The different faces of China

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It's been a few weeks since the last time I updated the blog so as you can imagine a lot has been happening again. But that is also the beauty about travelling, life is just never standing still and there is not very much of a routine. I am not saying that routine is something bad, its comfortable and maybe sometimes necessary in order to concentrate on things, but sometimes its just nice to break away from it all and experience loads of new things.
So here an overview of what has been happening:
After two weeks of working as an English kindergarten teacher I had enough and quit. Yeah, I know I am getting quite good at this. However, I only realized after taking the job that this was not what I wanted to do here. I came here to study the language and get to know the culture and I was not here to entertain 3 year olds the whole day.
I then tried to figure out if I wanted to stay and start a language class straight away or rather go travelling and experience those different faces of China while the weather is still pleasant.
You can imagine that my decision was rather easy. 😊
Thus, I booked a flight to Chengdu, a city of around 4 millions people in Sichuan province.
However, the flight was not the nicest one I ever had in my life. For some reason I got sick just before leaving for the airport. Hence I became very good friends with the sickness bag on the plane.
The first day in Chengdu I didnt see much more than the hostel (which was really nice though) and the pharmacy.
As soon as I was feeling better I had a look around Chengdu and I have to say that I quite liked it. In comparison to Beijing it is much more relaxed. They only have one major subway line which is even not that busy. Even on the roads there is not as much traffic. The only thing is that there also seems to be a lot of smog...or maybe its just fog?! I just assumed it would be smog, because well, Chengdu is still in China... 😉
The highlight of my stay in Chengdu was the Panda Conservation Camp. There you can see loads of pandas from a very close distance. They also seemed to be very well looked after. Well, with the amount of tourists visiting the place I assume each panda could also live in a villa with a Porsche parked outside. There is also an incubator station where you can see baby pandas which are very very cute.
Apparently it is really difficult to get pandas mating in captivity. Thus most pandas are conceived through artificial insemination. The panda is just too lazy to have sex and some of them dont even know how to do it. They even tried to show them panda pornography and gave the males viagra, but nooo, the panda just has a massive ongoing migraine...
The rest of the time I spent wandering around Chengdu, visiting various temples and eating spicy hotpot.
I also had to get my visa renewed (every months for a tourist visa) and this caused me a little bit of a headache. I heard that there was one town in the south of Chengdu where this could be done within 2 days (instead of waiting for 5 days in Chengdu). So I changed my plans to head north straight away and went to Leshan, the town where they do the fast visas.
Leshan is actually quite a nice place. Nevertheless most tourists only come here for day trips to visit the famous Giant Buddha. The downside is that there are no hostels which forced me to stay in a hotel. After being used to room prices of around 4 Euro per night 14 Euro seemed to be extremely high.
At night time I had the feeling that I was the only Western tourist there. So when I came across one English sign saying "cheapest beer in town" I was extremely happy and immediately decided to check it out. Well, there was only one Chinese lady in the bar and she didnt speak a word of English but at least she gave me a bottle of Budweiser. While I was sitting there drinking my beer two more guys from across the street spotted me and thought that this would be a fantastic opportunity to practise their non-existent English. Well you can imagine how our conversation was like. Me with my poor Chinese and they with their poor English, but hey, we had beer and cigarettes and that kept everyone happy 😉 Later the owner of the bar, a Norwegian guy and probably the only Westerner there, joined us. A nice guy with quite a bold idea to open up a bar in this town. So it was quite nice to be able to communicate with someone without the need to look up every second word in a dictionary.
The next day and while still waiting for my visa I decided to go to visit the Giant Buddha. And what can I say but yes, he is giant. I was very glad though that I didnt come during peak season as I assume there would be loads and loads of tourists there.
Chinese tourists also took a great interest in me. While sitting down to call Ian a few people came up asking if they could take a photo with me. So after one being brave enough to ask this foreigner (me) the other ones dared as well. So instead of taking photos secretly (yes, I am already used to seeing that out of the corner of my eyes) a big group of around 50 people were gathering around me and everyone wanted a picture (ah, yes, one by one of course) And now I can finally understand how an animal in the zoo feels like...
After picking up my visa I went back to Chengdu where I stayed for another night before going on a 6 hours bus trip to Songpan , a nice town on the Tibetan Plateau 2400m above sea level. You could feel the drop in temperature immediately.
I really liked Songpan. First of all it was so nice to be out of the big cities and back in nature. I would have never thought how much I miss nature. Trees, mountains or just walking somewhere without being surrounded by 100s of people.
It was also the first time that I got close to a Tibetan area. There you see lots of Tibetans wearing their traditional clothes. So nice to see someone still wearing their traditional outfits not just to entertain tourists. And so nice to see people wearing something different than jeans...
However, I only stayed there for one day before heading further up north to a even smaller town called Langmusi which is already in Gansu province as I was supposed to meet Amanda, a lovely English girl, there to do the long planned horse trekking together.
The trip took around 4 hours and was really beautiful. The weirdest thing though was when the guy sitting in front of me (also a Westerner) turned around and asked: "Are you Verena"? You should have seen my face.... It turned out that that guy, Adrien, had met Amanda and she had told him about me. Well, and to be honest there are not too many blonde tall girls around that area, so I suppose it was rather easy to spot me. 😊
We then met Amanda and Emeiko, an American-Japanese girl in Langmusi and well, the 4 of us ended up travelling together for almost the rest of my trip.
Langmusi is even more beautiful than Songpan as its not as touristy. Its got some beautiful monastries where they also carry out sky burials. We even thought about going to see one but well, couldnt really make up our mind if we really want to watch that. Apparently there are some places now where you can book a tour to witness a sky burial. So knowing the people here I can already see a new business idea. People will probably sell their relatives dead bodies in order to entertain tourists... nice.
Unfortunately we weren't very lucky with the weather. First of all it was COLD. And then it was raining quite a bit. Thus, we had to stay longer than expected as we had to wait for the weather to clear up before we could do our horse trekking. Besides eating (always important) we also did a beautiful walk through a gorge where the rocks were covered with Tibetan prayer flags. Beautiful. It was also a little bit of an adventurous walk as we had to pass quite a few creeks jumping from rock to rock. Right at the start of the track we met some Chinese girls wearing high heels (perfect outfit for hiking.) I probably dont have to mention how far they got...
And then finally the weather cleared up at least a little and after a lot of discussions about if we really want to do this trek (it was cold, rainy and we were supposed to sit the whole day on a horse before staying overnight in a tent) we decided we would do it.
So off we went. It was the 4 of us and a Tibetan guide who didnt speak a word of English. It was beautiful. The countryside was amazing. No people (yes, I have to stress that aspect), green hills, yaks everywhere, alpine flowers and yes, just very relaxing. Ok, my bum and my legs did hurt a lot due to the rather uncomfortable saddle and too high stir ups but it was still amazing.
In the evening we stopped at one of the nomad tents which you see every now and then usually close to a herd of yaks. We stayed with a Tibetan couple (both 29 years old and already parents of 2 children, yes, minority groups and people living in rural areas of China are allowed more than one child) and really hard working. I felt like such a princess in comparison to them. It already started when we tried to reach the tent and had to walk through a muddy creek where I got stuck in mud and couldnt free myself so that this tiny Chinese woman had to come and get me out of there... God.
While they were bringing the yaks back close to the tent (there are wolfs around so the yaks cant stay far away) we were trying to warm up next to the little fire place. No wood or coal was used but yak poo. Quite an economical way but unfortunately you have to top it up every 10 minutes or so. After dinner we had a little chat with them but of course communication was restricted to some basic things as they couldnt speak any English and our Chinese was rather poor not even to talk about our Tibetan.
We also witnessed that some things will never change. Doesnt matter if you live in a big city or if you are a nomad: couples fight. Yes, they had a big fight in front of us and there you cant even slam any doors or just go into another room. So the woman slept on the floor while the guy was on the mattress calling her name throughout the whole night. And we were sleeping in between them. Mhhh...
Well, at least I wasnt cold as they covered us with around 10 blankets. There were so many blankets that there was no way that you could move around without waking up.
One more thing which was quite obvious was that the guy was one lazy bum whereas the woman was working incredibly hard. She got up at 5, took the yaks out, collected the yak poo etc he was sleeping until 10!! So again, same story everywhere 😊
It was amazing to witness nomad life! How many times in your life do you have the chance to get an insight into such a different life.
It was also nice to rejoin society though. Shower, toilet (none of that existed there) and just to switch on the heater without being busy heating it up every 10 minutes.
Our next stop was a town calles Xiahe. Xiahe is well known for its monastries, especially the Labrang monastery. We were lucky that the monastery was opened as it gets shut down rather often due to the high tensions between Han Chinese, Muslims and Tibetans. Labrang monastery is home to the largest number of monks outside of Tibet. It was wonderful just to have a stroll around and watch the monks praying or debating or peeing (yes, monks pee by squatting in the middle of the road while keeping their long monk robes on - dont ask me if those get wet I havent checked-.
I then decided that it was time for me to look into going back to Beijing and with the national holiday coming up (no train or plane tickets available during that time as the whole country is travelling) there was not time to waste. So I said goodbye to the others and went to Lanzhou, an awful, ugly city of at least 4 million people. Actually, I shouldnt say that as I didnt stay there for long and did not make much of an effort to look around as I decided to make use of my expensive hotel room (there are no youth hostels there) and spend a lot of time in a comfortable bed with a nice bathroom and a TV (things I hardly had the last few weeks). I also bought my train ticket back to Beijing for a few days later. The queues at the train station were massive (stretching over the market place in front of the train station - nice). So after securing my ticket I decided that I didnt want to stay any day longer in this place and booked another bus to go to Xining (another city of 2 million people close by in Qinghai province) as I was planning to meet the girls there. I found a nice hostel and after being to Lanzhou I thought Xining was rather nice. So I spent a few days there just wandering around, meeting the girls and going to another monastery hardly visited by tourists called Youning Si. Nestled in the surrounding mountains, the tranquillity and nature was just amazing. When walking around we also met this really sweet monk. Living in this tiny little room next to one of the big Buddha statues he seemed to be so much happier than anyone I have ever seen who lives in a massive villa. He immediately invited us for a cup of tea and some bread and we tried to communicate as good as we could. Really inspirational.
And then it was already time to go back home for me. 2,5 weeks seemed like such a short time. So I planned on taking the bus back to Lanzhou (that awful place) and from there taking the train back to Beijing (17h trip). Unfortunately my plan didnt work out. When I got to the bus station all buses were booked out (which usually never happens) and then there was only a slow bus. So the next bus available was already very risky to take and made me worry that I might not make it for my train to Beijing. So I was sitting on the bus for 3hours sweating and cursing every traffic jam we were stuck in. When we finally arrived in Lanzhou I had 10 minutes left to catch my train. Unfortunately the bus stop I was dropped of at was not the one next to the train station but one down the road. So I ran to a taxi, showed him my ticket and at least that time communication worked very well. He went as fast as he could and didnt even want me to pay. So I arrived at the train station at 5 and at 5:05 was my train. However, until I made it through security and found the right platform I only saw the train leaving. I was just standing there watching it...... Well, one thing was for sure, I definitely didnt want to stay any longer in this town so I went straight to the train personnel there and they took my ticket and after 10 minutes came back with a new one. I was so relieved and happy as it said that I only had to wait for 2 hours before the next train would depart for Beijing. So I was all happy until I looked more carefully at the ticket trying to find my seat number. There was no seat number.
There was NO seat number. I heard rumours about standing tickets on Chinese trains before but never even considered that I might be confronted with such a situation. So when the train arrived I just went to a seat to sit down (I mean, come on, there cant be standing tickets on such a long journey) but well, there actually are. So, yes, I spent 23 hours on a crappy Chinese train without a seat. After the initial reaction "I want to cry" I tried to look at that experience from a different perspective and really managed to kind of enjoy it. I mean, that is real China, that is what people do every day and I am part of it and experience this one day. And yes, although it was tough and soooo unfomfortable sleeping in the aisle with people walking past me every 2 minutes, people were really really friendly. They shared their seats with me, gave me food and really looked after me. As the only foreigner on the train and then without a seat you definitely get a LOT of attention.
The last few weeks in Beijing I was mainly busy sorting out my life. I found a new job as a kindergarten teacher which I really enjoy (very surprisingly) Part of why I enjoy it is probably that its only a part time job 😊. I also do some private tutoring and take Chinese classes. We were also doing a few nice things like going to a Chinese music festival which was good but they ran out of beer! Heeelllooooo?! and to a funny Halloween party.
Emotionally it has been a bit of a bumpy road. I still struggle to get used to live here. All those people leave you with hardly any space to breathe. There is also the pollution which was awful the last few weeks. Loads and loads of people on buses, subways, well everywhere pushing you and jumping the queues, spitting in front of your feet etc. It drives me crazy sometimes.
I have the feeling that they are all really anxious of being left behind in a crowd of 1,3 billion people and thus are being so self centred that they would even sell their own grandmother. Of course, this is not true for everyone as I have met some really wonderful people here, but definitely for quite a few;
I have to say that I really miss
nature and tranquillity. And cheese and wine 😊

Anyway, the weather started cooling down now and soon winter will be here. We will need to move again in a few weeks so a lot of changes again. I am sure we wont get bored.

As always I will keep you posted on our experiences in the Middlekingdom.

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