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Published: November 24th 2007
Yunnan Province: Kunming - Dali - Lijiang - Quatou - Shangri La (Zhongdian) 9/29-2007-10/13/2007 Warning: Some of the material in this blog may be unsuitable for children.
After arriving in Kunming, I decided that I was in the mood for a massage. After the long hours in the car on the Tibet adventure, my back was a bit angry with me. So, I made my way up to the massage parlor attached to the hotel I was staying at. Now....you may or may not know that asian massage parlors often offer "extra" services for a fee. I've seen these quite often here (my hotel in Yangshou was in the red light district) But, this establishment would be different because it was affiliated with the hotel and it had a professional feel/look to it. It didn't look like the typical "massage" parlors that I've walked by in the past with the red lights glowing away within their doors. So, after agreeing on a price with the gentlemen at the front desk of the place, I was escorted by a cute asian girl in a short white nurse-like uniform. She leaves me in a locker room where I take off all
my clothes except for my boxers, my watch, and a pair of sandals. Ok....normally this is done in the massage room back home, but ok. Then I met up with the cute asian girl again and I follow her across a large room where I passed an asian guy on his way out who avoided eye contact and had a bit of an odd, dazed look on his face. Hmm..I thought to myself a bit nervously, "Hopefully he's dazed from the back massage and not something else." So, we get into the little room, I lay on the table face down, and she places towels over my whole body. We start to chat a little as best we can (her English wasn't very good) as she starts to work some of the knots in my back. About 5 mins into the massage she goes, "You like oil massage?" She was rubbing my back through a towel and it wasnt exactly enjoyable so I replied "Uh...whats an oil massage?" She goes, "I massage no towel with oil." Oh, that sounds better. How much? She says 200 yuan ($28). What!? No the regular massage is fine. I was only paying about $7
for the hour massage and didn't feel like paying any more. So, a few more minutes of back rubbing and she goes, "Oil massage very nice. No towel." Then she motions to my crotch and says, "I massage down there....very nice!" Uh-oh...so much for the respectable hotel affiliated massage parlor. I tell her that the regular massage is fine a few times a bit nervously and she goes back to the massage. Then she stands up on the table, grabs a hold of......the railings attached to the ceiling and starts walking on my back and butt. After a few minutes of that, she comes back down, strattles me and sits on my butt. Oh no...here we go again. She proceeds to go on about the "oil massage" and starts trying to barter with me over the price. I kept saying,"No really, its ok..just the normal massage is fine." Every time I said this, she lowered the price a bit more until we went from $28 to $4. I said no again and she seemed to get a bit pissed. So she starts doing the "karate chop" move on my back. I guess I should have said yes. Anyway, after spending
about half the time arguing about me not wanting to get "oil massaged," the hour ended and I came out with slightly more pain then what I went in with. The moral of the story: Stick to the clothes-on foot rub unless you want to get "oil-massaged" in China.
Dali and Lijiang are both quaint little popular destinations. This part of the Yunnan Province Experience was directly in the middle of the Chinese Golden Week Holiday. The entire country has this week off and the entire country goes on vacation. We were dreading this week since we arrived in China and saw how crowded any given area is in China at any given moment. However, I was somewhat pleasantly surprised at how moderate the crowds were. Don't get me wrong. There were still hordes of chinese tourists, but it was bearable and didn't take away to much from the small town feel. In Lijiang, we picked up young Chris, who was fresh off the plane. We were all heading to Quatou to do the Tiger Leaping Gorge trek and decided to bus it out there together. So, after hanging out for a couple of days and a couple of
crazy nights in Lijiang, we all bussed it up to Quatou. Getting off the bus at about 2 in the afternoon, we were immediately greeted by Margo, the middle-aged, whimsical, slightly eccentric aussie. In a very non-chalant manner she recommended we get on the trail now to do a short part of the 30 km trek to get ahead of the tour groups. She brought us in to her restaurant and fixed us up some sandwichs in a very motherly fashion. We sized down our packs for the trail and Margo would store our bags for about 70 cents for 3 days...not a bad deal. After she fed us, we said our goodbyes and Margo sent us on our way. Four kilometers into the trip we came across the Naxi Family House, which would be our home for the night.
The thing about food poisoning is you can never be exactly sure where it came from. That night, I couldn't eat at dinner. At about 2am, I had a Chengdu flashback. I woke up in a cold sweat with a rumbling stomach and said to myself...oh no..not again. Yes...it has happened again. After a quick sprint to the trough..yes
trough..my nightmare was confirmed. Shit. I was a 4 km hike in from the rundown/slightly impoverished Quatou and a 26 km trek to Tiger Leaping Gorge. Shit. After an exciting 10 mins in the outhouse, I stumbled back towards my room, cracked my head on the low doorway for the 100th time in China, and collapsed in bed. Repeat a few more times before dawn. I probably should have gone back to Quatou and layed up in a room again, but I was here, at the brink of seeing Tiger Leaping Gorge, and wasn't ready to give it up.
The thought of 8 hours of trekking after a night of fever and sprinting to the outhouse was a bit disheartening. But, we got on the trail after breakfast, which I managed to get down, and I decided to stick it out. The first few kilometers of the trek were relatively easy until we came to what's known as "28 Bends," which is a series of 28 gnarly switchbacks up the side of a mountain. The bends were at nearly a 45 degree angle and full of rocks to climb over. This part of the journey sucked. I felt completely
New Friends
Chris and the goatsdrained of energy as I had to make frequent "stops" on the side of the trail. But, once I reached the top of the Bends, the view was awesome. Looking down into the gorge and seeing the rushing Yangtze River below was truly a site. The next part of the trail led us through a waterfall pouring over the trail and along the side of the mountain, which was teeming with "Loose rock", "Danger" and "Stand back" signs. This was the extent of warnings we received. The skinny trail literally winds around the rocky mountain. When looking over the edge its a straight down drop of a couple hundred feet into the river below. I got a little bit of the creeps when I looked over the side and decided not to do that anymore. The trail was long and grueling, but well worth sucking it up and going. A full day of solid hiking later, we made it to the end of the trail only to see a group of buses with tons of tourists snapping pictures. I knew there was a road to get to the gorge from Quatou and I figured I'd see this sort of thing,
Skyline
Tiger Leaping Gorge but it was still kind of a bummer. But, the feeling of accomplishment combined with the awesome site of the rushing river through the towering gorge made everything else disappear.
Shangri-La was a bit of a let down. The views were supposed to be legendary and I found them not quite living up to the hype. The city had a Lhasa feel to it minus Lhasa's charm. But, this may have been due to my continuing stomach problems and my bitterness towards China for giving me stomach issues for the third time in 2 months. My dislike for this town may also be linked to extending my visa. I went to the local visa extension office and found out that it was going to cost Andrew the Brit $20 for a 30-Day visa and $100 for me. I decided I was going to refuse to pay out of protest, leaving me only a few days to get out of the country. After a bit of swearing and complaining to anyone that would listen of why this was complete shit, I sucked it up, payed the hundred bucks and sulked. In the end, it was worth paying the money. I
Falls
Tiger Leaping Gorge went back to Yangshou for a few weeks and chilled out for awhile before the next adventure.
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