... hm? What? Oh, hello! I was so busy doing nothing that I almost neglected to write a blog post. :) Just kidding... sort of. We’re in Phuket, Thailand, and I’m writing to you from a rooftop cabana overlooking the beautiful blue and turquoise Andaman Sea. The breeze is rustling the palm trees and fluffy white clouds are playing hide-and-seek with the sun to the sound of swishing waves. And my dear James and I are sitting here soaking in sunbeams and the sight of lush green islands just across a narrow channel. I think we found paradise.
This relaxing respite is almost well-deserved after the hectic schedule of the last week or so. Of course, I say ‘almost’ because a) none of this trip is deserved, and b) the last few days have been so great despite their crazy transportation schedule that it’s kinda silly to need a vacation while on vacation.
But let’s go back to where I left off, which was roundabout Beijing. First of all, I think I forgot to mention the border-crossing between Mongolia and China. There was, of course, the usual piece-meal paperwork and bureaucracy that took hours and hours (although I think it was shorter than last time at about 7 hours, from 7pm to 2am), but there was also the fact that they had to change the train wheels. Not kidding. The train tracks in Russia and Mongolia are the same width, but the tracks in China are a few inches different in width, so at the train station on the border, they literally lifted each train car off of its “bogie” (undercarriage) and rolled the old bogies out and the new bogies in. They used a seriously heavy-duty hydraulics system to suspend the cars (with us locked inside them) while they did this at about one in the morning.
Since they had to do this to each car individually, the clanking and clanging and bashing and banging as they separated and later rejoined the cars was tremendous. It was really an incredible operation, and one that they apparently perform all the time for every train crossing the border. Wow.
Anyway, we finally went to sleep as the train started moving and woke up to some incredible scenery in rural China. There was plenty of fields and agriculture, as well as some small towns that we blasted on through. At one point, though, we caught a glimpse of - could it be? Yes, the Great Wall! We got to see one of the world’s wonders snaking along some foothills and twisting up into the mountains. So neat! It was very impressive, too, even from a distance.
We kept chugging along, and after a few dark tunnels, emerged into a totally changed landscape. Steep rocky mountains surged upward with vegetation springing from every available crevice and below our precarious feeling train ledge, narrow lakes filled in the zig-zag valleys. A misty haze covered the tops of the mountains and gave the scene a very mystic air. We got a few glimpses of this type of incredible view before zipping into a few more tunnels and emerging in the urban sprawl surrounding Beijing.
We arrived at the Beijing train station at about 2pm and entered the bustling metropolis of 13 million people. We had very limited time in Beijing, so we had to get moving right away. We have gotten reasonably skilled at navigating metro systems, so, after we had lunch of some delicious street food (noodles and a Chinese egg crepe-like thing), we managed to get to our hostel in not too long. We set down our bags, checked in, and ventured back out into the city. An old friend from high school who lived in Beijing for several years had very kindly sent some recommendations for our time in her beloved city, so we took her advice on where to go. First of all, we wandered the city for a little while, taking in the sights of downtown Beijing. I’ll admit that I was intimidated by the idea of going to Beijing. It’s such a huge city and I’m so unfamiliar with Chinese culture (you can’t even try to sound out Chinese characters!) that despite having made it through Egypt and Mongolia on our own, Beijing somehow felt scary. That was completely unnecessary, though. Beijing is a lovely city and my apprehension faded almost instantly upon arrival. We then went to the Quanjude Roast Duck Restaurant, as recommended. We definitely found the right place, complete with a giant rubber ducky right outside the door, but when we tried to request a table, the hostess informed us that that was not possible.
