Hangzhou and Huan Shan

Modern Hanzhou doesn't have much of the old city charm left. Despite that, i still like the place. It's one of the more relaxing big city in China, streets are wide and straight, it's pretty easy to get around by bus, and things are much better indicated. We weren't attacked by street touts every five minutes. For the first time in China, we almost felt invisible - and that's a very good thing. :)

West Lake is beautiful, albeit the fog (or pollution? I'd rather believe it's just the fog). we spent a few hours walking around and hoped it'd reveal its true beauty to us. but nope, the fog continued on like it's part of the lake. IMHO, the lake contributes a lot to the city's overall laid-back feel. the shore is very happening day and night, friends meet there, companies have outings there, and people just gather to pass time. Hanzhou would not be Hanzhou without West Lake!

the lake, like a shy lady wearing a veil, seldom revealing its beauty

a park by the West Lake

we also did a day trip to a nearby water town Anchang(安昌). it's not yet spoiled by tourist buses and guides touting honks and flags, maybe the inconvenient location explains it. it took us 3 hours and 4 bus transfers to get there. the town is quiet and peaceful and it feels so real. People seem to live on their undisturbed lives like a hundred year ago. Such place is, sadly, diminishing fast in modern china....

the old street of Anchang

the old town spans on both sides of the canal.

Huang Shan (Yellow Mountain)

Back in taiwan, my dad played this DVD about Huan Shan that totally rocked us. we had every intent to end our RTW trip on a high note, so what's better than spending a night on top of Huan Shan and catching the sunrise next morning? well well well, as an old chinese saying goes, "no matter how much one plans things out, life always intervenes"(人算不如天算), or weather intervenes, in our case. we woke up at 4am to a pouring rain. not only did we not get to see the sunrise, the moutains are covered in a thick layer of fog, the whole day! we lingered on but miracle didn't happen. All we could do was to read the signs and use our imagination to picture the breathtaking scenery amid the fog that is just meters in front of us! talking about frustration! they said out of 365 days a year, the sunrise can only be seen on 50+ days. so we weren't that unlucky. but a foggy day like this is definitely not the norm. It hadn't been raining for a month prior to our visit!!

Like we didn't have enough bad luck, we took the wrong gondola down to the much-deserted back of the mountain with absolutely zero means of public transportation. seeing us cold, tired, and in a hurry, a driver wanted to charge us outrageous price to bring us back to the front door. but that's another story for another day... my blood pressure rises just thinking about it. zen.....

this is the Huang Shan we saw. :(

we waited at this spot for a while, suddenly the fog went away a bit and revealed this bizarre looking stone, the chinese named it flying over stone.

we couldn't wait to put everything behind us. so when we finally arrived back in Hanzhou that night, we went straight to the most prestigious restaurant Lou Wei Lou(樓外樓)by the West Lake and had a feast - west lake vinegar fish (西湖醋魚), deep fried shrimp and eel (蝦爆鱔), mixed seafood, a basket of soup dumplings (小籠包), accompanied by some local longjin tea (龍井). The fish is starved in West Lake for 3 days to remove the muddy taste. I can tell you their starvation is our feast! :) The master poet Su Dong Po from Song dynasty once said "there are no better banquets in the world than those in Hanzhou" and there are certainly a bit truth to it. Now if you've ever had the dish DongPo pork. this is the the same Dong Po i am talking about, in fact, he invented the dish! he's a writer, poet, calligrapher, governor of Hanzhou, and a food connoisseur. talking about versatility! :) In the restaurant every table seemed to have this dish. Too bad we didn't get the chance to taste it!

I'll end this entry with some fun. I got this picture from Huang Shan. Look at number 3. Not disturbing wild life is a good thing, but the translation doesn't quite convey it right - can I flirt with them by buying them a drink? :-)

Yunnan, South of the clouds

To me, Yunnan has always had that mysterious feeling. Its remote location, diverse ethnicity and harsh terrain has made it an unknown territory and a difficult place to govern in history. It's also where the fallen officials were exiled to and home to 1/3 of all china's ethnic minorities. all of these contribute to the strong character of this border province. it's another China, apart from the great wall and the Terra cotta and I was excited to be finally there.

An overnight train took us to Kunming, the capitol of Yunnan province. From there, a 4-hours bus ride took us to Dali, the new Dali to be exact. Another taxi ride and 35 yuan later we finally arrived at the real thing - old Dali, yes the very place where Dali kingdom stood some 900 years ago as depicted in Jin Yong's bestseller Tian-long-ba-bu. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Jin Yong, he is a bestselling author of a series of chinese martial art novels. His books were the ones I once read under blanket with a flashlight at late night in my teenage years, as did many others. :) Now here I am, standing on the same ground Duan Yu stood some hundreds of years ago.!

