When you went to the zoo as a kid, which animals were you most excited to see? Monkeys? Lions? How about dogs? Or a pig? If you visit the small zoo attached to the Guanlan Mountain & Lake Garden Farm in Shenzhen, China, you won’t find the first two, but you’ll find plenty of dogs, […]
The Flooded Streets of Shenzhen
It rains a lot in southern China. Most of that rain falls during the monsoon season from April to September. This can be a little annoying if you’re traveling around China during the summer and you enjoy doing anything other than sitting in your hotel room. It can also wreak havoc on transportation in rural […]
Annoying Trekker Abuses Friendly Guesthouse Owner
When you travel, you meet a lot of annoying people, but one tops them all: the person who won’t stop bragging about how little they’ve been spending. Now, the bragging itself is annoying, no question, but the way these people go about saving money is far worse. An example could explain this better than I. As luck would [read more…]
Transportation Problems in India: Why Can’t I Leave Goa?
The Indian province of Goa has over 70 kilometers of beautiful beaches and excellent cheap food. That combination kept me in my beach hut two weeks longer than planned. India’s transportation network kept me there another two weeks. Flying in and out of Goa seems relatively simple, but leaving by land proved exceedingly difficult. When […]
Trekking On Our Day Off From Trekking in Manang
The next morning we ate a leisurely breakfast, content in the knowledge that we didn’t have to set out on a day of hiking. We were taking the day off to help us adjust to the altitude. OK, so we were already completely adjusted thanks to our slow pace and our having taken a day off for ‘altitude acclimatization’ in each [read more…]
Snacking on Scorpions in Beijing
The Chinese are famous for eating everything. Name an animal and I guarantee there’s a restaurant that serves it; name any part of that animal and they’ll have a dish featuring it. To be fair, mostly this stereotype applies to the south. There’s even a saying among the Chinese that people in Guangdong province “eat […]
I Love Chinese Repairmen!
When you live in a Chinese apartment, something will stop working. Actually, most things will stop working. The majority can be fixed using duct tape, paper clips, newspapers, rubber bands, chewing gum and/or various other items laying around the house. Occasionally none of those will work and you have to call a repairman. That’s when […]
Arriving In Manang…Two Weeks Later Than Most
After my apparently trend-setting ice bucket shower and a quick breakfast, we headed out. This was the day that would take us to Manang, the largest town on the Annapurna circuit trek and generally seen as the halfway point. It is also the last bastion of civilization before the Throng Lo Pass. Manang sits down in the valley, which meant [read more…]
How Long Does It Really Take To Pick Ten Lychees?
I’ve been on a number of sightseeing tours in China and they all had one thing in common: they were bad. Often very, very bad (like this one in Xi’an). Despite that, I enjoyed most of them. Having the right people on the tour helps, but the most important factor is attitude. If you go […]
Drinking Yak Sewage in Ngawal
A majestic yak with fuzzy red earrings greeted us at the entrance to Ngawal. We had seen a few yaks already, but from this point on they were everywhere—their meat even started popping up on guesthouse menus. We were mostly happy about this. Yak meat is delicious and the living animals make great photography subjects. They are little more than [read more…]