As many of you may know me as the outdoorsy type that i am, I made it my mission when i decided to come to Japan to climb Mount Fuji. I figured i needed to start accumulating some personal goals at some stage in my life, and why not start with the highest mountain in Japan?!
Climbing mountains to the Japanese, is a means of paying homage to God and climbing Mount Fuji (FujiSan) forms part of a very important pilgrimage to some. Traditionally, the pilgrimage climb starts at the base, with shrines the whole way up and can take a few days to complete. As i had seen enough shrines to ensure Business Class into heaven, I would start half way up the mountain, at the fifth station, where all the sane people are. Initially, my plan was to climb to the seventh or eight station on the first evening, stay in one of the mountain huts and climb the remainder to the summit, during the night, to be there for the sunrise.
Nice idea, shame i hadn't done some proper research into that task before i left Tokyo. Mount Fuji is roughly about 100km west of Tokyo and when i finally got to Kawaguchi after 3 hours, i was a little more than disappointed to hear i'd missed the last bus for the day that would bring me up to the fifth station. Also, the official climbing season was to start on July 1st and as this was June 27th, the Japanese girl in the information office told me i wouldn't be allowed climb it anyway, with out official documents. To say i was disappointed and perhaps a bit rude, was an understatement.
Alos, getting any sort of concrete information about climbing it was really difficult, this ambiguous, shady mountain was not making life easy for me and my 'goal'. (Mountain 1 Farrier 0)
I stayed in Kawaguchi for the night and had to forgo my idea at climbing it at night and was hoping when i got to the fifth station, i might meet some other climbers. The previous day i'd met Liz and Dan, this deadly American couple who were planning on climbing it too. I bumped into them again at the bus stop and they nicely let me tag along with them on their climb. New friends and company! What do you think of that Mountain?!
(Mountain 1 Farrier 1)
We started out hike from the Fifth station at around 1030am. The weather was pleasant although I'd been told there was still snow at the top. The hike to the seventh station was a long, meandering incline that seemed to go on forever. Imagine the highest level on a treadmill.I figured i was somewhat fit from all the walking i'd been doing ,not to mention the pounds I had been pushing with the Beast, to be fit enough to do this. I think after the first hour, when my lungs felt like they were been physically wretched out my neck, it occurred to me that i might not be able to do it at all. I felt tears coming on and I was about to knock the whole idea on the head only Liz was having none of it and got me up to the seventh station in one piece! Nice try mountain. I also realised that i was probably talking a bit much, when i shut up, it got a little easier.
(Mountain 2 Farrier 2)
It was cloudy and cold at the seventh station, we stopped for some food then set off. Here the climb got rockier and much steeper. I really enjoyed this part, it was quite physical but it meant we had to go at slower pace, which suited me fine! Here we encountered the first of the mountain huts, as it was day, we would be completing the climb in one go, we didn't go into any, just stopped for little rests and off again.
When we reached about 3000mm, we came across the first snowy sections of the mountain. Fuji is shaped like a perfect cone, and some madzer was snowboarding down the side, another one on a mountain bike! It was shortly after this that the air started to get a bit thinner.....
Dan and Liz, at this stage, were complaining of minor headaches, it was difficult to know if our shortness of breath was from the altitude or just the general physical exertion. Oh dear.. (Mountain 3 Farrier 2)
Fortunately for me, my sister had provided me with a shocking amount of drugs for any circumstance before i left, so i took some altitude sickness pills earlier on in the day before we started ascending. Unsure if i'd given them anough time to start working, i hoped they'd kick in soon enough.
They did, i was fine! (Mountain 3 Farrier 3)
It was getting colder as we got higher, our breaks became more frequent and when we reached the 9th station, we met some people descending, that encouragingly told us we only had roughly another 1.5 hours to go. We'd been climbing for 3 hours by now. I don't know where i managed to muster the energy for that middle section of the mountain, probably from all the food I'd eaten in Tokyo. Dan was flying on ahead but Liz and I were finding it tough.
Finally after 4.5 hours, we heard clapping and cheers from shorlty ahead and knew we were near the summit (3776mm) It was cold and windy and after a short walk around we found the grater and it was spectacular. I'd never been inside a volcano before, it was about the size of a very large football field and went down roughly about 1000mm i'd say. Many before have fallen into it and died, which isn't suprising, it's quite dangerous. I'm very brave you know. Extra point for me for being so brave i think!
(Mountain 3 Farrier 5)
After getting out picture taken with some excited Japanese ladies and had some food we started to descend. This took about 3.5 hours. It was pretty tough as you were forced to run in parts on loose gravel and were using the complete opposite muscles to the ones you'd been flexing for the past few hours. We met a troup of about 100 Japanese climbers on their way up, all decked out in the brighest, newest mountain gear imaginable, everyone of them saying Konnichi wa, and bowing their heads as we pasted. Kind of strange but touching all the same.
It started to snow on our way down, a dirty trick on the mounains behave, but within the rules. Concilation point for the mountain i suppose
(Mountain 4 Farrier 5)
As we'd missed the last bus to Fujiyoshida, where we would be staying for the night, there was a possibility we might have an additional 4 hour walk, in the dark when we got back to the fifth station. Thankfully, Liz flagged down a taxi and we jumped in, just before the rain started.
(Final Score Mountain 4 Farrier 6)
After a lovely junk food meal of burger and chips with my new American friends, we went back to their hostel and i managed to get a room for the night. Possibly one of the best days of my life, i loved ever second of it. I'd like to take this oppertunity to thank Liz and Dan for letting me tag along on their climb, amd my sister for giving me the drugs and hiking boots necessary for the task!
Saturday, July 12, 2008
More tokyo
A brief synopsis.....
I ended up staying in Tokyo for a full week, more than i stayed in any other place. There was so much to potentially do and if you factor in the time for getting lost and distracted by what it has to offer in just walking down the street, the days start to clock up. Ask Lina, she was supposed to leave on a Friday and didn't leave until the Sunday, just about making her second flight and narrowly missing an eternal slagging from me for being such a tokyo booze hound!!
However, I won't do that because Lina, being the top notch friend that she is, sat me down and pointed out the ridiculous,self-inflicted logistical tug of war i was evidently having with the Beast. In one selfless action that has changed my travelling experience by almost 5 kilos i reckon, she took home the doubles i had of everything and lightened my very heavy load. Again Lina , I am sincerely sorry for not telling you about the knife and any subsequent embarrassment, man-handling and general abuse you received at the hands of the Japanese Police and Narita Airport Security. I really am.
Tokyo wasn't all bright lights and fried tempura thought, it did have a dark seedy 'underbelly' (Lonely planey description, not mine). Aside from the fettish joints, prostitutes and weird reptilian Manga porn, they have cockroaches. And big ones at that. The last hostel we stayed managed to bring down all previous asian hostel standards I'd experienced in both China and Japan. We stayed for two nights but should have seen the warning signs with the monster of a cockroach we met on arrival. Lina, having lived in New York where they have cockroaches the size of buses, was even appaled at it's size. It set an ugly precedent for the rest of our stay there, resulting in us practically getting flung out the door on the last day for not checking out on time.
Saying goodbye to Lina, i left Tokyo, and set out on my way to climb Mount Fuji. I didn't mind being by myself again, but having company in Tokyo, expecially Lina's, made the experience all the more worthwhile. It's most certainly the sort of place best enjoyed when you can share the excitement of it's craziness with another like-minded Tokyo-obbsessive.
Good work Team Tokyo!
I ended up staying in Tokyo for a full week, more than i stayed in any other place. There was so much to potentially do and if you factor in the time for getting lost and distracted by what it has to offer in just walking down the street, the days start to clock up. Ask Lina, she was supposed to leave on a Friday and didn't leave until the Sunday, just about making her second flight and narrowly missing an eternal slagging from me for being such a tokyo booze hound!!
However, I won't do that because Lina, being the top notch friend that she is, sat me down and pointed out the ridiculous,self-inflicted logistical tug of war i was evidently having with the Beast. In one selfless action that has changed my travelling experience by almost 5 kilos i reckon, she took home the doubles i had of everything and lightened my very heavy load. Again Lina , I am sincerely sorry for not telling you about the knife and any subsequent embarrassment, man-handling and general abuse you received at the hands of the Japanese Police and Narita Airport Security. I really am.
Tokyo wasn't all bright lights and fried tempura thought, it did have a dark seedy 'underbelly' (Lonely planey description, not mine). Aside from the fettish joints, prostitutes and weird reptilian Manga porn, they have cockroaches. And big ones at that. The last hostel we stayed managed to bring down all previous asian hostel standards I'd experienced in both China and Japan. We stayed for two nights but should have seen the warning signs with the monster of a cockroach we met on arrival. Lina, having lived in New York where they have cockroaches the size of buses, was even appaled at it's size. It set an ugly precedent for the rest of our stay there, resulting in us practically getting flung out the door on the last day for not checking out on time.
Saying goodbye to Lina, i left Tokyo, and set out on my way to climb Mount Fuji. I didn't mind being by myself again, but having company in Tokyo, expecially Lina's, made the experience all the more worthwhile. It's most certainly the sort of place best enjoyed when you can share the excitement of it's craziness with another like-minded Tokyo-obbsessive.
Good work Team Tokyo!
Japan
Tokyo = So great it requires bullet points to ensure nothing is omitted
Tokyo is amazing because.......
- they have high tech vending machines that sell cold milk coffee and 10% alcohol whenever you require it.
- When you get lost, which is inevitable because of their ridiculous street adressing system, Japanese people will automatically help you out in a way that also doesn't make you feel like a total dimwit
-you can spend an unbelievable amount of time in their slot and pachinko arcades staring wide-mouthed at the grown men betting on plastic horse races.
-such arcades also have photo booths where you and your friend Lina can spend many a happy hour, taking preposterous photos of yourselves...over and over
-they have an entire area in Asakusa dedicated to kitchenware. Here Lina found her Meca amoungst the hundreds and hundreds of plastic food displays, gently and lovingly handcrafted by artisans trained in the ancient fine art of food replication. A costly but rewarding souvenir.
-Food food food, as Lina is the authority on this matter, i might let her explain how amazing the food we ate was. Personally, as long as it was battered i didn't mind. When i get home, i am getting me a deep fat fryer
-Shibuya and Shinjuku are the craziest places i've ever seen in my life. They come alive at night and are home to some of the worlds weirdest fettish joints. Bizarly, or possibly not, from the outside they all look like you could bring your five year old in to see Barney.......But's probably Barney for business men, if you know what i mean.
The place is all lit up, creating your typical Tokyo postcard image and close to Shinjuku is an grid of alleyways called the Golden Gai where you can hangout in a bar called Ghetto, the size of a shoe box and drink until the early hours with the semi-famous japanese actor owner.
-It's a city that never seems to close, after leaving your new local you can jump on the metro and go to the early morning fish markets and eat fresh sushi for breakfast, this is if you manage to make it through the markets without loosing a limb. The markets are actually fascinating, really intense as there's giant frozen tuna the size of yourselves been flung through slicing machines, high speed buggies bombing it around the place and lots of guts and blood and dead gross looking fish things. It was fantastic.
-They have this alley way in Shinjuku called 'piss alley' where all the business men go and have noodles before they stumble home to their wives. We met up with Shinya, an ol Japanese Bodytonic faithful over there through a friend of Lina's and he brought us by the hand to eat in Piss-alley. We went to this one place that only seemed to sell skewers of chicken bits. Shin ordered for us and also excitedly informed us the cook was in the mafia! If i remember correctly, we had skewers of chicken meat, chicken skin, chicken heart and chicken cartiledge. Then after our food had settled, we went to hit a few baseballs in a cage right smack bang in the middle of the city. I thought my previous Under 15 Rounders Connaght final experiecnce would stand to me, but the 80km pitched balls were too much for me and my girlie swing. I managed to hit 2 balls out of about 25.
-They have Harajuku kids! I went to Harajuku on the Sunday but unfortunately it was raining heavily. They were still out in force but my camera was dead. In someways this was good as i think i am so eager to take photos sometimes i forget to stop and take in what I'm photographing. I have to say i thought they boys were a bit more stylish. All of Harajuku is a teenagers dream, with clothes shops and trinket shops and fast food joints. Imagine Adhoc's the entire length of Georges St. (For anyone that doesn't know, Adhoc's that tacky shop in Templebar where all the Emo kids get their piercings and glow in the dark tongue rings)
-Electric Town!! A whole area with hundreds and hundreds of shops selling usb leads and cables and cords of all kinds! I spent an afternoon here in one building called Radio Hall. This place is just plain weird. On exiting the train station, the first thing i meet is about 50 girls dressed in french-maid outfits, handing out flyers. This could be a new approach for any promoters reading. Radio Hall has about 6 floors of gadget shops, manga stores and manga toys. There is one whole floor with just doll parts. If you're inclined, you can customize your own doll, ranging from very small to very large. I found the eye section particularly unnerving. Floor to ceiling displays of doll eyes?!
As i'm running out of adjectives now I'm going to take a break, read a thesaurus and finish another time.
Tokyo is amazing because.......
- they have high tech vending machines that sell cold milk coffee and 10% alcohol whenever you require it.
- When you get lost, which is inevitable because of their ridiculous street adressing system, Japanese people will automatically help you out in a way that also doesn't make you feel like a total dimwit
-you can spend an unbelievable amount of time in their slot and pachinko arcades staring wide-mouthed at the grown men betting on plastic horse races.
-such arcades also have photo booths where you and your friend Lina can spend many a happy hour, taking preposterous photos of yourselves...over and over
-they have an entire area in Asakusa dedicated to kitchenware. Here Lina found her Meca amoungst the hundreds and hundreds of plastic food displays, gently and lovingly handcrafted by artisans trained in the ancient fine art of food replication. A costly but rewarding souvenir.
-Food food food, as Lina is the authority on this matter, i might let her explain how amazing the food we ate was. Personally, as long as it was battered i didn't mind. When i get home, i am getting me a deep fat fryer
-Shibuya and Shinjuku are the craziest places i've ever seen in my life. They come alive at night and are home to some of the worlds weirdest fettish joints. Bizarly, or possibly not, from the outside they all look like you could bring your five year old in to see Barney.......But's probably Barney for business men, if you know what i mean.
The place is all lit up, creating your typical Tokyo postcard image and close to Shinjuku is an grid of alleyways called the Golden Gai where you can hangout in a bar called Ghetto, the size of a shoe box and drink until the early hours with the semi-famous japanese actor owner.
-It's a city that never seems to close, after leaving your new local you can jump on the metro and go to the early morning fish markets and eat fresh sushi for breakfast, this is if you manage to make it through the markets without loosing a limb. The markets are actually fascinating, really intense as there's giant frozen tuna the size of yourselves been flung through slicing machines, high speed buggies bombing it around the place and lots of guts and blood and dead gross looking fish things. It was fantastic.
-They have this alley way in Shinjuku called 'piss alley' where all the business men go and have noodles before they stumble home to their wives. We met up with Shinya, an ol Japanese Bodytonic faithful over there through a friend of Lina's and he brought us by the hand to eat in Piss-alley. We went to this one place that only seemed to sell skewers of chicken bits. Shin ordered for us and also excitedly informed us the cook was in the mafia! If i remember correctly, we had skewers of chicken meat, chicken skin, chicken heart and chicken cartiledge. Then after our food had settled, we went to hit a few baseballs in a cage right smack bang in the middle of the city. I thought my previous Under 15 Rounders Connaght final experiecnce would stand to me, but the 80km pitched balls were too much for me and my girlie swing. I managed to hit 2 balls out of about 25.
-They have Harajuku kids! I went to Harajuku on the Sunday but unfortunately it was raining heavily. They were still out in force but my camera was dead. In someways this was good as i think i am so eager to take photos sometimes i forget to stop and take in what I'm photographing. I have to say i thought they boys were a bit more stylish. All of Harajuku is a teenagers dream, with clothes shops and trinket shops and fast food joints. Imagine Adhoc's the entire length of Georges St. (For anyone that doesn't know, Adhoc's that tacky shop in Templebar where all the Emo kids get their piercings and glow in the dark tongue rings)
-Electric Town!! A whole area with hundreds and hundreds of shops selling usb leads and cables and cords of all kinds! I spent an afternoon here in one building called Radio Hall. This place is just plain weird. On exiting the train station, the first thing i meet is about 50 girls dressed in french-maid outfits, handing out flyers. This could be a new approach for any promoters reading. Radio Hall has about 6 floors of gadget shops, manga stores and manga toys. There is one whole floor with just doll parts. If you're inclined, you can customize your own doll, ranging from very small to very large. I found the eye section particularly unnerving. Floor to ceiling displays of doll eyes?!
As i'm running out of adjectives now I'm going to take a break, read a thesaurus and finish another time.
Boat to Japan
After three very relaxed days hanging out in Shanghai with the Cassidy's, i set off on my vogage across the South China Sea to Osaka.
I have to say i was really looking forward to getting the ferry, depite the fact it was going to take two days and i was going to be by myself for the first time..eek! I also was so ridiculously excited about going to Tokyo at this stage that perhaps two days of rest was needed for me to establish some respectable social moderation that is required when speaking to humans who don't know you and how much you can't wait to go to Tokyo. Nothing of much intersest happened on the boat, i made friends with some Australians who have nicely offered to take me out in Melbourne when i get there and i watched some really badly dubbed movies in my private room (no less) . I'd been holding off reading Pappillion (thanks DLT) until now as i figured reading it at sea might add to the atmosphere. Thankfully, my sea crossing was calm and without any encounters with lepers, indians or cannibals. I was missing having the laugh with Lisa and Aoife though, I'm pretty unamusing by myself.
The best thing about the boat was the Japanese style baths they had on the top deck. They are seperated into male and female for obvious reasons, and i was chilling out in my bath, all alone looking out at the sun setting against the oily black sea, musing about how great everything was....until after about ten minutes when the heat started to make me light headed and the whole room started to spin and i had to jump out and into a cold shower. I stopped sweating and spinning about an hour later.
I went straight to Tokyo on my first fast train when i got off the boat and arrived exactly on time in Tokyo station. Here was my first of many many experiences wandering around stations in Tokyo, totally confused and looking like a spanner. I first had to find an ATM which would take my stupid foreign credit card. The Beast was on top form, ripping into my shoulders and causing me to stoop over like an ol woman. It took me an hour and a half of near tears with the beast to finally find an ATM, and when i got to my metro stop, it took me a further hour walking around, trying to first decipher where the hell i was and where my hostel was. When i did joyfully find it, i dropped that beast like a tonne of potatoes. The noise of the beast hitting the deck startled another backpacker out of his internetting and he came over and intoduced himself. He was from Dublin, Yay! We ended up going for a few badly needed beers which ended in us playing drinking games with some crazy Swedish people, where i exhibited some rare drunken moments in making a holy show of myself. I some how managed to haul myself out of bed the next morning and get to the airport to meet Lina off her flight! She said i smelt amazing.
I have to say i was really looking forward to getting the ferry, depite the fact it was going to take two days and i was going to be by myself for the first time..eek! I also was so ridiculously excited about going to Tokyo at this stage that perhaps two days of rest was needed for me to establish some respectable social moderation that is required when speaking to humans who don't know you and how much you can't wait to go to Tokyo. Nothing of much intersest happened on the boat, i made friends with some Australians who have nicely offered to take me out in Melbourne when i get there and i watched some really badly dubbed movies in my private room (no less) . I'd been holding off reading Pappillion (thanks DLT) until now as i figured reading it at sea might add to the atmosphere. Thankfully, my sea crossing was calm and without any encounters with lepers, indians or cannibals. I was missing having the laugh with Lisa and Aoife though, I'm pretty unamusing by myself.
The best thing about the boat was the Japanese style baths they had on the top deck. They are seperated into male and female for obvious reasons, and i was chilling out in my bath, all alone looking out at the sun setting against the oily black sea, musing about how great everything was....until after about ten minutes when the heat started to make me light headed and the whole room started to spin and i had to jump out and into a cold shower. I stopped sweating and spinning about an hour later.
I went straight to Tokyo on my first fast train when i got off the boat and arrived exactly on time in Tokyo station. Here was my first of many many experiences wandering around stations in Tokyo, totally confused and looking like a spanner. I first had to find an ATM which would take my stupid foreign credit card. The Beast was on top form, ripping into my shoulders and causing me to stoop over like an ol woman. It took me an hour and a half of near tears with the beast to finally find an ATM, and when i got to my metro stop, it took me a further hour walking around, trying to first decipher where the hell i was and where my hostel was. When i did joyfully find it, i dropped that beast like a tonne of potatoes. The noise of the beast hitting the deck startled another backpacker out of his internetting and he came over and intoduced himself. He was from Dublin, Yay! We ended up going for a few badly needed beers which ended in us playing drinking games with some crazy Swedish people, where i exhibited some rare drunken moments in making a holy show of myself. I some how managed to haul myself out of bed the next morning and get to the airport to meet Lina off her flight! She said i smelt amazing.
