campsoup

Naoki, Jason and I got up way too early to catch our 6:30 am bus. All of China goes by Beijing time and we were way out west, so the sun didn't come up until hours into the bus ride. It was awesome to experience the sunrise over the Tibetan plateau - the dark night sky faded to deep blue, then light blue, then pink-orange in one corner. Finally the first golden morning rays hit the endless rolling hills. We drove by a few advertisements written in the hills, which one can usually find in barren landscapes out west. The advertisements were written in Tibetan and looked so beautiful! (Ha, I am rather accustomed to Chinese characters, so they have lost their mystery.) Litang to Kangding wins the prize for "Most Air Caught on a Bus ... read more

(Long time no blog. Still continuing the Spring Festival tale from where it left off.) I took a cab to the sub station well before the sun came up and to my surprise found three other foreigners also waiting. It appears that the Yunnan and Sichuan highlands are quite popular travel destinations for foreigners. Especially since the 2008 change in requirements for foreigners entering Tibet, maybe more and more people are traveling to Deqin County in Yunnan and the Garze Tibetan Autonomous region in Sichuan. There was a crunchy granola French couple and a long-term traveler Canadian guy. I tried to chat with the French couple, but they weren't that friendly, their English wasn't that good, and they seemed to be pretty into criticizing the Chinese government and tourism industry. For example, they referred to Xinjiang ... read more

The next morning we lazed about and watched the New Years TV specials on both the regular Han Chinese CCTV and the Sichuan Tibetan channel. One act that stands out was an outer-space-themed acrobatic dance performed by men in pink spandex Tron costumes who tok themselves very seriously. I also enjoyed seeing traditional Tibetan dancing, costumes and music, which I had not seen before. Besides Si Tu and me, everyone from our original group left. The two of us stuck around for the New Years celebration. That afternoon, the men sat across from each other in a clearing (um we were all basically sitting in Yak poop) and drank, aate snacks, told jokes, and sang song. I guess as the weird foreigner I was allowed to go to these guys-only things. They provided Si Tu and ... read more

We got up early the next morning to watch the rising sun fall on Meilixueshan's various peaks, but we were clouded out. The three of us joined to other hikers in Feilaisi, an accountant from Hangzhou and a graphic designer from Beijing (with a wicked Beijing accent), and together we took a minivan to the hot springs near Xidang to start our hike. The van was 200 kuai total or 40/person. On our way in, we had to buy 80 kuai (40 student) entrance tickets. To get to the village of Yubeng, we started at 9,000 feet, hiked to a mountain pass (yakou) at 12,000 feet, and then descended to the village valley at 11,000 feet. From the beginning, I was breathing quite heavily and I was always grateful when we took a break to let ... read more

Our hostel arranged minibus transport to the Qiaotou side of Tiger Leaping Gorge for 30 kuai a person. In total our group had two minibuses and included Mary, an opera singer from Australia who was on a big Asia travel, Amber, an American teaching English in Beijing, Susannah from Holland who was on a gap year, Rachel, a drama student from America who was in between schools, her cousin Jamie, a Canadian who was between school and work, Kendal, a Chemist and high school teacher who was on vacation, and Krisdian and Hendy two Indonesians on vacation. Qiaotou was only about 2 hours away, though we had to make a quick detour to pick up our driver's son, fiance, friends, and their pet falcon (!) and drop them in the village that I had biked around ... read more