Inside Outside Upside Down

When we were teaching English at the Pattaya Orphanage, "Inside Outside Upside Down" was a book BG read to our 7-9 year olds one day. It's also a book I read as a child, so it brought back many happy bedtime story memories for me!

However, inside, outside, and upside-down is certainly how I feel now that we've arrived in New Zealand. We're in Christchurch, which is the largest city in the South Island, but it certainly doesn't have a big-city feeling to it at all. It's got tons of green space, an adorably quaint downtown, and practically zero road traffic. The air is fresh and crisp. This is obviously a huge change from the environment we've been in for the past eight months, with the sweltering, sweaty heat and diesel-scented city air. It's autumn here, which is weird because it's late May and that's always spring for me; like I said before, things here are upside-down, and that's just the beginning of it.

Being here is so easy. I mean -- everything just makes sense. We can read all of the street signs. We can identify all of the foods in the grocery store. We aren't speaking Pigeon English anymore, although BG is continuing to gesticulate and gesture wildly with his hands as he speaks. In fact, we have been involved in no less than a dozen pleasant conversations with random strangers in the past three days. People obey traffic laws, drive reasonably and in predictable manners, chew with their mouths closed, and most wonderfully, they don't eat durian on public transit.

Aside from that, New Zealand is also gorgeous. We walked through Cathedral Square here in Christchurch, with its wonderfully bohemian and adorable market. We strolled through the streets as the leaves dropped from the trees, the familiar scents of autumn in our nostrils. Today we hiked up to the top of the mountain here (the name escapes me) and rode mountain bikes down -- proper mountain bikes, as BG gleefully noted, complete with decent hand brakes, gears, and anatomically protective seats. We kept stopping to take in the impossibly gorgeous scenery of rolling hills, plunging cliffs, and beautiful houses climbing up the hill side, interspersed with meadows full of puffy white sheep snacking on the grass. We stopped for a coffee and snack at a seaside restaurant and marvelled at how simply perfect the day was, as the breeze cooled our hands and the tide rolled out, away from the black volcanic sand.

Everyone is so nice here. BG stopped at an ice cream truck for a soft-serve cone, and when I declined to order one for myself, the truck owner gave me a sample cone (which was essentially a full serving in itself) anyway. When we hired the mountain bikes, we paid the guy cash at the top of the hill for the rental, and arranged to drop them off at the base. He never took our names or a credit card number, just trusted that his expensive bikes would end up where we said we'd leave them. (They did.)

Tomorrow we'll hop into our rental camper van and head south to Queenstown, home of bungee jumps and canyon swings. En route we'll take in some more mountains, more sheep, some wine, and some apples.

The food's great. The scenery's great. The people are great. We love it here.

I'll Miss the Corn Popsicles

We have only a couple of days left in China, because we're heading south to Laos and plunging into the unknown -- namely, South-east Asia. We're in Jinghong, after a nine-hour bus ride from Kunming. The bus ride wasn't luxurious, and the roads were sometimes bumpy and winding, especially through the mountains, but it was worth it. I had no idea that a China like this even existed! There are palm trees everywhere, and it is warm. Blissfully, humidly warm -- I'm in heaven. Yesterday we visited the botanical gardens and walked amongst bougainvillea, coconut palms, and groves of mango, orange, and papaya trees. We even saw dozens of jackfruit trees, heavy with my favourite fruit.

Today might just have been one of my favourite days in China and maybe on this trip so far. We rented mountain bikes, and after a few tense minutes dodging traffic on the highway out of town, headed into the outlying villages. Our plan was to find the village of Ghasa, spend the afternoon there, check out the hot springs, and return. Instead, we got lost. For the record, I was not navigating. (Everybody knows I can't find my way around a city unless I can find the mall, and there is no mall in Jinghong.) We took a wrong turn somewhere in the rice or maybe banana fields and popped out in the front yard of a local farm. I imagine we took the farmer and his family quite by surprise, two westerners on fancy mountain bikes stumbling through their property, but they were so kind. Immediately his wife ran towards us and insisted that we take a huge chunk of boiled taro (starchy root vegetable), his mother motioned us to sit down with them and poured some tea. We were handed mandarin oranges. Neighbours and small children arrived shouting "Apple! Banana! One, two, three, hello! Bye bye!" We tried our few shaky Mandarin phrases and got blank stares -- humiliating, but fun. We sat and rested for a bit with our new friends, communicating via the "Languages" section of Lonely Planet, and then moved on.

(When travellers talk about getting "off the tourist track", I suspect this is what they're talking about. I actually get really tired of hearing other travellers say things like, "XXX was nice, but it's way too touristy. I wouldn't go back again." I can't help but wonder why these travellers expect a place that's lauded as worth seeing (because aren't they there for that same reason?) to be completely devoid of other travellers. As a corollary to this, why would a place that's popular with tourists not have the amenities that tourists like? The people that complain that a place is too touristy are the first ones to order a cold beer with their French Fries at dinner, or have a banana pancake for breakfast instead of rice porridge with salted meat -- and I can't say I blame them. I just don't think I can in good conscience complain that things are too touristy when I'm the one causing the changes.)

ANYWAY. We got firmly off of the tourist track today, by accident, and had one of those great moments that are called "Interacting with the Locals" (as though they're animals in a zoo.) I had to ask myself -- if a pair of foreign tourists burst onto my property on bicycles, looking lost, and not speaking a speck of English, would I offer them enormous amounts of food, hot tea, and a rest? Would I call my family and friends to come and keep them company? Would I make a concerted effort to have a conversation? I don't think I would have before, but now I'm thinking that I probably will -- if this bizarre scenario should ever occur to me (again, I mean, and under slightly different circumstances.)

I think we did learn something today, after all.

Also, my butt really hurts.