China trip: Yangshuo

Yangshuo Video: CLICK HERE!

After a big travel day from Tibet to Guilin we then got on a boat and headed up the Li river to Yangshuo, a sleepy little town in the middle of these amazing gum-drop mountains. A woman on the boat was offering, nay TAUNTING the tourists with traditional Chinese snake-wine. Then she taunted the wrong girl. Cheers!

The kids and their pandas had a great time on the boat running around all 3 decks and spotting wildlife.

And we even went past the spot that's on the 20 Yuan note!

Taking a break from the scenery to just goof off!

Yangshuo is a charming little town with lots of shops and restaurants with great food. It's kind of like the Chinese version of the French Quarter in New Orleans or Downtown Disney. And our hotel was right in the middle of everything. If we were out and about and someone had to use the bathroom, it was no problem to just run back to the room we were so centrally located.

Exploring the town

The best thing in all of Yangshuo was this little spot where you had to jump from post to post to cross the river. We visited this place about 10 times a day and had to go back and forth at least 5 times per visit. Sasha needed a little encouragement the first time across but after that she was leaping all on her own. And no one ever fell in!

 Cute little town:

Our hotel is the roof directly behind Sasha's head, so each night we ran out the door and we were right at the main food street.

On our first full day we decided to explore the countryside on bikes. It was very rustic and we went past farmers planting rice in paddies and other people herding ducks, you name it. And the mountains were amazing!

Then our bike guide pulled up at the river and asked if we wanted to bamboo raft and he would ferry our bikes down a ways and meet us. Of course we were in for the bamboo rafts!

Most of the way it was very calm but there were a few little waterfalls to go down and that was fun.

We even pulled up to a floating shack in the middle of the river and had lunch. Fish, corn, these little wrapped bundles that turned out to be rice and beans and a little pancake. It was all delish! Then we pulled into a dock and our guy was there with the bikes. We rode out to a cool spot called Half Moon Hill:

Then headed back to town first on the main roads:

And then on a dirt track through fields. Very scenic...

Our guide. Jeff and I were firmly against taking this guy. But he said that if he didn't come we would have to buy the bikes. I can see why... if you don't know the area, you'd get lost for sure AND miss out on all the cool spots. We were so glad we had him!

 Water buffalo. After I took this picture the farmer that owned them tried to charge me. Yikes!

A cool old mill of some kind, now just a ruin...

 That night we ate at another excellent restaurant a stones throw from our hotel. Great day of adventure + excellent dinner = Happy Melissa!

Our Hotel:

We went to this outdoor show that was huge in scope and scale. They projected color onto all the surrounding mountains and there were over 1,000 people in the cast. It was visually impressive but since we don't understand Chinese we didn't really get it. Fantasmic is better....

 The next day was a day to shop, explore, and just chill out. The kids and I went to a park and discovered an old stairway leading up one of the hills. Up we went...

 We climbed to a platform about halfway up the hill and the view was impressive.

 But then we found another stairway so we went all the way to the top and got a sweet view of the town!

 My 2 adventurers:

That night we ate at a German restaurant. In China. Why not?

 Then it was off to Hong Kong. But on our way we stopped to see an amazing cave called the "Reed Flute Cave". It was very cool, but in traditional Chinese fashion they had it all tricked out with neon lights and embellishments. As if caves aren't cool enough on their own. Oh well...

Us in the cave:

Then we headed to the Airport to fly to Hong Kong. What a change that would be!

Tibet Part 3 + Video!

 Tibet Video: CLICK HERE!

