Kyrgyzstan…Bishkek

May 23, 2014 richardpieper Leave a comment

Once again the flight was spectacular. This part of the world is lined by tall, rocky, snow capped mountains with broad open plains on the other side. The plane flights tend to have one or other of these views in all of its glory depending on which side you sit.

Our introduction to Bishkek involved the usual haggling with black list taxis to try and get us to our destination, which was in the heart of town. All of this in Russian which of course we speak none of. Add to this the total inability to recognise the written language.

The A’s mean A, the K means K as does M, O, and T…but that is where it ends. the B means V, H means N, P is R, C is S, Y is U…and then there is a bunch of random things. The 3 in the middle of the words (Z) threw me…as did the funky K which is mirror imaged on itself meaning Zh.

Add to this the backwards N’s, R’s and the squiggle that is the D and we were struggling at first. After a couple of days we got a partial handle on things. Anyway these are the challenges of not being multi lingual and choosing to travel to foreign places.

We got our taxi which was a 1970’s vintage Russian bomb. The doors needed manhandling to open or close and the boot took about 9 slams before the latch caught. So off we went…the first sights were sheep, cows and donkeys grazing on the side of the road…being herded by men on horseback…OK. The trip was relatively uneventful until we hit the traffic of the city and were creeping along at a snail’s pace. At one point the exhaust fumes were pouring through the handbrake…filling the car with exhaust smoke. On the positive side, we now know where old cars go to live out the rest of their lives…particularly Mercedes’.

Bishkek is built on the plains alongside the mountain range and is flat and pretty. Our hotel is in the heart of town and is possibly one of the taller buildings around…at 4 storeys. Directly opposite was a fantastic café called Adriano’s which served good Italian espresso and had semi decent Wi-Fi. The main square was about a block away and bars and clubs were everywhere. We went for our usual wander around until we found the Pinta Pub and settled in for some local ales…followed by a few more a little later at the Black Rabbit. A couple of days later during another visit to the Pinta Pub we found that they served “Towers of Beer”. For those of you wondering a tower of beer is good. By the time we had finished in Kyrgyzstan we had managed to sample the following local ales: Arpa, Jivor, Bavarskoe, Apna, Svejak, White Bear, Venskoe, Karagandinskoe, Shymkent, and Baltika beers. Oh and I cannot forget my personal favourite Zatecky Gus.

The hostel took us to the local ethnic village which had yurts (local traditional housing) and they introduced us to some of the traditional foods and drinks. We can now officially add horse meat to our list of eaten items we also had Shoro (a fermented yoghurt), Charlap (a fermented wheat drink), and Arlash (a mixture of the two above). They assured us that once you get used to it…it is quite nice…we are not used to it and it was disgusting .

We made arrangements to go to the Alamein gorge, Sokuluk canyon and the Belogorka waterfall. Due to lack of numbers the Saturday trip fell through. But the Sunday trip to the canyon and waterfalls went ahead. Tourism is in its infancy here and is based around the natural beauty of the region. As such hiking and trekking seem to be the main go…with the odd horse riding thrown in. Having spent an entire day trekking it is safe to say that trekking is not for me…but the sights were good.

The main thing that this trip did for us was to introduce us to the fabled fat bottomed sheep. Having subsequently looked into this the fat tailed sheep make up about 25% of sheep in the world…but I had never seen anything like them and they were a 100% novelty to me. These sheep are highly prized and the fat deposits are extremely expensive but all I could think of was Kardashians.

We met a Brit couple (Simon and Emily) in Urumqi who were heading in generally the same direction so we met up again in Bishkek for a traditional meal at one of the local restaurants and a tower of beer. Followed the next day (my birthday) by a group excursion to the Osh Bazaar. And more wanderings, tourist shopping and towers of beer. The highlight of the day was when Simon got pulled in by the (corrupt) police in the bazaar and was turned over for drugs (which they found none) in a poorly veiled attempt in a shakedown for bribe money from the obvious tourist. Given that neither he nor Emily had come down in the last shower of rain…they left with their wallets in tact.

The local dress in Kyrgyzstan for men at least is the Kyrgyz felt hat or Ak-kalpak…a tall thing that is worn daily by many and not just in a ceremonial sense. The other stand out feature is the abundance of gold teeth. I honestly did not think that such things still occurred however in this part of the world you are no one unless you have a gob full of glimmering chompers. They are everywhere.

China

Urumqi

May 11, 2014 richardpieper Leave a comment

So leaving Jiuzhaigou was an experience. Our flight required a 5am departure for the 90 minute drive to the airport. The airport is surrounded on three sides by snow capped peaks and it was stunning. It is nearing summer here and to have snow on 3 sides was pretty darn impressive. As the plane took off we could see the cloud layer below us and rising above the clouds was the dark layer of rocks and trees of the mountains and then the glistening snow layer.

Unfortunately airlines are a little funny about using telephones on take off and landing so we did not manage to get any photos of this but believe us when we tell you it was spectacular. In fact our entire trip to this part of China has been amazing and anyone planning to travel should have this place high on their list of things to do.

Our next stop was to the town of Urumqi in the north west of China. This place is the local provincial capital and due to the way the transport system works, we will be in and out of Urumqi quite a few times over the next few weeks. The flight into town skirted the Tian Shan mountain range so the view from the left hand side of the plane was that of snow peaks as far as the eye can see.

Urumqi translates to beautiful pasture and is yet another stop on the northern section of the Silk Road. While the name means beautiful pasture it is anything but… Urumqi has been recorded as one of the most polluted cities on the planet (in 2007). In its defence the city has cleaned up quite a bit since that time but is really just a big industrial centre in the west of China with not too much going for it.

Urumqi is actually in the Guinness book of records as the most inland city on the planet…meaning the furthest from any sea or ocean in the world. The closest body of water is over 2500 kilometres away in any direction. As a city it is big and ugly. For those old enough to remember the commonwealth bank money tins we got given back at school… that is the housing here…row after row of these ugly multi-storey boxes. Being China they still do a good park and the open spaces between the ugly buildings is quite nice but it is not a place high on the destination sakes.

The area is largely Muslim but the eclectic mix of facial features here is possibly the most varied we have seen anywhere in China thus far. The traditional Chinese features are here but it mixes with the Tibetan, Middle Eastern, Indian and Russian facial features and the various hybrids that occur over time.

Being a largely Muslim area the food is very different to most of China…and is fantastic. We hit the street stalls and had a Muslim version of a pastie with lamb, beef, onions and spices…which was great and cost between 30-40 cents each. The lamb kebabs and naan are a fantastic and are available everywhere…it is a bit like getting a good coffee in Melbourne. There is the obligatory night market with food stalls aplenty and the bazaar which is a cornucopia of all things regional with spices, fruits, foods and the usual tourist trinkets.

I got into essentially a flattened and roasted chicken that is cleaved into bite sized pieces and served with a chewy style of dry naan and spices. This was sold everywhere throughout the bazaar and was on the stand with the whole roasted sheep, and the stand next door to the sheep heads and entrails. Anyway…Chook, fingers, bread…tuck in. Would have been nice to wash it down with an icy ale…but it is frowned upon right next door to the mosque…go figure.

We went to the Xinjiang Uygur Regional Museum which is a tribute to the minority communities in the area. According to the museum there are over 47 nationalities or cultures residing in the Urumqi area. Thus explaining the variety in facial features. We did the normal tourist spots (parks, pagodas, temples etc) which were fine without being startling.

Jill loves tulips and at this time of year they were in full bloom everywhere throughout the city.

China

Jiuzhai national park

May 9, 2014 richardpieper Leave a comment

After leaving Chengdu we made our way on an 11 hr bus ride to Jiuzhaigou (nine villages valley) which is the home of the Jiuzhai national park. Jiuzhaigou Valley is on the edge of the Tibetan Plateau and is another documentary special joint that will be instantly recognisable. It is known for multi-level waterfalls, colorful lakes, and snow-capped peaks. But the standout features are the crystal clear lakes with the fallen trees within that are 100% visible due to the clarity of the water.

On our drive here in the bus we climbed up over the 3500 metre mark…so much so that snow was falling. This is not something we had expected and were dressed much more for the 30 degree days of Chengdu than we were for snow falling at altitude. Thankfully the town was down at around the 2000 metre mark so there was no snow by the time we arrived.

The place actually has wild pandas (not that you would ever see one) and the Sichuan golden monkeys. this place is stunning. there will not be a heap of text on this post as essentially we hiked around this national park taking a bucket load of photos that will never do this place justice. Neither our phone cameras nor our photographic abilities will be good enough to truly represent his place. But we eagerly took our happy snaps and I hope you enjoy them.

The park is huge and there are about 15-20 crystal clear lakes and too many waterfalls to count. The water cascades over just about everything and at every turn there is a phenomenal sight. They have built a wooden boardwalk style thing so as not to disrupt the nature from us trampling hordes. So much so that the blurb identifies that there is over 70 kilometres of boardwalk that was built through the park. We did not walk the whole 70 but there was at least 15-20 kilometres hiked by us.

Did I mention that we were both losing weight…I think this sort of walking around the various sights may be helping…but what would I know.

Alas these photos will never truly do this place justice. The full spectrum of colours was on display and the different shades of green, blue and brown in the waters was something to behold. If you are compiling a bucket list then I would seriously consider putting this place high upon the list.

China

Chengdu…

May 4, 2014 richardpieper Leave a comment

Chengdu is the capital of the Sichuan province in southwestern China. What it is most known for nowadays is that it is the global home of the Giant Panda Breeding Research Base…the launching point for the world’s largest (Leshan Giant) Buddha…and the home of Sichuan (or Szechuan) cooking. All of these things you would probably have seen on documentaries of lifestyle type programs on the box.

We arrived on a national holiday weekend so the place was nutty and we hid from the crowds for the first couple of days. Planning the next legs of the journey which seems like it will take us into Kyrgyzstan for my birthday in downtown Bishkek. Added to this Jill downloaded the bits that she needed for her next assignment.

Sichuan province is the home of about 80% of the 1500 pandas that are alive today. It is also where they established a breeding research base about 10 km from the middle of town… which is awesome. It costs about $10 to spend a day there, but the early mornings are the best time as they are up and about and active. For about $120…($140 on weekends) you can volunteer providing keeper duties (shovelling $hit and lugging bamboo…I presume) and be shown through some of the studies…and get a certificate. For double the price…you can do it for two days. For under $350 (2000 yuan) you can have your photo taken cuddling a baby panda. In any case your $10 buys you great views of lots of adult and baby pandas doing panda-esque activities.

The Leshan Giant Buddha is a 71 metre tall Buddha carved into a cliff face and is the tallest Buddha in the world. Wiki tells me that construction started in 713 and finished 90 years later. A Chinese monk named Haitong hoped that the Buddha would calm the turbulent waters that plagued the shipping vessels traveling down the river. As it happened the carved away stone removed from the cliff face got dumped in the river below…changing the currents…making the water safe for passing ships.

The Buddha was pretty darn big and the hike from the top to the bottom and back up again was not too onerous. It was however made amusing by a hoard of Chinese women attempting to do it in the ridiculous high heeled stripper shoes that they all tend to wear. This is a common theme of hikes within China…Chinese women attend in short skirts and 4 inch+ high heels and climb mountains etc.

Sichuan (or Szechuan) cooking is possibly the hottest food on the planet. The use of spices and rear splitting chillies puts shame to the hottest of Indian vindaloo’s. The real issue is that everything on the menu is like this…so there is absolutely no respite from the chilli onslaught.

Our first night we hit a joint around the corner and pointed at the pictures of what seemed like three fairly innocuous dishes. The first we both agreed was a photo of crab claws…what arrived was the skull of a small mammal… drenched in chilli and oozing chilli oil…Jill laughed and left it to me…I ate it…and we took the photo back to the hostel to ask the guys there to name that animal…it was a rabbit…much happier now.

The next was a mushroom dish that had large red and green chillies and seeds throughout… Jill managed three mouthfuls of this while I ate bugs’s skull…before she quickly began downing her amber ale. After splitting the skull apart and eating the meaty bits I moved to the mushrooms which were milder than the skull…then our main came which was a pork and mushroom deal…OMG…this one had a bite to it…

Safe to say that not one of Jill’s side of the family would survive here…some of my lot would be ok…but even the kamikazes will find this joint on the challenging side. The key issue is that there is no respite and the cumulative effect is debilitating. In addition to the chilli there is a special Sichuan pepper which adds another numbing dimension. We did another cooking course…where we learned to use the murderous items from the night before. So upon our return (whenever that may be) we are equipped to replicate some of these gems…any volunteers?

I hate to admit this but I am actually developing a taste for eating tofu… Tofu for me was always tree hugging, hippie, vego freak, meat substitution, rubbish to be mocked mercilessly…along with the people who eat it (cos they don’t get enough protein so are too weak to lift their arms in objection to the mocking). It actually tastes ok when done right…don’t get me wrong… big slabs of cow is still king…but maybe the mocking will be reserved to the stuff like tofurkey or faken.

China

Guiyang and Anshun

April 26, 2014 richardpieper Leave a comment

We are well and truly off the beaten path now…English is virtually non existent and every little action is becoming more and more challenging. We checked into the best hotel that we have stayed in since leaving Australia when we arrived in Guiyang. Sadly it also had the worst wifi since we left too.

While the hotel was lovely there are a few elements that make it uniquely Chinese and a little odd to say the least. There does not seem to be any service elevator so guests share the elevator with staff going about their business. As we have noticed throughout China if you wait…you lose…so people push and shove to get onto buses, taxis, trains etc. that is just China and you get used to it…but when a cleaner races a guest to the lift and pushes door close so that the guest has to wait for the next lift well that is another story. And this goes for the laundry dudes filling the lifts while you stand waiting to use them, and the restaurant staff taking food to the kitchens etc. The service staff however do allow guests first use.

The hotel was right next to an amazing food street which we spent most of our time eating at. Great food, dirt cheap…the only trouble was getting access to coffee and ordering in a town with little or no English. The town is also home to one of the largest statues of Mao Zedong across the road from yet another stunning park and square (something China does like nowhere else).

We spent a day hiking around the 1000 acre park in the middle of town which was essentially a massive forested hilly area. Having schlepped it up most of the mountain Jill decided we could catch the cable car back (why we didn’t catch it up was apparently my fault)…so we started on a journey of stairs up the mountain. Half way up we met some locals who said there was nothing at the top. I stopped…Jill kept going…20 minutes later she returned regaling me of the beauty that was the mobile telecommunications repeater tower.

Next we headed for the town of Anshun which has even less English but is the launching point for the Longgong Dragon Caves and the Huangguoshu Waterfall which is the tallest in China. We looked at the caves and they are quite expensive and as tackily commercialised as a thing could be… so after some thought we decided to boycott the caves. We aimed to hit the waterfall and headed for the bus station…after much walking we failed. So we got our return train ticket to Guiyang extended by a day, hopped a local bus and headed for the inner city sights.

We made it to the lake and the Confucius temple…now most of you would know that I am an avid studier of the writings of Confucius and as such I sought to educate my wife by advising her of some of his better known teachings. This did not go well. I think things went wrong when I advised her that “Confucius say…man who go to bed with itchy bum…wake up with smelly finger”.

The next day came and we took another crack at getting to the falls… Success. About 5 bus rides, well over $100 in park fees etc, much gesturing and no food or drink…we made it to the falls. It must be said that our lack of Chinese is really proving to be a detriment as we get into the back blocks of China.

The area is actually a series of waterfalls with the Doupotang falls being the first that we hit and the Huangguoshu being the biggest. The area is similar to Guilin and Yangshou and is full of karsts (lumps for those who have been following). The falls were stunning…a great little walk that could be (and was) done that took you behind the falls into caves that had the wall of water cascading past you…very cool.

Similar to the stone forest near Kunming, there had been a bunch of drug affected geologists who were given naming privileges in the area. As such there were very grandiose names given to rock formations such as the “Stone of Evolutionary Spirit” and the “Nine Dragon Rock”…none of these things could be seen within the rock formations without the use of mind altering hallucinogens. But anyway that was their names.

The journey to get to the waterfall was monumental…but the effort was well worth it. On the positive side…after hiking down several kilometres worth of stairs to get to the base of the waterfall and traverse in behind it in the caves with the water curtain…you find yourself at the bottom of a large mountain with the daunting task of hiking back up all of those stairs. But no…the Chinese have built a pair of extraordinarily long escalators which for about $6 will save you the pain of the climb…each escalator ride goes for about three minutes (time your next ride at a shopping centre for some perspective)…we paid.

As there is a public holiday in early May in China we were killing a bit of time so as not to be in Chengdu (the global home of the Pandas) during the peak holiday time. So we headed back and had another couple of nights in Guiyang. Our hotel while odd, backed directly onto a shopping mall with the most amazing indoor aquarium in one of its central openings. About three storeys high and full of eels, rays, gropers, turtles etc.

China

Shangri-La and Dali

April 17, 2014 richardpieper Leave a comment

Shangri-La After tiger leaping gorge and the 1600 meter each way climb and descent we found ourselves 2 days later in agony. Thighs and calves were burning and shaking. Walking up stairs or squatting to get something from our bag was murderous. Jill has decided that she wishes to head to Tibet to hit the northern base camp of Mount Everest….just to say she did. Everyone who goes here gets altitude sickness it is just a question of how badly. Altitude sickness strikes randomly with no rhyme or reason. 20 year old marathon runners can be debilitated while 70 year olds may only have a mild headache. We headed up the mountains to test the altitude and specifically how I held up at altitude.

The two previous times that we went up the mountains I was ill but they were both in India and at least one of these was food related. So how I would react was a little unknown and the Tibet trip would be expensive so we did not wish to waste the money if we would be crook the whole time. So to test this we headed up the heights. The northern base camp of Everest is at 5150 meters (16,900 feet) which is obviously considerably higher than anywhere else I have been. There is a southern base camp on the other side in Nepal. For context Mount Kosciuszko the highest Australian point is at 2228 meters (7,310 feet). Darjeeling was 2045 meters and Shimla was at 2200 meters. Shangri-La took us up to 3200 meters (10,498 feet). Got here…not an issue for either of us…it was the dodgy Indian curries that got me…not the elevation.

Shangri-La was renamed in 2001, from Zhongdian, after the fictional land of Shangri-La in the James Hilton novel Lost Horizon, in an effort to promote tourism. The town had a massive fire in January this year which destroyed about 2/3 of old town…where we were staying. Looking at the buildings it is no surprise as everything is wood and one stray spark will start the inferno. This is being rebuilt as we speak but the place is fairly well decimated at the moment.

There is a fantastic monastery right next to the square that is stunning. It has a fully functioning Tibetan prayer wheel that is about 30 meters high and is in glimmering gold. Every evening at 7 pm the locals dance around the square in traditional gear and co-opt anyone who stands still for too long. After a while there are hundreds of people prancing around in a circle trying to copy the choreographed moves of the locals. Quite a sight to see. a bit further down the road is the main monastery of the area which is both huge and hugely impressive.

After Shangri-La we did an 8 hour bus ride to Dali which is one of the major tourist destinations of Yunnan province. Thankfully we did it in a faster time because I had a small screaming child behind me…accompanied by his grandmother who shrieked more than the child…and beside me I had the bus-sick woman who vomited at least 6 times and continually spat into the bucket in the aisle between us. A charming ride. It was minus 3 degrees when we got on the bus in Shangri-La and was 28 degrees when we got off in Dali. We were rugged up and sweating like pigs.

Dali was an absolute pleasure…good accommodation…great food…well priced…lots to see. We arrived just in time for the Bai Festival (one of the 32 Chinese ethnic groups) which meant the place was packed and totally nutty with bedlam aplenty. On Easter Sunday we walked to the 3 pagodas just down the road (3.1 kms) from us…to take a quick photo. Upon arrival we found it was an entire complex and not just the 3 pagodas. So we paid and entered what was about a 3 km long complex of temples, pagodas and funky parks and buildings. Added to this distance was in excess of 2000 stairs (which of course we walked them all…and I counted) and then walked back.

Feeling tired and thirsty we popped into old town for a cold drink and a meal…after this we found the fish feet person. For the uninitiated there are fish tanks where you put your feet and little fish feast upon all the manky bits. Bec Ballinger and Jill were planning to get this done in Hong Kong but missed out…Tickles like hell but was kinda fun. The next day Jill signed us up for a Chinese cooking class. We met the lady outside the bad monkey bar at 10am and then proceeded to wander the markets as she explained certain items to us.

We did the slow wander up the hill to her house where she set us up for our cooking class. We made a dried tofu salad, fish flavoured eggplant and Gongbao chicken. Myself and the Israeli guy also doing the course tripled the amount of chilli in the chicken dish. We spent a really nice five hours cooking and learning how the various ingredients combine together to make the dishes. Believe it or not the Tofu dish was the nicest of the lot.

China

The stone forest and LiJiang

April 14, 2014 richardpieper Leave a comment

After Jill finally got the assignment finished we got back on the road and returned to Kunming (the site of our Chinese New Year escapades). We tried a different hostel which was ok without being startling and made plans to hit the stone forest (Shilin) which is a 350 sq/km area of limestone rock formations. This place was spectacular but was also the most expensive day that we have had since arriving in China. The site is 120 kms from Kunming so by the time you pay for the cab to the bus staton, the bus to the site, the entrance fee and the electric shuttle bus fee and then the return journey, the numbers got very big quite quickly (by China standards).

That said, the park was brilliant with stone and rock formations as far as the eye can see and you basically had free reign to explore as you saw fit. There was the electric busses that followed a loop but you could get off at any time and explore away. We got the bus initially but ended up walking the whole way so that we could check out all the sights.

Leaving Kunming we hopped a flight to LiJiang and set up camp in the heart of old town. Having spent a week in the Xiamen old town I had an idea of what to expect…boy was I wrong. The two were poles apart. Xiamen had authentic alleys where people lived and worked as the would have 200 years ago and was dirt cheap. LiJiang was the pretty tourist area with nothing but shops, bars and restaurants charging a premium on any item you even paused to look at.

LiJiang is without a doubt the most expensive town we have been in within China. By way of example, a 650 ml beer normally costs between 10 and 20 RMB…in Xiamen we were getting it for under 3…but in LiJiang they were trying to charge over 50 RMB. This extended to the food and coffees as well as the touristy junk that we did not get. On arrival we stopped for a coffee on the way to the hostel and paid 68 RMB ($11-14) for Jill’s latte and 45 ($7-9) for my long black.

As an extra bit of excitement while we were in old town the building across the alley from where we were staying caught fire and had flames leaping about 20 meters into the air. Old town is essentially all made of wood and a fire is needless to say devastating. All hell broke loose as every man and his dog donned their fire fighting equipment and got to work in putting out the blaze. The chefs from the restaurants were running away from the blaze carrying the gas bottles, the smoke was billowing and we were prepped for a rapid departure should it be needed.

About three hours later all was calm and the fire was out. It was actually a very efficient exercise and in a wooden tinderbox part of town it was beautifully contained to just the one building. The next town that we are to hit (Shangri-La) had a similar incident and 2/3 of the place went up displacing over 3000 people.

LiJiang is the launching point for places such as the Tiger Leaping Gorge, Dali and Shangri-la. Jill had been wanting to go to tiger leaping gorge since the first moment she read about it. My response was along the lines of the nomenclature is false advertising…and that if I did not physically see a tiger leaping across the gorge then it was a waste of our time and money and I would be disappointed.

Anyway as a good husband we went to tiger leaping gorge…you guessed it…no tiger…no leaping…but there was a pretty spectacular gorge. And a shed load of walking down and then back up a 1600 meter vertical drop to the water level. My calves burned on the way down and my thighs on the way up. Until I gave up and paid to ride a horse the last 3-500 meters of the vertical climb section…Jill walked the whole way and found me waiting for her at the top with a cold drink.

The first thing to mention was the drive to the gorge. It was alongside a super steep vertical drop in a bus that barely fit on the road…with sections of the road that had crumbled away under earlier avalanches. At one point Jill claims that she saw a car in the water below that had obviously missed a turn. All of this while our bus driver was chatting away on his mobile phone and belatedly jerking into corners.

The next bit was the trail…1600 meters down…on a track that would trouble most goats. Upon reaching the bottom you see the rock that the alleged tiger leapt to. To get there we paid an extra 10 yuan each to wander across a rope bridge made out of balsa wood. We then stood on the rock amongst the rapids as they raged past us…then braved the bridge back to the trail upwards.

As we huffed and puffed our way up the path there was a ladder that cut out a big chunk of the zigging and zagging as we climbed. This was a vertical ladder with rungs at double the normal height…that was quite frankly terrifying…that we both climbed. Thankfully you were facing the cliff so did not see how bad it could have ended.

All things considered a great (but exhausting) day.

China

Fuzhou and Xiamen

April 10, 2014 richardpieper Leave a comment

We got ourselves off the tourist track to try and experience what China proper was like to do this we hit Fuzhou. We thought that getting away from the public view places may reveal another side to our adventure and show that the public façade was different to the reality outside of the main cities. In fact it is just like everywhere else in China but with less English and less to see. The infrastructure that has been built in the big towns is the same as that which exists in the smaller (1.2 million) places. The rural communities obviously are quite different but China’s growth and development has spread far and wide and is not contained to the industrial or tourist hubs.

The main roads are 3-5 lanes wide, the smaller side roads are 1-3 lanes wide and they are all beautifully asphalted, curbed and guttered. The footpaths are unthinkably wide (but need to be shared with many more electric bicycles and motorcycles than in the bigger towns). There is the same fascination with brand names that exists everywhere in China and it is quite funny to see a small street vendor selling 5 dumplings for a buck wearing Dolce and Gabbana jackets. Obviously there is a healthy knock off market here as the prices for the legit stuff here is the same as it is back home.

Xiamen and Fuzhou are much like all other Chinese cities. However we stayed in old town within Xiamen which offers a taste of what life used to be like many years ago. There are no big roads once you step inside. There is a labyrinth of alleys, houses, markets, etc. The owners of the hostel were commenting that there is a push for old town to be demolished. The Chinese have a fixation on everything new and the cultural preference is to destroy the old and replace it with the new wide crisp clean roads that exist almost everywhere throughout China.

Having spent a couple of days in old town there is a certain manic charm to the way things used to be. To get to our hostel we got off the (2 lane) bus only freeway and stepped onto the (4 lane in each direction) road directly underneath the freeway and headed up a tiny set of stairs into old town. The stairs were choked with people cleaning fish, cooking food, selling wares and just generally trying to traverse the narrow alleys.

Fifty metres further down the main road we came across the main wet market entrance which began the chaos that was to follow. The first section was the seafood which had tubs of live seafood of every variety laying all over the road as vendors squatted by their boxes trying to sell the items. I have decided that I like the concept of having turtles as pets…so seeing them as meat was a tad disconcerting.

The funniest bit was watching the live prawns leaping out of their boxes onto the ground and the women chasing them around with chopsticks to put them back in the water. There were eels the thickness of a mans arm, sharks, stingrays, shellfish, molluscs, crabs….you name it. Further on was the fruit, then the mystery meat puzzle, and the caged live animals like ducks,chickens, quails, rabbits etc. then the random items that every market tends to have.

Jill had an assignment to do as part of her masters so we needed to stay put for about a week to allow her to get it done. Xiamen was the chosen destination as there is heaps of food options for me and she can settle in to a comfortable place to do her readings and the assignment.

We did head over to Gulangyu Island for a day and cruised around eating street food and seeing the tourist sites but this is about the only touristy thing in Xiamen. I found the Taiwan food street (a pedestrian road choked with food stalls selling just about anything) and discovered the peppered steak sizzler. Steak, egg, pasta all smothered in a spicy pepper sauce served on a sizzling platter. All good.

The highlight of the island was having the special Kopi Luwak which is the coffee beans that have been ingested and excreted by the Asian Palm Civet. This is then processed into the finished coffee product which is, quite frankly, ordinary. The greatest bit about all of this was the local menu descriptor as photographed above.

This is the longest that we had spent in any one town since Beijing. Alas there was not enough going on here to keep me occupied for such a length of time and reading and editing Jill’s assignment on clinical governance was not as thrilling as it sounds.

That said we have now officially been gone from Australia for six full months now and on reflection we have had some amazing experiences both good and bad along the way. The funds look like they will last through until at least the end of this year, however consideration is being given to what next?

;

Hong Kong

The Cathay Pacific HSBC Hong Kong rugby 7’s

April 2, 2014 richardpieper Leave a comment

DAY ONE

Jill, Chris and I started the wander up the hill to the stadium for a 1pm start to day one of the rugby 7’s. We were there early and got prime position in the southern stand (the party stand) and marvelled as the day unfolded. It took quite a while to fill as the day had loads of qualifying games which included the teams competing to be permanent members of the competition… teams like: Spain, Portugal, Kenya, Russia, Japan, Trinidad and Tobago, Cook Islands, Zimbabwe, Chile, Barbados, Tunisia, American Samoa, Uruguay and of course Hong Kong.

Also on day one was the women’s final (which was unfortunate that this was the only women’s game that we got to see cos they were great). More women’s games at these sorts of events really is needed as the quality was high and the crowd really supportive. In the evening each of the core teams had one game. Other than this the day was about the stadium, the costumes, the singing, the drinks and the characters.

DAY TWO of the rugby and we were joined by Jeff and Bec Ballinger another rugby and school mate that I was lucky enough to stand up for when they married…way back when. We split up and the girls went sightseeing while the boys went to the footy. The Saturday at the 7’s is manic…fully sold out, everyone in costume and the southern (party) stand full before 9am and locked down by about 1pm. We arrived at about 11 and it was already a 5 hr wait to get into that stand…we boycotted and hung out in the main stands watching the games (and the antics) instead.

At 11am the sky started getting dark, by 11:30 the entire sky was pitch black and the heavens opened in a monsoon that can only happen in the tropics. Quite a sight to see and experience. Two hours later the sun was shining and it was as if it had never happened.

Watching the sevens from the eastern and western stands is quite a different experience as it is impossible to watch the rugby and enjoy an ale simultaneously. As such a proportion of the day was spent behind the stand watching a small television screen. Added to this these stands are full of school children wearing wildly non-age appropriate costumes and drinking heavily as the bar staff do not ask for ID’s. This had the obvious and foreseeable effects as the day wore on.

DAY THREE

The Sunday saw the finals day of the rugby and Jeff, Chris and I again attended along with Bec (who we managed to get an extra ticket for from a scalper without selling children or limbs)… we got there early and landed in the southern stand, set up camp and did not move until the day was over. Bec lasted a few hours before bailing to catch up with Jill, the rest of us did the hard yards that was 3 days drinking in the stands.

The Cup Title was claimed by New Zealand

The Plate went to South Africa

The Bowl to Scotland and

Kenya Took the Shield

Japan won the Qualifying games and earned themselves a spot with the core teams. I am not exactly sure if this means that one of the lower sides has to drop back to be a qualifier next year but if so Spain, Portugal and Sri Lanka may be hunting for their spot back next year.

This is an event that I had wanted to attend since I was in my late teens and I am so glad that I was able to do it and share the experience with old friends. I must admit if I had come here in my 20’s I am unlikely to have seen too much rugby as there is way too much else going on. Unlike the others when the games finished each day we headed for a meal and a sleep while we often found the younger ones the next day on the steps of the streets having their sleep and wearing their meals. This is a great event that I would seriously consider revisiting every 2-3 years. The expense and the liver may preclude every year.

Hong Kong, Uncategorized

Hong Kong and Shenzhen

April 1, 2014 richardpieper Leave a comment

The order of this post is a touch out of order as we are heading back to Xiamen for Jill to do her assignment but nevertheless on we go. We took our first flight with dragon air which is a Cathay pacific affiliate and other than huge delays due to Hong Kong weather and air traffic control it was pretty good…newish plane, smooth flight, pleasant flight attendants, nice tasting food, range of entertainment options.

Got into HK and went cruising around town, doing our usual mix of sightseeing and eating. It must be said very early on in this post that Hong Kong is incredibly expensive when compared with the rest of China. It remains about half of the Australian price but is a lot more than what we have been paying for everything on the mainland. Food is about 4-25 times more expensive depending upon which joint you hit.

We headed over to Kowloon to get our backpacks mended (due to some damage inflicted by dodgy Indian baggage handlers) and generally just poke around. After our chores we hit Nathan road which is a major shopping district on the Kowloon side then on to the park, the mosque (interesting to note that after dark near the mosque the streets turn into markets selling vibrators and ice pipes), then down to the water for a walk along Tsim Sha Tsui, the city light show and the avenue of the stars walk.

PAUSE – We paid a lot of money for our Osprey brand backpacks and the experience of having them mended justified the expense. Jill’s bag had violently skidded across every Tarmac in India and had a couple of minor holes from intense scuffing and my trolley handle catch was not releasing properly. Two emails each way and all sorted…no fuss no bother…no cost. The extra money buys you top quality and customer service.

The next day we headed back across to mainland China to the city of Shenzhen where we caught up with Chris Rea an old rugby friend and Laurie’s boy who had spent a long time living in Asia. We wandered the city and saw how easy life could be if you had the language skills that Jill and I are still struggling to manage (I swear that there is a switch in your brain somewhere that we just can’t find). We all headed back to HK together for the rugby the next day (rugby gets its own post).

On day 2 we were joined by Jeff and Bec Ballinger long time friends dating back to school. The boys went to the footy while the girls apparently went to the Chi Lin Nunnery, the Nan Lian gardens, Hong Kong park, hit the computer market, and had high tea at the Azure hotel. Then we all hooked up for a lottery dinner and a few drinks at the end of the day.

Sunday was all about the football for the boys and Bec for the early part then she bailed on us and went with Jill to see the Bruce Lee exhibit at the heritage museum the 10,000 Buddhas Monastery.

Monday was a group day where we wandered town stopping for yum cha brunch at the oldest place in town (Lin Heung Tea House). There is a Michelin star rated dim sum place in HK that is the cheapest Michelin star restaurant in the world but alas we never got there.
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We caught up with Chris again in the afternoon and all had a farewell drink before Chris headed off to china that evening, we returned to Xiamen the next morning and Bec and Boof were due to head back to Rockhampton the day after. A great week, good times and awesome friends.

midliferadventure

Kyrgyzstan…Bishkek

Urumqi

Jiuzhai national park

Chengdu…

Guiyang and Anshun

Shangri-La and Dali

The stone forest and LiJiang

Fuzhou and Xiamen

The Cathay Pacific HSBC Hong Kong rugby 7’s

Hong Kong and Shenzhen

Travelling the world in a pre and post COVID state