Tarasy ryżowe

Kolorowa noc

China knows how to party.

The nightlife in Asia is where it’s at. During the day you could take me to just about any of the places I’ve visited, and I’d never give them a second thought. Wait a few hours, until the sun starts to set, and it’s another world. The whole city is out catching cool breezes, strolling, swimming, buying cheap junk at night markets, grilling, having picnics, drinking coconut milk, dancing in the park, kids wearing shoes that have squeakers built into the soles are running around and playing hide and seek with their patents, eating popsicles, screaming their heads off. It’s unlike anything we have going on in the states. I love it.

My new modus operandi, because of the heat, has become to mess around during the day doing things that don’t require me to sweat, and then hit the streets around six and wander until I bump into something that makes me happy. It works. There are a lot of happy accidents to bump into. China’s got everything lit up like a nightclub, city streets, lakes, mountains, parks, trees, bushes. I gotta be honest with you China, that’s just how I like it.

Guilin is a great place for night walks. Tonight I decided to just follow the river to wherever, and I saw all these tents set up on the opposite side. I was trying to find my way over there. I ended up on the edge of another houseboat shantytown, walking through alleyways in an old part of town where all the houses are still just cement walls and floors. It was getting progressively darker and the whole neighborhood was sitting on plastic chairs in front of their doorways. I decided I was going to turn around. I always feel like a total imposter when I walk through these little streets. They’re really intimate. You can see into people’s homes, and it’s obvious everyone knows each other. I feel wrong being there.

I started to turn around and this old guy carrying a basket of fruit was waving at me to go back. I turned to go back and then turned again to give up on going back, again. He kept waving and waving and then finally decided to turn around himself and just walk with me. He walked me to the street that led out to the tents on the river and pointed me in the right direction. He sat and watched me go. When I stopped to take some photos he started shouting, Hello, hello! and waving me on again. OK, OK, photos later then.

I made it down to the water’s edge and there was a whole pop-up beach resort thingy happening. The entire strip was occupied with plastic chairs and folding tables with little hotplate restaurants serving beers and grilled stuff, and tents with sheets hung for dressing stalls next to lockers they brought in, rugs thrown over the big rock pebble beach, selling swim suits and inner tubes, and people frolicking around in the river. Amazing! Chinese people just make their own fun.

On my way home I decided to sample a green pea popsicle. You heard me right, green pea, not green tea. It was alright, I guess. The aftertaste was rather unfortunate. I’m definitely not recommending it. I’m on the move tomorrow, so I’m going to hit the hay. See you soon. xo.

Długie czasy w Guilin

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reed Flute Cave. It was immense inside. They had a laser show, and symphony music blasting. Rock.

Klasyka, obiektyw CCTV + PEN

 

 

 

 

Yangshuo - na długo w pamięci

      I leave Yangshuo tomorrow, and I am ready. I’m so bored. Don’t get upset. Don’t get upset! I know. No one likes to hear anything that could sound potentially negative or gloomy. Trust me, all you chuckle-head-smiley-faces, this is a good thing. It was necessary for me to get a little ho-hum in order to be excited about the world again. You know when you go to a really big art museum, like the Louvre, or something, and after an hour or so you’re kind of saying to yourself, “Oh who cares, obviously everyone can paint a masterpiece, otherwise there wouldn’t be a million here.” You’re arted out. Well mass destination traveling can feel kind of like that. Oh, another river, more trees, and gigantic mountains with caves, and markets with weird stuff everywhere? Everyone’s got that. You just get over stimulated. You get crabby, tired, you need a snack. You just need to sit somewhere for a while and become unimpressed, until you’re ready to be impressed again.

In preparation for my departure I’ve been going through the hostel’s travel books and trying to figure out what’s hot. This kind of thing turns me into an exasperated maniac. There is something to see, something amazing, literally everywhere. How are you supposed to choose? Photography is a big fat liar, and you can base your whole itinerary on a place because of one great photo. Then you get there and realize it was just good lighting. Someone was telling me that about Xian, and the Terra Cotta Soldiers. They basically said, the photo was better than the real thing, and there wasn’t a lot else in the city to hold their interest. Hmmm… This makes planning hard. In some ways I almost feel it’s better to do no research, have no expectations, and then when you run into something incredible (and you will) you’ll be ecstatic, and you’ll feel like you discovered it all on your own.

This is a difficult state of consciousness to adopt. When I left Los Angeles I was looking forward to getting away from circular conversations; Hey, how ya doing, what do you do, what are you working on… whatever. The unfortunate reality is that conversations in the life of a traveler are much more shallow, it’s; where have you been, where are you going, and there’s always a sense of one-upmanship about it, which I find strange, as we’re all doing the same thing. The result is feeling a tremendous amount of pressure to just say you’ve been somewhere that everyone else has been. You end up having urges to do everyone else’s top ten lists. It’s like listening to Top 40 radio only because you know the words and they play the songs at all the clubs.

I’ve been avoiding the entire where have you been, where are you going conversation, and trying to just go. My experiences, and the experiences to come, are just as interesting and valid as any of the others that I could plan out. The point is to live them, which is hard to do when you’re so worried about whether you’ll be able to hit up all the spots that everyone else has placed on your itinerary for you. I’m not pooh-poohing people’s recommendations. I think it’s great. They’ve been around and they want to share their stories. We need to do that. I just think it’s important to remember that their story is not mine, and it doesn’t need to be.

Yangshuo was fantastic, beautiful, relaxing, just what I needed. I’m ready to move again. Hopefully a little slower now…

This is a cell phone photo, so the quality is not great, but that’s the moon up in the left hand corner, peeking around the mountain.

Łowy na kormorana

 

 

Some of the boys from the hostel and I got on a boat and went to see the Cormorant Fishing Show. It’s a style of fishing where the men have these extremely well trained birds, that catch the fish for them. They tie a string around their neck, so they’re not able to swallow the big fish. I’m not sure how I feel about the whole thing, but watching it was kind of incredible. Towards the end the fisherman took the string off their necks and they were eating everything they caught. They dive under the water and then glide along, very fast, searching for fish. When they catch one they pop up and flip it into their mouths. When they need a break they get up on the boat and stand there with their wings spread, drying out. I tried to pet one and in turn he tried to bite me. Yes sir! I hear you loud and clear

Beer and barbeque

               Asia is really showing me how to do it right. Remember that flashlight restaurant on the Li River I mentioned before? All week I was walking by it and wanting to go sit at those tables on the edge of the water and have some dinner in the dark, but it felt like something I needed to do with other people. I wasn’t feeling like asking anyone, so I ignored the urge to go. Last night I was wandering around feeling mildly bored. I’m booked for three more nights in this hostel. I still feel like I’ve got some doing nothing to do, even so, I’ve been feeling a little bored. I was walking around trying to get re-curious about this little town I’ve walked around four hundred times in the last four days. Then I passed by the riverside flashlight restaurant again, and this time I said, let’s do this.

They didn’t have a tourist menu, only one in Chinese, so there were no westerners down there. The menu was big, but they said they only had beer and barbeque. I think the rest was too difficult to try to explain. I ordered a beer and barbeque. The beef showed up raw, with a cup of oil, a brush, and a grill. DIY barbecue by candlelight! Wielding a pair of disposable wooden chopsticks over the flames, I began my cookery. About two minutes in, my candle went out. Through the blackness it was difficult to see what was raw, cooked, and totally crisped. Regardless, it was delicious.

      Split ends. I has them. I gave myself a haircut in the hostel bathroom yesterday. I kept stressing that the maid would come in and get upset by the mess. She did come in, but she gave me a thumbs up. I guess she’s all for the DIY revolution.

I took my bike ride today and they sent me through heck and back. (My mom and my uncle requested that I not swear so much.) The route was definitely not built for bikes. A good portion of it was only a foot or less of dirt, with plenty of boulders stuck in, and right next to the river, so if you hit a glitch you were sure to fly in. I almost did. The whole time all the bamboo boat vendors were screaming at me from across the river, “Hello! Bamboo!” that’s all they ever say. “Hello! Bamboo!” over and over. They were so insistent, it led me to wonder if it’s a common practice for riders to wade through the rushing waters with their bikes to get to them.

I got back for dinner and the woman who seated me was moonlighting at the place across the street. She took my order and then all of the sudden I saw her through the window, seating people at a totally different joint. Do her bosses know? As I was sitting there, four Chinese college students came in and said they’d been given the assignment to interview a foreigner, and could they ask me some questions. They were really cute, all taking turns with their questions; do I like China, where have I been, do I know how to eat with chopsticks, what is my favorite movie, and they all seemed to like the polka dot dress that brings the mobs for photos. They were taking notes and I was kind of peeking at the paper. One of my professor friends in South Korea said her students had never really been grilled on their spelling before, and they weren’t very good at it. I think it’s the same in China. They all agreed I was brave, so the girl doing most of the talking decided to make a note of it and jotted down “brain.”

I found a “restaurant” down on the Li River last night, which is basically a folding table set up on the landing of the stairway leading to the river. It’s got a cutting board with a knife, a hot plate, and some ingredients, and then they have a whole mess of little folding tables and plastic chairs right along the edge of the water. The waitress comes to the table with a flashlight to take your order. I gotta get myself down there.

Marzenie turysty

 

Li River