife in Lijiang was far more lively than I had expected, on rounding the first corner from my guest house there was a precession of bars, all with groups of boys and girls singing some kind of dating / contest song at each other in bizarre ( I guess local) outfits….

It remninded me of a bizarre combination of Eurovision and the film 8 mile….strange indeed.
This bizarre theme pretty much contuniued everywhere I went that night, and at the risk of changing the agenda on my trip so far I had just the one beer and headed to bed….

Before getting on what seemed liked the hundredth bus iin China so far, I had a quick look around Lijiang the next day, all was pretty much the same liveliness (apart from the singing!) as the previous night, although you could now see it was all set against the backdrop of snow covered mountains…which for the first time has given me a sense of how high up I actually am and how close Everest like conditions are.

So, another 6 hours and on to Tiger Leaping Gorge, which to me at first sounded more like a special move from Streetfighter 2 rather than a famed beauty spot….

KUNMING (VIA NANNING)

With time in Tibet in mind (at that point) I volunteered myself for a longer than usual trip from Yangshou in order to move on that day and not wait any longer.
This meant a six hour detour via Nanning in ordr to catch my 12 hour train onwards.

The bus transfer via Nanning goes smoothly (although not as expected) and after a few ‘long stands’ about 24 hours after leaving Yangshou I arrive in Kunming, that capital of Yunan province.

I don’t know whether it was my half conscious state of mind or the memories of the ood times in Yangshou, but the big city of Kunming didn’t really grab my attention and just felt like any other busy city.

I decided to be fair to the place and take some time to walk around before making my mind up. Although the Lonely Planet (my right arm in China) mentions a good night life and some sights worth seeing I decide to move on straight to Dali further west still and ever closer to Tibet.

The next available bus gave me half the day to wander around and the huge neon signs, same old department stores lead me to believe that in t

his very rare case I appear have excercised some wisdom and made the right decision. Well, at least that’s one on credit against the hundreds of schoolboy errors made on this trip so far!

After unsuccessfully discovering a 1,00 year old pagoda, I made it to the central park of the city, which although nice fails to make me want to stay past a cursory glance.

One of the (very few!) issues of traveling for a while is that common attractions such as parks, temples, lakes etc. force you unconsciously to make comparisons with the more spectacular examples previously seen. Perhaps I was being a bit unfair on the place, but although I love busy cities, it didn’t really have any character or charm meaning I wouldn’t comparing any future places to examples found in Kunming.

So, on to Dali and another 6 hour bus ride…..

YANGSHOU










OK, a couple of longish stories here, one of the usual comedy misfortune style and probably my first story of good fortune....a cup of tea before reading would be advised....

A trip to the hospital or the police station was always on the cards given my trip so far....so here it is.

So on arrival in Guilin I was feeling pretty depraved of spoken English and fellow backpackers (although I would hardly say I was the most hardcore and authentic of which) I decided to skip Guilin and head for Yangshou one hour South, detailed as a real backpacker spot - excellent.

My arrival in Guilin also made me long slightly more for faimilairity than normal as I was feeling pretty pathetic and sorry for myself. The cuts on my foot that I have been nursing (religoulsy so!) appear to have got infected, resulting in me trying to get out of my bunk on the train only to discover my right foot is the size of a grapefruit!!
This and a mixture of sleep depravation meant "sod this" r similar less publishable thoughts were at the forefront of my mind when choosing Yangshou.

So, hobbling out of the train station at 1mph, guidebook in hand I was giving out 'sitting duck' vibes for all to see and I'm promptly accosted by someone selling onward tickets, hotels or perhaps more sacrificial goats.
I quickly (OK, slowly) dodge him and get my tickets at the Government tourist agency next to the station, and am accompanied on the bus by the freindly (English speaking) guy I bought the tickets from....at least some conversation en route where I don't have to use my hands I thought - nice.

After a few minutes down the road he then began to tell me and the handful of Westerners on the bus of the five hotels his company has in Yangshou and starts handing me enough brochures to keep me reading solidly for a week.

