In Search of Shangri-la - Yunnan

Northern Yunnan vies with many other places in China for the title of Shangri-la..... Anyways, another long one - there's a lot to see in Yunnan...

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Our welcome to Yunnan was in the form of the spew bus, which began at 7am after alighting from a 12 hour train trip from Emei to Panzihua, and ended 3pm in Lijiang. The train trip had been a pretty easy one, except for the fact that Hobbes' bottom bunk had been taken over by a group of Chinese men eating pigs trotters and duck legs and drinking whiskey until the lights went off at 10pm, although they did clean up after themselves which was surprising. Also the group of women next to us decided 3am was a good time for a really loud conversation, but other than that it was all good!

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The Chairman surveys Lijiang

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So anyways, after getting on a bus (supposedly) to Lijiang at the train ststaion we drove 30 minutes to the main Panzhihua bus station where we stopped for 2 hours for no apparent reason. During this time Mr Annoying joined in the action, trying to extort 3 yuan from everyone on the bus for the trip from the train station, which was refused by all, and generally causing a nuisance of himself trying to get people to change seats etc. He was eventually man-handled off the bus by most of the people on board.

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One for mum

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After eventually leaving the bus station we took another hour to get out of the town as we kept stopping every couple of hundred metres, again for no apparent reason. We we did finally get moving the spewing started in earnest. Not that spewing isn't as as much of an integral part of a Chinese bus trip as the constant smioking, it was just that it appeared to be undertaken with much more enthusiasm on this trip. This involved people having to move to accomodate people spewing out the windows, and then those people who had moved spewing down the aisle (there was even dried spew from a previous trip all over the curtain for our window.

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Another one for mum

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To try and take the attention of everyone off the spewing the bus driver decided it would be good to put on some very very bad chinese techno (think of the chipmunks at 1000 BPM) with accompanying video clips of extremely unenthusiastic and awkward girls dancing in their underwear (why we don't know, although it was obviously thoroughly enjoyed by all the men on board). The trip was dragged out by the presence of a Chinese tour group of some sort which kept demanding that the driver stop every 30 minutes or so, to allow them to take photos... but we eventually made it to Lijiang which is in the north western part of Yunnan, near the Tibetan and Sichuan borders.

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Crowds in Lijiang's Old Town

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Street-food goodness

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Lijiang is a nice enough town, if a bit touristy, with the big attraction being the Naxi old town, which is very well preserved (or perhaps rebuilt) and has been converted into a bit of an old Chinatown. While this makes for a quite relaxing atmosphere with no cars or trucks belching pollution and threatening to run you over, we also found it a little sterile as all the shops are selling souvenirs and the laneways are crowded with Chinese tour groups (complete as always with coloured caps and a guide with flag and megaphone). Still the place is beautiful and after a bit of walking you can get away from the more touristy areas. The old town water supply, consisting of open channels filled with gold fish running next to most of the laneways is still in operation, if only for asthetics and adds to the relaxing feeling of the town.

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Vegetable market in the Old Town

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Lijiang's other claim to fame is being the home of the Naxi ethnic minority who supposedly have the last remaining active hieroglyphic style written language. Again the people, culture and food were far removed from what you readily associate with China, although it was a little hard to get a good feel for the culture due to the over 'tourist-fication' of the town.

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Lijiang's Old Town by night

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To the north of Lijiang is Black Dragon Pool Park, yet another Chinese park with pre-requisite lake, but a pretty good one nonetheless. The park has a perfectly clear lake fed by a nearby spring, across which are stunning views of the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain (everything is 'Dragon' something here), which signified that we were getting close to Himilayan territory again (at least when the clouds are cooperating).

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Black Dragon Pool

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Naxi family feeding fish at Black Dragon Pool

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Spent a few more days than planned in Lijiang as Aimes was still trying to recover from Chengdu city induced illness, and it is a pretty nice place to while away sometime and recover from the more rugged areas we had recently been. In this time we managed to drag ourselves up a couple of small hills around town, offering great perspectives of the Old Town and the surrounding mountains (is this sounding like a bit of a recurring theme?).

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Naxi Old Town and Jade Dragon Snow Mountain

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From Lijiang we headed further north and back into Tibetan land to the town of Zhongdian, and so it was that our search for Shangri-la came to a close, as for the purposes of attracting tourists Zhongdian has been officially renamed Shangri-la (although in consideration of those other towns with Shangri-la aspirations we think we'll just keep on calling it Zhongdian). As part of this tourist drive they are following Lijiang's lead and reconstructing a Tibetan old town, which is actually quite nice, although it is sans-Chinese tour groups at this stage :)

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Constructing the new "old" town in Zhongdian

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Back in Tibet

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Anyways, it was nice to be back in Tibetan land and immersed in all that is synonymous with Tibet: drinking yak butter tea, prayer flags everywhere, yaks roaming the fields (most with heads still attached), prayer wheels, timber houses, grassslands, snow capped mountains and cold (good for Hobbes anyways). It was so nice in fact that we seriously considered ditching the rest of China, forking out for a ticket to Lhasa and travelling overland to India through the Tibet SAR (until we realised that the high passes were probably already closed and that we already had booked flights from Beijing). We also thought that we might not be able to stand the smell of yak butter for that long as we were reacquainted with everything and everyone smelling of it (including our sleeping bags after having used a Tibetan coat as a blanket in Songpan).

