At last, I have sat down to write about my trip to Yunnan Province. Alec and I spent 9 days traveling, stretching our trip from the day after classes ended until the day before they restarted (上课！）. It was an amazing trip, and we were able to experience many different parts of China in four cities that were nothing like Shanghai. I have broken the trip into a daily diary.

Saturday, July 15

I spent the previous night in Alec's apartment, so we would be able to wake up early and buy some last minute items (that turned out to be very valuable) and then head to the airport. We walked a ways down Xuanhua Lu to nice outdoor store, where we bought some 'just in case' items such as matches, hats, and rain ponchos. I decided that cotton probably wasn't the best idea to wear while hiking several hours each day in Tiger Leaping Gorge, so I bought a breathable shirt and some pants that easily convert to shorts. After this we were off to the airport, crossing our fingers that the Chinese online travel booking service we used (C Trip) worked.

One of the girls who works at the front desk of Alec's apartment coplex noticed that we were definitely going somewhere, and helped us to call a cab and told the driver which gate to drop us off at Hongqiao Airport. At the airport, we found the C-Trip desk, paid 6,000 RMB for our tickets, and checked in to our flight. The process was really easy, security is similar to the States (only sometimes the people watching the baggage scanner get distracted for a few minutes). At Hongqiao, not all airplanes pull up to the terminal- when our flight was called we got on a bus and drove to our plane sitting on the tarmac, where we sat in the plane for an hour due to 'air traffic'. One local Chinese created a commotion and began yelling at the flight attendants when the pilot turned off the air conditioning, which turned out to be a good thing sine it was about 95 degress outside. Flight service on Chinese airlines is eccellent. Our flight was 3 hours long, during which we were served drinks twice and a hot chicken and rice dinner.

Arriving at Kunming, we attempted to get on an overnight sleeper bus to Lijiang, but it was full. No big deal, we checked into a hotel, 75 RMB for a room that had two beds and a bathroom with a western toilet and a huge cockroach in the bathroom. That night we walked around Kunming, finding two really cool local markets and tons of street vendors. According to our Lonely Planet travel guide (which was effectively the third member on our trip), Yunnan is famous for their noodle dishes so we order some some that came out boiling in a charred ceramic bowl.


Sunday, July 16

We woke up early in Kunming, went to the bus station, and caught our eight hour bus to Lijiang. On the bus we took turns napping most of the way, waking each other up when the scenery was good. Missing the overnight sleeper bus was decidedly a good thing, because we were able to both explore Kunming and as well as see some really cool rural villages and scenery on the way to Lijiang. Another American was on the bus with us, also studying chinese in Beijing and going to Lijiang to study Kung Fu.

In Lijiang we got a cab with him to the Old Town, a big area with cobblestone roads and a million tourist shops, where he showed us a guest house that he had stayed in previously. This was a very a nice place, and even a little cheaper than our room in Kunming. We spent the evening walking around and bought a couple pieces of fabric for our moms. There was a lot more we would have liked to buy, but we didn't have anywhere to put it. After eating dinner at a nice restaurant (Yak meat and rice) we promptly got lost in the maze of the city. The streets are also lined with bars, with girls dressed in traditional Naxi clothes singing with each other and the tourists. The buildings all have open facades, so opposing bars get into singing exchanges with each other. We spent the end of our evening in one of these bars, after most of the tourists had left. It was really fun sitting and talking to the girls in our broken chinese and singing once in awile with some other people in the bar across the street. When we got tired of "Yaso, Yaso, Yeah Yaso!" we broke into "We have spirit yes we do..." but they didn't quite get it. Again we turned in pretty early so we could wake up at 7am and catch our next bus to Qiaotao and start our hike. The pattern of staying every night in a different place was constant throughout the trip, and a very good way for us to see each city. Most of the cities we stayed in had one fairly small area for tourists and would have been boring after a day or two.


Monday, July 17

Monday morning was a bit hectic, as none of the Banks were accepting any foreign credit/debit cards. We ran into some other foreigners who were having the same problem, lucky for all of us we spoke enough chinese to explain the situation to the Bank of China employees and have them do cash advances manually. On this trip we ran into many foreigners travelling alone (and seemingly always in need of help); it's hard to understand why they decide to go to such a different country with literally no assistance outside their travel book. Crazy. But it was kind of fun helping them and practicing our chinese. The disfunctional Bank of China ATM in Lijiang led to us meeting three Europeans, two of whom (Phinda from Endgland and Jimmy from Sweden) we decided to hike Tiger Leaping Gorge with. The third was from Belgium, and heading to Zhongdian/Shangri La.

This bus ride went through more beautiful countryside of Yunnan. For most of the 3 hour trip I spoke in chinese with a young Korean couple, who had studied the language for a couple years north of Beijing and were nearly fluent. We arrived in Qiaotao at about 3pm, at the Gorged Tiger Cafe. This is the unofficial starting point of the hike into the Gorge, and is a good staging area run by a woman name Margo, an Australian woman who is a touch crazy. She was pretty harsh on a group of chinese girls who were planning to start the hike with us, mainly because they were wearing normal street clothes and not planning on taking any water. Alec and I knew one of the girls from the bus ride, so we convinced them to take water.

The first night we hiked about two hours into Naxi Village. The Yangze River was visible in this section of trail, before the river enters the deep Gorge. Local chinese men on horses followed us for most of the way, hoping that we would eventually be too tired to continue and have to rent a horse. Most of the way the trail went through a mixture of terraced corn fields and untouched brush. Several times we had to make room for locals hauling things along the trail. We chose to stay at the Lu Ye Guest House the first night. Another group of hikers stayed the night there as well- a group of friends from the Czech Republic. The house was amazing, with a really nice courtyard in the middle, nice rooms, good food, and showers and toilets. All of the work was done by a single worker, a girl who was probably about 16 or 17 years old. When we arrived she brought us each tea and cooked us dinner. That evening I walked around the house, which was surrounded by pig pens, chicken coups, and acres of terraced corn fields. This place turned out to be our favorite night of the trip, because the house was so relaxing and the girl was so nice to us and extremely hardworking.


Tuesday, July 18

Tuesday was our biggest hiking day, going six hours from Lu Ye to the end of the Gorge. The day started out cool, cloudy, and misty which made a good climate for the steepest part of the hike. Right away we were at the section called "24 bends" which was a series of about 40 traverses going up the side of a mountain. This took us away from the river a little bit, but we began to hear the rushing water as we neared the rapids of the Gorge. After descending a ways, the trail again began to wind through random villages of a dozen or so houses, where the families were either working in the fields, or starting at us as we walked by. Many of the people, especially the elders were really difficult to understand when they spoke due to the different dialects. By noon the clouds had all burned off and the weather was hot and sunny.

In July the weather changes several times each day in the Gorge. Just a couple hours later, while resting at the (ridiculously nice) Halfway Guest House we waited out a pretty big rainstorm. We decided to keep going once it let up; we had about three or four hours to go until we reached Walnut Garden. About an hour into this hike the rain began again, and didn't stop. Luckily Alec and I had purchased those rain ponchos in Shanghai (the best 5 kuai spent on the entire trip)...our upper bodies were completely dry from the rain even though it was 'cats and dogs'. Our two Europeans mates weren't so prepared (we helped them check their packs that were 'too big' at a guest house in Lijiang...along with all of the stuff that would have been handy in bad weather), they were drenched. We ended up missing the turn for Walnut Garden, and descended from the trail a bit early to Tina's Guest House. From here we waited out the rest of the storm and then walked up the road to Sean's Spring Guest House, which we had heard so much good about. We were not impressed- the building was in the middle of a big addition and we were the only guests. What the place did have going for it was pizza, which was surprisingly good.


Wednesday, July 19

Alec and I decided that we were done spending our time with our European friends, so we got up early, told them we were leaving, and hit the trail by ourselves. It was still a little drizzly in the morning, we were going to hike down to the river (but is too deep in the Gorge to see from the trail or road) and then decide what to do next. The trail we chose went through another group of corn fields, and then started into the heart of the Gorge. Undoubetedly we were the first ones on the trail that morning, as we constantly were walking through spider webs made the night before. This was the most intense part of our stay in the Gorge, the river was raging between vertical rock walls and the trail gradually descends to the water...but we didn't quite make it that far before turning back. We came to another waterfall crossing the trail, and emptying onto a solid, slick rock that resembled a waterslide. Alec and I were going to take some pictures as we did before of other waterfalls over the trail, but before we could we had a pretty big scare. With both of us standing in the falls, we heard the 'chink' 'chink' of falling rocks...and looked up to see three or four rocks coming right at us. We ran back to our bags and out of the way. The rocks were about the size of our heads, and could have knocked us down the slippery slide and into the Yangze about 100 feet below. I\At this time it was also raining steadily, so Alec went ahead to see what the trail looked like. It kept going along the shear cliffs and included some rickety wooden bridges. I thought I'd had enough excitement for the time being, so we turned back.

After making it back to the road, we returned to Tina's Guest House and decided to go down to the river on a shorter trail. This was only about 40 minutes from the river. A huge boulder extended out into the river, so we were able to look up and down the raging river. The sound made it necessary to yell in order to communicate, and reminded me of going into the generators at McNary Dam. To hike back up, we paid 10 Yuan to climb a ladder up the side of one of the cliffs. It was about 20 meters tall, and really intense. This entire hike was pretty much straight up and out of the Gorge; we ascended about 1,500 feet in 45 minutes.

Our next step was taking a cab back to Qiaotao and make a decision about where to go next. The cab ride was not necessarily relaxing, the road was just a bigger version of the trails that we had been hiking on for the past three days. Our vehicle was a van that looked like a Micromachine. We drove through waterfalls crossing the road (which was now our least favorite situation), and saw too many rockslides to count.

We made it. In Qiaotao we weren't quite sure what to do next, either go to Shangri Li La (Zhongdian) or back to Lijiang. Luckily we had the 'help' of a chinese girl who had forgotten her hat in the Gorged Tiger Cafe...we asked here were she was going, she said "Shangri Li La" (Zhongdian), we asked when the bus came, she said "It's here now", and then we said "Let's Go". And we did.

This bus trip went yet again through beautiful countryside, under the setting sun we saw the gradual change from Naxi farm villages to Tibetan farmland and villages. The biggest difference was the clothing that people wore, with bright pinks, greens, and yellows. In Zhongdian we checked into the Barley Guest House, right in the middle of the old part of town. Zhongdian was very similar to Lijiang and with the same type of tourist souvenir shops. At our guest house we determined where to go next- we saw a business card for the Migratory Bird Bar at Meili Snow Mountain in Deqin. We went to the bus station and bought tickets for the next day. For dinner we ate at the Tibet Cafe- Yak, Kung Pao Chicken, rice, and butter tea. After dinner I wrote my mom a (late) Happy Birthday email, and we hit the sack early.


Thursday, July 20

This was yet another exciting bus ride, across a mountain range with peaks taller than any in North America. The highest point on the road was a 4,300m pass (about 14,000 feet), and the road eventually became barely wide enough for our bus, which made passing big trucks interesting. Deqin was a really cool town, with far fewer tourists and surrounded by mountains. We spent the night at the Tibet Hotel, and walked the streets of the town in the evening. All three of these cities (Lijiang, Zhongdian, and Deqin) had central squares where locals did some traditional slow dance to music, similar to Tai Qi and assumedly for exercise. Thursday was primarily a travel day, and relatively uneventful.


Friday, July 21

Alec and I took an early morning cab to Fei Lai Si (a Tibetan temple with an amazing view of Meili Snow Mountain). This was undoubtedly my favorite town/village on the trip, with a clear view of the 22,000 ft mountain peaks and authentic restaurants and shops. We arrived around 10:00am and relaxed for about an hour in the Migratory Bird Bar, asking some locals about any trails around the area where we could spend a couple hours hiking. The bar had wood burning stoves keeping pots of green tea hot, and its walls were plastered with notes and photos from people who had spent time there. We decided to hike down to a river below the village. The trail started at a place where about 10 stupas were lined up, and covered in incense and brightly colored prayer flags. About an hour into the hike, the trail disappeared and we ended up turning back to village to try something else.

Our two choices were to take a taxi to the Meili Glacier, or to hang around the village and see the rest of Fei Lai Si. After talking to one of the cab drivers, we decided that the glacier was too far away, about a two hour drive each direction. So we decided to hike up to see the rest of the Temple. The Temple is spread out along three different hillsides surrounding the village. Our first trail went right across the hillside in front of the village (with the consecutive stupas), and the other two were located on the two hilltops behind the village. Getting up to them was easy, but seeing the first hill made it seem like a waste of time. On this hill was the biggest stupa of the Temple, but the area was littered with garbage and some sort of construction was going on. We didn't spend any time here, and continued onto the next hill. This was the highest hilltop, and actually there was no stupa, only prayer flags. The prayer flags were stretched between trees, and near the top of the hill is was hard to see anything else. Alec and I stopped at the top and relaxed for about one hour. I found a spot on the edge of a small cliff that had a clear view of the Meili Range and just sat looking way down into the valley below and rested.

We returned to the village, where we bought some stones carved by a local Tibetan man and his son on the side of the road. After walking around awhile longer we returned to the Bird Bar for dinner, where we met some Chinese Tourists that apparently were obsessed with foreigners. This is easy to pick out, especially when they start taking pictures of you our of nowhere. We spent some time talking to them, they all had tripods and gigantic cameras, taking pictures of the mountains every time a cloud moved. Alec went down to play soccer in the street with some local kids in hopes of speaking some more chinese, but they spoke some irrecognizable dialect. I stayed on the balcony with the chinese group, posed for some more pictures (primarily with some over excited girl who wanted to "travel around the world with a foreigner" - whatever that means). We returned to our guest house as it became dark, sent some emails, and fell asleep to the sound of a small animal running around in the attic above our room.

Saturday, July 22

We decided against taking the same bus back through the mountains to Zhongdian, and instead hired a taxi. It cost 400 Yuan and took 4 hours, but it was completely worth it. We had better views of the scenery, but the weather was overcast so we could not see the surrounding peaks as we did the day before. The cab ride varied from creeping through large herds of cattle and goats grazing on the road to racing through small villages at about 90 kmh with the horn blaring.

Back in Zhongdian we purchased tickets for the overnight bus to Kunming, and strolled through town one last time before the bus left. The sleeper bus is really a gamble on comfort. We were lucky and had window beds, but if you get stuck in the back, it is literally sardines- 5 people sleeping next to each other in beds about two feet wide. We managed to get almost the entire bus to be smoke free, except the driver refused to stop. Being next to a window was an advantage for two reasons, though- 1. We were able to stick our heads out for clean air, and 2. It was cold outside so we had some bargaining chips: "You tell the driver not to smoke and I'll close the window".


Sunday, July 23

We arrived in Kunming early in the morning, which wasn't good considering our plane didn't depart until 5pm. To kill time we went to a park and ate a peanut butter and granola breakfast, and then decided to go to the airport to try to change our plane tickets to an earlier time. No dice. Our next idea was to check into our flight at 1oam, but they wouldn't let us do that either. So we returned to Kunming, ate lunch, and searched for a place to get haircuts. On this trip we had the great idea of not bringing razors, so by Sunday our faces hurt and we looked pretty rough. We figure this would be another way to kill time, so we found a local barber and he cleaned us up a little bit with his clippers. It was fun.

Finally 3pm rolled around, so went checked into our flight and headed back to Shanghai. The trip was really interesting, and opened my eyes to what 'the rest of China' is like. We saw that even though Shanghai is completely different than home, it is still a world away from rural China.