To be fair he was a nice guy, and after he discovered that my choice of accomodation fell under the "Pikey but clean" bracket he points me in the way of a nice place, and at half the price of Guangzhou's place I take it.

With the train arriving in Guilin at 6am, and 'Grapefruit foot' causing sleep issues I get straight into bed, foot propped up and get some rest.

The one detail that did strike me on the way to bed through the hotel is that all the floors were very shiny, not through their cleanliness I discovered but through a thin film of water - all the time!

Hospitality in China it would appear is obsessed with clean floors at all times. After more time in Yangshou I learned that this obsession is really a lengthy excercise in futility.
By constantly mopping the floor all day, the traffic from backpackers and staff means the mop is more accurately being used to shuffle dirt around to new places on the floor rather than making it any cleaner!

OK, so back in my room and sleeping, resting my foot I was awoken by a knock at the door at the ungodly hour of 11.00am. Having been awoken from a deep sleep I was bolt upright in bed and heading straight for the door to answer it.

In my half awake state and haste, I forgot about the 'ice rink style' floors in my room meaning I fall over on my arse halfway between bed and door, manging to smash my little toe (on my right foot of course) into one of the mahogany chairs by the door - not a very forgiving material that mahogany you know...

So now completely awake and on the floor I gave out an involuntary pathetic yelp and answered the door with blood pooring out of where my little to used to be.

At the door was Mike (love their English names) the Chinese tour guy I got the hotel from making sure everything was OK.
Rather than explain to him the new agony on top of the old I was in, he makes his way in and starts talking about Yangshou in great detail.

Mike was a nice guy as already said, but he does know how to talk!! Although, after a few minutes of one word answers and profuse sweating from the pain he starts to leave, probably wondering what's wrong with me and what kind of Country lets a mental patient like me out! Another awesome start to a new place.

So, determined to turn this train wreck of a start out I go out for a sloooow walk around the place and it's absolutley beautiful. It's a busy town of tourists, locals, bicycles, bars and Cafes all against the amazing backdrop large tree covered hills jutting out everywhere.











So after a day or so walking round some fantatsic scenery and frequenting the odd bar and cafe with some new found buddies (left to right: Jo, Cliff, myselfand Georgie) all is well in Yangshou but for the inflamed and rather hobbit looking right foot.


On sitting down in a cafe (a recurring theme) having some nice Beijing dumplings a Chinese lady asks me "what's wrong with your foot?". Having had these questions a few times over the last couple fo days (amongst random looks of horror!) I explain to her that I'm not really sure although think it could be an infection.
Rather than being met with looks of confusion she understands perfectly - turn's out she's an English teacher at one of the many language schools in Yangshou.

She straight away offers to help me out, saying that parents of one of here students work at the hospital and can help. I obviously take up this extremely generous offer without hesitation as it was getting no better, and seeing things at 1mph makes for a very inefficient day!

Although Happy (that was her nickname apprently, and a well chosen one) wanted nothing in return, after some coersion I agreed to meet with her students one evening to help them converse in English. The reason Yangshou is so popular with language stuidents in the influx of tourists providing an opportunity to converse with those other than a teacher as well as genuine native speakers.

People with English accents (plain English, Geordies etc. need not apply) are the most sought after given that the Chinese relations with America meaning learning with an American twang is not desirable to say the least.

So at 3.00pm that day as arranged I meet up with Happy for our visit to the Hospital, although I am slighlty unsure of what to expect..... people shaking sticks at illnesses and chanting them out? armies of leeches for all diseases???

The hospital is pretty good by any standard and Happy is brillaint. After seeing the wife of her student we are passed on to her husband who is much better equipped to deal with such things.
So a small moto ride across town to the other part of the hosptial and once again Happy is doing all the talking and running the show. after soem intial discussion it turns out Happy's friend is the director of the hospital and left a meeting to come and have a look at me!!

