TIGER LEAPING GORGE AND THE TREK HOME

We had only two days left before Richard needed to return to Hong Kong for his flight to the US but the gorge was only about 3 hours from Li Jiang by bus. The gorge was cut by the Yangtze River and was the only remaining untamed part of this river. Known as the "Golden Sand" River here either because of the deposits of golden sand on the banks or the deposits of gold, it forms a canyon as deep as the Grand Canyon and much narrower across. Westerners have bee trekking there for 10 or 20 years and a road has been put through at about midlevel.

Since our time was very limited we decided to take a minivan from the park entrance to Tina's, a hotel on the road about half way through the park and hike down the gorge to the river. We arrived by noon, stowed our luggage in our room, ate some lunch and began our hike to the second rapids about 2000 feet and 2 hours walk below us. The river at 6000 feet above sea level runs between two 18,000 foot peaks though it is impossible to see the summits from the bottom of the gorge and one only gets glimpses of them from the road. There was a line of Chinese descending ahead of us but held up by one fearful and slow woman in the lead. We slowly made our way down to the bottom and everyone climbed on to the rock that the tiger leaped from to cross the gorge. Of course, the other side of the gorge was shear and vertical, so it wasn’t clear where the tiger leaped. Everyone took turns taking pictures of themselves on the tiger rock. It seems that Chinese tourists have mandatory photos at all the sites. The air was fresh, clean and clear. We were in the gorge next to the second. The trail up, ascended by a series of ladders over rock faces and again there were enough hikers that you had to wait for your turn on the ladder. We were however, the oldest people in the gorge, and two of only six westerners on that sunny wonderful afternoon. Judy decided that she couldn’t make it back to the top of the trail when a man with donkeys showed up and offered to take her up for a small fee.

The night was cold but our beds had heating pads so despite the wind rattling the windows and the lack of heat in the room we were toasty and warm. We decided to get up early and hike to the end of the normal trek which was about 40 minutes down the road to Sean’s Guest House where we had breakfast. The rest of the day consisted of making travel connections back to Li Jiang, visiting a little more of the village She Hu outside of Li Jiang before our flights to Szenzhen China arriving on the Hong Kong border only minutes before the midnight closing and then taking a train, bus and taxi back to our apartment in Hong Kong.

The next day, Monday, Richard went to the airport for his 15 hour flight to New York and the day after that Judy went back to Szenzhen for her flight to Jingdezhen.

Yunnan without Shangri-La

We had planned on visiting two other small old cities in Yunnan, Dali and Li Jiang. We tried to catch a bus out of Kunming after returning from Stone Forest but we received bad information and there was no last bus. Rather than taking the overnight bus and arriving at 5 a.m., we stayed in town. So, it was another dinner at the western style Ma Ma Fu's and a night at the Camellia Hotel. Their Chinese food was good but the apple pie was not worth ordering.

I found that my sweet tooth was not satisfied in China. Chinese chocolate doesn't use cocoa butter but a substitute so we stuck with Dove bars which was the only western style chocolate bar available in all over. We got into the habit of buying one small bar each day. We tried some of the Chinese baked goods as bakeries were pretty common but they didn't fill the bill.

Another western luxury we didn't forgo was coffee. Most western style breakfasts offered only Nescafe or charged a premium for brewed coffee. We often spent extra for the Yunnan grown coffee. Every hotel had either electric bottled water dispensers with hot and cold spigots or an electric kettle. China does tea not coffee. In addition, boiled water is necessary to be sure that the water is aseptic. So each morning we began the day with Nescafe packets of instant coffee with sugar and lightened.

So after breakfast at the Camellia we were off to Dali. The old town is a small (less than one square mile) walled, cobbled, mostly rebuilt as a medieval city. It had had a new rather than real old town feel and was busy with Chinese tourists shopping in the stalls selling goods of all variety on the main street. It had western style restaurants on "Foreigner Street" but most of tourists were Chinese. It did have some streets with local people, their stone working shops and their local markets. It was small enough that it felt comfortable and not over run. We stayed at a small hotel owned by a Bai family (the ethnic minority). Among the westerners here, we were the only older ones. We were enough of an oddity to be noticed by the Chinese hordes.

First day we visited a park of temples and three pagodas. The pagodas dated back to 800 AD while the many temples were completely destroyed during the cultural revolution and rebuilt new about 30 years ago. Dali and the region around it has an interesting history. It was on the tea route and for several hundred years was an independent country in the middle ages. It is 65 percent minority mostly Bai though everyone speaks Chinese. We stayed at an ethnic hotels run by Mr Yin and it was comfortable, quiet with a terrace on the top floor. The second day there we rented bikes and visited the small villages and farms in the area. Again we were transported back to the traditional, poor and agrarian China. The fields were irrigated well watered and the spring soy bean crop was ready for harvest.

The next morning, a bus, this time to Li Jiang, another historic city, this time of the Naxi minority. These people are closer to Tibetans and feature Yak and goat products including yogurt and their own distinctive costumes.

Another digression - I don't know Chinese culture or history enough to really understand the place of minority groups in China. The minorities are revered. However it seems that without autonomy, the minority cultures are being absorbed into the dominant Han Chinese Mandarin culture which represents over 90% of the population of China. The people dressed in colorful costumes are primarily young and work for the government in these theme park like re-creations of probably dying cultures. It is in the small outlying villages that you see the minorities, old, poor and peasant working the fields. I suspect that the intermarriage and absorption of these groups will lead to their disappearance in this century. Without real autonomy they will vanish.

Another bus, this time to Li Jiang another historic city, this time of the Naxi minority. These people are closer to Tibetans and feature Yak and goat products including yogurt.
So,there we were in Li Jiang, another Chinese city with a theme park old town. It is picturesque but inauthentic. At night, the bars and restaurants pump up the volume, have minority dance performances to compete with each other for the Chinese tourist. We were warned to not stay in the old town because of the noise level and so we checked into a hotel and hostel run by Tibetans, a few blocks outside of and with a great view of the old city. We visited the old city with its stalls selling Yak products, tea and local handicrafts and realized that we didn’t want to spend our last day there. The next stop on the Chingo (that is the Chinese Gringo Trail, obscure but email me if you want to understand the allusion) is Shangri-La. The Chinese tourists much revere this small city as well. It became famous in the west due to the 1933 novel by James Hilton titled “Lost Horizon” about a utopic valley of eternal spring lost in the mountains of Tibet or Western China. It is also a film from 1937. Wikipedia has some interesting comments about the author, the film and its effect on the public; check it out. We want to see the natural rather than the artificial so we were off to Tiger Leaping Gorge.

From Yangshuo to Western China

Friday evening: The weather cleared, it stopped raining so we climbed to the top of the peak in the park in the middle of Yanshuo and were greeted by a beautiful view of both the city and the mountains.

Saturday: This was our last full day at Owen College in Yangshuo and it was the first really clear sunny day since we arrived in China. So, we rented bicycles, found a group of about a dozen students from the college and went off on a bicycle trip down the Yu Long River. We rode for several hours going from two lane concrete roads, to one-lane roads to dirt roads to mud paths between the rice paddies. John, one of our leaders first had a chain mishap and then a flat tire on his bike that he managed to get fixed by finding the village bicycle repair person and waiting for him to arrive. Finally we stopped for lunch at a narrow concrete bridge over the river. There was an outdoor restaurant with separate cooking shack. One of the students ordered lunch which consisted of about five dishes: fish, chicken, pork, tofu and vegetables. The owner of the restaurant netted some fish that were in an impoundment along the side of the river. The fish flopped around on the concrete pad until he came over to slaughter them. The wife of the owner took a chicken killed, plucked and cleaned it in the river. While we waited for lunch to be served, a few of the guys took out bamboo rafts on to the river and poled back and forth. Lunch was served family style. The chicken was bony, the fish had bones and scales and had to be picked to get to the flesh. The students savored the fish organs as well as the fish itself. I again felt like becoming a vegetarian and relied on the tofu dish for my source of protein. The pork however was very good.

After lunch we all went on the river in bamboo rafts while Alex and John poled us around. Judy and I taught English songs to the students including Row Your Boat, I Love to Go A'Wandering (Valderie) and Bicycle (by Queen). Finally we took off again in search of the "old" Dragon Bridge across the Yu Long River. After several hours more of riding, two false turns, another flat tire, and a side visit to the Li Familial House (only about 100 years old) we arrived at the bridge.

We had made plans to take an early bus to Guilin with Trent (the acting director), who would arrange for us to see some if the city and then get us to our plane. We totally misunderstood that Trent was going to a job's fare and that we were going to help him interview Chinese applicants for jobs at the college. We tested the fluency of around twenty people and rated their proficiency. We then met a group of local students who took us for a walk in a park and down to the Li river which runs through thew city. The plan was for Trent to meet us with our luggage. Of course he was late and we had to rush to make the plane. Judy asked the driver to hurry and he drove like a madman. We think that none of them have flow or realized that you have to arrive at least an hour in advance.

We arrived in Kunming airport, two hours to the west of Guilin, booked our return flight to Hong Kong, found a hotel room and took a minibus into town. The next morning we took a bus to Stone Forest (Shi Lin), about 90 km from Kunming. This formation of pinnacles, passageways, mazes, balance rocks, are the eroded remains of limestone mountains (karst). The park was overrun with Chinese tourists in groups led by guides dressed in clothes of the local ethnic minority, but very much in costume.

Teaching at Yangshuo

The school is located right in town and from the roof there is a wonderful view of the Karst mountains and the rooftops of the houses. Most of the houses in this neighborhood look relatively new and there are solar water heaters on the roofs. Yangshuo is located as far south as Key West Florida and while it has no frost, the weather in the winters is very cool and misty. We have had very few clear days in south China including Hong Kong and Macau.

This Monday to Friday we will be going out to countryside villages and teach English to third to sixth graders. The schools have mandatory English starting in the third grade but generally don't have enough English teachers to satisfy the curriculum. The Owen School where we are staying in Yangshuo provides ESL teachers to these villages. Each day at 1pm we are taken by van to a different village and teach two classes of English to the Chinese students.

On Sunday we had a quiet day, walked around the commercial part of Yangshuo where the shops, stalls and cafes are located. Richard was still cold so we shopped for and bought a fleece for him. I don't know if it was a real Timberland or a knock off but the zipper seems a little cheaper than what I would have expected for a real one. We took a small tour on the Li River in a motorized Bamboo. The raft holds maybe 8 people but we were her only customers. The weather was overcast and cool so it wasn't an optimal time for floating down the river but the scenery was beautiful. The scenery was beautiful and she told Judy in Chinese what the names of each of the mountains were and refused to continue on until she took a picture of each site. The mountains are other worldly but just like they have been depicted historically on Chinese scroll paintings. After about a cold hour on the river we were dropped at the quai and went to a cafe for a real coffee. The Chinese drink tea not coffee so it is difficult to find real cups of coffee except in the districts that cater to foreign tourists. We found a small in just off the tourist commercial district and ordered our drinks. There we met a Chinese couple from Guandong and spent several hours talking with them. She is a business student in an MBA program at Columbia University in New York, he was a lawyer. Her English was quite good while his was marginal. We had a wonderful talk with her about modern times, the economy, the Chinese cultural revolution, nationality and ethnic identity. It was a relaxing and informative afternoon. We exchanged email addresses and went on our ways.

Monday the weather cleared and we had blue sky and warm weather in the Yangshuo valley. We spent the morning walking around the town, visiting the local park and orienting ourselves in town. We headed back to Owen College for lunch. The meals are quite good and the food is copious. Rice is served at all three meals. In the morning it is in the form of a rice porridge while at lunch and dinner it is served to accompany the stir fry dishes. Breakfast also has noodles, steamed buns and Beijing sticks, which are kind of like crullers but not sweetened.

After lunch we were taken to Moshan a small village about 20 minutes from town. We were greeted by the principal of the school who thanked us for coming and offered us boiled water before the class started. Since the water in China is uncertain, we will only drink the water if it is boiled. We are generally eating fruit and vegetables if they are peeled. We have seen along Li river that people wash their vegetables with river water, and we were told that there is little sewage treatment and that waste flows into the river. We taught two classes a 4th and 5th grade class. It was kind of like doing Sesame Street live. We did a song with them, acted out the meaning of each line and then had them perform it. We discussed the English words for body parts, colors, foods, and positional prepositions by acting out each word or phrase. The class rooms were very stark, with wooden desks, white concrete walls, floors and ceilings. There is no heat in the rooms and the children were wearing their outdoor clothing during the class. While it had warmed up it was still chillly inside. There were about 16 pupils in a class and they weren't the well behaved children we had expected. They tended to not pay attention, and talk to each other. I'm not sure if it was the substitute teacher syndrome that we all know from our own childhoods or there is a new sense of freedom and unruliness sweeping modern China. It is challenging, exhausting but satisfying to go into these agrarian villages and teach the children English. It seems that even if the U.S. fades as the predominant power in the 21st century, China's decision to teach all its school children English starting in the thrid grade will leave English as the common language (lingua franca?) of world business and tourism. Most of the classrooms had pictures of the pantheon of communism above the black board, namely Marx, Engels, Lenin, Mao, Sun Yat Sen a nationalist and father of modern China but not fitting with the others. Those pictures are probably 30 years old or more but Mao is a continued presence in modern China with his photo on all the money.

Our mornings are free so on Tuesday we rented bicycles to get around town and visit the countryside. China outside of the city is an agrarian peasant society. Just 15 minutes from town the villages are agricultural, poor and run down. At the same time the gardens and plots are neat, well cared for and varied. We could see every sort of vegetable and fruit growing between rice fields. The rice was in various states of growth from just being planted, to flooded to large stalks coming out of the ground. Everything gets used and reused, piles of sticks, bales of rice straw, vegetable and fruit peels are each in their proper place. Old tree stumps are made into furniture. The people for the most part are tending their fields by hand with hoes, shovels and the fields are plowed by hand with a man directing a water buffalo pulling a plow. The valleys around Yangshuo are very smokey and hazy. There is a lot of burning, for cooking, for clearing fields, by the trucks powered by two stroke engines, by motorcycles and cars.

Bicycling through town is an experience. No one seems to really pay attention to the traffic laws. It is survival of the strongest here. If you are a bicycle, yield to motorcycles. If a car, yield to trucks. Every vehicle moves slowly enough so that somehow it seems to work but when on the bike, I find it necessary to scan the complete horizon in all directions to feel safe. We are driving, one gear girl's bikes with hand brakes and thick wheels. Anything faster that this would be dangerous to handle in this town. I can't imagine zipping through the city with my 20 speed racing bike.

The Great Leap Forward to China

It's been a busy few days since Macau. We got ready to travel into China, bought
tickets for the overnight busy from Shenzhen to Yangshuo and crossed the Hong Kong border to Szenzhen China. Shenzhen was a small fishing village when the government declared it a special economic zone 30 years ago. It is now a city with over a million people and much of the production for export in China. We spent the afternoon at a Spa (where Richard was snookered into buying a premium service) but we were relaxed and ready to go.

We had only a short time to get from the train station where we were dropped off after the spa to the bus station to catch out bus so we asked a policeman in the train station for directions. He spoke only Mandarin so Judy did the interaction. It was incredible that he said he would show us and proceded to take us on a twenty minute walk first to the wrong bus station and then after asking one of the guards, to the correct station, taking us first to the ticket window get our tickets stamped and then to the departure gate. The bus had beds, upper and lowers and three rows across with aisles separating them. The beds had pillows and blankets and out could easily stretch out. At least someone my size found it possible to stretch out. While it was comfortable, it was difficult to sleep, as initially, the bus television and radio were on, and after that between the driver honking, the baby next to me crying and the man behind us coughing the was constant noise. The weather turned nasty and the rain poured down most of the way.

We arrived at 5am in Yangshuo and had no idea what to do. We had planned on going to a restaurant for breakfast but when the taxi driver took us to an open, water soaked restaurant with the temperature no greater than 50 degrees, we decided to take a cheap room for a few hours and sleep until we were ready for breakfast and to call the school where we would be teaching.

After breakfast, we called and met the director of the school, an expat Canadian who has been in Yangshuo for 7 years now. His position is voluntary and apparently his wife suppports him with
a job heading another English program. He arranged for us to be taken to the school which consists of an adult program teaching ESL to Chinese who are resident at the college and the volunteer program which sends people out to small villages in the area to teach third to fifth graders. They provided us with a dormitory room with private bath with some minimal plumbing and three meals a day from Monday to Friday while we were teaching. The accomodations were comfortable enough and conveniently located in the heart of the Karst mountains of Guanxi.

That afternoon we were taken by minibus with a few other adult students to Moon Hill a famous natural bridge about 15 kilometers from town down the Li River. Trent the acting director of the college led us, Jenny a 42 year old retired Chinese bus driver drove the van with us and two other students and we hiked up to the top. As the weather started to clear a little and warm up, it was a wonderful hike with incredible views of the mountains and fields below. All the way up, we were accompanied by three Chinese women who wanted to sell us bottled drinks. They walked most of the way up the mountain with us in the hope that we would eventually buy something. Trent told us not to buy anything because they come often to hike the mountain and he didn't want them to always pester him to buy drinks. After, hiking to the top and back we went over to Moon Hill Village and had lunch at a Mother Moon's Farm Food restaurant.

The school and its students are very welcoming. Everyone introduces themselves, meals are family style Chinese and ping pong and badminton games are always going on outside in front of the dining room. We are looking forward to teaching on Monday.

Macau - What is Real?

Macau, like Las Vegas or Disneyland (there is one in HK) offers yet another way of seeing. I discussed the difference between touring and traveling, in a previous installment about Thailand. In addition, there is a third possibility, that is to visit a contrived resort/theme park, and to be sucked into the space-time continuum of nowhere. While these sites are often done with great taste, with detailed reproduction, they shouldn't be confused with travel. Many such warps in the continuum exist (kudo's to Doc of "Back to the Future"). Modern day shopping malls are often so similar from one place to the next, that there is little or no way of knowing where you are unless you leave. This homogenization of the upscale shopping experience struck me in Hong Kong where except for the Chinese characters on some signs, one could be anywhere else in the world. The shops sport such names as Bose, Godiva, Chanel, Versace, Gucci etc. These HK malls are entered be exiting any large subway station where you end up at the mall rather than the street. That higher level of contrivance, the theme park casino, is where in addition to the gaming floor there is an upscale thematic mall that reproduces a famous site that you would want to visit. While Macau can't yet compete with Las Vegas, it has casinos in large measure. The Chinese have always loved to gamble.

Macau is the only place in China where casino gambling is allowed. It is permitted because it already existed under Portuguese rule when the territory reverted to China in 1999. We visited the Venetian Hotel and Casino the evening of our stay. Many of the same casinos in Las Vegas have set up shop in Macau. This was my third trip to Venice: the first time in Italy, the second in Las Vegas and this time in Macau. I was so familiar with the layout that I was able to tell Judy where the gelati stand would be located. I was wrong, however, it was not gelati but Hagen Daz ice cream. The Grand Canal and St Marks Square were ringed with shops selling the usual designer labeled goods and expensive restaurants catering to international tastes. We found a gelati stand, an easy stroll along the canal and shared one while sitting at a Brazilian Churrosco (meat on a spit) restaurant, served water by a Phillippino, overlooking the Gand Canal of Venice, in a city in China that looked more Mediterranean than Chinese.

So, what is genuine and what is not? I'm sure I have a categorical answer to this question. I've read that the designer goods created by the fashion centers of the US and Europe, made in China and sold the world over is available cheaply in China as knockoffs. Apparently, the Chinese factories continue producing the designer goods in excess of the designer's needs and then freelance them. This allows the workers to have continued employment after the orders have been filled and the owners to profit. These additional goods, do not have the same quality control or labeling as the designers original, but are quite similar to what is being sold by the fancy Fifth Avenue shops in New York or on the Champs Elysee in Paris. Are these items counterfeit or genuine? I'm sure I don't know but they are supposed to be on sale in Szenzhen across the border from Hong Kong. Such pirated production also provides the social benefit of cheaper goods for consumers and additional employment for the workers. In the current state of the world economy both are welcomed.

Another very real encounter was with 4 twenty year old Chinese women at the Antique House Museum in Taipa. Helen, Sheila, Tina, Irene were living in Macau studying business. Their program was taught in English and so communication was easy with them. We talked about our lives, where we were heading, our family, language, life in Macau etc. They were from Beijing, Guilin (where we are headed) and Guandong (north of HK and Macau). They were surprised that we paid for our childrens' education and let them study whatever they want. They were surprised that we were traveling by ourselves through China and that Judy speaks Mandarin. They were very interested in visiting the US but realistically realized that it would not be possible for many years. When we began to say good-bye, they asked if we could exchange email addresses and we invited them to visit us if they were ever near Boston. We took group photos and went on our ways. We visited the fishing village in the south of Taipa in the drizzle and fog and then headed back to HK.

Macau - A Tiny Bit of Europe in China

We have almost exhausted our visits in Hong Kong, so we decided to go to Macau. Macau is about an hour by turbo-ferry from HK Island. We packed minimally to be able to spend the night there if we chose. Leaving HK and arriving in Macau required us to pass customs each time. Both are autonomous and legally distinct from China for the next forty years or so.

We took a pedicab into Macau old town, paying too much, as we didn't do our homework to figure out how to get there and what to visit. After passing through a wide avenue lined with casinos we arrived in old Macau and found it to be a charming Mediterranean city. It much reminded me of Lisbon, Portugal with stone multicolored sidewalks, pastel colored stuccoed buildings, painted tiles embedded in the exterior walls of buildings and old forts and churches in ruins. Macau was colonized in the 1500's by the Portuguese and they remained there until 1999 when it reverted to China retaining some autonomy for 50 more years.

