china 3

CHINA 3

WELCOME TO CHINA

10th APRIL 2008 Border to Menxing 100 miles, 6.5 hours, no tolls, mixed conditions.

We arrive at the border with a bang– one of the cars hit a parked bus and broke the bus wing mirror. Our guide is waiting for us with some news– Beijing has decided that to drive through this area of China you now need a special permit– it should be available at the border but they have none! So whilst our guide is running around trying to resolve the problem we sit in the shade listening to shouts of, ‘You can go f**k yourself’ as the bus driver asks for 100 euro’s to cover costs. Oh dear. The border is superb– a wide street lined with shops selling all-sorts. Customs were only interested in our reading material, so hide your Rough Guide or Lonely Planet books and DO NOT have any reading material that mentions Tibet or Tawain. They also are looking for dairy and meat produce-so hide that too! After 3 hours the permit problem is resolved and we can leave EXCEPT there’s another problem– we have to take our cars to the testing centre to be issued our driving licence, it’s at Jinhong-190km’s north of the border and if we don’t make it for tomorrow then we have to wait 3 days, as there are closed for a holiday. Instantly we are under pressure and our planned route has to be changed. There is an expressway from the border that looks to be completed but is yet to open– so we have to take the ‘old’ road. It’s a mixed condition road that weaves it’s way up and down hills, through villages and is full of trucks so, when we come around a corner to see a huge traffic jam it’s hardly a surprise. We drive past 2 beautiful villages without stopping, (it was a BIG mistake as they are unique to this area only and we never saw anything like that again on our trip) but we are keen to cover as much mileage as possible. We get as far as Menxing where we book into a guesthouse and all go out for our first Chinese meal– it was superb.

11th APRIL Menxing to Pu’er 186 miles, 9.5 hours, 52yuan tolls, mixed conditions and expressway.

After 3.5 hours of driving we reach the testing centre only to pick up a huge chunk of metal that destroys one of our tyres. The test centre drives your car into an area where they can test your brakes– that’s basically all there is to it. We get onto the expressway and then miss our turn– we all pull over to decide if we should turn around or continue. Rose reminds everyone that this is our last opportunity to see the people and culture that is unique to this region, so the decision is made to turn around. We arrive in Mengyang, a minority town that is meant to have some traditional buildings, only to discover that it’s packed full of people celebrating their annual rain festival. What a piece of luck!! Thousands of people have converged on this small town, all dressed in their best outfits and ready to party. A large procession comes through town led by sword wielding men and followed by strange looking bamboo ‘poles’- they are hand made rockets that get fired into the air to bring rain. It was an incredible sight– they literally go off with a BANG! The women parade in their tribal outfits and the men sit drinking home made rice wine. I was invited to join the men for a drink– delivered in a shot glass and drunk in one swallow to shouts of ‘SHAY, SHAY, SHAY!’ -2 shot glasses later and they were asking if I was light headed– not yet! We could have stayed for hours, everyone was so friendly and they were obviously building up to a big party– but our itinerary is calling and we reluctantly leave. We arrive at Pu’er, book into a hotel and go out for another group meal.

We are all very concerned about our ability to complete our route through China. We had expressed concerns about our planned mileage after we saw the road and traffic conditions around Beijing, then we met a very experienced overland couple who almost fainted when we said what our daily mileage plans were– our fears are all coming horribly true.

Thank goodness Dave insisted that 5 extra days should be added to the original plan– in-case of ‘problems’!

EXCHANGE RATES:

14Yuan : £1.00

$1.99 : £1.00

12th APRIL Pu’er to Route 323 123 miles, 9.5 hours, no tolls, good then bloody awful!

After hearing that our original route has 50km’s of bad road, we make a group decision to cut off the bottom section of our drive and head straight for Lincang. It was a terrible mistake! The road conditions were initially very good, leading us through some lovely terraced rice field scenery– then the road disappeared. We hoped it was just a short rough section but instead it turned into a 100km’s of tyre shredding, suspension bursting hell. After several hours we were all exhausted and settled down for the night to bush camp by a river. We are slowly coming to realise that whatever driving hours we estimate should be almost doubled. We look up the bus trip in our book for tomorrow– it’s 12 hours, our friends insist we should only take 6 hours to get to Dali– we’ll see.

