Under the sea

In the past week I have taken two SSI diving courses, an open water course and an advanced adventurer course with the Phoenix Divers at Sairee Beach, Koh Tao. The first one teaches the very basics of diving to complete beginners such as myself, and I was lucky enough to learn in a group of three. A lot of attention from the instructor, and all of us progressed at the same pace. Even our first practice dive was done in the sea, whereas the group of 16 starting the next day practiced in the swimming pool and some of them were really struggling.

I thought I would be scared underwater, but I totally fell in love with it! The feeling of stepping out of the boat with all of your gear, being immersed in the warm water and realising that you can breathe, and from that point on, it's just sightseeing and enjoyment!

The open water course teaches the basic skills, going down to 18 m, and with the advanced adventurer gives an option of five speciality dives. Navigation and deep diving were obligatory and I didn't really enjoy them that much - I got lost during the navigation practice! We had to use compass to swim a square, but somehow the low visibility, strong current and my innate counting of breathes (instead of kicks) screwed me up. So I was lost under the sea and running out of air - no can do but ascend on my own. Surprisingly enough, it went well with the dive computer telling me when to safety stop and I managed to stay level and not to to panic. Quite proud of myself for not panicking! The deep dive took us to 30 m and had to do some basic maths problems, which I obviously got right whereas my dive buddy was rather confused. On that dive we saw some massive schools of fish, including barracudas.

The other speciality dives I chose were perfect buoyancy, which I found very useful, night diving, which I found eerie and not as exciting as described by others, and underwater photography! So here are some of the photos I took at White Rock!

Merry Christmas!

Just a quick note saying two things:

1) Diving is amazing. Not scary at all as I thought it would be. I have no idea what sort of fish and corals I saw today, but I know I saw a Christmas tree taken down to the bottom and being decorated with sea shells by divers wearing santa hats!

2) Merry Christmas to everyone!

Starring it up in Thailand

The tour of China ended with three days in Kunming, where I saw the newest Harry Potter, enjoyed the sunroof of the Hump hostel (18C and sun felt warm after rainy Guilin), visited the temples of the west mountain (Xi Shan) and learned about the numerous ethnic minorities of Yunnan province at the cultural village. I also read Forgotten Kingdom by Peter Goullart, which tells a true story of a westerner working in Lijiang, Yunnan in the early 20th century when all the minorities still lived by their traditional ways. Very good for understanding the local history.

Past two weeks I've spent with my lovely parents at the Hilton in Hua Hin, Thailand, as an amazing Christmas present from them. The weather has been properly hot (30C), which has allowed sunbathing and swimming, as well as a stint at swimming pool aerobics. We did day trips to a Monkey Mountain, Safari Park (where I got to feed a baby tiger! Afterwards got doubtful of the ethics...), Bangkok, Floating Market, to the country side to see the everyday life... and to the luxurious Barai spa. The spa experience was something magical, even though my dad thought the body scrub would hurt! Also there were long coffees, pina coladas from coconuts, mai tais from carved out pineapples, cryptic crosswords everywhere we sat down, and of course lovely dinners. The seafood was the best I've ever eaten - straight from the sea! In all this excitement the two weeks just flew by.

Last night my parents waved me goodbye as I boarded a bus to future adventures. Their airport transport left four hours after mine, and now they're on the plane home. And I'm in Koh Tao! The sea didn't seem too bad from the beach, but the sea was rough and 90 minute journey was painful. A lot of the people were seasick, and I was lucky of my window seat that allowed me to look at the waves instead of sick people. I'm planning to stay here for a week or so and most likely learn to dive as I hear Koh Tao is very good for it!

Ps. What about Christmas? Locals don't celebrate it, and I've managed to avoid the build up to my most favourite day of the year! So surprisingly I'm not sad of missing the family Christmas.

