Leap the Gorge with the Yellow River Chronicles...

Greetings and welcome back to the Yellow River Chronicles!  This week, the Two Buddhas travel to faire Yunnan province in the west of the People's Republic to hike the famous Leaping Tiger Gorge and encounter the famous 28 Bends to Enlightenment.

We will cover the Final Days of the Three Buddhas in a later YRC, once the police have finished their  investigations and the testimonies are no longer sealed.

So, back to the Gorge.  The gorgeous Gorge so to speak.   Around 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) in length, the gorge is located where the river passes between the 5,596 metres (18,360 ft) Jade Dragon Snow Mountain and the 5,396 metres (17,703 ft) Haba Snow Mountain in a series of rapids under steep 2,000 metres (6,600 ft) cliffs.


Legend says that in order to escape from a hunter, a tiger jumped across the river at the narrowest point.


The gorge is not considered navigable. In the early 1980s, four rafters attempted to go down the gorge and were "never seen again".   This probably involved the traditional People's Republic search party protocol:

It was there that the Tiger did leap

Comrade One:   I saw four yáng guǐzi in small boats in the gorge!
Comrade Two:   What were they doing there?
Comrade One:    Paddling like demons.  Then they hit the rapids and all I saw was what the American rafters call a "yard sale".   The boats flipped and they were catapulted out of their boats.
Comrade Two:   Ummmm.
Comrade One:   Should we alert anyone?
Comrade Two:   <Shrugs>.  Who would we alert?  We don't know any yáng guǐzi.

A candidate for the deepest river gorge in the world, the "Leaping T" trail features the famous 28-Bends.  The hike takes the better part of two days, with the first day being Ascent Day and the second day being...well, Descent Day.

The hiking upper trail represents a total distance of 26 kilometers, a total ascent of 1145 meters up and a total descent of 1090 meters down. The steepest part of the trail (the '28 bends') consists in 453 meters ascent (on 2.5 km long) from 2208 meters high up to 2661 meters high with an average grade of 18.1%.

The thin horizontal line is the trail.

Yes, the Two Buddhas hiked 3,800 feet up the trail.  Mule wranglers followed the weaker hikers in an attempt to convince them they were better off riding to the top.  Frequent small stands on the trail offered Snickers Bars, water, beer, snacks and small bags of ganga.  Ohhh yeah, that would be a great idea.  Lemme rip a bong hit here <cough> and I'll be right behind ya....

In the interest of unfettered candor, the YRC Alpine Touring Staff must report that one Buddha seemed to be in a hurry to keep up with the guide, perhaps to reach the guest lodges at the summit.  The other took ummm...frequent stops along the trail to examine rocks, trees, birds, or anything soft to pass out on.  Regular YRC readers will be pleased to know that there was nothing soft...

The Path to Enlightenment

It was there, reclining by the trail, that the Path to the Math of Enlightenment was discovered.  According to Buddhist teachings, there is the Eightfold Path:

In the same way I saw an ancient path, an ancient road, traveled by the Rightly Self-awakened Ones of former times. And what is that ancient path, that ancient road, traveled by the Rightly Self-awakened Ones of former times? Just this noble eightfold path: right view, right aspiration, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration...I followed that path. 

—Nagara Sutta^[4][5]

Mountains have that mystic feel, yes?  We here at the YRC would recommend hiking the Leaping Tiger 28 Bends for those who wish to be Seekers of Oxygen.  It was there that we discovered that To Be is To Breathe.  Meditate on this, most esteemed YRC readers, and we will continue the Adventure in Yunnan next week!

Special Video Edition of the Yellow RIver Chronicles....Fade to Light!

This week we present a special video edition of the Yellow River Chronicles with a trailer for the first YRC Films Production, "Fade to Light".  Be sure to watch it full-screen for the full effect.

Thanks for tuning in and see you next week!

The Three Plagues of Shanghai at the Yellow River Chronicles!

We are coming to destroy your city....resistance is futile.

Hello, greetings and welcome back to the Yellow River Chronicles.

As you may recall, we were supposed to continue with the final phase of the jocular adventures of the Three Buddhas.

But, instead of that tepid nonsense, we have breaking, urgent news here in the 'Hai.


As you may be aware, the Neon City has been having...well, animal problems in April, the cruelest month.  There are two current problems, and one potential future problem.  Why, because trouble ALWAYS comes in threes.