13th APRIL Route 323 to Dali 260 miles, 11.5 hours, 35yuan tolls, very bad start then expressway.

Dave and I got up before dawn to fold the tent before the morning condensation sets in. We drove a further 2.5 hours on the bad road before reaching a surfaced road that eventually led us to a expressway and Dali. China is in the grip of a fuel crisis. We knew this before we entered and have fuelled up at every opportunity but we cannot find fuel anywhere now and we are getting desperate. That combined with the fact that we cannot find money is only adding to our problems. Our guide gets lost trying to find the Dali turn off and after a couple of circuits we spot the sign and call our friends to say they’ve driven past the sign and we’ll wait for them there. They reappear and we make it onto the expressway. It’s later we discover that the other two cars found a garage that sold diesel for a black market price, so they fuelled up before rejoining us at the Dali turn. We get to Dali exhausted and find a superb guest house to book into for two nights. Oh– and we find our first Bank of China– hurrah!

Dali turns out to be one of our China highlights– the beautiful old city wall encompasses what is effectively a tourist street but the local people still use this area and you can see a large variety of minority people going about their daily business. We could have spent a week here just people watching. The incense street full of old women selling their home made sticks and the animal market, on the north side of the wall– were particular highlights.

15th APRIL Dali to Kunming 230 miles, 6 hours, 130yuan tolls, good expressway.

The search for fuel begins– the garages are either closed or have huge queues that have been waiting all night for a tanker delivery. We are driving on fumes and the decision is made to try and get to the black market garage our friends found 2 days ago. We only just make it and negotiate hard to get filled up– jerry cans included. At 6yuan a litre it’s a bargain. We push onto Kunming telling our guide we want to stop at the Bamboo Temple first– we get sucked along the expressway, miss our turn then spend an hour trying to fight through the city traffic before stopping. We don’t have time to visit the Bamboo Temple AND the city so we have to decide between the two– the city has more to see, so we turn around and go in search of accommodation. Our first attempt is the University, which has rooms, but they won’t allow us to park– OK. Frank and Fang find a military hotel which will accept us– we drive there only to be interrogated on arrival! By now we are all knackered and just want to stop– Sue pretends to faint to try and gain sympathy, the baby gets paraded around, and the guide begs. I’ve had enough, so I head out, grab our Rough Guide book, call the Youth Hostel, confirm there is parking and book two rooms. Things are looking up until we get there, squeeze down a narrow lane to park, only to discover the hostel has moved-B*********!!!. One of the cars gets badly damaged reversing out and by the time we find the hostel we are all fed-up, especially when the staff refuse to lift the roller shutter to let the Iveco’s in. The shutter gets manhandled by our friends and they are in! The final insult to the day is when we take a walk into town to see the sights– the Muslim quarter has been torn down, the Bird and Flower market has been moved—no-one seems to know where to– and it’s too dark to see the park!! What a day– you’ve got to laugh. We celebrate with a McDonalds burger for dinner!

MENXING RAIN FESTIVAL FUN– CHEERS!!

16th APRIL Kunming to a Fish Pond!! 123 miles, 7 hours, 42yuan tolls, good expressway.

We swing by Carrefour for a food shop before driving down to the Stone Forest– it’s our first tourist sight in China. Beijing decided late last year to double the entry costs of all tourist sights in China– so when we see a entry fee of 140yuan per person we want to make sure it’s worth it. We search out the postcard stall and the tourist photograph shop and, after seeing the pictures, make a group decision that it’s not! Instead we drive around the local area which is FULL of fantastic rocks and have a great time for free before driving on as far as we can. We stop at a fishing pond by the expressway and camp for the night. It was great– the men were really friendly and we had a good laugh with them over our magic tricks.

17th APRIL Fish pond to Huanggshuo Falls 214 miles, 11 hours, 93yuan tolls, expressway on and off.

