After one year of studying Mandarin in Nanning, Guangxi, I moved to Xiamen, Fujian, to continue my study at Xiamen University, while living in the seaside village Zeng Cuo An. After this second year of studying in Xiamen, I am now working as a sailing instructor.
I mentioned it already: the watertight compartment of my sea-going kayak proved not to be so watertight after all. During the hour-long crossing from 'my' beach to the beach where Koh Kood Divers is located, some seawater splashed over the bow of my kayak, and over the lid of the compartment holding my camera. Upon arrival my camera was wet. Not much, just a few drops, but salty water had seeped in, and the LCD screen showed some white fogging. I let it dry in the sun, hoping it would evaporate. It eventually did, but there could have been more water inside, or else the salty residues had killed my camera. Even after several days, it did not turn on anymore. The sad loss of a fine piece of equipment.
Before the fatal journey, I had made a sea crossing to another beach, which was completely deserted, apart from some crabs crawling over the rocks and the seabed. I managed to capture one for a closer look. It was not easy, since they are very quick in their peculiar sideways movement.
Besides the kayak, I also rented a scooter to explore further away beaches, a small fishing village build entirely over the crystal clear water of the lagoon on wooden stilts, and most of the concrete roads and some of the dirt roads on the island, leading to waterfalls, big old trees and private resorts.
After eight wonderful days on Koh Kood, I will return to the mainland tomorrow to catch a bus to Bangkok, and the next day fly back to Macao and on to Nanning, to visit Xiao An before heading home to Xiamen.
There's a small diving operation called Koh Kood Divers run by a Dutch father and son, at another bay nearby. I walked over there, to see if I could go for a little snorkeling trip. The old man was busy at their pier with a couple of tourists trying on their diving gear for the first time, but he let me pick a snorkeling set free of charge and pointed to the nearby rocks as a good location.
Visibility so close to the shore was not great, but there are a lot of fish to watch. Many species I recognized from earlier snorkeling in Malaysia and Taiwan, including parrot fish, moon fish, sea urchins, and many more species I don't know by name. There wasn't much coral there, a few isolated colourful flowers in an otherwise sand-coloured underwater landscape.
There was a hilarious moment when I hit my head on a floating coconut, which I didn't see because I was looking down all the time at the colourful fish. Imagine the vast sea with just this one coconut floating in it, about the size of my own head, and I just had to hit it. What are the odds? Funny, enough, on my way back I almost hit it again!
Today I rented a kayak from my guesthouse, a nice single-seater, with water-tight compartments (which later proved to be not so water-tight after all) and a rudder even, operated by foot pedals. I started out by going up river, but after a few bends there was a blockage which I could not cross, and I had forgotten my sandals, so didn't want to continue on bare feet. After taking in the wonderful scenery of mangroves and big submerged boulders, trees full of birds, I headed back. I picked up my slippers, and went the other way, downstream into the lagoon. The azure water is so crystal clear, it's a real pleasure to zip along the surface, while watching the bottom several meters below glide past. I spent several hours at sea, some 500m off-shore, gently bobbing on the small waves, the sea occasionally washing over the tip of my kayak. I watched an eagle circling above the lagoon before it returned to a high tree. I landed at several other beaches for a short stop, a swim, and a rest, and returned to base just half an hour before sunset.
My guesthouse organizes a barbeque every other day, with a great selection of fresh sea fish, other seafood like squid, giant shrimp, and scallops. A salad bar and other side dishes are also on the menu, and all for very reasonable prices, so it attracts a lot of guests staying at other (and much more expensive) resorts. The Tinkerbell resort here on the beach front rents out bungalows for 8000 Baht a night! Compare that to my 150 Baht room just a short walk from the beach, and on the river side. It's a steal, really.
The journey from Chiang Mai to Trat took 24 hours from door to door, but it was actually a nice ride. In hindsight it could have been faster if I would have taken a bus to Bangkok first, and from there to Trat, making better use of the highways than my slow route though the countryside. Highways are boring though, and I enjoyed the frequent stops in small towns where people would get off, eventually leaving me as the only passenger to Rayong. There I had to wait two hours for the bus to Trat, which had just one empty seat, so I was lucky again.
Trat is a small but charming town, and springboard to the Koh Chang archipelago near the border with Cambodia. I had phoned ahead to the Ban Jaidee guesthouse in Trat, being aware that I would not be able to catch a boat to the islands upon arrival. The guesthouse turned out be to a real gem. A beautiful and spacious traditional Thai house, with some larger and some smaller rooms, and a lovely host who proved very helpful in finding accommodation on the islands. I didn't realize it at first, but it's Chinese New Year this week, and many places were fully booked for several days ahead. She got me a place on Koh Kood (Ko Kut in Thai), one of the larger and most southern, but also least developed islands of the archipelago, Koh Chang itself being the biggest and busiest. I had originally planned to go to either Koh Mak or Koh Wai, but these small islands did not have any budget accommodation available.
The boat to Koh Kood took more than an hour, and from the pier a pickup truck brought me and a French couple to the Cozy House for Backpackers, after first dropping off a group of Russians at a resort.
My cozy house is really a cozy place, situated on a river just a short walk from a gorgeous paradise beach, with coconut palms hanging over white sand and a crystal clear green and blue lagoon lapping at your feet. I don't think I will go anywhere else until Monday, when it's time to return to Bangkok to meet up with Ling Ling again for our flight home.
Chiang Mai is lovely! I can't deny it, it's a charming town, full of tourists, but they are easy to avoid if you stay clear from the restaurants and bars serving Western food and playing loud music. The center of Chiang Mai is a square of about a kilometer on each side, surrounded by a canal and the remains of a city wall with several gates, some still intact (or restored). It's full of temples, guesthouses and small hotels, mostly small-scale operations, from super low-budget (100 Baht = 2.50 Euro) to smart-looking boutique hotels to luxury resorts.
Great tasting local food abounds, both from street-side food stalls to larger restaurants. I really love Thai food, and it's a real treat to just find these lovely fragrant dishes everywhere you look, and really cheap too, typically 40 Bath (1 Euro) for a bowl of very tasty Kow Soi or Tom Kah Kai.
We stayed at a nice guesthouse in the old town (with a pool even, although we didn't use it), and booked a day tour to get out of town for a bit. The tour was excellent, and it included an elephant ride through the jungle, a hike to a splendid waterfall which provided a hammering water massage, and rafting down a wild mountain stream in a rubber boat, getting us soaked again. Finally a visit to a Hakka village, which was rather disappointing. The village was not different from any other village, except for a line of old ladies wearing Hakka costumes (with beautiful silver headdress, I saw them already in China's Yunnan province) trying to sell silver bracelets and stone necklaces from a few roadside stalls. Luckily we didn't stay there for more than 10 minutes, it was a bit embarrassing having to wait there without wanting to buy anything.
Ling Ling left after three days, flying back to Bangkok (she had it all planned), while I decided to stay a bit longer. I moved to the lovely Baan Jing Jung guesthouse, an all-wooden traditional house, run by a Belgian guy who had married a Thai women, and had been here already for eight years. I was the only guest, and he gave me a room for only 200 Baht. The house had a nice balcony, with a view on one of the many gold stupas sprinkled across town like glitter on a birthday cake.
I rented a bicycle for the day and explored the fringes of Chiang Mai. We had borrowed a bicycle from a tea house the day before, and it wetted my appetite to see more. The town looks very rural if you just move out of the center a little bit. All small wooden houses, markets, and lots of tropical vegetation. The amount of temples (or wat in Thai) is staggering, I don't know how many, but it must be over a hundred. One even more splendid in gold or bright white than the other. From my guesthouse's balcony, I was also looking right at one of those gold stupas (or chedi in Thai). Another notable property of Chiang Mai is the abundance of book stores. I have seen more bookstores (selling English books) per square kilometer than in any other city in Asia, including Hong Kong and Singapore, seriously. Used or new, for very reasonable prices, and an enormous selection. Almost every book I ever read was on the shelves! Ironically, the vast choice made it difficult to pick one. Eventually I only bought a copy of The Beach by Alex Garland, a must-read for the backpacker traveling in Thailand, according to my Lonely Planet guide to Thailand's islands and beaches.
After five days in Chiang Mai, I thought I should leave it behind and head for the coast, so I bought a ticket for the overnight bus to Rayong, from where I could catch another bus to Trat, near the Cambodian border on the eastern gulf coast.
I arrived in Zhuhai just after 8 in the morning, and while my bus was pulling in into the Gongbei station, Ling Ling send me a message asking whether I had already arrived. Perfect timing! I took a city bus to meet her near her home, where I could drop off my trolley (to pick up on return, before moving on to Nanning), after which we headed to the Macao border crossing.
There was a huge line of people on the big square in front of the border post, at least 500 people in two parallel queues. As far as I could tell, I was the only Westerner. The line was moving fast though, so it didn't take more than 30 minutes before we were inside the building. Once inside, the queue split across 20 or more passport checkpoints, and after an additional 15 minutes, we were out of China, and in the tunnel under the canal which separates Macao from the mainland. Entering Macao was quick and easy for me, not needing a visa, but it took Ling Ling a good few minutes of interrogation before she was allowed in.
I had been in Macao already twice, both times entering from Hong Kong by ferry, as a day trip. We had until the early evening before needing to go to to the airport to catch our flight to Bangkok, so we had a good opportunity to stroll around. We started off with a nice authentic Portuguese heritage lunch, after obtaining some Macao Patacas from an ATM. A meaty stew with potatoes was just what I needed. Really good stuff!
The old city of Macao is very charming, and we wandered through the narrow streets, climbing stairs, and bumping into a variety of local culture. From a wedding to a funeral, literally! A visit to the old cannon fort, with nice views over the old town, reminded me of my first trip, in 2006. We took a free shuttle bus to the Venetian Casino, which Ling Ling wanted to see, and is also conveniently close to the airport. I'm not much of a casino person, but was truly impressed with what they had built here. On the second floor, on top of the casino proper, was a huge shopping mall styled as a copy of Venice, Italy. Including a ceiling painted with photo-realistic clouds, canals with gondolas and singing gondoliers. Outrageous!
After a stroll through this fine example of Chinese copy & paste architecture and a quick gelato, another free shuttle bus brought us to the airport, where we boarded our Air Asia flight to Bangkok.
Maybe it's because after living in China for a year and half, I've gotten so used to always having lots of people and traffic around me, I found Bangkok surprisingly quiet on arrival. Not at all the bustling and noisy city full of tuk-tuks and people that I always heard about. For a moment I thought there must be a national holiday or something, until I realized it's just my Chinese frame of reference. Quite a nice surprise, I have to admit.
On this first visit to Bangkok, I had intentionally steered away from the infamous Khao San road and surrounding area, not wanting to spoil my first impression by thousands of tourists. It appeared to be a good choice. Bangkok greeted me with a charming mix of Asian chaos and Thai friendliness. Like I said, the city appeared much quieter than expected, and the tree-lined streets of the Silom district provided a gentle entrance into the more busy areas which I would encounter later on. One of the nice excursions was a ride on the river ferry, which proved a quick and efficient way to head back to Silom after spending almost the whole day wandering through narrow streets and crowded markets, visiting the odd temple here and there.
Because I was initially under the impression that Ling Ling would leave me here to join her friends, I had reserved a simple dorm bed for my first night in Bangkok (it being high-season, I was well-prepared). But, while in Macao, she disclosed more details about her intended itinerary, which meant going north to Chiang Mai by herself for a few days, and then returning to Bangkok on her birthday to meet with a group of five Chinese friends. Not that is was her idea to travel with so many people, but the Chinese tend to tack along more and more people onto their trip as the day of departure draws closer. She was not particularly pleased with the prospect of traveling in a big group, favouring traveling with a single partner, so she asked me if I would join her to Chiang Mai for a few days.
I had actually no intention to go north, but instead had planned to go south to the islands and beaches. However, this unexpected proposal was attractive enough to say yes. So, upon arrival at the TakeANap guesthouse, I changed my dorm bed reservation into a double room (luckily they had one available), and we spent the night together, and the following day sightseeing in Bangkok.
In the morning we went to the train station to buy a ticket for the night train to Chiang Mai (15 hours), which ended up being a fantastic trip. The second class compartments have only 4 beds (instead of 6 in China), and each bed has lovely pleated gold-coloured curtains around it which give a lot of privacy, which was well-used during the long night. The rhythmic sound of the wheels on the tracks and the muted voices and footsteps of other passengers made this romantic train ride even more exciting.
Oddly enough I have never been to Thailand, so it's about time I take a look and follow the advice of my teacher below. I have visited 40 countries in my traveling career sofar, so Thailand will be number 41. This evening I will take an overnight sleeper bus to Zhuhai, to meet Ling Ling, and then we will walk across the border to Macao, where we will board the plane to Bangkok. Flying from Macao was by far the cheapest option, using budget airline Air Asia.
I have not seen Ling Ling since mid November when she came to Xiamen again for a short visit. We had planned the Thailand trip even before, in an impulsive mood during an online chat. However, since then she got romantically involved with some guy in Zhuhai, so she changed her mind, and will not do the whole trip with me, just the flight to Bangkok and back, since we already had the tickets. Her new lover will arrive a bit later. So, we will just go our ways after arriving in Bangkok, and meet up again for the return flight, or at least will see each other on the plane. It's a bit of an unexpected turn, but, as my Canadian friend David said: it could be a blessing in disguise.
Flying from Macao (and back) has the added benefit that I won't make an enormous detour in order to visit Nanning afterwards, before returning to Xiamen mid February to start my next semester at Xiamen University.
There are direct buses from Zhuhai to Nanning, where I will meet up with Xiao An again. It will be nice to see her, and I'm sure she will be very happy to meet me. As an added convenience, I can leave my trolley with winter clothes (it's quite chilly in Nanning this time of year) in Zhuhai, so I only have to carry a small rucksack to the hot islands and beaches of Thailand. I will probably be online from time to time, but not as frequent as usual. Wish me luck!
On the last day of this semester, after the final exam, our listening and speaking class teacher gave all of us a beautifully calligraphed note, written in ink on glitzy rice paper, with a dedicated message for each student.
To me she wrote:
马克：
你的汉语口语很好，
我很喜欢和你聊天儿。
希望你能去更多你
喜欢的地方，看美女。
Much to my relief I could actually read it without having to consult the Chinese-English dictionary always at hand on my Android smartphone. It translates to:
Marc:
Your spoken Chinese is very good,
I very much like to chat with you.
I hope you can visit even more places
you like, and meet beautiful girls.
Haha! The last phrase is probably inspired by my photos of pretty Chinese girls during the presentations in speaking class, where we all showed some of our traveling pictures while talking about our experiences (in Chinese, of course).
It's small things like this that make studying in Xiamen very rewarding!
Exams all done, this semester is over! Long awaited, but still a bit sudden, my first semester at Xiamen University has come to an end.
Last week Thursday we had our kǒuyǔ (口语) or speaking exam, and on Friday the tīnglì (听力) or listening exam. Like at the mid-term exams, the speaking exam consisted of a group chat of about 15 minutes with two other classmates on a randomly picked subject, blindly drawn out of a pool of 10 subjects we had to prepare. We actually did meet 3 times after class to prepare those 10 subjects, which probably did help a bit, but what helped most is that I was lucky enough to pick the subject travel, which is easy to talk about, and does not require a lot of specialty words, like for example the topic at the hospital. So, we all scored pretty high, in my case a well-deserved 92.
The listening exam was more challenging, not so much because of the material, but because of the high speed. Little time was allowed to read ahead the multiple choice answers before the next dialogue appeared over the speakers. Of course, all text is in Chinese, so it is not only a listening test, but a reading test as well. Even though I had to guess a few times, and probably made several mistakes, I still scored 86. My overall end score for the whole semester for speaking and listening combined hereby came to 90. Not bad at all!
Yesterday was the more comprehensive test, combining grammar, reading, and writing. It took me all the allotted time to finish it, and a few minutes more (more than an hour and half), but I have a good feeling about it. I don't know my score yet, but I'm pretty sure it's over 80. [Update Jan 11: it's 84!]
To celebrate the end of the semester, we went with our teachers to a KTV, the most popular way to celebrate anything in China, from birthdays to graduations to a lucky draw at the lottery. I'm not really a big fan of karaoke, but under these circumstances, with both of my cute teachers joining, I was all in for it. So, we hit the town with 10 classmates (not all were equally excited) and spent the evening at Good Time KTV on Jiahe Road.
The last time I was at a KTV was in Nanning, but they're all the same. A large building with many private rooms, all equipped with a sound system and large screen TV, hooked up to a touch screen operated karaoke computer. The selection of songs is enormous, and I'm not at all up-to-date with contemporary pop music, but that doesn't matter at all, since you just sing along with the on-screen lyrics on an improvised melody. It's great fun if you're with the right people and in the right mood, or it can be pretty boring and downright silly if you're in a lesser mood. In this case, I had a lot of fun!
The new year arrived, accompanied by some magnificent sunsets the past few days. The first week of 2012 is exam week, so we are pretty busy. January 9th is the last exam, after that I have 5 weeks vacation, hip hip hooray!
