Yunnan Photos! (finally...)

Just a quick note that my Yunnan photos are now online!  You can get to them from the "Photo Gallery" page or directly at http://china.scotthherman.com/photos/yunnan.  It seems as though, in the uploading process, some of the photos have become slightly out of order, but it's not too bad.  Also, keep an eye out for my photo labeled "Power Over Napa Lake", as I was just informed that this photo was one of 10 photos out of all of the IES Beijing students' to win the IES Beijing Scenery Photo Contest!

Real Pizza in Beijing?... Impossible... (?)

Another week, another test, and more procrastination. But such is life. Anyway, the other night we decided to go out for some pizza, and not the crappy little Beijing pizza with its strange cheese and weird sauce at relatively high prices--the good stuff. So, we grabbed a taxi up to the BeiDa (Beijing University) area to go to the Kro's Nest, a pizza restaurant, bar/pub run by an American skateboarder. The place has the feel of an American college hangout, and the prices fit as well. But the pizzas are really well-sized (especially for Beijing) and they taste great. Besides, I'd wager that the prices are still a bit cheaper than in the States. I couldn't resist the opportunity to order some wings, which weren't bad, despite the fact that they brought me barbecue instead of buffalo (at that point, I was just glad to have them--didn't feel like arguing). Then, I got a small cheese pizza with olives. The whole meal, with a bottle of water (I was still too price-shocked to get a beer for an extra 35 kuai), ran me a nice 95 kuai (~$14), but was well worth it.

I got an email yesterday from the program with which I'll be traveling to Tibet, informing me that if the situation doesn't get better, they may either cancel or rearrange the program for safety reasons. The good news, however, (depending on how you look at it, of course), is that I've heard tell (in one way or another) that the situation is calming down. I haven't heard any official news in the past day or so, but I have reason to believe that with strong police/military force, the riots in Tibet may be calming down, in addition to in the immediately neighboring provinces, while riots in Gansu might still be going strong in some smaller areas. Also, it just might be possible that exiled Tibetan guerrilla forces may have been trying to enter Tibet through Afghanistan and/or Kashmir in order to provide renewed effort to the riots, but that the Chinese government would most likely have deployed a special task force to prevent this from happening.  Of course, this is all just my own speculation. ;)

On a ligher topic, my quest for Purell has been fruitful (in some form), as I received a package from my parents with a fairly nice supply.  Also, for some reason, I got an email back from the sales manager of Purell in China, responding to my angry email.  They explained that while their retail distribution is wide in Shanghai, they haven't yet expanded to Beijing, but that Purell is in many clinical settings.  He also gave me the cell phone number of the Beijing sales manager, and told me to feel free to give her a call to meet up and purchase some products--which I just might do if my supply runs out.

By the way, I'm still working on getting my Yunnan pictures up.  (Hopefully not too long after this post--the problem has been that all of the photos are a total of 37 mb, even when compressed, and our internet is very slow and sporadically logs us out, so getting them all up at once is impossible).

Well, it's almost time for me to meet with my tutor, and I still have a lot of studying to do, so that will do for now.

The Ancient Chinese Art of... the Snot Rocket? - And other tales of terror...

As per my previous post, I'm back to life in Beijing. Let me first apologize for my site being down Friday afternoon to evening Beijing time (morning to afternoon EST). As I was experimenting with some new scripts, I accidentally deleted my main page and it took some time for me to remember just exactly how to fix it. But hopefully everything should be working fine now. Anyway, as I was walking down the street the other day, I saw something that reminded me just how different manners are in China. I know I've mentioned this before, but I thought I'd shed some more light. In America, if you were to noisily hoc up mucus from your throat and then spit it into the street in front of crowds of people, you'd be considered rude (at the least). In China, however, it's part of day to day life. Yeah, it's still disgusting, but you get used to seeing it. So, back to the story - walking down the street I saw a fairly old man (maybe 60's, 70's), in one swift motion, inhale a good dose of Beijing's polluted air, place a finger to his right nostril, closing it, gently tilt back his head, and throw his head slightly forward, cleanly expelling a large glob of snot a good few feet in front of him. Disgusted yet? Well, that answers the question of what people did before Kleenex and handkerchiefs, and provides a basic view of the ancient Chinese art of the snot rocket.

