Date: Mon, 15 May 2000 04:28:21 -0700 (PDT)
From: Josh D'Aluisio-Guerrieri | Block address
Subject: Chapter 8: Up, Over, and Down.
To: XXXXXX
[chapter map]

Here's a treat for all of us: a short[er] chapter! Yes, I'll now break the "trend of the ever-lengthening chapter." I'm tired of sitting for ages recalling an entire previous month, and you can't sit still long enough to comfortably read that much anyway...


Final Day in Lhasa. After I fried my brain with English to finish chapter 7, I was ready to leave Tibet. Only one more task remained: purchase gifts. I really dislike buying things, especially in heavily touristed areas, but I couldn't pass up the chance to get good gifts (not as easy to find in other parts of China). As touristed as it is, I knew it would be a day of hard bargaining. I wasn't wrong.

It took half the day get what I wanted. The routine goes like this: Find something you want, and convince yourself that you only want it, don't need it. Ask how much it costs. When they undoubtedly quote some rediculous price, immediately laugh and walk away. As you walk away, they'll start screaming out lower prices. Walk slowly. Once you think they're as low as they'll go for now. Turn around and go back. Now it's time to play on the fact that the vendors are 1) desperate, and 2) stupid. Stand around for a while and throw prices around with them, sometimes maybe bouncing them off neighboring vendors selling the same thing. (Do not take the vendor and literally throw him at another vendor. You know what I mean.) Eventually, they'll contradict themselves a few times on the pricing, and once you've collected enough evidence, point out all these contraditions, deduce the original price, and offer to give them a small profit. This method works rather well. Not all of the vendors can take it though, and one lady almost went mad when I logically bargained something down 70%. She did sell it to me though, but did a lot of yelling and screaming, something about foreigners taking advantage of her even though we must have a lot of money.


Exit Tibet. I sent the gifts home that afternoon, and was ready to leave Lhasa. The next morning I walked to the bus station on the fringe of town, arriving to buy my ticket at EXACTLY 8:30, when the bus was scheduled to depart. But they hadn't counted on someone arriving on time, and the bus had taken off literally just minutes before. (I think that's a first in China.) It is their responsibility, so they quickly sold me a ticket and the station boss and I raced out to the street where we jumped in a taxi. We did manage to catch my bus before it headed out the other side of the city, but it took some crazy driving and near-clipping of cars, pedestrians, etc. Of course, in a classic example of China irony, we would later be PASSED by a bus that left Lhasa 4 hours after we did!!!

Not far from Lhasa, I began to see Tibetan nomads for the first time. Actually, most were up in the mountains with their herds, but I could see their black and/or white tents unoccuppied near the road. There isn't much for the herds to eat though, as the mountains are a barren sight.

Actually, the entire 1100-km ride to Geermu is through nothing but vast nothing. The only thing that could change the brown and blue out the window was snow and ice, of which there was plenty near the pass over the Tangula Mountain Range separating Tibet and Qinghai (where Geermu is located). Except for the first 100-200 km, the road is paved, and barely two lanes wide. This doesn't mean it was smooth though; the severe seasonal weather which batters the route has done a good job of "un-paving" the road, which has become a bumpy mess. But other than the radical temperature difference between the two hot days and freezing night on the way north, the only sign of unique weather were the frequent small twisters, spinning columns of dust that race across the desert-like plateau.

Qinghai is not as mountainous as Tibet, and is rather a giant plateau above 2000 meters in elevation. Other than the occasional [relatively] low mountain ranges in the distance, it's flat. Flat and frozen. Rivers appeared solid, and roadworkers were daring nature as they walked across puddles and ponds. Despite the cloudless, sunny days, patches of snow had yet to fully melt away.

Other than the roadworkers, only the infrequent, small towns held signs of human life. And even the life there is barren; I wouldn't be too happy either if I had to eek out a bleak existence in the middle of nowhere just to serve traffic...


