Yunnan V

3-16
The next day started out with the delicious banana pancakes. After breakfast we were given “hiking instructions” and then told to organize in groups ranging from the fastest walkers to the slowest. I was in the fastest; one guy had a knock-off scarf that we raised like a flag so we called ourselves team Gucci. We were six guys and one Tibetan tour guide, Jimpa.
It took us an hour to get to the top. At times we were almost running up the peak. At the top we raised our flags and then quickly began again. There was very little time to enjoy the jagged mountains and the snaking river thousands of feet below. Tiger Leaping Gorge is China’s equivalent of the Grand Canyon. The trail got warmer as we went higher up and the trail also gets more interesting. The end of the walkway fell almost immediately into the emptiness bellow. Along the way we saw a group of Korean tourists who we cheered on with the enthusiastic rowdiness of any group of American men. We also came across a goat Sheppard dressed in traditional mountain attire. I told him in Chinese that I liked his vest.
After having lunch at a hotel along the trail we made the boring decent back down to the road. The trail went through a mineral factory which was busy putting holes in the mountains. By the time that the bus left the mountainous road I got the idea that beautiful scenery destroyed by bad engineering to make this place accessible to tourists. Chinese people think they can completely control Mother Nature whereas Americans think that nature gives gifts that much be harnessed from the earth. The end result of the prior ideology causes great erosion and environmental destruction.
Our stop for the next two nights was the UNESCO world heritage site of the old town of Lijiang. There I ate some bad beef which floored me for the next two nights.

Yunnan IV

3-15
Leaving Shaxi in the morning I got to enjoy some morning light by the crystal clear river on the outskirts of the old town. The first place the tandem tour busses stopped at was a monastery in the hills where images of the Buddha had been carved into a mountain side until the youth brigades of the Cultural Revolution blew them to dust. It was a freezing morning walk to the top of the main part of the monastery. The climax of the monastery trail was beautiful but I was sure if I could walk a little more up the trail I would find something a little more significant.
I wandered up the trail and I began to miss my mountain bike. The trails reminded me of Nor Cal and the best mountain biking trails I could imagine. Climbing up a rocky switch back I could hear voices above me. It was a group of my colleagues and we hiked up the mountain together.
We ended up finding an untouched nunnery that was as old as time. Walking further we entered the temple associated with the monastery to find that two people were still constructing and painting the images of their deities. There were flowers blossoming in front of the wooden monastery. It looked like the ancient temple had been gutted a few years ago but came upon a little pity money from the government to rebuild what had been lost during the destructive frenzy of the Cultural Revolution.
Continuing on the trail we came to the flat part of the mountain where I could see nothing but trees and mountains—the first time this has ever happened to me in China. It was unstoppably awesome: all I could see was trees and mountains all I could hear was wind. There is a connection with nature that knows no national boundaries—only peace of the natural world.
On the walk down back to our tour bus doom we saw a tribe of monkeys as interested in us as we were in them. It’s always nice to see relatives. The bus took us through a valley known for stone carving and eventually had a tasty lunch in an agricultural and industrial town.
On the way up the mountains our tour bus caravan stopped abruptly and we all got out to go into a Naxi woman’s home (Naxi being the main ethnic minority of the region). This was in a village in which no one knew its name, a woman who was not expecting 40 foreign visitors let us into her home. With all that aside she offered us all tea and walnuts that we cracked with the bottoms of our shoes.
She wore traditional Naxi dress and told us she was a communist party member and she lived in the home of the former landlord. I looked around her house and found ancient farming tools and donkey sheds that have since changed their purpose. It turns out that Naxi people are an umbrella minority for many other minorities in the area. Many villages have different languages and styles of dress but if they were all to be official minorities they would get a place in the National Congress, which would make there be more minorities than Han Chinese. Outside a very old Naxi woman was working the canola fields. It was all a great site (see the picture of the woman in the field).
Back on the bus we burned through mountainous death roads on the cliffs of the steep canyons that we would soon call home for the night. By the time we got to our hostel we all became aware that we were surrounded by mountains and cliffs at a place called Tiger Leaping Gorge. I took a before dinner walk to a waterfall then had a simple night of sipping beers and talking about Giants baseball.

