End-of-summer trip

After spending most of my summer around town, I planned a second trip to Beijing, this time to meet up with me Mum for a week.  After her departure, I took off for southwest China in the Yunnan province for two weeks.  In Yunnan, I visited Kunming briefly, five days in Lijiang, two days on Tiger-leaping Gorge (TLG) trail, and five days in Shangri-la (formerly known as "Zhongdian").

 

 

My second visit to Beijing was quite enjoyable.  My mother and I had a fun and relaxing week seeing the sights and taking in some Chinese acrobatics one night.  Mom says that she thoroughly enjoyed our trip to the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall (which I highly recommend), wished that we had spent more time at the Summer Palace, and found the Forbidden City a bit lack-luster.  I concur.  We waddled in the gastronomical delights of Peking Duck at the Quanjude Peking Duck restaurant one night and had a great time shopping and haggling.  (I have refined my haggling techniques since my arrival in February: go for a quarter price and don't go any farther than half and don't be afraid to use the "walk-away" trick.)

 

En route to Kunming from the Beijing airport, I ran into some American physicians heading to Yunnan.  They were with an NGO helping and advising the setup of HIV/AIDS clinics for women and children in the province outer-lying the city.  I didn't catch their names, but upon mentioning CSIS, the Native American-looking man in the group said that he was on a roundtable with Bill Frist via CSIS at one point.  We had some good conversation about their goals while in-country.

 

My first impression of Kunming was rather sketchy.  After a long, delayed flight from Beijing that arrived at midnight, I made it over to a hostel that I previously chose from my trusty Lonely Planet guide.  It was a truly budget place and would not stay there again, to say the least.  I chose it because of its close proximity to the bus station for my trip to Lijiang the following morning, so I guess that I should have foreseen this possibility.  After maybe five hours of sleep, I groggily found my way over to the bus station and bought a ticket north departing at 0930 hours.  (As usual, the theme while traveling here has been "hurry-up and wait" in whatever mode of transportation one takes.  But on the bright side, I will say that it gives some good time for reflection and cultural observations, so it's not all bad.)

 

After a nine-hour bus ride, arriving at around 1900 hours, I found my way over to the first "bing guan" (guest house) that I could find in Old Town Lijiang: the Ping An Inn.  I had planned to stay at another locale for four nights, but when the cab driver dropped me off at a hutong and said "go straight and take a left," I told myself that I wasn't up for a bed-hunt that night.  After settling in, I found my way out and about some of the stone-paved hutongs.  Lots of small, "mom and pop" retail shops selling scarves, local Naxi cultural items, house-hold coverings and decorations, herbs, carvings, and tourist-amiable collectables.  Over the course of my visit, I observed that roughly four-fifths of the tourist were domestic and about one-fifth were foreign.  This night, in particular, locals were burning incense and small bundles of hay in remembrance of their ancestors, which burn for many hours.  I got a great video of a local high school English teacher explaining the tradition.  The following day I found a cafe for breakfast and explored some of the southern Old Town, much of which is new construction made to look old.  This practice of antiquing has apparently become a growing trend in the tourist-meccas of China.  I found some great little things to decorate my first apartment when I return State-side, including a beautiful hand-carved piece of wood depicting a local hutong at dusk. 

 

On the second full day, I found my way up to the Jade Dragon Black Pool in the morning to find that it was pricey and decided that it wouldn't be worth the pictures to check it out, so I meandered in the drizzle around the northern section of Old Town.  To my luck, I found an American-owned, authentic Tibetan restaurant, run by one Massachusetts-born Molly Riley, Esq.  Molly has been in China for nearly two decades and is fluent in Mandarin.  She began as an attorney in Hong Kong for eleven years and gradually found her way to Shanghai and then west to Lijiang, where she has established herself permanently and married a local Tibetan businessman.  We struck up a conversation for the rest of the day, as I enjoyed some Tibetan yak butter tea (tastes more like a broth) and local delicacies.  At night, the Solong Tibet: Cafe & Saloon (I love the cafe & saloon part), only having been open for two months, has begun to be frequented by local Tibetan artists and musicians, who play there and have "jam sessions," per se.  I also got some of the skinny on the status of the TLG trail from her friends who stopped in, which I would attempt in the days following.  That night she invited me to join she and her friends the next day to visit a Qing Dynasty Buddhist temple on the outskirts of town where a "Living Buddha" resides.  I gladly accepted.  We departed the next morning in a small blue car that thankfully carried us the trip up a mud-riddled and trenched road to this temple location.  Upon arrival, we were eagerly-greeted by the resident living Buddha, a young monk, and a local man who single-handedly preserved as much of the temple as he could through the turmoil of the latter-half of the last century.  The living Buddha and his apprentice are very recent residents.  While Molly and her friends conversed with the living Buddha, I enjoyed the sights and sounds of the temple and landscape, not to forget the wonderful hospitality and more Tibetan yak butter tea, of course.  We made it back down the mountain in one piece, the little car held up well.  I enjoyed more music and Naxi dancing at the Solong for the rest of the evening.  I departed for TLG the next day.

 

I caught a mini-bus to Qiaotou in the morning, reveling in the close quarters of the back seats (five-across) of the bus, but enjoyed exchanging travel stories with a Spanish couple next to me.  Arriving in Qiaotou, I made my way over to the gate and stopped in at Margo's Gorge Cafe for information on the trail, which, while extremely muddy in parts, was in passable condition.  I hiked for the remainder of the afternoon and found that while many people could do the hike in two days, I would require twice as many.  Rationalizing to myself that I should enjoy the trip, I spent a marvelous two nights at the Naxi Family Guesthouse.  The relaxation, views (mist passing from one place to another against the lush green mountains), journaling, and conversations with passing travelers became another highlight of the trip.  (I would love to go back to the TLG and spend a week on the trail, staying at a guesthouse for two nights and then moving onto another.)  Hiking back down to the small town, I literally hitched a bus to Zhongdian (officially renamed "Shangri-la").  With such narrow streets, the large coach buses went so slow that I yelled at each passing one asking if they were going in my direction.  I didn't have to wait very long before one pulled over and I got on. 

 

Many hours later, after passing on narrow roads with other small and large coach buses and going around rock piles from recent slides due to the rainy weather (mind you that there are no guard rails), I made it to Shangri-la early that evening and found my way over to a place that I had pre-arranged to rest my head for three nights.  Upon arriving and stepping out the bus station, I automatically thought of an old abandoned town from cowboy western movies (and was about ready to see some sage brush whip across the road).  The whole town is being built up for tourism, but the demand hasn't arrived yet, so buildings and new roads just sit.  There's sand everywhere and construction on practically every corner.  I was foretold by Molly to check out the Tibet Cafe & Hostel (and subsequently spent all of my free time there in between sight-seeing).  The first night I met two intrepid British sisters traveling together and one travel-bound Quebecois woman.  Sarah & Katharine and Julie and I quickly matched up and began throwing ideas around about places to visit in the surrounding area and how to get there.  After some deliberation, we decided on a hiring a 4x4/Jeep for two days and traveling to Xiao (Small) Zhongdian, Bita Hai (Emerald Pagoda Lake), and a Buddhist monastery called Song Zan Lin the first day; the second day would occupied with a long trip out to Baishuitai (a natural rock formation that has over thousands of years been smoothed by running water and, as I found out post-facto, is a highly-revered place by local people) and to a hot springs on the way back.  Between Julie and I haggling with different people, we negotiated a decent price the following morning for a vehicle, 400 kuai ($50USD) per day for all four of us.  Traveling for multiple hours each day in the jeep, in the end, I am glad that we hired a comfortable vehicle and not a van (cheers to Katharine!).  My favorite place over the two-day period was the monastery, by far, and I got some amazing snap-shots.  Despite the long rides, the scenery from the jeep both days was wonderful and we stopped here and there to get out and enjoy the sights. 

 

After checking to confirm that I had a place to stay in Lijiang for two nights, I found that I did not and that it would be a hassle to find a place for the night there, so I rationalized to stay in Zhongdian another night, this time at the Tibet Cafe & Hostel (I would recommend this place for everyone.).  For my last evening in the town, I walked around Old Town Zhongdian and took in more of the Tibetan/Nanxi culture and architecture.  (Just like much of the "old" parts of tourist havens in Yunnan, they are new construction made to appear with age, this was the case here, as well. Still enjoyable, nonetheless.)  The following morning, I departed Shangri-la for my last day in Lijiang.  The trip from Zhongdian to Lijiang that day was rather interesting: the bus became amphibious.  All of the recent deluge of rain had over-flowed the banks of rivers, ruining crops and covering roads.  It was a mess!  The bus made it through rather deep water several times that day.  Stopping by the Solong Tibet upon my arrival and visiting for the afternoon and evening, Molly arranged for me to stay at a friend's guesthouse for the night.  My evening with new friends included a visit by a Chinese reporter and his sketch artist for the China People's Daily who were doing a documentary on local Tibetan culture and included the Solong Tibet in their film.  I was given an artists' sketch portrait, along with many of those who frequent the restaurant, to be immortalized in the documentary.  It was quite fun.  I flew to Kunming the next morning.

 

My second visit to Kunming was much more delightful than the first.  I roomed in the highly-recommended youth hostel section of the Camellia Hotel and Youth Hostel.  Staying in this part of town completely changed my perception of the locality, as the hostel was in a swanky, commercialized district.  I spent my day hunting down some small, circular, decorative tiles that are used to finalize the architecture of the old-looking, new-construction homes north of Kunming in Dali, Lijiang, and Shangri-la, but to no avail.  That evening, I found a western wine bar called The Silver Oak for dinner and spent a few hours journaling.  I awoke the next morning and headed over to the airport to fly back to Changchun, however, upon arriving and scavenging for information about my flight, I find out that it's been completely canceled because "there wasn't a pilot to fly the plane."  Go figure!  "Welcome to China," as I have repetitively told myself many times since February.  So, I waited until early afternoon for the next flight... to make a long story short:  after relentless delays in Kunming and Beijing, I finally touched-down in Changchun in wee-hours of the morning.  My Chinese friends were very kind to wait five hours for me; and for Victor, this had not been the first time that he had waited an extended period of time for me at the airport. 

 

After having a wonderful visit by my mother in Beijing and two amazing weeks in Yunnan, it was nice to return home.