Friday, June 27, 2008
I've been considerably resentful of myself for the format in which i start off this day by day blow of what I'm at. I had some faint hope that it would be somesort of personal diary for myself along the way that i would maintain it with consistent fervour......But let's face it, exciting stuff doesnt happen everyday and if I'm bored to my teeth after two weeks of writing it, i can't imagine how boring it is to read.Owing to that fact, i've decided to approach this in a much looser format, one which fits within the constraints of my will power...which many of you can vouch, is very little indeed. Let's continue.......
I have to say in hindsight, that Beijing is an exceptionally charming place...In most parts. Our hotel was in the Hutongs, which are the old alley ways that surround the Forbidden City, the epicentre of Beijing, China, The World, The Universe, Amen.The hutong dwellings appear unreasonably small but we figured they don't have any toilets as there are public toilets at the end of each block. These are kept meticulously clean but i can imagine making your morningly deposit and having a chat with your neighbour at the same time? But toilet issues don"t seem to be too much of a private matter here. Just to note, our hotel DOES have a toilet, with a door and walls even, thank you very much.We spend the first day between the Forbidden City and Tiananmen square. It's a sunday, scorching hot and packed. It looks exactly like you'd imagine from the movies and we're excited as hell at the prospect of walking around, getting lost and checking out all the werid and wonderful nooks and crannies it supposedly has. Unfortunately for us and our ill-timed visit to Beijing, all the palaces and buildings of any particular interest are closed for refurbishments in prepartion for the Olympics. Bummer. Still, it's a pretty amazing place, it would be best to see it early in the morning when its quiet and peaceful like i'd imagine it was before it was in time of yore!'Tiananmen Square is big and exceptionally ugly. Those Commie architects made a right ol hash of the place.The most interesting thing about the place is the Chairman Mao memorial Hall in which he's perfectly preserved body is lying in state. It's too late to go visit him today so we decide to come back another day for a very respecful gawk. The funniest thing about this place however is the amount of Chinese coming up and asking to get their picture taken with us,it was pretty weird to start with but when a queue started forming at one point, we started backing away at high speeds. They took a particular fanscination to our Lisa, probably as she is so beautiful :)
This was followed by five days of lots of pointing and giggling. We asked one guy with very good English what was the fascination and he very diplomatically said it was our height (giant) and our facial features (round eye). I think if you're Chinese and you come to Tiananmen Square, it's custumary to get your photo taken with a foreigner, sort of like coming to Dublin and doing a big cheesy thumbs-up with the Molly Malone.We did come back another morning to visit Chairman Mao. The story goes that when he died, he wanted to be cremated, but as a big giant screw you Mao, his successor had him perserved and puts him on show for the world to see in a very plain glass box, surrounded by full height, bullet proof glass walls. Ok, i don't know if the walls are bullet proof or not but what of some minor embelishment?! He is kept in a freezer and is brought up and down twice daily for the public to file past and pay their respects. Seemingly his left ear fell off once so they superglued it back on.....I can sincerely say i tried to approach this with an open mind.We have to check in our cameras before we enter through security and are whisked past him in two lines and immediately find ourselves right into the official Mao Souvenir shop. All i can say is that it was the bizarest sight, he had this bright orange light illuminating his face, he looked like a glow worm.I'm assuming the reason you don't get to dawdle is so too close an inspection isn't possible.....And do i think he's real? The three of us agree we've seen more realistic Jackie Chans in Hong Kong.
We spend the next few days in Beijing checking out the beautiful summer palace and hanging out in this deadly tiny roof top bar in the Hutongs close to our hotel. We watch a series of awful B-rate movies, shown nightly in the bar in our hotel, chilling out and having a laugh.Oh and we went to a Beijing Opera, which was spectacular if possibly a bit short. Possibly my favorite persuit yet came when we hiked the Great Wall. This is the section we walked
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jinshanling
Jinshanling is roughly about 3 hours from Beijing so we set of early with a tour from another hostel. We all had this vague assumption that we were taking a 3 hour stroll along the wall and would get the bus back later that day.....WRONG! This section of the wall has some of the steepest climbs and the first hour is sheer agony as it's mid day and the sun is beaming down. We slog on and hit some sections that are really perilous and dangerous. Our 'guide' has fecked off and leaves us to our own devices, which is alot of sweating and ass-crunching climbs. When we finally reach the rope bridge that signalled the end of our hike, we're pleased as punch with oursleves for having completed what we had. The scenery was amazing and i had to keep on pinching myself to remind myself that i was really on the Great Wall of China. Despite the heat I enjoyed everysecond of it. My Nike Air Force Ones, gifted to me by the lovely Lauren Kavo, stood up to the test and made mince meat of that wall! Yay!
As we're getting the overnight train to Shanghai, we decided to rent bikes on our last day and go check out the lakes near the hutongs.Nice and relaxing. At about five o clock we stop and get a coffee and the sky suddenly starts to darken. We decided to wait and hope the rain will pass in a few minutes. We wait and wait and bit by bit the tunder and lighting would become more frequent. Eventually when it does start raining it buckets down for nearly 40 minutes more with no sign of stopping. We realise we're going to miss our train to Shanghai if we don't go soon and set off cycling in rush hour traffic back to our hostel. We can't see a thing in front of us and the lighting is coming down around us. Aoife assured me the rubber on the wheels of my bike would prevent me from getting hit by lightening, a personal fear embedded in me my overzealous worrywart mother....I don't know how true that is but it was enough for me anyway. It was the craziest, scariest feeling ever but bleedin DEADLY! Thankfully we didn't have to go too far and were completely soaked to the bone. We made to wade our way through rivers of yucky brown hutong juice...yuck yuck yuck. The lovely people in our hostel gave us towels and dropped us to the train station (for a charge!) just in the nick of time.we get on our train and set off on our merry way to Shanghai! Yay!
I have to say in hindsight, that Beijing is an exceptionally charming place...In most parts. Our hotel was in the Hutongs, which are the old alley ways that surround the Forbidden City, the epicentre of Beijing, China, The World, The Universe, Amen.The hutong dwellings appear unreasonably small but we figured they don't have any toilets as there are public toilets at the end of each block. These are kept meticulously clean but i can imagine making your morningly deposit and having a chat with your neighbour at the same time? But toilet issues don"t seem to be too much of a private matter here. Just to note, our hotel DOES have a toilet, with a door and walls even, thank you very much.We spend the first day between the Forbidden City and Tiananmen square. It's a sunday, scorching hot and packed. It looks exactly like you'd imagine from the movies and we're excited as hell at the prospect of walking around, getting lost and checking out all the werid and wonderful nooks and crannies it supposedly has. Unfortunately for us and our ill-timed visit to Beijing, all the palaces and buildings of any particular interest are closed for refurbishments in prepartion for the Olympics. Bummer. Still, it's a pretty amazing place, it would be best to see it early in the morning when its quiet and peaceful like i'd imagine it was before it was in time of yore!'Tiananmen Square is big and exceptionally ugly. Those Commie architects made a right ol hash of the place.The most interesting thing about the place is the Chairman Mao memorial Hall in which he's perfectly preserved body is lying in state. It's too late to go visit him today so we decide to come back another day for a very respecful gawk. The funniest thing about this place however is the amount of Chinese coming up and asking to get their picture taken with us,it was pretty weird to start with but when a queue started forming at one point, we started backing away at high speeds. They took a particular fanscination to our Lisa, probably as she is so beautiful :)
This was followed by five days of lots of pointing and giggling. We asked one guy with very good English what was the fascination and he very diplomatically said it was our height (giant) and our facial features (round eye). I think if you're Chinese and you come to Tiananmen Square, it's custumary to get your photo taken with a foreigner, sort of like coming to Dublin and doing a big cheesy thumbs-up with the Molly Malone.We did come back another morning to visit Chairman Mao. The story goes that when he died, he wanted to be cremated, but as a big giant screw you Mao, his successor had him perserved and puts him on show for the world to see in a very plain glass box, surrounded by full height, bullet proof glass walls. Ok, i don't know if the walls are bullet proof or not but what of some minor embelishment?! He is kept in a freezer and is brought up and down twice daily for the public to file past and pay their respects. Seemingly his left ear fell off once so they superglued it back on.....I can sincerely say i tried to approach this with an open mind.We have to check in our cameras before we enter through security and are whisked past him in two lines and immediately find ourselves right into the official Mao Souvenir shop. All i can say is that it was the bizarest sight, he had this bright orange light illuminating his face, he looked like a glow worm.I'm assuming the reason you don't get to dawdle is so too close an inspection isn't possible.....And do i think he's real? The three of us agree we've seen more realistic Jackie Chans in Hong Kong.
