Zhongdian (Shangrila) - A Tibetan Town in Northwest Yunnan
Back in Qiaotou, we stopped back in at the "Gorged Tiger" Cafe run by Margo, an Austrailan woman who is extremely helpful with information and anything you might need to do the hike. She has been in China for 11 years. Eight of us left Qiaotou by taxi van, headed to Zhongdian. It was myself and a spanish girl who had only been in China for a month but seemed to speak chinese as well as I do after 10 months. We were the negotiators and translators for the other 6 people (my 3 dutch friends, another dutch guy (I swear the dutch are invading china) a canadian and an isreali girl who was feeling sick.
The van driver didn't know how to drive very well and had managed to destroy his clutch. We really didn't think we were going to make it over the mountain. The views of the snow capped mountains were beautiful and the farmland along the way.
After we crossed the mountain, the scenery changed. The villages we passed were tibetan style and the houses were very distinctly different.
There were Yaks grazing and big wooden frames in the fields used for drying barley. This area was definitely the highlight of the trip for me.
In Zhongdian, we found Kevin's Trekker Inn, a hotel recommended by Margo. It was clean and cheap, had hot showers, internet and was in a good location. And Kevin and his wife spoke excellent english and were very helpful. They have lots of information about places to go in the area. I think I want to go back there someday and take some of those other trips into tibet or sichuan. Kevin had some fantastic photos!!!
After showers we all felt human again and headed into the old town to find some dinner. We got side tracked by the local dancing in the square.
Several of us tried it ourselves and it was a lot of fun. Kind of like line dancing in huge concentric circles. There must have been at least 200 people there all having a lot of fun. After that some of us went to a tibetan restaurant for dinner. Our favorite was the Yak momo which is a baozi or dumpling served with a really nice curry sauce.
The next day myself and 3 of the dutch went to the 600 year old tibetan monestary on the outside of town.
It was fairly expensive considering it was completely under construction and you aren't supposed to take any pictures. We did anyway because they couldn't be bothered to have any literature or signs or guides in English to tell us not to and the chinese were taking pictures even though there were signs in chinese supposedly telling them not to.
We saw young monks washing laundry. The tibetan people make a hard butter out of yak milk. One of the uses of yak butter is to burn in candles in the monestary. The tibetan monestaries are very brightly painted. Very beautiful.
It was a beautiful day and since we were at a height of 3200 meters, it felt like you could touch the clouds. At that altitude, it was hard climbing the steps. Little oxygen made your legs feel very sluggish and made breathing hard. We saw a lot of chinese people using oxygen cans.
After lunch, two of us rented mountain bikes and had a little adventure in the tibetan grassland villages. We came to a place where they were building a new house. They were very friendly and I talked to them a little in chinese. They invited us to take pictures and go see how they were building the house. It was fascinating!!!
The houses are made of earth (dirt). They build a frame of vertical posts and then horizontal boxing that they pore dirt into and pound it with big wooden mallets.
Zhongdian will soon be a major tourist center like Lijiang and Dali. There is construction everywhere and you can see that in a couple of years it's going to be something like Las Vegas or Disneyland.
I said goodbye to my new friends and bought a night bus ticket to Dali. This bus was not so comfortable as the first night bus. It was rickety and noisy and smelly and the roads were really bumpy. I bought the latest bus ticket (7:30pm) but it still go to Dali at 3am. You are allowed to sleep on the bus till about 9:00 or whenever you want to go. At about 5:30 or 6am a man on the next bus decided to start unloading chicken cages off the top of the bus next to ours. He would just drop them off the back of the bus which was extremely loud and impossible to sleep through!!!
Dali - Bai minority and old town
The local people are called bai people. Their custom is for the younger women to wear very brightly colored clothing and the older married women to wear blue and black. I am not sure what minority the older woman with the really bright clothing holding a baby was from. Her dress was very unique but colorful and interesting.
I got very little sleep on the bus so I was very tired in Dali. I found a hotel and went out explore a little. Took the bus to the three pagodas but only took pictures from the parking lot. Too expensive!!!
I went back to Kunming and visited a little more with Vivian and her boyfriend. They were very good hosts. Yang han and I went to a Sichuan restaurant for dinner in an old ming dynasty restaurant with the tables in an outdoor courtyard with bamboo growing in the middle and little paths and small chinese bridges. It was really atmospheric.
The next morning we had Cross-Bridge Rice Noodles again.
We also visited a park and international food pavillion where we did some tea tasting and buying. While I was trying to pack all the gifts and souvenirs into the new bag I had to buy because I bought so much, the zipper broke and Yang Han had to get it fixed for me. Haha
Vivian had to work late both nights. She works 7 days a week, often from 8am to 9:30pm. I am sure she is very good at her job, but they take advantage. They should hire more teachers!
After dinner we had to rush to the train station so I could take the night train back to Liuzhou. It was a very memorable journey. It started raining really hard and we couldn't find a taxi. Vivian had to run about 10 blocks in the pooring rain. We were totally soaked. The train ride home was very comfortable and uneventful. I had some conversations with my neighbor in chinese which was nice. This trip was very good for me. It helped my confidence speaking chinese, buying tickets on my own and generally to know that I can get along in china by myself.
I had an awesome trip and since I don't have a contract now after June 14th, I plan to do a lot more travelling in the next month and then go to the US for my family reunion. Xian and Beijing are my next major destinations, along with all the famous mountains in China (Tai shan, Hua Shan, Huang Shan, and the two Heng Shans). Ray also suggests another tibetan area called Xia He and my friend Scott recommends Changbaisan (on border with North Korea). And the Lonely planet recommends a lot more places as well.
Thank you to Ray's Dad and Vivian and Yang Han and Liu Yang and Han Huan and all the nice people I met along the way.
Let the adventure continue...
