more in Laos

This could be a long one. So much has happened and I often don't know how to do it justice. Ok, well just for the basics, I spent 5 nights ultimately in Luang Prabang, then I took a bus for around 3-4 hours to Nong Khiaw, spent a night there, took a boat to Muang Khua, spent a night there, then took a bus today to Oudomxai. Tomorrow I will take a bus 3-4 hours to the China border which I will cross on foot, then catch another bus to Mengla, in southern Yunnan province of China.

Now for the good stuff. I just don't even know where to begin. In Nong Khiaw, I stayed in a bungalow. It's a small village along the Nam Ou river. There were a few other foreigners (falang) running around. A lot of folks go to this village then continue an hour upriver to a town called Muang Ngoi which is somewhat of a touristy place in the area, which means they have a few more cafes catering to westerners and a bunch of guesthouses. Both these places are dusty and small. There are chickens everywhere. Baby chickens too.

About animals in Laos, there are dogs and cats running around all over the place. Kittens and puppies are common. I'm guessing spaying isn't exactly a priority. Livestock is common. I see water buffalo a lot. Also something that looks like a water buffalo but is pink. Cows are reasonably common too, often with the typical giant bell around the neck. They are often standing in the middle of the road between cities and the buses honk at them to get out of the way. Chickens and ducks also wander the roads freely. Sometimes it is clear to whom they belong, but in villages they just sort of wander everywhere. Today I saw a small monkey-like creature playing with some girls. It seemed to be a pet as far as I could tell and quite domesticated.

Then we talk about the bugs. I must admit, I'm a bit squeamish bugs. Not phobic or anything, but I don't particularly enjoy them crawling on me and I'd say find it discomforting in proportion to their size. In Nong Khiaw I was sitting at an outdoorsish cafe talking and eating with some people and of course there are all manner of flying insects investigating our edibility. Periodically beetles fall from the heavens or ceiling and land on you. You just sort of get used to removing them, though I never quite got used to the ones falling into my hair. You never think you've gotten them out so I walk around with a permanent afro from raking my fingers through my hair to make sure. I tried to buy a hat in Louang Prabang, mostly for the sun but it would've been handy for this as well, but apparently they don't make heads here as large as mine. Me and the Lao hat girl I spoke with had a laugh over that, trying to squeeze any of her hats onto my orb-like cranium. Failure.

Anyway, I stayed in this bungalow under a mosquito net. There was a squat toilet in a sort-of walled off section of the room. I awoke in the middle of the night to use that, put on my flip-flops, and immediated noticed in my sleep-like haze that clearly something was biting me. A lot. Lights on, glasses on, lots of ants. Apparently the giant spider I subsequently noticed in the bathroom was full and not doing any good. I got them all off but for the next 30-40 minutes in my bed was convinced they were still on me. I looked like a 60s rock star having a bad trip I'm sure. At least the impressively large cockroaches skittered out of the way and left me be. I tucked the mosquito net into the bedframe extra well that night.

You know in the movies, the roosters always crow at key times like dawn. As it turns out this is a lie. Sorry for being such a city slicker and not knowing this, but hey I grew up in the suburbs, what do you expect? As it turns out, it is more like every 10 seconds starting at 3am or so. This is not picturesque either as it is in the movies. It is right outside my window, and it's usually say 50 roosters village-wide trying to outdo each other. I think there are almost as many roosters in Nong Khiaw as people. They panic easy too. They don't attack, but if you come within a few feet of one, sometimes it pretends to ignore you, then all of a sudden flaps its wings and makes a break for no direction in particular. Fortunately, there is something innately comical to me about roosters and chickens so I never felt particularly threatened. It's also weird watching cats and other animals that we in the west consider traditionally domestic associate with livestock. I saw dogs herding goats and things like that, which I suppose is common enough in farm settings but not something I get to see all that often in the east village. Ok in Chinatown maybe it'd be less far-fetched, but not really.

I took a 6 hour boatride from Nong Khiaw up to Muang Khua. Very nice scenery. Similar to my trip down the Lijiang river in China, though the limestone "karst" scenery isn't quite as overwhelming. That said, it is awful green and certainly beautiful in its own right. I rode upriver with Teresa, a girl from Ireland I'd met in Nong Khiaw and with the boat pilot and his wife. We had a few locals with us at various times, some of whom got off at smaller villages en route to Muang Khua and others whom got on for various portions of the journey. Transport is not exactly reliable here. We'd often pass broken down boats and the day before I'd often pass broken down buses and the drivers stop, offer assistance, and offer to take on any stranded passengers.

