explore
Eating Kao leng mian (A Chinese enchilada?) near The Great Wall in Dandong, China
China is full of completely different types of cuisine, so when I was in Dongbei (Northeast China) I made sure to try as much as the local cuisine as I could. Here in Guangdong, the food just doesn’t match up to the rich and flavorful foods of Dongbei. In the city of Dandong, near the Great Wall I was able to sample some kao leng mian, 烤冷面 which is basically a rice noodle that very much reminds me of a Mexican enchilada.
For only 6 RMB ($.87) you can get a plate of this stuff and it is quite delicious! I watched as they cooked it on an open grill, added egg and other toppings.
Upon tasting kao leng mian, it really did taste like an enchilada! The first big noodle they use looks so much like a corn tortilla, and tastes very similar too. I was sure it was made of corn until asking, and found out that it is actually rice. Maybe it’s my mind playing tricks on me, but I swear it tasted just like an enchilada, although no meat. Have a look at the picture below and see if you don’t think it’s an enchilada!
All it really needed was some melted cheese and you probably wouldn’t even notice the difference! Check out the video at the top if you are interested in how they make this interesting dish. I’ll be returning to Dongbei soon, and I can’t wait to try out this kao leng mian once again!
Vicarious Vietnam: Riding motorbikes around Da Nang and exploring the peninsula
It has been a long time since my last post – my apologies for getting off track, but I’m back! Don’t forget to check out my YouTube channel Ian’s Journeys where all my traveling/cooking/China videos can be found!
Da Nang, Vietnam is an amazing city. The cost of living is incredibly low, the air is sweet, the beaches are beautiful, and the area is downright tropical! I started my day off by renting a motorbike from the hostel I was staying at, and it was 100,000 dong/day, which is around 5 US dollars. What a steal! Filling it up is even cheaper, 1-2 dollars.
I started off by riding around town a bit. I also found Da Nang bay and did a quick ride around. However I soon wanted to go and take a look at the peninsula that everyone was talking about where I could see the Lady Buddha, and possibly even some monkeys.
After seeing the eye candy that is Da Nang bay, it was time to move on toward the peninsula. The ride was scenic, and very relaxing, except my helmet kept being blown off by the wind, no matter how hard I strapped it on!
Eventually I made it to the area where the statue of the Lady Buddha is located. It was an incredible sight. The statue must have been hundreds of feet tall, and I had never seen anything like it before. There were also a number of buddhist shrines there and I captured the moment (In the video at the top, you can see) when I saw a number of people chanting. It was very serene, relaxing, and made me forget about the hustle and bustle of life back home for just a moment.
Eventually when I reached the end of the peninsula, I came to a beaten path off the main road where I was told I could find monkeys. Did I find any? Check the video at the top to find out! See you next time!
Hanging out at Hong Kong International and my arrival in Hanoi, Vietnam
It was finally time for my next trip. Living in Asia affords you the luxury of seeing a lot of countries for bargain prices. Because I live in China, I do not have to pay thousands of dollars in airfare every time I want to visit a country in Asia. Such is the truth about living anywhere, you can travel anywhere nearby much cheaper than you could if you were farther away. So while in Asia, travel in Asia and my next destination is Vietnam.
I got my roundtrip flight for a beautiful $222.00, what a steal. Anyway, it was time for a new journey and I was growing restless in China. I had just done some great traveling in Guilin, China in the previous weeks but it was time to get out of the country. It was time to see a new culture. I exited Shenzhen through the Louhu border crossing, took Hong Kong’s MTR down one stop and caught the A43p but from Sheung Shui to the Hong Kong Airport.
When I arrived at the airport, it was nothing new. I have flown in and out of HKG many times before, and every time I leave China it’s the airport I use. When I got there, I arrived a few hours before my flight so I got through security and enjoyed some Popeye’s Fried Chicken. This is one of the western comforts that I have yet to see in mainland China. I seldom eat this kind of crap, but when I do, it’s delicious.
The flight to Hanoi was very short, only about 2 hours. I love easy, 2 hour flights. They never get old. It’s like your in and out, and boom you’re in another country! Upon arrival at Hanoi Noi Boi Airport, I hopped in a cab and headed to my hostel.
My hostel was located near the Old Quarter, and after checking in I decided I wanted to have a few beers and check out the night market nearby to get a selfie stick. It was lively, and there were people everywhere! I had some delicious coconut milk for about 50 cents US per cup. I also bought a selfie stick for a few dollars.
