BLOG ARCHIVE SEPTEMBER (8) - Bangkok - Tonle Sap - Angkor - Phnom Penh - Saigon - Mui Ne - Dalat - Central Coast AUGUST (9) - Halong Bay - Hanoi - Vientiane - Vang Vieng - Luang Prabang - Mekong Slow Boat - Luang Namtha - Xishuangbanna - Kunming JULY (7) - Yangshuo - Yong Xing School - Solar Eclipse - Two Likengs and the Hidden Falls - Guilin and the Dragon's Backbone - Qingcheng Shan - Chengdu JUNE (9) - Barred from Amdo - Jiayuguan - Dunhuang - Urumqi - Kashgar - Crossing into Xinjiang - Hunza - Karakorum Highway - Naked Mountain MAY (9) - Peshawar - Lower Punjab - Lahore - Back to India - Change of Direction - Pokhara - Chitwan National Park - Kathmandu - Into Nepal APRIL (9) - Kanchenjunga Range - Darjeeling and Gangtok - Kolkata - Varanasi - Jabalpur - Kollam - Varkala Beach - Hampi - Bombay Train Jumping MARCH (11) - Mumbai - Desert Safari - Pushkar and Ajmer - St. Patty's in the Pink City - Passing through Punjab - Up the Kullu Valley - Holi in Maman - Baijnath to Billing - Temples, Snakes, and Henry Jones, Jr. - Into the Foothills - New Eyes FEBRUARY (3) - Eye Camp in a Village - Arrival in New Delhi, India - Ready to Go 26 SEPTEMBER, 2009 The End: Bangkok Within a few hours of crossing into Thailand my minibus was speeding through four-lane Bangkok traffic, heading for Cao San Road. Somewhere beneath downtown's skyscrapers I asked the driver to pull over. As I grabbed my bag out the back he argued that I'd only find expensive hotels in these parts, as if something in my appearance implied I wasn't a rich man. I thanked him, waved him on, then walked to the nearest BTS station. After a couple stops on Bangkok's sky train I noticed how nicely everyone was dressed, how clean everything was and how incredibly removed this side of Bangkok seemed from the rest of Southeast Asia, at least the one I'd come to know the past couple months. Hopping off just before the river, I walked to where all the most elegant hotels run their free ferries. To the boatman's surprise, I boarded the Sheraton's. The only passenger aboard, I stood at the stern, looking down into the black wake and then up at the Bangkok skyline as it floated by. We picked up speed and a breeze hit my slimy face. I felt my land-only passage through Asia had finally ended, somewhere back in the streets beyond the brightly-lit banks of the Chao Phya and its towering luxury hotels. The river seemed a world away from the lazy length of the Mekong, from the flood plains of Cambodia, the wilds of Laos and the lush hills of southern China. It felt vastly separate from the grimy trains of the subcontinent, the red monks of the high Himalaya, the silenced Uyghers of Xinjiang's steppes and deserts and the brusque, spitting, midriff-baring male masses of China. I thought of how far I'd come since the Holi Festival in Himachal, the backwaters of Kerala, Lucky and the scorched Thar, the burning ghats and shady priests of Varanasi, the shadow of Kanchenjunga and the glacial highways of the Karakorum. Since grabbing that old lady's rear end in Peshawar. Asia seemed more enormous, more unknowable than ever. And gliding up the Chao Phya on a luxury ferry, I imagined it all beginning just beyond Bangkok's towering epicenter and sweeping for thousands of miles in every direction, an entire world within a continent, most of it yet unexplored. I've come 20,326 miles. In surface-skimming the world's largest continent I've enjoyed a non-stop 200-day series of misadventures and adventures mixed in with about 1,000 hours on buses, trains and shared minivans from Delhi to Bangkok (via Calcutta, Multan, Urumchi, Shanghai and Hanoi). And despite the overall selfish nature of the lone vagabonding experience, I do hope I wasn't alone in getting something worthwhile out of it. Although well short of an overly-optimistic goal, we've raised the funds to complete 62 life-changing surgeries. I'm happy to see so many readers chipping in for the cause, and being generous about it. As I've said, it would be extremely difficult to find a worthy rival to take on Deseret in terms of the life-impact of a single dollar donated. I don't want to single anyone out, but I think I will: I have a friend in the U.S. who has raised the money for about 20 surgeries through spreading the word, setting up booths at universities and donating a percentage of her own profits from the Utah Farmer's Market. Also, a friend of mine living in Pakistan just dropped a money bomb of $200 because he is awesome and he understands that while he could have spent the money on half an iPhone, his alternative with Deseret was to dramatically alter the lives and futures of no less than ten individuals. Thank you again to all those who have donated. There are many of you, and I hope there will be more. A final plug to those who've as yet lacked the time to donate: please take the time. And tell all your friends (preferably the ones with money to spend). But back to Bangkok. To the boatman's relief, the dirty kid with the backpack stepped off the ferry below the towering Sheraton's 28 floors and scampered into the lobby where pretty young Thai servers and receptionists now had to endure his sight and smell. Just two hours later the same kid looked down from a bedroom window on the 28th floor, shivering in the forgotten temperatures of an AC luxury suite and downing complimentary fruit and chocolate. The river and its urban surrounds looked very different from that window, everything suddenly close and connected. Explanation: I have a cool uncle. Bret happened to be in Bangkok that weekend and offered a "couch" at his hotel. But Bret likes to minimize his words. What I got was a soft bed on the top floor, a shower the size of a regular hotel room, pool access, internet access, free breakfast and lunch buffet, TWO large towels and a complete set of Sheraton toiletries including shower cap. Although he far from flaunts it, Bret travels in style. After he disappeared in the morning I wrote some articles about ocean currents and sucker fish then dropped by the pool. I got bored fast and peered over the fence to glimpse the grimy sidewalks of the real world, inches beyond the Sheraton's noble attempt at paradise. After a night of soft sheets and cool air I was hungry for sweat and grease and squat toilets again. I crossed the river to wander an upscale Bangkok market, ignoring the clothes and shoes in a quest for something greasy, then washed it down with ice cream and joined Bret on a jaunt to Chinatown. We struggled to find some non-fish dishes, settled on duck, and then wandered into a smoky massage parlor crowded with male clients and sprawled with scantily-clad, young girls, offering the "full package" to us apparent high-rollers. Actually I think they may have just been talking to Bret. From the looks of the place, it seemed Bret intended on some more pampering. Then he turned around and led us a few doors down, settling on much cheaper Thai massages from a pair of less-glitzed-out, less young girls who were trying to close shop. Mine wore a giant baggy t-shirt, kept answering her cell phone and almost fell asleep a few times on the job, but it turned out far more satisfying than my Chengdu foot-bashing experience. We headed back to the hotel deciding that Chinatown, as Bret minimally put it, "has possibilities." The next morning I had a plane ticket in my hand. I looked forward to my first flight since arriving in Delhi back in February. I decided to hit a couple more destinations, ones that have eluded me thus far, before taking temporary leave of Asia. Once again, the flight destination was Delhi. The goal: Ladakh and Kashmir. The passes would definitely be open this time. I said goodbye to Bret and Bangkok and Southeast Asia for the time being and made for the airport. 23 SEPTEMBER, 2009 War on the Tonle Sap I left Cambodia with a bang. On my last day in Siem Reap, along with Baa, Po and Samna, young workers at my guest house, I joined in the festival spoken of by a pretty Cambodian girl I'd met on the bus. We piled into a van and drove south along paved, then dirt, then impassable track until road's end. Ahead was only water, the plains flooded from the swelled Tonle Sap. A group of family and friends loaded into a wooden boat and navigated a maze of half-submerged mangrove forests. Angkors were passed out like candy and by 10AM just about everyone was staggering drunk, shouting and laughing over the raw blast of the engine. An hour along we docked at the floating village. The floating village was wild, like the million-dollar set of a Kevin Costner film--albeit the extreme budget version. A curve of stilted houses, haphazardly pieced together with rope, wood, corrugated steel and rusty nails, was buzzing with activity under the boiling sun. Along the main watery drag, tiny children paddled longboats laden with fish, fruit and yellow-clad monks returning from the pagoda. Men tended to fishing nets, women barbecued the lunch feast and naked boys launched themselves off front porches like it never got old. First we shared some sweet banana leaf-wrapped ansom, identical to Lao khao tom, and then came piles of rice, noodles, fish, and shrimp. Exhausted from the journey and from house-hopping the village, I found a wooden floor to crash for the afternoon. I woke up as my group was piling back into the boat. It was war on the Tonle Sap. When we first popped out of the mangrove highway and into the vast flooded expanse, dozens of crammed, standing-room-only boats swarmed the lake, weaving a messy tangle of foamy wake, exhaust trails and frantic bodies splashing in the water. Hundreds of hands reached for small plastic bags to dip in the lake, tie off at the top and launch like grenades at any and all other boats. Women and girls shrieked, men shouted, engines roared and everyone laughed as water bombs connected and more bodies were shoved into the water. Within seconds of taking in the spectacle I'd dived into the green water to join in the biggest water fight I'd seen since Holi. Leaving the Tonle Sap behind, we made sure everyone was back on the right boat before winding back to the village and through the narrow water channels, now glowing gold as the sun dipped behind rice fields dotted with sugar palms. While Baa had to report back to work that night, I finished my book and wrung the Tonle Sap out of my clothes. The next morning I was on the road again, headed for the Thai border. 21 SEPTEMBER, 2009 Angkor I walked alone along a red dirt path, its thick jungle walls steering me towards massive stone walls. Overgrown with vines and strangled with enormous banyan roots, the crumbling gate opened to a silent trio of giant carved buddha faces. At its base, a dilapidated hall led out of sight into the enormous Khmer temple complex. Feeling a bit like Lara Croft, I took random turns to get lost in the temple's hundreds of quiet collapsed chambers, each carved with buddhas, demons or amply curved women. Winding back along the path, quiet time ended the second I stepped onto the road: half a dozen kids selling water and fruit and t-shirts were instantly pleading for my attention. At the same moment a couple tuk-tuks pulled up beside them and unloaded a group of tourists who headed down the red path. The kids left me to flock towards the fresh meat. Having enjoyed even a few moments of solitude in a place where waves of tourists, souvenir shops and Coke-selling kids are as much integral fixtures as the stone carvings and banyan roots, I considered myself lucky and headed for the next hidden temple in Angkor. I'd set out at 5AM to catch the sunrise at the immense showpiece of Khmer architecture, Angkor Wat. Along the broad stone walkway I made out a horde of silhouettes marching beside me, a silent army of awe-struck visitors. Lined in front of the complex's symmetrical ponds was the largest mob of tourists I'd seen since the Taj Mahal, shutters and flashes firing every second. Between pointers-and-shooters and pros with bulky tripods and fancy shoulder bags, I claimed a tiny piece of shoreline to perch my little 8-inch camera stand for Cambodia's obligatory photo. As I explored massive hallways, courtyards and 70-degree stairwells, the sun peeked over the jungle horizon to saturate the ruins for a few minutes, then slipped behind a wall of clouds. The morning crowd from Angkor Wat dispersed throughout the hundreds of miles of thousands of scattered temples, leaving me wonderfully alone at some of the less-visited sites. I raced from ruin to jungle-eaten ruin until late afternoon and crashed in a hammock by Srah Srong. That evening I climbed Mayan-esque Pre Rup, leaning against the pyramid's steps to watch the sun slip behind H-bomb clouds. 18 SEPTEMBER, 2009 Phnom Penh By my second day in Phnom Penh I'd wound up at a two-dollar guest house in the lakeside district of Beong Kak. I'd only needed a minute searching its cluttered alleys to find a decent guest house, perched on stilts about a hundred yards over the water. To the north stretched entire neighborhoods built the same way, making up some of the poorest blocks in the city. The old backpacker community has left its mark here with rows of sandwich shops (some featuring peanut butter), slow Internet cafes, kids asking for money, chocolate, and pens, and dozens of hopeful motorbike taxis shadowing each foreign face to pass through the lakeside's main drag. An underwear-clad drunk lay dead on the sidewalk, but since it was always a different sidewalk I knew he was alive. Low on cash and having more issues with Paypal (supposedly some thief in Vietnam of all places had hacked my account!), Beong Kak became my home for four days as I lived on credit at my guest house. In the meantime, eager to explore, I made several trips to the city. I meandered the Russian Market, popular among the Soviets when they were here, and took in the temples and monuments along the Mekong. Along the riverside have popped up probably a hundred new cafes, hotels, and restaurants since my last visit in 2000. Shiny new cars and SUVs are putting a dent in downtown Phnom Penh's overwhelming motorbike majority. Even a modest skyline has been born. Combined with its gracefully aging colonial architecture, its peeling paint, rounded corners, bright blue shutters, whitewashed walls, verandas and balconies overlooking the Mekong, riverside Phnom Penh has a share of Saigon's glitz and glamor while maintaining the quiet charm of Vientiane. I didn't spend much time by the river (partly thanks to my Paypal predicament). In walking the city I saw my little Cambodian brother in every other kid. Dozens of his distant cousins crowded me in the grounds of a mosque one evening, vying for my attention with kart-wheels and twisted faces. My family picked up Jared in 1999 from an outlying orphanage, and he's since grown into a smart, wild and athletic little joker, and at least as American as any of his siblings. His Khmer face came to mind each time a kid would jump off a wall or attempt a flip in the sand. After putting it off for three days, I finally decided to revisit the Killing Fields at Choeung Ek. That same hungry feeling from Saigon's War Museum returned in full force as I strolled the cratered grounds. Grass and weeds have long since smothered the mass graves into which thousands of Khmer Rouge victims were tossed. A chart on display put the numbers into perspective. While about 17,000 were killed and disposed of at Choeung Ek, the site was just one of hundreds of extermination sites across Cambodia. And many of them are significantly larger than Choeung Ek. Passing the tower of 5,000 skulls before exiting the gates I wanted to call it a day, but forced myself to a place that proved even darker and more horrific than a mass execution site. Tuol Sleng is a museum that was once a prison/torture center that was once an elementary school. The first building's three floors of classrooms contain single metal mattresses with chains and terrible photos on the walls of former occupants, their bodies shriveled and sprawled grotesquely on or off the beds after months of starvation and brutal torture. The last buildings were used to house three floors of increasingly small cells that make the first building look like a luxury hotel. The first level was crammed with crude brick and cement cells, the second with even smaller wooden cells, and the third had simply been crammed with bodies in a giant heap. A group of local filmmakers sat interviewing several old men and women whom I guessed might have once been inmates here at Security Prison 21 (S-21). Perusing one of the museum's picture galleries, I was scanning its rows of grim, nameless faces, each one uniquely expressing pure terror, disbelief or defiance in the face of inevitable torture and death, when a man nearby touched the glass and said the photo was of his father. I noticed it was one of the older men from the courtyard and immediately believed him. He looked at me for less than a second then walked away without looking back at the board. No one else was nearby. I focused on the old man's photo and wondered what had prompted his son to share that with me. By then I'd figured out that the interviewees weren't ex-inmates. While most of the roughly 17,000 people that checked into S-21 did make it out, it was only for the short and final ride to Choeung Ek. Just ten minutes after leaving behind the horror of Tuol Sleng I was back in the bustle of Beong Kak. I passed the dead-looking man on another sidewalk and headed for my guest house. I saw a few more Jared cousins turning down a muddy alley towards their stilted little homes, barefoot and happy. Then out of the blue I remembered a 500-rupee note that I hadn't been able to change since reaching China and was suddenly sitting on top of ten dollars cash. I splurged on a peanut butter sandwich and an Indian thali to get rid of the hungry feeling. I made plans to leave the capital the next morning, if I could afford it. 14 SEPTEMBER, 2009 Saigon & the Mekong Delta I stepped into Saigon's Pham Ngu Lao district late at night and wound its tiny alleyways, searching out a place to drop my bag. In a maze of corridors lined with low doorways opening to cozy living rooms crammed with cheap picture frames, TV sets and incense-lit shrines, entire families shared floor spaces better suited for closets or bathrooms. Lining the edges of each dense, tangled city block streamed a fitful flow of motorbike traffic. Dodging bikes and xe oms, I emerged from my new urban lair for some more wandering and yet another fresh baguette sandwich. At some point along my random route through unexplored streets, soaking up the bustle of sound and smells, waving off dozens of motorbike and cyclo invitations and passing up a pretty blonde-dyed whore who popped out of nowhere asking if I wanted "boom boom," I decided I'd like Saigon. Along with a British girl I'd met in Dalat, I spent a rainy morning on a cyclo roaming the city in colonial style, peering through the plastic rain cover's slit as my driver pedaled in slow motion through the racing streets. A good chunk of Ho Chi Minh City's three million motorbikes zipped by as we chugged along, making stops at markets and temples and monuments. The only spot I'd really cared to get to turned into one of the most sobering experiences of my life. We pulled up in the early afternoon to the War Museum. Stumbling out an hour or two later, shivering in the muggy heat, neither of us had much in the way of words. The exhibits and galleries had left me feeling sick and hungry, my mind reeling with hundreds of freshly branded images of mutilated children, piles of skewed corpses with limbs lifelessly flailed like the basketfuls of dead octopi in Mui Ne, and dioxin-spray victims with scaly backs, crazy bulging eyes, X-Men mutations minus the superpowers, heads without necks, faceless heads and more heads bulbous as giant water balloons with brain swelling. For second and even third generation Agent Orange victims, the horror of war never really ended. With its thousands of real photos of real people who really fought or were actually tortured or killed or born deformed, the bloodiest scenes of Apocalypse Now seemed nearly as removed from the devastation of war as the out-takes of Tropic Thunder (both favorites of mine). The photo that stuck the longest through the eery slow-motion return in the rain-burka of my cyclo was one of a psycho GI holding up a head for the camera, barely connected to a limp sack of skin emptied of its contents by a grenade blast. He was smiling like he'd just made his mom proud. American visitors might complain of one-sided captions labeling each gruesome image as someone "shot by GIs," "fleeing from Americans" or "destroyed by American bombs," and in reality, half of them were probably made up. I mean, I'd be surprised if anyone could distinguish one grainy row of corpses and rice paddies from a thousand others. Regardless, I thought the museum's effect wasn't too noticeably hampered by its propaganda. The collection was the most powerful anti-war statement I've seen, heard or felt. It took the whole afternoon and evening to shake off the heaviness of remembering. Promising myself I'd come back to Saigon in a few days, I decided on a detour to the southwest, joining a group heading to Can Tho. On one of the flat, outlying islands in the Mekong Delta I grabbed a noisy old bike and explored country roads that led to nowhere. Heads turned and dogs barked at the awful rusted groan my free (borrowed) bike made with each pedal until it finally gave out completely. I walked it back through throngs of uniformed school kids and motorbikes zipping by with stylish teenage trios on their way to do whatever it is Vietnamese teenagers do besides riding around on motorbikes. I never figured that out. Whisked through floating markets the next morning, I took in the endless pile of sheet metal roofs and walls, perched barely above the water on mangrove stilts, each overlapping in a mess of rust, rot and plastic patches and fighting for space all up the banks. While as laid back as anywhere I'd seen along this river, from Yunnan to Laos to Cambodia to Vietnam, the Delta's water markets felt as wide awake and bustling as nearby Saigon. It was the end of the Mekong; not far from where it would finally and eternally spill its silt and trash and urine into the South China Sea, thousands of miles from its crystal clear source in Tibet. Back in Saigon I joined some couchsurfers for a night out, my last in Vietnam. We all met on the open top floor of a Pham Ngu Lao restaurant and started migrating around the city with new German, British, Vietnamese, American, Scottish, French and Israeli friends, no more than one or two of each to keep things interesting. We ended up in an expat bar where nobody has to meet a local unless they're pouring drinks or sifting the crowd as a hooker. A two-piece Canadian band ambled onto the stage fashionably late and bragged about getting beat up by a Vietnamese taxi driver for having no money before playing a set that was loud enough to be good, despite having no drums. Navigating the city later that night, I decided it would be my last night in the country and stopped into a tiny casino to throw away some of my last dong on roulette. A handful of Vietnamese high rollers sat across the table in stylish suits, smoking in practiced elegance and looking a bit too serious. The lady shuffled back after taking my cash, and I barely understood her English: "accuse me, sir, minimum bet 5 dollars." I hoped the high rollers weren't listening and slipped her two more dollars in dong that I lost a minute later. I showed my remaining trio of friends back to their hotels and headed for the border the next morning. 