through the looking glass

right, so this is entirely too long in coming, but come it must. trip report to follow. right now, the roundup, and what practical info I remembered to write down ::

train to lanzhou - missed (ooh, good start ; )
7am bus to Lanzhou
early am bus to xiahe missed. bus to linxia (departs every hour-ish), shared taxi to xiahe (mind the men with machine guns)

food :: everywhere, and almost all the same. sichuan place’s a nice break from banana pancakes. dorjee at the gesar restaraunt’s the sweetest thing since chocolate
lodging :: see previous post for the name, but it’s just outside of town and truly lovely. a friend of mine, it seems, it marrying one of the guys who used to work there.
of note :: many tourists, chinese in particular, seem to regard the place as a living museum. it is, you know, not. if you feel the need to stare at people in tibetan dress, at least learn a few words so you can converse with them while doing so. or something to remember that they are in fact people trying to live their lives in a very, very touristy town.

also, while many tibetans do speak mandarin, it’s seen by some as rude to automatically start talking to them in that language. you can at least learn hello in tibetan, and then ask if they have any english, or french, or whatever else you might speak. then, if you have to use chinese it’s obviously not because you think they actually are chinese. but that’s just a thought.

bus to hezuo
quick transfer, bus to luqu

about halfway to luqu is a stunning monestary. stunning. almost went back. if you’ve got the time, stop there and tell me what it’s like.

I love Luqu. top five in china. car drives by. horse rides by. car drives by. horse rides by. fantastic food. my tibetan is minimal to say the least, but curious locals came by for a chat of sorts when I sat in the square for a while, and you can meet plenty of people while walking the countryside. my personal rule of thumb is, walk near enough to their camp to let them know you’re there and curious but don’t go over unless they wave you in.

food :: usual gamut of restaraunts, and 2am street meat’s available
lodging :: I’ve no idea the name. very clean, though. it’s not like the one main street’s exactly awash in hotels (yet). knowing we were about to start roughing it we splurged on an ensuite double with western toilet for an extra 20 kuai (60 total), only to find that there was a glass wall separating the bathroom. heh. first time in almost two years I didn’t look at a room before taking it. but again, very clean, and met some great people while staying there.

bus to zoige not running (various reasons given, no one seemed surprised)
bus to langmusi
lunch of famous yak burgers. poor alex didn’t get his name on the board out front, but we helped in naming the first ever pizzas
taxi from langmusi to zoige

lodging :: right, there are apparently only two kinds of hotels in zoige. uber posh and flea bag. uber posh runs a couple hundred kuai a night and swear up and down there’s no such thing as a dorm. after visiting, oh, nine places we ended up in a flea bag, 50 kuai/night for a double (no bathroom), no water in the entire establishment
food :: fantastic place down the road from the bus station, hotpot restaraunt (only one on the street) also served dishes. best lamb I’ve ever tasted, by the jin, salted, local style. astounding.

6am bus, zoige to songpan

lodging :: I’ve lost the card! from the bus station, head away from town a smidge and cross the street. charming place with a second floor balcony visible from the street, run by a lovely hui woman. 50/night for a huge ensuite double.

horseback riding :: a number of people were injured while we were there (none in our group). whether this was a horse problem (they were a bit feisty, and the guides don’t actually teach you the command words or motions unless you pester them for a while about it) or uncomfortable riders doing the wrong thing at the wrong time I cannot say. worth doing, I think, just use your noggin and stay calm

6am bus, songpan to chengdu

(nearly die of heat, chengdu in summer sucks. don’t hang laundry to dry in places without cover, there’s a nearly useless rainfall almost every day for half an hour)

lodging :: we stayed in the loft hostel, new place owned by the same guy as dragon town. nice layout and ammenities, comfy dorm beds, but no a/c. I prefer dragon town for the ambiance. last time I was there I noticed construction on a few old courtyard houses near dragon town, I’d be curious to know how they turned out
food :: great indian place. only one in town, worth asking around. hemp bar for night life, hands down.

bus to kanding, well, sort of. landslide destroyed the road, so the six hour trip took two days. a pleasant two days, but two none the less. overnighted in, well, I’m not entirely sure, but it might have been ya’an

lodging :: difficult to find cheap lodging. went literally all over town, everything’s too posh for us. ended up back near where we started and this guy walks up, looking for a room? exiting the bus station, cross the river, and where the three roads meet on the far side of the road up a staircase to a back outside hallway there’ll be a sign. or just stand there looking lost. cause we got a gorgeous room, ensuite, facing the back away from traffic for 40/night. I could move in there it’s that nice. wish they had cards
food :: tiny tibetan place on the tourist strip has authentic tibetan fare, worth checking out if you’ve never had proper yak butter tea. there’s one other tibetan place farther away from the center on the same road. only one of the two will be filled with tibetans, this is a good clue.
visas :: got mine extended here. they were pleasant, and it took all of four hours.

