Yangshuo is the kind of place you hate to love. It’s touristy as hell and doesn’t really even feel like it’s in China, but it’s beautiful, fun, packed with things to do and I’m finding it hard to tear myself away.

Plus I have a bit of a purpose here beyond just guzzling beer and checking out the sights. I’ve been working at an English school here in town. The deal is pretty sweet - free accommodation, food and beer in exchange for spending two hours a night chatting to groups of students about anything at all. The students are great! They’re so eager to learn it’s almost scary. Friday nights spent studying aren’t uncommon and they’re not shy about vying for your attention so they can practice what they learned in class that day. The best part for me is being able to find out about their lives and learn a lot about China in the process.

As if getting to interact with the students isn’t enough, Yangshuo itself has a lot on offer. There are karst mountains that stick up from the ground like shards of glass all around this area. They’re beautiful and bizarre and exploring the area around town by bike is a great way to spend a day. There are opportunities to go bamboo rafting, climbing, hiking, caving, or if you’re not feeling energetic, hanging out in the bars and cafes around town is a great way to spend some time.

This is the sort of place I could stick around for a long time. I was contemplating spending the whole month here and maybe taking a crash course in Chinese, but I think I should do a bit more exploring of the area so have reluctantly changed my mind. I’m heading off tomorrow with only vague plans of heading north towards Chengdu to see some friends. What happens in between is up for debate!

When I headed off travelling back in 2001 I had with me a big bag of art supplies that I proceeded to carry around the world with me. Twice. They were heavy, bulky and did I use them? Hell no. I decided I needed to accept that I would probably never actually use them and decided to say goodbye to my neglected, dusty, stowaway art supplies in December. I donated them to a charity shop and rejoiced at the extra space in my backpack.

Well a couple days ago I found myself inside an art supplies store. I probably never should have darkened its doorstep because I know what I’m like. But I can’t resist them and once I got inside and saw how cheap everything was, well it was game over. Now I am the proud owner of about 20 tubes of oil paint, paintbrushes, turpentine, pencils, sharpeners, erasers, a sketch pad, canvases, and a palette. I even bought a plastic toolbox type thing to put them all in. Damn.

So now I have a heavy, bulky purple plastic box of art supplies that I really hope I use more than once or twice. Fortunately, in Beijing there’s inspiration everywhere and it seems like a pretty artsy place. I’ve been hanging out with a couple I met in The Philippines who are really into art and tagging along with them to meetups with local artists, galleries and stuff like that.

We went out to dinner with a Japanese artist living here, headed out to 798, a collection of galleries on the outskirts of Beijing, and went to a presentation of artsy types called Pecha Kucha. We even managed to accidentally catch the tail end of a Chinese opera and I don’t think my eardrums will ever forgive me for it. Holy crap it was high pitched. I didn’t know that noises like that existed.

My excuse in the past was that I never had time to draw and paint. Well now time is one thing I have plenty of so if those art supplies find themselves on another journey around the world without leaving the confines of the purple box, I’ll be really annoyed.

The first time I ever felt an earthquake I was in a little village in New Zealand. I was pretty sure that I’d heard somewhere that, during an earthquake, you should get outdoors or at the very least find a doorway to stand in. I decided that it was too cold so snuggled up under my duvet instead with the assumption that the building was too small to crush me to death. It stopped a few seconds later and in the morning I had to verify that it wasn’t just a dream.

I felt my second earthquake this afternoon here in Beijing and my reaction was similarly relaxed (irresponsible?) but not on purpose. I was sitting at my desk in my room doing some work and sort of felt like I was swaying from side to side. I had gone out the previous night and chalked it up to a hangover and instead of rushing into the streets with the rest of Beijing’s Central Business District where I live, I decided I needed a nap. I only found out a few hours later than it had been an earthquake. Oops.

It looks like this earthquake in Sichuan has been a major event with five deaths becoming 5,000 potentially. In Myanmar it’s looking like things are spiraling way out of control and will only get worse as the government keeps denying access to relief workers and supplies. Having had the opportunity to put faces, names and stories to the disaster in Bangladesh has made me take these recent events a little more personally than I might have before.

So I’m holding off on the Chinese lessons and waiting to see what happens in Myanmar and with this earthquake in China because there’s nothing I’d rather be doing than relief work with HODR. Does that make me a disaster chaser? Creepy.

