Ittttttttttttttt's Great!

I went to the Great Wall today, doing a tour where we hike 10 km from Jinshanling to Simatai, a stretch of some of the wildest and least touristy Wall.

Many more poetic and descriptive things have been said of the Great Wall than I can hope to write. So I will suffice with this: it defies superlatives. It's a three hour drive to Jinshanling, and we left before dawn, so I caught up on sleep and met some of my traveling mates: an Australian spending a year or so traveling around the world, an Englishman on his way to Thailand to winter somewhere sunny, an international executive for J&J, a Canadian couple, a Belgian, an incredibly handsome American (ha ha ha), another American engineer from Phoenix, and a...you know, I never got Max's nationality. Quite a group.

It was a great hike under sunny skies in 50-degree weather. I'll post a few pictures - sifting through them all to find the best will take a bit longer and social hour just started in the hostel bar.
On the way back, a lunch buffet was included in our tour. Either the coke can or this lunch led to my first experience with *ahem* "gastrointestinal difficulties." I ask the driver to pull over and sure enough, only squat toilets. I had until this point avoided them, but fate had now decreed otherwise. [WARNING: Content of a scatalogical nature follows.] The first challenge was to figure out just how far to drop your trousers. The answer: to the knees - going farther leads to irreconcilable geometries, as I discovered. And you know what, it's actually quite a comfortable way to go, assuming clean facilities. The only odd thing is that your "product" is not disappearing into an unviewable area beneath you. You're kind of stuck looking at it (at least the beginning stage where you still have to conciously aim). I suddenly feel kind of free - the fear is gone. I am a Veteran of Squat!

On the rest of the drive, we all swap travel tips, horror stories, and favorite places. I am beginning to feel a little under the weather - six hours of sleep (again), a long hike in the sun and wind, and an off stomach. I nap a little and think I might call it a night after a hot shower. But the shower reinvigorates me, and so I decide to hit one of the vegetarian restaurants.

A cab ride later, I am somewhere near the restaurant. I acknowledge but don't mind that I'm going to spend a half-hour feeling lost trying to find the place: the distance from the taxi to the actual front door is always longer than the taxi ride. The guide book says it's in a housing complex. I spend the next 20 minutes walking around, asking strangers for help (I swear, unless you ask someone in direct sight of your destination, you get vague waves), and finally find it. (How the hell did the Lonely Planet guy find this place!?) Ahhhh. I decide to splurge - my second to last night in China, ack! - and get the prix fixe. Discreet Buddhists decorations, absolutely amazing music (I asked the waitress to right down the name of one), and great food. I must have a Beijing accent (not a lot of "r's" but strong ch and sh), because more people seem to understand me here.

Tomorrow, the Forbidden City and Imperial Archives, a little shopping, and then finish up with a Chinese acrobat show and a dinner at the even fancier vegetarian restaurant in the guide book.

Ack - my second to last goodnight,

Dan

The Lotus Blossoms Silently

OK, I love Beijing.

In the morning in Chengdu, I, of course, get behind, but make my flight with some margin. As soon as my cabbie starts driving, I know I have a good one: rarely staying in one lane, he floats between motorcyle and bus, deftly blocks Audi's aiming to make a U-turn, veers into secret unused lanes. Having been in China over two weeks now, I appreciate his skill for what it is. On the flight, I get a very cute smile from the flight attendant as I try to say "ju2zizhi1" (orange juice), but it's the kind of smile you give a kid. Eh. This flight has both a gentle takeoff and a flare on landing, so maybe it was the mountain approaches in Guilin and Chengdu or just really short runways.

I'm getting nervous again. New city to navigate with a 50 lb pack. New hostel to find. I decide to take it easy and get a cab ($12) rather than navigate the public transporation. But upon getting my baggage, there are great big "Airport Train" signs in English, and so what the hell. Part of me suddenly says, "Let's have fun!" Well, this is a nice change. The nervousness is gone, and enters a sense of adventure. The Metro is great, though I have to do a few sorry's and "rang4 yi1 xia4" (literally, "let a little" as in "let me by"). "Rang yi xia" works miracles, like parting the Red (er, China - ha!) Sea.

More guidance. I exit the metro, and have to my find my hutong (think narrow lane that old, classic houses front on). After trying to get my bearings, I realize I'm not where I thought I would exit (the actual Metro exits are never at the locations on maps). I see a nice hotel and guess it might be on the map. It is! I'm a few blocks south of where I need to be. While I'm figuring this out, a guy asks me in very fine English if I need help. (Note: not a scam.) He is just about done with University and will be heading to England. We exchange numbers and will probably meet up on Sunday. As I start walking down my hutong, I see a few young Westerners ahead of me, leading me to the hostel. We chat a little. Guidance, guidance, guidance.

The hostel is awesome. Huge room, nice bathroom, helpful staff, very quaint (it's a hutong, after all). Part of the reason I booked this one, besides having double rooms with bathroom, is that the guidebook mentioned they do tours for acrobats and the Great Wall. Actually, I want to see the Shaolin show more than acrobats. As I'm waiting to check in, there travel agent shows me tours to exactly the part of Great Wall I want to do (a 10 km hike from Jianling (sp?) to Simatai) and a Shaolin show package. I sign up for the Shaolin tonight and the Great Wall tomorrow. Sunday, the Forbidden City, Imperial Archives, and maybe a Premier League soccer game in an ex-pat English pub. Then dinner at a swank veggie restaurant.

I only have an hour before I have to leave for the Shaolin show. Following vague directions, I head out of the hostel and turn left to find a restaurant. I walk in the first I see, a small place, unremarkable, but local. I feel local. Of course, I don't look it, but this is one of a million places throughout China, simple, marked white walls, basic furniture, a place to eat, not a please sit-down and enjoy our ambiance kind-of place that I normally frequent. I say "Wo chi su" and， wonder of wonders, the guy understands me. He turns to the lady who runs the place, says "Ta chi su." She hands him, who hands me, an English menu. Chao mian with some greens and spicy vegetable kabobs with tea. Perfect, 15 yuan.

I rush back, and we leave for the Shaolin show. I have a shepherd who takes me there in a taxi and gives me a hostel card (with address), a ticket to the show, and 20 yuan fare to get home. I have an hour to kill, which I do in the neighboring internet cafe.

Driving to the Shaolin show, I get a look at Beijing. It is a city of perspectives, as in everything recedes into them! Major streets are ten lanes - and there are many major streets - lined by thirty-story buildings of either modern but modest architecture or classic European with a Chinese twist. They are set back by the width of thoroughfares, allowing you to see a greater expanse of them stretching into the distance, like some vast array of imperial forces, too mighty to be squashed together. Settling into the mild glow of a winter's sunset, they are not showy, but replete with a quiet dignity. Power is here, they say, no need to be crass about it. The picture does not do the experience justice, but it does capture part of the blend of old and new that is China. The Beijing Train Station almost seems Russian in grand scope, but the discreet pagoda roofs let you know where you are...well, and so do the huge, lighted red characters saying "Beijing Station." It's brilliantly lit at night.

The Shaolin show is theater as much as matrial arts. It is heavily influenced by ballet and tells a classic story. Having gotten a little used to "tourist quality," the professional choreography is fresh air. There are the wonders of Shaolin and aerial acrobatics, but the dancing and singing really catch me. I buy lots of merchandise (c'mon, a t-shirt with pandas doing taichi? who can resist that!? and I had to get a CD...and a few other things.) I catch a cab home, haggling with a cabby almost like I'm used to doing it.

Plane ticket from Chengdu to Beijing: 1000 yuan.

Three nights in a hostel: 594 yuan.

Seeing the sun set over a hutong; riding a metro full of French, Africans, Americans, and Chinese; stir-fired noodles in a local restaurant where the waiter understands my Mandarin; jay-walking like a Beijinger; a cab ride through a cold, bustling city at the heart of the most populous nation in the world; an angel's voice singing an ancient poem; falling in love with a lead ballerina; a tourist show with truth; haggling with a cabby and walking away; getting lost and found when the new cabby drops me off five blocks from my hutong; finally looking forward to the adventure of discovering a new place...all so priceless.

Tomorrow, the Great Wall!

Good night,

Dan

My Day Off

...from my travels :p I got to bed at midnight Wednesday and slept until noon Thursday. I needed that. On the docket are: 1) Bank of China to cash a traveler's check, one of the few banks that do, 2) find a good internet bar to upload pictures, 3) maybe stop by the teahouse to purchase the small Buddha statue that caught my eye.

