Stop #19 Hong Kong

See all 87 of our Hong Kong photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/kersti.miller/200905HongKong?authkey=Gv1sRgCO7V8ZfOh5fu9QE&feat=directlink

Sweet escape! We were really looking forward to Hong Kong, not only to get a break from some of the challenges of backpacking in Asia, but also because we had a gracious hostess, Geneva, Kersti’s old friend (and soccer & softball teammate) from high school. She was the best hostess ever! Her apartment was right in the middle of the city, just down the way from SoHo, the expat bar and restaurant scene.


Hong Kong has a really interesting expat community; everywhere we went it seemed Geneva knew someone and they all had exciting lives there. The city itself is very pretty, built around a harbour and with Victoria peak behind.


To get to the top of Victoria Peak, you first take the longest set of open air escalators in the world. It is a hilly city, so they come in handy, plus the rumour is they recently had a cameo in the Dark Knight. We then took the Peak Tram up to Victoria peak, which rans at a steep ~45 degree angle. The view from Victoria Peak back down over the city and harbour is really worthwhile, and there is a nice short loop at the top to walk around.


We also went to the Hong Kong Museum of History, and learned all about the Opium Wars and the handover of Honk Kong to the Chinese. It was interesting seeing the different perspectives of the handover, but so far everyone seems content. Afterwards, we went to the harbour front to see the skyline. At night they have a light and music show where they light up the skyscrapers to the music, it is a really pretty view if extremely corny.


Finally, our favourite part of our visit was when Geneva took us to the horse races with some of her friends. The horse track is right in the city, and is a very popular spot. We managed to break even, my best showing ever at a horse race!


Thanks Geneva for being such a fabulous hostess, and good luck with your return to the States!

At the horse races with our fab hostess Geneva.

Kersti after some exhausting window shopping. The convention center is behind her with the curved roof.

Going up to Victoria Peak on the Peak Tram, you can see why trams and escalators are needed!

The view from Victoria Peak

Late at night looking back over the harbour during the light show.

Stop #18 Guilin

To see all 45 of our Guilin shots, visit: http://picasaweb.google.com/kersti.miller/200905Guilin?authkey=Gv1sRgCP363qrJ84fE9wE&feat=directlink

After our adventures in Yangshuo we relaxed for a day in Guilin before our flight to Honk Kong. Guilin is a bit more industrial and much larger than Yangshuo, but it was still a nice relaxing stop with the worthwhile Seven Star Park.

We had a lovely time relaxing in the parks of Guilin.

It turned out that it was locked in place.


Kersti fortuitously discovered a panda exhibit in the middle of the park. Unfortunately, the exhibit wasn't complete, so they had the pandas temporarily (I hope) housed in bare cells. There were several pandas, and they seemed relatively content chewing down on their bamboo, but other animals at the nearby zoo were not so lucky. I recommend steering clear of Chinese zoos, it is depressing seeing the animals caged up like that.


We ended our night by having some delicious Sichuan food, including this chicken dish which was delic but ridic spicy. All that red is hot peppers...

Stop #17 Yangshou

From Lijiang we flew to Guilin, and then took a bus one hour south to Yangshou. The bus ride was made mildly more or less tolerable (depending on our tastes) by the video that was playing. From what we gathered, it was a Chinese version of Police Academy. It was soooo baaaad! The portrayal of women in the movie was horrific. Anyway, enough of that. We arrived in Yangshou at night so with the help of some Aussies, we found the main hotel drag and picked a nice hotel. At first I was not convinced that we should pay double to get a western toilet and was tempted to pay for our first squatter... but oh, if I were in a movie, the director would have paused for some foreshadowing... Our first night in Yangshou I got TERRIBLY ill and didn't leave the hotel room the following day. (Thank god for the western style toilet! ;)) Poor billy had to shuttle up and down the 4 flights of stairs constantly to get water, replace the DVDs, get himself food, get me some food (eventually)... he was a very good nurse!

During one of his excursions (for dinner I think), he was approached by a group of girls who asked him if we would accompany them on a bamboo boat tour down the Li River the following day, in exchange for some English practice. Billy left it up in the air with them (as my health was uncertain), but when they called the following morning just as they said they would, we decided to join them. (Note - billy thought they were 13-14 years old. But, as it happened, they were all 19+ and in university.)

The next day turned out to be a ton of fun, as Kersti was feeling good enough to join the students on the cruise down the river on the bamboo rafts. The rafts were powered by what looked like a lawn mower engine with a spinning blade out back, and zoomed over some very shallow water. The scenery was truly spectacular, with limestone karsts lining the banks. The students were really fun, they spoke limited english but were keen to try. Afterwards, they bought us a nice lunch (we ended up chipping in) at a Chinese restaurant. So Kersti's first meal back after being sick happened to be a huge Chinese banquet, but the food was all really good (not too surprising seeing how we had Chinese students to order for us).

The stunning limestone karsts surrounding Yangshuo, the whole area is all like this!

Two of our student friends with who we went on the bamboo rafts.

Our delicious chinese lunch after the rafting trip, including rice cooked in pumpkins!

Hiking amongst the karsts.

At a tourist site, we dressed up as Chinese royalty in costumes they would rent, it was hilarious. Tons of Chinese tourists got a total kick out of seeing us dressed up as well, and they even wanted to take pictures with us! It was totally corny, and totally worth doing!

