Andrew’s Travel Blog - China 2008

Zhongdian

Sarah, Simon and I flew to Zhongdian (Shangri-La), which is on the edge of the Tibetan Plateau but inside Yunnan province, so no permit problems. You often hear that Shangri-La is very Tibetan, and a good example of Tibet if you can’t actually make it up there. We were originally planning to come here for exactly that reason from Chengdu via the southern Sichuan Tibet highway.

Well, as we were flying in, the plane weaving its way through slim valleys below ridges and sometimes worryingly close to the ground to the side, it was very clear that the place was very much China and had little to zero Tibetan influence. As the taxi drove us into the centre it looked like any other Chinese small town, not a single Tibetan influence other than restaurants claiming to serve Tibetan food. This did not however mean that the place would be dull, it certainly had a bit of character to it. The taxi dropped us off at the entrance to the pedestrianised old town (which is actualy newer than the rest of town…) and we set off on the hunt for our hostel.

It now occurred to us that just the old town section was supposed to be Tibetan. But to be honest, nothing was Tibetan. The architecture was clearly southwest Chinese, the shops were the same tourist crap you find all over China, nothing Tibetan was in sight. Was this “close to Tibet” rumour a Chinese invention to make people think Tibet is just like China…

We spent the afternoon wandering around the old town, we tried some cheese which was made from yak cow cross breeds, which was actually quite nice, much better than the foul yak cheese we had been forcing down for the past week in Tibet. We walked up to a monastery on top of a small hill in the middle of town. It had a huge prayer wheel next to it, which didn’t really look like the Buddhists of the monastery had any choice in its presence. Later we learnt it was put there by the government to try and attract more tourists to the region, the Chinese love to have the biggest of everything! Other than this there was nothing much to the town, we had seen it all in an afternoon.

Now hang on a minute, I’m depicting Zhongdian as a pretty crap place. The old town certainly has character; it’s an interesting lively place. The shop keepers seem friendly and although we didn’t buy anything, I doubt they would try to scam you with silly prices. The locals mostly dress in modern adaptations of traditional clothing, which were either one of the many minority groups found in Yunnan, or actually Tibetan. Every evening they would all stop whatever they were doing to go to the old town square and dance together, celebrating life I suppose. The food was actually quite good, a safe mix of Tibetan and Chinese, and the population seemed predominantly Tibetan which is certainly not bad thing!

We had two nights booked at our hostel, but we had seen everything in one afternoon, so what were we to do!? Well we didn’t do much, just relaxed. The lonely planet recommended trying a local wine… now this surprised us, every Chinese wine I have tried up until then has been utterly awful. I mean so awful that you have to spit it out and sink the bottle, yes worse than the Jack Rabbit they serve at the Union! Firstly, this wine isn’t actually Chinese, it’s Tibetan! French missionaries some time ago taught a group of Tibetans living in this area of Yunnan how to make wine properly, and luckily they kept it up! It’s actually called Shangri-La Cabernet Sauvignon! (Look out for the bottle with a church on the front). It was remarkably nice, and very good to get my wine fix since the French wine we had at the top of the Jin Mao 6 weeks ago in Shanghai!

Zhongdian

Tiger Leaping Gorge

So after two days of chilling out in Shangri La, we started the long journey by land descending from the Tibetan Plateau. The journey would take us through Tiger Leaping Gorgre, Lijiang, Dali, and finally down into Xishuangbanna a week later.

We caught a bus to Qiaotou, the top of Tiger Leaping gorge, but actually the bottom of the gorge path. We wanted to start at the north east end, and walk up the gorge, which is oddly mainly downhill. But access to Daju, the town at the end of the gorge, is very inaccessible from Zhongdian. So to avoid an expensive private car journey we opted to take the more common route from the south west.

Now I’ve been here before, last year I walked from Qiaotou to half way lodge. But during the night it rained so heavily that landslides made it too dangerous to continue, and we were short on time too. So I was happy to do it again with Simon and Sarah, hoping it make it to the end this time! We set off at about 12:30, which shouldn’t be too late to make it to Half Way lodge before it gets dark. We were carrying our big bags with everything, last year I just took a small day bag with my camera and a few essentials, but this time I wanted to achieve the whole thing with everything on my back! The first bit is steady uphill, not very steep and a good introduction to the gorge. A few hours in we arrived at 28 bends which is unsurprisingly 28 bends up a very steep slope. I was already struggling with the weight, but kept plodding on. Sarah also had trouble so we stuck her bag on a horse for the 28 bends. Simon of course had no problem, “just like a strenuous badminton session” he said! The path is still around 2100 to 2600m altitude, so the air is quite thin.

At 17:00 Simon got a call from Mum and Dad, they were at Simon’s school in Portsmouth at 10am and had just collected Simons A level results. Very good news! A photo of the spot where Simon got his results is in the photo album.

We made our intended lunch stop very late, at about 17:30. At this point we probably should have stopped and stayed there for the night, but we were eager to reach half way lodge as this is the best lodge in the Gorge and it’s obviously roughly half way along it, oh and it of course is where Michael Palin stayed! After a tough walk we finally reached the lodge, it was almost pitch black and the last km or so was quite hairy! By chance there was an American staying there who we met in Chengdu almost two weeks before. This is actually quite a common occurrence when you’re travelling around China.

We woke up the next morning quite late, and came out the room to find we were the only travellers left, everyone else had long moved along the path! We enjoyed breakfast with one of the most stunning views in China, note the photos with our mugs of hot chocolate in front of the Gorge wall! On we went, towards Sean’s Guest house, as far along the gorge that is worth walking. Today’s walk was considerably shorter, but incredibly painful as we were aching all over from the day before. We checked into Sean’s only a few hours later. Sean’s was reported in the Lonely Planet as one of the best and original Guest houses so we were looking forward to it. Turned out it was pretty crap and a certainly wouldn’t recommend it considering there are loads of others around, Tina’s being a km down the road and looked very nice. The beds smelt of urine, the menu was only western food, no Chinese, and that western food was pretty damn poor apart from the pizzas! Anyway, we left our bags there and head down, directly down, to reach the water. After an hour of wandering, fending off massive yellow spiders and sliding down crazy muddy paths we gave up! We just couldn’t find our way through the jungle. Then on the way back we noticed a small path… Simon and I clambered down, and there we were, it was worth it! On the way back we were getting really dehydrated and when we came across a tap simply couldn’t resist the mountain water. The way the locals have plumbed up their water supplies is quite simple yet impressive. They run a very long pipe almost directly up the mountain from their houses, all the way up, often gaining way over a km of altitude, then stick a funnel on the end and under a mountain waterfall or other fresh water source. Cleanest water we had had since we came to China!

The following day we set off, intending to walk along the road, then clamber down to the ferry and climb up to Daju, then take a bus down to Lijiang. As we were leaving a woman at the guest house sopped us and warned us that as the bus from Daju goes through the Jade Snow Mountain area, we would have to pay the entrance fee as if we were going to the peak, which is 180 yuan or something similarly outrageous. She offered to take us back to Qiaotou where you avoid this charge for 100yuan. Now she could have simply been conning us into the lift, but we did know the road from Daju to Lijiang went through the JSM area, and the Chinese staff at JSM were very unlikely to listen to simple reasoning like “we are just passing through”, she was likely to be telling the truth. But we really wanted to see the end of the gorge, especially me as that was why i had walked it all again! So we negotiated with her and got a lift to the end first, then back down again and to Qiaotou.

So after the minivan ride back down Tiger Leaping Gorge, which really showed us just how far we had walked! Another minivan and a short fumble around Lijiang, we had made it to our hostel. Mama Naxis! Yes the same as last year, how could I not go back to Mama Naxis!

Tiger Leaping Gorge

Lijiang, Baisha and Dr. Ho

I have little to write for Lijiang, nothing has really changed since last year and we saw and did much the same things. One of the days we rented a few bikes and peddled our way out to a small village called Baisha. After reading about it in the lonely planet, biking the 10km out to it, and wandering around, it finally occurred to me that I may have been there before! Turns out I did last year, shows just how easy it is to forget things from a long trip! We did however do something extra which I didn’t do last year; we went to visit Doctor Ho, a traditional doctor who swears by Chinese herbal medicine. He is actually remarkably famous, and has been visited by all sorts of people from worldwide government officials, to television celebrities, including Palin and Clease. We were outside his practice looking at all the photos of him with various people, and thank you letters from “cancer cured” patients, when he spotted us and invited us in. He sat us down and gave us some tea, then told us a little about himself. He showed us lots of bits and pieces about him, from letters of thanks from patients, to newspaper cuttings from newspapers all over the world. He had a folder full of business cards from visitors; we opened one page and saw a business card for the “executive director of the NHS”!

Sarah then asked him if he had anything for asthma. Immediately he sprung into action and ushered her into his practice room. He had a desk covered in paperwork, there was dust on everything. The room was full of red buckets full of different shades of red and orange powder. He dug around in the piles of paperwork and handed a tatty piece of paper to Sarah. It was a letter of thanks from a previous asthma patient. He then started mixing varying amounts of the orange powders, all by eye but he was very precise, not a pinch too much. He then explained that she can add this mixture to green tea and drink while it’s hot. He also showed me where to massage Sarah on her back when she has an asthma attack. To add to the effect of the massage one could take only the white of a raw egg, mix it with the medicine, and rub it into her back. He then took a piece of paper, and wrote with his ink quill some Chinese characters, stamped it with his personal stamp, and said it would allow her to take it through airport customs. Simon also asked for something for hay fever. He was given another seemingly random selection of orange powders and a hand written note for customs. As we left we had a quick photo with him outside of his practice, I left him my business card for his collection and we were on our way! The cycle home should have been a nice easy downhill roll, but it started raining very heavily! People were driving past slowly with the window down to take pictures of the soaking wet foreigners riding bikes!

Next we moved on to Dali, again I have been here before so there is little for me to write. We just cycled around the villages sticking our noses into the lives of the local farmers. I managed to throw ice lolly all over the place covering my white t shirt with orange and green spots. After Dali it was time for Sarah to move on in the direction of Shanghai as she had to be back in England early September. We said goodbye, she jumped on a bus to Kunming to catch a train to Guilin, and Simon and I boarded a sleeper bus down to Jinghong in the Xishuangbanna region of Yunnan.

Baisha photos

Xishuangbanna

After a long and uncomfortable sleepless night we arrived. We stumbled out of the bus into the sweltering heat, a sensation that we hadn’t felt since Xi’an weeks ago. We decided to walk to our hotel as it was only about a km away. This proved to be a bit of a mistake. The sun was just reaching its highest point in the sky so the heat was very intense. I was wearing flip flops and a mosquito had bitten me exactly where the strap crosses my foot, so before long that was bleeding. And our bags were exceptionally heavy as we now had to cart around all the extra warm weather clothing we bought for Tibet, oh and an extra bottle of Shangri-La wine for a rainy day… hmmm.

We were staying in the cheapest hotel we could find, there are no hostels down here, this is off the commonly travelled track even for most travellers, and only attracts hard core backpackers who make their way to China hiking and hitching lifts through Laos and Vietnam. Most hotels are business hotels, so pricy! But we found what we think is college accommodation turned hotel during vacation time. We checked in using charades as common language, and set off to explore this vastly different land.

Xishuangbanna or Banna for short, is extremely different from anywhere else in China. It didn’t feel Chinese at all. Roads are lined with palm trees, the women were wearing bright interesting dress rather than the reject t-shirts from the factories who supply the west. The architecture was Chinese for sure, concrete concrete and more concrete, but in-between the concrete where the Chinese temples, gardens and old architecture would usually be found, were things which you would never think of finding in China. Take a look at the photos, statues of elephants like in India! Statues of woman in a long Thai canoe, Great archways and gateways like you would find in Laos. Almost all the people here look very different. The shops sell different products. The climate difference is obviously because we have made that final decent from 2000m to sea level and we are now much further south. But everything else can probably be explained by the very high Vietnamese population. Many escaped into China while the yanks were bullying them, and they brought many of their customs with them.

The area is also full of the Dai minority, and restaurants sell Dai food (which really isn’t much different to your average Chinese dish). The Dai language is found all over the place, even on road signs, we actually thought it was Vietnamese at first!

We chose to come down here because we had heard so much about people who had passed through saying how interesting it was. We had a few things in mind that we wanted to see but hadn’t done much research. I have no excuse for this, we just didn’t plan at all, which is often a good thing when travelling, but when going this far off the common path can be foolish. We sat down to plan our time, to discover that everything was very inaccessible. Most things were at least a day away by bus, two or more days walking. We had had enough of busses, and defiantly of walking, and didn’t really have the time for long excursions out to the middle of nowhere. We spent hours trying to decide what to do, knowing we needed to head roughly east. We found a few things, including one that we originally came down to Banna to see, but transport was still a big problem. For example we wanted to go to *** which is a small town located in the middle of a ring of high mountain peaks. They have no electricity and no roads. The only way to get there is by boat up a river through a 1km long cave! But to get there would take 3 days of bussing, and a further 2 days bussing after leaving just to get back to a town that can sort of be considered on a main route. The only place worth moving on to without wasting days on busses was all the way to Guilin. We were kind of regretting not researching the area better before going! But I am not completely disappointed, it was very interesting to see, and makes me more interested in seeing Vietnam. Now someone’s just got to convince me it’s worth the hassle of dealing with all the scum that make Vietnam one of the most stressful places to travel; unless you take an organized tour but like hell will I ever do that! We went to the bus station to get our ticket to Kunming for the next day, where we planned to get a train to Guilin.

The following morning we had a day to kill in Jinghong. The plan was to rent some bikes and peddle out the city. However Simon woke up with a pounding headache, a bit of a fever, dizziness, lack of appetite, and very week. Worryingly these are all the symptoms of malaria, and we were in whats considered a medium to high risk malaria area and we weren’t taking any pills after the hell I went through last year. After breakfast we decided to go to the hospital. We shot back to the hotel who were looking after our bags to grab the syringes and needles we brought with us from England, then to the “peoples hospital for minority something..”. All hospitals in China are of course the “peoples…”.

Xishuangbanna photos

Xishuangbanna Hospital

We walked into a relatively busy lobby area with people queuing at various desks. Not a single word of English was in sight. I was armed with the lonely planet open on the only 4 pages of useful phrases in English, Chinese characters and pinyin. I swear we have used almost everything on these pages at some point! But we only had a handful of health related phrases. We obviously can’t pronounce anything, especially in the Banna dialect. So usually finding someone who has been educated enough that they can read their own language is best, which shouldn’t be a problem in a hospital! We approached some nurses in what I think was the entrance to the room where babies come from, who rushed up towards us as we came closer. I put my finger under the Chinese characters that mean “Is there a doctor here that speaks English” and showed it to the first nurse. She read the line out slowly to herself then of course repeated it to me in Chinese to confirm that’s what I want. Of course we just nod, presuming they have understood, and they presume we have understood. if we didn’t nod then she would think she hasn’t understood what we want and we get nowhere, so it’s always best to just agree and hope they don’t come back with a carpenter who speaks German, isn’t language fun. Simon at this point was flopped forwards on a chair struggling to lift is head from his shoulders. The nurse toodled off and managed to say “wait” and pointed to the chair next to Simon. While she was gone some of the other nurses were interested in my page of phrases. They looked so eager to help I thought I’d give them something. The only relevant thing I could point to was “headache”. “Ahhhh” they all go, nodding in understanding and look over at Simon with sympathy. They were all wondering whether it would be inappropriate to get out their phones to take pictures of the sick foreigner; unlike most Chinese they were reserved and did not start snapping away.

The nurse came back and ushered us to follow her. On the way we spotted the first sign in English “Department of pain”. Luckily we walked past it. She took us through the hospital to the back, outside into a courtyard, across it, back inside and up a flight of stairs. We walked down a corridor with patients queuing up to hang out of an open window to smoke, and into the Intensive care unit, which despite being labelled in Chinese, actually had “ICU” under it.

She sat us down behind the nurses’ station and again said “wait”. The doctor came shortly afterwards. He stopped attending to an unconscious child under intensive care, a man who had just come out of theatre and many other patients who needed intensive care, to attend to us! So the rest was pretty normal, questions, nods etc.. He spoke remarkably good English. He told us Simon had caught the Banna’s version of the common cold! But of course their common cold is a lot worse than in England, and also foreigners will suffer considerably worse than the locals. We asked him about malaria and he was very sure there was nothing to worry about, that was quite a relief! We asked about paying, and he refused. He explained he was a voluntary doctor to tend to less well off people of minority societies… But he did ask that when we get home we send him some English stamps. He is a stamp collector! We took down his address and will certainly send him some stamps when we get back!

Department of Pain!

Moving on

So we had a day to kill before our bus in the evening, what could we do? There was one thing mentioned in the LP that might be worth taking a look, a massage from a blind person. 45 yuan for an hour full body massage. My god it was pretty damn painful! After that we spent the rest of the day sitting in a western cafe to get Simon out of the heat and comfortable, buying just about enough to not get thrown out!

The next two days were just boring travelling. We got to Kunming at something silly like 5am, went straight to the train station in desperate hope there were beds available on the train that evening to Guilin. Usually a few days advance is needed but amazingly we got two beds after I queued up for hours! Simon was obviously still very ill so we spent the day resting again in a hostel communal area, hoping the staff wouldn’t notice we weren’t guests. We even used their showers! Then the next day was spent on the train until we arrived in Guilin.

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Before we went to Tibet i did a huge amount of research, talking to people, reading the web, calling agencies etc… And seeing as im already getting hits to the blog from people googling “Tibet Permit” I thought I’d write a quick rundown for anyone thinking of going. Bear in mind that things could have changed since I wrote this!

1) All over the place you hear people saying “since they introduced the new rules for Tibet…”. There are actually no new rules. The whole permit procedure, rules and restrictions apply now as they ALWAYS have. All they are changing is how strongly they enforce them.

2) A permit is issued to a group, not a single person. You will hear people mentioning a “group of one person”. This was possible when the rules were more relaxed, but no more.

3) The rules state that your group must take an arranged tour with a licensed official tour agency and have a guide dedicated to your tour for the duration of your stay in the region.

4) The rules state that a permit is issued on condition of a specific itinerary, which must be produced and finalised by your TOUR AGENCY before the permit is even applied for. You must then stick to this. Changes can be made through the agency, who will then get the changes approved and your permit amended.

5) You cannot leave Lhasa without your guide, and when you do leave Lhasa you can only go to places approved and on your permit.

6) The rules state you must always have your permit available for inspection, and your permit must always be carried by your guide… So you have to always be with your guide in public.

7) Agencies will often tell you that foreigners can only stay in certain Hotels. This is NOT TRUE. We unfortunately didn’t discover this until we were in Tibet, and after we had paid the agency for these unnecessary expensive hotels.

So if the rules have always been the same, how did people swing it back in the day? The agency you use, say in Chengdu, would draw up a believable simple itinerary for the number of days you want to stay in the region. This would be sent with your permit application. When the permit is issued you can go to Tibet. Your given the phone number of your “guide”. You go to Tibet and do as you wish. Whenever you check into a hotel they will need to see your permit which they will expect to be handed to them by your guide. So you call your “guide” and he pops along, produces your permit, then goes home again. When you leave Lhasa you take a photocopy of your permit, any authorities you run into simply want to check you have been issued a permit, they turn a blind eye to the missing guide and that your itinerary more than likely doesn’t match what you’re doing.

So what do I recommend?

If you just want to see Lhasa, try and find an agency that will still do the old trick. Foreigners can wander round Lhasa trouble free. You can enter all the Temples, even the Palace, no one checks any permits. You can even find hotels that “forget” to check your permit. The only time you are likely to need the permit is at the airport on the way to Lhasa, and your agency should give you that. Anyone can fly out of Lhasa without a single document checked, so no worries about leaving.

If you want to see anything outside Lhasa, you will HAVE TO go down the official route with a guide. You will have to arrange this before you go, and unfortunately have to have the guide all through Lhasa as well.

Another option, which i don’t recommend because if it goes wrong, you potentially could never be let into China again. We actually met a French girl in Lhasa who didn’t have a permit. She had somehow managed to slip through security at Kunming airport. This amazes me, our permit was checked more than our passports at Chengdu. Once in Tibet she of course had no problem seeing everything round Lhasa. She found the hotel next to the Tashi 2 cafe (found in Lonely Planet) didn’t check permits. She said she was planning to try and go to Shigatse, I have no idea if she made it, but it’s very unlikely.

I could write a lot more detail and provide pdfs etc that ive gathered in research but im not going to post it all up here. If anyone wants more info please comment on here, email me or whatever. Bear in mind things could have changed since we went in August 2008.

Good Luck!

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Yak yak yak yak yak TIBET! (A joke for those who have been to Tibet!)

It has taken me ages to write this, I just kept on remembering bits and going back and adding them! There is so so much more i could write, but if you want to hear more, buy me a pint in the Spittal Brook!

We got up at 3am in Chengdu to get our bus to the airport for our flight to Lhasa. I was given our permit which had arrived from Lhasa literally hours before. Security was tight, as expected, Sarah leaving her pen knife in her day bag didn’t help, and after a few hours of the usual Chinese pointless airport crap, we were on our way to Lhasa.

The view from the plane was awesome. Any of you who have flown over the French Alps early spring time, imagine that, but a million times bigger. Just never ending mountains in every direction, snow capped peaks reaching high in the sky, lush green valleys in-between. Glaciers the size of cities, rivers that find their way through the maze that is the Himalaya.

Flight to Lhasa

We soon landed at Lhasa airport, which is actually almost 100km from the city. The altitude was certainly noticeable. Simon and I had briefly been to a similar altitude in the Alps a few years ago. We skied the Valley Blanche glacier, and at the start we had to walk along a stupidly dangerous ridge with all our gear on, so we knew what to expect with a bit of altitude. We made our way outside, breathing heavily, and found our guide. Rinchen, a Tibetan. He piled us in our “business car” which we chose as an alternative to jeeps for the shorter journeys as it was cheaper. Actually it was a bus, which was pretty comfortable, plenty of space! On the way to Lhasa Rinchen started to tell us how Tibet is not free, pointing out villages and houses by the road which were given huge sums of money by the Chinese government, so people arriving in Tibet, like us, could see how well off the Tibetans are, how they live very comfortably under Chinese rule.

We arrived in Lhasa soon, on every corner were Chinese army, stood with riot shields under sun umbrellas. As we drove past their eyes followed us until we were in the distance and another soldier could see us. Unfortunately their main concern is not Tibetans causing trouble, they are very peaceful people, and know there is simply no point in protesting or arguing with the Chinese. The problem is foreigners posing as tourists to come and protest. Interestingly predominantly Americans and we of course look, and sound American to them. As we drove through the city towards the centre, the place certainly didn’t feel like a Chinese city. The architecture was very different, less concrete and more granite blocks from the surrounding mountains, far less people and far less neon lights. The only obvious Chinese influence were the signs which were the same communist standardised signs you see everywhere in China. He took us to our hotel, the Yak hotel. Very central and 5 minutes from the Potala Palace. It looked quite pricy, but of course we had no choice of accommodation, it’s entirely up to the agency that we have to agree with or our permit will be invalid.

The first day on the itinerary was just “rest” which basically means acclimatisation. We asked Rinchen how restricted we were, could we leave the hotel without him? Where could we go without trouble from the Chinese army? We were expecting him to say no, as we were told in Chengdu that we couldn’t leave the hotel without him. But he said it was fine, and told us to stick to a certain area. We went across the road to a small restaurant and had our first meal. It was a Chinese meal, with Yak meat, yum! We then collapsed to bed as we were shattered. 6 hours later we got up and head out for dinner. Yak again! Then we thought we would try a Lhasa beer… one bottle later we were pretty wobbly and went back to bed!

The next day we were up early, the itinerary was to see all of Lhasa today. We started with the Potala Palace. We got through the security, which was just like airport security except they are looking for “free Tibet” flags rather than knives and bottles of water. We worked our way up the palace front, the steps were quite exhausting at 3700m! Unfortunately once inside, like everywhere in Tibet, they don’t let you take pictures unless you pay a huge fee. Normally about 1500 Yuan, that is almost £110, or to put it in perspective, 100 nights in an average Chinese youth hostel! The inside of the palace is just Buddha after Buddha after Buddha. Quite a few tombs of previous Dali Lamas, and other Lamas. It was interesting, and we got to see a bit of each section, except of course where the Tibetan government used to operate from.

After the Potala, we moved on to see two temples. Similar stuff as the Potala, and we were learning huge amounts about Buddhism. In fact it didn’t take long to decide that Buddhism is a very confused religion. It seems like they started with quite a simple set of rules and values that made sense and worked, but then they started adding to it. Since then they’ve been making stuff up to layer on top of their already confused mess. Another thing that really struck me was the money. Everyone comes to give offerings money money money, everywhere. It seems like the Buddhists need to give huge offerings to every statue and tomb to confirm their faith?

Lhasa (new side of city) Panoramic from Potala Place

Lhasa - Potala etc..

That evening we head back to the main square in front of the Potala. We walked all the way around the place which is a long way, and out of the area Rinchen told us to stay within! We stopped at a community park at the back of the palace. The park was clearly a Chinese park, it had the same communal exercise gym equipment that you see all round China, we joined in with the locals for a workout, which again, was pretty tough at 3700m!

Lhasa Square Panoramic (That straight black line along the bottom of the photo is actualy a circle!)

Lhasa General

As we reached the front of the palace again, it was getting dark and the Lhasa fountain show in the square had begun. We grabbed a few beers from a stall and watched the show. By the end of the show, most of us had run through the fountains, got very wet, especially Damian, maybe the beer at altitude had some influence again…

Lhasa Fountain

The next day we set off bright and early for Shigatze. There appears to be a million different spellings for this place, but im going with the one i saw on a road sign. It’s a day’s drive away from Lhasa following the Lhasa Katmandu friendship highway. The Himalaya scenery is stunning, but i will write about that later as we had four days of it!

On the way we had a few stops, the first was shortly after leaving Lhasa. It was next to a small rock pile on the river bank of the Yellow river. Rinchen explained this is a spot where Tibetans hold water burials. When a member of a Tibetan family dies, if they or their family have chosen to perform a water burial, the body is taken to this location. It is stripped and cleaned. Then they take a few small axes and hack the body into little pieces, removing the flesh from the bones, and throw it into the river as food for the fish. The point of this procedure is that it’s an offering for the fish, to help them survive through the lack of food high up in the mountain rivers. Then the remaining organs and bones are thrown on a fire nearby. We could see the axes which had been rinsed and placed neatly on the rocks ready for the next persons water burial, and a very fresh ash circle where a fire had recently finished burning. Rinchen also explained that as he grew up in the city he was more likely to have a sky burial, this is a similar concept except a cliff is used instead of the river bank, and large birds instead of fish. When babies and young children die, they however are not given as offerings to fish and birds, but simply wrapped in cloth, taken high up into the mountains, over 5000m altitude, and placed in a small hole in the rocks (cave) and covered. There must be so many baby corpses dotted around the Himalaya.

The next stop was Namdrok Tso (Tso translates to lake). We stopped at the top of a pass to look down on the lake. It was big and purple… i took a panoramic:

Namdrok tso Panoramic photo

We stopped for lunch shortly after at a small village by the lake. We had told Rinchen we need to eat at cheap local eateries, not tourist restaurants with crazy prices, but he didn’t seem to understand why we couldn’t afford the tourist places.

Often people in China (or Tibet) don’t understand why we can’t afford a meal that is 30 yuan (£2), which is quite a small amount in Western terms. They know we have spent £400 on flights, £700 on a camera, £500 on a laptop… they know that it’s little more than 20minutes work in England even on the dirtiest of wages. So why can’t we afford it? Because we are in China (or Tibet) where we can eat for 5 yuan (36p) and have therefore budgeted for meals at that price!

Anyway, back on the road, we cross another few passes, one was over 5000m altitude. We stop at the base of quite a big glacier and various other views. We had a chat with a local farmer and his little brother and sister. We had stopped for a break and they came over to look at the funny white people. He was 22 and the kids were 8 and 9, we gave them some sweeties!

Lhasa to Shigatze

Rest stop Panorama 360!

Eventually we reached Shigatze, checked into our rooms and headed out to find some food. We found the only place in town with a menu translated in English, on the old Tibetan street. Food in Tibet is quite different from China. The Tibetans themselves only have a few specifically Tibetan dishes. Noodles (with yak), and Momos (yak dumplings). But due to Tibets location up in the Himalaya, a fantastic selection of food is commonly available from all around. All restaurants offer Chinese food, Tibetan (momos and noodles), Nepalese, Indian, and even Bhutanese. So you can get really interesting mixed meals, like Dal (a lentil soup which is eaten with everything in India and Nepal) with Tibetan momos. All restaurants except the ones run by Chinese of course, who have moved in to Tibet.

After the meal we spotted some Tibetans playing Pool under a hoisted tarpaulin cover. We grabbed a few Lhasa beers and joined in. After a few games we challenged a young boy to a game who had been constantly taking pictures and videos of us on his phone since we got there. He beat us all, many times. It had started to rain very heavily, the tarpaulin needed a good poke every few minutes to release the pools of water caught in it. In about 45 minutes the entire street became a river, water at least 10cm deep all over the street. The locals didn’t seem at all phased by this. Our hotel was only about 3 minutes walk away, but it would leave us with very wet clothes and more importantly wet boots which we couldn’t afford to let happen. So the young boy kindly hailed taxis for us.

The next day we were back on the road. Today was the day China has been waiting for… The day of three Chinese lucky number 8s… 8^th of the 8^th 2008… Olympics! But why did we care in Tibet? Well, the Chinese being paranoid as usual were convinced foreigners in Tibet would kick up a fuss like earlier in the year. Of course, being five of the probably no more than 25 foreigners in Tibet at the time, we were prime suspects. This meant check points galore. On the way to Everest Base camp we passed through so many check points we lost count. Every few km, out pops the passports and the permit, where are you going, what are you doing… At one point Damian said thank you when a Chinese official handed him is passport back… in Tibetan not Chinese!

Eventually we reached the entrance gate for Qomolangma area (the real name for Everest). After more checks a faff we started the 100km remaining to base camp. That 100km is actually only about 25km as the crow flies! So you can imagine the utterly ridiculous spaghetti roads.

Shigatze to EBC

We were staying the night in a local Tibetan guest house about 2km away from the actual base camp, which is of course empty this time of year. It was a simple tent structure with a fire in the middle. It was very cold, we were all layered up in all the fake mountain gear we bought in Chengdu. Unfortunately it was very cloudy and we couldn’t see Qomolangma, so we went to sleep pretty early after an awful dry pancake dinner. In the morning the clouds were starting to break. As we were going the final few km to base camp, the clouds started to break. Over the next hour or so we got to see most of Everest in bits, when the clouds broke in places! We were happy, it was far better than not seeing it at all. 4 days in Jeeps to not see Everest would have really pissed us off!

Everest Base Camp

So two more days of driving… now its time to write about the scenery…

Wow! Its just massive. So so massive. Let’s compare again to the French Alps. If you drive from Geneva into the Alps, you start to see the foothills about 60km before you’re into the main strip of snow capped peaks. In the Himalaya, we started in Lhasa and drove for TWO DAYS of foothills before we started to see the EDGE of the band of snow capped peaks. Then that band of peaks is just massive as well! When we were flying over the band of snowy mountains with a roughly static latitude (so the cabin windows look north and south) at a cruising altitude of 11500m, as far as the eye could see north and south were snow capped peaks, all at least over 7000m. It’s just all so incomprehensibly massive! Take a look at the Himalaya on Google earth, look at what zoom your at and then look at the same zoom at Europe for a perspective on the sheer scale of it! Anyway, once you get over the size of this incredible mountain range, there is so much detail in the landscape. As you move from valley to valley its like moving between completely different mountain ranges. The rock is suddenly a totally different colour, the hills and peaks are different shapes and different plant life. You can look out the window at a New Zealand esque luscious thriving green valley with smooth rolling mountains in the background. Then 60 seconds later look out again at a Death Valley esque scarce dry valley with sand dunes, jagged rocks thrusting into the sky and no vegetation. I took quite a few photos, but in no way have I taken enough to demonstrate this incredible variety of landscapes. After two days I practically put the camera away and just spent hour after hour staring out at the passing Himalaya. This is defiantly a part of the world I want to explore more of.

Dotted all over the landscape are Tibetan villages. These villages are very small, rarely more than 15 families. The buildings are white with black and red around the windows, just like the Potala Palace. The villages seem to take on every task as a village. They all chip in when working on the crops, often we drove past villages where every man, woman and child was helping to build a new house for a family of the village. Many villages are still completely traditional, plough the fields with yaks, are completely self sufficient and take nothing from outside of their community. But many villages have taken advantage of the benefits the Chinese have brought to Tibet. Small trackers, electricity in homes for television, local transport to allow trading with other villages, and even mobile phones.

This of course arouses the China Tibet debate. Yes some of the Tibetans have adopted and take advantage of some of the things China has brought to the region, but did they really want them in the first place? Would they be worse off if China hadn’t come along? One thing is for sure, the Chinese keep saying “Tibet has always been China”. But if that was the case, why did they need to “take it” in 1949-51 if they already “had it”? Regardless of this, the Tibetans are clearly very strong people, they have put up with the hassle the Chinese are causing, with all the monitored and limited movement of people and goods around Tibet. They are forced to fly the Chinese flag over their homes, some are forced to relocate, their schools have been taken over by Chinese management and teachers…They strive past it, and are defiantly happy and make the most of what they have. Of all the different ethnic groups of people I have seen, large countries and small minority communities, the Tibetans have got to be by far the friendliest, happiest and most welcoming of them all.

EBC to Shigatze

Monastry at Shigatze

On the way back to Lhasa from Shigatze, Rinchen broke the trip up a bit with a few stops. As he is Tibetan, he knows a few Tibetan villagers in various places who the Chinese tour guides wouldn’t. We saw a mill, where they use a running stream to grind wheat, just like in the old days in England! Most impressive however was the incense making. This was done again with a running stream and some simple yet remarkably impressive wooden machinery. You can see it in the photos!

Shigatze to Lhasa

Returning to Lhasa made me see it in a different light. After passing all the Tibetan villages and staying in a true Tibetan city and with a Tibetan family, Lhasa looked very different. As I wrote before, when I arrived in Lhasa it didn’t seem that affected by the Chinese at all. But returning I could really see the Chinese influence. Huge great industrial plants on the outskirts. Huge mining plants which had only recently started operation, clearly at only a fraction of their potential. Remains of traditional Tibetan houses and entire villages were dotted between these plants. Huge goods depots with literally thousands of trucks loading and setting off east into China, or west on the Friendship highway to Nepal and further.

So our final day in Tibet was again spent on the road, everything is so far apart in this country, oops sorry, “Chinese Province”. We went to NamTso, the highest salt water lake in the world (although we tasted it and it didn’t taste salty…) and officially the 2^nd highest lake in the world. This was quite a sight, and worth the day trip. Damian hopped up a mountain, yes hopped! We all took a ride in a boat made of twigs and yak skin, and stuck our noses into a small temple in a cave.

NamTso Panorama 1

NamTso Panorama 360 from the top of mountain!

NamTso

What about the altitude, did it affect us?

Shortly after we arrived at Everest Base camp, I started to get a few altitude sickness symptoms, headache, nausea, lack of appetite… So I had a dose of Oxygen to keep me going! Awesome stuff! The next morning my headache was still present, but not as bad as before. Sarah and Jon both had no appetite and a headache too. The headache is simply the lack of oxygen to the brain. Simon and Damian were both fine however. As far as I understand Altitude sickness is not entirely related to fitness. It is the lack of Oxygen getting into your system, so if you were a heavy smoker your lungs would be smaller, and you would be more likely to have problems at altitude. However, it is still possible for an extremely fit and healthy person to suffer from altitude sickness. It is said that once you are above 2700m for more than 24 hours, if you are going to get altitude sickness, it will strike then. However Lhasa is at 3700m and we were all fine. Shigatze is at almost 4000m, and again we were all fine. It was the jump to 5200m that seemed to affect us. The recommended increments of altitude for acclimatisation are 300m a day after all! Once we were back in Shigatze my headache had gone completely and I was fine. Jon was back to normal by the time we reached Lhasa, and it took Sarah until Zhongdian (3200m).

So after a week in Tibet it was time to split into two groups. Damian and Jon had only two weeks left so needed to work their way all the way back to Shanghai. Damian had his heart set on the world’s highest Bungee jump in Macau, near Hong Kong. So they flew from Lhasa to Guangzhou, and walked across the border into Hong Kong. Sarah, Simon and I flew to Zhongdian (Shangri-La) which is on the edge of the Tibetan Plateau.

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I‘m sat in a cold hostel living room drinking a Chinese red wine, next to a small Tibetan clay pot fire. Im listening to Annie Mac’s Mash up on the BBC iPlayer, yes somehow the mash up is getting through the great firewall of China! We are in Zhongdian (recently named Shangri-la after the fictional Shangri-la from James Hilton’s novel Lost Horizon). Its almost midnight and tomorrow we are heading south through Tiger Leaping Gorge. I am very behind with the blog, a whole week behind, and its more than the average week, because as you know weve been to Tibet!

I expect we will have a few quiet evenings while in the Gorge so I hope to do some writing then, as long as i can charge my laptop during the 2 or 3 hours of electricity we will have each day. I took almost 2000 photos while in Tibet, so it might be some time before i get them online for you to see, but trust me, its really worth the wait!

I have however managed to get the Chengdu photos up today, so please look back over my last post and browse through the pics.

Jon and Damian have now moved on to Hong Kong for a few days, then they will return to Shanghai for a night or two before flying back to England. Sarah will be with Simon and I for another week or so, before she also heads east back to Shanghai for her return flight on the 3rd September.

I hope everyone is surviving through the awful food prices, 30% gas increase, dead housing market etc… I hear petrol prices have dropped a little though I’m just about managing to stick to my £7 a day budget with a whopping £2.50 of that going on my accommodation.

So goodnight from Zhongdian, check back in 3 or 4 days when we shall be in Lijiang

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We’ve been in Chengdu for a few days now, so what have we been up to?

First we started enquiring about Tibet, how ‘open’ it is, and how much it would cost to go there. It took two days to sort out, but it’s done and we are going! I’ll write about that later on.

So the next day was a very special day… the 30th July, my birthday! We started off by moving to a nicer hostel down the road, the same hostel we had arranged the Tibet stuff through. Then we went into the centre of town to get a few bits and bobs done like mail home some stuff to lighten our bags for the trekking ahead. Cheapest shipping “by land” back to England, takes up to 6 months! We then went on the hunt for a fake market like in Shanghai so we could buy some cold weather clothes (for Tibet). Unfortunately no luck, the market I was looking for was underground, found it last year with Guy. But I think it’s been destroyed to make way for Chengdu’s new metro system. We then had to rush back to the hostel to grab our lift to the Sichuan Opera… but the hostel forgot we were supposed to go that evening!

So… we went out to a bar called Ling Ding (Real Love) which we found in the “Chengdoo” magazine. We were drinking vodka… with iced tea…! It was actually very good! By the end of the night we all made our way back to the hostel in our own time, except Damian, who had a little adventure of his own… Ill let him write about that then leave you with the photos!…

“I was sitting taking a quick break on a nice comfy seat and in an instant I felt like my balls were locked in a vice I quickly looked over my shoulder to discover a rather unusual looking Chinese lady, possibly Russian, with an empty face; oh her eyes so black. She ordered me to buy her drinks, I obeyed. She then proceeded to collect potential partners for Simon and Jon, by simply lifting them from where they were standing, and sitting them down at the table. After attempting to escape, she pulled me outside with Simon and Jon, also by the balls, and forced us into a taxi. Her Chinese gibberish was violent, and brought a sweat to me… We arrived back at the hostel, Simon and Jon made a quick escape, and before I realised, somehow I was in another taxi with her. After 40km and 76 kuai we arrived at a dried up river bed. She ordered the taxi driver to attempt the crossing, of course he obeyed, and almost grounding the taxi. After which we arrived at the land of the garage people. She knocked on random garage doors, where a small window would open revealing a pair of eyes. Then she would pass 10 kuai through the gap, and we continued this several more times. I then made my first escape which was an utter failure since she found me minutes later wondering round the strange land of the garage people. We then moved on to her house by taxi, and arrived as the sun was rising. I followed to her typical Chinese communist flat, where I met a frail old lady who was not at all bothered or fazed by my presence. She then cooked me food, a little time passed, and I helped with her makeup, in an army style. We then left after a brief argument with her mother, and took another taxi back into Chengdu. When we finally arrived she took me clothes shopping at a dirty fake market. I found her fashion style rather unusual however I persevered with her forceful manor for some time, before making my final escape. I left the small store and ran as fast as my little legs would take me, aimlessly wondering around this huge market. Finally I found my way out, and grabbed a taxi back to the hostel arriving around 8am.”

Birthday night out photos

The next day when we finally got up, we went shopping again, this time to normal shops with scary western prices, but we really need cold weather gear! Then we tried some delicious Sichuan Dumplings, well I thought they were good, but the others didn’t agree. It’s a sort of half cooked dough texture ball with a fruit or nut paste inside. We then made our way back to the hostel for the Opera again! This time the hostel remembered. It was similar to the Opera I saw in Chengdu last year, entertaining and worth the trip; I can’t really be bothered to write about it as I did last year! After we went to a western restaurant, it was rather like Chinese people on holiday in England going to a Chinese restaurant! However it was actually very good, we had some very nice steaks and… Mashed potato!

The following day (1st August) we got up nice and early to check out and head to Emei Shan, one of China’s sacred mountains. After some confusion over if it was open, we decided to go. The original plan was to stay on the mountain for two nights, but the main road back to Chengdu is due to be closed all day on the 3rd for the Olympics… I’ll explain that in a minute. So we were just going for one night. After a 2 hour bus journey to Emei City, two local busses to the mountain base at about 300m altitude, then another two hour bus journey to the highest point accessible by road at about 2400m. We fell off the bus rather fed up of windy bumpy roads and ready to see some mountain. Unfortunately it was about 19:00 and almost dark, so we bartered a hotel down to 20 kuai each. We were all in a room with just 4 beds. It was in the attic of a small eatery. The room had just been bodged into the space for little to no money to create a guest room. The ceiling was hardboard badly nailed to the roof beams, and water warped everywhere. The joins were a mess, and random holes had just been punched or ripped in for the lighting and other random cabling. It was a bit damp, which is expected for an attic guest room for 20 kuai at 2400m, but the sheets were clean enough, and stain free, pretty good compared to most other similar style stays I’ve had in the past. Everyone was happy with it, except Sarah of course!

We had some dinner and had an early night in preparation for a 3:45 am wake up to hike the remaining 700m of altitude to the summit at a little less than 3100m altitude for the sunrise at 6:40.

We got up on time, we were already awake because some other guests were making a hell of a lot of noise, and we were on the paths 10 minutes later. The climb was comfortable and everyone managed ok at their own pace. We were alone almost all the way up, except a monkey which decided to make an appearance while I was taking a leak into the bush…. We reached the top early at 6am, where we met a heard of noisy Chinese tourists as they got off the cable car, the lazy option up the mountain!

Unfortunately we were in the middle of a very thick cloud, we couldn’t see anything at all. So now I’ve climbed two of China’s sacred mountains, both supposedly have amazing sunrise views, but all i saw this and last year, was infinite white! We made our way down the mountain by cable car, bit of walking and bus; and we reached the base at 10am.

I mentioned a road being closed for the Olympics… this far away from Beijing your thinking?… We had totally by chance chosen to go to this area, exactly when the Olympic torch was due to pass through! We arrived in the middle of their rehearsal. 8 km of central city road had barriers on either side. There were police everywhere, enough to put a police officer every meter on both sides of the road for almost all of the 8k run, and plenty more to spare, I think at least 10000 police! All the time we have been in China, we keep seeing convoys of bus loads of police, this is why! All hotels in the area are forced to close to the public to accommodate only the police. Only locals who have been granted special passes are allowed to watch the torch pass, other locals have to stay at home. Restaurants were taken over to feed the police. If anyone has a house with a window overlooking the road, there was a police officer in it. The reason we couldn’t get back to Chengdu the next day was because the only road between Leshan and Chengdu, a motorway, was to be closed all day so the Olympic torch convoy of a few cars and a bus could travel down it! Can you imagine the UK government just closing the M1 for a day?! We saw bands, dancers, flag wavers and dragon acts rehearsing. TV crews setting up everywhere. We even completed Jon’s task to get on Chinese TV!
We were the only westerners in sight, we couldn’t move around without someone wanting a photo with us! Especially Sarah! Even the police wanted photos with us, they were taking pictures on their mobile phones!

Emei City Olympic fun

We had to move on, we weren’t sure if we would be allowed to be there for the next day, even the Chinese locals need passes! Also finding a hotel for the night wouldn’t be easy. So we moved on to Leshan to see the world’s largest sitting Buddha. I also saw this last year, so won’t write about it again! We then caught a bus back to Chengdu in time before they closed the motorway, and had an early night after a silly o’clock start up a mountain!

Sichuan Opera, Emei Shan & Big Buddha

Yesterday we went to Chengdu’s main park, and had some proper Chinese tea. Simon and I had fruit tea which literally was some tea, chopped up fruit, and hot water! Jon had his ears cleaned and a massage from a Chinese man with a large tuning fork and dirty brushes! In the evening we went to Ling Ding again with Pete, a guy we met in the hostel.

Tea and Jons ear cleaning!

Well that brings me to today! After finally getting up, we went to “Mr Wangs tiny museum of Mao Paraphernalia”. Mr Wang is a very old man with a hearing aid and two walking sticks. He has spent his life collecting Mao stuff and filled his house with it! The only space left is for his chair, by the door where he sits all day. The collection was amazing, but unfortunately heavily water damaged. An awesome collection, and an awesome man, that anyone who visits Chengdu must see! Unfortunately I don’t think the collection or the old man will be around much longer.

Mao museum

So we leave for Lhasa in less than two hours! I have no idea if we will be allowed to use the internet in Tibet, if not then the next place I know we will have web access is Lijiang, at least 11 days away from now. So goodnight from Chengdu, I’m sad to leave this brilliant city for a second time, but I’m very excited about Tibet!

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So, did Xi’an live up to all the hype?

Yes and no!

First the hostel, we were staying at the Bell Tower Hostel. I had heard a lot about the place last year, and a large group of travellers Guy and I met in Beijing had all come from there and some were even going back! So I was hoping for another Shanghai mingtown, still one of the best hostels I’ve stayed at in China. It turned out to be OK, but it was full of tourists and even worse, lots of pre-arranged “backpacking” travel groups who are basically on package holidays paying a very lucky rich guy way too much for the convenience of not having to make the effort to buy their own train tickets and book their own accommodation, which by the way, is remarkably easy here if you just use a little initiative and common sense! The western food was ok, but the Chinese food was pretty terrible, like bad Chinglish food! It was also very expensive, we enquired about the train ticket booking service to save us time, and they wanted 45 kuai for each ticket! For tickets which cost 180, that’s a 25% mark up! Anyway…

So, onto the city itself and what it has to offer. There are the Bell and Drum Towers, ok, nothing special, same as much of the other Qing Dynasty architecture around China. The Big Goose Pagoda, made of brick which although is rather dull compared to the usual elaborate pagoda designs, was interesting. The city walls, which we didn’t bother with, well you can see them around the city without having to pay! There is also the Muslim quarter, with a mosque in the middle. This is quite odd, it’s sort of a Buddhist temple, but at the back where there would usually be a courtyard with incense, they have just sort of plonked a mosque down!

But what made this stop really worth it was of course the Terracotta army. It truly was stunning, just trying to comprehend the shier scale of the project, 2200 years ago. This is a must see for everyone, like the Taj Mahal and the pyramids. Of course it is very touristy, and they milk your wallet for every last kuai. The hostel offered an all inclusive trip for 260 kuai each, but of course we found our own bus and paid entry at the desk totalling to 59 kuai. The ticket office and entrance is deliberately a long way from the army, so you have to pay them more for an electric buggy ride to avoid walking in the sweltering heat. But once you’re past all that, it’s worth every penny. I don’t really want to write too much, you have to see it for yourself. Everything you read about it is true; they really are all individually unique, not forgetting the tiniest of details. Of course i took another panoramic photo…!

So what else did we get up to in Xi’an… two heavy nights of drinking! We went to some real Chinese bars, which are very different to western style places where you simply buy drinks at the bar as you want them. You are escorted to a table where they hand you a menu. You then have to order a bottle of a spirit, or a crate of beer. The Chinese drink differently too. You’re given a small(ish) glass which you fill up and drink in one. “Gambee” the Chinese word for cheers, means down it! And of course, being westerns, everyone wants to gambee with us! The staff then hang around you and make sure your glass is never left empty. They will open all of your beers unless you stop them and keep filling up the pitcher with your spirit and mixer. Their job is to simply make sure you are always drinking so you have to buy more and more. You end up mixing every type of drink you can imagine because the Chinese keep filling your glass to gambee. Here are the photos from the first night, unfortunately we didn’t have a camera on the second night, but probably for the best as we were dancing on a glass stage with poles…

Xi’an clubbing

General Xi’an photos

Terracotta Army

Pagoda

So after three nights in Xi’an we have moved on to Chengdu, yes it’s still here, no 90% of it isn’t flat, in fact we haven’t seen any evidence of the earthquake at all, western news reports were a little exagerated!
Since we got here I have been on the phone, web and taxing around finding out what the situation is with travelling to Tibet, and looking for a good price if the trip isn’t too restricting and covers everything we want to see. I’ll write another post when we have it all worked out and do my best to explain the options, restrictions etc… for anyone who is interested or anyone else considering the trip up to the Tibetan Plateau.

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This is just a random post for giggles!

We found some fantasticly bad chinglish in a Hotel room in Dandong and just had to steel it! Now weve typed it up, exactly including all the Chinglish spelling and grammar. Ive put our favourites in bold, but its worth reading them all…

1. Please show your effective identification card to the receptionist to go through the formalities ,if you want to put up in the hotel.
2. For the safety reason, receptionist may ask you to show your key and pledge card.
3. We support you safe box for the valuables in the reception.
4. Forbidden to take the dangerous goods just like easy to burn, to explode,to rot, and radiation or into the hotel. On the other hand, please keep the carpet clean, When you eat in your room.
5. Please don’t take the pets or other animals into the hotel.
6. Forbidden to burn ,  to use electric stove , or set wire and other electric equipment without permission . Please put your washing in the wash room, forbidden to hang in the lampshade , the outlet of the conditioner or on the curtain pole.
7. Please don’t smoke on the bed,and please put the cigarette end,match into the ashtray.
8. Please don’t put up your guest for the night and make over the bed without permission.
9. Please don’t wear the underclothes , bath clothes and slippers in the public places.
10. Please don’t get drunk and caeate disturbance . it our duty to make the person who harm the public interest come up , if the one breaks the rules and regardless of the persuasion . we should cancel his right to stay.
11. Keep the quiet environment , dont’s make noises,run and jamp interfere with other’s rest, Visiting hours until 23 o’clock the visitors must be left before the time.
12. Please don’t hand the key on the door , Please locked the door when you left, and hand in to the reception.
13. Please pay attention to the map of escaping fire , and you can find the exit rapidly at the time accident breaks out , You’d better remember to take the key with you.You can be back room waiting for help , if the passageway full of smoke.
14. Gambling,    smuggle   goyng whoring,   drug taking,  traffic in narcotice in the room are forbidden entirely.
15. We have rights to make the person who breaks the rules corrected . if the one breaks the SECURITY ADMINISTATION PUNISHMENT ACT OF PEOPP LE’SREPUBLIC OF CHINA   or the CRIMINAL    LAW OF PEOPLE’S REPU BLIC  OF CHINA , the department of public security investigating and dealing with him according to the law.

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Little something extra for you, I made a short time lapse of the Bell Tower which is just outside our dorm window

Download here.

Andrew.

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I’m laying in my bunk bed on a train heading to Xi’an. Liaoling Province is flying from right to left as I look down past my feet and out the window to the south. It’s been a long time since I’ve posted anything up here because internet access has been almost impossible. There are net cafes and gaming shops everywhere because the Chinese generally don’t own computers. But they won’t let foreigners in! The Chinese have to show their ID card, probably so their actions can be tracked, and this far off the main tourist and traveller tracks they don’t seem to accept our passports as sufficient ID. So, what have we been up to, and why are we going to Xi’an? This is going to be a long post!…

The next day in Shanghai we slept in after a late night drinking and talking. We spent the afternoon at YuYuan gardens, which is a sort of reconstructed old town in the centre of Shanghai. I had seen it last year but went again because it doesn’t cost anything! We then went on to Jin Mao tower and spent the evening in the sky bar enjoying imported wines for western prices, ouch! But it was worth it for the views, and a break from euro-fizz (larger) which I really don’t like! The next morning was an early start, the others went to the Shanghai museum, which I have already seen, and so I started writing for this blog, but fell asleep in the hostel bar! Then we went to the Shanghai development museum, which is basically a lot of very large scale models of Shanghai and future plans. Afterwards we blagged our way into the Marriot to get another view of the city. That evening we went out, to Windows Too! I couldn’t come back to shanghai without going back to the best bar in the city! As expected, I got very drunk.

Shanghai Photos!

Shanghai at night:

Hangzhou:

Jin Mao:

Misc Shanghai:

Windows Too:

Panoramic of the scale model of Shanghai!

The following day we got up at silly 10 o’clock to check out of the hostel and prepare for our train journey up to Shenyang. After a bit of shopping including a trip to the miss spelt “Franch bakery” for breakfast, our journey began. This is where the trip starts for me, a new place! I don’t like spending too much time in places I have already been, feels like a waste of precious time, but I need to give the others time to appreciate these places. The journey was pretty awful it should only have been about 20 hours, but the express train was fully booked so we were put on the later afternoon train. We were not actually aware that this train took longer until Sarah found out in the morning, about 12 hours into the journey! She managed to communicate with a very local country farmer type Chinese woman who I wouldn’t have even attempted to talk to, and her tiny daughter wrote “23:00 night” on a bit of paper!

When we finally arrived in Shenyang after 29 hours in an unfortunately poor, noisy, hot, cold and smelly cabin, we fended off the arguing cab drivers and grabbed two normal cabs round the corner. The drive was interesting; most of the roads are being dug up around the drains. Where in England the “traffic wambles” would close off miles of road and employ badly timed traffic lights and average speed cameras, here there was simply one small orange cone next to each 10 foot deep hole, and taxis weaving in and out like a slalom. It was almost like driving in India, with all the tyre squeal, late breaking and near misses. They had trouble finding the hostel and in the end we just stopped the taxis, got out somewhere known to be in the vicinity of the hostel and walked.

Train to Shenyang:

The hostel was a converted hotel, we had two rooms, and Sarah and I were in the one with no air conditioning, grrr! There were no showers, just four small basins for the entire hotel to wash in. I will be leaving a rather bad review for this place on hostelworld! The following day we went to Beiling Park, the city’s main park which also contained the Tomb of Huang Taiji, the founder of the Qing Dynasty. The park was like any other in China, clean, quiet, well maintained, and a place for everyone to go. The Chinese have an amazing sense of community which is unlike anything in England, which we really experienced later on (read on). The tomb was just like any other Qing dynasty architecture and complex in China. The place was being restored everywhere to get it ready for the expected rush of tourists during the Olympics, but this was interesting to watch, especially as it feels like I’ve seen a million of these places! We then headed back into the main part of the park which was starting to fill up with people as they finished their days work. None of us have ever ridden a tandem bike before, so when we saw 10 kuai for an hour’s rental we couldn’t resist! We had a Tandem, and a tramdem (Damian’s name for a three seat bike!) and we spent an hour racing around the incredible number of people who were fast congregating all around this massive park.

It was then getting dark and we walked back to the entrance, eating mian hua tang (candy floss)! Outside there were even more people. We dug our way into a large group of people singing to find out what was going on. Before we knew it we were involved in a massive community exercise and sing along. Shake your hands in the air, rub your ankles, pat your legs, pat harder, pat the back of the person to your right, then the one to your left, and then sing copying the lead singer in the middle. Then we watched some skipping games, people playing badminton, ball games, board games and much much more. Simon even had a short badminton game with a Chinese girl! This is the amazing community China has. It is the same in every city, the park is like every ones garden, anyone plays with anyone, anyone talks to anyone, and anyone enjoys a glass of Chinese tea with anyone. In England if you went down to your local park at 9pm on a Friday night, all you would find is a bunch of chavs comparing exhaust noise and unnecessary ugly car bodywork, and a bunch of kids arguing around the swings drinking summer lightning and smoking.

North Tomb and Beiling Park:

Beiling Park at night:

The lights have just gone off in our carriage which is the hint to go to sleep. Its 10pm, they sleep far too early here! So good night!

Good morning! I had a pretty good night sleep, someone was talking at about 5am, but I told him to shush!

So, where were we…

The next day we got up early to catch a train to Shenyang’s hanging gardens. Before getting on the train we needed to book tickets to Dandong for the following day, and beds on a sleeper train to Hailaer, in Inner Mongolia. We unfortunately missed the train due to long queues, and hassle over getting the train times we wanted. We all felt pretty crap after little sleep and a mad rush to the station. We fell into the nearest air conditioned Chinese fast food restaurant and had an awful excuse for a curry for breakfast, then discussed our options. We had done a lot of reading about Hailaer and the area of Inner Mongolia bordering Russia.

There were three main things we wanted to see. The Mongolian grasslands, where we could stay in a Yurt with a Mongolian family. The town of Manzhouli on the Russian border, where Russians cross presumably illegally to trade. And Dalai Hu, one of the largest lakes in China, which just “unexpectedly” pops out like an enormous inland sea. But this was not going to be a cheap section of the trip, as it’s even further off the main travellers track, and defiantly not on the tourist track. Also train tickets are even harder to book than last year, the stupid system where you have to book tickets from the originating station meant we couldn’t guarantee our return ticket on the day we wanted. A hard decision, but we chose against it. We are all disappointed, but I am especially as I heard so much last year from a friend who experienced the Mongolian life, the grasslands and a bit of the Mongolian Desert. Hopefully one day a trip will take me close enough to reach that part of the world.

So we chose to go to Xi’an to see what all the fuss is about. Terracotta army etc… We originally weren’t going to go, as there is little more in Xi’an than the T army, but as we were no longer going north we could spare a few days there. We needed train information (in English) which is only available online. As internet access for westerners is virtually impossible we had to resort to a very expensive option. My UK T-Mobile phone connected to my lappy! Anyway, we got our Hailaer tickets refunded, (loosing 20%, about £1.70 each) and got tickets for Xi’an.

We then went to the Imperial Palace (described as a mini Forbidden City) which Damian named the Forbidden Town! It was again under heavy restoration in preparation for the Olympics. It was actually quite a disappointment and certainly not worth 50 kuai! Afterwards we just started wandering around to kill time.

Jon has a list of tasks to complete while in China which was drawn up by the staff at the Students Union. It is obvious that some of the SU staff don’t really know much about Asia, for example one of the tasks is to have a photo with a Geisha… Japan? Anyway, a more relevant task is to bring back a Chinese CD. While in a CD store we met a girl called Olivia who was very enthusiastic and eager to help us, she chose a CD for Jon. We then chatted to her for a bit, she tried to help us get a good deal for our second night in Dandong as we were currently planning to sleep on the streets! When we got back to the hostel, we stuck on disk one of Jon’s album. I simply can’t describe it, so here is Jon’s take on it:

“As if Alvin, Simon and Theodore had been reincarnated as a Chinese goat herder and decided to use thier Chipmunk powers for 18 tracks of ear-bleeding evil.”

