From Hanoi to Hoi An

On the bus to the border and the train to Hanoi from Lao Cai, we met
up with two 19 year old Danish backpackers who probably out of respect
for our Chinese language skills decided we would be a safe group of
people to hang around. Unfortunately since our language skills
evaporated once we crossed the river we all ended up equally helpless
and exhausted in Hanoi. We showed up at a hostel which advertised dorm
beds for only 4.50 USD, but they charged us twice as much since we
didn't book online and they gave us a terrible exchange rate since we
were paying in Vietnamese Dong. Once Richy and Leo realized this, they
worked up a healthy dose of indignance and went to work on the hotel
desk staff with their Chinese bartering skills. After almost getting
us all kicked out of the hostel, they were finally able to get the
owners on the phone, who agreed that we could pay the online booking
price. The whole incident made walking past the reception desk for the
next three days an awkward experience, but one that saved us a decent
chunk of cash.

Richy and I got to see our third preserved communist leader under
glass, with Uncle Ho looking less dead than Lenin but slightly more
dead than Mao. It's worth mentioning that being put on display for
eternity was expressly against all of their wishes, making it all the
more macabre. We followed it up with a visit to the very interesting
and ultra modern Ho Chi Minh museum - only to get rushed through and
kicked out as the staff took their 1.5 hour lunch break. We're
starting to think Americans might be the only people in the world
without some kind of afternoon siesta, much to our cultural
disadvantage.

We parted with our Danish friends as they went to party it up with the
Australian college students in Halong Bay, a reportedly beautiful
UNESCO World Heritage Site which has apparently become the Cancun of
Asia. We decided we'd rather skip the rainy booze boat parties for yet
warmer weather further south.

After our previous exhausting travel experiences, we decided we could
use some of the money we saved at the hostel to splurge on some soft
sleeper train tickets. When we arrived at the train station, Richy and
Leo went off to find a corkscrew for the bottle of wine they had
bought for the journey while Katie D. and I went to find the train,
which required a bit of a hike around other trains and over several
sets of tracks. Some "friendly" helpers came out of the woodwork to
help us find the train (although we already knew where it was)
obviously wanting tips for their unsolicited assistance. When Richy
and Leo arrived, we locked them out of our cabin as they alternately
banged on the door and pretended to be the train conductor looking for
our tickets. After the train pulled out of the station we were met
with a friendly Swede, a Scotsman and a Dutch kid who we had
previously run into twice back in Kunming. We shared stories, drinking
games, wine and rice "vodka" as the train rattled violently through
the night and into the historic city of Hue.

Although Hue seemed to be a perfectly nice town, the pervasive drizzle
left us feeling less than energetic. In our wanderings around the city
we met a few interesting characters including a former South
Vietnamese soldier, who despite his good English and training can now
only make a living as a farmer since the North won the war. We also
were lucky enough to stumble into a restaurant that we had previously
seen featured on the Globe Trekker series, run by a deaf mute man and
his family. Not only was the food reasonably priced and delicious, but
he also entertained us with his bottle opening antics that he devised
with his own bottle opening invention. After our second meal there, he
gifted each of us with one of his homemade bottle openers as long as
we promised to send him a picture of us using it in our home towns.

After a 3.5 hour bus ride that turned onto 5.5 hour ride due to a flat
tire, we arrived to enjoy the 70 F temperatures and dry overcast skies
of Hoi An. Although the food is delicious, the prices are higher and
portions smaller than in Hanoi and Hue, but we found that even meek
attempts to haggle over prices are usually rewarded with discounts.
One banana pancake seller immediately dropped her price by 50 percent
when we protested paying 10,000 Dong for a pancake.

Most people here assume that because we are Americans, $1 for
something sounds cheap, but after living on China for so many months,
we know exactly how far a dollar should go.

Next we are heading off to the beach town of Nha Trang, hopefully to
finally catch some real sunshine before heading to Saigon and back to
China.

~Katie

Escape from China

Although Kunming, Yunnan had been billed by our Chinese friends as
"spring city" (where the weather is always like spring!) our very
chilly reception there left us doubtful. The assault was especially
harsh because we had left our winter clothes in Chongqing thinking we
would be finding warmer weather further south, not colder. When
snowflakes began to fall, we were prompted to inquire with the locals
about their so-called spring city. Apparently we were lucky enough to
arrive in the midst of the coldest weather in 50 years.

Needless to say we departed in search of warmer weather as fast as the
Chinese transportation system could carry us. When the bus attendant
started hassling us for 5 kuai extra (on top of the 140 kuai we had
already paid for tickets) we reacted with premature indignance until a
patient Chinese English speaker explained that the extra fee was to
pay for toll detours around snowed out routes.

Upon arriving at the border, we discovered that our original plan of
first heading to the Vietnamese mountain town of Sapa was a dud since
snow was in the forecast and the whole point of our trip was to escape
the cold. So after the sudden shock of not being able to speak the
local language again, we decided to hop the first train to Hanoi (a
bargain for only 104,000 dong/30 kuai/4.50 usd and 8 hours of your
life) with predicted temps in the mid to low 60s.

~ Katie

A New Year in Chongqing

I have to admit that when we first arrived at our site in Chongqing, I
was really not enamored with the place. Now that we are beginning to
see more of the rest of the country, I am beginning to appreciate
Chongqing more and more.

Take, for example, the grey skies and humidity: keeps me from getting
too homesick from those cloud blanket PNW winters and helps keep my
skin and nasal passages moisturized. Or the constant 45-50 F indoor
temperatures: putting on a few extra layers inside with relative
comfort outside sure beats the frozen toes, ears, and hands every time
we stepped outside in Xi'an last weekend. Of course there is also the
fact that Chongqing is not a particular tourist destination but is
still a large Chinese transit hub: we get all the cool stuff to
ourselves and frequent, relatively cheap trains and buses.

"The above stated facts of the preceding statements lead me to
conclude," (stole that line from my students' final exam essays) that
despite having a lovely new years weekend in Xian, what I am really
looking forward to in 2011 is a new start in our adopted Chinese
hometown. And a nice vacation to Vietnam to enjoy the sunshine and non-
Chinese flavors probably won't hurt either.

~ Katie (written on my ipod while I was crabby, trying to sleep in a top 3rd class bunk on the night train back to Chongqing. The sooner China makes smoking illegal on trains - not just confined to the "smoking area" between the cars - the better for my train moods and sinuses. Xi'an was actually really awesome, but I do find myself looking forward to heading back to my Chongqing home these days.)

Chongqing Christmas Weekend

At first I thought my students gifted me several apples on our last class before Christmas because I'm a teacher and well, it's a tradition in the West to give teachers apples. After carrying home my elaborately wrapped apples, I did some research and discovered that this was actually a very Chinese custom. You see, in Chinese, Christmas Eve is called Ping An Ye (calm, quiet night), and apples are called ping guo. So the word for apple sounds like the word for Christmas Eve, so people give apples as gifts! Very clever. You can also buy more expensive apples that have been grown with black stickers on them so the characters 平安 (ping an) show up light colored on the peel. Very very clever.

On Ping An Ye, we headed out to Shapingba to get together with friends for pizza and to watch the Chinese Christmas Eve spectacle we had heard so much about from the China 15's (the group of volunteers here who are now in their second year - we are called China 16's). Apparently Chinese college kids get together in the entertainment districts, buy plastic inflatable hammers and bats, glow in the dark accessories, and flashing rabbit ear/Santa Claus/devil horn headbands and proceed to beat each other silly. Foreigners become particularly desirable targets. However, when we arrived there seemed to be more police than holiday revelers, so we shrugged our shoulders and proceeded to stuff ourselves with pizza. As we moved from the pizza buffet to the bar, a few scouts went out to see if there was any inflatable weapon action to be had outside. Apparently not, as the police were confiscating inflatable toys and stomping them on the pavement. Nothing like celebrating Christmas by destroying toys! They had seemingly decided that only the Jiefangbei district in the city center could celebrate "calm, quiet night" with inflatable pandemonium. No matter. We enjoyed hearing stories about last years craziness from a couple of 15's and watching our friends take ultra-spicy "pepper shots" which according to those who tried it, was like drinking shots of alcoholic pepper spray. Only one or two folks were able to stomach it without running to the bathroom to wretch it out. Our friend Chris described it as "an instant ulcer." Not fun to try, but fun to watch others try!

On Christmas Day, we awoke late with our house strangely warm with the heat of three extra sleeping bodies (our apartment averages about 50 F inside these days). After wishing the folks back home a happy Christmas Eve over Skype, we woke our sleeping friends with coffee, hot cocoa, pomelo, and a veggie-sausage scramble. Two more friends arrived, we opened our presents from home, and then headed out to the first of two Christmas parties we were set to attend. Since there were seven of us at this point, we all took a bus across the river, then realized that the postal college was a bit far out of the way and that south of the Yangtze, the bus system was not as familiar to us, so we decided it was time to hop into two cabs. Laden with two pies, I hopped into the first cab, leaving Richy (laden with 4 liters of homemade gingerale) Leo and Katie D. to catch another. 30 minutes into our cab ride, I called Richy to see where they were: still where we left them, as every other cab didn't seem to want to drive three foreigners up a mountain (as sometimes happens here). We arrived to find that everyone had been waiting for us to eat (we were a couple hours late at this point), but it would still be another hour and a half before the Richy, Leo and Katie D. contingent made it. When they finally arrived with the help of some students, we hungrily set in to the lovely spread of spaghetti, penne pesto pasta, real salad (with ranch dressing!), and garlic bread. The highlights were the fresh grated Parmesan cheese, followed by an amazing array of desserts including cookies, pies, sweet steamed bread and real ice cream. I literally haven't been so full since our China going away party.

Our next stop, on the same side of the river, was a party at our friend Kit's, which quickly turned into a strange Santa hat dance party. Santa hats cost only about one kuai here, which is like 14 cents, so somehow we all acquired several from students and other foreign teachers (Richy and I somehow ended up with five). It was a good way to follow up eating ourselves into oblivion, and I am pretty sure I broke even on the calories after about 4 hours of dancing. Needless to say, we slept in the following morning, and somehow found the energy in the afternoon not only to hike down to Chongqing Tiandi (a new billion dollar development at the bottom of the Jialing River bank near our house) but also to head out to Yongchuan (about an hour outside the city) to visit our friend Amy and share our Christmas chocolates with her.

It was an intense weekend, which we're still recovering from, but staying busy was the only way not to get bummed about not being home for Christmas. Now we're looking forward to a trip up to Xi'an next weekend for the New Year weekend!

Happy Holidays!

~Katie

PS.

Here is a link to a recent article in the New York Times about our fair city of Chongqing! If you are planning to visit us here it provides a good tourist perspective on "A Chinese City for Chinese People:"

http://travel.nytimes.com/2010/12/26/travel/26chongqing.html?pagewanted=1

Fall Photo Batch

Pictures from the Fall. Around Chongqing, over to University City, and out to Yibin. Social gatherings and cultural highlights. The best of the best of my photographs from the Autumn of 2010. Click on the Photos link above, or the Slideshow or Recent Photos boxes to the right. Or here, if you're feeling lazy.

Also, I've set the permissions for all of the pictures with identifiable people in them to friends and family only, so if you want to see any faces, you'll have to sign up for a flickr account and add me as a contact.