Worn Out Shoes

Harbin

January 22, 2019January 22, 2019ryankate889

To wander into a restaurant in Harbin, the capital city of China’s northernmost province, is to find a scene not too unlike one you might find in a ski lodge. Red faces appear frozen in their last expression, hands cling desperately to hot beverages, mounds of clothes lay piled on any available furniture, and, perhaps most notably, the warm interior air is filled with a murmured excitement. For, while the restaurant offers a necessary respite from the freezing temperatures outside of it, the weather itself, no matter how cold, is exhilarating, and the experiences that can be had in it, whether it be exploring the dusty backstreets of a Russian city left from a bygone era or marveling at the towering ice sculptures that give the city its fame, are so unique that you want to duck into a warm place not out of a want to escape the cold but out of a reluctant necessity to avoid frostbite. And so was our dilemma for the duration of our time in Harbin, balancing our desire to see as much as we could with our desire to feel our limbs.

If there was any part of us that thought that growing up in the frigid winters of Ohio and Iowa meant that we would be better equipped to handle the cold of Harbin, it was laughed out of the room the second we stepped off the plane and felt the arctic air gripping our body as we scampered to the shuttle bus. We would later find that the average January temperature in Ohio and Iowa sits somewhere around 30 degrees Fahrenheit while Harbin’s is down in the single digits. With those figures in mind, we applied layers to our body with reckless abandon the next morning before heading out to Zhongyang (or Central) Street, whose name implied an apt place to start our exploration of Harbin.

The street, and Harbin itself, got its start at the turn of the 20th century when Russian railroad builders chose the site as the terminus station for one of their cross-continent lines. In the ensuing decades, Russia’s influence on Harbin was unparalleled, even among the Chinese, as they essentially erected a city from scratch and filled its streets with its people and culture. After World War II though, with the Russian army in firm control of the city after wrestling it out of the hands of the Japanese, the city was hallowed out when its Russian population, which numbered into the hundreds of thousands, was forcibly deported back to Russia, leaving just 450 left by the early 1960’s. While the people who gave the city its unmistakably Russian character were no longer there, the skeleton of their influence remained in the form of buildings and a culture that were still very much visible during our visit to the city over half a century later; nowhere was this more noticeable than on Zhongyang Street.

Many of the buildings and signs in the Russian Quarter were in three languages: Mandarin, Russian, and English.

Entering the street, we became a bit disoriented as surrounding us were Baroque and Byzantine-style buildings, cobbled streets, Russian cafes and bakeries, and fellow revelers so bundled that it was difficult to make out their species let alone their nationality; in other words, scenery that in no way hinted that we were in China. Pulling us back to reality though was the overly cheerful face of a Chinese girl etched into a block of snow that rose well above the reach of our heads. Surrounding her was an array of less eye-grabbing designs celebrating the upcoming Chinese New Year and that, we decided, placed us firmly, and perhaps a bit harshly, back into the context of China.

Sometimes, the color of the buildings were as equally out of place as the buildings themselves

Ice sculptures made frequent appearances along the street

As we wandered further down the street, the view of buildings and trees that had dominated our surroundings up to that point gave way to the more open scenery of the Songhua River where an army of amateur snowmen shot off in either direction along the waterfront. If army gives the impression of uniformity and seriousness, the snowmen were anything but, being similar only in number. Rather, they were decorated mostly with an absurd array of googly eyes, cartoon mouths contorted in a variety of exaggerated expressions, and colorful tinsel draped around their bodies like a scarf. Apart from their faces, their size also varied from one to the next from those that barely topped off at our chests to others that stretched well beyond the reach of the tallest tree.

How we felt for pretty much our entire time in Harbin

Having taken in our fair share of snowmen, we ventured down to the river which was completely frozen over, so much so that trucks were able to move across it to load and haul away the two ton ice bricks used to build the city’s famous ice sculptures. Along with the trucks were crowds of people partaking in different ice-themed activities that ranged from the familiar skating to a game that involved whipping a spinning top to prevent it from toppling over. With no skates and our whipping skills rusty, we decided to partake instead in the timeless and all age-inclusive fun of running up to a patch of ice and seeing how far we could slide across it.

Some of the cut ice blocks waiting to be hauled away

We enjoyed our time on the ice, but not enough to walk across the entire river as some did

More snowmen on the river or else fellow tourists who had spent too long atop the ice!

After doing this several times we walked on, though our ability to stay atop the ice was fleeting for, however cold we thought it was while not walking over a mass of frozen water, it couldn’t compare with the arctic chill invading our bodies not only from the ice below but also from the steady, numbing breeze blowing over top of it. No longer able to enjoy our surroundings, we headed back up towards Zhongyang Street, which seemed comparatively cozy, a feeling we would continue to pursue by stopping in a small Russian restaurant where we basked in its warmth like a lizard under a heat lamp.

On our way back to Zhongyang Street we passed a small park full of people playing ping pong

Snow and ice sculptures still under construction

When we passed the construction site, some of the workers were on their lunch break using blocks of ice and mounds of snow as their tables

Once feeling returned to our fingertips and toes, we ordered an array of hot dishes and tea to aid in the thawing process. As we sat, we watched as others sought the same warm refuge as us. Through the fog of their own breath, layer-laden bodies whose rotundness would make even the Michelin Man blush, made their way to open tables, peeling off coat after coat until a heap of winter wear lay piled up behind them, nearly pushing them off the front of their chair. Like a greedy baron stashing away his money, we kept our layers on, building up as much warmth in our bodies as we could in the fruitless hope that it would serve to keep us warm once we left the restaurant.

All warmed up and ready to brave the cold again

We would need all the warmth we could get for a visit to the Ice Festival was in our near future and we expected that, whatever chill we had felt while atop the frozen Songhua River, the one we would be experiencing amidst a city of ice after nightfall would be even more. The sun set at a surprisingly early 3:56 p.m. (perhaps Harbin was a bit too chilly for even the sun to hang around longer than it needed to) and we arrived not long after with any traces of the sun, whether it be light or warmth, long gone.

As we approached the festival, we felt as if we had bought a ticket to another world. The uniform black of the night sky served as the perfect backdrop for the glowing brilliance of the ice sculptures which rose up from the snow-covered ground in every way imaginable. There were walls, bridges, towering buildings, churches, temples, and castles. The Roman Colisseum was even on display. As if the size and scope of the structures wasn’t enough, each one emanated a different color that, when looked at together with the buildings around it, created a rainbow of glowing ice across the landscape. Some of the colors remained unchanged within their given structure, while others faded in and out of each other, purples turning to blues turning to greens as they rose up through the ice, making the buildings they illuminated appear alive as they coursed into the night sky. Funnily enough, the way the ice blocks looked reminded us of embers in a fire, emanating a calm and steady glow. Far removed from the contemplative coziness of a fireside, the ice blocks drew our attention in all the same.

Standing in contrast to the radiance of the buildings were the people moving around them. If the buildings were the definition of light, the figures were the complete absence of it. Always in the form of a silhouette, they seemed an extension of the nighttime sky above them; an unwavering black. You would think that one would pay little attention to the comparative dullness of black when surrounded by a gigantic, illuminated ice city, but the crowd of shadows served as the perfect accompaniment to the buildings, always reminding us of just how bright and monumental they were.