Today took us through some lovely scenery with near vertical rice terraces. The expressway ( when we’re on it) is a engineering marvel– it spans deep wide valleys in one giant step and cuts through mountains with 3,000m length tunnels. We spend most of the trip jumping on and off the expressway as some tunnels and a unbelievably high suspension bridge are yet to be completed. Every village we pass through is packed full of amazing sights– markets full of minority people buying and selling their vegetables, donkeys and carts, amazing outfits beneath amazingly weathered faces full of character. Everyone walks around with a large sugar beet in their mouth, chewing enthusiastically. We fight through traffic jams and eventually get to Huanggshuo Falls where we are shocked to discover an entry fee of 180yuan per person! None of us are prepared to pay that. Our friends volunteer us to go in search of a place to stay and we stumble upon a fantastic place to camp right on top of the falls. Thank goodness we didn’t pay to go in– there is a dam up stream and the falls only get ‘turned on’ between 9am and 3pm! We were on the river and able to look straight down the falls to the tourist area below! BONUS! Unfortunately we can only camp one night here and have to book into a cheap guesthouse for our second night-we can’t risk a late start because of a wet tent. Our friends stay at the falls.

19th APRIL Huanggshuo to Taijiang 230 miles, 7.5 hours, 157yuan tolls, expressway.

Our guide is told we DO NOT want to drive through anymore Chinese cities– it’s really stressful when you are in a ‘convoy’ and trying to follow each other. Every city has a bypass and we want to use it. It takes us 2 hours to get through, not around Guiyang– along narrow streets choked with trucks. But we reach Taijiang by 3pm. The whole trip through China was timed to coincide with a annual festival that takes place here. The Sister’s Meal Festival is an event where minority tribal girls from the surrounding areas come to town to parade in their finest outfits, usually passed down from mother to daughter through the generations, and try to catch the eye of a potential husband. It used to take place on a riverside meadow beside a crossroads but that meadow has now turned into a concrete town square surrounded by modern buildings and the crossroads is now the expressway! Never the less, it is a utterly tremendous event to witness, attracting thousands of spectators and participants. It’s almost impossible to pin down an exact date for the event but we thought we had done it until we turned up only to realise that, rather than being a day early, today was the first day.

We are volunteered again to find some-where to stay and find a guesthouse that will allow our friends to park and use the toilets. Whilst everyone is settling in we drive back to the town square and park Nessie nearby. We can hardly get out of the car for photographers and people wanting to look at Nessie– she seems to be the star attraction! We park her as close to the square as we can and stand on the roof to get the best views. Each tribe is led to this area by lusheng playing men where the girls begin to dance and flirt with the on looking boys. The variety of costumes is dazzling and we are overwhelmed by the friendliness and hospitality shown to us. We drive back to the guest house for a rest before driving back into the centre to find the dragons. It’s a lovely old Chinese couple who chase after us and gesture wildly to say we should go and look at something– so we drive in that direction and find a HUGE crowd of people. We park up and follow the masses until we reach a large crossroads where long Chinese paper dragons are being danced amidst the crowds. Suddenly there’s a loud bang– it’s a bamboo ‘sparkler/ blow torch’- (we can’t really describe it) but it is used to burn the dragons as they dance. The crowd runs like hell when it is pointed in their direction spraying flames and hot shards of bamboo everywhere. Wear old clothes as you are guaranteed to get them burnt. It sounds dangerous, and I suppose it is, but it’s also fantastic fun and utterly un-missable.

We call our friends to tell them to get here as quickly as possible so they don’t miss out on the fun.

Dave sheep worrying in Dali ! The three paodgas

The incense street women.

The next morning we are up and parked down by the square securing our prime ‘viewing platform’. Today is the final day where the girls select husbands, the men enter their prize studs for the bull fighting event and the dragon boats get raced along the river– it’s a full day.

Rose manages to get ‘trapped’ in an ever decreasing circle of dancing tribal girls and lusheng playing men– not such a bad thing except the particular tribe she is with has the tradition of making visitors swallow buffalo horns full of rice wine. SIX horns later she finally manages to break out of the circle and has to sit down for quite some time to recover. It’s becoming a habit!! We dash from one area to another trying to catch all the events before returning to our guesthouse, only to discover that our neighbour owns the winning bull. It’s paraded up and town the street with live chickens tied to it’s neck whilst it’s owners offer everyone rice wine. Rose beats a hasty retreat! It’s been an utterly fabulous two days and has been worth all the troubles we’ve had so far in China.

21st APRIL Taijiang to Congjiang 184 miles, 9 hours, 15yuan tolls, good sealed road.

One of the cars has been suggesting, for quite some time, that we should cut out our trip to Guilin– it’s meant to be one of our Chinese ‘highlights’ so we don’t agree to change the route. We made a big mistake by taking the expressway back to Kaili– we should have taken the good side road that would have allowed us to stop at the lovely villages along the way. It’s a gorgeous drive from Kaili down to Congjiang– rice fields, high pine clad hills, minority villages accessed by boat or foot bridge, cormorant fishermen, wind and rain bridges and huge drum towers. It’s a drive not to be missed.

22nd APRIL Congjiang to Guilin 178 miles, 11 hours, 23yuan tolls, awful then sealed and good.

We are barely out of town when the road turns to rubble and the great views of yesterday disappear. We then reach a road block– a digger has got stuck in the thick mud of the next section of our route! It takes almost an hour for the digger to be rescued then it’s our turn to slither and slide along this ‘road’. We reach a turn– we have a choice -30km’s more of mud or 100km’s of a good road detour– EVERYONE is taking the detour so we follow suit. The detour leads us through yet more stunning scenery of rice and tea terraces and, if we had time, we would have stopped for the night BUT we must reach Guilin tonight to keep up with our timetable. We reach Guilin utterly exhausted and are, yet again, put under pressure to miss out Yangshuo– a silly idea considering how close we are.

The following day we drive into the centre and find a great place to stay. It’s a modern friendly city where locals are punted across the river on bamboo rafts. We enjoy a day of strolling around visiting the pagodas, the Fubo Shan caves and people watching. A rare reprieve.

24th APRIL Guilin to Yangshuo 67 miles, 2 hours, 18yuan tolls, good sealed roads.

We are very lucky today and manage to get the last fuel from a garage– they close up as we leave! We stop at Caoling to catch a boat trip through the best of the scenery on the famous Li River. Just turn up and negotiate– we paid 300yuan for 7 people. The river is like a motorway until late morning/ lunchtime when suddenly all the tourist boats disappear. The views of the karst edged river are stupendous and if you watch closely you may be lucky to see cormorant fishermen at work. Our friends decided to spend the night here but we want to get to Yangshuo so, with our guides permission, we get to drive the short distance to town and find a great place to stay. We are welcomed like long lost family members– everyone is SOOOO nice. We cook a Nessie dinner and are joined by several locals, some even participated– it was a great experience. This small town is very touristy but utterly likeable and incredibly friendly. We met some great people and made some new friends– not too hard with Chinese people. A visit to the lovely Moon Hill Park completed our all too short visit to Yangshuo.

GET CHASED BY A FIRE DRAGON & DRUNK WITH THE LOCALS AT THE

SISTER’S MEAL FESTIVAL!

26th APRIL Yangshuo to Dushan 343 miles, 10 hours, 135yuan tolls, expressway good to start then bad.

Psychologically today is a big day for us all– we are finally turning to drive in the correct direction for our exit point. It takes some pressure off us all.

We suspect the road to Hechi is full of great views but, due to thick fog, we were unable to see much. It was north of here that the road deteriorated and became bouncy with speed bumps– it looks as if this road suffers badly from land slides. By 6pm we’ve had enough and stop for the night.

27th APRIL Dushan to Qijiang 350 miles, 10.75 hours, 283yuan tolls, poor start then good expressway.

Our guide has learnt a lesson because this time we pass by Guiyang on the bypass– she’s obviously been studying the map– GREAT. So far we have managed to find garages and negotiate a small amount of fuel– people are only being allowed 100yuan worth of fuel at a time– it does mean fuelling up sometimes 2 or 3 times a day but it’s worth it. Today we are desperate again, garages either have none or do not want to sell it. We get to the point of being empty and have to ask the police to let us into a HUGE queue of trucks to fuel up. In Britian the truck drivers would go mad if a foreigner jumped a huge queue, but here everyone obliged with a smile– incredible. We stop in a nearby town for food and get mobbed by locals– Dave does his usual magic tricks and we try to communicate as best as possible. Tourists are obviously a rare sight here. It’s when the main road through town becomes completely blocked with curious locals we decide it’s maybe best to move on!

28th APRIL Qijianj to Emei Shan 184 miles, 8 hours, 166yuan tolls, good expressway then bumpy.

Another 5* Fang day– she navigates us around Chongqing -through a maze of junctions. The road is great until Zigong where it becomes bumpy. We get to Leshan and while the other cars go in search of a visa extension, we visit the giant Dafo– the world’s largest carved Buddha. It’s quite an incredible sight and we enjoy a wander around the grounds for 70yuan per person. Back into town where the others are parked– they have to stay here tonight to register then collect their visa extensions tomorrow afternoon. With permission from Fang we drive to Emei Shan and book into a nice hotel. The next day we drive up the mountain past crystal clear rivers and waterfalls. We take the cable car up to Wannian Temple where, a antique 4 foot monk will enthusiastically strike the bell for a donation and ferocious monkeys have to be kept at bay by stick wielding staff. There is a 150yuan per person entrance fee to access the mountain from the car parks which is valid for 3 days- as long as you don’t come off the hill. As a day trip– it’s overpriced.

RICE TERRACED MINORITY VILLAGES, PAGODAS and TREMENDOUS SCENERY on the way to YANGSHUO.

30th APRIL Emei Shan to Huanglongxi 61 miles, 2.5 hours, 24yuan tolls, expressway then normal road-good.

We meet up with the other cars on the expressway and get to Huanlongxi by lunchtime. Fang has suddenly changed her mind about us being away from the group- ‘We may drive through top secret military areas by mistake’ -is the translated story. WHAT! On a expressway and in a top tourist site?!

We spend the afternoon strolling around the friendly old town and visiting Gulong Si Temple– it’s where Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was filmed. We spend the night camping in a grassy garden area– we miss bush camping badly.

1st MAY Huanglongxi to Chengdu 30 miles, 1.5 hours, 5yuan tolls, expressway.

It takes 2 hours for the morning condensation to dry on the tent– a big delay– but it’s a short drive today. We get to Renmin Park and split up to look at our options. Frank found a hotel that’s, ‘only 190yuan and very clean’-but we’d rather not pay that much if possible, so we book into the next door hotel for 120yuan. It took us 40 minutes to catch a taxi to our first stop- Qingyang Taoist Temple where we enjoyed lunch with the locals in the temple vegetarian cafe– we had great fun getting lessons in how to use our chopsticks properly. Next stop was a Sichuan Opera– where the audience of geriatric Chinese sit chatting loudly, slurping tea and sucking lollipops whilst enthusiastically spitting everywhere. Not a tourist in sight in this backstreet theatre! We had the opportunity to go backstage to see the makeup and costumes being completed– it was a superb experience.The following day we stumble upon a Carrefour sign, so we take a photo of it, find a taxi, show him the photo and 5 minutes later we are in Nirvana! We write out the address in Chinese for our friends so they can go shopping later, then spend the rest of the day relaxing and dreaming of pandas.

HUANGLONGXI , A CHEEKY MONKEY on the way to EMEI SHAN & SICHUAN OPERA in CHENGDU

4th MAY Jianmenguan to Lishan 319 miles, 9 hours, 250yuan tolls, expressway with one awful section.

The road was good until Guangyuan where we then averaged 3MPH! It was full of holes, trucks and traffic jams until Ningqiang.

