Into The Tibetan Borderlands

It was a big decision; from Danba do we head north and east to the wonderful tourist attractions of Jiuzhaigou and Huanglong (for a few photos of these amazing places check here) or do we head west, on the road less travelled, through the Tibetan borderlands of Sichuan and on into Qinghai province, looping back to the north (eventually) through the cities of Xining and Lanzhou. For discomforts sake we chose the latter and three days later sitting in our little room in Manigango we have no regrets. It just keeps on getting better and better out here!

From Danba there is a good road up a river and over a mountain pass to Bamei on the edge of the Tagong grasslands. The effect of heading west was obvious, suddenly we were in Tibet. The bus was full of monks in crimson and gold robes with wacky hats of different colours and design, nomads in their bulky wrap arounds with who knows what tucked away and beautiful women young and old with the colourful trim to their traditional clothing. The closest comparison we have in NZ is the staff seating at a university graduation. Just add in a ragged and slightly festive air and the layout of a bus and you have a pretty good picture.

For most of our time in China, we have been travelling through the harvest. Stacks of corn and bags of rice, people working together in the fields. Now we are sprinting on the froth of winters tide. You can see it in peoples faces that the months of cold are almost upon them, and they are ready to endure again. We asked a guest-house worker in the Yubeng what they do in winter, “sit around with our friends and drink”. Sweet as! The Tagong grasslands were only the beginning of the barrenness. Up-river the terrain is big, rounded and unforgiving. Buddhism is flourishing,. White glistening chorten dot valleys and triangular paddocks on the hillsides are filled with thousands of prayer flags. Many in this area white, although maybe these flags are the bleached, worn bones of the common colourful arrays.

A gentle mountain pass and our bus is halted temporarily by a herd of yaks, ugly hoary yaks, no wonder the meat is tough and requires good cooking! We have been having an ongoing discussion concerning what exactly is a cow and what is a yak (these were definitely yaks). Relieved we recently found out that the ancient Qiang civilisation crossbred yaks and cows about 2000 years ago, creating the “Pian niu” (cattle yak). Past the yaks we glimpsed for the first time the Chola mountains. A long glaciated and broken range blocking our passage to the south-west. We planned to cross this range via a road pass of around 5000 metres.

Our destination for the night is Garzi, we arrive there win time to appreciate the fading light. The hotel opposite the bus station provides us a comfortable twin room for 60 yuan (the prices out here are nowhere near as bad as suggested in the Lonely Planet). Out on the street men with giant carts sold great slabs of meat. We went vegetarian, or at least unidentifiable, the bbq courgette kebabs came complete with staring monks. Are we that strange? We followed this up with our cheap back-up option the small steamed buns with filling, sometimes cabbage or potato but mostly meatish. We still lack the language skill to distinguish, and both feel ashamed for not really trying with our mandarin (or putongwah), but we get by alright.

The night was cold and the next morning we found out why. Snow covered the streets. Ice hung from the powerlines and trucks choked in the street. We were up early casting the streets for food and checking out the local monastery. So alive! Two buildings, each with a route for “circumambulation”(is that a word?). You start out front, merging into the human traffic when it allows, spin the big prayer wheel on the left of the main entrance then follow the trail of smaller prayer wheels through a hall around the remaining three sides of the building. You spin the prayer wheels if you dare. The person directly in front of you is much more practised and they send each clacking with a casual flick. You pay for confidence with crunched fingers. “Tashi Delek” is the greeting to anyone that meets your eye, or a grin and nod of the head. The people are amazingly friendly to us outsiders.

All the advertised buses are gone early but we count on finding a mini-van, they seem plentiful on the road. Sure enough as we approach the main road with our packs we are sniffed out.....”(something in Tibetan)”, “Manigango”, “(something in Tibetan)”, “how much”, “(an amount we agree with according to Penny)”, and we follow him to his van and he locks our packs in it (mistake: always keep your pack so you can negotiate with rival drivers). But our guy comes through and after an hour we are off. Its an easy ride through rolling country, with the snow quickly melting and the road clear. Monasterys and villages appear regularly in the barren valley. What is there to keep this many people here? And construction seems to be booming as well. At least it is largely in the traditional style. On our left the Chola mountains keep us company and occasionally pop a pointy head over the lower hills.

Manigango appears, perched on a broad spur at the junction of two valleys. We expect wild west and get nothing less. It is rugged Tibetan out here. Monks and wild haired nomads on bikes. Yaks and saddled horses tied up at street corners. Pool tables and gaggles of young men behind every door and on the muddy road fringes. Cheeks vary from rosy to blackened. Frost nip. Hair is wild and long, giant great manes. The red balaclavas favoured by some remind Penny of Ruatoria while the travel worn pilgrims are constantly at you, begging for yuan, they are often weathered old women constantly spinning prayer wheels.

Our bus companions from the morning seize the opportunity of foreigners to share a mini-bus and we are soon en-route to Dege. We hadn't expected it to happen but we are off to cross the Tro La pass to visit one of the most special of Buddhist sites, the Bakong Scripture Printing Monastery. The scenery is amazing, the broad brown valley is quickly enclosed by rugged peaks, we pass the glacial moraine lake of Yihun Lhatso, icey blue on our left. While ahead of us we see a giant zag cutting back across the valley, our road! Its good going and safe though up to the pass. The road is too icy to walk on, but traction for the van is fine. At the pass the tradition is to hurl notebooks of prayers to the skies, guaranteeing safe passage. I have already prayed to the mountain, honouring its beauty and asking for its protection, so can understand the beauty and power of the local superstition.

The descent was steeper and uglier. Off camber curves on icy roads wth drops of hundreds of metres. At one stage we come across a stuck truck, that snarls traffic, but the spires of rock surrounding us provide plenty of the sublime to keep us happy during the wait. Down valley the mountains continue to unfold until the gorge cuts deep and towering rock walls of the canyon enclose us. Wow. We pop out eventually into Dege, a small town suffering for lack of flat ground. High rise apartments and precariously perched houses kneel on either side of a swiftly flowing river, now contained by the concrete jungle. Our bus companions recommended a super guesthouse. Tibetan styles (always preferable to the Han businessman monstrosities) and good value at 50 yuan for a snug colourful room.(cross the river by the top bridge and it is on the rivers edge, second on the right). Today we rose early, too early for town. The Tibetans are not a nation of morning people. We found an open fried bread shop and greased our stomachs for the day. Penny is into the rice porridge but I find it overhydrating and still well remember the 10 hour day at Meili Snow Mountain, including the 1500 metre climb out of the Mekong gorge, where I was still pissing clear despite drinking only 500ml's of water that day, after having rice porridge for breakfast! We then found the monastery, it was easy, the line of pilgrims circled its square red walls like swimming kids making a whirlpool. They must make more than a 1000 circuits to reach their spiritual goal, we joined in for one to be polite before entering the building. The door charge is now 50 yuan, but it is worth every jiao. The rectangular atrium was empty but we were quickly usshered through doors to the left. We walked through darkened corridors of engraved wooden blocks, kind of like chopping boards with handles stacked like books in a library. The blocks are engraved with Tibetan scholarship, religious but also other disciplines; astronomy, geography, music, medicine. 70% of Tibets literary heritage is stored in this one building, over 270,000 blocks! It was amazing to be in such a place of knowledge, I wondered what other places in the world may have such a vibe and came up with this list with the help of the internet. Possible future travel destinations?

Moving further into the complex we came to the printing room. Amazing. Pairs of men sat in perpetual motion. One holds the plate while the other places a piece of cloth and applys a roller to make a print, the cloth is removed and stacked while dye (ochre?) is applied to the block, then the process is repeated. Again and again, and quickly. The men are in fast forward, they are built these guys, professional athletes. One of the most amazing things either of us had ever seen.

Further up and we were in the sorting and binding room, older men with giant sheaths of prayers to order in the dim light. Then we were on the roof, flat and concrete, with a small temple and many sculptures. Looking over the edge we could see the pilgrims 15 metres below on their endless circuits while the town was splayed all around. A row of golden poplar trees hid the direct sunlight. It has taken me a while to realise that some of the landscape features that we think of as “kiwi” have such a Chinese influence. The combination of larch, fir and rowan trees that make Naseby are direct from the Yunnan, the golden poplar trees that dot Central Otago replicate those in the barren western valleys of Sichuan.

Heading back down we stumbled across the room dedicated to Indian Buddhism. 555 plates written in Tibetan, Sanskrit and Hindi that are the only surviving set in the world. The Lonely Planet is great for interpretation when there are no other sources! Our final highlight was the glaucoma cat and his friend in the sun. A Mad Eye Moody of the feline world!

We strolled down through Dege past the meat market. I can't wait until next time a bandwagon vegetarian tries to tell me what the world would be like if everyone in China ate meat. They eat truckloads. The only bits that seem to be remaining are the skin, the stomachs and the head!

Our next mission was getting out of town, back over the pass to Manigango. We are worried about the potential of getting snowed in somewhere in the next week or so, and are therefore proceeding more quickly than we might otherwise. The ride over cost us 50 yuan. The cartel at the mini-bus station tried to get 100. We weren't having a bar of it. “No, piss off, you're dreaming, go and find someone else to rip off, rip off the fat monk”. I have developed a habit of just talking in english, I think it helps get the message across, enabling the body language, intonation and facial expressions. We had settled into a holding pattern when Maria and her Tibetan fixer arrived. Maria is a blond Polish PHD student at a Berlin University studying under a Kiwi professor in the field of Tibetan studies. She has spent the last few months visiting remote sites gathering data on Buddhist meditation retreats. We talked for 10 minutes with a large crowd watching , while her fixer sorted us out a taxi costing 70 yuan each. It would have been good to talk for longer, but we were off.

The taxi was a bright yellow Honda Civic, and we were squeezed in with the fat monk and a travelling minstrel type who played us a few tunes on his zither as we headed up the canyon. Having seen the scenery we could tune into the people a bit more. Pilgrims marched down the road performing their prostations, prayerful burpees on the tarmac. They wore aprons, gloves and kneepads to cushion the impact. Others towed their carts, long wooden contraptions with all their worldly possessions. You wouldn't have thought a little car could be so powerful, but before long we were back up on top of Chola pass. The driver handed me a book of prayer notes and I threw them high into the air. But instead of scattering they clumped together and the book fell to the ground as a brick. In panic I picked them up and threw them again, this time scattering them successfully. The driver gave me an ashen look and turned away, the fat monk gulped and the travelling minstrel played a long mournful tune...well at least I think they did.

Quickly we were back at Yihun Lhatso and Penny was determined to have a better look at the lake. She hauled me out of the car and into the fields. We thought we could slip past the gate and avoid the entrance fee (you really get sick of entrance fees travelling in China), but were soon accosted by three young rascals who produced tickets. I threatened to come back and strangle them if the tickets weren't kosher but it all ended in laughs.

In fact it didn't quite end there for as soon as we had sat down for lunch on a hill overlooking the lake we were invited into a lonely house by a friendly monk for a cup of tea, and no sooner had we sat down than the three young curious rascals arrived. It was a fun 30 minutes or so, trying to communicate, showing them our passports (because they wouldn't believe our ages) and nibbling at the monks bowl of doughsticks. We had food to share as well, fried bread and mandarins. The monk was very much the way we imagine monks in the west, quiet, smily and humble, living a very simple lifestyle in the most beautiful of places. Not wanting to overstay our welcome we quietly took our leave.

We walked around the lakeshore, taking photos of the Tibetan script carved into shoreline rocks and bathing (only metaphorically) in the beauty of the lake and mountains. We sat down in a white pavillion on a little rise and took a photo of us.

Later Penny went for a walk along the lake shore while I sat and read poetry. We acquired a book back in Chengdu, an english translations of two eighth century Chinese poets, Li Po and Tu Fu. The book starts with a quoted observation that;

“Great men have a curious way of appearing in complementary pairs. This has happened so often in history that I don't think it can have been invented by symmetrically-minded historians, but must represent some need to keep human faculties in balance”

Li Po is a dreamer, Tu Fu more workmanlike. A Taoist and a Confucian. But anyway I sit above the beautiful lake reading them aloud trying to make a connection, when halfway through Li Po's “The Road to Shu is Steep”, it clicks...

”And taking nine turns every hundred steps, I clutch for Orion, pass through the Pleiades, And gasp for breath; Then, beating my breast, I sigh, Sinking to earth:

'Tell me Sir, this Western Way, has it any end? I fear its awful steepness, and can climb no more!'

I only see Mournful birds, Summoning mates From ancient woods, Cock follow hen Into thicket, And hear a cuckoo call On moon to light Sad, bare slopes...

The Road to Shu is steep, steep as climbing to the Sky!

It ashens those who only hear tell of it, From its peaks to the sky can hardly be a foot: The withered pines there have to lean over canyons Filled with contending dins of waterfalls, Gullies thundering a thousand rolling stones!

Such perils, aye, as this, Why, oh, why, Travellers from Afar, come ye to suffer them?

(...)

The road to Shu is steep, steep as climbing to the Sky! I half turn, but gaze West; with a long, long sigh”

I think not so much of the rugged country that Penny and I have encountered in Yunnan and Sichuan (Shu) but of the ancient paths we have seen, carved into cliffs, winding up passes and crossing quick flowing rivers by rickety bridges. I feel the history beneath our feet, but also understand the poet, tired of the journey but drawn west. Does the last line means he stops? And is it his choice? I know now how I will feel when we start to head back east towards home. But anyway I'm inspired maybe I'll attempt to write my next blog in verse!

We started to walk the 10km back to Manigango, trying to flag down anything that moved. The big rumbling trucks full of dirt did not stop, but a minivan did, 10 yuan each back to the village. The hotel at the top end of town stinks. It has the atmosphere of an empty uncleaned mental insitution. We moved on. Down the road towards the junction with eyes peeled. A lady gestured to us from a second floor balcony, the universal sleep symbol. A cosy room for 30 yuan with a chair in the sun on a deck to drink beer, and watch the end of the day. We are visited by two nomads, identical manes and aviator glasses. Full length robes, like thick dressing gowns, with arms so long they touch the ground when hanging, but are normally wrapped around, or worn over one shoulder. They peer at us, weird twins, a foot from our faces. I was too slow with the camera and one disappeared, but I snapped a picture of the other with our hostess.

We had dinner at the junction, “fried vegetables and the dish you recommend”. It was yak stew with pasta floaties, Yummy. The whole chillis challenged even my acclimatised palate (I have been eating chillis and dodgy meat for two). I love the runny nose and the hot lips, although dread the chilli hiccups! Our last challenge for the day was the absence of a cesuo (toilet). The hostess pointed to a little hollow on our deck, drained by a pipe, feeding straight out high above the street. We held on. Another great day travelling.

Danba

The next leg of our journey was Chengdu to Danba, a small town known for its beautiful villages, minority Qiang and Tibetan culture, and especially watch towers. We had been vaguely thinking of a Yangtzee cruise if we chose the Chongqing route, and when I think Yangtze I think Baiji, so the thought wasn't far from the top, and sitting in the bus from Chegdu to Danba, the Baiji and Douglas Adams's book “The Last Chance to See” popped straight back out.

This is a great book, buy it here! Douglas Adams, the genius writer of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and therefore first person to simply state the meaning of life, travels the world visiting endangered animals. I forget most of them now, but the one that really captured me was the Baiji, the Yangtze River Dolphin. When Adams visited there were still a few around and a small area of river put aside for them. There were all sorts of problems though; river turgidity, poaching, boat collisions and , as we are still painfully finding out with NZ dolphins, very slow breeding and recruitment characteristics. After reading the book I had a look around the internet to find that they had been officially declared extinct, just that month, after an international expedition failed to find any. There are no more Baiji, just like there is no more Douglas Adams. The world is a lesser place.

But anyway I was thinking about this as we drove past yet another hydro-scheme, the last chance to see this beautiful river, those powerful rapids. For someone maybe the last chance to paddle. Maybe there should be a global kayaking website, Last Chance, listing rivers about to be extinguished. Maybe there is. From Chengdu we climbed high over a mountain range, through a giant tunnel and down to a tributary of the Yangtse. We followed this river for 100kilometres upstream until we came to the most incredible scattering of Tibetan villages centred around the town of Danba.

The first village of Suopo you see from the bus. Houses, fields and the ancient watchtowers rise from the river and continue high, high onto the rocky mountain tops. The towers served a defensive and signalling purpose, while also being used for the storage of corn. They rise up to 50metres and while rounded on the inside (sort of like a snow cave and I'm guessing for similar reasons) their exterior design varies from the simple four cornered variety, to a showy 13 corner design.

I wonder what these people think about their towers; community, security, family? And can't help, with my literary mood tonight, thinking about the symbol of the tower in NZ literature and its casting as a phallus representing male shortcomings. Keri Hulme in Bone People with her male substitute tower (the yang to her yin?) . Then there is Katherine Mansfield (I forget the story) where the tower, or phallus is a prized cactus in her parents garden that grows for years then fruits once and dies. I'm not sure the Chinese would get this humour. The Confucian in them may just enjoy the cactus flower...but anyway..

Danba itself is a cool little long town paralleling the river. Plenty of bustle and colourful people.

We didn't make it back to the hostel we had spied on the way into town. We were spotted by Suga in a van who convinced us to stay the night at his place in Jaju (recommended in our guidebook) for 40 yuan, dinner and breakfast included. What a deal, what a fantastic place. They call Jaju a stockaded village but that seems to mean that every house is a miniature colourful castle, stone houses with white washed patterns, red and black trim, and the beginning of ramparts (more like pointy ears) on each building. The doorways, windows and internal courtyards are wonderfully coloured, and as elsewhere we have encountered, the harvested corn and chillis add dramatic splashes of yellow and red. Outside there is a maze of small terraced plots divided by ancient walls. The fruit trees were laden with ripe pears and apples. The people matched the environment, the women with their colourful head scarfs and yak hair plaits, the men with their imitation North Face jackets. Dinner was amazing and sleep was plentiful.

The next day we strolled around and above the village basin, checking out ruined watchtowers while watching and listening to a Tibetan wedding taking place far below. At one stage we disturbed a big slimy slithery snake about 2 metres long that freaked the bejusus out of me. We also stumbled upon what we believe to be a sky burial site, but maybe it was just a heli-pad. And then up above we glimpsed a little peak with prayer flags fluttering and vultures circling. The atmosphere was as close as we are likely to get to one of those old movies where shipwreck survivors glimpse the smoking volcano at the centre of the island! Of course we had to try and climb it, but time was running short. It was looking likely until our path turned into a rocky ridge, then slab. I ended up climbing a near vertical piece only to discover myself above a gap in the ridge, and very overhung. We edged back down and called it a day. Travellers out there, check out the top and send me the pictures!

In conclusion, re Danba, I can't do justice to this place in words (or pictures it seems) it is so beautiful. The potential for trekking on the nearby tops is huge and there are no doubt so many other villages to find. We firmly recommend Suga's guesthouse (no idea what it is called in Chinese). Go through the checkpoint into Jaju and take the first mud road branching off right, follow this for a couple of hundred metres to a house above the road with a sign. Stay there for a week, and tell them we loved it. This is your affordable paradise in China.

Pandas

(I have finally convinced Penny to write something up, our lovely visit to the Panda Breeding Centre in Chengdu)

Pandas start subtly appearing on signs, cartoon pandas dressed in overalls, giving us a friendly, humanised reminder that we have arrived in the panda capital of the world, Chengdu. We wake up early and I drag Jamie onto the bus to the panda breeding centre. Giant statues of pandas welcome us (at least these ones aren't wearing clothes) and our first stop is the panda nursery, where baby pandas lie in incubators, looking just like the soft toys in the shop. We are shoved out of the way by a self-important guard and finally work out that the hundred or so guards in the park aren't actually there to protect the pandas, rather to shield a VIP from the dangerous likes of us. Actually it turned out to be a VVIP, according to the egotistic numberplate on the car as it drove out and we were finally allowed to look at the pandas again.

They stuff their faces with bamboo, kindly provided by the panda nutritionist, and panda beauticians comb their fur. Panda scientists run around, obsessing over the romantic lives of the pandas. One (male) scientist states in the information movie “I can deeply identify with their maternal instincts”. Perhaps taking it one step too far......

Memories of Chengdu

My memories of Chengdu are vague already. The vast city of Han China feels so distant, so unreal, up here, high on the Tibetan Plateau at Ganzi. It is noisy outside our window at the moment, it's Friday night, in Chengdu it was noisy all the time.

We arrived there late, tired from Emei Shan and the Giant Buddha of Leshan. The bus dropped us at a mysterious station in the outskirts. It was raining. There were no official looking taxi's, only motorised rickshaws and a gaggle of men looking for business. Twice we negotiated price only to have the driver show us to a private unmarked car (normally part of our travel survival strategy is to avoid these characters). The second time we gave in. He took us straight to our destination, Sims Cosy Guesthouse.

Sim's is one of the most highly regarded guesthouses in China, but it has changed. They have relocated and upsized, creating a backpacker barn. It suits some people but not us. The prices for a double room are also twice its competitors. We stayed there for a night in a dorm, then quickly relocated to Mix Hostel, which I recommend highly. From here we explored cloudy Chengdu. Skyscrapers loom out at you like gendarmes on a misty ridge while traffic howls past like wind jammed up into the end of a valley. Despite trying, my mountain metaphors will never be as good as Don McGlashans...,

“Oh and he's still climbing, see him try to cross the street, He tests his footing like he's up 10,000 feet, Above the clouds, halfway down Dominion Road”

But we weren't drunk, only slightly out of place, slowly finding our way in a Chinese city. And we certainly weren't above the clouds. In fact we were getting wet. Even Penny beneath her umbrella. We found our way to the old quarter, then the statue of Mao, before finally the Peoples Park. The home to famous Chengdu teahouses. We did eventually find a great cup of tea, well so Penny says, it tasted all right to me but I'm no connosieur.

The weather cleared up slightly the next day and we headed back into town, first goal to buy our bus tickets (the hostels charge a big commision for booking in Chegdu). Mission accomplished we went and sat by the river and watched men fishing and staring into the murk. What were they thinking? Lost in the limpid, turgid waters. The most desired spot was where one particularly nasty looking sewer emptied into the river. It reminded me of a couple of places. Firstly the Mataura meatworks (rumoured to have the biggest eels in NZ) and secondly a small pool down from my primary school at Waitati, where our little gang speared a big eel which had been feasting on a rotten sheep a flood had brought down. We all learnt our lesson when the maggots spewed out of its mouth.

Throughout the city there were regular exercise areas, with abdominisers, treadmills and any other machine you have ever seen on infomercials, plus lots more which looked more like torture instruments, weird devices for the sexually experimental and buzzy bees. Penny posed for a photo, then I had to drag her away.

We looked around a bit more and tried several types of street food , a convenient progressive dinner, but the final highlight came when Penny needed her cuppa. The lady at the tea shop performed a very elaborate tea ritual with us sitting around like she was about to deal cards. Rinsing, washing, rinsing, washing all with tea, or even the particular type of tea we were about to taste, while maintaining a very correct manner and carefully managed facial expressions. We tasted several types of tea and sat there nervously wondering how much it would cost. As it turns out the tasting was free, our only expense being 9yuan for a big bag of Crysanthemum Tea.

And thats it. Thats all my brain pathways reserved for Chengdu...

Paved Paradise Put Up a Parking Lot!

Too many days on the tourist trail in China. Sometimes when in NZ I despair at our abandonment of the mountains. The vast areas of land preserved for eternity in their queitness, slowly and methodically being stripped of their biodiversity by an array of specially designed predators. But in China the despair is not quite so insidious, its in your face. Its the red panda skins hanging on the walls of guesthouses...above pinned up furry bear head skins...on sacred buddhist mountains. Its in the concrete slab monstrosities of tourist development. Square organised photo opportunities. Nature is reduced to 2D, a trophy on the wall a place you've been.

This is the worst we have encountered so far. The ugliness of the entrance to Luoji Shan. Half mentioned in the Lonely Planet as a lovely place to explore. It has now been found. We didn't make it much past the gate. The mana of the place has been spiked. The Joni Mitchell song springs to mind "Big Yellow Taxi", you know the one that goes, "They paved paradise and put up a parkin' lot, With a pink hotel, a boutique, and a swingin' hot spot". Its more than "a dollar and a half to see them" though, in China you get stung on average about 80 yuan ($20 dollars at the moment) for every natural feature you want to cast eyes on. We wouldn't mind if the money went to environmental protection.

Out of curiousity I followed my train of thought to investigate what motivated Joni Mitchell to write these lyrics. I didn't have to go far. Wikipedia quotes her,

I wrote 'Big Yellow Taxi' on my first trip to Hawaii. I took a taxi to the hotel and when I woke up the next morning, I threw back the curtains and saw these beautiful green mountains in the distance. Then, I looked down and there was a parking lot as far as the eye could see, and it broke my heart... this blight on paradise. That's when I sat down and wrote the song.

Hawaii as I have encountered in other reading (Song of the Dodo is recommended) is the extinction capital of earth, half of its 140 historically recorded bird species are extinct. Theres still plenty of trees in Hawaii though. It gets back to my point about New Zealand, things look nice on the outside, but there is no equilibrium, bird populations are getting smaller and more isolated and vulnerable to disease. If Avian influenza, hits us like it hit Hawaii with its vulnerable species, we can say good bye to a few more species. But I digress Penny and I are on holiday...

From Xichang we took a night train sitting up (rather than lying down) to Emei Shan. Tourist attraction supreme. This is the place where all those Chinese painting of enchanted looking landscapes (like the photos we took below at the Sichuan Art Gallery are from). I especially like the one with the train, as it shows the composers eye for reality!

Our reality was cloudy. We got off the train at 3am and accepted a touts inflated taxi to the Teddy Bear Hotel, famous and very comfortable backpacker hang-out. You can't bargain on prices at 3am in the morning. We didn't even try. We weren't in any hurry that morning our only deadline was checkout. Emei Shan was a late addition to our plans, we didn't really know anything about it. We packed a light pack expecting an easy stroll for an afternoon up a bit of a hill and ended up walking for 12 hours up 3000 metres up an increasingly dark train and staying in an old monastery, complete with nightman with flashlight and limp, under huge eiderdowns.

It was a fantastic day though. We checked out the museum at the bottom, which is worth visiting , if only for satirical value, before strolling up the windy and rolling concrete path through a succession of small monasteries. Regular sprite sellers plied us successfully with sprite. The paths were quite apart from at the Pure Sound Pavillion where an instantaneous infusion of Chinese tourists injected themselves to hear the rushing waters of the gorge and to visit the valley of the monkeys (Tibetan Macaques)and its crazy little fluffballs.

We escaped the madness by heading up, and of the thousands, there were only a handful that joined us. We ate a lovely dinner in the forest at the hard wok cafe just below the Venerable Trees terrace. The path was going seriously up by here, steps, thousands of them. All these vegetables are carried in. Hard work!

We pushed on past the Magic Peak Monastery and the Elephant Bathing Pool. The latter was where one of the legendary figures landed his flying elepant for a wash. The Lonely Planet seems obsessed with the small size of the pool, but I'm thinking that it would be a perfect size for washing your flying elephant as after all your flying elephant would probably be quite small wouldn't it? And its certainly a nice pool, in an improbable place. (the photo is taken on the way back down).

In the dark we got to the last road end and pushed on past the empty hawker stalls (pondering the shelter and warmth they would give us if we were forced to camp out in our shared thin sleeping bag) to the next monastery, this one. Penny liked it, I didn't, I thought it was creepy and I was looking forward to roughing it for a night and sitting dishevelled and dazed on the summit in the morning feeling like I had just done an adventure race.

Instead next morning we extricated ourselves out of bed at an early hour (in the dark) and slogged for an hour up the hill to narrowly lose the race to the first massive group coming out of the cable car. Theres actually two cable cars they must have decided the first wasn't big enough. The summit was sort of surreal. Pretty, but.

We had noodles and quickly headed down. 2000 metres of steps is many. The pain comes about a day later to the calfs, and stays for at least two days (we still have it). We went down the short way past some more monastery and tuck shops and lovely forests, back to the numbers and the toots and the beauty of the valleys. In Tibetan areas it was music drifting up the valleys here it is traffic noise (note to Chinese censors, ban tooting an Emei Shan, its a sacred mountain for goodness sake!!).

Next up for the day was Leshan and its Giant Buddha. It was big, 71 metres they say. And ancient, construction started around 700AD. I can imagine the awe of observors over the ages, but as discussed against the massiveness that is project China, you sort of expect it. My highlight for the day was the poetry of Dong Po...something along the lines of,

"Good to be the governor of Leshan Better to sit on Leshan's hill and drink tea".

Trying to Decide What to do

We are sitting in a hostel in Lugu Lake, the famous home of the Mosuo Matriarchal society (see here), the sun is shining on the hills outside, but its cold in our room and we can't quite decide where to go. It centers on whether we start travelling back overland towards Hong Kong or decide to take a plane trip in there somewhere.

Lonely Planet describes arriving in Lige as "arriving at the ends of the earth". We arrived in a convoy of tourist buses and spent 20 minutes trapped, 10 minutes from the village by roadworks. As soon as the digger cleared out of the way both lanes of traffic zoomed in causing a traffic jam. Comical. The signs here are classic, "watch your fiery safety" and careful "anxious torturous path". The town is made up almost entirely of two story wooden guesthouses, backing onto deforested hills. You can't swim in the lake. Indeed a sign on the waters edge warns you of a slippery bank!! (and we think NZ is PC).

Dinner here consists of either a splurge or a bbq. We go for the bbq, self cook on a little table with chopsticks. We avoid the roast piglet and go for chilli, zucchini, mushrooms and corn, great fun and warm too.

The decision is made we are off to Xichang, skipping out Yading this time, mainly because I have had enough tramping and want to see some of the real China and get off this tourist trail that we have been largely stuck on for the last week. Really looking forward to seeing some big cities, ie Chongching with 30million people. Used Skype with video this morning to chat to Aaron and Karin over in rainy Gothenburg. Awesome!