Anchored Down in Angkor Wat

OK, we admit it, we broke the rules of our own game! We left you last, having just decided to temporarily 'jump truck' and fly from Vientiane in Laos to Siem Reap in northern Cambodia. Our defence? The route planned for the truck was largely to be a duplication, going in and then out of Cambodia by the same road. With Sue, in particular, jaded by the long hours on the truck the prospect of cutting out 3 driving days, 2 border crossings and 1 bush camp and getting to stop in one place for 5 nights was irresistible.

So, on Monday 11th November, the guys on the truck had another 6.00 am start, whilst Sue, Sarah, Jon and I had a leisurely breakfast and then headed off to the tiny airport at Vientiane and got onto a packed twin-propellor plane, first to Pakse (a small city in the far south of Laos) and then on to Siem Reap. Most disconcertingly, as we sat waiting to taxi out, we read that on 16th October a similar plane on this very route had crashed into the Mekong, tragically killing all 49 passengers.

There had been some heavy rain-storms in Cambodia (latterly the fringes of Typhoon Haiyan that hit the Philippines and Vietnam) and from the air, we saw great swathes of the country-side under water right up to the airport, punctuated by the tips of trees and houses with a new-found shoreline.

Poor Cambodia, a country that has been in the wars literally and metaphorically for several generations. As with Laos, it was sucked into the Indo-China war and with the withdrawal of America and it's allies in the mid 1970s, it was left with a huge power-vacuum. This was filled by Vietnamese interference and, more infamously, by Pol Pot (bizarrely, this was not his real name, but an abbreviation of 'political potential' from his French university days) and the Khmer Rouge. The Khmer Rouge's policies were based on the crazed dogma of creating a 'pure, self-sufficient peasant society'. To achieve this, the cities were emptied and their inhabitants sent out into the countryside to be 'turned into peasants'; the money-economy was abolished and anyone who was, or appeared to be, intellectual (for example they committed the heinous crimes of wearing glasses, or having un-calloused hands) were singled out for the worst treatment. Dissenters, or 'enemies of the regime' were sent to torture camps for the extraction of a 'confession', before they and their entire family were brutally executed. In little more than 10 years, a quarter of the Cambodian population perished, either in the Indo-China war, or through disease, starvation, forced labour or torture / execution.

The Vietnamese called an end to the regime in 1979 by invading, but this simply pre-saged a 20 year civil war, with the Khmer Rouge retreating to the jungle and only really ending with the death of Pol Pot in 1998. The situation is more stable now, but the government and economy remains dominated by Vietnam and there is widespread allegation that the last election was rigged in favour of the ruling party. The people have an indomitable faith in the UN to help them keep their development on the right track, which could seem a little naive when noting that the Security Council allowed the Khmer Rouge a place right up until 1993 and their members apparently regularly attended sessions in New York.

The suffering of the Cambodian people in the Indo-China war and under the Khmer Rouge still felt like an open-wound at times. Our guide Chet, was 1 year old, when the Khmer Rouge entered his home city of Siem Reap. His parents were sent to an agriculture camp and he spent the next 5 years with his aunt. His parents survived and he smiled when he told the story, but there was a sadness in his eyes that belied him.

The horrors were really brought home to us though, when we visited the Killing Fields Museum (where victims were brought by the truckload to be executed and dumped into mass graves) and the Tuong Sleng prison in Pnom Penh, which has been turned into a genocide museum. Tuong Sleng was a school, which was converted into one of the main holding centres, where 'enemies of the state' were brought to have their confessions extracted. The cells were grisly enough, but the most powerful 'exhibit', was a series of panels, where the photograph of every inmate (including tiny children) holding their identification number was displayed. Here was raw, emotional power deflected back at the camera: shock, confusion, terror, pleading, denial, defiance, pain, exhaustion, anger, hatred, sorrow, pity, compassion, resignation - spirits alive and then broken.

This feels like a story that still needs to be told. Indeed the UN-backed court to try some of the Khmer Rouge perpetrators was only started in 2006 and is ongoing. At Tuong Sleng, we met Chum Mey who was one of the few survivors of the camp and has given evidence at the court. In a horrible irony, he survived, because he was a mechanic and, at the price of his life, was forced to repair the typewriters that were used to record the confessions of his fellow prisoners and ultimately his own. For a few dollars, we bought a signed copy of his memoirs and he showed us his picture in the display.

Despite this grisly overhang, we enjoyed our 8 nights in Cambodia and there is much positive to be viewed and experienced here, which explains why it has become such a big tourist draw in the last 10 years. Uppermost here, is the Angkor Wat complex a few miles to the north of Siem Reap. Built in the 12th century, it was the capital of the Khmer Empire, which dominated south-east Asia in its hey-day. We took a couple of days to see the area, but could easily have taken another. On the first, we rose at 4 am to get a spot by the lake and see the sun rise over the main temple. On the second, we hired bicycles and cycled some of the way round the huge site, stopping on a couple of occasions to take partial shelter from torrential tropical downpours.

In some ways we were under-awed by Angkor Wat itself, but wowed by the succession of temples, shrines and old walls to the north of the main site at Angkor Thom and beyond. Many of these were partially hidden by forest (indeed new buildings are still being uncovered), with tree roots growing like coiled snakes into and out of old walls. Because some of these were so well hidden, there were far fewer people around them and this exclusivity added to our enjoyment. We didn't venture too far off the path, though, as we had been warned that some areas had not been cleared fully of Khmer Rouge mines.

On one of the evenings, we went to see a Cirque du Soleil style circus show, written and performed by a school for under-privileged children that specialises in creative education. The energy and enthusiasm of the performers (particularly knowing they came from difficult backgrounds) was inspiring and, even if the jugglers dropped their props a couple of times, it was all still very impressive and enjoyable.

For the rest of our time in Siem Reap, we took advantage of the pool, read, starting getting this blog up to date and enjoyed the great food and drink in the bars and restuarants of Siem Reap. The tourist scene was interesting here, because it managed to encompass everything from the lowest backpacker hovel, sorry hostel, to a 6 star resort (owned by the Vietnamese, we understand). In any case, by the end of our 5 nights, we had got our equilibrium back and ready to hit the road again (though Archie had been left at the border and swapped for a small coach, as the Cambodian authorities wouldn't give it a licence).

We were straight back in the saddle, with a 10 hour stint, stopping at a roadside cafe, where fried terantula and other insects were on the menu (see pic below). Our next stop, Phnom Penh, was interesting as the capital and also the best place to get to understand the horrors of the last 50 years. There was not much else to see here other than a lively night scene. We initially enjoyed the £1 mojitos and the great food, but we quickly spotted the nasty underlying 'sex' industry. A lot of the bars openly had prostitutes waiting to entice customers, but far worse were the rumours that paedophilia was not far beneath the surface and stories of families 'selling' their children into prostitution. Sue and I went off to watch a showing of The Killing Fields and embarrassed ourselves by accidentally walking into the adjacent building which was a brothel: we beat a hasty, red-faced retreat, to the amusement of the occupants!

As a much needed counter-balance to this, we took a walk down to the river front (yes, our friend the Mekong again), where locals were promenading as part of the celebrations for their 'Water Festival'. We followed the tide to a large square, where a large crowd had gathered in front of the Royal Palace, which was lit up by thousands of golden bulbs. An excited and entirely good natured hubbub filled the air, alongside the smell of roasting meats and whole families were sat in circles around picnic blankets. This was a great way to finish our stop in Pnom Penh and to show us that there is an undercurrent of goodness and optimism here that will stand the country and it's people in good stead as they continue to build on their recovery from their past problems.

Our final overnight stop in Cambodia was in Battambang, a pleasant city of 250,000 people on the banks of the Sangkae river, that completed our loop of Lake Tonke Sap. On the lake, we took a short boat trip through a floating village, populated by Vietnamese Water Gypsies who had fled up the Mekong river in the early stages of the Indo China war and had never left.

On the way back to the Thai border, we stopped at a beautiful temple sitting atop a rocky pinnacle with commanding views over the surrounding rice fields. There must have been 300 steps to the top and young children wearing English football shirts raced up alongside, flapping fans to cool us and hoping to earn a $1 fee in return. It is hard to be cruel in these circumstances, but these children should clearly be at school and giving them money would only encourage them to keep staying away.

This brings us to Thailand, which we will tell you about in our next post. We will, however, just say that as we write this a State of Emergency has been declared in Bangkok and there have been riots on the streets. For those of you worrying, you needn't: we left Bangkok on 22nd November, just as the demonstrations were starting up and headed south almost to the Malaysian border where we are safely and peacefully ensconced on a beautiful island in the Andaman Sea, before heading down to Kuala Lumpur.

Welcome to Cambodia...

