The two days in Luang Prabang were not really days for sightseeing or enjoying this Unesco-listed world heritage city because we had just too much to organise for our trip down the Mekong river with a boat we still had to look out for. The guy in our guesthouse helped us finding even if later we found out that it was a total ripoff but anyway the cheapest option we had (but at least we met some other Germans on the river who paid twice as much as we did ;-P ). after a whole of searching we finally found her, UTOPIA (named so by us), a 8-9m long local 
fisher that looked more like a canoe. We paid 1.500.000kip for her, that equals about 120€. Additionally to that we had to buy lifevests, food, water and other useful stuff and started at the end with less than 20€ in our pocket into the wild. Very optmistic, maybee too optimistic as we found out soon. The day we left southwards was sunday the 18th of October and we faced the first big problem already when tried to transfer Utopia from one river bank to the other and definitely underestimated the strenght of the river or overestimated my ability to stear Utopia alone by myself. Annika waited at the other side of the river and looked for our stuff and I arrived there, one hour later, without Utopia (she was “parked” 500m further downstream the river than actually planned among reeds) and it took us two more hours to finally get back to her, put everything on board and finally start our journey. It took some time until we managed to control the boat properly and made acquaintanship with some of the many whirlpools and rapids we had to face on our way but we also already made a good distance this first day and stopped at one of the large numbered and absolutely stunning river beaches for the night. We pitched our tent, started a campfire hearth (to prepare our dinner) and went to bed pretty early. Our plan was adjust our sleeping rhythm with the rhythm of the sunset/sunrise to use as many daylight as possible as it was just to dangerous to paddle in the dark. Day 2 was pretty relaxed, the landscape turned more and more into total wilderness and was just amazing. The defintely highlight of the day was the little “lagoon” in the middle of the river where we stopped for a swim 
and spent our early afternoon break (to escape the cruel midday sun) before we made some more kilometers before our final stop at a tiny, little and cute beach. We parked Utopia in the bay beside I started to prepare dinner over another fire because Annika was totally down with a heavy sunstroke that included fever and all other unwelcome side-effects. Even worse, the night was going to become a total nightmare. When Annika went up at two o’clock in the morning to have another wattery dump (she told me to write that!) she discovered that Utopia was gone. She woke me up with the words “Daniel, Utopia is gone!”. I thought she was joking but she was not. Utopia really was gone, together with our backpacks, that, smart 
as we are, left on the boat for lazyness reasons. The backpacks were not really the important stuff, it would have been annoying to organise all necessarities again but the real pain in the ass was that we had our passports and credit cards in the bags and just 20€ in our pockets. Congratulations! It was pitch dark at that time, the river in this area was really wild and it started to rain a little bit later so there was absolutely nothing we could do about it until sunrise and tried to get some more sleep. We somehow sensed that the next day probably would become very exhausting and annoying for us. Ok, as soon as it became light (the sun wasn’t seen that day, it was raining all morning long) we stopped a passing family in their small motorboat, gestured our situation and made clear that it would be very important for us to get to somewhere where we could something. Where this “somewhere” would be and what the “something” that we wanted to do was, was actually not really clear to us, too but it was a good feeling to get away from the small island (the local mans family stayed there for us now because we all didn’t fit in his boat). He brought us to the next bigger village which was actually just a ferry crossing (the only Mekong ferry crossing in Laos!) where we tried to gesture our situation again. The people who surrended us quickly were not big help and didn’t really know what to do either but our rescue came with a lady who handed a mobile phone to us with somebody speaking english on the other end. This woman, Saikam her name, told us to get into the only pick-up truck standing around which will bring us to her. We really were unbelievably lucky that Saikam was in this area at that time for visiting her parents because she usually lives in the U.S. . Now we had somebody who spoke english and lao and she was extremely helpful, too. After a breakfast she went with us to the next police station for she (and the rest of the village that gathered around us) was convinced that our boat was stolen. As nearly everywhere in the world, going to the police to report a theft and to hope to get back your belongings is not very efficient way in Lao also. It’s rather annoying and beside being corrupt, not thrustworthy and lazy the police was very incompetent as well. So during our hearing the police officer