Old town was charming and buzzing with tourists, most of them Chinese from the mainland. We visited the local museum which gave a historical view of the area and a picture of traditional life and I had a discussion with a Phillippine guard about the Boston Celtics. We met a local expat Australian, Louise, who invited us to have coffee with us who had been living in Macau for 8 months while her husband worked for a company manufacturing casino equipment. She gave us her recommendations for additional sites to visit and where to stay and we sat and talked with her for over an hour at the coffee shop. One of the more satisfying parts of travel for me is the meeting of people and sharing for some brief moments glimpses into eachothers lives. Then, more site seeing, on to the Best Western Hotel on Taipa Island (south of the city) dinner, walking around in the village of Taipa and sleep.

Bangkok Redux

The second full day in Bangkok we did another walking tour out of the Lonely Planet Guide. You probably guessed by now, that we saw more temples and Bhuddas. In brief, we visited Wat Saket at the top of an artificial hill name Golden Mount. A happy Buddha smiled at us on the way up the path and good views greated us on the top. After descending, we walked down a street where all manner of religious statues and furnishings is sold in store after store, kind of like the Bowery is for lamps and lighting fixtures on the lower east side of New York.

We walked through a neighborhood that hand made metal monks' bowls. These bowls were traditionally used for alms and for their meals. We watched them hammer them out and then bought one to support a vanishing craft and as a souvenir. The young Thai in the photo sold us the bowl we bought. We visited another temple and sat in on a midday service led by a monk and attended by probably 100 faithful. From there we bought some street food, sat in the shade and walked through several parks and tried to stay out of the sun. We were dog tired at this point, but it is said that only dogs and Englishmen stay out in the noon time sun. When we started to head back to our hotel, we were intercepted by a tuk-tuk driver. These three wheeled, open sided, noisy, gasoline driven golf carts scoot around the city and are often carry tourists. The driver offered to take us to four sites for less than a dollar fare, if we agreed to go with him to three different shops that cater to tourists. We were too tired to object and he promised "free lookings", that is, no need to buy. The deal was that he got coupons for gas or food for his children when he delivered us to the export shops. We were more tired than interested, but it turned out to be a fun afternoon of "free lookings". I even bought two hand tailored shirts from two bolts of fabric I chose (or maybe that Judy chose) at James Tailor's shop. The shirts were really inexpensive and nicely made and they delivered them that evening at 9pm to the hotel. The other tourist

shops sold jewelry or mostly Thai made goods as souvenirs. The driver dropped us at a flower market along a canal (see photo), and we took many pictures of the food dead and alive sold there (see tongue and live fish photos), then took a ferry back to our hotel.

That evening we had curry for dinner and then massages, me a Swedish and Judy a Thai.

Our final day in Bangkok - We took a ferry to the subway (above ground) and then to Jim Thompson's house. Jim Thompson was an American ex-pat architect that fell in love with Thai silks at the end of World War II. He started a business importing silk fabrics to the US and built his compound in the neighborhood across the canal from where the weavers lived. His houses were six reassembled traditional Thai houses around courtyards and quiet gardens . He was also a collector of Thai art and had a grand personal collection at this compound. He mysteriously disappeared while walking in the jungle of Malaysia but his legacy remained for all to see in this collection of art in his houses.

That was all for Thailand, and we went to the airport that afternoon and returned to Hong Kong. We both felt that it would have been really nice to spend more time in Thailand but our tickets were unchangeable and besides China waits.

Bangkok - Buddhist Temples and Travel

Thais are genuinely friendly, open and welcoming. They also seem very religious and take both the Buddha and the king very seriously. Today we visited the three most important temples as well as the former royal palace on a walking tour taken from the "Lonely Planet Guide". To visit the temples, it is necessary to be appropriately dressed: long pants and sleeves and you have to take off your shoes when you enter.

We began our walk by taking one of the ferries that run on the river which passes through the heart of Bangkok from our hotel south a few stops. The conductors of these boats are extremely skilled, signalling the driver with a whistle as to how far from the dock, how fast and when to back up or go forward, then jumping off the boat and tieing it to the dock. The boats spend as much time docking as a bus would stopping at a bus stop. It is a model of efficient urban river travel. By the way, Buddhist monks have their own reserved standing area on the boat.

We walked through a secular and Buddhist university campus and then to the amulet market where people buy good luck charms with religious symbolism. Judy bought the ring right in the middle of the photo. From there we went to the royal palace a sprawling walled compound housing former royal palaces, a museum of precious royal objects, historical pieces, weapons and money. The objects were both rich and precious. We next went to Wat Phra Kaew the holiest of temples in the palace grounds where the Emerald Bhudda is housed (it is actually jade). There are numbers of adorned praangs and stupas (painted towers) housing relics of the kings (invariably name Rama) .

