Not my Shangri La

Zongdian, in the north of Yunnan, is a little town with nothing really special about it. Set in a valley, the architecture is lack lustre and the landscape surrounding the town less spectacular than most I’ve seen in Yunnan. Perhaps recognising this (and the steep competition that the rest of the province offers in luring the tourist dollar) the local authorities decided in 2007 to rename the city Shangri La. This is not, apparently, a random decision – local mountains are said to closely resemble descriptions of Shangri La in James Hilton's novel Lost Horizon.

I think they should have stuck with the old name; Shangri La promises so much but struggles to deliver it. The little city is flat and a bit dusty. At 3,200 metres high it leaves you short of breath as you walk around. On the first day my legs are wobbly every time I do any exercise at all. And while the old town has its share of attractive old buildings, most house tourist shops and there’s not much soul here.

My favourite memories are of the sky: bluer than blue, a bright almost turquoise colour. At night the clouds don’t turn pink, instead they are a burnished gold, sitting like jewels in the bracelet of indigo sky.

More tourists do now visit the city but some aspects of its development are very un-Shangri La indeed. Perhaps the most disturbing is the Disneyfication of the local monastery.

Zongdian was once home to an important Tibetan Buddhist monastery that was home to more than 800 monks. It had a reputation as a friendly and spiritual place so we decide to visit. (I’m now travelling with Wietse, a young Dutch medical student who I met while trekking on the Tiger Leaping Gorge trek. He’s only 24, which makes me feel suitably ancient, but is gentle, laid back and companionable.) We hook up with Milan and Lise, a Dutch couple and hire cycles for the 6km ride out to the monastery.

The first sign that things have changed is when we’re asked to pay 85yuan, £8.50, entry at a vast hall like complex, manned by soldiers. We cycle on up the hill and the monastery rises up ahead. But it looks very different to the pictures that dot the guide books and town publicity posters.

Instead of two temples there are now three; the new central one a work in progress covered by scaffolding and workers. In front of the complex is a huge car park. Three gold tourist buses arrive as we do, disgorging their loads of Chinese tourists complete with guides shouting into megaphones. There is no sense of spirituality as they enter the complex, just a photo op and lots of loud chat.

We let them go then walk up the steps through the small town that surrounds the buildings. The village is quiet. The houses are empty, abandoned, falling into disrepair. The streets are deserted.

In front of the temples are tourist shops and a restaurant, all manned by men in monk’s robes over their jeans and trainers. They lounge about insolently and lack the warmth and gentleness that is integral to Buddhist monks across south east Asia. We feel a little uneasy.

The temples themselves turn out to be brand new. The originals have been knocked down and ‘improved’. Everything is shiny – luridly bright paint has been used to create murals, which are now Chinese rather than Tibetan. There are no monks in sight anywhere. We don’t know where they have gone or why. But it’s clear that this is a not so subtle way to minimise the impact and effect of Tibetan culture in the region and replace it with an acceptable Chinese version.

Subdued we cycle home. That evening we buy a bottle of Tibetan red wine (dry and very drinkable) and reflect on the nature of utopia.

Later as we wander out for a meal we find ourselves on the town’s main square. In the centre about 100 people are dancing in a large circle. The music rises and falls, singers chant and call and everyone – grannies, mothers, fathers, teenagers – circle to the tune, arms rising and falling, feet twisting and turning.

A monk stands smiling on the sideline in his aubergine robes. A toddler wobbles in and out of the circle. And as the music floats around me I finally feel a tiny touch of Shangri La seeping in.

Trekking Tiger Leaping Gorge

Reluctantly leaving Shaxi behind, we head north. Rolling hills are replaced by cloud topped mountains and the air becomes noticeably cooler. We’re on our way to walk Tiger Leaping Gorge, a two day trek along goat tracks over the mountains and beside tall cliffs.

The walk starts with a four hour steep uphill hike. After an hour on a winding tractor road the track veers off and across the hills. After two hours we’re exhausted but exhilarated at the same time; the views of mountain tops, sheer cliff sides and the ever present rumble of the river as it’s forced through the gorge below inspire us to keep walking.

The sun reaches its midday peak and its intensity is surprising. We take a break for a cup of tea and lunch; eating sweet stir fried aubergine, tomatoes and egg and a spicy fried cucumber dish in the courtyard of a guest house with stunning views of mountains all around us.

After lunch it’s back on the twisting turning track for another two hour close to vertical climb that takes our breath away. The sun, harsher and brighter as the afternoon goes on, burns our skin pink in minutes.

At the top we pause breathless and hot. We take photos for posterity and then walk on for another three hours across undulating hills and along cliff edges. Every couple of hours there’s a guest house with courtyard, roof terrace and views from every room. One even has a spa offering massage and I’m sorely tempted to stop but we amble on till we get to our destination - the halway point - just on 6pm.

We sip beer on the open terrace and watch the mountains opposite turn from green to pink to charcoal grey as the sun sinks. That night in silence and darkness I sleep deep and dreamless.

The next morning we head off again. The path becomes thinner and more treacherous. At one stage we spot a waterfall cascading down the mountain ahead of us and a few minutes later realise that it thunders directly across the tiny path we’re walking on and straight over the cliff on our left. We stand and stare at it for a few seconds then get our feet and shoulders wet as we hug the mountain side and splash through the falling water, always avoiding the not so distant edge.

It’s possible to walk another four or five hours on this path but today we choose a shorter route. After a couple of hours we take a short cut down to the village of Walnut Garden. We have a bus booked to Shangri La.

Market day in Shaxi

When the bus driver drops us off on the main street in Shaxi it looks like a run of the mill rural Chinese town; albeit one in a beautiful natural position – a green valley surrounded on four sides by high, pine forest covered hills. We shrug on our packs and ask directions to the hostel. Locals point us down a side street and when we turn it is like stepping back in time.

We’re on a tree lined cobbled street with a stream bubbling along on the left hand side of the road. Small stone bridges cross the stream to the houses on that side. All the homes have intricately carved wood panel front walls, with detailed carved screens covering the windows. Further down the street mud brick mixes with wood and everywhere the dark roof tiles curve upward to meet the blue sky.

Walking up the street, looking like extras in a Ming Dynasty epic, are ancient women with crinkled skin like over ripe apples, tiny children in navy blue school uniforms and young mothers, their babies tied to their backs with colourful scarves. We stand open mouthed. It would be rude were it not for the fact that every other person is staring, similarly open mouthed at us. (At one stage three young women walk past eating plums. One is so surprised to see us her mouth falls open and the plum she’s eating drops to the street.)

We smile at the grannies and say ni hoa (hello) in our best Chinese. Their shock deepens; I don’t think they could be more surprised if the goats that some were herding along had spoken. After a startled second they dissolve into giggles, their eyes disappearing into crinkles and then they say ni hoa in return and still giggling give us the thumbs up.

Tiny children are less easy to win over. Most run behind their mothers; others start to cry; all stare at us suspiciously.

I’m travelling with Tamara, a 26 year old from Bristol in England who is doing the exact journey that I am, only the other way round. She’s just come from the Trans Siberian and is heading down into SE Asia. It’s great to have a travelling companion though when a jewellery seller in Dali, the town we’ve just left, tries to sell us a hair clip and calls me Mama (assuming I’m Tamara’s mother!) I make a new resolution: never travel with someone under 30!

Here we’ve booked a room in a guest house called Horse Pen 46. It turns out to be one of the ancient houses on the town’s main square, beautifully renovated and with amazing views (the picture on the left was taken from our balcony). We’re paying £2 a night for a dorm bed; meals in the town are around £2 for three main dishes and rice. Add in the view and the people and the beautiful village and I’m all for staying in Shaxi for a long long time.

Shaxi is an ancient trading town. Caravans stopped here on the way to and from Tibet, trading horses and stocking up with supplies. Today the town still hosts and animal market each Friday and, alongside it, a large regional produce market. Market day dawns sunny and bright. We walk up and lose ourselves in a timeless experience.

At the animal market pigs, horses, cows, goats, ducks and chickens change hands. Along the streets of the town vendors sell everything from medicine to toilet paper. One stand is a dentist; some local villagers make the trip especially to see the dentist, their mouths open in the dust of the street.

Another stall buys hair. We watch a woman divide her waist length hair into two pony tails, before the buyer cuts it off, roughly, just below the ears.

At the vegetable market organised chaos reigns. Young women dressed in tribal finery barter and buy; old men and women stand and chat, catching up on the news and buying their week’s groceries. Around us the mountains stand green sentinel in the sunshine, watching over this market as they’ve done for hundreds of years.

China girl

I arrived in China last Friday and fell in love with the country immediately.

A row of taxi drivers greet me as I exit customs. ‘Taxi?’ one of them enquires half heartedly. I shake my head. ‘But,’ I say, ‘I’m looking for a bank.’ I’ve arrived in China without a single yuan, as the banks in Vietnam won’t sell foreign currency.

I show the drivers my bank card and mime taking money from an ATM. They look bemused, take the card and turn it this way and that then shrug, shake their heads and speak among themselves.

‘Money,’ I say hopefully .
‘Aaaah,’ understanding dawns. One of the drivers nods, takes out his wallet and hands me 20Yuan – about £2 but plenty for a meal and a bus ticket here in China.
‘No, no.’ I hand him back the money. ‘Thank you, thank you.’

He takes it back reluctantly. It’s the first time in my life a taxi driver has offered me cash rather than trying to strip me of all of mine and is an act that immediately instils fondness for China in my heart.

In the end I wander the streets asking random strangers and eventually find the ATM and the bus station. Then there’s an 8 hour drive through mountains and tiny villages, leaving behind the rice paddies and driving into countryside that feels more like Italy or Greece. We motor along avenues lined by tall cypress trees, grapes grow on dusty hillsides, villages of sand coloured stone dot the landscape. Only the traditional curved roofs, prow-like against the setting sun, hint at the country we’re driving through.

My first stop is Kunming, a city of around 1million. I only stay one day, just long enough to buy a train ticket north but find it a charming city. The temperature is a cool 25. There are canals and small rivers that wind around the streets with benches and table sitting alongside. People of all ages sun themselves, play chequers, cards and majong or are vocal spectators, offering advice and cheering or groaning at the result. Two young men play the flute and the music floats on the summer breeze.

Families sit around restaurant tables, chopsticks clattering into bowls of exotic vegetable and meat dishes. The food here is amazing: cheaper than you can believe – 50p for a dish of vegetables or a plate of dumplings – and really delicious. I eat Kungpo chicken (spicy with peanuts and peppers); steamed dumplings filled with pork; sautéed aubergines; spinach with garlic and drink light flavourful tea.

The next morning I catch a train, 9 hours to Dali. The hard seat is hard and the carriage is crowed. Eight of us squeeze into a space designed for six.

The train winds over mountains, through picturesque valleys and past ancient villages. The scenery looks like a film set from a Chinese epic; at any moment I expect horsemen to come charging over the hill firing arrows at us.

To pass the time I wander to the dining car. A chef cooks over a wok. The menu is in Mandarin so I point randomly. Out come shredded pork with carrots and chilli and a spicy noodle soup with spinach and mushrooms, a fried egg and more chilli. Sated I doze as best as I can. My bum goes numb and my legs hurt.

But then we arrive. The walled old town of Dali sits at the foot of the mountains and beside a long lake. The clouds hang low over the mountain peaks and I feel myself relax.

A two day stay turns into four, then five. I wake late, wander the streets of the town or hike up the mountain.

I slurp noodles in the market and eat dumplings for breakfast. I find a German bakery run by a woman from Munich where I eat cheesecake and drink coffee.

And along the way I rediscover my passion and enthusiasm for travel. China with its vastness, its exotic scents and tastes, its colourful people, reminds me of India. I wish I had more than the month I have to explore and enjoy it.

Time for goodbye

It's my last day in Vietnam and to be honest I'm pleased. It's been hot. It's been hectic. It's been hassley. And I'm ready to leave. Vietnam is the most beautiful south east Asian country I've visited but there's something missing. It's taken me until my last day to put my finger on what that is.

I'm in Sapa, a hillstation in the country's north west. It's cool here (at last, a day under 30C) and absolutely beautiful: terraced rice fields slope high up the towering green mountains, their tops dipped in cloud. Soft pearlescent fingers of mist curls around the balcony in the morning and I'm sleeping under a duvet at night (bliss after 8 weeks of airconditioning).

The people here are a mix of Vietnamese and local tribes - Hmong, Dzao and Tay among others. The tribal people still wear their traditional clothes and, along with farming rice, have embraced the tourism industry with enthusiasm. They come up to you in Sapa to sell their handicrafts and to chat. They sit beside you, they ask you questions, they show you their products, they smile. It's surprisingly pleasant; good fun even.

Today I take a short, 7mile, trek through the countryside to see their villages. I walk down the thin irrigation lanes that line the rice paddies, past muddy water buffalo, up steep hills, along river banks and beside cascading waterfalls.

The tribal women follow along, chatting with me, telling me about their lives and finding out about mine. They are warm, welcoming and very sweet. And this, I think, is what's been missing for me in the rest of Vietnam.

It's naive to think that people see tourists as anything but a walking ATM. These women are seriously good salespeople - I am now in possession of two bracelets, a bag and a purse that I really don't need and have no room for in my bag. But selling is only a part of the game. They are also interested, warm and funny. Ready to laugh at themselves and me.

One girl (on the right in the picture) asks me why I don't have children. I shrug, 'It wasn't meant to happen,' I offer as an explanation. She tells me about her family and proudly tells me of her daughter's first day at school. Just 26, she has an 8 year old son and 5 year old daughter. 'I was very young when I first had children,' she says. 'But now I know all about it and I'm not having any more! My mother had eight but two is enough.' She's laughing but I sense she means it.

When we say goodbye later in the afternoon she runs off and comes back with a gift for me, a handmade cushion cover. 'For you my friend,' she says, then hugs me very tight and wishes me well. I'm really touched.

In the rest of the country the voracious desire to rid me of every last penny has not been the slightest bit softened by any warmth or interaction. The sale is pursued, made (or not) and that's that. There is no culture of smiling, no culture of service and no effort made to disguise their motives and at times their contempt.

Naturally I've met lovely people along the way but they stand out in my memory as exceptions. Perhaps with the distance of time I'll come to think more warmly of the country but for now I'm moving forward. Tomorrow I'm off to China...

Bia hoi in Hanoi

In Vietnam, beer is cheaper than water. A half pint of the local brew, bia hoi, will set you back the princely sum of 4000dong, that’s about 20cents. It’s no wonder that as the sun sets I invariably think to myself ‘maybe I’ll have a beer’.

Tonight is no exception. I’m wandering the streets of Hanoi’s old town, absorbing the atmosphere and building up a thirst. I spot a bia hoi cafe and, dodging the traffic, make my way over.

Bia hoi cafes are always roadside affairs. This one sits at the intersection of four streets in Hanoi’s old quarter, with chairs and tables that spill from the pavement right onto the busy streets. Customers are a mix of local men (and here in cosmopolitan Hanoi a few local women too) and westerners. As I approach everyone squeezes over a few centimetres and the proprietor, a plump grandmother, puts down another tiny chair for me.

It’s not that easy to get comfortable. The chairs are baby sized jelly red plastic and sit by a baby sized table (the chairs are maybe 20cm off the ground and no more than 30cm wide, the table is some 15cm or so high). This may work for local customers with their tiny baby sized butts but for a European sized girl like me it can be a bit of a challenge.

I squat down and squeeze in and start chatting to the guy on my left, an engineer from Canada called Tim who’s been living and working in the city for three months. When I arrive he is having a shoe polish. I look down at his feet, notice he’s wearing flip flops and laugh. He laughs too. ‘I thought I’d be safe wearing flip flops but as soon as they spot that they’re made of leather I’m a goner,’ he says. The first beer – the local brew is a light, refreshing pilsner that was originally introduced from the Czech Republic – is quickly gone and I order another.

A few minutes later a cobbler walks by and offers to re-sole my flip flops, which to be fair are on their last legs. I accept his offer and it’s Tim’s turn to laugh. The cobbler squats in front of us, fixing on new soles, filing the edges neat and sewing in the toe hold extra tight. It costs me $2.50; probably about the same as a new pair of flip flops but as I’ve developed a particular fondness for this pair I’m happy with the result.

Feet comfily encased in new flip flops, I order another beer. Three French guys wander by and decide to stop for a drink. They’re tall and one in particular is carrying some excess weight. I watch the arms of the plastic chair widen to embrace him and wonder at its strength as he lowers himself in. We chat and fend of hawkers of books, sunglasses, fans and donuts till their wives come by and collect them for dinner.

A crowd is gathering at the opposite corner. I can’t see what’s happening but within a few moments we hear sirens. Two fire engines roar into the intersection and scream to a halt. Firemen leap into action and disappear down the alley. The power to the square is suddenly cut. I sit in the soft half dark and order another beer.

