We made it. An overnight bus to Bangkok and a three-hour ride south put us where we’ve been trying to get for the past three weeks. Arriving on the beach at Hua Hin, the Gulf of Thailand stretched out before us, flat ocean that went on forever.Part Four: Into the salty shallows of Hua Hin.
Eric and I went straight for the water. The brine here is murky, warm and salty, good for floating but shallow enough to stand even a good way from shore. I walked in like I owned the ocean, letting my feet sink just a bit into the squishy sand with each step. Then I stubbed my toe on a sharp rock. No matter, I kept going, just heading out to sea, until I hit another rock. Then a third. This was really starting to disrupt the triumphant music playing in my head.
Finally I just gave up and floated with the current. Belly up in the tide, I stared at the sky for a few seconds. I could have flown to Bangkok two weeks ago. It would have been cheaper, probably, just hopping down from Beijing. There wouldn’t have been the long nights on sleeper buses when no one slept, or the hassle of finding transportation to the next way point, or border crossings or visas. The overland route is always tougher, but I almost always prefer that way. There are very few travel stories I enjoy that start: “We flew down. It was a decent flight. They served us vodka tonics and pretzels on board.”
Hua Hin seems an odd place to end up, though. Karen recommended it, saying it was the more “chill” option of the beach towns close to Bangkok. I think our definitions of chill differ slightly. I was thinking of something rustic, maybe with some good hiking nearby and back roads where I could ride a bike (motor or not) without having to swerve out of the way of too many cars.
“Retired” might be a better word for this place than “relaxed.” At least, it would describe most of the people we see on the streets. It’s a resort town, as far as I can see, one originally built for (and still used by) the royal family, but now overrun with elderly tourists. And everywhere there seems to be more westerners than Thais.
Further complicating matters, (pretend you’ve just commandeered a U-boat now) Everything’s in German! It’s not a censorship issue this time. Apparently Hua Hin is more popular with German and Scandanavian tourists than with Anglophones, which just makes me realize how much I take for granted English being the international language of just about everything these days.
I have until Thursday before I’m planning to fly back into China. The new semester starts March 5, and I think this is the year I learn Chinese–real, more-than-survival, Putonghua.
One more thing: I’ve been incommunicado for a few days due to traveling, and I’m three or four posts behind. Lest I once again promise to write about somewhere only to forget later, I’m adding a new block to the sidebar listing those upcoming posts. Also, if there’s something you’d like to hear more about, just drop me a comment or an email: eyeseast [at] gmail [dot] com.
I am a wreck today. Most of the past 30 hours have been spent on buses as we worked our way south from Lijiang to the Lao-Chinese border: an overnight to Jinghong, five hours to Mengla, then a quick (only two hours) ride here to Mohan, where we finally dumped our bags and found hot showers.
From the latest frontier, Part Three of my winter wandering. There’s an ocean out there somewhere.
Mohan is an eerie place. The town looks and feels almost abandoned, as if no one actually lives here and the few people on the street are only passing through on their way to or from the border. We had to hunt for a restaurant willing to feed us. Most places were closed before 9 p.m. We settled on chuan’r, where the woman cooking stood fanning the barely-glowing coals while our meat and potatoes slowly roasted.
We’re all wearing t-shirts, by the way. I mention this because less than a week ago we were shivering in a foot of snow in Zhongdian (also known as ShangriLa) on the edge of the Tibetan Plateau. In fewer than seven days, we’ve moved from the frigid Himalayas to mild central Yunnan to tropical Xishuanbanna. The jacket, sweater, extra shirt, scarf, gloves and beanie I wore just a few days ago are now stuffed into the top of my backpack, which is filled to capacity now that I’m not wearing most of my clothes most of the time.
While the bus rides have abused and exhausted us–Eric slammed his ribs on a rail when the sleeper from Lijiang jerked sideways, and he now winces every time he coughs–we have seen more of rural China in a week than any of us has in months of living up north. The ride from Jinghong to Mengla followed the Mekong through wide valleys, the bus winding over mountains on a single-lane road lined with palm and banana trees.
Traffic crawled most of the way. A stall, we learned, can stop progress for miles. For all the bumps, some of which tossed me out of my seat and dropped me down hard, we fared well compared to other passengers. As we passed an outdoor market where locals were barbecuing fresh meat, a car-sick woman behind Sam quietly vomited into an orange bag. “Everything smells so good here,” Sam said, looking out the open window. I didn’t tell her to turn around.
The last ride today took us as close to the border as we could get. The dirt roads here are temporary. Construction crews are blasting through the mountains and laying concrete for a new highway that will connect China’s booming economy with ports in Southeast Asia. We crisscrossed several segments of that thoroughfare on the last leg. This trip will be easier next time.
Beyond our planned crossing tomorrow morning is a big unknown. I’m only going to see a sliver of Laos on this trip, probably two days on the Mekong before we head west into Thailand near Chang Mai. Like any place we’ve visited on this trip, I expect Laos could take a month on its own without exhausting my curiosity. Three years ago, I was ready to commit to a half-year in Vientiane for an editing job at the state-run English daily. I’ve been itching to get there since.
Whatever the next few days bring, I’m sure it won’t be the last time I visit this part of the world.
Firecrackers woke us up this morning. I don’t know what time the first haiku of small explosions went off; I just remember the short burst, then a long one, then short again, and a few treasured moments of quiet when I pulled the covers over my head and hoped I could fall into a deep enough sleep that the next staccato burst wouldn’t wake me. It didn’t work.
The fireworks here are little more than dynamite wrapped in red paper, the remains of which lay in piles in every street and hutong today. Last night, I watched kids barely old enough to not be called toddlers holding up chains of noisemakers taller than themselves. Riding rented bikes around the city, we had to watch for mailboxes and trash bins, where other revelers had mounted bottle rockets to fire across the street and hit buildings on the other side.
From Lijiang, in Yunnan Province, Part Two of my Winter Holiday. Still no beaches.
I almost skipped the New Year in China. This is a family holiday, and someone else’s. My original plan was to plow straight south into the tropics. Somehow we ended up on a bus north to Zhongdian (a very long post is coming on that, with photos). We’re working our way back down from the Tibetan Plateau, and the last three days have been spent in Lijiang.
Yesterday made all the long bus rides filled with smokers and people shouting into cell phones worthwhile.
We ate late, after a day of biking around town and an evening of wandering through back alleys, letting the flowing crowd push us in the red-tinted parade of celebrants. The outdoor barbecues were all roasting whole pigs. Whether that’s a normal tradition in Lijiang or just done because it’s the Year of the Pig, I can’t say. If it’s the latter, I’d rather not be here for the Year of the Rat. Maybe in the Dragon’s year they just imagine a plate of mythical meat.
Whatever the reason, the pig was delicious, cooked just enough to be soft and succulent, with a plate of spice on the side that added the right flavor in small portions but could just as well be left off. Afterword we wandered more, being snap-happy with our digital cameras among the street performers and bobbing lights. We were in an over-priced bar for the countdown, where they charged 25 RMB for a small beer, so I went dry.
The bar flies counted down to midnight twice. I’m not sure what clock the first one referred to; the second followed CCTV. A few minutes into Sunday, the bar went quiet and most of the denizens slipped out into the suddenly-calm night.
As we made our way back to the hotel, we passed families dumping paper money and other sacrifices into self-contained bonfires. A cook was washing dishes next to one of the canals flowing along the hutong walls. The red lanterns were still glowing, but the streets grew silent quickly.
Until, of course, the next burst of firecrackers. Xin Nian Kuai le!
Side note: I hate this net bar. The smell of urine is wafting over from the squatter just outside and the place is freezing. My fingers stiffen up in this weather and it’s taking forever to get a sentence typed. Also, the only music here is a stupid song about the city that plays non-stop on repeat. I can’t imagine anyone loving Lijiang enough to hear this song more than once. Hopefully, I’ll find someplace better in Jinghong or Laos or Thailand or wherever I stop next. Expect lots of photos soon, and a bit about Shangrila.
What they do have here is a lump of wax that looks a lot like the guy who used to run the place surrounded by legions of amateur art curators determined to separate me from my kuai.
Part One of my efforts to find a warm beach to sit on until school starts again without breaking the bank.
I arrived in Beijing just after 6 a.m. on a rather circuitous route to a beach in Thailand. From here, I’m flying to Kunming (in less than three hours, as my friend Sam is warning me now). Don’t know how long I’ll be there. Then it’s onward and overland to Laos, down along the Mekong to Thailand, and as much time as possible doing as little as possible. This is, after all, the last vacation I get for a few months, and I just picked up what could be a time consuming project back in Dalian.
…do you still get to call yourself a developing country?
Three stories caught my eye today. The first came from the NY Times, where Jim Yardley reported that China believes richer countries should take the lead in reducing greenhouse gases.
Jiang Yu, a spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry, said China was willing to contribute to an international effort to combat global warming but placed the primary responsibility on richer, developed nations that have been polluting for much longer.
“It must be pointed out that climate change has been caused by the long-term historic emissions of developed countries and their high per capita emissions,†she said, adding that developed countries have responsibilities for global warming “that cannot be shirked.â€
Ms. Jiang’s comments, combined with another briefing on Tuesday by the country’s leading climate expert, represented China’s first official response to a landmark report issued last week by a United Nations panel of scientists that declared global warming is “unequivocal†and warned that immediate action must be taken to prevent harmful consequences.
China is the world’s second largest emitter of the greenhouse gases contributing to climate change, trailing only the United States. Last November, the International Energy Agency in Paris predicted that China would pass the United States in emissions of carbon dioxide in 2009. China had been expected to surpass the United States as late as 2020, but its soaring consumption of coal has rapidly increased the country’s emissions.
This is an old debate, and I would have just added it to the clip file and moved on, except that my next few clicks put me on this story, at the top of IHT’s most emailed list, about China’s new front line multi-role fighter jet. (The headline calls it a “superpower” fighter. Interesting word choice.)
Along with China’s successful test of an anti-satellite missile on Jan. 11, the new fighter is further evidence that double-digit increases in defense spending over much of the last 15 years are being converted into sharply increased firepower for the People’s Liberation Army.
The introduction of modern aircraft, missiles, submarines and warships over the past decade, along with the increased professionalism of its service personnel, means that China is rapidly gaining the military muscle to match its growing economic clout.
And Beijing is aiming higher still. Tim Johnson blogged yesterday about China’s rumored plans to mine the surface of the moon, which is high in Helium-3. He cites a People’s Daily op-ed that talks up such an idea, saying the isotope could “meet the energy demand of the humankind for close to 10,000 years.”
Add this to the list of reasons I need to learn Chinese, actual Chinese, not just restaurant and survival Chinese:
About three hours into the trip from Dandong to Dalian, the driver of my group taxi tapped me on the leg and said something utterly incomprehensible. I closed my laptop and squinted at him. He repeated what he’d just said, and I tried to catch a few words, just to get the meaning. Nothing. Well, nothing useful. I heard, “dianhua”—phone—but mine hasn’t been working since getting back into China two days ago. He pulled out his own, spoke in chopped phrases to someone, then handed it to me. It was my friend Wayne in Dandong, my usual fixer for things in that city. He’d arranged the van ride.
“The driver says he needs to drop off two passengers at the port,” Wayne told me. “He wants to drop you off somewhere near your university. You pay him only 100 yuan.”
“Near? Does he know where my university is? The port is on the opposite end of the city.”
“He’ll give you a discount and you can take a taxi the rest of the way.”
“It’s a 30-kuai ride from the port to campus. Tell him he can drop me off last if he has to.” I handed the phone back to the driver. He and Wayne spoke. There was some agreement reached.
A few minutes later, we slowed to a stop. We were still on the freeway, not on the shoulder but in the white-striped area before the lane splits into an exit and the rest of the roadway. The driver came around, opened the door and told me to get out.
I looked around, squinting again because I left my glasses in my apartment, trying to figure out where we were. It wasn’t in the city. “Here. You get out here,” the driver said again.
“Are you joking me?” I said in English. What minimal skills I have in Chinese tend to abandon me at useful moments. I crossed my arms and sat back against the window. He said something else, pleading and annoyed. I pointed to his phone, and he called Wayne again and handed the phone to me.
“Wayne,” I said, “this is nowhere near my university.” I should have stopped there. Instead I added, “Tell him if he wants to let me out here, the most I can pay him is 80 yuan.” Then I gave the phone back. He talked to the driver a bit, then the driver hung up and told me, “Yibai.” One hundred. I let loose a few words I shouldn’t have, mostly in English, but ones that might be considered “international.” Again, maybe I should have stayed put and stayed quiet.
“Eighty,” I told him in Chinese. He threw up his arms.
“Ninety,” he came back, putting his head inside the van, holding up a hooked finger to emphasize the number. We went back and forth a few times, then I budged. I offered 85, he stuck at 90, and he had me. I got out of the van, picked up my bag, and he drove away.
There was another man in the median. He had a hopeless look about him, and I wondered how long he’d been standing there. My better sense was asking me, “Why the hell did you just get out of a van on the freeway? Taxis aren’t going to stop here. If they’re on the freeway, they have fares with them. You just got screwed.”
The other guy didn’t say anything. He looked at me, then went back to trying to flag down a ride for himself. I did the same. If someone didn’t stop, I was already thinking, it was going to be a long walk back. I remember passing Metro, so I figure it’s a 20 minute drive to my street. That entails crossing a freeway on foot, though, and as much practice dashing across busy roadways, I wasn’t up for it tonight, lugging a full backpack and a laptop bag.
“Why the hell did I get out of the van?”
I waved more, frantic, stupid, standing on the shoulder, looking for the little red light in the windshield of a cab that says it’s available. One stopped.
The ride home was exactly 20 kuai. I walked up the street to my friends’ cafe. Now I was thinking about the 85-yuan bus I could have taken and asking myself, “Why the hell did I get into that van?”
Sometime after midnight, the Oriental Pearl II steamed across the East Sea, slipping past North Korea while the lights were turned out, and delivered me back into the Middle Kingdom.
My Korean furlough is officially over. For now.
I’m sure I’ll be back at some point. I met too many good people and left too much undone, like eating dog and live octopus. And, well, I had fun. Seoul is a remarkable city, wired and electrifying. Time moved too quickly there.
For all my occasional griping about China, I’ve missed the place. I spent many, too many, late nights on this laptop with my usual daily read of China blogs and China news. Korea kept me busy, but China kept me fascinated.
Dandong greeted us with a blue sky and warm winter weather. I’m staying here tonight catching up with friends who helped get me out of this country a month ago and just enjoying not having anywhere I need to be. I meant to head down to Dalian today, but that can wait. It doesn’t sound like anybody’s there at the moment, anyway.
I must have walked past the Alps bar dozens of times in the past month. I never noticed the little neon sign that said “Live Music,” and I’m pretty sure I never heard any coming from inside. Yesterday, however, I did hear music when I walked by, not live but enticing enough, especially after I saw that sign.
The place was empty. Not just dead or quiet. I mean abandoned. A woman behind the bar hurried me inside. “Live music?” I asked. She said it started in 20 minutes, around 10:30 p.m. I promised to come back, with friends if I could round them up. The stage had enough instruments lined up to keep several bands busy all night.
I was alone when I came back at 11, and I was alone for most of the show. None of my friends came along, and serendipity found no one else. “Do you like folk music?” the barista asked when I returned. I nodded. “Do you like Korean music?” I shrugged, having never really listened to much. It sounded good, though. There was a man at table tuning a classical guitar, and all those instruments were still on stage. I sat down and ordered a Cass.
It was a one-man show. The man’s name is Bang Il Son, and he manages the bar. Before and after his set, he answered phones and delivered plates of food to another few guests who came in, one of whom I later learned was his brother. He was good, though, and I wish he had more of an audience. The bar is in a tough location, his brother told me before I left: Halfway between Yonsei University and Sinchon, where most of the area’s nightlife is, Alps gets little walk-in business from either place.
Aside from location, the place is cozy, with soft couches and low tables, a large Che painting peaks out from an alcove hiding secluded booths. Al Pacino looks down from a Godfather II poster near the bar. It’s the kind of place I probably should have found a month ago, not three days before I head back to China.
We made it. An overnight bus to Bangkok and a three-hour ride south put us where we’ve been trying to get for the past three weeks. Arriving on the beach at Hua Hin, the Gulf of Thailand stretched out before us, flat ocean that went on forever.Part Four: Into the salty shallows of Hua Hin.