Sun rise over Angkor Wat

Tourists making Angkor Wat lake resemble the 18th green at Augusta

A classical view of Angkor Wat

A more hidden temple entrance, hidden in the forest

A quieter back entrance to Angkor Wat

Cycling in the jungle around Siem Reap

Gorging on coconut!

Brandon, contemplating whether to have his tarantula fried or grilled...or to adopt him as a truck pet!

Vietnamese water-gypsies on Lake Sonle Tap

A view down onto Wat Peapahd temple and to the rice fields beyond

And finally...collecting water is child's play, if one can only reach the tap!

 

Chasing the Mekong

We were in Laos for just 10 days, but it was a charming, easy going counter to the tough travelling of China. After our first stop in Luang Namtha, we headed south through the northern part of the country to the ancient capital of Luang Prabang, onto Vang Vieng, (the dramatically scenic centre for caving and rock climbing) and finally to Vientiane, which feels more like a sleepy county town than the capital of a country.

It feels barely credible at times that Laos even exists as a country. It is landlocked and surrounded by much larger neighbours (China, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam) and it's history has at times been like a game of pass the parcel with these aggressive neighbours. It's population is also a melting pot of various tribal groups, who have only recently forgotten their differences.

It's recent history has been tragic in many ways. In an admission that they couldn't stand up to their neighbours they called in the French, who were a little more benign as an occupying force and their influence is everywhere in the architecture and even in the large number of French tourists that we saw here. But their real problems started when they got sucked into the IndoChina war (after this trip, we will no longer refer to it as the Vietnam War). Officially they remained neutral, but inevitably there were sizeable groups in the country that supported the VietCong and as a result, the poor Lao were bombed more heavily than any other country.

Today they seem to be dominated by China, with the people heavily controlled by an authoritarian government. Many people we spoke to talked angrily of deals done with the Chinese government: for example long term mining rights sold in return for infrastructure projects, that are often just a road that leads from the mine to the Chinese border. But underneath the docile exterior, there does seem to be some deeper resolve and from what we saw, the people look healthy and happy with improving living conditions.

Luang Prabang was a cool spot to spend 3 nights, though we were amazed by the number of backpackers here. The centre of the town has been engulfed by bars, restaurants and shops aiming for this market. Laos is firmly on the south-east Asia backpacker trail now, and Luang Prabang seems to be the centre of it. The town has a very attractive natural setting, nestled into a broad curve in the Mekong river and around a steep hilltop, topped by a Buddhist shrine. The view from the top, particular when the sun sets over the river, is probably worth the trip on its own. Away from the backpacker centre, there are also some interesting complexes and the river banks are lined by small restaurants that serve Delicious Lao style curries and, much to Sue's delight, great French style coffee!

We had a decent hotel on the edge of the town, but to get into the centre, we had to navigate the most decrepit bridge (referred to as 'the communist era bridge' to differentiate it from the much more modern and solid 'capitalist era bridge' further up stream!) that crossed high over the Mekong. Pedestrians were divided from the traffic, but the whole structure shook when anything bigger than a motorbike crossed. Underfoot, the old planks creaked and we could see the water swirling through the gaps, as if waiting for a false step. Coming back over the unlit bridge at night after a couple of drinks was certainly an interesting experience!

The 'communist era bridge' over the Mekong

Small ferry boats wind their way up and down the Mekong at Luang Prabang

A Buddhist temple in Luang Prabang

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The view down the river to our bridge

As we approached Vang Viang, the scenery became more rugged, with limestone karsts soaring vertically out of the rain forest. It used to be the big backpacker party town of Laos, where drugs and strong alcohol combined with big outdoor raves, zip wiring across the river and 'tubing'. Tubing involves riding the rapids on a tractor inner tube, which probably isn't good when combined with a cocktails of drugs and alcohol. At one point more than 20 backpackers died in accidents in less than a year apparently and under pressure from the Australian government, the practice was heavily regulated.

From our group Ralph and I went for the tubing, but far from a white knuckle ride, it turned out be a serene 90 minute float down the river, admiring the mountains and the lush rainforest, with the main excitement being the multi-coloured dragonflies that buzzed around us like helicopter gunships.

Our final stop in Laos was in the capital Vientiane. It summed up the country, that it has the most low key capital that we have ever visited, sitting quietly on the Mekong, with Thailand looming on the other side. There was not a whole lot to see here, but we passed a day ambling along the river in fierce heat, before taking to the solace of an air conditioned coffee bar to read and write and catch up with some admin.

