Camels, Sand, and a Bloody Nose

The weeks never were going slow since I got here, but it seems that the last month has slipped by in a matter of seconds. It's actually quite flooring how fast ten weeks can pass you by. I don't feel as if I missed anything and I wouldn't change a thing about this study abroad. But still, the days are going all too quickly. Either way, in the past week I was able to go to yet another place that I would have never dreamed of going and speak more Chinese than I ever imagined I would know (this time all by myself). The distance from Chengdu to my desert destination, Dunhuang, is about the same as from Tampa to Detroit. Needless to say, a long trip; especially when there's no direct flights that connect the two cities. So after an hour flight to Lanzhou Airport, an hour bus into the city, a transfer to the train station, and a 14 hour train ride I finally arrived. Considering that I didn't even check when trains left Lanzhou for Dunhuang throughout the day, I feel like I was really lucky to get there as smoothly as I did - without a bump in the road, air, or tracks.

Waking up at about 7AM on the train to the sound of other passengers rustling around isn't exactly my favorite thing in the world. But when the first thing you see is a stretch of desert until the world eventually starts to curve too much for you to see any farther, there is little to complain about. At about 830AM I hopped off the train into a place that feels the exact opposite of my former home, Florida, and my current one in Chengdu. If my body is right then I would guess that the humidity in Dunhuang hovers around 0%, sometimes going into the negatives just to show you that it can. I was immediately rushed by people when I walked out from the station offering me a cab into the city. A quick explanation of where I was going and $3 later, I was on my way. We headed into downtown, took the turn south, and headed down the main drag of Dunhuang towards the sand dunes and my hostel.

This is what had brought me all this way. Not only spending time in the desert, but a desert that I had only seen before in movies. Not just a bland ground with no grass, but also huge sand dunes that go on for miles and somehow seem to look like they're made of gold when the sun catches them right. Before I had even reached my hostel I knew I had made the right decision by coming here. The view was absolutely perfect, better than any picture could ever capture. And to top it off, I was staying right at the foot of the dunes for only $4 a night.

Immediately after checking in, I found another traveler to go explore some of what the city holds. Our first destination was to the Mogao Caves. The caves are surprisingly a little famous and recognized internationally for their cultural importance to Buddhism. As a quick summary, it's about 500 caves that are carved out of a huge slab of sandstone - about 250 housing Buddhist artwork and the rest were used to house monks a few thousand years ago. Although not the reason why I came to Dunhuang, I was happy to see that there is some culture blended in with this naturally beautiful place. However, I felt like the caves were slightly disappointing. There were some very cool carvings and paintings, but we weren't able to look into about 98% of the caves, leaving more to the imagination than I would have liked. Ironically, the highlight of going to the caves for me was buying the ticket. All I did was simply walk up, ask for two tickets (including my new friend David from Wales) and hand her the money. But I came to find out that she sold me a ticket for a Chinese tour guide instead of an English one. This means that the Chinese I spoke to her was actually good enough for her to think I could handle an entire tour! Considering I literally only knew how to say "hello" and "thank you" ten weeks ago, I was absolutely stoked to have this mistaken compliment thrown my way.

After our tour (unfortunately in boring English), we quickly made our way back to the hostel to catch the overnight camel trek through the desert that we had booked. The trip went from 5PM on Saturday until 9AM on Sunday and included a trip on a camel about three hours into the desert and setting up camp there for the night underneath the open desert sky. And so my camel, Deng Deng, was to be my best friend for the next 17 hours as I slowly chafed my inner thighs on his back through the desert, enjoying every minute of it. Here's a short video on top of one of the dunes at about 8PM on Saturday.

After this I made my way back down and started to relax around our tent. Dinner called for Ramen noodles, a cucumber, and bread (not good, but with how little I get to eat bread now, all bread is good bread). The sun eventually set over the dunes and night was taking over. I was looking forward to being able to enjoy the stars but unfortunately even the desert gets cloudy some nights. So instead I packed it in pretty early and stayed out of the 30 mile per hour sand flying around outside.

It was a very early morning for both me and Deng Deng since we had to get up at sunrise. But you gotta do what you gotta do in the desert. We quickly made our way downhill in the dunes and got back to the hostel in a little over 2 hours where I had to say goodbye to my best friend.

On Sunday, me and a few other people decided to get a cab for the afternoon and take the 170 km round trip journey to check out one of the last outposts of the Great Wall as well as a gate to the Silk Road. Both of these ended up being quite anticlimactic, but I'm glad I made it out there. The Great Wall outside of Dunhuang doesn't exactly look like you would imagine it to. After over a thousand years, the world tends to do what it wants to buildings - even if they are famous.

That night was spent exploring the night market in downtown, sampling the local dumplings, and getting to know some new people. It turns out that my camel trekking buddy - remember Welsh David - was in Urumqi last week when the riot broke out between the Han Chinese and the Uighurs. I'm not a good source of reliable news on this but he did have an interesting story for me. He said that on Tuesday, the day after the riots, he was walking around town around midday just doing some seeing of the city. And at about 1PM all of the stores closed their shops and all the owners went outside with weapons in hand. Some had bats and beating sticks, some had long metal poles with knives on the end, and some were sharpening their swords on the curb. It really was a surreal site, he told me, to see how alive and well racism is in China. It was really interesting to hear some of what went on in Urumqi without having to read slanted Chinese news.

The next day I spent about five hours just hanging around on the dunes, not doing much at all besides soaking in the sun, the view, and the sand before my train back to Lanzhou that afternoon. Later that night, on the the 14 hour ride back the other way, the lack of moisture in Dunhuang finally took its toll as blood started slowly falling out of my nose. I took my time and made my way to the sinks by the toilets in between carts to clean up, only to find a part of China that I'll hold forever in my heart. A middle-aged man was using the faucet near the ground to wash his own feces off of his foot, seems we had taken an unexpected turn while he was taking care of things. And this is my true final memory of Dunhuang, a small city that is absolutely beautiful and typically Chinese all at once.

The next morning I woke up roughly 45 minutes outside of Lanzhou with my neck hurting from the terribly uncomfortable hard seat that I had been in for the last half a day. After pulling into Lanzhou I helped David get his train ticket to his next destination and sent him on his way. Now I had to figure out how to get to Lanzhou's airport about an hour away. I really didn't want to have to rely on a cab because it would have ended up being expensive as hell (I now am only thinking in terms of RMB now and not the dollar). So here came my true test of Chinese. Walking up to the information desk I asked how to get to the airport from the train station. The attendant (talking as fast as humanly possible) of course told me to just take a cab. I explained to her in fluent Chinese that taking a cab is too expensive, and asked about a bus that goes there. She said that the city has one but it's about a 20 minute walk from there. She gave me the directions, I nodded my head, said thanks, and started walking in what I hoped was the right way (but honestly thought there was no way in hell it was right). But sure enough after about 15 minutes I stumble across a bus with characters on it saying it was heading to the airport. So there you have it, I'm now fluent in Chinese. Sure enough I got to the airport no problem and here I am back in Chengdu, reminiscing of my days with Deng Deng.

Xi'an, Mt. Hua and Being a Sissy

I've realized that traveling while doing a study abroad is awesome for two reasons. The first is obvious, I get to go check out an amazing place in China. The second, I don't go to class and for some reason feel that it's justified. As if I needed some other reason to get me traveling more, I now have one.

Either way, my latest side-trip from the weekly hustle and bustle of studying in Chengdu was to Xi'an and Mt. Hua, about 2.5 hours from the old capital city. Before leaving I found myself getting very giddy about heading to Xi'an. This was the first place that went to this summer that people back home have heard of. When I told my friends I was heading to Chongqing they gave me the reply, "There's really a city in China with that stereotypical of a name?" And my parents were less than knowledgeable on what to do in Kunming, much less where the hell it is. So being able to say, "I'm going to Xi'an this weekend" and getting a normal response was really quite refreshing.

After yet another 18 hour train ride we arrived in the sweltering heat of Shaanxi Province. Due to the "weather phenomenon" that is Chengdu (being surrounded by mountains and being under pollution), I've managed to escape the heat for the most part this summer. But Xi'an brought me right back to the weather of Florida that I'm used to.

Walking out of the train station in Xi'an during the summer will really throw you back a step. The first thing you see is the city wall that surrounds the old part of the city, the first thing you smell is the horribly pungent (and somehow good tasting) cart food, and the first thing you feel is the sun throwing 104 degrees of hell in your face. It really is a lot to take in at once.

After getting our bearings set we decided to do what any group of 20-something year olds would do in Xi'an - ride a tandem bicycle around the city wall!

After enjoying the next hour and a half pedaling around the rim of the city, we checked out the Forest of Steles. This place has an awesome name for how mundane it is inside. It pretty much just consists of a bunch of stone tablets (some impressive looking and others not so much). It's prize product is a stone that predicts the coming of Christianity to China. However, this tablet does a great job of blending in with the rest of the 2300 that look just like it and it was very easy to just walk right by it. Oh well, maybe next time.

