matt – Page 3 – Matthew Reeve

Monteverde

The road to Monteverde was our first real indication of why one hires a 4 wheel drive to tour Costa Rica. The first section was OK, just twisty mountain roads, but the last 40km or so was a dirt road, and much of it in questionable condition at that, sometimes steep, deeply rutted, gravely or sandy. A couple we met on the volcano the day before had driven the 4 hours or so to the night before in the dark, thank god we didn’t do that!

We settled in the village of Santa Elena and found ourselves a terrific cabin to stay in, here’s “Slothy” that we rescued from a market stall in San Jos who is now travelling with us, relaxing on our deck.

First stop that day was a coffee plantation, where they have also started producing chocolate recently, interestingly the coffee bean is native to Africa but grows better here, whereas the cocoa bean which is native to here grows better in Africa.

This is sugar cane, another product of the same plantation

The waterwheel powers a mangle which crushes and juices the cane

We got to make our own sugar, and here it is. We got top marks for ours in our group, nevertheless it’s now in the bin

The coffee operation is much more up with the times, the machine on the left grades the beans by size, the next one along shells them

The evening was spent loafing around town, where it was cold enough that I had to wear my fleece and dig some leg extensions out from the depths of my case, followed by a night sleeping under a blanket. Definitely not what I signed up for when we came over here!

Next day was the big event – a canopy tour, which is essentially a bunch of zip lines through the cloud forest canopy. The astonishing part of this is that I persuaded Lisa to partake as well! We chose the “original” tour from the four or so available in the area, which is either the first one of its kind in Costa Rica or the world, depending on which version of the story you believe. The main reason for going with this one is that it’s more focused on the views of the forest rather than the newer ones which are much more extreme in terms of length, speed and height etc, which are aimed at the adrenaline junkies.

They start you off on a Tarzan swing, a fairly small one as they go, but still gives you quite a rush, especially at early o’clock which is what this was. Butter fingers prevented me capturing the evidence that Lisa actually did this, but I did get a video of a random Irish girl in our group of four.

This is Lisa in full swinging a action, a somewhat blurry figure near the centre left of the picture

Next up were the 14 zip lines, the longest of which is 800 metres, captured here by one of the two guides. Apologies for my somewhat offensive beer gut which gets into shot at the end, which definitely needs a bit of TLC when I get home!

I almost look like I’ve done this before

Not sure the same can be said of Lisa ☺

The whole group, waiting for the remaining guide to zip over (he’s the photographer)

They also drop you down this rappel line off one of the platforms and you climb back up through the centre of a hollow tree which was rather cool.

Tempted though we were to stay one more night, in the interests of time we are pushing on to Montezuma, a traveller’s beach hangout on the peninsula de Nicoya on the Pacific coast for something just a little bit different…

La Fortuna and Volcan Arenal

We picked up our vehicle and bravely headed where no man has been before (OK, probably that’s not actually the case) by heading north from San Jose up towards La Fortuna, a base town for Volcan Arenal, a big volcano that used to be the most active volcano in the world I think, from a massive eruption in 1968 followed by almost continuous spewing until 2010. On the way we passed another volcano, Poas, which you basically drive up the crater and then can look down into it, except we couldn’t as it was too cloudy that day. In fact, that set the tone for the next couple of days. The roads up there are very windy and not too well signed, which led to a 30km “diversion”, i.e. drive 15km, realise you’ve gone wrong and then drive 15km back to the junction you missed. Thank goodness we have a working GPS in the form of the phone with a local sim card to get us out of trouble, which amazingly has pretty much kept signal all the way so far!

Random waterfall along the way, a guy here was selling strawberries which were lush, which is not something I say very often!

Shortly after getting back on track, we pulled into a low-key looking place on the side of the road for lunch, which turned out to be superb, overlooking a big valley and they had a load of bird feeders set up at the tables, this is a violet sabrewing:

And these are something else, we’re not sure what, our cheatsheet of local fauna has let us down here:

Next day we did a 4 hour hike up Cerro Chato, another volcano nearby, which is a fairly steep climb up through rain forest terrain from a resort called the Observatory Lodge, followed by a rather steep descent down into the crater for a swim in the lake that now exists there. The water was pretty freezing, but a welcome relief after the humid climb up, and a first for me, to be inside a volcano crater! There were a load of people up there who’d been duped by a cowboy outfit selling an unofficial route up there too which was apparently murder to climb, I think we could’ve sold our map several times over for an easier escape route for them.

This is the “easy” route, a sweaty hour or more climb up over roots and rocks

This is looking down into the crater from the rim:

There’s a nice little waterfall in the Observatory lodge grounds itself, which must get pretty impressive in wet season I should think

This is Volcan Arenal itself, in the distance, this is really the clearest shot I could get

The cloud isn’t really showing much sign of clearing up so we’re going to move away around to Monteverde which is basically the other side of Lake Arenal which is where a load of coffee plantations and, dare I say it, zip lines through the forest canopy are!

San Jose

We’ve arrived! After a great flight to Atlanta, followed by a rather average one to San Jose, we find ourselves in a gorgeous hotel in town, with a none too shabby breakfast

Which you’re forced to eat outside

Today has consisted of pottering around the city really, getting over the jetlag, which we think is 7 hours, but one can never be too sure. We did the national museum, which was a hotch potch of various things, including a butterfly sanctuary

There’s two of them in this pic, wishing each other a good day:

Later we’ve dropped in at the national theatre, a lavish affair paid for by taxes on coffee exports and rice and beans imports in the late 19th century

This was followed up by some free music in the park, there seems to be some kind of festival going on today

The streets are lined with wonderful street art everywhere such as this

It’s been a nice introduction to the country, surprisingly so as the city doesn’t really get good reviews on the whole. Tomorrow we’re picking up our 4×4 and taking ourselves off to the mountains with just a sloth for company (don’t worry, he’s not real)

We do have a phone number in case of emergency, +506 62818484

Home Sweet Home

7C and raining as I got off the plane, pretty much what I was expecting…

I nipped to the shop and assembled some comfort foods for my first meal, this lot will most likely accompany a curry tonight. For what this cost (not including the curry) I could eat and drink beer all day on, where I’ve just come from! 🙁

Back to reality with a bump!

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And I think it’s all over…

I took the soft sleeper to Guangzhou, which ironically had harder mattresses than the hard sleeper I took the other day (maybe there’s a translation problem?) but was otherwise comfortable, you can close the door on your cabin of 4 beds so it’s pretty quiet.

There’s nothing to say about the city, I am staying in a nice hotel near the station, but it just seems like a typical big city, nothing that grabs my attention to go and look at.

So, after 7 countries, 9 currencies, 19 flights (with 2 to go), 4 night trains, 3 night buses, 41 lodgings and an unusually high number of boat passages, it’s time to pick up my backpack for the last time and come home. I’m taking a fast train to Shenzhen which borders Hong Kong, then from there plan to go into the city and meet an old friend, Jan, who works there these days, before taking a late evening flight home.

The map now looks a little like the spaghetti dish I had last night, which has kept me up all night so there is a possibility I won’t be able to travel! I hope they have some strong, Chinese herbal Immodium going on around here somewhere…

[travelmap-map]

See you on the other side!

Yangshou, Guangxi

The 28 hour train journey from Xi’an to Guilin was epic, it actually was pretty comfortable, aside from the way the Chinese seem to have no problems making as much noise as they want, when they want, irrespective of whether or not everyone else is trying to sleep. This is the timetable, my stop was the last stop on Day 2

This was my bed, the top tier of 3 bunks, and actually the cheapest of the 3, slightly. I liked it best though, as you can just climb up there and keep out of everyone’s way. The lowest bunk has everyone sitting on it during the day (or even during the night I think, if they decide it’s time for dinner and a chat – doesn’t seem to matter if someone’s asleep in it). The middle’s OK but is at eye-level for everyone walking by in the corridor, and if you’re tall, your feet will stick out slightly and people’s heads and shoulders will knock them.

I spent about 26 of the 28 hours up there I think, the other two being spent in the restaurant car, eating and drinking. This was a nutricious breakfast, an oversized pot noodle

The berries behind it are nothing to do with me, naturally…

You may have heard that there was a fairly large earthquake in Sichuan, near Chengdu, which has killed many people. We did pass by fairly close to hear, about 18 hours before it happened. I don’t think it would’ve been strong enough to knock the train of its tracks, where we were, but I’m glad I wasn’t there to find out. An English couple and a Dutch couple that I was hanging out with a bit in Beijing would be in Chengdu at that time, I hope they are OK.

I arrived late evening at Guilin and did nothing apart from crawl into a splendid hostel for the night, and took a bus to Yangshou in the morning. Yangshou is a small town in the karst limestone mountains, it’s very beautiful. I’ve gone a bit upmarket with the hotel, seeing as I’m nearing the end of the trip, this place is wonderful

As it’s been a while since I posted a bathroom picture, here is my shower

Currently I’m in the rooftop garden with a view

I was thinking about being active today and going climbing, but in in part because I was feeling lazy, and in part I’ve been absolutely freezing all day, it’s 23C but I feel so cold (!) I didn’t bother and took a cycle out instead. I stopped off at one climbing wall for a ganders, if you look closely you can see some frozen climbers, some human, some not…

Later I stopped at a pretty authentic Chinese local restaurant, floating on rafts in the river, a fine spot for a beer and a pot of tea

The woman in turquoise has just taken a food order from the people behind, they evidently ordered fish, as she immediately caught them from the netted fish farm within one of the rafts

They ordered chicken too, this one was alive and being weighed on a balance here. Within 15 seconds of this photo being taken, the cleaver was out and that chicken was dead, and within a few minutes more was being served at the table. At least you know the food is fresh!

Meanwhile, I was watching romantic Chinese couples being punted down a weir on bamboo rafts

And that’s me winding down, ready for the long trip home. Tomorrow I’ll have a long lie in, then take a bus after lunch back to Guilin, dine there somewhere, then get a luxury soft sleeper train to Guangzhou, a mere 883 Km and 12 hours away. I’ll spend one night there, I’ve again splurged on a 4 star hotel there, I was going to go all out 5 star but there’s some conference on which has put them out of reach, then take a bullet train to Shenzen and cross back to Hong Kong to fly home. 23C will seem like a sauna, by then….

Xi’an

So, the night train to Xi’an was over 13 hours in a “hard seat”. There are various categories of train travel, hard seat being the lowest, then soft seat, then hard sleeper, then finally the bees-knees known as soft sleeper. The hard seat is actually not literally hard, it does have some thin padding, but that’s about it. They are bolt upright and cannot be reclined, and are configured around a very small table, which is big enough for the people sat by the window to rest their heads on, but only one of them at a time. One side of the train has 4 seats around the table, I had one of these on the aisle, the opposite side has 6 seats. As well as that, the aisle itself, and all of the space between the carriages, is also occupied by people with standing tickets. Nightmare. NIGHTMARE. Suffice to say, zero sleep was had, until about 6am when the train emptied enough that there were a spare 3 seats together to lie across.

So that brought me to Xi’an, not a lot to say about the town itself, it’s got a totally intact set of city walls that I cycled right around this morning, on the top of the walls themselves. Hot news for Scottish folk – the Loch Ness Monster is alive and well, and is living on the Xi’an city walls

The highlight of the cycling was avoiding these oversized christmas tree balls, from another disintegrated Nessie perhaps, that were blowing all around the wall in a strong wind this morning. It was somewhat reminiscent of something from “The Prisoner”

Later I took a bus ride out to the Terracotta Warriors, one of the main draw-card sights in China really. These things were first discovered in 1974 by some farmers digging a well, and are still very much being excavated today. They’ve been there for over 2000 years, and are somewhat eerie, to say the least

Generally they are all facing east, ready for battle, and they all originally held nickel-clad weapons, long since gone. One particular note of interest is that no two of the warriors are identical – they are life-sized and all look different in facial features and so forth, just like real people.

Tonight I’m upgrading to a hard sleeper train, for a massive 27 hours to Guilin, another limestone karst region. I peered with envy through a window into one of these compartments the other night, they don’t look too bad, I have the top bunk of 3 which seems to be about 15 feet off the floor, but hopefully I can just lurk up there and do my own thing whilst the masses ferret about below me…

Beautiful Beijing

I arrived in mainland China with minimal fuss, Air China even providing a free glass of very welcome (ghastly) glass of wine on the flight. Immigration in Beijing was a breeze, considering the hassle you have to get your visa in the first place, they barely give your passport a second glance in the airport.

I decided to get stuck right in and brave the airport train into the city, which connects you with the underground system, on which I had to change twice to get to my guesthouse. Considering all the horror stories I’ve heard about how hard it is to get around China, even in big cities, without any Mandarin is, so far everything was very simple. The tube trains have English versions of the station names written up, and the automated announcer even says the names in English too. Most of the street signs also have an English version too.

My guesthouse is gorgeous, it’s what’s known as a courtyard hotel, situated in a “hutong” which literally means alleyway, but in reality is a labyrinth of twisty alleyways covering a large area, essentially forming a big walled compound. Traffic cannot fit in, meaning that it’s so quiet you can hear a pin drop in the guesthouse, even though we’re right in the centre of the city here, about 5 minutes walk from the Forbidden City. The guesthouse literally has an all-purpose courtyard, with the rooms coming off all around

They serve fabulous food and coffee in here, and most importantly, large bottles of beer for 30p.

Day One was spent wondering around the local sights, firstly the rather odd Tiananmen Square. You have to be security screened before you enter, there’s nowhere to sit, and cameras and police watching your every move. I whipped out my Lonely Planet guide to check the map, without thinking, and got the dirtiest hard stare from a nearby policeman, and a police car drew up and loitered next to me as well until I put it away. Apparently there’s ill-feeling amongst the authorities about how China is portrayed in some of these guides, particularly in regards to Hong Kong’s history I think.

Next is the Forbidden City, a huge, moated area that was out of bounds for over 500 years. It’s an impressive array of historic buildings, but you need to be more into your Ming Dynasty than I am to get the most out of it, I expect

After this I had a wander around Jingshan Park as evening drew in, where locals were congregating in groups like this one, singing in opera-style voices. There must have been 20 or 30 such groups, some very large, all in close proximity to each other, meaning the singing was all crashing over each other.

Transportation with hand warmers awaits nearby

This is Lake Hou Hai near where I am staying, there are around 300 bars and restaurants on the lake, serving anything and everything

There are also other authentic eating options

I didn’t go to any of these (OK, OK, I had a Starbucks….) Remember that song about there being 1 million bicycles in Beijing? I’ve been counting them, it seems about right, you can see some of them outside the KFC.

These are early morning scenes in the playground near my guesthouse

I’m not exactly sure what the board game is, but it’s played everywhere, at all times of day

Next tourist stop was the Drum Tower, which does what it says on the tin, once an hour. These guys were noisy to say the least

Next day a rude awakening at 6.20am sees me boarding a bus to the Great Wall at Jinshanling a long and more authentic section of wall than the more photographed Badd section, which has been recently restored. The wall is truly remarkable, unfortunately the crappy camera on my phone does little justice to it…

On the way down I sampled my first true Chinese toilet. Urinal on the right, stalls in front.

There is no running water. I also have a photo looking inside one of the stalls, as I’m a bit sick like that. I’ll refrain from posting it here in case it’s meal time wherever you’re reading this..

Today I’ve been up at the Summer Palace, again my camera took pointless photos not worth posting, and to be honest I wasn’t much in the mood for it today anyway, I am somewhat tired out for some reason. Tonight’s epic is going to be a night train to Xi’an, unfortunately only in a seat as that was all that was available. I’m back at the guesthouse getting beered up, ready to soften the pain…

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Sagada – Sumaging Cave

Here’s a few pics from within the caves in Sagada in Northern Philippines, previously written about. These are courtesy of Shima, my hapless companion that day…

Hong Kong

HK is certainly one of those places that makes you go “Wow!” when you arrive. The airport is new, clean and efficient and a train whisks you at high speed into the city. My run of bad luck continues a bit as I troll around trying to find a room, everywhere is full as there’s some sort of electronics exhibition going on, but eventually I find a room for about 40 quid somewhere deep inside this building

This is “mansion” in Kowloon, just opposite Hong Kong Island, a huge building in terms of both height and footprint, which are typical of the area, it seems. The ground floor consists of shops and so on that look onto the streets, but also inside there’s an arcade of shops within, then a whole load of lifts leading up, generally each lift servicing only a different subset of the floors, and often the ones that serve different floors are in different areas of the building. The upper floors are a whole load of guesthouses, private housing, visa offices and God knows what else, they are a total labyrinth inside.

It’s hard enough to find the building, then when you do, you can’t find the entrance, then you can’t find the lift you need, then you can’t find your guesthouse, and finally you can’t find your room! If there were a fire in one of these, I just don’t know… I haven’t the first idea where the way out of this place is.

Today I had to wear my long trousers and my closed shoes, as it was a chilly 18C when I came out this morning, and took a ferry over to Hong Kong Island

When you peek inside the wheelhouse, you realise they’re not the most modern craft in the world

The trams on the island are old, too. Apparently these are the only double-decker wooden trams in the world

Aside from wandering around and taking a sharp intake of breath at every menu looked at (Hong Kong is bloody expensive, it’s like a UK city, practically) I stopped by the Man Mo Temple, annoyingly behind the bus and dwarfed by the high rises around it

Inside it’s a total incense-fest, there’s thousands of sticks of it burning all around, even those hanging things are burning incense

Outside, this guy was just throwing what appeared to be a huge wad of 100$ HK dollar bills into this fire. I’ve heard of giving offerings to Buddha, but this does seem a little excessive. Buddha will be spoiled…

In the evening, I rode up the Peak Tramway, one of the main touristy things to do.

It goes steeply up a big hill, almost at 45 degrees I reckon, at the top you’re treated to quite a view of the city

And that was Hong Kong, for now, until I return to fly home. About to board a plane to Beijing