Matt and Kylie

Farewell China…

Back in Kunming, we had an extra day after the tour to finish off the last bits and pieces, which we spent mainly at the Chinese Minority village.  The village is a set up like an educational park to showcase the 55-ish Chinese ethnic minorities – their buildings, culture, food etc.  Here I got up and close with an elephant, who lifted me up and planted his snout (trunk end? whatever it’s called) in my face… slimy!  Very unique!

We said goodbye to our tour group and headed our separate ways on the 28th.  We really enjoyed China, and learnt a lot, like…

- Feel free to spit anywhere you like… The foot path, the bus or even the hospital. And that goes for smoking as well.

- The single most important thing on any car is the horn, they use it ALL the time.

- Traffic lights are just a guide line, they can be ignored if you think you can get away with it.

- At any time in any situation on the road its pretty much always up to the other people to look out for what you are doing. Want to turn on to a busy street or change lanes? Just do it… other people will get out of the way… this seems crazy but it kinda of works… its like the complete opposite to how New Zealand does things… a reverse give way rule I guess you could call it.

- Lanes are pretty much optional. Its pretty common to see a car straddling two lanes for no particular reason at all except that they can, and no one else is around or cares enough to toot their horn about it. Also if things are going a bit slow and 3 lanes just aren’t enough then just start a 4th or 5th one where ever.

- Driver’s made us feel right at home.  They spent half their time driving us on the left side of the road instead of the right.  Ooo, and they would toot to remind us they were driving safely.

- Sometimes taxi drivers get confused.  One driver in Beijing knew exactly where our hotel was (we had a Chinese map and instructions), but gave up when a road was closed.  So he drove us about 10 minutes in the wrong direction, then kicked us out.  In the middle of nowhere in Beijing.  Oh, and another taxi driver picked us and our luggage up in Leshan, then proceeded to drive off with us jammed in the back and the boot wide open, our packs flapping in the breeze.  Charlie was stunned, because ‘Driving like that is illegal in China.’

- The locals love westerners…. “Hellll-ooooooo!  Laydeeeeee!  You buy!  Beeeeutifulllll!  I give you best price!  Cheap!  Cheap!”

-  The Chinese like to be first in any situation.  Getting on the train, ordering food, being first in line in the airport check in queue, first photo, first horse to the finish, anything.

Lijang – Tiger Leaping Gorge – dog attack – Lijang

Lijang is one of the World Heritage protected cities which is interesting given that it was rebuilt in 1996 after being destroyed in an earthquake.  We arrived for a one-night stay en-route to Tiger Leaping Gorge, it’s a beautiful town, again filled with cobbled streets and streams.  The trick is when you get lost, follow any of the streams and they’ll lead you back to the central part of the town – the water wheel.  While we were in Lijang, we had another tea ceremony where we got to try tea that was 10 years old.  We still can’t say that either of us like tea! – this brings on some quirky looks in restaurants!

The next day we left for Tiger Leaping Gorge (a 3 hour bus ride), one of the world’s deepest Gorge’s measuring in at just under 4000m.  We enlisted the help of a local guide to come with us – apparently he is in charge of scaring off snakes and the likes.  Yipee. I expected him to at least be chanting, but he mainly just chatted on his cell phone(!)  We walked to our guesthouse into the Gorge along a dirt road under a cloudless blue sky in a temperature in the high twenties.  The gorge itself was spectacular and impossible to capture in photos. 

With literally five walking minutes to our guest house, Stacey and I were walking at the back end of the group on the road, when two unleashed dogs came running out from a small concrete work house.  Given my history with dogs, I ran up to the rest of the group… unfortunately Stacey didn’t, and ended up with a nasty looking bit mark out of the back of her calf.

A dog bite in the middle of nowhere in China, the number two country in the world for rabies during a world wide rabies vaccination shortage is ridiculously unfortunate.  So, Adrian whips of his belt to use as a tourniquet, I whip out my vaccination booklet which lists what to do in such situations, the local guide starts throwing stones at the dog, Charlie flags down a passing taxi van who in turn biffs out the 8 local villagers who are yet to reach their destination, and the people from the workhouse appear yapping very quickly in Chinese.  By this stage we have a fairly large crowd.  Meanwhile poor Stacey is sitting on a dirty road in the middle of nowhere in China with blood streaming out of her puncture wounds, on the verge of hyperventilating.  And then she announces that she hasn’t had rabies shots… woops.

Charlie directs me into the taxi to go with him and Stacey to the hospital, Matt announces he is coming too, and we haul Stacey in with us.  The other three head off with the snake charmer (who as it turns out has no charm with dogs) for the 5 minute walk to our guesthouse.  Meanwhile, Charlie was fantastic, he was immediately on the phone with Gecko’s, sorting everything out – within about 20minutes of the bite, he had Stacey’s Insurance people from Melbourne on his cell phone talking to her.

