Xi'an, China

Arrived in Xi'an about an hour ago after a 16.5 hour train ride from Chengdu. China is so big now Im getting used to taking transit for 10-17 hours to get places...and I used to think it was far to take the train to Ottawa! A chinese guy in the dorm room Im staying in here was explaining to a girl and I that he didnt see his parents very often because they lived 3 hours away....both the girl and I looked at each other and started to LAUGH. 3 hours? seriously? in china that is like, right down the street!


After seeing the pandas in Chengdu (totally worth it!!) and exploring the crazy backstreets, I spent my last day in Leshan, a town 2 hours outside of town and home to the world's largest sitting buddha! I thought it would be a bit cheesy, but heard it was good to see and it was really impressive! The Buddha is on an island connected to two other islands that were all temples and tombs...one guy explained it to be as "buddha land." I actually even ran into a guy I met in Lijiang and hiked Tiger Leaping Gorge with from Sweden! SMALL WORLD! I decided to save money and skip the tour arranged by the guest house and head there on my own....an adventure too long to list here, but long story short I made it to the train that night with 10 min to spare! (phew!)




The longer I am in China, the more competent I feel travelling around here. I book my own train tickets, take local buses, eat at street stands.... I am getting used to being talked about and laughed at in chinese by people (this usually happens when im eating and trying to order food in the chinese food stalls). Still not quite comfortable yet buying things from the street stalls/shops in the local chinese markets....my experience trying to buy a tshirt for example:
I go into a store and point at a shirt on the wall. The woman working in the store either: ignores me, stares at me then ignores me, stares at me then laughs with her colleague who is also staring at me, or...comes and talks to me! Loudly. In chinese. A whole conversation in chinese. I tell her I dont understand...she keeps talking to me in chinese...i point at the shirt again then at me...she disappears and comes back with a different shirt that is wayy too big....i point at the shirt I want again, then at me...she pushes the other shirt at me. I look at the shirt and gesture for smaller? She speaks in chinese. I nodd no thanks and leave as she follows me and yells something in chinese. People on the street stare at me.

Geez....buying a shirt! I could just go to one of the glossy stores on the main streets with white people smiling in the windows, but the shirts there are 60 Y, versus 10-20 Y in the side streets...I really want to buy cheap knock off shoes in Beijing--we'll see how that works out LOL.

Sooo...today I am chilling then going to see the terracota warriors tomorrow and some other tourist stuff. I plan on climbing Huashan, one of taoisms' 5 great mountains the couple days after...it can be done in one day, but i want to stay overnight on the west peak at a dorm/monistary to see the sunset, then wake up early and see the sunrise from the east peak...supposed to be fantastic (and those that know me know im pretty into sunsets/rises)! Plus now that Im on the last days of my trip I am travelling slowly and enjoying it all at an easy pace...I have had about 5 different plans for these last two weeks, but they have all been trashed now:

plan 1: spend the last week in Korea--no time due to re-routeing around closed roads :(

plan 2: 3 days trekking/horseback riding in Songpan from Chengdu--they wouldnt sell me a bus tickets to Songpan. NO foreign tourists can take the bus to Songpan until june because the roads are too dangerous and they didnt want anyone dieing (apparently one bus crashed last year and that was that). Tried to get around it by bribing a chinese girl to buy my ticket for me, but they said they wouldnt let me on the bus and id lose my money for the ticket...boo!

plan 3: book it to beijing, then take a train to Hohhot, Inner Mongolia and take a tour of the grasslands-- 10 hour train to Hohhot (1 day + 100Y), tour (2 days--500Y), 10 train back to Beijing (1 day + 100Y) = 4 days and 700Y, with two of these being on a train. No way dude.

THE FINAL PLAN: hang out in Xi'an for awhile, then head to Beijing.

Ps--I miss canadian beer.

Chengdu, China

After 10 hours on a sleeper bus and 17 hours on a hard sleeper train I am in Chengdu!

The bus was looonnngg...my seat/bed was not solo, but connected to another one. The guy sleeping next to me was pretty big and the seats were pretty small (china-size) so he essentially slept ON me half the trip! When he got too generous with the space I was all elbows LOL So yeah, not a great sleep. Then straight to the train station to wait in line with thousands of chinese to buy a train ticket. It all went really smooth tho, the lady at the counter was really helpful (by helpful I meant took her time with me pointing to phrases in my phrase book and not giving me the "why are you wasting my time...learn to speak chinese" look and going onto the next person) and I ended up getting on the train at noon no problem!

I am getting used to being the only white face in the crowd now. I walked through the train looking for any person that spoke english to talk too, but nope...i was the only one. So for 16 hours I read my lonely planet, watched chinese soaps and chinese "gladiator." The guy in the bed under me played chinese pop music on his phone and I think half the train was smoking the entire way (one guy was even smoking under the NO SMOKING sign lol) The squat toilet in the bathroom had a little handle on the wall, which turned out to be very helpful during corners!

Chengdu is awesome! Mostly because it is warm LOL I was in a tshirt walking around today and seriously, I am so happy to not be freezing! Went to the Wenshu monestary, checked out the tea house (super cool), saw the mao statue and the square. Tomorrow I head to the breeding centre to see the pandas with a few people from the hostel and then Ill walk around a bit more to the markets probably...maybe go to the People's Park where people do tai chi and aerobics and play chess.

Ill probably do a day trip to Leshan at some point, then who knows...maybe songpan? Ive had to ditch my plans to go to Korea because of travel issues, so my last stop now is Beijing. Cant believe Im going to be home in less than 2 weeks!

Some quick reflections about China:
-people either ignore me or stare at me and take "secret" pictures on thier cell phones.
-no one speaks english, not even the information people at attractions or bus/train stations. And even when people know you cant speak chinese they will try to carry on a conversation in chinese with you anyway.
-there is no direct travel route from point A to point B by bus.
-stop lights are optional... (actually this is true for most of asia)
-all food comes on a stick :) tasty!
-lines are survival of the fittest: elbows out or hold onto the railings beside you or people will push you aside
-public bathrooms...well....lets say squat toilets dont really flush. its usually poo on poo. plug your nose, lift your pant legs up and dont look down (or hope you make it back to your guesthouse!)
-just because water is in a dispenser in a hostel DOES NOT mean it is okay to drink! I watched them fill it out of the town fountain in Shangri-la. I learned this lesson too late...back on my pills again :( Should have stopped drinking the water when it tasted bad....

Shangri-la, China

Brrr...its so cold here my fingers arent even working on the keyboard! Im in Shangri-la, China right now and and it is probably....umm...5 degrees right now? (maybe less)　Shangri-la is pretty much a tourist trap, but its low season right now because its winter so most of the shops and guesthouses are closed and there arent many people, which is nice after all of the chinese tourists in Lijiang. The town is 3,150km...very easy to get a sunburn and takes a little extra time to climb up the stairs to the Tibetan monestaries, which are really beautiful. Today I went to one with Roy that has 600 monks．．．we watched the monks pray, sat and talked with one for awhile, got blessed, drank holy water and had holy water poured onto my head...

Have been travelling the last week with two guys from the netherlands and two isrealis, but tonight we part ways, which is really sad! We met in Lijiang at Mama Naxi's and hiked Tiger Leaping Gorge together and have been pretty much living together ever since. The guys from the Netherlands are heading to Thailand, the Isrealis are going to Yhongzhou and Im heading back to Kunming to catch a train to Chengdu. My original plan was going to go to Dequin, a small town very close to the border of Tibet, but it is higher altitude and colder than here and I have heard that the town is just a mud pit right now with not much to do, aside from horseback riding and trekking. Im not really into horses, but was really excited about doing the trekking...but seriously, it is so cold here in Shangri-la at nighth I think I would freeze if i were in a tent in Dequin! (memories of Fansipan mountain all over again...)

So tonight I hop on a sleeper bus and hopefully get on the next train to Chengdu! I plan to arive in Beijing April 16th-ish to have enough time to see the city, then head to Korea to party with Tim :)

It was been REALLY hard to find internet here...Ive been told by a guesthouse owner (that refused to let me use his internet) the it is because it is the 50th anniversary of Tibet and they dont want foreigners writing bad stories. There are no internet cafes...you can only get online through your guesthouse that has to give you a special password that gets connected to your passport number so they can track you down.... (As a note, Youtube has been blocked here for over a month with no expected date of return)

Ｏｈ! Everything here in Shangri-la is yak! Yak leather, yak meat, yak yogurt, yak cheese, even yak butter tea! I tried the yak butter tea last night...oh man LOL it tastes like your drinking thick liquid, salty butter! I wasnt going to drink it all, but one of the guys from the netherlands and I bet each other to drink more and more and we finished it off ughhhh but yak cheese and yogurt is tasty :)

Coming home soon...Im feeling pretty ready to come back. Some things Im really missing about home:
-set prices! love to bargain, but really, sometimes you just want to buy water and not spend 5 min haggling over the price
-mustard...and real ketchup...and franks red hot ummm
-dill pickles! salsa!
-black beans...miss mexican everything
-no smoking: in china, everyone smokes and smokes everywhere...its really hard for me in close window buses, especially sleeper buses!

Lijiang, China

I just had a HUGE family meal at Mama's Guesthouse here in Lijiang and am just about to go for a nap, but thought I would update since I think its been awhile since my last post.

Took a 6 hour bus from Kunming to Dali with the french guy, only to find out that we were in new Dali and not old dali city. It was cold and raining and we walked around forever trying to find the bus to old dali. After the french guy argued with some cabs (he was in a tshirt and freezing) we found a mini bus to old dali. By now its dark and colder and we wander the streets looking for Guesthouse #3 listed in LP. I follow the guy for a while, but noticed that we passed the same building twice....then on the third pass of the building I pull out my map and refused to go any further without actually figuring out where we were. So...he said some angry words and left me there and kept going... and that is the last Ive seen of him. Its all for the best tho because I did ended up finding the guesthouse #3 (in the opposite direction) and it was all boarded up! I think I looked really confused standing infront of the nailed up building because a nice chinese guy showed me to another hostel, which was super cheap and really nice! (as an aside, a german guy i met in vietnam that i ran into again in kunming with the french guy and again at the guesthouse here in Lijiang...he said he didnt like the french guy...got a bad vibe and was glad we parted ways)

I walked around Dali for a day seeing the city, then staked out a dirty backpacker hostel called Friends and found a guy from Holland interested in biking! We went on a super journey the next day: he took a bike, I didnt...we waited for 45 min flagging down buses on the side of the highway before we found the right bus to this super small rural village an hour outside of town. There we called a guy who met us and took us to the site of a soon-to-be-luxury-guesthouse where we picked up a bike for me (some girl had gone on a tour and left it there...I was doing the guy at the cycle shop a favour bringing it back) and the guy gave me a big wad of cash to bring back to his friend! Then we cycled 40 km through the country side on dirt and paved roads beside "ear-shaped lake" , through really small wicked villages till we got to a town with a ferry and some famous temple. They made us pay to see the temple to get to the ferry, which was in the same closed area, so we walked (with legs of jelly) up what seemed like a million stairs, saw the temple, then carried our bikes down six flights of stone stairs to the ferry and haggled with the ferry people very unsuccessfully LOL because really.....this is the only ferry...where else will we go? We got on the ferry, which was FULL of chinese tourists and spent the rest of the ferry ride getting our pictures taken with them...

This is something new: TONNES of chinese toursits! And they want to take thier picture with me! Once one asks and takes a picture, literally a line of people (all women actually) form and they put thier arm around me and make a peace sign and get a picture while thier friends giggle LOL I kinda feel like a celebrity! The german guy I met again said that in the forbidden city in beijing he couldnt walk 10 feet without getting his picture taken!

Took the bus the next day to Lijiang and LOVE it here! The guesthouse im staying at is awesome...really a community feel and im sharing a dorm with some great people. Today I rented a bike with a guy that lives in shanghai who is here on vacation and we rode to Baisha and I met the famous Dr. Ho! We chated for about an hour and he took me into his assessment room and felt my pulse, looked at my tongue, felt my pulse again, looked at my tongue again, asked me about my period (??), then told me I was otherwise healthy except my digestion, which is SPOT ON. My stomach has been bad since coming off the mountain....1 night in Sapa and 1 in Kunming of being VIOLENTLY ill...like, well...I wont describe it but the most awful sickness ever ever (again, in the fabulous, unfortunately shaped squat toilet). I didnt sleep at all in Dali for pain and awfullness and my last night broke down and self-diagnosed myself on the internet, found the drug choices for treatment on the internet, found the chinese characters for the drugs, copied them down and set out for the pharmacy when it opened in the morning! Got them no problem and since a couple days of being on the drugs have been feeling much better! (I slept for the first time last night!) Actually, I ended up giving the paper with the chinese drug names to a guy I met here who had the same problem!

ANYWAY....Dr. Ho mixed some powders into a tea together for me...wrote some chinese characters on some brown paper and stamped it with a seal (for customs if I fly), wrapped the tea with the paper and gave me directions of 1 spoonful in water a day to help my stomach and circulation. Everything was free, but I gave a donation to him, had some special medicine tea with his wife, stopped at a side cafe for some Naxi food then biked back to Lijiang.

I will stay one more day here to let my stomach settle and wait out the weather (its supposed to rain for a day or two more) then I head to Tiger Leaping Gorge to trekk for a few days. After this I head to Shangri-la, which hopefully will have less chinese tourists then here and maybe have at least a little tibetan influence LOL If not I will head closer to the Tibetan border to Dequin....apparently tho the roads out of Shangri-la have been closed for awhile (political stuff) and have just re-opened so maybe I will get lucky and will be able to head to Chengdu from there.....

:) Nap time!
Cheers,
Anna