Category Archives: Asia

Dali, China: The Gorgeous Three Pagodas of the Congsheng Temple Grounds

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If you follow me on Facebook or Instagram, you may have seen me post that once upon a time, I saw a photo of Dali’s Three Pagodas and immediately thought “I need to go there.”  So I did.

This is one of the many things I love about travel.  That as you go further and further, you realize how attainable things are.  You can be a person who looks at a picture in a magazine and thinks “Oh how pretty” before turning the page and running for your car keys when you see an ad announcing that your preferred brand of kitty litter is on sale, or you can be the person who does not turn the page and instead brings the magazine to her laptop and begins Googling to figure out the logistics of getting there.  I will always be the latter.  How could I not be when this exists:

Dali three pagodas Conghsheng Temple China

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Dali, China: Beautiful Scenery, Dead Butterflies and I Get Lost and Hitchhike

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I woke up in Kunming this morning and had a fight with my VPN for way too long to actually admit to, so let’s just say it was a long time.

Took my hotel’s airport shuttle to the airport and checked into my flight to Dali.  The flight was a short 57 minutes but I screwed up everything about it.   I thought it was leaving at 9:35, but that was the time it was arriving.  I also at some point thought we were leaving an hour late because it was 8:30, but that is the time my flight was supposed to leave (and I thought it was 9:35 so wouldn’t 8:30 be an hour early and not late?)  Yeah.

We land in Dali and I am picked up by a prearranged driver for my hostel.  This is a luxury I love affording myself because it sure beats figuring out where I have to go.  Which as you read on, you will see why it is probably best I am not left to fend for myself.

I checked into my room at the Dragonfly Guesthouse.  There are so many places to stay in Dali, all with amazing reviews.  How do you choose?  Easy.  Pick the one with the Gilmore Girls related name. Easy, peasy.  Lorelai would be proud.

dragonfly

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31 Hours From My Apartment to Kunming via Kong Kong: Then Not Finding an ATM That Takes My Debit Card.

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After taking an hour long subway ride (that includes taking three trains to avoid having to carry my bags up several flights of steps,) I missed my airport train by about two seconds.  I wait half an hour for the next one, and then finally arrive at the airport.  Of course I was excited to see my flight was delayed.  Oh wait, no I wasn’t.  Sigh.

I was a combination of exhausted and hyper and I didn’t even realize I was making some sort of scene by stamping my feet singing outloud and talking to my cute little stuffed dog.  Then an airport employee came over to ask me if I was okay and then I realized I looked like a crack head.

My first flight was seventeen hours.  I always read about how Cathay Pacific is a great airline so I was excited to be flying them.  They do not have individual air vents at your seats, or at least they did not on this flight.  I did not like that.  They also didn’t do regular beverage service on this flight.  I am not sure if it was because it was an overnight flight or if that is normal.  Yes, you can hit the call button and someone will come, but I felt weird after eight hours of nothing, asking for a snack.  I don’t even know what kind of snacks they had.  It was weird.

My row only had two seats.  I was in the window and my seat mate had a seat’s worth of empty space next to her, until some woman decided to start jogging in place in it. I could not stop laughing.  I understand the reasoning for the jogging in place on a plane.  I do not understand why you would  think it was okay to do so, so close to another person.

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Itinerary For Traveling 7000+ Miles to China to Take One Photograph

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Okay that title is unfair. I am not going to take ONE photograph.  I am going to take eleventy billion photographs.

I always have my future travel plans mapped out in my head.  Once per year I take a BIG trip.  I knew last year that my BIG trip for 2015 was going to be India.  But then as always, my plans changed.

Last year, I spent a month in China.  This includes me going to Tibet and spending a night at Mount Everest Base Camp.  I really should get my posts about that up on my blog, eh?  Most exciting thing I have ever done and I have yet to post about it a year later.  Worst blogger ever.

But anyway, back to THIS post.   When I left Tibet and flew to Chengdu, I was crippled with depression because I wanted to still be in Tibet.  It was the most beautiful place I have ever been.  Sometimes I look at the photos and I cannot believe that I ever stood here:

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Stopover in Xining, China and Getting Knocked Down a Stairway. Oh China.

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I took my first overnight train from Xi’an to Xining.  It was not as bad as I thought it would be.  I was fortunate to have a bottom bed in a soft sleeper car.  My cabin-mates were nice, did not try to speak to me, but did try to give me cookies.  It appeared they were all together.  The (one I assumed was the) father had the bottom bunk opposite me.  He coughed nonstop all night which kept waking me up.  But other than that, not bad at all.

I make it out of the train station. I attempt to walk down the steps.  There is a ramp on the right side of the steps, intending for you to roll your luggage down it as you walk down the steps.  I could not figure out how to use it.  Neither could the woman in front of me.  Unlike me though, she kept trying.  This was holding up everyone.  Except that this is China so by “holding up everyone” I mean “making everyone smash into me to get me to go, but I couldn’t because she wasn’t.”  Next thing I know, I am pushed really hard, I still don’t want to knock the woman in front of me down, so I try to steady myself and end up falling backwards.  No one stops, they all keep continuing down the steps.  Sigh.

