Thursday, November 26, 2009
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
The Stans - Kazakhstan & Uzbekistan
The Stans were originally the highlight of our Bordertrekkers trip. Unfortunately due to G's father illness and her 5.5 week stay in Germany it got drastically reduced to just a week in Almaty (Kazakhstan) and a short 2 week round trip through Uzbekistan. Nevertheless, G&T obviously were really happy to continue their trip and The Stans presented us with some true marvels:
First of all, after nearly three months of Chinese (vegetable) food, Almaty in Uzbekistan was such a welcoming change for T that he had a meet shashlik extravaganza at least twice a day. The Kazakh do know how to do a good skewer of meet and also have great beer to accompany it (Derbes). Apart from that (and the abundance of well dressed Kazakh women), I found Almaty surprisingly boring with typical Soviet style architecture dominating the streets and no real city centre to do people watching. Venturing outside the city, some amazing sites are within a day trip distance from Almaty: First of all Chimbulak, a ski resort, where snow capped mountains can be seen even in summer. And secondly Charyn Canyon, the Grand Canyon of Kazakhstan which with its deep gorges and steep red rocks it does look as impressive as its American counterpart.
Arriving in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, felt like leaving Asia and entering the Middle East. Huge Islamic bazaars and mosques as opposed to Soviet style basilicas, Muslim women dress code as opposed to Western style fashion, more Uzbek language as opposed to just Russian.
After finally meeting G at the airport in Tashkent, the two of us went on a "Arabian Nights" / "1001 Nacht" trip through the ancient cities of Khiva, Bukhara, and Samarkand with a side excursion to the horrible environmental disaster site of the Aral sea. All three cities were scattered with old mosques and medressas (Islamic schools) dating back to the 13th century (after the Mongols left most of Central Asia destroyed). All buildings were true marvels of old times and had beautiful tile work on display, mostly held in blue colours. However, due to a keen renovation government programme, most of the old buildings were a bit over renovated and quite often it was hard to imagine that the site in front of us dated back nearly thousand years. Somehow it felt like walking within a giant museum rather than a living old town. Nevertheless, all buildings were very impressive and Bordertrekkers recommend Uzbekistan as a travel destination (G more than T).
A welcoming change to old buildings although quite daunting was the trip to a desert landscape formerly known as Aral Sea. A too ambitious Soviet project to grow cotton in a desert lead to an impressively complex irrigation system all over Uzbekistan, but also to a disastrous disappearing of the lake and many related health problems for the people living there. We visited the fishing village of Moynak where old fishing ships are stranded on sand. Apparently, since the start of the cotton project in the 60s, water levels fell by 18 meters and the lake has declined to 10% of it original size!!
So ... The Stans fascinated us enough to put them on the list of potential destinations in the future, but we will make sure to come in summer (when it's warm) and seriously brush up our Russian (as communication without Russian is difficult).
First of all, after nearly three months of Chinese (vegetable) food, Almaty in Uzbekistan was such a welcoming change for T that he had a meet shashlik extravaganza at least twice a day. The Kazakh do know how to do a good skewer of meet and also have great beer to accompany it (Derbes). Apart from that (and the abundance of well dressed Kazakh women), I found Almaty surprisingly boring with typical Soviet style architecture dominating the streets and no real city centre to do people watching. Venturing outside the city, some amazing sites are within a day trip distance from Almaty: First of all Chimbulak, a ski resort, where snow capped mountains can be seen even in summer. And secondly Charyn Canyon, the Grand Canyon of Kazakhstan which with its deep gorges and steep red rocks it does look as impressive as its American counterpart.
Arriving in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, felt like leaving Asia and entering the Middle East. Huge Islamic bazaars and mosques as opposed to Soviet style basilicas, Muslim women dress code as opposed to Western style fashion, more Uzbek language as opposed to just Russian.
After finally meeting G at the airport in Tashkent, the two of us went on a "Arabian Nights" / "1001 Nacht" trip through the ancient cities of Khiva, Bukhara, and Samarkand with a side excursion to the horrible environmental disaster site of the Aral sea. All three cities were scattered with old mosques and medressas (Islamic schools) dating back to the 13th century (after the Mongols left most of Central Asia destroyed). All buildings were true marvels of old times and had beautiful tile work on display, mostly held in blue colours. However, due to a keen renovation government programme, most of the old buildings were a bit over renovated and quite often it was hard to imagine that the site in front of us dated back nearly thousand years. Somehow it felt like walking within a giant museum rather than a living old town. Nevertheless, all buildings were very impressive and Bordertrekkers recommend Uzbekistan as a travel destination (G more than T).
