May 16, 2008

We got up about 8am and took a taxi to the “Twin Dragons Bridge”, which, like many sights listed in the book, was mediocre – it barely went over a stream. We had more difficulties with the cab driver: when we tried to ask how much a return trip would be, he put up three fingers, and motioned back and forth. We took this to mean Y3 there and Y3 back. Suspecting that this might be a bit low, we even tried to confirm this when we got to the bridge. But he really meant Y30 – exorbitant for the maybe half hour the entire excursion took. We argued a bit, then just gave him Y15 and got out. I was looking over my shoulder for the next two hours, thinking he might have called some cabbie friends or the police to push us around. That didn’t happen, but I still felt like we’d left an impression as belligerent foreigners.

We we got back to town we did a little shopping, then checked out of the hotel and got on the bus to Kunming without difficulty. During the not-uncomfortable ride I watched some great kung-fu movies. I think Jianshui was the one place so far that we were a tiny bit sad to leave, thought I don’t know if there was much else to do there. Perhaps it was just the relaxed vibe. Once we got to Kunming we got a great hot bowl of silken tofu with spices, scallions and soybeans and a bag of mangosteins from a street vendor. I haven’t mentioned these delicious fruits until now, but they are one of the highlights of China by far. Sweet-sour, succulent and easy to open. We also had a bunch of lychees with us during our days in Yuanyang which were quite nice as well, though more sour. Now we’re finally on our flight from Kunming to Guilin, after catching an easy taxi ride to the airport. The meal sucked, but we were hungry enough to eat it.

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May 15, 2008

We met Daniel at 5am and jumped in the car. The ride out to the “best sunrise spot” was about an hour, over mostly cobblestone roads, so very rough and uncomfortable. When we got there, a heavy fog obscured the paddies, but as the sky became lighter it cleared for about five minutes and I was able to snap a few shots; though on brief review in the viewing screen I’m nearly positive they’ll be crap. The best picture will be of a local Hani minority woman, to whom I gave Y1 for a pose. I think she’s there every morning, along with a couple of young girls selling eggs to the pro photographers will the medium format backs and big lenses, frantically switching filters and bodies despite the simple fact that the was nothing much to shoot. But from the postcards we saw later, the potential is truly great: brilliant reds, purples and oranges over the mottled and patterned landscape of rice paddies.

After 45 minutes or so, we headed to the next paddy, but it was the third stop that really demonstrated the scale of this area, as after a short walk to a lookout point, we could see the entire Yuanyang valley, at least 30km long, and covered almost entirely in rice terraces. Our driver pointed far off into the distance and said the name of our town, and we could follow with our eyes through the morning haze as the road would its way around the mountains and through the villages to where we stood. Below, hundreds if not thousands of rice terraces had transformed the landscape into a bizarre pattern of twisting lines, resembling the altitude lines on topographical maps and broken up in patches by areas of dense forest. It was striking, and though a bit of haze remained, we could imagine how powerful this spot would be at sunset, when it is reportedly best.

After a stop at the obligatory market stalls selling a mix of local [or so we thought!] embroidery and the standard Chinese junk, we got back to town around 10:30am. E and I shopped a bit (I got some sandals for Y100, or about $15) and then joined Daniel for an early lunch of mushroom soup and the surefire scrambled egg & tomato dish. Afterwards we checked out of the hotel and got on a bus for Jianshui. As we had asked (or tried to) at the “luxury” hotel (still no English spoken there, either) up the road, we thought there would be a comfy motor coach that we could sleep on during the 3+ hour ride, but nooo, they just pointed us back to the main square, where first we had to deal with a testy “bus lady”, who gets the money from passengers and touts the occasional stops along the route. While it was still a long, hot ride, with a screaming baby and some heated words between the bus lady and some Hani women, who we’d dropped off at a bad spot on the outskirts of some nameless city, at least this time we took the expressway, so it wasn’t as bumpy as the mountain roads we’d been conned into taking on the way there.

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May 14, 2008

Today was the worst day of the trip so far. As mentioned before, I think my expectations have been steadily getting lower and lower with each place. On the other hand, it could be that our initial excitement is wearing off and we’re entering the mid-trip lull. I was hoping that “one of the most spectacular sights in China” would redeem this feeling, but so far I doubt that it can.

First, we got (or at least felt) ripped off by the bus ride to Yuanyang, about 4 hours south of Jianshui. We had gotten to the bus depot in Jianshui by about 8:30am, and were steered away from the normal ticket line by a seemingly honest woman wearing a red headscarf. (Incidentally, the Muslim [or what I stupidly assume to be Muslim, based on little else but women with head scarves] population on the whole has seemed cleaner and more honest than the other Chinese.) She lead us to another woman, in uniform by the bus platforms, who sold us a ticket (including receipt) that we explicitly asked take us to Xinjie, the further point of the two bus stops in Yuanyang (the first is called Nansha). After asking several times that it was to Xinjie, not Nansha, and receiving head nods in assurance, we forked over the Y31 each and got on the small bus.

After 3+ hours of incredibly bumpy, mountainous roads, picking up and dropping off passengers along the way, we arrived in Nansha, ferried into another minibus already packed to the gills, and promptly told we owed another Y10. Protest yielded no result, and we were forced to pay up – total bullshit! The hour long ride up the hill to Xinjie was intensely unappealing: bumpy, twisting roads sitting in the back of the van in which at least two people were vomiting, one of them while nursing her child.

Then we arrived in Xinjie. What we expected to be a charming mountain village with cobblestone streets and a friendly atmosphere turned out to be an ugly shantytown with no English spoken (which we’d assumed based on the guidebook’s assurance that it would be very tourist-friendly) and nothing appealing at all. Touts even tried to get into the car before it had stopped to pick up those who’d [illegible - I think I was falling asleep when I wrote this].

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May 13, 2008

The sleeper bus to Kunming was cramped but bearable, I suppose. You get this tiny little bunks, about 40-50cm wide and maybe 150cm long, so it was impossible to fully stretch out. We did get a bit of sleep, interrupted only by a bathroom break at 3am and a guy vomiting a bit before then.

We arrived in Kunming at 6am, when it was still dark. At first we had some trouble getting our bearings- nothing was in English and we were being hounded by touts every which way. After a few minutes of dodging “Hello! Hotel?” and “Dali, Lijiang!” we found the train station, where we rested a bit and planned our morning. We decided to fly from Kunming to Guilin, so finding a place to buy tickets was the first goal. This took a while- no one at the bus or train stations, or a hotel or two, knew where the ticketing agency mentioned as “handy, right next to the bus station” in the Lonely Planet was. At long last we found it (literally steps away from the bus station, but completely in Chinese, so therefore invisible to us) and began to book the tickets when we found out that they don’t take credit cards and we’d have to wait until 8:30am before banks/ATMs opened. Great start.

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May 12, 2008

The alarm went off waaay too soon, at least after the so-so night of sleep I got. I think the altitude had something to do with it; the storm as well. But a quick peek out the window revealed thick fog, with nary a peak in sight, so we rolled over and slept ’till 8. Everyone else at the place did about the same, it turned out, as we all ate at about the same time. Breakfast consisted of two large cups of Yunnan coffee, which is a little like weak Turkish, with some grounds left in the brew, a “Naxi sandwich”, which is like flatbread layered with an egg, tomatoes, onions and cheese. E had the “muesli eight fruits yogurt”, which probably didn’t actually have eight fruits, but it was still good.

We set off and generally hiked with the two aggro Israelis and the Dutch girls. The trail wasn’t at all bad – generally level and winding for a long way, maybe 10-12 km down to Tina’s guest house, which would be impossible to miss even if there hadn’t been about 600 signs pointing the way. The trail today was as spectacular as yesterday, with constant terrific views of the mountains and cliffs. At one point, we crossed a waterfall. After the Halfway Guest house, the trail went steadily down, even steeply at points, to the valley.

At the bottom we checked out the area around Tina’s and bumped into Christian again. Though the Israeli guys wanted to continue up the road to Walnut Garden, the rest of us didn’t have time, and since they were too cheap to go alone, they came with us back to Qiaotou. We negotiated a seven-person bus, but found out there had been a landslide about halfway along the valley road. The road itself is strange, about half paved and half rough stone/dirt. There were a few very hairy turns and bumpy sections, though probably par for the course in this zero-liability country. We caught a tiny and uncomfortable minibus back to Lijiang for the equivalent of about $3 each.

After a shower we packed up and went to dinner. It was a bit of a disaster, with loud obnoxious music blaring from the neighboring restaurants and bars on the Old Town party strip. But Baby A was cute as ever, the rents were in good enough spirits, and the food was decent, though the fish was pretty boney. After dinner my parents and sister saw us to our taxi. We realized how little time we’d had together to chat or just be a family. These moments are fleeting, and we should cherish them.

May 11, 2008

Got up early to catch our bus, but to no avail, it didn’t leave until 9:30. There was some discussion among J and my folks about whether to come with us. His folks weren’t interested and C didn’t think the baby could take the 2+ hour car ride. She was undoubtedly right – we’re stuck in traffic now, on the way to the Gorge.

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Whew, what a day! We finally made it to Qiaotou (pronounced “chow-tow”), the starting point for the gorge trek. There was a Danish guy on the bus named Christian who we decided to walk with. First we stopped into Gorged Tiger Cafe, where a kooky character from Australia named Margo fed us overpriced cheese and tomato melts and gave us maps and information about the hike. As we headed for the trail we picked up a Canadian guy (name?) who has been in China for four months already and was psyched to talk about it, forever. He had stopped into Jane’s Guesthouse a bit up the road from Margo’s. Apparently, “Jane” is biologically a he. What a weird place to find a foreign transvestite; but I suppose the world is full of these pockets of hidden humanity. But in communist China?

The trek started relatively easy for the first 10km or so, until the “24 (or 28, depending on who you ask) bends”, which is a set of steep switchbacks with loose, crumbling footing. At this altitude (around 2300m/7000ft) you get tired quickly on the uphill portions, and both E and I found ourselves flagging behind the two guys. The sun was no help – the hot temperatures were a drastic change from the cold and rain of Lijiang.

