Over the Great Wall: Yangshuo

With no plans to travel in November, Nicole and Jesse were looking forward to spending some quality time in Hong Kong before taking off again.  The previous two months had been fast-paced travel with a few days at home base spiced in between.  It was all going so well until Jesse observed that they had one Chinese entry visa left, and it would be a shame to waste it, especially being so close to such an interesting and immense country, like China.

Hanging out in our soft sleeper car.

That was basically all it took to convince Nicole and a small cadre of friends to join us for a four day weekend in Yangshuo in China's Guangxi province.  Nicole and Jesse had been told prior to their departure from Canada that Yangshuo may be the most beautiful place in the entire country, and that there was lots to see and do for a few days.

So, Nicole and Jesse were joined by Joel (from Jesse's home school), Kelly (from UVic), Kelly's sister Sarah, and friends Jody and Kelli (yes, there were two Kellies for those keeping score from home).  The group took the MTR to Shenzhen, then hopped an overnight train to Guilin, the largest city in the environs of Yangshuo.  Not much to say about the Chinese train.  The food was predictably poor, and stocking up on beer before departure made everyone have sweet dreams.

Our bamboo river rides!

At 6:30 the following morning, the group was awoken by a shouting Chinese train attendant, and forced off the train into the hazy morning.  Fortunately, this was the right stop, so the team shuffled into China.  Not having a means of getting from Guilin to Yangshuo, the team talked to a travel agent who turned out to be massively helpful.  He booked us on a bamboo boat down the Li River to arrive in Yangshuo, and also booked our return trip to Hong Kong, after informing us that the train was sold out for the remainder of the weekend.

The bamboo raft was an amazing idea and an even better ride.  The trip takes just over three hours on the gently flowing and very shallow Li River.  The feature that makes this area one of the most beautiful on Earth (you heard me) are the gorgeous and peculiar Karst mountains that populate the area.  Unlike most mountain ranges which are many mountains connected at great altitude, these hills are self-standing individual lumps that pop up all over the place.  It looks like something out of a Dr. Seuss book.  We got some unreal views of these mountains in the morning light, and thoroughly enjoyed the changing vistas throughout the trip.

Views along the Li River.  The last is the actual scene depicted on the 20Y bill.

The boat dropped us off a half-hour outside the city, so after a minor traffic debacle (typical for Chinese roads), we eventually got to our hotel.  The group really had some luck with the people they met this weekend, and after the travel agent, the next in line was Mickey, our extremely helpful hotel concierge.  Not only did Mickey recommend the best ways to get the most out of our trip, he was also able to book all of our tickets and arrange transportation for us all weekend.  He really made the trip something special, and kept us busy the whole time.

Not doing it justice, but scenes from the Light Show

After exploring the city, we attended the Li River light show.  Directed by the same visionary who choreographed the opening ceremonies at the Beijing Olympics, this performance features over 600 actors actually performing amazing choreography on the river itself...and this happens every night.  The performance uses lighting to illuminate many of the Karst mountains in the area, creating a surreal dream like effect.  The scale of the performance is difficult to relate, but the show definitely exceeded all of our expectations and left us thoroughly impressed with the Chinese ability to muster a massive workforce to do something.

Jesse leading the pack.

With the standards set extra-high after the first night in Yangshuo, the group needed something to do on our second day.  We rented bicycles from our hotel for a tour of the countryside and set off for some adventure.  Because of the region's unique topography, the roads are all flat, making biking outside the city a real pleasure.  Biking in the city is a nightmare, on the other hand, and we had man white knuckle moments trying to get out of the city limits.  Among them is the non-stop horde of touts who hound tourists, offering everything from knick-knacks to tours.  Try as we did to lose them, the touts got on bicycles of their own and followed us into the hills before we eventually lost them and were on our own again.

Moon Hill.