9 SEPTEMBER, 2009 Mui Ne At 6AM I dragged myself out of bed and over the locked guesthouse fence to hail a motorbike. I was somewhere north of Mui Ne in southern Vietnam. Fifteen minutes up the reddening coast I hopped off just past a small beachside village. A string of old boats swayed ahead, silhouettes obliterated by a sun just inches off the horizon. Most of them were returning from a full night at sea, a night of hauling, sorting and killing fish in the dark, loads of anchovies and shrimp and crab that they now sent to shore in little saucer boats. Clusters of cone-hatted women waited on the beach to cart off the catch in plastic buckets, eager to beat the fish sauce out of each slimy corpse. I'd come to witness their arrival and find out a little more about these fishing boats. Specifically, the prospect of me getting on one of these fishing boats. The idea came to mind as I chatted with my only friend in town, a young, aspiring Easy Rider named Hai. The day I arrived, Hai took me around Mui Ne on his Honda, speeding us through its red hills and wind-swept white dunes. Swinging back along the coast that evening, he pointed out a cluster of wooden boats pushing off towards the horizon. I asked how easily I could hop on a boat for a night or two. Hai was silent a few seconds, then said firmly that it was possible. Just about everyone says everything is possible in Vietnam though, so I was kept myself skeptical as well as determined to believe him no matter what. Hai gave me his number and told me to call him the next day: he'd talk to his cousin, a fisherman. That evening, wasting time on the beach and suspended in the waves, the mystery of sailing off into the unknown was too alluring to push out of my mind. The next morning at the village I learned nothing. A motorbike man was the only one around to speak more than a couple English words, and his answer was strangely negative. Strange because I knew he was wrong. Hai himself, an Easy Rider to-be, had said it was possible. I decided the guy didn't really get me or else just wanted me to stop wandering so I'd hop on his bike and hand over some cash. When it was clear that my questions were useless, I did. After 30 seconds of Viet pop, Hai answered his phone sounding disappointed. The seas were too windy, he said, nobody was going out that night. I hung up let down but unmoved. Taking a walk up the "fairy river," an ankle deep stream that cuts through bright red and white cliffs of sand, I barely noticed my surroundings as I tried to brainstorm some hope back into the idea. I called up Hai again late in the afternoon and met him at his family's shop for a little favor. With Hai translating into Vietnamese, I wrote out a simple note explaining my intention in the kindest terms, offering to pay money and help with tasks on board. It was addressed to "dear fisherman." Writing in a sloppy hand, too embarrassed to make it too legible, Hai shot me pained smiles as I dictated, like I was a madman and the plan was stupid. I ignored him and thanked him and left. But after starting down the coast, Hai ran after me. Like a loving father afraid to imagine a retarded son beaten down by a brutal world, he called me back under his roof: he'd call his cousin again. The sight of a skinny white guy heading off for the village with nothing more than a silly slip of paper was too much for Hai's tender heart. A minute of suspense passed as he negotiated a deal with his cousin, then he hung up with a big smile. He was relieved he wouldn't have to let me down again. The boat was set to leave at 2PM the next day and I was welcome to join them. It would return after dawn. But it's dangerous, he warned, and nobody will speak any English, is that okay? I was almost drooling. I went back to the beach elated and carried the feeling through another exhausting soccer game. The prospect of real adventure loomed just across the waves, taunting me on the darkening horizon. Hai invited me to his family's house for a meal soaked in fish sauce and wrapped into rice paper burritos. He showed off his naked baby and pretty wife and I chatted with his Easy Rider uncle. Flaccid from happy water, I went into hibernation to prepare for a wild all-nighter at sea. There would be no sleep the next night, no lights on the distant shoreline, not a word of English spoken. I pictured a night of black swells rocking the life out of my creaky old fishing boat, lightning storms flashing beautifully terrifying scenes of massive waves slapping against a slick hull, showers spraying and buckets splashing onto the deck, sharp Vietnamese shouting muffled in a crazed downpour colliding with the heaving sea. Hai had asked me how well I could swim, too. My dreams faded just eleven hours into my sleep with a banging against my door. Hai burst through and was sitting on my bed before I could focus my eyes. "Sorry," he was saying over and over, explaining something about cops and licenses. His hand was on my shoulder and he was looking at me with sad eyes, delivering the news of a death. "No boat, no boat, not possible" he said. I wanted badly for him to take his hand off my shoulder. He told me I should leave Mui Ne, give up, it's not going to happen. Then he left. The disappointment didn't set in until he'd closed the door behind him. Two days down and I was back to square one. I decided not to be angry, instead setting out to prove that Hai was right about the boats before he'd admitted being wrong. Tucking my little Vietnamese note and a few dong into my pocket, I started walking in the direction of the cursed fishing village. Stopping along the coast, a couple tour operators said sure I could go on a fishing boat--day tours start at $90 for a private boat along with a group of fellow-tourists--but definitely not overnight; too dangerous; not possible. A group of girls in a shop giggled, blushed and shook their heads emphatically like I'd proposed for marriage. Along with another young xe om [motorbike taxi] guy, I handed the note to fishermen lazing along the beach, both groups of them and individuals to increase my chances. Some stared blank, some smiled quizzically and others laughed but all shook their heads in Vietnamese. The motorbike driver translated that they weren't leaving that day or they were too afraid of police finding out; there'd be trouble if they were caught with a white kid on board. I'd heard those excuses before and was almost beginning to believe them. I hopped on the back of the kid's motorbike and brooded as we swept back down the coast. When I was just about to admit defeat the driver pulled us into an alley and parked before a freshly painted house, its front yard piled with fishing nets. My hopes lit up again when I realized he was asking another fisherman friend of his. This time it was the wind: too strong. I was finished. Walking south to catch a bus, I tried to console my loss with the fact that I'd found something to do in yet another place I had no reason to go. Watching the lazy village slip behind I felt pretty good about leaving. There'd be new adventures to chase when I arrived later that night in Vietnam's most happening city, Saigon. 7 SEPTEMBER, 2009 Central Highlands "You've heard of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, right?" "Of course," I leaned forward to answer Phuc as he leaned the motorcycle around another hairpin turn. The forest whisked by the roadsides and covered the clouded mountains ahead. "Well, this is the American Trail." Just like the modern Ho Chi Minh Road, it was a paved highway now. Phuc went on about just how many tons of U.S. weapons and millions of C-rations were carted through these mountains, nothing more than empty wilderness in those days. I gazed at the fresh grids of farms pooling in the valleys below as we made our descent. I'd arrived in Dalat the day before on a bus. It took a good six hours chugging its way up the escarpment of Vietnam's central highlands, a world apart from the tropical coast below. Jungles had turned to pine forests, hills bulged into mountains, the heat given way to a refreshing cool and the sun disappeared behind a low rolling roof of gray. Dalat sprawls out in a mess of concrete, wood and sheet metal shacks, everywhere fringed with green and yellow and brown. Wandering its tight web of hilly streets I'd met Phuc. Phuc was an Easy Rider, a plump and jolly old weathered, leather-clad motorcycle man who'd promised to show me the "real Vietnam." He told me he'd recently taken a group of U.S. veterans, all 60-somethings now, to check out the places they'd been stationed during the war. We slurped up some pho before hitting the road the next morning on our own little adventure. On the northern outskirts of Dalat, we stopped whenever either of us sighted something that looked like the real Vietnam. While all I could find was a motorbike laden with ducks, Phuc stopped every few minutes for something real. He showed me pagodas hidden in the forest, cocooned silk worms in a grimy silk factory, a fat waterfall that spewed like a bursting dam, and a bombed-out building from the Tet Offensive serving as a playground for kids. In the shady grounds of an old countryside monastery, he pointed out fat, happy baby and lady buddhas. I had no idea there were lady buddhas. At the top of some stairs in the monastery, an old lady with a little boy at her feet stopped me with a little tin box in her hands. Phuc translated the question: "Do you have a mother?" Then she pinned a plastic rose on my chest and smiled like a lady buddha. I smiled back, happy to have a mother, and then Phuc's round face was smiling too. The little boy at our feet completed the buddha quartet, looking up with a dumb grin as we walked on. I thought about how seemingly random her question had been and how many people would have to answer yes to it. Phuc explained that it was Vietnamese Mother's Day and that you get a different colored flower if your mother is dead. I laughed a bit then smiled again, very glad that my flower was pink. For lunch, Phuc ordered us half a dozen plates of fish-flavored dishes and rice at a roadside cafe. We started to talk. As it turned out, Phuc was a Catholic, part of Southeast Asia's second-largest Catholic population after that of the Philippines, and his father had worked for the national airline under the Americans. Since unification in 1975, both of those facts had been controversial issues with the north-controlled Vietnamese government. Much of his family had emigrated to the U.S. or Australia. To consolidate the "communist" government's power, thousands of northern farmers were settled in Dalat's surrounds and, according to southerners, given preferential treatment in terms of taxes levied and government jobs. Phuc also complained that they'd given Vietnamese Catholics a rough time over the years. His issues with the north intrigued me. He told about the north-south rift that endured the civil war, a divide in which he characterized northerners as squares, gloating conquerors with a lust for power, while southerners were the noble oppressed, maintaining a happy-go-lucky spirit along with a hint of defiance in defeat. As far as telling us apart, he said, the sweet southern accent is the giveaway. As an American, it all sounded a bit familiar. Of course, you'll get very different stories from Phuc's contemporaries in the north: the south was filled with collaborators in a fascist occupation, traitors to their own country; and it's the northern accent that's "sweet;" get it right. Since '91 though, he assured me, things have gotten much better. Southerners have since had a decent representation in the "communist" government and tensions have eased a bit. Saigon pretty much remains Saigon (rather than Ho Chi Minh City) and, he confided, if a northerner dared to start a business down here the southerners would have no qualms razing it to the ground, but national pride is still national pride. And today, regardless of the north-south divide, the Vietnamese are proud patriots--Phuc included. Considering all the obstacles overcome since sending the world's most powerful nation packing, the Vietnamese have a few reasons to be proud. Just look at Dalat and its blossoming of new farms and highways and houses and forests. Aside from an overgrown landing strip and a boarded up control tower half eaten by weeds, traces of war in Dalat's countryside have been largely obliterated. "Napalm," Phuc says as we approach another bend in the road, a sweep of his hand indicating a wide swathe of once defoliated mountainside. I scan the other side of the valley: nothing but trees. Entire forests once melted to smoldering threads have taken over again. 3 SEPTEMBER, 2009 Central Coast My veins pumping with oxygen-starved blood, I sprinted thirty yards across the beach in a wide open attack. A line of palm trees disappeared in gray ahead as storm clouds rolled over the jungle mountains to the west. Shouts from my rear warned of a Vietnamese sweeper closing in on my side. With all the energy I could summon in a split second, I braked in the sand and watched his face fly past me then spin around in fear, the mouth dropping to inhale a final breath before lunging towards me. The stakes were high. My shot let loose and buzzed just clear of his outstretched leg, grazing the right side of the left coconut marking the goal post. Score. We lost the pick-up game, but for that one moment of glory it was worth playing. I waved goodbye to my Vietnamese friends in Hoi An and ran off for pho. A few days earlier, my mad dash down the central Vietnamese coast had taken me to Hue, just beyond the former DMZ. My mind occupied with images from Tim O'Brien's account of the American War, I mostly looked over the old Citadel's palaces and courtyards unless they'd been at least partly demolished by American bombs. Several had been, making them slightly more interesting if slightly less existent. I wondered why I'd never heard much about Hue's UNESCO-listed sites. In particular, one of the early 20th-century emperors had erected a tennis court, and Vietnamese archeologists had skillfully reconstructed the whole thing, showing just how similar early 20th-century tennis courts were to tennis courts today. Identical, actually. Fascinating stuff. I didn't stay long in Hue, walking a bridge back over the Song Huong and hopping on a bus further south, to Hoi An. With a cheap motorbike rental and a good book, Hoi An was the closest thing to a postcard-perfect paradise I'd come across in months. Cruising along the quiet coastal road from town, I rode about 15 kilometers up China Beach towards Danang. Crossing through a tiny fishing village, I parked on my own private stretch of white sand, fringed with palms and lined with black saucer boats stuck with dried dead fish and ratty nets. Not a single person in sight. American GI's used to flock here for R&R, stretched along this same beach with little Vietnamese girls and boys rubbing their feet, cleaning their M16s and pedaling Cokes and candy bars. Some things haven't changed. In another spot closer to town, a new generation of kids helped me to my share of Cokes and candy bars, but wouldn't rub my feet for a good price. As the first rain in days swept the beach, a few of them did help me sense my mortality heavier than ever, in a soccer game that had me feeling about as agile as a tombstone. To help me cope, a good few days on the beach were more than enough. A few days older, I left Hoi An almost darker than those kids and said goodbye to the coast. 29 AUGUST, 2009 Halong Bay The boat ride from Halong City felt like an escape. I boarded along with a mixed group of German, French and Spanish budget travelers and watched the monstrous sea of concrete and crowds and glittering signs for hotels, karaoke bars and tour offices, fueled into overdrive by billions of tourist dong, shrink away into a hazy gray. The further we left behind the noise of the drugged-up tourist city, the cleaner and bluer the air and water and the more spectacular the scenery. Soon our boat was surrounded by jungly islands jutting out of the ocean, hundreds of limestone cliffs soaring in every direction like a Yangshuo landscape taken over by the ocean. Along with a few German friends on board, I was introduced to a very harmless-looking dentist, a small middle-aged man named Det. We'd be sharing a tiny room below the deck that night. Det was Vietnamese, spoke very little English, and had a friendly face that beamed with childlike innocence and daydreams of Tele-tubbies and Care Bears. The whole group of us filed below for a fish and rice meal, then fanned out to enjoy the scenery on deck. Docked in a quiet lagoon that evening, I paddled into the shadow of a limestone spire to escape the bay's blinding reflections, then rested my oar against the kayak to float into calm black water. A few million miles behind the massive rock, the sun hung low over a karst shoreline, while a few dozen yards ahead floated a scrappy fleet of fishing boats. Silhouetted figures bent over in straw cone-hats saw me sliding towards them and called out something in Vietnamese. They could have meant anything from "get lost, whitey!" to "let us cut you up with our gutting knives!" but I responded with a friendly sin jow--greetings--and glided towards them. With boatloads of tourists aboard daily waves of cruise tours chopping up the water and scaring away the fish, I was a little surprised to find each little boat filled with only the most friendly of Vietnamese folk, happy to grab my boat's rope, carry on caveman conversations and hold up the latest catch for the foreigner to congratulate them with faked sincerity before stealing a photo. With all the slimy sea creatures they displayed for me, I decided they'd meant "come look at our fish!" When the sun finally sunk behind the shoreline I was still boat-hopping in my kayak, circling the islands to make the rounds of fishing boats and floating houses, most trailing nets and buckets of tiny fish, squid and jellyfish. Calling Halong Bay home, these fishers have no doubt seen their fair share of white skin and cameras. Still, they'd don't seem to mind us too much if we've got dong to spend. I passed the night jumping off the roof of the boat with the Spaniards, downing another rice meal and chatting with the Germans on deck until the wee hours of the morning. Det was curled up like a baby in the still heat of our room. I sweated in the other bed for a bit before climbing back to the deck for some real sleep. A few hours later the sun rose, postponing any sleep for another day. We would soon dock on Cat Ba island for some jungle trekking. Like a miniature Halong City, Cat Ba's downtown is rife with cheap hotels while luxury resorts lie just outside town in all directions. So much for the escape. We checked into one of the blandest of the bunch and I led Det to the room. I went for lunch with the Germans from the boat, taking Det along for his Vietnamese ordering skills and his pleasant, muted company. By late afternoon, sweat was dripping into my eyes after three hours of kayaking through the islands off Cat Ba. The jungle trekking had been nothing more than an hour's stroll along a muddy trail ending in a mediocre viewpoint, leaving me plenty of energy for some offshore exploration of my own. I'd bargained a kayak from one of the beaches and made off for the islands, soon finding myself alone in an isolated stretch of water lined with cliffs and caves. I stopped to explore one, cut up my heel on a sharp rock, then hobbled back to the little boat, gritting my teeth in pain and reveling in the blood gushing over the back of my foot. I dipped it into the saltwater and kicked around a bit before pushing off into the clear water for more. I spotted a lone fisherman at the other end of my private bay, smoking from a pipe under his conical hat. Like a game of Pacman, I sped towards him, he showed me something slimy squirming in a bucket, I took his picture, I showed him his picture, he smiled as if he cared, and I spun 180 degrees and headed back for my beach. Limping back up the stairs of the hotel, I glimpsed Det down the hall working his key into the wrong door. He didn't even have the right floor. The poor guy had gone for a bottle of water and lost his way. I called to him from the stairwell and showed him to our room. When I returned once again later that evening, Det was fixated on Mr. Bean. I watched him smile and giggle like a tickled baby, sitting near the edge of bed with his covers pulled over him. Enthralled with Rowan Atkinson decorating a British royal guard like a Christmas tree, it took him a few seconds to glance at me, making like I was the last recess bell and had come to end his playtime. He lifted the remote in pain and offered it to me, but I shook my hand, smiled and joined him for some Mr. Bean. By the time I'd showered, wrapped up my infected foot and turned out the lights, Det was asleep. The next morning we made one final boat crossing through the limestone spires of Bac Bo Gulf, half a dozen boatloads of tourists plying the same trail behind us. For an extremely low budget tour, I'd been somewhat impressed. Not so much with the rooms, the food, the boat or the much-hyped karaoke party that somehow never launched, but with Halong. As I proved on my kayak, it's still possible to find solitude here, without spending a fortune. I was glad to have seen Vietnam's must-see natural attraction, and happier still to be leaving it behind and heading for the mainland, eager for a taste of the real Vietnam looming ahead and stretching a thousand miles to the south. 26 AUGUST, 2009 Hanoi I arrived in downtown Hanoi just after dark and immediately took to the streets. Within minutes I was wondering when I'd ever seen a city so alive. I wasted little time getting lost in the beautiful chaos of the Old Quarter, exploring both dim narrow alleys and florescent-flooded night markets, making way for a scattered army of straw party-hatted women balancing twin baskets across their backs. Crossing from block to crumbling colonial block, I dodged insane numbers of swarming motorbikes, some with a single army-helmeted rider, some crammed with four child hangers-on, and others strapped with loads that could fill a flatbed truck. Bright blue and green French shutters and cream balconies, both with a healthy plate of grime and peeling paint, hung above endless rows of sizzling hawker stalls, bia hoi dens and shops. With its bizarre blend of both human and architectural relics, young Vietnamese hipsters, trendy new cafes and neon nightclubs, Hanoi is alive in two centuries. I found a jewelry shop to turn my kip into dong (Vietnam's currency) so I could afford some pho, then shoved the noodles down in a crowded roadside joint scattered with ankle high seats and a lively young Vietnamese crowd. Occasionally someone would nod something funny in my direction to make his friends laugh. I would smile and not pay attention to how much chili I was pouring into my pho. I sweated my way back through windy old streets and continued sweating through half the night in my shoebox of a bedroom. The border crossing from Laos had been easy enough. I boarded a bus in Vientiane in the evening, arrived at the border around 2AM, then slept in my seat until Lao customs opened up. As at the China border, the Lao customs building seemed intentionally unimpressive, making me sad to be leaving laid-back Laos. I walked the few hundred meters of mountain road before getting my first glimpse of Vietnam behind the rise of a hill: a customs building almost as basic and bland as the one I'd just left. A bored mustachioed stamp-man stamped me across, then my bus sped northwest along bumpy roads for another 300 miles of jungle mountains, rolling hills and rice paddies. Circling Hanoi's central Hoan Kiem Lake on my second day in town and spying on the elderly crowd hogging the lakeside benches, I wondered whether some old-timers might still care at all that I was American. Some asked where I was from, but nobody seemed interested when I answered, unless it was to mention a brother or uncle in California or Washington, D.C. Shopkeepers whose age meant they could easily have once been given a gun and orders to shoot U.S. soldiers just took my money and counted my change. Old cyclo drivers who might have lost a friend or family member to an American bomb just haggled politely over inflated tourist prices. Depending on how much I'd end up spending they might even have broken a smile. The American War is ancient history now. The present, as it turns out, is all about making money. If Uncle Ho Chi Minh's painstakingly preserved, embalmed corpse could only see the wave of capitalism that's swept Hanoi and the rest of his country, he might roll over in the glass grave/display case of his cozy mausoleum. I rolled out of bed early my third day, saying goodbye to Vietnam's capital city and setting off like a moth to a flame towards the country's prime destination, Halong Bay. 24 AUGUST, 2009 Vientiane I leaned against the cracked walls and fading paint of an old French storefront somewhere in Vientiane's low-key downtown to await my rendezvous with a Lao friend. We'd never met before, but I knew his online screen-name was Lucky. He'd kindly offered to be my couchsurfing host in Laos's capital city. A moonfaced young man hopped off his motorbike and skipped towards me with a round smile, then jumped back on with me behind him. Whisking us through quiet colonial era backstreets to Vientiane's main riverfront drag, Lucky took a turn down a dirt lane that appeared to lead nowhere. It veered off to the west where the sun hung low across the Mekong and hit an apparent dead end at its muddy banks. Then we curved along the shore and ramped up a long narrow wooden bridge to speed over a stretch of swampy wasteland, once again with apparently nothing on the other side. On the other side was Lucky's "village," a cluster of scrappy houses including the small home shared by Lucky's entire family. Upon stooping through the low doorway, various family members went about welcoming me in their own way. Lucky's dad smiled a warm sabai di, his brother-in-laws rose to greet me, his sisters shot laughing glances and whispered about something funny, and his nephews pointed in curiosity and hid behind doorways as I entered. His wiry mother ran for a mat so I could join the circle of bodies on the floor, then spent the evening on kitchen runs, taking obvious pleasure in keeping everyone comfortable, stuffed, and smiling. She came back from her second run with a basketful of surprises wrapped in sticky banana-leaves. She motioned that the first mystery package would be mine, and I watched in horror as she peeled back the fleshy wrapper to reveal a globular white mass of slimy tendrils. It was called khao tom, and it was delicious; sweet, syrupy, and to my relief, purely vegetarian. She slowly brought out more dishes as the evening passed us together, emerging from the grimy florescent kitchen with baskets of sticky rice we rolled into balls and scooped in a spicy fish sauce. The beerlao delivery woman showed up with a twelve-pack of cold bottles that quickly disappeared, and Lucky's energy-stocked mom finally came out with yet another basketful of khao tom which Lucky informed me she'd prepared for her ancestors. She seemed to mind about as much as I that they were intended for dead people, insisting I force down enough to feed at least three deceased generations of buried kin. Just before midnight, Lucky rode us back across the swampy wasteland and the long narrow bridge to check email, a nightly tradition of his. Lao kids were trickling out the doors, loitering outside on bikes and motorbikes or riding away as we arrived, although a few stragglers remained around clusters of computers, fighting virtual battles, shooting up the neighborhood with uzis or chatting with friends in other identical internet shops around town, probably wishing there could be a single girl in the shop. Lucky checked his email. His faithful relationship with the internet and the contented, whipped look in his face as he typed away told me it was the highlight of his busy day. In Lucky's mind, who needs a girl when you've got the internet? Lucky's mom awoke at 4AM and may or may not have tried to rouse me from sleep. It was Horkhaopadapdin, the time of year when offerings are made all over Laos to relatives passed on. Since the younger generations are generally less concerned or connected with the dead (and laugh at the idea of waking up before 6AM), an elderly crowd gathers in the predawn darkness to remember friends and family on the other side, ask the guardians of hell to release various ancestors so they can enjoy the khao tom, and pray for good luck in the upcoming year. Lucky said his mom wanted to take me along for the quiet, candlelight procession towards the cemetery, but either nobody woke me up or somebody tried to no avail. When my morning came the sun was out and Lucky's mom was busy with the daily chores, shuffling happily about the house like she'd popped speed, apparently more than content with the omens cast that morning and unconcerned with the fact that I'd missed the "H" festival. Lucky, on the other hand, didn't seem too concerned with the dead or waking up very early. Between two nights at Lucky's home I explored the city's ancient and modern sites by bike and took a couple longs walks along the Mekong, catching dusty evening soccer games and picnickers by the river, entire families lounging around, on and against parked motorbikes; kids and youth dispensing of energy like there'd be no tomorrow as older generations sat back to appreciate stunning Mekong sunsets. As I pulled on my pack and started through the open wooden doorway, Lucky's mom offered a final leaf-wrapped khao tom for the road to Vietnam. 21 AUGUST, 2009 In the Tubing, Vang Vieng Belly up to the clouds, I shot down the broad silty river, nobody and nothing in sight but massive karst peaks floating above thick jungly banks. It was a four-kilometer swim down the swelled Nam Song, muddy waves bobbing me up and sucking me under around every other bend. My back and shoulders were cooked just short of crispy, despite a belated dose of borrowed sunscreen, and I tried to invent a new form of the backstroke to keep the red skin facing the rocky bottom. Kicking my way out of eddies overhung with tangles of green, I felt the sting of the cuts on my feet and legs. Three days in Vang Vieng had done brutal things to my body, but they'd easily been one of Laos's highlights. Especially the first day. A new German friend and I headed to the tubing cartel in Vang Vieng's quiet downtown, picked up our black tubes and piled in a tuk-tuk to reach the launch point. As hundreds of tourist t-shirts walking along the touristy streets of the country's tourist trails can attest, "In the Tubing, Vang Vieng" is a big deal. Just about everyone that passes through Laos overland has to run the river at least once in an inner tube. I'll admit that not much else really called my name in Vang Vieng. But what could be better than a free ride down a gorgeous river flanked with dozens of giant rope swings, flying foxes, water-slides and free drinks for everyone? For most, the tubing experience in Vang Vieng is more than a scenic joyride. In fact, many don't remember the scenery at all. Some barely make it back to town in their tube. A hodgepodge of bamboo bars dot the first kilometer of the river's banks, brimming with Beerlao and little boys chucking bottle-weighted ropes to haul tubers ashore at each joint. Locals literally jump out of the trees above the river to trade various mind-alterants for wet kip notes, pointing proudly at scribbled signs boasting of "psychedelic shrooms." Add the slipperiest of slick banks, knife-edged rocky landings, over-crowded mudpits, and dangerously high rope swing towers to the throng of drunken tubers and you have one of the most accident-prone attractions in Laos. But that doesn't mean it's one to miss out on. Just as I forgot to mention the sun, I forgot to prepare for it on my first day on the river. A mostly cloudless day had turned me into a burnt, limping invalid. I spent the next day recuperating in one of the town's few dozen cafes, all of which feature either Friends or Family Guy on their TV screens, as well as a handful of young, bored white faces with filmy eyes and lax, dropped jaws. To avoid the easy slip under the town's backpacker trance, I took advantage of a cloudy afternoon to cross a flimsy bridge over the Nam Song and hike beneath limestone cliffs to a set of black caves. Just an hour later, the sun came out with a vengeance and sent me running back to Family Guy, an easy pick considering the options. Just for something a bit different, I took a last ride down the river tube-less. After a few rope swing launches I found myself breezing down the wild stretch of the river in a strong current. Reverse-breast-stroking to hide my burns from the sun, the rushing silt under my back made the sound of a mammoth hourglass as millions of grains and pebbles crashed along the rocks after me. Each time I popped my head above the surface the scenery had changed but it was still the same Nam Song. When civilization appeared on the banks, the rocks started to scrape my back, telling me to get out of the river and catch my bus. Still dripping with brown water and reeling from the longest swim of my life, I was bumping along the road to Vientiane just ten minutes after ambling into town. 18 AUGUST, 2009 Luang Prabang Somewhere during the fourth game of my second straight night of heated sand volleyball action along the Nam Khan, I felt suddenly dizzy. Non-stop movement, lack of sleep, racing through 10,000 calories a day: it wasn't what I'd had in mind for my stop in Luang Prabang. My sub-par reflexes sent me diving for a loose ball. I stopped my slide inches short of a giant rusted bomb shell--easily found in these parts and popular decor for gardens, guest houses and sand volleyball courts. I tried to follow everyone's advice when I reached Luang Prabang: just relax, they'd said, kick back and take it easy; it's a place of peace, they'd raved, a quiet haven, slow and steady as the Mekong, a "tonic for the soul," even. By my third day of anything but relaxation, my stay in Luang Prabang, Laos's prime tourist hub, had taken me in a different direction. From scaling waterfalls and jungle mountains to boat races to early morning bowling to marathon beach volleyball sessions, I'd done everything but relax. I took the first evening to explore the ancient capital's centerpiece, its half dozen temples and monuments. After sighting them all from the summit of Phu Si, I took a random meander through the various golden complexes, including Wat Xieng Thong, built almost 500 years ago. Each old courtyard of whitewashed walls, low sweeping roofs, and Buddha images hummed with novice monks asking to be stalked in their bright orange getup. Some glanced in my direction or smiled, but most couldn't have cared less about the odd white guy watching them do their monkish thing, washing or hanging flashy uniforms, poring over some Theravedic text as though it were Algebra homework, clashing cymbals, beating the temple drums, or chatting on fancy cell phones. The truth is that I wasn't at all odd as a white man in Luang Prabang: almost half the bodies roaming the markets along Sisavangvong were fellow-tourists, passing through town at various speeds. On my second day I joined forces with a smooth-talking Colombian I'd met on the Mekong. We headed to Tat Kuangxi, a pretty stretch of waterfalls somewhere to the southwest. We hiked from its uppermost pools to its lowest cataracts before getting held up by the most perfect rope swing I'd seen in my life, set in a blue bowl beneath a ring of falls. It had us racing out of the turquoise water for another "last jump" until exhaustion finally turned me into a lifeless buoy beneath the falls. The boat races are big in Luang Prabang. What I saw wasn't even the real thing, just a practice run, but it brought out the town to watch. Far away from downtown's tourist stretch along the banks of the Nam Khan, a carnival atmosphere pumped through the air with smoky stalls, sweet vendors, game booths, and droves of spectators crowding into makeshift bleachers and abandoned boats to watch. Man-powered longboats sped by as the teams raced down the Nam Khan, grunts and oar splashes sounding in unison as they shoved past us. Defying the 11:30 curfew, a couple places on the outskirts of Luang Prabang manage to stay open many hours after the city has gone to bed. Minus about a hundred drunken Lao youth and some enterprising tuk-tuk drivers, that is. Along with some new international friends, I joined them at one of the town's late night refuges as they danced to techno, hiphop, and Lao pop while downing bottles of Beerlao like tomorrow wouldn't come. At closing, a good number of its patrons fled to Luang Prabang's final outpost: the bowling alley, open until 3AM, where bowling scores tend to be quite low. A late night dip in the Nam Khan rounded off a night out in this holy town. If I was going to get any rest I knew I'd do well to leave Luang Prabang, that quiet haven of tranquility that had left me exhausted. Maybe the town could be a peaceful destination for anyone happy to sit back and watch the days go by in one of Sisavangvong's dozens of French bakeries or massage joints. I, on the other hand, had lost about all my patience for the lazy Mekong by the time I floated into town. Instead, it was Prabang's racing Nam Khan that got all my attention and energy. From the south bus station, I raced on to my next destination early on the morning of another unknown day of the week. 14 AUGUST, 2009 Mekong Slow Boat I started down the Mekong on a packed wooden longboat, setting out from the river town of Huay Xai. About 20 rows of tiny wooden pews were jammed into the belly of our boat and stacked with sweaty bodies, most of them foreigners. Before send-off the passengers grew restless, griping over space, shaking heads in disgust, a few angry sardines even doing their best to incite a revolt. And it worked, for about thirty minutes. Everyone filed off the boat in protest and milled about the shoreline, most confused but excited to be part of an angry mob. According to our outspoken revolutionaries, if everyone got off the boat and refused to get back on, the driver would have no choice but to commission a second boat. As it actually happened, the driver pulled out a sketchy-looking boat license, giving him legal right to pack his boat just below sinking point: he just sat back and waited while the Mekong rolled by without us. When everyone had finally realized there'd be no second boat, they filled the benches in again. By that time I'd climbed around the back and staked out my own private suite behind the luggage. I laid back against the stern railing and watched the Thai and Lao shoreline pass by as we floated downriver. The trip took two long but relaxing days of confinement aboard the grimy wooden beast. Having found nothing worth trading for in Huay Xai, I was book-less and forced to get creative in finding entertainment. I alternated between laying on the deck when the driver would let me, scanning the shoreline for the occasional hidden thatched village, making up card games with a couple French girls, climbing the roof of my suite when the driver wasn't looking, and hurrying down again in the face of a sudden rainstorm. We spent the night in Pak Beng, a town that seems to have little purpose other than as a rest-stop for the slow boat trip. To its credit, I was able to find a cheap bed, great food, and a book that I considered trade-worthy. I opted against one on the Rape of Nanking, instead checking out Slaughterhouse Five to spend my second boat day reading about time travel and the bombing of Dresden. As Vonnegut conjured images of fiery devastation, my own imagination took me back in time to the biggest bombing campaign in history, which took place right here in the Lao countryside when the U.S. blasted much of it to bits. Despite