Dueling Backpacks

Day 314 (May 8, 2019) – Lanzhou, Gansu Province, China We had one of our most memorable welcomes when we arrived at our Lanzhou hotel. A very professional woman greeted us and checked us in. She didn’t speak English, but she was lightning fast at typing messages onto her phone, which she then had speak to us in her translation app’s robotic English voice. After getting all our information and scanning our passports and visas her last message ended with something like, “we apologize for not speaking English well, so we can use this app to communicate, but here are some tomatoes.” Tomatoes? The app had been doing a very good job until it started talking about tomatoes. But then as we looked up at her, slightly confused but thankful for her kind welcome, she presented us each with a box of tomatoes. So, it turned out the app wasn’t mistaken. She was actually giving us tomatoes. We never would have expected that one.

Day 311 (May 5, 2019) – Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China Chengdu is famous for two things: Sichuan hot pot and giant pandas. Of course, there is much more than that to do in the city, but those two items were on our Chengdu bucket list.

Day 306 (April 30, 2019) – Lijiang, Yunnan Province, China Lijiang was a few hours by train further into Yunnan Province from Dali. We were on a slow train, but it made it somewhat easier to see the scenery pass by as we climbed the mountains above Erhai Lake. We had arranged for our hotel to pick us up from the train station on our arrival because we heard that the Lijiang Old Town was notoriously easy to get lost in. We were glad we decided to do that.

Day 302 (April 26, 2019) – Dali, Yunnan Province, China Dali was full of surprises. Some good and others not so good. There are actually two places called Dali. The modern part of Dali is called Dali City and the more historic part of town is called Dali Old Town (or sometimes Dali Ancient City). They are a good distance apart from one another but as a tourist almost everyone arrives by train in Dali City and then heads over to Dali Old Town.

Day 298 (April 22, 2019) - Kunming, Yunnan Province, China Kunming was our first stop on our tour of Yunnan Province. Kunming is quite a far distance from Yangshuo. We started off on a slow train from Yangshuo to the larger city of Guilin, where we changed to a high-speed train to take us the six or so hours west to Kunming.

Day 295 (April 18, 2019) – Yangshuo, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China Our high-speed train from Guangzhou took us out of the flatlands of the Pearl River Delta and into China’s expansive karst landscape. Although the name for these rock formations, karst towers, may be unfamiliar, the sight of them is immediately recognizable and iconic of China. The town of Yangshuo sits along a bend of the Li River and is surrounded by these enormous rock tower formations. It was a beautiful sight and we were going to spend a few days getting more acquainted with the landscape.

Day 291 (April 15, 2019) – Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China Guangzhou was our first destination in mainland China. I admit that we were feeling a bit nervous. We didn’t know what to expect. We were afraid that we wouldn’t be able to communicate. The five phrases we picked up were not going to help us order food or train tickets. We also knew that we were entering China’s Great Firewall, their massive effort at internet censorship. Not being able to access Facebook or Instagram was not our concern. We were more concerned with our ability to access the internet for maps and navigation, hotel and travel websites, and translation apps. Usually, most fears never come true, but our fears of travelling in China did. But our fears were only challenges and we got better at navigating them over time. Guangzhou, however, was our first stop and it was trial by fire.

Day 286 (April 10, 2019) – Hong Kong, China I was very excited when our plane landed in Hong Kong. We had been in Thailand and Malaysia for nearly two months and I was ready for a change. Hong Kong certainly provided that. Compared to Thailand, Hong Kong felt modern, sleek, and clean. Exiting the airport, we hopped on a bus that took us downtown. The bus was extremely well signed, quite comfortable (also nearly empty), and had flat screen displays showing all the stops, the time, and our progress along the route. This was definitely not Thailand. You would never find this level of organization there.

Thinking back on our Thailand travels will evoke images of sandals, sunscreen, and sand. Most people might imagine themselves running away to a tropical island one day (or at least wishing they could) and we pretty much did just that for a whole month. There were never any important sites to see or museums to visit. There was only the beach and we spent days on end walking through the sand and swimming in the ocean. 

Day 279 (April 3, 2019) – Bangkok, Thailand We were back in Bangkok! Despite going seemingly everywhere on this around the world trip, we had yet to go anywhere we had already vacationed, until we landed in Bangkok. Bangkok was the starting point for our 2013/2014 Southeast Asia trip and unfortunately, I wasn’t a huge fan of Bangkok the first time around. I’m sad to say that the repeat visit didn’t change my mind.

Day 271 (March 26, 2019) - Koh Phangan, Thailand After spending ten days in Malaysia for our visa run, it was time to head back into Thailand. The plan was to first spend eight nights in Koh Phangan, an island known for two diametrically opposed things: full moon parties and its conscious community . 

Malaysia was a great destination for our Thailand visa run. In fact, it should have been on our radar all along. We saw beautiful beaches on Langkawi and ran around the vibrant city of George Town , snapping pictures of street art and eating as much food as we could.

Day 261 (March 16, 2019) – George Town, Penang, Malaysia George Town was such a pleasant surprise. We didn’t have many expectations going in, only knowing that the tour books recommended a visit, yet it ended up being one of my favorite cities of our trip. George Town, also called Penang (in reference to the state in which is resides, almost suggesting that the only reason one would go to Penang would be to go to George Town), is Malaysia’s second largest city and located off Malaysia’s northwest coast on Penang Island. The city is soaked in history, being the first British settlement in Southeast Asia. George Town became a critically important port city and a magnet for people and goods coming in from all over the region. This gave George Town a unique and eclectic clash of Colonial and Asian styles and a vibrant multiculturalism. Perhaps the greatest gift to come from the diverse mix of people and cultures is the food. We soon realized that our goal was to eat our way throug...