The branch of Bank of China nearest my hostel doesn't cash checks. I saw another branch on my way to the Xinnanmen bus station (from whence I went to Qingcheng Shan). So I hop on the bus again. I don't remember exactly where it is, so I'm looking out the windows assiduously. I see a different branch (on the west side of the main thoroughfare), hop off at the next stop, and walk the 10 minutes back to it. It has a sign and the security gates are half down. It looks like they're closed. I saw this in passing from the bus, but figured they were closed for lunch. They're closed for more than that, as several locals read the sign and carry on. So I walk back 10 minutes to the bus stop, pause, look-up and see the newly opened branch of the Bank of China like 10 feet beyond the bus stop. How did I miss that getting off? I wasn't looking for it, so I didn't see it. These continual lessons in mind-affecting-perception would sink in if I'd only pay attention ; )

Newly laden with cash, I hop back on the bus and ride to the rest of the way to Xinnanmen station. The guidebook says there is a good internet bar on the 2nd floor. Now if I could just find the entrance to the second floor... In looking, I near the corner, but then decide to head back to the tourist office and ask them. They tell me to go around the corner, and sure enough, there is a 30-feet tall sign saying "Wang3ba1." I am reminded of the night before, stopping a few hundred yards from the area I knew.

So an hour or so blogging and uploading photos - damn, this is a nice internet bar - with a helpful college student stopping by every so often to chat. Based on the all drama in my head surrounding the purchase of this antique statue, the veracity and value of which I have no idea of, I decide to forgo it. As the saying goes, "If you have to ask, the answer is no."

I'm running out of time before my calligraphy lesson, so I take a cab back, have a bowl of miso soup as a snack at the hostel (the owner is Singaporean and his wife Japanese, and everyone is trilingual), and then go out front to meet Mike (his Western name) for calligraphy lessons. We head across the street to a teahouse he knows.

Ahhh, now I'm the know. Mike says his job is to make me feel Chinese. I already do, for we have entered a coveted "second floor"-establishment. In Hangzhou and Shanghai, I would see nice restaurants on the second floors of buildings. The only one I tried entering, I did so on Valentine's Day, and they were booked (no really, a Chinese couple in front of me was asked, "You3 mei2you3 *****?" "Mei2you3," they responded, and then an apologetic look on the hostess' face. I was "meiyou" too.). Now these second-floor establishments are to be distinguished from the bi-level restaurants that have first and second floor seating. I don't know why. I'm working by feel here. But this is the Chinese "Starbucks" (figuratively speaking, as opposed to the actual Chinese Starbucks), that is, the cultural equivalent, where you can while away an afternoon with a hot drink in a pleasant ambiance. Ours: small tables surrounded by cane chairs with deep cushions spread throughout a warmly carpetered space with plants and aquariums. And blessedly, no fluorescent lights. Mike informs me that there are cheaper teahouses, but they are less nice. As a result, the tea here costs 8 yuan instead of 6 yuan. I'm almost embarrassed by the incremental cost.

We get down to business. He has bought me a brush, ink, and training booklet. Looking at the booklet, he decides it's a little advanced for me (it is, as I am shortly to discover, but it is for my future training). The hostess brings us a blank booklet and some newspaper so we don't spill ink on the table. In the blank booklet we begin easy. His writing is effortless and beautiful, mine effortful and appearing to be the product of a severly drunk three-year-old with a concussion. In my defense, writing with a brush is a four-dimensional juggling act: you have to balance the horizontal velocity with pressure and the angle you hold the brush at
(yes, you need two angles to specify the brush orientation, but they're kind of coupled). No, make it five-dimensional, because the horizontal velocity is time-varying even within a single stroke, sometimes slow, then pausing, then a flick as you release pressure. I get a few "hao de" but a lot more "like this" and try again. It's fun. I can see myself getting addicted. (BTW, if you look close you will see my 30 second rendition of LA with the characters for ocean, mountain, and land, and the land is hot - these were some characters I was learning - the beautiful character in the lower left is his: bing1, which is ice.)

My brain eventually gets full (new knowledge starts skipping off the surface), and we call it quits. Now quite hungry, I head back to the hostel for dinner and see an item I hadn't noticed before (it has no picture): smoked tofu with green peppers. [Singing] I'm in heaven. I get that, rice, and a black lager (it tastes like a porter, but is light like a lager, they roast the malts before brewing - it's my favorite beer). I'm warm and happy, and smoked anything is my favorite, especially with a dark beer on a cold night. One of my best meals in China. I'll have to add this to my (very small) repertoire of dishes I can cook.

I have an 11:45 am flight to Beijing tomorrow, and I just reserved a room at a hostel in a hutong. The last leg of my journey begins tomorrow. Amazing how 12 hours of sleep improves your outlook on life (and smoked tofu : )

Good night,

Dan

Please Take Me to "Qing"cheng Shan

I get to bed late again after some blogging chatting with an Englishman in the hostel bar. So instead of trying to catch the 8 am bus to Qingcheng Shang, I sleep in. I'm still nervous about navigating the bus system solo and find it tempting to give up and stay in bed. Actually it feels similar to driving to a ski resort for the first time: okay, where do I go? where's the entrance? where's the actual parking? and now the parking that doesn't cost an arm and a leg? Part of me just doesn't want to deal with the unknown anymore.

But I get out of bed. I ask the front desk about buses to Dajiangyan (the transfer city) and trying to get Qingcheng. They shake their heads. No, I have to go to Xinnanmen Bus Station in the south of the city. Catching a break, there is a direct bus from Chengdu to Qingcheng Shan leaving from there. Further, there's a local bus that goes there with a stop near the hostel. Okay - while a taxi is a buck-fifty, I feel like trying the local bus. I get on, and the route map on the bus does not match the route map from the hostel. Ah well, at most I'll be walking a half-mile. Just need to pay attention whether the bus turns before or after the river.

Here's the funny thing about this journey (and maybe life in general, but I hadn't noticed it before): help appears a little ways after committing to a path. In this case, as I am waiting with my prospective passengers for Qingcheng Shan. The bus ends up being 45 minutes late. A little girl, maybe 10, asks me a question in English, in the simultaneously bold and shy way children can. We talk a little but quickly run out of commonly understood questions and answers. A woman next to me then strikes up conversation. We talk for a bit, and I ask her if she knows when the last return bus is. She does not. She and her boyfriend are going to spend the evening on the mountain. However, she asks the bus driver and informs me of the time. Little kindnesses make the world go 'round. She also pointed me in the right direction as I got off the bus and promptly started walking the wrong direction.

I start up Qingcheng Shan. There's this great big gold ox at the entryway. I think it's because it's the year of ox. Only later do I realize Laozi, the founder of Daoism/Taoism, rode an ox. Due to my sleeping in and the bus being late, I have four hours to see the mountain. I decide to take the cable car up, and if there is time, hike down. I don't wish to be stranded, and it's hard to estimate how long it will take to hike up.

At right is the view from the cable car on the way up. If you click on it, you'll see it gets rather steep at the end. And, on the left, a pagoda high on the mountain. When you hike in the Appalachians, you feel the mountains are old. When you "hike" in China, you feel the that the land has known the feet of humans for a long time, like parts of Italy. Specifically, every peak has a pagoda on it. And the building materials had to be hauled up (in part).

I put "hike" in quotation marks, because hiking in China is more a strenuous stroll up a mercantile staircase. I showed up - again - dressed in hiking clothes, hiking boots, bearing rain gear, layers, and food and water upon my back. Everyone else is in jeans and boots with three-inch heels (women) or suits - or at least slacks - and dress shoes (men). No one else brings any supplies because every 500 yards (er, meters in Chinese) is a stand or a food vendor or a teahouse. I'm exaggerating, but most people are dressed like it's a city. And I guess it is. Plus there is the apparent Chinese indifference to cold. On one of the steepest parts of the hike/stairwell, I was being paced by a couple and their three year-old. Kids here are remarkably precious, like the French, almost small adults.

Every near-peak is marked by a temple or palace of old. They are quite colorful. But I'm a little palace'ed-out, much like you can get cathederal'ed-out in parts of Europe.

At one, I see a new (I suppose) ethnic minority. They are dressed in dark blue cloth, with hats to match. The men and women are dressed identically. Sometimes I am a little slow. In the second temple, one of these folks is attending an altar and it finally dawns on me: Daoists. From the interpretative boards along the way, I learn this is the mountain upon which Daoism was created. This dilatory realization is even more embarrassing because my blog is named "The Tao of Dan" for crying out loud. "Tao" is an early romantization of the character for Dao - it's actually pronounced with a "d" and a falling tone. But the "Tao" spelling is deep in Western culture, so I kept it.

Again, the closer to the top I get, the older the stairs get. There was a pleasant, merchant-free stretch near the summit. The pagodas too were wilder, made of wood, vines, and branches, taking on a distinct elvish cast. And now vegetation breaks, granting views of the surrounding countryside. It's hazy, but I can see much farther than on Huangshan. To the south and east, the Chinese plain begins, complete with city receding into its own haze, and to the west and north, the mountains begin to shoulder on top of another, climbing towards the Tibetan Plateau (grrrr). The white buildings in the near distance of the picture at left are the beginning of the cable car.

There has to be a Chinglishdom on the mountain of course. This one, however, is not an odd translation, but accurate and lyrical, a mini-poem. It might be the motto for the environmental movement. Two others I unfortunately did not get pictures of were: 1) a garbage can with recyclable and unrecyclable cannisters labeled "recyclable" and "unredeemable," and 2) a sign at the airport declaring it to be a "Civilized Airport." Well, I should hope so! (I think they meant "Civilian Airport" - so much in a word.)

I near the summit, upon which sits the holiest Daoist temple. It contains a huge golden bull, three stories tall...oh, wait, as I stick my head in a little farther, I see Laozi astride it. For reasons of respect, I could not take a picture. What I do though is walk around the outside, take in the views, and sit down to have a lunch in the wind just this edge of cold. I had randomly stopped in a bakery in Chengdu. They sold this dark, rich bread with walnuts and raisins. I love dark bread. I haven't had anything like it in the US and thought it might make a good import. A fruity health drink was also remarkably tasty, so much so I took this picture. While it may look humble, eating on a mountaintop, warm in the cold wind, hungry from the (stair) climb, it's just so satisfying. Here was part of my view, sitting on a fallen column, looking north into the rising mountains. I am at about 4000 feet. Below is one of the interpretative signs. It includes the helpful information that the concentration of negative oxygen ions can be as low as 1800 per cubic centimeter. My breath shortens. By the way, Zhang Ling was born with white hair and a beard, and so is known as the Old One or Laozi in Chinese.

After lunch, I meditate, enjoy the view for a while and the slow, rhytmic ringing of a bell as a Daoist rite is celebrated, and then start down. I'll take the cable car again. I'm tired and I rather enjoy the view than descend a couple miles of stairs. On the ride down I see this house below in the countryside. It's rare: the only other houses I've seen were in Hangzhou out near where the tea plantations began. Otherwise the housing I've seen (I haven't been traveling through high-rent districts) consists of either: 1) apartment buildings, 2) old villages, where the housing is single-room stone or cement houses, or 3) newer villages with the three-story townhouse I talked about earlier. The "suburban neighborhood" doesn't seem to really exist. Perhaps a good thing. I've seen adds in the airplane magazines for huge European-style villas (complete with Range Rover speeding out of the garage), but none in person.

Taking the bus to Qingcheng, I passed again through newer villages, where like in Huangshan, no lights were on during the day, the bottom floor was open to the elements, and everyone had their winter coats on inside and out. This got me thinking (perhaps incorrectly). From my admittedly upper middle-class upbringing, I want a space that is warm, lighted, and comfortably appointed, to relax in, to feel "at home" in. There is a physical release upon entering. But in many places here, upon entering, I kind of feel like I'm still outside, albeit with furniture and no chance of getting rained on or blown away. This inability to relax is what contributed to my minor culture shock in Huangshan. So it's not a physical comfort, except in having a roof over one's head. (That I consider this minor is an indicator of my being...spoiled is too strong : ) Maybe here it's the people that define home? You get that psychological release based on who you're with rather than where you are? Complete speculation. But for most of human history, four walls and a roof has been luxury.

I get back to the bus with a half-hour margin. I spend the half-hour watching a Jackie Chan movie they are kind enough to have on the video screen. Then I wait another 45 minutes. Things are getting dramatic, lots of people getting on and off the bus, lots of minibuses (I know what they look like now), cars leaving, trucks arriving. I finally gather that the bus will not leave until it's near full (remember family-owned transport and they have to at least break-even). The people getting on and off the bus are the minibus drivers trying to recruit clients. I am offered a minibus ride to Chengdu for 30 yuan. The bus fare is 19 yuan. Good deal to leave now. I get onto the minibus. Another 10 minutes go by. Of course, the minibus won't leave until it's full too. A couple gets off the big bus and into a private car, but they are hestitating. Surmising that that car needs to be full too, I ask if they need one more. An affirmative head shake. So I get in the passenger seat. The price is now 50 yuan. Some haggling ensues and the driver gets heated. The couple gets out and so do I. Now a taxi for the three of us, still 50 yuan, but for $8 I'm happy to be free of the situation.

Back in Chengdu, well, on the western edge, the couple invited me to dinner, but by the time we got back I'm still not hungry and now I'm fairly tired. So I catch another cab to find an internet bar to post these pictures. The taxi driver had no idea, so per the guidebook I ask him to drop me off at the north train station. A few blocks south of there the guidebook claims there is an internet bar. I start walking south (thank you compass) and am immediately besiged by people selling hotel rooms (I really have to start expecting this). I then walk through a district that has lots of massage businesses, many with young women dressed...er, provocatively. I avoid eye contact. I think many of these were just fine; some had people in lab coats.

I switch from finding an internet bar to just walking home, right at the moment I find one. It's a lower budget one, and won't let me log into blogger. Who knows. It's impossible to debug in Chinese and I'm far from an area where people speak English. I continue on home, but after another half-hour walking through a foreign city at night lacking street signs and meaningful street lighting, plus feeling lost, I give up. I catch a cab...that takes me 500 m further down the road and drops me off - I was one intersection from the area I could recognize ;p Irony, know I thee not well enough?

It's late and I have a possible trip to see the pandas early tomorrow if other people have signed up. Cheers,

Dan

I Can See!

First, pictures from Tuesday, my first day in Chengdu (I'm at a high-end wang3ba1, 15 yuan/hr).

Here is some of the architecture from Wenshu Temple. I love the long lines. To the pictures you must add the smell of incense and a pervasive quietude.
Here I catch an unexpected but welcome visitor to a picture of the sun, pine, and tower. There is a calligraphy institute at the temple as well. Here is an example. That's one thing to be said for a word=character writing sytem: the words themselves can be art. I like layers within layers.
Some views of the garden. Throughout, old people were gathered in the main pavilions, talking about (I imagine) about kids today :p Let me reiterate that growing old in China is NOT the same as in the US. Seventy, eighty, ninety year-old people are out for walks, doing (benign) calisthenics, and generally living like fifty year-olds in the US, if a bit more slowly. There was a TV segment on a 96 year-old man who married a 72 year-old woman (yes, the age difference is a little scandalous ; ) He is a calligraphy teacher, and was walking just fine, toasting and laughing at his wedding. They interviewed the couple separately. It was as if they were teenagers: he was nervous, worried she wouldn't accept him for his penury. After several months of spending time together, he wrote her a love letter, baring his soul. Upon reading it, she said her heart was beating fast. She was embarrassed: here she is 72, and she feels like it's spring and she's seventeen. No matter the body's age, the heart can always be young. There was also an amazing library within the Temple, housed within a grand building. Libraries are one of the greatest creations of humankind. The Book of Kells, an incredibly hand-illustrated (of course) New Testatment from about 800 CE, was made in a monastery on a storm-tossed island in the northwest of Scotland. I imagine ancient temples on remote mountains of China, preserving knowledge through the ages. Unfortunately, one of the grandest compendiums of human knowledge, the Yongle Encyclopedia, compiled in ~1400 CE and encoding 2,000 years of Chinese knowledge, has been lost due to revolution and civil war. This was before the Renissance in Europe, when China had been going strong for at least 4000 years. Parts remain, most importantly the table of contents (on display in Beijing, which I will be visiting). There are also TOC's in the UK and Harvard/Cambridge museums.

Here are some pictures from the Sichuan Opera (for tourists). The shadow show completely enchanted me. I was also taken away by the music. There is a short movie of it below.




I'll get to Qingcheng Shan in another post. Gotta run for calligraphy lessons,

Dan

They Closed Illinois

At or about 11:10 pm on February 23, we began our bombing run, er, descent into Chengdu. As the pilot firmly planted the aircraft on the runway - known in the biz as a "carrier landing" - I began to suspect a lot of these pilots are either ex-military or taught by ex-military. Also, they might have been doing it for the handful of Westners on-board, but all announcements were in Mandarin and English. The flight attendant, when I pointed at the orange juice, said, with perfect elocution, "Orange juice?" Once the Chinese become a tourist force in America, maybe we'll see the same? Probably Spanish first though.

Through some small cosmic conincidence I arrive at Sim's Cozy Guesthouse exactly at midnight, which is what I had told the receptionist. This factoid is mostly immaterial, but pilots like to brag when they hit a checkpoint spot-on. Sim's is lovely. I had been staying in hotels I reserved on ctrip.com, which for my price bracket tended to put me in the equivalent of Chinese Best Westerns. Nothing wrong with this, but it left me outside the foreigner traveler-circuit. In the backpacker places, everyone speaks English. My Mandarin learning rate is suffering for it though. When I check-in, I find out the travel desk opens at 8 am.

I get up early, eat, and then sit down with the travel agent. In March, Tibet will be closed to foreigners. The ostensible reason is an upgrade of tourist facilities, but the same bulletin happen to include "...during the Tibetan New Year...," which seems more to the point. Focusing on the loophole, I try to make it clear that I only want to go for the last few days of February, that is, not March. No luck. I go back to my room and call another hostel, get their travel agent, and get the same response. She is apologetic, which I do appreciate. It's a little freaky: imagine trying to book a flight to Chicago, and Orbitz/Expedia returns a message "The US Government has temporarily closed Illinois."

Arrrrgghhhh! I am so incredibly frustrated, but I don't think I'll be swaying the bureaucracy of the People's Republic of China. Even more, I could have stayed with Xue and Tao and saw Lijiang, which is Tibetan though not in Tibet. So now I start exploring options of flying back to Kunming, and trying to meet up with Xue and Tao again, and then getting from Lijiang to Beijing. It's not working. I would spend a day and half traveling and maybe catch them, spend one day with them, then turn around start towards Beijing. *sigh*

All right, what's there to do in Chengdu? Well, I had planned on checking out Wenshu Temple. I also puruse the tour options in the hostel travel office. Horseback riding in heavily Tibetan Songpan - sweet, but you need to ride a bus 10 hours both ways. I have three days, so 20 hour of bus for 3 hours of horseback riding. Oh, here we go, Sichuan opera. And pandas, of course. Flipping through my guidebook, Mt. Qingcheng is nearby, a sacred Daoist site, and is low enough to have views (i.e., not reaching into the clouds like the summits of Huangshan). So temple, teahouse, and opera today, Qingcheng tomorrow, and pandas Thursday. I buy my flight to Beijing on Friday, paying an extra $30 for it to be an afternoon flight. This taking off at 10 pm and arriving at midnight is wearing me out. That gives me two and half days in Beijing - one for the Great Wall and one for the Forbidden City and surrounding sights.

I catch a cab to Wenshu Temple. There's a lot of shops and restaurants. I can't find the vegetarian restaurant. Re-re-re-reading the guidebook a little more carefully, I finally catch the phrase "...on its grounds..." Ah! I have to enter the temple first. I get aspargus and fake steak. Man, I love asparagus. (My inner six-year-old is shaking its head that I would harbor such feelings for a vegetable.) The waiter recommends one of the items on the sweets page I've been looking at. They are deep-fried, de-crusted white-bread, taro sandwiches. Wow, they managed to make something less healthy than a french fry. I also try walnut milk. Tastes like chicken...I'm kidding, tastes like soymilk.

The temple is beautiful. With the smell of incense wafting in and out, I wander through the gardens, gaze at the pools (complete with a small metropolis of turtles - significant in both Buddhism and Chinese culture, where they symbolize longevity), observe the holy areas. On my second route through the gardens, looking for a place to meditate, a guy strikes up a conversation. After some nice chit-chat, he mentions he does tours. *sigh* That's cool, I'll be polite, look over his list of services, oh, wait a minute, he offers calligraphy lessons. Sweet. He charges 30 yuan an hour. The only metric I have is the foot massage in Tangkou. That was 60 yuan for an hour (about half what I'd pay in an inexpensive area of LA). (Yes, I'm that metro, but don't judge me until you've tried it.) So, even if mediocre, it's still a deal. We arrange to meet Thursday night after I see the pandas.

Next, I wanted to go to the oldest teahouse in Chengdu. I'm not sure why, the oldest pub in Dublin was overrun by tourists and a bit anti-climatic. Eh, hope springs eternal. But I'm just plain tired - I only got about five hours of sleep between arriving on the late flight and getting up early to be disappointed on Tibet. I taxi home (the online version of the Economist includes a style guide with the injunction "Do not verb nouns.") and take a long nap. A quick dinner and then off to Sichuan opera.

I am dropped off early for the opera and invited to look around through the many shops. Why do I not expect this by now? There are many types of art I've never seen before: layered jade, carved to use the subtle shades of the layers and bamboo strips woven into pictures like cross-stitching. In an antique shop, a wooden Buddha statue catches my eye - 3500 yuan! Well, enough of that.

The opera is fantastic. It's a tourist amalgam, admittedly, but I love it. The puppet dancing and the shadow show are my favorites. I feel like a kid again with the wonder of it. An erhu and a drop-dead gorgeous MC don't hurt either. And it's the best tea I've had in China so far (the opera is staged in a teahouse). After the show, I head back to the antique shop, and offer 2000 yuan. It's accepted. I don't have that on me, so I promise to return Thursday, after I've had a chance to cash a traveler's check. I'm second guessing myself on this one since the guidebook specifically mentions antiques can be complete fakes. The manager had to come out to discuss my offer. I didn't feel like he was putting me on.

Tomorrow, I head to Mt. Qingcheng (Qingcheng Shan). I have to catch a bus to another town from the bus station nearby the hostel (the guidebook says they run every 20 minutes, but I'll double-check with the travel agent tomorrow morning). Then catch a minibus in the new town to Qingcheng Shan. Then reverse this on the way home. I'm nervous in that I don't exactly have a bus timetable, so I'll be playing this by ear. There is a cable car on this mountain as well, so maybe I'll do the same thing I did on Huangshan: hike up and cable-car down. A Daoist mountain should be a good place to meditate too!

It's weird to be on my own again. But Sim's is exactly my kind of place and it's restaurant is warm, wood-filled, and easy to order at: it has a vegetarian section. I try the regional mapo tofu. The braised vegetable balls (sound yummy, don't they) I had in Yangshuo are still my favorite though.

Wan an,

Dan

PS I took more pictures on my new memory card. I'll try to find a nice internet bar tomorrow, and upload the pictures. The idea being that if you have to pay a bit more, the anti-virus software will be up to snuff.

I Must Be Moving On...

On the bus from Yangshuo back to Guilin, I realized I had six days left to do Lhasa and Beijing. I really want to see Lhasa. Plus a Canadian traveler Torben and Erika met on the bus informed us it could take a few days to get a Tibetan Tourist Bureau permit. In Guilin, Xue was her usual helpful, kind self and talked brass tacks with the CITS travel agent. Torben also ran by the local youth hostel to see if they knew anything (no joy). Long story short, the best option was to head to Chengdu (think pandas) and try to get a Tibet permit and flight from there. Since I thought we were parting ways there and then, I tried to give a present to Xue and Tao. They resolutely refused. Tao said they'd only accept it when I came back.

It's a funny thing to travel 7000 miles and meet people who feel like long lost friends. We went to a late lunch before the four of them caught the 4:30 overnight train to Kunming. At lunch, Xue serves each of us from her bowl. We are now a family.

With a heart both heavy and excited, I wave goodbye and catch a cab to the airport bus station. I need to get to Lhasa, and this feels right. I will be back to China, and probably wherever Torben and Erika land for grad school. Torben might get to CA within the year.

Onwards. I get out of the cab to a bunch of, I'm not quite sure, just people yelling offers at me. I've gotten better at just ignoring this: avoiding eye contact is key, as is not saying hello. I also feel much less targeted - the touts would assualt Xue and Tao as well. So, it's just life in a touristy area of China. In not looking at people, I see cabs and realize these are the drivers. "San shi kuai" jumps out of the verbal assault. Really? 30 yuan to the airport in my own cab? I paid 100 yuan inbound (guidebook said ~90 a year or so ago). The bus is 20 yuan. What the hell. I say "san shi" and go to the head of the taxi line (I don't want to get in an scuffle over which cab).

As we speed away, I wonder how this cabbie can do it for 30. There's a toll that's like 15 yuan. I quickly discover as we head out into the countryside - he's bypassing the toll road. For a moment, I did worry for the safety of my bags and/or kidneys (as in I might be "donating" one).