An Australian family I met in Hoian last week wander by and pull up a stool for a chat. The landlady takes one look at the children, a six year old boy and four year old girl, both with big brown eyes and wavy dark hair and her maternal instincts kick in. We are unceremoniously moved out of the reach of the cooling fan. Two more chairs appear and she insists the children move off the road and under the fan. She teaches them the Vietnamese word for Grandma and is wreathed in smiles. She ignores her other customers, sometimes grumpily condescending to fill a glass with beer, until the kids and their parents move on.

I find myself talking with Tim about religion. It’s deep but not very meaningful and I quickly calculate how many beers I’ve had. Four? Five? Six? Time to eat. After all those beers I crave a curry and before we part company Tim gives me a lift on the back of his scooter to an Indian restaurant he knows nearby. I scoff a delicious biryani and then wander back to the hotel, floating along on my newly soled flip flops filled with beer and food and good cheer.

Nimh Binh

When I arrive in Ninh Binh my plans of lying on my hotel bed under the air conditioning with a book are scuppered by the fact that it’s the city’s half day of power. Virtually every town in Vietnam has its electricity cut for half a day every other day; here it won’t be restored till 8pm tonight.

I take a cold shower and go for a wander, in search for a cafe with a generator and air conditioning. It turns out to be a fruitless search but on the way I find a warren of leafy side streets with a small market. I eat a pineapple then squirm at the sight of a bucket of live eels being packaged up and bought and a stall holder picking out a fish from a bucket and cutting it up, with its gills still gaping open and shut.

The next morning I hire a moto and driver and head out to explore the countryside. We drive down county lanes that are no more than 6ft wide and through villages of grey brick homes, with front rooms open to the laneway. It is harvest time and families are threshing their rice crop, separating grain from chaff. The lanes of the villages are deep in damp chaff. A frangipani tree has shed its flowers and the heady tropical scent of the crushed petals mixed with wet rice stalks surrounds us as we drive over it. The rice grains are spread to dry on patios and on the hot bitumen of the road and the moto driver carefully avoids these.

The villages are peaceful places. Plump sand coloured puppies loll by the side of the lane, tongues out and soft eared goats look up from their grazing to stare at us suspiciously through amber eyes. Rangy chickens, their feathers looking half plucked, dance away from our wheels. We disturb a troupe of white ducks with yellow beaks who set off down the bank of the river at a jog. Their crotchety quacks follow us down the road. And all around us the mountains, blue grey in the morning light, offer a vast serene backdrop.

After half an hour or so we arrive at a temple that’s a 440 step climb up the hill. The sun chooses this moment to emerge from behind the clouds. It’s only 8.30am but within minutes the rice paddies are gently steaming and I, on my climb up the mountain, am wet through. Rivulets of sweat run down my back, my neck, my arms. My stomach is wet, my thighs damp.


The climb is worth it though. As I twist upwards I’m rewarded first with glimpses of the villages we’ve just passed through.

Then the karst mountains begin to emerge and soon I’m looking out across a deep green forest of hills, perched among winding rivers and a patchwork of lime green and lemon yellow rice fields.

Back on the moto we head through more villages. In one, a barber has set up a chair on the road, a mirror attached to the wall of a house. He’s giving his customer a neat trim on the back of his neck as we drive by, close enough to reach out and stroke is hair if we’d chosen to. An old woman on a bicycle pedals slowly by. She’s wearing a navy blue pyjama suit and an old conical straw hat that’s fixed to her head with a bright pink velvet ribbon.

Arriving at Tam Coc I hire a boat for the 6km row up river. There are two rowers on board: a woman in her late 50s who looks plump but is in fact compact and sturdy. With seemingly no effort she rows with one oar and steers the boat along. In the rear is a young man in his 20s with a round face and big soft eyes. He has two oars and is the power house of the boat.

We glide silently downstream, through limestone caves, beside rice fields and between the tall blue green hills. Occasionally we see other rowers – traders and hawkers mostly – but often the river is mirror still and the only sound is the plop and pull of our oars in the water.

When the rowers have tired arms they simply transfer the oars and proceed to row with their feet. It looks a little like riding a bicycle while lying down. The legs kick out in wide arcs, pushing the oars through the water. The rower controls their direction with his feet, using the arch of his foot to pull them through the water and then, toes opening wide, transferring the oars seamlessly to the side of his feet when he pulls them up and through the air.

I spend half the journey entranced by the skill and the flexibility of those feet. And riding back to the hotel later on, I realise I feel as satisfied and sated on the experiences of the day as if I had eaten a big meal.