Tiger Leaping Gorge
After a bit of a scare, meaning all that I had been waiting for in Yunnan Province: hiking 'Tiger Leaping Gorge', 2 hours outside of Lijiang, the 3rd largest (we also heard 1st largest!) gorge in the world, twice as deep as the Grand Canyon, about 2 vertical miles with the winding Yangtze River below and the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain in the sky, I was told 'the hike is closed due to landslides'. Ugh. No way!? I had seen Matt's pictures, talked with friends, looked it up online, in the guidebooks and chatted other travelers up about this place and now I had come all this way to have it cut off by landslides...oh, no, not gonna' happen. We decided the folks in Lijiang couldn't be believed, which we learned was right--the gorge was open, the upper path, just for hikers was welcoming; the bottom road for cars was the one closed. Excellent. We got our bus tickets, left our big packs at the guesthouse and hit the road. Although, before actually hitting the road by bus, we had to take care of a nasty in-grown toenail infection of mine--I'll leave the details at that, but let me just tell you that the medical facilities in Lijiang are lacking...we first tried a local clinic in the old town--we waited for the doctor (who was eating breakfast) in his 'office/operating room' where the table was covered in newspaper, cigarettes, medical scissors, cotton, tea cups and a plastic bag of morning warm bread. Hmm. We also noticed the newspaper was a frightening rust color...use your imagination. A single wooden leg rest (ahem, chopping block) was standing in the middle of the room, looking just as uh, stained. The doctor came in and lunged at me with some utensils and Q-tips and I called it quits, we quickly hit the road for the main hospital. This experience was a little better, however, no less stomach turning (I didn't need the winding roads for that, I had the 'surgery room' where they took me to wait and eventually have my toe cleaned, however, I was a bit nervous given the open bucket next to me...I'll spare the details, I'm sure you can imagine; plus the ever present latrine-is-right-next-door-down-wind smell coming through the open windows. Ok, so in the end it worked out, they cleaned me up (as I inspected each cotton swab and tool they picked up and made them keep the alcohol and iodine solutions close, use those rubber gloves!). Enough about that...we made it to the bus station around 10:30 and were on the next bus to the little town of Qiaotou to start our trek.
Matt claimed that the hike was 'easy, mostly flat, with a few steep points only'--ha! We started uphill, of course, I expected this as we were going to reach 2,000-some meters, but nothing quite prepared us for the '28 Bends'! 28 steep, rock-strewn switches back and forth for a good 2.5 hours. Despite the difficulty of the hike in some parts, the views were breath-taking, black, jagged mountains with snow tops across the Yangtze and rolling grass covered mountains where we were hiking across waterfalls, reaching for our lives and spotting billy goats meters above us, only noticed by their ‘bleats’ every so often and their shepherd approaching us from the trail…I was beat. The first night, only after a short 2 hour hike, we made it to the Naxi Family Guesthouse, which was quite welcoming. The mom of the house was used to so many travelers charging through her house, she seemed to not mind our muddy shoes, smelly feet and tired looks. She took us all in, cooked up a good dinner, had cold beers on hand and waved us off the next morning, walking us down part of the trail to make sure we took the correct turn--not only for us, for all of the travelers! We hiked a good 6-7 hours the second day and amidst the rain made it down to Sean's Guesthouse in Walnut Grove, the last little town of the gorge. Sean greeted us with excitement and shared some stories from his 26-odd years owning a guesthouse here...lots of stories to be told. He was the first to start taking hikers through the gorge in 1996, through landslides and government disputes (they are threatening to build a dam in the gorge) he's been through it all and still fighting (you might be able to check out www.tigerleapinggorge.com which I think is his site...we can't access it as China has blocked this website, including our blog). We met a bunch of other hikers from Michigan (!), the UK, Israel and Korea and enjoyed beers and chatting into the night, resting our tired bodies. The next morning we latched on to a tour group to help us get through the landslides on the road back--3 total, which took out good chunks of the road and was a bit treacherous climbing over huge boulders that were just dislodged from their 1000+ year dwellings and could tumble again at any moment...yes there were no railings left on the road from the slides and it was just you staring down at the gorge trying to get over the mounds of rock and dirt from the slides...anyway, Matt got some good shots of this and if not posted yet, will be soon. Once over the landslide area, and back in the small town where we started, we headed back to Lijiang for one more night and to flee to Sichuan for some good hot and spicy food and more hiking. More soon!
