From the other side of the ocean...
Trip Start
Nov 12, 2007
1
12
Trip End
Dec 22, 2007
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Monday, December 24, 2007
Upon arriving in Yangshuo by bus, I was dropped off in the middle of town, by the side of the road and I had no idea where I was. My bad Mandarin skills came in handy again when I asked people how to get to Xi Jie (West Street.. aka: "Foreigner's Street") and luckily, the town is small enough so you can walk almost everywhere. Xi Jie and the few lanes and streets surrounding it are the touristy parts of town where you can find most accommodations, cafes and restaurants catering to tourists, souvenir shops, etc. It looks all pretty and the buildings look more traditional, but I was told it was likely all built to look appealing to tourists.. who knows though! It's probably true because there is no reference anywhere about it being any sort of historic area of town, even though it looks like it.
I checked in at a hostel and spent the rest of my days wandering the streets. Yangshuo is a laid-back town with beautiful limestone karsts surrounding it. I can't believe people get to wake up to that sight everyday and it's normal for them!
My hostel dorm room had 9 beds in total, but it being low tourist season, only two others were there that first night.. unfortunately, they were an annoying, giggly and probably new hetero young couple who came back late that first night and proceeded to HAVE SEX IN THE SAME FREAKIN' ROOM I WAS SLEEPING IN. Well, almost the same room.. the room was divided into two parts, with a 2-metre long 'hallway' separating the two parts. Luckily, the sex didn't last too long (haha) and I was gonna say something out loud when they were done after I was done feeling traumatized (something to the effect of "next time, get your own fucking room!"), but decided to be more discreet (and maybe embarrass them less?) by leaving a note the next day on my way out instead, and then request to change rooms. The next morning though, a new guy moved into the room so I decided I was going to stay, thinking they wouldn't dare do it again with more people in the room, but I left a note for them anyway. You see, it would have cost them maybe $8 each at most to get a basic, private room. Sure, $4 for a dorm bed is cheaper, but come on!
Anyway, the next day, I signed up for a boat tour on the scenic Li River (more limestone karsts!), somewhere between the nearby town of Xingping and Guilin.. and who should also be on the tour as well, but the giggly young couple. I think they were embarrassed so we didn't acknowledge each other's existence the whole time.. haha. I have to admit I felt kind of sorry for them when i saw them the next day.. they looked so harmless and couldn't be a day older than 21, and after all, they were just a young couple in newfound love (lust?).. but still.. GET YOUR OWN ROOM! They stayed put though (plus, another person also moved into our room.. yay!) and no more sex happened while I was there.
The boat ride was okay, but it was really, really chilly. The kind of cold you get in all these places I've been to in China is a different kind than I'm used to in Toronto.. it's the (damp?) kind that gets under your skin, no matter how many layers you're wearing. Plus, there's no indoor heating so you can't just go warm up anywhere, aside from in the shower if you have hot water. During the boat ride, I spoke to the new guy that just moved into our room: a 30-year-old (or thereabouts) Chinese guy from Chengdu (but working in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia) named Shu. I ended up hanging out with Shu for the rest of my time in Yangshuo and I was glad to have some company again after a few days of talking to myself. We went for food, beer, and the next day, rented mountain bikes to cycle around the surrounding countryside, along the Yulong River.
What a beautiful ride it was (though my butt and knees hurt afterwards!).. we got lost among the rice paddies (literally, actually), and biked along very bumpy dirt roads through small villages, past limestone karsts (and crawled into some of the cave parts) and various other scenes of rural China.
After returning to town that evening, I hopped on a "luxury" sleeper bus to Shenzhen so I could get back to Hong Kong before my journey home. The bus had 3 rows and 2 levels (bunk bed stylee) of really narrow and short beds all down the length of the bus.. and somehow managed to fit 40 horizontal people! Only in China, right? I wondered how the big, tall white guy at the back of the bus possibly managed to fit into one of these things. Anyway, the bus departed and we got to endure chain smoking (of course) staff at the front of the bus all night, a driver who seemed to like to make the bus lurch, and numerous stops for pee breaks. I also always seem to be located right next to carsick people who throw up on buses and this time was no different. The woman next to me spent the morning puking into a bag, as did the woman sleeping in the bunk above mine. I slept only a bit during the 12 hours, and upon arriving in Shenzhen, spent more than an hour or so trying to find my way to the Luo Hu/Lu Wo border. Walked across to Hong Kong and made my way back to Mongkok where my China adventures began.
It felt great to be back in HK! I really like HK, and wish I had more time to explore not only the urban areas, but the beaches and outlying islands too. I spent a few days wandering around Central and Sheung Wan with Yin (as well as a visit to an indie music store in Causeway Bay), eating vegetarian dim sum (YUM!) and probably far too many egg tarts. I am addicted to egg tarts in general and they make 'em damn good in HK! I also did some shopping cuz clothes seemed ridiculously cheap to me in some of the stores and markets of Mongkok, ate some more veg dim sum and egg tarts, wandered around trendy SoHo, rode up the uneventful Mid-Levels Escalator in Central (the longest outdoor escalator in the world.. except it's not one escalator, but several parts of one big escalator unit that takes you up the hill and past many lanes in SoHo)... and missed my planned daytrip to Macau cuz I got started too late in the day to make it worthwhile. Woops!
The next day, I boarded a plane back to Toronto.. except it was bound for Anchorage (Alaska) first for a cabin crew change and re-fueling. On the way to Asia at the start of my trip, passengers just stayed on the plane while this happened, but not this time. The most stupid thing in the whole wide world is that although every single person on the plane was bound for Toronto, we all had to get off and go through US customs (they had their desks in the waiting area), even though none of us were planning on staying in the US.. and some people got fingerprinted and photographed, even though none of them were planning on staying in the US. I somehow didn't have to so I suspect they were doing it to non-Canadian passport holders. I would have felt really violated having to go through that if I had zero intention of staying in the fucking US of A. Anyway, we then board the same freakin' plane and departed one hour after we landed. That extra level of bureaucracy made absolutely no sense at all (except for collecting data on people for "security" purposes?). There also seemed to be increased security when I arrived in Toronto, with customs officials questioning everyone before we even hit the official customs area where we got questioned again. So what big "terrorist" threat did I miss while I was away?
And now here I am back in Toronto, jetlagged and still awake.. awake.. awake..
P.S. A few things I forgot to mention throughout this journey (that is going to make this entry way too long!):
LINE-UPS...
People in China don't line up unless they are forced to by virtue of physical structures that force people to stand in neat lines (like for the first few spots in front of the ticket booths at the Kunming train station).. a big mass of people usually all descend upon whatever it is everyone is after (toilet stall, entrance to boarding gate at airport, door to bus, ticket booth, food counter, etc.). I knew this in advance and it didn't bother my Canadian-orderly-sensibilities at all, except this one time when I had to piss really badly and this woman from behind me nabbed the toilet first. Lack of queuing seems nonsensical through our culturally biased eyes, so I was trying to think of a comparison here, and realized that we do the same thing at bars and clubs. Everyone stands at the bar in one big mass waiting to be served, and we never think of this as being nonsensical, even when someone else gets served before us (sometimes anyway!).. so this is what it feels like when not lining up in China. A friend of mine wondered if it harkens back to the days of scarcity in China.. if you wait at the end of the line, everything would be gone by the time your turn came up! Maybe?
TOILETS (AGAIN)...
A few entries back, I had said I didn't mind squat toilets in public washrooms. Well, I have since been educated during my journeys through the many washrooms of China. The worst are the trough toilets because there is seldom any sort of flushing mechanism in the public washrooms. The worst ones seem to be in bus stations. A few times, I tried to be all cool but then felt myself nearly gagging as I unzipped my pants and squatted in the wide open trough toilet stall while trying not to look at a very nasty pile or two of someone else's shit and bloodied maxi pads in the trough below me. Trough toilets are stalls (usually with no door, of course) with one big long trough in the ground that runs through all the stalls, and ends in some ominous place beyond, where who-knows-what happens to the waste.. so you get to see the piss of whomever is in the stall ahead of you running through your section of the trough as you squat (sideways, so everyone can see your bare ass.. but like with men's urinals (I guess), everyone politely averts their eyes) to relieve yourself. It's not usually the squat toilets themselves that I dislike, but the fact that in public washrooms, they can be very, very nasty. The one good trough toilet I encountered was in the Tiger Leaping Gorge guesthouse.. there was a big bucket of water that you used to "flush" the toilet with afterwards. I happily squatted and did my thang here while peacefully looking out at the snow-capped mountain top of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain...