Problem the First:   As reported in, "Waiter, There Is A Pig In My Soup" there was the invasion of the Deadly River Pigs.  Footage below:

The Aquatic Porcine invasion ended with over 12,000 bobbing bacon bandits coming ashore in the 'Hai before being hauled away.  As a result, all of the pork in town was suspect and the other other white meat was no longer on the menu.  Restaurants quit serving any and all pork dishes, ham sandwiches were confiscated on the street and all of the pork in town got the "chop".

Then, just as things were settling down, a second plague appeared.
  

Problem the Second:   A particularly nasty strain of Avian flu, H7N9, has caused a near-panic and resulted in the summary execution of tens of thousands of chickens in the Shanghai area.





Here, in a YRC exclusive, is footage of the cull at a local Swedish restaurant:

And so another meat has disappeared from the tables, menus and hearts of the citizens of the Neon City.  Colonel Sanders is in tears, Mickey D's has switched to "Tofu McNuggets" (...a bit bland, sneers our YRC Senior Food Food Editor), and Buffalo chicken wings have now been replaced by "goat elbows" and such.  

Look!  A dragon. And ice cream!

The question now, during the Revenge of the Chinese Zodiac, is which animal will be the third and final seeker of vengeance in the Triad of Fear?  

It has been noted that the Chinese will consume all the members of the Chinese Zodiac except the dragon.  Dragons?  Nahhh.  Too cute these days.

Could it be that, the Japanese, finally tired of all the bickering about the <insert politically sensitive topic here...maybe islands> would unleash the fury of a favorite Japanese pre-historic lizard?

Watch next week as we tie the Three Buddhas and the Three Plagues together in an EPIC, never before seen, Yellow River Chronicles.  Until then, keep your radios turned up!

The Three Buddhas Go to Bangkok and Discover the Road Rules!

Greetings dear readers and welcome to back to the Yellow River Chronicles!   This week the Three Buddhas, content in the knowledge that they have Taken Their Pictures Standing in Front of Important Things in Cambodia, head to the mysterious and ancient Bangkok.

We are going to take our little spin on the catwalk and start the column with a contribution from YRC's Senior Music Editor:  Murray Head's "One Night in Bangkok"

Floating market 10 minutes by boat from downtown Bangkok

So, that is what people THINK Bangkok is all about.  Tattoos.  Massages.  Happy Endings.  Transvestites.  Massages with Happy Endings. By Transvestites.  Truckloads of fresh picked ganja rolling down the streets with bales falling off.  Back packers on the banana trail.  And, chess, according to Mr. Head.

But people, you SO BAD!  The Three Buddhas will tell you what Bangkok is really about:  Beef Panang.  Pa-nang.  Tom Yung Gong. Guay Teow Lui Suan.  Gang Keow Wan.  Paad Thai. And of course, coconut pancakes.   We at the YRC staff would now like to say that we are hungry.  We would KILL for some Kao Niew Ma Muang right now.  Seriously, people.  Hellooooooo?  Sherpa's?  Sherpa's Home Delivery?

One Day in Bangkok

It must be exciting for you to watch a column MELTDOWN before your eyes.  (Sniff)  It's...the voices.  The voices say....the paad thai will be delivered in 40 minutes.

Okay, so back to the three Buddhas in Bangkok.  (Say that three times really fast).

It was in Bangkok, standing on a steet corner, that the Three Buddhas had the One Great Idea for the Trip.

Why?   Take any three post-alpha males, drop them in the middle of a city and they will, rather than coelesce into a fighting unit, begin to bicker about directions.  It goes like this.

Buddha A:   I think that is the Grand Palace over there.
Buddha B:   (Looking at a map).  No, we are here, so it is over there. (Points in opposite direction.
Buddha C:   Guys, I know I was here over two years ago and I don't remember much of the trip, but it should be in the same place.  And that is not here.  It is over there. (Jabs finger at map)
Buddha A:   That's the Grand Palace.  It's over there.
Buddha C:    That's a Thai House of Pancakes.  It's OVER THERE!
Buddha B:    (Still looking at map).  It's over there. (Pointing in a new direction).

Ganesha thinks the Palace is over....there.

So it was there, tempered by fire and borne of desperation, that the Road Rules were Forged:

The Team Buddha Road Rules:

Everybody has a job.  There are three jobs.  Trip Leader, Navigator, and Negotiator.

The Trip Leader plans the agenda for the day and makes the decisions on where Team Buddha is going and how long TB is going to stay there.  HE can accept ideas from the whiners, if he feels like it.  His decision is final unless it involves proximity to beer or paad thai.  Then a majority vote can overrule.

