Hiking the Li River - Yangdi to Xingping

I haven’t hiked properly ever, but my Dad is a big fan of long walks, so for his birthday I hiked with him along the Li River from Yangdi to Xingping - all 20km of it! We got up earlyish and headed to Yangshuo bus station, just off Die Cui Lu, to catch one of the many daily buses up and down the river. We’d taken the precaution of having the characters for “Yangdi” and “Yangshuo” written down, as well as having my phrasebook in our well stocked backpack (water, dry towel clothes, fruit pastilles, cameras, money and waterproofs – all the essentials) but over each parked bus were signs for where each bus was heading and my Chinese was good enough to ask if this was the right bus (score!) and we were fine. Dad and I got seats with our knees up by our chins over one wheel arch – the last two seats that were actually seats – and off we trundled. You pay for tickets on the bus once it sets off, and two tickets from Yangshuo to Yangdi set us back the almost unbelievably low sum of 18RMB for two; less than the price of a Starbucks coffee.

The journey took about two hours, winding through the town and its outskirts then fields, rice paddies, villages and the spectacular karst mountains that were shrouded in cloud at the top. The bus gradually filled up as we drove along, the lady who got on with a bunch of leeks in one hand and a live chicken in the other was the last to get a seat – perched on the edge of a study wooden box with a piece of newspaper under the chicken in case it disgraced itself. A couple of stops after that, when the bus was essentially full, we managed to cram on another twelve or so people who all seemed to have their faces in each other’s armpits. Cosy wasn’t the word, but at least it wasn’t a hot day; that could’ve been uncomfortable!

The dock at Yangdi, looking south

We were sat in front of a German couple who were doing the same hike as us. When we arrived at Yangdi, we lost them for a little while in amongst the tiny old lady-hawkers offering bags of peanuts, mangy looking kumquats and the interrogative calls of “Hello? Hello, bamboo?!”  from everyone in sight but it wasn’t long until we bumped into them trying to get across the river too and agreed to join forces. The Li trail crosses the river three times – the official ferries cost 4RMB per ticket, but unfortunately, the first ferry was out of action when we arrived and we were all at the mercy of the local bamboo rafters who were quite happy to charge a premium. Dad and I got separated from the Germans and were tailed for fully forty-five minutes by one particularly irritating tout who appeared and interrupted whenever I was asking a different rafter to take us across the way. He managed, every single time, to dissuade them from helping us which was hugely frustrating. Eventually we caved and, along with two American guys, paid him 40RMB (for the four of us) to motor us across. The Germans managed somehow to get across first.

Monsoon!

The first part of the trail that we followed at first cut through a small farm before descending to a sort of meadow beside the river then back up and away through the trees, but it varied hugely along the route from cobbled pavement to a concrete embankment literally along the edge of the river to Dad and I scrambling over muddy banks (though I think we weren’t on the proper path at that point.) I think because we didn’t go on the official ferry, we started in a slightly funny place, but heyho it didn’t matter – we could see the river and that was the point. We caught up to the Germans, who had waited to cross the river with us and the six of us were punted over the river by a somewhat sceptical rafter who didn’t like the idea of 7 adults on his bamboo raft, and carried on walking. After about half an hour, we heard an ominous rumble. The sky was black above us and we all scrambled into waterproofs before continuing – just as well because before we’d gone ten paces (pretty much) the heavens opened and I experienced my first monsoon. The rain was so heavy that the others decided to shelter for a while and have a break for lunch – Dad and I pressed on. The Yorkshire-man’s logic here was that we’d get cold as well as wet if we stopped, and we’d still have 15 clicks to tramp, so, on we went. I’ve never seen rain like it! It lasted at least two hours and walking through it was one of those surprisingly exhilarating feelings – sort of sublime, seeing the power of nature in an already indescribably magnificent setting, but also definitely ridiculous; what the sheltering natives thought of bedraggled me tramping along looking like a drowned rat and Dad in his blue poncho, bushman’s hat and brogues as we passed, I do not know.

