China - Hong Kong

Our sleeper bus from Yangshuo to Hong Kong turned out to be a big bus with bunk beds instead of seats. Initially, we thought it would be ok, considering we were on the floor level beds and we actually fit into them reasonably well. After a couple minutes of settling in, someone asked us to move to the top bunks in the front of the bus because some children needed to use the lower ones. We obliged, but soon discovered our new bunks were much shorter and had no area to stow your shoes or your belongings. So, neither of us fit in our beds and we had nowhere to put stuff, except on our laps. The bus got underway, and then the driver and his cronies started smoking right in front of us, which continued throughout the 11 hour journey. Compound this with the lack of a bathroom and the blaring loud samurai films playing out of speakers right above our beds, and we didn't really sleep at all. This was certainly the worst 11 hour leg of travel I have experienced to date, and I have taken some rough buses before.



In the morning, the bus dropped us off in Shenzhen, which is still in China, just on the other side of the border with Hong Kong. Both of us had to go to the bathroom really badly, and the driver was yelling at us in mandarin and pointing in all different directions. Only us two and another two guys got off the bus here, so we really had no idea what was going on. Eventually, we were told to follow a cab driver and waited outside what looked to be a shop. We asked the man behind the counter if he had a bathroom, and he pointed to some squat toilets down the hall. This bathroom rated around a 3 out of ten, and I will spare you any further details.

Our cab was then waiting for us, and the four of us crammed into the back and were dropped off at another bus, this one much nicer and right hand drive (Hong Kong drives on the other side than China). At this point, everything turned from being miserable to being quite nice. We were handed a cold bottle of water when entering the bus, nobody was spitting or smoking, and everything was clean (except us). The bus dropped us at the border and we went through immigration and customs, boarding another bus once we crossed the border. We were now officially out of China, and felt somewhat happy about that fact, after our last 12 hours.

Making our way downtown was easy, everything in Hong Kong is easy, compared to our travels in China. The transit system is amazing, efficient, and clean, and whisked us away to the southern end of the Kowloon area of Hong Kong. Here we checked into our room, which was small but clean and secure.



Being exhausted and filthy, I cleaned up and took a nice long nap. Afterwards, we woke up and met our friend Chris for some beers on Hong Kong island. The ferry ride over was gorgeous.



We bombed around town a bit, hitting up the expat bar district before calling it a night.



In the morning (ok more like early afternoon), we met up with Chris again at a conveyor belt sushi restaurant...I haven't been to one of these since Tokyo back in 2006. The sushi comes around on a conveyor and you just grab what looks good, paying for your stack of empty plates when you leave.



We piled into a tiny mini-bus to ride to the beach where we were meeting up with some of Chris's friends to play ultimate frisbee.



The weather was beautiful, if a little hot, but we ran around until we were tired and jumped in the ocean to cool off. Everyone playing frisbee was an expat, and I met people from all over the world drawn together in Hong Kong by their love of the sport. We finished off the day with a delicious meal at a Thai restaurant, washed down with a round of Chang beers.



Hong Kong is truly a melting pot, and is quite different from mainland China. There are only 150 Chinese immigrants allowed in per day, and they must have family ties in Hong Kong. Despite control being handed over to China by the British in 1997, Hong Kong has remained largely untouched, and is still a different country as far as I can tell. There are a lot of rich people here, with fancy cars and expensive designer clothes, and quite a few expats as well, but everyone has been very nice to us and getting around sure is a lot easier. English is spoken widely, and this feels like a place one could easily live without much trouble at all. While certainly vastly different from the other places we have been, I think this is a nice book ending to our trip. Tomorrow we are going to the Mai Po nature reserve, a marsh near the Chinese border to look at birds and hike.

This morning we woke up and rode the train for a long time to the end of the line. From here, we took a taxi to the entrance to the nature reserve. Upon trying to buy tickets, we were informed that we needed to be part of a recognized birdwatching organization or educational institution to be granted a permit to access the park. Somewhat confused, Noah pulled out his student ID from Wisconsin, and after the lady called her manager, she gave us a stack of permits and a map, along with some binoculars. Doing our best to look official, we started in.



This permit business seemed pretty serious, so we tried to be as low key as possible during the beginning of our hike.



Soon we discovered that the park was completely empty, save for us, and so we felt a bit more comfortable. Along the hike, there were bird watching blinds set up at points along the way, allowing you to view the wildlife with minimal disruption.



At the end of the path, we came to a really large fence with lots of barbed wire on top. A sign on the gate indicated we needed to have even more special permits to enter this special border area. Assuming the paperwork we had covered us, we went on in. Here is a view from the "other side".



