Last weekend in China

First off, it appears we can no longer see our blog... again.

Got back recently from two days in Suzhou, with half a day in Tongli thrown in there. It was described as Chinas venice, but it was slightly misleading. Yes, they have water and canals in the city, but it wasnt very spectacular. It was ok, but in the end it was just another small chinese town (meaning 6 million people).

The Hostel in Suzhou was by far the worst. We got locked in a "room", with no window, measuring 2x2 meters. The hostel was very noisy and the walls paper thin, so if you were easily disturbed you'd get no sleep. Sophie also got bitten by some nasty bugs on her arm, probably bed bugs. Yums! Sophie is also having a cold. Bu-hu.

Checked out some gardens in Suzhou and the silk museeum. It was ok, but once again its good to be back in a real city.

Tonight we are planning on going to see some local chinese rock bands play at a place called Ark House. Hopefully it is open, hopefully there is a band, and hopefully it will rock.

Tomorrow is the last day so we will probably spend the day relaxing, some last minute shopping, and then having a drink in the evening by the bund. Flight leaves 8:20 so we'll have to get up at ... uhmm... 5? Crap thats early.

So, in case we wont get a chance at the internet on the hostel again (the internet stations here are always occupied), here is a brief summary of China:
First of all, see the top 13 wonders of china... some additions are:

• Pea, corn and red bean ice cream... what the hell is up with that?
• All, and we seriously mean all, super markets (normally for food), only have snacks, toilet paper and drinks. No food. Nowhere. Nada. Zip. Nothing.
• The measurments on the various bottled drinks varies from 588 ml, 533, 788, 601 and so on. Why?
• A queue is not respected. People just go from the back to the front of the desk... even if someone is standing there having his ticket purchased, they think that it is their right to have it before.

Probably more... but well... time is short. City by city:

Beijing

The only reason for going here is the Wall and the Forbidden city. The city in itself is nothing really. Its just a chinese small town scaled up a couple of times. Its dusty, its noisy, no beautiful buildings... no skyline... no water...

Hostel was great.

Xian

Xian was ok... the city wall made it feel smaller than it actually was. There were a lot of nice chinese style houses, that made it feel real homely.

Hostel was good.

Chengdu

Felt a bit more like a big city (maybe because the lack of a city wall). Two days is enough if you just want to stop there before tibet. There were some nice things outside of Chengdu to see though.

Hostel again great.

Tibet

Smelly, noisy, dirty, and cool to have been to. Potala palace, Mt Everest and Yamdrok Tso lake are definately highlights of this trip. However, for anyone going, it is advicable to take the train from Xian to Lhasa. It takes 2 days, but you acclimatize to the altitude faster. Otherwise, you seriously feel like shit for six days.

Shanghai

Great city, wonderful skyline. Cheap shopping. Sophie is a real kick ass at haggling prices. No mercy, no remorse, just a tenth of the original price and she's satisfied (not really, but sorta) :)

Hostel again great!

Things we leave behind

• Snot paper en masse... everywhere
• Three towels
• Three pair of shoes
• One tshirt and two tops and one hoody
• Spitting people
• Publicly peeing babies
• Innumerable encrusted socks
• 40 used wet tissues
• Momos
• Stares
• Various bites
• Gelupas
• Stupas
• Sakyamuni
• Buddhas
• Lamas
• Llamas
• High Llamas

Things we will miss

Cheap food. Shanghai skyline. A cute dog by the road in Suzhou... we'll come back for you next time.

Getting around in china by yourself proved less hard than we thought. The key was staying at hostels, where everyone speaks good english, and have them write notes for you in chinese. So, then, like a mute couple you just grunt at people and hand them a note. Food wise, it is good to have a book with you so you dont end up eating weird shit. We had pig intestines, that we know of, and probably some other things that we dont know of.

Its really been an experience, and definately worth it... we really like back packing in developing countries, and next year we will do what we like to call our "Great STAN tour", visiting all the -stan countries. Starting in Kyrgizistan we will work our way, during 6 months to afghanistan wearing nothing but burqas and maybe one or two gelupas.

Or, well, maybe not... next time Aussie/NZ... wuiiiiiiii :)

Until next time, tadaaaaa

/s and j

It's civilization baby!

Haaaaaaaleeeeeeeluuuuuuujaaaaaaaa

To start off with, it is so nice to finally be in Shanghai... and by finally we mean the following:
Got up early yesterday to eat breakfast and go to the airport to leave Lhasa for Chengdu, and then from there to Shanghai. First, we waited for breakfast for 40 minutes, ate it in 3, and then headed for the airport in order not to miss the flight. However, the traffic was so slow that we had to tell the driver to drive faster... and he did. He drove 110 km/h, passing cars constantly (almost driving on the wrong side of the road more often than not) and still we ended up at the airport just under an hour before take off.

Completely stressed out we headed for the check in... got to the desk in time, and checked in... phew... everything was fine and dandy. We'd make it... so we went upstairs to the gate...
Joakim: Hmm... sophie... it says gate 3 (of 3) on the ticket, but our flight is not on the monitor.
Sophie: Thats weird... we'll ask at the information desk.
Joakim: Excellent.
Sophie: Of course.
Kiss

Joakim: Excuse me, we are on CA4402, but its not on the monitor.
Information: ?
Joakim: Uhmm... english.
Information: Wait moment *greasy smile*

More than a dozen moments passed and a telephone was handed to joakim.
Voice: *&(F*&SDLJHFKDJSH delayed )*(&F)(*DS& go eat lunch FDS(*DF)(* hotel F)(DS*)(*DSF bye
Joakim: ?

