Flat Shunshi in Asia

From hot and dusty India, Flat Shunshi flew high into the Himalaya Mountains to Nepal, a country called “The Roof of the World.”

The Himalayas rising over the Nepali capital, Kathmandu (CAT-man-doo)

Nepal is a small country that tumbles from the top of the highest range of mountains in the world all the way down to jungle lowlands on the Indian border. Nestled in between two giant neighbors, India and China, the Nepali people look like Indians with Chinese eyes. They are very proud that they have always been independant, never ruled by anyone but themselves.

These Nepali men are sitting in Kathmandu’s royal palace square, and they are wearing traditional hats called topis

Most of the people in Nepal are Hindus, like Indians. Some Nepali Hindus become wandering monks called sadhus, who wear orange robes and paint their faces. They give up all worldly possessions and just sit around thinking about life. But some sadhus aren’t really very spiritual; they just want to get money from tourists.

These sadhus wanted money for taking their picture, so Flat Shunshi took one from far away when they weren’t paying attention

Just over the border in China is the province of Tibet. The Tibetan people are Buddhists, and many of them live in Nepal because the Chinese didn’t want them to publicly practice their religion. The Tibetans in Nepal come to worship at big temples called stupas, where they walk around in circles praying beneath the eyes of the Buddha on the stupa’s spire. Tibetans wear red robes, and they drink tea brewed with yak butter that tastes really icky -- Flat Shunshi tried some and it was disgusting.

This famous stupa is called Swayambunath (swy-AM-byoo-nath)

These Tibetan women are walking around the stupa praying

Flat Shunshi thought that the Nepali culture was very interesting, but the real reason he came to Nepal was for the mountains! So he went to the town of Pokhara (POKE-uh-ruh), which is on a lake in the middle of a particularly beautiful range in the Himalayas called the Annapurnas.

Flat Shunshi enjoying the view of the mountains

Flat Shunshi climbed up to the top of a hill on one side of the lake where there is a great view. At the top, he met some Nepali school children who had come on a field trip (Flat Shunshi wished his school had field trips that good -- he only got to go to a sushi factory last year!). He met two very nice girls named Rubina and Sanju.

Rubina is wearing a traditional Nepali dress called a kurta, which is like a long shirt and sash over loose pants

Nepal has such beautiful mountains that it has become one of the biggest destinations in the world for adventure sports: mountain climbing, river rafting, backpacking, bungee jumping, and especially paragliding, which is riding air currents on a parachute so you go up instead of down. Flat Shunshi got up early one morning and went up to the top of a hill on the other side of the lake, right by the big mountains.

Look at that view, Flat Shunshi!

There, he and Josiah’s Uncle Brad met a man named Craig who is a professional paraglider and takes people up in the sky. Flat Shunshi climbed safely inside Uncle Brad’s Nepali yak wool sweater, because it can be very cold up in the air.

Uncle Brad had to wear a helmet just in case, but Flat Shunshi figured he wouldn’t get hurt if he fell

Uncle Brad and Flat Shunshi got buckled into a harness with Craig the Paragliding Pro, and together they ran down the hill and right off a cliff!

Running down the hill to fill the paraglider

JUMP!!!!!

Together, they sailed up in the air. Craig was very good at sensing which way the warm air was rising, and he would direct Uncle Brad and Flat Shunshi to lean one way or the other to steer the paraglider. Sometimes they would spot a falcon riding the warm air streams and follow it.

Flying off

View of the lake and hills from up in the sky

They flew around for half an hour, until they came down and landed by the lake. Flat Shunshi thought it would be scary, but it was very peaceful, with just the sound of the wind in his paper ears.

And that was the end of Flat Shunshi’s trip through Asia. He saw lots of neat things and met many interesting people. But after all that, he was really ready to get home to Japan to his own futon!

From Thailand, Flat Shunshi flew to a country called India. India hangs like a big upside-down triangle below the Himalaya mountains, and is so large that it is sometimes called “the Subcontinent,” which means it is almost big enough to be a continent by itself, but not quite.

Many people live in India -- over one billion people; only China has more. The people in India are very friendly and most of them speak English because for many years India was ruled by England. They dress very differently from people in America:

Instead of hats, Indian men wear long cloths called turbans wrapped around their head

Instead of dresses, Indian women wear long cloths called saris wrapped around their whole body and over their head like a shawl

Like America, India has very different scenery depending on where you are, from jungle in the south to mountains in the north. Flat Shunshi went to the western part of India, to the very old walled city of Jaisalmer (JY-sal-mer) on the edge of the Great Thar Desert.

