end-of-day hiking adventure in Jaipur

Around 5:30 one afternoon in Jaipur, we tried to take a rickshaw up to Nagaranth fort, which overlooks the city and is supposedly good for sunsets. Instead of being taken all the way to the top though, we got taken to a path 2km below the fort on the hill and got asked to walk up the path or pay R500 extra. We chose to walk, but arranged for the rickshaw to come back and pick us up after sunset at the end of the path.

We started to walk up to the fort, and aside from the few beggars at the beginning and occasional massive reeking piles of trash, the walk up was a little sketchy but pretty nice.

Once we got up near the fort, there was only one group of guys who yelled some Hindi at us but seemed harmless. We eventually found the "entrance" by ducking through a hole in a door and found ourselves in a huge fort, almost all to ourselves. We walked for 10 minutes or so along the mountain ridge to what turned out to be a deserted spot looking over the city. It was really cool and turned out to sort of be a cafe, as a guy brought us a beer for 100 rupees. A few other people even showed up and were milling around watching the awesome sunset as well. I offered to take a picture for the group of Indian guys next to us, who then gave me a bag of super spicy potato chips. All was well.


The sunset was so cool in fact that we sort of lost track of time. And after the sun went down, it got very dark. When we realized how dark and late it had gotten, we hurriedly tried to find our way back to our path down the mountain. There were a few guys lurking around in the shadows, and just to be safe I moved some money and a credit card to a second pocket, just in case things took a bad turn.

When we got back to where we entered the fort, the door we had come through was closed up. We walked around a bit and found a different path that looked like it might go down to town, and followed it a bit. It was really dark though, and we couldn't tell where it was going. A little concerned as the night got darker and the fort felt more deserted, we decided to go back towards the "cafe" to see if we could find some people to walk down with.

We asked the first group we passed on the way if they knew how we could catch a taxi or rickshaw. They did not and said that nobody really drove up here. We thanked them and kept walking further.

Almost back to the cafe, a group of about 20 Indian men came walking towards us, singing and chatting loudly. In the middle of the group were the guys whose photo I took! We spotted them and I asked if they were walking down to the city. They said no but they could show us the way. Excited, we turned right around and joined the group.

We talked to some of the guys and it turned out they were in Jaipur on a management retreat for an Indian Conglomerate called ITC (incidentally we had a Stanford case on their agri-business, ITC e-Choupal, though these guys were from the technology business). They had a bus waiting for them outside the gate. Walking back with them, we picked up the guys we had passed before, who were also part of their group. Apparently it was just us and ITC at the fort.

When we got to the entrance where the bus was, they offered to drive us into town, and we gladly accepted. So there we were - on a bus with 25 men (no women) from all over India, totally crashing their corporate outing.

The guys were super nice, offered us water, more potato chips, and seats in the front of the bus, and we took off. In the bus, everyone kept singing. As best we could tell, people were taking turns singing songs from around the different parts of the country they were from, mixed in with some Indian pop songs. Everyone was laughing and having a great time. We felt slightly out of place.

We rode along for a good 30 minutes (the road down was much less direct than the path we walked up) and enjoyed the singing and generally laughed at the situation. Then, it became our turn to sing. Brittany and I are not the best singers in the world and the prospect of singing to a bus full of people was a bit intimidating. Despite out adamant protests, the crowd kept yelling at us and forcing us to sing something. Finally we managed to belt out two terrible versions of American Pie and California Girls but they seemed to make the crowd happy.

Earlier in the day, we had bought tickets for our first Bollywood movie at a huge movie theatre off the main street. The bus took us all the way into town and dropped us off right by the movie theatre. We thanked them and said goodbye. The whole bus waved to us as they drove off, and we waved back, then turned to head into the movies.

Rajasthan

We left Leh Tuesday morning and headed to Jaipur, a city of close to 3 million people in the state of Rajasthan. Lonely Planet describes Rajasthan as "a step back in time from Delhi". We were not certain how that was possible, and definitely were unsure of what to expect.

On the plane here, I read an article about Rajasthan. Near the end, it said that Rajasthanis regard moustaches as a sign of "manliness, virility, and macho power" and nearly every man has one. So of course I decided that I was trimming my emerging beard down to a moustache. And it's sweet.

In many ways, Jaipur is what I expected Delhi to be like. Its a pretty big city, and there is definitely poverty everywhere (beggars on every corner and people sleeping on every sidewalk), but there are also some nice areas as well. Traffic is still chaotic at times but some intersections have traffic lights and a semblance of order.

There are also a few interesting aspects of Jaipur worth noting here:

Jaipur's maharaja in the early 1800s was huge. Literally. He was 6ft 6in tall and weighed 560lbs. He also had 108 wives. This is where he lived. His pants were on display, but sadly photos were not allowed. The waist was over 4 feet.


Jaipur is known as the pink city. This is because, naturally, all the buildings in the old town are painted pink. This is not an ancient tradition however. In the 1800s the British King visited Jaipur. They painted the city pink for his visit, then decided to keep it.

As Rajasthan is largely desert, camels are big in Jaipur. So added to the traffic mix are urban camels pulling carts of vegetables and construction supplies or passengers. And in front of many buildings are hitching posts for tying horses (also used regularly) and camels. See if you can find a camel, horse, auto-rickshaw, bike-rickshaw, bicycle, scooter, pedestrian, and bus in the photo of the busy intersection with no traffic signals below.

The maharaja a few rulers previous to the fat man was a huge astronomer. He built 5 observatories around India, but the one in Jaipur is the biggest and best (#1 observatory). It also has the worlds biggest sundial (#1 sundial) in addition to numerous other astronomical and astrological instruments. Supposedly they all still work. It seemed like that was at least mostly true. We took a sweet guided tour. Also, a monkey ran around the observatory with us.

We went around to a few other forts and palaces which were fairly cool.

Below is me with the #1 largest silver object in the world, along with some guy who guards it.

Our last stop of the afternoon was for coffee. Jaipur's super trendy coffee shop is of course at a gas station. I sipped an iced mochachino as we listened to Ludicrus and US hip-hop music in comfy, modern, air-conditioned couches. Outside, 6 gas station attendants scurried around the 4 pumps serving rickshaw drivers a liter of gas at a time.

Finally, to reiterate, I have a moustache, and it's sweet.

Trekking in Northern India

After two days in Leh, it was time to do some trekking in the Himalayas. So naturally, we hired a jeep and driver and set off for a couple days of mountain exploring and hiking. Cost of a jeep for 500km, gas, tent, sleeping bag, and a driver for 2 days - $200.

Our first target was Tso Moriri (Tso means lake in some language). It was described by people in town as somewhere between a 6 and 11 hour driver. Our driver - Tashi - despite his propensity to stop for tea at every opportunity seemed to think we could make it in 6. It ended up being 7 and a half "rough and tumble" hours in the back of the jeep. But the views were awesome and the lake and mountains were absolutely amazing.

We camped for a night at the lake which was really cool. It was also at 15,100 feet. Immediately after arriving and setting up the tent I set off to see how high I could climb in the surrounding mountains. Despite my mountain goat-like characterisitics, the answer was not very far. I was out of breath after every few steps. I did make it up to the top of a peak-let (is that a word?) that was over 16,000 feet for sure. Really amazing views. Night though was freezing and super windy, and I was definitely underprepared. And after my high altitude wanderings I kept waking up breathless and with a pounding headache. But even though I first checked my watch hoping it was morning at 910pm (8pm was bedtime) I made it through the night fine and the tent did not blow away.

On the next day we headed back on the scenic route past a big salt lake - Tso Kar. These roads were somehow worse than the day before. Lots of dirt, sand, rocks, everything else. At one point, the road we were on ended and Tashi looked around, confused, then asked me for help. My sense of direction in the Himalayas is not so good either but I did manage to spot where the road started up again and we darted through some scrubbrush to get there.

One section of the road was mostly sand, and after a few close calls, we naturally ground to a halt mid-morning, stuck in a dune in the middle of nowhere. Tashi announced "Sorry, sir" and we both got out to assess the situation.

We soon settled into a nice routine. First, we dug with our hands a little path forward for each tire. Then I got in the back to push, and Tashi started the car. We would go about 3 feet, and the car would stall out. Then, we would repeat. Finally, after about 30 minutes and a dozen repetitions of our car-pushing routine, the tires caught for good and we made it back to the road.
The rest of the drive was relatively smooth. We went over the second highest motorable pass in the world at 17,500 feet. We also stopped for lunch in a Tibetan familly's tent (noodles, hard boiled eggs and tea) which was a welcome change after 2 days of clifbars, fruit, and a few cheddar cheese sandwiches. We even found Tso Kar, though it turned out to be a scenic but smelly salt lake full of muck not too different from the Great Salt Lake. Finally, we made it back to Leh before nightfall.