After cleaning up from a hot, sweaty day it was time to head out for the night in Xi'an. For those of you who don't know me, I like to be efficient. If I'm going to go out for a night in some new city, I want to be getting drunk while seeing some of the sights. So it was fortunate that on our way to the bar we passed the Bell Tower lighting up the very center of Xi'an. It was a great way to start off another night of drinking in China.

Saturday morning we headed out to go see what brought us to Xi'an, the infamous Terra Cotta Warriors. These 2200 year old guys are about an hour and a half from the actual downtown Xi'an, which was great so I could sleep off my hangover. Upon getting there I had forgotten since my last trip to Xi'an (5 years ago) how pretty the area around the warriors is. It's nestled right next to the mountains and offers a beautiful view of natural China. Excitedly, we hurried into the first pit of warriors as my memory came rushing back and everything seemed so familiar to me. But somehow you never get used to seeing an army of over 8000 clay, life-size figurines (most still underground).

It was nice to be able to go back to this place and see it in contrast of what Southwest China has to offer instead of placing it next to Beijing and Shanghai like I had before. I'm definitely able to appreciate more of China now than I had before, for both reasons of age and time spent here.

After seeing the First Emperor of China's army we set off back to downtown to check out the Big Wild Goose Pagoda - mostly because I liked the name of it. Plus, it turned out to have a social square around it that was very lively with the Chinese people enjoying their evening and KFC trying to sell more chicken wraps.

The next day we woke up nice and early to head off to Mt. Hua, about a 3 hour trip outside of Xi'an. We had seen plenty of scary pictures of the climb up the mountain, talked to a couple of travelers who had already made the voyage, and decided to hell with it, we have to. This is where I strongly recommend you run a Google image search of Mt. Hua and see what comes up first, as this is the only real info we had about the place.

It started out a rainy, nasty morning over Hua Shan (as the Chinese call it, since "shan" means mountain) as we started our hike. The first three hours found me in a pink poncho I picked up for three kuai (~50 cents) absolutely sweating my ass off while enjoying some of the most beautiful views that I have seen so far in China. Eventually we found ourselves above the rain clouds and enjoying a nice breeze cooling us off during our difficult climb up.

After nearly four hours of climbing we made it to where the cable car takes the lazy, half-assing tourists to enjoy the view. From here you can spend about another four or five hours hitting up all five peaks that Hua has (creatively named north,east,south,west, and central). But considering we only had about two and a half hours of daylight left, we decided to book it to West Peak to get checked into our hotel and do some more exploring the next morning. After getting lost from the group and wandering in the wrong direction and in a circle for an hour and a half on my own I was able to find the hotel with the others sitting back enjoying an overdue rest. But this was no time to rest, the sun was setting over the West Peak and we had the most beautiful view in all of China.

The next morning we woke up at 5AM to watch the sunrise and get started on our hike to the other peaks. Our first walk was from the West Peak to the highest point on South Peak. The views from here were outstanding from everywhere.

And I know what you're thinking. Yes, the statue on the top of the South Peak does look like a giant penis with dragons on it. Anyways, from here we wound around towards the East Peak and what makes Hua Shan as famous as it is - the plank path. This path is nailed into the side of the mountain with a 1000 meter drop below you. It is only three planks wide and didn't even have harnesses on it until 2005. This is where my friends become badasses and I crap out. It's not that I didn't think that I could do it, because I know that I'm physically able to walk sideways and climb down/up a ladder. These are all things I've done before. But the older I get the worse I am with heights and this I knew I just couldn't handle. So, sitting on the sidelines I watched four of my friends climb down and have the time of their life in China. I'd be lying if I didn't say I was jealous, but I'd also be lying if I didn't say that I think there is something wrong with them.

From here we looped our way around to hit up the East Peak then quickly made it back down to the cable car. Unfortunately, we had to take the easy and convenient way down due to time constraints with getting back to Chengdu. I would have loved to stay on Hua another day and possibly grow the balls to climb out onto the plank path. But in the mean time I'll just enjoy knowing I was able to be on that mountain and enjoy China away from the pollution, traffic, and swarms of people.

Leshan's Buddha and a Healthy Sweat

Only a quick 2 hours away from downtown Chengdu is the city of Leshan. A very small, rural town that has only one reason for being on any map, being the home to the largest Buddha statue in the world. Sitting in the side of a cliff, it's over 230 feet tall and something that simply is unnecessarily huge but great. Rumor is the guy was built over 1200 years ago to safeguard ships traveling on the river that bisects the city he overlooks. Well, nowadays the only ships seen going by hold tourists taking pictures of what makes Leshan great.

The day started with taking a cab to the bus station at 830 in the morning (directly during rush hour) and hopping into the 920 bus to Leshan (going back through rush hour traffic again). When we finally pulled in at about 1130, we were ready to get things rolling. The trip started with the less-famous, well hidden, and equally impressive Laying Buddha.

From here we made our walk through a sort-of theme park of Buddhism. Decorated caves and temples were all along the way while incense filled the air. A few short minutes later we came across a huge flight of stairs with a small place to pray up top for those so inclined. My train of thought was, "I've come all the way from Florida to Leshan, China. I can at least walk up these stairs now that I'm here." And I'm glad I did. At the top I found chains to place a lock onto that is supposed to bring good luck to my family (you're welcome, guys). I chained it up, tossed the key on top of a much smaller Buddha than I had come to see, and kept on my way.

From here, it was an extremely hot and humid walk to the Giant Buddha - or Da Fu as it's known locally. By the time I walked up to the head of the Buddha I was already drenched in sweat, but I couldn't have been happier. This was actually something I had heard about before I came to China. I had seen it on TV and the internet. This guy was big.

Immediately when I saw the top of his head I really was able to put into proportion how huge this thing is. Carved directly into the side of the cliff, it sits overlooking the river and part of the more modern city. Starting at eye-level, you're able to descend stairs right next to him so that you can truly get a feel for how big he is. After winding down plenty of stairs and stopping for too many photo ops, we got to the base to look up all the way up. Standing in awe, this is what sat next to me...

And that about wrapped up the trip to Leshan. From there we got on the bus and headed back into Chengdu. I've noticed in the last couple months that living here has quite a bit of perks - one of them being that I can take only 10 hours out of my day to go visit the biggest Buddha in the world. Next perk, Xi'an and it's Terra Cotta Warriors.

Stone Forest, Ancient Town, and Not Wanting to Leave

This past week I took Friday off from class and hopped on the Thursday afternoon train heading south to Kunming in the Yunan Province. Our train left Chengdu at 1:30 in the afternoon and ended up pulling into Kunming at 8:30 the next morning. Needless to say it was a long trip. Here's the first installment into my attempts at video...



Getting into Kunming early in the morning gave us the whole day to get settled into the Hump Hostel and explore the city. After dropping our bags off and getting maps/info on the city we headed out the door into the heart of town. Kunming is another typical big Chinese city. It's nothing on the scale of Shanghai and Beijing but none-the-less still a mega city. The skies were their usual greyish hue and buildings did their best to be as tall as possible. There's a different feel to Kunming than Chengdu and Chongching though. I've started to notice that each city within China really does have its own distinctive personality, no matter how similar they may seem on paper.

We spent the majority of our time in Kunming exploring parks and pagodas, but what brought me here is what's known as the Stone Forest. About an hour and a half away outside of Kunming is Shilin, a small city with one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. I find myself saying every couple of days, "Wow. I've never seen anything else like this before." And you'd expect that after thinking this 40 times in the past 6 weeks it would lose its meaning and excitement, but somehow I still get floored by so much here. The Stone Forest is literally just what it sounds like - huge stones jutting up to over 100 feet out of the ground for as far as you can see. Another UNESCO World Heritage Site (which we seem to keep visiting just by accident), the Stone Forest is grotesque, nasty, and absolutely gorgeous all at the same time. The rocks themselves are not the prettiest thing I've ever seen; but somehow when they are all together you can't help but to think about how beautiful it all is. This alone is reason enough to bring you to Kunming, or eastern China for that matter.



After our Saturday in the Shilin, Sunday we spent around the city again before we took the overnight bus from Kunming to Lijiang - famed to be one of the best cities to visit in SE China (and yet another UNESCO site). The 9 hour bus ride was a hell of an adventure. The bus was crammed with as many beds as possible, with mine about 5 and a half feet long. I decided to catch as much sleep as possible while on board since we'd be getting in a little before 6:00 in the morning and I didn't want to miss sunrise in this place. Just about every hour I was woken up from the bus taking a tight turn through the mountains and every time I peaked my head out the window we were about 5 feet from the side of the road, with no guard rail, and a drop so far down I couldn't tell you far it is. None-the-less we pulled into Lijiang safe and sound and right on time. After dropping our bags off I grabbed my camera and took to the Ancient Town. Not being a big city and with having hundreds of years of history behind it, Lijiang has a lot more charm than 99% of the cities in China.

The early morning in Lijiang is really the best time to catch the town. I was able to see the sun rise above the mountains surrounding the city and remove the fog from each alleyway and canal in the city while kids made their way to school and locals set up shop and cleaned up for another day. After winding my way through the "Venice of the Orient", I headed to the top of Sleeping Lion Hill for the best view of the city - both the Ancient Town and the New Town which sit right next to each other in perfect contrast. The view was everything I had heard it was going to be.



After grabbing lunch I went into a park at the edge of the Ancient Town to snag a view of the Black Dragon Mountain and the pool that is at the base of it. You can check out the view in the slideshow below.

From here we decided it was time to start drinking. We found a bar running happy hour and decided to drink some 5RMB (US ~ $.80) Tsingtao to really send off the weekend in good fashion. After a throwing some back and sipping on some baijiu (a Chinese liquor that tastes like rubbing alcohol) we were feeling good and surprisingly speaking some pretty good Chinese to the bartender. Then, in typical Chinese fashion, the bartender asked us to join her and her 4 friends for a free homemade dinner. Of course we could never turn down an opporutnity like this! So there's the three of us (a white kid, an Indian, and a Philipino who everybody thinks is Chinese) sitting down drunk for dinner with some Lijiang residents. The food was great and the time spent with them was even better.

We had to wake up very early on Tuesday morning to catch our flight back to Chengdu. The weekend was great and I'd only change one thing about it - the time I spent gone. In the next month I really hope I get back to Lijiang and use it as a hub for the treck through Tiger Leaping Gorge - a two day hike through some mountains surrounding the deepest land gorge in the world. So in the end - Lijiang, I hope to see you again soon.

A Tourist In My Own City

Last weekend was spent in Chengdu to see more of my summer home holds. Unfortunately we're slammed with work during the week which makes it pretty difficult to actually get out and do things throughout the city, so that means the weekends we have to make the most of. After a Friday consisting of class and a five hour language tutoring session, I was more than ready for a few days off. Waking up at the crack of noon on Saturday, we hurried off to Wuhou Temple - a glorified museum with the usual things found in such places. Maybe I'm just getting used to visiting temples, but the standout here for me was the gift shop. It's really cheap and has tons of fun little souvenirs (including a cartoon painting of a cow if you want it).

Afterward, we walked down the road for my second trip to Jinli St. Already a veteran of the experience, I wasn't phased this time by the Starbucks and TCBY right once you walk in (although I still hate it). Here we found out that Chengdu is currently running the 2nd Annual International Cultural Heritage Festival - Chengdu, China (I know, the Chinese have a way with words). But the benefit to all that is this - in Jinli's performance center (an open air area with a stage) they were holding traditional operas all week long. We decided to peek our heads in and stand in the back to watch a few minutes of the show. Immediately when we walked in the hostess asked us if we'd like to take a seat. We said yes, so we quickly were escorted to the front row in typical/ridiculous fashion. The seats we were just put in for free cost a cool 180RMB, and that's only the beginning. About 15 minutes later the show came to an end and we were asked to go up on stage and present the main actresses with their ceremonial gigantic bouquet of flowers. We got to shake hands and exchange the usual "nihao" with the whole cast. This is when the swarm of Chinese paparazzi runs up for the photo-op of the opera actors and whitie. I'm still waiting on pictures from this mess from a random Chinese guy who was obsessed with us.

Sunday was another early morning (woke up at noon). This day we took our second stab at going to Wenshou Monastery (it closed 10 minutes before we got there the day before; note - closes at 5pm). Good thing this place was well worth the extra effort. It was a beautiful getaway right in the heart of the city. There's something to be said about any place in this city that can take you away from the typical sounds and smells that linger around at all times. On top of that, it's just a great place to go see. While we were at the monastery there was an afternoon worship going on. It consisted of about 200 people (from young monks to old citizens) performing rituals inside the massive library they have. Also included is a peaceful park, multiple temples (of course), statues of everything holy, and a school for music and calligraphy. The place is absolutely worth any time you spend there.

Sunday night I finally went to the famed (by tourists) Sichuan Opera on Qintai Lu, right down the road from me. Samantha Brown (the 2nd love of my life) first introduced me to this show about a year ago and I've wanted to go ever since. I had heard mixed reviews from some of the other students around SWUFE but decided it's a must-do in Chengdu. The show absolutely didn't let me down. It was way better than I ever expected. It had it all - music (sounded more like a group of 3rd graders given crazy instruments, but still great), comedy (couldn't understand more than 10 words of it all), hand puppets (both one on a stick in the air and the shadow puppet variety), and what makes the show famous, the "face changers".

At the end of the weekend, I'm very happy that I have decided to stay in Chengdu and truly enjoy everything that this city has. Living in a city, it's easy to pass over all the great things that it has to offer. Going back and enjoying all those things makes me really happy about my decision to spend my summer in this great city.