Spring Festivus For the Rest of Us Part II

So here it is. Part two of the epic journey. In Kunming we caught a bus for Dali. Dali was the seat of a Muslim empire that emerged after Kublai Khan conquered China. The bus trip to Dali was great. The view from the bus was spectacular. The road from Kunming to Dali slices through the mountains and passes many small villages. There are actually two Dalis. One is New Dali, which is a modern city of about five million, and the other is old Dali, which is a well preserved walled city. The two are separated by about 8 kilometers and centuries of time. Dali is set at the foot of a large mountain and flanked by a massive lake. The valley near the lake is quite fertile with thousands of plots of land where many different vegetables are grown. Scott, Bryne, and I stayed at a hostel in neither old nor new Dali. It was down by the lake about two miles from the walls of the old city. It was a bit isolated and taxis were nonexistent. We spent a lot of time at the hostel playing Risk as a result of our isolation. We did get to the old city for a few nights and it was quite nice but nothing like the old city we would see in Lijiang. While in Dali we went to a hot spring spa which was excellent. It was set in the mountains and the natural springs were the perfect accompaniment to the view. Our brief visits to the old city were punctuated by bizarre encounters with elderly drug dealers. Everywhere me or my friends went we were approached by old women wearing traditional clothing and all they would say was, "Ganja? Hashish? Heroin?" These ladies were all over the city and dealing out in the open in front of God and everyone. In China you get the death penalty for dealing (or using) drugs so I have no idea what the deal was with these heroin dealing grannies. The manager of our hotel explained that Dali is a unique autonomous region where the drug rules are relaxed due to the religious practices of many of the minority groups in the region. I've never heard of heroin being used in a religious ceremony but then again I don't know that much about Scientology.

After three days in Dali it was time to head to Lijiang. Lijiang is a UNESCO world heritage site that earned its place on the list not through a famous statue, or beautiful view, but through sheer durability. Lijiang as a city was formed almost 1000 years ago. The old city is famous because of its incredibly well preserved Song Dynasty architecture. The wooden buildings and their distinctive sloping stone roofs seem to go on forever connected by small stone alleyways that spill out into small public squares. The city is beautifully lit at night. It is quite an amazing place. Lijiang is famous throughout China for being the travel spot of choice for young couples seeking a romantic getaway. The city is set near Jade Dragon Snow Mountain which dominates the landscape. We stayed at a hostel, again, on the outskirts of the old town. This was not as bad as the situation in Dali because everything is in walking distance in Lijiang. We spent three days in Lijiang just wandering the streets and looking into the small shops that line them. This may seem a little boring but the city is honestly one of the coolest places I've ever been. Many people in Lijiang still wear their traditional ethnic clothing which is always quite colorful and the sites, sounds, and smells are a lot to take in. One of the main reasons we went to Lijiang was its proximity to Tiger Leaping Gorge. The gorge is located on the opposite side of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain from Lijiang. The two hour bus trip to the gorge takes you over another smaller mountain and runs parallel to the Yangzee river. At this point in its course the river is a deep blue which is quite amazing considering the brown hue the river becomes in eastern China. As the fame of the gorge increases new visitors centers are being constructed. We had no desire to see the gorge you'd see on a tour. We had heard of a hike that takes you through the gorge at 3,000 meters. In Lijiang we asked some locals and picked up a few hand drawn maps of the trail with a few points of interest and guest houses drawn on. We had heard that the length of the whole hike was about 12 kilometers so on the morning of February 9th (my birthday) we took the first bus from Lijiang in hope of hiking the whole gorge in one day. The weather was beautiful and when we arrived at the town near the trail head we followed the first of the yellow arrows that would guide our path through the day. The views were breathtaking. It was really a great way to spend my birthday and a day I will never forget. The hike did have its low points. One section is called '28 Bends'. It is a snake path that takes you up about 300 vertical feet in about 100 horizontal feet. I honestly thought I might die. I thought I'd be one of those people whose headstones have the same date at both ends but luckily I survived. As the day went on we stopped at several guest houses in order to get food and rest. We pushed ourselves to get to the end of the trail but we could never seem to find it. Around every bend where we expected to find the last guest house we would find the trail extending around yet another bend. The day was getting late and we were exhausted and at this point wondering if we'd made a mistake somewhere. Finally we arrived at Tina's Guesthouse 15 minutes before sunset. We got at the guest house six hours after we began the hike and found out that from the trail head to Tina's is 27 kilometers, not 12. We were happy with ourselves for completing such a long hike in such a short time but at the same time we were kind of worried that the map we followed and advice we were given were so wrong. The next morning we left the gorge and headed back to Lijiang where we caught a flight to Chengdu.

