chin'easy

im going to be writing a series of entries over the next few days to kind of catch up on the events of the past two weeks or so.

so last i left we were heading from guilin to xi'an.. ohh dear.

what an interesting adventure it was on that peach of a train ride. the beast was 29 hours long. chew on that one people, 29 hours on a chinese train. crap.

it certainly did not help that i didnt have a single solitary thing to occupy my attention for the journey (unless the stinky feet and chatter around you in chinese isnt enough). i didnt have a magazine or book. bryan, omri and i were all in seperate train cars so i couldnt even converse with those guys. i had some work to do.

i started by offering my bananas to the guy sitting next to me. he didnt accept.

i offered to fill the tea cup of the little old lady sitting next to me, but i am reasonably sure she thought i was trying to assault her. that didnt go over too well.

so things werent exactly easy for the next 28 or so hours but i made it through.

after having arrived with the other fellers in xi'an we were ready to rock and roll. we were all really tired.

welcome to xi'an! population 6 million. its funny, in a country with such a high population, having cities with 6 million people is kind of normal. detroit has a population of 1 million, chicago 4 million. so its like all through chins there are a bunch of chicago's sprinkled here and there like it is nothing. they are cities, but they just dont have the kind of character that westerners expect in a "city."

but that was ok. we could deal with a sleepy old town. we werent really there to see the city but rather had bigger plans to check out the infamous terracotta warriors.

so listen to this: 6,000 of these terracotta warriors were hand sculpted about 200 years before christ. each one is unique in its form. they were discoverd in the early 70's by an old farmer just digging a well. he was doing some drilling and stumbled upon a pretty big deal. turns out these little guys were all over his farm. they were built back in about 260 BC over the course of 20 years for one purpose-- to guard emperor qin's tomb. now if you ask me, thats a pretty crazy setup to have to simply guard your grave stone.

seeing something that old was really incredible-- really put me in my place. we enjoyed walking around seeing the endless amounts of these dug up figurines that were so rich in detail and life- size. amazing, really. i liked them so much i even buckled and bought a cheesy figurine. perhaps it can stand on my mantle one day reminding me of old xi'an.

onwards and upwards to shanghai! we couldnt get a train booked out of xi'an the next day so we had to pop for a flight. it was super nice to not have to deal with trains, i have to say.

shanghai at first glance brought back memories of the neon-littered hong kong. those negative thoughts drifted away though as we delved further and further in to the life of the city. although huge and experiencing outlandish amounts of growth, shanghai managed to present a pleasant hustle and bustle. it was a happening city with a bit of history to it and a healthy dose of character. it wasnt bland like hong kong, it just had more to it.

after the boring train ride i was really hungry to try and get a decent book. i really had my heart set on finding a copy of "the world is flat." after walking hells half acre searching every damn foreign language book store that shanghai had to offer-- i was empty-handed.

i was forced to settle for the latest issue of the economist (one of my favorite news publications-- you cant be fooled by the bland title). the cover grabbed my eye as it was touting the review they did this month on chicago. the publication periodically "reviews" big cities-- they chart growth patterns, trends (economic, social, demographic, etc), project on future issues and just talk about the general "health" of the city. according to them, chicago is shining like a star in the old US of A. and i'll tell you, that brought a cheery smile to my face as i am moving there in late july to start work.

kind of a funny story: so in china you have to get used to the constant soliciting from people as you walk by. they either want to sell you a rolex watch, DVD's or a prostitute for the night. we were walking in shanghai one night and this particular solicitor really thought that the three of us needed to have ourselves a hooker. he must have hawked us for a good 5 minutes despite our persistent "no, no, no, no thank you."

finally bryan just told him we were gay and didnt like women. the guy paused a moment and looked at us kind of funny. he took off pretty quickly.

later in the evening we managed to hit up the local McDonalds for some late night snacking. We finished up our meal and as we walked out of the place, the same "solicitor" from before had managed to find us at mcdonalds and now had a new proposal. this time he did in fact have some male prostitutes to try and accomodate us.

wow, that lie really bit us in the ass. what a shrewd business man he was. if that guy really keeps up with that kind of customer care, things are looking good for him.

happy china!

so mainland china is just one hell of a place! we have managed to crawl our way up to a little town called yangshao (about 12 hours northwest of hong kong by train).

if there's one thing that sticks out so far about china in general (aside from our light colored hair), its just how different it is than any other place i have been to or imagined for that matter. japan doesnt even really hold a candle to the types of experiences and things i see here. all kinds of whacky shit going on!

