The high pass to Tibetan Border and tigers leaping
Headed north from Dali (chinese) tourist central to Lijiang (chinese) tourist central. Another undoutedly pretty town, but pretty much remade and filled with souvenir shops but with the impressive back drop of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain (jesus they know how to name things round here!). An afternoon was enough to get a flavour of the place and book bus tickets for an early morning exit to the start of the Tigar Leaping Gorge Trek (I refer you to the naming comment made one sentence earlier).Tigar Leaping Gorge is a 2000m deap gouge cut but the young yangzee, along the side of which runs the ancient tea horse trail (part of the silk road) at around 500m above the river. The trek along the length of the gorge takes a day, covering 23km up to a height of 2600m through beautiful pine woodlands and small Tibetan and Naxi villages. I (sensibly) had decided to tackle this distance, altitude and climb with the assistence of a 25kg pack. about 3 hours in at the steepest part of the climb rest stops were about every 10m, locals kept offering me a horse but i refused resolutely remembering the harrison family moto (no joke - 'success through endurance' - so true). The scenery was breathtaking but as i have the assistance of photos today i won't try to clumsily describe it... After an evening spent at the end hitched a ride the next morn back along the 'closed' lower road to the start. Why closed? well that must be something to do with the multitude of landslides our car had to dodge around. I mean, they only covered one lane generally and only were every 100m or so, so hardly needed a closed road, right? wrong. About half way down the gorge we reached a landslip that had enveloped the entire road. 6m high and 20 deep, massive boulders the size of several cars and tons of scree created quite an obsticle. Now we knew what had caused the huge crashing noise we had heard the previous day. The only way past was on foot. Blood was pumping somewhat as i scrambled over, under my feet the rocks slip away and fell to the river 50 m below and from above small stones pitter pattered on my head making me fear another fall was imminent. Once on the otherside i ran the next section until clear of the over hang...phe, still alive.... which was lucky as it meant i got to enjoy the beautiful bus ride to Zhongdian through a plateau of tibetan villages, yaks and large hay stacks drying on enormous trestles.Once at Zhongdian it seemed at first i'd arrive at a bomb site, relentless construction meant the bus station was part of a huge building site. The building boom also meant that the Loney Planet map was completely wrong so it took half an hour of wandering and asking bemused non english speaking locals where the hell i was. Eventually someone pointed us in the right direction and half and hour later we were in the old town. We explored the old town which was still in a fairly origional state, but the building and polishing up had started, so in a year or two it will be another Dali/Lijaing style tourist trap. Zhongdian also boasts a fairly impressive monestry perched on a small hillock in the centre of a valley north of the town. On the top of the hillock the temple sits and around clustered on the hill sides are the monks small residences. They wander about in dark red robes the young ones playfully mucking around and on mobiles whilst the older march stoically, eyeing the tourists.Leaving Zhongdian on an early bus a 6 hour trip took us over a 5000m pass to the town of Dequin. The pass rose firstly a blasted moonscape rift with cut by the mekong and then up through autumnal alpine forest to the snow line and then down again to Dequin. Dequin sits just 10 miles from the Tibetan border but unfortuneately there is no (legal) way for foreigners to cross here. So after a day exploring the area we headed back here to Lijiang and tommorow will be heading to Chengu in China's center.
into China
Heading north from hanoi via overnight train and bus i reached the hill station of Sapa in northwestern vietnam. Sapa sits at about 2000m amid tall peak and terraced mountain side In the valleys below runs a river and all around are the villages of the 'minority groups'. Vietnam has 50 different minority groups that live in the mountains, some of them numbering up to a million in population. Around Sapa are the Hmong, Den and Kin h groups. Each having a different dress code. I and a couple of aussies treked out around the valley and thru various villages populated with small people selling handicraft, waterbuffalo and plenty of pigs chickens etc. Every so often a loud crack will reverberate around the hills as one of the tribesmen fires his flintlock musket (i'm not joking) at some unfortunate creature/tourist.Everyday the women of the villages walk for miles up the hill to Sapa to sell their handicraft to the tourists. It is incredibly well made and ridiculously cheap, around 5 quid for an intricately hand woven bed spread. You have to watch the ancient ladies though (some of which look well past 100) as they whip out handfulls of opium quicker than the eye to push on unsuspecting sightseers.My trip into China was a 26 hour epic, minibus and motorbike to border, sleeperbus to Kunming and minibus and local bus to Dali. Left Sapa on sunday afternoon aboard mini bus for the border, only of course in a final piece of vietnamese treachery (don't get me started on vienamese trachery) it didn' take us to the border, only to a tour office where suprise to suprise waited a bunch of bikers to whisk us to the border at further cost. Got to the border shaken from several near misses and red eyed from the dust and marched imperiously past the lines of money changers who declaired that we couldn't change our dong (vietnamese currency) in china. Yeah right i though, more lies. Only today was a day for small miracles, they were telling the truth, admittedly purely out of self interest but still, its a start. Once on the chinese side a tour of the banks confirmed this, they didn't want to touch the dong. Oh dear. A helpful english speaker managed to 'find' us a money changer (ie his mate) a shifty looking fellow with a case full of cash. This bloke proceeded to offeer me a rate of 3000 dong per yuan, the real one being 1950. the joker. once negotiated to a more reasonalble (although still criminal) 2050 i hope aboard the sleeper bus to kunming.A network of metal cages down each side and the centre held up bunks and unwashed bed cloths on two levels down the length of the bus. In a concession to safey, spherical metal knobs were placed on the end of each metal beam - reassuring to know in a crash that you wil be bludgeoned to death and not impaled. I thinking i was smart (naturally) spotted a 4 bed width bunk at the back and wasted no time in claiming this as my territory. Spreading myself liberally over all the space making it clear that no one wanted to share this zone. And strangely (i thought) no one did....ominous..... half an hour later i knew why. Everytime the bus hit a bump, (every 30 second or so) i in my end of pendullem position was thrown a foot into the air and decended with a crunch. It was going to be a long night. 12 hours on the sleep deprevation bus and i was in kunming. A Huge sprawl of concrete and people. 5 minutes was enough time to know i had to leave, and as my travel mates were heading to Dali i decided to join them.Minibus next, after a quick noodle soup breakfast. Once we cleared Kunming and its almost endless industrial suburbs we hit the main road. Pity no one had seen fit to finish it yet. The next 8 hours where largely spent on a four lane motorway with no surface, just a 50 foot wide gravel drive. Some helpful soal had placed seemingly at random, large rocks which served as lane markers only they snaked all over the road, our driver picking which ever route seeming to have less traffic in (oncoming or not). An army of vertual slave labour worked on the whole length of the road, filling in holes, digging out mountain sides and shifting dirt in pails slung across their shoulders. On each side peasents brought in the harvent, filling the fields with sheaves of rice all cut by sickle wide hats bobbing in the sun. The road carves through red sandstone mountains of central yunnan, the valleys are fields of rice and on the hill sides are a multitude of walled villages. Each a closely huddled collection of around 20 houses with crumbling red stone walls and grey tiled rooves. Although the villages are small they are rarely more than 500m from the next one, which sort of explain chinas huge population (admitedly its a bit more complecated than that).Arrived in Dali, an Ancient and now very much touristerfied city of cobbled streets and stone houses. Backed by towering mountains and fronted by a lake it is very picturesque, although the rampant development that is going on around it means that the picture perfect image is strictly illusion. It is however such a relief from vietnam, gone are the hassles the people are very friendly and its possible to just sit back and relax.
halong, hanoi and other photos
Needing some space from city life whilst i await my china visa I headed out to Halong bay, a(nother) world heritage site about 100km east of Hanoi. The bay is full of thousands of limestone islands that penetrate, spike like (or dragon spine like if your a local) from the south china sea. Between the islands small villages float, houses shops, fish farms etc built on wooden platforms suspended on plastic drums. The locals came out to great our boat selling fruits of the tree and of the sea, their tubs full of live crabs, squids, octopuses etcetc. On our way to Cat Ba island, where i would be spending a couple of nights, we stopped at an obligatory tourist site, some huge caves. These were no doubt impressive, huge stalagtites up to 100 foot high in a series of massive dome like caverns. The locals had unfortunately seen fit to create a 'mystic' feel believing that lighting the area with a variety of red, green and blue lights would add atmosphere. Unfortunately it left them looking more like a set that was too tacky for the origional flash gordon movie.Cat Ba island is largely free from development so enjoyed a pleasent (if not particularly challenging) trek across it. We climbed to the top of one of its peaks. The rock is unbelievably sharp, the water having worn it into a series of razor sharp ridges. Unfortunely the plonkers who had come along in their flip flops didn't get what they deserved, but i'm sure they will someday..... That evening i did my bit for international relations and got drawn into some kind of bizarre drinking game with some locals. They couldn't speak any english and of course by vietnamese isn't too hot, but in the end i worked out it consistered of saying 'yo!' (cheers) to someone, and then pointing to the point on the glass to which you must consume. So less game, more competition. Arrived back in hanoi on monday evening, got back to hotel to see the entire reception in wraps, and the place covered with dust. Thought at first that the whole think was a big scam to nick by bag (that i left there) but quickly realised that maybe buying a hotel then abandoning it to make off with a bag mostly filled with dirty laundry slightly silly. And no, the americans hadn't been back, it was just 'maintainence'.... Spent the day yesterday preparing for china, and then experienced the local art form in the eve.... Vietnamese water puppetry... basically puppets in a big pool of water (originally it was done it rice paddies) that are moved etc by poles that run under the water so you can't see them. This was accompanied by a band playing traditional intruments. Actually was fairly enjoyable, although slightly kitsch.Well thats about all, i'm off to get a sleeper train to sapa, near the chinese border.
Decisions Decisions
so, i'm feeling better than last time, my mid travel crisis is over and for once i've made a big decision. Have been growing increasingly frustrated with the beaten track since getting into Vietnam which definitely is an indication to get off it. So that's what i'm doing. Instead of my previous plan to head up the coast of china, i've decided to ditch Hong Kong et al and to head northwest from Hanoi into Chinas deep dark centre before with the eventual target of Tibet, hopefully by bus over a 5000+ meter pass. Its gonna be chilly. To this end i'm getting a 2 month china visa and canceling my flights out of HK, now its India by land or nothing....I left Hoi An on Wednesday afternoon, fleeing its markets, tailors, tourists and multitudes of bothersome: 'sir sir! where u going?' (ignore this icily) 'sir sir! where u from' (resist urge to point out that since you arn't interested in buying tiger balm your origins are hardly relevant and keep walking)'sir sir! later then?' (never agree to anything 'later', unless you have a penchant for being a stalker victim) The road north to Hue snaked up into the mountains that run right up to the coast, up a couple of thousand meters into the pine layer and then zig-zagged down the other side onto the floodplains sandwiched between mountain and sea. After an hour long journey, checkered with paddy fields to the left and salt pan patchwork to the right I reached Hue, the ancient capital of Vietnam. It was that evening I realised that i'd far rather be marching around the Himalayers in the middle of winter than sipping cocktails in Shanghai - i knew i dragged my walking boots halfway round the earth for a reason.The next day i explored the ruins of the ancient city, a smaller version of the forbidden city in Beijing, the purple city was a collection of palaces and pavillions in a walled moated compound. Although i tried to get into the spirit of the place my mind was already wandering the wide open spaces of central asia. Last night i caught an overnight coach into Hanoi. Once i got used to the constant swerving,to dodge in and out of the oncoming traffic, and the Vietnamese obsession with proving that the dopler effect really does exist, i must have enjoyed a good 2 hours sleep (out of 16). The sunrose this morning as a huge red ball sending light streaming over my shoulder through the back window. The prarie like rice plains of the red river delta stretched out to the right, the fields seemed endless, fading into hazy and orange sunlit mist. Hanoi is far more full of communist imagery than its southern comrade Saigon. The old town, rather than the grand boulevards of Saigon, is maze of sundappled avenues. The trees on each side of the street merge into a single canopy 12-15 foot from the ground creating a tunnel like effect. Vietnamese flags, a yellow star on red field, hang from flats and shops at regular intevals.I spent today sorting out a visa, which will take a few days to come through, and getting my boots fixed by a friendly street cobler. This leaves me with a few days to kill before i can head north to Sapa and into China, so will take in Halong bay and what will be my last glimpse of the ocean for some months.
Return to the East Coast
The east coast of Vietnam feels rather like the east coast of oz, a succession of beaches and bars interspersed with hoards of tourists, so my time in Vietnam can not yet be described as inspiring, which rightly does not bode well for this entry. Spent 3 days in Saigon, had my first bout of sickness since England so spent the day confined to quarters. The landlady, after I had mimed my general distress to explain why I wasn’t moving more than a couple of feet from a toilet, took pity and brought me mugs of steaming ginger tea to revive my health. I visited various sites around the city, the most moving being the ‘war remenanents museum’ or to translate the Vietnamese literally ‘the American war crimes museum’ charming name, and chilling contents. Clearly there was an element of propaganda involved in the displays but the countless photos of children deformed by agent orange didn’t fail to make me leave feeling sickened by what was done to ‘defend’ the west. Also on the agenda were the cu chi tunnels, some of the hundreds of miles of tiny tunnels down which the VC crawled during the war. Couldn’t resist the temptation to fire an AK47 when offered for a fee (under the auspices of research clearly). It was loud; I missed the target 5 times out of 5 that’s about it.Leaving Saigon I headed north stopping at a small fishing village/resort called mui ne which failed to capture the imagination, although seeing the boatmen paddle around in their hemispherical bamboo coracles was interesting. Nha Trang was next, another sun sea sand place, unfortunately somewhat blighted by the rain, although partly redeemed by the 10p a pint beer. A boat trip featured, during which the crew pulled out a full drum kit, electric guitar and radio mike and proceeded to sing wild kareokee whilst prancing around the decks much to the bemusement of the westerners present. Now at Hoi An and undoubtedly pretty old town which being a world heritage site 3 times over is crawling with holiday makers and touts, cafes and art shops. Pretty nice for shopping but not quite so good when on a budget and unable to carry any purchases.Hmmmm this entry was even worse than I suspected it would be. Things aren’t all bad though; plenty of good company has led to plenty of good evenings, late nights and unproductive days.