MORNING ANNOUNCEMENTS IN HANOI...
Every morning at around 7:00 or 7:30am, speakers all over the city blare out really monotonous state-sponsored propaganda speeches about how to be a good citizen, reminding you to keep your house clean, obey the law, etc.etc.. and everyone just goes about their morning activities as the PA sounds out across the city.
FOOD...
I sent this in an email to an old housemate who is a food fanatic as well, but thought I ought to share what I pigged out on while in Asia. Here are some things I enjoyed eating:
-steamed dumplings of many kinds (including Tibetan dumplings called Momos that were filled with curried vegetables)
-hand-pulled Lanzhou style noodles (stir-fried with potatoes, tomatoes and egg) while in Shanghai
-Muslim flatbread in Dali, especially when spread with spicy sauces and filled with veg mixtures & these deep fried dough things (that you normally eat with congee)
-potato dumplings in Lijiang (the outside was deep fried and made with potato flour, I think, and stuffed with some fillings.. I think this was Naxi cuisine)
-some type of mushroom/fungus thing that was kinda meaty and stir-fried with some veggies (again, Naxi cuisine)
-Laksa at an Indonesian/Malaysian place in Hong Kong (not quite Chinese, but still..)
-many egg tarts from bakeries in Hong Kong
-vegetarian dim sum! This made me very happy cuz I got to eat veg versions of stuff I miss like Ha Gow (shrimp dumplings) and Siu Mai (this kind of beef dumpling)
-the best banh cuon (Vietnamese rice flour crepes) ever
-cafe sua da (STRONG Vietnamese iced coffee) in Hanoi
-various Viet veg cuisine at this yummy restaurant in Hanoi called Com Chay Nang Tam
-Japanese curry with croquettes (a deep fried potato thing, filled with veggies) in a food court in Hong Kong
-some other tasty stir-fried or sauteed dishes for dinner and eaten with steamed rice that the cooks just whipped up when I said I was vegetarian and then pointed at some of the vegetables I wanted that they had on display (in Shaxi village.. but also similar stuff during the Tiger Leaping Gorge trek and Yangshuo cuz I was with Chinese-speaking/reading companions who could order properly)
-a dinner of steamed rice, curried potatoes and a spicy eggplant dish that I had in a Naxi restaurant in Lijiang
-a Shanghainese meal that I had not in Shanghai, but in Hong Kong
-my aunt's perfect congee when I was recovering from food poisoning in Hanoi
-my aunt's dinners in general (she's a great cook!), including this tasty stew of vegetarian snails(!) and green bananas (skins and all.. I had no idea green bananas were edible, but they are tasty when cooked, kinda like green plantain).. and this Viet-style scrambled eggs & tomato dish that was nothing like Western scrambled eggs at all (kinda saucy rather than with egg chunks).. I loved it cuz it reminded me a bit of the crab & egg topping in bun rieu (crab noodle soup) that I miss soooo much.
-corn-flavoured soymilk from supermarket-bought Tetrapak drinking boxes in Hanoi. No, really.
Those are some of the tasty dishes I had that I can remember. It sounds like I ate pretty well, but there were definitely one too many days when I felt like I was gonna lose a gazillion pounds (and apparently, I did lose weight.. booo) cuz I found it a bit hard to find veg-friendly food without being able to speak the language or read the menus. When I told them I was vegetarian, they would often bring me out really boring food, like fried rice or noodle soup with nothing but green onions in it (and sometimes meat stock.. hmmm), even though I know that a lot of Chinese food is veg-friendly.. but without being able to read the menus, there's not much you can do! Also, the serving sizes seem smaller in both China and Vietnam, and most things are so darn low in fat and calories..
