here, there, everywhere

Inside the Forbidden City; apparently all of China had the same idea as us yesterday, so it was massively, overwhelmingly crowded and we didn't have the energy to see all of it, though what we did manage to see was pretty amazing.

After crawling from our train to our hotel laden with way too much luggage and not enough sleep, we didn't really manage to see much of the city when we first arrived, so the massive entrance to the Forbidden City yesterday was one of my first impressions of Beijing.

There are monkeys ambling unconcernedly down the red dust roads leading to Angkor Wat and the surrounding temple complexes; Angkor Wat actually refers to a far vaster network of ancient temples and ruins that sprawl around the eponymous temple, so two days of early-morning exploration hasn't even begun to scratch the surface, and its possible to visit the temples by any combination of elephant, hot-air balloon, tour bus or bike/cyclo/moto. I opted for a motorcycle with a friendly, English-speaking driver, though the allure of this faded somewhat after spending several hours rattling down rocky, dusty, unpaved roads to more distant ruins (when I got back to my hotel and took a blessedly cold shower, the water ran red with dust that had caked on my face and arms.)

At any rate, here are a few photos from the first day (I found an internet cafe that accepts my USB card!); as always, more to follow.




The smiling faces of the Bayon temple at Angkor Thom.



One of my favorite places so far - Ta Prom, a ruined temple reclaimed by the jungle.



Angkor Wat resident.

Luang Prabang is so indolent that it's easy to spend a whole day wandering from cafe to cafe without getting much done; on Monday, wanting a break from the endless supply of fruit smoothies and internet cafes, and lured by the idyllic write-ups, I took a bus to Nong Khiaw and then a one hour boat to the small town of Muang Ngoi, a quasi-distant town in the mountains, accessible only by river.

An empty petang court; early morning mist rising over the mountains.

The boat ride over was a bit uncomfortable - I got on the small, extremely narrow boat early enough when it was just me and a handful of locals; then, about 5 minutes before departure, about thirty backpackers came down the dock, and the boatman quickly herded all the Lao passengers onto a separate boat, which promptly took off, before packing all 30+ tourists and their gigantic backpacks onboard. I'm still not exactly sure how we all fit on that tiny boat (curled up knee to knee and cheek to jowel, with room for me to put exactly one foot on the ground at a time) but at least there was a short break when the water became too shallow and we all had to get off and hike for about thirty minutes along the shore. It was a beautiful hike through sandy beaches and shady trails through the jungle overhung with sinuous vines and flowers, so I didn't particularly mind the detour. The next morning, I bought my ticket as early as possible, hoping to avoid the overcrowding, but there seems to be one tourist boat to and from the town per day, so we got to do the same thing all over again, minus the hike.

 

Falang-friendly signs proliferate; a "falang roll" apparently involves peanut butter (waffles not included.)

Despite its isolation, Muang Ngoi seems to be a fairly well-established stop on the tourist
trail, and so the town didn't quite match the antediluvian descriptions found in Lonely Planet - there are phones wires criss-crossing the streets now - but it was beautiful and remote nonetheless. The unpaved red-dust roads are scattered with chickens and small children playing and maybe one or two bicycles; at dusk, when we arrived, people were slowly picking their way to and from the river to bathe before dinner. The electricity blinked on unsteadily at around 7pm, and the night was loud with the sounds of insects and the occasional tinny, syrupy Lao pop music from the small storefronts along the main drag.

Foot traffic in Muang Ngoi.

Kids playing on the riverside amidst flowers and a cloud of butterflies.

Banks of the Mekong.


In Chiang Khong on the Laos-Thailand border, where they've been celebrating the Thai new year for four days (and counting) of non-stop waterfights. Yesterday the festivities reached a fever pitch, with the entire main drag through town a virtual water park, with kids stationed by ominously huge tin drums of water and flatbed trucks of teenagers cruising back and forth, soaking everything they passed; the only break came when a small parade rattled its way through town, though even then the trucks were filled with the occasional Buddha statue and ... more people throwing water. Today is a bit quieter (it's noon and I'm still relatively dry), though the flatbed trucks are still looping their way through the streets and you can hear the odd splosh of water hitting the pavement amidst shrieks of laughter every few minutes.




Kids splashing in the Thailand-side of the Mekong.


Chiang Khong itself is a smallish border town stretched out alongside the Mekong, and yesterday the opposite bank in Laos was filled with bright tents and hundreds of people splashing around in the river to the accompaniment of tinny, festive music. Later that night, after managing to dry off from my walk through town, there was an amazing thunderstorm, with apocalyptically huge bolts of lightening cracking over the Mekong; every so often the power would blink out for a moment on the opposite bank, leaving it pitch dark except for the odd headlights and flash of lightening for just a moment before the electricity would come flickering back on.




Laos party!


There isn't a lot to do in Chiang Khong (unless you count the nearby tourist restaurant that offers Food! Drink! Disco!) , especially since being drenched by overzealous crowds of friendly-but-determined teenagers starts to loose its novelty after a few hours, so I'm glad I took advantage of Chiang Mai's touristy amenities and stocked up on non-guidebook reading material (House of Spirits, A Hundred Years of Solitude, both of which are looking a bit waterstained by now). At any rate, tomorrow I head into Laos, where I'll spend two days traveling south by boat to Louang Prabang. Happy Thai/Lao/Cambodia new years!

On Sunday, I took a brief break from lesson planning and the Present Perfect Continuous tense to take a day trip to Tam Coc, which is advertised as "Halong Bay on land," which confused me, until I got there (this ... might make more sense if I had posted photos of Halong Bay, which I promise I will soon). Tam Coc means "three caves" (I think?) and a trip there consists of getting into a tiny boat and being rowed through three caves that straddle the river. Most of the boats are rowed by women, and - like the real Halong Bay - it is inevitably quite touristy, with boats of tourists occasionally clacking into one another, but the entire area is astonishingly beautiful.



These guys were acting as the boat traffic directors on top of this narrow passageway.



Maggie, this photo is especially for you.

  








Above: a few more of the river and the palace ruins at Hoa Lu.

In Sevilla, which is so hot I´m wearing a tanktop and finding excuses to stop walking around so much in the unfamiliar sun; I only have a few minutes left of what I´m pretty sure is free internet at the Tourist Office, so for now I just wanted to say that the high point of being in Spain (aside from making it to Chapter Two of Harry Potter y la piedra filosofal) has definitely been the Antiguo Museo de Brujería, or museum of witchcraft, which tragically does not have a huge internet presence, unless you count numerous directions to the travel sites that tragically advise their readers to´walk past the witchcraft museum¨ on their way to bigger, less unexpectedly awesome and kitschy venues. The museum itself is about five euros (though the guy gave me two books for free, so it sort of balanced out) and made up of several dimly lit rooms that house a comprehensive exhibit of medieval poisons and hallucinigens (from which comes the title of this post) and a collection of false relics, including but not limited to: the holy grail, the head of elizabeth bathory, the hand of a hanged man, a mummified mermaid, a fairy floating in a jar of formeldahyde, the elixer of eternal youth, an impressive array of stuffed mythological animals and a case of what I can only describe as 'penis monsters.' And, lest you think being a witch was all potions and sex with demons, the basement includes a slightly more somber collection of torture implements and accounts of witch trials. BEST MUSEUM EVER.

So last weekend I took a three day whirlwind bus tour of Wales, which turned out to be lots of fun; here are more photos of Wales, in roughly chronological order, than you probably thought you'd want to look at, but oh well:

Caerphilly Castle (yes, that tower is actually crooked)

This ruined church overlooks the more-celebrated ruins of Tintern Abbey; it was hollowed out by fire in the 1970s, which means it doesn't quite have the history or the ridiculously-long-when-you-have-pages-and-pages-of-Romantic-literature-reading-to-do (sorry, I mean "famous and terribly significant") poem associated with it, but I liked it almost more just the same; the stones are all overgrown with ivy (and swarming with hungry insects but I'm almost used to that by now) and it's really quite beautiful.

sheep in the mist









Books for sale at Hay-On-Wye, the "Town of Books" which is - apparently, not Wales, but rather it's own Kingdom, according to the bookstore map I consulted. These ones were 35p each.




Mount Snowdon (pictured here, directly above, and in the first Wales entry I posted) ws my favorite place in all of Wales, and it was so so frustrating to be on a bus tour at that point and be hustled away from it instead of getting to hike around an explore more. Also it has a stone quarry that looks sort of like Mordor, if you're a nerd like me, and the bus driver blasted Sigur Ross as we wound our way up the mountain, both of which were pretty awesome.


I walked across this aqueduct and did not fall off. Awesome.

I had been a bit apprehensive about doing bus tour since I've gotten pretty used to traveling under my own schedule and was worried I wouldn't have anyone to talk to, but it turned out to be pretty fun and a nice change of pace; also I made it to a pub for the first time (which sounds sort of pathetic but come on, pubs are no fun alone) since our hostel was right below one, where we played a pub quiz and I won a free pint of Brains beer (best! name! ever!) for knowing the answer to "What girl's name did J.M. Barrie invent?" Thanks, Mom!