Photos...

China's up so far...more to come later

www.flickr.com/taschebrook/sets

Invisibility Cloak

Guess what?
I brushed my teeth with sink water.
I took a hot shower.
My clothes don't smell.
I walked up the street and NO one tried to stop me, tell me where I was, sell me something, show me something, ask where I was from or try to touch me.
I did not nearly get run down by a taxi, auto-rickshaw or cow.
I did not have to worry about stepping in human excrement.
No one wanted to take my photo.
I was even wearing a tank top.
I was even showing my legs.
I even had my hair down.
No one even looked at me.

I'm home.

Some old mausoleum....

Statement of his love? No, this guy was nuts. 20 years, 20,000 workers all for a grave for his dead wife. My favorite story is that the King who started this whole thing tried to then build ANOTHER mausoleum across the river for himself (this one would be black). He never got to finish it: his son imprisoned him in order to take the throne.

More fun than seeing the Taj itself is watching all of the tourists who have come to see it and take the perfect symmetrical photo.

Mcleodganj (Dharamsala) pics

Delhi Pics

Nirvana

It's Tuesday afternoon, I am drinking my third cup of masala chai of the day, my entire body is wonderfully sore from morning yoga, and it's raining on the streets of Mcleodganj. Monkeys are sheltering under the eaves on the rooftops, and six magenta-robe-clad monks are sitting on a couch in this cafe, watching CNN international.

I love the north of India. We awoke on Saturday in our private room on an overnight train, and drank chai from the chai wallahs until we arrived at Pathankot, from which we took a 4-hour taxi ride, occasionally stopping for cows in the road, through the greengreen hills up here, which is the location of the Tibetan government in exile. The temperature is lovely. So many amazing things have happened, I don't know where to start writing.

This is a smallish village, with hill paths to other small villages. Our hotel room's balcony looks out over a valley, giving us a bird's eye view into the Dalai Lama's temple and residence, about 1/2 mile away. When we arrived, we found out that the Dalai Lama would be arriving on Sunday, and giving a (rare) three-day public talk at his temple starting on Monday. We are so lucky.

As we walked out of town on Sunday morning for a hike, throngs of people lined the streets, waving Tibetan flags. About a mile into our hike (though the woods, past the monkeys, across the waterfall), we could hear the cheers from the town as the Dalli Lama drove up.

Our hike was fantastic - we were caught in this tremendous rain storm, but luckily found a small improbable shelter on the side of a cliff, with a man who had chai, soup, and woolen items for sale. Two hours later, once the rain turned to a small drizzle, we walked back down, wearing Tibetan woolen shawls, hats, socks and carrying umbrellas, our stomachs full.

Monday morning we woke early to go to the temple, with (as instructed) blankets, mugs (for tea) and FM radios (to hear the English translation of his teachings). Though we arrived an hour early, there was not much room. Finally we found a small hallway sort of behind where the Dalai Lama was going to sit - we didn't have a view of him, but we did have a flatscreen tv to watch it live. We sat there, waiting, surrounded by hundreds of excited monks in cranberry and mustard robes, listening to chants. Suddenly, the monks started whispering and kneeling. In walked the Dalai Lama, two feet away from us. My heart started pounding. Just as he is always described, he looked like an intensely curious and happy child. He stopped and chatted to the monks sitting next to us. Watching their faces (they were positively glowing) made me cry. I couldn't get over the energy in the room. After a moment, he continued walking, and we settled in for the lecture.

It took us a while to find the correct station on our cheap FM radio for the English translation, and even then it was a little difficult to understand. We kept losing the station, and at one point the band Nirvana came on a station, which I found wonderfully amusing. It didn't matter. We sipped the (yaak butter?) tea that was passed around, nibbled on the bread, and watched the monks fidget, pass notes, lean on each other.

