An american tourist unmasked

So far in China, I've been able to fly below the radar since I blend in with the local folk. Though I get laughed at sometimes for not being able to speak Chinese, its worth it to not get hassled by touts to buy things constantly. But when we got to Yangshao, my cover was blown. There were soooo many Western tourists there that people automatically knew I didn't belong and the hassling began hardcore.

I came to Yangshao with Stephen, Jamie and Conville, the 3 British guys I met on the Yangzi River cruise. We were looking forward to getting out of the big cities and enjoy some country life and we had heard that Yangshao, just south of Guilin on the bank of the Li River, was the perfect place to see some lovely scenery and laidback life. Boy, were we wrong. We got to Yangshao and headed down to the street with all the hostels and the first thing that we noticed were the sheer number of Westerners, Western restaurants and tons of souvenir shops. Its was insane! After weeks of standing out in the crowd, the guys soon found themselves just as 3 among millions. All the things we've done so far in China have definitely been touristy but the number of Chinese tourists outnumbered everyone else by so much. Not the case here. West Street (where all the hostels were) seemed to be swarmed with touts selling or pushing something. It was worse at night. The entire street was lit up with fluorescent lights and the restaurants were all pumping incredibly loud music or really bad karaoke. It was impossible to sleep!

I wish I could add sound to this picture. It doesn't look that busy but it almost hurt to look down the street with all the flashing lights and loud sounds.

Lots of Western food and beverages in Yangshao. But of course, with Chinese translation. (Leo, this is for you!)

The one good thing of being in Yangshao was of course the food. Me, Stephen, and McKay, enjoying some unbelievably good rice claypots. But we were given this incredibly small table and even smaller stools to sit on, which was totally ridiculous, but we didn't care after taking one bite of our food. Soooo good!!

But luckily we were able to escape it all. The 4 of us decided to rent bikes and cycle around the countryside outside of Yangshao. And it was beautiful. Rice paddies with farmers and their oxen and these crazy rock hills (called karsts) that seemed to suddenly sprout from the ground. Unfortunately, it rained most of the day so we got pretty wet and our pictures didn't really come out. Our tour also included some pretty touristy activities that didn't really have anything to do with our surroundings but were fun nonetheless like bamboo rafting and visiting a mudbath in a nearby water cave. I was happy to do these things but the guys were like kids in a candy shop. But what else would you expect from a bunch of boys? :)

Just look at those hills behind the paddies! They looked like granite covered in vegetation and were so dramatically tall.

A farmer and his ox, prepping the land for the next rice harvest.

They actually gave us water guns on the bamboo rafts. Here's me getting Jamie pretty good. To be fair, they got some good shots in as well. Well, almost as good. :)

We had to wear hardhats in the cave since we had to crawl through some parts. Lookin' good!

Getting pretty dirty in the mudbaths. I refused to get mud in my hair. Hey! Its impossible to get out!

But even going out of town wasn't enough to get away from the insanity in Yangshao. I also ran into Yvonne and McKay, the Canadians from Xian and Chengdu, and they mentioned that they were going to spend a couple of days visiting these villages that farmed these really interesting rice terraces. It sounded like exactly what we were looking for so the guys and I decided to pack up and head for the hills.

We took an early bus up into the Longsheng area to visit the villages of Daxhai and Ping'an, home to the minority Yao, Dong and other groups. These groups have grown rice up in the mountains by using these terraces that were built into the hills over 700 years ago. Its amazing to see how these people have adapted the land around them to survive. The terraces are basically dug into the mountains to create these mini-shelves were rice can be planted. There are so many terraces and they look like dragon scales from far away, hence the name the Dragon's Backbone. The terraces were being flooded in anticipation for the next harvest so with the water reflection, you could definitely imagine a dragon there.

The views were unreal. I still can't believe that they farm rice in these little paddy terraces.

You really could imagine these as dragon scales.

Local Yao women in traditional dress. Its great that they are keeping their traditions alive even though the are only 2,000 Yao people. Maybe its the cynic in me, but I think its partly to sell stuff. Tourism is big business!

We paid 10 yuan each to see the Yao women sing, dance and dress their hair. They apparently have the longest hair in the world. It was cool to see though it made me a little uncomfortable because it seemed like such a spectacle.

The village we stayed at was much newer than this one but its quite a contrast from the big cities I've stayed in.

Staying in the villages overnight was just perfect. We stayed at this hotel run by this really nice family who fed us dinner and even acted as our guide. It was picturesque and it felt so good to fall asleep to the sound of crickets (rather than bad karaoke!). But there was no escaping the touts. A lot of the income of these people come from the tour groups that get shuttled in and they were absolutely relentless in trying to sell us something. But we were able to ignore it long enough to enjoy ourselves.

So after the misfire in Yangshao, we were able to find what we were looking for in Longsheng. But I bet in a couple of years, Longsheng will be just like Yangshao and we'll have to look even deeper for that unspoilt experience!

I'm now in Guilin, waiting to take a 22 hour train (yes, that's right. 22 HOURS) to Kunming. From there I'm heading into Western China to see some more minority cultures and trek the Tiger Leaping Gorge. I can't believe I've already been here for 3 weeks!

Cruisin down the yangzi

So I’m finally in Yangshao after some serious travel after the Yangzi cruise and the internet connection is so good! I know that’s a really lame thing to be excited about but you have no idea how rare it is and how important it is for photo uploads!

I wasn’t sure what the Yangzi river cruise would be like when I booked it in Chengdu because I had met a guy who really disliked it and discouraged me from doing it. But I forged on anyway since I wasn't sure what else I wanted to do. I was also feeling a little under the weather and the thought of planning some other activity was way beyond my capacity at the time. But I'm really glad I did the tour because I met some really great people and saw some pretty spectacular things. I had to take a bus from Chengdu to Chongqing to get to where the cruise actually departed from. Since the boat was scheduled to leave at 8pm, I had some time to wander through Chongqing. Chongqing is actually China's biggest city and probably the biggest in the world with 32 million people. Yes, that's right. 32 MILLION. I can't even imagine how many people that is. But its not really on any tourist's radar since it doesn't have any historical roles or real sights. It really is just a big city with tons of skyscrapers and tons of people.

At least I was pleasantly surprised with the boat. It was a "4-star" boat and I even splurged on first class, which had 2 beds per room. I shared it with this chinese woman who didn't speak a word of English but she was quiet and clean so I didn't mind. Our room had a big ocean-view room and a good amount of space though the ceilings were low and had squat-toilets. The boat was also a chinese tourist boat. We had a tour guide but everyone only spoke Mandarin so it was a bit bewildering sometimes to figure out what we were doing or why. The best part though was the outside deck where we could admire the scenery and pass the time. I also met these 2 Dutch people, Suzanne and Frans, and 3 Brit guys, Stephen, Jamie and Conville, and we had some pretty good laughs.

Not our boat but ours was just like this. And you wonder why its so hazy here all the time.

The first day, we went to the City of Ghosts, which is an old buddhist temple that had crazy statues of demons and spirits. It was definitely interesting to see these grotesque statues in a temple very different that any other I've seen. The weirdest part of it was how kitsch-y the Chinese have made it. The Chinese don't seem to have the same respect for preserving the historical dignity of its sights but actually like to make them into these crazy spectacles. After seeing some of the old temple, we were ushered into this sort of haunted house with mechanical demon puppets and even a rickety amusement park ride. In the middle of a temple!

The fantastical statues of the City of Ghosts.

Within the temples, they had statues of buddhas and these. Pretty frightening.

We went everywhere as part of a Chinese tour group though we had no idea what the guide was saying. But we did take a classic Chinese tour picture. We finally were part of the hat people!

Mechanical puppets in the City of Ghost. Does this make sense to anyone else?

It was just like the haunted houses I used to go to in high school.

But of course, the point of the cruise is to see the Three Gorges. On our cruise boat, we passed through the Three Gorges but we were able to also ride smaller boats to see the Three Little Gorges and in fact also rode even smaller boats to see the Three Mini Gorges. It was like those Russian dolls. But they were all so gorgeous. Its easy to see where all those dramatic Chinese paintings come from.

The first of the Three Gorges. We passed the others at 6am and I slept through those. Oops.

The Three Little Gorges. They were so tall and so majestic. It was also amazing to see them upclose.

Me and the guys on the mini boat to see the mini gorges. The guys stood out pretty easily and a lot of Chinese people wanted pictures of them but they took it in stride.

The gorges were very very tall. Even the mini ones.

The last big stop on the cruise was to see the Three Gorges Dam. The Yangzi is being dammed up to provide electricity and water but its going to flood a huge amount of the area, displacing over 200,000 people and flooding hundreds of historical sights. The dam is pretty much built and already at 150 meters or so. Everything was really beautiful, but I can only imagine what it all was like pre-dam. But the Chinese are very proud of the dam, which is the largest in the world. We took a tour of the dam and they really treat it like a spectacle. The dam even has logos and characters like Disneyland. Every stage of our tour brought us closer and closer to the dam. We stopped at first for a panoramic view, then again for a slightly closer view and so on until we finally got to the top of the dam itself. We even stopped at this really weird aquarium! The tour was like going to an amusement park but it was hilarious. We even had to go through intense security screening before going on top of the dam. We weren't allowed to bring anything with us, especially not tissues! Pieces of paper were okay but not tissues. You should have seen the pile of tissues they collected. What did they think we would do with them? Throw them into the river and clog the dam??

Already at 150 meters! But its not going to be completed until 2009.