The notion of a schedule is very loose here. When I arrived at the Luang Prabang bus station that day to go to Nong Khiaw, I had been told there was a 12pm bus. I rolled in and at that time there were only 2 people ready to go, so they told me they'd be waiting for more people. I asked how long. They said, maybe 3, maybe 4pm. Aha. Most transport in Laos works this way. There's some number of buses that go each day, or in some cases every few days, and you just sort of know the general time it might roll by and you can hop on. When I was in Nong Khiaw, I met a girl from Chile who was headed over the Vietnam border. She was told that a bus would come by around 9 heading her way. Sure enough, give or take an hour, the bus rolled past us and she hopped on to the amusement of myself and the packed bus full of locals, all of whom were headed that way. Her destination was 15 hours east or so. Teresa, the Irish girl, told me of a bus ride she'd shared with locals and their livestock, and said there was a goat under her seat that she prayed wouldn't eat her bag. I guess we often prepare for things like rain, but I wonder if the companies making backpacks have considered the need for goat-proof bags. Perhaps there's a fortune to be made.

Last night was one of my favorite nights in Laos. Me and Teresa were looking for food. The first place spoke no English and when I asked them for vegetarian food in Lao, they said they had none. I decided not to pursue it and seek out another place. We found a darkened garage/kitchen nearby and wandered in as they were one of the only places that looked as if they might have food. These are dirt and rock paths in a small village mind you, there's not exactly a lot of options. So I did my best with the Lao I've picked up and my phrasebook. At one point a guy rolled in who spoke a modicum of English, the only guy in town from what I heard who can speak. He learned when he was a monk in Luang Prabang. He helped us confirm and when the dust had cleared, we had a splendid vegetarian meal shared with two Vietnamese guys who come quite often to do some sort of purchasing or trading. The 9-language phrasebook I brought with me was really worth the price of admission. So we sat and talked and smoked and drank Beer Lao with all these people. Across the street there was some kind of domestic dispute which provided the entertainment. In the end, the husband of the cook arrived from a trip to Vietnam and he spoke some Chinese which was just wonderful after struggling to communicate for hours. We did well after that and overall it was just a super evening with a local family and some friends and lots of smiles to go around. I felt very lucky to have stumbled into this tiny little corner of Laos very much by accident.

I'm thinking the electricity is going to go off soon here. Usually in this part of Laos it runs from 6-10pm, so I feel fortunate to have had time to do this much. The last few villages have handed me a candle before I go up to my room. I also want to try to charge my ipod tonight before the power goes out so I can have it on the busride tomorrow to the Chinese border. I totally have more stories and will write more again soon, I think that's enough to digest for now. These adventures aside, NYC is often in my thoughts, especially in leech-infested waters and cockroach-infested bungalows. See you all soon.

Laos

I have been in Luang Prabang, Laos for a bunch of days. It's hard to know how many because everything I read in the guidebooks about Laos being a slow-moving place is completely true. The pace of life here is so laid-back and mellow, not just for the tourists but for the locals as well. Even the light in my bathroom takes 10-20 seconds to come on. The streets in town often seem empty, most people are relaxing, napping, sitting around, and just basically doing nothing and they seem quite content to do it. I read in one book that this is part of the Lao philosophy and the attitude pervades the country which of course can make it enjoyable for travelers. One book says it's the Lao PDR: "please don't rush." That being said, I met a woman who started a library here and has been living here for 4 years. She has tons of books and is helping people to study, learn English, and basically get more educational resources in their hands. She says that the laid-back approach every traveler loves so much can be a real challenge when actually trying to accomplish something.

So I've wandered the streets. This town is a UNESCO heritage something or other, so it is well-preserved and I think there are all sorts of rules about new development. There are temples everywhere and it is the former capitol of Laos actually which is hard to believe since it is a very sleepy and quiet town, but apparently again that is just how they roll here. There are a lot of foreigners here. It is the number one tourist place to visit in this country. I have been contemplating some trips to the north for apparently beautiful scenery, boatrides on the river, and increasingly less touristed destinations, but I have yet to decide. I spent yesterday at a pretty crazy waterfall about an hour outside of town where I met a whole bunch of other travelers, hiked up a perilous half-hiking-path-half-muddy-river and got small baby leeches in between my toes. There's never a dull moment!

