I’ve put off writing about Tibet for a long time, mostly because I quite simply did not know where to begin. It was an intense time; the anticipation building from my first arrival in Chengdu a full week before our departure, and then two weeks of dealing with the emotional highs and lows that come…
Yading Nature Reserve is a mountainous paradise that you’ve probably never even heard of, but it was one of the biggest highlights of my recent trip in China. Impressive mountains covered in snow and glaciers tower over forested slopes, grassy meadows, blue glacial lakes, waterfalls, and clear mountain streams. And yet all of this only…
Yading Nature Reserve is a stunningly beautiful, little-visited area in China’s Sichuan province. Accessible from Daocheng, the average elevation of the whole area is more than 4000 metres! The reserve contains the three Tibetan holy mountains of Chenresig at 6032 metres, and Chana Dorje and Jampelyang, which are both 5958 metres high. Come to Yading Nature Reserve…
“When are we going?” I asked the bus driver, pointing at the 3:15 displayed on my phone, “You said two o’clock!” The driver just smiled and held up his hands, fingers splayed. I wondered what it meant. Ten? Ten what? Minutes? Ten o’clock? When we have ten passengers? Or was he just motioning to me…
“Twice a day?” I confirmed, not believing what I was hearing, “Every day?” Anu smiled. “Yes. Every day.” We were referring to dal bhat, the traditional dish of Nepal, which people there do indeed eat twice each day, every day. And they LOVE it. When you walk through the streets of Kathmandu (or any Nepali…
Once in a while I see something that makes my heart melt a little bit. That’s what happened yesterday while I was sitting and people watching at Baita Gongyuan, a large stupa that has the most enormous prayer wheel I’ve ever seen! There are constantly people here, circling the stupa, turning the many…
“Xuanguan!” the bus ticket-collecter exclaimed to me when I said I was headed to Luobiao. “Yes!” I exclaimed excitedly, “Xuanguan!” I paid my 22 yuan and settled into a 2.5 hour bus trip down a river gorge into what felt like the middle of nowhere. I don’t think it was, really, as the bus seemed…
Yesterday I showed you some of Southern Burma’s beautiful beaches. On Myaw Yit beach, this man and his son were collecting sand worms when my driver and I happened upon them. To find one, you have to stomp your heel into the sand in a certain type of spot (I never figured out…
The coastline of Southern Burma is lined with beaches. Huge, beautiful white and yellow sand beaches that go on for miles and miles and miles, with not a soul on them. Nabule beach near Dawei Ok, there are the ‘popular’ ones, like Maungmakan near Dawei, which is lined with little bamboo huts serving…
Leading up to the big pagoda in Myeik in Southern Burma there’s a street lined with stalls selling everything from sunglasses and longyis to toys and ice cream, and this crispy treat that I don’t know the name of. This man was making them, first by slowly pouring the batter into a wok full of…