top – incense sticks, burning in a buddhist temple
middle – lighting incense sticks
bottom – wooden panels of chinese writing

day 252 – i woke up at 4.30am, finished packing, had a little breakfast and checked out of the hostel. i was annoyed that the hostel kitchen didn’t open as early as i’d hoped … until i realised that i hadn’t set my time for the northern territory and was an hour ahead. i was annoyed that i could have got an extra hour’s sleep but happy that i still had time to get ready (it could have been worse, i could have been an hour behind!!).

i was picked up by the tour bus and we headed south. i was the only aussie on the trip (excluding the driver). we drove south and eventually reached our first destination – king’s canyon. the walk around the canyon was difficult due to the heat. the first part of the walk was up a fairly steep hill, but the rest was easy enough. we were all sweating and guzzling water. i had a good look around, took some photos and headed back to the bus.

in the evening we made camp at an open campsite. we all pitched swags under the stars. the tour concept was fairly simple – the guide organised everything, but we did most of the work. a few people unpacked swags, a few helped cook dinner, i took control of the fire and had a few helpers to keep the bonfire ablaze. even the guide was impressed by the fire. hehe, FIRE!!

i talked to a few different people in our group. there were two italian girls, three french guys, about five germans, and a mixed group of asians (two chinese malays, one japanese guy and a korean girl) … oh, there was also a young british guy, from bristol, who loved talking about football. after a long hot day we were all tired, so after dinner most of us crashed. it was nice to sleep under the stars and, being so far away from other buildings (light sources), the stars were very bright.

day 253 – we had another early start, heading straight for the olgas. it was another hot day. most of the group took the long trek through the hills, but i chose the short trek and got back early. i talked with the guide while we waited for everyone else to return. afterwards, we moved to another camp site. this one was near uluru and had a toilet and shower building. the group took the afternoon off, most people grabbing a shower or going for a swim in the small pool.

in the late arvo, we went to uluru for our first close up look at the monolith. the first bit of time was spent looking around the cultural centre near the rock. i bought a niftly little water bottle holder with an indigenous print on it. i also looked at the paintings, dumbstruck at the enormous prices (some artworks were valued over $10,000).

after that, we walked a short course around the front of uluru. we looked at some caves and grottos that aboriginals used for ceremonies. then we all went back to the bus to go to the sunset viewing point. the viewing point had a good view of the rock and we enjoyed watching the sunset. we had dinner there and grumbled about the number of busloads of tourists which arrived after us. one big bus full of chinese tourists came and the all disembarked noisily. they yelled and shouted to each other, taking photos and being generally annoying. their tour organisers set up enormous tables with champagne (including expensive champagne glasses) and other foods. there were so many that they pushed into the area that we’d taken, pushing and jostling for the best ‘view’ and photos. there was plenty of space, but they weren’t happy with the space that they had, so they came and stood in front of us. i had my tripod set up and i kept expecting someone to knock it over. a woman looked like she was going to move my tripod so that she could take the space, but looking at us, she thought better of it.

they all left quickly, but we stayed and enjoyed the last splash of light, waiting until dark before we left. our group returned to camp to settle in for a night around the bonfire (my speciality).

day 254 – for the third straight morning, i got up early and we headed to the viewing point for an uluru sunrise. most people went to the ‘sunrise’ point, but we returned to the sunset point which we’d been to the day before. it was a good idea. although it was the same place, we got to see the sun rise behind the rock, creating a cool silhouette. we enjoyed breakfast there and headed into the uluru grounds for a walk around the rock.

most mornings, the walking path ascending the rock is open. it’s free to climb ulur if the trail is open. the previous day and in the morning, the guide had harped on about how insensitive it was to climb the rock. historically, indigenous australians never actually climbed uluru. they revered it and only stayed at its base. he said it would be disrespectful and also mentioned that people do get killed occasionally when they fall on the steep path. when we arrived, we had the choice to climb uluru or just walk around it … however, as luck would have it, there was no climbing the rock on the day we were there. if the wind is too strong or the morning temperature is too high, the climb is suspended to prevent accidents. the climb will eventually be closed permanently, but it seems that the government (who control the climb, despite the fact that aboriginals control uluru) is reluctant to stop climbs, for fear of losing tourist dollars.

so, our only option was to walk around the rock. the british guy and i set the pace, walking the circumference of uluru, taking photos and talking about football.

that signalled the end of the rock tour, and we headed back towards alice springs. on the way, we stopped for a break at a camel station. some of the group did short camel rides. i took photos. returning to alice springs, the driver dropped me at the train station (along with one of the french tourists) so that we would be on time for our trip to darwin.

the alice springs to darwin train is called “the ghan”. it’s an arabic word (i think) and is a hommage to the camel trains that used to ply the tracks between alice and darwin, following the route which was also used for telegraph lines. when australia was an explorer’s wet dream, most adventurers quickly realised that horses weren’t suited to the heat and desert. so camels were imported for their ability to survive the outback. camels quickly became popular and enormous numbers were introduced. many became wild and over the course of about 150 years, wild camel numbers grew to reach a million. so, interestingly, even though camels are not native to australia, we have one of the largest camel populations in the world.

on the train i had a ‘first’ … i was still dirty and stinky from the two day uluru tour. however, our carriage had two showers and for the first time ever, i had a shower on a train. then i headed to the dining carriage for my usual beer fueled train trek. it’s become a bit of a tradition for me to get into the piss on long train trips. me, the french guy from my tour and two funny germans got stuck into the beer and put away quite a lot of it. we drank into the late evening, getting rather pissy and talking about everything from german football, linux (one of the germans was a programmer) and african economics (wtf??).

day 255 – nursing a small hangover, i had breakfast with the germans in the dining carriage. at midday the train stopped in the small town of katherine. there were tours to katherine gorge and other places, but i chose to walk around the township. then i caught the bus to a homestead which was the meeting point for those returning to the train. i talked to a belgian guy who is a teacher near brussels. we had a great conversation about education and it has put belgium on my list of possible teaching destinations (partly because the work is good there and partly because houses are surprisingly cheap to buy).

back on the train, it was only a few more hours to darwin. i got a city bus to my couchsurfing host’s house. the people i stayed with were, without a doubt, hippies. my host’s name was ‘noodle’ due to his height and gangly appearance. they were fun people. they had an open house, a lot of marijuana, and i slept on a mattress in the front room. at first i was doubtful about my decision to stay there, but it turned out really well. i had a shower, started reading ‘atlas shrugged’, talked with my hosts, smoked some pot and got some sleep.

in the afternoon i booked a tour of the panda research facility and a giant buddha. then i had a few beers and spent the evening messing around online and sending emails.

day 167 – i joined a group of 3 girls and headed to the panda research and breeding centre. we arrived early and got good photos of the pandas eating and playing. there weren’t too many people that early, so it was easy to get a good view and walk around. it was the first time i’d seen a panda, so it was pretty interesting. they’re funny looking creatures and the big black patches over their eyes make pandas look like they’re up to no good.

we’d been there for about an hour when hoardes of chinese tour groups arrived. the place became crowded and chinese push and jostle for position. i got shoved out the way a few times and decided to give up. there was a place where it’s possible to hold a panda and get photos taken, but the price was ridiculously expensive. i gave that a miss and we wandered around a bit more before heading out.

after leaving the panda centre, we took a long drive out to the enormous buddha carved into the cliff face. it was about a 2 hour drive from chengdu. we got there and walked around the temple grounds. it was a beautiful place and the buddha is absoloutely gigantic. there was a staircase leading down the side of the cliff and tourists lined up for about an hour to reach it. then it took about another hour to get down the staircase, crossing in front of the buddha’s feet (between the cliff and the river). then we walked back up the other side. again, the crowds were annoying and chinese tourists are very pushy shovey. what pissed me off was people would try and pass you down the stairs, like it was a race to get to the bottom, but then stop and hold everyone up (creating a bottleneck) so they could take a hundred photos of themselves in front of the buddha. then they’d race down further, pushing others out of their way, to the next vantage point.

the only good part was walking back up the other side to the top of the temple again. all the chinese were hot and tired and resting in the shade. we marched past them and kept going all the way to the top. it struck me that they seem to exert a lot of effort for very little real gain … but that’s china for you!

i’d got pretty tired of the whole thing myself (weary more than physically tired) and we headed back to the car. we grabbed some food at a nearby restaurant and then started the long drive back to chengdu.

when i got back to the hotel i tried to change from my dorm to a single room, but they didn’t have any available (even though i’d booked one). so i returned to my dorm and spent the evening drinking cheap chinese beers and messing around online (again).

day 168 – i’d been trying to get a permit to enter tibet as an invited guest (not as a traveler). it turns out that all invites are prohibited and i’m unable to secure the permit. so, i had to resort to my original plan of joining a group to see the tibet region.

so i started my second round of emailing other travelers and looking for groups i could join. i played chess, chatted online and edited photos while i waited for news of possible travel groups. i spoke to a few people and none of them had itineraries which matched with mine. most people were going much later than i wanted to go or spending 3-4 weeks in tibet (which was prohibitively expensive for me).

day 169 – i was getting a bit frustrated with the hotel and travel arrangements, and i took it out on the hotel staff. they’d dicked me around with the rooms and i wasn’t happy about it. the hotel owner sorted it out. he gave me a discount on a room and introduced me to a japanese traveler who had a similar itinerary to mine. hokuto and i chatted about our plans and agreed to team up and reduce our costs. it made me happy to have sorted everything out, so i submitted all my paperwork for the tibet permit, and paid for the travel arrangements.

day 170 – today i finished making arrangements and paid for the rest of the tour. i was in much better spirits, so i took a walk around town, relaxed at the hotel and spent the afternoon talking to my new travel buddy hokuto.

that evening we had dinner on the boat and cruised until after sunset. however, the boat began to have engine troubles and another boat (also a tourist cruiser) had to tow us to the harbour where we’d sleep. we were sleeping on the boat, but hadn’t yet reached our final destination. a bunch of us, including an english guy who was moving to australia to live, sat on the roof drinking beer. he and his girlfriend (she was german) drank 19 bottles of beer that evening … an impressive tally.

we all headed to bed late and enjoyed sleeping on the boat (first time i’ve done that, i think).

day 157 – in the morning the engine was still broken, so we had to be towed all the way back to halong bay. it meant we were late and we had a late lunch and a long drive back to hanoi. i ended up buying some souvenirs too, mostly for craig, and added those to my booty to be stored in korea (before i take them to australia).

getting back to hanoi, i checked into a hotel, showered, changed and repacked my stuff. some gear (the heavy stuff and souvenirs) was going back to korea early, where it would await me. the rest (a much lighter pack, i was happy to notice) was reorganised for future travels. we went to the airport, had a coffee in a lounge full of rude staff, and said our goodbyes. it was late, so i headed back to town. but before going to bed, i decided to book a trip to sapa. i had a little time and decided that sapa would be worth seeing before i left vietnam. it was odd … vietnam was one of the places i had the least interest in … and ironically, i’d spent nearly a month here on various tours and adventures. i also booked a ticket to nanning … finally signaling my departure from vietnam.

day 158 – i checked out of my room and pilfered wifi all day. today was a waiting day for my night train to sapa. i’d decided that i didn’t want to spend money, so i sat behind a fan playing my chess tournament games. i also edited a few photos.

in the evening i went to the train station and boarded my train. i quite liked the idea of an overnight trip to sapa. i watched a movie on my ipod and went to sleep.

day 159 – in the morning i woke up to a banging on my carriage door. i was sharing a sleeper with three other men and the banging signaled our arrival in sapa. i disembarked and, bleary eyed from sleep, stumbled around outside looking at placards for one with my name on it. i couldn’t find my name and spent much time fighting off drivers and touts who were eager for easy business. i sat down and pondered what to do. then i noticed a guy holding a placard with two sheets. he moved the first sheet and for a moment i spied my name hidden on the back page … slightly misspelled, but it was definitely me. i grabbed the guy, pointed to my name, and i was directed to a minivan which drove me and my fellow travellers the rest of the way to the sapa village.

i found my hotel, checked in, enjoyed a huge buffet breakfast (free) and wandered into town. sapa is a mountain village which has become popular for its minority tribespeople called hmong. there are various hmong tribes, known by their various colours – black hmong, green hmong, red hmong, etc. the black hmong are the largest group and can be found all throughout sapa. they make a busy living off handicrafts and tour guiding. most of the visible hmong are women, who work the tourist industry. the men are off in forests labouring away cutting trees and such.

so, needless to say, the main streets of sapa are crowded with tribeswomen selling stuff or offering tour services. there’s also a lively market in the main street (next to a rather prominent roman catholic church). i bought shoe laces and browsed the shops. my compulsion for buying bags almost got the better of me, but i managed to resist.

when i returned to the hotel, the guide told me that the day’s hiking tour had been postponed until afternoon, due to the bad weather. so i strolled back into town for some coffee. after lunch we did a short walking tour to cat cat waterfall. i met an australian woman called eileen, who was in her late forties and whose name kept me humming ‘come on eileen’ for the next three days. we chatted together as we hiked down via a supposed hmong village to the waterfall. the village wasn’t a village. it was a trail of stores manned by hmong women selling the same handcrafted bags and soapstone figurines. i was enormously disappointed that there was no real ‘village’ at all and most people seemed to resent having their photo taken.

in the heat, i began to scorn myself for coming to sapa, thinking that it was going to be all shopping malls and no photo opportunities. we reached the waterfall and it was a brown muddy mess. there was an indoor hmong dancing show, but that was a paid attraction and i was in no mood to fork out more money. after a break, during which i took a few photos, we started the uphill hike back to town.

the hike was hot and sweaty, but it felt really good. and i have to admit that the local people really know how to wring every penny out of fourists. the downhill section of the hike was relative quiet, aside from market stalls and drink sellers. but the uphill section had guys with motorbikes waiting to take hot, tired tourists the rest of the way up the hill. it’s really quite smart, that they have figured out every possible niche and opportunity to make money. with the sight of that long, uplil trek ahead, i’m sure many tourists opt for the easy bike ride.

i didn’t and stomped my way all the way back to town … with a short break (and a beer) along the way.

i showered at the hotel, had dinner, and played with my computer. i had been stealing a neighbouring hotel’s wifi and noticed that my computer was sluggish. then, unexpectedly, the computer crashed … for the first time ever i had got windows xp’s famous blue screen of death. the computer restarted, but was clearly not working properly.

with most computers, merely throwing in the xp cd and restoring (or reinstalling) windows would be in order. but my netbook has no disk drive. so, everything is much more difficult because it requires either peripheral optical drives (which i hate carrying around) or usb restore software. fortunately, i have hp’s restore software and tried to reinstall the operating system. the restore failed, but after the format … which meant i had no operating system at all.

at midnight i gave up and went to bed.

day 160 – i checked out and left my backpack in storage. today i was hiking to a hmong village and doing a homestay. i took only my camera bag and my duckpack (with a change of clothes). the broken computer remained behind while i considered my options.

we (my group and i, including ‘come on eileen’) hiked from sapa to hmong villages. the walk was a lot of fun. we were joined by a group of hmong women who routinely follow tourists from town to the villages. their tactic is to follow you, befriend you, then sell as much shit as possible to you. i know their ploy, but decided to play along … my nefarious intention was to use this as a way to get as many photos as possible.

one girl, ten years old, seemed keen to attach herself to me. her name was ‘soh’ and she followed me all the way to the village. during the walk i told her that if she came with me, i promised to buy something from her. that made her happy, and she gleefully frolicked along by my side. she was quite endeering actually, because at one point she thought i’d gone off ahead and raced down the hill to find me. one of her friends called to her. when soh stopped, the friend pointed at me and soh (with a massive foolish grin on her face) waltzed back up the hill.

((speaking of waltzing, i really regret that i forgot to take matilda with me, i could have got some nice photos of her and the hmong people))

so we kept hiking through villages and along muddy, clay bush tracks. the views were amazing … terraced rice paddies as far as the eye could see … but the weather was terrible and sapa’s peaks (3200m) were clouded over. at one village i bought a bracelet of a little girl who had a cyst or cataract over her eye. her left eye was really bad and i felt sorry for her because it was probably treatable.

during lunch it was clear that the hmong women weren’t going any further. this was the time to make good on my promise. i bought a handcrafted pouch and a bracelet. soh was pleased with her sale, but hung around with other hmong women to try and get more buisness out of the tourists. while i ate, i spied soh lingering outside. i grabbed a can of passionfruit drink and handed it to her over the fence (they weren’t allowed to enter the restaurant to sell stuff). soh took the can happily. i thought she’s try and resell it, as i’d seen in other places, but she immediately cracked the seal and drank some then shared it with her friends. that made me happy and i returned to my lunch.

i was in a fantastic mood. i’d got lots of great photos that morning (portraits, portraits, portraits) and the day had turned out wonderfully. in fact, it was the exact opposite of the walk to cat cat waterfall the previous day. sapa was fast becoming one of my favourite places in vietnam.

after lunch we hiked a little futher before reaching our homestay. when one thinks of homestay, one automatically thinks of sleeping in the house of a local family, eating local food, sharing stories and learning about local lives. this wasn’t that kind of homestay. our homestay was simply a hotel in a village. it was an open room hotel, with everyone sleeping in bunks on the first or second floor. each bunk had a mosquito net (thankfully) but there was absolutely no privacy … which was fine by me. the hotel even had a pool table, which the hmong girls used constantly.

at our ‘homestay’ was us two aussies, a belgian couple and three young brits. the seven of us sat at a table and chatted over beers. the hmong girls changed into regular clothes and one of them even had a mobile phone. we found out later that she also has a facebook profile … which lead us to conclude that for these girls the ‘hmong minority’ is very much a job and their traditional clothes are a costume or uniform. like all people, they wanted to be modern. however i was very surprised to learn that one of the hmong guides, who was probably about 17-18 couldn’t read or write.

the hmong are an interesting people. as a minority group, their presence has never held much value in vietnam. in the days of french colonialism, the hmong were mostly converted to roman catholicism and, in fact, most are still catholic. soh and many other girls wore rosaries with a crucifix around their necks all day. when i told them i was catholic, they were very excited and asked if i’d seen the church in town … a place of which they were very proud.

as well as being insignificant, as a minority, the hmong were also shunned by other vietnamese because they chose to fight alongside the allied forces during the vietnam war. northern vietnam was communist and very much anti-american and anti-western. but these tribespeople fought against their fellow vietnamese … a decision which still draws much hostility from others.

however, our homestay was fun. they gave us more food than we could possibly eat and four of us (me and the three brits) played drinking games with beer and the potent local rice wine until midnight.

shinya and i sat towards the back. the entire back row was devoted to luggage, boxes, sacks of rice and other crap. we sat directly in front of it, crammed into two seats barely big enough for us. the air con didn’t work (of course) and the windows just blew hot air and exhaust fumes at us. i listened to audiobooks and after dusk managed to get some sleep.

we arrived in bago at 3.30 am and found a hotel which was still open because everyone was watching champions league. we checked in and got some sleep. the hotel turned out to be a shitty arse hotel. the electricity was sporadic and rarely worked. we were being charged for air con and neither it nor the fan worked. bago was hot and sticky, and after the bus ride the previous night shinya and i were both in foul moods.  we got some lunch and checked email (at another ridiculously slow internet cafe) when the rain came bucketing down. that added insult to injury, since i wouldn’t be able to go to any of bago’s temples. i went back to the hotel and slept.

by evening the hotel room was full of bugs. the room had insect screens, but they were still getting in from somewhere. the room didn’t have many mosquitos but there were a lot of black clicking bugs on shinya’s side of the room. they were attracted to the light and shinya spent an hour yelling and stamping and killing bugs. i went to the front desk and got some insect spray, which we liberally sprayed around the room. i bombed the room with spray and we went out for dinner and beer … mandalay lager is possibly the worst beer ever conceived. back at the hotel, most of the bugs and green ants had died, as had the few mosquitos. the air conditioner started working, at about 8pm after the heat of the day had passed, and ceased working again at about 5am.

day 55 – i woke up at 7am and had a cold shower in the pitch black (the bathroom has no windows and the power was still out).

we checked out and i had a roaring argument with the hotel owner. the room was $12 with breakfast and $10 without. considering how shitty the hotel had already been, we weren’t game enough to try the breakfast. i told the owner that we had no power, no hot water, no aircon, no fan and a room full of bugs … there was no way we were paying $5 each for the room. the guy didn’t speak much english and i was too busy yelling at him to listen to what he did say. i told him we’d pay $6 (in total) for the room. after much huffing and puffing, he reluctantly agreed. we slammed $6 on the counter and stomped down the stairs. shinya and i crossed the road to wait for our bus to kinpun; the starting point to myanmar’s famous golden rock.

the bus was supposed to be air conditioned, and i should have learned by now not to get my hopes up. the air con didn’t work and the bus was very hot. only the top windows opened (it was a coach) and shinya and i were at the back of the bus, where very little of the available breeze reached. after an hour a few people got off and i moved down to another seat which had a good breeze and was much more comfortable. the bus ride was only three hours but (of course) the driver insisted on stopping for a 30 minute lunch break. that’s a common thing in myanmar. the crew get free food for bringing customers to roadside restaurants. so the buses always stop for ‘breaks’. i’m sure if the bus journey was 30 minutes, they’d still find an excuse to stop.

we reached kinpun and checked into a hotel. it was lunchtime and kinpun was very, very hot. shinya went for a walk and relaxed in the room (the air con worked). i caught a local bus down to the train station, which was 20 minutes away, to buy my ticket for the next day’s trip back to yangon. i booked the ticket and cursed the train station (and government) for their complete incompetence. all i had to do was ‘book’ the ticket and pay for it the next day. if the train station had a phone, i could have booked by phone and saved my self the 40 minute round trip. yes, that’s right, the train station has no phone. the government owned train station has no phone (which is also government owned) … go figure! the highlight was that i got picked up at the train station by a pick up truck and rode back to kinpun. the pick up was full of kids and they were quite overjoyed to share the back of the truck with a foreigner. i smiled a lot and they were happy. when i got off at kinpun i asked how much the ride cost and made a gesture to the driver. he waved me away and drove off. nice! a free lift!

back in kinpun i found shinya hiding in the air con. i read my book for an hour, cooled off, and decided it was time to brave the heat and make the climb up the mountain to golden rock … it was a decision i alost regretted.

the only way to golden rock ‘base camp’ was by truck. the truck is a dump truck with planks of wood across the back to sit on. these trucks could seat nearly 50 people across the back and wouldn’t leave the truck station until each vehicle was full (maximum profit, minimum efficiency). some germans sat in front of us and paid enough money to buy two entire rows for just the six of them (the equivalent of paying for 12-14 people). when the truck was full, we started.

at first, i didn’t see the wisdom of using dump trucks. i figured that mini buses could seat just as many people. then, as we began the ascent up the 45 degree inclines, i realised that trucks were the only vehicles that could actually get up these incredibly steep roads carrying 3 tons of human. the trucks flung themselves up and down the roads, switchbacks and ridiculously steep inclines. i was sitting on the back row and as the truck began to bounce down the road i felt like i was going to be thrown out of the back. many of the passengers gasped at the severity of the bumps and bounces. i was starting to get scared and held the seat for dear life. the bouncing was so hard that, afterwards, the backs of my legs were sore from hitting the seat and my knees were sore from being jammed into the seat in front of me. both of my hands were also sore from holding on to the wooden planks.

we finally got to the top and i staggered wobbly legged off the truck. it really felt like a rollercoaster ride and i’ve never been very good at rollercoaster rides. shinya and i looked up at the path ahead of us, another steep switchback path, which lead to the rock itself.

golden rock is one of myanmar’s most famous sights. it’s a rock perched, seemingly precariously, on the edge of a rocky ledge. legend has it that the rock was brought there by a king on a ship and the ship turned to stone after delivering the rock. the rock is also supposed to sit atop three of the buddha’s hairs, making it a holy shrine containing sacred buddhist relics. the entire rock is covered in gold, real gold, put there by thousands of worshippers over the years. the popular trend is to buy thin gold leaf in 2cm squares which one can stick to the golden fascade of the rock.

the 20 minute rollercoaster truck ride, followed by the 45 minute walk up the sheer inclined roads, makes it a tough journey. a popular way to get up the last part of the hill is on a chair, carried by four burmese men who walk up the hill. this costs $8 and despite my lack of fitness, i couldn’t bring myself to pay for it.

i began the walk up the hill. shinya, being younger and fitter, enjoyed the walk. i was completely out of breath after 20 minutes and took two short breaks along the way. i hadn’t predicted that the walk would be so damn steep. the road constantly switches back on itself making the distance double what it reasonably should be. however, i got to the top, covered in a gleam of sweat, and found my second wind. i wandered around at the top of the mountain enjoying the views. we were quite high up, over 1100 meters, and were above some of the lower clouds. the sky was sunny and the rock gleamed in the late afternoon light. we were told that the sun would set at 5.30 but that was clearly a bunch of bullshit, since it was about 5.15 already and the sun was nowhere near setting. i took a bunch of photos and wandered around. some monks were nice enough to let me take their photos, then i walked across the bridge and touched the rock (shinya took my photo). on a side note, women are not allowed to cross the small five meter bridge and touch the rock … this is one of the points regarding buddhism, particularly burmese buddhism, that i don’t like.

we wandered around some more, being silly and taking photos under the rock (pretending to hold it up) and headed back to the path for the descent down to the base camp. the walk down was much, much easier than the walk up, but it was still hard on my heels and knees because the steep decline meant stomping down the hill half out of control. the last truck down to town was at 6pm. we arrived at 6.05pm figuring that everything in myanmar runs late … so the truck would still be there.

the truck was gone … the only vehicle in the country to run on time.

the guy at the truck station told us that there’d be another truck at 7pm. shinya and i rejoiced, then staggered across the street to have dinner at one of the base camp restaurants. just before 7pm the driver came over to us and said that we were going. the truck, returning to town, was returning empty and offered us a lift (which we paid for, of course). so we jumped in the front and enjoyed the crazy, rollercoaster ride all the way back to the bottom. it was after dark and the ride was a lot of fun when i wasn’t fearing for my life.

back in town, shinya and i went for beers … today was a big day and it was also our last day of traveling together. my new canadian friend and i had met in yangon and traveled for 20 days together through the highs and lows of myanmar. we’d shared rooms to save money and had a lot of adventures along the way. in the morning i was heading back to yangon and he was heading south. we decided to celebrate with beer … seven bottles of beer and lurched drunkenly back to our room, falling asleep under the air conditioner.

would you believe that! apparently, my website (as well as millions of others i assume) are blocked in mainland china. how did i find out? i went to www.greatfirewallofchina.org and tested my site … my understanding of how this works is that the chinese government uses filters … so, for some reason, my site doesn’t pass the filters.

i’m not sure if this is really true … as the disclaimer says, some sites may be rejected for technical reasons, not because the site is blocked at all. but it’s interesting, none the less.