I awoke in the sleeper bus from Lijiang to Kunming with Marlon Brando's voice in my head: "Damn, Saigon." Ok, this wasn't quite Saigon circa the Vietnam war, but somehow the sentiment fitted. The bus station was bathed in an eerie pre-dawn light and the sky was dark and smoky, a spider web of free-ways twisted, barely visible, over head. It was like something out of Blade Runner.
Movie citations aside, why were we in bus at Kunming bus station at 4:00am in the morning? Rewind about a week. We left Lhasa early boxing day morning after a pretty ugly disagreement with a taxi driver. There was an issue with the price: apparently 5 Yuan isn't enough for a 2 minute drive. So we payed the (extortionate) 10 Yuan he was asking. This, however, still wasn't enough and we were treated to a further 5 minutes of abuse while we waited for the airport bus to leave. The worst part about it was the comment made by the official at the bus station: "I can't do anything, he's Chinese..." the implication being that were he Tibetan they could have turfed him out no problems. The whole incident left a sour taste in our mouths that, unfortunately, is somehow appropriate in China run Tibet.
The flight itself though was amazing. I had originally wanted to travel overland from Lhasa to Lijiang as the landscape where the Tibetan plateau descends into low land China is apparently breathtaking. Unfortunately, this would have taken about 2 weeks and cost about $2000 US Dollars, neither of which we had. From the air we did at least get a feel for what it would have been like: for as far as the eye could see there was nothing but rugged mountains and frozen lakes, very very cool.
Upon arriving in Lijiang we (true to form) spent the first day or two organising how we were going to get out of there and into Burma. We've learned the hard way that getting out of (or into) these places is sometimes difficult and time consuming - if you leave things to the last minute it will cost you. Again we'd originally planned on traveling overland from Lijiang down into Burma, however, after a bit of chasing around we decided it would be too costly - the overland permit costs around $200 for a 5 hour drive, all of which goes straight to the Myanmar government. For the same price we could fly from Kunming to Mandalay, save 2 or 3 days travel and also enter the country knowing we weren't directly funding the corrupt military junta which is the Myanmar government. This is one of the goals of the Burma trip - try to give as little to the government as possible - and it wouldn't have felt right to capitulate so early on.
After sorting this out (4 seats on a flight from Kunming to Mandalay sort of booked), the next morning we jumped on a bus bound for Tiger Leaping Gorge. The gorge is renowned for it's spectacular beauty thanks to the steepness of the gorge and the ruggedness of the surrounding mountains. We decided we'd spend at least 2 days hiking up and then down into the gorge. And we SMASHED it in record time, probably due to our super-human physique (thanks to elevator red-blood cell counts due to the previous 2 or 3 weeks at altitude) and all round ruggedness... Ok I'm exaggerating but we did make it most of the way through the two day trek the first day which was lucky as it gave us the whole next morning to do the walk down to the bottom of the gorge. All in all it was a great trek, the place really is spectacular, especially from the foot of the gorge.
Cherry Blossoms along the way.
The view from the top of the Gorge.
Early morning.
James standing on Tiger Leaping Gorge
After the trek we returned to Lijiang with 2 days in hand before new years - which we spent doing very very little. It was a pretty idle time that was well needed and was complemented by the fact that Lijiang is quite a scenic and a pleasant place to relax. It's pretty much the epitome of an ancient Chinese town: narrow canals, red lanterns at night and lot's of old wooden pagodas. Unfortunately there also a few "old wood" - logged from the old growth forests - pagodas too. It is a bit of a rampant tourist spot with the Chinese which detracts slightly, but not too much. In general it was good place to relax and wait for new years.
The old town of Lijiang
In fact our most pressing concern was a) find a venue for new years b) find ingredients for Long Island Ice Teas, our drink of choice and c) find some other people to spend the New Year with (James, Wooky and V are great, but you know, variety it the spice of life 'n all).
Luckily the day before new years we met some like minded travelers (4 cousins from various parts of london / the world) and found a likely venue - The Sexy Tractor. We were pretty much sold by the name, to add to this though, they advertised that you bring your own iPod and be your own DJ. Sold. As a final sweetener the Long island Ice Teas were cheap and the White Russians were OUT OF THIS WORLD. Sorry, bit too excited there (I was at the time too). Our fears that new years would be just another night with the four of us were laid to rest in a blaze of drunken stupor, helped largely by a game called Waterfalls which some of you may (or may now) be familiar with. Waterfalls also played a large part in us alienating many of the clientèle at the Prague Cafe (our NYE dinner location) - sorry about that.
And that was new years, the next day was suitably wasted at the above mentioned cafe: any place that let's you spend 5 hours relaxing over breakfast (and a subsequent lunch) gets my vote. Then it was onto our night bus and off to Kunming before our flight to Mandalay, which brings me back to where we started.
So now it's off to the Union of Myanmar a.k.a Burma. I really am not sure what to expect, but we've met a couple of people so far who've been there and everyone has raved about it. At the same time though, it is such a black box, you hear very little about what's actually going on there.
All in all though, I'm looking forward to it, it really is exciting to head somewhere this intriguing.
