The Gamer's Quarter

[Dracko]

Last Summer I went to China and I haven't gotten round to posting pics here so HERE THEY ARE:

The flight took us from Charles-de-Gaulle airport to Hong Kong, where we stopped for a couple of hours to change flights. The windows of the terminals were vast enough to give one a fairly impressive view of their surroundings.



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From there, we flew to Kunming, the capital city of the Yunnan province. It is considered to be one of the major leisure cities of the region as well, which was not immediately apparent. It would appear stuck in time at first, but that would be doing it a major disservice. More on that at a later time, when I had the opportunity to take it in fully. As it was, the only striking things at the time was the stench of something like faecal matter and the efficiency of our cab driver. You have to understand that driving over here is done with the simplest priority in mind: Head from point A to point B. Traffic can get unruly, but you have to appreciate how quickly they'll try to get out of it. We stayed in a hotel for the evening, one aimed towards Western clientèle. This is to say that they have toilets that aren't holes dug into the ground and showers with bathtubs, also cheap masseuses. We needed to be up by 6 at the latest and besides, it's not like there was anything interesting, or at the least interpretable, on the TV. The idea of a window on the world over there seems mostly down to watching Quake III tournaments or j/k/c/whatever-pop/rock, which is about as musically worthwhile as, well, American of European pop/rock, which is to say, not at all. Our own window to the outside gave out on the parking lot:



The next morning, already finding the streets busy, we board a coach and head out the city, into the country. You're bound to sleep through most of it once the novelty of the bumpy roads and their fascination for Jackie Chan films wears thin. So I only got one shot out of it, stopping for a toilet break, and to be fair, the sight wasn't all that interesting at that point. We arrived in Dali, where I purchased appropriate walking shoes for €20. Good pair, never even got a blister out of them.







Here, I also got round to haggling. It's a very simple activity when you remind yourself that they need your money more than you need their trinkets. Our final goal was far further and far higher, and we bundled inside a van, which didn't fail to break down once outside city, by rice fields.



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It took a good hour and a half to fix and during that time any car that passed by, without fail, would yell a cordial "Hello!". It has to be said that our presence did clash heavily, but I found the people generally welcoming. This may have mostly been down to my entourage, a whole group of Europeans, but I don't think I ever felt hit by the distinct impression of being abroad, which isn't to say the place wasn't impressive. But it wasn't starting until the next day that the scale came into scope. A couple of hours before nightfall, we had another pause.

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All in all, the trip lasted over fourteen hours. Not that you'd really notice, considering the driving alongside the view. We then walked up to the guest house were we would be staying for three days. And thus, we had arrived at Tiger Leaping Gorge. During the evening, we stayed warm mostly by drinking. Which isn't a bad way to spend the time with familial company, no matter who they may be. Besides, if you're going to be spending time in a country where you can't trust the water, what better alternative to dehydration? The local Dali beer is soft, but I still prefer Tsingtao.

The next day then, we got a much clearer view of where we were staying.



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And this is where I slept. Best photo I could take in the circumstances, I'm sorry to say:



I saw a lot more of that fellow to the left, I can tell you that much already.

For three days then, we loitered about. The official purpose for my visit was to commemorate the engagement of two people I had never previously met. My sister had encountered them during her year off. One's an Australian, the other's French, and they both love China all too much. It was with their guidance that we would walk through the gorge for the following week, but until then, we had to thank them for the seemingly endless supply of lager. The day following our arrival, many decided to visit a tea house a couple of miles away. I wasn't up to it, though I did attempt to join them later, but I did take a stroll of my own around the area. A village, one of many sequestered around the mountains, was nearby, so I gave it a short exploration. The view was unavoidable, no matter what, and it always thrilled me. I had failed to realise at that point that it would only get better.



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These I took coming down. I had managed to make quite a way up to the tea house, losing my breath because, like a fool, I hurried up, and the party had already finished their business there. No matter, we'd use the same route to depart from the guest house on Monday. (You're looking for a lizard in 45; couldn't get a better shot before it scurried on its way).

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Those last two were taken from the roof of the guest house. The rows of bars are solar captors. Most everywhere seems outfitted with them, and they heat up the water we use for showers. Thankfully at this point, cloudier weather was rarely felt, so the water was warm for most of our three-day stay. And shitting in trenches isn't as bad as it sounds.
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

[daphaknee]

yay you FINALLY posted about your trip to china!

[Dracko]

The first couple of days trekking across the gorge were mostly foggy and wet. Which is exactly how I like it. As you'll see, it also made for some great scenery, the clouds not being too far above us. Though this does mean that some of the photos came out darker than they should have, and I've tried to brighten them up without over-saturating them.

Not my first time up a mountain, but I can tell you that the Alps could never compare to this.

We left from the Quiatou Naxi guest house at around 10:40 the next morning, after a hearty breakfast. By 11:21 we arrived at the tea house, where we got up there and stopped for half an hour, taking in the view and downing honey tea. And that's brew in the most literal sense: Block of honey, add hot water.



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Then we proceeded to the summit. The path was nicknamed the 28 Bends, for obvious reasons. It was a steep series of hairpins, which was promised to be gruelling, but I was utterly taken with the place that I honestly didn't mind the climb at all.



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Oh shit, cornered by mountain goats! And some joker couldn't take the heat. But our arrival at the top of the Bends didn't go unrewarded.



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We descended through a denser road which only occasionally cleared up.



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At some point down the road, I got rushed by a brown foal. I suspect it was worried and was looking for company. I wasn't able to take a photo of it though. My camera is dodgy and slow as it is, and it wasn't stopping for anyone.

We arrived at the Tea Horse guest house by 1:23 for lunch.



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To get the most of the scenery, we ate on top of the outhouses. I had yak pizza. Yak meat is strong and coarse as one is likely to expect. So is yak cheese, which goes well with sugar. Both are delicious. We left at 2:20, heading through villages. I wouldn't feel sorry for the monkey in the last photo, by the by. It may be locked up, but the two dogs that were chained to its cage were more the victims of the impish bastard than the other way around.



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Holy Hell! Ambushed by more goats! Note how they hold to the rock. Not too far from our destination now. We were starting to skirt edges for a while.



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Our last stop was the Five Fingers guest house, which we got to by 4:50. This is the view beyond the staircase leading up to it:



We were only staying for the night, and that was when a blackout started. Seemed to encompass the whole area too. We could forget hot water as well. It lasted the entire evening, but by that point, I had eaten well and had had enough of reading by the time the sun set. I just wanted to sleep. Tomorrow would be the shortest leg of the trip to Haba, but it was perhaps the one that elated me the most.
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

[Shapermc]

I saw this on your livejournal a while back, and honestly wasn't sure what it was ( think I only saw your second and third posting ). I thought perhaps it was someone else. You just don't seem like the traveling type! (can't say why, you know)

Anyways, this whole trip seemed quite unique and seeing people actually take trips like this always makes me a bit jealous. My parents (and a lot of people) love going to places like the Bahamas and Jamaica, but those places are so boring: you sit around on a beach, you have all the creature comforts of a lush hotel, and you go to dinner with people who are all from your same country (to an extent). If I was going to take the time out of my life to travel, I would love to go and experience foreign culture like this, not from the side of a hotel or at a beach. That just doesn't sound appetizing to me.
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

[wourme]

Lots of good photos. It's hard for me to imagine seeing some of those expansive mountainous areas in person.

[Dracko]

The mountain peaks are probably what I miss the most. This picture takes on a whole new dimension to me as a result. It's one of those romantic fantasies I've always had and to have concretise one way or another is something else.

We had been told that this leg of the journey would be the shortest, a couple of hours or so. This is accurate, but that did not prevent me from taking a number of photos. It didn't take us long, but it was certainly one of the most memorable walks.

So we proceed onward.



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Soon enough though, the road becomes steep, rocky and narrower than ever. Follow the water pipeline. It's all to be done. It won't let you down.



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We'll be seeing more of that waterfall, don't you worry.

And this is what it looked like behind me.





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And here's the fall which we had to cross through. We took our time, needless to say.





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In the thick of it.



Which becomes a more accurate statement when we got past the fall and right into this beautiful, misty mess.



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After that, a stop.



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And a drink: Pepsi or Cola? (Vivat Kapitalismue!)



Good of you to say.



Past the bridge, the shot that renders all the other ones irrelevant: This is essentially what we've been navigating.



The roads are relatively new, and were mainly built to assist the building of a hydro-electric dam. This construction also involves flooding the region within the next year, thereby essentially seeing the end of the Naxi culture as we know it. They can pretty much write the entire place away and turn it into a tourist feature. I doubt the edification of a town for the residents was much comfort.

Wearing hiking shoes however, walking on the road was far more painful than anywhere else. I'd have to make a note to keep my city shoes with me for the first part of tomorrow.





We arrived at Sean's guest house at 2:30, giving us an entire evening to loiter. We would need it, as the final march would also be the longest, and the conditions at their least pleasant.



Sean is a cool anti-Maoist entrepreneur type who actively sells and encourages the purchase of, as it's dubbed over there, happy cigarettes. I suppose when most of your clientèle are stupid Westerner flower child types, you figure you can use the massive amounts of hemp growing around the place for something other than making clothes or rope.

And here's the view from the court. It's hard to believe that once flooded, the water would arrive about 70 metres above our current position.





This would be the road we would be taking the next day. Around the corner, they said. What a corner.


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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

[aderack]

That's some pretty stuffy there.
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[Dracko]

I didn't keep track of time and who truly cares? It was a prospected six hour walk. Did it feel longer, I couldn't say. In the moment, it was the hardest part, but when you're in the middle of something, all you think about is how good it actually does feel when you put your mind to it and you'll be left with something worth remembering. Which I got. It was hectic, but I would do it all over again in a heartbeat.

So it's morning and I've dumped my bag in the back of a van that's going down to Haba. Neither my sister nor my half-brother could or were willing to do the walk so they'd just meet us there. I would only find out on the way back how long a drive it was, which will be part of a later entry, and it was still a long one. I take a few last snaps of the view, put on my city shoes, because our "walk round the corner" would last us over an hour on the road and then we're off, still along the ridge.



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You can't see it from here, but the far plateau in the background is where the local authorities have been building the town for the relocated habitants of the gorge. We passed through it very briefly on our way back.



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Further on, the road became less stable. It's not built with long-term use in mind, I imagine.



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We stopped and rested on the road for a quarter of an hour. We hadn't seen anyone save a couple of cyclists pass by (We later saw them again on our arrival in Haba).



This is when we went off-road and started the climb upward, essentially cutting a straighter line through to catch up on the road again much later, avoiding its many detours and turns. More mountain goats here.



The path took us around the perimetre of another farming village.



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We stop once we have an opportunity to take it all in, having spent three quarters of an hour getting up. A real short length of flat terrain follows, but it only gets steeper from there.



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But we come upon a vast clearing and the forest route is level for a good while following. It's here that we decide to pause and eat a little, mostly sweet rice biscuits and fruits. We even rested well on the ground for a good twenty minutes.



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Shortly afterwards, we come back to the road.



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Followed by another break, before we cross through the mountains again.



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Another wooded region further up top.



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Took us a good hour and a half or so, but then we came to a plain and we were guaranteed it was downhill from here on end. Being a total boy, I thought best to act on this information by running the length of the way down, and it was wondrous and liberating and I frolicked among nonplussed horses.



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Haba comes into sight. And we are greeted by more horses.



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We saw kids drinking this stuff near the entrance and we felt like giving it a go. It cost us, what, one eurocentime a bottle? It's frozen orange crap, but with that extra refreshing taste of petroleum. When we got to the guest house we'd be staying at for the next three nights, we promptly dumped our stuff in our rooms, and went back to the front to snack and drink. We were all quite tired and spent our night well.



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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

[The Great Unwashed]

Wow, these are really great, Dracko. Thanks so much for sharing!
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[Harveyjames]

Why are there no pictures of you here? Also, I already commented on this stuff when it was on your blog

[Dracko]

I've never - as handsome as I am - considered myself photogenic in any way. That in the vistas are far more romantic than any human direct presence could hope to conjure.

Also, my family bugs the shit out of me.

There really wasn't much to the day. It was pleasant enough, however. I essentially read, played cards with my nephew, who had also decided to stay back, and ate whatever the hosts could come up with. Egg and tomato soup, with noodles, natch, is delicious. So no, not a bad day as such. I was simply preoccupied with wrapping up warm and killing whatever time I had with beer.

Later in the afternoon, we decided upon a walk of the place.









We thought we'd venture this detour:



But we really weren't up for straying from the main road in the end.











Evening was soon coming and the farmers were coming back.







And here's the interior court. Mine was the room with the open door, just across the lane.





Yeah, well, it can't all be excitement. I did feel much better and prepared for the next day, where we went uphill to have a picnic.
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

[Shapermc]

Man, those mountain village pictures are really something. That must have been quite something else entirely being there.
_________________
“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

[Dracko]

Our tireless guide wished for us to have a picnic the day before we had to leave all the way back to Kunming, and thought that there was no better spot than uphill, past a small farming village. Perfect spot and all that. It was a good plan, and it was just about the shortest walk we'd have had there. But to facilitate the choice ever further, transportation was to be provided too.

Notre carrosse!





Of course, I couldn't resist wanting to go in the back once the tarp was down, instead of crammed in the front. I mean, how else was I going to take pictures, I ask you?

So off we are.



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Yeah, it was quite the bumpy ride, as you could imagine. It was great.



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If you hadn't gathered already, they're not short on this stuff.



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Road works up ahead. In other words, there is no road. Our driver chanced it...



... and it wasn't before long we were stuck, more or less at this point:



We tried to clear up the road as we could, but he couldn't even back down properly. We had to walk the rest of the way, which wasn't far. Hey, it's still a view.



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And not just on account of the vistas either.



This is the village entrance. We didn't spend long there.



Our destination was higher up still past it.