We spent most of the morning lost and meandering through the hills, happening on small farms and little villages before eventually following a group of tourists and getting on the main path.  The easy pace gave the group lots of time to stop and take pictures and talk to other tourists on the path.  Eventually we made it to Moon Hill, a natural arch formation high up on one of the mountains.  Leaving our bikes locked at the bottom (and hoping that the touts would not figure out how to steal them) we hiked up the 1200-odd steps to the bottom of the arch, which gave a lot of great photo opps.  A few of us carried on up a very sketchy "path" that wrapped around the side of the hill and eventually spat us out at the very top of the arch.  Like many things in China, safety was an afterthought at best.  No railings, no ropes, no nets at the top meant that everyone was enjoying the adrenaline rush.  We even found a dicey metal pole to climb even higher.  Everyone mustered the courage to attempt the pole, although Kelli2 was the clear victor, making it to the top and dancing around.

Jesse and Nicole, atop Moon Hill.

Leaving Moon Hill, we navigated our way back to the city to rest up for a big night.  After a nap, the team reconvened for an amazing meal of Sichuanese food (some of the spiciest to date).  For those of you wondering, almost every manner of house pet was actually on the menu - what you've heard was true.  We, however, stuck with trusty chicken, fish, and beef.

Jesse was a spectacle!

Saturday night in Yangshuo was something else all together.  PRC domestic tourists flock to the city by the thousands, and after we left the restaurant, the streets were choked with Saturday night shoppers and revelers.  Our concierge Mickey told us that these people come for the obvious beauty of the area, but stay for the possibility of seeing foreigners, who are apparently a hot commodity in the Middle Kingdom.  As a 6'7" man, Jesse was apparently just what these people were hoping to see.  Jody, who is blonde, was also a fan favourite on this night, where the group was constantly hounded in the street for photos.

Ever enterprising, Joel learned how to say "Photo? Three bucks!" in Mandarin, and the makings of an amazing night were well under way.  We didn't actually charge anyone, but the phrase led to a lot of laughs on both sides as we took more than 40 photos over the course of the night.

Jody and Nicole were invited this time.

Eventually we made it off the street to a local bar, where, again we were fan favourites.  Many locals bought us drinks for the opportunity to drink and talk with us.  We learned that the Chinese locals (at least the ones we met) were very friendly and surprisingly outgoing.  They just wanted to talk to us about our lives and share some laughs.  We got so close with one group that they took us out for an outstanding post-bar meal at a restaurant they knew....then they picked up the tab for the whole event!  We all traded emails (Facebook being banned in the PRC) and drifted off to dreamland.

Cave Monsters!

The weather, to this point, had been bright and sunny and fairly warm during the day; Sunday, however, was overcast and a little chilly, so the group decided to spurn the outside and go spelunking instead.  Several of the mountain formations have cave systems, and one in particular attracts a lot of tourists.  We took a very rickety bus out into the middle of nowhere, and from there boarded an even ricketier boat to take us on a river into the cave.  Besides some incredible rock formations, the cave also had a freezing cold pool, a mud bath, and a series of hot baths fed by natural hot springs.  After some initial exploration, the group indulged in the pools.  The mud was totally gross, but after some initial hesitance, everyone got dirty.  The trip ended with some lounging in the hot baths.

Mud bath time!

Surviving the boat/bus back to the city, the group spent the remaining hours shopping in Yangshuo's street markets and writing postcards.  However, they soon realized that there was a lot of time left before their bus came to pick them up at 11pm on Sunday night.  So, Mickey yet again helped us out by booking a trip to see some live-action cormorant fishing on the river.

Retrieving a fish from the cormorant.

This ancient practice sees fishermen using trained birds to dive and catch fish, which are then retrieved and kept.  This was actually one of the most amazing things we've witnessed to date.  Flood lights illuminated the river as these birds dove and hunted small fish.  The birds have rings around their necks preventing them from eating the fish themselves (cruel, yes, but these birds are well fed and keep coming back, so it can't be all bad), so when they surface with a fish, the fisherman adeptly snags them by a cord attached to their feet and hauls them onto his tiny bamboo raft.  He makes the bird spit the fish into a bucket before throwing it back into the river to keep working.  It was very interesting to see this unique working relationship in action.

Nicole with the fisherman, and yes those are live birds!

One of the things we came to realize on this trip is that the Chinese have a much different relationship with animals than we do in North American.  Besides eating animals that we might consider house pets, they are very much still in touch with animals as beasts of burden, like the fishing cormorants, or the many oxen we saw grazing in the river.  Not a judgment, merely an observation.

Tired from an amazing weekend, we boarded an overnight sleeper bus for the last leg of the adventure, back to Hong Kong.  The bus had no seats, only beds stacked three wide and two high.  It took forever; we got hauled off in the middle of the night for a PRC Police random check (extremely disorienting, but ultimately harmless); but it was actually a pretty funny experience when we survived until the morning.

All in all, Yangshuo was a great way to spend a weekend and Nicole and Jesse are thoroughly thankful that they decided to check out a small part of China in the end.  The country is totally worthy of its own trip...but that will have to wait for another time.

HK Family Time

While reading this blog is a good way to stay on top of Nicole and Jesse's adventures in Asia, by far the best way is to actually come over here and experience life in Hong Kong with them.  That's just what Jesse's mother Doreen and step-dad John did a couple weeks ago by making their first trip to Asia to spend 8 glorious days exploring Hong Kong.

Doreen and John at Victoria Peak

Jesse and Nicole were absolutely delighted they decided to come over for a few reasons.  Not only had it been a long time since they had seen any friends or family from home (it's always nice to get some family time in), but also it's fun to share your new knowledge of a place with first-time visitors.  Also, they picked up the tab for everything that week, and it was awesome!

In Kowloon for Doreen's Birthday!

Definitely the main theme of the week was FOOD.  There were a number of culinary treats that Nicole and Jesse had not yet experienced in this city, so this was a great excuse (and means) of trying out some fantastic new stuff.

Doreen was celebrating her --th birthday while in Hong Kong, so the group marked the occasion by going to Ming Court, a Michelin two-star restaurant in Mong Kok, Kowloon.  The cuisine was authentic and refined Cantonese, and it was an excellent start to a week of food vacationing.  Highlights included an unbelievable egg and prawn soup, and the visually spectacular Ice Crystal jelly cube dessert.  It was fun to get dressed up an go out celebrating, and the restaurant even made Doreen a cake to celebrate the --eenth day of her birth.

Egg Prawn Soup / Hairy Crab / Ice Crystal Jelly desert

The private kitchen was another big thing to check off the Hong Kong "To-do" list, so we found an excellent place, also in Kowloon, that made amazing French food.  The private kitchen is something that originated in Hong Kong, but has now spread to many big cities.  Basically, a family will rent an apartment for the purpose of running a tiny restaurant out of.  These places usually seat 10-15 people, and although you might not expect it, the quality of cooking is outrageously high.  For our French meal, we had our own little room in the apartment, and our eight course meal was possibly the best French food the group had consumed anywhere.  Highlights here included outstanding foie-gras, the best chicken Doreen and John have ever had, and Nicole's scrumptious lamb.

High Tea at the Hullet House

The last great foodie treat this week was high-tea.  This is a hold over from British colonial times in Hong Kong, and is still a very popular afternoon pastime in the city.  For this, the group went to Hullet House in TST, Kowloon.  The tea house is situated in a very old British building that used to house the Maritime police in another life.  It has since been restored to its colonial brilliance and converted into a very classy restaurant overlooking TST's ritzy shopping arcades and Victoria harbour.  The tea was excellent and a fleet of staff wait on your every move.  Plus, the cream cheese and cucumber sandwiches were absolutely top notch.

In the cable car going across Lantau Island

Eating aside, there was much to see around the city.  Most of it involved Doreen and Nicole hastily shopping while Jesse and John meandered behind them.  One sunny day, the group went to Lantau Island, which is visible from Hong Kong, to see the giant Buddha statue that was erected there.  Lantau is actually larger than Hong Kong, but it is also more mountainous, which makes for great hiking, but more difficult habitation.  The way to Lantau includes a gondola ride that offers great views of the South China sea, as well as Lantau's vast and lush jungles.  The ride ends at a (what else) shopping village, and the hike up to the Buddha doesn't take too long.  At one point this was the largest bronze seated Buddha statue in the world.  Now it is merely a very large bronze seated Buddha statue.  In any case, it was great to see some new parts of the HK SAR.

It's a pretty big Buddha

No trip in Asia is complete without some great adventure, so the group departed into mainland China for a day of shopping in Shenzhen.  This city is located about an hour away from HK by train, and enjoys status as a 'Special Economic Zone' in the PRC, which encourages a massive inflow of Western dollars.  Twenty years ago, Shenzhen did not exist.  Now it is home to some 10 million people.

On the MTR to Schenzen!

The group did not go to view the city, however.  There was only one thing on their agenda: shopping.  The Luo Hu Commercial Centre is a massive shopping mall right next to the train station that boasts some 700 shops.  Shopping in China is akin to running the gauntlet: you are hounded and harassed by shopkeepers, followed by touts trying to lure you into their employers' shops, and lady after lady offering massages and foot rubs.  It took a good hour before Jesse felt comfortable in these surroundings.  Nicole and Doreen, on the other hand, we going ballistic shopping at an unprecedented pace.  Jewelery, hand bags, scarves (so many scarves), silks, watches...all of these came home with us.

Sensory overload!

On this day Nicole grew into an insane bargaining machine.  Her talons came out, and she was able to secure deals at about 1/3 the asking price.  The Chinese shop keepers came to fear her and call her "Terrible Money Eater" - her story will haunt Shenzhen for generations.

Haggle, haggle and haggle some more ;)

After 8 wonderful days, it was time to say goodbye to Doreen and John.  They had an amazing time in Hong Kong, and got a little taste of what it's like to live here.  Nicole and Jesse were very sad to see them go, but they had great times and got some good pictures along the way. 

Chilling in Chiang Mai

First off, loyal readers, apologies for the prolonged suspense since our last post.  Many wondrous things have happened in Hong Kong that distracted us from our blog obligations.  Please forgive us...we'll try hard to make up for it.

Children in the village where the Gibbon Experience ends

When we last left you, Nicole and Jesse had been spewed out of the Laotian jungle, insect-addled, blistered, filthy...well you get the point - we stank!  Having spent nights in both Huay Xai (Laos) and Chiang Khong (Thai), on opposite sides of the Mekong River, we desperately wanted to spend the night somewhere more...better.  So, we resolved to make the five hour journey back to Chiang Mai the very day we ended the Gibbon Experience.

Grabbing our packs from the Gibbon Experience, the travelers headed straight for the border crossing, checked out of Laos, and hopped on another rickety long-tailed boat for the trip back across the river into Thailand.  The first guesthouse on the road booked mini-buses back to Chiang Mai, and the group had enough time to use the washrooms (our first proper toilets in days) and grab some snacks before the next bus left.  It was perfect timing!

Back in Chiang Mai with more time on their hands than anticipated, Nicole and Jesse now had five days to thoroughly enjoy this Northern Thai city - the second largest in the country.  While Lyndsay and Kora spent their first (and only) day with a tuk-tuk seeing the major attractions, Nicole, Jesse, and Karen took to the streets of Chiang Mai to get a better sense of the place.

Limes in the day market

They happened upon a Talat Warorot and Talat Tonlamyai, two riverside open-air markets specializing in fresh food and flowers, respectively.  Anyone familiar with Thai cuisine knows that it boasts wonderful bold flavours that balance the heat of Thai chilis against the freshness of lime and cilantro.  Chiang Mai being the pure source of the raging torrent that is Tai food, Talat Warorot held many amazing smells and fresh ingredients.  The Thai climate allows year-round cultivation of many diverse fruits and vegetables, many of which are unavailable in Canada, and all of this fresh produce was for sale in the market.

