C Travel Adventures: China

The Twin Dragon Bridge

The wildcard destination at the end of our Yunnan trip, none of us knew what to expect from the town of Jianshui, located conveniently between the Yuanyang Rice Terraces and Kunming. As always, it was a recommendation from Lonely Planet that tipped us off that it might be worth spending a day in the small town of just under 20,000 inhabitants, with the main attraction being the well preserved examples of Qing architecture.

The Confucian Temple

The journey to Jianshui from Yuanyang, potentially the most challenging of the trip, actually turned out to be very straightforward. We flagged down a passing minivan outside our hostel on the rice terraces with the aim of getting to Xinjie (the main town on the terraces) before getting a minivan on to Nansha (the main local hub) and then getting one of the regular buses on to Jianshui. As it happened, the minivan that passed our hostel was actually going to Nansha and was happy to take us there for 30 Yuan each, on a journey that took two hours. From Nansha bus station we had to wait about 15 minutes for our onward two and a half hour journey to Jianshui. A journey that I had estimated at taking in excess of six hours actually took more like five – who said travelling in China was challenging!?

Our immediate impressions of Jiansui were very positive – it appeared not too dissimilar to Lijang and Dali in terms of beautiful buildings and wide, pedestrianized streets, except it also seemed to be the ‘real deal’ rather than a version manufactured for tourists. We would be staying right in the centre of the old town in the ‘Fairyland Guesthouse’ – for some reason there was a total absence of low priced accommodation and this guesthouse was the best we could do at 70 Yuan per person per night. Thankfully Gaia, our Israeli travel companion from Yuanyang, had decided to stay on with us and we smuggled her into our twin room for the good of all of our budgets.

The City Gate

After a pretty unsuccessful lunch break which left us all reeling from an excess of spice and overpowering bamboo flavour, we wandered to the town’s Confucian Temple – supposedly the third largest in all of China, which locals maintain is actually THE largest. The beautiful temple is situated next to a large, pleasant lake and was one a famed centre of learning – half of all of Yunnan province’s successful completers of the Imperial examinations studied in the town. Even now we found local students sitting in the grounds under pagodas doing their homework. On the other side of the town (a mere ten minutes’ walk away) was the old city gate, which was modelled on the gates to the Forbidden City in Beijing. For a small fee I was able to climb up for good views over the town and to see an exhibition on the local area. The town did have a few other potential sights (a garden in the centre and a large cave an hour to the east) but it was now too late for us to see them so we went for a drink and then on to dinner at one of the town’s famed barbeque restaurants where you point at which meat you want and they cook it in front of you.

The Old Town

The next morning we got a taxi to take us five kilometres out of the town to the west to see one of Jianshui’s most impressive examples of Qing architecture, the ‘Twin Dragon Bridge’ which is one of the largest and most complete of its kind remaining in China. Admittedly the bridge is a prime example of the problems of Googling a sight before actually visiting it, as the photos online made it appear a lot larger than it actually turned out to be, but it was beautiful nonetheless and worth a quick visit. Any excuse for a photo by a bridge… Our taxi driver waited for us and took us back to the bus station where we were able to complete our journey to Kunming, three and a half hours away (ticket: 78 Yuan). Jianshui had definitely been the most ‘off the beaten track’ location on our trip, perhaps as proven by the curiosity and kindness of the locals. Lots of people came up to speak to us or to offer us help and amusingly as we sat outside a street food vendor at the bus station on our last day, a group of women went as far as pulling up stools at the end of our table seemingly just to stare at us. Funny and unnerving in equal measure. For anybody stuck with a bit too much time in Kunming, I would heartily suggest a day trip south to Jianshui.

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The Rice Terraces

A local village in the mist

One of the archetypal views of Asia are the stunning terraces that rice farmers carve into the sides of slopes in order to allow irrigation in hilly areas. There are plenty of places to see this and many of my friends had done so around Guilin which is far easier to get to than Yuanyang, which is supposedly home to the most impressive terraces in the country. Our journey from Dali to Yuanyang was tiring, but not difficult – we caught a sleeper train from Dali to Kunming which arrived at 5.40am, then got a taxi to the southern bus station and took the seven hour day bus to the town of Xinjie in the terraces. As we made our way from Xinjie we were forced to fork out 100 Yuan for a ticket to the terraces area. This ticket basically allows you on to any of the viewpoints that have been constructed for watching the sunrise or sunset – and proved to be a total waste of money for us. I would advise people to hold off paying for the ticket as long as possible – until you know you will need it or somebody forces you to buy it

Some people choose to stay in Xinjie, which is the main town in the terraces, but the best terraces are located in the surrounding villages and we were staying in the small village of Duoyishu, which required us to take a local minivan for a further hour. Sergei had left us in Kunming to fly up to Shanghai, but myself and Eleanor met an Israeli girl called Gaia on the bus and we were to stick together for our time at the terraces. It was a full day’s journey, but arriving at about 6pm at the Yuanyang International Youth Hostel we were treated to some beautiful sunset views before eating at the hostel and going to bed.

Myself, Gaia and Eleanor

The next morning we were disappointed to find the whole area covered in heavy fog, which turned to heavy rain as soon as we left the hostel. Our plan had been to hike through the terraces around our village, flagging down the frequent passing minivans from time to time to explore a wider area. Having got a lift to a point about ten kilometres from our village we found that the steep slopes of the terraces were too precarious for hiking in the rain and we beat a sad retreat to a nearby village for lunch and then back to our hostels to change out of our soaking clothing. Unfortunately the rain didn’t let up at all and we spend the majority of our afternoon in Gaia’s hostel playing cards. Thankfully, from time to time, the rain would stop and the clouds would break long enough for us to take a few good photos – particularly towards the end of the day when we were able to glimpse a few patches of blue sky. Our visit to Yuanyang was therefore not a total waste of time and we were able to experience a little of the beauty of the terraces – though like my visit up the Empire State Building in heavy fog and my taking a shower through part of the Northern Lights in Iceland, it has to go down in the ‘could have been better with a bit more luck’ category of destinations.

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The Three Padogas, Dali

Dali Old Town

With a name that conjures up the surname of a Spanish painter rather than a Chinese town, Dali appeared to be somewhere a bit different. Situated between a range of mountains and China’s 7^th largest lake, the beautiful Old Town was actually made popular by hippie backpackers before it made its way onto the radar of domestic tourists. Now the town is thoroughly on the Yunnan tourist trail, situated two hours south of Lijang and six hours from Kunming by direct train. We caught the morning train from Lijang which left at 8.30 and arrived at 10.15 at the new town at the southern tip of the lake, before grabbing a taxi up to Dali old town in time for lunch. The old town conjures up images of Lijang, though without quite the same degree of rampant commercialism and with a far more laidback vibe. The hippie community obviously never really left and you can find plenty of western guys sitting outside bohemian little shops selling bracelets and other trinkets – people who obviously found the vibe so laidback that they could never muster the momentum to leave.

Dali Catholic Church

As with the majority of towns we would be visiting in Yunnan, Dali is more about the general feel and attraction of the place itself, rather than being a list of sightseeing boxes to check. As a result, we spent the first part of the afternoon wandering around the cobbled streets past cute coffee shops and boutique clothes stores. There is, however, one major sight in Dali and that is the ‘Three Pagodas’, about a kilometre north of the town. For some strange reason, the tourist sites in Yunnan are extremely expensive and, ridiculously, at 138 Yuan, entrance to the pagodas was more expensive than to either the Great Wall or the Forbidden City. As beautiful as they were, the pagodas were certainly not in the same league as their counterpart attractions in Beijing. Luckily however, our Hong Kong student IDs allowed us to receive the 50% discount that Chinese students are able to claim – so I’m glad that they didn’t take my ID when I left HKUST. Anyway, price aside, the ancient pagodas were worth a visit, as was the nearby temple that was included on the ticket and allowed excellent views back towards Dali Old Town and over the lake.

Chongsheng Temple

We finished our day at the hostel, the Jade Emu, where we met a load of other backpackers from all around the world at the excellent bar. Somehow the hotel had managed to get its WiFi to go around the famous Chinese firewall, allowing all of us to access Facebook and Snapchat, while watching full coverage of the Tiananmen Square anniversary on the BBC.

Biking by Erhai Lake

The following day we woke late and, speaking with a few other backpackers over breakfast, decided to go for a bike ride beside the lake. Myself, Sergei and Eleanor were joined by two Argentinian guys and an Israeli girl as we made our way into the town to hire our bikes – a bargain at 15 Yuan for the day. We had no real plan for the day beyond heading to the lake itself and trying to find a route alongside it - supposedly there were some interesting villages to aim for. The lakeside area was very beautiful, but was also in the process of being substantially developed (as with all places in China it seems). The villages that we came to all seemed reasonably new and a range of (empty) boutique cafes and hotels were starting to pop up. At one village we came across a local festival, for what seemed to be the harvest, which involved local ladies dancing around with a dragon and spraying each other (and us) with water. It was one of those wonderfully out of the blue experiences that happen from time to time when travelling. Soon after this, in another village, we had our lunch at a local restaurant, basically a couple of tables and chairs by a house, that had no menu and therefore required us to order by pointing at various uncooked vegetables and asking for them to be cooked. For less than a pound per person, the food was very good and couldn’t have been more genuine. With that, we slowly made our way back to the hostel along the main road (which was quicker than the lake), eventually getting back in time for the Thursday night barbeque that the owners put on every week. That night we made our way back to the station to catch the sleeper train back to Kunming, from where we would be moving to the south of the province.

Old ladies at the festival

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The Yangtze River at the Bottom of Tiger Leaping Gorge

The start of the trail

As the only sight in Yunnan that I had actually heard of before I started planning the trip, Tiger Leaping Gorge was to be one of the highlights of my time in Asia. One of the deepest gorges in the world and one of the continent’s more challenging hikes, it is THE must-have experience for any visitor to the province. Getting there could not have been any easier, with our hostel in Lijang arranging a ticket for us on one of the morning minibuses to the trailhead at the southern end of the gorge. Just before this point we were made to pay the ‘entrance ticket’ to the gorge of 25 Yuan (though this was the student rate). This was compounded a few minutes into the hike itself where a ridiculous old Chinese lady refused to let anybody pass her unless they paid her 3 Yuan. We had started the hike as a group of about twenty five westerners, drawn from all of the hostels of Lijang, and we were all in two minds about paying. I was very much not up for doing it and tried to run past her – though this caused her to spit after me and threaten to throw a rock at me, which suggested that paying was perhaps the best option. A pretty terrible welcome to the gorge it must be said.

The mules that hover behind ailing hikers

From there things were a lot more pleasant as we began our climb to the high point of the western side of the gorge. Over the course of a 7 hour hike we were set to experience a rise in altitude of around 1000 metres and considering our starting point was pretty high anyway, it is not uncommon for people to struggle with the shortness of breath associated with high altitudes. Luckily this was not much of a problem for myself, Eleanor and Sergei and we were able to complete a good chunk of the trail before stopping for lunch at a little cabin which sold everything from instant noodles to cannabis. As the trial got tougher, we were joined by locals with donkeys which could be hired at a moment’s notice for flagging hikers - you knew how well you were hiking by how close behind they were hovering.

Close to the highest section of the hike

The trail, while obviously physically challenging, was a dream to navigate – well signposted throughout and with a good indication of how many hours it would take to reach certain key points. There are a string of guesthouses along the trail and most hikers get as far as they can on the first day, spend a night at the nearest accommodation and then finish off the hike the next morning. The group that joined us on the bus from Lijang were walking at roughly the same pace, so we kept bumping into the same people at the rest houses along the length of the gorge. Once we passed the most challenging section of the hike, the so-called ’28 bends’, the trail flattened out and we were able to fully appreciate the glorious location. O

ne of the most dramatic natural locations that I had ever visited, the gorge plummeted below us out of sight - though the sound of rushing water was never that far away.

The Halfway Guesthouse

To complete the hike in a day is possible, but would be rushed and would also miss out on one of the highlights - staying at one of the mountain lodges. These hostels, scattered along the length of the hike, are run by local families and the majority are traditional wooden buildings. The majority are about halfway along the hike, around the area that the average hiker starts to want to pack down for the night. Appropriately, our hostel was called the Halfway Guesthouse and had been chosen by many of the other hikers that we had met throughout the day, making it one of the best places of accommodation that I have ever come across. It was a clear night and as we were along way from any cities the stars were astonishingly bright - so bright that the mountains appeared as silhouettes against the night sky. A large group of about twenty of us from places as diverse as Argentina, Russia, Korea and all over Europe spent the evening sitting on an open terrace eating the home cooked food and drinking beers.

The 30 metre ladder down to the river’s edge

The next morning we were able to get up at a reasonably leisurely pace and carried on to the end of the hike which is normally marked at a guesthouse called “Tina’s” from where people can get buses either on to Shangri-La or back to Lijiang. Halfway to Tina’s is only about a two hour hike, but there is an optional three hour hike from there, which is a round trip further down the gorge right down to the banks of the Yangtze river itself. This is definitely the most challenging part of the hike, with metal stairs and ladders nailed precariously into the side of cliffs. For the physically fit, the journey is certainly worth doing - having heard the roar of the mighty river for the duration of the entire hike on the first day, we were able to witness the shear force of water that had been making all of the noise. Even outside of the rainy season, the river was perhaps the most powerful force of nature that I had ever witnessed. With aching legs we clambered back up to Tina’s and waited in the restaurant there for the buses back to Lijiang. Tiger Leaping Gorge’s reputation certainly precedes it, but it did not disappoint and is definitely the best hike I have ever completed.

The Yangtze River at the bottom of Tiger Leaping Gorge

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Black Dragon Pool Park

Lijang’s garish Old Town

We arrived on our sleeper train (the K9610) from Kunming at 7am and got a taxi to our hotel - the Panba Lakeside Hostel, on the northern edge of the town. Lijiang was awarded UNESCO World Heritage Status in 1997 as the cultural home of the Naxi people. Since then, it has become a major domestic tourist attraction and some would argue, lost a lot of its charm as it sought to cater for the influx of visitors. Sitting in the shadow of the enormous 5600m tall Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, Lijang sits in a valley along with a tapestry of small, picturesque villages which have done a better job of escaping the tourist hordes and remain a little truer to their roots. As a result of this we decided to head to these villages first, hiring pedal bikes from our hostel and making our way about 15km north to the villages of Baisha and Shuhe.

The road north from Lijang towards Jade Dragon Snow Mountain

10000 Camellia Blossom Temple

The whole area around Lijiang appears to be undergoing quite a transformation and the skyline is dotted with tower cranes. The rate of change is so fast that maps that were published a few years ago are often now hopelessly out of date, with vast new highways slicing across the valleys and facilitating a tourist industry that is set to keep on expanding. The advantage of this for cyclists is that these highways are smooth, have dedicated cycle lanes and are relatively quiet. Our first stop, beyond the village of Baisha would be the “10000 Camellia Blossom Temple”, home to an ancient tree that survived the cultural revolution (thanks to a brave monk). The temple itself was not PARTICULARLY impressive, it must be said, but the journey was worthwhile as we cycled up the valley sides and got great views back towards the city. The way up had been extremely hard work, but the way back down was very straight forward, downhill back to Baisha itself. It was clear on arrival in the village that tourist commercialism was beginning to creep in, but it seemed nice and genuine enough for a brief stroll and lunch at a very authentic seeming restaurant. This was soon followed by a visit to Shuhe, essentially a suburb of Lijiang itself which had retained the essential characteristics of the city (picturesque traditional streets etc) without absorbing quite so many tourists.

Shuhe Village

The food court in Lijiang

After returning from the outlying villages we made our way into the city centre via the Black Dragon Pool Park, a pleasant Chinese garden that was included in the price of a ticket we had bought earlier in the day. The old town of Lijiang has been heavily renovated and, while probably being the liveliest place we would visit in Yunnan, felt like it had lost a bit of its character. While retaining traditional architecture and narrow pedestrianised streets, the buildings were full of brightly lit shops and restaurants - as well as a few bars and clubs with loud music blaring. It was still worth seeing however and there were a few gems - quiet temples, traditional shops and a large food court full of some of the best food I had tasted in all of my travels in China. Lijiang is an excellent base to the surrounding villages and mountains and is also more comfortable and exciting than your average Chinese town - well worth a visit.

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The last journey of my extraordinarily fortunate year abroad would also be my third trip to mainland China in the space of four months. Having dedicated the last two trips to the heavyweight cities of Shanghai and Beijing, I was keen to get a little off the beaten track. With every intention of returning to China after graduating, I wanted this trip to be somewhere that was tucked away and unlikely to be passed through on a future trip. On the border with Burma and Laos, while being accessible by direct flight from Hong Kong, Yunnan province seemed to fit the bill perfectly. As probably the most ethnically diverse province in China, it certainly promised to be something a bit different.

After the heart breaking experience of checking out of HKUST for the last time, we made our way to the airport and flew to Kunming, arriving just before midday on a two hour flight. Kunming is the provincial capital and, despite being a city of three million people, is known as an extremely laid back and liveable place. Eleanor (who would be joining me for the duration of the trip) had arrived earlier and had been staying with friends in the city, so was able to give myself and Sergei (who would be joining me for half of the trip). Sergei had totally moved out from Hong Kong (whereas I would be going back) and was able to make use of the left luggage for much of his gear at Kunming airport – 50 Yuan per bag for up to a month, for anybody who finds themselves in a similar situation. We would be catching a sleeper train in the evening (which we had pre-booked online – it tends to be advisable to give a few days in China for sleepers), so we dumped our bags with Eleanor’s friends and headed into the city.

We were based in the north of the town and, with a half day to see as much as possible, meandered slowly towards the train station (to exchange our reservation form for a ticket). Our first stop was the beautiful Cuihu Park Lake which, being the weekend was full of locals doing everything from Tai Chi or dancing to Chinese checkers or getting massages. The Chinese are, it must be said, brilliant at making the most of their outdoor spaces – something I have noticed in every city that I have visited and which makes me wish that the UK had weather that was more suited to such a lifestyle.

Heading south we passed through the (new) old town, where traditional buildings had been demolished and replaced by replicas with all of the modern amenities. This has been a pattern that I have seen all across China and, while these areas are pleasant to walk through (far more so than some of the concrete shopping areas of English new towns), they have certainly lost part of their character. Two old buildings have survived though – the West and East pagodas, which flank the winding alleyways of the market district. The old pagodas have survived the surrounding construction work to become symbols of the city. Eventually we made it to Kunming station, which was bristling with security forces thanks to the knife attack that occurred there a few months ago. Having followed the news story quite closely, it was surreal to walk around the plaza in front of the station where such chaos had previously ensued. Picking up the tickets was totally painless – we handed our printed reservation across one of the counters and received the tickets in return, and after grabbing some local food for dinner we boarded the sleeper train for our next destination, Lijang.

We returned to Kunming at the end of our trip on the bus from Jianshui with time to do a bit more explori

ng in some art galleries and a day trip at the Shilin Stone Forest (see other post).

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