Koh Tao, Thailand

Yes, Timmy is still alive... I'm currently on the island of Koh Tao in the Gulf of Thailand. The internet here is very expensive so I've had to cut back on blog posts for a while.

Meegs arrived safely from South Africa on Saturday evening, without her luggage though, but we sorted that out within a day. We spent two nights in Bangkok before getting a bus and boat trip out here. We have both been scuba diving flat out since we arrived. Meegs has been doing her Open Water course and I have just finished my Advanced course. The diving courses here are purported to be the cheapest in the world but i have found them to be much more expensive than the Honduras. But the diving has been good, with lots of sharks, and I've had a ball in my class.

A break during our explorations of Bangkok by tuk-tuk

Meegs' scuba course takes to the water. I think she's got the bug.

I think Meegs is keen to move off to Koh Phi Phi tomorrow, but we'll see what the weather looks like.

Walking through airport doorway sideways...

Yip Timmy is, as Confucius would say, going to Bangkok. I fly out of Guilin on Saturday afternoon. It feels so strange to finally be leaving China after spending quite a long time here.

China is so different from any other country I've been, or can imagine for that matter. Its also very difficult to make any general conclusions about the place as the country is so vast and its different people so varied; but, as the saying goes: "That which can be put into a nutshell should stay there". I have found some people to be really genuinely friendly and generous, especially in Beijing, and others to be downright rude and abusive. Some places are also incredibly beautiful, and historically fascinating, but this is interspersed with massive, ugly cities choking under polluted skies.

I really will treasure my time here though. Putting effort into learning Chinese, even if it is bad Chinese, has made my time so much more memorable. I find the language to be a real puzzle, which is stimulating in itself, but I really love the reactions people give me when I speak to them. They really do seem delighted that I'm trying. I'll miss that when I head into SE Asia and will have to rely on the local peoples' English and my "point and shoot" form of sign language.

My last stop here, Yangshuo, has been really cool (when it hasn't been over 40 degrees that is!) Its been good just to relax a bit and get to see a different side China from Beijing. We've spent most of our time exploring the surrounding area by bicycle, except of course for the last few days when we've all been down with stomach bugs. But being able to buy new DVDs for R5 has made even that bearable. I also did a cooking course whilst here, so look out for Tim's "sweet 'n sour pork" or "Yangshuo beer fish" on my return!

Some more of the amazing scenery around here.

An encounter with the locals on a cycling trip through the rice paddies.

Timmy gets down to business in the kitchen during a cooking lesson.

My traveling buddy from Guilin, and room mate in Yangshuo: Geoff (from Queenstown NZ). From the top of Moon Hill near Yangshuo.

Karsts and cormorants

I've now had a few days to acclimatise to the pace of life here in Yangshuo. It's superbly relaxed after the insane bustle that is the rest of China. I've actually decided to stay in the area for the rest of the week and have booked a flight to Kunming on Saturday (I've had enough of long Chinese train and bus journeys for a while!) From there I fly to Bangkok to meet Meegs for a couple of weeks of sunshine and diving in Thailand.

Yesterday the rain actually stopped and we managed to see blue sky for the first time in yonks. I was planning on exploring the area a bit more by bicycle while the going was good, but the first beer by the river was just too good - we never made it past stop number one.

The view from the riverfront in Yangshuo village, complete with grazing Water Buffalo.

A fishing cormorant poses for his fans along a sunny Yangshuo waterfront.

Sampling the local brew with Chris from England (the lad is the splitting image of Nick from My Family!)

After a day of soaking up some sunshine and local beers we took an evening boat ride to see the local cormorant fisherman in action. The cormorants are trained from chicks to catch fish and return to the boat with them. A string tied around their necks prevents them from swallowing the catch, but the fisherman removes the string every now and then to allow them to catch some fish for themselves.

The cormorants set out just ahead of the fisherman's boat.

A fisherman and one of his birds.

Yello from Yangshuo

This is not quite where I planned to be at this point (or ever for that matter), but the weather in Yunnan province was horrible. I arrived in Dali after a 20 hour train ride, and then 5 hours in a bus to find it pouring with rain, and the forecast was another week of the same. Whilst Western Yunnan is supposed to be very beautiful the clouds meant I couldn't see any of it.

A random pic from Dali, but you get the idea...

I met a great New Zealander in my hostel there and he suggested joining him in fleeing to Yangshuo in Guanxi province. That involved another 5 hours in a bus back to Kunming, then a 14 hour train ride to Nanning, near the Vietnam border, and 6 more hours to Yangshuo via Guilin. I figured "what the hell" and here I am. Its been raining here too, but at least its warm. Yangshuo is a very backpacker orientated town and that makes it a lot of fun, that and the incredible limestone karst scenery.

A view of the area around Yangshuo. I'll get some better shots soon as the weather looks to be clearing.

We met some more people from around the world last night and had a great party in town. Today we shrugged off our hangovers and went to explore the Water Caves nearby. The highlight there was the awesome mud pools inside the cave. I wasn't able to get any photos, as I was covered head-to-toe in mud, but I'll post some of the other guys' soon. Tomorrow we're going on a trip to see some locals doing cormorant fishing. I've always wanted to see that.

I'm currently trying to follow the Sharks-Bulls game online as there are no international TV channels here. The Sharks are up at half-time!

"Sexual harassment Panda"

Ok, unless you had a misdirected youth affected by Southpark you won't undestand that title...

Mum has just left moments ago for the airport to begin her long journey home. Traveling with her has been awesome. Thanks for coming mum! I head off just now to catch a train to Kunming in Yunnan province further south. The train ride is 17-18hrs and then I still have to catch a 5hr bus ride to Dali. Ouch.

Yesterday mum and I headed out to the Panda Breeding Centre just outside Chengdu. It was really special. I remember having panda duvet covers as a kid. The chinese for panda, xiong mao, actually translates as "bear cat". Its a good description; they look like bears but act like cats, playing around constantly, when not eating bamboo of course. I wish we could have spent more time there just watching.

See? Just like big kitties!

We spent the afternoon exporing one of the Zen Buddhist temples nearby and had lunch in their vegetarian restaurant. Don't tell anyone but I actually enjoyed it! Some evening window shopping led us to our strangest dinner yet, a traditional Sichuan snack meal comprises of oddities such as eyeball soup and ducks necks... lucky I wasn't hungry.

Qu Chengdu

"Qu" means "to go to" if you were wondering about the title. Mum and I are currently in the little town of Chengdu in Sichuan Province (this little town is roughly the size of London!). We arrived here yesterday evening on a flight from Xian.

Xian was really awesome. We struck out early on Friday on a tour to see the Terracotta Warriors. They truly are an impressive sight, and estimates suggest less than 20% has been uncovered so far. The warriors are well worth the trip to Xian. Our tour also included a few little side trips, one being to a silk factory which was pretty interesting after years of breeding silk worms in mom's kitchen as a kid.

Beautiful. It took 40 years to complete the tombs apparently.

There are just so many, its hard to do it all justice.

That evening we explored the muslim district of Xian and sampled some of the street food for dinner. Saturday morning saw us out early to hire bicycles and ride around the very impressive Xian city wall. The huge ancient wall is about 14km in circumference and makes for a beautiful and interesting ride. The whole way along you can peer over into the city, we even happened upon our own little Chinese Opera in one of the parks below.

Buying some snacks in the Muslim quarter of Xian.

Mum sets off to tour Xian from above on the city wall.

The bonus with photos is you can't hear how bad they sound!

We boarded our flight to here yesterday afternoon and upon arrival headed straight for the nearest expat bar to watch the Super 14 semifinals. Awesome. Go the Sharks!

Carrying our red wine induced hangovers gracefully, Mum and I spent Mothers Day on a day trip out to Leshan to see the Big Buddha. Dafo is the biggest buddha in the world, standing (or sitting) a mighty 71m high. His ear alone is 7m in length. Very cool.

Just look at the size of it compared to the people!

We're now about to find ourselves a local restaurant to sample the fiery Sichuan cuisine. Its supposed to be a monster. Wish us luck...

This way Mum...

Timmy's Tours is now open for business! My mum arrived safely in Beijing on Sunday and I met her at the airport. Her dreams of first class treatment were snuffed from the get-go when I herded her onto the local airport shuttle and she discovered we were the only foreigners. But mum soon agreed that it was a much cheaper (and actually faster!) alternative to the taxis tourists always use.

We spent our first day at the Silk Street market getting all our shopping out of the way. Monday was still a public holiday so I figured the sights would be chaos anyway. We spent the entire day bargaining for everything from golf shirts to Mao alarm clocks. We also stopped at my local tailor to have some clothes made. I had been recommending the place to so many travellers that the owner gave me a whole tailored suit for free! We took the plunge that night and went to experience Beijing Opera. Well, "experience" is the right word. Its pretty interesting visually, but the singing sounds like a cat being thrown into a swimming pool...

Tuesday morning found us bounding our way to the Great Wall at Jinshanling. I convinced mum the long trip out there was worth it and she has to agree... she got a section of wall all to herself. The area was noticeably different from a month ago with greenery dominating where there was once only brown. The hike was harder than I remembered (obviously a side-effect of all the cheap beer over the last month!), but I think mum really enjoyed it. And we earned our Beijing Duck supper in the process.

Mum starts her Great Wall adventure...

Our whirlwind tour continued on Wednesday with an early morning stop at the local fruit and veg market that I recently discovered hidden in the hutong. Its really gorgeous. From there we made our way out to the Summer Palace, via the foreigners police to collect my new extended visa. The weather was beautiful and we enjoyed a lovely stroll around the grounds at the palace.

Some funky photography at our local market. He doesn't like his greens it seems...

Today was seriously busy. We again started out at the fruit market to see what the locals get up to in the mornings, and then wound our way through the hutongs to Tiananmen square, and on into the Imperial Palace. The Forbidden City, as its better known, is huge. We were lucky to get there ahead of the crowds so had a pretty clear run of the place and were thus able to see most of it in a morning. It really is very beautiful and impressive. We had to rush a little as we had a flight this afternoon to Xi'An where we are now. Tomorrow we're off to see the Terracotta Warriors!

Kites above Tiananmen. And the ubiquitous red tour-group caps...

The entrance to the Forbidden City. And yes, it seems Tim has started playing games with his camera.

The palace guards caught a bit early in the morning...

Me at the Forbidden City. This time mum is playing with colours...

Ending an era

Well, I guess its not quite that dramatic but I am sad to have finished my Mandarin studies this morning. It was really frustrating at times but I thoroughly enjoyed studying something only for its own sake. The chance to use my brain again after years of auditing was also massively appreciated!

On Sunday afternoon one, very jet lagged, mother of mine will be arriving in Beijing. She is in for a serious culture shock but I don't think she'll miss a beat. This place is awesome and I've gotten to know it all pretty well so we should be in for a great time.

I've had a crazy time this week. The Workers Week holiday started on Tuesday and the whole of Beijing has been chaos ever since. On Tuesday I guided some Canadians on a bicycle trip out to the Summer Palace (took about 2 hrs each way!). While the ride was a great adventure, the destination was mad. Thousands upon thousands of Chinese and other tourists had descended on the place. After that I figured sightseeing is a no go this week. In the end though that conclusion was a moot point as my hostel has been packed with travelers and every night has been a thrash. The resultant hangovers ruled out any serious touring anyway! Every day I vow not to have another drink, and then it turns out some good bud is leaving and we have to send him off, or in the case of last night, a great buddy back home gets engaged, and I have to throw my own celebration for him. Congrats again Tep and Banx!

Hiring bicycles in the hutong. I actually have to think about selling mine soon...

A bookseller takes it easy on a Sunday afternoon.

One of my neighbours in the hutong.

The infamous dog restaurant owner. He looks exactly like Mr Miyagi from Karate Kid!

The crowds at the Summer Palace!

But its still a beautiful spot for a sunny day...

And the top of the hill provides some awesome views back over the city.