my efforts to keep busy and entertained, the Mekong took its time getting us to Luang Prabang, begging me to learn the patience shown by the boat driver in quelling the passengers' rebellion. I don't think I learned it though. The slow boat down the Mekong is hailed as one of SEA's must-do's. Having done it, I doubt I'll want to do it again. Nor am I eager to jump on another longboat any time soon. I gratefully stepped back onto solid ground in Luang Prabang early the next evening and wandered into town. 11 AUGUST, 2009 Luang Namtha Stumbling through thick jungle in search of anything resembling a path, I retraced back to the muddy river and forded across for the third time, silty brown water rising to my waist. A wall of rainforest stood between me and civilization, which, I'd decided, didn't include the riverside clusters of thatched bamboo hidden behind foliage on the far banks. I felt I'd entered wild territory. "Civilization" was just a few kilometers away in Luang Namtha, northern Laos. At the next curve in the river a pack of naked brown kids laughed and splashed around like wild things. As I approached they started off a small cliff, launching themselves into the river to show off to the newcomer. I hauled their slippery little bodies back up the bank so they could hurl themselves off again in miniature tai chi poses. As I moved down the shoreline they decided to join my search for civilization, running alongside me through bushes, up trees and over slippery rocks, eager to be led on some kind of adventure. Not wanting to disappoint my little followers, all smiling in anticipation and dripping in Mekong silt, I pointed ahead and started off as though I had a clue where I was going. They soon realized I didn't. Finally I left my naked friends and wound along a wet path connecting tiny stilted villages perched atop the steep river banks. Lao pop buzzed out of someone's tinny radio and I noticed a few rusty satellite dishes connecting these roofed bamboo thickets to the world (and forcing me to admit I hadn't strayed far from civilization at all). Forest gave way to fields of rice, spread out beautifully in bright green terraces and dotted with tiny thatched roofs for farmers to rest or retreat from sudden rains. The late afternoon sun was out. It had come out each day thus far in Laos. It gave faraway fields a golden glow and made every color look warmer. The main road from Boten stretched northeastward a few hundred feet away. I'd taken this road from China just a few days earlier: one of the most jaw-dropping bus rides of my life. From just before the Chinese border crossing were about three hours of dark mountains smothered in impenetrable jungles, impossibly tangled with spidery branches, bamboo wreaths and vines. Inside an enormous Chinese customs building, most of it just architectural uselessness, built to impress upon visitors that China is great, I got my exit stamp and walked towards Laos. I could have almost walked right by their shack of a customs building, which seemed to say that Laos doesn't really care what you think. I took a few days to breathe in Luang Namtha's laid-back vibe and explore its rolling hills. I checked out the local temples, stalked some orange-clad monks, sampled cold noodles with fish sauce at the local night market and took shelter from a rainstorm with a couple Lao kids that resembled my little brothers. They shared their bag of ice chunks with me and brought my Lao vocab up to three words, including thank you, or coup jai, which counts as two words of course. I began my Lao immersion by picking up a two-dollar tourist t-shirt with something clever written in Lao. The lady at the roadside t-shirt stall told me it says "coup jai." Until leaving Luang Namtha, my three words served me just fine. Hopping on a local bus heading towards the Golden Triangle, I spread out in the empty back seat to enjoy five more hours of awesome scenery. It didn't take long to decide that I like Laos. 7 AUGUST, 2009 Xishuangbanna I woke up about an hour before dawn when I realized the bus wasn't moving any more. Aside from a couple other sleeping stragglers, it was empty and sitting in a silent bus station. I'd reached Jinghong, a quiet provincial town tucked away in a remote corner of Southwest China along the banks of the Mekong. I decided against getting some extra sleep in the smelly bus and started into town. The faint light of dawn slowly revealed a quaint country town with broad palm-lined avenues. Passing beneath steep golden rooftops and Thai-style buildings, I got the feeling I'd left China behind the night before and arrived in Southeast Asia. In my rush through Jinghong I explored a couple directions of countryside by bus and bike. First, I was joined by a couple Israelis as we crossed the Mekong to check out the wildlife at Sanchahe Nature Reserve. Boasting snakes, monkeys, butterflies, birds, and "wild" elephants that park rangers lead through the park each morning, Sanchahe was China's little chunk of Southeast Asian wilderness, complete with souvenir shops and boardwalks. One path took us into the dense canopy as we scanned for hidden game along muddy streams and thick jungle below. Relaxing at the trail's end, a trio of ridiculously long-armed black monkeys swung down from vines and branches above, the bravest of them hanging limp a few feet from our faces. Seconds later, a pack of red-hatted Chinese tourists started up the path behind us, exploding with excited shouts, shutters and flashes when they spotted the monkeys. I realized what they'd been waiting for when a couple red-hats started tossing snacks: the nearest monkey went squealing to clutch it in eerily human hands and turn back to taunt the newcomers for more. Leaving Sanchahe, we passed a few more elephants, most laden with a handful of nervous tourists smiling for the camera. The next day we hopped on bikes and headed west into the countryside in search of Dai villages. Local advice was to just pick a direction and keep riding: Xishuangbanna is packed with hidden villages in lush rolling hills hosting a range of minority groups that I can't name. Breezing by rice paddies, pineapple fields, and rows of dripping rubber trees we covered about 25 kilometers of subtle incline before testing our brakes on a few straight miles of steep descent. When a drizzle turned into a downpour there was no village in sight. We huddled beneath some thick canopy while the Israelis made some coffee, whipping a stove and pot out of nowhere. Reaching a sleeping village by late afternoon, we gave sore butts a rest to explore the area's modest rice terraces, stilted, bamboo-thatched houses, and the token hilltop temple. Leaning against a wall beneath the temple's wooden roof, a young monk in yellow robes eyed me like I was the one dressed funny. I asked to take his photo, to remind him who was on exhibit. We caught a tractor back up the mountain, one of the only free rides I'd enjoyed in China. The jolly little driver refused money even when his rickety beast broke down near the top, probably thanks to our combined weight. As we started our coast down the other side, he was still bent over his ancient engine, cheeks puffed and blowing into some hole on top as if it were a CD drive. I decided then that I like Dai people. When the rain quit and evening set in, the villages we passed came alive: women with gold-plated teeth and colorful headdress hauling baskets, straw-hatted men in sarongs heading for fields or chilling on porches, kids enjoying the dirt, everyone emerging together from long siestas. I celebrated/mourned my last evening in China with a trip to the night market to stuff myself with rice and fried veggies and relish in my much-improved chopstick skills. The next day my expiring visa would force me out of Xishuangbanna to cross into northern Laos. 4 AUGUST, 2009 Kunming When my train pulled into Kunming I was a few days into my bee-line race across southern China. My visa expiration date was coming down fast and I knew I'd have little to no time for Yunnan, arguably China's most photogenic state. As for my next stop, I set my sights firmly on Burma. I stepped off Bus 64 on Xichang Lu somewhere in west Kunming and wandered its palm-lined avenues until I found my little place behind a small colony of old mah-jongers. Minutes later I'd dropped off my bag and started out on foot to the Myanmar Consulate. The route took me through some of the last remnants of Old Kunming. A few half-collapsed neighborhoods of wooden two-story storefront homes are left, barely surviving in a sea of high-rise concrete blocks that will inevitably engulf them. From ancient woodwork, crooked foundations, centuries of paint-jobs, rust-smothered shutters, and entire lawns carpeting the black tile roofs, I got the impression they'd seen better days. Bulldozers plowed the streets and constructions zones lengthened my route with detours around whole chunks of Chinese heritage getting demolished. At the consulate, some Burmese secretary greeted me kindly and asked me to sit and wait a few minutes, after which an official emerged from his office to say the visa section was closed. It was early on a Friday afternoon. I'd have to wait until Monday. While it would have been a ridiculously fast-paced two days to reach and return from Lijiang, Shangri-la, or Dali, the main reason I spent the weekend in Kunming was to prepare for Burma. Broke, and with next to zero idea of what to expect across the border in terms of prices, buses, jeeps, hostels, etc., I used those two days to research and earn money for the trip, taking nights off on the town for sanity's sake. On Monday, after exploring half the city in search of passport photos (they didn't like the ones I'd taken in Pakistan), I returned to the consulate. I'd waited about thirty minutes and filled out all the application forms before an official informed me that the border was closed. No land crossings from Ruili to Burma. A recent change in policy. A little depressed, I wound back through Old Kunming trying to come up with a Plan B. I took my own detour past a couple onion-domed mosques and up to Green Lake Park to consider my options. Wandering the tangle of old bridges stringing stone walkways across the lake, musicians played the Eight Sounds on a range of exotic instruments, solo or in ensemble, some drawing crowds and others just embarrassing themselves. Outside the thousand-year old Yuantong Temple, closed for the afternoon, I stalked a couple monks who led me to a small monastery hidden behind apartment blocks. Somewhere between idly spinning a couple prayer wheels and winding up back at my hostel I'd figured it out. I spent that same night on a bus heading due south, to Jinghong. With just a few days left on my visa, there was little time to waste in getting to Laos. 30 JULY, 2009 Yangshuo After a third pass through Guilin's train station, I hopped off a bus in Yangshuo late in the evening, glad to see last month's flood hadn't washed it off the map. I was also happy for the good weather. I planned to enjoy the next few days of biking the countryside in search of Willow's village. Within a few minutes of walking towards where I'd hoped to find my hostel, rain broke out. A few seconds later it let loose with force. Streets that were clogged with Chinese tourists were evacuated as everyone huddled under the nearest storefront holding their cheap little umbrellas, useless against the sudden downpour. I ran into an alley for cover beneath a packed souvenir stand then reached for my Yangshuo map. After a minute of poring over the streets, I turned half way around and saw my guest house a few feet away down an alley, a big sign with its name staring right at me. When the rain had quit I wandered the pedestrian-only streets of town, each little lane brightly lit with neon signs, humming with happy tourists and thumping with Chinese pop music. Souvenir shops overflowed with merchandise that poured onto the street, t-shirts of Mao and Bob Marley hanging above each stone walkway. Cute boys with sick "barber accident" haircuts and all the trendiest of fashions swayed their cute bods outside dozens of nightclubs to reel in female customers. A couple girls hailed me with big smiles and surprisingly clear English and I joined them at a local English School for some conversation (in exchange for free food and drinks) to pass the evening. Winding back to my hostel, I stared up at strobe-lit rock faces that jut right out of the streets and got excited for the next day. In the morning I set off on a rented bike under thick gray clouds. The peaks were everywhere. Surrounding the little town, lining the river, and bumping out of the otherwise flat farmland like Dr. Seuss illustrations. Rising up to 200 meters in all directions, the white stone spires were mostly hidden beneath vertical jungles. Low-flying clouds rolled right through their massive walls, silhouetting faraway peaks first a pale blue, then gray, then invisible. When I took off into the east I'd opted to forego the map. I've got it all in my head, I told myself. Actually, the whole time I thought I was going south. A couple hours later, asking directions in some unnamed village about 15 km southeast of town, I regretted repeating one of the oldest mistakes in the book. Surrounding Yangshuo are about 70,000 karst peaks scattered around 50 miles in each direction. If anyplace needed a map, it was here. As I finally reached a junction that branched off in the right direction, the rain started again. With plastic bags tied tightly over my camera bag I made the 10 km ride to Moon Hill in rain that came down like the shower at Andy's apartment. I crossed the Yu Long River as hundreds of boat tourists squeezed together under giant umbrellas, waiting either for the rain to stop or for their turns to come for a joyride down a few hundred meters of flat, gentle water on a long wooden raft filled with about ten other tourists. Although tempted, I pedaled on and finally stopped at the foot of Moon Hill for some lunch. Waiting for my rice to come out, I pulled the plastic bags off my bag to check the camera. Slightly horrified, I found the bag soaked through. The camera was dripping with rainwater. I freaked out, grabbing tissues from the next table and wiping like a madman to get everything dry. Satisfied, I took a deep breath and turned it on. Nothing happened. I gulped with disgust and hurriedly ate half my rice before hopping right back on my bike and speeding back to Yangshuo. Moon Hill would have to wait. A soft-spoken little repair-man told me to come back the next afternoon to find out if the camera would live to see another day. Leaving my comatose D80 behind, I stepped back into the street, alone. I spent the next 24 hours writing silly articles in the silly tourist town of Yangshuo to earn the repair money, trying to hope for the best. My palms shot together for a bow and then I leaned in and hugged the apathetic repair man when he told me news the next day. He blushed into a smile that made his eyes disappear as I pulled away and thanked him for the tenth time. The camera was good to go, and after a solid 24 hours of work in my hostel, so was I. In a deja vu back at Moon Hill, I enjoyed a slow rice meal before hiking through its giant crescent-shaped cavity to the lookout point on its west side. To reach the top, I branched off the main trail onto the dirt/mud track that Spencer had mentioned. A few hundred meters along, coming ridiculously close to slipping off the trail and into the wall of jungle that dropped below it (not smart to do this hike in flip flops), I looked across the bizarre Willow-scape beneath me. As I'd envisioned for months before coming to China, I whiled away the afternoon on a rusty bike snaking through narrow valleys between rice farms and bamboo groves. I followed the Yu Long River north for several hours, dodging the occasional water buffalo, duck, chicken or child sharing the trail, and responding to friendly ni haos at every other bend. As I cruised back into Yangshuo that evening, the sun broke through the clouds for the first time since I'd left Fuyang. Set to take off the next afternoon for Kunming, I climbed a hotel roof to watch the sun slip behind the karst peaks, feeling lucky to be reunited with my resurrected camera and happy that I'd finally seen a fraction of Yangshuo's legendary landscape. 27 JULY, 2009 Yong Xing School Not long after the bell rang on the first day of class, the door slammed open to the sound of about thirty shrieking children. In seconds they'd poured into the dreary classroom like an invading army eager to loot some unprotected village. One little monster was visibly salivating with anticipation, drool struggling to balance in the corner of his mouth as he hopped around his table like a baby hyena. The kids kept their little limbs and lips moving until the second bell brought them all slamming into their seats, thirty little chairs suddenly grinding against the hard floor in a screeching burst. It was the first day of summer camp in the Yong Xing School. With no teaching experience whatsoever, I was put in charge of class 3C (third graders) along with a veteran Chinese teacher, assigned as my "assistant." The first task was naming the kids. I had no hope of remembering almost 30 Chinese names so I was relieved at the idea of giving them all English names myself. Brath chose his own name. After each name tag was set on each table, Tobias, Gandalf, and Cain stared blankly up at the front of the room, curious to find out whether this new white devil would be mean or nice. As it turned out I was a complete pushover as a teacher. With the help of Vivi, my amazing Chinese assistant, discipline was rarely up to me. One glance from Vivi could silence and still even the most notorious of my little trouble-makers (who happened to be a little Satan-child I'd named Locke--yes, I do watch Lost). After the recess bell rang, a small herd gathered round my desk to ask questions that I couldn't answer, fake arm-wrestle, climb up my back or stroke my fascinating arm-hair. By the first day I'd comfortably labeled just about all the interesting students such as Emily the slug-catcher and Chocolate the lard-ball, as well as the annoying ones like Sam the sweaty hugger. Just a few days into camp came our first of several unearned but much appreciated breaks. Our vigorous teaching schedule had us hard at work up to two full hours a day, leaving us exhausted and just six hours short of understanding the nine-to-five world. Trips to Hangzhou and Shanghai, hanging out in laid-back Fuyang, and re-watching Arrested Development occupied most of our free time, giving us the boost we needed to face our little gremlins once again. Crowding into local restaurants with Andy and Spencer for kung pao chicken or hitting the corner store for ice cream, I sometimes hoped to run into Tobias or Chocolate on the street, to see a smile of recognition in a little Chinese face for the first time. It was a dumb thing to hope, because as I later found out, the Yong Xing summer camp was a mini-boarding school. Chocolate and Tobias weren't even allowed to leave the school grounds. I thought of the hell they might be going through stuck at Yong Xing all the time and it shot me a first dose of empathy for my little army of outcasts. As the camp rolled on and I remembered all the drama that can ruin a third grader's life (your supposed best friend getting a new best friend, the bully from the next class pushing you around, getting called on or not getting called on in class--all of which came to life in my classroom), the empathy grew. I slowly started to see each kid as a human kid. Fifteen days after that first bell rang, I finally knew each kid by their fake English name, their usual behavior, and by a rough assessment of their intelligence. I had come to like even the most thought-challenged of my kids, and was honestly a little sad to see the camp end. After our final lesson--an intense series of Pixar movies--I followed the horde (or was dragged by half a dozen kids) up the stairs to their next class, not quite ready to walk off and never see any of those little people again. Having learned a few useful English words like platypus, thorax, and mandrill, the kids had completed a successful summer camp for their parents to brag about. Having learned phrases like "g'day mate" and "cool, dude," my students were prepared to take on the English world. Having learned not to jump on and wrap his arms around every foreigner he saw, even Sam had become a likable kid. Shortly after walking out of Yong Xing for the last time I boarded a bus for Hangzhou and said goodbye to Fuyang. Tucked into my wallet was a long-distance train ticket and a few kuai from my short stint as an English teacher. 