World Cup Culture Convergence in Mongolia

7/2

Started my tour today in an old non air-conditioned gray Soviet van that we named Igor.  Long drive through basic flatlands.  We did see a few giant hawks, some heron-type things (cranes) and horses, goats, sheep, cows and dogs.  Mongolia has 18 times the number of farm-type animals as it does people.

Igor held eight people; Ekra, the driver, Selonga, the "guide"/cook, and six tourists; Jenny, a Korean girl, Vicky and Craig, British Doctors, Bert and Giselle, an old German couple, and myself.  At around four, we stopped at Baga gazariin chuluu, a temple that was destroyed by the Soviets in the 1930s.  It was decent, with pretty scenery, and blessedly, only one other group of tourists- even smaller than ours, and a Mongolian father and son were there.

While waiting for Selonga to make dinner, I went for a nice walk around the rocks, then went back to our ger.  A ger (known in the West as a yurt) is the traditional Mongolian home.  It's a short, round wooden structure, padded by a thick layer of wool and covered in canvas.  Usually, there is a shrine on the far wall facing you as you enter the door, though you'd trip over the stove, which is kept in the middle of the room so the chimney can exit through the circular hole on top that is generally half-covered.  The beds, or more typically, mattresses, are pressed against the walls as if from centrifugal force.  The toilet is an outhouse outside, though sometimes it's just a hole in the ground, covered with a few wooden slats to stand on while you squat.

7/3

Today was another long day of driving (350 km), though at least my lunch was excellent today (though not markedly different- more meat, vegetables and potatoes all fried together, served with rice).  We saw our first group of camels and drove to Temeen shavar (the Flaming Cliffs), which were very nice, but (and I feel a bit bad saying this), I'm starting to think I could've done an off-road trip from part of California through the Southwest and had essentially the same experience.  Trade gers for a few scattered houses or cabins and temples for churches and that's pretty much it.  Both have blue skies and vast emptiness, people herding animals, and not a whole ton in the way of culture.

I think I can go one more day without a shower before I start to feel really gross.  I'll likely have a babywipes bath tonight.  Apparently much of the area we've been passing through on our way to the desert is known as the Steppes (pronounced steps) and is basically just endless flat, slightly green plains.

After I'd written all this, at about 10:30 p.m., my germates and I noticed a lot of noise coming from our next-door neighbors.  Jenny came by and told us they were watching the world cup inside.  Vicky and I had remarked on the satellite dish upon arriving at this ger camp, which was an odd enough sight in such a remote site, but to actually see a small newish looking but black and white t.v. playing the Germany-Argentina World Cup game inside a ger in the middle of complete nothingness in Mongolia was surreal.  The bright white light illuminated the almost exclusively white faces inside, the Mongolians who actually lived in that ger (save two sitting in the very front), had abdicated their seats for the foreigners and so a Mongolian grandmother, mother, two men and a child sat watching through the door and refused stools when one of the foreigners offered to give up theirs.

It was a bizarre experience, all the more so because I was watching part of the World Cup without beer.  We later agreed that they should have charged admission and had beer available for sale and they would've made more money than they did selling the handmade woolen items (toy gers, camels, hats, purses).  It was also amazing to think that the World Cup actually reached that far and made me feel more inclined to watch it and helped me understand its relevance was real- I'd always assumed that the idea of rural people in poor countries watching the WC and the world feeling united was pure propaganda, but seeing it actually bring together people of different cultures and places was almost...well, let's not go that far- it's still soccer.

7/4

Even though this post won't actually go up until later, I still feel obligated to write a patriotic post in honor of Independence day, especially since I won't get fireworks, sparklers, a beach or a barbeque, though I might get beer.

Things the U.S. Does/Has Better Than Anywhere Else:

Movies/ Movie Theater Experience
Customer Service
Individual Rights
Road Trips
Directness
Medical Care (IF you can afford it)

Better Than Most:

Cheese
Ice Cream
Mexican Food
Quality of Higher Education (ignoring all the many problems with it)

When, that is, if, you think of Mongolia, you probably think, as I did, of vast deserts (meaning the Gobi) and little else.  Today, in the Yol Valley of the South, I saw an Ice river/ glacier.  We'd driven a few hours this morning to get there and arrived at the museum near the entrance around noon.  The museum was just a few smalls rooms, all except one filled with indigenous stuffed animals.  The other room had four  glass cases and a table in it.  Two cases contained small dinosaur bones and remnants.  One contained a partially exposed small dinosaur skeleton, remarkably preserved in a way so that you could see its basic shape still.  The last glass case contained several dinosaur eggs, some almost whole, some broken into a few (though not many) pieces.  Most interesting to me, however, was the table.  On a basic, small rectangular card table, without any covering whatsoever, were dinosaur bones.  The sign didn't say what kind, but there they were, just sitting on the table like sewing machines at a garage sale, waiting for someone to pick up and ask "How much for this one?"  The sign did say not to touch them, but I'm a rebel, so I stroked one giant dirtied-ivory colored bone, thicker than two soda cans. The part I touched was fairly solid, but most parts looked splintered, like wood while it's burning.  I did learn one thing in the museum however: Mongolia has snow leopards, though they're very, very, very rare (according to Vicky who said she watched a documentary on it, it took the BBC team three weeks to spot one and that was using the latest technology with several people, filming 24 hours a day).

Igor has not been happy with us and our poor comrade has overheated often, forcing us to get out, pour water into his engine (which is inside the car in the front seat between the driver and shotgunner, under a leather covered compartment), wait around for a while, and try again.  He made it to the parking lot for the walk out to the glacier and we had lunch Selonga had prepared that morning (over-oiled fried rice with a tiny bit of mutton inside and carrots).  It was only a 2 km walk to the ice and it was a very nice mostly-flat walk by a stream that became a river, through green grass that climbed onto hills that turned into small rocky mountains.  Most of it reminded me of the Seven Sisters near San Luis Obispo.  The ice river was rather random and seemed to just come out of nowhere so that was cool.  I slid along it a bit and watched it melt away, drip by drip.  It'll be gone by the time I put this post up.  It was pretty but mostly just impressive because it was so surprising and random, just there.  A big chunk of ice in the Gobi Desert.

While we were gone our guide Erka had taken part of Igor's engine apart in an attempt to fix it and we had to wait for about an hour and a half after we got back for him to put it back together, and it only seemed to work marginally better.

Since we were so far behind schedule, we decided to stay nearby for the night.  It was a fantastic decision as the place we found was a lovely, tiny village with a population of 50 or so.  It was the sort of country, self-sufficient area Mao probably had wet dreams about.  One interesting thing was that this tiny place had a basketball court and a basic elliptical with some other basic exercise equipment.  In Northern Asia, I've noticed that in general, they seem to pay much more attention to their youth and old.  For the young, there are many more options for things to do at night and on weekends like; video arcades (ubiquitous and larger and more extensive than in the U.S.), jimjillbangs and manga libraries/ internet cafes (again, better than those we have in the West).  For the geriatric set, I've particularly noticed that several of the parks that have areas and exercise equipment specifically set off for Seniors (I know this because they have English signs) to keep them active and encourage physical and mental activity until they die.

Anyway, it was a lovely little area.  After dinner and a walk around, I saw a group of men leaving the largest house (likely a school/ community center) who were dressed in red and blue briefs.  They got into cars and drove off.  Soon afterwards I left too and walked back to our ger camp. 

As I walked over the hill, I could see that the cars had stopped just in front of our group of five gers and that all the tourists were sitting in about a third of a circle and the men in briefs were inside the part of the circle they'd created.

My guide said they were going to do a show for us, and that it was 4,000 per person (about $3) to watch.  It looked interesting, so I said I would and sat down.  They'd already started a bit but when they started a new round, the two men would stand from about fifty feet back, then slapped the front of their thighs twice, then slapped their butts then slowly jogged over to their referee (there were always at least two).  Just before reaching their designated referee, they'd start to do this very slow movement of flapping their arms up and down, in a way that was supposed to represent a hawk.  I imagine it was supposed to seem elegant and smooth, but it just managed to look idiotic.  They'd "swoop" around their referee three times and then the referee would pat them on the shoulder and they'd go to dance circles with the other fighter.  At some point, they'd embrace and be locked in a hug for ages until one finally made some movement that knocked the other off balance.  You lost when your hands, knees or elbows touched the ground.  It wasn't very active and most of the time the wrestlers weren't really moving, which is why they had two or three fights all going on at the same time.  It seemed to be a bit of a psychological game in a way, but it also seemed that the men who looked the worst in their briefs, chubby bellies overhanging them, did the best.  It was really neat to watch, and I got a picture with them afterwards, though not a very good one.  Two of the tourist guys tried a match and one of them, who said he'd had some karate training, did okay.  The other one was flat on his back in about ten seconds.

