October 23, 2005

 

Day 25 and Sheila's Request (Day 25)

First, I'd like to make an amendment to my previous entry:
Strike the first thing I said about English guys. They just talk funny.

(sorry, inside joke: ha ha Rich is a b***h)

So, today is day 25. 25 days of travel, Good God! Right now I'm in Guilin, a little town...wait, that's totally deceiving, let me vent for a minute...

Lonely Planet likes to refer to towns in China as ''little'' or ''charming'', when in reality there is nothing ''little'', ''cute'', ''charming'' whatever! about any town in China (at least not the one's I've been to). I shouldn't even use the word ''town'', they're all cities and huge ones at that! That's not meant as a putdown to China at all. It's actually meant to be a jab at Lonely Planet. Their descriptions make everything sound "beautiful". They would probably make Hell seem like just a warm cave. Don't get me wrong, I'm very happy to have my Lonely Planet to guide my way through this chaos we call earth, but really they could try to be a little more straight forward.

For example, Datong is described as a city who's ''central area [...] is turning into a pretty lively place, with rows of trying-to-be-chic shops and restaurants surrounding the city's few - but worthy - historical sites'' (China Lonely Planet 2005, p. 401)

My description of Datong:
''A hazy shithole with crappy hotels hardly worth more then 24 hours of your time. See the Hanging Monastry and Yungang Caves and get the f**k out!" (Jasmine 7pm 10/25)

Therefore, a good compromise description would be something like:
"Datong's chief attractions are the Hanging Monastry and the Yungang Caves. Both are definitely must see sites. Most travelers stay only 1 night because Datong is a busy city set in the middle of coal country. One day should be ample to see the sites and get a feel for the city"
















*These two pictures are the only things you need to see in Datong...now you don't even have to go*

All I want is a little honesty. But I guess in some ways they are being honest. It's all relative to the country. In China there are beautiful cities/places but not nearly as many as Lonely Planet makes out, and I realize that's mostly because my standard of "beautiful" is at a completely unpolluted level (pun intended). The beautiful small "towns" in China are beautiful small towns FOR CHINA. You just have to have an idea of what's ugly in China so you can use it as a base. Then, you can understand when they call something beautiful that you actually think is average.

My other pet peev with LP is that sometimes they just choose not to list things. For example they make out like Guilin (where I am now) is quite small and has no places to drink (aka: bars). When, in fact, it's quite large and there are at least 8 clubs/bars within a 1/4 mile of where we're staying. It just doesn't make sense.

Anyway, enough about LP, back to Guilin. Today, we (Rich, Jon, Colin- I'll tell you about him in a bit- and I) went to a cave on the outskirts of town...I mean the city :P It was actually pretty cool. It had tons of stalagtites, stalagmites and they had everything lit up in an interesting fashion. We decided it would be a good place for a rave.

We just got to Guilin yesterday and boy is that a funny story, but let me start from where I left off last entry...

We (Jon, Rich and I) left Chengdu on the morning of the 18th after seeing the "Pandas??" I wrote it like that because none of you would understand and that makes it funny. No, no, I'll explain. In the morning when we were waiting to go on the Panda Tour, the guide was counting everyone. He'd point at you and say "Panda??" and you would say "yes". There was no one in the courtyard except one girl sitting on a couch, that wasn't going to see the pandas, yet he kept asking. The funniest part about it was that he asked me like 6 times and I was the only black person there! (the only black person within 10 miles I'm sure) The Chinese...sometimes they can't stop staring, other times they don't even notice when they're standing on your arm.

So yeah, we went to see the "pandas??" which was cute/interesting (that's a "Red Panda" standing on a stick) and then caught a bus to Chongqing (pronounced Chongchin). From there we caught the Ripmeoff Cruise...wait I mean the Yangtzi Cruise. We were told it was 500 yuan and we ended up paying close to 1200. You had to pay to get on outside decks! This is where we met Colin. He's from L.A. and he's very L.A. He's kinda like a little encyclopedia, but a cool encyclopedia. You talk about anything and he starts spitting out facts. (he just told me how to spell encyclopedia...I had it right already though so ha) I think he thinks I'm crazy though, we always argue completely different sides. I mean come on Colin, Nike's campaign is much better then Victoria Secrets! It's so funny when you start meeting people from different parts of the world, especially Cali, and you start to see the difference between them and Europeans...they are very different.

We got off the boat @ 6am (the Chinese like to do everything early) and caught a bus to Wuhan where we caught a train (this is the funny part) to Guilin.

Here's the thing. On an overnight sleeper train you have 4 seating options:


Prices descend accordingly. We normally get hard sleeper. They're really quite comfy and soft really isn't worth the extra $$$... most of the time. Anyways, the guys really didn't want to stay a night in Wuhan, and the only tickets available were hard seat, so we took 'em. I knew it was a mistake from the get go, but I figured I would accompany them while they learned their lesson.

We got on the train at 3:3opm and expected to arrive in Guilin @ 10am the next morning. Thank God Almighty we got in at 5am, 'cause I think we would have died on that train and been stuck there for eternity because it's also Hell (not that I plan on going to Hell, but it's funny to say). So we got here at 5am, slept until 2pm, drank beer (yes beer) slept again, and here we are on the 23rd day of October.

From here (as usual) I have no idea what I'm going to do. The guys head to Vietnam (their visas run out at the end of the month) and I think I might do the same. I'm trying to see if I can get credit from my plane ticket, or at least change the date because I don't want to stay in China until the 14th of November. We'll see, I've gotta call the airline tomorrow.

Since I'm on the topic of my route (pronounced "root" by the English) I figure I can give you an idea of what my entire itinerary is, mostly because Sheila has been nagging me to do it :P

Happy Sheila?? :P

Oh, there are some more things I've realized about China that I'd like to add to my previous lists...

1) You can't be fat in China, everything is little

2) You are fat in China...I went shopping yesterday for pants because I was sick of my clothes. I had to get the largest size in the store everytime (size 29, not even large!) and if they didn't fit, they would look at me like: "oh my God, it doesn't fit??!!"

3) You can't be in a wheelchair in China...there are no elevators

4) There is no cheese in China...I know I've mentioned this before, but I miss cheese so much I felt the need to mention it again.

Oh cheese. Cheese, Cheese, my sweet fatty rich creamy cheese. I miss you so.

Don't worry, I miss you guys too.


# posted by Jazzytraveler @ 09:30
Comments:
Hi Jasmine: you don't seem to like China any more than you liked it here. Or, does America seem better from a distance? Glad you are meeting up with people to travel with. Keep blogging. --Auntie Joy.
# posted by Blogger joyjoy : 5:40 PM
 
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