Category Ground Travel

Top Five Things I Wish We’d Brought

Almaty

• More carabineers. So far, carabineers and rope have been two of the most useful items in my pack. On the 48 hour train we needed the rope to secure the guitar to my travel pack, I locked it in place with two of the carabineers. I used a third carabineer to lock the food bag to my pack. All of the carabineers are also lockable, so everything is secure and safe. If we had another rope and a few more carabineers I would have used the rope on the top bunk to construct a mini table to preserve space and to set the laptop on. Laugh all you want, but when you are confined to a bed that is only one foot wide adding a tiny rope table to put your bag on would make you smile from ear to ear!
• Face-soap. One of the most irritating things about getting ready for bed on a moving train is that it is hard to get out soap and wash your face because there is no where to put the soap down without losing it via slippage or getting it filthy. I wish I had brought some of those individually wrapped, pre-moistened face washing cloths that you can toss afterwards.
• Video-recorder. While this is bulky and we are already traveling with an excess of electronics, it would be nice to capture the absolute silence of Lake Karakul, or the breathtaking majesty of the Tian Shan Mountains.
• Lens-cleaner. Dust storms, sand storms, rain, hail, smoke and smog have all induced my camera lens into looking like a streaky, splotchy mess. The same goes for my glasses and sunglasses, and for Mike’s laptop screen.
• Less stuff. Our bags are too heavy and there are items in our bags we don’t actually need. We’ll be leaving a large portion of our stuff in Turkmenistan once we arrive.
Top five most useful things we brought
• Pillow. I am so happy I brought my pillow. I store it, when moving, in a compression bag so that it takes up very little space. Its made me so much more comfortable.
• Head scarf. Every woman on the train who isn’t Chinese is wearing one. I put mine on and it feels amazing, it holds my hair out of my face and keeps it untangled. Its also nice because it has stopped some of the staring.
• Laptop. While it adds extra weight, it is a real luxury to have a laptop along to get work done and also keep blogging and journaling. I discovered that I write very slowly by hand.
• Compression bags. While it makes for more space (and hence more weight in the bag) its great to be able to break down one weeks of clothing into a bag the size of a shoe box.
• Vitamins. We packed at least 1/8th of our bags with vitamins and medicine and already I’m glad we have the vitamins as the only food on the train is unhealthy and oily.

We ventured to every travel gear store in Shanghai. For those seeking camping, climbing, trekking or other outdoor wear and gear we fully recommend Decathlon. This store has literally everything an outdoor enthusiast could want and expect to find in Shanghai. Since we’ve been to every outdoor store in the city we can safely say this is the cheapest, with the best quality goods, the widest selection (by far) and the friendliest staff. Other outdoor stores in Shanghai have been found lacking. They are usually one-room shops with overpriced fake North Face packs and a few flashlights. Check out Decathlon if you’re in town. We ended up spending around $100USD there and walked away with several quick-dry clothing sets, compression bags, quick-dry towels and other necessities for a backpacker on the road. We’re heading back this weekend to buy a two-man tent (400RMB) and two sleeping bags. With modern technology, these combined could fit into a small backpack and be assembled in less than 5 minutes.

Our packing list (for each person):

• 2 pairs quick-dry khakis
  

  Compresion bag

• 1 pair sweatpants/work-out clothes
• 4 shirts (all quick-dry, anti-wrinkle, one dressier)
• 1 pair shower shoes/ sandals
• 1 paid hiking shoes/boots
• 1 fleece
• 1 windbreaker
• 1 swimsuit
• Undergarments and hiking socks
• Small medical kit, including first aid and medicine for various on-road ailments
• Books and writing materials
• I-pods
• Laptop
• Plastic bags (for dirty clothes, separating wet things, etc)
• 1 two-man tent
• 2 sleeping bags

We packed everything in one large backpack using one compression bag each (black back shown above in left of image). The compression bags collapse everything to manageable size. In one small backpack we will carry the medicine and laptop in a heat controlled bag (as we’re going into the desert and don’t want a giant paper weight made out of the laptop if it gets too hot).  This way we’ll be able to travel with one small bag and one large backpacking ruscksack in case one of us gets injured or is sore from hiking, etc. We will add the sleeping bags and tent as well as the additional small bag and my camera and we’ll be off on our trip in less than a week!

Samarkand

Having completed all the necessary paperwork, acquired mini photos of myself and located my passport I set off to the Uzbek consulate in Shanghai.

No one seemed to know where Huangpu Road was. After several attempts I finally located number 99 and went to the 15th floor, which is where the Embassy site said the consulate offices were. I found a glass door with neon green construction paper glued to the door and a tiny white sign in Chinese with a phone number. I called the number and asked where the consulate was. He replied with a question, “rent or buy?”

I went to a nearby office and asked how long the room with the green door had been empty. “Almost two years,” came the cringe-worthy reply. I called Mike, who looked online and located another phone number. No answer and then a dial tone. Bummer.

After returning from the boondocks to my Shanghai apartment I confirmed online that I had gone to the right address. I called the Uzbek Embassy in Beijing. No one spoke English and the Chinese intern who answered the phone hung up when I asked if it was the Uzbek Embassy. Frustrated, I asked a friend who is fluent if she could follow up and find any information. Meanwhile a friend of Mike’s who speaks Russian is looking online for more information.

Meanwhile, if I can’t find information on the consulate I’ll have to take the overnight train to Beijing to find the Uzbek Embassy and try to deal with acquiring the visa in person in Beijing.

Through the whole semi-frustrating ordeal I was reminded that this is simply how things are in Asia- impermanent. It is a great start to the trip!

-Posted by Lauren.

We returned today from a four day trip to HuangShan, Yellow Mountain, in Anhui province, China.

On Friday the 13th we boarded the nightly slow train to Anhui at 10:00pm. We were in a crowded sleeper car with about seventy other adventurers on their way to the mountain. Everyone was wearing hiking boots and had Canon cameras around their necks. Since it had been raining the past few weeks, everyone had a rain jacket strapped to their bags. We settled in and fell promptly asleep after a few games of cribbage, and listened to the sounds of our fellow cabin mates playing poker until the early morning.

At 5:00am I woke to the sounds of laughter- our cabin mates were gambling again already. I pulled out my book and read for a while before descending from the top bunk (they are three high in mini rooms of 6 beds) and found a seat along the hall where I watched the scenery change from the flat, coastal farmland around Shanghai to the rolling, rocky hills of Anhui province. We arrived at the HuangShan train station at 10:00am.