this difference i speak of is for the most part what comes in the way of just cultural nuances (communism for one), eastern ideals and all the host of things that are trying to catapult china in to a position as world power.

but for a laugh.. heres a pretty whacky thing. men here ingest dried deer penis to do the same sorts of "things" that we use viagra for. now there's a real stunner for you! that was a fun "conversation" to have with the guy at the herbal remedy store.

continuing with this extreme difference and departure from any other travelled places-- the language barrier is just incredible. this is honestly the first time i have travelled with such an extreme obstacle. i certainly have taken for granted the large amount of english speakers in prior excursions. it took us a good 30 minutes in shenzen to figure out what time a certain train left for guilin. incredible!

in a sense though, i really love that. you all of the sudden really feel like you are TRAVELLING-- in the true sense of the word.

in thailand, even laos-- the norm was english. everyone spoke it, understood it, etc. here.. at least in parts of china that we have experienced, that couldnt be any further from the norm.

and this language barrier can certainly get you in to trouble it seems. now see, just the other day i was experiencing some pains in my stomach. now this was partially due to to the firy cuisine i have taken a shine to, but also due to the fact that i hadnt taken a crap in about 10 days. not cool..

so now, mix together the little language obstacle with a visit to the "pharmacy" for a pooping aid and you get one funny picture. enter me, not speaking a lick of mandarin and without my "survival chinese" language handbook (which claims it will give you the ablity to conduct chinese language communication INSTANTLY!-- HAH!) trying to ask the nice lady behind the counter for a laxative. the crinkled face that resulted when i did so much as try and say the first two syllables of "laxative" was getting me NOWHERE. i tried to say "poop," "shit," "crap," "BM"-- there was just no hope.

you guessed it. i had to resort to visuals.

so here i am squatting in the pharmacy trying to act out me squatting to take a shit and feverishly grunting as if to say "i cant shit!"

she laughed pretty hard. i believe it was at that point that she got it. but the little remedy she reccomended was not coming anywhere close to my bum no matter how many days i was constipated. it's hard to even explain the contraption she held out.

no, not happening.

she tried to hand me some pills, but i hadnt a clue what the hell they were or what they were going to do. so i left the place feeling like a moron but also without a single laxative to help me in my time of need.

and just in case you were wondering, i did in fact take a crap later that day. hoorah!

so enough.. we are in this little town called yangshao. its a smaller "country" town i guess, for lack of better descriptive words. peasants are abundant-- farming, selling you small chinese buddhas or fruit from their local farm. chinese tourists seem to run rampant in the place and you will occasionally spot a westerner. the way i see it, when i first set foot on the cobblestones that line the street, it made me think of a mix between a small colorado skiing village and luang prebang in laos. so, in other words, a real chilled out poorer version of a small colorado skiing village. it is colder here, no doubt about that. i find myself wearing almost every piece of clothing i have. it has rained on and off.

we rented some pretty sweet mountain bikes the other day and ventured off in to some pretty cool little villages. whilst riding, it was fun to communicate with the few passers by-- either those that were farming or just walking outside. we would get an occasional "hello" but most of the time would exchange a "ni hao" (hello in mandarin). it was a good time.

so we got some good views and really managed to give my cardiovascular system a goddamn challenge. i had some serious leg issues at days end. cramps, pain, geez. we took care of all that pain by feasting on some local culinary delights.. one in particular called "the beerfish."

ahhh the beerfish. let me explain.

so you walk in these markets and you pick out the fish you want to eat.. and these fish most closely resemble the american "carp." so you pick out your little fellow from one of the wading pools and the dude that is going to cook it for you filet's the big old fish in about 2.25 minutes. its really incredible to see if you can bear the occasional gill or skeleton flying out and landing on your pant leg as he labors away.

so then they throw it in a wok, add some garlic, ginger, green onions, chilles of all variety and well... beer. you sautee the little fellow for about 10 minutes or something and out pops this fish just beautifully presented to you on a platter. the thing tastes delightful (we have had two in two days). throw some rice in the mix, maybe some fried vegetables and you my friend are living the yangshao high life.

switching tracks a little bit: just the other night these two younger girls, aged about 14 or so, approached bryan and i while we were walking down the main drag in yangshao. they asked us to come help out in their "all girls class that is learning to speak english." sure!

what managed to come about from this little "teaching" experience was both rewarding and incredibly humorous. we walked in to the classroom to about 25 little chuckles and some collevtive laughter. bryan and i looked at each other and laughed as well. we didnt really know what we were supposed to "teach." i mean i could teach them some cool swear words surely!

