Turkey in Turks and Caicos

For Thanksgiving 2011, my family decided to buck tradition and head to Turks and Caicos for the long weekend. We all met in Miami Airport, my parents and brother looking like suave, well-dressed professional people as I approached them in the vaguely named and forgettable airport restaurant where they were waiting for me. I, on the other hand, carried my belongs and clothes rolled into tight sausage rolls, jammed one on top of the other into a backpacker's pack, and was wearing unflattering Bermuda shorts and two messy French braids carelessly tossed between me and the top of my backpack. I could see my parents and brother felt concern for my disheveled appearance as they all gave me the pursed-lip once over upon my arrival. Luckily I was not wearing my Vibram Fivefingers, otherwise my parents' consternation would be particularly pronounced.

They seemed to let it go though and we boarded our plane to Turks and Caicos. My brother and I sat together, as at 21 and 23, we can now be trusted to sit together and not try to slap each other silly. My parents sat in the other side and we four took up the bulkhead seats on the flight. I happen to be the smallest member of an unusually tall family, and when we travel together for the sake of my 6'5" brother and 6'4" father and 5'10" mother, we usually travel in the bulkhead seats or the emergency exit row seats for the extra leg room. I on the other hand, have become used to travelling in very small, some might say offensively small spaces (see Qingdao trip post), and I am often comfortable with the middle row seats as much as I am with the aisle or window.

We arrived at the airport and went through customs, and my parents and brother collected their checked baggage (I came with carry-ons for our trip). We took a minibus to the hotel, and our driver informed us that the hotels over seven floors high in Turks and Caicos were all built illegally, and that the landowners who built those tall hotels were now being pursued for crimes against the Turks and Caicos people. Because Turks and Caicos is a very low lying set of islands, building such tall hotels and resorts keeps people who live inland, mostly locals, from seeing the ocean. This is why hotel builders can not build above seven floors for hotels in the country.

Our hotel was amazing. We had a full kitchen and a balcony, and we were only a short walk away from a pool, and more importantly, the beach.

After changing into swim suits we headed out for some late afternoon sunshine before dinner. The water was turquoise blue, and the ocean seemed very calm. The nice thing about visiting this country during Thanksgiving is that it is just at the end of tourist season, and we never had trouble finding beach chairs, towels, or a place to jump in the water without worrying about surfers, boogie boarders, or my favorite, jet skiers.

We had dinner at the hotel, and my brother and i were brave and tried fried conch fritters. Conch is actually pronounced "Conk" and while you may scoff at having to pronounce those big shells that you hold up to your ear to hear the ocean as anything other than what you've been calling it, people really do mock you if you do not say it

properly in countries where these large crustaceans are found. So work on changing your habits! My first experience with conch was more fried batter than anything else, so I couldn't really say that I had had a true conch experience.

The next day I got up to run around the island, my brother and my mom worked out at the smelly gym at our hotel, and my dad went golfing, which he did three times over the course of our trip. He actually set some kind of course record, making it through 18 holes, three times in a row, in only a couple hours.

Apparently, though I didn't see it myself, the golf course at Turks and Caicos is nothing to write home about. This makes golfing here about the same as many of the other activities that can be done here - unnecessary. People come for the sun and the beach, and water sports. Things like golfing, running, eating healthy, and rock climbing are not quite as memorable. My run quickly became interesting as I ran past the island's only casino and then abruptly came to a dead end. Turks and Caicos has mostly ground shrubs for vegetation, and from those shrubs emerged a pack of feral dogs. While I love

puppies like nobody's business, these were not dogs I could pet. And since there were eight of them, I slowly backtracked and started making my way back to the hotel. Dogs in Turks and Caicos are really their own breed, called potcakes. My brother an

d I saw some of the puppies available for adoption in animal shelters near our hotel, and immediately wanted one of our very own. They are a very cute and friendly breed, and many U.S. tourists end up taking the puppies home with them after falling in love with them in the animal shelters and pet shops nearby. The dogs have overrun the island, so islanders try to adopt out as many new puppies as possible to control the dog population.

One of our most exciting adventures was a day of snorkeling. It was a family affair, and we set out on a boat to swim over the barrier reef that surrounds the country. The captains of the boat started the ball rolling by serving rum punch. Here the punch is

more rum than punch, but it is SO delicious. I had a couple cups of it before I dove into the water, but a good number of the people on our boat really started their day with a bang, slurping down four cups of it or more. They must have had a much more thrilling snorkeling experience than I did. The boat stopped over the reef, we were given goggles, fins, and an inflatable life jacket should we need it. I couldn't imagine needing it, though, because the water is very salty and mineral rich. Because of this, you find yourself unusually buoyant in the water. I found that I was perfectly comfortable about a foot deep in the water - the perfect depth for snorkeling. My brother, dad, and I naturally dove in, recklessly diving down to see what lies beneath, while my mom stayed above and took pictures. We finally got her to jump in too after extolling the fish and the beautiful colors of the reef. I was hoping I would get to see a sea turtle, my favorite animal, but no such luck for me. I loved seeing the fish though, and snorkeling was a great way to spend the afternoon.

Our next stop was in shallower waters, where we were told we needed to hunt for a conch. We were given one conch per family, and my brother and I decided to compete for the best conch. I totally won our competition, but when the captain saw my conch shell, he said it was too small and threw it back. What a bummer! But he let us choose one of the bigger ones another family had found as a replacement.

We then docked on Iguana Island, where a number of endangered iguanas live and are

protected from poachers and from being eaten. One of our captains took that time to "murder" the conchs, punching holes in the shells with a hammer and then pulling out the slimy pink and black and grey colored creature that lives inside of the shell. It kind of looks like a sinus infection, but that is just my opinion.

Each Conch has a reproductive organ, and it is considered an aphrodisiac among many different cultures. The organ, when separated from the conch, is a clear almost plastic looking tube and it looks fairly tame, but it is the thought that the clear tube came from the

inside of the sinus infection animal that turns many people off, literally and figuratively. I am always game for a challenge though, and held out my hand to try one of the conchs' reproductive organs. The captain raised his eyebrow and handed me the organ, and I ate it. Slurped it right down. It, like every thing else, tasted like chicken. I was the only female among a bunch of middle aged males to try the "aphrodisiac". I wonder why they were so interested in it....

We later explored the beach,

my brother proving to be adept at finding iguanas, and returned to the boat for some conch salad, which consisted of raw conch flesh chopped up into small strips, and mixed in with salsa. It was...interesting, but nothing to write home about. Of course I washed it down with some more of that rum punch. My parents abstained from the salad and the reproductive organs, claiming they didn't eat raw fish or they were just grossed out. They were pretty grossed out by me too, but I'm not sure I can shock them with my menu choices at this point in our relationship.

The rest of the trip was filled with golf playing, and suntanning, and I pretended to study for my law school exams in the sunshine. We actually still had Thanksgiving dinner on Thanksgiving, as the hotel provided a beautiful spread complete with turkey, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes, and pumpkin pie.

The last great thing I had the chance to do was go para-sailing with my mom. She was terrified, and is generally afraid of heights, so it was nice to get to calm her down and convince her to do something daring on the trip. We got on a speed boat with a bossy captain and his first mate, and a couple other families. The water was really choppy that day, so it took a lot of arm strength to haul ourselves up on the boat from the water. My brother tagged along to take pictures and hang out in the sun.

My mom and I were strapped into the harness after my mom got a detailed pep talk from the captain about not grabbing the carabiner that keeps her attached to the para sail, and we were ready to go. We went up 600 feet, high enough to see both the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, and the sliver of islands that make up Turks and Caicos. It was so beautiful. We had a blast, and i think my mom had a better time than I did.