We arrived at the hospital to be the grand spectacle of the day.  There were people everywhere outside in the traditional dress (they were wearing hats that looked like GIANT graduation trenchers), peering at us, pointing and chatting, not that we could understand.  And they feel free to come and watch you in the doorway while you’re with the Doctor. 

The hospital was clean though, you could smell the ammonia as you walked in, however the toilets were something else – a tiled concrete trench running through 4 door less cubicles with waist high partitions.  Eww.  I am not a ‘trench toilet’ kind of girl.

Once we had hauled her up the flight of stairs (no lifts) and seen the Doctor who prescribes the injection, it was up another level to see the administering Doctor.  As it happens, turns out Stacey isn’t the biggest fan of needles…  So I’m holding her shoulders back, Matt is in the corner muttering ‘She needs the human immunoglobulin injection because she hasn’t had any rabies vaccinations…’  The taxi driver is interpreting the Doctor (who speaks a different dialect) to Charlie, who in turn is interpreting into English while holding Stacey’s leg down and waving the clean, sealed needle at us and Stacey is trying really hard to hold still while hyperventilating.  Oh and the 3-4 random passer-bys are enjoying a free afternoon of entertainment as the linger in the doorway.

But we got her through!   Soon we were in the taxi, heading back to the Tiger Leaping Gorge guesthouse for some lunch.  We have to handle it to Charlie though, he did an excellent job at sorting everything, apparently this was Gecko’s first dog bite.  After all of that though, we’re really glad we got the rabies vaccinations.  As it turns out in China, they do not administer the human rabies immunoglobulin vaccination at all, which is considered vital by western medical standards if you come into contact with mammal saliva or scratches and have not had the pre-immunization jabs, and it must be received within a short time.  Stacey was lucky enough to get it administered in Australia on the last possible day.

Following medical advice, Stacey couldn’t complete the last of the trek and had to catch a bus back to Lijang a day early.  Matt and I volunteered to go with her so she wouldn’t have to brave the public bus system on her own. Three drivers, two vehicles and not a word of english later, we were back in Lijang, greeted by the hotel staff with ”Are you geeks?!  Are you geeks?!”  Charlie had set it all up for us.

Dali

We  arrived in Dali to a teeny tiny wee guest house – the door was about Matt’s chin height, and there was no wall between the bathroom and bedroom – how…intimate…(!)

Dali is a fantastic town, the streets are cobbled with streams running through them and there is a lot of traditional China here – the dress, the embroidery, the craft.  It’s almost like a part of China that was forgotten.  Apart from the fact that we have seen more Westerner’s here than anywhere else!  It reminds us of home a lot, all blue sky, mountains and lakes.

We got to try our first taste of ‘interesting’ Chinese food, with Dragonfly worms and menthol (quite tasty, kind of like little wee pieces of chicken skin), fried milk (interesting, looked a wee bit like a pompadom, had a cheesy flavour), and river snails (rubbery and chewy), amongst others.  We said we’d try anything once and try we did!

The next day, (October 20th), we had decided as a group to go horse trekking.  So at about 9am, the seven of us headed down to the road from the guest house to find three horsemen and seven horses on the side of the road waiting for us.  I think Matt horse riding was one of they funniest things I have seen all year – him trotting along at the back, miles behind everyone else, yelling out ‘Oh no!…  Here we go!… Oh no!’ as the horseman ran behind the horse whipping it with a stick while holding onto it’s tail so it couldn’t run to fast!

They have a saying in China that because there are so many people in China, the Chinese all want to be number one.  The same can be said about the horses.  Mark, Adrian and I led the group at the front, and good luck to anyone trying to overtake my horse!  They would speed up, bite each other and take shortcuts through the scrub – anything to stay in front.  Charlie’s horse got bitten so ferociously by another horse on the way up that he would refuse to go anywhere near it on the way back down… very funny!

On the way back to the guesthouse, it was all hands on deck, as we helped push a car that had gotten stuck driving up a flight of three stairs.  As you do.

That evening, Matt decided it was high time he give us all a break and finally do some washing.  Unfortunately, the clothesline did not agree and attacked him.  Bugger.  Two chipped teeth, two useless hospital visits (the Doctor’s were in ‘stop work’ mode, where they don’t work after 5pm), one dentist visit (ditto with the stop work mode) and a couple of nurofen later, we were back at the guesthouse with a very forlorn looking Matt carrying part of his tooth in a bag, muttering ‘I liked my teeth… aarrrgh! (cue manic pirate grin)… all I want for Christmas is my two front teeth…’

The next day we gave the morning cycling around lake Erhai a miss to go to yet another hospital with a dental department.  We took syringes and Charlie with us, so we were prepared for anything!  We paid 3 yuan (about 80 cents) to see the dentist who confirmed that there was no nerve damage, and that he could either make him a cap (which would take three days) or we could leave it until Hong Kong.  Given the situation, HK won hands down.

So in the afternoon, it was into the bike saddle where we met up with the rest of the group for a four hour ride around Dali to the Three Pagoda’s which was fantastic.  We ended up going to a local Chinese family’s house to learn Mahjong and eat peanuts.  It was a really neat thing to do, to be able to intermix with a local family like that.  They had a newborn baby, a litter of puppies and the grandmother living at the house, so it was a little chaotic!

That night, Charlie performed a traditional Chinese tea ceremony for us, which was a lot more intricate than the standard version.  There was a lot of warming of the teapot, throwing away tea and warming of the cups.  The cups themselves hold around the same amount of tea as an egg cup (maybe a little more) and the tea can be used for about 40 brews… Granny eat your heart out!

Kunming – version 01

We have headed further South-West to Kunming, the capital city of the Yunnan province.  From here we will do a loop to Dali, Lijiang, Tiger Leaping Gorge and back to Kunming.  This is the ‘original’ back packing route through China, so we have seen more Westerners, and have found this area to be more Western – we haven’t been stared at as much!!

After FINALLY arriving in Kunming (a 19 hour train ride), we headed to the Bird and Flower market, where we saw snakes, spiders, mice and crabs for sale (mmm… dinner) but no flowers??  Interesting…

We took it upon ourselves to pose for yet another unfortunate tourist snap – this time, we each took on the persona of an Olympic mascot… (feel free to shake your head sadly…)

Next up is Dali – we were supposed to be heading there by sleeper train, but due to the recent earthquakes the tracks are covered in rock, so we’re going to be bussing it for five hours and having an extra night in there…

Mt Emei, Monkeys and Snakes

We began our trek on Mt Emei at 6am, catching the cable car up the Mountain to reach the famous Golden Buddha for sunrise.  Unfortunately, when we got to the top, we could see, oh, about 2m in front of us due to the morning fog and a vague outline of the  Golden Buddha.  Neat.  We took a few ghostly snaps (and of course a few with the locals as requested), and then began our 9 hour downward trek to our next guesthouse, which happens to be in a Buddhist Temple.

The nine hour trek consisted of 29km of upward and downward stairs, with perhaps 100-200m of flat ground thrown in between the 29km.  I’m not sure if we still have any knee caps.

At one stage we stopped at a little shop where you could buy drinks and food to have a break, when one of the girls in our group, Natalie broke out an apple for morning tea.  Low and behold, along came a Tibetan Macaque (monkey) that was about the size of a Labrador.  He jumped up on Natalie, who threw her apple at him, and off he trotted, munching furiously.  He returned a couple of minutes later looking for more food… we had been instructed as to what to do when we were in monkey territory (including keeping bags closed, put your sunglasses and hats away, show them your open palm and don’t reach into any pockets), so Matt takes his stance, furiously waving his stick at this damn monkey, who in turn completely ignores him.  The shopkeeper came running out holding his slingshot and BAM!  No more monkey!  Matt was left standing there just looking bewildered!

We did see some other monkey’s dotted along the way which was pretty unique, and Stacey (one of the Australian girls in our group) and I managed to find ourselves a live, wild snake that we almost stepped on… you can imagine my response…!  As it turns out, being Australian does not help in identifying snakes, knowing if it is poisonous, or what to do about getting past it when it is reared up and hissing.  Either way, we channeled our inner Steve Irwin and survived!

When we got to the temple, we saw the guys from the fountain in Chengdu, who had bought the photos with us from the photographer.  We had dinner in the Buddhist Temple that we stayed in, with some very curious stares from the locals.  Being Buddhist, there was no meat or alcohol to be served on site.  Charlie knew the chef, who is famed for being able to create vegetarian food that has the taste, texture and look of meat, and ordered our group dinner this way.  The food was amazing.  There were ‘prawns’ made out o mushroom, ‘beef’ stir-fry (tofu), ‘chicken’ and peppercorn (tofu), and a whole ‘fish,’ which was the most amazing, it had a silver skin, and crunchy tail.  It was made out of tofu, but had the exact texture and flavour of fish.  You would never have known that the food was vegetarian – no meat stocks were used either.

From our hotel balcony, we could hear the Monk’s chanting their prayers, listen to the cicada’s chirp, and see squirrels scampering up and down the tree – quite surreal.

The following day, after waking up to the Monk’s ‘gonging,’ we trekked a further two hours down to a temple called ‘White Snake Cave,’ where you go to prey for your love.  My knees were far to sore to bend, so Matt was assigned the task.  Unfortunately, due to his general disinterest and lack of Buddhism, we are now doomed by Buddha.  Gutted.

When we finally hobbled off the Mountain, we went to a 5-star resort, for a few hours in their hot spring pools – lusciousness if ever there was!  Then it was on board a 18 hour train, headed for Kunming, capital of the Yunnan Province.