more roads and stuff

China is all 'go big or go home' natural and man made.

Our reception in towns that don't see many foreigners.

These ones should be fairly obvious, but I will remark on how many 'self-taken-photos-with-students' photos I now have.

Mountains, Roads, Condoms and Truck Repairs

Okay, I am going to try and caption these photos, but it might be a bit of mix and match.

I think they will be:

Clouds and Mountains.

Children 'helping' with truck repairs.

'Jissbon' condoms. Yeah, you read that right. (and hopefully my mum didn't read that bit)

More truck repairs.

Building a new expressway.

Power lines and mist and stuff.

Crouching Tiger

It must be the middle of this leg of the trip. I woke up in a feral mood that was only cured by reading a copy of the PADI Rescue Diver remembering how awesome my Rescue Diver training was.

The wheels are falling off other people's little red wagons, too. There is a fair bit of tired nd hot and cranky going around.

I am sitting at the bottom of the steps of Baoguo temple, waiting for the girls before we go up to crouching tiger monastery. Some times a girl just needs a little bit of alone time with her kindle.

I'd send my love, but it'd arrive all sweaty, covered in sunsreen and road dust.

North of Dacheng, not yet at Emeishan

It has been several long days of drivng and breakdown and doubling back to find spare parts.

Our skin is covered in a slick of sweat and sunscreen and dust and exhaust and coal smoke. At the end of the day we soap and scrub and soap and still our towels come away grey.

The breakdowns mean we are not staying in the towns that were planned, but in cities where foreign tourists don't go. Everywhere we go we gather a crowd of spectators. People wth phones rush up and start taking our pictures as though we are zoo exhibits. Even buying fruit is an exciting spectacle.

We have been driving through some spectacular scenery. I will try and post some pictures the next time we get wireless. This post is brought to you by the ever wonderful Kindle. O how I wish to sing its praises.

As we have moved north the landscape has become more industrialised. Giant electricity plants and places with coal fire bursting from their centre are strangely beautiful. There is also so much natural beauty. Waterfalls tumble like icing sugar down red and green cliffs. Fat shiny ponies and donkeys graze in odd corners. Grubby children wih split pants are held over gutters. Angy dogs with fleas and lumps and bald spots strut about and attack other dogs.

We are also starting to see the type of bamboo forests that make me look around for Chow Yun Fat.

Li Jiang

---------- Forwarded message ----------

We are leaving LI Jiang this morning. It has rained pretty much the whole time we have been here and I understand from the internet that this is the tail end of what is flooding other parts of China (parts we are not going to, Mum).

For all the rain it is a lovely town. We are staying in the old city which is all twisting little roads and stone bridges. The rain disappears as fast as it falls into the canals and pools that are everywhere you turn.

I got a little bit cranky yesterday, but it turned out I was mainly hungry. I ran into Irina and Gaetano and we went to chi fan. Irina and I have worked out a killer mix of Chinese and pointing that results in delicious meals. We both seem to be quite stomach focused. We sat on tiny stools at a tiny table and ate mogu and gongbao jiding. I felt a bit ridiculous with my freckled knees up around my eyeballs. And even more when we stood up and up and up and all the Chinese people who came in after us stared with open mouths.

We have seen the open-mouthed stare quite a bit actually.

On the way back to the hotel I stopped at the little shop on the corner by the hotel and there was a woman there doing a giant cross stitch of 8 horses. I showed her my tiny cross stitch of daffodils and we chatted a bit. I asked her where I could buy one like hers. She wrote the place and I set off through the new city. I found it after startling several people by asking directions.

I think I have attached some pictures of things to this post. Not sure.

Bush Camping

So, I am thinking the comment from my brother on the last post means that I can upload pictures onto the blog via email. It is challenging writing comments on it, but I will try tackling that tonight via the kindle.

Did I say godbless the kindle, yet? It is amazing. I can access all the things that are like life blood (aka facebook) on it. It is slow and challenging to use, but it is there.

test post to see if I can post photos via email.

Da Li

I know I should be telling you about the majestic pagodas climbing up into the sky. And how I caught the cable car up Chang Shan [mountain] to see the view out over the city and lakes (I didn't). But instead what I am doing is talking and eating and meeting people.

Chinese is fizzing and buzzing in my brain. Words are coming back to me and I am learning new ones. As I bust out my wobbly Mandarin to help other people on the trip they are impressed, which makes me feel clever.

The food, once you get out of the hotel and if you don't go into the westernised restaurants, is China-awesome.

We went for a massage last night and, once I'd explained that the guy I was with was not my husband and we got separate rooms, the girl massaging me and I spent the time communicating, showing each other how we'd done our hair (mine was twisted with a metal chopstick, she had hers twisted around what looked like a metal shell) and giggling. I think maybe she was deaf because it was all worked out with gesture, touch and my phrase book.

Another thing I am really enjoying is pilates. My pilates instructor released a DVD at the end of last year and I've brought it with me. I had been doing some by myself each day. I mentioned it to one of the girls (Orla) who joined in Luang Prabang and she started doing it with me. She mentioned it to another girl (Irina) who joined in Luang Prabang and now the three of us are finding a bit of out-of-the-way corridor each day to lay down a towel and do some.

I have been listening to Marcus tell me what to do a couple of times a week for several years now and it is enormously comforting to hear his voice.

Bush camping in Shi Lin

After bush camping I am all dirty brown toes and tanned arms. I got a tent to my self and was looking forward to sleeping spread-eagled on my divinely comfortable camp mat. I woke up curled up like a dormouse right in the middle.

I woke in the night, needing a bush pee, and was delighted by the icy stars with the ribbon of the milky way running through.

We had yet another long day of driving to follow, which I quite enjoy, the seats are comfy and there are no dried fish. When I get fretful, I stop and remember spending fourteen hours in a truck full of dried fish in Madagascar travelling from Salary to Tulear, still a little weepy about leaving Andavadoaka.

When I am feeling hot and happy on the drive days I am reminded of being sprawled in a pile of friends in the back of a truck going through the spiny forest between Andavadoaka and Tulear. Sweating and dodging the prickles and denizens of the forest flinging themselves in through the sides and back.

We passed proper little Chinese villages just like you see in the cartoons and lots of examples of slightly obnoxious communist architecture.

Locked out

The truck leaves in 30 minutes and I haven't finished packing and I have no money to buy breakfast because I can't find an ATM that works and we are camping tonight but I just got in to my google account so I'm posting instead of showering.

Wa made it to China. As we drove north in Laos the road got quite badly pot holed, was unsealed in places and wound round and round and up and down the mountains. Crossing over into China, the road is smooth and flat. There are soaring bridges over valleys and the tunnels bust straight through the mountains. It is not as romantic, but it is much faster and easier on your bottom.

Kuang Si Falls, Luang Prabang

We went on a little tour today to a nearby waterfall. I sort of didn't want to go and then when we got there I felt quite dirty about it because the cost of the tour didn't actually cover the cost of entry to the falls.

Then, as we walked up the winding clay track, I tried to be positive about how much cooler it was up there in the hills amongst the jungle next to the river. We walked past Lao families sitting on giant woven plastic mats with picnics and white people posing in not enough clothing and swimming areas full of screaming, splashing Lao children.

I was walking in a fog of 'why the hell did I come here' when we came to a spot higher up than most people had bothered to walk.

Because we were all going to be swimming, I didn't take my camera in case someone nicked it while we were frolicking trustingly in the mountain waters, so you are going to have to imagine.

There were water bugs that skipped away across the surface in a panic as we swam into them. Little fish that nibbled our ankles. Motes of water dancing in the air above the falls. Little zippy blue dragonflies and squidgy mud between our toes. We were in a pool with stands of bamboo and sandy brown rocks and sun dappling over pale jade water. Because I didn't have my glasses on, you also have to imagine a romantic blur of afternoon light and short-sightedness.

It was blissfully cool, Claire even got goosebumps. My temper improves enormously when I am blissfully cool, so I am going to go wash my hair and then go play nice with the new kids who arrive on the trip today.

The end of a trip.

This stop is the end of one of the legs of the trip. We left one passenger (Larry) behind in Vang Vieng (deliberately, he was catching a plane back to Bangkok, it is not like we forgot him or anything). In Luang Prabang we will lose five of the seven 19 year old (or so, a couple may be younger) boys and one other gentleman (Keith). And four people will join us tomorrow.

Although we travelled together for just over two weeks I know very little about the boys apart from they are hysterical. I didn't get any shots of them recreating Tomb Raider in Angkor Wat, and the battery died in my camera as they started saying goodbye to Gertie, but here is some evidence from my phone.

So, goodbye to Euan.
























Jay, Andy, Ted and Ali.

I will especially miss the double act that is Ted and Ali. They went to school together and, I believe, are off to Uni together. If their friendship survives this, I imagine they will be friends for ever.

Driving North through Laos

We soon left behind the bubbling rivers running through the valleys between the improbable hills and started climbing, dear old Gertie keeping up a steady rumble.

With the big drops over the edge and the occasionally pot-holed nature of the road, it is tremendously reassuring to have such good drivers. One of them, in particular, spent many years driving road trains and those big trucks my uncle Rob likes; and you can tell.

The whole time we are driving I can hear my mother's voice. Put your book down and look out the window. Think how lucky you are to see all this amazing scenery. As I kid I would dutifully look up for the space of a couple of pages and then slip back into the book as soon as I could.

Where the majority of the landscape in Thailand was flat flat rice flat flat rice rice flat, here the ferns make fractal patterns up the sides of the cliffs. Little villages cluster along the roads, clinging in the edges and corners of the mountains. Children play mysterious children's games. Sometimes there is a monkey.

Up in the mountains it was really cool, quite chilly and I was glad I had the wrap I carry with me everywhere in case of sun or modesty.

Of course it was that weird chilly where you look at the thermometer in Gertie and it says 27 instead of 35.