After buying our return tickets to Shanghai for the following Monday evening, we were accosted by dozens of men and women eager to sell us anything we might desire. One such promiser was a middle-aged woman who offered a ride to the base of the mountain for 15Rmb. We agreed, as this is how things are generally done around China, and hopped in the back of her 6 person mini-van. Ten minutes later the van had 10 people in it and we were bumping along at 70 miles an hour. An elderly woman with purple hair tapped Mike on the shoulder every few minutes asking his age, or my occupation, or his dental plans, or if I wanted a boy or girl child. The van stopped in a town at the base of the mountain, but several hours hike from the start of the mountain trails. We got in another mini van, the driver of which was quite possibly drunk, and took off down a winding road of switchbacks until we finally arrived, mid vomit, at the entrance to the Nine Dragon Falls. Though this was not the gate we had asked to be taken to, the falls looked beautiful so we went in after the ticket lady (all of 14) assured us we could connect with a seldom used trail to the main route.

The falls defied beauty and went into the realm of nirvana. We were alone on the trails, which were often little more than a few granite stones pointing the way, and we stopped often to feel the water, take pictures or explore areas off the path. By 2pm we were hardly half way to the halfway point, and sped up our pace a bit as we hiked through endless bamboo forests. Around 3pm we stepped off the granite path and onto a black-top road, shocked to discover that there was an auto-route up the mountain. Also at this intersection was a cable car that would deliver people and cargo to the base of the summit. As the sun was going to set soon, we hopped a ride on the cable car for 10USD.

The cable car ride was, in a word, magical. From the bamboo and palm tree waterfalls and turquoise ponds the lift heaved us up into a frozen paradise, where trees looked like crystal and sidewalks looked like glass. When we stepped off the lift a surreal feeling fell over us, and there was a long silence as we walked around touching the ice and rubbing our hands together.

We explored the various peaks around the summit until well into the evening, and then discovered that the hotels on the summit cost more than I make in a month. We walked out of each hotel a little more worried until a plump little man approached us and said “100 Rmb hostel?” to which we replied, “YES!”

The room was a cement square with a cement roof and cement floor. Four wooden beds lined the walls. In all, it was smaller than the compartment on our overnight train and had no bathroom, running water or heat. It was negative 3. We bought the whole room, which was 300Rmb, and then put all the blankets on one bed to try to keep warm. A party of hikers bought out the rest of the building and stayed up all night gambling and screaming, singing and drinking. We lay awake all night shivering, cursing and then laughing. It was easy to get out of that bed and that cement coffin of a hostel to go see the sunrise at 5:30am.

The sun peaked out over the hills and light flooded the valley in waves of orange, red and then blue. It was beautiful, except for the hundreds of other spectators who were screaming, waving bells and trying to hear their own echoes in the early morning valleys.

After a nice breakfast at the spendy hotel we packed our bags, big adieu to the stout cement square owner and set off for a day of summiting the various peaks of HuangShan.

-Posted by Lauren.

Yellow Mountain

Today we’re heading to HuangShan, yellow mountain, in Anhui province. This is the most famous of the five sacred mountains of China, and the filming location of endless Chinese epics (including some scenes in Flying Dragon, Sleeping Tiger, or whatever its called). With some advise from friends (Thanks T&L!) we’re planning on hiking up the four trillion steps on one side, and then descending on the other side, having spent the night in a hostel on the top of the mountain. There are hot springs at the base of the mountain and endless hiking paths along the many ridges.

The train takes between 9 and eleven hours to get from Shanghai to HuangShan, so we’re leaving tonight, Friday the 13th, at 10:00pm and arriving in the morning at the base of the mountain. We’re only bringing a few changes of clothes, a cribbage board, my camera and notebooks. It will be very nice to get away from the noise, smog and hustle of the city in exchange for the bird chirping and rain falling sounds of the mountain.

When we get back we’ll have less than a month before we depart on the ‘Shanghai to the Caspian’ trip. This is a good warm up.

-Posted by Lauren.

As the trip planning progresses I find myself at the stage of applying for international visas, a process wrought with vagueness and inconsistencies. For example, you can get a transit visa for several Central Asian countries but the duration of stay is not long enough to get across the country by land. Or, visa laws will stipulate that you need A, B and C and then when you get to the consulate they will have a list that goes from A to Z of random documents and health testing you need. That aside, the trip planning is going well. We are set to go from Urumqi to Almaty by train or bus through the Tien Shan mountains, and then spend a day in Almaty seeing the world’s second largest canyon and the accompanying hot springs. From there you grab a train to Tashkent, Uzbekistan, where we’ll spend a day in the capital before heading to Samarkand and Bokarah, where I’d like to spend a few weeks, if time permitted.

Maps of the region are hard to come by, so planning a more accurate by land traverse is difficult. Where trains become obsolete we’ll take buses. In Central Asia and China a bus is anything from an SUV with all the seats removed to a long hallow tube with stacked cots and a pin for animals in the back. Hopefully the buses in and around Bukarah are an improvement upon earlier experiences, but either way its an adventure.

Trains are apparently the best way to travel…. until you reach Bokarah, whereupon the train becomes a projectile of T.B. From Bokarah we’ll need to take buses or rent an SUV or comission a pack of horses or camels to take us to Ashgabat. With visa laws somewhat obscure for Turkmenistan, I’m having difficulty believing I can just nab permisssion to cross at the border.

I’m growing more excited about the trip. Reading up on the bazars,

minnerets, whirling-dervishes, single-eyebrowed ladies and massive lakes of fire have inspired me to salavate when looking at the map of my overland route. It is a shame humans invented airplanes because I feel little good has come of it. We use them for war and for making travel easier. Unfortunetly its made travel less interesting. This trip is really going to feel like a trek from shore to shore. From Shanghai to Ashgabat, and then west to Turkmenbashy on the Caspian Sea. Visas are being acquired and train tickets sought out. The countdown begins!

-Posted by Lauren.

