What a breath of fresh air after Vietnam. We decided to skip the big tourist spots of Halong Bay and Sapa in northern Vietnam and head straight for the Chinese border. We really couldn't leave Vietnam quick enough.
We crossed the Chinese border and Hekou and what a difference - order, friendly people, clean streets, no chaos, no longer being seen as a dollar sign!! Yunnan and China is great.
So first on the list was to visit the famed rice terraces of Yuangyang. We took the bus from Hekou toYuangyang.
Every bus journey in China is an adventure!
The bus took about 5 hours on a dirt road driving alongside the amazing Red River and underneath a super-duper 4 lane highway which is almost totally suspended in the air due to the mountainous terrain. I have never seen so much concrete in my life. One one hand you have a world class motorway above us and underneath you have a third world road, alongside and underneath which, the locals live in some of the most basic accommodation we have seen on the trip. There doesn't seem to be much middle ground.
Straight away you can see the minority presence on the bus. The Yunnan province is home to something like 27 of the 50 + minority peoples living in China. The colour of their dress is amazing. Obviously the locals aren't used to buses as some spend more of the time with their heads outside the bus than inside it - getting sick. One mother holding her child got a sudden urge, handed her child to a complete stranger and stuck her head out the window to vomit.
Eventually we reached the mountain town of Juangjang, the tourist centre for the rice terraces. But where are all the tourists? We only saw one other westerner in our first day there. What a breath of fresh air. So booked into our accommodation and went for a dinner of chicken and bones, rather more bones than chicken - a speciality in Yunnan. They don't believe in wasting any of the animal here. I suppose when you have a population of 1 billion plus people you get pretty resourceful.
The following morning we set off on our quest to locate these famed rice terraces. So down to the square to get into a micro bus driven by a local Hani (minority woman) in full regalia. This kind woman drove us around the amazing terraces for the day. I promise some photos soon.
One of the best things about the terraces is that their is no entrance fee!!! In China they charge for everything and their entrance fees into most tourist sights are exorbitant.
The following day we headed to the Sunday market in a place called Laomang. This was amazing. We saw 8 different minorities there - Hani, Bai, Yi, to name a few. The colours and dress were incredible. What was also incredible was the fact that you could get all your medical needs seen to at this market. There was a stand for false teeth (I kid you not) which did a roaring trade. There was an open air dentist where many an extraction was performed that morning and of course the local GP or quack (not quite sure) was also on hand.
We ate some tofu (which is a Yunnan speciality) with the locals. Its tasteless, but boy do they know how to spice it up. The chilli dip burned the mouths off us. Luckily the dentist and doctor were close at hand!!!
We took some photos but it can be difficult to get good shots. The locals believe that if you take a photo of them you are taking part of their spirit away and can be hesitant to pose.
Back to Yuangyang and we went to another rice terrace for sunset. This was amazing. I promise lots of photos of this.
The following morning we went to a place call Jianshui (about4 hours on the bus) which broke our journey to Kunming. Again this journey was exciting. We pulled out of the bus station with passengers on board, passed the checkpoint, over the bridge and then the bus pulls over to leave in the rest of the crew. We counted 39 people and 8 chickens in an 18 seater bus. The bus conductor had to enter the bus through the window twice, such was the pressure for space. At one stage we came to a police checkpoint, where the conductor orders everyone to lie down (as clearly the bus was illegally overcrowded. At one stage I had the bus conductor lying across by lap! Everything is pushed to the limit in China. Every inch of arable land is planted with crops, every lorry and truck is full to the brim and overweight and every bus is filled to the brim with people. I think the term is called maximising return on capital - and they know how to do it. There are checks and balances in existence but it seems that all you need is a cigarette or two to buy your way past the checks.
Jianshui is a lovely town off the beaten track. The highlight of this town was the market where you could buy the following for consumption - dog, dragon flies, maggots, wasps, etc. etc.
Onto Kunming the following day and stayed at the magnificent Cloudland hostel. There we bumped into two ozzies from Melbourne - Jeff and Rachel who we spent the next week travelling with.
From Kunming it was onto Dali and its famous old town which was pretty nice. Day 1 in Dali consisted of a hike up the local mountain. On the way we passed a lot of graves where families were sitting out having picnics and the gravesides. Along the way we saw a lot of what appeared to be 100 RMB notes (about 10 Euros). On closer inspection these were fakes, issued by the
"Bank of Hell" - a bit eerie. We later found out that it was the day of "The Grave Sweeping Festival" where all their locals clean up their loved ones graves and have a picnic on site with their families.
From Dali it was a short 4 hour bus ride to Lijaing, with again a beautiful old town full of canals and waterwheels. From here it was onto Tiger Leaping Gorge (TLG) to do the famed trek.
TLG took us two days to complete, stopping off at the Tea Horse guesthouse on the way for a nights kip. Tea Horse possibly has some of the best views in China! We arrived into Tea Horse around 4pm and had a great night there meeting other trekkers - Brad and Jackie from South Africa and David and Jenny from England. The following day was again spectacular. We had to cross through 3 waterfalls to continue on our trek. It was a little amusing and annoying that the locals block all the best photo opportunity sites so that they can charge 10 RMB for a picture. Again, anything that can be charged for in China is charged for.
Unfortunately we missed our bus to Baishuitai and its famed water terraces. So it was straight onto Shangri-La that night for us instead. Shangri-La is on the way to Tibet and you can really feel the increase in altitude when you walk around the city. God know how the locals can manage two hours of traditional Tibetan dancing in the square every night. Jeanette and myself gave it a go one of the nights. Video on the way.
On our second day in Shangri-La we hired a couple of bikes with David and Jenny and headed out to the local Tibetan monastry. This was pretty nice with great view of the town. When we were just about to head home we heard some singing coming from behind us. We went to investigate and there was a bunch of monks onto of the walls of a building site singing in unison as they worked pounding the clay walls into place. Hauling basket loads of clay upto the monks were an little army of tiny Tibetan women, ranging in age from 30 to 60!!! We went down for a look and within a few seconds myself and David were handed a basket each to haul the clay upto the monks. So away we went, tough work, I don't know why all the woman were doing the toughest job and the young able body monks were taking it easy singing away to their hearts content. Its nice to say that my first day on a building site was in a Tibetan monastry.
From Shangril La we decided to head to Dequin, about 6 hours over the mountains close to Tibet. Dequin is over 80% Tibetan so even though we missed out on our planned trip to Tibet we still got to see a lot of Tibetan culture which was great. We passed over a mountain pass 4300 metres high along the way. It was snowing so hard that it was coming in the window ontop of Jeanette. Our bus driver had x-ray eyes. I don't know how he could see out the window with the blizzard and no windscreen wipers.
So we arrived in Dequin and booked into a hostel called Tashi's that happened to be ran by two Irish guys. One of them, the cook, was trained in Ballymaloe house and the food was fantastic. Tashi's was a traditional tibetan house so was pretty cool - and we spend a lot of time huddled around the fire trying to keep warm. Dequin is famous for its proximity to the Mingyong glacier and lots of treks in the area. We saw an inordinate amount of cherry blossom trees in the valleys which was really beautiful. Dequin was also great training for the high altitudes we are going to experience in Nepal.
So we arrived in Dequin and booked into a hostel called Tashi's that happened to be ran by two Irish guys. One of them, the cook, was trained in Ballymaloe house and the food was fantastic. Tashi's was a traditional tibetan house so was pretty cool - and we spend a lot of time huddled around the fire trying to keep warm. Dequin is famous for its proximity to the Mingyong glacier and lots of treks in the area. We saw an inordinate amount of cherry blossom trees in the valleys which was really beautiful. Dequin was also great training for the high altitudes we are going to experience in Nepal.
In Dequin we met an amazing English guy called Charlie who has been cycling all over the world for the past 7 years. He has covered over 110,000 km's on his travels. He tells us that his aim is to do 240,000 km's because apparently that is the "distance from the earth to the moon".
Now we are in Chengdu in the Sichuan province and looking forward to 10 days here, before heading to Nepal where we are going to meet Lorraine (Jeanette's sister).
Ok, talk soon,
Brian
Now we are in Chengdu in the Sichuan province and looking forward to 10 days here, before heading to Nepal where we are going to meet Lorraine (Jeanette's sister).
Ok, talk soon,
Brian