Time for lunch, I will report on my future destination when I've sorted it all out, though I'm definitely heading to China next, just a question of how...

Bangkok

Well, this sure is one big city. It's a far cry from everything I've seen and done up til now, possibly excepting Beijing though this place feels quite different than the large Chinese cities I've visited. There are lots and lots of westerners here for starters; not only westerners, but foreigners in general. In Beijing they were around, but many locals were still mildly surprised to see me and would look. Here, hardly anybody looks. Bangkok is enormous as is Beijing, though the distances aren't quite as insane here and the city is at least marginally walkable. They have a bunch of interesting mass transit options including a subway, an elevated 'skytrain' which is fancy schmancy and brand new, and like 5 different kinds of buses ranging from cheap with the craziest driver and least reliable vehicles with no doors, to the expensive with a/c and windows and everything. I have taken the two former ones and they're both efficient and clean. I haven't ventured onto the buses because as far as I can tell nobody actually knows where any of them go. At each bus stop there is a list of numbers telling you which buses stop there, and that's it. No list of subsequent or prior stops, no map, not even a final stop or destination on the signs or the buses themselves. Just one lonely number. Anyway, that being said getting around feels easier to me than in Beijing and the traffic though bad at times is nowhere near the insanity level in Beijing.

So the city is huge and feels newer and more western than any large city I've visited in Asia with the possible exception of Hong Kong. There seems to be tons of international business going on and along with that a whole lot of international restaurants, shops, and people. It feels incredibly modern and huge compared to the places I visited in Cambodia where the capitol still pretty much feels like a recovering war zone.

I've wandered around through some different neighborhoods. Some are old and filled with temples and small markets, others are bright and filled with brand new multi-story shopping malls. I've been bouncing around between vegetarian restaurants for meals, there's tons of them here, something like 40 on the list I have. Most of them have been decent though so far nothing truly standout but I still have a few days left.

Oh, in Thailand all of the toilets have these spray guns attached which I have heard referred to as "bun guns." It's kind of like the thing on some sinks you can use to wash dishes, but the pressure on the ones I've seen is a lot like a fire hose. I will refrain from being graphic but figuring out how to best approach its use was an interesting experience which I think in the end I ultimately approved of but have not yet rendered a final judgment.

Now I must sort out my next destination. I'm still trying to figure out where I can from where I'll be able to fly to China afterwards without too much hassle. Things are a little too sketchy in Burma right now and I don't want to have to think about that while I'm traveling there, so I'll save that for another time. For those of you not following in the news, the government raised fuel prices, people protested, the government arrested some people and beat up a bunch of others including monks, then monks are pissed and want an apology among other things, the monks have begun refusing alms from soldiers, the government locked the monks out of temples and monasteries, and in general it's not a good scene right now. I hope things will resolve without too much violence. So as far as my trip goes, I'm thinking something involving Laos but I have to figure out how to get from there to the Yunnan province of China sometime around next weekend and direct flights are a little limited. I'm sure it'll work out soon enough, just need to do a little research.

I'll be in Bangkok for a few more days and next time I will write a bit about the backpacker street here called Khao San Rd filled with fast food, dreadlocks, and tattoos and perhaps by then I will figure out how to articulate why it nauseates me so much.

Off to Bangkok

In case anyone saw the news and is concerned, I am perfectly alright. There was an airline crash in southern Thailand but it is nowhere near where I will be, and I am flying on a much larger and established airline.

Today I left early in the morning and rode on the back of a motorbike about 60km outside of Siem Reap to a crumbling temple surrounded and pretty much overgrown with jungle. The ride out through the countryside was beautiful. The grass and trees are impossibly green and the air is fresh as long as you're not behind a pickup truck wheezing its last breath, but that didn't happen thankfully once we got out of town. While wandering the temple I was pretty much alone and only spotted a few other tourists at hour intervals. I've come to realize that crowds of people can really ruin my enjoyment of certain places. I also realized it is not so much the crowds themselves and the lack of space as it is the behavior of people. I mean, these are by and large temples but the sheer volume of people as they shout to their friends to take their picture is very distracting and in my opinion inconsiderate, but what do I know? In addition to beautiful fields of green, we also drove through some villages where people clearly don't have electricity or much of anything. We're sharing the road with naked kids and cows and a remarkable array of carts, modified bikes with attached wagons, and of course other motorbikes. Occasionally a pickup truck drives by loaded with people so much that they are practically falling out of the back. It's quite surreal to me.

