Nanxun, China: Little Known Water Town is an Absolute Mustby Randi / August 11, 2017
Hangzhou is an interesting mashup of a place. From the research we did, it seems like a small village on a big lake, with a neverending forest section that we’d be staying in, surrounded by hills and such lush trees, a calm respite from standard hectic China. But, like…Hangzhou has 9 million residents. I had never heard of it before planning this trip, and it was flipping TWO Philadelphias. And bigger than New York and London! Damn there are so many Chinese people! So even this like ‘small village’ that I hadn’t even heard of before this trip is a gigantic freaking city! Luckily, we were indeed staying in the west side of West Lake, the part that is all forests and much less people. And it’s beautiful. We went into the crazy busy downtown, but West Lake is the real draw of a visit here.
At first I was disappointed because our hotel, Best Wishes Inn, our supposed fancy lakeside getaway, was not very nice. And it wasn’t by the lake, which if you go, you should try to be right by. It was in the correct section of town, but in a little street with dirty shops and restaurants, not set back or remote from this sort of thing at all. And the lake was kind of far from us. But mostly I’m mad because they gave us the crappiest room they had – in the attic, so the roof slanted so short that we hit our heads a lot. The bed was just a mattress on the floor, and the sink was next to the bed. The bathroom was tiny – the shower head over the toilet situation – and there was no room for our luggage except right in the center/only pathway. Suffice it to say they way overcharged us. I tried to say well that’s just how accommodations are here, but then I saw every other room during our 3 nights while they were being cleaned, and they were all spacious and lovely and had actual beds, not just mattresses on the floor. What gives?! Apparently sometimes hotels will give you shitty rooms if they see you used a third party, but like, Booking.com? Really? It’s hard to believe. I can’t help thinking it was just because we were Westerners? Regardless of the reason my blood pressure is rising just thinking about it. But like, again, NO one there spoke English so how could I complain or even just ask wtf was going on? It was hard enough asking for more toilet paper through google translate.
Fortunately, that was the only letdown for me, because I quite enjoyed Hangzhou itself. It was cool (not temperature, it’s f-ing boiling and buggy) to stroll through the foresty parts to find the Buddhist temples (and, of course, their requisite vegetarian buffets), to hike to West Lake and then around the perimeter, and to explore downtown – while the latter is not strictly necessary (just like any big Chinese city), you will probably want to go there for a meal or two and – do I even need to say it anymore? – for bubble tea.
We arrived kind of exhausted after we had seen Nanxun that morning, so we rested and watched really weird Chinese teenage vampire soap opera TV. Wow. Then we made our way to the nearest HappyCow listing, the Qing Xin Vegetarian buffet at a near-ish temple complex, about 30 minutes walk away through the forest. It’s getting dark earlier now – no more northern Russia endless sunshine! – so that was a little rough at times with the streets not lit well, but we found the complex it was in – it had a KFC, a Pizza Hut, and two Starbucks! And lots of Chinese restaurants, of course. We queued up the name of the vegetarian buffet in Chinese and showed it to a lady in a convenience store, who helpfully showed us a staircase in the middle of the shopping center and pointed up. Thanks lady! We bought our drinks and stuff from her whenever we were nearby as thanks.
Unfortunately Qing Xin seemed to be closing down! It was only 6:30pm or so! Darn. A nice lady who worked there tried to communicate that it was shutting soon, but that I could take food from the 8 or so trays that still had some food in them. So, okay! I was hungry and we wouldn’t find anything else probably for an hour so I’ll eat the remnants of the monks’ dinner happily! The few dishes had enough to make a pretty decent plate of food, so it was fine. I scrounged up enough vegetables and tofu to be balanced, and then took a lot of this amazing thick noodle dish that I’m obsessed with now. It was sad to see rows and rows and rows of the food display empty, but we were coming back the next day to see the actual temples nearby, so we planned on coming back right when it opened for lunch! Yay! I finished my portion and went to find the nice lady to pay, and she motioned that I didn’t have to pay because I just took the scraps and it wasn’t the full thing. Sooo nice! I was like really? What country is this? Love her.
This is what the outside of the restaurant looks like…with or without the hilarious stretching child
We totally went back for lunch the next day, and it was PACKED. One of the volunteers spoke a little English and was eager to talk to me – he said they have exactly 100 dishes! That’s a lot of stuff for me to try! I ate a lot, and it was all so good! I loved this place. They were so nice too. I went and found the nice lady this time and she was like ahhh! So happy that we returned! So, the buffet cost 26 yuan, for all you can eat delicious food with the nicest staff. That is like…$4, max. Love it. I would eat there every day if I lived there. Which I don’t want to do, I’m just saying.
sooo packed at lunch!
so many rows of food!
the inside of the complex the restaurant is in (also where you buy tickets for the Longyin Temple and grounds
Because it was so busy, everyone shares tables so all the seats are occupied. We were sitting with a mother and her young son, and the son was studying English so he was talking to us a little. So, this was the first English speaker we’d encountered in DAYS! So exciting! What great things would he say to us that we’d be so happy to understand? First, he told me his mother was upset because I was using chopsticks wrong. I hold them too low, apparently. But that gives me more control! Leave me alone! But that wasn’t enough. The kicker was later when he just looked up at me and asked, “How do you eat so much?” JFC, kid.
After our great meal, we bought tickets for the temple grounds so we could see Lingyin Temple, the most famous one, and all the other temples on the grounds. Neither the book nor the ticket lady for the temple grounds told us this, but you need SEPARATE tickets for Lingyin Temple. See I DO give helpful tips YOU’RE WELCOME. Anyway, they aren’t that expensive and it’s worth it to see all of this because there aren’t that many sights in Hangzhou besides exploring the natural beauty. And by visiting these temples, you are seeing some serious natural beauty simultaneously!
It was so beautiful. And here, in the temples, we saw our first non-Chinese tourists in days. There’s like a weird nod of recognition that everyone gives each other, I don’t know if they’re even aware they’re doing it. Very tribal and strange.
So Lingyin is Hangzhou’s most famous Buddhist temple, which I guess is why it’s the only one on the grounds with a separate entry ticket. It was built in 326 but what’s there now is not the original – it was destroyed and rebuilt 16 times! There’s lots of grand Buddha et al. statues, including a grand one that’s 20 meters high and built from camphor wood. Lingyin is a pretty pleasant temple and even has a vegetarian noodle restaurant onsite.
The only very upsetting thing about the temples was that one of the important rooms in Lingyin, full of various Buddha statues, was shaped like a swastika. I think it’s the backwards Chinese buddhism kind, so, the ‘good kind’, but it’s never not offputting to see one. To be in one and stuck like a maze till the end was weird. It was very strange walking around and being like dude what IS this building’s shape we are going like in L’s?? and then going…ohhhhhh I know what this is. So weird. There are swastikas all over the trashcans and signs and stuff too (and we saw some in Beijing temples). Do not like.
Other than that, it was a nice visit. It requires several hours to see even part of what’s out here. I think I enjoyed the Yongfu temple up at the top of the grounds the most, which has a short climb to a viewing platform of the lake. We were excited for that, but the lake was still far away so it’s like a baby view.
babiest lake view!
The walk around this temple was gorgeous though, and honestly if you are pressed for time I think I would choose this visit over Lingyin. But it’s cool to see as much of this area as you can, if you have time.
My favorite thing in Hangzhou though was probably walking to and around West Lake. It’s really beautiful. And yes it’s super crowded with Chinese tourists who don’t know how to walk in public, but it’s worth it.
The first time we saw the lake, we were en route downtown and chanced upon this photoshoot!
For our full day of West Lake sightseeing, we walked from our hotel through about an hour and a half of unoccupied forest, with really nothing along the way but nature and old bridges and things. It was such a nice surprise to find such empty bits!
As we got closer to the busier parts of the lake (like where resorts are), things started to pick up in terms of people and shops and sights.
I had to pee really badly at one point and we saw a sign pointing into a resort or something, so we wandered through the resort grounds, which were so lovely, and found it. But then we noticed that if we kept going farther inward, away from the street we were walking on, we would reach a really busy shopping center area right on the part of the lake we wanted, where all the boats are! So thank goodness I had to pee because we found the spot we wanted!
And thank goodness also because this shopping center was amaaazing. If you follow me on instagram (which you should, links at the top of the page), you saw the incredible mango drink I had here. I saw people getting these gigantic towers of smoothie with dry ice pouring out of it! It was so fun! I got one of course after watching them make one and confirming it was just mango blended with ice in the smoothie part. Then the dry ice container was fitted in, and then a cup of mango shaved ice was put on top, all topped with chunks of fresh mango. It was SO GOOD and so fun!
I should have taken video, I know now! Just imagine dry ice shooting out every which way like a fog machine!
But that wasn’t even my favorite find of this center, because next door was a little shop selling a Chinese sort of pirozhok, the Russian stuffed bread rolls. I confirmed with the few important words I learned which were vegetarian, and got a cabbage filled one. I really should have gotten 100 of them and somehow froze them and shipped them to London for studying, or just eaten 100 immediately, because they were one of the best things ever. I was obsessed. They were just perfect. Dammit I want one now. I have to learn how to make pirozhki when home. I will blog about it if I do.
We kept walking through the beautiful waterfront for awhile until we reached the causeway that would let us cross part of the lake. It was so fun!
I really enjoyed this walk and this whole part of Hangzhou and West Lake. So beautiful and tranquil despite all the people.
Another super tall lotus pond, like in Nanxun! Tall as me !
What’s not tranquil is Hangzhou town. It’s not bad, it’s just not worth it. It’s another big super crowded and busy city where motorbikes will drive right at you even if they have a red light and there are thousands of abandoned rideshare bicycles blocking the sidewalks and there are too many cars and people and it’s hot and smelly so like, what’s the point when you can stay by the lake?
Oh right, bubble tea. I was on a mission. Such a mission, that I ended up having 3 teas in one evening! The first one was a let down because the fruit teas often don’t come with bubbles and they didn’t understand my request for them. UGHHH. It was a tea stand that wasn’t a recognizable chain – always stick with the ones with a little table on the menu with bubble options you can point to!
The second was decent, but it wasn’t a Gong Cha or Coco (the famous chains) but a 1Tea, which I really like now, but I didn’t know then (my first from them) that when you say zero sugar to them (who am I kidding – I mean when you point to the zero sugar option on the menu), it actually IS zero sugar (at the others, it’s still sweet!). And I got a lemon tea drink, so it was suuuper sour and hard to enjoy the bubbles.
But then we found a third! And it was a Gong Cha! It was too sweet of course and I was suuuper sick from having so much tea in such a short period but I couldn’t turn it down!
what my other fave restaurant in Hangzhou looks like
The food in Hangzhou aside from my favorite aforementioned buffet was good, as it is in all the cities in China! Flipping Chinese food is amazeballs and so vegan-friendly. I especially liked a place called Super Vegan, for obvious reasons! It was very nice inside, the common type of vegetarian restaurant here where I feel underdressed – the opposite of so many vegan places in the west that are so casual and hippie like. I am so impressed with the array of vegan restaurants in China’s big cities. At Super Vegan (which, by the way, just says Vegan on the awning, not super), I had to try several dishes that I found recommended in the HappyCow reviews, like this plate of sweet and sour spare ribs. So far in China, every time I get spare ribs it’s small pieces like this, not like how they do it in the USA. Might be just the vegan versions, but might be for real too.
