The boy loves to snorkel. I think he might be part fish, which probably explains why he never eats the delicious shrimp and lobster and mahi… So obviously we were going out on the Great Barrier Reef while in Cairns. The problem came with finding someone to take us… [Ed. note: I don’t like to eat seafood. I just like to look at them swimming about.]

We were pretty lazy with our igloo. The lure of a quiet beach, a cold drink, and the ability to walk to the bar on the corner for dinner when the sun went down kept us home bound for the first few days. So once we started realizing we needed to book someone to take us out snorkeling on Monday morning, it was 7 pm on Sunday night. We figured it would be fine. There were lots of companies up and down the coast and our beach was basically empty every day so it probably wasn’t tourist season yet even though it was summer here. we got up the next morning at 6 am and drove an hour to the marina of the company we picked out online. We stood outside the door before they opened and then we found out they were booked…solid…for the next 5 days and we left in 4! Well, shit. [Ed. note: Waking up early multiple days in a row really wasn’t the best beach-bum plan.]

Luckily, while they were booked for the (probably cooler) outer reef tour, they did have 2 seats left on the inner reef tour the next morning she could lock me into right now.   Done, we’ll just head back to the beach now for a nap in anticipation of another early morning and not miss out!  Except that the next morning dawned early and rainy.   Stormy actually. It poured for part of our windy coastal drive back up to Port Douglas and the angry looming clouds along the horizon didn’t disappear as we kept telling ourselves they would. Well, we’d be wet in the water anyway…although if it actually stormed I’m not so sure how our ability to swim would be effected…[Ed. note: a storm would choppy water, a possible stronger current, limited visibility, possibly colder water, with a high chance of cancellation of snorkeling. All bad news.]

Whatever, you can’t come to North Queensland and miss out on spending some time on the Great Barrier Reef—it seems almost criminal!  We grabbed our stinger suits to protect agains the rampant jellyfish we were about to encounter and strapped into our boat.   Yes, strapped in.   See the allure of this particular company came in part due to the 14 seater speedboats they used.   These race car seats with major seatbelt were necessary as the boat went over 80 kmph to get you as far out on the reef as possible for a short few hour tour.  We zoomed through the wake and quite literally held onto our hats for 15 minutes and then we were in the reef! [Ed. note: with sun!]

I was the first off the boat to take the plunge in…and then the last to swim away out to see the sights because once I was about 30 feet out from the boat, my flipper came completely undone and I was trying to thread water and holler at my husband to come back while also attempting to fix the fin so I could keep swimming!   Unfortunately, my husband was very busy reacquainting himself with his long lost friends to pull his face back above water…[Ed. note: I honestly had no idea about this until she typed this up and I read it. The coral really was sweet.]

The reef itself was stunning.   We found Nemo and all his aquatic friends along the way, including an amazing blue starfish.   We had about an hour and a half to explore any part we wanted and I swam until the water temperature from the impending storm finally had my teeth chattering too hard to swim anymore and had to retreat to the boat! [Ed. note: the water did begin to get a bit chillier than the Coral Sea may initially have you believe…]

I’m so glad our lack of planning here didn’t completely ruin our day trip because seeing the reef in person was absolutely stunning.   I’ve been snorkeling a lot on reefs in the Caribbean and also off the coast of Zanzibar [Ed. note: and the Maldives…] but I’ve never seen so many types of coral and such beautiful colors of coral in one place!  

My husband has a terrifying need to find and hug all the animals. [Ed. note: I love animals, and want to cuddle them.] In a controlled environment where we pay heftily for the privilege and (hopefully) the staff protection, this has been possible. Tigers, elephants, pandas, koalas, really he’s had quite a round experience of all things cuddly and rare.  But this is simply not enough it seems.

In Northern Queensland, there is an exceptionally weird ostrich-sized bird called the cassowary.  It is an endangered species which ups the cool factor by a couple notches and it’s one of two birds in the world that has the ability to kill you, which bumps that cool factor up by all the rest of the notches.

