niniane | Entries tagged with travel

10/28 – Beijing

After the delayed flight/eyeball incident, we all wanted to sleep in. So we got up around 10 am the next morning and made it to the Forbidden City. The last time I was there, there was literally no one (well, maybe 10 other people, but...you could wander almost alone...) there. This time there were fewer people than Golden Week, but still enough that it was crazy. So we spent an hour or so to climb the entirely unexciting gate that overlooks Tian'An Men, then spent another hour getting tickets to the city.

( Beijing is Amazing - You WANT to See the Pictures )

10/25 – Tashkorgan to Kashgar

Anyway, before I went to sleep yesterday, I tried out milk beer which was...interesting. The first sip was revolting (as I got mostly the yeast mat, ugh!) But after that it was...okay. It was slightly alcoholic, buttery, yougurty, very sweet stuff. I may have to try a recipe and see if I can market it as it's a lot better than kambucha and can extol many of the same properties. Huh.

( Many Exciting Adventures After the Cut )

10/23 – Kashgar

Got up bright and early in Kashgar and went hunting for a travel agent that would take us along the Karakorum highway. It took us a bit to find him, but he was in a lovely hotel that used to be the Russian embassy in Kashgar dating back from the 1950s. We arranged the tour and managed to get by without a guide since I speak a sufficient amount of Mandarin that he thought it safe to leave us with a Mandarin only speaking driver. (He could not go as only ethnic Han Chinese are allowed permits to leave Kashgar.) He arranged all the visas for our trip (...why do we need a visa? We're not leaving the country...but such is the deal with travel in Xinjiang) and made some remarks about security being tighter, supposedly because of ISIS, etc.

( So many adventures! )

10/20 – Turpan to Aksu

Got on the taxi bright and early and made it to the train station with time to spare. We went through security five times to get in. (I mean, I guess it's not really all that surprising that somewhere where you have to go through security twice to get into a grocery store also requires five security checks for a train, but it did feel a bit silly, especially after tickets had been checked against passports for the third time, luggage x-rayed for a third time, being patted down a third time, etc.)

( As the adventures get more adventurous... )

10/17 – Turpan

Woke up at a nice, reasonable time and started roaming the city. We started off by walking towards the museum, finding police officers literally everywhere. Going into a hotel involved showing your passport, putting your belongings through an x-ray machine, and walking through a metal detector. So did walking through stores. Police officers were literally everywhere. There weren't just the ubiquitous scans (in one store, we had to walk through two – one at the entrance of the building, another to get into the store), there were also groups of police officers walking around together with shields and batons.

( And Turpan After Cut )

10/14 – Dunhuang

Got to the train station rather early and got in line for the train to Dunhuang (which was delayed...yargh, but luckily only by about a half hour). We ran into a British couple that had been traveling for about a month and a half now (and will be traveling for a year in total) who we chatted with for a bit.

( And my adventures in a great Buddhist monastery, behind cut )

10/12 – Jiayuguan

Got on the bullet train after boarding the bus from hell. (It was super crowded and clearly not at all designed for people carrying stuff. WHICH I GET. But we had to carry stuff, so it sucked.) It did eventually lurch into the train station, which has very few shops, but is otherwise quite nice. (It has a lovely reading room, children's play room, mother and baby room, a very fancy business class room, etc I couldn't find the foreigner room that ws advertised online as having lots of foreign language books, but didn't care all that much anyway...) then got into my fancy first class seat. (See last post for love of train station stuff.)

( Jiayuguan pics! )

10/8 – Lanzhou

We arrived in Lanzhou almost perfectly on time (Chinese trains are awesome) and found a cab driver somehow. (I was amazed at how literally every cab had someone booked. How does this happen?) As we drove over to the hotel, he was quite fascinated in where we were from, what we were doing (in Mandarin, of course), etc. I think this was in large part as Lanzhou isn't exactly a tourist mecca, so it was exceedingly peculiar for a bunch of white people to be there. (Especially, I think, a white woman who speaks any Chinese at all – although to be fair, I can more easily find white people who speak Chinese than white people who don't speak Chinese off in the hinterlands. The farther out you go in China, the more likely it is that foreign tourists speak at least *some* Mandarin as it becomes increasingly necessary.)

( More after cut )

Anyhow, we finished the "short Inca trail" (aka short hike from train) to the Sun Gate. And just let me say...WORTH IT!

At the Sun Gate. Note that Machu Picchu is technically behind me.
( More after cut )ngs!

Anyway, after a day of acclimatizing in Cusco, we went off to explore the Sacred Valley.

We started by stopping by the weaver's cooperative in Chinchero, where we were greeted by delighted weekies.

Guinea pigs, trying to get food.

The weavers, knowing what tourists like, had a huge guinea pig enclosure at the front of their building. The guinea pigs were fed by tourists, so went absolutely bonkers whenever someone came by. (And then offered them some delicious barley stalks which they inhaled.) They were super cute.

( Read more... )

Anyway, just returned from a very quick trip to Peru! I was able to see Lima, Cusco, and Machu Picchu (very fast, obviously!), which was awesome since...Peru! I rather want to go back with more time sometime in the future to see the Nazca lines and Lake Titicaca. (Although this obviously will be saved for sometime in the future.) But I would highly recommend the country. The food is delicious (supposedly Lima has some of the best food in the world - I could believe it!), the people are friendly, and the scenery is spectacular!

Anyhow, I started by getting my complementary pisco sour at the hotel. (These are tiny, BTW! Most were large, though.) Pisco is a grape brandy and a pisco sour is just...brandy with sour mix (( Read more... )

We woke up around 6 the next morning so that we could get to the wall ahead of everyone else and ride bikes on it. Dad accidentally led us to the north wall, and we bought a double ticket to the city wall and the Beilin Museum (Forest of Steles) then rented bikes and rode around. I can see why it's a popular adventure! The full circuit of the wall is 14 km, so easily doable in two hours on a bike, even getting on and off frequently, and it's well sign posted with interesting things to see about the city. A few of these were various points where ancient courts and markets had existed, a lama temple (complete with a gold leaf roof and a Bodhi tree that had its own house complete with curtains), and all kinds of defense ramparts and guard towers. We cycled only to the south gate, then got out to go to the Forest of Steles.

I got into Beijing late in the night and taxied into the hostel with my parents. It was a standard hostel – clean enough, quiet enough, and central enough. Yay! (Probably the amenities were less than with many hostels – no real restaurant that I could find. But it was near restaurants, so whatever.)

By our hostel was a book store with a bunch of students passed out inside. I found this vaguely hilarious for some reason.

( More below )

Anyhow, have moved to Dreamwidth since it feels about time. I'm Mutive over there (in case anyone cares - I'm guessing not, but hey!)

Anyway, back to the vacation posting! Next on the cruise ship itinerary was St. Kitts and Nevis, a part of the British Empire. It was apparently found by Christopher Columbus, who gave Nevis its name because the clouds on the top of the island looked like snow. (St. Kitts I think is a touch more easily explained!) At least this is one version. There are also stories about how it was named after a "miraculous" snow in Rome attributed to Nuestra Senora de Nieves. So, yeah, whatever. It means snow even though the place is about as un-snowy as it gets.

Anyway, St. Kitts is known for a few things - it's gorgeous beaches, its medical schools, and it's UNESCO heritage monument, Brimstone Fortress. We were to see two of the three. (We did pass by the medical schools, which are used primarily by the US to train doctors who couldn't get into US schools. Clever. I'm thinking this might be a great place to retire...wonderful tropical environment + LOTS of doctors and nurses!)

Although St. Kitts and Nevis are former sugar colony islands, sugar is no longer grown there. (As our taxi driver pointed out, sugar cane growing is HARD work and you know what there are in St. Kitts and Nevis? Better jobs in training doctors and tourism.) But it's definitely part of the history, as we shall see at Brimstone Fortress.

( See more after cut, yadda yadda )