Langmusi and Songpan, and capitalist soul death in Jiuzhaigou

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We took the early early bus to Langmusi, and were pleasantly surprised that it took only 4 hours instead of the expected 6.

The scenery along the way is amazing - climbing through the mountainous edge of the Tibetan Plateau that is southern Gansu. The public bus even made one stop for photos, but the wind across the plains was murderously cold, so I just poked my camera out the door...

Langmusi is a tiny town, in the flavour of Xiahe but nestled into the convergence of three valleys, abounding in spectacular views and bounded in the north by red cliffs. The main street is paved, and swept early every morning by Tibetan women with long soft brooms made of straw. Tibetan men with their heads wrapped in scarves roam the streets or dodge pedestrians on their motorbikes. Coal trucks, public buses and the inevitable tour coaches vie for space at the town's main intersection, while taxis wait in the sidelines offering cheap trips to anywhere.

We took a cheap room at the Langmusi Binguan, sharing with two Aussies Damien and Helen who had stayed at the same hostel in Xiahe. After a quick meal we headed off to check out the Kerti Monastery.
Langmusi is split in two by a rapidly gushing stream. The northern side is Gansu, the southern is Sichuan. There is a monastery in Gansu and one in Sichuan too, but we only made it to Kerti - feeling a little "monastery'd out" after Xiahe, perhaps.

Anyway we wandered around looking for the tour that was supposed to leave at 1pm with no luck. CLimbed a hill and rapidly out of breath remembered that there's less oxygen when you're somewhere above 3500m. Beautiful vista over marsh and river across rolling grassland to snowy cloud-covered peaks in the distance...

We followed a local's suggestion and headed for the "fairy caves" or Lamu, which is what Langmusi is named for. After a weird discussion with some kids about where we're from, how to write our names and why we wouldn't give them any money, we entered the gorge... Brightly decorated with prayer flags, prayer slips scattered all over the ground, and wool, the caves are tiny openings in the cliffs. We followed the valley for a while and found the source of the stream that runs through the town - a spring that bubbles out of the ground a little way in.

We headed back into town just in time to avoid inundation by a huge Chinese tour group, treated myself to my new favourite - hot yak milk tea and veged out for a while.

The next day we decided to take a hike up to the imposing red cliffs behind town. The loose instructions from Damien & Helen's updated LP said to walk 20m past the main road intersection and turn right down a mud road. The only mud road around was currently being blocked by a bunch of men watching a bulldozer try to lift a dump truck out of the mud. Or at least I think that's what was happening.
Anyway, we walked up the mud track, past a small Stupa, past the smiling old Tibetan women sitting by the Stupa, past some tiny farms and into the fields. We eventually came around the first hill to see the real hill towering above us, with a huge flock of sheep, goats, cows and yaks climbing the hill chewing up everything in their path. And one brightly dressed Tibetan shepherd-lady, who was throwing stones to make the cows move in the right direction and occasionally letting loose with some incredibly beautiful singing.

We helped her get the animals moving along, and got to experience the sound of hundreds of herbivores chomping away on mountain veg - looks like that many animals have to keep on the move or they'd completely strip the mountain side in seconds flat.

Eventually we got higher than the herd, and let's just say climbing at this altitude is no easy feat. Tegan sat down to play some guitar while I went on to finish the walk. I found myself crunching and sliding across some splotchy snow, and I had the whole hilltop to myself. Just as I thought I'd reached the top another summit would pop up behind it. On the top was a Tibetan prayer "ove" a bundle of ornamental sticks tied in a teepee shape with prayer flags around it. It was the highest point, and from here I could see 360 degrees over Gansu and Sichuan. I had a mini-epiphany and just as I was about to start getting all Julie Andrews I noticed a bunch of eagles soaring around in a spiralling thermal, one swooping low along the cliffs below me. I was just about jumping for joy to be on my own in such an exquisite place. But it was also pretty cold, so I climbed back down the hill much more easily than I went up it...

We organised a cab to Songpan to save two bus rides and an overnight stay in a town called Zoige which doesn't really have much going on. The drive to Songpan - I think I described it already...
Songpan was rainy and cold, kind of bleak looking, with about a million tour buses driving up and down the main street all beeping their horns extremely loudly just in case they were overlooked. Also horses lining the side of the road for Songpan's best known tourist adventure - horse trekking.
Well Tegan and my memories are still fresh of sore bum from desert camel adventures so we decided to take a bus straight to Jiozhaigou National Park. Happily we were able to extend our visas with ease, and only a 1 hour wait. Hurray! And after organising a ticket to the park we were off for some good tucker a night with Harry Potter loaned from the local "western" cafe, and some sleep.