Ok, so ... in short, flight was delayed, no one spoke english, and we were stranded in lhasa for 4 hours... they said it was because of weather in chengdu, but flights left for chengdu every 30 minutes... turns out, the airplane was kaputt, so they had to get another one. This meant that we missed our connecting flight in Chengdu for Shanghai. Yums.

Now, we wanted to know what flight we could take from chengdu, but the people working at the airport refused to help us, and couldnt even give us the number for Air China. We solved it by calling our hostel, 4500 km away, and had them look it up for us... insane.

Anyway, finally got to Chengdu, got booked onto a new flight with Sichuan Airlines... and guess what... it was also delayed. Waiting for the flight, we bonded with an old canadian indian (not the north american kind of indian) called Rad. He had some great stories to tell, and helped us in shanghai to get to our hostel.

During the flight, we also saw 150 chinese people have simultaneous and steward in flight lead gymnastics on a 2 hour flight. If you want to learn this collective chinese form of in flight gymnastics, sophie will be holding a course at Millesgarden in august... 500 kr one day, 995 for two days... refreshments not included and bring your own towel. But, there will be freshly brewed yak meat for everyone!

Finally arrived in Shanghai by 23... hostel is great, and a great location too. It was really cool to arrive by night. Seems like the only city to come even close to rivalling New York, that we've visited at least.

Spent the day walking around shanghai today and we really like it. We've walked on The Bund (opposite of the skyline), seen Yuyan garden and visited Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Center. The last one was especially cool, since you could see how they have planned to build shanghai in the future. The model of it was amazing and they also had a computerized, 360 degrees, "moving" version of 2010 shanghai which you could travel in. It was for the Expo 2010. For those of you familiar with the computer game GTA, you could really see a whole new GTA franchise series here...

Tonight we are heading for a birthday drink, or 4, at Cloud 9 bar... overlooking Shanghai. Hopefully they will let two smelly, scruffy backpackers enter their exclusive bar. If not, well, I guess you will read about it in the paper tomorrow.

So, shanghai is big, noisy, and thank god, civilized :)

Yak yak yak or...

...How we learned to stop worrying and survived Everest base camp

Back in Lhasa after 6 days in the bush, although we saw very few bushes. Here's a not very brief summary :)

Day 1 Lhasa to Shigatse
Travelled from Lhasa to the Kambala pass, at 4900 meters, with its overlooking view of the Yamdrok Tso Lake several hundred meters below. The view was spectacular. In the distance you could see part of a mountain glacier reaching 7100 meters.

The view from the mountain overlooking Yamdrok tso lake. In the distance you see the glacier

While we had hoped that the commercialisation of Tibet would not have reached outside of Lhasa, it turns out that there were peddlers trying to sell you junk here as well. It also had the same kid beggars who greeted you with one hand out and the catchy phrase: Hello money!

You could also pay 5 yuan to get a photo taken with a yak (who are really cute btw). We declined the 5 yuan offer and instead spent 2 well spent yuan pissing in a poo covered hole in the ground.

We then set out for Shigatse, which lay several hours away. Before setting out on the trip we thought we'd sleep constantly in the car, but we managed to stay awake the entire time, and really got to appreciate the surroundings as we passed by them on a really well built highway. We also began to appreciate the Tibetan pop music that was blasting from our drivers stereo. Being seriously sick of rice and naan bread, we had delicious (seriously good) yak noodles for lunch in a town consisting of no more than 10 houses.

Landed in Shigatse, and much to our surprise, the hotel we stayed at was a luxury hotel (at least compared to what else was on offer here). Some poor tibetan lady carried our 15 kilos each backpacks up 4 stairs. We got winded just walking up one without anything to carry.
Spent the afternoon at Tashilumpo monestary, which was by far the nicest monestary yet. It was really genuine. By now, we've seen so many monestaries that we can really judge what is "for real" or not (well... sorta). It had the worlds largest bronze statue, in the form of... tadaaaa... a buddha.

Feel better in shigatse, since the hotel is less dusty, and there are not as many weird smells all the time, unlike Lhasa. Shigatse is, thank god, also not as commercialized as Lhasa.

Day 2 Shigatse to Gyantse to Shigatse
Travelled early in the morning to the little town of Gyantse, some 2 hours away from Shigatse to visit yet another monestary. Kind of sick of monestaries and buddhas and stupas right now. We also visited a castle on a hill overlooking the town which looked amazing, and a museum called Pala Manor which we visited all by ourselves.

Outside the Pagoda in the Gyantse monastery (uhmm we think... too many buddhas)

Having not slept anything, and feeling quite feverish, we slept the entire way back to Shigatse. Today we really, really, felt sick.

Back in Shigatse, Joakim broke the cardinal rule of always ordering what "should" be ordered... so he ordered a yak pizza in Tibet... it was, well, disgusting. Sophie though, staying true to the rule ordered tibetan food and it was really yummy.

Needing sleep, we bought tibetan high altitude tea with Rhodiola root and took it before we went to sleep. And, seems like it worked, because we slept like babies.

Day 3 Shigatse to Tingri
Feeling better today thanks to a good nights sleep and an overdose of Rhodiola, we left shigatse early morning to head for Tingri, which is close to Mt Everest. The road was even more spectacular, and the air outside grew cooler and cooler the more we ascended until we reached the highways high point of 5250 meters. After that we descended 1000 meters until reaching Tingri.

On our way to Tingri we stopped in the town Sakya and took a look at their monestary. It was very small, but it was interesting because the monks were sitting in their assembly hall reading prayers. We also got stopped 3 times by police. One before entering Sakya, one time by secret police inside the monestary and a third time in the middle of nowhere.

Stopped in the town Lhatse for lunch, with even more yak noodles and indian food. Yumms.
Ended up in Tingri (4400 meters) late in the afternoon. The air is extremely dry and it is very cold. Despite the cold, the air is so dry that when you breath out, there comes virtually no water steam from your breath.

Sophie outside our room in Tingri... thats our Toyota in the background

The room was decent enough. Better than we expected. We evem had our own little hole... yes, it was a room in the back of our room that had a hole. To shit in. However, the hotel had no electricity, which meant you have to do number 1 and number 2 with the door open, thus erasing all personal integrity once held... also, you could not flush, and instead had to use a shovel of water to "wash" the... well... "sausisses"... away. The stench was mind numbingly strong and sophie even used perfume in a tissue to minimize the stench.

Dinner was not very good.

Sophie preparing herself for her Mt Everest summit push (she actually slept like this... for real)

Btw, Joakim started whistling together with the hungarian or bulgarian hit song of a few years ago... dont know what it is called but it is extremely annoying and has a girl singing the chorus of something like "Maja - hiiii, maja - hooo, maja ha- ha"

He swore he would commit harakiri as soon as he gets a hold of a sword.

Day 4 Tingri - Everest Base Camp - Shigatse
Alarm bell rang 4:15. Got up to see a near full moon and a star field sky. It is really really cold outside, but the view of the stars and moon was amazing. Had brekkie 4:30 which consisted of pancakes and a fried egg (they like weird combos here). It was actually pretty good.

Felt better today, at least our heads were good. Our tummies on the other hand... oh, our poor little tummies... not quite as well. Joakim wasnt even in the mood for cookies, which must have been a first.

Left Tingri at 5 in the morning to go to the scenic spot overlooking Mt. Everest and to watch the sun rise over it. Before heading to the scenic spot we had to pass a border control, since the Mt Everest national park belongs to both Tibet and Nepal (or neither). Once there we are met with a very grumpy and menacing military guy who literally threw the papers at the people before us in line. He was a little bit nicer to us, fortunately.

The sunrise over mt everest was, well, nothing spectacular. However, travelling down the road from the scenic spot, coming closer and closer to mt everest, was. Reached base camp at 9:30 after a long time on a really bad road. Mt. Everest really looks amazing as it hovers over the base camp.

View of Mt Everest from Rongbuk monastery

Again, the air is very cold, so we just walked a little bit closer for some photos and then headed back to the car. Breathing at this altitude, 5200 meters, was considerably less hard than we thought. We briefly thought about bying oxygen but that would have been a complete waste of money. Although, the air is so dry that it hurts breathing through your nose and your skin becomes really dry.

Before heading back, we travelled 15 minutes from base camp to the Rongbuk monestary which is the highest monestary in the world (5200 meters). Being nothing special, it included nuns. And, apparently they stay there all year round... burr.

View from the scenic spot overlooking the himalayas, later in the afternoon when heading back. Mt Everest is to the left and Cho Oyu (which we think is the same as K1 is to the right)

Left for Tingri and pancakes for lunch. We didnt want to stay at Rongbuk for the night because it was way to cold and it seemed generally disgusting. Because we left for Mt Everest so early, we had the option of going back to shigatse and sleep there instead of in Tingri, which we gladly did.

We are really tired of the music by now. The constant tibetan pop, backstreet boys covers and bollywood songs are getting really tiresome.

In order to pass time and get our mind of the music, we stared in awe as our guide kept falling asleep over and over, regardless of how bumpy the road was. Seriously, he was bumping around like crazy, but sound asleep all the time.

Did I mention we are sick of the music?

In general, when entering this part of the trip, there were a lot more cops and militaries on the roads.

Yaks arent just yummy, they are really cute as well... yums

Upon arriving in shigatse the streets were crowded with people. Turns out they were celebrating the 15th fullmoon, with a week long festival. Apparently very important.

Day 5 Shigatse
After a delicious brekkie containing of a dry donut thingie, sweetened hot dog bread and blue boiled egg (yums!), we went to the shigatse park and spent the morning there during the Childrens day (first day of the festival). Didnt get to see any children dancing, but got to see a big tibetan rock group perform two songs (it was not very good), and a tibetan girl band mime and dance horribly. Fun nonetheless.

Not so fun, on the other hand, was being completely stared at for 2 straigh hours by absolutely everyone. One guy was staring at Sophie, non stop with his mouth open (i dont even think he blinked... he must have been so dry afterwards... or maybe he was just blind), for a good part of an hour.

Otherwise eventless day.

Day 6 Shigatse - Lhasa - Tsupa monastery - Lhasa
Left Shigatse at 8 and headed for Lhasa. Had lunch in Lhasa and travelled to our last monastery, the Tsupa monastery, (yippie!).. the Tsupa monastery. Being at an elevation of 4300 meters we got caught in the middle of a snow storm with vertically "falling" snow. We visited the room of a prominent buddhist monk and got his prayer book slammed on our heads and shoulders... apparently this means that we will learn more and our general well being will increase.

Summary
Tibet was cool, and Mt Everest and Yamdrok Tso was spectacular, the nature was beautiful, and a visit inside the potala palace was fantastic... but I dont think we are going back any time too soon. Being here made us constantly feel like we had a hangover for six straight days, a urinal infection since we had to piss constantly, and you feel like at the end of a bad cold because your nose is just covered with snot and blood. Yums! It is also a little bit sad that lhasa has become so touristy... it really ruins a lot of the experience.

