Bad English

Bad English

For whatever reason, China is blessed with a cornucopia of poorly translated English signs. Most of these appear on restaurant menus, but occasionally they pop up at museums and street signs as well. Whenever I see one of these mis-translations, I can't help but think to myself, "Who wrote this? Did anybody double check this?" Here is a collection of some of my favorites:





























 

 

 



 

The Plot Thickens

In my ongoing quest to make a post about my time in Bangkok, it appears that I have been foiled once again. You see, the internet is very scarce in Kolkata. There are no open wireless networks to hop onto, because there are no wireless networks period. At least not any near the hotel we are staying at. So we had to track down an internet cafe. I had written a big post about Bangkok on my computer and wanted to connect at the internet cafe, but their ethernet cable is broken. So no Bangkok blog. Sorry! There is one part that I want to briefly mention though which is that Mimi and I had the great fortune of spending one night on Ko Samet, which is a beautiful beach island about four hours away from Bangkok. The beaches were wonderful and we rented a motorbike and rode it around the island. The best part was that we went during the week so the island was nearly deserted. We had a whole beach to ourselves!

Mean, things in Kolkata are grim. Very grim. I do not like this city. As Mimi and I concluded, being in Hong Kong was like being catapulted to the year 2015. Being in Kolkata is like being dragged back to the year 1977.

Everything in this city is in complete shambles. The buildings are collapsing. The streets are beyond filthy. Homeless people and beggars are everywhere. Naked children are lying on the dirty streets. Personally, this has worn me down quite a bit. I knew India was poor, but its still shocking and upsetting to see it firsthand.

At one point, about five small children swarmed around Mimi and started clinging to her arms and legs, begging for money in a language that we didn't understand. I had to forcibly pry their hands off of Mimi and scare them away. It was very intense.

The horn-honking is no longer amusing. It drives me utterly insane. I just don't understand why everyone is honking so much. On certain streets, there is literally a constant din of pure horn. A discordant horn symphony if you will.

The metro system in Hong Kong was seriously from the future. The metro system in Kolkata has one single line, no air conditioning, and you enter buy getting a little ticket similar to the one you might get a county fair.

But enough complaining. We leave tomorrow night. I am very excited to take a train in India, especially the Darjeeling Mail, the line which was featured in the Wes Anderson film Darjeeling Limited, starring Owen Wilson. Not that I even really liked that movie, but I thought it was still cool to be taking that train. Maybe it wasn't even featured in that movie. I just think its cool to be taking a train to Darjeeling.

Yesterday, we went and checked out the Victoria Memorial, which is a giant white building with big domes and stylish colonial architecture. We then went to the Birla Planetarium and sat through what was probably the worst planetarium show on the face of the planet. It was very fun to be in a planetarium surrounded by hundreds of Indian kids and their parents. But the actual show was a joke! It consisted of a woman speaking in the most monotone, disinterested English I have ever heard. She then projected slides of the planets that looked like they were from the 1970s. She also mentioned literally five times that Pluto was no longer a planet, each time reminding us that it had been "demoted" to mere dwarf planet status. How any of the children there understood any of this I have no idea.

Anyways, the biggest highlight of our time in Kolkata has been of course the food! We've been getting really into dosas, which are the big crispy bread poofs that are filled with a light potato curry. It also comes with this amazing lentil and onion broth. The other exciting thing for me here is the fresh lime soda. It's 100% legit.

It has been raining on and off the whole time we've been here and somehow, the streets stay just as dirty even after it rains.

Yesterday, it dawned on Mimi and Kolkata is not a place people choose to go to. How we ended up here I'm not really sure. Actually, it was because this was by far the cheapest ticket to get into India. We have hardly seen any other Westerners here and I think there is a reason. This city is an utter shit-hole. Too harsh? You come here and decide for yourself.

I'm in Kolkata!!!

OK, so I wrote a big entry about Bangkok while I was on the airplane this morning. And in typical Windows fashion, something went awry and my file closed without warning. So I lost the block. I was too frustrated to rewrite it, but soon enough I will get some words down about Bangkok.

Right now though, I want to briefly talk about Kolkata, which I guess used to be spelled Calcutta. This city is beyond insane. It is unlike anything I've ever seen. I've only been here for half a day, but I can say for certainty that this is the craziest, dirtiest, loudest, most hectic city I have ever been to.