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More prayer flags

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'What are you drawing?' - an inquistive monk

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As with all Tibetans towns, the hills surrounding Zhongdian are covered with monasteries and other Buddhist structures. To the south of the town is a small monastery which is home to what must be one of the worlds biggest prayer wheels, standing something like 15 metres tall and unable to be moved with less than a small army of people.

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Futile attempts to spin the giant prayer wheel

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The main reason to come to Zhongdian is yet another big Tibetan Monastery, which was more than reason enough, as while perhaps not as significant in the Tibetan Buddhist world, is a more impressive sight than those in Sichuan and Gansu, being perched on the top of a hill with all the minor monastery buildings scattered on the slopes below. As always the scale of the monesarty was amazing with numerous prayer buildings, accomodation for several hundred monks and prayer flags and cairns on the peaks of each of the surrounding mountains. The most impressive sight was at the end of morning prayers when all the young monks (complete with mobile phones and Nike Air Jordans) stampeded out of the prayer hall almost knocking each other over in their haste.

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The Ganden Sumtseling Gompa in Zhongdian

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After Zhongdian Aimes was feeling well enough to take a crack at Tiger Leaping Gorge so we took a bus down to Qiaotou, managed to work out where we had been dropped off and looked for a hotel at the start of the gorge. The road from Zhongdian to Qiaotou runs next to the river for much of it's length and the Chinese construction efforts were evident for the entire length with hydro dams being constructed at relatively close intervals. Despite reports that the weather was going to be dodgy the sun was out and it felt quite warm (although this was perhaps due to having just left Zhongdian).

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Buddha and friends

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It's cold in Zhongdian!

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Qiaotou isn't much to apeak of, in fact it might be the least appealling of towns visited in China to this point, so there wasn't much desire to hang around and we headed off early the next morning. The first challenge was actually finding the start of the track with several small paths which may have been the right one. Seems we picked the correct one as not long after the arrows and directions to various guesthouses along the way started appearring on the roacks along the path. This was quite helpful, although also somewhat confusing as they often directed you in opposing directions to make sure you passed their place.

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After a short while we entered the gorge itself, which as we had been told is absolutely massive. As is often the case in such locations the sheer size of the cliffs is difficult to judge as there is little to use as a reference for their 3000m height.

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Prayer time is over in Zhongdian - monks spilling out into the courtyard

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The Chinese love affair with dynamite and construction in general was again on display in the gorge, with roads having recently been blasted into and through the cliff face for the length of the gorge, and the sounds of blasting echoing through the gorge from time to time (as was also the case in Zhongdian, sorry Shangri-la). When not blowing stuff up, the next love affair is with building briges, we have never seen so many, so high, most still in varying stages of construction ....

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We stopped for lunch at the Naxi Guesthouse, and cursed the fact that we had spent the previous night in Qiaotou rather than here. We needed sustenance as the next part of the trek was the hardest part, with a climb up to the top of a 2500m peak. The climb (called the 28 Bends, although surely many more than that) was reminiscent of Mount Bogong, in that everytime you stopped you would say 'I'll go 5 bends without stopping' to motivate yourself, only to then have to rest at the first one (although it was only 600m vertical rather than 1600m, and we were only carrying about 8kg rather than 18kg - a sign of the lost fitness!!).

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The Chinese, renowned for their herbal remedies

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The first night was spent at the Halfway Guesthouse which had perhaps the most amazing backdrop you could imagine, with 3000m high cliffs so close you felt you could touch them, the scenery was even better than Sapa in northern Vietnam. In fact much of the scenery was similar to Sapa, with the added benefit of being able to do the walk independently without the guide, something that you can't do in Vietnam. The guesthouse had soft beds, hot showers and cold beer - just what you need to put back what the sweat takes out!

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Drying corn

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The second morning of walking was relatively easy going as we were either going along flat areas or descending. The only challenges came in the form of a couple of waterfalls flowing over the path (and continuing down the sheer cliff to the side) although these were traversed without too much wetness... After a couple of hours we had descended to the recently blasted road, where we stopped for lunch.

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Hobbes in the gorge

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After lunch we walked (climbed) down for an hour to the middle rapids (where the Tiger supposedly leaped the gorge, to where we are not sure as there are near vertical cliffs on each side). We were accompanied by Mr Xia, a 'guide' who's family constructed the track (steps and ladders) down and charges 30 yuan for the privilege of using them. We particularly liked the juncture were a sign points to 'dangerous ladder' one way and 'safe path' the other, at which point we were lead in the former direction, which did turn out to be a relatively dangerous 25m high ladder "bolted" to the cliff face. As usual, enterprising locals have constructed paths and gates to the best view points, which have additional charges, however in this instance it was more than worth it, as the dizzying power of the river was amazing.

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Holding on for dear life on the aptly named 'dangerous' ladder

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After continuing along next to the river for some time we finally arrived at the end of the walk (as far as we were going anyways) - Walnut Garden, which obviously had some walnut trees at some point although none now. We were the only people staying here and as such received the full attention of the many puppies which live there. This was fun for about 10 minutes before the mischievous things started stealing our stuff and running off down the road.

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The Yangtze River and middle rapids

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Next morning it was back to Qiaotou by car (along a very expensive road which as been so poorly constructed that half of it has already been washed into the gorge). From here we headed to Dali, which we managed to achieve directly, after hailing a bus on the highway and negotiating a price which turned out to be cheaper than we should have paid! Dali is a lot like Lijiang in it's attempts to have a bit of the old Chinatown style thing, but surprisingly (as it is a more established tourist location and has a train line) it's not as rebuilt as the former (something that kind of makes it more appealling).

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Entering more low land areas which are home to many ethnic minorities also gives the area a Vietnamese feel, although of course it was much colder (than Saigon anyways). But it was still quite a contrast from the more mountainous areas we had been in previously.

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Bell Tower in Dali Old Town

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The thing to do in Dali is bike riding around Erhai Lake, so we decided to do it (if Tiger Leaping Gorge had identified some unfitness, riding around Dali did more of this). Only trouble is that there isn't actually a road which runs adjacent to the lake, but instead there is a highway some distance away with glimpses of the lake. After almost being run off the road by several trucks and buses and suffering smoke inhalation from their exhaust, we decided to take a track down to the villages on the lake. This made the ride worthwhile as we were able to make our way through numerous small fishing villages along the lake edge, sometimes on concrete roads within the towns, other times on dirt paths between rice paddies and frequently lost.

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Fishing boats on Erhai Lake near Dali

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Anyways, Dali seems like a pretty cool place to hang out, at least it would be in warmer weather when you can make the most of the outdoor eating and drinking options. It was the first place we had been in China where you could buy decent CDs and books (although we hadn't really been looking) and shops and resturants played (mostly) decent music - again a rarity. One of the most unusual sights in Dali was a young kid sitting on a potty on the footpath of a main street, watching people and traffic pass by while he did his business (and this is in a country where children up to the age of 3 or 4 wear crotchless pants so they can go wherever they like). Similarly enlightening was getting a true understanding of the size and populous of China, where a competition on a Magnum icecream wrapper has over 2 million prizes to be won!!

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Rural scenery near Dali

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The model Peoples' Army Soldier

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The last stop in Yunnan (and a very brief one at that) was in Kunming, where we arrived at 6:30am (after having been awoken at 5:30 to bright lights and saxophone renditions of 'I Will Always Love You' and the Carpenters balring over the speakers) and managed to get on a train that night at 9pm headed for Guilin, in Guangxi province. So we had about 14 hours to kill and fortunately a relatively interesting city to kill them in...

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Morning exercise in Kunming

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Having arrived quite early in the morning the squares and parks were all filled with people doing their morning exercises, ranging from Tai Chi, to Ballroom dancing, sword martial arts and bootscooting to High NRG techno (each activity turning up it's music as loud as possible to be heard over the others). In other areas dozens of people played badminton, making it seem as though it was snowing with all the shuttlecocks flying everywhere.

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Traffic jam in Green Lake Park (why are there seagulls 800 km from the ocean?)

After walking around for a while and noting the wedding photo studios on every corner (which seems to be a prerequisite of any town in China) we realised that we could breathe alright and that we didn't have headspins... Kunming is relatively unpolluted!! This alone makes it one of China's nicest cities :) Considering we were looking forward to our second night in a row sleeping on trains we decided we deserved a massage, after which we settled down for a few beers and dinner, which always helps with a long train ride.

Some like it hot? - Southern Sichuan

The title may be a little misleading, as Southern Sichuan might more accurately read just Chengdu as we didn't get to see too much more here as a result of asthma and a few other minor illnesses, but we did still had enough time to get a real feel (see, taste) of Sichuan.

There must be something about Chengdu, as despite not having that many sights to see and not boasting a beautiful location, most of the people we met at our guesthouse seemed to stay on much longer than they had planned. The same was true for us, as our 3 night stay turned into 6 (as we somehow managed to ignore what was the worst pollution encountered thus far). This phenomenon was most probably attributable to the fact that we were staying at what is by far the nicest guesthouse we have ever been to. It's resort-like features: ponds, outdoor seating, bar area, table tennis, movie hall, and get this - toilet paper and hand soap, definitely made us realise we had been on the road for too long! Our room on the first night came decked out with a DVD player which was a super luxury, although unfortunately a luxury which was somewhat diminished by the fact that the pirated DVDs kept freezing. The spicy Sichuan BBQ put on by the owners became a little addictive as the vege skewers were found to be a perfect compliment to a couple of 'longies' of Tsing Tao beer.

Suit and Cons - what a dude!

The first thing that comes to mind when you think of Sichuan is spicy food, followed by spicy food and perhaps thirdly spicy food. Our time there lived up to these expectations, with just about every meal unbearably spicy and unbelievably delicious. It seemed somewhat sadistic to continually assault our mouths at every meal, however despite our tongues being on fire and eyes watering we kept going back for more and more. The Sichuan Pepper makes your toungue go numb, which is not a particularly pleasant feeling, but still didn't result into any change of eating habits.

The highlight of downtown Chengdu was Peoples' Park, which we visited on the weekend to get a taste of what the locals got up to in their spare time. The tea houses were packed with people of all ages kicking back with their mates, catching up on the goss and playing games of mah jonhg and chinese chess. Little precocious brats scooted around on roller blades, oldies ballroom danced, kids encircled the main statue armed with sketch books and little fold out chairs, and lovers rowed around the algae infested lake. It was amazing to see the diversity of activities people were getting up to as the park was treated as one giant communal backyard (Chairman Mao would be proud). Possibly the only downside was the numerous ameteur Peking Opera Singers having a bash at their craft...