And we saw one. Driving along the rain forest jungle, trying to keep our rental car on the gravel road for a few hours to once again find his favorite waterfall and suddenly there it was.  Walking along the side of the road, basically ignoring us and completely refusing to pose for pictures (so any here are from the zoo…) and looking all cute and colorful and a bit like Kevin from “Up” which I suppose is how they lure you in for that kill…

We were totally lucky to actually see one…and so so much more lucky that it ran away into the forest before my husband could get out of the car and go “cuddle”…because after our day in the rainforest, we came home and he sent me this article…apparently Outside had a feature on the 10 Worst Ways to Die in the Wild…and one of those featured was the lovely, cuddly cassowary.   So, because I cannot explain it better than this fine man, here is Scott Rosenfield’s view on how a cassowary encounter would go…Consider yourself lucky, husband. [Ed. note: I totally could’ve given that bird a nice pet on its back without getting gouged open…]

Twlight falls on northeastern Australia. Beer in hand and with the warm glow of the campfire illuminating the surrounding foliage, you spot a dart of blue through the green and hear a low-pitched boom—too deep to be a bird, too high to be thunder.

Curious and a bit tipsy, you venture forth to explore. Meeting you eye-to-eye is a 6-foot-tall, 129-pound bird. Your eyes quickly scan the beast but miss the 5-inch dagger-like claw on its middle toe. The bird looks tame, but it has repeatedly been fed by people and is now expecting the same from you.

You know not to feed the wildlife, but you toss a beer can its way. When the bird doesn’t move, you move forward and make a fake charge for the (drunken) hell of it. The creature cocks its head and you think it’s finally going for the brew. But instead it lunges toward you. Suddenly, you’re one of the 221 recorded victims of a cassowary attack. You laugh and turn to run, thinking the modern-day velociraptor will be easily distanced. You’re wrong. The cassowary tops out at 31 mph and easily keeps pace with your drunken amble.

The bird kicks and you stumble across a log. In a flash, it leaps nearly five feet into the air, landing beside your neck. You cover your face in fear as the cassowary nears. With one powerful kick, it opens a half-inch gash, nicking your carotid artery.

Hearing your screams, a nearby camper comes to your aid, shooing off the bird. Within seconds of his arrival and eight minutes after the gash was formed, you slip into unconsciousness. The camper tries to staunch the flow of blood, but it’s no use. You’re the second person since 1926 to die by cassowary.

Before we came to Australia, my husband kept jokingly telling me that everything in this country wants to kill me.   There’s a cartoon somewhere on the internet about this, but the basics are that all the bugs and birds and general cuddly wildlife are actually super sized here down under and harbor a secret desire to bite and kill all tourists. [Ed. note: it’s true. Australia is chock-full of deadly animals.] But this isn’t just limited to the fauna,  it is like the whole damn country is chock full of life threatening things and the locals just take it with a shrug and another beer!   Case and point: we took a road trip of death into the rainforest…

What should have been a nice calm Sunday drive from Cairns up to Daintree Rainforest was turned on its side simply by being located in Australia.  To start with, there was the hour on the costal highway.  Stunningly beautiful oceanside with waves crashing into the cliffs…and probably lots of cars crashing there too as I had to continuously remind the husband that keeping his eyes on the windy narrow road was slightly more important than watching the sunrise over the Coral Sea.

Once we crossed the river (on a car ferry still operating on the pulley system…), it was time for another two hour drive up the windy mountainside.   Luckily, there wasn’t an ocean view here to distract us.  Unluckily, there was the need to watch carefully for wildlife darting out into the road and causing you to swerve and plummet down the hillside…  [Ed. note: half of the drive was on a gravel road. In the rainforest. Through several flowing creeks.] Oh, and in case that wasn’t quite enough, the Aboriginals like fire, so they just set trees on fire and leave them…then the trees fall and block the road, around sharp curves.  So mid-drive, we had to get out and help a couple with a large RV break and haul 20 foot long limbs out of the path to fit a car through…and hope in the meantime that the fire didn’t spread and break the tree limb dangling above the rental car you declined the additional insurance on… 

Finally, we’re at the waterfall, the ultimate goal of this ill-advised road trip.  Wujal Wujal is my husband’s favorite waterfall…and it is surrounded by slippery rocks and pools full of man-eating crocodiles.  [Ed. note: Why is it my favorite? Because it is AWESOME!] No, that’s not just an expression, the crocs here actually don’t discriminate in their food source and will eat anything that moves in the water, be it fish, man, or their own croc brother!   After having overcome so much to make it all the way up here, he wasn’t going to be happy until he go right up to the falls and said hello.  And having seen how much we had to overcome to get up here, I wasn’t going to let him go all the way over there alone as I was the carrier of the first aid kit with the super clotting sponge for major wounds…I believe in being over prepared for the worst considering I usually hurt myself twice a day just working behind a desk…

We started our climb up and down the rocks precariously perched around the pools.   And then we started to consider what was in said pools and thought that perhaps our climb should go a little bit higher so that one slip of a foot didn’t result in an amputation from someone looking for a snack with their tea!  In hindsight, that wasn’t the best plan. Instead of just dipping a toe in if we fell, now we’d fall far and make a big splash so there was no choice but the dwellers of the pools to hear us and come running (swimming?)  I prodded on and willed my life skills learned on a couple bad dates with a rock climber 10 years ago to come back to me.  Surely all those arm curls lifting my frosty glass on the beach this week built up enough muscle mass to hold myself up as I had to dangle and make the next step, right?   

 

I’m not sure how exactly we made it in (or back out for that matter), but suddenly we were in front of the beautiful falls and a full pool.  I was content to sit and breathe for a bit, but the husband had to get closer still! [Ed. note: Heck yeah I did.]  Screw it, I love him but one of us had to be around to call for help.   I loaded his pockets up with first aid items and made him leave me the car keys.   And then I sent him off even further into the rainforest jungle that wanted to kill us….while I took pictures to document it for all of you!  Wife of the year…

(It’s the first ever FW’s Where’s Waldo…find the Boy!)

We don’t travel simply to collect passport stamps or check a country off a list (except North Korea, that place was definitely a giant checkmark and we will never return…ever.)  But it did bring us a certain sense of accomplishment when we realized that we have now stayed a night on every single continent during the past 23 months.   And the final stop came when we landed in Australia, my 7th continent and the completion of one pretty awesome stamp collection!

To celebrate, we’re taking it easy this week with so R&R on the beach in North Queensland. We plan to work on our (non-existent) tans, read some books, and drink something out of a frosty mug.   Basically, we might be really, really bad travel bloggers for a bit…but Asia was exhausting and after 10 weeks of constant travel, sometimes what you really need is a beach vacation, right? [Ed. note: So true. We’re tired. I think a week of beach drinking sounds lovely.]

As a concession for all you wanting a good story, I did book us into an igloo directly on the beach.  Seriously…

And so ends Asia, right? We entered China 4 separate times, and had to clear immigration and customs another 4 times to leave. Good life choices…

Hong Kong/Macau:

• Hong Kong is a great city. We haven’t really enjoyed our city times nearly as much as our other time, but Hong Kong is definitely a city to go back to.
• I am so glad we made friends on our Antarctica trip, and kept in touch. It was great to see them, they let us stay at their place, gave us places to go, took us to Macau, and generally we had an amazing time with them. They are great people, and hopefully we’ll see them soon on another continent!
• Macau was loads and loads of fun. The morning after when we had to fly to Beijing – not so much.
• Our final layover night in Hong Kong before leaving for Australia, we were out to dinner at a local dimsum place with our wonderful Hong Kong hosts. A guy stops at the table, my wife thinks he recognizes the shirt I’m wearing. Turns out he went to high school with us 12 years ago and now lives in Hong Kong! We chatted a second, ate dinner, and had a beer afterwards. Sometimes life is super-random in great ways.

Beijing:

• It was never smoggy or unclear in Beijing. We chalked it up to the cold front coming through and pushing in late autumn crisp, cold weather. I think we got lucky.
• People are everywhere. Cars, buses, sidewalks, sites, everywhere. But they all seemed to have a purpose and place to go.
• The Forbidden City is massive! And it’s pretty and very interesting. The throng at the throne room was hilarious. The Heavenly Gate is still the only place I saw a large portrait of Mao, though.
• Tiananmen Square though…man…what a place. Security EVERYWHERE. And everyone wants to go to Mao’s tomb. I realized on this trip I’ve been to three of the four places where they have a big public embalmed leader (Lenin in Moscow, Mao in Beijing, and the Leaders in North Korea).
• The Summer Palace is a place you’d like.

Great Wall:

• Unrestored section is 1000x better than restored sections – no people, you can feel the history. We hiked for kilometers up and down old and crumbly with no one else anywhere!
• The military owns a piece of the wall where we hiked – it was the edge of a military base. So we hiked in Inner Mongolia for a bit off the wall.
• Camping was freezing but a life experience, the second day was incredibly steep hiking.