Lijiang to Chengdu (Sichuan Province)
So getting out of Lijiang was logistically easy, but painfully sickening for a lot of people on the bus ride. It was something like a 7 hour ride over extremely winding mountain roads and about 5 or 6 folks vomited up their breakfasts and many others were felled with ashen faces. I, luckily, took a bit of motion sickness medicine, so I got through; meanwhile, Maggie is reading away, looking out the window, oblivious to any mere sickness. We ran into a few accidents along the way, both of them forcing a delay. The second accident was a four car pile up than caused us nearly a two hour delay. Eventually, we made it to a sorry little town called Panzhihua where we hoped on a night train to Chengdu. We rode in a hard sleeper, which is basically a train car lined with triple bunk beds. We boarded the train halfway through its route (at midnight), so we didn't get the pick of the litter in terms of bedding, but we went right to sleep and after an uneventful 6 hours awake in the morning, we rolled into Chengdu around noon. So far, in our Sichuan experience, we've checked off two of the "must-dos". First, we ate a "Hot-Pot" which is basically a huge boiling vat of oil that you cook kebabs in. Meat, fish, veggie kebabs, basically anything you want. Each table has its individual burners and the waiters come by and set the vat in the middle; you go pick out all your kebabs and then go to town. The oil vat is a deep, dark red and filled with spicy chilis, a food additive that Sichuan is famous for. It wasn't the healthiest meal around for sure. After your kebab is fried in the chili-oil, you pull it out and soak it in peanut oil to cool off and then - chomp away. Afterward, Maggie and I both felt a bit sluggish after ingesting so much oil and in the end, weren't terribly impressed with the hot-pot, but you can't say we didn't try. The second must-do is to go see the Panda Bears at the research and breeding center north of town. We kinda got trapped in a little tour, which we weren't planning for, but the important part is that we got to see the bears. The research center is actually really well done. The bears seem to have huge tracts of land to cruise about on, and while I am sure its a bit more liberating living in the wild, their life didn't look too bad. Apparently, about 50 percent of a panda bears day is spent sleeping and when awake they are usually eating, which sounded eerily similar to my four years in college, though unfortunately no one brought me my food, unless of course you count the pizza man. Anyway, we wandered around the center and saw probably 20 bears, many sleeping, but quite a few were up and about. Despite the signs to speak quietly and not make noise, more than a handful of tourists were yelling at the pandas and waving things, just to get the panda to look their way for that perfect photo shot. We even got to go into the Panda nursery and saw a wee little fella, still pink and tiny, squirming away. We found ourselves in the Panda Museum, which was more interesting than you might think. I was most interested in the War Panda painting. Apparently, if the painting is to be believed, these cute cuddly bears were once trained as war machines. The picture beside it showed pandas fleeing a horde of woolly mammoths, which seemed a bit of a juxtaposition, but who knows. The rest of the day was spent creeping about town and hanging out in a Taoist temple, though truthfully I am a bit templed-out if you ask me (which you didn't). I also want to mention that I was impressed with the fact that nearly every motorcycle in Chengdu (and there are alot of them!) are electric/battery and not gasoline. Its nice that you can see a who gang of motos glide by and you can't even hear them (though it makes crossing the road a bit dangerous because you can't hear them sneaking up on you!) Maybe the Chinese government is trying to clean up their image a bit; especially since supposedly 7 out of the 10 most polluted cities in the world is in China (unverified fact!)
Does Yunnan Province have a soul?
We took a very long 9+ hour bus ride out of Luang Prabang heading up to the Chinese Border, though stopping over at Luang Nam Tha, just shy of the border to try and sneak in one last day of trekking or kayaking, but was spoiled by the rain (none of the guides would go out). The ride wasn't too bad, though it was long the bus was only half full, so everyone got to lounge around with plenty of space. The only thing of note is that at the place we stopped for lunch, I saw the largest rat I've ever seen. The store next to us had a big crate of them, for sale I guess, and from a distance, I thought they were puppies (I know, I know!). We were hoping to do some trekking or kayaking or something in town, but it rained all day and we had to be happy with walking around town or looking at the China guidebook, plotting for the coming weeks. Eventually, we managed to get on a bus out of town and thus began the story for the next three days...bus bus and more bus. Without going into too much detail, we were basically on the bus for three days, and the long winding roads meant it was taking 10 hours to cover 300 miles or so. Needless to say it was not fine. Though, on one day we did manage to snag a sleeper bus and thus passed a 1o hour day in the comfort of tiny little 2ft by 5ft beds. Most everything was uneventful except for the fact that Maggie almost got turned away at the Chinese border, though managed to sweet talk her way in. A little batting of the eyelashes even works on Chinese border guards! During our time on the sleeper bus it rained and despite our stuff being in the cargo hold, it all got soaked. And not just a little wet, soaked, and everything in it. To top off the wet bag upon arrival in Kunming, we exited the train with the equivalent of 75 cents in Chinese yuan, but $300 USD (though no banks were open to exchange it) and all of the ATMs were rejecting our cards. We went store to store begging someone to change the money, but no one would touch our Yankee Dollars with a stick, they even seemed a bit scared when I started waving it around. We were hoping to immediately get some yuan and catch another bus to Dali (our first real destination) but with the cash flow problem we had to stay over in Kunming for a night (at oddly enough the same little hotel I stayed at 3 years ago). After a bit (and a different part of town), for whatever reason the ATMs started working and we were on our way to Dali the next day. Allow me to switch gears here, since we are back on internet after a few days. We passed through Dali and are currently in Lijiang, both towns that I visited way back when in 2003. They were remotely cool back then, little old cities, preserved to keep the traditional architecture of the minority tribes (Bai & Naxi, respectively). Now, I would recommend to anyone not to come here if you want to see anything remotely traditional or authentic. Dali had one or two streets that were touristy, but if you really tried, you could wander off the path and really get a sense of the old city. McLijiang (old town) however is like a Disneyland theme park - Epcot Yunnan Province or something and after 30 minutes here, Maggie and I are already plotting our escape. I feel like a chump, because I picked these places and can only take heart from the fact we can rent bikes and head out of town, and that within days we will be hiking in Tiger Leaping Gorge, away from all the crowds. The little windy streets would be wonderful to wander through, but everything has been converted into a shop or restaurant, and I mean literally everything. There is no getting away from it, no escaping it, nor the hordes of tourists. 99% of the tourists here are Chinese and I guess driving the Disneyification of this place (and Dali on a lesser scale); its a shame to see, especially because it seems really fake and contrived but most of the people here seem to be happy with that, so ok. We've seen multiple groups being lead around by folks dressed up in "traditional" Bai or Naxi outfits and lead around the city with a bright orange flag. There is a time and place for Disney World, I went and had a good time there, but it is a shame when Disney is passed off as the real thing.
Maggie here, I will say though that Dali was a nice little place--the two tourist-y streets were that, but had some cool little shops and good little dumpling places that were excellent (we ate about 20 for the equivalent of .90cents!) and other local restaurants, markets and shops. We did a great hike into the mountains around Dali a few days ago and took a ski lift up one side, hiked and saw some lovely waterfalls and covered about 12km, then took a breath-taking gondola ride back down (from much higher up and covered more of the mountain across). Matt and I spit up yesterday in Dali, me for biking and he crept around taking pictures. I covered a good 20km and visited a bunch of small villages just off the main road that weren't listed on the maps or in the guide book. I couldn't communicate at all with the folks I came across but had some sweet interactions with old ladies and the kids got a good laugh at the crazy white lady riding around their town on a bike. I happened upon a Bai funeral ceremony and stood a distance away, just to understand first what was going on and then continued on my way (many people were clad in all white with white head scarves/covers, carrying colorful paper banners/kites of many levels high on wooden sticks, walking the body to the mountain to bury). I also encountered an old man playing a traditional guitar/banjo and chatted with kids while buying some candy (their favorite or maybe only English words were 'Hello!' and 'I love you!'). We were both pretty exhausted last night from our day and finished off the afternoon with a stroll into town and visited a tea shop. The tea shop visit proved to be a lesson for both of us--a very chatty and eclectic woman who owned the place set us up with a rightful tea-tasting experience. It was a PuEr (region of Yunnan Province) tea shop so only carried this kind of tea (which we were told is highly sought after in other provinces and into Tibet). Some fast facts for you (from our tea connoisseur):
-Fermented tea is smoother and better to drink after 3-4 years; it is also good for the stomach and to drink in the winter
-Non-fermented tea is better after 8years; green non-fermented is good for the day and summer...
-A tea tree is sweeter the older and bigger it is (some we saw in her pictures were 400 years old!)
-PuEr tea is all black tea
anyway, we enjoyed talking with her and her friends over SEVERAL cups of tea (both fermented and non) and was a fantastic end of our stay in Dali. What was even better was that she just sort of had friends stopping by and they all sat down with us for tea and chatting and never did she make any suggestion or push us to buy, or for that matter pay for all of our tasting...she even shared some special green tea given to her by a friend, which was packed tightly around a rose bud; it was beautiful once it opened into a clear, small teapot of hot water. As our friendly tea drinking brought us into the early evening, we really wanted to buy a little from our friend and so chose some fermented and non to take us through our journey and said good-bye.
We headed to a Uygher (pronounced We-ger) restaurant that Matt spotted the day before (Uyghers are Muslim ethnic minority in China, and live in the farthest western province, which will be our last province to visit in China before crossing the border into Kyrgyzstan). We headed down a short alley where we were hit by the wonderful smell of roasting goat meat, chicken and beef kebabs and fresh bread. We ordered a specialty Matt knew of called 'lagman' which were thick egg (?) noodles covered in a stew of goat, chillies, onions, tomatoes, green peppers and other spices. Amazing and hearty. We of course also took some goat kebabs and a large round of doughy homemade bread. We weren't left wanting! We got some tips on places to visit while in the west from the chef. A local beer to finish off the night and we were lazily walking back to our guest house and pretty much just fell into sleep.
Matt has filled you in on our latest stop, so I'll leave it at that, but we can't wait to get into the mountains in the next few days to trek around some more. We'll add pictures over the next few days.
Northern Laos (July 10th - July 15th) or Luang Prabang, the 51st State
So, after a few days in Luang Prabang, we head out tomorrow for the Chinese border, though we won't cross for a few more days. We've spent the past 4 or so days in Luang Prabang, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Northern Laos that has been billed as the "best-preserved city in South East Asia." The architecture of the city is mostly early French colonial (at least that is what is looks like to me) and it is, in fact, well preserved...as hundreds and hundreds of guesthouses and restaurants, which will explain the title of this entry. While it is nice to wander around the winding little streets, get lost in the old city feel, and drop in on any of the 50-odd Buddhist wats in town, Luang Prabang's population is probably roughly half Laos and half foreign, and this is the "low" season! I would hate to see the High Season and am thankful that I am not here for that! Its a bit of a shame because it is such a nice town, but other than architecturally, it has sold out to the tourist market. The Night Market, for example, might as well be called the Tourist Market. Maggie and I were hoping the night market was actually going to be a quasi-traditional Lao market being held at night but we were disappointed. There were a few nice things, but overall a lot of it was tourist kitsch. However, once you kinda get past the touristicality (?) of things, Luang Prabang is not a bad place to hang out for a while. We've done a bit of trekking in the surrounding mountains, a little boat riding, and more than our fair share of sweating. During our hike today, our guide was Hmong, and Maggie and I discussed the fact that we've never actually spoken to a Hmong before (see "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down" for more Hmong insights.) Actually, a lot of this area is "Hill Tribe" people, which is kinda a blanket name for non-Lao minorities who, as you guessed, live in the Highlands. Maggie has gotten to see a bit more of the town than I have, due to a spot of random illness that has felled yours truly. Without going into too many detailed symptoms, in my expert opinion it feels like a muscle strain in my upper abdomen. This may come as a surprise to you (it did me!) that I, in fact, actually do have a muscle in my abdomen...somewhere. Anyway, it was enough to take me down once in Vientiane and once in Luang Prabang, so I've been taking it easy and it seems to be OK. I did go to the local Laos-China Friendship Hospital in town, but I am probably more qualified than those "doctors" there. I got diagnosed with "Common Cold" just so you know. Speaking of failures and shortcomings, Maggie and I wanted to try and eat local Lao food, seeking out Laap, a traditional Lao dish. WAWa. I bet Laap tastes great if you like raw minced fish! We didn't get much past pushing it around on the plate, hiding it under some veggies, and eventually throwing some money down and making a break for it. Lastly, I just want to mention that we've got new link over there to your right for Our Travel Photos to kinda give you guys an idea of what things look like. Get to the Flickr site and click on the Laos set and enjoy!
Southern Laos (July 4th-9th)
Hey guys, I know its been a long time since we've updated the blog, but now we've got some better stories to tell than dead geckos and what not! We've finally begun our much vaunted and highly hyped trip and the first stop is Laos. But wait, first we had to get out of
Phnom Penh, which proved to me a much more difficult task than either Maggie or I were expecting. Work, shipping, etc woes, and after a bit of sickness delay, we were off. First though, the night before we left town, we wanted to have a few drinks with some friends, but that turned into an all night drinking party fest which lasted much later than it should have, knowing that we had a 7am bus ride the next morning. We played (and won!) the little trivia game, though admittedly we had to cheat and steal answers off some Aussies the next table over. Our first leg was
PNP to Stung
Treng, kinda the last Cambodian city before the border and what a jewel of a town that was! The bus ride was punishing, though nothing that Maggie or I haven't seen before. But you guys don't want to hear about Cambodia, so I'll fast forward to the Laos border crossing, where we had to bribe this border guard to stamp our passports. The entire time this guy was whining "I want a receipt, I want a receipt!" meanwhile I am praying that I get my passport stamp before this guy pisses the border guard off too much. Hey man, I don't like corruption any more than the next man, but I am also not going to stand there and cry on a border
guard's shoulder to get my dollar back either. If this guy wants to see corruption, he should go to Africa! Anyway, one passport stamp heavier and one dollar lighter, we were across and on our way to the sunny 4000 Islands of southern Laos in the Mekong River. Billed as a must see by many a traveller, we decided to "must see" it ourselves. A little boat ride took us to our new home of Don
Det and never in my life had I seen
sooooo many dirty wanna-be hippies crawling all over the place like vermin. "Dude, you mean you've only sat here in this hammock doing nothing for only 3 days man, I've been here wasting My Life for nearly 3 weeks, Dude." " Hey man, I don't want to visit Vientiane, too boring, too much actual culture yeah." And the like. I have little tolerance for this, I taboo them and speak poorly of them publicly, but admittedly, when
eavesdropping on some, I heard one or two practical or interesting comments. Hippies aside, the little island was really nice once you got out of the ghetto. Our little bungalow wasn't conducive for hanging out, so we spend most of our free time wandering around the island, hiking among the rice paddies, along old railway tracks and found an abandoned steam locomotive along the trail. It was nice because though our island was flat, it was surrounded by mountains on other close islands, which gave it a bit of a tropical
island-esque look. The Laos people seem quite friendly in that just about everyone you pass will greet you with a smiling "
Sabaydee!" Anyway, we crept around the island, fending off
Sabaydee's and giving them as good as we got and generally had a good time. We came across far better guesthouses and bungalows and we felt bad
because we were staying in a dirty shack. Off all things though, we found an Australian man who baked bread and donuts, and he was good...real good. I wondered how an Aussie ended up on some little island with his serious baking oven, making donuts for tourists and I decided I was jealous of this man. Had we not been staying in The Ghetto, the island would be a nice place to hang out, but admittedly, a bit too much for us. Not that we were looking to live with the locals and eat crickets or whatever, but at any rate, we headed out. Our next stop was a place called
Champasak, just south of
Pakse, which is kinda the southern transport hub. Anyway, just outside
Champasak is a Angkor-era temple that apparently is the jewel in the crown of many folks' Laos trip, so we had to see for ourselves. We thought about biking since it was 8km out of town, but decided the
Moto was more our style (we would be proven wrong here)...especially since I (now it's me, Maggie writing) was elected to drive because of my fine
moto-driving
skillz (that's right, with a 'z', uh). We made it to the ruins, enjoyed an hour of so of hiking around, discovering a carved Buddha foot in the base of a cliff, babbling brooks around the top of the ruins and an amazing number of butterflies resting around the moss covered rocks. After our hearty hike up the steep steps of the temple we headed down, deciding to go to another temple just down the road. I
reved up and "POP!" I thought it was a little glitch in the
moto, so Matt jumped on the back and we were off...only to quickly discover a flat. We pushed the
moto with long faces, then mimed and signed our way through a few shop keepers to find the '
moto-tire-flat-repair man' who saw our weary faces in the heat of the afternoon and hooked us up for only a small 5000 kip fee ($ .40). We weren't but 5 km down the road when we started
wobbling again, facing a similar glitch...repeat above situation (and same price!), but now Matt was driving and we looked a bit more down for the count...
OK, not so interesting anymore right? Well things did slow down a notch. We hit the road by foot, sampled some nice street food in our little
Champasak and headed to the bar just above the Mekong on bamboo stilts for a beer Lao and grilled chicken.
We headed out of
Champasak the next day for
Pakse, a larger town, with not much happening except a brusque business in transport; although a large man wearing a ten gallon hat with rubber
galoshes was spotted milling about the market, surely with a southern drawl. Anyway, the hub of transport offered us many options: mini buses, 18-wheelers, pick-up trucks, mini-trucks,
tuk-
tuks,
motos, VIPs and our final choice (cause we feel we've earned our crappy-transport-experience stripes long ago), the lovely 'KING OF BUS'...no joke, airbrushed in blue, hot pink and yellow on the front of the most souped-up double-
decker touring
bus I've ever seen; we were riding in
luxury for $13.50 and it felt right. The 'King' included a bathroom, rice and pork snack, a wet nap, A/C and a blanket, oh and of course the requisite Laos karaoke, but that was easily blocked out. They even washed the windows before we got in and I think the blankets were clean. After chatting up a local monk and his novice in tow, also heading out on the 'KING OF BUS' (see, we up there with the monks now) we shared our 'Off' (they loved the 'fresh scent') and some snacks with them and got settled in our seats. 9.5 hours and we would be in
Vientiane. Lovely. No chickens or chicken poop, mud, hacking and spitting or smoke in your face or intermittent rain to give you a chill. 8:30 pm we were off and made it, although a bit groggy, but to another hole in the wall guest house by the morning. More to come on the standard of tourism in Laos and some other strange things seen after only 5 days out of Cambodia.
