Saturday, September 29, 2007

When it rains, it pours

I've had a lot of free time the last couple days, so there's been some good progress on photos. Albums from Malaysia, including our scuba adventures with Peter and John are up.

More exciting if you have plenty of bandwidth to steal from the boss, the video collection has quadrupled in size and is caught up through diving in Malaysia.

Enjoy!

Live from the train to the roof of the world

September 27th, depart Xining in Western China
10:15pm The "hard sleeper" cars on this train are crazy. Six bunks stacked 3 high in a narrow compartment with no door.

September 28th, somewhere on the rails to Lhasa
6:30am A thin band of sky sandwiched between the endless horizon and the low clouds is glowing a radiant yellow as sun rises over Tibet.

7am The cabin lights come on and the overhead speakers shout something at us before playing Chinese opera music. I guess it's time to get up.

10am We're running through snowcapped peaks. I'm sure our photos will show nothing but the intense white of the snow fading into the soft white of the clouds that blanket us.
12:15pm Mary and John can no longer handle the beauty. They retreat to their bunks to hide out for a while and see if they can shake the altitude sickness.

2:30pm Some people absolutely love riding trains. I'm finding it totally frustrating. Every time I pick up a book or startup the laptop, some amazing scenery shows up and I have to run and get the camera. It's really distracting. Worst part is that the only windows that open are in the bathrooms. Yech.

3pm John is still sleeping and Mary feels a bit queasy. I had a little shortness of breath quite a while ago, but it's been ok for a couple hours. I think we've already hit the 17,000 foot pass and should be heading back down, so hopefully they start feeling better soon.

3:20pm I just finished a whole package of wasabi peas. I've already finished catching up on our China photos and there's nothing left to do but eat and sleep!

4:30pm The plains just go on and on. Mary and John are still feeling a bit unwell and are back into bed. It's truly beautiful here, but it just keeps going! I'm almost bored with the constant beauty.
6pm Mary is feeling worse and John is still asleep. I just put her on oxygen to fight the altitude sickness. I'll go wake John up in a few minutes and get him on O2, too.

8:30pm The sun has gone down and left a brilliant royal blue background to the black mountains around us. It's a beautiful sight. Mary hasn't gotten any better with the O2 and both of them are still asleep. It's been a lonely day for me!

September 29th - Lhasa
12:15am Finally in bed! The train arrived by 11, but it took us half an hour to gather our gear (and Mary and John) and get out of the station. Luckily, the frantic hostel owner waited for us even though all other passengers and the train crew were already gone.

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

What the -bleep-?

We've finally gotten off our butts and posted a few blogs for the last 6 weeks of travel that covers Malaysia, Hong Kong, Macau and a bit of China.

It wasn't bad enough that it took so long for us to get moving, but when we did we found that the blog is banned in China. Apparently the Chinese censors can't handle all the uncontrolled content at blogspot.com, so they just block everything. So that's our excuse for the poor formatting (and writing?) in all the posts below - because we can't see what we're posting!

That's right, the blogspot domain is blocked so we can't see our final posts, but the censors haven't figured out that it is through blogger.com that all the objectionable content get's put on the web. Yes, we have peeked at it through an anonymizer, but that's just too slow and I'm too lazy...


Better yet for you non-readers out there, the photo albums for Indonesia are posted. Just click on Indonesia in the itinerary list to the right.

It's well past my bedtime now, so go read the blogs. We wake up in a couple hours to fly east to Xining where we'll catch the highest train in the world to Lhasa. Yay!

Monday, September 24, 2007

Now Serving 115,495,330

Mary didn't believe me at first when I said we should go to Beijing on this trip just to have roast duck. But I was serious. I had Peking Duck for the first time when we were here 2 years ago and it was a life altering experience. I vowed then that whenever I returned to China, I would come back to Beijing for dinner. She quickly succumbed to my plan and so we find ourselves now in Beijing.

