BEIJING

Although I correctly wrote that I headed to Shanghai after Zhongdian, I thought it better to write about my week long trip to Beijing..as this is where holiday times have ended!!

I headed up there with 2 friends I met from Vietnam, so as well as unpacking the bags and sleeping in the same bed more than 4 nights in a row...it was nice travelling with people who'd known me more than a couple of nights!

So, te be honest the change of routine from travelling has meant the antics have calmed to normal levels...only when left alone do things seem to go a little (OK, a lot) wrong for me...

Saying that Beijing itself was excellent, and although I was more than tired of sightseeing and devoting my day to the contents of a guideboook I'm glad I managed to get myself up and around.

However, major world tourist sites such as the Great Wall, Tiannemen Square etc. are busy at the best of times...visiting such places on anice sunny day on a Chinese national holiday was suicide! No wonder my friends opted to leave me to 'explore' on my own for those days!

After a while, the polite British attitude of letting people in front of you and allowing gaps of mroe than 1 inch between people soon leaves you, anbd you find yourself with the same mentality as that oof an American football player - anyone in my path gets flattened!

So, a stressful day of flattening old ladies and Children out of my way was well worth it in Tiannemen Square.

My trip to the Great Wall was equally as good, if not slightly better...after having seen many of the 'must see' sights on my trip, you know somewhere really deserves the label when you get there and have one of those "wow, I'm actually here!" moments...the Great Wall was definitely that for me.

Although it was nearly impossible to get a view of the wall disappearing into the distance without trourist shaped obstructions (usually American thick white cotton socks - a camera picks those bad boys up from half a mile away!)

The resultant shots were good and the views were worth all the biazrrely small steps up and down everywhere...were ancient Chinese people really that small that 1 inch high steps were necessary?

Having a problem posting pics onto the blog at the moment, so will sort out soon...next post to update the current situation in Shanghai...more details (and effort into the posts) to follow!

ZHONGDIAN

Still feeling the aches from the trek the previous day, I headed straight to my guest house in Zhongdian and out of the cold…..3200m above sea level means you really feel the change in temperature….as do flip flops!

After looking into Tickets I would have a 3day wait to get a flight into Tibet’s capital Lhasa…going by road really isn’t an option as it takes 8 days each way and in the words on Eric my trek guide can be a bit “sketchy” at times.

After looking into the ticket prices I came to about 5 mins later when, including my Visa it would cost me more than a month’s stay anywhere else to get in and out of Lhasa and onto my next stop Shanghai. That didn’t even include any ‘refreshments’ or planned trips either!

A quick check online confirmed that as China was an unscheduled stop, Lhasa at this stage was not inline with budgetary requirements…in that it would blow a huge hole in it!

So, as much as it pained me at this stage….I headed to Shanghai ahead of schedule in an effort to actually have some money coming in rather than fly outward, the plan being to visit Lhasa on my way out of China and no doubt onto somewhere new.

That brings me to where I am now, and have been the last 5 weeks, Next post (soon) will update where I'm living, what I'm doing etc. in Shanghai as well as the usual catelogue of schoolboy errors...oh yes there have been more.

TIGER LEAPING GORGE



Rather than disappointment at Tiger Leaping Gorge not being similar to a ‘Yoga Flame’ or ‘Spinning Bird Kick’ (never mind if you don’t know what I mean) the scenery was well worth the trip and the cold weather…I haven’t been this close to snow covered mountains without my snowboard.

But although I wasn’t able to endanger my life with a snowboard, plenty of opportunity still existed with all the trekking that is so obviously popular here.

The most travelled route is along either the upper or lower paths that run the full 20km or so (30km if you’re more hardcore or stupid). These paths are dotted with a guest house or two every 5km or so meaning that when you’re legs give up you’re not too far from a bed…a hot shower might be a bit further though!

Although I am a lazy critter (a fact established well before leaving the UK) and have had my fill of treks, I was determined to do some of the tracks that cover the gorge.

The only problem was that my foot although healing wasn’t quite up to wearing shoes and I was still looking like I was traveling the Tropics in my flip flops, rather than the rest of the hardcore trekker types in their boots etc. in the near zero temperatures.

Although I took the first 15km or so to my chosen guest house by van, I was determined to endanger myself in some way so after meeting some trekkers I decide to head out with them the next day.

Now although these were nice people, a few beers that evening revealed that they weren’t just your average backpacker doing a bit of hiking, they were all actually part of an Intrepid tour group, meaning that these people pay good money to go to places and just basically trek the whole time!!!

This made me, in my Bangkok ‘Diesel’ flip flops and bandaged foot slightly nervous….although after asking one of the group how long tomorrow’s trek might be, the response of “about 90 mins or so” was good enough for me and I continued to share the remainder of my Tibetan corn whisky amongst the group.

So earlyish next morning we all set off, everyone looking every inch the trekker but me, looking more like I’d got lost looking for the beach in my flip flops, shorts and backpack. At least my waterproof was bit more hardcore so I’d look like authentic and dry whilst slipping everywhere!

The trek was to the top of the gorge, where apparently a nice waterfall is, so naturally the first part of the trek was an incline, as explained by the guide. What he failed to mention is that the incline was probably about 89° and wet…everyone was just about coping with it apart from me…my flip flops were now wet and my feet covered in my…my face covered in that look you have when you know you ate going to fall over but have no idea when.

This continued for an hour or so, where I learned that the trek was going to take about 5 hours or so.
SBE# 715…don’t ask how long anything takes or how difficult something is at 1am after beer and corn whisky.

The rest of the trek evened out, but the wet flip flops we now about as useful to my hill climbs as roller skates, and probably just as graceful…the trek took us through bits described by the leader as “sketchy” and “tricky” which were OK for the rest but to me were “insane” and “suicide".

Nevertheless, I followed and kept up, the waterfall and the view from the top of the gorge well worth it. The descent down was far easier, and I was starting to congratulate myself, although covered in mud and aching from the waste down I had made in flip flops, much to the surprise of some of the group who admitted they thought I should have headed back.

So then, about 10m from the tarmac road leading back to the guest house and feeling pleased with myself I manage to do one of those stumble where you actually trip on nothing at all, and went flying forward.

I managed to stay upright but in predictable me style I stubbed my foot on some of the rocks…leaving me walking back the last 20 mins with my foot (left this time though) covered in blood and me in shame.

Despite the last minute SBE and the skating closer to death than I had wished on my trek, it was great fun and well worth it, and for me a much better option than trekking along the gorge as I got to see most of that anyway…especially the next day on the way out and back to the beginning of the trail and onto another bus…..

Next stop was West again and 4 hours down the road to Zhongdian, a town 3200m high and the last Chinese settlement of any notable size before Tibet.