Zhongdian - China

7/10/05

We left the guesthouse in Lijiang in the morning not knowing exactly how far we would be able to move on; our desired destination was Litang, a village way north on the Tibetan Highway.
The old woman, from the guesthouse where we stayed at in Lijiang, brought us to the gate and gave us necklaces for good luck.



At the bus station we didn't have much luck though, there was no bus to Litang, the closer we could get was to Zhongdian, only half-way to Litang, and it still would take us 5 hours in the bus. Since we really wanted to go on the Tibetan Highway we went for it.

We traveled at high altitudes through tortuous roads, which makes it difficult to travel fast, but it was so beautiful. One have the impression of being traveling above the clouds.



Zhongdian is 200 km ( but it takes 5 hours) north-west of Lijiang and marks the end of the Chinese world and the start of the Tibetan world. This is the closest you can get to Tibet without having to deal with the legal hassle and expenses of entering it; even not being officially in Tibetan land it is possible to grasp what Tibet is like.



I have to mention that Zhongdian is at 3.200m of altitude, so we left the nice temperate climate behind and entered the cold; long pants and fleeces were necessary.



The architecture changed to a Tibetan style with houses made of high walls and tiny windows.



At the town, we went around in search of lunch and we found Momo, one of the Tibetan dishes we enjoyed so much in Nepal during the Annapurna Trek; it was nice to be able to order it again.





Itinerary breakdown.
Back at the guesthouse we had a big surprise. Our plans were to travel part of the Tibetan-Sichuan Highway Southern route,the highest highway in the world, above 4.000m. One of the cities we would have like to visit was Litang, at 4.600m.

So we decided to have a closer look on how long it would take to issue my visa to enter Australia, our next country. That was to be able to plan how many days we could spend on the wonderful Tibetan Highway.

It was when we found that the Australian embassy would need 10 working days to issue my visa and it would have to be done from either Beijing, Hong Kong or Shanghai, while Angie was entitled to conveniently issue her visa by herself via Internet (it takes 5 minutes) because of her French nationality. There was no fast issuing process like for the other countries.

That broke completely our itinerary in China and also put in check our plans in Australia. Not to mention that Flavien, a friend, had already bought flight tickets to meet us in Melbourne; even more, if I cannot get into Australia I won't be able to use my already paid ticket to get to New Zealand, because the flight leaves from Sydney, in short words, our trip was in great jeopardy.

To relax a bit from the stress of the new situation, Angie went to see a Tibetan dance event that takes place every night at the central square of the village. Tibetan used to train that dance at home and only dance it together for special occasions like weddings. Since more and more Chinese Han are moving to the region to invest in hotels and tourist activities, Tibetans started to meet and teach the young Tibetan the traditional dances to preserve their culture. At the beginning of the evening, the old people start and then more and more people join and at the end of the evening the whole square is filled with dancing people. It lasts around four hours. Here are two movies from the beginning of the night.





download dance movie 1

download dance movie 2

While Angie spent two hours watching the Tibetan dancing, I stayed at the guesthouse hiding from the cold and watching movies to have a break from the Asian world.

7/11/05
The second day in Zhongdian we did nothing but to prepare papers for the Australian visa and rush to Beijing. The owner of the guesthouse was really helpful, he drove us around to make copies of the papers, buy the bus tickets and got us an address in Kunming to buy our plane tickets. He was really nice. Luckily we had all the needed papers with us.

We first had to take a sleeper bus back to Kunming where we would buy a flight to the capital of China.
The bus trip to Kunming started at 1 p.m. and took us 15 hours. The road along the Yang Tse river was spectacular.

7/12/05

We arrived in Kunming at 5:30 a.m, but we didn't know it was Kunming until the day was clear, because nobody got off the bus, everyone stayed in bed at the bus station, even the driver.
In Kunming we went to travel agency recommended by the guesthouse owner in Zhongdian and with some patience and help of our phrasebook we (Angie) managed to buy for a good price two tickets to Beijing, leaving at 8 p.m.

After that, we found a nice cafe with Internet access where we selected pictures for the blog during the rest of the day.

Lijiang - China

7/7/05
Dali was a laid-back and pleasant place to be, but we had to move on. A five-hour bus trip took us to Lijiang, at the height of 2400 meters.

