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...
.
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!
.
The Chairman surveys Lijiang
.
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.
.
One for mum
.
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.
.
Another one for mum
.
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.
.
Crowds in Lijiang's Old Town
.
Street-food goodness
.
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.
.
Vegetable market in the Old Town
.
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.
.
Lijiang's Old Town by night
.
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).
.
Black Dragon Pool
.
Naxi family feeding fish at Black Dragon Pool
.
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?).
,
Naxi Old Town and Jade Dragon Snow Mountain
.
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 :)
.
Constructing the new "old" town in Zhongdian
.
Back in Tibet
.
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).
.
More prayer flags
.
'What are you drawing?' - an inquistive monk
.
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.
.
Futile attempts to spin the giant prayer wheel
.
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.
.
The Ganden Sumtseling Gompa in Zhongdian
.
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).
.
Buddha and friends
.
It's cold in Zhongdian!
.
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.
.
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.
.
Prayer time is over in Zhongdian - monks spilling out into the courtyard
.
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 ....
.
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!!).
.
The Chinese, renowned for their herbal remedies
.
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!
.
Drying corn
.
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.
.
Hobbes in the gorge
.
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.
.
Holding on for dear life on the aptly named 'dangerous' ladder
.
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.
.
The Yangtze River and middle rapids
.
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).
.
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.
.
Bell Tower in Dali Old Town
.
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.
.
Fishing boats on Erhai Lake near Dali
.
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!!
.
Rural scenery near Dali
.
The model Peoples' Army Soldier
.
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...
.
Morning exercise in Kunming
.
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.
..
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment