For us, leaving China for Taiwan after a 3 weeks trip meant more than just finishing to visit another country. It was the last stop in the traveling part of our trip which left us speechless on many occasions, amazed by landscapes, customs, people or activities. It is now time for us to settle down for 3 months in Taipei in order for me to learn Chinese and Lulu to learn French. It felt a little bit weird to actually know that we would not be moving for that long a period of time, knowing that we came to the end of a project we have spent so much time planning. But on the other end, as time went by during our travel, we were craving more and more, little by little, for a place we could call home for a while. So, with the bitter feeling of ending the traveling part, we also welcomed the warmth of "home". This is probably why I was procrastinating about writing this installment (we have been back from China for 10 days already !) as I guess I needed time to digest the end of one part and embrace the beginning of another.
Flashback 4 weeks ago. After a week's rest in Taipei, we headed to one of the gateways to China, Hong Kong, mostly because I needed to apply not for one, but two visas ! One for visiting China but also another one in order to be able to study in Taiwan. Guess who was happy about this change fortune, especially since, having applied for her Chinese visa back in Taiwan some time ago, she didn't need to apply for any visa at all ! While waiting for these visa applications to be processed, we enjoyed our time to take the sights Hong Kong had to offer. But most importantly, we celebrated Lulu's birthday, so for the occasion, we checked in and checked out. We checked in a nice hotel and checked out some restaurants like City Hall Maxim's Palace, a Dim Sum place (Dim Sum is from Hong Kong) or the Peninsula Hotel afternoon tea. We also took the cable car to enjoy the wonderful views over the city, took a walk up there, and enjoyed the night view from across the harbor. What surprised me the most about Hong Kong is the fact that you don't need to walk on the sidewalks. Buildings are so packed against each other in downtown that they built bridges and ramps between the skyscrapers, therefore, in order to get to your destination, you just walk through the buildings themselves and go from one another by using the bridges: this way, no staying at exhaust level or waiting for pedestrian light to turn green.
After obtaining my traveling sesames, we headed to the Shenzen airport by train and, by doing so, stepped for the first time in Mainland China. We took care of covering our Lonely Planet with a paper cover as we heard that since on the included map, there is a line designating a border through the Taiwan strait, therefore clearly indicating that Taiwan is not a part of China, some books had been confiscated from tourists upon entering China (interestingly enough, the previous version of Lonely Planet China didn't have that border). Our next stop ? Guilin is the Guangxi province in order to admire this steep hills so characteristic of the area. At that point already, after only a day in non-english speaking China, I realized how lucky I was to have Lulu as a translator as I wouldn't get far otherwise with no way to be understood by anyone. For example, we arranged for a driver to pick us up at the Guilin airport as we booked the hotel ahead of time. The ride was extremely cheap, even cheaper than the Bible Lonely Planet which was very surprising. The driver explained to Lulu he was losing money to pick us up but was hoping we would hire him to explore the sights around Guilin (things we were not told when booking the hotel). And this is when I realized how much I changed during this trip. Before taking this trip, I would have felt bad for the guy and would have myself felt uncomfortable about the situation. But after weeks of merchants, touts and tourist guides trying to take advantage of us at every turn, especially in Egypt, we learned how not to take it on ourselves and sometimes put the shame aside as you cannot always be the one losing in this game. Over the next few days, we went to take a look at the beautiful parks the city has to offer, including the Seven-Star park and its caves, steles forest and panda. But 2 of the highlights are a day-trip to the Dragon Backbone rice terrace and a river cruise down to Yangshuo. For the first one, we took a guided tour that led us to a local minority Yao village, where we witnessed local dance and songs and where single women hide their hair under a hat until the day they get married. We then hiked up the mountain to reach another minority village, part of the Zhuang minority where we tasted delicious food before looking down at the rice terrace fields that have stood there for 800 years. And even though the light was not perfect and just a little foggy (the photographer is talking), it was still a very impressive sight but the size of the fields spreading all over the mountain in front of us. The second highlight had us take a boat and cruise along the Li river, among steep hills with poetic names such as Painting Brush hill, or a cliff where it is said that you can spot 9 horses through the changes of colors of the rock. Just for the record, I could only spotted 2 :-) The view along the Li river is so famous that it is featured on the 20 yuan bill, so we had a reminder about this place everywhere we went to in China.
We then reached Yangshuo, a relaxed town with a nice cobbled pedestrian downtown. And even though this is obviously geared for tourists, we managed to get some authentic experiences by just getting out of town by ourselves and were just as happy about coming back in the evening for a piece of chocolate cake. One funny anecdote that caught me off guard is that, one time, while in a cafe, after Lulu headed for the free Internet computer, one of the waitresses started talking to me, asking me if I minded if she practiced her English with me. After politely accepting and some chitchat about a little everything, she gets closer to me and whispers "who is the lady at the computer, is she your tour guide ?". I have to admit that I didn't expect that at all as it took me a few seconds to realize the comic of this situation. Of course I told her Lulu was my fiancee but I could see that it took a few seconds for her to register too. Funny how different mentalities are...
In order to get away from the loads of Chinese tour groups with their loudspeaker-yelling guides, we decided to rent some bikes and explore the surroundings, especially the shores of the Yulong river. And while pedaling, we got to see up close the Chinese countryside life with little farms with no motorized help but sometimes the help of an ox, rice drying in the sun: it really felt like we traveled a few hundred years back in time. After crossing the rice fields, we reached the Old Dragon bridge, from where we took a bamboo raft down the river. The amazing thing is that there are little dams along the way that the raft has to go over, sometimes requiring some lifting, sometimes just passing over with a little speed, falling down from 1-2 meters in the water, with us still on it. At the bridge, we thought the price was a little steep for a bamboo raft ride, but after seeing the amount of work that the "captain" had to provide to bring the raft up to the bridge climbing all these little dams back up after dropping us, we felt he definitely deserved it. And beside these emotions, we got to take a look at wonderful sceneries with fishermen on rafts in the foreground, something really miles away from what we knew.
Yangshuo, having such dramatically steep cliffs, is also famous for its ... rock climbing. Since some fellow French climbers I met at the Crazy Horse Buttress in Chiang Mai, Thailand told me about this place, I had to check it out. This proved to be an amazing experience that fueled, if needed, this new passion of mine for outdoor rock climbing. We ended our stay in Yangshuo by a hike along the Li river, a hike on top of Moon Hill, named so because it has a round hole in it, but especially by attending the famous Impressions show, set at night with the hills as the backdrop and a lake as a stage and where hundreds of performers move and sing from the shores, on rafts or bridges: a real eye-candy.
Then, it was a 3-4 hours bus ride to Guilin and the night train to Kunming and another 4 hours bus ride to finally reach Dali for a visit of the Yunnan province. Dali is a nice town by a lake with a downtown surrounded by 4 massive gates, and within which water coming from the nearby 4,000 meters high mountains runs along neat cobbled streets. But amazingly, what attracted our interest even more, was the famous local dish called "across the bridge rice noddle". Legend has it that a wife had to walk a long way everyday to bring his meal to her husband. Often, the meal would turn cold by the time she arrived but one day she discovered that with a layer of oil on top of the chicken soup, it could keep warm longer therefore creating the dish. The dish is served as a chicken soup, in which you pour ingredients such as meat, mushrooms, veggies, eggs, etc. And it is absolutely delicious ! Another must-see is the market of Shaping where people gather to buy daily goods and where Lulu and I had a blast taking pictures of locals daily life as the market vibrated to the pace of merchants and caught our eye with its variety of colorful items. Dali also marked the beginning of our cold days as the difference in temperatures from what we have experienced over the past few months: Antarctica was no doubt colder but our clothes back then were definitely better geared for the conditions and our cabins were heated ! But this didn't stop us and we continued by taking a close look at the Three Pagodas. In themselves, they are nothing spectacular actually, and the price paid was steep too, however, the temples behind it were just magnificent, especially since the hordes of tourist didn't bother going up the steps leading to them. Silence was very welcome and it gave another atmosphere to this religious place. After these few days and a few fresh steamed buns for breakfast, we took yet another bus to Lijiang this time, one of the top 10 must-see sights in China. Just like Dali, Lijiang has an old town and cobbled streets but this is where the comparison stops . When Dali is a well organized town with perfectly perpendicular streets, Lijiang is an adorable mess of little passageways and dead-ends with bridges to let rivers run through them. Very easy to get lost and Lulu probably thought that I was finally useful during this China trip. We spent quite a few days in Lijiang and, despite a capricious weather, still managed to do a lot. We took one of these 60's gondola and wandered at an elevation of 3,500 meters in Yak meadows where I touched my first snow since Antarctica (didn't I mention I missed snow in my last installment ?), we hiked down AND up the Tiger Leaping Gorge and even though it was strenuous and the ride in and out of there from Lijiang was painful (thanks to the smokers, winding road and movie in the bus combination), it was all worth it as the views were absolutely breathtaking. We also set a new record on our journey as we reached the elevation of approximately 4,580 meters when taking the gondola to Yulong Mountain. This was also a pretty painful experience by the way. In short, we got to the National Park in which the Yulong Mountain is located, had to wait for about 4 hours (they told us about the waiting line after we paid the park entrance fee) until we could take the gondola. Then, we almost got stranded in the middle of the park at nightfall, miles away from the nearest sign of civilization, when the public bus that we were promised never showed up. Long story short, 12 people including us had to squeeze in a micro-van that can probably take at most 7 seating passengers if they haven't eaten for a month. But even though it was all foggy on top of the mountain, it was amazing to see the ambiance there with people all excited about the snow, the height and ... me: I was a star up there as many Chinese tourists asked for a picture with me and even gave me some chocolate ! It was probably the lack of oxygen, even though they rented in mass the oxygen tanks at the bottom of the mountain :-)
But the highlight of these few days was definitely the encounter of an unknown culture: the one of the Naxi people, another minority out of the 56 that counts China. We got a pretty good glimpse at their customs including music and their traditional instruments that were salvaged from the time of the Chinese cultural revolution. But what is the most fascinating about Naxi is their writing culture as it is a pictographic one (think Egyptians hieroglyphs) and their paper is made in such a way that insects don't like to eat it so it lasts for a long long time. Only the Dongba, a scholar-priest requiring years of training, can read the more complicated sentences.
After such eye-opening experiences about the world, we headed to Hangzhou, across the country, close to Shanghai, with the main purpose being a visit to the beautiful Huangshan mountain. We didn't do too much in Hangzhou except visiting local restaurant to try tasty local food and going to Anchang, a Chinese Venice with its canals. For our trip to Huangshan, we decided to sleep on top of the mountain and try to catch the elusive sun rise. After we climbed what seemed like a million steps over the 6.5 kms of the trail, we finally reached the top and eagerly waited for the next day to explore all the peaks that make this area famous. Unfortunately, to our great despair, the next day was nothing like we envisioned as the fog completely clogged the entire mountain and a light rain kept falling all day long: we couldn't see any peak at all ! What was supposed to be the apogee of the trip turned out to be such a meltdown for us. Later on, we learned that it hadn't rained for a month before that day. We really felt unlucky and disappointed but promised ourselves we would come back. After this experience, as planned, we flew back to Taipei for my class registration.
So the trip ended on a sour note but I guess I chose to take it with a grain of philosophy. I choose to abide by the Chinese proverb that says "It is better to see one place once than to hear about it a hundred times". This proverb completely embraces our trip, this discovery and adventure experience. So it is natural for me to think that "Huangshan we will be back !" is like a sign that says that, even though we will obviously tone it down in the future, we will never really stop traveling.
Random thoughts: I don't know if you heard about this piece of news but a cruise ship sank in Antarctica and I couldn't help thinking about the passengers and how they felt. I can't imagine how it would have been if it had happened to us, especially so early during our trip: Lucky us ! Also, think about all the persons who booked an Antarctica trip a year in advance with this same boat but for a later on date: it must be extremely disappointing. Another Chinese proverb I like "Instead of giving a man a fish, teach him how to fish". Chinglish, which is mixing Chinese and English, gave us quite a few laugh. Such things as "Caution landslide" in the bathtub of an hotel room or "Don't flirt the monkeys" on a sign in Huangshan or "Cautious when falling". China has one of the best variety of food: while there, I never got bored with my meals (so much that I became a food expert ?). Wikipedia is blocked in China. Chinese have 4 obvious annoying habits: they spit in the streets after clearing loudly their throats, they smoke even when there is a no smoking sign, they throw their papers in the streets and they speak very loudly to each other (on the phone or in person) even when the conversation is friendly or if they stand 2 meters from one another.