didn’t even ask what colour our boat had and one or two hour later when we were already back at Saikams parents’ house they seriously called Saikam one more time to ask Saikam if our boat was really gone. Sometime ago someone explained me the reason for the word “ridiculous”. He said “Two funny that you can’t even lough about it”. I think that perfectly fits here. After our visit at the cops we started to get into action and to look for our boat by ourselves so we went down to the ferry crossing to find a boat that would drive us downstream or around so we could ask people if someone had seen it or just look out for it. Our hopes to get it back was nearly zero at that moment, we already started to accept that we would have to deal with a lot of bureaucratic stuff in the next weeks to get new passports, new visas, credit cards etc. and we will lose a lot of money to arrange that, too. Then, directly out of nowhere, we got the message that a village about 1,5hours downstream by motorboat did find Utopia. At the first call that a local guy made they denied having found anything and even when Saikam offered a reward they still didn’t know anything. A few minutes later the called back and asked how much they would get if they had found our boat… Alright, our boat was found and we engaged a guy with a biiig motorboat to bring 
us to the village. Utopia really was there, including all our stuff, so the bargaining to re-buy her could begin. We agreed on 240000kip (=20€, really a bargain compared to the costs we would have had for new passports etc.), loaded Utopia in the big boat and went back, as happy as pigs in the mud, to Saikams village where we spent the night before finally going on the next morning. So, how did it happen that the boat dissappeared? We have not the slightest idea! Theory One: Night fishers or other people who saw us the evening before camping at this place stole the boat. The police and the Saikam’s villagers said that this would be the most common case ’cause it’s not unusual that boats get stolen in this area. Against this theory speaks that nothing (except a camping mattress) was actually gone (but the villagers who “found” claimed for some bread that they thought would be in the rice bags where we actually packed our backpacks into). Theory Two: We didn’t tie Utopia up properly so she used her chance to escape into freedom and floated away. Against this theory speaks that we tied her up at a paddle that we stucked deep in the sand and the paddle was gone with her but still there when we got Utopia back. Usually the paddle must must must have been lost when Utopia floated down by herself. But anyway, we really didn’t care anymore at the end of this long day. The most important thing was that we had our stuff back and could go on. That all definitely wouldn’t have been possible without Saikam’s help and the help of several other people we don’t know the names of. Saikam organised so much for us, borrowed us money, invited us for food and into her families home, drove around with all day (although she was afraid of water) and just came to us like the miracle we needed. Thank you so so so much!
Alright, let’s go on, but soon we had to learn that the trouble was not over yet. After some wild hours with lots of deep (1-1,5m deep and 2-3m wide) whirlpools and rapids we hit a rock under the surface of the water and discovered that we had a bog hole in the back of the boat and Utopia was leaking. Luckily a beach to land was nearby. Our first examinations showed that one replaceable part of the rubber where the motor usually is situated was gone but we had nothing to replace it. The stick we used was not very waterproofed but fortunately now two boys who were picked by an old fisherman helped us in a professional way. They carved a new plug for us with their machete what took sometime but in the end was better then the plug we had before. All they wanted for that was a cigarette and a bottle of water! I doubt that they will ever read this, but anyway, thank you! We put up our tent again and ended this day very early.
But now enough with the bad stuff. The next morning we had to face the biggest rapid and whirlpools on our trip and managed it gloriously. I mean, we had not so much control about our 
boat and we were just lucky but we survived. Honestly, I can imagine that people don’t survive these kinds of monster whirlpools when they have not so much luck as we had and get directly into the middle of this mess. This situation was scary and also it was the only situation we definitely were very glad to have our lifevests. Usually a whirlpool developes when two different riverstreams (f.e. caused through rocks or other obstacles in the water) hit each other. Most of the time that was not really dangerous for us (our boat was long, that was our luck), just annoying, but 
sometimes and especially in this area there were massive rocks in the water leading to massive whirlpools. Our usual behaviour of paddling as fast as we could to get out of the trouble was just worthless, the streams were too strong and played with our boat like it would be just floating wood. It didn’t happen only once that we got a good amount of water into the boat due to the rough river conditions. But our new plug was strong and did it’s job very well.