Now the path turned to a boardwalk through a mangrove forest, with water and mud all around us.



This path came to an end at another hut for bird viewing, this one overlooking the bay that separates mainland China from Hong Kong.



In the mud flat right in front of the hut, there were tons of mudskippers splashing around. I tried to take pictures of them, but they are very fast creatures and difficult to get a good shot of (at least with my camera).





On the way back, we ran across this massive spider that was right at face level spanning the path. I made Noah go put his hand up next to it to give you a frame of reference for how big this guy is.



After hiking out of the marsh, we decided to eat a late lunch on the island of Lamma, this is a small one that has no cars. The ferry dropped us off and we hiked across the island, which takes around an hour or so. Soon we descended toward a fishing village, with fresh seafood restaurants lining the waterfront.



We ate a delicious meal of fried squid, some broiled scallops, and some sweet and sour fish.



The night ferry ride back to Kowloon gave us some beautiful views of downtown Hong Kong.





We headed to bed early to catch the first bus to the airport in the morning. We parted ways, Noah heading back to Madison, and me back to Minnesota.

Our time spent travelling through China was amazing, if a little challenging at times. I can't help but feel that we only scratched the surface of this vast country, while at the same time I am not sure I would have liked an extra week to explore more of it, at least on this trip.

China - Yangshuo County

8/4/2010

Our trip back to Hangzhou was pretty boring, the bus ride took longer than expected and dropped us at the same bus station we were at the day before. This time we decided the cabs can shove it and we grabbed a bus map and hopped on the public bus. As you might imagine, we were the only white curly haired, sweaty backpackers on a bus full of Chinese, but we didn't get ripped off and we eventually figured out how to get back downtown. Seeing that we had a couple hours to spare, we checked out the pretty lake in town for a little while before getting some lunch.



While walking around, we came across a cool soup place which had a large cooler full of ingredients. Here is how it works: you grab a basket and some tongs, open each door and pick out what you want in your soup, and then at the end you pick some noodles to go in, and the guy counts your items, takes your money, and prepares a spicy bowl of soup for you with your ingredients. It was great fun, and I loaded mine up with tofu, crab, mushrooms, cilantro and a bunch of greens. We told him to make it real spicy, and we proceeded to sweat all over the place. Next door there was a takoyaki stand and I can't pass up those delightful japanese fried octopus balls, so we split an order of those as well. Full and sweaty, we found the airport shuttle bus and headed out to catch our flight to the south.

The plane got in super late last night in Guilin, about 45 minutes by car from the town of Yangshuo. Luckily, I had arranged transport through our hotel in Yangshuo so we had a dude with a sign waiting for us at the airport. The drive in was really creepy, this area is covered in karst peaks, which are limestone hills jutting straight up and covered on the top by trees. At night all you see is dark strange forms all around as your driver speeds down a gravel road, and you are wondering if you did in fact arrange this transport after all, or if this is some kind of a terrible horror film developing before your eyes.... Luckily, our driver was legit and he dropped us at the River View Hotel which I booked after finding a tip on TripAdvisor about getting a rate that is less than half of their rack rate. Immediately, the security guard befriended us, and in really broken english, proceeded to offer to call some girls he knew for us, which he described as "colorful". From our balcony (wow this place is fancy by our standards) we could see a night market, and the Li river winding its way between some lit up peaks. Curious, we made our way through the market which quickly turned into a tourist street complete with thumping discos and vendors hawking all manner of cheap shit. A grocery supplied us with snacks and beer, and we turned in for the night.

This morning I woke up and snapped two photos from our balcony. It feels like we stepped into a different country already.

Look to the right: (the river is in the lower left behind the trees)


And now to the left:



We rented a pair of bikes, grabbed a map, and set out for the countryside. We really had no idea where we were going, but it didn't matter. Everywhere around here is amazingly beautiful, the stunning peaks are everywhere, and the river is an easy landmark to fall back on. We started on some roads on the way out of town:



Things got a little bit more rural after we turned off on a random dirt path.

From Yangshuo

Now we were riding among rice paddies and and what looked like taro fields. Here is another video to give you an idea of how it was to ride.



Eventually we became horribly lost and while looking at our map, a chinese lady stopped and pointed to the map and seemed to indicate that we could follow her for a while. She led us through a number of small villages:



Eventually we came to an 800 year old stone bridge which seemed like a good halfway point.



To get that photo we had to wait for the cow to cross the bridge



Our ride back took us back through some of the same villages, but we turned off the path and found a road that led us back into town. Overall it was a great ride.



