The streets of Hanoi were positively swarming with motor scooters, and the sidewalk was their parking lot. There was nowhere to move. We followed the gutter, stepping around piles of garbage and food scraps from a thousand different restaurants. We ate at one of the nicer looking ones--an upscale place named Little Hanoi--and walked away satisfied.
Next day, we set out for our 3 day/2 night cruise in stunning Ha Long Bay, which was less than stunning for us since it was overcast the entire time. Despite the slightly disappointing state of our ship, we did our best to make the most of it. After a half days cruise, we kayaked around karst islands that rose up from the foggy bay. Hyangmi had never kayaked before, but performed remarkably well, applying the necessary force to keep our tandem craft from being broadsided by a cruise ship, when the time came. At sunset, I jumped from the top deck into the water, something our guide assured us "most people did" even though I was joined by only one other. After dark, they fired up the karaoke. Of course. What better setting for karaoke than afloat in a perfectly quiet bay, under a tranquil night sky? The bartender, who jumped at the opportunity to go first, took to the mic with all the seriousness of a professional performer. He was terrible. From the deck, we looked enviously at the other ships, which apparently all had DJ's and dance parties in full swing. Just when we thought it couldn't get any worse, a Vietnamese-American woman we had met earlier--whose speaking voice and various speech impediments made everyone wince when she talked--began crooning a rendition of "Only You". Hyangmi and I just looked at eachother. We might have laughed, had our eardrums not been rupturing on four different levels. After the bartender slipped in a second song, Hyangmi showed them how it was done; belting out a Korean pop song--in tune--complete with improvised dance moves and flair. She did so completely sober.
Day two of our cruise brought us to Cat Ba Island, where we climbed a mountain. Our guide, a local woman named Jiang, did it in flipflops. Afterwards, we boated through a floating village on our way to Monkey Island. The monkeys were in good form, playing, hanging upside down, pulling eachother by the tail, and generally causing shit. The highlight came when a particularily brave monkey ventured out of the trees, snatched a 2 liter bottle of water from an Italian man and, impressively, hauled it to the top of a tree, where he proceeded to bite and smash it, before throwing the empty back down at some tourists. The message was clear enough: this was thier island, don't fuck with them.
Later, walking around Cat Ba town, we came across a man, with a crowbar in hand and thin rope tied around his waist, standing on the side of a cliff, prying rocks loose. Below him, not two meters from a pile of boulders that had accumulated at the cliff's base, a man smoked a cigarette and watched. This is how they were removing rock from a karst in order to make room for a new building. Typical Asia.
That night, in our hotel room on Cat Ba island, I discovered that Vietnamese television is excellent. This came as somewhat of a surprise, since Chinese TV was complete crap. In Vietnam, though, they have it figured out: HBO, MTV, Discovery channel, NatGeo, movie channels, CNN...I even came across an episode of The Wire, a show I've never before seen aired in Canada. Most impressive.
Another thing that's a lot better in Vietnam than China are the trains. Compared to the Chinese trains we'd been on, Vietnam's trains were downright luxurious. Big bunks, clean sheets, a door on the compartment, and, most importantly, Western toilets. Trains in China come equipped with only the squatter-type toilets, the sort that have no seat but a hole in the ground, and require you to take your pants off and remain in a squatting position until you are finished shitting and wiping, an almost impossibly difficult feat for all but the fittest, fastest and most well-balanced shitters, even on stable ground. But to have squatters on a train, something that is constantly lurching from side to side and grinding to abrupt halts, is nothing short of ridiculous. They might as well install toilets that spin at random, or ones that drop live snakes from the ceiling the minute you sit down. I became convinced that the bathrooms (if they can be called that) on Chinese trains all contained hidden cameras, which sent a live feed to some sick reality show in Japan, since Chinese TV would never air anything so entertaining as people trying to squat-shit on a moving train. Give thanks for your Western toliet, a bowl you can sit on, in privacy, and flush whatever needs to be flushed down it, for it is a rare and wonderful thing in this world, it really is.
Monday, December 20, 2010
Thursday, December 16, 2010
The Next Stage
A week before we started, I began the process of sifting through all my music and carefully selecting the tracks that I wanted to take along with me for the trip. Space was limited, so I tried to choose tracks that would suit a variety of different situations I imagined I would find myself in: riding a train through the countryside, cruising over turquoise water, sitting in a temple, or wandering frenetic streets, to name a few. Tracks, I hoped, would compliment these experiences, reflect the places I'd be visiting, and somehow, capture the essence of travel itself.
In reality, things didn't always match up. But sometimes, just sometimes, music and setting would align perfectly, completing the scene as though it had been choreographed. One such moment occurred when, taking off from Beijing en route to Hanoi, my mp3 player stopped. I pushed the display button to see what was wrong, and was delighted to see that it had reached the end of its 455 song playlist, and was waiting to be restarted. How fitting. The end of one journey marked the beginning of another. Our time in China was over, and while we had experienced a great deal during our month here, we were ready to move on. In fact, we already were; flying towards Vietnam at 700kph. The next stage could be started as easily as pressing play.
In reality, things didn't always match up. But sometimes, just sometimes, music and setting would align perfectly, completing the scene as though it had been choreographed. One such moment occurred when, taking off from Beijing en route to Hanoi, my mp3 player stopped. I pushed the display button to see what was wrong, and was delighted to see that it had reached the end of its 455 song playlist, and was waiting to be restarted. How fitting. The end of one journey marked the beginning of another. Our time in China was over, and while we had experienced a great deal during our month here, we were ready to move on. In fact, we already were; flying towards Vietnam at 700kph. The next stage could be started as easily as pressing play.
Beijing pt.II
With the fog blown clear, visibility our second day on the Wall was vastly improved. We started early, hiking forty minutes up a mountainside to reach a precariously positioned watchtower, offering views of the surrounding valleys, snaked with rivers, and the Wall itself, stretching out behind us like a huge stone serpent, shedding its ancient scales. From old to new, distant past to polished present, the wall transformed beneath our feet. Though we'd started alone, by the time we finished, the Wall was populated by hordes of tourists. People lined up to ride a cable car that carried them all of 200 meters to a designated lookout point--no one ventured further. Walking down, I saw something written, in huge Chinese characters, on the side of a mountain. Thinking it might be a dedication to a legendary general who was wrongly executed by a misinformed Emperor, I asked Chenney what it said, but he only replied, flatly, "We love Chairman Mao."
That evening, we checked into a hostel run by a pair of outrageously cute Chinese girls, whose friendliness bordered on flirtation. Giggling after everything she said, one girl showed us to our room, a room that Hyangmi soon deemed intolerable, insisting we leave after only one night.
On our final full day in China we went to the Forbidden City, which, in all honesty, was pretty disappointing. Like many famous places in China, the Forbidden City suffered from rampant touristification. Too many people and too much modern stuff crammed into an otherwise beautiful architectural space. Vendors, hawkers, gift shops, tour guides, trash cans, plasma screen TV's, electric golf carts. All these things only served to detract from the beauty of the site, and remove one completely from the feeling that they were walking through a Ming Dynasty building complex. I'm no expert in tourism, but, would it kill anyone to have some actors (or the staff) dress in traditional Chinese clothing and walk around the place? And wouldn't rickshaws be more appropriate for trucking lazy tourists around in than electric golf carts? Certainly, limiting the number of people who may enter on any given day, or at any given time, has never crossed the governments mind.
We walked through Tiananmen Square on our way back to our new hostel, which was, unsurprisingly, just a really big square. It did, however, have the widest television screen I'd ever seen in it. Two of 'em. Chinese police officers were scattered generously around the square, (actually, you have to pass through another one of those dreaded security check points just to enter it).
After spending nearly a month in China, I'd seen a lot of police officers. They were everywhere. But even after all that time, I still couldn't figure out what it was they did. It seemed to me they just stood, watching over things. Things like statues, fountains, and roads. If anybody stepped out of line, tried to take a photo too close to a fountain, or walked somewhere they shouldn't, the police were quick to blow a whistle and tell them not to do so, and that was it. The police are ever-present in China, standing at attention in perfectly pressed uniforms, ensuring nobody walks on the grass.
That evening, we checked into a hostel run by a pair of outrageously cute Chinese girls, whose friendliness bordered on flirtation. Giggling after everything she said, one girl showed us to our room, a room that Hyangmi soon deemed intolerable, insisting we leave after only one night.
On our final full day in China we went to the Forbidden City, which, in all honesty, was pretty disappointing. Like many famous places in China, the Forbidden City suffered from rampant touristification. Too many people and too much modern stuff crammed into an otherwise beautiful architectural space. Vendors, hawkers, gift shops, tour guides, trash cans, plasma screen TV's, electric golf carts. All these things only served to detract from the beauty of the site, and remove one completely from the feeling that they were walking through a Ming Dynasty building complex. I'm no expert in tourism, but, would it kill anyone to have some actors (or the staff) dress in traditional Chinese clothing and walk around the place? And wouldn't rickshaws be more appropriate for trucking lazy tourists around in than electric golf carts? Certainly, limiting the number of people who may enter on any given day, or at any given time, has never crossed the governments mind.
We walked through Tiananmen Square on our way back to our new hostel, which was, unsurprisingly, just a really big square. It did, however, have the widest television screen I'd ever seen in it. Two of 'em. Chinese police officers were scattered generously around the square, (actually, you have to pass through another one of those dreaded security check points just to enter it).
After spending nearly a month in China, I'd seen a lot of police officers. They were everywhere. But even after all that time, I still couldn't figure out what it was they did. It seemed to me they just stood, watching over things. Things like statues, fountains, and roads. If anybody stepped out of line, tried to take a photo too close to a fountain, or walked somewhere they shouldn't, the police were quick to blow a whistle and tell them not to do so, and that was it. The police are ever-present in China, standing at attention in perfectly pressed uniforms, ensuring nobody walks on the grass.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Beijing pt.I
Our final destination in China--Beijing--was a 12 hour train ride away. Not the longest train ride I'd been on, not by a long shot, but still a substantial amount of time to be confined to a single bunk. During this trip, I observed a man who had brought nothing--not a single thing--to do during the ride. I will never understand these people who don't bring anything to occupy themselves with on a long train trip. They only sit, stare at others, look out the window, and maybe fiddle with their cell phones. Are these people crazy? Masochistic? Stupid? Myself, I come equipped with an mp3 player, four books, and a Nintendo DS. Minimum. As long as the mode of transportation is comfortable, I'm ready for the long haul.
After fucking around at the hotel, (they only had one functional computer, which we waited to use for a solid hour while a chain-smoking Chinese man chatted away on ICQ. [Remember ICQ?] Finally, by switching out the keyboard and mouse of another computer were we able to get online. They then charged us 2 yuan for making a local telephone call), we made it out to a well-known art district, and took in a wide variety of works as night fell, exposing a wounded moon.
For over an hour, we walked in an enormous circle, searching for a famous food street, finding it finally, not 30 meters from where we'd started. There, we found a long line of stalls hung with paper lanterns, each serving up something different. None of it was very good, but with stalls selling locusts, cockroaches, bee larvae, beetles, chicken hearts, snake on a stick, scorpions (available in two sizes!), and centipedes, it was at least interesting. It was also funny. One fat, mustachioed Mediterranean man with a gruff voice bellowed, "Sheep balls!", at people, while, two stalls down, a Chinese vendor asked, "Do you like penis?" to passing tourists.
The following day, under a red sun cut cleanly into the sky, we set out for The Great Wall. Months earlier, I'd booked it as a private tour, a tour I now realized was outrageously expensive for China, but I wasn't going to let that spoil an experience I'd, in some ways, been looking forward to since elementary school. Our guide introduced himself as Chenney, and, after a couple of hours of driving, we had a hundreds-year-old section of the Wall entirely to ourselves.
We hiked along the Wall for 3 hours, some parts recently restored, and others crumbling with age, all the while moving through mountains shrouded in a heavy fog. Occasionally, we'd catch glimpses of lone houses in the valleys, people who'd shunned the nearby megalopolis of Beijing, and decided to somehow scrape it out in isolation. We passed through over a dozen watchtowers our first day, structures of heavy stone rising 2 or 3 stories which served as barracks and storehouses for the countless soldiers that manned the Wall continually; the oldest one, Chenney told us, was built over 6 centuries ago. 600 years. My mind reeled at the number. The tower was standing a hundred years before Europeans discovered Canada, (Vikings not included). The entire continent of North America remained unspoiled for a whole lifetime after the first stones of this structure were laid.
At one point, we had to leave the wall entirely, and follow a trail for some time in order to avoid a military base. I asked Chenny what sort of military base it was, but he only replied, "I don't know. It's secret." "It's what?" I asked, not hearing him. "Secret." Then I wondered, in a country as huge as China, why the military had chosen to set up a base right next to The Great Wall--probably the most popular tourist attraction there was--so close that they had to fence-off a portion of it and force people to walk around. I could only conclude that it must be some expression of communist power; the Chinese military is so badass, it can even close down the Great Wall.
Though the fog limited our view to a few hundred meters, Chenney assured us that, on a clear day, the view was spectacular. Afterwards, we checked into an isolated hotel in a deserted resort town. It was the low season, and we were the only guests. There were no stars that night, only a faint smudge of moon.
After fucking around at the hotel, (they only had one functional computer, which we waited to use for a solid hour while a chain-smoking Chinese man chatted away on ICQ. [Remember ICQ?] Finally, by switching out the keyboard and mouse of another computer were we able to get online. They then charged us 2 yuan for making a local telephone call), we made it out to a well-known art district, and took in a wide variety of works as night fell, exposing a wounded moon.
For over an hour, we walked in an enormous circle, searching for a famous food street, finding it finally, not 30 meters from where we'd started. There, we found a long line of stalls hung with paper lanterns, each serving up something different. None of it was very good, but with stalls selling locusts, cockroaches, bee larvae, beetles, chicken hearts, snake on a stick, scorpions (available in two sizes!), and centipedes, it was at least interesting. It was also funny. One fat, mustachioed Mediterranean man with a gruff voice bellowed, "Sheep balls!", at people, while, two stalls down, a Chinese vendor asked, "Do you like penis?" to passing tourists.
The following day, under a red sun cut cleanly into the sky, we set out for The Great Wall. Months earlier, I'd booked it as a private tour, a tour I now realized was outrageously expensive for China, but I wasn't going to let that spoil an experience I'd, in some ways, been looking forward to since elementary school. Our guide introduced himself as Chenney, and, after a couple of hours of driving, we had a hundreds-year-old section of the Wall entirely to ourselves.
We hiked along the Wall for 3 hours, some parts recently restored, and others crumbling with age, all the while moving through mountains shrouded in a heavy fog. Occasionally, we'd catch glimpses of lone houses in the valleys, people who'd shunned the nearby megalopolis of Beijing, and decided to somehow scrape it out in isolation. We passed through over a dozen watchtowers our first day, structures of heavy stone rising 2 or 3 stories which served as barracks and storehouses for the countless soldiers that manned the Wall continually; the oldest one, Chenney told us, was built over 6 centuries ago. 600 years. My mind reeled at the number. The tower was standing a hundred years before Europeans discovered Canada, (Vikings not included). The entire continent of North America remained unspoiled for a whole lifetime after the first stones of this structure were laid.
At one point, we had to leave the wall entirely, and follow a trail for some time in order to avoid a military base. I asked Chenny what sort of military base it was, but he only replied, "I don't know. It's secret." "It's what?" I asked, not hearing him. "Secret." Then I wondered, in a country as huge as China, why the military had chosen to set up a base right next to The Great Wall--probably the most popular tourist attraction there was--so close that they had to fence-off a portion of it and force people to walk around. I could only conclude that it must be some expression of communist power; the Chinese military is so badass, it can even close down the Great Wall.
Though the fog limited our view to a few hundred meters, Chenney assured us that, on a clear day, the view was spectacular. Afterwards, we checked into an isolated hotel in a deserted resort town. It was the low season, and we were the only guests. There were no stars that night, only a faint smudge of moon.
Friday, December 10, 2010
Xi'an
Throughout my trip, I've been keeping a journal, a paper record of my travels in a book my sister gave me, one peppered with quotations like "The first condition of understanding a foreign country is to smell it" and "Not all that wander are lost." At first, it was a daily journal, and before long, an every-few-days thing, but at the time of this entry--mid November--I'd neglected my journal writing duties rather fully, completely lost track of the date, and couldn't account for an entire day. After that, I vowed to make it a daily ritual, and have since kept up with it about twice a week. So, if anything seems askew, any details misaligned, then this is probably why. That, and I've also had three beers.
We arrived in Xi'an in the early afternoon, the sun blurred behind a heavy dome of haze. Immediately outside the train station, we were struck by the sight of the ancient city wall, a feature that lent Xi'an a quality of character which most Chinese cities lack. The following day, we would ride around the wall on rented bicycles, circumnavigating the old city. But that first day, we visited the Wild Goose Pagoda (or, more accurately, enjoyed it from a distance), got turned away from a history museum (closed by 4?), walked through a football field-sized fountain, and wandered the streets of the Muslim Quarter.
Later that evening, back at our hostel, I was roped into a drunken conversation with a trio of Brits. I'd been seeking a beer and a few quiet hours to write, but was instead bombarded by personal questions, rants, and wild theories that were progressively more difficult to understand. These guys weren't guests, they weren't even travelers (the oldest of them had lived there 9 years), they were merely sitting in the tiny lobby of this run-down hostel, drinking the 5 yuan beer. The youngest of them seemed like a reasonable fellow--the one among them with which I could have a real conversation--but he was unfortunately overpowered by the two older, louder, more bitter and sarcastic men, and hardly got a word in edgewise. Sometime after the third round, the conversation deteriorated to truly toxic levels, and I bid them goodnight.
After our morning bike ride, we caught a bus to the site of the Terra Cotta Warriors, the primary reason we'd stopped in Xi'an. Following a great deal of confusion and backtracking to get our entry tickets (despite the place being visited by hundreds of foreign tourists a day, there was no English signage indicating where to buy tickets, a place we found, finally, a good kilometer from the entrance gate) we eventually got in. The first few buildings we entered ranged from the disappointing (a sparse collection of artifacts, some of questionable authenticity) to the truly bizarre (a giant Terra Cotta Warrior marionette hanging from the ceiling, holding hands with a little girl).
But eventually, we found the real deal--Pit 1--the stadium-sized enclosure housing over 7000 figures: infantry, cavalry, archers, charioteers and generals, every one unique down to its hairstyle and sculpted in a detail that defies accurate description. In one pit, we watched as archaeologists excavated new figures right before our eyes, scooping soil out of a torso, and producing a leg that nobody had seen in over 2000 years. It was like the world's biggest jigsaw puzzle, only all the pieces were broken, buried, and extremely fragile. Complete excavation and reassembly will take decades. The Terra Cotta Warriors completely blew us away.
We arrived in Xi'an in the early afternoon, the sun blurred behind a heavy dome of haze. Immediately outside the train station, we were struck by the sight of the ancient city wall, a feature that lent Xi'an a quality of character which most Chinese cities lack. The following day, we would ride around the wall on rented bicycles, circumnavigating the old city. But that first day, we visited the Wild Goose Pagoda (or, more accurately, enjoyed it from a distance), got turned away from a history museum (closed by 4?), walked through a football field-sized fountain, and wandered the streets of the Muslim Quarter.
Later that evening, back at our hostel, I was roped into a drunken conversation with a trio of Brits. I'd been seeking a beer and a few quiet hours to write, but was instead bombarded by personal questions, rants, and wild theories that were progressively more difficult to understand. These guys weren't guests, they weren't even travelers (the oldest of them had lived there 9 years), they were merely sitting in the tiny lobby of this run-down hostel, drinking the 5 yuan beer. The youngest of them seemed like a reasonable fellow--the one among them with which I could have a real conversation--but he was unfortunately overpowered by the two older, louder, more bitter and sarcastic men, and hardly got a word in edgewise. Sometime after the third round, the conversation deteriorated to truly toxic levels, and I bid them goodnight.
After our morning bike ride, we caught a bus to the site of the Terra Cotta Warriors, the primary reason we'd stopped in Xi'an. Following a great deal of confusion and backtracking to get our entry tickets (despite the place being visited by hundreds of foreign tourists a day, there was no English signage indicating where to buy tickets, a place we found, finally, a good kilometer from the entrance gate) we eventually got in. The first few buildings we entered ranged from the disappointing (a sparse collection of artifacts, some of questionable authenticity) to the truly bizarre (a giant Terra Cotta Warrior marionette hanging from the ceiling, holding hands with a little girl).
But eventually, we found the real deal--Pit 1--the stadium-sized enclosure housing over 7000 figures: infantry, cavalry, archers, charioteers and generals, every one unique down to its hairstyle and sculpted in a detail that defies accurate description. In one pit, we watched as archaeologists excavated new figures right before our eyes, scooping soil out of a torso, and producing a leg that nobody had seen in over 2000 years. It was like the world's biggest jigsaw puzzle, only all the pieces were broken, buried, and extremely fragile. Complete excavation and reassembly will take decades. The Terra Cotta Warriors completely blew us away.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Lost
(I actually wrote this entry in its entirety over 2 hours late last night using MS Word because the hotel internet was down, then saved it in two formats before going to bed. When I came to cut and paste it online this afternoon I found it had been deleted. No hotel staff were able to offer any explanation as to why this was done. Awesome.)
For Buddhists, Emeishan is one of the four holiest mountains in all of China, but for the government, it is just another opportunity to cash in on entrance fees. To reach the summit, you must first take a two hour bus ride, followed by a cable car ride, each requiring an additional ticket. We opted, instead, to hike a trail partway up, one considered to have the most beautiful scenery on the mountain. Unlike Yellow Mountain, which is extraordinarily steep and difficult to access, Emeishan is relatively flat, and has therefore been developed to an almost unbelievable degree. With stalls and restaurants at every turn, it was sometimes hard to remember we were on a mountain at all, and not in the middle of a marketplace that just happened to have a lot of trees around. But the most appalling affront to the mountain came when we were asked to pay to enter a Buddhist temple. The amount they were charging was insignificant, but the fact they were even asking (and this, above and beyond the entrance fee everyone had already paid) was enough for us to refuse and turn away in disgust.
What Mt.Emei lacked in peace, it made up for in beauty and entertainment. Beauty, in the form of old-growth forests and lush ferns, waterfalls and intricate stone carvings, entertainment, in the form of monkeys, mischievous macaques tormenting tourists, snatching snacks straight out of their hands, and jumping on unsuspecting people's heads, much to our amusement.
An unwelcome rain forced us down the mountain and back to Chengdu to catch a train.
You know that annoying (and, let's be honest, useless) process you have to go through at airport security: x-raying your bags, emptying your pockets, walking through a metal detector, being scanned and patted down, gathering your belongings, and re-shouldering your pack? Well, in China, this is the process you have to go through before boarding every last train, subway, and long-distance bus. It's a tremendous pain in the ass, and, unsurprisingly, one that's multiplied when you're carrying three bags and in a hurry to catch a train. However, having been through the process countless times in the past few weeks, Hyangmi and I were pretty much security check masters, slinging our packs off with the effortless grace of Olympic gymnasts, before scooping them up again and gliding past an indifferent x-ray tech towards our train in a single seamless motion.
Since my ticket had already been checked, hole-punched, and checked again before boarding the train, I didn't think it particularly careless when I tossed it onto my bed before helping Hyangmi to reach her bunk. This turned out to be a mistake. Minutes later, I was looking over my sheets, in my pockets, under my bag--I couldn't find it anywhere. No big deal, I thought, maybe they wouldn't even ask to see it again. Shortly after this thought, a train worker appeared at the compartment door, asking to see everyone's ticket. I explained I couldn't find it. They just shook their head and left.
The search began: behind my mattress, under my pillow, on the bunk beneath mine, on the floor. It was nowhere to be found. The train worker returned. Hyangmi showed them a receipt, proving we had bought two tickets only half an hour before. "No good, need ticket." More people joined the hunt. Hyangmi searched high and low, and a Chinese woman began offering suggestions on where to look: under my sheets, in my pockets, on the bottom of my shoes. A man from the same compartment produced a lighter and began searching the floor, pulling out bundles of dirty blankets from beneath the beds.
By this point, word had traveled throughout the entire car about the stupid foreigner who had lost his ticket, and a small crowd had gathered in the hall to watch. The search continued, in vain, the possible places the ticket could be having long run out. The scale of the search was getting entirely out of hand, and the places we were looking becoming increasingly more absurd. People were starting to get pissed off. I was ready to give up, resign myself to paying for the ticket again (at around $40, it was among the most expensive in Asia, outside Japan), it was simply gone. The train worker returned a final time, and, perhaps feeling pity for me for becoming the laughing stock of the entire train, or perhaps satisfied by the extensiveness of our search, allowed me to ride without buying another ticket, suggesting, next time, that I put it in my pocket.
For Buddhists, Emeishan is one of the four holiest mountains in all of China, but for the government, it is just another opportunity to cash in on entrance fees. To reach the summit, you must first take a two hour bus ride, followed by a cable car ride, each requiring an additional ticket. We opted, instead, to hike a trail partway up, one considered to have the most beautiful scenery on the mountain. Unlike Yellow Mountain, which is extraordinarily steep and difficult to access, Emeishan is relatively flat, and has therefore been developed to an almost unbelievable degree. With stalls and restaurants at every turn, it was sometimes hard to remember we were on a mountain at all, and not in the middle of a marketplace that just happened to have a lot of trees around. But the most appalling affront to the mountain came when we were asked to pay to enter a Buddhist temple. The amount they were charging was insignificant, but the fact they were even asking (and this, above and beyond the entrance fee everyone had already paid) was enough for us to refuse and turn away in disgust.
What Mt.Emei lacked in peace, it made up for in beauty and entertainment. Beauty, in the form of old-growth forests and lush ferns, waterfalls and intricate stone carvings, entertainment, in the form of monkeys, mischievous macaques tormenting tourists, snatching snacks straight out of their hands, and jumping on unsuspecting people's heads, much to our amusement.
An unwelcome rain forced us down the mountain and back to Chengdu to catch a train.
You know that annoying (and, let's be honest, useless) process you have to go through at airport security: x-raying your bags, emptying your pockets, walking through a metal detector, being scanned and patted down, gathering your belongings, and re-shouldering your pack? Well, in China, this is the process you have to go through before boarding every last train, subway, and long-distance bus. It's a tremendous pain in the ass, and, unsurprisingly, one that's multiplied when you're carrying three bags and in a hurry to catch a train. However, having been through the process countless times in the past few weeks, Hyangmi and I were pretty much security check masters, slinging our packs off with the effortless grace of Olympic gymnasts, before scooping them up again and gliding past an indifferent x-ray tech towards our train in a single seamless motion.
Since my ticket had already been checked, hole-punched, and checked again before boarding the train, I didn't think it particularly careless when I tossed it onto my bed before helping Hyangmi to reach her bunk. This turned out to be a mistake. Minutes later, I was looking over my sheets, in my pockets, under my bag--I couldn't find it anywhere. No big deal, I thought, maybe they wouldn't even ask to see it again. Shortly after this thought, a train worker appeared at the compartment door, asking to see everyone's ticket. I explained I couldn't find it. They just shook their head and left.
The search began: behind my mattress, under my pillow, on the bunk beneath mine, on the floor. It was nowhere to be found. The train worker returned. Hyangmi showed them a receipt, proving we had bought two tickets only half an hour before. "No good, need ticket." More people joined the hunt. Hyangmi searched high and low, and a Chinese woman began offering suggestions on where to look: under my sheets, in my pockets, on the bottom of my shoes. A man from the same compartment produced a lighter and began searching the floor, pulling out bundles of dirty blankets from beneath the beds.
By this point, word had traveled throughout the entire car about the stupid foreigner who had lost his ticket, and a small crowd had gathered in the hall to watch. The search continued, in vain, the possible places the ticket could be having long run out. The scale of the search was getting entirely out of hand, and the places we were looking becoming increasingly more absurd. People were starting to get pissed off. I was ready to give up, resign myself to paying for the ticket again (at around $40, it was among the most expensive in Asia, outside Japan), it was simply gone. The train worker returned a final time, and, perhaps feeling pity for me for becoming the laughing stock of the entire train, or perhaps satisfied by the extensiveness of our search, allowed me to ride without buying another ticket, suggesting, next time, that I put it in my pocket.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Huge Disasters, Giant Pandas, and Big Buddhas
I'd arranged to be picked up at the airport in Chengdu a week prior to our arrival. We were landing after midnight, and were therefore concerned about finding transportation at such a late hour. I confirmed this with our hostel via e-mail, including our arrival time, date, and flight number, but, come 12:40AM on Wednesday November 11th at Chengdu International Airport, there was nobody waiting to pick us up.
(I had expressed concern earlier that perhaps they would mistake 12AM with 12PM, which I assured Hyangmi was a common mistake, but she dismissed such a thing as being impossibly stupid) We tried to call the hostel, the payphones only accepted Chinese calling cards. We borrowed somebody's cell, nobody answered. We called the complaint line, nobody answered there either.
This went on for good two hours until we finally managed to reach our hostel, which was closed.
Things only went downhill from here.
Suffice to say, it was a disastrous day, and one I don't intend to relive either through writing about it now, or ever.
The following day was a considerable improvement. We started by visiting a mountain in the forest, where rustic gazebos sprang from the side of trees like mushrooms, and a bearded blind man climbed steep stone steps playing an enchanting tune on a bamboo flute. From there, we visited an ancient dam, crossed a couple of rope bridges, and finished things off with an Indian dinner.
Our third day in Chengdu was a mixed bag. Things started well with a visit to the Panda Breeding Center, where we saw Giant Panda adults (looking very hungover, sleeping), sub-adults (eating), and babies (being adorable) as well as Red Pandas (fighting). Every panda has a doctor, a nutritionist, and a keeper. Their meals are prepared in a private kitchen. Indeed, these pandas enjoy better living conditions than the vast majority of the Chinese population.
Next was a trip south to the Big Buddha, a 70m statue carved into a cliff I had been looking forward to seeing for some time. Unfortunately, due to time constraints and crowds, we were only able to see his head and glimpse his big toe before making a mad dash back to a waiting cab. Afterward, we checked into the Teddy Bear Hotel, which thankfully, wasn't teddy bear-themed, but did dish out simple-yet-tasty Chinese. It would also be our base camp for Emeishan, the mountain we would climb the following day.
(I had expressed concern earlier that perhaps they would mistake 12AM with 12PM, which I assured Hyangmi was a common mistake, but she dismissed such a thing as being impossibly stupid) We tried to call the hostel, the payphones only accepted Chinese calling cards. We borrowed somebody's cell, nobody answered. We called the complaint line, nobody answered there either.
This went on for good two hours until we finally managed to reach our hostel, which was closed.
Things only went downhill from here.
Suffice to say, it was a disastrous day, and one I don't intend to relive either through writing about it now, or ever.
The following day was a considerable improvement. We started by visiting a mountain in the forest, where rustic gazebos sprang from the side of trees like mushrooms, and a bearded blind man climbed steep stone steps playing an enchanting tune on a bamboo flute. From there, we visited an ancient dam, crossed a couple of rope bridges, and finished things off with an Indian dinner.
Our third day in Chengdu was a mixed bag. Things started well with a visit to the Panda Breeding Center, where we saw Giant Panda adults (looking very hungover, sleeping), sub-adults (eating), and babies (being adorable) as well as Red Pandas (fighting). Every panda has a doctor, a nutritionist, and a keeper. Their meals are prepared in a private kitchen. Indeed, these pandas enjoy better living conditions than the vast majority of the Chinese population.
Next was a trip south to the Big Buddha, a 70m statue carved into a cliff I had been looking forward to seeing for some time. Unfortunately, due to time constraints and crowds, we were only able to see his head and glimpse his big toe before making a mad dash back to a waiting cab. Afterward, we checked into the Teddy Bear Hotel, which thankfully, wasn't teddy bear-themed, but did dish out simple-yet-tasty Chinese. It would also be our base camp for Emeishan, the mountain we would climb the following day.
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