Shangri-la/ Zhongdian (June 30 - July 2)

Zhongdian County was renamed Shangri-La in 2001 to attract tourists. It’s still known as Zhongdian to most locals but everyone recognizes the new name because of the infamous book it was named after.

“Shangri-La is a fictional place described in the 1933 novel Lost Horizon by British author James Hilton. In the book, "Shangri-La" is a mystical, harmonious valley, gently guided from a lamasery, enclosed in the western end of the Kunlun Mountains. Shangri-La has become synonymous with any earthly paradise but particularly a mythical Himalayan utopia — a permanently happy land, isolated from the outside world.”

Situated over 4500 meters above sea-level on the old Tibetan border in China, Zhongdian is, in every sense of the word, breathtaking. The town still held much of its old character but the best views were outside of town where I found myself in the middle of majestic mountains and ancient Tibetan monasteries.

On day one I was lucky to meet up with a couple I had met in Dali and they quickly told me that I should absolutely see a monastery that was 3 hours outside of town. This proved to be the highlight of my trip to Shangri-la and I could even say that the trip itself was the best part. Rolling evergreen mountains covered in clouds cleared way for gold tan hills and crisp blue skies as we neared the monastery and I was struck at how much the landscapes changed drastically within a few miles. From lush to dry, from green to gold, from humid to dry as a desert.

Once we arrived, my group and I wandered around the village of the monastery. Everything from upkeep to food was the responsibility of the villagers. Everyone lived around the monastery and made their life about it. It was incredibly humbling and was the kind of experience that makes you wonder why and if you even need all of your material possessions. Things like Community, Faith, and Spirit are true possessions that can’t be attained through monetary means, but hard work, purpose, and strength of mind. These people living in the monastery were probably far richer than I will ever be in richness of heart, mind, and soul. I know that I’ve learned to live much simpler now, and realize that sometimes a want is merely a need for something deeper. Maybe this feeling will stay with me. Maybe it won’t.

My remaining time in Zhongdian was spent exploring the old town around my hostel. Small temples and places of worship littered the streets and although most of the Tibetan-style buildings had been converted to little shops catering to foreigners, people’s smiles were still authentic and the food was still cheap. I still hadn’t gotten accustomed to the higher altitude there so most of my exploration would be intercepted with small breaks to give my legs and lungs a break (less oxygen in the air = more cramped legs) but this just added to my experience.

Within a few days I had seen most of what Zhongdian had to offer and the cold weather and rain shooed me out and I was off to Lijiang.

At the Tibetan monastery

Into the wild Clouds rolling off the mountains

xx!

Dali (June 26 - July 30)

I left Kunming a day early and decided I was going to make my trip to Dali in an overnight train. This proved to be a little less fun than anticipated and I spent most of my time trying to fall asleep with the lights on and to the hum of Chinese chatter that went way late into the night. Lesson learned: I was going to stick to buses where at least people fell asleep.

So upon arriving in Dali, I quickly noticed how really lovely this little town was. The city consisted of a few touristy streets within a town that was still holding on to its old heritage: Ancient buildings, city walls and the old city moat are the sites most frequented by visitors. The area is surrounded by mountains on the east, west, and south, and has the Erhai Lake in its center which I spent a day biking to.

Oh, and did I mention the Ganja? Yeah, that's sold here like any other souvenir...

I met a good group of people there as well. It seems that we were all looking for a break and some fresh air, which is exactly what Dali gave us. The hostel I stayed in was fantastic and even had peanut butter and jam for my toast which I grew to love every morning with a pot of jasmine tea (I can still smell its sweet perfume to this day! Mmm)

I’ll remember the old stone houses that crumbled but held on to their foundations even hundreds of years into their existences, and the fresh markets that sold scallop the size of my fist, and of course Foreigner Street that sold beautiful hand-dyed Batik fabrics. I will definitely remember biking all day to Erhai Lake, through rice and corn fields, and watching the mountains follow us the whole time. It was a good little place that offered blue skies, great pictures, and some piece of mind.

Old good-luck charms on a door

One of the great Dali gates

The farm ladies still carry all of their goods the 'old-fashion' way... She probably walks over an hour with her goods slung over her shouler like that.

xx!

Kunming (June 24 - June 25)

I stopped here after Yuanyang for a few days and originally planned to stay longer, but the sheer lack of things to see cut my time here in half. (This is fact turned out to be a blessing since I then made time to go to Shangri-la)

Kunming is a relatively medium-sized city and the capital of Yunnan province. Like all capital cities it's clean and safe. And well, that's it...! I can’t say that there isn’t a thing for everyone. Some people do love this city but I was going for character and this city lacks the old charms of so many other smaller cities.

What Kunming did do, in fact, was show me another side of China; one of day-to-day charms like markets and community bonding rituals like the great Chinese past-time of Mahjong. As I noticed before at the bus station on my way to Yuanyang, Kunming seems to be the gateway of modernity in a province that is still grasping on to its roots, and while other cities like Shanghai are tripping over themselves trying to race for an invisible finish line, Kunming is happy to be prancing and whistling while it enjoys the run.

The great game of Mahjong

Yuanyang (June 21 – June 23)

I arrived in Kunming, which was my transfer city to Yuanyang, at around 7am. The bus taking me to Yuanyang was leaving at 10am so I had a bit of time to spare. I had had approximately 3 or 4 hours of sleep on the bus so my exhaustion compelled me to stay in the station and just wait patiently.

I saw dozens of families move their entire life’s belongings from city to city through that bus station, business men from small towns hoping to make some money in The Big City, and drifters making a few dollars by selling pens and gum to travelers.

I finally found myself in the bus that would get me to Yuanyang and it was on that ride that I met Baptiste and Marie – both French speakers but Baptiste was French and Marie was Canadian.

We finally arrived in Yuanyang after having dealt with an 8 hour ride, trench-like “toilets”, cockroaches, sick Chinese passengers, and a strange sour smell we quickly connected with a cardboard box that was leaking meat juice from meats that had thawed albeit being frozen at the beginning of our journey. And yes that box had been placed under the bus along with all of our backpacks, and we definitely laughed all the way to the hostel trying to determine whose bag had marinated in the meat juice because the smell followed us all the way up.

Soon after checking into our hostel we secured a driver who would chauffeur us around the terraces the following day, starting at 6am. We then met up with a few other travelers that Marie had previously befriended in Kunming and we grabbed a good supper at one of the local restaurants and shared some beer before heading to bed before our early start the next morning.

I woke up early the next morning to the sound of rain and my heart sunk as I thought of the rainy and wet day that lay ahead of me. What would happen to the beautiful landscapes I was so looking forward to? Fortunately, the rain spit out its last few drops as we drove up a hill to our first terrace and my spirit once again regained its enthusiasm.

Although we had arrived in the middle of season and the rice was already half grown, I was still left in awe for most of the day as we toured the hills and were presented with mountains that seemed to have been carved by the gods themselves. It was with constant reminders that we would remember that these mountains had been shaped over hundreds of years by the Hani people, and were left with an intense appreciation for human tenacity.

Were they in a more accessible part of China these terraces would already have been heavily developed for tourism, and no doubt lost much of their appeal. Perhaps then it is a blessing in disguise that by accident of modern geography they lie in Yunnan, a province so abundant in natural beauty and diverse scenery that these rice terraces have so far been overlooked to a certain extent... Most of the information on this area I had to procure through blogs on the internet!

If anyone is interested in going, please feel free to contact me. I’ll try and help as much as possible, everyone should be lucky enough to witness such outstanding beauty. It was a true privilege that I saw these hills and hope to remember them for the rest of my life.

An older Hani woman carrying water up to her village

Sunset views at one of the lookout points

The small village we stayed in.

xx!

Sorry, No Internet Today.

It looks as though the powerful and oft annoying Red Hand has waved it's magical censorship wand once again. This time to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the PRC. Many a foreigner have been able to find loopholes in the previous wave of Internet censorship but the good 'ol PRC has found a way to strangle every last good Proxy website and now we are left with no way of sharing our opinions with the world.

 

Unfortunately I can't check to see if this post has made it, and I am hoping that it eventually finds light back home in Canada. Facebook and the like have all been erased from China's web as well so for those of you who have been wondering where I disappeared to, well don't fret I am still around, but China has locked me away and thrown away the keys.

 

Please contact me through email if urgent, or as always, through Skype.

 

Love! xx

 

Jinghong – Xishuangbanna (June 16 – June 20)

It never felt like I was on vacation until I got to Hongqiao Airport in Shanghai with my e-ticket in hand. I was off and although it was going to take a few stops to get me there, I was excited. I had spent a good few weeks going through different options for the summer and found that Yunnan had the best of everything I was looking for: beautiful landscapes, interesting people, and great food. My first stop was the tropical city of Jinghong in Xishuangbanna at the southernmost tip of Yunnan.