Unfortunately, the little boy who went after us with his dad did not have such a good time. They were only up in the air a few minutes when the boy signaled to come down. They looked pretty miserable as the captain was reeling them in, and when he gave them a thorough dunking in the ocean, I couldn't understand why. Then the boy was unharnessed first, came on to the boat, and informed us that his father had thrown up ALL over him while they were up in the air. The dad was obviously embarrassed and still very sick, but I really felt bad for the kid. I mean, really, you are up in the air, with air beneath you and above you and all around you, and you choose to turn to your child to throw up? It was not THAT windy. He definitely could have turned the other way. All I can say is that my mom, bless her soul, did not throw up on me, and that that Dad is definitely not going to live that incident down.

Homecoming

No I'm not talking about the dance and football game. I'm home!!!! Many of you may already have figured this out. I am also writing this blog entry on my 21st birthday, so compared to most of my friends, obviously my birthday has been pretty tame. Unless I start slurring my typing, and saying things like CCCCCCCCCHHIIIINNNNNNNNNEEEEEEESSSSSSEee...issss...funnnn. Then you know something has gone horribly wrong.

My last weekend in Beijing was a hectic one. My friend Molly had a birthday, we had a program end of semester dinner, and I had to return to the Silk Market yet again to buy some more souvenirs to take home. But I did manage to take some really cool pictures of my campus, which had by that point blossomed into a really beautiful place. I was very sad to leave it.

That night we all got dressed up and attended our last program dinner, at which several of our Chinese classes sang Chinese songs, and our program director, who is a very successful, well respected businessman in America, stood up and sang "Puff the Magic Dragon" for all of our listening pleasure. Ahh China.

Then it was a night of excitement at Pyro's, a pizza place and bar that my friends and I frequent. The bar owner, Rich, threw Molly a very pink birthday party, and we all spent our last night hanging out, dancing, and eating a ton of food. I convinced one of our program advisors, Joyce, to get up on the bar with me, which had been a semester long goal of all the students. It was a great night to end the semester on.


So now, after a twenty-four hour journey home on Northwest and through Tokyo and Minnesota, I am finally at home, eating cookies, brownies, ice cream and of course, birthday cake. It has been a great semester, and I really appreciate your interest in my trip. I've had a great time, and I hope to see all of you soon!

Yangshuo

Our very last stop on our two week end of semester trip was Yangshuo, which is a place I would go on vacation several more times if I had the chance. The landscape was mesmerizing and the town was quaint and seemed very familiar. There are many Europeans and Australians who vacation in Yangshuo, but Americans don't seem to know about it. Yangshuo used to be just a simple village well known in the area for its market, but because the karst mountains and peaceful rivers are some of the best in China, Chinese and foreign tourists named the area the best for hiking, rock climbing, caving, swimming, and rafting.

The morning of our first day there, we followed our tour guide through the streets and a couple back alleyways to find a shed full of bicycles for us to ride. We all got on and started riding through Yangshuo, and out into the countryside. The mountains were breathtaking, and the weather was warm. We rode towards the Yulong River, where bamboo rafts and rowers were awaiting us.

Molly and I got on a raft together and our friendly punter, the man shown above, started us down the river. The water was very peaceful and pretty clear (especially for China). I thought it looked safe enough to swim in. Because the water is generally polluted in China, and Chinese people, for the most part, cannot swim, my advisors from the program looked at me like I was crazy when I asked if it was alright if I swam. But my punter just smiled and said he'd take us to a deep part of the river where I could jump in.
Among my friends, I am usually the first to do anything crazy or potentially life threatening, so when everyone heard a splash coming from Molly and my raft, they knew I was jumping into the river. They watched me swim around for a while by myself, saw that I had not yet contracted any rashes, hemorrhagic fevers, or the bubonic plague, and then my friends Gill, Cara, Georgette, and Aaron all jumped in as well. The rest of the morning was spent soaking wet in the raft and swimming in the water, with our advisors looking on in consternation. It was probably the most peaceful thing we did on the trip.
For letting me swim, I bought the punter a beer from one of the floating bars that are located at certain points along the river. After the rafting trip was over, the tour guide our program had hired offered to take us to the Water Cave. There are various caves in Yangshuo where you can go explore, swim in underground lakes, and get really, really muddy. We decided to go!

