Demented Hamsters
24-04-2006, 05:20
In case you're still interested:
Day 1: Drove to Shenzhen (border town of China/HK), and flew into Shangri La (how cool is that?) and was driven (we'd hired a driver and local Tibetan guide, called Thupten) over to a small village I can't pronounce or spell. Tried to drive over the mountain pass, got to 4000m but too much snow on the road. I felt very woozy and threw up at that level. Went back to the village (it's 'only' at 3000m) and stayed the night.
Day 2: Again attempted to drive over the pass. Got a little bit further, but still too much ice, and van almost slid off the road - back wheel only inches away from the edge, looking down over a couple thousand foot drop. Managed to push it back onto the road, but left it there and hiked 9km through knee deep snow (in parts) over the pass, getting up to 4300m (luckily had time to aclimatise a bit by now) into Deqing. Van got a tow, so was able to meet us there.
Incidently, 4300m is 550m higher than the tallest mountain in NZ (Mt Cook), almost twice as high as Australia's biggest mountain (Kosciuszko, 2200m) and only 100m less than Mt Whitney, the tallest in the lower 48 states (Alaska has a much bigger one). Scafell Pike in England is a pathetic 977m whilst Mount Elbrus is Europe's biggest, at 5633m.
Fun/near-death events hadn't ended there, though. On our way to Mingyong village (2600m), there was a landslide blocking the road (we were at 3300m at this point). We had to time our run across the 30m of landslide between the rocks falling down the mountain - some were pretty big too. The it was the turn of the van. Driver was alternating between red bull and a weird local drink that tasted like fortified sherry, we named snakebite. Very nice it was too. One local told us it had yak urine in it. Wouldn't be at all surprised, they put yak with everything here. We stopped at one pass which has 13 pagodas - one for each of the 13 sacred mountains visible from there. Well, they would be on a clear day. Each mountain is well over 6000m, and Tibetans try to make a pilgrimage at least once in their lives around each of them, which takes about a month. The road was a one-lane dirt road with a thousand+ foot drop on the side, which made for an interesting drive.
The Mekong river starts around here. So if I jumped in, I could end up in Vietnam in a few days. Tempting.
Day 3: Hiked over a mountain to YuBeng village (pop 300). Fantastic hike. Half-way up, we stopped for yak butter tea. They mix big globs of butter with tea in a churn. I had 3 cups of it during my stay - approx. 2 1/2 cups too many.
At the top (3600m) there were thousands of prayer flags hung from every tree, so it was very special walking through the snow there. Also, at that level it's hard going. I was taking maybe 20 steps up then needing a rest.
The village is fantastic. a low plateau (well, 3100m) surrounded by mountains - all of which are 6000m+.
Did some teaching that day. Kids were fantastic. Certainly makes one feel very priviliged when you see what they make do with. Almost no paper, pens, chalk. A dirty room with no heating (except for a stove outside) and a pigpen outside the window. Teacher a volunteer from Shanghai, and he'd never taught before. He was a computer programmer who decided to do something different for a year (which is a bloody cool thing to do). The kids were so happy and excited to see us, especially when we handed out some presents for them. Hopefully this will be a tick in the good column of my life, and will cancel out some of the bad things I've done.
No hot water in the village and no proper toilets. Definitely starting to miss the little luxuries in life.
Day 4: We hiked up to a sacred waterfall, at 3700m. Started off beautiful, walking through a rain forest next to a glacier fed stream. The Tibetans had built little stone pyramids all along the river bank - each one only a few inches high, but hundreds of them.
Hike got harder once it got to the snowline, especially as the snow came up to the waist at parts. Saw/heard lots of avalanches. Again was hard work the last 200m up. On the way back had our 3rd near-death xp: A bloody great avalanche took out part of the path in the forest. I watched it from a few metres away (well 40 or 50), too entranced by the awesomeness and beauty of the falling snow/ice and the sound to take photos until it had finished.
One of my most memorable events was walking along the path just after seeing the avalanche. The sun was filtering down through the trees which had pink blooms all over them, the river was flowing by, I'd escaped death by a couple of minutes and there was a gourgeous Tibetan girl walking behind me singing a beautiful song. I don't think it could have got any better.
Blisters on my feet starting to hurt - should have worn my boots in beforehand.
Some more teaching that day as well. Kids really love us!
That night the locals held a special dance for us. They all got dressed up in traditional Tibetan costumes, sang Tibetan songs and danced, which was awesome.
Day 5: We decided to hike back over the pass, as the sacred lake we wanted to hike to was impassable due to heavy snow fall. Did the teaching in the morning then went over. Certainly got my altitude fitness by now. Going to YuBeng it took 4 1/2 hours over the mountain. Heading back it took 3. I jogged most of the way down, which felt great. Stayed at MingYong again and got trashed. Bought a big bunch of fireworks from the local shop and let them off in the street at midnight. Awesome fun!
Day 6: Walked up to MingYong glacier (an easy hike - only to 3000m). It's one of the longest glaciers in the world apparently, as well as the fastest moving and closest to the equator. Again, another sacred thing for the Tibetans. The temple at the top was cool. Walked around the prayer wheel 7 times for luck (you should go either 3/5/7/9/11/13/15). Seemed to work, as I'll divulge later.
Blisters really playing up by now!
A real long drive to ShangriLa that afternoon, about 6 hours. Luckily the snow had melted over the pass, so it was easy this time. Yet another near-death along the way with a truck driving the wrong side narrowly hitting us (we ended up in the ditch).
Thought I'd lost my camera in MingYong which depressed me, especially as the day was sunny and there was great views of the 13 peaks on the drive. When we got to Lijiang found it under all the backpacks. So happy! The 7 times round seems to be working!
Great dinner in ShangriLa at a Tibetan restaurant.
Day 7: Morning we went to Songzanlin (or Gui Hua) monastery, built in 1679 on the behest of the 5th Dalai Lama and the biggest in Yunnan province. Thupten was a great guide, showing us around the place and explaining everything to us. Unfortunately no photos, as it's forbidden inside the monastery (not that it stopped some Chinese tourists). Beautiful wall paintings and amazing statues there. Got blessed by a Tibetan Monk.
Drove to Tiger-Leaping gorge and did a mini hike around there. Tiger-leaping gorge is near the start of the Yangzte river. Apparently it's a big deal, but all I saw was a big rock in the middle of the river. Think it'd have been more impressive if we'd seen it before everything else. Yet another near-death on the roads - again ended up in the ditch due to a truck not being able to remember which side to drive on.
Then onto Lijiang. It's a nice town (pop 140 000), with a cool inner area. It's real touristy with lots of shops, cafe and bars, no vehicles, all cobblestoned and built to look traditional. After a week of roughing it, I like it. That evening we're ouside drinking at a bar and a Chinese woman (a very pretty Chinese woman I might add) asks to get by me and sits down the table next to me. We start chatting (she's also a teacher) and damn it if that 7 times round the Tibetan prayer wheel isn't still exerting it's luck on me as we end up in bed that night (:) ). She's on her own, so I invite her to join our troop for the remainder of the holiday. Thupten leaves us, but first tells us that the Yubeng villagers loved having us and presents us with a scarf each that the villagers had given him, which is bloody awesome. I have his email and phone number in case anyone's going there and needs a guide. I can't recommend him highly enough.
Day 8: Morning, had breakfast in a pizzaria run by a Frenchman, who also gave us some local product to smoke. Don't know if it's policy or good marketing, but it certainly made the food taste better.
Hired some bikes and cycled to a village 15 kms out of town. Nice little place. Famous for Dr Ho, a herbalist shown in Michael Palin's TV show 'Himalaya'. Got some tea off him that's meant to help my health apparently.
Nothing much else except got trashed and spent another great night with Emma (the afore-mentioned pretty Chinese woman).
Day 9: Nothing but shopping today, which was ok. Place too touristy though to find anything of great interest. Kicking myself for not buying things earlier when we were in the smaller places. Thought I'd wait til we'd done the hiking, so it'd be less to carry, but now I can't find any of the things I like. D'oh! Guess it's good enough excuse to come back.
Poignant goodbyes to Emma, exchange emails/phone numbers etc. She lives in Southern China and apparently there's some beautiful scenery there, so that's a good enough reason to visit.
Flight to Shenzhen, bus to HK arriving at 1am. Too late for the ferry so crashed on a mate's floor for the night. Spent yesterday lying on the couch at home eating chocolate (trying to get all those toxins back that the healthy hiking/eating/fresh air had expunged from my body) and comtemplating cleaning up the mess of dirty backpacks and clothes on the floor. Maybe today.
All in all, a great holiday. Great hikes, snow, reaching altitudes impossible in NZ, near-death experiences, out-of-this-world scenery, good deeds, fantastic food (am now addicted to dried yak meat), making new friends, getting trashed, stoned and having great sex. What more could one ask for?
How are the Tibetans treated? Well, the Chinese govt to their credit are trying to improve the villages with running water and electricity.
However...
Tibetans don't like the Chinese much. Can't say I blame them. One of our tour was pretty tactless. He asked Thupten about an incident where the PLA had massacred a whole temple of monks when they first invaded (whoops, sorry - 'liberated') and Thupten said he didn't want to talk about it (can't blame him for that), later telling us that he could be sent to jail for up to 11 years just for mentioning it. (it's in the movie 'KunDun incidently)
China has also 'helped' the Panchen Lama (the 2nd holiest Lama, after the Dalai) to disappear and instituted a new one in his place. The Chinese one isn't recognised by Tibetans, but publicly disagreeing with what's happened can also result in a lengthy prison sentence.
One of the oddest things I saw were signs showing a policeman beating a person over an electric fence. Thupten told us that this was a warning not to steal electricity. Again, a lengthy prison sentence awaits anyone caught doing this - better than a few years ago where the Chinese police had the right to execute the offender then and there.
I remember asking Thupten about the give-way laws on the roads, as there didn't seem to be much logic to them. He replied that the Chinese have more right to the roads and the Tibetans have to pull over to let the Chinese past.
Chinese is taught in all schools now, not Tibetan.
More and more Chinese are moving (or being relocated) into Tibet. The Chinese govt is basically like the Borg: Cultural genocide through assimilation.
Chinese look down on the Tibetans and treat them as 2nd class citizens. One thing that annoyed the hell out of me was how the Chinese treat Tibet. We were driving behind a bus over a pass, thorugh some of the most beautiful scenery imaginable. Meanwhile, there's rubbish being thrown out the windows by the Chinese tourists. When the bus stopped at the top to take pictures, they pushed all their rubbish out the door to let it blow everywhere.
This wasn't an isolated incident. It happened with every Chinese tour bus I saw. At Yubeng village, we weren't allowed into the temple because last year a bunch of chinese tourists basically trashed the place. The walked in without asking, took pictures inside (which is forbidden) and dropped rubbish everywhere. As a result, the monks don't allow any tourists in there any more. This temple btw is one of the holiest ones, because it's near the sacred waterfall and is along the path the Tibetans take for their pilgrimage around the 13 peaks.
I certainly came away with a greater sense of distaste and dislike for the Chinese.
Day 1: Drove to Shenzhen (border town of China/HK), and flew into Shangri La (how cool is that?) and was driven (we'd hired a driver and local Tibetan guide, called Thupten) over to a small village I can't pronounce or spell. Tried to drive over the mountain pass, got to 4000m but too much snow on the road. I felt very woozy and threw up at that level. Went back to the village (it's 'only' at 3000m) and stayed the night.
Day 2: Again attempted to drive over the pass. Got a little bit further, but still too much ice, and van almost slid off the road - back wheel only inches away from the edge, looking down over a couple thousand foot drop. Managed to push it back onto the road, but left it there and hiked 9km through knee deep snow (in parts) over the pass, getting up to 4300m (luckily had time to aclimatise a bit by now) into Deqing. Van got a tow, so was able to meet us there.
Incidently, 4300m is 550m higher than the tallest mountain in NZ (Mt Cook), almost twice as high as Australia's biggest mountain (Kosciuszko, 2200m) and only 100m less than Mt Whitney, the tallest in the lower 48 states (Alaska has a much bigger one). Scafell Pike in England is a pathetic 977m whilst Mount Elbrus is Europe's biggest, at 5633m.
Fun/near-death events hadn't ended there, though. On our way to Mingyong village (2600m), there was a landslide blocking the road (we were at 3300m at this point). We had to time our run across the 30m of landslide between the rocks falling down the mountain - some were pretty big too. The it was the turn of the van. Driver was alternating between red bull and a weird local drink that tasted like fortified sherry, we named snakebite. Very nice it was too. One local told us it had yak urine in it. Wouldn't be at all surprised, they put yak with everything here. We stopped at one pass which has 13 pagodas - one for each of the 13 sacred mountains visible from there. Well, they would be on a clear day. Each mountain is well over 6000m, and Tibetans try to make a pilgrimage at least once in their lives around each of them, which takes about a month. The road was a one-lane dirt road with a thousand+ foot drop on the side, which made for an interesting drive.
The Mekong river starts around here. So if I jumped in, I could end up in Vietnam in a few days. Tempting.
Day 3: Hiked over a mountain to YuBeng village (pop 300). Fantastic hike. Half-way up, we stopped for yak butter tea. They mix big globs of butter with tea in a churn. I had 3 cups of it during my stay - approx. 2 1/2 cups too many.
At the top (3600m) there were thousands of prayer flags hung from every tree, so it was very special walking through the snow there. Also, at that level it's hard going. I was taking maybe 20 steps up then needing a rest.
The village is fantastic. a low plateau (well, 3100m) surrounded by mountains - all of which are 6000m+.
Did some teaching that day. Kids were fantastic. Certainly makes one feel very priviliged when you see what they make do with. Almost no paper, pens, chalk. A dirty room with no heating (except for a stove outside) and a pigpen outside the window. Teacher a volunteer from Shanghai, and he'd never taught before. He was a computer programmer who decided to do something different for a year (which is a bloody cool thing to do). The kids were so happy and excited to see us, especially when we handed out some presents for them. Hopefully this will be a tick in the good column of my life, and will cancel out some of the bad things I've done.
No hot water in the village and no proper toilets. Definitely starting to miss the little luxuries in life.
Day 4: We hiked up to a sacred waterfall, at 3700m. Started off beautiful, walking through a rain forest next to a glacier fed stream. The Tibetans had built little stone pyramids all along the river bank - each one only a few inches high, but hundreds of them.
Hike got harder once it got to the snowline, especially as the snow came up to the waist at parts. Saw/heard lots of avalanches. Again was hard work the last 200m up. On the way back had our 3rd near-death xp: A bloody great avalanche took out part of the path in the forest. I watched it from a few metres away (well 40 or 50), too entranced by the awesomeness and beauty of the falling snow/ice and the sound to take photos until it had finished.
One of my most memorable events was walking along the path just after seeing the avalanche. The sun was filtering down through the trees which had pink blooms all over them, the river was flowing by, I'd escaped death by a couple of minutes and there was a gourgeous Tibetan girl walking behind me singing a beautiful song. I don't think it could have got any better.
Blisters on my feet starting to hurt - should have worn my boots in beforehand.
Some more teaching that day as well. Kids really love us!
That night the locals held a special dance for us. They all got dressed up in traditional Tibetan costumes, sang Tibetan songs and danced, which was awesome.
Day 5: We decided to hike back over the pass, as the sacred lake we wanted to hike to was impassable due to heavy snow fall. Did the teaching in the morning then went over. Certainly got my altitude fitness by now. Going to YuBeng it took 4 1/2 hours over the mountain. Heading back it took 3. I jogged most of the way down, which felt great. Stayed at MingYong again and got trashed. Bought a big bunch of fireworks from the local shop and let them off in the street at midnight. Awesome fun!
Day 6: Walked up to MingYong glacier (an easy hike - only to 3000m). It's one of the longest glaciers in the world apparently, as well as the fastest moving and closest to the equator. Again, another sacred thing for the Tibetans. The temple at the top was cool. Walked around the prayer wheel 7 times for luck (you should go either 3/5/7/9/11/13/15). Seemed to work, as I'll divulge later.
Blisters really playing up by now!
A real long drive to ShangriLa that afternoon, about 6 hours. Luckily the snow had melted over the pass, so it was easy this time. Yet another near-death along the way with a truck driving the wrong side narrowly hitting us (we ended up in the ditch).
Thought I'd lost my camera in MingYong which depressed me, especially as the day was sunny and there was great views of the 13 peaks on the drive. When we got to Lijiang found it under all the backpacks. So happy! The 7 times round seems to be working!
Great dinner in ShangriLa at a Tibetan restaurant.
Day 7: Morning we went to Songzanlin (or Gui Hua) monastery, built in 1679 on the behest of the 5th Dalai Lama and the biggest in Yunnan province. Thupten was a great guide, showing us around the place and explaining everything to us. Unfortunately no photos, as it's forbidden inside the monastery (not that it stopped some Chinese tourists). Beautiful wall paintings and amazing statues there. Got blessed by a Tibetan Monk.
Drove to Tiger-Leaping gorge and did a mini hike around there. Tiger-leaping gorge is near the start of the Yangzte river. Apparently it's a big deal, but all I saw was a big rock in the middle of the river. Think it'd have been more impressive if we'd seen it before everything else. Yet another near-death on the roads - again ended up in the ditch due to a truck not being able to remember which side to drive on.