The Navigator takes the itinerary and navigates.  The other team members must drink a tall, ice-cold glass of SHUTUP, no matter how f*cking obvious it is that the restaurant is the OTHER WAY.  His word is final on all matters of how to get there.  No smirking.  No commentary.  No whining.

The Negotiator handles everything else:  reservations, buying tickets, negotiations, conversations with police, and any and all team interactions with the world.

He also is the tie vote in a showdown between the Navigator and the Team Leader and decides who the Team Leader is for the next day.

And while there were some constitutional challenges and general cheating, we rolled through Bangkok and back to next week's column, Team Buddha Hits Shanghai.  And we hope you will roll along with us!

The Reclining Buddha Always Knows Where He Is Reclining

The YRC Visits the Largest Religious Monument in the Universe and Other Tales from the Three Buddha Trail..

The Three Buddhas

Hello,  greetings and welcome back to this week's Yellow River Chronicles.  The YRC was delighted to host two senior (yuk yuk...age joke) contributors from the Empire of Corn, the American MidWest, to assist in this three-part series.

Hold on, because our whirlwind adventure includes Siem Reap in Cambodia, mysterious Bangkok and the World Below the Clouds in Yunnan in Western China.  We shall call these series of adventures, Tales from the Three Buddha Trail.

A Brief Reminder:  As you may recall, or regret as the case may be, the YRC eschews chronological travel narrative, personal spiritual insights, good writing of any kind, restaurant reviews, accuracy, pictures of food, and other traditional travel writing bon mots.

We do this as a courtesy to our readers, out of a thinly veiled sense of superiority and a quite open aversion to good note-taking.

In reality, a YRC report done in the contemporary vein would read something like this:

So, we arrived in...somewhere in Asia, just in time for the ..umm Festival of Curious Hats or something like that.   We got some hats to wear, but we got lost and the cab smelled like prunes or perhaps prune danish or perhaps raisins and our hotel was on that street that's was in the movie "Hangover Three".

However, despite all that, we will follow the Tales in chronological order.  So, we now jump unapologetically back to the beginning of the story at hand and the first stop, Cambodia and Angkor Wat.

Post-card, French,circa 1911.  Note the fruit

Cambodia, a country still recovering from a long and violent civil war, dates back to 612 AD. Its most famous monument is the temple complex of Angkor Wat. The ancient city of Angkor used to be a capital of the ancient Khmer Empire and was one of the largest cities in the world. This huge complex of buildings, covering about 600 square kilometers, was the center of the vast the Khmer Empire until it was destroyed by Siamese troops in 1431.  To give you a sense of historical perspective, 1431 is the year that Joan of Arc was burned at the stake.

More than 100 palaces and temples are concealed under lush tropical forest. 

One of the temples, Ta Prohm is known even to those who have never traveled to Cambodia before: this is where scenes from Tomb Raider 2 were filmed.  I have not seen the film but the roots were quite impressive.

What are you three idiots doing here?

The entire Wat complex is extremely popular.   Around one million people visit each year and once the doors open in the early morning, large groups of tourists wearing gaily colored matching hats stream into the site to have their pictures taken in front of things.  

The competition can get quite intense as roving bands of tourists stand with cellphones leveled waiting for the opportunity to work through a group of fifty, each of the them having their picture taken with their camera in front of the same tree.  This can take quite a bit of time if you are simply waiting to get by.

For example, the famous "Sunrise Over the Wat?" photo opportunity involves hiking in at 5:30am in the morning to sit by the moat while thousands of fellow photographers arrive with cameras and cell phones to also capture the sacred moment.

To capitalize on this, the Tourist Board of Cambodia is launching a new program called "Never Be Alone in Cambodia".  No matter where you go, no matter who you are, no matter what time it is, or what you are doing, You Are Never Alone in Cambodia!

Enjoy the stillness as the sun rises over the Temple!

The site itself was awe-inspiring. We will be using our sister site Click here to go the the picture site, please to publish a more "in-depth" photo collection in the near future.  And tune in next week, when the three Buddhas head to Bangkok!

Year of the Dragon

Click here to view this photo book larger

Photo books are the perfect gift for any occasion.

Waiter! What is a pig doing in my soup? And more at the Yellow RIver Chronicles.

Artwork courtesy of Weibao

Hello and welcome back!  The Yellow River Chronicles returns this week to address the subject of porcine potamology, or, in the vernacular, the study of pigs in water.  As you may or may not know, the Shanghai water supply, the might Huang Pu river, was recently invaded by, well, dead pigs.  

As the story has slowly "evolved", the body count "evolved" from a few hundred dead pigs that were no problem at all to water quality, to a few thousand pigs that were also no problem to the water quality.  As the count now stands, we are at at +7,500 dead porkers bobbing in the Huang Pu infected with porcine circus-whooosssoo-virus.

These pigs are also not a problem to water quality.  

While Shanghai citizens have expressed outrage on Weibo and other outlets for Shanghai outrage, the  media here have generally been trying to put the traditional "positive" spin on the matter:

China: Vigilance grows as dead pigs in river reach 7,545

Via Shanghai Daily, the story continues: Vigilance grows as dead pigs in river reach 7,545.

The number of dead pigs retrieved from the Huangpu River in Shanghai increased to 7,545 after another 944 carcasses were retrieved by 3pm yesterday, officials said. 

Spokesman Xu Wei said the city government is stepping up monitoring of water quality. 

The government also is strictly supervising the biological treatment of the dead pigs and monitoring pork quality at local markets. 

Xu said Jinshan District staff has started removing dead pigs from the waters at the border between Shanghai and Zhejiang Province. 

No pollution has been detected in raw water in the upstream part of the Huangpu River in Shanghai. 

Six water intakes and nine water plants in Songjiang, Jinshan, Minhang and Fengxian districts are being closely watched. 

More inspections will be done at supermarkets, wet markets and butcher shops.

It is comforting to know that the vigilance is growing as the piggies pile up on the shores of the ol' Huang Pu.  Despite all the vigilance, though, the main reason the porker floaters are not a problem is that they cannot make the water quality any worse.  This from the Atlantic:

"The carcasses were probably dumped in the Huangpu river in Zhejiang province," reports NBC News. While The Telegraph says local media suggested that the pigs were dumped by a nearby farmer, the official cause of the rotting swine river is still a mystery.

What's even more vomit-inducing is that the rotting pig soup known formerly known as the Huangpu River was actually a smelly stew of feet and bodily fluid even before the rotting pigs were found. "On Monday afternoon, the dead pigs shared their aquatic graveyard with a filthy mesh of glass and plastic bottles, flip-flops, shoes, what appeared to be bags of domestic and medical waste and even a plastic sex doll." Phillips reports. 

Ewwwww.  Spareribs, anyone?   Our loyal readers will be pleased to know that the offices of the Yellow River Chronicles are equipped with a top-of-the-line reverse osmosis water filtration system and we try to consume only beer, wine and vodka for purposes of hydration.  It is important that our loyal readers not confuse the Pigs in Water with the pigs from the Muppet Show segment "Pigs in Space".

However,-alert YRC staff has discerned the the true cause of the Pigs in Water epidemic here in the 'Hai.  As you may know, Angry Birds is hugely popular here and the newest edition features, you guessed it, Pigs in Water!  You see!  Farmer citizens, anxious to improve their "Birds" stats, have taken to putting pigs in the water to simply help practice for the new Angry Birds universe. 

It is so...obvious.   

(NOTE:  The YRC staff is heading to Cambodia, Thailand and points north in the PR of C and will return in a few weeks.  By then we hope, most of the pigs will be out of the water. See you then!)

The View from the Other Other Side of the World

Hello, greetings and welcome back to this week's Yellow River Chronicles.  As you may have noticed, the YRC has turned its pristine journalistic eye towards weighty topics such as pollution, credibility and tacos in Bali.  We now caste our gaze on the status of "Asians" in America.

We frame the discussion with a video from Alexandra Wallace, a UCLA student, posted on YouTube.  It has been "removed" but the always alert YRC research staff were able to find a pirated DVD over on Dagu Lu.

Thanks for your thoughts, Alex-An-Dra! Posted two years ago in March, this video went viral with around 1.9 million hits on YouTube.  There was a storm of protest, several very funny parodies and some actual thoughtful commentary.

While nightmarish in many aspects, it video did highlight some of the friction between Asians and Americans and the poor wardrobe choices of college girls from southern California.

Two full years later (yesterday), a young student from Culver, Indiana was able to reignite the discussion with his unique analysis of "Ten Reasons Why He Would Hate to be Asian".
 

While it was originally thought that young Samuel Hendrickson was from Indiana Southern University or Indiana University, no Indiana college has stepped forward to claim him. Yet.  But he is wearing a Notre Dame t-shirt, so who knows?

To summarize his salient points (thanks to Shanghaiist who had the courage to watch the whole thing), here are the reasons young Samuel would hate to be Asian.

Most Asians look alike

If he was an Asian man, he’d most likely be with an Asian woman (and he doesn’t find Asian women attractive)

Sweatshops suck.

Smoking pot while Asian makes would make his already-chink eyes close completely

He sucks at math

The only way you can be in show biz if you know kung fu or if you play an Asian mobster

He’d be short.

He hates sushi and it would be “everywhere” if he was Asian. [He throws in a nice use of the word "Oriental" during this segment.]

Asian males don’t have a “good rep.” Schools don’t accept them any more than white males, they’re not known for being good in the bedroom, and are known for having small equipment and wear tighty-whiteys

Asians blur their porn

Sigh. Thanks for your enlightening thoughts, Samuel, your thoughts speak for themselves.  Several leading "Asian" YouTube comedians have started work on a parody/response to Mr. Hendrickson's magnum opus, similar to the efforts to parody Ms. Wallace.

Our YRC readers should be aware that efforts to work on "Ten Reasons We Would Hate to Be A Clown Car Driver From Culver, Indiana" have been hampered by the fact that no one really knows where Culver is.

This from the Culver, Indiana Chamber of Commerce (pop. 1,900):

"Amazing cuisine and classy shops enhance the appeal of Culver. Several exquisite restaurants will tempt your taste buds with a variety of foods. Some of the more surprising treats include excellent seafood, fine Italian dining, and even sushi."

You will be pleased to know that your ever-vigilant staff has actually BEEN THERE! Truth, that!  While we did not try the sushi, Culver is a pleasant enough small Indiana resort town with an excellent lake and a fine Dairy Queen downtown.  We saw the lake, spent some time fishing and had a Blizzard and onion rings at the Dairy Queen.

What we did not see on several visits to Culver were any short, unattractive "Asians" parading their small units around in their tighty whiteys, their eyes sealed shut from ripping bong hits after a hard day at the sweatshop as they wandered home to eat sushi, watch blurred porn and practice their kung fu.

To give some final perspective from YRC HQ, a full 25% of all expats living in China live in Shanghai (176,000).  To drill on the demographics a bit, nearly half of those are also "Asian" with Japanese being the largest group.  Americans, for example are 21,000 strong, our cousins the Australians are around 5,000 strong and our allies in revolution the French around 7,000 strong.  So, in a city of 25 million Han Chinese, we are less than one hundredth of a percent.

This means that we don't really have much of a presence to the general population, except at a few key bar streets on Friday and Saturday nights.  Or about the same percentage of "Asians" in Culver, Indiana.  So tune in next week, when we tackle the "Ten Reasons A Shanghainese Would Hate to be an Expat".  See you next week!

Airpocalypse Now at the YRC!

28 Mansions of Chinese Astronomy

Greetings, hello and welcome back the the Yellow River Chronicles!  This week's column includes a stunning array of meteorology, astronomy and ecological sciences so we are going to get right to it, with none of the traditional window dressing, prefacing and arbitrage that traditionally gums up the first paragraph or two of the YRC.

We were pleased to receive, from an active YRC correspondent, the following list of cosmic events that are not to be missed in calendar year 2013:

You will notice that the next celestial wonder will be Comet PANSTARRs zipping by in March.  You can actually get detailed instructions on how to view it at EarthSky, a very cool site:  Click for Instructions.

However, this may not be so for the +1 billion or so citizens of the major cities of the People's Republic as we enter what is now being called the Airpocalypse.  Since this winter, China's cities have been racking up "beyond the index" readings of air quality.  Air quality index readings list a "hazardous" level of 300 micrograms per cubic metre, and Beijing  the poster-child for poor air quality, had days where the readings spiked at +900 mpcm this winter.

Chart courtesy of Bloomberg

Things have gotten so smoky, Bloomberg has prepared a chart that shows it is healthier to breathe the air in an airport smoker's lobby that in Beijing.

Shanghai, home of the YRC executive offices, is never one to be second to the evil older brother Beijing.

Shanghai civil authorities have now released an air quality mascot to help us keep track of air quality in a friendly, cartoony, citizen friendly, way.

Yes, the scale is the same as the readings mentioned above, so the recent readings of 900 in Beijing would be nearly 3x the tear inducing levels of 300 in the Shanghai chart.  MMmuuuuuhhhahaahahaahahahahhhahahahahhaaaa!

So what this means, dear readers, is that there may be no celestial sighting in the Year of the Snake here in the 'Hai.  We know that the Chinese have a lunar calendar and a Moon festival and a famous poem, so we know that have, at some time in the past, been able to see the sky.

One of the most famous Chinese poems, by Li Bai around 700 AD is about the moon:

静夜思   A Quiet Night Thought

床前明月光   In front of my bed is the bright moonlight.

疑是地上霜   I doubt if it was the frost on the ground.

举头望明月   I lift my head to look up at the August Moon,

低头思故乡   Lowering my head to think about my hometown.

However, here is the current line-up for celestial viewing in the "Hai.

March:  PANSTARRS?  Forgettaabbbbbouuddddiit.
April:   Lunar Eclipse?  We're talking TOTAL eclipse here, folks.
August:  Perseid meteor showers?  Nope!  Took a bath. Sorry. Maybe tomorrow.
November:  ISON?  Not tonight, darling.

So, the YRC staff will sadly pack up our telescopes if we are in Shanghai for the weekend. We can always head out to parts of the countryside where the air is still clear and sweet as vodka on the rocks and the lunar viewing is as fine as Li Bai's.  But if we are in the cities...we will hold our breath.

As a deep irony moment, here are two photos.  One is from Beijing a few weeks ago, the other is a shot from the classic science fiction film "Blade Runner" which depicts Los Angeles in the year 2020.  Take your pick!  After all, it's only seven years away.

Sympathy for the Citizens...

Really, really classy Snake art, don't you think?

Hello, YRC readers.  It's time to grab your coat and get your hat, leave your worries on the doorstep!

Why, you might ask.  We are about to go on the move here at the YRC.  Why are we moving?   Nooo, it's not those political people again!  

Here in People's Republic we are in the middle of the festival of Chun Yun, AKA the Lunar New year and AKA China's annual Spring Festival.

The Spring Festival, or Chinese Lunar New year, is the most important traditional festival of family reunions and it is the BIGGEST, baby.  

Background:  The return home is mandatory.  Those unfortunate Chinese main-landers who do return to family laden with hong bao are haunted the entire following year by evil family spirits who don't pick up after themselves, hog the bathroom and are very critical of the cooking. 

The Big Move Begins...

The Year of the Snake's Big Move began last week in freezing weather, with some 700 million people, or nearly half the nation's population, expected to travel.

Just as a reminder, in true People's Republic social style,  everyone in the People's Republic goes on vacation at the same time. This means the cities empty out (Beijing loses half its population, for example) and the countryside fills back up again.  China's Ministry of Transport (MOT) estimates that almost three billion passenger trips will be made during the period.

Time to go, Americas...

"So what" you murmur as you rattle the ice cubes in your second morning cocktail, YRC style.

It is a matter of perspective, dear friends.   Think about it for a moment:  there are 700 million people going into motion during the same time period.

That is roughly the same as if the ENTIRE population of the Americans (North, Central and South) were to leave to go on vacation for two weeks on THE SAME DAY!  Imagine the chaos as every Brazilian, Canadian, Texan, Chilean, Mexican, (did we say Canadian?), Alaskan, Greenlander, Peruvian, etc. all went to the train station at the same time and headed out for Grandma's?  And, to bring this further into perspective, the vast majority of travel is not by car, or plane, or motorcycle....it is by train.

Real PR of C Holiday long-haul train.

So, no getting up early, packing up the Family Truckster and heading out at dawn so you can beat the traffic to Grandma's on Thanksgiving in the arduous three-hour drive. This isn't no beach trip.  This is no sissy skiing in Aspen.  This is no taking the RV up to Reno for a few days.  No, this is serious travel: it is usually a 12-hour journey with standing room only.

We at the YRC have decided we need to be...well, nicer.   We need to calm down, chill out and show some true compassion.  The Chinese traditionally have 18 levels of hell, and it is clear they have one here in this life.  We need to have some Sympathy for the Citizens...

And you too will have one more hell in this life when the YRC returns next week.  Until then, stand up straight and fly right!

Eat, Pray and Surf with the YRC...

Hello!  Hello!  Hello dear readers and welcome back to the amorphous Yellow River Chronicles.  Thanks for checking back!

Noooo, you are not shut of us yet.  Our shadow will still darken your door and our faces will darken your towels, ye that harbor us.

We have returned triumphant from adventures in faire Bali and the United States.  Your hardworking Yellow River Staff are now sipping tea high above Changshu Lu as the fireworks begin to crackle in the lanes in celebration of the Year of the Snake in the People's Republic.  We will cover the adventures of Chinese New Year in an upcoming opus, but this week we delve into the mysterious and entirely charming island of Bali, in Indonesia.

While we were actually lured there to attend an absolutely spectacular wedding, we were startled to learn that the YRC had stumbled into a hotbed of popular culture.

