After the harrowing adventure, it was off in the vans to the mythical (though slightly misleading) place of Shangrila, close to the Tibetan border... the home of yaks and goats and some of the most beautiful landscapes in the world. The towering mountain passes and rainbow-filled valleys on the drive were worth the price of admission alone. The next few days were spent eating all the Lhasa food I could fit in my guts while drinking coffee and cycling through the nearby mountain meadows. Shangrila is split between the new and old towns, and although we spent most of our time in the old town, it was an undeniably beautiful area.
After Shangrila, I had to start moving south again. By this point, our numbers dwindled to about 8. However, a couple people headed back south after a day so they could catch connecting flights to other places. The adventurous Luc, along with Denis and Joyce (an awesome girl from Boston who joined in Tiger Leaping) headed to the side of the highway to attempt to hitchhike their way to DeQin, up on the Tibetan border, while Meghan and Chris and Henri headed out of town. Alyssa and I hopped on a bus back to Lijiang (she was catching a flight to Chengdu and I was heading back down to Kunming) so we spent one more night in Lijiang just hanging out, shopping and eating before I caught the miserable night bus to Kunming before flying back to Dalian. The trains are SOOO much better than the buses. People... if you ever come to Asia, avoid the overnight buses. Take trains. Trust me.
I returned to Dalian with heavy bags in my hands and under my eyes. I'm pretty much all unpacked at my new apartment, though, so I'll be uber-comfortable when I return to Dalian. I felt like I was getting a bit of a cold from being overtired and travellign so much, but ignored it in all my Canada-return excitement.
And now I'm here. I'm jetlagged and have been awake before 5am the last two mornings. And I'm sans-voice. The bug turned into a cough while zapped my larynx completely yesterday. So I'm going to be anti-social today in hopes of being able to recover. You all know me... I like to talk. A LOT. So this whole no-voice thing is awful. But maybe it's a sign from above... we all need to learn to do without the things we rely on the most from time to time. I'm just hoping this "time to time" lesson is gone by tomorrow.
Most of you won't read all about this, but that's okay. I posted pictures on FB already and I'll add a couple here in coming days. For now, though, some more coffee and maybe a bit more exercise are calling my name. It's so good to be home. Until next time...
T
The next day was, of course, my 28th bday. It wasn't too eventful (few are these days), but after a day of roaming the city again with Alyssa, we got a big bunch of us to watch the first half of the World Cup game (Hup, Holland! Hup!) then went out to a local Chinese club for some foolish fun where we danced the night away and were mobbed by the Chinese locals who swarmed around us on the dance floor... it doesn't take much when you're the only foreigners in a bar in this country! During the day, we'd recruited a few more people to tag along on our trip to Tiger Leaping the next morning.
In the a.m., our clan of now 12 people hopped in vans and headed to the mountains. I have to say, it was well worth the trip. The valley was beautiful and our group was awesome. Just after we dumped our bags at the beginning of the hike, we happened to find a wayward traveller, Loik (Luc), a cool guy from Switzerland who couldn't seem to find the trail head. Luckily, there was a local nearby that helped us find the way. So with our slightly larger group, we headed up the trail. The rest of the day was spent snapping photos, talking, sweating, and stopping for snacks along the way. After lunch, Luc and I got into high gear and the two of us tore up the rest of the trail. I knew that cold drinks and solace from the hot sun were ahead, so we took off and were rewarded with the coldest bottles in the place. La dolce vita!!
As a group, we sat around for dinner and traded stories. One of the additions to the group, Henri (from Montreal who works in Hong Kong) entertained us with his adventures as a male, uhhhh... dancer, and about his crazy life in Hong Kong. Looking out onto the valley as the sun dropped over the mountains, we all just took in the amazing views. Even our room looked over the valley. Not bad for the equivalent of $5/person for a room!
The next day was beautiful again. After breakfast and about an hour on the trail, Chris (Meaghan's friend from San Fran) decided that me and Denis (Russian guy who's studying in Shanghai) should join him to trot off trail for a little while to check out the peak. Such an innocent suggestion hooked me, so off we went up a goat trail.
Things didn't really go to plan so well though.
After a bunch of switchbacks and what seemed like endless peaks that ran up and up and up, we weren't sure what to do. So, we all decided we'd just follow a road we'd found for a couple more minutes. Then, we heard a vehicle! I was thinking we'd go back down, but nope! It turns out that I was democratically voted out and the two Chinese guys in the Land Cruiser drove us another 1km UP the road!
