January came around, an email was sent by Frazier, a long over due decision was made, and our fate was sealed. While Justin, the lone Hammock brother nobly stayed at home tending to our grandfather who is in need of assistance, Jon and I were off on our travels to the far East. China, the communist country that is vastly different from our own, day and night difference in fact, but is has much in common as well. We had been talking about heading east for six months and hoped that it was going to become a reality come the end of January. The month that we spent in China was an enlightening, entertaining, and exhilarating. In a nutshell, I loved it, but I'm happy to be home.
Jon and I paid for our 200.00 dollars for our visa so that we could be allowed into the great country that we would soon find ourselves in. We waited for the stamp of approval, bought our airline tickets, and we were off. Jon and I soon found out that on international flights, drinks were included and that being the case we soon decided that it was time to celebrate our embankment. By the time we were over Alaska headed toward Siberia, we had downed about seven bloody Mary's each. Say "Zàijiàn" or (goodbye) to our immune systems, of which unfortunately we would desperately need in the coming days. The flight to China left from San Francisco and was about twelve hours total, a short amount of travel time compared to the train ride from Beijing down to the southern province of Yunnan, China, which was thirty eight hours each way. We landed in Beijing which by the way for those who don't know crap about China- I'm guessing a few of you at least, is the capital of China. Don't ask my why Beijing is the capital, unless you want me to write a book about it, and we all know you don't have the attention span to be on the computer for that long anyway. Basically, Beijing has a 3,000 year old history of being the northern most part of the vast country of what is now China. The population is currently 22,000,000 in Beijing alone, and according to Frazier who has lived there for four in a half years going to College working on his Masters degree there are over four million cars being driven within the city. There is a lot to do in Beijing like visiting the Emporor's palace in the Forbidin City- evidently it's not that forbidin, us yahoo's were allowed in there. One can also visit the Great Wall, many different temples, and many other places of historical significance. We saw a few places, but were mostly interested in getting the hell out of Beijing because it was so dam cold. During the winters the weather is Cold and Windy, and in the Spring sand storms are frequent, and due to the monsoons from the south the summers are extremely hot and humid. Frazier told us that he actually hops in the shower wearing all of his clothes before starting his day in the summer trying to stay cool. I'm not sure if that is a normal thing to do or if that's just Frazier. While in Beijing Jon and I contracted the Beijing Flu and found ourselves sick for nearly three days. Jon was quick to attain anti biotics to try to get well, and as for myself I refused at first and decided that eastern medicine would be the best since I was in the east, although I soon found myself on anti-biotics as well. Although, I did manage to not be as sick as Jon, I beleive becuase of the combination of the ginsing, and other Chinese rememidies along with the amoxicilin.
While riding the subway one night while exploring Beijing, we were taking the subway system home and unexpededly Frazier noticed the train was about to leave and ran toward the door. Sure as shit Jon and I couldn't make it on in time and the door slammed shut in my face almost tearing off my arm as I tried to slither my way inside. So here is Jon and I looking at Frazier in the Subway trying to communicate to us what to do and as the train roared off we looked at eachother shaking out heads not knowing what to do next. Beijing is a huge city and we had really no clue on where Frazier actually lived. We knew he lived north of downtown, but that was basically it. We figured our best option was to stay put. Thankfully he came back within a few minutes and we made it home. After all that excitement we headed off to Wu-Mart to get food for the long train ride ahead. Wu-Mart is a lot like Wall-mart, but with even more Chinese made goods, well if we want to call them 'goods' more like crap that isn't good enough to be sold elsewhere in the world. We loaded up on packaged food which I found wasn't much cheaper then in the States. Some food was though like fresh produce and food at resteraunts, which is considerably cheaper, just with more dirt. It was getting dark and we loaded on to the train prepared for the thirty eight hours ahead of us. Our time on the train was filled with staring out the window, listening to music, beat boxing and rapping. It was a probably a longer trip for Jon who had to listen to Frazier and I imitate our favorite old school hip hop beats and raps. While on the train lookiing outside I was struck by how it seemed every single bit of usable land was being used for food, Rice paddies being the majority, the very iconic type you think of when you think of China. Rice paddies are more then a source of rice for the Chinese people, they also raise fish in the paddies for food as well.
Finally, we arrived in Kunming which is the Capital of the Yunnan province in the South. The streets were bustling, the air was astronaumically warmer then Beijing, and firework stands were on every corner bombarding the people with Chinese fireworks that drawf anything that is leagal in the States. The Chinese new years was coming up within a week and fireworks were as constant as the "Hewo's" that we would get from the many annoying Chinese people trying to say hello in a menacing way. They were trying to make fun of us, or prove to their family's that they can speak English or better known as "Chinglish" which is a mix between bad English and even worse Chinese. I reached a point that I got so sick of the Hewo's that I decided whenever they would attempt to say hi I would get right up in their face and yell "KNEE HOW," which means hello in Chinese. I would do this with my eye's almost closed and my two front teeth sticking out, which is the worse possible impersonation of a Chinese person I could come up with. I would continue to do this the rest of the trip. It's worth noting becuase if I don't I look like an ass, that these annoying Chinese were the Han Chinese from the big city's that we on Holiday unfortunately at the same time as us because of the Chinese new years. The Han Chinese is an ethnic group that makes up about ninety percent of the population of the country. There are fifty other ethnic groups within China making up about nine percent of the population, and they are mostly farmers, and villagers and from what we saw are extremely nice and completely diffferent from the City dwellers. According to this months National Geographic there are more male 28 year old male Han Chinese then anybody else in the world.
We were only in the city of Kunming for a few hours then we were back on the train headed another six hours north west up towards Tibet and Burma to where we would spend about two weeks in the City's of Dali and Liijang. Dali was the first city that we stopped at, and we were in awe by the natural beauty we found. The City is nestled nicely inbetween towering mountains and a massive lake. We finally were able to slow our roll and enjoy our time in China. We got dropped off in the Old Town of Dali which boasts a long history- Dali was the capital of a kingdom in between the 8th and 9th Centuries which included parts of Laos and Vietnam. While in Dali we stayed in a nice hotel which costed us each less then three dollars US a piece per night, explored the town, meeting new people and getting offered "Ganga" which really is nothing more then stems, seeds, and weak pot from the mountains, we up here in the Northwest would just call it bad mexican pot. We actually got offered it numerous times, which is suprising because pot is highly illegal in China and people are killed every year for selling it, evidently it's not as inforced in Yunnan, and actually there was a healthy community of forigners many the stereotypical type, with dreadlocks living in Dali who either didn't care about the laws or forgot there were any. While back at the hotel I cleaned my clothes by hand for probably the first time in my life, and hung them up for dry. As I hung up my clothes of the roof of the hotel I noticed how great of a view I had of the city, the lake, and the mountains. After about an hour or so of enjoying the sun and my view Jon came up to see what I was up to, which was at that moment standing on the top of the roof in a karatee kid position on the high point of the roof trying to soak it all in, I know, who does that right? well me I guess!
One of the days while we were in Dali we decided to rent bikes and we headed down to the lake zigzaging along the lake northbound roaring from village to village on dirt roads and narrow mounds of dirt separating the endless rice patties and countless hardworking farmers tending the land. While speeding through the narrow alley ways we ended up being chased by a gang of ten year olds who it seemed were out for blood, well at least out for a good time. Of course we could have out ran them on our twenty one speed bikes, but what woud be the fun in that. After a few minutes of continues yelling and chasing we found ourselves in the center of this village, by this time Frazier had a hole in his pants and despererately needed them fixed. Within a few minutes of asking around to see who could mend them, the villagers began laughing amoungst themselves. This is until I began pointing and laughing hoping more people would join in, before long he was the laughing stock for many within the village for a few minutes. Frazier didn't find it funny. This day would become one of the highlights of the trip. We would spend another night in Dali, roaming the streets, and experiencing what a three dollar massage includes. Lets just say that you get what you pay for, a sore back and sogy feet. And no, we did not get happy endings.
The next stop on our trip was the town of LIjiang, which a jewel of a place, located in the foothills of the Hemilayas close to the Burmese and Tibeten boarders. Jon, Frazier and I decided on trying to hitch hike, which didn't work very good, because when we held our thumbs up all we got were thumbs up back. They had no clue what we were trying to accomplish and must have figured we were just looking for a thumbs up back. After a while a younger guy pulled over and we agreeded upon a hundred Yun, roughly fifteen dollars US to take us three hours or so north. All was good, until a few minutes later when he pulled over again. We had no idea what was going on, that was until he came back to the car with a knife that looked like it belonged to Crodile dundee. Suprisingly none of us freaked out, we just figured that he was probably was transporting it to Lijiang to make some extra money. It was, to say the least thrilling driving to Lijiang. In China, two lane roads are treated as four lane roads and four lane roads as Nascar raceways, with no regard to any sort of lines except for the front of the line, which is where everybody wanted to be. Another adventure filled day.
Arriving in Lijiang the first thing on our minds was to find a hotel. We headed down a random street, ended up getting help from a local lady, and found a place. The place we found was supposed to be for just Chinese not forigners because it was only two stars. But since we were with this local lady they made an exception for us. We wish they hadn't. This room was less then two dollars US a person, and it was worth not a cent more then a dollar. the bathroom was dark and dingy, someone spit flem on the wall next to my bed, and it was really cold as well. Never again would we stay at a two star hotel, we would have rather stayed in our hammocks even though we would have froze. Waking up the next morning we began exploring the Old Town of Lijiang which is where all the tourist are and is the heart of what makes Lijiang the cool place that it is. Over the next few days we stayed in nice hotels to make up for the first night, eat great local foods, and mainly took it easy and enjoyed our stay. We took a day trip to a nearby lake with a mild hike which was super commercialized and full of tour gides that were charging a ton of money to take the trail while on the back of their horses. The rich Han Chinese had no reservations, we on the other hand quickly made the assertian that it was BS to have to pay a dime and if we hiked the trail using our own two legs would be good enough. We headed for the trail, and soon were told we had to pay for the horseback toured guid and if we didn't we would die. Literly! They said we wouldn't make it and insisted on us paying, we took the chance anyway. Sure enough we didn't die and had a great time.
Getting back to town we were walking down the cobblestone streets and I saw a white guy and girl and couldn't help but blurting out 'Hey, White people!' I guess I figured we could talk to them which would be refreshing after weeks of only being able to talk to Jon and Frazier and the occasional few words when a Chinese could speak fragmented pieces of English. Their names were Mike and Maloni a younger married couple from Alaska. They spend their summers at home in Alaska fishing and hanging out with family, and the winters spent away from home traveling abroad. They were on a few week long bicycling trip through Yunnan at the time, and had stopped to stay a couple nights. They ended up being really cool, and we ran into them a few times over the next week or so. Mike was something else, before he and Malani would head out on a fourty or fifty mile long daily ride he would get up early and run until he got tired so he wouldn't annoy Malani with built up energy on the ride. One moring while in Lijiang Mike was staying in a hotel that had locked the main door to leave for security reason's and didn't open it back up until seven or so the next morning. He wanted nothing more then to run as he does every morning and began jumping around feeling like a caged up pit bull ready to attack while Malani said she wanted nothing more then for him to jump over the wall so he would stop bugging her and she could go back to sleep. I think that's what he ended up doing.
Finally, we figured out that there was a nice hostel in Lijiang, and we decided on staying there a night or two. Frazier had mentioned a hike called the Tiger Leaping Gorge and we had wanted to do it but hadn't made any real plans until we got to the hostel and joined a group of about twenty other forigners looking to do the same. Before long we would become good friends with this group including Julia, Maria, Oliver, Ben, Iris, Tine, and Wade to name a few. Soon enough Jon and I were following two other vans making our way up north another couple hours toward the george. While on the road we came to a bridge and the other vans decided to take a left over the bridge and for some strange reason the driver of the van Jon and I were in decided to go straight. Sure enough we ended up at the wrong spot on the river but we didn't realize that none of the other vans were going to be arriving where we were until a half an our or so after the driver had taken our money and left us all by ourselves. Once again Jon and I had lost Frazier. Soon enough we realized what what going on, it was a scam and we had to pay to be picked back up and brought to the trail head. Thankfully after we arrived Frazier showed up and saved the day by making the cab drivers give the money back to us that we had to pay to be picked back up. Frazier has perfected the art of war- playing by there rules which includes loud voices, and threats. He actually had to call the police before the driver agreed to pay us back.
We spent three days on this 22 Kilometer or 13.6 miles on the High Road which featured many micro-ecosystems, waterfalls, and a few guesthouses to stay for the night and reload up on food, especially snickers bars. We all seemed to want nothing more then an endless supply of Snickers bars. The first hoop we had to jump through was making by this little old lady on the trail. At first she seemed to be just trying to sell fruit but within minutes we would be almost running away while she was holding a huge rock in her hand threatening to through it at us. All because we didn't want to pay her for a picture that one of us in the group took of the view and she started yelling in Chinese evidently wanting us to pay for the picture, which we justifilably refused to pay, especially since she gave us no forewarning that she wanted us to pay before we took the picture, as well as she had no right to be doing what she was doing. I would later be refering to her as the troll that wanted her toll. After a few more hours we reached a point where there are 28 steep switchbacks making their way to the high point of the trail before it begain decending back deeper into the gorge. Climbing the switchbacks was tiresome to say the least, and the direct intense sun didn't help much. The relentlessness of the switchbacks would soon overcome Julia who found herself on the back of one of the many available horses for a mere hundred Yun. The owners of the horses reminded me of a pack of wolves waiting for the a lone tired prey to fall behind the herd, Julie would be that prey on this day.
We finally reached the halfway house which is where we would spend two nights relaxing and enjoying the majestic views of the gorge, which is arguably on of the largest in the world. One thing that I love to do is run trails whenever possible and this trail naturally was the best trail I have ever ran on, especially because it traversed along the side of a sheer very high cliff and one wrong step could send me 1,000 feet down to my untimely death. After our two days of staying near the half way house we began our hike down the rest of the trail which was easy because it was all downhill. We made our way down to the the narrowest and fastest part of the river which is where we would find oursleves jumping from boulder to boulder trying to avoid the locals trying to make us pay for being down at the river. I looked down from the trail and saw a huge boulder the size of a bus that I instantly and desperately wanted to make my way to. I pointed it out to the others, convinced them they should come as well, and soon we were off working our way down from boulder to boulder, eventually getting to where we wanted to be. Quickly I realized that it was separated from the land by a few feet of rushing river that surely was waiting to swoop us down into it torrents and lifeless gushing waters-Jon wisely decided to stay behind for this one. If I had missed my landing or slipped during my attempt surely I would have been done for. But, since my friend Ben impatiently had already made it across probably due to him only being twenty years old and not thinking of the many possible outcomes like I don't know, possibly dying for example that I just couldn't help from feeding my bravodo and following him. So carefully and methodically I took my leap of faith and landed without a hick up down to the best spot on the river. With the spray of the river gently brushing against my face, I sat on the edge or the rock with the river at beneath my feet contemplating where I was in the world, which was one of the most meditative experience of my life. On the way back up to the road from the river Jon, Ben the others and I climbed a sixty foot raggedy ladder up a cliff as a short cut, thankfully we all made it up in one piece.
It was time to go back to Lijiang which is where we spent another day before making our way back down to Dali. Back in Lijiang Frazier and I woke up early and climbed up to the tallest hill over looking Lijiang using what was up to that point the largest set of stairs I have climbed my whole life to where we had a great view of the city. Later that day Ben and I decided to do some free running-a combination of Urban Acrobatics and creativity, using what we could find in the streets as our own personal playground. I know it sounds a bit childish but is a great way of exploring a new place and having a hell of a lot of fun in the process. I scaled two walls on each side of me in an alley to project me upward about fifteen feet, jumped over many creeks, walls, trash cans, slid down a handrail, and scaled across a fence which was a good ten feet tall as well. And now, after all this excitement it was time Jon, Frazier, our new friend Ben and I make our descent back down toward Lijiang which would be the first stop on our long journey back home.
Arriving back into Dali was bitter sweet because we knew it meant our China trip would soon be coming to and end. We still had another ten days or so arriving to Lijiang though so we really couldn't complain. We stumbled upon a jewel of a hostel called the Dali Hump, full of artists, foreigners, and music. This place encourages people who have any talent at all to either paint or play music and they can stay, some have taken this to the extreme and have been living there for months, who can blame them though, Dali is wonderful unexpected place, I highly suggest any traveler to make their way through Dali at some point during your travels. We made many friends during our three day stay at the Hump, and had one killer very needed American style BBQ buffet complete with steak, burgers, beans, coleslaw, and many other great tasting foods. After a couple days hanging out with Dali we took a six hour train ride all night long back to Kunming and hung out for the day before heading back to Beijing on our thirty eight hour train ride.
After all our time soaking up the Authentic southern Chinese culture, food, and sun we were now back on the the train headed toward beijing. This was good downtime that gave us time to talk, reflect, and plan our future travels. Before we knew it we were smack dab in the middle of the hustle and bustle Beijing. The day we arrived Jon got sick as a dog again and made his mind up beyond a shadow of a doubt that he has no disire to go back to Beijing, maybe when he heads back someday he can fly into Hong Kong, or Shanghi instead, where it might not be so damn cold. Jon had to fly home a few days after we got there and I stayed for another week hanging out with Frazier, exploring the city. I got to see som pretty cool things lie the actually authentic Hutongs where many poor people live in extremely crowded conditions. While being right in the middle of what most would consider horible conditions, I didn't see it that way. What I saw was neighbors who knew eachother, community's that had no choice but to co exist, and people who rely on eachother for everything, and I saw smiles, which I didn't see anywhere else really in the city. Making our way through the tiny corridors I would look up to the million dollar condo high rises in the background that were built over the top of what used to be these Hutons and I would think, do those millionairs know their neighbors? Do they have a sense of wha it means to co exist? Do they smile? The answer to those questions might be more then i can answer in this horribly writen blog, but from what I saw there was a great disconect in China which is based on pursuite of a flawed reality in which we have already beeen emersed in back in the states for quite some time. The imporvrished people of China just as the impoverished people throughout the world that are just scraping by may only have what they need at best, but they have what need and that's best. Family, friends, and way of being that is invaluable and cannot be bought. I also made way up to the great wall, where I think I might be the first person to ever Hammock on. Frazier and I decided that we wanted to go to the more authentic part of the wall that hadn't been rebuilt so we jumped the wall that they had built to keep people like us out of the crumbling section of the wall, and that's where I Hammocked as well as took a backpack full of pieces of the wall to share with freinds and family, probably not the brightest idea I have ever had.
After a few more days I headed back to the airport to make my long voyage back home. First thing I did when i jumped on the airplane was grabbed a magazine and went straight to the toilet, which I hadn't really been able to do for a month. Ariving home was beyond words. As i flew into Seattle the sun was out with dark broken clouds lingering around that were ready to collect together and turn to rain to clean the air, water the evergreens and maintain the prestine wilderness in which this great place in the world is. It was good to be home is what i'm trying to say, unless you didn't catch that. My time in China allows me to have a perspective on world that allows me to appreciate where I am, and what I'm doing. Jon and I traveled China hoping that it would open our eyes to what and where China is as a country, with having a great time in the process, and that's exactly what we did. A little adventure, a little insight, and a lot of fun. For me, that sums it all up. Until next time, hopefully you enjoyed this article, and learned a little bit about this vast country they call China.
