Back to China

Coming back to China was a nice reunion with some friends from our previous visit last year. Our plan is to go to Kyrgyzstan via the Silk Road route but first we need our Kyrgyz visa, so hence the reason for being in Beijing.

The road that we propose to take will take us through mountain passes, deserts, and some obscure border crossings. Getting the visa was easy, although finding the Kyrgyz embassy was another matter but due to some helpful Chinese hotel staff and Sabeen's fast thinking got on the right path. Luckily we didn't need a Letter of Invitation (LOI) and instead just wrote ours in front of the staff person and were told to come in a few days to pick up our visa.  The route that we have laid out is the following:

Beijing to Lanzhou by train = 17 hours
Lanzhou to Urumqi by train = 29 hours
Urumqi to Kashgar = 24 hours (sleeper bus)
Kashgar to Osh = 24 hours (sleeper bus)

The first part of the journey was comfortable but the second part, we could only get a standing ticket and even the train guard thought we were crazy. We did however have a seat if you can call sharing a sleeping bunk with a family of two and one very loud crying kid.  The train was crowded, full of smoking Chinese, and crying babies but despite it, we had a great time.  Sabeen even befriended a little Chinese girl, who called her "Gigi", meaning big sister. After a short stay in snowy Urumqi to rest, it was off to Kashgar.

The highlights of Kashgar were the old mud brick homes and the Sunday livestock market with more animals than people, consisting of sheep, donkeys, cows, goats, horses, and a lone camel. With visas securely in hand, we left Kashgar by another sleeper bus (really not enjoyable) because the beds were dirty, the bus made a lot of stops for the driver to smoke and eat, and us being hungry because we didn't pack enough food. 

We left for the city of Osh in Kyrgyzstan by way of the Irkesham Pass, one of the highest roads in the world with many peaks over 4,000 meters.  We drove past stunning mountain scenery following the path of the Silk Road looking at grazing horses and desert scenery. 

Some Caves and a Boat Ride

Trains in Vietnam are a lot like the ones in China but cost less.  The nice thing is that even with a hard sleeper you have a door that you can close as long as you don't mind being in the company of the locals.  The real downside is that the sleeper bunks are really hard and my sides were sore from sleeping on the almost thin piece of padding that passes off for a mattress.  I met some Vietnamese doctors who were attending a conference in Hanoi, which is probably the best paid legitimate job in the country but couldn't get a lot of details but their main desire was of course to make just as much money as their counterparts in the US.

While in Ninh Binh, we went to Cuc Phuong, a national park dedicated by Ho Chi Minh himself, which contains a lot of hikes through primary rain forest and a 1,000 year old tree but a highlight is the Endangered Primate Rescue Center, which has monkeys rescued from illegal traders.  About 140 primates are bred in captivity and sometimes released back into their native environment to go on with their swinging lifestyle.  Another cave was supposedly habitated by man 7,500 years ago and stone tools along with axes were found at the site, all we found was the cave huge opening and some trash.

The country is laid out north to south and there are booking agents in all the towns to get you to your next destination with just a small commission fee charged for the convenience makes it a breeze to travel and is a cheaper option than the trains.  So following that orientation, Tam Coc lies just south of Hanoi and its highlights includes the vegetation covered karst peaks and caves that you get rowed through on an open boat.  Once on the working river with fishermen, women picking snails, and kids on the banks fishing, the rower picked up another woman, who I think was his daughter and we began our trip.  The boatmen don't always row the boat with their hands but instead sometimes use their feet, which must require some coordination to get it right.  The experience goes through several dark caves with stalagtites and sometimes the dripping sound of the water percolating from above.  As we emerged into the sunlight, the daughter began the obligatory sales pitch as tourists are constantly hassled to buy everything.  This woman was selling handmade embroidered clothing and paintings, which were beautiful but we often turn down a lot of such offers due to our limited space and the length of our travels.

The place is littered with caves and there is one called Bich Dong, which has a buddhist temple inside and looks like something out of an Indiana Jones movie set.  The place is dimly lit with high cave ceilings and more stalagtites above.  There are also columns supporting the cave walls and which will sadly someday fall and take the entire thing down with them.

Big City Big Lights

We arrived in Shenzhen around 6 or 7am but thanks to the hard sleeper, felt rested and ready for the big city Hong Kong. First for the next hour or so, we made our way through security, customs, and immigration and hopped on the easy to navigate metro to Kowloon which is part of Hong Kong, and lies north of Hong Kong Island. The first place we checked out to stay in was downright scary in Chungking Mansions which is a run-down building with countless Pakistani and Indian restaurants (totally coincidental we ended up there!), internet cafes and other small electronic shops. While on the elevator, we asked a woman for the correct floor but she insisted we check out this 'other' hotel. We oblige and after she knocks on a door with mysterious stains, a woman half-asleep opens the door and shows us a dimly lit room in a hallway that looked like a setting out of a horror movie. With glazed eyes, we politely nod our heads and say thank you before darting for the elevator door. Luckily we settled into a much cleaner, newly renovated, and safer room which was a big enough to house a bed, bathroom and an area for standing, but we counted our blessings on finding this gem compared to what we had just seen earlier.

Indian and Pakistani men stand outside Chungking Mansions often singing Bollywood songs and were quite persistent with getting Shawn to buy a tailored suit. The city is huge and makes mainland China, heck even New York City look like a suburb. Most of Hong Kong can be seen in a day or two with the highlights including Victoria Peak and the darling of the city, Star Ferry, which is an efficient and cheap way to get around. The lights around Central are dizzying and are at their very best near Victoria Harbour. We enjoyed the city but neither one of us was crazy about it, since after a while all cities start to look alike and not to mention the exorbitant prices, which after China were shocking. One thing about Hong Kong we loved was the diversity from getting Pakistani to Thai and of course English food. We decided to go explore Lamma Island, about a 20 minute ferry ride, which was a welcome respite from the hustle bustle of the city, since the island has no car and most people get around on bicycles. We hiked from the north end of the island to the south, which doesn't take too long but takes in some nice views along with a couple of beaches tucked away in the mountain side.

Our final stop in China was Yangshou in the Guanxi province, so we took the train back across to mainland China, went through the usual immigration/customs and hopped on the sleeper bus to our destination. The highlight of Yangshou are the karst limestone peaks that jut out from the landscape like prehistoric dinosaur spines. The scene is made doubly beautiful by the scenic Li and Yulong River that flows through the landscape and the countryside with buffaloes, fishermen on boats with fishing Cormorant birds, and bamboo boats that ply the waterways. The area is a heaven for trekking, so after doing a boat ride on the Li, we hiked to Moon Hill, name given to its rock shape for views of the peaks. The views were a bit obscured from clouds but hiking through the quiet forest was worth the effort.

We exited China to Vietnam through the Friendship Highway, so from Yangshou we took a bus to Nanning, spent one night there and hopped on the bus to Hanoi, where going after the usual immigration checks, welcomed ourselves to this dragon shaped country.

A Visit To The Pandas

We left the Gansu province and arrived after a grueling 21 hour train ride in the Sichuan province capital Chengdu. Main attraction here are giant pandas. After experiencing the dry cold weather in Northern China, we're both happy to be in Southern China where the weather is much much warmer, and very pleasant these days. Visiting the Giant Panda Breeding Research Base was something we both looked forward to. These adorable animals are sadly endangered with roughly only 2,000 left in the wild. Most of these cuddly creatures are found in the mountains of China. The Chengdu research center is world renowned for having a high success rate in breeding pandas. Even though it was past the morning feeding period, we were fortunate enough to catch them in their most active state.

The red pandas resembled raccoons more than the black and white panda and had a long striped tail with much thinner bodies. Since November is part of the breeding season, we had the rare chance to view new born pandas which are the size of ones hand. They are usually born pre-mature. The research base grounds themselves were quite impressive and offered a peaceful stroll on a paved path with bamboo growing and butterflies fluttering about. Continuing on, we stopped to admire at the black and white sub-adult and adult pandas munching on bamboo leaves and enjoying every bite as if it was a French cuisine. The sub-adult pandas that are up to five years of age are said to be the most active, playful, and curious about their surrounding. We saw these little adventurers in action as they were being fed in the afternoon. They played together, held each others wrists while eating, and laid down on each other freely as if the other didn't mind. Their diet is hopelessly short on nutrition, so a creature that is supposed to be carnevorous, lives on a diet of bamboos, of which only 20% are nutrionally consumed, so needless to say they spend pretty much all their time eating and sleeping to preserve their precious energy supply. The Chinese have a saying that says one is spoiled like a panda because looking at them, one can almost envy their pampered and idyllic life.

We hope that one day these animals are once again roaming in abundance in the wild. Till then, let's all do our part in protecting these animals and others to preserve this beautiful world as it was meant to be.

A Dry and Dusty Land

After sitting in a hard seat for 19 hours to arrive in Dunghuang, we were a bit tired to say the least. We opted for the hard seat both to prove it as a challenge to us of endurance and to also save money as independent travelers. To tell you the truth, the train pretty much emptied out long before our destination, so we were able to spread out on the seats and sleep. Watching the scenery go by as the train rolled on, it changed from leafy green to canyoned rivers to short brush and finally to mud brown desert with hardly a tree to be seen.

The highlight of the town was of course the Gobi Desert, which after seeing the Sahara truly has some seriously high sand dunes. There are some that are over 800 feet high and some even covered with snow. From a distance, they look solid and resemble mountains but are of course completely made of sand. Leave it to the Chinese to make money from the experience, so arriving at Mingsha Dunes where there is a crescent shaped lake, there is a ticket office but we walked a few minutes and found a side road used by the camel trekkers and entered for free. Now, I am not condoning beating the system to save a few yuans but at the same time following the spirit of independent travelers, it was nice to get away with it and have a story to share. We hiked for a few hours and after a while lost the town amidst the sand dunes and truly felt the awesomeness and nothingness of the desert. To make the day slightly weirder, it even started to rain and then hail for a while.

Buddhist relics exist all over China, but the ones at Magao Caves defiy wonder as there are over 700 caves dating back some over 1,500 years containing religious objects along with the third tallest buddha after the one at Leshan. Much of the site is influenced by Hindu culture, so the scenery contains animal objects and apsaras, flying angels that protect buddha.

A Country United

A nation of approximately 1.5 billion people consists of Han Chinese, Buddhists, and Muslims. The one child policy, we learned doesn't apply to Muslims and even the Han can have a child right away if the first born is a girl. A second child is possible after waiting about 8 years.

In Xian, we came to see the army of the Terracotta Warriors built by the first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang to be part of his massive tomb and the first one to unify the country. The 'Q' sound in Mandarin is pronounced "Ch", so his name gave the country its name. Coming back from seeing the Warriors by the local bus, we were hopelessly lost as the bus had changed routes due to construction, so found a policeman, who despite speaking no English, walked us for at least a good 20 minutes only to hook us up with a guy, not sure how he knew but John, a local Chinese spoke who spoke English, agreed to walk with us to our bus and have dinner. Xian, like a lot of Chinese cities has a night market, which is a great place to eat, so here we found lamb, goat, and chicken kebabs along with mutton soup and all sorts of delicious snacks and sweets. Walking back again to the night market with a local was a treat as we were able to order what we want and John kindly even offered to buy us dessert.

All of China has entered the 21st century in a big way and there are massive construction projects everywhere. I think I counted about 40 construction cranes on one site alone! There is also a massive campaign to beautify and make cities more friendly, so one can find flower lined roads and helpful officials from the police to the locals to get you in the right direction. I am not sure how many thousands of kilometers we covered on the China rails but our next stop is to Dunhuang, a city in NW China on the edge of the Gobi Desert.

West Bound

Leaving Beijing and pushing deeper into China, we weren't really sure what to expect after getting accustomed to the comforts of the big city but knew the heart of China lay in the countryside. Traveling by long distance train, we found to be pretty cheap and a good way to spend time with the locals. There are three options on the train from cheapest to expensive from a hard seat, hard sleeper, and soft sleeper. Our first ride was on a hard seat, which is not really hard at all, although sleeping is a challenge as there is eating, chatting, and of course snoring going on at all hours. At the train station, we saw everyone carrying huge packaged bowls of noodle soup, so at first were a little perplexed about how they would be consumed, only to learn later that the trains have a ready supply of scalding hot water to make soup and of course tea, which the Chinese drink by the gallon. We caught on soon enough and before long had our own bowls along with hot green tea for the rides.

At any given time, there are approximately 10 million people riding the trains, so buying a train ticket few days in advance is definitely advisable. One thing that can be said of the Chinese for sure is that they love to travel in huge numbers. We had no idea, but pretty much everywhere we went, we saw huge tour groups leading hunderds upon hundreds of locals to sites. The plus side of this situation is that you are pretty much left alone from tourist touts, who know they can always get business from their own and ones who do approach you aren't too pushy and after a few polite no's will let you go your own way.

So, with that, our next stop was Pingyao, a very well preserved walled city about 1,400 years old with much of the rural population still residing within the city walls. Anyway, Pinyao is a beautiful city with hanging lanterns that are lit at night along with lines of stores selling local handicrafts and local restaurants serving up big noodle soups and local sweets. Visiting a village was definitely the highlight with lot of work getting done by donkey carts and old men in blue Mao suits and hats sitting around smoking water pipes. The Zhangbi ancient village lies about an hour away, so taking a taxi was well worth it as the castle, which was built in 617 AD contains underground tunnels, which have three layers, connected by crisscrossing tunnels some as long as 5 kilometers (3 miles).

Arrival in Yogyakarta

We arrived here three days ago by an eight hour train journey through some beautiful landscapes and agrarian countryside of rice paddies, tea plantations, and numerous other locally grown fruits and vegetables. We set out on our second day to visit Prambanan, a Hindu temple dating back to 9 A.D. Much of the temple was destroyed by an earthquake in 2006 and the restoration process continues to this day. There are temples dedicated to Vishnu, Ganesh, Brahma, Nandi, and few other Hindu gods.

Yesterday took us out to Borobudur, a 2,000 year old Buddhist temple, which has the biggest stupa in the world. The entire site is built on a hill surrounded by mountains and lush greenery. The details on the temples consist of relief panels carved into the walls showing the life of Buddha. These temples are a testament that the hand of man is able to create beauty without the use of modern tools or machinery.