Guangzhou

Guangzhou is not famous as a holiday destination. It's definitely one giant workplace. And that's why I liked it. Nobody trying to rip me off. No crowds. No endless acres of souvenir shops. 

Although they still stared. Man I had forgotten how much Chinese people stare...

My hostel was in 芳村, Fangcun, which is a nice district across the river from the main city. I say nice because it has a pleasant walk along the river as well as some surprisingly chic brick buildings. There was even a church that I made the effort to go and inspect. I pottered through a market and down some alleys. Dropped into to McDonalds for a pineapple pie. 

Then I got lost. 

Cue endless wanderings through streets before I worked out where I was. I had, somehow, ended up going in completely the opposite direction to where I thought I was going. So I slogged back in the drizzle. At this point the Chinese, sensing my weary mood, decided to kick in with their hello!hello!hello routine. This annoyed me. 

But just as China is capable of putting me in the foulest mood it invariably lifts me back up again as I stumbled upon 沙面岛, Shamian Island. For decades this tiny blob of land was the only place in the whole of China where us white devils were allowed to live. Most of it was built by the British but the French did one end, hence a Catholic church, and as a consequence it is a tiny slice of Bloomsbury hiding amongst the skyscrapers and four lane roads of Guangzhou. Cobbled streets, leafy avenues and pretty Georgian style buildings. Heaven. It even had a Starbucks... 

There were also quite a few statues around showing everyday scenes from colonial times.  My favourite was one of three Chinese  women. The first was short and dressed in traditional Chinese clothes (wide trousers and shirt), the second taller and in a stylish qipao (designed around the beginning of the 20th century as a modern fusion of East and West) and the third the tallest of all wearing shorts and chatting on a mobile phone. I loved the contrast and that if they had ever met, these women would have had nothing in common. The first would have been cultured and refined although repressed, the second glamorous and well versed in revolutionary thought, and the third, well, the third would be like most young Chinese women I see that specialise in cultivating a studied air of dimness. Not for her calligraphy and tea ceremonies, or Marx and French red wine, no she wants an iPad and Prada. 

There were quite a few army soldiers running around the island. Must be a nice place to train I suppose. 

A ferry went from the island to just opposite my hostel. I enjoyed this 2 minute trip far too much but now I can say that I've sailed on the Pearl River, just like my ancestors an age ago. 

Speaking of ancestors I paid a visit to Guangzhou's art Museum which housed bits and bobs left behind from colonial trading. It was a fascinating exhibition containing some really quite spectacular works of art. There were delicate silks, watercolours of colonial warehouses, blue ceramics and the most exquisitely carved ivory I have ever seen. There was a whole tusk covered in trees and figures and rickshaws and roads in stunning detail. There was a dragon boat, again breathtakingly finely carved as well as some scenes of Chinese deities and some ivory "balls" that consisted of shells and shells of ivory, one inside the other. Another favourite of mine was a black and gold lacquer desk. 

There was also a replica of a "Chinese room" that was in vogue in European houses at the time. This would be a room set aside for Chinese "stuff", as the translation helpfully explained... Opposite the room was a huge picture of a river and Tudor style house that I think was supposed to be the view out of the window...

There was a picture of a European ship called 哥德堡, Gedebao, that visited Guangzhou three times, although it sank in the mouth of its home port on the third return. I spent a long time trying to guess the English version of the name, with only the clue that it was in Europe to help me. It's named after Gothenburg, in Sweden, apparently. 

Another fun transliteration I spent a while puzzling over was 鸦片, yapian. Specifically the Yapian War. Or literally- duck slice war. Which confused me. Of course, it means opium dur...

I also visited the Revolutionary Museum which was also fascinating. Guangzhou has had quite a few revolutions over the years, from fighting westerners to Japanese to Nationalists. It was in a park dedicated to the various martyrs and had some statues of the notable ones. Some of them died very young. 

The park also had the obligatory groups of middle aged women doing fan dances as well as an Erhu quartet having a great time in one corner. I sat and watched a group of men and women doing a sort of tai chi routine with swords. Except not all of them have swords so some used umbrellas instead. 

At night the light pollution is so bad it is almost as light as day. Not that that is hard as in the day the smog blocks out quite a lot of the light...

One last bit about Guangzhou- as well as westerners in the 18th century, Persians lived in the city over a thousand years before. And now the Ram City, as it is known (legend says that 5 mythical rams brought rice when there was a famine once), is home to over a hundred thousand Africans. They come to trade and I did see far more of them than any other foreign ethnicity.

So in summary, Guangzhou turned out to be very enjoyable and a fascinating place to visit.




 

Back to China

Bangkok airport sell international newspapers. Imagine that, non governmental controlled, english newspapers... I snapped up the Guardian and curled up in Starbucks with a cup of tea to enjoy my free press. I've still got it with me and I'm going to give it to me English students so they can practise. Although I'm not actually sure if foreigners giving out newspapers is illegal or not. I wouldn't be surprised...

That afternoon I spent on a boat going up and down the Chao Praya river. I saw Bangkok's most famous hotels, The Oriental and The Peninsula. If I'm being honest neither looked particularly impressive whereas The Hilton and The Shangri-la definitely looked suitably glitzy. I also saw the odd temple and colonial era warehouses. 

The next day I again caught a boat and hopped off at the Grand Palace. I didn't go inside (had very little baht left and I was far too miserly to get anymore out) but it looked very shiny. Places like that always amuse me because they were built to show the glory and power of what they considered to be the world's greatest king. But, and I mean no offence, the King of Siam just isn't...

I, instead, went and planted myself in a small, and free, park not far away. It was a rather touching memorial to a queen and princess who died in a boat accident a hundred or so years ago. I sat down near a pavilion to write this blog and people watch. There was the odd jogger, including an elderly gentlemen who was moving at a rather glacial path but, to his credit, managed several laps. Nearby some young men were lifting weights. There were also some interesting critters about, namely a surprisingly large lizard sneaking around as well as the ghostly shadow in the stream which hinted at a rather large fish lurking int he depths. It seemed a lot bigger than all the other fishes...

Then a journey to the airport, a flight delay-sorry "rescheduling", a short flight where my next door neighbour kept bashing me with his elbows and then looked confused when I elbowed back, before I was back in China. 

After a bus and taxi ride involving the first Chinese taxi driver I've ever met who actually seems to know the city and not need me to direct, I arrived at my hostel. 

On the bus I wondered why the Chinese announcer kept saying everything twice, but sounding like he had hiccoughs the second time. 

Yep, I had arrived in Guangzhou, also known as Canton...

Moaning and Moping

Bangkok is partly famous for its trade in the mercenary side of love, both covert and overt. The former is evident in the sheer number of hugely overweight, bald, sweating white men who have somehow convinced themselves that their Thai wife/partner loves them for their inner beauty. These are the sort who moan that western women are not as "well mannered" or "caring" as the "ladylike" Thai. What they mean is that the Thai will provide unquestioning worship and pander to their own belief in their lack of faults, in particular their refusal to bother to take care of themselves or help out around the house. Which is why their "unreasonable" western wives have left them. And the Thai is there for one reason and one reason only. 

Which brings us to sex tourism. It accounts for 10% of Bangkok's revenue from oversees visitors. Again mostly from despicable types similar to that described above although a lot of the "pussy with such-and-such" shows are frequented by gorillaesque youths. Who think it's just a bit of fun. 

Wake-up call: none of the girls, or boys, are there because they want to be. A lot will have been conned into it eg Laos women who come to Bangkok with promises of work in restaurants. And the ones smiling and beckoning you in to join the fun and looking like they're enjoying it? They're faking it. All of it. 

When Sara and I arrived we headed to Khao San road which is Bangkok's backpacker district. After renting a very cheap room for the night (£4 for a double. It was very grungy though...) we headed out to explore. The main road was heaving with stalls selling everything an enthusiastic backpacker could possibly want, from T-shirts emblazoned with marijuana plants to ethnic skirts. Either side were restaurants, or glorified feeding troughs, and the rather tragic sight of rows of open air chairs filled with tourists enjoying the "treat" of a cheap foot massage given by sad men and women too old and ugly to work anywhere better. 

Sara and I hid from the hordes of sunburnt, maxiskirt wearing chavs in mcdonalds which, like most Asian branches, was surprisingly free of westerners and was instead peopled with Thai youths with funky haircuts and biker jackets. 

I am very scathing of western tourists out here. Perhaps unfairly and even hypocritically so. I think it is because I am acutely aware that I am tarred with their brush. But the fact is that the average Thai in Bangkok is smartly dressed, slim, sober and, above all, normal. The average westerner is inappropriately dressed, unable to use suncream, embarrassingly overweight, about to get/already/ recently very drunk and ignorant. I don't want to be seen like that. 

The next day Sara and I moved to a hostel in Silom district. I'd booked this hostel ages ago without really knowing anything about the city but luckily got a good location near a Skytrain station. It was, however, 3 times the price of the previous night's hole and while nice, not 3 times nice... 

Sara and I spent our last day wandering around the Chinatown part (copious amounts of gold shops) which ended up with us getting very hot and bothered so we retreated to a park to cool down a bit. Bangkok is both hot and humid so it's difficult to walk too much. Then off to hide in some air conditioned mall. I tucked into some chicken and chips in the food court- making the most of cheap western food while I could lol. 

In the evening Sara and I had our Treat. Originally we had planned to have a meal at whatever Bangkok's most prestigious restaurant was but it soon became apparent that we'd never get in as our smartest clothes consisted of jeans and flip-flops. So we had a manicure and pedicure instead. I say pedicure, it was more like a trip to the farrier's... My poor feet have racked up quite a mileage over the years and this coupled with continually being trampled by Exmoor ponies has left them a little... rough... However, the pedicurist set about with rasp and clippers and remarkably I emerged with perfectly respectable paws. Although it took a while for the poor woman to get my blue glitter nail varnish off from China:p I opted for tasteful pale pink and Sara for red. 

For dinner we headed into Silom and ate at a bar with a live band and some premiership football on telly to keep us entertained. Then we explored Patpong market which is the main area of sleaze in Bangkok. And indeed there were lots of scantily clad youths beckoning us into go-go bars or offering us menus of sex shows. We didn't fancy watching some sad girl being inventive with a pingpong ball or paying the huge entrance fees for a gogo bar so we settled in one of the nicer bars and had a drink and got talking to a Dutch Jew selling clothes to China. Apparently the English are the worst to do business with...

Early next day, Sara left for Valencia. Originally I wasn't going to go to the airport with her but I changed my mind 60seconds after she'd left and pulled on some jeans and ran after her to go with her. It's difficult, being a single twin. 

On A Train

The 11th February was spent almost completely on a train from Chiang Mai to Bangkok. This was mostly not very exciting, although not too boring as one did see interesting things out of the window. The train itself was a bit old and knackered but this just added to the quaint oldfashionedness which must be a relic from British times. The stations were all heavily manicured and the guards all wore fastidiously ironed uniforms along with hats and white gloves. Thai food (FIRE IN THE HOLD) and refreshments were served sporadically and free of charge which were a godsend as the cheese I had splashed out on turned out to be indescribably vile. My kingdom for some red leicester...

At first we journeyed through leafy mountains along tracks that clung to the sides of cliffs, leaving a spectacular, if not exactly comforting, drop on one side. Eventually these disappeared, leaving endless fields of rice bounding towards the horizon. Every now and then we'd pass a small town which gave us a split second shot of the inhabitants' lives. I read the Bangkok Post, one of Thailand's English newspapers, to pass the time. News concerning the Thai were the clashes with Cambodia over a temple (as if either side hadn't got enough already) and the devaluation of the Vietnamese dong. There were also hints throughout the paper of a growing fear of China's growing influence... Either way, it was fascinating to read about South-East Asia from their perspective. 

After 12 hours we finally arrived in Bangkok. Ah, Bangkok, how so Asian you are... Towering skyscrapers, Buddhist temples, colonial trading houses, futuristic sky trains, rusty buses, garish lights, stationary traffic, lots of money and none at all, Gucci, Versace, princes, paupers, exploitation, sexploitation, violent politics, the chance to make it, someday somehow, all piled up in one hot, chaotic, deliciously exotic mess. 

Oh, Asia, you do make a tempting offer...

Elephants!

Elephants are quite big you know. In particular, their heads, which are fridge sized. This is emphasised by their tiny eyes that don't just watch you, but judge you as well...

And trunks take some getting used to. You adopt a safe position a few metres away from the elephant but then this thing stretches out towards your face making a loud sucking sound as it breathes in your scent. Slightly freaky. 

Sara and I booked into a "learn how to be a mahout" course (code for normal elephant ride but in a stupid uniform) at Baanchang elephant park. Chang is Thai for elephant and sounds like Xiang, which is is the Chinese. Baan means home. 

We were picked up by a stressed Thai man in a minibus filled with our fellow wannabe mahouts and whizzed around Chiang Mai picking up and dropping off other people before driving out to the hills. We arrived at the park which consisted of some buildings, a lake and elephants. After changing into their unflattering uniform, we were given the talk about the park's mission, which is to rescue mistreated elephants, of which Thailand has many. A popular use of elephants is elephant begging, where someone wanders around a city with his elephant getting money off tourists. The elephant is stressed out by city noise and hot Tarmac hurts their feet. Often they are not fed well either. Elephants are also used in logging which does not provide the nicest life, manual labour never does, but I didn't share my hosts' disapproval. Less damage is caused to a forest if elephants haul logs and not trucks. And as elephants live as long as we do, ex loggers cause a problem. The use of elephants in logging was outlawed in Thailand and the 3000 elephants made redundant are the ones that can now be seen on the streets of Bangkok or in horrific zoos and circuses. 

The park also disapproved of making elephants paint pictures as well as the normal circus tricks of standing on one leg, playing football etc. I don't see that elephant paintings are so bad but the park owner said it was unnatural. 

Then we got to feed the elephants. This involved grabbing some sugar cane and either giving it to a questing trunk or slotting it in their mouths. Their mouths are quite big. And if you try to get some sugar cane back from a trunk's grip, well, you won't win. It's rather fascinating, having a glorified vacuum nozzle waving at you before curling delicately around some cane which promptly disappears into its gaping maw. 

There were around 15 elephants including 2 baby ones. One we were warned to be careful about approaching as she was half blind and 18 months pregnant (her bump was HUGE- elephants are pregnant for 22 months) so was prone to grumpiness. Another was a recent acquisition from a street somewhere and stood in the corner quietly. Too quietly. 

Then learning to ride. 

Step 1. In order to mount elephant, make it lie down by shouting "nolong" (lie down in the local lingo) very loudly. 

Step 2. Keep shouting. 

Step 3. After lots or shuffling the elephant will finally sink to the ground. Step on its knee and jump up onto its back and hang onto the ears as it stands up again. 

Step 4. Hotch forward so you're sitting on its neck, hands resting on its head. 

Step 5. Move forwards by shouting "pai" and kneeing it in the back of its ears. 

Step 6. To turn right, knee it in the left ear and shout "Kwai". Keep kneeing until enough turn has been turned. 

Step 7. To turn left, knee on right ear. 

Step 8. To stop shout "how" and grip with knees. 

Step 9. To dismount, shout "nolong" and then scramble off when it has sunk sufficiently...

The elephant may or may not do what you say...

Elephants are actually quite hairy and their skin is leathery but warm. This makes bare legs itch though. 

Of course whether the elephant did what we wanted was fairly moot as wherever we went the mahout walked beside, hanging onto the ear. They were the ones actually giving directions. I fell a little bit in love with one mahout who not only was very pretty but liked to lounge on the back of his elephant with a rock and roll air of insouciance. 

After lunch ("more rice? Louise: oo yes please. French woman: no zank you...), which I spent admiring Hot Mahout's pool skills, we set off for a ride into the forest. Sara and I shared an elephant. I forget its name but it was the park's only boy elephant. They grow tusks and cows don't so their owners are reluctant to sell them when they can get much more money from ivory. On the way up Sara "steered" and I sat on the back taking photos. One of our group rode the baby elephant which came too. One guy gave his elephant some cane that it reached up with its trunk to pluck from his hand. When we reached the top we got off and the elephants wandered around grazing and scratching. Every now and then you'd see a tree shaking furiously as it got elephant butt itched against it. Many of the trees had bare trunks where the elephants had eaten the bark. Some were just stumps in the ground. The baby elephant ran around trumpeting and being naughty, with its mahout trailing after trying to keep an eye on it. Hot Mahout sat on his elephant and played with his phone. Then back up, with me in front, for the descent. This was slightly tricky as it was quite steep and elephants' backs are rather slippery... and it's a long way to fall! Plus, to slow themselves down, they knock into trees on the way down, like we grab with our hands, so Sara kept nearly getting scraped. 

Then bath time! First the elephants went in with their mahouts. Us trainees stayed back because the first thing elephants do on entering water is drink, the second is to poop so some unlucky soul has to fish this out before we got in. The water was surprisingly cold and the lake floor disturbingly squidgy but Sara and I got on with the job of scrubbing our elephant, who blew water around happily. The baby rushed around spraying everyone with water. Much fun had, as with all toddlers. 

So that was our elephant experience. It was fun but I have to admit, I prefer ponies... Elephants take a rather long time to do anything and whereas Grandpa will let me put a pony on his farm, I'm not sure he'd welcome a pachyderm...

OMG SHUT UP BIRDBRAIN

Thailand is civilised. It has steak and Guiness pie and non fake alcohol. I ate too much of the pie, though, and felt a wee but funny for a while...

Sara admitted that China changes you in that you become pathetically grateful for a meal with no rice and also for the practice of basic public hygiene. 

We headed down to Chiang Mai, the largest city in the north. Thai buses are similar to ones I've seen in old sitcoms, namely Porridge, so I suspect their early career may have been abroad. And some time ago. Still, they get you from a to b and have a rather cute character. 

Chiang Mai is quite popular with expats and lo, there were starbucks and things. There is an old town with old walls that we didn't visit because a) it only really had temples and b) we had better things to do. 

Thai temples are different from Chinese ones in that they are narrow and have wormy dragon things as roof decorations. And they are genuinely old not rebuilt in 1999. And the monks hanging around are real. Here ends my interest in temples. 

Our point of orbit was near the river where the night bazaar is. And the English pub. Annoyingly our hostel was over 20minutes walk away which, with a belly full (and I mean full. The waiter would tut and make you eat up if you left anything) is rather hard. So we got tuktuks instead. I love tuktuks. They're like angry wasps buzzing in and out of traffic in a blaze of noise and exhaust fumes. Rather exciting whizzing along wondering if we can finish overtaking before the oncoming truck occupies the same bit of road as us. 

Our hostel was in a lovely, quiet, peaceful area. Sara, as light a sleeper as Becka "hasn't had a night's sleep in 3 months", was looking forward to slumber. 

However. 

Starting at about 4am (I thought they were supposed to start at dawn!) the neighbouring cockerels slug it out in a battle of cockadoodledoos. Each salvo launched about 30 seconds apart. And lung burstingly loud. And difficult to sleep through...

The Thai tradition of removing shoes before entering a house is annoying when you wear
Converse, which take 5 minutes to tug off. Each. 

We Used To Own This Bit

Thailand, in contrast to Laos, is pretty developed and modernised. Tescos has arrived. The fields are not higgledly-piggledly rice terraces with a peasant here and there bent double. Rather they are broad fields crisscrossed with machine tracks that account for the scarcity of water buffalo and, indeed, the bent peasant. It was actually quite surprising how much you noticed the lack of people around, after all British fields are normally pretty empty. However I think I have got used to the sight of terraces dotted with human backs. 

First Sara and I headed to Chiang Rai, a small town in the north of Thailand. We didn't do much here, except sleep, although I got very excited to find a 7/11 that contained food I recognised. Tuna sandwiches! We did have dinner at one place, though, which was rather eery. There was noone apart from us and the general gloom of the room and the slightly detached air of the proprietress lent a rather foreboding air, like somewhere out back was a Greek bed that guests had to fit in or adjustments would be made... In contrast, the guesthouse where we stayed had staff falling over themselves to help us, all with the famed Thai Grin. 

The next day we headed up to Mae Sai. Mae Sai has a Tesco Lotus superstore, a market filled with junk, and a crossing point with Myanmar which is why Sara and I had rocked up. After shedding our bags we skipped up to the checkpoint, paid 500 baht each for a visa, (annoyingly the price in dollars was cheaper but we had exchanged all our dollars for baht...) and arrived in the Union of Myanmar, erstwhile British colony of Burma. 

Tachileik, the Burmese border town, was slightly disappointingly normal. The market was stuffed with souvenirs and fake designer bags (including some rather nice Paul Smith ones). Prices were all in baht and I have a suspicion we couldn't have got hold of whatever the Burmese currency is even if we wanted to. I bought a pack of cards that was based on the Americans' wanted/caught list of Iraqis pack of cards (only because I fancied the challenge of getting them for 200 less than the outrageous asking price of 250baht and because they are rather amusing) as well as a print of an oil painting of three Arab horses. Nothing remotely tasteful or Burmese, but then the market wasn't really geared towards that... The only authentic Burmese stuff was various endangered animal parts. 

We wandered a bit through the town and bought ice creams. School children would say hello but mostly we were ignored. Except by tuktuk drivers. eventually Sara and I meandered up to a temple. We didn't enter, I refused to and Sara wasn't bothered either, but there were some rather spectacular views across the town and out to some mountains shrouded in haze whose air of the forbidden only added to a quick sense of intense curiosity (our visas only really let us into the border town. Any further and we would have to apply for a permit at an embassy). I would love to know what is going on the other side of those green hills...

To think there was a time when I, as a British citizen, could wander at will. 

The most memorable thing about Myanmar for me was how you could see that this country is a bridge between South Asia and East Asia. People were not only Thai looking but also Indian. It was rather unexpected for me, who thinks of India to be as remote from China as Moscow, to be reminded that it is in fact rather local. 

After a lunch of Burmese chicken and rice which brought out the typical Jones reaction to spice (FIRE IN THE HOLD!) we headed back into Thailand because, quite frankly, we'd run out of things to do. Thus ended our first visit to a country genuinely unpopular on the international stage. 

Damn I wish North Korea wasn't so expensive- it would be so fascinating... Anyone want to lend me a grand?

 

My Butt, My Seat

When Sara and I were boarding our bus from Laos to the Thai border, we encountered the Asian way of reserving seats. Namely that if your butt is on a seat, that seat is yours. Sara and I realised this and planted on two seats but three other westerners did not and spent a long while stood outside the bus angrily declaring how they had reserved seats while a steady stream of Laos walked past onto the bus. Only one of them made it on in the end... 

Cows are remarkably road safety conscious in Laos. You hoot and they all hurry to the side of the road to carry on walking single file to wherever it is they are headed. 

We spent our first evening in Laos wandering around Luang Namtha. This was the town we were using as a brief stop before heading onto Thailand. I say town but if I use that word I now feel obliged to describe Kirby Muxloe as a global megalopolis. Only about half the roads were concrete and the rest were dirt and stones, which made them rather uncomfortable to ride over. The houses were generally wooden huts scattered around with the odd smart brick house or shop. In between grew various leafy plants and trees so the whole place felt strangely rural for a town. We stayed at the Manychan guesthouse, which was rather nice after China! I judge a country by it's public toilets and Laos was clean and had loo roll! Although normally you had to flush it by pouring water yourself...

It was fairly easy to see that the vast majority of Laotians live by farming alone as there were so few businesses in town other than the food market. There were the usual motorbike and mobile phone shops but otherwise capitalism has yet to arrive. Except, that is, for the abundance of small hotels and restaurants aimed at westerners and Chinese... Speaking of the Chinese, we came across several signs that meant that they are around in Laos investing and developing. Some Greater Mekong Region Development Programme or similar shifty sounding scheme. The EU does not appear to be far behind either, judging by the number of primary schools with their name on it. This annoyed me slightly as I feel that it is clearly better for a country to develop in its own way, at its own pace. Sure it sounds better for them to learn from our superior knowhow but I think it's better for them to make their own mistakes else how will they learn? Plus if they do it themselves they get all the benefit whereas at the moment, China is the one making all the money!

Luang Namtha has an annoying habit of broadcasting over loudspeakers at 7am. I don't know what they were saying, but I'm sure it's nothing that couldn't have waited...

On our one full day in Laos we hired two bikes and set off exploring. We had got up pretty early, partly due to the bloody loudspeakers and partly due to the fact that we wanted to miss the midday heat, and hired two basic sit up bikes with no gears.  They were much better than mountain bikes though as they were lovely and light so easy to peddle over long distances. They had baskets on the front and I felt very old-fashioned on them! Laos before 10:30am was very misty and chilly so as we cycled to the bus station for tickets the next day we actually got a bit cold. One eery feeling we got was that with all the dew soaked vegetation and flat fields, it felt bizarrely like Fenland in the UK... cue a joke about similar levels of technological advancement:p

We got some tickets at the bus station and then headed off down some tracks to various villages. The villages were small and again just huts amongst the jungle. Old women would be preparing vegetables while the men repaired buildings or motorbikes. The children were running around with the chickens, dogs and piglets and occasionally ran up to us yelling hello, or sabaidee. I'd reply with a sabaidee and they'd yell happily at a westerner using Lao. The fields were mostly rice paddies with the odd water buffalo having a wallow. The main thing I noticed, however, was the noise. A continual cacophony of shouting, barking, hammering and birdsong. All of this, of course, made more obvious by the complete lack of any traffic or machinery. Strange. 

At half ten the mist just suddenly cleared and it began to heat up. Sara and I eventually, after a bumpy and sweaty slog, arrived at a waterfall. We paid the laotian who had been enterprising enough to realise sitting near a stream taking entrance fees was preferable to working in a field, and headed up. It wasn't a very impressive waterfall but we sat down and ate our lunch in its shadow. Eventually three young boys appeared with baskets and little spear throwers to hunt fish. First they spent a little while sharpening their metal tipped arrows on rocks and then one of them put on his diving goggles and peered into the water. With his long legs he looked like a little frog bending over. Eventually he came back up with a tiny fish speared on his arrow, which he put in his basket. Success. The boys carried on looking like they were having a great time splashing around. 

After a brief foray higher upstream, and a sit down which I used to murder any bugs that came near me, we headed back to town. 

That evening we had dinner at a special minority restaurant. Whereas Chinese food consists of scraps of stuff stir fried, Laos food is all mashed up into a paste. It's rather good, especially the fish and salad, but it often gets served with clear, gelatinous noodles made from starch. These are not pleasant to eat...

The chef had studied western food for three years apparently. Does one need that long to know how to make burger and chips?

That evening we went to the river and sat on the bank people-watching. We were near a ford so at one point a Laos teenager was transferring heavy looking sacks from side to side and later on, a father crossed with two small daughters hanging off him. He dropped them off opposite and left them scraping something while he disappeared. They kept glancing shyly at us and saying hello. A few old ladies washed clothes and some small boys splashed around. One had a toy gun and shot at us. I pretended to surrender. 

If you ever get tired of life, I would recommend Luang Namtha. It is a very peaceful place. The inhabitants have got lovely weather, beautiful surroundings and a good supply of food and drink, judging by the number of raucous family parties. If all you need in life are these basics, you would be very happy in Laos. Until China's Greater Mekong Development Committee turn up...

The next day we rose early and headed to the bus station. A rather touching moment occurred while we were waiting to board as four grandmothers dressed in traditional Black Thai clothes beckoned us over and started feeding us sticky rice, which was not only tasty but needed as we had not got enough kip, laos money, to buy breakfast. (we since discovered we had been trying to live on less than half the recommended daily budget for one person, let alone 2... Jones family genes coming through there!). Sara gave them some chocolate as thanks which they regarded as suspicious before trying and being pleasantly surprised. Then aboard. With us were the grannies (one with a fake Louis Vuitton bag lol), uni students with funky hairdos, two monks and another disgruntled westerner who was unfortunately slightly too big for Laos seats... After a 5 hour bus ride through the mountain forests we reached the flat valley of the Mekong river at Huay Xai. I always feel the Mekong should be prefixed with "the once mighty" as it is obviously much diminished from former days. The original high water mark is just visible through terraces that have crept down. The Chinese have dammed it upriver for electricity, you see... 

We dropped the monks off at a village and the driver drove off without realising the younger monk had climbed up to retrieve his luggage. Probably the only time I will ever say "stop! There's a monk on the roof!"

Women aren't allowed to touch monks. If they do, the monk has to do several days of ritual cleansing. 

At Huay Xai, Sara and I boarded a thin, narrow boat and, after a few minutes afloat, we were treading gingerly on ex-riverbed into Thailand...

Happy New Year of the Rabbit

I've been rather bad in updating this blog but I've been reduced to typing on my iPod which, while being marvellous at many, many things (speaks 5 languages and can read a map. All while playing a Bach violin concerto) it is nonetheless rather difficult to type on. 

So a roundup. 

We stayed in Kunming for 5 days in total which was plenty to get a feel for the place. Kunming is the capital of Yunnan province and I very nearly chose to live there and not Qingdao. However I'm glad I did choose Qingdao as not only is Kunming just a tad boring, it is also rather un-Chinese. There is no sense of a desperate need to make More Money. The buildings and roads are not designed to be big and modern and Impressive on the whole it is rather relaxed. Which is uncanny in China. 

Also Kunming food is not nearly as nice as Qingdao's :p

The highlight of the week I suppose was Chinese New Year. The eve of this was Wednesday. In the day Sara and I headed out to 西山 (Western Mountains) and spent the day wandering through the forest. Here and there were temples, which I refused to go in, but also a magnolia garden that we did fork out the entrance fee for. It was nothing spectacular, just some sloping lawns with flowering magnolias. Still, it was rather pretty. 

At the end was a cable car that Sara got very excited about riding. It seemed fairly safe, not like the Ride of Death in Qingdao, so we had a go. Highlights on the way included rather spectacular views of Kunming and the lake as well as a man hiding in a tent taking pictures of the tourists. At the end of the ride was a gaggle of Chinese women noisily and banshee-ly trying to buy the photos. We walked back down past the "miniature stone forest". Kunming is famous for its karst rock formations and for its best exhibit charges nearly 20 pounds. This is beyond extortionate and so we heeded to my rule of avoiding Chinese Scenic Spots and contented ourself with the tiny ones. They weren't very impressive. But there was an impressive amount of bins disguised as rocks though. 

In the evening Sara and I roosted on the roof terrace with rather too much beer to watch the fireworks. And what fireworks! Normally fireworks are banned in China so this is the time of year the Chinese get set loose with them. Cue a night of constant BOOM BOOM BOOM. It felt eerily like a city under constant bombardment by an invading force. Some were so loud they set car alarms off. Others crackled like gunfire (these tended to be the smaller ones that the youths liked to throw at each other). Some Chinese were launching rockets out of the window of their 20th floor apartments. 

Some Americans had bought some massive ones and after much dithering about the legality of laowais setting off virtual bombs, eventually got drunk enough to go downstairs and let rip. Interestingly some policemen must have seen but obviously didn't care about a few more fireworks amongst so many...

American Quote if the Night:
"In my opinion there is no Florida; only South Georgia and North Cuba"

On the way to the mountain while we waited at the bus station a small child marched past us, eyes crinkled up in wells of tears that proclaimed that his parents were the worst in the world and he was never going back EVER. Around 20 metres behind his exasperated family shouted at him to stop. Despite my words of encouragement to keep walking and not give in, he eventually trudged back...

Round 2 with Kunming bus system at first appeared to be going our way but then we ended up walking and catching 2 buses home instead of the normal 1 as the one wanted, 
according to the sign, stopped running at 5pm. It didn't though, as we realised when it stormed past us later on...

A cafe that we began to frequent was run by a French family. They do an amazingly sinfully cheesy Croque Monsieur. We only actually espied the French on our last visit but I figured that there had to be one about somewhere as experience has taught me that good western food is done only by a Westerner. The two young French children spoke excellent mandarin, which was slightly trippy to hear. 

We made the mistake of going to Kunming zoo. It was horrible. Packed full, and I mean FULL, of screaming, shouting Chinese families. Add to this loudspeakers blaring out music. Sara and I wandered in vain for 15 minutes through the hellish maelstrom before we saw anything other than a bird. The zebras and elephants all displayed classic signs of stress by walking up and down or backwards. The giraffes' horns looked diseased. The Chinese, as always oblivious to the suffering of animals, squealed with delight. 

The sign on the wall declaring that animals were "man's best friends" seemed a little hollow. 

