Nihau (Hello).
Well, we’re back with a new update from the most bustling city in all of China. Here’s an account of what got us here.
Our last update was from Beijing where we pretty much did nothing but sit around and drink for the latter half of our week there. We ate at our favourite local restaurant once or twice per day and had fun ordering from our own menu (provided by the faithful Lonely Planet). The food here (both at this restaurant and all over the country) is absolutely fantastic. After exiting from Mongolia (where the food is … hmmm … crap) it was even more enjoyable to have such culinary delights as Sechuan Chicken, Stir Fried Vegetables and Beijing Duck. I swear Eric is making up for Mongolia by eating twice as much here.
(It’s me now, so I’ll dispense with the obvious ‘here’s an account of’ etc stuff that Gerry likes to throw in) …
One night in Beijing, after eating dinner, we got to the backpacker drinking spot. It wasn’t very busy, we figured maybe because of the cold. At midnight, after a few beers, we went into the hotel lobby near the bar (it’s warmer there) and found out where the smarter warmer people had been drinking most of the night. Then we had a big conversation with a couple people about the ‘is’ which I can’t describe fully here, partly cause we’re paying by the hour, partly cause I don’t understand it sober. So, at about 4:00 ish we decided to head back to our hotel. There we met another bunch of drinking travellers (mostly from Sweden … there’s a lot of Scandinavians here, go figure), but we were in want of a beer. Then, out of nowhere two beers appeared. Apparently, another person who was leaving on a morning train had just got up, and not wanting to carry the extra weight, gave us the beers. We traded travel talk for a while, it was an odd mix of permagrin people who were still up drinking beer and others who had just awoke and were drinking coffee. At 7:00 ish, we decided to call it a night, but as we were brushing our teeth in the open air bathroom, and were amazed to discover the sun was up. Someone had a radio so we sat down in the garden and sang Oasis tunes. Gerry decided to crash. Hoping not to wake anyone else (we were in a dorm of 8) he was very quiet, unfortunately it didn’t matter cause he was the first person in our room to make it to bed. I made it to bed around 8:00, I think the last guy got in at 1:30 the next afternoon. This was probably the extreme of our days in Beijing, but you get the idea. Back to you, Gerry….
(Now you probably understand why I like to use all those connector words and phrases … me like use more words in sentence than Eric)
Onto Xi’An. We arrived there after spending the night in a hard seat (the Lonely Planet describes this as hard-seat-hell). I gave up at some point and crashed out on the train floor using my jacket as a pillow. I probably fared best out of the 4 gringos in our party. Upon arrival we met the most ‘get-things-done-quickly’ person we’ve met yet. Naiomi worked for one of the restaurants near the hostel we went to and typically both restaurants sent touts to the station to bring people back in hopes that they’d be rewarded with increased business. Within the space of 90 minutes we’d met Naiomi, bought our onward train tickets, got to the hostel and booked in, bought fake Chinese student cards, showered and cleaned up (improving our outward appearance by at least 200%!) and were ordering lunch at Dad’s Home Cooking restaurant (where Naiomi worked). The competition next door is called Mums Home Cooking … the competition is ‘fierce’ … I don’t think the staff at Mums liked us very much because we kept running into people we’d met in Beijing and inviting them to our table for food and drinks. I believe the folks at Dads were genuinely impressed with our attempt tto learn as much Chinese as possible (and they liked our flashy homemade character flash cards). They taught us lots and lots more (including lots of unrepeatable stuff like what to say to someone when he’s ripping you off). We’re up probably over 100 characters and phrases by now … not bad for a couple drunken Jainada Ren (Canada People). After dinner we had a few drinks again of course. We discovered that the beer price had risen 50% and we were so distraught we got drunk again (for $1.50 US each instead of $1 each for the whole night) … oh, the perils of travel. I suppose I should mention that we were in Xi’An to see the famed Terracotta Warriors which were definitely not (as the Chinese described) the 8th wonder of the world (the postcards were better than the actual site).
Next night another hard-seat-hell trip to KaiFeng where we got the 2nd most expensive room in the hotel for 18 Yuan each (about $2.25). The place was a dump though. We ordered food from a restaurant here on our own without the BYO menu!
Onto Shanghai where we got in late and had to settle for an expensive double ($20 each). But whoa … quelle surprise … running water, hot!, guest towels (unheard of), little hotel soaps, toothpaste, toothbrushes, etc, a bathtub actually clean enough to bathe in, and a sit-down toilet with a seat and toilet paper! This was just too much to take in all at once and we didn’t know what to do first. There was even a TV with over 10 channels and some in English … even CNN. This is just sheer crazy talk. We’re back to dorm rooms now (for about 1/3 the price) after living the high-life for one glorious night.
Local Customs (China) … lotsa juicy stuff here.
~Getting Around: Driving, cycling, walking, etc around is absolutely crazy. The streets are best described as a children’s soccer game where all the kids cluster around the ball (but without the ball) and some of the kids are riding bikes and others big buses and others cars and about 20 games are all going on simultaneously on the same field. (Eric’s reading a Thomas Hardy book now … can you tell?). It’s tough (well, impossible really) to catch all this in a photo.
~Bus Boarding: People go absolutely mad and charge at the doors of the buses and trains in an attempt to be the first one aboard (cuz they get the seats). This wouldn’t be so bad except that 40-50 people are attempting this at the same time. We usually just wait until the pandemonium dies down and casually stroll aboard happy to stand for the 20-minute ride and avoid the bruises.
~Spitting: Everywhere, even where CityTV won’t go.
~Transporting Goods: This is crazy too. All over the place you see these 3 wheeled bicycles with huge cargos being carted all over town. People are transporting bricks, coal, food, everything and all with just people power. They’ve gotta have some huge legs.
~Farming: (city folks can skip this one) Everything is done completely by hand. And they leave no space of land unused so there’s crops growing around peoples houses, along roadsides, everywhere.
Toilet Update:
We’ve seen some hideous toilets in some of the smaller cities. Generally, outside the bigger centres everything is squat toilets but I simply cannot describe the condition of some of them … it’s scary. Toilet paper is virtually always BYO (except last night’s hotel) but at least it’s relatively soft on the bum
BMC Research:
It costs 19.40 Yuan for a BMC. About $2.37 US. (About, as to two decimal places). This puts it near the top, approaching San Salvador. We have heard that a BMC in HongKong is the same numeric price but the HKD is worth less … stay tuned. However, to Eric’s huge disappointment, the universal phrase ‘BigMacCombowithCoke’ was not understood for the first time in his travels.
Can someone (or everyone) please give us a baseball playoff update … we have no idea and this’ll give you and excuse to write. The Messier and Princess Di updates proved to be highly entertaining. BTW … we heard that Princess Di was on the radio last week … and on the dash and the glove compartment too.
Personals:
An*: In our studies we’ve learned that the character which sounds like ‘AN’ means peace (as in TianAnMen square … literally Heaven-Peace-Gate) … cool, huh.
Bobby: Are you and Verny planning a hostile takeover of her company … if so, I’m in.
Viv: ashfinktersayswha … ash finkter sayswha …
Dan: We liked your Princess Di joke we had to plagiarize it (but what happened between you and the Danish dive master?)
ZXK: Liked the Barcelona hotel story … we were pretty much in awe about having a bathtub clean enough to actually bathe in (and hot water to fill it with).
Dave, Kimmy, Brad: No, I wasn’t drunk when I wrote that first not but I did get pretty looped a few hours later. Sorry again … won’t happen anymore.
Kirsty/Eileen: We’re planning to go to Hong Kong, Macau, Yangshuo, Chengdu, Lhasa and then Kathmandu (by mid-October?) … saw some nody? In the store yesterday … now we’ve got our own stash.
Viv: A sphincter says WHAT? (he he he)
PGers: I’m now using a heretofore unheard of P&G shampoo called REJOICE (I think it’s just alternatively marketed PERT) and Eric managed to find a bar of SAFEGUARD (Jimmy’ll probably get a call about a blip in SafeGuard sales in DailyView). Also, this is definitely unheard of, but we are using (better sit down for this one) LBMS on this trip !!! Couldn’t have gotten across the TransSiberian without it. Well, we are only using the LBMS mug and Eric didn’t actually take the course but picked up an extra mug from the training room (ahh, the benefits of working on the 4th floor west).
Zaijian (Good-bye)
Love,
Gerry & Eric (or Eric & Gerry)
Friday, September 26, 1997
Wednesday, September 17, 1997
Beijing, China
Hey everyone,
How's it going? We are now in Beijing, having crossed by train into China about 4 days ago. It was pretty neat, we took local trains (as opposed to one international train that most travellers take) and so got to stop in a couple towns that probably have never seen tourists before. Got to learn to count to ten (in Chinese, we know how to count to ten in English, we're math majors) in some restaurant with the whole family helping out. Gave them a Canadian flag pin for that...
So today we just got back from the Great Wall. We camped there over night, at Simitai (about 3 hours from Beijing). It was way cool, first we had to climb up the wall, it's in a non-touristy condition, so quite dangerous in parts (climbing up 75 degree slopes with a tent on your back ain't easy...) but well worth the effort. After about 2 or so hours, we reached the tower that we camped in along with 5 other people we had met in the hostel earlier. It was amazing, as the sun set in the west the moon was rising in the east, I couldn't decide which way to look... as if that wasn't enough, a gentle cloud cover passed in front of the moon. It's enough to give a guy inner peace, and I haven't even got to Nepal yet.
After mastering the Cyrillic script, we are now onto Chinese characters. We know about 10? so far, at this rate by the year 2013 we will know enough to read a newspaper.
So back to Mongolia for a sec... It appears that we only talked about the problems we had on our trip. Lotsa good stuff happened too:
Mongolians are amazingly polite and curious and helpful. (There's no thesaurus on this thing). I think it's cause the borders have just recently been open to tourism, and so we're the first wave. (Sullying the place up for future travellers.) We went to sand dunes in the Gobi over 100m high, and the edges on them were perfectly crisp... unlike some that I went to in Chile, which were amazing in themselves, but there was major evidence that you weren't the first one there... Our guide even took us to a Ulaan Baatar disco after our trip (everyone was watching us as the official dance gurus cause we were from the west, (and Gerry's from Strathroy, Ontario for crying out loud))
Local Customs (Mongolia):
- Drinking fermented milk of various milk-producing animals (camel, horse, mare, goat, sheep...) I kinda liked it after a while, Gerry got gas
- Living in Gers... as nomadic people they move around a lot and so live in portable tent-like things that they can move in about 7 hours. (as former co-op students we can appreciate this)
- Brewing home-made vodka... first round of which each person must skull (that means drink it all for you non-Aussies) an entire glass. This one we're bringing home
Toilet Update: (Mongolia)
- Gerry writes 'In the open air baby... well for 8 days at least' Otherwise it's a mix of fully functional toilets, toilets placed over holes in the ground, or just holes in the ground. But the toilet paper has improved immensely from Russia. (quite impressive for a country with few functional toilets.)
See you soon from Xi'an (that's in China)
Love Eric and Gerry (or Gerry and Eric)
How's it going? We are now in Beijing, having crossed by train into China about 4 days ago. It was pretty neat, we took local trains (as opposed to one international train that most travellers take) and so got to stop in a couple towns that probably have never seen tourists before. Got to learn to count to ten (in Chinese, we know how to count to ten in English, we're math majors) in some restaurant with the whole family helping out. Gave them a Canadian flag pin for that...
So today we just got back from the Great Wall. We camped there over night, at Simitai (about 3 hours from Beijing). It was way cool, first we had to climb up the wall, it's in a non-touristy condition, so quite dangerous in parts (climbing up 75 degree slopes with a tent on your back ain't easy...) but well worth the effort. After about 2 or so hours, we reached the tower that we camped in along with 5 other people we had met in the hostel earlier. It was amazing, as the sun set in the west the moon was rising in the east, I couldn't decide which way to look... as if that wasn't enough, a gentle cloud cover passed in front of the moon. It's enough to give a guy inner peace, and I haven't even got to Nepal yet.
After mastering the Cyrillic script, we are now onto Chinese characters. We know about 10? so far, at this rate by the year 2013 we will know enough to read a newspaper.
So back to Mongolia for a sec... It appears that we only talked about the problems we had on our trip. Lotsa good stuff happened too:
Mongolians are amazingly polite and curious and helpful. (There's no thesaurus on this thing). I think it's cause the borders have just recently been open to tourism, and so we're the first wave. (Sullying the place up for future travellers.) We went to sand dunes in the Gobi over 100m high, and the edges on them were perfectly crisp... unlike some that I went to in Chile, which were amazing in themselves, but there was major evidence that you weren't the first one there... Our guide even took us to a Ulaan Baatar disco after our trip (everyone was watching us as the official dance gurus cause we were from the west, (and Gerry's from Strathroy, Ontario for crying out loud))
Local Customs (Mongolia):
- Drinking fermented milk of various milk-producing animals (camel, horse, mare, goat, sheep...) I kinda liked it after a while, Gerry got gas
- Living in Gers... as nomadic people they move around a lot and so live in portable tent-like things that they can move in about 7 hours. (as former co-op students we can appreciate this)
- Brewing home-made vodka... first round of which each person must skull (that means drink it all for you non-Aussies) an entire glass. This one we're bringing home
Toilet Update: (Mongolia)
- Gerry writes 'In the open air baby... well for 8 days at least' Otherwise it's a mix of fully functional toilets, toilets placed over holes in the ground, or just holes in the ground. But the toilet paper has improved immensely from Russia. (quite impressive for a country with few functional toilets.)
See you soon from Xi'an (that's in China)
Love Eric and Gerry (or Gerry and Eric)
Monday, September 08, 1997
Ulaan Baatar, Mongolia
[written by Gerry Timmermans]
Sain Bainuu (Hello there).
Well, since our last message from Irkutsk we've had quite an adventure indeed. Eric managed to get himself left behind at a train station on the way to Mongolia. Here's his version of the story:
We had 50,000 roubles left, so at the last stop before the border, I went out to spend it at any shop I could find. I asked the provodnitsa (train attendant) how long the stop was, I asked 'pyaht naht zut minutes', which is 15. She though I said 'pyaht minutes' which is 5, so agreed with me. So I wandered off to spend our money (about $9 US), only to see the train pulling away as I tried to pay. So I ran after the train, but it was going faster than me. Just as I was running out of breath, I stopped beside a solo locomotive. The driver (?) asked me 'Ulaan Baatar?' (captial of Mongolia) and I said 'Da, da' so he gave me a ride. I got to sit up front and even got to toot the horn. A couple stops later (after about 45 minutes) we caught up to my train and so I got back on, no problems.
Now, here's my version:
Eric wanted to buy some beer. Out of the goodness of my heart I agreed to remain in the train to watch our stuff lest it be stolen by some wayward individual. As Eric left the train I could have sworn I heard the provodnitsa say "5 minutes" in English but that could have just been my imagination. So, about 4 minutes later I went to the door and started looking around to see if he'd gotten back on the train. I noticed a couple of other folks that also seated in our compartment running back to the train a few cards ahead. A few seconds later we started to pull away and there was still no sight of him. I mentioned this to the provodnitsa as she locked he door to the train but she insisted that he'd gotten back on the train near the restaurant car. I kept looking for him anyway and soon I realized that we indeed must have left him behind. So, as I was making contingency plans to get his and my stuff off the train in Ulaan Bataar (or explain where my friend was as I crossed the border) up pulls a locomotive along side us and Eric hops back on the train. No one could quite believe that he'd hitched a ride on a train engine. Once he was back we decided it might be a better idea to buy the beer in the restaurant car instead.
Since we've been in Mongolia we've also had a few adventures. Our first day here we met up with a couple of folks who wanted to take a jeep trek through the Gobi Desert. We agreed and left the next day. In our group was Kirsty (Australia), Eileen (USA), James (England), our driver Bimba (Mongolia), our guide Gana (bilingual Mongolian...fortunately English as the other language) and us (Canat's ... we're no longer Canadsky's, we're Canat's).
The 8 day trip was full of surprises which are far too lengthy to explain in detail. So, I'll just list the major catastrophes:
1. The first night we were forced to pitch our (borrowed) tent in sand. As a result the pegs didn't stay in very well and the wind blew most of the fly off just before it started to rain. We woke up in the middle of a collapsed tent with big rips in the side and big puddles all around us. It was pretty damn cold too (about 7 degrees or so). ... good start to the trip.
2. We're driving through the middle of the Gobi Desert when we crashed the jeep into a 3-foot deep crevice. It took us about 2-3 hours to change a messed up tire, remove the front-wheel-drive driveshaft, fill in the ditch, and push and shove our way out. I think the frame of the jeep was bent afterward as well. Thankfully, no one was seriously hurt but we were afraid our guide might have a concussion because she smashed her head into the windshield quite hard (shattering the glass).
3. I (Gerry) got lost in the middle of a mountain range after dark for a few hours and had to be rescued by several Mongolian horseman. They received a couple of bottles of vodka for that one ... enough said.
4. With our jeep now only rear wheel drive we got stuck in the sand near some sand dunes in the south Gobi. Our driver had obviously never driven in sand or snow before because he continually buried the vehicle despite our cries of "Zogs!" (stop!). It took us a few hours to get out of this one too.
5. Same day as 4. Our engine overheated numerous times throughout the day in a whole day of driving we made maybe 200km progress. To top it off we ran out of gas in the middle of nowhere (and I mean nowhere) and the driver had to walk for miles to get some fuel. We'd found a gas container by the said of the road about an hour earlier ... ironic huh. Fortunately our group had become immune to the adversities of Mongolian travel and before the driver was out of sight we had a fire burning and our dinner half cooked. At this point we were averaging one major disaster per day.
6. We had a few good-luck days and we were all trying to guess at what the next trouble would be. No one guessed that the electricity would have been down for two days at the gas station and we wouldn't be able to fill the tank. We made a hopeful run for Ulaan Baatar with the fuel we had and ran out just as we approached a station on the outskirts of the city ... whew.
Despite all these problems (or maybe because of them) this was one of the best 8 days I've ever had. Mongolia rules.
Our plans for the next few days are to head to a nearby National Park and hike and camp and meet the locals. The people we met on the Gobi trip were so friendly we'd like to meet a few more. We're worried now that the border restrictions have been lessened this place will be all sullied up in a few years time by all the gringos.
We heard that Princess Diana was killed in a car accident about a week or so ago. The details are really sketchy around here so could someone please give us an update (there's a British guy with us who's pretty curious too). For those of you who are paying attention this is a clear invitation to write us a note.
Big Mac combo research:
A BMC combo doesn't exist here. If it did the burgers would probably be made with mutton anyway.
We'll check your messages when we hit Beijing in about a week or so.
Byal-staa
Gerry & Eric (or Eric & Gerry)
Sain Bainuu (Hello there).
Well, since our last message from Irkutsk we've had quite an adventure indeed. Eric managed to get himself left behind at a train station on the way to Mongolia. Here's his version of the story:
We had 50,000 roubles left, so at the last stop before the border, I went out to spend it at any shop I could find. I asked the provodnitsa (train attendant) how long the stop was, I asked 'pyaht naht zut minutes', which is 15. She though I said 'pyaht minutes' which is 5, so agreed with me. So I wandered off to spend our money (about $9 US), only to see the train pulling away as I tried to pay. So I ran after the train, but it was going faster than me. Just as I was running out of breath, I stopped beside a solo locomotive. The driver (?) asked me 'Ulaan Baatar?' (captial of Mongolia) and I said 'Da, da' so he gave me a ride. I got to sit up front and even got to toot the horn. A couple stops later (after about 45 minutes) we caught up to my train and so I got back on, no problems.
Now, here's my version:
Eric wanted to buy some beer. Out of the goodness of my heart I agreed to remain in the train to watch our stuff lest it be stolen by some wayward individual. As Eric left the train I could have sworn I heard the provodnitsa say "5 minutes" in English but that could have just been my imagination. So, about 4 minutes later I went to the door and started looking around to see if he'd gotten back on the train. I noticed a couple of other folks that also seated in our compartment running back to the train a few cards ahead. A few seconds later we started to pull away and there was still no sight of him. I mentioned this to the provodnitsa as she locked he door to the train but she insisted that he'd gotten back on the train near the restaurant car. I kept looking for him anyway and soon I realized that we indeed must have left him behind. So, as I was making contingency plans to get his and my stuff off the train in Ulaan Bataar (or explain where my friend was as I crossed the border) up pulls a locomotive along side us and Eric hops back on the train. No one could quite believe that he'd hitched a ride on a train engine. Once he was back we decided it might be a better idea to buy the beer in the restaurant car instead.
Since we've been in Mongolia we've also had a few adventures. Our first day here we met up with a couple of folks who wanted to take a jeep trek through the Gobi Desert. We agreed and left the next day. In our group was Kirsty (Australia), Eileen (USA), James (England), our driver Bimba (Mongolia), our guide Gana (bilingual Mongolian...fortunately English as the other language) and us (Canat's ... we're no longer Canadsky's, we're Canat's).
The 8 day trip was full of surprises which are far too lengthy to explain in detail. So, I'll just list the major catastrophes:
1. The first night we were forced to pitch our (borrowed) tent in sand. As a result the pegs didn't stay in very well and the wind blew most of the fly off just before it started to rain. We woke up in the middle of a collapsed tent with big rips in the side and big puddles all around us. It was pretty damn cold too (about 7 degrees or so). ... good start to the trip.
2. We're driving through the middle of the Gobi Desert when we crashed the jeep into a 3-foot deep crevice. It took us about 2-3 hours to change a messed up tire, remove the front-wheel-drive driveshaft, fill in the ditch, and push and shove our way out. I think the frame of the jeep was bent afterward as well. Thankfully, no one was seriously hurt but we were afraid our guide might have a concussion because she smashed her head into the windshield quite hard (shattering the glass).
3. I (Gerry) got lost in the middle of a mountain range after dark for a few hours and had to be rescued by several Mongolian horseman. They received a couple of bottles of vodka for that one ... enough said.
4. With our jeep now only rear wheel drive we got stuck in the sand near some sand dunes in the south Gobi. Our driver had obviously never driven in sand or snow before because he continually buried the vehicle despite our cries of "Zogs!" (stop!). It took us a few hours to get out of this one too.
5. Same day as 4. Our engine overheated numerous times throughout the day in a whole day of driving we made maybe 200km progress. To top it off we ran out of gas in the middle of nowhere (and I mean nowhere) and the driver had to walk for miles to get some fuel. We'd found a gas container by the said of the road about an hour earlier ... ironic huh. Fortunately our group had become immune to the adversities of Mongolian travel and before the driver was out of sight we had a fire burning and our dinner half cooked. At this point we were averaging one major disaster per day.
6. We had a few good-luck days and we were all trying to guess at what the next trouble would be. No one guessed that the electricity would have been down for two days at the gas station and we wouldn't be able to fill the tank. We made a hopeful run for Ulaan Baatar with the fuel we had and ran out just as we approached a station on the outskirts of the city ... whew.
Despite all these problems (or maybe because of them) this was one of the best 8 days I've ever had. Mongolia rules.
Our plans for the next few days are to head to a nearby National Park and hike and camp and meet the locals. The people we met on the Gobi trip were so friendly we'd like to meet a few more. We're worried now that the border restrictions have been lessened this place will be all sullied up in a few years time by all the gringos.
We heard that Princess Diana was killed in a car accident about a week or so ago. The details are really sketchy around here so could someone please give us an update (there's a British guy with us who's pretty curious too). For those of you who are paying attention this is a clear invitation to write us a note.
Big Mac combo research:
A BMC combo doesn't exist here. If it did the burgers would probably be made with mutton anyway.
We'll check your messages when we hit Beijing in about a week or so.
Byal-staa
Gerry & Eric (or Eric & Gerry)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)