At the temple it began to rain, and then pour. This created a really dramatic effect as I wandered around climbing on stone walls and through crumbling temple hallways. It let up rather quickly though I sought refuge in a doorway arch for about 25 minutes to wait out the true downpour, mostly because I had no change of clothes and I feared catching a cold on the moto ride home, but things slowed down and stopped so I headed back and met the driver not long thereafter. I figured I was homefree, but then we must have chased down the storm on the way back because the first 25 minutes of the moto ride it poured, or at least it seemed like it did at about 60km per hour. Thankfully the driver had a spare rain jacket so I was spared my cold and soon enough the sun came out for the rest of the ride. It felt wonderful to be riding in the warm weather down this sunny highway through these fields. It was a good morning.

In the afternoon I paid my second visit to Angkor Wat, the largest and most famous of the temples of Angkor. My first visit was pretty much ruined by the aforementioned tourist hordes, so this time the goal was to hit it at a time when I suspected there would be very few people there. As it turns out, in the late afternoon they all bail to go watch the sunrise with their tripods so I'm happy to report it totally worked out and around 5pm or so as the sunset, I was virtually alone at the top of Angkor Wat and it was a vastly improved experience. I was happy to have some time to truly wander and enjoy the place in quiet. It was a truly great goodbye as today was the third day of my Angkor pass and I'm pretty much ready to move on anyway.

Tomorrow I decided to fly to Bangkok rather than go overland, because the ticket is not that expensive and I'd rather not lose a day to the ride. From what I hear it's about 3-4 hours to the border of Thailand from here depending on the mode of transport, then some time at the border doing immigration, then another 4-5 hours again depending. Either way, it's a full day and bound to be horribly draining as opposed to flying which is less than an hour and I'll be there which sounds very appealing. There's plenty of time yet for long bus and train rides with more interesting scenery then what I suspect I'll see between here and there.

I met a woman today who is volunteering for a month teaching kids at a free school for kids who can't afford to go to the public schools, which apparently you have to pay for. She said it is something like 300 riel a day for the public schools... 1000 riel is 25 cents. I have been trying to learn more about the poverty here and I don't want to just pass through as a tourist and forget what I've seen. It is amazing how many children I've seen working or living in not great conditions without access to basic things like healthcare or education. There are a lot of organizations clearly trying to help, but it seems like the resources are really inadequate. Surely every kid should be able to go to school. With the hundreds of billion dollars we spend in a single year on our military budget, surely it can't be that hard to put some of that money to better use? Of course we all know I am a communist liberal hippie, so again, what do I know?

Ok, the mosquitos are officially eating me alive. I just can't bring myself to smother my body with deet just before going to bed. More from Bangkok...

Siem Reap, Cambodia

Just finished my second day of temple-hopping at Angkor and it was pretty much all that I expected. It's essentially a giant ancient city with dozens of sites spread out over many kilometers. I've been hiring a tuk-tuk for the day to ferry me around for about $15 USD. The most famous site is Angkor Wat. Most of them are varying combinations of gigantic thousand year old ancient temples and occasionally structures with other functions. They are all pretty impressive and it is something to imagine what this must have been like at the height of their civilization. Contrasting that with the general poverty all around me is somewhat disconcerting at times, though people here are very friendly and though I am often offered things to buy or asked for money, everyone usually has a smile to offer, especially when I try to speak the few words of the Khmer language that I have picked up.

Siem Reap is smaller and dustier than Phnom Penh but contrary to what other travelers told me, I find that people here hassle me less for moto and tuk-tuk rides, or perhaps I'm just getting used to it now. In any case I find the city to be somewhat charming though substantially more touristy than the capitol given the swarms of people coming in to visit Angkor. There's quite a lot of western pubs and restaurants and a large collection of upscale hotels but they are extremely out of place against their surroundings. My guesthouse is on a small side street, one side of which is for some reason covered with rocks leaving a small unpaved lane for motorbike and tuk-tuk traffic of which there is not much. There's not much else commercial on this steet, a few cigarette and food stands and people's homes. There are roosters running around and I often hear them in the morning. Once again, I hope the pictures will do the city more justice than the blog.

