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Sunday December 21, 1997 After meeting a couple of Kiwis who recommended a trip to Dali I made plans to go with a German fellow, Detlef, and his girlfriend, Jo. We booked tickets last night at the hotel and were amazed at how cheap they were. This morning we found out why the tickets were so cheap. We made the 13 hour trip on a rickety little minibus packed full of peasants and their goods going back to the country. Luckily we were the first ones on the bus, having arrived at the station at a bout 0630h, so we got our pick of the seats and selected good ones at the front behind the driver. Once we left the station, 0720h, all the seats quickly filled up and we soon had guys sitting on the engine compartment cover beside the driver. After everyone had thrown their sacks of grain, bags of clothes and bundles of stuff on there as well I was wedged into my seat behind the driver with a water reservoir to my left and sacks and packs and someone's feet to my right. There is no such thing as a non-smoking anything in this part of China much less a local minibus so the first order of business was for all the men to light cigarettes. The usual practice is to hand out smokes to everyone around you before lighting up your own. Since there's always more than one chain smoker in the crowd this ceremony is oft repeated so the cloud of stinking fumes never fully dissipates unless you brave the frigid breeze rushing by outside and open a window. In the unhealthy choice between pneumonia and cancer I chose cancer on the delayed gratification principle. Even so, since the windows on this bus had no functioning catches we kept having to shove the windows closed as they'd rattle open every two minutes or so. I closed that damned window a few hundred times during the course of the journey and vicariously smoked a similar number of cigarettes. All the guide books and maps show a railway link between Kunming and Dali which is supposed to be in operation by the end of 1997; what a welcome respite from the bus that would have been. However, visual inspection confirms that this is a pipe dream; maybe more like the end of 1998 or 1999. The track bed is complete to about 80% of the way and track laid on about half of it but the likelihood of a train running that route anytime soon is low, low, low. As we made out way down the road the vegetation slowly changed to more coniferous trees and hardy plants capable of surviving the long arid winters between the wet seasons. Now is the dry season and the only moisture I saw on the trip was provided courtesy of the little boy across the aisle from Detlef. As his mother held him ankles to earlobes and made gentle "pish, pish, pish" noises to him he let fly with a stream of pee onto floor of the bus, some of which doubtlessly seeped through to fall by the roadside. The only other remarkable things about the ride was our driver's strange failure to use his horn at all, I thought it must be broken, and the fact that my butt was completely sore after about four hours. We stopped for lunch a roadside strip where everyone rushed in for a quick bowl of rice and plate of something. Here we violated the cardinal rule in China, ALWAYS ASK THE PRICE BEFORE YOU BUY. We each had a plate of something and a bowl of rice and were stunned when the guy came around as we were eating and demanded ten kuai each. Since that's about twice what you pay for a full meal at a street stall in Kunming we figured we were being ripped off. I politely told the fellow he was a thief and, after a little fruitless arguing, parted with my tenner but Detlef stood firm and refused to pay more than ten for both his and Jo's meals. This caused quite a scene and afforded us celebrity status for the rest of the trip while the men in the front and the driver discussed whether to go back and turn us in to the restaurateur. They never did, though, so we got see Dali by about 1930h. We checked into Jim's Peace Cafe where I took a 15 kuai per night dorm bed in a dorm with only me while Detlef and Jo took the room with double bed and attached bath for 50, great deals. We had a western meal, the Chinese way, at the Yunnan Cafe before turning in. /mjp ------------------------------------------------------------------ Monday December 22, 1997 This morning was market day 30 km up the road in the town of Shaping so we bumped along on the minibus to check it out. This time I got to sit on a wooden stool in the aisle for the trip. We passed a number of villages were we could see the local Bai women in their traditional clothes and head-dress before arriving in Shaping to the sight of some of the local men butchering hogs by the roadside. The market is a usual tourist destination so the hawkers were eager to foist their wares upon us. If you don't already know how much you're supposed to be paying you are going to get burned because they start off asking 150 kuai for something that they'll really sell for five or ten kuai. If somebody says 150 the natural response is to come back with something like what 50, 75, 30? Unless you say something like one kuai you've locked yourself into a losing battle of alternating prices because they start so high. I got suckered by one woman that way but