I have to admit that I haven’t really done much (any) sightseeing since I arrived about 10 days ago. I have managed to join a gym, buy bedding, find a good supermarket near my house, eat lots of Mexican food (?), scope out some language courses, locate the main bar area, do some work on my websites and watch a bunch of pirated DVDs.

I was out today and finally saw the children’s ass crack pants in action but it was a pee, not a poo. Apparently the ass crack extends to the crotch region. Great. There’s something disconcerting about seeing a puddle of human pee on a busy sidewalk in Beijing’s Central Business District. There’s somethine even more disconcerting about the idea of little baby jobbies booby trapping the sidewalks. There’s something especially disconcerting knowing that a pair of pants has been designed specifically with this in mind.

As far as my attempt at Chinese, I’m still sadly stuck on ‘hello’ and ‘thank you’. Hello is ‘nihao’ and apparently ‘ni’ means ‘you’ and ‘hao’ means ‘good’. So I guess I know four words. Fours words in over a week is pretty slow going. Although I did have to learn the world for bridge to tell taxi drivers where I live so I guess I’m at five. Of course I say all of these words completely wrong and have no grasp on the world of tones so I might as well be a mute. Chinese is scary.

I’ve been in Beijing now for a few days and I have to be honest that, due to the discovery of giant beers for less than a buck and a really fun hostel, I have probably spent more time hungover than being productive.

But I have managed to get a few things done in the five days I’ve been here. On Monday I headed up to the University district where I was planning on living and studying. I was wandering by a real estate office sipping on my iced tea when I was whisked inside and they tried to help me with the apartment search. With me speaking no Chinese and them speaking no English, we were communicating with a Google translating website. Their first question for me was ‘Are you anxious?’ I assume they were wondering how soon I wanted an apartment as opposed to enquiring about my state of the mind at the time. After a few more similarly confusing questions I made a hasty exit and was still apartmentless.

The subway here spells like kilbossa and their stairways smell like spearmint. It makes me hungry every time I travel on it. Something that doesn’t make me hungry… I saw a little kid wearing a pair of pants with a slit in the ass crack which is rumoured to be for unleashing poops on location, on demand. Fortunately I didn’t see this device in action but I’m sure I will soon enough. But back to the subway… it’s really, really busy. There are people going everywhere at all times and I have no idea how the thing survives during rush hour. It looks like there are fences and things set up to corral commuters into lines when it gets really busy. I just can’t see myself wanting to wait in a giant line for the underground when taxis here only cost a few bucks to get anywhere.

So on to taxis… if I don’t get mowed down by one of them soon I will be surprised. If I don’t get moved down by a bke, car or bus I will be more surprised. The corners of the major streets (highways?) are manned by men who direct traffic while you cross the street and even with them there it’s a really scary experience getting anywhere in this place. I just kind of close my eyes and walk off into the street hoping for the best which is probably a strategy that could use some work.

It also doesn’t help that I have no idea where I live. I have  a vague idea where I am on a map of the city but I’m not totally sure how to say it and none of the maps are accurate enough for me to be able to point. This is the most confusing place I’ve ever been but I guess I can’t be too hard on myself after only a week. I don’t think I’ve eaten dog yet by accident and I haven’t been swindled so I’m not doing too bad I suppose.

So ya… I got an apartment. This sounds really dodgy but I met an American guy in a bar the other night and he needed a housemate, I needed a house, and there you have it. Easy as that. So two days later I am sitting in a swish apartment for way less than I was expecting to pay and way way less hassle than I would have had to go through if I got my own place. Internet set up, cleaner arranged, lease under his name, and all that good stuff.

I went to a language school this afternoon and think I might be lazy again and sign up for them because I can’t figure out how to get around this damned city and that place is a 15 minute walk away. The only horrible, horrible problem is that classes start at 8:30am and go for four hours a day, Monday to Friday. That sounds like hell. I might just go for four weeks and see if I can hack it. I have my doubts though.

So all up, Beijing is a pretty cool place. Once I figure out how to leave my house and get back in one piece and learn some of the language and stop feeling like such a moron I think things will be really good here. Looking forward to it!

I’m in Beijing! I arrived late last night. I had no idea how I was getting from the airport to my hotel or even where in the city the hotel is located but as we were coming in for a landing I had that same feeling I had when I was heading nowhere on a bus in Bangladesh. Not really having total control over every detail is kind of a great feeling and I couldn’t stop smiling.

I really had no master plan for getting to my hotel. I’d heard that no cabbies speak English so my plan had been to show them the hotel’s address in Mandarin, work out a price with some sort of system of grunts and hand signals, and then head off for a good nights sleep. As it turns out, I found an English speaking guy posing as a taxi driver who led me to his beat up car outside, drove like a crazy person and had bad late 90’s dance tunes cranking the whole way. I probably paid way too much for the honour but I was happy to be on my way.

So it’s morning now and I’m sitting in my really nice hotel room watching painting shows on TV. I still have no idea where in the city I am except that I’m a hell of a long way out so I’m mustering up the energy to relocate myself to my hostel, buy a mobile phone, start the apartment hunt, look for a language school and call some friends I have here to arrange to meet up.

It’s all giving me a bit of a headache thinking about it but I’m really excited to get life in China rolling. But first I’ve got to tear myself away from the TV. China’s main news channel is called ‘CCTV’. Surely I can’t be the only person who finds that funny?

Hong Kong was pretty uneventful for me. I only really stopped off here because it’s meant to be one of the easiest and quickest places to get a Chinese visa. So I booked in for three nights into a very dodgy hostel and went to work trying to get China to let me in.

There seem to be agents all over the city offering to get a Chinese visa for you. Even my dodgy hostel was in on the act but there was no way I’d be leaving my passport with those jokers. I looked up some place on the internet and wandered over to their office only to be told that as of April 15th, visa rules had changed. Well damn. The new rules mean that it’s no longer possible to get a visa for longer than 60 days and that I needed to supply them with a return plane ticket and a hotel voucher for my first night in China. Double damn.

Fortunately I hadn’t made any travel plans yet so my new master plan was to head to an internet cafe, book a one-way ticket to Beijing, buy another one-way ticket out of the country from the cheapest place possible, and make a hostel booking online. So off I went in search of an internet cafe. Do you think I could find one? Of course not. When I did, do you think it had a printer? Hell to the no.

So I wandered back to the visa office to explain my plight. Add to this that fact that it’s now bout 11:20am and I have to have my application in by noon to get my visa back by the next day. If I wasn’t staying in the worst hostel in the world I wouldn’t have minded spending an extra day in Hong Kong but I was pretty eager to get the hell out so getting that application in my noon became my mission.

The visa guy suggested a hotel down the road that might have internet and a printer and also suggested I head to the travel agent next door to see if they could help. I tried the travel agency firstand it seemed like they were used to helping people out with the new visa requirements. They told me that for about $250 I could have a return ticket to the cheapest place in China and a booking for a cheap hotel.

With that knowledge at hand and with time ticking steadily by I headed off in search of the hotel with that elusive printer. I got in the elevator, headed to the ground floor, thought that maybe I wouldn’t have time to go to the hotel so headed back up to the fifth floor, then thought that I would so headed down to the ground floor again, then I thought that the travel agency thing was a good deal, back up to the fifth floor, then I didn’t, back down, then I thought about asking them about a return flight to Beijing since I hadn’t yet bought one, back up. So after a comical display of indecision I was back in the travel agency buying a return ticket to Beijing and booking a hotel.

I got my application in with a few minutes to spare and in the end it only ended up costing my about $100 more than I would have paid had I done things myself online. This might seem like a lot but there were other people there who had already bought train tickets and were going to stay with friends so they had to shell out an extra $250 for the cheap plane and hotel combo. Pretty annoying.

So how is Hong Kong? Meh. It’s full of shopping malls. They do have this big display for the Olympics with giant mascots participating in each of the sporting events. The ones that are meant to be wrestling look like they’re shagging. It made me laugh every time I walked by.

Hiking for me has never been an enjoyable experience. It’s just a thing I feel like I need to do along the way so I don’t feel lazy. The reality of it is that hiking is a test of whether of not I can drag my unfit arse up a mountain or across a field without hyperventalating or falling down. So a approach these little walks with a bit of apprehension and thought I’d give a report on each to see if I slowly grow more fond of the outdoors.

The Hike: Cameron Highlands, parts of paths 3, 4, 5 and 6.

Distance: No idea.

Time: About 4 hours.

Weather: Beautiful the whole way.

Guide: As I approached where I thought path 4 was to start an old Indian-Malaysian guy asked me where I was heading and then convinced me that path 5 was the way to go. I was quite keen to just put my iPod on and zone out while wandering around snapping some photos but, considering I had no idea where any of these paths started, I decided to follow along. I was kind of expecting (and hoping) him to take me to the beginning of the path and then carry on on his way to wherever he was going. It turns out though that he’s a trekking guide and was going for a walk since he had no customers that day.  So I was stuck with him for the entire walk but except for a somewhat dodgy offer of a leg massage and him putting mosquito cream on a bite above my right boob, it was handy having him around. He explained a lot of the plants, pointed out some cool things and pimped me out with lots of jungle goodies. By the end of my walk I had a plant that could blow like a whistle, a bamboo walking stick, a corporal punishment whipping stick, a hat made from a fern, and a bracelet he weaved out of some sort of bamboo-like plant. The bracelet was way too small for my hand and while it eventually wiggled on, I’m not sure my hand will ever be the same again. He made another one for my right wrist but I managed to dodge that one and put it into my pocket. After the hike he kind of headed off quite abruptly. He said he could show me the way back to my hostel but I had to go to an ATM machine in the opposite direction and off he went. Strangely, a few minutes later when I was paying for stuff at the front of a shop I noticed that he was standing on the sidewalk and then he saw that I saw him and left really quickly without aknowledging that he’d seen me. Which he did. No idea what that was all about. Good guide but a little odd and and semi creepy at times.

Time Spent Lost: Because I bumped into that guy I managed not to get lost at all. If I was without him I doubt very much that I would have even found the start of any of the trails, let alone got myself around a whole bunch of them. Once you’re on them they’re reasonably well signed but finding the start of any of them seemed to involve ducking through schools, into people’s back yards and through farmland. I would still be wandering around now if I was on my own.

Moments of Hyperventalation: I pretty much made the guide guy promise me that there were no steep bits and he assured me that this walk was easy and that families do it. If grandma and the kiddies can do it then I’ll be damned if I’m not going to have a crack. For the most part the trail was easy but due to my extreme lack of fitness and general wimpyness, there were a couple of moments where I thought I was done for. But after a stop for water and a fake shoe tying stop life was good again.

Moments of Injury: I only stacked it once and it was right at the end of the hike. The lame thing is that I managed to fall on a paved path. The entire way was frought with roots, rivers, slippy rocks, soft mud soakers and steep hills but it was the damned path at the end that got me. That thing is slippery. The guide guy actually told me to walk on the dirt beside the path and I did for a minute but then switched back to the path. Then I started thinking ‘wouldn’t it be funny if I fell down because I’m totally ignoring his advice’ and immediately afterwards I bit it, falling backwards onto my hand. No harm done though, only a battered ego.

How much I hated it: Surprisingly, I didn’t hate it at all. It was a nice day, nice trail, nice (if a bit creepy) guide. Maybe hiking isn’t so bad after all.

Welcome to Bangladesh,
welcome to Hands On Rayenda.
Don’t think we love you any less,
’cause you got here so late in the calender.
We’ve all travelled very far,
now we’re screaming ‘buji na’.
‘Buji naaaa’
(Courtesy of Alan)

My time with Hands On at Project Rayenda is up and I’m sad to be leaving but really happy to have discovered this organisation and to have met so many amazing people during my stay here. I’ve loved everything about this experience (except for the occastional dubious dinner) and I’m almost certain I’m going to become a groupie, following Hands On around the world to help out as disaster strikes.

Favourite things about Hands On Rayenda:

1. Getting involved and helping out on a level that I would never have been able to achieve on my own.
2. Meeting so many amazing people in the volunteer house and laughing constantly.
3. Being trusted to majobble my way through construction projects, learning loads in the process.
4. Seeing first hand the impact of the projects on the individuals they helped.
5. Being adopted into the community and experiencing generosity and warmth from the locals on a level I never could have imagined.