Southern China

The 13-hour flight to Hong Kong went surprisingly smoothly; the plane wasn't full so I had two seats worth of space to stretch and sleep on. I guess I must've slept over eight hours, and also managed to watch episodes of CSI and Mad Men that I hadn't seen before. From Hong Kong airport I took a bus to Guangzhou. The border crossing was done on foot, and was simple and straightforward. In true Chinese style every bus passanger got a sticker to wear, and it helped a lot as I just had to point at the sticker and I was hustled to the right bus with great efficiency.

Guangzhou

The bus arrived to Guangzhou after dark, and the city was beautifully decorated with lights. Every tree had beautiful dreamy christmas-light type decorations, and the tall buildings had tasteful lights running across them. I guess it is due to the 16th Asian Games which were held in Guangzhou when I was there. My hostel was located by the riverside, and although I was exhausted I had to go for a walk by the river to enjoy the scenery in dark!

The downside of the location was mosquitos. I hadn't had any major problems with mosquitos before, and I figured that although there were some in the lobby, I would be fine in my room. I was seriously wrong, as I woke up at 3 am to a seriously swollen upper lip. After rolling in the bed for a couple of hours due to jetlag, mosquitos and the awful smell of repellent I had applied I finally managed to fall asleep again. When I woke up again, I had more bites; one in the corner of my eye and several on my left hand and wrist, all swollen. My mirror image was a lovely combination of Angelina Jolie (upper lip, luckily the bite was bang in the middle) and one Chinese eye. Oh well, at least I could see and eat without problems!

I spent only one day in Guangzhou. It was taken up by obtaining a hard sleeper ticket for a train to Guilin (easy with the note written for me by the hostel people), a stroll in the Orchid Garden where I enjoyed a lovely cup of tea, and a visit to the Mausoleum of the Nanyue King, a well preserved tomb site with a museum containing all the treasures of the tomb.

Guilin

The train to Guilin took 12 hours, and passed by in a blink as I managed to sleep for ten hours. The train arrived in the early hours of the Saturday morning, and by eight am I had already booked myself on two tours on the upcoming days as well as a train ticket to Kunming. In Guilin I first saw the Solitary Beauty Peak in the very city centre and enjoyed the show of examinations held for the candidates for imperial government officials; in this case, excited Chinese tourists seated in a row of small cubicles. I lunched at a local noodle restaurant, where a meal cost 3 RMB and you were given a bowl of noodles and meat, and you could add the spices and broth from big vats as you wanted. Probably the best noodles I've had this far!

Then I braved the local busses and succesfully found myself from the Reed Flute Cave. I had seen the hundreds of photos my boyfriend had taken there five years earlier, but I still wasn't prepared for the extreme beauty of the stalagmites and stalactites formed by an underground river. They looked like melting mushrooms, spiny and spirally towers of gothic cathedrals, extraterrestrial landscapes. Awe-some.

When I returned from the cave, I felt incredibly cold, as the temperature was around 10-15C compared to the lovely 25C of Guangzhou and HK. What was meant to be warming up under a duvet turned out to a five-hour nap, and I heard that it had been raining all of that time. A quick tour of the town in the evening revealed a night marked with a lot of souvenirs and little gadgets, as well as a weird party at the central square with singers and badly coreographed fashion shows.

Li and Yulong river tours

I had booked a pricy river tour for Sunday, and it turned out to be totally worth it. We spent over four hours on the Li river on a bigger boat (compared to the bamboo rafts that some tourists braved regardless of the cold and rainy weather). The Li river has the views you can see in every Chinese painting - the snaky river and hump-like steep, round-topped hills. It is claimed to be the most beautiful of Chinese sceneries, and a picture of it can be found on the reverse of 20RMB note. Although the weather was misty, the views were stunning. The river cruise ended in town of Yangshuo, a very touristy town where 15 million tourists pass through every year. As shopping for souvenirs for several hours didn't interest me, I opted for an extra tour to the Yulong river.