In planning the trip from Shanghai to Ashgabat, I’m encountering some chatter online about difficulties previous travelers have faced trying to cross the Irkeshtam pass from China into Kyrgyzstan. I contacted a Central Asian expert to inquire about the safety of traveling in this region, as well as the probability of attempting a border crossing at Irkeshtam. I was told it would be a waste of time to attempt to get from Kashgar to Osh. However, there is some hope in arranging for a Chinese travel company to escort me to the border and then deliver me to a Bishkek travel company, which would then drop me off safely in the capital of Kyrgyzstan.  As for safety, there was no one who would recommend a woman travel alone, naturally.

I’m determined to travel from the Coast of China to the Caspian Sea. If there were some way to make it from Turkmenistan to the Mediterranean I could have gone from coast to coast without touching an airfield, truly a feat in this day and age, where travel is about arriving, not departing.Alas, there are a few countries between the Caspian and the Med that are not intelligent to visit at present. It is all in the planning stages, and perhaps there is a way, but I will be more than happy to have gone from Shanghai to Ashgabat.

I invited a travel partner recently, and am excite to hear if she can make the trip. This woman has traveled all over the world, and has a travel resume that would make even the most adventurous traveler blush in envy. I’ll let you know what she says. She speaks some Russian and a bit of Kyrgyz, which would be helpful on the trip, not to mention she has an intimate knowledge of the Stans. I’ll not ruin the surprise until I get confirmation.

All else is going well, investigating visa options, researching train schedules and studying maps. I’m also following the news from the countries we’ll travel through and alternate routes should anything go south mid-trip.

-Posted by Lauren.

As many of you know, I was laid off from my financial job on New Year’s Eve (classy timing). But this upsetting twist has been an amazing thing. I’ve been busy writing full time now, and making a fairly decent income to boot. I’ve been painting and touring around Shanghai as well, and will upload pictures of the paintings soon.

Alas, this time should not go wasted. It is rare that I have money saved up, free time, and the perfect location from which to launch a trip like this one. I’m planing a journey across land from Shanghai to Ashgabat, beginning late April. So far, I have the first half of the trip, some 8,200 miles, planned.  I’ll take the train from Shanghai to Urumqi, which is a 48 hour trip through a varied and diverse terrain. I’ll be writting on the train, as well as photographing the changes as we chug through flatlands, mountains and then desert.  From Urumqi I’ll take an overnight bus to Kashgar, the bus takes 24 hours and skirts along the Taklamakan desert, one of the harshest in the world.The bus leaves mid day so that we will be traveling by night through the deepest parts of the desert.

Kashgar is one of the few places on the planet that inspires instant envy. I’m enveious of the folks I know who have been there who claim it is truly an oasis of culture and color- the fading with the influx of new residents. I want to get there before it compleately dissapears.

From Kashgar to Ashgabat, the roads are a bit hazy and the trip a bit more dangerous. Careful planning is needed, at least to secure visas, permits and find a map with existing roads on it. This second phase of the journey will be planned at a later stage. For now, I’m busy finding out what there is to see along the route I have mapped so far. I’ve been to Turpan and toured around Urumqi, so this trip I’d like to check out some outlying villages to the North of the city before heading through the desert to Kashgar. At some point, I’m determined to use a camel as a mode of transportation.

I just hope my laptop doesnt melt. April/May is a rough time to be out in the desert, but alas there is no time like the present. It will take about a month to finish planning, packing and acquiring visas, hence, the adventure begins now!

-Posted by Lauren.

West Lake

We arrived in Hangzhou at 6:00am. The city is well known for its beauty, and along with Guilin is one of the most beautiful tourists spots in China. I had traveled here in 2005, my first time in China, and this city alone is what had eventually led me to return to China. The city is shrouded in everything one comes to love about China, and its history is startlingly ever present. We grabbed a cab to West Lake, the centerpiece of the city, and tightened the straps of our backpacks as we set of to circumnavigate the lake. Slightly remembering the features of the area, I set of pointing out aspects of my previous journey. We sat on the lake shore with a group of over twenty elderly Chinese and drank coffee and tea as we watched women in their nineties do tai chi while men did their morning exercises of military drills from years long passed. The elderly were surprisingly limber, and possibly in better shape than ourselves. They laughed and chatted amongst themselves while they exercised and drank their tea, and we aware that we were on the outside, looking in. I admired these old people, who were light years ahead of the American elderly who sat decaying in old folk’s homes, antisocial and full of self pity. Chinese elderly are the life of the country, they meet at night to dance in the parks with each other, and congregate every morning around the lakes to exercise and socialize. I hoped then and there that when I aged, I would age with dignity and grace like the Chinese in Hangzhou. We watched them for quite some time before the sun fully emerged, and then we set off along dragon bridges in the early morning light.

We continued our tour around the lake, sometimes losing sight of the shore as we strolled through deep woods, always keeping the lake in the distance. Emerging back on the shores, we encountered hundreds of boaters and fishers, eager to offer us a ride (for a fee, of course). The mood around the lake had shifted as the sun climbed in the sky. Younger people emerged, and with them some of the charm of the lake disappeared. Loud tourists came out of nowhere by the bus load, and we were happy that we had been there early to sense the quiet energy of the elderly. Eventually we were overrun by tours with megaphones and camera shutters snapping in our faces and decided we had had enough of tourism! We were tired of calculated trips where a lady with a bullhorn would screech into the crowd, “look how beautiful and serene the lake is. hurry. hurry. look. okay, moving on….” There is hardly anything to appreciate when one is in a crowd as massive and noisy as a Chinese tour group. We waited for the groups to pass so we could make our escape, but they did not cease. Finally we fought our way through the crowd to the nearest exit and hailed a passing cab. Exhausted and tired, we directed him to the train station where twenty minutes later we found ourselves sitting on a fast train home to Shanghai.

Hangzhou

Though it had been an amazing week on the river, we were tired and eager to be back home. It was odd thinking of our tiny apartment in Shanghai as our home, but when we walked through the door to familiar smells and fabrics, we smiled and truly realized how fortunate we were to have such a nice place, with so much security and comfort. A week sailing through poverty had made it so nothing would be taken for granted for a very long time.

-posted by Lauren.

Yellow Crane Tower

Again we were awoken at 5:00am as we passed through the final of three gorges. This last gorge was vastly different than the previous two, and we were happy that we had decided to go topside. The cliff sides were covered in lush greenery like a scene from Jurassic Park, and we took out our binoculars to watch for monkeys. After an hour the sun began to rise, and we joined the Swiss in the dining hall for boiled eggs and waterlogged rice. We continued our previous discussion of religion in Switzerland, noting that the Swiss pay taxes to the Church via the government. I pondered how un neutral this was, but decided not to point this out. We talked about neutrality for a long time, and though I had always admired the Swiss for being internally focused, I found neutrality to be a double edged sword. It protected the people, but it also meant they turned their backs on the world when it sometimes needed it. A truly confusion conundrum. After a leisurely meal the Swiss got off the boat to see a monument, we stayed on board and played cribbage overlooking the hillsides. The stop was the final day trip before the end of the cruise, but we had heard roomers that the stop was largely bullshit, another tourist trap selling plastic Olympic goods. The Swiss returned and sat with us in the windy sunshine and laughed at what a joke the last sight had been. It was a fake dragon boat race that lasted less than two minutes, but they had been forced to march at top speeds up a large hillside to see the race from afar. After a few warm beers and more discussion with the Swiss, we packed up our room and got off the boat. It had been an interesting four days, but I don’t think I would ever recommend the ‘cruise’ to anyone. At least not anyone I liked.

We boarded a bus for Yicheng, a nearby city where we would be able to buy train or bus tickets to Wuhan, and then back to Shanghai. We found Yicheng a beautifully modern and clean city that resembled, in many ways, the US mid-west. Our bus passed through a housing district of large brick mansions facing the river, and we watched, mouths agape, as the luxury passed behind us. Apparently black gold had made this village prosperous, that coupled with a constant stream of disembarking tourists had elevated the city. We rumbled towards the bus stop where we bid farewell to the Germans and the Swiss, and boarded another, more crowded bus that smelled of vomit and was full of flies. This bus would take us 5 hours to Wuhan.

Arriving in Wuhan near 21:00 we began walking aimlessly down a large street near where our bus had abandoned us. Curiously, we spotted the German couple down the road and hurried to catch up with them. They had arrived an hour earlier and had checked into a hostel down the street. We followed them to the hostel, checked in and then set about devouring a round of beers with the Germans. We took a cab to look for western food, but ended up in a Chinese buffet hall when we realized it was too late for most restaurants to be open. Returning to the hostel after a tasty meal- our first in five days- we slept soundly and awoke refreshed at 10:00, the latest we had slept since leaving Shanghai.

Yellow Crane Hill

After a nice breakfast at the hostel we went to the Yellow Crane Pagoda where, for 50Rmb one can stroll along the gardens and climb the pagoda where Li Bai had been humbled by former masters and an amazing view of the river. We spent the afternoon talking about American politics and slowly walking through the shade of the bamboo. Resting often, we felt close to the Chinese of old who had had a lifestyle of learning and growing. After the pagoda, which is a beautiful spot in Wuhan I’d highly recommend, we returned to the hostel to spend the afternoon resting in the sunshine. Mike found an abandoned guitar and he strummed songs and sang all afternoon in a cove in the hostel. I read Empire of the Sun, a gift from a Shanghai friend I had recently received for my birthday, and we whiled away the hours sipping beers and relaxing. We ate a nice hostel meal that was the largest array of foods we had seen in ages, and dined until our bellies hurt. At 17:00 the Germans appeared and we decided to share a cab to the train station. Once we arrived the Germans bought another round of beers and we chugged them on the platform and shook hands and exchanged phone numbers and emails. Traveling in china always produced friends of necessity, but this trip had been very good to us, and we adored the Swiss and German couples we had met on the trip. We boarded the night train to Hangzhou, and were amazed at the modernity we were faced with. This was the cleanest and nicest train we had ever been on, and we stayed up playing cards and drinking cheap beer until the lights were turned off and we crawled up into our top bunks and slept.

-posted by Lauren.

River boat capitan

At 5:00am I was wide awake listening to an overweight and undereducated Chinese man yell at his wife in the hallway. They screamed as loudly as possible, yet no one asked them to be quiet. I wondered if this happened in America, if someone would ask them to take their fight somewhere more isolated, and decided that they would. Moments after their doors slammed shut, the sirens went off for our wake up call and everyone was moving and yelling in the halls at once. We ate cold rice porridge, boiled eggs with fecal matter caked to the shells and pickled beans with the Swiss couple before getting off the boat and into an overcrowded bus. The bus drove ten minutes up a hill, unloaded its cargo and the driver fell asleep against the wheel. We blinked back sleep and surveyed the area. We were outside the White Emperor City, a small island the Emperor had given to his younger brother to appease him. In a massive group, we walked along listening to the tour guide point out special attractions. Falling to the back, we strayed off course and looked around at the very modern, very new ‘ancient’ city. In a far corner we found a sign saying the city was built in 2005 after archeologists found a brick foundation they thought matched the description in a fictional work of literature about the king’s brother, the White King Emperor (so named because he saw white, dragon-like smoke pouring from a hole in the ground on an island, which he called the dragon’s cave). This may or may not have been that island, and that may or may not have been a factual story about a factual emperor. Dismayed at having been lugged out here for fake ‘history’ we spent the morning checking out the view of the gorges the island’s vantage points provided. We largely ignored the ‘ancient’ buildings and avoided the crowds all together. At the top of the hill stood a lone shack under construction, we went inside and saw a few Chinese gentlemen and their girlfriends from our boat. They were looking into glass display cases and laughing. One youth had his girlfriend take a picture of him making daemon faces in front of the case. We walked over to see that the case contained human remains. A sign nearby said that in ancient times a strange people had buried their dead in hanging coffins, high in the nearby gorges. These few coffins had been removed from their lofty resting places so tourists could pose in front of them. A hold in the glass case was drilled so tourists could fill the coffins with money for luck. We were aghast that the poor dead were being treated in such a way. The worst possible death I could imagine would comprise of being a part of a disrespectful, Chinese tourist trap in a fake city. I spent the day contemplating the way Chinese think of death and dying, a near theme for the trip so far considering the previous day’s outing and now the desecrated remains of an unfortunate man.

Back on the boat we sat on the deck counting the floating shoes we passed in the water. For some reason there was an excess of shoes (possibly because the rubber soles made them float). We wondered if for every floating shoe there was a pair of sunken pants and missing, sunken shirt as well. Mike wondered if we’d pass a body. Before the words were out of his mouth we saw something floating in the water 100 yard away from the boat. As we neared we saw four pale legs sticking out of the mucky river and saw that it was a bloated and green dead pig. Naturally, we stopped counting shoes, worried we would spot something equally or more disturbing than the dead pig. We mentally made a note not to eat anymore river fish.

At eleven we ate a hearty lunch on board with the Swiss couple and talked a great deal about politics, religion and the differences between Switzerland and the US (which are vast). Both of them had been in the US before, and had opinions on things that were very intense and new, and we enjoyed our chat immensely. By noon we had to get off the boat for a long day of touring. This was the highlight of the trip, and was especially touted as one of the last cruises humans would see of these cliff sides before the dam flooded the area. We boarded a smaller boat that held roughly 100 people, and the engine splashed up water as it took off down a mini gorge. We passed through several beautiful gorges before coming to the site of the hanging coffins. Up nearly 100 yards a small wooden coffin sat nestled in a square, man made cave along a steep and sheer cliff side. We wondered how the ancient peoples had put them up there in the first place, let alone how the Chinese tourism industry had gotten several coffins down for the White Emperor City. Further down we saw a monkey playing with a twig over the water, his long furry arms surprised us as we had never seen a monkey in the wild before. He vanished before we knew we had really seen him. After several hours of intense viewing, we halted and boarded even smaller boats of 20 which we took into an even smaller gorge. This tiny gorge was full of thin waterfalls spewing white spit. The water was clearer and our boat guide sang old fishing songs as he paddled us through the gorge. After a time we returned to the larger boat and again took off through larger gorges.

The boat stopped at a complete joke of a town that had at one point been an ‘ancient relic of China town,’ meaning, an old village. Because the water level would rise for the dam they had destroyed the old village and built a new one ‘exactly like the old one’ further up the hill for tourists to see how thoughtful the government could be. We looked around at the cinder blocks and 2x4s and left in disgust. Back in the original ancient village a poor old man was probably sifting through bricks for his possessions. Back on board we sped under several bridges under construction, as older, lower bridges would soon be wiped out, and finally arrived back in town where our ship was docked.

Protesting

Instead of boarding the boat we were directed to a bus. Apparently a local troupe had a show prepared for us. We ate a quick meal with the Swiss couple before grabbing a row of seats in a tiny stadium. Twenty scantly clad Chinese dancers frolicked on stage while the men, dressed in loin clothes, bounced around in the background holding twigs. Meanwhile, a smoke machine filled the room and flashing neon lights bounced off the walls in what can only be described as the corniest thing I’ve ever seen. In a rare show of defiance, however, one song and dance routine among the pack of otherwise pointless and flashy dances, showed an old man, wife and child with her baby being forced from their tiny home by government officials. The officials pranced around the stage singing as the poor villagers gathered their belongings and cried. It was a silent, smokeless theater when the last note was sung and we all looked at each other in shock. This was the only scent of protest we had ever seen from the Chinese about the dam, and it was not in the least bit subtle. We swelled with pride for the troupe and clapped loudly at their courage for doing a show with so much criticism in it. In the final act the policeman lifted the elderly woman onto his back and forced her off stage while the man was dragged by another young man in uniform. It was chilling. We were very happy to see that there was, at least, someone else who felt the whole project was hurting more than it was helping.

Boarding the boat we fell asleep the instant our heads hit the dirty pillows. We stayed on the dock all night, listening to the water lap at the shore.

-posted by Lauren.

At 4:30 a siren sounded and I was sure the boat was sinking. I mentally ran through all the logical escape routes, noting in my mind where the life vests were stored. There had been no emergency drills, and we noticed that as dirty as the water was, if we fell in we’d probably be poisoned to death in minutes. I had not slept hardly a wink all night as we lulled back and forth in the Yangzi’s current. Not a hearty swimmer, I was worried about the possibility of making it to the closest shore before being snatched by the cold or exhaustion or fear of what I could get tangled in in the dirty water. We did not sink, and another siren went off at 5:00am indicating we should, perhaps, prepare to disembark. We were arriving at the ancient Ghost Town, the only Daoist ghost village in China. For 80Rmb a person you could freely roam the two hillsides full of abandoned buildings full of relics of an abandoned religion. The town was a tribute to death and hell. The idea was that if would could pass through the scary underworld and survive, he had been a good person in this life and thus would survive the torment of hell. We marched past neon pools of drainage and waste into a serene valley of abandoned buildings. At the top of one hill there was an empty doorway shaped like a giant dragon’s open mouth. We walked inside alone and down dark stairs where a motion sensor triggered an insane and surreal giant puppet show of flashing lights and life-sized displays of torture and hell. We quickly walked through the haunted house of Daoist hell, but after twenty minutes of giant puppets sawing each other in half, we had not found an exit. Another ten minutes of crazy lights and giant horrors and we finally passed into another hall of Chinese history stories acted out in moving statues. We were too shocked at what we had just walked through to really express any thoughts other then blank stares. Walking out into the bright sunlight we wondered if we had really just marched through hell. After walking around the town a bit more, we headed back to the boat early and beat the crowd. I took a cold shower (no hot water on the boat) and by the time I came out of the disgusting bathroom I felt dirtier than when I went in. Our room mates sat on their bunk, nearly nude, chain smoking and avoiding eye contact. I went topside where I read in the fumes of exhaust and wrote in my journal, all the while snapping pictures of the gorges and hillsides as we passed slowly by. We spent the rest of the day on board playing cards, drinking warm beer, chatting with the Swiss couple, and watching the scenery.

walking through hell

At 21:00 we stopped at a Buddhist temple for a quick trip, but decided to walk around the outside of the temple rather than go inside. This was a depressing revelation. All along the temple there were knocked down homes and piles of rubble with people sifting through debris looking for belongings or scavenging. Little children pestered us to buy rocks and oranges from them while the elderly simply sat and looked at the piles of bricks. The whole town was in piles around the temple, and the people stayed only to try to sell what little they could produce to the tourists who would overpay and then board their boat. The three gorges dam has aroused controversy across China and the world for its massive displacement of people. Reading about the project one could see the large numbers of people who would be moved, but watching them poke at piles of bricks that used to be their homes was heart wrenching. We bought oranges, and then left them on the shore for the children to find and resell, and then we boarded the boat in a sober and depressed mood. Back on board, however, we met a German couple, we thought there was only us and the Swiss on board for foreigners, but the Germans had been hiding in their room until this evening. We chatted lightly and he bought us a round of beers while he talked about his pipe factory in Canton. We ate boiled cabbage and rice with the Germans in the canteen before bed. Returning to the room we found the nearly nudes mid argument. They abruptly silenced themselves and huffed into their beds. We all slept heavily that night as we rolled further away from the depressing shores of devastation.

-posted by Lauren.

skinned frogs

We arrived in Chongqing at 19:49, twenty minutes off schedule. I was handsomely impressed with their time management skills. On a 31 hour journey the train managed to cross the majority of the nation and arrive nearly on schedule. On train trips in the US I planned to arrive over four hours late, per leg. When we stepped of the train we were greeted by a throng of locals screaming “hotel” in Chinese. We bypassed them, knowing they are regular scam artists, and stepped into a small shopping booth where a young woman charged us an unheard of 7RMB for a two minute phone call (normal price: 50 mao (12 cents). We stood in line for a cab for nearly ten minutes before noticing the line stretched around the block, and cabs were arriving only rarely for the line of over 100 tired passengers. We went around the train station and found exactly what we were looking for. Illegal cab drivers who charge double the fare to take you half the distance. After negotiating for over half an hour we agreed on a 40Rmb fare. 25 for the driver, and 15 for the bridge toll. Needless to say there was no bridge toll and the greedy driver pocketed the money with a smile as he said “all foreigners have money. no problem.”

A bit irate, we walked around the river where the crook had dropped us of. Our hostel was nowhere in sight. After another overpriced phone call we spotted our contact, John, a Chongqing local who runs a friendly home hostel. He took us up to his three bedroom apartment (converted into a hostel) and showed us our tiny room. The spartan and deserted, it was a decent place to stay. We left after dropping off our bags and washing our faces, and found a local stall to eat dinner. The outdoor dinning consisted of plastic pink chairs and a piece of plywood over a bucket for a table. A worker in the ‘cafe’ plucked a large fish out of a tank in the front of the store, and lifted it high above her head. Smiling shyly at me, she slammed the poor fish against the cement, splattering foul water, blood and scales across our table. I shrieked in horror as she laughed and picked it up and again smashed the squirming beast into the cement. She did this several times as I staggered away from the stall and Mike paid our waiter (a drunk man with one leg of his pants missing). The fish-torturer began scaling the fish, which began to flop hideously about in the sink. She lifted it and smashed it against the ground one last time, now covered in petrol, dirt and dog shit. She smiled, finished scaling the poor swimmer, and then began to heat a pan. A cop and his ugly girlfriend watched the whole scene, applauding how fresh the fish at this stall was.

In the morning John promised to help us book tickets on a cruise ship up the Yangzi for 580Rmb. We were thrilled, having investigated and found the average booking agent was charging over 1000Rmb. We fell asleep optimistic, but awoke to the thunderous sounds of horn honking at 5:00am, to which mike mumbled through tired eyes, “did you know honking is illegal in Chongqing” (and indeed, it was outlawed in 1997. Obviously no longer enforced). We stumbled out of the room, dizzy from the overkill John had done on month balls in our tiny room, and hungover from breathing poor air for the whole night listening to illegal honking. Sitting on the living room couch, John made a proposition to Mike. He proposed they go into business together ripping of western tourists. The key was that foreigners had money and did not mind spending it. John and Mike could split the profit they earned by overcharging unknowing tourists. Sick at the thought of ripping of friends and fellow travelers, we politely declines. John then began talking about how much money he was making in Tibet on foreigners who would agree to pay any ridiculous price he demanded to see China’s Tibet. At this point we were sure ready to flee the hostel, and Chongqing for that matter for all the unpleasant people we had so far encountered. On the excuse of hunger we left John sitting on the couch talking about his pyramid scheme. Walking around a local street market, we gnawed on lamb skewers and dined in a local street stall with a cold beer before strolling arm in arm down the stepped alleys.

The bathroom

We were set to meet John at 17:00. He was massively late and the cruise, we were told, would leave at 18:00. Finally he burst nonchalantly through the door, took our money and told us to follow a random woman to the cruise. We followed her after several rounds of negotiations and swears, and she led us to a dock several hundred yards away from the primary port. The main port held beautiful white ships with lavish decks and gold dining halls. We were led to an underground passage to a hidden terminal. Trying to cheer ourselves, we opened a few beers and snacks and watched a movie on Mike’s laptop in the waiting room (after being informed our boat left at 21:00). A friendly man riding his bike across China joined us. He spoke little English, so we talked in Chinese about his trip, and got to know him as best we could with limited language skills. He shared a few beers and before we knew it we were smiling and boarding the gangplank to the boat.

The ‘cruise ship’ was probably condemned, it leered to one side and stunk of diesel and fish. Fake plastic grass covered parts of the deck, and the exhaust pipe for the engine (itself a relic from earlier times) sprouted black smoke and coughed up flakes of engine onto the passengers on top deck. Our shoulders slumped as we were ushered to our room by a rude and almost unbearable man. Angered and nearly in tears, I collapsed against the door of our room, waiting for the floor attendant to unlock our door (no passengers were allowed to keep keys and had to track her down each time to enter the room). When the door was finally opened, we saw two bunk beds, a soiled chair and a tiny yellow stained bathroom. The bathroom deserves more description: It was a plastic square with a drain, a toilet and a sink. A large shower head was fixed to the ceiling. If one showered, the water would fill the room (nearly a quarter of a foot)before slowly draining. The water was a strange brownish gold color. We put our bags down and slowly sank to the beds as we talked about our options. We could chase John down and demand our money back, or we could make the best of it. We decided on the later.

After deciding not to jump overboard we went on to the top deck where a young attendant demanded 60Rmb to sit on the deck. Another fee, and no surprise. We felt we existed in China only to provide money to everyone we met. We sat under the billowing diesel exhaust coughing and silently watching other passengers look around in dismay. We were the only ‘foreigners’ on board. Once the whistle blew we snuggled into the corner breathing through our clothes. After some time, and I do not remember how or why, we both started laughing. Out of the black cloud of smoke emerged to pale faces that belonged to a Swiss couple on a whirl wind tour of the world. We talked well into the night. When we returned to our rooms, full of laughter and smiles, we had black streaks coming out of our noses. Our ‘roommates’ were in the room when we got back (four bunk beds). The wife was a pretty and thin woman, she was wearing nothing but neon red lingerie with matching nail polish. She had her purse on her arm (neon pink) when we walked in for some reason. Her husband was in a black button down dress shirt and nothing else. He sat on the bottom bunk eating oranges and staring at Mike. We fell asleep in silence, me on the top bunk reaching down, and Mike on the bottom bunk reaching up holding my hand.

-posted by Lauren.

Mountains rose up from the land like rude interferences to local farming as hills were chipped away into terraces in a massive attempt to convert the fertile soils of the hillsides into useful space. We gazed out the windows of the slow train, watching the landscape change from the water-logged and soggy Shanghai flatness to the mountains of South-Western China. The train ambled slowly and comfortably along under 50mph, a speedy pace for the relaxed passengers on board.

Mike resting on the train

We watched small, gray and brown towns of under 20 houses pass by surrounded by fields of growing food and flooded rice fields. Suddenly, bright yellow and blue buildings with steeples on each rooftop rose out of the shrubbery to confuse us. The lavish colorful villages were mini Disney lands for the peasants on board used to stucco and mud buildings. We saw no people in these Disney-like towns, and no farmland surrounded the towered buildings. I wondered how they paid for their odd architecture, and where all the residents were, and how they had come to chose small church-like structures for their homes. Without a source for answers, we shrugged and resumed watching. The landscape quickly returned to the traditional gray and brown houses and fields, leaving us wondering if it had been an aberration.

Before leaving Shanghai, Mike and I both bought matching ridiculous pajamas. In the city, many people wander around at all times of day in full pajamas, we thought we would join this culture of relaxation, and donned the PJs before stepping onto the train. On board we purchased pomegranate, oranges, pistachios, grapes and noodles and, of course, a few bottles of beer. We sat playing cribbage on a small wooden peg board as we watched the scenery swoosh past. By 20:00 I had won three games to Mike’s zero, so he left the table to chat with a young Chinese man also traveling towards Chongqing. They dined on rabbit leg together as they chatted about women, jobs and China while I read in my bunk. Our six bed cabin was shared with a silent young woman in neon pink who said not a word for 31 hours, and a family of four (a couple, their 8 year old son, and a very limber 90 year old woman who bounded around the cabin grinning with her few remaining teeth). The small family shared three beds, and they spent their time entertaining the spoiled young boy, who spent his time irritating every breathing soul on board with screams, jeers and cries for candy.Throughout the train car, other children ran around quaintly playing with small paper toys while adults chatted with each other and socialized. It was a moving sewing circle, playground and men’s smoking card house all in one.

In the evening the lights were turned over at ten and we all climbed into our bunks for the night. Below Mike’s bunk a man snored louder than a chainsaw, and I worried for his health with such a strange and noisy condition. If he was asleep, then no one else in the cabin was. I lay awake all night, relaxed but tired, and listened to the helicopter-like noises of the fat man below Mike’s bunk. In the morning, noise and motion resumed at 6am when the lights promptly snapped on. The smell of instant noodles filled the cabin, as did the sounds of slurping and spitting. After trying to sleep for several more hours, we finally gave up and snacked on nuts and berries as we played a few more hand of cards. I won all but one game, leaving Mike quite dejected. Having tried train food the previous day, we were determined not to ever order it again, and listened to our stomachs growl as we traveled.

It was national day, Oct 1st, 2008. In 1949 on the same day the communists had officially come to power and announced the People’s Republic of China under Mao Zedong. To commemorate this occasion, all of China is given a week holiday each year in early October. For one week, all of China’s railways and highways are crowded with loud travelers eager to reach their families. It is known as the worst time to travel in China; an equivalent to Thanksgiving in the USA. We went anyways, eager to be a part of the hustle and noise. On the train, a more relaxed form of travel, we were surprised at how smoothly everything fell into place. We napped, gamed, read and blinked back the sun as we watched the scenery change. In all, it was a pleasant trip to Chongqing, and we arrived 31 hours later, a little tired and smelling of noodles, but quite relaxed and eager to start our tour of the city.

-posted by Lauren.

I wandered around the platform looking for Mike. Finally I saw a bathroom area in the far corner of the park where the dancing was going on. I walked over and waited a few minutes. After some time a strange and yellow Mike appeared from the bathroom clutching his stomach. I had a flashback to the Canadian on the bus and his coughing attack over the book Mike had been carrying.

Bell tower

We had also eaten lunch earlier at a local place where Mike had devoured spicy meatballs in oil at an alarming rate. Meanwhile, I had eaten noodles and beer. We figured it must have been the meat, as I was feeling healthy and energetic. He held his stomach, sat under a tree, and generally began to look Canadian himself. We jumped on the next bus back to the city and grabbed a hostel bunk room. I watched a film in the hostel lounge and emailed my parents to let them know we had made it safely to China and were enjoying Xi’an. Meanwhile, Mike hung out in the bathroom with a sour look on his face.

The next morning he was feeling himself again, and we decided to take the day slowly. We wandered down to the bell tower and then walked up into the Muslim quarter where I bought a compass in the shape of a turtle for my dad’s upcoming birthday. Mike bought a copy of the Little Red Book, which was a collection of quotes from former chairman Mao Zedong. The book was in Chinese and we soon discovered we could not read enough of it to be interesting. We walked around the Muslim quarter in a giddy mood, making up sayings we thought should belong in a quote book about communism’s many virtues. All of ours were cynical.

Dance for the Emperor

We decided, after the long relaxing day of joking around, walking and playing cards, to hop on another train and head for Chengdu. Chengdu is the capital of Sichuan, which is the most populated province in China. They say that one in five people in the world is Chinese, and one in four of those from Sichuan. We had plans to see the massive Tibetan national park and also the Giant Panda Research Breeding Center. We had a hostel recommended to us from some folks in Xi’an, and we had heard great things about the capital city. We were eager to get back on the road, and at dusk we boarded the urine-infested train with smiles from ear to ear.

-posted by Lauren.

From Banpo to the warriors we decided to grab a cab. It was nearly 90 degrees outside and our bags were becoming a burden. Meanwhile, we were finding it a bit hard to locate food near the tourist attractions that was not encased in plastic wrap, and we wanted a solid Xi’an meal. We finally flagged a cab and scooted into the back seat. We could almost see the money symbols click into his eyes like a cartoon when he saw our foreign faces and heavy bags. We were going to be taken for a pointless and expensive ride.

The driver ignored Mike’s Chinese and took us into the desert. We were surrounded by sand, heat and the occasional pile of discarded appliances and trash. Finally we saw buildings in the distance, a miserable, Russian-looking oasis. The driver promised to take us straight to the warriors after we went into the building, which was owned by a friend of his—a jade merchant. We walked inside, confused and bitter; our cab was the only means of transportation so we had to do what he wanted. We looked at the overpriced jade and walked back outside and got in the cab, having purchased nothing. The driver was talking to someone outside his window, pocketed something and turned the car around and headed back towards civilization. It took nearly an hour before we arrived.

A dusty army

The warriors were a bit of a disappointment to me. They were amazing in that their craftsmanship was stellar, their alignment precise, and their purpose mystical. However, when we visited much of the ruins were under repair and we watched (remember, we are history majors) as young Chinese workers crawled all about the shafts, picking up pieces and moving them about. If a shard did not fit anywhere it was tossed in a bag and carried out of the pit to be assembled later, if possible. Looking down on the soldiers I wondered how much of each one was ancient, and how much was modern super glue. One additional aspect of visiting the warriors was that one was constantly approached by salesmen of various silly replica objects. In all, it was an interesting visit to an ancient site, but one covered in a shroud of modernity and disregard.

We boarded a bus to visit the tomb of Qin Shi Huang, the mighty emperor to whom the warriors were a testament and a constant vigilant guard. The bus took less than fifteen minutes, but it was an interesting ride nonetheless. A strange Canadian man with dysentery sat next to me and asked to look at my guidebook. I handed it to him, he coughed and wheezed on the cover, crackled the pages, and nearly collapsed into my lap. He had been traveling in China for six months, and looked the worse for wear. In fact, we heavily recommended a detour to the hospital, but he took out a cloth, wiped some yellow pus from his eyes, and handed back the guide book. Mike took the book and wiped it off with hand sanitizer and put it back in his bag. The Canadian got off at the tomb and sauntered into the shade and slept. He was gone when we came back.

The tomb itself is a giant mountain with steps on one side. You climb and climb, bake in the sun, refill on water, and climb some more. Finally you reach the top to discover a platform the size of a Midwestern living room, and an old man with a wicker basket filled with ice and water. I’m convinced to this day that the old man is the best businessman on the planet. He was charging a ridiculous amount for the ice water. Looking at his aged frame I was embarrassed to realize he had not only made it up the steps, but had done so carrying water and ice, and probably did so several times a day. I paid nearly ten times the amount water should cost, and was happy to do so. I bet that man lives in a mansion today, and no one deserves it more.

Halfway down the tomb we encountered a modern ode to an ancient ceremony. Men and women in bright, replica costumes and army uniforms danced around on a large stage, waving flags and chanting to the sounds of an eclectic piano over the loudspeaker system. We watched for a bit, sitting in the shade. When I turned around to make a comment to Mike I discovered I was alone.

-Posted by Lauren.

The train from Beijing to Xi’an would be a long, overnight sleeper train. I had glorious images in my head of a large stateroom with bunks and a water closet. I skipped along with my large backpack barely weighing me down. The tickets were cheaper than we thought they would be—about twenty US dollars a piece. Mike did not tell me that they were cheaper because they were sold out of soft sleepers, and we could only find space in the hard sleeper, general population cars. We climbed aboard and stopped. Something dark flashed past our feet and into the next car. A dog? A rat, possibly? The smell of the nearby toilet stall was nearly unbearable, it burnt the interior of the nostrils so much that we were constantly inching our noses. The smell was almost a physical presence in the compartment. We moved down the narrow isle until we found our bunks. We were on the top bunk (three high) in a room with six bunks total. The room itself was the size of a Volkswagen beetle. We took off our shoes and scaled the interior of the train until we reached the top bunks. The space was so small that one could barely brace oneself on the elbows, let alone sit up. Below me was a man who must have been nearly ninety. He was hunched over, his shirt rolled up in the back and an equally ancient woman was pounding her fists against his spine. He coughed into a jar and sealed the lid. She cleaned his mouth off with a yellowed towel and resumed pounding on his back until he spit into the jar again. When they had exhausted this activity, they put the jar on the table between them and a terrified looking young Hong Kong man in the opposing bunk.

Neolithic village!

After a while I tuned out the coughing, spitting, and slurping noises and even managed to ignore the smell of urine and boiled eggs. I read a book, wrote in my journal, looked out the window and generally was as relaxed as I had remembered being in a really long time. I loved traveling by train! Every few hours a lady would come down the isle with a cart of instant noodles and milk cartoons and, to our surprise, warm Tsingtao beer. We pulled out our cards, opened a few beers, and set to playing each other in poker. We kept a tally, promising to pay out the winner at the end of the trip. By the time we got to Xi’an, a whole page of the notebook was marked in hash marks and stained with beer.

Xi’an is a beautiful city, and one that I will forever recommend. Parts of the original city wall still remain, and though we did not have time to scale the wall, it was a stately and majestic bit of ancient architecture that made one feel like they had stepped into a time warp. Xi’an is the capital of Shaanxi province, and a former capital to multiple Chinese dynasties. The city was famous for its powerful position throughout history, most notably revealed in the massive army of terracotta warriors which were created to carry the emperor Qin Shi Huang into the afterlife.
Despite all of the amazing historical sites in Xi’an, our first stop (at my incessant pleading) was to Banpo, Neolithic village! This little museum was built atop ancient ruins believed by some to be the first true village with remaining artifacts, some of which are said to date back further than 4500 BC. The reason I wanted so desperately to visit this site is somewhat embarrassing. I had played a computer game called Chinese Empire, wherein you had to build up your civilization from Banpo (the first village of huts) to Beijing (the mighty capital). It was my first computer game, and I loved building Banpo. I was not very good at the game, so spent a lot of time building and rebuilding the city, catching fish in the nearby creek and trading furs for wood. Banpo, the actual Neolithic site was not a disappointment– at all! I enjoyed every marvelous second of the tour through the ruins, starring in awe at pottery shards and looking at the evidence of an early matriarchy. Mike was nowhere as amused as I was, and was eager to get out of the village and see the warriors. Finally, after several photo ops with Neolithic fragments, we left for the main event—the 2000 year old Terracotta Warriors.

-posted by Lauren.