Friday night, I went out to dinner with the two Laoshis (teachers) who went on our Yunnan trip with us, and the rest of our group. We took the bus maybe 20 minutes or so to a Xinjiang (Western Chinese Muslim) restaurant, which was delicious. Afterwards, a few of us went to Houhai (the back lake, in central Beijing where I ice skated earlier in the semester). We tried to sit in a jazz bar, but as it was still early, there wasn't any live music yet, so we went to another bar and listened to another band play. After a stop at a bakery and a DVD shop, we hopped in a taxi and headed back to school.

Saturday, we decided to head back to Houhai, to explore some Hutongs (historic alleyways) and do some more unique shopping. I bought a cool pingpong t-shirt for a hefty 98 kuai ($14), unhagglable, and found another store with great handmade kites, story scrolls, and crafts. Saturday night, we had planned to go out for all-you-can-eat sushi, so nine of us met at 6:00. We headed over to the Japanese restaurant (which evidently was not the popular one), and sat down. The price was 65 kuai per person for "all-you-can-eat", which we clarified with the fuwuyuan (waitress), who said in Chinese "Order what you want, if you want more, order more, just don't waste food." So, we ordered a ton of food for the 10 of us, and waited. And waited. We got a few of our appetizers, but no sushi. After about an hour, we finally got a few pieces of sashimi, of which the salmon was nearly frozen. So, we went and complained about the speed and the quality, and they said they'd bring things out a bit faster. By around 7:45, after we'd complained a few more times, they brought out two pieces of sushi (a tuna roll and a cucumber roll). So, at 8:00 we were still extremely hungry and extremely pissed off. So, we asked them to at least bring us some rice. They then said that they were out of rice, and we'd have to wait another 20 minutes. So, we waited. And waited. After 20 minutes, still no rice. So, by 8:45, as they again brought us frozen sashimi, we told them to forget the rice. During the whole evening, we had been threatening to leave. So at that point, after almost 3 hours, slightly worried about getting arrested, we called our RA to make sure it was legit to walk out. We told him the story, and he said, just pay what you feel is necessary and then leave. So, we left 310 kuai out of the 595 kuai that it would have been for all-you-can-eat, and walked out fairly quickly. Of course, about a block down the road, two of the fuwuyuans came running and yelling after us. We walked another block with them at our heels and called our RA back. He said to stay where we were, that he'd come and work it out. So, we stopped. And the fuwuyuan said they were also calling someone. A minute later, one of the other fuwuyuans came running down the street with the chef and one of the army policemen in camo, arguing with us in rapid Chinese (of which I did my best to participate in). But finally, after another 10 minutes, Steve, our RA arrived with the Contemporary Issues RA, Dan, on their bikes, out of breath, and hopped off to the rescue, calmly discussing with the chef. He told us to leave, that it would be easier to deal with--so we did. And the fuwuyuans tried to stop us, but they worked it out. In the end, he ended up calling the Laoban (owner) and discussing it calmly, and finally having them agree to forget the situation. So, we bought both RAs some cookies, and made them a nice card to thank them.

Since I'm registered with the US embassy in Beijing, I get emails of US government advisories for Asian travel. Yesterday, I got one telling me to stay out of Tibet, and any areas where Tibetans live, including all of the locations on my recent Yunnan trip. So, while I feel for the Tibetans, I do hope that the situation gets resolved in one way or another, since I really want to continue on my trip in June.
Sunday morning, I woke up early to take a tour of the Hutongs (historic alleyways), which turned out to be mostly a complete waste, since we didn't visit any actual Hutongs, only a buddhist temple and a famous writer's house. Later in the day, as I procrastinated my homework, I got pulled into a spur of the moment badminton match, and then went to dinner. And now, as I continue to procrastinate by writing this entry, I'm thinking maybe I should really start studying for tomorrow's quiz. So, I guess that's it. (Still working on getting pictures from Yunnan up--the internet's really really slow here).