We spent three more days in Chengdu before heading to Hainan Island. One of Scott's co-workers helped us buy plane tickets and book a hotel as part of a tour group. We met the group at the airport and, no surprise, they were all old Chinese people. It was a bit awkward for them to be traveling with three white guys but they got used to it. We flew to Hainan on Valentines Day and during the flight the stewardesses performed a few skits and even had couples participate in a game in the aisle. The TSB would be enraged by these actions but it was quite entertaining once the shock and disbelief faded away. We landed in Sanya in the evening and the whole tour group went straight to the hotel. The tour guide had zero English. We were told he would speak English and be able to tell us about Sanya and Hainan but there was no way that was going to happen. At the hotel we spoke with the man and told him we were not going to continue with the tour group and he seemed fine with that. Bryne, Scott, and I went out for a bit that evening before heading to bed. The next morning at 7:00 a.m. the tour guide was knocking frantically on our door. He was telling us we had to go with the group. We said we didn't want to and he demanded that we go. We found out that the group was not staying in Sanya that evening. The group was headed to the interior of the island to see some Buddha or something. We were in Sanya to relax. We had seen many sites of cultural significance but now we wanted to relax on the beach and enjoy the warm weather. We could see no way out of this bind at the moment so we went along. At this point the tour group had been waiting for us for about a half hour, they were happy with us. We boarded a bus and headed to some faux cultural village. Sanya looked beautiful as we were driving away. Once at the cultural center Scott called his co-worker and she explained that we could pay a small fee, sign a contract, change hotels, and be relinquished from the grip of the tour guide. We paid the fee and were free. We spent the next two days going to the beach and sipping coconuts while we lazed in the sun. Exactly what we wanted to do. It was in Sanya that I had some of the best seafood I've ever had. We spent several dinners eating on the street. In Sanya there were streets where restaurants would be set up on the sidewalk. They have all their ingredients out on a table and they let you select which vegetables and meats you'd like and then they cook them right there in a wok on the sidewalk. The fish was amazingly fresh and all the dishes were great.

On the fourth day we went to Monkey Island (Ho Dao). It was a ways away from Sanya and getting there was kind of expensive as was the admission ticket. It was totally worth it. As soon as we got off of the cable car that ferried us to the island a monkey appeared and frightened a woman so terribly that she jumped into my arms. The island had many attractions with monkeys but the best part was just having wild monkeys everywhere. Monkeys were stealing things from people and terrorizing children. It was monkey chaos. One monkey even stole Bryne's water bottle. I laughed and laughed. Some of the attractions included Monkey Stunt Show, Monkey Comedy Show, Monkey Color Guard, Monkey Introspection Room, and Monkey Jail. I never found out why the monkeys were in jail. One monkey even approached me and climbed onto my head where, disturbingly, he found a few good things to eat in my hair. Monkey Island was great. The night we returned from Monkey Island was Spring Festival Eve.

Spring Festival is what we know in the west as Chinese New Year. It involves many traditions but the most famous are the dragon dances and the fireworks. We went out to a bar that evening and celebrated with the locals. At the stroke of midnight the sky was ablaze with fireworks. The Spring Festival traditionally lasts about two weeks so for the next two weeks it was quite hard to sleep as fireworks had been going of constantly since that first night. The next day we bid farewell to Hainan Island and headed back to Chengdu and finally back to Beijing.