TOP TIP: at Hanzhong the traffic is automatically diverted off the expressway. The toll staff will only allow cars back on, so if you look like a little truck (ie. the Iveco’s) they do not want to let you on– it was time to wave our licence plates again! We were all allowed back onto the road and it was superb. We could see why trucks are banned– there are 9,000metre tunnels on some sections.

5th MAY Lishan to Xi’an 40 miles, 2 hours, no tolls, mixed road conditions.

We were up early and first in line to visit the Terracotta army– what a great experience. Utterly unique and unforgettable. TOP TIP: Don’t miss the chariot museum with it’s beautiful bronze chariots and horses. Next we drive into town to find somewhere to stay– it was when we all wanted to give up that Rose insisted we try one more street and we found a FANTASIC place to sleep. A youth hostel right beside the old city wall and next to the artists quarter, with space for 3 cars to park off the road. Our itinerary planned 3 nights in this area and although one car has been desperately trying to trim it down to two, we take one look at the town and fall in love. It’s a great place to relax and wander. TOP TIPS: Get up early and go to the Shaanxi Museum– arrive before 8am and join the queue for free entry tickets– just remember to take some form of I.D -your Chinese drivers licence will do. It’s got to be the best museum we’ve seen in China. AND– don’t miss out on a trip around the top of ancient city walls, take some food and juice. The nearby artist quarter is a great place to observe calligraphy and other skills being put to daily use. We wish we’d had a week here.

7th MAY Xi’an to Maijishan Caves 235 miles, 8 hours, 99yuan tolls, mixed.

We have the usual problem of finding our way out of town, but make it eventually. (Don’t miss the monument for the start of The Silk Route as you head out of town– it marks where the original Silk Road started before the route was extended to Beijing). The road to Baoji is good but thereafter it’s the usual bumpy traffic jam hell. We stop to buy honey from one of the many roadside ‘bee farms’ and get to Maijishan where we are allowed to camp in the middle car park.

It’s a very, very cold night. Next morning we visit the Buddhist caves (70 yuan per person) which are superb if not a little scary– the metal staircase clings to the side of a sheer rock wall. There are hot springs nearby so we drive there to spend our second night– NOT worth it and the road is bad.

9th MAY Maijishan to Lanzhou 239 miles, 5.5 hours, 91yuan tolls, good.

We get to town and visit the museum– free entrance with I.D after 2pm– it’s quite good but not worth it if you have to pay. We then go to see the famous Yellow River– which is actually chocolate brown. Lanzhou has the reputation of being one of China’s most polluted cities, yet we see blue sky for only the second time in China– ironic! We waste a couple of hours sitting by the river waiting for everyone else to find tyres. By the time they have finished we have found a car park that will allow us to spend the night with a guesthouse nearby for our guide.

3rd MAY Chengdu to Jianmenguan 184 miles, 7 hours, 108yuan tolls, expressway.

We are not risking getting lost today– so we hire a taxi to lead us to the Giant Panda Breeding Research Base– only 30yuan. We arrive for 8am and dash straight for the back of the reserve to the sub adult enclosure– just in time to see some sleepy heads wakening up for a quick play before a hearty breakfast of bamboo. As soon as they are fed they fall asleep again– so you’ve got to be fast! Next dash is to the red panda section– just in time to see them slurping down some bowls of milk before disappearing into the bush. It may be a controlled area but just to see these animals up close is an amazing experience and well worth the small entrance fee of 30yuan per person.

TOP TIP: listen for women shouting– that’s the staff calling the animals to breakfast– you’ve got to be fast to catch the moment as these bears are guzzling little devils.

Fang has highly recommended the Sanxingdui Museum, which is on our way, so we stop for a look. It’s very expensive to get in– 84yuan each and most of the big exhibits are in storage whilst a new annexe is being assembled for the Olympic torch visit. It’s a disappointment. We drive on a far as we can and pull off the expressway to book into a cheap guesthouse for the night.

NOT A PLACE TO GO SWIMMING!!

A FEW OF THE MANY GREAT SIGHTS XI’AN HAS TO OFFER.

GUEST BOOK