9-22 Shared a taxi with 3 Malaysians for the 3 hour drive to
Huanglong NP. The drive there went over several big passes and
climbed up onto the beginnings of the Tibetan Plateau. It was a
pretty misty and cloudy drive, but at times you could see some of the
mountains as we went over the passes, several which were above
tree-line and reminded me a bit of going over trail ridge in a fog.
Most of the communities we went by were Tibetan, so there were plenty
of brightly painted houses, women adorned in bright clothes, and yaks
and goats jamming the road
This national park wasn't as big and much less crowded, which was
nice. It was also quite cold at first, which I wasn't too prepared
for b/c I didnt' know how high it was, but fine once I got hiking.
The base of the park is at 10,000ft and the highest point at the end
of the trail is 11,000ft or a bit less. There is of course a cable
car that runs to the top for quite the fee and all the chinese told me
it would be impossible to hike to the top in less than 3 hours, so I
should take the cable car, so I could be back to the bottom by 3:30
when it closed. The chinese aren't the most active or adventurous, so
I rarely listen to them on such things...it ended up taking me 1 hour.
The other funny thing about Asians, I seem to have noticed, is that
they are easily coerced into buying things that they probably don't
need (I think this is why they try so hard, usually in vein to get
western tourists to buy or hire certain things...though in china the
touts usually don't pay attention to western tourists and only the
chinese tourists bc they know they only get business from the
chinese). Anyways, back on the subject, on the way there before some
of the bigger passes there were signs to get high altitude medicine.
The malaysians of course had the taxi stop so they could get some
traditional chinese medicine (made from some sort of high altitude
rose and herb) for the altitude. At the park, you could also buy
oxygen canisters for the short 1km walk up from the cable car to the
main attraction. I found this absolutely hilarious! I somehow doubt
the need for oxygen at below 11,000 feet especially when you have
taken a cable car up, have had to spend at least one night in
Jiuzhaigou (7500 ft). How many people come to estes straight from sea
level to go over trail ridge (12,000+ft) and do the short hike up
there, or even hike to one of the alpine lakes or fly in from new york
and are on the slopes of breck or a-basin at nearly 13,000 feet within
the day. Maybe there is some altitude symptoms (headache, quesiness,
usually caused by dehydration or alcohol), but no need for oxygen.
But there was everyone carrying it up.
The park itself was very gorgeous. It was a canyon that ended up at
the top above treeline. So I liked that, I always enjoy being up in
the alpine. The reason the park is special is because limestone and
calcium deposits have formed all these little pools (that look a lot
like terracing) and waterfalls. The majority of the pools are a very
clear and cool aqua and turquoise color; however some were greenish
and yellowish and other shades of blue. At the very top was something
called multi-coloured pools guarded by a tibetan temple. These pools
had such vibrant blues, turquoise, and aquas they almost appeared to
be computer enhanced or something. Even in the cloudy and misty
weather it was like that...I can't imagine what it is like in clear
weather. But the good thing was that the pools still shimmered in
their cool colors even in the clouds. I think the only thing I really
missed out with it being cloudy (and it's easy to see what it looks
like when it is clear bc all of the photographers offereing to take
and print out pictures for the chinese (I think I mentioned that the
chinese are obsessed with having pictures of themselves in front of
everything) have examples of their best pictures) was some of the big
snowcapped 16,000 feet mountains that sit in the background. It was
also the beginning of fall colors, so there was some nice reds and
yellows around too. The hike down went by several more series of
turquoise and emerald pools and some waterfalls. There was also a
huge yellow limestone/calcium deposit "waterfall". It was like an
immovable river of yellow limestone.
Something I forgot to mention in the last post regarding the Chinese
gov't using the national parks as money makers as opposed to education
and protection involves the Panda. In the 70's and 80's when the
pandas plight looked bleak and the international community was
pressuring the chinese to save this species that has become one of the
headlining animals of wildlife protection groups, such as the world
wildlife fund, the chinese responded by making a few reserves and
setting up several breeding centers. They found at that the breeding
centers made lots of money bc it brought in loads of tourists wanting
to photograph and be photographed with the pandas. So they developed
more breeding centers and didn't set aside anymore reserves, thus
allowing a huge area of their habitat to be loogged out and built up.
In the end this has been quite terrible for the pandas bc the breeding
centers are actually hardly sucessful (the most successful one is
actually in san diego), and to this date no panda that was born in a
breeding center has actually be sucessfully released into the wild.
And of course since they failed to protect their habitat, there is not
much space to release them anyways. All this bc the reserves set
aside for pandas were not a tourist draw bc it would be as likely to
see a panda as it would be to see a mountain lion in RMNP, so tourists
didn't go. The other problem with this strategy is that pandas are
known as a "sexy" species as good ole Todd Palmer would say. It's a
species people like and thus want to save and by protecting it and
it's habitat it ends up protecting a whole load of other species
important for an ecosystem that most people could care less about.
With the panda, however, since they ended up not saving its habitat,
the other species in the pandas habitat have also become quite
endangered. And something else relating to money making by the
government, many of the touristy towns like Lijiang, the government
actually charges about 15 dollars to enter. This would be like
charging 50 bucks to enter estes or aspen or stanley. Crazy! They
were just starting to set up the barriers in both tiger leaping gorge
and in Yangshuo, so luckily I avoided that. But the chinese gov't is
really taking off with the middle and upper class tourism boom to make
money.
I also forgot to mention that I thought that Jiuzhaigou would be the
ideal and perfect national park for my mother and grandma. Mainly bc
they really love streams and rushing water and mountains, which this
park is just full of rushing water and the majority of the trails are
actually on planks over the tumbling water and waterfalls. The other
thing that is sort of ideal for them at the moment with their hip
surgeries is that there is that bus system so you can ride up to the
top and walk down and if you get tired you can simply catch a bus to
the next attraction or lake.
Tonight, I was feeling a bit bad in my stomach, but I went to the same
little restaurant-to get plain rice (mei fan)-- I have been going
everynight since I have been here since it is cheap. The tibetans
that run it, and don't speak a lick of english, just think I am the
funniest to be a westerner and coming there. They are so sweet and
nice. The men are always offering me cigarettes and the women
constantly pouring me more tea and bringing out more rice. Today they
took a shot glass and took some liquid from a jar with strange things
in it. I kept trying to say no, no, no. But they wouldn't hear it.
I smelled it and decided it was strong asian type whiskey, and said
what the heck, maybe it can kill anything bad in my stomach.
Tomorrow I was supposed to go back to Chengdu where I was looking
forward to a day with nothing to do. I haven't relaxed in a while. I
was probably going to sleep in (I haven't slept past 6am in probably
over 3 weeks now), watch some dvd's at the hostel, turn in some
laundry, and do some shopping at the big wal-mart style shopping
center nearby (they actually do have a walmart in chengdu, but I
definitely wasn't planning on going there) to get some supplies for
the upcoming himalays trip. But I decided to delay my bus by one day
in case it is sunny here tomorrow (forecast is for no rain, so maybe
that means sun), If it is sunny, I will suck up the expense and go
check out Jiuzhaigou again. If it is not, then I'll just stay at the
hostel and enjoy the cool air. They have free internet here and I
have 20,000 leagues under the sea and 1984 with me. It still gives me
the next day to go to the panda breeding center (yes I don't
necessarily agree with it, but it's the only chance to really see
pandas in China) and the next day my train isn't until pandas in China) and the next day my train isn't until late, so I have the time to finish up my errands
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Great Firewall of China Part 13: Jewels flowing in the mountains
9/19 Went out for a fancy dinner of spicy sichuan hot pot with Sally
and Richard. Sichuan is famous for it's hot pots (boiling, spicy oil
in which you cook meat and vegetables like a fondue) and it's SPICE.
And it didn't let us down. So tasty, and so spicy. We were sweating
like we had been playing a hard game of b-ball. We wondered why we
had been given napkins for the first time since we were in china...to
wipe the sweat off. Richard asked me if I had seen all the graffiti
on the toilet about how people were feeling the day (and two and
three) after the hot pot. Made me wonder if I should be hopping on a
12 hour bus ride the next day!
9/20 Took the bus from Chengdu to Juizhaigou in the very northern
part of Sichuan right up against the tibetan plateau. The drive of
course was beautiful. Over mountain passes, through deep canyons,
along raging rivers, some massive reservoirs, and tiny villages full
of life. Basically drove the whole south north of Sichuan in one day.
Of course just like in the rest of Asia, chinese driving is crazy.
And sure enough, about 50km's from our destination, we were in an
accident. A minivan was trying to overtake our bus around a blind
curve when a big dump trunk was coming the other way. The bus driver
tried honking reapeatedly, but apparently the minivan thought it could
still overtake us. It tried to squeeze between the two big vehicles,
but got smashed between the two. Both large vehicles just had
scratches, but the minivan was squished. The driver was ok though.
An interesting note. As soon as the accident happened, everyone piled
out of the bus. I was in the back, so I came out at the end. The
first thought of all the chinese on the tour bus was to take photos of
the accident as if it was a tourist site as opposed to check if the
guy was hurt. Luckily he wasn't, and by the time I got out he was
crawling out through the smashed windshield. Strange though...my
first thought would have been to run and see if he was ok as opposed
to take my photo in front of the accident while giving the peace sign.
9/21 Visited Jiuzhaigou national park, a world biosphere reserve and
one of the premier national parks in Asia. It's a large park
incorporating several mountains just under 15,000 feet, many valleys
and canyons and even some rare wildlife such as the giant panda and
red panda. The crown jewel of the park, and pretty much the only
part open to visitors is two glacial canyons that have a multitude of
shimmering and multi-hued lakes separated by sweeping waterfalls.
Typical of chinese national parks I have been to so far, it's not some
alone in the wilds of nature experience, but one that is full of
chinese tourists and very easily accessible. Visiting national parks
in Asia always makes me proud of our own national parks back in the
States. With as much problems as I realize they have (from working in
one and with people that dealt with more of the beauracracy), our
parks are really great. Our parks our there for protection,
education, and for the average American to enjoy and get in touch with
nature. Sometimes I feel like the parks here are set up to appease
those around the globe putting pressure on a country to protect
something and then using it as a money making enterprise for the
government. For example with this park, it costs an unbelievable 35
bucks to enter (valid for only 1 day 7am-6pm) plus a mandatory 15
dollar shuttle bus fee. This may not seem like a lot but consider the
price of entering say RMNP or Zion. I can't quite remember the
current prices, but it's something like 25 bucks for the day, 50 bucks
for the annual pass and 90 bucks for an annual pass good for all
national parks in the country (and these prices are per vehicle so
split between everyone in the car). And keep in mind the difference
in cost for things between American and China (average salary in china
is still 400 bucks a month...a good meal costs 1.50, a beer less than
50 cents, and a good hotel 5-15 bucks). And both RMNP and Zion
include the visitor shuttle for free. And then on top of all this, I
feel as though our parks are WAY better at actually protecting than
these. Like I said, these always feel sort of like amusement parks
shuttling in the chinese tourists. And in our parks we have so many
ammenities and services (drinking water, nice toilets, miles and miles
and miles of trails, informative signs, free ranger talks, helpful
visitor centers, rescue services, fire protection, research, law
enforcement, etc. Here the majority of employees of the parks are
selling souvenirs, food, or even working at the fancy hotels in some
of the parks (thank goodness not this one as it a world biosphere
reserve so it has stricter international rules). Perhaps one of the
best things about our parks back home is the freedom we have to really
explore. In parks in Asia you usually have to stict to a few very
strict paths (if they even let you alone without a guide) whereas back
home you are free to explore to your hearts content and there are
always dozens and dozens of options of well marked trails or excellent
maps. So just wanted to put in a blurb about how great I have noticed
our national parks are in comparison to the majority of Asian parks.
With that said...this park was absolutely gorgeous...and I was here on
a cloudy morning and rainy afternoon. I can really only imagine (or
see the pictures of the israelis who were in the park the day before
when the sun was out) how gorgeous it must be with a big bright sun.
It is really hard to describe how cool the colors of the lakes are. I
suppose it would be best to just google image the national park.
I started out the day by taking the shuttle to the end of the first
canyon at an elevation of about 10,000 feet. You could walk on a
boardwalk trail through "virgin" forest. Apparently one of the few
big tracts of forests that was left untouched by the massive logging
exploitation of the 70's and 80's in China. The University of
Washington and UC-Berkley both have research teams up here studying
the unique geology as well as the ecology (and pandas) and they had an
informative sign in the forest that showed their research on this
dense forest and how their data shows how much more oxygen this area
of sichuan has, how much cooler in temperature it is, and how much
more stable it is in moisture...go figure. All things China is
suffering with: pollution, heat waves, and unusual moisture cycles
(drought, desertification, and flooding). Hmmm...tack on another one
for the enviro wackos as my dad calls them.
After taking a stroll through the forest I walked the 12 or so km's
down the canyon where you come across one sparkling lake after
another. The lakes and rivers are as clear as they get. As clear as
the alpine lakes in rocky...though they differ in that they have
unique blue, emerald, turqoise, and other blue/green spectra colors.
Similar to the colors you would see on a gorgeous island surrounded by
a reef. In fact, there are often dark spots in the lakes here from
some sort of calcium build up and so from above it almost looks like
what it looks like when you are flying over a shallow turqoise sea
that is full of darker coral areas. Truly sublime. The lakes (I
counted over 37 for the whole day) are separate by these giant
waterfalls...tall but more massive in their widths (they are known as
shoals here). The rivers/streams here are unique as well in that they
just flow right through the forest and bushes. There isn't always a
defined path, but it just flows right down through all the trees.
Another unique thing is that there are lots of fallen trees at the
bottom of these gorgeous blue lakes. The trees, which now have algae
growths on them, glow a light green and make for an interesting
spectacle.
The canyon eventually interesected another canyon and I took the bus
up to the top of this one where there were a couple lakes. One called
5-coloured lake, was especially gorgeous. The blues and green in that
one were just simply stunning. I took the bus back down to the
intersection and then walked several more km's back to the entrance
walking by many more lakes and shoal waterfalls. Something so amazing
about this park is not just the beauty, but how packed the sights are
together. In RMNP some of the more "packed" with scenic lake areas
like the stuff out of glacier gorge trailhead or bear lake have
several lakes in a row, but they are usually at the very least 1 mile
apart. These ones had lakes and waterfalls just stacked right up on
each other, which of course is great for the bus hopping chinese
tourists, but also a feast for the eyes for someone like me.
I don't know if it was b/c I was feeling a bit frustrated by the
weather or bc I had been hanging out with a fair amount of japanese
(the japanese have to be my favorite people and culture have visited
so far and there are a fair amount here. The japanese are
disliked...even hated in china so they don't travel much, but here in
western china where there is more minority tribes and tibetans they
feel more comfortable to travel) and remembering how cool they are,
but I was a bit annoyed by the Chinese today. I kept having lots of
them try and take photos of me. They were doing it without asking as
they usually do and they were trying to do it secretly, and would act
like they weren't when I would turn. I guess I would rather have them
just ask. And then as we are in a highly tibetan area (most of the
chinese tourists are the ethnic majority Han) the chinese tourists
will pay to dress up in their outfits to get their picture taken. But
they seem to do it in a very disrespectful manner, like the Tibetans
are some disney character or less people. And of course this gets my
ire as it is these same Han chinese who are moving in at great numbers
to out-populate the tibetans in tibet and thus take over tibet in that
manner.
One of the japanese gals I was hanging out with had michael bolton's
Said I loved you but I lied song stuck in her head and was singing it
a lot of this evening in the dorm, so I thought this would be a good
time to repost our infamous utah trip said I loved you but I lied
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsL-J524hL0
Tomorrow I am going to Hualong national park with 3 malaysians and we
are sharing a taxi which is actually cheaper than taking the bus and
much quicker.
and Richard. Sichuan is famous for it's hot pots (boiling, spicy oil
in which you cook meat and vegetables like a fondue) and it's SPICE.
And it didn't let us down. So tasty, and so spicy. We were sweating
like we had been playing a hard game of b-ball. We wondered why we
had been given napkins for the first time since we were in china...to
wipe the sweat off. Richard asked me if I had seen all the graffiti
on the toilet about how people were feeling the day (and two and
three) after the hot pot. Made me wonder if I should be hopping on a
12 hour bus ride the next day!
9/20 Took the bus from Chengdu to Juizhaigou in the very northern
part of Sichuan right up against the tibetan plateau. The drive of
course was beautiful. Over mountain passes, through deep canyons,
along raging rivers, some massive reservoirs, and tiny villages full
of life. Basically drove the whole south north of Sichuan in one day.
Of course just like in the rest of Asia, chinese driving is crazy.
And sure enough, about 50km's from our destination, we were in an
accident. A minivan was trying to overtake our bus around a blind
curve when a big dump trunk was coming the other way. The bus driver
tried honking reapeatedly, but apparently the minivan thought it could
still overtake us. It tried to squeeze between the two big vehicles,
but got smashed between the two. Both large vehicles just had
scratches, but the minivan was squished. The driver was ok though.
An interesting note. As soon as the accident happened, everyone piled
out of the bus. I was in the back, so I came out at the end. The
first thought of all the chinese on the tour bus was to take photos of
the accident as if it was a tourist site as opposed to check if the
guy was hurt. Luckily he wasn't, and by the time I got out he was
crawling out through the smashed windshield. Strange though...my
first thought would have been to run and see if he was ok as opposed
to take my photo in front of the accident while giving the peace sign.
9/21 Visited Jiuzhaigou national park, a world biosphere reserve and
one of the premier national parks in Asia. It's a large park
incorporating several mountains just under 15,000 feet, many valleys
and canyons and even some rare wildlife such as the giant panda and
red panda. The crown jewel of the park, and pretty much the only
part open to visitors is two glacial canyons that have a multitude of
shimmering and multi-hued lakes separated by sweeping waterfalls.
Typical of chinese national parks I have been to so far, it's not some
alone in the wilds of nature experience, but one that is full of
chinese tourists and very easily accessible. Visiting national parks
in Asia always makes me proud of our own national parks back in the
States. With as much problems as I realize they have (from working in
one and with people that dealt with more of the beauracracy), our
parks are really great. Our parks our there for protection,
education, and for the average American to enjoy and get in touch with
nature. Sometimes I feel like the parks here are set up to appease
those around the globe putting pressure on a country to protect
something and then using it as a money making enterprise for the
government. For example with this park, it costs an unbelievable 35
bucks to enter (valid for only 1 day 7am-6pm) plus a mandatory 15
dollar shuttle bus fee. This may not seem like a lot but consider the
price of entering say RMNP or Zion. I can't quite remember the
current prices, but it's something like 25 bucks for the day, 50 bucks
for the annual pass and 90 bucks for an annual pass good for all
national parks in the country (and these prices are per vehicle so
split between everyone in the car). And keep in mind the difference
in cost for things between American and China (average salary in china
is still 400 bucks a month...a good meal costs 1.50, a beer less than
50 cents, and a good hotel 5-15 bucks). And both RMNP and Zion
include the visitor shuttle for free. And then on top of all this, I
feel as though our parks are WAY better at actually protecting than
these. Like I said, these always feel sort of like amusement parks
shuttling in the chinese tourists. And in our parks we have so many
ammenities and services (drinking water, nice toilets, miles and miles
and miles of trails, informative signs, free ranger talks, helpful
visitor centers, rescue services, fire protection, research, law
enforcement, etc. Here the majority of employees of the parks are
selling souvenirs, food, or even working at the fancy hotels in some
of the parks (thank goodness not this one as it a world biosphere
reserve so it has stricter international rules). Perhaps one of the
best things about our parks back home is the freedom we have to really
explore. In parks in Asia you usually have to stict to a few very
strict paths (if they even let you alone without a guide) whereas back
home you are free to explore to your hearts content and there are
always dozens and dozens of options of well marked trails or excellent
maps. So just wanted to put in a blurb about how great I have noticed
our national parks are in comparison to the majority of Asian parks.
With that said...this park was absolutely gorgeous...and I was here on
a cloudy morning and rainy afternoon. I can really only imagine (or
see the pictures of the israelis who were in the park the day before
when the sun was out) how gorgeous it must be with a big bright sun.
It is really hard to describe how cool the colors of the lakes are. I
suppose it would be best to just google image the national park.
I started out the day by taking the shuttle to the end of the first
canyon at an elevation of about 10,000 feet. You could walk on a
boardwalk trail through "virgin" forest. Apparently one of the few
big tracts of forests that was left untouched by the massive logging
exploitation of the 70's and 80's in China. The University of
Washington and UC-Berkley both have research teams up here studying
the unique geology as well as the ecology (and pandas) and they had an
informative sign in the forest that showed their research on this
dense forest and how their data shows how much more oxygen this area
of sichuan has, how much cooler in temperature it is, and how much
more stable it is in moisture...go figure. All things China is
suffering with: pollution, heat waves, and unusual moisture cycles
(drought, desertification, and flooding). Hmmm...tack on another one
for the enviro wackos as my dad calls them.
After taking a stroll through the forest I walked the 12 or so km's
down the canyon where you come across one sparkling lake after
another. The lakes and rivers are as clear as they get. As clear as
the alpine lakes in rocky...though they differ in that they have
unique blue, emerald, turqoise, and other blue/green spectra colors.
Similar to the colors you would see on a gorgeous island surrounded by
a reef. In fact, there are often dark spots in the lakes here from
some sort of calcium build up and so from above it almost looks like
what it looks like when you are flying over a shallow turqoise sea
that is full of darker coral areas. Truly sublime. The lakes (I
counted over 37 for the whole day) are separate by these giant
waterfalls...tall but more massive in their widths (they are known as
shoals here). The rivers/streams here are unique as well in that they
just flow right through the forest and bushes. There isn't always a
defined path, but it just flows right down through all the trees.
Another unique thing is that there are lots of fallen trees at the
bottom of these gorgeous blue lakes. The trees, which now have algae
growths on them, glow a light green and make for an interesting
spectacle.
The canyon eventually interesected another canyon and I took the bus
up to the top of this one where there were a couple lakes. One called
5-coloured lake, was especially gorgeous. The blues and green in that
one were just simply stunning. I took the bus back down to the
intersection and then walked several more km's back to the entrance
walking by many more lakes and shoal waterfalls. Something so amazing
about this park is not just the beauty, but how packed the sights are
together. In RMNP some of the more "packed" with scenic lake areas
like the stuff out of glacier gorge trailhead or bear lake have
several lakes in a row, but they are usually at the very least 1 mile
apart. These ones had lakes and waterfalls just stacked right up on
each other, which of course is great for the bus hopping chinese
tourists, but also a feast for the eyes for someone like me.
I don't know if it was b/c I was feeling a bit frustrated by the
weather or bc I had been hanging out with a fair amount of japanese
(the japanese have to be my favorite people and culture have visited
so far and there are a fair amount here. The japanese are
disliked...even hated in china so they don't travel much, but here in
western china where there is more minority tribes and tibetans they
feel more comfortable to travel) and remembering how cool they are,
but I was a bit annoyed by the Chinese today. I kept having lots of
them try and take photos of me. They were doing it without asking as
they usually do and they were trying to do it secretly, and would act
like they weren't when I would turn. I guess I would rather have them
just ask. And then as we are in a highly tibetan area (most of the
chinese tourists are the ethnic majority Han) the chinese tourists
will pay to dress up in their outfits to get their picture taken. But
they seem to do it in a very disrespectful manner, like the Tibetans
are some disney character or less people. And of course this gets my
ire as it is these same Han chinese who are moving in at great numbers
to out-populate the tibetans in tibet and thus take over tibet in that
manner.
One of the japanese gals I was hanging out with had michael bolton's
Said I loved you but I lied song stuck in her head and was singing it
a lot of this evening in the dorm, so I thought this would be a good
time to repost our infamous utah trip said I loved you but I lied
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsL-J524hL0
Tomorrow I am going to Hualong national park with 3 malaysians and we
are sharing a taxi which is actually cheaper than taking the bus and
much quicker.
Great Firewall of China Part 12: Tiger Leaping Gorge
9/15 Took a minibus to Qiaotou where the Tiger Leaping Gorge Trek
starts and in the Shangri-La area (this area is originally named
shangri-la after the mythical place in some englishmen's book;
however, china now has many places called shangri-la as they bring in
the tourists bills). Clare and Kim had done this trek a couple of
winters ago and recommended it to me. It did not disappoint. There
were quite a few westerners in the minibus (about 16) so we had to
take two.: me, richard and sally, and the rest were Israelis. The
Israelis were all over Lijiang. Apparently this is a big time for
Jewish holidays, so many of the students and young people take off,
and that is why there are so many. Sally and Richard orginally got
into my bus, but sally was arguing and complaining and yelling at
Richard for something to switch into another bus, so they did. I
wasn't too sad about this b/c I didn't want to be around whiney and
complaining and moaning sally for the trek. This meant that I trekked
with a group of 4 Israelis (2 couples all from Tel Aviv, but had met
randomly at Emei Shan mountain). So the group I trekked with were
Itamar, Ayelet, Ehud, and Miriam. Though at different lunch and
dinner spots it was a big Israeli affair with about 14 of us. I
always love travelling with the Israelis bc they are always less shy
and more outgoing and are a lot of fun. And possibly the closest to
Americans (other than canadians) that you find, so it always seems
quite familiar. And now that I know a bit more about Israel and it's
foods and nuances and such it's even more fun bc I can join in on the
jokes.
Tiger Leaping gorge is carved out by the Yangtze river. It claims to
be the deepest gorge in the world; however, I read a book on the great
canyons in which it is the 3rd deepest behind one in tibet and one in
nepal. And for these the deepest part refers not to what the river
has carved (then the grand canyon would be) but to the distance
between the highest point and the deepest part of the gorge. Tiger
Leaping gorge is flanked on both side by 18,000 foot mountains, and
the bottom of the gorge is at 7000 feet, so it is quite the drop.
During the trek; however, you are obviously not on top of the
mountains, but about 2 to 3,000 feet above the river at your highest
point. The first day we hiked about 8 hours, gaining lots of
elevation (from river level to 3000 feet above) to arrive at a Tibetan
tea house in the village of Bendiwan (I am now getting close to tibet
so there is a lot of tibetan influence and tibetan people here). It
had rained all night in Lijiang and the whole 3 hour bus ride there,
so it was looking bleak; however, the rain held off for all of the 8
hours except for a bit of a rain for 1 hour that wasn't too heavy.
Unfortunately bc it was cloudy I couldn't see the top of the "snow"
mountains as they are called here, which was disappointing to me bc
they would be the 2nd highest mountains I had ever seen in my life
behind kilimanjaro. However, the rain wasn't without it's benefits.
Looking across the gorge to the mountain through the clouds and mist
you could see lots and lots of waterfalls just falling from the rocks
and some seemingly falling from the clouds onto clouds. It was
gorgeous and truly breathtaking. You've seen those drawings where
large waterfalls tumble from nearly the tops of mountains and you
think it is impossible bc the water table or enough snow can't be up
there, but here it was (or so it seemed, actually since several
thousand feet of the mountain were hidden, it looked like the falls
were falling from the top, but instead from about a quarter of the way
down; however, it still had the sweet effect! The river itself was
raging far below, and instead of the clear that is often is, it was a
roliing muddy brown river, making lots of noise. The canyon itself
was quite picturesque. The walls were incredibly steep, and the
mountain continued straight up. And of course all the waterfalls you
could see across the canyon and the watefalls coming in on the side we
were hiking. The mountains in china seem to have an overall much
greater steepness than the rockies back home. They are steep like the
continental divide and longs peak are when you get to 11,000 feet, but
here they are that crazy steepness, if we are to keep using longs as
an example, as if longs was as steep as it is from 11,000 to 14,000
feet now, it would be that steep from 7500 feet to 14,000ft. or from
estes to the peak instead of the gradual build it has now. So these
incredibly steep mountains really add to the beauty. Of course along
the trek there were cool tiny villages using only mules for transport
and looking down on the gorge. That night our guesthouse had the
sweetest view of the big mountain and perhaps one of the top 10 toilet
views I have ever had. You were looking out over the big mountains
and feeling like you were peeing down into the river from 2000 feet
up. That night we had a fun meal with all the Israelis and there was
a bit of moaning and desiring for some good humus, pita, and schwarma!
I, however, have no complaints about the chinese food. It is so
tasty! Don't know how I'll ever eat chinese back home again!
9/16 Relaxed a bit in the morning and waited for all the mist to rise
before setting out for the last several hours to the "end" of the
tiger leaping gorge trek. At this village, everyone was taking a
minibus back to Qiaotao and then on to Lijiang. As I would much
rather be out in the wild than back in the city, I had planned an
extra day in the gorge. The trek to the endpoint, was very nice and
scenic as well with several more waterfalls falling down to the trail.
So after a lunch with the Israelis, I said goodbye, and then did a
hike that went the remaining 1000+ feet to the bottom of the gorge to
the river itself. Of course more sweet views and waterfalls and some
quite fun, long and blood pumping ladders you needed to descend to
get to the bottom. At the bottom was a huge rock in the middle of the
river that is called tiger leaping stone where the tiger apparently
had escaped some hounds to make it to safety across the river. The
tiger is one incredible leaper if it was able to do it with this much
water coming through. Needless to say the rapids down there at the
bottom were exhilerating. You could go right up on some huge boulders
next to them and really feel there power. It was quite a rush to just
stand there and here the water and see it churn. Actually gave me
quite a chill it was so powerful, and even made me nervous (all though
it was totally safe) to be so close, though I have a bit of a fear of
big rapids in water. I then continued on a path, now in the a
drizzle, that went along the water and a cliff edge for a while to
reach the village of walnut garden where I found a guesthouse. I of
course was the only westerner in the village as everyone else had
headed back to Lijiang. After checking in I walked several more km's
to the true end of the gorge. The weather was clearing a bit and I
could see quite a ways higher up the big mountains now. And I even
saw the moon! I had missed the moon and stars.
9/17 Instead of taking the minvan back to Qioutou, I decided to walk
the 27kms back via the lower road, which is a tiny road (often closed
due to landslides and mudslides (which I did see recent remnants of
everywhere) that the minivans use to bring the tourists back. First I
took something called the ancient path to go from walnut garden back
to the place where I had said goodbye to the Israelis. This was a
sweet hike that went up really high in the gorge on a trail that was
difficult to follow. At times I lost it, which made me a bit nervous,
not because I was lost, but bc I was on a bit of a time constraint as
I had to get to Q-tou by 4:30 at the latest to catch a bus so that I
could get my already booked night bus to kunming to catch my already
booked train to chengdu. But I managed to make my way following and
not following the trail, going by some more sweet waterfalls, past
orchards of tasty apples, and into bamboo forests. At one point I was
descending into a steep side canyon where I could hear the water
rushing below. I saw a washed out bridge and thought I was in trouble
and would have to turn back, but it had apparently been washed out
last year and there was a new one. From there it wasn't far back to
where I had said goodbye to the isrealis the previous day. Had a
breakfast there, then continued on along the low road. The low road
was also nice, with closer views of the river and with waterfalls
crashing down from above. At the entrance of the gorge is a monstrous
rapid. I took the trail to make it the 700 or so feet down to the
bottom to the viewing platform. The stairs were a bit sketchy as all
the wood had been taken out, so you had to monkeybar your way down.
But eventually the stairs disappeared as they had been taken out by a
landslide. I went back up but noticed a bit further down some
construction workers. They were working on the new trail, and though
it was officially closed, they didn't say anything to the foreigner
going down. So again, I got to make it down to the viewing platform
that sat right up against the huge rapids. These rapids made the last
ones seem like a ripple!! They were so intense!! And the platform
was right on them, so the spray was in your face, the noise deafening.
I couldn't imagine even trying to raft these. It really got my heart
racing. But at the same time they were so cool, to see that kind of
power, feel that force. Like water force I had never seen. So I sad
down and had my lunch of Yak jerkey. Even with that detour I made it
back to Qi-tou by 3:30. Had a quick shower and dinner in Lijiang and
then caught the sleeper bus (bed was about 5 ft. 5, so not too bad in
the end) to Kunming.
9-18 We (richard, sally, and I) arrived in Kunming around 6am and
caught the train (hard sleeper) to Chengdu around 11am. China is, I
think, one of the most beautiful countries I have travelled in (right
up there with Canada and the US), so train and bus rides are never
boring. I love mountains and rivers and canyons and these are not in
short supply in China. It's also nice to pass by the rural village
life of china and see how life carries on there. Most of the
attractions in China are away from the village and rural areas and
have been built up, so you don't get to see it much unless you are on
the train or bus. Today was the first day I had seen unadultered sun
since Mongolia. Although it was till half cloudy, it still felt
great. It was sunny in Bejing, but the sun was hidden behind smog and
since then it has been cloudy everyday. In fact it has rained
everyday since I left Beijing. I am hoping for more sun in Tibet as
it's a high altitude desert where I will be visiting, but the climate
seems to be crazy across asia right now with massive flooding all
around and droughts in other areas.
9-19 Arrived into Chengdu in the province of Sichuan around 7am.
Checked into my hostel and did some errands around smoggy Chengdu (15
million people live here). My trusty japanese umbrella broke, so I
need to get a new, probably poor quality chinese one (the japanese one
which I bought in 2008 survived a whole year in SE asia). I consider
the umbrella to be one of the most underrated travel accessories.
Most of the westerners tromp around in their fancy goretex, but get
just as wet as if they didn't have anything bc they sweat so much in
them. The umbrella keeps you and your bag dry, and allows for
airflow. Keep it in mind if you ever go to a wet and tropical clime.
Also going to the guesthouse today to make sure my tibet trip is all
properly planned out. Tonight I will likely have some of the infamous
spicy (very spicy) hotpots of Sichuan.
Tomorrow I will leave for jiuzhaigou national park and then on to
Huanglong np for a 4 day trip to northern Sichuan before coming back
starts and in the Shangri-La area (this area is originally named
shangri-la after the mythical place in some englishmen's book;
however, china now has many places called shangri-la as they bring in
the tourists bills). Clare and Kim had done this trek a couple of
winters ago and recommended it to me. It did not disappoint. There
were quite a few westerners in the minibus (about 16) so we had to
take two.: me, richard and sally, and the rest were Israelis. The
Israelis were all over Lijiang. Apparently this is a big time for
Jewish holidays, so many of the students and young people take off,
and that is why there are so many. Sally and Richard orginally got
into my bus, but sally was arguing and complaining and yelling at
Richard for something to switch into another bus, so they did. I
wasn't too sad about this b/c I didn't want to be around whiney and
complaining and moaning sally for the trek. This meant that I trekked
with a group of 4 Israelis (2 couples all from Tel Aviv, but had met
randomly at Emei Shan mountain). So the group I trekked with were
Itamar, Ayelet, Ehud, and Miriam. Though at different lunch and
dinner spots it was a big Israeli affair with about 14 of us. I
always love travelling with the Israelis bc they are always less shy
and more outgoing and are a lot of fun. And possibly the closest to
Americans (other than canadians) that you find, so it always seems
quite familiar. And now that I know a bit more about Israel and it's
foods and nuances and such it's even more fun bc I can join in on the
jokes.
Tiger Leaping gorge is carved out by the Yangtze river. It claims to
be the deepest gorge in the world; however, I read a book on the great
canyons in which it is the 3rd deepest behind one in tibet and one in
nepal. And for these the deepest part refers not to what the river
has carved (then the grand canyon would be) but to the distance
between the highest point and the deepest part of the gorge. Tiger
Leaping gorge is flanked on both side by 18,000 foot mountains, and
the bottom of the gorge is at 7000 feet, so it is quite the drop.
