Peace, Privacy and Pandas

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Xi'an to Lijiang

One billion people is a lot of people, 1.3 billion a lot more, but 1.3 billion still underestimates China's population by around twenty times the population of New Zealand. With this many people knocking about most places tend to be pretty busy most of the time, therefore, for each person to be heard they have to talk louder than the next person, who is currently talking louder than the next, who is already shouting his lungs out to be heard over the countless others doing the same. Added to this it seems that the louder one talks the more 'alpha' he or she is (especially on mobile phones - Dom Jolly would not even be heard over here), and due to the infamous one child rule, the precious so and sos are generally spoilt beyond belief, thus meaning they can run, scream and shout to their hearts' content. This all means that peace, quiet and tranquility are long forgotten things of the very distant past for much of China.

The sheer number of people also breeds the non-existence of privacy, this in addition with being quite tall and obvious foreigners stretches the self-conciousness boundaries to their very limits. In a place where toilet cubicles (well, holes in the floor) often have no walls let alone doors, train and bus bunks are open to the world and space is at an absolute premium, we have been the reluctant celebrities in some very interesting, and also quite compromising, positions! Curiosity is rightly very strong in a country that has been allowed very limited access to the outside world, but even in places far more used to western customs and tourists people will still unblinkingly stare while you eat, sleep, wash, read, as well as other common daily er... tasks! This does have its up-sides as well though, whilst on any public transport (or anywhere for that matter) there are so many people peering round their bunks, seats, newspapers, friends etc. at your every move, that as soon as you are unsure how to do something or where something is, a small army appears immediately to point, help and show you whatever it is you are after. With our confusion levels so far this generally doesn't take too long so there are always many people around us offering help and keen to try to find out who we are and where we're from! Recently this ended with us spending the night on a train playing what we think was Chinese poker with a soldier and another guy in our compartment. Understanding the rules was a little tricky however, meaning, unsurprisingly, that the other two won every single hand!

Anyhoo, we have quite clearly continued on in China, with slightly less lapses into utter confusion than previously. From Beijing we began our journey West and South and finally into some slightly warmer weather.

We stopped at another large and historic city initially, that of Xi'an. This is the area where the tombs of many ancient emporers have been discovered, including that of Qin Shihuang, stoically guarded for two thousand years by the terracotta army. A Chinese passenger on the train had kindly suggested that a local green bus went to the site where the warriors had been excavated, so, not wishing to pay over the odds or put up with a tour, we risked confusion, becoming totally lost, and probably tears, and hopped on the only green bus we could find in the vicinity. Fortunately we had far more success here than on previous Chinese bus attempts, and the sobs of failure were kept well and truly at bay.

The area has only been partially excavated, with some estimates stating that only 25% may have been uncovered to date, however, the site is huge and the 6700 strong army magnificent. Every single warrior is unique, all with different features, expressions and clothing, and many in completely different positions, even the horses seemed to be in different moods. Experts believe the sculpters modelled the army on themselves and their colleagues. The preservation is also something very special - for sculptures made of simple clay not even an eyebrow or earlobe is out of place on the vast majority, and due to a rather ingenious surface treatment of the metal, the weapons (which are now housed separately in a museum) were still sharp when they were uncovered.

Anyway, after all this history we were being called once again by our two travelling and life priorities - fluffy animals and food. Sichuan province and the city of Chengdu provided the two amply. After arriving to stay in the lovely Tibetan quarter of town, surrounded by the many habited monks and prayer flags, we hunted down the infamous Sichuan hot
pot. Stumbling out of our hostel and across the road to a heaving hot pot house we queued with the masses taking it as a good omen. But upon sitting down our hearts sunk as the waitress brought over an unintelligible (to the ignorant) menu with no translation. To our good fortune the next door diner took pity on us and came to our rescue offering his broken English help. He threw a few words our way, American beef, eggs, tomatos, fish, we nodded in encouragement until he pointed to one of his own dishes, two perfect little brains sat on a dish. 'No' was our immediate response as we furiously shook our heads to this suggestion! His English ran out so he ticked a few boxes and left us to wait expectantly. The hot pot came first, a huge vat of boiling spicy oil which sat on our own built-in table hob. Then the plates of food started to arrive, sliced meat, cubed meat, more meat, potatos, squid and something we have never seen before. In fact we could not even tell whether it was meat, veg or innards! It was a plate of sock-like grey knobbly tubes about one inch wide and four inches long with a teet on the end, which even when boiled were on the chewy side of chewy. Despite that the sheer spiciness of the hot pot meant anything that went in it turned out rather tasty! It wasn't long before our taste buds were tingling and our lips numb. Delicious and painfully cheap for the ten plates of meat and beer it included!

The main reason we stayed in Chengdu was the local black and white fluffy inhabitants. As all they really like to do is eat and sleep we had to catch them early for breakfast, and before the surge of Chinese flag-wielding, matching-hat-wearing, clapping-and-shouting tour groups arrived! We had about half an hour's quiet time to watch in awe these peaceful bears chill out, kick back and enjoy their bamboo. Unbothered by us they picked through the piles of bamboo looking for the perfect shoots, lay back and chewed their morning away. That was the adults anyway, whereas the ten panda cubs were busy fighting (well, wobbling) in slow motion, pushing, pulling and nibbling each other, trying to decide how their bodies worked, and generally having a great time. It was fantastic to see such a successful breading programme for such an endangered animal but we were unable to find out about the future plans for the bears. Although I am not sure spending their days playing on swings whilst being cheered by humans is really the best training for the wild...

Most of our China time has been spent in huge cities so we breathed a slightly less polluted, sigh of relief when we reached Dali in the Yunnan province, a town which may actually have had less than 1 million inhabitants! We could at last see the sky and the nearby mountains and it was a chance to see some of the few remaining minority groups of China. It was great to see the local Bai women still wearing the traditional clothing and headdresses, and still beautiful, but slightly less glitzy versions on the women working in the surrounding fields. Whilst there we hopped on some bikes, this was the first place we felt safe enough on the roads, and spent the day peddling round the local fields and villages. This seemed like quite a step back into the past with traditional farming and delivery methods being
used for all the produce, and the tiny winding alleyways through the villages brought out a real sense of local life.

Our last night saw us propping up a very smoky bar in town to watch a Mongolian rock band. The instruments were incredibly ornate and obviously very different to your common or garden rock band's collection, but they turned out to be very entertaining, and some may even be inclined to say 'rocky'! Their flyer said that they incorporated a very special three level vocal arrangement (it was in English!), which we had to agree was very special - the high and low sounds were so high and so low you could have sworn they were electronically generated.

In contrast, the following night we watched the Ancient Naxi Orchestra in Lijiang. Although the costumes and instruments were fantastic and they could certainly bang out a tune or two, the mainly octagenarian musicians either suffered from mild narcolepsy or were the most overworked orchestra in the world... many taking the opportunity between scores to catch up on some well needed zzz's!

Lijiang was even quainter than Dali, another walled old town full of cobbled streets and alleyways weaving round the canals and wells punctuated with classic Chinese architecture. Home to the Naxi and Dongba minorities, most waitresses sported the classical dress and offered up a dance or two with dinner. The interesting thing about this culture was the locals not only speak Mandarin but also a local dialect. Plus, to add to the confusing Chinese characters, they have their own hieroglyphics to communicate with too, leaving us no hope of understanding anything! This was a beautiful place to end our time in China, a real contrast to the smoggy crazy cities.

We have also continued our sampling of the favoured hot drinks from around the small part of the world we have seen, and China obviously has its fair share. In South America it was the mates - from the yerba in Argentina and Chile to the coca in Bolivia and Peru, and now in China their vast array of teas. Although tea is already a favourite beverage of ours (especially Matt), it is seemingly taking over beer consumption (just nipping into a bar for a swift tea on the terrace?? - absurd, I know!) Anyway, they have been delicious and very numerous to say the least, from the refreshing jasmines, greens, and chrysanthemums, to the enlivening gingers, and through to the post-perandial palate cleansing strength of puer.

Anyway, we bid a very fond 再見 to China and head now into South East Asia with Bangkok our first stop in what appears to be our last six months of travelling!!

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Photos

The Likely Lads
Taking it easy near Dali

Being awake means eating
Yearlings, and already adopting the pose

Ancient Naxi Orchestra
The awake section

Black Dragon Pool - Lijiang
Black Dragon Mountain in the background... well, the China haze put paid to seeing that

Another gratuitous panda shot
Cubs still learning how their legs work

Chinese Chess
In the sun of Lijiang