I got into Jinghong at around 5pm and immediately felt the tropical humidity and muggy air as I climbed down the stairs from the plane. Finally some real summer! Thailand, this is not, but the weather certainly wouldn’t tell you. Coming in from Shanghai I had had my fair share of hot weather in June but there was nothing comparable to the kind of hot I felt in Jinghong. The heat has also left an influence on the way of life here as the city would come to a stand-still between 1-3pm when the sun was at its hottest (Avg weather there was around 33+ ) and the citizens of the city would literally nap wherever they found themselves - at first I found it amusing but I soon found myself needing the break and rest from the intense heat too. It was no wonder that the shower at my hostel didn’t have any hot water either since anyone would just crave a cold shower the minute they’d come back from any outing.

Jinghong didn’t have much to showcase other than it’s intense blue skies, friendly people, great food, and scenic hikes – and that is exactly what drives people to come here. I definitely took advantage of all it had to give me. My first few days were spent exploring the city: The wonderful and sometimes bizarre markets, the botanical gardens, the palm tree lined streets, the delicious Thai food. The markets were my favourite seeing that I could spend hours looking at everything. The vendors also had a great time trying to sell me everything from frogs to pigeons, fish heads to chillies, from cow insides to chicken gizzards.

I also took the opportunity one night after a full meal of Pad Thai to have a full-body massage done at a blind-massage center, which isn’t something I would normally do but heck I was on vacation!!! I had to! That was an experience on itself only because I had no idea what to expect. It took me a while to find the place (I had by the time I left Jinghong, accumulated 3 maps, and all 3 were wide of the mark...) but once I got in I was told to pick a treatment and a number; each masseuse is assigned a number and if you are a returning customer and liked your last massage you can pick the same “number”... Because I had never been there I was just given a random number and told to go into the first room to my left.

It was a very plain, beige room with three beds and no lights. My “blind” masseuse followed me in and just pointed to the bed (hmmm ever see a blind man point?). Apparently I was to lie on the bed, face down with my clothes on. Hm, ok I thought so far not so scary. He then draped a white sheet over me and at this point another client came in with her masseuse on the last bed in the room. At least now I wasn’t alone under a white sheet with a blind massage therapist.
A few minutes later he was working on my shoulders over the sheet, and I was in heaven. I also caught him checking his watch a few times so maybe he had been only a little blind but I left satisfied and incredibly relaxed. 40rmb well spent if I should say so myself.

I was picked up the next morning at 8am along with two American girls and driven out deep in the Xishuangbanna hills to do a one day trek. We had gone through a little company owned by a brother-sister duo who specialized in treks, and for a small price we were driven 2 hours out of town and hiked along a stream that sliced through rice fields and into the thick forest towards a little waterfall. We spent the majority of 6 hours trying not to get eaten by tropical mosquitoes, hopping from slippery rock to slippery rock in the currents, and climbing over and under fallen tree trunks. It was rousing to be going through tropical forests deep in Xishuangbanna and alone amongst the woods, and we felt pretty darn privileged… Even covered in sweat and mud.

My time in Jinghong ended that evening after having a delicious meal at a local Dai restaurant with my new friends, and after having finished packing I made my way out to the bus station to get on my first sleeper bus. I wasn’t sure what to expect, having heard many different stories I had a few ideas of what I would find but lo and behold, I boarded a brand-new bus – I had gotten lucky! This particular bus had two aisles separating three rows of very narrow bunks and my assigned bunk was the very first on the door side which meant that I wouldn’t have to worry about any of my belongings getting stolen as no one would venture openly to the front of the bus where the driver and “hostess” were located to go through a foreigner’s things. After laying down and making sure all of my things were secure, I buckled myself down and tried to fall asleep. Unfortunately the ride did not agree with an older Dai lady directly behind me and she spent most of the night throwing up into little plastic bags. My attempts at sleep had now become attempts at blocking out the sounds of empty gags.

Luckily my bunk was located against the windows and I was able to look out into the night sky and noticed something I hadn’t seen in ages having been in Toronto and Shanghai – Stars! Millions of little diamonds dotting the blackest sky I had ever witnessed. I don’t remember ever seeing so many and I’ll forever remember these skies that led me to Yuanyang.

The airport in Jinghong

Some ducks lined up at the market

Trecking in the Jinghong hills

xx

Catching up

I still can’t believe that it’s been over 3 months since I left for my summer holidays and landed in Xishuanbanna , starting a trip that would take me across Yunnan province and all the way to Nepal and then back here to Shanghai.

The summer has since been filled with different cities, foods, people and memories and as I get ready for the new school semester I try to recall all of these in enough detail to describe to you all how great a time I had.

Hope you all enjoy!

Xx