This experience with Hands On has had a huge impact on me. They do great work and they do it in a fun and engaging way and I’m hooked!

I’ve been here in Rayenda for about six weeks now and have been forced into a diet heavy in Bangladeshi fare and very light in anything I would recognise or know the name of. Fortunately, I’ve had plenty of time for my taste buds to adapt and I think I may have even found a thing or two I like. I’m still not too crazy on squash mosh or the meals that involve eating fish heads but I’ve found that filling my day with the following goodies makes things a lot more unhealthy and a little more bearable.

Ice Cream - The day someone came home with a report of a freezer in the market was a happy one and that news sent ripples of joy throughout the volunteer house. Freezers mean cold and cold means ice cream. To solve the problem of it melting before we can get it home we all head down with spoons in hand ready to devour the tubs while curious locals watch the feeding frenzy most likely in disgust.

Chocolate - Bangladeshis aren’t nearly as fond of chocolate as us Westerners and given the terrible quality of the stuff we found in Rayenda, it’s no wonder. There’s no shortage of selection but what’s on offer is tasteless and an insult to chocolate everywhere. We decided a taste test was in order and set out to find the best Bangla chocolate but unfortunately it was all terrible. The worst of the lot was a tube-like bar with three flavours of icing in the middle and a chocolate coating that had the taste and texture of styrofoam. We dubbed this abomination the ‘Tri-Flavoured Chocolate Covered Poop Log’. Luckily we discovered the ‘Chocolate Pimp’ who has access to imported chocolate from Malaysia which is reasonably enjoyable and allows us to get our fix without questioning whether what we are eating is actually food or not.

Sweet stuff - Bangladesh makes up for its lack of edible chocolate by injecting copious amounts of sugar into various types of dough or bread and when none of that is available they  deep fry sugar itself. The result is a tasty but diabetes-inducing selection of treats. The most lethal of them all is mishti, a ball of dough soaked in a sugary syrup so that the ball oozes sickly sweetness with each bite. It’s kind of soggy and gross but kind of addictive as well. I suspect they’re laced with crack.

Fried stuff - When the sweet stuff gets to be too much, there is always plenty of fried stuff on the go. Market areas are lined with stalls equipped with big pans of deep frying oil and lots of greasy goodies perched on the edge. Paratha, mogli, shingola… the name, the shape and the fillings change but the greasiness lives on in each. Paratha are discs of deep fried yumminess that are usually dipped into dhal, mogli are rectangles of relative grossness filled with egg and strange vegetables, and shingola are delicious triangular samosa type things with a spicy potato mixture inside. I can feel my arteries clogging just looking at that photo.

Soft drinks - The discovery of the ice cream man led to the discovery that soft drinks could be put into said ice cream man’s freezer and thus we were re-introduced to the world of cold drinks. With the temperature rising to ridiculous heights and humidity being even more ridiculous, cold drinks have become our saviour after a long day in the sun. The  selection is pretty limited with old classics such as 7-Up and Sprite competing with local favourites for our business. Bangla choices include such unknown varieties as Chaser, Fizz Up, Pran Up, Upper 10, and Clemon (also possibly called C-Lemon but we might never know). Taste tests make for an entertaining and useful time killer so we conducted a blind taste test with all seven lemon-lime pop varieties.  All were served warm to take away any possible advantages but downing 7 samples of warm pop was too much for some of our participants and drinks were soon flying off of the roof rather instead of being drunk. When all drinks were eventually tasted and our stomachs were full of sub-par fizzy lemon drinks the winner was 7-Up followed closely by Sprite. The best of the Bangla choices was Clemon (C-Lemon?) with Pran-Up pulling up the rear. What kind of lame name is Pran-Up anyways?

Tea - Tea stalls are to Bangladesh what pubs are to the UK. There’s at least one on every corner, they’re crowded with shouty old men and they serve up drinks that will lead to certain heart failure if not drunk in moderation. Pubs serve alcohol, Bangladeshi tea stalls serve cups of sugar with a bit of tea added for flavour. If you ask for milk you get condensed milk. Best tea ever.

All of these yummy things have been keeping me distracted from the fact that even the most delicious meal gets dull the sixth time you see it in a week. These little indulgences are keeping us all sane for the moment but I’m sure any of us would trade all of these things for a big ass Toblerone.