During the trek; however, you are obviously not on top of the
mountains, but about 2 to 3,000 feet above the river at your highest
point. The first day we hiked about 8 hours, gaining lots of
elevation (from river level to 3000 feet above) to arrive at a Tibetan
tea house in the village of Bendiwan (I am now getting close to tibet
so there is a lot of tibetan influence and tibetan people here). It
had rained all night in Lijiang and the whole 3 hour bus ride there,
so it was looking bleak; however, the rain held off for all of the 8
hours except for a bit of a rain for 1 hour that wasn't too heavy.
Unfortunately bc it was cloudy I couldn't see the top of the "snow"
mountains as they are called here, which was disappointing to me bc
they would be the 2nd highest mountains I had ever seen in my life
behind kilimanjaro. However, the rain wasn't without it's benefits.
Looking across the gorge to the mountain through the clouds and mist
you could see lots and lots of waterfalls just falling from the rocks
and some seemingly falling from the clouds onto clouds. It was
gorgeous and truly breathtaking. You've seen those drawings where
large waterfalls tumble from nearly the tops of mountains and you
think it is impossible bc the water table or enough snow can't be up
there, but here it was (or so it seemed, actually since several
thousand feet of the mountain were hidden, it looked like the falls
were falling from the top, but instead from about a quarter of the way
down; however, it still had the sweet effect! The river itself was
raging far below, and instead of the clear that is often is, it was a
roliing muddy brown river, making lots of noise. The canyon itself
was quite picturesque. The walls were incredibly steep, and the
mountain continued straight up. And of course all the waterfalls you
could see across the canyon and the watefalls coming in on the side we
were hiking. The mountains in china seem to have an overall much
greater steepness than the rockies back home. They are steep like the
continental divide and longs peak are when you get to 11,000 feet, but
here they are that crazy steepness, if we are to keep using longs as
an example, as if longs was as steep as it is from 11,000 to 14,000
feet now, it would be that steep from 7500 feet to 14,000ft. or from
estes to the peak instead of the gradual build it has now. So these
incredibly steep mountains really add to the beauty. Of course along
the trek there were cool tiny villages using only mules for transport
and looking down on the gorge. That night our guesthouse had the
sweetest view of the big mountain and perhaps one of the top 10 toilet
views I have ever had. You were looking out over the big mountains
and feeling like you were peeing down into the river from 2000 feet
up. That night we had a fun meal with all the Israelis and there was
a bit of moaning and desiring for some good humus, pita, and schwarma!
I, however, have no complaints about the chinese food. It is so
tasty! Don't know how I'll ever eat chinese back home again!
9/16 Relaxed a bit in the morning and waited for all the mist to rise
before setting out for the last several hours to the "end" of the
tiger leaping gorge trek. At this village, everyone was taking a
minibus back to Qiaotao and then on to Lijiang. As I would much
rather be out in the wild than back in the city, I had planned an
extra day in the gorge. The trek to the endpoint, was very nice and
scenic as well with several more waterfalls falling down to the trail.
So after a lunch with the Israelis, I said goodbye, and then did a
hike that went the remaining 1000+ feet to the bottom of the gorge to
the river itself. Of course more sweet views and waterfalls and some
quite fun, long and blood pumping ladders you needed to descend to
get to the bottom. At the bottom was a huge rock in the middle of the
river that is called tiger leaping stone where the tiger apparently
had escaped some hounds to make it to safety across the river. The
tiger is one incredible leaper if it was able to do it with this much
water coming through. Needless to say the rapids down there at the
bottom were exhilerating. You could go right up on some huge boulders
next to them and really feel there power. It was quite a rush to just
stand there and here the water and see it churn. Actually gave me
quite a chill it was so powerful, and even made me nervous (all though
it was totally safe) to be so close, though I have a bit of a fear of
big rapids in water. I then continued on a path, now in the a
drizzle, that went along the water and a cliff edge for a while to
reach the village of walnut garden where I found a guesthouse. I of
course was the only westerner in the village as everyone else had
headed back to Lijiang. After checking in I walked several more km's
to the true end of the gorge. The weather was clearing a bit and I
could see quite a ways higher up the big mountains now. And I even
saw the moon! I had missed the moon and stars.
9/17 Instead of taking the minvan back to Qioutou, I decided to walk
the 27kms back via the lower road, which is a tiny road (often closed
due to landslides and mudslides (which I did see recent remnants of
everywhere) that the minivans use to bring the tourists back. First I
took something called the ancient path to go from walnut garden back
to the place where I had said goodbye to the Israelis. This was a
sweet hike that went up really high in the gorge on a trail that was
difficult to follow. At times I lost it, which made me a bit nervous,
not because I was lost, but bc I was on a bit of a time constraint as
I had to get to Q-tou by 4:30 at the latest to catch a bus so that I
could get my already booked night bus to kunming to catch my already
booked train to chengdu. But I managed to make my way following and
not following the trail, going by some more sweet waterfalls, past
orchards of tasty apples, and into bamboo forests. At one point I was
descending into a steep side canyon where I could hear the water
rushing below. I saw a washed out bridge and thought I was in trouble
and would have to turn back, but it had apparently been washed out
last year and there was a new one. From there it wasn't far back to
where I had said goodbye to the isrealis the previous day. Had a
breakfast there, then continued on along the low road. The low road
was also nice, with closer views of the river and with waterfalls
crashing down from above. At the entrance of the gorge is a monstrous
rapid. I took the trail to make it the 700 or so feet down to the
bottom to the viewing platform. The stairs were a bit sketchy as all
the wood had been taken out, so you had to monkeybar your way down.
But eventually the stairs disappeared as they had been taken out by a
landslide. I went back up but noticed a bit further down some
construction workers. They were working on the new trail, and though
it was officially closed, they didn't say anything to the foreigner
going down. So again, I got to make it down to the viewing platform
that sat right up against the huge rapids. These rapids made the last
ones seem like a ripple!! They were so intense!! And the platform
was right on them, so the spray was in your face, the noise deafening.
I couldn't imagine even trying to raft these. It really got my heart
racing. But at the same time they were so cool, to see that kind of
power, feel that force. Like water force I had never seen. So I sad
down and had my lunch of Yak jerkey. Even with that detour I made it
back to Qi-tou by 3:30. Had a quick shower and dinner in Lijiang and
then caught the sleeper bus (bed was about 5 ft. 5, so not too bad in
the end) to Kunming.
9-18 We (richard, sally, and I) arrived in Kunming around 6am and
caught the train (hard sleeper) to Chengdu around 11am. China is, I
think, one of the most beautiful countries I have travelled in (right
up there with Canada and the US), so train and bus rides are never
boring. I love mountains and rivers and canyons and these are not in
short supply in China. It's also nice to pass by the rural village
life of china and see how life carries on there. Most of the
attractions in China are away from the village and rural areas and
have been built up, so you don't get to see it much unless you are on
the train or bus. Today was the first day I had seen unadultered sun
since Mongolia. Although it was till half cloudy, it still felt
great. It was sunny in Bejing, but the sun was hidden behind smog and
since then it has been cloudy everyday. In fact it has rained
everyday since I left Beijing. I am hoping for more sun in Tibet as
it's a high altitude desert where I will be visiting, but the climate
seems to be crazy across asia right now with massive flooding all
around and droughts in other areas.
9-19 Arrived into Chengdu in the province of Sichuan around 7am.
Checked into my hostel and did some errands around smoggy Chengdu (15
million people live here). My trusty japanese umbrella broke, so I
need to get a new, probably poor quality chinese one (the japanese one
which I bought in 2008 survived a whole year in SE asia). I consider
the umbrella to be one of the most underrated travel accessories.
Most of the westerners tromp around in their fancy goretex, but get
just as wet as if they didn't have anything bc they sweat so much in
them. The umbrella keeps you and your bag dry, and allows for
airflow. Keep it in mind if you ever go to a wet and tropical clime.
Also going to the guesthouse today to make sure my tibet trip is all
properly planned out. Tonight I will likely have some of the infamous
spicy (very spicy) hotpots of Sichuan.
Tomorrow I will leave for jiuzhaigou national park and then on to
Huanglong np for a 4 day trip to northern Sichuan before coming back
Great Firewall of China Part 11: Old world China
9/14 I got up early and spent the morning exploring Lijiang. Getting
lost in the narrow and winding cobblestone streets. It's a real cool
town with canals gushing everywhere and red lanterns hanging from all
the old buildings. It's truly a town steeped in old world charm.
There are also lots of good food things to try, my favorite being yak
and these walnut sweets. But yea, just basically wondered around the
town all morning, looking in at some of the shops, checking out the
waterwheels, squares, and other interesting things. It's just a vey
quaint and cute and old world city, so it is quite neat to explore.
Until about 10, I had the town to myself before the chinese tourists
woke up and had breakfast and came out. But then it is still quite
interesting as all of hustle and bustle with them around. Hiked to
the top of a hill with a big temple on it to look down on the town and
to see if I could get a glimpse of the big jade snow mountain, but it
was covered behind the clouds.
In the afternoon, we went to pick up our visa extensions and when we
got back it was raining pretty hard, so we just hung out at the cool
hostel and got some food. I ran into a guy named Erik from sweden who
is one of the 3 other people on my tibet tour. Small travel world
here in China.
Tomorrow I leave for the Tiger Leaping Gorge trek. It can take as
little as 2 days as it is not that long, but I think I will do it in 3
days as I have an extra day and I can do some side hikes, and it also
gives me more of a chance to get some good weather to see down into
the world's largest gorge and out across to the tall snow mountains.
I have included some pictures from Huangshan (reaching the summit and
also some west canyon hiking) and also some from biking and hiking
around guilin as well as the two chinese in wuhan who helped me get to
guillin.
lost in the narrow and winding cobblestone streets. It's a real cool
town with canals gushing everywhere and red lanterns hanging from all
the old buildings. It's truly a town steeped in old world charm.
There are also lots of good food things to try, my favorite being yak
and these walnut sweets. But yea, just basically wondered around the
town all morning, looking in at some of the shops, checking out the
waterwheels, squares, and other interesting things. It's just a vey
quaint and cute and old world city, so it is quite neat to explore.
Until about 10, I had the town to myself before the chinese tourists
woke up and had breakfast and came out. But then it is still quite
interesting as all of hustle and bustle with them around. Hiked to
the top of a hill with a big temple on it to look down on the town and
to see if I could get a glimpse of the big jade snow mountain, but it
was covered behind the clouds.
In the afternoon, we went to pick up our visa extensions and when we
got back it was raining pretty hard, so we just hung out at the cool
hostel and got some food. I ran into a guy named Erik from sweden who
is one of the 3 other people on my tibet tour. Small travel world
here in China.
Tomorrow I leave for the Tiger Leaping Gorge trek. It can take as
little as 2 days as it is not that long, but I think I will do it in 3
days as I have an extra day and I can do some side hikes, and it also
gives me more of a chance to get some good weather to see down into
the world's largest gorge and out across to the tall snow mountains.
I have included some pictures from Huangshan (reaching the summit and
also some west canyon hiking) and also some from biking and hiking
around guilin as well as the two chinese in wuhan who helped me get to
guillin.
Great Firewall of China part 10: travel in China...and it was not so great to be an american today
9/11 Had the hard sleeper train (finally!) to Kunming. The hard
sleeper is equivalent the to russian 3rd class, except a bit more
squished. There are 6 bunks in a cabin, so 3 on each side. I had the
middle one. To be on the top one you definitely needed to be strong
and flexible, so I could see it could be a problem if you were one of
the older and larger germans also in my carriage who were on a big
german tour group. I ran into in my carriage Richard and Sally, who I
first met in Huang Shan and then later met in Yangshuo. We discovered
that we are doing basically the same tour. They started in St.
Petersburg about a week earlier than I did and did the transiberian to
mongolia. They have been to the same spots in China and are going to
Tibet, then Nepal, and then India and flying from Bombay, the same as
me, during about the same week. They are alright to travel with and
it is nice to have company right now. I actually really like richard,
but sally is quite the complainer and whiner and always getting made
at poor richard. Don't know how he puts up with it! But actually
most the time she is quite pleasant, but she does whine and raise her
voice at richard too much.
9/12 When the train arrived in Kunming, we of course quickly went to
buy our next train tickets to Chengdu since the tickets sell out so
quick as I have mentioned. Kunming was quite the change in weather.
Still cloudy and damp, but very cool as the elevation is above 6,000
ft. After that we went to the bus station to get a bus to Lijiang.
We found out that the gov't bus station no longer runs busses to
Lijiang, so we had to go with a tout on the street dealing with a
private company. We booked for the 12pm bus at about 11:30. We
waited for sometime and no bus. Finally some guy (we still had no
tickets which made us nervous) came and put us in a minivan and we
drove onto the interstate. We figured we must be chasing the bus
down. At one point, we stopped in the middle of the highway and the
guy motioned for us to take all our stuff out and put it in this car
that pulled up and then we piled into that. We were quite confused at
this point, until we drove through a toll station, realizing that the
car was cheaper than the minivan. We finally overtook a bus and
pulled over on the side of the road and then exchanged into the bus.
A quite nice and comfy bus, I might add. After a couple hours we left
the hwy and were two more hours on a winding mountain road when we
came to a dead stop behind an incredibly long line of trucks, busses,
and cars. We waited and waited and waited, but no moving. We were
wondering what was going on, and also quite hungry as we hadn't eaten
all day and it was now almost 7pm. The one neat thing is that we were
stopped up near some rural mountain village, so we got to watch the
villagers go about their daily farming routine in the fields and the
women here wore the most beautiful and bright outfits I have ever
seen. Finally after about 3 hours we started to move again. Turns
out there had been a landslide and it had taken a bit for them to
clear out the mud. So needless to say we arrived into the old town of
Lijiang with its narrow windy streets, quite late. It took us a bit,
but we finally found our hostel. The nice thing about travelling with
Richard and Sally was that we could laugh about the delay and all the
confusion and all that, as opposed to if you are by yourself you tend
to be more worried. Plus when we arrived in Lijiang, we could take a
taxi and share the fare instead of walking the couple km's to the city
center in the drizzle.
9/13 We slept in a bit and then headed out first thing to do our
important errand of the day...extend our visas. We walked to where
the PSB (public security bureau) was according to our book. When we
got there all that was there was a pile of rubble. We were, after
some time, able to find someone that spoke english and told us how to
get to the new PSB by bus. As it was lunch time, we knew it would be
closed, so we grabbed some lunch in the old town and then took the bus
there. It was supposed to open at 2pm, but when we got there we found
out it was supposed to not open until 3pm. Another annoyance. I was
beginning to feel like the day was wasted (I only had budgeted 2 days
in Lijiang). They let us into the waiting room and luckily we saw
that there were some english newspapers from the beijing post.
However, I knew something was peculiar when I read in the sports that
the Denver Broncos, after beating the chargers were now 6 and 0.
Hmm...looked at the paper and saw that it was from Oct of last year.
The big news at this time was that Prez Obama (Obamao as the t-shirts
all over china say) was in town. There was great hope for him and all
the youth of china were very excited. It would be the first president
to come to china (nixon was the first prez to come) that was not here
to shake his finger at china for something (human rights, ecomonics,
nuclear stuff, etc) but was actually here to try and form a better
friendship with China. Everyone was excited and it was obviously the
big news. Finally 3pm hit and we started our visa renewal process.
The brits were first and were asked to pay 160rmb (roughly 25usd)
each. I got up expecting to pay a bit more. Americans are always
charged the most for visas. Every single country I have been to in
all my travels, with the exception of mongolia, americans pay about 20
to 25% more. When it was time to pay he has for 960rmb (150USD)!!!
My jaw dropped. I felt stung! I thought I had heard him wrong.
According to my lonely planet published 2 years ago, I was supposed to
be paying 185rmb. How could it have gone up so much?? I still
couldn't believe that I was hearing him correctly. But I was. I had
no choice though as I had made a deposit to go to tibet and I wanted
to go anyways, so I was stuck paying the 150 for an extension of 30
days, of which I would only actually be using 15. I just couldn't
believe it. A couple israelis in line, couldn't believe it either.
They asked as we were leaving how we had gotten to the PSB as the taxi
was expensive. Richard said we took the bus and it was only 1 RMB. I
told him, unless you are American, then it is 10! I still was feeling
quite upset/mad/shocked by this for a while. Just wasn't expecting
it. And 150 bucks is a lot when you were expecting to pay 30 and you
are living on less than 20 dollars per day. And I never understand
like why the brits or the aussies or the canadians are so different
than us. We are all just people. And what about all the happy stuff
about Obama coming? Hadn't moving on from Bush made countries more
friendly towards americans. I guess they still want our money though!
In the evening we went to the train station to try and get tickets to
kuming for friday, but they were sold out, so we would have to take
the bus again. The train is cheaper and sally got sick on the bus,
which is why we were trying to take the train. That night we went out
to get some food and then explored a bit of lijiangs streets. It's
really a cool, cool old town, and I can't wait to explore it tomorrow.
At night it's full of brightly lit red lanterns and you can hear the
rushing water from all of the canals and waterways. The streets are
super narrow and confusing, and you are walking around lost most of
the time. And it's very old, so it has a cool feel to it.
Some random notes on travel in china:
Lukas, and avid traveller, had told me that China is one of the most
difficult places to travel bc you lack freedom to just move about as
you like. I would agree. You are kind of relegated to going to
certain places bc they are easier to go to than others bc of the
train. For example, going to and from Huang Shan, was extremely
difficult and uncomfortable bc of buying the train tickets. Since you
can only buy train tickets in the town of departure it makes securing
them hard if you are only in a town for a few days. In SE asia, you
could just decide on a whim to go somewhere that day and always find a
bus to go there. China is not like that. First of all bc it's
massive, so travel takes a long time, and 2nd of all bc you really
have to book in advance. Which means you have to be extremely
organized with planning out how long you will stay at a place before
moving on. Not wanting to plan to stay too long at a place and thus
miss out on other places, but no wanting to be there too short and
missing out on things there. So you really, really have to be
organized and know exactly when trains leave and how long they take
and what you will do at certain places, so that you can book tickets
right when you get there. Of course the language barrier also causes
problems. So china's travel isn't as carefree and go when you want or
stay as long as you want as SE asia. But it is still worth it as it
is gorgeous and so unique here.
Domestic travel amonst chinese is huge here. You hardly see any
western travellers. This is why it is so nice that they have hostels
here. I have loved the chinese hostels as they are cheap, nice, and
great places to meet people. SE asia didn't really have hostels, so
meeting people was often more difficult for me. The chinese travel in
huge tour groups and can overwhelm tourist areas with their sheer
numbers. Another funny thing is that the chinese don't care so much
about the pristine nature of things or silence or any of that. They
run around with tour guides blowing whistles and speaking loudly
through megaphones. And they really make some places so touristified.
For example lots of places on the great wall have gondolas going up
to the wall and then like amusement attractions all around and of
course slides coming off of the wall. On the mountain of huang shan,
they had 3 gondolas going up and then fancy hotels and restaurants on
top. Similar to if they built a gondola up to the top of longs peak
and had hotels and such at the boulder field (I think there was a
hotel at the boulder field at one point back in the early 1900's
wasn't there?, but you still had to walk up). Needless to say, it is
quite funny, and at times sad, how much touristified they make places.
They really build them up bc the chinese tourists don't want to do
too much work and they like luxury. And it seems most often that
their sole purpose for going on these tours is to have their picture
taken at famous sites, b/c they are hardly paying attention to the
tour guides or looking at much, just snapping the obligatory photos at
certain places. But it's usually quite easy to avoid them bc, like I
said, they are lazy so don't go far. Just take a hike or bike and you
are away from the hordes of tourists with their megaphone guides. Or
even in a place like lijiang, just go off into the side alleys away
from the few big spots like the waterwheel and you won't see them. It
is quite funny to watch them all though
Of course while in China, talk is big about it's rise to being a super
power. Most people seem to think that China will very shortly be the
world's major super power, and I can see this. Just looking in the
country china is growing so rapidly...building so much stuff and it
just feels like a country on the rise, like maybe america did way back
when. A lot of people say that china is slowly taking over the world
in a smart way. They are not using guns and war. That is old stuff.
The new stuff is with the economy. China has the fastest growing
economy in the world, and is growing in leaps and bounds even in this
economic crisis. I first wondered about China when I was in SE Asia.
Bc in SE asia, china was sending masses of its people to live there.
The chinese are very community oriented. Instead of adopting new
cultures or assimilating, they stay the same and keep their customs
and languages and close ties to china (thus the china towns in our own
country). In SE asia, the chinese were slowly becoming less of a
minority and were linked to china, not to say thailand or malaysia.
And of course in those countries, the majority of the rich were
chinese. In places like Laos and vietnam, china had purchases lots of
land and was also funding projects for these countries like dams and
highways, to eventually benefit china. Paul, the czech american was
telling me how china is buying up lots of things around the world,
waging war economically, and playing it smart. I did notice that when
greece had it's huge economic problem, China bought up a bunch of it's
islands. An economist was telling me how basically China could end
the US right now (of course the guy was european so had some of that
anti americanism to him, so I don't know how true it all was, but
sounded like he knew what he was talking about) b/c we owe China so
much in our debts, that all they would have to do is call the loans,
and of course we couldn't pay them back. He also said that China also
has a huge withholding of US dollars, that at anytime they wanted,
they could flood the markets with US currency, thus basically making
the dollar worthless. And as Lukas said, now adays, as he has
noticed, it is quite important to learn chinese now for business.
English is obviously still the best language to know, but more and
more chinese is also important. It's all quite interesting really
though, and will be intersting to see how things play out.
Tomorrow I'll explore Lijiang, pick up my visa extension and enjoy
some of the tasty food around. Already had some really good Yak meat,
a specialty here. Some interesting fruits I've had here are a thing
they call apple, but really looks like a small but rounder kiwi and
tastes much sweeter. Also something that appears to look like a big
turnip, but tastes like a combination of apple and potato, though more
appley.
sleeper is equivalent the to russian 3rd class, except a bit more
squished. There are 6 bunks in a cabin, so 3 on each side. I had the
middle one. To be on the top one you definitely needed to be strong
and flexible, so I could see it could be a problem if you were one of
the older and larger germans also in my carriage who were on a big
german tour group. I ran into in my carriage Richard and Sally, who I
first met in Huang Shan and then later met in Yangshuo. We discovered
that we are doing basically the same tour. They started in St.
Petersburg about a week earlier than I did and did the transiberian to
mongolia. They have been to the same spots in China and are going to
Tibet, then Nepal, and then India and flying from Bombay, the same as
me, during about the same week. They are alright to travel with and
it is nice to have company right now. I actually really like richard,
but sally is quite the complainer and whiner and always getting made
at poor richard. Don't know how he puts up with it! But actually
most the time she is quite pleasant, but she does whine and raise her
voice at richard too much.
9/12 When the train arrived in Kunming, we of course quickly went to
buy our next train tickets to Chengdu since the tickets sell out so
quick as I have mentioned. Kunming was quite the change in weather.
Still cloudy and damp, but very cool as the elevation is above 6,000
ft. After that we went to the bus station to get a bus to Lijiang.
We found out that the gov't bus station no longer runs busses to
Lijiang, so we had to go with a tout on the street dealing with a
private company. We booked for the 12pm bus at about 11:30. We
waited for sometime and no bus. Finally some guy (we still had no
tickets which made us nervous) came and put us in a minivan and we
drove onto the interstate. We figured we must be chasing the bus
down. At one point, we stopped in the middle of the highway and the
guy motioned for us to take all our stuff out and put it in this car
that pulled up and then we piled into that. We were quite confused at
this point, until we drove through a toll station, realizing that the
car was cheaper than the minivan. We finally overtook a bus and
pulled over on the side of the road and then exchanged into the bus.
A quite nice and comfy bus, I might add. After a couple hours we left
the hwy and were two more hours on a winding mountain road when we
came to a dead stop behind an incredibly long line of trucks, busses,
and cars. We waited and waited and waited, but no moving. We were
wondering what was going on, and also quite hungry as we hadn't eaten
all day and it was now almost 7pm. The one neat thing is that we were
stopped up near some rural mountain village, so we got to watch the
villagers go about their daily farming routine in the fields and the
women here wore the most beautiful and bright outfits I have ever
seen. Finally after about 3 hours we started to move again. Turns
out there had been a landslide and it had taken a bit for them to
clear out the mud. So needless to say we arrived into the old town of
Lijiang with its narrow windy streets, quite late. It took us a bit,
but we finally found our hostel. The nice thing about travelling with
Richard and Sally was that we could laugh about the delay and all the
confusion and all that, as opposed to if you are by yourself you tend
to be more worried. Plus when we arrived in Lijiang, we could take a
taxi and share the fare instead of walking the couple km's to the city
center in the drizzle.
9/13 We slept in a bit and then headed out first thing to do our
important errand of the day...extend our visas. We walked to where
the PSB (public security bureau) was according to our book. When we
got there all that was there was a pile of rubble. We were, after
some time, able to find someone that spoke english and told us how to
get to the new PSB by bus. As it was lunch time, we knew it would be
closed, so we grabbed some lunch in the old town and then took the bus
there. It was supposed to open at 2pm, but when we got there we found
out it was supposed to not open until 3pm. Another annoyance. I was
beginning to feel like the day was wasted (I only had budgeted 2 days
in Lijiang). They let us into the waiting room and luckily we saw
that there were some english newspapers from the beijing post.
However, I knew something was peculiar when I read in the sports that
the Denver Broncos, after beating the chargers were now 6 and 0.
Hmm...looked at the paper and saw that it was from Oct of last year.
The big news at this time was that Prez Obama (Obamao as the t-shirts
all over china say) was in town. There was great hope for him and all
the youth of china were very excited. It would be the first president
to come to china (nixon was the first prez to come) that was not here
to shake his finger at china for something (human rights, ecomonics,
nuclear stuff, etc) but was actually here to try and form a better
friendship with China. Everyone was excited and it was obviously the
big news. Finally 3pm hit and we started our visa renewal process.
The brits were first and were asked to pay 160rmb (roughly 25usd)
each. I got up expecting to pay a bit more. Americans are always
charged the most for visas. Every single country I have been to in
all my travels, with the exception of mongolia, americans pay about 20
to 25% more. When it was time to pay he has for 960rmb (150USD)!!!
My jaw dropped. I felt stung! I thought I had heard him wrong.
According to my lonely planet published 2 years ago, I was supposed to
be paying 185rmb. How could it have gone up so much?? I still
couldn't believe that I was hearing him correctly. But I was. I had
no choice though as I had made a deposit to go to tibet and I wanted
to go anyways, so I was stuck paying the 150 for an extension of 30
days, of which I would only actually be using 15. I just couldn't
believe it. A couple israelis in line, couldn't believe it either.
They asked as we were leaving how we had gotten to the PSB as the taxi
was expensive. Richard said we took the bus and it was only 1 RMB. I
told him, unless you are American, then it is 10! I still was feeling
quite upset/mad/shocked by this for a while. Just wasn't expecting
it. And 150 bucks is a lot when you were expecting to pay 30 and you
are living on less than 20 dollars per day. And I never understand
like why the brits or the aussies or the canadians are so different
than us. We are all just people. And what about all the happy stuff
about Obama coming? Hadn't moving on from Bush made countries more
friendly towards americans. I guess they still want our money though!
In the evening we went to the train station to try and get tickets to
kuming for friday, but they were sold out, so we would have to take
the bus again. The train is cheaper and sally got sick on the bus,
which is why we were trying to take the train. That night we went out
to get some food and then explored a bit of lijiangs streets. It's
really a cool, cool old town, and I can't wait to explore it tomorrow.
At night it's full of brightly lit red lanterns and you can hear the
rushing water from all of the canals and waterways. The streets are
super narrow and confusing, and you are walking around lost most of
the time. And it's very old, so it has a cool feel to it.
Some random notes on travel in china:
Lukas, and avid traveller, had told me that China is one of the most
difficult places to travel bc you lack freedom to just move about as
you like. I would agree. You are kind of relegated to going to
certain places bc they are easier to go to than others bc of the
train. For example, going to and from Huang Shan, was extremely
difficult and uncomfortable bc of buying the train tickets. Since you
can only buy train tickets in the town of departure it makes securing
them hard if you are only in a town for a few days. In SE asia, you
could just decide on a whim to go somewhere that day and always find a
bus to go there. China is not like that. First of all bc it's
massive, so travel takes a long time, and 2nd of all bc you really
have to book in advance. Which means you have to be extremely
organized with planning out how long you will stay at a place before
moving on. Not wanting to plan to stay too long at a place and thus
miss out on other places, but no wanting to be there too short and
missing out on things there. So you really, really have to be
organized and know exactly when trains leave and how long they take
and what you will do at certain places, so that you can book tickets
right when you get there. Of course the language barrier also causes
problems. So china's travel isn't as carefree and go when you want or
stay as long as you want as SE asia. But it is still worth it as it
is gorgeous and so unique here.
Domestic travel amonst chinese is huge here. You hardly see any
western travellers. This is why it is so nice that they have hostels
here. I have loved the chinese hostels as they are cheap, nice, and
great places to meet people. SE asia didn't really have hostels, so
meeting people was often more difficult for me. The chinese travel in
huge tour groups and can overwhelm tourist areas with their sheer
numbers. Another funny thing is that the chinese don't care so much
about the pristine nature of things or silence or any of that. They
run around with tour guides blowing whistles and speaking loudly
through megaphones. And they really make some places so touristified.
For example lots of places on the great wall have gondolas going up
to the wall and then like amusement attractions all around and of
course slides coming off of the wall. On the mountain of huang shan,
they had 3 gondolas going up and then fancy hotels and restaurants on
top. Similar to if they built a gondola up to the top of longs peak
and had hotels and such at the boulder field (I think there was a
hotel at the boulder field at one point back in the early 1900's
wasn't there?, but you still had to walk up). Needless to say, it is
quite funny, and at times sad, how much touristified they make places.
They really build them up bc the chinese tourists don't want to do
too much work and they like luxury. And it seems most often that
their sole purpose for going on these tours is to have their picture
taken at famous sites, b/c they are hardly paying attention to the
tour guides or looking at much, just snapping the obligatory photos at
certain places. But it's usually quite easy to avoid them bc, like I
said, they are lazy so don't go far. Just take a hike or bike and you
are away from the hordes of tourists with their megaphone guides. Or
even in a place like lijiang, just go off into the side alleys away
from the few big spots like the waterwheel and you won't see them. It
is quite funny to watch them all though
Of course while in China, talk is big about it's rise to being a super
power. Most people seem to think that China will very shortly be the
world's major super power, and I can see this. Just looking in the
country china is growing so rapidly...building so much stuff and it
just feels like a country on the rise, like maybe america did way back
when. A lot of people say that china is slowly taking over the world
in a smart way. They are not using guns and war. That is old stuff.
The new stuff is with the economy. China has the fastest growing
economy in the world, and is growing in leaps and bounds even in this
economic crisis. I first wondered about China when I was in SE Asia.
Bc in SE asia, china was sending masses of its people to live there.
The chinese are very community oriented. Instead of adopting new
cultures or assimilating, they stay the same and keep their customs
and languages and close ties to china (thus the china towns in our own
country). In SE asia, the chinese were slowly becoming less of a
minority and were linked to china, not to say thailand or malaysia.
And of course in those countries, the majority of the rich were
chinese. In places like Laos and vietnam, china had purchases lots of
land and was also funding projects for these countries like dams and
highways, to eventually benefit china. Paul, the czech american was
telling me how china is buying up lots of things around the world,
waging war economically, and playing it smart. I did notice that when
greece had it's huge economic problem, China bought up a bunch of it's
islands. An economist was telling me how basically China could end
the US right now (of course the guy was european so had some of that
anti americanism to him, so I don't know how true it all was, but
sounded like he knew what he was talking about) b/c we owe China so
much in our debts, that all they would have to do is call the loans,
and of course we couldn't pay them back. He also said that China also
has a huge withholding of US dollars, that at anytime they wanted,
they could flood the markets with US currency, thus basically making
the dollar worthless. And as Lukas said, now adays, as he has
noticed, it is quite important to learn chinese now for business.
English is obviously still the best language to know, but more and
more chinese is also important. It's all quite interesting really
though, and will be intersting to see how things play out.
Tomorrow I'll explore Lijiang, pick up my visa extension and enjoy
some of the tasty food around. Already had some really good Yak meat,
a specialty here. Some interesting fruits I've had here are a thing
they call apple, but really looks like a small but rounder kiwi and
tastes much sweeter. Also something that appears to look like a big
turnip, but tastes like a combination of apple and potato, though more
appley.
Great Firewall of China Part 9: Arguments amongst the rice
9/8 In the evening there was a sweet lightning storm in the distance
that was lighting up the karst mountains, so we sat on top of the roof
of the hostel before movie night and drank 40 cent beers and watched
the show. Earlier in the evening we had been invited by chinese
students to practice english and play games with them (free beer
included), so we did this and it turned out to be quite cool.
That night, one of the movies we watched was Kung Fu panda. A quite
hilarious movie that does an amazing job of highlighting china from
the dumplings to the hats to the trees to the karst scenery to the
mountains to the stairs (china has more stairs than I have evern seen
whether climbing the temples of beijing or climbing the mountains of
huang shan or the rice terraces in longji) to the noodles.
9/9 I relaxed around yangshuo a bit in the morning and then took a
bus to guilin, from where I took a bus to longsheng from where I got
on a bus going to the village of Dhazai. However, at the entrance to
the longji terraces I was told I had to get off the bus and could not
go any further up by the people collecting the entrance fees. There
was another british couple who had been booted off the last bus. We
were quite confused and at first assumed it must have been some sort
of landslide as this is common in the steep and wet mountains around
here, but considering the bus was still going up, it couldn't be that.
They told us we had to instead catch a different bus to Ping'an,
which is not where I wanted to go at first. Finally we got an
explanation that the villagers of Dhazai were fighting the villagers
of Tiataou! This was crazy! I was assuming guns and such as I guess
that is what I picture when I think of fighting between villagers
these days. As we were waiting for the bus, someone came to us and
said that the fighting was over for the evening as it was getting dark
so we could go up. Of course we were a bit skeptical of this. I mean
they were just fighting right? But she said it was ok. So we took
the last bus up to Dhazai. The two brits stayed in Dhazai, but I
wanted to get up to the more remote village of Tiatou. It was
starting to get dark and pouring rain, but it opened my umbrella and
went for the steep hour long hike up to Tiatou. I passed the bridge
where supposedly the fighting had been going on, but it was quiet
except for a few vendors. When I got to my guesthouse (a surprise of
a place b/c since I was trekking in minority villages i was expecting
to sleep on the floor, have no shower or electricity or none of that,
just like in SE asia, but this place had a hot shower, tv,
electricity, nice beds...that's china for you, though it was quite
nice as I was drenched in sweat) the lady, who spoke good English,
told me that the village of tiatou had decided to build a road up to
it, which means the majority of tourists (which are mostly chinese)
would now skip staying in Dhazai which has views not near as good as
Tiatou and instead go to Tiatou. Since chinese tourists travel by the
tour bus and aren't very active (they take cable cars to the top of
mountains and the great wall) Tiatou mainly saw a trickling of western
tourists and Dhazai got fat off the chinese tourists. So basically
Dhazai was "fighting" them about this. The fighting consisted of not
letting tourists walk up to Tiatou and also lots of arguing. I guess
it would be the equivalent of if the road from Loveland went only to
drake and glen haven and you had to walk the rest of the way to estes
park. Not many tourists would go to estes, but once they opened a
road, few tourists would stay in the less spectacular drake and gh.