These were freaking fantastic! In fact, all the food at Super Vegan was, and I wish I could eat here again. The texture was perfect, reminiscent enough of meat’s pull-apartness and chewiness without being disgustingly close or too hard or soft. I usually don’t like sweet and sour stuff but this could change my stance on the whole issue.
I also got a big ass plate of broccoli with some mushrooms in vegetarian oyster sauce, mostly because I need a big plate of greens as often as possible, but also because veggie oyster sauce! So fun! It was great, as most broccoli is. Then I got the Taiwan-style sauteed rice noodles, with veggie meat, cabbage, carrot, and mushrooms. It didn’t have as much of the non-noodle parts as the menu picture suggested, but still, really good!
Almost embarrassed to share the next picture, but come on, you know me – if there’s one on the menu when I’m traveling, I’m GONNA get it:
SORRY NOT SORRY.
It had avocado and quinoa in it! Super Vegaaaaannnnn!
Lastly, we got the most inventive, delicious, and all around amazing dish on the menu. Okay that’s a bold statement because as always in Chinese vegetarian restaurants the menu was 1000 pages long, and we got five things only, but this was off the charts. It was just called Golden Suncake, and the ingredients on the menu said “green bean, pumpkin, and soy protein”. I had no idea what we’d get, despite the picture, which was very vague and sort of dumpling looking. What came out, was a vegan replica of a fried egg, with a mashed pumpkin center. Not just any fried egg. The most delicious one ever. It was PERFECTION. Eggy and the perfect texture but without being too weirdly gross eggy, and with that pumpkin yolk part? Ridiculously good. Also TELL ME how this is made of green beans?!
We enjoyed the food so much that we got an order of the tea tree mushrooms, “Yu mountain style”, to go. They were fried strips of mushrooms that looked in the picture like French fries, and, even better, looked in real life and tasted like fried clam strips! Amazing! Oh man, if you are ever in Hangzhou, go to Super Vegan, get all the food, get more to go, tell them I said hi, just kidding, Marky, pick up your phone.
We enjoyed our time in Hangzhou! We were there for a while, but we didn’t do as much as we’ve been doing in other cities. It was nice to not rush around, to get to relax and go do things when we wanted and not when we must in order to fit them into a tight schedule. We have plenty of that coming, but it was important to realize that more easygoing stretches are okay, and necessary. And look how beautiful it was – outside the city. Haha I just realized I didn’t even take pictures of downtown! Eh you can imagine it – traffic, more traffic, lots of people. Stick to West Lake! It’s really as beautiful as they say.
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Bukhara, Uzbekistan: Ancient City Hasn’t Upgraded in Millennia
The ancient city of Bukhara, thought to be founded in the 6th century B.C., is like a small outdoor museum of its history. Important as a stop on the Silk Road and as a trading and cultural center before that biz ever started (so old), Bukhara’s city center is listed as a UNESCO world heritage site. The whole city center. I think you can guess by that fact that Bukhara is not exactly the most modern place to visit. So in the previous post, about Tashkent, I mentioned how our next stop of Bukhara was like stepping back in time like whoa, and I realized afterward that I was thinking about Khiva, one of our subsequent and much more impressive stops, when I said that. Still, Bukhara is hella ancient too, and I don’t think the center has changed in a long time, except for the tiny shops getting new kinds of soda and stuff. Full of mosques and madrassahs, dust and ashes, Bukhara seems to have preserved history. remarkably well. But with that comes, well, a bit of a hard time for tourists. Despite recognizing how important this place and its history were, we were kind of over it really fast.
But first we have to get there. Our train from Tashkent, our first Uzbek train, seemed promising – another overnight train where we had a cabin to ourselves, no strangers sleeping and snoring above us – except for its super early arrival time of about 6am. As long as we got some sleep we’d be fine, and without strangers in the cabin we’d surely get some sleep, right. Wrong, so so wrong. The couple in the cabin next to us were the loudest, rudest people of all time OF ALL TIME. The Uzbek trains were a little Miss Havisham looking in their old-fashioned decor, but they went all in on one piece of modernity – televisions in every cabin! Cool! We didn’t watch anything since we wanted to sleep, but the people next to us REALLY did. They put theirs on and found the most annoying Uzbek MTV sounding channel, and turned the volume up all the way, as high as it went. I knocked after a bit and asked if they could turn it down. They said okay. LIARRRRRRRS! They kept it as loud as possible, but they added to it their RAUCOUS loud insanely obnoxious laughter, which the thin walls did nothing to keep out. It was enough to (almost) put me off TV entirely, and you know how much I love TV. I mean there’s no way in hell that anything on Uzbek television was remotely as funny as they found it so like they were surely overacting to make us mad. They are helldaemons that I hope are back there. I tried to find a conductor or any kind of attendant to complain to but none were to be found. I knocked again at like 3am to ask if they could finally for the love of god just shut up but they didn’t open their door and instead just laughed harder and harder. It was incredibly rude. We started screaming through the walls out of pure despair, which they thought was hilarious. Those fuckers I hope karma gets them.
hard to see in the dark but this is where we spent 7 hours screaming at neighbors
When we finally landed, I put a pox on the houses of the neighbors and we went to find, egads, another taxi to take us to the guest house. By this point in our travels, we’d had maybe one good experience with a taxi. Not even good, but neutral. The rest were enough to provoke such rage that I probably could have picked up and thrown a taxi. This ride would be no different, and in fact with top the charts of forking shirtballs. The driver said he knew our guest house well, the Hotel Jeyran, and he kept saying “Jeyran Jeyran da Jeyran” so we were like okay at least he knows where he’s going. OF COURSE HE DIDN’T KNOW WHERE HE WAS GOING. We had to direct him like we did the others. FFS he didn’t even know when we would name huge landmarks to head towards. When we finally got to Jeyran, he had the nerve to ask for more money than we agreed to, despite his not being able to find the place on his own and lying about it. We told him to go fork himself.