Actually, this was kind of a key moment. I decided that the anxiety is pointless. As Cheri Huber once said, it is not fear that keeps safe, but intelligence. I decided I would trust that I am up to the challenges, trust that people are basically good, and that my intuition would tell me when otherwise. I'd deal with that then and not until. The Canadian fellow on the Guilin bus had been traveling around south and east Asia by himself with only English - even buying a motorcycle in Vietnam and touring there, Laos, and Cambodia. Clearly, this can be done. And Erika and Torben had been in China a month, again, with no more Mandarin than in the Lonely Planet phrasebook. Plus, and maybe this was the key, the anxiety was familiar. I'd been here before. I felt it strike at my heart when I got off the bus in Tunxi on the way to Huangshan. I was standing in a small city well into China, in a bus station, by myself. I could take a step or I could collapse in a panic. It was entirely up to me. No script. No previous experience. Entirely new. And what is this fear? It's not for my phyiscal safety. It's not being lonely. Fingering it, it's almost as I'm trying to make myself feel overwhelmed, so I can collapse in self-pity because I am so overwhelmed. Wait a second - I'm like a dog chasing it's own tail, both creator and experiencer of the (unnecessary) suffering. Huh.

Turning my attention back to the external world, except for a few harrowing passes on nearly-blind curves, it was another great ride on country roads. When I was snorkeling in Hawai'i for the first time, every time we dove, I'd see new species of fish. I was - and I mean this literally - struck speechless by the sheer diversity. Similarly in China, everytime I head into the countryside I see new species of be-wheeled contraptions. On this trip: electric motor-trikes with a pallet of car batteries under the bed and uber-rickshaws with advanced weather-proofing.

It will take at least a day to get a permit, so while waiting several hours in the Guilin airport for my flight, I reserve a room at a backpacker's haven in Chengdu, near a Buddhist temple. I'm not Buddhist, but I do want to meditate (granted, this can be done anywhere, but it's more fun with incense and the overall vibe). I've always been drawn to mystic branches of major traditions - Sufism, Gnosticism, and the like. I believe we are souls, and so even if you are, say, severely brain-damaged in a car accident, you are still you, in a similar way a secularist would probably believe you are still you even if you lose your leg. (BTW, Flowers for Algernon is a great short book on this without any religious/spiritual overtones.) So the mind is not me (Buddhism may refer to the mind, the preceiver, as illusion). But trying to see "me" with the mind is like the illusion trying to see itself as illusion. It cannot: by definition, anything experienced by the mind/illusion is real. Hence, meditation - trying to quiet the mind so that other...there's not even a good word for it (transcendental states? too loaded) ...that other ways of being can be entered.

Five times in my life this has happened, entering this other way of being. Each time, it was like sitting in your living room, and all of a sudden a familiar stranger enters through a door in the wall you've never noticed before. But as soon as the door is opened you realize it's been there all along and you've been purposely not noticing it. Each time this "part" of me came to the fore, I had an unbelievable compassion and seemed to say just the right thing without having to think about it or knowing how I knew it. I just did. Another tradition might call it a moment of grace, when something "else" acts through you. One of the five times, I was playing Pachelbel's Canon in D on the piano. When I reached my favorite phrase, I suddenly felt like I was riding the rapids. I wasn't making the music, it was somehow flowing through me from some place to some other place, I was just a channel, and man, oh man, was I working hard to stay out of it's way, to let the flow be.

Okay, this is the kind of blog you get when I sit in an airport for four hours by myself :p Longwinded way of saying I'm looking forward to Chengu and a comfy, bohemian hostel near an ancient holy place and its requisite vegetarian restaurant. Then down to Renmin Square for old-school teahouse culture.

And yes, I appreciate the irony of talking for several paragraphs about something those self-same paragraphs claim to be un-talk-about-able.

Outside of, but including, beginnings and endings, was Brahman. One of its aspects, Lord Brahma the Creator, was bored. Shiva the Destoryer danced by and said, "Let us play a game, but I can only tell you the rules once you have agreed to play." Unharmable, Lord Brahma replied, "Let us play." Shiva touched him, and he shattered into a million million pieces, scattering throughout the myriad worlds of Brahman. "The game begins," said Shiva, "Find yourself."

Dan

Bipedal Fleet (still no pics)

Kayaking, biking, and now hiking. The stretch of the Li River we biked was fun and beautiful, but not knock-your-socks-off so. The other really scenic area is the stretch of the Li River *north* of Yangshuo from Yangdi to Xingping. When solo, I had planned on taking a river cruise over this stretch, but everyone else was keen on hiking it, and this seemed fine by me. This stretch of river is famous since the scence on the 20-yuan bill comes from it.

This is what I had been waiting for. Mountains, sheer mountains, springing from the river, narrow valleys filled with fields of flowers and orchards. The sun made a surprise appearance. The air was humid and laden with scent. We walked through bamboo groves, leaves drifting down in the fresh breeze, smelling of fall, the stalks clacking together in the wind, adding a rhythm to the melody of rustling leaves, through terraced hills and ancient cemetries, took ferries across the river, walked the stones by the river and the dirt paths through villages, had drinks and rested in the shade of a small restaurant, talked phyiscs, language, and culture. Of course, we also ate everywhere and everything. Tao treated us to some sugar cane. You take a bite, chew on it, and spit it out. Oops. My first couple days in China, sugar cane was served to me at breakfast. Thinking it was bamboo, I ate it. That was probably a good laugh for the kitchen staff. Torben, from Germany, commented that at least I got my fiber.

We stopped to take pictures from the "20 yuan"-spot. Several people were selling food. One type was a green, glutinous rice patty filled with almond paste. Very good, very local. The final stretch of road back to the bus stop in Xingping was again the lovely, shocking, exhilirating mishmash that is China: school kids in clean uniforms walking home, more buffalo being led back from the fields by octogenarians, more be-wheeled things of all kinds, more vendors hawking food and rides, bamboo, mountains glimpsed through bamboo, homes being built, homes collapsing, rich people, incredibly poor people. I saw one woman, maybe 30, who looked so...used, shell-shocked by life. Every street contains everything and its opposite: duality incarnate. (Er, wait a second, what's the opposite of duality, unity? I guess there was that too, in an old man and little boy laughing together as the little boy spun out his bike.)

Riding the bus back from Xingping to Yangshuo, I realize this is the way to see a place, just lazing down a backroad. Again, the mountains in the mist. But this was ridge after ridge of them, fading into the distance. When you squinted you could just make out more peaks beyond and the hint of ones even further. Evening was falling with its brisk bite, but the days warmth remained as I opened my window and the smells and breeze surrounded me.

After cleaning up, we went out for dinner. Xue picked a local spot by one of the streams through Yangshuo. By "local" I mean tables set up under an awning next to a barbecue street vendor. But this is the way to do it. We got Guilin rice noodles (local dish), kabobs, and beer. We're still not clear on where they cooked the noodles. Red lanterns were hung from the old tree leaning over the river, next to the arched foot bridge. The sound of an intermittent erhu mixed with the TV half-way down the block blaring Chinese (American) Idol. People strolled by in the night while we stuffed ourselves silly on good food, good drink, and good company.

I got a little sad during our hike. I knew Torben and Erika were heading out the next day, and I needed to move on myself, to Tibet. So it was going to back to traveling by myself, figuring out just how I was going to get there, wondering what food I had just ordered, guessing bus and cab fares. But then after dinner, it turns out Xue and Tao and Torben and Erika were all taking the same train to Kunming: the former because they live there, the latter because they want to see the border with Vietnam. Since Kunming is one of the gateways to Tibet, they invited me a long. Nice. Killed about 19 birds with that stone. So, sleeping in tomorrow, the bus to Guilin, then the overnight train to Kunming. Then I'll make travel arrangements to Tibet with local assistance and we'll head up to Lijiang, near Shangri-la, for some more sight-seeing.

It was nice to see the sun today. Perhaps I'll soon see the stars. I saw Venus once, at sunset in Shanghai, but no more. And back into the cold. Lijiang is at 10,000 feet. Good preparation for Tibet.

Wan an,

Dan

Wheeled Fleet Sans Photos

Well, now both my camera memory cards have viruses. I'll try to burn CDs tomorrow morning, and I can maybe transfer from those. This could be kind of lame without pics, but here goes...

After kayaking, the next thing to do is biking! I'm a little along for the ride (ha!) now. As we (myself and my new friends the Chinese couple) come back from dinner Friday night, we run into another couple who Xue has befriended. They are planning on going biking tomorrow too, so we join forces. We'll head up into mountainous hills north of Yangshou, then west to the famous (within China) Dragon Bridge and then south along the Li River, on a trail, through some of the reputedly most beautiful scenery in the area. Then Moon Hill (a photo would be good here) and perhaps one of the several caves. Solo, I had planned on the Li River bit and Moon Hill, so I'm happy to add a little more.

It's a lot easier traveling with people who speak both Chinese and English. They can ask directions in much more detail. I'm also having in depth conversations, which is a change from the previous week and a half, where my human interaction was limited to numbers, buying tickets, and significant looks. I've traveled around the US plenty on my own, no problem. Yes, there are cultural differences in China, but the only real impediment has been language. That's what makes this scary and nerve-wracking at times. The other thing is you realize the power of literacy. I can recognize like one in a thousand of the characters in signs. As for what the signs mean... To be the educated class even just a few hundred years ago would grant such power.

We ride up and up...and up and up. It's beautiful, but I am reminded just how different farming life is from city life. The difference is stark and binary. As we pass through little village after little village, the kids are the best. Everyone starts yelling, "Helloooo!" I pass one family in their courtyard, the grandmother holding a baby, waving its hand, saying hello. I reply, "Ni hao" and get smiles. They seem surprised I can say hello in Chinese. This happens time and time again, with both children and Chinese tour groups. In one valley we rode our bikes through, the primary school was high on a hill. From the time we road into view to the time we disappeared, five-year-olds we're yelling at the top of their lungs, "Hello," their little voices carrying across the valley. I kept yelling "Hello, ni hao" back. Xue says foreigners are still rare enough that we are treated like a king (all the people saying hello), like a rare animal, like a panda. Well, that's less complimentary, but I take her point. Still, the kids are great and so damn cute. 

We into ride Baisha Village. It's like Mos Eisley spaceport from Star Wars. The main intersection has: cars; big buses; little buses; two-stroke tricyle trucks that belch smoke and oil and can make 10 mph on a steep downhill assuming a good tailwind; the equivalent of 18-wheelers, but somehow managing to look Communist; motorcyles; motor-trikes; mopeds; bicycles; tricycles; pedestrians; water buffalo; water buffalo calves; chickens; hand-drawn two-wheel carts, drawn by 70-year-olds; and us, trying to cross it all. All the while, people, people, people: selling, buying, loading the many vehicles, unloading said vehicles, talking, herding children, changing diapers, talking, yelling, eating, living.

We get to Dragon Bridge. I'm sure it was impressive 300 years ago. But it's a nice break. We get hello's from a Chinese tour group, I say ni hao back, and then hear a woman relate the story to her fellow travelers: "*****hello*******nihao**** [nice laughter]." We start down the trail that goes along the Li River. Well, we try to several times. Eventually, we find it. Then lose it. Find it...er, no, lost it. We wend our way through 200- and 300-year old villages, fields, tiny paths between fields, litter-strewn packed dirt streets, fragrant fields, smiling faces, blank faces, kids dodging photos. This is the Chinese countryside. It's amazing. While living conditions are sometimes very sad, the toughness and know-how of these people is mind-boggling.

We leave the Li River valley, and head to Moon Hill. I had read the Chinese prefer food fresh, avoiding leftovers or overly pre-processed food. And here's why: every 200 yards there is someone selling food. Picked fruit, barbecued, wok'ed, boiled, broiled, *unknown* food. We have jingju (small oranges you eat whole, rind and all), large yellow fruit that is like grapefruit without the bitterness, strawberries, potato patties, peanuts, Mandarin oranges, water chestnuts, and I forget what else. At Moon Hill, we stop for lunch, which is good, because my thighs are about to quit. We've done maybe 50 km in hills and on trails. Hangzhou was good, but insufficient, preparation.

Hiking up Moon Hill was a mixed experience. We were besiged by a 69-year-old lady who sells soda and water, carrying them in a cooler over her shoulder. She walked the roughly one mile up 2000 feet with us, step for step. She also knew a decent amount of English. God, I hope I'm so spry at that age; maybe there's something to all the fresh food. The reason the experience was mixed is that vendors latch onto you like this in the hopes of you buying things to make them go away. She stayed attched even after I bought a soda. This is when Xue said I am like a panda. The old lady also really liked Americans because one fellow gave her a small journal so people could write thank-yous and what not. I did too.

Oh, at lunch, I looked sideways at the one meat dish we had and it triggered a...well, I'll just go ahead and say it, a "clairvoyant" memory. A couple times a year, I'll see a scene that I know I've dreamed. This particular one, with the chopsticks reaching into the dish, after the chill or recall passed, I know I dreamed because as soon as I saw the tableau, the dream image came and the memory of waking from that dream thinking, "That was an awfully random thing to dream." (Why the hell was I dreaming about eating with chopsticks?)

We the 10 km back to Yangshuo as night fell, the mountains receding into the grey light. I added navigating Chinese streets at night on a bike to my repertoire of skills.

Dan

Surface Fleet (and Camera Card with Virus)

In the immortal words of Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, "That was a pretty good day." I woke up feeling a little under the weather and so canceled my 9 am meeting for a kayaking trip. But, then I was up, and after watching the town awaken from the rooftop garden, I decided to go anyway. They were kind enough to reschedule for a 10 am trip start, so I had breakfast at the hotel. It was a Western breakfast. It was kind of strange to eat with a fork again, but the fresh-squeezed OJ was a dream.

While I was waiting for the kayaking tour guide to pick me up, a couple was picking out bikes nearby. The woman asked in Mandarin and then English if I was alone. My brain processed the Ni shi yi ge ren ma? (literally "you are one person?") just as she started in English. Yes. After a little discussion with her husband and getting cleared up on what kayaking is by a very bilingual hotel receptionist, all three of us were going. Well, this is a welcome variation.

We are driven into the country to launch. We spent a nice couple hours slowly paddling down the Li River with a stop at a small village for lunch. I am informed that the village is over 200 years old. I reply that that is older than my country to some laughs.

I'm summarizing a lot: the mountains just go and go, and the pictures do not do them justice. The minibus ride back to Yangshuo from where we put out was amazing, through all the small villages on a back road. Then we walked around and I bought some chopsticks and Xue gave me a coupling lessons in haggling (mainly, I just watched her, but I got a feel for the byplay). My intuitions weren't far off. We went out to dinner (my treat, since they had been treating all day - "Going Dutch" is not a Chinese concept). And then out for a drink in the heart of Yangshuo's tourist night life. They taught me some songs. We also sang a few verses of Country Roads (take me home...). We sat on the second story, communicating in a mishmash of English and Mandarin. There was a lot of simple joy in just getting an idea across or learning to say a word just right.

China is a very musical place. A lot of people sing. As we sat on the second floor balcony of a restaurant in the heart of (commercial) Yangshuo, a duo was working the al fresco crowd below: an erhu (think small Chinese cello) and wood flute. Apparently, they were playing a lot of classics; my compatriots (odd to use that connotation given different nationalities ;) would sing a long. My favorite, which Tao would sing while we were kayaking, is Shan Ge (mountain song). It was a nice way to spend an evening.

Speaking of songs, the Bejing Olympics song is still viral. In an internet bar in Tangkou, one person played it out loud, and then people started humming along. For the next hour, someone would randomly start humming it only to get shouted down by everybody. It's a really catchy tune.

(Now that I have a social life, getting all the pictures uploaded is hit or miss. Each picture takes about two minutes on average, when they work.)

EEEEEEEEE

...as in the sound made when experiencing technical difficulties. I think Tuesday in my frustration, I removed my memory card from the wonder that is Windows without first ejecting it. As a result, all my photos are gone. There is a ray of hope in that I took some pictures on the bus ride from Guilin to Yangshuo that show up on my camera, but not on my thumb drive. So maybe an index file is corrupted? I'm going to my other Pro Duo memory stick, on which I had backed up the first two day's photos.

The homesickess began on my last day in Tangkou, with nothing really to do. I think part of it is just getting used to the lack of lights and heat in the daytime. Saves energy, but on dreary days it weighs.

I got out of the cable car down from Huangshan. The guidebook said minibuses run to Tangkou for 10 yuan. Now if I only knew what a minibus looked like. I walk up to a mini-van parked in a waiting area with an open door and a few people in it. "Ni3men qu4 Tang1kou3 ma?" "Qu4." So I hop in. Later I'm thinking, "I don't think this is a minibus." But the folks were nice. One guy asks me a question the length of a Chinese treatise (for me, this means more than four words). I say my standard "I only speak a little." He says something else equally long that I have to apologize at. Another guy gets it though, and starts asking simple questions...well, at least topical ones. He says, "*******piao4liang********?" The only word I catch is "pretty," we're leaving a scenic mountain, and so I say, "Hen3 piao4liang" and people smile. I then add, "Hen3 leung3" and make a shivering motion and people chuckle.

They let me off in Tangkou and point the way to the Bank of China (my landmark, in that I can pronounce it in Mandarin). I start walking down the main non-tourist street, passing farmers selling streetside, then a market, and just day-to-day life in a small town. It's nice to just stroll. Even nicer to be warmer. I walk under a bridge/overpass, and my gut says I should be up there on the crossing road (there's a stairwell), but I continue on a little longer, figuring I can always backtrack. A little further down, happen to glance down a side alley and see the internet bar I had went to before. I actually read the sign! At last.

After lunch, I just sit and read in Mr. Hu's restaurant. I don't feel like going out and looking for another cold, unlighted place. I am being unkind - just writing that reminds me of my moodiness. So I'm sitting and reading, and I look across the way and see a local couple sitting in their first floor business area, just reading the paper and drinking tea. They have their coats on too. And that resets me. This is just fine. It's different, but just fine, and I will enjoy my afternoon like the locals, having a pleasant read and enjoying scalding tea.

As I read, I hear some kids laughing. Kindergarten must have let out. Cute, little rosy-cheeked four year-old girls walk by in that stompity-stomp way kids do dressed in brightly-colored puffy coats. Later, Mr. Hu suggests some activites for the afternoon. I inform him of my pulled hamstring. He suggests a foot massage. Halleluah! That hit the spot. There's just something about being surrounded by several young women, their conversation and laughter, laughing (good-naturedly I believe) at my Mandarin. The woman actually giving me the massage has a good vibe. She repeatedly but gently corrects my attempts, speaking slowly but without talking down to me. Even though we didn't have any deep exchanges, I no longer feel alone. One of the young women takes my backpack (they don't seem common in the area), and struts a little, saying "Wo shi Meiguoren" (I'm an American) in an endearing, playful way, and we laugh.

I catch the 6:40 am bus and get to Hangzhou airport at 12:30 pm. I wouldn't have made the noon flight. My flight, however, is not until 10 pm. I enter a Chinese fast food restaurant with Bruce Lee as the logo. They have two vegetable side-dishes. II get both with rice and a soy milk. am immensely pleased by my ability to do this. I read for a bit and then leave to check in my bag.

In deciphering the departures board, I realize you can't just check-in whenever. You have to wait until your flight shows up at a counter, which appears to be about 2 hours before the flight. I have six hours to kill, and looking around the lobby, there are too few seats by about a factor of three. I quickly switch into Chinese-"scare allocation resource"-mode, see an opening, and make a break for it. I say "Chinese" but I've actually gone into the same mode trying to get a table at Pete's Tea & Coffee in LA on a Sunday morning. The more things change...

My flight is delayed, but eventually leaves. It's a 737-700, fine, but the climb and descent rates are about three times the average in the US - we rocket into the sky, pulling nearly two gees and then on descent we drop like a rock - my ears popping every few seconds. There are mountains around both airports, so that may have accounted for it. It also accounted for my brief prayer as we hit a wet runway in the rain and the thrust-reversers thundered.

I catch a cab to the hotel I reserved the day before online. I spluged a little. But still at 178 yuan, it's a deal. I walk into reception and discover they advertise the room for 598 yuan. There's no way in hell I would have thought to bargain down that far. This http://www.ctrip.com/ website is something else.

I sleep in. It had been a 22-hour day. I catch a cab to a Buddhist temple with an associated vegetarian restaurant. Excellent. I take a little while to meditate in the temple. This is just a temple, no hawking, no tourist trade. There is a shop for religious paraphenalia, and I did stop there to ask directions of a monk. She was good looking, even bald. In Mandarin, I ask where the restaurat is, she points around the corner, I say thanks, and she says you're welcome. I give her a big smile as our eyes meet for a while. I'm probably going to hell for that, but it's these little connections that matter all the more when so little can be said. It happened in Hangzhou too. I was working on a computer that faced the street. A woman on the back of motorbike started passing as I looked up, and our eyes met. We both looked away, but as she was about to leave my field of view, I looked at her again just as she looked back. It's kind of timeless, that moment, and hard to describe: quiet, right, no demands. Makes you understand the saying that the eyes are the window to the soul.

Then, of course, I had my learning experiece of the day. I get dropped off at, well near, the bus station, and as I'm looking around where to go, a guy goes, "Yangshuo?" I say yes, thinking he has a minibus. I really need to break these relationships off when I realize I'm the only one giving : ) As I'm following him to yet another bus, I realize he is a middleman. I overpay by about a factor of four (I'm guessing) as he hails a bus for me. These family-run buses ply the main routes looking for passengers before heading out. I could have stood around myself and flagged one down. But here's the thing I realized as I obsessed about it for five minutes: it's arbitrage. There is a large discrepancy in information, not just of where to catch the bus, but how much it should be. This applies across China as well since there is so much internal migration. Hence, haggling. A similar situation arises on freeways in LA: no one drives by the same rules. I've seen cars merge, cross five lanes of traffic, and drive five mph under the speed limit in the number one lane. In Chicago, you would be run-off the road. But in LA, there are just so many cultures merging (ha!), that such disarray is unavoidable. And though something like 90% of the Chinese population is Han Chinese, backgrounds are nonetheless widely diverse.

After obsessing for a little while, I breathe easy: I have been here so many times before. Whatever, he got me for five bucks. But it did prepare me for this: as I get off the bus in Yangshuo, I am immediately besiged by a guy trying to get me to take a look at his hostel. Great deal. Just look at the rooms. No thank you, Wo yijing ding le (I've already booked a room). But you haven't paid. Just take a look. Why not. For Pete's sake. Having bought a new car and helped a friend do the same, I realize he is not playing by the rules, and so neither will I. Any answer to a question will just prompt a new angle of attack. So I stop answering and just keep walking. This repeats three other times. Upon reaching my hotel, I realize I need to apply reverse-social engineering. Next time I will say I'm meeting a friend.

It's a nice room with a view and the most comfortable bed I've encoutered so far. The mattresses have been very, very...VERY...firm. I'm okay with it, it's kind of like savassana during yoga, which also feels good as long as you lay flat on your back. Having settled in, the guidebook recommends a show of lights and song. I go. It's fantastic. The moutains themselves are lit up, lots of beautiful signing (I got a CD), a little dance. What a great day. Well, almost. I hit Lotus Vegetarian Restaurat. Ahhh. Wood, grey brick, excellent jasmine tea, and reasonable prices. And not to be too metro (too late), I loved the table setting, understated glazes, unadorned but fine wooden chopsticks. It's funny: since Yangshuo is all about tourism, many folks speak English. At dinner, I feel like I'm cheating. And observe: I am unhappy when I can't communicate, and I'm unhappy when I can communicate. Some part of me just really wants to be unhappy.

Walking home, I decline a few offers of sex massages (apparently single males are prime targets), but accept a shoe shine. I tip her, and get a brilliant smile. All these little human connections: I seem to be noticing them more. Tomorrow I am going kayaking down the Li River, and then maybe a bike tour in the afternoon. It's nice to be on vacation! Good night,

Dan

PS Hopefully, posting pictures will resume tomorrow. Yangshuo is absolutely awesome, the mountains mystical.

Interim Report

Back in Tangkou in the wang3ba1 (internet cafe or bar, ba1 is a transliteration of bar, and wang3 means web) that has a spotty connection, or maybe my blogs are getting censored : ) I'll try a few pics, but this may end up being text. Hopefully, I'll be able to post pics tomorrow or the day after. Tomorrow I catch a 6:40 am bus direct to Hangzhou, ariving around 11 am. Then it's over an hour cab ride to Hangzhou airport, and then a 10 pm flight to Guilin (for $80!!). So I probably won't feel like posting when I get to my hotel in Guilin. Hopefully I can find a wangba in the airport, because I'll have some free time. The only other flight to Guilin leaves at noon. I saw on the news (CCTV has an English channel, hurray!) that now that the Spring Festival (New Year's) has ended, the airlines in China are in big trouble. They've received a big bailout and have slashed prices up to 70%. Mr. Hu informed me that my ticket was 60% off.

Start with the end of the day. I'm talking with Mr. Hu and it turns out the direct bus Tangkou-to-Hangzhou only goes that direction. So the route I took getting here was the best. (More worry for nothing.) Then on top of it, I mentioned coming back in the summer so I could actually see the mountains, and he said he could pick me up in Tunxi (where the bus from Hangzhou finishes) for 120 yuan. You may recall from a previous post that I paid 150 yuan...I could have bargained the driver down about 20%, but that amounts to about $4.50. (More worry for nothing.) Mr. Hu also arranged a bargain hotel near his place for 140 yuan, but it is a bit more basic than the Defu that I paid 200 yuan for when I first got here. The extra $10 was reasonable. (More worry for nothing.) Sooooo it seems like the Universe is trying to teach me something but damned if I can figure it out.

Back to the beginning. I slept in the inexpensive dorm room for 100 yuan. I can now sleep through snoring. I just remembered to be like I was in a college dorm. I could sleep through yelling, loud running, door banging, music, other *ahem* sounds, and yet wake up instantly to my gently beeping alarm. I was out late, first dinner in a hotel a half kilometer from my hotel (the guidebook said they had a good buffet - they probably did, but it was all carnivorous), and then I walked through the night to another hotel whose wangba was still open. There is just something holy being alone at night in a wild place. Returning at 9:30 pm to my room, I find my two roommates, professional photographers, watching the movie Juno on TV with Chinese subtitles. The more things change...

I wake up at 5:30 am to try to catch the dawn. I have a broken crampon that I fix by running duck tape around my boot. Is there anything it can't fix? (a broken heart?) I discover I have moderately pulled the tendons of my left hamstring, which will affect my plans for the day. I am headed to Refreshing Terrace, supposedly the best viewing spot for the dawn. I end up at Dawn Pavilion, which is also nice. However, today it should have been called Daylight Waxing Pavilion because that's about all I saw. I make my way eventually to Refreshing Terrace, where I run into my roommates.

...okay, the pictures aren't working. I resume this tale tomorrow or the day after. But in the meantime, a few things I forgot to mention on the hike up Nine Dragon Falls and Huangshan. I'm standing in Nine Dragons Pavilion and I can see three routes forward. The map, which may be graciously called notional, shows one route forward. As I'm trying to guess the route, two men notice me, yell "Huangshan?" "Dui," I reply, and they point the way.

Aside: actually they said "Huangshan" at lightspeed, so it came out "*?" He repeated, "*?" A few seconds later, as if a marine animal rising from the deep at its own speed, "Huangshan" surfaces into my conciousness. So while studying helps, the part of the brain that processes speech is below (above? beside?) the part of me that thinks of itself as me. But if "I" can't penetrate into something as basic as speech, is conciousness the end all be all? Who's to say that "me" might not be down there in the deep too, some part of me beyond the knowingness of conciousness.

I'm fairly peeved right now because I just lost four paragraphs due to this lousy connection. Oh, BTW, as of today at 4:30 pm China Standard Time, I have been on the road a week.

After dinner, I walked out into a rainy dark night on a sidestreet in a small town in China. It was just really cool to do that.

Dan

Choose Your Own Adventure

Last night, Mr. Hu drops me off at my hotel after dinner. Quizzically, he follows me in. A toddler squeals and starts towards him. I discover he is good friends with the family that runs my hotel. We come full circle - what are the odds!? The random cab I catch in Tunxi drops me off at a hotel associated with the roller-coaster-inducing Hu episode!? I get all frustrated with my lack of communication in Hangzhou, and the guy in the elevator asks me about Obama. I get frustrated with the taxi/hotel situation in Tangkou, and the inexpensive, English-speaking, incredibly helpful Mr. Hu is friends with the owners of my current hotel.

You just gotta laugh. Actually, this morning at breakfast, as I was waiting for my magma-like rice porridge to cool to a temperature approaching edible - or at least the flash point of paper - an old woman passing by the window spoke into mind, Jedi-like, "The cosmic sense of irony is strong in this one. Ummm."

By the way, at Mr. Hu's is the poster at right. I've heard the American armed forces are having some trouble recruiting. Get a poster like this!

Mr. Hu picks me up and I drop my main bag off at his place. I purposely brought a smaller bag for day trips. He's driving me to the trailhead (per his recommendation, I'm adding about 6 km to hike by some falls). I'm beginning to second guess myself (who woulda thought) as we're descending quite a bit, but then wow (actually, in Chinese it's "Waaaa"). You must click on this one to appreciate the detail of the valley.

Here's the trailhead. Nice. A little ways in, some of the Chinglish is just so inadvertently insightful, I decied to start calling them Chinglishdom's (sticking wis-"dom" on the end). Turns out I'm hiking through Nine Dragon Falls, one of the locations that Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was shot at (remember maybe two thirds of the way through, right around the sword fight in the bamboo canopy, she floats down a large granite face and alights near a pool?). But click on the sign at left. This translation is "Lie the tiger to hide the dragon." Whoa (er, waaa). If accurate, that's a very, very interesting difference. A greater danger/power - the dragon - is using a lesser, but still threatening power - a tiger - as a subterfuge. In this translation, the tiger is a feint.

I get to Nine Dragon Pavilion, above the falls. There are no dragons. Maybe they should call it...wait for it...Nein Dragon Pavilion (ba-DUND chishhhh. Hey, don't forget to tip your wait staff, you're a lovely crowd.) I'd say I'm sorry, but I'm not. But then, in Falls Viewing Pavilion, I see this mist rising along the mountainside. Amazing: it's a dragon. Humbly, I stand corrected. Below are pictures of Falls Viewing Pavilion from the trail below the falls, the falls themselves, and a lock with a date: this is what lovers leave to mark their moment.




Also from Falls Viewing Pavilion, my first good look at the surrounding countryside. It's beautiful. I continue on. I've come 2 km and there's another 4 km to the acutal Huangshan trailhead. The journey so far has not really been a hike, but a continual set of stairs. And now the stairs take a step (ha!) back a few centuries. I am alone on a mountainside, several kilometers from a road, and now I get to head up cracked, wet stairs on a 45 degree incline. Hurray! But the bamboo forest is really cool. Also, as I crest a ridge, I find tea plants being cultivated. Damn these farmers are tough: Hey Joe, er, Gao Ming, want to plant some tea a good hour's walk from anything else and a thousand feet up to boot?

The dragon mist hearlded a much greater wave of mist that blankets the valley below me. Whew, I think, glad I got above that. A few minutes later as the mist envelopes me, I think: why did I think it was done rising? Eventually, I stop climbing and begin a traverse. I take a break at an opening. Wow. And then, the dragon breathes again.


I reach Yunggu Monastery, which is the top of the Nine Dragon Falls trail, and the beginning of the Huangshan trail. Yes, it's all one trail, but there's a road, and more importantly, separate entrance fees to pay : ). Since there is a road (and a cable car, but c'mon), there are tourist shops. It's 11 am, I'm ready for some lunch, and preferably something warm. Now I know this is a total overstatement, but for once I feel kind of Chinese. I buy two hardboiled eggs (liang3 ge ji1 dan3) from a vendor and a chocolate milk tea (i.e., hot chocolate). It's a good lunch.

Oh for the love of God, the stairs have gotten steeper. After a particularly steep section are some porters and a carryable chair. As the guidebook said, "...for the truely indolent," but you have to admire the porters' grasp of psychology. The clouds thicken, and while I see many sheer spires, pine beclad, fading in and out of the mist, these are the only two good pictures I get (below).

At one of the little stalls along the way that sell umbrellas, food, etc., I buy three apples (one for 5 yuan, three for 10 - I had a ten, she had no change). I just finished an apple, and I'm walking with a bag of two in my hand. An older porter (these guys carry all the stuff up and down the mountain for the hotels on top), is passing, we make eye contact, and then...then three things happen simultaneously. He motions towards the apples, a tight, contracted, self-righteous part of me says "No!" in my head, and I say out loud "Ni hao" (hello). And we're past. I walk on a bit more, and realize this part of me that acted like a selfish child, I've felt it before, at Christmas, right before I made a snide comment to my mother. I turn around and hasten back to find the porter - for Christ's sake, it's a 50-cent apple - but he has made tracks. I proceed to beat myself up for a while. But I'm not a bad person. Beating myself up for this misses the point. There is a part of me that is young, and the only way...way to get anywhere is to bring it into the light and help it grow. Conservation of energy: you can't get rid of (i.e., destory) a part of yourself, you can only love it and let it change into a different type of energy. Now, loving and allowing something to be is not the same as acting on its impulses. But twice now I've tasted its energy and next time, in that small but infinite gap between feeling and action, I'll be kinder.


I near the top. It's cold. The wind freezes the misty clouds onto, well everything, even one of Nature's smallest creations. The one thing I have forgotten is crampons: the stairs are getting coated in ice. Thankfully, at the store at the top of the cable car, I can buy some pseudo-ones.

The top of Huangshan is actually a series of ridge-connected peaks. I first try to get to my hotel. I have a dorm room for the first time. After a wrong turn, I finally get there. Nice. The dorm room,
however, is primitive. Part of me thinks, I'll just get a regular room and spend the $200. But, since I'm resistant to staying in the room - there's nothing actually wrong with it except it is pushing my "I don't want to be poor"-button - I will stay in it. I spend the next couple hours exploring and heading up Purple Cloud Peak in a forlorn hope to catch even a glimpse of something beside cloud and blowing mist. I get some pics I like.


I am warm and dry in my raingear and layers. I stand under an ice-coated tree, eating a granola bar and looking out over a 1000-foot cliff as the wind gusts 40 mph, rain falls sideways, rolls of mist whip over the passes, the spires do their dance with the mist, and the day darkens. I am content.











These two are my favorite. Click on them to see the details. Good night,



Dan