Goodness, no matter how much I've traveled, I still always feel quite overwhelmed the first day in a new place. Despite the more ordered manner here than in Vietnam, it's still rough to be here in Beijing with everything written only in chinese, so it's like wandering around a city being mute, deaf and illiterate. So I need to use more clever tactics like having the receptionist at my hostel write down some messages for me in chinese to show people when I go to eat like "Just give me a plate to eat that doesn't have meat, I don't care what it is". If a restaurant doesn't have pictures on the menu, I'm kind of screwed, so that at least helps.
I also had a funny realization since the only travellers I've met have been quite hardcore, and I realized that some travellers can be quite snobby, in terms of what they believe is the best way to travel, whether it be eating street food, knowing the local language, sleeping on the floor, whatever. When I mentioned that I'm going to be traveling on a group-tour-thing, they just turned their noses up at me, despite my defense that it's not a typical tour, it's a group of backpackers that have a guide to help us get around, and it's a way to experience stuff I wouldn't normally get to since we stay in local guesthouses and take public transport and is by no means luxurious. But I basically felt like I lost my travel cred, which is basically all a traveller has, so it was on my mind all day today as I wandered around today, and I even felt guilty when I ended up buying an ice cream from Dairy Queen today (yep, there's Dairy Queen in Beijing), since I just pictured their disapproval.
In any case, I resolved that everyone has their own limitations and levels of comfort, and you should always work to push your comfort levels out a bit, but not everyone starts at the same spot, and people experience things in different ways. I felt quite daunted wandering around alone since I felt so lingually-isolated, and despite my mental exhaustion, I kept going despite the blinking sign in my head that was saying "Retreat, retreat!!", and then I finally got through it and felt a bit more comfortable in my surroundings. So it was good that I resisted going back and taking refuge at the hostel all day, and that was my accomplishment for the day. And I can enjoy a Dairy Queen ice cream once in a while, damn it! Anyways, that was a funny observation I realized today, I never realized I could feel like an "underachiever" at traveling!
Oh, and here's the most interesting thing I saw today--I was walking and out of the nowhere, some cops ran up and grabbed a guy next to me. His shirt was white with permanent marker writing, so I assume it was somehow subversive. They pulled him into the cop car and went away.
Another tid-bit, evidentally it seems that the Lonely Planet for China is not looked on well by the chinese government due to certain references about Taiwan, so it's possible to have it confiscated at the airport and is not sold in bookstores. China is definitely an interesting place..
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Monday, June 9, 2008
Goodbye Vietnam
Goodness, I can't believe I've been here for a month! I was so petrified of Vietnam when I first arrived and now I've grown accustomed to the noise, hassles, suicidal cyclists--I think I'm going to miss the chaos a bit, it makes life exciting despite the stress. I made a list of things I want to remember about Vietnam since there's so many things that I observe while traveling that I'll probably forget. A small sample includes:
--How moto drivers say "yes yes" to wherever you say you want to go and then drive a block and ask a buddy what the hell you're talking about
--In restaurants, food comes out at different times, people just eat whenever they get the food
--The negotiating--they give you a price, you say 1/3, they laugh at you in disgust, you walk away, they grab you back and negotiate better.
--The bathrooms are horridly made, with the shower over the toilet and incredibly slippery floors
--Things are horridly misspelled on the menu so you have to use your imagination to realize that "eutard affle" is "custard apple".
--The lack of copyrights so its not common to see a good shop or restaurant with a knock-off copy next to it with the exact same name.
In any case, I've been surprised that I will miss Vietnam. My last days have been great, I went to Dalat, a french town in the mountains (only place in Vietnam under 90 degrees), where I went abseiling down a huge waterfall and went with an "Easy Rider" to tour the countryside. The Easy Riders are guides in Dalat who give you great tours to small less touristy niches, all on the back of a motorcycle and for a cheap price. They are quite funny informal guys, though they are pretty aggressive in following you around town trying to get you to sign up, but it really was worth while to do.
I went to a silkworm farm/factory, vegetable/flower farms, coffee plantation, waterfalls, pagodas, and "Crazy House", a hotel that is like Gaudi on crack. My tour got combined with another girl's which was nice, so I got to do it all with an icelandic girl Sara, who has proclaimed herself to be the future president of Iceland in 16 years. She and I had a great time and the guides, Hip and An were really interesting. They were surprisingly quite giddy about the US since they loved that "Clinton opened doors to Vietnam, business and money come! Good for Vietnam! I want Hilary Clinton now for president!". I had to disappoint him by giving him the news about Obama.( "Always men, we need women for change!"). It was interesting to their stories, like one of the guides had fought with the US in the war and then was sent to a "re-education" camp for two years. In any case, it was one of those days where I wanted to remember every detail, good times!
Here are pics:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2083567&l=b3d63&id=1700835
--How moto drivers say "yes yes" to wherever you say you want to go and then drive a block and ask a buddy what the hell you're talking about
--In restaurants, food comes out at different times, people just eat whenever they get the food
--The negotiating--they give you a price, you say 1/3, they laugh at you in disgust, you walk away, they grab you back and negotiate better.
--The bathrooms are horridly made, with the shower over the toilet and incredibly slippery floors
--Things are horridly misspelled on the menu so you have to use your imagination to realize that "eutard affle" is "custard apple".
--The lack of copyrights so its not common to see a good shop or restaurant with a knock-off copy next to it with the exact same name.
In any case, I've been surprised that I will miss Vietnam. My last days have been great, I went to Dalat, a french town in the mountains (only place in Vietnam under 90 degrees), where I went abseiling down a huge waterfall and went with an "Easy Rider" to tour the countryside. The Easy Riders are guides in Dalat who give you great tours to small less touristy niches, all on the back of a motorcycle and for a cheap price. They are quite funny informal guys, though they are pretty aggressive in following you around town trying to get you to sign up, but it really was worth while to do.
I went to a silkworm farm/factory, vegetable/flower farms, coffee plantation, waterfalls, pagodas, and "Crazy House", a hotel that is like Gaudi on crack. My tour got combined with another girl's which was nice, so I got to do it all with an icelandic girl Sara, who has proclaimed herself to be the future president of Iceland in 16 years. She and I had a great time and the guides, Hip and An were really interesting. They were surprisingly quite giddy about the US since they loved that "Clinton opened doors to Vietnam, business and money come! Good for Vietnam! I want Hilary Clinton now for president!". I had to disappoint him by giving him the news about Obama.( "Always men, we need women for change!"). It was interesting to their stories, like one of the guides had fought with the US in the war and then was sent to a "re-education" camp for two years. In any case, it was one of those days where I wanted to remember every detail, good times!
Here are pics:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2083567&l=b3d63&id=1700835
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)