Yulong village and Yulong river were a lot less touristy and very enjoyable in their rustic, calm atmosphere. We saw a lot of rice fields, ducks feeding on shrimps, living in the rice paddies, water buffalos (which we got to feed and pat) and fishing with cormarant birds. They bind a string around the neck of the birds so that they cannot swallow the fish they catch, so the fish can be retrieved from their beaks. There also was relaxing bamboo rafting in the stunning views.

The guide on the tour, Yang Yang, was very friendly and fun. He was happy to answer all of our weird questions and didn't get annoyed when we wanted to photograph ducks instead of the famous views. And by we I mean me and four American girls who I teamed up for the day. They were good fun and as the hostel hasn't been too sociable, it was good to find company on the tour. He told us that typically the prettiest building in each village is a Party meeting hall, and I asked him some more questions about the topic. Apparently they hold events every week, and what surprised me, is that not everyone is eligible to be a party member. Only the best 4% of students get opportinity to join. I had always assumed that the party was for everyone to be a part of, but it sort of makes sense to have the smart people in the deciding team!

Minority and Rice Terrace tour

Monday was yet another tour day. I had booked to go and see the Dragon Bone rice terraces, but the tour included also a stop at Yao minority village. The women of the Yao grow their hair very long, and only cut it when they get married. The longest hair was about 2.5 metres long! They dress up in traditional red dresses and wear their hair according to their status (single, married, married with children). The village was built of wood unlike rest of China I've seen, and we visited a traditional house and a show where the Yao women sang, danced and displayed the traditional wooing procedures. It was surprisingly interesting and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would!

The rice terraces were unfortunately mainly clouded over, so climbing up to the highest peak at 1000m was not rewarding at all as the visibilty was zero. The views from lower down were ok though, and it was possible to imagine how pretty it would be from the top. The lunch was in the village of Ping'an, and as the tour group was Chinese (except for me), a group of lovely Chinese invited me over to their table allowing sharing of food and sampling more things. The traditionally cooked rice and chicken inside a bamboo stick was delicious, as was the smoked pork and beer fish!

I have enjoyed Guilin a lot altough I've been wearing my warm fleece and jeans since I arrived. I even invested in gloves. The entrance fees here have been a lot pricier than in Beijing, but on the other hand the souvenirs have been a lot cheaper (at least the starting price) and seemed a lot better quality. I guess that they can't sell any old China crap to Chinese tourists - they want something local, something different, something pretty, and they know how much it's worth, so there's no point putting the starting price extremely high as you would with foreign tourists. Also, if you travel all the way here and want to see the famous views, I guess you won't say no to the high entrance fees.

Photo opportunity.

I'm still in Europe, enjoying good food and kicking boyfriend's ass. He's writing thesis a lot of the time, but the progress is still slow. I changed my return flight to Hong Kong for 24th Nov, so one more week until I return travelling. I have planned a week-long tour in Southern China: a day in Guangzhou, a weekend in Guilin, a day in Nanning and then three days in Kunming. I really wanted to go to northern parts of Yunnan, but the weather forecast already promises snow for the area, so I stick to the warmer climates! From Kunming I will be flying to Bangkok and I will meet my darling parents in Hua Hin! They will be there for two weeks to enjoy the sunshine in the middle of miserable winter!

As people have been requesting photos, I finally found a cable to get the low-quality pics out of my mobile phone.

A street in Shanghai near the conference venue.

Emperor's shopping street around the Suzhou canals at the Summer Palace.

View from the roof of the Templeside Hostel - The white pagoda temple.

One of the 1500-year old Buddha statues at Yungang grottoes.

The hanging monastery of Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism near mount Hengshan.

A Taoist temple in the morning mist on the holy mountain of Hengshan.

The ancient walled city of Pingyao from the city walls.

The twin pagodas of Taiyuan.

My travelling companion, the lil Tigur, in his new hotpink silk gown and with matching orchid at the Beijing Botanical Gardens.

