Maybe it's the Prairie Girl thing. The whole "mountains only get in the way of the view" sensibility, but I have never really been into the big hills. All that time at the Banff Centre, and living in Calgary shuttling back and forth in the Rockies, and I just couldn't really be assed to gear up with the bear repellant and go crawling up around the cliffs.
So instead, I decide to lose my mountain hiking ambivalence by taking on the Tiger Leaping Gorge, in the Himalayas, as my first real trekking attempt. It was all thanks to Chris, who could have done the whole trek in no time I am sure. He very gallantly offered to slow right down to my unfit old lady pace so that we could brave the mountain together.
Fortunately, I had good shoes. And I didn't read the details too closely before setting out...because holy lifting was it high, and the 'trail' was bloody treacherous! I use the term 'trail' very loosely here. There was one, but it was not like the cleared, hand-railed kinds of trails you'd see in Canada, this was rough going.
Once again, the Lonely Planet managed to endear itself to me by blithely mentioning two little waterfalls. Well, there were more than two, and they were blinking huge thundering cataracts with cliffs to the side and a five foot wide swathe of wet loose rock to crawl over to get to the other side. I was pretty damn challenged, I must say.
Tiger Leaping Gorge is a contender (depending how you define it, apparently) as the world's deepest canyon, and is irrefutably the deepest river canyon in the world. There are several gorges that are deeper on this crazy planet, but they are all under the sea - this is the one, if you are stupid enough, that you can actually go to.
Around 15km in length, the gorge is where the Yangtze river passes between 5,596 metre Jade Dragon Snow Mountain and 5,396 m Haba Xueshan in a really just incredible series of rapids under steep 2000 metre cliffs. Legend says that in order to escape from a hunter, a tiger jumped across the river at the narrowest point (still 25 metres wide), hence the name.
The inhabitants of the gorge are primarily the indigenous Naxi people, who live in teeny weeny hamlets that make my home-town of Wishart look like a teeming metropolis. I seriously think there are more piggies than people living up in those hills. Fortunately for us, their primary subsistence comes from foreign hikers, which means we had really very nice guest houses to stay in, with reasonably good food and much more importantly hot showers! We even stayed in the same guest house as Michael Palin did when he came through on his Himalayas exploration. But that lazy pampered sod did the trek on a horse (pussy).
I later found out that the gorge is not considered navigable, which didn't surprise me much. In the '80s, four rafters attempted to go down the gorge and were never seen again. In 1986, the first known successful attempt to sail through the gorge was made by the first expedition to float down the entire length of the Yangtze, starting at the river's high source at the Gelandandong glacier lake. The expedition did need to re-fit the boat after the Gorge section, half of the crew abandoned the project before the attempt and they had helicopter support but hey, they did manage to make it.
The area only opened to foreign tourists in 1993, and was mostly known only to backwood backpackers, who took the same high trail we did. Originally a route for the 'tea horses' transporting the famous Yunnan tea out of the hills to the market, this trail is 22km long and 900metres straight up. Then down again (which I actually found harder).
Times are changing at the Gorge: now there is a 'low road' along the river and rapids, so the tour buses are pouring in. You can even get a sedan chair and get your fat ass carried down to the rapids, and back up again. And, of course, the Chinese are going to stick a dam on the gorge, as they tend to do with any unique and large volume of water they have. As you do.
We were lucky in so many ways. The weather was cloudy (no sunburn), it only rained at night and left only a bit of mud. The guest houses were clean, and we met nice people. But most importantly, we didn't get killed in a landslide, as three people did in two seperate slides a couple weeks after we left.
I have to say, bless him, it was Chris's idea to go to Lugu Lake. Talk about an absolutely stunning place! The whole region was completely isolated right up until the 1970s, and managed to survive China's upheavals unscathed because it really was a forgotten land. Even today, the only damn road in is barely passable.
