Hong Kong and Shenzhen!

Alright, it’s time for the last blog installment of my trip to SE Asia. For the last three nights of the trip we were back in China, staying in Hong Kong for two nights and in Shenzhen for one. We arrived in Hong Kong in the morning after a grueling 4am arrival at the airport. Hong Kong immediately looked different from Wuhan—there were blue skies, hills, clear water, and clean streets. The city also had a different kind of feel, even though both cities certainly have crowdedness in common. Wuhan is still in the process of building up, so construction is happening on almost every street. Hong Kong is extremely built up already and very international, as we expected, knowing it to be a major hub for business. And because Hong Kong itself is so small but has such a large population, everything is built up to the extreme and living quarters are notoriously tiny. Our hostel room, for example, was on the 17^th floor of the Chungking Mansions, a composite of 10 or so different hostel companies all working under the same umbrella company, with crowded electronic shops run exclusively by Middle Eastern and North African men on the ground floor. The room itself literally had enough room to open the door, walk maybe two steps and climb onto the bed. If you turned right immediately when you walked in you would find yourself in the bathroom where there was only room to sit on the toilet, stand in one spot to brush your teeth, and stand basically in that same spot, almost on top of the toilet, in order to take a shower from a removable shower-head on the wall above the toilet. It was different, but not uncomfortable. We later met up with a friend from Hong Kong, Gina, who informed us that a room that size would usually house at least 3 or 4 people! That would take some getting used to, that’s for sure. It seems that other foreigners had similar surprised reactions to the small rooms for there was a sign on the back of the door asking people to stop complaining and informing the guests that this is how housing works in Hong Kong, because of the demands of the large population on the small land size.

Some buildings in Hong Kong

The first day in Hong Kong we met up with another friend from Augustana, Marcus, who was Nathan’s roommate in college and who has been teaching English in Shenzhen, China for two years. We grabbed some Indian food and then Marcus took us to the Star Ferry where we rode across Victoria Harbor and got a nice view of the skyline. The weather was perfect—sunny and in the mid-60’s—and so when we got off the short ferry ride on the other side of the city, we decided to just wander around and explore the city on foot. The layout of the city was fairly typical, and in some ways even reminded me of Chicago. It was different from Wuhan in that there were international restaurants and English signs everywhere, there were white people everywhere you looked, and there were clean, open spaces with parks at frequent intervals. After walking for several hours we stopped at a pub for dinner, another thing we have no access to in Wuhan. Even better than the food (they had Mexican!) was the American beer selection, including Sierra Nevada. In case I hadn’t mentioned it yet this year, China is certainly not known for its beer, and so any opportunity to have a good brew is much appreciated. After dinner we went to a bar that Marcus had been to before when he has visited Hong Kong. It was a small dive bar and performing that night was a cover band called the Bourbon Kings from Louisiana. Even though we had just come from a touristy vacation, it was still weird to be surrounded by so many foreigners.

The next day we met up with Gina around noon and she took us to a Cantonese restaurant for dim sum. I have to say, after the other Chinese food I have been eating, Cantonese was really bland and not as exciting. A lot of the same, or at least similar, dishes to the mainland but just less spice and flavor. After lunch we went to the Ladies Market, which isn’t really just for the ladies, it is just called that I think because the ladies tend to engage in shopping more than the men, haha. But it was really just a long train of souvenir shops, every shop selling essentially the same things as most of the others. We spent a few hours weaving in and out of the many kiosks before finally making our way to Victoria’s Peak where you can take a tram up to the highest point in Hong Kong and look out over the whole city. It took an hour or so to get on a tram to the top since we had to wait in line, during which we were able to quite definitely distinguish between mainland Chinese and Hong Kong-ers. As we have unfortunately noticed during our time in the mainland, the Chinese here have no concept of what a line is, and have only their own interest in mind when trying to get somewhere. They push, shove, and run in front of you seeming to not notice that you may have been waiting for your spot in line for an hour. The Hong Kong-ers, perhaps because they live in such an international city, have the same respect for waiting your turn as us Westerners and would share our frustrated glances when, while waiting for the tram, we had to form physical barriers to block mainlanders from ducking under and around people, worming their way to the front from all the way in the back of the line. The peak itself was beautiful. We arrived at the top by the time the light show in the city was starting and so were able to watch the many skyscrapers light up, reflecting their designs in the water below.

The view from Victoria's Peak

The Ladies Market

All of us at a hot pot dinner after Victoria's Peak. 

The next day we said goodbye to Hong Kong and took the subway to the border point at Shenzhen. After spending the 40 minute subway ride talking with a very interesting and vocal man from the Midwest who’s been teaching around the Middle East and Asia for twenty or so years now, we crossed through customs and met up with Marcus outside the station. We grabbed some lunch but then he had to get back to work for the afternoon, so Nathan and I explored around Shenzhen a little. It had an international feel like Hong Kong, except there were fewer English signs. Still very much cleaner and with far more public parks and things than Wuhan. At this point, though, I was starting to get disenchanted with this kind of city. When we first arrived, it was comforting and made it easier to find our way around. But I soon came to realize that though I had previously thought Wuhan was too Westernized and developed, it is far more “Chinese-y” than some of these other heavily Westernized cities. Sure, we can’t eat Indian and Mexican food while here or find our favorite beers and snacks at the store, but because of that, we were immediately forced to try all sorts of new things and learn more of the language than otherwise would have been necessary. That being said, I did thoroughly enjoy exploring the beautiful parks in Shenzhen, because that is something I direly miss about home—just being able to spend time outside, not surrounded by construction and concrete buildings. The next day, before we took the fast train back to Wuhan, Nathan, Becca, and I spent the morning hiking around 莲花山公园 (Lianhuashan Park). I wish we had had a few days to explore all the different lakes and paths the park had to offer, but we saw a good amount, including the famous statue of 邓小平（Deng Xiaoping） at the top of the tallest peak in the park. Xiaoping is overlooking the cityscape of Shenzhen, the city he used as his model for economic reform with his socialist market economy.

Shenzhen

Lianhuashan Park

Statue of Deng Xiaoping at Lianhuashan Park

Partial view of the Shenzhen cityscape

So that marks the end of our three-ish week trip. It seems strange that it’s been over for weeks now, and it’s been nice to relive parts of it through these blogs (not so much the sickness and jellyfish sting part though). Back to the grind of school now, but I have most of the same students this semester as I did last, so it’s been great to get to know them better. I’m starting to realize how sad it will be to have to say goodbye to them in just a few months. 

Bangkok Part II

Well I’m back at Driftwood with some 绿奶茶 (green milk tea), The Carpenter’s Superstar playing on the radio, and Simba sprawled out on the floor next to me with a new American flag bandana wrapped around his mane of a neck. All ready to blog.

So when I left off we were heading back to Bangkok from Cambodia. This was another 6 hour train ride. We left around 2pm so we didn’t get into Bangkok until around 8/8:30ish at which point it took us almost an hour to find a taxi to take us to our hostel. This was not for want of taxis, but in Thailand there is this unfortunate practice of taxis being unwilling to use the meter for foreigners. I think this largely stems from the fact that many tourists are not informed of how taxis operate in Thailand and so when a driver gives a set price for whatever destination you give many tourists just assume this is a fair price and so they pay it. But it is almost always a grossly exaggerated price. Take for example our attempt to get a taxi that night. We had no idea where our hostel was in respect to the train station so after an hour of lugging our baggage up and down the street, flagging down every taxi that would stop for us, we were about ready to accept the 150 or 200 baht we were being most commonly offered for a ride (some taxis were asking for 300 or 350 even!) Luckily, we finally found a driver willing to take us and the hostel turned out to be just a 10 minute drive away and only about 80 baht. Now when this is converted to US Dollars it is only a little under 3 dollars, as opposed to the 5 or 7 dollars for the taxis trying to rip us off—not an incredibly offensive sum. But it is more the principle of the thing. The whole concept of the taxi goes hand in hand with the meter system, providing a fair fare for a ride based on the distance covered. This frustrating process of finding taxis that would use the meter to take us places pervaded our whole time in Thailand. Probably my least favorite part of the place.

Katie was still travelling with us at this point, however she was only staying for one more day with us in Bangkok before heading back to Munich. We got to our hostel and had a fairly fitful night of sleep since there was no air conditioning in the hostel. This wasn’t usually a problem for us on the trip because most of the hostels with no air-con had strong fans right above the bed to help with the stifling heat. Unfortunately, this hostel only had a weak, standing, floor fan, and our room was all the way up on the 5^th floor. But we got free breakfast at the hostel which made up for the lack of comfortable sleep. We met up with Becca the next day, another American English teacher in Wuhan with Nathan and I. We caught up for a little bit and then took a bus about 2 hours to the Damnoen Saduak Floating Market in Ratchaburi, just outside Bangkok. We all piled into one long canoe-like motor boat with a friendly Thai man situated at the back to steer us along. We went in the afternoon so everything was a lot more peaceful than it usually is in the mornings, which is the prime tourist time. The whole village is built on stilts along a winding river. As we passed different shops our driver would pull up next to them and we would barter and buy while still sitting in our boat. In addition to these shops there were many old women paddling around in boats full of fruits, drinks, and ingredients to make papaya salads or fried bananas. Though it would have been neat to see the market bustling with activity during its busiest hours, I very much enjoyed our tranquil ride through the village with only a few stops at the remaining open shops. Also, since it wasn’t super busy our boat driver took us to a temple that usually tourists have to pay extra to visit.

We bought papaya salad from this woman...

...and mangosteens from her!

Many shrines lined the river

That night we wanted to go out to a nice dinner for Katie’s last night so we got a restaurant suggestion from our hostel owner. Unfortunately, the place ended up to not have very good food, at least by our standards. My meal tasted very fishy (even though it was supposed to be just vegetables), and Katie’s dish that was supposed to just be sautéed kale turned out to be deep fried. After that disappointment we walked back to our hostel and then another about ten minutes down the street to Khao San Road, the major bar road for tourists in Bangkok. It was a crazy street, filled with tourists and vendors and bars and clubs. Thai women walked around selling plates of scorpions for tourists to drunkenly challenge each other to eat (we actually met a Canadian guy who had done this—eww), and the open-air bars seemed to be competing with one another to see who could play louder music. It was a good night though, and a fun way to send Katie off.

The next day we moved onto our next hostel, which was only a few minutes down the street and just laid low, making plans for the next day. We ended up booking a tour to go to the bridge over the river Kwai, an elephant reserve, and spend time at a beautiful, local waterfall. We set off early in the morning and stopped first the river Kwai. The bridge itself is still functioning as a railway, and at one point we had to step off the tracks to make way for an incoming train. Along the tracks we ran into a Thai street violinist who, as soon as we walked by, starting playing Lady Gaga. We laughed and threw him a few baht and kept going. But when we passed him again on our way back he put down his violin and asked us where we were from. We told him America and he said he loved Americans (something we aren’t particularly used to hearing) and started showing us different places on the bridge where you can see bullet holes and the damage from bombs during the war. It was cool to get those little bits of information, especially since none of us would have noticed those details otherwise.

The River Kwai

The Bridge Over the River Kwai

The bump in between the bolts is damage from a grenade 

After the bridge we went to the elephant reserve, where we rode down the river on bamboo rafts before climbing up on top of the elephants to go for a short ride. Compared with the elephants I saw while in Ghana, Asian elephants are much smaller, though still massive creatures. Nathan and I were on the elephant leading the group, and he often had to nudge his fellow elephants on since they very much enjoyed taking lengthy breaks to snack on passing trees and bushes. It must take a lot of food and energy to operate such a large body. After the ride we had the opportunity to buy plantains to feed to them, which of course I did. We didn’t even need to peel the plantains—either the elephants did that themselves in their mouths or they just digested the peel. Regardless, they were incredibly excited for this sweet treat, knocking each other’s trunks out of the way and snatching them up out of our hands. One of the elephants even barked at us and then opened her mouth for us to throw the plantains in.

Becca (on the right) and another tourist riding 

Snack break!

plantains!

No more, but he had to check anyway.

On the way out of the reserve we stopped for a quick lunch and then drove on to the waterfall. The place itself wasn’t terribly large, but it was a beautiful little sanctuary, perfectly suited for relaxing on a hot afternoon. The stones surrounding it were smooth from wear, but had been grown over with moss which provided us with the necessary traction. In front of the waterfall was a large pool area with a large stone with a tree located in the middle, and Thai children jumped and swam excitedly here. There were weathered down stones that formed their own kind of staircase up to a higher terrace where the water from the waterfall came pouring down. It was all so naturally well-arranged I couldn’t help but see it as the original inspiration for our modern-day waterparks. I would have loved to grow up with such a place in my backyard.

After drying off from the waterfall we all piled into the buses and made our way back to Bangkok, which took more like 4 hours this time with the terrible evening traffic. We enjoyed a another night out on Khao San Road and relaxed the next day before heading to the Asiatique market in Bangkok for the Calypso show our last night. It is advertised as a cabaret show, but I’m not entirely sure that’s what I would call it. It was all lip-syncing, which I guess is understandable since they took a tour through all sorts of foreign genres—from Broadway to Vaudeville, to traditional Thai, Korean, and Japanese pieces, to some Spanish inspired and some unidentifiable sources of inspiration. The show was a little over an hour and as weird and trippy as most of the costumes and performances were it was a very enjoyable last night in SE Asia. 

We woke up at 3am the next morning to get to the airport for our flight to Hong Kong. I’ll write the final installment of this vacation series next time on our last leg of the trip in Hong Kong and Shenzhen. Until then!

Cambodia!

Alright, it’s been a little longer than expected for the next blog entry on our trip, so I apologize. I started teaching classes again as well as taking a Chinese class, so it’s been a busy process adjusting back. I am writing at one of Nathan and my favorite coffee shops right now.  It’s called Driftwood and it’s about a five minute walk from our apartment and has a really Chinese-cutesy-attempt-at-Grecian décor. They make pretty good coffee (by the standards we’ve gotten used to here in China) and great milk tea, and the owners are a really friendly couple not too much older than Nathan and me. The best part, however, is that they have a golden retriever dog that hangs out up in the coffee shop. His name is Simba and is a lumbering, attention-devouring pretty boy who is currently sprawled on the floor to my left after a solid twenty minutes of rubs he begged out of us with his big brown eyes and habit of putting his paw on your leg whenever you begin to stop paying attention to him. He isn’t rowdy or dramatic in wanting your attention, though, which is all the more endearing. Instead of barking or whining or running back and forth frantically, Simba simply comes by and places his head on your knee and stands there quietly, occasionally turning his head to look at you as if to say, ‘Don’t stop please. This is great.’ He’s quite irresistible.

So I believe I left off when we were crossing the border from Thailand to Cambodia. We arrived at the border nervous about the move since we had read a lot of things about tuk-tuks (taxi motorbikes attached to a cart-like passenger car for 2-4 people) taking you to false border points and trying to scam you into false visas and paying for extra services that are actually unnecessary to get across the border. So when our tuk-tuk dropped us off at a building that said it was the border patrol, we were very suspicious and trying to figure out if we were really where we needed to be.  Turns out we were and actually had a very nice man help us get everything in order to pass through customs and to arrange a taxi to Siem Reap. We finally got everything settled for around the prices we had read online that you are supposed to pay, and so we set off for the long line at customs. Sweaty and tired from our 6am train, we made it through in about an hour and took a shuttle bus to where the taxis were waiting to take tourists to their destination. The taxi ride from the border to Siem Reap was about 2½ hours. When we arrived in Siem Reap our taxi driver dropped us off at this tuk-tuk waiting in the parking lot of a market and he told us the tuk-tuk guys would take us the rest of the way to our hostel. Thinking this was one of the scams we had been warned about we made it clear to them that we had already paid for the full taxi ride so they should take us to our hostel as was agreed. They then explained that the transfer is part of the payment we made—we wouldn’t have to pay extra for the tuk-tuk. Thankful for the misunderstanding we got in the tuk-tuk for what turned out to be a quick ride to our hostel. On the way, our driver even stopped and helped us buy our bus tickets to Phnom Penh for the next day. So far our expectations of what the Cambodian people were going to be like were completely different from reality. Everyone we had dealt with had been incredibly kind and generous.

After dropping our stuff off at the hostel we went out for dinner. Our hostel was conveniently located just a 5-10 minute walk from the main night market and pub street in Siem Reap. We found a delicious Indian restaurant and did a little shopping after dinner in the markets nearby. We were super tired by that point, though, so we soon made it back to the hostel to prepare for another long travel day. The bus ride to Phnom Penh was supposed to only take six hours but because of the recent death of their king resulting in a mass migration of people to Phnom Penh for the funeral, traffic was terrible. It took more like 8 or 9 hours and it was past 6pm by the time we arrived. The bus was also crowded with people way past capacity for the entire ride. Even after the bus was full, we kept stopping to pick up more passengers. They would put small wooden planks in the aisle, resting on the two edges of the bordering seats, creating a makeshift bench. If that bus had crashed it would have been absolute chaos. On top of the unexpected delay in getting to Phnom Penh, the tuk-tuk that agreed to take us to our hostel had no idea where he was going and we ended up driving around in circles for 30 or 40 minutes before we had him stop and we got out to find another tuk-tuk. We finally found the address, but the name on the building was different from our receipt from the booking. Confused and hoping it was a simple mistake we asked the people standing outside of the building if they knew where our hostel was. They stared at the booking receipt for a minute and then told us that that hostel had been closed for a few months now. Stunned but not terribly surprised after what we had seen of how things are handled in SE Asia, we asked if they knew of any other hostels in the area. They told us that they had actually bought the building from the previous owners and were still running a hostel out of it. Thankfully they had rooms available so we decided to just stay there. By this point it was around 8:30pm and we still hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast so we dropped our bags off and hurried to meet some friends from Augustana who were in Cambodia for a foreign term, at a restaurant that just so happened to be down the street from us. After some of the best Indian food I have ever had, we walked around the area a bit and they showed us some of their favorite spots including The Blue Pumpkin, a delicious ice cream shop.

We hung out with the Augie kids again the next day, again seeing some of their favorite spots, including the Russian Market. The Russian Market is no longer very Russian but used to be the major congregation area for Russian immigrants years ago. The Market itself was jam-packed with shops selling all sorts of Buddhist artwork and carvings, traditional Cambodian scarfs called kromas, and the typical tourist fare of brightly colored shirts and elephant-patterned pants. We saw a few other markets that day and enjoyed a delicious meal at a Mexican restaurant for dinner. We felt a little badly having Mexican food while in Cambodia but we had had Cambodian food already and it wasn’t really anything special—kind of like a blander version of Thai food. Also, there are no Mexican restaurants in Wuhan, so Nathan and I had been hankering for a good burrito for quite a while now. The next day we basically wandered all around the city. We had intended to visit the Royal Palace and a few major temples, but it was the Chinese New Year that day and so almost everything was closed down. It was a great way to see Phnom Penh, though, for we walked through the larger city-like parts, smaller temple areas, and poorer residential areas. It was an exhausting day walking for almost 12 hours under the beating sun, but definitely one of my favorite days from the trip. Here are some pictures from around Phnom Penh:

The Independence Monument by day...

...and by night.

We cut our time in Phnom Penh short though, after talking with the Augie kids and hearing from them that it is better to spend more time in Siem Reap than Phnom Penh. So we stayed only two days instead of the original five. In a way it was a great thing that our hostel had shut down without letting us know, because otherwise we would have had to pay extra to cancel our booking, or would have been stuck in Phnom Penh longer than we wanted to be. The bus ride back to Phnom Penh was much shorter and more comfortable without the makeshift benches in the aisles. We had some more Mexican food that night and hung out at Angkor What?, a bar on Pub Street that had come highly recommended from our friends from Augustana.

The next morning we woke up at 3:30am to meet our tuk-tuk driver outside the hostel to take us to the Angkor Wat temples. We arrived at Angkor Wat before the sun was up and found ourselves a grassy spot by a reflecting pool to watch the sun rise over the temple peaks.  Angkor Wat was first built as a Hindu temple and later became home to Buddhists. It is the largest and oldest religious monument in the world. After watching the sunrise we spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon walking around various temples in the area, all of which had their own character and stunning architecture. Angkor Wat was surrounded by beautiful reflecting ponds and was constructed of these large, cone peaks which are shaped like lotus buds.

Angkor Wat at sunrise

Inside Angkor Wat

Katie and I

On of the lotus bud-shaped peaks

Nathan with one of the guardian cat/lions

The second complex we went to was Angkor Thom. As we drove in on our tuk-tuk we passed elephants giving rides to other tourists, kicking up clouds of dirt with their wide feet. Angkor Thom was very much different from Angkor Wat in that it was much smaller and mostly consisted of huge statues and walls with stone Buddha faces engraved on almost all surfaces. It was originally the last royal capital city of the Khmer empire in Cambodia. 

Angkor Thom

These guys guarded the entrance and exit to Angkor Thom

A shrine just outside Angkor Thom

After Angkor Thom we went to Ta Prohm, the temple I had been most excited about visiting ever since I had seen pictures of it around Siem Reap. It is near Angkor Thom and was originally built as a Buddhist monastery and university centuries ago. Its charm and beauty lies in the huge, ancient trees whose enormous roots have grown in and around the temple itself, wrapping themselves through windows and arching over roof tiles to hug the stone walls. A random trivia fact that isn’t particularly meaningful to me but that is interesting nonetheless: Angelina Jolie’s major film, Tomb Raider, was filmed at Ta Prohm. After Ta Prohm, we visited several other smaller temples, all of which were beautiful and serene works of art. I would have loved to have been able to see them when they were active monasteries.

Nathan with his coconut milk next to one of the trees at Ta Prohm

After our day at the temples we spent our last day in Siem Reap visiting different markets and exploring different areas around our hostel. We then embarked on the long trip back to Bankok, retracing our steps back to the border, spending a grueling two hours in the intense heat waiting in lines at customs, and taking the six hour train from the border to Bankok. And that is where I will pick up my last vacation blog next time!