Yunnan III

3-14
Now that we were further west in China early morning light was scares. After a breakfast of the odd combination of drip coffee and one steamed bun the tour was led to a small village outside the limits of Dali. By the time we got off the bus in the village, the light was just perfect enough to snap a few great shots of village life. The village was a little too nice to be true. We walked through the streets as a 40 foreigner army of students and yet no one really glared at us too closely. This is an odd occurrence, a sign that too many tourists visit this town. The village was clean and beautiful and the blossoms were just coming out in the gardens of the white walled homes.
The goal of seeing this village was to farm a little bit and get a feel for peasant life. What we actually accomplished was trampling the villagers’ plots. We crossed into three garden plots, about the size of a plot in Dad’s garden, and picked cabbages and onions. I worked as hard as I could and for that my Chinese teacher, Miss Ding said: “you are a bad student but a good farmer.” It was a very nice feeling to work with some dirt in the middle of the massive valley in the sky blue air. I felt a strong connection with the natural surroundings in the valley and the small villages close by.
Once we had “sold” the poorly picked vegetables at the market we crammed on the tour busses to head to another tourist scam, a tie-die factory. There while I waited around for lunch I went for a little walk. I walked by an amazing aqueduct that pushed lake water uphill to service raised rice patties. I went down the road to find the most Chinese scene I was yet to come across. As the valley flattened out into the lake small farming plots were spread across, all the way to water’s edge—some two or three km away. Cutting across the valley, where I was, was a newly constructed freeway. It was still being worked on and not officially open to traffic but famers were driving their two stoke tractor-trucks over it and peasants would cross the road with their rice patty hats and their vegetables on their backs. I wondered how much peasant life will change when they can no longer cross the freeway. For a few moments, it was just me and China, a dialogue between a student and his teacher.
On the way back from the perfect Chinese scene a young woman came running up along the path. I thought she found something I dropped but she passed me, started to walk and then took out her cell phone. She was wearing elements of one of the Naxi traditional dresses and she wanted my attention.
My nice breakaway was ended by bad lunch and bad company. The bus ride to our mountain destination was the bus ride from hell. For four claustrophobic hours the bus thrashed up and down dangerous mountain roads, swerving around oncoming semis and tractors. Bellow the mountains that we were climbing you could see the construction of an impossible highway. Finally at the end of the road we stopped in an especially calm and peaceful village.
After dinner Alex and I explored the town of Shaxi. It reminded me of Bhutan to see kids playing with their brothers and sisters right outside the monasteries. Shaxi seemed to be a relatively affluent and lively place—a nice center to the high mountain village. We ended up finding a carnival at the night market. As the night went on the place picked up and we met some friends to nock prizes off the wall with baseballs and shoot balloons with bb guns for winnings—I won a coconut soda and oddly enough for a carnival, a pack of cigarettes.
The day ended in my cozy bed at the beautiful guesthouse that we stayed at. I fell asleep thinking about Balboa and how he claimed to be the first to discover the Pacific Ocean. As he came across the ocean, he claimed it for himself not thinking that millions before him had interacted with the great natural monument. Balboa may have felt once he discovered the amazing new place but there were plenty of people before him who also found it who did not call it the Pacific Ocean.

Yunnan II

3-13
Our first real day in Yunnan province was meant to get two tour buses (one big one full of non-intensive language students, and one small bus full of intensive language students) out of the big city and into the beautiful countryside. It did not take long to be outside of Kunming and surrounded by beautiful countryside. The landscape was full of free flowing beautiful fields with patches of dark greens interrupted by mustard yellows. There were butterflies fluttering all over and off and on I could see a peasant’s head working her land. We stopped and had lunch in the heart of the “Dinosaur Valley” (a location with a high concentration of prehistoric bones) at a model village. After the meal I trekked around the canal town and discovered the pristinely reconstructed town was completely deserted. Finally some peace and quiet!
The further we went on the highway it seemed the peasant lifestyle became more concentrated. The villages we passed through had no conception of a 10% GDP growth model and the communist revolution was something only important in textbooks. In the late afternoon we came into the large crossroads town of Dali. Dali was situated on a series of hills that eventually turned into mountains. Bellow the city was a glacier lake.
The bus caravan stopped next to the beautiful old town and we checked into a dirty hotel. Outside the streets were made more beautiful by the explosions of pink blossoming trees (momo in Japanese, not sure on an English name). It was already late afternoon but the tour led us to an ancient Buddhist monastery carved into the hill side. It was famous because the three pagodas at the bottom of the abbey were created in the Song dynasty about a thousand years ago. I climbed up the stairs to the pagodas to take some pictures and soon realized that ascending up the stairs were more temples. There were something like seven temples in all but because of a lack of oxygen and the feeling of aw I lost count. The temples were all recently rebuilt, because they were destroyed in the cultural revolution. Now they have a much more touristy feel. To my disgust I found gift shops inside the shrines right next to statues of Buddha and the various prophets and deities. At the second to highest level I found some prayer wheels which I gave a twirl. As they were spinning the sun came out and it seemed like the heavens opened up because I had awakened the giant mechanical prayer devices.
The group ate duck hot pot together and after that I went to the tourist old town for some evening drinks. I roamed the streets with a buddy from the Bay Area and somehow we were able to find cheap local brews.