I'm really tired but I will try to write something more detailed soon. There are so many things I see to write about like unsupervised children everywhere begging, selling things, leading cows wherever one leads cows. I've seen legless or armless groups of musicians playing and trying to sell cds on tourist paths at Angkor, all landmine victims. I met a little girl who knew all the US states and their capitols, and a whole bunch of English, Spanish, Russian, Polish, and like 5 other languages. She wanted me to buy a t-shirt. Her name was Corn. My last day in Phnom Penh I went to the Killing Fields where the Khmer Rouge murdered thousands of people. There is a monument with 8000 skulls and mass graves that have thankfully been emptied but I heard not that long ago there were still bones all over. We saw only a few bones and some teeth. The background of the genocide throughout the country is very difficult to see and I'm sure even harder for so many people here to live with, including the repercussions of having all the countries teachers and intellectuals murdered and having to recover from that.

Anyway, I'm alive and having an interesting and good time and despite the awful history of the last 50 years or so, the people seem hopeful at least and I've met many who are in school at night and driving a moto or tuk-tuk during the day. I'm here for a few more days and then on to Bangkok. More soon...

Phnom Penh, Cambodia

This is my second full day in Phnom Penh, the capitol city of Cambodia. I arrived on Sunday evening on a flight from Beijing which took about 5 hours total, including a stop for about 40 minutes in Guangzhou to reload on chicken feet. At least that's why I think we stopped. I am a bit overwhelmed so let me see where I can begin.

It's really hot. Like, Africa hot. When I arrived at the hostel the first night my glasses were fogged from the humidity. It is pretty much sunny all the time, though for a few moments the clouds pass and cast blessed shade upon the city. It is the first time in recent memory that it has been so hot that I find myself walking from shade to shade. People stash themselves wherever they can during the day, the small shade of a tree, a lamppost, just about anything. I am drinking water constantly and I think staying hydrated but it is hard to tell when you are sweating all the time.

I don't even really know how to characterize the city. It's really poor and totally chaotic. It's not really a city in which one can walk, not so much because of the distances though the heat is definitely a factor, but most sidewalks are on the destroyed side if they exist. The roads vary. Major ones are paved, but many are not. Buildings also range from new to a more bombed out look. Hopefully the pictures I took will do it some justice but at the moment I still lack the ability to verbalize what I'm seeing. The main form of transport is motorbike. There are a couple of other choices but there aren't really taxis that are cars except for from the airport. There are also tuk-tuks where are kind of like rolling chairs attached to motorbikes. Those are for tourists pretty much. There's occasional variations that are bicycle rickshaws instead of motorbike, but the streets are pretty much clogged with things like that. The traffic is nowhere near as bad as Beijing though the driving style is equally insane. There are minimal traffic lights and people often drive down the wrong side of the road, especially on the motos as they are called.

The hostel is really great. The people are very friendly and they have an amazing menu so food has been no problem at all. They have a lot of vegetarian Cambodian food and a lot of Western food as well including hummus! I couldn't believe that one. It was pretty good too, though I first had two different Cambodian dishes, one of which was a kind of Thai-style curry noodle soup with vegetables and another stir-fry with tofu and curry. The food is similar to Thai but the spices are different in a complicated way that I could not begin to decipher. There is a vegetarian restaurant in town I'd like to try, but the moto drivers have a varying degree of English at their command and my Khmer is still limited to a handful of words like 'hello' and 'thank you.' so giving directions isn't the easiest thing in the world. Anyway, my room is very comfortable. They have rooms with fan and then rooms with air-conditioning, the former which is $8 per night and the latter which is $22 per night I think. I went with the fan which was totally fine the first night, though last night the power went out which I guess happens periodically around here so it got a little steamy. It was still out when I left this morning but hopefully will be fixed by the time I return. Both rooms come with complimentary mosquito net by the way, which I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed. Maybe I'll get one for my apartment in New York.

Anyway, I'm kind of blown away but adjusting a bit to the hectic and intense nature of it all. I went to a few sights in town, like the Royal Palace and the Toul Sleng Genocide Museum which I'm not going to write about now but suffice to say it was among the most horrifying things I've ever seen, though I'm glad I went. This morning I visited a place called Wat Phnom, a giant Buddhist temple in a park with a large Cambodian crowd milling about and relaxing. There are monkeys hanging out in the park. That's right, monkeys. I also saw an elephant who apparently is there for rides, but he was on break and looking for shade like everyone else.

Last thing to say is that a lot of people are constantly trying to sell things to foreigners or offer them motos, tuk-tuks, rides to the Killing Fields, and other things and it is a bit relentless. You can't really sit still without someone approaching you, at least not for very long. Walking down the streets though I do see many people who just smile and wave and say hello. The vendors seem to be concentrated around tourist spots, though walking down any street I get asked at least 5-10 times per block if I need a ride somewhere. The predominant currency for tourists is USD btw, which I thought was interesting. They do have their own currency, the Riel, but even the Chinese tourists and even Cambodians are buying things in US dollars. This is convenient in a way I suppose, though they don't take coins which means the default price for anything you buy is 1USD and rarely less. Change is paid in Riel.

Anyway, everything is ok and this has been quite an intense dive into Southeast Asia though to an extent I expected it even if I didn't know exactly what it would be like. I'm pretty sure tomorrow I'm going to go to Siem Reap and visit Angkor Wat the next day, or for sunset if I make it in time. I haven't decided on the boat or bus up in that direction, apparently the boat is expensive since it is so touristy and the views aren't all that great anyway. I may be better off just taking a slow boat along some scenic route later on in Myanmar or Laos or something like that. I will as always procrastinate and decide that later.

A really big wall

The chaos of this city is amazingly functional. Every single person seems as if they are about to fall off their bike or smash it into something, every bus is about to run over a dozen pedestrians who are not only crossing the street in busy traffic but walking directly into it or amidst it. Cars hardly ever signal a lane change and never patiently ride behind someone on the highway, and lanes are basically an imaginary suggestion, hardly a neccesity. Passing somebody through oncoming traffic is the norm, hills and blind curves be damned. I am still learning to just stop looking out the front window of the car, it never does me any good. I was walking down the sidewalk a few nights ago avoiding pedestrians and bicycles and a car pulled up onto the sidewalk and began heading directly towards me. No one except me is ever remotely perturbed by this behavior and in fact usually doesn't seem to notice it. People move just enough to avoid disaster. Buses cut off other vehicles across 3 lanes of traffic and people drive one inch away from hitting them until the bus just moves and the person squeezes by. It's hard to describe though I'd say the lack of fear is simultaneously concerning and inspiring.

So the chaos of Beijing proper aside, I escaped a few days ago and visited the Great Wall of China. I was pretty excited for this as it is one of the few wonder-of-the-world scale attractions I have ever visited and certainly one in a class of its own. There are many sections one can visit from Beijing. The most famous and frequently visited is called Badaling. From what I have heard it is the most heavily reconstructed and renovated section and very little of the original wall remains. Furthermore it is the closest to Beijing and so many tourists choose this since it is easy to get to and transportation tends to be easy enough to arrange. I've heard that there is an astonishingly wide array of tourist services, restaurants, guest houses, t-shirt vendors all over the wall, a starbucks, a cable car so you don't have to walk, etc. I'm sure you can all guess that I did not want to go there. So what did I do?

I left the hostel around 8am or so and took a cab to the long distance bus station in Beijing called Dongzhimen. I met my friend Annie there and we took the 980 bus about 2 hours or so to a city called Miyun, somewhere north of Beijing. We almost made it to the Miyun bus station and the guy told us to get off, so that his friend who was a taxi driver could scam us into a ride to the wall. We declined which did not stop the guy from following us around for 20 minutes. We got onto the next 980 bus shortly thereafter and went the extra 15-20 minutes to the Miyun bus station where we were originally supposed to get off, and from where it turns out that there is no local bus that takes you to the wall so we were left to bargain with these taxi and van drivers to take us the rest of the way. After much haggling they shoved us into a bus with 3 other foreigners trying to do the same thing and we were off. An hour later we made it to the wall. I should add that the hostel I'm staying at does have a round-trip service for 150rmb which will take you to this part of the wall, but we felt (correctly) that this would be way more adventurous and fun.

