Northern Vietnam pt. 1

Current location: Dien Bien Phu, Vietnam

I crossed the border to Vietnam by bus, and even though I had overstayed my visa by one day, had zero problems. The guy at the border just shook his head, gave a big sigh, stamped me out and waved me onwards.
When I got out of the bus in Hanoi, I had no idea where I was, and was swarmed by taxi and motodrivers trying to get me to go with them. I'd heard stories about the taxis and motos who royally fuck bleary eyed travelers over, so I set off towards a small shop at a street corner to ask for directions. As I had had a moment of unprecedented foresight at the border, where I bought a Vietnamese SIM-card for my phone, I called my contact in Hanoi who had a brief conversation with the owner to find out where I was. As it turned out, I wasn't too far from where he lived, so I walked a couple of blocks to get rid of the pesky drivers at the bus stop and hailed a moto. After another brief phone call to Thong (the driver didn't speak English and I don't speak Vietnamese) to let the driver know where I wanted to go I hopped on the bike and was off.

The traffic in Hanoi was, if possible, even more hectic than that of any of the cities I visited in China. With seemingly no traffic rules what so ever, it's who dares wins, or more often, who has the biggest vehicle, or the biggest balls wins. Crossing the road requires a zen-like state of mind and total trust in the drivers of the billion or so motorbikes that are constantly coming at you.

I spent a couple of days in Hanoi, wandering about in the Old Quarter, riding random buses into random places, eating delicious Pho and Bun cha at street corner or alleyway "restaurants" and sitting at little coffee shops, sipping insanely strong Vietnamese coffee.

After a while the hectic buzz of Hanoi had my head spinning and I decided to do what most travelers do when they want to take a little breather and booked a tour to Ha Long Bay, an area in the Gulf of Tonkin with thousands of karst islands rising from the sea.

The bus took me and hand full of other travelers to Ha Long city, where we boarded a "junk", or a little ship with a sundeck, a restaurant and little double rooms for 16 people.

On the first day of the tour we went cave exploring, kayaking and swimming, before setting anchor next to Cat Ba island to have dinner, and then, as the guide explained in his broken English, to party and sing karaoke, or relax and turn in early.
It was obvious that the crew were expecting a crowd that wanted to party hard and drink themselves silly, but as the loud dance music in the restaurant was only driving all the people either on to the deck or in to their rooms, they soon switched to that oh so typical soundtrack of Asian love songs.

As a Finn, I find it funny, and a little weird I must say, to see grown men all over Asia howling along to these love songs, and playing them over and over and over again. (For reference see the map of the world by concentration of heavy metal bands.)

After spending the evening on the deck discussing national service in different countries with a German, a Russian and an Israeli, I retired to my room to listen to some Turmion Kätilöt and Stam1na to get those cheesy tunes out of my head before getting some sleep.

The next morning I woke up early, went for a swim in the rather strong current (I had to swim pretty hard just to stay next to the boat), and had some nice, strrrooong coffee as the crew prepared breakfast.

The second day of the tour consisted of climbing a mountain in the national park on Cat Ba island, riding a bus to Cat Ba town, lunch at the hotel, and nothing much else. We were a bit surprised, as we had been promised kayaking trips and turtles and what not, but apparently that would have cost us extra. I said fuck it, and feeling a bit butt-hurt, set of to explore the town on foot, while others rented scooters to take around the island.

On the third day we basically just got back to the mainland and hauled ass back to Hanoi.

While I did feel I'd been scammed, having been promised a lot more than I actually got, the trip wasn't unpleasant. The views were great and the activities of the first day were fun enough to make up for day two. But what that experience did do, was reinforce my dislike towards "tourist"-traveling (hordes of tourists being herded from point A to point B).

A slow day in the Old Quarter, next to Hoan Kiem lake.

St. Joshep's Cathedral.

These ladies prowl the streets, selling noodles,
vegetables, fruit, sweets and what not.

My daypack had had two gaping holes in it since Tokyo, and this old lady fixed them in no time using a sewing machine she'd probably been using since before any of us were even born.

The Vietnamese living in cities keep birds in cages in front of their shops and homes (which usually are the same thing). Dunno what for, maybe I should ask someone...

The Bun Cha-lady!

The Bun cha! (WTF? Who turned the colours back on?)

A bunch of junk.

Entering the maze of Ha Long Bay.

Drifting along...

Cat Ba town.

Fishermen at Cat Ba harbour.

Yaaay!

One of these kids stared at me in horror for a second and then ran crying to his mommy...

The People's Republic of China

Current location: Sapa, Vietnam

I arrived in Shanghai by ferry from Kobe, and after spending two days on the boat staring at the East China Sea the rush of one of the busiest and fastest growing metropolises in the world hit me like a ton of bricks.
I followed my Google map to my guesthouse by matching the Chinese characters on my piece of paper to the ones on the street signs, checked in, and headed off to the city.

Arriving to China from Japan was a real shock, the Japanese being one of the most polite, quiet and organised people on the planet and their cities being the cleanest and despite all the people and traffic most orderly, while China to me seemed like a cacophony of cars honking and driving as they pleased, with trash on the streets and the people yelling at each other and spitting everywhere.
It was the first time on this trip I experienced anything akin to culture shock, but I soon recognised the symptoms and started to ease myself in to a new way of thinking. Still it took a while before I stopped swearing at people under my breath in Finnish when they cut me in lines (although queueing isn't something the Chinese seem to know at all) or yelled at me when I couldn't understand what they were saying. (I actually got that in Russia as well. When people realised I don't speak their language, they assumed that if they raised their voice I would get the message.)

Never the less, Shanghai is an amazing city and the districts of Bund and Pudong at opposite sides of the Huangpu river are sights I certainly won't forget in a rush.
Watching the Pudong skyline light up in the evening is like traveling in to the future, and walking along the Bund waterfront is like taking a walk in the past.

After spending a few nights in Shanghai I took a 15 hour night train to Beijing, where I visited the must-sees, the Forbidden City and The Great Wall of China.
I also injured my knee while stumbling home dead drunk from a night out, and as I pieced together my rather surreal memories of the event and checked Google Maps the next day I realised that I had been on an adventure indeed, climbing over walls, getting lost in the parks surrounding the Summer Palace, slipping in mud and getting drenched in the heavy rain. What a sight I must have been...

A 30 hour train ride took me from Beijing to Chengdu, where I ate fiery Sichuan food and did a day trip to Leshan to see the Grand Buddha, sitting by the river at 71 meters tall, and got a taste of Chinese mass tourism, being pushed around by at least a thousand people trying to get a look at the statue.

Then after another 25 hours of railway travel I was in Guilin, where I took a bus to see the karst peaks of Yangshuo.
In Yangshuo I stayed at a English College as a volunteer to help the students improve their English by spending 2 hours every night talking with them about various topics, and in exchange got free accommodation and food.
Yangshuo is the rock climbing mecca of China, so obviously I donned my harness and climbing shoes and scaled some walls. I also took a mountain bike to the boondocks and went jumping off bridges into rivers.

From Yangshuo I took the bus back to Guilin and spent the night before catching a bus to Hanoi.

I think that just about covers everything. I said in an earlier post that my portable hard drive had committed seppuku, but now it seems to be working just fine.
I wonder if I should back my files up online now...
Nah, I'm sure it'll be fine.

Pudong at dusk.

Shanghai night skyline with the Oriental Pearl and the Bund.

Pudong night skyline. (The whole side of the building right from
the one that says Aurora was a screen running advertisements.)

Zhujiajiao ancient water town, a few hours out
of the centre of Shangai.

The entrance to the Forbidden City.

BTW, you can't see the Wall from space. That's just hype.

Why do all these buddhas always look like
they're high out of their minds?

Early morning Tai-Chi in a park in Chengdu.

Yangshuo karst scenery.

In the boondocks.

At least 9 meters. At least. Water was nice and warm.

Happy 5th birthday to me!
@ Monkey Jane's Rooftop bar, Yangshuo.

If something doesn't seem wrong to you in this picture...
Well then something doesn't seem wrong to you in this picture,
who am I to judge?