At first glimpse, Jiozhaigou is 100% capitalist tourist-milking mayhem. At second glance, it is exactly the same, only set within one of the most exquisite river valley systems I've ever seen. Oh yeah, and Autumn is the busy season... after one local guy lead us around looking for a hotel for about 1.5 hours we finally managed to get rid of him and go to the hostel we wanted, only to find out it's also incredibly expensive to stay in a 6-bed dorm room. And the chef's away, and the internet's broken. But we entertained our dorm-mates with our two part harmony version of "girlfriend" and i've also finally worked out some chords on ukulele, enough to jam anyway.

Our first day in the park, Tegan and I must have walked about 18 or 20km through mixed pine forest with heaps of autumn leaved decidious trees fringing spectacular lakes any colour between turqoise, azure and lapis lazuli. Stunning, I ran out of superlatives. Our advice from a fellow Australian to walk upstream to avoid tourists was great, Tegan and I had a little adventure where we accidentally ended up in the wrong valley to where we thought we were, and took a bus, only to discover the most vile and repulsive side of Chinese tourism we've seen so far. People 6 or 7 deep around the railings for a lake, elbowing each other out of the way to take photos, herded like sheep along narrow boardwalks, and refusing to let people walk in the opposite direction. Any attempts to ask questions about the bus system in my earnest (admittedly bodgy) Chinese were met by shrugs or just being told to go away. So frustrating.

We finally made it to a bus for the 18km ride back to the fork in the valley, and set off again on foot after some ridiculously expensive instant noodles. We walked more, saw more beautiful things. Stopped to play some tunes by a lake called Mirror Lake (I can only assume the name works when the wind isn't blowing). Met a million tourists with enormous cameras. Couples with matching ginormous zoom lenses. Huge industrial strength tripods. Also loads of old folks asking passersby which buttons to press, and everywhere the incredible poses of the tourists.

So it was great. We walked and walked, jostled by the heavy traffic going downstream, but enjoying the small moments of serenity in between tour groups. Eventually we decided to take a bus (we got a bus ticket for the extortionate rate of 90Y which supposedly entitled us to unlimited bus travel for the day) and then had the experience which has begun my Chinese tourism burnout... No you can't take this bus. No not this bus. Not this bus. But you're all going the right way, and there's no-one on your bus, and I have a ticket? Not this bus. We went downhill so that we could go uphill. We asked everyone. The last straw was a Chinese man who spoke good English telling us we really needed to hire a tour guide to work out the bus system. Guess what - he's a tour guide. Short of standing in the middle of the road pulling out my hair or ripping my clothes off we finally managed to flag down a bus. And no wonder they were all surprised - all the tour groups start at the top and walk down. By the time we got to the top there was no-one left, only some tired looking staff and a bunch of incredibly energetic stripey squirrels bouncing around looking quite happy. We bailed on the idea of walking down again and took the bus back to the beginning...

Day 2 of our Jiazhaigou experience was a little less lighthearted. On the advice of the bus lady the day before we didn't buy another bus ticket, and walked in to the park. Walked and walked, and soon enough a light but cold rain began to fall, and our spirits slowly fell after being faced with smokers throwing their butts into the marshes and crystal waterways and finding packets of moisture-absorbing silicone amongst the trees.

Then after about 4km in the rain we decided we were too tired and pissed off to enjoy the park and we should go back and enjoy our expensive hostel. So we took a bus. About 2km down the road we stopped and a lady got on to check tickets. Dutifully showed her our tickets, but no, not this bus. Actually not any bus, it'll be another 90Y if you want to get on a bus today. Frustrated and angry, and not having a spare 90Y we decided to walk the 7km back to the park entry.

But first we spotted a shop and went to explore. Maybe a cup of tea we thought. An umbrella would be nice. No, tiny fragile folding brolly will set you back another 45Y and there is no hot water here. So we got the next best thing, a 3Y bottle of white spirits, and set off again in the drizzle. Thankfully the rain let up soon after because the drink was disgusting, and I couldn't help thinking I was drinking poison.

The sun came out about 10min before we reached the park gates.

We have a ticket booked to Chengdu for tomorrow morning, where hopefully we can see some live music and not be tourists for a while. Also, we'll hopefully be meeting up with Mick.

That's all for now. My tourist-burnout-rage has almost entirely been replaced by facebook-photo-uploading-rage. My beer is empty. I'm going to have another hot shower while I can.

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