While standing outside of one particular ice sculpture that resembled a church, we were approached by a reporter from a news channel who wanted to interview us about our experiences in Harbin (you can find the videos here and here). However exciting it was to do the interview, it meant standing still for an extended period of time which spelt doom for our waning ability to feel our fingers and feet. After the interview ended, out of sight of the reporter and cameraman of course, we danced and shook our bodies wildly to restore as much circulation to our limbs as possible (sorry, no videos of that one) before continuing our exploration of the festival. Not wanting to lose what little warmth we had managed to restore to our bodies, we would spend the rest of our time there in a constant state of motion, pausing only to snap a quick picture. When finally, the cold became too much to bear, we left the festival to head back to our hotel.

A sight for frozen eyes and a very welcome offer that we would take up towards the end of our time at the festival

The next day would see us return to Zhongyang Street where, this time, we would be heading away from the river and towards the city’s most iconic permanent structure: St. Sophia’s Cathedral. Wanting to get off the crowded confines of the pedestrian street, we made our way through the Russian quarter’s less-trafficked alleyways which, unlike the restored and admired Zhongyang Street, were full of crumbling edifices whose influence had seemingly been lost along with the population that built them; a fate that the cathedral almost suffered itself.

The ice blocks along the street on our first day were beginning to be carved on our second. We were surprised to find that they are able to sketch their design on the ice first before sculpting it.

Each block had a team of 6 or 7 workers chiseling away at it.

One of the alleyways branching off from Zhongyang Street

Built in the early 20th Century to help restore confidence to Russian troops who had just lost a war to the Japanese, the cathedral stood as the center and symbol of the city until the formation of the People’s Republic of China. Like so many other cultural sights within the country, the communist takeover of it spelt doom for the cathedral. While it withstood its intended destruction during the Cultural Revolution, it would endure an equally miserable fate as it became nearly forgotten as concrete apartment buildings and factories were erected within inches of its walls, making the cathedral completely invisible from the street. It wouldn’t be until several decades later, in 1997 to be precise, that it would regain its visibility after wealthy donors pooled together their money to tear down the surrounding buildings and return the cathedral to its former glory.

As we approached the cathedral, the idea that it could have remained unseen and forgotten for nearly half a century became even more absurd as we were met with, what was to us, a work of art. While the buildings of Zhongyang Street looked far from Chinese, the Chinese signs and brands that filled them were steady reminders that they were indeed, made in China. St. Sophia’s on the other hand, looked as if it were ripped from the pages of a Russian travel book and plopped down in the middle of the large ornate square that held it. Apart from the faces moving around it, one would never guess by looking at the cathedral alone that it would belong anywhere but in Russia.

Before making our way around the cathedral, we grabbed a traditional snack of candied crabapples on a stick.

The crabapples were frozen solid and after crunching through the first one we decided to go into a souvenir shop to let the treat thaw out a bit before continuing to eat it

As we looked upon the cathedral, our attention couldn’t help but first go to its green, bulbous roof which crowned the rest of the structure in ceremonious fashion. Trickling down from the roof was row after row of patterned brickwork, whose intricate designs would look far more at home within the pages of quilting book than on the facade of a large cathedral. Pigeons flocked from ledges, swooping back around to their perches almost immediately in a way that could only befit a pigeon. Being smaller than other cathedrals we’ve seen, we were able to make several trips around it, with each one offering a new angle or detail that we hadn’t seen before. Once there was nothing new for it to offer, we headed back to Zhongyang Street for a late lunch and dark beer at Madieer Brewery before retiring to our hotel.

For our last day in Harbin, we would head to Sun Island to take in the other headliner of the Harbin Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival. While their icier counterparts across the river were best viewed at night, these, we had read, were at their best during the day. So, after a hearty hotel breakfast, we layered up and got in a taxi bound for the Snow Festival. We’re not really sure how Sun Island got its name, but, upon arrival we could venture some guesses for the midday sun was shining off of the snow to a degree that nearly blinded us in our attempt to view the different sculptures. Once our eyes adjusted, we were able to see that the park was full of the most elaborate snow creations we had ever seen. If the Ice Festival was impressive due to the size of its buildings, then the Snow Festival was so due to the intricacy of the designs on display. There were massive ones of course, but even the smaller ones were able to hold our interest due to their details and ability to tell stories in a way that the ice simply could not.

Some of the many snow sculptures lining the walkways of the island

As we made our way further into the park, the sculptures grew bigger and we even were able to find intrigue in the unfinished projects and the monumental efforts being taken to bring them to completion. In the back of the park, and the grand finale of the festival itself, was a several story high sculpture that dwarfed anything we had seen up to that point and was the clear focal point of the festival as evidenced by the crowds of people staring awe struck at its base as well as the numerous activities set up in the large expanse of snow in front of it. After admiring it for a short while, we decided to escape the cold one last time in the form of a cafeteria and souvenir shop overlooking the massive sculpture. As we sipped our Harbin beers, we reveled in the joys and sights we had seen as well as the fact that, for the first time, we were finally able to enjoy the fruits of Harbin’s winter without having to experience the winter itself.

Construction being done on one of the unfinished sculptures

One of the activities we came across were giant tops that you could spin around while sitting in

For those who have made it this far, firstly, God Bless You!, and secondly, there were a few snow sculpture pictures that didn’t make it into the blog that I though were still worth sharing. If you care to go on, here they are:

This peach blossom mural was painted on the snow.

Workers carving another building in front of the Temple of Heaven.

To get to the top of the unfinished sculptures like the one in the previous picture, the workers would use stairs cut into the snow block itself.

Xiapu

September 22, 2018ryankate889

The word “mudflat” is not one that typically inspires images of beauty. In fact, upon hearing the word, you probably picture exactly what it’s name implies: a large expanse of flat land covered in gloppy mud, which, essentially, is what it is. Surround a mudflat with old fishing villages whose specialty is drying seaweed and the idea that a place like this could ever be considered beautiful now becomes almost laughable. It was to our surprise then that photos we saw of a place called the Xiapu Mudflats, a small coastal area in the north of China’s Fujian Province, could be some of the most unique and transfixing images we had ever seen. In the photos, thin layers of glinting water wove like veins over the mud, creating a tiger-like pattern over the earth. In the nearby ocean, a multitude of bamboo poles used for drying seaweed rose out of it like a dead forest. There were images of fisherman wielding strange devices and mist covered mountains looming in the distance. The mudflats, we decided almost immediately, were a place we most definitely had to see.

Our experience with them came on the morning of our first and, regrettably, only day in Xiapu. Not wanting to miss the much-hyped (for good reason) sunrises that were featured in so many of the images we had seen, we rose early and hired a taxi to take us to the nearby Beiqi Mudflats. After arriving at the site, we exited the taxi to complete darkness, the only source of light being the bobbing headlamps of fisherman making their way to the beach and a small food cart, conveniently perched alongside the path that led to the viewing platform. Walking past the food vendor and up the small hill, we eventually came upon a small group of people where we decided to stop and secure our spot for the sunrise.

As light began seeping out of the horizon, the features of the landscape before us slowly began to take shape; everything inhabited an eerie shade of blue. As more light made its way into the scene, the water transformed to a sheath of silver, its glassy finish being disrupted only by the ripples of fisherman wading knee-deep into the shallow ocean. The silver eventually lost its vibrancy and turned to such a degree of gray that we began to doubt whether or not the sun would make an appearance. Our worries were soon put to rest though when, about an hour and a half after we arrived, a sliver of orange peeked out over the mountains to cheers from the crowd which were soon followed by a uniform silence of admiration. Within minutes, the sun was fully in the sky and the water below was now golden. As we watched we knew, from that point on, that mudflat would be a word that we’d always associate with beauty.

A couple of the fisherman we saw. We could never figure out what they were doing. They would throw their net down into the water, wait a few moments, then pull it up and hit it methodically with a stick. We never saw them catch anything and by the end we weren’t even entirely sure if they *were* trying to catch something.

Heading down to the beach for a view from the ground.

The ocean really looks golden in this picture…

Heading back to the city. In the distance, you can see where the water ends and the mudflats begin.

Chuxi

September 16, 2018ryankate889

To look at the massive earthen structure known as a tulou from above is to see a perfect circle tucked into the verdant, subtropical hills of China’s Fujian Province. While this image may conjure up nothing more than faint curiosity from someone today, it created quite a different impression upon those viewing grainy satellite images of them in the midst of the Cold War. Upon seeing thousands of the circular structures hidden away in the Chinese countryside in 1985, those in the U.S. intelligence community could not help but note their striking similarity to missile silos, believing the entirety of the thousand-plus network of buildings to be a sprawling nuclear base. To get a closer look, two representatives of the New York Institute of Photography were sent for a tour of China with one of their stops conveniently being to see the tulous. The images they brought back with them and presented to the CIA must have garnered some level of amusement from those suspecting a nuclear base for the tulous were anything but, the equivalent of suspecting a child’s flashlight to be a planet-destroying laser; the two were simply unrelated.

Our experience with the tulous fell under less suspicious circumstances, though our curiosity about them must have certainly been on par with those first foreign visitors nearly thirty years prior. As our tuk tuk rattled up to the entrance of Chuxi village, one of the many housing the tulous, we happily paid our driver the minuscule fee for the half hour ride and began making our way toward the centuries-old structures that gave the sleepy agricultural villages their fame.

A square *tulou* mirroring a parked car across the valley

Though we could never recall when exactly it occurred, at some point on our walk into the village we all of a sudden felt as if we had become unattached to the modern world. To our left, an untouched forest climbed out of sight into the punishing glare of the sun, a deafening cacophony of insect noises emanating from its core. To our right, a gurgling stream haphazardly made its way around different rocks and bends, occasionally bursting to life in the form of a small waterfall before quickly returning to a trickle. As we neared the village, a Shire-esque scene unfolded before us. Dominating it were the otherworldly tulous standing formidably over a patchwork of overflowing gardens that covered the landscape. Villagers meandered about, some in an aimless manner suggesting that not only were they not in a hurry to get where they were going, but also that they had no real destination in mind; and others in a more purposeful manner as they busily carried large buckets of water from one garden to the next. It was then that we realized that it wasn’t just the tulous that attracted a steady stream of tourists to the villages, but also the way of life that they helped preserve. It is one thing to escape modernity on a secluded mountain top, it is an entirely other experience to escape it amidst a community of people.

Catching a glimpse of the *tulous* from across the river

Walking through some of the many gardens surrounding the *tulous*.

Some of the small shacks in the garden even had vegetables growing on their roofs.

A woman, probably in her mid to late 60s, carrying water down the steep hillside

A view of Jiqinglou, which was built in 1419

This feeling would follow us to Yuqinglou, one of the three round tulous in the village and our place of residence for the next two nights. Upon passing through the massive front door, we were greeted by a charming, yet noticeably oft-rehearsed tea ceremony where we sipped the local tea, chatted with the residents, and learned that this particular tulou dated back to the 1700s. After finishing our tea we were led to our room up two flights of wooden stairs whose sturdiness was put into question due to the cartoonish creaking they emitted under the weight of each step.

Residents of our *tulou* sipping tea just inside the front door

Upon entering our room we were rather surprised to find that, despite booking a private room, we already had a roommate in the form of a spider the size of our hand that moved at the speed of vampire as with each blink we would find it had moved several feet across the room. Well accustomed to smashing giant spiders in hotel rooms on previous trips, I decided that my desire to appear courageous had reached its limit and I promptly summoned one of the tulou residents to help. In a hum drum manner, she cornered the spider, sprayed poison in its direction, and then watched nonchalantly as it scurried by her feet and under the bed. After this, she looked at us in a manner that suggested an, “Okay, all done” attitude and seemed slightly surprised when we asked to be moved to another room. Any misguided comfort we took in the idea that our new room would be comparatively less spidery was squashed as the corpse of one blew out from behind a table as we closed the curtains.

Eager to escape the confines of our room, we headed down to a separate building where the tulou owners cooked dinner for the guests. Upon telling the cook that we only wanted vegetable dishes, he went back into the kitchen and brought back handfuls of different kinds of vegetables that looked as if they had just been picked that day as they were still covered in dirt (we could only imagine what would have happened had we opted for meat!). After nodding in agreement with the choices before us, he returned to the kitchen and shortly after was presenting us with our dinner, a truly farm to table experience. Travel weary, we inhaled the food before reluctantly returning to our room where we would pass the night without the luxury of sleep due to the waking nightmare of spiders lurking in the darkness.

Enjoying dinner and some glasses of Tsingtao

While not technologically advanced like the nuclear base they were expected to be, the tulous were still architectural marvels in and of themselves. Built from nothing more than mud, bamboo and stone, they have withstood centuries of natural disasters, political turmoil, and the wear and tear of generation after generation of families living in them. The walls, which can be up to six feet thick, are so strong that during a peasant uprising in one village, the Chinese army fired 19 cannon shots at a tulou only to barely make a dent in its walls. The twentieth shot, they had apparently decided, would have been just as useless as the previous 19. This level of protection proved handy for the tulou’s residents who, when traveling armies of bandits would rummage through the countryside to sack villages, would simply shut the front door and be fairly certain that the bandits would grow weary of trying to penetrate the impenetrable and move on. Each one was essentially a castle with all of the resources that the several hundred residents inside would need to survive existing within the walls. As we groggily rolled out of bed the next morning, our only thought was that we wished they had figured out a way to keep the spiders out.

Happy to ditch our room and explore the village, we quickly perked up as we exited into the courtyard. Gazing around the tulou’s interior had a dizzying effect as our eyes made loops around the encircling corridors whose charming wooden build was always worth making it back around for another look. Hanging from the eaves of each floor were tattered lanterns whose trademark redness had been reduced to a faint pink; we couldn’t imagine them having ever looked new. Equally time worn baskets hung from the balconies along with bundles of drying herbs and spices. One could spend an entire day just admiring and exploring the tulou’s interior we thought, an idea furthered by the cool, breezy corridor we were standing in.

The building in the center is for special events like ancestor worship, weddings, and holiday celebrations

The *tulous* were built with *feng shui* principles in mind. One of the benefits of this style of building was that, even in the sweltering heat of the summer, the interior remained cool to a degree that was on par with air conditioning.

After leaving the tulou, our first order of business for the day was to climb an outlying hill to get an aerial perspective of the village. A short climb led us to a small pavilion where we took in sweeping views of the village and the forests and hills that encased it. The tulous, whose yellowish tone added to their otherworldly aura, appeared synonymous with the surrounding landscape of mountains, forests and terraced fields. We could scantly imagine one without the other.

Crossing the river to head out of the village

The view from the lookout never grew old

Looking closer, we noticed that village life was carrying on much in the same way as it had done the day before. As we watched the motorbikes and people make their way around the village we had the sensation of looking down on a miniature toy set, feeling as if we could almost reach down and pick up one of the people or vehicles moving about. After toying with this idea for what felt like hours, we decided to upend it by going into the village itself and gaining a more realistic perspective into the features we had been examining from above.

The shady pavilion offered a nice place for a nap as our sleep the night before was few and far between

As we walked through the streets, the feeling of timelessness dominated our thoughts. Apart from the occasional trait of modernity that came in the form of a new car driving past or a satellite dish perched outside a tulou window, we imagined that there would be no real difference between a photograph taken now compared to a black and white one from a century earlier. Tattered signs desperately clung to building walls, remnants of Mao existed in faded portraits adorning the front door of some residences, and equally worn looking villagers sat in courtyards chattering amongst themselves before being interrupted by long contemplative pauses as they re-examined their surroundings.

Firewood piled outside the yellow walls of the *tulou*

The trace of youth was few and far between. Young children could be found running about, some sheepishly approaching us to practice their pronunciation of “hello,” and one afternoon we stumbled across a couple of teenagers playing basketball, chickens scurrying about their feet as they played, but the village was dominated and in essence run by people who looked as if they were enjoying the twilight years of life rather than the prime of it. Perhaps this was one of the biggest purveyors of the sense of timelessness that we felt. The village was stuck, not in an image of today but rather the manifestation of the older villagers’ memory of a time decades earlier. Whatever doom this spelled for the village’s future, it did make for quite a unique experience for us during the time we spent there, a feeling that would sadly end as we climbed in a car the next morning to take us back to Xiamen and away from the slow village life that we had so adored.

The boys we saw playing basketball. The one in the pink jersey was quite good and shared a bus with us out of town the next day.

Before ending our last day in the village, we ventured back up to the pavilion where we played cards while watching the sun set; a nice end to our time in the village.

Luoyang

May 13, 2018ryankate889

Few things weigh more heavily on the success of a trip than…breakfast. Often the first dip of the toe into the cultural waters you have decided to immerse yourself in, the first breakfast can send you off with either a good taste in your mouth or bad (both figuratively and literally) about your chosen destination and the people who live there. As we set out for our first day in Luoyang, an ancient capital of China, we found ourselves having the better of the two experiences. On a gray and chilly morning, we mused about viewing the millennia-old grottoes, historic temples, and blossoming peonies that characterized the city over a bowl of steaming soup served out of a giant metal vat on the side of the street as people bustled about us, in a hurry to start their day. The waters, we thought to ourselves, would be just fine.

Kate waiting in line for fried dough sticks to go along with our soup

Hard hit by the struggles of China’s recent history, it became increasingly more difficult to imagine the glories of its ancient history as we made our way from our breakfast nook towards the Longmen grottoes. From the seat of our bus, we gazed out the window at the dreary spread of shabby-looking buildings as they passed by one by one. Occasionally, to our delight, a park would flicker by, a patch of fleeting green in the otherwise monotone spread of grays and browns whose lack of vibrancy was furthered by the dim light struggling through the stoic, overcast sky overhead. After nearly an hour on the bus, we finally arrived at the grottoes and exited to find ourselves in an area that in no way hinted that a UNESCO World Heritage Site was within reach but rather resembled a scene much like the one we had been witnessing for the duration of our bus ride.

Surely we were in the right place though, we thought, as tour buses lined the streets and a steady stream of people was moving off purposefully towards some unseen point in a manner that called to mind an ant colony crossing a sidewalk. Assuming the grottoes lay at the end of the stream, we promptly queued up and within minutes were at the entrance gates. So is the miracle of China, you can be walking down the most derelict street imaginable, turn the corner, and suddenly find yourself in a posh area feeling underdressed or, in our case, amidst a world-renowned tourist destination.

Enjoying a hot bowl of noodles before seeing the Longmen Grottoes

After purchasing our tickets and passing through the gate, it didn’t take long for us to come across the first carving we would see that day. Heavily eroded and barely bigger than the size of our palm, the three carvings sat humbly indented into the face of the mountain. If we had seen these at the end of our day at the grottoes, we most likely would have passed them by without a glance, but there is always something special about the initial sighting of something you’ve been eager to see. Like the first animal you come upon at the zoo, or first flower of spring, your first glimpse into the whole always seems to resonate more, before you sadly become desensitized to it all and seeing things like thousand-year-old cave carvings starts to feel normal. So was the case with this first one, in no way spectacular when compared to the others that we would see, but captivating all the same.

The first statue we saw with dead vines still clinging to the mountain beside it

As we left that initial carving and walked on, the mountain took on the appearance of a honeycomb with countless man made caves of different shapes and sizes burrowing into its side. Their holdings, dark and mysterious from afar, came into focus with each step towards them. Cross-legged Buddhas, humble deities, and even the occasional monster emerged from the shadows, emanating an aura of peace and reverence that even the raucous Qing Ming Festival crowds adhered to.

All of the caves hanging from the mountainside made the site feel like an art gallery

The oldest cave at the site, dating back to the mid-400s

Moving from cave to cave, we began to realize that the carvings we paid the most attention to were not the well-preserved ones, whose sharp features time had seemingly forgotten, but rather the heavily eroded ones. Within these, the separate carvings had all but lost their distinctness from one another, their individual traits disappearing into the marbled strokes of the mountain that ran through them, making them appear like one.

Sadly though, not all faded or impartial carvings that we would come across were due to erosion as some did not bear its smooth uniformity but rather jagged hack marks that were the result of the manic destruction of the Cultural Revolution. Signs welcoming visitors to the park claimed that the defaced statues were the results of natural processes but anyone with a sliver of common sense and knowledge of something that happened barely over fifty years ago could tell the difference between the two. In nearly every cave, we could count on finding at least one statue whose face or sometimes entire body was missing, symbols of peace reduced to reminders of the perils that ensue when fear and hatred of things outside one’s own belief system become the identity of a country.

As troubling as the defaced statues were, it was comforting to know that, in the end, the mindset that would have served to destroy every last one at the site did not prevail, and that the grottoes now draw people by the thousands and thousands to come see not the ugliness of the mangled statues, but the beauty of the preserved ones. Nowhere was the enthusiasm for the latter more evident than at the center of the mountain, where the carvings, stretching several stories high, were so large that they appeared to have emerged from the mountain rather than having been carved into it.

There, the crowds, as epic as the statues themselves, buzzed about the plaza that sat at the feet of the monumental effigies as police with loudspeakers reminded visitors to not stop and take pictures so as to keep the crowds funneling through. Like a game of Frogger, we wove through the fast paced tour groups, stationary selfie takers, and occasional wandering smartphone zombie to secure a spot at the feet of the statues.

Close enough to reach out and touch them, we could never shake the feeling of unattainability they possessed as we took in their every detail. Perhaps it was their height that made them seem this way as they towered well beyond the reach of our heads. Or perhaps it was their age, being carved in a time and place that we just couldn’t relate to. What we eventually determined made them so unattainable though was the thing that made them human: their eyes. While we could see them, we couldn’t meet them as their gaze stretched far above us and into the distant hills. In the end it was our ability to get so close to the statues yet feel so far removed from them that gave the site a sense of mystery and intrigue that kept us walking back and forth for several hours before finally deciding to call it a day.

The view of the grottoes from across the river

There were caves to explore across the river as well, but none could compare to those we had already seen

One last picture before leaving the site to head back to our hostel

To say that our hostel in Luoyang felt like a home would be pretty accurate given that it was quite literally a man’s apartment repurposed to hold four small rooms. The owner, who exhibited such relentless kindness so as to make one slightly suspicious, informed us on our first night in the hostel that his hip was fractured, a feat made impressive by the fact that he rode a motorbike to meet us at the bus stop in the pouring rain, walked with us up the seven flights of stairs that led to his apartment, and slept on a mat on the floor as all of the beds were full that night. He seemed to enjoy it though, chatting with the dozen or so guests inhabiting his apartment, being an armchair guide to the city, and waiting on everyone with as much spring in his step as a fractured hip could allow. On our second day, we asked how to get to Shaolin Temple, the famed birthplace of Kung Fu, but, after finding out it would be an over 6-hour round-trip journey to get there and back, we opted instead to visit White Horse Temple, the birthplace of Buddhism in China. Upon asking the hostel owner how to get there, he excitedly waved us to the kitchen where he unfolded a well-used map to show us the quickest route there.

The building our hostel was in…we were on the top floor on the side with the open window

If the Inuit have over fifty words to describe ice and snow, then it would only be appropriate for the Chinese to have an equally colorful array of terms to describe large crowds of people, one of which translates literally to “people mountain, people sea.” At no point is this arsenal of descriptors more useful than during Chinese holidays, when crowds mushroom to the mind-numbing proportions of, well, a sea or mountain.

Waiting in line to get our tickets into the temple

Following the crowds into the temple grounds

As we got off of the bus for White Horse Temple, the image of reverence and peace that one would expect the birthplace of Buddhism in China to evoke had seemingly been trampled under the feet of the enormous crowd jostling for position to get in line for tickets and enter the temple grounds. It was an atmosphere that, much to our dismay, would follow us into the temple, back out of it, and culminate in the frenzy that is hundreds of people with no adherence to anything resembling a line, or order for that matter, fighting each other for position to squeeze onto the infrequent buses leaving the area.

The temple itself was actually quite beautiful if you could ignore the crowds

Doorways leading into one of the temple’s buildings

Like a college freshman swearing off drinking for life after their first night of binge drinking, so we swore off traveling during Chinese holidays as we sat on the overcrowded, overheated bus for over an hour, getting off only after Kate vomited in a plastic sleeve that had previously held a painting we had bought. If a perfect anecdote existed to deter anyone from traveling in China during the holidays, this surely was it.

Our third and last day in Luoyang would be dedicated to the city’s famed peonies, which were in full bloom and, more than the grottoes or temples, served as the city’s identity which was evident in their portrayal on everything from hotels to garbage trucks. Wary of facing the monster that was the crowds of the day before, we decided to skip the larger parks of the city and go instead, on the advice of our hostel’s owner, to a free park nearby that he assured us would satisfy our peony-viewing cravings.

Enjoying our last street breakfast before going to see the peonies

After breakfast and a short walk to the park, we found ourselves amidst a modest spread of people and an anything-but-modest spread of peonies, whose large and expansive blooms were matched only in their numbers as bush after bush swelled up from the landscape, delightfully clogging our view in every direction.

Just one of the many patches of peony bushes lying throughout the park

Over the landscape, the patchy sky cast long running shadows that would stop abruptly, dulling some flowers while leaving others brightly illuminated by contrast, almost as if they were on stage, a spotlight illuminating each and every petal.

Apart from their varying degrees of visibility, the different peonies also differed in ways as obvious as their color, as some burned a hot pink while other wore a humble white, to ways more subtle like how the petals unfurled. On one end of the spectrum were tightly coiled blooms, whose petals gave a spongy resistance when squeezed, and on the other were those that hung loose and floppy like a dog’s ears. It was a scene worth walking through several times, which we did before bidding farewell to the peonies, which, in our minds, was like bidding farewell to Luoyang itself.

Fenghuang

January 15, 2018ryankate889

As far as we are concerned, there’s not much to be said about Fenghuang as our wanderings there were vague and our criticisms much more specific. So, as its charms lie not in the experiences to be had there, but rather in the sight of its stilted houses rising precariously along the river winding through it, we will leave you with a series of pictures rather than words to guide you through our experiences in Fenghuang.

The street leading out of our hostel and to the river

Enjoying a breakfast of fried dough sticks

Even in the early morning, the city was busy

People crossing one of the many bridges stretching across the river, around which the town was centered

People washing their clothes in the river was a common sight, especially in the morning

Enjoying some rare seclusion in our morning walk along the river

The city wall sitting above a bustling shopping street

Peering inside a temple that we came across

Lanterns strewn across the red walls of a temple

IMG_4240 (1) — Stopping off to have our skin nibbled away by fish

IMG_4243 (1) — Haggling for a bottle of rice wine

The stilted houses that drew us to the town

The stilts gave the town a unique trait that distinguished it from other water towns we’ve been to in China

We never grew tired of the sight of the stilted houses and their elongated reflections in the river

Boats, and their pyramid-hatted drivers, were a common sight on the river

Still water creating a barely blemished reflection

Many of the stilted houses had been renovated, losing their allure of timelessness, but this cluster thankfully was not

At certain times in the day, the river turned an otherworldly green

We were surprised to find that these interesting-looking fruits weren’t sweet at all, but rather tasted like a cucumber, making it all the more strange as we drank its insides with a straw

Dimly lit boats drifting off and out of sight under the bridge

As an added bonus, here are some great Chinglish/blatant copyright moments from our time in Fenghuang:

Zhangjiajie

January 14, 2018January 14, 2018ryankate889

The Chinese tourism landscape is littered with superlatives. As one travels from site to site, it seems at times that nearly every one of them is preceded by a “most” or followed by an “-est”. Some are rather vague as in the countless countryside villages touting the “most beautiful scenery” in all of China while others are painfully specific as in Zhangjiajie, the mountain range rumored to have inspired the floating mountains in Avatar. There was the “longest and tallest glass bridge in the world” as well as the “highest natural bridge in the world” and the “longest passenger cableway in the world,” and who could forget the “the highest, fastest, largest-loaded outdoor elevator in the world.” These titles, seemingly thought up by a boastful toddler and devised to draw in tourists to a once-in-the-world experience, were misleading in that they made you think that the feat of engineering was the main attraction when in reality, it was what those feats of engineering led you to that was the real attraction for no amount of superlatives could capture how truly incredible the mountains themselves were.

People being shuttled up the mountain in the Bailong Elevator

One of the unique “mountains” of Zhangjiajie…

…and the more familiar mountain scenery that surrounded it.

Our first experience with the majestic Zhangjiajie came in the unmajestic process of slogging up its slopes in the thick summer heat. Mossy steps wound up and out of sight, disappearing into the dense greens of the forest. Alongside the steps a network of disheveled shrubs and weeds wriggled in and out of each other, their branches and vines spilling over the edges of the path, crowding the ground and air that we walked through. Out of the bushes sprang spider-like grasshoppers whose efforts to evade us, their alleged pursuer, failed miserably as they more often than not crashed into our bodies before falling to the ground and springing away again. Despite one crossing our path every minute or so, they weren’t the most notable insect accompanying our hike up the mountain as a cloud of flies called our face and its immediate vicinity home for the entirety of the climb and all around us the steady humming of the countless other insects inhabiting the forest reminded us that we were not alone on our hike.

One of the many spider-like grasshoppers that propelled themselves into us throughout the entirety of our hike up the mountain

An interesting beetle we came across on our climb

If all of this sounds rather miserable, I can assure you it was not, quite the opposite actually as the slew of insect encounters was drowned out by the beauty of the scenery we were climbing through. Rising out of the aforementioned lush forest bed rose an army of trees stretching high into the bright sky of summer. And, if you cared to direct your gaze even further up than that, your view would almost always be accompanied by one of the unique columnal peaks of the mountain range. As we climbed higher and higher we couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to take the cable cars.

Staring up at one of the crumbling columns that made up the Zhangjiajie mountain range

Less sweaty selfies were the result of some people wanting the experience of hiking up the mountain without the hassle of actually hiking

After about two hours we finally reached the top where, sadly, the crowds thickened and walkways thinned. One typically hikes up a mountain to escape crowds and noise, but in China, more often than not, you’ll find more of it at the top than you will at the bottom. Most of the people are harmless, bodies just like us moving around each other as they appreciate the views, but there are always some who, emboldened by their cable car ride up the mountain apparently, feel the need to shout at the top of their lungs every few minutes so as to announce to all other mountain dwellers that they are there.

One particularly narrow and crowded passageway we came across

Thankfully, it was less crowded when we returned

A busy path winding along the cliff’s edge

People weren’t the only ones crowding the mountaintop as monkeys populated certain areas too

Our interest in them wasn’t at all returned

As annoying as the shouts are, and they are always there, they eventually become white noise. As for the crowds, however frustrating it was to move through hoards of people on the top of a mountain, it was a sight designated for tourists which meant cable cars, clearly labeled paths, stone steps to hike up and down and even small shops selling refreshments. As much as we wanted seclusion and serenity, it’s not as if we hiked through raw wilderness to get where we were. Still, it would have been nice if more of our fellow hikers would have recognized their surroundings not as something they had conquered to help make them feel big but rather as something they could appreciate to help make them feel small, for most everyone could use a dose of that in today’s world.

Appreciating the unique climb up to a lookout

Taking a break from the scenery a quick picture

As we hiked around more, each step was accompanied by dizzying views that plunged deep into the mountains below. While these kind of views would turn the stomach of anyone even considering a hop over the much appreciated railings running alongside the paths, they weren’t enough to stop some from going over the railing and, in one case, down the side of the mountain on a rope for some audacious acrobatics. We watched in a stunned awe as a man in a yellow suit straddled the side of the mountain with nothing but a rope tied around his waist. Like watching a horrific scene unfold from afar, we looked on helplessly as he began running from side to side, jumping off the face of the mountain, and spinning in midair. As it was clearly a performance and the man doing it his profession, we wondered if he ever got bored by his act. If descending down the side of a mountain dangling on a rope ever became mundane for him. In any case, we most certainly were not bored, and our transfixion on the daredevil was broken only when he was pulled back up the mountainside and into the shrubbery hanging off of it.

We were barely comfortable watching this and our stomachs turned at the thought of one of us doing similar acrobatics

Now suddenly very thankful for the solid ground under us, we continued our hike, balancing views of our trudging feet below with the more scenic expanse of mountains stretching out beside us. Every now and then, we would come to a level stretch of path, which worked wonders for our legs as well as for our ability to appreciate the scenery. As we looked out, we found the collocational “mountain peak” to be moot as the mountains didn’t come to a point. Rather, they rose bewilderingly like crumbling columns from the valley bed, erect and stretching upwards much like the trees that surrounded them before leveling off at the top where a verdant collection of trees and bushes marked the end of their rise. It was no wonder some referred to it as a stone forest.

One of the many stunning views accompanying our walk around the mountaintop

A close-up of one of the mountains “peaks”

The top of this mountain looked like a stage, the trees the actors, and the other mountains the audience

Layers of mountains slowly fading into the tones of the sky

Our second day began with a delicious hot bowl of noodles for breakfast at our hotel: Yangjiajie MINI Inn. As we ate, the backdrop of mountains served as an ever-present reminder of the day ahead. While the previous day had seen us spending a majority of our time exploring the tops of the mountains, this day would see us traversing less elevated ground by way of the Golden Whip Stream, a winding waterway that cut through the base of the mountains. One often thinks that looking out from the peak of a mountain is the best way to appreciate its enormity, but there’s something to be said too about walking at their feet, dwarfed by their shadow as you move through the eeriness that is a dim setting on a bright, sunny day. This was one such occasion.

The path running along the Golden Whip Stream

A bright sky still couldn’t reach some places dwelling under the shadow of the mountains

Apart from the mountains, whose faces poked out at us from above the tree tops, there were plenty of other scenes along the walk that demanded our attention. The stream, a shallow, trickling basin of water, slowly moved around the rocks it had failed to overtake, creating a soundtrack of gentle bubbling noises that would accompany the entirety of our walk. Ahead, the thick foliage of summer created a dense green landscape that stretched into the distance as far as the eye could see. Tree trunks and wayward branches coursed through the green like a network of black veins. Dragonflies and butterflies filled the air and on the ground, our company existed not only in the form of fellow hikers, but also in wild monkeys. Swimming in the stream, moving through the bushes that hugged our path, and swinging on the trees overhead, the monkeys were nearly everywhere we looked.

Kate atop one of the many large boulders flung about the stream

Speedy walkers disappearing into the forest ahead

A tiny butterfly perched on equally tiny flowers

One of the many dragonflies crowding the stream

In spite of our close proximity to them, the monkeys could barely be bothered to glance in our direction, that is, unless they heard the rustling of a plastic bag at which point they might as well have been a begging dog. We would have preferred the former, coexisting without co-depending, but there were others who simply couldn’t resist tossing a bag of chips to a monkey in hopes of having some sort of interaction with it. It was sad to see monkeys licking the inside of plastic bags before tossing them in the river, only to be picked up by another further downstream who would snatch it out of the water and examine the bag for any missed remains. If a monkey wasn’t fortunate enough to get a treat thrown their way, they would drop in a dumpster, rummaging through the garbage for any scraps they could find, their grease stained fur serving as a reminder of their longing for a human treat.

Some took their treats to the trees for a more secluded snack session

Babies clinging to their mothers were a common sight too

Moving through the tall grass along the stream

We came across this one contemplating its surroundings

As if tossing plastic-encased snacks to the monkeys wasn’t entertainment enough for those doing so, there were some that even resorted to violence towards the primates as a means of amusement. At nearly every shop inside the park, slingshots were for sale and, sadly, it didn’t take long for us to realize what they were for. Along our walk, we saw several people using the devices to fire fist-sized rocks at yelping monkeys who scurried away and out of sight. Each time we saw this we not so kindly reminded those doing so in our broken Chinese that their actions weren’t appropriate.

After about an hour’s walk along the stream, we reached an area filled with food vendors where we grabbed some spicy potatoes and a bowl of noodles before turning around and retracing our steps along the stream. The walk back was nice as we weren’t preoccupied with looking here and there for new sights and sounds but rather could just enjoy by what was then a familiar setting.

The delicious (and spicy) potatoes on tap throughout the park

Filling up the water bottle to help quench our still tingling mouths

As we neared the start of the Golden Whip Stream path and with much of the afternoon still ahead of us, we decided to abandon the comfort of level ground for the inverted pathway leading up to Huangshi Village, which was said to offer some of the best views in the whole of Zhangjiajie Park. Upon reaching the summit, we would discover that it wasn’t a village at all and the views obscured due to a biblical downpour that had ensued upon our arrival at the top. Camped out under the futile protection of a closed China Post-shelter awning, we watched as the downpour only increased with ferocity and an impromptu river formed on the ground where our feet stood, soaking our shoes and socks to a degree that, even several hours after the rains had stopped, would cause an incessant squish-squash to accompany every step we took around the mountain.

After the rains finally did let up, we mentally rung ourselves out and hurried to the nearest outlook in hopes of seeing a misty mountainscape left in the wake of the rainstorm. We were not disappointed. Rapidly moving mist crashed into the mountainside and spilled back into itself like violent waves upon a shore. Elsewhere, in the more open spaces of the valley, the mist sat in cloudy clumps, waiting patiently to be dissipated by the suddenly noticeable summer sun beating down from overhead. Slowly the patchy landscape came into a full, crisp view as the last wisps disappeared. As if a show had just ended, we soaked up one last deep gaze out at the mountains before starting back down the mountain through the dripping scenery to make the long journey back to our hotel where another delicious home-cooked dinner awaited us.

After a while, the mist cleared from the valley and was relegated to small clouds sitting on the mountain tops

People still looking on after the mist had cleared

Still significantly soaked long after the skies had turned blue again

Most of our last day in Zhangjiajie was spent finding our way to a point on our map that had intrigued us since we first examined it: the Field in the Sky. Intrigued by the imagery its name evoked, we couldn’t let the chance that it was a gross dramatization of an ordinary scene hinder us from going to have a look. After a long bus ride, we were dropped off seemingly in the middle of nowhere. Our map, which was surprisingly handy throughout our time in the park despite having no real distinct features apart from the sights that were worth visiting, was no help to us. From where we stood, several identical roads shot off in different directions, running off and out of sight behind a crowded forest of pine trees. From what we deemed was our point on the map, a very clear road snaked an inch or so across the page to the Field in the Sky. If only it was that easy.

We asked a group of passing hikers if they knew where it was and, after looking at us confusedly for a brief moment, convened for a muddled, mumbling meeting amongst themselves before shooting a desperate finger in a random direction and hurrying away. We smiled politely, waited until they were out of sight and then began looking for someone else to ask. Eventually, we met someone who, upon mentioning the name Field in the Sky, immediately nodded knowingly and told us to follow the unassuming dirt road that branched off from the road we were standing on.

Still on the path nearly two hours later no longer out of desire to see the Field in the Sky but out of pure stubbornness, we finally came upon it. Exactly as advertised, the site was a terraced patchwork of fields carved out of the top of one of the many gnarled mountains spread across the landscape. The light shimmered off the fields, turning them a bright green that stood out in the otherwise deep and dark tones of the landscape. As the other mountains looked on at the field, they must have been jealous, their moppy tops of unruly foliage were no match to the clean cut look of the field-topped mountain.

The bright green terraces gleaming in the sun

As picturesque as the view was we had to leave in search of shade and water as the sun was heavy and our water bottle had been empty for the last hour or so of our walk. Being a somewhat popular tourist site within the park, there was luckily a shop not too far down the road where we were able to do just that. Like a watering hole in the savannah, the shop was full of people despite there being not a soul to be found outside of its shady interior. Talking with some others while we sipped our water, we were told that there were amazing views fifteen minutes or so down the path. Having come this far already, we heeded their advice and continued on.

The fairly level path quickly turned to steps that fell over each other down the mountainside before bottoming out at a lookout that, as promised, dropped our gaze directly into the heart of the mountains. It was the best view we had had in Zhangjiajie by far and we sat, legs hanging over the cliff’s edge for what felt like hours staring downward in awe. As we did so, a quote from The Lord of the Rings came to mind. In it, an ancient tree mused about how humans could have such a “hasty” word for mountains. Certainly, he pondered, something that has existed since the beginning of time should have a name more compelling and worthy of the magnitude of the thing it described. Looking out at the hacked trunks that were the mountain range, this idea couldn’t have made more sense. “Mountain” just didn’t seem adequate enough of a word to describe what we were looking at. Perhaps no word or combination of letters could. So, we instead just looked, for nowhere perhaps but in our mind could the majesty of the scene before us be captured.

Trincomalee

December 17, 2017December 17, 2017ryankate889

If asked to picture a romanticized version of train travel, your mind may disappear into black and white images of women in Victorian dresses waving handkerchiefs at a departing train or to the Hogwart’s Express chugging through the British countryside or perhaps even into the lyrics of a Johnny Cash song. Where this question will most likely not take you is to Sri Lanka, a place that people don’t normally think about when it comes to train travel or in any other context for that matter. Yet, from the moment we stepped up to the counter to purchase our first ticket in Colombo, we found ourselves entering a process that would charm us at every turn through the duration of our journey through the country.

Our train winding through the Sri Lankan countryside

Our heads usually weren’t the only ones poking out of the train’s windows and doors

The unattainable nostalgia that trains evoke first hit us in the station itself. Train timetables etched in chalk hung from the walls, hand drawn signs as worn and outdated as the language they used directed you to the “Gent’s Room” or the “Ladies’ Waiting Area,” workers dressed in a crisp white paced about the platforms in anticipation of the next train’s arrival, and each train’s departure was accompanied by a last call before slowly setting itself in motion.

A train table hanging from the wall at Gal Oya Junction

Passing the time during a layover at Gal Oya Junction

On the train, a moderate clickety-clack marking the trip’s passage eased us into a state of sustained comfort as we watched the lush Sri Lankan landscape pass away outside our window. Vendors frequently made their way down the aisles, their walk a contained stagger as they battled the sway of the train. Fried treats and tropical fruits filled the baskets slung around their necks as they called out the details of the treat in tow in a repetitive fashion that slowly faded as they passed further away. It was from one of these vendors that we bought one of the most delicious cups of tea we’ve ever tasted, a sweet concoction that was poured shakily into a paper cup and practically boiling as it spilled over the cup’s fragile edges and onto our legs. As avid train lovers, the experience was blissful and despite being on the train for nearly half the day, we were a little disappointed when we reached our destination, the beach town of Trincomalee.

If we grew tired of our seats, we could always go sit in the train’s doorways…

After several long plane rides, even longer layovers, a lengthy train ride however enjoyable, and our fair share of travel frustrations along the way, a few days stay on the beach was an appreciated finale to our summer travels through Myanmar and Sri Lanka. A short tuk tuk ride from the train station brought us to our hostel: Orion Beach Way, which sat a mere two minutes walk away from Uppuveli beach. Wanting some sense of adventure in the relatively unadventurous setting of a beach, we decided to book a cabana instead of one of the hostel’s standard rooms.

While the appearance of the cabana, walls made of wooden planks and a roof of leaves, excited us upon seeing it, once inside we found that our proximity to the nature outside was a little too close for comfort. No better example of this could be found than with our bathroom. When you first enter your hotel bathroom, there are many things you are hoping to find such as free bars of soap, a plush, luxurious towel, an elaborate bathtub and so on. What you don’t want to find are palm-sized spiders that, when they move, stand erect on all of their legs before darting menacingly across the floor and out of sight. You also don’t want to turn on the light to find a startled squirrel rabidly crashing around before leaping over your head and squirming through the hole it came in from. Sadly, as you might have guessed, our cabana had none of the former and all of the latter. Like checking for a zombie before entering a room, each trip to the bathroom, and into the cabana for that matter, entailed a fierce banging on the door a few times before entering. However, in spite of these unfortunate encounters, we did enjoy our stay in the cabana not only for the uniqueness of it but also for the shady refuge it provided us during Trincomalee’s unbearably sweltering afternoons.

Spiders and squirrels weren’t the only creatures calling our cabana home; we found this lizard scuttling about on our roof

However enjoyable our time on the beach was, it was nothing to write home about and certainly not worth mentioning in a blog as it consisted mainly of three components: sitting, swimming, and drinking. What was noteworthy about Trincomalee, like anywhere else we had gone in Sri Lanka up to that point, was its wildlife. The most immediate representation of this, the crow, could be seen from our beach loungers and just about anywhere else we cared to go along the coast. Taking the place of the familiar beach staple of sea gulls in both quantity and annoyance, the ominous creatures made it very clear that it was them, not people, who owned the beach. Nowhere was this more clear than one morning at breakfast when a crow swooped over our table and snatched a pancake from our plate shortly after it was set before us. As if this wasn’t agonizing enough, after doing so, the crow perched itself on a ledge a few feet away, refusing to eat the pancake dangling in its mouth for such a time that made us convinced we were being taunted.

Cricket was the game of choice on the beach

A crow snooping around someone’s discarded belongings

Apart from crows, another familiar sight on the beach were cows who either moved along the shoreline in a herd, busy to be somewhere as they moved at a pace that was hard to keep up with, or stood alone seemingly just as surprised to see people on the beach as people were it.

A herd of cows speeding off along the shoreline

This cow stood in the same spot the entire day watching all of the people intently as they walked past

However unfamiliar the familiar crows and cows were in a beach setting, we were hoping to see animals we couldn’t see back in Ohio or Iowa and more specifically ones that spent their time below water, not above it. To do this we would have to secure the help of a boat which wasn’t too hard to do as the only thing that seemed to outnumber the hostels and restaurants of the town were the dive shops whose shacks hugged the shoreline every hundred yards or so. The one we decided on for no good reason at all other than it was there, was called Trinco Water Sports. The owner had all of the charisma you could want from a beachside dive shop owner and gladly signed us up for a snorkeling expedition one day and a dolphin watching excursion the next (we had apparently just missed whale watching season which came at great disappointment to us).

A fisherman we passed on our way to Pigeon Island

For snorkeling we would have to venture to Pigeon Island which luckily inhabited none of its namesake bird and lied only a few hundred yards off the coast. After puttering up to the island’s shell-filled shores, we slipped on our snorkeling gear and dipped our heads beneath the surface. As we looked down the first thing that caught our attention was the hodgepodge of corals spanning all shapes and colors that rose up in a heaping fashion from the sea bed making it look like a landscape out of the pages of a Dr. Seuss book. The coral, however interesting in its veined textures and sporadic designs, quickly faded from our attention as the waters were teeming with life, the likes of which we had never seen before. Pufferfish teetered about like a toddler taking its first steps; families of cuttlefish squirted by; parrotfish swam about smugly, seemingly aware of their vibrant beauty; needlefish flickered into view, their long flat bodies only visible from the streaks of silver shooting across them as they swam; and blooms of gelatinous jelly fish floated by, each with neon streaks of red and green coursing through them that dared you to reach out for a quick touch; among others. All of it seemed hardly real as the mixture of creatures fluttering about our faces and out of the dark crevasses of the ocean floor were to us like a foreign entity, aliens living in another world that we were lucky enough to sneak a peek at.

The highlight of our snorkeling trip came as it neared its end. Separated from Kate at this point and sensing that our time was coming to a close, I ventured as far away from the island as I could, following the trail of slimy buoys floating on the surface that marked off a protected area of coral closed to snorkelers. After about fifteen minutes of this, and with a burnt back and increasingly tiring legs, I decided to hang up my flippers and swim back to shore. Just as I turned around to make the return journey, two black-tipped reef sharks, one about the size of me, swam within a few feet of my face. Now, logic should have told me that the sharks were harmless given that there were countless tourists that came to the island every day for snorkeling and, as far as I knew, none were ever attacked by the sharks that inhabit the reef. But, logic isn’t the first thing that crosses your mind when a shark glides past your face and you’re at least a fifteen minutes swim away from land. So, I gave a quick and pointless scream, swallowed some salt water in the process, and began flapping in a panicked manner towards shore. As adrenaline gave way to the biding logic that I was most likely safe, my mind became flooded with how incredible it was to see a shark in the wild, if only for a few seconds. After getting back on our boat, we motored back to shore, the entire way being mindfully aware of the plethora of life lying below the surface we were cruising over.

Passing the rest of the day away on the beach

Enjoying the refreshingly cool ocean water

The next day would see us returning to the same shack early in the morning for dolphin viewing. Our boat was scheduled to leave at the crack of dawn, but our fellow boat passengers had apparently missed the memo. As we watched the sun rise higher and higher on the horizon, our frustration turned to panic as boat after boat shot off from the shore. Most of them departed without a hitch, but a few struggled to get going due to their size and the fact that only the captain and a few others were attempting to push it. So, to pass the time, we decided to wade through the cool morning water to lend a hand. In one instance, a boat full of Chinese passengers watched in amusement as we helped dislodge the boat from the wet sand underneath with not one member of their party of twenty or so getting out to help, instead snapping pictures in our faces as we struggled to push their large party of the shore.

It would be good practice for when the passengers in our boat finally arrived behind the furious stomping of the boat’s captain who had to walk to their hotel to wake them up. With dark sunglasses covering their eyes and showing signs of being severely hungover, they stood and chatted while we pushed our boat into the water, upon which they hopped in alongside us with an infuriating aloofness amidst a spattering of accusations directed at one of their members who was a disappointment for having called it quits at 3 A.M the night before. At that moment, we couldn’t think of any worse a companion to have as we set off.

If we weren’t awake prior to boarding the boat, the ride to see the dolphins surely would have done the trick. The ocean, a dark navy blue in the slanted rays of morning, was violent, and our boat’s path traveled directly against the cresting waves it was mustering up one after the other. After shooting off each wave, we would crash down with a violent thud that we could feel in our bones, a process that repeated itself many times over before the boat finally came to a halt near the numerous other ones also on the prowl for dolphins. After the engine hummed to a stop, it didn’t take long for us to spot the rapid rise and fall of dorsal fins slicing the surface of the water in our direction and then past us and out of sight, after which the boat drivers scrambled to start their engines, shooting off in some communal direction in hopes of another sighting and happier client. The dolphins, intelligent as they are, probably found this all amusing as they drug us about from here to there, luring everyone in with their graceful sprint through the water.

The dolphins were extremely hard to capture as they moved very fast and our boat was rocking about

A lucky shot just before they slipped underneath the water again

Eventually the dolphins must have disappeared for good for our driver began heading back towards Trincomalee. Before making it back to the beach we would stop off for an impromptu snorkel session at a secluded rock far off the shore. The session, which we were thankful for, came at the request of our boat companions who had paid a little extra. With this in mind, it came as a surprise then when the group upon putting their snorkel gear on, swam directly to a small rock which they proceeded to climb on and smoke cigarettes for the duration of the 30 minute session.

The trip back to the beach was bittersweet. We had another great experience to add to the many we had already had in Sri Lanka, but our time in the country (and Myanmar before it) was at its end. As we skimmed over the now smooth ocean surface, a flock of flying fish jumped out in front of our boat, flickering into the sky for a few seconds before dropping back into the water, one last unexpected pleasantry in a country that had given us many.

	Mom on Chuxi
	Elizabeth Christense… on Fenghuang
	ryankate889 on Trincomalee
	Nancy Seifert on Trincomalee
	Elizabeth Christense… on Trincomalee