Riding the Rails on the Trans- Siberian

6/29

At this very moment, I'm on the Trans-Mongolian train from Beijing to Ulan Bator, a branch of the most famous railroad in the world, the Trans-Siberian.  We left Beijing, a long flat city with wide streets and wound our way through mountains and gorges, similar to what you'd expect China to look like, emerging suddenly from the bottom waste into the sky, looming over you unexpectedly.  Some of the cliffs were so high that craning your neck still didn't mean you'd see the top and they were covered in a blend of the dirt, granite and dark green vegetation.

The dirt morphed several times within five minute and we saw it as sand, slate, the pinkish-mauve of dried blood, orange and browned crap.  Our pine green train, decorated with a red star and Russian letters, passed rice paddies and other agriculture, industrial cities, small towns with predominately roofless sandy-pink brick houses, long flat plains, some marred by large, deep scars, and rolling hills.

Just now, as the dirty flat earth and bland water-retaining green reflected bits of the rusty dregs of sunset, we passed into desert.  It was an okay sunset, not great- not like a California sunset or a Swiss one, but pretty enough with primary colored striations in the sky.  I love watching that moment when the very last bit of the sun disappears and it's the witching hour.

Some call that dusk or twilight or l'heure bleu, but there's something special about it that's missing at all other times.  It's a time of suspended possibilities.  The only other time I like as much is at around 3 a.m. when everyone's asleep and for a while, the world is yours.

Unfortunately, my cabinmate, who I think is really odd anyway, since she just stares at me for fairly long periods of time for no reason LIKE SHE IS RIGHT NOW, tried to interrupt.  It was also really annoying because I was obviously busy and annoyed at the two stupid, loud Australians who were standing directly in front of our door so we couldn't just watch from our compartment (and note here that all compartments have the same view so they had no reason to be in our way, they just were).

Said cabinmate is also completely pathetic, and a bitch.  There were problems with me sitting in another cabin (when it was totally legal and legitimate) and she called me slow or said I was just wrong.  Now, she's complaining about having the fan on (and it's hot) because it's too loud for her to sleep (supposedly) and hurts her eyes because apparently she's some little princess.  I told her she should have earplugs and an eyemask or take a plane.  I have no pity for pathetic losers who wallow in their own crap, nor for weakness.  Man up.  I've had to and I know it's not easy, but if you can't eventually, then you're not worth my time.

Since leaving the gorges, the scenery's been quite boring.  Currently, we're at Erlian, the Chinese/Mongolian border and we'll be waiting here for three hours while they change the wheels, since Russian trains (and Mongolian trains which were built under the Russian system) were built six inches farther apart than most other train lines in the world.  We can't get off during that time. 

Except, of course, that soon after I wrote that, we were all forced off, despite what I'd been told earlier.  We've now been here for nearly four hours (I was originally told six, then three, then two- it ended up being almost exactly four in the end) with no signs of moving and not allowed to use the bathroom for the last hour because the workers are a bunch of lazy assholes.  So I had to pee in between the cars, you know, in one of those connecting points in between, the compartments that look like accordians, while a girl watched for me.  I'd considered actually peeing on the carpet in front of the jerks who refused to unlock the bathroom for me (for absolutely no reason) but then I would've had to pee on myself and who knows what kind of trouble I could've gotten into.  It wasn't worth the risk, but damn it would've been good.

The train itself is okay and though a bit old, it's in decent shape and has Western-style toilets.  Our cabin is fine- it helps that they are enclosed and that in mine, only two of the four beds are occupied.  Unfortunately, the restaurant car has terrible food.  Not just bad, like in most of China, but I'd-almost-rather-starve-than-eat-it awful.  It's greasy, gross, oversalted (and I normally like a lot of salt) and overpriced.  On all the other trains I've been on, people have come through with carts offering different options, but on this train, they don't.  Usually, there are also carts outside of trains at the station stops with prepackaged takeaway snack food but of all our stops so far, only one has had these and the only edible thing they had was bowls of noodles- nothing resembling chips, crackers, peanuts or candy, which they almost always have.

I'm very glad I'm traveling with Steph on this journey so I have someone to talk to and play cards with, though I also brought five books to keep me occupied.  Her cabinmates, luckily, are two very decent (though one is extremely chauvinistic) Australian girls who I've enjoyed talking to.

I always think that I need a man like a turtle needs a fork, but I just now realized that I actually do.  Without a man, I have no one to open my beer for me when a bottle opener is unavailable.  I mean, I guess I'd keep the guy around for other reasons as well, but his primary purpose would be to open my beer bottles (currently 600 mL Tsing tao).  Of course, I could just get a bottle opener.  It wouldn't whine, though I suppose it does just lie around a lot.  It would never be selfish, or in fact, expect anything from me save that I continue drinking.  And it would never say or do anything unimaginably idiotic or disappoint or leave me.

But, it probably wouldn't smell nice.  It definitely couldn't kiss me.  A bottle opener, no matter how pretty, would never be as attractive as expressive eyes or strong arms and it could never surprise me and say the right thing either.

6/30

Arrived in Mongolia after waking up to discover they'd somehow changed the Chinese cafeteria-like dining car into this gorgeous wood-carved Mongolian style one.  Rather bizarrely, the landscape and weather here remind me more of the area I grew up in than anywhere else I've ever traveled.  Obviously the streets are dirtier, there are homeless people and street kids, fewer traffic lights, and gers instead of houses but otherwise, based on the way it looks, combined with the fauna and rolling hills, I could easily be in Paso Robles.  It's rather strange and keeps surprising me.

Steffi and I got off the train and said goodbye to the Aussie girls and found the sign with my name on it from a man from the guesthouse since I'd emailed and booked us in ahead and checked into UB Guesthouse. 

I got money out, but Steffi couldn't since her card wasn't working so we spent the rest of the day trying to get that fixed and trying to find a hostel we could stay in during Naadam, the largest festival in Mongolia  which runs from July 11-13 (though apparently all the activities- wrestling, archery and horse racing- finish within the first two days and the third is reserved for celebrating by drinking vodka and beer) so there's no way I'm going to miss that.  Every one we tried was booked out which was frustrating, but we stopped in a cheap bar-restaurant for dinner and had some beef goulash served with rice for dinner.  It was quite good and the meat was very tender but not super-flavorful, though I was so happy to be eating meat again, I didn't mind as much as Steffi (who's German), who told me her Dad's was better.

7/1

Steffi got her money worked out and we went to check her in for her tour.  I wasn't going on it with her since her tour sounded a little bit too hard-core for me and didn't go to the places I wanted to go.  While she did her introduction class, I shopped around for tours and had difficulty finding one that left at the right time, went the right places and cost the right amount.  I Skyped my Mom for a while but she was busy as she and my stepdad were moving out of their apartment to go live on their boat at that very moment (they left soon after I called) so we didn't talk for long.  Steffi came back and we went out for lunch, where I had something that was called barbeque but was basically goulash.  It was good though, and very cheap at 3800 turgish (about $2.65 USD). 

She went to sort out her money and I went to look for more tours.  I found a notice from a British couple at a guest house looking for more people to go on the tour with them.  They wanted to go on exactly the same tour I wanted to go on, leave ASAP, as I did, and it was the right price.  I left a note with my email that the hostel owner promised to give to them and hoped it would work.  I did laundry and then checked my emailed and they'd emailed me telling me they were going to meet at 7 p.m. to book it and to meet them there.  Steffi had sorted her money out thanks to her cute, smart brother (who I'm going to meet when I eventually visit her in Germany) so she paid me back what I'd loaned her and we went to check out another hostel for Naadam.  We finally found one, even though some things seemed odd about it, and paid for the first two nights.  I went to the meeting and we were able to organize and book the tour with six people, a guide and a driver at a rate of $32 USD per day including everything.