Geermu [Golmud]. Travelling to Geermu, the only way you'll know it's close is by the telephone poles that begin to fill your view before the city even takes shape on the horizon. The poles are so many it seems as if there used to be a town through which they networked, but then the town just vaporized, leaving behind empty desert. But when the city does finally appear on the horizon behind all the telephone poles, it's a rather strange sight: [view from left to right] flat desert, flat desert, city, flat desert, flat desert, ...

Geermu doesn't hide any secrets, and you know immediately it's an oil-drilling town from the endless rows of gas stations that line the roads into town. Though one would expect this kind of place to be an unpleasant sight, in terms of cleanliness it's not any worse than most Chinese cities. (Okay, is that saying anything?) In fact, some parts of Geermu are quite new, and do manage to give off a dull, white shine. Also, streets are generally rather wide as per the modern Chinese construction standard. The problem is, I wonder how long Geermu and other new Chinese towns will stay so new; though Chinese city planning methods have undergone revision (like everything else except the party line), Chinese habits die really, really hard, and most of the next generation of kids are still learning from their parents to spit and throw trash anywhere and everywhere. (Trash cans haven't made it into most city plans yet.) We'll wait and see on that one.

Anyway, the only thing I wanted to see in Geermu before moving on is the only thing it has worth seeing: the jiafeichang, or Potash Plant. (Potash is potassium fertilizer, which you know immediately when you look at the Chinese name, but where the heck did English get the word "Potash?") Unfortunately, I had arrived on a weekend during the week-long Labor Day holiday, so there was no one in the company office, and I couldn't get a tour that day. Though there's only three plants (factories) like that in the world, it IS just a fertilizer plant, so I figured I could skip it without too much regret.

I got a ticket for Xining, and sat in the train station pondering just how crazy I am: I'd just finished a 29-hour bus ride from Lhasa, and was about to get on an overnight, 15.5-hour hard-seat train. True insanity, but it would save time.

As usual on a hard-seat train, I didn't sleep, but met lots of people.


Xining and Taer [Kumbum] Monastery. The next morning I was in Xining at seven after my second night of sleepless travel. (On routes over mountain roads, "sleeper bus" is a misnomer.) I got over [most of] my sleepiness and decided not to waste the day in bed, instead heading for the important Taer Monastery, a 3-RMB bus from the city in a town called Huangzhong.

I woke up when we got to the monastery, greeted by hordes of junk-sellers who I brushed off before walking up the stairs to the main entrance of the monastery grounds. Before I entered, I noticed that just as around Lhasa, the barren land surrounding Huangzhong is targeted for reforestation, but these projects have just begun, evidenced only by the rows of young trees.

At the entrance, I was greeted by one of my worst enemies in China, the several-years-now illegal double-pricing scheme by which foreigners pay double (or more!) what locals pay. I only very rarely give into this evil money-making scheme, even though this sometimes prevents me from seeing things [legally]. But I didn't have to sneak in, as I walked up, pretended I was Chinese, and was sold a Chinese ticket. Easy as that. (It pays to be from northwestern China!)

The monastery is rather large, and it's importance and fame attract significant numbers of both Tibetan pilgrims and rich Chinese tourists; the former making their rounds praying, the latter following their tour guides around the complex. Amidst this carnival atmosphere, I don't know how the local monks can expect to attain nirvana in this life or the next! But I was in part grateful for the Chinese tour groups, as I could follow them around and learn a bit more about each place. (I doubt they ever guessed I was listening...)

Taer Monastery is known for its butter sculptures: detailed and colorful, they depict mostly flowers and Buddhist figures. To go along with the suyou [yak butter, in case you forgot from chapter 7] theme, stone statues all over the monastery are covered with a layer of the stuff to which visitors are expected to stick money (coins and bills). They make a lot of money off the rich Chinese tourists this way.

The monastery does have several prayer halls, and in one there were a couple rows of monks chanting away, though not entirely seriously; another unofficial session, I presume... The main prayer hall of the monastery is much larger than at Zuogong and even Dazhao. As usual, halls included pilgrims adding suyou to larger, burning cups of it.

Also in the halls I noticed for the first time scriptures contained in glass cases lining the walls. The scriptures are written on rectangular pieces of paper and then bound in colorful, decorated cloth. Pilgrims who walked around the hall (in a clockwise manner) would bow their heads to the base of these cases just as they would before sculptures of arhats.

In many areas of the monastery reside prayer wheels, including several of the kind much larger than humans. I'd like to see the scriptures rolled up in those!

It took about half the day to wander the whole monastery, and early afternoon saw me back in Xining.


Xining and Tanzania. Xining is yet another Chinese city, its only unique point is the large Muslim population and the things that come with them: meats and Muslim breads. I can do without the meat, which generally includes lots of other things which they don't bother to detach from the meat; the breads aren't bad though, and can make for a quick, cheap snack. Also good is the Muslim Babao Tea consisting of green tea leaves, several kinds of dried fruits, and a large rock of sugar. (I think it's the sugar that makes it taste good, but the fruits must help.) Okay, all that has nothing to do with Tanzania, but now you know what I ate in Xining for breakfast.

That evening while sitting around in my hotel room (at the lovely post office hotel), a wreck of a man from Tanzania came in. He's usually not in such bad shape, but had $2000 in cash stolen from him (all his money), after which he immediately got sick for several days. A Chinese helped him for a bit, then took advantage of him and got away with his $1000 watch (this guy has (had) money) and foreign medicine (for his heart trouble), so one can now see why he was a wreck. He'd been trying for a while to get money from afar, but it's not easy in Qinghai, a relative backwater of China. But finally, the next day someone flying from Lhasa would be bringing him a small amount of money which he could use to get to Beijing. Problem was, Michael had no idea how to get to the airport to meet this person, especially considering that he didn't have any money, so I agreed to help him out the next day.

Basically, that next day I served as his translator, lent him money, took him to the airport, and found a place where we could change his money after hours, as well as several other things. He thanked me by buying me dinner, and said he'd treat me to a great time if I ever made it to his home in Tanzania. Truthfully, I'm not in any rush to get to Africa.


Cut South. Since I stayed to help Michael, I left Xining a day later than planned, but was still reluctant to leave the city the next morning as my recent travels had been wearing me down, and from Xining I would be headed along more backroads into Sichuan Province to the south. I left all the same and felt better once I'd been travelling for a day. From Xining I went to Tongren, a 4.5-hour ride through barren mountains. On the way, we passed over a 3650-m peak on which a Tibetan threw out the window several handfulls of square paper with scriptures/prayers written on them. They blew along in the strong wind for a bit before landing among the others scattered across the mountaintop.

Like most towns in the Ahba region of China, Tongren consists of a poorer, village-like Tibetan half, and a modernizing Chinese half, with Muslims, who monopolize the food business, stuck in the middle or Chinese quarter (where the restaurants are). (Ahba: Officially, it's a prefecture of northern Sichuan; unofficially it's the area of China where the Ahba Tibetans live, including northern Sichuan, eastern Qinghai, and some parts of Gansu. I suppose there must be some in Tibet, too.) The Tibetan houses of the region are made of rammed earth. (I need not mention what the Chinese houses are made of; the national stone is concrete.)(I know what you are thinking, and no, I am not that stupid.)

A good portion of the Tibetan half of town is taken up by Longwu [Rongwu] Monastery, a large complex of actually three monasteries. Strange thing is, most of it is brand new, just now being finished by the Chinese government for the Tibetans living there. (Although not strangely, the monasteries are decorated with Chinese-style woodwork.)

I walked out of the south part of town from where I climbed up one side of the narrow valley holding Tongren. I then hiked along the hills there to get above Longwu, where I met a group of teacher-monks with whom I sat for a time. One of them could speak some Chinese. I learned a lot from him.

Longwu is actually a lamasery, and the now-young Lama lives in a brand new building overlooking everything. I was also told that although there are 3 monasteries, each with their own halls and libraries, there is a large hall at the center where everyone gathers for New Year ceremonies and other important events. They said there was a meditation hall on the mountain above where we were, and I could see it well since the trees there stood out quite well against the otherwise barren mountain, but I was a bit too tired to go up there, and opted intstead to go down into Longwu Monastery along with the Chinese-speaking monk who agreed to show me around.

On the way down, I was told that before the Chinese came to Tongren in 1958, the surrounding mountains were covered with trees, but logging and factory pollution did away with them. More disturbing news, he mentioned there are two bomb factories nearby, and it's rumored that many people are getting strange sicknesses because of them. Hearing that, I had to ask if they are nuclear bomb factories. He said yes, but I'm not sure Jampa Cheophel the monk understands the concept of "nuclear," but said "yeah" anyway.

Jampa and I made our way down into the Longwu complex, where with my guide I was allowed to peep into virtually every corner, all for the kind of price I can budget: free. In an area of one prayer hall set off by a hanging cloth, there were a few monks working on a "sand mandala." This one was especially large, about 5-ft square. The artists take colored powder from glass bottles of various sizes and pour it into the end of a small, wedge-shaped, metal tube which tapers at one end so that there is only a small opening there. As the small end is held over the pattern of the mandala-to-be (drawn out on the table), they rub a short, metal bar along the rough top of the powder-dispensing tool, and the vibration drops some of the powder out the end. (I couldn't help but think of what kind of damage a sneeze could inflict.) To the sound of several monks scraping these tools , another group chanted away behind the dropcloth in the prayer area.

Other halls contained suyou sculptures , 1000 Buddhas, a stupa dedicated to the Dalai Lama, and a GIANT, holy, gold-bound book of scriptures.

Once I'd seen everything, I spent the evening sitting in a large courtyard listening to the monks there chant. They were supposed to do some debating, a weekly activity during which monks use elaborate body language and gestures as they make a point, but after chanting for a good hour the monk-in-charge yelled at everyone, after which they continued to chant until dusk. The monks sit in pattern, several layers of half-circle, with the prayer leader at the center-front. Near the end, there is more clapping involved, and the evening was finished with a high-noted whooping call. Once over, most of the monks literally ran out of the courtyard's main gate to gain long-awaited "relief."

That night I ate Muslim beef noodles.


Xiahe. As you know [if you've been reading all the chapters], this isn't my first time to China, and I've done a fair amount of travelling here before; but the previous trips were limited to China's northeastern quarter, and were mostly by train from city to city. On one of those trips I took a short detour out of Lanzhou (capital of Gansu) to visit a village-town called Xiahe. My visit to Xiahe was a major inspiration for me in that it was the first real non-city place I had gone to in China, and helped me realize that in sticking to trains, and the cities that they connect, I was missing most of China. Therefore, it was Xiahe that convinced me my third time here would have to follow a new theme: "get out of town!" I felt a sort of anticipation towards memories the town would bring back, and was also looking forward to meeting the friends who treated me to dinner last time. From Tongren I would be travelling through Xiahe on my way south.

Not too long before one enters Gansu Province, the road drops out of the mountains and onto the hilly grasslands, which are nice, but had yet to reach the splendor of summer, when a green carpet rolls over everything. At least it was a change of scenery from the lifeless cones in Tibet and eastern Qinghai. Going over one of those mountains, the bus stopped so people could throw paper scriptures out the window, and so one man could run up to the peak and tie up a new scripture banner (which I found out should be called "prayer flags" in proper English).

It hadn't rained in the area for several months, and dust flew everywhere as we bounced past Tibetan villages of earthen houses or tents. The ground eventually rises again, and Xiahe lies in a narrow, dry valley.

