I've been playing with some other formats for our videos. This one is a documentary-style video, done as a narrative about the world's largest dam project, the Three Gorges Dam, and its effects on the locals. Part of our 6 day trip on the Yangtze took us to the dam through it's five locks. I hope you find the video interesting, even if I didn't eat anything strange.

There may be fewer places in the world that are sparking more environmental controversy that the Three Gorges section of China's Yangtze River, where the world's largest dam project is almost complete. More on that soon. Despite the dam, the gorges before the dam remain a beautiful place and this video (hopefully) captures some of the beauty that, as of October of this year, will be further underwater.

As a child, I remember seeing pictures of a magical place where the earth seemed to have burst right out of it's shell and created giant rounded stone mounds, set amongst rice paddies, rivers and farms. I said then that I was going to see that place one day. Much to my enjoyment, we found this place in Guilin, China.

 The mounds are actually called karsts and are made of limstone.  200 million years ago this part of China was under the sea and limestone was thrust upward from the earth's crust and then eroded into the shapes we see today. 

The karsts are best viewed from a boat on the Li River and as most things in China, it is done as part of a package tour, complete with flag waving guide.  Our guide was the delightfully geeky "Jack". The tour included lunch and costs about US$58 per person.

 

 We learned today that English teachers in China often suggest western names for their students.  The person who told us was given the name "Norman" but didn't like it - so he chose "Steven" instead.

Jack led us on a 4 hour trip down the Li River, accompanied by a very long line of similar boats, each holding about 100 sweating people.

 The whole trip was narrated by a women with English skills far inferior to Jack's.  She told us how the Li River "winds through the grotesque peaks exactly like a blue silk ribbon" and how we should watch out for the peaks that "look exactly like 9 oxen".  Most aboard looked around in a confused state, amazed at the scenery nonetheless.  And the scenery was amazing.  There is surely no other place in the world like the karsts near Guilin - it's the stuff of poetry and paintings.  In fact, the area appears on the back of the 20 RMB (chinese currency) note.

 

 

  

I sometimes feel like we're talking a bit too much about our activities and not so much about our experience, if you know what I mean.  We aim to change that a bit, but for now, an experience we had yesterday deserves a little publication.

Don is a friendly Irish ex-pat that runs Coaster's Bungalows where we're staying in Sihanoukville.  Yesterday, Don saw me on our balcony and said, in his Irish accent "Hey! Are you leaving today?  We're going out to the waterfall, if you wanna go, meet us at the bar in 30."  Waterfall?  We had not heard about the waterfall!  Upon looking at the guidebooks (Footprint and Rough Guide), no waterfall is mentioned.

As it turned out, we got to follow along on a waterfall trip with Don and his family (wife Carrie and daughter Anna).  After driving for about 30 minutes (including a "shortcut" through barely passable roads") we went down a long dirt road that ended at some shacks and a washed out bridge.  After being ferried over the river we came upon a waterfall, or actually a set of waterfalls that were certainly among the best I've ever seen. Given a little more care and infrastructure, the falls have the potential to become a national landmark- they are that impressive.  

 Situated at the convergence of two rivers, the water falls fall into a basin that appears to have dropped about 10 meters all at once, creating a valley where you are surrounded by waterfalls from two rivers.  Stunning.

The highlight is a set of falls that flow off an outcropping, enabling people to climb behind it in short ledges. What a weird feeling.  It's a bit like the first time you snorkle and your body has to learn that it can, indeed, breathe underwater.  With water flowing over your eyes and mouth and crashing over your head, threatening to grab you and slam you on the rocks below, the experience is a more than a bit breathtaking.

 

 Water rushing by overhead...

 Don, our guide for the day...

 

If you want to visit the Kabal Chai falls, ask about it at the guesthouses in Sihanoukville.  It is best in the rainy season for obvious reasons and the rivers dwindle to a trickle in the dry season.

Vang Vieng is one of the more beautiful places we've been on the trip, but it is a bit hard to get to and the town is nothing special.  It's 5 hours south of Luang Prabang and the best way to make the trip is via minibus (US$9 per person) on the infamous route 13, known for banditry.

Sachi, me and 13 new "friends" made the trip, which offered us roadside views of 13 year-olds with kalashinikov rifles, a bus with it's roof caved-in from a hillside roll-over accident and an amazing loss of personal space.  We made it safely and we now have more ammunition for our unstoppable bravado.

 Vang Vieng is sadly too much like Khao San Road in Bangkok - backpacker heaven.  In fact, we heard about it before coming and then saw it with our own eyes- restaurants packed with people glued to giant TVs watching continuous episodes of "Friends" and the "The Simpsons".  

Alas, we stayed away from the town and took in the gorgeous mountain scenery.  The mountains lining the Nam Song river beside the town are limestone "karsts" which jut out of the ground amazingly abruptly, making for a magestic view from the town and river.

If you go to Vang Vieng, a must-do is a tube ride down the Nam Song (thanks JJ!).  It costs less than a dollar, takes 3 hours and offers lots to do.  In fact, the river is lined with bars and "fun parks" for the tubers.  You'll hear a constant chorus of "Beer Lao! Beer Lao! Beer Lao!"

 

 But the prize is really the karsts (and caves contained therein), which to me have an only-in-asia feel...

 

 

Laos is a beautiful and mostly untouched place and I hope that it can stay that way. 

Like so many of the things we do, the journey is so much better than the destination.  This was certainly the case when we decided to go river rafting in Laos.  We didn’t expect real white water and white water was not what we got.  What we did experience were some authentic moments with Lao people on the banks of the Nam Ou river.

The day began with the precarious stacking of various river floating paraphernalia on top of an open air truck called a song tao (phonetic spelling) and meeting two of the more unfriendly travelers we’ve met thus far.  Funny thing, their noses seemed to be permanently lifted into the air to such a degree that they found it unnecessary to interact with the likes of us. We could only chuckle in our bewilderment.

It was really more like river floating or river paddling than river rafting, I’d say.  The rapids were surely class 1 and we spent much of the time paddling through nearly stagnant yoo-hoo colored water.  In fact, on a couple of occasions, our trusty guides Pon and Jon napped (as is apparently customary in SE Asia).  All the clothes below are for protection from the sun.

The fun began when we stopped to have lunch at a small 300 person village.  As we pulled up on the banks of the river, the kids from the village came down to greet us.  For the next hour or so we all played in the river and my camera, or the images it produced, was often the center of attention. They laughed so hard when they saw the picture below.

 The guides let them take the boat out in the river and before long they started using it as a diving board.

The guides gave them a little help in the air too.

The girls from the village were a bit more reserved.

We got thankfully separated from the other group and in our time waiting for them, Jon saw his cousin on the river and they invited us to the shore for a fish fry. 

 

We pulled up on the banks as his family and friends proceeded to make a fire, set up a table and serve a freshly caught meal of river fish, stewed vegetables, pumpkin seeds, sticky rice and plenty of “lao-lao” or homemade Lao Whiskey.  The whiskey is akin to moonshine, but made from sticky rice.  They made us feel right at home.

Though the rafting itself wasn’t that exciting, the scenery was amazing and we didn’t need to remind ourselves that we’re floating down a river somewhere in the middle of Laos – so far from home. 

Looking around, it really felt like something from a movie with village fisherman, kids playing on the beach and not a speck of modern civilization in sight.  It was surely some of the best Laos can offer.

 

Something we would recommend if you want to get outsdide of the cities around Kyoto is the Hozu Gawa River Trip. You take a train out to the mountains west of Kyoto and take a wodden boat thorugh the mountains for two hours. For us, the most entertaining part was listening to the reactions of the Japanese girls in front of us. Good fun and beautiful scenery.
Of course, this was a bit different than the Shotover Jet River Boats in New Zealand...

You can't really come to Australia and not want to see a Koala and Kangaroo and strange birds right?  Of course not. Luckily, Brisbane offers a beautiful urban setting and a place to see local wildlife called "Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary". Basically, it had a lot of koalas and kangaroo.  Here is the required oh-so-cute picture of the koalas:

 What we didn't expect was to get so up close and personal with the Kangaroos.  Those claws on the ends of freakishly small arms are scary. 

I think we got a little more Discovery channel action than we paid for, or even wanted, when these roos decided to make joeys in front of us.   Parental Guidance is Suggested.

Back in the city, our favorite part of Brisbane was South Bank, on the other side of the Brisbane River, where like everywhere else- we found these critters, which seem quite at home in urban settings - in parking lots, on top of tables, cars, etv.  It is the Australian White Ibis.

As TwinF Members Halans and Amyo pointed out, the City Cat ferries make a great way to get around and see the city from the water. They look damn cool too.

Just about every activity here on the South Island, it seems, can be viewed from the air. There are numerous companies in each town offering seaplanes, helicopters, gliders and small planes that take you up and view the whales, glaciers, mountains or rivers. While this would be great to do, I am much more on the side of getting in close rather than viewing from above.

On the Franz Josef glacier, I wanted to be digging my crampons in the ice. On the Kawarau river in Queenstown, I wanted to be IN the water and rapids. Riverboarding offered wetsuits, lifejackets, helmets, a small boogie board and license to float or tumble your way through the class 2-4 rapids. The cold water rushing over the board felt so good! If any of you have been boogie boarding in the ocean surf, you know that leaning the board is a large part of your control. In the river - it does nothing. You are propelled by the current and have little control other than your fins.

The first few hundred feet of rapids threw me up and down over the waves and had me laughing through the entire section. I could see Lee through most of it. But then, the “Man-eater” class 4 rapid sailed me up and over. I ate it. My board went flying into others’ who had found the same fate, and I finally bobbed up after swirling through a whirlpool. I laughed some more and hoped for another. There was a girl and her friend almost crying next to me. I think they were from Denmark.

It was a workout -always trying to swim in the line of the guide, but somehow never getting there in time before the rapid or whirlpool. My muscles are sore the day after and will be for a couple more days I’m sure.

 In the café after we finished, we all swapped stories, and the girls from Denmark were adamant they would never do this again. I definitely would.

I wish we had pictures to share, but it was impossible to take the camera amongst the rocks and water, not to mention the need to swim.

Lee has a different story to tell.

The river boarding was a great experience, but one that I have more memories of pain than pleasure.  The basic idea is that you go down the 6kms (3.7 miles) of the Might Meg section of the Kawarau River with a wetsuit, lifejacket, helmet, fins and a boogie board all with class 2-4 rapids. It cost $129 NZ ($91US) per person through Mad Dog River Boarding.

I thought it might be lame, but I was wrong, very wrong.  It was not lame, but somewhat harrowing and scary experience in an adventurous way.  My problem was not the water or the equipment, but my body.  From the first few hundred feet, my legs began to cramp and for a majority of the 3.7 miles, I was in excruciating pain as both feet and calf muscles cramped – even as the guides yelled to move across the river to avoid dangerous rapids.  Had my legs not cramped, it would have been a different experience overall.

At the end, there were a few things you could do to finish off the adventure.  One of which was jumping into the river from a 30 foot rock ledge. I love jumping off of things and knew this would be fun.  The jump was great, but soon after I entered the water, my left arm exited the shoulder socket, dislocating my shoulder for a couple of seconds, sending unbelievable pain through me as I floated to the surface. Then, trying to fight the rapids to the shore, it happened again. I just wanted to sit on the shore and cry, from pain, exhaustion and from discouragement. Looking back, it’s an activity I would recommend for those that are prepared for a physical, strenuous and a bit of a scary adventure.  Some people cried while doing it, which is a sure sign it’s not for everyone.

Sachi has a different story.