The cave was really beautiful, and we entered on a small boat through an underground lake. The water was freezing, and we were expecting to have to traverse our way through the whole cave, so we went in in just bathing suits. All the Chinese tourists in the cave were fully clothed, and we felt pretty silly. But as we walked through the cave and finally arrived at a HUGE mudbath, we were excited again. We all got in and covered ourselves in mud, throwing it at each other and sliding down a mudslide.
After playing in the mud for a while, we jumped in a freezing cold underwater pool to clean ourselves off, and continued on our journey through the cave. This cave also had hotsprings, and we all soaked in the warm water for an hour before getting back out of the cave. Once we were out again and putting shorts over our swimsuits, we were confronted with vendors selling homemade sandals and some cows that looked like they had had a mudbath of their own!
We rode our bikes back to Yangshuo and once we returned them, we wandered around the town, looking in shops and drinking tea. It was so hot and sunny, but the atmosphere in Yangshuo is very different from the rest of China. It is so relaxed and easy going. I didn't feel as hassled as I do in bigger cities like Wuhan, Beijing, Guilin, and Hohhot
That night, I wanted to do something really interesting, and I got eleven people to come with me. I wanted to watch cormorrants fish for a fisherman, and so the twelve of us set out with a tour guide, got on a boat, and caught up to a fisherman anchored on the Li River, fishing with cormorrants. Cormorrants are birds that fishermen use to catch smaller fish. They tie a cord around the bird's neck so that the bird cannot swallow the fish, and usually loosen it and let the bird eat every seventh fish. It was really interesting to watch, and the birds were amazing. After watching them fish for a while, the fisherman in his raft and our boat pulled ashore and he got to show off his birds to us. He even let us hold them!
On our last day in Yangshuo, I went out to climb a karst mountain in the center of the city. I got about 200 metres up the trail, when two Chinese people came out and told me I couldn't go any further. When I asked them why they told me that somebody had died on the mountain that morning and there were people up on the mountain trying to take care of the body. Apparently climbers will get drunk in town and try to climb the nearby mountains with no equipment. It regularly ends badly. Totally weirded out, I walked back down and instead enjoyed the view of the Li River and the mountains until it was time to fly back to Beijing.

Longsheng

Our next stop was Longsheng, which is really a mountain region in the Guangxi province about 90 km north of Guilin. When we flew into Guilin from Chengdu, we had to spend one night in Guilin. We ended up staying in this snazzy looking hotel in the center of the city, but once we moved into our rooms we realized it was only an upscale hotel to sleezy businessmen and their young asian girlfriends and prostitutes. I won't go into details on the products available for complementary use and purchase in the hotel rooms - this is a PG rated blog : ), but needless to say, as soon as the boys found the hotel contraband available in the hotel bathrooms, they were running up and down the halls with them, and they stocked up on dirty joke fodder for the rest of the trip.

The next morning us girls endured the boys' dirty jokes on a three hour bus ride north through green karst mountains, on bumpy back roads and winding curves until finally our bus came to an abrupt stop. We were then instructed to sit with our luggage in our laps on a smaller bus with a crazy bus driver. Thus began a harrowing journey through steep cliffs and sharp curves for another thirty minutes. And finally, with our rolling suitcases and backpacks, we were told that we needed to hike thirty minutes through the mountains to the hotel.

I was in my glory! All I had was a backpack so I was ready to hike at a moment's notice, but many of the people in our group had heavy rolling suitcases (mostly girls who packed too much and boys who decided to purchase lifesize terracotta statues in Xi'an.) The air was humid and it is rainy season in the Guangxi province, so the stone steps through the mountains were slippery. Longji, the part of Longsheng that we were staying in, is famous for its painstakingly carved rice terraces. The terraces are carved to look just like a contour map, and the Zhuang people, famous for their colorful clothing, have spent centuries keeping the rice terraces and developing an extensive all natural irrigation system through the terraces.

