Drokpa Journal

Me again, this time writing from Shanghai, where tomorrow I’ll start my third trip of the season. My previous trip, a 3-week affair, began on April 15th in Beijing. We did our standard routine while in Beijing, with the first full day spent exploring the Great Wall at Mutianyu. This time the trees in bloom added a bit of extra color to the scene. The second day saw us wandering around Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City in the morning, and then boarding an overnight train for the 13-hour journey to Xian.

Xian once again had us catching a bus for the 1-hour trip out to the Terracotta Warriors. We then spent 3 hours simply wandering around to view the various pits and their treasures of Terracotta Warriors and horses. That evening we indulged in a hotpot meal, which is always fun. I tend to go to a local establishment, so it’s usually our group and a bunch of Chinese. We get a couple of large pots of boiling broth – half spicy, half less spicy. We then wander downstairs to select skewers of…well, we usually don’t know what the skewers contain – that’s part of the fun. There are the obvious options such as cauliflower, broccoli, mushrooms, and greens. And then there are the numerous not-so-obvious options. We usually round out the menu with skewers of lamb and beef, a couple cooked fish, and some fantastic Muslim bread. The dinner is usually a highlight, as it’s more of an event than a meal. We finished the evening with some drinks in a quiet bar.

After a free day in Xian we boarded a train late that night for the 9-hour trip to Lanzhou, grabbed a quick breakfast, and then hopped a bus for the 7-hour drive to Xiahe (Tibetan: Labrang). For most this is their first glimpse into Tibetan culture – a shame that it happened to be raining! We hid out in a local cafe while the worst of it poured down, and then ventured out a bit later to walk the kora with some of the locals. I normally start to feel more at home once I get away from the cities and hit the more rural, Tibetan areas.

The following morning we took a tour of the Labrang Monastery, checked out a local nunnery, climbed a hill for views down to the town, and then had a free afternoon for further exploration. I opted to climb another hill where I could simply relax and look down upon Labrang, and then followed that up with some good time spent with new Tibetan friends.

Next stop…Langmusi. As I’ve mentioned before I always like getting to Langmusi. It’s the kind of small, laid-back town that immediately puts me at ease. It doesn’t hurt that there’s a great cafe run by friendly Muslims! I love their food…and enormous portions. While in Langmusi we visited the two monasteries and did a nice little hike in the region. We picked a perfect day for the hike, as we saw all types of weather. It stayed relatively clear and cool through our lunch stop, but shortly after lunch we were fortunate enough to walk through a little snow squall – huge, dry flakes falling through the calm. In no time at all it was over and we were once again witness to beautiful sunny skies. Nice. Some Frisbee with young kids/monks, followed by some basketball with the same kids rounded out the afternoon.

A short drive from Langmusi brought us to a small Tibetan school, with a current enrollment of 12 6-year-old students. It was established by a local guide who wants to see more rural children have an opportunity for education. It was nice to listen to the students recite the Tibetan alphabet, and to sit with them while they read from their school books. A bit of Frisbee in the courtyard seemed to incite chaos, so we left them to the teacher to corral and herd back to class and we set off again, bound for our homestay a short distance away. Unfortunately the rain and snow followed, barricading us in the two rooms and leaving us no alternative but to play various card games – or the Tibetan game sho. The downpour also meant that any trip out to the toilet was a challenge – to say the least. The toilets at the homestay are simply holes dug in a field – an extremely muddy, slippery field after a rain. Actually, the entire rooftop we had to traverse to get to the field was also slippery. Needless to say people were a bit reluctant to keep the fluids flowing in!

After exploring a bit of the village the following morning we boarded the bus for the short trip to Tangkor. The previous night’s precipitation dictated we choose the route we thought would be least likely to be a mud bog. We chose wrong. It actually wasn’t too bad. Last year I spent 3 hours waiting for buses to be extracted from a mud pit, at which point we – and everyone else who had been waiting, could make the slow drive around the problem area and up the pass. This year it happened farther up the road, but the same type of problem. We sat for about an hour, so used the time to create a roadside attraction – Frosty the Snowman, and to wage war on each other with snowballs.

We finally arrived in Tangkor to a less-than-stellar reception…no hot water. No problem – we were told it would be hot in a couple of hours, so in the meantime we went to the school to entertain the kids. This is the school with the 1000 students, and many seemed to remember me from my visit the previous month (but then again, how many tall, bald, white freaks do they see pass through their gates in any given year?!?) I performed my repertoire of stupid tricks, Frisbee tosses, and basketball stunts until I was too tired to continue. I returned to the hotel anxious for the promised hot shower (after all, it had been a few days without available showers) only to find the water was…cold. Ice cold! I couldn’t find any of the staff and so opted for a cccccooooold shower. That was a heart-stopper! When the staff was finally found they went to work once again on the problem, returning a bit later claiming that there was now hot water. Or not. We never did get hot showers. Oh well, there are always days like that in Asian travel.

From Tangkor we drove to Songpan, a place I’d never visited. As it lies close to an extremely popular nature park, Jiuzhaigou, it has been transformed from a sleepy village into a Chinese tourist destination. I’ve learned to loathe places like that. However, at least in Songpan you could get off the main road and into some of the smaller alleyways which have managed to maintain a bit of character. Plus the people we came in contact with were extremely eager to help in any way possible, so that was nice. It’s just unfortunate that idyllic places have been reinvented into something to serve the multitudes of Chinese tourists passing through in their large buses. Places like that also seem to treat the minority locals as nothing more than oddities to be used for making money. I think it’s that lack of respect for the traditional culture that irks me the most.

Anyway, off the soap box. The main draw in Songpan is to hire some horses and guides for the day and head out of town, so that’s what most of my passengers did. They had a great time. I, on the other hand, decided to hang out in town and get to know it a bit better – wandering some of the smaller streets. It also gave the group time away from me, which I’m sure is always appreciated! The beauty of this job is that I do get to go to these places several times, so I can see regions in the various seasons, and I can opt to do activities during different trips. I’ll be back in Songpan sometime in June with another group and so will take the horse trek then.

After Songpan we headed to Chengdu. An advantage of this trip over my standard Tibet trip was that we spent two nights in Chengdu, so early on the first morning we were driven out to the Panda Research Center. They aren’t the most active of creatures, but their black-patch eyes and human-like movements are always entertaining to watch. The extra time in Chengdu meant that I could also finally check out one of the main temples in town, Wenshu. Wandering around the monastic buildings and strolling the paths through trees and around man-made lakes was very peaceful. There was also a great vegetarian restaurant.

From Chengdu we hopped a flight for Guilin and then made our way to Yangshuo. It had been a few years since I’d spent any considerable time in Yangshuo, and it’s definitely changed. The main tourist street now seems to have more up-market shops, and the once quiet side streets are now becoming tourist streets in their own right. Still, Yangshuo is an easy place to lose track of time as there are many good cafes and bars for wiling away the hours.

The first night in town we jumped on a boat for a 1-hour trip on the Li River, admiring the local karst topography along the way. What the hell is karst topography? Basically tree-covered limestone hills and pillars jutting out of the surrounding rice paddies. Very picturesque. At the end of our boat trip was Liugong Village, a quaint Ming Dynasty village that now contains a small restaurant where we spent an enjoyable evening eating a great meal, drinking, and talking. A very nice evening. A short bus ride had us back into Yangshuo in time to hit one of the local bars, so we tipped a few there until the wee hours of the morning.

A free day in Yangshuo gave me the chance to satisfy my curiosity…I went for a Chinese cupping treatment. The Chinese believe that many ailments are caused by a blockage of your Qi, or energy flow. In Chinese hot cupping a glass or bamboo tube is heated quickly over a flame and then suctioned onto your back. The bigger the back, the more tubes attached – mine ended up with 46. You then lie there face down for ten minutes while your skin is sucked up into the tubes. In theory the bad toxins are also being sucked up, allowing an unimpeded flow of your Qi. When the ten minutes are up the seals are broken and the cups removed. What you’re left with is a back that looks like it just lost a fight with either giant leeches or an octopus. You’re also left with free-flowing Qi.

The free day also saw Yangshuo become crazy with people, as the May holiday had begun in earnest. There are three main holidays in China – holidays in which most Chinese get at least a week off from work. Those holidays are Spring Festival, or New Years; May Holiday; and National Day. Travelers in China during any of those festivals generally find a nice place to hole up for a week, as they know that prices skyrocket, hotels will be full, and train tickets will be almost impossible to acquire.

What did we do to escape the hordes? We peddled our bicycles through the rain and muddy fields out into the countryside. After a circuitous route and a few stops during the day, we eventually rolled into a small village, Chaolong, a mere 6 kms. from Yangshuo. Ahhhhhh. There were still some Chinese at the small village where we stayed, but it wasn’t nearly the frenzy that Yangshuo had become. We washed away the mud and then walked over to the cooking school to prepare our dinner. Each of us had a wok, ingredients, and stove, which we managed to use to varying degrees of success. The cooking class was actually quite fun, and gave people some ideas they can try when they get back home. Drinks and numerous games of pool rounded out the relaxing day.

The following day we rode back to Yangshuo, cleaned up, and then relaxed until we once again began traveling at 5 PM – bus to Guilin, overnight train to Shenzhen, walking across the border to the Hong Kong side, train to Kowloon, and taxi’s to the hotel. Whew. That left us with only a few hours to explore Hong Kong before our final night dinner, and we parted ways the following day…trip over.

Once again I had a great group – I’ve been lucky on that front. It was also an enjoyable trip to lead as it highlighted some of the variety that China has to offer. I should be leading the same trip starting in early June.

After my last trip finished in Hong Kong I spent a few days with a local friend while awaiting the arrival of another leader. When she arrived we hopped the 25-hour train to Shanghai and then immediately jumped on the 1-hour train to Suzhou, where we relaxed for a few days. Back in Shanghai we did more of the same – a whole lot of nothing. It was nice. Tomorrow I’ll start a 15-day trip here in Shanghai. It will take me for the first time to see the Kung Fu monks of Shaolin Temple, so I’m looking forward to that.

And with that you can stick a fork in this one, it’s done. Hopefully all is going well in your part of the world, and I’ll catch you from somewhere down the road.

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