One definite bonus of the downpour is that it stopped the droning succession of motorised bamboo rafts (and larger boats) that follow each-other up and down the river like a watery motorway. When you look at the back of the 20RMB note, or any other pictures of the karst landscape along the Li River, and go “wow!” you don’t imagine seeing it with the constant thrum of outboard motors as your soundtrack. I’ve lived in China long enough now that I really ought to have expected the hawkers and the calls of “hello? Hello, bamboo?!” that followed us along the river, but I didn’t. Silly me. I definitely didn’t realise how much of an alien concept the idea of hiking along the river was; apparently no-one could get their head around the idea, hence the “hello, bamboo?!” calls that followed us as ubiquitously as the outboard motors.

The day cleared up after a while and walking was pleasant. We didn’t bother to stop for food anywhere, except for me buying a very disappointing pomello and a couple of teeny fish on a stick from a couple of smiley and toothless farmers by the side of the path – fortunately we had the somewhat damp tube of sweets in the backpack for an energy fix. The fruit pastilles were lucky to get away with just dampness, we discovered just how not-waterproof the backpack was on the last river crossing - Dad wrung out the towel and my “dry” shirt, but there was no hope for his poor sandals!

The route that we took stuck closely to the river the whole way down. Although the trail isn’t exactly marked and we were kind of following our noses, it didn’t matter particularly – the route is pretty obvious and we saw plenty of other foreigners on and off. We also saw plenty of mountains, boats and river scenery (thoroughly gorgeous) but not as much rural life or farming as I’d half thought we might. Just as we were coming to the end of the hike though, an old lady led a water buffalo (I think) down to the river. Not knowing anything about the habits of buffalo, I was just expecting it to have a drink but it carried straight on into the water, turned around to face us and settled in to wallow. I swear it scowled at the Chinese guy snapping pictures next to me. Its owner squatted down on the water’s edge to await its convenience, and since it showed every sign of being in for the duration, we pressed on again.

Xingping

After a last half hour or so, we arrived in the charming tourist trap that is Xingping… to find the German couple and the Americans had already arrived. We hadn’t seen them since we marched off into the rain, so I’m fairly sure witchcraft was involved and was tired enough that I said so! I asked the way to the bus station (Chinese lessons finally paying off) and we wended our way through the traditional houses and souvenir stands to the bus station and managed to get the last couple of seats and some standing room on the bus back to Yangshuo. The Americans, who were standing, had to keep ducking down to the floor to pass police checks, but apart from that the journey back was without incident. The whole hike took about 5 hours. I was thoroughly worn but mostly dry again by the end of the day, and I’m so glad I did it – Happy Birthday Dad.

Wilsons vs China part 2: trains and trees

a view across Mongolia from the Trans-Mongolian express

I have a bit of a confession; I like trains. Not in a count-the-numberplate, anorak wearing kind of way – more in the ‘relax, slow down, look out the windows and see life’ kind of way. I did seven straight days on the Trans-Mongolian express (sorry - I've just realised that post doesn't have any pictures) coming to China in August 2010, I interrailed around Europe July-September 2009 and most recently I took my parents on a 24hr ride down to Guilin from Beijing.

Flying around China is undoubtedly the quickest way to get around, it’s not too expensive either, but, if you’re in a hurry to relax then your holiday is oxymoronic to start with. That’s my feeling anyway. You see life out the windows of a train. You slow down because you have to. Having control (and internet) taken away from you for twenty-four hours can be something of a shock to the system, but oh boy does it take you away from the usual routine of city living. Chinese trains are unlike anything back home – at any one time more than a million people are said to be using the railways, there are several different classes of trains and classes of seat within those trains. You can only book your tickets ten days in advance, and you have to do it in person either at an agency or at the station.

Beijing West Station

The first time I got on a train in China, I was heading to Handan to start teaching. We had hard seats, all our luggage and the train was so crammed you literally had to climb on people to move down the carriage. A tiny woman bullied people out of our seats and fed us boiled eggs; a lady sat opposite didn’t realise how desperate her baby was until the poor child literally exploded all over her lap. I took Mum and Dad soft sleeper; there’s such a thing as a cultural experience taken too far. Both journeys, incidentally, started from Beijing’s West Station – a gigantic transport hub to which the subway (somewhat inexplicably) doesn’t go yet.

We had a Chinese lady sharing with us overnight, but her stop was midmorning so we didn’t see much of her. With my halting Mandarin I managed to tell her we’re English, that I live in Beijing and that we’re going to Guilin. I didn’t understand a word she said to me, except that she has sisters. This meant we had a four-berth, rattling box of China pretty much to ourselves for twenty four hours and were free to question and comment and guess about what we saw out the windows.

