Loos, poos, weddings and excessive amounts of marble

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Ni Hao from Lijiang!
To recount the past few days for you, I left Sapa and crossed the border via Lao Cai on the afternoon of Wednesday October 17th. Lao Cai is just that, a border town nestled on one side of the range that seperates Sapa and Yunnan province. We literally took our Transit van there, did the official requirements and walked into China over a briddge. People looked like they were out for a Sunday stroll crossing between countries, it was quite unusual. I guess I did not expect a big bang when we entered China (more on big bangs later). We had a brief meal then haeded to the sewer smelling bus station for an overnight sleeper bus. At that point I had a wee meltdown, literally my stomach churning from dinner, the sewer smells enveloping the whole bus station, and to top off paid my 50c yuan to visit the first toilet in China.

Toilets are of two varieties I have determined - with walls or without walls. There are several configurations of people beside you, sometimes one, sometimes 10, but without a doubt you leave your dignity and esteem at the door when you pay your yuan for the great priviledge of doing your thing next or opposite to them. Privacy is a foreign concept, and they will even nestle up to you in other social situations as toiletting is seen! I melted down for approximately 1 hr, but got myself together on the sleeper bus as my nausea subsided (this was to the annoyance of locals who could not tolerate the window I had ajar, for vomit purposes) and I contemplated the significance of my symptoms with yet another dietary and water change. The first overnight toilet stop was incredibly degrading - I felt shafetr into a dark corridor, and when the last person in front of you finmished their business into an oblong concrete hole with two bricks aside it, you filled their vacated position as onlookers did just that. We 3 girls tried to make light of the situation but I was about to re-meltdown at this point it had such a communist, third world, eastern block, prison like feel about it. Ditto for remaining loo stops over night. Now I can cope with buckets and boats, or bush loos, but these loos are the pinnacle of degradation for a westerner like me. So I took the proverbial by the hands (no loo paper, what else do THEY use??) and went bush once - that gave me privacy and tranquility whilst the others did their thing in the style just mentioned. Loos since have been subject to a rating system which us girls determine - the last one en route to Lijiang from Kunming was a minus two according to Rachel, our resident clinical pysch, useful for all those pep taks one needs when they have annoying dealings with Chinese locals that result in expensive long distance phone calls to NZ.

Another thing that is starting to 'wash over me' more now, but begs differently to my knowledge of sputum physiology, is the spitting thing. Expectotaing demons?? Perhaps, but please don't do it my way. It is okay to spit on to a table cloth, floor, footpath, rubbush bin, other people ..... you get the idea. Everyone does it, I feel almost obligated to give it a try for cultural effect. The over use of marble as a building material is not only slippery but very trying of the Chinese- now I understand why a lot of new housing complexes occupied by migrants in Auckland seem to have pillars and marble.

So back to the itinerary. 14 hrs on a sleeper bus over goat tracks, 2 lane motorways and residential streets did little to halt our energy, and I made the most of our free day in the capital of Yunnan province, Kunming. The Camellia hotel was lovely, and the breakfast similarly elaborate. Lots of hutongs, alleyways with old meeting new architecture, old markets, live and dead animals in cages and on backs of bicycles, Dongfeng square alive with Tai chi, dancing couples and sword enthisiasts, smoke choking motorways overbridges, friendly locals (especially when you try Chinese!). But it was just that, a stop-over and not worthy of more than a day to get fresh laundry and supplies for the trek north. Getting the laundry was va mission and a half - after speaking to 4 people, I eventually got it picked up, then 12 hrs later got a call saying they had my room mates laundry, not mine. Where was it? assigned to another room, of course! After seeing an amazing cultural show 10x better than the pathetic water puppets of Hanoi showcased many Yunnan ethnic minorities and that went until late. The laundry episode lasted until approx midnight, but hey, clean clothes are worth waiting for! We left for Lijiang the next day, and via steep gorges, bush clad hills alongside authentic postcard chinese architecture i.e. the humble cottage with fluted roof line that hangs the corn harvest for the year. And we thought they were just selling their bananas from front porch! Today was a free day to explore Lijiang, a small touristy town with about 300000 people that is split into old and new. A temple dominates the skyline of Lijiang, but if you get out in to the new town and explore by bike like I did, you get to see the real China. Chairman Mao de jong in the New Town was graced by a wedding party today amidst gunpowder fire - big bangs while the bride the a bouquest at the crowd behind her, facing Mao in thei honorific, 'little red book' way. Construction reigns here, piles of rubble and rubbish on roadsides, erecting umbrellas at the slightest hint of rain, and rows of gated communities aside wide boulevardes for the many cars and bicycles. I did the markets, sampling local p[roduce and practicing my bargaining skills in Chinese - the most important thing to know is how to say 'thats too expensive' as they can smell a foreigner a mile away. Have had a few cases of buying something then seeioing it a third the asking price around the corner, but when it's a difference of $1NZD, who cares anyway.

So tomorrow we are off to TigerLeaping gorge for 2-3 days hiking, and then fly to Xian on Wednesday at 12.20pm. It's cold - 5-6 degrees overnohgt, and barely 10C daytime, so my thermals and wet weather gear will finally get some use!!!

Off for some much needed shut eye and malaria pill induced dreams....

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Photos

first loo in china
cold, dark, sewer smelling loo with everyone staring at you

petrol pump
the government subsidises taxi drivers with petrol

translation?
uis this a new kind of security?

a real good shitter
connect the dots with this 5 star Hua shan shitter