After leaving the night market, I was pretty tired from traveling all day. However when I got back to the hostel I met so many cool fellow travelers, I stayed up until about 1 am drinking with them. It was a good time! You can see all of this in this week’s episode, which is at the top of this page. Give it a look! Don’t forget to like and subscribe to my YouTube channel and let me know what you think! See you next week!
Paying a visit to the very lame town of Yangshuo, China
After leaving the Li River that day (Check out my post Cruising down the Li River in Guilin, China) we hopped into a three wheeled motorbike and headed to a place called Yangdi, a small village on the Li River where we could catch a ride to the town of Yangshuo, one of China’s most renowned towns for backpackers and travelers alike.
The three wheeled motorbikes just amaze me. It’s such a ghetto piece of garbage, but somehow it makes do. They modify an absurdly low quality motorbike by welding a carriage on it, and somehow it actually works. Although every time the old man shifted into the next gear, you could hear the pleasant sound of metal grinding.
Not to mention, the carriage wasn’t exactly well balanced. The thing was slamming up and down the entire ride. Once we got to Yangdi though, we were quick to get off it.
Yangdi was a pleasant little locale, though we didn’t stay very long but the time we waited for the bus. In fact, we didn’t stay more than 5 minutes because the bus was already there. It was beautiful though to see the crazy looking Guilin mountains in the background everywhere.
After a long bus ride that was the better portion of 2 hours long, we arrived in the town of Yangshuo. We were tired as hell from traveling all day, so we promptly found our hostel. We stayed at the Yangshuo Culture House, which we found to be less than appealing. I got a few cans of Liquan River Beer (Because that’s the only damn beer you can find in this particular region of China) and we set out to walk towards New West Street when the sun went down. New West Street is the most popular street with food and bars in Yangshuo.
Yangshuo was the exact opposite of what I had pictured. The town pretty much sucks. There’s nothing to do, no good beer, and yeah, the place is just gay pretty much. We decided to take a good walk around New West Street to at least give it a chance.
The only thing I actually liked about Yangshuo was the opposite of what you’d think – not the beautiful scenery or the cultural Chinese aspects of the town – it was the foreigner street. Yes, I found Yangshuo to be hot as hell, dusty as shit, and quite boring. The foreigner street was almost as bad, but it brought some western comforts that we are familiar with, like incredibly overpriced “imported” beer that was probably made in China.
Other than that, we had planned to stay in Yangshuo for a few days – but strike that. We left the very nexr day. Fuck Yangshuo. However, please do continue following my travels! Check out my YouTube channel and don’t forget to check out this episode’s video above!
Cruising down the Li River in Guilin, China
I have been posting about Guilin for the last few weeks, and the main reason we came to Guilin in the first place was to take a boat ride down the famous Lijiang River. When we were at Yao Mountain the previous day (Check out this blog post: Guilin Day 2: Annoying local fishermen, and riding the Yao Mountain Cable Car Ride) we met this interesting tour guide named Claude who, surprisingly, spoke pretty decent English. We had already purchased Li River boat ride tickets on a large 100 person vessel – but Claude told us for about half the price he could get us our own individual raft without a million tourists in our faces every time there is a photo opportunity. So, reluctantly we said yes! Here is the video I made of our journey below, but don’t forget to read on for some unforgettable pictures!
The next morning, we ate some Burger King (Because there was literally no good breakfast in the area…) and took the one hour bus ride to Caoping, which is where the boats were docked.
Once we got to Caoping, I bought 5 or 6 Liquan river beers (The only beer that they seem to sell in this region of China…) and we hopped on our vessel and began our beautiful journey.
As the boat took off and we sailed down the river, I was beyond amazed. This had to be one of the most peaceful awesome rides of my life. While sipping beers and getting a nice buzz going was also cool, the unique curves of these mountains and the green tinge of the river were absolute eye candy.
We even saw a fair share of wildlife in the river. We saw plenty of ducks, and we also saw some water buffalo! We tried to approach the water buffalo on land too, but they were very hesitant and of course walked away very fast.
As we continued our trek down, we saw a number of memorable peaks and mountains. We also saw a very famous cave as well, that was clearly famous due to the number of tourists outside it.
Of course during that boat ride I was busy filming the whole time and I produced a great YouTube video for this day, which can be seen at the top of this page. Don’t forget to check out my YouTube channel, and make sure to like and subscribe if you enjoyed the content!
Exploring the famous Elephant Trunk Hill and Seven Star Park in Guilin, Guangxi, China
Last week I posted about our Yao Mountain cable car ride in Guilin (You can see it here: Guilin Day 2: Annoying local fishermen, and riding the Yao Mountain Cable Car Ride) and this is the remainder of that day. After finishing up at Yao Mountain, our tour guide took us for a motorcycle ride around the most famous sights in Guilin. It was quite the spectacle! Check out the video down below and keep reading for more pics!
As we arrived at the park, it was about a 15 minute walk before our tour guide took us to a secret spot where we could get the best pictures of the famous Elephant Trunk Hill which lies on the Li River.
So we finally got to the Elephant Trunk Hill, and it surely is an amazing form of nature. The rock juts down like a gigantic elephant’s trunk with a searing gap in the middle.
After taking a million pictures there, our tour guide us further down the river where we could see all the locals actually SWIMMING in the Li River. I was a little surprised to see this, because China’s rivers are notorious for being very polluted and dirty. After looking closely at the water, it seemed relatively clean and clear, but still, I wouldn’t trust it.
Soon after the sun was beginning to set, so we got on the motorbike with our guide and went to the most famous local park, known as Seven Star Park. Here we were able to see probably the coolest rock I’ve ever seen, known as Camel Hill. I even got to kiss the camel!
Make sure to check out my YouTube channel and to like/subscribe if you enjoy the content! Next week stay tuned for our exciting journey down the Li River!
Eating Guilin Noodles in Guilin, Guangxi,China
While I was in Guilin, I of course had the opportunity to sample the famous Guilin mifen (桂林米粉) also known as the famous Guilin Noodles. These are rice noodles covered in a sweet gravy broth with a number of different ingredients not limited to ox bone broth and mangosteen in addition to many others. (The recipes vary greatly by restaurant) On top of the noodles green scallions, pickled cabbage and green beans and radishes are usually added on top. There is also a bit of meat in there, usually pork or dog.
One of the first things I did when I came to Guilin was look for the noodles so I could make that obligatory Guilin noodle video, which is what I did. The noodles were only 4 rmb for the bowl, which is about ~$.60! After covering with all the additional condiments, the noodles look quite pretty and very colorful.
The flavor is immense in these noodles. The peanuts are nice and crunchy and fried and mixes very well with the soft noodles. I love scallions in just about everything, but the pickled radishes and green beans were also tasty! The pork was super fried and had the consistency of something like pork rinds back home, but only the crispiness on the outside, meatiness on the inside. I think the bamboo shoots were probably the best condiment, though. Here’s one more look at them, don’t forget to check out the video I posted about these videos on my YouTube channel above!
Looking for monkeys in Da Nang, Vietnam
I got to Vietnam about 5 days ago and arrived in Hanoi. The entire trip so far has been awesome. Of course I don’t have my pc with me so I haven’t been able to edit my weekly videos but I have more videos from China scheduled to upload which I will post when they do – don’t forget to check out my YouTube channel for my latest travel videos. I will have plenty of videos from Vietnam coming once I get home and edit the hours of footage I have! This is just a sample of what’s to come!
Today was my first entire day in Da Nang after arriving at the airport last night and I am blown away. Vietnam is beautiful, clean, and incredibly cheap. I rented a motorbike for 140,000 dong (around $7, their currency really needs to be rounded down) and drove around the peninsula just outside of the city. I was advised by a couple of travelers to go here to see a few local monuments, some amazing views and possibly even some monkeys.
I absolutely love this country. Freedom seems to be a big thing here, and I was amazed how quick I was rented a motorbike with no license. I’m even told by some locals that drunk driving isn’t even illegal in the country. Regardless I’d never do something silly like that. While driving past the Lady Buddha I encountered one of the most amazing viewpoints I’d ever seen.
My German traveler friend recommended I follow the road all the way to when the mountain starts to take back the road – meaning where the bushes start to overgrow the path – to look for monkeys. I, in fact did see a number of monkeys but didn’t get my camera out in time unfortunately. I caught a few seconds of one on video, but it’s awfully blocked by bushes. Perhaps I’ll have another opportunity before I leave Vietnam in about 9 more days.
I don’t have a whole lot more to share except for a few pictures but I felt it would be good to update the blog. Rest assured, plenty of great travel logs of Vietnam are on the way. I still have a lot of videos from Guilin I need to get out as well, the work never stops!