Jaisalmer is like a big fortress rising out of the sands

Inside the walls of the Jaisalmer fort, the city is all houses built of golden sandstone. Many of them have very beautiful carved decorations on them. Flat Shunshi stood on a balcony overlooking the main square of the city, and below him there were beautiful carpets hanging for sale on the walls. The square was full of autorickshaws, which are noisy three-wheeled taxis that people use all over India, and there were cows laying around in the middle of the square with people driving around them. In India, cows are considered holy (that’s why we sometimes say, “Holy cow!”), so they are allowed to wander wherever they like and are never killed and eaten -- if you go in a McDonalds in India, you find McFish and McChicken, but no hamburgers!

Flat Shunshi sat overlooking the square and had a cup of chai, which is spicy Indian tea with lots of milk

Flat Shunshi went on a camel safari out into the desert. In India, people use camels to cross the desert because their feet are perfect for walking in sand, and they can go for a very long time without drinking because they carry extra water in the hump on their back.

Flat Shunshi with his camel, Lalu

Riding on a camel is very hard work! When they walk, you rock back and forth, and when they run you bounce up and down very hard. After two days on the camel, Flat Shunshi’s little paper butt was really sore!

Saddle up and move ‘em out!

As they travelled through the sands, they passed many villages of people who herd goats. The houses were built of mud and painted red, and had rooves thatched with grass. The people, who are from a tribe called the Bishnoi, get milk and meat from the goats, and weave their wool into beautiful blankets and carpets.

This Bishnoi house may not look very modern, but it has solar electricity -- see the solar panel on the left?

There were two Indian men who were the camel drivers, Mr. Khan and Mr. Ramadan. They had lived in the desert their whole lives, and they cooked for Flat Shunshi when they stopped to make camp: lentils, rice and flat bread called chapatis that they grilled on a cast-iron skillet over an open fire. Mr. Ramadan was very funny: once, a camel let a really stinky fart and he said, “Oh! Camel naughty -- make desert perfume!”

Cooking dinner in a desert kitchen

They camped for the night on a big sand dune in the middle of the desert. It was very quiet and peaceful, and as the sun set Flat Shunshi climbed a dune to see the beautiful desert all around him.

Nothing but desert all around, as far as the eye can see

Even though it is very hot in the desert during the day, at night it gets very cold. When night fell, Flat Shunshi went to bed lying in the sand under a thick pile of blankets to stay warm. It was still pretty cold, and when the sun rose, he was really happy that Mr. Ramadan had a fire going and a pot of hot chai waiting!

Good morning!

From Vietnam, Flat Shunshi travelled west to a country called Thailand. The people in Thailand are so friendly that everyone calls their country “The Land of Smiles.” Flat Shunshi was very happy to be there.

This guy with funny hair was very happy to see Flat Shunshi -- “Welcome to Thailand!”

Flat Shunshi went to the capital of Thailand, a big city called Bangkok that is full of rivers. He sailed down the river on a boat, past the palace of the King of Thailand. It was very beautiful and exotic looking, covered in gold.

Flat Shunshi thinks the Japanese emperor’s palace is nicer, though

Flat Shunshi decided that he needed a new kimono (his Japanese robe), so he decided to go shopping. In Asia, most people don’t shop at stores full of shelves of stuff, they shop at markets where lots of people sell things together. Some markets are just a few people who gather on a street corner to sell fruit and vegetables. Other markets are huge! Bangkok has one of the biggest markets in all of Asia, where people come from all over every weekend to sell everything under the sun.

If you want it, it’s at the market

Here are some of the things Flat Shunshi saw at the market in Bangkok:

Really big piles of grapes

Funny-looking musical instruments

Lots of weird meat on sticks -- these are squid

Big scary knives that made Flat Shunshi remember the day he was born... err... cut out

Lots of Buddhas -- remember the Buddhist temple he went to?

Puppies in a basket

But Flat Shunshi was looking for a new kimono. He met a very nice Thai woman who was selling all different kinds of silk.

See what they mean about the smiles?

Silk is a cloth that is very popular in Asia. It is very soft and light, and it is woven from thread pooped out by little worms when they make their cocoons.

These are silk worms eating mulberry leaves, their favorite food

These are silk worm cocoons being boiled to loosen the threads

This woman is using a loom to weave the silk thread into cloth

Flat Shunshi bought some new silk from the nice Thai lady at the market and sent it home to his tailor to make a new kimono. But he forgot to take a picture with the silk before he sent it! Oops!

After seeing the Great Wall of China and the wall between North and South Korea, Flut Shunshi travelled south to the country of Vietnam. Vietnam is a very long, thin country that runs along the coast of Southeast Asia. It has high mountains in the north, and the southern part is very flat and wet where a big river called the Mekong flows into the sea.

Vietnam has many people for a small country, and it produces the most rice of any country in the world. Rice is grown in the mountains in terraced fields called paddies, and they do not use tractors to plough the fields, they use water buffalo!

”Everybody’s got a water buffalo, yours is fast and mine is slow”

Like many countries in Asia and much of the rest of the world, most of the people in Vietnam do not have cars. Cars are very expensive there, and most people do not have enough money to buy one. Also, because the cities are very crowded, there is a lot of traffic and it is very hard to find a place to park -- nobody has driveways in Vietnam. So instead of cars, many people ride bicycles.