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Our goal, as it turned out, was a lake. We spent the afternoon there, eating rice cakes and eggs and tossing pebbles into it.



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The weather was starting to turn grey towards the evening.



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We made our way down, hoping not to get caught in any heavy showers.



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For what little good it did us. We waited for a while: The truck would take us down.



Here are a few more pics of Haba I took when I got back. The highlight had definitely been the ride in itself, but the one we'd have over the following days would be even more exciting, in it's way.



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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

[Harveyjames]

I wish my mummy and daddy would take me to China!

[Dracko]

Thank fuck, they weren't there.



Thankfully by that point, hoofing the way back from where we came didn't appeal to us. And so we would ride along the road we laboured to avoid on the march. It was an excellent ride, empty winding roads taken at full speed whilst listening to local pop music ("What's rock?" our driver enquired when background noise was requested). Though I spent most of that time leaning out of windows in ways that would most likely have gotten me either arrested or dead in so-called "advanced" societies, these shots will be noticeably blurry, and there are less of them to come, as I was occupied those last few days in ways that made me all but forget about photography. More on that later.

This little character was eating right outside my room while I emptied it into our car. You'll notice it was a thankfully bright day.



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As we near the previously spotted plateau, we have to cross through the village.



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We spend the evening relaxed and learn that there's been a landslide up the single road out. We can't circumvent it, so there'll be no choice but to scale it. On those grounds, I am callously denied my pot pancake in the morning. I take a few last shots of the surroundings and off we go.

This is what we face.



It's hard to tell, but no, it's not a massive amount of rock to walk over before the road resumes and we get to the bus in the distance.

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I like this shot in particular.



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Our final destination is the city of Lijang. It's on the beaten path, so to speak: Entire place is a tourist trap, especially the labyrinthine inner city, with its narrow corridors and market stalls or restaurants at the forefront of every house. It certainly wasn't a bad place to be for a couple of days, all told. I'm simply thankful it and its ilk wasn't the bulk of my journey.

But first, we have to get there.



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As I said, there's not much more to Lijang's inner city other than the usual tourist fare. So one of the first things a couple of us did, myself included, was rent bicycles and followed the road to Baisha, where the herbalist Dr. Ho Shi-Xiu lives. He's apparently famous or something, and diagnosed me with low karma. I should probably take the herbs he gave me with more regularity, maybe.

All this to say that, no, photos did not occur to me during my short ride there. Oh well. Here's the few I took while in Lijang.



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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

[Dracko]

And here's the last of 'em:



The trip back to Kunming was long and spent on a bus outfitted exclusively with bunk beds. The few toilet breaks were fairly bizarre, mainly because throughout the night you'd just see literally hundreds of people from other buses rush to the restrooms or exercise out. By the length of these breaks, there really wasn't much else to do than head out and observe them.

We arrived by dawn, and right after checking into our rooms anew, went out for grub and a wander.



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We were heading towards the commercial district, which are indisputably large and boastful of expensive clothes, televisions and such. Not cars or housing, though, which set it apart as clearly the domain of wealthy youths in search of viable status symbols. My half-brother insisted on visiting a good half dozen hi-fi and video shops, all of which were eager to demonstrate. As long as that took, we were heading to the gardens.



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As you might expect, the crowded commercial area was hardly without its surrounding business buildings.

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The gardens were just down this road.



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Before the main fork could be found this edifice.



With an engraving: FRIENDSHIP PEACE DEVELOPMENT: In commemoration of the establishment of sister cities relationship between Kunming, China and Wagga Wagga, Australia.



Did I mention these were mainly water gardens?

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Oh shit, fish!



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Not too far off from an exit, and it was about time we left to meet up with other members of the group at a French café. On the way though, I managed to get DVDs of Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will and the Adrian Lyne adaptation of Lolita both for less than £5.



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We didn't stay long, on account of dinner plans having been made on the other side of town - leading to yet another brilliantly frenetic taxi ride. The particular highlight of the meal being rice wine, which drinks itself easily and is about as strong as water.

And then, after a quick browse at a local art preview exhibit for the Bohusläns Museum, on the subject of Identity and Transformation, I was left to my own devices along with the younger members of our group. So clubbing was the natural thing to do.

Sadly, all the nocturnal shots didn't come out well at all, which is a damn shame, because if you want to know where they're putting their money, well, it's in the clubs. They're grandiose, sell good cocktails at the cheapest of prices and play genuinely good music. A far cry from any of those I've experienced back home. And better looking strippers too. Consuming White and Black Russians one after another wouldn't nearly have been as enjoyable without them, I don't think. Also got to witness riot police knock their way into a club we just came out of too.



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And here is the last good shot I'd take, waiting at crossroad for a ride back to the hotel, past a police station.



Hope you enjoyed that, chaps and chapettes.
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"