Day 4-8 we reached more calm waters and the before gorgeous landscape with high mountains and deep jungle surrounding us changed slowly into the lao low land. Not so much rocks in the water, just very small whirlpools and rapids (they were actually fun!) made it a pleasant and 
relaxed time on the river. We saw elephants by and snakes in the river and hundreds of children (or grown-ups) at the rivershore greetings us with happy smiles, waving hands and a loud “Sabaidee!”, what means hello. But the real highlights were the evenings when we just relaxed, had our well-earned dinner and watched the great sunsets and the clear sky with it’s millions of stars visible in this no mans land. That all plus the sounds out of the jungle behind us really made the Mekong experience paradisial.
At day seven we slowly ran out of our supplies of water and food and had to stop to shop in a small village. We were happy that they had a 
small shop and it was possible to get some fresh water there and the children (and once again, the grown-ups, too) were happy that we came to visit the village. I think we maybe were the first foreign people who visited this place since a long time, at least we were a star attraction that day. When we were buying things in the small shop (where they brought us chairs to sit down for our order) I counted 43 people around us who watched us what we would buy. After being said goodbye by all children in the village we met two other tourists on the river a couple of hours later. Paul and Martin also bought a boat in Luang Prabang but were cheating because they bought a motorboat 
For the boat itself (a little bit bigger than ours) without a motor they paid 400$, roundabout 270€, so we still were “happy” with the deal we made with Utopia. Actually it’s really not a common trip to go down the Mekong independently (and especially not by paddle boat) so both sides 
were happy to see each other and to talk about the experiences the other side made. This was the first time, after seven days, when we got know where exactly we are and how many kilometers we made the last seven days bacause these guys had something like a map (smart guys!) We found out that we were doing well and must have paddled around 50km per day because we were just a half day away from 
Pak Lei, the only bigger city on the Mekong river between Luang Prabang and Vientiane. The guys agreed to tow us to Pak Lei what was really cool and a nice alternative to the endless paddling we did the last days for the hour it took until a part of their motor broke and we had to pull over to a beach. Repairing was not possible so we had to stay another night and reached Pak Lei just in the next day. But it was very funny and interesting with them. A good thing was, that we were able to pay back a little bit of the help we got on the river and helped out the guys with money to repair their boat (they had not money at all left, their 
motor broke down not the first time) and with cigarettes, food and drinks that we had plenty now and they none. The next morning we appointed to meet in Pak Lei with them, we already went on and they went to repair their boat. After 3 or 4 hours they overtook us in our noon break but maybe two hours later we got them again, in Pak Lei, the final destination of our paddle trip, but we didn’t know that yet. We really were very happy to reach the city. Everyday the sun was burning down on us with no mercy and without any centimeter of shadow around and this day was maybe the worsest of all.
Pak Lei had an ATM, what surprised me a little bit but saved our asses. We were back in business. And back in something like civilisation.
At all we spent three night in this little small town on the edge of the Mekong and the days were, except our ever present diarrhoe and feebleness (maybe a result of the merciless and permanent sun radiation the days before), just cool. The town is not very nice and some people would call it boring but the people there were just great, foreigners are still a total rarity in this part of Laos (the villages we passed on the Mekong the last 5 days before all had no street connection and are just reachable by boat, so the whole area is pretty isolated from the rest of the world). Examples? We found a very nice food stall just opposite our guesthouse where we dined at least twice a day and the evening before we left Pak Lei the owner of this food stall (Ta his name) knocked on our room door. He brought three beer and food that we ate or drank together. Another great thing happened in the morning of our second day, when a girl with a scooter stopped for us and ask us if we could visit her school class to teach a little bit english (usually she was the teacher), what we (or mostly Annika) did the same evening. The 
students were all between 14 and 16 years old and the lesson was very funny. Mostly they wanted to learn english songs. The teacher, to us: “Are you tired?” We: “No”, Teacher: “Good so if you’re not tired can you maybe sing one more song for us?”, very funny, now the students know songs like “Brother John” and “My Bonnie Is Over The Ocean”. One evening we spent with Martin and Paul in a nearby Cafe with some beer discussing nutrition and tried the whole last day to sell our boat because we decided, due to our 
health condition, to take the slow boat from Pak Lei into the capital Vientiane the next morning instead of paddling. In the morning when the slow boat left we finally got an offer of 1000Baht (the thai currency) for Utopia, which was pretty miserable but our more or less only possibility. We just accepted… The slow boat ride was a pleasure and a nice experience, as well. They really load everthing you can imagine (cupboards, tables, rice…) into the boat, not necessary to say that the boat was nearly packed until the roof, too. You’ll have a minus on the comfort side but the enjoyable view you have compensates that. 8 hours later we arrived near the capital and another “Tuk Tuk” ride later we checked in in a nice and cheap guesthouse. Halleluja!
