Sichuan: Part Two

The next part of my journey took me to Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province. The first thing I noticed about Chengdu was how incredibly ordinary it was. Large, busy, and very boring to look at. Over the last ten years I have visited several capital cities and each has had its own charm; Beijing is full of interesting historical sites, Shanghai is glamorous with amazing nightlife and Xian veiled in a kind of exoticism I have yet to experience in any other city. Chengdu seemed to lack all of these qualities. It was something of a comedown to arrive into another dull city after the beauty of Jiuzhaigou, but the weather was glorious and I had high hopes of getting to see my beloved Giant Panda again.

The next thing I noticed almost immediately was the locals of Chengdu. I have long heard that the most beautiful women in China come from Sichuan and I was struck very quickly by just how true this was. On a day to day basis here in China, I often feel like a great lumbering hag surrounded by tiny Eastern beauties, but never have I ever felt so much like that as I did in Chengdu. My first bus ride from the airport to the hostel showed me that. I vividly remember standing in an overfilled bus, wearing clothes badly in need of washing and loaded up with my oversized backpack, sweating in thirty degree heat and desperate for a shower when I caught myself staring enviously at these gorgeous women with perfect porcelain skin, lovely silky hair, beautifully dressed and apparently completely devoid of sweat glands. I will never fail to admire the Chinese and their inability to perspire in 90% humidity.

This in turn had me thinking about Chinese men… If Chengdu apparently held the most beautiful women in the country, then where are all the beautiful men? Geographically I was pretty much at the halfway point of my journey and I’d yet to be wowed in the aspect. I was beginning to think perhaps they had all left the country. Perhaps I just hadn’t been to the right places yet? I was hoping for the latter…

After I arrived at my hostel, I declined to take up my usual habit of immediately showering and sorting out my desperate laundry situation, in favour of heading without delay to the front desk to inquire about my pandas. I had heard a mixture of depressing news since my trip started. Rumour had it the bad weather had restricted access to the Chengdu Research and Breeding Base, which is without doubt China’s premier Giant Panda reserve, and where I have been desperate to visit for as long as I’ve known of its existence. Another person I had met told me I would only be able to see fully grown pandas, it was completely the wrong season to see any smaller ones, which was what I was really keen to check out. I approached the desk with a heavy feeling in my heart, preparing myself for the disappointment of being told I would not see any pandas on this visit.

The news however was great! The Research Base was in full working order, the pandas were ready and raring to be visited, and there was room for me to join a tour at 7:00am the very next morning. Boom! Done! After a large amount of cash was exchanged it was sorted. The whole process had left me so excited I was nearly sick. No time for that though, my three outfits I had packed for six weeks of travel were not going to wash themselves…

So, as I’ve mentioned before on this very blog, the Giant Panda is more comfortable in the cool bamboo forests up in the Sichuan Mountains, and here I was trying to visit them in the middle of the summer. Consequently our tour group needed to be up and on the way to the base as early as possible, before the hottest part of the day, when the furry little balls prefer to move inside into air-conditioned comfort. As soon as we arrived we were escorted toward the back of the reserve to an indoor enclosure complete with six small pandas, all ten months old, and no bigger than 40cm tall (when sitting… which is their preferred state of being). We were able to watch them playing from behind Perspex and they looked super cute, however the filthy window was not allowing me to take any decent photos, and I was feeling a little disappointed thinking this was as good as it would get. I was wrong! Soon we were herded toward an outdoor area attached to the indoor panda house. The area was resplendent with a large wooden fort, covered with fresh cut bamboo and I was able to stand only a mere two metres away with a perfect unobstructed view. I made sure to elbow small children and old people out of my way to guarantee the best position for photos. I figure nearly 30 years of polite queuing and careful regard for others had earned me the right to be rude for 10 minutes in what would have to be my favourite moment ever.  

 At 9:30 exactly the pandas had their door opened for them and out they all tumbled. Six small pandas came running toward the bamboo, in a lumbering way only pandas can and my heart soared. Over the next half an hour I got to watch and take some amazing photos of these gorgeous creatures playing, eating and rolling around in the bamboo.  But next came the best part! 

The day before I had organised not only to go to the Reserve and see the pandas, but I had also paid a great deal of money to have an extra special visit, with some one on one time with my favourite animal. I was taken away from my group and placed in another, where we were taken through to the panda nursery and given some really lovely outfits to put on. Once we had put on our gowns, gloves and shoe covers, we may have all looked like we had escaped from a hospital, but were ready for our panda time.

As I stood in line watching the people in front of me holding this super cute ten month old lump of a panda, waiting as patiently as I could for my turn, I could feel that burning in my eyes again. Like anyone, I’ve always had big dreams of seeing and doing certain things, but have also struggled to reconcile with the idea of ever really being able to do them.  But here I was, about to hold and cuddle what must be the cutest and rarest animals in the world, and I felt like a raw nerve. I wasn’t even holding the damn thing yet and I was already on the verge of tears. 

After maybe 40 minutes of waiting in line I finally got my turn. I sat down and had the fluff ball placed on my lap with strict instructions to simply hold him around his waist and not to touch his head or ears. They may be cute and cuddly looking, but they are still bears, and still have sharp teeth and claws. So I did as I was told and held my new friend carefully in my lap and tried to commit to memory my initial impressions. He was really heavy, easily 40 kilograms, I don’t know what I expected but I was a little surprised at how much weight was in him. He was also fluffy as all get out and super soft to boot. The outfits we were made to wear were designed to not have any of our skin exposed while touching the pandas, but as the panda was being placed on my lap, the sleeve of my gown rode slightly up my arm and I was able to feel just how soft he was on my bare skin. Also, somewhat surprisingly, he did not smell anything other than lovely.  But my suspicion is that he might have been bathed just prior to meeting us.