After eating a bit of food, I headed over to see Zhang Hongming, the shop-owner who treated me to dinner last time I was there. The shop was as I remembered it, still selling all kinds of Tibetan souveniers. They saw through my PLA overcoat and beard, and still remembered me after more than a year! (Since travelling across eastern Tibet, I haven't shaved.) In fact, in one of their display cases they even had my old name card! I gave them my new one. Unfortunately, Zhang Hongming had to leave to see a friend, so I spent half the afternoon talking with his wife on the logic of good study habits (for her kids).

It rained that day.

The next day I spent in Xiahe taking pictures which I didn't have a camera to do last time. I didn't spend any time in the Chinese half, but instead headed for the Tibetan half, most of which is home to an extremely important Tibetan monastery that sees a constant flow of pilgrims. Probably most unique about the place is that it's surrounded by a circuit of prayer wheels several kilometers long. Views from the mountain overlooking the monastery are rather good, aside from the fact that one has to look through the web of power lines above it. The overcast weather made for less colorful pictures, but prevented the sun from heating up the air, and it stayed cool all day.

Walking around the monastery and village, I did have a certain undescribable feeling, but it was nothing miraculous, and Xiahe is now far overshadowed in my mind by more interesting places. It was time to move on.


Rules. I was now in Gansu where, for foreigners, the rules for riding buses are different. Years ago a Japanese was killed in a bus accident and his family sued the bus company for lots of money. Since that time, all foreigners are required to buy "bus insurance" at 40 RMB. Without this insurance, the bus station will not sell you a ticket.

In northern Sichuan, three Frenchmen died in a bus accident, and buses in more remote parts of the province now charge foreigners double instead of following Gansu's example and making them buy insurance. How nice. I refer to foreigners as "them" because all of this insurance/double-price nonsense doesn't include me. Let's get back to the story.


Hezuo, A Short Hop East. Of course I didn't have insurance, and I wasn't going to buy it either, so after asking the people at the bus station about buses to Hezuo (70 km east of Xiahe), I walked out of town to wait for one. One came, and the driver was perfectly willing to take me. Of course, there's got to be something in it for him, so I gave him an extra 3 RMB above the ticket price. The surprisingly quick ride (something over an hour) brought us past a rather unsettling site where a bus had not long before fell off the elevated road and rolled to a stop upside down. Strange thing about it was, it had fallen off the opposite side of the road it was supposed to be driving on. Looking closer, it became apparent that the driver was passing someone, but on the not-quite-two-full-lanes road, the bus had to be right on the edge of the road, which fell apart... But we made it okay; an uneventful ride past small Tibetan villages and monastaries.

Hezuo is a pretty large town, but no different in makeup from those I've described so far, still the modernizing Chinese area clashing with the Tibetan houses on the surrounding hillsides. Though there's nothing of interest in Hezuo, I stayed there for the night due to lack of onward transportation.


Into Sichuan. I almost didn't get a ride out of Hezuo because I refused to pay the driver an extra 15 RMB for the 170-km ride. I told him 10 at most, to which he refused, so I left the station to eat a few bananas for breakfast. Sure enough, he drove by not 5 minutes later to pick me up for my price. The imported bananas cost me a little less than the difference.

It took 5 hours, from 7 AM to noon, to make it to Langmusi, a Tibetan town surrounded by cool scenery. Most of the ride was over grassland mountains, making the gray, rocky snow-mountains that pop up around Langmusi all the more impressive when you suddenly reach them. (Some even have pine trees on them, which I hadn't seen for a while.) But before getting there, one has to endure 5 hours of Chinese bus. On the way I was reminded of Inner Mongolia: minus the yaks, Tibetans, and mountains; plus some Mongolians and yurts; save the sheep and horses: that's the difference. The nomad tent s seem randomly set up across the grassland, not unlike the yurts in Inner Mongolia...

Probably the most intriguing part about driving across the grasslands is picking up and dropping people off in the middle of absolute nowhere. You look around for where they are coming from or going to; no evidence. If you ask them, the answer is finger pointed towards the hills.

After lunch and a quick browse of one of Langmusi's two monasteries (during which I met an old monk who likes to take pictures using other peoples' cameras), it was time to head out to the main road (4 km away) to wait for a bus headed south. While waiting I again witnessed the wonderful grassland-sleep phenomenon where, when tired, people randomly pick a spot to sleep. It's just strange to see someone fast asleep in such an expansive area of almost nothing. (Imagine a desert painted green with only one thing standing out: a person sleeping on it.)

A bus did eventually come, but it quoted a rediculously high price for the 90 km to Ruoergai [Zoige], and I skipped that option. Then came my saviors: two new Mitsubishi jeeps of businessmen who'd come all the way from Hunan Province and we're driving around western China, stopping at major tourist spots on the way. They, too, had come from Tibet, and were headed for Chengdu, capital of Sichuan (where I was headed). I was offered a ride south for free and had no reason to refuse. Though there were only 6 of them, the two jeeps were almost totally full of stuff, but they managed to squeeze me in. Not only did this allow me to travel the worst section of northern Sichuan road in style, but, best of all, the three guys in my jeep don't smoke. That's the largest number of non-smoking Chinese men I've ever met at one time!

Not too long after they picked me up, we stopped for a break at a huge expanse of flat grassland where 3 Tibetan guys were resting among their yaks. There I found out that in the other jeep were 4 Tibetan dogs (pups) the businessmen had bought. They were let out to eat and play. (One played a bit rough with a horse and got kicked for it.) The guys I was with asked the Tibetans if they had any dogs for sale (which they did, but nothing came of that), and were even interested in buying one of the Tibetans' swords until they found out it was in too bad of shape. Before we left, one of the businessmen got a ride on a horse. In return, the Tibetans were given looks at the jeeps, bottles of water, and a cookie.

Ruoergai is a dusty, windy town. (dust + high speed wind = very annoying) There we stopped for dinner before continuing. Shortly after we passed several rather large Tibetan settlements of wood. They are very different from any that I've seen so far, with true stockade construction and massive numbers of prayer flags flying above.

The road from there was certainly a "piece of work," but by saying that I don't want to mislead anyone, as I don't think it's been worked on this century. Most of it is non-stop series of giant bumps that kept us driving slower than 10 km/hr. We did finally make it to what I thought was a town called Zhangla. There the road continues south to Chengdu, also splitting off to the east towards Jiuzhaigou, a Chinese nature preserve that is rapidly becoming a tourist denizen. They asked if I wanted to go with them as they detoured that way (and would head for Chengdu a day later), but I don't want to pay the extremely high price (180 RMB!) to see nature which I can see for free elsewhere. I said thanks and got off at a hotel.

It was midnight. Having gotten up at 6:30 AM and not stopped all day, I was TIRED, BUT I'd made record travel time for this part of China, it should have taken an extra day to get that far.


Songpan. The next day I woke up to find that I wasn't where I thought I was. I was in a fairly new Chinese town called Chuanzhusi, which wasn't on my map. We had actually already passed Zhangla, and the road to Jiuzhaigou splits from Chuanzhusi, whether it used to or not. Before leaving in a taxi-bus for a short ride south, the only difference I noticed about Chuanzhusi was the huge statue overlooking the town from a hilltop. I couldn't exactly tell what it was; somebody with their hand raised. Good guess: either a military figure or Chairman Mao.

17 km south of Chuanzhusi is the much older and more interesting Songpan. The mountains there used to be covered with pines, but logging has changed all that, and trees are only found in scattered patches, usually higher up the mountains. The wood has gone to make the pine houses of the numerous surrounding villages and Songpan, in which many are fairly new. Ironically, many of the older pine houses are now being torn down to be replaced by concrete boxes. The animals that used to roam the disappearing forests hang in the many fur stores. Probably the only things in the area that have gone unaffected by the people are the still-standing massive stone gates left from the old city wall (which was torn down).