My parents are keen gardeners, so their point of comparison was the wildlife and agriculture we passed through. The interesting thing from our point of view was that all the farms seemed to be at subsistence level, none of the giant farming conglomerates you see at home or in the States as far as we were aware. For a place as huge as China, this must (we thought) keep life at a very local level. I’ve subsequently done a bit of research into Chinese agriculture – not much mind you – and we were close to being right! Sort of anyway.

farmland around Yangshuo

Around 300million people are employed in the agricultural sector, which (at one estimate) contributes to 12% of China’s GDP. China doesn’t have that much viable arable land in percentage terms, but 75% of all crops grown are food crops. We hadn’t factored history into our thinking, or at least, I hadn’t. (Maybe Mum and Dad did and I slept through it.) China and agriculture had something of a fraught relationship in the 20^th century. Before the Cultural Revolution, the country was a feudal state with the kind of peasant farming that goes with it. After the devastation caused by the “Great Leap Forward” in 1958, which I really don’t know enough about to be able to explain properly (hence the link), farms and farmland began to be re-distributed back to small holdings in the 1960’s. The rest of the century seems to have been a long exercise in cleaning up the mess left by unfettered idealism. This meant we did get to see the stereotypical rice paddy farming, complete with water buffalo and lamp-shade hats though.

We also saw plenty of trees that were similar but not quite the same and flowers that they’ve got in the garden back home. This was more noticeable when we got off the train and were walking past nicely done herbaceous borders, but set us thinking about the links between gardens and open spaces and how they’re universally important to people. Again, this set me off on a bit of research, mainly from reading Bill Bryson’s "At Home" it has to be said, about plant hunters and the fortunes that were made taking new species of plants back to England to be cultivated. While I was doing this, I found out about Robert Fortune who went undercover to steal the secrets of tea growing from China in the mid 19^th century.

I’ve always known that history is fascinating stuff – what I hadn’t quite comprehended was how much plants feature in it and how much you can learn about a place from who grows what and why. It does tempt me to go to Xi’an to the 2011 Horticultural Expo. The theme this year is “Continuous Harmony between Heaven, People, and Nature” I assume this grandiose title actually intends to explore the links between people worldwide, gardens and culture in a wider sense. I have to admit, I’m intrigued… maybe that’ll be my next trip out of Beijing? 

Trans-Mongolian Express

August 23rd 2010

I like a challenge and I needed an adventure which is how I decided to do the i-to-i China Internship in the first place. I also like to do things properly, so I went all or nothing on both the challenge and the adventure fronts; that’s how I ended up doing a triathlon and taking the Trans-Mongolian Express to Beijing instead of flying. Both of those things have turned out to be brilliant experiences that I’m really proud of, so I’ve got high hopes for China! This right here is the story of me getting my train-legs.

I flew to Moscow with from Heathrow on Tuesday 17^th August, sitting opposite from a man who was constantly chewing and came out as a ‘Stealth Dandy’ on a men’s magazine accessory quiz. That was literally the most exciting thing about the flight, and I daresay flying to Beijing would have been equally uneventful. Fortunately for me (and for your vicarious kicks readers!) that was pretty much the last dull thing about my journey to China. Having said that, I’d booked a transfer to the Yaroslavskaya train station, rather than negotiate the Moscow metro on the clock, so once I’d found the taxi desk getting across Moscow was (to quote that Meerkat) simples. My taxi driver didn’t speak English, I don’t speak Russian, but we exchanged smiles and grimaces at the artistic licence which was taken with lane discipline and he pulled over so that I could take a picture of St Basil’s cathedral from a distance.