9/10 The next morning (well up until 2pm) I explored the
Dhazhai/Tiatou rice terrace area. It was truly spectacular. The
terraces rose 3000 feet from top to bottom and were in a huge area.
The scope was impressive. The rice terraces in batad were impressive
in their age and stonework, but this one was just so much bigger in
scale. I hiked to some different viewpoints such as "music of
paradise" "thousand layers to heaven" and "heavenly buddha" This time
of year the rice is tall and green as harvest is coming soon.
Unfortunately it was a bit hazy (due to extremely high humidity) so
you couldn't see as far off in the distance, but the terraces were
still impressive. Equally interesting were the tiny villages
scattered around the terraces. They were just really quaint and truly
had that minority tribe feel. I think here they are a lot like how
they are supposed to be in Sapa, Vietnam, though I never made it
there, so I was quite happy to experience it here. The people lived
in these cool wooden houses (look a lot like ski chalets) and the
women all wear unique and brightly colored outfits. There are tiny
stone paths linking the villages and areas around the terraces and
horses do the work of carrying things. I first early in the morning
went up to music of paradise to see the sunrise, though it didn't
really rise b/c of clouds, so then I walked down to dhazai to access a
viewpoint from there. By the time i got to this viewpoint, to go back
down to dhazai might be trouble to try and cross the arguing bridge,
so I hired an old lady to take me for a couple dollars on a back way
through the woods and the top of the terraces to get to the music of
paradise which are on the tiatou side, so that was a fun adventure.
Around 2pm, I left Tiatou to hike to the village of zhongliu along
more scenic terraces and cool tiny villages and then from zhongliu on
to Ping'an, the more touristy and less real and rustic village where
most of the chinese tourists stay. I got to the top of the terraces
above ping'an around 6pm and in a torrential downpour. Luckily there
was som shelter up there and I waited out the storm. Eventually it
cleared and I could see down to the sweet view of ping'an. From here
I walked to a couple more viewpoints: "7 stars and a moon over heaven"
and some equally neat name. The terraces here again, were quite as
impressive, though not as cool as the other side. That night I had
the famous sticky rice bbq'ed in bamboo with pork. Obviously rice in
these parts was not hard to find.
9/11 I woke up early to the sounds of a pig right below my guesthouse
being slaughtered. That's a good way to make you jump right out of
bed to see what is going on below. I hiked back up to the viewpoints
to see the sunrise, but no luck again. I spent a couple more hours
exploring around the gorgeous rice terraces around ping'an before
catching a bus back to longsheng, where I had one of the best clay pot
meals I have had. Yum! I then caught the bus to Guilin where I would
board the 18 hour train bound for Kunming.
I really enjoyed the rice terraces though. Really, really impressive.
The scale was just sooo huge, and it is amazing how they can build
those terraces on such steep terrain. The curves of the terraces seem
to be like artwork. Really just beautiful. And the fact that it was
in really rural, minority village china, added to the intrigue of the
area.
Search longji rice terraces or dhazhai rice terraces or ping'an rice
terraces on google images to get an idea if you want.
that was lighting up the karst mountains, so we sat on top of the roof
of the hostel before movie night and drank 40 cent beers and watched
the show. Earlier in the evening we had been invited by chinese
students to practice english and play games with them (free beer
included), so we did this and it turned out to be quite cool.
That night, one of the movies we watched was Kung Fu panda. A quite
hilarious movie that does an amazing job of highlighting china from
the dumplings to the hats to the trees to the karst scenery to the
mountains to the stairs (china has more stairs than I have evern seen
whether climbing the temples of beijing or climbing the mountains of
huang shan or the rice terraces in longji) to the noodles.
9/9 I relaxed around yangshuo a bit in the morning and then took a
bus to guilin, from where I took a bus to longsheng from where I got
on a bus going to the village of Dhazai. However, at the entrance to
the longji terraces I was told I had to get off the bus and could not
go any further up by the people collecting the entrance fees. There
was another british couple who had been booted off the last bus. We
were quite confused and at first assumed it must have been some sort
of landslide as this is common in the steep and wet mountains around
here, but considering the bus was still going up, it couldn't be that.
They told us we had to instead catch a different bus to Ping'an,
which is not where I wanted to go at first. Finally we got an
explanation that the villagers of Dhazai were fighting the villagers
of Tiataou! This was crazy! I was assuming guns and such as I guess
that is what I picture when I think of fighting between villagers
these days. As we were waiting for the bus, someone came to us and
said that the fighting was over for the evening as it was getting dark
so we could go up. Of course we were a bit skeptical of this. I mean
they were just fighting right? But she said it was ok. So we took
the last bus up to Dhazai. The two brits stayed in Dhazai, but I
wanted to get up to the more remote village of Tiatou. It was
starting to get dark and pouring rain, but it opened my umbrella and
went for the steep hour long hike up to Tiatou. I passed the bridge
where supposedly the fighting had been going on, but it was quiet
except for a few vendors. When I got to my guesthouse (a surprise of
a place b/c since I was trekking in minority villages i was expecting
to sleep on the floor, have no shower or electricity or none of that,
just like in SE asia, but this place had a hot shower, tv,
electricity, nice beds...that's china for you, though it was quite
nice as I was drenched in sweat) the lady, who spoke good English,
told me that the village of tiatou had decided to build a road up to
it, which means the majority of tourists (which are mostly chinese)
would now skip staying in Dhazai which has views not near as good as
Tiatou and instead go to Tiatou. Since chinese tourists travel by the
tour bus and aren't very active (they take cable cars to the top of
mountains and the great wall) Tiatou mainly saw a trickling of western
tourists and Dhazai got fat off the chinese tourists. So basically
Dhazai was "fighting" them about this. The fighting consisted of not
letting tourists walk up to Tiatou and also lots of arguing. I guess
it would be the equivalent of if the road from Loveland went only to
drake and glen haven and you had to walk the rest of the way to estes
park. Not many tourists would go to estes, but once they opened a
road, few tourists would stay in the less spectacular drake and gh.
9/10 The next morning (well up until 2pm) I explored the
Dhazhai/Tiatou rice terrace area. It was truly spectacular. The
terraces rose 3000 feet from top to bottom and were in a huge area.
The scope was impressive. The rice terraces in batad were impressive
in their age and stonework, but this one was just so much bigger in
scale. I hiked to some different viewpoints such as "music of
paradise" "thousand layers to heaven" and "heavenly buddha" This time
of year the rice is tall and green as harvest is coming soon.
Unfortunately it was a bit hazy (due to extremely high humidity) so
you couldn't see as far off in the distance, but the terraces were
still impressive. Equally interesting were the tiny villages
scattered around the terraces. They were just really quaint and truly
had that minority tribe feel. I think here they are a lot like how
they are supposed to be in Sapa, Vietnam, though I never made it
there, so I was quite happy to experience it here. The people lived
in these cool wooden houses (look a lot like ski chalets) and the
women all wear unique and brightly colored outfits. There are tiny
stone paths linking the villages and areas around the terraces and
horses do the work of carrying things. I first early in the morning
went up to music of paradise to see the sunrise, though it didn't
really rise b/c of clouds, so then I walked down to dhazai to access a
viewpoint from there. By the time i got to this viewpoint, to go back
down to dhazai might be trouble to try and cross the arguing bridge,
so I hired an old lady to take me for a couple dollars on a back way
through the woods and the top of the terraces to get to the music of
paradise which are on the tiatou side, so that was a fun adventure.
Around 2pm, I left Tiatou to hike to the village of zhongliu along
more scenic terraces and cool tiny villages and then from zhongliu on
to Ping'an, the more touristy and less real and rustic village where
most of the chinese tourists stay. I got to the top of the terraces
above ping'an around 6pm and in a torrential downpour. Luckily there
was som shelter up there and I waited out the storm. Eventually it
cleared and I could see down to the sweet view of ping'an. From here
I walked to a couple more viewpoints: "7 stars and a moon over heaven"
and some equally neat name. The terraces here again, were quite as
impressive, though not as cool as the other side. That night I had
the famous sticky rice bbq'ed in bamboo with pork. Obviously rice in
these parts was not hard to find.
9/11 I woke up early to the sounds of a pig right below my guesthouse
being slaughtered. That's a good way to make you jump right out of
bed to see what is going on below. I hiked back up to the viewpoints
to see the sunrise, but no luck again. I spent a couple more hours
exploring around the gorgeous rice terraces around ping'an before
catching a bus back to longsheng, where I had one of the best clay pot
meals I have had. Yum! I then caught the bus to Guilin where I would
board the 18 hour train bound for Kunming.
I really enjoyed the rice terraces though. Really, really impressive.
The scale was just sooo huge, and it is amazing how they can build
those terraces on such steep terrain. The curves of the terraces seem
to be like artwork. Really just beautiful. And the fact that it was
in really rural, minority village china, added to the intrigue of the
area.
Search longji rice terraces or dhazhai rice terraces or ping'an rice
terraces on google images to get an idea if you want.
THe Great Fire Wall of China part 8: Playing around in Paradise
9/6 In the evening we had a very nice and relaxing time in the hostel
common room having very tasty claypots and dumplings and watching
movies
9/7 I got up early to go for a long bike ride. As I was adjusting my
bike seat in the main pedestrian street, some older gentleman came up
and asked where I was going and where I had rented the bike as
everywhere he had asked was expensive. So I told him where I had and
where I was going. He asked if he could tag along. I tried to be
nice about saying know by saying that I would be riding fast, but he
said he would keep up. I should have just said I wanted some time by
myself. So I waited for him to go rent a bike and go get his fancy
camera equipment (he shoots on a 6cm film camera with special light
meters and the like). I sort of felt like ditching him while he went
to get his stuff, since he wouldn't have really been a loss at
anything, but then decided that was bad karma and waited. The good
thing was that he was fast on the bike, but the bad thing was that
whenever he wanted to take photos it took him a while to set up (i was
in a bit of a time cruch bc I wanted to do 2 things in one day that
normally you would do on separate days, but I just didn't have another
day reserved for yangshuo) and that he talked and talked. His name
was paul and he is a physician in Silver City, NM (a place we mtn
biked and hiked to native american ruins mom and bro), but actually
immigrated over from the czech republic about 20 years ago. In the
end it was ok biking with him, which I was relieved, bc it could have
made it into a long day.
So we set off biking about 8kms to the Yulong River, a smaller river
than the Li River, but just as beautiful with the karst mountains
surrounding it. Once we got to the river we took small singletrack
trails along the river and through tiny little villages and through
rice paddies for 10km to get to the yulong bridge (dragon bridge), and
cool old style chinese arched bridge over the river. At the bridge,
Paul wanted to stay longer and take some photos and relax, so he said
he could find his way home without me (it was good he had me before bc
his sense of direction was not very good and it was definitely easy to
get lost (as we did on a couple occassions anyways). He bought me a
beer as thanks, and then I headed back on the 10 km's to the main road
going on a different track, thus making a really sweet 20km
singletrack route through villages, rice fields, alongside the river,
and past wallowing water buffalo. The singletrack was sweet...nice
and smooth in areas and bumpy in others. My single speed cruiser bike
handled it like a beast. But you could really rock around the tight
corners of the villages and raised embankments of the rice fields,
which made it a lot of fun.
Once back at the road, I biked another 5 km to a place called moon
hill where I parked my bike and walked for an hour (and extremely
sweaty hour...it was incredibly hot today with some strong sun, though
still not blue skies bc of the humidity) to the base of this huge arch
high up on a karst mountain. It could have been in arches np if it
were sandstone instead of limestone. The arch itself was cool, but I
continued on up a hidden sidetrail to the top of the peak. As soon as
I had wiped the stinging sweat out of my eyes, I was treated with an
unbelievabe jaw dropping sight. 360 degree view around the yangshuo
area with it's layers and layers of karst mountains and flat
shimmering rice fields. It was truly, truly amazing. I stayed up
there, sweating in the sun for about an hour bc the view was just so
amazing.
After I got back down, I biked the 12kms or so back to yangshuo, where
I explored some areas on bike around the Li River as the sun was still
nice and bright on the mountains. I also, of course, bc I was so hot
and dehydrated, treated myself to a couple mango shakes and ice
creams.
Back at the hostel I took a most wonderfully refreshing shower (Lauren
had said the best showers are after physical activity and then
drinking a beer while showering, though I did not do this, but just
the cold water rinsing the layers of salt off me was so nice), and
then went to the rooftop balcony of my hostel with the sweet view to
watch the sunrise. Of course that night was fried noodles and another
type of noodles and a couple movies (youth in revolt and Up). Leon
and some others went out to party at monkey janes, but I stayed back
at the hostel to relax with a whole horde of aussies and kiwis.
9/8 Lauren and I woke up fairly early (she was part of the aussie
crowd watching movies too) and waited a while for Leon and Cam and the
other 2 guys in our dorm room to wake up as we had all planned to go
bamboo rafting. When it became apparent that they were not getting
out of bed anytime soon and would likely have hangovers (something
that proved true when we came back and heard about their days), we
decided to go off to do the bamboo rafting on our own. We rafted from
Yangdi to Xingping (the same way we had hiked before), but this was
much more relaxing and cooler with a constant breeze and just diving
into the river whenever you wanted. Of course the scenery was
stunning. We stopped at the place where the picture on the back of
the 20 yuan note was drawn from. At lunch we had the cutest and
funniest old grannies come up to try and sell us fruits and random
handicrafts. We had a good time laughing with them. We really loved
them and Lauren even ended up buying some too small handmade sandels
from them. But it was quite a nice and refreshing and relaxing day
after the previous very active, very sweaty, and very hot days.
tonight I am going for a 5 dollar hour long chinese massage and then
back to the hostel for my last clay pot meal and movie night.
Tomorrow I leave for Longji to stay in some traditional minority
villages on the rice terraces for a couple nights.
I really love it here. It's so gorgeous, there are so many activities
to do, the food is amazing and cheap, the hostel is awesome, I have
made good friends bc of the hostel. Just amazing. This is the type
of place you could stay at for a long time. And you could easily live
here on 10 bucks per day and live well: $3.5 for the aircon dorm with
the free water and free laundry and free internet, 50 cents for an
asian breakfast (1 buck for western), 1 buck for lunch, 1 buck for a
bicycle rental for the whole day, and splurging so that you are
stuffed at 2 dollars for a huge 2 course meal puts you at 8 bucks,
which leaves you room for 2 60 cent large beers and a 25 sent icecream
with room to spare. Amazing!
On another, small world note. One gal that was leaving today from the
hostel was from the US and visiting her friend who is working for the
peace corp in mongolia (though they are taking a vacation down to
here). Anyways, she said she was a law student and I asked her which
one. She was funny bc she said "Yale...it's a school on the east
coast" Duh! I think she was trying to be modest. Anyways she of
course knew who chris sherman, MC, and Ashley Lott were, though she
said she doubted they knew her as they were the cool 3L's when she was
a 1L. But Catherine Barnard was her mentor.
It will be sad to leave this gorgeous and fun place, but I am also
excited to see some more places. Like I sad, two nights in longji
(dragon's backbone rice terraces) where I likely won't have internet
as they are just small minority villages and then catching the 18 hour
train from Guilin to Kunming in Yunnan on the 11th.
common room having very tasty claypots and dumplings and watching
movies
9/7 I got up early to go for a long bike ride. As I was adjusting my
bike seat in the main pedestrian street, some older gentleman came up
and asked where I was going and where I had rented the bike as
everywhere he had asked was expensive. So I told him where I had and
where I was going. He asked if he could tag along. I tried to be
nice about saying know by saying that I would be riding fast, but he
said he would keep up. I should have just said I wanted some time by
myself. So I waited for him to go rent a bike and go get his fancy
camera equipment (he shoots on a 6cm film camera with special light
meters and the like). I sort of felt like ditching him while he went
to get his stuff, since he wouldn't have really been a loss at
anything, but then decided that was bad karma and waited. The good
thing was that he was fast on the bike, but the bad thing was that
whenever he wanted to take photos it took him a while to set up (i was
in a bit of a time cruch bc I wanted to do 2 things in one day that
normally you would do on separate days, but I just didn't have another
day reserved for yangshuo) and that he talked and talked. His name
was paul and he is a physician in Silver City, NM (a place we mtn
biked and hiked to native american ruins mom and bro), but actually
immigrated over from the czech republic about 20 years ago. In the
end it was ok biking with him, which I was relieved, bc it could have
made it into a long day.
So we set off biking about 8kms to the Yulong River, a smaller river
than the Li River, but just as beautiful with the karst mountains
surrounding it. Once we got to the river we took small singletrack
trails along the river and through tiny little villages and through
rice paddies for 10km to get to the yulong bridge (dragon bridge), and
cool old style chinese arched bridge over the river. At the bridge,
Paul wanted to stay longer and take some photos and relax, so he said
he could find his way home without me (it was good he had me before bc
his sense of direction was not very good and it was definitely easy to
get lost (as we did on a couple occassions anyways). He bought me a
beer as thanks, and then I headed back on the 10 km's to the main road
going on a different track, thus making a really sweet 20km
singletrack route through villages, rice fields, alongside the river,
and past wallowing water buffalo. The singletrack was sweet...nice
and smooth in areas and bumpy in others. My single speed cruiser bike
handled it like a beast. But you could really rock around the tight
corners of the villages and raised embankments of the rice fields,
which made it a lot of fun.
Once back at the road, I biked another 5 km to a place called moon
hill where I parked my bike and walked for an hour (and extremely
sweaty hour...it was incredibly hot today with some strong sun, though
still not blue skies bc of the humidity) to the base of this huge arch
high up on a karst mountain. It could have been in arches np if it
were sandstone instead of limestone. The arch itself was cool, but I
continued on up a hidden sidetrail to the top of the peak. As soon as
I had wiped the stinging sweat out of my eyes, I was treated with an
unbelievabe jaw dropping sight. 360 degree view around the yangshuo
area with it's layers and layers of karst mountains and flat
shimmering rice fields. It was truly, truly amazing. I stayed up
there, sweating in the sun for about an hour bc the view was just so
amazing.