The guy as well is also fantastic, amd despite putting what I can only conclude is chilli paste onto my cuts (it burned that much!) he bandages me up and sends me on to another area, Happy along with me as always.

Being the only Westerner in the hospital and with Happy once again in charge of the Mandarin I feel a buit guilty being seen straight away.

Happy's insistence that I get better straght away sees me in the unusal position of being on a bed wheeled into the director's office and hooked up to a drip!
Two more sessions over the next days meant that I was completely better and up to my usual walking speedof 1.2mph and with no grapefruit!! Nice.

I duly returned the favour and met some of Happy's students, as well as the daughter in question whom without, I would have certainly still be less than comfortable (to say the least!) when typing this.

I have to say, that although a trip to the hospital can never really be described as fun, meeting Happy and the events that followed had left a great impression on me, one which I won't forget.






Although only 2 events, these took up most of my time in Yangshou, meaning that although I saw the river from a boat (pictured below) and took in the parks and views from the hill,I missed many more things the place had to offer, such as a home cooked meal from Elisa ,a Chinese friend of Happys (who visited me in hospital), bike riding through the countryside and rice terraces....











The result of my time so far as that a month isn't nearly enough to cover anywhere near what I'd want to see here, other destinations are pending though meaning a return trip to Yangshou at least is on the cards.

Next place from here is Kunming, taking 24 hours in total,so will update from there once alive!

GUANGZHOU

On arrival from Macau things don't start well as I'm dropped off in the middle of a busy street as opposed to the bus station, which is the place from my map that I'd planned my fumble across the city!

After the mission that was finding and getting booked into my hotel, this was my first "Welcome to China" moment in which I realised now that everything imaginable that I wanted to do would involve some kind of episode of arm waving, picture drawing and internationally recognised hand signals!

After not too much longer this was totally correct, and it felt like I was playing the largest game of Pictionary, Charades and "make a fool of yourself" (made that last one up) known to man!!

Guangzhou itself, although only supposed to be a stopping point is actually quite nice, the Pearl River circles half of the city where huge Neon advertsing boards face eachother across the river, as well as the usual precession of cars and horns that I think will be everywhere from now on.

Unfortunately, a dead Camera and no power points in my room meant that I wasn't able to get any photos of the night at Guangzhou, although it an effort to get something I managed to get some photos of the bridge crossing the Pearl River and one of the may parks dotted about the city centre the next day.

I had intended on a full photo-tastic day two when leaving my hotel at 11.00, all I needed to do was book my train.....suffice to say that I was clearly not the winner in this game of Pictionary etc. as I was sent all over the city trying to book my train when it turns out (as these things often do) that the correct train station was the one I started at...100m from my hotel!!

Although this still wasn't the end of it all, upon asking the lady at the ticket booth for a ticket to Guilin (please) I was met met with several disapproving looks...my only conclusion being that "Can I please book a sleeper train to Guilin?" must roughly convert to Mandarin as "do you mind if I kill this sacrificial goat in the queue please?"

2.30 rolls around and I have a ticket. Nice. After a celebratory pot noodle thingy (train stations aren't known for their cuisine anywhere it would seem) I took the metro to various spots in the city in an attempt to get some photos before I leave.

As it turned out the park shots and the bridges were all that were worth posting aside from millions of busy city traffic which we've all seen before....my stumbling however did lead me to one of the most frustraing shopping experiences on my trip so far.

When walking down one of the main streets I notice a sign saying 'Shoe market'. "Awesome!" I think to myself, and anyone that knows me knows that I am particularly fond of a pair of footwear or two...so I keep walking and it's basically trainer mecca!!
Millions of different brands and styles, and when asking the price they all appear to be between 5 and 10 pounds a pair!! Did I get the exchange rate right?? Have they got their English numbers wrong??

The shoes themselves are of course 'less than genuine' although the quality was that good I would not have bee able to tell if they were in a normal store!

So whilst working out how many pairs I'm going to buy and how to spend my millions of eBay profit, I try to buy a pair only to be ushered out of the door. No worries I though, plenty of others if my money isn't good enough!

This then continues to the point that I was trying to buy the sorts of shoes you would find in the lost property bin in school (and have to wear if you forgot your kit!) until I realised that the entire market (at least 200 stalls) was all wholesale and they would only trade with peasants like me if I bought pairs by the dozen!!

So after a fruitless attempt to once again waste my money on shoes that I don't need, I left empty haded for the train station again where my train would take me 12 houirs overnight to Guilin.

The plan from there was to head 1 hour South to Yangshou, which is supposed to be a main spot out this way although only slighlty larger than a village.

From there my planned (so far anyway) route will continue to take me West and into Tibet for a week (via Kunming and Lijiang) or so before heading back into mainland China and on to Shanghai and Beijing.

If time allows I will head South down the East coast before flying out to Bangkok on 6th May.
I'll try to get a route map together as per my very first post as China is practically the size of SE Asia anyway!

Photos are still proving an issue out here, I've also discoeverd that some PC's aren't earthed properly, meaning that any USB device plugged in suddenly feels like a bolt of lightning when you touch it!!!

Photos to come soon if I haven't been taken in a freak camera electrocution incident....

MACAU

So, through no real desire to visit Macau despite the alleged Vegas standard casinos, my direction to Macau was purley finance driven, with it being the cheapest flight out of Bangkok towards China.

Hong Kong was initially in mind to see how the place had changed post-Chinese handover from my last time there in 1994, although at 450 pounds to fly there it will have to remain a mystery to me for the time being!

Macau however is convieniently placed at the Southern tip of China (although a state in it's own right - another stamp in the passport - nice!) meaning that I can move in one direction and cover the ground I want to without any backtracking, for once something random that works in my favour!

The place itself is described under one of those 'East meets West' cliches, and to be honest is about right. The heavy Portugese influence of the past has left lots of Meditteranean style multicoloured buildings amongst the sea of neon McDonalds, Gucci, Prada etc. that seem to fill the place.

On the whole the place, at only 27km long is pretty lively, although the abundance of money everywhere (financial orginisations, casinos, stores etc.) means it's not really my kind of place whilst I'm in backpacker mentality, a fact highlighted by me seeing no one else lugging around their equivalent body weight in beer t shirts, mosquito nets and guide books!

So, although the place was clean, vibrant and having plenty of ways to spend your money quickly (that usually makes me stay somewhere!) an overnight stop was enough and I booked myself on a bus over the Chinese border to Guangzhou, where I'll be hoping to catch one of the many long distance trains Westward to my eventual destination of Tibet...

Update to follow from Guangzhou....still no USB anywhere so will bombard the site with photos at the first opportunity!

BANGKOK (visit #4)


So, only really a brief visit this time, but as I stayed here over 24 hours my rule is to post something at least if staying somewhere over a day...

Again, I find myself in Bangkok and this time actually doing some of the touristy stuff. I had deliberatly (and for once wisely) decided to leave the stuff liek that here untilo helen's visit, some touristy stuff can be 'school trip' enough without having to do it twice!

So, as already said in the previous Bangkok post, armed with cameras and backpacks in a Japanese style myself and Helen got to see some of the many temples around Bangkok, including Golden Mountain and Sitting Buddha, as well as reclining Buddha.
The 'templetastic' day was referred to in the previous Bangkok post was supposed to include a few more of the peripheral places although this was cut short due to our Tuk Tuk driver abandoning us! (Not mentioned!)

This was due to the fact that we'd already been round his affiliated taylors (which hand out petrol coupons if you bring toursists in) so he'd decided that the petrol was worth more than our fare and promplty disappeared. Schhoboy error #378.

So, armed with our new Tuk Tuk driver under my slightly over aggressive insistence, we went atright to the Grand Palace, with no stops at taylors, jewelry shops, brothels or anywhere else that might be affiliated with Tuk Tuk companies looking for a quick Baht.

The other toursity activites undertaken during the second stint in Bangkok for us was a trip to Ayuthaya, which was Thailand's old capital before it was moved to Bangkok, following the (one of many it seems) war with Burma.

The temples themselves were fairly impressive, although I have to admit I had now reached saturation point and found myself going for the 'school trip' approach and giving the temples a cursory look in between thinking about lunch and hometime!

However, the trip was made slightly more entertaining by perhaps having the worst tour guide in the world!! The guy barely spoke english, which although I commend anyone that can speak more than 0.5 of a language like me, it was pretty hard to understand, and if you didn't gaze directly at him to make out the words it sounded Thai!

This was not a real problem, althouh what did complicate matters is when he agreed to meet two of our group on the other side of the temples to be picked up later (unbeknown to the rest of us) and then promplty forgot, thereby sending himself on a wild goose chase looking for people he wasn't supposed to be picking up yet!

This was also made more comical by the fact that he'd decided to abandon them after 20 mins of looking, and when stumbling upon them again at their arranged meeting spot to promptly shout at them for wandering off.....bizzarre.

OK, so the guy made a couple of mistakes, but he showed his true lack of care / attention / professionalsim when he forgot that the chair that had been emplty on the bus the entire time didn't have a person in, once again sending himself on another hunt for a goose until the entire group tried to explain that we were all there, and can we go home now please!!

After a bit of thought, and an ill matching tourist guide pass my sceptical brain leads me to believe that the real tour guide was sick / bunking off or whatever and decided "how hard can it be?" and asked his brother (our actual guide) to do it. As to what his original proifession may have been I will never know, although I could confidently rule out such academic pursuits as rockets science, brain surgery etc......

The remaining day of touristy action was taken up with a cooking course in a small house along the river, which although my cooking skills only extend to one dish from scratch (those who know it, feel free to make fun of me now) it was good fun, and surpisingly easy...my repetoir of dishes has now been extended to four in total, so anyone from now on who asks me to cook will be getting either Pad Thai, Green Curry or Tom Yum until I learn some more!!

Besides some horizontology besides the pool and dangerous levels of shopping, that pretty much concluded visit four to Thailand's captial, only to be followed by a brief stint after my return from Macau, China and Tibet....the destination following that will remain a mystery for now for those who don't know!

Updates will follow from Macau (next stop) when possible, as well as some pics when I can find somewhere that actually has USB, unless I get swallowed up in a casino and never come out again, although the lack of English (and my Mandarin) being what it is I'll do well to make it out of the airport!

Until then....

KANCHANABURI





One of the more complicated place names I've been to so far, although I know some future destinations will make harder work to pronounce still, more details on that to come.

So, the prospect of getting up close to some big tigers apparently wasn't scary enough, thanks to my chance meeting with Ryan (who I spent time with down South) we clearly decided that it would be more fun if we would see what effects breathing pure alcohol on these wild beasts would have on their temprament.
Quite a risk really when normally having the aroma of alcohol from the previous night's antics usually is enough to send friends into a rage, let alone a man eating tiger!

Anyway, the tiger temple was another one of those places I'd learned a bit about before leaving home so was looking forward to this one, and although you were ushered round and only spent a little time next to the tigers it did exactly what it said on the tin (the metaphorical tin of course) and you got closer to tigers than you would perhaps anywhere else, particularly given the apprent lack for health and safety concern in Thailand!

The place itself also appeared very well run, and given the fact that it was run by monks it kind of removed the issue of animals being treated well, if the monks didn't act accordinlgy then they would have to answer to a far higher power than the Thai equivalent of the RSPCA!

So all in all, the trip was well worth it, although I have to report that after booking my trip to the bridge over the River Kwai / waterfalls etc. I had to decline this as it would appear that the traveling and late night antics of late caught up with me and the kind of cold thing I'd been carrying around a week or so turned into a full blown case of terminal 'man flu' meaning 18 hours in bed!

All good though now and returning to Bangkok to see out Helen's last couple of days here before I take my first big random detour away from my original route.

More info to follow from in the Bangkok post....