Yunnan I

3-12
My trip may have started out with a bad push-off from my apartment complex. My travel group of 40 obnoxious (many of them drunk) Americans filled a bus and headed to the airport. The process of getting on the plane was slow with a group so large but after an expensive airport espresso I climbed into an uncomfortable middle seat at the front of the plane.
Sitting next to me was a crusty old Chinese man with a thick Shanghaiese accent. This turned into a bit of a mixed blessing for me as for the three hour long flight the man relentlessly tried to strike up conversation. He was aware that my Chinese language skills were beginner to say the least but nonetheless we were able to communicate vey complex details about each other. I told him that my dad keeps a huge garden and my mom is a practicing doctor. It turns out he was a generator salesman from Shanghai who spends much of his time selling units in Kunming, the destination of our airplane.
Arriving in Kunming was rough, the air was thick and the pilots seemed inexperienced in the bumpy transition back to the surface of the earth. Getting out of the plane it was great to swallow some fresh air. Walking to our tour bus the group enjoyed a sunset that reminded me of the tropical endings to the days in Ecuador.
After a group dinner I went with a few friends to find a Ferris wheel that we could see illuminated from a distance. Kunming looked like a very basic large Chinese city with a maze of communist bloc buildings, small cheap clothing stores and a frenzy of KFCs. On the walk to the far off amusement park however I came to realize that Kunming was a quietly laid back city of canals with a lazy climate that felt great coming from the hectic Shanghai. The moon shined against the water in the summer-like evening—it was like walking through ancient Chinese poetry. We walked along water ways and passed bright night markets but when we got the gates of the Ferris wheel we learned that the place had been closed for many hours. I wanted to hop the fence but my friends told me it would be better if we headed back. On the way back we stopped at a nice snack shack to have a few warm beers by the canal.