Back to Life in Beijing

The post below this one, you’ll find a fairly lengthy account of my trip to Yunnan, but in case you don’t take the time to read it, I am back in Beijing.  We got back last Wednesday night, and I’ve been ridiculously busy ever since.  Thursday was supposed to be our day off to recuperate, but my business class scheduled 3 hours of make-up time, followed by an hour roommate “orientation” and an hour and a half “mixer” with the Chinese roommates, all of whom had come back to campus upon our arrival.  So, my time to prepare for Fridays presentation and finish up my homework from the trip was limited. 

On Friday, we were introduced to our tutors.  We are supposed to meet with our tutors for 4 hours each week.  Hopefully, these sessions will be helpful.  Saturday night my friends and I decided to treat ourselves, so we went out for a nicer dinner (by which I mean it cost 18 kuai instead of 10 kuai – about a $1 difference), and then grabbed a taxi to a shopping center/movie theater area where we ate at a Haagen-Dazs Ice Cream (costing more than in the States at 70 kuai ($10) for 3 scoops!).  Monday night after class, we had another 3 hours (from 6:00 to 9:00) of business class, at which time we had to give presentations about Yunnan.  This, of course, is all on top of our regular Chinese homework and dictation quizzes.  So, as you can see, I haven’t had much time to get these posts together until now.

Back in Beijing, the pollution is as bad as ever, and the fact that it’s now warming up isn’t helping either.  Our program director actually sent us all text messages yesterday advising us not to go outside.  In any case, we’re back into the swing of things, and I’m starting to worry that my time here won’t be enough!  (Perhaps looking into staying longer???—I don’t know)

I’ll try to get all of my Yunnan pictures up today as well, but no promises!

A Way-Too-Long Recap of My Yunnan Trip

I’m back! Two weeks in Yunnan, and possibly the best trip of my life, but where should I start? This is going to be a really really long entry (two weeks traveling is a long time to recap), so read on, but I’ll be happy to tell you stories in person when I get back to the States.

At the start of the trip, I was somewhat familiar with a number of the other people in my group, but I wasn’t really too friendly with anyone in particular. So, I was a bit nervous. On the bus to the airport, we picked roommates for the rest of the trip (IES mandates same-sex rooms). And, since there were only 6 guys on my trip, my choices were limited, especially, since 4 of the other guys had already paired up. But it worked out well in the end.

The flight to Kunming, the provincial capital of Yunnan, was a long 3 hours from Beijing. We got to our hotel at just after midnight with a 7:30am wake-up call the next morning. The weather in Kunming is extremely variable, and the sunlight is strikingly intense (whether because of the altitude at just under 2000m above sea level, or because of the clear skies, I’m not sure). Besides causing really bad sunburn, the result of this sunlight is extreme differences in temperature between the morning and afternoon, and the shade and the open air. So, I layered clothes to take off and put back on as needed.

The first morning in Kunming, we drove an hour and a half to Shilin (the Stone Forest), which is literally a “forest” of huge rock formations, ranging from what look like giant swords jutting from the hills, to naturally shaped elephant-shaped and other animal-shaped rocks. The Stone Forest covers over 2600 square meters in area, and is estimated to be over 270 million years old.

After returning to Kunming, we were given free time in the city. I went with a bunch of people in search of the WenLin Jie (culture street – a touristy type street with shops and restaurants). We got lost and ended up at Green Lake Park, but it was nice to see the city. Kunming is really a beautiful place. The sunlight makes it glisten, and the architecture is strongly influenced by western styles. Besides the architecture, the influence of French Empire in Yunnan throughout the mid to late 19^th century has given Kunming a French undertone, with bakeries and coffee shops throughout the central part of the city. After finally making it to WenLin Jie, we shopped for a bit, and then got dinner at a Thai restaurant. My friend Pat, who’s from Thailand, vouched for the menu and the fact that the owners were actually Thai. Of course, once we got our food, it was ridiculously spicy and Pat had to send his dish back.

The next morning, we had a 4:30am wake-up call so that we could leave the hotel by 5:30 and get to the airport for our 7:30am flight to Zhongdian. For some reason, however, our phone didn’t work, and we missed our wake-up call. We woke up at 5:24 and ran down as fast as we could. Zhongdian is more widely known these days as Shangri-La. The name Shangri-La, however, is a fictional place described by James Hilton’s 1933 novel, Lost Horizon, and based off of a mysterious city in Tibetan Buddhism. In 2001, the Chinese government officially changed the name of Zhongdian to Shangri-La in order to promote tourism. After arriving in the very small Diqing Airport in Zhongdian, we were greeted by our Tibetan tour guides who put khata (white silk scarves symbolizing good will) around our necks, and then rode the bus to the old city. Already it was quite cold, and the mountains around us were really beautiful. We ate a great breakfast at a place called the Tibetan Café, which is owned by a man named Zhaxi, a friend of the IES Beijing onsite program director, but who was currently traveling with one of the other groups.

Afterwards, we were given free time in the old city to walk around and go shopping. Since it’s not really the peak tourist or backpacker season, there were very few other tourists (if any) in the area. I bought some trinkets and got a great view of the world’s largest prayer wheel. After lunch (again at the Tibetan Café) we had a discussion about the “Tibetan” village that we would be visiting, and then went to visit the Songzanlin Monastery.

Tibetan-Buddhist temples are wonderfully colorful against a blue sky, and impose an interesting character on the whole area. Still, however, even this monastery had its touristy aspects. Outside, were women dressed in native costumes holding animals, trying to charge you money to take a picture with or of them. Once having entered the temple grounds, and ascending most of the steps, we were once again approached by locals in traditional dress asking to charge money for photos. This time, however, they were 8 year old kids. A little girl asked for 2 kuai (about $0.25) to have a picture taken with her, and my friend Rona almost gave in. One of our Laoshis (teachers), however, jokingly said “I’ll only charge you 1 kuai to take a picture with me”, and the little girl, shocked at the prospect of losing her 2 kuai, pushed my Laoshi out of the way. It was fairly amusing, and in the end, Rona ended up giving the little girl her 2 kuai, much to my dismay. I really do feel that by giving people money in these situations, you’re just encouraging more people to do the same, and for the area to become more and more touristy.

Our tour guide gave us a quick overview of things to know when entering a Buddhist temple, which I found later to be severely lacking. I was later told, only after doing the wrong thing, not to step on door entryways, to point with one finger, and to take photographs (the last of which we were originally given permission to do). Nevertheless, the temple was fairly interesting, and I really look forward to comparing it with the monasteries that I will visit in Tibet.

After departing Songzanlin, we headed to our three-day stay in Napa village (pronounced Nah-Pah), near the mountains outside Zhongdian. We were separated into two medium-sized buses, and went on our way. After almost an hour of driving, we arrived at the Napa Lake, which was only partly filled with water, as it dries up in the winter months. The last leg of the road into Napa is a thin rock jenny which crosses the portion of the lake which is filled with water even in the winter months (and which often swallows this road in the summer). In retrospect, it probably wasn’t the best idea to drive buses across this jenny, but we did. About half way across, the bus in front (I was in the back bus), suddenly lost its ground and fell off the road, almost into the water. Fortunately, one of our group members on that bus is a 27 year-old guy named Richard, who had just served in the navy for 5 years. He immediately reacted and balanced the bus by bringing everyone to the opposite side. Then, as we held the bus by placing our weight on the windows, he helped everyone exit through the windows and got all of the luggage out. The bus drivers then repositioned the rocks under the bus so it would stay up. In the end, what could have been a disastrous situation ended quite fortunately without even any injuries. (They backed the other bus out and then came back the next day, and successfully hoisted the bus back to land.)

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The Napa Village area is actually divided into two parts, the upper Tah village and the lower Napa village separated by a 20 minute hike. So, after the bus accident, we split into two groups, with 6 people (3 girls and 3 guys, including myself) staying in two houses in Tah Village, and 12 people (9 girls and 3 guys) staying in 4 houses in Napa Village.

Napa Village is a “Tibetan” village just outside Zhongdian, whose residents identify as being members of the Zangzu (Tibetan) minority in China. The original village was up in the mountains at a place called Shangbala. When the villagers came down to the area around the lake, they found that the best agricultural areas had been taken by other villages. So, there main source of income for many years has been cutting down trees and selling the lumber. Recently, however, the government and other organizations have discouraged them from doing so because of its impact on the environment. Zhaxi, the owner of the Tibetan café, has been working with Napa village and many other villages in Yunnan and Tibet, in order to improve their economic standing and way of life without destroying their culture. The first component of this plan is to increase tourism in Napa village, without making it see touristy (i.e. no hotels, no paying for photos, nobody shoving products in your face, etc.). On a different level, he has been working to introduce bathroom facilities to the village.

