Yunnan

In the very southwest of China you find the province Yunnan. The state borders the countries of Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and Tibet. Recently we took a 7 day vacation here with a Beijing group called China Culture Club.

We flew into the capital town of Kunming (2000m above sea level) where we slowly worked our way closer to the Tibetan border . What a welcome landscape after hot days in Beijing: Clean air, clean water, blue skies despite a forecast of rain every day and majestic mountains shimmering in the background. We even saw stars at night.

In Kunming we visited the Stone Forest, hiking stone paths surrounded by stone formations looking oddly like trees. We were also served a mushroom hot-pot lunch which did not at all change my view that western soups would win a contest any day of the week.

From Kunming we flew to Dali. We took a local boat to a beautiful lakeside temple followed by a chairlift to the top of Mount Tsangshan. In the evening we strolled around the village, noticing many local minorities people walking around dressed in their customary outfits. Yunnan is the home of around 25 of the more than 50 different minority people in China. Around Dali you mainly see Bai people.( By co-incidence , Philip and I have a Chinese last name of Bai, so we felt right at home)

Our trip continued by bus towards Shaxi. This was a very small and unusually interesting village where you felt as if you suddenly stepped back in time. Shaxi was once an important trade station on the Southern Silk Road, shown by it's wide streets and fancy buildings. Through a partnership with a company in Italy who feared Shaxi's history would be lost, it has recently been restored the proper way (Not like a lot of China sites which are hastily torn down and built back up somewhat replicated, always with an eye on catching tourist business) Shaxi mainly sold handmade shoes at reasonable prices, and the shoes were made right in front of you. It has now become popular with Chinese film-makers as it really looks genuine. Here we stayed at a charming old court-yard hotel.

Then on to Lijang, capital of the former Naxi Kingdom. On the way we stopped at Tiger Leaping Gorge, which right now has a lot of water due to all the rain in southern China. Having imagined something like Niagara, it was a little bit of a let down, yet still interesting.

In Lijiang we were treated to a tour in a rowboat on a small, local lake. The serenade by a local language toothless rower with a real zest for life was priceless!!

Lijiang has a lot of history, but the old town (Which was actually torn down and a new "old "town replaced it) looked somewhat too touristy in daylight. However, at night the Chinese architecture, the streams running through it, the minority people, the brightly lit lanterns made it a worthwhile place to spend the night.( Just pass quickly by the 100++ stores who all sell the same yak-meat, the same shawls, show the same hammering of silver that actually never produce the jewelery they sell) And the fact that the city pays the housewives to dress in local dresses and dance in the squares does not take away the fact that this is a real Naxi style behavior.

The next day we finally reached Shangri-La (previously called Zhongdian) whose claim to be the fictional Shangri-La from James Hilton's "Lost Horizon", the last town before the high plateau of the Himalayas. As far as we could determine, the town did not quite live up to that claim. However, we did enjoy the feeling of basically visiting Tibet as 1/2 the population are Tibetans, as indeed out guide was. He was a very interesting person, having fled to India with his family during the Cultural revolution. He grew up in India, and in his early twenties moved back to Tibet. He was unhappy and payed a large amount to be guided through Nepal back to India. It was a tremendously difficult ordeal, they were caught by Nepalese authorities and taken back to China. He now claims to be very happy in Zhongdian, and says that the living conditions there are far better than in Tibet.The place we slept and the restaurants we ate at were all owned by Tibetans, and most of the local houses were Tibetan style, apparently the authorities help by donating money to people to build these grand homes , all decorated in colorful Tibetan style. The area had many Tibetan (Yellow hat Buddhist) monasteries. Contrary to temples in many other parts of China, these were very active with old and young monks, worshipers and life. And the picture of the Dali Lama was prominently placed inside the temples.

During the daytime we explored the Pudacuo National Park. Due to the many other tourists with the same desire, this could only be done on organized buses. However, the National Park was beautiful with mountains, clear rivers, roaming yak, alpine flora and a beautiful lake which we walked around on a boardwalk for about 4 km. The whole setting reminded us of Mount Desert Island walks around Jordan Pond. To quote an old Norwegian saying:" Foreign places are good,, but home is still better!!" We quickly declared that this place in the Himalayas was not "our Shangri-La", we prefer to save that distinction for our future home on MDI

Post script: Upon return to Beijing the next day, I reread "Lost Horizon" Realizing that Shangri-La may be magical to the few elite who try to escape the fate of everybody else, I no longer want to use it as a metaphor for any place in Maine. You are all welcome there, but nobody will keep you against your will.

Visit by Gabriel, Jess, and Max

We live far away form home, and really treasured Rebekka and Lee's visit to Beijing in December. As a relatively BIG birthday approached, it was really exiting to know that Gabriel, Jess and Max would help us celebrate this special event by coming to Beijing. Gabe and Jess came for a week while Max was able to stay close to 3 weeks. We had a great Wall hike, sightseeing at the usual Beijing sights like The Forbidden City, The Summer Palace, ate some great Chinese food and of course did some shopping!! Max and I even got a trip to Xian to visit the Terra Cotta Warriers via sleeper train. And we had some fun biking together all over Beijing. My birthday was celebrated at a Vegetarian Buddhist Restaurant where it is hard to tell that the Beijng duck you eat is really tofu (or dofu as it is called here) It was a great celebration, thank you for coming at that special time.

And thank you to all my friends at home. We have never really used the postal service much while here. But to all of you at home who organized a deluge of mail to let me know that I am still a part of your lives: "Thank You So Much." I would have liked to celebrate with you, and you made me feel like I did. Thank you for mailing presents to Gabriel, so when he opened his suitcase, your presence was felt in Beijing. I am so lucky

Mekong Delta-Bike Trip

Having been way too wordy with our first part of Vietnam, we have decided to be a bit more economical with the second part. The Mekong Delta was an amazing landscape to bike through, and Saigon /Ho Chi Minh City will always live in our memory. If you have not visited this amazing country yet, put it on your itinerary. Here are some of our strongest memories, and we will let the photos fill the gaps.

1) Beautiful, fertile delta property displaying rice farming in all stages: new seedlings in shimmering pools, young plants painting the countryside an luminous green and mature rice swaying in the wind and then cut, carries to the road where it was spread out and dried right on the road we were biking on. Due to the ability to harvest 4 times pr. season in this fertile area, we were able to enjoy the full circle of growth.

Philip: Best picture not taken:Astri stuck in the rice paddy after failing to negotiate a curve in the narrow walking lane we were biking.
Astri: Equally good, and not taken: Philip stuck in the rice paddy one minute later (Even if you do not see the water, the bottom of the paddy is very wet!!!)

2) Changing crops, but a countryside always bursting with fertility: Coconuts, mangoes, dragon fruits.....

3) Interesting toilets. Special award: Bridge seat over shallow river in the open with schools of small fish directly below

4) Vietnam's greatest asset: its people. We were overwhelmed by their friendliness: always smiling and waving as we biked by, even though they knew we were Americans. We must have received 5000 hello's and then there was the old man who came out of his hut, shooed at us and said: "Go away, go away" We could only imagine what painful memories our presence may have triggered, and hope he went back inside and forgot about us.

5) According to our excellent guides, Vietnamese women want 3 things when looking for a husband: Gentleness, flowers and a motorbike. In that order,

6) The motorbikes were everywhere!! And if you think a small motorbike / moped is made for one person, think again. A moped can easily carry 2, 3, 4 or 5 people. See the picture of the “fiver”.

5) Crossing the street in Saigon was an adventure in itself due to the motorbikes. Apparently most women got what they wanted, so the bikes are about 20 across the street, and perhaps 50 deep every time the light changes. And the noise!! (We are happy Beijing does not allow them inside the 4th ring road)

7) Most emotional moment: Visiting the "War Remnants Museum" It was a very difficult museum to view as we revisited photographic scenes showing the horrible sights of an unjust war upon an innocent people. But the Vietnamese people we met kept repeating that it was a war between the leaders of two countries , and that they had no hard feelings against the American people. The museum showed plenty of footage of resentment against the war by people all over the World..
The inclusion of many children's paintings titled "Dream of Peace" "Prevention from being absorbed by agent orange" etc was very powerful.

8) Leaving Saigon was made even more difficult by our taxi being hit by a motorbike at full speed five minutes short of the airport. Philip jumped out of the cab, checked the driver who lay unconscious in the street and at first seemed to have stopped breathing. At the time when he wondered if he needed to start resuscitation, the young man groaned and moved. His girl-friend sat in the middle of the street with a big gash by her knee, taking on her cell-phone. We keep wondering if they are OK. Did they have insurance? Did they lose their prize possession, the motorbike. But our cab flagged down another cab for us, asked for his fare and we made it to the airport in time. But sometimes our thoughts go back to the departure and we just hope that everyone is OK.

Viet Nam-Hanoi Tet Holiday 2010

Chinese New Year means happy celebrations when families get together to welcome the new year. Everybody travels back to their family home for this most important holiday. Which means that millions of people are on the go, and as ex-patriots one should either stay put or leave China. As Philip had a week off we decided long ago to take the second option. Vietnam was our destination: First some days in Hanoi including a 1-day bike-trip there followed by a flight south to Saigon or Ho Chi Min City as it is now officially called, where we would take a 4-day trip in the Mekong Delta on bikes, followed by a day of sightseeing.

The folly of choosing as destination another country with Chinese traditions came to light as we had trouble finding a guide for the one day Hanoi bike tour. Vietnam also celebrates the same New Year Holiday holiday, calling it Tet. Luckily (for a little bonus) we were finally able to secure a guide on the first day which was the preparation day leading up to the festival. As soon as we landed, we realized that this was going to be different from Beijing. Scooters and motorbikes were buzzing around us even at 3 Am, each carrying numerous passengers, huge blossoming peach trees as decorations for Tet, giant containers of produce and flowers etc.

Next morning we were picked up by our guide. By now we are pretty comfortable riding in Beijing, this though was something totally different . Making a left turn across scooters 10 deep with no apparent rules other than trying to criss-cross with the other cyclist was an act of total trust in our guide. Soon we crossed the river by barge and were in the country-side, seeing busy markets selling live fowl, fruit, numerous flowers and trees, and everything else imaginable. and everyone busy preparing for the holiday. Rice fields and poor villages dotted the landscape.

Soon we changed course and returned to the city. On one busy our guide and I lost Philip. Our guide went back and found Philip at the last Y intersection, he was ok other than bruised hands and ego having flipped off the bike into traffic after an abrupt stop by a taxi. Biking around the central big West lake, our guide told us that only foreigners live in the beautiful French villas by the lake, no Vietnamese can afford it. This is a contrast to Beijing where we have a lot of poor people, but also quite a few extremely wealthy Chinese citizens. Our tour then went to the administrative area of the city, situated on big, tree-lined boulevards with French architectural mansions, now mainly housing embassies. A giant park surrounded "Uncle Ho's Mausoleum", but we did not have time to go in. A lone soldier guarded the garden and tribute to the grave of the unknown soldier, at the entrance a sign was posted, warning that there was no admittance. The guarding soldier for some reason beckoned us to enter, opened the gate and suggested that Philip light some incense. - An extended hand in forgiveness for our past.

As we entered the hotel after the tour, we were handed an invitation to a New Year's Party with dinner that evening. As we had no other plans, we asked about the price. No, we want you to be the guests of the hotel owners was the answer. Bewildered we looked at one another, and decided to go. So did most of the fifty other guests, and we were treated to a banquet with numerous tasty holiday dishes, free-flowing champagne, happy guests from around the world and a gracious, smiling host exemplifying the Vietnamese hospitality. For New Year everyone should eat a festive meal, which we did thanks to our very generous hotel owner. As we exchanged the greeting: Chuc Mung Nam Moi, we felt the warmth and hospitality of our Vietnamese host.

The next day we were invited to lunch at the home of one of Philip's Beijing patients, her mother was also present. Again we had to marvel at the hospitality as we tasted special New Year treats. The mother did not speak English, but at the end of the meal she turned to face Philip, and it was clear she did want to say something. Looking directly at Philip, and being translated by her daughter, she timidly, but directly asked: " And what are your memories of the American war with Vietnam?" (in which she lost her only brother) The last question came right to the point: "Why did such a big nation like yours see the need to attack a small country like ours?" Despite it all, she extended an open hand to citizens of the country whose former behavior she could not understand.

The next day we spent walking around the city of Hanoi. Everywhere we were met by Chuc Mung Nam Moi. We really enjoyed the city and it's people tremendously, and found it very different from Beijing. Hanoi in many ways appears as if 50 years behind the present date. Very few high rises, instead lower buildings of individual houses. The majority of people seemed to have enough to survive, a moped or two, but not much more. Looking into the stores that were closed for the holiday, we saw people sitting around their dining tables which were in the middle of the store, common living and commercial space . And the precious mopeds were also parked inside.

As we left Hanoi Monday evening, we really wished we could have stayed longer in this city where the past still seemed to exist in it's elegant French government quarters and parks, it's somewhat shabby older city living quarters and an open hand in forgiveness for shameful deeds by our country not too long ago. As our guide put it: We believe two crazy leaders were responsible for the war, we like the people of America.

Small Fish in a Small Pond

Beijing may not be considered a small pond. With it's masses of people, a vast ocean rather comes to mind. However, if you narrow it down to Norwegians in Beijing, the pond shrinks dramatically. Having met the ambassador and his wife Eli once before, it was still a surprise, yet somewhat more understandable when the hospital got a phone call from the embassy, asking if it was correct that they had an American physician with a Norwegian wife. A nice invitation for dinner at the embassy with 16 other people arrived, and we had a lovely meal with the elite of Beijing Norwegians. Although, there is a subway entrance right across the road of the embassy it was nice that the hospital offered to drive us there in one of their black, shiny sedans- we did arrive in style. Above you can see Philip and me with the Norwegian ambassador to China,Svein O.Sæther and his lovely wife Eli.

Another small pond consist of Jewish medical people, so a meeting with the Israeli ambassador happened shortly afterward as the Israeli embassy celebrated their 18 year in Beijing by donating 18 heart surgeries to 18 Chinese orphans. For those of you who may not know, the numeric value of eighteen in Hebrew is the word "life"

From the Israel's Embassy celebration we went directly to a meeting of BIS, or Beijing International Society. This is a forum where interesting talks are arranged by a club of ambassador’s spouses in various embassies every two weeks; all foreign passport holders are invited. (The Chinese government does not allow Chinese nationals to attend, as the Embassies are technically on foreign soil) This last meeting was in the Norwegian Embassy, so below is a photo of me with the wives of the ambassadors from Norway, Sweden and Luxembourg. Even minnows get to swim with sturgeons when the pond is small.- Astri

Hong Kong

For some strange reason, I did not really expect to enjoy Hong Kong. In my mind it was a giant shopping mall built of skyscrapers. As our plane descended, my heart started beating faster at the sight of islands, ocean and busy boats crossing from one harbor to the next. I know Flekkefjord is no Hong Kong, and yet it reminded me of home. Boats docked at the harbor, containers waiting to be loaded, only the size was overwhelming. But ocean is ocean whether in Norway, Maine or Hong Kong, and thus a beautiful sight.

For us, memories of Hong Kong include:

-a trip to the Peak by cable-pulled tram
-a hike on the Peak seeing how narrow the strip of skyscrapers really are, and how beautiful the nature is
-a boat-trip to Kowloon on New Years eve
-a walk through Kowloon asking ourselves: Does anyone really buy these watches from numerous stores priced at $30.000 and more? Do they not know you can get a fake in Beijing that looks the same and cost less than $ 100?
-a boat trip to Lamma island
-a 2 hour coastal hike on rural Lamma island ending with a seafood dinner at a small restaurant on the pier
-a final trip to Kowloon to a busy (frantic) shopping district, realizing this is what most people do in Hong Kong
-a 12 hour wait for our return flight due to another storm dumping 1 feet of snow in Beijing. However, we were treated to lunch, dinner, a hotel room for the evening and then a call at 1 AM " we are leaving" We had great books, so no big deal.

As we left the islands behind, I realized that I would be very happy to I have a chance to return some day.

Harbin-January 2010

Minnesota has Fargo, but here we have Harbin. If winter talk turns to cold temperature, this is the town most mentioned. Beijing has had a good snow year, but to make sure we got a little extra touch of cold air, we signed up with China Culture Club to visit Harbin the last week-end of January. We went with our new friends, Pam and Stewart Hughes from Leeds, UK.

Harbin lies north of here, close to the Russian border and is heavily influenced by Russian architecture, churches, bread making and more. Typical winter temperature hovers around -22 and 40 F we are told but we were spared such serious numbers. Clever enough to make this it's draw, Harbin sponsors a Winter Festival every year. So decked in our own and our friends’ warmest clothing, we headed for Harbin, enjoying the sights of impressive snow carved figures (anything white in the photos), ice houses built of ice blocks chopped out of the river that runs through town, complete with electricity to create a stunning night-time ice city. Our visit also included a trip through the Siberian tiger- park where we were happy to be inside strong vehicles and thus escape the fate of the chickens being fed to the hungry beasts.

I think the photos will tell the story better: