So much for weekly entries. Needless to say, we’ve been pretty busy. We still are. We’re currently in the last 50 yard sprint before our four week long whirlwind tour of China. This upcoming Wednesday we leave by train for Guilin. A south eastern/central city with the classic picturesque Chinese mountains rising from the fog nearby. From there we get shaky. We want to spend a good amount of time in northern Yunnan, some time in Sichuan province, a week in Tibet, and possibly a stop in Xi’an on the way home to Shanghai. The amount of time we spend in each will be dictated by the practicality of travel, the Tibet permit process, and our own time/money constrictions.
A moment for the Tibetan tourist permit process: this process is very frustrating. For those unaware, you need a special permit, which is not your Chinese visa, in order to travel to and within Tibet. However, the situation is such that the Tibetan Tourism Bureau in Lhasa is the only location where permits can be issued, and you need your permit in order to get on a plane to Lhasa. Therefore, there is a gang of middlemen who have control over how and for how much people travel to Tibet legitimately. 90% of the options available are complete with tour guides and drivers and a whole lot of things we’d rather not pay for. However, there are several options where you book your permit and your flight into Lhasa through the agency, and they get you there and then you’re on your own. Alternately, there are many “tour groups” which upon arrival disband after a day. Nevertheless, entirely independent travel to Tibet is unheard of unless you’re sneaking around. So this whole process has been a bit of a headache.
Our time since the last entry has been spent mostly in Shanghai with a couple of excursions. First, excursion 1: Suzhou and Tongli. This was a day trip from Shanghai. We experimented with the often frantic process of buying tickets at the train station. There was an “English speaking service” line which we found easily, but we still had to deal with the fact that waiting in a line just doesn’t happen here in China so there was an amount of boxing out necessary. We were hoping to get tickets to Hanzhou as well (more famous location for a one day trip from Shanghai known for its tea and the beautiful Lake Tai), but they were sold out. Suzhou is known for its silk, and Tongli (less than an hour away from Suzhou) is a tourist destination for “quaint canal-town” aesthetics. We got ripped off at lunch, but ended up having a delightful afternoon despite the big crowds and theme-park atmosphere. I suspect that part of the reason I didn’t like Tongli very much was the fact that two years ago my parents’ Chinese friend took us to a much more authentic and less crowded canal town, and I wrongfully expected that a more well known location would give me an even better experience. We headed back to Suzhou and had a nice boat ride around the canal before heading back to Shanghai.
Excursion 2: operator give me Beijing-jing-jing-jing!… Our three day trip in Beijing was vastly more successful. While we couldn’t get train tickets that were sleeper cars, we decided to rough it a bit and save some funds by taking soft seats over night. It was sort of like sleeping on an airplane, but it meant we didn’t need a hotel room for that night. The first day we spent at the summer palace. It is a gorgeous place with a high concentration of beautiful architecture. It was inhabited by a frivolous dowager empress of China. For instance, there was a very pretty marble boat (?) at the dock. We had reservations at a great hostel called the “Downtown Backpackers Association.” For ten dollars per night per person, we had a clean room to ourselves with two beds, with its own bathroom and shower. They also included a good free breakfast in the morning and organized daily and nightly trips to Beijing sights. We signed up for their Great Wall hike for our second day, but first we had probably our best dining experience yet at Da Dong, the Beijing-duck restaurant. There’s something about having a whole duck’s worth of delicious meat in the traditional pancake with cucumber/radish/sweet sauce and succulent fatty duck skin dipped sugar for only two people that appeals to us. We also had a delicious venison dish with pineapple.
The Great Wall hike was incredible. I’d been to the wall before, but to a different location, and if anyone reading plans to go I definitely recommend this path. We started at Jinshanling and trekked 10km to Simatai. While this is only a little over 6 miles, it took everything we had to complete it. There were no flat sections; it was almost entirely up and down stairs. However, the views were unbelievable. The hostel had apparently teamed up with three other hostels and filled a small bus that dropped us off at one location, picked us up at another, and had a guide walk along the wall to make sure we all made it the whole way. At the end of the journey, there was a sign that said “GO BY FLYING FOX.” I was convinced of the necessity to go by flying fox immediately… until I saw it. There was a gigantic zip-line from the end of our walk on the wall which took you gradually down a couple hundred feet in elevation (only two thirds of the journey was over water). I decided that despite the sign which assured us that “Inertia Ropeways” had passed their safety test, I was not going to go by flying fox. However, Lizzie bullied and sulked me into doing it. It was fun, we survived, but I maintain that we are lucky to be alive.
The following day we went to the Forbidden City and to Tiananmen Square. The center of the city is in the process of being decked out for the ’08 Olympics, with a huge countdown to the opening ceremony on the Great Hall of the People and the first of the decorations in the square already constructed. The Forbidden City is probably the most consistently crowded and ultimately disappointing sight of Beijing, but its right there in the middle of the city and for some reason one feels obligated to see it for at least a little while. With that, our trip was concluded, and we took a short flight back to Shanghai that evening.
When it comes to our Chinese lessons, I think we’ve made great progress. We can say quite a bit more than “where is the bathroom” and “that is too expensive.” We have been able to have some pretty substantial conversations (stuttering quite a bit, of course), and have a lot of the tools I think we’ll need to talk our way through the obstacles we’ll face during the large trip. People are always more willing to be patient with you and help you if you make a solid (even if not entirely successful) attempt at speaking their language. The more lessons I take the more lessons I want to take. Maybe this is because we have a great teacher. She has been more than just a language resource, and will be available by cell phone if we run into any problems along our way.
We have attempted to see as many of the important Shanghai sights as we could before our long excursion and I would like to go into detail to describe them, but here I am typing at 1:30 in the morning before we leave for Guilin in a few hours. I will give you a quick rundown: Lonely Planet’s walking tours of the “old town” and the “French concession” were fantastic. There is nothing wrong with movies which are based on video games. We’ve managed to keep up with both The Office and 30 Rock (boys becoming men! men becoming wolves!). Tony’s has the best La Zi Ji (our favorite Chinese dish). Liz got an awesome coat. Shanghai has about 2,000 bowling alleys (we’ve only been to 1, and I got my best score ever (a 139)). We saw a fantastic acrobatics show called “Intersection of Time” which concluded with 7 motorcycles riding in a steel sphere. I also now have over 15 framed pictures and posters for the apartment I’m not going to have for a couple years. We have booked flights to Ecuador. And last but not least, it is very difficult to pack for a month long trip that will have temperatures ranging from 20 to 85 degrees.
And as a brief preview of our intended voyage, we’ve settled on the following places: First to Guilin and more notably Yangshuo, where the picturesque mountains rising out of the fog from all those pictures of China are located. Then we head over to Lijiang as fast as possible and get up to the Tiger Leaping Gorge. Relatively hiking, apparently a great time. Then to lake Lugu Hu, home to the last matriarchal society to relax for a bit. Then to the famous Buddhist mountain Emei Shan in Sichuan province. Then to Chengdu to see pandas and then head off to Tibet for a week and then back to Shanghai (possibly via Xi’an). If we can get all that in within budget, I will be very proud. So I probably won’t be posting with this kind of length for about a month. So take care, everyone. I’ll try to post little “We’re alive!” entries if I get around to it, but don’t hold your breath.
