The search for the picture perfect Hakka earth buildings

Hakka earth buildings (tulou), originally uploaded by fangie2000.

These fortresses built by the early Hakka settlers in Fujian was to be the main highlight of my southern China trip. So I was adamant in getting to the right ones - pretty, rustic ones set in the mountains, without the bus loads of tourists and souvenir shops taking over the earth buildings of the village folks.

Lonely Planet China proved to be an unsuitable guide to my quest, being sketchy on how to get there. And contrary to it, frequent buses do run to many of the villages where you can find these buildings, termed tulou in Mandarin.

The best source of information on backpacking in China is actually the travel forums of the Chinese people, the prerequisite being able to read Chinese. And I found my answer in baidu.com's equivalent of Yahoo! Answers.

With the benefit of hindsight, and advice from my Xiamen friends, a good jumping point to the villages would by the county of Nanjing (南靖, 2 hours and less than 30RMB by bus from Xiamen), where bus connections to the villages, less than 2 hours journey and costing about 20RMB, could be found.

I based myself in this village called Taxia (塔下), staying in a well-maintained, clean and beautiful earth building guesthouse called Weiqunlou Kezhan (literally meaning Apron Building Guesthouse, wqlkz.com). Having heard about how bad sanitation could be in the villages, this condition of this guesthouse was well beyond my expectation and at a reasonable price (120RMB for 2). The shared common bathrooms are clean with hot showers, bedroom is big and comfortable with quilt blankets to keep out the cold during winter. The owner of the building is a retired teacher from the village, while the guesthouse is maintained by his younger son, a village teacher. Both are very friendly and help to arrange for tours to nearby villages at honest price. Meals there are a little bit pricey though.

The small village of Taxia itself is very dainty, with a stream running through it. There are several round/square/rectangular earth buildings in the village, and a quiet temple on the hill slope.

From this village, we hire a motobike at 120RMB for a day, with the driver bringing us to visit 4 equally beautiful villages nearby. Not to be missed is Tianluokeng (田螺坑, pictured above), which is tiny village set among the paddy fields (but avoid taking meals there, our driver told us the restaurants there are notorious for charging tourists exorbitant prices).

Another pretty and rather unspoilt village is Hekeng (河坑), about 5km from Taxia. It features more earth buildings set in seven star constellation position.

How to find the right bus connections? The easiest way is to decide on the guesthouse you're staying, and call them for the bus schedule. That's what I did, as they have all the bus schedules to their village at the back of their mind, and even help to ask the bus driver to reserve better seats for us (otherwise, we may have to end up sitting on stools placed on floorboard if all the seats are taken). If you miss the direct bus connections, it is possible to take the next bus to another village and transfer to your destination on motorbike. The village roads are not busy and so pretty safe.

The main barrier to all these is language, as many do not speak or understand English.

Experiencing brown China

Hakka earth buildings (tulou), originally uploaded by fangie2000.

My Singaporean friend, who became a farmer in rural China termed the countryside "brown China". It's definitely not the typical postcard pretty Chinese gardens, pagodas, temples and palaces. But it is a realistic snapshot of middle China, the lives of the average peasant working in the fields and living in villages.

Bako National Park

Bako National Park, originally uploaded by fangie2000.

Fabulous view of Gunung Satubong against the sea from the viewpoint of Limtang trail at Bako National Park. It's absolutely rewarding after a long and tiring hike to be here.

Wildlife watching

Kuching, originally uploaded by fangie2000.

One of the highlights of Sarawak is its jungle, and the National Parks around Kuching didn't disappoint us in terms of wildlife, whether it is the semi-wild orang utans in Semenggoh Orang Utan Sanctuary (the orang utans here roam freely in the jungle to look for their own food, but if they are free to come and go in the sanctuary at fixed times for food) or the proboscis monkeys in Bako, or even the tiny leeches, ants, creepy crawlies, snails, butterflies or snakes...along the jungle trails.

Journey of a leech

Imagine a jungle floor full of leeches? Imagine having to stop every five minutes for "leech check"? That's what happened during a jungle trek at Kubah National Park in Sarawak, the day after a heavy rainstorm. It's a yucky experience not to be forgotten. Watch how a leech moves, it's amazing. This leech was caught and removed from my hiking shoes. Phew...thankfully, it didn't manage to make its way to my blood.

Bordeaux

Bordeaux, originally uploaded by fangie2000.

Just back from another trip, this time Southwest France :)

Camping in Ko Adang

I have never been an enthusiastic camper, much preferring the comfort of an en suite toilet in a chalet or hotel room.

So it came as a surprise to myself that I had actually enjoyed camping in Adang more than sleeping in the chalet in Lipeh or even Tarutao.

As the ranger station is the only chalet operator in Adang and Tarutao, advance reservation is necessary in order to secure a room. We were lucky to get a room in Tarutao when we arrived. But Adang's chalet was fully booked.

The camping ground in Adang is very pleasant, under the shade of casuarina trees, right beside the white sandy beach. Corals and fishes are relatively plentiful along part of the long stretch of beach. So you are practically almost jumping off from your tent to the corals without having to hire any boat. During sunset and sunrise, you can also admire the flaming red or orange sky cast by the sun from the tent.

The camping area is very large, and campers are free to pitch their tent anywhere within the camping ground without having to stay too close to other campers. Unfortunately, our tent turned out to be a crappy one when it started raining during the 2nd night, as rain water leaked through. That was the end of our camping.

But after spending one unsatisfactory night in a chalet at nearby Lipeh, we found ourselves back to the camping ground in Adang. Except that we opted for a more luxurious tent set in a coconut hut that comes with thin mattresses and light bulb. And the beautiful beach is just right in front, a few steps away. Five star camping, I would say.

More on Tarutao-getting there and away

It's been a rather long time since I updated this little space. Have been on a few more trips since coming back from Tarutao, from Ho Chi Minh City, Tioman to Pulau Aur. But I'll like to introduce more of Tarutao here.

Despite its relative obscurity, Tarutao is not difficult to get to, and is fast gaining popularity among European backpackers. From Hatyai, regular mini buses go to Pak Bara, the jumping off point to get to Tarutao. The bus boarding point is diagonally across the train station. Exact bus schedule can be enquired at the hotel you're staying at.

Beware though. Before we even reach the bus stop, we were approached by locals wanting to sell us bus and ferry tickets. We thought, why not. So were led to a travel agency round the corner. The travel agent tried to convince us to buy return trip tickets, including for ferry. In the end, we got our bus and ferry tickets at this first travel agent we saw (luckily not for return trip). It turn out that the travel agent option is not necessarily the cheapest and most flexible option.

Bus tickets could be bought directly at the bus stop, which is only about 20m from the travel agent (we thought it was much further away). Upon reaching Pak Bara, found that there are other ferry companies going to Tarutao at a better timing and price.

It would be good to not buy return ferry tickets too. For us, we went to Tarutao, didn't quite enjoy it as much as we want, so bought ferry tickets to bring us to Adang from there. Took longtail boat to Lipeh, didn't like it there, so went back to Adang. There was a couple we met at Tarutao, saw them at Adang a few days later, and was told that they didn''t enjoy Adang and were planning to go back to Tarutao.

The bottomline is, these little islands each have their own characteristics, suited to different tastes. So, don't bind yourself to only one of them with prepaid return ferry tickets. It's rather easy to buy tickets back to Pak Bara, either through the chalets or the park ranger.

Some of the longtail boatman can be dishonest too, though they are probably in the minority. Had an unpleasant encounter with one. Longtail boat between Adang and Lipeh is only about 50B. As there's no jetty at this 2 islands, the ferry from Tarutao drops passengers in between the 2 islands, for them to transfer via longtail boat. Always ask before getting onto the boat. As everyone was jostling to get onto the boats, we made the mistake of not confirming the price with the boatman. In the end, all the passengers on our boat were made to pay 100B each after the boat has left the ferry.

Despite the little hiccups, it was definitely worth the journey. Along the way, between Tarutao and Adang, the ferry even stopped at a charming little island for 20 minutes. It was almost a perfect beach, totally secluded with amazingly white sand and crystal clear water. hmmmm....I wouldn't mind going back to Tarutao soon.

Tarutao

It's not as well-known as even Ko Tao. Such that when friends asked me where I went, I always have to explain that it is in the far south, just a few kilometres north of Langkawi.

Because it's less troden by tourists, it is very tranquil and serene, with amazing secluded beaches that rank very high on my growing list of beautiful beaches.

The whole Tarutao National Park is made up of several islands, the main one being Tarutao itself, and Adang, where the only accommodation is operated by the national park office (which ensures that these two islands are not fallen to over development). The other island is Lipeh, which is directly opposite Ko Adang, and somewhat lies outside the national park boundary, and has the potential to be the next ko phi phi, with lots of chalets, restaurants, boats, foreigners and rubbish...
The rest of the islands in the area are mostly secluded and visited by day-trippers on snorkelling and diving trips.

Tarutao and Adang are very good places for a laid-back holiday. My favourite is Adang, such that I spend most of the week on this little island. Nice and quiet beach, with rather good corals and many fishes just off the shore. Friendly park rangers and serene environment. Well, nice place, but will probably go into more details next time.

The misunderstood French

This is a very common personal experience told by many Chinese tourists visiting France.
The same story, albeit experienced by different people, are always related to me, whenever I told them I: a) have a French bf; b) have travelled to France for holidays.

The story goes:
Mr A went to Paris (somehow, Singaporeans/Chinese perception of a French holiday is to go to Paris, never mind the fact that there are many more lovely places to visit in this country. The most romantic city plus buying the latest LV product at a cheaper price is enough reason to make the trip to France worthwhile).
Mr A got lost in the city, needed to ask some Frenchies for direction, or to ask some Frenchie train station officer for help.
Not knowing how to speak French, he asked for help in English.
The super proud and Anglo-hating French would pretend not to understand a word, or even ignore the question altogether.
The desparate Mr A, after several futile attempts in communication started to speak in Chinese, and voila! The Frenchie was suddenly enlightened, and began to render help to the poor tourist in English.

This same story was repeated to me, this time by a Malaysian Chinese I met at Ko Adang. According to his experience, he has to swear in Hokkien before the French train officer finally answered his questions in English.

Are the Frenchies really so haughty and in disdain of the English language?

I'm no French expert and have been to France only three times. And thankfully, I've not been in such a situation.

It's true that the French are no English speakers and don't like to speak English.

However, from my personal experience in interactingn with French, I would think the French do not like to speak English (even to English speaking tourists) not because they look down on the language, but because they can't speak it well and are too "pai seh" to admit it, and too embarassed to show their lack of command of the language.

And go out of Paris, and you'll find English-speaking French becoming rarer and rarer, especially among older generation.

So next time, if you meet a French who refuse to speak English, don't mark him as "hao lian" immediately.

Home in a shell

Hermit crabs always fascinate me greatly. I particularly enjoy seeing them suddenly "pretending dead" whenever they sense a human coming near them.

At Ko Rawi's white sand beach, hermit crabs are everywhere, in varying sizes and different kinds of beautiful shells. We couldn't resist photographing and filming them, though this must have make one of the most boring video.

Fun aside, these cute creatures belong to where they are, so please, if your paths ever cross with these crabs, do not bring them home.

My latest trip

My latest trip to Ko Tarutao National Park. In case you're wondering where this wonderful place is, it is a marine park in the far south of Thailand, just about 5km north of Langkawi.

The beaches there are simply marvellous - white powdery sand, crystal clear emerald sea, multitude of colourful fishes and marine life and serene and relaxing atmosphere. Hmmm...what a charming place.

Shall update with more details again.

Maiden ski experience

It's my first time, and I've fallen left, right, centre and back. Yes, I've fallen so many times, on so many different positions that I've quite lost count.

The first time I tried ski, R signed me straight up for a one-an-half hour instruction course. Teaching a complete beginner is differennt from knowing how to ski well. And it frees him up to go ski freely in the difficult slopes without having to handhold me. So why not.

After the brief introduction with my cute instructor, he immediately ask me to do a little glide down an extremely gentle slope. Actually, the slope is so gentle and short I'm not sure I could call it a slope at all. But I still panick when my ski sense the slightest difference in gradient and down I go.

The class was quite a torture. First, the ski boots and ski felt so clumsy on me, they really make my movement very uncomfortable. Yet, as a complete novice, instead of smoothly gliding down the snow, I was made to do quite a fair bit of "walking" up the gentlest of slopes. And of course, each time I'm supposed/expected to glide smoothly down, I tumbled down instead and have to a) wait for the poor man to pull me up; b) do the torturous climb up again. The constant bending of the knees is also a huge strain. However, being a complete kiasu Singaporean, I endured through the discomfort without any breaks, wanting to make the full use of my lesson.

However, it was only during my 2nd ski trip that I manage to ski on my own without help or handholding. After practising the whole morning, gliding down the slope holding R's hand, I miraculously managed to ski without help in the afternoon (for reasons I would rather not mention here). The feeling was great. Instead of taking half an hour to go down a short stretch of snow, it suddenly only took less than five minutes. You forget the fatigue and strain in your knees and want to go for more.

It helps to get used to falling on the snow. Probably like unicycling, when you know that it is actually safe to fall, you are more daring to go ahead without the fear of falling. And sometimes, after a terrible fall (as long as I don't break any bones), I quite like the feeling of lying on the soft snow, looking up into the sky.

Still consider myself a novice. Posture still not quite right yet. Need bigger guts to ski down steeper slopes. But I'm already looking forward to my next ski trip, which may be years from now :(

The fact that the scenery on top of the ski slopes is always breathtaking helps to whet my appetite to improve my skiing skills.

White Christmas?

Yeah! I spent my Christmas in France. It's the first time in my life to experience Christmas during the winter season, like in the fairy tales. No more warm and rainy Singapore, no more street busking trying to sell balloons to the Christmas shopping crowd in Orchard. I had even spent Christmas once before in Melbourne - a true summer Christmas, bright, sunny and terribly hot.


The burning question from my friends is: so did you have a white Christmas? Much as the photos here suggest, the landscape was hardly white, due to unusually thin snow during this early winter. It did not snow at all and we had to go high into the mountains to enjoy the snowy landscape.


The countryside in the early morning was also surprisingly "frosty", giving a very nice feel of a white Christmas, but the ice shied away within hours from the warmth of the mid-day sun.

Yogyakarta

Majestic volcanoes rising above the clouds on approaching Yogjarkarta, leaving me in awe of this land.

I had always resist holidays to Indonesia. The bad press in the Western media about Indonesia isn't helping the country's tourism industry.

So I had a pleasant surprise during my recent trip there. Friendly people, great food, beautiful country, fabulous shopping...


Mount Merapi, as seen from a viewpoint at a mountain pass. Looking at the ash and smoke puking from its crater, it really gives people reason to be fearful of it. Yet it's also awfully beautiful.




Borobudur...another wonder of Yogyakarta.

Charming hotels in Penang

In Penang, try to stay in those old hotels that emits a rustic old world charm.
For those with a small wallet, like me, can consider Cathay Hotel. It was said that Michelle Yeoh recently shot a movie here.
The reception is manned by several friendly "uncles" who speak very good English, Mandarin, and of course Penang Hokkien. The rooms are clean and spacious. The few gripes I have with this place is, first, the wall is paper thin. Second, as I did not make any reservation and was lucky enough to still get the last room despite arriving close to midnight, I had the first room on ground floor from the main entrance. It means that you can hear all the sounds of people talking and walking in and out of the hotel early in the morning.

If you have lots of money to spare, then Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion is just right across the road from Cathay. Cost 10 times more, but expect more luxury. I missed the twice daily guided tour, so did not manage to visit the interior. But this architectually award-winning hotel should be worth the stay there.

Another luxury option is Eastern & Oriental Hotel, the Raffles Hotel equivalent of Penang, founded by the Sarkies brothers too. Looks good too.

Sunflower for the kitchen

No, I don't mean decorating the kitchen with a vase of the pretty flowers.

My constant search for a pretty sunflowers field brought me to a stop outside a village in Provence.

Each flower is HUGE, bigger than the size of my face. Not the prettiest sunflower, but looks nutritious. Can imagine the amount of oil you can extract from each flower?

Sunset in Corsica

Corsica
Originally uploaded by fangie2000.

Sunsets in Corsica are always a pleasure to the senses.

Bande Dessinée - French manga

Unknown to me for a long time, French not only loves Japanese manga, but are avid comic readers. In fact, France has a thriving comic industry, that I wouldn't be too surprise if they give the Japanese and US comic industry a run for their money.

Bande Dessinée is comic book in French. Unlike Japanese manga, they come in hard cover and A4 size, fully coloured. Price wise, they're definitely more expensive, each issue costing over 10 euros. However, unlike manga, they don't seem to run into ten over issues.


Step into a French comic shop and you'll be spoilt for choice. There is a comprehensive selection of creators, styles and genres, so much so that beginners would have difficulty in finding where to start.

The biggest problem perhaps is the language barrier. Most French comics are not translated into English and it's hard to find English editions, unfortunately. Maybe that's why many comic fans are unfamiliar with French comic. The most familiar French comic series to the English world could possibly be Asterix. Tin Tin is in French, albeit originating from neighbouring Belgium, which has a pretty robust comic industry as well, or so I heard.

So, it's a pity I'm still a far way to mastering French beyond bonjour and merci to enable me to read their comics.

Hiking for real

I've been an experienced "hiker" of concrete jungles, with real stamina for indulging in every female Singaporean's favourite pastime of shopping. Alas, the training I've received at Orchard Road is way insufficient in preparing me for my first hike with my bf's family.

It was an introductory hike for me, so it was expected to be easy. The plan was to hike at a plateau beside "La Meije", one of the highest mountain in the Rhone Alps. The idea was, after reaching the peak of the plateau (which is not very high by French standard), the road will be pretty flat and we will reach a lake. The whole adventure would last only around 3-4 hours.


The choice of hike is perfect, with a wonderful scenery to die for, which I almost did (in a way).

The reality: within short while, I was already having difficulty keeping with the rest of the group (which includes 1 grandmother and another young lady, both with an injured foot). :-P




Difficult it may be, all the sweat and pain has not gone to waste. La Meije is so beautiful that I couldn't resist taking photos after photos of it.