I enjoyed my short stay in Uzbekistan, despite abundant police checks on the way in through the fergana valley! At every bridge/tunnel/dam they had police/army posted along the road and sometimes big no photography signs.
I went to the big Chorsu Bazaar (started to seem like I was doing a bazaar tour- from Osh bazaar in Bishket, to the Jayma Bazaar in Osh, to the Chorsu Bazaar, Tashkent! ) The Chorsu was biggest probably, though it would be close between it and Jayma... Jayma bazaar had the coolest atmosphere! They had a staggering array of spices and nuts, and dried fruit... Of which I bought some to snack on for the plane to India!
I went to the Medressa and the relgious centre of the old town, and there saw a 7th century Koran , that belonged to Osman, made from deer skin, which was huge, and amazing to see. I didn't think I was going to be amazed that much, but I was! The Medressa gave me a taste of what the rest of Uzbekitan must be like, but it must be better too I think! The Art gallery also gave me a snapshot of Uzbek culture on my whirlwind tour :)!
I made sure to try Plov, which I've had all over but is the best in Uzbekistan, and it was delicious- it is like a rice dish with grated carrot and other stuff in it (depending) all cooked in a big wok... Uzbeks are crazy about it, and they even say it is an aphrodisac! I had one with raisons in it that was very nice!
One night I had dinner in a small home-restaurant in the 'old town' (not always that old!), quite a nice spicey soup with meat and dumplings in it, and the mandatory nan, which is like a cross between indian naan and turkish bread, and is at every single meal and in the bazaars you see so many of them (round flat nans) and just on the street you randonly see people carrying a tray of nan covered in a cloth, or riding a bicycle load of nan around, or pushing a pram full of nans (this is the most common form of nan transport I think!... it is one of the stongest impressions I have of Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan( a brief imprssion I admit) is the abundant presence of nans (which are very nicely decorated with patterns on top).
Anyway, got to the airport OK and had a smooth flight to Delhi, over amazing mountain ranges... I am only guessing but I think we crossed the Pamirs and the Hindu Kush... I don't think we were north enough for Karakorams.... It was so dry, the landscape, didn't look very inhabited or inhabitable, except for a few river valleys! We went over Tadjikistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan! more Stans that I haven't been to!
Now I'm in Delhi... seem to have lost my stalker too which is good! Yay!
xxooxx
Monday, September 1, 2008
Osh (Kyrgyzstan)
Osh was a pretty cool town, and I think the most 'authentic' 'silk road' feel I got in Central Asia (granted I did not go to Samarkand or Buchara so...). For one people seemed more Islamic oriented- the women colourful in their headscarves and many men wearing scull caps or Kyrgyz hats. The bazaar selling everything under the sun gave the town that cross roads of Asia feel- which I think Osh is in a way- between China, Tadjikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgystan. Osh is in Kyrgyzstan but the people are 40% Uzbek and only 10k to the border. I couldn't tell the difference between Uzbek and kyrgyz except for the mens hats!
I climbed 'Solomans Throne' a big craggy hill in the centre of town where Mohommad once prayed and is now a fairly major pilgrimage site... I was on top when the Minarette calls went outall across the city for midday prayers- Osh was the first and only place I heard prayer calls (at 4am it wasn't quite as romantic). In Tashkent, and perhaps all of Uzbekistan they are banned...
I ran into Flo, the guy I trekked with in Osh again, and we had dinner at this also very atmospheric street of chaikanas- each with a sizzling smoking shashlyk stand out the front and 'topchans' tea beds, to sit on/ laze on :), and blaring Arabic pop with flashing lights. It was very lively at night, and close to my guesthouse.
So yeah all in all I enjoyed Osh...it was also a crossraods for me, from there I left Kyrgyzstan for a couple of days in Tashkent on my transit visa!
I climbed 'Solomans Throne' a big craggy hill in the centre of town where Mohommad once prayed and is now a fairly major pilgrimage site... I was on top when the Minarette calls went outall across the city for midday prayers- Osh was the first and only place I heard prayer calls (at 4am it wasn't quite as romantic). In Tashkent, and perhaps all of Uzbekistan they are banned...
I ran into Flo, the guy I trekked with in Osh again, and we had dinner at this also very atmospheric street of chaikanas- each with a sizzling smoking shashlyk stand out the front and 'topchans' tea beds, to sit on/ laze on :), and blaring Arabic pop with flashing lights. It was very lively at night, and close to my guesthouse.
So yeah all in all I enjoyed Osh...it was also a crossraods for me, from there I left Kyrgyzstan for a couple of days in Tashkent on my transit visa!
Trekking around Karakol
I wrote this in my diary on 24/8/08... it makes reasonable sense as is (often they don't!) so I'm just going to transcribe it!
"
Writing the date I think I realise that the Olympics have been and gone- who knew they would come and go with such little impact (on me!)! After all these years of build up!
I am at a campsite between Altyn Arashan and Ala Kol lake... just over the Ala Kol pass. Today's walk, day 2 of the trek, was arduos- uphill nearly all the way and over at 3860m pass. At the moment it's 5:30pm and 12 degrees, the daily max/ min so far has been 31/6... 6 being at the top of the pass! (Florian had temp recording device).
I am rather exhausted! And getting ready for another cold night! The lake was amazing, a blue aqua colour you don't seem to see in Australia, it is glacial so maybe that has something to do with it? We had lunch there and afterwards the weather started to look bad- banks of clouds on the mountains and thunder rumbles, but we did not get rained on and now the tent's up it's OK if it rains a little. (which it did :) )
I was lucky to find Flo to walk with, we were sitting around outside at Yak House and we was saying how he wanted to go hiking but needed a tent, and I said I have a tent and I need a friend! and voila! We also walked with these two Czech guys (for the first two days) who are really nice.
"
Altyn Arashan was really nice, an alpine valley with forest, mountain views and stream. The walk there was easy after the previous two days! There are a few hot spring sanatoium places there, and I had a hot bath in a wooden chack by the stream. It was very good after three days of walking and not changing clothes(too cold at the times of day when it is convenient to change :)) to get clean!
As I wanted to get back to Bishkek, I took a 4wd back to Karakol rather than walk down the final valley, it was the only part of the trek accessable by road, the only short cut possible to take! :)
The days spent in Bishkek were enjoyable, and after I got my Uzbek visa I took a share-taxi to Osh, an impressive 10 hour drive that goes over two mountain passes.
"
Writing the date I think I realise that the Olympics have been and gone- who knew they would come and go with such little impact (on me!)! After all these years of build up!
I am at a campsite between Altyn Arashan and Ala Kol lake... just over the Ala Kol pass. Today's walk, day 2 of the trek, was arduos- uphill nearly all the way and over at 3860m pass. At the moment it's 5:30pm and 12 degrees, the daily max/ min so far has been 31/6... 6 being at the top of the pass! (Florian had temp recording device).
I am rather exhausted! And getting ready for another cold night! The lake was amazing, a blue aqua colour you don't seem to see in Australia, it is glacial so maybe that has something to do with it? We had lunch there and afterwards the weather started to look bad- banks of clouds on the mountains and thunder rumbles, but we did not get rained on and now the tent's up it's OK if it rains a little. (which it did :) )
I was lucky to find Flo to walk with, we were sitting around outside at Yak House and we was saying how he wanted to go hiking but needed a tent, and I said I have a tent and I need a friend! and voila! We also walked with these two Czech guys (for the first two days) who are really nice.
"
Altyn Arashan was really nice, an alpine valley with forest, mountain views and stream. The walk there was easy after the previous two days! There are a few hot spring sanatoium places there, and I had a hot bath in a wooden chack by the stream. It was very good after three days of walking and not changing clothes(too cold at the times of day when it is convenient to change :)) to get clean!
As I wanted to get back to Bishkek, I took a 4wd back to Karakol rather than walk down the final valley, it was the only part of the trek accessable by road, the only short cut possible to take! :)
The days spent in Bishkek were enjoyable, and after I got my Uzbek visa I took a share-taxi to Osh, an impressive 10 hour drive that goes over two mountain passes.
Lake Song-Kol
OK, so it is hard to keep up with this blog, but I have been making traditional ol' diary notes along the way... haven't had a huge amount of internet time and when I do a certain person tends to hog it :). Now I am in Delhi, and this day seems like a good day to relax, not do much, and wait until Mum and Dad arrive this evening! I have crossed two country borders in last three days and there hasn't been much down time!
Anyways.... Kyrgyzstan, which I have finally learnt to spell, was really really cool!
I went to this Lake called Lake Song-Kol which is up in a big 'jailoo'- summer herding pasture... I know why they only stay for summer, it is at an altitude of 3000m and in August it was pretty chilly there!
It was very beautiful- big blue lake in a yellow valley...There were yurtas all around the lake which was huge- takes three days to ride a horse around apparently, and we stayed in a family yurt-stay organised by Community Based Tourism. I was with two Italians and one Spanish, all avid photographers! They took much nicer photos that me, which I consider slightly unfair as we went to the same place! :)
We saw edelweiss growing in abundance, horses being milked!, and loads of seagulls though we were as far as any sea as you could get probably!
The Yurt-stay family made us fish from the lake, which was a nice change! They also had fantastic ultra fresh bread- which they call nan and it is a it like naan, and the most delicious apricot jam!
I tried Kymys, fermented horse milk, which I thought would be like airag- the fermented horse milk in Mongolia, but it was totally different! Airag is clear and has been distilled, so it is more like vodka... well not really but Baga, our horseman at the 8 lakes Ger-crawl called it Mongol vodka! I could drink a few cups most of the times, it wasn't strong in alcohol, though the flavour varied...
Kymys on the other hand, is a full bodied milky drink... and has a VERY POWERFUL flavour! It is hard to convey how strong the taste is (not alcholically but... cheese-ily). I could only drink the tiniest sip and definitly not finish the cup! Horse milk is very sour, I guess there's a reason we drink cow-dairy products!
The people at Song-Kol are semi-nomadic, meaning they move basically from summer to winter... using the high pastures in summer and low in winter... I think that's what it means anyway!
Anyways.... Kyrgyzstan, which I have finally learnt to spell, was really really cool!
I went to this Lake called Lake Song-Kol which is up in a big 'jailoo'- summer herding pasture... I know why they only stay for summer, it is at an altitude of 3000m and in August it was pretty chilly there!
It was very beautiful- big blue lake in a yellow valley...There were yurtas all around the lake which was huge- takes three days to ride a horse around apparently, and we stayed in a family yurt-stay organised by Community Based Tourism. I was with two Italians and one Spanish, all avid photographers! They took much nicer photos that me, which I consider slightly unfair as we went to the same place! :)
We saw edelweiss growing in abundance, horses being milked!, and loads of seagulls though we were as far as any sea as you could get probably!
The Yurt-stay family made us fish from the lake, which was a nice change! They also had fantastic ultra fresh bread- which they call nan and it is a it like naan, and the most delicious apricot jam!
I tried Kymys, fermented horse milk, which I thought would be like airag- the fermented horse milk in Mongolia, but it was totally different! Airag is clear and has been distilled, so it is more like vodka... well not really but Baga, our horseman at the 8 lakes Ger-crawl called it Mongol vodka! I could drink a few cups most of the times, it wasn't strong in alcohol, though the flavour varied...
Kymys on the other hand, is a full bodied milky drink... and has a VERY POWERFUL flavour! It is hard to convey how strong the taste is (not alcholically but... cheese-ily). I could only drink the tiniest sip and definitly not finish the cup! Horse milk is very sour, I guess there's a reason we drink cow-dairy products!
The people at Song-Kol are semi-nomadic, meaning they move basically from summer to winter... using the high pastures in summer and low in winter... I think that's what it means anyway!
Friday, August 15, 2008
Dancing in Kyrgyzstan at an Afghan-Turkish wedding!
Yesterday standing outside the Uzbekistan embassy, a fantastic opportunity came up, and I had to admit that SOME good comes out of visa applications. In Kazakhstan in the hell that was trying to get a Chinese visa (for Liam) during the Olympics, (or rather trying to get into the Chinese embassy to get a Chinese visa during the Olympics... which proved just as impossible), we made friends with a very nice Australian/British couple who are cycling from London to Australia, and met up with them lots while in Almaty for coffee, drinks, dinner, and chats.
The man I talked to outside the Uzbek embassy was from Afghanistan, but he and his entire family had lived in diverse places like Germany, India, and Australia for over 15 years. He himself lived in Germany for 9 years, and Kyrgyzstan for the last 4, and hopes to go to Australia. I'm not exactly sure what relation he was to the bride and groom (presumably groom, as the groom was Afghan), but he was in the closer circle of the few hundred people at the wedding and just randomly invited me as we chatted outside the embassy. I mentioned that I had 2 friends, and so he invited them too!
Zaymai picked us up at 5, and then we drove around "looking for the wedding". Since we got to the stan's, and even in Olgii in Mongolia, we have seen a ridiculous amount of weddings, it is obviously the season for this sort of thing (wouldn't fancy a winter wedding in this neck of the woods!). Weddings are especially conspicuous cause people drive around town in a big chain of cars decorated with colourful streamers, balloons, flowers etc, honking their horns alot!
Zalmai didn't know where the wedding was ... at that moment... it turned out it hadn't started yet, we drove out to the Turkish district a bit out of town and joined the wedding from the beginning. At first we loaded into a mini an with our own travelling band, playing loud beaty Turkish music with some kind of flutey horny thing, and a drum...we arrived at the grooms house drank some vodka outside, and nibbled on some food laid outside the door, and then out came the groom and everyone started dancing outside the door (at this point the party was maybe 15 people including us).... then we walked down the road and women from the brides family, including her mother were walking to meet us and dancing along the road .... all the while the band was playing and walking... and we all walked behind... back to the brides home... I think we seemed to pick up a few people as we went too, as by the time the bride came out of her house, we were about 10 cars loads... one of which was a limo, the rest followed behind, honking and yelling all the way back into town...
we went to a park for photos, and then the band started playing again and the women of the brides family started doing a dance...fingers linked and kind of going round in a circle... then the men started dancing, and my, they were AMAZING! (blushes) ;)
Randomly we stopped again, danced again, and they pulled a briefcase of flat fried bread and a whole chicken from the limo which was shared around, everyone getting a small bit of chicken and bread... tried to find out the meaning of the tradition... something to do with a good marriage.. ? ! :).
By this stage Lenore and I had been pulled up for a women's dance, liam and I randomly got made to dance around too (I was having a laugh cause they pulled Liam up to dance on his own and the next thing I know I'm pushed in myself!... Thank goodness Zalmai and his girlfriend came and danced with us too!).
Then Liam had a bit of a dance off with this guy whose name was told to me but I;ve forgotten... anyway this guy was definitely cool! He was a fantastic dancer and had been dancing since about 5:30, full on leaping around and jigging it to the band when we were waiting for the groom and walking around the neighbourhood even no one else was dancing!
Liam did a pretty good job too :)....
Anyway, by this stage our uncertainly about whether there would be alcohol at the wedding (being Muslims) had been answered, the vodka shots were flowing and when we arrived at the brides home again it was packed with around 200+ people sitting at long tressle tables in a tent in the backyard. The tables were covered in food and strategically placed bottles of soft drink and vodka... The food we were informed, was not dinner though.... (salami, cheese, bread, fruit, sweets, biscuits, chicken)...
There was a stage in the middle of the tables and people danced alot... when the women danced people came up and put money in their hands which was all put into a suitcase at the end of each song... presumably to give to the happy couple... who did not dance at all while we were there (we had to leave at midnight... but the party was just getting started then!)
When the bride and groom came out they enacted some kind of story, the bride had a big veil on and wouldn't remove it, and acted all upset and made crying gestures, and the groom did this dance with knives around her... then all these people came up and gave money and when there was enough money she took off her veil, but then she stood there while people danced around her and more money flowed in (given to the dancers) and eventually they went together to the special table on the stage for them... with a huge cake, but it looked lonely up there to me!
All in all it was an amazing experience... The music was Loud, 'BIG', Turkish sounding, and all live (more musicians now, and keyboards and singers too... the dancing was cool, I felt very privileged to share the experience! In the end we got up on stage and said a few words in the microphone and the we had to dance, but the music they put on for us was this wierd pop, and I had no idea how to dance to it, (couldn't do the whole pseudo turkish dance we did before!)... after a few awkward minutes we were joined by some of the younger crowd... phew! (you feel very exposed up there on the stage!)
