28/10 - Enter the Tiger

Wow! I mean WOW!!!

 

This place is just off the scale.

 

Today, we were treated to a five hour trek along Sean's secret trails. The trek was nominally to visit a waterfall in the upper reaches of the gorge, but given the epic surroundings, it was always going to be more about the journey than the destination.

 

Si Phong had been laid low with food poisoning, so it was just me and Sheenie following Sean that morning. Being a man with some meat to him, Sheenie was the Jabba the Hut to Sean's Yoda. He therefore did a manly job in keeping pace up some steep and rugged mountain paths. The flipside of course is that Sheenie sweats for ten men (make that 20 if the men are asian) and it wasn't long before steam could be seen rising from his black polo. At one point I heard Sean muttering to himself in the local dialect "Man, if this white boy sweats anymore, the villagers will have salty drinking water".

 

Tiger Leaping Gorge was a great antidote to some of the equally stunning, but sanitised spots that we have been to recently. There wasn't a camera toting tourist in sight (well, apart from us) and the paths were rough, bordering on dangerous in places. We only met a few people that day, and they were all villagers tending their crops. Sean has a few ideas to improve the local facilities for trekers, but you could tell that he didn't wish to make things too easy, lest the coaches, tannoys and paved walkways appear and turn the gorge in to another theme park.

 

Unfortunately, the gorge as it is faces an uncertain future. According to Sean, plans are afoot to dam the gorge, which will have a profound effect on the local economy and of course the gorge itself.

27/10 - The road to Tiger Leaping Gorge

We spent a couple of nights in the delightful tourist trap that is Lijiang (will try and blog about this later), but our main reason for being in Yunnan province was to visit the legendary Tiger Leaping Gorge.

 

Depending on how you like to measure your gorges, Tiger Leaping Gorge is the world's deepest, at 2km deep and 30 km long. The gorge itself is an absolute bitch to get to as the one road that runs along it has been destroyed by numerous landslides. As a result the tourist buses only dare to venture to the edge of the gorge, where the masses take their obligatory photo's and then promptly bugger off back to their hotels in Lijiang and Shangri-La.

 

But not us, oh no. We had intentions of getting deep in to the gorge in order to breathe its fresh air and walk its hidden trails! This would have been impossible were it not for the help of a village leader named Sean, who we'd contacted many months before from the UK.

 

He arranged for a driver to pick us up from Lijiang and do the two hour drive to the start of the gorge. Here, we were picked up by his daughter, Lucy, who revealed to us that we had another 5 cars to catch. Somewhat puzzled by this, we transferred in to hers and cracked on. The reasons soon became apparent - we were the human batons in a landslide relay! Each car would go along the gorge road until it hit a point where where it could go no further. This was usually due to severe rock fall, or even worse, where the road itself had fallen in to the gorge. At this point, we'd unload and carry our luggage to another car waiting at the other side of the blockage and continue until the next impasse, where another changeover would take place. How clever!

 

Unfortunately I had come down with man-flu the day before and was near the point of death. I was therefore absolutely overjoyed to find myself carrying 35 kilo's of luggage (trunk on the shoulder, backpacks on front and back) across a collapsed road with a sheer drop two feet to my right! 

 

We arrived at Sean's guesthouse at noon where we met our host and guide for the first time. There's a distinct Yoda like vibe around this little Tibetan guy, which is exactly what one looks for in a mountain guide in one of China's most legendary treking spots. We spent the afternoon walking down to the river, but Sean promises us a much more substantial trek to the higher reaches of the gorge tomorrow...

25/10 - A bad 2 days

We've been on a winning streak since hitting China, but after a splendid few days in Jiuzhaigou, our luck finally broke when we hit Huang Long national park.

 

Huang Long lies 100km away from the much larger Jiuzhaigou, and came highly recommended by the guidebook for its unique mineral pools and waterfalls. In reality, the park itself was nothing much to write about and was a mission to get to, being 3500m up on the other side of a 4500m mountain range. On the drive to Huanglong, the taxi driver filled us with tales of doom, leaving us with a feeling of dread as we arrived at our destination. There was some truth in his words, the high altitude, compounded by the onset of bad weather made for an uncomfortable night's sleep in a cold and dirty hotel at the top.

 

Worse was to come on the following day's flights to Chengdu and then Lijiang. We were woken at 6.30 by our taxi driver. Unknown to us, it had started to snow overnight and he urged us to pack and go within 10 minutes before the mountain pass became inaccessible. The journey was slow and treacherous, and the taxi skidded more than once of the icy mountain roads. Fortunately we'd allowed lots of time for our 10 o'clock flight, so despite the cautious crawl to the airport, we were there with time to spare and tipped our driver generously.

 

We were thanking our good fortune in escaping a snow-in but little did we know that this was just the first hurdle in a day of problems! At check in, we discovered that the airline had messed up our tickets. No one at the airport was willing or able to help and we had no choice but to miss our flight to Chengdu. We resigned ourselves to booking ourselves on the next flight, only to find that the counter did not take foreign cards and neither did the ATM at the airport. We were contemplating a 4 hour round trip to the bank at Jiuzhaigou to pick up some cash, but were able to pursuade the police in to letting us book online from their office.

 

To cut a long story short, the rest of the day consisted of waiting around in airport terminals as more flights were delayed due to the bad weather. And when we finally reached Chengdu, we had to also re-purchase tickets for the flight to Lijiang...so £450 on new flights through no fault of our own!

 

It was dark by the time we finally got to Lijiang, 6 hours later than planned, but the warm air and clear star filled skies on the drive in to town, plus the prospect of hooking up with our good friend Sheenie for the 3rd time, hints that we might be on to something better now....

 

 

10/24 - More pics from Jiuzhigou

Here's a few more!

10/24 - Jiuzhaigou

We've spent the past 2 days exploring the valleys of Jiuzhaigou in northwestern Sichuan. This is UNESCO world heritage site spanning two valleys which range from 2000m at base to 4000m at the upper reaches. The water here is crystal clear and very rich in calcium, which lends it a vivid turquois blue color, mixed with more autumn colors of yellow, orange and red.

 

We'd start each day getting a bus to the highest point of each valley, and then hiking our way down to the base. Each valley is comprised of huge terraces, encompassing lakes and sunken fields of trees and grass, which then cascade down through waterfalls to the next level. As you make your way down, you can see the vegetation change between each terrace.

 

Hopefully the pictures will do some justice...it was a pain getting out here and cost an arm and a leg to boot, but its been a magical two days in some of the most jaw dropping scenery that we've ever seen.

21/10 - Chengdu to Jiuzhaigou

We didn't have a great start to the day when overzealous hostel staff woke us at 1 in the morning to collect our room fees, despite the fact that we'd already paid in full the day before. After a fitful night's sleep, partly due to the realisation that we were not alone in the room (our friends, the cockroaches) and the open sewer smell rising from the sink hole, we rose at 6am and headed off to Chengdu airport to catch our flight to Jiuzhaigou. Our bad day continued as the flight was delayed by 3 hours, we then had a lively debate on the other side with some shifty looking taxi drivers, who seemed to want to take us and our wallets for a ride...only it turned out that they were decent chaps in the end, giving us a long and difficult taxi ride at a knockdown price.

 

Of course, none of this matters, because we are in Jiuzhaigou and it promises to be absolutely awesome. You know you're in for a treat when the landing has an entire cabins worth of jaded chinese tourists craning their necks to get the views from the airplane window. Jiuzhaihuanglong airport is set 3000m above sea level between two mountains. The 60km taxi ride in to town was no less dramatic, first looking like we were on some desolate tibetan plateu and then becoming positively alpine in feel as the taxi snaked its way down in to the lush mountain valleys.

 

We'll spend the next two days visiting the scenic area of Jiuzhaigou.

20/10 - Chengdu

Next stop, the province of Sichuan, famed for its spicey food. Our main destination is Jiuzhaigou nature reserve, but we've stopped over in the city of Chengdu for a couple of days.

 

One could easily spend three weeks in Chengdu, using it as a base for visits to Three Gorges, Emei Shan, Songpan, Tibet and Jiuzhaigou. With our limited time, we spent the first day strolling around the delightful hutongs around Jin Li and our hostel and sipping jasmin tea next to the lake in renmin park while the locals practised their (sometimes glass shattering) opera over a tannoy.

 

No visit to Chengdu is complete without a trip to the panda reserve, which we duly oblidged the following day. Panda's are useless sods, being poor at mating, negligent parents, fussy eaters, fat, lazy and slothlike...the list is endless. Their extinction would have been guaranteed were it not for one saving grace that the theory of darwinism could never have accounted for...

 

PANDA'S ARE CUTE!!! I mean REALLY cute!!! Just look at the pics! AWWWWWW!!!

 

And thus the world aids the plight of the panda's while other, less attractive species die out.

18/10 - Xi'an

We touched down in Xi'an (lit. West Peace) on Friday. First impressions were not good as we viewed the bland "could be any big city in china" city streets and the thick smog from the taxi. But I assured Si Phong that things would get much more characterful once we moved in to the old town within the ancient city walls. Our driver made a sudden turn in to a building site, "Ah a clever short cut!", we thought. Only it turned out that our hotel was in the building site, and that we were already within the city walls. Ho hum!

