Yangshuo, Guangxi Province, China September 20 – 24 Reflecting on the past month spent in China, I am preparing to put pen to paper but am suddenly compelled to give up my seat to a family of water buffalo passing by the river’s edge. Ryan and I jump up in unison, a squealing, lunging Oliver… Continue reading River Town
Author: emily
The Good Earth
Zhongdian, Yunnan Province, China Without hesitating to shake the granite out of our shoes, we had hopped a local bus from Qiatou and the vistas of Tiger Leaping Gorge to press on north to the very brink of the Yunnan and the frontier it shared with the Tibetan plateau. Zhongdian, or “Shangri-La” as the local… Continue reading The Good Earth
Tiger Leaping aka ‘Face Plant’ Gorge
Good evening from Yangshuo, Guangxi Province, China. This is actually Ryan as Emily just went across the street to get some snacks and to check out the activities at the massage parlors that line our street. Yes, our hotel is situated within the “red light” district, but we are only paying 60 RMB… Continue reading Tiger Leaping aka ‘Face Plant’ Gorge
True Grit
Shanghai, China Every morning I woke up in Shanghai, I could taste the city between my teeth. Every night, clouds of dust and pulverized concrete would rise all the way to our room on the ninth floor of the Broadway Mansions Hotel, and by one in the afternoon, Ryan was rubbing his eyes and we… Continue reading True Grit
Almost Famous
Beijing August 26-31 Passing through the infrared body temperature sensors at the airport, I glanced back at Ryan with an enormous, loopy grin. The State Department emails I had been receiving for weeks that warned of potential quarantine in frightening Chinese sick houses, families separated, children shown no mercy; had melted away. We were in… Continue reading Almost Famous
The Zen Killer
Within the rectangular garden at Ryoanji Temple, the fifteen rocks and meticulously groomed white gravel represent the “quintessence of Zen art”. Arranged in no particular formation by a nameless monk in the 15th century, the brochure suggests each visitor “find out for himself what the garden signifies”, and millions of miniature rock gardens in psychiatrists’… Continue reading The Zen Killer
Fashionably Light
I read the other day that backpackers tend to suffer from two afflictions more so than from anything else. The first is the inevitable traveller’s diarrhea (aka Delhi Belly, Rangoon Runs, Tokyo Trots, Montezuma’s Revenge, etc), for which we have enough ciprofloxacin, azithromycin and loperamide to plug a hole in the Hoover Dam. The second… Continue reading Fashionably Light
Credit Where Credit is Due
Before getting underway, I’d like to give credit to the very good friend of mine who came up with the title of our blog. If it weren’t for the creative genius of Ms. Ruchi Gupta (who coincidentally works for a large advertising house), Olivertheworld might otherwise have come to be known as EatenbyMonkeys.com or worse,… Continue reading Credit Where Credit is Due