Lijiang is set in a beautiful valley and it is home of the Naxi people. The women use blue blouses and trousers covered by a blue or black-apron. The T shaped traditional cape protects from baskets worn on the back and also symbolizes the heavens.

They created a written language, over 1000 years ago, using pictographs; it is the only hieroglyphic language still in use.

We didn't do much on the same day of arrival. From the bus station we went to a guesthouse in the old town, but out of the noisy touristy area. The place is run by a family and we were welcomed like if we were old friends. The place had a nice quiet garden and we were served tea and boiled corn.

There was an old woman, probably the mom of the family, very interested in talking to the guests, but she knows only a few words in English; Angie had a good time trying to communicate with her in Chinese.

She had a magazine with an article about the communist times in Lijiang where she appears as an active member of the party.

At the end of the day we went around the old town for a walk. It is crisscrossed by canals, bridges and amazing narrow streets.



We stopped in one of the many tea shops and, again, the attendants were unbelievably nice to us. We sat to try some different tea at the most authentic Chinese way, with the tiny tea cups. They had a lot of fun trying to understand our broken Chinese and they even took our picture (their camera) for the posterity. And of course, we took one too!



After a lot of tea we walked to the higher part of the old town where is possible to see the gray tiled roofs overlapping each other in tangled disarray and their ends turned up nicely.



7/8/05
Well, on the second day in Lijiang, the quiet place with a chili temperature was the perfect combination for us to catch up with the sleeping, something that we haven't been doing much lately; so we slept the whole morning. :)

With the batteries fully recharged, we left in the afternoon to climb the mount at the Black Dragon Pool Park.



Mao Zedong's statue in Lijiang is a mandatory picture, so here it is. Erected in 1976, the year of his death, the statue is placed in a square right in front the bus station as if greeting anyone arriving in the city.



A steady 40-minute upstairs walk to a peak where from there is a nice view of the 5500 meters high, Jade Dragon Mountain.



Around the pool, we found this, quite peculiar, sign and wondered if it was badly translated or if it really means what it means.



After the mount we walked back to the old town to explore its narrow streets and old houses. It is a real maze where you can get lost easily.









We had dinner outside in a nice street by the sound of a Chinese acoustic version of Bob Marley's Woman No Cry, it sounds quite interesting.

7/9/05
The third day in Lijiang was not so lazy. We biked to Baisha, another village 8 kilometers on the plain north of Lijiang. Baisha, a collection of dirt roads and stone houses ...



... is home of this very special medic, so famous in the region and somewhat famous abroad, Dr. Ho Shi-Xiu.

Dr. Ho has developed unique medical treatments based on the use of herbs. He was born in 1923 and graduated in 1949, as of now, more than 300 thousand patients from over 100 countries have visited him to seek medical advice. In addition, the doctors at the Mayo Clinic in the U.S.A. worked with him in researching herbal treatment of leukemia with fully documented successful cases.

His son, daughter and daughter-in-law are also following his steps.



Not too long ago, TF1 from France, produced a documentary about him and in case you want to know more, a German woman, Julia Bergen, made a movie entitled 'The Most Admired Man'.

After all this propaganda we couldn't leave without buying some of his tasty miraculous - good for everything - Healthy Tea, as himself like to call it. There are many others, there are teas for a whole load of different illness.

After that historical moment, we left on our bikes, but not too far from Dr. Ho's clinic, we came across this band playing a music just like the ones you hear when the Kung Fu fights keeps your eyes on the screen on the Chinese movies. Angie was even invited to play along with them.



Since there was no Kung Fu, just music, we didn't stay too long; a nice old lady, in her T shaped back-apron Naxi costume invited us to her place. She speaks no English but carries around a little book with the impressions left by the tourists she convinced to visit her place.



We decided we should give a try and went with her along the narrow streets that leads to her house. Here too, there was a nice garden behind the high walls and a table where we were served tea, peanuts and salty roasted sunflower seeds. She even had a spare costume and dressed up Angie as a Naxi.



Few minutes after we left Baisha to go back to Lijiang, it started raining. So, at least 7 of the 8 km going back, were done under rain.

Back at the guesthouse, we took a shower and went out for dinner, and local place asks for local food; we had Baba, a kind of vegetable pita bread and snails.

Dali - China

7/4/05
Kunming was nice, slow and relaxing but it was still a big city, so we took on the road again, destination:Dali.
First we took a bus to Xiaguan, 400 Km west of Kunming and from there to the old city of Dali, only 18 kilometers away.
In Xiaguan we met a Dutch and Korean couple with whom we shared a cab to Old Dali.

Dali is at 1900 meters of altitude also, like Kunming, with mild climate. The stunning mountain back drop with imposing 4000 meter-tall Cang Shan (Jade Green Mountains) is hardly unnoticed.



West of the town adding to the scenery is the lovely 250 square-kilometer lake Erhai Hu.

The old city retains the historical atmosphere that is hard to come by in other parts of China.







The main inhabitants of the region are the Bai, who number today about 1.5 million and settled in the region some 3000 years ago.



The influx of Chinese tour groups, strong renovation lined with souvenir shops streets made it loose a bit of its authenticity, but it is still a wonderful old city surrounded by a defensive wall.



We spent the day wandering in the cute streets of the town exploring each old house and jumping from tea houses to coffee shops and book-lounges.







Like in Yangshuo and in Kunming the people were just so nice to us, especially when Angie engages on trying to communicate in Chinese, they love it.

7/5/05
It was still morning when, walking in the streets of Dali, ...



... we crossed a little restaurant, called Clandestino, where we stopped to read the Wanted sign: 'Looking for foreigner to take care of the restaurant - salary and accommodation, minimum three months', then a girl came by the door and invited us in hope of customers.

When Angie asked if she knew about Chinese teachers she promptly said 'I can teach you'.

So we spent the morning in Clandestino, a nice little bar/restaurant with a backyard where Angie had a first lesson.

Chinese is a language with a large number of words with the same pronunciation but a different meaning, what distinguishes these 'homophones' is their 'tonal' quality - the raising and lowering of pitch on certain syllables. For example ma can mean mother, numb, horse or swear, so just a little variation on the pitch can change the meaning of the world completely.



One remarkable thing was when the girl was trying to teach Angie the four different tons for saying ma and corrected Angie saying: 'No, repeat ma, like ma in that plant', pointing to a plant just next to us. We had not noticed but it was a huge bush of Marijuana. Look the picture again more carefully and you will see it.

She explained to us that Bai people have used it for ages and it is growing everywhere around Dali. That also made me understand why in every corner of Dali there is a nice old lady in her Bai costume offering some.

After the class we went back to our hotel and rented bikes to visit the three pagodas, San Ta Si, 2,5 kilometers north of the town.

San Ta Si is among the oldest structure in south-western China; the biggest one is 70 meters high.



From there we went down to Erhai Hu where we sat in the garden of a nice tea house by the lake.



The mixture of cultures is such a great thing; after the lake we went biking inside Dali and came across this catholic church.



Dali is a popular domestic tourist destination, so there are plenty of restaurants not aimed at the foreigner, the food is almost free. We had a nice freshly cooked dinner for two for about 10 yuan (1 $USD = 8.2 Yuan).

There was no English menu, but they were happy to help us choose something. In those restaurants you never order a dish for yourself, but a couple of dishes that are shared among the ones at the table. It was a nice experience. Bai people pick lots of different kinds of mushrooms in the surrounding moutains, so we ate several dishes with tasteful brown, black, yellow and white mushrooms. It was delicious!

At night the walls are illuminated.



7/6/05
Another morning with Chinese class and relaxation, then we spent the rest of the day biking. This time to Xizhou, 18 kilometers north of Dali.

On the way we passed by a beautiful pagoda by a lake.



Xizhou has even better preserved architecture than Dali, it is not renovated and not full of tourists. We biked slowly in its streets looking at the past before our eyes.





There we visited the Bai Culture House, watched folkloric dances, visited art galleries, traditional clothes shops and met more nice people.





There are lots of people on the streets using their local costums. We stole this picture when a Chinese tourist posed for his own camera with the girls.



Then 18 kilometers back to the guesthouse, it was a long biking day.

At night, we went back to Clandestino for another Chinese class.

Kunming - China

7/2/05
We arrived in Nanning, coming from Guilin, quite late, around 10 p.m. The first thing we did was to try to find a bus going to Kunming from the same bus station where we arrived, but there was none.

Then we took a cab to the train station and, gosh, it was much more far then we expected, Nanning is a huge city.

At the train station we found tickets for the train going to Kunming, but only in the standing car, all the soft-sleeper, hard-sleeper and seats were taken, but because we really didn't want to wait we went for it. The train was scheduled to leave at 1 a.m.

7/3/05

The train from Nanning to Kunming.

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I don't know why they do that, but they do. The passengers are not allowed to wait on the platform, there is a waiting hall instead. Upon the announcement of the train arrival, some 10 minutes before the train reaches the station everybody lines up on the door that gives access to the platform.

The staff only lets people in the platform when the train arrives, and when it arrived it looked like they were opening the gates of Woodstock (in Portuguese: o estouro da boiada). The line was completely forgotten; everyone rushed to the door like if they were running for their lives.

Perhaps that is only the type of ticket we bought? The cheapest kind … I don't know.

We just let them rush and waited until we could walk without being pulled-pushed by the crowd. We were the last ones in the car and were standing by the door; it was literally impossible to move any inch further. There were thousands of passengers. People were being squeezed out through the windows. In such conditions it is impossible to keep it clean, the thing was filthy with food, papers and all kinds of stuff on the floor. It was impossible to move, there were people everywhere, kids sleeping on the floor, families sitting on their luggage…it is just indescribable! We could even not move to sit down with our backpacks.

There was one hope though, we knew it before we boarded. In China, it is possible to upgrade your ticket. Within 20 minutes of ride, the conductor brought us to the dining car where we could seat, although we had to buy a tea but it was more then ok in the given circumstances.

He didn't even ask anything, he knew we would go for an upgrade and came back 10 minutes later with a paper with the price written on it. We paid him and moved to the hard sleeper car. From that point on it was fine. We had a bed and just woke up in Kunming.

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Kunming has 4 million people and it is a neat city. They are trees and flowers along the sidewalk. One thing that caught our attention right away was the silence. Somehow the city's traffic is very quiet. There are hundreds and hundreds of absolute silent and clean electric bikes being used by the commuters.



But its charm is under threat from relentless modernization.



The fascinating wooden buildings have almost completely disappeared.



But as a modern city, Kunming is a great city. The city lies at 1890 meters and it has a mild pleasant climate.

After checking in the hotel we walked to the Flower and Bird market, in little streets just behind the major department stores street. Within one block of distance there is a big difference from the modern large avenues with high pre-made buildings and the narrow streets with tortuous houses. Kunming is also famous for it bakery and pastry shops, so we stopped at a pastry shop and tried some delicious Chinese treats!!

Yangshuo - China

6/29/05
We left Lang Son, a city 18 kilometers away from the Chinese border, at 7:30 a.m. in a taxi and we were probably the first ones to cross the border on that day.
That means, the officers were rested, full of energy and really wanting to work. To leave Vietnam was quite funny because the officer studied my passport picture and myself very very carefully as if there was a I chance that I wasn't myself.

To enter China the officer was all confused because Angie's visa was issued as if she was Brazilian, but he was nice and made no big deal out of it.

After passing the immigration, our mission was to get to Pinxiang, the closest city on the Chinese side, 10 kilometers away. There were lots of cab drivers hassling us with pricy rides to the town. The fact that they do not speak English and that Angie does not speak Chinese did not, at all, restrain them from bargaining.

One shouted something in Chinese showing his hand (five fingers) open; another one came speaking louder and at the same time showing five bills of ten yuan; another one shows four bills of ten; there many others jumping on us and the competition was hard. We know from the Lonely Planet that the ride costs no more than 20 Yuan, so Angie offered ten and they, surprised, laughed hard among them.

As we walked away the price went down to 30, but not lower, we kept walking and a girl drove her taxi next to us, lowered her window showing 20; we jumped in the taxi right away.

With a phrasebook we managed to explain that we wanted to go to the bus station. The plan was to get to Nanning, then to Guilin and finally our desired destination, Yangshuo.

We were lucky because the station was very small and It wasn't difficult to find a bus, which by the way, was about to leave, to Nanning; we only had the time to put the backpacks in the trunk before it left.

After four hours we arrived in Nanning, in a much bigger bus station; to find a bus going to Guilin wasn't that simple because all the destinations (and there were many) were written only in Chinese. But after a while we figured out. Not only the buses were new and comfortable with free water and food served by a 'stewardess', but also the landscape was amazing the whole way. So far, it was our nicest bus trip.

Another four hours of us and we got to Guilin. It was already after 10 p.m. and we weren't sure wether we would be able to get to Yangshuo on the same day or not.

The bus station where we arrived had no buses leaving to Yangshuo, it was from another place, but where?
We asked around and people always pointed to the same direction, so we started walking. Eventually one guy stepped by our side and walking along with us started to talk to me.

Guy:Hollo, where you fom?
Me: Hello, I'm from Brazil.
Guy: Where?
Me: Brazil.
Guy: Bill? Is it in Olope?
Me: Europe? no, it is in South America.
Guy: Ahhh, south of 'America'? I know, in Flolida?

He was a really nice guy and because it was already late night I thought it was ok to let him believe I was an orange boy from Florida. The conversation went on and he helped us to find a bus going to Yangshuo.

One more hour and we got to Yangshuo, it was already close to midnight and we still had to find a hotel.
Because it was so late there was only one hotel-guy waiting at the bus stop in Yangshuo, he was not just annoying but also drunk. We followed him to his hotel anyway, just to see. The prices he proposed were ridiculously high. After long negotiation the price dropped to 1/3 of his starting rate but it was still more then we were up to pay.

When we decided to check another hotel before taking a decision he got upset and gave us a nice big loud 'fuck you'.

We left and he followed us on the streets still insisting for us to take his room. Then we entered in another hotel where the reception didn't speak English, but they were so nice, showed us the room, we agreed on the price and that was where we stayed on the first night in China.

6/30/05
Yangshuo is set amid gorgeous limestone pinnacles and is a very laid back little village. It is also a good place from which to explore other small villages in the nearby countryside.

In the morning we went around to visit the city; the surrounding karst mountains
are really beautiful.



We found another place to stay at a much better rate and moved there on that morning. In the new hotel we arranged a boat tour on the river Li Jiang for the afternoon. We first went by minibus to Xingping, 40km north of Yangshuo, crossing an amazing scenario like in Halong Bay but with no water.

Then we walked in Xinping; it is almost like traveling back in time; this little village is a living museum. The old houses are charming and the people were just so nice to us. Everyone smiled and everyone waved to us.





The boat tour lasted for about 1 hour ...



amid the fishermen ...



... and the rock formations.

Click here for a panoramic of river Li Jiang.

[Thanks Kurtz for the Photostich, without your help we would not have a panoramic on the blog.]

After the boat we spent more time exploring the little streets of Xinping.



Then we went back to Yangshuo by minibus. There, we enjoyed the busy touristy west street. There are many many little restaurants side by side, all of them are trying to play music louder than their neighbor while a guy plays Chinese flute on the corner, you hear them all at the same time.



Nearby we found a couple of climbing shops and we booked climbing for the following day in the morning.

7/1/05
Someone literally put 'cold water' in our plans to rock climb, it was 'raining' in the morning, so we came up with a B plan, biking.
We rented bikes and hired a guide; she took us on dirt roads ...



... through the countryside and tiny villages. we loved it!



These villages are centenary in construction ...



... and the open-door houses are like a window looking 50 years back in time.



After seeing Halong Bay, then driving among the karst peaks to get to Xinping, and now biking even closer to it, we can't get enough. The rain had stopped and the air was cool and fresh, nice for biking.
We biked along the river where you can do bamboo rafting.



Then, we biked to Moon Hill, a pinnacle with a moon-shaped hole; we parked our bikes and climbed it up.



Around 3 p.m. we were back to Yangshuo and just relaxed the rest of the day wandering in the town.





7/2/05
Yeahh, no rain; we went rock climbing in the morning. We met our guide at 9 a.m. and within a 5 minute-drive from Yangshuo we arrived at the climbing site. The access is very easy and there are many routes with bolts.





There were two other guides with other clients but it was like one big group climbing; we shared the ropes so we had plenty of choices to climb.



After climbing we went back to West Street for lunch and then traveled to Guilin->Nanning->Kunming in the afternoon.

In Guilin, at the bus station, a girl helped us to buy tickets. Jenny (her English name), asked for tickets to Kunming but there was no buses going there. She then offered to go with us to the train station, 'I have spare time', she said.
We took a cab and she came along just to help us with the tickets, how nice.
But we had no luck, there were no tickets left for the train going to Kunming. Then Jenny came back with us to the bus station where she helped us to by a bus ticket to Nanning, halfway to Kunming,

It is so nice to meet good-heart people, the only thing she wanted in exchange was to know our names, where we are from and how much we like China.