 

Thankfully the hotel itself proved to be clean and functional, just as the guidebook had promised. The purpose of visiting Xi'an was to see Bing Ma Young (or Terracotta Warriors), the thousands of life sized clay warriors which were discovered in 1974. However, as impressive as the warriors were, our most memorable moments in Xi'an were soaking in the sights and smells of the chaotic muslim quarter and a wonderful sunset bike ride around the city walls, which form a 15km circumference around the old town.

 

 

13/10 - More pictures from Huang Shan

We spent the night on the mountain top. The weather meant that there was no chance of catching a decent sunrise, but nevertheless I woke at 6am to hike the west sea canyon before we checked out at noon. This part of the mountain is not frequented by the tour groups as it involves some strenuous walking. That coupled with the bad weather meant that I pretty much had the place to myself. 

 

The canyon hike was spectacular, an out and back journey along a stairwell that winds its way steeply down the side of the canyon. In the mist, it felt like descending in to a murky abyss, while the rock formations cast brooding shapes all around us in the half light. Again, it was all very unphotogenic in the mist, so I resigned myself to just enjoying the experience and not bothering too much with the camera.

 

It may have rained without stop for the three days that we were at Huang Shan, but we knew we had been somewhere special when we lay down in our beds at the end of a long day of walking....as we closed our eyes and drifted in to sleep, we found that we still had images of the mountains playing back in our minds.

12/10 - Huang Shan (Yellow Mountain)

Huang Shan was the second of the great natural wonders on the itinerary, following Halong Bay in Vietnam.

 

At 1800m high, its no Everest, but the yellow mountain is famed for its stunning scenery rather than for the hardships required to scale its heights. In fact, at times it felt more like a mountain theme park than a walk on the wild side, with its well tended network of walkways, cable cars and hoards of tourists.

 

The missus, already stung by the jungle experience in Lao was hardly chomping at the bit over the prospect of a 6 hour coach journey from Shanghai and an overnight stay in a damp hotel at the base of the mountain. Things got even worse the next day as she woke with a bangin' cold and the sound of heavy rain on the tin roof behind our room. However, the call of the mountain was strong, too strong, and I used my powers of coercion and superior physical strength to strong arm her up the mountain - via cable car, of course, rather than the 10km vertical hike on the eastern steps.

 

At the top, it was a whiteout and the rain kept pouring as we trudged around the mazey paths until we found one of the better mountain top hotels and agreed to yet another jaw dropping price. Once checked in, Si Phong made a beeline for a warm bed and TV and the strong arm was employed once more to wrench her out and deposit her again in to the great and wet outdoors for another forced march.

 

With the attention span of an autistic chimpanzee and temper of a grizzly bear with a poker up its arse, forcing Si Phong in to any extended physical activity is always a high risk game. Fortunately, this one paid off. Big time. We reached the aptly named dispelling cloud pavillion and for a few exhilarating minutes, the fog lifted and we were able to witness the mystical views all around us. The mountains were bathed in early autumnal colors, a patchwork of yellows, reds and greens, and we could see nearby peaks shrouded in mist. We felt like we'd stepped in to a water painting by some old chinese master.

 

Unfortunately, the weather conditions and limitations of my point-and-shoot made Huang Shan quite difficult to photograph, but some moments are better savoured first hand rather than captured behind the lense of a camera. I can only imagine how stunning Huang Shan would be under better conditions and have the feeling that this will not be the last time that we walk its peaks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

11/10 - Shanghai

In its infinite wisdom, the motherland has banned access to facebook and blogspot, but fortunately we can still blog via email.

 

We've had a relaxing 3 days in Shanghai, staying with Jimbo and Suzy and attending their registry wedding on the auspicious date of 10.10.10. Shanghai's a fantastic, cosmopolitan city but staying there for me is all about just kicking back and hangin' out with friends...and a bit of shopping, aided by Jim's encyclopaediac knowledge of the little boutique shops of the French Concession...and lots of eating, as just about every aspect of China's cuisine is represented in Shanghai. However, we are finding that many of Suzy's favourite restaurants have disappeared since their last visit, buildings knocked down to make way for new developments and shiny malls, such is the pace of change in Shanghai. 

 

We also managed a second rendez vous with Sheenie, who's been swashbuckling his way through cambodia and was also there for the wedding. We'll be seeing more of our sweaty friend when we hook up in Guilin later in the month. Jimbo and I managed to hook him up with a very nice replica of a vintage Panerai 249 (one of the few non-vulgar Panerai) from the fake watch man, which was just made for him. Wouldn't be suprised if the watch bug bites and we see the real thing on his wrist in a year or two.

 

Things have been great so far, but I don't ever feel like I've really gotten to know a country unless I've been on a decent bike ride or gone up a big mountain on its soil. Over the next few days, I get to satisfy that urge when we go to Huangshan (yellow mountain). I've been looking forward to this one for a long time.

05/10 - Hanoi and Halong Bay

After our 3 nights in Vientaine, we gratefully hopped across the border to Hanoi, Vietnam's capital city.

 

This is a great place. While Ho Chi Minh felt a little characterless for all of its hustle and bustle, Hanoi was just bursting with old world colonial charm. The fact that we'd landed right in the middle of their 1000 year anniversary celebrations didn't hurt either, and every day the streets of the old quarter were awash with flags and people enjoying the celebrations. We were a little sick sightseeing from the previous weeks, thankfully Hanoi had enough of a buzz that just walking the streets and soaking in the atmostphere provided a spectacle in its own right.

 

We also had one of the best moments of the trip so far at Halong Bay, were we stayed the night on a junk boat and got to enjoy the sunset on the sundeck as the waves lapped around us.

 

Next stop, Shanghai and Jimbo's wedding plus reunion with Sheenie, who's currently making his way through cambodia before flying to meet us in Shanghai.

01/10 - Rough in the Jungle

With 3 nights in the ghost town that is Vientaine, we were determined to extract some fun out of our stay. I had the bright idea of a DIY jungle trek to the national park of Phou Khou Kuai, 50 kms away. Now Cong Soi and Si Phong are possibly not the most energetic people in the world, so I invoked my "five points of wisdom" for introducing weaklings to the joys of physical activity:

 

1. Preparation. A quick door to door the day before had revealed that there was only one operator doing hiking tours at the national park, and for a princely sum of $60 a head. Hell no. I KNEW I could put together a fantastic experience for a fraction of the price!!! Being a project manager, I ensured that we departed the next day with a plan. Unfortunately the extent of this plan was the name of a village scrawled on a piece of paper. Using various modes of transport (which we seemed to be exchanging considerably more notes for than the locals) we finally got to the tiny rural village of Ban Hatkai about 2 hours later than planned and just in time for the hottest part of the day. We had been told that Ban Hatkai represented Lao village life at its simplest and most unspoilt, but for simple farming folk these guys sure had a wicked commercial streak as they rapidly wrote out an eyebrow raising inventory of costs for guiding us to the Tad Leuk waterfall.

 

2. Start with a hearty meal. Once we'd befriended the villagers and agreed a price, they brought us some of their local fare to eat. Days old sticky rice, garnished liberally with dead ants, pickled cabbage with congealed pigs skin and half rotten duck eggs. All washed down with a tall jug of (the semi-lethal) tap water...yum yum!!! With a stomach hardened by years of eating from an uncleaned breakfast bowl at work, I scoffed away with impunity, but the girls skipped lunch and hardly ate a bite...perfect prep for a nice long hike!

 

3. Keep it short and enjoyable. On paper, a 7km round trip to a waterfall and back didn't seem so bad. Unfortunately, the gentle stroll quickly degenerated in to a death march. First off, we had a 1 hour boat trip under the burning sun on a tiny, shaky skiff that left us nicely dehydrated before the walking had even started. The walk itself turned out to be an steep uphill through primary jungle that was infested with hornets, mosquitos, fire ants and folliage that clawed at skin from every angle. Si Phong was in her flip flops and slipped several times on the slithery surfaces. By the time we had got to the waterfall, the girls were covered in bruises, cuts and numerous ugly looking insect bites, while I was largely untouched...looks like their blood is far sweeter than mine. Worse still, Cong Soi had developed a banging headache and was looking pretty ill.

 

4. After the activity is over, arrange a swift journey back to a hot shower and food. Except that in this case, the villagers only drove as far as the end of

 a dirt track before depositing us on a road in the middle of nowhere with dusk approaching, ripping us off to the tune of $12 in the process. At this point, Cong Soi had developed severe nausea and was vomitting on the side of the road. After about 45 minutes wait, we hitched a lift of a passing truck where we got to realise our dreams of being in one of those photos from India, where fifty people hang off the roof of a pickup truck tucked in between the chickens and goats. By the end of the 2 hour drive, even my hardened roadie's butt was in spasms after being perched out on a hard ledge for too long. By this point, Cong Soi and Si Phong had made it in to the covered trailer where the local men stared at them and made lewd jokes to each other. The journey seemed to take forever, and every bump on the rough, rough roads reverberated through every bone of my contorted body. Fortunately I had my GPS to hand, and was able to provide regular reports to the girls about just how slowly we were travelling. Having been ripped off at every possible opportunity that day, I suddenly became conscious of showing off this whizzy satelite technology to my fellow cattle on the truck, and took to holding it to my ear and pretending it was a rather large mobile phone while sneaking a peak at our position.

 

5. And finally, if you get all of these elements correct, lap up the praise from your delighted companions. "It was the worse day I've ever had on Holiday" said Cong Soi, "Never again, you prick" enthused Si Phong.

 

So possibly not the best day trip we've ever experienced, but at least we didn't end up in Widnes.