China is big, and other observations

I write this post from the deliciously tropical Luang Prabang, Laos. We’ve been in Laos for four days and have only just had space to breath from our non-stop driving adventures in China.

We experienced joys and frustrations on our journey through the heartland of China. Amongst the unpleasant experiences, we count the sudden and unexpected disappearance of our beloved street food egg wraps (attributed to “cultural differences”, bah), having wailing children hoisted on us for photos, and having the crap beaten out of us by tiny, vindictive Chinese masseuses. Joys include finding peanut butter, binging on said peanut butter, and having the crap beaten out of us by tiny, vindictive Chinese masseuses.

Turns out China is enormous. Our driving tour through the heartland of the country (cutting through the middle, north to south) took just under a month, total. We spent the month sharing our trusty lil’ car with Luke’s sister Jo, accompanied by four camper van groups, whom we have come to love. Jens, our young Chinese guide, valiantly led us and amused us. We all cried when we said goodbye to him at the Lao border, and we cried some more when we said goodbye to each other a couple days ago in Luang Namtha, northern Laos. Luckily, we’ll meet most of them again along our journeys before our trips are over. Jo flies back to Australia tomorrow, and Luke and I will be left to our own lonely devices.

Even a week before we hit Laos, we felt that we were very firmly in Southeast Asia. There were terraced hillsides with vegetable and rice fields, winding mountain roads through villages of “ethnic minority” people in colourful traditional clothes, and silly-looking dragonfruit in the outdoor market stalls. For those of you waiting with baited breath for news of Luke’s level of travel happiness: he’s gotten over some of his travel fatigue and is quite happy now. And of course I’m just happy as a clam about this latest geographical advance (though I have found myself needing more “me time” with so many friends around all the time).

Most of this post was written within China, so just go ahead and assume that everything I write is about China. Laos will have to wait for her turn for the next post.

The most important topic of this post, food

It’s been fun to taste (or sometimes just observe) the food changing as we drive through China. Often we Westerners tend to think of Chinese food as one monolithic Chicken-Chow-Mein entity. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. First of all, the market foods are very seasonal and local. Farther north, we were eating delicious juicy apples. The apples are now wrinkly and on their way out, and pomegranates are ubiquitous. Those flamboyant dragonfruits have just started to make their tentative entrance onto the market scene. Bok choi and other greens weren’t much available up north, but down here, they are everywhere. Mangoes have only just appeared for the first time since we were in Australia.

Dishes themselves are very different too. There are obvious differences in sauces, frying styles, noodles vs. rice. Sichuan food was definitely more spicy, and homemade tofu in buckets is more prevalent in Yunnan province. I desperately miss this dumpling style from Beijing. And we’ve only just seen our first grasshoppers and grubs appear at food stalls.

Unfortunately, dog has also made an appearance. I won’t give details, but we avoid it.

And now for the people

Unfortunately, I have a tendency to think of Chinese people as a monolithic culture as well. Perhaps you know this, but people of Han ethnicity are only about 91% of the population. The rest of the folks belong to one of the 55 “ethnic minority” groups, scattered throughout China. Some are famous, like Tibetans, but some I had never heard of, like Yi and Mosu. They have really distinctive types of clothing, writing scripts, house decorations, and less visible cultural aspects like religion and family structures. Jo and I are geeking out learning about this stuff. It’s the first real-life application of my anthropology degree since I graduated 10 years ago.

In fact, we feel a certain affinity and love for the ethnic minority folks, because they don’t seem to give a shit about us. In our limited experience and observation, they don’t crowd around us to take photos and they don’t shove their babies at us. In wild speculation, I would guess that they are too used to being unwilling photo subjects themselves. Many (especially the older women) do wear really cool clothes.

But it’s not totally gone

We found a bit of a cooling off in regards to the intense curiosity as we got further south in China. There were still lots and lots of annoying photo ops, but not as many. I did, however, have one unpleasant experience in the distressingly touristy Lijiang. In a narrow alleyway packed with tourists, there was a mother, clearly a domestic tourist, holding her toddler, with father close by. Grandpa spotted me and started aggressively shouting at me to come get the toddler and take a photo (in Chinese, but it was obvious). Toddler began wailing, not wanting to be handed over to a weird stranger. Mom and Dad were trying to tell me, without grandpa seeing, to please not take the toddler. Grandpa kept shouting, poking me, and following me through the crowd. I smilingly feigned ignorance, gave a sympathetic knowing smile to Mom, and escaped into the crowd as quickly as possible. Luke has had similar experiences, including twice having parents try to put their older girls (5-8) on Luke’s lap. Awkward.

