Yunnan, China – Xishuangbanna water festival and Dali

Posted on 28 April, 2013 by Davy

After months of waiting for the weather to change to Spring I’ve finally arrived at one of my goal locations for a long, long time: Southwestern China. Two of my dreams have been broken a bit. The first was buying/renting a motorcycle and riding around for a while. You can’t get a motorcycle license in China on a tourist visa and unfortunately they really seem to care in this country. The second dream I had was that I would be able to go on long treks in Chinese wilderness. This is possible, but only if you have a ton of money. There are few easily marked multi day trails.

All is not lost though. Thankfully Southwestern China (Yunnan province) has plenty to offer including lots I didn’t know about. The backpacker scene is amazing here, there are lots and lots of Chinese backpackers. I’ve never seen a country with so many local backpackers, very cool. Even better since I get chances to practice my Mandarin. We arrived in Kunming from Sri Lanka and on the second day while we were relaxing and planning a Chinese couple learned we wanted to go where they were going and we immediately grabbed our stuff and got a ride with them. We spent the next 4 days with them in Xishuangbanna where we were lucky enough to join in that region’s New Year celebration (the third one for me this year, ha).

It’s the Xishuangbanna water festival and it’s basically an insane citywide water fight. This experience was so intense it’s hard to describe… Thousands of people with buckets of water, squirt guns, and waterballoons all fighting for control over hoses and faucets to refill their ammo. Thankfully I had bought a squirt gun the day before in preparation because all day I was hearing “LAOWAI!” (foreigner) and then Chinese people would shoot me with their squirt guns, throw buckets of water on me, or throw water balloons at me. I would then engage them in a water fight and great fun was had by all, as long as they weren’t spraying you directly in the face/eyes which they don’t mind doing. There is one area of the festival where everybody goes with buckets and splashes each other. During the main festival day when I went there it was so intense I could barely breathe. People were all targeting me because I”m a foreigner and I could only take about 5 minutes of it before I had to leave. The day before thankfully I had engaged in a much less crowded splashing pool and had fun in it (you can see the pictures).

Anyways, after Xishuangbanna Lu and I went to Dali where we spent a solid 5 days of mountain hiking, bicycle riding, temple exploring, lake circumnavigating, and motorcycle riding. I was happy to rent a motorcycle for 2 days and fulfill some of my motorcycle riding dream. Lu and I are currently in the midst of a 14 day road trip. We rented our own car and are now exploring some truly amazing places I’ll have to describe more next post.

Sri Lanka

Posted on 11 April, 2013 by Davy

Well… I have half an excuse for taking forever to write a post about Sri Lanka. When we arrived in Colombo (the capital) I spent a day sorting out some travel details before a friend from Hong Kong joined us for 2 weeks. When he got there we blasted off around the country with a rented car and driver, a serious luxury for Lu and I who have been taking public transportation everywhere. Sri Lanka is a great place to rent a car though and with Jun joining us 3 people splitting the cost is pretty economical (only 40 dollars a day total including gas, mileage, driver). Also, Sri Lanka has a ton of amazing things close together so if you rent a car you can jump between them much faster than waiting for buses and trains. So basically my half excuse is that we were all going crazy for 2 weeks (a good kind of crazy) seeing amazing stuff. We barely had enough time for sleep, much less blog posting. Anyways, here’s what we did:

March:
17 – Drove to Anuradhapura, a Unesco World Heritage site with 1500 year old ruins that we explored all day. Anuradhapura is a pretty crazy place as it’s one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. We also saw the proclaimed oldest historically authenticated tree: an 1800 year old Bodhi tree held sacred to Buddhists across the world.

18 – Continued Anuradhapura ruin exploration then drove to nearby Mihintale to see the sunset in the evening by some more Buddhist temples.

19 – Woke up in the morning and drove to then explored Sigiriya rock during the day. In 480 AD a king built a fortress on top of this huge rock that shoots out of nowhere. The ruins are still ready to be explored including some surprisingly intact structures and remarkable fresco paintings. After Sigiriya we headed to Kandy, another culture capital of Sri Lanka it’s a beautiful mountain town. We marveled at the view from our hotel room that overlooked forests and mountains and we went swimming in the outdoor pool. Value accommodation!

Here’s me jumping into a 1500 year old bathing pool on the top of Sigiriya rock

20 – 2nd night in Kandy. Explored some beautiful botanical gardens during the day and saw a cultural dance performance in the evening.

21 – Started a two day guided hike through some nearby mountains. We swam in a waterfall then spent the night camping on the side of some mountains. Our guide was fun and sung/played us music on his drum.

22 – Spent all day hiking then returned to Kandy in the evening. Swam a lot in the outdoor pool.

23 – Explored Helga’s Folly in morning. It’s an extremely artistic and eccentric hotel in Kandy. Afterwards we started driving to another mountain town, Nuwara Eliya. We ended up stopping at this place by the side of the road for local toddy, it reminded me of a speakeasy. We drank and then went on a hike and swimming in another huge waterfall. Afterwards we continued to Nuwara Eliya and took an evening walk around a lake when we got there.

Here’s Jun and I swimming in the beautiful Ramboda falls

24 – Nuwara Eliya. Went on a hike overlooking the city in the morning then another hike to a waterfall in the afternoon. Afterwards we continued to Adam’s Peak.

25 – Wake up at 2 am to hike Adam’s Peak in time for the sunrise. Adam’s Peak is a steep mountain which is said to have a footprint of Buddha (or Adam, if you are Christian) at the top. It is incredibly sacred to Sri Lankans and we were joined by hundreds of pilgrams in our ascent of the roughly 5000 steps. At the top we enjoyed the sunrise and also the peaceful site of group prayer/chanting at the top of the mountain. We descended and, exhausted, continued our drive towards Haputale, another beautiful mountain town. We slept at an amazing mountain side guesthouse.

26 – After an incredible breakfast we go on an amazingly scenic train ride from Haputale to Ella (riding a train purely for the scenery actually… our driver Elango picked us up in Ella). In Ella we enjoy a particularly nice traveler restaurant and then went on another hike for the sunrise. Left in the evening for Udawalawe National Park.

27 – Udawalawe national park all day safari starting around 6 in the morning. National Parks in Sri Lanka have so many animals they don’t let you walk around them alone for fear of animal or human danger. Saw a billion animals: Elephants, large monitor lizards, birds (tons of birds: hawks, pelicans, toucans, perakeets, kingfischers, etc), chameleon, deer, water buffalo, cobra, mongoose, peacocks, monkeys, a fox.

28 – Yala National Park all day safari. Woke up at 6 in the morning again for this. Saw a ton of animals same to Udawalawe plus leopard, alligators, wild boar, a large turtle, bunnys. Drive to Mirissa in the evening.

29 – Wake up at 6 am to go whale watching in the morning. See lots of sperm whales and groups of dolphins jumping out of water. In the afternoon we go to the beach and swim in the huge waves. We eat a seafood feast in the evening with Jun and Elango at night and then say goodbye as they drive back to Colombo so Jun can fly back to Hong Kong.

After this period of insanity Lu and I decided to relax. I needed to catch up on sleep, my pictures, Chinese studying, and some trip planning so we spent the next 10 days in different beach towns in Sri Lanka being pretty lazy. We stayed in Mirissa, Kogalla, Unawatuna, Galle, and Hikkaduwa. We ate a ton of amazing seafood, played a lot of frisbee, swam a lot, went scuba diving a few times, saw a lot of sunsets, and learned how to surf.

(Lu and I eating a crabby/shrimpy feast. This is easily the largest crab I’ve ever seen. When the waiter brought it out he let it run around on the sand for a bit so we could see just how truly DELICIOUS IT WAS)

Last night we took an overnight flight to Kunming, China where we were surprised to experience cold weather for the first time in a couple months. Excited to get out and explore some mountains as soon as possible. Anyways, now that I’m not by the beach I should be a little less lazy. We’ll seeeeeeee!

Palawan

Posted on 17 March, 2013 by Davy

We wake up and look outside our tent flaps to see a crystal clear blue ocean greeting us in the morning. I stumble outside to make sure this is real and before I know it our hosts are bringing us french press coffee, an amazing luxury while backpacking in foreign countries. While enjoying the coffee I relax and think about how little I’m going to do during the day. Frequently while traveling I’m planning things to do, arranging transportation, or trying to find us accommodation. It can be stressful at times, especially considering how anal retentive I am about trying to find the best place to stay or do the best things in a short amount of time. Thankfully at this place taking advantage of the situation just means relaxing and relaxing it was. For 25 dollars a day (each) they bring us 3 amazing meals (the best I’ve eaten in the Philippines), give us our own personal fire every night, and let us stay at their private beach in a big fancy tent with a bed in it. The beach is so secluded it feels like our own. I didn’t wear shoes or sandals the entire time there.

I’m not in Port Barton anymore though, I’m in El Nido and I’m writing this post as a baby monkey sleeps on my arm. This is the second night in a row that he’s climbed up onto me while I use the outdoor wifi and fallen asleep on my arm.

Errr… now that I’ve finished writing this and posting pictures I’m actually in Sri Lanka now. El Nido was amazing, definitely one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. Huge rocks shooting out of the ocean surrounded by pristine water, coral, and fish. After exploring the archipelago we took a 7 hour boat ride up to Coron where we spent a day diving through World War II shipwrecks. I never thought that I would be swimming through shipwrecks 90 feet below the ground, I am truly a lucky man.

The Philippines

Posted on 1 March, 2013 by Davy

The Philippines is unlike any country I’ve been to before. Truly a tropical paradise complete with beautiful white sand beaches, crystal clear blue waters, jungles, volcanoes, coconuts, and beautiful sunsets.

We spent our first two days at the city we flew into, Manila. A fairly trashy place with a million places that are really just fronts for prostitution. We didn’t do much except drink on the street with locals, enjoy the view from our balcony, and plan the rest of our month in the Philippines. After that we headed down to Legazpi, a beautiful city with an amazingly picturesque volcano rising out of the ground. Our real sights were on the nearby Donsol though where you can go swimming with Whale Sharks. Yes, WHALE SHARKS. The largest fish in the sea! Unfortunately after 2 days of scouring the ocean we came up empty handed. Disappointed but still with high spirits we left for our next city: Malapascua.

Malapascua is an amazingly beautiful island known for its diving (of the scuba kind) and, unfortunately, we didn’t know how to dive. So… what better place to learn than the Philippines? We spent 3 days studying, taking some quizes and tests, practicing our skills in shallow water, and then applying our skills in deeper dives. We are now certified PADI Open Water Scuba Divers and we went a step further and took the deep diving class as well. This means we are allowed to go down to depths of around 30 meters. We took advantage of this to go on the most popular dive in Malapascua: you dive down to about 30 meters where Thresher Sharks come every morning to get cleaned by little fish. It was a pretty incredible experience to see the sharks come out of the darkness and lazily float by us in the deep ocean waters.

Scuba diving, in fact, all of it is so incredibly surreal it’s impossible to describe in words. It’s kind of like being a space explorer, you can move your body around in all way shapes and forms. Also you feel like you are exploring a different world. A world with insane creatures you only briefly saw in a nature video one time (or have never seen at all). Regardless, I’m hooked. It’s awesome and I can’t wait to do it some more.

After Malapascua we headed over to Bohol where we saw one of the smallest primates on the planet: the tarsiers. These little creatures are only about 6 inches in length. After scoping out these little guys and their huge eyeballs we headed to an adventure sport park where we went across some ziplines and had the pleasure of riding their canyon swing. It’s a 200 meter swing that sends you across a valley and back. The longest swing of this type in the world, actually. Pretty amazing!

Tomorrow we are flying to Palawan, a remote series of islands that will have many more amazing things to enjoy.

Yangshuo, Zhangzhajie, and BEYOND

Posted on 13 February, 2013 by Davy

I’m in Shanghai right now and it sounds like a war is erupting outside. It’s that time again, that special time of the year: Chinese New Year! Ok, you may or may not know much about this (I was quite ignorant), but this holiday is BIG. BIGGER THAN CHRISTMAS. Basically Chinese people all go home, eat a ton of food, and fire off a lot of fireworks. The fireworks part goes on all the time, even during the day, even right now at 1 am 3 days after the technical New Year.