Talat Tonlamyai, the flower market

Down the street in the flower market, artisans wove necklaces and intricate bouquets from every flower imaginable.  Also - it should be noted that the flower market smelled consistently good.  While the food market looked awesome, you could have a stall offering limes next to a stall selling day old fish balls.  If you value consistency in your nasal pallet, stick to the flower market.

Dancing at Wat Phra That

Next up, the trio reconvened with Kora and Lyndsay to check out Wat Phra That Doi Suthep, a Buddhist temple situated on a mountain top just outside of town.  By this point, Nicole, Lyndsay, and Karen had sharpened their bargaining talons, and after bullying a taxi driver into giving us "best price" for the trip, we hopped in the back of his pick up-cum-people mover for the trip.  Noxious fumes aside, it was a pleasant, if twisty journey switchbacking towards the summit.  After seeing many Thai Wats, it's sometimes easy to grow weary of the ostentatious gold and repeated Buddha imagery.  However, this temple was truly awesome, offering spectacular views of Chiang Mai, and a huge gold Chedi (temple centre spire).  Although this chedi was undergoing some repair work, it was still very interesting to see people carrying out Buddhist rituals.  There were also some cultural performances taking place all over the grounds of the temple, so Nicole and Jesse got to see some Thai traditional dancing and singing.

Some views of Wat Phra That: monks, chedi, and temple

After an evening of delicious Thai food (what else?) at a gorgeous riverside restaurant, it was time for Kora and Lyndsay to leave for the next leg of their trip in the Thai islands.  Heartbroken but undaunted, Nicole, Jesse, and Karen stayed on in Chiang Mai - they had bigger plans yet to come.

She'll do anything for watermelon, but this one was a freebie!

And by bigger, I mean larger; and by larger, I mean elephants!  The trio had booked a day at the Elephant Nature Park, a sanctuary for rescued elephants and other miscellaneous animals an hour's drive North of Chiang Mai in a pristine jungle valley.  You may ask what exactly these elephants have been rescued from.  Here is their story:

In 1989, Thailand banned the use of elephants in the logging industry.  Prior to this time, elephants had been used as bulldozers, heavy lifters, and for all other grunt work in commercial logging.  While this decision was a huge step forward for Thai forest preservation, it meant that several thousand elephants were now unemployed.  These were either abandoned, or forced to work for tourist dollars, walking the streets with their owners, or giving rides to tourists.  Sadly, to ensure compliance and supplication, these animals had been savagely beaten and tortured into submission.  Many of the elephants at the Nature Park bore the scars of this abuse, as well as other terrible indications of a horrible past.

Karen feeding the baby girl

Several of the elephants were, in fact, recovering drug addicts.  These elephants had been forced to give rides to tourists by day, then injected with cheap street drugs (methamphetamine) and forced to work in the logging camps by night.  As you can imagine the quality and quantity of the drugs administered to these animals was appalling. 

At the Elephant Nature Park, lucky animals have been rescued from this life and are allowed to live freely on a beautiful piece of land.  Already used to human contact from their previous lives, these elephants are extremely sociable.  And, now that people ply them with fresh fruit and vegetables instead of dollars and sticks, a trip to this park offers unprecedented quality time with these animals.

Nicole making new friends...they loved the watermelon the most

Nicole and Jesse got to feed the elephants their lunch (melons, gourds, and bananas), and spend time with the pair of year-old babies born at the park.  Being in a more natural setting has really brought out the best in these animals, and the thirty-odd elephants in the park have formed five separate herds, just as they might in the wild.

By far the best part of the day is bath time in the river!  Although the elephants may not love the cold water, these are fastidiously clean animals, so every day (and sometimes twice a day), the herds are brought to the rivers, where lucky people like us get to shower them with buckets of water.  This is where you can truly get to know these animals, standing right next to them, scrubbing behind their floppy ears, and sometimes getting splashed back.

Braving the raging river to scrub those pachyderms

A trip to the park comes with an unbelievable Thai-style lunch.  Many dishes served buffet style to the guests and volunteers who keep the dollars flowing and the place running smoothly - it is a massive endeavour to feed 35 constantly hungry pachyderms!!  The conversation at lunch was contemplative.  The park's mission, though extremely noble, is also difficult.  Many elephants are still forced into lives of servitude throughout Thailand.  The country has yet to formally ban elephant-begging, and it is not uncommon to see young elephants working the streets (indeed Nicole and Jesse saw one on their last night in Chiang Mai - very sad).  To rescue these animals, the park needs to have enough money to provide the owner a different means of living, other than begging.  This takes a lot of money.

Karen and Nicole starting a water fight

I think she's smiling at us!

However, when things work out, and they sometimes do, the elephants who are brought into the park are truly lucky.  One of the elephants, "Grandma," is 87 years old, and is enjoying her retirement immensely.  The younger elephants (most in the 15-35 range) have long and happy lives to look forward to in the park, and, hopefully with improve environmental protection laws, one day these animals might be returned to a national park.

For anyone going to Chiang Mai, a visit to the park will definitely change your outlook on the role of elephants in Thai society - at the very least you'll fall in love with these guys.  Nicole and Jesse sure did!

While it is nigh impossible to top that, Nicole, Jesse, and Karen came close on their last full day in Chiang Mai by enrolling in a Thai cooking course.  This full-day experience finally brought the group some hands-on time with the dishes they had been enjoying throughout their trip.  The day started with a trip to the market to see first-hand which ingredients created the intense Thai flavours, after which the group headed back to school to cook up a storm.

Cashew chicken, panang curry, and mango with sticky rice; all made by us

Savouring the delicious results

The menu included cashew chicken, spring rolls, tom yam goong soup (a spicy but amazing shrimp dish), panang curry, mango with sticky rice, and fried bananas.  It was actually amazing how a few simple ingredients (we used the same basic sauces in every dish!) gave rise to so many flavours.  With the exception of deep-frying the spring rolls, nothing was too complicated to make.  Those in Toronto should know that the course came with a cook book, and Nicole and Jesse will need to practice when we get home...hope you're hungry!

The last day and night in the city were spent shopping and enjoying Thai massages.  The trio tried out a massage place recommended in the guide that was a prison-outreach centre.  All the masseuses were soon-to-be-released inmates at the local women's prison.  While we were clearly hesitant at first, these murderers ladies were very hardened and embittered towards the system professional.  Jokes aside, it was pretty swell.

The Sunday night market

Chiang Mai really takes on a new life on the weekend.  During the week, a nightly market shills chincy crap to the tourist crowd - on the weekend the city's main thoroughfare shuts down to car traffic and a massive pedestrian market springs up.  Stretching for blocks and blocks, this market offered much more unique items, and insanely cheap local cuisine.  Jesse had the best mango salad of his entire life from a stall.  Ungodly spicy and with the freshest mangoes you can imagine, this set him back only 25 Canadian cents...not too shabby.  Born with capitalism coursing through her gorgeous veins, Nicole had that crazy glint in her eye that she gets where there are great deals to be had (see our piece on Seoul for more like this!)  Nicole and Jesse came back to Thailand with all manner of goods - enough to justify the purchase of a new bag to carry everything back!

With heavy hearts Nicole and Jesse bid farewell to Karen, who left to return to Tokyo, and had been an amazing travel buddy for the trip.  The following morning, they, too, had to leave to go home.  After an extensive layover in Bangkok, where Nicole and Jesse had lunch with Jesse's former teammate/coach/friend Tony and his wonderful wife Jody, they arrived back in Hong Kong without incident.  Their 12 days on the road seemed like an absolute blur, having done and seen so much.