Let Me Take You On A Trip

KinaKinaKinaKina!

Jeg drømmer om biffstrimler (var det noen som nevnte avhengighetsdannende smakforsterkere?) og kjenner pulsen som er så fundamentalt annerledes enn vår vestlige trenge seg på allerede.

Dette er foreløpig ønsket reiseplan:

19.-22. november - Beijing

23. november - Nattog til Suzhou, dagen der, hotell i Suzhou

24. november - dagen i Suzhou (sightseeing med Gao Lei?)

25. november - tog til Hangzhou på morgenen, buss videre til Chang Hua, buss videre til Tai Ping Qiao, innsjekking på hotell, Whitehorse Cliff og Lao Dui Xi.

26. november - Tilbake til Hangzhou, innsjekking på hotell, Vestsjøen

27. november - På morgenen tog til Shanghai og innsjekking på hotell, gamlebyen, kveld ved The Bund ved Huangpoelven

28. november - Shanghai (Erlend flyr til Beijing tidlig på morgenen)

29. november - Shanghai

30. november - tidlig fly til Beijing

1.-5. desember - Beijing

Laos - Easter 2007, Luang Prabang III and Mekong

As part of our trip, we knew we wanted to experience the Mekong. It might not seem like a big deal to some, but I am afraid that if the Chinese get their way and are allowed to blast through all the rapids that block heavy weight freight transports down the river, the sense of being in the middle of history you get from this river will disappear. We set out for a half day trip to see the Buddha caves, not so much for the caves, more for the river.

We did the trip by slow boat, as the travel itself was the entire point for us. We saw some tourists blasting by in speed boats, and I must say I understand why those things kill people. Hit one piece of floating debris, and you're done for. Along the way, we stopped in a village where they produced Laos whiskey. Erlend got to taste this later the same evening while I was enjoying a facial, and apparently it was something along the line of the Chinese rice liqour.

The Buddha caves were not very interesting, if you've seen similar shrines in China you've seem them done better. The main cave was pitch dark, but Erlend's teeth led the way :D It was possible to rent torches outside, but I don't think we missed too much. This was, by the way, the only place in Laos where I had a feeling of being amongst tourists. You don't mind the solitary backpacker you come across every once in a while, but here they were everywhere. Going back down to the boat from the caves, the steps were lined with kids selling tiny birds in cages. The animal lover in me cried, but you can't buy them even to set them free, as that only encourages the practice.

Returning to Luang Prabang was much faster than getting to the caves, as we were now travelling down river. We got a last chance to absorb a little dose of life on the Mekong, kids washing clothes along the banks, people fishing from land and from boat, and men throwing out nets in the shallows.

Getting on a boat was easy, the city is packed with tour operators offering trips like these. You would, however, probably get a cheaper deal if you just venture down to the river bank where the slow boats are lined up and talk directly to one of the drivers.

Upon returning from the river, we had dinner and watched some more of the water festivities while having a couple of drinks in the main street. We then checked out of our hotel, caught a tuk-tuk, got splashed to the bone one last time, and were on our way to the airport. The same evening we flew to Vientiane, the capitol of Laos, where we stayed one night in a hotel close to the airport before we returned to China the next morning, Vientiane - Kunming - Beijing.

r trip to Laos was rather short, as we only had a limited number of days to spend due to Erlends work schedule. We only got to see the northern parts, and I would still like to see the rest of the country, with Luang Prabang as the starting point. Laos Airlines are supposed to initiate direct routes between Kunming and Luang Prabang this fall, which means it will be quicker to get there. Hopefully, we will be able to use the city as a starting point for our next Asian adventure - Cambodia :)

When we planned this trip, one of the problems we had was that few sites really gave the answers we were looking for on specifics, like transfer times, bus schedules, distances etc. Neither does this blog, to be honest, but if you have any questions you would like to ask us, please feel free to e-mail me on arduinna@hotmail.com.

Laos - Easter 2007, Boten to Luang NamTha

I think the entering of Laos itself worked magic on our cardiac rythms. The mobile coverage was non-existent, unless you bought pre-paid Laos network sim cards (which we quickly decided to not even consider), and everything had a different pace. The difference from the Chinese way of life was striking, but good.

We found a tuk-tuk that was heading for Luang Nam Tha, our first real destination in Laos. The Laos tuk-tuks are small, retired Chinese lorries that have been converted into open back people-and-goods carriers. It can be quite a windy trip, but fortunately for this first experience we were well equipped with hooded jackets to keep the wind and dust out of our eyes.

The Lonely Planet guide and other guide books I've read list Luang NamTha as a rather boring place. Don't let them fool you, if you play your cards right, and depending on your budget, this might be the closest to paradise you have ever been. We arrived, quarreled a bit about where to go, but quickly settled down in a roadside café/bar/dump with a beer. The second we pulled out our books and stuck our noses into the beer glasses, vacation was upon us. Laos Beer - Hallelujah!

April is the last month of the dry season in Laos, hence the city was very dusty. We also experienced ash rains, caused by the Chinese lumber companies that go to Laos, cut down forests and burn the grounds to secure fertility after they've wrecked havoc on the environment. Thoughtful of them... This is where the budget issue comes into play:

If you are in Luang NamTha and on a strict backpacker regime, you will want to live in the centre of the city. It's packed with hostels that are very cheap and close to the bus terminal, and as this is a hub for people travelling along the road route to and from China, you will find other backpackers to hang around with. If you do this, however, you will not want to stay there for long. As we did not have any specific economic constrains and knew we didn't feel like stressing, we decided to locate The Boat Landing, a place mentioned in every single review we've read of this place, to see if they had any free rooms. The double rooms are around 30 USD per night, which is a big step up from budget Laos room rate.

We arrived at The Boat Landing (for Christ's sake, take a tuk-tuk from the centre, it's a long walk!), and they gave us a cabin for two nights. Not a room, a cabin. A lovely, lovely cabin, in Laos. I could have stayed here until my heart gave out. The place is an ecotourism lodge, so your environmental conscience stays relatively clean. The staff led by Mr. Thone speaks good English and is incredibly helpful, and the food is good. This is where I would go if I needed to find myself.

Laos - Easter 2007, Mengla to Boten

Good morning, Mengla, and Happy Birthday, Erlend!
April 8th was Erlends 30th birthday, and a rather uneventful such in the normal birthday sense of the world. We had read that the Mengla-Boten border crossing closed at 17:00, hence it shouldn't be a problem to make it on time, but we wanted to get as much travelling done as possible early in the day. We had excellent breakfast baozi with the locals in the market behind the hotel, and spent some time strolling around the spice stalls before we checked out.

We were not completely clear on how far we would have to venture to reach the bus station where we could get a connection to the border, but locals we met in the streets were rather acommodating when we showed them the guide books. The southern bus station is about half a kilometre away from the northern one, on the same side of the street. Ask someone, because it's a bit hidden away.

Getting a ticket for the border was no problem, and it was very cheap. We shared a mini bus with a bunch of young military men carrying a variety of packed goods you wouldn't believe. Due to the heavy rains the evening before, road conditions were poor to say the least. Asphalt was nowhere in sight, and the mud was deep and slippery. Along the way we caught glimpses of, and even got to drive on, parts of the new highway they're working on that will connect Southern China with the southern neighbouring countries.

The mud soon brought us more trouble than we cared for. As Erlend is a rather laid back character who lives in China and therefore thinks he's intitled to total relaxation when he goes on holiday, he chose not to exit the vehicle when we got stuck in the mud. I got out to help the Chinese soldiers push, but I don't know if it helped much. It took us quite a while to get loose, all the while Erlend was sitting in the bus being a turist :D He didn't even take any pictures of my heroic efforts!

The border crossing was not exactly the most interesting place ever. We got our papers right on the Chinese side (took 5 minutes), dumped some oranges we had carried along for the bus ride but knew we would never eat, and decided to walk on through to the Laos side instead of taking a tuk-tuk. You can easily skip this and save yourself twenty minutes of walking, however it was rather nice to see and hear the tropic environment without the roar of engines. It was also around this time we realized our cell phones were not responding the way they should, and the thought that maybe Laos was one of those countries you've heard of but never been to without any mobile network started introducing itself to our stressed out business senses.

We had read the visa was supposed to cost 25 dollars, but apparently the prices had gone up a bit. The list of visa prices was really entertaining! Remember that Laos is a "people's republic", and not very democratically inclined. It was a bit funny to see the countries lined up like this... in how many countries would North Koreans have an easier time getting a visa than Norwegians, and since when is everything cheaper if you're Swedish?

Getting the visa took us approximately half an hour. You need to have a couple of passport photos with you for the application, but all documents are provided at the crossing. The staff speak english, and compared to getting into China this was easy. Note that it is somewhat unorganized, so if someone steps in front of you in the queues you just push them aside and all will be well.

Laos - Easter 2007, Beijing to Mengla

This April, my boyfriend and I travelled to Laos. Initially, we were planning on going to Cambodia, but I somehow got sidetracked in the planning. I will never regret it though, Laos is a country unlike any other I've visited, and I would recommend it to anyone.

We got up before the sun in Beijing (you do not see the Beijing streets this void of cars or people very often), April 7th, to go to the airport for our first leg of transport, to Kunming. Kunming is the capital of the Yunnan province in China, and a rather normal chinese city. I'd been there before, and had seen the stone forest and the other attractions in the area. Erlend had never seen the place, nor did he get to this time around as we only stayed in the airport waiting for our transfer to Jinghong, in the Xishuangbanna prefecture.

Beforehand, we were not sure whether we would have to stay a night in Jinghong, or if we would be able to transfer on to Mengla by bus the same day. All the resources we found on the internet told us the last buses left around 14:00, and as our flight arrived around 14:30 we were prepared to spend the night in this city that neither of us had any previous attachement to. However, when we landed and rushed on to the southern bus station (bring a guide book description of the China-Laos route through Mengla and show it to a taxi driver), there was still at least one more bus, and we got on it.

Reading about Laos and the road conditions there, we were prepared that we might be in for a bumpy ride. The transport leg between Jinghong and Mengla might have been the scariest part if you ask Erlend, though! Chinese drivers are not very safe in general, and bus drivers are crazy. As it turns out, southern minibus drivers are the craziest of all, and the roads are rather horrible. I had however taken a motion sickness pill, and stayed calm for the duration of the bus trip :)

I loved the bus ride, we saw a China I have not seen since my round trip in 2004. Yunnan is a tropical province, and the flora is very different from that of the Beijing area. On the first half of the ride a little boy was sitting on the other side of the aisle from Erlend, carrying a net of baby turtles. In the back, the local men were smoking, spitting and snoring - business as usual. Towards the end of the trip, the thunder storm of the century broke loose, and I'm amazed the driver could see anything through the carpet of water that was blocking his view.

We got to Mengla around 20:00 in the evening, and the city turned out to be of as little interest as all guide books had promised. We found a fast food place serving chicken burgers, and had a beer at a local roof top bar. The hotel was right across the street from the northern bus station (you go out the gates, and it's on the other side of the street, about thirty meters down the road), and not very good. It was, however, cheap and clean enough to not panic.

Definitive song of the day: The Fray - How To Save A Life