Private: 24th September 2006
September 24th, 2006 - Posted in UK to NZ - by Sarah|
Okay, okay, I know that it’s been 2 weeks since our last update but we do have [fairly good] excuses. First, here are the pictures that we weren’t able to upload in Langmusi -
Us and our horses at the lunch stop on our trek:
Us on the roof of our hotel in Langmusi with the Sky Burial hill in the background:
On the evening of the 9th we headed out to a nearby village to get a better understanding of how the locals lived. Our host was a local farmer and entrepreneur who had joined a temple as a young boy and as a teenager had decided to head over to India to be taught by the Dali Lama. This meant WALKING ALONE across Tibet and through the Himalayas while constantly aware that he would be shot on sight if spotted by the Chinese army. He had returned to take over the family farm when his brother died and used his extra education to run a local free school. The village was about an hour from Langmusi and had only recently had running water and a bridge installed (there were a lot of prayer flags around – see photo below). The power went out just after sunset so we ate and read by torchlight and all slept on mattresses on the floor. A highlight was when all the family’s animals (pigs and a cow) that had been roaming the village came home by themselves when it was bedtime! The next morning Brendhan walked up to the hill above the village where they traditionally plant their spears to show that they’ve got religion (Buddhism) where he got this great photo of the valley and some of the local kids fixing prayer flags.
We headed back to Langmusi and on the way we saw a few pilgrims making their way into town. They wore big pads on their forearms and knees because for every step forwards they prostrated themselves on the ground once. I was really sick so Brendhan left me on my own and went off on a tour of the 2 local monasteries. The monasteries are why Langmusi is the size and prosperity that it is – they practice Sky Burial (chopping up bodies and leaving them on the hilltops to be eaten by the local vultures) which is considered to be one of the best ways to dispose of your old shell in Tibetan Buddhism. People pay a lot for these funerals so the monasteries are wealthy for their size and remoteness.
The next day we moved on again to Xiahe, site of Labrang monastery which is the 6th most important in Tibetan Buddhism. The circuit of prayer wheels around the original site it over 4km long and it has room for about 8000 monks but as with most monasteries it was denuded during the cultural revolution and as well as losing some buildings and land it only has about 2000 resident monks at the moment. Brendhan and I bought a few souvenirs here including a hand prayer wheel for his parents and a ceremonial costume part (hangs off the back of a full head mask all the way down to the floor) that we will be using as a wall hanging. The shops were mostly monk supplies – robes, prayer scriptures, flags etc. We took a tour of the monastery and had our fill of the smell of yak butter candles!
The next day was a long travel day, five hour bus to Langzhou before catching the overnight train to Xian. The countryside got more and more industrial as we drove and the smog got thicker. About an hour and a half out of Langzhou our trusty minibus overheated and then died altogether – leaving shattered engine parts on the road! At times like this you really appreciate being with a group rather than travelling independently as we had a replacement bus with us in an hour and a half and still made our train with plenty of time to spare. Our driver was incredibly relaxed about the whole thing considering that it was his own bus and presumably livelihood that had just blown up.
The next morning we woke up in Xian and headed straight off to the Terracotta Warriors.
The site was huge and almost empty when we first arrived at 8:30 but teeming with tour groups after about an hour. The complex is so developed that I found it hard to really grasp that these things had been buried for 2000 years. There’s also not much info available on the site – presumably both to make people employ guides and to keep the hordes moving through rather than stopping to read signs. Our visit was also spoilt a bit by the fact that Brendhan was unwell and I was still recovering so neither of us had much energy. Still definitely a worthwhile visit though.
The rest of the day was spent recovering (me) and relapsing (Brendhan) as he ended up with a temperature of 101.2F late that afternoon. Consequently we didn’t see much on Xian although the next afternoon we wandered round the mosque (the largest in China) and through the Moslem quarter. It was quite strange being in a souk where they sell chopsticks and Mah Jong sets.
From Xian we got the overnight train to Beijing where Brendhan and I ended up with tickets in a different carriage to the rest of the group and had a couple of amusing sign language conversations with our bunk neighbors, firstly about how huge our bags were and then about Brendhan’s feet and legs poking over the end of the bunk. It’s always nice to give the locals something to talk about.
Our first day in Beijing we took it easy again, just learning how the metro system worked and visiting the Friendship Store which, not too long ago, used to be the only place that foreigners were allowed to shop in Beijing.
The next day we went out to the Great Wall at Jingshanglung which is one of the less visited sites as it’s about 2 and a half hours from central Beijing. It was a really hot sunny day and the views were just awesome.
We were followed around on the top by the ever-present local farmers wives trying to sell postcards and drinks and Brendhan indulged in a bit of hard bargaining to get a couple of souvenir guide books.
As our usual non-sociable selves we managed to avoid the group’s last night dinner that night and haven’t seen any of them since (and damn, we ‘forgot’ to add our e-mail addresses to the contact list too!). Still, between us we could probably remember about half of their names by then so we must have taken some notice of them.
The next day we headed off to Tiannamen Square which is just huge, hot and full of people. Beijing overall was very noisy and smoggy. In the evening we headed out to one of the locals shopping streets and checked out the Shopping Centres (totally mad 12+ story markets, heaving with people) where there were some incredibly tacky and kitsch ornaments such as fake jade lions with fake gold teeth. There were also weird souvenir stalls obviously designed to help you convince your friends that you have visited exotic places like Egypt without ever actually having left Beijing.
On our last day we visited the forbidden city.
There were masses of Chinese tourists but most seemed to be with tour groups that all followed the same route through so we were able to feel as though we had parts of the place to ourselves. Like everything else in Beijing it is on a scale that makes it hard to deal with and which makes a lot of places feel very characterless and cold. The best part we stumbled on was a palace that was partially built that was under construction when the last Emperor abdicated and that the new government decided was too expensive to finish. It put some historical context that was hard to see elsewhere as renovations in China generally mean ‘make it look new again’ and everywhere else was gleaming fresh colours despite being anywhere between 100 and 1000 years old.
We headed off for NZ the next day and arrived without incident except for a brief curfuffell in Hong Kong airport as they had no record of us arriving. We also had to relinquish our ‘wall hanging’ for MAF to heat treat and fumigate it but we’re hopeful that it will still be in one piece when they’re done. That’s all for now, we’ll bring you up to date with NZ so far in the next installment.
Private: 9th September 2006
September 9th, 2006 - Posted in UK to NZ - by Sarah|
by Sarah & Brendhan
Our next day in Songpan was spent thoroughly exploring the town. Songpan is roughly in the middle of this map, just north of Zhenjiangguan. It was especially pleasant because all the rest of our group had gone on a 2 day trek and the daily bus doesn’t arrive until late afternoon so we had the town pretty much to ourselves (as far as ‘big noses’ go anyway). We spent quite a lot of time walking round the newly restored city walls, originally constructed by the Qin emporer to keep the barbarian horse tribes at bay. It afforded us great views over the rooftops of the traditional wooden houses (these days rendered with cement plaster). We wandered through the vibrant local market and took a break at a shady tea house where they served us sunflower seeds, raw peanuts and soem kind of roasted bean with our tea (for some reason we got glasses of tea while everyone else there had mugs).
We bought 2 traditional woven scarves from a very old lady with bad eyesight who was remarkably good at non-verbal communication (a bit like Kathleen – Brendhan). Although they were probably made in some huge factory near Shanghai – they cost all of 2 pounds 60p.
Yesterday we set of at about 8am up the valley and over the mountain pass to the grasslands. We spent hours hypnotised by the grass, getting exited over the occaisional herd of Yaks. In total the journey took about 9 hours but in a few years when the roadworks have finished it will probably take closer to 2 hours. They don’t muck about doing a bit at a time – there must have been about 2000 workers on the entire 200km stretch of road, bridges and tunnels. It’s going from a 1.5 width dirt track to a four lane highway.
Different stratches were at different stages, a few bits obviously just finished but others just begun so we had some bumpy detours over side roads. At one point they were taring the entire width of the road and we were told that we wouldn’t be able to get through for another 6 hours. However the lodal herdsmen were taking advantage of the opportunity and charging a grass toll to drive over their fields and avoid the section. We paid up (about 10 pounds) and bounced across a couple of miles (including fording a stream) to the delight of the herdsmen’s families.
When we finally arrived at Langmusi a few people on the bus seemed a bit disappointed at the rough and ready look and feel of the place. It’s a trading and supply town for the local herders and the two Tibetan monasteries here. It is in every sence a wild western town, with pigs and ponies roaming the streets – although most of the cowboys seem to have traded their horses in for motorbikes.
No photos today I’m afraid as the PC we’re using has been locked down (probably to prevent the monks cheating at their shoot-em-up games!).