Hangzhou

March 4 to 6 2011

On Thursday afternoon I bought three roundtrip, high-speed train tickets (in Chinese) and booked the last hostel room I could find for a weekend in Hangzhou. We were told the city of 8.1 million people is a great spot to spend a beautiful relaxing weekend.
The journey for me started on Friday at noon. I was giddy with excitement and after I grabbed my rucksack I practically sprinted for the metro stop to begin the journey. I met Yuri and our travel mate CJ at their dorm and then we headed to the southern Hongqiao station.
At Hongqiao we were surprised to find one of the biggest buildings ever constructed by man. With its stainless steel and big glass windows the architecture of this railway station is the pinnacle of modern. We ate dumplings and soup at a fast food place while we waited for our train to be announced. While in the waiting room a Chinese electrical engineer spoke to Yuri and I so he could practice his English.
Getting on the train it became apparent that I we were going to be riding a very fast Shinkansen style train. Yuri and CJ settled in and I walked around to snap some photos of the modern marvel. The train ride to Hangzhou was uneventful and I spent the time looking out at the villages we whizzed passed at 230kmh.
Arriving in Hangzhou we slowly became aware that the peaceful anti-city was a complete myth. We searched for a cab on the overwhelmingly busy streets outside the station but not a single (authorized) taxi would stop. We found the taxi line and we were faced with the choice of waiting 40 minutes for a legitimate cab or paying double and going with a pirate taxi. We opted for the prior.
Our hostel was tucked in a driveway and our driver had a very hard time finding the place. Soon we would find out that almost all cab drivers in Hangzhou are completely useless, especially when it comes to directions. Our room was cozy but small and expensive. The establishment was in a typical backpacker fashion.
As soon as we arrived Yuri befriended a blond haired Dutch girl named Sana and soon the four of us we off to find dinner around a night market. After our taxi got lost and left us in the wrong place, we ended finding a restaurant that served us typical Hangzhou cai (food). We had sweet and sour pork, tofu stir fry and a simple “farmers” soup. After dinner we walked around a pedestrian street that elaborately sold souvenirs and tourist traps. We at traditional Chinese candy and did a lot of people watching. When it was time to head back to the hostel we spent 45 minutes trying to find a cab (it seemed as if there were only three on duty at all times). We all retired very early.
The next day after an American breakfast at the hostel, the three of us wandered around West Lake—the man-made watershed that is the city’s main attraction. Our first stop was a Zen temple. It was Saturday morning and the place was very busy with people burning money for their ancestors and saying prayers in shrines. We walked through three colorful shrines. As we did so I looked at the architecture and artwork and Yuri bowed and prayed.
We continued walking this time through the lake’s walkway, which pretty much took us over the water. A long the way one could stop in and see some traditional looking architecture around some koi ponds but there were too many Chinese tourists spewing out of tour busses for it to be enjoyable. Massive globs of black-haired people traveled together, periodically stopped to take pictures of two fingers in the air and fake smiles. Most of the tour groups were retirees on their union funded end of life trip.
The walkway was one and a half miles long and when we reached the end we climbed up a mountain for another mile or two. We were aiming to find a Taoist temple and some rock caves. We never exactly found the temple but we were impressed by being able to walk into huge spaces carved into the mountainside. When we were leaving a party of chanting monks walked by with an entourage and landed at a colorful shrine inside a cave.
Outside of the caves we began descending down to the city. Along the way we walked through the forest and passed patches of tea leaves. At the parking lot we sought a taxi. We found one after a few minutes and told him that we wanted to go to a place called Grandma’s House for lunch. We gave him cross streets, an address and showed a map but the driver still had no idea where we were talking about. Unfortunately he continued driving and then started yelling at us. “Here we’re there” he said even though we were nowhere close and we all knew it. We left the cab and didn’t pay a dime (or a Mao).
After a long walk we found a shopping mall and climbed up to the eighth floor to a packed restaurant that served good food at a very cheap price. We spent a good hour and a half there and then we continued on our walking tour of the city. Yuri found a shoe market where she made some purchases and after that we walked around Hangzhou’s urban streets.
We walked for about two hours and finally decided to take a break sitting on a bench on a busy street across from the lake. The three of us began talking about how many stares we were getting. CJ (who is half black) said: “I get a lot of double takes from people.” Just as she said that an old lady walked past and turned around to give us a second glance!
We walked down the developed lake side for another few kilometers until we found ourselves on a bench, still very far away from the hostel. Hangzhou wasn’t a bad place, it had its scenic views and the comfortable, developed feel of any tourist local but in all it was too much. A crowd of Cantonese tourist swarmed the bench that we had been seeking refuge on and we all came to realize that there were simply too many tourists to find this lake enjoyable.
Nightfall came and after a rest we decided to head out to a street food market downtown. Along the way we walked next to the lake, which by now had been deserted. It was a beautiful sight to see Hangzhou’s ancient architecture highlighted by neon light and then reflected on the lake and the best part was that all was quiet.
Downtown we heard crappy hip-hop dance music and found a group of about 100 Chinese ladies dancing choreographed steps in a public park. Yuri was enthralled and could stop giggling at the sight. Eventually we found the street food alley and dined on cheap delicacies. Yuri and I shared a whole chicken raped in tea leaves and baked for an entire day (head and feet intact), four crabs on a stick (we had to just eat it the shells), fried dumplings and fried noodles wrapped in a tortilla like pancake. It was heavenly.
The next morning CJ had ventured off to find a catholic mass and when Yuri finally woke up we set out to find her. It was raining but Yuri and decided to walk the three miles or so anyway. We walked passed Porsche, Ferrari, Lamborghini and Rolls Royce car dealerships. The rain became too much and we hopped in a cab and the confused driver took us to a church.
We waited outside for a minute but the ushers wouldn’t let us stand in the rain, so they took us in and demanded that we take seats in the pews. As we got there they were handing out the sacrament in little plastic cups. I looked around and saw no crucifix but only a single red cross above the alter. The pastor (dressed in a suit) gave a fervent blessing and the prisoners responded in a random chorus of AMENs. Something was wrong, this church felt really funny. After the mass had ended we realized that the cabbie had taken us to the wrong church and we had just witnessed the end of a Baptist mass.
CJ appeared after we found the real catholic church a block away. We looked around the authentic chapel and then went to eat hot pot. After brunch we caught a cab, picked up our bags from the hostel and headed to the train station.
The train back to Shanghai was packed and we fought with a sea of people to get to our assigned seats. I booked us on the fastest train which meant that we rode on a German designed ICE-like bullet train. We cruised at 210mph for 40 minutes back to Shanghai. Off the train I was a little motion sick but thoroughly amazed by the rail adventure. China has the world’s most impressive high speed rail network today. This is in a country that started phasing out steam engines in 1980!
It took some time to get to my apartment on the metro but when I was home I was happy to be back. It is a great feeling to call a wonderful city like Shanghai my home.

the "Shanghai I love you" Movie Skit

On the subway I held Yuri and the metal bar next to us for support. We whispered about funny looking people on the train. Yuri who was busy studying her Japanese-English-Chinese phrase book quizzed me on how to say simple things in Chinese. When it came time to get off at Shanghai Railroad Station I huddled next to the door and squeezed my girlfriend through the sliding doors and the pushing oncoming passengers.
The train station was full of travelers returning to Shanghai from their holiday exodus to their home villages. Peasants stinking of farm life and claustrophobic train rides clogged the tunnel to the exit along with the urbanites dragging roller suitcases. The tunnel took us through a market—about a half mile long—selling everything from juice to watch bands and jewelry. At the end of the tunnel was a dark, sweaty stairwell taking us upstairs.
At the top of the stair well a migrant women yelled something in Chinese that no one but me heard. She had two oversized burlap sacks and she rolled them down the long stair well. A few people were almost hit by the first tumbling piece of luggage. When she rolled the other, this time a young man walked right into the falling bag.
Outside the pollution was heavy. The white sky, the concrete and the stainless steel panels from the train station were blinding my pale eyes. The horde of hurried travelers was thick and everywhere I bumped shoulders with oncoming traffic, all the while dragging Yuri by the hand behind me.
I caught people doing strange stuff, like one couple rearranging their entire suitcase and an old man spitting into a sewer drain. At some point there are so many listless people that no one really acknowledges the presence of anyone else. One can feel alone, even around so many people. All the while, there was shrieking Chinese woman screaming on a loudspeaker with what I imagined to be some communist slogans.
Yuri found a map and peered onto it. “We need to go here, I think we have to take the long way around” she said. “I guess that’s what we have to do.” The way we thought would take us to the direction we wanted to go was blocked by a police station that must be newer than the map that we read.
We walked past the departure hall and out of the train station parking lot. We stopped on the corner in a crowd-whipped pant. “I think we are lost” she said. “I don’t know where we are.” “Let’s just get a cab and get on with it” I replied. I motioned for a taxi and there was a free one a stop light away. “No I want to find this place and let’s save some money.” “I just want to get there, common I’ll pay for it.” She shrugged and as the light turned green we ignored the oncoming taxi. Yuri looked at the map again and I impatiently waited for her to find our way. “I don’t know what this street is” she said. Just then an empty Expo taxi pulled around the corner and I motioned with my finger for him to stop. I opened the door for an unhappy girlfriend and she showed the taxi driver on a map of where we wanted to go. “Now we will be there sooner rather than later” I said smirk.
We got comfortable as the taxi honked its way through moped traffic and innocent pedestrians. As I swung my arm around Yuri I elbowed her in the face. She grabbed her check in pain. “I’m so sorry.” “Why do you have to be like this?” “I’m sorry it was an accident.” “If we hadn’t of taken a cab this would have never happened.” “I know but it was an honest mistake.” She was silent with anger now and I held her to try and calm her down.
Then I started to laugh. “Are we having a Shanghai melodrama?” “Yes” she said this time with a bit of a chuckle.
In a little bit we went down a street where there was a communist wall covered in classy and colorful graffiti. “Hey wait, I know where we are!” I said. The cabbie dropped us off in front of the gate to the art district, I paid him and we went into the refurbished factories for some coffee and art.