The Big Dam. It was pretty impressive in how big it is but in the end it looked like a big slab of concrete.

Look at all the Chinese tourists! They built all these viewing points of the dam complete with characters, fountains and manicured lawns. They seemed to be more proud of the dam than anything else.

We had to cross the dam and crossed it through a series of locks. It took hours but it was pretty amazing to see.

Chinese tourists also enjoying the spectacle.

Overall, the cruise was so great. We had tons of time to sit and relax, reading and playing cards. It was interesting though to be on a Chinese tour boat where all the other tourists were Chinese. Our guides spoke very very little English and we spent most of the time confused as to what was going on. But the people I met on the boat were all so great so at least I wasn't alone. We drank many many beers and ate some pretty weird food but it was all worth it. And now I'm in Yangshao, a backpacker hangout in the South along the Li River. Its supposed to be beautiful here and very relaxing so I'm very excited to be here. I'm also glad to finally be in one spot since we spent the last 48-hours traveling pretty much non-stop. The 3 guys were also heading to Yangshao so at least I have company!

Some of the street stalls were pretty fancy. Yum! Though I shouted at Jamie as he ate an eel. And then he spat it out. It was kind of gross, actually. But the rest of the food was good.

The great eaters of sichuan

Yeah, photos! Finally!

Chengdu is another large city in China in the Sichuan province. In all the other countries I've visited, the capital cities are huge but the other towns are small enough to get a good handle on. In China, it seems that every city is like 2 million plus. I just can't get my mind around how many people there are here!

The big draws of Chengdu are the giant pandas and the food. Sichuan food is known for its tongue tingling spice and great variety. The classic food is mapo tofu but there are so many others. I've spent the majority of my time eating through the city and it is so great. Dry-fried green beans, dandan mien, double-cooked pork... I can't rave enough about the food here. Everything from the street food to the banquet halls have such great variety. Eating in Chengdu is bliss. And luckily, I was with Yvonne and McKay who seemed to love Chinese food as much as I did. We walked all over town to make sure we got all the classic dishes.

Some classic sichuan food. I had some other pictures but they seemed to have mysteriously disappeared from my camera.

The other great eaters in Sichuan are the great pandas. This morning I visited the Giant Panda Research Center and they were so cute! They are these huge creatures but sort of roll around and eat bamboo. We saw both giant pandas and the smaller red pandas, which look like raccoons more than pandas. I even caved to tourist pressure and had my picture taken with a red panda. I know, its so touristy but I couldn't resist their little faces!

Me and the pandas. We saw probably around 10 pandas in all, all either eating or sleeping.

Munching away, hour after hour, day after day...

They are so big and clumsy but they are so cute!

A baby panda stuck in a tree.

I didn't realize pandas were so flexible. Well, I guess when you need to scratch, you need to scratch, right?

I had to pay 50 yuan (about $6) to hold this red panda but it was so worth it. He didn't care as long as he had some apple to munch on.

Traveling through China has been great in terms of food and the sights but I have to say that the Chinese people definitely have some unique characteristics. First, they like to spit. Not just spit but make these loud, disgusting hocking noises and then spit on the streets. Apparently, people used to spit indoors as well but that's been largely stamped out. The spitting is gross enough but the hocking is just VILE. The other thing they like to do is push. Lining up seems to be a foreign concept here and people mob everywhere - to buy train tickets, get entrance tickets, order food, etc. I was almost trampled trying to get on the train when some very eager passenger nearly shoved me over to get on before me. I've gotten into it also and found myself elbowing some old lady out of the way who tried to cut in front of me. Where's the humanity?!

Tomorrow I'm heading off down the Yangzi on a 3-day, 4-night cruise. Its on a chinese tour boat so the bathrooms will be basic (read: gross) and nothing will be in English. But its cheap and I even splurged on first-class tickets. Hopefully the bathrooms will be nicer since its only 2 people to a room. As you can see, my bathroom tolerance is very low. But I will let you know how it goes!

Ghost warriors in xian

Okay figured out how to upload photos! Took me hours but check out the last few posts!

From Beijing, I took an overnight train to Xian. I thought Argentinean buses were the top of the line in overnight travel with their deluxe buses but its nothing compared to the Chinese trains. Well, in accommodations, not service. For around $30-40, I can get a bed in a train so I can actually get a full night's sleep. The hard-sleeper carriages have 20 rows of bed that are stacked in 3's. The top bed is slightly cheaper than the middle, which is slightly cheaper than the bottom. The top and middle aren't bad except that you can't fully sit up on the beds. The only places to sit are on the bottom bed or in these fold-up chairs in the isles. But there aren't enough seats so its either cramp over on the bed or sit on someone's bed on the bottom. And the Chinese aren't really concerned about respecting other people's space so everyone seems to share everything. Its a bit cramped and the bathrooms get pretty rancid but I'm just glad I can get a full-night sleep.

Xian is just 10 hours from Beijing so after I got to the hostel and taking a long, hot shower, I still had plenty of time to roam around the city. I met these two Canadians, McKay and Yvonne, so we decided to rent bikes and ride around the city walls. Xian used to be an important post on the Silk Road and used to be a great walled city. The wall (recently renovated) is about 14km long and pretty wide. It didn't take that long but our butts were a bit sore after riding over the bumpy walls.

Walking up the steps to reach the top of the wall.

Bike riding in China rocks! And so many people do it here.

We also spent some time wandering through the Muslim Quarter. Xian has one of the largest Muslim populations in China and the Muslim Quarter contains many winding little streets and delicious food stalls. We spent some time wandering and doing some shopping. For dinner we had some soup dumplings (the English translation called them soup parcels) and mutton-skewers. Its so much fun to wander through the streets and pick out things to eat. And so good! I'm loving the food in China, for sure!

An old Muslim man taking a break.

Walking around the food stalls with the rest of the crowd.

The "soup parcels" were so good!

The next day we went to see the Terracotta Warriors, the biggest tourist attraction by far (they called it the Eighth Wonder of the World). 2,000 years old, the terracotta army was commissioned by the Emperor Qin Shi Huang to guard his tomb. They were discovered in 1974 and are in remarkable shape despite their age. There are over 8,000 warriors many who still had their armor and weapons. They really were amazing to see - all these life-sized warriors with amazing detail all lined up.

Over 8,000 warriors are thought to be in the tomb (a lot is still un-excavated).

The bodies were mass produced but every single warrior has different facial features and expressions. The craftmanship is mind-boggling, considering their age!

The army had all the battle trimmings including horses and chariots (the chariots were made of wood and decomposed long ago).

An archer. Just look at the detail of his armor.

McKay and Yvonne were also going to Chengdu so we took the train together. It was a bit longer than the Xian train (16 hours) but we bought lots of snacks on board. We ate instant noodles and even bought some beer to help the time pass by. McKay and Yvonne were also really nice and we had some pretty good laughs on the train. I will try to upload photos again tomorrow so hopefully you guys can see how great China is!

McKay and me enjoying instant noodles on the train.

Happy Birthday, Dad! I hope you a great time. I'm sorry I missed it but I promise to be there next year! I love you!

The true greatness of the wall

I was a bit wary about visiting the Great Wall because I heard about how touristy and overrun with people it was, which can ruin what is supposed to be a breathtaking sight. So I asked around and found that if I stayed away from Bahdaling, which has an almost Disneyland like feel, I could escape most of the crowds. A lot of the wall has been/is being restored (ie, rebuilt) but I wanted to see the wall in its au naturel state if possible so when I found out there there was a section of the wall that could be done as a day hike, I was all over it.

The hike between the Jinshaling and Simatai sections of the wall is only 6.5 miles but it took around 4 hours to complete. This section of the wall had some restored parts but also some crumbling bits so we got to see a lot of different aspects of the wall but it also made hiking it a little tough. The wall already winds up and down, in some parts quite steeply, but over some sections, we had to climb over using our hands and knees because of the crumbling stone. Some parts of the wall really seemed to be falling apart but I guess its to be expected with something over 2,000 years old.

The other great part of the hike was the lack of tourists. The hike is actually pretty hard (we're talking Inca Trail steep) and I think most tourists go just for the experience of going. But that didn't mean there is any lack of touts trying to sell you things, even on the wall. Its really annoying because you're trying to have a life-changing experience but it gets ruined by some old little lady trying to sell you a t-shirt. They follow the tourists even up to an hour. Its ridiculous. But after South America, I've perfected how to say no, curtly and with the right amount of rudeness, so it wasn't too bad for us.

The wall extends over all those crests, farther than I could see. Unbelievable.

The wall is connected by all these guard towers along the way.

The wall in its natural state, crumbling away.

One of the touts on the wall selling things from t-shirts to beer.

Peering over the (renovated) wall.

Some parts of the hike were very very steep. Actually, most of the hike was like this.

But nothing could have taken away from how amazing seeing and experiencing the Great Wall was. Since there weren't that many people, a lot of the time it just felt like me and the wall. And it is so impressive. I don't think I can really convey how I felt, standing there and seeing the wall snake over the hills for as far as I could see and also sensing the history that spans thousands of years. One of the most moving experiences I've had traveling so far. Its just amazing what humanity can build and accomplish.

Contemplating the wall. You can't help but stand there and soak it all in.

The next on my list is Xian, the jumping point to see the terracotta warriors. I also have my first overnight journey in China so I'm interested to see how it compares to South America. I'm pretty optimistic since I get a bed in a train (rather than a seat in a bus) and its also cheaper! The beds are in bunks so hopefully they aren't too cramped.