Chasing round China

Well, only around one province of China - Yunnan in the southwest.
For 12 days - visa runs are much less tedious with a holiday thrown in.
In Yunnan there are 25 ethnic groups, and I saw a lot of diverse landscapes, from the busy city of Kunming, to traditional Naxi farmers in the 4km deep Tiger Leaping Gorge, and Tibetan monks in Zhongdian, at 3300m altitude. Lots of travel too - more than 35 hours on buses......with travel sick locals, smokers, and "rustic" toilet stops as part of the course. And chasing men of all ages around the country side, as is apparent when you see the photos.
I spent 3 days travelling around Kunming on my own, and 9 days on an Intrepid tour (hi guys!), in good company with some avid photographers, so I've posted lots (incidentally major camera envy - impending SLR purchase on Oz return!). It was so nice to leave the humid tropics and head into the mountains for awhile.
Can't say I really learnt much more about the history while I was here, but some things reminded me of where I was. For example blogspot and news websites are some of many banned in China, I met a tourist who had his lonely planet guide confiscated at the airport, and found the subject matter in the national media to be... slightly off, shall we say.

KUNMING
Kunming is a bustling city with 3million residents, a good bus system, and manic drivers with major car horn issues. So many gawkers - OK, yes people, I'm not chinese. Only amusing for about 5 minutes - happily being neither famous nor beautiful I can now slink back to anonymity.
I was pretty brave on Day 1 - geared only with "Ni Hao" (when most people know hello as their only English word anyway), a sketchy map and a vague direction, I travelled on 8 different buses to get to see the Stone Forest and Dadieshui Waterfall. Eucalypts everywhere, with corn, tobacco, rice and sunflowers mostly. Lots of quarries. What did this place look like prior?!?

Diverse Kunming; dressed-up tourists at the world heritage Stone Forest park

impressive Dadieshui Waterfall from the cablecar


LIJANG
Our tour group of 16 met up and bused it north to the old town in Lijang, a major tourist trap, but very cute all the same. Lots of photo opportunities, taken. Getting used to toilets with no doors and leeches in the mornings.....


sights in and around Lijang

TIGER LEAPING GORGE
Big 1km vertical ascent on the first morning (confound this warm summer weather) provided it's rewards many times over on this 2 day hike. Absolutely phenomenal scenery. We ate our way through all the guesthouses, so it was a trek done in style. Our Aussie guide, Margo and pup were lots of fun, and we had remarkably clear weather, making for great views. Apparently stunning autumnal colour in October, and best seen before 2009, when a dam will destroy this beautiful stretch of rapids forever to form part of the 3 gorges dam system. We heard preliminary blasting taking place. So sad. So many local people up the Yangtze to be displaced.


I'll let these photos do the talking! They don't do it justice though


ZHONGDIAN
Regretfully leaving the gorge, we headed further north to the town of Zhongdian high up on the tibetian plateau. Once part of Tibet, the cultural landscape here is very distinctive to the other areas we'd been. Lots of solid tibetian houses. Think I had an altitude-related headache for a bit. Amusements included an incident with applying sunscreen in view of a curious bus driver, and chasing buddhist monks around the famous Ganden Sumtseling Gompa monastery.

pretty marsh scenery at the forced bus-sick stop (enter this jellybean-eating lady centre stage)




scenes from the Ganden Sumtseling Gompa monastery


DALI
We stayed in another old town, and filled in our time taking photos at a local market, and watching cormorants catch fish in the traditional fishing manner - a string around the neck prevents swallowing. A bit apprehensive about this practice, but the birds were well fed, happy enough, and obedient like hunting dogs. Very comical, likeable birds. A fun boat ride to boot.



From there we headed back to Kunming, said our farewells, and I spent the next 2 days walking and watching the locals in city parks and getting away from the city noise by walking in the Western Hills Forest Park and visiting Dragon Gate, a series of temples carved into a 300m cliff, with a stellar view across the massive lake and city area. A fun trip for the most part!

Gastronomic experiences - in a nutshell (haw haw)
- thousand year old egg
- yak steak and yak butter tea
- lots of yak and goat cheese
- lots of ginger tea with honey - fab!
- happily lots of banquet experiences in our group, so lots of local food - very fresh

Spending quality time with the siblings

This last week has been very hectic but a lot of fun, with visits from my brother Graham, sister Alison, and good friend Amy. My brother was on his way back from a short term mission trip to Bangladesh with church friends, and the A&As were on their way home from a 6 week visit to friends in America, Canada and Dubai.

My brother and I motorcycled north to some caves for a day, then headed a few hours south for 3 days to visit some national parks and the ruins of the first capital of Thailand.

The biggest tree in Thailand


Ruins at Sukhothai, the first capital of Thailand


On the way home we visited an Elephant Conservation Camp (got a ride in) and had a soak in a mineral pool. A nice trip!

On Friday all of their travel itineries co-incided nicely - we were able to spend the afternoon in town and had dinner together.

Possibly our last sibling dinner for 2 years my bro & sis enjoying pineapple shakes

The A&A's and I went nutso and managed to cram lots into their 3 days. We went to another elephant camp (the elephants obviously enjoying themselves while painting, playing relays, soccer and darts etc. was magic).



We also went caving, saw butterflies and orchids, enjoyed a northern Thail traditional dinner and show, and spent a day stiring up a Thai feast (impressive flames included) at a cooking school, amongst others.


we had a refreshing drink at the 5 start Four Seasons chefs in training

Monday arvo: back to work!

odds and sods

I'm thinking Australians have dropped in the Thailand people's opinion stakes at the moment: having beating them in the Asian Football Cup in Bangkok on Monday. They are very gracious though - I can't really see a difference (though the Aussie t-shirt stays in the cupboard!).

Here's a photo showing a Thai "dessert speciality". Yep, it's pumpkin. For dessert? Yeechhh.....

More of the same, really

Just back from a weekend at a nature camp.
This week we planted on a 60 degree slope.
Here are some of the happy snaps!

Lots of Planting and Going With The Flow

Not exactly what I’d anticipated as being low key ……..

On Saturday we had our pinnacle tree planting day in the National Park, in the hills above the Hmong hill tribe. I roped in a group of Chiang Mai buddies to help with the 10,000 tree task. We were joined by a lot of other volunteers, some villagers, an army group and a whole circus of journalists from Bangkok. Might have gotten an action shot and some quotes in the national English-speaking paper, we’ll see. Quite a fun day, and without a doubt the best soil I’ve ever planted trees in. Digging the holes was almost a pleasure.

Language class, aussie volunteer buddies and media at the planting day

And then on Sunday…….. there is absolutely no need for me to embellish this experience (not that I’m in the practice of embellishing my blogs mind you!).

It’s the start of the main white water rafting season and I’ve never gone before. A friend from Bangkok was in town - she’d been a rafting guide in Colorado for 2 years. She swinged an invite for us to tag along for a paddle with a world class rafter from the US and a group of his Bangkok friends on a nearby river called the Mae Teang. I ended up in an inflatable kayak with a local guide, tagging along with the group of solo kayakers. In hindsight my guide and I probably should have stopped BEFORE the grade 4+ rapids. Many of the kayakers did, especially one who dislocated his shoulder on the first one….

However my guide took a “may pen ray” (no worries!) kind of an attitude, who was I to argue the point, and so we continued. We cleared the first rapid fine – “THE MOST EXTREME KAYAKING RAPID IN THAILAND” I found out later, but on the second and much, much longer one we came unstuck (or stuck, I can’t remember) and bounced around in the drink for most of it. Found out there’s not a lot to grab a hold of on an upturned inflatable kayak. Lots of bruises, lots of swallowed water, but I survived. We regrouped. Guide confessed that he really didn’t like that 2nd rapid very much – yeah, thanks for that mate….

There were many more rapids that afternoon, with no more major spills, happily. Again, it was an extreme experience the usual tourist groups don’t get to have. Easily my most terrifying experience in Thailand so far (and, I hope for the rest of the trip) - I’m pretty proud I kept my cool throughout it.

I’m still paying the price for all this fun, in alternatively blue, black, purple, red and yellow splotches.....