China's elite police patrol the lake in Peoples' Park

Aimes' favourite sight in and around Chengdu was undoubtably the Giant Panda Research Centre which is attempting to prevent their extinction with only a few thousand reportedly still in the wild. The cute cuddly things were arousing from their sleep as we got there in the morning. We watched them go through their morning rituals of releasing their bowels, having a bit a rumble with their mates and then sitting down and munching on the gastronomic delights of various kinds of bamboo. The breeding program here has been relatively successful, despite Pandas reportedly often being too lazy to mate some years, and you can see some of the tiny babies in the nursery area.

Giant Pandas!

More Giant Panda!

Baby Panda!(via a monitor)

Conversley, the Giant Buddha in Leshan (which is supposedly the worlds largest buddha after the Taliban decided there is a correlation between the dynamiting of ancient statues and precipitation) was a bit of a disappointment. Not that the statue isn't impressive and very big (it is VERY, VERY big), it's just that the theme park infrastructure which has been constructed around it takes away any sense of amazement you have and makes you want to escape as quickly as possible. We took a boat to get the best view of the statue and ended up spending most of our time watching all the Chinese tourists on board as they struck various seductive poses and contorted their bodies into difficult positions to get the best photos of themselves (oh, and the buddha of course).

The world's biggest Buddha statue

Boats (and some serious haziness) at Leshan

Our last couple of hours in Chengdu were spent at Xiao Wang's Tiny Museum which is literally a single room in a small house down some back streets which has been filled with thousands of items of Mao Zedong memorabilia. Newspaper articles, badges, portraits, books and lots and lots of gold busts pack the musty smelling room, which you can view while Mr Wang shouts at you in Chinese (we think he is just about deaf).

Xaio Wang's Tiny Museum

One unfortunate result of staying on in Chengdu for so long was a bad case of asthma for Aimes, something we might have expected considering the fact that on some days visibility was down to about 100m on account of the smog.

From Chengdu we headed south to Emei, intending to climb Emei Shan (one of China's four holy buddhist mountains), however asthma and a couple of bouts of gastro resulted in us abandoning these plans. In the end this didn't seem like such a bad thing as the people we spoke to who had done the climb reported being molested by monkeys for most of the way, something that reportedly became quite scary when any attempt to eat was made. As such a day and a half were spent in bed recovering before attempting what would turn out to be nearly 24 hours on transport to our next destination of Lijiang in Yunnan province.

Journey to the East - Gansu to Sichuan

This leg of our journey took us through some of the most contrasting scenery imaginable, moving from the desolate deserts of Xinjiang to the snow capped mountains of the Tibetan Plateu, as we traversed the length of Gansu province and the northern part of Sichuan. Unfortunately the length of this trip (and the numerous notable experiences) has again resulted in a very long post (we'll try to break them up in the future)...

The first half of this trip encompassed the towns of Dunhuang, Jiayuguan and Lanzhou which traverse the Hexi Corridor which was traditionally the last outpost of China before entering neighbouring Tibet, Turkestan and Mongolia. Of course this area is nowhere near any international borders anymore (with the assimilation of Tibet, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia into China), but with the harsh environment and scarce population, there still maintains a frontier feeling. As for much of Xinjiang, the area is almost exclusively desert, with the towns each being located at small oases, containing what seems the only vegetation (and human population) in the entire area.

Crescent Moon Temple amongst the sand dunes

Our first stop was at Dunhuang, just near the Xinjiang-Gansu boarder. Having arrived on an overnight train from Turpan, we had a cold 2 hour bus ride across the desert from the train station to the town which was surprisingly "Chinese" after our time in Xinjiang. The main reason to come to Dunhuang is the Mogao Caves which are about 20km away and contain one of the most extensive collections of ancient Buddhist art in the world.

The Mogao Caves are a complex of over 400 grottoes which were carved into a cliff face at the height of the Silk Road, by rich traders hoping for good fortune on their journeys. The complex is quite amazing, we were only able to see around 10 or so caves but each was decorated with amazing detail and quite well preserved considering some were constructed as early as 2000 years ago. They are certainly a testament to the devotion of their constructors (or should that be financiers) as each of the massive caves was dug by hand, including one constructed around a 40m tall buddha, totally constructed within the cave. Despite the amazing amount to see (and we didn't even see the really good caves which cost a premium $$$), as with most of the world's most significant archealogical sites much of the material which previously resided here is now in European and American museums (much to the dismay of our Chinese guide).

Desert landscape near Mogao Caves

Also while in Dunhuang we did some bike riding and managed to get ripped off at some very, very big sand dunes. In true chinese style a fence has been constructed for several km's either side of the access road to the dunes, an 80 yuan entrance fee levied and loudspeakers installed, each competing to be the loudest. We had hoped to be able to side-step the fence, but after much searching we were unable to find an alternative access point so had to submit to the Chinese profitiers.

On entering we were greeted by yet more ways to part with spare yuan (camel rides, paragliding, sand surfing etc) and hundreds and hundreds of package tourists. Fortunately, once we managed to climb up into the dunes (pretty bloody hard work) we were pretty much by ourselves and able to explore away from the crowds. Turned out the dunes were pretty impressive, as was the temple and lake nestled between some of them, so the 80 yuan started to seem almost worth it...

Hobbes avoiding the hoardes (and struggling for breath)

From Dunhuang we decided to brave our first long distance Chinese public bus, thinking 5 hours would be a good introduction. Only problem was that 5 hours slowly became 6, then 8, then 10 before we finally arrived at Jiayuguan. It seems the abilities of Chinese engineers to build some amazing trans-desert infrastructure (perfect roads and rail lines traversing thousands of kilometres) are not matched by their abilities to construct alternative access during construction. As such, if you travel this route in a couple of years there will no doubt be a perfectly smooth road, but currently there is only a fully demolished old road and a partially constructed new one. This results in yet another choose your own adventure course across the desert, through powdery sand, which sometimes requires significant backtracking when the truck in front of you gets severely bogged.

Tourist camel train near Dunhuang

The best part of the trip was when we stopped to pick up a group of Chinese yokels who were sitting by the side of the road in the middle of the desert at 8 o'clock at night. They had set a few bushes on fire to keep warm and when the bus stopped they all started shoving each other onto the bus (trying to get 5 through the door at a time). Not that we are saying all country people in China are yokels (everyone else on the bus was from the Chinese countryside and had successfully turned the bus into a dutchie early into the trip), but these guys were something else. Hats on sideways, covered in dirt, teeth in every direction, wrestling up and down the aisle of the bus - it made for an interesting couple of hours!

Not long before we made it to Jiayuguan, our bus was stopped at a checkpoint and the driver dissappeared with the police for nearly an hour. Fortunately he finally returned, just when we thought we might be spending the night on the bus. We suspect that he was getting booked for exceeding the yokels quota for the bus? The final bit of fun was seeing the state of our bags when we collected them in Jiayuguan, despite being in the luggage compartment under the bus, they looked suspiciously as though they had just been dragged through the desert for the past 10 hours?

We had hoped to see the western end of the Great Wall which is not far from Jiayuguan, but since no one in town appeared to be willing to rent us a bike (combined with the fact that there isn't much else to do there) we decided to move on to Lanzhou.

The train trip from Jiayuguan to Lanzhou was interesting for a couple of reasons, firstly for the fact that it was by far the most local we had experienced (people smoking everywhere and windows open) and also for the interactions we were able to have with our fellow passengers. Having been immersed in "conversation" with a number of men on the train for an hour or so (them speaking Chinese with one or two English words and us speaking English with one or two Chinese words) they acquired our guide book and phrase book. It was soon after this that we were cursing Lonely Planet, as first they discovered phrases about Falun Goong and started shouting it out and arguing, then they noticed that the China Lonely Planet doesn't include Taiwan (which is of course part of China) and wanted to know why? Our explanation, that it is an American book and they don't respect the one-China policy (unlike Australia), didn't really seem to make them happy. After this we were sure some party cadre on the train must have overheard and would have notified the authorities in Lanzhou so they could take us away on arrival. But we were obviously too quick for them at the train station, as we were able to make it safely to our hotel without being detained........

Aimes takes on Lanzhou - the most polluted city in the world

Lanzhou is not really much to speak of, although it is supposedly the most polluted city in the world (according to LP that is), however we must have visited on a good day as it didn't seem to have anything on Beijing? Considering the bad wrap that most provincial capitals in China receive it didn't seem too bad to us. It had good food anyways, spicy hotpots and soups and more dumplings and steamed buns than two people could possibly finish (again!).

From Lanzhou we travelled south to Chengdu, skirting the eastern edge of the Tibetan Plateu, among some of the most amazing scenery you could imagine, along some quite (make that very) marginal roads and very (make that extremely) marginal toilets! This route took us through a number of small Tibetan towns including Xiahe, Hezou, Langmusi, Zoige and Songpan. Despite being in Gansu and Sichuan provinces all this area was part of Tibet prior to 1949 (in fact there is now more of Tibet and more Tibetans outside what the Chinese call the Tibetan Autonomous Region).

The entire area is quite high, being between 3000m and 4000m, and while this didn't casue too many problems, it did result in Hobbes almost having a heart attack when he decided to climb a mountain near Langmusi... it also unsurprisingly meant that it was cold, very, very cold, especially when we had to take buses at 6am (the sun doesn't rise until sometime after 7:30).

Downtown Xiahe

Despite being a rather small and dusty town, Xiahe does have one major claim to fame, that is being home to the second most important Tibetan Buddhist Monastery after Lhasa. In fact, to some extent the (Labrang) Monastery is Xiahe, with most of the remainder of the town only seeming to exist to service the Monastery and it's many visitors. The Monastery itself is quite massive, housing over 1200 monks. Although this number represents only a fraction of what existed prior to the cultural revolution when there were over 4000 monks.

Monks walking to morning prayers

Tibetan dancing

Most of the people in the town are Tibetan, many of whom are pilgrims who have come to Xiahe on their way to Lhasa. The Monastery has a 3km pilgrim circuit which surrounds the monastery and includes over a kilometre of prayer wheels. Despite most of the pilgrims being quite elderly (though probably not as old as they look considering the weather they have to live with) many of them traverse the route continually throwing themselves prostrate on the ground in worship. Considering how cold it was neither of us could imagine even kneeling on the ground, let alone lying face first on it...

During our visit to the monastery we were privileged to be able to witness some Tibetan rituals, including dancing and the morning prayers where all the monks are called to the hall using giant conch shells. Although watching the monks slowly meander into the hall you got the feeling some would have rather been somewhere else (primarily those wearing collector's edition Nike Air Jordans and talking on their 3G mobile phones). To give some perspective to the size of the monastery, it took the best part of a day to see it all!

Xiahe was also notable for allowing us to try yak meat for the first time, and unlike mutton it is absolutely delicious (sorry to all vegos...). Although less enjoyable was the state of the share bathroom in our guesthouse - the less said about that the better.

The bus ride from Xiahe to Langmusi (the bit to Hezou anyways) was the coldest of this leg so far and must have been just about the coldest bus ride ever undertaken! Of course there was the inexperience of only wearing thermals, jumper, down jacket, beanie, gloves, boots etc, but it really was damn cold and we had to constantly move our hands and feet to stave off frostbite. It was sometime during these anti-frostbite rituals that we looked over at the monk sitting in the seat opposite wearing just his cotton robes and a thin shawl and looking rather comfortable!! Though we knew it really was cold as the ice which wasn't scraped off the windscreen was still there when we arrived in Hezou 3 hours later! Fortunately after waiting for something or someone (unknown to us) at Hezou for a couple of hours, during which time we were able to enjoy the extremely graphic pictures of traffic accidents at the bus station, the next part of the trip was slightly warmer.

The main street of Langmusi

Langmusi is perhaps the most beautiful town we have yet been to in China, as well as being by far the smallest (perhaps the reason why we liked it so much?). It is a Tibetan town nestled between several large real Himalayan looking mountains, and containing a couple of big monasteries (but then again which Tibetan town doesn't have at least two?). It is also home to lots of Tibetan cowboys who spend most of their day driving up and down the main street on their motorbikes Campbell Parade style, faces wrapped in scarves and big dell coats flowing in the wind.

We spent a couple of very relaxing days walking around the monasteries and surrounding mountains, most of which have prayer flags or other Buddhist monuments on top. The big open spaces make the hills look much smaller than they really are, which when combined with altitude and snow made for a couple of lung-busting ascents.

Prayer flags with the Himalayas behind

Langmusi also hosts Sky Burials, which have only recently been permitted again by the Chinese Government. They involve hacking up a recently deceased body, and spreading it for consumption by vultures. The Tibetans believe that the faster the body is consumed the better life the person led and the faster the person will be reincarnated. Although we didn't witness any of this we did see the remains of one of these ceremonies, consisting of scattered bones and axes, which was all a bit eerie and resulted in us moving on quite quickly.

Tibetan cairn

Another highlight of Langmusi was the yak burgers, although we only attempted the small ones, they were still just about the biggest burgers we have ever had (perhaps second to the 'stick everything in the shop on it' burgers in Albury a few years back). It may have had something to do with not having eaten western food for a few weeks (or more likely huge amounts of MSG) but all the food here was fantastic.

From Langmusi it was on to Songpan in Sichuan, although there was an unintentional stop off in Zoige for a day along the way as there is only one bus a day (at 6:30am). Zoige is not a particularly exciting town, all the buildings seem to have been very recently constructed (parhaps by the same person as they are just about identical) and just about devoid of people? After being refused a bed in the first hotel that we managed to find (we couldn't really work our why), we managed to find what looked to be an okay room not far away (that was until we realised it was about 1m from the loudest karaoke machine we have ever heard). It snowed for much of the day meaning most of the time was spent warming up over bowls of spicy Sichuan noodles or inhaling second hand smoke in an internet cafe.

Bus stop in the snow - no wonder it was cold!

If the bus ride from Xiahe was the coldest we have experienced, the one from Zoige to Songpan ran a close second, as it had snowed a lot during the night and there was at least 5 hours of driving through snow and ice. Perhaps the only thing keeping it from being the coldest was that we were now experienced and had decided to wear just about all the clothes we had with us. As such, the only time the ice and snow became a real problem was on ascending and descending some steep passes where the road is narrow, crash barriers non-existent and the passing vehicles many. Fortunately, there were plenty of Tibetans on board who kept a constant flow of prayers (bits of paper with prayers written on them that is) flowing out the windows for the duration of these sections. Otherwise the snow made for some stunning scenery (what doesn't look better covered in snow?) particularly the many small monasteries, stupas and prayer flags.

Unloading at Songpan Aimes noticed something wet on her bag, which appeared to be blood when wiped off. At first this seemed a bit strange, that was until the load of recently detached yak heads (and bags of offal) began streaming off the roof of the bus. After this experience and the one in the desert it seems we will have to argue harder in future to get our bags inside the bus?

The source of blood on Aimes' bag...

After having decided that we had sufficiently recovered from the horse riding in Mongolia of 4 weeks prior (Hobbes anyways), we signed up for a couple of days riding and camping in the hills around Songpan. Having picked up a few people travelling the same route in Langmusi (after not seeing any travellers for days and wondering if we were in the right places), we were able to get a group of 6 together who were willing to camp it out in the cold.

As in Mongolia, the horses weren't the prettiest you might find, but they were tough - damn tough! The first part of the ride involved walking up a near vertical hill for half an hour with us and camping gear on their backs (and of course at altitude), something they accomplished with relative ease. After this it began to snow, but this also didn't manage to slow them down. It wasn't until we arrived at a steep decent that we had to get off and lead them down the hill (or more accurately watch the guides throw rocks at them when they stopped gallopping down the hill).

The woman from Snowy River (Aimes in the middle)

The riding was a lot more comfortable than in Mongolia as the horses were loaded such that we sat with our legs over their shoulders and the less flexible among us didn't have to straddle their entire girth. Not such a good position for a gallop (even a trot made you feel like you might come off), but there wasn't going to be much of that in the mountainous terrain.

Arriving at the bottom of the hill it was the turn of our guides to show that they were no less hard than the horses. This demonstration involved constructing our camp (tents and cooking shelters) from logs lashed together with vines, making fire from wet wood and mattresses from ferns and branches. Through the night they continued to show what real bushmen are like (as opposed to pretenders from Sydney) by removing pots of boiling water from the fire with their bare hands and picking up the burning parts of logs with the same leathery appendages. Although they also showed us a softer side by preparing all our food, including noodles and bread, from scratch - the perfect men or what? One was even a spitting image of Clint Eastwood (in a Tibetan kind of way anyways).

We also had time to play cards, it seems Big 2 speaks a universal language (although Tibetans have some funny ideas about suit order) and Aimes was able to win the affections of yet another grizzled horseman... At night we were scerenaded by the youngest guide, with just about every song revolving around the line 'wor ai ni' (i love you).

The sun finally comes out

The second day of riding was similar to the first, after a small run down a road, it was back up another very steep hill and another occassion for the horses to prove their worth, something they did easily. From the top was an amazing view of "Ice Mountain" where we could have gone if we'd opted for 4 days riding, and something we regretted on seeing it as it is one of the most archetypal "mountains" you are likely to see.

The final leg back into town involved walking the horses down the hill before remounting for the final triumphant march up the main street of the town. The only thing missing was the ticker tape and music!

The hard men of Songpan

From Songpan there was one final long bus ride before we made it to Chengdu where we were to spend a few days recovering from the cross country route we had just taken. The bus wasn't too bad, despite taking nearly 10 hours (instead of the the supposed 7), except for the fact that at about the halfway point, when we began to descend down from the plateu we had been on for the past week and a bit, the visibility was reduced by about half.... it was at this point we knew we weren't too far from yet another big Chinese city!

Anyways, for those of you who love stats as much as Hobbes (and who in their right mind doesn't) here are a few from this part of our trip:

Number of days - 14

Time spent on buses - 46 hours

Times spent on trains - 24 hours

Distance covered - approximately 3000km

Rate of travel - very slow!

Uighur World - Xinjiang

So from Xian we flew to Xinjiang and the city of Urumqi (the furthest city from the sea in the world) - a pretty uninspring town. Although it was just a stopover to connect with our 1200 km train journey across the Taklamakan desert to the outpost of Kashgar (the last Chinese town on the Silk Road). The journey had some amazing desert scenery (to Hobbes, reminiscent of 'Tatooine'. He says that if you need to ask where 'Tatooine' is, you don't deserve to know :P)

Greasy, spicy kettle style chips? - fantastic!

Xinjiang, bordering eight other countries, had a unique mix of people and was distinctly different to the rest of China. It's like you have stepped into another country ... and another century. It is worlds away geographically and culturally from the China most of us know... for example,

- there is a whole new language to be learnt, with the gutteral sounds of the Turkic orginated Uighur language resonating around you,

- a whole new cuisine to dapple in - kebabs, pilaf, 'chuchura' (mutton dumplings, again!), 'girde nan' (bagels), 'nokot' (chickpeas with carrot), walnut slice for dessert and the ubiquitous 'opke' a broth of bobbing goats' heads and stuffed intestines which we avoided like the plague,

- and new people to mix with, a fascinating mix of Uighurs, Tajiks, Krygyz, Uzbeks and of course the Han Chinese.

Do you have a DVD player in your sun visor?

Our immediate reaction was 'stuff the sexy and fashionable "Free Tibet campaign" with Richard Gere and the Beastie Boys - what about these guys?? In China's efforts to maintain control of this region (for it's oil and it's strategic location) Uighur separatists are executed and their whole Roman alphabet phased out as it was considered that it gave them an advantage in learning English. Can we have a celebrity campaigner to support these guys please??

Public transport Kashgar style

How's this for my James Dean look? (we promise he was smiling prior to and after the photo :)

Perhaps the first thing to get used to after arriving in Xinjiang was 'Xianjiang time'. The province is several time zones removed from Beijing but China refuse to acknowledge this. There is an unofficial Xinjiang time of two hours delay and we had to clarify which time they were going by everytime we booked anything.

After passing a surprisingly painless 23 hours on the train, across some surprisingly diverse desert scenery (including extensive wind farms), we arrived in Kashgar. Our accommodation in the grounds of the old British Consulate was a throwback with the 1950's architecture, it was totally trapped in a timewarp. Our room was really drab and I don't think the decor had been updated since the Consular days. You could imagine the hoi polloi expats drinking their G&T's in the courtyard on a hot summer's evening. It was a stretch of the imagination though, with temps dropping below zero by the time the sun had gone down.

On several occassions walking down the street, we had to stop and remind ourselves that this was still China. In the old quarter we were taken aback with what seemed like old medieval times with mud brick walled houses, donkey carts in the street, and vendors pedalling shimmering silks, gleaming knives and elaborate jewellery. Blacksmiths and cobblers operated out of tiny little workshops and stalls that spilled out onto the streets and the whole place seemed alive at any given time of day. You could smell the wafting aromas of the bakers and their fresh sesame and onion nans (like Indian naans), the strong scent of the spice and herb dealers, and there was the constant clanging sounds of the metal workers, it was sensory overload.

The Uighur old town in Kashgar

The 'fashion de riguere' of Kashgar for women was to paint in a monobrow if you weren't lucky enough to be born with one - sorry guys, no pics of this one.

The highlight of Kashgar was defintely the Sunday Livestock Market. We got there early (obviously a little too early as we hadn't gotten used to the use of Xinjiang time) and saw the market slowly grow from a an empty dusty paddock to a wild, mind boggling chaos of a market brimming with people, trucks, horses, cows, sheep, goats and donkeys. We got right into it, watching people 'test drive' horses, sheep getting dolled up (sheared) for a big sale, and in the end didn't even flinch as overloaded trucks full of muddy cows squirted poo on us as they passed by.

Translation please?

The Kashgar Sunday Livestock Market

Driving a hard bargain

The actual Sunday Market itself, well known for it's silk carpets, jewellery and hats was a little let down in comparison. Perhaps the only thing of interest was the numerous stalls selling fake Viagra (and the associated crowds of men straining to make a purchase).

Some unwilling sale items

Nice hat!

As we were experiencing all of this, Hobbes was a little worse for wear, dosed up on Immodium and being thousands of kilomteres away from qualified medical attention, he self diagnosed and prescribed himself a course of antibiotics from the extensive medical kit we are carrying - a process he is quite familiar with now, after the monthly bouts of gastro in Vietnam. This limited us to hanging around town rather than venturing into the desert or visiting the nearby Karakul Lake.

The train journey crossing back east across the desert was similarly spectacular to the first, particularly when we woke at sunrise at the point where the plains met the mountain ranges and everything was covered with a light dusting of snow. This was an awe inspiring experience in the glow of the rich warm morning light after a weary night sharing a cabin with a drunk that was coughing up a lung with what we suspected as TB. We were keen to offer him a little advice to cut back on the quarter hourly fag breaks, but decided our Chinese was not yet up to the challenge and that smiling while the phlegm was flying was much easier. Aimes for some reason felt a bit of a sense of responsibility for him as she was running off to get hot water for him in the morning, to ensure he got his sustenance from his breakfast of two minute pot noodles (a Chinese traveller's staple).

A 'lively' corner in Kashgar's Uighur Old Town

Yet more 'frenetic' action in the Old Town

After another 23 hours on a train we arrived at another ancient Silk Road town - Turpan (or Tulufan if you're Chinese). Turpan is a prime example of the Chinese not missing when it comes to charging for seeing sights. The town itself is not much to write home about (despite beautifying efforts such as building grape trellisses over the roads) but there are many sights (primarily deserted old towns) in the surrounding desert. Just about everyone in town with a car tries to sign you up for a trip to see them for 200 to 300 yuan, which is quite reasonable until you calculate that the entry fees are another 200 ++ yuan per person. Fortunately a lot of the places are apparently pretty crappy, which allowed us to restrict our trip to a couple of the better ones.

Snow covered desert

As for Kashgar, it was well and truely low season in Turpan, with many tourist businesses closed and only 2 other travellers sighted in 3 days. This is despite the fact that it would seem the most pleasent time to visit, being around 22 degrees compared with 45+ in summer and sub-zero in winter? This extreme climate results from the fact that Turpan is located within the second lowest depression on the planet (after the Dead Sea) at 153m below sea level. Not being divers this makes it the deepest we have yet been (and this statement probably proves we aren't divers :)

Near the village of Tuyoq

We visited the small Uighur village of Tuyoq which lies in a valley of the Flaming Mountains (of Monkey Magic Fame) and is one of the most important places of pilgrimage for central asian muslims (apparently seven visits is worth the same as a vist to Mecca?). The town was quite amazing, feeling as though we had stepped back even further in time than in Kashgar, and perhaps transported to the Middle East. Climbing a hill near the town allowed you to see the stark contrast of the green grape vines of the village with the barren desert only metres away - a testament to the hydraulic engineering skills of the people (just had to slip that one in). Further up the valley from the town are a group of small buddhist grottoes high in the cliffs which were constructed at the height of the Silk Road.

Heavy traffic on the way to the Buddhist grottoes

Aimes surveys the hydraulic engineering achievments of the Uighurs

On our high-speed return leg (what car trip in China isn't high speed) we stopped off at another point along the Flaming Mountains, however the clouds conspired against us and there wasn't any flaming action to be seen. Still the gnarled cliffs make for a pretty imposing backdrop to the dead flat basin that otherwise surrounds Turpan.

It's a Muslim world in Xinjiang

The other noteworthy sight in Turpan was the Emin Minaret, which is one of the most beautiful buildings we have seen. It is reached after walking for an hour or so though narrow streets jointly plyed by donkey carts and speeding Chinese mini-bus drivers, and lined with Uighur people cleaning meat, selling bread and playing cards. It comes as some surprise when you come upon the Minaret at the end of a tiny dusty lane, although perhaps this adds to the appeal?

The Emin Minaret

and again...

In addition to trying to avoid Chinese tourist traps, we also managed to enjoy waaaaay too many dumplings (we think the lady in the shop thought we had moved in) and made the most of what might have been our last chance to enjoy Uighur bread.

We wonder why this product was relegated to the 1 Yuan shop?

From here we decided to avoid a return trip to Urumqi and take a train directly to Dunhuang, just inside Gansu province.