Despite being called a hotel, the guest house we were staying in was more like someone’s house, with an extra room or two upstairs. It was fine, the couple running things/living there was nice, but alas, we arrived at 7am and check in wasn’t until noon. We sat in the front room for a while, while the guy watched his stories on his TV, as we just tried to decompress from the horrible night and horrible cab ride. Luckily, a tiny little baby cat lived there, and despite being allergic, I played with him because omg, tiny little baby cat. He was sooo cute and he just wanted to sleep on us.
After about an hour of just sitting, we decided to go explore and try to find a cafe with wifi. The man in charge pointed us in one direction, and when we found what he meant, it was an enormous restaurant, and it wasn’t opened yet. We continued walking around the newer town, where we were staying, and found nothing, literally nothing, not even a shop, so we went into the old town, the tourist area with all the mosques and dust and stuff. What we found was not cafes or wifi (what were we THINKING, expecting that here) but, naturally, more construction! And the kind of sweeping, all-encompassing works that put the construction we encountered previously in the ‘stans to shame. SHAAAME. We had to walk around rubble, delicately choosing our routes so as not to fall from like 10 feet into more rubble. It was not so good. All the places that looked even a tad like they might not be mosques or madrassahs were closed. Forget wifi, we’d given up on wifi; we just wanted somewhere to sit maybe that had something to drink or eat. We weren’t picky. Just something that wasn’t a pile of dust and rock. On one particularly construction-y section of the old town, we saw a tea house located up a set of stone stairs, and a little girl out on the path in front. We yelled up to her asking if they were open, and she ran inside. Cool, we thought. Luckily she had gone to get an adult (smart kid!) who came out and told us to come in come in please come in! We asked, are you open? And she said yes yes come in. They were not even a little bit open, we realized when we went in, but she was willing to make us tea (it was a tea house) and give us the little sweets that come with it, so it was really nice. Literally the nicest person we would meet in all of Uzbekistan. I had ginger tea to try to settle my stomach, which always hurts if I don’t sleep, and they brought us little dishes of nuts, halva-like treats, nutty other treats, and a pile of pure sugar rock candy. What a breakfast. It was really nice inside this place, and is probably wonderful after a day of sightseeing.
After our tea stint, we got a feel for the town as we meandered back towards the guesthouse. It was weird. Everywhere we turned, it kind of looked like Mars, or x other unknown, dusty dry sunny planet. As the place started to wake up, there were hordes of old ladies working like a prison chain gang all over town. It was really disturbing and I really hope they weren’t actually prisoners but it really looked like it. These old lady gangs were everywhere, hoeing little patches of garden and what not. I wanted to ask them if they were okay but a) I didn’t know how and b) they looked like they would happily cut a bitch.
The weirdest thing we’d noticed throughout the stans was continued in strong form in Bukhara – the constant ground watering. Every day for the past month, we’d see people watering the ground – not soil, just the street and cement and brick paths – with hoses or watering cans. Not something you see in England every day. I assume it’s to prevent too much dust buildup or it has to do with the heat, both good reasons, but it’s still quite odd to see someone watering asphalt when you were taught that shit only grows when you water soft ground. Anyway.
After we finally checked in and showered, I want to say we napped, but I don’t remember (probably because I was sleeping whaaat) and it doesn’t really matter what we did on which day (we were there for several, and too many) so let’s just get to the sights. We started (or not! who cares!) with the Ark of Bukhara, or the Bukhara Fortress, mostly because it’s the most important site to actually go into, but also because it was closest to the guest house by being situated kind of halfway to the old town center and not in it like everything else was. Side note, probably best to stay in the actual old town so you don’t have to walk the creepy streets at night. And so you’re near stuff. We were not near stuff.
ninj ninj who dat ninj, who dat who dat who dat ninj
The Ark dates back to the 5th century AD. How this city survived for so long without one I’ll never understand! It was a military structure at times, and a whole town with royal courts inside at others. According to a legend, the ark’s creator was the hero Siyavusha, who fell in love with a girl and the girl’s father was like, “I’ll let you marry her if you build a palace on this piece of land that is bounded by bullskin.” He meant that as a way to stymie the boy since it sounds impossible but the boy was like, how bout I just cut the bullskin (and we cut the bullshit HEYOOO) into thin strips and connect them instead of doing what I hope you’re not implying, which is to build a palace inside a regular-shaped skin of bull. I don’t know it all sounds ridonk. Needless to say, the Ark as it stands is hella big and I don’t doubt that every aspect of a functioning medieval town could fit inside the walls for a bit. Honestly I can see everything in modern day Bukhara fitting inside this fortress were it not full of museums right now.
improvement works going on even inside our places of interest
Inside the Ark, we ran into our first tourists in a long time – lots of French oldies 98s. French people were all over Uzbekistan, we’d find later. These guys were kind of annoying. I don’t remember why, but I’m looking at my phone notes, and I wrote “annoying French people”, so, let’s leave it at that. On site, there was a toilet, as you would hope to find in museums and the like, but this total random man charged 1000 som to use it! He didn’t seem to legitimately work there at all, and when I left the toilet, he was nowhere to be found, so like I think it was a scam. But that is I think like a few cents so it wasn’t a big deal it was the principle of the thing. Everywhere in Bukhara, we quickly learned, there would be random people outside the big sites asking for an entrance fee that wasn’t posted anywhere. It never seemed any more legit than it did at the Ark toilet. As soon as we approached a door of a mosque or something, someone would run up to us from nowhere and demand 6000 som or something and we’d be like, hey who are you.
Can you tell how blindingly sunny it was here? I was so burnt I hated it
rubble literally everywhere we turned even on the Ark
The square around the Ark is called the Registan. It’s where the public floggings would occur! The big story around Bukhara is that of two British officers named Stoddart and Connelly who were beheaded in the Registan in the 1850s. Colonel Stoddart was sent to Bukhara in 1939 to make nice with the legendarily cruel emir, Nasrullah. Instead of becoming friends with him, Nasrullah imprisoned the Englishman instead. Didn’t see that coming! No everyone did. Stoddart was in solitary confinement for three years, until another Englishman joined him! Fun! Not fun. Captain Connolly was sent to get Stoddart released. Great plan guys! Instead the emir tossed Connolly into the ‘bug pit’ with Stoddart and then publicly executed them to publicly shame England. What a guy and what a place.
After we saw everything in the Ark, we made our way fully into the old town, to see all the mosques and stuff because Mohammed knows we haven’t seen enough mosques lately. The most important, I want to say so I’m saying it, is the Kalan Mosque, from 1500s. It can hold 12,000 PEOPLE. That is a lot. Not even a drop in the bucket compared to the Penn State football stadium, but still, a lot for a mosque built so long ago. Unfortunately, we were not two of those 12,000 because when we went to enter, a rando sauntered up and said the entrance fee was 6 (SIX) times what it said in our guidebook and on the internet, clearly a scammy sammy, so we skipped it. Fortunately, this was one where the outside was impressive so we weren’t upset. We went in so many mosques lately and the rest of our time in Uzbekistan would be mainly seeing more mosques so no tears. The mosque sits across the main square from the Mir-i Arab Madrassah, so it makes for a really impressive, historically important square, though hard to remember which witch is which. At the risk of being even more disrespectful to the Uzbek people, I’m going to admit that I’m not hundo p about these pictures actually being what I’m saying they are, but I’ma do my best.
I want to say this is the madrassah
The whole mosque complex in the town center was like one enormous building, all seemingly connected and hard to distinguish. There are sooo many important buildings to see that after a while it’s like okay, didn’t I already see you, enormous sandy white building with some pretty blue tiles?
One I was excited about was the Kalyan Minaret, or the Grand Minaret, or the Tower of Death. No I didn’t know that last name when I was excited about visiting it; I just wanted to climb a tower. We like climbing things. The Tower of Death apparently got its name because criminals would be executed by being thrown from the top. So economical? Minarets’ usual function is for the muezzin to climb up in order to call err’one to prayer, so it had to big a bit taller than the mosque everyone’s going to. But the Kalyan Minaret passed the mosque and then was like you know what, I’m gonna keep on trucking, and it kept going up and up so now it’s the second tallest in all of Central Asia. We read quite a few things about how the architects of this or that monument were killed (never be an architect) because the rulers who commissioned the buildings didn’t want the architect to ever make anything more impressive. People cray. Anyway I have a vague memory of the minaret’s architect being thrown off because the wife of something important got him in trouble.
I want to say this is the mosque
The Kaylan is so impressive that it’s said that during all his conquering, Genghis Khan (my ole pal Chingis!) left it standing instead of destroying it!
Once it got to be an actually human hour of the day, the city center got a little crowded! Other people here, who would have thought. Oh we learned another story about the minaret! A young woman was to be executed after she married a local businessman. Unclear if the reason for her execution was related to the marriage. Anyway her last request was that she be allowed to wear the dress her husband bought her for her wedding day. So the official went to her house to get the dress but he a man he didn’t know what dress so he brought all forty dresses she owned. The woman put all forty dresses on instead of choosing the one, and they cushioned her fall and she lived! What an amazing place to get to keep living in. Because of that, now it’s a Bukharan tradition that all men give their brides 40 new dresses as a wedding present. And that’s why I have so many dresses!
We made our way to the base of the minaret to climb it but alas, the door was padlocked shut. On to the next!
other people! eureka!
Next we visited the Chor Minor, which is to the east of the city center so not one of the most visited sites. Built in 1807, the small lil guy was the entrance to a madrassah. A proverb says that if someone can climb up the stairs of the Chor and then back down without getting bitten by snakes, he is considered sinless. Really there aren’t snakes around (I mean I didn’t see any…) so I guess we’re all sinless? The Chor Minor has four blue turret domes that are pretty cool.
My favorite part of Bukhara by far is Labi Hauz, which is roughly pronounced ‘lobby house’ which is what we called it. And we called all the males around it lobby boys. Back in the day, Bukhara was covered with little pools and ponds used for laundry and washing horses and drinking water and all kinds of stuff so obviously they were full of disease like whoa and the Bolsheviks finally were like ‘shut this all down SHUT IT DOWN’ and drained the pools because hella disease except for the Lobby House, because so pretty, and it’s been maintained ever since, the only one still full of water and no disease.
GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY LOBBY BOY
You can see why it was my favorite. It was like an oasis in the middle of all the dust. I love water and this pool looked so gorgeous surrounded by the old buildings and camel statues. Of course there was construction happening at one end though. There was a cafe or two along one side that would have been perfect for sitting and relaxing if you needed it. I would have loved more like that around the pool instead of most of it being tout shops.
My second favorite place in Bukhara was the old synagogue! It’s a tiny little place, not only smaller than all the synagogues I’ve seen in my life but smaller than all my past studio apartments too. But apparently one of the Torahs it holds is 1000 years old! Mostly it’s nice just to know that there are still jews trying to maintain a presence here and because there are so few they are sooo happy to have guests. Naturally being old religious men, the guys there were more excited for my husband’s arrival than mine because men > women in 99% of the world, even though he’s not jewish, but alas, it was still very nice. It’s free to visit but they ask for donations and you should donate. The best part was the picture they had framed on the wall of their most important visitor before us – Hillary Clinton. Oh man I actually started to cry right there, thinking about a) how I was standing in spot where Hillary and like NOBODY else in the world had stood, this tiny little hole in the wall synagogue in a tiny old town in Uzbekistan I mean come on we’re basically bff Hillz, and b) I was just so sad that she wasn’t president.
After we simintoved and mazel toved it up, we explored the city center more. Just a few meters from the main mosque, where we were just hours before, a wifi cafe had sprung up out of absolutely nowhere. We spent sooo long looking for you all our first morning, damn cafe! And now you’re just advertising your wifiness all over town! It just appeared out of nowhere like Brigadoon! Also appearing out of nowhere in that main area was a Kapitalbank ATM that spits out US dollars!! Amazing!! And, next to the ATM was a gorgeous little courtyard with 1000 som toilets in the back that actually were worth it, not squats but big and clean! It was a lovely little surprise block of happiness.
to be fair, this makes it sound like there’s NO wifi. free from wifi.
my favorite sign!
We haven’t even scratched the surface of historical sights in Bukhara but I’m getting tired. Here are some more beautiful buildings that are important to go look at.
madrassah?
M. C. Escher mausoleum?
Doesn’t it look like Tatooine??!! It really did!
So many cool things right? Just for some reason it didn’t really add up so that the sum of the parts were greater than the whole, know what I’m saying? Lots of interesting buildings to look at, but like, that’s it. There was a lack of life to the place to it fun to be there and not just interesting to look at.
There was a lack of gas too! Like, the entire town, old and ‘new’ parts, had a gas outage while we were there so the restaurants could only grill food for us! And there was little hot water because of it. Such a weird sad thing to add on top of all the other weirdness. Luckily some of the places could make me salads, which I always liked. And Bukhara seemed to have beans on hand, which is nice. I can recommend finding salads at Minzifa – which was playing the X-FILES THEME SONG when we were there, and Saroy, both right along the Lobby House. Most of the other central restaurants will happily offer you grilled eggplant and red peppers, which you KNOW I LOVE. eye roll. I also got a heap of white rice with a happy face, see below.
vegables!
BEANS
So Bukhara had some great sights and I was super happy to have beans and salads but mostly it was kind of boring. The people we met in the restaurants and sites were kind of mean and put us off the place. The people are really what make places special when you travel so to be surrounded by mean people as the majority for the first time really ever was disconcerting enough to tarnish our Uzbek travels somewhat. Still, I’m glad we got to go to this historically important place and I’m glad I don’t have to go back.
I am Africa: Ceuta is a Fun Little Spanish But African Quirk
The view of Africa from the ferry
When Husband and I were planning our trip through Andalusia, we were as gung-ho on going to little-known Ceuta as we were on going to our main attractions Seville and Granada, even though there’s nothing to do there, it’s not necessarily beautiful, and it’s not known for any particularly good food or landmarks. Why would we be so determined to visit this lil baby hamlet (#yayhamlet) for barely 24 hours when we had such a tight schedule? Because Ceuta is a Spanish town, but it’s in Africa. So weird right! Located across the Strait of Gibraltar at the northernmost point of Africa, Ceuta is a Spanish autonomous city, which for us means one thing – another addition on the Travelers’ Century Club list. Yes we are nerds but we want to hit that 100 mark!
COMANDANCIA I wish that was my title
Is Senderos like Westeros?
Who would have guessed that Africaspain would have a SEPTA outpost!
But even aside from our silly tallies, it’s so cool to visit a Spanish town that is not part of the Spanish mainland, and instead is mere miles from Tangier and the rest of Morocco. We wanted to witness this geographic anomaly, even though (but also because!) its very existence is the most exciting thing it has going for it. Back in boring, straightforward Europe (jk), we got back on the bus from Granada to Antequera and then got a train (nice Renfe trains!) to the port city Algeciras, where the ferry to Ceuta leaves from. It was lot of modes of transportation early in the morning. They say to get to the ferry terminal an hour before takeoff, and even though we were well on time I got nervous because it took FOREVER to pick up our prepaid ferry tickets at the Balearia kiosk. There were three women standing behind the glass but only one was working and I kept giving them looks that said “Why aren’t you working why are you just standing there what is wrong with you ahhh” but it did NOTHING to speed them along. It took literally 20 minutes for the one working woman to assist the group ahead of us, and then when it was our turn we got our tickets in two seconds flat so you know, timing, man. We booked in advance which wasn’t necessary on our non-full boat but it can’t hurt. We left about 15 minutes late because Spanish time, but it was okay because there were three doggies onboard! And one looked like a baby Tobillo soooo cute. On the ferry, there was a big open area between the seats (facing the other way) and the bar/bathroom area, so I did yoga and stretching there and no one really came near me except to go to the bathroom so only a few people noticed me but then these two mean women laughed at me so I put a curse on their heads. A few hours later, we were in Africa but still Spain! When you get off the ferry, Ceuta looks sketchy, but that’s true of all ports, I think. Walking towards the city centre through roundabouts is a little scary, but the cars generally stop at the zebra crossings. One of the first things I noticed as we walked along the marina to our hotel was a travel agency called Septatravel so I got an immediate positive feeling about this wacky lil guy. Five or so minutes into the walk there is a SuperSol market and a Lidl! Lidl’s line is insanely long because it is like Costco so go get water and snacks at the SuperSol instead. Oh and SuperSol had vegan yogurt and giant apples, my favorite kind of apples!
there ain’t a friggin cloud in the sky
The marina and all the old town buildings that we passed en route to our hotel were really beautiful. It felt so nice to be by water, which I sometimes forget I miss. The charming town centre was full of white buildings with clear Moorish and Spanish influences, and a few statues and tiny parks. The first thing we did was go down to the beach. It was a little cold, definitely more than we expected considering we were in Africa and we had assumed it would be hot, so we only dipped our toes in the ocean and had a nice stroll along the sand.
I don’t really understand sunbathing when there’s no chance of going in the water but hey power to these weirdos.
We stayed at Hotel Ceuta Puerta de Africa, and it was the first standard and modern kind of our trip, so not as charming or pretty or special like in Seville or Granada but it was clean and familiar. Also it had the first good wifi of the whole trip. And it had a bidet! Every bathroom should have one. After we dropped our stuff, we needed to find lunch! We had been traveling to get to Ceuta from 6am to 2pm, so we were hungry and all weird from travel snacking and off meal times. But we had a super hard time finding a place for lunch. We literally went into every. single. restaurant or cafe in the entire town center and checked every menu and found NOTHING even remotely veganizable. It was unbelievably frustrating. They eat a shittonne of fried fish and cheese there. Finally, when I was about to cry (I should have just realized I could have bought groceries from the SuperSol), we asked the guy at one random cafe if he could make me a salad with only vegetables. The guy was so friendly and accommodating and said yes of course and I can also grill vegetables for you! Even though I normally hate that, I hadn’t had a standard grilled veg plate yet on this trip (hooray!) so I said that would actually be good. The veg plate was, but the salad came with a big plop of tuna on top ughhhh people fish is not a vegetable! We took the plopball off and the surrounding bits but it still had the fishy sense all over. Not a great start to eating in Ceuta but at least I had veggies. And bread. So much bread in Spain. I mean Africa. I mean Spain!
We stayed at Hotel Ceuta Puerta de Africa, and it was the first standard and modern kind of our trip, so not as charming or pretty or special like in Seville or Granada but it was clean and familiar. Also it had the first good wifi of the whole trip. And it had a bidet! Every bathroom should have one. After we dropped our stuff, we needed to find lunch! We had been traveling to get to Ceuta from 6am to 2pm, so we were hungry and all weird from travel snacking and off meal times. But we had a super hard time finding a place for lunch. We literally went into every. single. restaurant or cafe in the entire town center and checked every menu and found NOTHING even remotely veganizable. It was unbelievably frustrating. They eat a shittonne of fried fish and cheese there. Finally, when I was about to cry (I should have just realized I could have bought groceries from the SuperSol), we asked the guy at one random cafe if he could make me a salad with only vegetables. The guy was so friendly and accommodating and said yes of course and I can also grill vegetables for you! Even though I normally hate that, I hadn’t had a standard grilled veg plate yet on this trip (hooray!) so I said that would actually be good. The veg plate was, but the salad came with a big plop of tuna on top ughhhh people fish is not a vegetable! We took the plopball off and the surrounding bits but it still had the fishy sense all over. Not a great start to eating in Ceuta but at least I had veggies. And bread. So much bread in Spain. I mean Africa. I mean Spain!
HER CA LEES HER CA LEES!
After lunch, we continued seeing the main part of town. It seems like a really small place, but 80,000 people live there! I would have guessed 19 tops. We saw the beach and got our feet all sandy, we saw the main shopping drag of unidentifiable locals shops and a gigantic Zara (don’t shop there! ever!), and we saw a fun mix of statues on the main promenade by the water. My favorite thing of the whole town is this gigantic statue of Hercules and the twin pillars from his 10th labor. Why Hercules? Because apparently the Rock of Gibraltar (next post!) is one pillar and the mountains of Ceuta formed the other pillar and Hercules formed them when he smashed through the (much bigger at the time) Atlas mountains with this superstrength and created the Strait of Gibraltar. Cool story, all I know is after I saw this statue I started singing “Who put the glad in gladiator? HER-CU-LEES!” and I haven’t stopped yet.
I also liked this statue called Paz y Libertad, in which a lady is setting a bird free after removing its chains. So deep, man.
After walking pretty far up the main drag, we visited literally the one thing ‘to do’ in the Ceuta travel guides – visiting the medieval city walls. These royal walls used to be fortresses complete with a moat, and now are overrun with birds and their poop. They are cool to see and walk around, and that’s really all there is to it, and that’s the thing to do. It has become a hangout for Ceuta yoots, and the only other people we saw traversing the walls were a baby in a stroller, a group of male yoots smoking and doing bad things I can only assume, and a girl yoot and boy yoot making out. I usually judge yoots very harshly but I almost felt bad for them because there is nothing to do in their town.
After walking pretty far up the main drag, we visited literally the one thing ‘to do’ in the Ceuta travel guides – visiting the medieval city walls. These royal walls used to be fortresses complete with a moat, and now are overrun with birds and their poop. They are cool to see and walk around, and that’s really all there is to it, and that’s the thing to do. It has become a hangout for Ceuta yoots, and the only other people we saw traversing the walls were a baby in a stroller, a group of male yoots smoking and doing bad things I can only assume, and a girl yoot and boy yoot making out. I usually judge yoots very harshly but I almost felt bad for them because there is nothing to do in their town.
The medieval city walls. Cool. Coolcoolcoolcool.
After we literally saw the entire town, we make a dinner reservation at what is supposed to be the best restaurant in the area, Oasis. Our hotel called and made us a booking for when they open – 9pm. The restaurant opens at 9pm! We definitely were not in London anymore (most things are closed by then!). Oasis is at the very top of the hills of Ceuta’s head bit by Mirador San Antonio. You need to take a taxi because, well, it’s far, but also it’s all winding roads where opposing traffic just comes barreling around the curves.
Mirador San Antonio has a perfect lookout spot we went to before dinner. At this spot, which sticks out over the water, you can see Africa curving around and a lil spot of Europe across the Strait of Gibraltar, as long as it’s not too foggy. It was kind of foggy. The temperature dropped considerably once the sun set, and we were at the highest, windiest point of town, so be prepared. I only brought warm weather clothes. Anyway, it was worth it because we saw a beautiful sunset between Europe and Africa and that is super cool.
