Kicking Back in Southern China...

Paddle boats in Green Lake Park, Kunming

For those eager fans who've been desperate for our next instalment we must apologise about the wait – unfortunately China doesn't seem to like our blog, or a number of other websites for that matter... I'll try not to ramble on too much, but after 3 and half wonderful weeks in one of our favourite places so far, there's a lot to share.

Lots & lots of beautiful flowers

After weeks of city hopping, the lure of rural China was great and came at just the right time... we decided to split our jaunt between 2 provinces – Yunnan and Guangxi. If anyone has seen the BBC documentary 'Wild China' (I highly recommend it to everyone) you'll understand why we were so drawn to the country, & Yunnan in particular. Home to a large percentage of ethnic minority groups, it is an area rich in diversity yet one of the poorest regions in China. The scenery is spectacular and despite the hordes of (mainly Chinese) tourists in parts, it's still easy to feel like you're in the middle of nowhere.

To our amazement, even the cities of Southern China felt laid back & peaceful compared to the frantic streets of Hanoi. Large villages with a mere 1 million people compared to the mega cities of Bejing & Shanghai, we felt at ease straight away. The only problem we had was the language barrier – a significant issue when 'dog' is dish of the day on many a restaurant menu. Our attempts at Mandarin greatly bemused many passers by, shop keepers & ticket sellers, at which point we usually resorted in pointing to the Chinese characters instead.

Even the signs in English managed to confuse us...

Definitely one of the highlights of our whole trip was the 4 days we spent hiking in Yunnan through the magnificent Tiger Leaping Gorge. Broken up by good food & cheap guest houses along the way, our days were spent hiking the mountain trails & enjoying the stunning scenery all around.

Our final week before coming to Hong Kong was spent in Guangxi province, staying at an English School in the town of Yangshuo. Using the great website Couchsurfing, we managed to bagsy ourselves free accommodation, food & drinks by leading 2hr 'English Corner' sessions with Chinese students. Somehow we managed to stay 7 days yet only do 2 English Corner classes, but still spent a lot of time hanging out with our students outside of class. We were taken on a bike ride into the beautiful countryside & to our first Asian karaoke experience at the local KTV. Lets just say John was reluctant to give up the mike once he got started...

Us & the other volunteers

We had a great time & felt really privileged to get to know the other volunteers and the students, all of whom went out of their way to make us feel comfortable & enjoy our time in Yangshuo. It was the perfect end to our time in China.

China is an incredible place & I'd definitely recommend you pay it a visit.  We only saw a small area in our short time but managed to get a good feel for the country & met some of the friendliest people we've come across on our trip.  Now in Hong Kong, with less than a week left in Asia, the focus is on our return to Europe & the bicycle tour!  We head to Istanbul on Monday where we'll be meeting John's folks and hopefully purchasing lean, mean cycling machines at a bargain price.  Fingers crossed...

A Few Hundred Thousand Hindu's and The Ganges....

Hello!  After nearly a month we have decided to head on with our journey and finally leave McLeod.  We were sad to say goodbye but ready to move on and experience new adventures.  Our last week in McLeod was lots of fun, somehow involving not 1 but 3 trips to the local watering hole...it took us 3 weeks to find so I think we decided to make up for it.   Last weekend was our friend Jennifer's 30^th birthday and so to celebrate we went on an overnight hike 1000m up a local hill/mountain – Triund.  

Our friends Jen & Jules....

I tend to favour flat walks lasting no more than 20 minutes but as it was Jen's birthday I was happy to oblige.  Reports of how long it would take us to get to the top varied greatly – some saying 2 and half hours, others saying more like 5.  We definitely fell into the 2^nd category....  It was nice and relaxed though with plenty of chai stops along the way.  It was a beautiful walk, made quite mysterious with the cloud cover creeping up as we got to the top.  

Once on Triund (alt 2800mtrs), anyone staying overnight can rent out a tent, sleeping bag and blanket – perfect, or so we thought.  The man even put the tents up, so we didn't think twice about them until heading off to bed in the dark and realising that neither end of our tent zipped up.  That, the very cold temperatures and the group of barking dogs kindly keeping guard outside meant that none of us got more than an hours sleep.  That said, we had a great time – spent the evening round a campfire sipping whiskey to keep warm and chatting to some Indian folk.  When the cloud cleared and the sun rose the next morning we realised it was definitely worth the hike – the scenery was stunning.

Our last teaching class was on Friday so we played lots of games, drank chai and ate cake with our students.  It was a lovely last lesson and made all the more special by the fact that one by one our students pulled out Tibetan scarves for us as good luck gifts for the rest of our journey.  It was so unexpected and generous of them and made us feel quite emotional afterwards.  Unfortunately we couldn't justify carrying all 20 scarves around Asia and so have had to post all except 1 each home.

Us and our class...

Quite a lot of our last week in McLeod was spent trying to figure out how to move onto our next destination, and until you've tried to book train travel in India I don't think you quite realise how complicated it can be....we certainly hadn't, and trips to 3 different travel agents as well as numerous hours on the internet didn't make it any easier.   

For starters, the website only tells you direct train journeys, so you have to figure out whether trains actually go to your destination.  Then you have to pick one of up to 6 different types of seats, ranging from 1^st class A/C to the general sleeper car.  Once you've figured that out, you then keep all fingers & toes crossed in hope that there are still seats.  Not that that really matters mind, as up to 400+ people book tickets on the 'waiting list' in hope that some people will cancel their bookings.  There's also the 'foreign quota' option but only available from certain stations, and also the 'tatcal' seats which are an extra 30 tickets on some journeys released  48 hours before the trains departure.  I think you need a degree from Oxford to figure it all out.  Today we've tried to book tickets to Varanasi, but it turns out all trains are full until December...     

Eventually we managed to plan our onward journey from McLeod, and 2 scary buses, an overnight train with lots of snoring men, a 3 hour wait, 2 mile walk, 2 rickshaws (holding 13 people each) and 30 hours later we arrived in Rishikesh – famous for its yoga, meditation and general 'new age' hippiness.  Once again our knack for gatecrashing religious festivals didn't fail us and we turned up in Haridwar, 1 hour south, along with hundreds of thousands of Hindus celebrating the birthday of their particular guru.   

The city was covered in yellow and orange, seemingly the colour of their particular sect, and although the crowds were pretty overwhelming it looked beautiful along the banks of the Ganges.  The sheer number of people meant that all onward buses were cancelled and unfortunately we've since heard that 20 people were killed in a stampede that afternoon.

Now further up the river in Rishikesh, things are much calmer yet still exciting with plenty to see and do.  We've found an okay hotel, finally got hot water and even came downstairs to find a cow in the lobby - only in India!  

Tomorrow we begin our Hindi lessons – much needed as we're somewhat embarrassed at only being able to say 'namaste'.  John's hoping he can learn the Hindi for 'I'm allergic to....' or 'no butter/cheese/milk/cream/eggs please' as no matter how much gesturing and explanation you try and give in English, every meal seems to contain at least one of the above.  I've already managed to have a dress made at the local tailors, a bargin at just £4 and needed to counter the depression I've been feeling at not even being able to fit into XL clothes. :-)

Our plan is to stay here until about Saturday although it could be longer if we can't book an onward train.   We're also setting time aside to figure out or destination after India – although we had planned on going to Thailand we're a little concerned after reading about the floods.  Less than 7 weeks till Christmas though (sorry to bring that up!) so we have to get on the case.  Suggestions on a postcard please... 

     

Monkeygeddon

Hello reader(s)!
We've now spent 3 weeks in Mcleod ganj/Dharamsala, and are quite acclimatised to the tea drinking, cake eating, cafe lurking, reading, early bed times and altitude- its been a rough ride.  There are 15 pieces of cake / 3 dogs / 0.2 cows, 1 Buddhist monk,  0.4 monkeys, and 10kg of sugar for every traveller/citizen here.

Our english classes have been a lot of fun, and has given us a nice routine to each day (see above activities).  Its great to get to know the students better now, and the lessons seem productive enough for 2 unqualified teachers (whats a gerund??).  Many have their stories of fleeing Chinese occupied Tibet by walking accross the himalayas and Nepal and into India, and are just incredible survival stories and very humbling.  

  

There are plenty of courses to get involved in, from various types of yoga to cookery and wood work.  I took myself on a cookery 'Momo' class (a tibetan steamed dumpling) in 'Mamas Kitchen', which have quickly become my favourite street food/snack/main meal/supper :) 

I was sat at our desk in our hotel room last week when quite a large monkey come in through the window.  It is so very true how human their faces are (though with bigger teeth). I have watched a lot of nature programmes in my time (its impossible not to isn't it) and so knew what to do.  I stood up slowly and put my arms in the air like a pantomime monster, which sent him quite casually back out of the window. He didnt wink or anything, but he would have done if it were in a film.  

Diwali came and went with quite a bang.  The picture at the top of this post shows our route home across the 'main square' blocked by a spontaneous unregulated and totally frightening fireworks 'session' with drums and dancing.  I watched a man on a motorbike ride through the launching area at one point (the roads through it were not even closed and i guess he needed to get somewhere) as rockets and bangers were blasting up from coke bottles and bean tins and excited childrens hands.  It was insane, and forged a new dimensions to the 'get on with it' / 'itll be fine' mentality here. Heres some photos, but they dont convey anywhere near the full picture or atmosphere.  It was amazing - in the 'oh jesus' sense of the word.

Here comes a cop car to turn a blind eye...

Every so often, the Dalai Lama is requested to do some teachings here, this time by a Korean group, and  so we had the opportunity to go and listen to him read some Buddhist teachings and explanations.  It was in Tibetan, but all foreigners (in 6 languages maybe) had a live radio translation from an unseen man, struggling to keep up.  Together with the celebrations at the Sikh Golden Temple, it was another huge privilege to be a part of. We were sat cross legged in amongst a huge number of smiling and friendly monks and nuns, listening and tucking into Butter Tea (it has salt, butter and milk in it, and laura got saddled with a huge bowl full, "this is disgusting"- my fault, sorry laura) and bread and dahl and rice (much nicer), brought out to the people by a troop of monks with the biggest pots and kettles i have ever seen. There were 3 days of teachings, a lot of it hard to understand, but being here we've learned a lot about Buddhism.  Dont worry mum, it is NOt a cult or anything like, and we are still same old us :) Richard Gere even showed up on the last day.. they are good pals apparently, Who knew.  Security was ever so tight - pity they got everyone's names wrong...

The food continues to be a big part of our time here, and eating out 2 or 3 times a day is a new experience for us and is very lovely.  Its the first time in a long time that every meal we eat is made by someone else, which is quite a thing. This has meant i inadvertently end up eating ghee/milk/egg sometimes, which does no good for my eczema, but i think ive got the clamps on it now.  Although english is widely spoken in india, the concept of no eggs or dairy is not always understood. We've moved guest houses to a very nice place, at the bottom of a big set of stairs, below the town.  Its the same price (£3 ish), but has a huge balcony, nice bathroom and what looks like an alsation crossed with a dalmation - it looks very sci-fi.

We've found the best internet connection in town, which is a lot more reliable i think.  They also advertise 'Paragliding & Lamination' - wouldnt want to get those two mixed up.  

Once again we've added some photos to flickr which you can check out here!

That's all for now!

John

Life in McLeod Ganj...

So here we are in McLeod Ganj – having escaped the hectic cities for a while we've found a place that seems to have the perfect combination of lots going on yet plenty of time for rest and relaxation. We're staying at the Kunga Guest House – seemingly a firm favourite for backpackers – in a £3 a night room with the most amazing view that will be our home until the end of October.

Unfortunately when agreeing to a shared bathroom we hadn't realised it was also shared with the restaurant upstairs – a little weird and awkward when you go for a shower and there's a queue of customers waiting outside to use the loo! Even so it's worth it for the room and is in a good part of town. We've been warned not to leave our windows open when we're out as chances are we could return to a monkey in our room...

McLeod has a 3 way mix of Indian people, backpackers and Tibetans who have come here to flee the Chinese occupation and follow in the footsteps of the Dalai Lama, who lives just down the hill. The Tibetan community are well established now and there seems to be a never ending choice of cafés and places to eat. Some fully fledged restaurants, others little tea huts on the side of the road.

Of course wanting to support the local people we're fulfilling our duties and are fully embracing both, spending many an hour sipping Chai and working our way through the large number of restaurants available. It would be rude not to when an evening meal for the both of us costs about £2.

As well as an overwhelming amount of food choices, there are also daily talks, film showings and classes to get involved with. We feel really settled into life here and have made some new friends who are around for a while so have decided to stay for at least the next 2 weeks. John's signed up to a cookery course tomorrow where he'll learn to make Momo's – a type of Tibetan dumpling filled with yummy goodness. I'm hoping he'll bring one back for me to try.

Next week we'll be joining thousands of monks, nuns, Tibetans and tourists to attend a series of lectures given by the Dalai Lama in the main temple. I can't quite believe our luck that it has fallen on the time we are here...what a spiritual time we are having! We're going to try and swat up before hand so we can hopefully at least understand a bit of what's going on, otherwise we'll just take cues from others and smile and nod at the right times.

We're also now teaching 'intermediate' English every day, mainly to Tibetan monks. I'm not really sure how it happened – we popped into a voluntary organisation on our first exploration around town and the next thing we know, we were down to start teaching the next day. We've done two lessons so far – both of which seem to have gone well (from our point of view – fingers crossed the students agree). Unfortunately only 5 turned up for today's class – we found out afterwards it was a special Tibetan spring clean day so most of our students were at home or around town in their marigolds.  We're learning that things chop and change quite quickly around here.

From tomorrow I'll also be doing daily individual conversation classes with a monk named Tsering – I'm guessing just drinking more tea and correcting his pronunciation, which I'm sure my dad will find amusing. Apparently he's pretty high up on the monk ladder so here's hoping for some good karma coming my way!

Finally a couple of things on John's behalf...firstly this incredible camper we saw yesterday - surely someone has to be living in it, it's big enough for a family of 10...

And secondly, he's been completely amazed by the plumbing that goes on around here, and it's not hard to see why.....