The very tall Beijing TV tower.

The view over Beijing from the TV tower.

Rice fields in the Philippines.

On the boat to Puerto Galera.

On a lovely sandy beach in Puerto Galera after a snorkelling trip.

View from Our Melting Pot window, a lovely hostel in the 18th floor in Manila.

View from the Victoria Peak, Hong Kong.

The tallest sitting outdoors copper Buddha statue (35m) in Lantau island, Hong Kong.

View from the 15th floor Casino whiskey bar in Macao.

On a break from the travels

Having some time off from travelling has been a bit weird. I've been mainly doing nothing; watching telly, reading books, cooking, knitting, a little housework, playing old computer games, New York Times crosswords, mainly just wasting time and try to make sure my boyfriend is writing his thesis and not slacking off. And it hasn't been a wasted effort! He's been working hard but his perfectionism tends to take over, making the progress slow. But it has been great to be near him!

The autumn has been beautiful; warm sunny days and lovely colours of yellow, orange and red in the trees. In Asia often I ended up walking the whole day; here I tend to stay in and venture out only for short walks. We've been out to see some films, met up some friends for a pint or three, as well attended a middle of night street party / protest, but as the thesis writing tends to get better towards the night, the evenings have mainly been quiet.

I'm due to fly back to Asia on Sunday, but I might change the flights to slightly later date. The news about floods in Thailand and Vietnam might change the direction of travel slightly. The display of forces of nature in Indonesia have also scared me a little. I can't obviously prevent something from like that happening when I'm in Asia, but I really need to read the news carefully and check which areas are affected.

Finally, I've been surprised how many of my friends and family have mentioned that they read this blog! Thank you for reading and all the kind words!

Hong Kong in style

The last night in HK in stayed in a five star hotel right next to the harbour in Kowloon, courtesy of a very kind sponsor. We enjoyed an amazing meal in Aqua restaurant in the 29th floor facing the harbour and watching the sun set and the buildings light up. Simply beautiful. The next day we had a quick sight-seeing tour of the Hong Kong side and it was too soon the time to go to the airport. The waiting time flied past with some of the best things I know: the newest Sophie Kinsella book, a mojito and quesadillas! The 13 hour flight back to Europe went surprisingly quickly and although I thought I had slept badly and just for an hour or two, I managed to get eight hours of sleep. So I landed at six am feeling awake and there has been no sign of jetlag! The weather is quite a bit colder than I had packed for, so I've resorted to wearing my boyfriends clothes. I miss the warm weather and friendly Asian people but it is so nice to be here with him!

Hong Kong and Macau

I have spent now a week in HK, and every one of the days has been long and hectic. A friend of mine from Finland has been travelling with me, which has made the beer input slightly higher than normal. Hong Kong has been a total surprise for me, as I was expecting only the tall buildings but not the nature and the mountains all around it. We went up the Victoria Peak by the Peak Tram and up to the Ngong Ping with the cable car. There were beautiful views over the town, the airport and especially over the mountains. In Ngong Ping we saw a modern Buddhist monastery, the world's biggest outside sitting bronze Buddha statue and a monument with the heart sutra written on wood pillars - all built in the past 20 years or so but in the familiar hundreds of years old Buddhist style.

I have been pleasantly surprised by the public transport system, especially after Manila where there was none. The subway, boats and buses are easily navigated and paid for with a handy Octopus card. The Octopus is a valid and easy form of payment also in some tourist attractions, fast food restaurants and shops. Very handy when paying for small amounts and not familiar with the coins! The only complaint I have is the shopping complexes that surround the subway exits and makes it impossible to just get to the street and where you wanted to go to! And the shopping in HK seems to be a lot of Gucci, Rolex and Cartier, so I have not ventured to any shops at all.

Hong Kong is very British in small ways, but actually not at all. The people are very business-like and majority remind me of the City people in London. A lot of foreigners are here obviously for business, and everyone speaks English. Or in the cases where the waitress has not spoken English, someone else has helped us immediately. So very friendly too! On Saturday we took ferry to Macau, which used to be under Portuguese rule for a long time. Nowadays it was a small city-country (or a Special Administrative Region of China, just like Hong Kong) that looks like a bastard child of Lisbon and Las Vegas. The Lisbon side of the town had a lot of historic churches and forts, but the skyscrapers where normal people lived were very run down. The food on the streets offered Portuguese options in addition to the noodle soups. The casinos were grand and tall and sparkly and flashy and kitch. We went inside a couple of them, and spent some spare money on number seven on the roulette (we're both born on 7th July) and lost it all of course. It all was a bit absurd, the casinos and the numbers of people going there just to play. The contrast within the city was so steep, that it seemed obvious that any made made by the casinos didn't trickle down to the society. Or maybe they had inherited the Portuguese chilled out attitude that led to run down building fronts?

On our first night in HK we went out to see what the night life was like, and after several pints of beer in SoHo (South of Hollywood Road) we wanted to see more of the island took a completely random bus that took us to the south side to Aberdeen. We found a nice noodle shop and ordered some food, and started talking to the people in there. We made friends with King, who then invited us for Sunday lunch. So yesterday we went for a very nice Dim Sum lunch in a floating restaurant with King and his wife Bella, followed by a popular Hong Kong pasttime - horse races. We betted again on number seven, and literally lost by a neck. Oh well, even 10/10/10 wasn't our lucky day!

And then finally a bit of good news. We went to the Fortune Tellers near Wong Tai Sin temple and had a look into next year's events by stick fortune telling. My question was if my boyfriend will finish his studies, and the answer was yes as he will work hard, but unfortunately he will not find a job straight away and will have to take some time out to travel to six countries! And then he might become prime minister later on.

Manila madness

The weekend in Manila was not exactly what I expected. There was the sights-seeing as planned, but also lots of things that I never thought I'd saw. On Saturday morning I arrived at the hostel and over the breakfast we discussed the local politics and how there are so many poor people. How there is a lot of hope for the new president, and how the attitude of the Catholic church is ruining the attempts of the government to promote family planning by offering free contraception. The hostel staff were great, they were keen to discuss everything and also offered advice on what to see, eat and drink in Manila. So I headed out to see the vicinity of the hostel.

My first stop was the Ayala museum which probably is the best museum I've been in. I typically get exhausted in museums where the collections are extensive and you just see so many things of the same type that it ends up dulling you out. The Ayala museum was different, as each of the floors were completely different to each other AND very interesting on their own field. The Filipino gold items from a thousand years ago; the progression of modern Filipino art of 20th century (Fernando Zobel!); the history of the Philippines until 1980s; amazing art made out of plastic and light by Olivia d'Aboville. After exploring the museum throughout, it was time to see some shopping malls. Philippinos apparently love their shopping and not getting sweaty, so Manila is covered in massive shopping malls. I felt like I was in the States so it wasn't too exciting.

For the dinner, I teamed up with three other people from the hostel and we ended up going for a couple of beers after the dinner. As the hostel was located next to a dodgy bar street, we had a look at the options. Every other building seemed to be a church, and the rest were poledancing bars, ladyboy bars, bars with girls with very little clothes on... and we ended up choosing the Ringside Bar that had oiled midget wrestling. I kid you not. We found the idea hilarious so we went in, ordered our "expensive" beers (2.50 eur) and after a round of lady boxing, the wrestling was announced. And because me and the other girl from the hostel were the only female customers around, we were asked to oil up the midgets. Eek! In a way the show was hilarious, but I felt very exploitative. Laughing at someone's disposition? But on the other hand, it offers them a job, and they seemed to laugh a lot themselves... whereas the girls in the bar seemed bored out of their wits and were giving us an attitude because we paid no attention to them. It is a weird industry, all the old white men and the beautiful young girls, and apparently most of the girls are happily in it, hoping to find a husband to take them away. What can you do if all of the parties are willing and happy with their end of the deal?