Stop #16 Tiger Leaping Gorge

To see all 113 (I know, a lot!) of pictures from trek, check out:
http://picasaweb.google.com/kersti.miller/200905TigerLeapingGorge?authkey=Gv1sRgCPfh3ISE95Ho6wE&feat=directlink


From Lijiang we took a 2 hour bus ride through the country-side to the base of the Tiger Leaping Gorge. It's named after a legend that says a hunter was chasing a tiger and to get away, he lept across the river. It's quite a distance, so who knows ;)

The first day was a rigorous 5 hour climb, but the second was much more leisurely, and the third day even more so. We stayed in luxurious mountain hostels, so it was quite a nice trek all in all! It was amazing to be up in the mountains again, with the crisp, clean fresh air. Though I think this shocked our bodies which were used to the warmth and humidty of SE Asia as we were struck with horrifically chapped lips and dry skin!

All these captions have been provided by Billy, who so kindly sacrificed espn.com time to enter them and to add all the captions on picasa ;)

A yellow striped lizard along the trail.

I have no idea why that donkey keeps following me, or why the man wearing it is carrying my pack, or why I'm carrying Kersti's uber light pack, or why Kersti has no pack! (note from kersti... yes, we paid a mear $16 AUD for that luxury, worth every penny!! We didn't even barter we were so happy for the service. But in truth, the donkey was usually 1cm from our legs and not that nice, safe looking distance! At times I thought he was going to accidentally nudge us off the cliff with his nose.)

Kersti, mountain explorer extradroinare!

Pack back on, manhood restored.

We made it up the 28 bends!

The view back along the gorge.

Our room at the Tea Horse Guest House, my favourite place we have stayed all trip!

The sunrise from our room, as you can imagine we were in no rush to leave.

Tibet Butter tea, where they melt probably a whole stick of butter (or heap a bunch of lard) in the tea. It was disgusting, but perhaps Leslie (Kersti's mom) would've loved it, as she is known to eat butter straight! We were also intrigued by the hostel's use of Christmas cups!

For some reason Kersti didn't want to stay there very long...

The alien flower of the passionfruit tree.

Getting wet at the waterfall that crossed the trail.

These goats didn't stop for anyone!

Heading downhill...!

Happily finished with all of the tough hiking.

The view of our second night's lodging, which of course coudn't rival with the night's before!

Relaxing with fellow hikers after the hike, somehow the night was a bit blurry...

Down at the bottom of hte gorge, at tiger leaping stone where the tiger supposedly jumped across the river while escaping a hunter.

This is right before I re-enacted the famous leap..

On second thought, maybe I'll just stay on this side.

The ladder straight up on the way back, but fortunately it was sturdily built out of coat hangers and dental floss...


Cannonball!

The mail is here!

(Note from kersti... We encountered this on the road out of the gorge. We were in a van with the craziest of drivers who thought that it was best to drive on the wrong side of the road, which coincided with the CLIFF EDGE. I was so nervous I nearly fainted. The road (sometimes paved) was perched on the edge of a massive cliff. I often wished to just get out of the car and walk...



At one point during the drive, I had my eyes rivetted on the road when all of a sudden we heard a huge BOOM and I saw a cloud of smoke eject horizontally out of the mountainside in front of us. The driver thankfully immediately slowed to a stop and we quietly waited for a landslide to crush us with 1 billion tonnes of rock and bury us half alive. As you might guess, the landslide never came and after a minute the driver cautiously drove on. Only in China are they dynamiting the ridiculously steep hillsides while people are just walking and driving along the road!)

Stop #15 Lijiang China

To see all 65 of our Lijiang pics, click here: http://picasaweb.google.com/kersti.miller/200904LijiangChina?authkey=Gv1sRgCNe9qOLe6vyC3AE&feat=directlink

We flew from Kunming to Lijiang and were quickly delighted by the old city. It's a maze of 2-storey wood and stone buildings that line laneways and canals.

Billy took this nice aerial shot to show the density of the old city!


Exploring the city with the critical map in hand.

This water wheel was connected to grinders that pounded flour or rice or something.

At night the city lit up and was sooo beautiful! Red lanterns everywhere.

We went to Black Dragon Pool park, which was what I think is a typical park... very much manicured, but still very pleasant. In the background, there is SNOW on Jade Snow Mountain. Haven't seen snow in a while!

I bought a giant sun hat to compensate for my lost sunnies ;) We had a day of shopping... we bought fleeces and food supplies for our hike to Tiger Leaping Gorge (next entry). The supermarket was ridiculous... there are salespeople walking around the store eager to help you with whatever (but to us they just seemed to follow us around), there is no fresh food, and everything is in 5 times as much packaging material as I deem to be necessary. It took us quite a while to figure out what to buy, but we ended up reasonably successful. I think everything turned out to be at least edible.

One of the hundreds of Chinglish signs around town.... this was one of our favourites! "Civilized behaviour of tourists is another bright scenery rational shopping." -- Okay, got it!

Exploring the markets... I was off to buy some fresh fruit. We also bought freshly made potato chips (straight from the fryer), but they weren't very good. Big fat bummer.

We ate at Prague's Cafe 3 times because we have been finding chinese restaurants to be extremely hit or miss... actually, mostly miss. It's a bit disappointing really. One night we had a great dinner at a MEXICAN restaurant!?!

Our hostel was really, really good... we met all sorts of nice people who gave advice on the trek to Tiger Leaping Gorge, and the staff was uber helpful. All of a sudden it was so easy to get things done, which was quite a relief! I (kersti) also got to do lots of reading and relaxing.