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 Not mentioned in our (now out of date) Lonely Planet, we'd heard good things about this place so decided to check it out.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...

Shangri-la

According to local bus drivers and the tourism ad we saw being filmed in the new "old" town, Zhongdian is same Tibetan paradise that gave refuge to the characters from Lost Horizon - the mythical, much fantasised over Shangri-la. A bit rich, really, and another slight to Tibet, but still a pretty town, with a small area of authentic old cobblestone alleys, old Tibetan style lodges and a lovely square.

The area around Zhongdian is home to a number of ethnic Chinese minorities, including the Naxi and Mosu. And it's women who run the show in these cultures, from "walking" marriages where women welcome men into their beds then kick them back home in the morning, to even the language, where male is the diminutive (male + stone = pebble, female + stone = boulder). These matriarchies seem to be thriving, with the men left holding the baby, while woman run shops, labour on building sites, and generally get things done. We even caught a fist fight between female store holders while devouring BBQ skewers and beer in the square.


But a note to travellers: if you arrive at a nice old guesthouse, don't attempt to string up your hammock among the beams of the open corridor before checking with the owner, especially if there are lots of tourists taking photos of the building. You might realise too late you're staying at a 300 yr old caravan stop and one of the few original buildings in town...

Tiger Leaping Gorge

Dear friends will know my opinions on excessive amounts of exercise (unless you're running for the bus...), but after a few days on the Chinese Tourist treadmill, 3 days in the wild was sounding pretty appealing. True to form, LP's 11 buses leaving from Lijiang turned out to be 1, and we'd well and truly missed it. So out to negotiate a mini van to take us to Qiaotou... We eventually scored a ride with a Chinese couple, paying 60Y per couple. Of course, 5 minutes out of town we're joined by two more Chinese, and asked to pay 20 more. Nope. Nope. Umm, how else can I say "Mayo"? Eventually, and thanks to Vincent, a Shanghi resident who's missing Newtown, the price goes up to 70, but now includes a transfer across the bridge to enter Qiaotou town proper.(apparently mini vans from Lijiang can't cross). Once all that was sorted, it was a lovely ride up to Qiaotou, including a pass through a cow and pony market - how much for my very own pony? 5000Y, or $AUD900. Bargain.

Qiaotou itself is a pretty shitty town - full of tourist buses and not much else. Still, we said a reluctant goodbye to more friendly Chinese and headed to Margo's cafe, the Gorged Tiger, to dump some luggage and grab some info. Margo seemed a bit frazzled, and on hearing that Aussie accent, I expected to be served Saos and Vegemite for lunch. While running around in super short shorts, she very sensibly told us just to take it easy. No issues there. The length of the trek is dotted with Guesthouses, Inns and little stalls, making it appealing to even the least fit traveller (me). So our route through the Gorge:

Day 1: 2 hours afternoon walk up to Naxi Family Guesthouse (Vincent and his girlfriend just beat us to the best 30Y room).

Day 2: a late start, a migraine and a bit of drizzle sees Ros cop out and take a pony up the "28 bends" - helping local family make ends meet by paying 100Y for this lovely young gentleman to hop skip and jump lead his mum's pony up the steep, slippery track.

We got to Tea Horse Guesthouse for lunch and decide to stay the night (40Y). Again, a tops place, although like everywhere in China they're doing a lot of work on the place (we could have had a shiny new room for 120Y).

Day 3: dawned bright and sunny, a great walk to Tina's for a late lunch of Naxi sandwich (yummy scrambled egg and tomato inside fresh baked flat bread). Then onto Shaun's (50Y for the least nice room we had on the trek), where we drank Gin and Tonics with an Intrepid tour group, lead by Margo herself, and played with possibly the cutest kittens ever cuddled by Ros.

