Tag Archives: Yunnan

Things We Love(d) About China

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Tiger Leaping Gorge

Tiger Leaping Gorge

There’s no denying it. We’ve enjoyed China. We didn’t fall in love with the big cities of the east coast, but the western and southwestern provinces are spectacular – filled with stunning scenery and diverse people. In summary, here are a few of our favorites:

  • mountains – The mountains of the Sichuan and Yunnan provinces provided some of the most beautiful and dramatic scenery of our trip. Hiking Tiger Leaping Gorge was a definite highlight for us.
  • point and fry – Finding veg food in China has been a source of endless frustration. It certainly exists and when we do find it, it’s been pretty tasty. By far some of the best and cheapest food has been at bus stops on our long distance journeys. There are usually a number of stalls with numerous bowls of fresh ingredients. You just walk up and point to the ingredients you like and they fry it up for you. Fast, fresh and cheap!
  • air conditioning – Sitting there in your overly cooled office, you are probably taking for granted that you are chilled to the bone right now. Well, after two months of very little AC in India, we were most pleased to find out the AC is the norm on most buses, trains and in hostel rooms. Ah…refreshing.
  • Sun Jie Hai commercial – Sun Jie Hai is Chinese and plays professional soccer in England. With great regularity, CCTV 9 (the English language propaganda channel) plays a commercial for London based Jade Travel featuring Sun Jie Jai and another guy we suspect if just a regular old footy fan. It’s not entirely clear to me why we laugh every single time the commercial is on and continue to quote it randomly throughout the day, but I think it may have to do with the way the footy fan asks Jie Hai, “Oh, why” as if he were Garth from Wayne’s World. He even kind of distorts his mouth like him and looks uncomfortable. Sadly there’s no Jie Hai commercial on YouTube and we didn’t manage to video it ourselves. I haven’t done it justice, but I tell you it’s hilarious.
  • peoples’ parks – A highlight of China’s cities is it’s parks. They are pleasant places to stroll around and observe an older generation of Chinese men and women performing impromptu concerts, playing traditional musical instruments, practicing tai chi or flying elaborate kites. This is the China you probably won’t see in 20 years.
  • Chinese kids – We’re not sure what it is, but they are incredibly cute – especially the boys. Maybe it’s the buzz cut or maybe it’s all the doting they get as the only child in the family. Who knows, but they sure made more than one bus ride entertaining.
  • bicycles – This is THE bike nation. There are special lanes for cyclists, monitored bike parking lots and portable bike repair shops all around town. Though it seems the personal auto is one the rise, hopefully the tradition of pedaling to and fro won’t go away.

Litang – Little Tibet

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Monks Chillin

Monks Chillin

So for various reasons (time and cost being the biggest two, hassle being another), we have chosen not to go to Tibet. Let me explain a little: there are now three ways to get to Tibet from China proper

1. Overland by four wheel drive, it takes the better part of a week, is expensive and you may have to turn around if the roads are blocked by landslides.

2. Fly in from Beijing or Chengdu – Less expensive, faster, but since Lhasa has become a “destination” for Chinese tourists it’s lost some of it’s charm, and you really need to get out into the country to “feel the Tibetness”.

3. Take the Train – See number two, and it still takes three days from Beijing.

So we decided a good alternative would be to explore some of the Tibeten Plateau without going into what the PRC government consider to be “Tibet”. Which you can now easily do in the western parts of Yunnan and Sichuan. After “Shangri-La”, a mildly Tibetan town, we headed up – way up – to Litang.

Litang may not be part of Tibet (any longer), but it certainly has more in common with Tibet than with Han China. This little town was the hometown of not one but two Dali Lamas (the 7th and 10th). It’s the home of a lamasery commissioned by the 5th Dali Lama, it was heavily bombed when the PRC “consolidated” it’s control over Tibet, and oh yeah, it’s at an elevation of about 13,000 feet! Higher than Lhasa (more about that later)!

A bus ride into town was full of amazing scenery, it was also a little hair raising. We crossed over quite a few high peaks, at the top of each the bus driver would throw Tibetan prayer flags out the window and shout something in Tibetan. The highest of the peaks was completely covered in snow, and it’s the middle of summer! BTW – I don’t know what the top elevation is for using your iPod, but mine stopped working for the duration we were in Litang.

The town itself is located in a wide valley surrounded by high snow capped mountains, and populated by Tibetans, Khampa’s and a few Han Chinese. It was only opened up to foreign visitors in 1999, so you still get quiet a few looks from some of the older residents unused to seeing us “Foreign Devils” up close.

If you visit Litang (and you should), please bring warm clothes and lots of them. The high temperature over the two days we were there was 51 degrees Fahrenheit, this is in mid-June! There was sleet falling as we ate supper our first night there. Seriously! Also, sunglasses are a must. The sun is blindingly bright up at that altitude.

All this, but you have to go, the old Tibetan part of town is terrific, the people are extremely friendly and the monks at the Lamasery are very friendly. The monks here are such a big part of the economy that there are several “Monk Shops” on the main drag selling only monk related items – monk hats, monk robes, monk …stuff.

Shangri-La…Not So Much

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The back streets of Zhongdian

The back streets of Zhongdian

Just north of Tiger Leaping Gorge at the edge of the Tibetan plateau sits the town of Zhongdian – recently renamed Shangri-La by the Chinese. It’s Tibetan name is Gyeltang, but no one uses it. Go figure. The name change was inspired by the James Hilton novel, The Lost Horizon, in hopes of spurring the tourist machine further north in the Yunnan Province. Unlike most Chinese cities which have been renamed to be more Chinese, this one is less so, but will surely sound better on a glossy brochure.

The Lonely Planet describes Zhongdian as “a bland Han Chinese town” and we couldn’t agree more. Most towns in China seem to be booming with construction. New stuff everywhere. Most of it not interesting or necessarily attractive. Once we were settled at a hostel, we set off to explore a bit of the Old Town. Sadly what we found was more new construction, apparently inspired by the success of the Lijiang Old Town. Not much old or Tibetan about it.

Despite the tourist vibe, the Ganden Sumstelling Gompa outside of town was worth the visit and is apparently the most important in southwest China. And like most places we’ve visited, if you’re willing to hop on a bike you can explore interesting villages and scenery nearby. Unfortunately,the weather didn’t cooperate so we missed out on that experience.

Zhongdian is mostly useful as a base for organizing an overland journey west to Lhasa or for heading north through the mounatins into the Sichuan Province and the Kham region of the Tibetan plateau. We were planning the latter, so Zhongdian proved a fine place to camp out for a day or two.

No, you won’t get much of a Tibetan vibe here, but you can get a darn good burrito! Thanks to Noah’s Cafe for that one.