People honk their horns here like normal people blink their eyes. There is garbage all over the streets and gutters. The streets are overwhelmed with people and food stalls. Kolkata makes Shanghai look like a cake-walk. Kolkata is even crazier than Cairo, which until now held the crown as craziest city I've even been to. This city appears to be in shambles, as many of the buildings seem to be near collapse. The weirdest thing is that we've passed several colonial era buildings that are in total disrepair or possibly even abandoned and reclaimed. It's a very odd site.

So far today we went out to eat some Indian street food for lunch. The vendors, despite being overwhelmed by hordes of hungry men, were very nice to us and helped us pick out some food. We had some freshly baked poofy bread with some beans and onions (it was way better than it sounds), and then we got samosas, which unfortunately had meat in them. Finally, we went to a very crowded stall which had numerous vegetarian dishes. We ordered three, and all of them were delicious.

We then made our way over to a train ticket office, where we quite easily purchased tickets for Oct 4, at which point we will take a sleeper train to NJP, which is the transfer point to Darjeeling.

Sorry that this post was written very quickly, but I just wanted to give an update.

More soon
Michael

Hmm

Hello All.

I apologize for the lack of updates over the past week or so. I've been in Bangkok and I have been extremely busy. At the end of each day I was just too tired to write anything. Tomorrow we are flying to Calcutta, India. I am both excited and nervous. I hope to write a lot on the plane trip. Bangkok is a great place and I am sad to be leaving. More soon, promise!

Hong Kong

The trip from Yangshuo to Hong Kong was quite hellish. It was the first time I had ever taken an overnight sleeper bus, and hopefully it will be the last time.

We could have taken a bus back to Guiling, then taken a sleeper train to Guangzhou, and then taken either another bus or train to Shenzen, and then taken a final bus to Hong Kong. But we figured it would be quicker and easier to just take a bus straight from Yangshuo to Shenzen, which is just across the border from Hong Kong. Boy were we wrong.

First, the bus arrived an hour late to the bus station.The bus company claimed that there was an accident on the road, but I have my doubts. I think they were late because they were loading contraband into the bottom of the bus or doing something else equally nefarious.

The bus itself had an insane layout, albeit a very cramped one. Unfortunately, the pictures I took didn't come out very well, but basically the bus consisted of three rows of six double decker cots, which allowed for thirty six people to sleep on a single bus. This efficient but utterly cramped layout was made possible by elevating the upper portion of each cot so that the next cot would slide in underneath. In other words, my head was basically on top of someone's feet, and my feet were underneath someone's head. Can you say sardines?

In any event, the voyage was supposed to take ten hours, dropping us off in Shenzen at about 6 am. From there, it would be another couple of hours of local buses and metros to get to downtown Hong Kong. In reality, we didn't get to Shenzen until past 10 am! Why? Because the bus driver and his assistant kept inexplicably pulling over on the side of the road and doing something. It was the middle of the night, so I wasn't really sure what was going on, but at one point we were stopped for what seemed like about 45 minutes. This happened several times.

In the morning, when we were what seemed like very close to our final destination, the bus pulled off onto a side road in Shenzen and came to a standstill. Then, the driver's assistant and some other guys began unloading tons of cardboard cargo boxes from the luggage storage. Why were wholesale goods being transported on a civilian bus? Why were they doing it on my time? I was getting really frustrated.

It would have been a funny story, except we had a very important reason to get to Hong Kong by the morning. Mimi still hasn't got a new visa to go to India, and we had to get over to the India Consulate to get things sorted out. Unfortunately, due to the tardiness of the bus, we weren't able to get to the consulate in the morning. We went the next day, but they are telling us that it might not come through until next Tuesday. That would be really bad, because we are supposed to fly to Thailand on Saturday. It's looking like I might go ahead to Thailand and Mimi will stay in Hong Kong until she gets her visa. We are trying to keep our cool but its been a very frustrating experience.

UPDATE: At the time of writing, everything has worked out with Mimi's visa. Still, we spend a decent portion of our time in Hong Kong waiting around at the Indian Consulate and making phone calls in the middle of the night on Skype to their office in New York. We knew all along they'd give it to us, but we also knew that they'd make us wait until the very last minute. It's the unspoken credos of all embassies world wide. Make them wait. They know no other method.