I was about an hour and a half early for the train, so after sitting for a bit, buying myself a big bottle of water (sparking by accident, damn it!) I experienced my first squat loo, which was no joke with the amount of baggage I had with me! Anyway, on to the train. I was in a 2^nd class four berth compartment towards the back of the train, sharing with two American guys (Landon and Eric) from Moscow to Ulaan - Baatar (capital of Mongolia) who are English teachers in Korea, then an English couple on a year out from UB to Beijing. There’s a German girl called Lena down the corridor and a Swedish guy called Magnus who both came all the way to Beijing, so I spent most of my time with those two and the Americans. Also in my carriage were some English guys who were doing the London – Ulaan - Baatar rally, but broke down in Kazakhstan and joined the train at Omsk, two Russian ladies who feed Magnus within an inch of his life and two girls from the Netherlands who kept themselves to themselves. There was a mass exodus at UB where all the above left the train and new people joined but as there was only one more night after there, I didn’t really get to know anyone except the couple in my cabin after that.

Staff wise, the guards were all Chinese men who either gamble for cigarettes in their compartment, or cook things that smell almost too good for someone who is living off packet noodles! As we went across Russia there was a really sweet and smiley Russian lady who ran the dining car and pushed a snack trolley along occasionally and her two grumpy assistants who both looked about four. On the third night, after we’d been poring over my Russian phrasebook and she’d been poring over her English one, she declaimed proudly ‘VAT VOULD YOU LIKE?’ to which I replied ‘ya bit khat-yel...umm...banana’ (I’d like...umm...banana) Alas, no further progress was made, hopefully my Mandarin will end up being better! In Mongolia we got a new dining car, the inside was gorgeously decorated with carved wooden booths and Ghengis Khan inspired decorations including two shields with a bow and arrows and a fur hat. Lena and Magnus and I used up our roubles on a sumptuous breakfast – an omelette with sausage and spring onions, “toast” with “butter” and “jam”, orange juice with enough E-numbers and sugar to give us all superpowers and a mug of tea each. The Chinese dining car was nothing to blog about, but we were given coupons for free breakfast (boiled eggs, bread and tea) and lunch as we crossed the border.

There’s a sort of a boiler thing (samovar) at the end of the corridor which we can get unlimited boiling water from. I brought plenty of teabags and cuppasoups and I’ve eaten a lot of the local versions of pot noodles as well, because the dining car is expensive in every country! Fortunately there is usually a marvellous gaggle of enterprising Babushkas when we stop for any length of time at a station that saved me from scurvy and complete carb-overload! In Russia the Babushkas were mostly tiny old grannies, some of who wore housecoats, headscarves and beards and some who were too much fond of lyrca and  generally looked like they’ve been on the game.  They grabbed a patch on the platforms to sell food they’ve cooked from assorted baskets and trays. I’ve seen boiled eggs, bags of fruit, pickles, dried fish, shrink-wrapped meat and potato meals... all sorts. I bought a big meatball in a poly bag, some goats cheese pancakes, a chicken leg, apples, a litre can of beer, bread and boiled eggs from these fine ladies. In Mongolia this changed to ladies and children who smiled more but had less variety, and they disappeared completely in China.

The time passed surprisingly quickly, especially given that I only brought one book with me that I finished on Day 2! Because there’s been nothing to do but slow down, slow down I have. We spent a fair amount of time playing games and looking at photos on Landon’s ipad, playing monopoly on Eric’s ipod touch and listening to music on my netbook, looking at Leila’s maps, being lectured by Magnus and generally chatting, but I’ve also spent literally hours looking out the windows. Like a dog in front of a washing machine, I’m fascinated.

It’s a seven day journey straight through, five of which are spent in Russia. European Russia passed mostly in the dark on the night of Day 1, but what I did see wasn’t particularly gripping. As we travelled further East across Siberia on Day 2 - 3 it became more silver birch trees than I thought actually existed! Beautiful at first, but you can see why they sent convicts to Siberia as punishment. Fun fact for you about Siberia though – the top brand of Russian rucksack ‘Yermack’ is named after the man who brought Siberia under Russian control in the 1580’s; that’s Ivan the Terrible’s time history fans. Day 4  was a slow transition from swampy and desolate (silver birch peppered) taiga into mountains and forests straight out of any fairytale you care to name, including wooden herringbone cottages with intricately carved and brightly painted shutters and graveyards in the tree line. Further east, but still in Russia, still we skirted around Lake Baikal (deepest and oldest freshwater lake on the planet) at dawn on Day 5 which was utterly, utterly breathtaking. For the rest of the day we had vast plains with occasional scrubby bushes and rocky scree as we crossed from Russia into Mongolia. It was the biggest, emptiest sky I’ve ever seen, until we got onto the Mongolian plains and the Gobi desert on Day 6! I have to say, I started getting some serious locomotive ennui on Day 5, but I think that was mostly a product of the epic waits we had on each side of the Russia/Mongolia border because after some poker, chocolate and discussing the surprising amount of good movies that Keanu Reeves has been in (apparently, anyway) I felt much better.

The Mongolian plains made me think of being on a gigantic train set as it was all wide and green and hilly, and the train wove around the base of hills so you could see where you’d been. Around UB there was lots of heavy industry and Soviet style buildings, a bit further out there were wooden houses, cottages and yurts all jumbled up together, shanty town style. It was all a bit incongruous with the most beautiful misty mountains rising up behind them, but people have to live I guess! Most of Mongolia’s population lives in UB, apparently, so once we were clear of that it was pretty empty except for the odd yurt. Just as I was starting to day-dream about living hundreds of years ago and galloping across the plains like Genghis Khan, I saw a guy herding horses on a motorbike and it made me glad I live now when things as cool as that happen and shampoo exists. The bit of the Gobi desert that we passed through is a flat-ish rocky/sandy expanse with tufty grass rather than sweeping dunes, but we did see some galloping camels which was properly exciting. Camels are cool. I’ve never been to a desert before, so I took the opportunity to use my solar panel to charge up my mobile charger because it seemed like the most appropriate place!

The border crossings have been a pain in the arse, not to mince my words! You have to stop and be checked each side of each border, so it takes forever! The Russian side of the Russia/Mongolia border was OK – we arrived late afternoon, it was warm and sunny and after we’d had our passports taken for checking we all piled off the train and after the obligatory station photos and walk up and down the platform, Lena, Landon, Magnus and I went off with Magnus’ Russian lady to the local shop. It was outside the station, so we felt very daring being more than a few metres from the thing – they don’t wait for strays you see. We bought ice creams and, accidently, I bought powdered mash potatoes in a pot instead of more noodles. Pointing coupled with no knowledge of Cyrillic is somewhat hit and miss I’ve found! After they’d all had a good laugh at me, we sat down and played poker on the platform and watched a pack of small dogs beg for scraps from the train guards. So far, so good. On the Mongolian side it was altogether a stricter affair. Grim faced, military dressed officials got on, glared at our photos and generally made us all feel like we were on the point of being arrested! It didn’t help that the train kept going back towards Russia then forward a bit, then backwards again. The wait to get out of Mongolia was less stressful, except for when a very tall military type opened up the ceiling of our cabin to check behind the light fitting and showered my bunk (and teddy!) with dust. Brilliant.

The guidebook promised me a fairy-light strewn entry into China, serenaded by the Vienna Waltz...and I wasn’t disappointed! It was like going into a really bizarre version of Disneyland, until the passport collector looked at my photo about five times and asked me my name to confirm it’s me! I know I look really, really young in my picture – it’s from the days where you were still allowed to smile after all – but I still look like me. We started crossing the Mongolian border at 7.30pm and we didn’t finish getting into China until about 1am. This was mostly because all the wheels (bogies, I think is the term) have to be changed on each carriage to fit the narrower gauge tracks in China, and it takes ages. They have to take all the carriages apart, raise them up on hydraulic lifts (so slowly I don’t notice it, even though I was on the alert ready to film – damn!) shunt all the old wheels out and pull new ones through then put the train back together. Once all that rigmarole was done with, we were finally allowed off the train. Another milestone: my first Chinese squat toilet. There was a little supermarket in the border building, so I bought some sweets, fruit and water for Y18 which is probably extortionate, but is only about £1.80 sterling. Outside, they’d move on from playing the Vienna Waltz to Shirley Bassey, and once I’d recovered from the shock I decided to call it a night.

We’re about five hours out of Beijing now, so I’ll bring this mammoth essay to an end! It has been the most amazing week. I’ve met some great people and seen some amazing sights that there is no way I’d’ve ordinarily even thought to go and see. I’m feeling about as ready for the next step as I’ve ever been – I left my comfort zone way back in Derby and right now I’m actually feeling ‘brave as a lion’ like the sticker on the back of my phrasebook says; I got it from the travel nurse for it when I got my jabs - you’re never too old for bravery stickers!

TEFL, here I come!