It was unclear if the restaurant was closed, full, reserved, had run out of duck, or was simply disinterested in feeding us, but we were not admitted. This was disappointing. While we were standing outside trying to figure out what to do about it, we noticed an Asian family entering the restaurant. We lurked to the side as inconspicuously as we could and watched as the family appeared to receive directions to somewhere else. Getting the hint that there must be another location of the same restaurant elsewhere, we decided to stalk the unsuspecting family as stealthily as we could. Jim decided he was a super-sleuth a la the hybrids James Bourne or Jason Bond and we trailed behind the family as surreptitiously as we could. Unfortunately, as we certainly did not blend into the local faces very well, the son soon noticed that they were being followed by the duck-hungry foreigners. The family took this very graciously and even waved us in the right direction several times. With their help, we arrived at the sister duck restaurant and had a nice dinner. It was a most successful stalking.
Jim was still in super-ninja-stalker mode.
After blowing our cover and eating duck, we made our way to the Lao She Tea-house. It was a neat mixture of being served tea and watching traditional Chinese folk arts. Some were... less than enjoyable (I simply cannot recommend Peking-style opera, unfortunately), but others were quite amusing and exciting. The kung-fu demonstration was all that could be hoped for, and the face-changing segment was fabulous in the to-be-fabled sense.
The man swapped through masks faster than the blink of an eye and I simply could not see how he did it or where the masks went! It was quite fascinating and as the tea-house was jam-packed with happy Chinese people, I’m going to venture to say that it was a good exhibition of Chinese culture.
As we exited the tea-house, it was raining, and raining quite hard. It was a full-blown thunderstorm downpour, in fact, and the poor short-sighted foreigners had neglected to bring their raincoats. Oops. However, being unwilling to forfeit any yuan to the numerous umbrella hawkers, we decided to make an extended dash for it. The shocked and incredulous looks we received for such daring were most amusing. Indeed, it seems a deeply Asian trait to have an umbrella open wherever they go and in whatever weather, including rain, sun, and clouds. So to see people without rain gear in the midst of a severe rainstorm was deeply disturbing to many of the people we passed. For our part, I think I could count on one hand the number of people without an umbrella or poncho that I saw on the journey back to the hostel.
The next morning, after buying some biscuity breakfast dumplings from a street vendor, we set out to traipse through the Forbidden City. It’s an impressively large complex surrounded by a wide moat where the emperors and their families lived through the dynasties, along with the many concubines, servants, and other assorted staff necessary to the upkeep of the place. The entire compound was cut off from the public and from foreigners for hundreds of years (hence the name), but now it is a buzzing and crowded tourist attraction. It really was an impressive place, but after seeing the variety and creativity of some of the other gigantic palace complexes in the world (Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, for instance), I will say that I think the architects got a little stuck in their designs. Beautiful as they were, I honestly cannot remember any differentiating features between the different buildings! But despite that, it was still very cool to see the symbol of Chinese imperial power through the centuries.
In the midst of the forbidden city.
We passed by the portrait of Chairman Mao as well as by Tiananmen Square and that historic swatch of road where Tank Man made his stand.
The chairman himself.
We continued to a local train station and boarded yet another train, this time for a much shorter journey to the Badaling section of the Great Wall.
The wall as seen from the train.
After about an hour or so, we arrived and made our way onto the Great Wall. It was so cool! The Badaling section has been restored to what it would have looked like after it was just built and it was most spectacular.
I can really see how it would have kept out the Mongol Hordes, as they were used to the flat and rolling plains of Mongolia and probably didn’t know what to do with anything vertical, let alone a monstrosity like the Great Wall. We walked along it, sometimes strolling leisurely, sometimes climbing up some of the steepest steps you’ve ever seen.
The people who constructed the wall really just followed every contour of the land and it was amazing to see it curve and climb over even the steepest sections.
In due course, we schlepped back to the train station and went back to Beijing. After a dinner of authentically toothsome Chinese cuisine, we picked up our bags from the hostel and headed to the airport for our flight.
So good!
The flight was already scheduled for quite late in the evening, but it was delayed due to another major thunderstorm, and we ended up leaving at about 2 or 2:30 in the morning. We fortunately had plenty of time to be late, since our connection in Singapore wasn’t for a few hours. We arrived in Singapore, had time for a leisurely breakfast, and then boarded another plane bound for Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. We arrived to Malaysia mid-afternoon. We decided to spend some quality time with the internet and try to get some sleep, as we had an early morning flight the next morning. We did venture out to try some delicious Malaysian street food, though, and enjoyed our short ramble.
The satays are cooking on the streets of KL!
The next morning - if it can be called that - at around 2:30am, we woke up to start the transportation process. We left our hostel, took a taxi to the bus station, took an hour-long bus ride to the airport, and finally boarded a flight at 6:45 bound for Brunei. I don’t think I knew Brunei existed before we were planning the trip and said “where can we go from Malaysia? ... Brunei? What is Brunei? Let’s go there!” Brunei, or rather the “Nation of Brunei, Abode of Peace” as its full name goes, is a tiny and delightful sultanate on the northernmost tip of the island of Borneo. The sultan is one of the richest men in the world, valued at somewhere roundabout $40 billion dollars. The guy has some moolah! It doesn’t hurt that his itty-bitty country managed to put up a “Billionth Barrel” (of oil) monument in 1991. And he’s probably very good at saving his money, because Brunei is a thoroughly Muslim country and there is no gambling, alcohol, or even cinemas. It’s hard to get a vice there, I guess. Fortunately, he puts the money he saves to good use. As far as we understood, all education, including college, is free for Brunei residents. Healthcare is about one dollar for a consultation, and if you need any healthcare that’s not available in Brunei, the government will pay to send you abroad to obtain it. The sultan seems like a nice guy! Anyway, enough about his highness the sultan. We didn’t get to meet him, so I don’t have much more to say about him anyway. His country, though, is awesome. We dropped our stuff at our hotel and wandered across the way to an open air market, where we found a delightful lunch.
Open-air market!
After eating, we spoke to a boatman who was eyeing us from the canal as potential customers. We wanted to hit a few of the normal tourist sites, but we had also read about a walk through some pristine mangrove forests on a small island not too far from the capital city of Bandar Seri Begawan, where we currently were. Our boatman, whose name was Haji Sofri, said he didn’t normally go there, but that we could make it work, so we set off in his nice wooden boat (that he and his family built themselves!). Our first targeted visit site was less of a sight and more of a species: the proboscis monkey lives only on the island of Borneo, and is known for its enormous and prominent schnoz. The three of us zoomed down the river and pulled into a small recess in the mangrove trees.
A mangrove cove!
At first we couldn’t see any movement, but after we sat and watched for a few minutes, we started to see movement off to the right. Monkey after monkey started trickling into our field of view and getting closer. It was so neat to see a troop of them swing through the tree limbs, making some unbelievable leaps and managing not to fall. Haji Sofri said that the whole group was one large family... that’s a lot of relatives!
It was really hard to get a good shot of the monkeys against the leaf canopy, but you might be able to see the monkey lounging on the branch with his legs dangling down.
Although they were at a bit of a distance, at one point I saw an excellent profile of the big male’s huge nose. What a face! We even saw some mama monkeys with their little babies hugging their mothers’ bellies. The babies had to hug pretty hard while their moms jumped around because they were literally hanging on for dear life!
We watched for a while, riveted, and finally backed out of our mangrove cove hiding spot and sped down the river. We passed the sultan’s palace, which has a whopping 1,788 rooms. What do you even do with almost two thousand rooms? Can you even visit all them in your lifetime? Okay, that question is a bit exaggerated, but still, it is a ridiculously large palace. Maybe he keeps his money there and that’s why it’s so big. :) We kept skimming along and eventually came to the water village. This was super cool. It’s exactly as its name describes - a village on the water. All the buildings are on piles and sit a few feet above the water level. This is a full-fledged town, too. We passed schools, police stations, tons of houses, gas stations, and even an electricity distribution station (which seemed dangerous), all perched over the water. People zip around in small sturdy skiffs and alight on concrete steps leading up to the buildings. Crazy! I couldn’t stop snapping photos... it all seemed so picturesque. I think it’s Asia’s response to Venice, but way more exotic.
Our new friend Haji Sofri showed us his house in the water village. It was a tiny orange cottage on stilts, over the water but fairly close to the jungle. He said that monkeys regularly swing over to his house and try to raid the kitchen. I laughed at this because I simply cannot imagine having to deal with such intruders, but I would think it could become a serious problem. Having lived with a little monkey in my house for months on end, I have an idea of the havoc that they are capable of wreaking, and the trouble would multiply exponentially with size. What a different lifestyle from us!
Well, we finally made it out of “town” and Haji Sofri really opened up the engine. This was when I really felt like I was in a National Geographic film. We were in a small boat zooming down waterways lined with tropical mangrove forests full of rare monkey species on the island of Borneo, passing the occasional stick house and even one or two grave sites of some of the sultans from the past 600 years of sultan-hood in Brunei. What a thrill! It was so fun!
We kept going and eventually the river opened up into Brunei Bay, which is part of the South China Sea. We started across the bay, but somewhere just past the middle we abruptly slowed down. The wide open expanse of water, which could have been 60 feet deep for all I knew, was actually less than a foot! Whoops! That was a shocker! Our engine dug into the soft sand, and we got kinda stuck. However, Haji Sofri got out and started pushing, then Jim jumped in, too, and they managed to get the boat into a bit deeper water.
We were able to put the engine back into the water and proceed cautiously forward. We were grateful that it only took a few minutes of shoving to free us from the mire and we got to the small island of Pulau Selirong without further incident. We went way back into the island’s waterways and found the boardwalk through the mangrove forest that we were looking for.
Haji Sofri waited with the boat while Jim and I set off into the jungle, which was probably the most exotic-feeling place I’ve ever been.
It felt like Jurassic Park or something, complete with monster-size palm trees scattered through the mangroves, and the feeling was only enhanced by the first thing that we saw being a ginormous mudskipper flinging himself desperately across the top of the water. The mudskipper, or “bakul-bakul” as they are called in Malay, literally barely skimmed the top of the water, he was shooting across so fast. Wild. The board walk that we stepped onto was a good four or five feet above the ground, which was mostly exposed due to low tide. This meant that we could see the extensive network of mangrove roots and hear the loud clicks of the clams snapping in the mud.
There were all sorts of chirps and rustlings and I’m sure we missed a ton of dandy creatures through simple ignorance of where to look and what to look for, but we were thrilled just to be there. The boardwalk crossed a river at one point, and we looked down and saw some archer fish in the river. These fish are amazing. They have eyes up near the top of their head, and they actually look out of the water for insects on low-hanging branches. When they spot a tasty target, they shoot a tiny jet of water out of their mouths to knock the bug into the water, where the archer fish gobbles it up. We recognized them in part due to looking at them so much in the Boston Aquarium! Our trek was sooo superb, and we really enjoyed the adventure of wandering through such a sensational environment.
We eventually made our way back to our waiting boatman. We took off down the waterways again and out of nowhere a brilliantly colored kingfisher appeared and flew alongside the boat for a few seconds. He practically glittered in the sunlight - what a pretty bird! We reached Brunei Bay again, and went way out to avoid getting stuck in the sand again. We were curving back to head towards the mouth of the river when - uh-oh - we slowed down again. Haji Sofri tried to force the motor to cut through the sludge and push us forward, hoping to hit a deep spot, but the further we went, the shallower it got, until we were literally and desperately stranded on a sand bar in the middle of the bay! Keep in mind that the boat we were in is rather small, and probably only draws 8 or so inches in the water. Jim and Haji Sofri and I all got out to push, but when we stepped onto the sand in only about 3 inches of water, we knew that a vague hope for deeper water simply wasn’t going to be a great option to go on . It was ridiculous! We were in the middle of a huge body of water that looked deep but in actuality would have been difficult to drown in! I seriously thought we would be out there for hours waiting for the tide, which was still going out, to come back in. And poor Haji Sofri! He was fasting for Ramadan and couldn’t even have a sip of water! You could tell the poor guy didn’t have a lot of energy to be dealing with this. So, we all wandered in different directions trying to find a place where it was even a little bit deeper.
Trying to emulate Jesus by (almost) walking on water.
By and by, we found it to be a bit deeper sort of diagonally back from us, so we heaved the boat around and hauled with all our might. We kept sinking down into the sludgy silty sand, which made it rather difficult to push and pull, but between the three of us (most of the actual usefulness coming from the two men), it eventually started sliding easier and getting deeper. After a long time, we finally started the motor again and hoped really hard that we wouldn’t get stuck again! Despite forcing the propeller through a lot of muck, the good old engine tromped forward and it was with great relief on all sides that we finally entered the river where the water depth was assured. Phew! What an adventure, getting stranded in the South China Sea! :)
We parted from Haji Sofri to go clean up from the day and search out some dinner. We had heard of a “night market” that sounded enticing, so we wandered out to find food. Since the Ramadan fasting ended at 6:30pm, the market was full of delicious food cooked on the spot. We had some amazing satays, some delightful spring rolls, some fried bananas, some noodles with bok choy, and a roti filled with egg. What a feast! We also had a creamy rose-flavored drink and some watermelon juice to drink, and they were super flavorful, as well.
Jim buying meat on a stick dipped in mouthwatering peanut sauce.
What a fabulous day! Brunei turned out to be an unexpected highlight, and we were sad to leave it the next morning. But we got to return to Kuala Lumpur, which is a neat city. By the time our flight arrived in the afternoon, we decided to go straight to the KL Bird Park. This is touted as the world’s largest walk-in aviary, and it was really cool!
My dad and my aunt instilled a love of bird-watching in me, and it was fun to wander around and be in the same space as dazzling peacocks, gawky storks, and sly little cattle egrets, to name a few. We saw tons of beautiful and unique birds and had a really fun time!
We left the bird park after a while and headed to Traders Hotel. There is a bar at the top of this hotel that has a fabulous view of the Petronas Towers, which are KL’s architectural claim to fame (along with the KL Tower). The Petronas Towers are the tallest twin towers in the world and they absolutely glow at night.
We got to the Sky Bar early enough to get a window seat and sat for a while enjoying good food and drinks and a killer view of the towers.
Looking up from the ground.
It was such fun that we stayed out rather late, which made it all the more painful to wake up for another 6:45am flight, which meant leaving at 3am again. Ugh. But it was for a good cause... we were going to Cambodia! We arrived in Siem Reap fairly early, rode to our hotel on the backs of motorbikes, dropped our bags, and got on a motorbike-drawn tuktuk to head to Angkor Archaeological Park. Angkor was the capital of the Khmer empire centuries ago, and the huge complex has tons of surviving Hindu temples, many of which were built in the 11th and 12th centuries, making them around a thousand years old! The most famous is called Angkor Wat, which is a truly massive temple with tons of stairs and intricate carvings.
Jim conquered this temple for sure. :)
It was super cool, but in my opinion, it did not rival the other two main temples that we saw - Bayon Temple (at Angkor Thom) and Ta Prohm Temple. Bayon Temple has a great many stone spires, each of which has four large stone faces pointing to the four cardinal directions. From a short distance away, the temple looks like ungainly heaps of rocks. You can tell there’s some reason and design to it, but only when you get up inside of it can you really see the layout and understand how the architecture was contrived. It was fascinating and gorgeous.
The temple that takes the cake for being my favorite, though, was Ta Prohm Temple. This is a temple that has not been very restored. Much of it was left in the condition in which it was found - the condition of being awesome! Huge trees, appropriately called strangler figs, have grown up in between the stones of the temple and so deeply intertwined their roots through the temples that it’s unclear if the stones are holding up the trees or if the trees are holding the stones together.
A giant strangler fig growing out of a temple tower.
The high green canopy that lets in snatches of dappled light gives the place a bit of a creepy air and the ancient moss-covered rocks only add to the mystique of the place.