So tomorrow I leave on a nine day/eight night tour around Southern Mongolia, during which time I'll see the Gobi Desert, ruined temples, a waterfall, and hot springs.  We'll all sleep in gers (traditional nomadic Mongolian houses/tents), eat Mongolian food, ride camels and horses, drive for hours and hours, and get to take two showers.

Tonight, our whole group went out for Italian food at Veranda, a restaurant recommended by the Lonely Planet, which Vicky and Craig (the Brits) seem to regard as holy and virtually infallible.  The restaurant was actually very nice and my dish, penne in a gorgonzola sauce with crispy bacon bits and shredded parmesean cheese, was very good and only cost 10,000 turgish (around $7 USD).

Peking Duck, Take #2

6/26

Got into Beijing and got the bus to the hostel (the one around the corner from the one I'd stayed at previously) I'd wanted to stay at without too much trouble for 1RMB instead of taking the easy way out and getting at 17 kwai cab. Unfortunately that hostel was full, so I was back at my other one, though I don't mind too much- they're the same price and the other one was only marginally better.  I got breakfast and wrote for quite a while, got cash out, then walked over to the International Hotel where I bought my ticket to Ulan Bator ($172 USD- but it's a LONG distance and a 30 hour train ride).  I'd considered buying it online previously but had heard it was much cheaper to buy in Beijing and it was.  By getting it here (which was surprisingly simple and straightforward and took all of about five minutes,) I saved about $200- and keep in mind that's $200 U.S. dollars.  I walked back, making it a 5km walk for the morning, checked my facebook and Skyped my Mom and Grandma again- all before noon. 

I felt quite smug by the time I got lunch at a place nearby that I knew was at least decent.  Most of the things listed above sound so easy, but in China I've had days where getting cash out and going one place took me hours and was incredibly frustrating, so I have to appreciate the things that do go well, even if they're only simple errands.  And since it's so rare for me to feel self-satisfied and proud, I'm enjoying it immensely.  I even managed to read a few pages of the Motorcycle Diaries (which I'm STILL slugging through), talked to two people in my room,  organized my photos and renewed my medical insurance.  It's 5 p.m. right now and I'm even considering going for a run, taking a shower and a nap before watching the U.S.- Ghana World Cup game at 2:30 a.m.  That, or anything else I could possibly do today, will just be whipped cream on top.

In my room, that night, I met Steffi, a cool German girl, and two very petite girls (one Chinese, one Australian) who lived near Urumqi, in Northwestern China.  They invited us to come to dinner with them at a place that served traditional food from that area so we went.  The kebabs were good, but everything else was average to disappointing. 

6/27

After my super-effective day, I didn't do that much really but I met two girls in my room who I really, really liked and felt like I could actually talk to and really connect with.  It was also exciting because one of them was the solo American female traveler I've been searching for!  She actually isn't traveling in the same way right now (she's a teacher in Korea) but had previously and was planning to again in the future.  The other was a German girl, Steffi, who's also traveling alone and is going on the train the same day I am so I'm going to hang out with her.  It just always feels so refreshing to have real conversations because so often it's little more than "whereareyoufrom, whatareyourplans, blah, blah, same old, same old," and it's like you're spending a lot of time talking to people and saying absolutely nothing.

I went with the American (I can't remember her name now and she never emailed like she said she would) to the Donghuamen market (tourist place with weird food) though the only thing I got was some semi-dried shark (at least that's what they said) that I shared with her that was better than expected.

At night, the three of us went out, drank a lot of cheap beer and played a great game of Kings.  It was a really wonderful, but still somewhat low-key (though late), evening.  It was also nice because the two of them brought out some of the best in me, and I love that person I am at my best- she's fun and interesting and just that girl in the room that everyone adores.  Most of the time I'm not that girl, and I don't even always aspire to be her because the calmer, quieter me has her own merits as well, but when I am that higher me it's fun and I'm happy and I love it/life/her.

6/28

All three of us woke up quite late and went for lunch at the decent place I knew nearby.  None of us felt compelled to do anything adventurous so we wandered for a while, looking through the nearby hutong tourist market until the American girl decided she wanted to dye her hair blue.  So, since I would've otherwise just screwed along online I, and Steffi, went with her.  The search took us all afternoon, to several different stores, and two hair salons, but no one had blue hair dye that you could just buy and do yourself.  We even saw a group of Chinese girls with bright (and incredibly well-done) blue hair and asked them, but they were cosmetology students and had mixed it and done it themselves.  They took a picture with us and we continued our quest, but eventually we gave up and found a place with very cheap peking duck for dinner so they could try it.  It was okay, marginally better than my first try, but still not great or remotely impressive.  Neither of them had ever tried it though and they both liked it so that made me happy.  The American girl left that evening on a train to Xi'an and Steffi and I went to bed early, planning to get up at 5:30.

At 4:20 a.m. I was woken up by feverish whispering from the two petite girls in my room.  Apparently the 35 year old English woman who had just moved in that day had gotten drunk, stripped off all her clothes and climbed, naked, into the Australian girl's bed.  The Australian girl had freaked out and the English girl had managed to get into her own bed, but not before peeing on the floor.  The petite Australian girl and the petite Chinese girl had then decided it was necessary to loudly whisper about it for nearly an hour so I couldn't get back to sleep before it was time to get up for the train anyway.

Face to Terracotta Face

6/23

Busy day.  I decided to go on a tour to see the Terracotta Warriors after much internal debate because it would've cost me at least 80 yuan (and I don't know if I've explained this, but RMB/yuan/kwai are all the same value, it's the equivalent of USD/dollar/buck or GBP/pound/quid) to go by myself and the tour was 190, but that included lunch, an English tour guide, an air-conditioned van to get me there and a stop at the Temple of the Eight Immortals (the royal temple in Xi'an).  As it turned out, the tour was an excellent decision, mostly due to our wonderful guide, Jaija.

Jaija, whose name I remember because she said we could call her Lady Ja Ja, spoke very good English with an understandable accent and was very knowledgeable.  Just as importantly, however, she was fun.  She was adorable, really, and happy and excited the whole time and managed to unite our group and really bring us out.

The terracotta warriors were impressive, but didn't wow me as expected.  They were cool and I was glad I'd gone but I guess I felt like seeing them in person wasn't really that much more exciting than seeing photographs of them.  Some of the details were quite impressive though, and the number itself (8,000 total, not all visible or reconstructed yet) was astonishing.  I do want to tell you a bit about the man who ordered them built though, as he's quite fascinating- my favorite Chinese historical figure so far besides Empress Xixi.

Emperor Qin ascended the throne as King of the State of Qin at age 13, and in the year 221 B.C., he unified China, which he ruled for eleven years, until he died at 49, completely insane at the end.  In that time, he became the first Emperor of China by ruthlessly uniting the warring provinces, started the construction of, and completed the first section of, the Great Wall, built most of the terracotta army and drank mercury every day.

The mercury was supposed to make him immortal and a river of mercury still runs inside his mountain tomb 1.5 km away from the warriors, which is why it's not open to visit.  He believed that the mercury would allow him to have a sort of afterlife and the warriors were there to protect/fight for him during said afterlife.  They were never supposed to be uncovered.

I'm sure you know that what makes the terracotta warriors so special is the fact that all of the faces are unique but you may not know that they were modeled after real workers at the time.  The paid for their artistic immortality with their mortal lives as the Emperor didn't want anyone making copies.

If you'd like to see a very good and truly aesthetic movie about China, the uniting of China and Emperor Qin, I highly recommend watching Hero with Jet Li.  Great movie, and from what I've seen, it does a good job of showing the different landscapes of China.

Also, random, but did you know Mulan was based on a true story?

So, it was neat.  The lunch was absolute crap and the temple was not particularly special, though they had a bunch of peacocks and I thought it was funny that they had six male peacocks for the single peahen.