Chengdu:

• We are really getting good at using public transportation
• Box Hat street is a real place that the Opera is off of. I can’t read Chinese. But one of the characters was a box, with a hat.
• That massage before the Opera was needed after 2 days on the wall, camping, and general travel.
• PANDAS!
• So, there are only like 2000 pandas left on Earth. 20 of them were at this base. That’s 1% of the entire panda population.
• This was the newest base, opened in 2014, not open to the public yet. There is a base closer to the City with 100 pandas, but is super crowded and you can’t volunteer or get near them at all. There is the main base 3 hours into the mountains where they’ve been doing AI work for years.  Then the final base, Wolong, was completely destroyed in the earthquake. A part of it is open for panda release-into-wild training. You cannot go there.
• The volunteering had more downtime than expected – you could wander and see the pandas, but I wanted to hang out with them more. We fed them twice, cleaned their gardens and cages, and talked to them a lot.
• I loved petting the baby panda so much. It was fluffier than you could possibly image. And happy. And so happy to be eating a carrot. And it was soft. And everything you would expect a baby panda to be like. I want one.

And now, Asia photos, and then onto Australia!

And an updated look at our crazy trip map now…

I’ve had a while now to decompress from the North Korea adventure, here are some short notes and thoughts on the trip into the most reclusive nation on Earth…

• We knew we’d have two guides, but were told it’d be one male and one female. We got two female guides – a 23 year old “new” guide and a 26 year old “experienced” guide. This immediately has us form an unspoken game plan for our time in country.
• I immediately started playing up how interested I am in things, how I love giant tall things, how I want to go to the top, how I am animated and fun loving and goofy and a silly American and smiling and love learning facts and tell me how tall this thing is wow that is SO TALL thank you for sharing, while my wife played the quiet one. We both did this independently and never stated it until we were leaving or really planned it ahead of time, but we both did it while there.
• The young guide had a crush on me and wanted to impress me. I wanted her to not get upset and have the secret police throw me in a work camp.
• The entire time you are there you are on edge. Adrenaline is pumping, you have to always think on your feet, they are constantly asking you questions and since you’re American, they are trying to get you to slip up. And they know certain things about America, like #BlackLivesMatter and #TrevonMartin and the Trail of Tears for the Native Americans. It’s like a never-ending game of mental chess, where the stakes are: win and you get your passport back and can leave, lose and, well, I didn’t want to lose.
• The young guide went to ping-pong school for a month. We played ping pong on the final night with another American, and every time our guide made a mistake, she had a twitch. I do not want to know what happened when she messed up in ping pong class that had her develop a twitch.
• The guide liked me so much she got the itinerary changed so we could go to the Fun Fair the final night and ride the amusement park rides. I was excited, until I realized I did not want to die riding a North Korean amusement park ride. We did not go to the Fun Fair.
• We had to lay flowers, respectfully, and then bow, at the Dear Leader statue. It was only a suggestion “if we wanted to be respectful”, and by all means I wanted to be viewed as respectful.
• Everything in the city is “the”. “The library”. “The roller skate rink”. “The bowling alley”. There are two tourist hotels. “The new street”. “The theatre”. “The Square”.
• Electricity is not plentiful for the citizens. The city is creepy dark at night. I feel bad for the people there.
• The questioning by the guard at the DMZ was awful, and it was mentally taxing. And then he petted my beard and smiled.
• The power went out at dinner. We sat in silence, in the dark, for 90 seconds. A loud generator kicked on, emergency lights came on, and the guides started laughing and talking again like nothing happened.
• We went to the Children’s Palace. Like a creepy tower of horrors. Those kids…they all performed different skills for us in different rooms. Just…*shudder*
• US Imperialists.
• I cannot figure out if our guides drank the kool-aid and believe the wonders, or if they say it knowing that their job allows them steady “good” food and access to things most citizens don’t have.
• The weirdest feeling was getting my passport back, and getting an airplane ticket, and leaving, while the guides and everyone else I encountered are not legally allowed to purchase an airplane ticket and leave. I went to the Great Wall and saw pandas, and they will never be allowed to do that while their government exists. But they acted like it was normal.  Strange.

And now, some North Korea photos…

And a map of where in North Korea we went…

Look, this story isn’t going to be funny There’s absolutely nothing funny about once again paying a bunch of money to wear strange blue coveralls and shovel Asian animal poop (well, the husband landed poop duty each time, clearly I wasn’t actually going to do that part…) But I can’t not post about it because we spent all day hanging out with 20 great pandas in China and have the awesome up close and personal photos to show you. So, forewarned and all that…

[Ed. note: The people with access to cool animals have these things all figured out – charge folks money to come, get their hands dirty, shovel poop, give the animals a bath, clean the cages and living areas, and in return those poor schmucks can take some photos and whatnot. That’s right, for the second time this trip, I was paying money to shovel animal poop. I was on Panda Poop Patrol. 

Whatever. I got to cuddle, feed, and hang out with pandas all morning.]

Our morning started ridiculously early…or basically the night before with no sleep. Since Chengdu has no zoning laws, the demolition of the building outside our hotel room window lasted well beyond 2 am…and the with a hotel named the Buddha Zen we weren’t quite feeling the sea of tranquility we anticipated. [Ed. note: there was no Zen. At all.] But, there were pandas in our future so we caught a nap in the car on the couple hour trek north of the city and prepped ourselves for yet another super cool and extremely rare behind the scenes animal encounter.

The pandas did not disappoint. The fact that we got merged into a group with 20 high school students from South Korea kind of did…

We went into the cages…after the giant pandas went out (much to my husband’s displeasure), and were handed shovels and brooms to clean the old bamboo away. Seizing my position of seniority, I nominated myself as the overseer and told the 16 year old boys to go scoop poop…leaving my husband the much cleaner and easier task of sweeping. He picked up a shovel. He picked up a shovel and spent 15 minutes walking every inch of that enclosure with a dustpan in tow looking for the poop. And when a high school boy came to take over, my husband sent the kid away to sweep! Yes, the same husband who fled the room each time our baby niece needed a diaper change was now paying for the privilege of handling the much larger and less contained panda poop. Seriously?! [Ed. note: yes seriously. Pandas are awesome, so I’ll do whatever I need to do in order to hand feed and cuddle them.]

The day got better. We fed pandas. (By hand, because that sounds almost as safe as those tigers and the whole chicken incident.) We got to play hulk smash breaking up the bamboo to fill the cages…and then tease the small Asian high school boys, because I could break the bamboo in one try and so could their small Asian female classmates, but they failed to master this essential life skill.

And then came the highlight. A little one year old panda was lured from her enclosure with large carrot sticks and climbed up on a bench. And one by one, we were given 20 seconds to plop down beside her and cuddle while our partner took photos. She was adorably soft and my photo session went off without a hitch. My husband passed me the big camera and rushed to take his spot next. I took one photo, then another, then the panda turned away, so I sidestepped to keep her face in frame…and tripped over the camera strap…but I didn’t drop the exceptionally expensive piece of equipment my husband only started letting me use unsupervised the trip prior! I kept taking pictures until his 20 seconds were up and then we walked off to enjoy our shots…and they were all black. I have no idea how it even happened, but something on the settings changed when I tripped and suddenly the 15 pictures I thought were solid were black…

Minor panic, because along with paying money to clean up after these creatures [Ed. note: and feed them!!!], we had to pay even more money for those 20 brief seconds of cuddle time – and I was not having his only memory of this day be pooper scooping, no matter how much he seemed to enjoy that activity. I put on my sad face and walked up to the trainer with the black photos on the display. I cycled through them and after much was said back and forth in Chinese, my husband was ushered forward for 10 bonus seconds cuddling a panda toddler. Day saved…by me.

As we were starting on month #3 of our food, drink, and crazy animal tour of the world, it was time once again to inject a little culture into our lives…we were going to another opera! During all my research of Chengdu (namely, which panda base was the most likely to let my husband sit on a Giant Panda’s lap…) I kept seeing mention of the famous Sichuan province “changing faces opera”. It had become touristy, no doubt, but it still sounded amazing, so months before our trip I researched where to go, how to buy tickets and even directions of how to take the local subway there. I saved it all in my Google Drive folder. Google…in China. Thanks to my lack of foresight to print that file and mainly China’s Great Firewall, all things Google were non-existent for 10 days. Back to square one!

Determined to do it, I took to Bing Search [Ed. note: 5 cents] and an old-fashioned paper map of the city…and somehow we actually found it!

The show was in a tea room (that thankfully served beer) and before it started, guests could one extra service: dressing in the costumes, traditional face painting (which the Boy rejected in half a second because he’s no fun), a 10 minute ear cleaning (yup, it’s as gross as it sounds), or the best 15 minute massage I’ve ever encountered. After nearly 20 km on the Great Wall and nights on end sleeping on stone floors and plywood mattresses, this woman was a miracle worker. I asked to take her home with me, but I think something got lost in the language barrier.

As we learned from the last opera, me telling you what happened isn’t any fun, and while I didn’t have a translation screen this time, I did try to listen to the MC’s descriptions. Unfortunately, she would speak animatedly in Mandarin for 10 minutes, and then her English translation would be “Welcome to Chengdu. The wife is mad. Please enjoy.”

So, once again, here is the opera, according to the Boy…

[Ed. note: Real talk people. I’m sure this will come as a complete surprise to everyone, but I don’t speak Chinese. No version of Chinese, at all. Not Mandarin. Not Cantonese. I can’t read Simplified. Nothing. I can’t read any of it, can’t speak it, and even my gestures get lost in translation. So I have no idea what the Opera was really about, or what was happening in front of me – again. Luckily, they served beer.]

At the start, it was really unclear what was transpiring on stage. It had been described to me as a “variety show”, but that didn’t really make sense for a “Chinese Opera”. I quickly realized that the show was supposed to be a set of Court performances for the Emperor – each troupe from the countryside was to perform their bit in an attempt to entertain him. Once I figured this out, the pieces began falling into place.

The first troupe was a group dressed in traditional costumes, dancing around stage while their star woman sand a beautiful Chinese song. She seemed to be aiming her career for a Celine Dion-esque solo show, but she wasn’t French-Canadian, so she was singing for the Emperor of China instead. A good gig if you can get it. The song sounded like it was about how amazing the Emperor was, the dancers were an interpretative dance to illustrate his amazing strength (including swordplay); the Emperor I guess was pleased and the troupe was then dismissed.

The second group was a solo act – a man and his violin-guitar. His first number was again all about “the Emperor is amazing”, hitting all the right notes in a traditional musical key. His second number, however, took a turn…There was a snare drum in the background, drumming a Sousa-like march. Things seemed…ominous, not pro-Emperor, and I think it upset the Emperor greatly. This performer was quickly replaced with a woman and a very dexterous hand-puppet. It was neat, but it seemed like Court filler as the Emperor seethed.

We realized this quickly because the Emperor was then on stage, demanding the man I presume to be the violinist to be executed. Yeah, executed. The first troupe is summoned back on stage, hauling the guy up as a prisoner. There is some arguing and hemming and hawing, but sure enough, they put his head on a chopping block and killed him.  It got dark.

A band member then came on stage and soloed on his oboe-trumpet instrument for a while. It was a valiant attempt to distract the entire Court from what had just happened, but a cloud had fallen over the cast. This was followed by a ridiculously amazing finger-puppet performance – an allegory with peaceful doves (the troupes) living life, a nice bunny (the violinist), and then a wolf (the Emperor) arrives. By the end of the shadow puppet performance, the wolf had eaten the bunny – reminded everyone about the precariousness of their situation in the Emperor’s Court.

A final duo arrived on stage and performed a Chinese version of “I Love Lucy” (with the gender rolls reversed). The husband had some ‘splaining to do!

The Emperor was still in a foul mood and stormed the stage with his entire entourage, breathing actual fire (awesome) as everyone’s face actually changed (think Game of Thrones, people – but in real life. It was cool) – this was a metaphor for the vastness of the Emperor’s kingdom and subjects.  It was during this final act that the Emperor’s face changed as well. This sudden occurrence struck a nerve with the Emperor, leading him to realize that he too is just one man in a long line of Emperor’s, and he soon too will be dead and replaced. His realization about life led him to repent and apologize to the Court, whereby all the troupes accepted his apology.

At least, I think that’s what happened. Maybe it was just an 8 Act really cool variety show?

I admit, sometimes my excitement over discovering we can do such ridiculous and unusual things clouds my judgment of if such things are actually safe or comfortable or feasible for 30 year old’s who have long shunned the college ways of 8 people in a hotel room on spring break to save money for booze to instead requiring a hotel with AC, room service, and a King bed… And by sometimes I mean every single trip.   Camping in Antarctica?  Of course we must!  Never mind that I hate camping and doubly hate cold, which I only remembered around 2am as the mat I placed my sleeping bag on has shifted and I woke up laying directly on the hard, snow packed ground where it was perhaps 8 below…This trip has been a study in bad decisions, and visiting the Great Wall was to be no exception.  

We used a tour company for our China leg.   They took away the headache of figuring out internal flights, intercity transfers, and visa invitation letters.  But when their proposed itinerary only had half a day allocated for the Great Wall, my husband put his foot down. Apparently the section most people visit (with public restrooms and those fun looking toboggan slides back down) were simply to pedestrian. [Ed. note: Way too pedestrian. Too many people, not original wall…I wanted an authentic historical old-and-crumbly experience, not one crowded and turned into a giant tourist attraction!]   No problem, this is where my trip planning side excels!  I was going to get us to the “good” (aka unrestored…) wall.

And here is where my stupid idea mental block kicks in.   I booked us on a 2 day Great Wall hike with our overnight accommodations being camping in one of the watchtowers…in the Chinese winter…2 and a half hours north of Beijing…with some guy I found on the internet and payed by sending money through his personal PayPal account…

The day started okay…I put on 7 layers of shirts and 2 pairs of pants (look, 75 of our 88 traveling days were meant to be in summery climates, we kind of forgot to pack any warmer clothes to accommodate the leftovers…) and began to trudge my way up the wall. The problem with hiking the unrestored wall is that there are not actually steps to climb up, but rather foothills cut out of the cliffs.  Only 4 hours of this…and another 4 hours tomorrow…over 15+ km…what was I thinking? [Ed. note: that you love your husband despite his love of hiking up mountains?]

Our guide charged ahead at (I suppose) the normal pace…and I plodded along behind at the pace of a 5 year old in a  snowsuit, desperately trying to make my limbs move at any level of speed, but being slowed down by all the layers of clothes!  Once we caught up to him, sitting on a crumbled rock, playing on his cell phone snapping photos of the wall, we were met by the magnificent view we traveled so far to experience.  To either side of us the wall stretched across the horizon and climbed up and down the rolling hiss, a watch tower perched on each peak.   We continued on, climbing up and down as more sectioned came into view.   We were in awe of the sheer size of this structure which had been around for hundreds and hundreds of years.  The site was made even sweeter by the fact that we were on near empty section far from the tourist shops and cable cars outside Beijing that most people visit and had once again a completely clear day.  This Chinese smog issue was seeming like a myth to us, thank goodness! [Ed. note: our guide kept saying that he never gets to see as far away as he could during this hike, the smog must be pushed away by the cold front coming in, and he kept taking pictures of the view himself because it was so clear…cold v. smog!]

Unfortunately, around hour number 3 of our climb, the sun started to set and the temperatures began to drop.  The realization that I was shivering and chattering while hiking 12km didn’t bode well for my comfort as we were destined to sleep 12 hours on the wall later with only a tent to protect my Southern skin from the inevitable hypothermia. The guide sensed my discomfort and offered the option to stay at a local B&B instead…but when I made a bad decision, I’m stubborn enough to stick with it, so after an early dinner we got back in the car and the two Chinese men in charge of our lives drove a short distance before stopping on a pitch black turn off and shutting off the car.   My husband and I looked at each other with the same realization: we safely talked our way out of North Korea only to be killed 2 days later by some men we sent hundreds of dollars on PayPal for the privilege?  Really?? [Ed. note: some dark dirt road was the turnoff…]

Luckily, Ted Bundy they were not.   Instead, we got to start another hike from this location up to the camping site.   In the pitch black, freezing temperatures and only half the party actually had a flashlight.  It sucked.   Trust me on this part–no matter how cool and fun it sounds to be able to camp on the Great Wall of China, spring for the B&B farmhouse.  It’s hard.  And cold.   And you cannot see any of the Great Wall around you because it is absolutely pitch black.   Truthfully, we could be sleeping in some old stone shed that the local Chinese farmers charge money to rent out and throw a smelly old tent and a couple sleeping bags inside, miles away from any stretch of the Wall.   Because when the sun rose the next morning, we were frozen and sleep deprived (despited going to bed around 7pm since there’s nothing else to do in a Great Wall Watch Tower after dark when a camp fire is banned…) we were just ready to get the hell off that Wall and into a car with a heater that we failed to look around on the hike back down the hill to see if there was in fact a sliver of a wall anywhere nearby! [Ed. note: I looked. It was 100% Great Wall. I was also freezing and super tired.]

