Below Belief » China

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tim — Thu, 31 Jul 1997 12:00:04 +0000

An early start sees us conveyed to the airport at 7.30am after another Western breakfast Eastern style. And despite initial jokes about the reputation of Chinese airlines – holding the worlds worst safety record – we are surprised by the manner we are dealt with, which is efficient if a little surly. We seem to be sharing the plane with a host of middle-aged to elderly Hong Kongers. The food is reasonable and Chinese. I am given a final shocking insight into the Chinese mentality when an old lady sat near me spits her bones out onto the carpeted floor. It is a sad fact that despite their civilised facade, the Chinese are total animals. They really are.
We drop, literally, into Hong Kong around 12.30 with the worst landing I have ever experienced. Perhaps the horror stories about CAAC do have a grain of truth after all. Hong Kong is bright, clear, unbelievably hot and somehow looks much more inviting in the sun. Of course that could just be relative to where you’ve come from. Coming from China, Hong Kong seems like one big country-club for fun-loving ex-pats, an oasis of organisation on the edge of chaos. To live here you need only tolerance for the mismatch of lives and interests thriving here. Suddenly, I admire Hong Kong for what it has done with the Chinese population, apart, that is, from taming it. It has focussed their natural affinity for hard work and somehow aligned all their efforts so they pull together. Elsewhere in China everyone seems to be tugging in different directions, disharmoniously.
I like Hong Kong. It seems alive, fun and full of energy. It’s like London’s Square Mile but more intense and more stylish. And, that’s it, it’s organised and predictable. I notice, people-watching from the bus, the increased proportion of Western faces, though small, is significant. Seeing Western faces frequently in the crowds reminds me of home. Back at the flat we have a small problem getting in but it is quickly resolved and we plunge into delicious air conditioned surroundings and relax. We have just over 24 hours left to enjoy. Dinner is home-cooked fry-up, eaten while watching the sun set over the bay. Then we spend a wierd evening watching Some Mothers Do ‘ave Em on TV. Llew plays endless games of minesweeper and I play the piano for hours.
Wednesday 30th and Thursday 31st July
Rise to tidying up and repacking for the very last time. We head into town for a final taste of Dim Sum. The weather is incredibly hot and sunny again. We spend the afternoon in HMV and some bookshops purchasing cheap CD’s and stuff for the journey. It still hasn’t sunk in that we are leaving – even on the bus to the airport. The evening sun plays on the smooth reflecting windows of the victorious skyscrapers, each a perfect, precise architectural monument to a city which can only grow upwards. I have grown fond of Hong Kong, like they said I would and it feels sad that I must now leave it, and China, behind. After all, remembering the good times, the motherland has been good to us too and the experience we have had will never be forgotten.
Now all there is to do is climb onboard a plane bound for Bangkok. Hong Kong looks like a fairy tale world of twinkling coloured lights as we reach into the clear night sky. Bangkok comes fast and we wait there for a couple of hours watching hoards of German tourists going home from Thailand. Then we are off on TG 910 bound for London and home. I sit next to a girl, Jo, who comes from Ripley and has been teaching in Hong Kong for the last year. We have an interesting time explaining what China was like – she, like many ex-pats, has only ever been to Canton which may as well be Hong Kong for all the real ‘China’ it displays. Jo is getting married in exactly a year (31st July 1998) at Ripley Castle. I’m invited to the wedding.
The flight passes quickly, although I get only four hours sleep. Llew sleeps like a log for six. And then, all too soon it seems, we are dropping over the Thames and home is here. It is raining and cold but still somehow the ordered calm and civilised world of London is attractive. Heathrow is no different to any other major airport in the world and yet here we feel reassured and strangely powerful. Things are possible here and not obstructed by foreign rules or regulations. The thing which strikes me most about being back in England is that people are so very polite. It is the other end of the spectrum from China’s animal behaviour. People go around saying ‘Sorry,’ when other people bump into them. They say ‘It doesn’t matter, I’ll wait,’ and ‘Mustn’t grumble,’ when they are clearly inconvenienced. I even find myself saying these things.
In China when the buffet trolley is wheeled along a crowded carriage, people who want to get by first spit on the floor and then clamber over seats and other passengers in an attempt to keep moving. In England, people find a spare seat and sit meekly while others apologise for being shortchanged and then continue their journey to use the sanitised toilet and the quilted toilet tissue. Which approach is better and which takes the stronger mind? My concept of politeness has been radically altered by watching the Chinese get what they want. Now I think a compromise would suit me best.
And so that’s it. Back to England’s green and pleasant land. To stability and a world which stays still. China is not such a bad place after all, if you can forgive it’s minor frustrations. It is a world which is changing fast and may yet change the world with it. How can we ignore 1.2 billion people united in voice? Thankfully, for the moment, they are all shouting different things. Their day will come.
Home is exactly as I remembered it. Once again my world is now a smaller place, another country ticked off a long list. But I come away a slightly different person, my perspectives changed and my experiences enriched. I won’t be home long. Somewhere, at the back of my mind, is the seed of a plan to, one day next year, set these travelling feet loose again.

The home run

tim — Thu, 31 Jul 1997 11:59:39 +0000

Rise, early for us at 11am to vacate our room and have breakfast in the fiery sun out on the terrace for the last time. We head out to finish off our shopping, realising for the first time the ridiculous quantities of cloth and marble we are trying to take back to Britain. Llew picks up his outfit, neatly tailored. I buy another pair of trousers and Llew another top and some shorts in a mad rush to spend last cash reserves.
By the time we have eaten and the time has come to board our bus out, our bags are distinctly larger and heavier than when we first arrived in Dali. Our bus is just like before and we suffer the usual Chinese mentality “rush to claim seats that aren’t yours”. If only they could understand the word organisation, everyone would be so much better off. For some reason, although this bus is noisier, has an even less well-functioning gearbox and keeps breaking down, we actually get a better night’s sleep than last time. I’m not sure if the same goes for the two American women on board who’ve been on the beers all afternoon and were under the impression there’d be a toilet on board. Some hope. Standard long-distance bus practise is start dehydrating yourself at least 6 hours before.
We chat to a Dutch couple and a German chap who are all a bit more relaxed. I wake up sometime in the middle of the night to find us travelling through a surreal landscape of red-sandstone. This is where they are building the new road but haven’t yet finished. The road descends down the mountainside in a series of sweeping but narrow bends on what is now a barely passable building site. I look out to see the headlights illuminating a lunar-like surface with ruts I wouldn’t consider driving a car through, let alone a bus full of slumbering tourists. But our driver suffers no such reservations and takes the bus slithering and lurching over the craters. Because we are going down hill and he’s running a business, the engine is actually switched off to conserve petrol. So it’s brake only. Interesting driving technique. There is one moment where we hit very wet mud and the driver has to use bursts of acceleration to send us skidding and sliding like some majestic ice-dance across the road.
Not everyone wakes up and I feel almost privileged to witness this: China at it’s least safe.
Monday 28th July
Amazingly, we arrive on time after only 14 hours. So Happy Cafe it is for a Western breakfast in that unique Eastern style of not quite getting things right. On the way back to the Camellia, we weigh our bags on a set of roadside scales. 20kg for Llew and 23kg for me means we must do some careful optimisation if we are to get through check-in for free tomorrow. Decide to fill our handluggage with vases.
Crash at the Camellia and try to recover lost sleep. By 6pm we are ready to face China again for the last time. Kunming realises pretty quick that we have been to Dali since last we walked here since it is as two circus performers in baggy, striped, preposterous pants and tops that we make our last promenade through the warm evening streets. We find the tatty Beijing restaurant, deceptively hidden behind the stalls of a fruit market still bustling at 7.30pm.
The restaurant is cheap and the crockery is dirty. We wish we had Peter here to complain but we don’t so we take China as China. We order some northern cuisine from the menu in Chinese, including Beijing Duck, squid soup and two chicken dishes. It is all remarkably tasty and we have plenty to get through. As usual we have chosen a time to eat when we are alone in the restaurant. Perhaps Chinese restaurants are always this empty. Filled to the maximum we heave our bloated bodies back for relief at the Holiday Inn followed by a last beer at the ‘Cowboy’. Here we reminisce about our trip before a long and detailed discussion about marriage, of all things.
Our room is now full of Japanese travellers, sleeping under the eerie blue light of an insecticutor. I fall asleep after ten minutes of Paul Theroux. Tomorrow we leave China and it seems too soon – like an opportunity to stay longer is being wasted; like we’re throwing away an investment we’ve made in getting to know this country and in all the fun we’ve already had. The frustrating moments fade, leaving only the good memories.
Sometimes though I get the feeling that it is the journey itself and the people-watching that I love the most about travelling and that the country itself just forms a varied backdrop on which our adventure is enacted.

Shopping

tim — Thu, 31 Jul 1997 11:59:20 +0000

This morning it seems our appetite for sightseeing has finally been sated. We were going to climb up the mountain today and experience great views down into the valley but a tragic lethargy has overcome us. We have saturated our desires for Chinese temples, pagodas, mountains and tourist spots. All we want to do now is what is so easy to do here in Dali, relax, lay back, eat, shop and read a good book. We have so little time left here and yet it seems to stretch before us like a new month. We have done the travelling bit and now we are stationary, it seems we must do the ‘holiday’ bit too. Our wish to rest is almost a reaction to the coming few days which will be exhaustively filled with our return travel by the slow, meandering route from Dali to Kunming, Kunming to Hong Kong, Hong Kong to Bangkok and finally, Bangkok to home.
Today is shopping day. Yesterday was just a practice. So after a tasty lunch in the Sunshine Cafe we head for the shops. On the agenda today: clothes for us, batiks for the ladies and walking canes for Llew’s dad. Haggling is half the fun and Llew and I specialise in clubbing together to buy two items from one stall-holder and trying it on for a ‘bulk’ discount. The shops seem to offer initial prices around about one a half times too high. General tactics seem to be offer them half what they say first and then converge one what should be about the right price. What adds to the fun is that fact that none of them speak, or claim to speak, any English at all. I purchase a complete outfit, tailored, for about £5. Okay so it’s not quite my normal fashion but it’s comfy, rather Chinese and kind of ethnically cool. They won’t like it back home though.
Next on the list is a painting – a Chinese montage showing what feasibly could have been the gorges shrouded in mist, my most Chinese souvenir and quite special. Llew bargains hard for an ivory walking cane but can’t get her to go as low as she went in practise yesterday. As we walk away we realise we were haggling (and quibbling) over 5 Y – about 40p. It’s the principle which counts.
Next are some Chinese spices for Llew’s ‘Ken-Hom’ brother. We buy bagfuls of unknown substances and kernels and come away with what should be a really interesting and smelly present – if we ever get it through customs. Trying them out later, in a cafe, we find one of the kernels has a lemony taste and if you bite into it, it leaves your mouth numb for ten minutes. Nice! Strong Yunnan coffee is the only thing to put it right.
Llew goes outfit purchasing now. Two Chinese tailor girls reckon they can make some trousers and a top up in his size in 24 hours and laugh uncontrollably when he drops his shorts to be measured. I understand part of their conversation in Chinese, which I can translate roughly for you here: ‘…I’ve never seen anything so small,’ said one with a giggle. Batik shopping proves trickiest of all – there are so many to choose from. Eventually we collect a few pieces together into a rather nice selection. Then we grow tired of all this shopping and behaving like women so we head back for a cup of tea and a rest like old men instead. Our insatiable desire for reading leads us to trade in our fiction works at a local book exchange in return for far more serious titles like ‘Basic Philosophy with Wittgenstein’ and, slightly less tenuously, ‘Riding the Iron Rooster’ about rail travel in China by Paul Theroux. Both are quite likely to lull us to sleep on the long journey home.
Back at the guesthouse at 11pm, Steve is doing a guitar recital with a Frenchman. They jam together quite tunefully, although their taste is a little narrow. It is good just to sit there, watch the twinkling stars and the lanterns swaying in the breeze and feel a million miles away. Later I find out why Steve seemed so intriguing to my sixth-sense. It turns out he comes from Harrogate like me. He is 39 and has been on the road for seven years. We talk fondly of home and gradually his previously barely discernible Yorkshire accent returns quite heavily. His mum still lives on Leeds Road about 500 yards from my house and apparently she doesn’t understand why her son travels so far and wide. Steve has settled in the last year and now runs a small music teaching business in Hong Kong, travelling in China regularly.
He has a 20 year old Chinese-Bai girlfriend in Dali for whom he obviously cares a lot. However, maintaining a girlfriend in China as a Westerner is extremely difficult and girlfriends are extraordinarily difficult to export. Steve has a very interesting viewpoint on China. He is far more widely travelled than either of us, clearly likes the country but has seen a side to China – the side his girlfriend lives in – which we haven’t. It is the side full of the weak-minded, vulgar, nouveau-riche Chinese whose culture has been torn to shreds and bombarded by external pressures.
Although his opinion should wisely be taken with a pinch of salt, it is clear that many parts of China’s society are rapidly descending into a mire of prostitution, corruption, drugs and HIV. We ourselves have seen the prominence of the late night ‘barbers shops’, ‘gentlemen’s clubs’ and ‘karaoke’ bars. Their growth rate has been astronomical. Dali now has 25 dodgy karaoke bars with all the implications for local womens’ exploitation, compared to only two last year. The government generally blames the rise in prostitution on an influx of rich Western tourists. In fact it is the increase in Chinese tourism coupled with the culture here which leads to using prostitutes as a status symbol of wealth.
It seems Chinese men treat their women with very little respect – particularly pretty ones. Girls from local rural villages support their families by working in the cities under terrible conditions. And with a population rise drastically favouring male children 145:100 at the last count, thanks to widespread female infanticide, the problem of a dominant and violent male culture looks set only to get worse. We have seen glimpses of the vulgarity of the Chinese mind-set but this gives a whole new angle on a dark and sinister China. Even the PLA (People’s Liberation Army) is corrupt. They run many of the old state owned industries to pay for the defence of the country. Apparently with money, anyone can hire out a division of the army to put to their own personal use. Money is power and, in China, that means dangerous times ahead.

Haggle

tim — Thu, 31 Jul 1997 11:59:00 +0000

This morning it is raining gently again. I wish the sun would return – we have things to do. But we hit town anyway for a large Chinese lunch including a delightful dish of ‘toasted goat’s cheese’, a local speciality which tastes a little like my socks might after a month without washing.
I am unfortunately persuaded, while eating this meal, by a street-peddling shoe-cleaner that my worn boots need repairing. Once again, I am inextricably reminded of Istanbul and the last time I got ripped off by a shoe-cleaning peddler. I am clear this time to map out the cost first and then trade my sturdy boots for a pair of ridiculous flip-flops while the guy scampers off with mine. Later they are duly returned, fixed and quite neatly patched for around £1 after a little bargaining.
Bargaining is the name of the game later when we hit the marble-vase shops in search of souvenirs. Having decided between us that purchasing policy is presents for family, girlfriends and friends as well as the dog and almost everyone else we know, we have a bit of a task on, not only to buy the presents but also to get them all home in one piece. The choice in marble alone is unbelievable. That said, we do manage to come away with some nice, if rather heavy, purchases. While in the marble district we manage to catch a glorious bitch fight in the streets. Several market traders seem to gang up on a girl who has either stolen something or insulted them. Mind you, the girl does well for herself – screaming, kicking, biting and punching – all in the name of public entertainment. Street brawls are famed in China for their ferocity and this seems no exception. It’s great fun to watch until the PSB arrive to disperse the crowds. By 9pm and having shopped no more, we are ready for dinner – our now bizarrely synchronised body-clocks telling us it’s time to eat.
The Star Cafe with it’s “Best Brownie in Town” claim is happy to oblige and despite both our preferences for girl guides, Llew and I are not disappointed. We both manage filling meals of steak and garlic followed by two of the best brownies. We eat with two girls, Perdise an American and Kate, a Briton, who have arrived for a whistlestop tour of China from Japan where both have spent post-graduate years teaching English there. They have travelled by air so far and seem interested in our tales of ferries and trains. It is fun to off-load our array of recent anecdotes, which Llew and I can now tell in alternating sentences.
They tell us about Japan and life there. They are staying in No.5 Guesthouse and seem none to pleased when we tell them we heard there were rats in the dormitories.

