Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon - 06/06/2007

As we left Hong Kong an almighty storm followed us into China proper.  Immigration was surprisingly easy and relaxed and by lunch time we were in the city of Guangzhou.  Despite being a concrete jungle of highways, flyovers, and skyscrapers Guangzhou was surprisingly laid back and quiet, although it was Sunday.  That is until we reached the main shopping area, which was mayhem.  Thousands of shoppers being enticed to buy 19Y shoes and all manner of other cheap Chinese rubbish by exuberant shopkeepers clapping, singing and banging drums.  Consumerism at its highest level. Which might sound strange bearing in mind the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is the worlds largest political party, but this is what China describes as “Communism with Chinese characteristics” which seems to mean communism with greed.  Even the vice-premier stated “To be rich is glorious”, I think he had watched Wall Street one too many times!  Much quieter was Shamian Island, a tiny former colonial enclave on the banks of the Pearl river in the heart of Guangzhou.  Here the skyscrapers make way for churches, leafy boulevards and exercise parks.  Rather out-of-place were the twenty or so American couples wheeling Chinese babies around in push chairs.  They are potential adopters and must spend a month in Guangzhou before they are allowed to take the baby out of China and the US embassy is on Shamian.  Whilst it is probably a good thing it felt slightly seedy to me, in the same way as  sex tourism, rich American coming to buy Chinese babies!

Sun Yat Sen memorial, Guangzhou

A night bus took us to Yangshuo.  We expected to arrive at around 8am but our psychotic driver ensured a 3am arrival.  Yangshuo is (in)famous as a backpacker ghetto in China, with banana pancakes to boot.  We had a bad introduction, a Chinese tout, ‘Robert’ lying to us about how “China is a developing country, now the rooms are more expensive” and other rubbish and then sending us the wrong way when we asked directions only to come to “help” us after he took care of his more lucrative victims.  We decided not to take a room because it was already past 4am and we had a beer on the night market and waited for dawn.  In the end another guy offered us a room for a great price and agreed not to charge us for this night, although he did gives us his sales pitch on tours before letting us sleep!

Scenery around Yangshuo

In the morning we discovered the beauty of Yangshuo, a village nestled amongst limestome karst formations along two rivers.  Chinese tourism board rhetoric describes it as “the most beautiful place in the world”, I would not go that far but it is very nice.  To appreciate it all the more we took a boat trip along the Yulong river (bargained down from 300Y to 50Y per person).  We shared our boat with a group of quiet, nice Chinese tourists. The views were stunning although the names less so (‘Grandpa eating apple’ and ‘Camel crossing river’ spring to mind).  The next day we cycled to Moon hill, a curiously shaped mountain with incredible views.  The walk up was ridiculously hot and sweaty and a little old lady followed us all the way to the top in case we wanted to buy a drink. We didn’t. Again there were many Chinese tourists and again I was impressed.  From my experience Asian tourists tend to choose the bus/cable car option over cycling and hiking. Afterwards cycling through the rice paddies and small villages revealed more amazing scenery.  The only setback was when a boatman demanded an unbelievable amount of money to take us across the river, we left him to exploit more tourists looking for the excitement of bamboo rafting and backtracked to the main road.  Our second day of cycling was less successful, just as we were as far from Yangshuo as we were going to be my ball bearings totally disintegrated and soon after I got the inevitable puncture, for those who are unaware this is very usual for me!  I had to hitch hike back with the bike and hope the agency did not try to charge me for the damage.  Luckily I arrived just with two other people with punctured tyres so they did not have a leg to stand on.

Moon hill

Yangshuo was also a great introduction to Chinese food.  I was a bit apprehensive before this trip, having not always had the best experiences with Chinese food in Asia.  However there is such great variety everywhere that even if there are some dishes you don’t like the look of, there is bound to be something that tantalizes your tastebuds.  Good or bad however it does of course mostly revolve around rice and noodles.  Yangshuo is, however, very touristic, I did not expect to find something like the Khao Sanh road in China.  But, as on the KSR, if you stay just out of the action it is very nice.  Again, nominally a communist country here capitalistic greed abounds in epidemic proportions.  Perhaps because of the (mostly domestic) tourism most hotel, shops, travel agency owners in Yangshuo are on the take in some form or another.  To get a bargain in Yangshuo is to haggle for a long time. 

Night market, Yangshuo

We continued by taking the night train from Guilin (just north of Yangshuo) to Kunming, capital of the Yunnan province.  We took hard seat tickets (the lowest class) with the idea being that if it was really bad we would upgrade next time.  It was extremely comfortable with reserved seats and air-con and hot water free in every carriage for a cup of tea or a noodle soup and the toilets and aisles were mopped with alarming regularity.  We met an Argentinean couple, Nicholas and Marisa who told us this was not very usual but they always travel hard seat and you normally get the seat and the hot water.   The only negative aspect was being woken at 6am by a guy with a megaphone selling socks.  Even in the train you cannot escape the governments attempts to create revenue.  Ignoring the sales pitch I concentrate on the scenery which had changed overnight from tropical jungle to more temperate forest.  As an added bonus the train passed the Shilin (the Stone Forest) which normally demands an 80Y entrance fee, we got a free, fleeting, glimpse from the train windows.

Shilin (Stone Forest)

Kunming is a very overdeveloped city, similar to Guangzhou or Xinguan (New Dali).  It is a perfect example of Chinese ‘development’ which basically means knocking down anything over twenty years old.  I sometimes wonder if the pensioners of China are scared to stand still for too long!  It is replaced by giant concrete blocks of offices, shops and flats all linked together by highways of minimum four lanes.  Of course the development is ugly, grey and ‘functional’.  The train stations are the worst, perhaps the ugliest buildings in the world.  They boast in the newspapers about these ‘achievements’ that they have managed in a few months what would take Western countries several years to complete.  What they don’t mention is the virtual slave labour, meaning they can afford ten times the employees and work them twice the hours of a civilised country, and who cares if some of them die before the end, there are plenty more where they came from.  It is so frustrating, I sometimes feel like defacing the newspapers!  Needless to say we did not stay long in Kunming.  All I wanted to do was visit the Bamboo temple, 12km out of town, containing Li Guangxi’s 500 statues of Buddhas in different poses such as surfing, riding giant crabs or banging cymbals.  We could not get there however because the bus station on our map from 2005 has been replaced by a sprawling junction.  In any case it seems that the public are no longer allowed to see the statues up close because the Chinese tourists used to throw coins at them for good luck.

The train to Dali was not quite so comfortable but still on a par with the Norwich to London intercity, albeit with hot water boilers.  We travelled with Nicholas and Marisa who assured us this was more like the usual hard seat.  The train to Dali is another engineering feat, involving sixteen long tunnels en route.  It was also an ideal opportunity to witness some of the effects of Chinas one-child policy up close.  On a positive note population growth in China is relatively slow and is expected to become static by 2020, and then fall to 700m by 2050.  This is all well and good but a psychological effect has been that all the only children are absolutely spoilt rotten by their whole family, worshipper like little emperors.  On the trains the children run amok with the parents encouraging rather than chastising them.  In a few years time they will face the harsh reality of life in China, realise that they are not special but one of a billion people, just like them.

Despite being met at the station by a solitary piglet Xinguan (New Dali) is another example of over development, this faceless Chinese city sprawling out and almost enveloping Old Dali 18km to the north on the shores of Lake Erhai Hu.  We stayed long enough to get a bus to Old Dali, a picturesque little town with grid-like street system and beautiful central square, all protected behind the city walls.  On one side are mountains and on the other side is the lake.  Dali however is overrun with Chinese tour groups, and this time not the quiet and friendly type we met before.  Here were big groups, all wearing colour-coded caps, following a guide to every photo opportunity.  There could be around 5000 per day and to service (exploit?) them many local businesses have been forced out by Han Chinese selling crap souvenirs.  One of the funniest things I saw were the various silversmiths selling tacky jewelry made in a factory on the east coast all with a guy outside constantly banging a piece of metal on an anvil.  Why did nobody realize he was banging the same piece for several days?  Now we see why there is no ‘foreigner’ pricing in China, the foreign tourists make up about 5%, the rest being domestic, so China rips off everyone.  Take the Three Pagodas temple in Dali for example.  In 2005 the entrance fee was 10Y, now it is 121Y.  Bearing in mind that a dormitory bed costs 10Y and a meal in a restaurant costs 5Y, that is a lot of money.  Again cheap labour means that every possible entrance is manned by at least two guards, and a giant wall has been constructed around lest anyone should attempt to get a peek without paying.

Three Pagodas temple, Dali

To escape the tourism melee we decided to climb Kansan mountain to the Zhongde temple.  Whilst the temple itself is nice, but not so impressive, the walk was very enjoyable, first crossing a beautiful old bridge and then climbing through the tea plantations and forest above.  The only Chinese tourists we saw were those crossing over us on the cable car or those trotting pass on their ‘horse-riding trek’.  The views of Old Dali and Lake Erhai Hu from the temple were beautiful.  Needing more escape we searched for bicycle hire and found a place that also served a great All-You-Can-Eat buffet breakfast for just 10Y.  So, fully sated with egg and chips we set out to cycle 30km around the lake to the weekly market at Shaping.  It was very nice, no Chinese tourists and no souvenirs, just women with baskets on their backs in from the surrounding villages to do their weekly big shop.  Cycling back we felt very smug as we watched 25 tour buses heading for the butterfly gardens!

Shaping market

It is not just the Chinese tourists whoa re crazy however.  In our four-bed dorm in Dali we shared with two French girls.  They wanted the two middle beds, a bit unusual if there are two pairs in a line of four beds.  They grudgingly accepted to split the room down the middle whilst muttering about spiders.  On the second night as we were outside having a beer one of the French girls came running out of the room in a hysterical state.  I thought someone had gotten into the room  and attacked her or stole something but no, there was a spider on the floor.  They summoned her French fried who came armed with a slipper.  He tried to calm them down but seemed even more scared than they were.  Then the landlord came with a jumbo can of insecticide.  Just when everything had calmed down the uproar started again and this time the girls were given a free upgrade to a private room.  Three new arrivals in the next room started complaining about spiders in the toilets, although by the looks of the toilets there was more to worry about than spiders!  What do people expect for 10Y each?  Whilst all this was occurring somebody freed the owners three Angora cats that were chained up in the yard.  Monika and I became prime suspects because, A. the night before I had stated that I would like to set them free as the sight of cats on chains (not to mention the two German Shepards locked 24/7 on a balcony) is pretty horrible to me, and B. the owner only realised they were free because he heard us discussing it (we thought a member of staff had freed them and it was normal).  The result of all of this was that both the French girls and the three other arachnophobes left first thing in the morning and the owner set about writing a poem on the wall in coloured chalks about his cats, about how tourists are “dumb idiots” and that his cats might eat “mice medicine” and “welcome to the PRC”.

Dumpling vendor, Dali

Despite warnings of even more tour groups we headed on to Lijiang.  Our first impression was good, the streets were quiet empty and we found Lijiang to be more beautiful than Dali, its streets ramble around like a rabbit warren through the old town, with canals chopping it up further.  Later, after lunch in Prague Cafe we realised that we a had arrived at lunch time and by now the tour groups were out in force, the red caps taking photos whilst the yellow caps waited.  When we stopped to take a photo we were immediately surrounded by at least ten Chinese tourists, they did not know what they were photographing but they did not want to miss out!  Fortunately you can escape easier in Lijiang by getting lost in the winding streets away from the two main squares and the water wheel attraction or by heading up to one of the viewpoints for a panoramic view of the town, especially it famous dark tile roofs. 

Roofs of Lijiang

Probably the most quintessential photo in Southwestern China is of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain from Black Dragon Pool park.  Again there is a steep entrance fee and again more guards than necessary.  In the park is also Elephant hill, with a nice trail to climb for views of the mountain and old town.  Unfortunately we were not able to climb it because there is a minimum group size of four people in order to protect against local muggers.  Whilst I was grateful for the warning I found it a prime example of the cynical Chinese approach to tourism, absolutely prevent anyone avoiding the admission fee but nobody thought to put some guards on the hill to protect these honest paying visitors.

Jade Dragon Snow Mountain from Black Dragon Pool park

This was the final straw for me so we left Lijiang immediately and headed north to Tiger Leaping Gorge, a trekking route between Lijiang and Zhongdian.  We arrived at Janes guesthouse in Qiaotao in time for a delicious dinner and the next morning set off for the trek.  The previous day had been beautiful deep blue clear sky but the morning we started it was very cloudy.  On the bright side it did make the walking easier though.  The whole first morning we spent ascending, first a gentle incline and then steeper up the ’28 bends’.  We were expecting something harder though and were surprised to reach the top of the pass so quickly.  By now the sky had cleared and we were rewarded with amazing views of the gorge and of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain.  Later we arrived at Halfway house and were welcomed with cold beer and spicy fried rice.  The second day was just as scenic and involved the added challenge of having to cross two waterfalls that were blocking the trail.  At the bottom we started walking along the low road back to Janes.  This was complicated somewhat by the Chinese government dynamiting the gorge for building materials. Quelle surprise!  In fact they are planning to flood the whole gorge in a new damming project, yet again putting development ahead of the environment.  They are obviously not content with the massive displacement of people, sinking of archaeological sights and nature caused by the Three Gorges dam project.   The dynamiting had destroyed two parts of the road which required some precarious climbing.  At least it meant the Chinese tour groups could not get past.  In any case they seem to be more interested in seeing the stone that the tiger leapt from as opposed to the beautiful scenery of the gorge itself.  Each to their own. 

Tiger Leaping Gorge

After this little jaunt in the nature we headed to the edge of the Tibetan kingdom to Zhongdian, better known as Shangri-La.  The town reminded us very much of Tibet, even down to the separation of Tibetan town and Han Chinese city.  Arriving in Zhongdian was a breath of fresh air both literally and figuratively., not only is the air clean and fresh at altitude but there is also an absence of tour groups competing for the air.  It was also a breather from Chinese food as we could now find Indian, Nepali and Tibetan food, all under one roof if we so desired.  Close to Zhongdian is the Ganden Suntselling monastery, the biggest Tibetan monastery in Yunnan. It is very beautiful, especially the view from the lake in front. 

Suntselling monastery, Zhongdian

It was refreshing in Yunnan to see a different attitude to life from all the minorities in Yunnan, including the Bai, Naxi and Tibetans.  Watching a dance performance in the main square it was evident that the last thing on these peoples minds was whether to buy plastic buckets or not.  Although they have some of the same problems as minorities the world over (Maoris, Aborigines, American Indians) there always seems to be something positive about the peoples outlook even if the average Tibetan is wearing an ill-fitting suit covered in noodle soup and brick dust with a ragged t-shirt underneath and the pointy shoes and flyaway hair gives them an occasional gormless look.

We traveled further off the track trekking a back-door route into Sichuan.  The Lonely Planet describes it as an arduous journey.  The most arduous parts for us were trying to avoid passive smoking on a bus full of chain smokers (apparently the government encourages smoking in the rural provinces in order to create more tax revenue, and also as another method of population control?), waking up at 2:30am to find our guesthouse was actually a brothel and being hit on the head by a sack of potatoes falling from the overhead rack.  The first day was a journey through forested mountains and valleys from Zhongdian into Xiangcheng in Sichuan and then on to Daocheng.  The next day we headed further north onto the Sichuan-Tibet southern highway at Litang.  This journey reached even high altitudes and much of it was still under cover of snow but we arrived in Litang by 8:30am.  Here we stayed for the rest of the day and then the next day made the long haul trip through to Kangding and then down out of the mountains and on the highway to Chengdu, where we arrived last night.

Backdoor route from Zhogndian to Chengdu