consoled myself with the fact that the difference only amounts to a few bucks anyway. I find having to haggle for everything very frustrating and, since I don't like shopping at the best of times, it makes an unpleasant experience worse. The worst culprits are these women who wander around with baskets full of trinkets they claim are antiques. The stuff is obviously recently produced and they invariably ask ten times what they'll eventually take. One of Jo's fillings was going so she braved it and made an appointment with the dentist. This consisted of sitting on a wooden stool under a parasol while the "dentist" used a dubious looking pair of pliers and a treadle operated drill to pull out the filling. She declined to have it filled by him even though he had plenty of spare teeth and such laid out on the dirt wooden table in front of him. On the way back to Dali I got the driver to let us off at San Ta Si, the Three Pagodas Temple. My Chinese is getting passable enough for some situations but I can't understand enough to have any kind of conversation. At the temple we again sought a back way in to avoid paying the government entrance fee since we had been warned that there really isn't a lot to the temple. Once inside this turned out to be quite true. The pagodas themselves are over a thousand years old but aside from them there is nothing except souvenir stalls hawking the same junk we had just seen at the market. The only other interesting thing there was a gang of men and women tearing down a part of the temple brick by brick. Safety standards are non-existent; old ladies in slippers carrying baskets of rocks out of a pit on their backs, only two hard hats in sight and these were being worn by guys with sledgehammers knocking down a second floor stone wall onto the sidewalk below. We were a bit surprised when a large portion of it crashed to the ground in front of us. Having escaped death once again we had dinner at a local's restaurant which provided us excellent food for a reasonable price. After Detlef and I had some hot rums at Cafe De Jack and had a well-lubricated discussion of plans to come back to the area and write about the hill tribes. We've decided to make a trip north to Lijiang to trek the famous Tiger Leaping Gorge tomorrow though Jo wants to stay and have her tooth looked at by a dentist who has an office with walls. /mjp ------------------------------------------------------------------ Tuesday December 23, 1997 We took a 25 RMB minibus ride five hours north to Lijiang this morning at 0730h; the journey was the usual fare remarkable only for the lovely mountain scenery as we passed over the range separating Dali from Lijiang. Once in Lijiang Detlef expressed misgivings about leaving Jo behind with Christmas coming up and was going to go back until we stumbled across the bus to Daju parked in an alley way and ready to leave in ten minutes. Daju is the town at the north end of the gorge and was where we planned to start our trek so we got on and paid our 30 kuai (it's more because it's a rough road, they said). Another four hours and the roughest, dustiest journey I've had yet over a former goat track aspiring to be a road and we were in Daju - literally, the middle of nowhere. The 98 km road climbs three arid mountain passes alternating freezing and mild temperatures before descending to the valley in which Daju lies. The bus journey was fairly typical, a shaking, noisy ride testing the limits of man and machine. This bus had a tape deck which was blasting out heavily distorted Chinese pop music - I can heartily say that a good pair or earplugs often can be your best friend when travelling. At one point Detlef signalled for my attention and indicated the gerry can of fuel in the back which had fallen over and was leaking onto the floor; with all the men smoking this didn't seem like such a good thing. Before I could do anything about it one of the guys noticed what we were looking at and, clamping his burning cigarette between his teeth, went back, picked up the can, and stuck it back behind the seats. I looked on in horror wondering whether the initial explosion or the ensuing crash would kill me. We were extremely lucky - the gerry can was filled with diesel fuel rather than easily vaporised regular gas. The feared explosion did not occur and our hero returned to his seat oblivious to the risk he had just taken. As our rattling bus crested the last pass and began its descent, the setting sun, hidden from view behind 5500m Jade Dragon Mountain - whose series of peaks form the south side of the gorge, cast brilliant beams of light from the mouth of the gorge onto the plain below. This was the best view of Daju we had, for things were to take a turn for the worse. The bus conveniently dropped us at the Tiger Leaping Gorge Hotel where it was 10 yuan per bed in a three bed room - dusty and dirty but passable. Besides, the woman in the restaurant could draw us a map of the gorge and get us on our way. Perceiving the menu as a little expensive we decided to check out what else Daju had to offer. This didn't take long since the town really only has two streets and a number of paths. On the other street we found the Snowflake Inn which offered beds for 5 yuan per night, even dustier and dirtier with thinner sleeping mats than the TLG Hotel. We ate dinner at a restaurant for locals where we spent 11 kuai for the two of us. This proved a false economy for when we returned to our lodgings we received a hostile reception from the woman we had deprived of our custom. Boiled water for drinking was unavailable, "We don't have any", and they wouldn't even tell us where the toilet was. Feeling a little paranoid we pulled the third bed in front of the door before turning in although I think it would be more likely that they would send muggers after us on the trail than try anything in the hotel. We resolved to get an early start on the trail tomorrow and put some distance between us and Daju as fast as possible. /mjp
------------------------------------------------------------------ Wednesday December 24, 1997 It was still dark at 0700h as we left the hotel and walked north to find the ferry across the river to the trail head. After a little detour we got directions from a local and arrived at the ferry around 0815h. There were actually two ferries, one on each bank separated by about 150 metres of swiftly flowing green water. Only one problem - no boatman. We were left with no alternative but to wait. An hour later a caravan of mules came down to the opposite bank and we thought we would soon be going until we realised that they were loading bags of rice onto the mules from a stockpile on the shore. We motioned for the guy to come and get us but he couldn't start the motor because the starter crank wasn't in the boat on his side - it was in the one on our side. We waited until 1000h, debating whether to just steal the ferry and take it across ourselves. Deciding it wouldn't do to have more irate locals after us we walked back to Daju to eat an overpriced lunch at the Snowflake where they speak no English and do not draw maps. The proprietor told us that the bus back to Lijiang would leave at 1400h and Detlef decided that he would be on it, wanting nothing more to do with the Daju conspiracy to fleece foreigners. At 1100h we made another bid for the ferry but were intercepted on our way there by a guy who promised to take us to the other ferry. This guy was dirt poor - a string held up his pants and his socks were more hole than fabric inside his dirty canvas tennies. Our man guided us down a path to the river about 500 metres upstream from where we had previously waited. Sure enough, there was a rowboat on the other shore and, typically, no boatman. Ten minutes of shouting brought no signs of life and when our guide demanded 20 yuan for his trouble I told him he was not getting anything because the boatman was not coming and he had wasted our time. We walked back to the TLG Hotel to catch the bus but by 1420h realised we had a problem. Turns out that today the 1400h bus left at noon - this did not make Detlef happy. He decided we would hitch out of Daju or walk to Lijiang so we began to walk up the road out of town. A complete absence of rides made hitching fruitless and we wisely conceded that walking to Lijiang was probably not a good idea this late in the day. Frustrated yet again we climbed a ridge outside of town for a view of the valley. From this vantage point we had an excellent view of the trail on the other side of the river - so close, yet so far. Above the trail was a rectangular village of evenly spaced houses we later found out had been built to house Tibetans who had lost there homes in a big earthquake here in 1996. We walked back to Daju and bought tickets for the morning bus back to Lijiang. Having read stories of muggings in the trail I was reluctant to do it solo, especially after having made so many friends in Daju. We resigned ourselves to a second night in Daju. After the woman at the Snowflake refused our offer of four kuai per bed (why we would quibble over 20 cents I don't know) we found ourselves back at the TLG Hotel. The manager, Hou Gui Men, denied responsibility for the events of the previous evening but agreed with me that our problems had been because we ate elsewhere. The hotel restaurant is run separately from the hotel by the other woman, Xiao Hua, who, despite her protestations to the contrary, had obviously resented our spending our money elsewhere. Tempting fate yet again we ventured over to where we had eaten yesterday only to find that they would not serve us; we had to eat at the hotel, they said, but could not explain why. It seems some pressure had been brought to bear by Xiao Hua. Giving in we decided to try and make friends with Xiao Hua and see whether her cooking was any better than her manners. Our meal was indeed tasty and Detlef did a fine job of sucking up, showing solicitous interest in every aspect of the cooking process. Xiao Hua was much nicer when making money and after supper she had me read out of my phrase book while she breast fed her young daughter, Anna. As well as an Anglo name Anna had pale skin and round, blue-green eyes. Xiao Hua maintained that Anna was a "Daju baby" but after we were shown the 1995 diary of an American traveller Xiao Hua described as her "very good friend" I had my doubts. The people of Daju are mostly Naxi, an ethnic minority with a matriarchal society in which marriage can be dissolved at will and the man has no rights to the child. Xiao Hua's husband was playing Chinese chess at the next table with another guy and just kept his head down the whole evening, even as Xiao Hua placed her hand on my leg while we talked - poor bugger. I had Xiao Hua teach me a few words of Naxi and she explained how the forms of address are different from a woman to a man, e.g. "Where is my drink?" than from a man to a woman, e.g. "Could I please have a drink." Tearing ourselves away from this warm domestic scene we returned to our room to rest for our 0730h departure. /mjp ------------------------------------------------------------------ Thursday December 25, 1997 The faint glow of approaching dawn tinged the black, star-filled sky as Detlef and I waited in front of the hotel for the 0730h bus to Lijiang. We were standing alone in the cold at 0700h because we wanted to make sure that we were in the choice seats behind the driver - single seats on either side of the engine cover where nobody would be leaning on us and the ride would be less bumpy. Since the bus had been parked beside the hotel all night we figured we would be the first there as indeed we were. The bus driver soon showed up but wouldn't let us on; at 0715h he drove into the village saying he would be back. At 0730h the bus came back and it was already half full of the drivers buddies, sitting behind him, smoking. We got on, took our seats at the back and waited until 0750h when we set out once more on the four hour drive to Lijiang. The ride was much the same as on the way up - an average speed of 25 kph over the 100 km route. Our driver seemed to love going slow, even after we got onto the paved part about 15 km out of Lijiang; still, he did get us there in one piece. After hitting the Bank of China for some foreign exchange we took lunch at a local place where Detlef thought he ordered vegetable soup. Instead, he got a plate of peapods. He then ordered rice to go with and received a tiny bowl of the stuff. His bad experience continued as he got charged about twice the going rate for his rice. We got him, cursing the Chinese and their horrible country, on a bus to Dali leaving at 1300h so he could pick up Jo, go to Kunming and fly to Bangkok - he'd had enough of China. I was feeling much the same way myself but refused to let the situation get the best of me; I decided to take one more crack at the gorge but to avoid Daju completely. I walked back to the old town, Dayan, in the centre of Lijiang looking for a place called the Ancient Town Inn which I had been tipped about. While wandering around I ran into a couple of Australians who happened to be staying at the very place and showed me right to the front desk. After half an hour of haggling I couldn't get my way; there were only doubles without bathrooms left and the best I could do was 70 kuai per night. The dormitory at the Red Sun would have to do. The Australians, Len Faigen and Claire Geschelt, where headed out to the village of Bai Sha so I joined them, sharing the taxi fare (60 kuai there and back including two hours in the village). In Bai Sha our driver dropped us at the obligatory temple of Liuli Dan which houses a bunch of old murals on stone tablets which all the guide books say you have to see. They were painted several hundred years ago by the temple monks and are unusual in that they combine Buddhist and Taoist designs and somehow survived the cultural revolution. The murals, dark paint on black backgrounds, are in pretty bad shape and the temple is very dark so my flashlight came in quite handy. Even with the extra light you have to really like old religious things to be impressed. I was more intrigued by the construction of the temple itself which was of interlocking wooden posts and beams. The ceiling and eaves were very intricate and I couldn't see a single nail in the place. Next to the temple is a shop that sells medicinal herbs guaranteed to cure all kinds of things; I tried a few samples and they lived up to the old adage that if it tastes horrible it must be good for you. Leaving the shop we took a walk through the village to take some photos and ran into a few more Australians, Mark and Maggie, on their bikes which they fly from place to place and then ride for local transport. Maggie says she never boxes her bike, just insists that they take it like it is. She's ridden some of the Burma road in western Yunnan and says it's a good ride since the road is not crowded and there is a whole lane for bicycles - sounds too good to be true. Heading back we were intercepted almost immediately by the famous Dr. Ho, also in all the guide books. Dr. Ho is this really old looking guy dressed in blue who pounces on all foreign passers-by and drags them back to his lair where they must drink his secret medicinal tea and listen to his life story. He is listed in all kinds of who's who books and has had numerous articles written about him, all of which he keeps copies of for you to read while you are there. He says he first learned his trade by curing himself using plants and hikes Jade Dragon Snow Mountain for its unique plants. Tell him a few symptoms and he'll mix up a batch of ground herbs to make a tea to cure whatever ails you (yep, even cancer). He never says how much to pay, just leaves it to you to give whatever you think is reasonable. Len gave him 10 kuai for a bag of green stuff supposed to cure sore necks but I can't tell you whether it works or not because they forgot it in their hotel room when they left for Dali. After escaping the clutches of Dr. Ho we briefly watched some old men play a game like bocci before heading back into Lijiang. I booked a dorm bed at the Red Sun Hotel with a view of a fifty foot statue of Chairman Mao, had a shower then joined Len and Claire for Christmas dinner. Also joining us was a young Israeli, Ilana, on holiday from studying Chinese in Tianjing near Beijing. My Christmas dinner was Naxi bread (like a really thick pita), fried potatoes, deep fried been curd chips, and goat cheese with wind cured pork. Next year I'll have a real turkey dinner, I promised myself. We caught the last two minutes of the Naxi Orchestra across the street and then chatted for a bit before heading off to our abodes for the evening. Tomorrow I plan to take the morning bus to Qiaotou and get into Tiger Leaping Gorge from that side. Merry Christmas to all. Tidings of comfort and joy. Fa la la la la la la la la. /mjp ------------------------------------------------------------------ Friday December 26, 1997 Another early morning, up at 0630h to catch the dawn bus to Qiaotou from the bus station down the street. A couple of nice, new buses had the characters for Qiaotou on the cards in their windows but I figured that would be too good to be true. Sure enough, just before 0730h a rattling collection of scrap metal pulled in and I was directed aboard to find only two seats still vacant. I took the single seat over the right rear wheel - the jump seat, so called because you get launched into orbit whenever the bus goes over a big bump. The bus pulled out promptly at 0730h and it soon became apparent that our consolation was to be a quick trip courtesy of the heavy foot of our driver. After about half an hour on the road things got even faster as the accelerator stuck at around 2500rpm. The driver stopped a couple of times to pop the lid off the engine compartment and try to fix it but he had no clue and it would stick again in a couple of minutes. He decided he could control the speed by riding the brakes and shifting gears a lot so we drove that way for a while, careening down mountain roads, sliding around corners then crawling up the inclines. I figured it would only be a matter of time before the vehicle was launched into the abyss so the next time he stopped to try and fix it, after trying unsuccessfully to explain to him that the throttle linkage and cable needed lubrication, I got off the bus to look for another ride. My next ride came along almost immediately. Another beat up old bus, this one a full size one, picked me up, mainly out of curiosity I think for I was not like their regular fares. The other passengers were rural types on their way up the line and two girls were particularly interested in me. I think water must be in short supply up here because everyone wore a coating of dust on their clothes and skin and these girls were no exception. One was very forward and came over and sat next to me, leaning right in. I gave her my Berlitz book to look at and she soon found the "dating" section and began quizzing me on my marital status and plans for later on in the evening. She had soon lined up dinner for the next day as she fed me sugary candies with little surprise inclusions like grains of sand and bits of grass in them. She must have been eating them for a long time since her teeth showed the effects of years of decay. It was with some relief that I disembarked in Qiaotou in the middle of the town's single, muddy street. It took me about one minute to spot another pair of backpackers who looked like they were headed into the gorge. John and Maggie, both British, agreed to let me tag along with them so we went into the Backpackers' Cafe for some lunch where John was astounded to find a Chip Butty on the menu. I'd never heard of such a thing, which turned out to be French fries on a piece of fried bread, but John said they're common in England. After lunch we picked up some trail snacks and headed out, paying our 20 RMB entrance fee at the toll booth just outside of town. We got to know each other a little better as we walked, John revealing that he was a lawyer from London working in Hong Kong for a year teaching English, Maggie a industrial and occupational safety officer in the UK. We continued along the road, following the river for about an hour until we came to a hotel, the sign said "Gorge Rotel", where we stopped for a beer. Refreshed, we resumed our trek along the dusty road. Calling it a road is misleading since it was only really becoming a road. Every kilometre or so there was another construction crew blasting the side of the mountain down and carting it away in baskets to be dumped onto the steadily growing roadbed. The blasting was particularly exciting since we would usually only learn of an impending blast by watching for people running; we quickly learned to run in the same direction. Following the blast we would occasionally hear a brief whistle, I guess someone told the crews that they need to blow a whistle as a warning signal when blasting but they were not too clear on the timing of "warn, then blast". We managed to escape flying and falling rock and found ourselves in the village of Walnut Grove, the "halfway" point of the gorge by about 1830h aided by various signs pointing the way to either Sean's or Woody's guesthouses. Walnut Grove, or Walnut Garden as it's also known, is a group of houses and farms clinging to the side of the gorge a couple of hundred metres above the river about two-thirds of the way from Qiaotou to Daju. Arriving from Qiaotou the first thing we came to is a sign which says "Congratulations You Made It" and "Sean's Spring Guest House". We lingered too long and soon were corralled by a small Chinese guy with one withered arm wearing a ski jacket and warm up pants which were once white, now covered in a layer of reddish-brown dirt, like everything else in sight. A blend of charm and pity led us up the stone-flagged steps and into the guesthouse where we were shown to our completely acceptable doubles overlooking the gorge. Electric blankets were a welcome sight as the temperature, warm enough for t-shirts during the day, fell quickly once the sun set. John and Maggie settled down for a little nap while I went down to check out the rest of the place. There was a guitar hanging on the wall which Sean said was his, I could play it if I wanted. I couldn't figure out how he could play it if he wanted but I didn't ask any questions as I picked it up and strummed for the first time in over a month. Sean's other half, an Australian woman named Margo Carter, soon showed up but turned out not to be much of a talker. We briefly discussed my adventures in Daju before she disappeared into the one of the rooms. As the air soon cooled I went back upstairs contemplating a fine meal before bed. John and Maggie were still resting but I couldn't wait for them, I ordered a whiskey to start, chicken fried rice, and tomato-potato soup. One by one I met Sean's three young daughters as they brought things up the stairs from the kitchen. The whiskey turned out to be a truly foul tasting plum-based concoction which failed to warm me and did nothing for my appetite. This was fortunate, for while the chicken fried rice was quite edible despite unexpectedly containing a large amount of curry, the soup was simply a thin, hot broth with some tomatoes and semi-raw potatoes thrown in. I suppose I should have expected that a soup would not be something likely to be kept simmering on the stove out in the middle of nowhere like this but I was not thinking of that when I ordered from the rather extensive menu. John and Maggie emerged and ordered their food while I was finishing my rice so the only warning they got was against the plum whiskey. Too bad, they found their meals so bad that they didn't even eat them. I, slow to learn, was convinced by Sean that a walnut pie would make an excellent dessert. When this finally came my visions of a steaming slice of sweet, sticky pastry were immediately dashed; my "pie" was a cupcake-shaped jacket of petrified dough encasing a few dry walnuts which I shook out after breaking a hole through the tough integument. Having gotten plenty of exercise chewing my dessert I turned in for a much needed rest wondering what tomorrow would bring. /mjp ------------------------------------------------------------------ Saturday December 27, 1997 At 0730h the village of Walnut Grove was just emerging from darkness although it would remain in the shadow of the 5500 metre range to the north until the sun crested the ridge around noon. Until then things would be a trifle chilly so I made my way down to the kitchen to huddle around the small wood burning stove with Sean's kids and Lisa, the village head's daughter, who apparently was the cook responsible for last night's abominable meals. This morning she was cooking up more of the flat, pan-fried Naxi bread I'd become so familiar with which we tore into pieces and ate with a little yak butter from the larder. As we ate, a scrawny kitten played around by our feet. Margo was cultivating the pet, which was unusual for this area, and caring for it's injured tail, the last inch or so hanging by a thread of skin or hair after having been caught in a door. The girls were mostly indifferent to the cat but watched with interest as I teased it the way one does with kittens - wiggle your fingers a bit and wait for it to go for them. Margo came in from the fields and joined us for a bit of bread while the children sang a song counting the numbers in Chinese from one to ten. After a while Sean came in and made a batch of yak butter tea in a bamboo "pot" by throwing in some lumps of butter, a few tea leaves, salt and hot water. After mixing it all well with a plunger much like a butter churn he strained the broth into a couple of chipped bowls for us to drink. The combination of butter fat and salt was difficult to get used to but I told myself the calories would come in handy for heating my body while waiting for the sun to finally show itself. By 1030h John and Maggie finally poked their heads out, excusing themselves because John's watch had stopped and they thought I had left for Qiaotou early in the morning. They didn't want to risk breakfast at Sean's so we made our way over to Chateau de Woody over on the other side of the village where the food turned out to be much better. John and Maggie proved capable of storing away large amounts of fried potatoes, Naxi bread and the "house special" breakfast sandwich, the Woody, cheese, cabbage, dried beef, and tomato between two pieces of Naxi bread. After breakfast we looked over the accommodations which were comparable to those at Sean's and two-thirds the price. Their kitten was better too, friendlier and with its tail intact. After checking out of Sean's we brought our gear over to Woody's and hiked up an extremely steep trail taking us up above the village towards the peaks on the north side of the gorge. As we made our way up we had to dodge logs hurtling down the slope propelled by tennis shoe wearing "loggers". This explained the trails - the steeper the better to drag the logs down. There was not enough time left in the day to make the summit and it was impossible to determine which of the hundreds of criss-crossing trails would take us there so we rested for a while on a rock overlooking the cacti of the arid highlands and ate some oranges. Soon we were ambushed by a herd of inquisitive goats looking to share our lunch - they were not much satisfied with the orange peels we offered so they eventually wandered off. As the breeze started to come up I began to feel the beginnings of a cold coming on; since just about everybody else seemed to have it, including those responsible for cooking the meals, I had been wondering when I would get it. We descended through terraced plots of bamboo stumps on our way back to the village and met a woman who proudly indicated her four cows - a rich person by local standards. Back at Woody's I had a much welcome shower under warmed water sprinkled from a bucket through a plastic pipe and watering can head. I dressed for dinner and joined the others in the dining room for the evening meal. Two Australians on vacation from work in Laos were there as well - Katy, working in the Oz embassy administering the Australian aid package to Laos, and Angus, a livestock epidemiologist working on contract to help the Lao set up a animal disease monitoring system - and they filled us in on conditions there. A tiny country of 4.5 million people and virtually no GDP, a highly placed government official makes about US$40 per year, it's worth a visit if you don't mind really roughing it. We tried to line up a guide for the morning to get us onto the right trail for the trip back to Qiaotou; instead of walking back out on the low road the way we came in we planned to take the trail high on the gorge wall. The only problem was trying to find the right trail out of Walnut Grove from the many available choices. We were willing to pay 30 kuai for a guide for the first hour of the hike but he would only come down to 50 so we had no deal. We figured we would be able to pick up the trail on the other side of the village anyway so were not concerned. We asked for breakfast at 0700h so we could get an early start and turned in for a good night's rest beneath our electric blankets. /mjp ------------------------------------------------------------------ Sunday December 28, 1997 Arising yet again in the darkness we waited for breakfast to be prepared by our sleepy cook, Mrs. Jenny - presumably the wife of Mr. Woody. After a couple of Woodys and hot chocolates the five of us set out on the road Southwest back to Qiaotou. Angus and Katy were going to walk with us as far as the entrance to the high trail. This was about a half hours' walk out of town, directly after the site of a huge blast where allegedly 1100 cases of dynamite were used to bring down the side of a hill into the bed of a creek draining into the Jinjiang River at the bottom of the gorge. Above the blast site there was a lot of water flowing into the rock but there seemed to be much less of it flowing out from the bottom of the debris several hundred metres down the gully; I wondered just how much our Chinese construction friends knew about hydraulic pressure but did not want to stick around too long to find out. We gingerly made our way across the narrow trail among the dirt and stone leading to the other side where, after about 300 metres, we came to a large painted rock indicating the direction to the high trail. Bidding farewell to the Australians we began our ascent, quickly gaining elevation which afforded us fine views of the gorge and river below. As we climbed higher we passed several small villages consisting only of a few farms at around 2500 to 3000 metres elevation. The trail passed below a lovely waterfall about 25 metres wide cascading down several rock faces before being collected into an aqueduct running parallel to the trail. As we followed the aqueduct around a bend we were met by a herd of goats which quickly bounded over the edge of the trail onto the steep slope beyond, much to the consternation of the young girl who had been herding them from behind. She soon gave up trying to coax the goats back onto the trail and followed us back the way she had came, to another few farms clustered together on the hillside beneath the snow-capped peaks of the gorge. We continued the gradual ascent towards the village of Bo Ai Wan at 3000 metres where we stopped for a lunch of noodles and soup at the "Halfway House". Here it is also possible to get a bed for the night if you are late on the trail and can't make it to Qiaotou or Walnut Grove before nightfall. We had plenty of time so we left the village, following the level trail for a few more kilometres at which point it began rising moderately towards another, slightly larger village harbouring the usual dishevelled looking locals and, notably, some young boys who were interested in getting a pen from us. Having only one pen I made like I was fresh out of pens while Maggie offered them some biscuits. They refused the biscuits so we crossed the ridge out of the village and went around a bend to where the trail rose quickly several hundred more metres through first a bamboo forest then into coniferous forest. The views of the gorge by this point were spectacular; we must have been at around 4000 to 4500 metres for the 5500 metre peaks on the other side did not seem so far above us now. We soon reached the summit of the trail and began the steep descent through about thirty switchbacks and into the roadside village below. Getting through the village was a bit of an adventure since the trail seemed to wind through the back and front yards of several of the houses. Fortunately, the villagers were helpful instead of resentful and we eventually found our way down to the road were it was a short walk to the Gorge Rotel for a cold beer. Soon the setting sun indicated we'd better make the final dash for Qiaotou so we set out once more, aided on our way by a final blast of dynamite 75 metres behind our unsuspecting backs. We reached Qiaotou shortly after dusk and checked into the relatively pricey Gorge Village Hotel which promised hot showers, good food and a warm bed. Well, the food wasn't half bad even though they brought cauliflower instead of broccoli (we have no broccoli, they said after) but there was no hot water and my bed was far from warm. I shivered myself to sleep before too long. /mjp ------------------------------------------------------------------ Monday December 29, 1997 Typically, the Gorge Village Hotel had no hot water in the morning despite their assurances of the night before. They finally explained that there would be hot water by about 1400h when the sun had heated the tank up sufficiently. We grumbled off to the Backpacker's Cafe where we took breakfast before catching the 0930h bus back to Lijiang. That bus qualifies as the worst I've been on yet. A full size job, the bus was fitted with a lot of seats. So many, in fact, that there was only about eight inches of space for legs between rows. It was impossible even for me, a short guy, to sit with my legs in front of me so I was splayed out in a most unbecoming fashion. We kept picking up passengers from the side of the road until there was finally no room left for more - almost forty people filled all of the available seats. This bus had seen a lot of use and the floor was only loosely attached to the chassis, resulting in an unpleasant undulating motion beneath my feet as the lunatic driver careened around corners and over rises at high speed. At least the ride, however unpleasant, was quick - we arrived in Lijiang shortly before noon. I looked around old Dayan, in the centre of town, for an hour trying unsuccessfully to find a hotel that had been recommended to me before returning to Chairman Mao square beside the Red Sun Rising Hotel and Peter's Cafe where I had a couple of surprisingly good burritos. John and Maggie showed up rested and showered and we walked up to Black Dragon Pool Park to take some photos before they met their sleeper bus to Kunming. Afterwards I went back to the Red Sun and showered up before heading for a bite of food and special Chinese herbal tea to cure my cold (bunk). After my meal I crossed the street to take in the famed Naxi Orchestra. The Dayan Naxi Ancient Music Association orchestra is one of those things all of the travel guides advise you experience so I dutifully joined all the other travellers on the circuit and took my place on the long wooden benches facing the moodily lit stage. Under the red glow of the lights twenty five musicians held a variety of instruments of ancient construction. Two young ladies on the fringes of the group were the oddities among the collection of elderly men whose average age appeared to be about seventy; at least four were introduced as being over the age of eighty. The orchestra was led by its president, Xuan Ke, a self-described ethnomusicologist, who also served as the master of ceremonies providing a not-so-brief introduction to each piece in both English and Mandarin. He described the "Dongjing" music used by the educated elite in ancient China as part of rituals and Confucian and Taoist meditations and claimed that it had been brought into Yunnan province from Nanjing by the Naxi people in the mid-16th century. Some of the pieces played by the orchestra are over a thousand years old and two were written in 741 AD. The pedantic monologues of the president were made up for by the sheer uniqueness of the music and the sounds made by the strange instruments. The highlight was a couple of Tibetan pieces sung by a young woman in possession of a truly beautiful voice. /mjp |