Also, what surprised us was that this is not a trip you have to do when you are young. We saw bus loads of ever flowing german senior citizens travelling around Tibet. Nationality wise, the tourist are made up of mostly germans, dutch and english/american people.

Tomorrow we leave for Shanghai... and civilization once again. We are really looking forward to that.

First real day in Lhasa

The day started with a visit to Tibets largest (we think, it was sort of hard to understand the guide at times) monastery, Drapung Monastery, situated up in the mountains surrounding, and overlooking, Lhasa. It was really nice, and very big, but Sophie suffered a bit from the altitude and thought that there were way too many buddhas on display. One room, supposedly, had 10 000 buddhas... we didn't count them all, but it was probably true. Sophies assessment was therefore probably right on the spot.


After Drapung, we headed back for some well deserved rest and some lunch, and Sophie regained colour to her face.

The view from the lunch restaurant, which is just across from our hostel.

Yes, we still have headaches both of us, but we are doing a lot better today. It actually feels like we can breathe which is nice.

After lunch, we headed to the potala palace, which in reality is only 200 meters or so from here but nonetheless we went by car :) Only a certain limited amount of tickets are released everyday, and we got tickets for the 15:00 visit, which included one hour of climbing the palace and walking around inside. Turns out it was just enough time. The palace is huge, and it was a bitch climbing it... we constantly had to catch our breath. But it was definately worth it.

The Potala Palace as seen from the base... its huge... and old

Releasing only a limited number of tickets every day is both good and bad. Bad for those that cant get in but good for those that do. However, if you cant get in one day, you can always try again next day, and you will eventually get in. Thanks to the limited ticket policy the visit to the palace was very quite and relaxing. No millions of tourist pushing eachother around trying to see, or get a perfect photo and so on.


We have one more day in Lhasa (a bunch of monestaries) before heading out of Lhasa. First we go to shigatse, then Gyantse, then Tingri, and then Everest Base Camp where we will start our summit push... we're planning half a day up, and half a day down...


PS: Sophie had Yak meat yesterday and it tastes just like "Kallops"

The holy land

After a flight with a beautiful view, we landed at Lhasa airport and was welcomed by our Tibetan guide and our driver, who drives a Toyota landcruiser (this one a lot better than the australian one we still have nightmares about).

The adjustment to the altitude is going so so. Lhasa is located at 3700 meters and you can definately feel the difference. Headache, nausea, you are constantly pissing and thus also drinking all the time... they likened it to a hangover, but it feels so much more like a concussion. Also, the air is cool, but since we are so high up the sun is really really hot and the air is very dry. You feel that especially in your throat and eyes. And... we have still like 2000 vertical meters to go... yikes

The hotel is surprisingly nice. We have our own toilet and bathroom, which is nice since you have to take leaks constantly, and its generally nice. The location is great, as is the view.

Tomorrow we will check out the Potala Palace and some other stuff. We'll get back to you with some photos. So far, Tibet looks wonderful.

Now its time for Yak meat (for real this time... maybe)

The 13 "wonders" of The Peoples Republic of China

1. We wonder why all men pull up their shirts and show their belly, and sometimes, if you are extremely lucky, even their moobs (man boobs) too.
   
   Thoughts: We believe it is some cultural sign to show your belly, thus showing you are feeling well, or being "happy"... that or it is some sign of "power" where you by showing your belly state that you are "well off".
   
2. We wonder why the truck that cleans the streets at night in Chengdu plays a song similar to that of the "Hemglass - truck" in Sweden (only with a chinese flavour).
   
   Thoughts: There are no thoughts, this is still a mystery. Any and all thoughts on this are welcome additions to this unrivaled mystery.
   
3. We wonder why, when you walk on a sidewalk (which is for walking, correct?), and you meet a moped going in the other direction and heading straight at you, they seem confused on how to proceed and invariably head straight toward you instead of ducking to the side.
   
   Thoughts: Could be that it is just us, whities, that should realize that we, on part of us being white, should get out of the way.
   
4. We wonder why so many people are doing jobs that normally takes one person to do, for instance,
   - every local bus has one driver and one person who runs around taking money from everyone, despite there being a drop point for money by the driver. Apparently the driver can not collect the money for the bus. Sometimes, like in Beijing, there are even two people running around collecting money, even though the bus is almost empty.
   - There are people at every stop light waving red flags directing car traffic and when the pedestrians are allowed to cross the street. That would be ok, if it wasnt for the fact that there are well functioning traffic lights. Even better ones than in Sweden.
   - When you enter into a store, there are at least two people greeting you (and thats their only job)
   
   Thoughts: Unemployment statistics. There was a note in a chinese newspaper that unemployment had fallen drastically recently. This, we believe, is due to Wonder no 4.
   
5. We wonder why there are vacuum packed packages of marinated bird feet lying around everywhere in stores.
   
   Thoughts: Probably because they are considered yummy and really delicious. We wont try them to find out if its true tho.
   
6. We wonder why there is no bread to be found anywhere except really, really disgusting bread that tastes like sweetened hot dog bread with a lump of red guck the size of a babys fist inside of it.
   
   Thoughts: We've so far seen no chinese person eat bread. Maybe it is considered a luxury, or maybe they just dont like it?
   
7. We wonder what it is they are eating or breathing in that makes it necessary to noisily spit absolutely everwhere, and publically pick your nose with your entire fist stuck up there. And they are not ashamed to do it in the super market, the buses, restaurants, airplane, you name it. Nowhere.
   
   Thoughts: Could it be the vacuum packed marinated bird feet? Or, perhaps, the lack of bread in their diet? We also believe the insane pollution could be part of the problem. Sometimes you cant even see a kilometer ahead on an open plain.
   
