The 5000 Project

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.