On weather and traveling

Current location: Sapa, Vietnam

I arrived in Sapa yesterday after riding my motorbike through some pretty amazing sceneries in the north-Vietnamese highlands.
There were hardly any clouds in the sky and at 1600 meters the air was clear and pure.
On my way up the mountains I saw some of the rice terraces and little villages that so many come here to see, and why I decided to come here on my way to Laos.
I checked in to a hotel and decided to take a shower and a nap before going out to explore the town.
45 minutes later I woke up and went to my balcony, only to see that a thick mist had rolled in, hiding the mountains and the next building from view.
I wasn't too worried, if the weather would change so fast, surely it would be nice and clear again in no time.
How wrong I was.
The fog wouldn't let up, and as I checked the weather forecast online, I found out that it would only get worse for the next few days, with a thunderstorm heading in.
Normally this wouldn't be a problem, for I'm not on a two week holiday with ten more destinations to see before my flight home. I could just sit the bad weather out drinking coffee and reading or playing games, but as it happens, my visa is once again running out. On Sunday I need to leave the country.
The town of Tay Trang sits on the border of Vietnam and Laos, and is only a days ride from Sapa, but as the weather is going to get rough, I'm going to give myself at least two days, so I don't need to hurry.
In preparation to the weather I bought a weatherproof riding outfit, spare parts for the bike and plastic bags and a rice sack for my backpack.

So what I'm saying is, sometimes traveling can get rough, and sometimes you simply don't get to see what you wanted to see, and that's okay. You can't win them all.

Here's where I am (supposedly):

This is what I see:

All I need is a 9mm pistol with no ammo, a length of pipe
and a handheld AM/FM-radio.

If you get that last reference, kudos to you, if not, you need to play more video games.

Back in the game

Current location: Hanoi, Vietnam.

Being in China meant being under the "protection" of the Golden Shield, and in case you didn't know, sites like blogspot and facebook are on the blacklist. While I was able to get around the censorship at times, it wasn't really for long enough for me to post anything. (Also I was just plain lazy.)
But now I'm in free Vietnam, where people are allowed to google words like 'freedom', 'Tibet' and 'Dalai Lama', without getting their connection cut so I guess I have no reason not to start updating the blog again. (Aside from my laziness of course.)

I'm going to cover the whole of China in a single post sometime soonish because I have the memory of a goldfish, and what little I remember of China is fading fast.

I might have some trouble posting pictures from China though, as I can't access them at the moment for some reason. I plugged my portable hard-drive in and it started making rather disturbing crunching noises, and while I can open all the folders on the drive, most of the files are "inaccessible". I just hope it's not a head crash, because that would mean I'd have to say buh-bye to almost 3 months worth of pictures and video.
Equipment can be replaced. Memories can't.

Kyoto & Osaka

Current location: Beijing, China

Damn. It's been almost a month since my last post. And as you can see I've made my way across the sea and up to Beijing. I guess time flies when you're having fun, huh?
To business:

They call Kyoto the cultural capital of Japan. Osaka I've heard being described as Tokyo's little brother on crack.
Bet you can't guess which one I liked better.

I went around the mandatory sights in Kyoto, and while the temples and shrines are kinda cool, once you've seen two or three, you've seen them all.
Kyoto wasn't all boring though. I did meet new people and had tons of fun.
I went on a crazy fishing trip with friends, blasting through the night on motorbikes. I led a beer-fuelled expedition in search for a bar in the wee hours in a city where everything closes shortly after midnight. I rented a bicycle and spent hours riding through the different neighbourhoods, getting lost as usual.
Having spent a couple of days in Kyoto I took a train to Osaka, where I met up with some friends I had made in Tokyo, and spent a weekend exploring the nightlife, which I must say is easily on par with that of Tokyo.

My plan was to spend a few days in Kyoto and Osaka before continuing towards Hiroshima and Fukuoka to take a ferry to China.
Having learned from my fuck up in Russia, I started my research on the ferry and on the visa early, and found out that the easiest way for me to get a boat and the visa was at Osaka, so I decided to skip western Japan and submitted my visa application. This meant that I was stuck in Kansai for a week. Luckily that week happened to coincide with the Daimonji-festival, so at least there was something interesting going on.

Fushimi Inari, check. Next.

The Golden Pavilion, check. Next.

Ryoan-ji kare-sansui zen garden, check. Next.

Kiyomizu-dera, check. Next.

Gion by night.

Kamogawa and riverside restaurants in Kyoto.

Hidari Daimonji.

Funagata.

Osaka castle.

Attacking Osaka castle, ninja style!

Osaka seen from the top of Osaka castle.

Osaka castle moat.

What's missing from this picture?
Answer: Nothing.
Alcohol and vintage video games, what else could you need?
Space Station in Amemura, Osaka.