8. We wonder why a book store called "Foreign books" only carries chinese books.
   
   Thoughts: Because even written chinese is foreign to them? No. Maybe there we're no chinese books in that store, but instead korean, japanese and cantonese books. We would have no idea how to tell them apart, really.
   
9. We wonder the procedure they use to clean, since they do not appear to use any cleaning chemicals because you have to use flip flops in the shower in order not to get warts.
   
   Thoughts: All that is used is a dirty towel. We believe it is used for everything. Regardless, we've managed to get a hold of 6 pairs of free hotel flip flops for our Tibet trip. Doesnt hurt being prepared now does it.
   
10. We wonder why there are so many public toilets all over China, and why they are always full.
    
    Thoughts: Do people not have toilets at home?
    
11. We wonder why all babies in China have their "groinal area" of their pants cut open.
    
    Thoughts: Diapers are perhaps too expensive, and besides, when a baby has to go, it really has to go, so it is a lot easier to just hold "it" a couple of feet above ground and let "it" do its needs in the open.
    
12. We wonder how the pandas managed to survive at all. This is what we've been told; the panda has a breeding period of one week each year, and is extremely picky on who it chooses to procreate with. They are solitary animals that spends most of their time alone, so during this "breeding week" they have a hard time finding each other. They also eat nothing but bamboo, and because of their thick fur it is hard for them to adapt to warm weather, yet it lives in bamboo forests (sort of tropical) in China.
    
    Thoughts: Also, an unknown mystery. When, or perhaps if, the panda goes extinct, dont go blaming humans on that.
    
13. We wonder what this means; Who did daffle furniture enterprises to pullulate.
    
    Thoughts: No.

Relaxing in Chengdu

We had initially planned on going to the Mt Emei summit and back down today, and relax tomorrow before we head to tibet, but we realized late last night that it would have been too much stress. In order to do that we wouldve had to get up early, sit 2 hours on a bus to Emei town, then sit 2 hours on a bus that would take us to an elevation of 2600 meters, then spend a couple of minutes in a cable car to the summit at 3100 meters. Once up there, we'd have only 30 minutes or so, before we would have to head down in order to catch the bus back to Chengdu. It would have been too much work and too much money for too little enjoyment :) Besides, we'll probably see enough of mountains in Tibet.

Instead, we slept until 10 in the morning, had a good brekkie, got some new books, and are planning to spend the afternoon in a tea house reading and zipping tea. The tea house is located in peoples park and is apparently quite nice. So thats our afternoon. Tomorrow will be spent restocking our supplies for the Tibet trip: cleansing tissues, toilet paper, cookies (joakims request, no joakims demand), tea (because the tibetan tea is made of salt and yak butter and makes your tummy go bonkers...), chewing gum and some local altitude sickness medicine we think is opium... nah, just kidding :)

If anyone likes to share something of whats going on at home that would be nice.
Sanna: Hope things are ok with you... miss you!!!!

Hedvig/Carl: How did the apartment sale go?

Jonas/Per: Have you played anything? I had a vision that Pangea is supposed to be on the CD as well, so you better play it :)

Blomman: How's Bonham?

Jennie: How's the belly? and... when do we get our bonus??? hehe.. i need money!! uhm, or do i ;)

Harriet: We miss you too... are you getting enough attention? Dont worry, we'll be home soon.

Next time we'll post anything new will probably be from Tibet. We're sure they have Internet in Lhasa, and we'll spend three days there adjusting to the altitude, so we'll be able to write for sure then. However, after that we might be offline for a week or so. Well, we'll see.

Pictures from today (Ginormous Buddha in Leshan)

Here are some pictures from the days visit to Dafo (Giant Buddha) in Leshan. Its 71 meters tall, his ears are 7 meters tall, and one foot is as big as sophies apartment (35 square meters). In short, its really really ginormous.

The Buddha carved out of rock. You can use the people in the background to the upper left as reference to its size.

The steps up to another buddha in the same place. It was also quite big, as was the steps.

Sophie in front of the buddha on the descent down to the riverbank and its feet. It was painfully humid, and loads of people, and the expression on her face proves it.

Thats it for today. Tired. Slow computer.

Cant.
work.
on .
this.
anymore.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Wildlife is not food

Thats the sign that greeted us at the Panda Breeding and Research Center in Chengdu. We're not really sure what it means, maybe that they dont serve any panda burgers... ?

Panda munching at some bamboo after first peeling the outer layer off

The Pandas are a bit like koalas. They spend little time awake, and spends almost all their waking time eating. They only eat bamboo. And, since they can only use 20 percent of the bamboo they eat, they rest the rest of the day to preserve energy. Despite this, they were very active when we visited them, which was this morning. Feeding time is in the morning, and like we said, the rest of the day is spend sleeping.

Wonder what he is eating?

We are currently waiting for the bank personell to finish their lunches (another 2 hours apparently), and will do so by eating banana pancakes! Yums!

Btw, the hostel is really great again. Fantastic atmosphere and personell (that speak excellent english), and our room is like a hotel room (but only for 100 kr a night). The food here in Chengdu is really great as well. Spicy and full of flava. This is the sort of food we wanted to eat in china. Its very cheap as well, full dinner yesterday, incl. drinks, 25 yuan/kronor. For two people.
We are also considering what options we have in chengdu as to the sightseeing. There doesnt appear to be much worth seeing in the city besides Peoples park with its tea house, so we might just get out of town and see some nature in the coming day.

Hua Shan, no shopping.... yeah right

Since it seemed too much of a hassle to get to, and especially from, Mt Hua Shan by ourselves, we decided to take the hostel arranged trip. The price was roughly the same as if we'd done it ourselves, so we thought, what the heck. The hostel reassured us that this was not a "shopping trip" and that it would take only 2 hours there, and we'd get 6 hours on the mountain, with an english guide. And that is just what it was...

Or, well, no...

It actually took 1 hour to go outside the city walk (we can walk in half that time). This because we had to change buses after a couple of hundred meters driving. Then, once in the new (and considerably worse bus, with this guy as a passenger), we went to a gas station to fill the tank and so that people could visit the bathroom. Mind you, we are still within walking distance of our hostel after 1 h 20 minutes. Then we went straight for 2 hours, and stopped. We thought it was a restroom stop or a "buy food" stop. Turns out, the chinese people rushed, violently fast, into a building, where some "guru" was residing, who diagnosed them and sold them liniment for 500 kronor, and people bought it!! 500 kronor is roughly 5000 kronor to a chinese person. It was insane. We only found this out, and didnt have to go in, because a guy from hong kong who could speak english was the only one on the bus who could explain to us what the guide, who spoke only chinese, was saying.

After one hour at the guru, we traveled ten minutes by bus to another stop to have lunch. This, was not included in the trip and we would have to buy our own lunch. Only two people from our bus, including our driver, went out to have lunch, and we would have to wait for these people to have lunch. We refused, and thanks to our hong kong friend, we managed to get the guide to make us go ahead of the lunchees. So, 30 minutes later, she got back with tickets and once again we change buses. This one actually took us to the mountain.

We went up by cable car, and hiked around on the mountain for 2-3 hours before heading back down again. The view from up there were spectacular, apart from the views in the so called toilets. No kidding, we saw piles of human shit in the... i duno... bowl... the cleansing tissues were immediately used. Oh and the stench was awful. But, apart from those areas, the mountain was great. Really really amazing nature. The photos dont do it justice.

We got back home at around 21, and after having eaten nothing but cookies all day, the dinner really tasted great.

Getting ready to pack and check out, we are leaving for Chengdu in 6 hours.

Tada

Too tired...

... to write right now, after another sleepless night (due to an extremely noisy airconditioner in another room...), but here are some pictures from Mount Hua Shan which we went up to today.

In the distance you can see the North Peak (1600 meters). There are five peeks, North, south, west, east and central... where north is the lowest. We are slightly above it at this pic.

Kurt Ragnar and Beata Agnes

Beata Agnes overlooking the way we came up Mt Hua Shan

We are leaving for chengdu tomorrow. If we have the time, we'll write something more about Hua Shan and the day tomorrow.

Trying to change room now, for some well deserved rest.

Pea Ice Cream for everyone... and buns stuffed with unidentified guck... *hurls*

Oh, and DONT DRIVE ONLINE!

/KR o BA

Today, tomorrow, terracotta

Today we went to see the Terracotta warriors, located outside of Xian (approx 1 hour by bus). Despite the subject line, we did not travel there in a nice, new, luxurious Toyota bus but an old, worn out, pre - Soviet "bus". It had one redeeming quality, and that is that it was green, which Sophie liked.

Upon arrival we went out to look for the entrance... turns out this became a trip all in itself. We spent 20 minutes walking in one direction, only to end up at the exit, and had to walk another 10 to reach entrance no 1. After entering here, you were given the choice of going to the museum entrance by bus, or by "apostlahastarna" (walking...). We choose the horses. So, 20 minutes later we are at entrance no 2, where you could by tickets. Yipee! Viiiictory!

The area was divided into three excavation pits. The first on is the largest (see pic below).

Part of the terracotta warriors, pit no 1

The third one is the smallest, and the second one is... well... you get the idea. Only the first one actually had many figures in it. The third and second one were nice, but had very little "figures", probably because they are still working on them.

The area also included a museum with some nice sights, and the history of the museum.

All in all, it was fun to have seen, but we had expected it to be bigger and have more figures. But cool nonetheless to have seen.

Joakim trying to look warriorish, but failing miserably

On the way out, we noticed people selling fur near the tourist buses... this fur is most likely, I would say beyond a doubt, cat and dog fur.

Cat and dog fur for sale... christmas gift of the year? We are pretty sure the meat didnt go to waste either.

Got back to Xian midday, and spent it in the muslim quarters. They had some nice things that we could imagine ourselves buying. Clothes and other things. The shopkeepers luckily left you alone to stroll around and look, which was a nice change from the Silk Alley in Beijing. Again, we managed to bargain ourself down to a quarter of the original price just by walking away and claiming we had no more money. A white lie, yes, but those are ok... sometimes. We managed to get 12 postcards for 6 kronor. Originally they "cost" 20.

Tomorrow we will try to get to Mount Hua Shan by ourselves. It seems like a hassle to get there on your own, but we will try. Read more on that tomorrow.

Cherioos

Also...

Comment, for fucks sake!!! :)

I saw The Goose...

... and it opened up my eyes... The Goose is demanding, without understanding.

After managing to hail a cab in beijing at 5 in the morning, without being ripped off, we got in the plane to Xian. Turns out, the take off was just as bumpy as the descent 5 days ago. Is it always this windy in Beijing?

Landed in Xian and got on an airport shuttle bus to take us to downtown Xian. The trip was roughly 60 minutes, complete with a "guide" who spoke chinese constantly (we think withouth breathing...) for 10 minutes. It cost a shocking 25 swedish kronor each! Funny thing is, we have completely changed our mindset and actually thought this was a lot of money. Sophie even thought about bargaining for an ice cream that cost 2.5 swedish kronor. She wanted to pay only 2 kronor. She later realized how little money it actually was... oh, and the ice cream was like a swedish cornetto.

That brings us to another point... its insanely hot here. I dont think we were quite prepared for it. Makes you wonder exactly how much hotter Chengdu and Shanghai will be. We'll see in a couple of weeks time. The air here has a heavy stench of, well, car fumes. Its not as hard to breathe her as in Beijing though, because the city is generally cleaner. Xian actually seems like a really cool place, with really nice architecture, and it is very very clean and neat. Not as chaotic and dirty as large parts of Beijing. The hostel we are staying at is also very nice, and has a really good location in the middle of the city, inside the city walls.

However, one thing that is as chaotic, if not more, than Beijing is the traffic. We had to cross an intersection/roundabout, 5 lanes each way, with absolutetly not traffic lights. To give you an idea, the cars drove in maybe 8 lanes, and all tried to get into 5 lanes, mix this with bicycles and pedestrians... and we had to cross in front of the cars, trying to avoid them. We survived that too, and took the bus to the great wild goose pagoda.

The tired domesticated human Sophie in front of the big wild goose pagoda


Its a pagoda, 65 meters high, and the view from it was quite nice. It was like being at the eiffel tower (only a couple of hundred meters further down), with streets running from it in all 4 directions.

The view from the 6th floor (of 8) of the big wild goose pagoda

Tip of the day from Mamma Sophie and Pappa Joakim:
If you are going to China, there is no need to have US dollars as a reserve currency to change for Yuan. First of all, there are atms at least at one location in the city (always at bank of china) and at the airports, and, second, if you want to exchange dollars and is not staying at a fancy hotel you have to go to the bank and wait for roughly an hour before its your turn. And you dont get a better exchange rate either. So we dont see any upside to it. However, there are people lurking inside the bank, who will come up to you and ask you in front of police officers, if you want to exchange on the black market instead. If you say yes (which we did not), here is how it works:
The guy goes with you to the cashier, and since he has a better place in line you get there earlier than you otherwise would have. He then takes your money, and exchanges it for a better rate, gives you more money than you would otherwise have gotten, and probably gets some foreign currency in exchange. All the while the cops are looking no more than 5 meters away. Hmm... ?

Confession of the day:
Sophie apologizes to the people of china for mocking their craftmanship regarding the Converse shoes. Turns out the Converse sticker IS on the inside... so she will buy a pair in Shanghai. Again, she is sorry... dont kill her, she has friends... and she has to take care of Harriet.

Tomorrow we will go to the Terracotta warriors, and the day after that we will visit a mountain called Hua Shan. Its summit is at about 2600 meters, but we wont go all the way. We will probably only go to the lowest peak, by cable car.

Look, its sophies Converse boots... oh no, wait, the encrusted socks are back (in a shade of black)!

We also had a clip from Chinese tv to show you, but we cant figure out how to post it so, none of that.

No naked flame

/J o S

Final note from Beijing

This day was spent sleeping in, and going to Silk alley to check out some cheap shopping of brand clothes and jewelry. Since we dont normally use branded clothing, like Gucci and Armani... we're sure you all will be shocked when we get back in suits and bling bling... Regardless, the experience was entirely terrifying, with people screaming "handsome boy/man" after Joakim and "beautiful girl/lady" after Sophie (in short, a total ego trip, yeeehaw!), all the while grabbing our arms and trying to get us into their store place. The curious thing is that almost all the "stores" have identical stuff, and it makes you wonder why you need 40 stores in a row with the exact same clothes, shoes, jewelry and so on.

Sophie had originally planned on buying a pair of "genuine" Converse All Stars, but the producers of these shoes (Converse, right?), apparently decided to put the Converse sticker on the inside of the shoes instead... must have been that particular shipment only... hmmm....

Instead Sophie bought, mostly for fun, a jade jewelry piece (of shit...) for 50 yuan (roughly 50 swedish kronor)... originally though the seller wanted almost 300 for it!! But, like we already said we just walked away and the bargaining took care of itself.

So, to sum up Beijing here are some thoughts:
Hostel was fantastic, except some plumbing problems. But definately recommended for anyone visiting Beijing. The atmosphere was fantastic, and everyone spoke great english and were very helpful. Also, the music was a plus (right now Red hot chili peppers) and there were two guitars there for everyone to use.

If anyone wants to visit only beijing, its definately possible to do without guides. You can make your point across and understand what is being said anyway. You do need some sort of translation book though, for when it gets a little bit hard... like ordering food so you know what you are eating (we dont recommend pigs bowels...).

Simatai is definately worth visiting before Badaling, and it was relatively easy to go there. Make sure to be there early before the tourist groups. We left the bus terminal at 6 in the morning, and we had an hour by ourself on the wall.

Carrying toilet paper and cleansing tissues with you at all times actually is a good idea. No joke... for real... this is from Daddy Joakim and Mommy Sophie... we only want what is best for you.

In closing, when the olympics comes to beijing in 2008, it will probably look completely different and very much nicer. Not a day goes by without some part of the pavement completely changes from being in a state of ruin, to being built on, to being finished and covered in dust. People work seemingly day and night.

Coolest thing in Beijing:
Being alone on the wall, with its serene environment. And the parks (behai park and summer palace).

PS: Bottled Green Ice Tea tastes like flavoured soap water, dont ever try it.

Now we have to eat something at the hostel in order to go to bed early so we can get up early to catch the flight to Xian at 730 in the morning.

More on Xian later.

Its great to see people commenting btw. More of that!

Meh! Ish ml

We have been taken off the Ban list!!

We can finally see our blog now, so feel free to comment and we will reply!

Tjohoo！

We survived The Wall

... where we came in

In order to tell the story of The Wall, we need to start at yesterdays delicious dinner. After having spent the good part of an hour looking for a place to eat where we could understand what we were ordering, we finally settled for a place that had pictures of the food on the menu. This is always a plus when all the writing are in Chinese. Despite that, we ended up eating the following:
Dumplings - Quite good, not so tasty but good enough
Fried balls of something with spicy sauce - The yummiest
Exhibit A - See below
We have no idea what this was, but look at the picture. Its round, hollow, and it was not a snake. It was pork, something, and the waitress pointed at her belly (after we had ordered). Sophie had one piece, but Joakim joyfully munched away five whole pieces before his appetite was somewhat destroyed once he realized that it was probably one of the following:
Pigs intestine
Pigs bowels
Pigs belly
or, the "best", Pigs testicels.

Needless to say, he ate no more. The cucumber that was served with it was nice though.

So, fast forward to the night. Last night we decided to go to the Simatai part of the Great Wall instead of the much overpopulated Badaling part. However, in order to go there, we had to go by local transport, and hence had to get up very early (approx 5 in the morning). But there were things we needed to check up first, so we didnt get to bed until after 12 at night. And, whaddaya know, none of us could sleep at all. So, after five frustrating hours, the alarm finally rang and we couldnt believe that we had not slept at all. We werent even tired at that point. So, we got up, took the metro to the long distance bus station, all the time being stared at immensely by this guy that had a very "chunky bite". We took the bus to a town near the wall, Miyun, and took a cab from there. Thanks to Sophie we managed to bargain down the price, to about half, but Sophie was not entirely satisfied with it anyway. One thing you notice here, though, is that if you are white some people are constantly trying to overcharge you for everything. The right thing to do is to just walk away and appear uninterested.


We arrived at the Simatai part of the wall and it was very nice. This part of the wall has barely been rebuilt so it gives a much more genuine impression of what it could have been like. Also, it so much less touristy that we were actually the only people on the wall for 40 or so minutes. When we were heading back down again, we met the crowds as they were making their way up. Although nowhere near as many as in Badaling, it would have been enough to disturb the quite peaceful moments we had at the wall.

Even though the Simatai part of the wall is not very touristy, it still has its share of peddlers trying to sell things to you. And it doesnt matter if you say no, they follow you for a long long time anyway, until you eventually buy something to get rid of them. However, Sophie devised a plan which involved turning around and aggressively shouting something Swedish at them (Forsvinn!!!). And, it worked very good. They gave up immediately and headed back home. And, on the way down, they didnt even try to sell things to us again. So, thats a good tip.

Since Beijing is arranging the Olympics in 2008 they have set up all these signs all over in English, or more like Chinglish (see link to the right). Here's one we saw on our way back from the wall. Others included:
No naked flame, and
Remember, the fire is heartless

Any suggestions as to what any of these mean, please feel free to comment.

Thats all for us as of now. Tomollow, we are sleeping in, and then going out shopping and relaxing. Also, we need to check out since our plane for Xian leaves at... uhmm... 7:20 in the morning day after tomollow... thats insanely early!

Next time youll hear from us, well be in Xian

Isn't this...

Summer palace

Today we decided to sleep in a bit. We had originally planned on going to the wall today, but decided against it since we walked 8 hours non stop yesterday, without food... apart from cookies and ice tea. Joakim of course didnt mind the cookies, or the sleep in...

Instead we spent the day at the summer palace, which is actually a huge garden with a huge lake. We went there with one of the local buses. Took about 25 minutes and cost 3 swedish kronor. Extremely cheap.

We are starting to get used to being stared at all the time. Since we are virtually the only whities on the bus we must be quite the attraction. Really, there are very little tourists here, apart from the million or so chinese tourists that is... and　the groups of retired whities. The chinese groups are always wearing the same caps and vests, mostly red, with different numbers on them... hmm... we think that the number shown is some sort of emergency number to call if they get lost, but we are not sure. However, we have taken the precaution and tattooed our own mobile phone numbers in our forehead. Fancy indeed.

Tomollow (will it ever get old?) we are planning on an early trip to Simatai, a remote part of the Great Wall. We are planning on going it alone, since most trips go to Badaling which is very over commercialized and crowded, and not very original. Almost all of it has been restored. We are going it alone for another reason as well, and that is that the travel agents all offer trips to the wall, but they put so many other things in between that you sort of only get an hour on the wall. And these other activities include, shopping, getting medical advice (and of course buying the medicing to cure it), eating, and more shopping. We thought it was a rip off, but apparently the chinese want their trips to be like this. They only want to have a good time, buy cheap souveniers, eat and spend just enough time on the main sight to take a photo (where they will probably make the peace sign).

Now its time for dumplings, and whatever else we find.

Gnite

Pictures

Sophie at our hostel when we just arrived. The hostel was really cozy.

Starters（crunchyand spicy)

Main course (click picture... yes, that is a chicken... an entire chicken...)

Sophie and Joakim at the summer palace in Beijing.

Important notice

Weve recently noted that our blog probably is blocked in China, and hence we will not be able to actually see what we post and not read comments. You are of course free to leave comments anyway, they are always fun. We just can not reply to them.

Also, do not send text messages to the phone number we gave you, unless its really important (like someone having a baby... in that case, a picture is always fun). For some reason, one of the messages sent to our phone keeps being sent to us over and over again, and well, if this keeps up for a month its gonna be a real expensive month :)

So, in short, leave comments but we cant reply. Send emails, we will reply to those. Or text, if important. If anything changes, and our blog is taken off the banlist, we will let you know :)

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