We returned today to the 150 year old restaurant near the Forbidden City where they actually track the number of ducks they've served during that time to emperors, kings, presidents and us. It's a magical place, from the duck to the atmosphere, to the giant LED sign on the wall that tells you that duck number 115 million just popped out of the oven. Yeah, maybe it was a little touristy, but mmmmmm.

As we passed Tiananmen Square today, focused on our impending happiness, we stumbled not across the gate that leads to our ducky wonderland, but a giant wall enclosing block after block of the Qianmen district.

In preparation for the upcoming Olympics, this historic area that was home to houses, shops and our dinner is being razed to make way for a Chinese Santana Row which will have none of the character or charm of the original. Since this blog is being censored here anyway, I'll just say that it stinks that China is tearing chunks of real history and culture out (not to mention displacing how many families and small businesses) just to give Olympic tourists a Disney-fied China.

Fortunately for our stomaches, the Quanjude restaurant does have a temporary location until the reconstruction is complete, so we did get our fix. But it just wasn't the same. So tomorrow we'll try our host's recommendation for the new best roast duck in Beijing, serving #15,621.

-Steve

My Achy Breaky Knees

Our last (only?) Everest base camp warm-up hike before the real thing was to Huashan, a group of five mountain peaks a 2 hour bus ride from Xi'an. Locals go in droves to take the cable car up to the lowest peak and walk around a bit. Younger locals start at the bottom around midnight and hike up to the 6000ft eastern peak to catch sunrise. We're not local and no longer young, so we took the middle ground and started up the windy path from the bottom at 8am, did a circuit of all 5 peaks and stopped for the night at a hotel on the eastern peak at 7pm so we could more leisurely catch the 6am sunrise the next day. That's 10 hours (1hr for breaks) on an unrelenting stairmaster.







The trail is typical Chinese mountain style: narrow and random height steps cut into the mountain, often with a precipitous drop on either side. At its best, the steps are cut vertically into the face with a chain to pull yourself up. Half of the steps were only deep enough to land a third of my foot so we had to climb the stairs by sidestepping.




Then there's the "Plank Path", a completely insane set of dilapidated wooden boards set onto spikes set along a sheer cliff face a good 3000 feet off the valley floor below. I'm guessing a bit at the height here because I tried my best to not spend too much time looking down.

Sunday morning, we were yanked out of bed at 5:30 by a bullhorn announcement in Chinese that it was time to get up and run to the peak. At the top were a couple hundred cold locals, many of whom slept on the hill or just outside our door in rented heavy Chinese army winter coats.


Sunrise was beautiful, but a bit sad to see the sun rise not over the horizon as much as over the layer of smog that blanketed the horizon.


--Steve

Letting our fingers do the ordering

We don't know how to speak or read mandarin so when it came to reading Chinese menus we were sadly useless. We found the best way to satisfy the stomach was to point at what other people were chowing down. This ended up working very well as we got to taste some great stuff that we otherwise wouldn't have known to order.

Bowl of crossing bridge noodles famous in Xian. It only comes in one size, enormous.

Hot pot with spicy goodness, a Sichuan specialty.

Grilled skewers of pork, eggplant, stuffed buns, quail eggs, lotus root, tofu, mushrooms and so much more . Street food at its best in Jiuzhaigou.

If only Ansel Adams had been to Jiuzhaigou

Jiuzhaigou is one of the premier Chinese tourism locations with tens of thousands of locals visiting from all over China each week. The beauty of this national park is astounding if you can only get around all the other tourists shouting into their cell phones while bumping you to take a picture of their spouse in a Tibetan fur hat. It's an absolute zoo at the popular sights. We did our best by starting as soon as the park opened and walking the back country paths instead of taking the bus. That allowed us to take photos that make it SEEM like there aren't a thousand people around, but there really are in most cases.

All good destinations start with a good meal.
Pearl Shoals waterfall

The amazing color of 5 Flower Lake. No photoshop here.

Crystal clear waters of Panda Lake
Grilled skewers to finish off the trip


The army that time forgot

In 1974 a farmer was digging a well for water after a 3 month drought. Five meters down he pulled up a clay head. He had hit a far corner of the pit that housed the now famous pit of terracotta warriors near Xian containing an estimated 6000 big life-sized statues. It's an estimated number because maybe a fifth of it has been excavated. The rest is still under layers of dirt and clay waiting to be released. Every night a team of archaeologists painstakingly brush away the debris then piece together the parts. All the soldiers were found in pieces so now it's a giant jigsaw puzzle of history.

The army was created by the first emperor of China. Before Emperor Qin China was made up of seven dynasties each with their own currency, spoken and written language. In 221BC he conquered all seven kingdoms under heaven and united them, the new nation named after him. Part of his lasting legacies is a common language and money. One mile to the west was his mausoleum, and here stood his army facing the east to protect him from invaders. After his unexpected death on the way to an inspection his eleven year old son became the second emperor and his stone army was placed inside the ground, covered with a timber and straw roof and sealed from the world. Peasant uprisings spread throughout the country and the inexperienced emperor lost his head. The new ruler broke into the pits smashing the statues and setting fire anything that would burn. For two thousand years the remnants of the soldiers laid buried under ash and dirt.

Since the first excavation two other pits had been discovered, with the first being the largest by far. The clay that was used to make the army and their tunnels were brought from 50km away and is attributed to the strength and resilience that allowed these terracotta time capsules to last through the ages. They were made hollow to minimize weight and lower the risk of explosion during firing. Each is unique and vary not only in the hair, shoe tread, clothes, height and girth but expressions and proportions. Two hours after exposure to air their color dries up and disappears leaving them the earthy yellowish brown of dirt. To see them stacked in their reconstructed formation is equally as impressive as seeing the partially exumed shards. There is decades if not centuries of work left to be done.

The Ow Dynasty

Our first stop in China was to visit the family in Guangzhou. This meant gut expanding dinners with some outrageously good food. The Ow clan is quite large as my dad was the oldest of 7 siblings. When you put their families and kids' families in one room to eat it's quite a party. There are a few really fun characters in the bunch to keep things lively. And they all know how to eat the best stuff. My cousin Amy took us to have snake porridge. It's a weird thing to say 'You've got snake skin in your teeth.' Third aunt made sure Steve got plenty of hot peppers. They found it entertaining that he could use chopsticks, and was left handed. One of the uncles said Steve was a white guy that looked asian because he was so dark.

Third Uncle took a day off to take us out to see my 86 year old grandmother, recovering from hip surgery. She was quick to show us her scar. She has no teeth and bad hearing but was feisty, talkative and smiley. This is only my 2nd time seeing her since we emigrated to the States 27 years ago. Our few days with them didn't seem long enough. But they were going so far out of their way to accommodate us that staying any longer would've been too much guilt to bear. Seeing them made me wish we weren't an ocean apart.

Short timers in Macau

Wish we had more to say about Macau, but we don't. We took the short ferry over from Hong Kong and spent just a short day here. The Portugese influence on Asian culture makes for some interesting architecture and food. We saw these sheets of processed pork all over. Sort of a melt in your mouth pork roll-up.

There was a bit of work going on in the main square to prepare for some kind of party. Lucky for us, they left the fruity props lying on the ground for us to play with.

Elastic waistlines


The streets were buzzing with people day and night so we swam in the crowds trying to take it all in without drowning. We were surrounded by buildings that touched the sky, the old mixed in with the new. There were so many tantalizing foods and smells that kept my head spinning. Every few feet a familiar sight or scent caught my attention, though I often couldn't remember exact what it was or why I recognize it.


At a vietnamese influenced eatery we met our first piece of heaven was in the form of a shrimp chip topped with glass noodles and grilled pork garnished with scallions, peanuts, and fried slices of garlic. We drizzled sweet and spicy juice on top to seal the affair.
A daily obsession we adopted was getting Mango Strawberry Crystal Jelly drinks and Mango Stuffed Mochi balls at the Hui Lau Shan dessert shops. It's fruity lust. You feel guilty eating it at the windows seat while passerbyers jealously ogled.
But HK isn't just about asian food. At the International Financial Center was a massive western supermarket with a bakery and deli. This was where all the expats shopped. We made a straight line to the prosciutto and salami. With a hot crusty baguette in hand we made sandwiches made our mouths sing. We could go on and on. Everything here is made fresh when you order it. The food is so good its obscene. But there were a few things we didn't try - like dried flying lizards...

Hong Kong - same but different

I lived in Hong Kong for a year when I was 5 and this was my first time back. The only memories I have are of a counting the round windows on a building by the water, thinking getting ice cream for taking immunization shots seemed like a good deal, going on rides in a playground, and living in a tiny one room apartment in one of the many highrises. Well, the skyscrapers are still there and have expanded to fill all available space. The playgrounds have gotten even better though there doesn't seem to be enough for the population. Prosciutto eased the pain of the Chinese visa office. And there are 315 round windows on one side of that building.


There weren't many touristy things to do other than seeing the peak, shop and eat. We did plenty of that latter one. There was a lack of bicycles, rickshaws, tuk-tuks and scooters. It seems they are all banned in HK and the new territories. Walking is part of daily life here and the streets and subways were pleasantly clean considering the volume of constant traffic they get. It seems that HK has taken a middle ground between the village tainted cities of mainland China and the sterile assimilation of Singapore. We didn't even need to carry our own chopsticks around.

We found one new form of entertainment. A crazy Japanese videogame where you throw soft plastic balls at targets on a pair of big screen TVs. It's really competitive and incredibly tiring. We both had sore arms for a couple days.

Wrong place, wrong time

We happened to be in Kuala Lumpur during Malaysia's 50th independence anniversary. Of course we did the obligatory Petronas Tower Bridge tour that took us up to the 41st floor of the former tallest buildings in the world. We went back out to watch the midnight fireworks at the towers, but found along with a few thousand other people that the fireworks were hidden from view behind nearby skyscrapers. We were woken up the next morning by F-16s booming through the city. We arrived at the parade grandstand just in time to see the aftermath being cleaned up.

Then there was the stabbing, which we wished we missed. We were ready to leave the city after a few nights.

The rest of Malaysian Borneo

After our time at Sipadan, the rest of Malaysia didn't really stand a chance. But we tried our best. You just can't go to Borneo and not see Orangutans, so we hit the Sepilock reserve to do our part. None of us were terribly impressed with the zoo-like setting. I mean, really, you come all the way to Borneo and it feels like you're at the San Francisco zoo. The better part of it was staying in jungle bungalows near the reserve. We even manged to brave the heat and do a little trek into the forest where we saw fat squirrels and giant killer ants. We said our goodbyes to Peter and John a few days later and headed to see the largest cave system in the world at Mulu.

The Mulu caves, in total, is something like a couple hundred kilometers in length making it the most extensive cave system in the world. Sarawak chamber, the largest cavern in the world is large enough to house 20 Boeing 747s. It's big, it's dark and littered with ugly little critters, but it makes for good adventure caving.

So we did. We grabbed shoes with toes for the first time in a quite a while, our headlamps, hardhats(!) and followed our guide into the rainforest. She veered off the trail and started to climb straight up a forest covered limestone cliff up to Stone Horse cave. This is a real cave with no colorfully lit stalactites, no other tourists and actually no lighting at all. It does come with a few guide ropes to cross chasms that disappear into the darkness, plenty of beautiful unlit stalactite formations, a bunch of gross spiders, hairy centipedes, a 6ft racer snake, and lots of squeaky bats. We spent a few hours in the darkness, climbing, hiking, crossing ridges and abysses.



A couple million bats live in Deer Cave and they head out most evenings in search of insects for dinner which thankfully leads to the almost complete absence of mosquitoes in the area. The bats exit the cave in streams that resemble rotating corkscrews. They are so predictable and so many that the local airport schedules flights around their exodus.













The caves are surrounded by mountains and rainforest. There's a great trail that carries you up 90' into the forest canopy for a look around.