Second semester has begun and now there are only 15 weeks left in the school year. I have twice as many classes as last semester including six classes a week with the Korean students in the international building. Last week I returned to Capital Mandarin for my Chinese classes and last night I attended a party at 789 Art Gallery. Things are back to normal here but I still feel like I was in the stone forest and had a monkey on my head just yesterday.

Spring Festivus For the Rest of Us Part I

Hello everybody, I'm back. After a long and fantastic trip I have returned to Beijing. I have actually been back since the 21st but because of various obstacles and distractions I have been unable to post.

I traveled far and wide across China in what I thought was a very short time. I saw and did so much that I'll have to break the blog up into two posts so I don't make you regret being interested in my life.

Our itinerary was as follows: Chengdu, Kunming, Dali, Lijiang, Tiger Leaping Gorge, Hainan Island

On the 29th of January Bryne and I flew to Chengdu in Sichuan province which is in the midwest of China geographically. Chengdu is kind of viewed the way St. Louis was around 1804. It is the last bastion of civilization before getting to China's 'wild west'. Scott Dedels resides in Chengdu. Scott is a friend I met at the seminar at the beginning of the year and he is a former roommate of Bryne's from back in England. We flew during the day and from the air we could really see the rugged terrain that surrounds Beijing. We could also see the Great Wall snaking its way along the ridges of the mountains that cushion Beijing's north side. The first and most striking thing I noticed about Chengdu was the color green. The streets are lined with trees that, due to the warm and humid environment, remain green all year. This was a nice change from the gray that dominates Beijing in the winter. Scott has a great apartment very close to his school's campus. I'm jealous. Sichuan province is known across China as home to the most beautiful women in all the land. I must say that this stereotype holds true based on my limited travel experience. Scott is a lucky man.

Scott showed Bryne and I the nightlife in Chengdu and we were not disappointed. The clubs and bars were packed with people. It was in Chengdu where I succumbed to a Chinese tradition which I had avoided since my arrival. Buying bottles of liquor to split among a group is a very popular method of drinking in China. On the surface it seems ok until I tell you that it is only one kind of liquor, Chivas Regal, and one kind of mixer, green tea. The Chivas and the tea are mixed together in a pitcher and dolled out in little glasses for people to drink quickly. Going out in China requires you to participate in drinking rituals that amount to peer pressure in the west. When you go out to a bar everyone is drinking Chivas and tea and everyone is toasting one another. You must always accept a toast and must always offer another one in return. The toast is 'Gan Bei' which means bottoms up. So by strictly adhering to cultural norms and not wanting to offend anyone you can get quite drunk quite quickly.

The next day we finalized our plans for the next two weeks. We decided to head south from Sichuan to Yunnan province. First we would go to Kunming, then to Dali, and finally to Lijiang and Tiger Leaping Gorge near by. Having confirmed our plans Bryne and I set out to see the sites in and around Chengdu. The main attraction around Chengdu is the panda preserve just outside of the city. Sichuan province is the only place in the world where giant pandas are found and as a result there are many different preserves around the province. We spent a day at one such preserve and I learned a lot of interesting things about pandas such as they are doomed to be extinct. The panda has to be the most evolutionarily ill equipped animal that is not already extinct. It is can eat meat but doesn't because it would expend too much energy in the process so instead it eats bamboo which has almost zero nutritional value so it has to eat a lot of it. It has to eat so much bamboo to sustain itself that it does nothing but eat bamboo. Pandas can eat 60 different species of bamboo but only like to eat 27 of them. It will turn it's nose at the other 33 varieties. They also refuse to mate. It doesn't get more Darwinian than having zero sex drive. They have to be forced together and the male has to physically be placed on top of the female by handlers. This last point has nothing to do with reasons they will become extinct but they make the weakest noises, kind of like a pouting baby. I'm really glad I got to go see the pandas because they are not going to be around 1 generation from now. No way. I also got to hold a red panda which is more like a large raccoon than a bear. It was soft and ate apples from my hand.

