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China - definitely an adventure - NOT a holiday!
We’re now in Laos and have proper internet connections again – yay!
As we weren’t able to update much in China, we thought we’d give an overview on our journey over the last month.
Highlights
The scenery through Tibet was stunning and some of the hairpin roads make the Alps look like Norfolk. Bright blue skies, snowy mountains, raging rivers, constantly changing flora (some in autumn colours) and suicidal yaks, pigs and goats all made for an unforgettable experience.
Lhasa was beautiful and peaceful, we were really glad to have stayed there for 3 nights. The Potala Palace there was amazing, full of monks, Buddhas, Dalai Lama tombs, such bright colours and the smell of incense – really atmospheric. Sadly we weren’t allowed to take photos inside, but they wouldn’t capture the serene feel of the place anyway. The most memorable thing for us was seeing the pilgrims complete their journeys from all over the country. Many had walked over the mountains for years, some pulling carts with all their possessions on. Others would walk 7 steps, stop, do 3 claps, lay on floor and then sweep their arms across the ground like swimming a breaststroke, then repeat. We’d seen these people on the road slowly making their way towards Lhasa, which was moving enough, but to see them finally reach their destination was awe-inspiring. There are 400 hundred steps up through the palace, which for us was enough effort, especially at the high altitude. Seeing 90 year old women practically leap up the steps to finish their journey was very humbling!
Shangri-La was lovely too, another place with a very relaxed atmosphere, particularly in the evening. Touristy, but in a nice, understated way (it’s only been called Shangri-La since 2001, after the fictional place described in the James Hilton book Lost Horizon purely to attract tourists!) With its narrow, cobbled streets, wooden buildings and red lanterns, it was the first town we’d visited that made us feel we were in the China we’d been hoping to experience. It has the world’s biggest prayer-wheel at 21 meters tall, which takes at least 5 people to turn it – we know as we had to recruit 3 other travellers to get it to move!
Tiger Leaping Gorge was another beautiful drive and the power of the water over the rocks at the bottom was immense and deafening – it sounded like being at Niagara. The gorge is one of the deepest in the world, being up to 3900 meters from mountain to the Jinsha River. We drove to the middle of the gorge where we stayed overnight and visited a restaurant with amazing views over the river below.
Lijiang was mental – imagine Bourton-on-the-Water meets Ibiza. Full of tourists day and night, thousands of shops selling the same tat. By day crowded with shoppers and people sitting by the many flower lined canals and bridges. At night banging with insane music and karaoke bars – hundreds of revellers slapping the tables to the constant thud-thud-thud of the techno music. It was an experience we were not expecting from what we thought were the traditionally conservative Chinese. We took refuge in a very quiet pub called Stone the Crows, run by a nice Irish bloke who was very interested in our trip and allowed us to write our website address on his wooden beams! Here we also met Becca & Anneka, two Brits from Brum travelling Asia for a year, so spent a few hours swapping stories and sipping beer and cocktails. It was the first proper pub we’d visited on our trip and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.
Having our guide Spring with us for the month was a great security blanket - not having to worry about directions, language barrier, finding accommodation, dealing with officials and arranging the repairs that all 3 vehicles needed. We stayed at some excellent hotels and guesthouses and all very cheap by Western standards. We ate out most nights as a group and Spring would just order a selection of dishes, trying to choose local specialities where possible, which were mostly delicious and again cheap.
PooChian (one of our group) used to be a hairdresser so one evening Caroline got her haircut, which made her very happy, although we failed to find any suitable hair-dye to sort her roots – unsurprisingly the shops only stock blacks and browns here! Bry refused to have a trim, despite considerable pressure from the others.
Lowlights
The itinerary we were given by our agent China Overland was ridiculous – we just had to do far too many miles a day and it meant we didn’t have the time, energy or inclination to visit Everest Base Camp. We appreciate we had to do a diversion as Northern Tibet was closed to foreigners, but we now understand it has been closed since April, yet China Overland didn’t tell us until a week before we arrived. Had we have known previously, we would have seriously considered taking another route, taking longer or missing out China altogether. We feel they were not truthful with us until it was too late to cancel and get any money back from them.
Some of the road conditions in Tibet were unbelievable, resulting in Mario breaking a rear suspension leaf. We had 3 days of particularly bad, rough roads which were so exhausting to drive. One section of mountain track coming out of Lhasa was 15kms of pure hell – muddy, slippery climbs and descents, water filled craters, single track sections with oncoming trucks, no barriers between the sheer drops, wooden rickety bridges and at one point a river flowing down the middle of the road. Not ideal conditions for a 5 ton motorhome being overtaken on all sides by lunatic locals in 4-wheel-drive minibuses. While discussing the experience that night, Bry admitted in hindsight it was quite exciting. However, Caroline confessed she had never been so scared in all her life and had a bit of an emotional breakdown, mainly from the relief that we and Mario had made it in one piece!
The majority of Chinese road-users are stupid! They don’t look before pulling out and don’t look further than the end of their bonnet. The pedestrians are just as bad, just walking out or standing in the road chatting. They’re all idiots, especially the two girls on the tuk-tuk in Dunhuang who just drove at full speed out of a car park across our path while we were doing 40 down a dual carriageway. Despite braking hard and swerving, we hit them on the rear right side and tipped them onto 2 wheels. Luckily they didn’t flip over, but they just gave us a dirty look and drove off. The only damage to Mario was a few marks on the bumper and small dent to the wing – more battle scars! When we work out how to delete the audio, we may post the video from our dashcam – let’s just say the language is a bit fruity!
Chinese whispers. It may be considered a derogatory term, but we think it appropriate in this context as the communication within the group was at times somewhat lacking. This could have been due to having four different nationalities, misinformation, people not listening, people ignoring what was said, reliance on temperamental walkie-talkies between vehicles, constantly changing plans or a mixture of all of these – but it was very frustrating at times.
The constant surveillance was also frustrating as we wasted so much time stopped at police checkpoints having our paperwork dealt with, only to drive for 10 minutes and go through the process again and again. Xinjiang Province was heavily policed and we saw hundreds of army trucks on the streets. Tibet was worse with constant police checkpoints, not just for us, but for everyone. We don’t know how the locals can live in such a controlled manner. Then when we got into Yunnan Province, it all just stopped – it was like entering a different country, which some would say we had.
Mixed Emotions
Travelling as a group was a strange experience for us. We got on well with the others and Spring, and we enjoyed the social side in the evenings, but effectively living alongside 5 strangers for a month was not ideal – especially after being so independent and carefree for the 3 months previously. The itinerary was so intense, we rarely had time to just relax as a couple, so did occasionally take ourselves off on our own when we could.
Driving through Xinjiang and Tibet brought us into contact with people who clearly do not get to see many foreigners. Walking through villages where people literally stop, point and stare or follow you around a supermarket taking photos on their phones was bizarre. It was nice to feel we were off the typical Lonely Planet backpacker circuit, but sometimes the staring made us feel quite uncomfortable. We normally just smiled and waved at them, and they’d easily respond in kind, but after a long day, feeling like a freak show could become a little tiresome.
We found that a lot of the Chinese are very inquisitive and have no concept of personal space. They would have no qualms about coming right up to Mario and looking through the windows, some even opened the doors and tried to get into the cab. Bry had to remove one bloke at a fuel station who thought the right-hand drive set-up was fascinating, he just got in next to Caroline and thought it hilarious to pretend to drive! When we wild-camped we always attracted a crowd who appeared from nowhere. We had the benefit of being able to cook and dress behind closed doors, but the other two vehicles, with their roof tents and outside kitchens, were a lot more exposed. We had to remind ourselves that us making camp was just as fascinating to the locals as their ways of life are to us. It was just the way they would happily stand and stare for literally hours that was alien to us.
Leaving China also brought mixed emotions. We were sad to say goodbye to Spring and soon that familiar knot in our stomachs returned which always seems to accompany entering a new country, heading into the unknown and going it alone again. But it was also great to be independent and in charge of our plans again.
At the moment we’re not really sure how we feel about our Chinese adventure, there were so many ups-and-downs along the way. We drove through a lot of the country, but we don’t feel we got to see or experience much of it. Perhaps in time and on reflection we’ll have a clearer picture of what the last month has meant to us and whether the emotional and financial cost was worth it.