The mysteries of women

tim — Thu, 31 Jul 1997 11:58:41 +0000

A restful day it certainly is. When we rise at 11am, it is gently raining outside. Cannot believe it. It remains cloudy all day so we sit in the cafe, start with breakfast and settle in for the day. I share my toilet experience this morning with six, inch-long maggots and their long, wriggling tails. I know not what monsters they will become, only that they are making a spirited bid for freedom up the white tiled walls. This and the smell in the latrines all adds up to an experience which affects me deeply and conspires to bung up my digestive system tighter than glutinous rice knows how.
Natalie arrived here from Kunming last night and really did have the ultimate sleeper bus nightmare. She developed a terrible fever during the 14 hour trip and, like us, had no opportunity to stop and get water or even painkillers from her bag. Now the fever has passed but I pity her the experience. This morning she and a Frenchman are being taught the intricate rules of a military strategy game by an intriguing man, Steve, who has long blonde hair and bright blue eyes. He claims to have carried the game around the world twice and I do not blame him for treating it as a prized possession.
It seems a game bounded only by the imagination of a strategic mind. A traveller’s treat. Still raining. And with souvenir shopping looking unattractive we sit here and play rounds and rounds of contract whist with toast and coffee on never-ending supply. Later when the air gets fuggy with dope fumes from a bunch of enlightened Aussies nearby, Llew and I move outside for a half-hearted game of chess. Amazing, I have finally found a man who plays chess less skillfully than I.
Then sit and read outside until the sky half clears. Something about the unhurried pace of life here in Dali is very refreshing and yet strangely unnerving and dangerously habit-making. We have done nothing all day. There are many long-term travellers here – a breed which I admire, respect and sometimes envy. To stand up back home and have the guts to leave behind a life you know and people you love is a sign of either total insanity or else incredible self-confidence and independence. Or conceivably, the desire to have incredible self-confidence and independence. Perhaps it is loved ones they are trying to escape from: travelling can certainly have its own therapeutic effect. Travelling alone you answer only to yourself – in a million new places you can have a million chances to be whoever you want to be to the temporary friends you meet along the way. It gives you chance to be free of old worries and look only to the future. Even so, making that initial leap must be daunting.
After being on the road for over a month now, many of my days are concluded by thinking this would be a fine life to lead if only I could somehow sustain it financially. And yet on other frustrating or exhausting days I am more likely to be dreaming of some stable existence where challenges come at me under more controllable conditions and that, more fundamentally, my next meal and sleep are guaranteed occurrences. There is, it must be said, a definite comfort to the non-nomadic life. I guess when it comes to the crunch, I’m no real long-termer. I’ll settle for a brief holiday to escape the bounds of normal life, to see someone else’s perspective for a change, to hone with fresh challenges my powers of reaction and ingenuity and perhaps take a small part of a different culture home with me.
Back, to a life where more important challenges are to be faced, refreshed, invigorated, with new stories to tell and most importantly, a desire to, at some stage, do it all again. Deciding that some activity is definitely called for, we head out for a late meal in town and a premature return to Chinese food which I really have become quite attached to. Llew and I sit there eating some very pleasant dishes, knocking back the beers and talking until closing time comes round at 2am. How our conversation is led, or driven, I don’t know but we start with the in-depth academics of Darwinism, natural selection and Creationism and move on to role-playing and computer games until eventually, tongues loosened, we end up on one final and quite possibly boundless topic : the mysteries of women.
We ponder many questions but find no answers.

Biking through China

tim — Thu, 31 Jul 1997 11:58:19 +0000

We rise late to a relaxing breakfast in the ‘ethnic’ Cafe-with-no-name in the gardens. Overlooking the trees and bamboo pavillions from comfy wicker chairs and sipping mango juice in the sun you could imagine yourself to be anywhere beautiful in the world – even paradise.
It is sometimes hard to believe that Dali is still China. That is until you get out and about. We hire two mountain bikes and head off in a northerly direction to see how far we can get. The scenery is rice paddies with a backdrop of mountains and a touch of humanity provided by the peasants tilling their fields. It would be refreshingly rural were it not for the noisy tractors and trucks which pound past us on the less than smooth road. We pass a huge petrol tanker which has recently crashed off the road into a paddie field and exploded. The wreckage is blackened and has left a scorched patch of rice which looks totally out of place in the near-perfect and so well-tended patches surrounding it. The accident must have left a few peasants cursing, as well as the driver dead, we imagine.
Eventually, some 25km down the road, and by now rather saddle sore, we come across a neat little village with impressive Bai architecture and wonderful backstreets with donkeys and small children screaming “hello, hello!o. The road leads down to the shores of an enormous lake. We stop at the lake side to tend our sores. The Chinese bikes are unfortunately too small and very unforgiving on these bumpy, half-cobbled streets. So we sit there, watch some fishermen mending a boat and fall asleep. By 5pm, having done little else, it is time to be making our way home. It is then we realise the true stupidity of our plan ‘to see how far we can go’. On hired bikes, however far you go, you always have to go back. In our case that means another 25km. Getting back on the bikes the saddlesores are very bad indeed begin to curse the whole situation. Cycling becomes incredibly painful and we struggle back only by forcing ourselves on for fifteen minute slots and then stopping to stretch off.
Back at the ranch, a sit down and a hot bath at ‘Jim’s Place’ is the only thing to bring us back to reality. Bizarre but very pleasant. Lying in hot water, gradually loosening up I suffer a terrible moment of home sickness and wish I were at home in a comfy bed with people who speak my language. But it soon passes.
When Llew and I walk out of the baths after a half hour soak we are weak as kittens and don’t quite know how to spend the rest of the evening. We have two new room-mates which is good because Llew and I have mostly exhausted our topics of conversation and manage to communicate now by a series of grunting noises (which will come in handy back at college). Our room mates are both long distance loners. Jeff is a Chinese-American on a year out in China from University, to learn the language. Mark is a non-talkative Englishman from Taiwan. We go out for a beer and more food with Jeff but by 11pm the unprecedented exercise of the day is telling and there are yawns all round. Time for a very restful day tomorrow.

Dali

tim — Thu, 31 Jul 1997 11:58:00 +0000

The bed is just a few inches too short to be comfortable, a bit like sleeping in a bath and by dawn my legs are painfully stiff. Sunrise over the mountains, however, as we drive along a typically mountainous path is special enough for minor discomfort to be forgotten. We roll into Dali at 9am, with bladders almost bursting with the accumulated pressure of 14 hours worth of dehydration. We dodge the touts and duck into the toilets to relieve ourselves. The bus didn’t have a toilet and every time it stopped it was always moving again before you’d had chance to get your shoes on.
We decide to head for the No. 4 Guesthouse which has been recommended. We are not disappointed. It is basic but beds in quads are very cheap and there are hot water showers and washing machines. The toilets are stinking holes in the ground but that probably won’t matter… Our two American friends are here also, which is a little unfortunate. The ruddy chap is in a dorm, and the journalist, now wearing a new and even louder shirt, has requested his own private room. He probably has an embarrassing genital disorder.
Dali is great. It is hot, sunny, peaceful and more people speak English here than anywhere else. There are a million and one tourist shops, stalls and street traders for souvenirs. The bubbly street life and the dark-skinned minority people here remind me in many ways of Istanbul. We have certainly come to a place where we can, fittingly, enjoy our remaining days in China. Amazingly, in one of the little streets there is a newly opened Internet cafe and for 20 Y I manage to check my mailbox in Cambridge where I find a message from Liz and we send one to Chris who ought to be able to pick it up somewhere on his way from New Zealand to Canada. It is truly amazing how close home can feel when you can reach out and touch it from a small town in the depths of China.
After a hearty breakfast we get stuck into our washing. It drys almost immediately and following a shower it is incredible how good a clean shirt, socks and undies feels after being a tramp for so long. Llew has a shave to tidy up his shaggy beard and comes out looking like a bizarre cross between Elvis and a Kung Fu hero. I am looking more and more like Noel Edmonds by the day. We spend the rest of the day wandering the streets bemused at the choice of souvenirs we now have to make.
Dali is famous for its marble, hewn locally into every imaginable shape of vase and ornament. Other shops are selling beautiful batiks and wall hangings. The prices are pretty reasonable too provided you are prepared to haggle hard. We decide to leave purchasing until nearer going home time but in the meantime have some practise at haggling and choosing what we will buy. Steaks for dinner in our continuing quest to re-educate our stomachs in the art of Western food digestion. We eat from tables out in the sunshine.
The beggars and the shoe-shine brigade are out in full force providing moments of amusement and some beautifully candid photos, which unfortunately were mislaid somewhere on the way home. And in the streets, the local Bai minority women in their coloured head-dresses peddle their silver jewellery to all and sundry. There is a distinct drug prescence too. We are approached several times by minority women who first offer jewellery but when they draw close whisper conspiratorially “Ganja, ganja, ganja”, and smile a toothy grin. We have no idea if hash is legal in China but it seems remarkably prominent at times.
Dali seems to have a historical atmosphere and with it, a kind of independence from ‘real’ China unlike anywhere else we’ve seen. The surrounding area around Dali certainly has plenty to offer. Whether we’ll see any of it is a different matter. Many people have said spending a couple of nights in a village called Lijang about four hours away by bus is exceptionally rewarding. However, right now, a whole week relaxing in Dali’s sunshine seems incredibly tempting. We’ve done all our travelling now.
Llew has decided to start as he means to go on in the relaxation game with a visit to a professional masseur tonight. This one is recommended as excellent for travel worn muscles but we have heard that if you slip an extra few yuan in your pants with some of these outfits you get something more for your money. And come to think of it, Llew has been gone rather a long time. Sipping a beer as I am now, overlooking the gardens of No.4 Guesthouse as dusk falls and the lanterns sway in the breeze is the perfect way to end a day here and to begin to end our travels in China.
Our two room mates are cool – an oddly matching couple from Britain, Phil and Kirstyn. We swap stories and agree to meet them later for happy hour in the tree house bar of the guesthouse.

Go with the flow

tim — Thu, 31 Jul 1997 11:57:40 +0000

Rise to more Western food and feel ever so slightly ashamed at pampering ourselves. We head out to enjoy the sun and blue sky which has graced us for almost the first time on our trip. In the streets, I select and then fail to enjoy a rather novel Chinese ice-cream: corn-on-the-cob flavour with real bits of corn. Mmm. But the afternoon is successful, if a little expensive, with plane tickets to Hong Kong for our final departure in nine days time, bus tickets to Dali for tonight and at last, a successful phone call home. For dinner we celebrate by eating a local speciality ‘Across-the-bridge-noodles’ a famous kind of boiling soup in which you cook your own meat, vegetables and chillies. A thin layer of oil on the surface keeps the soup hot and the name comes from a wife who learned how to keep her hermit-husband’s food hot when she carried it over the bridge to the island where he preferred to live in isolation. Millions of restaurants worldwide serving up cold soup could benefit from the technique.
In the cramped sleeper bus where we have a 5’10″ long single bed-sized bunk to share between us, it is 8.30pm and we are still in the bus station. We thought the bus left at 6.40pm and we’ve been sat here with our fellow travellers since then. Perhaps Kunming’s grown-up tendencies and semblance of order has given us higher expectations than we should have had. This is still China, these are still Chinese people and this is Chinese time. There are two middle-aged American travellers with us. One a ruddy loner in a red T-shirt, the other a journalist, a thin and weedy Woody Allen with bushy hair and an haiwaiian shirt. In them I see travelling spirits gone cold. They moan at the delays, raise their voices at the driver who doesn’t speak English and let the situation get to them more than they realise. This is how age takes you unawares. This is the ugly vulgarity of boys grown old, trying to enjoy what they perhaps wanted and should have done twenty years ago, their tolerance and patience turned to stone along with their free spirit.
Llew and I lie back on the bunk, relax and go with the flow. Who cares if this journey gives us some hardship or takes two more hours than the twelve it should: the other Chinese passengers are not complaining. They are lucky to be on a bus at all. We use the two angry souls as fuel for our own amusement and we know by watching them handle this, we can handle it better. We’ve done it before and we’ll do it again.
I smile out of the window at a young girl with solemn eyes and a bright smile in the bus next to ours. Even in the smelly, noisy, frustrating bus station, human moments like this are special. And then we are gone. Swept into the night like a box full of voluntary battery chickens, the bus takes its slumbering cargo down its own bumpy and tortuous route. The road to Dali is not built yet, so we’re driving over the sand foundations. Chinese driver. Chinese time.

Kunming

tim — Thu, 31 Jul 1997 11:57:18 +0000

A thoroughly tortured and alternating hot and cold nights sleep gives way to a grey dawn. I brave the toilet for the first time and it proves to be an entirely unpleasant experience even without inhaling throughout. I dearly hope that yesterday’s chilli is not ready for a second appearance. That would be really undesirable. What keeps me from being appalled by the journey is the breathtaking scenery outside the window.
Suddenly we have been transported to the roof of the world – a narrow cutting dipping in and out of tunnels in the side of enormous steep hillsides, every last inch of which provides for rice paddies farmed on terraces by the village communities below us in the valleys. I am amazed this limestone scenery is not more famous. It reminds me of the lake district back home but is twenty times larger, more stunning and more impressive. We are passing through real China now: villages connected only by footpaths and the occasional train. We have hot water on tap from a large wood-fuelled samovar at the end of the carriage and so we make more tea. Sitting here reading and watching the scenery flash by it could be Sunday afternoon back home.
The only minor annoyance is that every time we go into a tunnel, which is about every 30 seconds, the lights extinguish and reading becomes a tiresome challenge of chasing dark words around the page. Llew returns from the toilet looking drawn and haggard, clutching a rather out of place roll of pink toilet paper, his face wincing. Clearly yesterday’s chill has made a re-appearance bringing new meaning to the eye-watering term ‘red hot ring’. The rest of the journey passes without too much incident apart from when a mug of what I presume is tea is flung carelessly from a window further down the train and neatly soaks us through our open window. Almost as bad as being spat on. In Kunming, after a bus ride to challenge even the most crowded in London, we arrive at our hotel, the ‘Camellia’ which has cheap dormitories for travellers. We meet Natalie, a 10-month traveller about to go back to Britain to begin life as a lawyer, but in the meantime desperately enjoying the sights of the world and her own freedom. She has travelled the world alone, except for South America, and clearly loves it. Not too mad either.
Kunming is a great city. It is strangely Western, much more ordered than elsewhere (cars actually stop at traffic lights) and I guess for all these reasons is a place where other travellers conjugate. We enjoy our first Western food – burgers – for many days and like it so much we go on to have pizzas at ‘Wai’s Place’ an almost legendary travellers hang out which is empty by the time we find it. We return to bed full, satisfied and just the slightest bit drunk on excellent Dali beer.

Centre of attention

tim — Thu, 31 Jul 1997 11:56:56 +0000

We dock in Chongquing, our final river destination, at 10.30am. At 6,300km long, the mighty Yangtze is the third longest river in the world and it sure feels like we’ve travelled a good proportion of its length over the last two weeks. Here at Chongquing, we leave the silty waters behind us and turn from them to the train to carry us onward.
But for now there are more pressing needs like breakfast: great noodle soup from boiling cast-iron pots. Then we part with Peter and friends, somewhat reluctantly because now we know we’re on our own again, and head for the station. The only thing we were without while with them was freedom to do as we pleased. And I did miss that. At the station we know we have a challenge on our hands; this is the first time we’ve tried to purchase long-distance tickets in earnest. Our first problem is choosing which counter to go to. This soon proves academic since all of them are shut for lunch. We’ve done it again.
So we spend a while outside talking and being stared at until the time comes. Having dumped our bags and feeling mobile once more, we pick a long queue at random and hope for the best. Deciphering Chinese symbols we think we’ve seen a suitable train on the printed timetable above the kiosks: the 19:32 to Kunming. We have all the details scripted in beautiful Chinese characters dutifully copied from the book. Expecting to be turned away instantly with ‘méi you’ (no) we are at once surprised when our piece of paper does the trick and we are rewarded with two tickets as required. Just over £10 for a 23 hour trip. Feeling incredibly proud that in the face of all this potential confusion we have come away with exactly what we wanted within 25 minutes, we stride confidently away from the staring crowds and towards the centre of town.
One thing as a ‘paleface’ you can always be sure of in China is being the centre of attention. It suits us well. Centre of town turns out to be a good two miles away in the heat, but we are both glad of the exercise after four days of restless inactivity. Here we find a post office and telecoms centre, great for stamps but less useful for telephoning home since chargecards don’t seem to work here. But Chongquing holds another delight: a bookshop stocking a selection of English fiction. Never missing an opportunity, we buy five hardbacks at knock down prices to read on the train. Suddenly all is roses. Avoiding the tempting KFC we head, instead, to a traditional Sichuanese restaurant. Sichuan is famed for its hot foods and extensive use of chilli. We are not disappointed. Our three dishes are, without exception very very hot with chilli-oil as their base ingredient. It is tasty but desperately painful. I try to hide my flushing face and the beads of sweat on my brow from the amused on-looking gazes of the waitresses around us. It is not as if we have not had time to get used to chilli – almost every food we have eaten here contains it – just that they use it here with such ferocity it leaves my mouth gasping for iced water. Beers actually have the same effect, as we discover, and so it is that at 6pm we stagger out onto the streets, belching painfully and just slightly merry, to do some supply shopping and hail a cab for the station.
Our train is really quite acceptable – open carriages with three tier bunks. It is clean, uncrowded and comfortable in hard sleeper, unlike hard seat hell which is probably raging only a few carriages away. We sit back, stow our bags, sip our green tea to which I am becoming strangely addicted, watch the scenery flash by and even in light of the fact we will lie here for the next 23 hours, are quite content with this travelling thing. Chongquing has been very good to us and with only ten days to go, it seems that despite it’s frustrations, our experience of China is running out on us. I know I must make the most of it now, China will not stay the same for long.