By this time the temperature was near 100 degrees and humid but not to be deterred we went on to visit the golden reclining Buddha, housed in a temple at Wat Pho and taking up most of the space of the temple. The Buddha was awesome in size and beautiful to gaze at and for some reason, pictures were allowed to be taken of him. Along the side of the temple were 112 (not sure of exact numer) of bowls into each of which you placed small change as an offering. I think the tradition represents giving alms to the monks, but I'm not sure of that one.

Finally we crossed the river by ferry to Wat Arum, another temple with a grand view of the city. This temple had a tower that we ascended that had much the feel of a Mayan puramid in Central America. As we went higher, the steps got progressively steeper. This temple had shards and entire small pieces of ceramic bowls and plates embedded in its sides.

Back to the hotel for a swim and shower and then on to Khao San Road for dinner and entertainment, consisting of watching people on the street.

Khao San Road - Bangkok

Wednesday evening - We walked to the neon-lit Khao San Road neighborhood where travelers find rooms, where the whole world mingles, eats Thai curry, satay and pad Thai, where inexpensively manufactured designer goods, knockoffs and unbranded wears are sold, where hole-in-the-wall travel agents arrange transportation and rooms in Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand and points south, and where travelers chronicle their adventures at internet cafes. It is a noisy, crowded, wonderful scene of all people, with many beer drinking young adults, wearing flip-flops or sandals and carrying backpacks.

A small digression here. According to the Lonely Planet Guide Book, Khao San Road was made famous by Alex Garland's novel "The Beach", (written in 1996) which the film by the same name is based and which I previously mentioned in my blog about Phi Phi Island. The contradictions of Khao San and of travel in general is best summed up by a quote from the novel, "You know, Richard, one of these days I'm going to find one of those Lonely Planet writers and I'm going to ask him, what's so fucking lonely about Khao San Road. " Thailand is a crossroads for travelers and tourists. The tourist is middle aged or older, affluent and staying at hotels with some comfort. Judy and I are tourists despite our extended stay in Asia. Khao San may have a majority of travelers walking its crowded streets.

The young adult, with more time than money, between jobs or not working, in search of the less frequented and ergo less expensive place is the traveler. In Central America these people are said to be on the gringo trail, passing along tales of the next undiscovered town or beach. The same is true here and there is a general dissatisfaction expressed for any place where it is difficult to find a room or floor for more than ten dollars a night or dinner for more than a dollar or two. We constantly ran into travelers on their way to Cambodia because it was cheap, or to another undiscovered island off the coast of Thailand. Phi-Phi Island by contrast was considered over priced and over crowded. The problem is that by its very nature traveling and tourism tend to destroy the undiscovered places. This is especially true in these days of mass communication, transportation and the internet where "the buzz" about a place circles the world in hours rather than in years.

I have been reading Charles Darwin's "Voyage of the Beagle", a travel he took as a 23 year old, as the naturalist aboard a ship that circled the globe from 1832 to 1836. It is the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth on February 12, 1809 and seemed like a good reason to read it. At each port, Darwin would get off the ship and travel by foot or horseback for hundreds of miles and up to a month or two exploring and mapping the physical land, the flora, fauna, geology and peoples of a region. He was often uncomfortable or in danger. He represents one of the first of the modern travelers and his chronicle expesses many of desires, prejudices and objectivities of an upper class Englishman of his time. It gave me an appreciation for how easy it has become to journey anywhere.

Most of the travel and description was made along both coasts of South America and there was very little about the Galapagos Islands where Darwin made key observations on adaptation of the finches leading to his theory of evolution. The diary was rather dry and technical but those of you interested in geology more than evoluation will find it interesting. His ideas about mountain building and erosion of the land was pretty accurate despite not having any notion of the continental plates colliding leading to uplifting, mountain building and volcanism. He had a good sense that the earth had been undergoing these processes for eons based on the work of Charles Lyle's "Principles of Geology" which he carried with him.

This blog, for me, is a chronicle and a meditation, a way of finding my way in the world and remembering my experiences. I hope that you find it entertaining if not enlightening.

Phi-Phi Island

Friday - Off to Phi Phi
We spent a lazy morning reading and swimming in the pool. We were picked up by van for a 40 minute ride to the ferry in Phuket. The road was lined with shops of all variety catering to both visitor and local. We passed several gated residential complexes reminding me of retirement communities in Florida.

