woensdag 22 oktober 2014

On the move again

After visiting the Netherlands for almost 2 months, it is nice to be on the move again. We were glad to spend so much time at home, so we could visit family and friends and enjoy some Dutch food and Belgium beers.

Our first stop was Hong Kong. Compared to what we have seen so far of Asia, this city is very efficient. Of course we knew that space is the limited factor in Hong Kong. The airport is made on an added strip of land. On the bus drive I noticed an area with only one floor of stores between all the skyscrapers. I wondered why, but then it turned out a big parc is build on top of the shops.
Although the website of the hotel mentioned our room would be 11m2, it turned out to be around 7m2, including bathroom. Not a lot of space when you arrive with two suitcases, one big backpack and three smaller bags. They solve part of the problem by elevating the beds, so even our luggage fitted in the room.

Hong Kong is highly efficient. Each metro arrives about every two minutes. The taxis have virtually now business from the airport. You take the train to the central part of the main land and from there, free shuttle buses bring you to various hotels. And here we are, at the 16nd floor of our 7m2 room, with a 'lovely' view. Well, we still have a window. A lot of the cheaper rooms are just boxes without window. We are surrounded by three skyscrapers with aircos sticking out next to each window.

After visiting several dive shops (that's what you get when you are small, wetsuits are not made for people with short arms and legs), we also had time to enjoy the view on Hong Kong. Unfortunately, taking the tram up to the hill is the most popular tourist attraction, so we waited an hour to get up and 2 hours to get down, but the views were worth the waiting.

After spending a lot of money of dive equipment we flew to Manila. Fortunately, we were allowed to take our 80 kg of luggage and 20 kilos of hand luggage with us (maybe a bit too much...) Manila, what can I ay about it. I was not very positive on our first visit, but somehow it has improved a bit. Why I cannot say, because there are a lot of slums, the lines for a taxi at the airport had increased to 5 hours of waiting because they are working on a new Skyway (road above the old road) and we squeezed ourselves in the metro at rush hour were we really felt like sardines. Good the airco still functioned because this was bad compared to rush hour in the trains in NL.

We are in a friendlier neighborhood than last time, with lots of restaurants close by. We visited the dive shops to now what they have here, bought some more equipment for the camera (never ending story) so we can use it under water as well and made some visits to interesting organizations for our new job. Which means we're still in Manilla after 5 days, because making appointments is not that easy in tropical countries. At both organizations we were very welcome though, so our time is well spend.

Unfortunately, Marine ConservationPhilippines doesn't have a location as of yet, which means we have to find some other work for a few weeks, which we are trying to organize at the moment. But our hotel is nice and cheap and we get to know Manila better. If people are ever going to visit us, we advise them to bypass Manila though and fly from Bangkok or Hong Kong to Cebu. Much closer, and probably a lot cleaner.


Old cultures and new habits

Oops, I discovered this blog a bit late, but it might still be interesting to read for people.

In the last two weeks we have been looking at several old d cultures and the highlight of the current culture in Mexico, lucha libre fights. Staring at the lucha libre fights, those are the fights of big muscled people wearing masks in a boxing ring. Usually you have the goods fighting against the bads. Everybody in the audience picks a favorite each fight and then they start. Almost everything is allowed so people jump on each other and it looks like they are slamming each other hard. It is all fake though. The first fights you see that clearly, but the last fight are the most experienced fighters and they do the most spectacular stunts. Taking pictures was unfortunately not allowed. It is nice to be part of the audience, because part of the Mexicans are really fanatic, scream a lot and even bring instruments (like a Dutch dweilorkest, but then better adapted to this situation). Unfortunately we were put in the tourist corner were the noise was less pronounced. You can buy lucha libre masks anywhere and a lot of kids went home with a doll or mask. Mexicans are great lovers of buying useless stuff. When we visited Teotihuacán we saw one family with fake obsidian dolks, bow and arrows, annoying flutes which roar and small statues. I think the Mexican tourists buy more than the other tourists.

It is unknown who built Teotihuacán in 800 AD, but the Aztecs were so impressed by the city 500 years later that they took over part og the gods and the building style and told themselves they were descendants of these people. The complex is well renovated (although they discovered later that one of the biggest temples had a platform too many). The main temples are the temple of the Sun and the Moon. The first temple is a breathtaking climb up, but you get rewarded with stunning views of the surroundings and a breeze. All the platforms of the many temples (over 40) have been rebuilt, but only one complex has been restored, including murals. We only had a guide book as background information because the guides are the most reliable. One question of a tourist was: Why are the stairs uneven? The answer of the guide was that during the building of the city they not take any measurements because they didn't know how to do that. That seems a bit unlikely with 40 platforms in perfect rectangles or squares. Maybe the stairs have been a bit corroded after 1200 years of use? Anyway, after this answer we decided to do all the exploring of the temples on our own.
Fortunately we had visited the anthropology museum the day before. This is a huge museum, of which we only saw 1/4 in a whole day with the beginning of life in the Americas, Teotihuacán, the Toltecs and the Aztecs. It is a good museum with a lot of information, displays and rebuilding life size or small size of temple complexes and if you want you can spend 3 days in here. We already had to skip the Mayas. It was good to understand which culture arose in which time and who met who.

In Yucatan we spend two weeks diving and visiting some Maya ruins in between. The ruins were nice but not spectacular, compared to Tikal in Guatemala and Copán in Honduras. The most famous old ruins of Yucatan, Chichen Itza and Mayapan were too far away but the museum partially made up for this. Tulum and Cobá on the Yucatan peninsula are old Maya ruins. Tulum is a 'recent' city, with its decline just before the Spaniards arrived and is different than other ruins because it was build on the coast and probably even had a lighthouse. Cobá is from the same time as the city of Tikal in Guatemala, with its highlight around 1000 AD. Not much is known of the city however and a big part of the temples are still under a layer of trees. We climbed a 42 m high temple and all the hidden temples were still visible in the forest from our viewpoint. We explored the city on a bicycle (smart guys, to rent these out) in the early morning. By the time we were finished, the tour groups came in. Sometimes it helps to get up at 6 AM and catch the first bus, which we learned after visiting Tulum at 12 in the morning when it was so hot that we sometimes needed to stand in the shade to cool down a bit.

We will definitely come back to Mexico, not Only to visit Auke en Yolí, but also to see more of the country and the history.