for the first portion we were just holding conversations with the girls so they could practice their english in "real life." slowly we were asked to sing songs, dance and teach them "american words."

haha, we were eating it up, and probably perfect for this now. i couldnt teach them a damn thing about gerunds or indirect objects in a sentence, but i could most definitely teach them some songs and a few slang words here and there.

and that we did. upon asking us to sing, bryan and i were struggling to establish a song that both parties knew. that slowly led to us belting out the backstreet boys' "i want it that way" to a laughing crowd of about 30. for some reason rock and roll got brought up and we just threw it all out there with a little led zeppelin. as i was singing the words to "black dog" i thought to myself i am probably commiting a high sin in china and could potentially be killed for teaching school girls this language. what the hell were we doing?

we taught them cool english words like... well... "cool," "awesome," "dude," "sweet," "rad" -- you know the drill. they got a kick out of it. things culminated with bryan and i teaching them the electric slide.. haha. let me tell you, that dance is damn hard to pull off without stevie wonder in the background. but we managed.

they were baffled by bryan's moustache whch i thought was great. and the girls kept pointing to the strip of hair i had on top of my head-- they really did not understand.

all in all a really cool experience and the girls loved it about as much as bryan and i did. so it was fun and rewarding at the same time. i jsut hope i actually taught them something worthwhile (haha and that is questionable at this point).

today is our last day in yangshao. we leave here by bus to catch a train to xi'an (about a 25 hour ride i think). xi'an is in the northern part of china, directly west of shanghai. it houses the terracotta warriors, an ancient site that was just discovered and excavated around 1974. it follows closely behind the great wall as being one of china's biggest attractions. there is a really extensive history museum that extensively covers all of china's dynasties up until present day. so i really look forward to those two things.

and speaking of history and such, i managed to get a 25 disc national geographic DVD set here in little yangshao. it covers documentaries of everything from the mayan civilizations to the evolution of the polar bear! just incredible. and heres the kicker: i got it all for about $23 USD. lovely, i tell you.

so up to xi'an today and then to shanghai (and surrounding areas) with a culmination in beijing. we'll be in touch.

hong dumb

what comes to mind when you think of hong kong?

well, honestly, i was so caught up in the beauty that was thailand that i didnt even think for a second what was coming in the nicely wrapped package that is hong kong.

shame on me, shame on me.

as we took the bus in to the city from the airport you would have thought i was a damn cave man discovering a new civilization. lights, people, commotion, crowds-- i just wasnt prepared. not at all really. what happened to being on small islands and staying in a hut? where were the roadside stands with pleasant people offering a cheap plate of pad thai?

all the sudden western attractions were the norm and it was damn near impossible to find a plate of asian food. but wait, we are in HONG KONG, right? i mean there is a starbucks, mcdonalds, 7-11 and mrs fields cookie shop on every corner. come on!

(and the beer is really awful)

this place is, for the most part, the red-headed step child of china-- devoid of any true history, charm or identity. now, that is probably an awfully harsh statement-- i understand. but for some reason, that's just the way this place seems to me. the british let go of any control in 1997 and now hong kong just sort of remains part of china-- but not really. they have a seperate governmental system (locals here will tell you they hate communism) but yet are still most closely identified with the chinese. go figure.

you know that when you look in the hong kong guidebook for local attractions and it tells you that hong kong houses the worlds largest escalator you are in big trouble. typically there is some sort of genuine attraction-- but not here. there is one hell of a financial district though. score.

i am so bitter at the thought of being out of thailand that i still demand on saying hello and thank you in thai. haha, its great though. one lady responded yesterday evening and that made my night.

so yeah, this place isnt too high on my list of "must see" attractions, but thats ok. i feel like that is part of this whole adventure-- part of what truly makes this trip an "experience" and not just a "trip." so i can totally live with that.

we laugh about it all though really. i drink a starbucks cup of coffee for 3 dollars to remind me of those great coffee mornings in thailand and its all good.

omri is in town now which is great. so now there are three blogs to check (bryansack.blogspot.com, omribloch.blogspot.com) and keep up with our progress.

we leave to get out of this lovely place on 14 march. from there we are debating on two different routes: one through basically the eastern half of china, the other delving deeper in to the "road less traveled" in the western half from yunnan to tibet. the only real inhibiting factor for the tibetan exploration is cost and time. more to come on that later.

wow! laos... and other things.

so it has been quite a while since we last spoke. seems a whole hell of a lot has managed to happen since then.

