Nearly Stepped In It - notes from my journey

And... We're back...

Sorry about the technical difficulties for the last week, but it turns out my site was shut down due to SPAM!! Not lack of payment or some other screw-up on my part as most of you assumed, thank you very much. Turns out it didn't even have anything to do with James or Niall. Thanks to Erika Maffetore -- who, with the help of her husband and my best friend, Jason, is going to be having a baby next February!! -- it's all straightened out... for now anyway.

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So, I'm gonna use this entry as a bit of a summary of where we are, where we've been, and where we're going. I hope this doesn't get too dull. I'll get into more specific stories in the next few entries... I just figured I'd give some context.

NOW:
I'm sitting at "Friendship on the Internet Bar" in a small town called Dao Cheng. Like just about every confined space in China, this cafe is full of (mostly) men smoking and spitting. Nearly everyone in here is playing some sort of online game. People throughout China sit for hours in non-ventilated internet cafes smoking cigarettes and playing video games. Not that people at home don't do that, just that here they're all crowded into one claustrophobic little room. Oh, and the music generally ranges from awful to ear-bleedingly terrible.

Dao Cheng is in western Sichuan, near Tibet. We're at about 11,500ft and the altitude ain't been doing good things for any of us. Jon's been nearly incapacited 2 of the last 5 days and just pretty miserable the rest. On a positive note, he did manage to figure out a way of hanging is ass off the back of the little stool in our bathroom, so he hasn't had to squat for at least two days. Dad's not faring much better, though he's in more of the "Delhi belly" category (I don't think he's using jon's stool technique though - no pun intended) with some headaches, shivers, and exhaustion thrown in for good measure. He's only been bedridden 1 of the last 5 days, but he's moslty been managing to drag himself around. I, on the other hand, have been mostly spared so far. Some headaches here and there and the inevitable running for the nearest toilet, but by comparison I'm like Slim Goodbody. A model of good health, really.

We've been here for the last three days, trying to get a bus further south. All sold-out. It's beautiful here, but there isn't much you can do when you generally feel like hell. We're finally off tomorrow morning at 6 am.

UP TILL NOW:
We've covered a fair bit of ground in a short period of time. (Just to note: someone just sneezed on me. I swear... I got misted. Some people are just really freaking disgusting!) As most of you know, we started in Beijing. We spent about 3 days... not nearly enough, but I can't say I fell in love with it. Beijing is just really overwhelming. Everything is on such a grand scale that you can't help but feel small. Not in a New York sort of way. In New York everything is condensed. There's an energy created by everyone doing what they do in a small space. In Beijing it's different. Streets are wide... really wide. And buildings are big... really F'n big. The city just sprawls out in rundown, communist-style (read: dull, lifeless blocks) buildings that seem to go on forever. There is construction EVERYWHERE as the city ramps up for the 2008 Olympic games. In order to prepare, they're destroying all of the hutong (alleyways) which are the traditional homes of the Beijing people (mostly very poor) and they are replacing them with modern, soulless shopping malls and hotels. It wasn't all bad, and actually I wanted to stay a day or two longer but for the most part I wasn't overly impressed with it's current state. Our first night there we found some great streetfood off of Wang Fu Jing, the main shopping street. Then we found the night market which consists of one long stretch of booths selling skewers of all sorts of things most people don't want near their mouths. Squid, scorpion, snake, frog, centipede, beetles, baby sparrows, starfish, eels, etc. Most were about $1-$2 per skewer. We went for the seahorse. It was crunchy, salty, and a bit fishy... and it was a whopping $5.50!! We didn't find that out till it was too late. We later found one of the best places to eat was the food court of the mall. It was full of little booths that had all sorts of local dishes that you could just point at and watch them make for you. It was clean, easy, always crowded, and everything was pretty much delicious. Otherwise, the parks and "sites" were nice, but... the rest was well... eh. On our last night there dad and I went to the small square in front of St. Thomas church and listened to an impromptu group of people singing opera and traditional songs while some others backed them up on accordian and flute. Others in the square were chatting, eating, skateboarding, or just generally lying about. I think that was one of my favorite moments there.

From Beijing we went to Datong. Man, that is a crappy city! It's an old coal town. Everything is dirty and rundown. There's plenty of half-lit neon announcing half-assed discos and hotels and there's just an overall sense of a place that's worn-out and needs to be put to rest. We went for a few sites outside the city (a wooden Taoist/Buddhist/Confusian temple perched on a cliff-face and a grotto of 47 mostly unimpressive caves full of carved Buddhas -- the largest one standing 50 ft tall! The 4 or 5 that were impressive were REALLY impressive and made up for all the rest.) Luckily we were able to book a tour for the next morning, which allowed us to book a train ticket out of there that next evening. We did find a great place to eat and drink though. Right on the street near the train station. Pickled peanuts, some sort of squash flowers, snails in chili, and plenty of little veggie and mystery bits. I think we had 5 large bottles of beer and all we could eat for about $2.50. Then we got the hell out of there.

Next stop, Pingyao. An ancient walled city, and former center of banking full of former "mansions" and traditional coutyards. It is the last as well-preserved in China. Walking the streets is like being in a time-warp... minus all of the shopkeepers yelling at you to have a look. The streets were lined with shop after shop selling all sorts of curios pulled from people's attics and backrooms. Though, it seems they all have the same stuff in their attics. Buddah statues, Mao's Little Red Book, not-so-great calligraphy, tibetan chimes, antique-looking locks, and other such tat. The other shops in town were making traditional chinese shoes or they were hotels/restaurants. The hotels/guesthouses were mostly centered on beautiful the courtyards of the former rich bankers that used to call Pingyao home. The city went bankrupt when the government defaulted on loans in the early 20th century. Luckily most of the buildings were spared during the Cultural Revolution though it fell into serious disrepair. Like everywhere else, there's new constuction all over as the government waits for the tourists to come pouring in. If you happen to go there, we found a great hostel there called Harmony Guesthouse. It's run by Mr. and Mrs. Deng in the home that Mr. Deng's father bought when he moved there 50 years ago. They've only been open 6 months, but they are some of the nicest, most hospitable people we've met. Besides, Mr. Deng is a fantastic chef. All of that made the fact that we were stuck there a day longer than necessary a lot more pleasant.

After 2 and half days there we took the night train to Xi'an. Another walled city, though far bigger and far from feeling ancient. Xi'an is famed for the Terracotta Warriors that were unearthed about 30 years ago. There are thousands of lifesize soldiers, each with a unique face, horses, and charriots that were constructed and buried by for the tomb of a Qin emperor around 210 B.C.. The city itself is fairly modern, though at it's center is an ancient Bell Tower and Drum Tower. It has an interesting tangle of streets in its muslim quarter, which contains the largest mosque in China. Getting out of there proved to be some trouble as all of the trains heading south were booked. A group of us, Rob and Villamain (Holland) and Guran (Sweden) and Marie (France) all decided to brave the train station to get tickets ourselves. After an hour+ in a hot, sweaty, impossibley crowded station, the best we could do were hard seats for the 16+ hour journey. Hard seats are 3-person benches in non-air-conditioned cars packed with all of the people who have unreserved tickets(ie. no seat whatsoever)and are desperate to take any chair they can. It didn't sound like fun. The next day we managed to find a cheap flight instead. $50 a ticket... worth every penny. We gave our train tix to Guran and Marie. Hoped it would give them room to stretch out. It didn't.

An hour after takeoff from Xi'an airport, which was suprisingly modern, we arrived in Chengdu. The flight included one of the worst airline meals i've ever had. It consisted of some sort of veiny, Frankenstein-esque mystery meat, pickled chunks of something (dad says ginger), a roll, and some fruit. Jon wouldn't touch the mystery meat. I found that by burying it in the roll with some pickled bits it really didn't taste terrible. I think dad actually enjoyed it, but he enjoys head-cheese and tripe so he doesn't count. As for the fruit, it was different colors but basically all tasted like pineapple. Oh, and there was some sort of cake. It was gross. That I couldn't eat. Anyway on to Chengdu.

Chengdu is another big city. It's dirty and everywhere you look is scaffolding, cranes, dug-up streets , and the bright flash of someone welding something together. Even as late as 10 or 11 at night you can see sparks falling from high up on some soon-to-be apartment tower or see two or three guys working in and around a manhole cover doing whatever it is they do down there. We spent a couple days wandering and making plans for what to do next. We checked out "Mr. Wang's Tiny Museum" which was one old and dusty room of his house packed to the brim with Mao memorabilia. Photos, news clippings, marble busts, pins, dolls, and even a ratty T-shirt from California with Mao's image on it were all on display. Mr. Wang himself was anxious to pull us in and have us take pictures of him. He had obviously done this before as he posed in just the right spots and made sure to tell me where to stand when taking the photo. He spoke no english, was nearly deaf, and seems to have lost his mind long ago. We'd met a young chinese couple ("Alex" and "Solo" - she just liked the sound of the word "solo") who were happy to help us find the place and got a kick out of trying to talk to Mr. Wang. Later we met up with Guran and Marie again and had some laughs over food and drinks. Turns out that train-trip nearly finished Guran... it was over 17 hours of fighting people away from their seats and trying to grab the littlest bits of sleep. The extra tickets meant nothing and neither of them slept much on the whole way. Guran was ready to pack it in. He was going to head east towards Shanghai and get out. After hearing their train stories we were sure that flight was the right thing to do. We finished our time in Chengdu with a tourist-oriented intro to the Sichuan Opera, which turned out to be excellent. Singing, dancing, "changing faces", fire-breathing puppets and more. It wasa great end to our few days there.

This has gone on far longer than I planned. I'm still about 5 days behind where we actually are, but I'll have to do this another time. i've been sitting here for about 3 hours and Jon and dad have just come back to get me and glare at me over my shoulder... it's 11:30 and we have a bus at 6 am. We're off to Shangri-la tomorrow. Hopefully I'll find somewhere to finish this up.

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shouted from the mountaintop by marc
July 27, 2005 9:04 AM | tell me (324) | show comments...

Hi all - Erika here. Marc's hosted under our account.

Sorry for the past few days - the site was under an incredible attack from the mean spam people. It almost took down the server, so our hosting company shut the site down. I just managed to get in and delete almost 6000 (!!!!) spam comments.

As a result, I've needed to close comments on all posts older than 15 days. I'm sorry about that, but the spammers seem to go for old posts. Hopefully this will prevent another shutdown - though I'm thinking I should have left the links to midgetmotorsports.com. It seemed right up Marc's alley. ;-)

shouted from the mountaintop by jason
July 26, 2005 11:49 AM | tell me (0) | show comments...

The Great Wall-mart

"Just give him 10 yuan to leave us alone!"

There's an aussie family heading down the path looking very disgruntled. The two kids are out front, a boy and girl about 13 and 15. They seem to be in a hurry. Mom and dad aren't far behind. Dad is yelling at mom. Son is yelling at sis who's yelling at dad. They're all incredibly annoyed. Then i see why.

"You buy posscahd...t-shuht?"

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We decided to go to Simatai, a section of the Great Wall that is a little further out of the way and a lot less touristy than Badaling, the restored section of the wall that is nearer to the city, and, from what I hear, very crowded. This was a saturday so I was afraid it would be unbearable. Approaching Simatai is spectacular -- especially after a two-hour bus and another hour plus in a minivan. The wall here is mostly unrestored and balanced on top of a dangerous-looking ridge with steep climbs and falls. We watched two people carrying a large stone up the path hanging from a pole between them and it made imagining how this was built all the more unbelievable.

In order to get up to the wall, one can hike up a path from the bottom of the slope in the 95 degree heat, or take a cable-car halfway. We're not stupid.

From what I had read about Simatai, it was a fairly remote section. There were less tourists and less touts. This turned out to be true. But... although there are less people trying to sell books, bracelets, postcards, ice-cream and such, the manner in which they go about it is quite impressive. It seems they've taken the team approach. As dad and I climbed towards the top, with Jon up ahead of us, we walked through a pack of locals keeping cool in the bushes. Each was armed with a plastic shopping bag and the whole crew became quite animated as we passed. One woman looked at us, called to the rest, came our way, and next thing we know we've got a new hiking buddy. She offers some postcards and we say 'no'. She pays no mind. She starts fanning us, telling us to go slow, be careful, watch our step.... She won't leave us alone. Then we see Jon up on the wall. He's got a 60yr old woman fanning him while he stands there waiting.

"I'm pretty sure she said she'd fan me for one yuan. I told her no, but she won't stop."

We looked around. There were a few other groups of tourists, each with there own local Wall-mart representative. Some groups had as many salespeople as tourists.

It was funny -- at first. We'd talk to them, well, mostly hand signs but they spoke some. We'd laugh. They'd laugh. They asked if we were family. We said yes. More laughing.

"Posscard?"
"No thanks."
"English book?
"No."

More laughing. A photo. Another.

"You buy something?"
"We don't want anything."

Some smiles. We pretend to lose them. There's no chance. We pass others exchange hopeless smiles with other tourists. Some shoulder shrugging. Nobody knows how to shake them... other than buying something, course.

This goes on for hours!!

We continued to walk along the wall, taking in views of the mountains, farmland, and seemingly endless, snaking wall in both directions. It's an unforgettable sight. We went from watchtower to watchtower with our friends always a few steps behind. They'd stay quiet for a while, then start fanning us. Dad felt bad. He wanted to buy something. I'm all for helping people out, but I'm certainly not going to be annoyed into it.

About an hour or so into it, Lady#1 dropped out. I had taken the ignore-and-look-through-her approach and I guess she gave up. Or found someone else.

After about two hours on the wall, we watched a storm coming our way from the distance. As we hurried down, dad caved in... he felt so bad. It was hot. She spent so much time on (pestering) us. He wanted to give her something. We bought 'posscards'. She got a big smile.

She really was sweet and I think everyone up there felt bad for them. For a little while anyway. Then I thought of the aussie family. I understood. I mean, you really have to have patience in a place like this. Patience and a big smile.

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shouted from the mountaintop by marc
July 11, 2005 6:44 AM | tell me (886) | show comments...