It seems that, for part of our journey, we were following in the footsteps of Elizabeth Gilbert, the narrator of the hugely popular "Eat, Pray and Love".  In case you missed it, this is the short summary of the novel from Wikipedia:

At 32 years old, Elizabeth Gilbert was educated, had a home, a husband, and a successful career as a writer. However, she was unhappy in her marriage and often spent the night sleeping on her bathroom floor. After separating from her husband and initiating a divorce, which he contested, she embarked on a rebound relationship which continued for some time but did not work out, leaving her devastated and alone. 

Afterwards, while writing an article on yoga vacations in Bali, Gilbert met a ninth-generation medicine man who told her she would one day come back and study with him. After finalizing her difficult divorce, Gilbert spent the next year traveling around the world. The trip was paid for in advance with a book deal from the publisher.^[6] 

She spent four months in Italy, eating and enjoying life ("Eat"). She spent three months in India, finding her spirituality ("Pray").^[7] She ended the year in Bali, Indonesia, looking for "balance" of the two and found love ("Love") in the form of a Brazilian businessman.^[8]

The YRC Has Another Idea for E-Liz-A-Beth.  The YRC proposal would be that the silly bitch should have skipped Italy and India and instead made a beeeee-line for Bali to eat, pray, surf, and love in faire Bali.  Here's our logic, dear readers.

YRC Senior Food Editor at work

Eat.  Bali has wonderful, eclectic native food, a complete set of five-star dining venues, and of course, the most important food in the world, tacos.

We at the YRC staff have dined in Mexican restaurants in Thailand (full of Russians) and many other parts of the world, but none can compete with the epic tacos in Ubud at the Taco Casa Bali.

So, E-Liz-A-Beth, leave that poser pasta romano behind and get some real food in Bali.  For example, ribs!   Yes, epic ribs! And nitrogen cooled martinis in a little street warung called Naughty Nuri's.  Highly rated by all, here are the reviews from The New York Times and Frommers:  The Reviews!

Naughty Nuri's interior, courtesy of Naughty Nuri's

Pray.  From Wikipedia:
When Islam surpassed Hinduism in Java (16th century), Bali became a refuge for many Hindus. Balinese Hinduism is an amalgam in which gods and demigods are worshiped together with Buddhist heroes, the spirits of ancestors, indigenous agricultural deities and sacred places. Religion as it is practiced in Bali is a composite belief system that embraces not only theology, philosophy, and mythology, but ancestor worship, animism and magic. It pervades nearly every aspect of traditional life. With an estimated 20,000 puras (temples) and shrines, Bali is known as the "Island of a Thousand Puras", or "Island of the Gods".[51] 

From the simple offerings of fruit, food and incense on the beach to the thousands of temples, Bali is a total spiritual smack down on India, E-Liz-A-Beth.  Yes, the Beatles went to India with the Maharishi but that is so past life, E-Liz-A-Beth!  The spiritual epicenter for seekers like yourself is Bali!  And, you can surf in Bali!

Surf.  Right and left break.  Off the hook gnar.  Mellow beachbreaks.  Intense reefbreaks. Frosty Bintang beers waiting on the beach.  Over 50 world-class surf beaches on one island.  And, finally, you can't SURF in Rome, E-Liz-A-Beth.  Need we say more?

This from Surfline:

From a surfer's standpoint, Indonesia is a paradise. Thousands of miles of island coastline receive consistent, powerful, swells from the huge storms of the Southern Indian Ocean. With no major landmass to block or alter these swells, they arrive to the reefs and shores of Indonesia as well groomed, orderly, long lines. The best waves on earth. By the mid 70's stories of idyllic beachbreaks and long, barreling, reefbreaks on the island of Bali were beginning to appear in surf magazines, and the classic 70's surf film "The Morning of the Earth" brought the Indonesia surf experience back to wide eyed surfers in communities all over the world. Indonesia became a hallowed surf destination.

SURF SPOTS in bali

Surf Spots (50)			Quality	Direction	Type	Frequ	Experience
Airport's	11 / -			Right and left	Reef-coral		All surfers
Amed - Matias point	3 / -			Left	Beach-break		Experienced surfers
Balangan	70 / -			Left	Reef-coral		All surfers
Bali Tropic	- / -				Reef-rocky		Experienced surfers
Balian	20 / -			Right and left	Reef-rocky		All surfers
Berawa	11 / -			Left	Sand-bar		All surfers
Bingin	82 / -			Left	Reef-coral		Experienced surfers
Bluffs	- / -			Right	Reef-rocky		Pros or kamikaze only...
Buitan	3 / -			Right	Reef-rocky		All surfers
Canggu	41 / 3			Right and left	Reef-rocky		All surfers
Ceningan Point	13 / -			Left	Point-break		Experienced surfers
Dayana Pura / Seminyak	1 / -			Right and left	Beach-break		All surfers
Dreamland	84 / -			Right and left	Beach-break		Experienced surfers
Ewan's Left	- / -			Left	Reef-coral		Experienced surfers
Geger	- / 1				Reef-coral		Experienced surfers
Green ball	5 / -			Right	Reef-coral		Experienced surfers
Impossibles	38 / -			Left	Reef-coral		Pros or kamikaze only...
Jimbaran Shorey	- / -			Right and left	Beach-break		Experienced surfers
Kartika - DEAD SPOT	3 / -			Right and left	Beach-break		Experienced surfers
Keramas Beach	25 / 1			Right and left	Reef-rocky		Experienced surfers
Ketewel	3 / -			Right	Reef-rocky		Pros or kamikaze only...
KU DE TA - Semyniak	4 / -			Right and left	Sand-bar		All surfers
Kuta Beach	40 / -			Right and left	Beach-break		Beginners wave
Kuta Reef	27 / -			Left	Reef-coral		Experienced surfers
Lacerations (Nusa Lembongan)	39 / 1			Right	Reef-coral		Experienced surfers
Legian Beach	30 / -			Right and left	Beach-break		Experienced surfers
Lower Temples	1 / -			Left	Reef-coral		Experienced surfers
Medewi	57 / 2			Left	Point-break		All surfers
Middles	3 / -			Left	Reef-coral		Experienced surfers
Mushroom beach (Nusa Lembongan)	3 / -			Right and left	Reef-coral		Experienced surfers
mushrooms	4 / -			Right	Reef-coral		Experienced surfers
Nusa dua	4 / -			Right	Reef-coral		Experienced surfers
Nyang-Nyang	4 / -			Right and left	Reef-coral		Experienced surfers
Padang Galak	2 / -			Right and left	Beach-break		All surfers
padang padang	68 / -			Left	Reef-coral		Pros or kamikaze only...
Pererenan	1 / 1			Right and left	Beach-break		All surfers
Playgrounds (Nusa Lembongan)	14 / 1			Right and left	Reef-coral		All surfers
Pulakan (medewi) Rights	1 / -			Right	Rivermouth		Experienced surfers
Rice paddies	- / -			Right	Reef-coral		Experienced surfers
right hander reef	- / -			Right	Reef-coral		Experienced surfers
Sanur - Grand Hyatt	6 / -			Right	Reef-coral		Experienced surfers
Secret	- / -			Right	Reef-rocky		Experienced surfers
Serangan	12 / -			Right and left	Reef-coral		All surfers
Shipwrecks	16 / 2			Right	Reef-coral		Experienced surfers
Sri Lanka	8 / -			Right	Reef-coral		All surfers
Tanah Lot	7 / -			Left	Reef-rocky		All surfers
Tandjungs	2 / -			Right and left	Reef-coral		Experienced surfers
Temples	2 / -			Left	Reef-rocky		Experienced surfers
Uluwatu	104 / 2			Left	Reef-coral		Experienced surfers
yehleh	1 / -			Right and left	Point-break		All surfers

The outdoor bath at Hotel Tugu, Bali.  Nobody sleeps on the floor in this bathroom. No, sir.

Love.  Last, not least, and definitely as much fun as surfing.  You may or may not have read or liked the book "Eat, Pray, Love".  But we at the YRC agree that Bali is an extremely romantic place.  The people are friendly and exotic.  The air smells good.  Spices are everywhere and there is a rich, sensuous atmosphere. And the coffee is spectacular.  Back to our somewhat ham-fisted compare and contrast approach: E-Liz-A-Beth went to the right place for loooovvvveeeee.

Rice paddies, Bali style.

To wrap this up, if interested, here a link to the Wikipedia article with some good reviews:
Eat Pray Love Reviews

Management Discussion and Analysis:

It would be an understatement to say the book got "mixed reviews".  We here at the YRC reserve judgement as a matter of professional courtesy to a fellow travel writer.  You may have slept through the movie.  You may have a federal tax return that you found more interesting.  The book may be the epicenter of your literary and personal life.  The YRC supports and applauds diversity of opinion and we thank you for you kind attention in this matter.  And, we'll see you next week!