But the fun wasn’t over yet…after our very satisfying breakfast of congee and noodles [Ed. note: not satisfying], we had the opportunity to hike 4 more freezing hours on another section of the wall.   And while some tour planners would consider the cold and the tired and the sleep deprivation when deciding which hike to schedule each day, our PayPal friends simple didn’t care.   So by sheer stubbornness and the promise of a beer when I was done, my husband managed to get me to hike 4 of the 8 kms on day 2…4 km straight uphill and then straight back down.  Not even stairs in some parts of the wall but rather a sheer slope of marble blocks that I considered sledding down if only the temps dropped a few more degrees the night before to ice over…

The Great Wall is clearly greater than me…and next time I’m taking the damn slide back down like Michelle Obama got to!

[Ed. note: I’ve got the intro here…]

The DMZ is 168 km from Pyongyang. Our guides were very emphatic of asserting numbers, and were very proud of the highway the Great Leader built in the early 1990’s going to the DMZ, which expanded the old road from the 1950’s. This meant, for the 3 hour drive there and for the 3 hour drive back, we were trapped in the van, captives, unable to avoid the constant barrage of questions from the guides. Three hours to drive 168 km? Yes, because the road was built in the early 90’s and it hasn’t been repaved since. 25 years of North Korean winters has wreaked havoc on the pavement, so the drive was slow, bumpy, and jerky as the driver constantly swerved to avoid a flat tire.

Out the window, the landscape was both beautiful and haunting. Splendid hills, pretty mountains, rolling fields and gentle plains passed by, yet all were marred by the regime’s efforts over the years. Poorly built canals created odd lumps everywhere. Dirt fields, unable to produce food. Shamble towns. All were peppered with people – dressed in clothes from all walks of life – working in the field, mainly by hand. Some had tools – a hoe, a shovel – and some didn’t, but every group of workers had an army officer standing upright nearby, watching. Oxen plowed the fields as people walked and biked to seemingly nowhere.

The road itself was littered with people on the move. From where, to where, I do not know. Kids with backpacks walking, 5 to 8 km from closest “exit”, so I don’t know how they even got on this road. Men on bikes. A soldier, standing in the median, 10km from anything at all. I have no idea.

As for the DMZ itself, here’s my wife…

Much like the convoy to Sudan, once all the cars of guides and tourists arrived (4 in total), our papers were checked and registered and we lined up to drive into the demilitarized zone.  Being the lucky guests to once again have the armed soldier nestled into our van (although we were assured that no one is armed inside the Zone except for a single shot weapon each, to protect against the enemy spies…aka, us.) This guard was chatty and spent most of the short drive firing off questions through the translation of our guide. We got out of the van and were able to tour the rooms where the ceasefire was signed (or as they view it, the cowardly surrender by the US Imperialists). Two young Americans in our DMZ group had apparently not done any research on how to stay out of a North Korean work camp, and spent their time making jokes and taking pictures of the guards. We can’t be sure what happened, but suddenly our tour was less 2 members and we continued in a single file line as if nothing happened…

At the Demarcation Line, we first went into one of the meeting rooms and were able to walk “into” South Korea…but only a few feet as soldiers lined the doorways prohibiting entry or exit from the opposite side. We came back into North Korea and went on top of the building to overlook the line and learn how scared visitors feel on the southern side, and how everyone who comes to this side of the DMZ says they feel happy and safe. I’d say that too until you release my passport from your hold!

What happened next can be considered my husband’s breaking point. Usually the overly adventurous traveler sort, he admitted after this that he was ready to get the hell out of this country and never return…plus warn all others to avoid it no matter what. As we stood overlooking the DMZ, North Korean guards seen from every angle, our carpool buddy began to grill the Boy. Ten minutes of rapid fire questions – “what do you think of our country? What do you think of your government? Would you reunite our home that the US Imperialists are keeping apart?” And suddenly it was over…and the North Korean guard was petting my husband’s beard in what were can only assume was a symbol that he passed the test and we could return to our hotel in Pyongyang and tomorrow to China once again. [Ed. note: The scariest 10 minutes of my life. What do I know about the government? How would I change it? What about the USA? South Korea? “Oh so you’re on our side?” he asked. I have never thought so fast, so quick on my feet, and managed to not stumble once while keeping my ‘goofy funny American act’ that I had been laying on thick for our guides. Petrifying.]