A welcoming change to old buildings although quite daunting was the trip to a desert landscape formerly known as Aral Sea. A too ambitious Soviet project to grow cotton in a desert lead to an impressively complex irrigation system all over Uzbekistan, but also to a disastrous disappearing of the lake and many related health problems for the people living there. We visited the fishing village of Moynak where old fishing ships are stranded on sand. Apparently, since the start of the cotton project in the 60s, water levels fell by 18 meters and the lake has declined to 10% of it original size!!
So ... The Stans fascinated us enough to put them on the list of potential destinations in the future, but we will make sure to come in summer (when it's warm) and seriously brush up our Russian (as communication without Russian is difficult).
Monday, October 5, 2009
China: Chenglish
The Urban Dictionary defines Chenglish as: 'inaccurate or faulty translation from Putonghua or Chinese into English, frequently humorous'. Timo and I have to agree, more than once we had to laugh out loud reading translated signs. Have a look at the pictures above. Unfortunately, we forgot to take a picture of my favourite, a motorway sign reading: 'warning continuous downgrading' (translates 'careful long downhill stretch ahead').
Saturday, October 3, 2009
China - The South West
You may be wondering how can you possibly top our experience of the "Katze im Sack Tours"? Bordertrekkers have to say that China is an amazing country to travel in with nearly endless possibilities and after 2.5 months of travelling China there is still plenty of China that needs to be explored. Bordertrekkers certainly will be back for sure!
After our return to Chengdu and more than 5500km in a 4WD, we really needed a rest and our Chengdu friends were so kind to let us stay in their lovely appartment for another relaxing week. It's probably testament to real travellers that we got ichy feed again after this week and continued our adventure to explore China's South West with the provinces Yunnan, Guangxi, Hainan and finally Hong Kong / Macau.
First, we took a flight to Lijiang, an area with a couple of very traditional Chinese villages. It's been great to get out of the cities and experience real traditional village life. Have a look through the pictures above, they will say more than 1000 words and it's been good to see that although all the progress and modernisation that is evident throughout China, traditional village life is preserved for tourists (in the case of Lijiang) and also lived (in the case of Baisha and Shuhe where we stayed).
Further north, the Tiger Leaping Gorge provided a challenging trekking opportunity for our upcoming trip to Nepal. We climbed up steep tracks to the top of the mountain (the apparently 18 bends up there turned out to be 42, but it felt like a hundred). The Tiger Leaping Gorge is one of the deepest gorges in the world with spectacular drops of up to 4000m from the mountain peaks down to the roaring Yangzi river.
After two exhausting days we needed some rest (again) in the lovely town of Dali. Dali with it's old town and the nearby lake is very accessible for Western backpackers with lots of bars, restaurants and hippies, but still managed to keep its old Chinese village charm. We were delighted to find the German owned Bakery 88 for our Leibspeise project (see article on our Leibspeise blog).
A long bus ride followed by a 18h train ride brought us to Guillin which is famous for its karst mountain sceneries and Dragon's Bone Rice Terraces. Unfortunately, we had to separate in Guilin as Gislind had to fly home to her critically ill dad (thanks god, the immediate life threatening situation has passed and he is now on his long way to recovery). Timo continued as single bordertrekker with a cruise down the Li River, plenty of bamboo rafts and mountain bike rides around Yangshou brought these amazing karst mountains perfectly into display.
After our return to Chengdu and more than 5500km in a 4WD, we really needed a rest and our Chengdu friends were so kind to let us stay in their lovely appartment for another relaxing week. It's probably testament to real travellers that we got ichy feed again after this week and continued our adventure to explore China's South West with the provinces Yunnan, Guangxi, Hainan and finally Hong Kong / Macau.
First, we took a flight to Lijiang, an area with a couple of very traditional Chinese villages. It's been great to get out of the cities and experience real traditional village life. Have a look through the pictures above, they will say more than 1000 words and it's been good to see that although all the progress and modernisation that is evident throughout China, traditional village life is preserved for tourists (in the case of Lijiang) and also lived (in the case of Baisha and Shuhe where we stayed).
Further north, the Tiger Leaping Gorge provided a challenging trekking opportunity for our upcoming trip to Nepal. We climbed up steep tracks to the top of the mountain (the apparently 18 bends up there turned out to be 42, but it felt like a hundred). The Tiger Leaping Gorge is one of the deepest gorges in the world with spectacular drops of up to 4000m from the mountain peaks down to the roaring Yangzi river.
After two exhausting days we needed some rest (again) in the lovely town of Dali. Dali with it's old town and the nearby lake is very accessible for Western backpackers with lots of bars, restaurants and hippies, but still managed to keep its old Chinese village charm. We were delighted to find the German owned Bakery 88 for our Leibspeise project (see article on our Leibspeise blog).
A long bus ride followed by a 18h train ride brought us to Guillin which is famous for its karst mountain sceneries and Dragon's Bone Rice Terraces. Unfortunately, we had to separate in Guilin as Gislind had to fly home to her critically ill dad (thanks god, the immediate life threatening situation has passed and he is now on his long way to recovery). Timo continued as single bordertrekker with a cruise down the Li River, plenty of bamboo rafts and mountain bike rides around Yangshou brought these amazing karst mountains perfectly into display.
All these activities needed to be followed by another relaxing week or two on China's only beach island of Hainan where Sanya provided the perfect hangout near the beach with plenty of fresh seafood restaurants. You literally could point at any living seafood creature possible in small aquariums and 15 minutes later you had the best and freshest seafood you could imagine.
The buzzing city of Hong Kong with all its expat bars and clearly British heritage was a welcoming return to a Western culture.
So, how did we like China after travelling around nearly have of this massively big country for 2.5 months? In a nutshell, we simply loved it. Yes, the big city pollution is a problem, so the tight government grip on its citizens and censorship which denies you to access for example blogs or BBC, Chinese spitting habits need some time to get used to, summer can be unbearably hot and communication can be very tricky without speaking the language, but we discovered a nation full of really friendly and helpful people and a diversity of cultures that hardly any other country can match.
So, how did we like China after travelling around nearly have of this massively big country for 2.5 months? In a nutshell, we simply loved it. Yes, the big city pollution is a problem, so the tight government grip on its citizens and censorship which denies you to access for example blogs or BBC, Chinese spitting habits need some time to get used to, summer can be unbearably hot and communication can be very tricky without speaking the language, but we discovered a nation full of really friendly and helpful people and a diversity of cultures that hardly any other country can match.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
China's Southwest or Katze im Sack Tour - Part I
As many of you know, we have two lovely German friends who live and work in Chengdu, the capital of the province of Sechuan. Mirko and Olli visited us in Sydney in February and mentioned that they will be touring western China in July, so they offered us to join their little trip. There were a number of compelling reasons to accept the offer: 1) Mirko is a diplomat, so nothing can happen to us, 2) Mirko speaks fluently Mandarin, so we won't starve, 3) Olli is a good old friend of mine and always fun, 4) we can travel in our a private vehicle, so traveling will be more convenient. Most of the reasons turned out to be true, but reason number 4, the roads in China are shocking and traveling takes a lot of time (have a look at the pics). As we practically booked an 'organised' trip, Timo and I did not really look into where we would be going or what to expect. That's why we named the 19 day adventure: Katze im Sack Tour (pig in a poke tour).
After having spent 4 days in muggy Beijing, we flew to Chengdu where Mirko started the Katze im Sack tour with a personal airport pick up. Upon arrival we received instructions on what to expect: 19 days traveling, 6000 km to cover, spending every night in another hotel, crossing 4,000m high passes, passing military and police checks with the possibility of being send back, driving through tibetan grassland, desert, minority villages as well as Chinese mega cities.
So initially 5 of us (tour guide Mirko, us and two other friends of Mirko's, Olli joined later) started the Katze im Sack Tour the day before the total solar eclipse on July 22. Aim was to see the eclipse on a 3,000m high holy buddhist mountain (Emei Shan), yet, everything was covered in thick clouds and mist, so we witnessed darkness, but no solar wind nor corona. Nevertheless, it was a very mystical experience as there is a monastery on the mountain top and pagoda and temples disappeared into the darkness only to be revealed again 6 minutes later.
Our tour continued through the mountains of northwest Sechuan, a landscape that impressively shows nature's force. We were traveling in the rainy seasons, so massive swollen rivers destroyed and landslides blocked roads and buried trucks or whole villages. Roads under construction became mud slides and 200km sometimes took more than 6h to cover. Mirko's appeasement strategy was to say loudly and frequently: "This is China, this is China".
Once we were past the dangerous terrain of rivers and gorges we entered the dreamlike world of the tibetan highland (tibetan autonomous region of Sechuan). There old style architecture is still preserved, houses are still being build with mud and straw bricks and decorated with ornamented windows and doors. It all looks very romantic as we love to discover the 'old' China, yet mobile phones and 4WDs are ubiquitous. Young people and kids dress normal, only old people seem to dress in a traditional way, time will show if traditions can survive. Thanks to the economic boom, most villages have electricity. In most regions air and water pollution seems to be more of a problem, not to speak of access to education or health care.
We spent almost a week in the tibetan highlands, witnessing by pure accident temple festivals were everyone was dressed in their best sunday outfit (as we would say in German), a village excited because a worshipped Lama was passing by in a car convoy, a very big monastery (Labrang) from the yellowhat order where the number of monks is limited by the Chinese government. The Tibetans in general are very strong believers in Buddhism and religion is part of every aspect of life. Once we stopped to take photos of prayer flags and noticed women walking bent on the road picking something undefinable from the road. As we were approaching them, we discovered that they were rescuing earthworms from passing cars.
From the tibetan grassland we travelled west into the desert. Yes, this is China's part of the Gobi and there is also a lot of nothing and something, mostly passes to climb, snow capped mountains, muslim minority villages, and our favourite city Golmud. Golmud is in the middle of the Gobi, it only exists because mineral richness surrounds the town. The city looks like someone dropped a lot of concrete in a very big sand playground, everything is artificial, the city can only survive because of its umbilical cord of trucks bringing goods and water in and out of town. For us, it epitomises hell on earth. It is an ideal place to put inmates or detainees, a bit like one imagines Siberia.
In the middle of the desert there are several oasis, one of the most famous is Dunhuang. Famous for its strategic position on the old Silk road; the city marks the end of civilisation (Gansu province) and the beginning of the unknown (Takla Makan desert) and was one of the highlights on our Katze im Sack Tour.....to be continued...
Friday, August 14, 2009
Mongolia update
What did we had in mind when we planned our trip to Mongolia? Probably the vastness of the never ending steppe, massive sand deserts, Mongolian gers (their nomadic tents, "jurten" in german), their love for goat products (milk, cheese, Cashmere) and of course the national hero Chengis Khan. We've spent 3.5 weeks travelling through Mongolia's Gobi desert, stayed in the striving capital Ulaanbaatar and were privileged to attend the famous national sport festival called Naadam, and yes, Mongolia certainly lives up to its stereotypes, but there is much more that meets the eye.
Take the vast steppe and the dry Gobi desert for example: Sure, the scenery doesn't change much and that's part of the Gobi fascination. However, if you look closer you discover the real richness of the Gobi. Quite surprisingly there's a lot of change in Gobi's nothingness: Every couple of kilometers you see a lonely set of gers where nomads still live like hundreds of years ago. animals and herders are never far away, but all of them already own a mobile phone and a satelite dish is decoratively placed outside every yurt tent. Then you have this enormous blue sky that doesn't want to end at the horizon, it's even bigger than in Australia. It also came to us as a big surprise that there is a lot of life in the Gobi desert. We came across a couple of camel and goat herds that eagerly waited next to wells for someone to pull up some water for them (which we of course always did on our tour). Last but certainly not least there are many spectacular mountain ranges (we even hiked to a deep valley that still had ice along the river bed) and the massive sand dunes of Khoryn Els. Yet, only 3 per cent of the Gobi consists of sand! Watching our driver navigating through the Gobi was another highlight. Picture a massively big field of steppe grass land, no trees, no mountains or houses let alone street signs to find orientation, just some tyre marks here and there in the dirt. Now you know how difficult it must be to find your way through the desert (much to our discomfort our driver had to ask for directions numerous times).
Then there is the quickly growing capital called Ulaanbaatar (UB) in the middle of all this nothingness. For us it was a bit like a beast: Soviet style inspired building blocks didn't make it look pretty, the non-existence of any driving rules made it chaotic and nearly dangerous of us to walk around (the bigger and stronger a car is, the faster it will reach its destination; red traffic lights don't mean that cars stop) and we could see and feel the (too) quick growth rate of the city. But UB also has its nice sides: Eg. the old monastery in the middle of town where ancient Buddhist traditions are still alive. Or the numerous traditional yurt tents in the middle of a 3 million inhabitant metropolis.In fact, half of all Mongolians still live in these yurt tents, but only a quarter are real nomads and move from place to place with all their belongings.
A true highlight towards the end of our trip was the national sports festival called Naadam Festival. Imagine the whole nation in a stand still for 3 days, all trying to look beautifully, some with colourful traditional Mongolian dresses all eagerly watching the three Naadam disciplines archery, horse riding and wrestling. There's also a fourth weird competition going on called angle bone shooting where three sportsmen try to hit 2 sheep bones in a distance of about 3.5m with a little square bone that gets accelerated on a angle bar through their ring fingers.
And of course, we were succesful in researching for Leibspeise. We could sample a German Wurstplatte at the Khan Bräu, and speak to the owner who is from Böblingen (around the corner from Leonberg, Gislind's hometown), we ate Berliner at the Sacher's Bakery and we found Liverwurst from Werner's Fleischwaren in the supermarket. Check out our Leibspeise blog for the Khan story.
Take the vast steppe and the dry Gobi desert for example: Sure, the scenery doesn't change much and that's part of the Gobi fascination. However, if you look closer you discover the real richness of the Gobi. Quite surprisingly there's a lot of change in Gobi's nothingness: Every couple of kilometers you see a lonely set of gers where nomads still live like hundreds of years ago. animals and herders are never far away, but all of them already own a mobile phone and a satelite dish is decoratively placed outside every yurt tent. Then you have this enormous blue sky that doesn't want to end at the horizon, it's even bigger than in Australia. It also came to us as a big surprise that there is a lot of life in the Gobi desert. We came across a couple of camel and goat herds that eagerly waited next to wells for someone to pull up some water for them (which we of course always did on our tour). Last but certainly not least there are many spectacular mountain ranges (we even hiked to a deep valley that still had ice along the river bed) and the massive sand dunes of Khoryn Els. Yet, only 3 per cent of the Gobi consists of sand! Watching our driver navigating through the Gobi was another highlight. Picture a massively big field of steppe grass land, no trees, no mountains or houses let alone street signs to find orientation, just some tyre marks here and there in the dirt. Now you know how difficult it must be to find your way through the desert (much to our discomfort our driver had to ask for directions numerous times).
Then there is the quickly growing capital called Ulaanbaatar (UB) in the middle of all this nothingness. For us it was a bit like a beast: Soviet style inspired building blocks didn't make it look pretty, the non-existence of any driving rules made it chaotic and nearly dangerous of us to walk around (the bigger and stronger a car is, the faster it will reach its destination; red traffic lights don't mean that cars stop) and we could see and feel the (too) quick growth rate of the city. But UB also has its nice sides: Eg. the old monastery in the middle of town where ancient Buddhist traditions are still alive. Or the numerous traditional yurt tents in the middle of a 3 million inhabitant metropolis.In fact, half of all Mongolians still live in these yurt tents, but only a quarter are real nomads and move from place to place with all their belongings.
A true highlight towards the end of our trip was the national sports festival called Naadam Festival. Imagine the whole nation in a stand still for 3 days, all trying to look beautifully, some with colourful traditional Mongolian dresses all eagerly watching the three Naadam disciplines archery, horse riding and wrestling. There's also a fourth weird competition going on called angle bone shooting where three sportsmen try to hit 2 sheep bones in a distance of about 3.5m with a little square bone that gets accelerated on a angle bar through their ring fingers.
And of course, we were succesful in researching for Leibspeise. We could sample a German Wurstplatte at the Khan Bräu, and speak to the owner who is from Böblingen (around the corner from Leonberg, Gislind's hometown), we ate Berliner at the Sacher's Bakery and we found Liverwurst from Werner's Fleischwaren in the supermarket. Check out our Leibspeise blog for the Khan story.
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