Real quick: PANDAS

One important stop in China was at the Chengdu Giant Panda Research Centre. This was a favorite of kids and grownups alike. We saw baby, teenager, and grown up pandas. Common traits of these fluffy lil’ fellas is buttcheek scratching and slovenly eating postures. Below, I have included a particularly impactful butt itching/bamboo binging video for your viewing pleasure.

Life in a tour group

Our trip through China was completely different with a group and guide than if we had been travelling alone. We travelled a lot faster with the group – no more “weekend” breaks for us. We had 2 or 3 rest days in 4 weeks, but that generally means rushing to get things done that we can’t do while driving or sightseeing, such as laundry or fixing stuff I’ve broken on the car. (For example, I ripped off an internal door handle with my she-hulk strength, and it took Luke and Jerome 3 hours to fix it.)

We’ve seen tourist locations that we might have otherwise skipped given the Lonely Planet descriptions (like the section of the Great Wall we saw). Jens likes to take us to places that are shiny, new, and paved. We like to go to places that are old, authentic, and natural. We work to find a balance. Jens took us to Lijiang, an ancient city that is now crammed with karaoke bars and souvenir shops. It’s got some charm if you don’t mind the mental gymnastics of hearing 6 off-pitch karaoke renditions at the same time.

However, trusty ol’ Lonely Planet told us that Baisha, 10 kilometres away, has the same setup sans the cacophony. Luke, Jo and I slipped away for a few hours and explored – it was indeed magical. We stumbled into a courtyard home, where there were women working in a silk embroidery workshop in one of the rooms surrounding the courtyard. There was a woman who had taken time off of the family business to learn English at university (at Kunming, apparently the uni at Lijiang is no good), so she explained everything to us. The embroidery was out of this world, and the family has been doing it since – wait for it – the Ming Dynasty. That’s 800 years.

In defence of fluffy puppies

I had a not so nice moment in Baisha, though, where all my powers of cultural relativism flew out the window. We went into a restaurant, clearly catering to Westerners as well as domestic tourists due to it’s English menu. There was a tiny, adorable, fluffy puppy running around inside. The waiter, seeing me looking at the puppy, violently kicked some chairs at it to get it out of the restaurant. It yelped and ran away.

I know that some cultures have different ideas about how to treat dogs, but I couldn’t abide by this. So I kind of shouted at the guy. Oops. He laughed at first, but, even without understanding English, realised I was serious and got a little sheepish. Luckily, puppy (and it’s mom) came back and we blatantly petted them and fed them the delicious fat from our pork ribs. Doggies did not enjoy the tofu, however.

Next Day Lake

Our tour company also had a slightly different idea of a nice campspot than our Western standards. We like to fall asleep to the sound of crickets and wake up to dappled light through gently swaying trees. Well, our campsites on this trip have almost exclusively been in enormous empty parking lots of big tourist sites. This is of course quite handy, because it’s easy access to the tourist site. But this is a big reason that Jo, Luke, and I usually stay in hotels rather than camping. Sometimes our group pull their vans into a protective rectangle and we camp in the middle. But really, whilst we were enjoying the sites, we were all just holding out for what we dubbed “Next Day Lake”. For some reason, we always thought we would be driving to this lake (for a nature campspot) the Next Day. Many Next Days later, we made it to Lugu Lake.

It was everything we dreamed of. We listened to the water slapping against the marshy lakeshore, we “faffed about” cleaning out our car in the sunshine, we rode quiet electric scooters around the little lake. It was rejuvenating.

Another side of China

However, we also some much more intimate views into Chinese culture with Jens by our side. We got so local that we often couldn’t find hotels – they don’t allow foreigners at many. Once, Jo and I, having been sent on a hotel finding mission, were rejected by 5 hotels in a row – excepting one, which would rent us a room for 1 hour. Just 1 hour. Goodness knows what story they’ve concocted about what our purpose was.

We also got to meet some of Jens’ family – his wife and his father. We happened to be passing through his hometown, so his Dad stopped by our campsite to say hello. He is an excellent calligrapher and had done a painting for each group. He even came back later in the day to gives us big share bags of succulent duck meat, a local speciality. I’m sorry to say we didn’t really get into the feet, but the breast was great. Jerome did eat a head.

Bully, Jens’ wife, joined us for hot pot in Chengdu, where Jens and her live. She is also trained as a tour guide, and she is incredibly sweet and impossibly adorably petit. She brought us moon cakes and spoke nicely to the children. She ordered our hot pot dishes for us and gave us tips on how to eat it (it’s complicated!). She was lovely and we love her.

As previously mentioned, Jens also took us to karoake, which is not new to Luke and I – Chinese private karaoke rooms are standard in Sydney. However, it was quite a cultural experience in China, with a group hailing from Belgium, France, Germany, Australia, the US, and of course China itself. When we had exhausted all of the English songs, and our vocal chords, we moved into watching the French children rap for us in rapid French. Actually rapping. Personally, I got applause for my convincing rendition of Eminem’s seminal rap classic from “8 Mile”. After all, as the only person in the room with Michigander ancestry, I felt I should represent Detroit.

Unfortunately, our karaoke joy turned to drama when one of our group (not to be named, but it wasn’t Luke, Jo or I) accidentally drank an entire bottle of Chinese schnapps (we think) and had the hangover of a generation. The rest of the group went on and we stayed with our ailing friend and their vehicle. We ended up getting an hour driving done and landed at the uninspiring logging town of Gejiu in rural Yunnan province, where we stopped for the night. We went on a hunt for KFC but found $10 peanut butter and (unrelated) gastro instead. Good times.

The massage story

Jo, Luke and I decided one day to skip out on walking some ancient city walls in some cool ancient city, in favour or pampering ourselves with a nice relaxing massage. We had gotten to chatting with a waitress in a cafe who kindly found and booked a massage place for us. They were waiting for us when we arrived – a phalanx of fancily uniformed men and women who ushered us into a room with three comfy reclining beds in a row. Hot herbal tea steaming was on the side tables and dry spicy peas were on little platters. They then handed us OUR uniforms – floral silk jammies, yellow for me and pink for both Luke and Jo. They then closed the door and left, so we jammied up. I am sorry to say that Luke will not allow me to post a photo of him in his way too tight pink floral PJ shorts and collared shirt, so you will just have to beg him for the photo when he’s drunk one day.

Anyway, our 3 masseuses filed into the room and began their work on us. They did not tell us what they were doing in advance. They did not ask us if we had injuries. They did not seem to mind if we were in pain. In fact, they delighted in our pain and our shouts only seemed to encourage them.

Our guide, Jens, tells us that when you have lots of bruises after a “massage”, it means that you have too much fluid in your system. Following this logic, I had the most fluid in my system of the three of us.

Some things the masseuses did were nice. They rubbed our heads and shoulders gently, and did that chopping motion up and down. However, they also dug their knuckles into the bottom of our feet and forced their elbows into our spines. When we were sitting up, they grabbed us by the shoulders and twisted us so far around that Luke’s neck is still hurting. Theys pinched the skin around our spine, terribly hard (Jo called it “the most excruciating” and Luke adds that it was “pointless.”) At one point, they even climbed on top of us and dug their knees into the small of our backs. Of course, all of this was happening to the three of us in tandem, making everything more hilarious.

Although he didn’t listen to my shouts of pain, my masseuse did listen to me when I giggled – I’m very ticklish on my feet and legs. He thought it was hilarious and annoying. He kept telling me to breath through it (using motions – no English).

When it was all over, we collected our bruised and battered bodies, slipped on the complimentary pantyhose socks, and made our way out. About 10 masseuses were lined up in the front lobby, doing company cheers and drills. (This is totally a thing in China.) I think they were pumping themselves up for the next lot of Westerners to beat to a pulp.

And now for the photos!

Xi’an (including the Terracotta Warriors)

In awe over the Terracotta Warriors

The Warriors were all created to accompany just one emperor – often called the first emperor of united China – to the grave. They all have different faces. Some people say they were modelled off of individual living soldiers at the time, some say that they were the work of very creative sculptures. Whatever the case, there are 8,000. Plus horses, chariots, musicians, and more.

There are 8,000 soldiers, most of whom are still underground. Plus horses, chariots, musicians, and more.

This is one of 3 enormous pits already excavated.

Archeologists are still working on the excavation.

They say that a rival leader tried to destroy all of the warriors, or at least knock them over. Or maybe this is just what happens after 2,000 years underground. Anyway, they are all knocked over and mostly broken into large and small pieces.

And they are lovingly put back together by archeologists.

Here’s an archer. They all had real weapons at one point, probably which had been used in real battle.

The town of Xi’an itself is lovely

Pretty building in Xi’an! It houses lots of drums which used to wake up the town in the morning.

And, the best of all, SNACK STREET. A street of food and other vendors that domestic and international tourists and locals all frequent.

Jo and Luke were in heaven with soft shell crab on a stick. Notice the Arabic behind – there’s a sizeable group of Muslim Chinese people in Xi’an.

Dead animal carcasses ready for consumption. Yum?

Snack Street

Another view of the drum towerLea

Leaving Xi’an (Shaanxi Province, not to be confused with Shanxi Province, where we also went)

On the road

On the road

Chengdu (including PANDAS)

On the road to Chengdu – birds on the freeway (toll booth behind)

On the road to Chengdu, the group camped near this sports centre where the “dancing grannies” (real phrase) were doing their thing. This is everywhere in China.

The ethnographic museum in Chengdu

The museum had beautiful buildings and grounds

Waterfall!

Here’s a Shu mask from several thousand years ago. It’s huge.

A diorama to shame all dioramas (of ancient Shu life)

The museum grounds

The museum grounds

Museum grounds (note to self: use mondo grass as a lawn)

Bamboo forest on the grounds!

Most of the group didn’t go into the museum, but hung out in the parking lot instead

I really don’t know what Luke is trying to say here

PANDA TIME!

Everything was Panda themed.

It’s a depressing-looking cage, but these little guys are just waiting to go into their big open air cage. They were mostly snoozing in here.

This little fella kept trying to wake up his buddy

Luke and Felix wait for some pandas to wake up for breakfast

On to the teenage pandas. Excellent butt scratching action

So graceful, so poised.

I mean, if we want to talk about spirit animals…This is both Luke and I.

Here is a picture of me with crunchy bread and blue cheese dip.

Luke and Arne teaching the kids how to whistle with grass

Luke gives an individual lesson in grass-whistling to Felix

A couple of the really, really little baby pandas were put on “display” (the curtains to their room were opened). The place was mobbed. I didn’t even get to see, but, as you can see, Luke got photos.

They also had Red Pandas there!

Panda butt.

And now for something completely different – apparently the biggest enclosed space in the world, the mall in Chengdu. I could not fit it all in a photo.

This is a park by the huge mall, with the building in the background.

The inside of the building

Jens took a few of us on a grocery shopping expedition to the mall, but none of us could afford anything. These durian smelled good, but would have broken the bank.

I even managed to steer clear of the first tex mex restaurant I’ve seen since, oh, California

This store in the mall depicts what all real Californians dream of – hugging a bear while looking Bohemian

Felix meeting a local kid

Another view of Jens getting strangers to sing Happy Birthday to Arne’s Dad

I actually don’t remember where this picture was taken, so we just threw it in with Chengdu. These ladies in a restaurant were so cute and so excited about us being there, so we did a bit of a photoshoot extravaganza. I’m kneeling down in this photo. They thought my height was hilarious.

Leshan (including the Giant Buddha)

The touristy infrastructure near the Leshan Buddha. Our guide, Jens, grew up here, and he said it used to be lovely riverside where he would catch fish with his friends.

The kids like the koi

The aforementioned river

Jo at the entrance to the giant Buddha (which Jens used to try to sneak into when he was a kid)

Ancient Chinese inscriptions

Dragon vomiting his lunch.

Buddha from the top

View over Leshan

This is the walk down to the feet of the Buddha

At the Buddha complex

At the Buddha complex

At the Buddha complex

Perfectly true, China, perfectly true.

At the Buddha complex

At the Buddha complex

At the Buddha complex

Taking a break from the fear of walking down to the Buddha’s feet

We have arrived at the Buddha’s feet

Lugu Lake (AKA Next Day Lake), and the Yangtze River

A town we stopped at en route to Lugu Lake

Don’t ask me for town names. I don’t remember.

What is it with Chinese folks liking to do their pig butchering in public? Perhaps it convinces the clientelle that the meat is fresh.

Luke always says that pictures of old men are the ones that win awards.

Schoolchildren walking on the highway near Lugu Lake

Our first glimpse of the lake

Wetlands

Villages surround the lake

More village

Jens says that people have intense fences because anything outside of the fence is seen as public property.

More Lugu Lake village

Very pretty

We got scooters! They maxed out at about 20kph but they were silent, which was nice

Jo “speeding” along

Tibeted prayer flags

Riding around the lake

A beautiful view

Souvenirs for sale

I got off the scooter so Luke could ride it faster down this dirt bit.

And this is what I saw as I walked.

More prayer flags

Luke doing wheelies and enjoying himself immensely.

We got a nice hotel for the second night at Lugu Lake, as everyone else had moved to a carpark. Here’s me on what I can safely say is my dream couch (in the lobby)

Everybody was camping nearby and we told them to come look at our ENORMOUS hotel room. The kids got very excited; you can see the carnage in the background of this photo (behind German Jenny and Tine)

Our hotel, with peacock

Hotel

Doggies at the campsite near our hotel

We had dinner nearby, and Jens found us and joined us.

As did the owner of our hotel, whom we shouted dinner, and who got very, very drunk. Here he is with us in front of his hotel.

The next morning, we visited a temple near the Lake.

Gorgeous

Many Buddhist temples have these things you spin, but this one had them completely encircling the temple

Inside the temple

Break for corn pancakes and local honey!

It was tempting to just pop this right in my mouth and eat it, but I regretfully had to decline.

Jo buying a gift

Back on the road. Fuel station shot.

Let’s pretend these geese are just going to the Lakeshore to get some sunshine and have a picnic.

The Yangtze River – our first glimpse

The roads from Lugu Lake were not in the best shape. We think a lot of them were still being reconstructed after the enormous earthquake a few years ago.

Looks super solid and stable and no safety issues at all, not a single one, it’ll just stay in place right there and no cars will plummet into the depths below at all.

Luke looking at the Yangtze

This sort of thing is super, super common, in both China and Laos. Trucks off the side of the road, stuck in a ditch. You see it every 50-100 kilometres or so.

Yangtze

I dunno, another town

Lijian and Baisha

A bigass Mao in a central square of the new Lijiang town

Pretty flowers in the new town

Trendy cafe in the new town

Now into the old town, which has a couple of little canals running through it

And also yak tails hanging from parts of their rotting carcasses.

But also quaint canals!

And nice murals.

And food that looks like small poisonous mushrooms that are influenced by Tokyo fashion

I am instructing Luke to take a photograph of this.

A legitimately cool photoshoot. This dude is just the best and I wish I knew him.

Luke influenced by the rock and roll spirit

Lijiang is quite pretty when you can get photos away from the crowds

We escaped the busy part of the city to drink some expensive beers

A view of Lijiang

Lijiang

A spent most of my beer time taking photos of this lil’ guy in his li’ terrarium.

Lijiang being not so pleasant

Dancing grannies with the Mao statue

Jo bought us baskets so our veggies wouldn’t sweat inside the plastic bins! She has a real thing about veggies sweating.

Calm, beautiful Baisha.

A nice house in Baisha

Talking to the embroidery family in Baisha

Two of the embroiderers in their family courtyard. The one on the right went to university to study English.

The courtyard of the embroiderers.

Some of their work. This is a silk copy of a famous painting.

A canal in Baisha.

Luke bought a very cool (and potentially fake but who cares) clock in Baisha

Baisha

Baisha

Baisha

Baisha – window screens

Baisha – window screens

Embroidery in Baisha. Sorry Mom, too expensive to buy you any. I tried.

Baisha

Baisha

Baisha

Baisha

Luke is excited about lunch in Baisha. This is the restaurant where I yelled at the guy about the puppy.

Beautiful food in the restaurant.

Back on the road.

There was still some interest in us – Luke was taking a photo of this guy because usually that embarrasses people and they stop taking photos of us. Didn’t work with this fella.

I mean, if you’re going to slip, you should indeed do it carefully.