last i left you i was trekking through the rainforest in chiang mai and riding on an elephant that kept sneezing boat loads of elephant snot all over me. fun.. absolutely not.

so the plan from chiang mai was quite simple: cross the border in to laos (it is supposed to be pronounced so that is ryhmes with the english word "cow." the "s" at the end of laos is silent. when the french named the area it was a mistake to have the "s" at the end in the spelling) start our second leg of the southeast-asia journey. ahhh, it couldnt have possibly been that easy.

see, when you cross the border from thailand in to laos at chang khong, you either take a speed boat (duration 6 hours) or a slow boat (duration 2 days) along the mekhong river (10th longest river in the world, mind you) in to laos. now, everyone told us that the choice between the two methods of border crossing was an interesting decision. according to one fellow traveller, "it was 2 days of suffering on the slow boat or 6 hours of hell on the speed boat."

welp.. we opted for a quick and painful experience on the speed boat. and painful really isnt the best word to describe the whole thing. see, i say speed boat and you think of water skiing sunday afternoons on the lake. well, our little boat couldnt have been any further from that rosy image. there were 6 of us, alogn with all of our luggage crammed in to this "speed boat" that was smaller than an american canoe. we each had about a 1.5 foot by 1.5 foot square to sit in. it was pretty well understood at that point that it was proper to sit on your butt with your knees folded upwards so that your arms and chin could rest on them. dear god, my ass was asleep and my entire lower body was cramped up after 21.5 minutes on the damn thing. 6 hours was looking like.. well.... hell. funny how that works. as we "sped" along, you couldnt even hear yourself speak becasue the engine was so incredibly loud.. haha ear plugs were necessary.

one of the older guys in the boat with us from korea was taking pictures and video while we were cruising along. i honestly wanted to rip his camera out of his hands and toss it in the river as he tried to get some sort of reaction out of me when he put the camera in my face. i jut sat there and shook my head. i am reasonably sure i didnt smile.

we did in fact make it though.. i unfolded my body out of that little "speed boat." i couldnt hear a thing when i took my ear plugs out. there was a nice ringing sound in my ear though. i looked out at what was laos. it wasnt very pretty at that moment given my bit of frustration, but i was sound as a pound knowing that i could get out of the water.

we grabbed a guesthouse in luang prebang which was the city in laos that we were now in and had crossed the border to get to. at first glance, the people looked similar. no real distinctive features that made those from laos look different from thai people. the layout of the city was similar to smaller thai cities like chiang mai: you had convenience stores all around, occasional tourist agencies looking to book you on a jungle adventure, stretches of endless markets that had everything and anything you could imagine.

the culture seemed even more laid back than thailand-- you no longer experienced a lot of the haggling (for example, people trying to get you to come in to their store in thailand) or begging. the overall aura was just very mellow. restaurants would have areas to lay down and eat your meal on cushions as opposed to chairs. TV's were always playing movies to enjoy while you ate. it was kind of funny really. i even managed to fall asleep one night in a restaurant. when we would order a meal in laos, you honeslty could have just walked out after you were done and not paid. it was just that chilled. we obviously did not, but i am trying to illustrate the scene here.

see now, laos was colonized by the french and so you see a lot of that french influence in the food and such. the best influence was the abundance of baguettes and sandwiches that were quite common cuisine among both locals and tourists. taking a bite of that first giant baguette with cheese on it was a pretty awesome feeling. you really never saw ANYTHING like that in thailand. so that was different and very nice.

60% of laos prior to being settled was natural hilly forest and jungle. so naturally as you traverse the landscape you really see a lot of cool foothills, mountain'esque areas and just miles and miles of green lush landscape. this was really cool to see and was experienced at its best on the bus ride from luang prebang to vangving. that little journey of about 6 hours had bryan and i looking out the window at some pretty stunning sights. at some points though, i really wondered if the bus we were in was going to make it up the mountainous terrain.

ok-- so i had been in laos for a few days and all of the sudden gail (my girlfriend at home) emails me mentioning the possibility of coming out to visit in bangkok. holy crap! if she were to come, she would arrive in about 4 days time... hows that for some change of pace!?

so meet gail: she's a cool girl. shes real cool in fact. its kind of funny how the whole thing has evolved between the two of us. we have known each other at MSU through mutual friends for a few years now but kind of started dating just a little bit before i left for the trip. funny how that works isnt it? its like some of the best things happen to you when you are absolutely least expecting them. while most students are buttoning up their college careers and looking at moving to the next step, i JUST begin to start things with gail. but i wouldnt change a thing.


so, naturally.. the thought of her coming is firing me up. and in true "gail fashion" she ends up purchasing the flight to bangkok 3 days before her departure date. haha it still makes me laugh.

i was like speedy gonzales at that point to get back to bangkok in time for her arrival on 28 february. i hopped on a bus from vangving, laos to ventiane, laos (4 hours) and then a bus from ventiane to bangkok (15 hours). the transport was much smoother than i had expected due to the aid of a sleeping pill (from my mother, thank you. no pills from strangers mrs. sack). at about 5 am on 28 february i arrived in bangkok and i was excited as can be (and still adjusting to) knowing i was seeing gail later.

WOW! i tried to throw together some arrangements for gail and i that day and managed to get some transport for us to koh chang which is an island in thailand near the border of cambodia.

i waited at the airport for gail. i was pretty excited, but still almost in disbelief that she was actually going to pop through that arrivals gate at any moment. she came through and the first words out of her mouth werent "so nice to see you" or other pleasant varieties but rather "get me some orange juice, i feel like im gonna pass out." haha welcome to thailand G! just kidding though, she has been having some boughts with vertigo so the dizziness had kind of taken a hold of her and so she needed a little sugar. so we managed to take care of that.

approximately 16 hours later we had managed to hop on another plane and make it to koh chang. haha there would be no messing around with slow paced travelling while she was here. i really wanted to try and get as much time on the island while she was here for 8 days. we checked in to (gasp) the treehouse lodge at the reccomendation of a dutch girl that i had met in my travels.

given my indiana jones adventurous side we got settled in this little bungalow (i would much rather have called it a hut.. a stupid straw hut for that matter) and given the fact that we were just happy to be hanging out together-- gail and i were happy at the moment with things. its funny how i very frequently tend to get a little too adventurous at times and find myself in quite a compromising situation. for some reason though i always have rosy images of extreme rustic living that just never manages to work out.. ohh i laugh about it now.

so the heat was really hard to bear in the damn hut. it was 100 frickin' degrees outside and there was no fan in the hut so i was just baking in the thing. there were bugs crawling all over, it was muggy. i thought it was disastrous. maybe i was over reacting? haha there was no way i was going to be able to sleep in this thing so i opted for the hammock outside. that was somewhat bearable, but as i laid there i made a decision in my head that there would be no more treehouse lodging in my future.

one air-conditioned room later, we had a new place that was much cooler (in every sense of the word). now i think we were both in good spirits to do some exploring of the island.

now, the cool part of koh chang was that it used to be one giant national park with very little people inhabiting its territory. there were occasional divers that explored the areas surrounding it, but tourism was non-existent. given the location of the island and its attractive scenes, the government in thailand decided to begin funding development of the place to encourage tourism. so naturally, it has very few tourists, no crowds, no lady boys or hookers trying to solicit you and most of all some very very beautiful beaches and scenery. excellent.

we rented a motorbike for the week and very frequently found ourselves putsing around on that thing looking around the whole island. we in fact did make it around the entire thing which was pretty cool. some cool finds: a mexican restaurant that made fantastic burritos, a sweet view of white sands beach from on top of a giant mountain/hill, some pretty unique sunsets, a neat pier that stretched quite far in to the gulf of thailand, some elephants that would eat all the food you gave them and then say thank you by screaching with their snout (very funny) and a really cool little restaurant with this little 12 year old kid that helped out in the kitchen (in the picture with gail and i) that was perhaps the happiest little dude i have met in a while.

gail made an excellent point early on in the trip that it felt like we were experiencing the island before all the resorts and tourism grabbed a hold of it. so that was really great and proved to make koh chang my favorite place in thailand.

we managed to rack in some solid beach time, and did a lot of time at a local cafe where i am reasonably sure i drank more coffee in 1 week than i believe i ever have. what can i say, the conversation was good!

ok, i was real happy to have gail around.

i am back in bangkok now, gail is on her way home to the USA, and bryan and i meet up again later today after he was in vietnam and cambodia. i feel like the time away from bryan was not so bad after all. both of us are real fired up to get in to it again so that is a great thing. no doubt about it, i sure will miss my new travelling buddy in gail, but more adventure awaits i suppose.

bryan and i leave southeast asia for hong kong and china on friday 10 march. from there we will be meeting a good friend of mine named omri. he is from manhattan, and i know him from the time we spent living together in australia. the fresh new perspectives and adventure he will bring certaily will create some more variety and thoughts that i look forward to.

this has just been a monster of an update, but i think we are all caught up now. i will try and be more timely with my updates in the future.