Backtracking a little… after Guilin we took a boatride to Yangshuo. Yangshuo is a city in China you could spend a longgg time in. Beautiful mountains, rivers, caves, it’s easy to see why it’s one of the most visited cities in China. Thankfully we’re in the offseason so instead of places being packed we get a lot of freedom to ourselves. We kayaked one day, biked around another day, and rode around on a motorbike for a third day. We ate a lot of amazing food including hamburgers, pizza, and one of my favorite beers (Duvel) all of which are difficult to find while traveling.

Post Yangshuo we took an overnight train to Zhangjiajie, a postcard misty mountain National Park in China. Although the weather was not great we had an excellent time exploring the mountains for a few days before heading up to Shanghai and then to Zhenjiang, Lu’s hometown, for Chinese New Year. This is my second time visiting her family so I know more what to expect and I feel like I didn’t embarrass myself as much as last year. Her family is incredibly hospitable and nice to me but I was disappointed my Mandarin didn’t get me as far as I had hoped. They all speak a local dialect that basically sounds like a completely different language to me. At dinner I smile and try to be friendly while not understanding anything that’s going on. Still, it went better than last time because I can communicate 1 on 1 with them alright (not great) when they speak standard Mandarin to me. After 4 days of feasting and lighting fireworks with them I find myself back in Shanghai staying with an old friend from Asheville, Max Peck. Excited to head to the Philippines tomorrow and get away from the cold!

Guilin

Posted on 1 February, 2013 by Davy

I’m currently in one of the most touristy sections of China but getting a unique experience since it’s also the middle of the off season. We explored a famous section of rice terraces that must be swarming with people in the Summer but now it felt like exploring an abandoned mountainside now. There are little towns made for tourists that are completely devoid of life except for farmers, builders, and the horses they use to haul things. It’s not particularly cold here but the weather in Guilin is not the best. Except for today the weather has been overcast most of the time with the Sun refusing to peek through. Still, traveling in the off season has its perks and personally I think it’s fantastic.

Exploring the Longsheng rice terraces was beautiful. We had a fun time getting there as well. Since this is the off season there is a lack of transportation around certain sections of the terraces. To get from the second to the third mountain we ended up walking an hour downhill and then hoping a bus would come down below… but it didn’t. So we walked and then randomly asked a Chinese guy if we could rent his motorcycle to which he answered surprisingly YES. We gave the guy 10 dollars and he helped me pilot a motorcycle for the first time in my life. It was like driving a manual transmission car, complete with a clutch, gear shifting, and stalling out. Not easy to start, my shin still has bruises from the kick starter, but riding through the valley without any windows or metal in between you and the incredible scenery that surrounds you is always my favorite way to go. Amazing!

We explored some caves in Guilin, one of which was the largest I’ve ever been to. Aside from simply walking through the cave (which isn’t enough for the millions of Chinese tourists that flock to Guilin every year), you can ride a roller coaster like car through a large section of it which leads you to a massive room where you then go down and ride a boat back to the start. It’s pretty ridiculous and definitely entertaining. We liked the roller coaster cars so much we rode them twice and since there is basically nobody in the cave there was nobody at the end to give us a boat ride back this time. Not wanting to wait we ended up walking back along the roller coaster track much to the dismay of the Chinese cave operators who neglected to put any kind of “don’t walk this way” sign. There was no danger involved, don’t worry folks.

We rode an open top bamboo raft (just Lu and I… oh and technically the bamboo is really PVC pipe) from Guilin to Yangshuo which was beautiful and we are currently enjoying our time here in Yangshuo. Yangshuo is definitely one of my favorite places I’ve been so far but more on that next time.

Hpa-an

Posted on 27 January, 2013 by Davy

Hpa-an was easily one of my favorite places in Myanmar and I’m glad we traveled off the beaten path a bit to get there. We spent 3 days there exploring caves, climbing mountains, and riding around on a motorbike we rented. The caves had a lot of diversity, my favorite being an enormous one that takes about 15 minutes to walk through with the necessary aid of a flashlight. At the end you ride a boat (basically just a tree cut in half and cleaned up a bit) through another cave and then around some mountains and past incredibly picturesque rice paddies.

I am writing this from the air conditioned luxury of a Kuala Lumpur hotel room. KL is incredibly hot and muggy… and it’s the middle of Winter right now. I can’t imagine how much I would despise the weather here in the Summer. Last night Lu and I had an amazing Italian dinner (yes, we are craving pizza) followed by drinking and swimming for hours at a bar/club called Luna Bar that’s on the 34th floor. Tomorrow we will fly to Guilin, China to explore more scenery.

Inle Lake, Golden Rock, Mawlamyine

Posted on 24 January, 2013 by Davy

Today is my last day in the wonderful country of Myanmar and I miss it already. So much has happened since the last post it’s tough to know where to begin and even harder to condense it into anything digestible.

Continue reading →

Kalaw to Inle Lake

Posted on 14 January, 2013 by Davy

Kalaw to Inle Lake was a relaxing three day hike where I didn’t have to take care of anything. Just a guide leading us through fields, winding us around back roads, taking us to villages, showing us our accommodation, preparing food for us, and otherwise making sure that things are going well. The countryside has been beautiful and the people exceedingly nice to us. The weather has been fantistic. I was thinking all of Myanmar would be scorching but actually it was not bad during the day and pretty cold at night.

Now we are at Nyaung Shwe, a decidedly Burmese and picturesque town situated by Inle Lake and its surrounding mountains. We’ve taken multiple rides around the lake seeing how the locals fish (we ate a big, whole fish tonight for a measly 2 dollars), seeing their floating gardens and houses on bamboo poles, and enjoying the nearby hot spring. Tomorrow we will go on a horse ride in the surrounding mountains and then go for another sunset boat ride before we head out back down to Southern Myanmar the next day.

It’s been nice relaxing in the same city for a few days. We’ve had a great time hanging out with our hiking group that we met going from Kalaw to Inle Lake. It consisted of a French-Cambodian pair of twins, an Israeli (now American), as well as a couple from the Netherlands and Poland. One of my favorite parts about traveling is getting the chance to make friends with people from countries I haven’t yet had the chance to visit and this part of the journey has been a great example of that. Gadi, the 57 year old Israeli, is particularly motivational as I hope to have an adventurous spirit at his age as well.

Yangon + Bagan

Posted on 8 January, 2013 by Davy

I’m sitting in an internet cafe in Kalaw, Myanmar right now surrounded by locals Facebooking and playing online computer games. There’s a Buddhist temple shining from floodlights about 100 feet away. I was enjoying the sparkling gold view of it when I was outside peeing by the side of the road surrounded by wild dogs (no bathroom here).

I’m almost overwhelmed by the amount of things I could write about the last week in Myanmar. Not even a week. Myanmar is an amazing place full of happy, friendly people. Truly a testament to how consumerism and materialism are anything but the key to a happy life. Lu and I wandered up some hills today through a village made mostly of bamboo, wood, and some cement. There is a considerable amount of trash lining the dirt paths because there is basically 0 sanitation system. Still, despite the lack of modern conveniences and excess there were smiles all around. Adults were listening to loud music in the streets, laughing and joking with each other. Children were gleefully playing badminton at the mountain peak. Multiple kids ran up to Lu and I, smiled, gave us flowers, then shyly ran off back to their homes. Basically everybody we look at smiles at us and either says “Hello” or “Min Galar Pa” (hello in Burmese).

The last 2 days we spent in Bagan, a city with countless temples constructed between 11th and 13th centuries. The first day we rented bicycles and bike around and the second day we rented a horse cart and driver to transport us in style. Truly an incredible experience to get comfortably pulled behind a horse exploring 800 year old temples all day.

Our first night in Bagan we ended up staying at local’s hut drinking toddy and dancing around a fire. He made us dinner and breakfast the next morning on the fire in his (dirt) yard. More details and pictures later.

Tomorrow we are heading out on a 3 day, 2 night trek through the hills here from Kalaw to Inle Lake. I’m not exactly sure what awaits us but I’m pretty confident it’s going to be awesome.

Here’s an overwhelming large amount of pictures. The first set is from Bagan and the second set is the rest of the pictures from Yangon.

Bagan:

Yangon: