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Published: August 24th 2009
Blog 12: Highway Robbery, High Walks and High Hopes.
If there’s one thing you can say about Kunming, is that it smells nice when it rains. It truly does.
I have now been on a train for 26 hours. I think that’s plenty of time to be on a train, so Richard Branson, if you’re reading this, I would like a special card please that I can use when I’m on trains in the UK. If they get delayed, I can use it to get flown out by private helicopter, because quite frankly, then it comes to train travel, I’ve done my time.
And to make my time on the train EVEN more exciting, I got the top bunk of the hard sleeper, which is a little shelf resting about 7 or 8 feet up, right in the roof of the train. It’s REALLY high, and I’m not really sure how I got up there. It did encourage me to stay up there for pretty much the ENTIRE journey however...
Anyway, I am rambling.
Kunming.
I was to be there for a couple of nights. The weather was dull, wet and rather chilly which was
actually a rather welcome relief from all the heat of the past few months. A cursory walk around the city the next day took me to many places. I started out, in bright sunshine, and had a walk around the bird and flower market. I didn’t see any birds, and only a few flowers, but I did see a LOT of scarves, purses, pendants, cushion covers..all the usual things you see all over China. So I did a bit of haggling and walked away with a couple of things feeling pretty pleased with myself.
Onward, I was hunting for the teahouse that was in my Lonely Planet. I never found it. It had apparently become a very posh department store full of Burberry and Armani, but I went to the roof and had a cup of (rather expensive) tea there. There was a view of Kunming...it wasn’t overly awe inspiring it has to be said. Another concrete paradise that is just another Chinese city...
I continued on my city circuit, on the hunt this time for some “Over the Bridge” noodles. These are the dish du jour when in Kunming, and the story about them goes along the
lines of... a lady was feeding her husband, an important scholar who for some reason was on this island. She used to carry food to him every day and one day had a broth with some oil accidentally in it. She fell asleep, but when she woke up, she discovered that the broth was still hot (thanks to the fine layer of oil)and so she decided next to bring bits of food that can be cooked IN the hot broth, and it worked and her husband ate well and wrote some amazing er....scholarly type stuff. The crux of it is, you get a bowl of hot liquid, and lot of plates with things on them and you chuck it all in, give it a stir, pray to the god of Salmonella and dive in, hoping for the best.
The good news is, I found the restaurant. The bad news, it was lunchtime. This isn’t normally a problem in the real world, but in China, lunchtime can ONLY happen between 11.45am and 1.30pm, otherwise people WILL drop dead in the street. And the problem with such a small time slot, is there is such an extraordinary number of people to
feed. It was another one of those occasions where I nearly gave up. Seeing the giant round tables crammed with people, all with their bowl of noodles inspired mild panic, but I was shepherded to the leper table, (square, only 4 seats) where a Chinese couple were just finishing off their lunch. They told me that the basic bowl, 10Y, was very delicious...well, they pointed at that one on the menu and nodded a lot making appreciate slurping sounds. I went with it. Next thing, a bowl is put in front of me, “is hot”, warned the waitress. She came back balancing about 8 small plates - a raw quails egg, some flower petals, a chicken wing, skin, yes, skin, some vegetables and other items as such unidentified. I looked at her, a little mystified. Is there a special order one does this? I would go with chicken followed by egg (thus ending the timeless problem that has flummoxed man for millennia) and then a selection of the less potentially illness inducing ingredients. She sighed a little, picked up my chopsticks, and with an authorative finesse of a woman having to feed a small child quickly because she really does
have work she should be getting on with, shovelled it all in. One after the other. She returned with noodles, chucked them in, and there I was, left stirring and thinking that the liquid really didn’t seem warm enough to wilt cabbage, yet alone cook chicken.
I dived in. I must say, I ate around the slab of skin, nibbled the chicken and favoured the vegetables. Over the Bridge noodles. Typically Chinese - a big story that you never really see the point of. All talk, not much delivery. And if the scholar had been on his island today, he needn’t have worried; there’d have been a McDonalds.
Continuing on, pleased I had tried the local dish, the weather became worse. The rain started and didn’t look like it was going to stop, and there were rumbles of thunder...it grew progressively worse, and then it became a fully fledged storm. Not being the biggest fan of lightning, I was a little perturbed. I had a go at standing under a building with some Chinese, but the storm was going nowhere fast, so I decided to be brave and continue my journey. Unfortunately, I rounded the corner to find
big lotus lily pond to the right of me, trees to the left. Facing such lightning-attracting danger on all sides, a particularly loud clap of thunder prompted and little “eek!” and I bounced into the nearest shop...which happened to be a tea shop. Not the kind that are warm and cosy and sell cream scones, but one with jars of tea that gets weighed and sold.
Inside were a lady and her daughter who had been making little boats out of newspaper, and the husband. They showed me in and made me sit down and put the kettle on. Now this was MUCH better than risking life and limb outside! The man disappeared, and so me, the lady and her little girl sat around the tea table, and she started pulling different types of tea off the wall. I knew, that once I started drinking, I would have to buy some tea, but I had actually hoped to buy some Yunnan tea as it is very famous here and supposed to be very good, so I was more than happy to sit there and watch the little tea ceremony after ceremony while my feet dried and I warmed up
on rose tea, green tea, pu’er tea, oolong tea and chrysanthemum tea. The little girl showed me her newspaper boat, so I decided to crank out the Edgar party piece. Needham will know this one...taking a tissue from my bag, I folded it into a waterlily, which as we were right next to a lily pond, made mother AND daughter very excited, and it got very closely examined and placed on the shelf. Next thing, mum has got a piece of loo roll and sits down next to me looking hopeful. “No no no, this is all wrong I said”, knowing this would happen and reaching for my pack of tissues. Handing one all round, I began the waterlily training session. All students followed, and the resulting flowers were pretty reasonable. A good effort.
After tea and paper flowers, dad had come back and took mums seat...and got the calculator out. I said I would like the oolong and the Chrysanthemum teas please, and he started weighing the tea tins, cramming in as much as he could, weigh them again and declaring how much. After a lot of haggling and tipping tea backwards and forwards, I got my 2
pots of tea. It was expensive, but all good tea here is. And on I trotted, the storm over, homeward bound.
To be honest, that was my only real look at Kunming. The next day was stormy all day, and so I stayed at the hostel and read a book. I have read LOADS of books in the past few weeks. I read whatever I can get my hands on, and they have been a very mixed bunch! I was feeling rather glum I must say, and I wasn’t looking forward to the sleeper bus I had to take that night...fears that it turned out were not unfounded.
I got to the bus station that evening and was shown to the bus - a rather shabby affair, where I was put on by a very obnoxious Chinese man who spoke English and declared that petrol prices had gone up that day and as a result, I had to pay for my luggage. It was 10y a kilo, and on lifting my bag, said mine was 12kg. I was VERY sceptical, but looking round the bus there were only blank Chinese faces. He was banging on about the whole
weight, petrol thing and I was saying to him that I had been on a LOT of sleeper buses, all over China and had never heard this before. He went on to say my first 5kg were free, but after that I would have to pay. He pointed to some writing on the back of my ticket that had a number 10 within the text and declared that this is where it was stated. I told him I didn’t read Chinese, he said that was my problem, not his and if I wanted to get off the bus and call the police I could and get another bus tomorrow. Of course I couldn’t do that, as he well knew. As most travellers would there are rooms booked, an itinierie to be kept to...what a bastard. I was flustered, didn’t want to be kicked off the bus and gave him my 70y. I lay on my bed, hot tears of frustration and indignation at the sheer unfairness of it all pricking the backs of my eyeballs. What a wanker.
The bus journey was the worst ever. The road was so bumpy; the bus was constantly taking off from the road,
no exaggeration. It was like really bad turbulence on a plane. No one slept a wink, and we rolled into Lijiang at 6am the next morning, tired, weary and still a bit sore about the whole money thing.
Lijiang Old Town is a UNESCO world heritage site, and it is lovely. There are a few streams that run through the town, and the rest are all cobbled lanes that are an actual maze. Lonely Planet warns you WILL get lost here, and it took me AGES to find the hostel I wanted to go to. I got there, and was told I had to wait till 10am to see if anyone checked out as there were no spare beds. That was ok, I sat in the conservatory, they gave me a pillow and I slept with the hostel cat asleep on my lap, which was good because the other thing I didn’t appreciate about Lijiang was that as we were coming towards Tibet, the elevation was such that it was COLD. And all I have is a cardigan!
Luckily, at 10am, a bed was available; I unpacked, did my washing, got my bus ticket back to Kunming (good
to get these sorted at the start) and had a stroll around the town. I had read about the Tibetan food here, and had decided that I would be a Chinese free zone for the next few days. I kicked off with a Tibetan meat and pasta soup (a bit like minestrone but CREAMY) and some Tibetan dumplings. It was delicious and I began to feel a whole lot better.
The next day, I attempted to get to Baisha, a small town a bit further north, but the taxis were too expensive and I couldn’t find the bus. I settled instead to go to the Dragons Pool Park which was just up the road. It’s one of those places that you think you’ve seen somewhere before - the water was an odd blue/green and reflected the hills and the pagoda and bridge that lay next to it. It was very pretty, but the sky was cloudy and it was a bit dull. Still, I decided to make the most of the 80y it had cost me to get it the place, and went to climb up to the top of Elephant hill, the big hill that makes the reflection
in the water. Here I was told by a lady, apparently on guard duty, that 1 person was not allowed up, you had to be in a group of 4 or more. I asked her in Chinese, “why?” which is utterly ridiculous, as I had no idea what the EXPLANATION was. I think in language learning, they should teach you answer BEFORE questions so that you at least have a fighting chance. She told me, but I have no idea what she said. So I sat down and waited. The sun had come out a bit, but the park was quiet, it was still fairly early and nearly lunchtime and we know what happens at lunchtime. The chances of a group of 4 (or more) Chinese ambling here, at this sacred hour, and wanting to climb the hill were slim to nothing. I’m not sure how long I waited, but eventually there was the unmistakable sound of Chinese shuffling feet, and a man came into view. Alone. Solo. Sans company. And he walked straight up to the hill entrance, and kept going. I looked over at the woman, to proclaim my protest, and saw her absorbed in a magazine. So
that was it. I decided to do what China does in these situations. Break the rules, keep looking forward, and if anyone should call after you, for god’s sake, you do NOT turn around or even give the slightest FLICKER that you have heard anything! And off I stalked.
Let’s get one thing straight - this was no hard core hill. It was paved steps, all the way to the top. I have no idea why there was a 4 person rule. As I walked, I passed a couple (2). Then another couple (2), then a man (1) and then three ladies carrying sticks on their backs (3). At no point were there 4 or more people, together, in the same group, at once. Pish to you China. Pish!
It wasn’t an amazing walk up the hill, in fact it was rather nondescript. I saw a few graves, which is always nice for me, (some will understand this better than others), always happy to see them, and the view was ok. I took my photo, noticed the rainclouds hedging closer, and got back down to the bottom before the rain began.
The next morning, I was up
at 6, moving my things through the dark so I could pack my rucksack. I wasn’t as quiet as I could have been. I had been woken at 3am by 2 girls coming in who felt the need to put the lights on and generally clatter around for an hour, and I never really got back to sleep again. The trouble with dorm rooms, is when you’re sharing with 11 other people, it’s cheap, but your sleep is never your own.
It was just getting light as I headed for the bus station - my destination...Tiger Leaping Gorge. I got my ticket, and waited till 8.40am, got on the minibus, and off we set. 12 of us. Me, some Chinese and one other Western girl with a Chinese guy.
We arrived at the village by the gorge at 11am where we were leapt upon by Norma, an Australian lady who has been there 12 years. “Right, do you have everything you need? Loo roll? Plasters? Waterproofs? Chocolate? It’s been raining, but the paths are ok, where are you staying? Halfway hostel? That’s fine, they have over 100 beds. A group have just gone - there are some Ozzies
and an English girl, you’ll probably catch them up, here’s a map, you want me to keep your bags? You keep going down this road, and then when you get past the school, follow the arrows onto the trail. You’re taking the high trail? You have plenty of time, it won’t get dark till 7.30 tonight...I’ll see you tomorrow! Just hitch a ride back!” She was a whirl of helpful information, reassuring confidence and made me feel a whole lot better, for here I was, on my own about to trek the deepest gorge in the world...which basically means when you’re on the high trail, you have the furthest to fall. And people die here. They DIE.
I sidled up to the girl with her Chinese boyfriend...”do you guys mind if I tag along with you for a bit? I’m not really sure I want to go on my own...” they were fine with me hopping along, and off we went, swiftly followed by a man with a donkey.
It turns out my new travelling companions were Maria from Finland (in China since January, full time learning Chinese, supposed to go home a do her masters in French
linguistics but not keen to go) and her Chinese boyfriend who she met in Beijing, Shao, (a pop music producer for the money, but makes his own music that is not so popular). His English was awesome, and she understood and was nearly fluent in Chinese. I think I had backed two winning horses, for as the trail wound up higher and higher, the path was ambiguous at best as it picked through a couple of villages, and I would have been hopelessly and utterly lost and Shao could ask directions.
We walked and walked and got higher and higher. It wasn’t as bad as I had imagined (yet), yes there was a big drop to the right of us, and it was getting higher all the time, and yes, there was nothing to stop you plummeting however many hundreds / thousands of feet, and yes, it was rocky and hard gong on the feet, but the weather was nice (I was so scared we would have to do it all in the rain) and the company good and we had a donkey for company, so I was happy.
By lunch time we had reached a Naxi village
restaurant and we stopped and had lunch together. We set off again, for the hardest part of that days climb - the 28 bends. Shao negotiated with the donkey man for the donkey to carry our bags while we climbed, which as I seemed to have packed only bricks again, was a much needed break. The 28 bends are tight bends that go up and up and up and you have to virtually clamber up with your hands and your feet in the mud and rock (again thankful it wasn’t raining or we would have slid off for sure). By the time we got to the top, we were nearly level with the clouds, the river was a VERY long way below us and the view was lovely. Still no feelings of vertigo or that I might topple off. I still felt safe.
At this point, donkey man had to go. As we were not going to ride the donkey, he needed to start heading back, otherwise he would have to continue and spend the night at Halfway with us, which he didn’t want to do, so the bags came back and the rain started.
It was ok though,
I had a purple plastic mac I had bought the morning before - a wisely invested 12y plastic bargain, and it was mainly through woodland and downhill, so we slid down reasonably easily. After a few more hours, we were back out on exposed trail that clung to the edge of the gorge. Still the drop was sheer, but still I felt unusually calm. It had turned out that Shao was terrified of heights and being a city boy, had never hiked or possibly even walked anywhere, in his life, and he was also doing remarkably well.
We continued to walk. It continued to drizzle.
We walked some more.
And then we walked a bit further.
My feet were hurting. I was wearing my red trainers I hadn’t put on my feet since Beijing and although I had pre-empted with plasters on my heels, they were rubbing. And rubbing a lot. My ankles were hurting as we were constantly walking over rocks and the sky got darker and wetter and we became a very subdued threesome indeed.
By 7pm we reached the Halfway hostel and we had been walking and climbing for 7 and a
half hours, and were shattered. There was a group of English who had also reached the same point just behind us, so we all checked in, had showers, had dinner and went to bed, myself and the other two having agreed to meet for breakfast at 7.20am the next morning.
I had such a good sleep. I was physically exhausted, it was a joy to release my feet plus I hadn't had much sleep the night before. I was straight out, and did not stir till my alarm went off. The hostel was built right on the edge of the gorge, so the view was awesome, and the toilet was open backed so it was like being outside. A toilet with possibly the best view ever...the air was chill, but it had stopped raining and the day was filled with potential.
We set off quite cheerily at 8.30am. The path was getting narrower, we were still incredibly high but it was all good. And then we reached the first waterfall. The waterfall came down the hill above us, and into the gorge below us, but that also meant it flowed OVER our trail. Loose rocks, about 5 inches
of water and slipperiness and nothing to stop you sliding over the edge. We very gingerly made our way across, Shao bless him, having several babies along the way. I won’t lie, I wasn’t overly comfortable. I could quite easily see myself slipping on a rock and just sliding over the edge. It looked like a very easy mistake to make.
There were 3 waterfalls altogether. By midway through the second one, I chose wet feet over death, and just waded through. I had wet feet. But I was alive. The cold water also made my blisters feel a little better which were, by the way, EXCRUCIATING by this point. Still, only a couple more hours to go and we’re back at the bottom.
Ho ho, or so I thought.
We did get to the bottom, at about 11.30am, and we sat and had some food, and decided that we had come such a long way, it would be a shame to not see the ACTUAL rock, right in the gorge, in the middle rapids, where the tiger was supposed to have leapt across. So we began the descent down.
It was a little hairy -
the rocks were mossy and slippery, it was steep, and I was now in my flip flops. I could not continue in my shoes, and given that I know my flip flop capability, and I felt I could grip the floor more easily, it was actually better footwear for me. The others went convinced, but my feet hurt so much, I simply could not have gone on in shoes. I have been wearing flip flops most of my life, and have been the ONLY things on my feet for the past 5 months. I was stumbling and clumsy in shoes. In flip flops, I’m a veritable mountain nymph!
Anyway, the climb down frankly, wasn’t nice, and I wasn't relishing the thought of having to climb all the way back up, for we WOULD be climbing, for although the path was made of big rocks in a step like formation, they were BIG rocks, and you had to twist and climb and swap feet and do some forwards, some backwards, all the while, with no buffer to go wrong, and a big drop if you went wrong or slipped. Poor Shao wasn’t happy either. But we made it. It took
us over an hour to climb down, but there we were, right at the bottom.
We went across to the rock which you could get to by a dubious wooden slatted bridge, and we sat for a while debating our options.
The thing was, we were stuck between a rock and a hard place. Quite literally. We could have climbed back up the way we came, and then walked the rest of the way to Walnut Garden (the end) on the road (the middle path) OR taken the low path, where we currently were, along the bottom of the gorge and then climb up the ladder (yes, there is a ladder - which I will come to) and walk a smaller distance along the road to Walnut Garden. The problem was, the path we had come would have taken a LONG time to climb back up and would have been very hard, but Shao had spoken to the lady where we had eaten lunch and she had frightened him about the lower path telling him that even the ponies didn’t go down there, it was a hard climb, and because it had been raining for a few days, there
were rocks falling.
Well, after a long discussion, we decided to keep going along the bottom path. There are no photos if this path, as I needed both of my hands to hold on for dear life.
It started, as a climb on a big, sheer slippery rock, right above the rapids, with a rusty chain to hold onto and that was it. The ledge you had to fit your feet onto was about 3 and half inches wide. That was it. 3 and a half inches of slippery rock, in flip flops, or off into the rapids you go. I wasn’t happy, and when my legs started to shake, had to tell myself to just not think about it, keep my head down, and keep going. I edged along, and made it off the rock. We had a hard steep climb up that was just dirt, but at an angle where you have to nearly go up on all 4 as it’s so steep. The trail then turned back toward the river so again, we were hanging over it, desperately holding onto rocks and trying not to slip. I think at this point, I cold have actually
stopped, broken down and been totally screwed. No one in China is going to come and get you and pick you up and carry you off to safety. There was no going back, only forwards. Shao was practically green and I suspect I wasn’t a shade far off him. Every time I could feel the panic rising in me and my legs begin to shake, I had to tell myself to calm down and just keep going, either way up was going to be bad so just keep going. I had 2 voices of encouragement in my head. “Man up Edgar” came from my brother, and “just promise me you’ll be careful” from the Boy. And I truely did my best to do both of those things.
We reached a breathing station, where we met a man who offered to carry our bags. This was a big help. We scaled a rock with a metal ladder, that was only about 20 feet up, but bad enough to make us decide that when we had 2 routes to choose - the “sky ladder” (a ladder climb of a continuous 30 minutes” or the “safe path” (same as what we had
been climbing and in my opinion not very safe at all) we opted for the “safe path”. Now the man had my bag, I was better balanced, but still saw my life flash before my eyes on a number of occasions. We climber for maybe an hour, I’m not really sure of the time. It was quite possibly, the single most frightening thing I have done in my life. And if not in my life, then certainly for a very long time, and I cannot express in words how happy I was when we finally reached the road.
After that, it was plain sailing. A short road walk and we were in Walnut Garden, and Shao was talking to a man with a van to see if he would drive us back to the start. He did. It’s very handy being with a Chinese person in China.
We sat in the back of the van and trundled back to where we had started the day before. It was 5pm and we had been walking, climbing and nearly dying for 8 and half hours.
We got back to Norma’s and she was delighted to see everyone. Told us
where to catch our bus back to Lijiang, and within the hour, we were on our 2 hour journey back to the Old Town.
It was raining, 8.30pm and dark by the time I got back to my hostel. The day I arrived I tried to book a room for this night, to be told by the girl on the desk there was no need, there would be space for me. She knew I was climbing the gorge for a night and would be back the day after and they were after all, keeping my main rucksack for me. I turned up, tired, hungry and wet and she told me there was no room.
Me - “You’re joking?”
Her - “No. We have no room”
M - “But I need a bed for the night.”
H - “We have a single room”
M - “Well how much is that?”
H - “180Y”
M - “But I cannot afford 180Y. I want a bed for 30y.”
H - “I am sorry, but we are booked. A man has made a booking on the internet for 2 beds. He will be here at 9pm. He has paid a deposit. I
can give you a single room for 150y?”
M - “But I cannot afford 150y. I was expecting to pay 30Y and now you tell me you have no room and its 150!”
H - “But he has made a reservation, I am sorry.”
M - “But I stood here 2 days ago and tried to book with you -I asked to make a reservation and you said no that I did not need to. I asked you to make a reservation and you wouldn’t do it!”
H - “I am sorry”
M - Leafing through the Lonely Planet - “Right. And when did he make this reservation? was it MORE than 2 days ago, when I was here asking for a room and you were telling me I didn’t need one?”
She had her head down.
M - “No, I didn’t think so”?
H - “OK, you want a single bed. It’s ok. 30y. same room as before....”
M - “But you’re booked out! You just said they are all taken”
H - “It's ok, I will sort it...you have this bed, I will make arrangements”.
I was very proud of myself. It’s so unlike me to stick
up for myself like that. 8 months ago I would have been “oh, well, dear, that’s a shame, well terribly sorry to have bothered you, I’ll just go back out into the rain after having walked for 16 hours and nearly dying, but it’s ok, I’ll try and find another guest house in the dark, without getting lost...cheerio!”
Ha.
Patting myself on the back, I headed off to find sustenance, and I found it in the Naxi sandwich which is undoubtedly one of the BEST things I have eaten in a long time.
The Naxi Sandwich.
A simple invention. Local stone baked flat bread, of a thickness not unlike a skinny naan bread, and about the size of a dinner plate. Within this glorious doughy creation lies a slice of chicken (breast meat WHOOP WHOOP!!!), a fried egg, fried slices of goat’s cheese, (GOATS CHEESE!!! WHOOP WHOOP!) And fresh sliced tomato. And it comes smothered in tomato ketchup. Tis the food of gods I tells ya....
The next evening I was back on the bus to Kunming. No horrid man this time, no “petrol charge” (lying mot#=^fu*#ing Bas$”%d) and a nice bus. We sailed into Kunming
at 6.30am and I hopped into a taxi to take me back to the hostel I and been to before. I was only going to be in Kunming for 12 hours, but needed a base camp, so I had emailed ahead to check it was ok, and of course, they were more than happy for me to take up squatters rights on one of their sofas. I sat, I read the whole of “The other Boleyn Girl”, ate fried rice and dumplings, snoozed for a few hours and before long, it was time to head to the train station, where I shared a taxi with a very nice English couple who as it turned out, were 2 compartments down from me on the train to Chengdu.
Chengdu - where they eat spicy food and look after panda bears. Where the air is as hot as the spices they eat and my feet would finally be dry.
I was looking forward to Chengdu.
I climbed onto my middle bunk, and slept for most of the 18 hours there...
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EdgarinChina
Lucy Edgar
Highway Robbery, High Walks and High Hopes
Apologies for the typos. There is no excuse for these. I hope you forgive the author. She is tired.