Later in the afternoon, back on our hotel porch, I sipped red wine and looked over the valley. The Dalai Lama's voice drifted over the trees as he ended his afternoon lesson and was soon replaced by chanting. The moon was visible through the prayer flags hanging outside the hotel, and we left for evening yoga.

It's peaceful up here, though cars continuously beep as they drive through. As beautiful as this area is, it is bittersweet. This is not home for so many of the people who are here. I'm so glad we were in China before this. Seeing the Tibetans here makes my feelings about China that much more intense. I don't think I can ever buy a Chinese-made product again. (We'll see how that works out.)

Tomorrow we'll get on an overnight train back to the sexually repressed, dirty, smelly hellhole that is Delhi and then onto Agra to see the Taj Mahal before Mike leaves on Friday...I'll try to post some pictures in a bit.
xo

Namaste

Remember when you first got your license, and suddenly had the freedom (apart from the $4 in your pocket) to go anywhere? That's what it feels like walking around Delhi with a man. Mike is here (yay! yay! yay!), and suddenly the number of men bothering us has been reduced by at least 80 percent.

It's not that ALL of the men are bothering us, per say. Some just want to randomly declare to us where we are ("You are on C Block. Shopping is there.") and walk away, but most follow us for a bit. It's tiring. It's hot. It's full of beeping. But oh, with a man...well, it's still hot, it's still full of beeping, but you can actually take your eyes from the pavement (lest you make eye contact with anyone) and see what's going on.

Tonight we are going on an overnight train (so exciting!) up north, and then will somehow figure out how to get the last 80K to Dharamsala.

I won't miss Delhi. But there are a few wonderful things here: 25 cent samosas; fantastically terrifying motor-rickshaw rides; and 6 o'clock, when seemingly everyone in the city gets on their roofs and flies kites.

Just in case you thought it wasn't true...

..There are cows wandering down the city street (a market street) in the middle of Delhi, outside the open door of my hotel as I type this in the lobby.

It's hot. 24 hours here and I can't get my mind around it. I'll write more later. But rest assured, cows are roaming the street.

Misty

Saw a report on CNN today in a cafe in Bangkok where the IOC president said that it was not pollution but "mist" that was causing the cloudiness in Beijing.

No, it's mind-blowing smog that makes you feel as if you are breathing in fiberglass.

And also, if you see pictures on the news of sunny-sky Beijing, beware. In front of massive construction sites, lifesize posters of "pretty China" have been pasted on fences that block the view of the construction. (And the construction is mostly the tearing down of people's houses, and the old 'hutong' villages in order to put in superstores.) If you look quickly, and through a camera lens, you might think the pictures are real.

But honestly, they think you won't be able to figure out it's a PICTURE covering DESTRUCTION.

Beijing rant is over. Thailand has been wonderfully restorative and now we're off to Delhi in a few hours, ready to handle even more pollution and even more crowds!

Break!

It is not until you are sitting in front of your $10 a night bungalow facing a Thai white sand beach and eating $2 shrimp curry that you realize how CRAZY China is. Honestly. Nuts. I'm still wrapping my mind around it, and so thankful for the one sunny island in all of monsoon-soaked Thailand to gather my thoughts before India.

We met a fellow teacher/traveler who gave us advice about India: "It's dirtier and more crowded than China, but don't fight it. Whatever you do, don't fight it. It will be amazing."

So excited!

We'll be back in Bangkok on Sunday - will post some pics soon.

Night Bus

I've never had good luck with overnight buses. There was the time in Vietnam when a flood washed out the bridge and we waited 12 hours for the locals to repair it with bamboo and twigs. There was the time in Peru on the way to Arequipa when the bus stopped every two hours for about one hour while the driver got out, hammered the tire until sparks flew, then got back on the bus. So I'm not sure why I thought an overnight bus from Yangshou to Guangzhou was a great idea. Ok, I do know why. It was only 20 bucks. And...it was 'Luxury,' which is all the rage here.

So first of all, it's a bus,

overnight

in China

where the roads are full of bull-sized holes, and drivers are crazy. And not only is it a bus, but it's a luxury bus, which means it has:

three rows of bunk beds,
shag carpeting down the two aisles,
leopard print mattresses,
blankets that smell like they are from the Cultural Revolution and look older,
and - always - kung fu movies.

The beds are metal; they are exactly one inch wider than my hips, and six inches shorter than my body. And though we fought as best we could for a bottom bunk (where we could at least sit up), the 'conductor' (who slept on the floor) yelled at us loudly in Cantonese. We both ended up in top bunks. I only had enough room to prop up on my elbows, barely.

I slept, no I lay, for 11 hours. On a bus. In China. On a glorified luggage rack. On crazy roads, desperately holding on as the bus rocked violently back and forth in and out of potholes the size of bulls, trying to pad the metal with the old blanket.

I listened to the snores of the people around me, who somehow did not fall from their bunks, ate oreos, and watched the nearly-full moon throw the karsts into dark relief against the navy blue sky...

Bangkok tomorrow. We're taking a break from our project to sit on a beach.

Yangshou Pictures

Beer with Mao...

Robyn says, "Crap, I did something really stupid."

It's 8am, and the heat wave seems to have broken. It is probably only 90 now, freezing compared to the past couple of days. We have planned to once again rent bikes and head out from Yangshou and into the countryside.

"I took a sleeping pill instead of my allergy pill," she explains.

We decide that biking - over unpaved, rocky roads miles and miles and miles through the rice fields and tiny villages - is not the best idea. What better to wake her up than sign up for a tubing trip, we think. Water will help.

Four hours later, we are standing at the top of a small mountain with no less than 600 Chinese tourists. We are all wearing yellow "helmets," orange life jackets, and wet sweat bands on our knees and elbows, meant I think to be protective pads. Beneath us is a pool of water that leads into a small creek. It is about two three feet across, the water can't be more than 8 inches deep, and rocks jut out everywhere. We look like ants. Swarming, yellow-helmeted ants. A man is barking through a megaphone at us, everyone is funneled into a narrow passage way to get on small inflatable rafts. We wait half an hour. The smell of humid bodies is overwhelming. Eventually, about 100 people are put in 50 boats and are just waiting. There is a gate that blocks the entrance to the creek. The gate does not open. In the boats, everyone takes off their helmets and pours hatfuls of water on each other gleefully. We are still with the 500 more in line. A half hour goes by. My sweat sock elbow pads itch. The sky turns a deep gray.

We look at each other, see a bus heading down the mountain, and run out of line, peeling off the silly clothing as we go. We jump on and mime that we want to be taken back to the base. The driver looks confused, but we get to the bottom. There is no bus back to Yangshou for two hours. We walk through the village and find a bar. Peanut shells cover the floor, men scream at each other as they play cards. We point to large bottles of beer. Thankfully, it's cold. We drink one, two. Chairman Mao watches us from a poster on the wall. As the rain beats down, we laugh, thankful that we are not on the river.

Two hours later, soaked people with rainbow-colored bruises on their legs emerge from the water. We giggle. We get on the bus and wait for half and hour, watching a stand-up comedy routine in which a fat man and an overly-made-up woman meow at each other. Hilarity ensues. Finally, the bus starts. I watch karaoke videos all the way back to town. Robyn passes out.

Hellobeerbellook!ok!ok!hello!

After finishing a lunch of "farmerfood" (tempura fried pumpkin!), we walk lethargically to the shade where we've locked the front tires of our bikes together. Immediately, two elderly women come up to us and try to sell us coke, postcards and water. They are wearing conical hats, their wares tucked inside a tape-covered box. Like many in this area, they know only three English words: "hello," "whatever-they-are-selling," and "ok!" This manifests itself in increasingly - yet wonderfully - bizarre ways: Three hours before we were lazily drifting down a river on a bamboo boat, dangerous looking mountain peaks around ever corner. As we turned the bend, a woman was set up on a bamboo float "hello-beer-ok! hellohellobeerokok!"

Back in the parking lot, outside the small roadside restaurant 7 or 8 kilometers from town, the women watch us intensely as we are unable to open the lock.
"Hellook," asks one, pointing to herself.
"Ok," we gesture for her to try.
She tries.
"Hellook," she nods sadly, unable to open the lock.
We look at her, shrug our shoulders, think about the possibility of carrying the two bikes to town.

A Peace Corps/ESL teacher type person comes by. He gives the lock the old American try. Doesn't budge.

The woman mimes a hammer. "Hellook?"

PeaceCorps tells us we will lose our deposit.

"Hellook?" she repeats her gesture with the hammer.

"Ok," we say, and she grins, runs off. Suddenly, five more old women appear, all miming hammering our lock, sounding like seagulls at the beach.

"Hello-ok! Hellohello-coke! Hello! Ok! Ok! Hellohello okHelloHello!HELLO!OK!hello!"

We shrug. They holler into the trees.

A man comes out of the bamboo with a hammer and a brick. Two more men show up on a motorcycle, also with a hammer and a brick.

PeaceCorps shows off his Chinese skills and bargains the price of breaking our lock from 10 yuan to 8. We could have done the bargaining just as well as we could have paid the 2 yuan (about 30 cents) but we appreciate his help. One man gets to work hammering away our lock. The other locksmith drives off. The elderly women drift away. PeaceCorps walks away. The man sees that we are not with PeaceCorps. He stops, grins at us, says, "hello-10-yuan-ok!" We say 8. He keeps hammering.

Our bikes freed from each other, we ride down past the women under the trees. They smile and cheer to see that we are free. "Hello! Hello-ok!" cheerfully echoes as we cross the street and make our way back to town.

Minority Village in pictures

Pinch my bottom

No more cities! We are now in the Southwest of China, trying to avoid the crowds, and get into the minority villages that populate this area. Yesterday we saw a Yao and a Zhuang Village.

The Yao women never cut their hair: they wind it around and around their heads until it becomes a shiny helmet. Married women show this off; single women cover their hair. Also, according to someone we met, the locals pinch your bottoms in lieu of a handshake. He told us we should not call the police if that happened, and that we should feel free to pinch the bottoms of people we meet. I am not sure if he was just trying to get us in trouble, but I couldn't help feeling slightly disapointed that no one pinched my bottom.

We also visited a Zhuang village. They farm along the most amazing rice terraces. I'll let the pictures speak for me.

As expected, the villages that get tourists seem to be doing okay. The villages that do not...well don't. China's economy may be swiftly growing, but that's really only in the cities.

I'm writing this from Yangshou, along the Yi River. This is tourist haven. It's a little overwhelming, actually. Though the population is much lower than that of the cities (oh, you know only a million compared to 19 million), hordes of Chinese tourists clog the streets. There is simply not enough room in this country.

Rights, Freedoms Protected

Over the past year, I've been concerned about NY Times reports about critics of the Chinese government being jailed before the Olympics. Turned out my fears were ridiculous. From the China Daily today:

Accusations labeled by some overseas organizations and people that China has arrested "dissidents" to ensure the safety and security of the Olympic Games are "groundless" a spokesman said yesterday....The accusations (or arrests of "dissidents") are "untrue and groundless," he said. China is committed to protecting human rights and some basic freedoms, including freedom of speech. The rights and freedom enjoyed by the Chinese people in accordance with the law are fully protected, and unbiased people recognize that fact.

Phew, for a minute there....Bloggers on the NY Times website say they've been restricted access to sites. Another untruth, according to the article.

Guangzhou pictures

Guangzhou (Canton)

Nowhere are shop keepers more concerned with rain: the mile long alley is filled with dried things. Mushrooms are the size of baby's heads, buckets overflow with dried roses, chamomile, green tea, jasmine, long stalks of roots, nest-like bundles. As the clouds darken over the market, people dive behind their wares to grab umbrellas, ponchos, tarps.