As soon as I got to Songpan, I went to one of the two horse trek companies to sign up. Almost immediately after paying for three days at 60 RMB (just over 7 dollars) per day, my guide and I set off on our horses (at 10:00 AM). The deal includes everything, food (brought with us) and lodging (tents) both.


Wilderness, Sort of. I thought it would be nice to get away from people for a little bit since there are so many of them in China; as we left Songpan and climbed (okay, the horses climbed) a steep, grassy mountain to the west, the town below with all its people got smaller and smaller; sharp snow-caps came into view beyond Songpan to the east, reminding me of how cool the temperature was. My guide Mr. Yang has done this way too many times, and spent the day whistling, smoking, and drinking.

Unfortunately, from the top of the mountain we went down into a valley, straight towards a village [of people]. After resting there, we followed a dirt road north along the valley, not my kind of escape from civilization. The only interesting part of the day [which lasted approximately 15 seconds] was when we had to fjord a small, rushing river (a few feet deep). Why? To make it to the other side [where the tents were], of course. Another disappointment, the tents were already set up. We did bring one, but that was for the second night, when we would be further from town where there are no tents. But we had only travelled for a few hours, most of it along a road, before coming to a stop, so I was already thinking there wouldn't be a second night.

I didn't make the final decision until three of Mr. Yang's friends and relatives came over for drinking and dinner, during which they totally ignored my request to leave out certain ingredients. Definitely no second night.

Lunch was tea, bread, and sugared tomatoes. For dinner we had a few fried vegetables and rice. At least we didn't eat any eggs, as I'm not sure my body can take any more cholesterol. Because food is scarce and therefore expensive in much of western China, the cheaper substitute is egg, and nobody holds back on eating them, or serving them when treating me to a meal. Science recommends a healthy amount of 5 eggs/week. The average western Chinese eats 5/day.

The afternoon I spent studying under the overcast sky, and among the yaks who moved into the area looking for food. I was told in Songpan that it wouldn't rain; it didn't... but it snowed.

That night I slept in a sleeping bag given to my guide by the British Ambassador.

The next morning's breakfast was Songpan's specialty: a sticky-centered, fried flatbread. Another fried, oily thing. Once I plastered my insides with a few of those, it was time to pack up and head off. The second day we travelled back to town by a different, more interesting path. Pulling off the road, we followed creek beds, small paths, or no paths up to a grassy mountain ridge from where we could see awesome views of snowy mountains in all directions, and more forested ones in the distance. Exploring the ridge turned up nothing more than a mud-and-stick shack that had been blown down by the strong winds up there. After heading north to a point above Songpan, we dropped down through the terraced fields surrounding it, making it back by mid afternoon.


Another Night in Songpan. I explained my dissatisfaction to the company boss, Guo Chang, and he gave back 1/3 of the money, as well as explained to me that grass for the horses is still short, and would be for the next month or so, limiting each day's travel time to a few hours. (It would have been nice to know that earlier.) In an effort to protect his company's reputation, he invited me to his house for dinner. There was still an hour and a half left before 5:00 PM, giving me time to cross the street and have a political debate about China-US-Taiwan relations before coming back at the appointed time. But my host didn't come back, and instead phoned the office to instruct his favorite guide to take me to his house, where he would meet me us later.

At his guide's house, we talked for a bit before Guo Chang showed up, when we ate. It was mostly fried vegetables. The only dish I didn't bother with was the fat, but everything else was great. It was actually me doing most of the eating (and not because I'm a pig, either!) because my hosts said drinking was good enough for them. By the time the daily "Songpan electricity phenomenon" turned out the lights and everyone's drunk faces were glowing in the candlelight, I was tired. Guo Chang offered to let me stay at his house; we went there and I fell asleep on the floor under some blankets and a Tibetan coat, vaguely remembering him telling me something about the rats that wouldn't bother me as long as the door stayed closed.


Chengdu, Capital of Sichuan. The next morning with my cheaper-than-normal ticket (which Guo Chang, who knows everyone in town, helped me get), I headed through the darkness for the bus. The sun isn't up at 5:00 AM (in case you didn't know). It wasn't far to the bus station, but on that cool morning I still had time to think of how for the rest of my trip I'd no longer be wearing the coat and hat I'd grown used to.

The Songpan-Chengdu scenery is interesting for all but the last stretch of the 7-hour ride, travelling along rocky mountainsides which slant into a V-shaped valley below the rushing Min River. As the road gradually drops to a reasonable elevation (I was going to be near sea level for the first time since before northwestern Yunnan), the river, too, is affected, with rapids almost the entire way. (It looked great for rafting!)

Not long after 2 PM we were in Chengdu. The heat! During this half year, only in Xishuangbanna did I experience teperatures over 30 degC, but Banna was dry, whereas Chengdu reminds me of Houston in the summer, HUMID. Ack!

I haven't been able to figure out if it's the fog or pollution, but something's been obscuring buildings a few miles away these couple of days. Even though I can't see all the buildings at once, I know that Chengdu is another big, growing, modern, trendy Chinese city, but there are a surprising number of bats that come out at dusk. Gotham? The only other local phenomenon are the art vendors who come out at the same time as the bats and take over a street near the center of town.

Chengdu does have a few things worth checking out, the most interesting of which I saw this morning:


Panda Research Center. China's got plenty of pandas, and one of the best places to see them up close is in Chengdu's Panda Research Center. That's where I was headed when I got up this morning at 6:00. Now that the weather's getting hotter, the pandas are only active in the morning. (I'd rather not arrive in the afternoon just in time to watch the pandas sleep.) The rainstorm last night helped, keeping today's air comfortably cool.

Not long after 7:00 I was at the Center; there it was still raining. No problem, it was a chance to open the umbrella I dragged all the way from Yunnan but rarely used. I wandered around the zoo-sized area looking for pandas, but didn't know they weren't out yet. I did find a few random peacocks roaming the place though. The atmosphere of the Center is nice; a variety of birds calling from all kinds of trees.

Once the rain had stopped and their breakfast was prepared, the pandas came out of the cages one by one to enter their respective walled-off areas. These areas aren't small, but the pandas mostly hung around the sides, where their food is placed by the panda-keepers. Out they came, clumsily walking to their pile of bamboo shoots. There they would plop down and either lean against something or lay down as they ate, looking rather lazy no matter how they did it. Before eating the stem of the shoot, they peel off the green outer layer with their teeth. Crunch, crunch, crunch goes the bamboo.

In a separate area are the baby pandas, who drank mom's milk for breakfast until she took off to chomp away on her pile of bamboo. The kids then went off to play on the slide and swinging tire. Neither playground rules nor human logic apply to pandas, and instead of sliding down the slide, they preferred to hang upside down from the ladder and push each other off it!

Pandas are quite good at tree climbing, and though most of the big ones weren't in the mood, the young ones had a great time at it, making their way to the tops of smaller trees.

Also at the Research Center are lesser pandas (red pandas). I'd never heard of them, but now I know that they also eat bamboo, but are much smaller, have a long tail, brown body, black legs, some white on their face, and stared at me as I stared at them [unlike the big pandas that couldn't care less].

The good thing about getting there so early was that I avoided all the tour groups, and as they were showing up I was leaving, having already seen everything in the peaceful quiet of the morning.

That was what I was doing up so early today.



I'll be sticking to the plan I wrote at the end of chapter 7 to make it to Hong Kong, where I'll probably write another relatively short chapter. (I'd prefer not to repeat the insane act of writing two long chapters in a row.)

Talk from HK,
JOSH.