Bohemian Traveler

People had warned me about the traffic in Hanoi. I thought I was prepared to take it on—but I wasn’t. It’s not big trucks or bumper-to-bumper cars, but motorbikes—and lots of them. The day we arrived, our host Jenny, took us out into rush hour traffic on the way to a bar to meet her [...]

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  I just arrived in Vietnam last night on a bus from southern China. So what do I do during my first day in a country? How do I orient myself? Walk This is my standard initiation to any country. To see what’s up—head out to the streets. Open up your eyes, keep your ears [...]

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For a balanced view of China I’ve published this post simultaneously along with the more negative: Why it’s time to leave China It’s not about the Great Wall. Not that I’ve got anything against the Great Wall or a Yangtze River Cruise or the Hong Kong Skyline. Those are some of the best places to [...]

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smoking on the train For a balanced view of China I’ve published this post simultaneously along with the more positive: What I love about China (it’s not what You Think Not that I have to. But want to. More than once I’ve had this feeling: I just want to move on; want to go to [...]

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My Uncle has a joke that goes something like this: “I know Arabic.” “What are you talking about, Uncle Jim? Of course you don’t.” We would think to ourselves, waiting for the punchline. Then he proceeds to write the Arabic numerals from one to ten on a sheet of paper. Well, Uncle Jim, I know [...]

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This Post is part of a series. Read: Cruising the Yangtze Day 1: Leaving Chongqing and Cruising the Yangtze Day 2: The Three Gorges Before touring the Three Gorges Dam, we would have to go through the most complex ship lock system in the world. It is a two-way series of five locks which brought [...]

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This Post is part of a series. Read: Cruising the Yangtze Day 1: Leaving Chongqing The day before all I could think about was whether the fog would clear out by today. This would be the main event, the Yangtze’s magnum opus: The Three Gorges. Our cruise had little purpose without visuals of the gorges. [...]

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A view of Chongqing from the Yangtze. Our ship pulled out of Chongqing the night before at 22:00—slowly leaving the bright lights of this megacity at the confluence of two great rivers. We had explored Chongqing by foot, up and down its steep topography, for a few hours during the day. If you can see [...]

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93. He pencils in the only thing I can understand among the Chinese characters. He smiles and points to the man with a long grey beard and arching back behind me. I smile. He’s predicting that I’ll live until I’m old, just like that man. Good. He continues. I’ve got my left hand out, palm [...]

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Shaxi’s Friday Market was by far the most interesting of the markets we had had visited in China’s Yunnan Province. Sha Ping Market, the previous Monday, was big, lively, and interesting. But Shaxi’s market was even bigger, seemingly engulfing the whole town. It had a more culturally diverse population compared with the Bai-dominated market at [...]

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Years ago, I remember flipping through a National Geographic magazine seeing a photograph of a person performing dentistry on a sidewalk in China. That remained in my mind one of those must-see-it-for-myself things. My fantasy instant of Chinese sidewalk dentistry finally came true at the Friday market in Shaxi, a town in Yunnan Province between [...]

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One of the best day trips from Old Dali, in China’s Yunnan Province is a bike ride along the shores of the great Er Hai Lake. A less-traveled and newly surfaced road connects a string of Bai villages between Cai Cun and Xizhou. If time permits, continue along to Zhoucheng and Sha Ping. There exist [...]

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I’ve seen Pandas before—in the San Diego Zoo when I was a child and the couple on loan to the National Zoo in Washington, DC. But they’re always so far away it’s hard to get a good view. At The Giant Panda Breeding Research Base outside Chengdu, China, they are not. For hours I watched [...]

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  Juno photographs Luxi at Rice & Friends Cooking School in Dali, China I had a really great opportunity in Dali, China to check out the Rice and Friends Cooking School. They just moved to a new location and it was the day before the start of their new season. The owner, Luxi, was really [...]

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Bohemian Traveler visits Macau in the first days of 2012. Two years ago today I started blogging at BohemianTraveler.com. This would start a new phase of traveling for me.  Previous to this point, I traveled and wandered this world, stopping to visit friends in remote countries, volunteering from time to time when presented with exciting [...]

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What happens when the Chinese are charging 190 CYN ($30 US) to enter the Three Pagodas in Dali, China? I walk around the entire walled complex, take a bunch of pictures from afar, and refuse to pay the outrageous entrance fee. True, the Three Pagodas are probably the biggest draw for tourists in the region. [...]

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It wouldn’t be far from the truth if I told you I’m in China’s Yunnan Province for one reason: tea. True, the scenery is a real draw, and ancient towns like Lijiang, Shaxi, and Dali are a plus. There’s also trekking at Tiger Leaping Gorge and the diversity of the region’s numerous ethnic minorities. Yunnan: [...]

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Every day of the week you can find a market in the towns around Erhai Lake in northwestern Yunnan Province. On Tuesday it’s in Shuanglang, on Wednesday, Shaba, on Friday in Yousuo, and in Jiangwei on Saturday. Xizhou and Zhoucheng have daily markets. On Monday morning head to Sha Ping, a 45-minutebus ride north of [...]

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