In any event, we arrived in Hong Kong by the early afternoon. By mistake, I had forgotten to get directions to our hostel before we left Yangshuo. But after a bit of searching on the map, we found the right street and hopped on the MTR. The MTR is Hong Kong's super efficient subway system. It's incredibly quiet, clean and accessible. It's also much more expensive than the subways systems in Shanghai and Beijing, with an average trip costing $1-2 USD. We got off at Mongkok East station and began looking for the correct address. When we finally found the building, it was filled to the brim with cell phone stores. Literally every commercial stall in the entire building was selling phones, selling phone accessories, or offering repair services. Our hostel was supposedly on the 7th floor, but we couldn't find an elevator. After three stories of endless cell phone stores, we started asking around. It turned out that the residential entrance to the building was around the corner. No space is wasted in Hong Kong. Everything is overlapping with everything else.

A nice man led us to the proper entrance and we found the hostel. The building seemed to be a mix of budget hostels and private apartments. Overall the building looked like it had seen better days. When we got to our room, I couldn't believe my eyes. I had never seen a smaller accomodation in my life. The room, which was by no means cheap compared to China, was about 6x9 in area. A small double bed went wall to wall and took up perhaps 75% of the room itself. There were no windows. The bathroom was about 4x4 and doubled up as an "everything gets wet" shower. In Hong Kong, no space is wasted. I had read online forums that warned of small hotel rooms, but this was unlike anything I had imagined. Ce la vie.

Hong Kong is very unique city. First off, its unbelievably crowded. Mongkok, the neighborhood we are staying in, is on the Kowloon Peninsula, which is the hub of commerce, restarurants, and just life in general. Every street is packed to the brim with various shops, and often the commerce spills out into bootleg stalls that eat up the actual streets. Often, commericial establishments climb much higher than the first floor. For example, one building we passed had fifteen different bars; one on each floor. The larger avenues are dominated by the hundreds of double decker buses that supplement the MTR rail system. Across the bay lies Hong Kong Island, which is technically the downtown area and is mostly filled with skyscrapers, financial institutions, and upscale commerce. But Kowloon felt like the real Hong Kong. A place where people actually live and thrive.

I wasn't sure if I was going to like Hong Kong. I knew that it was a "global financial center," what ever that means. I also knew it was crowded and offered a very different culture from the rest of China. After a few days here, I've come to the conclusion that I really like this city. In fact, I love it. The one thing that was holding me back from falling in love was the cost of living. Hong Kong is considerably more expensive than China. Beyond our accomodations, food and transportion were anywhere from twice to five times as much as they were in China. But we are only here for a few days, I told myself, so I stopped obsessing over the bills, and started enjoying myself.

The unique culture of Hong Kong is a product of the British colonial legacy. Although it is technically now part of China, it still has its own financial and legal systems. No websites are blocked here. On the contrary, Hong Kongers (is that the right term?) seem to have reached an advanced level of cultural saturation. Sex, violence, and various cultural extremes aren't anything new here, whereas in China, this type of culture overload (mass media + mass consumption) was still nascent. Mass media goes hand in hand with capitalism, and in Hong Kong the ghosts of communism are nowhere to be found. Capitalism is the name of the game here, and it has been for over a century. Whether it wanted it or not, Hong Kong has had a long history of foreign trade and cultural interaction. As a result, nearly everyone here speaks English. In fact, Westerners can be found everywhere in Hong Kong and seem to make up perhaps 5-10% of the cities population (in my estimation). But that's just one of the ways that Hong Kong differs from China. 

In China, the rules for just about everything are very lax. If a bus is full, you push your way on. If you want to cross the street, you walk in front of the cars until they stop for you. If you want to smoke a cigarette, you light one and inhale. Public bathrooms... well I won't even go there. While all of this was a shock to me upon arrival in Shanghai, after a few weeks I was totally used to it, and had actually become quite good at crossing the street and biking around in Chinese cities. When we got to Hong Kong though, everything was different. Yes, Hong Kong is an incredibly crowded and fast paced city. But it's also incredibly organized and surprisingly polite. With all due respect, polite is not an adjective I would ascribe to the Chinese people. Chinese people like to yell. In Hong Kong, it's a totally different vibe.

Here, people line up in orderly queues when boarding the subway cars. No one jay-walks. In fact, guard rails line most of the city streets, suffocating my inner New Yorker and squelching my burning desire to cross the street against the light. Whereas spitting is China's unofficial national pasttime, no one spits in Hong Kong. For a city of 7 million active people, Hong Kong is remarkably clean. "Disinfectant Stations" blanket all public areas. Signs in elevators seem to compete for the most sterilizations per day. The giant garbage piles I grew accostomed to in China are nowhere to be found. Best of all, virtually every bathroom I've used, including ones at train stations, have been spotlessly clean. I actually enjoy going to the bathroom in public in Hong Kong.  The future is now!