We left at 12 as our guest house had a curfew (of 12), which we were late for, oops, but the party was just getting rolling... the Plov had only come out at 11:30 and it was delicious, as was the beautifully spiced meat soup we had at around 10:30-11... It had been cooking since 5:30 when I saw they lady putting the meat into four huge (and I mean huge) woks, each with it's own fireplace beneath it. They killed four goats so I presume one wok, one goat!
Zalmai was beyond driving (shooting 40% vodka does that to you, needed the soft drink chasers for these!), and we asked to get a taxi, but the family got a guest who was a taxi driver to drive us home as a favour, which we paid for, but it was a very nice thing to do as he had to come all the way back afterwards. Probably for this reason, he hadn't been drinking (much at least), which I was gald of, as I was starting to wonder how Zalmai was going to drive us home!
So yeah, that was my awesome, bizarre party evening last night at an Afghan-Turkish wedding in Kyrgyzstan (although I suspect it was more Turkish as the brides family organised the wedding but Zalmai said many traditions overlapped).
The man I talked to outside the Uzbek embassy was from Afghanistan, but he and his entire family had lived in diverse places like Germany, India, and Australia for over 15 years. He himself lived in Germany for 9 years, and Kyrgyzstan for the last 4, and hopes to go to Australia. I'm not exactly sure what relation he was to the bride and groom (presumably groom, as the groom was Afghan), but he was in the closer circle of the few hundred people at the wedding and just randomly invited me as we chatted outside the embassy. I mentioned that I had 2 friends, and so he invited them too!
Zaymai picked us up at 5, and then we drove around "looking for the wedding". Since we got to the stan's, and even in Olgii in Mongolia, we have seen a ridiculous amount of weddings, it is obviously the season for this sort of thing (wouldn't fancy a winter wedding in this neck of the woods!). Weddings are especially conspicuous cause people drive around town in a big chain of cars decorated with colourful streamers, balloons, flowers etc, honking their horns alot!
Zalmai didn't know where the wedding was ... at that moment... it turned out it hadn't started yet, we drove out to the Turkish district a bit out of town and joined the wedding from the beginning. At first we loaded into a mini an with our own travelling band, playing loud beaty Turkish music with some kind of flutey horny thing, and a drum...we arrived at the grooms house drank some vodka outside, and nibbled on some food laid outside the door, and then out came the groom and everyone started dancing outside the door (at this point the party was maybe 15 people including us).... then we walked down the road and women from the brides family, including her mother were walking to meet us and dancing along the road .... all the while the band was playing and walking... and we all walked behind... back to the brides home... I think we seemed to pick up a few people as we went too, as by the time the bride came out of her house, we were about 10 cars loads... one of which was a limo, the rest followed behind, honking and yelling all the way back into town...
we went to a park for photos, and then the band started playing again and the women of the brides family started doing a dance...fingers linked and kind of going round in a circle... then the men started dancing, and my, they were AMAZING! (blushes) ;)
Randomly we stopped again, danced again, and they pulled a briefcase of flat fried bread and a whole chicken from the limo which was shared around, everyone getting a small bit of chicken and bread... tried to find out the meaning of the tradition... something to do with a good marriage.. ? ! :).
By this stage Lenore and I had been pulled up for a women's dance, liam and I randomly got made to dance around too (I was having a laugh cause they pulled Liam up to dance on his own and the next thing I know I'm pushed in myself!... Thank goodness Zalmai and his girlfriend came and danced with us too!).
Then Liam had a bit of a dance off with this guy whose name was told to me but I;ve forgotten... anyway this guy was definitely cool! He was a fantastic dancer and had been dancing since about 5:30, full on leaping around and jigging it to the band when we were waiting for the groom and walking around the neighbourhood even no one else was dancing!
Liam did a pretty good job too :)....
Anyway, by this stage our uncertainly about whether there would be alcohol at the wedding (being Muslims) had been answered, the vodka shots were flowing and when we arrived at the brides home again it was packed with around 200+ people sitting at long tressle tables in a tent in the backyard. The tables were covered in food and strategically placed bottles of soft drink and vodka... The food we were informed, was not dinner though.... (salami, cheese, bread, fruit, sweets, biscuits, chicken)...
There was a stage in the middle of the tables and people danced alot... when the women danced people came up and put money in their hands which was all put into a suitcase at the end of each song... presumably to give to the happy couple... who did not dance at all while we were there (we had to leave at midnight... but the party was just getting started then!)
When the bride and groom came out they enacted some kind of story, the bride had a big veil on and wouldn't remove it, and acted all upset and made crying gestures, and the groom did this dance with knives around her... then all these people came up and gave money and when there was enough money she took off her veil, but then she stood there while people danced around her and more money flowed in (given to the dancers) and eventually they went together to the special table on the stage for them... with a huge cake, but it looked lonely up there to me!
All in all it was an amazing experience... The music was Loud, 'BIG', Turkish sounding, and all live (more musicians now, and keyboards and singers too... the dancing was cool, I felt very privileged to share the experience! In the end we got up on stage and said a few words in the microphone and the we had to dance, but the music they put on for us was this wierd pop, and I had no idea how to dance to it, (couldn't do the whole pseudo turkish dance we did before!)... after a few awkward minutes we were joined by some of the younger crowd... phew! (you feel very exposed up there on the stage!)
We left at 12 as our guest house had a curfew (of 12), which we were late for, oops, but the party was just getting rolling... the Plov had only come out at 11:30 and it was delicious, as was the beautifully spiced meat soup we had at around 10:30-11... It had been cooking since 5:30 when I saw they lady putting the meat into four huge (and I mean huge) woks, each with it's own fireplace beneath it. They killed four goats so I presume one wok, one goat!
Zalmai was beyond driving (shooting 40% vodka does that to you, needed the soft drink chasers for these!), and we asked to get a taxi, but the family got a guest who was a taxi driver to drive us home as a favour, which we paid for, but it was a very nice thing to do as he had to come all the way back afterwards. Probably for this reason, he hadn't been drinking (much at least), which I was gald of, as I was starting to wonder how Zalmai was going to drive us home!
So yeah, that was my awesome, bizarre party evening last night at an Afghan-Turkish wedding in Kyrgyzstan (although I suspect it was more Turkish as the brides family organised the wedding but Zalmai said many traditions overlapped).
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Kazakhstan
I write now from Bishkek, the capital of Kyrzgystan... where I most relied to be, and not in Kazakhstan anymore... where we didn't have good luck at all. It is harsh to blame it on the country itself (well entirely on the country itself)... some things just happen, but many experiences of Kazakhstan were intensly frustrating.
I, (and only half in jest), commented one day, that you would not want to be suicidal in Kazakhstan, as trying to get through just about any 'process' at all, would have you reaching for your knife before you a) reach the front of the queue, or b) never reach the front of the queue.
So I guess story number one is how we arrived in kazakhstan... for 7 days prior to our flight out of Mongolia, Lenore had been mentioning a pain in her side, first as an abdominal sort of gassey pain, (at this point Liam and I both sugested appendicitis as a possibility and suggested the doctor as we happened to be in a town... but she refused, being a stubborn bearer of pain... and so we left twon for the remote Altai region that borders Russia and China)... and later the pain beacem stabbing, and when we got back from climbing mountains in super remote areas, she visited the hospital in Olgii.
They ultra sounded her, and said it's appendicitis, lets operate now! The hospital was less sanitary than standard dorm rooms around here, and a little hysterically, Lenore laughed and said, can it wait 2 days?
Our visa's expired the next day, and we had flights to Ust Kamenogorsk aka Oskemon the next day too. In hind sight it was a bit irresponsible, despite legal issues of staying in the country. The doctors looked at her like she was crazy, and prescribed some super strong anti inflammatory antibiotics, which she had to have injected (by Liam) in her bum every 8 hours. Then we flew to Kazakstan, and not getting onwards flights the following day, Liam and Lenore waited another 24 hours for a flight from Oskemon to Almaty....
At this point, lenore is so much pain she can barely walk, (I was stuck in Ust Kamenogorsk for a few days waiting for a bus), we were extremely worried!
Liam and Lenore went directly from the airport to International SOS, a private international standards clinic, and the night doctor diagnosed her with appendicitis, called in the English speaking doctor Dr Heinrich, from South Africa, who said yep, it's definitly appendicitis, who makes her an appoitntment at the hospital for a surgical consult. After 3 medical diagnoses (and our own internet/no experience diagnosis) , the surgeon comes in, finds out she was in Mongolia, did you eat meat?, you've got an intestinal infection and travellors diarrhoea, and gives her some medication and sends her home!
Surprise surprise, the next day the diarrhoea is gone, but the stabbin pain in the side hasn't. Dr Heinrich calls and finds out, and rings another hospital, around 24 hours after Liam and Lenore saw him last. The surgeon in the next hospital gets right on the case and within half and hour she's on the operating table! By this stage it has been 10 days on her saying she ahd a pain... yesterday we met someone whose friend's appendix burst after less than 48 hours of noticing pain.... She was very very VERY lucky! ( OK, so maybe Kazakhstan was a lucky place?? )
Yeah... so meanwhile, the next 10 days we spend in Almaty.... meeting people with stories to tell (and there ALOT of those stories here... passports stolen, passports melting (both these people have had to end their trip and go home :(!), people denied exit from the country at the last minute at the airport due to the lack of a stamp (wouldv'e happened to us too...), people trying to get through China on a bike before winter, but being denied entry to the Chinese embassy let alone get a visa and cross the borders which are allegedly closed... (alot of frustration stories reoled arount eh Chinese border actually, or the russian border, or... : ) )
So we sit around in the only cheap place to stay in town, the 4th floor of a Univerisity dorm, which is sort of a hotel... and complain, and subsist on kebabs and self cater cause Almaty is so expensive, and WAIT (everyone was waiting for something, and everyone wanted to leave!)!
I have more to write about Kazakhstan, but right now I'm off for lunch!
I, (and only half in jest), commented one day, that you would not want to be suicidal in Kazakhstan, as trying to get through just about any 'process' at all, would have you reaching for your knife before you a) reach the front of the queue, or b) never reach the front of the queue.
So I guess story number one is how we arrived in kazakhstan... for 7 days prior to our flight out of Mongolia, Lenore had been mentioning a pain in her side, first as an abdominal sort of gassey pain, (at this point Liam and I both sugested appendicitis as a possibility and suggested the doctor as we happened to be in a town... but she refused, being a stubborn bearer of pain... and so we left twon for the remote Altai region that borders Russia and China)... and later the pain beacem stabbing, and when we got back from climbing mountains in super remote areas, she visited the hospital in Olgii.
They ultra sounded her, and said it's appendicitis, lets operate now! The hospital was less sanitary than standard dorm rooms around here, and a little hysterically, Lenore laughed and said, can it wait 2 days?
Our visa's expired the next day, and we had flights to Ust Kamenogorsk aka Oskemon the next day too. In hind sight it was a bit irresponsible, despite legal issues of staying in the country. The doctors looked at her like she was crazy, and prescribed some super strong anti inflammatory antibiotics, which she had to have injected (by Liam) in her bum every 8 hours. Then we flew to Kazakstan, and not getting onwards flights the following day, Liam and Lenore waited another 24 hours for a flight from Oskemon to Almaty....
At this point, lenore is so much pain she can barely walk, (I was stuck in Ust Kamenogorsk for a few days waiting for a bus), we were extremely worried!
Liam and Lenore went directly from the airport to International SOS, a private international standards clinic, and the night doctor diagnosed her with appendicitis, called in the English speaking doctor Dr Heinrich, from South Africa, who said yep, it's definitly appendicitis, who makes her an appoitntment at the hospital for a surgical consult. After 3 medical diagnoses (and our own internet/no experience diagnosis) , the surgeon comes in, finds out she was in Mongolia, did you eat meat?, you've got an intestinal infection and travellors diarrhoea, and gives her some medication and sends her home!
Surprise surprise, the next day the diarrhoea is gone, but the stabbin pain in the side hasn't. Dr Heinrich calls and finds out, and rings another hospital, around 24 hours after Liam and Lenore saw him last. The surgeon in the next hospital gets right on the case and within half and hour she's on the operating table! By this stage it has been 10 days on her saying she ahd a pain... yesterday we met someone whose friend's appendix burst after less than 48 hours of noticing pain.... She was very very VERY lucky! ( OK, so maybe Kazakhstan was a lucky place?? )
Yeah... so meanwhile, the next 10 days we spend in Almaty.... meeting people with stories to tell (and there ALOT of those stories here... passports stolen, passports melting (both these people have had to end their trip and go home :(!), people denied exit from the country at the last minute at the airport due to the lack of a stamp (wouldv'e happened to us too...), people trying to get through China on a bike before winter, but being denied entry to the Chinese embassy let alone get a visa and cross the borders which are allegedly closed... (alot of frustration stories reoled arount eh Chinese border actually, or the russian border, or... : ) )
So we sit around in the only cheap place to stay in town, the 4th floor of a Univerisity dorm, which is sort of a hotel... and complain, and subsist on kebabs and self cater cause Almaty is so expensive, and WAIT (everyone was waiting for something, and everyone wanted to leave!)!
I have more to write about Kazakhstan, but right now I'm off for lunch!
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Mongolia!!!!!! Part 3!
By this stage I am up to writing... more amazing scenery out the window, more eagles, more camels, more desert plains, more alpine valleys, more green steppe, more nights camped under the stars, more bowls of tuna and pasta for dinner.... :) The trip continued to be very cool as we journeyed across the North!
New developements included flat tyres, salt lakes, sand dunes and a few meals in Guanz (small restaurants) where we got Tsuivan- fried dough and meat,or meat with rice and mabe a fried egg.
Oh yeah and there were the wolves... :). One night our drier pointed off into the sand dunes and made woo woo wooooo wolf noises, that night I woke up and I could hear wolves howling in the (hopefully) distance! I heard then quite a lot at night for the second half of the trip!
We stopped at Uvs Nuur which was cool- an enormous salty lake (looks like the sea as you can't really see the other side), which is 5 time saltier than the ocean. It was hot and we were in the desert, and swimming was irresistable! Lenore and I had walked a bit from the an, and didn't have our things with us, but just went in in tops and undies, possibly scaring off Michael, (our 4ths person in the van, who seems to have issues with the female form), by the time we'd laid around and had lunch our clothes were dry anyway! That was a fun afternoon!
Then we stayed with a family in a mountain valley (Turgen Uul) in their Ger for two nights, as it was chilly at night in that area and uncomfortable sitting around in the evening outside. The family told us they only stay in the valley in summer, and even then, at night I had my long johns, merino wool layers and beanie on!
Gers are amazingly insulated- something to do with thick layers of felt I think! We did a day hike up to see a glacier and get a view of the mountains, which was fun, but we took a hard route up this hill covered in scree, which was not easy walking! the return journey in the bottom of the valley took 1-2 hours, whereas going there took maybe 5!
This family was really lovely, and they especially warmed to us after I gave the kids textas and colouring in books. We got to try camel yoghurt, (even though they were goat herders, they somehow had camel yoghurt), which was really really nice! I took loads of photos, the boys especialy were showing off on their horses and promised to post them some, must do that soon!
On the way from this valley to Olgii, the main centre of west Mongolia, we had an interesting river experience. Some rain earlier and snow on the hills had made all the streams full of water, and we'd had a few hairy crossings but the most show stopping was when we got to a river that went over the road. It was clearly the only place for miles to cross, as there was a bit of a bank up of traffic waiting at this spot to cross ( a few cars a two trucks). The trucks had a long wait on their hands I'd say, as the river was full and flowing fast, and the snow'd keep melting for days...
We wouldn't have made it if an enterprising local with a tractor hadn't been there monooplising the river crossing business! He towed us across, which was ScAREY, you could feel the water pushing us around and it was coming in the doors! We made it, and the engine still started, but the next jeep across in oposite direction was not so lucky, they had like 15 people in a 5 seater jeep, and got stuck on a rock in the middle, I suspect it was the jeep drivers fault, he seemed a little drunk! There would have been lots of water in their car!
The final bit of Mongolia was our excursion to the Altai National Park, which 'straddles' the border with both China and Russia :) . (I like the word straddle... it has a kind of cool sound).
It was very much sound of musicness there, green valleys and hills, snowy peaks- which were just beautiful...we did an overnight hike to the base camp of Tavan Bogd, and hiked to the Russian border, to get a cool view of the Altai peaks of the Russian side... and on our way back to Olgii we stopped at a Kazakh family ger for the night. They were also amazingly friendly and made us beshbamak- a kazakh dish of meat and pasta sheets which was delicious.
The western region of Mongolia is mainly Kazakh and Olgii was very different to other towns we went through. The people dressed more like central Asia- head scares, and felt fez-like hats for the men, and the Ger's are decorated with the most beautiful embroidered wall hangings and felt carptets. This area is more traditional-Kazakh than Kazakhstan, where nomadism was stamped out by Stalin.
yeah, the ending of Mongolia you know from the Appednicitis post, we evacutaed with a medical emergency!
New developements included flat tyres, salt lakes, sand dunes and a few meals in Guanz (small restaurants) where we got Tsuivan- fried dough and meat,or meat with rice and mabe a fried egg.
Oh yeah and there were the wolves... :). One night our drier pointed off into the sand dunes and made woo woo wooooo wolf noises, that night I woke up and I could hear wolves howling in the (hopefully) distance! I heard then quite a lot at night for the second half of the trip!
We stopped at Uvs Nuur which was cool- an enormous salty lake (looks like the sea as you can't really see the other side), which is 5 time saltier than the ocean. It was hot and we were in the desert, and swimming was irresistable! Lenore and I had walked a bit from the an, and didn't have our things with us, but just went in in tops and undies, possibly scaring off Michael, (our 4ths person in the van, who seems to have issues with the female form), by the time we'd laid around and had lunch our clothes were dry anyway! That was a fun afternoon!
Then we stayed with a family in a mountain valley (Turgen Uul) in their Ger for two nights, as it was chilly at night in that area and uncomfortable sitting around in the evening outside. The family told us they only stay in the valley in summer, and even then, at night I had my long johns, merino wool layers and beanie on!
Gers are amazingly insulated- something to do with thick layers of felt I think! We did a day hike up to see a glacier and get a view of the mountains, which was fun, but we took a hard route up this hill covered in scree, which was not easy walking! the return journey in the bottom of the valley took 1-2 hours, whereas going there took maybe 5!
This family was really lovely, and they especially warmed to us after I gave the kids textas and colouring in books. We got to try camel yoghurt, (even though they were goat herders, they somehow had camel yoghurt), which was really really nice! I took loads of photos, the boys especialy were showing off on their horses and promised to post them some, must do that soon!
On the way from this valley to Olgii, the main centre of west Mongolia, we had an interesting river experience. Some rain earlier and snow on the hills had made all the streams full of water, and we'd had a few hairy crossings but the most show stopping was when we got to a river that went over the road. It was clearly the only place for miles to cross, as there was a bit of a bank up of traffic waiting at this spot to cross ( a few cars a two trucks). The trucks had a long wait on their hands I'd say, as the river was full and flowing fast, and the snow'd keep melting for days...
We wouldn't have made it if an enterprising local with a tractor hadn't been there monooplising the river crossing business! He towed us across, which was ScAREY, you could feel the water pushing us around and it was coming in the doors! We made it, and the engine still started, but the next jeep across in oposite direction was not so lucky, they had like 15 people in a 5 seater jeep, and got stuck on a rock in the middle, I suspect it was the jeep drivers fault, he seemed a little drunk! There would have been lots of water in their car!
The final bit of Mongolia was our excursion to the Altai National Park, which 'straddles' the border with both China and Russia :) . (I like the word straddle... it has a kind of cool sound).
It was very much sound of musicness there, green valleys and hills, snowy peaks- which were just beautiful...we did an overnight hike to the base camp of Tavan Bogd, and hiked to the Russian border, to get a cool view of the Altai peaks of the Russian side... and on our way back to Olgii we stopped at a Kazakh family ger for the night. They were also amazingly friendly and made us beshbamak- a kazakh dish of meat and pasta sheets which was delicious.
The western region of Mongolia is mainly Kazakh and Olgii was very different to other towns we went through. The people dressed more like central Asia- head scares, and felt fez-like hats for the men, and the Ger's are decorated with the most beautiful embroidered wall hangings and felt carptets. This area is more traditional-Kazakh than Kazakhstan, where nomadism was stamped out by Stalin.
yeah, the ending of Mongolia you know from the Appednicitis post, we evacutaed with a medical emergency!
Mongolia!!!!!!!!!! Part 2
Highlights Part 2!
The Hike through the 8 Lakes region (Naim Nuur)
We got to this region, and spent half a day wandering around the fields and hills around the Ger camp we slept at. Then we had a 4 day hike, (though it wasn't really 4 full days of walking), across these hills and terrain, that our driver couldn't go across, and he met us on the other side 4 days later.
This was our first experience of Airag... it all came about when shortly after we started walking we were hit by rain. Baga, our guide (who had a pack horse too- convenient!), took us into the first Ger we past to shelter and they served us tea and Airag! We had only been walking less than an hour and already we're drinking!
We left this Ger after a while, although the rain started to get heavier as soon as we left! Then it turned into Hail! We walked for about half an hour to an hour in the hail, getting very cold and wet, and then as soon as we got to another Ger all went inside looking very miserable. These people let us take off our saturated clothing and hang them near the stove, and we put on Dels- traditional Mongolian coats. We drank tea, had cheese and more Airag... and hung around for quite a while waiting for the hail to clear... which it eventually did!
The next Ger we came to we had to stop at because for some reason the horse was limping and Baga wanted to stop... so in we all piled to Ger number three and pretty soon we were being offered MORE Airag... we started to joke that it wasn't really a hike we were on, m0re like a Ger crawl!!!
Finally we got walking, over the hills which had snow on top, and down into a gorgeous valley, with the sun shining and a big blue lake surrounded by pine trees!
The second day was pretty much walking through these nice valleys, though the flies were awful! In the evening we stayed up late by the campfire, which was pretty nice. Baga was feeling unwell so we stopped quite early, near some Gers, although we decided to walk away and make our camp some distance from the Gers, while Baga got some TLC inside.
The third day we walked a long way, maybe 25k's who knows, by the time we made it we were running out of water so we asked to camp near a ger so we could drink tea from them. hey offered to make us dinner for a small price, and we agreed not realising that what we had agreed to was MARMOT!!!!!!!! Ai ai! Blowtorched Marmot is a summer speciality in Mongolia and everywhere you could see marmots running around from the van. It was not very nice in my opinion though Lenore and Liam managed to eat most of theirs, I couldn't really stomach mine, and mainly ate rice! The family were all drunk before we even arrived, I went to bed before we could get offered Airag! An drunken elderly man was making advances on me, all in all that family was a little strange compared to other families we visited...
The region was very green and pretty, we didn't see all the lakes, about 4 of them I think!
More Highlights
The Hike through the 8 Lakes region (Naim Nuur)
We got to this region, and spent half a day wandering around the fields and hills around the Ger camp we slept at. Then we had a 4 day hike, (though it wasn't really 4 full days of walking), across these hills and terrain, that our driver couldn't go across, and he met us on the other side 4 days later.
This was our first experience of Airag... it all came about when shortly after we started walking we were hit by rain. Baga, our guide (who had a pack horse too- convenient!), took us into the first Ger we past to shelter and they served us tea and Airag! We had only been walking less than an hour and already we're drinking!
We left this Ger after a while, although the rain started to get heavier as soon as we left! Then it turned into Hail! We walked for about half an hour to an hour in the hail, getting very cold and wet, and then as soon as we got to another Ger all went inside looking very miserable. These people let us take off our saturated clothing and hang them near the stove, and we put on Dels- traditional Mongolian coats. We drank tea, had cheese and more Airag... and hung around for quite a while waiting for the hail to clear... which it eventually did!
The next Ger we came to we had to stop at because for some reason the horse was limping and Baga wanted to stop... so in we all piled to Ger number three and pretty soon we were being offered MORE Airag... we started to joke that it wasn't really a hike we were on, m0re like a Ger crawl!!!
Finally we got walking, over the hills which had snow on top, and down into a gorgeous valley, with the sun shining and a big blue lake surrounded by pine trees!
The second day was pretty much walking through these nice valleys, though the flies were awful! In the evening we stayed up late by the campfire, which was pretty nice. Baga was feeling unwell so we stopped quite early, near some Gers, although we decided to walk away and make our camp some distance from the Gers, while Baga got some TLC inside.
The third day we walked a long way, maybe 25k's who knows, by the time we made it we were running out of water so we asked to camp near a ger so we could drink tea from them. hey offered to make us dinner for a small price, and we agreed not realising that what we had agreed to was MARMOT!!!!!!!! Ai ai! Blowtorched Marmot is a summer speciality in Mongolia and everywhere you could see marmots running around from the van. It was not very nice in my opinion though Lenore and Liam managed to eat most of theirs, I couldn't really stomach mine, and mainly ate rice! The family were all drunk before we even arrived, I went to bed before we could get offered Airag! An drunken elderly man was making advances on me, all in all that family was a little strange compared to other families we visited...
The region was very green and pretty, we didn't see all the lakes, about 4 of them I think!
More Highlights
- Stopping in a town called Tseterleg and having a shower, and eating an English breakfast with bacon, sausage, eggs, bread and jam and pancakes in an English run cafe there. That was a special treat. We also stocked up on Cornish Pasties for the day, and cinnamon scrolls! Luxury!
- Terkhun Tsagaan Nuur: A huge lake in a national park, we spent two nights here. It was warm enough to swim in the lake, and we also went on a horseride to a volcanic crator. Terrain was pretty cool, rocks everywhere probably from the last time the volcano blew up!
Mongolia!!!!!!!!
So I didn't get much internet access in Mongolia (where I was from 2nd July- 31st July) but I did make some journal notes while I was away, which I now have time to write up a bit.. :)
Mongolia was, overall, amazing- we spent 26 days traversing the country in a Russian supervan, with a Mongolian driver who spoke no English, but did an excellent job taking us around. We, thankfully, weren't driving every day, and some days didn't have much driving to do, but we ended up covering over 2000km, on mostly dirt tracks (I'd say less than 80km was on bitumen!), from Ulaanbator, south through the Gobi, then north west up to the top of Mongolia, then south again to Olgii and over to the Altai region.
Highlights: Part One, the Southern section!
Mongolia was, overall, amazing- we spent 26 days traversing the country in a Russian supervan, with a Mongolian driver who spoke no English, but did an excellent job taking us around. We, thankfully, weren't driving every day, and some days didn't have much driving to do, but we ended up covering over 2000km, on mostly dirt tracks (I'd say less than 80km was on bitumen!), from Ulaanbator, south through the Gobi, then north west up to the top of Mongolia, then south again to Olgii and over to the Altai region.
Highlights: Part One, the Southern section!
- 5/7/2008 Day One (after leaving Ulaan Bator): basically everything was exciting this day! The Sheep looked funny and had fat tails :), we saw lots of beautiful demoiselle crane (something I wasn't expexcting to see in Mongolia...but I don't know why as we saw cranes all over!), Gers were still somewhat of a novelty to see on the steppes but we quickly got used to them!, In the evening after we set up camp we experienced a brief but heavy rain storn, and a brief but heavy dust storm, both of which my virgin tent survived, though the wind did rather flatten it!
- Camels! (first spotted on the 6th) and then many times over, in many places on the trip.
- Visiting our driver, Amara,'s home and staying with his family. They made us feel very welcome, and we had our first of many drinking experiences- bowls (not shots!) of vodka were passed around! Later drinking experiences we weren'[t so lucky to get vodka, the alcohol of choice is Airag, which we saw them distilling in one of the Gers we stopped at. Airag is made from fermented horse milk, some of it was alright, and even a bit fruity, some of it was downright awful! Anwway I was very happy that night at Amara's house!
- Gobi desert, we went to the Upper part of the desert which still had a lot of life in it! Heaps of birds, and livestock, we stayed one night in a friend of Amara's Ger which was our first Ger experience and very fun. The colours of the desert were amazing- in one part there was an eroded ancient sea that made cool white cliffs and coloured sands in the desert!
- Gazelles (7/7)!!!!!!! Running fast! In the Gobi desert.
- Being served yoghurt in the Gers. When we arrived at a Ger we'd be given milky tea, cheese (very sharp and crumbly, and a bit sour, generally goats cheese but it all depended on what animals that family kept), this fried dough stuff that you dip in the tea, and either yoghurt or the butter/cream off the top of the milk. I liked the yogurt the best of the dairy products, the cheese was a bit of an aquired taste! ... we got to try Koormog- camel yoghurt one time and it was deliciou, the nicest yoghurt of them all!
- Nadaam festival, which we saw in a tiny town we passed through- we didn't see the whole thing, but watched the wrestling competition. ha ha, very cool! First the young boys wrestled, and then came the big shot.... dressed up in fancy red and blue knickers and waist coats (taht expose their chests to verify they are not women!)... they danced their way into the field waving their arms like birds. They don't have weight categories, so the wrestles were rather like david and goliath, as the challengers had to wrestle last years' champions.... The champions were huge and won all the matches we watched, some of the challengers looked positively scrawny in comparison but were actually quite beefy men.... Sumo wrestling is very popular in Mongolia and I now can see why they are good at it!
Monday, May 19, 2008
In solidarity
No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.
--John Donne
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.
--John Donne
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Chinese Punk
Spent the May Day weekend in Beijing- originally we hoped to go to the Midi Festival, a music festival with Chinese and international bands, but a week before it was cancelled... well actually postponed till October (after the Olympics) by authorities...for no particular reason other than 'security'. A shame as it would be really cool to go to a Chinese music festival!
Who would have thought that just a few days after returning to Jinan, we would discover the so called 'undergound' music scene happening here. From a friend of friend of friend we heard that a 'cool' Beijing band 'Brain Failure' was playing in a bar in Jinan, and thus in search of 'real' non- coreographed culture we went along.
It was really cool- both music and people wise. Discovered the hiding place of the trendies of Jinan, who were really getting into the music. The bar was not a huge one, filled to capacity although given this city has 5 million people I suppose it was relatively uncrowded...definitely not mainstream Chinese taste (which is quite sickly sweet pop) even though I have found out that the band is going to make an international tour some time, so they must have quite a following. Their music was really cool, I don't know if it was really punk or not, some of it was almost reggaeish... anyway... here's some of their lyrics, the song is Coming down to Beijing
How it's so funny, how it's so lovely
How it's so pretty, how it's so junky
All the shit's happening in this city
How did they build it, all the building
It could be survives, in one second
Leave for a week, can't find your home!
Welcoming down to the b.e.i.j.i.n.g.
What you gonna do, what you gonna listen
What you gonna search, what you gonna check
Buy a DVD, back your home drink Coca-Cola on your bed!
Hey, baby you come on in July and December
It's not the good time for real human being
Hey baby you can light your
Phoenix cigarettes in the toilet
Welcoming down to the b.e.i.j.i.n.g.
Anyway, in other news I am still well- had a great trip to Beijing- went to see some art, shopping, ate some alternative food like Thai, mexican, burgers, (now I'm back on the rice :P ), experienced the nightlife a little, ..... now I'm back, studies coming along, playing a bit a mah jong in the afternoons these days, time flying by, Alex has booked tickets to come to China for 13th June which will creep up in no time!
If you get on facebook you should be able to see some photos' of the 80's birthday party Portia had, just before we went to Beijing. It was fantastic! Costumes were so easy to come by as all the fashion is 80's here anyway, and as clothes are so cheap in the markets everyone got really into it. We went to a restaurant all dressed up, we hope people realised we were dressed up as we looked pretty ridiculous! Then afterwards we took a heap of 80's playlists to Languifang, a kind of cool kind of lame bar mainly frequented by ...well us...and got the DJ there to play our stuff... which was pretty fun. It's the sort of thing you could never do back home, but here we can have our very own 80's danceclub. :)
Also it is now getting warmer here- last week was all hot days, although today it's only 22 again. Funny though, the Chinese people I see wear so many clothes for a 30 degree day. I seems no one wears shorts and skirts, and when I looked around on the streets heaps of people still had two layers on, with long sleeves. It's was only April, but 30 degrees in 30 degrees!
Who would have thought that just a few days after returning to Jinan, we would discover the so called 'undergound' music scene happening here. From a friend of friend of friend we heard that a 'cool' Beijing band 'Brain Failure' was playing in a bar in Jinan, and thus in search of 'real' non- coreographed culture we went along.
It was really cool- both music and people wise. Discovered the hiding place of the trendies of Jinan, who were really getting into the music. The bar was not a huge one, filled to capacity although given this city has 5 million people I suppose it was relatively uncrowded...definitely not mainstream Chinese taste (which is quite sickly sweet pop) even though I have found out that the band is going to make an international tour some time, so they must have quite a following. Their music was really cool, I don't know if it was really punk or not, some of it was almost reggaeish... anyway... here's some of their lyrics, the song is Coming down to Beijing
How it's so funny, how it's so lovely
How it's so pretty, how it's so junky
All the shit's happening in this city
How did they build it, all the building
It could be survives, in one second
Leave for a week, can't find your home!
Welcoming down to the b.e.i.j.i.n.g.
What you gonna do, what you gonna listen
What you gonna search, what you gonna check
Buy a DVD, back your home drink Coca-Cola on your bed!
Hey, baby you come on in July and December
It's not the good time for real human being
Hey baby you can light your
Phoenix cigarettes in the toilet
Welcoming down to the b.e.i.j.i.n.g.
Anyway, in other news I am still well- had a great trip to Beijing- went to see some art, shopping, ate some alternative food like Thai, mexican, burgers, (now I'm back on the rice :P ), experienced the nightlife a little, ..... now I'm back, studies coming along, playing a bit a mah jong in the afternoons these days, time flying by, Alex has booked tickets to come to China for 13th June which will creep up in no time!
If you get on facebook you should be able to see some photos' of the 80's birthday party Portia had, just before we went to Beijing. It was fantastic! Costumes were so easy to come by as all the fashion is 80's here anyway, and as clothes are so cheap in the markets everyone got really into it. We went to a restaurant all dressed up, we hope people realised we were dressed up as we looked pretty ridiculous! Then afterwards we took a heap of 80's playlists to Languifang, a kind of cool kind of lame bar mainly frequented by ...well us...and got the DJ there to play our stuff... which was pretty fun. It's the sort of thing you could never do back home, but here we can have our very own 80's danceclub. :)
Also it is now getting warmer here- last week was all hot days, although today it's only 22 again. Funny though, the Chinese people I see wear so many clothes for a 30 degree day. I seems no one wears shorts and skirts, and when I looked around on the streets heaps of people still had two layers on, with long sleeves. It's was only April, but 30 degrees in 30 degrees!
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Lost in the misty lovely Lushan
My lapse is correspondance, oh faithful and complaining readers, can be attributed to me having a good, busy time here in China. Classes, eating, gym, mahjong, excursions, friends, long distance boyfriend :), did I say eating..., seem to take up so much of my time. It has been 3 weeks since I spent a weekend in Jinan!
I feel I should blog in chronological order, but so many things have gone by now that I'll never get it in order! So I will start from today :).
At the moment I am on a bit of an adventure in "the South". Finding myself with a week (practically- if I skipped two days of class) free o travel, I arranged with Portia and Olivia to travel around Jiangxi for a bit. It's day 5 of a 9 day trip, and we are now down to two people. We got to know Nanchang, the capital of Jianxi and our port of arrival, better than expected, especially the Number One People's Hospital, as poor Olivia was really sick, in the end she was diagnosed with pneumonia and flew to Beijing (being unable to get train or plane tickets back to Jinan) to get treated. From what we're hearing, she's in a practically luxurious hospital where all the nurses speak english, and hopefully getting better- I think it's much better for her there than traipsing round the wet province of Jiangxi.
Ironically, our plan was to come south and get some warmth, but it's colder here than in Jinan- mostly due to the wetness I think.
There were alot of (medical, culinary, wierd Nationalistic frenzy...) adventures in Nanchang, but first today... When we finally left Nanchang (yesterday), we arrived in Lushan, a mountainous national park area, which is certainly an escape from the usual China. I can breathe again!!!!
We found a lovely sweet homestead- a restaurant with some rooms up top to stay in, which didn't break the budget. We went in there when it was pouring with rain, and they were a but wary to take us in, as they weren't authorised to take foreigners, but we put our poor student faces on and they let us stay. If anyone asks we are eating in the restaurant :). We went out walking in the afternoon, it wa so good to be in nature again! There are lots of pine, bamboo, sort of forests around here. The town itself has an English quaintness and was built in the colonial era as a summer retreat from the heat. It's all cobbley, and higgledy piggledy stone houses with forest and clear running streams.
We went walking up a random path into the woods and ran into a village woman, who was amazed and delighted that we could speak chinese. She asked if we were married (no), then how old are you (21-portia), that's still young, (24- me), then you can get married!, How many children can you have in your country ("Suibian sheng"= whatever/ as you like), that's great, you should get married quickly then and have babies! We were in hysterics at this- she had such a straight forward pushy mannor to her, her first words to us were something along the lines of "What the hell are you doing walking up here- there's nothing to see!"
Last night we went to see "Love in Lushan", a Chinese classic of 1980- although the graphics looked more 1950's to us! It had the guniness world record for screening the continuously since it was released in one cinema- the cute one here in the town. We took a bottle of red wine and had night out at the movies. Ahhh, warning: the next paragraph is a semi-literary analysis for you, :)...it was quite enjoyable and interesting actually(if you take a poltical perspective). I could understand mos tof the chinese! It was about a chinese american woman, whose parents were in Nationalist army and fled China, who returns to Lushan, their home, and falls in love with a good simple local boy, whose mother lives on the mountain, and father is a general. The modern American woman is the pursuer, the Chinese man is the innocent, oblivious one. She teaches him how to pronounce, in english, "I love my Motherland, I love the morning of my motherland", and she falls in love with the motherland too. In the end it turns out their fathers were friends that fought eachother as they joined separate parties. Very 1980's politics about all Chinese being welcome in the motherland now, and China developing- in one scene the man had drawn a sketch of the scenery, and inserted a town where there was none, imagining the development of the future- this part of the film had us in hysterics.
Today was another big adventure in the woods, we decided to walk to this waterfall "San Die Quan". Our guesthouse owners said it was impossible, and not "fun", but since we got here- in the drizzly weather everyone kept saying going into the woods was "not fun". We have raincoats, waterproof shoes, and so far it had all been fun! We started walking, and stopped in the village to ask directions for the start of the path, "no no no, you can't walk to there, you won't be able to find the way, take a taxi...", and another time with the same result....but on the map there was a path so we started following a path into the forest which seemed to fit with the map.
Gosh it seemed no one wanted us to go for a walk!
We walked for quite a while and ended up on this path going along a ridge. We had very little visability, being stuck in a bit of a cloud. The further we walked the worse the paths became, blocked by trees, bushes, all the bushes were wet from the cloud condensing around us, and pretty soon we were heaps wet too from pushing past them, climbing thrugh them, basically bush bashing, although we sort of thought we were still on a path to the waterfall.
The further we walked (and wetter we became), the less convinced we were that we were on a path, and more that we were imagining gaps in the trees and bushes etc. I thought it would be impossible to get lost in the wilderness in China, but I think today, if at one point we didn't admit defeat and turn back, we could have. Later we saw the ridge the direction we were walking in and laughed, we were just bashing about in the middle of nowhere!
Turning back we found a path we thought went to "another place".... by this stage I had managed to loose both the map and an expensive jumper :( still up there somewhere on that rige with no path...when I realised it was missing we were already heading back, and a bit worried about being lost, (cold and wet) and the time...Breathed some Zen breaths and concentrated on finding civilisation.
We decided the path to this "other place" seemed to actually be a path and would be more interesting than walking back the way we'd came. Eventually we did find civilisation- a paved path that was going to the waterfall!! (and not the other place afterall!). We entered the "waterfall scenic spot" and started walking, down down down, we descended several hundred meters of steps before we reached the waterfall... (by the way all this was beautiful, as were the cliffs we could have fallen off if we'd tried to descend from the ridge with no path!)...we could see the steps kept going after the waterfall, and so we decided to keep going down, as we heard there wa a carpark at the bottom too. A few people told us not to go that way, go back up, but, we thought, they just didn't want us to have fun, afterall they were going down, why shouldn't we... down down down we went...there was certainly no going back up now...down down down...my knees were trembling, I reckon we went down 1000m in total.
These locals who worked in the scenic area started to scare us- you have to go back up, there's no way back to Guling from the bottom, we're at the bottom of the mountain and if you take a car back it's 200Y, and you'll have to buy a 180 entrance ticket.... ai ai ai
We had walked so far down these stairs in a crevice in the mountain that we'd walked completely to the bottom of the mountain. There was civilisation at the bottom, but no where near the town where our luggage was! Indeed the drive back to the top took over an hour and was 40km as we had to go to the non steep side to get back up. Luckily some lovely people helped us, making some side earnings for the day themselves of course, and we finally made it back to Guling for dinner (mmm yummy homey noodle soup)!
We reported to our guesthouse owners that we did indeed make it too the waterfall on foot, the path was indeed hard to follow, and by the end of the day we had 'walked off' the mountains- which only took an hour to do but would probably take a night to undo!
Lesson 1 of the day: Listen to Chinese people!
Lesson 2 of the day: If we had listened none of this would have happened...and life would have been much more boring :).
I feel I should blog in chronological order, but so many things have gone by now that I'll never get it in order! So I will start from today :).
At the moment I am on a bit of an adventure in "the South". Finding myself with a week (practically- if I skipped two days of class) free o travel, I arranged with Portia and Olivia to travel around Jiangxi for a bit. It's day 5 of a 9 day trip, and we are now down to two people. We got to know Nanchang, the capital of Jianxi and our port of arrival, better than expected, especially the Number One People's Hospital, as poor Olivia was really sick, in the end she was diagnosed with pneumonia and flew to Beijing (being unable to get train or plane tickets back to Jinan) to get treated. From what we're hearing, she's in a practically luxurious hospital where all the nurses speak english, and hopefully getting better- I think it's much better for her there than traipsing round the wet province of Jiangxi.
Ironically, our plan was to come south and get some warmth, but it's colder here than in Jinan- mostly due to the wetness I think.
There were alot of (medical, culinary, wierd Nationalistic frenzy...) adventures in Nanchang, but first today... When we finally left Nanchang (yesterday), we arrived in Lushan, a mountainous national park area, which is certainly an escape from the usual China. I can breathe again!!!!
We found a lovely sweet homestead- a restaurant with some rooms up top to stay in, which didn't break the budget. We went in there when it was pouring with rain, and they were a but wary to take us in, as they weren't authorised to take foreigners, but we put our poor student faces on and they let us stay. If anyone asks we are eating in the restaurant :). We went out walking in the afternoon, it wa so good to be in nature again! There are lots of pine, bamboo, sort of forests around here. The town itself has an English quaintness and was built in the colonial era as a summer retreat from the heat. It's all cobbley, and higgledy piggledy stone houses with forest and clear running streams.
We went walking up a random path into the woods and ran into a village woman, who was amazed and delighted that we could speak chinese. She asked if we were married (no), then how old are you (21-portia), that's still young, (24- me), then you can get married!, How many children can you have in your country ("Suibian sheng"= whatever/ as you like), that's great, you should get married quickly then and have babies! We were in hysterics at this- she had such a straight forward pushy mannor to her, her first words to us were something along the lines of "What the hell are you doing walking up here- there's nothing to see!"
Last night we went to see "Love in Lushan", a Chinese classic of 1980- although the graphics looked more 1950's to us! It had the guniness world record for screening the continuously since it was released in one cinema- the cute one here in the town. We took a bottle of red wine and had night out at the movies. Ahhh, warning: the next paragraph is a semi-literary analysis for you, :)...it was quite enjoyable and interesting actually(if you take a poltical perspective). I could understand mos tof the chinese! It was about a chinese american woman, whose parents were in Nationalist army and fled China, who returns to Lushan, their home, and falls in love with a good simple local boy, whose mother lives on the mountain, and father is a general. The modern American woman is the pursuer, the Chinese man is the innocent, oblivious one. She teaches him how to pronounce, in english, "I love my Motherland, I love the morning of my motherland", and she falls in love with the motherland too. In the end it turns out their fathers were friends that fought eachother as they joined separate parties. Very 1980's politics about all Chinese being welcome in the motherland now, and China developing- in one scene the man had drawn a sketch of the scenery, and inserted a town where there was none, imagining the development of the future- this part of the film had us in hysterics.
Today was another big adventure in the woods, we decided to walk to this waterfall "San Die Quan". Our guesthouse owners said it was impossible, and not "fun", but since we got here- in the drizzly weather everyone kept saying going into the woods was "not fun". We have raincoats, waterproof shoes, and so far it had all been fun! We started walking, and stopped in the village to ask directions for the start of the path, "no no no, you can't walk to there, you won't be able to find the way, take a taxi...", and another time with the same result....but on the map there was a path so we started following a path into the forest which seemed to fit with the map.
Gosh it seemed no one wanted us to go for a walk!
We walked for quite a while and ended up on this path going along a ridge. We had very little visability, being stuck in a bit of a cloud. The further we walked the worse the paths became, blocked by trees, bushes, all the bushes were wet from the cloud condensing around us, and pretty soon we were heaps wet too from pushing past them, climbing thrugh them, basically bush bashing, although we sort of thought we were still on a path to the waterfall.
The further we walked (and wetter we became), the less convinced we were that we were on a path, and more that we were imagining gaps in the trees and bushes etc. I thought it would be impossible to get lost in the wilderness in China, but I think today, if at one point we didn't admit defeat and turn back, we could have. Later we saw the ridge the direction we were walking in and laughed, we were just bashing about in the middle of nowhere!
Turning back we found a path we thought went to "another place".... by this stage I had managed to loose both the map and an expensive jumper :( still up there somewhere on that rige with no path...when I realised it was missing we were already heading back, and a bit worried about being lost, (cold and wet) and the time...Breathed some Zen breaths and concentrated on finding civilisation.
We decided the path to this "other place" seemed to actually be a path and would be more interesting than walking back the way we'd came. Eventually we did find civilisation- a paved path that was going to the waterfall!! (and not the other place afterall!). We entered the "waterfall scenic spot" and started walking, down down down, we descended several hundred meters of steps before we reached the waterfall... (by the way all this was beautiful, as were the cliffs we could have fallen off if we'd tried to descend from the ridge with no path!)...we could see the steps kept going after the waterfall, and so we decided to keep going down, as we heard there wa a carpark at the bottom too. A few people told us not to go that way, go back up, but, we thought, they just didn't want us to have fun, afterall they were going down, why shouldn't we... down down down we went...there was certainly no going back up now...down down down...my knees were trembling, I reckon we went down 1000m in total.
These locals who worked in the scenic area started to scare us- you have to go back up, there's no way back to Guling from the bottom, we're at the bottom of the mountain and if you take a car back it's 200Y, and you'll have to buy a 180 entrance ticket.... ai ai ai
We had walked so far down these stairs in a crevice in the mountain that we'd walked completely to the bottom of the mountain. There was civilisation at the bottom, but no where near the town where our luggage was! Indeed the drive back to the top took over an hour and was 40km as we had to go to the non steep side to get back up. Luckily some lovely people helped us, making some side earnings for the day themselves of course, and we finally made it back to Guling for dinner (mmm yummy homey noodle soup)!
We reported to our guesthouse owners that we did indeed make it too the waterfall on foot, the path was indeed hard to follow, and by the end of the day we had 'walked off' the mountains- which only took an hour to do but would probably take a night to undo!
Lesson 1 of the day: Listen to Chinese people!
Lesson 2 of the day: If we had listened none of this would have happened...and life would have been much more boring :).
Friday, March 7, 2008
Shanda Life
OK, so it's well and truly time to report to the masses how I am going in Jinan! I guess my first impressions and first few days were not that brilliant- perhaps I was suffering from new-place-homesickness, Mummy leaving me behind at a strange school, waa waa ;), but you should be relieved to hear that all that disappeared quite quickly and I am thoroughly enjoying the campus life here!
It's amazing the difference having friends in your life makes! ;)
So the major news: I have been contributing to the Chinese economy with a spending frenzy! I got a Laptop- so I can access the internet, watch pirates, arr me hearty!, and listen to music in my room! I also got a bike, so I can die in the Jinan streets, oh yeah, and so I get around the city..., A mobile phone- as my handset turned out to be locked to bloody optus..., a heap of books, dictionary, bowl, mugs, thermos, knife (to replace the one that got confiscated when I tried to take it on a flight..whoops ;) ),.....yeah that is Chinese life- buy buy buy!
My classes are quite good- I start at 8am every day, which is taking some getting used to, but the discovery of ground coffee in Jinan is making that easier! I'm in Upper Intermediate for everything...seems like I will never make it to Gaoji! (the advanced class)... but as long as I am learning stuff!
Most people live in the dormitories- of which there are three buildings, which house quite a lot of students. One building only has Koreans I think- there are hundreds here! I think I will be picking up a few Korean words along the way here and there! So there is a real dormitory lifestyle here- everyone knocking on people's doors, one you know some people, you meet more people, and now it's almost hard to find a moment alone!
My wai-guo (foreigner) friends meet for lunch everyday at 12, and dinner at 7. Dinner always ends up taking ages, but both meals are highlights of the day so far! Lunch is usually street food, and man it is soooo good, I will have to take a camera down that street some time to show you! A lot of the food is not what you typically imagine as Chinese food...Mmm, I am already adicted to these 'Jianbing'- a type of crepe made from millet,5grain,peanut flour or purple flour (don't ask me what it is!). They crack an egg on top, and then rollit up with this crunchy fried stuff, lettuce, chilli and beany sauce. Mmm, yumm- I have been eating it with lettuce even though this is probably not reccomended! The good ol' belly is holding up so far though!
There is a nightlife culture on the weekends...find me on facebook to see the pictures...This bar where lots of the Koreans and International students go where they play some good music- the Middle Eastern guys bring some music to play which beats Chinese pop! It's nice to have people- Asians, Middle Eastern, Europeans, Africans, and some Aussies too, all hanging out together! It really does cover every continent except perhaps South America- there is one Peruvian I know...but in general there are very few (North/South) Americans at all..Well there are some Canadians, but I've only met one American..which is surprising I think...given the place is crawling with Dutch people (All Leiden Uni) instead! (Pretty cool for me, maybe I will improve my Dutch by the end)
I have also found a Mahjong crowd, yay! Lenore, a girl from Canada, bought a set, but no one knew how to play..Now I have taught some people, and they like it, we can play more often!
So, to put it the Chinese way, my life here is pretty Rich with Many Colours (丰富多彩）。I miss my friends, but I am making some good friends here that make being away easier! Something I quite miss are my Saturday mornings in Croydon House, (or whatever house :)), having brunch and coffee, doing the Quiz and reading the paper... But I am already able to make a long list of the things I'll miss from here when I leave!
It's amazing the difference having friends in your life makes! ;)
So the major news: I have been contributing to the Chinese economy with a spending frenzy! I got a Laptop- so I can access the internet, watch pirates, arr me hearty!, and listen to music in my room! I also got a bike, so I can die in the Jinan streets, oh yeah, and so I get around the city..., A mobile phone- as my handset turned out to be locked to bloody optus..., a heap of books, dictionary, bowl, mugs, thermos, knife (to replace the one that got confiscated when I tried to take it on a flight..whoops ;) ),.....yeah that is Chinese life- buy buy buy!
My classes are quite good- I start at 8am every day, which is taking some getting used to, but the discovery of ground coffee in Jinan is making that easier! I'm in Upper Intermediate for everything...seems like I will never make it to Gaoji! (the advanced class)... but as long as I am learning stuff!
Most people live in the dormitories- of which there are three buildings, which house quite a lot of students. One building only has Koreans I think- there are hundreds here! I think I will be picking up a few Korean words along the way here and there! So there is a real dormitory lifestyle here- everyone knocking on people's doors, one you know some people, you meet more people, and now it's almost hard to find a moment alone!
My wai-guo (foreigner) friends meet for lunch everyday at 12, and dinner at 7. Dinner always ends up taking ages, but both meals are highlights of the day so far! Lunch is usually street food, and man it is soooo good, I will have to take a camera down that street some time to show you! A lot of the food is not what you typically imagine as Chinese food...Mmm, I am already adicted to these 'Jianbing'- a type of crepe made from millet,5grain,peanut flour or purple flour (don't ask me what it is!). They crack an egg on top, and then rollit up with this crunchy fried stuff, lettuce, chilli and beany sauce. Mmm, yumm- I have been eating it with lettuce even though this is probably not reccomended! The good ol' belly is holding up so far though!
There is a nightlife culture on the weekends...find me on facebook to see the pictures...This bar where lots of the Koreans and International students go where they play some good music- the Middle Eastern guys bring some music to play which beats Chinese pop! It's nice to have people- Asians, Middle Eastern, Europeans, Africans, and some Aussies too, all hanging out together! It really does cover every continent except perhaps South America- there is one Peruvian I know...but in general there are very few (North/South) Americans at all..Well there are some Canadians, but I've only met one American..which is surprising I think...given the place is crawling with Dutch people (All Leiden Uni) instead! (Pretty cool for me, maybe I will improve my Dutch by the end)
I have also found a Mahjong crowd, yay! Lenore, a girl from Canada, bought a set, but no one knew how to play..Now I have taught some people, and they like it, we can play more often!
So, to put it the Chinese way, my life here is pretty Rich with Many Colours (丰富多彩）。I miss my friends, but I am making some good friends here that make being away easier! Something I quite miss are my Saturday mornings in Croydon House, (or whatever house :)), having brunch and coffee, doing the Quiz and reading the paper... But I am already able to make a long list of the things I'll miss from here when I leave!
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Shanghai Shanghai
Well, I have left Shanghai now, but this is a bit more about our adventures in Shanghai...
Some parts managed to charm us, especially the French concession, a large district where the French built their mansions, houses and apartment blocks and other buildings the community needed. Wandering around there it almost felt we'd arrived in another country! The (1900-30's) European architecture felt oddly familiar, there were Indian restaurants, French cafes, Irish bars...More like Sydney than China! We enjoyed going into one cafe 'Paul's' where the pastries and tarts were delicious and better than what you find at the average bakery at home. Half the patrons seemed to be speaking French!
It was a strange mix of cultures- a couple of Russian Orthodox Churches with their meringue roofs, upperclass Chinese boutiques, restaurants and expat hangouts. Communism mummified the area, rather than destroyed it, so now it is has a historical feel (especially in comparison to Pudong across the river!) and has been gentrified. This is hopefully the way it will survive!
The worst part of our visit to Shanghai was, for me, the annoying and sinister people approaching us to 'make friends', They chat for a while, then ask if you want to go to a tea ceremony (which after you go and enjoy some teas, ends up costing hundreds of dollars- we heard of people charged over 9000Y, which is 1500 Au dollars). We had been warned of the scam, so common is it that it is even on the DFAT website for China. People must still get tricked though, as the numbers of people trying to do this was unbelievable. In one square- near the museum and art gallery, we were approached about half a dozen times, although by the end we were cutting them off before they could try- and warning them we knew what they were doing. It was obvious that they weren't simply people who were friendly and wanted to practise their English (-and there are plenty of nice people like this in China!).
It was just horibble watching tourists come out of the museum and seeing these sweet seeming students who wait near the entrance come up and start talking to them- why do they use their English skills for such mean intent!
Anyway, still plenty of nice people in Shanghai! I met up with Xiongyin, a friend whose studying at Sydney Uni, and we went around to a few places together. It was nice to see a familiar face!
One of the highlights (excuse the pun ;) ) was Jinmao tower- the tallest (although soon to be overtaken by the building in progress next door) in China, and has the highest bar in the world. We went up at duskish time- saw the sunset, and the city getting dark. Truly got a different perspective on things! From the cosy lounge, sipping cocktails, the world down below of tourist touts, crowded buses and unruly drivers seemed almost an illusion...we could see it all, yet couldn't see it at all! It was quite dizzying being so high, although the view would be improved by better air quality. It was a relatively clear day but I think the height of the tower puts the top bit in the smog layer. One drink was all we could afford up there, and so after finishing two bowls of the free peanuts :), we descended into the real world- exiting on foot rather than the conventional taxi (the building housed the Hyatt from the 57th-87th floors) to take a ferry back over the river to the Bund.
Some parts managed to charm us, especially the French concession, a large district where the French built their mansions, houses and apartment blocks and other buildings the community needed. Wandering around there it almost felt we'd arrived in another country! The (1900-30's) European architecture felt oddly familiar, there were Indian restaurants, French cafes, Irish bars...More like Sydney than China! We enjoyed going into one cafe 'Paul's' where the pastries and tarts were delicious and better than what you find at the average bakery at home. Half the patrons seemed to be speaking French!
It was a strange mix of cultures- a couple of Russian Orthodox Churches with their meringue roofs, upperclass Chinese boutiques, restaurants and expat hangouts. Communism mummified the area, rather than destroyed it, so now it is has a historical feel (especially in comparison to Pudong across the river!) and has been gentrified. This is hopefully the way it will survive!
The worst part of our visit to Shanghai was, for me, the annoying and sinister people approaching us to 'make friends', They chat for a while, then ask if you want to go to a tea ceremony (which after you go and enjoy some teas, ends up costing hundreds of dollars- we heard of people charged over 9000Y, which is 1500 Au dollars). We had been warned of the scam, so common is it that it is even on the DFAT website for China. People must still get tricked though, as the numbers of people trying to do this was unbelievable. In one square- near the museum and art gallery, we were approached about half a dozen times, although by the end we were cutting them off before they could try- and warning them we knew what they were doing. It was obvious that they weren't simply people who were friendly and wanted to practise their English (-and there are plenty of nice people like this in China!).
It was just horibble watching tourists come out of the museum and seeing these sweet seeming students who wait near the entrance come up and start talking to them- why do they use their English skills for such mean intent!
Anyway, still plenty of nice people in Shanghai! I met up with Xiongyin, a friend whose studying at Sydney Uni, and we went around to a few places together. It was nice to see a familiar face!
One of the highlights (excuse the pun ;) ) was Jinmao tower- the tallest (although soon to be overtaken by the building in progress next door) in China, and has the highest bar in the world. We went up at duskish time- saw the sunset, and the city getting dark. Truly got a different perspective on things! From the cosy lounge, sipping cocktails, the world down below of tourist touts, crowded buses and unruly drivers seemed almost an illusion...we could see it all, yet couldn't see it at all! It was quite dizzying being so high, although the view would be improved by better air quality. It was a relatively clear day but I think the height of the tower puts the top bit in the smog layer. One drink was all we could afford up there, and so after finishing two bowls of the free peanuts :), we descended into the real world- exiting on foot rather than the conventional taxi (the building housed the Hyatt from the 57th-87th floors) to take a ferry back over the river to the Bund.
Shan Da- first impressions
Arrived in Jinan!
I got in at 7am yesterday after an overnight train trip from Shanghai. Last night, my first night, I slept for 14 hours! Didn't feel so tired yesterday, but at 8pm I tried reading and realised I would be better off sleeping- and was so surprised how late I slept! Must have needed it!
Anyway- my room is alright, I was initially a little shocked, but woke up feeling better about it. At least it is cheap! The floor is concrete, with some pieces of lino covering 3/4 of it. That is the worst thing actually. The shock of how dirty is was- when I wiped my finger along the surfaces it came off black!, has been remedied with a trip to the shops for cleaning products! It seems Jinan is a dusty city. The floor also need cleaning- and we have to all do this ourselves- with our own things! Luckily other students have left mops and things in the common kitchen area.
I tried to mop the floor but just made large blackish puddles on the floor, and had nothing to dry them up with. In a fit of despair I left my room to find internet- but the internet room is apparently closed on weekends and has limited opening hours. I ended up going to the supermarket, and buying a 12Y towel and some other stuff, running into the other girls from Sydney Uni, found out that their rooms are just as bad- perhaps worse as they didn't have any lino on the floor and feeling much better.
I did not feel so welcome when I arrived thus- and did not unpack my bags or really relax until I had wiped all the cupboards and things.
I have my own room though, with a small bathroom (toilet has passed the 'number two test') so when I shower the whole room gets wet!, a phone, a TV that doesn't work yet..., a desk, bookshelf, bedside table, cupboard. Thus plenty of space for my limited belongings! Feel I need to buy more to fill it up, but that will just lead to problems later on!
I was thrown into a 90 minute test in the middle of the day yesterday too, and don't think I performed to my potential, but having not done any written chinese for a year, I'm a bit rusty! Apparently classes don't start till Wednesday, so I've got a couple of days to settle in, and learn where the good places to eat are!
I got in at 7am yesterday after an overnight train trip from Shanghai. Last night, my first night, I slept for 14 hours! Didn't feel so tired yesterday, but at 8pm I tried reading and realised I would be better off sleeping- and was so surprised how late I slept! Must have needed it!
Anyway- my room is alright, I was initially a little shocked, but woke up feeling better about it. At least it is cheap! The floor is concrete, with some pieces of lino covering 3/4 of it. That is the worst thing actually. The shock of how dirty is was- when I wiped my finger along the surfaces it came off black!, has been remedied with a trip to the shops for cleaning products! It seems Jinan is a dusty city. The floor also need cleaning- and we have to all do this ourselves- with our own things! Luckily other students have left mops and things in the common kitchen area.
I tried to mop the floor but just made large blackish puddles on the floor, and had nothing to dry them up with. In a fit of despair I left my room to find internet- but the internet room is apparently closed on weekends and has limited opening hours. I ended up going to the supermarket, and buying a 12Y towel and some other stuff, running into the other girls from Sydney Uni, found out that their rooms are just as bad- perhaps worse as they didn't have any lino on the floor and feeling much better.
I did not feel so welcome when I arrived thus- and did not unpack my bags or really relax until I had wiped all the cupboards and things.
I have my own room though, with a small bathroom (toilet has passed the 'number two test') so when I shower the whole room gets wet!, a phone, a TV that doesn't work yet..., a desk, bookshelf, bedside table, cupboard. Thus plenty of space for my limited belongings! Feel I need to buy more to fill it up, but that will just lead to problems later on!
I was thrown into a 90 minute test in the middle of the day yesterday too, and don't think I performed to my potential, but having not done any written chinese for a year, I'm a bit rusty! Apparently classes don't start till Wednesday, so I've got a couple of days to settle in, and learn where the good places to eat are!
Friday, February 22, 2008
Shanghai Shanghai II - The Lantern Festival etc
Yesterday was the lantern festival, the last day of the Spring festival and a full moon night. My textbook lessons had described it as a night where people walk the streets carrying lanterns, hang lanterns on their houses, look at the full moon and eat tangyuan- sweet glutinous rice dumplings which are round like the moon and symbolise reunions or something like that!
Step out of the textbook and into real China, and just hanging out in random areas you would have practically zilch chance of seeing people walking round with lanterns, not see any decorated houses (people live in apartment blocks now anyway), possibly see a few moon gazers, and possibly find an eatery serving tangyuan. But Shanghai has a special district where lanterns are hung up- the restored part of the 'old town'- none of it is actually old, but is a garden/ bazaar area with traditional Chinese buildings and lanes, chock a block with chinese-y nick nacks, souvenirs, and expensive dumpling vendors (for the famous Shanghai xiao long bao). It was extremely crowded when we visited the first time and a bit of a nightmare actually!
When we went back there on full moon evening we found that the whole new-old-town was gated off and you had to pay 50Y to get in, just to wander around the shops area! We could see in and see some of the lanterns over the streets, they were impressive but they weren't candle lanterns or old style. Outside that area there were also lots of red lanterns hanging up along the streets immediately around the new-old-town, so we contented ourselves with looking at that.
As for families wandering round with lanterns, well the 'lanterns' are not the romantic paper ones I imagined, the trend was for battery operated plastic light up toys of all kinds, most of which sung some sort of high pitched tune. They were quite simply HIDEOUS!
You could see the full moon above the town, and we were probably not the only ones who noticed it, but we didn't actually see people selling yuanxiao outside the paid area. What we did see being vended, on market tables in the middle of the street were red new years undies, for men women and kids. You could get ones with little gold rats, the happiness symbol, etc. Quite amusing!
What was fun was the hordes of people, perhaps without lanterns, but all just wandering about watching the 'renao' (hot and noisy). Some, clearly out of towners- probably migrant workers etc, looked as bedazzled as us! When it gets crowded in China it gets really crowded!! There were also fireworks going off and light displays (with lots of advertising) on some of the buildings.
Step out of the textbook and into real China, and just hanging out in random areas you would have practically zilch chance of seeing people walking round with lanterns, not see any decorated houses (people live in apartment blocks now anyway), possibly see a few moon gazers, and possibly find an eatery serving tangyuan. But Shanghai has a special district where lanterns are hung up- the restored part of the 'old town'- none of it is actually old, but is a garden/ bazaar area with traditional Chinese buildings and lanes, chock a block with chinese-y nick nacks, souvenirs, and expensive dumpling vendors (for the famous Shanghai xiao long bao). It was extremely crowded when we visited the first time and a bit of a nightmare actually!
When we went back there on full moon evening we found that the whole new-old-town was gated off and you had to pay 50Y to get in, just to wander around the shops area! We could see in and see some of the lanterns over the streets, they were impressive but they weren't candle lanterns or old style. Outside that area there were also lots of red lanterns hanging up along the streets immediately around the new-old-town, so we contented ourselves with looking at that.
As for families wandering round with lanterns, well the 'lanterns' are not the romantic paper ones I imagined, the trend was for battery operated plastic light up toys of all kinds, most of which sung some sort of high pitched tune. They were quite simply HIDEOUS!
You could see the full moon above the town, and we were probably not the only ones who noticed it, but we didn't actually see people selling yuanxiao outside the paid area. What we did see being vended, on market tables in the middle of the street were red new years undies, for men women and kids. You could get ones with little gold rats, the happiness symbol, etc. Quite amusing!
What was fun was the hordes of people, perhaps without lanterns, but all just wandering about watching the 'renao' (hot and noisy). Some, clearly out of towners- probably migrant workers etc, looked as bedazzled as us! When it gets crowded in China it gets really crowded!! There were also fireworks going off and light displays (with lots of advertising) on some of the buildings.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Shanghai Shanghai 1
A brief interlude in Kunming was a sort of buffer zone between the regional somewhat backwaters of China in Yunnan, and Shanghai, which in comparison seems like another planet. Kunming felt pretty modern and cosmopolitan when we got in from Tonghai...Now is seems positively provincial (which is exactly what it is ;) ). Shanghai, more of an epilogue to a China trip, is very distinct from the rest of China.
It is partly the colonial history- Shanghai doesn't have a long history as a Chinese city, and didn't exist as a city until the Europeans came and settled it as a strategic port. So it has a really different feel with all the European (French and British mainly i think) buildings from the early 20th C. The new part of Shanghai- Pudong- the one you probably see in postcards with the distinctive skyline, is on the other side of the river, and was only built from 1991!
We spent the first night wandering along the Bund, looking across the river at the spacey skyline, with the old Banks and Cutsoms Houses, and Gentlemans club type buildings on our side. We found a cafe/ bar in the old signal tower building. Walking inside to the heating was great after a month of cold weather yet nowhere to get out of the cold (Yunnan is the warm province right, how come it's still 1 degree at night!). We felt it a bit surreal having creme brulee and coffee, overlooking the city, in a plush cafe...thinking how far away this seems from the villages we went through in the same country so recently.
Yesterday we looked at the Bund in the daytime- got accosted by people selling junky gadjets and toys, the latest novelty crazes in China, people selling photos etc...Some of them a bit annoying. We saw some people making BBQ squid on a small BBQ and as we thought of having one, saw them run off with the BBQ, squids still sizzling! Some of the toy sellers with frames for selling things also ran off, others just shoved everything into their bags probably. Then came the police! Three chubby men in a little buggy car came along looking for all the illegal vendors. None to be found of course, and there was no way the police were getting out of their buggy to find them. Had a peaceful 10 minutes with no one trying to sell us stuff, and then, like bacteria recolonises as soon as you washed your hands, they came back! It would be so easy to crack down on this activity that it seems the police don't really care, or aren't trying seriously (or a completely incompetent!). Everywhere in Nanjing Donglu (a particular street) people come up and try to sell you fake bags, clothes, dvds, cds etc. Haven't done any serious shopping yet, have to get mentally prepared first!
In a cafe, shall continue with Shanghai later...just letting you know that I'm having great fun here. It's quite exciting being in a city of 15million people, has a real buzz!
It is partly the colonial history- Shanghai doesn't have a long history as a Chinese city, and didn't exist as a city until the Europeans came and settled it as a strategic port. So it has a really different feel with all the European (French and British mainly i think) buildings from the early 20th C. The new part of Shanghai- Pudong- the one you probably see in postcards with the distinctive skyline, is on the other side of the river, and was only built from 1991!
We spent the first night wandering along the Bund, looking across the river at the spacey skyline, with the old Banks and Cutsoms Houses, and Gentlemans club type buildings on our side. We found a cafe/ bar in the old signal tower building. Walking inside to the heating was great after a month of cold weather yet nowhere to get out of the cold (Yunnan is the warm province right, how come it's still 1 degree at night!). We felt it a bit surreal having creme brulee and coffee, overlooking the city, in a plush cafe...thinking how far away this seems from the villages we went through in the same country so recently.
Yesterday we looked at the Bund in the daytime- got accosted by people selling junky gadjets and toys, the latest novelty crazes in China, people selling photos etc...Some of them a bit annoying. We saw some people making BBQ squid on a small BBQ and as we thought of having one, saw them run off with the BBQ, squids still sizzling! Some of the toy sellers with frames for selling things also ran off, others just shoved everything into their bags probably. Then came the police! Three chubby men in a little buggy car came along looking for all the illegal vendors. None to be found of course, and there was no way the police were getting out of their buggy to find them. Had a peaceful 10 minutes with no one trying to sell us stuff, and then, like bacteria recolonises as soon as you washed your hands, they came back! It would be so easy to crack down on this activity that it seems the police don't really care, or aren't trying seriously (or a completely incompetent!). Everywhere in Nanjing Donglu (a particular street) people come up and try to sell you fake bags, clothes, dvds, cds etc. Haven't done any serious shopping yet, have to get mentally prepared first!
In a cafe, shall continue with Shanghai later...just letting you know that I'm having great fun here. It's quite exciting being in a city of 15million people, has a real buzz!
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Mongolians in Tonghai, and how we got to ride in a police car
In the county of Tonghai, there are, reputedly 14 000 Mongol descendents of Kublai Khans army from when he came down to conquer the south. Some of the army got left behind, i'm not sure how, and these Mongols fished the lake there and then more recently turned to agriculture as the lake receded. They still retain some elements of their traditional dress, which obviously wasn't suited to the climate and was shortened and altered.
We visited a village (Xingmeng) where about 5000 of these supposedly ethnic Mongols live, still speaking their own language (which I'm certain is nothing like what is spoken in contempory Mongolia). It was hard to figure out who was who in terms of facial features though. The area also had a huge hui population, Muslim Chinese, whose features seem to differ subtly from the Han. We think we saw lots of different looking faces though, and a distinct dress- blue tunics, red scarves on the heads of women, and different jewellry, although while i think the community had distinct dress, i am unsure how mongolian it can have remained after so many years of isolation from the 'mother culture'. We only stayed in the village a couple of hours, but we found the people a lot shyer than where we'd been- people didn't look at us much, even though the town had no tourist infrastructure and would see little foreigners coming through i would say. It must be hard being the ones who got left behind.
In the town of Tonghai itself, we immediatly noticed the Hui population- heaps of street vendors cooking mutton kebabs, roast sweet potatoes, BBQ tofu stuffed with chilli, a mosque- (hard to figure out it was a mosque though), and women with headscarves, men in pillbox hats. We only stayed one night, and went to see the ancient temples on the holy buddhist hill in town. This would have been a pleasant experience- saw some trees that were hundreds of years old- pistacios, camellias, magnolias. When we arrived at the top, it seemed to be snowing or sleeting- but that was impossible as just outside the temple at the top it was not raining or anything. Then we saw there was ice falling out of the super high trees inside the courtyard! It was 1pm, and there hadn't been ice in the trees on the way up, although the day felt bitterly cold and even the locals were complaining. So it was a surprise to see ice falling as if it was snowing in the top courtyard- those trees must sit up in the cloud and stay cold most of the day!
Anyway, it was up in the top temple that i realised I was missing my camera, and we spent the next hour or two going back down and up the hill (the chinese call it a Shan which is technically a mountain) looking for it, and finally accepting it lost or stolen. I may have left it somewhere, but where-ever that might have been it was no longer there a bit later. I am quite baffled as I don't feel like I would have left it somewhere, and we hardly stopped anywhere where I would have put it down.
Today (this happened yesterday), we went to the police in kunming, a pretty big city, to make a report, hopefully my insurance will cover this. This is how we got to get driven from one station across to another one, to get a report, in the police car. Very priviledged service- at first I think they were just going to tell us to go to the other one ourselves, but then I must have managed to look/ sound clueless enough! I signed my name on the report in the space labelled 'Loser's signature'. After that we got dropped off at our hotel in the police car! It was much less intimidating and stressful than I was fearing.
Luckily I only had a few days worth of photos stored on the camera, but the worst loss is the photo of the lady with bound feet. As I itemised the value of the batteries, memory card etc, I could not but help think of the mastercard ad, that picture: 'priceless'.
We visited a village (Xingmeng) where about 5000 of these supposedly ethnic Mongols live, still speaking their own language (which I'm certain is nothing like what is spoken in contempory Mongolia). It was hard to figure out who was who in terms of facial features though. The area also had a huge hui population, Muslim Chinese, whose features seem to differ subtly from the Han. We think we saw lots of different looking faces though, and a distinct dress- blue tunics, red scarves on the heads of women, and different jewellry, although while i think the community had distinct dress, i am unsure how mongolian it can have remained after so many years of isolation from the 'mother culture'. We only stayed in the village a couple of hours, but we found the people a lot shyer than where we'd been- people didn't look at us much, even though the town had no tourist infrastructure and would see little foreigners coming through i would say. It must be hard being the ones who got left behind.
In the town of Tonghai itself, we immediatly noticed the Hui population- heaps of street vendors cooking mutton kebabs, roast sweet potatoes, BBQ tofu stuffed with chilli, a mosque- (hard to figure out it was a mosque though), and women with headscarves, men in pillbox hats. We only stayed one night, and went to see the ancient temples on the holy buddhist hill in town. This would have been a pleasant experience- saw some trees that were hundreds of years old- pistacios, camellias, magnolias. When we arrived at the top, it seemed to be snowing or sleeting- but that was impossible as just outside the temple at the top it was not raining or anything. Then we saw there was ice falling out of the super high trees inside the courtyard! It was 1pm, and there hadn't been ice in the trees on the way up, although the day felt bitterly cold and even the locals were complaining. So it was a surprise to see ice falling as if it was snowing in the top courtyard- those trees must sit up in the cloud and stay cold most of the day!
Anyway, it was up in the top temple that i realised I was missing my camera, and we spent the next hour or two going back down and up the hill (the chinese call it a Shan which is technically a mountain) looking for it, and finally accepting it lost or stolen. I may have left it somewhere, but where-ever that might have been it was no longer there a bit later. I am quite baffled as I don't feel like I would have left it somewhere, and we hardly stopped anywhere where I would have put it down.
Today (this happened yesterday), we went to the police in kunming, a pretty big city, to make a report, hopefully my insurance will cover this. This is how we got to get driven from one station across to another one, to get a report, in the police car. Very priviledged service- at first I think they were just going to tell us to go to the other one ourselves, but then I must have managed to look/ sound clueless enough! I signed my name on the report in the space labelled 'Loser's signature'. After that we got dropped off at our hotel in the police car! It was much less intimidating and stressful than I was fearing.
Luckily I only had a few days worth of photos stored on the camera, but the worst loss is the photo of the lady with bound feet. As I itemised the value of the batteries, memory card etc, I could not but help think of the mastercard ad, that picture: 'priceless'.
Jianshui
This town where we've spent the last few days, 3 nights has been lots of fun. Can't get over how uniformly friendly people are here- maybe it is because relatively few foreigners come here, though at the moment, during the Spring festival there are lots of Chinese tourists.
Historical Tourism Chinese Style
Most of the interesting things to do here are historical cultural things, like the 2nd biggest Confucian Temple in China, a 19th century old Chinese style courtyard mansion (with 17 courtyards!!), and other old buildings. People flock to see these things now, but it is sad because a lot of the history has been lost- in the Confucian temple alot of the halls had blank white walls, where they originally would have been painted I think, and the statues looked new. Out in one of the gardens we saw some broken old statues pieces, that looked more like they might have been 'original' just lying in the grass. One of them was Confucius without a head, so it seemed like it might have been cultural revolution damage.
Jianshui used to be a knowledge centre- it's Confucian school was really succesful and half of the 'juren' (people that do well in imperial exams) in Yunnan used to come from this town! Since it was a successful town, there were lots of rich families about, and we visited one old Mansion in town that is now a tourist attraction. The Zhu Family Gardens was much worse at preserving history- the family was on the 'wrong' side in 1915 and had their belongings confiscated and over the years 2/3 of the house was destroyed. Their lifestyle (they were wealthy merchants, making money from tin and opium) was the antithesis of the Communist ideal, and houses like this just did not survive the century.
Now however, it has been completely rebuilt, and as we went through in peak tourist season, guides dressed in Qing dynasty clothes, scenes that looked like they were from Chinese historical soapies were enacted in some courtyards, there was dancing on the floating stage, and performance calligraphy was auctioned off at 300Y ($50) a piece. You did not feel like you were looking at a piece of history, more like a set at Movieworld or something! The museum at the back just said that the fate of buildings like this over the century was 'inevitable', and did not say how it came to be destroyed or anything, only explaining that although they were on the 'right' side in 1911, the Zhu family were on the wrong side later. Any evidence of the role the CCP had in the destuction of what is now celebrated is covered over. People won't be able to remember what happened, as the history is all painted over and rebuilt. Going to look at the house was not about history, but more about theme park entertainment- they may as well have built the whole thing brand new!
We did go out of town to visit another mansion- actually a village full of mansions, though not as big as the Zhu's. This was a fascinating experience, and not as 'disneyfied'. Many of the houses were still being lived in by the same families (I think the same families, since 70% of the village is surnamed Zhang!), and the woodwork and paintings looked old and original. On the wall of the Buddhist temple in town there were paintings of warfare and revolutionary slogans (which I couldn't really understand)- but found out from someone that they were done during the cultural revolution. We later saw similar paintings on the wall of someone's house. We spent 4 hours or so in this village and found it much more interesting- the history was still there to see, and i guess the houses seemed real since people still live in them. The courtyard house we had lunch in was beautiful (Emperor Kindness House), and the people had beds you could stay in, which we would have if we'd known beforehand!
Speaking of living history, in this village we saw a couple of old (over 80 they said) ladies with bound feet! We also saw a few in Jianshui too! We had heard that this area still had quite a few, as it was a wealthy town, and I guess more conservative than the east coast (we're talking about girls born in the 1930's!). I didn't think there'd be anyone still alive with bound feet, yet here we seem to see so many! The first day we were watching out for bound feet on the old ladies, and thought we'd seen some- a rather old lady whose slippers seemed to swim on her and feet seemed very small. When we actually saw bound feet they were unmistakeable and we realised foolishly that us big-footers had no idea what we were looking for (it was just a petite woman with small feet!) The venerable old ladies wear special handmade shoes, and their feet are unnaturally small. After we'd seen 5 or 6 I worked up the courage to ask one if I could take a photo, thankfully (I was a bit uncomfortable about doing this) she was quite happy to oblige. It is my own small memento of history, and something that will only be alive in photos in 10 years time (thank goodness!- remembering history does not have to be about celebrating it, although that's how it's done in China!). Two of the ladies we saw were walking, one actually quite well, but both had sticks, and the other was going painstakingly slow. Most were just sitting on the side of the road, and seemed to have some muscle wastage around their ankles maybe because they avoided walking.
Anyway, I really reccomend Jianshui as a different place to visit in China, maybe like Dali 15years ago?, Maybe not quite...Oh and the BBQ Tofu is great- sounds unglamorous though :).
Saw a dog get run over by a bus last night, felt a bit sickened, at least it died quickly! You see dogs running loose on the streets and it's almost a wonder you don't see more roadkill :(. Poor unloved little doggies, in this area- Jianshui and Yuanyang, I have also spotted a few dog restaurants too.
Historical Tourism Chinese Style
Most of the interesting things to do here are historical cultural things, like the 2nd biggest Confucian Temple in China, a 19th century old Chinese style courtyard mansion (with 17 courtyards!!), and other old buildings. People flock to see these things now, but it is sad because a lot of the history has been lost- in the Confucian temple alot of the halls had blank white walls, where they originally would have been painted I think, and the statues looked new. Out in one of the gardens we saw some broken old statues pieces, that looked more like they might have been 'original' just lying in the grass. One of them was Confucius without a head, so it seemed like it might have been cultural revolution damage.
Jianshui used to be a knowledge centre- it's Confucian school was really succesful and half of the 'juren' (people that do well in imperial exams) in Yunnan used to come from this town! Since it was a successful town, there were lots of rich families about, and we visited one old Mansion in town that is now a tourist attraction. The Zhu Family Gardens was much worse at preserving history- the family was on the 'wrong' side in 1915 and had their belongings confiscated and over the years 2/3 of the house was destroyed. Their lifestyle (they were wealthy merchants, making money from tin and opium) was the antithesis of the Communist ideal, and houses like this just did not survive the century.
Now however, it has been completely rebuilt, and as we went through in peak tourist season, guides dressed in Qing dynasty clothes, scenes that looked like they were from Chinese historical soapies were enacted in some courtyards, there was dancing on the floating stage, and performance calligraphy was auctioned off at 300Y ($50) a piece. You did not feel like you were looking at a piece of history, more like a set at Movieworld or something! The museum at the back just said that the fate of buildings like this over the century was 'inevitable', and did not say how it came to be destroyed or anything, only explaining that although they were on the 'right' side in 1911, the Zhu family were on the wrong side later. Any evidence of the role the CCP had in the destuction of what is now celebrated is covered over. People won't be able to remember what happened, as the history is all painted over and rebuilt. Going to look at the house was not about history, but more about theme park entertainment- they may as well have built the whole thing brand new!
We did go out of town to visit another mansion- actually a village full of mansions, though not as big as the Zhu's. This was a fascinating experience, and not as 'disneyfied'. Many of the houses were still being lived in by the same families (I think the same families, since 70% of the village is surnamed Zhang!), and the woodwork and paintings looked old and original. On the wall of the Buddhist temple in town there were paintings of warfare and revolutionary slogans (which I couldn't really understand)- but found out from someone that they were done during the cultural revolution. We later saw similar paintings on the wall of someone's house. We spent 4 hours or so in this village and found it much more interesting- the history was still there to see, and i guess the houses seemed real since people still live in them. The courtyard house we had lunch in was beautiful (Emperor Kindness House), and the people had beds you could stay in, which we would have if we'd known beforehand!
Speaking of living history, in this village we saw a couple of old (over 80 they said) ladies with bound feet! We also saw a few in Jianshui too! We had heard that this area still had quite a few, as it was a wealthy town, and I guess more conservative than the east coast (we're talking about girls born in the 1930's!). I didn't think there'd be anyone still alive with bound feet, yet here we seem to see so many! The first day we were watching out for bound feet on the old ladies, and thought we'd seen some- a rather old lady whose slippers seemed to swim on her and feet seemed very small. When we actually saw bound feet they were unmistakeable and we realised foolishly that us big-footers had no idea what we were looking for (it was just a petite woman with small feet!) The venerable old ladies wear special handmade shoes, and their feet are unnaturally small. After we'd seen 5 or 6 I worked up the courage to ask one if I could take a photo, thankfully (I was a bit uncomfortable about doing this) she was quite happy to oblige. It is my own small memento of history, and something that will only be alive in photos in 10 years time (thank goodness!- remembering history does not have to be about celebrating it, although that's how it's done in China!). Two of the ladies we saw were walking, one actually quite well, but both had sticks, and the other was going painstakingly slow. Most were just sitting on the side of the road, and seemed to have some muscle wastage around their ankles maybe because they avoided walking.
Anyway, I really reccomend Jianshui as a different place to visit in China, maybe like Dali 15years ago?, Maybe not quite...Oh and the BBQ Tofu is great- sounds unglamorous though :).
Saw a dog get run over by a bus last night, felt a bit sickened, at least it died quickly! You see dogs running loose on the streets and it's almost a wonder you don't see more roadkill :(. Poor unloved little doggies, in this area- Jianshui and Yuanyang, I have also spotted a few dog restaurants too.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Jinghong, Xishuangbanna, etc
My blogging is a bit out of order, but I thought I should write about Xishuangbanna before I forget. Banna is in the very south of Yunnan, bordering Laos and Burma, and the first thing we noticed was how South East Asian it felt (lots of Burmese in town selling jade too), and a lot warmer than where we'd come from (Dali), I was in sandals and T shirt a few days, which was lovely. Back in the cold now, but was good to thaw out a few days!
We spent a lot of time looking at tropical plants! Two botanical gardens, one several hundred hectares big, and one huge rainforest reserve (Wild Elephant Valley).
One day we went to the Blind massage clinic. Massaging is the traditional occupation for blind people in China. We had 1 hour full body massages, but only my masseur was blind, Mum's could see, and kept complaining about how tight Mum's neck and shoulders were. She spent so long on the neck and shoulders that she had to add an extra 1/2 hour of time! My masseur could somehow think I was 'piaoliang' (pretty, but...blind, what?), and when he took my arm, he said 'zheme duo mao (hair), hen ke-ai' (so much hair, very cute). Never been flattered about my hairy arms before, not quite sure what to think! ;)
The wild elephant valley was a bit dissapointing- didn't see any elephants- only elephant dung and footprints...We also booked a van to take us there through CITS, the Chinese travel agency, and ended up with a guide to take us along the very clearly marked concrete paths through the jungle. Thus there was no time for exploring. The chair lift was great though- it went for 1/2 hour over the tops of the trees and was so peaceful and relaxing- made up in part for the annoyance of having to follow a guide (who spoke no english and wasn't particularly informative- she kept on pointing out the elephant prints and dung, which we could also see!) along a concrete path. The reserve is huge, but you can only go in a part of it, and the elephants probably avoid that part during the day when heaps of tourgroups go there.
Jinghong BBQ was another highlight of Banna- for the first few nights we were kept awake until 3 or so in the morning with noise coming from BBQ's set up behind our hotel. Man Chinese can be loud! We pondered whether the sound of a crowd (sort of a background noise of laughing and talking/ shouting) sounds different in different languages, I still don't really know, I just think that Chinese are in general noisier people! We had to find out what all the fuss was about- and went for BBq on both our last two nights- it was delicious! We had lemon grass wrapped fish, eggplant, sweet potato (cut and roasted into chips and served with condensed milk!), a whole, smallish chicken which had been brushed in spices, mmm, all washed down with Lancang valley beer. We still went to bed to the sounds of BBQ though!
Chinese New Year and Yuanyang- land of beautiful rice terraces!
I have seen the most beautiful sunrise yet in my life in this place! However can you do justice to a sunrise using words I don't know..so I promise pictures (which are also a cheap imitation)..but I will try. When we arrived at maybe 7:30am at the lookout (on a hill overlooking a steep valley covered with rice terraces) we were surrounded by thick white mist, and doubted we might see the sun at all. The mist got brighter but we could still not see a single rice terrace. Some other people left, but there were enough professional looking photographers hanging round, setting up their tripods to keep us somewhat optimistic that 'something' would happen...
and then suddenly the mist started clearing below and you could make out glimmering terraces, filled with water reflecting the light so that they looked silver and gold. It was amazing. Below there was still a thick cloud layer, settled in the valley, we could see the mountain tops on the other side of the valley poking up. That cloud didn't clear the whole day, and in the evening (which was Chinese New Year's Eve) we saw fireworks coming from beneath the cloud- some of them coming all the way through and exploding above the cloud, and others exploding beneath the cloud so that all we could see was the cloud lighting up in different colours sort of like the way storm clouds light up with sheet lightning.
We shared the sunrise experience with the pro's, each with enormous lenses, trying to get the best spot, with the best angle- luckily there was plenty of space for everyone. These are meant to be the most beautiful terraces in China, and perhaps Asia- they cover the whole hillside- which is a pretty steep valley. They all left at around 9-10am when the lighting was changing and perhaps not as photogenic. We stayed in the area the whole day and overnight as well- the tops of the hills were so sunny and beautiful, and we could see the cloud sitting down in the valley so we didn't want to go back to Xinjie- the main town which just sits in the middle of the cloud and you can't see anything! I even got sunburnt (didn't realise till the evening).
That day we wandered around a few villages, and watched the new years preparations...It was hard to decide which was more disturbing- the fear of having a fire cracker thrown at you by a 6 year old boy being silly, or the half dozen or more pigs we saw being, or in some stage of being slaughtered. :(, Every family seemed to be killing their own pig, and some of them were not dying quickly as they drain the fresh blood out of the neck and coagulate it for eating. (yes we saw this.. :( ). Then they burned the hair off the skin and smoked the ouside of the pig a bit (dead by this stage). We could hear the screaming pigs from other villages from hundreds of meters away.
All the pigs were dead by the end of the morning though, and in the afternoon the noise coming from all around the valley- kilometers away was astounding. People let off alot of bangers and crackers in the countryside in China (in the cities there are more restrictions), and you could here was sounded like machine gun fire everywhere! "How's the Serenity" we thought as we sat on the terrace of the only guesthouse in the villages looking out.
The evening was great fun! There were about 9 other guests staying, well off people on holidays from east coast cities, who created a very "renao" atmosphere (hot and noisy). We had hotpot, cantonese style as the owner was cantonese, Mum and I tried to avoid the chicken head, feet and pork intestines (was a bit turned off pork that day!) that went into the pot! We were drinking beer and ganbei'ing (toasting), and pretty soon the chinese started to sing some songs. I knew it was coming, it didn't take them long to start shouting at us to sing something too- with everyone egging us on, we decided to sing Waltzing Matilda, everyone clapping along and cheering at the end (we only did one verse!). Then the guest house owner- a lady of about 65yrs or so jumped up and started pointing at us and falpping her arms chicken dance style. Oooooh Nooooo, that afternoon some village girls had been playing with us and getting us to do the chicken dance which they learnt off some French people some time ago. Now we were being dragged (literally, the lady was pulling Mum off her stool!) up to do the chicken dance in front of all these people!! So we did the chicken dance, making our own music singing Na nananana... That certainly got the blood rushing to my cheeks! Then the lady got everyone else to stand up and we all did it together, with much hilarity!
At midnight we all rolled/made dumplings- some of us more beautifully than others, and then cooked them in water and went back to the dining room to eat them. It was a great night!
The next day (yesterday) we saw the sunrise again, then went on and lokked at some different places, different villages with terraces, eventually hitching a ride with some Chinese tourists with their own car and three spare spots (we were with a Chinese American Peggy- she grew up here and did here high school here, but has been in New York for 20years or so). Stopped at a village that had been 'zoo-ified', had a ticket gate to go in and people dancing in the square, and the houses were all traditional (unlike the one's we'd been through) but it felt really uncomfortable and wrong, and we didn't like it at all. Would not have gone in at all if we weren't sort of attatched to these Chinese people and following them.
The people in this area are Hani, and the women still wear a lot of beautiful traditional clothing (not the men though), at least around New year evryone seemed to have their finest on. When we were walking along the road some girls following us asked peggy to send them some clothes- 'like yours' meaning western=modern=rich, it is mainly when you are in poor places that traditional dress has been maintained. A double edged sword for travellers who want to see something traditional, but you don't want to romanticise poverty.
Anyway, Also saw sunset over rice terraces going down maybe a thousand meters below us. Also a beautiful experience- but as we went to the 'best' sunset lookout we also had to jostle with the photographers (it's a selfish hobby one of them admitted who we'd hired a van to go round with) for a good spot again! And then we came back to the main town perpetually in the cold and miserable fog, where you wouldnot know that such a beautiful warm sunny world existed just ten minutes drive away.
Yuanyang has been great- a highlight of my China experiences!
and then suddenly the mist started clearing below and you could make out glimmering terraces, filled with water reflecting the light so that they looked silver and gold. It was amazing. Below there was still a thick cloud layer, settled in the valley, we could see the mountain tops on the other side of the valley poking up. That cloud didn't clear the whole day, and in the evening (which was Chinese New Year's Eve) we saw fireworks coming from beneath the cloud- some of them coming all the way through and exploding above the cloud, and others exploding beneath the cloud so that all we could see was the cloud lighting up in different colours sort of like the way storm clouds light up with sheet lightning.
We shared the sunrise experience with the pro's, each with enormous lenses, trying to get the best spot, with the best angle- luckily there was plenty of space for everyone. These are meant to be the most beautiful terraces in China, and perhaps Asia- they cover the whole hillside- which is a pretty steep valley. They all left at around 9-10am when the lighting was changing and perhaps not as photogenic. We stayed in the area the whole day and overnight as well- the tops of the hills were so sunny and beautiful, and we could see the cloud sitting down in the valley so we didn't want to go back to Xinjie- the main town which just sits in the middle of the cloud and you can't see anything! I even got sunburnt (didn't realise till the evening).
That day we wandered around a few villages, and watched the new years preparations...It was hard to decide which was more disturbing- the fear of having a fire cracker thrown at you by a 6 year old boy being silly, or the half dozen or more pigs we saw being, or in some stage of being slaughtered. :(, Every family seemed to be killing their own pig, and some of them were not dying quickly as they drain the fresh blood out of the neck and coagulate it for eating. (yes we saw this.. :( ). Then they burned the hair off the skin and smoked the ouside of the pig a bit (dead by this stage). We could hear the screaming pigs from other villages from hundreds of meters away.
All the pigs were dead by the end of the morning though, and in the afternoon the noise coming from all around the valley- kilometers away was astounding. People let off alot of bangers and crackers in the countryside in China (in the cities there are more restrictions), and you could here was sounded like machine gun fire everywhere! "How's the Serenity" we thought as we sat on the terrace of the only guesthouse in the villages looking out.
The evening was great fun! There were about 9 other guests staying, well off people on holidays from east coast cities, who created a very "renao" atmosphere (hot and noisy). We had hotpot, cantonese style as the owner was cantonese, Mum and I tried to avoid the chicken head, feet and pork intestines (was a bit turned off pork that day!) that went into the pot! We were drinking beer and ganbei'ing (toasting), and pretty soon the chinese started to sing some songs. I knew it was coming, it didn't take them long to start shouting at us to sing something too- with everyone egging us on, we decided to sing Waltzing Matilda, everyone clapping along and cheering at the end (we only did one verse!). Then the guest house owner- a lady of about 65yrs or so jumped up and started pointing at us and falpping her arms chicken dance style. Oooooh Nooooo, that afternoon some village girls had been playing with us and getting us to do the chicken dance which they learnt off some French people some time ago. Now we were being dragged (literally, the lady was pulling Mum off her stool!) up to do the chicken dance in front of all these people!! So we did the chicken dance, making our own music singing Na nananana... That certainly got the blood rushing to my cheeks! Then the lady got everyone else to stand up and we all did it together, with much hilarity!
At midnight we all rolled/made dumplings- some of us more beautifully than others, and then cooked them in water and went back to the dining room to eat them. It was a great night!
The next day (yesterday) we saw the sunrise again, then went on and lokked at some different places, different villages with terraces, eventually hitching a ride with some Chinese tourists with their own car and three spare spots (we were with a Chinese American Peggy- she grew up here and did here high school here, but has been in New York for 20years or so). Stopped at a village that had been 'zoo-ified', had a ticket gate to go in and people dancing in the square, and the houses were all traditional (unlike the one's we'd been through) but it felt really uncomfortable and wrong, and we didn't like it at all. Would not have gone in at all if we weren't sort of attatched to these Chinese people and following them.
The people in this area are Hani, and the women still wear a lot of beautiful traditional clothing (not the men though), at least around New year evryone seemed to have their finest on. When we were walking along the road some girls following us asked peggy to send them some clothes- 'like yours' meaning western=modern=rich, it is mainly when you are in poor places that traditional dress has been maintained. A double edged sword for travellers who want to see something traditional, but you don't want to romanticise poverty.
Anyway, Also saw sunset over rice terraces going down maybe a thousand meters below us. Also a beautiful experience- but as we went to the 'best' sunset lookout we also had to jostle with the photographers (it's a selfish hobby one of them admitted who we'd hired a van to go round with) for a good spot again! And then we came back to the main town perpetually in the cold and miserable fog, where you wouldnot know that such a beautiful warm sunny world existed just ten minutes drive away.
Yuanyang has been great- a highlight of my China experiences!
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Dali
Travelling is about flexibility right- hence our abandonment of plans to go so called 'off the beaten track' in Jianchuan and Shaxi between Lijiang and Dali. Actually we did go to Jianchuan, checked into a hotel, checked out town for a few hours, checked out of hotel and got a late afternoon bus out of town!
It was a fairly nice town, had a modest sized old town, we got shown around a few old courtyards by a an we're fairly certain was mentally ill, and a bit raving mad!, but the weather was simply foul- low hanging mist, rain, and chill, showing no sign of lifting within at least a few days! And in China everyone was born in a tent!! It just seemed impossible to find anywhere warm, and the sights miserable in the rain, so we knew we'd be more comfortable in Dali- a place with a street rechristened "Yangren jie" (Foreigners street) full of cosy cafes who cleverly cater to western tastes with couches, closed doors (!!!!!!), and Yunnan coffee. (Yes it was pouring rain in Dali too- and we remembered why we brought books!)
So Dali has been nice but not exactly to plan- Mum is ready for warm weather and we're off to Jinghong tomorrow (where it is apparently a balmy 27 degrees)， I will be heading to Jinan after -which is well and truly winterish and don't expect warm weather for quite a while later！
There is lots of snow on the hills above town， unusual I think 。 Impressions of Dali？ Little old ladies sidling up to us whispering， "Hello， ganga？ smok-a？"， the same ones again and again- they even came up to the window where we sat inside miming！ You are forced to blow them off like flys！ There is one street here that has been rechristened "Yangren jie"- Foreigners street，which is mainly where this pestering happens！ Lovely buildings，a very criss cross square pattern of cobbled streets， one section that is completely touristified- the only shops are selling cloths， clothes， marble and jewellry etc， but mostly there is a lot more of the old town that is untouristified than Lijiang。
Mum is a bit 'over' the hippy style retro cafes which play 70's music- hasn't anything changed she says？， but personally I don't mind it。 If you， like us today are worn out (the poo-spew type of worn out, until today we've been lucky!)， or it's pouring rain， these places beat the conventional CHinese eatery for hanging out. (Sorry Jianchuan, Shaxi- know we didn't give you a fair go!)
We went to a market in Shaping- crazy suff! buy buy buy- you know ladies running after you saying 2 for 50, no, 2 for 40, 2 for 30, 3 for 30, ...., 4 for 20! (these were beaded necklaces that i didn't want!- the things you don't want are always cheaper!). It was great watching everyone, especially the ladies who had colourful Bai headdresses and scarves, but whenever we bought anything, I felt a bit like a fool with money :), wondering, did I want that thing (insert jewellry, embroidered fabric, batic wall hanging here), hang on, did I come up to that price...
We also went onto the lake (ended up looking round some famous rich chinese artists mansion...not quite what we thought we were paying for...but the lake ride was nice), and looked around Xizhou, another nice Bai historic town.
We sent some of our shopping back to Australia today- was a bit of a debacle。 there was so many people hustling to get served， and when we put the customs declaration on I had ticked two boxes "Surface" and "SAL"（Air was another option）， by accident- the girl asked which way we wanted it sent， and I said is Sal cheaper （in english since she asked me in english）， and she said yes， so I said that one。 Then when she printed out the bill it was 450 kuai， while we were expecting more like 186Y！ I asked to see the book again， and it turns out it was the wrong one (surface cheaper than SAL)。 But the girl said it can't be changed，it's in the computor now！ （Computor says no！）。 Then all these other people came up and she was dealling with like 3 groups at a time， so we just sat and waited， deterined not to pay over 400， then she said to us， about 15 minutes later， "Na zenme ban？"， and I said "Wo zhi you liang bai qian， wo bu xiang fu name duo！"， and she did some stuff in the computor， and what do you know， she could change it， but the bill was more than 200！（including box we brought， was 203）， and she was very suspicious then- If you only have 200， it's more that 200 （didn't tell us it was only 3Y more！） Are you sure you can pay？！！！， We made ammends before we left！
I shall go cosy up with my book (The Namesake- is a fantastic read) near the window and people watch the sly old grandmas dealing weed。 ：）Poor Mum had food poisoning from last nights dinner much worse than me (I just felt queasy and went off my food) and has gone to bed already.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Lijiang
Just a short post about Lijiang I think. A bustling large town, with a charming old town. A lot of people complain about tourism here, but really I think they are a bit whingy. We are all tourists!
We were a bit overwhelmed by it when we first got in, wandering round with our bags and being approached by people calling "come stay, guesthouse!!!", and noises and people all around. But a good nights sleep and shower later, we enjoyed the old town heaps. There are lots of crafty shops, which yes are aimed squarely at the (largely chinese) tourist market, but actaully have some really lovely things in them. To me it is sort of reminiscent of Byron Bay or the Rocks, with some hippy clothes shops, locally made arts and crafts- not all traditional, some more like a fusion of local flavour and comtemporary techniques. Also there are heaps of cafes and bars and restaurants. Which make it a lovely place to chill out and rest after adventures in more remote areas.
We did some shopping, eating and reading. Skipped the naxi disco the other night and went to Naxi orchestra instead (maybe we'll hit the disco tonight ;) ). The Naxi orchestra was ancient music being played on ancient instruments by ancient men! Half the musicians were over 70, 7 or 8 were over 80! Some of the music was probably an aquried taste (a bit like yak butter tea), but others were quite listenable.
I felt like it was a bit cruel making these really old men get up every night to play for tourists, but they were quite proud of their music. SOme of them had to bury their intruments during the cultural revolution to stop them getting destroyed. During the concert one guy was popping pills, and several of them seemed to be asleep when they weren't playing!
We went out to Tiger Leaping Gorge- that is another story... Now we're back in Lijiang, despite the tourists, I still like the canals or crystal clear water, cobbled streets and traditional wooden architechture. (It is better that the old stuff is preserved for tourists than knocked down like the hutongs in Beijing!) I also like places like the "Prague cafe" where it is nice and warm, and they make decent Yunnan coffee (they grow Arabica here- the good stuff). The cold snap that is all across Asia is hitting here too!
Off to the Naxi disco now... or something... :)
We were a bit overwhelmed by it when we first got in, wandering round with our bags and being approached by people calling "come stay, guesthouse!!!", and noises and people all around. But a good nights sleep and shower later, we enjoyed the old town heaps. There are lots of crafty shops, which yes are aimed squarely at the (largely chinese) tourist market, but actaully have some really lovely things in them. To me it is sort of reminiscent of Byron Bay or the Rocks, with some hippy clothes shops, locally made arts and crafts- not all traditional, some more like a fusion of local flavour and comtemporary techniques. Also there are heaps of cafes and bars and restaurants. Which make it a lovely place to chill out and rest after adventures in more remote areas.
We did some shopping, eating and reading. Skipped the naxi disco the other night and went to Naxi orchestra instead (maybe we'll hit the disco tonight ;) ). The Naxi orchestra was ancient music being played on ancient instruments by ancient men! Half the musicians were over 70, 7 or 8 were over 80! Some of the music was probably an aquried taste (a bit like yak butter tea), but others were quite listenable.
I felt like it was a bit cruel making these really old men get up every night to play for tourists, but they were quite proud of their music. SOme of them had to bury their intruments during the cultural revolution to stop them getting destroyed. During the concert one guy was popping pills, and several of them seemed to be asleep when they weren't playing!
We went out to Tiger Leaping Gorge- that is another story... Now we're back in Lijiang, despite the tourists, I still like the canals or crystal clear water, cobbled streets and traditional wooden architechture. (It is better that the old stuff is preserved for tourists than knocked down like the hutongs in Beijing!) I also like places like the "Prague cafe" where it is nice and warm, and they make decent Yunnan coffee (they grow Arabica here- the good stuff). The cold snap that is all across Asia is hitting here too!
Off to the Naxi disco now... or something... :)
The Wedding
The last day of our "great Shangrila-Deqin-Mekong valley loop" took us through Weixi county where the highlight was without a doubt participating in a village Naxi wedding. We were passing through a small village on the banks of the jinsha jiang (back on the yangze again by now), when Yang our driver/guide said she thought there was a wedding in the village would we like to go.
Well what do you say but "yeah", but felt awfully intrusive and uncomfortable as we wandered down the path to the family home having the wedding. Within 15 minutes all those feelings vanished, and by the end we were invited to stay a week!
It was a rural wedding, and no one but the bride and groom were in special clothes (a red dress of course) - just their everyday stuff- the older people were in traditional Naxi dress, (but that's everyday for them), so we didn't feel underdressed! W first gave our wedding present to the bride and groom (Money of course, this is China!) . We had to line up and our contribution was recorded alongside everyone elses in a big book- it had place of origin (for everyone else this was their village, for is it was just Ao Da Li A), name and amount. We gave 100Y total, (about 15 dollars AU), which was reccomended by Yang, other guests gave anything from 10Y plus.
That's because it seemed like anyone and everyone in the area was invited to the wedding! Seriously there were 5 to 600 people- but coming and going, not all at the same time. No wonder a couple of foreigners passing through were welcomed! And we felt like celebrities! At first people were a little shy, but after a bunch of young girls (12-13yrs) broke the ice with some giggley looks and stares, we were pounced upon by the old grannies of the village. The girls had us lined up to sit at a table with them, but when we sat down we realised the young girls had been booted out and the older ladies had bagsed us for themselves, including the grandmother of the bride. COnverstaion was difficult as their 'putonghua' was limited, and I don't speak Naxi or the 'local chinese', but we did have a jolly time together! One lady told us she had only seen foreigners several times in her whole life- and she had lots of wrinkles. and heaps of different people commented that having foreigners at the wedding was very "Nan de"- "difficult to obtain" i.e Rare and precious.
The mother of the bride and the cousin of the bride (it was at the brides family house), really wanted us to stay the night for the evening dancing, but after a few hours we had enjoyed ourselves enough, and our driver had to get all the way back to Zhongdian that night after dropping us off.
The wedding was held in the home- a large Naxi courtyard complex- with 12-16 low tables set up in the middle. As we arrived the tables were all full of people and being served two courses of dishes. We sat on the outside and watched the crowds, and they watched us. There were plenty of other people arriving and waiting around the outside too. Then when the people sitting had finsihed eating, the tables were cleared and suddenly full again- as evryone around the side ruched to get a spot.
Naturally we just sat on the side and watched this, and then watched another setting get served their two courses. We reckon while we were there the tables got set and cleared at least 4 times, and as we saw people leaving as we arrived, probably in total more than that!
We were wary of the food, but there's not much you can do when old ladies slip food into your bowl when your not looking! Though I can safely say now- several days later, that no ill effects have been had from the food! There were maybe 12 savoury dishes on the table for the second course, and oddly for us, the first course was fruit, sweets, and a sort of wedding cake.
Later Mum got out a couple of photos she'd brought, and these did the rounds- almost round the whole courtyard! They thought Sarah looked like a movie star in her wedding dress, and coo cooed over the picture of the three of us. Funnily they couldn't tell which one was me, and kept asking if Sarah was me in the picture! (You know caucasians, they all look the same!!!). One of them even thought Sarah was Mum! They nodded approvingly at a picture of Alex and me- oooh a chinese 'husband' (they kept saying lao gong- I had to explain that actually my younger sister got married before I have- probably means I am an ugly old sister like in the fairy tales :) ).
All in all it was an amazing show of hospitality- not just inviting strangers, but feeding the whole village and possibly the neighbouring villages too! Makes us seem a bit stingy really! We left with promises to send photos, which we really should print out tonight and send on their way before we get too distracted, and hopefully they interpreted our gratitude- I think they did!
Well what do you say but "yeah", but felt awfully intrusive and uncomfortable as we wandered down the path to the family home having the wedding. Within 15 minutes all those feelings vanished, and by the end we were invited to stay a week!
It was a rural wedding, and no one but the bride and groom were in special clothes (a red dress of course) - just their everyday stuff- the older people were in traditional Naxi dress, (but that's everyday for them), so we didn't feel underdressed! W first gave our wedding present to the bride and groom (Money of course, this is China!) . We had to line up and our contribution was recorded alongside everyone elses in a big book- it had place of origin (for everyone else this was their village, for is it was just Ao Da Li A), name and amount. We gave 100Y total, (about 15 dollars AU), which was reccomended by Yang, other guests gave anything from 10Y plus.
That's because it seemed like anyone and everyone in the area was invited to the wedding! Seriously there were 5 to 600 people- but coming and going, not all at the same time. No wonder a couple of foreigners passing through were welcomed! And we felt like celebrities! At first people were a little shy, but after a bunch of young girls (12-13yrs) broke the ice with some giggley looks and stares, we were pounced upon by the old grannies of the village. The girls had us lined up to sit at a table with them, but when we sat down we realised the young girls had been booted out and the older ladies had bagsed us for themselves, including the grandmother of the bride. COnverstaion was difficult as their 'putonghua' was limited, and I don't speak Naxi or the 'local chinese', but we did have a jolly time together! One lady told us she had only seen foreigners several times in her whole life- and she had lots of wrinkles. and heaps of different people commented that having foreigners at the wedding was very "Nan de"- "difficult to obtain" i.e Rare and precious.
The mother of the bride and the cousin of the bride (it was at the brides family house), really wanted us to stay the night for the evening dancing, but after a few hours we had enjoyed ourselves enough, and our driver had to get all the way back to Zhongdian that night after dropping us off.
The wedding was held in the home- a large Naxi courtyard complex- with 12-16 low tables set up in the middle. As we arrived the tables were all full of people and being served two courses of dishes. We sat on the outside and watched the crowds, and they watched us. There were plenty of other people arriving and waiting around the outside too. Then when the people sitting had finsihed eating, the tables were cleared and suddenly full again- as evryone around the side ruched to get a spot.
Naturally we just sat on the side and watched this, and then watched another setting get served their two courses. We reckon while we were there the tables got set and cleared at least 4 times, and as we saw people leaving as we arrived, probably in total more than that!
We were wary of the food, but there's not much you can do when old ladies slip food into your bowl when your not looking! Though I can safely say now- several days later, that no ill effects have been had from the food! There were maybe 12 savoury dishes on the table for the second course, and oddly for us, the first course was fruit, sweets, and a sort of wedding cake.
Later Mum got out a couple of photos she'd brought, and these did the rounds- almost round the whole courtyard! They thought Sarah looked like a movie star in her wedding dress, and coo cooed over the picture of the three of us. Funnily they couldn't tell which one was me, and kept asking if Sarah was me in the picture! (You know caucasians, they all look the same!!!). One of them even thought Sarah was Mum! They nodded approvingly at a picture of Alex and me- oooh a chinese 'husband' (they kept saying lao gong- I had to explain that actually my younger sister got married before I have- probably means I am an ugly old sister like in the fairy tales :) ).
All in all it was an amazing show of hospitality- not just inviting strangers, but feeding the whole village and possibly the neighbouring villages too! Makes us seem a bit stingy really! We left with promises to send photos, which we really should print out tonight and send on their way before we get too distracted, and hopefully they interpreted our gratitude- I think they did!
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