I guess I just had some extra energy and was afraid I wouldn't have another chance to, but I decided this evening would be a good time to do my bike ride on the city wall.  I knew it was 40RMB to get in, though only 20 with my student ID) and another 20 to rent the bicycle.  Unfortunately, no one had bothered to tell me (of the several people I'd spoken to about it) that a 200RMB deposit was required and that the woman renting them was going to be a heinous bitch about it.  I curse a bit regularly, but I try to keep this blog pretty clean but this woman was so awful I wanted to throttle her.  I only had 100 on me for the deposit (besides the 20 for the rental) so I offered her my student ID and my debit card as a deposit in addition to the 100.  She said she couldn't take it and refused to look at me and started helping someone else.  The customer service here is awful in general and they are terribly rude and dismissive like that commonly but this witch was even more so.

Sometimes, things are impossible due to language difficulties.  I get that and am always willing to pay for mistakes due to that since I'm the one who doesn't speak the language properly.  Sometimes, things are impossible due to crap/ unfair company policies which the person can't change.  I get that too, and try not to get angry or be rude to the representative who has no say in the policies they're required to enforce.

Neither was the case here.  The woman was just being a bitch because she could and she felt like it (and incidentally, the second is virtually never the case in China) when I'd been very polite but was obviously desperate as the only reason I'd paid the entrance fee to do this.  She wouldn't help me at all and it was the only place I could see where I could rent a bicycle so I couldn't just go somewhere else (though I later saw that there was another place to do so on the other side, but run by the same company).  When it became clear that she wasn't going to help me and was pretending her English was significantly less than it was, I got pissed and went downstairs.  I explained to the guard that since I couldn't rent a bicycle, I wanted a refund because I didn't want to see any of it except by bike.  He got his manager and she said that it would be fine with my debit card, and later, that it would be fine with just 100 deposit.  She radioed someone and said I could go back up to the wall and it would be okay.

It wasn't.  The same awful woman still said I couldn't (and admittedly, I was being quite rude back at this point) and refused to help me in any way, or even look at me.  I grabbed the radio, assuming that if I said something the manager (of the wall, I should explain, not of the company renting the bikes) would come up and help me so I said "Hello, no one is helping me at all up here," and heard nothing back.  I went over to a group of men who also worked for the company and said I wanted to speak to the boss and they said the woman was the boss.  I told them I just wanted to rent a bike but only had 100, and one of the men said I could.  I told him that she wouldn't let me and he went around and made her take it.  Finally.  The entire ordeal took over 30 minutes and was incredibly frustrating, even more so when someone later told me they'd only had to deposit 200 total for three people.  I don't know what that woman's problem was.  I really was very nice at the beginning and she just decided to screw with my head for no reason.  Also, this is a good example of a time when I am willing to make a big deal of something and argue it because I was being screwed over for absolutely no logical reason whatsoever (like one of the two listed above).

It really did ruin the entire experience for me.  I was so upset.  You can say I shouldn't have let it bother me so much, but screw you, it did and I did let it.  It also just wasn't that fun or exciting in general.  Yes, it was cool to ride a bike on top of a huge city wall, but the scenery wasn't diverse, interesting or pretty, it was just boring and repetitive.

Upon returning my bike after the 20-30 km ride, the bitch told me "You're over-time."  I sure as hell was not.  It was 8:30 on the dot, the time they closed, and I was supposed to have it for 100 minutes up until then, which I would've had if she hadn't delayed me for 30 at the beginning.  As it was, I'd only had it for about 75.  So no, I definitely wasn't.  I grabbed my 100 that she put down on the table, not even handing it to me, and told her "Screw you, you stupid bitch," and stormed off.  And no, I'm not the slightest bit ashamed of what I said and I think she deserved that and more.

Eventually I calmed down- my daily free beer from the hostel bar helped, and started talking to a group of people who gave me a free beer because they somehow had many extras, like four per person at the table.  We started to play Kings, drank for quite a while longer and then went down to the bar to watch the World Cup games.  England was playing Slovenia at the same time the U.S. was playing Algeria and both England and the U.S. needed decisive victories to continue onto the next round.  The bar was only playing England's game, which sucked, but I wasn't going to make any really serious effort to watch it somewhere else so I watched that.  Halfway through the game, a group of Americans convinced the bartenders to switch one of the tvs to the U.S. game.  I didn't realize this until a bit later, but still soon enough to join them to watch Landon Donovan score an awesome goal.  It was really fun to watch in a bar with so many people so excited about the games.  Both the U.S. and England won their games, 1-0 and as there weren't many (any?) Slovenians or Algerians at the hostel, everyone was happy and excited. 

With the group of Americans, and at least one English girl and two English guys, we decided to continue drinking somewhere else.  We ended up as a club, whose English name was "Club," and after drinking lots more, including more beer and more of the gratis Jaeger and Red Bull type mix the Chinese love to give us foreigners, and talking to a bunch more random people, some who spoke English and some who didn't,  I eventually got home and went to bed, drunk, but not too much so.

Peking Duck in Peking, Round #1

6/18

I took another rest day today (though without a hangover) and went to the English floor of a large bookstore. I sat there for hours reading "Dead Until Dark," the third or fourth book in the Sookie Stackhouse (True Blood) series. I chose this one because it featured a lot of Eric, who I love. It was good and made me happy, though there were too many silly plot points about random things that didn't matter when it should have been all about Sookie and Eric.

While I was reading, I had two Chinese people separately ask me for help understanding English phrases. Both must've been quite proficient since the phrases weren't logical ones. One was something about a guy who "winds up" doing something, and the guy didn't understand because he only knew winds used as a verb to wind something up (like a music box). The other phrase was even stranger and was something like "there're" so I just told the person it was bizarre and meant there are. Anyway, it was cute that they asked me.

At night, I found a place offering Peking Duck (Peking is the original name for Beijing, and thus, where the dish originated) for a somewhat reasonable price (99 yuan with a Diet Coke, $15 USD) but it wasn't as good as I'd hoped. Really good peking duck is one of the greatest foods in the world, and this was just kind of blah and a bit too oily. Don't worry though, I'll try again.

Changing Directions

6/16

I was sitting in the front Cafe at my hostel, screwing around online when Terry, an English guy I'd met in Shanghai, came by- he was staying at a hostel right around the corner.  It was just about dinnertime so I asked if he'd already eaten, he said no and we headed out.  And immediately stopped.

Me: So, do you know anywhere good to eat around here?
Him: Ummm, not really.
Me: Well, I know of a couple of places, but I haven't had anything really extraordinary so far.
Him: We could always eat at my hostel, they have Chinese food and Western food.
Me: Hmm, I don't know.

After much more hemming and hawing, we did go to his hostel and it was actually, surprisingly good.  Not great or particularly intersting so I won't tell you about it here, but a decent "chicken cubes with peanuts" meal.  Their draft beer was 10 yuan (about $1.50 USD) for a very large glass so I had one, though I was planning on going to another Ladies Night with free drinks from 8-12 so I didn't want to have too much.  Terry, who I roped into going to a Ladies Night in Shanghai that was quite expensive, was understandably unexcited by this plan and delayed me by suggesting another pint. 

Eva, a Dutch girl who had been on the same Great Wall tour Terry had taken that day, came in and joined us and I managed to convince her to go with me to Vic's Ladies Night.  We decided to go after a game of chess.  I played Terry and lost quite pathetically (it's probably been at least five years since I last played, to be fair) and then Eva played him and lost, so I didn't feel as bad. 

Alex, a German-Russian guy who'd also gone on the tour with them, came in and we all got another beer and started to play Kings.  Eva was amazing at Never Have I Ever, which impressed me greatly.  We all got another beer.  I was very happy to be around people who truly appreciated the game.  Since we were all drinking beer, we hadn't had a center cup and had substituted something else for the King card but they inisted we use something, and long island iced teas were "only" 50 kwai.  We called a bartender over but she didn't know how to make one, even though it was on the menu.  I volunteered to help and since I couldn't remember exactly, precisely how to make a LIIT, I just took a pint glass, threw in a lot of vodka, rum, gin?, cointreau and Coke and called it one.  It wasn't god-awful but it wasn't a LIIT and it wasn't very good, but it was insanely strong and dangerous.  We finished (abandoned?) the game and Terry and I split the odd concoction.  I think that was what got me drunk and finished me.  We went outside so Alex and Eva could smoke and I acted like a loud idiot. 

Alex and Eva convinced me to go to Mongolia.  Eva told me that it was her favorite place she'd ever been (and she'd traveled quite a lot, especially considering that she was only 21,) and Alex told me he was going there next.