After I got back down, I biked the 12kms or so back to yangshuo, where
I explored some areas on bike around the Li River as the sun was still
nice and bright on the mountains. I also, of course, bc I was so hot
and dehydrated, treated myself to a couple mango shakes and ice
creams.
Back at the hostel I took a most wonderfully refreshing shower (Lauren
had said the best showers are after physical activity and then
drinking a beer while showering, though I did not do this, but just
the cold water rinsing the layers of salt off me was so nice), and
then went to the rooftop balcony of my hostel with the sweet view to
watch the sunrise. Of course that night was fried noodles and another
type of noodles and a couple movies (youth in revolt and Up). Leon
and some others went out to party at monkey janes, but I stayed back
at the hostel to relax with a whole horde of aussies and kiwis.
9/8 Lauren and I woke up fairly early (she was part of the aussie
crowd watching movies too) and waited a while for Leon and Cam and the
other 2 guys in our dorm room to wake up as we had all planned to go
bamboo rafting. When it became apparent that they were not getting
out of bed anytime soon and would likely have hangovers (something
that proved true when we came back and heard about their days), we
decided to go off to do the bamboo rafting on our own. We rafted from
Yangdi to Xingping (the same way we had hiked before), but this was
much more relaxing and cooler with a constant breeze and just diving
into the river whenever you wanted. Of course the scenery was
stunning. We stopped at the place where the picture on the back of
the 20 yuan note was drawn from. At lunch we had the cutest and
funniest old grannies come up to try and sell us fruits and random
handicrafts. We had a good time laughing with them. We really loved
them and Lauren even ended up buying some too small handmade sandels
from them. But it was quite a nice and refreshing and relaxing day
after the previous very active, very sweaty, and very hot days.
tonight I am going for a 5 dollar hour long chinese massage and then
back to the hostel for my last clay pot meal and movie night.
Tomorrow I leave for Longji to stay in some traditional minority
villages on the rice terraces for a couple nights.
I really love it here. It's so gorgeous, there are so many activities
to do, the food is amazing and cheap, the hostel is awesome, I have
made good friends bc of the hostel. Just amazing. This is the type
of place you could stay at for a long time. And you could easily live
here on 10 bucks per day and live well: $3.5 for the aircon dorm with
the free water and free laundry and free internet, 50 cents for an
asian breakfast (1 buck for western), 1 buck for lunch, 1 buck for a
bicycle rental for the whole day, and splurging so that you are
stuffed at 2 dollars for a huge 2 course meal puts you at 8 bucks,
which leaves you room for 2 60 cent large beers and a 25 sent icecream
with room to spare. Amazing!
On another, small world note. One gal that was leaving today from the
hostel was from the US and visiting her friend who is working for the
peace corp in mongolia (though they are taking a vacation down to
here). Anyways, she said she was a law student and I asked her which
one. She was funny bc she said "Yale...it's a school on the east
coast" Duh! I think she was trying to be modest. Anyways she of
course knew who chris sherman, MC, and Ashley Lott were, though she
said she doubted they knew her as they were the cool 3L's when she was
a 1L. But Catherine Barnard was her mentor.
It will be sad to leave this gorgeous and fun place, but I am also
excited to see some more places. Like I sad, two nights in longji
(dragon's backbone rice terraces) where I likely won't have internet
as they are just small minority villages and then catching the 18 hour
train from Guilin to Kunming in Yunnan on the 11th.
great firewall of china part 7: Karst Dreamscape
9/5 Changed to my new hostel and then rented a bicycle. Another cool
thing about our hostel is it has the highest rooftop in yangshuo, so
it has magnificent views across the town, river, and karst mountains.
I took a backroad way to get to a tiny historic village called Fuli.
Along the way I met a chinese tourist also on a bicycle so we biked
together. He was really nice and it was helpful to have his chinese
to help us get around the maze of backroads. It was of course
beautiful biking through rice fields (and other fields), through tiny
villages, along the Li river, and of course with the towering karst
mountain all around. Fuli, which was reached by taking a short ferry
ride across the river, was quite cool and had the look of one of those
old chinese towns like you would see in the movies. Old ladies
playing chinese checkers and other games. Men sitting around drinking
tea. Everyone on their bikes. Just really cool. At Fuli I said
goodbye to the chinese guy as he wanted to head back to yangshuo. I
then contined for 20 more km's to xingping where the Li river met up
again. The ride continued to be stunning. More rural areas with
chinese farmers in their big chinese hats working in the rice fields
as water buffalo wallowed in the mud. Just classic scenes of rural
china. And of course the karst mountains, oh the karst mountains.
It's hard to describe their beauty. So gorgeous!! Just rising
straight up out of the completely flat and brilliantly green rice
fields. I wish I could do the area justice with pictures, but with
the cloudy and misty weather it's impossible. Probably would still be
difficult to do so with good weather though too, but if you want to
check out photos do a google photo search of yangshuo or Li river.
But really just stunning and breathtaking. I have actually seen some
similar karst things in n. vietnam when I did my motorcycle trip to
the border with china (I am now quite close to vietnam and that border
and waterfall I reached on that trip), but the mountains in vietnam
weren't as big or as impressive and it was in the winter so the rice
fields were all burned and brown instead of glimmering green like they
are now at the end of the rainy season (though it still is sort of
rainy season now I guess). When I reached xingping, I had some
gorgeous views over the river (another cute little old chinese town)
before it started to POUR. And down it came. I took off my shirt in
order to keep it dry (I always carry with me a dry bag and a
waterproof backpack cover when in se asia (this is now technically se
asia again) and rode off into the rain. It was coming down so hard
that at times it hurt my skin, but at least it's a quite warm rain and
it was like taking a nice shower to rinse all my sweat off (it's
insanely hot and humid here, more so than anywhere I was while in se
asia except for maybe the jungle, but then it wasn't as hot in the
jungle...you pour sweat hear even if you are doing nothing, it's just
that humid). The chinese sitting under shelters the whole way found
it quite humorous I think to see the foreigner biking away in the
rain. But I had to bike as opposed to grab some shelter bc I had 28
kms to go before it got dark. I was definitely pushing it, and it
felt quite good. When travelling, you hardly do any real workouts.
Felt like lance pounding through the rain, and of course what always
made it even more fun and made you go even faster was that on the bike
I could catch and pass the rickshaws (motorized tricycles/tuk tuks)
which always gave the drivers quite the surprise. Before I made it
back to yangshuo it stopped raining and I was treated to some nice
scenery of mist over the karsts.
That night after drying off I sat with the other guests of the hostels
drinking some beer, eating hot pots and dumpings and watching dear
john and then pirate radio (highly recommend this one).
9/6 I was going to do this one bike ride today, but I found out 3
people were doing this hike (that may be tricky in finding directions)
so I decided to join them. We took the bus to Yandi where we then
hiked the 22km along the Li river amongst the towering karsts to
Xingping before taking a bus back. The scenery along the river and
with the karsts, was of course just brilliantly gorgeous. Still
breathtaking. As the gal on the trip put it, she wanted to put how
beautiful the peaks are into poetry, but she couldn't think of it.
Though she did say that the skyline often looked like the ekg of
irregular heart beats. Not only was the hike great, but the group was
fun too. Everyone was quite funny and we had a good time. Richard (a
chinese american from the OC) is travelling through china for 3 months
and was quite helpful with his chinese. We had to barter for 3
different ferry crossings and also ask for directions at some point.
He also helped us to get an amazing meal at just some random home
along the river. Hano, from germany, who is a huge rock climber and
has been here for 40 days climbing. And the 3rd was Lauren from
Melbourne who is on a 9 week paid vacation. She works for the aussie
gov't (give me that job). But she spent 5 weeks of her vacation
volunteering at an orphange in cambodia. Perhaps the most interesting
thing about her is that she is on the australia national ultimate
frisbee team. She said most people aren't impressed by this, but I
was. She said that she was going to be carrying lots of frisbees to
give out to people while travelling and she would have given one to
me, but her boyfriend forgot to pack the frisbee bag into the car when
he drove her to the airport.
Tonight will be more movies and the a bike ride I think tomorrow. The
weather today, though not sunny, wasn't raining! So I hope this
continues. It is just really insanely gorgeous here. Wish I could
somehow describe it better, but I think you just have to see it. This
place combined with huangshan is like the china in animations or
cartoons. How they always try to make things more spectacular in like
cartoons...well this is it. Ahhh China, so beautiful!
thing about our hostel is it has the highest rooftop in yangshuo, so
it has magnificent views across the town, river, and karst mountains.
I took a backroad way to get to a tiny historic village called Fuli.
Along the way I met a chinese tourist also on a bicycle so we biked
together. He was really nice and it was helpful to have his chinese
to help us get around the maze of backroads. It was of course
beautiful biking through rice fields (and other fields), through tiny
villages, along the Li river, and of course with the towering karst
mountain all around. Fuli, which was reached by taking a short ferry
ride across the river, was quite cool and had the look of one of those
old chinese towns like you would see in the movies. Old ladies
playing chinese checkers and other games. Men sitting around drinking
tea. Everyone on their bikes. Just really cool. At Fuli I said
goodbye to the chinese guy as he wanted to head back to yangshuo. I
then contined for 20 more km's to xingping where the Li river met up
again. The ride continued to be stunning. More rural areas with
chinese farmers in their big chinese hats working in the rice fields
as water buffalo wallowed in the mud. Just classic scenes of rural
china. And of course the karst mountains, oh the karst mountains.
It's hard to describe their beauty. So gorgeous!! Just rising
straight up out of the completely flat and brilliantly green rice
fields. I wish I could do the area justice with pictures, but with
the cloudy and misty weather it's impossible. Probably would still be
difficult to do so with good weather though too, but if you want to
check out photos do a google photo search of yangshuo or Li river.
But really just stunning and breathtaking. I have actually seen some
similar karst things in n. vietnam when I did my motorcycle trip to
the border with china (I am now quite close to vietnam and that border
and waterfall I reached on that trip), but the mountains in vietnam
weren't as big or as impressive and it was in the winter so the rice
fields were all burned and brown instead of glimmering green like they
are now at the end of the rainy season (though it still is sort of
rainy season now I guess). When I reached xingping, I had some
gorgeous views over the river (another cute little old chinese town)
before it started to POUR. And down it came. I took off my shirt in
order to keep it dry (I always carry with me a dry bag and a
waterproof backpack cover when in se asia (this is now technically se
asia again) and rode off into the rain. It was coming down so hard
that at times it hurt my skin, but at least it's a quite warm rain and
it was like taking a nice shower to rinse all my sweat off (it's
insanely hot and humid here, more so than anywhere I was while in se
asia except for maybe the jungle, but then it wasn't as hot in the
jungle...you pour sweat hear even if you are doing nothing, it's just
that humid). The chinese sitting under shelters the whole way found
it quite humorous I think to see the foreigner biking away in the
rain. But I had to bike as opposed to grab some shelter bc I had 28
kms to go before it got dark. I was definitely pushing it, and it
felt quite good. When travelling, you hardly do any real workouts.
Felt like lance pounding through the rain, and of course what always
made it even more fun and made you go even faster was that on the bike
I could catch and pass the rickshaws (motorized tricycles/tuk tuks)
which always gave the drivers quite the surprise. Before I made it
back to yangshuo it stopped raining and I was treated to some nice
scenery of mist over the karsts.
That night after drying off I sat with the other guests of the hostels
drinking some beer, eating hot pots and dumpings and watching dear
john and then pirate radio (highly recommend this one).
9/6 I was going to do this one bike ride today, but I found out 3
people were doing this hike (that may be tricky in finding directions)
so I decided to join them. We took the bus to Yandi where we then
hiked the 22km along the Li river amongst the towering karsts to
Xingping before taking a bus back. The scenery along the river and
with the karsts, was of course just brilliantly gorgeous. Still
breathtaking. As the gal on the trip put it, she wanted to put how
beautiful the peaks are into poetry, but she couldn't think of it.
Though she did say that the skyline often looked like the ekg of
irregular heart beats. Not only was the hike great, but the group was
fun too. Everyone was quite funny and we had a good time. Richard (a
chinese american from the OC) is travelling through china for 3 months
and was quite helpful with his chinese. We had to barter for 3
different ferry crossings and also ask for directions at some point.
He also helped us to get an amazing meal at just some random home
along the river. Hano, from germany, who is a huge rock climber and
has been here for 40 days climbing. And the 3rd was Lauren from
Melbourne who is on a 9 week paid vacation. She works for the aussie
gov't (give me that job). But she spent 5 weeks of her vacation
volunteering at an orphange in cambodia. Perhaps the most interesting
thing about her is that she is on the australia national ultimate
frisbee team. She said most people aren't impressed by this, but I
was. She said that she was going to be carrying lots of frisbees to
give out to people while travelling and she would have given one to
me, but her boyfriend forgot to pack the frisbee bag into the car when
he drove her to the airport.
Tonight will be more movies and the a bike ride I think tomorrow. The
weather today, though not sunny, wasn't raining! So I hope this
continues. It is just really insanely gorgeous here. Wish I could
somehow describe it better, but I think you just have to see it. This
place combined with huangshan is like the china in animations or
cartoons. How they always try to make things more spectacular in like
cartoons...well this is it. Ahhh China, so beautiful!
great firewall of china part 6: "murder" on the orient express
I really like the chinese people. They are so friendly and smiley and
always saying hello. They are also so helpful, and even when they
don't speak english, they really try to help you. For example, in
tunkou when I was trying to find my guesthouse, I went into a china
mobile office. THe girl there knew a small amount of english, but
couldn't help, so she called over another gal to help. SHe also
couldn't help, so she went next door to get someone that knew better
english. She still couldn't quite understand, so she called on her
mobile a friend that knew great english and in that way I was able to
get help. And when I am on busses or hiking or whatever, if there is
a chinese that knows english, you can be assured that they will try to
talk to me and be my new friend (and take a picture with me).
Sometime I get really annoyed when they spit or whatnot on the trains,
but then they smile and try to communicate with me and I can no longer
be annoyed with them.
9/3-9/4 Got up bright and early to catch the bus from tonkou to
nanchang. On a whim for some reason, I went to the internet cafe
early in the morning to see if I could find an english chinese train
schedule. I found one and saw that if my bus really took 8 hours like
they said it would to reach nanchang, I would only have 1/2 and hour
to get a train. I looked up wuhan, another option and saw that they
had two later options, but a 12:40 am option. So I decided to switch
this as I didn't want to miss a connection and waste a day in some big
chinese city. Well it was a good thing I did bc the bus to wuhan
(also supposed to take 8 hours) took 12. On the bus their happened to
be two germans (thomas and kirsten) who were quite nice and made the
fact that we were going to be late a bit more bearable, bc they were
at least fun to laugh about the problems of chinese transport with.
We stopped for lunch at this roadside, house, basically. You walk
into the kitchen, open the fridge, point to what meat and veggies you
want, and then they cook it up. Quite funny, considering the whole
bus did this. On the bus I also met two chinese students (can't
remember their chinese names) from Wuhan. After it was apparent I
wouldn't catch the early connecting trains, they said it may be
possible to catch a bus.
Well, once we got into wuhan we were the 2nd car behind an accident,
so we had to wait for a while, and then there was a massive traffic
jam. When we finally got to wuhan at about 8:20pm, we found out that
the sleeper bus to guilin had left at 8pm. In my frenzy to get off
the bus I left my CU hat on the bus. Not the best omen for the
upcoming CU/CSU game, the 2nd most important game of the season (if
you don't know what the 1st is, then you don't know me at all).
Sometimes during my travel I have met people that I am sure must be
angels helping me. My favorite angel was a woman with the kindest
face at the bus station in marakech morocco who helped to soothe me
when I was sure I was going to miss my flight from marrakesh back to
NYC (I ended up arriving at the airport for that international flight
1 hour before take off and bording the plan just before it pulled out
of the gates). Well, I felt like these two students were angels of
sorts. It was pouring rain in wuhan, so no place you want to be
wondering around in lost. They took me straight to the train station
where they convinced everyone that the foreigner needed to cut the
line and helped me to buy tickets to guilin. The tickets were sold
out for the 12:40 am train, but they were able to get me the standing
room only tickets.
Since we had some time to killl before the train, they took me out to
eat (and treated me against my protestations) at their favorite noodle
place. They also had a very unique rice wine with rice still in it.
I borded the train, which was 30 minutes late. I figured it would be
a long ride. It was the typical crowded hard-seat train, except this
time I was standing. About 3 hours into it and about 4 in the
morning, when I was having trouble staying awake and reading, even
while standing, a seat opened up and I was able to get a seat. But
even then I had some trouble sleeping as the seats are extremely
uncomfortable, you are always playing footwars with the person across
from you and the air con was turned up to freezing. Even with my
sweatshirt I was so cold. It was your typical chinese 3rd class train
too with people spitting into the aisle, blowing their nose into the
aisle, etc, etc. The toilet (asian squat toilets) had clogged, so it
was overflowing, so the toilet was nasty and of course everyone was
walking around the train with toilet stuff on their shoes. Some
people who didn't have seats laid out newspapers to sleep on the
floor. I was not about to do that even if I hadn't gotten a seat,
though I had been thinking about putting my backpack on the floor and
sitting on it. But like I said, I luckily got a seat after a few
hours. It didn't help things that I was reading agatha christie's
murder on the orient express about a murder on a gorgeous train where
everyone has private rooms and nice beds and all that. Kept dreaming
I was on that one. To tell you how long the day was, me a slow
reader, read the entire 350 page novel from the time I left tunkou
until I arrived in guilin.
Once I got to guilin, I took a bus to yangshuo. When I got there I
was tired, hungry and there was the threat of rain, so I wasn't my
normal good self about looking for a good place to stay. Instead I
took the option of the first tout I came across. The room was
actually pretty good (8 bucks for my own room with ensuite bathroom
and a fan) but it was in a chinese hotel and there were no other
people to meet up with to do things here. At the internet cafe that
afternoon, I got an email from Leon (i hung out with in ulan baatar)
that he was staying at this cool hostel. So the next day, I broke my
contract at the place I was staying with (didn't feel too bad bc the
guy was kind of a liar and scammer and I had to pay a bit of a fine
for breaking it anyways) and went over to the other hostel. It was a
great move since the dorms there were $3.50, had air con, had free
water, free laundry, nice employees, bike rentals for 1/2 the price,
american dvd's on a flat screen at night (movie nights can be fun),
great and cheap food, and big beers for under 1 dollar (unusual at
tourist hostels). And best of all there were plenty of people to
meet. Thank goodness for Leon!
I walked around yangshuo a bit that night. It's a gorgeous old style
chinese town set amongst beautiful karst peaks and along the li river.
The town was hopping with tons of chinese tourists and the main
pedestrian streets were quite interesting to walk through with all the
clubs, eateries, and other tourist places. That night I also took a
tour to see the commorant fishing, where fishermen use these commerant
birds to catch fish for them. They tie something around their necks
and then the birds swim underwater alongside the boat catching fish.
The fisherman pulls them out and empties their mouth of fish.
always saying hello. They are also so helpful, and even when they
don't speak english, they really try to help you. For example, in
tunkou when I was trying to find my guesthouse, I went into a china
mobile office. THe girl there knew a small amount of english, but
couldn't help, so she called over another gal to help. SHe also
couldn't help, so she went next door to get someone that knew better
english. She still couldn't quite understand, so she called on her
mobile a friend that knew great english and in that way I was able to
get help. And when I am on busses or hiking or whatever, if there is
a chinese that knows english, you can be assured that they will try to
talk to me and be my new friend (and take a picture with me).
Sometime I get really annoyed when they spit or whatnot on the trains,
but then they smile and try to communicate with me and I can no longer
be annoyed with them.
9/3-9/4 Got up bright and early to catch the bus from tonkou to
nanchang. On a whim for some reason, I went to the internet cafe
early in the morning to see if I could find an english chinese train
schedule. I found one and saw that if my bus really took 8 hours like
they said it would to reach nanchang, I would only have 1/2 and hour
to get a train. I looked up wuhan, another option and saw that they
had two later options, but a 12:40 am option. So I decided to switch
this as I didn't want to miss a connection and waste a day in some big
chinese city. Well it was a good thing I did bc the bus to wuhan
(also supposed to take 8 hours) took 12. On the bus their happened to
be two germans (thomas and kirsten) who were quite nice and made the
fact that we were going to be late a bit more bearable, bc they were
at least fun to laugh about the problems of chinese transport with.
We stopped for lunch at this roadside, house, basically. You walk
into the kitchen, open the fridge, point to what meat and veggies you
want, and then they cook it up. Quite funny, considering the whole
bus did this. On the bus I also met two chinese students (can't
remember their chinese names) from Wuhan. After it was apparent I
wouldn't catch the early connecting trains, they said it may be
possible to catch a bus.
Well, once we got into wuhan we were the 2nd car behind an accident,
so we had to wait for a while, and then there was a massive traffic
jam. When we finally got to wuhan at about 8:20pm, we found out that
the sleeper bus to guilin had left at 8pm. In my frenzy to get off
the bus I left my CU hat on the bus. Not the best omen for the
upcoming CU/CSU game, the 2nd most important game of the season (if
you don't know what the 1st is, then you don't know me at all).
Sometimes during my travel I have met people that I am sure must be
angels helping me. My favorite angel was a woman with the kindest
face at the bus station in marakech morocco who helped to soothe me
when I was sure I was going to miss my flight from marrakesh back to
NYC (I ended up arriving at the airport for that international flight
1 hour before take off and bording the plan just before it pulled out
of the gates). Well, I felt like these two students were angels of
sorts. It was pouring rain in wuhan, so no place you want to be
wondering around in lost. They took me straight to the train station
where they convinced everyone that the foreigner needed to cut the
line and helped me to buy tickets to guilin. The tickets were sold
out for the 12:40 am train, but they were able to get me the standing
room only tickets.
Since we had some time to killl before the train, they took me out to
eat (and treated me against my protestations) at their favorite noodle
place. They also had a very unique rice wine with rice still in it.
I borded the train, which was 30 minutes late. I figured it would be
a long ride. It was the typical crowded hard-seat train, except this
time I was standing. About 3 hours into it and about 4 in the
morning, when I was having trouble staying awake and reading, even
while standing, a seat opened up and I was able to get a seat. But
even then I had some trouble sleeping as the seats are extremely
uncomfortable, you are always playing footwars with the person across
from you and the air con was turned up to freezing. Even with my
sweatshirt I was so cold. It was your typical chinese 3rd class train
too with people spitting into the aisle, blowing their nose into the
aisle, etc, etc. The toilet (asian squat toilets) had clogged, so it
was overflowing, so the toilet was nasty and of course everyone was
walking around the train with toilet stuff on their shoes. Some
people who didn't have seats laid out newspapers to sleep on the
floor. I was not about to do that even if I hadn't gotten a seat,
though I had been thinking about putting my backpack on the floor and
sitting on it. But like I said, I luckily got a seat after a few
hours. It didn't help things that I was reading agatha christie's
murder on the orient express about a murder on a gorgeous train where
everyone has private rooms and nice beds and all that. Kept dreaming
I was on that one. To tell you how long the day was, me a slow
reader, read the entire 350 page novel from the time I left tunkou
until I arrived in guilin.
Once I got to guilin, I took a bus to yangshuo. When I got there I
was tired, hungry and there was the threat of rain, so I wasn't my
normal good self about looking for a good place to stay. Instead I
took the option of the first tout I came across. The room was
actually pretty good (8 bucks for my own room with ensuite bathroom
and a fan) but it was in a chinese hotel and there were no other
people to meet up with to do things here. At the internet cafe that
afternoon, I got an email from Leon (i hung out with in ulan baatar)
that he was staying at this cool hostel. So the next day, I broke my
contract at the place I was staying with (didn't feel too bad bc the
guy was kind of a liar and scammer and I had to pay a bit of a fine
for breaking it anyways) and went over to the other hostel. It was a
great move since the dorms there were $3.50, had air con, had free
water, free laundry, nice employees, bike rentals for 1/2 the price,
american dvd's on a flat screen at night (movie nights can be fun),
great and cheap food, and big beers for under 1 dollar (unusual at
tourist hostels). And best of all there were plenty of people to
meet. Thank goodness for Leon!
I walked around yangshuo a bit that night. It's a gorgeous old style
chinese town set amongst beautiful karst peaks and along the li river.
The town was hopping with tons of chinese tourists and the main
pedestrian streets were quite interesting to walk through with all the
clubs, eateries, and other tourist places. That night I also took a
tour to see the commorant fishing, where fishermen use these commerant
birds to catch fish for them. They tie something around their necks
and then the birds swim underwater alongside the boat catching fish.
The fisherman pulls them out and empties their mouth of fish.
The great firewall of china part 5: Walking in the clouds
8/30 As the train system in china is a bit corrupt (which makes
independent travel here difficult) with the tour agencies being
allowed first dibs on tickets, it is tough to get the hard sleeper
(best value) train tickets. The other options are the expensive 1st
class soft sleeper or the hard seat. Lukas went to the train ticket
office exactly when it opened 10 days before my departure date (when
they start selling tickets) and the hard sleeper was already sold out.
So I had the hard seat for the 20 hour journey to Huang Shan. The
seat itself would be ok, but the thing is they don't just sell tickets
for the seats, but standing room as well. So it is incredibly
crowded. Add onto that the chinese' standards of cleanliness and it
became not the most pleasant journey. See the chinese have no problem
spitting everywhere. So even in the train there were spitting all
over. Down by your feet or into the aisle. They just throw their
trash, left over food, etc onto the floor as well. They do farmer
nose blows into the aisle too. They aren't supposed to smoke in the
train area but between the cars, but this is not really followed
either. The chiense also have not awareness of being loud. They are
yelling and talking loudly constantly and all through the night (my
ears are hurting even now as I am in the computer lab with headphones
on as everyone is screaming around as they play their computer games
and talk on skype. But luckily I had a good book, an ipod, and a neck
pillow so I was able to try and block most of it out and even sleep a
bit. I am hoping to avoid this kind of thing again, but my next train
to guilin will be buying a ticket the day of, so i may even have to
take standing only!
8/31 I Arrived in Tunxi and took a bus to Tonkou where I then took a
bus to the base of Huang Shan (Huang = yellow, Shan = mountain) Huang
Shan is supposed to be the most beautiful mountain in china, and I
can't argue with that. It is however, very chinese in that they took
a very natural and scenic area and built fancy hotels on the top and
have 3 gondolas going to the top so as to avoid the walk. It is also
full of megaphone toting tour guides (the chinese seem to only travel
in tour groups, even in their own country). But despite all of this,
I was still absolutely amazed by huang shan.
I, unlike the chinese, walked the 10 km trail up to the summit. It
was one of the steepest trails I had ever done over a distance of that
long. The mountain shoots straight up (from less than 500m to
1860m...less than 1660 feet to 6200 feet). The first part you do
ascend on the bus, so I am not sure the actual elevation I went up in
my 10 km's, but it was so steep that there was a no point a normal
trail. The entire time it was stairs built into the mountain. There
was really no one on the trail except for porters carrying huge loads
of goods up to the mountains for the restaurants and tourist shops (I
have no idea, other than crowds, why the gondolas aren't used). There
were some stunning views up the canyon as I sweated out the hike
through the humid (nearly jungly like vegetation) trail. I reached
the rim of the mountain and got to look down on some gorgeous views of
the mountain with all its spikey granite spires. The mountain is
interesting b/c it's a huge granite mountain that goes straight,
straight up, but then on the top there is a big area that is not
nearly so steep with hundgreds of small little summits. They have a
special type of tree here--don't know the real name, but the latin
name is pinus taiwanensis) that grows in a really cool fashion
attached to the side of the cliffs and with needles on only one side,
giving them a cool shape especially in the fog. As soon as I got to
the top I started exploring some of the summits that are supposed to
have good views. I caught some views at a few of them before the
dense fog rolled in. So I went to my hotel (I would be staying in a
dormitory with about 100 chinese tourists on organized tours). boiled
some water for the noodles I carried up (you can imagine that food up
there is too expensive). After my lunch I headed out into the fog to
see if I could see any more vistas. Occassionaly there would be a
slight opening, but not much. I ran into a chinese guy (english named
david) who was a dentist (but still staying at dorms...I hope my
dentist friend and her model husband still travel the budget way like
this guy) and we explored around together. There is just a maze of
trails (almost all stairs) going everywhere. He had been there before
and took me to some of his spots. One area was closed but he said it
was ok to jump the gate. He said no chinese would do this, so we
would have it all to ourself. And indeed we did. On occassion we
could see the monkey looking into the sea (a rock looking like a
monkey looking out over the clouds). I loved all the cool names they
had for the peaks and rocks around like refreshing peak, cloud
dispelling peak, lotus peak, bright top, beginning to believe peak,
reaching for heaven peak, capital heaven peak, etc, etc. David's
english wasn't too good, but we managed to get along well. He invited
me to come swimming at his dormitory (which I was surprised the had a
pool) as my place didn't even have a shower. However, swimming meant
shower, which was still nice. However, I didn't need the shower b/c
right after mine as I was taking the 3km walk back to my dorm area it
poured and poured and waterfalls and streams were rushing everywhere.
Back at my dorm I met, Jacque, a taiwanese canadian. She was on one
of the group tours, but looking to get away. She was on the group
tour b/c her friend she was travelling with had had to suddenly go
home and she just found it so difficult and trying to travel through
china alone so she was doing group tours as she could speak chinese.
She was fun to talk to as she was a lot like me and one of the few
people that had at least expressed to me some of the same things I was
feeling. She also had done a pre med program at her school in Toronto
and decided to go travel through SE asia in order to "find herself"
and hope to have some elightening vision as to what she should do. It
didn't come (as it didn't for me in se asia either) so she moved to
work in Zurich. She then decided it was time again to go out
travelling and see if she could figure something out so she has been
on a trip going through the middle east and coming to china. Her trip
ends in a couple of weeks and she is still not sure about what she
wants to do. She is feeling the pressure of all her other friends
having savings and real jobs and houses, etc (a bit like me and that
ever present american dream), but she still doesn't know what she will
do, so she may move back to europe. So it was neat to hear from
someone that has a lot of the same things as me. We also had a good
time laughing about all the idosyncrasies (and disgusting habits) of
the chinese. That night at 3:30 the lights in the dorm went on, it
got really noisy and all the chinese were getting up. The sunrise is
something you must see on huang shan, but I couldn't figure out why
they were getting up so early. It is still uknownn to me.
9/1 I tried to get back to sleep and woke up at a decent time of 5:30
to go check out the sunrise, which was a no go as it was a soupy fog.
The guide book says that the weather on the mountain is a roll of the
dice so plan several days there, so I am assuming that it is often
like this. One of the cool things you hope to see is the "sea" of
clouds below the mountains with the huge granite spires poking out and
seemingly floating above them. I don't know if it's true or not, but
a big sign at the visitor center boasts that this place is where they
got the idea for the floating mountains in Avatar. I could definitely
see that. The peaks here are stunning. When I couldn't see the
sunrise, I headed off to meet up with David where I joined him and 4
chinese students on a long trek called the west great canyon. As soon
as we approached the trailhead, the fog broke free and we were treated
to an absolutely stunning view. It seriously made me jump a little
and want to yell. The jagged peaks were rising straight up with fog
and mist below them. Just like the floating mountains. The rest of
the day and hike the mist would go in and out, but we had many
stunning views. The trail we took was definitely the most awesomely
engineered trail I had ever been on. It traversed down the canyon,
across it, and back up it. Losing and then gaining tons of altitude.
What made it so impressive was that there was really no possible
places along the whole canyon to build a trail. So it was basically a
trail built by attaching stairs and concrete to the cliffs and making
tunnels and seemingly impossible bridges. I still have no idea how
they build this trail. I would be like building a trail for hikers
going up the diamond of longs peak and traversing the keyboard of the
winds. The scenery was stunning but it was also just cool to see the
trail snaking around and hugging the cliffs. Often you were on this
trail in the middle of a cliff. The trail was somehow suspended on
the clifff. Looking down was a 1000+ft drop. And you couldn't help
but wonder, is this thing really stable. And with the mist and cliffs
all around, it really felt like you were walking in the sky in the
clouds with floating mountains all around. At one point the trail did
a loop within the huge loop. It was at this exact point that I went
into a ravine to pee. When I came back, David and 2 of the students
had already gone on ahead, but two of the other students were in front
of me, so I was following them. I figured they were following david's
way (they didn't really speak english), but that was not the case. We
ended up doing the loop and thus not finding David. I could tell the
two students were worried, but I figured out the map and took them
with me for the rest of the trip. Along the way we met up with a guy
named Hung who worked in beijing for an american pharmaceutical
company. He was a cool guy and liked to come to this mountain often.
The trail and scenery were just so amazing that I can still vividly
see it in my mind. It's one of those things where pictures could
never do it justice, but hopefully I can remember it for a long time.
Once back at the top, I said goodbye to everyone and continued
exploring the peaks of the summit area as the weather was still good.
Foggy, but it would break at times allowing me to see awesome views.
I was supposed to head back down to tonkou today, but the mountain was
so impressive and I hoped for a real sunrise, so I decided on a whim
to stay another night.
9/2 Same old drill with the chinese getting up at 3:30 in the
morning. The weather in the morning was a bit better. Before the
sunrise, but while it was still light I was able to see the dark
shapes of the peak rising out over the sea of clouds. However, by the
time the sun came it was socked in. It eventually became really
socked in and although I hung around until noon reading before
exploring some more, it never cleared. So I decided to just go and
hike in the fog. I hiked up to the highest of the peaks, lotus peak
(which apparently looks like a blooming flower from above) where they
award you a gold medal for reaching the summit. I then walked around
some more cool rocky areas before beginning my descent a different way
down to get back to tongkou. Eventually I got low enough that I was
below the fog and again the scenery was awesome. At the bottom of
this trail was a cool little temple with the mountain backdrop behind
it.
During my trip here, I decided to count how many times I was asked to
be in photos with the chinese tourists, just for kicks and
giggles....64 times
On the bus back I met some americans from Central Washington
University doing genetic primate research on the monkeys in the area
for their masters. Thought that was pretty cool
I loved Huang Shan and it's one of those few places I would definitely
love to come back to even though I know there is so much more to
explore in the world. It was just really mystical and magical. I
would have loved to have a really clear day to really get some 360 and
panoramic views, but the weather could have been much worse I think
and in the end the clouds and mist helped to make it even more
mystical. If you've ever looked at some of the paintings at chinese
restuarants in america with steep, jagged mountains shrouded in mist
and the cool trees hanging off...that is just like this place. Really
great!
Tomorrow I have a bus to Nanchang where I hope to catch an overnight
train to Guilin from where I will catch a bus to Yangshuo. Keep your
fingers crossed for me.
independent travel here difficult) with the tour agencies being
allowed first dibs on tickets, it is tough to get the hard sleeper
(best value) train tickets. The other options are the expensive 1st
class soft sleeper or the hard seat. Lukas went to the train ticket
office exactly when it opened 10 days before my departure date (when
they start selling tickets) and the hard sleeper was already sold out.