The Yangtze River Adventure Team were reunited again, and Cara, Jay, Richie and I took the lead in hiking blindly up the mountains to look for our hotel. Wet and sweaty (and probably smelly), everyone survived the hike through Zhuang-built wooden houses and hotels to the very top of the mountain, where our beautiful wooden hotel was conveniently located. The view was amazing, and even though we were all soaked from the humid air and the hike, we were given boiling water (Chinese people believe that warm liquid is better for your health even in hot weather) and encouraged to explore.
We set out to explore the rest of the mountaintop and admire the rice terraces, and we spent the rest of the afternoon climbing over narrow dirt paths, crossing log bridges, and looking out over the mountains.
We got to the top, and found a hotel with a large cement patio in front and steep steps leading down to the rice terraces. Cara and I decided we would pay homage to my Grandpa and pretend like we were hanging off of the patio. We weren't very good at the trick.

As the sky got darker, we saw a farmer working on his rice patties, and I decided that I wanted to meet him. Jay, Georgette and I walked over to where he was washing his feet in a stream, and I held out my hand to shake his. I asked him in Mandarin whether I could take a picture with him, and he didn't understand because he only speaks Cantonese. Even though he didn't understand me, he took off his hat and handed it to me to try on. Jay handed the farmer his own hat, and we all got some pictures with him.
The next day, we were encouraged to wander off and explore the neighboring villages in the mountains. I headed out by myself in the morning, hoping I would get to talk to some people. I got my wish, after wandering through the rice terraces and down into a valley, I came across a Zhuang woman weaving a pink scarf outside her home. I asked if I could sit and watch her for a while, and she immediately got me a stool and started chatting with me. She and I both spoke a little Mandarin, so I was able to ask her a little bit about the scarf she was making, and she was able to exclaim over and over how she thought I should be wearing more clothes in the rainy weather. Then she offered to let me try to work her loom, and showed me how to thread the material. I did about ten rows on the scarf, and then she finished it for me. I bought it from her for about $1.50, and she gave me a little embroidered pouch as a gift. My favorite moment was when I asked her if I could take a picture of her, and she got so excited. She asked me to wait a moment while she took off her overcoat to show me her beautifully embroidered clothes.
I met one more woman when she called to me from the second floor of her house and told me to come up and sit with her for a while. By that time it had started raining pretty hard, and I was wearing shorts and a tank top. She was like a fussy mother over me by the time I reached out to shake her hand. She slapped my shoulders and told me I was soaking wet, and she ran downstairs out of sight for a while. I sat down on a stool and she came running back upstairs with tissues and started wiping my arms and legs off, dabbing my face and patting my cheeks with these tissues, as if that would make me dry again. Then she demanded to know whether or not I was hungry, and without waiting for an answer, ran back downstairs and up again with a cucumber. So I sat there, chatting with her, and munching on a whole cucumber while she showed me the waistband she was working on. She was such a funny lady, and I couldn't figure out how to tell her I wasn't cold and I had planned on getting wet, so every time she told me I needed more clothes for the rain, I just told her I was "crazy, a crazy American."

Later I met up with the rest of the group and we explored the villages, walking into shops selling scarves and clothes, and drinking soda and eating noodles on mountainside restaurants.
Later that night, the hotel we were staying in, and in which we were the only guests, set up a dance party for us in the lobby. We were goofing off outside on the porch when two Zhuang women showed up in their colorful garb. They wanted to learn how to dance! They were so happy to be there, just watching us and trying to copy whatever we did.

Our time in Longsheng was very relaxing and the rice terraces were amazing. Despite the long hike through pouring rain back down the mountain in the morning, we all had a great time and loved the beautiful views and the friendly people.

Chengdu

The third stop for our end of semester trip was in Chengdu, a city famous for one thing and one thing only: pandas. This is not really true - Chengdu is a gateway for people traveling to Tibet and has great food, but because the Woolong Panda Reserve and the Chengdu Panda Research Center are located in the city, China's favorite furry friends are what most visitors to Chengdu come to see.
Our program made the trip out to the Chengdu Panda Research Center in the morning, and the day was not the most beautiful. It was cloudy, and it was drizzling when we left. However, this turned out to be a good thing, because it was cloudy weather the pandas all came out in the cool air. There were so many pandas, at all ages. Many people don't know that there are two different kinds of pandas - Red Pandas and Giant Pandas. Red Pandas look more like raccoons.

After exploring some of the habitats, Georgette, Molly, Cara and I decided that we each wanted to hold a red panda. The cost to hold a red panda is 100 Yuan, or about 15 dollars. We head over to the red panda breeding center, and they dressed us in plastic gloves and blue hospital gowns, and had us sit in a chair. I gave my camera to Jon so he could capture all the magic. Imagine my surprise when a very adorable baby red panda was placed into my lap, chewing on apples and seeming very unconcerned with where he was.
We each took turns holding him and petting him, and he never seemed upset or scared, he just kept eating his apple and staring straight at the camera. Jon decided that a red panda was not good enough for him. He wanted to hold a baby giant panda, which costs 1000 yuan, or 150 dollars. Luckily, out of our group, he chose me (for my camera) to be the one person who got to go in with him. It was the most amazing experience ever. Jon also had to wear the hospital gown and the plastic gloves, but we both had to wear blue booties over our shoes. They make us wear these to protect our clothes and to protect the baby panda from our scent.

When they brought the panda in, he looked like a marshmallow. He was sleepily slumped over the researcher's shoulder almost like a towel. He looked like he weighed about 40 pounds, and he was totally adorable. Jon was in his glory, holding the panda's paws and petting his head. The baby was so sleepy he just stared up at Jon and out at the camera, a little dazed.
After the baby panda adventure, Georgette, Molly, and I went out to look for more pandas. We hit the jackpot when we found four pandas munching on bamboo conveniently close to where we were standing. We took lots of pictures, and watched them play with each other for awhile.
The next day, 17 of us woke up and checked out of our hotel at 6:30 am, earlier than the rest of our group. We left our luggage at the hotel and boarded a bus to Leshan, a town about two hours north of Chengdu. We were determined to see the biggest sitting Buddha in the world before we left Chengdu, even though it was not organized by the program. The biggest sitting Buddha in the world, Dafo, is located outside the town of Leshan.

Dafo was built on the side of a river in 713 AD. A Chinese monk named Haitong decided that, if they built a Maitreya Buddha on the side of the river, the turbulent waters would calm and ships and fishing boats would be able to pass through unharmed. As the buddha was under construction, temples began springing up around the site, and villages moved closer in order to enjoy the benefits of such a big buddha. Haitong's idea worked, and all the rubble and stone removed from carving Dafo was tossed into the river, lessening the strong current and making the river sailable. The buddha took 90 years to complete, and the monk Haitong actually gouged out his own eye when Chinese officials threatened to pull funding for the project in order to show his sincerity. Consequently, there are Buddhist temples, Haitong's burial site, and memorials to Haitong dotting the area.

We explored the hills surrounding Dafo, and finally made it down the winding and steep stone steps to the base of his statue. His big toe is large enough for six people to stand on it, and his ear is 7 meters high. The area also includes a park commerorating the many different styles of sculpting Buddha, with originals and recreations of Indian and Chinese Buddhas. The park surrounds another giant Buddha, the gigantic Sleeping Buddha, which stretches across a rock face over several mountains. This one is not as famous as Dafo, as it has eroded quite a bit.

My favorite part of the park was an old fishing village that has been reconstructed in the shape of a boat. The men and women still fish for a living, and they displayed their live fish and turtles in buckets for prospective visitors. We decided, from looking at the quality of the river they were fishing from, that we were not that hungry.

We also visited many burial tombs, complete with stone carved dogs and horses, clay pots and beds. This used to be the biggest fashion for burying family members, and caves are quite deep. There I am sitting in somebody's previously final resting place.
While I was being disrespectful and picking a smaller reconstruction of Dafo's nose in a cave, I made a new friend who was not as happy about me being there as I obviously was. If you look closely at the second picture, you can see him on the right side of Dafo's neck.