At the intersection of dried market road and pets-for-sale (piles of kittens, puppies, turtles in small cages..oh please let it be pets for sale) lane, a man sells small scorpions from a bowl. They click and clack to try to escape the red plastic walls.

Dinner last night was hot pot with our colleague (who is from Guangzhou and is spending her summer here), her friend and his family. You pick your ingredients from the displays upon entering: tanks of fish, turtles and shellfish, bowls of fresh vegetables, piles of bloody meat, baskets of what I think were worms, and yes, scorpions. Each dish is brought one by one, and one by one each dish is put in a pot of boiling rice in the middle of the table. Drink more tea, our host urge, it will help you eat more.

After dinner, we walked along the river, which reflected the neon light displays as far as we could see. Bored looking women in prom dresses stood outside nightclubs beckoning us to come in and dance. We declined.

It is steamy here, but less hot. Sensory overload.

Damn It!

Fashion

I've been quite fashionable, and have purchased a pastel umbrella to use in the sun. I haven't quite gotten to the other fashion statement: elbow length gloves in 90 degree heat.

Letter of Apology

Dear Beijing,
I am sorry I made fun of your smog, your prickly air. This morning you were sunny, lovely. The sky was crisp blue, the air breathable. At 6am it was cool, refreshing. We bought amazing 12 cent egg sandwiches from the tiny lady on the corner: the wait in line was well worth it.

We spent five hours walking through the middle of your city, and not once did we leave sight of water. Today you felt less like Chinatown, and more like China.

It never seemed crowded, but thousands of people were in the parks: men using water and large paintbrushes to put calligraphy on the sidewalks; children joining their grandmothers in ribbon twirling classes; men sitting in a pagoda - one playing a string instrument, one singing in unexpected notes. The beat of the dragon boat drummers resonated through the trees.

Your aspiring journalists wanted to interview us about our impressions of you. I must admit we were quite favorable. They wanted to know how we felt about the men who wear their t-shirts rolled up above their Buddha-bellies in the heat. They seemed embarrassed, and asked if we were offended. Beijing, we only think it is amusing. They asked what etiquette we deemed inappropriate, and asked us to give advice to the local residents on how to behave. We couldn't tell you.

I did see your signs posted along the wall in Beihai Park, encouraging your residents to welcome the Beijing 2008 visitors by refraining from spitting and by lining up. You also seemed to tell them that Westerners like to walk on the grass, so they should not be offended when they see this. I'm not exactly sure I understood that picture. Either way, Beijing, I applaud you trying to cut down on pollution, but please, when visitors come, be yourself. We wouldn't want you any other way.

Love,
Tasche

Great Wall of Smog

As of Sunday, half of the cars in Beijing must not be on the road, by government order, and thus there is a spike in bicycle sales. It is thought that this will help alleviate the pollution. The thing is, there doesn't seem to be that many cars, certainly not considering the 18 million denizens of this city. Shutting down the factories hasn't seemed to work yet. Three weeks is not enough time to get the air ready.

The sun is this scary orange bulb directly overhead, unsettling as it appears to be a full moon at noon. It is nothing to look directly at the sun - there is that much smog between you and it. Everything is hazy hazy hazy. Pictures don't come out well, your throat burns, your eyes itch, your skin is covered in film. You wheeze as you climb the steps of the Great Wall, slightly disappointed because you can't take the fantastic photos you hoped for - everything is covered in hazy mist. Instead you spend your time posing for the hundreds of school children who want to pose with you while their friends giggle and snap pictures. You can't see the Wall, but you are climbing on it.

Part of the area is under construction for the end of the Olympic Bike race. If the news crews are smart, they've been stalking out the scene, waiting for the one clear day to hit this city in order to get their requisite shot. You hope the runners will be able to carry inhalers as they round the track.