The boat ride took nearly two hours, passing small islets with cliffs rising out of the water. We rode past the massive cliffs of Phi Phi for the last 20 minutes and turned into the harbor, a protected horse shoe bay with rock walls on one side and a white sand beach on the other. We were greeted by locals selling hotel rooms. The island has no motorized vehicles so all the streets are quiet narrow lanes. When we arrive somewhere, we are much like dogs, circling here and there, trying to find a comfortable spot. We finally settled into the Andaman Beach Resort, a 10 minute stroll from "down town".
For dinner, another curry (green this time) and grilled red snapper. While the Indians invented the curry, the Thais perfected it.

Saturday - Sunset Snorkeling

I have come to discover the fate of US Automotive industry products. After the cars rust out, the engines are shipped to Thailand, recycled into motors for the long-tail boats that are the only motorized intra-island transportation. That these engines are American in origin, can be of no doubt, since they are large, noisy and polluting. The engines are mounted on top of the stern of the boat, an extender rod is attached to the crankshaft and a propeller attached to the end of it. The engine is balanced and on a pivot so that it can be rotated to turn the boat and the rotor raised or lowered in the water.

Today was most wonderful, engaging us in our favorite activity, snorkeling. We signed on to a long boat trip around the islands,stopping at 9 different sites and snorkeling at 3 or 4 of them. The trip lasted 7 hours, visited three islands and included a box lunch on the beach of Bamboo Island. In addition to the usual colorful fish, the most prevalent novel under sea life we saw was the giant clam in colors ranging from purple to green to red and responsive to movement. When you passed over them they would close and the color would disappear. There were also large purple and black sea stars which were almost phosphorescent. A spotted moray eel, yellow with dark spots hid beneath a small stand of coral.

The most spectacular of the islands was Phi-Phi Lay a national park with spectacular canyon like coves and no habitation. One of these, Ma Ya Beach was the location for the filming of the film "The Beach", the story of paradise overrun. We reached the beach from another cove by swimming off the boat, walking and crawling through a cave,and walking down a trail through the jungle. Finally, we watched the sunset as the boat gently rocked on the Andaman Sea.

Sunday - Walking About

After a hearty breakfast, we started to hike to a viewpoint a few hundred feet above the town with views of both sides of the island and the town below. Judy managed to go about half way where there was a first glimpse of the island below while I hiked to the top. The afternoon activity was a walk to long beach, about 20 minutes from our hotel where the snorkling from the beach was fine and the water more refreshing. We spent the afternoon snorkeling, sitting mostly in the shade and eating Thai curry on the beach. When Judy and I take winter vacations, it appears that we have been to different places. She is dark and tan while I remain rather pale. I hide from the sun because I darken rather slowly. The sun is so strong here that I have been getting more exposure than normal and Judy has burnt somewhat.

I usually wear a T-shirt and my Red Sox cap and if not walking or swimming, sit in the shade. I have been in search of Red Sox nation in Asia but thus far have been stopped only twice by fans, once by a Korean in HK and earlier today by a women from Hingham. There are not many Americans in Thailand.

Monday - Kayaking and Snorkeling
Today we rented a two person kayak and paddled to the other side of the island. This helped keep Judy off her knee which is improving at much slower rate now and enabled us to visit beach and reef not accessible by foot. The reef had wondrous coral though the number and variety of fish were better on Long Beach. Judy claims to have seen 6 sharks at Long Beach which I could not verify.

Tuesday - We decided to try out a beach closer to the airport so that we would be able to get our flight to Bangkok on Wednesday. So, we took a ferry and van to Mia Yang, another beach town but within walking distance of the Phuket airport. It was a quiet town, a beautiful beach with small hotels and bungalows. The beach had a barrier reef, a quarter mile from the shore but we didn't swim out to it as it was a little far and shallow especially at low tide.

Wednesday - We arrived at the airport for a noon flight and soon found out that our flight was leaving three hours late. So, instead of having the afternoon in Bangkok we spent it at the gate waiting for our flight. We finally arrived, took a taxi to downtown and checked into a hotel with swimming pool and terrace right on the river. The hotel was close to the cultural sights of Bangkok and since there are commuter ferries plying the river, a convenient way to get around the city. The pool was most appreciated as the temperature in Bangkok was around 100 degrees and humid. That evening we walked to Khao San, backpackers neighborhood. More about that in the next blog installment.