Speaking of the future, sometimes walking around Hong Kong makes me feel like I am in the movie the Minority Report, starring Tom Cruise. Soothing voices tell me when to exit the train. Outdoor public walkways seemlessly transform into sleek, glass-paned corporate atriums (atria?). Everything works so well here, it's almost eerie. On the rare occasion, I even got a little whiff of an Invasion of the Body Snatchers vibe.

But OK. That's enough flattering commentary for Hong Kong. What are the downsides? Well, the crowds can be a bit overwhelming. But I am a city boy, and I thrive on crowds. To put it one way, I'm actually excited to venture through India's notoriously complex and overcrowded train stations. What a thrill! So I can handle Hong Kong.

The real downside to Hong Kong is the food. First, the food here is extremely heavy and it is a mystery to me why obesity isn't a problem in this city. The choices are often fried or deep-fried. But the real problem is that Cantonese food is notoriously meat-oriented. Even vegetable dishes are cooked with meal oils and broths. We came to town under the assumption that every dish had meat in it and were very nervous about the food we ate the first day. This included some noodles at a local joint near our hostel, and some Japanese food for dinner. None of the food was particularly good, but none of it tasted overtly of meat, with the exception of some fish flakes on the Japanese dishes.

But sure enough, at about two in the morning that night, Mimi woke up and nauseously stumbled to the bathroom. Woken up by the bathroom light, I walked the two feet to the bathroom to see if she was OK. When Mimi told me she was so dizzy that she couldn't stand up, I became very concerned. Was it vertigo? The flu? Or maybe just food poisoning. We then waited patiently for the fireworks to begin. I'll spare the details, but Mimi's Hong Kong food poisoning experience is one that we are both happy to leave behind us. We woke up the next morning and scoured our veggie bible, www.happycow.com, for some restaurants in Hong Kong.

Lucky for us, behind all of the beef balls and bird's nest stew, Hong Kong is teeming with dedicated vegetarian restaurants. In fact, in the past two days we've had some of the best Asian-style vegetarian food either of us can remember. One of the highlights was a place called Harvester, which is a popular buffet-style restaurant in the downtown area. It was so good we actually went back for a second time! The best meal, we had though, was at Evergreen Vegetarian Restaurant, which was coincidentally just a few blocks from our hostel. The Asian-style BBQ ribs were phenomenal, as was the interesting Cold Fish in Sweet Sauce.

So other than pray for Mimi's India visa to come through and hunt for vegetarian restaurants, what did we do in Hong Kong? We acted like tourists! On the second day, the most fun thing we did was take the Peak Tram, which goes from the downtown area up to the top of the mountain on Hong Kong Island. Luckily, it was a clear day and the views from the top were top-notch. We spent the rest of that day exploring the downtown area and looking for interesting back alleys, of which we found a few.

The next day was mostly eaten up by India visa related duties. But in the late afternoon, we ventured out to Lamma, which is one of Hong Kong's smaller, quieter islands. It turned out to be one of the best parts of Hong Kong. In a city of seven million, it is remarkable that Hong Kong designated Lamma Island as a car-free, eco-friendly community. After we got off the ferry, we wandered through a small village of seafood restaurants and eventually arrived at a little beach. The island had a very funky vibe and both Mimi and I really enjoyed the hike. After about two hours, we arrived in another small village that also was filled with seafood restaurants. I had some fresh scallops and fish, both of which were totally delicious!

Overall, I had a blast in Hong Kong. Even though it drained my wallet a little more than I would have liked, I'm really glad I came here. Maybe one day when I'm a high-roller I can come back and do some more exploring here. The next stop for us is Bangkok, a city that I am unspeakably excited to explore. Stay tuned for more updates!

Chinese Food

I'm currently in Hong Kong and before we head off to Bangkok on Saturday, I'd thought it would be good to do a report on all of the Chinese food I've been eating. I also thought it would be fun if I uploaded some photos of various dishes we ate.

I'm not really sure where to begin. Well, for starters, Chinese food in China is pretty different from American Chinese food. Sure, in both cuisines most of the sauces are based on some combination of oil, vinegar, soy sauce and chilies. But the American version tends to be much sweeter. For example, in China there is no such thing as ubiquitous General Tso's Chicken (or Tofu). The syrupy sauces that tend to dominate American Chinese food can't really be found in China.

Another difference is the role of tofu. In American, people usually see tofu as a meat substitute. It is very uncommon for a tofu dish to have meat in the United States. In China, tofu is seen as just another awesome thing you can eat in addition to meat. In fact, many traditional tofu dishes actually have meat in them.