I stayed in the first house in Tah village with two other guys, and three other girls were in a house just down the path. The first thing that you notice about visiting a village like this is just how polite the people really are. This, again, comes down to their effort to prevent the area from getting touristy. So, no matter how hard we tried, they wouldn’t let us carry our bags up to the house. When I first heard we’d be staying in a small Tibetan village, I imagined little shacks with hay beds, or something of the sort. When we arrived, however, we found a fairly ornate two-story Tibetan home, complete with walled gate and downstairs barn. Upon our arrival, we were greeted by a vicious dog chained against the house and barking at us with all its energy (every house in the village has at least one such dog, and several puppies being trained as such, for protection and to act as a doorbell). In order to enter the house, you must ascend a steep staircase in the front of the barn to the second floor, where there is a wrap around deck area for washing and daily activities. Opposite the top of the stairs, a door provides entrance to the home. The first room is a dark entrance way used for hanging preserved meat. Another doorway leads to the main living area which is a large room with high ceilings, a huge round pole/log through the center of the room, and a stove and sitting area in the closer right corner. Don’t get me wrong—this is by no means a suburban-type house, despite its size and ornate carvings. Its insulation is non-existent, electricity is limited, there’s no running water within the house, and holes in the logs show directly to the outside. Even the roof of the stove area is nearly open to the sky. Therefore, the families spend most of their time near the stove in order to stay warm. Also, when I say stove, I mean a set of huge pots cemented in some fashion together over a fire.

Anyway, the first night, we sat around the fire with our family and the girls’ family and taught them how to play an American card game (‘bullshit’ – which we translated into their dialect of Tibetan roughly as ‘jeezueh’). Next, I took advantage of the opportunity to practice my linguistic transcription skills, and tried to learn some of their language. At one point we asked them if they had a bathroom, or where we could go to the bathroom. They responded just to “go wherever”. After some more discussion, they finally showed us their outhouse (I think they must have been embarrassed by it), which was a small wooden shack with a board missing in the middle and sloped ground underneath so nothing would sit. This was my first experience squatting to use the bathroom, and it was certainly a trip. In the home we slept on beds in our sleeping bags, since there was no heat.

The next morning they let us sleep in a bit late since they knew we were fairly tired. After lunch, we trekked over to the other village, where we discussed our homestays, and then played basketball with the locals. That night we had a party in Napa Village, where they taught us traditional songs and dances, and we performed for each other. A number of beers later (also, one beer in the Himalayas is equal to at least 3 elsewhere because of the altitude), I decided it would be a good idea to teach everyone the Horra. So, I told them I had a Jewish dance to teach them, and did my best, but it didn’t turn out too great, even though they later told me they liked my dance.

We ended up driving a small van back to our village, and going right to sleep. The next morning we got our stuff together and prepared for a hike up into the mountains where we would stay at Shangbala. We went outside to find that it had snowed overnight, making the hike extra difficult, especially for the mule that was carrying a lot of our stuff. Two of our family’s dogs ran beside us the entire way up. At one point, the mule left some droppings in the path, and one of the dogs decided to roll around in it to get warm (just a bit disgusting). About two hours later we arrived at a small wood cabin in between several mountains, and awaited the people who were staying in the other village. Once everyone had arrived, and we’d all settled in, a few of us decided to climb up one of the smaller peaks right near our camp. So, we went at it through the thorn bushes. Three-quarters of the way up, our laoshi spotted us and yelled for us to come down, that lunch was ready. We went a bit farther and then finally agreed to descend. When we reached the bottom we realized that they had lied about lunch just to get us down, so we attacked them with snowballs until lunch was actually ready. Each cabin in the camp had a small barn area for the mules, across from a very small cabin area with a bonfire in the center. These cabins were really just shields against the wind and snow, since they are really just sticks and logs fastened together, nothing fancy. After lunch we trekked out past the ranch and had a bigger snowball fight with everyone participating.

After returning to camp, we all settled back in and tried to get comfortable and dry. We split up into two cabins and played games to keep busy. Later, we ate dinner and then split up into our cabins to sleep. By that point, dark had fallen, and we needed to use flashlights to get around. We set up our sleeping bags so as to avoid smoke inhalation from the bonfire, and went to sleep. It was a very uncomfortable night sleeping on the boards and dirt, and next to the fire with the smoke blowing in my face. At one point, there was a wolf immediately outside the cabin where I was sleeping, growling at me since it could see me through a hole in between the logs. We woke up the next morning to find that at least an extra foot of snow had fallen.

The plan was to leave after lunch and to return to the village for our last night, after which point we would head to Tiger Leaping Gorge. I was rationing how much food I was eating at each meal so as to maximize my energy but not cause any stomach problems, since stomach problems in the snow aren’t too fun. So, I was the first one eating, and our RA, Katie, called me outside away from everyone. She told me that one of the grandparents in the home in which she was staying (the other house in Tah Village) had just passed away after something had fallen on them, and that they couldn’t return there that night. Also, due to this situation and the fact that the snow had built up, and more was expected, they had decided to return to Zhongdian a day early. She asked if I would be willing to hike ahead through the mountains with one of the guides back to Tah Village in order to gather everyone’s things, and asked me not to tell anyone. I, of course, agreed and set out back towards the village. We did the hike in about an hour and a half, and I gathered all of the bags at our house. They told me, however, that we couldn’t go to the grieving house until they said it was alright. So, I waited for about an hour by the stove drinking yak milk tea, which they kept forcing me to drink. At one point, a monk from Songzanlin arrived to help with the arrangements, and I had a discussion with him about what I thought about the village from the perspective of an American. Finally, they said it was alright to go to the other house. Outside, the men were constructing a coffin. Inside, the women were gathering, and one of the elderly ladies was wrapping hundreds of baozi (meat-filled buns). After gathering all of the girls’ stuff, I returned to the other house and waited until I heard from the rest of the group to meet them down on the road. They finally called me to tell me they were on their way, so I trekked down to the road with all of the luggage to wait.

Due to the snow, and the previous problem with the bus, they used tractors to get us out of the area. On one of the tractors was a live sheep (which I named Edward) tied up and a barbecue for our dinner that night. Of course, my tractor got stuck, and we ended up having to push it and then walk a fair distance. It was a quick ride to Zhongdian, with the consolation that the hotel had showers. So, we cleaned up and then went to dinner, at which point they served our friend, Edward the sheep. After dinner, we convinced the laoshis to let us go to KTV (karaoke) and a spent a few hours there having a good time.

In the morning, we got on the bus headed towards Tiger Leaping Gorge. Because of time restrictions, we were told that the first day’s hike had been shortened to just a scenic overlook, and that we’d pick up with the second day’s hike in the morning. Tiger Leaping Gorge has three trails: a low road (which is passable by vehicle), a middle trail, and a high trail. So, we took the low road to our first night’s accommodations at Woody’s Guesthouse (aka Walnut Grove), which is so nicknamed because of the walnuts growing there, which we spent about a half an hour cracking open and eating on the back porch. After exploring, we had a not-so-great dinner, which three of the other guys were late for. As punishment, the laoshis determined that they wouldn’t be allowed to drink any alcohol for the rest of the trip. That night we engaged in some more Tibetan dancing. The walls in Woody’s guesthouse seem to be more for show than anything else, since they don’t mask any noise, and have peep-holes poked through them by previous guests. So, we passed some notes and jokingly talked about each other before going to sleep.

The next morning, we hiked farther down into the gorge towards the river. What the laoshis had told us would be a three hour hike actually only took us about 45 minutes, since they had tried to shorten it without us knowing. Of course, when we reached our lunch destination at 10:00, and we were all expecting more, they let us continue to hike, and we started to have a great time in the world’s deepest gorge. The hike back up the gorge towards our next night’s stay was a bit more strenuous, and took several hours. Once we had made it up to the higher trail, however, it wasn’t so difficult going, and the views were spectacular. Finally arriving at the “Halfway House”, we relaxed for the rest of the day, enjoying the picturesque mountains around us and each other’s company.

In the morning, we set back out towards our final destination in the gorge, where the buses met us with our larger luggage. We stopped for a quick lunch, to pick up Zhaxi, the Tibetan tour guide and owner of the Tibetan Café, and for one last look at Tiger Leaping Gorge, before heading south on the long bus ride to Dali.

As we headed south, the weather began to change from cold to hot. At one point, we passed through a small town and got stuck in a traffic jam, getting looks from all of the locals, some asking for money through the windows—others just intrigued by the sight of white faces. Since we were still in two buses, we became separated temporarily during the traffic jam. My bus was ahead of the other, so, after we’d passed through the town, we ended up stopping on the side of the road to eat some sugarcane and relax while we waited for the other bus.

Just when we thought we were approaching our hotel, our guides and the laoshis told us that we had another stop. Still tired from the Tiger Leaping Gorge hike that day and the day before, we weren’t too happy to see the 500 and some steps leading up to this mountainside Buddhist temple. However, when we made it to the top, we were surprised to find the giant statues of Buddha above the temple to be the home of many monkeys. So, we went up and took some photos (and had some food stolen).

So, the last visit of the day turned out to be worth the effort, and we finally made it to our hotel. The next day, we continued on our journey to Dali, stopping for a morning visit to ancient grottoes, and then hiked down through the hills into the town below, where we had a lunch prepared by a local family. Back on the bus, we found that the flies from the village had followed us, so we carried out a widespread massacre of anything resembling a fly, and sat uncomfortably for the rest of the bumpy ride to Dali. The roads in Yunnan seem to be really dangerous for buses (maybe this is just in response to our previous accident in Napa Village), and there were several times when I thought we were going to have problems. Fortunately, our bus driver turned out to be excellent, and we made it to the fishing village opposite downtown Dali across Erhai Lake unscathed.

Upon our arrival, however, we were informed that the guest house had lied, and that they didn’t have enough rooms. So while we waited for the laoshis and guides to figure it out, we went and relaxed by the beautiful lake, with the mountains in the background. In the end, they determined that they guys would sleep 3 people to a room, with no bathroom, and that they’d try and get us an upgrade at our next and final hotel the next evening. What’s more, the dinner that was supposed to be at the hotel, was not ready, so we ended up finding a local restaurant and inundating them with our group. Unable to handle such a large group, our laoshis chipped in their help in the kitchen and as fuwuyuans (waitresses), which was indeed amusing to watch. Zhaxi, our guide, felt fairly bad for the mix up with the hotel, so he procured several cases of beer, and got the laoshis’ permission to lift the other guys’ drinking ban.

The next day, we rode a boat across Erhai Lake, and visited a tie-dye factory. The Bai people of this area traditionally make beautiful tie-dyes (much more intricate than the ones we associate with the 60’s), usually in blue, because of the indigo plant. So, they showed us how they go about making them, and then we had an opportunity to shop around their store. On the way out, we noticed that among the indigo plants growing in their courtyard were also marijuana plants! We asked them about it, and they explained that they were for making hemp, and one of the ladies said in Chinese, “You know, you can also smoke this…”. She then handed us all business cards.

After that, we headed to our hotel (which was indeed much nicer than our previous night’s), and had free time exploring the old city of Dali. The next morning, we went on a bike ride down to the lake and back through the old city, and then had more free time shopping before eating a farewell dinner and heading to the train station. From Dali, we took an overnight train to Kunming, which might not have actually been so long had the train not been going 10mph and stopping every 10 minutes. Even still, we arrived in Kunming at 5:00am with a 6:30 flight back to Beijing. So, the laoshis arranged for a hotel for a few hours so everyone could get a bit more rest. I, however, decided to go for a walk instead and explored a bit of the city around the train station (nothing overly exciting). After breakfast, some more shopping, then lunch, and back to the airport where we met up with the other groups and headed back to Beijing!

All in all, it was an amazing trip, and I got closer to a lot of great people who I didn’t really know that well before, including the two laoshis that came with us, Lu Laoshi and Zhao Laoshi!