Archiv für Oktober 2009
Pretty Suicidal, but great fun!
Samstag, 31. Oktober 2009The honking is out of control – our way to Laos
Samstag, 17. Oktober 2009Once again, it started not really like we imagined it. The morning was a complete disaster. We went with Jessy and Lyes for breakfast and had to face our small bill of just 114Yuan (for 3 coffees!!!) but were able to negotiate it down to 60Yuan (=6€). Still very expensive but there was somehow no way to get out of this situation without paying at least something. Then we went for some serious food and got into a noodle stall where Annika and me ordered soy bean noddles and made clear that we want no meat inside. Don’t know if the man from the stall just didn’t understand us or if minced meat for him is just no real meat but we got noodles with meat. Our time was running short, too and started with empty stomachs. We had to catch our bus at 14.30 at the bus station and it was very hard to find a taxi at that time. Like always – if you don’t need or want a taxi hundreds of cabs surround you and almost try to pull you inside their car and when you really need one there is none. But we made it in time and found even some food for us before our sleeper bus left. A sleeper bus is, as the name says, is a bus where you can sleep inside. In a usual 50 persons bus they manage somehow to squeeze 32 beds inside. The beds are not very long and not very comfortable but still better than a regular bus when you have to spent 18 hours in the bus. The most annoying thing was the driver who honked every ten seconds and drove like mad. Not just one time we were seriously flying around in the bus. The street conditions were not the best, let’s say it like this but for him it was no problem at all, 
slowing down was something he probably never heard about (I’m sure this guy considers the honk as more important than the breaks). Good luck I was reading a good book, otherwise it had been really awful. Sleeping was just impossible (just all the chinese in the bus slept, but they were all much smaller than me and sleep everywhere they can anyway) until 6am the next morning when I napped in but two hours later we already arrived Jinghong. Noodles made a welcoming breakfast and an ATM was found quickly too so we went on just two hours later to Mengla, what takes three hours, we arrived there at 1pm. There we really needed some sleep and decided to stay overnight. It wouldn’t have been possible to go to Luang Prabang the same day anyway. After a two hours rest in our cheap but good hotel we had to find a place to exchange Yuan into US$, what’s easier to say than to do. But we found a Western Union office in a bank and spent the rest of the day mostly with eating. In a small bar we met Peter, a local guy who learned english from watching movies (and he spoke almost perfect) and spent a very nice evening with him, exchanging travel hints and tips with each other because he knew Laos pretty well and we know Europe pretty well where he plans to travel to in near future. The next day we had to get up early. Our bus to Oudomxay, already in Laos, left Mengla at 8.30am and it took 4,5 hours. Inbetween we crossed the chinese-laotian border, for us it was no problem at all, we paid 32US$ each at the border and got our permit to travel Laos for 30 days on the spot. It looked different for a traveller from Ghana who left China and wanted to obtain a lao visa at the border, too. What he (and probably nobody else in world) didn’t know 
was that Laos changed the entry regulations exactly at this day (the 15th of October) and announced that with a letter at the window of the visa desk. As they quoted, they don’t issue visas on arrival for 29 countries and the best was that one custom officer told him that it would have been no problem yesterday but today there’s no chance to get one from now on anymore. I can’t tell you how much I hate this most unnecessary thing in the world that is called borders. He was really fucked up, it’s not possible to get a visa at the chinese border and his old visa was already stamped invalid so he couldn’t go back to China either and was stuck between two communist, bureaucratic countries. I got his mobile number and his e-mail adress but were not really able to help him out of this situation because there is no embassy of Ghana in Laos. Already before I heard stories that had some similarities to this case and the stories I heard all are pretty frightening. If I can find out what happened to him I’ll keep you up to date. In Oudomxay we waited a couple of hours for the next (and last this day) bus to Luang Prabang and met an australian couple who went out in a small city the name I forgot after 3,5 hours. We went on for some more hours (all the time through the jungle – a breathtaking landscape) and finally arrived in the world heritage city at 10pm, after, at all, 54 hours.
The Pizzeria of Punk!
Donnerstag, 15. Oktober 2009We arrived in Lijiang pretty late. It was raining and we had no idea where the concert of the three or four announced bands should take place, the only thing we knew was that it should be somewhere in the Old Town and the venue’s name is Mammamia. We were surprised that no one knew a location like that in Lijiang, just outside of the city in nearby towns there would be two pizza restaurants with that name. Already a little bit frustrated and annoyed of the masses of tourists in the Old Town (yeah, as you guessed it now, Lijiang is another of these nice little tourist cities) we found an old hippie who settled down here who knew about this concert and was able to organise us someone who wrote down the directions to that place for a taxi driver. It really was, different than announced on the poster, not in Lijiang but in Shuo He, another town about 10km from Lijiang. The taxi to there costs less than 2€ and we finally made it there in time. We were surprised, the place where the concert was going to be held really was an ordinary (and even upscale) pizza restaurant with a terrace to the street what today was the stage. And there were not four or five bands this evening, just one. In Yangshuo we got to know a guy from Quebec and his girlfriend from Kunming who should play there this evening, too, 
but the guys girlfriend (who was there) told us that her boyfriend drank a little bit too much the day before and screwed up to come here and that his gig is cancelled. The only band that was left now was “Smegma Riot”, an italian expat band from Kunming, but they made a great show. The whole band was dressed in bathing suits and really gave all, even if the sound quality was not that perfect, it was just great and somehow hilarious to see. In the 50 people audience were a handful foreigners and otherwise chinese people who really didn’t look like if they would listen to punk music. They mostly were standing around in a half circle around the stage and probably were not really believing what these strange foreigners are performing in the middle of street. Men in bathing sutis, going totally crazy, rolling on each other on the ground, flashing their ass, jumping around producing a not understandable music in a worse quality. We loved it! It was something so different to equvalent concerts at home, just funny and hilarious to see! Unfortunately the police heard about the concert (what was not hard – it was in the middle of the city centre and really very load) and showed up after one hour and told the owner of the place that this song will be the last song – too bad. But after the concert we went with the band and some other people to a local pub where the party was going on. Bella Ciao accapalla for half an hour, a couple of beers and relaxed and interesting people. A great evening! Unfortunately it ended not so nice because when we went back to Lijiang the taxi driver just brought us to the Old Town where it’s extremely hard to find anything if you’ve just been in the town for maybe two hours. The narrow streets and ways somehow all look the same and it really is a Labyrinth. Good luck Jessy and Lyes took care of us two drunken and stoned people and picked us up in the main square at maybe 3 o’clock in the morning. But the show was not over yet, together with them we went to another small snack shop and joined the group they were drinking with for a few more beers.
The next day began (and ended) slowly with two or three breakfasts and coffees and slow walking around the ancient town. We bought our sleeper bus tickets for the next day to Jinghong (close to the Lao 
border) and made not so much more. I was not really feeling well either so I decided to stay in the room during the evening to chill out a little bit and to keep this blog more or less up to date . Annika went to a strange hotpot restaurant with the others, the speciality in this restaurant was some special meat that hang around somewhere for days and should be especially delicious. But anyway, she got lily blossoms what was good, as she reported to me
Where the tropics meet the Himalaya
Dienstag, 13. Oktober 2009We tried to hitchhike up north to the Tiger Leaping Gorge but that was not really successful. We were too late and had a small money problem and our local ATM machine refused to give us some cash so we had to head back to Dali to get some Quay (the nickname for the Yuan). We we were back in business it already was almost to late to hitchhike so we decided to take a bus. Anyway, China probably is one of the worsest countries to hitchhike. It’s definitely not common, the traffic is murderous and everybody will expect money for the ride so it’s usually even cheaper to rely on public transportation. From Dali theres no direct bus to the Qiaotou (the first villlage in the gorge), we got to Lijiang where a guesthouse night was necessary. But in the next morning, after a breakfast (potatoes with grilled tofu – great!) we took the bus to the mentioned village and stayed there for the night in a 
nice small guesthouse. In the evening we already took a walk down the lower road into the gorge and already got a first impression which marvellous landscape and nature will expect us the next 3 days. We left our luggage in the guesthouse at the beginning at the gorge and just took our small backpacks and the most necessary things with us, a good 
decision. The Tiger Leaping Gorge, a tale sais that once a tiger jumped over the Yangtse river (the longest river in China) here, is definitely a spot not to miss. The river flows very wild and loud (the hardest water rafting area in the world, just one time some Japanese managed it to get through) through up to 3900m high walls of mountains that rise up to 4500m. The gorge is one of the deepest canyons in the whole world. There are two trails you can take to complete the 16-20km long way (depends which way you take), the old tibetan tea trading pass high up with very steep sections and small paths that allow just horses, donkeys or humans to walk or the newly build mostly paved road down 
at the river which is much easier. Of course we decided to take the old traditional possibility. For this route you should calculate two days of walking but I guess it’s easy to spent more time in this area. On the high trail there are guesthouses every two to three hours so it’s easy to have a rest inbetween or to stay overnight. Our goal was to reach the “Halfway Lodge” in the first day, that, not like the name assumes, is a longer way than just the half of the high trail. But still it’s pretty easy to 
reach in a 6-8 hours hike. Most of the time the hiking is pretty alright and not really demanding, the most exhausting sections are the “28 bends”, that whirl you up to 2650m and the way up or down the trail. The other sections are very enjoyable but shouldn’t be taken too easy, several people already died in the gorge. When hiking most of the way you’re just by yourself and have the really stunning landscape for your own as well. In the evening you meet fellow travellers in the cheap 
guesthouses what is pretty nice, too. From the rooms (which costs like 20-30Yuan each in a double room) you most of the times have fabulous views (the same for the toilets ) and you really meet interesting persons here and a nice evening with a couple of beers after so much hiking and very nice talks is almost guaranteed. Now greets to Jonathan (I definitely will visit you in Iowa!) and Mon Yew (I’ll visit you even earlier in Singapore!), Laszlo and the finnish-chinese guy, the swiss family Annika already met on the Trans-Sibirian Railway (Karin, Roland, Eric and Simon) and Jessy and Lyes. It was a great pleasure to meet you all! We finished our hike already at the 
early afternoon of the second day so had enough time to relax in Sean’s guesthouse before we organised our way back together with Lyes and Jessy to Lijiang, where they already have been longer than just one day and organised a very nice homestay for us. The way to Lijiang takes around 2 hours, plus the way from the end of the gorge back to Qiatou what’s around 30minutes on the new paved road.
For me, the Tiger Leaping Gorge definitely is THE mother of hikes in China (but ok, I haven’t hiked so much there) and more than worth to go for it. For both of us it was one of the big highlights in our travels so far. And in general, if I had to recommend a nice relaxed and still interesting place to go on holiday for a couple of weeks I would now definitely recommend Southwest China, Guangxi and Yunnan province!
Let’s have another rest…
Freitag, 09. Oktober 2009It was a strange week this first week of October. The CCP (Chinese Communist Party) gives a whole week holiday for the whole country (of course except for the poor people who can’t even think about a day off because they need something to eat the next week as well) every year after the national day and the people who can efford it all seem to use this week for travelling. At first we were even thinking to leave China before the first of October to avoid this week totally but than we decided to go to a nice, and hopefully not too touristy, village at the shore of Lake Erhai Hu (the 7th largest lake in China in an altitude of 1950m), called Caicun. This village is just a couple of kilometers away from another tourist hub (Dali) and we were not really sure if that would jump out of a frying pan into the fire but we were positively surprised that in our guesthouse, named Dragonfly Garden, we were the only guests (at least for the first night) so there was nothing in the way for a chilled week. Our guesthouse was just great, with a big garden, swings and hammocks, a pool table, great cheap food opportunities and very great and relaxed stuff. We had the hippie-city Dali a few kilometers away, the mountains (up to 4400m high, we were 
already at the foothills of the Himalaya) to the west and a great lake to the east, it was as good as it just could be. No wonder that we paid four days when we checked in and checked out seven days later It was easy to fill the days with some leisure activities like exploring Dali, climbing the nearby mountains with great views into the surrounding landscape and onto the lake or simply to relax in the garden. By the way, a smokable plant that is legal to smoke in the netherlands and illegal to smoke in Germany grows in this area just alongside the streets… I guess now maybe a few people who read this will open a new tab or browser window and will have a look at 
googlemaps where exactly Dali in the Yunnan province is located . On the 3rd of October in China the “Mid-Autumn festival” was hold this year what is a very special thing for the chinese, as well. We were just sitting in our bungalow (I forgot to mention, we had our own bungalow for 2,50€ each during this week!) eating our munchies away (you know, this plant that grows at the side of the street) when the big boss of the guesthouse, a tiny, sweet middle-old and warmhearted lady that was always afraid that we would starve and that we called “Mama” after two days, knocked at our bungalow door to get us out of there to celebrate the moonfestival with her family and to get some better food than our peanut butter sandwiches. The evening was great fun, we understood almost nothing (just one person in the round spoke a little bit english with a very strong chinese accent) and were feeded with the traditional moon cake in three or 
four different variations, walnuts, grapefruits, peanuts and pots of local wine and had to take plenty pictures with all members of the family and who we all say “Cheers” to each other
The town of Dali is really something like a tourist city, but not as worse as Yangshuo. Not soooo many westerners come here but quite a few (mostly hippies, that makes Dali to something like a real hippie-city) 
found this city likeable enough to settle down there, what I somehow can understand. We also got the first impression about the great chinese province Yunnan here and than decided that we will need more time here. Getting more time was connected to extend our visas what was connected to two 30 minutes journeys into the next bigger city Xiaguan to visit the Public Security Bureau and a visit to the local police station to get a temporary resident permit for another 30 days in China. At all it was not a big deal, just the usual bureaucratic shit for what we had to pay 160Yuan and give away another page of our already well visa-sticked passports. The big advantage that came along with the visa extension was that we would have enough time to hike the Tiger Leaping Gorge (supposed to be gorgeous, and it truly was) and, a really very special pleasure for both of us, to visit a punk concert in Lijiang. Punk in China! The country is not totally lost yet…
60 years People’s Republic of China, Happy Birthday!
Samstag, 03. Oktober 2009From me all the best for the future! I really wish you a new (or no) government, human rights and a free media!
On the first of October 1949 Mao Zedong proclaimed that “the chinese People have stood up” and called out the new “People’s Republic of China”, another of the lot totalitarian communist states that spread out all over the world in these times. Now, 60 years later, the same party is still in power, even when the society they once tried to estasblish in the most populated nation never became true and China now is a hypercapitalised state, maybe by far worser than for example the western capitalist states. But of course, the anniversary 60 days later is a huge thing to celebrate and the whole country (maybe except the “few” minorities that are surpressed in this nation every day) prepares for a huge fest. Annika and me didn’t want to celebrate with them and decided to take a night train from Guilin to Kunming in the evening of the 30th September. The train arrived in Kunming around noon the next day and we directly headed forward to Dali by bus which took another 6-7 hours so we were just travelling at that awful day. But anyway, it was not possible to flee totally from the hysterical masses because the train and bus stations were crowded like hell (it was a national holiday of course) and the streets all were flagged with chinese flags, pennents and other patriotic bullshit. In Beijing the main military parade and a huge choreography (in what a lot of Beijing students had to take part and there semester holidays were just cancelled) was held and in the most other cities there were at least some other spectacles to glorify the great history of the last 60 years. In the main celebration which was repeated again and again on TV during the next days they gave great four minutes for the culture revolution and not a single second for “the big leap forward” afterwards a huge famine hit the country. Really a great self-reflexion.
Anyway, how to describe the chinese state of today? I guess it’s pretty modern, at least much more modern than I expected it to be (and that at least in the cities), but you still feel the pressure of a 
totalitarian state everywhere around you. The police present on the street is huge, on public places you find CCTV cameras everywhere and Mao is honoured all around in a totally ridiculous way. Some internet pages don’t open (maybe this blog after this critical words, either) and you see communist symbols etc. everywhere. The big contrast to that is that China seems to be not a communist state at all. It really seems to be a business state in worsest way you can imagine. It sometimes seems that it’s all about money here and without money you’re just a total loser. Not that it’s not the same in Germany or France but there you’ve got at least something like a social care system what is completely missing here and someway the people seem to be satisfied with the system they have and seem to like it. I see, at the moment the chinese maybe face so much “freedom” as they never had before and they feel like surfing on huge wave that is growing and growing but somehow someone has to notice that with this government this all is just nothing more than a big theatre. It’s obvious, for example, the government make you pay for EVERYTHING. You want to enter this park? Of course, you just have to pay 30Yuan! You want to take a picture? No deal, 5Yuan! You wanna climb this mountain? Have fun and give me 20Yuan before! Entering the old town? Just 80Yuan! Do some trekking through this gorge? It’s great, but pay the entrance fee of 50Yuan! I could list much more examples… That all doesn’t really fit together and makes China somehow a strange place.