In going through the video we took in Tibet I forgot to tell you my favorite thing about the Tibetan people. They spontaneously burst into song. Like all the time. Anytime there's a lull, they just start singing and it's kind of awesome. This of course comes from someone who was pretty immersed in collegiate acappella so I'm very fond of people who burst into song but still. We first noticed it flying to Tibet on the airplane. The guy next to Ted and I sang every time the turbulence got bad. I thought it was just to calm his nerves but it turns out they are a nation of singers. Namgil was always singing, and in the restaurant part of the video (the first part) you can hear our waitress singing as she drops something off at the table. Seriously though, wouldn't the world be a better place if we all went around singing all the time? I think it would be...
After the Potala Palace we decided to rickshaw it back to our hotel. Rickshaw rides in Tibet are for adrenaline junkies. Car vs bike is always interesting.

 Then we hit a little restaurant near our hotel for some lunch. We had some kind of Yak meat stir fry which was amazing and the kids had Hawaiian Pizza (?)

 We also got a Yak mean pie. It was SOOOO Good! Thin flaky pastry with tender yak meat in the middle with spices. Jeff and I were stoked.

 And so were the kids. Because this crazy cat pretty much owned the restaurant. He was hysterical and spent the first part of our meal attacking some Chinese tourists. Then he came and attacked my bags. He was full-on. He would hide behind couches and leap out and attack people and actually made one woman run away screaming. He is heavily featured in the video at the top of this post....

After lunch we headed back to Barkor square just because there was so much to see and do there and we loved it. We did a couple of laps, took some time to chat and barter with the locals and just kept looking at everything and listening to the singing.

 For dinner the boys got Yak burgers!

 And then we headed back to the hotel for our last night in Lhasa. Jeff and I shared some Lhasa beer as we packed.

One thing we really wanted to do was go on a hike but we had to leave it until our last morning for 2 reasons. The first was that with Jeff and the kids suffering from the altitude the longer we waited, the more acclimatized they got and we knew that hiking was out of the question the first few days. We barely made it up the steps of the Potala Palace! The second was that the Chinese military had the trail heads around Lhasa heavily supervised and Namgil said it would not be good for us to try to hike on any of those trails. So we got up early on our last day and went for a hike on our way to the airport. We found a trail that went up out of a little village and started up!

 The village from below:

We passed all these broken stones that had writing etched into them. They were really cool and I never found out what they were.

 Across from the hill we were climbing was a monastery perched on a hillside. You can see the snow-capped mountains in the distance behind it. It was really beautiful.

 We spotted a bunch of prayer flags high on the hill above the village and decided that it was as good a destination as any. Also there was sure to be a trail there as each village has a spot like this where they climb up frequently to hang new prayer flags. The higher they put them the more the wind blows the flags, so this is why you find them up high. We found a trail that seemed to lead up there from the village and started climbing.

About mid-way up we found this little thing with prayer flags attached:

The climbing was HARD! We got up to 13,000ft which is definitely the highest the kids have ever hiked. So breathing was tough but they never gave up. At one point Jeff suggested that he and the kids might hang back if I wanted to finish the climb myself but Teddy said "I want to go all the way up there to that thing with you... because I think when we get up there it's gonna be cool!" Love that!

 We made it up and this crazy structure had prayer flags all over it in various states of disrepair. I'd love to know how old the ones buried deep in the center of it are. It was really cool. We had Fiber One bars at the Top so the kids were STOKED!

 I love this pic because you can see that little monastery through the flags....

 My burly hiker!

On the way down Teddy and Namgil took off like a pair of mountain goats even thought it was really steep. I think they were trying to get out of earshot so I they would no longer hear my pleas for them to "be careful!" Jeff, Sasha and I took a much longer time picking our way down the steep section and when we caught up I took this picture of Teddy and Namgil having a chat on a little hill. It was such a beautiful scene and it made me so sad knowing that we had to leave this place in less than 2 hours. But we truly used every minute of our time in Tibet - we got to the airport in the nick of time with dirt in our shoes! I hope we can go back there someday and see more of the country. And I hope that when we do go back that life has gotten better for the Tibetan people.

Tibet Part 2

 After our tea we went to finish our lap of the Jokang temple. There were so many things to look at and vendors selling all kinds of interesting things.

At the front of the temple were these poles with prayer flags wrapped all around. Similar to the prayer wheels, the Tibetans believe that when the wind flaps the flags, the prayers written on them go up to God. There were so MANY layers of flags wrapped around the base!

 The kids and I in front of the Jokang Temple.

There was a ceremony in the Temple during the early part of the day so we browsed and enjoyed the people. The Tibetan people are absolutely beautiful. Their faces lit up with smiles when they saw us - especially the kids, but when we said "Tashi Deleg" (hello) to them their smiles would break into these huge Tibetan grins. The older people especially were so sweet to us. We went out for lunch and then we saw all these monks leaving the Temple. We were not allowed to take pictures of them though. Finally we were allowed to go inside. It was painted very much like our hotel - tons of detail, tons of colors.

We were allowed to take pictures of all the outside areas but not the inside. The inside was full of that amazing incense + yak butter lamp smell. So unique. It was very ornate with one big area for services in the center, lots of little side rooms, and lots of Buddha statues. After exploring the inside we went up to the next level:

 This level was really neat because it had these big gaps so light could get through to the bottom levels. The kids were fascinated. "Hey what if I fall down there...?"

 Walking around the main part of the Temple on level 2:

 Then we headed up to the roof. We had gorgeous day and a beautiful view of the Potala Palace.

 We hung out up there taking in a birds-eye view of all the pilgrims spinning their prayer wheels and making their circuit.

 These 2 women were doing it by body lengths. They would actually stretch their arms above their heads pressing their faces to the ground with each move forward.

So much to take in:

 Jeff on the roof:

 That night we had a cool dinner in a little place Nam-gil took us to. Tibetan food is really interesting. Lots of Yak meat, rice, naan, and something called Tsampa. They grind barley into flour and then mix it with a little bit of Yak butter tea. It forms a firm dough that they shape into little nugget size pieces and that's it! No cooking required. I tried it and for something that's just basically raw dough mixed with tea it's not bad. Good food for the Zombie Apocalypse anyway...

The next day we headed to the Potala Palace. This this is pretty darn impressive to behold. The red areas are where the current Dali Lama SHOULD be living.

 We joined the crowd waiting to get in. It wasn't a horribly large crowd because of the partial closing of Tibet. Most of the tourists were Chinese because they can just go there without a visa. There were very few westerners and no big tour groups. The palace was built a long time ago with very traditional methods. This guy was repairing a section of wall by pounding small pieces of wood into a tight area. Then I guess the whole section is painted over?

 One of my favorite pictures of the trip. Nam-gil and Teddy became very good buddies over the course of our 3 days together. He showed Teddy a mandala you can do with your fingers. It's a meditation you do with your hands that represents clarity and harmony in the universe. So Teddy was always making this mandala. We were resting on the steps because we were up HIGH so climbing up the millions of stairs to the actual palace left us gasping for breath! Teddy was making his mandala and these 2 monks went past and rubbed his head with big smiles and affirmation. It's a little blurry because I whipped the camera out so fast but I still love it.

 We got to the top and got ready to head inside. There was a short line of people waiting to go in. We were not allowed to take any pictures inside which is a bummer because it was very interesting. Lots of ancient books and scrolls, many rooms with living areas, tombs, intricate models, you name it. It's hard to describe. There's a website that shows some of the interior if you want to see more. Click Here for that. The best thing about being on the inside was not seeing the actual interior. It was seeing the look on the faces of the Tibetans who were touring. For many of them it's a once in a lifetime trip so what's just another tourist site to us is a dream realized to them. Many of them had brought their own containers of yak butter and they were taking spoonfulls and adding it to every yak butter lamp we hit (and there were a lot of them) as a form of offering

 After the tour we ended up on the backside of the Palace. There was a beautiful park and a pedestrian lane with more large prayer wheels lined up. And just like at the Jokang, there were many pilgrims walking clock-wise around the palace with their prayer-wheels in hand.

Video in part 3, I promise....