Xi An

We rolled into Xi An in the middle of the night and walked to the hotel. The next day we woke up late and went to McDonalds, because its just what we had to do. We got our Visas extended, mine cost double what each of the Norwegians had to pay, just because I'm an American. We walked around the city and later that night went back to McDonalds, because its what we had to do.

The city is cool, inside the old walls theres a lot of narrow streets with people selling food. The food has a muslim feel to it, a lot of spicy meat, which is always good. The girls in Xi An were also very nice to look at, much better than the previous few cities.

My camera stopped working on the way home from Mt. Everest, so I went to a Canon service center to get it fixed. It ended up costing me $85 for a new fuse. The guy there was nice so I know he didn't cheat me, and it would be easier and cheaper to fix it there than back home.

The next day we went to the Terracotta Warriors. These warriors were discovered in 1974 by some farmer digging in his field. Now there are 3 large buildings with walkways looking down on the excavation sites. They're cool. Out in the parking lot we ran into Stephanie, the girl from Beijing that I knew from when I lived there, and who went to Mt. Everest with us. Its a small world. She went back to Xi An with us and we went to McDonalds. We were hungry. That night, right before getting on our trains, we went to McDonalds again. In total I ate 6 double cheeseburgers. After long train rides and food giving me stomach problems, it was what the doctor ordered.

That night me and the Norwegians split up. They wanted to go to Beijing, which of course I didn't want to do, so I headed to Yangshuo and thats where I am now. They will come down here soon.

The edge of the Gobi desert, Dunhuang and Jiayuguan

We got to Dunhuang in our Lexus and toured some caves. The caves are along the ancient silk road and people liked to dig these caves and stick big buddhas and put various treasures and scripts in there. It was interesting to see a bible and scripts in many different languages.

Then we went to Jiayuguan, the "entrance" to China along the silk road. Here was the westernmost point of the Great Wall, there was a big fort guarding the pass inbetween the mountain ranges. It was very interesting to think about how many different cultures came through here back in the day.

Then we got on a train to Xi An.

Travel: Lhasa to Golmud to Dunhuang

I decided to make up for everything bad I'd ever done and boarded a 24 hour bus, Lhasa to Golmud. Long distance bus station, 210RMB leaves at 4pm. Ask them for the most expensive ticket and leave at 5pm on a nicer bus, and arrive at 11am or earlier in Golmud. Try to get a seat in the front.

In Golmud we got a taxi driver to take us to some friends who gave rides to DunHuang. Hard negotiation yielded a smooth black spacious Lexus sedan for 600RMB. Its a 540km, 7-9 hour trip, maybe 6 hours when they finish paving the first 200km. And don't let a random Chinese lady freeload and sit in the front seat and not pay. It will piss her off but you want the space after the bus ride.

Lonely Planet for DunHuang hotels, dorm bed 25RMB.

Masochism(My trip out of Lhasa)

So I decided to continue traveling with the Norwegians and we boarded a bus from Lhasa to 1100km (660miles) away Golmud. This was a 24 hour bus ride, and my bed was in the back again, surrounded by smoking Chinese men and metal bars forming the beds. I doubt the blankets were ever cleaned, there were bits of sunflower seeds all over mine. The bed was designed for somebody under 5'6", and it tilted up 45 degrees in the middle, underneath of that was the other person's feet. It got real cold at night since we were going through mountain passes around 5000m (15000ft.) The smoking was the worst part, my nose stuffed up quickly and my boogers were amazing when I blew them out when we arrived. But it wasn't that bad, I just will never take that trip again. And I won't have to because they are finishing the only train to Lhasa in less than 2 months. It follows the same route we took. But that means that there will be tons more Chinese tourists. Oh well.

Upon arriving we quickly looked for a ride to our destination, the city of DunHuang, 550km(330miles) north. We found a bunch of guys with cars and after a long frustrating discussion, we arranged a spacious, black, Lexus sedan for the ride for 600RMB ($75US). We were quite upset when they told us 500RMB, but that the Lexus wouldn't leave until the next day, so we agreed to ride in the VW. But as we (3 of us) loaded our bags into the back, a woman got into the front seat, and it turns out she was going to freeload, not pay anything, take the front seat and we would have to sit 3 men in the back, with some bags in our lap. So we said no thats not cool, we can take the bus. She got mad and said why can't 4 passengers sit in a 4 passenger car. We said we could get the same comfort from a cheaper bus and started walking to the bus station. Then our Chinese friend who was helping us bargain said they agreed to have the Lexus leave now for 100 extra RMB, no woman.

In Dunhuang we went and visited some caves that were made by Silk Road travelers, so there was tons of Buddhist statues and in the old days there were tons of artifacts, like scripts in many languages, I saw a bible in some random language, etc. All the goodies were taken by British and French expeditions in the early 1900s. There were a bunch of white people there with tour groups, and they looked pretty wealthy. They probably saw us and assumed we were doing things on our own, compared to their fancy tour. So I thought it was very funny when they were sitting around waiting for their tour bus and the 3 of us jobless backpackers hopped into our black tinted Lexus and sped off.

Tomorrow we are going to visit the western outpost of the Great Wall, and then travel on to Xi An.

Travel: Tibet, Lhasa, Everest Base Camp

To fly into Tibet you need to arrange a permit and a flight. I used Mix Backpacker's Hostel in Chengdu. Flight and permit were 1900RMB. Our 1 hour ride from the airport to Lhasa was also arranged by the guesthouse.

You can arrange a Land Cruiser from Kunming or Zhongdian in Yunnan province for 5000RMB per person. Journey takes a few days. From Golmud in Qinghai province to the north of Tibet you can take a bus to Lhasa. For foreigners this costs well over 1000RMB, takes a few days, and is an "interesting" trip, according to Jason and Jeff. The same ride from Lhasa to Golmud costs considerably less since there are no permits involved.

In Lhasa we were dropped off on a tourist street with some places to stay, but we walked to DongCuo International Youth Hostel. 25RMB per bed.

For Everest Base Camp, one must rent a Land Cruiser. Maybe you can take local transportation but the farther you go from Lhasa, the less Mandarin is spoken. Good luck. 4 passenger Land Cruiser's were bargained to 3200 RMB for a 5 day trip. This covered the car and driver's expenses. We found a 7 passenger LC for 4500, a better deal vs 2 4 person LC's. To find this deal, call 891-6320200 and ask where their store is. It is a Tibet FIT Travel store on the tourist street. Their email is ttbfitsonam@hotmail.com or ttbcq@163.com
Other expenses include sleeping each night, 25 RMB per bed, food, monastery entrance fees (45-55RMB), 405 RMB per vehicle, and 65 RMB per person to enter the Everest(Qomolangma) national park. Depending on which company you use, you may or may not have to pay 150 RMB per person for the permit to travel outside of Lhasa. We didn't pay because the boss said you don't need it if you say you are going to Nepal.

Greg's Travel Guide

Since I have some friends who are in China, and various other people who might want to go some of the places I've been, I will go back and accompany most of my posts with a travel post. Its for people who want a condensed version of the details. Like what bus to get, where I stayed, etc.

 

I'll title it like "Travel: Tibet, Lhasa, Mt. Everest Basecamp"

Mt. Everest

On Thursday, 11 May, the day I was originally supposed to fly home to Virginia, I rented a 7 passenger Land Cruiser with 6 other people and set out for Mt. Everest. The 2 Norwegians, Marius and Gaute, 2 Danish girls that were in our hostel, Sophie and Trina, and then 2 people I knew from ultimate frisbee in Beijing; Jason from Canada and Stephanie from Beijing. We were lucky to find this car, most Land Cruisers were only 4 passengers, but ours had a roof rack and 3 rows of seats. It saved us a bunch of money too. About $80 US per person.

 

We left early in the morning, motivated and excited. We stopped at a 4900m mountain pass which had a beautiful light blue lake on the other side. As soon as we stopped we were swarmed by people carrying dogs, goats, pulling yaks. They wanted us to pay to take a picture with their animals.

 

We continued on, leaving the paved road for a gravel road, driving through the mountains, some had snow up high. The Tibetan landscape is very dry, the ground is rocky and the only vegetation is very thin brown grass. We stopped at various places to take pictures, relieve our bladders, etc. We stopped in a city called Gyantse for lunch. There is a monastery there but we did not go in. In Tibet, almost every single kid begs for money, and is extremely in your face about it. Outside the monastery they were fairly aggressive until we started playing with them. Then they played aggressively. First it was throwing the frisbee, which they loved. Then they wanted us to swing them around in circles by their arms. Then they mobbed Jason and I, clinging to our arms and legs trying to take us down. There were like 4 kids on me, and I'm holding them up and walking around at above 4000m. I was quite tired.

 

We continued on to Shigatse, the 2nd biggest city in Tibet. We visited the monastery the next morning. It costs foreigners about $7 US to get in, so I said that was doing my part, and my reason not to give to beggars and not to put 1 cent bills in all of the altars like the locals did. I would like to think that monastery has outreach programs, and that buying an expensive ticket is more effective at helping locals than giving them small change and encouraging them not to work. But who knows.

 

The monastery was nice, I tried to compare it to Shrinemont, which I guess is a comparable place. I certainly like Shrinemont much more. In the big buildings of the monastery, they have big statues of buddhas, one was a 27m high gold buddha.

 

We journeyed on, through river valleys and over the occasional pass. This was all dirt roads now, quite bumpy. We passed lots of small towns, lots of people sleeping on the side of the road, some people farming, some people coating their houses in yak dung. Sometimes the whole village would be out in the field, hoeing, plowing with the yaks etc. The yaks' horns were always decorated.

 

In one valley, we came across this old castle looking building on top of a small ridge, with a big sand mountain next to it. I was amazed and had us stop for pictures. I took a bunch. We had always passed old structures built on top of small hills and they are always cool. Like Potala palace, it makes me imagine some outpost surveying the whole valley.

 

We arrived in the town of TingRi in the evening, and on the mountain pass before the town, we could see the Himalayas. We saw one huge mountain and thought it was Everest, but I think it was actually Mt. Lhotse, the #2 peak. We stayed in TingRi and at dinner saw some guys returning from EBC(base camp). They said that we were lucky because the weather was so clear, we would get to see the peak. But when we woke up at dawn the next morning, it was snowing hard and the visibility was nothing. So we continued on.

 

At the town of Basong, travelers must board an "environmentally friendly" van to take us on an hour drive to the Rongbuk monastery. This was a 15 passenger Dodge Ram, and the only thing environmentally friendly about it were the stickers on it saying "don't pollute". We ate at the Rongbuk monastery, which is the highest monastery in the world, about 5200m. We still could not see anywhere because of the snow, so we started our 2 hour hike to EBC. It was cold and windy, but hiking at that altitude is challenging, so I warmed up quickly. Two locals caught up to us and led us on a "shortcut" which was rough, mainly because of the altitude. But these guys flew. So we arrived at EBC and were greeted by some locals who informed us there was plenty of room at the Hotel California. This was the tourist side of EBC, you need a special permit to go to the expedition side. On our side was a slew of big canvas tent hotels. Inside there is a stove and padded seat/benches around the outside, which served as beds at night. So we sat around in the tent, talked with people and went to bed, because we couldn't see the mountain. We were told at 7am we could see it. So Marius and I woke up and walked up this small hill with our cameras and froze ourselves to death waiting for the weather to clear and the sun to rise.

 

At first we thought it was a peak that was visible to the left. So we took pictures. But it wasn't very high and soon enough another peak to the right emerged and we thought it was that. But we had doubt in our minds. The sun slowly rose and cleared the clouds away. More people joined us on the hill, but my toes were of course frozen, so I went and put some hand warmers in my boots. When I returned, one ridgeline to the right of the peak leading up was slowly materializing through the clouds. The ridge seemed to continue really high and I got excited. After a while the peak emerged, it was just this monstrous face that towered above the first 2 peaks we saw. In front of the peak is the steep North Face, which goes down thousands of meters to a cool looking valley that curved around one of the smaller peaks. I took a million pictures, even some in the RAW format in case I got some special shots. The mountain was just so impressive, and as the sun kept coming out, it got clearer and clearer, so I shot more.

 

Our driver had told us to meet him at the town at 10 am, which was a 2 hour hike and a 1 hour van ride away, which meant leaving at 7am, before the sun even rose. It was about 10 and the mountain was quite bright, and we were like, who cares about the driver. So we left just after 10, continuing to turn around and take pictures as we hiked. The whole hike back, the mountain was just right there at the end of the valley, and it never got smaller as we hiked away. It was great.

 

We returned home, this time only a one night journey. We were satisfied that we had seen the peak and ready to go home. We were dirty and dusty, some of us hadn't used the bathroom in a few days due to rough conditions etc. Now we're back in Lhasa and I have a slew of pictures to go through.

Mission Accomplished: Tibet

The Norwegians and I woke up and left Chengdu at 5:30 am and flew to Lhasa. I was in the middle of the 8 seat across Airbus A340 but I could still see the mountains outside. I turned to my Norwegian bud Merius who was a few rows back and we both grinned.

 

Location: Lhasa, status: motivated.

 

The plane was full of tourists and a bunch of us from the hostel had a bus waiting for us for the 1 hour ride to the city. The drive was nice, along the flat valley between mountains, with shallow rivers that branched off into different courses through the valley. The mountains are rocky and brown, which is sweet.

 

Lhasa is a small city, there is nothing special about it, since all of the Han Chinese that China ships into Tibet make it look like all the other cities. Except for the Potala palace, which is famous, and extremely awesome looking. It sits on top of this small rocky mountain in the middle of the valley, it looks like a fortress with its huge walls, all painted white. I tried to imagine what it would be like to be on a caravan through the mountains back in the day, and to emerge from some mountain pass to see this huge white and brown palace commanding the valley from its rock. Definitely sweet.

 

We went to a new hostel and ate yak meat for lunch. Yak tastes basically like beef, but a little different. At this hostel is a cafe that offers rock climbing, and the guide there has been to Yangshuo and knows some of the guides I climbed with back there. So it looks like I will be doing some climbing later.

 

Two friends of mine from Beijing Ultimate, Stephanie from Beijing and Jason from Vancouver, got to Lhasa a few days ahead of us and we met up with them today. We are currently planning how to get to Everest Base Camp and do some hiking somewhere while coping with various people's headaches. I don't have one yet, but I really have to wait until after the first night to find out. I think we are at 3600m. But not going to Everest is not an option for all of us, so we'll get there. Its a 3 day trip in a Toyota Landcruiser, costing about $100 per person.

 

Tomorrow we will tour the palace and probably purchase some outdoors clothing (even though we have enough) because the prices are good here and the quality of the fakes is also good. My bag is quite heavy though and fairly large, so we'll see.

Travel: Kunming to Chengdu

Overnight, 18 hour train. Hard sleeper is good, I think 240RMB. You can buy tickets at any travel agent, there are a few around the Camelia hotel.

In Chengdu I stayed at Mix Hostel. 15RMB per bed at the cheapest. www.donkey-pal.com
028-83222271. They arranged my Lhasa trip.

Chengdu, Sichuan

I went on a sleeper from Kunming to Chengdu, and stayed in Chengdu for a few days. For various reasons I didn't do any sightseeing around Sichuan, which is one of China's prettiest provinces. (This sets the stage for my return trip to China). All I did was go to a local panda breeding center. It was good, pandas basically sit and eat bamboo all day, since there is hardly any nutrition in bamboo.

 

The Norwegian guys rolled in a day later and we booked plane tickets and permits to Lhasa, Tibet.

Travel: Kunming to Hanoi and back

Get Vietnamese visa from Vietnamese consulate. Takes 4 days. I forget the cost.

From Kunming, overnight bus to Hekou, the border. 140RMB, leaves at 7:30pm. Not so nice sleeper bus, the roads are rough. You could take a day bus that is supposedly nicer.

Cross the border and get ride to the train station. I forget prices from Vietnam. Maybe 5 or 10 thousand dong. I got right on a 9 hour train to Hanoi, hard seat, I forget the price. You could wait until night to take a sleeper.

Hanoi Backpacker's Hostel is a great place to stay, they picked me up from the train station. Beds are $5.50 US per night. Extremely clean and nice place, run by Australians. http://www.hanoibackpackershostel.com/ Use them to plan travel in Vietnam.

Repeated the journey a few days later. Overnight train to Lao Cai (Hekou on the Chinese side). Left at 11:30pm, unfortunately all the sleeper beds were gone so we took soft seats. Don't do this, wait until sleeper beds are available. It was horrible.

Cross the border and get an overnight bus back to Kunming, leaves at 7:30pm, pay attention to the 1 hour time change. China is an hour ahead of Vietnam. This bus is nicer, just try to ask for a bed in the front, not the back.

In Kunming, the Camelia Hotel Hostel is nice, I think 30 RMB per bed. It is called Cha Hua Bing Guan in Chinese. Or the Hump Hostel looked nice, I didn't stay there though. Google them.

Asian Transportation

In Hanoi I met two Norwegian guys who were planning on going to China and then Tibet, so we decided to roll together. Friday our visas arrived and we got on an overnight train to the border. Its an Asian holiday now, so there were no sleeper beds available, we bought soft seat tickets. The seats turned out to be not so soft, quite uncomfortable, with lots of sharp metal corners to limit mobility. So that was a rough ride. We got in in the morning, then crossed the border and waited for an overnight bus to Kunming.

 

Sleeper buses are arranged like this: Think of a five lane swimming pool, lanes 1,3,5 have beds, 2 and 4 are aisles. In the very back of the bus its a continuous bed, so 12345 are beds. Well we got beds in the back. So that means that on the horrible roads that are all over China, I was getting airborne from the bumps while trying to sleep. I feared I that my back would be stabbed by some metal bar near the window.

 

And while I've been traveling, people and guide books are always talking about how not to offend the locals, customs, courtesies etc. Like not showing people your feet, not putting your feet above someones head etc. There are things you can do however that won't offend most Chinese, that would surely offend or piss off most people, regardless of race or religion. Like: spit on the floor of a restaurant, throw trash out the window of an automobile, or throw trash anywhere for that matter, answer your cellphone when it rings at 1am on a bus full of sleeping people and proceed to have a conversation by yelling into the cellphone, smoke anywhere you please, in the company of anybody, and apparently knock the ash of your cigarette onto people sleeping below you, and then burn the guy sleeping next to you with your cigarette while trying to reach over him and throw it out the window. It wasn't me that was burned but I witnessed it as this dude reaches over an English guy sleeping on the bus with us, and when the cigarette hit the airstream coming in through the small window opening, the ashes flared up and went all over the white guy, who woke up and was a little annoyed. I was just awake because I was busy getting launched into the air by the bumpy road, and so I told the Chinese guy he had no courtesy, smoking on the bus and doing what he did. I'm not really good at cussing in Chinese, because they don't do it too much, I hear it surely starts a fight, and I didn't want to have issue any beat downs. So anyway, it was a long 36 hours in total of traveling.

 

The Norwegian guys headed off to Lijiang and Tiger Leaping Gorge. I went to Mojiang, Dr. Yin's hometown, because his friends showed up at my hotel yelling my name saying we're leaving now, get ready to go! So since they have been very nice to me by paying for nearly everything in Kunming, and helping me etc, I felt I should go with them on their holiday to say thanks. But I really just wanted to say hello to this girl that lives there, the daughter of one of their friends. They were to then continue on to another town, and wanted me to come, but I said I had to go to Tibet quickly. I really did not want to sit at every single meal with them, not understanding them speak their local dialect, and being forced to drink lots of alcohol when every single guy in the room has me drink with him. The Chinese guys are weird when we eat. They sit there and every 5 seconds give cheers to somebody else and take a drink. They peck at the food like picky little kids, but eat a bowl of rice. This is while they are telling me what to eat, saying Greg, eat some of this, or "are you full?" me "yes" them "ok, eat some more of this". So I eat more than all of them combined. They also seem to talk a lot about the food, when ordering, or forever commenting on what I'm eating. Its weird. So they order enough for 4x the number of people who are present, but they just eat 10% of it, I eat another 10%, then they get the rest in doggy bags, so they can munch on it later. So I decided I had enough of that and went back to Kunming.

 

I went with Dr. Yin and his wife (who stayed in Kunming) to a wholesale market and bought a bunch of minority outfits for Mrs. Schuler back home in VA. She requested I buy them for her so her Chinese class can use them for a performance. Mrs. Yin did the negotiating, and to get the non white person price, she told them I was a student from Beijing who came down here to buy a sample of outfits for my class, and would come back for a whole slew more of them if my classmates liked them. So yeah.

 

Next day I took an overnight train to Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province, to the north of Yunnan. This time the ride was pretty nice, trains don't bounce, some of the smokers would actually go to the bathroom to smoke. Here in Chengdu I'm staying at a hostel with lots of backpackers and some Chinese backpackers too. This morning I went to a panda breeding center, and saw some pandas. They are neat, they just like to sit and eat bamboo. Pictures should be up on Flickr.

 

Now I'm just waiting for the Norwegians while I visit parts of Sichuan. When they arrive we will go to Tibet.

Hanoi

I didn't do much in Hanoi, just chilled. I saw Ho Chi Minh at his mausoleum, visited the Hanoi Hilton, and ate lots of French Toast. The Half of the Hanoi Hilton is ironically now gone and is a huge hotel. The rest of the prison is a museum showing how the French used it to torture Vietnamese revolutionaries. There are two rooms showing some of the American pilots' gear, and pictures of them enjoying life in the prison; playing basketball, doing arts and crafts, and eating 'square' meals. The captions said that even though they were in prison, life was generally good for the prisoners and they were about as happy as they could be in captivity.