Indi feat. Lara: The jungle jam

26.9.
6:00 am: Alarm clock is ringing – oh man, it’s too early to get up. But no use in complaining, Cambodia may be waiting for us, but the Bus to get there isn’t…

1:00 pm: Arrived at what is supposed to be the bus station at the Thai-Cambodian border…no sign of the border to be seen. Might the Tuk-Tuk-drivers be right and it is still far far (worth a ten dollar ride far) away?! Sun is burning hot and backpacks are heavier than ever. Let’s get walking, Cambodia must be somewhere… 

Of note: the traditional Khmer curry, called Amok

1:10 pm: Okay, that was not worth a ten dollar ride far away – good for us. Found the end of Thailand and the beginning of Cambodia. Now let’s see how this works.

2:00 pm: That was easy. Paid the visa fee and the extra fee that is so very official that it is announced in beautiful handwriting on a sign made of old newspapers. Anyways, we are in. Now how do we get to Siem Reap from here - ah, no worries, the transport mafia is already here and will surely take good care of us, for a very cheap price of course…

5:00 pm: Arrived in Siem Reap, moved into our beautiful new home, had some food and are ready to paint the town red. Let’s get going. 

1:00 am: You stupid Mosquitos, go away. You stupid frogs, shut up. You stupid fan, could you turn any slower? Will surely be a great night.

27.9.

6:00 am: Alarm clock is ringing. Rise and shine – no problem, didn’t close an eye anyway, what a jungle out there…

6:30 am: Rent that bike – why, yes, we take the white charity bike for only two dollars per day with no comfort whatsoever. There are no hills at all so what would we need Mountainbikes for?! Get on those saddles – Angkor here we come!

6:35 am: Turning back, the bikes are too small for one of us. Everything is hurting already. Angkor, we’ll come a little later – but still on those Charity bikes, highly determined to collect some good karma. 

At Preah Khan nature takes its toll

7:15 am: Passing by the great Angkor Wat and going through Angkor Thom – trying not to look at anything, we want have something to build up to during the next three days of exploring. Well, maybe a tiny little glimpse is okay, yes, sure it is…WOW! Oh my, we have to stop and see this, simply extraordinary! Why not take a breakfast break right here with nice views of Bayon Temple?!

10:00 am: Arrived at the first temple we had planned on for today: Preah Khan. Simply breathtaking. We feel like Indi and Lara – but cooler, since we go by bike, not on some cheating TukTuk, Moto or other ways that don’t use your own energy. If it just wasn’t so steaming hot, we are kind of melting away here… 

2:00 pm: Riding, riding, riding… have seen Banteay Prei, explored Neak Pean and Krol Kô and are on our way to Ta Som. Everything is awesome. Our behinds might beg to differ, but who cares. 

At Prè Rup Temple

3:00 pm: Our behinds differ louder and louder. Must be ignored, everything is just way too cool. Just arrived at Mebon Oriental, staring at elephants, beautiful Hindu dancers, kings and gods – awesome carvings. And the look out to into the jungle from the high terraces is just great. That little thunderstorm over there surely won’t come any closer. 

3:10 pm: Soaking, not because of the sweat anymore. Kind of like a nice shower to get rid of all the smelling and dirt from the day – rain can be somewhat nice. Behinds don’t stop hurting but faces are still brightly smiling. On our way to the last temple for the day, Prè Rup.

7:00 pm: Made it back to town, behinds injured badly but still alive. Really deserve some icecream now, and a good cold beer.

9:30 pm: In bed, ready to fall asleep instantly – we want to get up early to see the sunset over Angkor Wat. Plan on going on our bikes again. Behinds are asleep already, they don’t argue.

28.09. 

4:00 am: What is that sound? Dreaming? Where are we? Oh, right – the alarm. No, wait, there is another sound… thank God, that’s heavy rain and frequent thunder. There is no use in going to Angkor in this kind of weather by bike. Go back to sleep!

7:00 am: No rain, no reason to sleep. Lara and Indi never sleep. Bikes are waiting, behinds are ignored once again.

10:00 am: Wow, that was Prasat Kravan temple – and our breakfast. Feeling much stronger now. Exploring mode is switched on.

11:00 am: Banteay Kdei temple is awesome. Playing hide and seek is so much fun around here. Wait a minute. Where am I? Why is it turning dark all the sudden? Hello?

12:30 pm: Back on the road. Riding the bikes, no hills no nothing, gentle smooth ride, behinds kind of quiet for the moment. Wait, what does that sign say? Looks like a “No entry”, but really - could be everything, right?…Lara and Indi never obey to signs. And what could possibly happen anyway?

12:40 pm: Stuck in mud, there is no way to go, neither back nor forth. So that’s why people rent Mountainbikes.

12:50 pm: Still pushing the bikes. Wheels don’t turn anymore. We are covered in the red mud. Where is some rain when you need it. No, wait, didn’t mean it that way, the “road” is bad enough as it is. 

Romantic Tra Prohm Temple

1:10 pm: Carrying the bikes now. We see a light at the end of the tunnel. Our white bikes are red, just like us, but there seems to be some asphalt ahead of us.

1:30 pm: Made it out of the Jungle back to the road through the jungle, and that makes a huge difference. Arrived at the Ta Prohm Temple, known for its appearance in the first Tomb Raider movie. So excited.

2:30 pm: Just made it into the temple, found a way around the inner terraces, want to catch them on our way back out. Like always, keep the best for the end. Oh, that was a big rain drop. Uh, there was another. Ah, these things never hold for long in this country. 

At Ta Prohm

4:00 pm: Heavy rain and thunderstorms for over an hour now and it is only getting darker around us. The whole temple is flooded; we have to swim out of here. Or should we keep waiting?

4:30 pm: Okay, that’s it. Let’s swim.

5:30 pm: Arrived at the guesthouse, made it through roads that were more like rivers, crossed some seriously deep lake-like intersections, grew webs on our feet and kept sweating like crazy (how is that even possible?!). Our behinds might kill us. But first, let’s find the showers.

10:00 pm: What all a nice cool shower, a huge dinner and some ice cold cocktails can do…Time for bed, new go on the sunset at Angkor Wat tomorrow. Stopped arguing with our behinds, though – we will go by TukTuk.

29.9.

4:00 am: That sounds familiar now – the alarm and heavy rain. Oh, what the heck, we have a TukTuk and aren’t made from sugar. Suck it up, time to rise and shine again.

5:30 am: Still raining a little, but the atmosphere is mystic. The jungle seems closer in the dark and everywhere surely lure wild animals. The sounds they make are deafening. Angkor Wat rises as a dark, majestic shadow in front of us. We position ourselves to get the best views of the majestic sight when the sun comes up. It will be great. 

Awestruck in front of Angkor Wat

 6:30 am: The sun is up – somewhere behind the thick clouds that cover the whole sky. We still wonder how it made the way up there without any of us noticing. Anyway. It stopped raining and the light is enough to start exploring the biggest temple in the world. We are tired but eager to see.

7:30 am: Waiting for the guards to open up the highest top of the holiest of holy. Still a little eager to see and a little more tired.

8:00 am: At the top. All tiredness is gone. This is brilliant. 

10:00 am: Had breakfast, peed and put on some mosquito repellent - feeling good. Just like that dude seems to feel that is smiling down on us from every corner of the Bayon temple…or is it a stare? Would you stop staring? Is there any way to escape this man, that Khmer king is creepy…No, really, he is everywhere. Well then, let’s decide it is a smile on his face after all. Makes it much more enjoyable. 

Smiling (or staring?!) faces of Bayon temple

12:00 pm: The ancient City of Angkor Thom is now fully explored. Climbed all terraces, checked out all carvings, bas reliefs and beheaded Buddhas and swang around exploringly in all the lianas. Feeling tired. But there is still one thing left to do. Lara still has to visit her temple Ta Prohm when it is not pouring.

1:00 pm: Ta Prohm was first taken by nature and then it was taken by us. We made it. Now it is time to sleep. TukTuk, take us home please!

5:00 pm: Waking up, feeling refreshed and ready to go. Siem Reap Town, here we come.

30.9.

4:00 am: Dreaming.

6:00 am: Dreaming.

8:00 am: Dreaming.

10:00 am: Slowly waking up, turning around…new sounds surround us – no alarm, no rain, just silence. What a Sunday morning! A great day of doing nothing lies ahead. Time to recapture the great wonders we have seen during the last couple of days. Angkor can’t be compared to anything we have seen before. Its great treasures leave us in awe and it will take some time for everything to sink in (and for our behinds to feel normal again). Tomorrow we will leave for Battambang, a new place to visit and explore in the great Kingdom of Cambodia. 

Our good karma white bikes

One night in Bangkok...is not enough

The city of Angels got us - and it got us right.

We arrived in the Thai capital last Saturday after having said goodbye to Chakkarat and our new friends there. The second we had checked in to our guesthouse at the heart of touristic Bangkok (yes, Khao San Road captured us), the city got flooded by a massive thunderstorm - just like every day we spent there. There seems to be hardly any drainage system so the water stayed where it was, in the streets. Therefore, in order to get somewhere, you had to wade right through - not so bad at the temperatures in BKK if it wasn't for the bugs, left overs of food, shoes, chairs or UFOs (unidentified floating objects) that pass by your bare feet and that you just can't ignore, however hard you try.
Together with Peter and Mameow we wandered a nightmarket at the foot of King Rama the firsts monument where we had great custom made noodle soup (very different from Chinese style!), checked out Khao San and its bars at night a couple of times, shopped around BKKs greatest shopping malls at Siam for a whole day, had a very short rocking
experience at the Hard Rock Cafe, spend some time in the biggest and most luxurious hospital I have ever seen (Mameow's new workingplace), met Mameow's brother and his girlfriend on Peter's last night dinner/party and witnessed male showing off at its best when Peter and he started arm-wrestling (let's just say it wasn't the proudest of all Niehoff-days...) - and then it was time for Peter to go back to Germany and time for Mameow to go back to work, and suddenly it was only the two of us again. We needed a plan.

Family Reunion

 

Khao San is a safe place...

After a day of just short walks around the area and a lot of time in front of the computer and Lonely Planet guidebooks we had our plan. So the next day, we continued exploring BKK some more.
 

Blending in with the locals

We had a great walk through the old part of BKK, where most of the major sights that BKK has to offer (next to its fantastic every day craze that is awesome to witness and be part of just as it is) can be found. We visited a couple of wats (temples) and were part of some kind of Buddhist worship in one of them, got into history a little at the democracy monument and the October 14 memorial, we saw the grand palace of the king and walked around the great temple of the Emerald Buddha (that is actually made of jade), went "window"-shopping on the amulet market, walked along the little alleyways and tiny shops at the Chao Phraya riverside, and enjoyed the sunset over the peoples park before we had a memorable last night out in BKK.

In front of the Grand Palace

Very early the next day, we left town and were on our way to Cambodia, home to some of the most spectacular temples in the world. And that is where we are headed - Angkor.

Back from the sea

It’s official, Sebastian the crab was right: being under the sea is awesome and once you’re there you don’t wanna go back up anymore. 

Our first dive was a real eye-opener: you leave behind the loud and busy world and drop into a quite wonderland where you get to see things you wouldn’t even have dreamt of. You float in the water and see colorful corals and anemones beneath and next to you that are inhabited by beautiful fish, funny little snails, majestic rays, grumpy morays, spiky sea urchins, giant turtles and the like.  

You turn around and find yourself in a massive school of mackerels that suddenly bursts when the huge barracuda swims by on his silent hunt. And the closer you look, the more you see; the well camouflaged puffer fish, the tiny pairs of goby fish and goby crab that share their sandy apartment in symbiosis, the Christmas tree worms that contract their colourful, Christmas tree-shaped rears when you swim by and if you get lucky you see a sea cucumber move. And all you hear is your own steady breath that calms you down so you fully concentrate on the strange new world around you. 

Here we come

When we successfully finished our Open Water course on Thursday, we were infected with the dive-virus so we signed up for the Advanced Open Water Course that took two more days and meant 5 great more dives. We went for a deep dive, an underwater navigation dive where I got lost while Jens had all the orientation, a buoyancy dive where I hit ground or my head a couple of times while Jens was floating around like a pro, a wreck dive where we got to see an old, sunken battleship that suddenly appeared before our eyes and last but not least we did an underwater naturalist dive where we didn’t dive nude like some would think but had to identify all the underwater wildlife we crossed. We had the best time. 

Mameow, Madmee and Peter

Peter had already left us on Thursday to go back to his friends in Chakkarat, as he preferred to spend some more time with them. So, Sunday night we followed him and left beautiful Koh Tao with the night ferry to Chumpon to get back to the mainland. We spend a whole 24 hours to get to Chakkarat, from boarding the night ferry to finally getting off the Minivan at our final destination. We took a ferry, a songtaew, a coach, a taxi, a minivan and were finally picked up by Peter to make our last meters on a motorbike, before we set foot into what has become our home away from home for the last couple of days: Yaem’s house. 

Hanging out in the backyard

We met Peter’s beautiful and funny girlfriend Mameow, her gentle, smart and welcoming mom Yaem and her cute little baby niece, Madmee. They cooked great dinner for us (Yaem is a chef and runs a restaurant on the ground floor of the house while living on the first floor – sounds familiar at all?!) and then showed us our place to sleep, our own little space that they prepared for us with so much love. We were very thankful, especially after the long journey, and went to bed early.

Enjoying Korean BBQ with Yaem, Mameow and Dog Lung

 During the last couple of days, Peter has showed us around his little town, and it has been great fun. We visited his old school a couple of times and could witness his rock-star-status with all the teachers and students, took some English tests, helped record an English screenplay and collected great gifts. We checked out his old house and the surroundings. We spent a great afternoon and night at Korat that we finished up with a very yummy 80 minutes at the Japanese Buffett.We blended into the local culture when taking our laundry to a shop – the three of us on one small motorbike. 

In Korat

 We watched the hospital sports day, where Mameow played great games of volleyball and soccer and we cheered on her team (“Allez les bleus”) along with a cool group of nurse-cheerleaders. We tried out awesome Thai food, prepared by Mameow and Yaem or at the local markets. We had a wonderful evening trying one of Peter’s favorites, the Korean BBQ, after which we shared both, Thai and German tongue twister. We went to a Thai wedding celebration with tons of good food in Yaem’s parents’ home village, where we went to on the loading space of an old pick-up. And while we were sitting there, driving through the dark and warm night, feeling the wind on our faces and watching the night sky, we felt very thankful and privileged to be there and be able to share all this with Peter and his Thai family. In the end, this week has taught us so much about the great hospitality of Thai people and we want to say thank you to all our new Thai friends and to Peter who took us here. 

Now we are off to Bangkok to stay there for a couple of days before Peter will leave Thailand and our ways part.

 

 

Eat up China

 As promised, a post about the Chinese food, before we forget all about it (though I'm sure we won't, it was just too good)...Here are some highly recommended items on the menu that you should definitely try when you get the chance... 
 

Vegetable salad with Lotus

 1. Side dishes: Vegetable salad: you point at all the vegetables you want, but beware: these are never just fresh vegetables, they are always prepared in some way: pickled, cooked, fried,… and topped with a great sauce (usually with peanuts) and lots of spices. It's eaten cold. The best: the pickled Lotus (the big flat round things with the holes in them (where the seeds used to be, but they are eaten as well)).

 Sour slices of beef with herbs

If you're a meat lover, you'll prefer this one. Especially if you like your meat lean (which is not the way the Chinese like it), try out the cold, thin slices of beef that are marinated in a sour sauce and topped with fresh herbs. It makes for a great starter or as a side dish to share between the lot of you.

2. Main dishes: You never go wrong with some sweet and sour pork and fried rice, but also try out the dumplings at each new place you go to. They are pan-fried in Pingyao, sweet in Chengdu, come dry in Xi’an (where we had 

Sweet and sour pork, thin slices of spicy potatoes, dumplings with vinegar

the best dumplings, made by ourselves at a dumpling party) or in a soup in Beijing. They are somewhat related to Baozi, steemed dough filled with meat, fish, mushrooms, sweet fillings etc. They are very nice as a breakfast and best picked up at a street stall. One of my personal favorites is the thinly sliced potato that is marinated a little sour and always very spicy. It comes either hot or cold, sometimes with noodles and sometimes with other vegetables. The potato is not cooked through but al dente, which is hard to find in other Chinese dishes. Very tasty! Also a great dish, here I have to pair up with Sheldon Cooper, is Gongbao chicken, a Sichuan dish where chopped up cucumber, peanuts, chicken and tons of chilies are fried and then put into a hot and sweet sauce. Have some rice with it to cool down your mouth. 

Giant Xi'an noodle

If Jens and I would have to compromise on the one thing we both loved the most it would be the huge variety of noodles. Beef noodles are the main dish for breakfast and lunch, they mostly come as a soup. If you go to one of the million tiny restaurants at the streets that don’t even have menus but only serve that one dish, it will be beef noodles. 

The noodles appear in front of your eyes out of a big lump of dough made of only water and flour that is swung around in the air by the chef and, mysteriously formed into very thin noodles, a bit like spaghettis. Another great form is the flat and long noodle from Xi’an: You only get one noodle into your bowl (don’t worry to stay hungry, it is 8 m long!) that is filled with some chili-oil, some spices and herbs and topped with a bit of cinnamon – great taste! Well, we could go on about the noodles for a long long time, but we guess you got the point…

 

One of the million different mooncakes we tried

3. Sweets and Treats. Ladies, this one might come as a tough one for you: there is no chocolate in China. Sure, there is, but it is imported. Yet, even those sweet teeth who want to stick with the traditional Chinese food while on a trip there must not fear, there are lots of local treats around. A very popular dessert is sweet potatoes that come in a thick, sweet sauce. The sauce is a great topping on a sweet rice pudding, that might have sweet beans. Mooncakes are a favorite, especially in Pingyao. They are filled with seeds and a very sweet lotus paste or a jelly-like fruit paste or come in a million more varieties. 

Rice pastry with caramel and nuts

Fried banana - what did you think?!

Also good are fried fruits, e.g. banana, rice pastries, pumpkin tartlets filled with nuts, bites from smashed peanuts with butter and brown sugar, ginger bites (either sweet or spicy), sweet dumplings,… the list goes on and on. If you prefere a savory snack, you can get everything from all sorts of nuts and seeds to pickled bamboo or chickenfeet, crabbchips and crackers. If you are up for a beer with a couple of friends I highly recommend to order spicy peanuts as a snack: you’ll get about 500 gr of nuts soaked in chillie-oil and topped with garlic, pepper and fresh chilli – goes great with the beer! 

Choose veggies, meat or seafood with rice, noodles or fried bread

4. Street food: it’s prepared freshly, right before your eyes – so you can be sure what’s in it. You choose from the big variety that’s laid out in front of you and they will cook it, bbq it, steam it – you name it, they do it. Shop around a little bit, though, since the food is very cheap which is sometimes mirrored in the quality, especially when you hunt for meat and seafood. The best way to go is to follow the locals and buy where they buy. 

Very popular: BBQ - meat, seafood and tons of tofu

5. Local specialties. We recommend you try it them 'cause it's fun, it might be tasty and you definitely learn a little more about the local culture. You might even learn that to eat organs and seafood doesn’t kill you, like you always thought it would. Never try to eat up anything you don’t like, though. The food is quite inexpensive, so you can try out everything but most not feel bad to not eat it up. Food that comes in big quantaties is shared anyways, so what you don’t like someone else might love. 

Luoyang's Water Banquet - share it all

That actually is gonna be our last tip about Chinese food: do it like the locals – eat in groups (the more the merrier) you share your food with; slurp, burp, spit and make whatever other loud noice you’re capable of to show that you really like the food; leave your table as dirty as possible and have at least a couple of bones, tissues and other junk lying around under your table to show your appreciation of the place. Sounds strange but becomes a habit quicker than you’d imagine... 

Sawadee ka

We made it to the big elephant – Thailand. We got here after quite a night on Chengdu Airport from where we left giant China in the north east to get to Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur in the south and eventually made it to heavenly Phuket, the final destination.


We spent a great, quite day on picture perfect Kata Beach and stayed the night in Phuket town in a little, very cheap hotel where, judging by the nightly sounds, rooms could be rented by the hour. We didn’t care much since we were too tired to be bothered, and after all it somewhat filled a cliché you expect to be filled in Phuket. But the island really is a small paradise and worth a longer visit: a bustling weekend night market in town, most beautiful lush jungle covering the rolling hills and small mountains, old Portuguese architecture and great food and drink on every corner – what’s not to love?
 
The next day we caught a bus to Surat Thani on the other coast of Thailand to meet up with Peter. Easier said than done since neither his nor our phone worked the way we expected them to. So when suddenly, when we drove around Surat still on the coach and I looked out of the window and saw Peter walking around aimlessly right in the exact same moment when he looked at the street into my window and saw me sitting there– it was meant to be and really great luck! We took the night ferry to Koh Tao after having some good Thai food at the pier, where we slept on thin matresses on the shaky floor in long lines that covered the whole area of the ferry, that really was a cargo ship. The sea was really calm so it was a quite, almost enjoyable night's sleep.

When we arrived at Koh Tao, we went straight to the great dive operation “Crystal Dive” where Jens and I enrolled for a class to get our PADI Open Water Diver Certificate and Peter signed up for a refresh class and some other dives where he has seen much more than just the Christmas Tree Wurm that still fascinated that lunatic most.

The diving class so far has been theory in form of video watching and review quizzes and a long time in the pool this afternoon. Breathing in and out only through the mouth is a little creepy to me so I still have to figure out whether I like diving or not. I will start very easy tomorrow on our first ocean dive and then see how it goes. Jens, au contraire, has fallen in love with this sport already. I could probably leave him here for the next half year, than come back to pick him up and find him a fully certified PADI Dive Instructor – from zero to hero. But first things first: our final exam will be tomorrow and then we still have to pass our swimming test (pretty tough one – 200 meters swimming in the pool with no gear…) before we’ll get into the ocean twice tomorrow afternoon and a couple of times more the day after. Hold your thumbs – whalesharks have been spotted in the area yesterday and today, maybe we’ll get lucky...

The rest of the days we spent sitting in beach bars, enjoying great food, the feel of the sand at our toes, the ocean view and a good game of Skat. Every now and then I get all scared and run around like a madman when yet another new bug appears right next to me that happens to be, of course, even bigger than the last one – every single time. Right now, a gecko is screeming at us from outside our window. It’s the “Tukkeh”- gecko, the name is exactly the sound that it makes when screaming. One of them left its tail in front of our doorstep last night where we found it this morning – maybe a sign of affection like when cats leave stuff at your doorstep?!

Back to nature

We have spent an awesome couple of days in and around Chengdu that included Jens‘ personal Chinese highlight and afterwards what probably comes close to being my own one.

After we got to Chengdu on our nightmare bus ride we just chilled out for a day. We only made it up from the bars couches to get to a restaurant that people had recommended to us for its great sweet dumplings. The food was worth get going – but only for me. It all included peanuts, and since Jens is allergic, he didn’t really enjoy. So he got to decide where to go for dinner – his fine choice lead us to a great Swedish restaurant where we had their most famous dish, Köttbullar meatballs… yes, you guessed correctly, we went to Ikea. Chengdu has more western brand shops than any other city we have been to so far, and their shopping mile that we checked out another day is huge. H&M, C&A and S.Oliver line up with KFC, McDonalds and Starbucks where the Chinese ladies that just shopped till they dropped next door at Chanel, Louis Vuitton and Prada have their Café Latte. A great place to hang out and watch the Chinese go mad consuming way more than they could ever need. 

 The next day was time for what Jens had been waiting for for so long: the Giant Banda Breeding Research Base. We went there early in the morning and Jens got all excited. We saw tons and tons of Pandas right when they woke up and were most active. They munched away on their bamboo while lying around there, they climbed up trees, the smaller ones played with each other or cuddled with their moms – just soo cute! We got to see three newborns, the youngest of which was not even 2 weeks old and still without any fur and eyes closed. 

Another one, still a kid but a couple of years old, was the fattest of the whole gang, so we were quite impressed when he started climbing up the thinnest branch of the highest tree around. Shockingly- but not really surprisingly- the branch broke and the little fat Panda fell a couple of meters deep on the ground – hopefully he didn’t get hurt. There are tons of other cute little stories to tell and Jens will be willing to share them all when being asked - and when not being asked. It was great to see these endangered animals in such big numbers and so close to their natural habitat and we had a great time visiting them. 

Grand Buddha, us and Mr. X

Then we left Chengdu and went to Emei Shan, another of the five holy Chinese Buddhist mountains. On our way there we passed by Leshan and got off to take a boat tour to see the biggest Buddha statue in the whole world – the Grand Buddha. It is carved into a cliff where two rivers meet and his ears alone are 7 meters long. It is quite impressive, but our boat tour was not, so the whole undertaking didn’t touch me as much as I would have thought it to. Still, we get to say that we saw it :)

In Emei Shan we stayed one night and then left the hostel in the little village Baoguo at the foot of the mountains very early the next morning and got started on our hike up to the Golden Summit, one of my highlights. On our way we got attacked by snakes, monkeys and, worst of all of course, tons of insects that I mostly have never seen before in my life. 

Beautiful scenery awaited on Mount Emei

We walked through old evergreen forests, climbed up an enormous amount of stairs (actually it was less a hike than a climb of stairs…), passed beautiful waterfalls and rivers, didn’t hear any cars for the first time in a month, met only very few people and could barely see the steps ahead of us when we got into the cloud zone. We stayed at a monastery on the mountain for the night where it was cold and damp but they had showers and, yeah, electric blankets that saved the night. We went to bed after dinner at six ‘cause there was nothing else to do and got up early to be back on our way with the rising sun shortly after 6. 

Reached the Golden Summit!

We made it to the peak around 10 am where it was freezing cold, the clouds made it impossible to see all the beautiful monasteries and scenery and it was far from quite and peaceful because a cable car lead up to the peak directly and the usual enormous amount of Chinese tourists made good use of that – but still we were the happiest people and so proud to have made it! Only a little more than 30 km but 2500 meters difference in altitude, all in steep stairs that first lead up and then down just to lead up again…we were pretty happy to be at the top. 

Now we are back in Chengdu where we realized that we have one day more in China than expected, which is very welcome since our legs are still a bit shaky and our clothes could sure use a bath as much as we did after the hike. It leaves us some time to say goodbye to China and get ready for Thailand.

Fast forward

Two weeks have passed and finally our laptop is working again. It broke after nothing happened…just wouldn’t turn on anymore. Our odyssee to get it fixed in an authorized store is a whole story for itself but there are many much more pleasant things to talk about that have happened in the last couple of days. So we want to get you back on track with what we have been up to and give you the quick overview…

 

Silver, Anna, Rebecca and Jens at the Longmen Grottoes, Louyang

Kaifeng: Got there on the nighttrain from Pingyao. Shared the cabin with a nice couple and their cute little baby girl that turned out not to be that cute anymore at 3 am when nothing could calm her down…in the morning she fell in love with Jens, though, and couldn’t stop laughing and joking with him. Kaifeng was rainy. After Pingyao, this old town wasn’t really that impressive. The nightmarket was deserted. The scenic lake was grey and non-scenic. The ancient buildings were from '05. And Kaifeng made our computer break. Somehow. So we left. 

At the white horse temple, Luoyang

At the night market, Luoyang

Luoyang: So far my favorite city, maybe due to the beautiful young ladies that we met there: Silver and Rebecca, two students from Canton, that we spent our time with. Saw the Longmen grottoes and were impressed once more, tried out all the awesome food at the great night market (thanks to the girls who tried to introduce us to all the good Chinese treats in just one night…couldn’t make it, had to come back the next night), went to the oldest Buddhist temple on Chinese soil (White Horse Temple) and had the great “water banquet”, a local specialty with 24 courses that we shared with 8 people. You wouldn't believe what all was in there... there will be a post dedicated to all the Chinese food we had, you'll love it just as much as we do (most of the time...)!

Xi'an's Bell-Tower at night

Xi’an: Were picked up from the bus by a local who thought he’d know the way to our hostel but didn’t and gave us tons of fresh fruit from his father's farm to make up for his leading us somewhere wrong. Met great people at a great hostel, had a very tasty dumpling party, went to see the breathtaking terracotta warriors,

The terracotta warriors

wandered the streets of the muslim quarter where good food and hard bargaining awaited, did a tandem-tour on the massive old city wall, saw the pagodas and temples, got haircuts at a place with no English but a real hair-artist, ran around this huge city to get the computer fixed. Spend some wonderful days! 
 

Muslim quarter, Xi'an

Chengdu: Just got here, by the nightbus that took 20 hours instead of the usual 8 because of an accident that happened right in front of us and took forever to get taken care of. Of course it was pouring outside so we couldn’t even get off the bus… More and happier things about Chengdu, where it is still raining and finally a little cooler as well, will follow!