The place is positively bursting with an atmosphere all its own and despite being rather eerie, Ta Prohm is kind of mentally addicting to the imagination. It seems that anything could have happened there, and it feels appropriate to expect the strange and the fantastic just around the next corner. It almost instantly claimed a very high spot on my list of “coolest places in the world.” In fact, until we learned that the list is based off of a mere poll (with unlimited voting, no less), Jim and I were baffled as to why Angkor is not on the 7 Wonders of the World list. It certainly is wonderful to behold, that’s for sure!
By the time we made it back to Siem Reap in our tuktuk, it was all we could do to eat dinner and collapse into bed. We were seriously wiped at the collection of low-sleep nights to that point. It was good that we slept, too, because the next morning required waking up early again to get on the bus first to the Cambodian-Thai border, and then on to Bangkok. The drive itself was pretty uneventful. There was lots of pretty scenery and oodles of rice paddies, a few small towns, and several shiny gold Buddhist temples.
The border crossing was a confusing bureaucratic jumble that took us a bit of time to sort out, but we eventually made it through, despite literally having red tape stuck on us to mark which bus we were to join on the Thai side of the border. We made it to Bangkok without incident and ambled through the city.
A bit of Bangkok riverside and skyline.
It seemed big and pretty modern without having any particularly distinguishing features. Granted, as a city infamous for its bad traffic and sex trade, we did not have any reason to learn its best-known facets. Probably the most exciting thing we did was visit Bumrungrad Hospital, which is a hospital that I have interacted with many a time in the course of my job back home.
It’s a pretty swanky hospital, actually, probably because it caters to foreigners who go there for medical tourism. The lobby looked like the entrance to an upscale hotel. We wandered a bit through the public parts of the hospital, and even managed to find the department that I have communicated with from New Hampshire - how funny! We were hungry by that point, so we decided to eat in the hospital cafeteria, because why not?
The hospital also has a cross-cultural Ronald McDonald. haha :)
After Bumrungrad, we went to our hotel and slept, because we had yet another early morning flight the next morning. Our hotel had an airport transfer included, so we rode to the airport in a car with a driver and one other person - an extremely drunk British woman. She was wildly hammered well before 7 in the morning. She asked us where we were from three times and then when she finally understood that we are from the US, she declared that we would be nothing without what Britain has done for us. If it wasn’t for England, the entire American population would be miserable backwoods creatures incapable of doing anything useful or productive. Of course, the phrasing is my own. She wasn’t capable of putting that many words together. I hope she made it okay wherever she was going, because she was off to a bad start! We made it to the airport in plenty of time and flew to Phuket. Given how far US dollars go in Thailand, we decided to splurge for a few days and stay at a nice resort. Of course, it’s all relative, because a great resort in Thailand is fiscally equivalent to a shared youth hostel dorm in Liechtenstein. Buying power is such a funny thing! But either way, for not so much money, we have been at a fabulous and beautiful resort on the water in Phuket for four days.
A serene escape in paradise.
And as silly as it might seem, it really has been a vacation within a vacation. Our schedule has been so crammed with phenomenal sight-seeing that we really haven’t had a heck of a lot of time to just sleep and rest, which is what we’ve done here. Our adventure neurons have been so stimulated of late that they were getting a whit fried, so we plunked down here and literally have not stepped foot outside of the resort. We’ve slept in, laid by the pool, read our books, watched a movie and a bit of TV, spied on the funny little crabs eating sand at low tide, and eaten delicious food, and that’s about it. Oh, we did attend a free yoga class. That was actually pretty fun! The most amusing thing was sitting up at the end and looking over at Jim, who was drenched with sweat, and hearing him say, “I thought yoga was just stretching!” Haha, that was a funny moment! It was our first time doing yoga, and I enjoyed it so much I actually woke up early the next morning to do it again... and now my abs are sore. But it was worth it. Anyway, I could write more about how great it’s been to lay around at a beautiful tropical resort, but we’d get down to the level of detail of what we ate at each meal and such, and that’s a bit much. Suffice it to say that it has been wonderfully relaxing and we’re charged up for the next set of adventures, which are coming soon to a blog near you!
No comments:
Post a Comment