The Wild West

When we left you last we were just about to climb Mount Emei with our new found friend Ali, an experienced mountain climber and generally very useful person to have around... or so we thought. Now don't get me wrong, Ali is a well travelled intelligent individual, however from time to time he does play the part of 'stupid tourist' rather well. One of the main attractions of Mount Emei is the fact that half way up you are likely to come across monkeys. Throughout the climb there are constant signs stating the obvious like 'don't tempt the monkeys with food', 'don't pet the monkeys', 'don't attempt to take a monkey home in your back pack' etc. So what would any sensible person do 2 minutes before entering monkey territory... buy an ice cream of course! For those of you who are as naive as me (I know you are few and far between but humour me please) monkeys are not the cute mischievous little creatures you might imagine. They are evil, or at least these ones were! Now let me set the scene, Abi and I are wondering across a very wobbly rope bridge with Ali in tow, kitted out in a baby blue baseball cap, a tee-shirt proudly stating 'I climbed the great wall of china', a camera in one hand and the infamous ice cream in the other. In slow mo I watched in horror as we were homed in on from all angles, stranded on the bridge of death with no-where to run! Thankfully Ali had the sense to throw his ice cream away but it was too late and a dozen hairy fanged beasts were heading straight for us. Just as one launched itself at Ali's back, out of nowhere a small Chinese lady with the agility of a fox appeared with a catapult, threw herself onto the bridge and started pelting rocks at the approaching enemy. She was our saviour and as it turns out is employed specifically to protect stupid tourists such as ourselves. It was a good couple of hours before any of us dared to mention the idea of lunch.

The mountain itself was no mean feat, being 3077 meters high. It took two days to get to the summit, 8 hours of climbing each day and most of the way the inclines were so steep they made you want to throw a paddy just by looking at them, let alone tackling them! Which to be totally honest I did, more than once! Despite the pain this was not simply at endurance test and once again we were rewarded with breath taking scenery, when we weren't in the middle of cloud forest that is. Our first night on the mountain we slept at a Buddhist monks monastery which would have been the perfect setting for a horror movie. The monks themselves didn't seem the slightest bit enthused by our company. This combined with the thick mist that had quickly descended upon us, creaky wooden floor boards of the monastery and endless dark corridors which you had to venture down every time you needed a wee, made it a pretty scary place. However the next morning we awoke, not on a sacrificial stone slab but in our nice warm beds and eventually after much huffing and puffing made it to the summit where a hugely over-weight giant gold Buddha sat proud, quietly mocking our efforts.

Since the mountain we totally reassessed our route and made the decision to follow the exotic allure of the west. This is a little naughty as the official government warning is that foreigners aren't allowed in this area due to the current political instability, however like a lot of China things aren't always what they first seem. So armed with bobble hats, matching thermal leggings and altitude sickness tablets our journey on the road to Tibet began. Though the journey wasn't easy we spent the best part of a fortnight village hopping on the border of Tibet, from Baoguo to Kanding, to Tagong, and finally to Litang, birth place to two Dali Lamas. Many of the bus rides proved to be a little hairy and putting blind faith in complete strangers has been essential in order to get off the beaten track. The first bus we tried to get the staff refused to sell us tickets because we are white, a Chinese lady then approached us gesturing that she could get us there but a security officer soon came over to observe what was going on. We ended up having to get a taxi with her to the side of the road in the middle of nowhere where she then flagged down the bus for us so that officially we weren't on it. On another occasion we had to negotiate in Chinese with a private mini bus driver to take us to our next destination. This time we weren't allowed through the barrier leading out of the town (again we assume because we are foreign) so the driver paid a villager off to use their pot hole ridden dirt track instead. As it turned out the road was in such a bad condition and the incline was so steep that the vehicle started to roll backwards at quite a speed, luckily we all jumped out just in time before the bus ground to a halt inches away from a large brick wall. This has not been the only time we have had to get out and walk half way through a journey as land slides are common, which combined with narrow icy tracks, could easily prove to be fatal. On the other hand snow capped mountains set against brilliant blue skies make for a pretty spectacular journey and the fear of dribbling on your neighbours shoulder is no longer the only incentive not to fall asleep. Even if my body is lulled into a semi conscious state through the motion of the bus my eyes refuse to shut, fixated on whats laid out before them.

Most of the towns themselves have been basic but beautiful. Its exciting to travel to destinations with no other westerners and staying in guest houses makes for a much more interesting experience than the comfort of a hostel where everything is provided for you. The Tibetan people themselves tend to be beautiful with high cheek bones and chiseled features, and often we found ourselves staring at them with just as much curiosity as they have for us. The population is largely made up of monks, cow boys and women in traditional dress and therefore simply wandering around the streets kept us quite content in most places. In Tagong we trekked on horse back through the rugged terrain we'd spent so long eyeing through frosty windows, which was a great way to explore as at 4000 meters above sea level our lungs weren't really up for any more hiking. Throughout the journey Abi and I bonded with our horses rather well, although mine did have a particularly stubborn nature, permanently straying from the rest of the group in search of tasty shrubs. He also had a terrible flatulence problem, I wonder, can the same be said for horses and their riders as is suggested about owners and their dogs?! In Litang we visited a monastery that was completely free of any other people except for a lone monk who showed us around his living quarters. Areas of the monastery were still being built which was quite fascinating to watch as their attention to detail is quite admirable. While Abi and I were surrounded by coloured prayer flags, friendly monks and paintings of exotic gods, Ali attended a sky burial. In order for you to understand why Abi and I chose not to join Ali in this 'cultural experience' let me paraphrase the lonely planets description of it, 'This is an ancient Buddhist-Tibetan burial tradition that begins with laying the dead body on the ground at the foot hill of a mountain. The religious master of the ceremony then proceeds to cut the flesh of the body into large chunks and the bones and brain are smashed and mixed with barely flour. The smell then draws a large number of vultures that circle impatiently above. Eventually the religious leader steps back and the huge birds descend into a feeding frenzy, tearing at the body and carrying it in pieces up to the heavens.' ...On an up note I suppose this is a very ecologically friendly way of disposing of a body!

Our taste of Tibetan culture was brief but by far the most invigorating experience in china so far, and the last few towns we have ended up in have been a little disappointing in comparison. Shangri-La is supposedly one of the most beautiful ancient cities in China, but like a lot of places deemed worthy of a visit by the Chinese, the place is now a neatly gentrified museum where it is easier to order a pizza than authentic Chinese cuisine. From Shangri-La we visited a similar town called Dali but thank-fully stayed outside of the city walls. We took a bike ride through a stretch of paddy fields surrounding a lake, and for a brief moment kidded ourselves that we were in the deepest darkest depths of rural China, then we returned to our hostel and I ordered a snickers smoothie and began writing this blog. Mind you, three quarters of the way through the electricity went and I lost everything I had written. Development is a strange but fascinating thing, and as a back packer I feel I have a love hate relationship with it. We are constantly seeking more remote destinations, the more culturally diverse from the west the better, yet when it comes down to it we are totally reliant on the home comforts we moan about ruining the authenticity of a country so much. This reliance is something that's hard not to feel a little ashamed of at times, but one I doubt many people escape.