Mirador San Antonio has a perfect lookout spot we went to before dinner. At this spot, which sticks out over the water, you can see Africa curving around and a lil spot of Europe across the Strait of Gibraltar, as long as it’s not too foggy. It was kind of foggy. The temperature dropped considerably once the sun set, and we were at the highest, windiest point of town, so be prepared. I only brought warm weather clothes. Anyway, it was worth it because we saw a beautiful sunset between Europe and Africa and that is super cool.
Sun is setting right down the middle!
Once it was finally close to 9pm, we walked over to Oasis Restaurant, and saw many ladies throwing buckets of soapy water on the windows and front patio. Um. Wat. I tried to open the front door (despite the soapy puddles) but it was locked. The ladies kept cleaning and scrubbing and throwing buckets of water just everywhere, so we walked a little up the road and decided to wait a few minutes. On our little wanderings, we saw these little fellas crossing the street:
So that was interesting! A little bit later, we went back to peek at the restaurant, and the ladies were still going strong with their water games. We’re at this incredibly remote spot, far from the center of town and far from any other living creature (except those crossing the street), and we were like what is happening! Finally a few minutes later a man came out the front door and said it would just be a few minutes more. And then he mopped the patio, while we just stood there in the cold. I wanted to be like, duuuude let us in and mop LATER. I was so angry and cold. So cold. Finally after at least 15 minutes we went inside, and it was gorgeous inside. It looked like Morocco. The man, although obviously very stupid, was nice and I stopped being so angry. I was concerned that it was supposed to be the best restaurant in the whole city, but we were the only guests! Also he was listening to a football match on the radio pretty loud which really did not jibe with the decor. So odd. We thought maybe the emptiness was because it was a Wednesday, or because Easter processions were going on (yup here too). Well, turns out we are just REALLY underestimating how late the Spanish do in fact eat. At 10pm (bedtime!), while we were eating our starters, a big family arrived. Then at 10:15pm, four teenage girls came. So random. Then at 10:30pm a group of old people friends. We were flabbergasted – when they say people eat dinner late in Spain (and pseudo-Spain), they really mean it! It’s semi-late in Madrid and Barcelona and Seville was tourist-friendly, so I guess we just never experienced dinner time for real in a town not catering to tourists. Places were people actually live like Ceuta do midnight dinner.
Then, at almost 11pm, a big family came in WITH AN INFANT. I was done trying to understand. I was literally falling asleep in my food and a baby was just getting started.
Then, at almost 11pm, a big family came in WITH AN INFANT. I was done trying to understand. I was literally falling asleep in my food and a baby was just getting started.
yes you’re right this is indeed a carrot salad I just didn’t expect it to be so carrot
The food ended up being just as good as I hoped. The mopper man seemed to be doing everything; he was the only staff I saw (though the kitchen was through the many big rooms in various connected buildings. It was a gorgeous space). He understood the veganness really easily and promised I would eat well. I started with a decent carrot salad, literally discs of cold cooked carrot with herbs that was really good but a little too much carrot. We also got great giant slabs of flat bread which is our favorite.
I MADE COUSCOUS
For my main, I had a delicious couscous. I know it sounds boring but it was one of the very best couscouses (couses cous?) I’ve ever had, up there with the ones I had on our honeymoon in Morocco which makes sense since this is effectively in Morocco. First of all, it came with chickpeas! Hooray for restaurants that give vegans beans! We want beans! Then, the broth that the cous was in was soo good, and it came with a good mix of weird veggies. It was wonderful! There was so much couscous though, I couldn’t even finish it. I liked this very much. MUCHO GUSTO.
TRAY OF SUGAR
After dinner, the mopper man brought fresh mint tea which is literally our favorite thing. This tea was in that great Moroccan tradition of being way too sweet and poured from a great height. He also brought us a huge, HUGE, dessert tray. There were peanutty jawns, sugar syrup baklava type jawns, flaky cookies that left tons of powdered sugar in their wake, all kinds of sugary syrupy twisty little bites that were so good and sooo sugary. I wish that he had told us that we would be charged for each little piece we ate, but they were super cheap and it’s better than being charged for the whole gigantic tray. I just wouldn’t have bit every single one and put half back. Just kidding I didn’t do that I am not a monster. It was a great meal overall. The only annoying thing (besides the opening wtf) was that I asked for a half liter of water (no tap water really in all of Spain. Or Africa) and he said they only had full liters left (menu said both so it was a supply problem) but on the bill he charged us for the full, which I thought was wrong since we wanted to get just a half (I had bag water as always).
The guy called a taxi for us (you can’t hail one at the deserted top of a mountain) at 11pm, and it took a full 30 minutes for it to come. Ughhhh it was sooo cold outside too and I was dizzy from all the sugar in the tea and the desserts and that darn baby was still going strong inside. It finally came, and after all that it couldn’t drop us at our hotel but a few blocks away, because this was happening:
The guy called a taxi for us (you can’t hail one at the deserted top of a mountain) at 11pm, and it took a full 30 minutes for it to come. Ughhhh it was sooo cold outside too and I was dizzy from all the sugar in the tea and the desserts and that darn baby was still going strong inside. It finally came, and after all that it couldn’t drop us at our hotel but a few blocks away, because this was happening:
YUP, another Easter parade! Even in Africa! And after 11pm! Oh boy this was getting kind of annoying. I mean I’m not a fan of parades to begin with so a slow, somber one about Jesus and clan got old kinda fast. But still it’s pretty cool, and kind of hilarious. Thank goodness we couldn’t really hear the drums from our room.
So that covers all, seriously all, of our time in Ceuta. There’s not much to do as a tourist, so it’s kind of meh and I can’t recommend that people actually vacation there. But if you happen to be in the area, it’s cool to see a geographic oddity and the Strait of Gibraltar, and you get to say you went to Spain but Africa. Also you get to sing “I am Africa” the whole time. Oh and of course the songs from “Hercules”! So it is great for the music in your head if nothing else.
