The 5000 Project

After an exhausting bus ride, I teamed up with the only foreigner on the bus (a japanese guy) to attempt walking to a hostel from his guidebook. The heat was quite a shock, after the cool highlands of the south, chengdu did not have the high altitude to protect from the heat, the climate reminded me of perth in summer – except with a permanent thick smog cloud.

The hostel was large but impressive. Last time I was in chengdu it was the cold off-season, I paid $1/night for a dorm room, this time around I paid $6 (same fee for all chengdu hostels) during the peak season – regardless of seasons the growth rate of china is immense, I noticed that everything was much more expensive than 3 years ago, in general.

Highlights of chengdu were:
– Being hand fed sheep brain during a night of hot-pot (gas stove inside the table, huge pot on the top for boiling… anything, which we do ourselves). I think the young girl who was hand feeding us really wants to be a mother. The sheep brain was really bad, mushy in texture, pretty much as bad as it looks.
– My other shoe base fell apart, only days after I got the other one repaired in lijiang. I managed to get it re-stitched the same as the other one for exactly the same price… and using the exact same tools…. the guy looked pretty similar too… :O
– I bought a 1 person tent! for $40, yet to be used, better be worth it for that price

The hostel that I stayed in was the cental point for foreigners to find a group of backpackers to share the massive cost of tours and permits to tibet, which averaged at ~$500 per person. Some people were there for weeks trying to find enough people to team up with, else the fee would be even more. Restrictions which the chinese goverment only limit to foreigners, I’m sure they will never change this rule considering how much money they seem to be making off it, unfortunately the more people heading out there would just confirm that they have the correct system in place. Once in tibet, foreigners in the tours are unable to venture out on their own and must say in the scheduled towns and hotels/hostel. The other alternative, which I chose, is to head a little further west to the isolated and scattered tibetian villages inside the same provence.

I teamed up with a german girl and two Israelis (a note: there are shitloads of Israeli tourists in china, most head there straight after their stint of compulsory army) and we decided to head to a mountain range known as the 4 girls (or Siguniang Shan). 10hrs drive and 300kms later and we arrived in a very tiny and isolated tibetian village, my general friendly and random ‘nihow’ (hello in chinese) is actually ignored by the locals in defiance of the chinese occupation, I picked up a couple of tibetian words to remain nice and randomly friendly once again. It was a great town, but extremely cold.

We all planned on hiking to the summit of the first peak, which would have taken us to almost 4.5km above sea level. The first day we took a small day trek through the mountain valley, arriving in the end at a huge clearing of buffalo with epic mountains surrounding the area. Unfortunately the next day, which we planned to start our climb to the summit, was struck with bad weather. This was not all bad, as it didnt matter how isolated we were, there was still a hefty fee to climb and a chinese guide had to go with us adding additional fees which would total to ~$60 – the bad weather was a sign that the spontaneous decisions I was making were not in the good interests of the overall project. The israeli guy decided to stick around for a few days for the weather to clear, the israeli girl headed further west into the border of tibet; and I headed back to chengdu with the german girl, we ended up being great travel companions for the rest of china.

On the drive back to chengdu we passed over a different mountain range and through snow covered areas, my excited talking triggered the driver to stop for a while so I could get out and take photos; unfortunately not enough snow to roll around in like a crazy person, though. For the last leg of the drive we went through a tunnel in which we waited 30min before being allowed to pass through… at the end of the tunnel I understood why. We witnessed the blatant devastation of the 2008 earthquake, the chinese government left the damaged area untouched and moved the townsfolk to different areas of china, rebuilding new towns for them. The damage was so huge, massive powerlines were horizontal, the raging river in the middle of the mountain ravine was actually flowing over what used to be the old highway, scattered in parts with halves of houses and crushed cars. Unfortunately the makeshift dirt road carved into the side of a mountain was so bumpy that I couldn’t capture many photos.

Upon arriving back in chengdu, I purchased a smartphone for $150 (after reading a few reviews and wiping the chinese firmware, replacing it with a much faster and less completely-chinese-characters android derivative) and also fixed up the same one for my german buddy. Shortly after that we took a bus to the highly touristy but truely amazing and beautiful blue lakes and mountains of Jiuzhaigou.

well, as it turns out, I seem to be spamming people with posts instead of trying to strip everything down to a couple of posts – sorry :(

so… here I am in urumqi, the very far north west of china. I may have skipped blog posting for a few locations since kunming, it has been almost 2 months since I arrived in kunming and to be honest – I have been lazy.

Lazy for not writing anything in this fancy blog and also lazy for not couchsurfing when I had the opportunity to. The main issue is that chinese hostels are amazing; theyre clean, comfortable, fun and very cheap. They also get a bit addictive, especially when bumping into the occasional westerner who is heading in the same direction, this is actually the first time during my trip that I have been on my own; and I seem to be at the very end of china, about to approach the most isolated areas in the world.

So, I sit here now, being the only foreigner in the most well known YHA in urumqi. An international youth hostel, with only one international youth (well, old youth). I’m sitting here drinking a $2 bottle of wine that I purchased at the local supermarket, trying to will myself to write about the last two months – while surrounded by heaps of new-age chinese backpackers. I sit here with plenty of time on my hands, yesterday I put through a visa application for Kyrgyzstan and unfortunately because I did not put it through the day before, I will now have to wait two weeks for the visa to be processed; due to next week being a chinese holiday, the entire monday to friday, of which only the wealthy chinese will have the opportunity to have off, and apparently also the kyrygzzttraabfudbians.

Not really sure how to write this post, its bound to be far too long that noone will be bothered to read too much, otherwise I could spam everyone’s facebook and twitter with 5 separate posts. I think its best to just mention the really interesting stuff and leave a more controversial china post for after I cross the border.

So, here’s what happened:

Dali:
Invented a revolutionary pool game with a dutch guy, the game is called powerplay, its a drinking game where you have to take no more than 3 seconds to take a sh…. ah… I’ll leave that for another time.
Dali is a city surrounded by beautiful hills and a massive lake, there is an old town which is half fake, quite touristy. Marijuana grows naturally in the surroundings of dali, you can occasionally see it simply growing on the side of the road.

Lijiang:
Lijiang has a much larger fake town, and within the fake walls of the fake ancient village buildings, are clubs for wealthy chinese tourists, with neon lights and dancing girls. The hostel was very nice, run by ‘mamma’ who is a naxi (not nazi), ethnic minority of the area; she (and her kitchen employees) prepared a huge communal feast for dinner every night for only $3. In this hostel I met an awesome group of backpackers, together we all headed out to the ‘tiger leaping gorge’ which is a steep trek through a giant mountain range, from the top we were 3000mtrs above sea level, looking up at mountains that were 5000mtrs – we were unable to see the top, shrouded by thick clouds. This amazing trek took two days, the first night we stayed in a hostel at the half-way point, with mountain views even from the toilet.

Tiger Leaping gorge is the first tourist location in china I have been to where the entry fee was very cheap and there are almost no chinese tourists. You see, the chinese have a fee for everything; mountains, hills, scenic walks and even beaches. Although when there is something that involves a bit of effort and doesn’t have a chairlift or cablecar to get up there, suddenly the fee is halved and the walk is peaceful and void of chinese tourists. The eventful part of this trip was the two irish guys and a chinese girl skinny dipping in one of the huge waterfalls along the way (unfortunately I wasnt with them at the time, I would have joined in I’m sure).

In lijiang one of my shoes split all around the base, I managed to get a boot..smith from the old town to hand stitch the base back together for only $1.20. The shoe still feels as good as new 1.5months on. I also got my jeans and jumper patched up nicely, now wouldnt it be nice to get to london with the same clothes, covered in patches – authentic! – I also bought a huuge russian jacket with a fur underlay for $12, a canadian backpacker found a russian fur hat to go with it during a bike ride, which he gave to me. I’m now well prepared for the true cold that awaits.

Lijiang food involved yak meat on a skewer and deep fried insects of all different types, remarkably tasty. Due to another chinese holiday, I had to stick around lijiang for a week longer in order to get a bus out to chengdu, a 24hr bus which I told myself last time I will never take again.

Alright, I need to stop typing – I have already typed 871 words, I’ll leave the rest of china for another post.