We spent a few days in Dali, visited a local Bai market in Shaping, the three pagodas and just wandered aimlessly in the town. The old town is lovely, with cobbled streets and traditional stone architectures, but not until we later arrived in Lijiang we realized none of that could hold a candle to the latter!

the streets of old Dali

me and the 3 pagodas near old Dali

the action packed Bai market in Shaping every Monday

Lijiang is simply what one imagines China would be like - winding cobbled streets, rickety old wooden buildings and gushing old canals. we spent a couple of days here, sometimes just hung at a local cafe reading other ppl's travel log and just watch the world go by. sometimes we ventured out to nearby scenic spots like Tiger Leaping Gorge and Jade Dragon Snow Mountain. At night we'd be exploring the local Naxi dishes in one of many restaurants lined in the old town. The Naxi is one of many minorities living in Yunnan, and guess what? They have a matriarchal society!! Yes, Naxi women never get married, their "boyfriends" come to spend the night and go back to their own place next morning. The kids belong to the women and women inherit all properties! When the guide explained this to us at the Naxi museum, the lady next to me couldn't help but yell out "that's heaven!". :) The Naxi also created a hierogrlyphic language over 1000 years ago and it's still in use! They write things on Dongba papers which is said to last a thousand years. Impressive!

streets of Lijiang

a Dongba (wise man in Naxi) writing (or should I say drawing?) Naxi pictographic characters on Dongba papers

Tiger Leaping Gorge

Lijiang's freezing morning makes getting up early a pretty difficult task (the fact that we have heated blanket makes it even more difficult). We got to TLG at almost noon, after a winding 2 hours on a bus watching a horrible, loud, badly acted old movie. Perhaps because it's already past the morning rush, there weren't many drivers there vying for our business. We grouped up with two girls from Kunming to share ride. they saved us big bucks that day. Looking at them I realized what we called bargaining before was just kids stuff. they are pros! I almost wanted to ask them where they'd be visiting the following days and mind if we tag along. :)

The gorge is just stunningly beautiful, narrow, deep, and the rapids looks very unnavigable. the driver took us into the middle part of the gorge and we started descending. We got to the bottom not after long and from there it was a hair-standing narrow, slippery path to get to this rock called Tiger Leaping Stone, which stands in the middle of the river looking down at the turbulent rapids. It's said that a tiger once jumped across the gorge from here, hence the name. That's one hell of a leap!

After a bit of rest it's time for the tough part - going up! It was a strenuous hike, one of the toughest I've ever done (not that i am an experienced hiker). The sign that says "safe path to the left, dangerous ladder to the right" just didn't help at all because the ladder was what we were taking. I looked up at the ladder vertically clinging to the cliff and thought i must've been out of my mind. This ain't no climbing the Sydney harbour bridge where your auto-lock harness binds you to the ladder nice and firm. Anyway my sore legs wanted to get it over with, so I took the plunge... nice and easy, one step at a time, never look down... As it turned out, it is actually much less scary climbing it than looking at it. all those indoor climbing prepped me well for this day! :)

We made it back to the top in about 3 hours. as we arrived back at the road, the afternoon sun penetrated through layers of clouds and hit the gorge. It's really beautiful. I've read that china is planning to dam up the gorge, i truly hope it's not gonna happen. it's a shame to have this beautiful gorge buried under water.

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bargain-o-meter (courtesy of our Kunming friends):

ride to middle rapid in TLG: from Y180 to Y100

ride back to Lijiang: from Y30 to Y20, per person

access Tiger Leaping Stone: from Y10 per person to per group (the 4 of us!)

horseback riding: from Y380 per person to Y180 for the whole group (3 ppl)

awesome!

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us in front of the middle rapid sign

the hair-standing path to go to Tiger Leaping Stone. The lady in front of me is the "stonekeeper". she collects 10 yuan and leads us there. But our Kunming friends bargained it down to 10 yuan total for the four of us. :)

the trick here is don't look down

me climbing up the sky ladder

the beautiful gorge in late afternoon's sun

Jade Dragon Snow Mountains

The Chinese categorizes scenic spots by the number of As. JDSM is a AAAA (4A) scenic spot, which can translate to stunning scenery, loads of big buses and long lines. :) On our first visit, we wanted to avoid the beaten track, so we went to the furthest part and took a chair lift up to the peak called Yak Meadow. We had the place almost to ourselves. There were just us and two other people because everyone else is on the 4500m peak throwing snow balls and sucking oxygen. :). It was hailing up there and the cold, thin air gives the place a remote, Tibetan feeling. It's very quiet and tranquil, felt like a lost world. we could see yaks grazing on the grass. We returned to JDSM a few days later for the 4500m peak and witnessed the power of chinese tour groups. we waited for more than 4 hours before we finally stood on top. The visibility was pretty bad and all we could see is fog and loads of people. however, the feeling of standing on the highest point ever in my life still keeps enough adrenaline pumping!! Pascal was quite a celebrity up there, he removed his shirt to have pictures taken in the blizzard with the elevation sign. That caused quite a stir at 4500m, girls were screaming and guys patting on his shoulder. that earned him some chinese groupies asking to have photos taken together. :)

At the time we didn't know the real adventure was just about to begin. we got back down to the foot of the mountain to wait for the bus back to Lijiang a little past 4. two hours later there's still no sign of bus. we asked around and the staff just told us to wait, said "Eventually" the bus will come. later we learn (from a village worker) that the bus stops running at 4! We were very frustrated with the unhelpful staff and misinformation, in a AAAA national grade scenic spot, i really expect a little more, especially after paying 80 yuan to go in and 175 yuan for the cable car! Most people came as part of a tour group or hired drivers, there were just about 11 of us who are independent travellers. we started flagging down passing cars and asking tour guides if we can ride along. none of them offered a hand. It was getting colder and darker, where are all the taxi touts when i need them the most?! finally a mini van stopped and agreed to take us back to Lijiang, all 11 of us swarmed in. and after a bit of squeezing and stacking up we all miraculously fit in. i couldn't say enough thank-you to the driver! We got back to Lijiang feeling like refugees. it was a day with mixed emotions - frustration, excitement, and anger. At that point only one thing could sooth our tired mind and body - a bowl of steamy hot across-bridge rice noodles. We stormed in the first restaurant where the noodles are served. nothing beats having a satisfying meal after a tough day!

Pascal having pictures taken with some chinese travellers

11 of us stacked up in this tiny car.

Yak Meadow

We said good bye to Lijiang that night and hopped on a overnight sleeper bus back to Kunming. The bus is nothing to write home about, I was just glad my berth wasn't by the restroom. :) After a sleepless night, we arrived in Kunming just before the day break, took a taxi to the airport and fly to Hanzhou from there.

"Guilin San Sui Ja Tian Xia"...

...is an old Chinese saying, what it means is "Guilin's mountain and water is the best under the sky", but that's just half the story. The other half goes like this:"... but Yangshuo's are even better", which we totally agree.

We arrived in Guilin at almost midnight and were really glad we had airport pick-up arranged back in Shenzhen - at a cut-throat price. Just when we were wondering how LP can be so off this time (we paid less than half the price of what's listed!), we realized the real purpose of the driver is to get us to hire him as a personal driver during our stay in Guilin, and of course to take us to his "recommended" hotel. He told us point-blank that it's a losing-money business coming to pick us up and asked us to "take care" of him, persistently and annoyingly by giving plausible reasons to steer our decision his way. Not only did we not need a driver, but also trying to get business like this just ticks me off! It was quite mentally tiring having to deal with this kind of "working culture" - and this is just the beginning of a constant battle in China!

Before i go any further, i will give out a bit of Mandarin intro class to those non-Mandarin speaking readers. Some of these Chinese pinyin will show up frequently in the upcoming posts:

"hu": lake
"lu": road
"shan": mountain

all right. now that you all master in tourist Mandarin, I will proceed with the update! :) We spent the next day visiting the sights in Guilin, including the Rong Hu and Shan Hu (remember what "hu" is? test test) that spans the heart of Guilin and the must-see Seven Star Park. We took our time strolling in the park, one thing worth mentioning is the Seven Star Cave, a capacious chamber filled with bizarre looking stalactites, coloured by floodlights and dubbed some very imaginative titles like "dragon eating a bear", "bear catching a tiger", etc (picture on the left, do you see the dragon?). It was a no-brainer getting around by public bus, so we got a little cocky, later we learned the hard way that it's not the case everywhere China, I'll tell you later! :)




Fear not having enough time to make a day trip by public transportation, we joined a Chinese group to visit the famed Dragon's Backbone rice terraces and the nearby Yao and Zhuang minority villages and watched their dance show (picture to the left). The tour guide is nice enough to "sprinkle" his commentary with some English for Pascal and the other non-Mandarin speaker. You know how in some Hollywood movies when a Chinese speaks for minutes and the translator simply boils it down to one sentence? it's a bit like that. :) The rice terrace is beautiful, even when it's not at the best season. The steep slope has been sculpted by generations of local farmers since the Yuan dynasty. They say the best time to visit is spring, right before the harvest, when the field is filled with water and rice fully grown up and golden, when the sun hits, the beauty is beyond any description. I can only hope for next time! We wandered away from the crowd and explored up and down the terraces and had a great afternoon there. I must not forget to mention the delicious lunch we had at a local restaurant - baked bamboo chicken, smoked meat with bamboo shoot, and some really crispy stir fry vegetables. it snaps in your mouth!