There are other factors, including a girl I know (not a friend exactly, but a friendly acquaintance who I'd like to see again) who lives there and is Mongolian.  The fact that Americans don't need a visa (for once- and maybe only once- it'll work to my advantage) while everyone else does.  Eva also told me that she thought it would become very touristy in a few years and I had to go now.  And that when I was doing minor research for this trip, I'd looked up Mongolia with the hopes of convincing myself to skip it since it is quite out of the way, but had just been more entranced.  And it sounds cool, and I'm afraid that if I don't go now, I never will, and there's a Mongolian girl in my room, Dirn?, who's quite nice. 

She told me a bit about Genghis Khan and how many people live in yurts (circular, tent-y houses) and always sleep with their head towards the alter inside each one (because to sleep with your feet towards it would show anger against Buddha) and their food (LOTS of meat, apparently) and their holidays.  They have Womans Day (instead of Mothers Day, which I thought was pretty awesome in of itself) on March 8th, which is a public holiday, with everything closing and everyone getting the day off work, and Mans Day on March 18th, which is not a public holiday.  I told her that I thought this was really smart because that way if the men didn't do a good enough job for Womans Day, they wouldn't get much for Mans Day, which made her laugh.

Rather sadly, she told me also that there is a huge wealth divide in Mongolia and people are either very poor or very rich with few in the middle class.  She said that the people were discouraged with their country and that there were many single mothers whose husbands had left them to go off for work but drank all their money away.  But, she also said that Mongolians were very hospitable and that it was a beautiful country.  All three million Mongolians are supposed to be descended from Genghis Khan and his family (presumably because the population was so relatively small at the time) and thus have the heart and cleverness of his wife and mother, which were apparently great.  So, if she were feeling bad about herself, for example, her mother might remind her of that, which I thought was really nice. 

One of the last things she told me was that Mongolians (and she thought this was due to their historical interactions) have a fear of the Chinese people and think they're cruel, but that after being in Beijing (she's here to get a Canadian visa as there are no Canadian embassies in Mongolia!), she thought they had very good hearts.  I thought this was particularly interesting given the Chinese girl's stereotype of the Japanese and because she told me most of this on the day I'd been to the Great Wall of China.

Lastly, regarding Mongolia planning, I'd already booked my ticket for Xi'an (where the terracotta warriors are) for Monday, and most trains to Ulaanbator leave from Beijing, so I'm planning on getting a train to Hohhot, then joining up with the Trans-Mongolian from there.

In and Out on a Slow Train from Guangzhou

6/2

I checked out of the hostel today, while Yves moved into a dorm room once again.  We went to lunch at Coyote again (I know it seems ridiculous that I had nachos there three times in just over a week, but who knows when I'll get decent nachos again?) where they remembered my order with all my pain in the ass specifications (no olives, no jalapenos, salsa, sour cream and guacamoles on the side).  I helped Yves with his English C.V. and a cover letter for a job he wanted to apply to in Hong Kong (and it was great- he'd better get that job) and he bought me lunch.  We were both tired since our schedules were so off we'd accidentally stayed up until 5 a.m., watching Saving Private Ryan and drinking large Tsingtaos that morning.  We had a couple of Sol beers and then hugged, wished each other the best and headed our separate ways.

Leaving Hong Kong was sad, but it really was time for me to leave, you know how sometimes you just know?

I don't want to talk about the process of getting to Guangzhou because it was longer and more expensive than it should've been due to my stupidity and exhaustion.  On the other hand, once again, the visa guy had a hard time ascertaining my identity because my picture looks so different from me, so that made me happy.  Finding somewhere to stay was also very difficult and time consuming, so I just screwed around online for a while before crashing.

6/3

Today was a bit frustrating.  I checked out of my hotel, hoping to leave on the 6:11 train for Shanghai but a) one leaving at that time wasn't there and b) the trains for the day were full anyway, so I bought a ticket (the only one available was in a seat, not a bed) for the next day for 12:08 to Shanghai.

I tried to find one of the two hostels in my downloaded guide books Yves had given me for China and Mongolia.  Neither one seems to exist anymore and after about three hours of looking I ended up with another hotel in an area very close to the last one for the exact same price. 

In between, and for the rest of the day, I walked around a leather area with a market for leather goods, and an area for wholesale leather in large fabric roles.  Even the air smelled of leather.  I had a very good lunch of cabbage and slightly spicy beef knuckles (I think- beef attached to the bone in chunks) in sauce on a bed of rice in a mini cast iron pot inside a bamboo basket (about $1.50).  I rested at the hotel for a while before going out to get dinner, a large bowl of at least ten dumplings that were disappointing, for just under $1.  I bought a Pearl River beer, which was okay, a SIM card for my phone and a dragonfruit for tomorrow's breakfast.

6/4

Did you know they have oleanders in China?  I'm on the train to Shanghai and currently passing through trees reminiscent of Dr. Suess' Truffula trees from The Lorax, tall trunks without leaves until reaching a big ball of shrubbery right at the top, though sadly, they're not neon in real life.  China's rural interior is all this medium-dark green contrasted with dark red-orange dirt that's mirrored by the buildings built from bricks of the same earth.  The train has passed through a valley, by green mountains, rock formations, both in vertical red softly sculpted towers and gray groupings, lakes and of course, rice paddies, both flat and in tiers.

However, at this moment, I'm about 6.5 hours into this approximately 18 hour long train ride and regretting this decision and wishing I'd taken a bus instead.  Sleeping on a train, even in a seat, didn't seem like such a terrible idea, after all, I'd done it in Japan and it had been okay.  But, I'd forgotten to ask for a window seat and now I have an aisle seat.  And I hadn't counted on all the seats facing each other in groups of four, meaning that none of them could recline at all.  Nor had I realized that there would be no arm rests, only squat toilets, many people standing in the crowded train, a total acceptance of spitting on the floor, and smoking in an area on the end of each car.  I'd also been told that an attendant came through about every hour to collect trash and no one has so far at any point.  Lastly, from my reading online, I'd been led to believe that hot food was fairly readily available (as it was on the train in Thailand) and so far only one type of meal has been on offer and it looked bland and gross.  In short, I'm not thrilled.  It's also really loud.

That all said, everyone has been quite nice to me.  People do stare a lot, but it's just in a curious sort of way as there really aren't many foreigners around here, and none of it feels rude or lecherous.  I'm desperately hoping the couple across from me gets off a.s.a.p. so I can sit over there as I know the guy next to me is going to Shanghai and I don't know how I'll sleep otherwise.  One girl, Hualien, and her friend talked to me for quite a while.  Her English was quite good, though her accent was very strong.  She was very impressed when I told her of my plans and traveling.  Her friend had me try this candy that looked like a long, thin round stick of baloney.  It was actually dry candy/ appetite suppressant cut into slices about the thickness of Necco wafers that tasted kind of like Sweet Tarts, which are okay, but I'm not hugely fond of.  They liked looking at my passport and some photos I had from home and her friend gave me her cell phone charmed once I complimented her on it, which was very sweet.  Tellingly, perhaps, Hualien reacted strongly when I said that I'd visited Japan and asked if I was scared there.  I said no, that I'd really liked it, which surprised her greatly.  She told me she'd heard the Japanese were very cruel.  I mention all this because I think it was interesting to hear what she said about them, given past Sino-Japanese relations.

I have some bad news that's pretty irrelevant to you at the moment.  China has blocked Facebook and my blog because they think I'm a dangerous threat- how cool is that?  Okay, maybe they've just blocked Facebook in general, and maybe they've just blocked all blogs that are .blogspot.com.  If you're wondering what a blocked webpage looks like, it's just the page you get when it says "Firefox can't connect to Facebook" or "Not Lost, Just Late is not responding."

It sucks, and what's really weird is that my gmail and google are still working.  Apparently, about 10% of websites are blocked in China, including Wikipedia.  What this means, of course, is that I can't update this or respond to people on FB so everyone probably thinks I hate them.  I promise I don't, unless you're someone I really do hate, in which case, I do hate you.