This woman was selling fruit from the back of her bicycle

Even more people choose to ride motorbikes. The capital city of Vietnam, Hanoi, is full of them! People ride them everywhere, and carry everything on them.

Even when they are dressed up fancy to go out on a date

This guy is going to deliver a mattress on a motorbike!

In Hanoi, even the taxis are bicycles -- they call them cyclos. The driver rides a bike on the back, and the passengers sit in front (and choke on the fumes from the motorbikes around them).

A cheap way to get around when you don’t have a car!

Flat Shunshi even ate dinner at a restaurant called the Cyclo Cafe, where the seats are old cyclos that have been retired!

”Do I have to tip my driver along with the waiter?”

Many people in Vietnam also use boats to get around. Flat Shunshi went to the ocean to a place called Halong Bay, where big rocky cliffs rise from the sea. He took a trip on a boat, and it was very beautiful.

Lots of boats on Halong Bay

Flat Shunshi is always careful not to fall overboard!

On Halong Bay, there are even floating villages where everyone lives on boats.

Big careful when you step out the door in the morning!

Flat Shunshi saw some boys who had grown up living on boats their whole lives.

The tall boy is wet because he just climbed out of the water

Flat Shunshi thought it was fun to be on a boat, but he was glad he didn’t live there. After all, he couldn’t go swimming, and if he ever fell overboard, he would dissolve in the water, and that didn’t sound like much fun. So Flat Shunshi went back to land, happy he had a house and a car waiting for him at home.

After stopping at home in Japan, Flat Shunshi decided to go to China. China is a very big country, with more people than any other country on Earth -- one of every five people in the world is Chinese. China just hosted the Olympic Games in its capital, Beijing.

The Olympic Stadium in Beijing

China is a very old country; it has been around since before the time of Jesus. Many centuries ago, the Chinese had a problem. Their next-door neighbors, people called the Mongols, were very fierce warriors, and they often attacked China. To try to stop them, the Emperor of China decided to build a big wall that stretched all the way along their border with Mongolia, for over 1,000 miles. So workers started building the wall from earth and bricks and stone, a giant wall around their country to keep out their war-like neighbors.

The Great Wall of China

It still stands today, and it is called the Great Wall of China. It is very famous, and Flat Shunshi decided to go and see it. First, he took a cable-car up to the top of a mountain that is called Jinshanling, which means “Back of a Dragon” in Chinese. The mountains were very dramatic and rocky, and did look like the back of a dragon.

”I’m flying!”

Flat Shunshi walked a long way along the ruined wall. He thought the scenery was very beautiful.

Be careful, Flat Shunshi! It’s really windy and you might blow away!

Going to the Great Wall is very popular, so he met many people while he was there, including a big surprise: his very own cousin, Flat Stanley! He was visiting China at the same time, and they never even knew it. He also met a very nice woman named Ginger who hiked a long way on the Wall with him. Ginger and her friend are Mongols. Today, instead of making war on their neighbors, the Mongolians farm corn, and sell things to tourists on the Wall, so the Wall really didn’t work in the end. They all took their picture together.

Flat Shunshi with Flat Stanley and their new Mongolian friends

After visiting China, Flat Shunshi went to Korea, a much smaller country on a penninsula connected to China. Korea is a country that has been divided in two; in the South, people are free to do what they want, and in the North, the government tells everyone what to do. Sixty years ago, there was a war between the North and South, and neither side won. So now, they are two separate countries, and they still do not get along to this day. They built a wall between them where the United Nations makes sure they don’t fight, and Flat Shunshi went to see it.

Flat Stanley wearing his special UN visitor’s badge -- he felt very important

At one place in the wall between North and South Korea, there is a meeting room where officials from the two countries can talk. Soldiers from both sides keep watch to make sure no one from the other side comes through when they are not supposed to.

The blue building is the meeting room, and the big white building behind it is where the North Korean soldiers stay.

This North Korean soldier was watching the whole time Flat Shunshi was there

One half of the meeting room is in the South and the other half is in the North, and the doors lock from the inside so when visitors from the South are inside, people from the North cannot come in. There was a South Korean soldier in the room while Flat Shunshi went inside and stepped over the border into North Korea.

The South Korean soldier wears sunglasses to look intimidating and stands in a position where he is ready to karate-chop anyone who misbehaves

Near the wall, there is a place where South Korean people come to remember their relatives who live in the North and can’t come to the South because the government won’t let them. Flat Shunshi saw some old men there, thinking about when they were in the war many years ago.

These men fought to keep South Korea free

As he stood looking at North Korea across the river where the wall runs, Flat Shunshi thought about his Mongolian friends, and hoped that the wall in Korea wouldn’t last as long as the Great Wall of China.