South China Travels

A month of travelling around the more tropical Southern regions of China was a welcome reward for months of saving our wages and living in a small, dull 'city' that doesn't even appear on most maps of the country. Each stage of the trip had been meticulously planned a month or two before with hostels and flights already booked. Having been talked out of exploring the remote, freezing North during our winter holiday, we decided to begin our journey taking in some beautiful scenery and fresh mountain air in the more temperate Yunnan province, which borders Burma and India to the West and Laos and Vietnam to the South.

We met up with another teacher in the capital city of our local province and spent a night drinking and recounting our experiences before flying out to Kunming in the West and then boarding an overnight train to slightly more remote terrain.

We arrived in the town of Dali early one morning as the sun was making its first impressions against the deep blue. Compared to our industrious home-from-home, I immediately noticed the serenity of the picturesque town rousing from its slumber against an impressive backdrop of snow-dusted peaks. The Old Town where we were staying had much of the beautiful traditional Chinese architecture that I had only really seen in contrived fashion on the roofs of gift shops and mock-traditional fast food outlets. As we trundled past it, surrounded by school children and farmers carrying their tools, I felt that I was entering part of 'real China' that I had experienced very little of. The people here, far away from Beijing and Nanjing, the modern and ancient capitals respectively, did not belong to the Han ethnicity that makes up the vast majority of the population. Many of them had eyes that looked more Arabic than Chinese, downward facing ovals that sat closely together and scanned our white faces with a mild curiosity that soon evaporated, their minds turning back to focus on more important matters. They were all very dark skinned; certainly not buying into the idea that most Chinese held: white skin is far more beautiful than black. Some women wore traditional Bai outfits; brightly coloured clothing that had not changed in style for hundreds of years. I got the feeling that these people were not dressing up for the tourism trade. They were real people going about their lives the same way they had always done, not trying to scam money from the influx of idealistic Westerners that came to Dali during the 60s in search of an undiscovered paradise. I liked Dali for its obvious differences to the rest of China and I liked it instantly.

A walk through the ancient West gate of Dali Old Town took us down a beautiful street, willows lining a small man-made stream. The locals use this source of fresh water to clean their cooking pots and clothes so it is not just for the aesthetics. Yunnan is famed for having some of the most original and delicious cuisine in China, influenced by the delicacies of its bordering countries and its largely Muslim population. The beautiful aroma of spiced lamb skewers hangs heavily in the air and is enough to confirm this theory.

The Old Town itself is a mixture of traditional stalls selling Yunnan's most famous delicacy, 'Across the bridge noodles' and outlets aimed at tourists selling fake silver and other tat. The hippie influx was still noticeable with posters of Bob Marley and the red, gold and green visible in some shop windows but it seemed forced rather than natural. I quickly tired of the town and found myself drawn towards the towering mountains that dominated the skyline and which the town seemed to naturally flow away from, ending at the huge lake that sat placidly reflecting the formidable rocky faces back at themselves.

The next day the three of us took a cable car that rose and plummeted and then rose again over thick woodland to a peak more pedestrian than I was hoping for. There we abided to the unspoken tourist regulations by having our pictures taken in front of crystal blue natural springs and paid 10 kuai (about £1) each to hold a baby monkey.We left the tourist trail behind and walked for the best part of 5 hours along a mountain pass, relishing in the uninterrupted sunshine that bathed us in an unfamiliar, forgotten warmth and allowed me to walk comfortably in just jeans and a t-shirt.

The views of the landscape below were quite breath-taking and seemed to change with every bend but they were only an appetiser and merely whetted my appetite.

The next day I was surprised to find that my good friend Sam from England had managed to traverse his way through a vast amount of South East Asia and had succeeded in finding us in Dali. We rented electric scooters and explored all around Erhai Lake on the pathetic whining mosquitoes, Rose riding pillion on my bike and Vince on Sam's. The scariest moment I have had the misfortune of experiencing came when I decided to ride Sam's bike back as it had almost run out of juice and could go no faster than about 10 km/h. With the other three way ahead on their bike, I had to ride through an unlit tunnel at a pitiful speed with lorries and buses constantly trying to overtake me and blaring their horns in frustration at their inability to. I emerged on the other side physically unharmed but with my nerves battered, struggling to tackle a slight incline.

After travelling the more planned routes of Dali, we felt the need for some spontaneous exploration so we prepared for another mountain hike. This time we did not use man-made contraptions and endeavoured to climb as near to the peak of the mountain as possible using what little paths offered themselves to us. Finding our way to the top was arduous but the sense of accomplishment great. Looking back at some of the photos I took I still can hardly believe that we climbed so high, uninterrupted woodland surrounding us and with only the steep gradient beneath our feet and the out-of-service chairlift hanging over our heads, reaching high up into the clouds, telling us we were going in generally the right direction.

After speaking to a few people at our hostel and consulting our guidebooks, we decided that Tiger Leaping Gorge, part of the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain range, near the town of Lijiang, was an unmissable destination. It was the name as well as the promise of immense natural beauty that sold it to us. We awoke early one morning and took a six-hour bus ride to the start of the trail, misty mountains looming ever closer. Sam was in a bad mood after leaving his necklaces in the Dali hostel, one with particularly high sentimental value. Sam was still venting as I got my first glimpse of the peaks, a magnificent shimmering of white against the dark sky. I was speechless and could only nod for him to look in the same direction. Turning back around, his bad mood had disappeared and we walked for hours in the shadow of these great mountains, feeling very privileged, until we arrived at a guesthouse situated around the halfway point of the trail just as the sun was drawing its last golden beams away through the gorge. That night I saw possibly the clearest sky I had ever seen and the longer I looked at it, the more it seemed to open up and reveal greater expanses of the cosmos. Our guesthouse was the only light source for miles and I revelled in this alien sensation. We awoke the next morning and took in a hearty breakfast before tackling the rest of the trail, a welcome largely downhill trek that was provided by the previous day's arduous climb.

After we had arrived back at the base of the mountains, we stopped for lunch at a guesthouse overlooking the gorge and the thundering white waters below. We had little time to reflect on our epic encounter with the mountains however as we were soon aboard a bus to Lijiang, where we stayed for one night before leaving early the next morning for our short plane journey to the tropical island of Hainan and the town of Sanya, China's most Southerly point. A week melted by as we spent every day lapping up the sunshine and playing football on a glorious beach, surrounded by Chinese and Russians. Tourism was very much the main industry here so we were treated to English breakfasts (with watermelon on the side) and a variety of other delicious foods. I can honestly say I had never even considered Russian cuisine before visiting Sanya and after sampling their 'potato is fruit' delicacies, I would never again. Our short stay in Sanya was over before we knew it and we left with sadness, thinking that 5 days of relaxation was not nearly enough. We could have comfortably stayed there for our whole holiday but we knew another adventure was round the corner so we packed our bags and boarded another plane, this time destined for one of the world's Metropolises.

We landed in the muggy haze of Hong Kong and were instantly pleased with the cleanliness and bilingual nature of the place. Things were ordered and there were signs everywhere warning of fines if people smoked inside buildings or spat globules of phlegm onto the pavement. Hong Kong was by far the most expensive place we had been in China but it was worth it for the pizzas, frozen yoghurt and other treats with which we stuffed ourselves over the coming days. If you have no money then most things are unattainable and all you can do is stare at the enormous symbols of wealth while the super rich fly around in their private helicopters and spend their millions in Prada and Gucci. Our room was in the notorious Chungking Mansions, a menagerie of different cultures and shady businessmen who were always trying to sell you a fake Rolex, handbag or 'Something special buddy?', hashish.

I can honestly say that Hong Kong was not my kind of place. Everywhere was far too crowded and the streets bulged with human mass. We managed to get some respite in a park situated near Chungking in the centre of Kowloon, a haven of exotic birds and tropical trees with enormous, fantastically gnarled roots. Here we witnessed a new social event, Filipino women dancing provocatively to entice males. One girl was taken off by a small group of men, a greased up scumbag at the back giving me and Sam antagonistic looks from behind his fake branded aviator sunglasses.

In an effort to see something worthwhile in Hong Kong, we spent a day going to the see the giant Buddha statue that resided high up in the hills. I could not imagine a greater waste of time or money as when we arrived at the peak after hours of waiting in line and an unenjoyable cable-car ride through the opaque mist, we could see no higher than the Buddha's hand, outstretched as if asking for money. It seemed to be the ultimate hypocrisy, this supposed place of worship marred by Subway outlets and other tourist attractions. We left thoroughly disappointed and angry that this monument to Buddha was actually just a money-spinning tourist hotspot that gave people no warning that on cloudy days you couldn't actually see the Buddha and that the statue was constructed in the bygone era of 1992. We thanked fate for what we saw on the news the next day however; the cable-car which we had used only the day before had broken down, leaving hundreds of passengers suspended in mid-air in sub-zero temperatures and, with the cloud enveloping the cars, not even a view to look at. It now seemed that the Buddha's hand gesture was warning us to stay clear of such contrived, artificial places and we duly obliged.

On the promise of scenic walks and to escape the bustling city, we decided to take a day trip to nearby Lamma Island. Not knowing what to expect we boarded a ferry in the choppy harbour on a dreary morning and headed into the unknown. I suppose the island is quite indicative of the whole area; lots of small businesses appealing to tourists surrounded by uncharacteristic scenery that would be quite pleasant were it not for the destructive stamp of heavy industry. The beaches were shadowed by an evil towering behemoth; a coal-burning power station that dominated the landscape and belched out acrid smoke into the already heavily polluted atmosphere. It was still a welcome relief from the thick crowds of people that fill the streets of Hong Kong and we spent the day walking through the hills and looking at the giant fish on sale at the many seafood outlets.

After the Chinese New Year parade, I was convinced that Hong Kong was slightly disappointing considering the high hopes I had for it. The parade was nice enough if you could see it but with all the streets lined with so many people it was difficult even to see over Chinese heads, especially as any time something of interest went by, cameras were thrust into the air and our faces, blocking our view but giving us a good view of the many tiny LCD screens. The one saving grace of our time in Hong Kong was the firework display which, due to some lucky connections and impeccable timing, we arrived to watch from a balcony on the 57th floor of an apartment block overlooking Victoria Harbour just as the first explosion rocked the night sky. It was break-taking to see the illuminated buildings from such a vantage point with the fireworks directly in front of us and the hundreds of expensive yachts anchored in the harbour far below. We were stunned by the performance and it certainly would be one of the few experiences of Hong Kong that would remain long in the memory.

By this point, we were nearing the end of our time off. Vince was heading to Harbin, a city in the freezing far North of China, for a couple of days and Sam was flying back down into Malaysia. Rose and myself were running low on money so decided that the best and most economical course of action was to stop off in a supposedly scenic city on our way back, ZhaoQing in Guandong province. The short coach trip deposited us in the city in the evening and it was almost as if we had never left Hong Kong; the streets were packed with people out enjoying their rare days off and Spring Festival decorations were everywhere. We booked ourselves into a rather plush hotel and spent the next few days walking and cycling around wooded areas and self-declared scenic spots. Small mountainous islands rose from the placid stillness of a beige lake, eerie beauty hanging in the damp, heavy air. Compared to the rest of our trip, ZhaoQing was fairly uneventful although we were unlucky enough to be perfectly placed as a rat made a badly timed dash across a path and got its head crushed underneath the wheel of a tandem, thrashing about wildly for a few seconds before lying still. We stood watching, horrified at the site. None of the locals seemed too bothered.

We spent Rose's birthday walking around a pleasant national park made up of hilly climbs, waterfalls and plenty of Chinese tourists. A temple was situated near the top of one incline and here I felt my hatred of organised religion crystallised as I saw the all too easy exploitation of wealthy businessmen seeking to get more wealthy. This I did not mind so much but the temple resembled a market with many stalls selling incense, trinkets and Cornettos and in the centre was a pond overflowing with tortoises, many of them dead. Next to the pond was a monk with buckets full of the tortoises, selling them so they could be put back into the stagnant water, with people believing that releasing an animal will bring them luck and good fortune. The only catch for the tortoises is that they are never actually released, only put into the overcrowded pond briefly before being fished out and sold all over again. It really sickened me to see how attaining money seems to be the focus of all things in China and how even the supposed holy men were buying into it, scamming money from gullible fools. It is no surprise that in China people will climb over each other to get ahead in the pursuit of wealth, no matter how debilitating the effect is on other people, businesses and the environment. The monk looked at me and all I could do was shake my head in disappointment, he did not look even slightly ashamed.

That night we went out for dinner and caught the end of an amazing fountain show, the water dancing along to 'Time to say goodbye". It seemed a strangely appropriate finale to our amazing month travelling through numerous different landscapes and cultures and as the mist of the final jet drifted slowly back into the lake, I was left wondering what would be our next and possibly final adventure in the land of the rising sun.