July 31st, my friends Monique and Greg go back to their lifes in Hong Kong and my mom arrives from LA. After seeing Greg off we waited for my mom’s arrival at the same airport. It was great to see her after three months from home.

As soon as she arrives in Mr. Du’s we are bombarded with dumplings. It was quite funny to watch her try to weasle out of eatting all of it. Ha! Ha! Ha!

The very next day we head out to her first tourist active, a nearby water town recognized by the UN as a world heritage site, Zhouzhueng. I am not sure I spelled it correctly. We were stuck in a tourist group and got out of it as soon as possible. It’s not really worth a visit. Maybe if you stayed there and woke up at the crack of dawn before the tourist showed up and made sure you left before the bus loads start showing up at around 10 or so, you may get a sense of how these old water towns might have been like. That night we went out to dinner with Mr. Du and his family and once again we were not able to treat them. They are just too nice. Or in Chinese, too much guest airs.

The following day we took her shopping around Shanghai and then we were off back to Beijing to catch our flight to Lhasa.

Pictures

Mom at water town’s famous double bridge.

Us with Mr. Du and family the night before we left Shanghai for Beijing.

After Huang Shan we were glad to go back to Shanghai. What made it even better was one of my best friends, Monique, a friend from high school, would also be there with her husband Greg. What a relieve to finally hang out with people we know so well and we know for sure would not be spitting and shooting snot rockets everywhere. The only bummer was we were still staying with Mr. Du and our curfew of 9-10 PM remained unchanged. Luckily Monique was there on business and had an amazing suite at the Grand Hyatt. So when Eddy got too drunk to go back to Mr. Du’s they offered their living room to us, which Eddy gladly accepted. Since he was more than ready to be drunk out of his mind. Which always seems to happen when he’s with Greg. Needless to say, we had a great weekend with them and their friends from Shanghai. It was nice to relive our days in Hong Kong and go around shopping for cheap things in Shanghai instead. Thank you both! We can’t wait to come visit you in Hong Kong.

Pictures

Monique and Greg at the Grand Hyatt’s 83rd floor snack bar.

The sunset as seen from the snack bar.

Ever since I was a kid I could remember wanting to visit Huangshan. I was always a huge fan of Chinese paintings, and when I discovered there was actually a place like that, I have dreamt of going. Now at 32 years old, I am finally here. Visually it is everything I ever thought it would be. Pointy peaks with little bridges and narrow stairways that maneuver the steep peak faces, going between chasms and under bolders, all disappearing into intermittent clouds. All quite beautiful, but what I did not realize is that this extremely serene place is polluted with extremely loud and unconscientious tourist. There is of course just as many conscientious tourist, but the opposite is so loud and in your face that it is hard to see past them. It sure does not help that all tourist groups are lead by a guide with a PA. So the general chatter is already loud, now they feel they need to speak even louder to talk over the PA guide. To top it off, the Chinese have an infinity to hearing their own echo as well as having unintelligible yell fest with others in the mountain that they do not know that then yell back. So it becomes a battle of who can yell louder into the void! Another note, many of these loud chatterers are loud because they have an annoying habit of yelling their conversations to each other even if they are sitting right next to each other! What is wrong with these people. The beauty of this place is not in the noise they can make but in quietly viewing and enjoying the peace and quiet that they will never get in their city apartments. I am no enemy of friends chatting as they hike or discussing the amazing place they are in, but there is just no need to be talking at the top of their lungs!

Eddy and I have done our best to keep our cool and stay away from the crowds so that we can best enjoy this place. We spent the first day just getting there. Knowing we had four full days of walking up and down these paths we decided to take the cable car up the west end of the mountain to our first hotel, Yupinglou. When we first got off the cable car and walked up to our hotel, we were shocked at the amount of tour groups around the hotel plaza. We decided to hide for a bit and recover from the noise. Around 3PM we went to see the “Celestrial Capital Peak”. It is supposed to be the most exposed and steep hike of the mountain range. It did not fail to be so. Quite nice. When we finally got to the top there were still some lingering tourist that had to have their photo taken next to the plaque that indicated their accomplishment. It was only our first day, so we just waited patiently for about 10 minutes until they all left. Quiet. Only us, the peak, the clouds and the surrounding mountains. We sat and enjoyed the peace. Of course it did not last for more than 20 minutes or so.

The following morning we decided with the clouds as dense and high that we would not bother waking for the sunrise, as is the routine for most that visit this place. Instead we started out around 6 AM to hike up to Lotus Peak. Again we were able to actually enjoy the peak by ourselves. Only a couple of quiet boys came up while were there, but about 10 minutes into our time together we could hear about 200 feet below the loud voices of the what we we’ve come to expect in the tourist around us. We decided to avoid an irritating situation and left the peak. At the peak we were given a look at the mountain we would have to climb to get to our next hotel, and the site was horrendous. The trails were packed with tourist to going and leaving this relatively flat peak. So loaded with tourist that it looked like an ant hill.

We checked out of Yupinglou and made the trek to Baiyunlou. In the process we probably crossed the paths of a minimum of 100 tour groups. I am not exagerating. The worst part of it is they just gather on these paths and stop all traffic. For goodness sakes, if you are tour guide can you learn to have some common courtesy and have your tourist move to the side while you are doing you standard babble about the sights! This is where I lost my cool. I just bulldozed my way through knocking people off the trail or just walking off the trail to avoid them. No one was endangered by my movements, just a little shook up. Sorry, just couldn’t take it any more. This is the first hiking trail or national park I have ever been where I had to wait in line to hike. I know this is the case at Half Dome, but I am sure there everyone is waiting patiently one after the other like most civilized places.

Needless to say we hid in our hotel the rest of the afternoon and didn’t come out again until 6PM. We were rewarded with a completely peopleless hike to one of the best natural views either of us have seen to date. The sunset colors were beautiful and the mountains we saw made us decide to hike this trail again in the morning but go further. We started our hike the next morning to the “Bridge of the Immortals”. From there we went on to the “Grand Canyon of the West”. Which was the place we were so impressed with the night before. With every turn the sights just got better and better. Not a soul in sight. The 3′ wide concrete pathways are cantilevered from the cliff faces, so the walk was quite exhilarating. Not for any one with verdigo. We ended up at about the halfway point when we decided we had to turn back in order to check out of the hotel in time. As were resting some other hikers came from the other direction. With my broken mandarin we realized that had just come from the hotel that we needed to move to tonight. We were quite disappointed that we did not have our bags so that we could just finish this peaceful trail. On our way back we met up with a Shanghai couple with their two kids. They also knew about this new trail and spoke english. They informed us it just opened within the last year so not too many people know of it yet.

We decided to not go back to finish the trail, we would take the shorter route to our next hotel, Paiyunlou. We decided that our morning excursion was enough so we called it a day and just hung around the hotel. I made a deal with Eddy that we would do the sunrise thing on our last morning and wake up at 4AM. We went to the nearest peak, Purple Peak. Once again we were part of an ant hill line to the top. We were prepared for this so did not complain. Of course no sunrise to be seen, too cloudy. Still with high hopes of repeating the great experience the morning before, we decided to head back to the “Grand Canyon of the West” and finish the part that we did not have time for the day before. This would then complete the nice trail. It started out fine. Ran into 4 boys hiking. Didn’t seem too loud. I even offered to help them take a photo of the 4 of them, but it turned out that though they are not loud chatterers, they were yellers into the void. So the entire hike down we could hear them and others hollering into the canyons. We thought at least there are not large groups. Win some loose some. Most of the downhill was unpopulated. Then we headed for a slow hike back up the canyon. The higher we got the more people we meet, which is not a big deal, but they were large loud groups of people not like the ones we’ve been running into so far on this trail. We even ran into a tour group with a PA we happened to be able to avoid by waiting below them. They were not about to go very far down. Frustrated, but not beaten. At least on this trail you can avoid people if you want.

Now we are waiting out our lunch digestion by blogging and also procrastinating going to the more crowded touristy areas that we have to in order to catch the cable car down the mountain. Wish us luck!

:)

Pictures

Huang Shan, our first day.

Ant hill they call Bright Summit, look carefully, the hiking path up this hill is full of people.

Closest photo to a sunrise we could muster.

“Grand Canyons of the Western Sea”, as the chinese translate it.

Eddy’s imitation of Rocky at Huang Shan.

- Note to self: Never get a buzz cut in China. I needed some relief from the heat so I got a haircut in Shanghai - mistake. The Chinese barbers like to flatten the top of the head, so now I look like a fuckin drill sargeant. Remember Jim Carey’s hair in The Cable Guy? - that could also be me. Thank God my hair grows fast. In the meantime just salute me and address me as sir.
- I’m convinced the Chinese are deaf, otherwise why do they feel the need to talk at an ear piercing 200 decibels!
- In terms of cleanliness and sanitation, China is 100 times better than Mongolia. Pretty frightening thought.
- No alarm clock required at our hotels in Huang Shan. Just wait for the hordes of people to rush out of their hotel rooms to catch the sunrise. Thank you folks for: running in the hallways; stomping your feet violently as you’re running down the stairs; slamming your fuckin door shut; conversing loudly with your family and friends - At 4:30 am I really appreciate the wake up call.
- Thanks to Yvonne for teaching me some Cantonese phrases I didn’t think it would come in handy out here. (To the Cantonese kid at Huang Shan - it’s really unnecessary shoving your face in my computer monitor as I’m typing. And since I heard you speaking Cantonese with your family I felt obliged to ask in your dialect - “what’s your problem?”. Thanks for getting the hint kid).

We’re in the Huang Shan mountains . The famous peaks of China depicted in so many paintings. This is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been to. The scenery is absolutely amazing, huge rock formations with tall pine trees, high jagged peaks that extend above the moving fog. It’s really like the old chinese paintings. What’s really crazy are the steps that have been carved into the mountains and the concrete platforms that are placed along the ledges - making access along the mountains possible.
In the early days of China, Huang Shan was the place to escape for it’s peaceful and tranquil surroundings. The early artists would come to here to paint it’s amazing scenery. It’s not quite the peaceful place these days, the place is overfilled with many Chinese tour groups. It feels like half of China is climbing the peaks. It’s really annoying hearing a tour quide blabbing away at 100 decibels on his personal PA system! Also it’s quite a challenge elbowing our way through the large groups of people. But there have been periods when Yvonne and I would actually be alone and not hear a peep out of anyone. It’s these quiet moments that really make the trip to Huang Shan worth while.

We’re back in Shanghai. It was so hot in Nanjing! The whole place felt like an oven. It’s much cooler in Shanghai but still pretty hot and muggy out here.
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Several guys (names withheld) have told me, excuse me have claimed that the most beautiful women in China are from Shanghai - I can recall one person telling me perhaps the most beautiful women in the world are from Shanghai. Well since I’ve spent several days walking around this city please allow me to comment, see below:
A) Hey (name(s) withheld)!! What dope have you been smoking?
B) My neck does not hurt - why? There’s no need to turn around for a second look.
C) Hey (name(s) withheld) have you had your eyes checked lately?
D) I didn’t know (name(s) withheld) has an ugly stick fetish.
Names have not been disclosed to protect the blind. (Plus I don’t want my ass kicked for naming names). Really guys this Shanghainese beauty thing is such a myth.
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Shanghai’s current fashion trend - Surfwear. Nothing like seeing a Shanghainese dude wearing an Aloha shirt with tight, ass hugging pants and black dress shoes. The gals sport the surf design t-shirts with high heels. Outside of California and Hawaii, I’ve never seen so many Aloha shirts in my life. What ever happened to wearing flip-flops?
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So Shanghai may not have the most beautiful women in the world. That’s okay because Shanghai definitely has the best food in all of China, perhaps the best food in the world. Hey (name(s) withheld maybe you meant food instead of women. We’ve been eating very well out here.

We arrived in Nanjing this afternoon. From Shanghai it’s about 3 1/2 hours west by train . We’re only spending a couple of days here, then head back to our temporary base in Shanghai.
Nanjing is known for it’s Ming dynasty relics and historical sites. Nanjing is not as chaotic as Beijing or Shanghai, it’s a much “smaller” city - that’s if you call 5 million + people small. We’re staying in the Fuzi Miao part of town. It’s pretty quiet and low key near our hostel. Our room has a great view of a nearby river, the water is so crystal clear - just kidding it actually looks like green tea.
Near the Ming Dynasty sites it’s very crowded, full of tourist. Nanjing feels like China’s version of Prague. Souvenier vendors everywhere - so damn pushy. Once we return to Shanghai we plan on doing a couple more sidetrips from there. See ya.

Pictures

My chinese military cut. Roof patio of Nanjing Hostel.

On the roof patio of the Nanjing Hostel, Yvonne sporting a new chinese haircut as well.

We arrived yesterday morning in Shanghai. The first thing I noticed when I exited the train station - I can actually see the blue sky and white clouds! Quite a pleasant contrast to Beijing’s permanent smoggy haze. Shanghai is quite an interesting city. Old European buildings settled among old Chinese buildings, the results of Shanghai’s being colonized by the Gui-lows and Japanese. And of course there are large modern skyscrapers that dominate the center of the city. Leave it to China to destroy and “rebuild”. In the meantime a lot of old Shanghai is still around with it’s many crowded sidestreets lined with closely packed buildings.
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We’ve been staying with a Yvonne’s family friend (Mr. & Mrs. Du) and have been well fed. In Mongolia I was constantly hungry from the lack of quality food. Here in Shanghai I’m constantly full. I’m convinced we’re being systematically tortured to constantly eat. I think the goal of Mr. and Mrs. Du is to pump 10,000 calories into our body everyday. Whatever weight I lost in Mongolia was gained back in 12 hours. Here’s the glutonous bio - We arrive 7am in Shanghai, go to Mr. Du and he picks up breakfast - soy milk and fried dumplings - lots of it. During breakfast Yvonne expressed and interest in eating the steamed dumplings at the famous Nanxiang restaurant at some point during our stay in Shanghai. (We wanted to compare the dumplings to Taiwan’s famous Din Tai Fung Restaurant). I didn’t expect to be taken to Nanxiang 4 hours after breakfast and find myself indulging in the crab and pork dumplings, plus the many side dishes that Mr. Du had ordered. (The crab dumplings are the best I’ve ever had. The pork dumplings are delicious but not as good as Din Tai Fung’s - Manuel and Vic are you reading this?) . So we leave the restaurant and Mr. Du to walk around the city and agree to meet his family at 6pm for dinner! 6pm comes around and we’re no where close to being hungry. Dinner is at a local restaurant nearby Mr. Du’s and of course they order about a dozen dishes and several beers which adds to the I’m definitely full and have serious heartburn factor. At this point I’m in need of Zantac and a defibrilator. I’m this close to being a bulemic. Oh wait there’s dessert afterwards - oy vey!. We leave the restaurant go to the apartment and out pops the fruit, watermelon and lychees! “Eat…Eat…Eat…” Oy-Vey!
Breakfast this morning, soy milk and this heavy Shanghainese rice cake. We only ate one piece each, but of course it was insisted that we eat two pieces, even though we’re so full from last night. Well we purposely made it a point to exclude the Du’s from today’s lunch and dinner plans. Otherwise our stomachs will explode!! My poor digestive system!! The Du’s have been really, really nice and they mean well, just making sure we’re not hungry. (Yvonne must have conveyed the Mongol food horror stories to them). The food in Shanghai is excellent!! But can you believe it I’m actually refusing food! We had a “lite” lunch and met our neighbors nephew (Peter) for a “lite” dinner. We came to Mr. Du’s apartment with fruit waiting for us. I’m looking foward to and fearing tomorrows breakfast at the same time.

Pictures

Famous crab dumplings.

The Bund, Shanghai.

The trip back from Ulaan Baatar was quite a lot of fun. It started with a van full of Nassan’s Guesthouse guests all going to catch a 8:05 train from UB to Jining, China. A mix of people from all over the world unknown to each other pretty much until this van ride. A French man (if the two crazy Koreans can write his name, email us), a Swedish woman (same guys if you can write her name send to us), a South African man, a Hong Kong man (Francis) and us. 3 of us had tickets arranged for us by a local Mongolian travel agent to Beijing the others didn’t or were going elsewhere. We all made it to train, pretty uneventful. Met our room(berth)mates, Jane and Kirsten, students from Edinburgh, Scotland. As we were sitting patiently in the heat for the train to start, a man stops at our room and starts just talking to us and asking what seemed rather intense questions for a random stopby. It turns out his name is Simon and he is working on the new release of Lonely Planet’s Trans Siberian book. Had a nice time the five of us talking and hanging out in our carriage. Got suckered into answering a questionaire about Nadaam and our experiences by the two girls who happened to have gotten free lodging for getting about 300 of these forms filled out. Which impressively they did get done.

We all crashed around midnight to be awaken the next day by border control. Afterwhich was the changing of the boogies, train wheels. I decided to stay on this time and check it out to compare it with our similar experience at the Poland/Belarus border. Some bordering countries do not have the same size tracks therefore the need for this timely change. Quite cool to watch though. I made a couple of short flicks which you can see if we ever get our act together and get this stuff uploaded. Got to know some more of the train folks while watching and waiting for this change. This was when the girls got the rest of the questionaires filled out. Also taught our roommates to play Big 2 (chinese card game). That was quite fun. Pretty muched played the day away after the boogie change.

By the time we reached Jining at 7:00 PM almost everyone on the train that had their tickets onwards knew each other. So we all waited at the platform to be met by this tourist company that we had blindly trusted with our money in UB for a plastic card that was supposed to be our exchange for train ticket and being taking care of the 4 hours we would be stuck in Jining waiting for our connecting train to Beijing. Luckily our faith was not tested, they were there on the platform waiting for us. There was maybe 18 of us that would be led to this sketchy, dark and greasy cafe where we were intended to rest and eat for the next four hours. No one seemed into that at all. So being the only one in the group that looked Chinese all turned to me for translator. Francis, the guy from Hong Kong was not one of the ones who had this prearranged ticket so he had a separate group that followed him to pick up onward tickets. What a bummer, so I tried my best and got through to the tour guides no one wanted to stay around and all the passengers just wanted their tickets. Which we got, but then they wanted to know if these were sleepers. That was the limit of my vocabulary. While I was scrambling through Simon’s Rough Guide Phrasebook, it turned out that amongst this crowd was actually someone that spoke Mandarin. What the hell was she doing not stepping up to the plate. I think it’s pretty obvious my Mandarin skills were close to nil. Whatever!

So onward to the next adventure, food. In the end ten of us ended up at a restaurant right across the street (Simon if you have that name, please drop a line). Simon pointed to all the foods that seemed good in his phrasebook and we all feasted on veggies and some meat. After so much time in Mongolia we were all ready for the veggies. The meal came out to less than USD $20 for all ten of us, including beer. While we were eating Francis, now the unofficial tour guide of his group, showed up for food at the same restaurant and approached us about showering at the local bath house after dinner so that we can all get a better deal as a bigger group. After a night of being pelted by sand and sweating all day long, we were all in! Then he got into a bargaining discussion with the manager of the restaurant, who was also managing the hotel above and in the end 13 of us shared two rooms and took turns showering at the hotel. We were also allowed to stay then until our train arrived at 11 PM. All for about USD $.75 each! Very nicely worked out. A big thanks to Francis!

Then it was onward ho with the journey to Beijing. We all walked over about 11 PM and waited for about 15 minutes before being allowed to get on the train. Unfortunately we were not all on the same carriage. So split up we all went our separate ways. We all assumed the sleeping situation would be similar to what we had, 4 to a room, but alas we have been given hard beds, and in China this means 6 to each partitioned space, no door, just one long hallway of bunk beds, 3 beds at each stack. And, of course, we’ve been all given the undesired upper bunk. So now we were pretty much all in one huge room, Kirsten and Jane were only a couple of upper bunks from us, so we could still chat a bit around the partitions. Then Francis showed up to check if we all got situated and we did. He passed on some info about the train and he was off to his middle bunk. How he managed that we are not quite sure. A bit after the train took off, a couple of chinese men rubbed each other the wrong way and got into a push and shove fight right in front of our bunk. Quite interesting to watch, no blood, but the train police did show up after it was all over. The main saving grace of this train was that it was fully air conditioned. Yippie! We all slept like babies in the comfort of AC.

Next morning we all dragged ourselves off the train about 7 AM. Met up with the crowd led by Francis, all those who needed onward tickets or a place to stay stayed with our unofficial guide Francis into the great unknown of Beijing. We were supposed to be met by our family friend, Mr. Jook, but unfortunately he did not check that our train actually arrives at the Beijing West Station not the main central station. So after a hot sweaty search for a non-existant pickup we called our other family friend, Mr. Shiu. Figured out the mix up and took a cab to the central station. You have to understand, we were a bit anxious to find Mr. Jook, because he had in his possession our tickets onward to Shanghai that night. No Mr. Jook, no Shanghai and goodbye to about USD$ 120. We got to the central station and tried to find him amongst the crowds of the exits. Luckily we did after about half an hour. Saved! After a very nice afternoon with Mr. Jook and Mr. Shiu’s family, we are now safely in Shanghai with another family friend, Mr. Doe.

Pictures

Changing the train bogeys.

Top bunk of hard sleeper.

July 11th and 12th was Mongolia’s Nadaam Festival. It’s the time of year that all the Mongols look foward to. The main attractions at Nadaam are it’s three major sporting events: wrestling; archery and horse racing. A fourth event was recently added - ankle bone shooting? (It’s an accuracy contest by flicking an piece of ankle bone (from some animal, I don’t know which) and knocking down a target.
We caught the opening ceremony on day one - zzzZZZzzzZZZ…. Just your typical sports event opening day stuff - live music, speech from the Mongolian President (I could be wrong but I think I heard him say “Your either with us or against us.”), little kids prancing around with flags and banners….
Getting hammered drunk is also a major attraction during Nadaam. Well getting hammered drunk is a major event all year in Mongolia. I’ve never seen so many staggering drunks in my life. I thought Seoul and Tokyo had a lot of drunks. But Ulaan Baatar takes the cake. Alcholism is a major problem in Mongolia. It’s a pretty sad seeing so many passed out people in the middle of the day.
Anyway Nadaam was uneventful for us, but apparantly it’s the must thing to see when it happens.
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Yvonne and I took a two day horse riding/camping trip to get away from Ulaan Baatar. ( 2 1/2 hours on horseback each day - with our backpacks! My butt and thighs are extremely sore today). We’re so ready to leave the city. We’re pretty bored just passing the time.
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We met a couple of Korean guys in our guest house dorm room. They are planning on traveling around the world for 2 years! I thought I was the only crazy Korean guy traveling but these guys have me beat. It’s nice to see a couple of Koreans willing to take a chance on life - quit their jobs, ignore their families conservative pleas and go traveling.
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Tonight we leave UB and will take a train back to Beijing. (By the way I forgot to mention the terrible pollution in Beijing. I’ve never seen the sky in Beijing. The pollution is so bad the visibility level is maybe 1 km) We’ll have a 12 hour layover in Beijing then hop on another train to Shanghai. I’m ready for some good Shanghainese food! I definitely lost alot of weight thanks to the Mongol diet. Adios UB! See you all in Shanghai.

Pictures

Nadaam festival opening ceremony

Mongolia president walking around the stadium

Horse back riding in Terelj

The 2 crazy Korean travelers