22 JULY, 2009 Solar Eclipse When I woke up late Tuesday morning in Fuyang, I didn't remember hearing anything about a solar eclipse. Andy called Spencer and me outside into their apartment's courtyard where a handful of people were staring into the sky with dark filters awkwardly held over their eyes. Andy brought out old ultra-sounds and soon we were doing the same thing: staring up at a sun that looked like a bright crescent moon. Slowly the moon squeezed the sun into half a thin bright ring before wiping it out completely. When we put down our filters it was night time. People came rushing to their windows to see if it was the end of the world. It was about 10:30 in the morning. The eerie darkness slowly gave way as the sun slid out again. By then the neighborhood was out, and we watched a few older men crouched in front of us, cutting strips of a uterus from Andy's paper. (If you leave something on the ground in China, it belongs to the people). I later found out what a big deal the eclipse, hailed as the longest of the century, was to some people. Passing on a wide arch from south to east Asia, nearby Shanghai happened to fall right under its path. People traveled far, some halfway around the world, to see the eclipse, but too bad for them: clouds and rain blocked everything. Even Hangzhou, just an hour away, missed out due to bad weather. Although they couldn't have missed the ten minutes of darkness, they saw no eclipse. I should feel a bit lucky to have literally rolled out of bed and looked up into clear skies. And to have happened to be in sunny Fuyang, of all places. 12 JULY, 2009 Two Likengs and the Hidden Falls On our second day in Wuyuan, we bused into Likeng, a quaint little riverside town that marked the end of the road. Tucked away behind endless rows of green hills and mountains, the setting of this Hezhoua village was far more remote than the first Likeng. Yes, there are two towns called Likeng, only an hour apart by road but separated by the same vast world of difference dividing places that have been discovered (and subsequently developed for Chinese tourism) and those that haven't. "Little Likeng," as the first town is known, is a beautifully lazy village hugging the sides of a small winding stream crisscrossed with centuries-old bridges, all surrounded with rice fields and forested hills. Early mornings and late evenings the village can be itself: quiet, calm, relaxed, no need for speed. I enjoyed my wanderings through its mossy corridors and surrounding hills. But from the first wave of Chinese tourist buses to unload at its gates each morning, the village bears a constant stream of cameras, umbrellas and peace sign poses that flood through little Likeng's overpriced entrance gates until the very last bored hordes of tourists load back onto the very last bus each night. While there's no way to deny the village's charm, there was no way Andy, Spencer, and I were going to stay a second night. Back at Wuyuan's bus terminal, where we'd arrived a couple days earlier from lovely Nanchang, we bought tickets for Yellow Mountain, one of China's most famed natural wonders. To pass the time waiting for bus, I read a few blogs on the mountain in an internet cafe. Each of them whined of high entrance fees, ridiculous hostel prices and giant lines up and down the mountain, thousands of pink umbrellas inadvertently creating a covered walkway stretching a thousand vertical feet. It sounded like a mountain version of little Likeng. I told Andy and Spencer. We returned the tickets. Instead of Yellow Mountain, we would head back into the countryside in an attempt to escape the beast of mass-tourism. At least a couple of us had faith that somewhere something had survived the attack, maybe some hidden outpost that had been spared from the plague. Almost completely by accident, we found what we were looking for in Likeng, "big Likeng," as it was called (with almost ten more houses than little Likeng). A lively round young woman led us through the village's narrow old alleys to a humble hostel in which she lived with her family. The absence of a souvenir shop or of five thousand umbrellas brought me a little smile. As we stepped into the hostel, out came the pudgy woman's wiry little husband, eyes wide and grinning at us like long-lost family. Within seconds of our warm greeting, the man hopped over to a faded board of photos, excitedly pointing at various shots of villages, rivers, waterfalls, and white people. The waterfall caught our eye. That same afternoon the three of us were speeding along a country road on our new friend's motorcycle towards the set of falls from our friend's old photo. Few farmers bothered to look up as we curved past them into a jungly valley beneath wild cloud-capped mountains. Thanks to Spencer and Andy's Chinese skills, the search was over minutes after parking the bike at the gates of another Hezhoua village. We hiked the trail to the falls and proceeded to swim, climb, and jump for a couple hours without a spectator in sight. The white water was cool and clear, spilling across rock walls into blue-green pools. We'd found a rare little gem in Jianxi's backcountry, especially rare for that fact that it was undiscovered, untouched by the plague. The next morning we opted for three rickety bikes and cruised down a few miles of steep mountain roads in a second search: for a bridge. Also hanging on our hostel man's wall, the bridge was said to be almost two hours away by motorcycle. Near the bottom of the road we decided our bikes weren't going to cut it to the bridge (and none of us were keen on pedaling back up the mountain) so we hailed a truck to toss them in, bumming a ride back to Likeng. Back on our friend's motorcycle, we set out for the mysterious bridge. A couple hours later, having covered about 15 miles and passed half as many villages, the bridge remained lost to us. From one of the largest of these villages rose a 300-year-old seven-story tower resembling Saruman's lookout. I almost had to rub my eyes to believe that such a bizarre site could stand free of tourist bus lots and ticket gates: across the street, a shopkeeper simply handed us a giant old key so we could climb to the top and look out on the countryside dotted with clusters of white walls and black roofs. Even further into the middle of nowhere, we gazed at yet another picturesque old bridge. It wasn't the one we'd come to see, but running out of time, gas and energy we decided the bridge from the picture might have to remain undiscovered a bit longer, even by us. Instead we returned to our favorite Likeng again, making a long and beautiful detour to one of our favorite pieces of undeveloped paradise in China, the waterfalls. 6 JULY, 2009 Guilin and the Dragon's Backbone The dramatic karst peaks surrounding Guilin and Yangshuo had long been among the few planned stop-offs along my improvised route through China. Something in the way those jungly spires stand straight through the clouds, the placid Li River wrapping tightly around their giant green haunches, caught my eye years ago through coffee table books, the discovery channel, and Google image. The subject of millions of Chinese water paintings, the karst summits also happen to make a perfect setting (or fake backdrop) for high-flying martial arts films, having shared the big screen with such legends as Bruce Lee and Jack Black. And so, understandably, Yangshuo has been highlighted and underlined on my China map for months. The only problem was timing: when I traveled to Guilin, Yangshuo was closed. Still traveling with sister Andy and brother-in-law Spencer, the three of us arrived in Guilin at night, stepping off the train into sprinkling rain. The light and shops and crowds and clubs were still wide awake as we wandered the super-developed touristy strip that surrounded our hostel. Judging from the crazy amount of hotels, bars, bakeries, backpacker lodges, and restaurants serving burgers, banana pancakes and pizza, Guilin seems to be on a few other people’s maps as well: just about every other tourist in China, probably. From the first night I was eager to jump on a boat headed down the river to relatively quiet, idyllic Yangshuo. But before floating the Li south, we decided on a detour into the hills to the north. Famous for stunning rice terraces, an isolated stretch of lush valleys dotted with tiny minority villages, hot springs, and jungle trails is known as the Dragon’s Backbone. It sounded cool to us, too. We bused up to Longsheng in a drizzle that had continued all day and probably all of the previous night. The next bus dropped us at a tiny wooden village connected across an overflowed river by rope-bridge. Rain-worn roads put our intended destination, the hill-town of Ping’an, out of reach by bus. Someone pointed at the bridge and beyond, straight up the mountain, where the town sat hidden by clouds. We crossed the wild brown torrent as a few dozen villagers carefully waded its banks, struggling not to get swept away while scraping nets against the churning surface. We failed to see what they were catching; probably something small and slimy to put in their rice. One Finnish couple and a flock of Chinese tourists followed our lead as we wound through the nameless village up the clouded mountain towards the invisible town. By the time we reached Ping'an we were soaked despite 10-kuai umbrellas. The light rain didn't appear to be letting up anytime soon. We dropped our bags in a cheap room and waited for my headache to subside. In all our time in the state of Guanxi, the rain held back for only one sizable stretch. Luckily, this happened to be our afternoon in Ping'an. Emerging from our room loaded with Ibuprofen, I slipped my umbrella away and we took off on the trails for a few hours, taking in near bird's eye views of the rice terraces. Each curved rice plot brimming with rain-water, the mountainside overflowed in hundreds of step-pools reflecting the gray sky. A downpour set in as we returned to Ping'an for dinner, rain pounding against the tarp roof of our little food-joint. In the morning we retraced our steps down the mountain and into the nameless little village below. Along with the two Finns who'd been cheated in Ping'an, their hotel lying that there was no bus to Longsheng that day ("I guess you'll have to stay at our hotel again!"), we hired a van to take us to Guilin. Half way there we reached a road block. Flooded, apparently. Forced to double back and go "the long way," we finally arrived at the end of a long jam down on the flooded plain. Fields were destroyed and houses half-buried in as much as five feet of water. Locals crowded the submerged road to watch the traffic spectacle. Since their farms were gone they had nothing else to do but laugh at cars trying to plow through the lowest dip in the road. Our driver wasn't sure about driving through the river blocking our passage to Guilin, but we were convinced it was a good idea. The rain was still going strong, and we knew that it could have been minutes before the road became practically impassable, or worse, blocked off by police. At our insistence we finally rolled through the gap, a few dozen villagers watching intently. Back in Guilin, we waded through flooded streets just a few meters from our hostel. Standing in a river that used to be a road, an old English prophet of doom ambled slowly towards us, umbrella in hand and water to his waist, and proceeded to prophesy catastrophe worse than anything in the last 50 years. Although the river had clearly swelled beyond belief, I didn't want to believe the Brit, still hoping to spend a week or so in Yangshuo. But in fact, he was only wrong about one thing: the troops and tanks didn't roll into town that same day, at least not while I was looking. Staring at the news channel later that day, he was apparently right about the rest. Yangshuo was out of bounds. No boats were allowed on the river, and the roads would be blocked for days. Spencer, having spent some time in the riverside town last year, suggested that most of Yangshuo was probably gone anyway. But the consolation was the Dragon's Backbone--at least we didn't see nothing around Guilin. Still, Yangshuo would have to wait awhile. For at least a bit longer, the image of karst peaks will stir up memories not of my own visit, but of watching Kung Fu Panda. To avoid incoming legions of tanks and soldiers, we hopped on a train that same night. 2 JULY, 2009 Qingcheng Shan We reached the starting point of our hike to the sacred Qingcheng Shan, birthplace of Taoism, in the middle of a cool, steady downpour. Thanks to Spencer and Andy's Chinese skills, we avoided the typically high entrance fee at the gate barring the main route, instead slipping onto a back trail that snaked towards the summit. Gray fog blew through the trees and streamed over the tops of limestone cliffs in thick clouds. Shortly after reaching the first of several ancient temples, their black wooden walls paled by mist, the trail widened and for the first time we confirmed we were heading in the right direction, towards the top. Having never encountered them anywhere else, the scattered Taoist temples, often built into the cliff face, struck me as mysteriously new despite being almost as old as Lao Tsu himself. Back in the sixth century BC, he explained Tao (pronounced "dow") as a concept that's technically indefinable, unexplainable even. It is sometimes referred to as the way, or the path, and can only be learned through experience. It is said to be an enveloping power that "surrounds and flows through all things," bringing balance to the universe. Balance seems to be the essence in all things Taoist: just think yin yang, or tai chi. One of the most holy mountains of Taoism, Qingsheng has at least half a dozen temples from as early as the Tang Dynasty. Drenched and hungry, we stumbled into the temple complex of Shangqing Palace, founded 2,000 years ago then rebuilt in the Qing Dynasty, late in the afternoon. We shuffled about the painted shrines, candles and giant incense sticks among a mix of priests, pilgrims and tourists, then hurried to find some food. A jolly round-faced cook brought out some kung pao chicken and fried veggies, Sichuan style: notoriously spicy and smattered with slime from the slugs that we'd seen stuck to the trail. Late in the evening, as the fog receded and panoramic jungle views unfolded, I began to understand why the mountain has long been known as Dong Tian Fu Di, or "fairyland on earth." A priest pointed us up the final steps and we hopped our way over giant frogs and past thousands of golden padlocks to reach the summit, topped with yet another temple and surrounded by misty mountain vistas. The ever-present clouds melted into the pale blue and green of far off jungle peaks, often sweeping into an ocean of white from which mountains rose like islands. So entranced by the surroundings, I almost missed the 40-foot golden bull housed by the high-rise mountain-top temple. Riding on its back like some mythical Chinese cowboy was a massive statue of Lao Tsu himself, his head grazing the roof as he calmly harnessed his ch'i. We spent the night at Shangqing and wound back down the mountain after another early morning stop at the summit to say goodbye to the old prophet, his bull, and his holy mountain. 1 JULY, 2009 Chengdu After so many long nights on the road, Chengdu offered a change of pace and an ideal place to take a breather. Not the cleanest of air--the fifth-most populous city in China (13 million) probably ranks as high on China's most polluted cities list--but a refreshing urban charm that was wholly new to me along my little jaunt across Asia. Marking the end point of the southern Silk Road, Chengdu's countless Sichuan-style road-stalls, steaming restaurants, and packed teahouses also reminded me that I'd left south and central Asia far behind. Released at the train station, I made my way along ginko- and hibiscus-lined streets, steaming with humidity and swimming in traffic of every variety, to arrive at Chengdu's veritable traveler's mecca. Known as Sim's Guest House, it was slightly more than a guest house. Since my last border crossing, traversing China has spent half my energy and most of my dollars. Sim's was kind to both, offering a clean bed in an air-conditioned dorm room, self-serve laundry, towels, toilet paper, hot showers, non-squat toilets, clothes hangers, free maps, information and even a complimentary candy basket, refilled regularly: for three dollars. I decided to spend a few days in Chengdu to soak up the laid-back vibe from the streets as well as the peace of mind afforded by Sim's House of Wonders. In exploring the city, I passed hours on foot and on bike winding aimlessly about. I slowly circled Wenshu's Tang Dynasty complex of Buddhist temples, where yellow-robed monks shuffled about the dark wooden monastery halls lighting incense and muttering prayers. The surrounding gardens hum with men, women, canes and walkers, the average age somewhere near 70, lapping the tree-choked temple grounds and fanning themselves on riverside benches. I was passing a lively market that spilled into the streets when I felt a slight tug at my backpack. I swung around instinctively and caught the would-be thief red-handed, staring at me blankly, his hand frozen in an attempt to unzip my bag. As I yelled some niceties into his shocked little face, a gang of his friends crept up from his rear, pulling on his shirt, whispering something like, "time to go, dude." Then he ran off with his friends, looking back nervously over his shoulder. Although bustling throughout the day, the city seemed to really wake up when the sun went down. Making my easy way back to Sim's, a crowded table of half-drunk Chinese guys at a street-side cafe, sharing mountains of food and a bit too much drink, pulled out a seat for me. With no plans of my own I agreed and, surprisingly, kept up a lively conversation with my hosts well into the night. Our topics were somewhat limited by my total lack of Chinese skills, but all were happy to discuss the NBA and how horrible the Japanese are. At bed-time they all rose and staggered off after a round of handshakes and sweaty hugs. Back at Sim's, I spent the late hours of the night sharing bananas on the roof with an old grizzled Albanian who dressed like a Saudi--a bit of an odd sight for Chengdu, but then Sim's does welcome all travelers, even Albanians. Well-tired, I left him to his odd talk and bananas and stepped into another night of air-conditioned dreams. On my third day in town I was joined by my sister and brother-in-law, Andy and Spencer, and then later by a cousin, Jessica, and her husband Ryan. Andy and Spencer live near Hangzhou, where they've taught English for almost a year, while Ryan and Jessica came for a visit from Ojai, California. The five of us based at Sim's and shared spicy hot pots before riding across town on rented one-speed bikes, stopping off at an odd haunted house named The Fun House and a newly developed Old Chinese strip, largely for tourists, complete with wooden store-fronts, red lanterns and a Starbucks. Outvoted 4 to 1, I joined the group for a foot massage to cap off the night. I struggled to suppress screams of pain as two women beat, pinched, and rubbed my feet in turns, only slipping up when my feet swung into a pot of near-boiling water. Despite the beating of the night before, my once-callused feet felt soft and relaxed, and thanks to Sim's and its greasy food and cheap beds, so did I. After a failed attempt to see pandas the next day, I hopped on a train with Andy and Spencer, heading east. 26 JUNE, 2009 Barred from Amdo Stepping onto the crowded platform at Lanzhou, I felt as relieved as a refugee escaping a war zone. The crowds overflowing the train and shoving towards the exit were a breath of fresh air after a night of alternately standing in a busy aisle, leaning on a few vacant inches of seat, or hunched against the grimy bathroom door in an attempt to sleep. I made a mental note to never settle for general seating on an overnight trip again. Released into the ordered chaos of Lanzhou, a city known for little other than being the largest in Gansu, I managed to complete a couple of errands regarding my dirty camera, then made it to the south bus station. I had worked on a travel plan the night before, standing in a sleeping aisle somewhere between Jiayuguan and Lanzhou. The mountains to the south and west were rich with Hui and Tibetan villages, spectacular sites, all linked along the road to Sichuan province by erratic local bus systems. Sounded like a good plan to me. I budgeted about five to six days along the mountain roads to Sichuan. That night I hoped to arrive in Xiahe, home to Amdo's most impressive Tibetan monasteries. Apparently it was only second in grandeur and importance to Lhasa's own Potala Palace. Excited at the prospect of new adventures, I made my way to the south station. Seconds after reaching the front of the ticket line, hopes of reaching Xiahe crumbled. Closed to foreigners, apparently. Not since before the March riots of last year have the locals been trusted with tourists. Unable to buy a Xiahe ticket, I chose a slightly alternate route on the spot, through Langmusi, another Tibetan town further east. I'd first have to bus to Linxia, then change rides. Unlike the bus to Xiahe, this one had no problem letting me board. Disappointed at missing Xiahe but consoled with Langmusi, I left the smog of Lanzhou behind in a cloud of exhaust, watching the hills roll into mountains as we sped south. As on all scenic bus-rides, I daydreamed of some future return in a jeep, free to pull over at any turn for photos and wandering the countryside rather than sitting helpless behind tinted windows. Before the bus ride, I'd imagined the House of Islam's eastern edge was left far behind me in the deserts of Xinjiang. Dozens of spiraling minarets proved otherwise, rising tall from Chinese-flavored mosques, elaborate with woodwork and blue tiles fit for a Taoist temple. Hui Muslim farmers worked terraced fields beneath white embroidered caps, just about the only items setting them apart from their Han cousins. Their women stood out more brightly in long pink Nefertiti caps instead of headscarves, working right beside the men and carrying cartloads of green along high dirt roads. Our bus was sailing along one such road when we came to an abrupt stop somewhere near the middle of nowhere, nothing but rice fields up and down the valley. Everyone slowly filed out as if for a routine checkpoint, and as I stepped off I saw nothing but trucks, buses, and carts piled in a long line that disappeared around a bend. We waited about three hours for the first sign of life ahead, and finally lumbered into Linxia, my intended halfway point for the day, well after dark. Having missed the last bus to Langmusi, I found a cheap bed near the station. The next morning was a blur. I strolled into the bus station at 6AM, eager to get moving. By 8AM the lot was almost empty and the buses mostly gone, some headed for Langmusi. Not one English word was spoken in Linxia, leaving me utterly lost as to why the cops and drivers wouldn't let me board any buses going south. When at last it became clear to me that Langmusi was not an option as a foreigner (apparently it wasn't just Xiahe but the entire south that had been closed off!) I boarded the only bus I was allowed to board under all the officers' watchful eyes: back to charming Lanzhou. Twelve hours later I was standing in an aisle of yet another train, general seating once again, despite the bold print of all my mental notes from the last ride. Luckily, a couple smiling monks offered me a seat somewhere between afternoon and evening, and I clung to it the rest of the trip, fully prepared to ignore even the oldest of ladies carrying the highest number of babies. After 24 hours of whisking along valleys, through tunnels and past dramatic mountain scenery I had hoped to spend days crossing, I pulled into Chengdu, adding an asterisk and a few exclamation marks beside those metal notes. 24 JUNE, 2009 Jiayuguan I rolled off my seat at 4AM to the bus driver yelling something Chinese in my direction. By about his fourth repetition, I'd shaken myself to life barely enough to catch his drift: get off the bus! I grabbed my bag and jumped out, my eyes struggling to stay open. We'd reached Jiayuguan. When the bus pulled away I sat on the curb near a lone street lamp, not a living thing in sight. I'd arrived slightly earlier than expected. Walking up the broad empty streets, I found a binguan and slipped into the deserted lobby, making myself a bed on the couch, careful not to wake the sleeping receptionist. At first light I slipped back out into the city, still asleep but for a few dozen old men shuffling along the side streets. Within half an hour I'd found a bike and was headed west along the highway past a mass of smokestacks and apartment blocks, towards the city's number one attraction, the Jiayuguan fort. Built on China's far western frontier, along the outskirts of Mongolia and the Gobi Desert, the fort was erected back in the 14th century during the early Ming Dynasty. This was where the banished convicts of those days would see the last of China before being thrown into the dark unknown that lay just outside the empire's borders. It was flanked on either side by the Great Wall, which continued into the Qilian Shan peaks to the south and the Black Mountains to the north. The fort still stands intact today, along with impressive stretches of the wall. I pulled up on my bike a few hours before opening time, but the gatekeeper somehow took pity and let me into the grounds surrounding the fort. While another ridiculous entry fee kept me from getting inside the fort itself, I had other things to see. I rode off to climb the Great Wall. Largely restored, a few miles of the wall rise and fall over the black mountains north of town. As usual, in getting there I had to weigh a few contradicting directions, in the end trusting an 80-year old woman over two teenage girls. Looming straight ahead for a few miles of empty road snaked the wall, its guard towers marking the crest of each desert ridge. I noticed just one minor mistake in the restoration: the way the arrow slits were built would have required the archers to stand almost at a 45 degree angle to launch their arrows, defying gravity as much as the fighters in old Chinese Kung Fu movies. Instead of vertical slits fit for mere mortals, for no apparent reason these ones curved to reflect the slope of the mountain, like legos plopped on the hillside. Complaints aside, but for a handful of Chinese tourists, I had the silly-looking wall to myself. I scaled the highest tower to the south, the Hexi Corridor folding out behind me, the Qilian Shan rising in a snowy backdrop to the south. Before riding back to town I noticed a familiar building that seemed very out of place. Behind a section of Great Wall, an eight-storey Chinese tower, and a concrete guard post stood what looked like a Buddhist monastery, perched along a steep hillside. Close. A functioning nunnery, its dark inner chamber smoked with incense while its walls hid behind buddhas, boddhisatvas, demons and dakinis, a reminder that in a different century, I would have been standing within the borders of Tibet. I joined a lone nun for a breather on the carpet. She appeared to be contemplating the mysteries of the universe. I contemplated snatching a banana from the pile of fresh offerings whenever she closed her eyes. In need of food and rest, I pedaled back to town and explored the local market. I filled up on fried noodles and dumplings, then rode on to buy a cheap ticket out of town that night. Paying only 55 quai for an overnighter, I wasn't expecting to catch up on that rest anytime soon. Looking back on the 12-hour train ride that followed, I would have been happy enough to find a seat. 22 JUNE, 2009 Dunhuang Cruising down a broad paved road on my rickety rented bike, a high ridge of dunes curved across the dusty sky ahead. I turned down a narrow track lined with poplars and cotton fields, farms and water channels. A couple kilometers along, the green ended abruptly at the foot of a mountain of white sand. Not a car in sight, not another person around, not a cloud in the sky, just the sun and silence. Setting off to climb the first dune, I lasted only few seconds before sprinting back across the burning lava for my life: sandals weren't the best choice for an afternoon hike on the sand. An hour later I was back at the same spot, with shoes. Climbing along a single sandy ridge, the oasis spread out behind me with each slow step. Over a dipping ridge to the east I glimpsed the roof of a small Chinese temple, then a small solitary oasis, and finally the curve of a moon-shaped lake, dark blue against the sand surrounding it on all sides. Looking closer, I noticed dozens of bright specs moving about the lakeside and up the face of its dunes. Peering through my telephoto lens, I made out the shapes of two-humped camels, laden with more specs, all milling about the valley: Chinese tourists. One dune further to the east was scattered with ant-like spots winding up and down its face: 4x4s. A couple parachutes flew into view, rounding the top of a distant dune. Sitting far to the west on a lonely peak, my short-lived solitude vanished with the spectacle. This was Dunhuang, a beautiful desert town on the old Silk Road taken by storm from the east with the full fury of devastation that is Chinese "tourism development." My first stop in Gansu province, I spent most of my stay in Dunhuang trying to avoid crowds, entry fees, and ubiquitous group tours. The pity about my strategy was what I may have missed out on. Namely, Dunhuang's top sites. Some of China's most famous landmarks, even. On top of the list were the Mogao Caves, supposedly filled with centuries of evolving Buddhist art, the huge complex carved into the rock faces of a desert canyon, like a Chinese Petra. It sounded incredible--until I heard the admission cost. Same went for the Crescent Lake, which was why I took a back route on bike, climbing the dunes to the west for a distant view. After rolling back down the sand mountain a la The Princess Bride, I cooled off in a water channel, almost getting swept away in the current. Back in Dunhuang, I looked for a way to reach Yadan National Park and the Jade Gate Pass, a few hours to the northwest. These desolate, remote, and bizarre landscapes appealed to me enough to give into the Chinese tourism machine for once: the only way to reach the pass and beyond was by joining a bus of Chinese tourists. Thankfully there was no Chinese pop blasting on the stereo. The drive began at 6AM the next morning in beautiful silence. Dunes gave way to dirt which gradually turned into rock and shale before slipping back into sand as we neared Yadan. Just as an enormous field of strange rock mounds appeared ahead, we stopped at a Chinese toll gate. I learned then that the "bus tour" didn't include admission to the park, the price for which matched Dunhuang's high standards. A few minutes later we were forced to pay another admission ticket, this time for the Jade Gate Pass. I tried to enjoy the scenery and forget that I was going broke. We made several stops inside Yadan, everyone wandering various fields of eroded pinnacles, sand-blasted rock scattered along the plain. The Chinese tourists stuck near the bus, spinning bright umbrellas and posing for photos in front of everything the Chinese speaking guide pointed at. He said something like, "and behind that rock over there is another rock." Then they would take a photo of each other smiling next to the rock. It seemed that each of their albums would be pretty much identical aside from the people in them. Even I made it into a few albums: I caught more than one sneaky photographer shooting at the weird westerner in the group--the one who ran out of sight into the desert each time the bus stopped. Around noon we took a break near one of the oldest surviving sections of the Great Wall, from clear back in the Han Dynasty. It wasn't quite the grand intricate wall of Ming years and postcards, instead being little more than a thick pile of mud and bricks, weathered smooth after 2,000 years of facing desert winds. More impressive was the desert plain that stretched into each glimmering horizon, and a small patch of green lining a single strip of blue water: yet another oasis in the distance. One of the most anticipated stops was the Western Buddha Caves, said to be a decent consolation stop for anyone missing out on Mogao. But apparently, consensus on the bus spoke otherwise: the Chinese tourists wanted to stop at some movie set, a fake Chinese fort where a wonderful film was supposedly shot years ago. On the bright side, this was one ridiculously priced entry ticket I wasn't even tempted to buy. On the not so bright side, I saw zero caves in Dunhuang and ended up outside the walls of a movie set for two hours. The rest of the group decided to eat lunch inside while I waited. I passed the time in a small parking lot with fake Mongol catapults, a broken basketball hoop and garden of weeds (in case anyone wondered about a few out of place photos in my Dunhuang album). By the time they emerged under their umbrellas, it was getting late in the afternoon. We drove right past the turnoff to the Buddha Caves and I was dropped off back in the streets of Dunhuang. Vowing never to give in to the Chinese tourism machine again, I decided I'd apply it to buses and trains as well. I walked to the edge of town to catch a lift to Jiayuguan, eight hours to the southeast. Aside from about fifty taxi drivers--and half as many wannabe taxi drivers--nobody stopped. Defeated again: apparently the concept of hitchhiking in China hasn't quite registered with a lot of people. Abandoning hope for a free ride from Dunhuang, I caught the last bus out of town, happy to be moving on. 21 JUNE, 2009 Urumqi The first glaring oddity about my Urumchi guesthouse was that they wouldn't allow my bag past the reception. As half a dozen silk-clad Chinese girls and boys motioned for me to enter a side-door, apparently opening into some kind of sweaty locker room, one girl held on to my backpack, repeating probably the same simple explanation, all in Chinese, for why my bag would have to stay. I resisted, backing towards the main entrance and clutching the bag as if it were a child abductee. A crowd of shiny uniforms gathered for the spectacle. I was pulling out all the Chinese words I knew (just cleared double digits!) to communicate my utter confusion: "Binguan? Qingnian lushe?" Guesthouse? They nodded as if I'd asked the most ridiculous question in the Chinese universe, but as one girl proceeded to remove my flip flops, slipping on a nice damp pair of sandals, I thought it must be the most ridiculous guesthouse I've ever seen. Why? I kept trying to ask, but of course it was useless. And I was starting to have fun anyway. I followed a couple of the boys into the tiled doorway, laughing to myself, helpless to understand anything that was going on, deciding to just go with it. A few Chinese characters on a slip of scrap paper had led me to this secret corner of Urumchi. On a bus from Tashkurgan a few days before, a rare English speaker had asked me to join his row. Hearing I was probably headed to Urumchi, he wrote out the name of his favorite guesthouse there, which also happened to be the cheapest in town. Of course, there was a lot he didn't tell me. We stopped in a the middle of a long row of lockers. A couple naked men walked past, towels hanging from their arms. One of the boys threw me a baggy silk shirt and some shorts. I quickly noticed that everyone wearing clothes (about half the room) was wearing those clothes. I said I had stuff to wear already, but thanks; is this really a guesthouse, I asked again, now laughing out loud. Patiently, they nodded, insisting I put on the clothes. I did. They watched me intently, understandably curious. A key to my locker was slipped around my wrist, and the boys pointed down some steamy stairs. I could hear blasting water and feel heat rising from the stairwell. I tried to tell them no, no want shower, dorms please. Their stares in response made me feel kind of like a talking monkey. Apparently this wasn't one of those guesthouses where the guest chooses what to do and when to do it. Aside from a couple quivering lips trying not to laugh, all faces were helplessly blank; no idea how to deal with this crazy white devil. I realized the poor guys were as confused as I was. To make it easier for my young silk friends, and seeing as my last shower could no longer be called recent, I gave in, winding down the damp steps. Naked men everywhere. The steam disappointed, hiding nothing. Mirrors flashed bodies along every wall. Memories of a certain tree of life rushed into my overexposed mind. I joined them for a nice, hot, and slightly overdue shower. Refreshed and back in silk, I wanted to see these alleged dorms. A few helpful boys pointed me through another doorway opening into a long high-vaulted room, scattered with tables, couches, and beds, half-filled with men and women getting their feet rubbed, backs punched, or legs shaken. Fake plastic rocks and trees, massive playgrounds, and tacky wall decorations gave off a theme park vibe. Hundreds of silk uniformed bodies going about their leisure business added a sci-fi feel. Right out of Huxley's Brave New World or The Island, where each person seemed to melt into the mass of people like worker bees that don't have to work, all apparently oblivious to the world outside, the real world. I stood for a minute to stare and quietly laugh, then set off to explore. At this rate, I was antsy to see what strangeness the next room could possibly hold in store. Winding some broad spiral steps to the third floor I suddenly knew I'd made a good choice in coming here. The buffet stretched out for about 20 rice, chicken, dumpling, noodle, and stir-fried things that I couldn't name. A man with broken but very welcome English introduced himself (the first of his kind in Urumchi), explaining that meals come with lodging and you can eat anytime as long as you stay. The third floor was my favorite. A few men in blue silk stood out in the cafeteria line. I noticed one of them at the door turning up the stairwell instead of down. With renewed curiosity, I followed to the fourth floor, realizing where I was the instant I turned down the hall. Pale, painted young women lithely led middle-aged blue-silked men into private rooms, arms linked awkwardly. I noticed one girl nearby hang a "do not disturb" sign on the doorknob before stepping in with her wrinkly patron, there for a "massage." I should have expected prostitutes up there, but their numbers were still surprising - dozens waiting for work. Neither my low budget nor my white outfit let me linger, so I was sent back down to the co-ed hangout spot on the second floor, tour complete, curiosity cured, boredom setting in. After a few hours of reading I had to get out. Maybe it was the curtains, their thick brown length filtering an odd funky light through windows like the ones in church bathrooms, impossible to see through, giving everything in the room a soft, sterile, otherworldly glow. The thought of noisy streets, pollution and seeing the sun pulled me back to my locker, where I changed quickly, glancing over my shoulder. I was just about to escape out the front door when they spotted and surrounded me. They seemed to be saying no, you can't go now, then asking, why would you want to leave now? then pleading, don't go, there's nothing out there for you. I realized I was making things very difficult for them by wanting to take a breather, but I had to step outside those doors. I attempted to explain that I'd be back in a few hours to sleep. The primary negotiator was a pencil thin girl chosen for her knowledge of about five Chinglish words. She finally nodded a tired smile and let me walk off, to return a few hours later and claim a bed. Although it might not have meant anything to me at the time, it could have saved a lot of questions and confusion if my anonymous friend outside Tashkurgan had used the right word for the place--not "guesthouse." The place was a bathhouse, a ubiquitous Chinese venue for mixing socializing with bathing (two things I'd prefer to keep well apart). The next morning, I joined the silk masses for a final meal before walking the span of Urumchi's very Chinese downtown, about 5 km to the train station. I passed surprisingly few reminders that I might have been in Uygherstan--a few scattered street-side stands selling kebabs and restaurants serving "Muslim food." I might consider my bathhouse cycle an early welcome to the real China. 19 JUNE, 2009 Kashgar: A Tale of Two Cities Dropped off at the edge of a giant Soviet-style People's Square after miles on the same broad, straight road, I was a bit shocked. Instead of the old dusty Central Asian crossroads I'd imagined, forlorn, rustic, and reeking of the Great Game, a high rise web of concrete, glass, and asphalt surrounded me; as if I'd already crossed into China. A six-meter statue of Mao loomed on the north side, red flags lining his flanks. But with the drastic changes this state has seen the past few decades, my naive expectations might have required a bit of time travel. Like Tibet, Xinjiang was "liberated" by the Chinese in 1949. That same year pretty much all of the state's hopeful Muslim leadership mysteriously died in a plane crash on their way to talks in Beijing. As in Tibet, the native (mostly Uygher) population here stood well above 90% in those days. Today they comprise under 50%. Government-sponsored economic incentives have driven waves of Han Chinese westward. The state also borders Pakistan, India, Mongolia, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan, so you might say there's a bit of strategic importance at play in the whole "Develop the West" campaign. Of course, there's also a bit of oil and natural gas, the country's largest reserves by far, just waiting to be tapped. Whether the Uyghers like it or not, the Chinese aren't going anywhere soon. As I headed north, the city made a sudden and complete transformation: in the span of just one city block, the old city opened up into a narrow network of dusty streets, overhanging walkways, magnificent doorways fronting piles of run-down adobe houses built almost on top of each other. Chinese fastfood disappeared, heaps of round Central Asian bread and kebab stands taking their places along the roadside, much like I'd imagined. Relieved and excited, I set out for some wandering. One morning I rented a bike to get around to the mosques and mausoleums. It was a perfect day, with a dry breeze pushing my back and a clear blue sky as I rode along poplar-lined roads and water channels, past the old city and heading east. Among my stops was the Abakh Hoja Tomb, its blue and green glazed tiles seemingly stolen from Samarkand, its Islamic domes and layout from Agra. Its signs were distinctly Chinglish though, warning people not to fall on flat surfaces (among other good tips for helpless tourists). My favorite was a sign next to a tiled wall: will someone try to explain this for me: "Please for attehtion be careful don't dropet." After my third day of aimlessly cruising the old town, I weighed the idea of a Taklamakan Desert safari, (a lot more pricey than my Thar Desert jaunt, but hey, it's the freaking Taklaman!) vs. heading northeast to Urumchi. My slim wallet kind of forced an easy decision. Still stronger than anything is the pull towards Central Asia and on to the Middle East, but I've decided to give the real China a real chance. I'll be back in these parts soon enough, of that I'm sure. I hopped on a bus heading northwest, straddling the 1200-kilometer border between the Tian Shan range and the Tarim Basin, all the way to Urumchi. 