Back in town we decided to stop for an early dinner of the local specialty, beer fish. It is a plate of carp, chopped up and stewed with vegetables. It was really fantastic, and went well with a plate of veggie dumplings and a beer.



After eating, we biked around town a bit, bought a bag of lychees and ate them by the river. As we poked around near the river, a group of Chinese students came up to us and started asking questions. We soon discovered they were at an english camp for the summer and were practicing their speaking skills. As the sun set, we bid them farewell, but not before snapping a group photo.



8/5/2010

Today we rented bikes again and set off on a different route. Today it was pretty hot so we stopped for a swim in the river:



The scenery was just as amazing as yesterday, but we took a lot more breaks due to the heat.



Back in town, we tried a small restaurant that promised us delicious spicy tofu. We explained that we want it Chinese level spicy, and they delivered. We even got a bowl of the chefs homemade chili paste to add more heat to both the tofu and fried noodles. The girls who worked there were all watching and laughing as we were sweating and smiling. Back at the hotel, we sat and enjoyed a gin and tonic and chatted with Jing, one of the employees who took a liking to Noah.



She also tried to cut off a lock of my hair as a souvenir, but I caught her before she could snip. We are now sitting around waiting for an overnight sleeper bus to take us to Hong Kong so we can meet up with a friend who lived in our dorm in college. Cheers!

Here are all the pictures from Yangshuo:

China - Huangshan

8/2/2010 11 pm

This morning found us up at 5:45 am to catch the first train out of Shanghai. Before leaving, I tried to call Christie to wish her a happy anniversary, but I couldn't work the phone and the front desk was not open yet. Bummer. I sent her an email instead, but its not the same. Noah and I hopped on the metro to the train station and found our train pretty easily.



After an hour train ride, we bought bus tickets to Huanghsan (translation: yellow mountain). Ok, we had our bus tickets but we needed to get to the bus station. We looked at a map, and found that there are four bus stations in Hangzhou. After some poking around we found someone who spoke english (not an easy task) and found out which station we needed.

Now we needed a taxi to get there, and this was a debacle. Every cab we approached and asked to take us just shook their head or rolled up their window. We walked back into the train station to try and see if there was a taxi stand somewhere we had missed. Instead of a taxi stand, we found a cluster of guys who were standing by a taxi sign, but no taxis in sight. We asked for a ride to the bus station, and they quoted something outrageous, like 120 Yuan (~$18 US). Keeping in mind our room in shanghai cost us each around 90 Yuan, we balked at the price and walked away. After realizing we had no other options and a bus to catch we haggled with them and got them down to 80 (still a bad price). The guy led us to his car, which was certainly not a cab, but a pretty nice audi or VW. He appeared to be in a big rush, and I think he was trying to tell us we might miss the bus, even though it didn't leave for a whole hour. As soon as we pulled out of the station, we realized the problem: gridlock. Traffic was completely stopped as far as the eye could see. Luckily, our driver didn't mind driving on the sidewalk to get around traffic jams, and soon we were driving around the picturesque lake that puts Hangzhou on the tourist map. Still cruising on the sidewalk at times, he bypassed buses and slow bicycles to get out of the downtown area and onto a highway.

Forty five minutes later, we emerge from a tunnel and he points to the clock and yells "OK!". We clapped for him and he dropped us at the station with ten minutes to spare.

The bus wound its way through mountains and tunnels, eventually dropping us at a restaurant in the town at the base of the mountain. Unfortunately, it was just a 4 table restaurant and we needed to get to the entrance to the mountain path. While trying to ask people how to get there, a lady asked if we spoke english and then made a phone call. Ten minutes later, a man pulled up in a car who spoke english and introduced himself as Mister Hu. He asked us what our plan was and we explained, but he quickly pointed out a flaw.... The buses leaving the town to go back to the airport in the morning only left at 6:30 and 7 am, with the next one departing at 2:30 in the afternoon. This was a big problem, as our flight left at 6:30 and it was a 4 hour bus ride back to the airport. Knowing we had to make that 7 am bus, we opted to take the cable car up the mountain this afternoon, hike back down the mountain, and sleep at Mister Hu's hotel in the town.

Despite our plan of camping on the summit and seeing the sunrise being derailed, we still had a great time on the mountain. The cable car was a long ride up, and at the top it was like someone switched on the air conditioning. After being soaked with sweat for days, it felt amazing. The summit is at 6,000 feet, and is a UNESCO world heritage site.



We hiked around the top, and it afforded some amazing views.



I snapped a video to give you an idea of how incredible this place was:



It is really one of those places that can't be adequately represented by photos, but I tried to capture some of the beauty to share with you. We hiked down the stairs to the bottom, which took around 3 hours. Most of the time there were no people in sight - peace and quiet at last.




Now we just have to make sure to catch our bus in the morning and we will be flying to Yangshuo, a small town rumored to be even more beautiful than here.

China - Shanghai

7/30/2010 9:15 pm

I just hopped off my flight, which was upgraded to first class. At first, I thought all the fancy seats, gadgets and champagne wouldn't even put a dent in the misery of a trans-pacific flight, but boy was I wrong. My seat folded flat for sleeping and I passed the waking time eating good food and watching movies.



Overall, it was a terribly civilized way to cross the globe, I even had a glass of port with my cheesecake. In the Tokyo airport, I met a nice expat family living in Shanghai who helped me figure out how to get to my hostel via public transport. Armed with their advice, I found my way to the maglev train and I am now waiting to be whisked away into the city proper so I can catch the metro to my hostel (I hope).



7/31/2010 10 pm

Last night I found my hostel just fine, thanks to my kind friends in Tokyo and good walking directions. After arriving, I found out I had caught the final metro of the night, I guess Shanghai goes to bed early. I wandered down to the common area and made a few friends, chatting over a couple beers and trying to speak mandarin. Before I knew it, it was four in the morning and I had to get to bed.

Today, my plan was to meet Noah at the maglev station when his flight landed. He had told me his flight was supposed to land around noon, but I slept right through that and didn't make it to the station until around 1. I waited around for an hour or so, then figured I must have missed him and went back to the hostel (our backup meeting place). Well, he was not there either, so at this point I wasn't really sure what to do. I didn't have his flight information (neither did he since its all in mandarin), and with no way to call him, I just waited around at the hostel. A couple hours later he called the hostel and said he was at the maglev station and had been waiting for a while. I told him to come to the metro station and we would meet there. Finally, while walking around in the underground shopping mall that is the station, we found each other. Whew, meeting up is hard without cellphones.

After we met up and dropped off his backpack, we went out for some food. We found a place selling fried dumplings and soup, and proceeded to blow our faces off.



We attempted to buy train tickets but the office was closed by the time we showed up. Well, there were people inside, but when we asked them if we could buy tickets they just shook their heads. Oh well, Noah is going to try in the morning.

After failing at that endeavor, we set off for the Bund, an area of Shanghai which overlooks the modern skyline of the "new" city.



It was basically wall to wall people, and we got a little claustrophobic. Escaping to a rooftop bar proved to be a great idea. We had a couple beers and ate a pizza (my stomach is not quite settled yet).




The heat today was almost unbearable, it was around 101 degrees with max humidity, just like the midwest but hotter. Being in such a big city, it doesn't get cooler either when the sun goes down. Hopefully we will find some comfort when we head out into the countryside.

8/1/2010 9 pm

Last night the hostel was up and drinking beers again, so we joined them and I didn't make it to bed until the sun came up. This morning Noah found some train tickets, but the trains today were full so we don't leave until tomorrow. Everything is pretty busy in Shanghai with the world expo happening, so transit is booked up. There were not really any other options for us though, since you can't book tickets from outside of China, and you can only get them a couple days in advance.

After I dragged myself out of bed, we got some breakfast on the street. It consisted of some sort of a pancake type wrapper around a fried egg and some cheese and hot sauce. It was pretty crappy, and I felt like hell for a couple hours after eating it. While laying in bed and generally being a waste of space, I tried to think about what Christie might do in this scenario, and then I remembered my pepto bismol, popped a couple of those and I was right as rain within a half hour. Since we didn't really have anything planned, and it was even hotter today than yesterday, we visited the Shanghai museum to leech some free government air conditioning and see some old stuff. As you can see, we were not the only people with this idea:



We checked out a bunch of really old weapons, jade carvings, and other artifacts. The best exhibit though was one that featured what different ethnic groups clothing historically looked like.



After the museum, my stomach was feeling much better and I was real hungry. We found a vegetarian restaurant and ordered up a delicious dinner. We had a mushroom stir fry dish and then a fake meat dish too, both were very good and the fake meat one was spicy. It seems like the people here have a different view of vegetarians than we do. Most of the menu was things like "fried whole sparrow" which I assume was wheat protein formed into the shape of a sparrow and fried. It seems more like a novelty thing, since most vegetarians I know would rather not be tricked into thinking they are eating meat.

After dinner we strolled through a park and I found a convenience store selling Chu-hi. I have a soft spot in my heart for this canned Japanese lemon drink, as we drank them quite a bit in Tokyo. The ones here don't have as much booze as the Japanese style, I believe all the beer and malt drinks are 3.2 percent, or close to that. Still, it was extremely refreshing on a hot evening.



