Though road, wonderful little village

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Tuesday August 15th

I managed to wake up in time for the early bus to Songpan despite spending another really bad night. I was feeling slightly (but not greatly) better than the days before so I hoped I was on the way to recovery. My plan for the day was to take the 3 hours bus ride to Songpan and then do nothing except to relax and recover. Songpan is a base for horse trek and contrary to Jiuzhaigou, it is very popular with western tourists but less with chinese ones. I had decided not to do the horse trek there as I heard some very bad stories about the trekking company. Some people had the time of their life while other got only 2 hours of riding per day instead of the 6 promised and then a beatup by the guy who owns the company when they complained about it. I had heard that there was horse trekking in Langmusi, my next destination, that was cheaper and allowed you to get a glimpse of tibetan nomadic lifestyle since they made you sleep with a nomadic family instead of a tent as in Songpan so I decided to go with them instead.

On the bus, I had a seat at the very end of the bus and I was the only westerner save for a blonde girl sitting diagonally from me. I spent the first 2 hours looking at the scenery but then we stopped at some town which I knew wasn't Songpan and every single chinese left except one so it was just me, that chinese and the blonde girl. I asked her what was going on and she confirmed that we weren't in Songpan and we'd get there eventually. I suddenly remembered that I had seen the girl the day before in the park very early when I went to see Nuorilang Waterfall but apparently she hadn't noticed me! We started talking and we immediately got along together really well. She is a Irish girl named Aisling who has been living in London for more than a decade. She learned chinese at uni and lived in Shanghai for a while but then went back to the UK to work. However leaving China is not that easy. Like a siren it seems to lure back expats. She took a 1 month class to improve her chinese in Yangshuo and is now travelling in China for the next few months and then India and Nepal before heading to Beijing to get a job.

We eventually got to Songpan and got a room together in Shun Jiang guesthouse (the hotel of the trekking company) for only 15RMB each. I was quite surprised by the amount of westerner walking in the street of Songpan, especially after coming back from Jiuzhaigou which was packed of tourists but only chinese ones. I even met Kerelit and Ayelet, the 2 israeli girls I was supposed to do Yading-Lugu Lake trek with on the street. They went to do a horse trek but had to come back after a day because one of them was sick so they were also recovering. They told me that Amit, the other guy who was supposed to come to the trek in Yading, decided to go back to Israel one day, out of the blue about. The next day he was in Tel-Aviv.

Aisling knew her way around Songpan as she had done a horse trek here. We went to Emma's kitchen to find out if it was possible to get a van or minibus to Langmusi since according to the LP if you take public transport you have to overnight in Zoige on the way. But Aisling know that Emma know everything that happens in the city so if there was a van or a bus going that day she would know. To our surprise, Emma told us that there was indeed a bus that should leave directly to Langmusi tomorrow so we bought a ticket each. After that, we celebrated the good news over some sort of burritos imitation which was quite decent. She had some laundry to do while I needed to go on the internet so we parted for the afternoon. I spent a few hours there then went back to Emma to sip on a coke while reading. I spoke with an italian girl who had been hit in the head by a horse, right above the eye. She had to have some stiches done and still seemed to be in shock. She got really lucky in her badluck because had the horse hit only a bit lower she might've lost an eye. She went back to her room after a while as she was, understandly, very tired.

I decided to leave at the same time but when I went to the counter, Emma told me that the bus to Langmusi had been cancelled. Emma was very sorry about it and she gave us our money back. She told me that we should buy ticket to Zoige and then get a taxi for the last 3 hours to Langmusi and that we'd probably find other people on the bus tomorrow to share it. I went in our room to inform Aisling and give her money back. We decided to follow Emma's plan and I went to buy our ticket at the bus station since Aisling had to get her clothes from the line since it was threatening to rain.

I was feeling allright by that point. I didn't have any strong diarhea although I was still feeling stomach pain. Not feeling strong but good enough to eat and drink. We went back to Emma's for dinner. I had a burger which was pretty good. We talked for a few hours over a couple of local beers at Emma's and had quite a few laughs. We also learned that there were an israeli couple who also were going to Langmusi tomorrow so we could share a taxi at Zoige. At around 11PM we went back in the room since our bus was leaving at 6:40 tomorrow.

Wednesday August 16th

We again managed to make it to the bus station for the way too early bus. Sometimes travelling in China feels a lot like work. Though life! On the bus we met the israeli we saw the day before as well as two other guys. I mentioned our plan to get a taxi in Langmusi and they agreed to join. We were sitting in different places so we didn't talk much during the ride. Aisling and I talked for a while then listened to her iPod. We have very similar musical taste so I was delighted to hear good music for the first time in months! The first 3 hours of the ride were okay. The road was really bad and we never really went faster than 30 km/hr but at least we were getting somewhere. There were clear sign that they were building a new road with half-finished bridges and tunnel everywhere so we had to take extra time to get around those. It is definately a road built for speed and when it will be done I'm sure the ride from Langmusi to Songpan will be done in 3 hours. This was, unfortunately not the case for us that day.

After 3 hours of riding, we were stopped by a truck and told that we couldn't go on because of road construction. Apparently the concept of building the road on one side to allow traffic on the other hasn't made it to China yet. After about 30 minutes of waiting I got sick of it and climbed a hill to get a view of the surroundings which was quite nice, it reminded me a lot of Litang. I climbed up and scared a vulture which was sitting there. I sat among horses and yaks for a few minutes. The 2 guys on the bus also came and we talked for a while. One is a swiss and the other german and they're in China for about 2 weeks. Their goal is to find an unspoilt little village in the mountains. Needless to say they had been disapointed in their quest so far as Songpan is quite too touristy to be qualified as unspoilt. I think they chosed the wrong country for that.

After about an hour of waiting we heard calls from the bus so we ran back and continued on our way. We had to get out of the bus because they were afraid that we'd be too heavy if the bus went on the new tarmac fully loaded but after that we went back and continued riding full of optimism. That good feeling was squashed an hour later when we were stopped at another of those stop for another hour. What was especially infuriating was that we never knew how long it would take. We were told 30 minutes, then 5 more etc etc. At least we had Aisling who could communicate with the chinese so we had a *little* bit of info but it was pretty much all worthless anyway.

We drove again after an hour only to be stopped after 20 minutes of riding by another stupid stop. This time the driver told us to get all our backpacks from the back and walk to the other side of the construction thing. He told us Zoige was near so I thought we were to walk to the city. However all the chinese sat down after we passed the road construction so we did the same. We were all very exasperated at this point and the morale was at an all-time low. I nevertheless tried to keep our hopes up by making a few jokes. After about 30 minutes of waiting a bus came from Zoige and picked us up. Apparently our driver was sick of waiting so he called his buddy in Zoige so that he'd finish the ride for us. It took us 15 minutes of driving before we arrived in the bus station. It was around 3:30PM and we had had nothing to eat except some peanuts and soy bean that Aisling had with her so we were all tired and hungry.

We tried to negotiate with some taxi drivers but no one would move from 500RMB for the 3 hours ride so we figured we'd go eat and come back when we looked less tired and desperate. We had quite a huge and satisfying meal at a local chinese place: dumplings, eggplant in spicy sauce, spicy chicken, pork, scrambled egg and tomato, potato and rice. The company wasn't too great however. It is really rare I say that but I didn't enjoy our companions too much. The german guy was just plain rude, the israeli girl never talked except in hebrew to her boyfriend, the israeli guy was okay but didn't speak much and the swiss guy seemed allright but rarely talked also. After the meal Aisling and the israelis went to negotiate. We figured we'd have a better bargaining position if we didn't go all 6 with all our lugages as that made us look desperate for a ride. Me and the german/swiss stayed behind to look after the bagages. After about 20 minutes they came back. They managed to get hte price down to 600RMB but only if we left after 6PM so that the main road would be open (there is also construction from Zoige to Songpan) because if we went before we would have to take the bad road and no one wanted to do that for below 500.

We spent the rest of the time in an internet cafe (what a great place to kill time). At 6PM we got into the car and started riding. We hit a roadblock almost immediately after town but our driver had a trick in his sleeve. He went to talk to a policemen who came over and started driving the car while our driver sat in the back. This way we got back to block and once we were alone again the driver and policemen exchanged place. I'm not too sure if our driver bribed the police or he simply gave him a ride but in any case I'm sure what we did wasn't perfectly clean. It all gave us nothing however as 10 minutes after the road block there was another one. This time it didn't look like our driver had enough brownie points with the local authority to go through (we saw some cars who managed to and the people who were driving them were clearly local elites). We were told 30 minutes wait but it took more than an hour. It was an especially infuriating checkpoint as the workers were total teases. They'd go in the truck that was blocking the road and then play with the engine. But it took them more than 30 minutes from the time they entered the truck to the time where they actually moved. All this time they kept us on the edge so we never knew when they were gonna move. I really wanted to beat them up at the end.

In any case they finally moved around 7:30. The first hour was smooth. The road is really good and almost done so we could hit 100 km/hr most of the time, whcih is not something that happens often in China and even less often in the mountains. After that it was one of the worst mountain dirt road I've ever seen but we made it to Langmusi by 9:40. We were all very exhausted by that point. The german/swiss and the israelis went their way and we said goodbye. Me and Aisling took a dorm room (but we were alone) in Langmusi hotel. We were tired but we both wanted to have a beer and relax before sleeping. The beer went down pretty damn well and we had a laugh over what happened that day. Sometimes travel can be so infuriating but once it's done and you talk over it on a beer it seems that even the worst moments turn funny and interesting. We figured that in a few years when that road is done we'll be able to tell young and naive backpackers how hard it was back in the day: "It took us 15 hours to get from Songpan to Langmusi and that was a good day! Kids these days don't know how lucky they are to have everything spoonfed to them like that!". I'm glad I went for that beer because I went to bed in a good mood instead of simply frustrated after a day that didn't go so well. I was also glad to be travelling with Aisling. She is a great travelling companion. I often meet really cool people during my travel but there's always something that I know wouldn't work if I had to travel with them for long but she turned out to be the perfect travelling partner.

Thursday August 17th

We didn't have anything planned for our first day in Langmusi. However, one thing we knew we had to do was to go to Leisha's restaurant. This place is famous among travellers in China (well, those that get out of the Beijiang/Xian/Shanghai/Chengdu/Yangshuo/Kunming circuit that is) for her delicious meal, huge portions and especially her famous Yak Burger all for very cheap prices. We didn't attempt to attack the Yak Burger for breakfast but I had some delicious pancakes for about half the price that restaurant/hotels usually charge while Aisling had a delicious thing called shaksooka which Leisha told her was a local speciality. It is tomato/pepper/onions with eggs and it tastes so good. We met a dutch couple there who had been cycling from Amsterdam through the Middle East (Turkey, Iran) and Central Asia (Turmenistan, Uzbekistan etc) to Hong Kong. I really like talking with these kinds of people because they always having interesting stories plus I was planning to go to some of those countries so they're also good sources of infos.

I walked around town a bit and went to an internet cafe to check out info on horse treks in Langmusi and update the blog. I was trying to convince Aisling to come and I managed to hook her up after I showed her the website. She had lots of things to do on the net so I figured I'd go ask for info at the horse trek company and then we said we'd meet in Leisha's for lunch. The english speaker wasn't there so I told them I'd come back with my friend who speaks chinese and went to Leishas. I had a delicious spaghetti with yak meat. Aisling still wasn't around so I figured I'd go see a monastery and come back. I went to Sichuan Monastery and walked around for about an hour. It is on a hill overlooking the village so you get nice views of the surroundings. It was quite a lovely walk but I didn't want to go too far as I had told Aisling I'd be in Leisha's.

I walked back there and met Aisling who was in the restaurant with an old and funny irish man called Joe and his daughter. Joe was funny and easygoing so we stayed quite a long time. He had funny story to tell about his travel in different countries including this hilarious story that happened to him in Nepal which I can't not repeat here. He had done some trekking in Nepal with an independant porter who liked to drink quite a bit. He didn't drink on the job but when he went back to town Joe would often find him in bars and he'd go with him to drink a few beers. One time Joe saw his porter friend sitting in a building so he joined him and asked for a drink. He was quickly served and they drank together. The place was a bit empty with only one other man and the woman who served the drinks. At around 11PM or so the man went in a bed and everyone started praying. Joe thought it was quite wierd to have a bed in a bar and especially to have someone to use it but he thought "different country different customs" so he didn't pay too much attention. After a while, he was told that he would have to leave soon because it was late so he asked for the bill. The porter looked at him wierdly and told him there was no bill: "This is not a bar, we're in my friend's house, this is his bedroom and we've been drinking his personal alcohol". Needless to say he felt really bad.

Aisling already went to the horse trek company and she said she was interested in a 2 days trek which is 1 day horse 1 day trek. That was perfect with me as pure horse trek appeared a little bit lazy so this hybrid horse trek kind of thing suited me perfectly. We said bye to Joe and his daughter and went to buy the 2 days horse trek. Everything was really professionally done and we were quite satisfied by how the woman there handles it. It is clearly her and not her husband who run the business which is quite rare in China. After signing the forms she gave us (and, of course, paying) me and Aisling went to the Monastery. I didn't have time to explore everything the first time I went since the monastery ground is quite big. Also there was one thing I wanted to see: sky burial grounds.

What is Sky Burial? Simple. When tibetans die they are sliced up by a priest and their body is mixed with incense and tsompa (some tibetan food made of barley and yak butter tea) and offered to the vultures (chinese authorities cracked down on this so tibetans were forced to be buried for a few decades but now control is being relaxed). Going to a ceremony requires an invitation and even then it is highly likely that your presence will insult someone but going to the Sky Burial grounds during the day seemed allright as it was in the map of the monastery for tourists so we decided to go. On the way there, 2 kids on horse started talking to us and asked for us to take pictures of them with our hats/glasses. They were funny but a bit too insistent especially after one of them asked to take my camera which is not something I'm willing to give to a kid on a horse. They wanted to take us for a ride to the Sky Burial Ground but we said no and went our way. We met a french girl on the way up and invited her to come with us. She's another Breton named Fany. I complained in a previous blog that lots of french are rude asshole and that I don't feel any cultural connection with them but the ones from Brittany are cool and Fany was no exception. She's a violon-maker in France.

We walked together to the Burial Ground and explored a bit. We found quite a few human bones lying around (I'm not publishing those pictures out of respect for whoever it was), axes and lots of rubbish. It was quite interesting to be in this area with vultures flying over us. We decided to keep on walking as the scenery was just stunning. We walked and down a few hills while taking pictures. The weather was perfect, the scenery stunning and my companions were friendly. This little trek in the hills was really wonderful. I realize that when I travel it is very rarely the "big" attraction that I enjoy a lot but more often these kinds of simple things. It might look cliche but I felt at peace and happy during those few hours up there just walking in this barren looking mountain scenery. We decided to sit around and wait for sunset but after about an hour the weather worsened and we figured there wouldn't be any good sunset so we left. I'm not too sure why but I know I'll remember this afternoon for a long time. On the way down we met 3 old men who told us to sit and we discussed a little bit (using Aisling) and took pictures. The 2 eldest had the coolest glasses I've ever seen. I'm jealous. On the way back we convinced Fany to come with us for the horse trek and she agreed.

We went back in town and headed to Leisha's to have her famous Yak Burger (after going to the horse trek company so that Fany could pay/register). Her burger is famous throught the backpacker community in China so we were eager to give it a try. I decided not to even try the big one first (called Big Mac Yak Attack) because I had seen the size and I knew I couldn't do it. It is called a burger but it is not really like a western burger. It is yak meat, potatos, vegetables that somehow stick together in between 2 slices of tibetan bread. I thought it was pretty damn good and I was the only one who finished it all but I was very full after I was done. After the meal I had planned to update my blog but friendly people just came and joined so we ended up spending the evening talking with different people: Joe, a few israelis guy whom Fany knew from Xiahe and an australian couple. The australian girl made us feel guilty about coming to Leisha's all the time: "There's this lovely young couple who opened this restaurant called Shanghai Times accross the street. They can look down the street and see all the foreigners at the same place. They're probably wondering "What are we doing wrong???".". She was funny (and did have a point, although it must be said Leisha's had to be the best restaurant I've been to in China for the quality/price ratio). We went back to bed relatively early to prepare for the horse trek that was to come.

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Photos

3 men at the Monastery
They were really friendly and told us to sit next to them when we met them. The old ones have such cool glasses.

Aisling and me
At the top of some hill

Last stop on the way to Zoige
I'm smiling in that picture but I don't really mean it. I was pretty pissed at the time.

Woman in traditional clothes
Seen in a village in between Songpan and Jiuzhaigou. Not too sure of her ethnic group.

Songpan
Shops for tourist. How boring.

At the first stop on the way to Zoige
This is nomadic territory.

Roadblock after Zoige
Cool landscape

Roadblock after Zoige 2
Cool landscape

Langmusi
Seen from Sichuan monastery

Langmusi 2
Red Stone Mountain in the background

Woman and her child
In the monastery. She was playing with her child on the top of a hill with a great view of the village. I went to take a picture of the view and she was really friendly so I took a shot of her. She was happy when I showed her the picture.

Kid on a horse
This kid wanted to take us on a ride to the Burial Ground. He was quite playful and wanted to take picture with my hat. He also wanted to take my camera but I didn't allow that.

Friendly tibetan
He decided to make a ridiculous pose when we asked if we could take a picture. These guys were cool.

Stumpa?
Not sure how this thing is called. Anyway it was on top of the hill with the monastery and was pretty cool

Prayer flags
With Sky Burial vultures in the sky who are probably wondering whether they'll be able to eat us.

Around Langmusi 1
I love this place.

Fany and me
At the top of some hill

Around Langmusi 3
On the left of the river is Gansu Province. On the right is Sichuan

Leisha's world famous Yak Burger
Hmmmm. Yummy. And that's a small one.

This chinglish HAS to be done on purpose
Gave me a good laugh