Guilin Day 2: Annoying local fishermen, and riding the Yao Mountain Cable Car Ride
On day 2 of my trip to Guilin I woke up very early in the morning around 5:30 AM. Maggie was taking the sleeper train into town from Shenzhen so I had to go to Guilinbei Railway Station to meet her and bring her back to the hostel. I caught a couple nice looking views from the cab on my way there.
After meeting Maggie, I brought her back to the Li River around 6:30 to catch the sunrise. It was breathtaking. We were also surprised to see a ton of fishermen there trying to catch some fish from the river. In Chinese I asked them if they had caught a lot of fish. They looked at me very annoyed as if I was making too much noise and said no.
We headed back to the hotel, had a shower and some breakfast, and then we were off to explore Guilin! We planned to go to Yao Mountain on this day, and that’s what we did. However first I had to buy a pair of pants because the mosquitos in Guilin are terrible – I got 15 mosquito bites on my first day in shorts. The remainder of the trip was spent in jeans. (Which I buy in the video) After that, we took a bus ride to Yao Mountain and found that you actually had to walk quite far from the bus to reach the mountain. Regardless, we found it and the cable car ride was AMAZING.
So the cable car costs 65 RMB ($9.79 USD) to go up one way, and 110 RMB for both up and down ($16.57 USD) per person. It was well worth it though. Hiking to the top of that mountain, despite how much I love hiking, in that heat would be miserable. Plus, the views you get from the cable car and the nice breeze is unforgettable!
Going up the cable car was even a bit scary for me, but poor Maggie had an absolute meltdown. In fact I plan to do another video on just how funny I thought her freaking out was. She was truly terrified on that cable car ride.
As the ride came to an end, we even caught a picture of a beautiful butterfly that landed on our cable car. Make sure to check out my YouTube channel and check out the video of this day at the top. Let me know what you think in the comments! See you next time! I am off to Vietnam tomorrow so expect tons of good video logs and blog postings from there as well! I will be there for two weeks, and I still have videos scheduled to post to my YouTube channel while I’m gone, and I will see what I can do as far as updating the blog goes.
Guilin Day 1: Hostels, the Lijiang River, and the Zhengyang Pedestrian Street
My trip to Guilin last week was a total success! We saw some amazing things out there, and this is what I saw on my first day. After having got off the train (Check my last week’s post Riding a Chinese sleeper train from Shenzhen to Guilin in China) I took a motorcycle to my hostel, the Sky Palace Hostel in Guilin. I checked in and I had to wait a couple hours for my room so I had some western breakfast.
After having some breakfast, I was able to check into my room. I was alone for Day 1, so I stayed in a shared hostel room for only 45 RMB a night (USD $6.78) which was a total steal.
In fact, no one even checked in for the rest of the day and I had the room completely to myself! The cheap hotel fad would soon be over since my girlfriend arrived the next day, but I was still very happy. After taking a shower I headed out to get some food. I ate some Guilin noodles for lunch (Which will be in a future episode of my show, Ian’s Journeys) and then I decided I would like to check out one of the main attractions in Guilin, the Lijiang River. It was very near my hostel, so I took a walk (In the sweltering summer heat – Guilin absolutely does NOT have pleasant weather in the summer – very hot and humid) down to the river bank.
The river was quite breathtaking. The river stretches down hundreds of kilometers and passes through various towns – and you’d better believe we toured the river – which is coming in future blog posts/videos. All day you can watch different boats and fishermen trying to catch some river fare. After checking out the river, I returned to the hostel to enjoy a beer and take a break from the heat. I went out a few hours later and checked out one of the main tourist areas, the Zhengyang and Zhongshan walking streets which are home to tons of shopping and spots for street barbecue!
After checking out the pedestrian walking streets, I stumbled upon a familiar face: The king of burgers…
I couldn’t help but justify a burger meal since I was on vacation as I do love my western food!
Later that night, I went to the bar at my local hostel and enjoyed some beers with the locals and had some pizza.
Then, it was off to bed as I had to wake up quite early the next morning to greet my girlfriend, Maggie who was coming in on the sleeper train. The Guilin adventure was just beginning! Make sure to check out the video of this trip, one of my best produced yet, right at the top of this page and on my YouTube channel! Make sure to like and subscribe if you haven’t yet, and let me know what you think in the comments!
Ian's Journeys - Asian food and travel blogger 