By this time, we had decided to cheat by 'jumping truck' for a few days and taking a flight from Vientiane to Siem Reap in Cambodia. Sue, in particular, was pretty exhausted by the long days on the truck and a couple of hours on a plane saved us 3 days and 24 hours of driving, plus 2 land border crossings. It also meant we would get 5 nights in Siem Reap: with the lure of Angkor Watt and a hotel with a swimming pool!

We will tell you more about how we got on in Cambodia on our next post...

Riding the river at Vang Viang

The finish line for the tubing at Vang Viang

The presidential palace in Vientiane

And finally...service postponed until further notice

 

Kip Kip Hooray!

Friday 1st November was our 60th day since leaving the UK and a landmark, as we left China for Laos. The weather was hot and sunny as we drove through the tropical plantations of southern China, for the last 3 hour stretch to the border and I think the majority of the truck shared our excitement and relief as we approached our new destination.

First impressions of Laos? Let's just say that never before have we seen such a change in just a few short miles. We kind of got the impression that Laos would be more laid back, when the border crossing into the country was closed for a couple of hours for lunch! But not to worry, we were allowed to stroll part way across the border, to a small restaurant, where one or two of the border guards were also having their lunch. Some chickens clucked around us and we debated whether they were Chinese or Lao chickens. We didn't have any local currency. Not to worry, we could pay in dollars and they were even happy to take a $50 bill and give us the change in Kip (the Lao currency) at a better exchange rate than offered by the bank. We counted our change and realised that we were millionaires - Kip Kip hooray!

We met our new guide Mr Green at the border. Within 30 minutes, he had volunteered more information about himself and his country, than our Chinese guide had in a month. He was a loveable rogue with a nice line in self deprecation: he had married quite late for a Lao man he told us because he was too ugly to get a wife! Later, when he heard that Sue wasn't strong enough to do the 2 day hiking excursion, he disappeared for 10 minutes and came back with 2 friendship bracelets, which he gave to us with elaborate best wishes.

Shortly after the border we stopped for a pit stop at a small village. It was clearly much poorer than anywhere we had been in China, with more basic housing and the people less well dressed. On a back street we found a market, where amongst the fruit and vegetables, we found all sorts of animals laid out, which were presumably today's haul from the surrounding bush: civet cat, squirrel, dog, rat, bats, frogs and assorted insects. All very nutritious we were sure, but tough for our western sensibilities to handle.

At the same village, we bumped into 2 young French guys. They told us that they had met for the first time that morning at the border. What they shared was that they were both cycling solo from France to Australia. Apparently there are lots of people following similar routes along the Silk Road, but we were nevertheless full of awe and suitably humbled.

As we approached our first stop at Luang Namtha (which translates as town on the river Tha), we crossed a river and ahead of us, as far as we could see, was a vast expanse of brilliant green paddy fields. The land here is fertile enough here to get 2 crops a year and the second of these was about to be harvested.

After this early introduction to Laos, Luang Namtha was something of a surprise. As we pulled into the main street, we were suddenly in 'Backpacker Central'. All the signs were in English, advertising western and Lao food, happy hour cocktails and hiking and rafting expeditions into the local national park. After a quick check in to our room, we guiltily lapped it up, with pizza and cocktails at a bar run by an Aussie / Dutch couple. Over this and the next couple of nights, we met some really interesting people and swapped travel stories with them over a beer or two. There are always coincidences in places like this and here we got chatting to Mike, an American from Seattle who now lived in Kunming with his Chinese wife and was good friends with the owner of the Bad Monkey bar who we had met in Dali.

Most of our group had chosen to go on a 2 day expedition into the park, with a full day kayaking and a full day hiking, with the middle night staying in a remote village at the homes of local families. It sounded like it would be an interesting experience, but we decided not to risk Sue's fitness in such a remote area and this was probably just as well, because the second day in particular turned out to be pretty arduous by all accounts.

Instead Sue and I hired bicycles the next day and headed to a waterfall, which passed us through small villages where the locals were out in the fields starting to harvest the rice and the children ran after us waving as we passed. It was fiercely hot and we needed the refuge of the waterfall when we got there and a shaded restaurant for a late lunch on the way back. Towards dusk we crossed over the most fragile of wicker bridges, that apparently gets washed away by the rains most years and was re-built quite recentl. It connects the town to the rice fields on the other side and had a constant stream of users. On the banks of the river, children were splashing around in the water and adults had come down to wash. It was one of those idyllic scenes that will stay in the mind for a long time.

On the second day in Luang Namtha, I went off for a day's kayaking whilst Sue stayed and explored the village further. The backpacker area really only covered a couple of blocks and once away from here, she found some fruit and veg markets where the locals shopped and managed to negotiate an hour's massage for about £4, from a tiny young Lau women.

At round about the time Sue was being pummeled, I was capsizing my kayak half way down a rapid! I was sharing my canoe, with John, the owner of a security business from Brighton. We were doing pretty well until half way down our third rapid, we started paddling in opposite directions and tipped over. We looked back and saw 3 of the 4 other boats in our convoy repeating our mistake! At the bottom of the rapid, I was able to repatriate myself with the canoe and we all continued unscathed. The whole day was hugely enjoyable and a great way to see the national park. The river cut a ravine through dense, uncultivated, tropical forest. Huge trees towered over us and the sounds of the jungle (including monkeys that we could never quite spot) competed with the rush of the water. Butterflies and dragonflies danced around us and we caught the occasional bright blue of kingfishers darting across. At one point, we spotted a python hanging from a branch, but decided on giving this one a wide steer!

Halfway through the day we stopped in a village, where we were cooked a lunch of vegetables and rice and were a huge source of amusement to the local children. The villagers seemed to lead a pretty simple life in wicker houses, built on timber pillars to raise them above the flood waters of the wet season. On the higher ground, the land under the houses were used to keep their animals. I guess that these villagers get kayakers come through pretty often: they were happy to take our money, but the adults seemed more interested in watching a football match on a very crackly old television than in talking with us.

On 4th November, we continued deeper south into Laos heading for the ancient capital of Luang Prabang. It was a long, slow journey, because the roads are pretty basic at times. However, Archie had kept a secret up his sleeve, which he hadn't been able to reveal in China: pull back a couple of hatches and there were 8 seats on the roof! We hadn't used them until now, as they weren't really suitable for Chinese motorways, but perfectly suitable for the smaller, slower Laos roads. I spent most of the day up on the roof, feeling the wind and sun on my face, smelling the air, waving at children as we passed through villages and the whole journey was exhilarating and much more interactive.

Laos remains overwhelmingly agricultural, with very few towns of any size. Our lunchtime stop on this day was a small town with very few dining options. We found a small parade of cafés serving local produce: including hornet grubs, wine containing whole hornets and fermenting nicely in large mineral water bottles, crickets and various other insects that were being deep fried and other animal parts that we didn't even want to try and identify - we settled for steamed rice and fried vegetables.

In the next post, we will tell you about our re-acquaintance with the Mekong at Luang Prabang and further travels deeper into Laos.

Rice paddy fields near Luang Namtha

The rice harvest underway near Luang Namtha

A dragonfly near the waterfall

Heaven is...cold, spring water on hot, tired feet!

A wicker bridge crosses the Nam Tha...

...And Sue manages not to fall in

A hillside view of Luang Namtha

Kayaking in the National Park

Village children at our lunchtime stop

A butcher displays her wares near the China / Laos border

Hornet hooch, 2013 vintage - best left in the bottle?!

Anyone for cricket?

Only a German (Ralph) was brave enough, provided there was lots of beer to wash them down!

Atop Archie...

And finally...there's strength in numbers

 

Last days in China

We headed out of Dali on Monday 28th October, with our itinerary for the next few days to strike south for the Laos border - still some 1,000 kilometres away at this point. Our first stop on this journey was the 7 hour drive down to Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province. We stayed at a high altitude all day, driving through mist and rain that cloaked the villages we passed with a mysterious aura, but not allowing much visibility.

Kunming is meant to be a relaxed city (if that's possible of a Chineses city of some 5,000,000), but we probably didn't see it in it's best light, with only a night's stopover in the rain. It was a landmark for the tour, however, because we were losing 2 people here and gaining 4 for the next leg down into Laos. We lost our Belgian accountant Kevin to be replaced by Vera, a Belgian logistics consultant and we lost Emma, our English educational psychologist, to be replaced by Amanda an English psychiatrist! In addition, we gained Fred a surveyor from Sweden and Ralph, a giant carpenter from Frankfurt.

We had an enjoyable dinner in a local restaurant, where we were greeted as we entered, by cowering chickens and pheasants in wicker cages, awaiting their fate. The food and atmosphere were great, though we were saddened to note only one chicken and one less pheasant as we departed - at least we knew our food was fresh!