Imperial Palace and Misc Shenyang photos:

The next morning we boarded our train to Dandong, on time! 4 Hours heading south. The scenery was really interesting. Most train journeys just pass endless flat fields of rice, corn and other crops. But this journey was different. We were going through a mountain range, typical Asian pointy mountains with many peaks, long river eroded valleys and ex glacial valleys. Then out of nowhere a massive industrial plant would appear. Well it was actually a tangled mess of plants. Imagine your typical mining plant in England. Many buildings for different stages of the process with long thin covered corridors between each with conveyer belts inside. Well it was the same here, except there would be 6 or 7 different plants, all tangled up. Where they ran out of space to build new plants, they would find gaps between the previous plants, and then create elaborate long conveyer belt corridors between them around the other plants through any possible gaps and holes. Unfortunately I didn’t get any photos of these remarkable spaghetti plants as by the time I got my camera out, we had moved on into rural China. This was just as interesting though, usually the trains don’t pass to close to rural villages, but due to the limited routes available through the landscape we got a rare close up view.

Train to Dandong:

Dandong is a very small town in Chinese standards. It doesn’t see many westerners at all. However it does see quite a few Chinese tourists. On the border with North Korea, select arranged tourist trains and busses can pass over the bridge. North Korea allows about 10,000 Chinese and other Asian tourists in a year, but less than 2000 from the rest of the world, almost all of which enter from South Korea. All the tours are heavily controlled. The visitors can see certain areas, but not others. They can only talk to selected people. They are told when they can use their cameras. Even the North Korean side of the Yalu River which can be seen from the Chinese side feels like a bit of a facade. A restaurant with a colourful umbrella outside. Restaurant guests that seem to stay there all day. A line of well dressed happy school children sit on the port edge smiling and waving to boats. A bus passes every 15 minutes or so and drops off three or four remarkably similar people each time. A Korean soldier sits and enjoys the view with his girl friend. Girls take pictures of each other with Dandong in the background using their mobile phones… (I thought mobile phones were illegal in NK?) There is a real eerie feel about the place; maybe it’s just in our heads, knowing that there in front of us, is North Korea. But also an industrial plant can be seen in full operation with people working. Houses with obviously burnt out windows can be seen further along the shore. A port full of boats can be seen, but the boats don’t look like they have moved in a long time. And of course, Korean military can be seen patrolling up and down with their binoculars and Kalashnikovs.

We took every opportunity we could to get a closer look at the mysterious place, facade or not. We walked to the end of the old bridge which was “accidentally” bombed by the yanks in 1950 which now stops at the halfway point where the Koreans have dismantled the remains. We took a tourist boat which got very close to the Korean side, Chinese tourists were shouting out to the Koreans which could have been insults, it certainly wasn’t “ni hoa”. The contrast between the two countries is certainly noticeable. Where there are cities across borders elsewhere in the world, even over a river, there are always strong links between the countries, heavy trade, people walk between with little or no control and inspection, both sides will be equally developed. But it’s a totally different view here. On one side there is China, massively developed, high rise buildings, buzzing city life, and on the other is Korea, quiet, undeveloped, greenery with a few buildings here and there. To demonstrate this I took a set of 7 photos from the boat and patched them together in Photoshop to create a panorama, take a look:

North Korean Border photos:

For dinner we wanted to try some Korean food, so we went to a Korean restaurant which was recommended by the LP. I was really looking forward to some good seafood, the best seafood I’ve ever had was in Hainan last year so I had high hopes. The meal was awful, and defiantly not a good example of Korean food, as last year I had a small meal in Seoul which was quite good. However we did try a little bit of a cold meat, which we think was dog, another tick off Jon’s list. (On a side note, did you know that Restaurants in Beijing have been forced to remove dog from their menus for the Olympics!)

As we walked back to our hotel we stumbled upon a coffee shop run by a Canadian, Peter, who had been living in China for twenty years, and Dandong for one. Here we spoke to him about North Korea over Hot chocolate (I hate coffee!) and carrot cake! He had just been over the border for one of these tours, and was actually planning to do some trade in the future.

That evening we went out to find a bar, which isn’t easy in Dandong. It was pouring with rain, so we only bothered to go as far as a little street food place opposite the Hotel! Classic China street food, you get a tray of hot ashes in the middle of your table on the street. On which you cook skewers of meat, fish, shellfish, bugs etc…  A tarpaulin full of holes provided shelter to some degree. Light bulbs hanging from indoor grade wires from a tree, with bare wire and a simple folded bit of cardboard for a lampshade to stop the water reaching the bulb. Beers were 4 kuai, and the food was very reasonable. We started with some simple sticks which we think were beef, but may have been dog again, but then we bought a tray of some small muscle like shellfish. These were nice; Jon and I particularly liked them so splashed out for a tray of rather more expensive ones, which were delicious! By this point everyone was getting a little tipsy. Just as we were discussing the possibility of buying some of these live bugs which were on offer, and going down very well on the table next to us; they came over and gave us some! We all tried some, except Sarah of course. Then we moved on to the Chickens head… bit of meat, skin, brain… Then Damian had an eyeball.

Throughout our delicious meal, we were exchanging laughs with a table surrounded by at least 10 Chinese teenagers who were celebrating a girl’s birthday. They then invited us to join them, and we spend the rest of the evening drinking and laughing with them, despite the rather heavy language barrier. The night ended with Jon running around the hotel in nothing but a towel looking for a shower, Simon holding Damian by his legs out of a window claiming he could fly, and the general terrorisation of Dandong.

Disrupting Dandong

The next day we got up nice and early to check out of the hotel, embarrassed, and check into our next hotel which was a business hotel, little more expensive, but very comfortable, clean and conveniently located. We then caught a bus to the Tiger section of the Great wall. This is the most easterly section of the Great Wall of China, and obviously nothing to do with the Mongolian threat the Wall was originally designed for, but for the very recent Sino-Japanese war. For me, it was an interesting contrast to the actual main great wall section I saw last year. It was much smaller in height and in length. I would estimate between a tenth to a fifteenth of the length of last year, only a half to a third the height, and much less up and down too. Also last year we had to walk as far back along the wall to get back to the start, but this time we took a boat down the river to get back, bordering North Korea. This is where we all crossed the border briefly, so we can say we have been to North Korea! It was actually very unnerving as it was highly likely there was a North Korean Soldier hidden somewhere with us in his sights. Jon actually walked quite a few steps into the country, “just to demonstrate how crap the fence was”. Fool! Jon and Damian were both feeling ill after the night before, and Jon was actually sick… into North Korea.

Tiger Great Wall & crossing the NK border!

To get back to Dandong, Jon, Simon and Damian jumped in a taxi, but the driver refused to squeeze 5 in, so Sarah and I hitch-hiked back. We had now seen everything in Dandong we planned to see, and still had an afternoon and the next day to wait until our train. We lazed around, went to Tesco’s! We actually found internet access at Peters Coffee place, and I used the opportunity to start uploading photos, which took most of the day! There was a Brazilian band playing in the coffee house, random thing to find in Dandong! I absolutely hated it! I thought I liked Brazilian music, but this was awful. Every song sounded the same, the singer mumbled so all you could hear were the tones of her voice, which consisted of maybe three or four, one of which hit me like nails on a chalkboard! However it was worth the torture because afterwards I had a cheese and ham toasty! Cheese!!!!

On the return journey to Shenyang the next day, I had a seat separate to the others and got chatting to a Chinese chap called Victor. He was from Shenyang and had spent 4 days on one of these North Korean tours. He amazingly gave me his photos from the trip, including a few he took on the way back when he wasn’t supposed to! The photos really need explanations, and maybe I’ll write a little about them later if I have time, but here is a selection if you’re interested, they probably won’t seem like much without hearing what Victor told me.

North Korea Photos

So that brings us to yesterday, the day I started writing this entry! We spent most of the day in another western bar we were recommended by Peter in Dandong, just killing time waiting for the train. I really hate waiting, wasting time, but we had saturated both Dandong and Shenyang, there was literally nothing else worth seeing, and we couldn’t risk getting on a train to somewhere else in case we couldn’t get back!

Wow! I’m up to date, if you read all of that, well done! 3500 words!

We are now in Xi’an, im sat in the Bell Tower hostel with a TsingTao beer in hand, and ready for sleep! Goodnight from Xi’an!

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