We spend the next few days in Beijing checking out the beautiful summer palace and hanging out in this deadly tiny roof top bar in the Hutongs close to our hotel. We watch a series of awful B-rate movies, shown nightly in the bar in our hotel, chilling out and having a laugh.Oh and we went to a Beijing Opera, which was spectacular if possibly a bit short. Possibly my favorite persuit yet came when we hiked the Great Wall. This is the section we walked
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jinshanling
Jinshanling is roughly about 3 hours from Beijing so we set of early with a tour from another hostel. We all had this vague assumption that we were taking a 3 hour stroll along the wall and would get the bus back later that day.....WRONG! This section of the wall has some of the steepest climbs and the first hour is sheer agony as it's mid day and the sun is beaming down. We slog on and hit some sections that are really perilous and dangerous. Our 'guide' has fecked off and leaves us to our own devices, which is alot of sweating and ass-crunching climbs. When we finally reach the rope bridge that signalled the end of our hike, we're pleased as punch with oursleves for having completed what we had. The scenery was amazing and i had to keep on pinching myself to remind myself that i was really on the Great Wall of China. Despite the heat I enjoyed everysecond of it. My Nike Air Force Ones, gifted to me by the lovely Lauren Kavo, stood up to the test and made mince meat of that wall! Yay!
As we're getting the overnight train to Shanghai, we decided to rent bikes on our last day and go check out the lakes near the hutongs.Nice and relaxing. At about five o clock we stop and get a coffee and the sky suddenly starts to darken. We decided to wait and hope the rain will pass in a few minutes. We wait and wait and bit by bit the tunder and lighting would become more frequent. Eventually when it does start raining it buckets down for nearly 40 minutes more with no sign of stopping. We realise we're going to miss our train to Shanghai if we don't go soon and set off cycling in rush hour traffic back to our hostel. We can't see a thing in front of us and the lighting is coming down around us. Aoife assured me the rubber on the wheels of my bike would prevent me from getting hit by lightening, a personal fear embedded in me my overzealous worrywart mother....I don't know how true that is but it was enough for me anyway. It was the craziest, scariest feeling ever but bleedin DEADLY! Thankfully we didn't have to go too far and were completely soaked to the bone. We made to wade our way through rivers of yucky brown hutong juice...yuck yuck yuck. The lovely people in our hostel gave us towels and dropped us to the train station (for a charge!) just in the nick of time.we get on our train and set off on our merry way to Shanghai! Yay!
Week 2- Xi'an, Terracotta Farrior, Shaanxi Province
Day 7
Another funny bus incident later , we leave Yangshou and arrive in Guilin. It's a pretty grim city and the only reason we're stopping here is to see the Longshen Rice Terraces which are about 2 hours north up in the mountains. Ourt hostel organises for a taxi bus up to Longshen. This is probably some of the nicest scenery i've ever seen.The mountains and forests we drive through get greener and lusher as we ascend. It would have been even more pleasant if our crazy driver wasn't weaving all over the road and playing this awful,awful Asian techno they seem to love here, on repeat, at full volume. He didn't speak any English so when there appeared to be a problem with the car battery we started to sweat a bit. Our favorite song from the CD was entitled Sex Crime...Lisa managed to find it on the web....with some other various dubious findings also.I don't think the driver understood the lyrics, at least i hope he didn't as he had some small kids with him in the car at one point. I know i mentioned this previously, but the driving system here intrigues and scares the living Christ out of me. They overtake three cars at a time, It feels like they are all playing chicken with each other but nobody seems to stress out about it. I was doing an awful lot of the fake breaking - hand on dashboard thing that my mam does when i drive. Anyway, the battery, nor us, didn't die before we got to Longshen. The rice terraces are pretty spectacular and we end up having dinner in some locals sitting room, that we thought was a restaurant. It was really good food though. Infact, so happy we were there, we didn't even mind when the couples one year old peed all over the floor. The hawking again is really intense though, our driver stops and dumps us into a group of local women for five minutes to sell us more tat. They seem to have a system of helping each other out in this department and it's really begging to tick us off. Back in Guilin, Aoife gets chased around a shopping centres by two sketchy ladies so we're really glad to leave the next day.
Day 8
Instead of getting the 26 hour train journey to Xi'an in the north, we unanimously decide to screw that idea and book flights instead. They only cost about 90e and we get an extra day in Xi'an. Our hostel here is lovely, it's got a bar and we get the opportunity to meet some other people travelling. China doesn't appear to have the same amount of back-packers as other countries in Asia and up until now we really haven't met any other people. We end up in this awful American-themed bar close by, they had an open-mike night when some local guys do covers of American Classics. I asked them for some Bruce Springsteen, who they've never heard off.........WHAT? Alot of people here don't know where Ireland is but not knowing who The Boss is..... well...that's just backward.
Day 9
We check out Xi'ans Muslim quater the following day. It's inside the old city walls and we spend hours here in the markets, buying loads of stuf we don't need but can't put down as its so cheap. The girls seem to have the haggling technique perfected and are coming up with all sorts of elaborate ways of getting more money off. I'm pretty rubbish at it to be honest, i just don't have the balls and feel intensly guilty about the whole thing.The people here are much more relaxed and friendlier than the south. The kids are disgustingly adorable and wave and say hello all the time. We go to a bird market in the back alleys of the city, it's bordering on the cruel side the amount of birds they have confined in one cage but interesting as hell. It's hard dragging ourselves away from this place and decide to come back later for food. In the meantime, we hire bikes and cycle the perimeter of the old citywalls, hight up on the parapets. It measures about 22km in total the whole way around and as it was really peaceful up there. I get a good look at the bamboo scaffolding they have on all their highrise building, it's unbelievable. It seems to be just knotted together with twine but i assume it's perfectly safe. Lisa has a deadly photo of some construction workers wearing bamboo hats with hi-vis peaked caps on top.That'll save you from some falling depris alright! I don't think they have the compo-culture we have in Ireland here....somehow.
Day 10
If anyone ever reading this decides to come to China, avoid getting yourself into any organised tours. They invariably are rubbish, over-priced and unnecesary. The public transport here is top notch and cheap and it's much pleasanter, we've found, not being part of groups and to do things at your own pace. Today was a good example of where we should have taken our own advice. We join a tour from our hostel to go and see the Terracotta Warriors that also includes a trip to the crazy emperors grave, who built the warrirors, to protect said tomb in the afterlife. I've been really excited about this as the whole thing sound completely barmy. Aside from being shovelled about by our guide like a first year school trip, it's raining and us girls are inappropriately dressed. We stop off at an ancient neolithic town remains first. I'm unconvinced about the validity of the whole place...to start with. There just a real sense of stuff not really being like it appears here. It's probably a throw back to the communist regime, but facts and details don't add up. Me and my big cynical head carry on in this manner for the rest of the day. The Terracotta Warriors are impressive, or at least the work they are doing is extremely impressive: they are piecing an estimated 6000 broken warriors back together, in what must be the world biggest jigsaw. Unfortunately, after 20 years they have only completed 1000 and the rest of the complex is a very elaborate excavation site. The complex was build in the 1970's and sort of remembles what went up around the Shrine in Knock....if anyone of familiar with that architecural beauty? I had this romantic impression that we would be able to walk amongst the warriors, in some sort of cave. You really actually view them from a balconey about 20metres away. BORING! They have self-appointed this the 8th Wonder of the World. Note the word self. To top the whole thing off, our trip to the tomb, does not infact turn out to be the tomb, but an impression of what, they believe, the yet unexcavated tomb might look like. What we behold is a Miniature golf-style model, in a Community Centre with blinking Christmas lights all over it. It's completely nuts! Some crazed lunatic obviously got a grant from the equally crazed government to commision this and pass it off as a valid historical commodity.We're breaking oursleves laughing but our guide is taking the whole affair very seriously. I want to get into the model and re-enact some scenes from Beetlejuice.
Day 11
We don't do mcuh today but chill out and book our train to Beijing, leaving later in the evening. We're really excited about leaving and moving on. Three days seems to be the most we can hack in anyone place. We get another overnight train with comfy beds and arrive to a bustling Beijing at about 7am.
Another funny bus incident later , we leave Yangshou and arrive in Guilin. It's a pretty grim city and the only reason we're stopping here is to see the Longshen Rice Terraces which are about 2 hours north up in the mountains. Ourt hostel organises for a taxi bus up to Longshen. This is probably some of the nicest scenery i've ever seen.The mountains and forests we drive through get greener and lusher as we ascend. It would have been even more pleasant if our crazy driver wasn't weaving all over the road and playing this awful,awful Asian techno they seem to love here, on repeat, at full volume. He didn't speak any English so when there appeared to be a problem with the car battery we started to sweat a bit. Our favorite song from the CD was entitled Sex Crime...Lisa managed to find it on the web....with some other various dubious findings also.I don't think the driver understood the lyrics, at least i hope he didn't as he had some small kids with him in the car at one point. I know i mentioned this previously, but the driving system here intrigues and scares the living Christ out of me. They overtake three cars at a time, It feels like they are all playing chicken with each other but nobody seems to stress out about it. I was doing an awful lot of the fake breaking - hand on dashboard thing that my mam does when i drive. Anyway, the battery, nor us, didn't die before we got to Longshen. The rice terraces are pretty spectacular and we end up having dinner in some locals sitting room, that we thought was a restaurant. It was really good food though. Infact, so happy we were there, we didn't even mind when the couples one year old peed all over the floor. The hawking again is really intense though, our driver stops and dumps us into a group of local women for five minutes to sell us more tat. They seem to have a system of helping each other out in this department and it's really begging to tick us off. Back in Guilin, Aoife gets chased around a shopping centres by two sketchy ladies so we're really glad to leave the next day.
Day 8
Instead of getting the 26 hour train journey to Xi'an in the north, we unanimously decide to screw that idea and book flights instead. They only cost about 90e and we get an extra day in Xi'an. Our hostel here is lovely, it's got a bar and we get the opportunity to meet some other people travelling. China doesn't appear to have the same amount of back-packers as other countries in Asia and up until now we really haven't met any other people. We end up in this awful American-themed bar close by, they had an open-mike night when some local guys do covers of American Classics. I asked them for some Bruce Springsteen, who they've never heard off.........WHAT? Alot of people here don't know where Ireland is but not knowing who The Boss is..... well...that's just backward.
Day 9
We check out Xi'ans Muslim quater the following day. It's inside the old city walls and we spend hours here in the markets, buying loads of stuf we don't need but can't put down as its so cheap. The girls seem to have the haggling technique perfected and are coming up with all sorts of elaborate ways of getting more money off. I'm pretty rubbish at it to be honest, i just don't have the balls and feel intensly guilty about the whole thing.The people here are much more relaxed and friendlier than the south. The kids are disgustingly adorable and wave and say hello all the time. We go to a bird market in the back alleys of the city, it's bordering on the cruel side the amount of birds they have confined in one cage but interesting as hell. It's hard dragging ourselves away from this place and decide to come back later for food. In the meantime, we hire bikes and cycle the perimeter of the old citywalls, hight up on the parapets. It measures about 22km in total the whole way around and as it was really peaceful up there. I get a good look at the bamboo scaffolding they have on all their highrise building, it's unbelievable. It seems to be just knotted together with twine but i assume it's perfectly safe. Lisa has a deadly photo of some construction workers wearing bamboo hats with hi-vis peaked caps on top.That'll save you from some falling depris alright! I don't think they have the compo-culture we have in Ireland here....somehow.
Day 10
If anyone ever reading this decides to come to China, avoid getting yourself into any organised tours. They invariably are rubbish, over-priced and unnecesary. The public transport here is top notch and cheap and it's much pleasanter, we've found, not being part of groups and to do things at your own pace. Today was a good example of where we should have taken our own advice. We join a tour from our hostel to go and see the Terracotta Warriors that also includes a trip to the crazy emperors grave, who built the warrirors, to protect said tomb in the afterlife. I've been really excited about this as the whole thing sound completely barmy. Aside from being shovelled about by our guide like a first year school trip, it's raining and us girls are inappropriately dressed. We stop off at an ancient neolithic town remains first. I'm unconvinced about the validity of the whole place...to start with. There just a real sense of stuff not really being like it appears here. It's probably a throw back to the communist regime, but facts and details don't add up. Me and my big cynical head carry on in this manner for the rest of the day. The Terracotta Warriors are impressive, or at least the work they are doing is extremely impressive: they are piecing an estimated 6000 broken warriors back together, in what must be the world biggest jigsaw. Unfortunately, after 20 years they have only completed 1000 and the rest of the complex is a very elaborate excavation site. The complex was build in the 1970's and sort of remembles what went up around the Shrine in Knock....if anyone of familiar with that architecural beauty? I had this romantic impression that we would be able to walk amongst the warriors, in some sort of cave. You really actually view them from a balconey about 20metres away. BORING! They have self-appointed this the 8th Wonder of the World. Note the word self. To top the whole thing off, our trip to the tomb, does not infact turn out to be the tomb, but an impression of what, they believe, the yet unexcavated tomb might look like. What we behold is a Miniature golf-style model, in a Community Centre with blinking Christmas lights all over it. It's completely nuts! Some crazed lunatic obviously got a grant from the equally crazed government to commision this and pass it off as a valid historical commodity.We're breaking oursleves laughing but our guide is taking the whole affair very seriously. I want to get into the model and re-enact some scenes from Beetlejuice.
Day 11
We don't do mcuh today but chill out and book our train to Beijing, leaving later in the evening. We're really excited about leaving and moving on. Three days seems to be the most we can hack in anyone place. We get another overnight train with comfy beds and arrive to a bustling Beijing at about 7am.
Week One - Hong Kong and Guanxi Province, Southern China
Day 1
So i arrived in Hong Kong on my super comfortable BA flight from London. As predicted, the new Terminal 5 problems in Heathrow insued yet again and my bag never arrived off my flight. I decided not to panic just yet as the nice people in the airport seemed to have it all under control and go find Lisa and Aoife in our Hostel. Hong Kong, at this time of the year is like walking around in a swimming pool, fully clothed. It's pretty gross and from the minute i stepped of the plane i resigned myself that i was going to rememble a very pale Tina Turner for the next few days. As our hostel room resembled a cell, we immediately left and got on a boat to check out the amazing Hong Kong skyline at night. There's an hourly light show on the hour and it's pretty spectacular. First day holiday cocktails by the pier then back to the cell for some kip. Bag arrived by taxi in one piece, panic over. Phew.
Day 2
As we are now spending most of our time trying to tame our hair in the humidity, we thought we might as well take it a step further and get a tram up to the highest point in Hong Kong. When we got there, we were in a cloud. Got some pretty cool photos of us inside the cloud, which i have to say i really enjoyed, i'd never been in one before. Couldn't really see much of Hong Kong though. We spent the rest of the day getting trams across the city. The skyscrapers dominate most of the waterfront with dingy, grotty alley ways of Old Hong Kong right in between. There's a stark difference between rich and poor. Consumerism is just shoved in your face in the most extravagant ways. There are massive shopping centres everywhere, with designer shops that i've only seen before in Frame magazine. I'm in my element. Everything is made really accessible, most likely as practically everyone i encountered spoke perfect English. Eating and drinking is quite expensive so we naturally did lots of that. Got a reflexology foot massage.....just cos. It was massive.
Day 3
We got a slow ferry across to Lantau, the biggest but least inhabited of the Hong Kong islands. Following a what we thought at the time was a fairly hairy bus trip (we've since then had, much, much worse in China) we got up to a Buddhist monastery in the hills. There they have the biggest free-standing Buddha in the world. Here he is......http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Buddha Following a tasty veggie meal we climbed the steps up to his feet. Zen, cloud, rain, thunder, lighting, zen gone. As it's now Friday we head on out. After a few ropey bars full of sleazy English men cheating on their wives, (and i have the authority to say this as we got a front row view of a really awkward interaction between an English Expat, his visiting wife and his local barmaid 'friend' )we stumble across a deadly place that's playing music we like! The girls end up going to a deadly underground electro club that was still going strong at 9 in the morning. You took an elevator down to the basement and the doors opened right into the club. Deadly.
Day 4
Leave Hong Kong in a drunken mess and get a train to Guangshuo to catch our sleeper train to Guilin in the Quangxi Province. Here was our first taste of real China. I had my only meltdown so far, here, trying to find the metro station in Guangsho. My bag, which will now be referred to as The Beast, turned out to be pretty heavy. As my dad had galantly carted it around dublin Airport and it got a taxi by itself to my hostel in Hong Kong, this was my first experience having to carry it 17.7kgs. Such an idiot. If i'd had any sense, i would have practiced carrying my bag in a sauna for about an hour and then eliminated the doubles of everything i do not need. Sleep like a baby on the train and wake up bright and early in Guilin.
Day 5
Get shovelled onto a bus to a small town called Yangshou where we're spending the next few days. It's probably a good time to mention the extreme hard-sell tactics the locals have towards stupid white westerners. It was non-stop from the moment we arrive. For instance when we get off our bus, we're brought to a cafe by a guy who claims to work for our hostel. We buy breakfast in his restuarant, allow him to sell us tours for the next two days then realise he's the most annoying person we've ever met in our lives. We're booked in for a trip down the river on a bamboo raft later that day so head along. After getting passed over between about 5 different people we finaly get to our boat in a town who's only income i reckon are those boat trips. The region is dominated by these really sharp limestone karst peaks, the scenery is extraordinary. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yangshuo I'll have my photos up as soon as i can find a computer with English settings. Everything here is stupidly cheap, which is making up for the massive amount of money we spent in Hong Kong. The food is great, the eat alot of brazed dog here. I'm not sure what the name of the dog is but they are yellow and sort of resemble a husky. I've taken a few photos of some puppies but, bear in mind, those happy little chappies are probably going to be on somebody's plate by now. We came across a guy with a basket of kittens and pups on the back of his bike.....he didn't strike me as an animal lover....or a travelling pet shop. Also popular to eat is fried turtle, eel, snake and Pupa. I haven't tried anything yet.....I'm holding out for a cocker spaniel.
Day 6
We ditch our annoying tour guide and hire some bikes by ourselves to explore the country side. We explore 9 km's in the wrong direction and end up in a really provincial town, completely lost. As you'd imagine, everyone cycles here, but a slow and steady pace. The rules of road appear to be there are no rules. They honk their horns instead of indicating. Infact, they honk their horns to say thanks, get out of the way and how's it going. It's hard to tell the difference. Our intention was to visit some local mud caves, looking completely lost we're approached by a sweet Chinese lady and her old dear of a mother......They seem to know what direction we should be going in so we follow them. They bring us to a small village about 3 km away by the edge of the river. The roads are getting narrower and we seem to have fallen off our map. The nice lady, it appears, is a shrewd entrepenuer!! And her mam is a total hag! Realising the only way out of the village for the stupid lost white people is on one of their excessively overpriced bamboo rafts, we decide we can do this by ourselves. We leave the hagglers and continue, thinking we can follow a bike trail along the river, getting directions of two old men on which way to go..... We meet a dead end in the middle of a paddy field and have to go back. And what do you know, the hag and her daughter are waiting for us along the way, casually eating fruit and having a good ol'sneer! It then transpires the whole town was in on the deal. Practically chased out of the town with the haggling,the wagons in us are having none of this so we cycle the whole 12km back in the direction we came. We then continued on to find the caves for the second episode of the day. We're tired by now, and getting increasingly wary of people trying to help us. Finally finding the caves, our guide is waiting patiently for us. We're under some impression we're going to see Aliwee caves or something. Here's what i'll be telling my mother what happened. 'Went to see some caves today, pretty amazing, lots of staligtites and staligmites in all sorts of formations' (there was some that looked like boobs, i took photos for all the boys) .......And here's what really happened. We went pot-holing, with no harnasses, in dresses and flip flops. We did have some rather fetching hard hats, With a girl taking pictures of our every move, no doubt to sell them to us after.After about 4 hours of cycling in the heat, we weren't prepared for this. We had to wade through water pools and squeeze in through tiny dangerous gaps.It took about and hour but i have to say i really enjoyed every second of it! But it was so dangerous. When we get back out and take a look at the photos, we realise the hilarity of the whole situation and practically wet ourselves laughing. We buy the whole cd of snaps! Such toursits! They have the whole deal sewn up here. After some showers, we head out for some food and some beers on our last night. What a great day.
So i arrived in Hong Kong on my super comfortable BA flight from London. As predicted, the new Terminal 5 problems in Heathrow insued yet again and my bag never arrived off my flight. I decided not to panic just yet as the nice people in the airport seemed to have it all under control and go find Lisa and Aoife in our Hostel. Hong Kong, at this time of the year is like walking around in a swimming pool, fully clothed. It's pretty gross and from the minute i stepped of the plane i resigned myself that i was going to rememble a very pale Tina Turner for the next few days. As our hostel room resembled a cell, we immediately left and got on a boat to check out the amazing Hong Kong skyline at night. There's an hourly light show on the hour and it's pretty spectacular. First day holiday cocktails by the pier then back to the cell for some kip. Bag arrived by taxi in one piece, panic over. Phew.
Day 2
As we are now spending most of our time trying to tame our hair in the humidity, we thought we might as well take it a step further and get a tram up to the highest point in Hong Kong. When we got there, we were in a cloud. Got some pretty cool photos of us inside the cloud, which i have to say i really enjoyed, i'd never been in one before. Couldn't really see much of Hong Kong though. We spent the rest of the day getting trams across the city. The skyscrapers dominate most of the waterfront with dingy, grotty alley ways of Old Hong Kong right in between. There's a stark difference between rich and poor. Consumerism is just shoved in your face in the most extravagant ways. There are massive shopping centres everywhere, with designer shops that i've only seen before in Frame magazine. I'm in my element. Everything is made really accessible, most likely as practically everyone i encountered spoke perfect English. Eating and drinking is quite expensive so we naturally did lots of that. Got a reflexology foot massage.....just cos. It was massive.
Day 3
We got a slow ferry across to Lantau, the biggest but least inhabited of the Hong Kong islands. Following a what we thought at the time was a fairly hairy bus trip (we've since then had, much, much worse in China) we got up to a Buddhist monastery in the hills. There they have the biggest free-standing Buddha in the world. Here he is......http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Buddha Following a tasty veggie meal we climbed the steps up to his feet. Zen, cloud, rain, thunder, lighting, zen gone. As it's now Friday we head on out. After a few ropey bars full of sleazy English men cheating on their wives, (and i have the authority to say this as we got a front row view of a really awkward interaction between an English Expat, his visiting wife and his local barmaid 'friend' )we stumble across a deadly place that's playing music we like! The girls end up going to a deadly underground electro club that was still going strong at 9 in the morning. You took an elevator down to the basement and the doors opened right into the club. Deadly.
Day 4
Leave Hong Kong in a drunken mess and get a train to Guangshuo to catch our sleeper train to Guilin in the Quangxi Province. Here was our first taste of real China. I had my only meltdown so far, here, trying to find the metro station in Guangsho. My bag, which will now be referred to as The Beast, turned out to be pretty heavy. As my dad had galantly carted it around dublin Airport and it got a taxi by itself to my hostel in Hong Kong, this was my first experience having to carry it 17.7kgs. Such an idiot. If i'd had any sense, i would have practiced carrying my bag in a sauna for about an hour and then eliminated the doubles of everything i do not need. Sleep like a baby on the train and wake up bright and early in Guilin.
Day 5
Get shovelled onto a bus to a small town called Yangshou where we're spending the next few days. It's probably a good time to mention the extreme hard-sell tactics the locals have towards stupid white westerners. It was non-stop from the moment we arrive. For instance when we get off our bus, we're brought to a cafe by a guy who claims to work for our hostel. We buy breakfast in his restuarant, allow him to sell us tours for the next two days then realise he's the most annoying person we've ever met in our lives. We're booked in for a trip down the river on a bamboo raft later that day so head along. After getting passed over between about 5 different people we finaly get to our boat in a town who's only income i reckon are those boat trips. The region is dominated by these really sharp limestone karst peaks, the scenery is extraordinary. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yangshuo I'll have my photos up as soon as i can find a computer with English settings. Everything here is stupidly cheap, which is making up for the massive amount of money we spent in Hong Kong. The food is great, the eat alot of brazed dog here. I'm not sure what the name of the dog is but they are yellow and sort of resemble a husky. I've taken a few photos of some puppies but, bear in mind, those happy little chappies are probably going to be on somebody's plate by now. We came across a guy with a basket of kittens and pups on the back of his bike.....he didn't strike me as an animal lover....or a travelling pet shop. Also popular to eat is fried turtle, eel, snake and Pupa. I haven't tried anything yet.....I'm holding out for a cocker spaniel.
Day 6
We ditch our annoying tour guide and hire some bikes by ourselves to explore the country side. We explore 9 km's in the wrong direction and end up in a really provincial town, completely lost. As you'd imagine, everyone cycles here, but a slow and steady pace. The rules of road appear to be there are no rules. They honk their horns instead of indicating. Infact, they honk their horns to say thanks, get out of the way and how's it going. It's hard to tell the difference. Our intention was to visit some local mud caves, looking completely lost we're approached by a sweet Chinese lady and her old dear of a mother......They seem to know what direction we should be going in so we follow them. They bring us to a small village about 3 km away by the edge of the river. The roads are getting narrower and we seem to have fallen off our map. The nice lady, it appears, is a shrewd entrepenuer!! And her mam is a total hag! Realising the only way out of the village for the stupid lost white people is on one of their excessively overpriced bamboo rafts, we decide we can do this by ourselves. We leave the hagglers and continue, thinking we can follow a bike trail along the river, getting directions of two old men on which way to go..... We meet a dead end in the middle of a paddy field and have to go back. And what do you know, the hag and her daughter are waiting for us along the way, casually eating fruit and having a good ol'sneer! It then transpires the whole town was in on the deal. Practically chased out of the town with the haggling,the wagons in us are having none of this so we cycle the whole 12km back in the direction we came. We then continued on to find the caves for the second episode of the day. We're tired by now, and getting increasingly wary of people trying to help us. Finally finding the caves, our guide is waiting patiently for us. We're under some impression we're going to see Aliwee caves or something. Here's what i'll be telling my mother what happened. 'Went to see some caves today, pretty amazing, lots of staligtites and staligmites in all sorts of formations' (there was some that looked like boobs, i took photos for all the boys) .......And here's what really happened. We went pot-holing, with no harnasses, in dresses and flip flops. We did have some rather fetching hard hats, With a girl taking pictures of our every move, no doubt to sell them to us after.After about 4 hours of cycling in the heat, we weren't prepared for this. We had to wade through water pools and squeeze in through tiny dangerous gaps.It took about and hour but i have to say i really enjoyed every second of it! But it was so dangerous. When we get back out and take a look at the photos, we realise the hilarity of the whole situation and practically wet ourselves laughing. We buy the whole cd of snaps! Such toursits! They have the whole deal sewn up here. After some showers, we head out for some food and some beers on our last night. What a great day.
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