The next morning was an early start. After a pre-dawn breakfast, we found Amanda missing, with a note saying that she felt she couldn't cope with the demands of the trip. In the driving early morning rain, it didn't feel like a surprising decision. We headed 3 hours out of the city to the Shilin Stone Forest, an area of limestone rock that has weathered over millions of years into huge stalagmite-like pinnacles. It was cold and wet when we arrived, though this didn't seem to have deterred the Chinese tourists and there were hordes of them at the entrance, tightly knitted around their guides: instantly identifiable by their dual authority symbols - flag in one hand, megaphone in the other.

Sue and I, still fresh from our Yangtse experience, ran (metaphorically) for the hills. The area around the park proper gave us a flavour and we looked out through the rain from a great local restaurant where they served us a delicious meal of spinach soup, rice, sautéed vegetables and spicy shredded pork, washed down with endless cups of jasmine tea.

Annoyingly, the truck headed pretty much all the way back to Kunming before starting south again and there were a few dissenting voices as to why we had spent most of a day on this detour, but at least the sun had started to emerge again - just as we were starting to despair of ever seeing it again. That night we camped by the shore of Dian Chi, a 300 square kilometre lake to the south-west of Kunming. Finding free spots of land is a challenge in China (every available space seems to be used for housing or cultivation), so here the best we could find was a small area of woodland at the end of a narrow road that ran down to the lake. It was pretty liberally scattered with litter and the whole truck spent the best part of an hour filling rubbish sacks before it was fit to camp on. By the end of this period, the entire local village seemed to have come out to watch in utter amazement: twenty westerners descending en masse in a bright orange truck, cleaning up their land and pitching tents. There was much laughter and clicking of photo shutters as we set about our work.

As the sun set, the same villagers came back with their ghetto blasters and some of us joined them in their line dancing, again much to their amusement. Between us, we managed to cook up a pretty tasty vegetable curry and rice washed down by some Chinese red wine (which was just about drinkable, though I'm not sure it's ready for the ready for the export market just yet!). As night fell, we got a roaring fire going and it was an enjoyable evening, though our patch of land was too gravelly to allow much sleep.

Reading up about Lake Dian Chi later, we found it is one of the most polluted lakes in China, largely due to the majority of Kunming's sewage having been pumped into it for a number of years and the water is now considered to be unusable even for industrial purposes and more than half of the fish have perished, though we did see a couple of locals patiently leant over fishing rods.

We had two more stops in China before getting to the border. The first was just an overnight stop on Pu'er, a fairly anonymous town that has grown as the centre for tea in the region, the second in the much more pleasant city of Jinghong. As we headed south from Kunming, into the province of Xishuangbanna, the road started to descend steadily and the climate and topography changed dramatically to the sub-tropical. Now, we drove through much lusher scenery with tea and then coffee, rubber and sugar-cane plantations, with trees full of banana, coconut, dragon fruit, persimmon, lychee and other exotic fruits.

Our final stop in China, Jinghong, felt like a tropical holiday city with blue skies, coconut palms and colourful buildings and was easily the hottest place we had been on our journey to date. We had a free day here, which we spent mostly at a peaceful botanical gardens and finished with a cold beer watching the sun set over the Mekong river. We mused that the Mekong starts its journey in the mountains of Tibet and from here meanders on through Myanmar, Laos, Thailand and Cambodia before draining into the South China Sea in Vietnam. It had been almost 18 years since we had seen the Mekong, but we would follow it for a few weeks now on our journey south.

The next day our China Oddyssey would be over. It was hard going at times and as a result we were not sad to be leaving, but at the same time, we knew that we had an amazing and privileged experience and that time would change our perspective. Over 4 weeks, we travelled more than 4,000 kilometres through several provinces in the most populous country in the world, which most predict will be the world's next super power. Yet how little most of us in the west know of it!

Maybe we know a little more now than we did before, but as with knowledge generally: the more we know, the more we realise we don't know. China is a country that is changing rapidly and it beguiled and confused us in equal measure. In Leishan, we saw the largest Buddha in the world that stood proudly and enigmatically at the confluence of 3 rivers. This strikes me as a metaphor for where China is right now: the rivers represent their ancient traditions; the paternalistic spectre of communist rule which dominated and suppressed it's people for several generations and the emerging sugar-coated river of capitalism and the outside world. The Chinese people (and in particular the emerging middle classes in the big cities) are clearly entranced by the material riches of the developed world, whilst the government (like a parent wary of unleashing their child into the big-bad world) use all the powers of the state to maintain their control. The poor river of ancient traditions, sometimes seems to be in danger of drying up, but travelling here one senses that it will never disappear completely and that as people see through the initial attraction of western culture, that many Chinese will look back to their old traditions that were suppressed in the Communist era.

The way in which the Chinese river flows will clearly be of huge importance to us all. We saw such energy and confidence in the Chinese people to suggest that the current will be strong, whichever way it flows. Despite all of the noise and pollution and voracious consumption on display at times and the corruption that is widely reported, we also saw enough in some of their ancient traditions, to show that they have the potential to add much needed wisdom to the future direction of the world. The principle of harmony between nature and humanity that underpins Taoism is an inspirational example of this.

In our next post, we will tell you about our time in Laos, but in the meantime, we sign off with a few photos from our last few days in China.

Preparing vegetable curry on our bush camp

Sunset over Polluted waters at Lake Dian Chi

The Botanical Gardens at Jinghong

Bridge over the Mekong at Jinghong

An amusement park at Jinghong

And finally....who says pants don't grow on trees?

Daliesque

We headed out of Lijiang, for the 6 hour drive south to Dali, with Sue starting to feel a little better, though still going nil by mouth and therefore a little weak. Dali was to be our base for 3 nights and we were looking forward to getting the chance to rest in 1 place awhile.

The scenery, which had been gradually changing as we had headed out of Scichuan into Yunnan was now markedly different. Most noticeably, it was overwhelmingly rural, with the land divided for cultivation into small strips, some no bigger than a cricket pitch in size (for Americans reading this, a cricket pitch is 22 yards long by about 10 feet wide; for Aussies, we will teach you how to use one shortly!). Maybe this is some sort of crop rotation strategy, but it felt more like a series of small-holdings. Either way, the land seemed really fertile on the valley floors, with a huge range of crops being grown. Rice is clearly the staple and most of the crop had fairly recently been harvested, with the stems being cut and arranged into neat sheaves. We played a game of naming the vegetables we could see growing: wheat, corn, cabbage, bok choi, onions, tomatoes, pumpkins, spinach, soya, chillies and garlic to name a few, with many more we didn't recognise. There were also lots of people out in the fields working, wearing their traditional conical hats, just as one would imagine. In places we saw fields being burned, a practice I can't remember seeing in the UK since I was a boy returning from summer holidays in the West Country.

The villages had also changed significantly. Gone were the ugly utilitarian grey high-rises, replaced by low-rise stone or concrete homes that were mostly immaculately white-washed and finished with intricate scenery paintings in hues of black and blue, reminding us of pen and ink drawings. It felt much more like the Chinese rural idyll that many of us on the truck had in our minds eyes.

We drove across these agricultural plains and then steadily ascended towards Dali, a city of 500,000 people, which sits at an elevation of some 1,600 metres, but surrounded by even higher mountains with the 20 kilometre long EnHai lake just to the east adding to its dramatic setting.

We arrived on a sunny afternoon and our spirits were immediately raised by the relaxed feel of our guest house: a 3 storey whitewashed building, with red pillars and black, grey and blue scenes and Chinese characters painted onto the walls in the local style. The guest house was built in a horshoe shape around a garden courtyard, with a bar, pool table and comfortable seating. The staff were smiling and attentive as we arrived and we all felt immediately at home here. Interestingly, we could see straight away that there were a lot more western faces here, such a contrast to our travels to date through Russia and China.

Our hostel was the project of an Australian and his Chinese wife who had settled here in Dali, as a half-way house between her home in north-eastern China and his home in Bribane. Appropriately enough, it was named the Jade Emu and it has proved so popular that they now have a second hostel just across the street called the Jade Roo and a bookshop and restaurant.

We later found that there is a thriving ex-pat community here in Dali, which centres in the area that we are staying and down the road in the Bad Monkey bar (more on that later). It never ceases to amaze the places that one finds such communities thriving.

That evening we went no further then the Jade Roo restaurant across the street, where they saved great Chinese - Western fusion food. We had some excitement, when the waiter arrived with some sizzling chicken that almost set the whole place alight. Sue reacted fastest (no pun on fasting intended!), leaping from her seat to blow out the flames before they took hold, whilst the rest of us looked on in stunned immobility. Poor Sue settled for some steamed rice and some crumbled dried seaweed (a wonder-food, packed with nutrients that we had recently discovered for all you foodies reading), but she would be back eating properly again the next day.

On our first full day in Dali, we jumped on a tour arranged by our hostel that circum-navigated Lake EnHai, following a road that has only been fairly recently completed. It turned out to be just Sue and I and a Tibetan guy of similar age to us who was on a 2 week holiday, touring Yunnan. The weather had turned grey and misty by this stage, which was a shame because on a clear day, the lake with the snow-capped mountains beyond it is meant to be a great sight. But it was an interesting day nonetheless. The villages by the side of the lake are populated mostly by the Bai people, who ethnically have more in common with Thais than Han Chinese. We were there on Saturday 26th October and in Xizhou, the first village we came to, there was a busy weekly open-air market going on, selling fruit and vegetables, fish and meat. On the edge of the market, they were killing, plucking and chopping chickens to order and pulling fish from improvised tanks for customers to take away still flapping. On the fringes of the village, corn hung out of the houses to dry, alongside chillies and rice husks on long tarpaulin sheets.

Our driver took us on to a batique factory showroom, clearly hoping that he would earn some commission, but we were put off somewhat by the conditions in the factory (see the picture below), though as this was on show, I guess these were probably better conditions than those that many of our clothes come from. As with the chickens and fish above and below, we westerners don't like our noses being rubbed in it I suppose - speak no evil, hear no evil!

Continuing our journey, we found cormorant fishermen waiting in boats by the side of the lake. We gather that this is the only place in the world where this is practiced, though it seems that nowadays it is pretty much only done for tourists. For $10 they will take you out onto the lake and demonstrate the art of cormorant fishing whilst they sing local folk songs at you through a megaphone. We politely declined, but viewed from the bank as they took another group of tourists out. It seems pretty barbaric, but we're told the cormorants are trained from an early age and get used to it: they are attached by rope to the boat and their throats are constricted so that they can't swallow a whole fish; when they dive and catch a fish, they are pulled back into the boat and the fish taken from them to be replaced with a much smaller morsel of fish as a 'reward'. By the side of the road, they were selling the fish that had been caught, most of which had been dried or smoked, or which were being cooked on charcoal grills. For the third time in the day, we weren't tempted!

Further round the lake, we stopped at a couple of remote temples, including one which involved being rowed a couple of hundred yards out to a small island by an ancient fisherman, in an even older boat. We admired his skillful oarsmaship whilst debating whether it would be better to swim to the island or back to the mainland when the boat sank, though remarkably we were brought safely back to shore. We were entranced back on the shore by a variety of birds we hadn't seen before: one of which we were told later was a Eurasian Spotted Hoopoe (see picture below).

The area as a whole remains fairly quiet, but now the road is completed the mass tourism will soon follow. We saw a number of large new hotels under construction as we drove. On the positive side, the road is lit by lamps that each have their own mini wind turbine and solar panel attached and this not only powers them but provides some power for the local villages as well. This was one of a few encouraging signs that we have seen of Chinese authorities taking renewable energy and environmental preservation seriously.

Back in Dali, after Sue had taken her first proper feed for a few days, I went out with a few of the guys from the truck to the Bad Monkey Bar. As you would expect from a bar in a small southern Chinese city, we found an Irishman and an American from Ohio up on stage strumming away on banjos playing Bluegrass! The Bad Monkey, it turns out, is owned by an Englishman from Essex and he also brews his own beer: including a very drinkable amber ale and a stronger porter. The bar was half filled with Chinese learning how to put their thumbs in their trousers and 'Yeehaa' like a Yankie and half with western ex-pats and travellers. We got chatting with the band (who are based in Kunming and make enough money to live playing in small bars); a retired Yorkshiremen who is John Hurt's doppelgänger and who had just returned from Kunming where he played a small part as Gandalf for a Chinese TV show and the owner of our guest house, who told us some of his story.

We spent our final day in Dali just ambling around the old city, doing some shopping and catching up on our admin back at the hostel. The city was very pleasant, with the biggest feature being that the old city walls have remained almost completely intact, including four elaborate entrance gates on the compass points.

On our next post we will update you on our journey south right down to the border to Laos, which would be our 9th country traversed on our journey to date.

There are lots of pictures to share with you here, as it was such an interesting few days.

Trying to sort out our bank in the garden of the Jade Emu in Dali

Locally sourced herbal remedies in Xizhou

The Saturday market in Xizhou

The wisdom of age

Ever wondered where your 'Made in China' garments come from?

Decorations to a Dali traditional home

Cormorant fishing on Lake EnHai

When the tourists aren't watching...

An Eurasian Hoopoe

The South Gate to the old city of Dali

The Bad Monkey, centre of Dali's western ex-pat community

And finally...our new candidate for the world's worst toilet - fortunately this time not connected to our hotel room!

And finally, finally...poodling along!