So I kind of have a plan: Travel to Shanghai and spend a few days there, then take the train to Beijing.  From there, immediately catch the Trans-Siberian to Ulaanbatuur and travel around Mongolia for about a week (which is the one country where being American actually helps regarding visas as we don't need one and most other nationalities do), then return to Beijing and go on a package tour.

I've never really done a package tour, though I've done several cruises which I enjoyed very much, and in general, the idea doesn't appeal to me.  However, backpacking in China has so far been much more difficult than in any other country and is a totally different experience (especially compared to SE Asia).  Part of this is due to the language, but it's so much more than that.  China is heavily touristed, but mostly by the Chinese.  Thus, there's no backpacker network or beaten pack in that way and it's very difficult to find accommodation or other people to talk to/ travelers.

6/5

I wrote all that last night and since then the scenery changed a bit.  The dirt changed to a dusty pink, and the greenery is a bit lighter now.  The train took way longer than I'd expected and I ended up spending a total of 23 hours and fifteen minutes on the train to Shanghai which I was really, really not happy about.  Fortunately, my hostel (after an overpriced cab ride there) was much nicer than I'd expected and I even made it out to buy a pair of jeans that fit!  I've been walking around for the past several months with what appears to be a fairly massive erection, simply because my pants have fit so poorly, so I'm quite happy to appear female once again.

Tea-riffic Day (I'm sorry, I really am and slightly hate myself right now for that)

5/15-

Today really was a great day.  Judy met me at the subway station to take me to the Lin Family Mansion and Garden, one of the few truly traditional Chinese houses left in Taiwan.  It was nice and a very kind guide helped explain some of the symbolism for me through Judy's interpretation.  Afterwards, we met Judy's Mother, Sister and 3 year old Niece.  We went over to see the Taipei 101 building but I didn't go up it since I didn't want to spend the money when it was so foggy (and I'd been waiting all week for it to clear up but it never did).  From there, we went over to a Barracks Museum showing the barracks that housed the Chinese soldiers and their families after the split.  The soldiers had their immediate families with them but were never allowed to return to the Mainland to see the rest of their families.  I'm doing a poor job of explaining this, but they weren't prisoners, just couldn't go back to China, so the families banded together and created an enclave.  It was somewhat interesting, more so because Judy's grandparents had been a part of the original settlement.

Next we went for a ride on the Maokong Gondola (cable car) which was really nice, even though it was getting very dark and our visibility was limited.  The top town had small hills of tea leaves.  I couldn't smell them as tea, but could smell the strong scent.  It's known for its tea and Judy said it was one of the few places in Taipei where they still grow it.

For dinner, we went to a tea restaurant with a lovely view out over the valley.  Everything we ate had tea in it so we had: vermicelli with tea leaves, fried tea leaves, chopped or crushed tea leaves in fried rice, chicken and seafood soup with tea leaves, pork and shrimp sauce with tea leaves and baby bamboo.  Most of it was delicious- I especially liked the fried tea leaves, the noodles with tea leaves and the bamboo.  The bamboo didn't have much flavor, but basically absorbed whatever you ate it with (like tofu, but better tasting) so I just dipped it in a yummy chili sauce.  It also had a really nice texture, sort of like asparagus (only texture wise, not taste) and was just so much more satisfying than tofu.  I hadn't even realized that you could eat bamboo, though only when it's young and basically still a cone, but I wish it were more easily available- I could see myself eating it frequently.

After the tea dinner, which Judy very generously paid for, we took the gondola back down.  Judy said there were fireflies out but I didn't see any.  I played a bit with her niece, though it was difficult since she didn't speak any English, but was cute and well-behaved.  She also had a rather insane amount of energy at 10 p.m. so when we got off we danced around a little bit.

Right next door to the gondola base was Dancing Waters, a large fountain that had free water/music/light shows every hour or half hour so we waited and watched one, which was really pretty.  We all took the train back together, though I had to say my goodbyes when I got off at my stop first.  Even though I'd started out in Taipei very unhappy with the local who was supposed to show me around, Judy had more than made up for it in the past two days and had really made me feel special and like some weird, half-related crazy cousin (to use sitcom characterization) in a good way.

Lost In the Wild

5/13

Packing up and moving so often (every other day on average, I think), I lose a lot of stuff.  It's usually no big deal because it's an eyemask or a lipgloss or an umbrella or something else inconsequential or easily replaceable but today as I was packing up, I noticed that my camera case was empty and my camera was nowhere to be found.  I asked at the Visitor's Center nearby if anyone had turned one in, and they said no and checked with the police who also said no.  They wanted me to file a report but I told them I was sure I'd lost it, not had it stolen, so I just left my email and a description of the camera.  There was nothing left to do about it so I called my Mom on Skype and told her that I thought I may have subconsciously lost it on purpose, as it was old and pretty crappy and I really did need an excuse for a new one.  If it really is gone though, I'll have lost all my Tokyo and Taiwan pictures which would be a bit sad. 

I sat at the corner by the bus stop, not knowing when it was coming, but aware that there were five daily.  I walked over to the shops area and got a Taiwan sausage, which is basically a coarser pork bratwurst and ended up going back to get another, more because I was hungry and haven't eaten enough meat lately than because they were so fantastic.  While over there, one of the people I'd seen yesterday said 2 and held up two fingers.  Then the man making the sausage did the same.  I told them I only wanted one, though I'd had one before- two total.  The woman said "No.  Hualien?" which is the name of the city I had to catch the bus to before getting the train to Taipei.  I nodded and she told me the bus was coming at 2.  It was just before 12:30 so I was glad to have this information, but sad that I couldn't write the image of myself I'd conjured while waiting: The girl sits on the corner, waiting alone for a bus that may never come.  Oh wait, I did just write it, and no, it's not great, I just liked it- every once in a while I get a bit emo.  Deal.

Knowing I had all this time, I decided to walk up the mountain to the temple nearby.  Since I had no camera I couldn't take regular pictures, but I got a few with my phone, though of course, I don't have a cord so I can't download them anywhere.

I met a girl from Singapore, Julaina, who was there with her Mom and Grandmother.  Her English was perfect and she told me about studying in Toronto and her backpacking trips through Europe.  She also recommended couchsurfing and invited me to stay with her if I found myself back in Singapore.  I know the idea of couchsurfing with strangers seems extremely suspect but this site has been around for quite some time now and they verify identities and I've heard nothing but positive feedback from several solo travelers, including many females so I'm planning on trying it in the near future.

The temple was nothing amazing, though the setting really is spectacular.  The gorge is made of a river running through mountains that rise, often at a 90* angle, up to 3,000 feet.  It's not a chasm, so the river flow is level to the basic ground level and the road is just a few hundred feet above it so the mountains block large swatches of the clouded over sky and holds the mist inside its cleavage. 

The bus ride back down to Hualien showcases the gorge's dramatic scenery.  It's quite amazing, but given the amount of rain pouring down everywhere I go (including here, at the time of descent) and cloud cover, I'm disappointed in the tiny cracks of waterfalls that drip down.  One of the best sights is a temple built so that a waterfall rushes out beneath it, and this one, at least, has a decently strong stream.

Eventually the bus winds its way down to the flat area near the ocean, and on highways to the city where I catch the 4 p.m. train to Taipei with two minutes to spare.

Another Day of Very Little

5/4-

Today, I didn't get out much just because I didn't feel like it.  I had ramen again for lunch, wrote a lot and talked to the owner of the hostel for a while.  He was very interesting.  He was born in Japan but had moved to Oakland, California when he was under a year old.  He grew up there and started selling drugs and at some point he was caught and sent to jail for three to five.  He told me he was caught just for selling pot, but with that sentence, especially in Oakland, I don't quite believe him.  Regardless, while he was in, a California law was instituted that any naturalized citizen felon would be deported so he was sent back to Japan.  Imagine being sent back to a country that you've never known and having to start a whole new life.

I asked him how to get to the station since I was so lost yesterday and with his directions, it was about a five minute walk FROM A DIFFERENT STATION, though on the same line, just one more stop.  It pissed me off, but at least I now knew.  He also told me where a 100 yen shop was nearby so I could pick up a few things.  100 yen shops are like dollar stores, but with a much larger variety and much cleaner.  Somehow, they really are similar but yen shops are just much cooler.  Grabbed some chicken for dinner and spent the night writing, fussing about online and watching t.v.