Time for bed, our train leaves in the morning for Hangzhou (pronounced Hung-Joe), and then we are going to try and climb the yellow mountain nearby and camp on top of it.

Here are all of the pictures from Shanghai:

China

Tomorrow I am heading off to China to visit Noah, my college room mate. This trip will have me flying solo, with Christie staying behind. I am certainly going to miss having my traveling partner by my side. Unfortunately I will be unable to blog as this site is blocked by the Chinese government, but I am keeping an old fashioned journal and will post a full report when I get back.

-Scott

Alajuela - our last day

After taking a bus back from La Fortuna (~4 hours), we checked into a pretty crappy hostel. I think this one suffered from Lonely Planet syndrome, where they get a good review in the guide book, a bunch of people come so they jack up the prices, and stop maintaining the place as well as they should. We were not too concerned about it though, because we had booked a whitewater rafting trip that was going to take 11 hours in total so we would not be hanging out there much at all.

At dinner last night, we looked up from the table to see rafters getting rescued from a ridiculously swollen river, running brown with all the mud run-off. This was the first omen that today might not go as planned. This morning at 6 am, the rafting tour operator called our hostel to inform us they had to cancel because of heavy rains, which are very unusual this time of year. No problem, I thought... I will take that money we got back and go rent a car and we can explore the countryside with our own wheels. After trying 9 different car rental agencies, nobody would rent a car to me for one day, they all have 3 day minimums in high season. By this time, it was too late to get any other one day tours in the area, since they had all departed already. Damn. Time for plan F. I grabbed a cab, headed back to round up Christie at the hostel, paid our bill for one night, and checked into a pretty swank 20 room spanish colonial style hotel with a pool and hot tub.

From Alajuela

We ate really well there, and had a couple drinks by the pool and laid in the sun. Overall, it was a nice way to end the vacation (not as exciting as rafting though). Marilyn kept us company.

From Alajuela

Holy $*&%, a volcano

Yesterday, we left Monteverde and took what was billed as a jeep-boat-jeep transfer to La Fortuna. The two cities are only 25km apart as the crow flies, but they are on opposite sides of a mountain range with a huge lake in between. Riding a bus takes about 8 or 9 hours, as it goes around the mountains and lake. This transfer was only 3 hours, so we opted for it even though it was a bit more expensive. Instead of a jeep, a minivan came and picked us up, along with 5 other people, and took us to the lake on a rough road. Along the way, we had a nice view of the volcano, and I somehow managed to snag a photo out the window of it while a cowboy was riding past on his horse.

From La Fortuna

During the boat ride we had great views of the volcano as well.

From La Fortuna

I was wondering why there were no swimmers in the lake, since it looked so clear and nice. When we got off the boat to take...(you guessed it) another minivan, I found out why.

From La Fortuna

Our place in La Fortuna is really nice, and its right in the heart of town. We hiked out to a waterfall which was massive - the force of the water hitting the lagoon at the bottom was incredible.

From La Fortuna

You would just get wrecked by this if you swam under it (we didn't see anyone try).

From La Fortuna

Thankfully, there was a nice swimming hole in the next pool down the river, and we swam until we got cold and then headed out for dinner. I had my first ceviche, and it was fantastic.

Today, we hiked around in the national park that encompasses the volcano itself. We found another Currasow and this time I snagged a (crappy) photo.

From La Fortuna

The trails were really nice, and while hiking them we heard a pretty big explosion from the volcano. It pretty much erupts constantly, with small explosions shooting rocks out about every 15 minutes or so, but we only heard the one bigger one. One of the trails led to this really big tree:

From La Fortuna

After about an hour and a half of hiking, we reached our destination - the furthest you can safely go before you are at risk of getting hit by flying rocks.

From La Fortuna

Allegedly, at night you can see the lava flows, assuming you drive to the correct side of the mountain and its not cloudy. We didn't make the trip out to try and get the photo, since our hotel (and the town) is on the wrong side. After we got back, we figured we pretty much had to go and try out one of the hot springs. While there are some natural springs you can go to if a local takes you, none of them are lit for night time soaking, and its pretty hot during the day. So, we went to one of the 'spa' type hot springs, which are kind of ridiculous. The one we went to was basically a water park, with lots of different pools heated to various temperatures from the naturally occurring hot water in a spring. It even has swim up bars and water slides...Think noah's ark for older people, and in the jungle :) The place was not very well lit, so I didn't take any pictures, plus I was swimming the whole time. We both agreed it was worth doing once, for the experience, but next time we will skip the man made pools and go to the natural ones instead.

Here are the rest of the photos from La Fortuna: