Johny and Dori go to China with the Foxalls – Spring 2009

So, we were going to go to Tibet, but it was shut. The Chinese Government were worried that we might be Buddhist dissidents, looking to stir up some bad kharma over Easter. (Tibet/Buddhists/Easter? Go figure), so anyway they weren’t issuing visas and we had to go somewhere else. Jon and Liz Foxall had lined up an alternative trip and so off we went to Yunnan. It was a bit of a last minute job involving flying from Shenzhen airport in China, which also involved getting up at 4 in the morning, great.

Anyway, we flew Shenzhen Airways to Lijiang. Breakfast included what looked to be regurgitated noodles but, after that, we were treated to a dance. This was basically the air stewardesses doing some deaf person sign language to music. I think the gist of it was that they were happy that we were all flying together in the beautiful Shenzhen Airways skies and if we were to encounter any life threatening circumstances, no way should we get between them and the doors. Then we had a raffle. Seriously. First prize was the deluxe edition parachute. Second through fifth prize was a carton of regurgitated noodles to take home. Sixth prize was a moist towelette that somebody had returned, uneaten. Lijiang runway is one of the shortest runways in the world and we all landed with the imprint of the tray securing knob, tattooed on our foreheads.

We were met by our guide, Robert, and our driver, Mr. Heunghghhfgh. In 10 days, Mr. Heunghghhfgh never actually spoke to us although we were acutely aware of his presence, especially on warm days with the windows up, when his suit developed a personality of its own. A very rich and aromatic personality. Robert was a really cool guy, the youngest and most illegal son of a very poor, rural farming family. The prodigal son who eventually got his act together and went out to find fame and fortune. My Doppelganger, except for being Chinese and the getting-the-act-together bit.

Robert took us to our Guesthouse and will forever be in our good books because he got us upgraded to the best rooms in the place. The Dengke Inn is very dinky.

About 12 rooms in all set around a courtyard in Lijiang old town. Mr. Heunghghhfgh had to park outside the town and our bags went up the small cobbled streets on a cycle rickshaw. The old town is a World Heritage site and so pretty that it is hard to imagine that you are in China. The words “Pretty” and “China” do not often appear on the same page, but you will hear it so often here that you will probably be looking at your noodles by the end of this report.

Robert took us to the Black Dragon Jade Bamboo Panda Forbidden Jackie Chan Heavenly No. 49 Noodle Pool, which was quite pretty, with the Heavenly Snowy Mountain in the background. All the water for the town comes from this pool and I saw fish doing No. 2’s in it, so it was beer from then on.

Outside the Park, Dori had her first shopping experience of the holiday and Robert demonstrated the value of having a guide with the words “Offer them a third of whatever they ask for”. However, he didn’t seem quite so pleased with himself when we applied this instruction to his tip at the end of the trip, but more of that later.

The town itself is about a square mile of really old wooden buildings, almost every one of which has been turned into a shop selling ethnic goods, or a restaurant selling ethnic food, or a café selling ethnic moccachinos with organic tofu cookies. Streams from the Black Jade pool flow through most of the streets and your lunch vegetables are almost certainly washed in them. Goldfish swim like trout in clouds of fresh green weed.

Ladies from various minorities gather in the local squares and do ethnic dances while Foreign tourists walk around with Sony camcorders surgically attached to their faces.

Squillions of mainland Chinese tourists throng every alley, street and cobblestone with matching baseball caps and their guides marching in front with a flag, taking photos of all the Foreign tourists sitting in bars. It was nice to feel part of the local scene and we certainly became part of the local economy. Within the first day our room was overflowing with belts, bags and scarves.

In the evening, Dori and I went to meet up with our friends Ollie and Penny, who were travelling with a group of Australians for 28 days in China. Most Chinese who try to spend 28 days travelling in Australia usually end up in a detention centre on the island of Wogga-wogga. Jon and Liz had an ethnic Naxi hot-pot on their own and Liz pulled out a long black insect. “Waitress! There’s a bug in my soup”, was answered with “Yes madam, it’s a dragonfly delicacy and it’s meant to be there”. So Liz ate it. Meanwhile the rest of the staff were all standing round the corner, laughing themselves silly.

Day 2 and Mr. Heunghghhfgh drove us up into the highlands, it was cold and a bit wet and we were going to see a show called Impressions. I can’t say we were enthused, but we were prepared to give it a shot. It was an outdoor theatre shaped like a huge bowl, with the stage in a pit with a back wall with ramps all the way to the top and above the wall was the Heavenly Snowy Mountain. All snowy and cloudy and looking pretty Heavenly.

The show featured about 200 guys and gals, who sang and danced and drummed their way across the stage, up and down the ramps and along the top of the wall. They also had a herd of horses racing about the place. The music was terrific and the whole show turned out to be pretty incredible, definitely recommended, although anyone considering going to see it should, like us, make sure of getting their bums on the VIP logs and not the tourist class splinters, like everybody else. One Group to our left, were all feeling rather pleased with themselves, because the sky looked like it might chuck it down at any minute and the Management rushed over with armfuls of plastic macs, just before the show started. The rest of us were left macless and feeling hard done by. Then, half way through the show, there was a very poignant moment as the hero and heroine rode off on his horse and Mum was left weeping.

As they travelled along the upper ridge of the amphitheatre, a huge waterfall kicked in and everybody on that side of the audience got absolutely soaked! Ha-Ha! That’s why they gave you the macs.

After that, we fought our way onto a bus that took us to a cable car at the base of Heavenly Snowy Mountain at 3,600metres. Most people had bought a can of oxygen by this time, but even so, it didn’t take long before people were fainting. The cable car took us up to 4,600m and when we came out of the top station, we were in a serious blizzard with ice particles being lashed into our face. Dori, Liz and Robert decided to go and get a nice cup of tea and look at it from the café window. Jon and I climbed up to 4,800m. No oxygen required, but several stops to try and catch a breath. Of course, as we are desperately trying to suck air down to our boots, some old goatherd and his wife come ambling past us and then, seeing as we are immobilised, ask us to take their photo. Which we did and which, of course, set off a photo feeding frenzy. By the time it was over and I could put my gloves back on, I had a severe case of frostbite and a metal camera body frozen to my face. Mind you, I do have a shot of 2 rather fetching young Chinese Girls who asked for a photo with me. “Certainly poppet, but move in as close as you can get, because we wouldn’t want you catching hypothermia now would we”. And sure enough I got a rush of hot blood to my nether regions which probably saved some important bits.

In the afternoon we went to see some very important frescoes and a small temple and got our basic induction to Buddhism, Daoism, Taoism and Maoism. If you thought, for one minute, that Budhism was a fairly straightforward and simple religion, well think again Bud. Like so many of the World’s religions it is just a graft onto something much older, which doesn’t replace it, just absorbs it and the resulting genealogy is beyond comprehension.

Back in town, Liz and Dori reintroduced us to the basic tenets of Consumerism and treated us to some more wonderful shopping experiences.

On the next day, we had a day away from our guide and hired bikes. Bicycle riding in China is just another way of getting closer to God. But more in the sense of actually going to see him and not coming back. The roads are okay, but the roundabouts should be re-named roulettes, as in the Russian version. Anyway, after several hours cycling through the ‘burbs, we got into the country and were looking forward to visiting the quaint old ‘Tea Horse’ Village of Shu He, only it wasn’t. What it was, in fact, was a complete rip-off. The quaint old village had been side-stepped by a fake village that charged plenty Remnimbi to get in and then gave you fake houses, with fake cultural shows and hundreds of real-life shops selling fake artefacts. Basically, China is trying desperately to contain its own tourism and places are springing up all over to cater to the millions. Now, it is assumed that any self-respecting foreigner will be travelling round in air-conditioned luxury and only penny-pinching locals would be on pushbikes and this was definitely at the peddle-power end of the market. So we got suckered, but discovered how the other-half do holidays.

Once we got out of there, we hit the back roads and then, thanks to my superb navigational skills, the back tracks, which led us to the back paths, followed by the back fields and on to the bramble infested wastelands. But we did get to see some real villages and only had stones thrown at us twice. Exhausted, we cycled back into town, where Dori and Liz decided that the best way to recovery was to buy more belts.

The following morning Robert was back on the scene and took us to the Mu Palace which was just up against the back of our Hotel and which I had assumed to be some dinky little place. It was massive and very impressive with superb classical Chinese Architecture.

The afternoon was free for……guess what? Then we packaged up all our booty, put it under the stairs at the Dengke and set off to Tiger Leaping Gorge with our new hiking guide, Tom. The road snakes up into the higher lands through lovely pastoral farming lands. We stopped at the First Bend of the Yangtze, which isn’t actually the first bend, but is really the first big and significant bend from the North to South, turning East (But actually North, then South again and then really East this time) and thereby denying water to Myanmar, Laos or Vietnam and giving it to the central plains of China. It is very significant, but it’s just a bend.

Then the Village of Stone Drum, which as the name might be a bit of a giveaway has a drum made of….. wait for it….. stone. Hey, check that out.

We would have, except for the fact that the drum garden was shut and so it could have been made from enameled tin with painted rabbits on the side, for all we know. Then on to Tiger Leaping Gorge, past another First Bend of the Yangtze, not the real one that we had seen, but a nearer one, that saves having to drive up to the real one and you can get a photo and anyway, it’s just a bend. Ooh look! There’s another!. Then, we got into this bit that looks like Switzerland, but without the purple cows, or the pretty houses, or the blonde girls with pigtails, but definitely snow capped mountains.

At the entrance to the Tiger Leaping Gorge National Park, we bought our tickets for entry and then a rather voluble discussion took place between Tom and the Parkie while Mr. Heunghghhfgh started to look very worried. Tom was starting to look a bit pissed too and this Parkie guy was yelling, then he slammed the car door and off we went. Tom then explained that the Parkie (aka Local village extortioner No. 1) had asked the intention of our visit. On being told that we intended to drive into the gorge and stay overnight at a guest house, then hike out the following morning. The Parkie had offered to arrange for ourselves and our bags to be driven in by a local vehicle, for which Tom thanked him but said not to worry as we had our own, perfectly serviceable car that we were sitting in. Whereon the Parkie had advised him that were we not to take advantage of this offer, the car tires would be slashed, the windows broken and we could all be the victims of a mysterious hiking accident as was the lone American Tourist who had disappeared the previous year. “Oh! And have a nice day.” Tom, by the way, works for the China International Travel Service, the pre-eminent and
Government recognized Tourism authority and this snaggle-toothed little gangster thinks he’s going to push us around? Yup. We take the offer, park the car in the next lay-by, take out our bags and wave bye-bye to Mr. Heunghghhfgh.

We then pack everything into a metal matchbox with wheels and ‘drive’ into Tiger Leaping Gorge. I am stuffed in the back with my bum hanging out the back door which opens at almost every bump, which is to say, all the time. Between my legs, I can see the cliff edges that we didn’t fall over and I get advanced warning of particularly good views from the volume of Liz’s screams. The Tiger Leaping bit is a bit of a let-down, to be frank. You park and then walk down 150metres of zig-zag steps. Lined at every zig by planks covered in oranges, bottles of cold water and guys touting sedan chair rides back to the top. At river level, there is a lot of rushing water and a bronze statue of a tiger on a nice big lump of concrete, presumably the concrete was put there in order to encourage him to leap.

Then it’s back up the steps, while at every zag, some idiot is smacking their lips over bottles of water and the rest are lounging in their sedans.

We got to our Inn which was, in true mountain fashion, extremely basic with clammy sheets and a shower full of broken tiles, but they had good food and cold beer. The next day dawned clear and sunny, so after breakfast we set off up the mountainside. Technically, TLG is deeper than the Grand Canyon and a lot narrower. With the snow covered peaks above and the roaring Yangtse river down below, it is hard not to be impressed. Once we had reached about two thirds up the side of the gorge, a trail snaked along its length, we walked and the views were spectacular.

We walked for a fair part of the day, stopping at another inn for an excellent lunch and a toilet break. I took a photo from the lavvy, one hand holding my reproductive member and one holding my reproductive optical equipment. It had to be the best outlook of any bog I’ve been in, across the gorge to the snow capped peaks.

Eventually we clambered back to the road level, Tom navigating as if I had taught him. We were lucky to get out of there alive. Our rusty matchbox came to meet us and drove us the last half-mile to our real car, where Mr. Heunghghhfgh waited with comfy seats, his rather strange aroma and our guide for the last stage of our Journey, Maggie.

The drive from TLG to ShangriLa (Prior to a major marketing scam in the late 90’s, known as Zongbdian) is along a very nice new road. Except that a lot of the nice new road is covered in landslides or has itself landslid down the side of the very crumbly mountains. The Engineer responsible for this magnificent road must have been off-sick on the day they taught slope stabilization. And as ‘Etiquette’ was taken off the syllabus at the Chinese Driving School, the ensuing WWF slalom between boulders, brakeless Trucks, ravines and the odd Yak is a bit of a shambles. But somehow Mr. Heunghghhfgh got us through and we crested onto the great plateau of Western China. Still not as high as the Tibetan Plateau proper, but up there close and with the sky a leaden overcast, it felt as if we could reach up and touch it. In April, the new grass hasn’t quite pushed through and the landscape looks dark and foreboding, come next month and it will all be carpeted with fresh green, wildflowers and mosquitoes. You takes your pick.

Maggie, our guide, was ethnic Tibetan, born in China. All around the plateau are huge Tibetan houses with richly decorated, enormous timber columns at the front. The ground floor is barn and garage, the first floor is living and the eves are stuffed with winter fodder.

The Tibetans make up 40% of the local populace, but they seem to run everything and you don’t see the other villages. The Tibetans get Government subsidies for just about everything including a Yak Life Insurance policy and grants if their son is selected to become a monk. No one-child policy here. They are livin it large. No dissention here. Dalai Who? And when you start to look at what these guys have got and compare it with what they had when the Dalai’s Dad was in charge (Freedom – okay it’s China, but 60 years ago you were owned from birth ‘till death by the Monastery aka Slavery; Health- Life expectancy increased from 30 to 70 in under 50 years; Education- Literacy raised from 5% to 80 % in under 50 years) I’m sorry, but those monks had it coming. I will agree that Cultural eradication is a heinous crime and the Chinese have to get things sorted, but if the Culture depended on slavery, then it’s wrong and that smiley little old man has got a lot of convincing to do before he gets my vote (And that’s another thing they didn’t have, but still don’t).

Anyway, Maggie took us to our Hotel and we didn’t like it. It was big and the Chinese version of new, ugly and scruffy, but the giveaway was the 50 guys sitting around the lobby, There was a Communist Party meeting in town and these boys were the delegates. Big bellies, leather jackets, a fag in one hand and a can of oxygen in the other. No joke. We are up in the very highlands now and the air is pretty thin, so in order to enjoy a good lungful of nicotine, they had to bolster the blood oxygen levels first. The place stank like an ashtray. So we complained and the management were mighty offended, but Maggie was very diplomatic both with the Hotel management and her boss and so we only stayed one night and they moved us to a cute Guest House in the Old Town.

Big spanking new rooms, hot water and a really great, traditional Tibetan Restaurant. Traditional, in this case means, “No Heating”. It’s a big wooden building and it’s about 2degrees C, so there is a fabulous, black ceramic, brazier pot, decorated with dragon heads and full of glowing coals, next to the table. Just don’t bump into it and melt your expensive nylon parka, or kick it over and set the place on fire and don’t ever, ever, close the window, ‘cause this is charcoal and you will asphyxiate in about 30 seconds. I mean, what genius decided on this method to provide heating? Liz and Dori got the chilblain side of the table and me and Jon got the frostbite side.

After dinner, we went walking in the Old Town. The buildings are similar to Lijiang but a bit heavier and a bit more Tibetan and not quite as commercialized, but not far off. In the centre of town is a big square and every night, from about 7.00 onwards, 3 to 400 people gather in a series of radiating circles, the music plays and they dance.

It’s brilliant. Very young and very old and everything in between. The guys are really good and everybody really gets into it. Waving their arms, swoops and turns, it’s very graceful and the music is wonderful. Dori and Liz tried to pick up the steps, but it was pretty tricky, so when we got back to the Guest House, the Waitresses were giving them lessons dancing round the brazier.

Next morning we went off to see the Songzanglin Monastery or Mini-Potala, a Tibetan Temple complex on the edge of town. Visually, quite stunning, the golds, reds and blacks against the pure blue sky. The Chinese Tibetans seem to be very religious and seem very proud of the fact, but at the same time, they seem very proud of the fact that they are free to worship or not. It seems that they own the religion and not the other way round and that just seems nice and healthy to me. Especially when you see all the voodoo that goes with it. It’s almost as bad as Catholicism.

Another day, we went off to a large National Park in the high mountain meadow. It was like being in Scotland, but they had Yaks instead of Coos.

Lakes, forest, grass and blue skies, was this really China? Sure it was, we had to fight to get on a bus and then walk along a timber walkway built to protect the delicate fauna, which the local tourists embellished with cigarette butts and discarded oxygen cans. It was pleasant, but if anybody reading this is thinking of going, I would strongly recommend getting in touch with Kevin at Turtle Mountain gear http://www.turtlemountaingear.com He can take you out in a 4 wheel drive or on a dirt bike and really get you into the wilderness.

Back in town, on the top of a hill, there was another temple which boasts the biggest prayer wheel in the world. I thought this would be just a tourist gimmick, but in the mornings when we went there it was surrounded by locals, many in ethnic costume, pushing it round and having a good chant.

And this thing is about 12 metres high and takes about 15-20 people to get it motoring properly. A lot of people wear a sort of basic Tibetan costume, but one day we went down to the new town market and saw lots of minorities coming in to do their shopping. My favourites were the Bai. The ladies wear very brightly coloured pinafore dresses and then have this huge black table top lashed to their heads with pretty ribbons.

These things are bigger than weather kites and they must have a wild old time when the wind blows. All the guys wear these really cool, Indiana Jones hats and I just had to get me one of them. But the highlight of each day was turning up for the evening dance although I never even attempted the moves.

Finally, it was time to head back. Maggie said bye-bye and Mr. Heunghghhfgh drove us back to Lijiang for a last night at the Dengke and pick up our booty, which now included a dragon head brazier. Dori and Liz stocked up on last minute essentials and I have no idea how we managed to get it all on the plane, although the brazier was hand carried and packed with 2 weeks worth of my underpants just to ward off any unwelcome customs inspection. As we waved bye-bye to Mr. Heunghghhfgh, with the brazier gripped to my chest, I realized that the smell of the brazier contents would always remind me of him. Memories are made of such.

Brilliant, I would well recommend it.

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