Jimjillbang! Fun to Say, Fun to Visit, Not Fun to Sleep In

4/14

I'd booked a DMZ (Demilitarized Zone- the border between North and South Korea) tour for today and actually got up on time, but while I was brushing my teeth, I started to feel really sick- to the point that I was hanging out at the toilet in case I threw up, though luckily I didn't.  When I was in high school, I used to sometimes get sick exactly like this; I'd try to get up in the morning, but would feel like I were going to throw up or faint and I'd start to see black, with little but very bright points of light pricking the darkness.  It's strange and really bad, and now I only get it about once a year and usually because I didn't get enough sleep, but I had, so I don't know why it had to happen today, but it did, so I had to go back to bed.
 
I was a bit disappointed that I couldn't do it because I'd heard it was really interesting, but, oh well.  I stayed in bed until about 12, then went to the corner restaurant to get food.  Retro Mama was a burger place, but it was cheap, and when I can, I try to eat meat because I don't get enough protein regularly.

Sitting at the table next to me was a darling old Korean couple who I talked to a little bit, though, since their English was limited, and my Korean was non-existent, it was difficult.  At one point, the woman ordered something, went up to the counter and put a drink in front of me.  Her husband, who spoke more English than she, told me it was special Korean tea for my health.  The woman pointed at me and then raised both arms as if flexing her muscles, indicating that it would make me strong.

So I said thank you and drank it.  It was basically just room temperature, regular tea.  Nothing remotely special about it, but it was a very sweet gesture so I drank it all.  My cheeseburger was quite good though, so I was very happy with my lunch.

Sandra and I couldn't match our schedules up, so sadly I didn't get to say a proper good-bye, but that's okay.  I went to the train station, bought a ticket to Busan, and left Seoul.  The train ride was fine, rather uneventful, but watching the scenery, Korea looked like quite and ugly country.  It was all hills and mountains and more hills, covered in dark, almost black, dead-looking trees.

At around 8:30, I got into Busan and took the subway out to the general area I wanted to stay in.  I wanted to try a jimjillbang, which is basically a public bathhouse that's very popular (and non-skeezy) in Korea.  I wanted to go to Vesta, one I'd heard was good, so I got a cab to take me there, where I saw that it was closed for renovations.  Completely closed.  Crap. The nearest jimjillbang I knew of was quite a ways away but I really wanted to try it so I told the driver to take me to one, any one.  He took me to one that was much closer, and was totally, truly Korean. 

Picture of the building my jimjillbang was in, showing an ad for the inside- best I could do.

It was quite strange.  I took an elevator to the tenth floor of what looked like an office building, paid around $5 and was given a key to a locker, a pair of prison orange shorts and shirt and two hand towels.  I had to then put everything in a locker, undress completely and walk into the Womens baths area, carrying only my locker key and a hand towel.  It actually wasn't as awkward as it sounds because everyone else was naked too.  The only thing different was that I was the only non-Korean there, probably because I'd ended up at this random jimjillbang instead of an advertised one.  Some of the women stared a tiny bit, but barely.  There were several pool, spa and sauna options: a mild hot tub, a very hot tea bath (though I couldn't smell the tea), a small, hot mineral pool, a very cold wading pool, a cool/mild pool with extremely strong pressure jets for two people to use, a small cold body contoured rock pool, and many, many showers.  There were also three saunas with the temperature of each shown outside: 42*C, 67*C and 92*C!  On either end of the room, which was fairly small considering everything in it, were rows of vanities, each with short stools and a detachable shower head.

I tried everything out, took a shower and dressed in the prison outfit, took an Ambien and headed up to the sleeping room, which is just a large room with mats.  I used two mats, three blankets and my own travel pillow, and still slept just okay, but I guess that's what you get for $5.

Creepy Cambodian Men

4/5

Today I did almost nothing just because I was lazy.  My guesthouse has everything I need: reasonably fast working WiFi, my private room with bathroom with Western style toilet AND toilet paper AND soap, and a balcony restaurant with Coke Light, decent (though not great) food for a reasonable price and beer.  There was no reason to leave, so I didn't.

Everyone (my guidebook, other travelers, another guidebook) keeps telling me that the Cambodian people are so great and they're not.  They're not bad, and save for the creepiness of the men, I don't have much to say against them, but they're like anyone else.  Which pisses me off.  People are the same everywhere and that's fine but I'm getting really sick of guidebooks pulling superlative crap.  What's worse is that after reading how great they were in the guidebooks, I was annoyed to find that they were as human and normal and unspecial as everyone else, which would have been fine, but since I'd been told they were so wonderful, I actually got a bit upset with the Cambodians, which of course, is insane.  I'm really starting to hate guidebooks.  Not everywhere has great food/is beautiful/is exciting.

Cambodian men are by far the creepiest I've encountered so far.  After considering the issue for some time, I've decided that it's likely that that's related to the fact that they've had less time to adjust to tourists.  Until about 1998, Cambodia was pretty much a no-go zone as it was extremely dangerous, and they were targeting foreigners as late as 1994!  So even though they've had twelve years to adjust, foreign women are still relatively novel, as compared to Thailand, for example.  Anyway, they're really creepy.  They stare inappropriately and one guy on a motorbike followed me around on my bicycle until I lost him.  And yes, I'm sure he was following me as I tried stopping in the hope that he'd keep going.  He stopped, and started again, only after I had.  Fortunately it was during the day on main streets in the center of Siem Reap, but it was still creepy.  Even when I was entering the country, the guard who arranged my visa asked me if I had a boyfriend and even before I said no, just looked me up and down and continued to stare at me the entire time I was waiting.  I even remember that I had another example, but of course now I can't remember what it was.

Sunrise: It's NEVER Worth It

4/1/2010

Because I'm the most incredible person who's ever existed, I woke up and got up at 4:30 a.m. this morning, just to see the damn sunrise over Angkor Wat.  Everyone told me "Oh- it's incredible- all reds and oranges," and "I'm really not a morning person, but it was awesome and totally worth it."  Everyone lies.  It was okay once I got to the right spot, the sun did look kind of cool half yellow and half red, but it didn't illuminate the clouds or sky around it with any color and it was not even remotely, slightly worth waking up that early for.

A bit annoyed, I headed out for the other temples I wanted to see.  First I went into the huge Angkor Thom complex.  This is the gate I passed through:

You may not be able to see it well here, but those are good soldiers pulling a snake.  Around a mountain.  In order to churn butter to make a god or demon immortal, but Vishnu intercedes, and some apsara dancers (nymphs) appear.  It's a long, convuluted story but it is interesting, so if you happen to have a lot of time, here's the wikipedia link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samudra_manthan

Past the South Gate, I rode on to Bayon, a large temple.  When I got there there was one tourist couple taking photographs but it was otherwise empty.  They left shortly after and from about 6:30 to 7, I only had to share the temple with a man praying in front of Buddha.  This was even more exciting because this is one of the important "must-see" temples and I was worried it would be overrun with tourists.  It was also awesome; walls of four to five foot faces looked down at me with empty eyes and smiles crooked from centuries of abandonment and vandalism.

Eventually, the hoards of tourists did come to Bayon so I left to see the next temple, Baphoun.  It's been described as the world's largest jigsaw puzzle because when they rediscovered Baphoun, it was mostly in pieces and it's still under serious construction today.  Around the back, once I could actually figure out where it was, a giant reclining Buddha was built as one of the walls of the temple, which was kind of cool to see.

From there, I went to the Terrace of the Elephants, which was just adorable.

Then the Terrace of the Leper King (great name, no real story):

Then Phimeanakas, which was not particularly interesting and full of rude Western European tourists.

I was starting to get really grouchy and exhausted and decided that I really needed something to eat and drink so I looked at the nearby tents and didn't see any set up as restaurants and was just about to give up when one of the several people shouting "Cold Drink?" at me, added in "Something to Eat?"  I stopped and looked again at her tent area.  There was no kitchen or restaurant and definitely no menu.  She offered noodles and I asked for rice, upon which she offered to make fried rice.  She only had beef, not chicken, but it was good enough. 