16 JUNE, 2009 Crossing into Xinjiang My international bus ticket warned me to "arrive 10 minutes early for boarding." It also said departure time was 9AM. The trip was allegedly six to seven hours over the Khunjerab Pass and into China. A bit optimistically, I looked forward to arriving that afternoon in Tashkurgan, China's border town, to strolling along the walls of its 500-year-old mud fort, crumbling over the sides of a hill that overlooks the high plains and the Tajik Pamir. Of course, it wasn't to be. I forgot to take into account the time it would take to inspect my bag, as well as about thirty other people's bags. Thoroughly. A Japanese girl named Mizuka was throwing a tantrum as the black uniformed man dug up her socks, underwear and hair products and placed them on the table. A few Chinese people in line huddled together laughing, throwing derisive glances at Mizuka and spitting something in Chinese, probably about how terrible Japanese people are. Three other officers roamed the crowd of hopeful travelers asking for passports and tickets which they flipped through deliberately and with an air of self-importance. After about thirty seconds of perusing my blue American passport, one observative inspector asked what country I was from. After emptying my own bag, I took a seat on the bus, next to Mizuka. The bus wasn't moving and the Chinese behind us started smoking. Mizuka shook her head in disgust and whispered to me how terrible Chinese people are. Half the bus cheered when the engine made its first sound at 11AM and we lurched forward. Two hundred meters down the road, everyone evacuated for customs. I think it was noon by the time we left Sost. The bus managed a good one hour of driving before something went wrong--something about the gears not working. We pulled over near a Chinese work-crew at the base of a steep, shale-strewn canyon, then pieces of the bus were thrown out the door one by one to uncover the engine beneath the aisle. Apparently thanks to a few strange objects brought onto the bus to help out, including a metal pole, a wooden stick with nails in it, and a big round rock, the gears functioned again and we continued our slow approach up the pass. A flattened bowl of yellow grass striped with snow, the Khunjerab was spectacular against the bright blue backdrop. Dzos wandered on either side of the road, which suddenly turned into a nicely paved highway, the first sign that we'd reached the Chinese border. With their green suits, black boots, white gloves and face-masks--wouldn't want to get swine flu--the Chinese officers not only out-dressed their Pakistani counterparts, they out-inspected them, searching every pocket and frisking every inch. All bags were unloaded from the bus and unpacked to the last sock. They even handed us funny little thermometers to take our temperatures. Very late in the afternoon, our bus was speeding along the smooth highway, much appreciated after a month in Pakistan, passing Tajik yurts and herds of two-humped camels. Beneath storm clouds in the distance loomed round white peaks hunched over the high treeless plain. Occasionally a solitary mosque was sighted on a hilltop, or a Tajik tonga (horse-drawn cart) rolling up the road. We pulled into Tashkurgan after dark and were told to wait an hour inside the unlit bus until Chinese customs were ready for us. After a few more papers, bag inspections and thermometers stuck under armpits, we'd finally arrived in Tashkurgan. Someone told me it was 12AM. I didn't know he meant Beijing time. Thanks to some hand signals and a man willing to take my leftover rupees, I checked into a cheap hotel and found some strange noodle dish in a smoky cafe. I walked into a cloned convenience store and recognized almost nothing on the shelves. I missed Pakistani food. South Asian for that matter. This most recent border crossing seems to have taken me into a completely different world. Early the next morning I headed north past Muztagh Ata, Kara Kul, Kyrgyz herders and the fringes of the Taklamakan Desert, towards Kashgar. 15 JUNE, 2009 Hunza I've reached Sost, my final stop on the northern edge of Pakistan. For a tiny border town, it's exactly what you might expect. Almost characterless, its one dusty street (the KKH) strewn with a handful of run-down tea houses and shops, all more or less selling the same things. You can buy hot samosas, watch live chicken beheadings, get a bus ticket to China, a Mountain Dew and a shave (all of which I did myself), but you'd need a long drive through the Karakorum to find most else. All buses to Tashkurgan leave in the morning, so I'll be spending my last night in Pakistan here in this lovely little village. As for the scenery, Sost is set in yet another deep and desolate valley beneath jagged snow-capped peaks. I've become a bit spoiled for views over the last week, crossing some of the most dramatic landscape on earth in the fabled land of Hunza. An ancient and isolated kingdom surrounded by hundreds of miles of forbidding terrain, the place seems to fit James Hilton's image of Shangri-La almost as much as Tibet. But rather than a Buddhist sanctuary, Hunza is home to Ismaili Shi'ites, a group that splintered from the mainstream Shi'a over a dispute about who should succeed the sixth imam. Today they're on imam number 49 and going strong. Hunza's trademark water channels, hewn into mountainsides high above the valley, are to thank for turning an otherwise barren wasteland into a lush valley lined with apricot trees and pencil-thin poplars. On my second day in Karimabad, Hunza's ancient capital, I looked down on the valley from one of these channels, a few hundred feet above the old town. As is the case from almost anywhere along this stretch of the KKH, white giants towered in every direction, including Rakaposhi (7,788 meters) to the south and Ultar II (7,388 meters) to the north. That morning I'd teamed with Benjamin the Frenchman and Manu the German to trek to Ultar Meadow and the Hon Pass. We started early, climbing to past the 750-year-old Baltit Fort (2,438 meters) to enter Ultar Nala. A few hours later we reached the meadow (3,270 meters), set in a giant amphitheater of granite and glacier. Ultar II and the sharp vertical spike known as Lady Finger loomed to the north and west, the latter almost completely hidden in clouds. About one vertical kilometer later along an exhausting incline, we came within a couple dozen meters of the pass (4,257 meters), but the angle was too steep, iced with loose shale and snow. Giving hearts and lungs a rest, we turned on our knees and ankles for the steep descent back to the Meadow. But instead of retracing the final stretch down the Ultar Nala, we sidetracked onto one of Hunza's amazing water channels, the canyon floor falling further below us with each step. After taking in the view, we followed the water back down through the maze of stone-walled fields, houses, and streets of the old village to the fort. Back at zero point, near the bottom of the village, we realized we'd covered two vertical kilometers going each way. Two days later, my legs are paying the price. The next morning I hopped on the back of a minibus headed to Sost, but jumped off in Gojal's Passu, a cluster of several small concrete boxes alongside the KKH. Someone overly generous might call it a town. The mountains hovering above this stretch of road are stunning. They struck me as a dozen Grand Tetons lined up in a row. But instead of a forested valley and snaking blue streams, Passu's bare mountains tower over a lifeless gray bowl dropping into a broad colorless river bed. Every ten minutes or so a truck lumbers by, or a tractor hauling rocks or workers. Chinese crews have their hands full along this stretch, with two giant glaciers reaching right up to the road. Checking into the Passu Inn, one of the few buildings in sight, the man behind the desk signed us in for the 12th on the 13th. It seemed fitting of Passu: a day behind the world. Manu and I woke up early on Sunday, setting off on a hike to one of Passu's bridges. The guy behind the desk flipped his calendar to Saturday. We wound our way through a small stone village perched above the river, then climbed down the crumbling banks to the water. About a kilometer downstream, walking in the middle of the flat, stony riverbed, we came to a cable bridge right out of Indiana Jones, its planks skewed and spaced a few feet apart along its narrow 200 meter length. We made our way across, the bridge swaying and twisting with each step, before hitching a tractor ride back to Passu and hopping on another minibus heading north. And that's how I got to Sost. I'll enjoy a night out on this hopping town to mark my last in Upper Hunza, as well as in Pakistan. Tomorrow I'll cross the Khunjerab Pass into Uygher territory--known to some as western China. 10 JUNE, 2009 Naked Mountain Nanga Parbat's Rupal face is claimed to be the highest sheer vertical incline in the world. Known as "Killer Mountain," a good number of mostly insane climbers have lost their lives trying to scale its summit. While the mountain itself is the eighth-highest in the world at 8,126 meters (26,660 ft), its Rupal face rises 4,000 meters in an overwhelmingly massive wall of rock and ice. We wanted to see it. Through the remote Astor Valley is the only way to reach the Rupal Face. In getting to the tiny, isolated town of Astor, set well off the Karakorum Highway, we spent a lot of time on roofs. For this short trek, "we" refers to myself and a young French traveler named Benjamin. From Gilgit, we caught a jeep heading south, finding the only vacant seats up top with a small crowd of men sitting on other people's luggage. Speeding past scattered villages, Chinese-led work crews, a downed Indian helicopter on proud display, and little boys on the roadside selling peaches, we unloaded in Jaglot, a puny collection of grimy shops that likes to call itself a town. We walked to the town's edge, conveniently located about 100 meters from its center, and waited by the roadside. Minutes later we were sitting on sacks of rice in the back of a truck, lumbering towards Astor. Six hours and three checkpoints along the bone-rattling, cliff-hugging road we pulled into Astor's deserted street (there's really only one) at midnight. With the help of the last officer that checked our passports, we found a nice flat roof on which to pitch our tent, the roof of the local police station, he told us. While there are a few places in Pakistan where I'd refuse to go near a police station (partly for its priority on the Taliban's hit-list), Astor is not one of them. I woke up far too early the next morning, thanks to a couple drops of cold water on my face. I noticed the tent lining was soaked and dripping. Then I realized that everything else was wet, including backpacks and sleeping bags. We quickly de-camped and fled to a tea-house across the street to wait out the rain. Loading into yet another jeep, along with about ten men, four women, two children, and three goats, we made the final leg of our road-trip before setting out on foot. We spent the night in Tarishing, right below a supposed partial view of Nanga Parbat. All we could see were the clouds that had hung around all day like a gray halo ringing the Astor Valley. The next morning, instead of cold feet and a wet tent, I woke up to a bright clear sky revealing the enormous eastern flank of Nanga Parbat. We hiked over the rocky moraine towards Rupal, passing goat herds and kids on their daily path to school in Tarishing. Apparently, there's no school bus to whisk these kids over the glacial debris, and no functioning road connects Rupal to the outside world. A trek for us was a walk to school for them. Continuing west, we wound through the terraced village for the next hour, a smattering of earthen homes, stone walls and green fields stretched out along the curved incline of the valley. Just before running into another enormous glacier, we veered north into grassy meadows, their steep walls blocking out view of Nanga. Only an hour past the last shepherd's hut, Nanga Parbat's most forbidding face finally emerged. We set up camp behind two giant boulders and took a lunch of packed naan and peanut butter. Having made fun of the latter as some horrible, disgusting piece of American culture, I got my French friend to try some. Of course, he liked it. I was a little surprised to hear him admit it, though. Well-fed and half-rested, we started up a curved chute beside the glacier to get a closer look at the massive face looming to the north. I ignored a headache that was beginning to set in, keeping a steady pace up towards the lip of Nanga's giant glacial bowl. An occasional crack of ice, an avalanche of rocks, or a warning whistle of either marmots or pteradactyls filled the cold, gray silence as we reached the top of the ridge. Spread out hundreds of feet below was the the serrated river of ice sweeping off to the south and southeast. Straight ahead and 45 degrees above was the summit of Nanga Parbat, its face filling our frontal view, much too large for my camera to capture. We slid down a stretch of snowy moraine to get a closer look at the glacier's ice pools and crevases before hiking back to the top of ridge, my head spinning like a rusted merry-go-round. It was time to get back to camp. I strained to focus on keeping my balance to avoid a fatal slip down either side of the delicate ridge, ignoring the chirping marmots and crashing avalanches coming from behind. Finally, I crashed in the tent and drifted to sleep. Waking up a few hours later, the sky had darkened and I was hungry. Even aside from the peanut butter, we had a regular feast for dinner at Nanga's base camp: Maggi noodles cooked and eaten from carved up juice boxes, and a new recipe of my own: corned beef heated in a fire and folded into strips of naan. Delicious. When our bonfire faded into ash, the moon-lit snow of Nanga Parbat filled the star-speckled black space to the north. We spent the early hours of the morning sprinting back to Tarishing through dim meadows, yawning valleys and villages just waking up. We crossed the last moraine just in time to catch the one and only jeep service connecting Tarishing with the outside world, finding a couple spots on the roof. Hanging onto the railing as our jeep wound its way north, I watched the snowbound roof of the Karakorum drift by beneath a cloudless blue sky. 6 JUNE, 2009 Hitting the Karakorum Highway After 25 hours on a roaring old bus (kind of a familiar line for anyone that's been reading this blog for a while), I've made it to Gilgit, a strip of concrete blocks fringed with greenery and surrounded by a set of dark, desolate mountains. White-capped giants peer down from behind stark ridges and through clouds. More than anywhere I've visited this trip, the vibe here rings Central Asian, with green tea, green eyes, and awesome felt hats--I'll get my own soon. A new friend advised I take off my kafiyya as it made me look "too Taliban" for these parts. Now, I supposedly look Waziristani, and the throngs of soldiers everywhere don't seem to give me the suspicious stare-down of the past two weeks. Gilgit serves as capital of the Northern Areas, and will be my hub exploring for the next little while. The ride along the first section of the Karakorum Highway (KKH) was just another epic bus trip to add to a list that was well satisfied long ago. Of course, the scenery was incredible, as the mountains grew gradually taller, darker, and more barren with each bend, delicate suspension bridges lacing up the snaking Indus and connecting tiny oasis towns managing somehow to turn stark vertical landscape into green farmland. The level of comfort was slightly less incredible, with each bump in the road amplified by the bouncing bus, the seat ahead of me reclined tight against my knees, the man beside me sleeping on my shoulder and cold drops of water splashing onto my back most the night. But for the views and the fact that this was the beginning of the KKH, I'd happily delete the ride from memory, especially if that meant erasing the throbbing pain in my thigh, a result of complete lack of movement aboard the slave-bus. The rickety beast tried making up for an embarrassing lack of speed with the sheer volume of its struggling engine, only bringing on more humiliation as it had to pull itself over upon overheating, the front half of its passengers climbing over seats to escape boiling steam. But enough venting over the bus ride: before even boarding, I'd been almost as anxious to escape the city of Islamabad. I spent a total of 8 nights in Taxila, a quiet town about 30 kilometers west of Islamabad. I hadn't stayed so long in one place since arriving in Delhi over three months ago. My host, Azam, was incredibly helpful during my stay. He's pretty much the man when it comes to couchsurfing Islamabad, and without his invaluable help, getting through five checkpoints to reach the Chinese Embassy, on the far end of Islamabad's spread-out Diplomatic Enclave, would have been a bit of a nightmare. About thirty other guests overlapped my stay, two of them being fellow couchsurfers: David, from the UK, and Benjamin from France (Azam is pretty confident about playing host). The other guests were mostly family, there to attend a family engagement party. I joined the festivities, taking a few too many pictures and gulabs. Luckily, my body chose my last few days there to get sick--better to be out of it in Taxila than in the Karakorum. David and I chose one especially hot afternoon for a bike-ride through the Taxila countryside to check out the Gandharan ruins scattered over a few miles of rolling hills. They belong to a Buddhist civilization that arose in the valley about 2,000 years ago. While most of the ruins were toppled or buried almost beneath recognition, it was the countryside that made the trip worthwhile, running into farmers bent over in fields or riding their two-wheeled horse-carts down dusty roads. At one point we dragged our heavy-duty bikes up a trackless hill, over boulders and bushes, hoping to get our bearings. Off in the distance, a giant circular mound covered in grass marked the largest of the remaining stupas, as well as the site of the mythical Buddha feet. Most of my Taxila days were as laid-back as any of my trip. I started to get a feel for the town's daily motions, its routine power cuts, its uniformed kids filling the streets in the early afternoon, our 11AM breakfasts, 4PM lunches and midnight dinner calls, and the neighborhood kids' regular emergence from their homes just before dusk to play in the dirt with sticks and rocks. The shopkeepers had started to guess at my "usuals," samosas, ice cream and mountain dew. Having a routine, however loose, came as a welcome rest for the first few days, but by a full week's end I was happy to get my passport back from the Chinese so I could take my leave. I thanked Azam and his family before setting off with Benjamin for the north. It feels very good to be back on the road. Next adventure: a trek to the 4,000-meter vertical wall of the "Naked Mountain." 31 MAY, 2009 Peshawar Minutes into my first jaunt in Peshawar's Old City, I found myself in a bit of a sticky situation; one almost as hard to explain now as to the crowd of Pashtu/Urdu speakers that surrounded me in the bazaar. It began as I admired some metalwork piled up the walls of a shop to my left. Moving through a throng of shalwar-kameezed shoppers, I scanned up and down the rows of brass and silver, taking a slight step back to the right to clear the walkway. Before my foot touched ground, I felt I'd knocked over some object behind me, maybe a clothes rack or a mannequin, or at least that's what I imagined it was in the split second that I reached to firmly grab hold of it, hoping to prevent its falling over into the street--wouldn't have wanted to cause a scene or anything. It would be safe to say that my blind reflexive squeeze did in fact cause a bit of a scene. I spun around to see the mannequin staring at me with fiery eyes of rage above a firm, dropped jaw. She started shouting and barking into my face. It was a wiry old woman who had just been violated, her rear end probably still pulsing with pain (it wasn't the most gentle of grabs). As passers-by began to gravitate towards the odd scene outside the metal shop, one life-saving local Peshawari man grabbed my shoulder and pointed down the road. The woman continued her angry rant as I took off down the lane, stopping only once I'd cleared the area. I considered myself lucky that somehow someone understood the whole cheek-palming incident had been an unlucky accident, that of course I thought she was just a mannequin, not a real person--maybe he'd reasoned that no person in their right mind would grab that person. Either way, I was very relieved as I set off to explore the city. The rough elephantine texture of tough aged flesh lingered on my fingers a while. That morning, along with a young British traveler, I'd hopped on a bus in Islamabad, but not before getting carted off to the police station by a suspicious officer. Thanks to our local dress, complete with locally bought, ultra cheap day-packs, we'd somehow struck him as Afghans. Only a brief interrogation and thorough bag inspection convinced them we were Western tourists. Dropping us off back at the bus terminal, the officer tried to charge us 60 rupees for the ride to the station. Ignoring him, we rushed away to grab some food for the trip. I was drawn to Peshawar in equal parts by the lure of a Central Asian frontier town, the thrill of danger (at least two bombs had ripped through sections of the old bazaar the day before I arrived), and the Chinese embassy. Back in Islamabad, a grumpy little man at the consular window decided it would take a week to get me a visa. It usually takes a day. The Karakorum Highway delayed for another 7 days, I decided bomb blasts were no excuse to leave out a trip to Peshawar. And to those thinking I left one reason out, namely that I travel to such places to brag about them later or to get some kind of traveler's street cred, I'm fine with adding that. Although you're probably just jealous. Only 30 km from Afghanistan at the Khyber Pass, Peshawar has long been the archetypal frontier town. Choked in dust, fumes, and desert heat, it's home to Pashtuns, Afghans, Punjabis and Chitralis, among many other shades of ethnicity. From green tea's ousting of chai to a healthy smattering of pale eyes and brown hair, most signs indicate Central Asia rather than the subcontinent. Men completely dominate public life (the odds were 500:1 that I should have grabbed a man's behind), virtually banishing women over 10 and under 60 from the streets in the older part of town. Zooming out a bit, Peshawar straddles the border between Pakistan-controlled Pakistan and the lawless tribal territories that are to blame for the smuggling of drugs and weapons which in turn are to blame for fueling the Taliban war effort over the past eight years. In that time it seems most Peshawari's have grown very tired of their bearded firebrand neighbors to the west. As I stood in front of a gaping black hole cluttered with crushed concrete, twisted metal and shards of glass, I understood why. Less than 24 hours earlier, snipers had stood on the rooftops above that very street, picking off policemen after the bomb went off. "Business is ruined," said one shopkeeper, owner of a stationery store specializing in wedding cards (you'd have to go next door for "invitation" cards, while the "thank you" card store was closed that day). Although the market appeared pretty bustling to me, it was apparently much quieter than usual. Throughout my stay I heard multiple cursings of the Taliban. Walking a gold stretch of jewelry shops for the fifth time, I slipped through an ancient-looking arch to enter Mahabat Khan Mosque, built back in Shah Jahan's day. A couple dozen men lined the carpets under intricately carved Mughal arches, lined with Arabic calligraphy. Completed with a white skull-cap, my dull shalwar kameez seemed to work like a charm, dirtied by a constant flow of sweat and dust-swirls. All treated me as just another worshipper--until I pulled out my camera. Getting lost in the old city's traffic-choked alleyways, I enjoyed dozens of mostly short, utterly basic conversations, hundreds of curious stares and countless cups of hot kava. As in Islamabad, most assumed I was from Afghanistan, and sometimes Iran. The old city is filled with Afghan immigrants, many having arrived in the 80s and better known as refugees. Although they've now grown roots, families, and new lives in Peshawar, the Afghans I spoke with all wished they could go back to their homeland. Especially at this particular time, they said, with the escalating battle between government and Taliban fighters, the refugee outpouring from the Swat and Dir valleys, and, of course, explosions infecting the town with terror, Peshawar was a kind of purgatory for them. To me, half the town looked like a bomb just went off, with its crumbling bricks smothered in soot and grime, everything sizzling under a cloudless brown haze. I can't blame the Afghans for any impatience to leave. Taking the advice of just about everyone I'd met, I left shortly after arriving. Several had advised me to "get out now, it's not safe," and one had added, "Hurry!" With several decent photos and some crazy memories, I did just that, speeding back towards Islamabad after just two days in Peshawar. 26 MAY, 2009 Lower Punjab, Pakistan Leaving Lahore behind, I took a bus six hours south to Multan, a dusty little city in central Punjab famous for its mosques, mausoleums, and shrines to Sufi saints. I was out of breath by the time I'd discovered my first three guest house options, not exactly next door to each other, were full. When I reached the third floor "reception" of the fourth inn, the man behind the desk answered my broken Urdu request for a room with a big smile and a nod. I reached out to shake his hand, happy to have found a place. He seemed just as happy to meet me, asking the usual set of questions reserved for odd-looking foreigners (a set that always begins with "what country?" and usually includes "marriage?"). Minutes later, feeling over my gratitude and bored of talking, I motioned to see my room, at which time he kindly mentioned that all rooms were full. I was confused and irritated, but luckily the sixth time was a charm, and I finally dropped off my bag in a shoe box of a room that was worth every rupee; 200, to be precise. (I've heard some guest houses avoid taking in foreigners to keep from doing the extra paperwork.) Aside from the crazy man that tried to snatch an ice cream cup out of my hands, Multan's people were ridiculously friendly. Everywhere I went I was treated as an honored guest. Well, everywhere but guest houses. Walking outside for a Coke, I chatted with the store-owner, who decided not to let me pay for the drink. Minutes later and just down the street, a couple brothers pulled me into another conversation, then handed me another soda, their treat. Half-way down the road to the Old City, a couple teenagers pulled their motorcycle over and insisted I hop on. They dropped me off right in front of the early Mughal mausoleum of Sheikh Rukn-i-Alam. And the luck didn't end in Multan: plenty of free drinks, food, and rides awaited further to the south. My next stop was Bahawalpur, a much smaller and much dustier town than Multan. Bahawalpur borders the Cholistan region, a continuation of the Thar Desert in western India, and so waves of dust blow through its streets day and night. Leaving my windows open to let in the breeze, I woke up to find I'd also let in a thin carpet of dust that lined every surface. I wandered the old streets and alleys and finished off my shalwar kameez by picking up a thick string belt. I hoped to blend in a bit more for my final push to the southwest, not mention my upcoming travels in the north. The local dress worked wonders. Having become almost numb to the incessant pressure of staring eyes on my back, it is a bizarre sensation to feel a lack thereof. Dressed in my shalwar kameez and kafiyya, most people don't even look up when I pass, and even then they rarely bother to meet my eyes. Of course, at that point they might notice something odd in my face, sometimes calling for a slight double-take, but overall, the results of the "disguise" are positive. The only downside is that people begin speaking to you in Urdu or Punjabi. Of course, opening your mouth in response is sure to give you up as a foreigner, unless you stick to pure pleasantries. While one option is to throw out some made-up sign language and play deaf, I've embraced foreignness, taking on the identity of a Palestinian named Yusef who speaks Arabic and broken English in an accent that sounds part-Arab-part-Borat. Sure, a cover-up isn't necessary, but it does help me avoid constant shouts of "Hello! What country! How are you!" and about a dozen daily invitations to tea. It also lowers rickshaw prices. Getting around becomes a much more pleasant and peaceful thing. At the same time, several friendly Pakistanis have advised that, at least in meeting people on the street, I should never admit to being American. So maybe the get-up serves more than one purpose. Stepping off the bus in Uch Sharif, I passed beneath one of the old town gates and meandered through its alleyways until I'd left most of the mud-brick buildings behind. But for a few Urdu characters painted on the walls and perhaps a shade of the locals' skin color, I felt I could just as well have been in rural Iran or even Iraq. Dust stormed across fields of trash which children bent over to scour, filling their plastic bags with garbage. Beyond the dump was a haphazard grid of green boxes lined with date palms, stretching off into the hazy horizon. Further down the path, I caught sight of the glittering blue tiles of Uch Sharif's crumbling mausoleums, mostly hidden behind a giant earthen mound of graves and half-buried tombstones. The domed tomb of Bibi Jwindi alone was worth the trip from Lahore. A gem of a destination, it owes its lure almost as much to its remote desert setting as its artistic value, with its brilliant blue and white tile-work in a beautiful state of semi-collapse, literally: half of the building has in fact collapsed, revealing a crude cross-section of bricks that somehow manage to hold up the other half. I sat under some trees in the graveyard to sweat in the shade, joined by a bunch of little boys asking for rupees and candy and pens, a sign that I was by no means the first foreigner to make it this far. One of the few dumb enough to come in the middle of summer, maybe. But then again, if the heat is what guaranteed solitude at the sites, my timing was perfect. Back in Bahawalpur by evening, I found a seat on another overnight bus to Islamabad. 23 MAY, 2009 Lahore, Pakistan I arrived on the blazing streets of Lahore a couple days ago, and already I've been struck by some surprising first impressions. This is a city that demands more than just a few days to really open itself up, but I'll share a piece of what I've skimmed from the surface. To get a vision of Lahore you might think of an Indian city where the cows and women have been cleared from the streets. Also conspicuously absent are Hindi characters on coke bottles, completely phased out by Urdu, as well as Hindu temples, replaced or rounded off into domes of hundreds of mosques that rise out of every other alley. Despite the fact that Sharukh Khan still graces a million billboards, the second I stepped across the border it was clear that I'd crossed into the house of Islam. Back in India, another abortive attempt on Leh and Ladakh had cost me dearly: two more days of Himalayan buses, the hours on which I would gladly have traded for a thirty second phone call to find out that the high mountain passes are still closed. At the time, I would have traded my left earlobe. Jumping off the bus in Manali I confirmed with a few drivers the news of the closed roads, accepted my fate as one eternally forbidden from Ladakh, took a moment to evaluate, and jumped right back on another bus headed down the Kully Valley the way I came. I made it to Amritsar late at night and hopped on another bus the next day, heading for Wagah. I was becoming anxious to leave India. Not far from the border, I shared a bicycle rickshaw with a toothless old lady on her way to sell chai. I showed myself through Indian customs and started walking towards the green and white flag on the other side of apparent no-man's land. Stamped and set free from Pakistani customs, I stepped out alone into the blistering heat of the early afternoon, feeling suddenly energized at the prospect of a new country to explore. There seemed to be nobody around. Dry deserted plains stretched in all dusty directions. To the west a long cloud of dirt disappearing into the hazy horizon marked the way to Lahore, the old Grand Trunk Road. Reaching the nearby truck-stop, I asked a small crowd about the bus, and as usual a few rickshaw drivers pressed to the front of the group insisting there was no bus, you have to take a rickshaw, only 650 rupees to Lahore, ok 600 for you, special price. I kept walking along the road and within minutes was sitting in a cargo truck between a couple nice guys that spoke zero English. They did understand Lahore though, and were apparently headed that way. Aside from several long walks through town, getting lost a few times in the Old City's congested mess of twisting and crumbling alleys and hanging out in bookshops along The Mall, a clearly British-built section, I had a couple experiences worth mentioning. On the first night I joined a group headed for the Shrine of Baba Shah Jamal to watch Sufis do their thing. While about a dozen of them danced/spun/convulsed for hours on end, a few provided the beat with an amazing blend of drums. One of the pro percussionists happens to be deaf, amazingly keeping time through sensing vibrations against his stomach. The definite highlight occurred each time a drummer decided to spin, while still drumming: leaning back against the weight of their barrels, their bodies blurred into a circle as the music continued loud and in-sync as ever. Those without the drums could focus all their energy on dancing, although that still doesn't account for the stores of energy they seemed to have. Try shaking your head like a wet dog for more than ten seconds without a break. These guys passed hours in such frenzied twisting and shaking, their faces a blur as they stomped their feet, spun in circles and chanted names of Allah. While the sight was intense, the constant drums managed to pull most into a bit of a trance, some focusing their thoughts on God, and others (like me) on getting some sleep: while I'd imagined a short, quick program going no later than midnight, it was 4AM before I left the Baba Shah's Shrine. The next night ran a similar course. The same guy that took our group to the Sufi dancing found some of us again at around 8PM, freaking out about a wedding that we would be late to. We had to leave now, he said. Reaching the outskirts of town, he led the way down an alley into a small courtyard decked with colorful banners and a pair of giant triple-stack amplifiers, just in case the people in the back couldn't hear the music from twenty yards away. Despite our friend's rush, the wedding didn't begin until about 1AM, maybe due to power outages throughout the night. When it started, it could have easily woken a couple thousand neighbors. The wedding singer's sweet little band were intent on using every last decibal they could squeeze out of the amps. As guests of honor, our group was placed right in the front row. Check out the photos and captions for more of what went down. All I'll say is that it was an intimate and wacky side of Pakistan I'm grateful to have seen. When we left at 4AM the dancing was still going strong. 16 MAY, 2009 Back to India After a final night of revelry in Thamel and some last-minute sightseeing at Bodhnath and Pashupatinath, I hopped on an overnight bus to Sunauli on the Indian border. When I woke up the next morning I was a little surprised I'd managed to fall asleep. But it was no wonder: looking outside, I realized the bus had been sitting still most of the night. Kathmandu was still only an hour behind, 8 hours after taking off! A few more miles and about an hour down the road, we had somewhat of a close call. Driving about a hundred meters above a steep river valley, the bus suddenly shook to a stop and lurched sideways before swaying back into balance, right over the edge of a drop-off. In a bit of panic, the roof-riders all jumped off the bus onto the other side. The front wheel had gone off the road. Wonderful, I thought--this may turn out to be the longest bus-ride yet. One of the passengers smiled at me, shaking his head at how lucky we were. A little annoyed, I smiled back. I thought getting stuck for two hours on the side of a road was bad luck. Still, he did have a point: we were lucky to be alive rather than crushed by a couple tons of steel or impaled by a tree at the bottom of a valley. I spent most of the day on top of the bus as it slipped out of the mountains and back into the Terrai plains, then crammed into a shared-jeep across the border as it sped towards Gorakhpur, where I caught another overnight train to Delhi. At the ticket window they only had general seating left, but as the train started to move I realized that with my backpack I'd never make it onto the train car. Overflowing with bodies, the general seating section has no real seats, just piles of people fighting for air and room to wiggle their toes, some hanging out windows and doorways, others sitting atop the doors themselves, all compressed enough to weigh more than the train car. I jumped on the usual 2nd class sleeper car and camped in the aisle with a couple of Indians I met. They happened to be doing the same thing. The three of us spent the next few hours dodging the ticket collector as he made his rounds, jumping out at each stop to avoid his passing. Eighteen long hours later we rolled back into Delhi, completing a long full circle around India. I spent a few days in the city with an awesome family called the McIlleses, whose hospitality included enough pancakes, cereal, and twizzlers (yes Angela, I stole some from Zach's room) to make me feel more at home than at any time since leaving Delhi a couple months ago. I made a few visits to the Pakistani embassy as well as the U.S. embassy to pick up a required letter. Good thing I did: while there, the wonderfully nice lady behind the glass put 26 extra pages into my passport. For free! It felt like Christmas. On Monday morning I'll be back to Delhi for an interview with Pakistani authorities so they can check whether I'm a spy. Until then, I've decided to spend the weekend at a place most of you will probably recognize. 12 MAY, 2009 Change of Direction While I've sometimes claimed to have no travel plan whatsoever, the truth is I've always had a few places in mind, some which I've always been set on passing through. One such being Tibet. As for the lack of planning, it mostly regards how to get there, and it finally caught up with me. Arriving back in Kathmandu after yet another long day in a local mini-bus, straining my eyes to stick to my book's bouncing pages, my shaky plans were about to fall apart. Situating myself comfortably back in Thamel, I began my search for an affordable way into Tibet. I spoke with over a dozen travel agents and tour operators to feel out a price and met with an old family friend for lunch. He'd helped my brother reach Tibet years ago on a solo trip: minus the authorized tour group strictly required by Chinese law. But unfortunately, in the last year since Tibet's latest uprising, yet another incident Chinese authorities are trying hard to forget, regulations have tightened dramatically. The only way to pass through Tibet was to put on a colorful cap and join a packaged jeep-tour along with a sizable group of other travelers, all paying at least $600 for a week of shuttling from site to site in Shigatze, Gyantse, and Lhasa. And as soon as these tours end, foreigners are forced to leave Tibet immediately. No hanging around causing trouble. I pictured running away from my group in the night and hitch-hiking my way to Kailash, then pictured the hundreds of army checkpoints scattered along all Tibetan highways. It would be quite a rush while it lasted, but probably wouldn't last long before finding myself in some underground cell in the middle of nowhere. In making a decision, it was hard to be honest with myself, but I finally admitted: a package-tour through Tibet just wasn't worth the price. I could live on that amount for well over a month, a luxurious month at that, a month of running water, bed-sheets and towels in Nepal or India. Or, its friendly neighbor to the west... The thought intrigued me. While Tibet faces ridiculous restrictions on travel, Pakistan faces only a full-scale war on the Taliban as well as one of the largest refugee outpourings in decades from the northwest frontier region. The lure of conflict aside, Pakistan is filled with spectacular sites both ancient and modern, not to mention the Hindu Kush and the Karakorum Highway. That's enough to convince me. Suddenly my plans have switched from northeast to due west. . . . The rest of Anthon's blog (beginning in February) will be made available upon the completion of the Expedition. In the meantime, why not donate to the cause and change a life?