So we went to the section of the wall called Jinshanling, one of the older and less reconstructed sections that still somehow manages to have a cable car which we felt would definitely be cheating. We hiked up the hill to the actual wall and got our first view of it snaking off into the distance and out of view. The part of the wall near to the drop-off is fairly reconstructed but still quite impressive. Here's where it gets good. We made a left and hiked along the wall for the next 4 hours all the way to the nearest neighboring section called Simatai. The first part was hard. It was probably something like 90 degrees and the sky was clear and blue. Out there the air isn't bad and in every direction off the wall all you can see are green trees and mountains. So the scenery is definitely nice, but then come the stairs. So many stairs. And not like the stairs at home or in the subway station. Sometimes they are little stairs. Sometimes they are really big stairs. Sometimes they are crumbly stairs. Sometimes they used to be stairs but are now big piles of crumbly rocks and dirt with the occasional skittish lizard. But they are relentless. The stairs, not the lizards. So we walked up quite a ways along ancient sections of wall from tower to tower. The further we got, the older things got and thankfully an hour or two in things got a bit easier and the uphills started to be balanced with downhills. I took pictures which I will post after I leave Beijing which will hopefully do the experience more justice than I can with my words, but it was absolutely wonderful. There were many times where we were virtually alone on the wall. It's incredibly quiet, all you can hear is the sound of your footsteps and occasionally of a local you will run into who wants to sell you water at a price that is hard to bargain since they know if you don't buy it you will probably die. They have have the courtesy to freeze the water in advance and let me tell you after hiking all that way, that water tastes mighty good. The inflated price is still under $1USD so it's kinda hard to complain and they told us they didn't have much farmwork to do right now so it seems as if they clearly need the money more than we did.

So the hike took us about 4-5 hours total and was everything I wanted from my Great Wall experience. If anyone is thinking of going that I know, I'd highly recommend the hike or at least visiting a section that is not Badaling to get a bit more of a personal experience without being harassed by vendors the entire time and to see some of the older Ming era sections.

My legs were really sore yesterday and I didn't do much except arrange a few future airline tickets and get them in hand and go out for a few short walks. I mostly hung out with people from the hostel including one visit to a restaurant for dinner. I'm staying one more night in Beijing and will be off to Phnom Penh, Cambodia by plane tomorrow afternoon. A new stamp for my passport!

So far so good

Though I have never been on the receiving end of a golden shower, I imagine it to be not unlike my first shower at the hostel. I'm hoping that the pressure will improve on my next attempt since it was undoubtedly affected by the heated battle between me and the guy in the stall next door for hot water. I hope you like that Ben, and for the rest of you I'm sorry.

So I've got two full days of wandering Beijing under my belt so far and have had some time to form impressions. First let me say that Beijing is really, really gigantically enormous and there is a shitload of traffic everywhere. I tried to explain "shitload" to a Chinese person the other day by the way but I'm not sure how successful I was. I know how to say "extremely big" but it just didn't feel like it had the same impact and I of course want to choose the word that is most appropriate to my meaning. So it takes a long time to get anywhere in this town because there is also lots and lots of traffic. The roads are enormous and there are constantly 12 lane roads running into other 10 lane roads forming gigantic intersections which are at least slightly terrifying, though the indifference with which locals wander into traffic is awe-inspiring. Furthermore, there are comparable number of bicycles on the street to the number of cars, which are also incredibly brazen in their choice of route. I saw a 700 year old man riding 3 inches in front of a bus at a very leisurely pace and not the least bit fazed by the honking or the shouting of the driver. This or something like it happens every 17 seconds or so. The sidewalks are equally chaotic. It turns out that about 16 million people live in this city, which I learned last night is more than Sweden and Israel. I'm going to have to trust those figures since Wikipedia is blocked by the Chinese government who apparently don't want their populace to have access to these fascinating statistics it would seem.

Another overwhelmingly obvious feature of the city at this time is that it is almost entirely under construction as the efforts to prepare for the Olympics next year continue. There are cranes everywhere and various parts of various sights and attractions are covered in scaffolding. This definitely put a damper on my visit to the Forbidden City, which for those who don't know is the former dwelling of the emperor and now a giant museum. They've actually changed the name on recent maps to the Palace Museum, which in my opinion is not nearly as awesome of a name. In fact, it's not awesome at all. So I went there and it's really big and there's crazy open courtyards and gigantic beautiful structures in ancient Chinese architectural styles. There's also rooms upon rooms of priceless treasures. All of that would seem to be interesting enough, but 3/5ths or so of the place is closed for renovation, and a bunch of the more significant structures are entirely covered in scaffolding. Furtheremore, there are droves of people almost everywhere, predominantly Chinese tourists who were walking through relatively narrow areas with really large umbrellas open to deflect the sun, and paying absolutely no attention to the fact that they were blocking the only path as they pause to take turns taking pictures of each other in front of each Qing dynasty urn. I lasted a few hours and then I bailed, plotting to return someday when construction is complete and when I can bribe some janitor to let me in after closing so I can have the place to myself, like the emperor without the harem. Or with depending on how much more of a bribe that requires.

The first day was saved with a visit to Beihai Park just north of the Forbidden City which relaxed me substantially. It was enjoyable to go back to having more than one foot of personal space around me. I think that's a cultural thing with which the Chinese are more comfortable living in a country with 1.4 billion people or so. Or maybe I'm just a wuss. Anyway, the park was wonderful, then I met a friend at a vegetarian restaurant for lunch near a Confucian Temple. We then wandered through some of the traditional neighborhoods of Beijing complete with preserved old-style architecture. Those are called Hutongs and to say that it was welcome change to the 12 lane highways is a dramatic understatement. Without going into more extraneous detail, my second day was spent at the Emperor's former summer pad, the Summer Palace. This is a wonderful and large park with a mixture of greenery, hills, quiet areas, and large ancient structures which are pleasantly unrestored but generally in quite good condition. This was possibly my favorite sight in Beijing thus far. I then took yet another public bus, my preferred mode of travel despite the traffic (only 1 yuan, about $.13usd) over to the nearby Beijing Botanical Gardens which also had a number of nice spots and which was amazingly empty save handfuls of locals at varying intervals.

In the evenings I've generally been pretty exhausted though last night I managed to stay up past 11 and now I'm at least sleeping through the nights though still waking up early which is fine. I've met zillions of people here, the hostel is possibly one of the favorites in which I've ever stayed for the general ambience, the friendly staff, and the good location in one of the aforementioned traditional neighborhoods. I'd definitely stay here again next time I come to Beijing. Last night I had dinner with my friend from Beijing and her husband and other friends at another vegetarian restaurant which she was nice enough to locate. Both of the restaurants in which I've eaten so far have been really great actually. I should probably appreciate that more since it'll be harder to locate on my next few destinations.

Finally, today is the day I'm going to the Great Wall. I'm pretty excited about that I must say. I'm going to do a 12km hike on the wall itself which I will write about tomorrow if the Mongolians don't get me.

Getting there is half the fun!

I made it. I'm at the Red Lantern House in Beijing, a friendly hostel with possibly the best common areas I've ever seen. Pictures will follow, I haven't actually dug my camera out of my bag yet but that will happen soon since my next stop is the Forbidden City.

Being majorly jetlagged, I managed to stay awake after the long flight and navigating the buses to the hostel only until about 9pm, then promptly woke up again at about 1am. I stayed awake in the common area for a while hanging out with some rambunctious card players and then a few hours later headed back to bed and got another 4-5 hours, so I'm feeling pretty good right now energy-wise. I also just ate breakfast in a decidedly non-chinese style but that's what you get in these places: corn flakes and orange juice, eggs optional.

I'm staying in a 6 person dorm, 3 bunk beds, but sleeping was no problem apart from the jetlag. Once I actually fell asleep I didn't hear a damned thing. Everyone else was apparently equivalently exhausted. The hostel is large and there seem to be a lot of people here, but it's sufficiently spread out that it doesn't feel crowded. I've met people from China, Spain, Canada, the Netherlands, England, and Israel so far. After I leave in a few minutes, my first stop is to buy a SIM card so I can contact my friend in China and meet up with her. I've been speaking a decent amount of Chinese and I feel like I'm shaking off the rust a little.

Ok, enough typing, time to go out and explore. The weather is beautiful by the way, sunny and about 75 degrees I'd guess, maybe a bit more. So it appears to be an auspicious start...

It's on

I'm leaving tomorrow. Around noon I'll be flying out of Newark, New Jersey and arriving a short 13.5 hours later in Beijing, China. From then I'll have about 6 weeks to explore a few different places. The main attraction in my mind right now are the Great Wall of China and Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Beyond that I just plan to wander the earth. You know, like Caine in Kung Fu.

I have various other destinations in mind, but I won't bother recounting them for the moment since all of that is subject to change, but I will be updating here as on my last adventure should you be curious about where I am.

I'm pretty much all packed and ready now, just going to tidy up and 24 hours from now I'll be on my way.