After I'd eaten most of it and downed a Coke Light and half of a giant water, she started asking me questions.  I gave a few basic answers and she started telling me about her life.  She had seven brothers and sisters, was married with one year old son and was 23.  One of her brothers had died and her mother had died three months later.  I asked her if she thought that her mother had died of a broken heart, hoping that she'd understand that I didn't mean it literally.  She did, and nodded.  She told me all about the upcoming Khmer New Year and what people did for that: esentially ate a lot and spent a bunch of time with family and friends.  Unfortunately, as she explained to me, it was a big holiday, but a private one (like Christmas or Thanksgiving) so I probably wouldn't see much.  Later she told me about Khmer weddings; she said that they were very colorful and lasted at least two days.  I can't remember everything now, I can't even remember her name, but she was very interesting to talk to.

In my former bad mood, I'd considered skipping Preah Khan, a temple that was supposed to be very interesting, but was somewhat far away, and in the opposite direction of town and the way I wanted to go.  Now refreshed, I decided I could do it so I set off.  As I said previously, I didn't feel hot when I was actually on the bike so it was a lovely ride out.

On my way to Preah Khan, I passed South Kleang, North Kleang, Tep Pranam and the Preah Pithu Group but just rode up to or by them without stopping or taking any pictures because they just weren't that exciting.

Preah Khan was another huge complex but it was originally set up as more of a village with a temple inside and a sort of minor fortress wall around.  It was cool, though the only really interesting thing about it was its size.  But wait, actually, there was one other really cool thing about it and that it had a double storied library (I think?).  Many of the temples are tiered but this was the only one I saw with two usable floors.  Anyway, there was a ladder on the ground next to it- just a simple, metal construction ladder, but it looked good enough for me so even though I knew it was foolish, I propped it up against the second level and went up and walked around the old columns.

Baksei Chamkrong was another of those random temples that isn't supposed to be anything special, but just happens to be on the way to/from something else.  It was nearly noon by this time so most of the tourists were gone for the time being because it was just too hot for them and no one was at this particular temple.  It had a ton of steps to climb up to the top, which I always like because it makes me feel adventerous and like I'm doing something cool and different, even though I realize I'm actually not.  I found a slightly shady spot at the top and sat there for a while.  I meditated briefly, mostly because I felt like my intuition hadn't been as strong as usual lately and meditation is supposed to help.  It was okay (the meditation, not the temple- which I thought was really neat).

The last temple I wanted to see was Phnom Bakheng, which has a great view of the city and some of the other temples and is supposed to be a great spot to watch the sunset, but you have to walk up a very steep 2-3 km hill/mini-mountain.  At sunset they have elephants available to rent to take you up there which I would've done but they weren't there at the time so I had to walk/climb.  At 12:30, it was so freaking hot I almost died, and I was sweating like crazy- it was hard work, though I did better than I would've expected, especially since I haven't been running or exercising as much as I usually do.  Once I finally got up the mountain, I had to climb a series of steep stairs, though the view and the complete lack of tourists made it worth it.

I stopped and got a coconut milkshake and it was so good that I had another.  Enjoying my bicycle ride on the way back into town, I passed these kids and I just had to take a picture because even though it's hard to see, that's the moat around Angkor Wat but they're just having fun splashing around.

That afternoon, I did a few errands and then went to Seeing Hands, an NGO supported massage parlor where the masseurs are blind, to get an hour-long massage for $5, plus a $2 tip for Souk, my masseuse and said I'd come back the next day.

P.S. I saw something today that was described as a "Stretchy Fur Preventing Nipple," What was it really?
A baby bottle top.

Playing La(u)ra Croft

3/29

Amazingly, I actually managed to wake up around 6 a.m., get up by 6:20 a.m. and arrived at Chris' hotel at 7 a.m. on the dot.  Since she's usually very punctual, I was surprised she wasn't waiting for me with a scowl, but the people at the front desk told me she was still in her room.  I told them not to call her and I'd just wait.  I sat down to wait, but got up again almost immediately when I noticed the breakfast buffet Chris had told me came with their hotel.  It looked so good so I went over, hoping they wouldn't charge me since I was a guest of a guest, but thinking that even if they did, it would be worth it.  It's very rare for me to eat breakfast, but for whatever reason, I was really hungry and it just looked so scrumptious.  So I ate a lot.  Three glasses of orange juice, two croissants, an omelette with onions, tomatoes, sausage and carrots (sadly, since I hate them, Southeast Asians seem obsessed with carrots and throw them in everything for no reason,) probably 3/4ths of a dragon fruit, a bit of pineapple and a few slices of a baguette with different jams or butter.  I also took an apple and a piece of their brownie-like chocolate bread with me for later.  Unsurprisingly, they did charge me, but it still only came out to $5.50 and I was so satisfied with it, that seemed like a bargain.

Chris came out eventually and joined me for breakfast.
"Oh good, you're here early," she said.
"I thought you said to meet at 7," I replied.
"Yes, we're meeting the driver here at 7."
"But it's 7:21 already."
"No sweetie, it's 6:20."
"Oh."

Crap.  That's when I realized that I hadn't ever changed my phone or computer or pedometer clock to Cambodian time, which is one hour behind Malaysian time.  I think this is due to Daylight Savings Time because otherwise it makes absolutely no sense since time gets earlier as you go West, and Malaysia is West of Cambodia.  I had to think about this for a while, so for comparison's sake, I'll tell you that it's currently 11:10 p.m. in Sydney, 8:10 p.m. in Cambodia, and 9:10 p.m. in Malaysia (in East to West order).

Anyway, that meant I'd really gotten up at 5 a.m.  As soon as I realized this and thought about the long day ahead, I immediately felt exhausted.  We did leave at around 7 a.m. after all and headed off in a blessedly air-conditioned van to Angkor Wat.

Even with less than ideal lighting conditions, since we were there just an hour after sunrise and Angkor Wat is West facing, an oddity among the temples in that sense, creating a block of darkness and shadows against a bright sky, it was still brilliant.  The huge complex looked both ancient and yet had an bit of regality in it's finely chiseled sandstone bricks and rectangular columns.  It also reminded me of Versailles; the detailing, architecture and large garden spaces.

Afterwards, Chris and Amarita said they wanted a coffee break, which turned into a lunch break, at 10:40 a.m.  I was still full from breakfast, but since I had no idea how long we'd be gone, I ordered a plate of plain rice and a coconut milkshake.  Coconut milkshakes are both completely obvious, completely ignored in the Western world, and freaking amazing.  The coconut milk is thrown in a blender with some of the coconut meat and a bunch of ice.  Some places seem to use simple sugar to make it sweeter, others use a thickener, but that's the basic recipe.

Chris ordered frogs legs in a green pepper sauce and since I couldn't remember if I'd ever tried them or not, I asked her for a bite just to be sure.  The sauce was pretty good but the meat was bland and a bit stringy.

After lunch, we headed off to our next temple, Ta Prohm.  You may know this as the Tomb Raider temple; it was here that they filmed part of the movie.  Very cool.

My Aunt Chris, Me and Amarita

 

Yes, that is possibly a Stegosaurus on the temple wall.

Even though we'd only seen two temples, they were some of the most important ones, so we called it a day and they went back to their hotel and I rode my bike home.  At 5:20 we met at the Old Market and walked around.  Markets may all be nearly the same, with just slight variations, but I still love them and this one was rather interesting to see as it didn't seem particularly tourist oriented.  I found two pairs of very thin cotton/linen pants, which were just what I was looking for, though pockets would've been nice.  I got one long pair in dark green and one capri length pair in black.  For both, I paid $11, which was too much, especially for what they were, but I am enjoying them.

Next we went to Koulen for a Cambodian buffet and to watch apsara (traditional Khmer) dancers.  It was overpriced, the food was subpar, the atmosphere touristy, and the dancers obviously were not very good; horribly unsynchronized, but we probably wouldn't have gotten to see them otherwise so it was worth it.  I also forgot my camera for this, so I have a few crappy cell phone pics, but nothing good.  Sorry.

I had another few Angkor beers for 50 cents at my hostel's rooftop bar, talked to a couple of German guys who were actually getting the government to pay for their trip by taking advantage of a program to help unemployed people start their own businesses, so their business was building a blog about having sex and traveling the world, and trying to make money off of it, and then, after listening to one of them tell me that sex was the only thing he cared about in the world, I went to bed (ALONE- just to clarify).