While I sat there, trying harder than ever not to cry, the little panda sat contentedly and gnawed away at a bamboo stick covered in honey. Every few minutes he would finish licking all the honey off and would throw the stick to the ground and reach out expectantly for a new one, which his keepers were quick to replace. He did not move much, he never attempted to wriggle away from me, instead preferring to be quietly held as he nibbled away at his sweet treat.

During my one on one time there were two staff members who were designated to capture the moment for me. One was a professional photographer and there is another nursery worker who takes as many photos as they can with your own camera. I also managed to convince the lady in line ahead of me to stay after she was finished at take some more photos for me with my iPad, which she was happy to oblige, given I had just done the same for her.  By the end of my time with the panda I had more photographs to remember the occasion than I ever thought possible. Perhaps my favourite moment that was captured was when the little fellow stopped chewing his bamboo, twisted his head up to look at me, proceeded to sniff my face then take a little nibble on my chin. I like to think I must have a slight bamboo-esque scent about me that appeals to pandas.

It was roughly about this time that you can see in the photographs, if you look close enough, that I have tears on my cheeks. For the second time in a week I felt overwhelmed with love for my life and the amazing experiences I was having.

I spent a few more days after this in a cloudy panda hugging haze, feeling like Sichuan was fast becoming a firm favourite of my China tour, and as my time in Chengdu was winding towards a close I was anticipating visiting Emei Shan before leaving the province for Yunnan. Emei Shan has long been ranked in the top ten places to visit in China and I had read much of its beautiful scenery, amazing hiking trails and extremely cheeky monkeys. The entry fee into the mountain reserve was pretty steep, and like most places had been hiked up for the peak season and was closing in at ¥220, the most expensive entry fee so far. Given the wonderful things I had heard I decided this was an opportunity not to be missed and I bought a ticket to Emei via long distance bus.

Before leaving I had done a little research and pre-booked a hostel that appeared to be quite new but had received good reviews so far. I arrived late in the evening and was dead tired and looking forward to another early night. I was greeted warmly by Carrie the owner, in a foyer that looked more hotel than hostel, and she proceeded to give me a coffee and give me a rundown of how best to approach the mountain the next day. So far, things were looking good, but I was wrong. So wrong.

Next I was taken up three floors and shown to my dorm room. I was told I was very lucky as no one else was currently booked in so I had the dorm to myself. This should have been a good indication of things to come. Carrie opened the door and showed me into what was clearly a mistake; she had accidently lead me into a linen closet! The room was no wider than 1.5 meters and no longer than 2.5. There was room for a bunk bed and a very narrow bench and nothing else. When she started pointing out the features of the room, it dawned upon me that this was in fact no closet; this was to be my home for the next three nights. Incidentally, the features included a working window that had a view out to a brick exterior of the next hotel and a bug repellent I could plug into the wall. It was pretty much the saddest looking room I had ever seen.  By this time it was 11pm and I was about to hit a wall. I would have slept comfortably in the gutter by this point.

The next day I planned to get up at around 6am to get ready for a full day of hiking. The weather was due to be sunny and clear and I was determined to beat the crowds by arriving as early as possible. But before I left I was in need of a bathroom. Sadly my small cupboard was not complete with ensuite and I instead had to walk down three flights of stair to the shared bathroom.  “But shared with whom?” I hear you ask. It must be virtually like a private bathroom if there are no others staying in the dorm. Not so my friends, I was sharing this bathroom with both patrons of the hotel’s restaurant and the kitchen staff.

If it has not been made clear already by my description, please let me explain. I was not staying in a hostel; I was staying in a converted storage room in a hotel. So I was reduced to walking down through the restaurant where Chinese people were eating breakfast, to the bathroom that was to be shared by all of us, which consisted of a squat toilet with a shower over the top of it. The shower was literally attached to the kitchen and as I went in and locked the door behind me I could hear the kitchen staff chatting and cooking like they were in the toilet with me. I turned and looked about me and quickly made the assessment that this was not the bathroom for me. The unfortunate location was just the beginning. Sitting in the sink, on the floor and in the toilet were remnants of chopped vegetables, which pretty much convinced me I needed to a) not shower and leave immediately and b) not ever eat in the restaurant. Without having even put my toiletries down I made the decision to forgo this shower and instead wait until the evening when hopefully it would somehow transform itself into a normal bathroom.

I returned to my cubbyhole and washed with baby wipes and doused myself in deodorant. After realising I had scrubbed up pretty well and decided to get out there and see this amazing mountain right away. It was looking a little grey outside but I had been told by several people the weather was due to be lovely, so I decided to risk leaving my umbrella behind, believing it would clear up and become warm in no time. Oh how wrong I was!!

Despite my early start, the queues to the mountain were enormous and by 7am there were already thousands of people pushing and shoving their way up the mountain. It was colder than I expected and still shaping up to be grey for a while, but I decided to persevere and push on through the huge crowds, clinging to the hope the amazing views would be worth it. After several hours of weaving in and out of tourists, struggling to gain any distance and becoming increasingly frustrated with the hordes I finally reached the Golden Summit and I nearly cried and not from joy this time. Visibility was nil. The top of the mountain was shrouded in a white mist and I quite literally could not see more than four feet in front of me.  I wandered around for a little while hoping to catch a glimpse of something, anything, through the white fog. In the end I found a concrete bench in the haze and plonked myself down determined to wait it out and see the mist clear up.

The only photo I took that wasn't just fog.

I waited for nearly an hour before the damp fog turned into drizzle. I was cold, hungry and becoming increasingly damp and irritated. Since it was impossible to enjoy the view from the Golden Summit through the fog, the Chinese tourists had taken to starring at the only thing they could see, yours truly. Now being gawked at by locals is all part of the experience of being a foreigner in China and it hardly ever bothers me. I am used to being pointed at, whispered about, shouted at and being asked to have photos taken. It is par for the course. But every now and then the novelty wears thin. It was shaping up to be one of those days. Under normal circumstances I will happily have my photo taken and talk to the small children who stare bewildered at me but at that very moment all I wanted was to be left alone. The final straw came when a rotund, middle aged man came over to me, took my photo without asking and then laughingly called me fat.  It was more than this cranky Australian could handle. I snatched up my bag, shot him a filthy look, and decided to leave the mountain.      

 I came back to my storeroom, looked about me, and decided to treat myself to an upgrade to the next cheapest room with a private bathroom. An hour later I was walled up in my own spacious twin room and loving it. No vegetables in the toilet and now featuring an air-conditioning unit as opposed to a non-operational fan.  I spent the rest of the night drinking red wine on my own and trying to work out if I could afford to leave Emei sooner than anticipated.  

Sichuan: Part One

So it was that I left for Sichuan province with a renewed love of travelling, having successfully navigated my way through Shaanxi, with my troubled times in Henan becoming a distant memory. I was excited to be getting even closer to the natural habitat of my favourite animal and entering a province famous for its deliciously spicy cuisine; however my chances of arriving successfully were looking slim.

Sichuan is a province which frequently experiences traumatic natural disasters. Earthquakes are common and in the last 100 years alone they have experienced in excess of 15, seven of which were registered over 7.0 on the Richter scale. Perhaps the most devastating earthquake in recent history occurred in 2008, reaching 8.0, and resulting in the loss of 69,195 lives. The most recent one transpired in April of this year.

Because of ongoing political unrest in the area parts of the province can also at times be shut off to foreigners by local government officials. Sichuan features quite a few Tibetan areas with a large Tibetan population (1.25 million), which sees semi-frequent demonstrations against the central government’s oppression of the Tibetan people.

At the time I was due to visit, I had gotten word that protesters would not be an issue, but rather the weather would. In July this year China experienced a massive rainfall throughout the country with the south west, namely Sichuan Province, being hit the hardest.  It was recorded that in Sichuan 37 inches (94 cm) of rain fell from July 8–9. It is the heaviest rainfall since records began in 1954. Villages were submerged, bridges collapsed and landslides occurred in several area. Road access to most major cities in the province was cut off. Things were not looking good for me.

By the time I had decided the route I would take through the province, the water levels had dropped but the road access was still an issue, and I was receiving mixed reports on if I was able to get there or away. It was at this point I decided to suck it up and buy a domestic flight leaving Xian in Shaanxi and heading to Jiuzhaigou in Chengdu. I decided that it was best to start here due to its high elevation, hoping that during my stay the damage from the flooding would improve some more, and the road access would allow me to take an overnight bus to Chengdu, the province’s capital.

Jiuzhaigou

I chose to make the trip to Jiuzhaigou because it came up in a list of top ten places to see in China on a random website I stumbled upon while researching my trip. Prior to this year I had not even heard of it and after seeing it I have to admit it must be China’s best kept secret.

During the planning stages I came across lots of amazing photos of this expansive national park that looked positively otherworldly. Photographs I saw online of its mountainous ranges, forests, woodlands, lakes and waterfalls left me thinking this must be heaven on earth. But as I came closer and closer to arriving, I was having doubts, thinking these gorgeous shots I kept seeing are surely the work of professional photographers who had been waiting days for the perfect shot. I still had some hope though.

After arriving after dark and taking the slowly winding three hour cab ride down into the valley, I checked into my hostel and planned to go to bed straight away in order to start my trek of the park itself at daylight the next morning. Planned being the operative word, as my delightful roommates felt the need to become loudly amorous at around one am and continued to do so for quite a few hours despite my gently reminders of the time (“Jesus Christ, would you give it a rest, its 3 o’clock in the effing morning!”). There are some things even good quality earplugs will not block out. Sometime close to 4:00am I finally drifted off dreading my 5:45am alarm.

My hostel was beautifully located just a 5 minute walk from the entrance of the National Park and I was able to buy my ticket as the gates opened at 6:30 and take a park bus (the only vehicles permitted in the Park) to the very top of the reserve and work my way down. The highest elevation in Juizhaiguo is 4558m and I started my hike at around 3500m. Altitude sickness was of some concern to me, be apart from a mild light headedness when I first arrived at the Virgin Forrest, I was unaffected.

The forest I started off in was lovely. The air was crisp and almost sweet to breathe, standing under the shade of the lofty virgin forest was a cool relief after the sweltering heat of the cities, and then there was the most glorious sound I had heard in months. Quiet. Perfect serenity. I could feel all the bad juju I was holding onto leave me with every inhalation I took.  I started walking back down into the valley, still surrounded by lush, verdant green and loving every minute of it. Any onlooker must have thought I was full nutter, as I walked around wide eyed, slack jawed and breathing deeply.

Despite the morning starting off misty and grey, after hiking for about two hours the clouds parted and the sun started beating down. At almost the same moment I rounded a curve in the track and glimpsed what I had been waiting for. Juizhaiguo is famous for its iridescent turquoise lakes and rivers, which come down directly from Min Shan and is absolutely crystal clear. I had recently read about it and seen pictures of it but I could not honestly believe it could be so luminous and so translucent. As I came close to the edge the park’s highest lake, I could not believe my eyes, the clarity of the water was incredible. It was crystal clear, pristine and very deep.

   

I spent close to 8 hours in the National Park, hiking my way through all it is gorgeousness, drinking in all that it had to offer. During my time there I found myself a times having difficulty breathing and a tightness in my chest, but it was not from pain, rather it was from an overwhelming sense of joy unlike anything I had every felt before. It left me in tears several times throughout the day. I cannot describe it in any other way, other than it felt like my heart was full.

Travelling up here during the bad weather did have an upside. I was travelling in the peak season for China, and thousands of Chinese travellers visit the National Park on a daily basis over the summer months, however the blocked roads meant that the only possible means of getting there way flying.

China is a fantastic country for travel, with buses and trains running just about anywhere you could want to go, all at a very cheap price. Flying is a luxury not all can afford. The torrential rain in Sichuan had meant that the roads to the national park had been cut off for days, so by the time I flew in, most Chinese tourists had left the area with only a few hundred able to make the flight in. This meant that when I trekked the park, I often saw other local travellers, but not at anywhere near the volume normally expected for this time of year.

Sadly the day was beginning to come to an end. My feet were aching, I was functioning on barely 4 hours sleep and was in dire need of something more to eat than the fruit and nuts I bought with me. I walked the way down to the entrance, past more lush greenery and turquoise water, through gorgeous Tibetan villages and back toward my hostel. As I left I felt a great deal of satisfaction with my trip to Juizhaigou. I felt, and I still feel, that is must be one of the most beautiful places in the world. I cannot help but wonder at what the first people to discover it must have though. Surely they believed they have died and gone to heaven.

Huanglong

The next day, after a ridiculously early night, I woke up again at sunrise to begin the three hour journey to Huanglong.   As well as Jiuzhaigou National Park, Huanglong Scenic Area has also been included in the UNESCO world heritage list. It is located in Songpan County encompasses the Huanglong and Muni Valley.

It consists of a 3.6 kilometre long valley that includes snow-clad peaks and the easternmost glaciers in China. Huanglong Valley translates directly to Yellow Dragon Valley. The layered calcium carbonated deposits creates a pattern, which winds through the forest, mountains and glaciers, and bears a resemblance to a golden dragon. Along the valley are numerous colourful ponds of different sizes and shapes, which are spotted with gold coloured limestone deposit giving a shimmering golden hue to water.  

I ended up going to Huanglong on a whim, after I met three other travellers the night before in the hostel common (read: WIFI) area. They told me they were hoping to check out this famous landmark the following day, and having not made any set plans myself, I decided to tag along.

The drive up to Huanglong was an experience in itself. Parts of the road has zero visibility and we all spent most of the journey white knuckled as we sped blindly around the narrow curved roads, while trying not to look at the sheer drop off the cliff directly next to us. The occasional accident sight dotted along the road as our little car climbed up the mountain did not do much to help calm the nerves.

After paying our entry and taking the cable car up to the top, my three new friends and I made our way through the valley. I have to admit I was underprepared for this trip. My head was back in Jiuzhaigou, with its sunny weather, clear skies and hot temperature. Huanglong was grey, overcast, drizzling and cold. My short and tank top were not ideal, but I prayed that once we started really moving I would warm up. I also assumed that the altitude would be the same as Jiuzhaigou, but I found after about an hour of walking, that it was not. I started to feel dizzy and headachy and continued to feel so for most of my time there. However the views were still breathtaking and I am glad I decided to make the last minute trip up there.

The valley itself was huge, surrounded by virgin forest, stone mountains, waterfalls and hundreds of coloured ponds. We saw one Tibetan temple nestled right in the very middle of the valley, which I couldn’t help but imagine must be one of the most idyllic places to live, encircled by such wild and untamed natural beauty. It really was worth the terrifying journey up there.      

The following day I was scheduled to take a bus down from Jiuzhaigou to Chengdu, Sichuan’s capital city, but reports were the roads were still blocked and there was no getting out unless by plane. While Jiuzhaigou is amazingly beautiful, there is little to do in the area besides hiking, and I had already paid the phenomenal entry fee once and I was not keen to do so again. There was no definite answer as to when the roads would be open again and once again, I sucked it up and bought a plane ticket. Sadly I had to pay twice as much to get out and I did to get in, as the airlines had cottoned onto how this was the only means of travel, but at the same time I did not mind as it shaved an estimated 7 hours off the journey.  It would land me closer to my lifelong dream of seeing a real live panda again, hopefully much closer this time than in Shaanxi!   

I will finish here however, because Sichuan will need to be a two part blog, as I’ve already written over 2000 words and I barely even scraped the surface of my time there. Stay tuned!

Shaanxi - 8000 Warriors

Sunburnt, dehydrated and exhausted, how happy I was to be leaving Henan. I was left with a heavy feeling my in heart that perhaps my trip was destined to be less than I hoped for, that I would spend more time struggling than enjoying myself, but I had a little hope that Shaanxi would offer up some joy. I am pleased to say it did not disappoint.

I took a hard seat train from Luoyang to Xi'an, Shaanxi's capital, a small city of eight and a half million residents. The journey was a quick five hours, and from my seat I was able to see China's untamed beauty as we sped past some of Shaanxi's verdant unpopulated landscapes.

My journey was pretty uneventful, aside from sitting with five Chinese people who could not have been more desperate to stare at me, by who were all attempting to do so with some barely concealed discretion. It took them all four hours of quick sideways glances before one girl finally managed to work up the courage to speak to me, perhaps encouraged by the fact that I didn't bite after all, everyone else managed to find their voices. Perhaps the most surprising thing that arose from the conversation was that one guy accurately picked that I am Australian, as opposed to the usual 'meiguoren' label I am given, my least favourite name to be called (sorry Americans!). When I asked how he knew, he told me it was because of my "height and five skins". Now either I mistranslated what he said even though I did ask him to repeat it, or this is a Chinese idiom I'm not familiar with, because I'm almost certain I have only ever have the one skin... 

Shortly after this I arrived in Xian and made my way to my hostel. As far as bit Chinese cities go, Xian is beautifully laid out and has a fantastic public transport system, set within Xian's original city walls and laid out in an easy to navigate grid. I stayed in the city centre a mere five minute walk from the Drum Tower and the Muslim Quarter.     

Naturally the first thing I did in Xian was look into visiting the Army of Terracotta Warriors. The warriors would have to be one of the world's most well-known archaeological finds and the army consists of over 8000 life sized terracotta statues. 

After unifying China in 246 BC Qin Shi Huang became China's first self-proclaimed emperor. It was for him that the terracotta army was created, for what particular reason archaeologists are still uncertain, though it is popularly believed to have been built in order to protect his tomb, to boast his power and to show loyalty to him after his death. Qin Shi Huang also instigated building various sections of the Great Wall, a national road system and his own city-sized mausoleum which reputedly took 38 years to complete and required over 700 000 workers. 

One of the most striking things about the thousands of warriors is how no two soldier's faces are alike. I was told by my guide that this is because each warrior was made in the image of an artisan, and that after each one was completed, he would have his life sacrificed in order to preserve the secrets of the army. 

Qin Shi Huang had some pretty amazing accomplishments during his time ruling. He created an efficient government which later dynasties would replicate, he standardised measurement, currency and writing, initiated the building of two of the world's most iconic wonders and conquered 6 kingdoms all before turning 40. Despite how impressive this all is I can't help but question his sanity. Qin regularly ingested mercury capsules made by his alchemists in a bid to (ironically) gain eternal life, he had over six thousand concubines, and routinely buried scholars alive in an attempt to stifle any political opposition. And when you consider number of those who lost their lives after creating his tomb, the artisans sacrificed for the army, the estimated 5 million who died constructing the great wall I do not think you can help but be shocked by antics of such a ruler.   

 
Despite the morbid undertone permeating throughout my trip to visit the Army of Terracotta Warriors, I still couldn't help but be overwhelmed by it. The three pits contain some amazing sculptures, much larger and more impressive than I had imagined, and all really quite marvellous.

Xian had some other great sites to offer, the most important to me being that this is where I got to see my first real live panda since I was five years old. As most of you who know me are aware, I have a slight obsession with pandas, and I have done for some time. I remember going to Sydney's Taronga Zoo when I was a wee little thing with my parents and getting to see some real pandas way off in the distance. Being so young I only have a faint recollection of it but for years now I have had an overwhelming desire to see them again. And so after getting up at a crazy early time and driving for nearly two hours out of Xian I finally was on my way to seeing another panda.

We arrived at the sanctuary and circled the large bushy enclosures, desperately hoping to glimpse a panda out and about before it got too hot. Pandas prefer cooler climates and during the hot summer months in China, the pandas in captivity prefer to stay inside in air-conditioned comfort, so the best time to see them during the warmer months is as early as possible when they come outside to eat. After maybe 40 minutes of waiting for a panda to appear, we finally spotted one hiding!

Can you see her?

She sat hiding in the bushes eating her bamboo for quite a while. But we waited, and waited... and then she popped out toward the side of her enclosure to do a little sniffing!

After a while we left this lady panda and went in search of another. We managed to find a boy panda who was much less camera shy. He really turned it up for us. I have to admit, I got a little overwhelmed here and had a little teary.

What a happy little panda!

These pandas are only 6 years old. They're full sized now, reaching around 4ft when standing and weighing around 100kgs. While they are designed to be carnivores, pandas lack the necessary skills to be effective predators, and over thousands of years have instead developed a great love of bamboo. Unfortunately because they are not genetically designed to eat bamboo, they gain hardly any nutritional value from it, and need to consume around 20 kg a day in order to gain the energy they need to live their fairly inactive lives.

After checking out the pandas and a few other animals in the sanctuary it was time to head back to Xian. I spent the next few days checking out Xian itself, visiting the Bell and Drum towers, checking out the late night water show, eating delicious food in the Muslim quarter and weaving in and out of the night market to the cries of "looky look lady". 

Eating some delicious jiaozi and drinking orange drink!

I enjoyed my time in and around Xian greatly, stayed in a fantastic little hostel and met some very cool people. Some of those people I would go on to meet with again in Sichuan province, which was to be my next destination. After my five night stay in Shaanxi province I felt relief at knowing my trip was shaping up to be the fun adventure I was hoping and I was getting very excited to move on to my next destination. Sichuan has been a province I have wanted to visit for years, but at the last minute things were not looking good due to some severe flooding which were cutting off roads, but I decided to push on anyway and try flying instead of taking the train. I am very glad I did.

  

Henan: "South of the River"

Early last month I began my 6 week backpacking journey around China, with the intention of visiting six of the country's provinces. I worked my way counter clockwise around the central and southern provinces, starting in Henan and finishing up in Guangxi before returning home to Wuxi, in Jiangsu.

I started my journey by leaving Wuxi on a 16 hour overnight train to Henan's capital, Zhengzhou, with the intention of then taking another train the day I arrived to Luoyang. However, right from the outset the cards were not stacked in my favour.

The apartment where I currently reside is on the very outskirts of Wuxi, in an 'up and coming' district, which basically translates to lots of construction, minimal taxis, buses that do not run past 8pm and no one actually knowing where I live. Do not get me wrong, I like how clean, quiet and new everything is, but it can make life a little difficult. 

The night I was planning to leave, my train was departing Wuxi station at 10:45pm, and being as anally retentive as I am about being punctual, I planned to leave at 8:30 in order to allow for the 30 minute taxi journey to the station, and to leave myself a spare hour and 45 minutes just in case. What exactly I consider to be this 'just in case' scenario is, I will never know, as I inevitably arrive far too early to everything and end up twiddling my thumbs for ages... This particular time it turns out I would need this time. The taxi sent to collect me could not find my apartment and ended up taking nearly an hour to turn up. I arrived at the station with minutes to spare. It was all very dramatic, running through the station, knocking people over only to arrive at the gate just as they were closing the ticket check. However the surly train attendant took pity on me and allowed me through, with a tut and an eye roll, before I ran over to my almost departing sleeper train. 

It had been close to ten years since I last took a Chinese sleeper train and could hardly remember the journey I took from Shanghai to Beijing all those years ago, but I do remember being quite impressed with the experience. Clean beds, lovely staff, room to move and free food offered at regular intervals. Oh how different this experience was...

I know what you are thinking... "Oh Katie, what are you complaining about, that looks fairly reasonable!". Reasonable indeed, but bear in mind that I was travelling during peak season and was only ever able to book upper berths. Just take another look at how much room there is between the bed and the roof. It is physically impossible for me to sit upright at all, and in order for me to to get in and out of my bed I was required to do some pretty amazing gymnastic moves, the likes of which I'm pretty sure would have left Nadia Comaneci impressed.

Being that high up had some upsides though... I hardly ever felt like my bad was going to be stolen as I spent all night hugging it and also - no, no that was it. 

Having a bed placed so high up meant it they were never cleaned properly and I would often spend the first 5 minutes of each journey picking bits of food off my mattress. I also had the air conditioner  about a foot away from my face, afforded me a great of the impossible filthy filters, allowing me to not only be freezing cold all night (despite being provided with bedding) and to be able to think about all the black crap coming off it that I must be inhaling. And the bedding.... oh the bedding.... I'm so very glad I decided to take my own pillowcase. Unidentified stains were many and varied and frequently smelt of urine. Consequently I often chose to forgo the filthy items and shiver under the delightful AC.

Once I managed to get past these initial setbacks I was all set for a night of peaceful slumber before starting my real adventures the next day. How wrong I was. 

On the whole I find Chinese people can be quite loud. Taking a phone call between the hours of 11pm and 5am in a train carriage where people are sleeping is perfectly acceptable. Doing so at a volume verging on shouting? No problem! Sufficed to say that between the yelling, the crying babies, the music being played (the Chinese also seem to be partial to sharing their music with others.... or an aversion to earphones, I'm unsure which) and the early morning wakeup call of spitting, minimal sleep was got that first night on the train.

Anyway! 16 hours later I finally arrive in Zhengzhou, but I was unable to get a train to Luoyang and needed to catch a bus instead. Four hours later I'm dead on my feet but finally at my destination. Now to find my hostel! My taxi driver left me outside a large apartment complex and my hostelworld instructions were quite vague so I decided to call the owner. Somewhat typically this is the point at which my phone decided to pack it in. 

After standing in the sweltering heat in the apartment courtyard, shouting down my phone (Chinese style!) to no avail, I finally found a local to help me locate my "hostel". It was in fact some Chinese guy's apartment on the 8th floor. Good fun with a huge backpack in 40 degree heat. But at least my room had air conditioning!! Or at least it did for a few hours. The first night of my stay in Luoyang the electricity cut out in the middle of the night, and didn't come back on the whole time I was there. No AC (try sleeping in a 35 degree room with no breeze), no wifi to book the next leg of my journey... and no hot water!! 

However I wasn't in Luoyang for the hostel. I came here for one reason, and that was to visit the Longmen Grottoes. Considered one of China's top three grottoes and a UNESCO World Heritage site, the Longmen caves are an enormous and epic sight to behold. The caves run along a 1 kilometre stretch of the Yi river and carving first began in AD 494 during the Northern Wei dynasty.

West Side Caves at Longmen

In the 200 years it took to complete over 100 000 images of Buddha and his disciples were chisled into the limestone cliff faces on both sides of the river. The sizes of the figures vary greatly, from thousands of tiny one inch carvings, to the epic 20 metre high Losana Buddha. Coming up against the Cultural Revolution, anti-Buddhist purges and in influx of ruthless collectors in the early 20th century has meant that many of the figures have been badly damaged, decapitated or been removed entirely over the last two hundred years. Despite all this there are some truly amazing sculptures to been seen here.

For perspective you can see that the small squares carved into the
cliffs are large enough to crawl into. 

Ten Thousand Buddha Cave, each Buddha is an inch tall.

Unfortunately, this one sight was the highlight of my 4 days in Henan. I found both Zhengzhou and Luoyang to be big ugly cities, with possibly the worst air I've ever encountered in China. One day into my Henan trip and I was coughing like a hard core smoker first thing in the morning. The rest of my time was spend desperately trying to avoid the stifling heat, which was only made more intense by the constant haze generated by the pollution in the atmosphere. I can't even say that I enjoyed the food, as everything I tried was stodgy, fatty, dripping with oil and generally unpleasant.

Four days into my big adventure and I was already missing home and feeling quite disenchanted by my experiences. If not for the gentle encouragement of my dear friend Zoe via text messages ("Katie, don't be a dickhead") I might very well have given up at this point. Nonetheless, I continued on to my next province, taking a hard seat by train to Xi'an in Shanxi. Best decision I ever made.

Standing in front of my favourite Luoyang statue.

Out of my comfort zone.

In less than 8 weeks I will be setting off on my biggest adventure. I am going to be spending nearly two months on the road, traversing the third largest country in the world, a country with one of the most diverse range of ethnicities. There are 56 ethnic groups recognised by the Chinese government with another 15 known but not officially recognised. I am going to be attempting to get off the beaten track a little with my trip in an effort to get to meet some people from these different backgrounds and hopefully get a glimpse of their varying cultures.

I’ll be honest; I am absolutely terrified.

I’ll be visiting six provinces, at least five major cities, two national parks, one glacier, one panda breeding research base (bring on the pandas) and over twenty small towns. And I mean small by Chinese standards, so some are not really all that small, but almost all of them are remote and pretty well isolated.

The biggest barrier I come up against here by far is the language. My Mandarin skills are fairly basic and I know no Cantonese, the two main languages spoken throughout the country. Part of the planned route for my trip will take me to some pretty far out places in terms of distance, and that remoteness in turn means that these locals may not even speak Mandarin. There are well over 250 languages alive throughout this enormous country and many of them are completely different from each other.

Heading out on a two month trip with a basic grasp of just one language, which may ultimately be incomprehensible to many Chinese (be it through my terrible pronunciation or just not knowing the dialect) has me scared. What if I ask for a bus ticket to Deqin and end up buying one for Deqen only to find out once I have already arrived… It might not sound like a huge deal, but by all reports transport out in the middle of nowhere runs intermittently, at best. Or what if I order something to eat using my stock standard, go-to expression “ni neng tuijian shenme cai me?” (what do you recommend) only to later discover I’ve ordered dog again, or worse still, my beloved panda! That’s HIGHLY unlikely but still a fear I have as a result of not understanding what I hear.

I honestly believe some people have a knack for picking up languages (my new Finnish friend who speaks something ridiculous like nine is testament to that) but I am pretty sure I don’t have it. I am trying my best, but have to say that in the last week all I’ve picked up is the Mandarin for watermelon, cucumber, blueberries, nose and hat. Not exactly practical when it comes to trying to convey that you want a room somewhere cheap preferably with hot water.

Regardless, I am going to give it a red hot crack. Knowing that I could potentially get to see such gorgeous places as Luoyang, Deqin, Juizhaigou (google images of this one, I implore you) and Dragon’s Backbone thrills me in a way literally nothing ever has before. It is this thrill, this overwhelming desire to experience such amazing landscapes, that pushes my beyond my comfort zone enough to get out there and do it.

And don’t worry; I’ll be sure to take the odd photo here and there for you. Here is a picture of me holding a panda to tide you over....

Hangzhou

Last week we were given a three day weekend, which I used as opportunity to do my first bit of solo travelling for this, my latest stint in China. I settled on Hangzhou; a large city of over nine million people and capital of the Zhejiang Province. The journey itself was relatively unremarkable; I made my way there in just under two and a half hours using the bullet train, but hardly saw anything because I had agreed to swap seats with a local who wanted to sit with her friends which resulted in me no longer having a window seat. More fool me.

Post-Deng-Xiaoping China is a society that is engaged in a construction industry boom. Hangzhou city is much like any other Chinese city in this sense; bust with built up traffic, constantly noisy and with a huge amount of construction taking place. They are building modern freeways, high speed rail, sea crossing bridges, a brand new metro system, and modern electricity grid and energy generating infrastructure, at an almost unhuman rate.

A regular sight in China, fast moving construction.

Everywhere you go in China there are old buildings being torn down and new ones being thrown up in a matter of days. Hangzhou was no exception. Even the hotel I was staying at was under partial construction during my stay (much to my annoyance – I only discovered this when I was woken up at 6am to the sound of hammers and drills).Perhaps this constant noise and the ensuing pollution is what drives locals and visitors to the peaceful serenity of the Chinese gardens. 

Hangzhou is probably most famous for it’s West Lake and the surrounding temples, pagodas and gardens. West Lake has inspired poets and painters with its natural beauty and historical relics since the late 5^th century AD. It was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site back in 2011 and was hailed as having been a great source of inspiration for garden design for centuries, not only throughout the rest of China, but also to those in Korea and Japan.

West Lake - XiHu

As I spent the larger part of my three days in Hangzhou within the Westlake gardens I can see why. Typical Chinese gardens are enclosed by walls and include ponds, rock works, trees and flowers, and an assortment of halls and pavilions within the garden, connected by winding paths and zigzag galleries. When moving along these winding paths you can view a succession of artfully composed scenes, unrolling like a scroll of landscape paintings, no two vistas ever the same. West Lake did not fail to deliver in the aspect.

 

A Chinese term for landscape, "shan shui" translates literally to "mountain” and “water", and while standing at the edge of West Lake I was able to see an amazing panorama that was filled with both these aspects. The beauty of this outlook was compounded by visiting at exactly the right time of year. Spring in China means blooming blossoms, warm sunny days and clear blue skies (if you are in the right city).

After spending the day weaving in and out of the different scenes in the gardens, I settled myself onto the bank of the lake to watch the sunset, I felt somewhat overwhelmed. I was, and still am in awe that I was able to witness such serene beauty, yet I also felt sad that I did not have anyone there with me to be able to remember it also. But rather than dwelling on that sadness, I sought comfort in knowing I could takes endless photographs instead, and share that beauty with you all anyway.

Teaching in Wuxi

After a brief settling-in period earlier this week, I have now started teaching in class. I had forgotten just how very different teaching in China is compared to teaching at home, but the differences have become glaringly obvious since completing my Masters last year.

Perhaps the most obvious difference is the amount of time I spend in the classroom. . Across the whole day I will generally be in class with the students for 4 hours, but on a typical day here in China, I will spend only 2.5 of those hours actually teaching. 

Jinqiao Bilingual Kindergarten

Here, I am dropped at my school by our driver at 8:30, where I then head straight to my first class to do morning exercises. I love this part of the day, as it is basically just half an hour of playing and dancing with the children. After that I spend the next two and a half hours going from one class to another to teach for 25 minute blocks. By 11:00 am all my day's teaching is finished. I then go back to my original class to help feed them lunch and generally muck about with the earlier finishers. At 11:30 (!) the classes Chinese teacher and I go for a half hour lunch break, before heading back to help prepare the students for their afternoon naps. 

In Chinese kindergartens, all students spend between 12:00 and 2:30 napping. This might seem a little ridiculous, but it's important to note that kindergarten over here starts at age 3, so these children are essentially still babies who need lots of rest. Not only that, they also spend more hours at school than we do in Australia, starting at around 8:00 and finishing around 4:00 or even later.

This two and a half hour break that I now have is what the Chinese teacher's here tell me is time to 'have a rest'. This coming Monday I can use this time to prepare my 5 lessons (1 per day that I will deliver to several different classes) using the outlines, books and CD resources I've been provided with.... The other four days of the week I can pretty much choose to do as I like. Last week I spent this time exploring the local area, going to the Carrefour nearby to suss out the imported food section (Milo yes... Vegemite no), or sitting in KFC drinking tea and reading on my iPad in an effort to stay warm.

Come 2:20 I return to my main class to wake up the students and help them get dressed for about 20 minutes. At which point I then say my goodbyes before heading out to be collected by the driver at 2:40 exactly (where he pointedly looks at his watch if I am a minute late). Done and dusted. This is the sum totally of my working day. 

For this I am paid extremely well; relatively speaking. Per day it equates to AU$75. Not much you might think, but it's actually quite a lot. My contract includes a lot of perks: free furnished accommodation, free WIFI (better and faster connection than I had back home), all utilities are covered, free lunch and dinner, free transport to and from work, health insurance, and full reimbursement for my visa costs and flights. I buy my own breakfast and food on the weekends, pay for my minimal phone bill, but other than that I have no other overheads. The cost of living here is minimal so nearly everything I make is pure profit.. It's a pretty amazing deal. 

The sad thing to consider here is that my salary is dramatically different from that of a local Chinese teacher. Different accounts of pay has led me to believe that full time Chinese teachers receive on average AU$186 per month. It is worth considering however that this is something never openly discussed with foreigners, so I can't say without a doubt this is the exact figure, but I am almost certain that the amount a local, fully qualified, university trained teacher is paid here in China will not be much more than this. 

These kindergarten teachers spend all day with the students, provide them with a full curriculum and virtually raise them from the age of three. They are constantly dealing with excessive workloads, overbearing parents, and an obsession with perfect exam scores. I however, swan in and out, teaching a little here and there but mostly playing with the kids. I do well under a quarter of the work but get paid well over seven times the amount. It would be completely justified for the local teachers here to be resentful towards this lazy, overpaid foreigner, and yet they have never ever made me feel anything but welcome.

So like many other foreign teachers working in China I consider myself lucky, count my money, and try not to feel too guilty about my circumstances.

Jinqiao School

I recently accepted a teaching position in Wuxi and so far I could not be happier with my decision to up and move again. For some time now I have been itching to move again and returning to a country I have an affinity with seemed natural.

After a Valium riddled arrival to Shanghai I was greeted by Ma Chong and was whisked off to Wuxi, a two and a half hour drive from Pu Dong airport. Chong is incredibly lovely with an amazing grasp of English. So far he has been wonderfully helpful, has a great rapport with the other English teachers, and genuinely seems to care about my well being.

Aideen and Eric met me on arrival, despite it being after midnight, and they also were very helpful. They already had a package of information for me to keep (including our address written in Chinese, a hand drawn map of how to get to the shops,and a list of their phone numbers). 

I'm already beginning to notice great differences between here and Wuhan. The community I am living is appears to be much more affluent, the streets are lined with beautifully manicured gardens, and I am not being stared at anywhere near as much. 

The wealth in this area is apparent in a few different ways. The most obvious ways are, such as the previously mentioned gardens and the beautiful new cars everywhere. I was chauffeured home from the airport in a brand new Audi and driven to the supermarket today in a near new Peugeot. 

Another way it expresses itself, is through its construction. Like all areas of China, the development of high-rise apartments and huge state of the art shopping malls are evident everywhere. The significant difference I can see is that temporary homes are built for the migrant workers.

An example of temporary housing that
 can be seen from our kitchen window.

China has a huge transitory worker population, mostly coming from impoverished regions to go to more urban and prosperous coastal regions in search of work. Where as in Wuhan I would see these workers sleeping it rough, in dug out sections within the construction areas, here in Wuxi they are provided with temporary housing. The housing itself does not look like much to our eyes, but it provides these workers with a dry place to sleep and also allows their family to stay together. The current number of migrant workers in China is estimated at 120 million, approximately 9% of the population, and a huge percentage of those workers would be leaving their families behind in order to find that work.  

Traveler's guilt is something I've felt a lot during my time in China. But it also provides me with a better understanding of how lucky I am. I'm here and I've been provided with free clean (relatively), dry and warm accommodation. I don't have to pay for water, electricity and have the option of being fed 5 nights a week for free too. I really am very lucky.

                  

The view from my bedroom into the school.