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Sometimes As A Solo Traveler, I want to Travel Solo

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Once upon a time, I was in Chengdu, China.   I was going to visit the Grand Leshan Buddha.   I get on the bus and it is hot and smells like a homeless person.  Shortly after, it begins.  I hear some girl talking loudly on a cell phone.  “There are no backpackers on here, only Chinese people and they all smell bad.”  I shrink down in my seat a bit.  It is one thing to not wish for human companionship ever, it is another to hide from someone who is rude enough to have said this aloud.  Don’t assume that no one on the bus can understand you.  I’m betting a bunch of them could.

We get to the town of Leshan and I make the mistake of not immediately running off the bus.  I get caught.  “Hi!  Do you want to share a cab?”  No thank you, I am taking the bus. “I will take it with you!”  Argh, fine.  We walk to the bus and she is joyously telling me how happy she is to have found me.  Me?  I don’t want to be found.

There is a thing about meeting people while traveling.  That thing is that I don’t want to.  Let me make this clear: I know I am the odd one here.  People who want to meet other people?  They are normal.   YOU are normal.  You should be glad I don’t want to spend time with people.  Who wants to spend time with a weirdo?  Go on, run off and be free!

Whenever I do meet someone, the internal dialogue starts.

Me: Ughhhhhhhhh

Me: Would it kill you to just be nice to this person?

Me: No, but I just don’t want to talk to anyone

Me: But would it kill you to just be nice to this person?

Me: But a huge part of this trip was to escape the real world and BE ALONE

Me: BUT WOULD IT KILL YOU TO BE NICE TO THIS PERSON?

Me: I DON’T WANNNNNNNAAAAAAAAAAAAA

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Booking a Trip to China? Here Are Some Helpful Hints

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CHINA!  I love China!  Look at China!  Yes, this is CHINA!

Tibet ChinaBooking my trip to China turned out to be Hell.   Looking back though, I can see that there were so many things that would have been easier if I had just known what I can and what I cannot do, and how to get around the cannot part.  Every single time I tried to book something, I just kept hitting road blocks.  Then I would figure it out and hit another one.  Then another one.  To the point I could not take it anymore and I hated myself for ever wanting to go to China in the first place.

This is a guideline of sorts for anyone who needs help in booking a trip to China.   If you follow everything below, you will be absolutely fine and suffer no pain.  I promise.

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Day Trip From Xian to Mount Huashan, China

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Mount Huashan is famous for some horrifying things, including the steps so steep you are basically hiking straight up (see here), and also for the plank walk which you can see here, which is just NO NEVER.

The mountain is located just outside of Xi’an, China.  To get here, you can take a bus from the Xi’an train station.  The bus takes about three hours and costs  22 Yuan ($3.52 USD)  You can also opt for a high speed train that leaves from Xian North train station (not the same one the bus leaves from.)  It takes 35 minutes, for 55 Yuan ($8.79 USD.)  You can also take a regular train, but there is really no logic in that.

Going to Huashan from the Xian train station:  the buses are located all the way to the right of the train station if you are facing it. You cannot miss them, there are a bunch.  The the destination is written on the bus in English (read the destination as buses to the Terra Cotta Warriors also leave from here!)
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Arrival in Xi’an China: The Day Nothing Went My Way

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I flew to Xi’an from Guilin.   At the airport, I was doing a combination of trying to stop sweating and silently willing everyone who was staring at me to STOP STARING AT ME.

We had a meal served to us on the plane.  I could not identify it so I did not eat it.   As we were about halfway through our flight, there was an announcement that I had never heard in real life before:  “Is there a doctor on board?”   YIKES.   The very young looking woman in front of me stood up to help. If she is old enough to be a doctor, then I am old enough to live in a nursing home.  I don’t really know what was going on because other than the initial announcement, there was no English spoken regarding what was going on.

Arrival in Xi’an.  UGH.  I need to buy a lighter (yes, smoking is gross) and there is nothing open in the airport.  I go outside to take a cab to my hotel.  No cabs will let me get in.  There are about eleventy billion cabs outside.  Approximately five lanes worth of cabs, all going back way so far that I cannot see the end of the lanes.   Every cab I tried to get in told me “NO.”  What do you mean, NO?  I’ll show YOU no.

I basically just stood in the middle of traffic (all cabs mind you) screaming about how “I NEED A FREAKING CAB.  I AM FROM NEW YORK, YOU CAN’T GET AWAY WITH THIS” and “I WILL STAND HERE IN THE MIDDLE OF TRAFFIC FLAILING MY ARMS UNTIL ONE OF YOU LETS ME GET IN YOUR CAB.  LET ME SEE YOU STARE AT THAT, MOTHER FUCKERS!”

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Guilin, China: Fubo Hill

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My last stop in Guilin is going to be Fubo Hill.   Making it here will be an accomplishment as I have tried a couple of times now and ended up lost.  By now I can kind of figure out how to walk here from my hotel, but I am not leaving from my hotel.  Nope, I am leaving from Yao Mountain.  Boy was this a production.

I want to take a cab to Fubo Hill from Yao Mountain.  There are lots of drivers in the parking lot, none of whom will pay attention to me when I approach them.  A couple walked away, one was sitting in his car and rolled up the window.   I find a group of cab drivers all together.  One keeps putting out a huge wad of cash and flashing hundreds at me to the point I wondered if maybe “taxi” or “Fubo Hill” sounded like “hooker” in Mandarin.

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