Life on the Rig

For better or worse, Kapalai didn't have two rooms available when our friends Peter and John came to visit. Sad as it was to leave Kapalai, we were pretty excited to move over to the Seaventure Resort 15 minutes away at Mabul island.
Seaventure is an oceanic oil rig converted to a dive resort. It certainly isn't the lap of luxury, but it sure is an oil rig! The story goes that it was brought to Brunei to be used as a casino. When that fell through, it was moved here. It still looks like an oil rig and there's more rusted through metal than copious layers of paint can hide. It literally oozes character, but not so fun when it gets on your wetsuit and in your hair.



After the spartan and rusting rooms, the coolest part of the rig was the open-air elevator that goes between the water level and main deck of the rig. The best macro diving is directly under the rig amongst the massive support beams and to get there you just take the elevator down into water. Better yet, when you come up, the elevator is submerged so you can belly flop right onto the platform like a dolphin at SeaWorld!

Under the rig, we finally went too far with our frogfish fetish. Here we are taking one for a walk home. We followed (chased?) this poor guy for maybe 100 yards before he settled down and we realized we hadn't been paying attention to which direction we'd been going!


After one dive on Mabul island, John asked "Yeah, so what was that two-tailed fish?"
It's a cuttlefish having a seafood supper.
-Steve

Waterworld, the good version

Since there are no longer resorts on Sipadan, we headed to the nearby water village resort of Kapalai.
This was the absolute show stealer for us here. The diving was good, but the resort was just fantastic. Kapalai is a set of bungalows hovering over the water swaying on wooden stilts over a submerged reef. There's not a bit of land in sight until low tide exposes a small beach out back.






It's just an amazing place. Our hut opened to the sea in every direction and had a private patio to sun and watch the schools of fish that congregate right under us.






We still had our South African floaties with us. After a morning of diving, Mary tied hers to the deck and floated out in the central area of the resort.









Kapalai -is- a dive resort, so we didn't get get to relax in the sun too much. Every day we'd do two dives at Sipadan followed by a macro dive at nearby Mabul island. Most days finished by jumping right off our dock to hunt for the colorful dancing Mandarin fish at sundown.


With straining eyes, we even spotted a few pygmy seahorses. These little guys are like 1/4"-1/2" tall and look just like the coral they live in. The first one was pointed out by a guide, but Mary amazingly found one later on when we were staying at Seaventure.






-Steve

Our vacation from diving is more diving

After so much strenuous travel in Indonesia, we felt we deserved another small vacation when we crossed into Malaysian Borneo. Conveniently, Jacques Cousteau-approved Pulau Sipadan was waiting for us. Sipadan is a tiny island that is surrounded by sheer walls that drop to a 6000ft underwater trench. It's famous for having loads of sharks and turtles cruising around its walls. Now it's perhaps more famous for the number of divers that flock to it in search of the ultimate dive. So many divers were coming, in fact, that the government shut down the 5 resorts on the island in order to protect it. Now you have to stay at resorts on nearby islands and get one of the 140 daily permits to dive here.
Of course, the other version of the story is that the government realized how much money was flowing through here and kicked the other resorts off so they could build their own. That apparently hit a snag when they crashed a barge carrying building supplies into the island that they are trying so hard to protect ... So for now it is just the divers and a Malaysian military base sharing a little piece of paradise. As for the diving: it is good. But we're pretty spoiled after all the great Indonesian dives and can't say our experience lived up to the hype. We did run across loads of whitetip sharks, a few fat grey and even a leopard shark. Lazy turtles were absolutely everywhere and unperturbed by divers. Actually one barreled right into Mary. We were even 'lucky' enough to witness a somewhat disturbing mating scene with the two half-shelled participants surrounded by a group of hecklers who swooped in every so often to bite the female.
There's also an extensive cave system called the Turtle Tomb that we didn't get to explore enough. It's named for all the turtle skeletons found inside, although there's been 4 or 5 divers left inside, too. Needless to say, the dive shops aren't interested in taking people in anymore. Here's Mary at one of the several "warning: you will die" signs just inside the cave: