Windyyyyy

wow, it's been more than difficult trying to update my blog, don't know if it's the big brother kindly watching over us or what...

But here I am still, on the beautiful island of Hainan, home of Miss World (for the second year in a row ???). And here I am, despite the fact that I was supposed to be on a bus on my way to Hong Kong right now. But the gods of weather have decided otherwise, raising strong winds that now prohibit the ferries crossing over to the mainland. I'm flying out from Hong Kong in just over a week, so let's hope that the winds calm down before then...

Last night, Ben's last night in Sanya (not mine, after all), we went out to the night market, us two and some other people from the hostel. After yummy barbecue in the wind, we wondered down a notorious side street in the centre of Sanya town. And here, glancing down an alley, the term 'red light disctrict' came to life very concretely, with lots of little 'hairdressers' with their red lights on, and groups of girls sitting around, waiting for customers...

But as we walked on, we decided to go check out a rooftop teahouse, which turned out to have an open air dancefloor in the middle. And there, on a rooftop in South China, we witnessed a Chinese grandmother dancing to German techno with her hips swinging, lots of couples swirling around the floor in the rhythm of a tango, and suddenly all the people performing a proper Bollywood film-style dance to some Punjabi music. All in all, a very surreal but a thoroughly enjoyable experience.

Let's hope that the next post will be from Hong Kong, and relatively soon!
--
_______________________________________________
Find what you are looking for with the Lycos Yellow Pages
http://r.lycos.com/r/yp_emailfooter/http://yellowpages.lycos.com/default.asp?SRC=lycos10

long time no blog

wow, it's been a while again since i have added anything to the blog. The biggest reason is probably the fact that although the past couple of weeks have been great for me, there maybe isn't anything that interesting to write about for the rest of you. Not a lot of cultural observations or such, just travelling and relaxing.

I spent a week in a place called YangShuo in GuangXi province, which is a funny little place. On one hand, it's very touristy, with just a couple of streets to the town centre, and mainly catering to the foreign tourists with their restaurants, guesthouses and souvernir shops. On the other hand, though, the landscapes and the countryside around Yangshuo is very steretypically Chinese, in style of traditional paitings, with all those funny shaped karst mountains, rice fields, rivers, waterfalls... water buffalos grazing in the fiels, farmers with their cone hats... all in all stunningly beautiful, even though it was cloudy and drizzly a lot of the time.

The week there was a nice balance of doing absolutely nothing, just sitting around drinking tea and talking to other travellers, and at other times going mountain biking (did quite a bit, a good 40-50 km in two days), rafting, and hiking along the Li river.

From Yangshuo, I took the bus to a village up in the mountaineous area, famous for its rice terraces, carved out of the mountain in all sorts of shapes, to enable agriculture in the difficult terrain. after having spent a week with other people in Yangshuo, it was great to be there completely on my own, staying a night in a little gueshouse as the only guest and walking up to the mountain after sunrise, feeling literally on top of the world, all alone. :)

And then, a 37-hour bus/boat trip.... uggggh.... Although it gave me the chance to try out the Chinese sleeper buses for the first time. Basically, it's just a normal coach, but instead of seats, you get three rows of bunk beds all the way through. Really funny, being in bed on a bus :)

But to cut the story short, I'm now on Hainan Island, China's own tropical paradise. And I do mean tropical paradise! It's really amazing, I would not have expected to find this in China, somehow I always had the image of china as this grey, cold, northern place. If something, this 3-month trip has definitely changed that image. Here I am, staying just a couple of minutes from the beach (white sand, palm trees, sparkling turquoise sea...), with sand in my hair and slightly sunburned but enjoying every little bit of it :)

And, I have also reunited with my travel buddy Ben, who has been here for over a week already. It's nice to spend a little more time with him before getting back home. Which I am really looking forward to now, by the way!


--
_______________________________________________
Find what you are looking for with the Lycos Yellow Pages
http://r.lycos.com/r/yp_emailfooter/http://yellowpages.lycos.com/default.asp?SRC=lycos10

zzzzzzzzzz

What is it about Chinese men that makes them snoooooore so much? Or men in general? Or people?

And why oh why do I always find myself having a bed right next to/over/below such a person?

Travelling on Chinese trains and sharing dorm rooms in hostels has thought me the importance of something: earplugs! Which, infortunately, seems to be an item that is not for sale anywhere in this wonderful country. Sure, you can buy half a yak head or a soft drink in an hand-acupoint-massage bottle, but you can't buy earplugs... Which is why i'm definitely getting my 'money's worth', still using those free airline earplugs from over a year ago... Somehow the other chinese people, sharing the same compartments or rooms seem to be immune to these sounds that ressemble sometimes an elephant with a bad case of the flu or sometimes a steam train in a very long tunnel.

Speaking of flying, I will land on Helsinki-Vantaa on 5 December, for a little 'holiday' from my hard life of travelling, and will return to face the life of a laowai again in mid-January.

--
_______________________________________________
Find what you are looking for with the Lycos Yellow Pages
http://r.lycos.com/r/yp_emailfooter/http://yellowpages.lycos.com/default.asp?SRC=lycos10

More pictures of cowboys and yaks

Just added a whole bunch of new pictures from our adventures in Kanding and Tagong on the new picture website.

Go look at them now!!
--
_______________________________________________
Find what you are looking for with the Lycos Yellow Pages
http://r.lycos.com/r/yp_emailfooter/http://yellowpages.lycos.com/default.asp?SRC=lycos10