Yet another difference is the role of rice. In the United States, rice automatically comes with any main dish and is free of charge. In China, you have to ask for rice if you want it with your meal and you have to pay extra for it as well. Rice is served in a small round bowl, which you then use as a pit stop for each bite as it travels from the original serving dish to your mouth. Mimi also told me that many Chinese people don't like to eat very much rice, because this implies that you are poor and can only afford rice.

And yet even another difference is how people eat the food! In America, it is not uncommon for each person to order their own dish in a Chinese restaurant. This would never, ever happen in China. Even if you are eating with only one other person, food is always communal, and people would look at you like you were crazy if you tried to order your own dish.

And the very last difference that I can think of between American and Chinese Chinese food is that in China, fortune cookies don't exist. This is a purely American creation.

OK. So where does that leave us? Well, for starters, some of the best food I had was in Shanghai right at the beginning of the trip. Perhaps it was that I wasn't sick of Chinese food yet. Or it could have been the variety of restaurants we ate at. There are tons of different styles of Chinese cuisine and Shanghai has them all: hot pot, Schezuan, country style, northern, Buddhist, Xingjian noodles. You name it!

But I think the real reason the Shanghai meals were so good was because Mimi's father, Yuheng, ordered all the food for us. I don't know what it is, but that guy really knows how to order. In China, it is very common for one person to order for the whole table, and this is usually a signal that he or she will pick up the bill. When ordering, it's important to get good representation. For example, a few cold dishes or crunchy snacks are always good at the beginning. And even for meat eaters, a vegetable dish is always essential. In any event, I had a ton of delicious food in Shanghai. For me, the highlights were the savory crepes I had nearly every morning, the spicy fish head I ate at the Schezuan restaurant, and the meal we had at Jade Buddha Temple.

But when we got to Beijing, we were on our own. We were also eating with less people, so there was less variety at each meal. While in Shanghai, Yuheng had often invited friends of his to eat with us, so there was more food to go around. As a side note, Yuheng also invariable introduced every single one of us his friends as an uncle. Uncle Philip. Uncle Gu. Uncle Li. Who knew Mimi had so many uncles back in Shanghai?!

By Beijing, I began to suspect that we weren't as good at ordering food as Yuheng. By Pingyao, it was confirmed. It wasn't that the food that we were eating was bad. It was just that Mimi and I tended to keep coming back to the same dishes. Ma Po Tofu, eggplant dishes, and sauteed greens had become reliable but somewhat predictable staples. It was in Pingyao that I caved in and had a couple of Western-style breakfasts.

As vegetarians, we also had to be vigilant about making sure no meat slipped into our dishes. For Chinese, using meat stocks and meat oils aren't really seen as eating meat, so unfortunately we had to steer clear of many soups. Additionally, some restaurants said they couldn't remove the meat from certain tofu or veggie dishes. So depending on the restaurant, our range of options could be limited. We made the best of it though, and perhaps more often than not, the Chinese food I ate was downright delicious.

At some of the more basic home-style places we ate at, we would often just ask what vegetables they had available, and the chefs would cook it up for us. These restaurant tend to be simple and cheap. Sometimes the result was boring, but sometimes it was delicious. You never knew until you tried it.

In each city, we tried to treat ourselves to at least one meal at a purely vegetarian restaurant. These places tend to be a bit more expensive and they can be hit or miss. Sometimes, mock meats are devastatingly flavorful and perfectly textured. Other times, they aren't much more than a hollow piece of deep fried nothing. Again, you never knew until you tried it, and that's part of the adventure.

Anyways, Chinese food in China is great. I can't think off the top of my head of any more interesting food-related stories, but I'm sure they will come to me at some point. In the mean time, here are some pictures of some crazy stuff we ate.

Street Soy Milk and Long Doughnut, Shanghai. 


Jade Buddha Temple, Shanghai.


Lotus Root Stuffed with Rice, Godly Vegetarian Restaurant, Shanghai.


Hot Pot with Yuheng's Friends, Shanghai.


Fresh Mini Watermelon, Water Village near Shanghai.


Tofu Rolls with Dipping Sauce, Veggie Restaurant, Shanghai.


Cold Street Noodles with Tofu Puffs, Back Alley, Shanghai.


Mock Peking Duck, Beijing.


Sweet Potatoes with Mystery Balls, Pingyao.


The Mystery Balls were Weird.


Fresh Whole Roasted Macadamia Nuts, Pingyao.


Passionfruit, Longji Rice Terraces.

Yangshuo

The past three days in Yangshuo have been my favorite time in China. If I had to move to China, I would move to Shanghai. But if I only had 5 days in China and wanted the best vacation I'd ever had, I would head straight to Yangshuo. This town isn't really about character and vibe. It's all about environment.

We spent the morning of our first day here catching up on sleep and errands. But by the afternoon, the sun was beating down to the tune of 95 degrees and we knew it was time to get out and do something in nature. So we rented (typically beaten up) bikes from our hotel, and headed out to the Yulong River, where we had made reservations for a bamboo raft trip down the river.

The logistics of the bike/raft trip were kind of cool. We had set up the trip through Stephen, a short, beaming man who runs the West Lily Hotel with his wife. Stephen told us that a "farmer" would meet us outside the hotel on his motorbike, lead us to the river, throw our bikes on the back of a motor-cart, and transport them down to the parking lot at the end of the raft trip. We could then find our own way back to the hotel by bike.

The "farmer" turned out to be a really cool guy who spoke a bit of English. Whether or not he was actually a farmer I wasn't really sure. All I know is that he was obsessed with my beard. Every time he stopped to wait for us to catch up to him, and he would make beard motions and say "Beautiful!" You see, Chinese men may be able to grow wicked Fu Manchus, but no matter how hard they try, they will never be able to obtain full coverage. Any Chinese beard is destined to be scraggly in the mid-cheek area. It's just the way it is. At another point, the farmer tried to communicate something to Mimi in Chinese about my beard. At first she couldn't figure out what he was saying, but eventually she realized he was comparing my beard to the beard of Karl Marx! I forgot that everyone in China over the age of thirty knows who Karl Marx is.

After a half hour bike trip, we arrived at the Yulong River, which is smaller than the more popular Li River, but in my opinion much more gorgeous. As we waited for everything to get sorted out, an ancient hunchbacked woman approached Mimi. Her product: a fifty cent water cannon. After about ten minutes of this little old lady following Mimi around the parking lot, Mimi caved in. It was no Super Soaker 2000, but we had ourselves a water gun. Armed to the teeth.

Eventually, the farmer led us to our raft and introduced us to our driver, a thin but strong man with bad teeth who used a ten foot stick to steer us down the river. We hopped on the raft, which was equipped with metal seats and a beach umbrella, and went on our way.

The ride was great. Occasionally, there would be a 3-5 foot dip over and down a levee, where they would take your picture as your raft careened down the rapid. They would then pull you to the instant photo lab stationed on a bamboo island in the middle of the river and try to get you to buy the picture. We successfully resisted purchasing the alleged photo of a lifetime, but we're unable to resist the temptation of the ice-cold beer station a bit further down the river.

The scenery was gorgeous. I was able to get some great photos as well, a couple of which I uploaded to my last post. A bit further down the river, we realized that many of the island beer stands were also selling fresh grilled fish. We asked our driver if we could make a pit stop and I ate a little spicy fish from a skewer. It wasn't the most delicious fish I had ever had, but the fish was fresh and the experience was fun.

After a few hours, our trip sadly came to an end. We said goodbye to our driver, found our bikes in the parking lot, and biked back into town. As we got closer to town, we found ourselves amidst a giant swarm of school children who were biking back to their homes. They were very excited to see foreigners on bikes and many yelled hello to us and then giggled to their friends.

The next day, we succumbed to another of Yangshuo's tourist attractions, the infamous Water Caves. I felt a little strange about doing these "package tour" type activities, but after a little convincing, I let go of my reservations and embraced it.

The Water Caves themselves were a little underwhelming. As my father once said to me, "If you've seen one cave, you've seen 'em all." I would tend to agree. The highlight of the cave, however, was not the stalagmites that our guide swore looked like a bathing beauty or a rocket ship, but the mud bath and hot springs. We had come with our bathing suits and hopped right into the mud. After a quick rinse, we then hopped into the natural hot springs. I had never done this before and thoroughly enjoyed it. Nature's jacuzzi!

Perhaps the best part of the day though, was our bike voyage back into town. Instead of taking the direct route back on the main road, we decided to follow a bike trail that was listed on the map we had picked up at our hotel. Supposedly, it would lead us back along the Yulong River around the area we had been the day before. At some point, however, we took a very wrong turn, and ended up on a narrow, mostly stone path that went along the perimeters of the local rice paddies. At certain points, we had to get off our bikes and walk.

Eventually, it spit us out at the river's edge, right at one of the levees with the island photo lab! What were to do? We could either turn back and try to find the proper bike path, or we could attempt to cross the levee with our bikes. The problem was that the levee actually had about six to twelve inches of water gushing over the top. Naturally, we tried to cross the river.

I lifted my bike over my head and began to slowly walk across the river. I tried to avoid the green parts, which I assumed to be slippery algae. The current was stronger than I had anticipated but I made it over the first gap and paused at a little dry spot about a fifth of the way across the river. There, we met some Westerners who had also come with their bikes and were swimming around the levee. They warned us that they had made the same mistake the day before, and that even if we crossed the river, it would be pure rice paddies on the other side. But we had already made it this far, and we weren't about to turn back now.

One of the swimmers was nice enough to carry Mimi's bike across to the other side, and I followed him with my own bike held up over my shoulder. Slowly but surely, I made it to the other side. Occasionally, Chinese tourists on bamboo rafts would try to shoot me with their water cannons. I didn't mind though, because it was all in good fun and I was actually quite hot.

Sure enough, when we made it to the other side, we found ourselves in the middle of a maze of rice paddies. We walked our bikes along the narrow, damp paths that hug the rice fields and eventually made it to a real road. It took about thirty minutes of trudging through the paddies though, and by the end we were quite worn out and dirty and even a bit scratched up. Here is a picture of Mimi in the middle of the paddies.

By the time we had made it back to a real road, it was nearly six o'clock. We decided to track down one of the little fish shacks we had seen along the river the day before and get some dinner. Mimi wasn't eating fish, but I was more than ready to eat some more of the fresh Yulong River fish. After a bit of biking, we found a place that had tables right at the river's edge.

The food was delicious and the view was great. The only problem was that by the time we had finished eating, the sun had gone down and it was rapidly getting dark. We hopped on our bikes and found our way back to Yangshuo. The last mile or so of the trip back though was a bit scary, as we had low visibility. We were careful though and made it back safely.

The next day, we took a local bus to the village of Yangdi, a small town about an hour north of Yangshuo. We had read about a hiking trail that went south along the Li River all the way to a nifty little town called Xingping. When we got off the bus in Yangdi after a very bumpy ride, we were assaulted by a veritable army of ancient hunchbacked ladies who were all selling the same hand-made flower wreaths. This was on top of the swarm of younger touts trying to get us to take a boat ride all the way back to Yangshuo.

After a bit of confusion, we figured out that we had to cross the river by bamboo raft in order to begin the hike. There was only one other Westerner on the bus, who was also trying to do the hike. We ended up teaming up with him for most of the day. His name was Keiran and he was from southern Ireland. He had been traveling extensively for many years and had actually spent five months in India last year. As we hiked along the Li River, Mimi and I picked his brain for useful tips and advice about traveling in India.

It was fun talking with another traveler and the conversation made the hike pass by quite quickly. Every so often, a local boatsman would pop up and offer us a ride down the river to Xingping. Having done the raft trip a few days before, we weren't that interested, but Keiran seemed very excited by the idea. Eventually, we found someone who would do it for a reasonable price, so we did the second half of the hike by boat. I wasn't crazy about the boat, which had a motor engine and was made out of plastic instead of bamboo, but Keiran was beyond stoked, so we were happy to do it.

This portion of the river is very famous for its beauty and is even featured on the back of the 20 yuan note. With the help of some ladies on another boat, we were able to locate the exact spot and take a picture. After we got off the boat, I was able to get a picture of a pregnant water buffalo. I can't decide which picture I like better. You decide:

Eventually, we arrived in Xingping, which was a cute little town that reminded me a bit of Pingyao. The buildings didn't seem to go higher than two stories and life seemed a little bit slower and more traditional than the bigger towns and cities. In a bizarre coincidence, while we were eating lunch (noodles and fried duck eggs), we ran into Albert, the German lawyer who we had met on the train from Shanghai to Beijing. In a country of 1.3 billion people, you can't help but ask yourself, what are the odds?

After lunch, we walked a bit more around Xingping. Here are a couple of pictures:

After a bit of wandering around, we were quite tired. We located the bus stop and hopped on the next bus back to Yangshuo.

That was yesterday. Today it has been raining for a good portion of the day. This morning, I looked around Yangshuo's local market, which featured some very brutal slaughtering of animals. I hope to post some photos from this excursion soon.

In the afternoon it cleared up though and we were able to go for one last bike ride (this time on a tandem bike) along the Yulong River. I got one last spicy roast fish (which I was unfortunately over charged for) and we biked back into town. In a couple of hours, we will be taking an overnight sleeper bus to Shenzen, which is just across the border from Hong Kong.

I must be honest, I am very sad to be leaving Yangshuo. Its relaxing and peaceful here. The people are nice and the countryside is phenomenal. I can only hope that one day I can come back.

From the Rice Terraces of LongJi to the Mountains of Yangshuo

Dear Blog,

Oh I have neglected thee. It's been a very busy and tiring couple of days, and I just didn't have it in me at the end of the night to chart my adventures. But fear not, I am back. And, surprise, surprise, I have a have a lot to report!

I believe I last left off at the very cool Panorama Hotel in the Long Ji Rice Terraces. The next morning, we attempted to get up in time to watch the sunrise over the valley. A little sign in the lobby said the sun would rise as 6:30 am, so I set the alarm for 6:15 and hoped for the best. To our own amazement, we actually got up in time and headed out to the vista point. To our great dismay, the sun had clearly already risen. We had been handed faulty sunrise information. Next time.

So we went back to sleep for an hour or so, got back up, ate a quick breakfast of rice soup (which is what we in the West commonly refer to as "gruel") and embarked on the five-hour hike through the rice terraces. The terrain and weather was very similar to the previous day: stunningly beautiful, but rainy. Within the first hour, our shoes were soaked through from the unavoidable puddles. I brushed the discomfort aside though, because the scenery was just too much. Here are a few pictures that we took:

Throughout the course of the hike, I also saw lots of animals, which is always fun. In addition to the chickens, ducks and horses we saw the day before, I also saw a several colorful butterflies, a snake, and inexplicably, a crab. How a crab ended up in the rice terraces, I will never know.

We had been warned that the path was a bit difficult to follow. Indeed, there were numerous forks along the way, and we often had to ask locals which way to go. I've come to realize that Chinese people consistently give the vaguest direction known to man, so most of the farmers just sort of pointed in one direction and mumbled the name of the village we were headed to: Ping'an. At one point, we had gone quite a distance and were unsure if we had taken the right path. Eventually, along came a merry trio of elderly locals, whose voices we had heard echoing of the sides of the valley for quite sometime. The reason they were so loud, it turned out, was because they were utterly drunk at 10 o'clock in the morning. Imagine crossing paths with three wrinkled, babbling septuagenarians carrying a nearly empty gallon-size jug of home brew. Then imagine asking them for directions. They vaguely pointed in the direction we were headed, and carried on their way. I seriously felt like I was in the opening act of a fairy tale.

The hike took us along the ridges of the rice terrace valleys, which allowed for superb views. Sometimes, the path would dip down into the actual terraces. Here, the path narrowed down into a thin strip of stones. If we looked to the right, rice would rise above us. If we looked to the left, rice would descend further down into the valley.

After trekking through a few small villages, we eventually descended into the village of Ping'an, which was a little more built up and touristy than Dazhai, but still very interesting and quaint. During lunch, we were able to catch part of some sort of local ceremony for men. They danced a bit, set off some fire crackers, and played a few songs and then marched through the town. Apparently, someone important had returned to town.

The night before we had decided that instead of staying a second night in the rice terraces, we would haul ass all the way down to Yangshuo. So we caught the bus back to Guilin and again did the old "transfer buses by running across a highway" routine. After arriving, we grabbed our suitcases from the hostel in Guilin and went right back to the bus station and caught the next bus to Yangshuo. We pulled into the Yangshuo bus station at about eight pm. Stephen, the owner of the West Lily Hotel, came out to meet us at the bus station. He led us back to the hotel and checked us in. The West Lily is a small hotel on a quiet street away from the main tourist drag. Our room here is cramped, clean and cheap.

So, what's so great about Yangshuo? It may just be one of those places you have to visit to understand, but its amazing here. Yes, its overrun by Chinese tourists. Yes, touts and hawks follow you around town, trying to get you to buy overpriced bamboo boat rides down the river. But Yangshuo is uniquely beautiful. Everywhere you look, karst limestone mountains shoot up towards the sky like malformed rockets. They are nearly impossible to describe. Misshapen eggs? Green obelisks? Sometimes, they remind me of the mashed potato monolith from Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Well, I am too tired to write any more. I didn't even get to the last three days. Sigh. More tomorrow. I will leave you some pictures of Yangshuo. It's ok. I know you are jealous.