That’s about the state and the political and social system in China, please don’t confuse it with the people’s attitude. The people really are very helpful, friendly and show a great hospitality and they are the ones who have to live under this strange government inside this strange state. They somehow have to deal with it and suffer most and I really hope that it won’t take another 60 years from now until everybody can say again “the chinese people have stood up!”
Let’s have a rest…
Freitag, 02. Oktober 2009We arrived in Guilin sometime around midnight and we really expected the weather there to be hot but what we got was insane. 27°C at night and totally humid… that’s really too much. We were extremely happy that we had air con in our room in the nice Flowers Hostel where we checked in. Before we went to bed we had a small evening lunch of street food stall noodles which became one of my total favourites during the next days. We planned to stay in Guilin, a nice city on the banks of the undescribable Li River, for two days before we wanted to head 70km further south to Yangshuo where we got something like a job for 10 days. Guilin actually was already nice, just a pitty that it was not really possible to do something in a 36°C heat in the afternoon. In the third day, thank you very much, it rained a little bit and the weather changed. The temperatures just reached 25-27° anymore what was absolutely perfect for our Li River trip in a bamboo boat down to Yangshuo that we arranged together with Max (I knew him already from Mongolia and ran into him in the streets). At first we went out of the city by bus for one hour before we changed to the bamboo boat which brought us in 2,5hours downstream to another old town from where we took another bus for maybe 30minutes to get to Yangshuo. The scenery at the Li River is just spectacular. There are no words to describe it so I simply won’t try. There’s a reason why 
the backside of the 20Yuan note shows a picture from the Yulong River. The area around Guilin and Yangshuo is famous for the karst strange rock formations you find everywhere. These green hills seem just to 
grow out of the earth with no warning and make it somehow a surreal place. The reason for this unique landscape is that the whole area was part of the ocean a long time ago and maybe a huge coral reef. Yangshuo is even better than Guilin in my opinion and I was really happy that we made the decision to stay there for some days. The city is squeezed between the mountains 
and two rivers, the already mentioned Li River and the Yulong River (Dragon River) and is very attractive for all kinds of tourists as a base for trips into the surrounding nature. Climbers, Hikers, Ballooners and Photographers meet here so it think you can imagine that the city is pretty touristy, what might be the biggest disadvantage about this place. The “job” we had was very interesting as well. We volunteered at the most famous english college in town where people from all over China come to to improve their english skills. The only thing we had to do was take part in the so called “English Corners” where we got a topic and talked about that (or mostly about other more interesting things) for two hours four times a week in the evening. For that we got free accomodation, free food (but hardly any vegan or vegetarian options so we self-catered 
us) and, at that was the best of all, free beers! Beside that, of course, it was a great chance to get to know chinese locals and the chinese culture. Otherwise most of the time pretty hard to chat with locals due to language problems. Our free time during the 10 days in Yangshuo we spent with relaxing, going out into nature by bicycle or swimming in the Li River (at the “Secret Beach”). The nightlife is pretty good aswell, with cheap beers, very nice rooftop or reggae bars and a good bunch of nice people (mostly expats or travellers) we got to know more and more from day to day. Maybe Yangshuo is not the most chinese of the chinese cities and definitely not a standard example for a chinese town but still, for some days to relax and a change to the usual travelling life it’s definitely a welcoming alternative. We stayed there until the 30th of September, one day before the big day for China. We expected hordes of tourists in the city and there was a parade planned as well, so we preferred to escape and head over to Dali in the Yunnan province, just a small 1500km or 20 hour train and 5 hour bus journey west of Yangshuo…