At 2,600 m above sea level, it is the highest-altitude lake in Yunnan province, a place that excels in both beautiful lakes and high altitudes. Lugu is also the second-deepest body of water in China, at some points deeper than 90 meters. So the lake, right, it's beautiful, high, deep and all that, but the real reason to go there is that this is where the Mosou live.
These are the famous citizens of the Last Matriarchy in the World. Only one of China's 56 designated ethnic minorities, the Mosuo population of 53,000 people is beyond tiny compared with the country staggering overall population of 1.3 billion, but still they do make the news here.
Matriarchy they might be, which interested me greatly, but to most of the other tourists the attraction is a bit more puerile. The Mosuo are best known in China for their tradition of zouhun, or walking marriage, in which youths who have gone through a coming of age ceremony at the age of 13 are permitted to choose their own axia, or relationship. This non-traditional union means that men visit their lovers only by "walking" to them at night and leaving in the morning back to their mom's house.
Men only contribute to and work for their mother's household. If there's a kid born, it is raised and supported only by the mother and her brothers. Women are free to take different sexual partners (an ideal genetic situation which accounts for the surprising lack of inbreeding in such a small gene pool), and there is no stigma attached to bearing children with different partners. Mosuo women carry on the family name, deal with the money and run the households, which are usually made up of several families. Each household elects one woman as the head, and these head matriarchs of each village govern the region by committee.
I was amazed to find a fully fledged matriarchy still functioning in this crazy world. But then I found the existence of this system all the more amazing in that this is in China. In the Confucian-beriddled land where boys are, to put it mildly, preferred.
Matriarchy it may be, but I would suggest that this system is just absolutely brilliant for the men of the Musou. Think about it. They get to live with their Mom all their lives, with all the absolute unconditional love that entails. Mom or the sisters deal with all the business, the marketing, the finances and the bills. The guys don't have to worry about supporting the kids, and get to raise their nieces and nephews. They get the sex, companionship and the warm bed at night without the day to day grind, or even worse, the perils of having made a bad life-partner choice.
I tell you what, you have NEVER seen such content looking blokes in your life, I swear.
Lugu Lake's isolation allowed Musou society's matrilineal system to survive, even during the bad old days of Communist suppression of ethnic and religious groups. But what Communism couldn't do, tourism just might. More and more outsiders arrive expecting some sort of utopian free love commune, and get a nice quiet busy little fishing and farming community. Lugu is referred to as the 'real' Shangri-la so often it's nauseating - especially to those of us who know that regardless of whatever China says, Shangri-la is a blinking fictious place from a blinking piece of badly written fiction by an English opium fiend, dammit! But I digress.
Misconceptions (or canny exploitation) of the Mosuo's sexual proclivities -- depending on which way you look at it -- have brought prostitution to the area just outside Lugu Lake. Apparently Han Chinese women, from outside the region, don the funny hats and the bright shawls to pass themselves off as Mosuo, and a walking marriage costs 300 yuan.
Here's another World Only stat: the Mosuo language is not rendered in writing, but in Dongba, the only pictographic language used in the world today, a language which has no words for murder, war, rape or jail. Or commericalisation.
I was surprised to hear that sky burials are still - erm - alive and kicking in Tibetan China, after their ban in the 1970s. And I was surprised again to find that in the thin air of tiny little Litang there lived one of the few rogyapas ("body-breakers") in the region, which meant that sky funerals took place every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday at the top of a nearby mountain. So here was my big chance to witness a rare tradition but after much hemming and hawing (hard to do when the air is so thin you can barely bloody breathe) I jammed out.
Unlike Chris, I had no problem with watching a body get dismembered and fed to vultures: I just couldn't lose my Judeo-Christian uptightness about the whole funeral thing. Partly it was the horror of having to trek to the top of the mountain by dawn (later I found out there were paved roads right to the site, as the bodies are delivered by ambulance from the morgue) but mostly it was my mom having died last year.I know that the Buddhists see the body as just so much garbage - which, let's face it, it is - but I couldn't get past how I would have felt if some tourist showed up to gawk at her funeral.
My new friend Miguel made the other choice and came back clearly moved. He described the process as being the most 'real' and honest way to deal with death that he could ever imagine. I had always like the idea of the sky burials - in a mountainous area with little or no arable land, it is such an eminently elegant solution to the disposal of bodies. And the Buddhist tradition, the body is being used after death to provide sustenance to other living creatures.
The body-breaker is a rare creature nowadays. The role is traditionally passed down within a family (to nieces and nephews) as they are prohibited from having children (but not, as far as I can research, from having sex). They and dead bodies are the only wearers of all-white in Tibetan Buddhism (why brides over here rarely come down the aisle in a Western style meringue wedding dress!!) and they are expected to be fastidiously clean and clean-living.
Miguel described in great gory detail how the body-breaker hacks off the limbs of the body first and toss these to the patiently waiting vultures. While the birds tuck in, he then spreads the torso and heads with tsampa (tibetan oat flour) and pounds it all into a paste with a sledgehammer. The birds then finish that off, everyone waits to see how they fly away (some people see the energetic flight of the vultures as a good 'sending off'), and then all the people attending walk the kora for the soul.
Grief, crying and wailing is not a good thing at a sky burial, as it is seen as the living person's way of chaining the dead person's soul to the present, as opposed to wishing them off well to the next carnation. And having foreigners hang around is very okay with the families, apparently, as they welcome more people to pray and walk the kora for their loved ones. So maybe next time...
PS In case you are wondering why the funerals only take place three days a week, it's considered a very bad omen if the vultures don't eat all of the body, or even worse, won't eat at all. The spacing of the days is to give them a chance to work up an appetite, with the bigger bodies done on the first day of the week.
I think I am finally getting to grips with China. It was really doing us both in - and it's a lot of work I must say - but I think after 3 months I am starting to get the hang of it. Interestingly, asking other travellers what they think of China invariably enlists an ambivalence that I can relate to.
This country is just so bloody LOUD. If I have one word that wraps up China for me, it's 'noise'. The people here really like to make a racket. I was completely ashamed of myself when I pointed this out to a guy we hooked up with named Simon. I was moaning about all the loud shouting pushy types being country bumpkins in the big city (or village) for the first time (and this from a country girl!). Simon rightly pointed out that the country people are the quiet reserved ones, the loud boisterous people are from the city. Anyhow, it can be really nerve racking.
But then it's not like things last long. China is a real early to rise country, which us night people find hard. Buses seem to always leave at 630am (argh!) and the hotels all empty out by dawn (except for us sleepyheads). The maids are always astounded that we want to sleep past 8am. On the upside, no matter where we were or the size of the city, you could hear a pin drop by 11pm!
Meals should be hot and noisy and smoky, with way more food than needed and too much baijo (rice 55% proof alcolhol that I quite like but Chris finds foul). TVs need to be on, always, and hotel room doors should always be open - whether to be friendly or nosy I can never figure out. Lineups are invisible and waiting in turn is incomprehensible. Big 'lowbei' (foreign devils) are for staring at - and not just for a minute but for as long as they are in sight (ideally dropping the mouth open and prodding passerbys to join in). Trains and buses need to rushed onto, with elbows out, and in full panic mode, even though we all have tickets for seats. People - particularly hotel maids at 6am - shout at each other constantly. From 3 feet away. If that. Shouting is just the way to communicate.
Or not. We have met some amazing locals, many of whom want to practise their English and not sell us anything - which is a relief. The way they take care of us is really touching. People who speak a bit of English are always popping up to translate, help buy tickets, to steer us the right way, help negotiate minicab fares, to call our hotels (unsolicited) to make sure we get met or any myriad ways to help us and make us feel welcome. I have often had people ask me with real concern as to whether I like China, or if there is anything they can do to make my visit better. So, so sweet.
Interestingly, just yesterday i met a girl from Ganzhou who was leaving the hotel we were in because it was too noisy. That is the very first time I heard a Chinese person complain about noise. But then, that might have been the first time I heard someone complain!
We sadly have only ten days left on our visa so we need to leave soon, and I look at the map and see just how much more I have yet to discover. It's an amazing country and I have to say I would love to come back. But with earplugs, I think.
Every place we went had a temple of some sort, and usually there were several...It reminded me travelling around Europe last summer in the van, when I got seriously churched out. I really didn't want to go into another historic church, you know what I mean? But the temples are different for me, each has something really special.
Beijing's Lama Temple is an oasis of calm in that crazy city. The temples are usually the only place you hear, or see, songbirds (being vegetarians, the monks don't eat 'em). And it has a proudly displayed Guiness World Record biggest sandalwood Buddha - a huge 30metre hunk of beautiful carving.
In UlaanBaatar, the Chongri temple is now a museum of religious artefacts with a fascinating if jumbled mass of Tsam dance masks, drapes, prayer flags, conch shells and the highly controversial Kangling 'spirit evoking' trumpet made from a human thigh bone.
In Tongren's monastery, we met the Master painter who teaches the disciple monks the ancient art of Thangka painting (intricate mandalas or Buddhist scenes painted with natural dyes onto linen sheets). He showed us around his studio and the temple, very graciously and with no language between us. And this was just at one of the four local temples and monasteries in this fairly small little town!
In Xiahe, we walked the 3km kora on the pilgrimage trail around the entire Labrang monastery, with the sounds of the monks prayers floating in the air, and the locals walking along with us, spinning the more than 1000 (!) prayer wheels all along the way. As the most important monastery outside of Lhasa, it was a huge and fascinating place. We went on a guided tour and i was totally overexcited to see HUGE yak butter sculptures. I kid you not, sculptures of incredible detail and size sculpted out of yak butter dyed with various powders. Wow. Check out these examples (http://en.tibettour.com.cn/geography/200412006227150102.htm)
In Kangding, we went to a busy active place with new buildings and temples being added by the artisan volunteers of the community. Brass beaters and sculptors were beavering away while the monks settled into orchestrated but no less vociferous debates on points of Buddhist dogma. But more amazingly, here I got to see a rare and beautiful thing indeed - a real sand mandala (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sand_mandala). It was a life wish to see such a thing...
Each town, each stop had a stupa, a gomba, a temple or at least a rack of fluttering prayer flags - many of which are also seen at river mouths, caves, old trees, sides of hills, you name it.
Temples temples everywhere. Some ancient, some huge, some teeny, all beautiful in the way any building where people pray is. But I always enter the temples with a strong sense of sadness, as so many of them are fairly recent reconstructions or are heavily renovated. The scars of the Cultural Revolution are really everywhere. Mostly in the older people, I should think.
Up in the remote areas we have been travelling in recently, the Cultural Revolution didn't have quite as much impact. In Sichuan, a common saying is "Beijing is very far away": the government seems to have a slightly less stringent approach in the area even now, and the fact that the temples, statues and frescoes managed to survive the 1970s is largely due to the focus being on the central provinces.
Of course, it isn't just the Temples that were hit. In Lijiang, we saw a performance by a Naxi ancient music troupe, playing instruments that someone - risking their lives - had hidden or buried during the Revolution. The music was lovely, if brief, and looking at the elderly players (most in their 80s) I mostly applauded their survival.
We managed to get a bootleg copy of the new Lonely Planet (2007) edition. As the Chinese govt doesn't allow the import of the China Lonely Planet - probably because it is not very flattering, and also as it has 'Taiwan' on ti's map - we have been struggling along with our 2005 edition (the latest when we left in May).
This being China, some enterprising person simply smuggled in a new one, and photocopied it and voila, we have the new edition. Very nicely done bootleg, by the way.
I really don't know why the government bothers. Every Chinese kid knows how to install or use proxy servers so that they can view any website they want. Every movie you can think of is for sale for peanuts within hours on DVD (I went to see Harry Potter in Chengdu and there was at least one guy with a video camera there, sitting within 3 feet of the usher). It's all about market demand and free enterprise here, and I more often than I can count have to remind myself that I am in a Communist country....
Anyhow, even the new Lonely Planet is bloody useless. Honestly, I think it causes us more grief than help, as we spend hours slogging around trying to find a hotel that is now a hole or a restaurant that is now a building site. But then they have a daunting job, trying to explain to the hordes of lost and hungry foreigners this vast and heaving country. China is changing so fast and building so quickly that it's just breathtaking. No wonder the guide books can't keep up...
You should see the building sites. Everywhere. We read that workers on building sites in Beijing are making 500 yuan a month, and are happy to get the gig. We spent 120 on a hotel last night without batting an eyelash. And they work hard: long days, six days a week, and any concept of 'Health and Safety' is just a concept.
With the huge workforce they have here, they can, and are, literally moving mountains.
Meantime, I am trusting to my instincts and finding the best food you can imagine. A crowd, and a clean work surface is about all I ask for in a restaurant now. And these street vendors are a godsend. Simple, fast and clean food. In the past 12 weeks in China we have only had one crappy meal, and that was from a Lonely Planet recommended restaurant. Maturally.
Suddenly, it's been three weeks that we have been trawling around the backwoods of China. Firstly following the SIlk Road via Lanzhou - where they still float cargo across the river on inflated sheeps stomachs - to Xining, our last 'big city' for a long ttime
Then it was to The Wild Wild West....real old style country and cowboy time, TIbetan style. Teeny weeny little villages perched on the sides of towering green cliffs with miles upon miles of empty and beautiful land, dotted with the perfectly square shapes of massive yaks. Which are damn fine eatin', by the way.
Here on the Tibetan plateau and (later) the Szcihaun to Tibet Highway, the air is clean, and fine and very very thin. My poor Prairie Girl lungs really just did not what to do with the air at 3600 metres up. We both got a flash of altitude sickness in Litang, but laying around gasping for a day or two let us acclimatize. And fortunately for my battle worn bod, we had alot of time to adjust, and take it easy as we went higher and higher...
Tongren, where the famous thanga paintings are made in isolation. Xiahe, home of the Labrang Monastery, the most famous and important buddhist temple outside of Lhasa. Langmuse, which is a one street town with many, many horses and sky burials up in the hills. Songpan, closest town to the amazing nature reserve of Juizhaugou - which was totally overrun with tourists but was still one of the most beautiful lake areas I have ever seen. Litang, a real small Tibetan outpost, leading to Xiangcheng famous only as a stop to Shangri-la. And the road to ShangriLa, well...
I fell in love with China all over again when we came up to a massive rockslide on the road to Shangri-la. And this was the road that was the diversion because there was a really big slide on the main road. There were cars and trucks and buses, and here's the thing...
In Canada or in England, if there was a slide like that, with a cliff on one side and a raging big river down a cliff on the other, well, hell, we'd just wait for 'someone' to come along and deal with it
not these guys. Nope they get out the crowbars and shovels and roll up the sleeves and bloody just make a damn road OVER the slide. Wow. It took a few hours, but it was quite the thing. We walked to the other side and watched the bus drive over though :)
Most of the bus trips were about 4 or 5 hours at a stretch, unless there was slides or something to delay us, so even though it was washboards all the way, and sometimes our knees were under our chins, it was good going.
Man, we saw some mountains. And roads that in retrospect make me break a cold sweat. You tumble into these tiny minivans, ideallly NOT driven by a drunk or a madman, and basically just hold on tight. I was pretty zen about it all, except one time next to a real old dear who suddenly started to pray real hard. I stupidly looked out the window and frankly, i nearly soiled myself. Straight down, like in the hundreds of feet, no edge, and a driver who was smoking, chatting on his mobile and trying to pass a gas truck. '!"
The vultures circling us didn't help either.
We have a million pictures of course, and hope to add them when we can on flickr. Stay tuned.
