Welcome to our unfinished travel blog from 2011. One day we will add our posts from the rest of China, Mongolia and Russia, but for now we’ve included a digest of our posts. Thanks for visiting!
Turkey
The Ultimate Tourists Hit Kapadokya
Istanbul: A Tale of Two Continents
Dubai
Sir, Are You Aware This Is A Non-Smoking Flight?
India
For Relaxing Times, Try the Jabalpur Special
China
Filed under Uncategorized
July 9, 2011: Chengdu Research Base of Panda Breeding, China
Everyone knows pandas are freakishly cute. But seeing them in person is almost intolerable. We spent our first morning in Chengdu at the Giant Panda Reserve, getting our fill of panda feasting and playtime before they retired for the day, post-morning meal. Lucky for us, they require more than 40 pounds of bamboo a day to survive, giving us ample time to roam the grounds.
The Reserve is a huge, hikeable park with lush, natural enclosures for the pandas to enjoy; even three hours of wandering wasn’t enough to fully explore it. Everywhere the eye can see, pandas abound: baby pandas hangdrying in the treetops, mother pandas wrestling babies on their stomachs, pandas patting their bellies in the panda bathtubs, and crews of panda friends grabbing handfuls of fresh bamboo leaves as they recline in a group.
For three straight hours, everyone was a kid, giant smiles across all our faces as we stared adoringly at the Giant Panda party.
Ultimate Tourists hit Chengdu’s world famous Giant Panda Reserve, in matching shirts.
We couldn’t get over it. They really look like huge stuffed animals.
Real talk
Whatchu lookin at?
Slopping around time
Best view in the house.
Panda bath!
A true highlight, watching the babies climb trees. It looked like the adults were too plump and lazy to move from the ground level.
Real-life nature show.
These food trucks zoom around the grounds with trunkloads of bamboo to keep the panda community well-fed.
Naptime
At the gift shop, pandas can do just about anything.
Filed under China
July 7: The Road from Lugu Hu
After the family reunion concluded in Mengzi, the Dai family was generous enough to take us along on a four-day roadtrip through Yunnan, all six of us piled into the fam minivan. (More to come on the trip in upcoming post, “National Lampoon’s China Vacation.”)
But on the third day of the roadtrip, after two days of eight- and twelve-hour drives, respectively, we were looking forward to a mere six-hour day of driving. And then… the landslide happened.
If you make it to the bottom of the post, you will be rewarded by a crazy video!
This sign actually says "Anxious Torturous Path," just below the Chinese characters. Turns out that was a correct translation.
Rain falling steadily for the past three hours as we approach the crumble of mountainside. (Note the two roads, partially paved new highway to our upper right. We are on the alternative "country" road.)
As we discovered through word-of-mouth, turns out there was a landslide up ahead. Enjoying electronic entertainment as we waited for more information.
Eventually turned back around, knocked on a random family's door and asked if they would mind making us some tea.
Hydrating with a beverage of the approved temperature (Gina, having been sick the previous day, was banned from drinking cold beverages).
If you wanted to take your tea in the front courtyard, you could enjoy a view of the local coal mine.
Channeling Confucius and contemplating cornfields: another chapter in the four hour delay.
A pretty speck in the endless green
Camoflauge passerby
Our small friend allocating snacks.
Venturing up to see the landslide for ourselves.
Literally an entire chunk of the mountain fell off and wiped out the road. On a positive note, it only took four hours for them to cut a new thoroughfare through the rubble.
This is the same hillside casing that was "protecting" the mountain where the landslide happened. Yikes.
Lugu Lake is home to the Naxi People (one of 56 official "ethnic minority groups" recognized by China). They are a unique matrilineal society where women are head-of-household and make business decisions, and inheritance runs through the female line.
Sassy little girl passing us by.
A diverse crowd.
Streams of fellow stranded drivers walked by with steaming instant noodles. We were jealous.
Finally our hunger overtook us and we decided to get in on the roadside boiled potato action.
Hot potatoes!
This is how you do it.
Potatoes for every size.
The universal traffic jam driver peek
Moment of truth.
We’ve just posted three parts to the Ma family reunion in Mengzi, China. (Keep an eye out for Nicolas Cage, aka Ro. All the relatives agreed Ro looked exactly like Nick, much to Ro’s severe disappointment/confusion.)
A digest is below for easier navigation!
Part I: Mengzi
Part II: Laojia
Part III: Talent Show Time
Filed under China
July 4 (evening): Mengzi
No proper family reunion can conclude without a farewell banquet (complete with a TV commercial being filmed) and, yes, a semi-professional talent show. It was crunch time. We had to leave our inhibitions in the hotel lobby and prepare to drink wine, sing at the top of our lungs, don traditional costumes and group dance. You don’t need to speak the same language at a talent show, you just gotta hold hands and join in the fun.
Gina admires the deliciously neverending Chinese banquet.
The toasts begin with the beautiful sisters
Hannah and Eliza artfully display their mastery of the Chinese toast.
Philip showing us how it's done.
Family slideshow: Ro's grandpa and his nephew, Ma Kui, in 1999.
A little candid treat from the 2004 talent show when a Frank Sinatra accapella performance went down.
Sisters kicked things off by performing a traditional dance.
Eliza flawlessly performing a Chinese poem with a proud and perhaps slightly entertained sister looking on.
Traditional Chinese flute from a very cute cousin
Kristin performing a cheerleading dance routine. The perfect split finale shown here.
Jessica reciting a poem with an absolutely perfect accent! She saved the older cousins on numerous occassions.
World class ballroom dancing. No big deal.
Uncle Philip and Ro played a little hot potato over who was going to have to waltz first in front of everyone. Uncle Philip stepped up to the plate, but Ro didn't escape for long.
Vest time.
Getting suited up
Hitting our stride.
Uncle Philip having a good time with Grandpa's siblings in the front row.
Ma men
Twins?
Sweaty smiles. The very, very last picture we took in Mengzi. Goodnight!
Filed under China
July 4: Mengzi, Laojia
In China, Laojia means old home. Everyone has one, whether they know it or not. The Ma Laojia has changed much over the last, tumultous half century, but a part of it is preserved in the old section of the city.
Before coming to the United States for university, Ro’s grandfather grew up here. And Ro’s father, Chris, travelled here in the spring of 1973 after graduating from college. During a time when American passports were not recognized by the People’s Republic of China, Chris was able to travel under the classification of an “overseas Chinese.” As a result, he was most likely the first westerner to visit Mengzi since the Cultural Revolution.
We explored the beautifully preserved inside — a thick, yellowing stack of electricity bills pinned to the walls, the white cotton bedding where Chris slept during his visit — and paid tribute to the ancestors by bowing three times at the family photographs. It was a balmy afternoon and we sat together outside in the courtyard eating tropical fruit, debating family legends and examining the family tree.
The road to the Laojia may be old, but it is full of life.
Eliza standing in the Ma hutong, the alley named after the family.
Ro's great grand-uncle is shown on the left. Ro's dad took that very picture in 1973!
And Ro's dad slept in this room during his stay. Family members told us how they had never seen shaving cream until Chris came in 1973.
The American cousins.
Wondering how many Mas peered out this window.
Assembling generations for a photo.
Courtyard sky
Lychee over conversation
The generations continue.
A hand-drawn Ma family tree by Ma Kui.
Discussing the family tree and recounting family stories.
History pokes its head out in the walls, roofs and floors.
July 3-5: Mengzi, China
Despite arriving almost three hours late, we were heartily welcomed by a large group of family members, and of course, ushered straight from the car door to a feast. Over the next few days — with Uncle Philip as our amazing host and his showstopping daughters, Jessica and Kristin, as our translators/cultural guides — every meal was a formal banquet with multiple toasts, and every moment a photo opp. We would meet dozens of relatives (Ro for the second time, the cousins and Gina for the first time), visit the lao jia (old home), eat charcoal-grilled “stinky tofu” at midnight, meet with the incredibly talented student recipients of the family scholarship, and get our song and dance on at the family talent show. It was time to bust out the broken Chinese. Experiencing life in Yunnan the local way was something we never could have done on our own; connecting with family would be one of the highlights of our whole trip.
Ma Kui demonstrating how to prepare Mengzi's famous Cross the Bridge Noodles (過橋麵條). Add each raw ingredient (translucent sliced raw meats, fresh vegetables, a gentle sprinkling of yellow chrysanthemum petals, and finally, the NOODLES) one by one into a boiling hot oil broth, allow several minutes to cook, then slurp noodles vigorously. This soup is the hallmark dish of Mengzi -- the story is that women used to rely on the oil base to keep the broth hot while they crossed the Mengzi bridge to find their husbands at lunchtime, then would cook the ingredients once they arrived.
Philip and Ro have been here before.
The first big welcome picture of many. After every meal, each branch of the family would rotate in to take a photograph with the U.S. cousins.
Mengzi's new Guanfang Hotel is incredibly nice.
This pointy spout gracefully served us tea, never spilling a hot drop.
Flower tea, recipient of the hot water
On the lake after dinner. Not unexpectedly, Ro was blown away by how different Mengzi was from when he was last here in 2004.
Sunday night movie: none other than Heath Ledger's "A Knight's Tale" was being played (in English with Chinese subtitles) on the massive town square screen.
A skyline changing fast
Catching up on family news.
Exchanging gifts in the hotel lobby.
Seemingly infinite choices at the local night market, including some whole dried snakes (hint: top left).
Ro taking his first bite of stinky doufu (tofu) at the night market with family looking on.
Gina's chopstick abilities impressed watchful eyes.
Post feasting
A wide range of expressions, but all one family.
Content after our second dinner of the night.
Family caravan regrouping outside the night market.
Eliza making the family proud by delivering remarks in Mandarin to the University delegation.
Recognizing the student recipients of Grandpa's scholarship fund.
Our Master of Ceremonies, Uncle Philip
Walking Honghe University's grounds.
Kristin and Eliza, eagerly awaiting a lunchtime banquet
Hannah green tea'ing University style
July 3: Highway to Mengzi (Yunnan Province, China)
China! After flying from Calcutta to Kunming on a most-bizarro, two-hour, 2am flight on China Eastern Air, we were extremely happy to be linking up with Ro’s Uncle Philip and cousins Hannah, Eliza, Jessica and Kristin in Kunming for an epic family reunion. From Kunming, we would be driving south to Mengzi, Ro’s grandfather’s hometown.
The day started calmly, with a simple breakfast of noodle soup from the Kunming Tian Heng Jiu Dian (Horizon) Hotel breakfast buffet. We piled comfortably into a caravan of family cars for the four-hour drive to Mengzi. The first three hours passed to the soothing beats of Boyz II Men, Aaron Neville and Brian McKnight as we sailed down the new and sparsely trafficked highway to Mengzi.
Less than an hour away, the car halted at a roadblock in the otherwise pristine thoroughfare. With no other choice, we descended onto a parallel, much older, “country” road that wound along the natural curvature of the mountain, a rather dizzying contrast to our earlier smooth sailing, but a beautiful peek into Yunnan’s rural agricultural life. Fields glowed green with hearty cornstalks, glistening taro leaves sprouted from the ponds, and terraced rice paddies clambered down the hills. Entering a small town, we arrived at another impasse. An unmoving and inexplicable traffic jam. The best crowd-sourced explanation we gathered was that it was Sunday and the farmers from the countryside were crowding the streets selling their goods. We finally extracted ourselves from the massive line through some improvisational navigation, embarking on a backcountry adventure for the last leg to Mengzi.
Everyone feeling good about a little road trip.
And then a Chinese style traffic jam materialized out of nowhere.
We turned down a backroad and found ourselves in a narrow predicament, stranded on a raised cement pathway in the middle of a farm.
Everyone shared helpful hints.
Edging off the sides.
Some people are just cool.
Everyone participating and managing personal stress in their own way.
Had to avert our eyes sometimes.
A little to the left. Ok. Straight, come on, keep coming, keep coming. Tuck in your mirrors.
Trash and factories, lining the farmland.
Free at last. Beautiful countryside welcoming us.
Back on the road.
Filed under China
June 29: Piali, India
Thanks to the generous offer of Will Leonard (the wonderful father of Alisa’s friend, Thomas, and a 20+ year resident of the city), we had the incredible opportunity to visit a small Bengali village outside Calcutta. Will told us to meet him outside Park Circus, a commuter train station “near” the place we were staying. What was supposed to be a 15-minute cab ride was more like 45 minutes, and Will instructed us to run behind him as we navigated tiny alleyways with caged chickens clucking and brilliantly colored fruits for sale lining the muddy monsoon alleyways, not to mention people blocking every possible thoroughfare. We splashed our way through an urban maze and made it with three minutes to spare. As the train (no doors) approached to the platform, the floodgates opened: a mass of people, mostly young men, hustled their way onto the train, still moving, and we heartily joined in the elbowing, securing ourselves a window seat! A very humid hour later, we leaped off the still-moving (somewhat slowed) train to the village of Piali, marked by nothing more than a rusty sign in Hindi. Even Will almost missed it. What we saw that afternoon, with Will as our local guide, was unlike anything we’d found in India’s two largest cities (Mumbai and Calcutta). See for yourselves!
Commuter train from Calcutta to Piali. This one is actually not crowded by local standards.
Without Will as our guide, probably would have missed this sign...Piali, India
Main street
We asked if we could take a picture and the extremely friendly man on the left told us to take as many as we wanted, smiling the whole time with this amazing grin
This man (far right) was returning from a wedding with supplies. Everyone else wanted to get in on the action.
Damp alleys on and on
The communist party held the majority in the Calcutta state government for more than 25 years until just two weeks before we had arrived. We were told this faded image of the party was a symbol of the times.
Monsoon season
Smoking up some lunch.
A local woman picked hibiscus flowers to give to Gina.
Gina's leg going for maximum altitude here.
Look around and you'll see something beautiful.
Not many walls in Piali, but no mistaking them when they're there.
Soccer game in the rain.
Patience is required when hang drying during Monsoon season.
The brick's names represent their respective factories.
Filed under India
June 25: Jabalpur, India
Convalescing in isolation in Jabalpur, we thought that some very affordable massages from the hotel spa would be a relaxing way to kill some time. It was so memorable that immediately after we returned to the room, each of us wrote down our individual experiences, which we’ve copied verbatim below.
Ayurvedic massage, anyone?
The massage tabletop advertisement on our bedside table had been tempting us since our arrival the previous evening, so we decided to pay our well-marketed spa a visit. IT WAS WEIRD. Ro went first. The aryuvedic masseuse said only one person could go at a time, and we had previously discussed that it might be uncomfortable for me if it was a man, so Ro tested out the waters. (Ro can describe the intimate details himself…)
I was next. At first, I feigned a stomach ache, thinking the same man would also massage me. I’d already had enough uncomfortable encounters with creepy Indian men throughout the day, being that there were no women, much less tourists, anywhere to be seen. But thank the Lord, a woman with her baby had just appeared down the hallway as Ro was finishing up. It turned out she was to be my masseuse. Upon entering the room, I was instructed in Hindi to remove all of my clothing, including bra and underwear, about one foot away from her as she straight-up watched me get naked. I just went for it and tried to play it cool, but felt totally strange getting completely undressed, especially in such close quarters. Then came yet another fun surprise, which I guess wasn’t completely a surprise, because Ro had alluded to it in hushed tones, hinting to me as I passed by him just before entering the massage room… the THONG. A long, semi-transparent, cotton-poly waistband of some variety, with a hanging loin-cloth attached perpendicularly. (Ro had worn the exact same model)
The ensuing 45 minutes were filled with a rainbow of emotions, ranging from terror to confusion to anxiety to feigned relaxation. I tried to manipulate my body language to convey enjoyment and comfort with this exceedingly foreign experience, but I’m sure I wasn’t fooling anyone. Not only was I completely disguisted by being oil-drenched and slid-around on a well-used, uncovered wooden shellacked massage table with a cracked-pleather headrest, also uncovered, but I was regularly being needled by mosquitoes and could feel hair tickling me as the woman rubbed LITERALLY every part of my exposed backside and frontside. Only the loincloth remained sacred, and barely at all. The vigorous thigh-rubbing led to an occasional violation of the loin, but forgivably non-malicious.
Finally, the table massage ended as it began — sitting in a battered (also uncovered) office-style, non-rolling chair with rough cloth covering and metal legs/frame, where I was forced to sit bare-cheeked for my final beating and head-punching. She released me from my personal hell by wrapping me in a towel and escortin gme to the ladies changing room, and proceeded to soap me up. I was able to have two final minutes of alone time in the shower to reclaim my innocence lost, and was ever so relieved to be reunited with Ro in the hallway outside. Showered again immediately upon entering our room.
We decided that a good activity for an activity-less day would be a massage from the in-house spa, priced attractively at 1000 rupees. The brochure said “call for appointments.” When I did, the phone rang ten times before a voice picked up that sounded decidedly un-spa like. Over the next 30 seconds, everything I said was responded to with a jolly “Okaay, sir,” leaving me completely unsure whether I had just scheduled two massages for 6pm or called a local house of a friendly man.
The spa was next to the pool. The spa was one room. No appointments were needed. We decided I should go first to test the waters. And my, those waters were weird, oily and weird.
Part of it was the setting. No mood lighting here. 10 X 10 room. Fluorescent lights. A gas stove in one corner and a shellacked wood table in the middle. No massage table. A cracked leather pillow built on to the table. The table had seen a lot you could tell, which wasn’t exactly the most enticing thing before you get stripped down.
The strip down I was mentally prepared for, but I guess I was hoping for a towel after. Instead, the masseus produced a cloth thong. He put this on me. First, by tying the waist, covering my front, then walking behind me and reaching between my legs to the front string, pulling it back and up to manually create the pressure necessary for a thong. This felt so wrong in the front and back, I just started laughing. I was trying hard to conceal it, but couldn’t stop from smiling. The abusrdness of the last two days I think culminated in this moment, but I was also just laughing at myself for having thought this would be relaxing and anything but unexpected.
The next hour or so, everything got oiled and shellacked, including my hair. All I could think of the whole time was, how are we going to get Gina out of this?
Filed under India
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