On Saturday I headed out to the old Intramuros area with another traveller I met at the hostel. We spent the morning looking at the old fort and the walled city and talking a lot about philosophy, life, science, politics, history etc, and the morning was amazingly good fun mainly because of the company I had. Towards the afternoon another friend from the hostel joined in, and we saw the Rizal park and the monument, and by a shaded bus stop near the park, we saw a local guy flashing his private parts at us. Nothing like that has ever happened to me before, but we all took it calmly, walked away and laughed at it after we were a safe distance away. But it made me think, what is the logic of the people who flash? To scare? To show off?

We saw the sunset over Manila Bay sitting in this lovely rooftop Korean restaurant, with quite a few local beers and tasty Korean food. Others were keen for a crazy night out, so we headed to the central bar area (not the one near the hostel), but I felt tired and not really up for bars. I wasn't a big fan of the music or the topics of conversation, and I felt irritated and I decided to catch a cab and head home, and I actually enjoyed my chat with the cab driver more! So I got a full nine hours of sleep and woke up feeling good, and headed to the airport to catch my flight to Hong Kong. I'm now at a internet cafe in HK, the hostel is not great as there is no communal area and I was upgraded into a private room instead of a dorm. So I haven't met anyone yet but my friend from home is arriving later today.

I realised quite a lot of things in the hostel in Manila - that people are very different. They travel for very different reasons and with very different attitudes. There was two travellers who had done all of Southeastern Asia and carried their tan and their wrist bands with pride, and loved to discuss the places they've been, the best bars, how intoxicated they had been and where, the stories of these countries as the adult playpark only designed to provide them entertainment. One of them said to me that she was on a holiday and really didn't want to talk about philosophy or politics. It irritated the hell out of me, but I still don't know exactly why. Because she could dissociate themselves from the surroundings so strongly? She wasn't ignorant no, it was an informed decision on her part. It probably was the fact that she had just chosen to be on a holiday for a year and ignore her environment. I think that the best part of the travelling has been understanding the different countries and peoples better; seeing what their history is like, their current conditions, and how it reflects on everything. Maybe she did that too much in her everyday life and wanted a break from it - fair enough then!

The Southeastern Asia travellers were obviously keen on places that weren't destroyed by tourism but which had a fair population of their type fun-loving travellers. Oh the irony. The stories they told made me crave for the beaches, but I'm not sure if I want to go to the destinations they recommended if they indeed are crowded by people with their attitude.

Salamat po!

I've now finished my share of the review writing! I think I've worked hard, but it doesn't feel that way really. And given that the review has been heavily edited by my supervisor, I don't even feel that much that it is my writing. But it is written now, and as it is a special sort of paper I don't think there will be problems with the review. I think everyone's happy about it - the busy supervisors who didn't have time to write one but wanted one to show off to the funding bodies, and me getting another precious first-author publication and to come to the Philippines for free!

Tonight there is a house party to celebrate all kinds of things (house-warming, birthdays, people leaving) and tomorrow morning I'm going to Manila. When I've asked people what there is to see in Manila, they've asked me back what sort of stuff I like shopping for. Luckily it is not only malls and there seems to be the Intramuros area from the old times when Spain used to rule the islands. It will be interesting to see how Manila compares to the small towns I've seen this far!

On Monday I'm flying to Hong Kong where I will be meeting up with friends. Then a week later I might take a three-week holiday from travelling. This would be to visit my boyfriend to inspire him with his thesis writing, or to give him a hefty kick on the ass, or to make sure he doesn't go crazy inside inside the four walls, or to be his domestic goddess whilst his family is away, or whatever you want to call it. I call it love! This wasn't exactly in the original plan, but on the other hand there was no plan anyway! And whilst travelling the world one can visit all kinds of countries!