There and Back... And There Again

Koh Phi Phi is one of the top destinations in Thailand thanks to its great weather & beaches. The most famous of these beaches is Maya Bay which stared alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in the movie ‘The Beach’. This beach is located on the deserted smaller island of Phi Phi Leh while all the action goes on at the bigger island of Phi Phi Don

The first thing we noticed sailing into the port was the difference between these west coast islands compared to the east coast islands. KPP is much more dramatic with large sheer cliff faces rising out of the sea. There are no roads on KPP so when we arrived to the island we walked through the town to find the hotel we were looking to stay at. We found it alright but the town was looking a bit more touristy than the other islands we had been to. We instead headed off to the bay on one side of the town while the sun set behind the hills

We wanted to head out to Maya bay the following morning and looked around at different places to try and find somewhere that left early and would hopefully get us out to the bay before it fills up with other tourists. We settled on a dive shop which ran a snorkelling trip starting at 7.30am the following morning so had an early night after some food. Just as we were all in bed, the girl from the dive shop knocked on the door and said that the trip for the following day was over booked, could we do the day after. We didn’t really mind either way so took the following day option.

This turned out as a blessing in disguise for Jeffro as a bout of food poisoning or something hit him during the night and was in no state to leave the room the following day. Tan and I left him to see it through and went for a walk up the hill to the North to get a view over the town and bays. KPP has two mountainous parts to the North and South and these are linked by a sandy strip where the main town and resorts are built. Unfortunately this is a maximum of 2m above sea level. So when the Tsunami of 2004 came through with 6m waves, the town pretty much got wiped away as waves hit from both sides and destroyed about 70% of the buildings!! It was interesting to look down on the town (which doesn’t really show many signs of the disaster now) and imagine what it would have been like seeing the waves approaching back in 2004.

Looking over to Phi Phi Leh

After checking back in with Jeff, Tan and I headed back out this time walking over to Long Beach which looks out over the water to Phi Phi Leh. The walk was hot and sweaty as the track to the beach was a little up and down over muddy sandy tracks. The beach was probably one of the better ones on Phi Phi Don however so worth the walk.

Jeff was starting to come around that evening and was managed to pull himself out of bed in the morning to head out for some snorkelling. The boat took us out to a few spots over by Phi Phi Leh and it was pretty good. We saw plenty of the usual colourful tropical fish but also a lion fish, sea snake and turtle just to top it all off.

Lion Fish

We found Nemo

Due to rough seas, we couldn’t land our longtail boat at Maya Bay, so instead we swam to shore on the other side of the island and walked over to the bay. Supposedly the movie studio did an average job of returning the island back to its original state and copped it with a law suit. We also heard that the tsunami has actually helped to clear up the island better than the movie studio had done.

Getting onto the beach was a bit of a letdown due to the amount of people there. The whole bay was lined up with speed boats that had come from Phuket and Phi Phi Don. I’m sure we would have liked it a bit more if we had got out there earlier and avoided the crowds.

Another early morning ferry took us over to Phuket where Jeff got his flight to a friends wedding in Hong Kong while Tanya and I passed a day with a quick surf on Ka Ta beach before getting our flight the following day.

FINAL THOUGHTS
Daniel – I think if we come back here again, Maya Beach needs to be done with the camping trip so that you can wake up in the morning with the place to yourself. Even on a cloudy day during low season, it was a bit of an anti climax when you see it with a small army of other tourists on it. The snorkelling made up for it though with great sightings on the swims

Tanya – Im not quite sure what all the hype is about. Long beach was great for a swim but the 2 bays each side of the town aren’t much. The snorkelling trip was great aside from the sea lice!

Jeff – I was a little jaded with Koh Phi Phi, allegedly the primo of Thai islands but I felt it was just too busy and overdeveloped. Again, we were spoilt by Koh Tao I think. Although truth be told spending two days in bed with a serious bout of gastro will never warm me to a travel destination....at least I managed to drag myself out of bed for the snorkelling trip, which was a definite highlight.

Deciding to take a short break away from the beaches we headed back to the mainland and to the National Park that is Khao Sok. This area of jungle and limestone has been given a bonus lake thanks to a dam that has been put in to the region.

We took an early morning ferry with a few busses before arriving by the side of the main road. It was a couple of kilometres from there to the small town so we were met by a number of people offering their accommodation to us. One bloke offered to take us to the info centre for 60 bhat so we figured that was best to then decide where we wanted to stay from there. On the way he showed us the powerful bass in his truck stereo system and said he also had accommodation that he would take us to first to have a look at... sneaky sneaky! The place wasn’t that great but it wasn’t dire, so we put our bags in the room and then went for a walk down to the park entrance. On the way we passed another hotel that advertised its pool which was very tempting given the hot and humid jungle conditions. We had a look around the place and were happy to pay a little extra to come here, so after collecting our bags from the other place and paying for the ride into town we relocated instantly making use of the pool.

We organised for a day tour of the lake and jungle. This started off with a bus ride then a long tail boat ride on the lake. The area reminded us a lot of the Yangshuo area in China, with big limestone karsts all around.

We stopped at some floating bamboo huts and had some lunch before taking to the jungle. While we were eating lunch the afternoon rain started to fall with a thunderstorm coming through. This creates two problems for us. Firstly, our planned walk through the nearby cave would be revised to just a quick step inside for safety reasons. Secondly the rain brings out the leeches in epic proportions!

The walk the jungle took about an hour and true to what we had been told everyone was being attacked by the leeches. The guide said that they can live for 4 months between eating, so with 10 of us walking through it was a smorgasbord for them. Any time that we stopped for a minute or so to regroup, there would be a few working their way up your shoes and socks in search of exposed skin.

On the way we passed the following sign... Good given that it was belting down at the time!

We eventually got to the cave exit which would be our entrance for the day. Normally you get to walk through the cave but the flood risk with the rain meant we would just have a peak inside. There were heaps of frogs in the cave and they even played dead when they are picked up. We waded and swam up into the cave for a bit before turning around and making our way back to the camp.

We slept well that night before another early morning bus to head back to the beaches for a few more days.

FINAL THOUGHTS
Daniel – Leeches are pretty disgusting actually, and they seem to really get off on my blood too.

Jeff – Nothing quite like walking past a sign that says “danger, no entry when raining” during a tropical downpour and exploring caves with rivers in them that can occasionally flood. At least there were no leeches in the caves....

Tanya – I was pretty glad these leeches couldn’t swm, and seeing as my shoes were soaked already I walked in the water at every opportunity. Being a bit of a ninny, i was the only one wearing long pants fashionably tucked into my socks. I was probably the only one who didn’t get my blood extracted although you should have seen the way they could cartwheel up my pants in search of fresh skin! Aside from the leeches it was a great jungle experience in a beautiful area.

The Gulf of Thailand has sheltered water, constantly heated to a warm 31degrees by the equatorial sun meaning that there are fewer places in the world which can offer the quality of diving that you get here. The only sensible thing to do is go back to school and get our PADI dive certificate to enjoy this paradise.

Koh Tao
The starting point was the amazing little island of Koh Tao. When we arrived after the ferry crossing from the mainland, we were immediately in love with the island. It is super chilled with very little development of big resorts or anything. Most of the bungalows are right off the beach and have simple amenities but you don’t need anything more.

Leaving the mainland

Jeff and I got sorted for our 3 day dive course. Tanya couldn’t do the dive course thanks to her asthma, but she was more than happy to enjoy the beach while we were in a classroom and out diving.

We went with a nice little dive school called New Way which we picked from the hundreds of establishments because they said that they leave early in the morning to be the first out to the dive spots. Classes started on the first afternoon we were on the island so we checked out the beach and the town while we had some time before the classes.

Over the next few days Jeff and I woke up early, got some breakfast, headed to the dive shop, watched some DVD’s and then headed out to get into the water. Usually you do your first few hours in a pool for what they call the confined water lessons. This is where you do all emergency things, like changing to your buddy’s air supply if yours runs out. However the cool thing about New Way, was that they said there are lots of great shallow water beaches to do this stuff, you don’t need a pool. And it was so much more interesting being in the sea rather than a pool for 3 hours. New Way only have 4 person groups too, so while one of us was doing the particular activity, the other three would just be sat on the bottom of the sea with tons of fish swimming around us.

Meanwhile Tanya quite happily reading books under the shade of palm trees interspersed with a dip in the warm water until the sun set on the day.

After a couple of deep water dives up to 18m, we had passed our PADI with flying colours and were blown away by how awesome the diving was around here. We got 4 dives in on our course including the final two which were on the early morning dive. It’s definitely worth the 5.30am wakeup as our boat was the first out of port, and we had an empty dive spot when we got out there. By the time our tanks were running low and we were coming to the surface, the dive factories were arriving with their boat loads of people and we were happy to be getting out of there.

After our final dive we had the afternoon free so the three of us headed over to the three little islands just off the north of Koh Tao. They are owned by a Japanese business man and is actually a private resort, but you can pay a 200 bhat fee when you land at the island to swim and walk around them.

We started off walking around the larger of the 3 islands which had a pretty sketchy looking boardwalk.

There is a cool lookout from the top of the island and its crazy to see these 3 small islands all connected by a sand bar! Definitely a paradise setting that will be hard to beat.

To round out the day we finished with a snorkel in the bay (same bay that we did our confined water dives) seeing so many fish who really don’t seem bothered by us swimming around with them.

To celebrate not having an early wake up the following morning we watched another amazing sunset and then went pretty hard on the buckets of cocktails at one of the local bars. The sunset, well this place really is paradise, nothing more to say about it! The buckets on the other hand, potent and a sure fire way to some serious hangover territory (along with countless unpublishable photos).

Before things turned ugly

We had grand plans for our final day on Koh Tao – hire scooters to get around the island and use our hired snorkel gear to find plenty of marine life. Courtesy of the boozy night, we instead spend the whole day passed out and recovering. Oh well, gives us a reason to return to this island paradise anyway! We did manage some redemption with a morning fun dive as ‘experienced divers’ before getting the afternoon ferry.

Koh Pha Ngan

A short ferry ride and we were at the bigger island of Koh Pha Ngan, famous for its massive full moon parties. As we were here between moon cycles, we happily had reduced accommodation prices and a much quieter island for a few days. We also made a good choice in booking into a cheap resort right on the beach with a pool and everything we needed for a few days relaxing watching the thunder storms passing in the distance

To make up for our wasted day on Koh Tao, we decided to hire some scooters from our resort to head round the island to some of the nicer beaches. Armed with some beasty scooters (which had done 40 odd thousand kms each) we hit the road in search of fuel. Fuel comes in three ways on a tropical island. Out of a plastic coke bottle, dodgy homemade roadside pump or one of the couple of larger garages. To avoid any quality control issues with the fuel supply, we opted for the larger operator.

We found a good few beaches with more clear warm water on the north coast before setting out to find the lookout that was shown on our very rough maps that we had. Our search turned off road, and in the end had deteriorated into steep, rain gulley tracks that got beyond the possibilities of our scooters. We walked the final 200 meters to the lookout and replaced the bucket load of sweat we lost with an ice cold water before heading back down for the bikes

The eventual viewpoint

Jeffro – hard as nails on a scooter

We finished off the day at the sunrise beach where the Full Moon parties end up at for a quick swim before hitting the road before it got dark. It ended up being a good move as shortly after getting back to the resort, a massive thunder storm came through. Swimming in the pool was a much better way to see it through than driving though it on the scooters.

The view over to Koh Samui

We had an early morning ferry the following day which took us back to the mainland for some jungle time.

FINAL THOUGHTS
Daniel – Koh Tao, well I think we spoilt ourselves going there first, everywhere else has just been more resorts, built up and just not as relaxed. It was a super cheap place to do the PADI when comparing it to the other islands too. I was really surprised at just how easy the PADI was, I did have thoughts before doing it that it was going to be a lot to think about, but once you get underwater it actually feels incredibly normal and second nature. The scootering on Koh Phangan was pretty awesome, I don’t think there is a better way to see these islands than on a scooter searching out a secluded little beach.

Jeff – Absolutely loved Koh Tao. The chilled out atmosphere, abundance of beach bars and excellent diving or snorkelling make this place as close to paradise as you can get. Koh Tao will always be remembered as the first island where I discovered the glorious coconut milkshake. It was great to tick off the dive certification off my long list of “to do´s” and it was nice to be in a small group of four as opposed to some of the larger dive schools who roll in groups of ten. Loved the diving and can´t wait for next dive holiday!

Tanya – Possibly the first time in 8 months that I’ve felt like I’m on a traditional holiday. It was hard work lazing about on the beach, reading multiple novels, eating yummy food. Just before I started to get tired of total relaxation we were off exploring on scooters. Batteries fully recharged!

This is what the lonely planet says about Bangkok,

Because Bangkok is a revolving door for travel in the region, you’ll be confused and challenged when you first arrive, relieved and pampered when you return, and slightly sentimental when you depart for the last time

Being our first visit, it was definitely bizarre, but after leaving, we can see what they mean.

Two things we noticed immediately at the airport. The massive amount of western tourists (that’s what 3 weeks in China does to you I guess) and the heat, oh the heat! Guaranteed to be dripping with sweat in 1 minute flat! We had been looking forward to getting to Bangkok as Jeff was meeting up with us again for some more travel fun. It’s now the fourth time that we have met up with Jeff on the holiday, we can always rely on him to be keen for another adventure and it means that we don’t go crazy from spending every day just as the two of us.

Our flights arrived within 5 minutes of each other, so by the time we collected our bags the three musketeers were ready for whatever Bangkok had to throw at us. The airport taxi took us into the city and our nicely air conditioned hostel. At this time of the year, Bangkok is a sweltering hotpot so the aircon room paid for itself immediately. One thing we only realised after booking the hostel is that its located right by the red light streets where all the go-go bars and ping pong shows are. We went for a walk to get some dinner (which was amazing – Thai food has to be one of the best dishes the world over!) and had a few touts offering entry to some of the places.

With a couple of days to see some of the sights of Bangkok we decided to get our train down to Ko Tao sorted. Down at the train station we got the sleeper train, connecting bus and ferry booked smoothly with the help of the English speaking assistants – welcome back to easy travelling! The next port of call was to get down to the river so we could see the city from the water. A very friendly man from Chang Mai (North of Thailand) stopped us on the street and helped us to get a cheap government tuk tuk rather than the expensive private tuk tuks that try to take you to shops and tourist traps.

After finding the ferry pier we went downstream a few stops. Its definitely an experience on the water ferry, these drivers pull the ferry up to the piers like a Formula 1 driver pulling into the pits. Passengers are on and offloaded with almost surgical precision and then it’s on to the next one. And some of the longboats that cruise past have got engines on them that look like they are lifted out of a drag racer with big air intakes, intercoolers, turbos, the works!

We had a surprisingly good meal at a ramshackle restaurant by one of the piers before braving the heat and humidity at the Wat Arun temple on the other side of the river.

After seeing more temples than we could deal with in China, we were quite relieved to see that the Thai temples have a very unique design with lots of bright mosaic exteriors and pointed roof eves. Tanya had to rent some of the shawls from the temple as she was bearing too much skin.

We climbed the incredibly steep steps to the top of the temple trying as much as possible to stay in the shade from the intense sun. From the top there were good views over the river to the royal palace.

We walked through the rest of the grounds getting our fix of Buddha images for the day before embarking on a longwinded search for a bar to enjoy a cold beer. Even if it was served with ice, the beer was still worth the back street search.

After a much needed shower back at the hostel we headed out for the skybar at one of the local high rise hotels. The cocktails were extortionately priced for Thailand but that just means they are the same price as we would be paying back in UK, and we have a great night view over the city to go with it. We stayed for one drink before finding another great restaurant for dinner.

The next day we were prepared to get our Buddha on and tackle the various famous ones around town. Sitting, standing, reclining, made of gold or jade they just can’t get enough. The first port of call was the Jade Buddha in the Royal Palace. Walking to the palace, there are announcements over the speaker system saying that the palace is open every day between the designated times. This is to counteract the many touts who operate outside of the palace and tell tourists that the palace is closed today but they can take you to another temple.

Unfortunately the Jade Buddha was actually closed today (the ticket office was saying this) as the princess was having a private prayer today in the temple. The rest of the royal grounds were still open as usual though so we made do with admiring the incredible gold, green, red and brightly coloured mosaic buildings that the longest reigning current monarch in the world calls home.

Play the game – Where’s Jeffro

An air-conditioned restaurant was in order for a break from the heat, and it ended up being the pick of the bunch for our time in Bangkok.

The last stop was the Giant Reclining Buddha. As the name suggests, he was indeed giant and reclining and worth the entrance fee to see it. The grounds of the reclining Buddha were also nice with the afternoon sun reflecting nicely off the buildings.

We left Bangkok on the night train headed for Koh Tao which we passed the early hours with a few beers from the on board sellers. The trains here are a little different from what we had in China. An attendant comes along and makes up your bed from converting the seats to a bed. And they were pretty damn comfy too, or maybe it was the few beers rather than the bed...

FINAL THOUGHTS
Daniel – The heat and humidity is a shock to the system, just gives us more of a reason to find somewhere with air-conditioning and beers. Pretty impressive temples around the city!

Tanya – It was soo bloody muggy, I could hardly bear it. But once I accepted that its going to be like this for the next few months I just go on with enjoying travelling. Once we got our bearings, we found Bangkok easy to get around on the skytrain, metro and boats so exploring the city was easy done.

Jeffro – It’s damn warm here. Good to see things finally getting hot and steamy on my fourth appearance in Dan & Tan’s travel adventure slash honeymoon. Two nights probably not enough to see all the sights in the city, but it was good to tick the major Buddhas off the list and satisfy my craving for good Thai food, and I was pretty keen to hit the islands after the sweltering city temperatures.

Whilst travelling in South America was challenging at times, it was a walk in the park compared to China. So we thought it might be useful for any future travellers if we jotted down things that we came across. Even as experienced travellers now, it hit us pretty hard

• Obviously the language barrier is the first obstacle. Its not just the verbal language, but the fact that you have no idea of the Chinese characters. Even things that we took for granted such as at least being able to identify a sign for a town or something so you know where you are going. You wont see ‘Pingyao’ written anywhere, its always the Chinese characters for the city – that makes it very hard to find your way around. Also it is very hard to get the pronunciation right so you will be asking where something is and you just get blank looks back

• English is virtually nonexistent, even in the major cities. Don´t expect menus, shops, transport and signs to have English translations or the staff to be working in these places to be able to speak English

• A lot of people use guides to help them travel around China. This is fine and certainly makes it a hell of a lot easier. However travelling without a guide is certainly manageable, you just rely massively on the help of the people at the hostels for booking trains and directing you around. The Hostel staff are most helpful if you can get them to write things down for you in Chinese script. From ‘I am allergic to peanuts’ for Tanya to getting them to write down train destinations/times/requirements. Every time we booked a train ticket, we walked up to the window with everything written down and we were fine, but you couldn’t expect to walk up to the same window and just ask for the ticket without being very good with speaking Chinese

• Make sure you book early for trains. A couple of days in advance is pretty much necessary. China does have a pretty extensive train network, but with 1.3 billion people in the country, there aren’t enough train spaces for the number of people wanting to travel. There aren’t any spots kept back for tourists or late demand, so you need to have a bit of an idea where you are going, or have a couple of days time flexibility. We generally booked our onward train as soon as we arrived in a new place.

• People who can speak a little bit of English will generally be really helpful and really enjoy practicing their English. Even if you are not looking for help, just walking the streets, someone will stop you with ‘Hello, where you from’ then try a few sentences before saying bye.

• The most common time to have someone start speaking to you will be at the tourist destinations as people from the bigger cities like Shanghai will enjoy a bit of English practice

• As we said in the blog posts, people love to get photos taken with you as a westerner. Especially getting their young children to have a photo with you. We did always wonder what happens with these photos, do they print them out and put them on top of their mantle piece and show other people when they come round their place?

• Don’t forget how huge the distances are in China. It’s easy to take this for granted, but travelling between most places will take you at least say 15 plus hours. This makes night trains and busses better for travelling and also saves a nights accommodation!

• Smoking is still common for Chinese. Occasionally, there will be non smoking places in train stations, however these seem to have more smokers in them than not. Trains and busses don’t necessarily have smoking prohibited and spending a full 20 hour night train ride in a confined cabin as a non smoker can be hard going.

• Chinese men and women spit all the time. You notice this pretty quickly walking around the streets hearing people bring up some big ones. At first it is slightly offensive until you realise that it’s just what they do on the street, in busses, on trains, in stations... I never put my bag on the floor again!

• It’s strange but we found that the more dodgy a restaurant looked, the better the food was. Ferdi and Lisa put it best when they said, that if the place has a glass front, don’t eat there. And the best places we found were always Chinese Muslim restaurants!

• Learning a few Chinese words is helpful as the people will really like it when you say something in Chinese to them. The only downside is that then they assume you are fluent in the language and will talk to you for the remainder of the time assuming you are understanding everything they are saying.

• I never ever saw another man wearing shorts, and copped stares from everyone when I was wearing them. We assume its a cultural thing that men never show off their legs, but it was pretty hot at times and everyone would still be walking around in jeans or suit trousers. Oh and open shoes such as thongs/flip flops... they have feet phobia, so this freaks people out, expect plenty of staring if you are wearing them.

• Its easy to see why China is becoming a world power, there is so much building going on, unlike in the western countries in economic troubles. No matter where we went, cranes, scaffolding, bridges, road works were ever present.

• Chinese people are not familiar with maps, even taxi drivers who you would assume are familiar with the layout of their cities... nope! On multiple occasions we showed someone a map to get directions or taken somewhere and had them completely bamboozled as to what they were looking at. The magnifying glasses came out and maps rotated like a spinning wheel.

But all the above made the travelling what it was, challenging but so rewarding! It’s not wrong, it’s just different.

Oh and one last thing, we had a good chuckle at some of the English signs that we managed to find around the place. Here is an assortment to show what we mean.

Its not so much the sign on this one, more the state of the said toilets in the background of the photo

That juice was so lame!!

The modern day capital of China has access to many Chinese icons, the Forbidden City, Great Wall and modern stadiums (thanks to the 2008 Olympics).

We started off having to show the taxi driver a map of where our hostel was when we arrived on the early morning train. The problem is that we don’t think Chinese have ever seen maps of their own cities before. On many occasions we have had dumbstruck taxi drivers with their magnifying glasses looking at maps upside down for 10 minutes before trying to drive in the wrong direction. We eventually got someone to write down the closest metro station so the taxi driver could just take us there.

The first site we visited after checking in, was the Temple of Heaven. More a parkland than just a temple, it had some nice quiet areas around the heaving temples.

So this is what heaven feels like

We saw some interesting street food on the way back to the hostel, im going to have to psych myself up for some of these

Our plan for visiting the Great Wall was to avoid the tourist heavy area at Badaling, and instead go a bit further afield to Mutianyu as our initial plan of walking between two points was scuppered by the closure of the wall at Simatai. We looked at the ways of getting out to Mutianyu, but the busses didn’t seem completely straight forward. We didn’t want to end up with another episode like the Jingdi tomb in Xi’an, so we went with booking the hostel’s tour out there. We only booked it because they said that we would have 3 hours on the wall and there were no ‘shopping trips’ on this tour and with breakfast and lunch included, it practically paid for itself.

Out of the hostel at 7:30am we picked up some more people from another couple of sister hostels and then drove the 1.5 hours out to the wall. Emperor Quin, of terracotta fame, was also the one to build the first wall by linking up the established kingdoms defences. Since then it was rebuilt a number of times. The original sections of wall at Mutianyu date back to 1569 but the sections open to the public have been reconstructed over the last 50 years

There is a chairlift that takes you from the carpark to the actual wall, which saves 40 minutes of uphill walking and means spending more time actually walking on the wall. We first headed off to the closest end of the wall where it has the older sections. After some near vertical stairs we got to the over grown sections of the wall with signs for ‘Not for Tourists’. Ignoring the sign like everyone else, we walked along through the trees growing out of the bricks to a destroyed turret house. Definitely a cool feature of this section being able to see the wall in its true state! We were also incredibly lucky that the smog was non-existent today, we could see for miles as the wall snakes its way along the mountains and ridge lines!

The wilder side of the wall

Stretching into the distance

There weren’t too many other people out at this section of the Wall, certainly less than we were expecting. With a couple of hours left to explore, we headed back to the restored wall to walk as far as we could taking in the great clear skies and views of the wall. It really is an imposing sight as it sits so clear on the landscape. It was hot work, and some steep sections to contend with, but all worthwhile.

A cool little ride back down to the parking lot on the toboggan and then we had some lunch which was included with the tour and turned out to be much better than we were expecting. There were free dumplings (which we also made ourselves) for dinner at the hostel which we shared with our 3 Dutch roommates.

On the final day in Beijing we started off seeing the massive expanse of space that is Tiananmen Square. One of the biggest squares in the world, it certainly felt like it, considering that we have also stood in Moscow’s famous Red Square. Then we headed over the road into the Forbidden City. This vast array of palaces, temples and halls was the domain of the Emperors from the Ming to Qing dynasties and only they and the necessary workers were allowed in its walls. Whilst it may have been forbidden to enter for the common man back then, now a days it is one of the big drawcards with thousands of people crammed through the gates on a daily basis.

The Chinese tour group, always with a particular colour hat

The entrance gates to the city

Whilst we enjoyed walking through the city, and it certainly is impressive when you consider the history to the place, we got a bit of temple overkill after jostling with the crowds to get a look into the various buildings. The gardens towards the back of the city gave us a slight break from the intensity and we were happy enough to exit the north gates and call it a day for the forbidden city.

A scrum developing to look inside a temple

We climbed up the hill that is immediately north of the Forbidden City which gives a great view over the grounds, it’s from here that you can really appreciate the scale of the city! We enjoyed a few moments peace and quiet before heading over to the Lama Temple which is one of the largest and most important Tibetan Buddhist monasteries in the world where lots of people were offering their 3 incense sticks with each prayer.

The final stop in Beijing was a walk around the Olympic park. Having seen the Birds Nest Stadium and swimming cube so many times during the 2008 Olympics, it was good to see it in person! There was also a rehearsal going on for some sort of TV add with drummers which was good to watch for a little while. The Olympic park was really chilled and I enjoyed walking around there more than the forbidden city to be honest.

We got back to the hostel and had a great Peking Duck at a local restaurant as well as a peculiar sounding dish of sweet potato with toffee, but it was much better than it sounds as you dip the potato covered in hot toffee into some cold water and that solidifies the toffee into a crunchy coating! Dog meat was also on the menu, but we stayed clear of that dish. I had finally psyched myself up to have a scorpion skewer but was so full from the dinner, that i couldn’t bring myself to get it by then!

FINAL THOUGHTS
Daniel – We were so lucky to get such clear conditions out at the Great Wall, I think that completed our China experience pretty nicely! Its been a challenge to travel around China, but that has probably made it even more memorable!

Tanya – There is sooo much to do in Beijing, its impossible to fit much into just a few days. But we managed to make it to the main attractions which were all amazing. Great wall has to be the highlight!

When you think of China, you probably imagine thin little alleys with red lanterns hanging from the wooden shop fronts, temple like roof eves, old paved streets and people going about a simple daily existence within a small walled town. Unfortunately, this is a far cry from the socialist concrete housing blocks, traffic congested metropolis that most cities and even towns have become. Thankfully, Pingyao has resisted the winds of change and lets your imagined version of china live on for just a little while longer.

We got in early on from the overnight sleeper, which has probably been the best one so far as we got bottom bunks thanks to booking it back in Guilin. Walking from the train station, we walked through the west gate and in the process must have crossed a time vortex. Because of the time of day, the streets were empty, shops boarded up and soft sunlight casting shadows into the thin streets

We were too early for checking in at the hostel so we left our bags and went for more of a walk round the streets. We walked to the East gate and along the wall past the corner tower and along to the North gate. At the old gateways, the large stone slabs have big grooves worn into them from the countless number of carts that have been pulled over them in the hundreds of years since they were laid. Apart from a stretch of the south walls which collapsed in 2004, the rest of the walls date back to 1370.

The town was starting to wake up, but one thing we did notice even with it getting busier, was the lack of horn honking and traffic sounds. Thankfully the centre part of the town is blocked off from traffic, although the residents still jump their bikes & scooters over the railing to ride around. There are a lot of electric bikes and scooters around in china though, so at least these are almost silent when driving around the streets (not so good, for crossing the road and thinking that there is no traffic coming) It certainly felt a lot more peaceful and relaxed compared to everywhere else we had been so far.

We got back to the hostel and our room was ready, so we freshened up and got a few things sorted before heading back out at dusk to take in more of the town as it came alive with the night time busyness that is common around China. Food stalls and street sellers are all at maximum output when the sun goes down. Getting some photos of the nicely lit streets there was a little girl who was wanting to photo bomb our shots. She was really funny, going and pulling faces and then coming up to look at her photos and going to do it all again.

A true family vehicle in China

We had another late bus out of town, so we spent the final day in town just walking around and taking in some more of the quaintness before we hit Beijing.

FINAL THOUGHTS
Daniel – Great little stop on the way between two of the big cities. Really was a few days of old world China.

Tanya –It was somewhat of a shock to wander outside the walls in search of an atm to realise that there is a bigger world out there! Otherwise, Pingyao was a beautiful place where we could just wind down and recharge the batteries.

You may not have heard of this famous Chinese town, but more than likely you will know all about its top tourist attraction... The Terracotta Army. Xi’an also used to be the ancient capital and it has lots of history to explore.

Our transport from Zhangjiajie started with another sleeper train, although Tanya and I were separated for this journey for some reason. It didn’t matter too much as the Chinese people in Tan’s cabin looked after her with lots of Chinese chatter, smiling and photo taking. The sleeper train was fine as we are starting to get used to the beds, routine and smoke inhalation. However after arriving in AnKang we had to endure a further 5 hours on a jam packed sardine train to Xi’an.

Thankfully we had a nice private room for our few days in Xi’an and the hostel was really nice and cosy with a massive traditional style bed and furniture. It rained when we were walking to the hostel, but after a few hours getting sorted and freshened up, the rain had cleared and taken all the smog with it too! That is a good thing about the rain here in China, they need it to clear the air a bit. So we headed out for the afternoon to get some photos with the clear sky and setting sun

We walked along the main roads towards the Bell Tower (the traditional bells ring to signal day break) and then the Drum Tower (the drums are beaten to signal the end of the day) and it was really nice to be walking around in the warm afternoon sun. We immediately noticed how modern and cosmopolitan Xi’an was compared to the other cities we have been to. There were lots of designer shops with Mercedes, BMW’s, Range Rovers and other high end cars in front of them.

Bell Tower

The plan for the evening was simply to walk around the Muslim quarter which is famous for its great food. As Xi’an was the end of the line on the Silk Road connecting the East with the West, it had many immigrant populations and has had a Muslim presence ever since. It was nice to walk through the streets, with so much street food being prepared and sold. There was one stall selling some skewered meat, which looked pretty good and smelt great. The best sign though was the amount of Chinese people lining up to get one, so we joined the line and got a few skewers. Amazing, the best bit of meat we have had since Argentina probably!

Drum tower

The morning saw some more clear skies, so we took to the city walls for a spot of bike riding. Xi’an has a pretty well preserved city wall that encloses the old city centre. Most of the wall dates from the Ming Dynasty in 1370. The bike hire on the wall gives you 100 minutes to complete the 13.7km circumference for the 40 Yuan fee. The views over the town rooftops was great, the ride a little bumpy from the worn stones and the weather a little on the warm side. We got back with a good 5 minutes spare after a little snack stop on the North walls. A good way to spend the morning.

They are even watching you up here

A traditional game with a shuttlecock type of thing

We made an evening trip out to the Big Goose Pagoda for the light show that was to start at 8pm. Its a little bit out of the city walls so we caught a bus out there and got to the fountains just for 8pm. It was a little underwhelming as there weren’t any lights or anything with the fountains, oh well... as we were about to walk away, the speakers came to life and said the show would be starting soon, needless to say, the real thing was much more like we were expecting!!

The south gate at night

The dud show

The real thing

The following day we planned to go out and see the tomb of Emperor Jingdi. This tomb is supposed to have smaller terracotta figures which depict more of every day life rather than an army like at Emperor Qin’s tombs. The only problem is that getting out to this tomb requires a number of different bus connections. We had done our research and knew we had to get to the end of the #600 bus then change to the #4 bus which only goes past at 10:50 or 2pm. We got the 600 fine, and hopped off at the last stop around 10:30. I felt like the bus stop should have been in the opposite direction, but I checked the board over the road and that didn’t show number 4 on it either. Almost at 10:50 precisely, we saw the number 4 drive past on the opposite side of the road, not stop at the bus stop and drive through the lights! Crap! Not really wanting to hang around for 3 hours, we decided to put that trip down as just a China experience and go back to the hostel and wonder around Xi’an some more.

We saved the highlight of the city for the last day as our train wasn’t departing until 11pm. Firstly some background, after taking the throne of his kingdom during the 7 warring states period in 246BC at age 13, Emperor Qin was victorious and reunified China into one country for the first time and immediately set out in building his mausoleum and army of terracotta soldiers to protect him in his afterlife. Taking 10 years to build and using 700,000 workers, he died before it was completely finished and was buried with his army being sealed from the world. The army is well known for the intricate details of each soldier with no 2 being the same, and details right down to the tread on their shoes being completed. The tombs fell out of memory from civilisation and it was only when some farmers were drilling a well in the countryside in 1974 that they pulled up a lot of terracotta pieces. Since that discovery, the first pit has been surveyed and 2 other pits discovered in the vicinity.

We had read that it is good to start off in the smaller pit 3, then to pit 2 and finish with the largest pit 1 to top off the day. Pit 3 is very small and is thought to be the command centre due to the number of high ranking figures in this pit. It only has 68 pottery figures in it but given it was our first look at the warriors, it was really interesting still.

Why is everyone losing their heads round here!?

Seeing the pit without the soldiers pieced together is just as cool as the reconstructed figures

Pit 2 is still very untouched with only a couple of the rows having been excavated. There were lots of the kneeling archer warriors found in this pit though, and it is good to see what the ground looks like before it is dug up with the ancient wooden beams that once held the roof aloft sagging into each row.

Jack... I can’t feel my legs!!

Well i can’t feel anything

The massive Pit 1 did not fail to impress either, definitely worth finishing off in this one having had the most excavation done here there are hundreds of soldiers stood in formation. Even though there has been a lot dug up, it was still surprising how much is still uncovered even in this pit. Some archaeologists were there doing some more digs and sorting, and this has been going on since the 70´s! They estimate that there will be around 6000 warriors in this pit alone!

I feel like just another face in the crowd

I think we found the original exponent of the ‘planking’ phenomenon

Well and truly impressed with the warriors, we made a quick visit into the museum which has all items that have been discovered in the emperor’s mausoleum and surrounding lands. There were lots of other types of terracotta figures buried around the massive land area of the tomb of the emperor. We left the site of the terracotta warriors and passed away the few hours at the hostel before yet another sleeper train.

Amazing detail, right down to the soles of their shoes

FINAL THOUGHTS
Daniel – I have seen the terracotta army on many documentaries over the years, but it didn’t stop the hairs standing on end when i looked out over the pit with all the soldiers standing there looking back at me.

Tanya – Xi’an had plenty to offer from biking around the city walls, visiting the terracotta army to just wandering around the Muslim quarter, it was a fantastic visit.

When James Cameron was planning the scenery for the movie Avatar, he or some of his crew apparently came out to Zhangjiajie and had to look no further for inspiration. That’s what the tourism agency and the government are saying anyway, with the area recently being named the Halleluiah Mountains after the film. We figured we would come and have a look for ourselves.

It was our first experience of a Chinese sleeper train, but only after spending 2 hours on a normal seat taking us to the town of LiuZhou before making the change to the sleeper train. On both occasions, we waited in the waiting area of the stations as the large crowds gathered. When an announcement comes over the speaker, everyone gets up and pushes forward. The Chinese don’t like to queue at the best of times, but taking a train is an invitation for a mosh pit that any rock concert would die for! Much pushing, yelling and barging follow as a crowd of what seems like 400 people try to fit through 2 single person gates in the fence. It seemed a bit pointless to us, given that we had allocated seats anyway but maybe in the lowest class carriages, there are no allocated seats or something and that’s why they all try to get through fast.

Once through the gates and walking to the train, there are the ‘runners’ that you have to watch out for as you try to find your carriage. The sleeper carriages have a lower, middle and upper bunk with a table in the middle of another 3 making a cosy 6 person alcove. As we were booking this trip rather late, we were stuck with the cheapest beds of the 3, the upper bunk. True, headroom is an issue, but actually we liked the top as it gave us access to our big backpacks on the luggage rack above the walkway, and it felt a bit more private without having people looking down on you. We had some pot noodles for dinner, which everyone seems to have as their staple dinner while on a train.

The train was pretty good in all fairness, a comfy enough bunk and when you first hop on the train a lady comes and collects your ticket and puts it in a folder so that she knows what stop you need to get off at and will come and wake you 30mins before you get there. The worst thing though, is having no restriction on people smoking in the carriages... smoke rises, and I felt like I had smoked a whole pack by the time we got off.

We hopped off at Zhangjiajie station and had directions to walk to the bus stop in front of a big hotel. We found it a bit further away than we were expecting carrying our big bags, then got the number 10 bus around to our hostel. We found the building straight away, but it was a big complex and we walked the whole way around showing a number of people the address in our notebook before eventually finding the hostel. We got lots of looks on the bus, maybe foreigners are less common here, but it felt like being a zoo exhibit

After dumping our bags, we thought that we would head straight out to the park to make the most of the high entrance fee that we knew we would have to pay. As we got to the hostel desk to ask for help a German couple also were hoping to get the same information. The receptionist said that she would tell us together and after getting the lowdown on how to get there, we decided to go out there with Ferdinand and Lisa. We had a good chat on the 40 minute bus ride out to the entrance and got some good tips from them as they had got to Zhangjiajie from Beijing, so had been to all the places that we would visit on our way North.

At the national park, we paid the 246 Yuan ($40) per person park fee, but were happy to hear that it now lasts for 3 days, rather than the 2 days we had read. Stepping though the gates and the first thing we encountered was not the amazing scenery, but the monkeys, loads of them! We had gotten a couple of banana’s from a kiosk on the way in, and were carrying them in a plastic bag. One monkey looked particularly interested in us, and we figured that he was maybe after our food. We put them away in our backpack only to see 5 seconds later a couple of monkeys snatch plastic bags from the Chinese tourists walking behind us. The things is, everyone saw it happen and had a good laugh as the monkeys took all the food, then it happened again, and again. As the title of the blog suggests, these monkeys were definitely smarter than some of the stupid tourists walking around this park!

The monkey happy with the fruits of his labour...

We climbed up the 3900 steps from the entrance up to the top of the mountains. There is a cable car that makes the journey up to the top, however with all the Chinese tourists taking this easier option, the walk was much more peaceful and quite. We stopped at many look outs on the way up and could tell when we were nearing the top as the noise from the crowds got louder.

Over the course of 3 days in the park, we must have been asked for our photo’s taken nearly 100 times. Ferdinand was asked the most thanks to his blue eyes and fair hair! It was pretty funny, as you would see the Chinese girls particularly whisper to each other then get the courage to ask for a picture, and then when we said yes, they would all scream and run around to get in the picture. But it wasn’t restricted to girls either, on the way back to the bus on the first day two blokes started chatting to Ferdi and me. When we got to the parking lot, they asked for a photo with us both. One of them said, ‘You are very handsome’ when we were getting the picture taken, and then the other said ‘you are very tall’ when it was his turn... After 3 days, you kind of get a bit tired of it and just want to get on with your own sightseeing, but we always had a chuckle between the 4 of us!

At the top of the walk, we quickly left the cable car crowds and went for a walk around the circuit path. Around every corner we got to a new lookout and another wow moment, as the sheer cliffs and towering limestone karsts looked down into the forest below! The pictures simply don’t do this place justice!

Ok then...

We ended up having to rush down the path again to make the last 6pm bus for what was a great first day and we were only able to see one little bit of the whole park! Looks like we will need to make the most of the 3 day pass! We had an average dinner at one of the places in town that night and made plans for what to see the following day.

We picked up some great street food in the morning for our breakfast and to take out to the park for lunch and started off on the Golden Whip stream walk.

Rubbing feet makes you fit, apparently.

I don’t think this lady is rubbing her feet...

It was a nice walk by the stream, once we got away from the tour groups and the stupid ones who go and stand in front of the monkeys for a photo and are surprised to have their bags ripped from their hands (even despite us telling them that the monkeys were after their food). We ended up at fork in the road and decided to head uphill via the steps, as this usually means you get away from the crowds. It was a lot more humid today and after a sweaty climb, we reached the top for more great views.

I’m not sure Lisa is so keen on being carried up the mountain

We circled around at the top of the walk to take in the views and the natural bridge (named No 1 Natural Bridge in the World on the maps). Although this area is also accessible to the tour groups thanks to the newly built elevator (which might mean that the park loses its UNESCO classification) so the paths around the top were heaving with other people, somewhat making us rush around to avoid the loud annoying groups.

The Avatar branding was evident around the place, although I doubt that any rights were obtained from the studios!

The Number 1 bridge!

We ended up getting stuck at the top as we thought that there would be a path down to the bottom of the elevator, where we could get a bus from. It turns out that the elevator is the only way down, and out of principle we didn’t want to take a ride in the elevator, so we had 1 hour to get back to the entrance retracing our path that took us all day to come up... We walked at a pretty quick pace and got to the buses at 6:10, but luckily there were still a couple of buses waiting around. We had a great dinner that night in town, at a shop that looked pretty dodgy from the outside, but these often tend to be much better when it comes to their food!

We made better plans for a final ½ a day in the park as we both had trains to catch that night and didn’t want to be like the last couple of days where we almost got stuck. We went to a different part of the park in the north, and had a great day with the 4 of us seemingly having the path to ourselves.

Spot the newest recruit to the local fire team

We loved messing around in front of this waterfall getting a few martial arts shots for Ferdi

We had a quick last meal back in town at the same place that we found last night, they made great handmade noodles fresh for each dish. Having made some great walking buddies over the last couple of days, we wished Ferdy and Lisa all the best and got a taxi out to the station for our train (although the taxi driver didn’t seem to know where the train station was, even when we were showing him on the map!!)

FINAL THOUGHTS
Daniel – Another great stop off, the landscape around here was out of this world. Wether or not Zhangjiajie was used to inspire Avatar, its pretty hard to ignore the similarities when you see the pictures of this place when the low clouds make the peaks look like they are floating. Had some great laughs with Ferdi and Lisa which made the 3 days even better. This is one of the most highly visited places by the Chinese, so it’s inevitable to share it with lots of people, but taking the harder options always got us some reprieve.

Tanya – Zhianjiajie was a very worthwhile addition to the itinerary. It really was indescribably beautiful and when we managed to avoid the heaving crowds and locate our position on the very not to scale map, it was very enjoyable.

Feeling pretty confident in getting around in China now, we decided to attempt an overnight hike out at the ‘Dragons Backbone’ rice terraces. These are said to be most accessible from Guilin where we arrived after an hour long bumpy and thrilling bus trip.

The guidebooks all say Guilin is not that great a place, and that was just the impression we got on arrival. Its just another big city with not too much on offer. On the upside, we had some planning to do before heading out to the rice terraces for some hiking so we had the afternoon to sort out logistics and pick up supplies. We also managed to book an advance train ticket for 2 days time (necessary as they sell out pretty quickly) then still had time to wander around the night markets.

We started out catching a bus downtown to an alternative bus station where we joined a massive queue for tickets and by the time we got our ticket, earlier departures had been sold so we had over an hour wait for the next bus. Once our bus was ready it filled up and then set off, but once around the corner it stopped outside the gates to let on another dozen people at what looked like the same price as us. The 26 seater bus was now at 38 with people on stools in the aisle and all over the engine bay. Then we set off for the usual thrilling bus ride, Dan almost had the craziest overtaking manoeuvre on film.

It was a long ride which took about 3 hours before we were dropped at the side of a dusty road at HePing village. We were not too concerned as we were promptly approached by people offering to take us to Dazhai. Dazhai is the smaller of the 2 main rice terrace villages, from what we had read we wouldn’t have to run the gauntlet of souvenir shops on the way through like at the bigger village of PingAn.

We joined another 3 Chinese tourists for the minivan ride and soon arrived at the Dazhai checkpoint. There weren’t as many touts here as expected and we got started on our hike pretty quickly, following some signs taking us the long way around the village out to one of the look out points. Maps for the terraces are not very good. The best one we had was on our Iphone - a picture of a map we had seen at the hostel.

Happy with the signs at the beginning of the trek, we felt pretty confident. Then we soon reached a small village with about 4 paths to choose from. Luckily while looking around we saw someone who confirmed that 3 (look out point 3) was up a set of stairs so we continued on. Some of the Chinese tourists were keen to practice their English with us so we spoke with a few people on our way up to the lookout point. Others were simply content with yelling out a ‘helloooo’.

After seeing the lookout number 3 we asked a tour guide to point out how to get to lookout point 1, he showed us on a stone map and pointed to go behind a big building. We took his advice but weren’t sure where to go next so we asked a lady hanging out her washing. She said to continue around a hill and keep going (this is what we got from the hand signals). The stone path immediately ran out but we could follow a small track which took us onwards.

We looked back at the lady and she signalled to continue so off we went. We were a little unsure when the road forked into 3 but used logic and opted for the high road. We had some great views, but when the cobwebs started getting thicker and we started hacking at the path we decided that we may end up staying the night in a rice paddy if we didn’t turn back. We tried another track that had a stone path although this involved straddling a giant rock over a stream, but this soon ran out too.

Where the hell are we

We backtracked to the fork in the road and tried to figure out which other option we should take. Dan went for a look down the lower track. While we were discussing what to do we heard some voices – woohoo! We went towards some other people and discovered that another 4 tourists from Shanghai were lost too. They said that we would have to keep going towards the sun for 1.5 to 2 hours to get to look out point number 1. We decided to just go back to the last spot as we didn’t want to get stuck before nightfall with nowhere to shelter. The others were happy to have a guide! The long and short of it is that we ended up following another few people back to Tian Tou village on a well marked track which had been our planned destination for the night.

We were glad to make it there before dark and were lucky enough to find some accommodation (although other people had been worried about us as their hotel was full). It was much cheaper than we had read about, but then we did go to the smaller village and the facilities were basic (shared facilities of cold shower directly over squat toilet).

View from the room

The traditional women roam around on the paths making a living carrying tourists luggage. Although we carried our own, they didn’t seem to be short of work. These ladies are also famous for their long hair which they never cut, they will even show you for the right price.

There were some Chinese celebrations going on and we kept hearing firecrackers going off. We also saw a rather odd procession go through the village, also setting off firecrackers. From what we understood, the holiday had something to do with remembering ancestors. Further along we saw loads of ribbons attached to what we assume were tombs.

This kids ‘Frullet’ is bang on trend in China

We saw a bit of a sunset and got up the next day in time for sunrise but it was a bit misty.

The hiking all around the JinKeng terraces was fantastic. We made our way to lookout point 2 first thing in the morning and spent quite a while looking for the path across to the Ping'An terraces. The people around here were very helpful and we often came across Chinese tourists who wanted to speak with us, which was helpful for asking for directions. We were told that it was too far to hike across and we should go by car. We were also told that a guide could show us a shortcut for $100US!! No thanks! We just kept looking and comparing maps that didn’t even match each other. One thing we have learned is that you can’t rely on maps around here! But soon enough we came across a sign that said PingAn, this was a relief as we knew we had 3-5 hours hiking ahead of us and needed to allow time for getting lost!

Once we got onto this path we had a few intersections to take an educated guess at but seemed to be headed in the right direction. It was at least an hour before we passed a local man who confirmed that we were headed to PingAn (which we had learned to pronounce correctly by now). So we were happy we were at least on the right path this time.

This section really did have some of the best views and it was great to experience them on our own.

We continued walking and passed through some smaller villages. We had to ask for directions as best we could a few times to go the right way out of the villages. We were also offered shelter from the rain but had our ponchos on and decided to continue as the rain never seemed to last for too long. A bit later in the morning we started to see a few tourists walking in the opposite direction so were reassured that we were on the right track.

Soon enough we made it to PingAn. The views here were beautiful too but photos included roads and houses. The area was not so much for hiking as it was paths between souvenir shops. The village was quite large and we had a bit of a wander around.

Hard day at the office for the transporters – not many unfit people to be carrying around

We found a youth hostel which had bus times pinned up on the wall inside. We opted to travel out to Longsheng and then transfer to Guilin. This seemed easier than the roadside option as we were worried that the busses would be full and not pick us up (even for an aisle seat). It was a long detour though as we had another long wait at Longsheng for the next available bus. We had a proper bus this time though and they even gave out water – a luxury perk it seems. I was lucky enough to be sat next to bird-flu kid who though it was hilarious to wake me up every time I started to nod off. I wished the kid would just fall asleep. My wish came true after he had a bout of travel sickness almost all over my feet!! But the bus only took 2 hours and we arrived back at our hostel in Guilin sooner than we expected. It was a great hostel and they wrote down some helpful Chinese for us to help us book our onwards train journeys.

FINAL THOUGHTS
Tanya –It was a good challenge finding our way out to the terraces to start with and then the decision to hike between the 2 fields and stay at a village in between was great. Never a dull moment!

Daniel – Never one to like turning back on a trek, maybe this time it wasn’t such a bad thing. When we were in the village I could see where we were headed on the little track, and it wasn’t in this direction. The rice fields are an amazing feat of engineering over the successive generations of farmers.