The Tour (Courtney)

Since I wrote last, we have made our way from Chengdu, down to Yunnan province to join an Intrepid Travel tour. We spent 9 days travelling around the province before making our way home yesterday afternoon. And after 3 flights in 2 days I can safely say that it is nice to be home!

Yunnan is generally regarded as the most beautiful and picturesque of all of China, and it is easy to see why. It's green and open and most importantly, it's pretty clean - no smog!! Sounds like a miracle, but it's true. We didn't spend much time exploring Kunming, the capital, so instead I will try and do some brief (I'll try!) rundowns on our time in Dali, Lijiang, Tiger Leaping Gorge and Shangri-La.

DALI

Just like the artist, Dali was kind of surreal. I mean, how often can you say that in one day you see donkeys still pulling carts (one even navigating an intersection like it was the most natural thing in the world!), get asked by a 70 year old Bai minority woman if you want to buy "gunja" (her words) and then almost get robbed by deaf, mute massagers? Not that often hey! Maybe it was just the beginnings of being affected by the rising altitude, but Dali definately had a strange vibe.

Whilst Dali only has a population of approximately 100,000 you'd never know with the packs of Chinese tourists in every shop, cafe and street. The place is jumping, but it had a great atmosphere. Old Bai women stroll the streets with their baskets strapped to their heads, selling their wares on the side of the roads and little water canals trickle along the old streets. Whilst the "old" town has mostly been overhauled and now contains shop after shop selling the same things, it still had an old feel to it and you could easily wander the streets for hours. I think the best part of the town is that it is entirely surrounded by mountains which just gave this peaceful feel to the place. Strolling around in the afternoon you could start to feel that China cynicism start to wear off - we were no longer near a city, the air was clean and it wasn't 45 degrees. In fact, it was quite cool! For the first time in about 2 months I actually wore jeans...although I didn't know just how cold things were going to get as we continued travelling.

In the afternoon our group stopped for a drink at one of the local bars. Most of which have cashed in on the coolness of any association with Tibet, so they were all variously named "Tibet Bar", "Tibet Cafe", "Tibetan River Cafe" etc. The local Dali beer is a lady's beer, which was basically a cider (supposedly made from rice) infused with roses. Good lord it was top stuff, perfect for afternoon drinking! Sadly I came down with a heavy cold in Dali, so Rose Beer and I did not become very well acquainted. For dinner we headed our with Vivian and Shelley to a local bbq shop for our fave meal of skewers and beer. It's just such a winning combination! The streets at night were beautifully lit and we strolled back through the streets. It's one thing China can do really well, is lighting. Often it's just neon to the max, but in these old towns it's so tastefully done.

Unfortunatley I woke up feeling worse, but we did so much the next day that there was little time to think about how I was feeling! Our second day in Dali saw us take a tour around the Lake Erhai region. Basically a huge lake, I think China's 7th, and it was a highlight of our holiday. Whilst I thoroughly enjoyed the tour, I don't think I could say it was ultimately value for money. But one thing is for sure, even though I think Marcus and I could have easily travelled around by ourselves and probably for cheaper, there is no way we could have seen all that we saw this day at the lake. We all piled into a van driven by "River" (owner of one of the tibetan cafes) who would be our local guide for the day. River was fantastic and had a ton of local knowledge. We toured around the lake and to a couple of local villages, which would have been very difficult to navigate by ourselves. The roads around the villages were just unbelievably run down, it's remote country where things are carried by person and by donkey, and the rain made for some interesting driving. One section of road was so rough, we were all being thrown around and River just turns and looks at us with a grin on his face "See, free massage!!" he says. We all joked that we would need massages by the end of the day.

We went to a local market run by the ethnic minority the Bai. It is believed that the Bai people settled in the area around 4,000 years ago, and they are recognised by their ethnic clothing and headware. It made us laugh as everyone was thinking the market was exotic and we were kind of thinking it looked like the food market down the road from us! From there we headed to a local fishing village, basically full of old people going about their daily lives. Whilst it felt like we were intruding for a while, most people we encountered gave us big welcoming smiles so that feeling soon wore off. Another stop was at a local tie dye type "factory". Some beautiful fabrics and I ended up bargining for some placemats...which were probably the least traditional things in the building. But I loved that they were handmade and unique so they added to the weight of my pack!

One thing about Dali and the bus trip there, was the toilets. Jesus. I mean, we seem some shocking toilets in China, and there isn't all that many that phase me anymore (barring the freaking toilets at Xi'an and Chengdu train stations...holy moly) but Dali really outdid itself. After lunch I went to use the bathroom at the back of the restaurant, which turned out to be down the back of some buildings. You had to pay 1 yuan to use the toilet (normally if you have to pay it's .5 yuan) and god only knows why. I walked out of here wishing I knew how to demand my money back in Chinese. Absolute filth. It was putrid. The others all waited till the next stop after my report, but from what I hear the next one was even worse, I have no idea how. Not even the two native Chinese girls would use them, and that is saying something.

We were meant to catch a boat back across the lake after lunch to cut down on the travel time. However due to the heavy rain in the morning, there had been a landslide which had blocked the road so we had to drive all the way back. It was a long journey but I was happy to travel back through all the little villages along the way.

As Marcus mentioned in his post, we attempted to get massages that evening. You know how that turned out. I couldn't believe what I was seeing as they were motioning at my bag. One of those moments when your heart starts going and you think - we need to be getting out of here! Who knows what would have happened, but there is absolutely no doubt in my mind they were about to attempt something. When the young guy realised I was watching him his face just dropped into pure panic. I figured it was better to get out of there before anything happened and we ended up in some sort of confrontation with these people. We mentioned it to our tour leader, Ammy, the next day and she is putting it into her trip notes for future trips as a warning. It has certainly made me think twice about the number of massages I've had here where I just dump my stuff on the floor - from now on I might just go there with some money in my pocket!

LIJIANG

The following afternoon we made our way to Lijiang. The tour we did is all about keeping costs down and using local transport etc so we travelled by public bus to our destinations. These weren't too bad, considering how much crap Chinese people bring with them and the amount of eating and slurping that goes on. We all went out for dinner that evening before walking around the town. Lijiang is larger than Dali and has been completely overrun by tourists. Most of the town was ruined in an earthquake in 1996 and has since been rebuilt. We stayed in the old town again, at a hotel that Intrepid hadn't used before. When Ammy asked us on the last night of the tour about the accommodation, we all said do not use this hotel again! It was utterly crap, looked lovely from the outside, but on the inside it was dirty and nothing worked. The bathrooms were dirty and mouldy and just stunk like sewer. Not to mention the shower being nuclear hot you couldn't even get wet under it!

Lijiang is know for the Naxi women, another minority. China has about 50 something minorities, 26 or so who live in the Yunnan province. They make up just under 10% of China's population, which initially you think, that's not much, but then you realise that is still almost 130 million people!! The Naxi are matrilineal and have some very different ways of living. For example, a lot of the women don't marry in the traditional sense. Marriages can be arranged for one night, and when long relationships end the women take control of property and children and do not accept support from the men. The men move into the women's families homes upon marriage and often return to their mother's houses during the day.

I skipped the morning activity so I could rest up some more as I was feeling pretty poorly by now. I met up with Marcus and the others just before lunch. Lijiang was again colder than Dali, so jumpers and scarves were now in order! Of course, having come from sweltering Wuxi, we weren't exactly prepared. Ended up buying big blanket/poncho thing and then had to buy socks too, much colder than expected! Ammy took me to a drugstore to get something for my nose and sinuses. Funnily they tried to sell me a bunch of pills which cost a whopping 1 yuan. 1 yuan!!! That's about 15 cents australian. Ammy read out the sideeffects which included - not being able to sleep, stomach like fire(?) and worringly urine like blood!!! Ah, thanks but no thanks! Ended up with some Chinese medicine, just this powdered tea stuff which seemed to help and didn't taste too bad either.

Lijiang is a really beautiful town, moreso if you kind of squint your eyes so you can't see the million other people you share the street with. It is overflowing with tourists and tour groups to the point where a lot of the charm is completely lost. But it really is beautiful. Old cobblestoned streets and laneways, surrounded by mountains, red lanters everywhere. The best part is the restaurants that are across the little canals - to enter them you have to cross the canals on this rickety old planks of wood that bend with each footstep. At night time it just came to life, lanterns everywhere, music...I really loved it, tourists and all! Everything had a warm glow to it and it was nice to wander along wrapped up in my big blanket thing.

All of the streets were lined with shops, seeminly they only have about 5 different types of shops about 1000 times over. So it gets all a bit tedious after a while. Marcus and I spent the afternoon the following day just wandering around and trying to get off the main areas to the more quite laneways. We stopped for some local tea at a cafe for a good rest in the afternoon and ended up buying the cd they were playing! It is music from Shangri-La (our next destination) and was a really great mix.

Yunnan is know for a dish called Over the Bridge Noodles, which I think originated in Lijiang. We ate them in Kunming and Lijiang, the Kunming ones being far superior. Basically you get a huge bowl of steaming broth, a big bowl of noodles and about 12 small dishes containing all sorts of things - raw eggs, tofu, sausage, pork, bacon, greens, chicken...lot of stuff! You mix it all in quickly to the boiling broth which cooks it all. So yummy and so filling, just what you want when you have a cold, a nice big bowl of soup!

TIGER LEAPING GORGE

On the way to our next destination we stopped at Tiger Leaping Gorge. Tiger Leaping Gorge is part of the Yangzi and is believed to be the deepest gorge in the world. I expected us to drive to a top point and kind of look down onto a rather tranquil gorge of river. I couldn't have been more wrong, and will save my thoughts on the gorge until we put up some photos as words simply will not describe the sheer awe of this place.

SHANGRI-LA

Also known as Zhongdian or Gyelthang to the Tibetans, Shangri-La was our last destination. I'm so glad it was last as it really was the most beautiful place I've seen so far in China. We wanted remote and remote is what we got. It's not every day you see a cow walk past you on the street, completely unattended! Shangri-La was so named after a book written by white guy talked about how fantastic the area was, so the government changed the name from Zhongdian to increase tourism. This has certainly worked, but for the most part Shangri-La was the most peaceful, natural place we visited. It sits at an altitude of 3,500 metres, which is pretty damn high, and all of us experienced varying levels of altitude sickness. Marcus and I were really not at all prepared for the tour, we had deliberately not done much reading on these areas, but a little more planning probably couldn't have hurt! We were the only two without medicine for alititude sickness, and if we ever went that high, or higher, again I would definately look into taking some. We both felt the affects of a lack of oxygen, making us very short of breath and somewhat light headed...and just odd feeling. I struggled because of my cold and Marcus was hit the next day with a very dodgy belly, even after we had flown back to Kunming which is a normal height.

Shangri-La had this feeling of a snow town. Just a few wide streets, little wooden buildings, stone streets and cosy looking places everywhere. So pictureseque! We stayed in a beautiful Tibetan hotel, the only drama being the lack of a bathroom door! As soon as we arrived Marcus and I hit the local square for some bbq skewers for an afternoon snack. We played a quick game of skewer sword fight with one of the local kids before we all headed out for orientation and group dinner. Ammy took us to a traditional Tibetan restaurant which was gorgeous inside, all dark wood and heavy curtain. I have to say, Tibetan food is an acquired taste, very heavy and stodgy, most dishes featuring yak or yak butter. Although I love yak!! We ate yak skewers then fried yak, and I think even a yak curry. Very tasty! We even tried yak butter tea, which was nowhere near as horrible as I have read. I'm not sure if it was a more remote version, as the next day we smelt a lot of it brewing in a Lamasry which smelt a lot more like I had expected. After dinner Marcus and I went for a wander before settling into a cool local bar for a drink. I tried a glass of the local red wine which I have to say was pretty good! About half way in though I suddenly felt very light headed, like I'd had about 4 glasses of wine, wihch was probably a combination of the cold and altitude.

The local square turns from skewer bbq heaven by day, into local dancing area by night. At night the square was alive with people of all ages joining in the traditional dancing. It was such a great thing to see, this wonderful community spirit, as a huge group of people all surged and swayed together. The older women look so weathered, yet so happy, and I think it must be because of the great community atmosphere. The people here were so friendly and happy looking, no one staring at us or anything like that. I found the whole place so relaxed and such a nice environment to be in, it made me want to spend the rest of our time in a more remote part of China where we aren't confronted by the general population on a daily basis. We couldn't have been further away from a big Chinese, faceless city and it was just perfect. Well, except for the fact it was so cold at night and it was themiddle of summer! But I really loved it though, such a relaxed place.

So that is that! We flew from Shangri-La to Kunming on Friday and I have never seen more security at an airport than at Shangri-La. Not sure if it is normally like that or if it was because it was the first day of the Olympics, but it was crazy! I had to spray my hairspray on my own arm to prove it wasn't something lethal. Shoes off, x-rays, patted down by staff, things unwrapped...just nuts. Then from Kunming we flew to Wuhan then Wuxi yesterday afternoon. As we walked through the school gates we ran into Raymen, of course! I was hoping we could have a few days at home without them realising we had returned.

What we have realised is how quickly things change in China. We notice things closing, opening, being built etc all the time but a month away from Wuxi has shown us how much changes. On a very happy note, before we left we noticed what appeared to be a shopping mall type building being built a block away from our local supermarket. Marcus joked that it would be finished by the time we returned, and I scoffed at this because it was basically still a concrete shell with the workmen sleeping indoors in their mosquito nets. Well, lo and behold, we passed it in the taxi last night and it's almost open!! The whole thing is basically finished, with stock in the windows. Could not believe it. Turns out it looks like a shopping mall, and it has an E-Mart. We have no idea what this is but we are hoping it is a department store/supermarket. And just to make Marcus a very happy boy there is also a KFC! We laughed so much, Dong Ting now has it's very own Ken Da Chi! The locals will be very happy has they all go nuts for KFC. So we will excitedly await the opening.

In the next few days we will hit you up with lots and lots of photos....we have about 1700 to pick from so stay tuned!