So I had the hard seat for the 20 hour journey to Huang Shan. The
seat itself would be ok, but the thing is they don't just sell tickets
for the seats, but standing room as well. So it is incredibly
crowded. Add onto that the chinese' standards of cleanliness and it
became not the most pleasant journey. See the chinese have no problem
spitting everywhere. So even in the train there were spitting all
over. Down by your feet or into the aisle. They just throw their
trash, left over food, etc onto the floor as well. They do farmer
nose blows into the aisle too. They aren't supposed to smoke in the
train area but between the cars, but this is not really followed
either. The chiense also have not awareness of being loud. They are
yelling and talking loudly constantly and all through the night (my
ears are hurting even now as I am in the computer lab with headphones
on as everyone is screaming around as they play their computer games
and talk on skype. But luckily I had a good book, an ipod, and a neck
pillow so I was able to try and block most of it out and even sleep a
bit. I am hoping to avoid this kind of thing again, but my next train
to guilin will be buying a ticket the day of, so i may even have to
take standing only!
8/31 I Arrived in Tunxi and took a bus to Tonkou where I then took a
bus to the base of Huang Shan (Huang = yellow, Shan = mountain) Huang
Shan is supposed to be the most beautiful mountain in china, and I
can't argue with that. It is however, very chinese in that they took
a very natural and scenic area and built fancy hotels on the top and
have 3 gondolas going to the top so as to avoid the walk. It is also
full of megaphone toting tour guides (the chinese seem to only travel
in tour groups, even in their own country). But despite all of this,
I was still absolutely amazed by huang shan.
I, unlike the chinese, walked the 10 km trail up to the summit. It
was one of the steepest trails I had ever done over a distance of that
long. The mountain shoots straight up (from less than 500m to
1860m...less than 1660 feet to 6200 feet). The first part you do
ascend on the bus, so I am not sure the actual elevation I went up in
my 10 km's, but it was so steep that there was a no point a normal
trail. The entire time it was stairs built into the mountain. There
was really no one on the trail except for porters carrying huge loads
of goods up to the mountains for the restaurants and tourist shops (I
have no idea, other than crowds, why the gondolas aren't used). There
were some stunning views up the canyon as I sweated out the hike
through the humid (nearly jungly like vegetation) trail. I reached
the rim of the mountain and got to look down on some gorgeous views of
the mountain with all its spikey granite spires. The mountain is
interesting b/c it's a huge granite mountain that goes straight,
straight up, but then on the top there is a big area that is not
nearly so steep with hundgreds of small little summits. They have a
special type of tree here--don't know the real name, but the latin
name is pinus taiwanensis) that grows in a really cool fashion
attached to the side of the cliffs and with needles on only one side,
giving them a cool shape especially in the fog. As soon as I got to
the top I started exploring some of the summits that are supposed to
have good views. I caught some views at a few of them before the
dense fog rolled in. So I went to my hotel (I would be staying in a
dormitory with about 100 chinese tourists on organized tours). boiled
some water for the noodles I carried up (you can imagine that food up
there is too expensive). After my lunch I headed out into the fog to
see if I could see any more vistas. Occassionaly there would be a
slight opening, but not much. I ran into a chinese guy (english named
david) who was a dentist (but still staying at dorms...I hope my
dentist friend and her model husband still travel the budget way like
this guy) and we explored around together. There is just a maze of
trails (almost all stairs) going everywhere. He had been there before
and took me to some of his spots. One area was closed but he said it
was ok to jump the gate. He said no chinese would do this, so we
would have it all to ourself. And indeed we did. On occassion we
could see the monkey looking into the sea (a rock looking like a
monkey looking out over the clouds). I loved all the cool names they
had for the peaks and rocks around like refreshing peak, cloud
dispelling peak, lotus peak, bright top, beginning to believe peak,
reaching for heaven peak, capital heaven peak, etc, etc. David's
english wasn't too good, but we managed to get along well. He invited
me to come swimming at his dormitory (which I was surprised the had a
pool) as my place didn't even have a shower. However, swimming meant
shower, which was still nice. However, I didn't need the shower b/c
right after mine as I was taking the 3km walk back to my dorm area it
poured and poured and waterfalls and streams were rushing everywhere.
Back at my dorm I met, Jacque, a taiwanese canadian. She was on one
of the group tours, but looking to get away. She was on the group
tour b/c her friend she was travelling with had had to suddenly go
home and she just found it so difficult and trying to travel through
china alone so she was doing group tours as she could speak chinese.
She was fun to talk to as she was a lot like me and one of the few
people that had at least expressed to me some of the same things I was
feeling. She also had done a pre med program at her school in Toronto
and decided to go travel through SE asia in order to "find herself"
and hope to have some elightening vision as to what she should do. It
didn't come (as it didn't for me in se asia either) so she moved to
work in Zurich. She then decided it was time again to go out
travelling and see if she could figure something out so she has been
on a trip going through the middle east and coming to china. Her trip
ends in a couple of weeks and she is still not sure about what she
wants to do. She is feeling the pressure of all her other friends
having savings and real jobs and houses, etc (a bit like me and that
ever present american dream), but she still doesn't know what she will
do, so she may move back to europe. So it was neat to hear from
someone that has a lot of the same things as me. We also had a good
time laughing about all the idosyncrasies (and disgusting habits) of
the chinese. That night at 3:30 the lights in the dorm went on, it
got really noisy and all the chinese were getting up. The sunrise is
something you must see on huang shan, but I couldn't figure out why
they were getting up so early. It is still uknownn to me.
9/1 I tried to get back to sleep and woke up at a decent time of 5:30
to go check out the sunrise, which was a no go as it was a soupy fog.
The guide book says that the weather on the mountain is a roll of the
dice so plan several days there, so I am assuming that it is often
like this. One of the cool things you hope to see is the "sea" of
clouds below the mountains with the huge granite spires poking out and
seemingly floating above them. I don't know if it's true or not, but
a big sign at the visitor center boasts that this place is where they
got the idea for the floating mountains in Avatar. I could definitely
see that. The peaks here are stunning. When I couldn't see the
sunrise, I headed off to meet up with David where I joined him and 4
chinese students on a long trek called the west great canyon. As soon
as we approached the trailhead, the fog broke free and we were treated
to an absolutely stunning view. It seriously made me jump a little
and want to yell. The jagged peaks were rising straight up with fog
and mist below them. Just like the floating mountains. The rest of
the day and hike the mist would go in and out, but we had many
stunning views. The trail we took was definitely the most awesomely
engineered trail I had ever been on. It traversed down the canyon,
across it, and back up it. Losing and then gaining tons of altitude.
What made it so impressive was that there was really no possible
places along the whole canyon to build a trail. So it was basically a
trail built by attaching stairs and concrete to the cliffs and making
tunnels and seemingly impossible bridges. I still have no idea how
they build this trail. I would be like building a trail for hikers
going up the diamond of longs peak and traversing the keyboard of the
winds. The scenery was stunning but it was also just cool to see the
trail snaking around and hugging the cliffs. Often you were on this
trail in the middle of a cliff. The trail was somehow suspended on
the clifff. Looking down was a 1000+ft drop. And you couldn't help
but wonder, is this thing really stable. And with the mist and cliffs
all around, it really felt like you were walking in the sky in the
clouds with floating mountains all around. At one point the trail did
a loop within the huge loop. It was at this exact point that I went
into a ravine to pee. When I came back, David and 2 of the students
had already gone on ahead, but two of the other students were in front
of me, so I was following them. I figured they were following david's
way (they didn't really speak english), but that was not the case. We
ended up doing the loop and thus not finding David. I could tell the
two students were worried, but I figured out the map and took them
with me for the rest of the trip. Along the way we met up with a guy
named Hung who worked in beijing for an american pharmaceutical
company. He was a cool guy and liked to come to this mountain often.
The trail and scenery were just so amazing that I can still vividly
see it in my mind. It's one of those things where pictures could
never do it justice, but hopefully I can remember it for a long time.
Once back at the top, I said goodbye to everyone and continued
exploring the peaks of the summit area as the weather was still good.
Foggy, but it would break at times allowing me to see awesome views.
I was supposed to head back down to tonkou today, but the mountain was
so impressive and I hoped for a real sunrise, so I decided on a whim
to stay another night.
9/2 Same old drill with the chinese getting up at 3:30 in the
morning. The weather in the morning was a bit better. Before the
sunrise, but while it was still light I was able to see the dark
shapes of the peak rising out over the sea of clouds. However, by the
time the sun came it was socked in. It eventually became really
socked in and although I hung around until noon reading before
exploring some more, it never cleared. So I decided to just go and
hike in the fog. I hiked up to the highest of the peaks, lotus peak
(which apparently looks like a blooming flower from above) where they
award you a gold medal for reaching the summit. I then walked around
some more cool rocky areas before beginning my descent a different way
down to get back to tongkou. Eventually I got low enough that I was
below the fog and again the scenery was awesome. At the bottom of
this trail was a cool little temple with the mountain backdrop behind
it.
During my trip here, I decided to count how many times I was asked to
be in photos with the chinese tourists, just for kicks and
giggles....64 times
On the bus back I met some americans from Central Washington
University doing genetic primate research on the monkeys in the area
for their masters. Thought that was pretty cool
I loved Huang Shan and it's one of those few places I would definitely
love to come back to even though I know there is so much more to
explore in the world. It was just really mystical and magical. I
would have loved to have a really clear day to really get some 360 and
panoramic views, but the weather could have been much worse I think
and in the end the clouds and mist helped to make it even more
mystical. If you've ever looked at some of the paintings at chinese
restuarants in america with steep, jagged mountains shrouded in mist
and the cool trees hanging off...that is just like this place. Really
great!
Tomorrow I have a bus to Nanchang where I hope to catch an overnight
train to Guilin from where I will catch a bus to Yangshuo. Keep your
fingers crossed for me.
The great firewall of China part 4: The Great Wall
8/28 Lukas organized a group of people he knew from his internship
organization to go for a 2 day trek along what he considers the best
part of the great wall. He has been to many, many different parts and
this was by far his favorite part he said. Joining us in our
multinational group was Snow (china), Lin (china), Kaitlyn (Seattle),
David (Colombia), Rory (Calgary), Vincent (france), Jerry (UK), Reva
(France), Carolie (Germany), and Ogla (Ukraine). I sat on the bus
there with Jerry and he was explaining his job to me, which was quite
interesting, especially since he felt like he was actually doing
something good and making a difference, unlike most of the other
people on the trip with their jobs. Jerry was working on installing
wind turbines in China.
The part of the wall we did was Jiankao (sp?). It's a completely
unrestored part of the wall, so it is crumbling and overgrown with
plants in some places. First we had a steep climb up to the wall, and
then the walk along it began. This part of the wall is crazy
beautiful as it snakes along the ridgetops (see attached pics, if they
work...it's all in chinese, so I am assuming I attached it correctly)
of steep and gorgeous mountains. The view of the mountains around the
wall are stunning as well. So the two combined is just jaw dropping.
As the wall is not restored it gets sketchy in a bit. Before we
started on the trip lukas said he thought at some point the group
would have to split up and go our separate ways when we got to tougher
parts. There were two difficult and sketchy areas. 4 of the girls
had some difficulty on the first very steep part, but we were able to
get them up by helping them find hand holds and footholds and by
taking their packs for them. The 2nd obstacle was a jimmy rigged
ladder made from some tree branches. The ladder was very sturdy, but
the problem was that it was over a very high and exposed drop and the
ladder was missing it's top rungs, which meant that you had to use
your strength to pull yourself up without having rungs and just using
the vertical poles. It was definitely difficulty and got the heart
beating, but it wasn't really that bad. However, the no wrungs scared
several of the girls and even 2 of the guys. We thought we were going
to have to split the group here, but we managed to get everyone up by
again taking backpacks and then setting up a belay device to give the
nervous people some security in case they were to fall. It really
wasn't too much of a risk of falling as the ladder was sturdy and
there were some footholes to use at the top where the rungs were
missing. It was more the fear of heights that got most people. After
that last obstacle, it was just a steep walk up to the large 9 eyes
tower where we spent the night. The view from this tower, one of the
highest points on the wall, was simply stunning especially during
sunset and sunrise. You could just look straight down on the other
towers and parts of the wall. The next day, the hike was half along
un restored wall (but easier) and then onto the Mutiany portion of the
wall, a full restored area catering to chinese tourists (cable car up
to the top so you don't have to hike). This part of the wall was also
quite impressive and it was nice to see what the wall must have looked
like back in the day when it was built.
That evening Lukas and I went to one of the big markets in beijing
where you buy all the fake things. He is leaving to go back to Czech
R soon, and he needed a suitcase. I am heading to the himalaya
shortly, so I also could use a nice jacket. I remember when Nathan
Handel came back from studying in China and he had all those fake
north face items. Well they had all that there. North face, marmot,
mammut, arc teryx, etc. Of course I was only interested in outerwear,
but you could buy anything you wanted in this place from designer
shirts, to suits to electronics to shoes. Just anything. And of
course at REDICULOUSLY cheap prices. They are fake items, so probably
not quite as good as the real thing nor coming with the lifetime
guarentee that say marmot gives, but for the price you could by like
10 of the things to 1 in america. And when you think about it, most
of these things are made in asia anyways, so they are probably just
copied from the real factory. A quick look at the tags on the stuff
I have here shows that. My mountain hardware tech shirts (made in
vietnam), my north face fleece and TNF shorts (made in china), my
marmot rain shell (made in cambodia), my hiking boots (made in
singapore) and my REI shorts (made in malaysia). I do have a few
local things still though (Kelty daypack made in Boulder, CO and
Osprey backpack made in Cortez, CO). I ended up buying a really nice
mammut softshell jacket for 15 bucks (probably close to 300 not on
sale back home). The fakes are done really well too. They look just
like the originals and even come with the same tags describing the
product, etc, etc. Lukas got a nice swiss suitcase set for 20 bucks.
That night Lukas and his friends I had met while I was there had a bit
of a party at Helen's.
organization to go for a 2 day trek along what he considers the best
part of the great wall. He has been to many, many different parts and
this was by far his favorite part he said. Joining us in our
multinational group was Snow (china), Lin (china), Kaitlyn (Seattle),
David (Colombia), Rory (Calgary), Vincent (france), Jerry (UK), Reva
(France), Carolie (Germany), and Ogla (Ukraine). I sat on the bus
there with Jerry and he was explaining his job to me, which was quite
interesting, especially since he felt like he was actually doing
something good and making a difference, unlike most of the other
people on the trip with their jobs. Jerry was working on installing
wind turbines in China.
The part of the wall we did was Jiankao (sp?). It's a completely
unrestored part of the wall, so it is crumbling and overgrown with
plants in some places. First we had a steep climb up to the wall, and
then the walk along it began. This part of the wall is crazy
beautiful as it snakes along the ridgetops (see attached pics, if they
work...it's all in chinese, so I am assuming I attached it correctly)
of steep and gorgeous mountains. The view of the mountains around the
wall are stunning as well. So the two combined is just jaw dropping.
As the wall is not restored it gets sketchy in a bit. Before we
started on the trip lukas said he thought at some point the group
would have to split up and go our separate ways when we got to tougher
parts. There were two difficult and sketchy areas. 4 of the girls
had some difficulty on the first very steep part, but we were able to
get them up by helping them find hand holds and footholds and by
taking their packs for them. The 2nd obstacle was a jimmy rigged
ladder made from some tree branches. The ladder was very sturdy, but
the problem was that it was over a very high and exposed drop and the
ladder was missing it's top rungs, which meant that you had to use
your strength to pull yourself up without having rungs and just using
the vertical poles. It was definitely difficulty and got the heart
beating, but it wasn't really that bad. However, the no wrungs scared
several of the girls and even 2 of the guys. We thought we were going
to have to split the group here, but we managed to get everyone up by
again taking backpacks and then setting up a belay device to give the
nervous people some security in case they were to fall. It really
wasn't too much of a risk of falling as the ladder was sturdy and
there were some footholes to use at the top where the rungs were
missing. It was more the fear of heights that got most people. After
that last obstacle, it was just a steep walk up to the large 9 eyes
tower where we spent the night. The view from this tower, one of the
highest points on the wall, was simply stunning especially during
sunset and sunrise. You could just look straight down on the other
towers and parts of the wall. The next day, the hike was half along
un restored wall (but easier) and then onto the Mutiany portion of the
wall, a full restored area catering to chinese tourists (cable car up
to the top so you don't have to hike). This part of the wall was also
quite impressive and it was nice to see what the wall must have looked
like back in the day when it was built.
That evening Lukas and I went to one of the big markets in beijing
where you buy all the fake things. He is leaving to go back to Czech
R soon, and he needed a suitcase. I am heading to the himalaya
shortly, so I also could use a nice jacket. I remember when Nathan
Handel came back from studying in China and he had all those fake
north face items. Well they had all that there. North face, marmot,
mammut, arc teryx, etc. Of course I was only interested in outerwear,
but you could buy anything you wanted in this place from designer
shirts, to suits to electronics to shoes. Just anything. And of
course at REDICULOUSLY cheap prices. They are fake items, so probably
not quite as good as the real thing nor coming with the lifetime
guarentee that say marmot gives, but for the price you could by like
10 of the things to 1 in america. And when you think about it, most
of these things are made in asia anyways, so they are probably just
copied from the real factory. A quick look at the tags on the stuff
I have here shows that. My mountain hardware tech shirts (made in
vietnam), my north face fleece and TNF shorts (made in china), my
marmot rain shell (made in cambodia), my hiking boots (made in
singapore) and my REI shorts (made in malaysia). I do have a few
local things still though (Kelty daypack made in Boulder, CO and
Osprey backpack made in Cortez, CO). I ended up buying a really nice
mammut softshell jacket for 15 bucks (probably close to 300 not on
sale back home). The fakes are done really well too. They look just
like the originals and even come with the same tags describing the
product, etc, etc. Lukas got a nice swiss suitcase set for 20 bucks.
That night Lukas and his friends I had met while I was there had a bit
of a party at Helen's.
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