Then onto Lijiang. It's a nice town (pop 140 000), with a cool inner area. It's real touristy with lots of shops, cafe and bars, no vehicles, all cobblestoned and built to look traditional. After a week of roughing it, I like it. That evening we're ouside drinking at a bar and a Chinese woman (a very pretty Chinese woman I might add) asks to get by me and sits down the table next to me. We start chatting (she's also a teacher) and damn it if that 7 times round the Tibetan prayer wheel isn't still exerting it's luck on me as we end up in bed that night (:) ). She's on her own, so I invite her to join our troop for the remainder of the holiday. Thupten leaves us, but first tells us that the Yubeng villagers loved having us and presents us with a scarf each that the villagers had given him, which is bloody awesome. I have his email and phone number in case anyone's going there and needs a guide. I can't recommend him highly enough.
Day 8: Morning, had breakfast in a pizzaria run by a Frenchman, who also gave us some local product to smoke. Don't know if it's policy or good marketing, but it certainly made the food taste better.
Hired some bikes and cycled to a village 15 kms out of town. Nice little place. Famous for Dr Ho, a herbalist shown in Michael Palin's TV show 'Himalaya'. Got some tea off him that's meant to help my health apparently.
Nothing much else except got trashed and spent another great night with Emma (the afore-mentioned pretty Chinese woman).
Day 9: Nothing but shopping today, which was ok. Place too touristy though to find anything of great interest. Kicking myself for not buying things earlier when we were in the smaller places. Thought I'd wait til we'd done the hiking, so it'd be less to carry, but now I can't find any of the things I like. D'oh! Guess it's good enough excuse to come back.
Poignant goodbyes to Emma, exchange emails/phone numbers etc. She lives in Southern China and apparently there's some beautiful scenery there, so that's a good enough reason to visit.
Flight to Shenzhen, bus to HK arriving at 1am. Too late for the ferry so crashed on a mate's floor for the night. Spent yesterday lying on the couch at home eating chocolate (trying to get all those toxins back that the healthy hiking/eating/fresh air had expunged from my body) and comtemplating cleaning up the mess of dirty backpacks and clothes on the floor. Maybe today.
All in all, a great holiday. Great hikes, snow, reaching altitudes impossible in NZ, near-death experiences, out-of-this-world scenery, good deeds, fantastic food (am now addicted to dried yak meat), making new friends, getting trashed, stoned and having great sex. What more could one ask for?
How are the Tibetans treated? Well, the Chinese govt to their credit are trying to improve the villages with running water and electricity.
However...
Tibetans don't like the Chinese much. Can't say I blame them. One of our tour was pretty tactless. He asked Thupten about an incident where the PLA had massacred a whole temple of monks when they first invaded (whoops, sorry - 'liberated') and Thupten said he didn't want to talk about it (can't blame him for that), later telling us that he could be sent to jail for up to 11 years just for mentioning it. (it's in the movie 'KunDun incidently)
China has also 'helped' the Panchen Lama (the 2nd holiest Lama, after the Dalai) to disappear and instituted a new one in his place. The Chinese one isn't recognised by Tibetans, but publicly disagreeing with what's happened can also result in a lengthy prison sentence.
One of the oddest things I saw were signs showing a policeman beating a person over an electric fence. Thupten told us that this was a warning not to steal electricity. Again, a lengthy prison sentence awaits anyone caught doing this - better than a few years ago where the Chinese police had the right to execute the offender then and there.
I remember asking Thupten about the give-way laws on the roads, as there didn't seem to be much logic to them. He replied that the Chinese have more right to the roads and the Tibetans have to pull over to let the Chinese past.
Chinese is taught in all schools now, not Tibetan.
More and more Chinese are moving (or being relocated) into Tibet. The Chinese govt is basically like the Borg: Cultural genocide through assimilation.
Chinese look down on the Tibetans and treat them as 2nd class citizens. One thing that annoyed the hell out of me was how the Chinese treat Tibet. We were driving behind a bus over a pass, thorugh some of the most beautiful scenery imaginable. Meanwhile, there's rubbish being thrown out the windows by the Chinese tourists. When the bus stopped at the top to take pictures, they pushed all their rubbish out the door to let it blow everywhere.
This wasn't an isolated incident. It happened with every Chinese tour bus I saw. At Yubeng village, we weren't allowed into the temple because last year a bunch of chinese tourists basically trashed the place. The walked in without asking, took pictures inside (which is forbidden) and dropped rubbish everywhere. As a result, the monks don't allow any tourists in there any more. This temple btw is one of the holiest ones, because it's near the sacred waterfall and is along the path the Tibetans take for their pilgrimage around the 13 peaks.
I certainly came away with a greater sense of distaste and dislike for the Chinese.