We left, with headaches.

It may seem a tad harsh to say that the Chinese are inherently cruel to animals but you only have to go to the animal market to see... Tanks so packed with goldfish the ones at the bottom are slowly suffocating under the weight of those on top. Boxes of puppies too young to be from their mothers. More tiny cages with rabbits in. Boxes with literally layers of turtles. There was a dead one on the floor and I felt sorry for it. 

To happier things. Sara and I spent our last day wandering around Kunming and got a manicure. I went for classic blue glitter, and Sara for gold glitter. Fabulous. 

Round 3 with the Kunming bus system went to Kunming as Sara and I, after a valiant attempt at trying to catch the right bus to a certain stop and then get off to catch another one to the long distance bus station, ended up in the middle of nowhere and had to catch a taxi instead. 

That bus system will always remain a mystery to me. 

We caught a night bus to 景洪, Jinghong. It was the first time we had caught a night bus and whilst it was a fairly intermittent night's sleep, we emerged still with all our stuff. This is not a given on night buses. 

At the bus station I paid 5交 to use their loo. I was prepared for no loo roll but the cubicles didn't even have doors. This annoyed me. 

Forget calls for democracy in China. It needs basic hygiene first. 

Then we caught yet another bus to Laos, leaving Jinghong behind in the dark. (Dawn is late here as we are on Beijing time, despite really being around an hour behind). We briefly stopped at Mengla for some reason or other. This part of Yunnan is very like the rest of south east Asia with green tropical trees, water buffalo in the fields, and a prevalence of motorbikes. Yunnan is such a diverse province. From tropical jungles, and China's only herd of "wild" elephants, to high plateaux of yak meadows surrounded by towering peaks in the north. It's really quite special. 

Then we arrived at the border. It was a rather swish modern archway surrounded by pretty landscaped gardens of purple flowers. We whisked through the Chinese side and thus Sara left China. I, or course with my hard won resident permit, can return when I feel like it :p

In the No Man's land we were hurriedly and worriedly hassled so that we ended up taking a needless, and needless to say expensive, taxi to the Laos visa bit. In retrospect we could have waited to carry on in the bus with everyone else but we were worried about the visa... 

After paying $35 each Sara and I were presented with a rather shiny visa. My passport is starting to look exciting now! 

And then onto Luang Namtha. We were dropped off at the bus station before we hopped into the back of a truck converted into a shuttle bus. Predictably it was full of westerners. Including the usual blonde dimwit in harem pants and a posh accent. Hate harem pants. 

After a brief ride, our travelling was finally at an end. Sara and I checked into the nearest hotel, taking the last room hehe. 

I shall leave you in suspense as to how the exotic Laos is as I am quite frankly knackered. Xxx. 

Pleasantly Dull

Sara has very kindly brought me twixes from the UK. Real snacks! In fact the Chinese are so unfamiliar with chocolate biscuits they'd been into Sara's bag, without her knowing, and snipped off a corner of the packet to see what was inside...

So after a night train Becka and I finally arrived in Kunming. I've been here 3 days bow and am slowly forming an impression of the city. The first is that the bus system is fiendishly secretive. The bus stops give little to no information on when or where he are going whihnis rather annoying... Secondly is that Kunming has more westerners than Qingdao and consequently some rather nice cafes and even a Spanish restaurant with a guy from Barcelona. Thirdly is that Kunming does rather live up to it's reputation as the Spring City as there are lots of leafy avenues and parks. The whole city is rather pleasant. Because of the large numbers of electric mopeds it is quieter than normal. The buildings are not too big, the roads not too wide. So in short it is rather boring. Pleasant, but boring.

Becka has returned to the UK a little earlier than planned as her homesickness became too much and she fled China before Dawn yesterday. She will miss Chinese New Year but neither of us know if this is a bad thing or not as we have no idea what new year celebration involves. From the piles of fireworks being sold at the side of the road I predict a lot of very loud bangs...

Sara has now joined me from Spain. I am very happy:D

Today we went to see Kunming's lake, 滇池, Dianchi Lake. It is rather large and we had a pleasant time walking by the side through a rather manicured park. In Kunming at he moment are hundreds of seagulls who have come to winter here. The Chinese love buying bread to feed them. It's quite something to see a speedboat racing across the water pursued by a swarm of screaming birds, all flapping hysterically to keep up.

Sara and I were sat watching some old men playing croquet when they started wachin us and buying each other. Eventually they plucked up the courage and asked if we were twins. I was impressed as normally they think westerners all look alike anyway.

Sara is impressed I can speak Chinese :D

Kunming seems to specialise in 米线, mi xian, which is rice noodles on soup. Not my favourite but it's hard to find anything else...

I miss Dongbei cai (northeast food). I miss exciting Qingdao...