Change is as good as a holiday... Part IChange is as good as a holiday... Part IIThe first stepAir conditioner, bar fridge and a double bedTwo of these people are not quite like the others...Hostel in SingaporeSingapore Botanical gardenwaiting for our island paradiselazy afternoons... mystical nightsthe busses are good but not good enoughMelaka, MalaysiaThe CapitalCameron Highlands"damn we didn't make it to a proper destination" stop overIsland ParadiseSeeking Refuge in a tour guide book!Karst Rock FormationsstopoverTraped by mamouth waves... a well needed restSmoggy daysAncient CityBest Markets, best pizza, best coffeeHappy New Year!Gloloating down the MekongDown the MekongWelcome to China!Dali: adventure to the lakeSouthern CapitalThe first MountainPandas!: birthday in Changdu (Ellie)A weekend away!Terracotta warriors and so much moreOver the hump!Freezzzing toesHello again world!!!Vodka and RussiaChita to BaikalTrans SiberianSurviving SiberiaWe're in Europe!Hi Jodi and Tim!We love the balticsstop over :(Little Green Men!da BahnWE MADE IT!The TruthThe move to... My (not just travel) Blog
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Location
Harbin, China
I have a confession to make.... Its been over a month since my last blog post. And we also have failed to upload new photos for family and friends. Being the computer fanatic that I am, I attempted all sorts of technical things to get the internet working faster in Laos and China but none could increase the speed of the connection to make it bearable to work with. Now you can find all the Laos and China photos uploaded at [url=http://www.madteckhead.dreamhosters.com/gallery/]www.madteckhead.dreamhosters.com/gallery/. Ill also attempt to update you of highlights, both good and bad in the next few posts.
Right now we are at the Harbin Ice World Festival. Its very impressive, and we are still to come back at night and see the ice structures lit up from the inside... So far we have walked under the city wall (entrance), walked up castles only to slide on our freezing backside all the way down the other side. Just now we have stopped for a hot chocolate in one of the cafes.
Over the past month have curved our way from Laos, over China. Passing through some great spots. Dali, Chengdu, JiuZhaiGou, Xian, Beijing stand out from the rest.
Dali was in the Yunnan province. We stayed in a Tibetan style hotel as it was very warm and I was sick. We mostly rested and drank lost of amazing tea. On our last day we went on a adventure to the lake, after being informed we could charter a fishing boat back to Dali via the lake. This would have been possible if we didn't get lost walking around the country side, through vegetable fields and a couple of villages looking for the jetty. We were also plagued by immense trouble trying to communicate our plan and find the fishermen. After arriving at the jetty we learned that it was to late and we wouldn't make it back in time. So it was that we set of back to the hotel by bus, content with the sight we had been awarded for our efforts.
Chengdu (Ellie)
I spent my birthday in Changdu, the capital of Sichuan province, famous for its spicy food. The moputofu and spicy roast potatoes from the hawker stalls will be going in our personal cookbooks. It was a pretty weird feeling when we first arrived in the city as it was the biggest we'd seen in china, actually since Bangkok I guess. And compared to places in Yunnan it seemed so much more prosperous (neon everywhere!) at somewhat of a lost as to what to do (we had intended to head straight to JiuZhaiGou on arrival) we decided to visit the world class panda bear sanctuary. It was a very memorable thing to do for my birthday. I never really understood the panda's appeal until seeing them up close. They where fantastic! We found a great Italian restaurant for dinner which topped off a great day. It was hard to leave the next day (and not just because we had to wake up at 6am.
JiuZhaiGou (back to Nathan)
We headed for JiuZhaiGou, desperately in need of mother natures warming embrace. We risked the fact that the National park was a 10 hour trip through high mountain ranges, and that we might have to take the same road back before continuing north (effectively a +1000km detour trip), and lastly we were not even sure the park would be open as it is off season here, and many of the mineral lakes freeze over. Our gamble paid off and we found ourselves in a valley between high snow covered mountains peaks. Where the valley forks off into two is the entrance to the national park, this was about 3km from our hotel. Which we wouldn't have found without the help of our new friends David & Angle, who we shared our time in the park with and a delightful sample of vegetarian Chinese food on our last night. We spent two days in the park and it can only be described as winter wonderland. Many Tibetan tribes still live in the park and we were lucky enough to have traditional Tibetan tea (which they have for breakfast and is actually quite thick) in a very colorful Tibetan home. Our timing was quite fortunate as many of the hotels were closed being the off season (only 4 were open), and the park was effectively empty. The prices were also good as we got a 4 star hotel for AU$28!!! Our time in JiuZhaiGou wouldn't have been the same without the amazing company that we found, thanks David & Angel for making our stay a pleasure we hope you come visit Australia some time.
Xian (Ellie)
In the end we had to come almost all the way back to Chengdu in order to catch the train north again. The bus ride was an adventure in itself. We just made it to the bus station in time and felt ourselves quite lucky to get seats together but and hour or so into the trip we hear a bang and theres glass raining down on us. The window, brittle from the extreem cold had just exploded in on us! I was the first to get a cut and then kinda lost it freaking out about the whole situation. Nathan managed to get us both off the bus and shook most of the glass off our clothes and belongings. Our window was the o nly one affected and the driver seemed to be ancitous to keep going so we were hurried back on the the bus where they had made a vague attempt to clear our seat of glass. This was when nathan got his first cut and let it be known that he was not very impressed with being hurried back on the bus. We finally maded a stop where the driver and his lackys "fixed" the window with some cardboard and we swaped seats. We were not very impressed and proceeded to take it out on anyone who attempted to light up a cigarette for the rest of the trip. Appart from that the trip was farly uneventful. We managed to procure tickets for the train to Xian that night and so ended another long day of travel.
I had originally though we would cut across the south of china and head up the coast traveling through Shanghai but it proved quite easy to travel straight through the middle of the country. No matter which route we had taken I'm sure china would have provided beautiful natural scenery and a plethora of cultural experiences. The country is jam packed with wonderful sights.
Xian is an ancient city with a modern city growing in and around it. There is a walled area with fully restored bell and drum towers and ancient university and traditional architecture still intact but peak hour traffic is horrendous and we didn't see the sun for 3 days due to shocking air pollution. We got out of town one day and visited the site of the terracotta warriors' excavation. It was as impressive as we had been told and we were impressed with the care and dedication taken in the excavation of the 3000+ life sized warriors.
(back to Nathan)
Last night we were pondering over our experiences in China and come to some interesting observations. Overall our travels through China have been of a wildly different nature to those through south east Asia. In the south of Asia English was more proficient, and the native languages were not to difficult to grasp, the climate was warmer, its more frequented by other like minded travelers, and from my experiences the local people warm and friendly. To contrast in China, you can go days without seeing another westie, 99.99% of signage are unintelligible, and the depth of communication and understanding is limited by the narrow range of commonly understood body language and the often limited patience of the other party. All this makes the most basic of tasks overly complicated and taxing.
Another observation is the indifferent lack of consideration toward strangers and a high degree of self focus. I saw this in the endless queue jumping (if a cue even exists), getting in buses and getting seats on buses, total blatant disregard for smoking in non-smoking areas (after being reminded and asked several times to stop). Perhaps this has behavior has become a social norm, deemed necessary to make it to the 'top' given the shear number of people. To me however the behavior seems counter intuitive as an approach to living because the focus is put on the ends not the means perhaps leaving a majority of the population miserable, at the very least fighting it out to the 'top'.
One last observation was that when we got ripped off in Thailand and Maylasia, the person usually did it with a smile, and was tactful. While in China when we got ripped off there was no smile, no tact, and the person usually seemed to feel justified in doing so. After chatting about it briefly we've decided we would prefer to be ripped off smiling than left feeling rorted on the side walk.
We have learned and experienced many different things along the way, and in China we definitely learned how to stand up for ourselves.
Would love to hear more from you all, comments, emails, sms or phone calls all welcome.
From the edge of Siberia,
We send our love,
Nathan & Ellie
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Greetings from Freo 36 degrees and the Freo Doctor
Written by Darshi 77 months ago
Great to hear your stories, and happy birthday Elle. We have just booked our tickets to Singapore. 3 months in Thailand/ Malaysia. Koh Phangan to Pai. Right now it is back to Uni and the Fruity Biz.Bus driving is not so adventurous in Freo, yet mildly amusing. Keep on trucking, Lots of Love and Lentils Uncle Tony