The views were stupendous. Simply breathtaking. Huge mountains, some with snow and bathed in clouds, others tree-studded and emerald green, all heading down to the river gorge (this would be the Yangtze river). There were really only foreigners on the trail, save a few touts with donkeys that you could ride up the steep part. The family we had met at Zen Garden hotel in Lijiang did it this way, so mom you totally could have done it!) We made it to our destination for the night, Tea Horse Guesthouse, by about 6pm or so, which was a little later than we expected, but not a problem. The staff was friendly and there were plenty of interesting foreigners to chat with. At one point it was me, an American, plus a Hungarian, a very pretty Finnish girl (whose tall stature and platinum blond hair of course drew lots of attention wherever she went in China), two nice Dutch girls, two aggro Israelis and the Canadian guy (the Danish guy had gone ahead a couple more hours to the next guest house down the trail). International! But where were the Chinese?

Dinner was fine. We had kimchi, fried “asparagus” (probably cucumber), fried rice and noodles, both veggie. We ate and chatted with the Dutch girls. Oh, and several beers! The plan is to get up early and see the sunrise. We’ll see if we can open our eyes at 6:30am, though. The hike was no joke!

May 10, 2008

Sort of a throw away day today. We got up not too early and took some taxis to see Buddhist frescoes at Baisha. As most of them were destroyed during Mao’s cultural revolution, there wasn’t a lot to see, and we had to (re)pay the exorbitant Y80 fee that we paid at the Dragon Pool yesterday. It was rainy and quiet, and I took some nice photos of flowers and the temples. The gates and rooftops reminded me of Japan, although there are definite differences in color, with the Japanese ones more reddish and the Chinese ones with more blue and white highlights.

After the fresco temple, we continued to a tourist village a few kilometers away. I say “tourist village” because it seemed entirely set up as some extant example of “authentic minority culture” that seemed a bit out of place. At first a colorful town, soon it was clear that nothing of any interest was for sale- just the usual trinkets mentioned before. There were many supposed “silversmiths” banging away at some formless chunk of metal, occasionally heating it up with foot-powered bellows below an open flame, but never quite getting to any detail. Just bang, bang, clink, all day long [reminds me of my old job]. Perhaps the one nice thing was the cappuccino at the cafe we found there. E was afraid of the cat.

For lunch in the tourist town, we went to a large – nay, HUGE – restaurant that specialized in their own farmed salmon. We picked one from the water and (after dashing it’s head in) they served it as sushi and shabu-shabu. Though the old folks thought the cooked salmon was better, I thought it was tasteless that way and preferred it as sushi, though this is certainly an understandable throwback to my Japan days. Other dishes included some lame greens and soybean soup, plus lots of rice and a silken tofu dish that wasn’t at all bad. The room we ate in was pretty dingy, smelly and had flies.

On the way back, we jumped out of the taxis to walk to the express bus station to get our sleeper tickets to Kunming. We stopped in a few shops along the way, which, true to our expectations, were cheaper and more fashionable than in old town.

Dinner was definitely the highlight of the day. For our ritziest meal so for, the owners of the hotel brought us up to their new luxury place, which features fantastic views and tasteful traditional decor. The food was terrific: spicy cucumber, fresh roasted peanuts, sautéed broccoli and other greens, Naxi-style fish, deep-fried yak cheese, eggplant, egg and tomato omelet, sweet bread puffs, plus some meaty dishes. To drink was the local wine, a light red that didn’t quite leave much of an impression. But the service was great and I will not soon forget it – it may well be the best meal of the trip!

The walk back through town was surreal, as there were huge crowds along the main old town thoroughfare, with music blaring from the canal-side bars and pubs. You could float a candle down the canals if you wished. When we got back to the hotel, full and tipsy, E was feeling sick. We arranged the taxi for Tiger Leaping Gorge (or rather, arranged a taxi to the bus station, then a bus to TLG) and asked about weather, which was forecast for rain both days

May 9, 2008

Up at 6:30am to get some early morning photography in, and happy we did so. E tagged along, and we saw the sun rise on the mountains from the hotel, then go lost in the surrounding streets. Most shops were closed up and the kids were going to school. The town is a patchwork of winding flagstone alley and minor canals, many with fish (and no small amount of trash) in them. Locals still wash clothes and vegetables in the rivers – my stomach turns just thinking of the bacteria…

Came back to the hotel for a breakfast of fruit (mango, banana), yogurt, toast, egg, carrot juice and coffee. Then we had a quick nap before heading out into the south section of old town. It all looks straight out of a kung-fu flick, like my friend Elaine had mentioned in an e-mail about the place when she visited last year. The shops seem to all sell the same tourist trinkets: scarves and “local” clothes/textiles, jewelry that looks the same as everywhere else in the world (i.e. vaguely “Indian”), corny leather cowboy hats and other animal-derived goods, silver and jade figurines, “Dried Meat Yak”, tea shops, etc etc. At least they weren’t selling gaudy western t-shirts or too much fake brand-name stuff, although that may all be available in the new town.

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