The other major site near Chengdu is in Leshan. Carved into the face of the cliff that looks out on the confluence of three rivers, the Leshan Buddha is 233 feet high and is damn imposing if you ask me (which is kind of weird because its Buddha). The seated statue is about 1300 years old and was named a UNESCO world heritage site in 1996 (I forgot to mention that the panda preserve that we visited was also some sort of world heritage site. This was a sort of theme for the trip as we ended up visiting 4 such sites). Bryne and I hired a car and traveled along with two Australian girls that Scott had met in Xi'an at the beginning of his holiday. The Buddha was breathtaking. The original paint is still visible on the chest and lap. I just imagine being a fisherman in the year 700 AD cruising downriver and happening upon this giant, fully painted, Buddha seated on the side of a cliff. Ridiculous.

We spent one more day in Chengdu before we headed off to Kunming in Yunnan province. During this down day we scheduled a trip to Hainan island in the South China Sea. We paid to fly and be housed with a tour group as to reduce the overall cost. We booked the tickets and reserved the hotel for the 14th to the 18th of February (more on this part of the trip in part 2 of this blog). After finalizing our plans for the last part of our vacation we flew from Chengdu to Kunming. Yunnan province is home to 60% of all minority ethnic groups in China so to say it is an ethnically diverse place is an understatement. Many people in smaller villages and towns (and some in the cities) still wear their traditional clothing every day. This is a vast departure from the Armani suits and Louis Vutton bags in Beijing. Kunming was very similar to Chengdu in its foliage but the weather seemed to be a bit colder. We stayed at a fabulous hostel near a busy shopping area in Kunming. The hostel also provided a menu of western food which we were happy about. We arrived in the evening so the next morning we wanted to see the sites of Kunming. This is a problem because there are no sites of historical or cultural significance in Kunming. In western Yunnan there was a mini Muslim empire formed by allies of Kublai Khan after he took over China. The Muslims used Dali as a base of their power and repeatedly sacked Kunming. If this wasn't enough Kunming was hit hard by the Cultural Revolution as well. One culinary delight that Kunming is known for is Crossing-The-Bridge noodles. This delightful dish was created by a woman who would have to cross a bridge to give her husband his lunch. She'd take a boiling hot bowl of broth with a thin layer of oil on the surface and walk it over the bridge. Once on the other side she would add the noodles, meats, and veggies and they would all cook in the broth. It amounts to the best Ramen Noodles of all time with a diverse mix of ingredients including tripe and quail egg.

Day 2 in Kunming Scott and I booked bus tickets to Shilin, commonly known as the Stone Forest. Bryne could not join us this day as he was feeling unwell. The Stone Forest is located about 2 hours southeast of Kunming and is yet another UN sponsored site. It is a surreal place. It looks like something from a fantasy or science fiction movie. The pictures I have do not do it justice. The park is broken up into two sections. One section is set up like an over grown rock garden with patches of green grass and reflecting pools placed between the rocks. The other part is more natural with narrow footpaths looping under, over, and around massive rock formations. Scott and I spent four hours there just wandering around in constant amazement of our surroundings. I think it has to be one of the top five 'Must-Sees' in China. After we left the park we headed into the town of Shilin to have some lunch. Of course we had Crossing-The-Bridge again. This time we ate at a street cafe where they also served fried bees and crickets. I couldn't resist the opportunity to add to my insects eaten list. The bees were saturated with oil and lightly fried...about 1 day before I ate them. I feel that this may have ruined the bee eating experience for me. Who knows, maybe there is nothing as tasty as a plate of freshly fried bees. After lunch we headed back to Kunming. It was at this point that Scott began to complain about his stomach. Once we got back to the hostel he turned in for the night while Bryne and I stayed up and chatted with other travelers (I was trying to find a hot lead on a place to watch the Super Bowl which was the next morning, no luck). When we returned to the room Scott was doubled over in pain and could not stop vomiting. It was scary stuff. I offered him some medicine which he took and promptly evacuated all over the floor of the room. Luckily I had a cold so I avoided the smell. And I was the one who ate the bees. Two days later Scott was back in action and we boarded a bus headed west for Dali.

This is where our story ends for now. Stay tuned for the next installment featuring heroin dealing grannies, the mini version of The Long March, and Monkey Island. Take care. Dsai Jien.