Dragon Backbone Rice Terrace (Longji Titian)


the next day we took the touristy but must-do (almost) Li River cruise south to Yanshuo, where we will spend a few days. The scenery is simply beautiful and poetic. It's the inspiration for many chinese landscape paintings and one particular view is even printed on the new 20 yuan note! Of course when the captain announced it, everyone rushed to the deck and snapped away. The scenic spots along the river are dubbed imaginative names (surprise!), like the nine horses painting on the Mural hill. Legend has it that if you can see all nine of them, you'll be the winner of the next Imperial Examination. I read that Bill Clinton saw two. Well, I saw three (by faaaaar stretching my imagination). :)





We had a fantastic time in Yanshuo. It's the place for backpackers. The town is small and everything is pretty much on or around West Street (picture to the left), west as in western, as you can imagine this street is lined with cafes serving up western food. This is the place to turn to for a piece of chocolate cake with hot fudge or a decent cup of cappuccino, which we did. :) But that doesn't mean we forgot to enjoy many wonderful local dishes, especially beer fish. I even went as far as taking a class to learn how to make it. Now I'll shoulder the important task of introducing it to the western world! j/k :) We spent another day biking through the rice paddies around Yanshuo, then took a bamboo raft down the Yulong river, which is at least as beautiful as the Li River, but much more peaceful and quiet without the herds of tourists and running engines. we spent another day walking along the Li River between villages of Xinping and Yandi, and observing local markets. really interesting to watch the action-packed morning activities. During the walk we experienced yet again chinese persistence - villagers virtually followed us and asked us to take their bamboo rafts and to dine at their houses. this is one of those times i wish i didn't understand Mandarin.

paddling through rice paddies near Yanshuo


taking bamboo raft down the Yulong river

I'll finish this entry with another Chinese saying. It goes, "A scene in one's ears is more beautiful than it is in one's eyes.' In other words, we often find that the scenery doesn't live up to it hype. But in the case of the Li River and its surrounding, the opposite is true. :) We said goodbye to Yanshuo and hopped on a bus back to Guilin, the beginning of a very long land journey to Yunnan.

Hong Kong, Pearl of the orient

It has been at least 10 years since my last visit to Hong Kong. I still own a copy of Lonely Planet Hong Kong & Macau edition from that trip. It's been collecting dust on my shelf back in Taiwan for more than a decade! I didn't remember i had such backpacking spirit back then. I remember calling the hostels listed in the book at the airport, anxious and unsure. At the time I didn't know some ten years later, i would be owning many more editions of Lonely Planet and traveling like this half away around the globe!

Enough reminiscence, time to talk about this trip! :)It was my birthday the day we arrived in Hong Kong. After leaving the airport and taking the airport express straight to the city (HK int'l airport is about the most well organized and efficient airport I've ever been to!), I was taken to my b-day gift - two nights stay at a four star hotel in the heart of HK (picture below)!! After staying at all kinds of budget accommodation, i can't think of a better gift. thanks hon!

We then went out to have dinner, a busy typical HK style tea restaurant. It reminds me so much of the time in LA when everything else is closed at late night, my friends and I would go to this HK style cafe for snacks. good old times! The food is decent, however half way through dinner we heard a huge screaming, we turned around to see a lady jump off of her chair and a fast moving dark object on the floor...yew! We turned back to continue like nothing had happened and hoped that thing won't come our direction...

the next day we got Pascal's visa taken care of first thing in the morning, then went to Maxim's for dim sum (what's a visit to HK without having dim sum anyway?!), after lunch we took the cable car up to Victoria Peak, it has changed so much since my last visit, although the view remains magnificent, only it's not free anymore! There was a big open plaza for people to take in the city view, now it's replaced by a multi-purpose building and requires a separate entrance fee to go up the roof to enjoy the city view!

The skyline is spectacular, it's amazing the density of high rise buildings on this tiny island! Even more spectacular is the panoramic night view on Star Ferry looking back at the Victoria Harbour. HK is a good place to navigate on foot, especially with the pedestrian bridges that span between buildings. we hardly need to get down to street level anywhere from point A to point B within the central area, no waiting for traffic light, no inhaling smokes and competing for right of road with vehicles. wonderful!

night view of Victoria Harbour

very modern pedestrian bridge that connects downtown buildings
the next day we went to my all-time mecca - afternoon tea at the Peninsula Hotel. Although my improper backpacking attire took away a bit of elegance (if i have any), it's still very enjoyable!

3-tier afternoon tea tray at Peninsula Hotel

needlessly to say, HK is an expensive place. We didn't feel like lingering around for too long. After all, China is the main destination of the trip. We picked up Pascal's passport and headed straight to Shenzhen for a flight to Guilin (flying from HK would have cost more than twice the price!), where mountains, rivers and delicious Guilin rice noodles await us!