I wasn't at my best. We kept running into dead ends, kept climbing higher, and couldn't seem to get back to the trail. I was miserable, as my skin got scorched the day before and my legs were still trashed from day one. Long story short, we finally found the trail again 4 hours later, exhausted, dirty and smelling like the goats and mules on the trails. But we made it to our destination, got some food and were back on the road. Needless to say, I didn't really trust Chris with ANY decisions from that point forward.
It wasn't just a simple return, though. There had been a landslide earlier in the year in the gorge, so road crews were rebuilding the road back to the trail head. Well, this meant that hundreds of Chinese guys were more or less working by hand on this cliff edge to fix the roads. Did I mention there were NO guardrails? And that the tires from the van came about 3 inches from the cliff's edge? And that I was in the seat closest to the edge? Ya. Fun. I might've squealed. And shrieked. Maybe. I more or less spent the hour drive back trying to NOT look out the window and talked with Maddi and Tim, the kids of an awesome Aussie couple we'd met during the previous night at the guesthouse who rode down with us.
I'm currently on a plane in the middle of the Pacific. We're about 2.5 hours into the 8 hour flight from Tokyo to Vancouver, and I don't really feel like sleep is going to find me for at least a few more hours. So, in order to be productive (and possibly induce my fatigue a bit), I figured I'd put the time to good use and chronicle the Yunnan adventure. And being in the middle seat among the row of 10 people, I figure that the sleeping arrangements won't exactly work in my favour.
Arriving in Yunnan at the end of June was slightly bittersweet. I said goodbye to my kids on the 27th as the graduated and returned home for the summer. Some were on holidays for a few weeks before returning to the classroom to brush up on their English or other more difficult subjects, while some were off to more exotic locales to travel with their families. I had to return to my apartment to clean up the remaining remnants of my life in Daheishi so I could finish moving my stuff out to my new place in Kaifaqu. I was exhausted from too many late evenings and nights of restless sleep as I got moved, finished out my school year and prepared to come home to Canada for 6 weeks.
I got into Yunnan and was met by the warm rain in Kunming. Even though my friend Becca suggested about 6 places to check out around Kunming, I spent those first two days just roaming the streets, drinking delicious Yunnan coffee (finally, a place in China that actually has good quality coffee available, well, everywhere) and relaxing. The rain also helped to zap my ambition and gave my recently purchased umbrella a good workout.
It was, however, a great vacation for meeting people.
After two quiet days, I was having some dinner and a pijiu as I waited for my train north. As I was doing this, I met a great girl from Minnesota ( I think I've already mentioned my new friend, Alyssa) who was heading north as well the next night. So, after a bit more talk, we planned to meet up in Lijiang and head to do the main event of my trip: Tiger Leaping Gorge. Off I went to the train station.
Typically on these Chinese trains, I am content to read my books, listen to my music and stare quietly out the window as the landscape zips by. However, I had some good luck and met two teachers from Heinan who were also taking a short post-year trip. Between their limited English and my extremely limited Chinese, the three of us talked all about our teaching years and about China and about plans for Yunnan. We ended up having quite the captive audience, as the people around our bunks tried to tune in to listen to the three of us chat. As I muddled my way through the chat (using, I think, every single Chinese word and phrase I knew), talked with the two men until lights out. Upon waking and arriving in Lijiang, they helped me find my way into town and pointed me to my hostel. Awesome.
I arrived at my new home for the next few nights: Mama Naxi's hostel, run by an older and extremely loud/funny Naxi woman who went by the name (as you may have guessed), Mama. She corralled me into the lobby, got my registration sorted and whisked me off to my room so I could shower and nap before exploring the town. It was still only about 9am, so I had lots of the day left.
After showering and getting some breakfast, I happened to meet another awesome Yank, Meaghan, who was planning to do the Gorge hike in the following days as well. So, after talking for about an hour, we decided to explore all that Lijiang had to offer and spent the day browsing the overly-touristy shops and markets and hitting up various restaurants and cafes to make sure I was well fuelled. She was waiting for a friend to arrive from San Fran, so in the meantime she was just hanging out. It also happened to be Canada Day, so I made it my mission to round up a few people to celebrate a little. It turns out there was only one other Canuck staying at our hostel... however, it didn't take long to grab a Scottish guy, an English dame, a Danish girl, two Swiss girls, an Aussie guy, a Polish woman and a couple of Americans to head out for a bit of a fun Canada Day in southern China. This consisted of hitting up an Irish Pub (sooo Canadian) and trying to force-feed our motley crew some Canadiana. I think I was more gung-ho than Lara, my TO counterpart, but I did manage to belt out the French lyrics to O Canada. Thanks, Joce (and Bert Joly?)... I'm pretty sure you taught us that in 4th or 5th grade!
To be continued...