Urchins

The poverty in India is simply a different concept to anything I've experienced. These kids live by the train tracks, collecting bottles and rubbish that can be recycled. They sort amongst the shit and piss that accumulates from the trains (it seems everyone wants to go when the train is stationary), deal with rats and dogs, and carry bundles much bigger than themselves up and down, day and night. The railway staff treat them with disdain, but their roll is well accepted - they keep the station clean and tidy. And they still play and giggle as they work.

Although the rules say don't give to kids, this girl got an apple from me (don't tell Blake!), which she demolished in a matter of seconds. The tiny core which went over the side of the platform like everything else, was then her evidence to the other urchins wandering the station, with much extravagant relating of size of apple, and disbelieving responses, and cheeky grins back at me, watching the show from my bench.

And a Note to Travellers - When you get to the station at 5am and the nice lady announces the train is an hour late, don't think, oh well, I'll wait an hour and sleep on the train, because you'll be a very cranky person 4 and a half hours later when you're STILL WAITING!

Delhi

After 20 hours of travel and no sleep, we arrive at Delhi Airport around 11pm. It's hot. We wait 30 minutes for our luggage on the slowly moving carousel before realising our bags are in a pile in the corner of the dusty arrivals hall. Pass taxi drivers telling us that buses have stopped, buses are dangerous, the concept of "bus" is a falsity, a non-entity, then to the courteous and helpful cops in their vintage 60's sedan, just wait here, bus is only 50 rupees, and would you like a map of Delhi? On the bus, stenciled sign: "Please check for bomb under seat - report for a reward". On the bus, it's still hot.

It's hot, dirty, brash, audacious, pushy - everything we were expecting, but Delhi is filled with small revelations that created constant shifts in my feelings for the city and the country. Walking through New Delhi station even at midnight - especially at midnight was a kaleidoscopic mass of bodies, each face featurig a glint of gold, a daube of red or deep blue, a flash of dark eyes veiled by a translucent sari which shines and shimmers, fold on fold. Bundles of rags become kohl-eyed babies. The deeply tanned faces break into smiles of blinding white, darkly glowing metal or the rich red-brown of betel nut. But these men don't smile at me. At me it's definitely more a leer, or else I am invisible, to be trod on, cut off, pushed in front of. But among themselves, each individual takes up only the minimum amount of space, and then the next, and then the next.

But there is quiet, just around the corner. A young boy (so neat!) stirs milk for his grandmother. Albino carriage horses are returned to gleaming white in cool alcoves away from the dust. Young children play in any corner, perfectly at home - and so they should be...

Shanghai

Wandering the The Bund, Blake admitted he didn't mind Shanghai. An excellent subway system helped us to get around (see B's latest installment of Silly Signs), and we needed it, heading out to the Indian Consulate smack bang in International Finance Land, and the 1000Y Saving-Discount-Airline office (E-Long), in Shanghai's version of Noddy Land. A shame to spend so much time arranging travel, but we did squeeze in a little bit, a tiny bit, of shopping. Shanghai's famous "fakes" market was shut down in 2004, but that hasnt stopped the shopping - it's just moved into the back streets, upstairs in rickety timber terraces that reminded me of dodgy Surry Hills share houses, where lastest design, best quality, genuine imitation designer stuff can be yours. Or, rather, mine. Or to be completely realistic, Blake's, as he always manages to come home with more shopping than I do. New Winter season Chloe imported from Korea was deemed to expensive and I had to be satified with current LV resort Tote. Sigh!

The street fashion had us both gasping as super-short-shorts barely covered petite Chinese bums, and newbies struggled in high heels, while some Chinese women sported a style that was easy to pick as "Shanghai", and gorgeous (but tricky to photograph!).

A trip to see an Acrobatic troupe topped off our tourist circuit, and we were off at a very scary time before 5am on the Rocket Clock, headed for Delhi.

Returning to Chinese Cities (Guest Blogger Blake)

Danba was next on out hit list. Not mentioned in our (now out of date) Lonely Planet, we'd heard good things about this place so decided to check it out. Well what a shock on arrival - an ugly vertical city of bland multi-story concrete schlop. Quiet a change from sprawling grasslands... After the initial shock we started to appreciate the vertical nature of the town, which is easier when drinking a few beers on the rooftop with a some new found friends. [The reason the city is so vertical is that the city is at the confluence of 5 rivers, each with it's own mountain range guiding it].

Maybe it doesn'ty look so ugly in this photo, but it was a rude shock from what we were used to

Luckily we'd also been informed that the action was out of town, where we could find beautiful valleys of dotted with stunning houses - and indeed it was true. We spent a gorgeous day wondering around one valley, and it was magical.

Chengdu was next on the roster (capital of Sichuan province). The appropriate adjectives for Chengdu might be mild, or perhaps luke-warm. Not a bad place, just not much going for it except the impressive Panda Breeding Research Centre (see Blake's blog). Still we had a good hostel, and managed some long walks about town as well as planning our next move - to Shanghai!

Wild West Show

The trip from Zhongdian to Litang had been the topic of gossip since landing in Kunming. Glancing downwards into deep gorges, peering warily upwards into precarious boulder slides, and out across spectacular mountain ranges, while chugging over altitudes of at least 4500m - in a public bus. The journey lived up to expectation despite a detour due to landslide, a flat tire (no spare), and a slightly worrying stop when the bus began making crunching sounds (universal hoozywatzit). I wish I had photos to do justice to the beauty of the landscape, but wanted to keep all my limbs safely inside the bus at all times...

Well and truly after dark, and 16 hours into our journey, after a car came to deliver our spare part, we eventually made it to Daocheng around 11pm. Daocheng is not the loveliest Han Chinese town. In fact, I think it's a sister city with Nameo, our Vietnamese border town from hell. There are plenty of brothels and plenty of minivan drivers in Daocheng, but not much else. A busload of foregin tourists proved way too much fun for these guys, who for some reason weren't keen to leave town. After about 6 hours of fucking around, we found a minivan driver from Litang that needed to do the return journey, cornered him, and away we went.

The main relief arriving in Litang was no altitude sickness! As a Sydneysider who grew up around, well, 2 or 3 m above sea level where possible, there was a bit of altitude paranoia going on, but a slow and steady pace and plenty of free tea seemed to do the trick. Litang's population appears almost entirely Tibetan, "Tashi Dalak" a more common hello than "Ni Hao". Crazy that this is China, but I'm not going to get political about it here... The people of Litang look like they are proudly upholding their local cultural traditions, while adopting what they fancy from modern China and the West, which is a great sight for a traveller.

What is incredible is the lifestyle of the cowboys (yak-boys, really) that zoom round on hotted-up motorbikes, with boom boxes on the back playing Tibetan pop or eurotrance, 70's sunglasses and leather jackets complimenting traditional red braids in their long hair - all topped off with a jauntily angled cowboy hat. These guys (the women no less stylish, but quieter due to lack of sub-woofer ownership), come into town to buy supplies, trade, and gossip, before heading back to small isolated villages and nomad tents. It made for a great atmosphere in the town, and we stayed for a few days just to enjoy it; wandered up past the stunning new monastery and the very grotty 'hot springs'. We stayed at Snowland Guesthouse for 40Y, run by crazy girls who stomp around the place to activate the dodgy sensor lights, singing at the top of their lungs - Chinese Idol won't know what hit them when they head to Litang.

From Litang, next stop was Tagong town (via a 4 hour wait for roadworks). This is a town famous for its grasslands, and again felt more Tibetan or Kham (the local minority) than Chinese - and that's a compliment. From here Ros rode a few ponies, and in fact so did B, although we were mighty disappointed that our "horse trek" was more like a pony ride, as our guide lead us all the way to our accommodation - a nomad tent deep in the grasslands, and our one and only "homestay" of the trip.

The nomads of west Sichuan are yak farmers, and during our stay in their home (see photo below), we were treated to yak milk, yak butter, yak yogurt, and yak cheese - plus some potatoes thrown in. Their day is filled with milking, herding, mating (yes, the yaks need help apparently), and cleaning up after these creatures. The environment is stunning but I do not envy the life of these nomads. Their one luxury is a solar panel, which they use for a couple of hours lighting the evening. Our camera was they source of much fascination and amusement, especially for the little kids Tanza and Dronkiona. It was lovely to see siblings playing together in a land of little emperors - as minority people, the Kham nomads are allowed to have more than one child.




Returning to Tagong with very sore arses after 2 days on wooden saddles, we were headed back down the mountain, and back into true China...