Day 4 was supposed to be a very easy very sneaky lift with Intrepid back to Qiaotou and on to Zhongdian, but some small, pesky landslides and 2 high maintenance tour member meant all bets were off. Eventually we found a couple of other Aussies, Marcus and Dee, to share a convoy of minivans along the new "low" road back to town. A little scary, as we cruised past cleared avalanches, subsiding road and precarious rocks above the road.

Note to travellers (care of Margo): When one is crossing a landslide, one should have a friend to spot for more falling rocks, take it slow and steady up the slope, then employ a "hot coals" treading technique over the top, watching for slipping, unsteady pieces of slipper slate. And don't look down.

These landslides are commonplace, and we regularly heard the sound of dynamite used to clear them. One van had been caught between two slides, ferrying passengers between each crossing. We made the crossing in good weather and had no problems, but I wouldn't want the job of a bus driver round these parts. I make no comment about the wisdom of creating a road into a pristine gorge so tour buses can drive back and forth along a road than can be covered with tonnes of rubble at any point!

So China has a lot of tourists...

Does it still count as cultural if you're in a tourist town with lots of LOCAL tourists, rather than international ones? Posting this from Lijiang, 4 hour mini bus ride north of Dali. They are both delightfully scenic towns - in a Disney kinda way, but I'll take it. What's been amazing is the number of Chinese tourists wondering around, guided by girls in ridiculously kitch "local costume" - flouro embroidery, fake fur and funny hats (the more authentic version of these hill-tribe women are generally middle-aged and grumpy, and wander around the city selling drugs.) In Lijiang, there's even a loosely enforced fee of 80 Yuan to merely wander around the old town, yet the Chinese love it, especially the tacky pubs, faux-tradional dances, photo ops and pony rides. For the first time in months, we went to bed with the town still partying, as Chinese let loose on packed dancefloors pumping out folk tunes to techno beats.

PS - I've promised myself to put more useful info up here for travelling, so in Dali we found a great place above a bookstore - was like staying in a friend's spare room, and we blissed out with a movie from one of the best selections I've ever seen. The place is opposite Jim's Peace Cafe, and a double with bathroom right next door was 50 Yuan. Now as for Lijiang... We'd been recommended the Ban Ba Inn, but while trudging through the streets, met a woman who is managing a new hotel in town, open for a whole 5 days: Dragon Palace, with a rack rate of Y388 for a standard room. We ended up paying Y120 for a modern, international style room that's probably never been slept in. Total luxury, except for the musak that floated under the door till past midnight, but that's a small complaint. Very nice find.

Train feasting..

The overnight train to Dali from Kunming was booked out of a week, so rather than take the expensive new bus, we opted for 7 hours daytime train. This is me relaxing in the spacious top bunk (note the sheepish "i'm going to take a nap now" expression and the new shoes... stylin') - we shared a cabin with a grandma and grandpa with their granddaughter. She made friends and soon we were surrounded by very interested kids and more food than we could refuse - processed pork pieces, miso soup, plum lollies, strips of nori seaweed and other yummies. Each cabin was supplied with an urn of hot water for making up tea nd instant noodles. Made for a great journey and certainly the winner over a bus, at a third the price.

While these girls were super sweet, well behaved, and obviously spoiled a bit by Nan and Pop, I witnessed two parents berating their 11 or 12 yr old boy, both physically and verbally, for at least an hour. The boy was in tears for most of that time - as you'd expect after being slapped in the face by your dad on a public train. While they got a few disapproving stares from other Chinese, generally they were ignored as they yelled and pointed fingers in his face, and it was tough not to intervene.

Little Emperors - the result of the one child policy in China (where there's 12% more boys than girls born, and you know that's not an accident). While this one was obviously under a truckload of pressure, I've also seen elderly women stand for little boys on buses... It's a weird situation and I wonder how these little boys will grow up.

Anyway, once we arrived at New Dali city (still 30 min from the tourist destination), we jumped straight on a #8 bus from the train station - no changing required (Lonley Planet 0, us, 1)