Life in Cambodia

Before we headed out of Sichuan Province, we decided to escape the craziness of Chengdu and seek solice in the Taoist temples on the nearby Mt. Qingcheng. We had previously thought to stop over at a bigger mountain called Mt. Emei, but reading more about it, it became to sound a bit too touristy for us so we opted for the smaller version. I thought it was going to be a nice little stroll through the mountains, but it turned into a tough, sweaty uphill slog (we opted out of the ubiquitous cable car ride!) We passed quite a few Chinese tourists dressed up in nice clothes and high heels, cruising up the mountain and we are convinced that the Chinese do not sweat. Whereas you could have floated a boat in the amount of sweat that came off us, ner a drop was seen on anyone else. Anyway, the mountain is dotted with bunches of little Taoist temples and pavilions, good resting stops as you make your way to the summit. At the temples there were no shortages of little shops selling water, drinks, and really anything else you might (or might not) want. While it may seem a bit of a sell-out to turn these religious temples into convenience stores, its real nice to have ice cold water waiting for you at every turn. The views were amazing as we trudged up the mountain, and after a few hours huffing and puffing, we made it up to the monastery that we would call home. We dropped our bags to lighten our load and continued up to the summit where we found a huge gold-plated statue of a guy sitting on a water buffalo (our ignorance leads us to believe that it was a Taoist deity of some kind) At any rate, we climbed to the top of the temple on the summit and had some really amazing views of the surrounding country-side; wonderful mountains. After a quick beer, we descended to "our" temple to check out our digs for the night. Despite being a working monastery, it was a bit of a strange place. Altars were neck-n-neck with little shops selling tourist stuff and the cafeteria sold grossly over-priced mediocre food. Epcot Taoist Temple. It also had the foulest smelling bathrooms that I had been in for some time. I seriously had to run out and nearly gagged (and I think I have a pretty high tolerance when it comes to dirty bathrooms). In the end, we can say that we slept in a Taoist monastery on the top of a sacred mountain, but in reality we slept in a dirty hostel on top of a formerly sacred mountain that has sold its soul to the tourist dollar. After one night, we hiked down and immediately made it back to Chengdu and onward to Guilin in Guangxi Province. The train ride was unpleasant, if only because we were surrounded by loud, smoking fiends who played cards all night and all day. It might have been interesting to watch had it been poker or something, but it looked like War or something equally thoughtless and boring; though every other occupant on the train thought it was the coolest thing since sliced bread and came over to watch and cheer. "Ohhh look! he played a 5 on that 3! Wow, what strategy!" Needless to say, we were quite happy to divest ourselves of those characters. A quick night in Guilin and short ride the next morning and we have found ourselves in the little town of Yangshuo, on the Li River. Yangshuo is a little, backpacker-esque town and admittedly I was a bit worried about hippies and whatnot, but it has turned out to be a really nice place. Most of the city is just a regular looking town, but there is a main pedistrain drag full of guesthouses, restaurants, etc were we've spent some time. The first day we just cruised around, felt the lay of the land, etc. We are in a nice, cheap place with free internet (and A/C! - its damn hot here!) The city is surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of huge limestone karsts that jut out of the countryside (see the photos) and the next day, went kayaking down the river. Despite being obscenely hot, we kayaked for nearly 3 hours down the Li amongst the karsts and had some wonderful views, passing by plenty of local fisherman out there on the river doing their thing.

After kayaking, we took a little break before renting some bikes and taking a bit of a ride. Its only a few kilometers, but the heat was enough to fry us in our seats, so we crept along at an easy pace. We headed up to Moon Hill, a karst with a half moon shaped hole gouged out of the middle. It was quite a steep vertical hike upwards, but we were rewarded with wonderful views of the surrounding country-side.

We managed to find some good food in town as well. One place had hummus and pita bread, though, ahem, Maggie and I have made better. One woman was also making strange little burritos that were hard to pass up (especially since they were cheap cheap cheap) --a strange little concoction of some sort of pancake-type batter smoothed over what looked like a crepe griddle, then an egg broken over that and cooked on it, then a layer of some brown savory sauce, chilli pepper, crispy flat wantons, then lettuce and top it off a thin hotdog split in half. Hmmm, curious but amazingly good--the woman making them was so quick and skilled with her hands, once all of the goods were in place, with a quick flick of her wrist and what looked like a paint scraper, folder it over, cut in half and steaming handed it over to her husband waiting with a bag. We ate this a lot, probably too much. We also passed some nice restaurants, but we could only afford to peer in the windows and reminisce about in Cambodia how we could afford to eat anything/anywhere we wanted...those days are gone for sure.

We had an afternoon to kill, so we decided to take a little day trip to a place called XingPing, described in the booklets as a "Photographer's Paradise." We had to check it out! After an easy little ride, we found ourselves in a dirty little town without much charm and attached ourselves to a boat trip through the karsts (as that is what one does in XingPing). It started out nice enough, nice boat plying the river though after a bit we pulled over to visit a "model village". Well, the model village had sold its soul long ago and the once proud streets were lined with kitsch and whatnot. By the time we got back to the boat, it looked as if the entire Chinese Navy was passing down the river. There is a bunch of tourist traffic on the river between Guilin and Yangshuo--continual boats going back and forth. By the end of the day, they were all headed back up to Guilin and we probably watched 30 go by before our little boat got in line. The river is only wide enough for a single file line; so a bit of peacefulness was lost in the fact that we were one of probably 100 boats on this tiny river.

After a bit of discussion, we decided to go straight from Yangshuo to Beijing; skipping over Hunan Province, where we had originally planned on stopping. The new route would allow us to get our visas (Kyrgyz) in Beijing, do the Beijing things and be in Xi'an in time to renew our Chinese visa, thus giving us plenty of time to explore Xinjiang Province in the extreme Wild West. Anyway, this is a heavy travel season so we knew we'd have some problems getting a ticket for Beijing, especially a sleeper (its 25+ hrs!) so we turned to our guesthouse for help booking the ticket. Long story short is that they said they booked the ticket when they actually did not so we ended up sitting around Yangshou for an extra day waiting on a ticket that wasn't there. They kept saying, "please just wait a little longer, its coming" and all that. Anyway, under the cover of the 2am darkness, we eventually got on a train, after paying some middleman (arranged by the owner of the guesthouse) 60 quai to shuffle us onto the dining car and beg the conductor to give us a ticket. We did get a ticket, but it was for a 'hard seat'...meaning we would sit on a bench (OK, it was cushioned) for the whole ride with 4 others surrounding us. We both thought we could handle it, but after the 24 hour mark (we ended up being on the train for 30 hours...really.) I was really about ready to lose it--I won't even get into the madness of the dudes sitting across from us, but I wouldn't recommend this 3 rd class travel for anyone who can avoid it...we spent an entire day recuperating in our hotel room.

On a happier and well rested note, we're now in Beijing!...we're not really bitter travelers, it just seems that some of our most disgruntled moments are are the funniest tales for you all to enjoy ;-) Anyway, all is well in Beijing and we've been having a fantastic time exploring hutongs, shopping (me-Maggie, at least) and the big sights; feels like we're almost in NYC. More on Beijing in the next entry...