early bus to litang

lodging :: all seemed about the same. stayed in the swan something, or something swan. dorm beds for 15/ but were about to price jump for the festival. also, people had managed to reserve rooms, so if you’re coming in for that, call ahead

no busses south from litang. occasionally there are some, allegedly, but often not so much. quite possibly the least helpful bus station attendant in china. as we were there just before the horse festival, you’d think that would be one of the times it’s a yes, but you’d be wrong. the fact that lonely planet and a few others apparently say this is a frequent and fairly reliable trip at any time is the reason I don’t trust guide books. a few other travellers planned to go the way we eventually went, but even though we went slowly we never saw any of them again…

hitched ride in a cop van to daocheng (possibly also known as sumdo)

lodging :: stayed the first night in one of the places across from the bus station. nice, clean, sweet staff, but paper thin walls. second night found the chinese backpacker’s haunt - the yading.net youth hostel. cheap, clean dorm beds, hot water once you figure out how to turn it on, and fantastic staff
food :: do not leave without trying the local mushrooms
touristy stuff :: I’ve yet to see this in the foreigner travel stuff, but it’s apparently big with chinese tourists. didn’t see it, out of our budget and time frame, but apparently they run regular trips so you can hike and camp near glaciers

big bus mess in daocheng, bud lady said sold out that day, come back at two for next day tickets. we came back at 1:30, by the time the lady showed up to open the office they were mysteriously already sold out again. there were a couple chinese backpackers having the exact same problem, so.

shared taxi to zhongdian (intriguing story about switching taxis an hour into the trip, our new driver who almost pulled a knife on someone but an hour later turned out to have the most beautiful singing voice, but I digress)

lodging :: shangri-la old town youth hostel. on the edge of the tourist bit. cheap, clean dorms. great showers.
shopping :: if you’re heading south but want to save a bit of cash, they have lots of the same stuff as dali and lijiang will, but at better prices (if you bargain).

(from here it gets easier, travel wise. where before creativity ruled, from here on out the only difficulty was getting ourselves to regularly scheduled transportation. it’s also the first time we’d really heard english since chengdu)

bus to lijiang

bus to dali

lodging :: I will always love the bird bar, even if they did double in price in as many years.

bus to kunming

honestly can’t even remember if we stayed, let alone where. wait, no, we got stuck here, no trains to guilin right away. stayed at the cloudland youth hostel. not as great a location as kamillia, but as it’s fairly new it’s, well, nicer. exact same furniture as the bell tower in xi’an, oddly enough

train to guilin

transportation :: book out the moment you arrive. we did, and still the next available sleeper north wasn’t for a week. went into yangshuo hoping the ticket agents could find something, and did manage to get a soft sleeper for the right day (though as we missed it…but again, digression). if you decide to try agents in ys, pick up a card from the ticket agent next to the train station just in case

bus to yangshuo

lodging :: the stuff in the tourist bit is reasonable, and convenient for late nights. we chose a place five minutes off the main drag that was cheaper for nicer rooms, and their trips were reasonably priced

bus to guilin

lodging :: back street youth hostel across the street from the uber posh sheraton. taxi driver had a hard time with the address, so make sure you have it written down or remember the word sheraton (think it’s the default location for depositing guilin foreigners)

train to xi’an

lodging :: bell tower youth hostel, as always. gotta love em.

train to tianshui. lodging :: home.

a long, long time ago, I visited mexico for the first time. I think about it occasionally, as I’m pretty sure it’s the trip that implanted the travel bug. i’d been abroad with my parents, islands mostly, but nothing adventurous, nothing exotic or real in the way travel is maybe supposed to be. recent coincidences have forced me to look back in time, and I’m not entirely unhappy about the randomly resurfacing memories. like repeatedly pilfering the gameboy of a kid who didn’t (imho) look out the window enough, who has apparently gone on to be one of the most well travelled people I know. or a very memorable kiss by a palm laden moonlit pool.

but the memory that I think started it all is this.

we went horseback riding. mind you, the horses were not what one might consider tame. not even by chinese standards. and someone saw fit to put my, what, 13 year old self on a stallion. breathtakingly beautiful, but absolutely willful. I think I’d been on a horse once before. the group started off away from the farm, destination unknown or unremembered. my stallion tested me, ran my legs through pricker bushes, turning one eye back to see if I’d flinch. I didn’t. I’m not sure if this means I passed or failed.

off in the distance shimmered a lake, a handmade stone wall descending in. as the rest of the group made their leisurely way, my stallion stopped. turned that eye to me once again. and bolted, full throttle towards the lake, towards the wall, and for one exhilerating moment into the air, flying over it.

I don’t remember how it ended. I remember the guide yelling and me, smile plastered across my face and waving as we galloped across the open land. ‘don’t worry,’ at the top of my lungs, ‘this is amazing!’

I remember the way back, because one of the others (who shall even now remain nameless) was thrown while we crossed a stream. farm in sight, guides behind helping the fallen rider, a few of us ended up a bit ahead. maybe they were hungry or tired, or maybe they wanted a firework finish. three horses took off for home. only they didn’t follow the path, they headed straight as the crow flies, though that line crossed directly through the cropland. which was mud. I remember seeing the other horses almost up to their chests in mud, wondering at that kind of strength. I remember the feeling of ground skimming just barely under the soles of my boots. I remember wishing I’d a hat to throw in the air and yell yeeehaw

a kiss, keep-away with a gameboy, and flying. no matter how many times I return, that is how I will always remember mexico.

I just found this straggler. thought I’d toss it in. course, as it’s a year and a half later, 99%’s prolly outdated. well, you get what you pay for

Also bear in mind, this trip was, well, I could afford to splurge (for me this means the cheapest room I can find with a private bath and minimal vermin), so I did. you can find cheaper bunks, there’s almost always a place in china with dorm beds for next to nothing if you look hard enough. this time around I just got a bit stuck on a guarenteed shower after walking around the desert in summer. though I took taxis, busses can be had to all the tourist spots, and some of the less tourist ones if you can convey to a local what you’re trying to do and they’re feeling helpful enough to tell you which bus to take and where to get off. however taxis are one of those expenses I don’t so much mind, as more often than not, if you share a smoke and get to talking, they’ll tell you about a place or two not listed in any guidebook that’s free to enter and likely better than anything you would have found on your own, given only a day or two in each place.

road conditions ::

the gansu highway (silk road) is under major construction, so large chunks are simply missing or still to be built. as it’s the desert off roading as it were isn’t exactly a challenge, but it’s not smooth as silk and it will take you a bit longer than advertised to reach your destination. I found it was only about an hour or so longer when it was longer, but I got lucky more than once. don’t put yourself in an I-must-catch-this-train frame of mind.

Hami :: Xinjiang

Hotel :: Hami Binguan, 80 kuai with foreign expert certifcate (after much haranguing, they did *not* want to give me a cheap room). excellent room, excellent location.
Local map :: available, chinese only
3 wheeled moto taxis :: 3 kuai gets you around most of the city
taxis :: start at 5 kuai, runs up fast, swear they must use meters at all times
time zones :: screw it, just go where you want to go and hope for the best
food :: buy as many melons as you can carry. seriously. also eat anything from the small places in the ugyur areas, particularly things with bread. amazing bread products.

Gansu ::

Liuyuan

not many busses from hami to anxi, no matter what the ladies at the bus station say the day before. dropped here off the bus to dunhuang to catch one of the dunhuang-anxi busses. a strip of gas stations, repair shops and a few exhausted restaraunts, try not to get stuck here. bus timetable unknown, ran into a minivan driver who usually runs from dunhuang to jiayuguan who gave me a lift in the empty bus, 70 km for 80 kuai, down from 150. likely busses pass through sometime, but it was noon under the desert sun so I caved.

Anxi

Hotel :: , 100 kuai, bargained. decent room, a/c, electricity disappears for a while in the afternoon
Local map :: not available, but not necessary, the town/city is tiny
moto taxis :: readily available, but not necessary
taxis :: overavailable. getting to places out of town will cost you a pretty penny and you should be prepared to negotiate heavily, including the walk away. taxi to three places, ending in qiaowan for lunch and bus catching, 70+ km on seriously bad to no roads, 7ish hours, and some good insights on how to see local attractions without paying entrance fees, 200 kuai (down from an initial 800). I bought us lunch, and he waited with me for the bus even though I said it wasn’t necessary.

Qiaowan

nothing to see except a run down shack housing the human skin drum (I gave it a miss), decent restaraunt with very friendly owners across the street, busses come through about once an hour on the hour heading down the silk road. 40 kuai for a berth on a sleeper bus to lanzhou that dropped me on the outskirts of jiayuguan, though they would have gone in had I not said ‘oh, anywhere’s fine.’

Jiayuguan

Hotel :: ridiculously expensive, too used to tour groups. looked in piles of places, finally settled for 120 down from 240 in the poorly located ** with a nocturnal hairdressing shop down the corridor. cheapest place in town is 80, go for it if you have zero sense of smell, don’t need light, and don’t mind bathrooms that look like they survived the rebellion.
Local map :: never found
taxis :: helpful, but like to keep the meter running while being so. decent prices for out of town trips, 60 kuai half day out to the first beacon tower, stopping at the oldest bit of the great wall, passing by but not stopping into the great wall fortreess. 150 kuai to the ‘underground art gallery’ wei-jin tombs (well worth it in my opinion, but sparse, and not much to learn if you don’t have any chinese) then on to jiuquan, including hotel shopping (he even helped with some chinese to chinese translation)
food :: restaraunts close early, very early. street food hard to come by in the north end of town. either stay south towards the square/new bits or eat before 7.

Jiuquan

Hotel :: perfect location, beautiful room. ‘lost the key’ for the cheap 80 kuai rooms (something about not having a number that all chinese people have) so they bumped me to the 200 rooms for 100. tv gets the english channel.
Local map :: never found but never really looked
taxis :: available but not always familiar with where you want to go. ~20 km round trip to the mountain caves with two hour wait, 80 kuai
language :: insane dialect here, do not expect easy communication even if you have excellent putonghua.
food :: south from the drum tower a few blocks on the left is a little ‘muslim lanzhou beef noodles’ shop run by a wonderful family, three generations. stop in and say hello, the noodles are excellent too. snack row is about a block north and east from the drum tower, everything I tried was great.

Zhangye

Hotel :: excellent location next to the food market. most of the hotels are circled around, then on the block east of, the drum tower and almost all are cheap, varying only in cleanliness and possession/lack of nocturnal hairdressers. 70 kuai for a nice room, 24 hour hot water (a bit slow to warm up, just let it run a bit) and a/c. zhangye binguan looks pleasant, clean, and is in the quieter southern end of town, but its outer gates were locked when I arrived at a bit after noon.
Local map :: never looked
taxis :: never took
food :: street food just east of dico’s off the drum tower square. the local specialty mien was excellent. a lot of good small places with outdoor just south of the stuppa.
other :: sitting in the square, three grandmothers discovered I could speak chinese and within minutes I was surrounded in a crowd of at least 50, all trying to decide which of their relatives I should marry. they do not get a lot of foreigners here.

Mati

I decided against mati, but talks with the locals yielded the following information. they all swear that it’s day trips to mati only, no hotels. as the guide books promise accomidation I’m thinking that mati has become more touristy over the years and most people do the day trip to the temple. minibusses leave ~7:30 am and return at 5, it’s about an hour and a half I’m told. my other assumption is that, like xiahe and some other borderland tibetan areas, the locals are likely a bit fed up with tourists coming in and gawking at them. I wouldn’t go expecting the guide-book-promised crowd of curious locals offering tea and leading you around for the price of good conversation.

Wuwei

Hotel :: I started at the vaguely falling apart but quite friendly-staffed ** for 90 kuai. not too noisy, good location, but bizarre hot water routines even though they claim 24 hours and the toilet took about three hours to refill. on returning I splurged at the luxurious * at one end of walk street. very worth the extra 20 at 110 discounted.
Local map :: available, chinese only
moto taxis :: available, good knowledge of city
taxis :: available
food :: night market/snack row is down an alley off walk street (to the north, almost across from the big shopping center with outside tables for drinks and yogurt). fourth row on the left, first place on the right had the best fried baozi and soup I’ve had in china.

Minqin

no one in minqin could seem to understand why I was visiting minqin. locals friendly, though the occasional male seemed to possess a different set of rules of propriety towards females than the average chinese man. a very sweet three wheeled moto taxi driver took me around to the historical bits and through the old neighborhoods, including a very cool old city guardhouse/landlord estate. after of course driving past almost every other three wheeler in town to point out his foreign passenger. about two hours, maybe 15 km, 35 kuai. the caretaker, btw, was so happy to have someone show up that he told me more than I could ever comprehend about the history of the area, and was incredibly patient with my combination of poor chinese and boundless curiosity. there were a few hotels in town, including the minqin binguan which looked pleasant enough from the outside and was near the center of town.

a note about guide book maps ::

most of these cities are growing at an astounding rate. the central parts of the map will still put temples and such in the right places, but things like the bus stations are often not where the map says they are because the city has grown outwards and the stations follow. so getting off the bus and walking in what you think is the right direction isn’t always a wise move. though I have to say the outskirts of zhangye are lovely ;-)