Noteworthy animals spotted (in addition to the standard goats, donkeys, and cows in the streets):
- 1 yak
- 5 asian wild asses (seemed like a cross between zebra and antelope)
- Many Himalayan desert birds and lizards
- Countless marmots (These critters look like big meerkats or small beavers, or furry snipe. They outnumber humans 50 to 1 in Ladakh. They live in little holes all over, and as hard as I tried, I could not catch one)

Two pieces of blog logistics

First, I have arrived in Bangalore. Sorry for the limited posting over the past 3 weeks but the internet has been painful to find and use. I have written a number of posts though and hope to upload them and their corresponding pictures quickly over the next few days (assuming all goes well).

Second, since this blog is getting a fair amount of traffic, I am going to experiment with adding Google AdSense to the site. Basically, this will put some targeted ads in the right hand column of the blog. If you click on an ad, this blog will earn money. Given the striking poverty I have seen over the past few weeks, I will donate any and all revenues that the blog generates to UNICEF earmarked for children in India and China. So click on ads generously (but appropriately - too excessively and your clicks stop being counted).

Leh, Ladakh

[more pictures to follow]
First - where is Leh, Ladakh? An excellent question, as I had not heard of it until recently. Leh is in the Ladakh area in the state of Jammu & Kashmir, all the way in the north of India. J&K state is best known for its Kashmir area which is continually disputed over and claimed by both Pakistan and India. Ladakh is in a region of J&K whose border is disputed with the Chinese, but is relatively far from the Pakistani disputed area. There is a very heavy military presence in lots of random spots and numerous patriotic signs (e.g. "We love peace but are ready for war"), but this and the excessive permits needed to travel around are the only signs of conflict in the Ladakh area.

Ladakh is a heavily Tibetan influenced area of the Indian Himalayas. Most people speak Ladakhi, which has the same written script as Tibetan but is pronounced differently. Most people look and dress Tibetan, though there are definitely Indian influences as well.

The north and west sides of the Himalayas (where I went in China) are very wet and are mostly rainforest at altitudes where plants grow. The south and east sides of the Himalayas (here) on the other hand is very dry and is mostly desert.

We spent the first day mostly acclimatizing to Leh (altitude of 13,000 ft) and exploring some of the old Tibetan monasteries in town. Day 2 we explored some of the sights in the immediate vicinity of Leh. These included a really cool fort/palace built into the mountainside and a big Tibetan monastery above the fort.

These Tibetan monasteries looked almost exactly the same as the ones I saw in Shangri-La. The one major difference was the photos of the Dalai Lama. Here, there were many pictures of the "real" Dalai Lama. In China, however, the government imposed a PRC friendly Dalai Lama in the 1970s. It is illegal in China for a monastery to show photos of the real Dalai Lama, so they all have photos of the China-appointed Lama. Though a few times, way in the back, you could see some pictures of the real Dalai Lama in China.

Agra/Taj Mahal

On my second day in a country, it seems I like to wake up really early and go see a wonder of the world. Today, it was a 4:45am wake up call to head to the Taj Mahal.

Also, our overnight low temperature - 91 degrees.

Somehow, we had a second straight flawless day of Indian transportation. After getting off the train (which was fast, air-conditioned, and nice) bleary-eyed in Agra at 8:30am, we hired a rickshaw wallah (driver) to drive us around all day for just over US$8. He was very good (he never abandoned us or had any major accidents and took us wherever we wanted) so I tipped him $2.50. We quickly settled into sharing the road with camels, water buffalo, wild horses, cows, donkeys, goats and monkeys as well as a million pedestrians, mopeds, bike rickshaws, motor rickshaws, tractors and even occasionally a car.

The Taj Mahal was awesome. Its hard to describe with words how amazing a structure it was. Very quick historical summary: the Taj was built in the 1620s by the Mughal emperor as a mausoleum to his 2nd wife who died giving birth to their 14th child. It was simply beautiful. Symmetric in all four directions with exquisite gemstones inlaid in transluscent marble. Gorgeous. Pictures definitely better than words.

Today the high temperature was 109. And it is a wet heat. For those keeping score at home, that is really, really hot. So we mostly kept moving between world heritage sights and shady spots. We saw the Agra Fort which was another huge red sandstone structure with a few interesting mosques, a masoleum outside town with lots of animals (peacocks, antelopes, and monkeys) running around, the Baby Taj Mahal, and some sweet and oddly deserted Mughal gardens right across the river from the Taj.

And between darting from shade to sights, it was another day of starring in random Indian family photos. I am in at least 30 photo albums thaty aren't mine already.

Finally infrastructure here (or lack thereof) continues to astound. The power went out four different times today. Also, in front of the Taj, there are large grassy areas that were being mowed. How you might ask? Well obviously by two men in a motorless lawn mower cart that were being pulled by two cows. Inside the grouds of arguably the nost famous building in the world, cows are hard at work.

Hong Kong/Macau

Hong Kong was a good way to finish China. Actually it was not much of a finish to China but more of a trip back to the US. It definitely felt less Chinese than many parts of San Francisco and New York do. Everyone spoke English, tons of ex-pats (largely British and Australian), and a very modern city.

A few highlights from touring the city include the 800 meter long set of escalators that takes you from down by the waterfront up to the mid-levels on the hill where most of the hotels are, eating a Burger King Big Fish sandwich up on top of Victoria's Peak, a few nice ferry rides around from high-end shopping mall to shopping mall, and finding hot, fresh krispy kreme donuts.



One of the highlights was definitely a random night out Friday. The Stanford group I met in Yunnan also happened to be in Hong Kong for the night, so we met up for a big fun dinner. For different portions of the meal, I brought a few friends who were in town from school and from New York. The other group also had a few friends who lived in Hong Kong. Thosew friends brought some more friends. We ended up having one of those great its-a-small-world nights with a good italian dinner that could have been in little italy and then a few sierra nevadas at a brewpub that could have been in san francisco.

The last stop on the China circuit - Macau - was a pleasant surprise. It had many things I like: cool casinos, lots of waterfront areas, and great portuguese food.

The town/SAR/country of Macau still retains a lot of its Portuguese heritage. Signs on stores were an interesting mix of portuguese and cantonese with occasional bits of english haphazardly thrown in. It was pleasant, walkable and felt more like being in Peru than in China. I even managed to get a workout in one of the parks. The blackjack dealers at the Wynn however were not so welcoming.

Welcome to India!

"Hello sir, welcome to my crazy country."

Most guidebooks or slogans about India say things like, "India is a feast for the senses." Or "Incredible India!", or something like that. Three different times today, someone has welcomed me to their crazy country. At this point, I would tend to agree.

In half a day here, I have seen large monkeys (baboons?) running on top of city buildings, grown accustomed to cattle in the streets, been attempted to be scammed twenty times at least, and had between 10 and 20 people come up to us asking to take photos with me, or Brittany, or us both. There are people and rickshaws and animals and trash and beggars and old cars absolutely everywhere. Its complete chaos.

Upon landing, it seemed like we entered the early 1970s. Our plane was probably 40 years old and was literally falling apart inside. Then, we made our way to a sketchy communist era taxi from the 1940s. Eventually, we found our hotel.

Delhi has been really interesting, overwhelming, and sweaty all at once. This morning we went to the red fort and a huge mosque in old Delhi. Definitely the only white people in the huge mosque that seats over 25,000 people. Elsewhere along the way we explored several bazaars selling everything from books to t-shirts and saris to car parts. We ate with our hands (don't worry mom, I used Purell first) at an amazing lunch at a tiny, hole-in-the-wall place called Karim's. We even found an iced coffee restaurant with AC to escape the heat and a great park by the parliament house with trees and therefore shade.


So far, its been quite an introduction to my new country of residence. I am not sure I can call it my crazy country yet. But I think I can call it crazy.

Lijiang - an epilogue

First - some background. I do not mean this to be negative or too stereotypical, but I need to make a broad generalization. Please don't be offended.

Chinese tourists love taking solo photographs in front of random places. Without fail, older Chinese tourists give a stoic semi-smile, and younger people flash a peace sign. All photos are individual only. In fact, Lijiang may only exist in order to give Chinese tourists random places to take individual photos.

Ok, enough context, on to the story.

My last afternoon in Lijiang I walked about 30 minutes north of the old town to Black Dragon Pool Park. Just a few steps inside, a torrential downpour started. I had no rain jacket or umbrella so I scampered to the nearest pagoda for shelter. Since I am Dola-e, I had many electronic devices in my pocket that I was not eager to get wet. So I sat under the pagoda and started to read my book.

After a half hour, I got tapped on the shoulder. It was an old Chinese woman, probably in her 50s, holding a camera and an umbrella. Thinking she wanted me to take her pictures, I stood up and took her camera. She gave me the umbrella also. A little surprised, I took it, then followed her out into the rain. She stood out in the rain at a few classic random spots, and I snapped photos. Then she ran back over, looked at the digital photos, approved, and took the camera and umbrella and headed back under cover. Now a mix of stunned and amused, but definitely getting wet, I followed her back to the pagoda.

Then she started to gesture excitedly and talk loudly to me in Mandarin. Eventually, I realized she wanted to set up a trade of sorts. I could take her photos along the way, and she would share her umbrella with me. I laughed, thought for a second, then agreed.

At first we walked along a little awkwardly. She would stop, set up a photo shoot, and I would take a pictures. But soon, we struck up a great dialogue. She spoke rapid Chinese. I replied in English. Neither understood a word the other was saying.

Eventually, we settled into a great routine. She even offered to take a few pictures of me random places, and I accepted.

As we got closer to town, we started getting some funny looks from strangers as we huddled together under the umbrella, but we just giggled like a happy couple and continued on.

Finally, we got to a big water wheel with some other people nearby, and I gestured to ask if we could get a picture together. She smiled, flagged down a stranger, and we took pictures on both of our cameras. I wanted to include the umbrella, she yelled at me to put it down. I held it awkwardly off to the side.

Soon though, we had to go our separate ways. She led us to a little store and arranged for me to buy my own umbrella for Y10. We turned and looked at each other one last time, she said "Bye-Bye", I laughed and said the same, then turned and headed home under my new lavender umbrella.

To invest in China?

Note: This is a still in process draft that I hope to turn into a paper at Stanford. Much of it is still poorly developed and explained. It is also quite long. But, as I am leaving China, I think it is appropriate to post it in its current form for those who are interested.

Walking down the neon-lit streets of Shanghai buzzing with energy, shopping in the modern downtown malls of Hangzhou, Beijing, and Xi’an, or studying the massive development projects on display at the Urban Planning museum, it is hard to conclude anything other than China is about to take over the world. When asked in a recent survey, "Do you think you will be richer in 10 years time?" approximately 90% of Chinese respondents chose "quite possibly" or "possibly".

But at the same time, there are problems here which seem nearly insurmountable. The recent US seafood bans and toy lead paint outcry just scratch the surface. The pollution in many parts of the country is unbearable. The northern portion of the country is facing severe water shortages. AIDS is ravaging large portions of the population of Henan province due to terribly misguided government blood gathering practices in the late 1990s. Huge numbers of workers are migrating from rural farms to slums in and around the large cities. Numerous local minority groups want political freedom and independence. The economic disparity between rich and poor is tremendous.

So maybe China is not going to take over the world. Maybe the government will lose control when the economy slows, as the growth slowed in Japan and all of the “Asian Tigers” of the 1990s. Maybe America has just outsourced almost its entire production base to a country with problems growing as rapidly as its economy?

The answer is definitely not clear.

One thing is for certain, the Chinese economy has showed no signs of slowing down yet. Even with the one day 10% drop in the stock market in March when the government suggested there may be new taxes, consider the following:
- Real estate investment and prices have soared (28% annual real estate growth, 25% annual infrastructure growth YoY May)
- The stock market has nearly tripled in the last two years (Shanghai Index up 124% in 2006 and ~70% YTD)
- The Trade imbalance continues to surge (surplus increased 73% YoY May)
- The Yuan is still not free to float (some estimate the currency is 15-20% undervalued)
- Venture Capital money is flowing freely ($220MM was invested just in cleantech directly in China in 2006.

Almost every single person I have met here is working for a startup or a VC. Everyone is getting rich and think they will continue to get very rich, very soon. I have met many people who talk about their plans to retire to the US in 10 years based on their riches from the Shanghai stock market.

Can this growth possibly continue?

I think this answer is actually quite related to my work here at Kijiji. I have been working to expand Kijiji’s presence by entering new markets around China. As such, I have studied the socio-economic characteristics in all of China’s major cities and regions. While today, Shanghai, Beijing, and to a lesser extent Guangzhou and Shenzhen, are wealthy, global economic centers, these cities will not drive China’s growth over the next twenty years. China’s “Tier II” cities will be even more important for China and the world than I ever imagined.

I have analyzed Kijiji’s performance in Tier II cities where we have a presence, and assessed other markets where Kijiji could enter. I have visited China’s Tier II cities firsthand in Hangzhou, Xi'an, and Kunming. It is these Tier II cities, the cities with an average population of 3.5 million and an average purchasing power / capita of just over US$10,000, the cities that most Americans (myself included) have never heard of, that will determine China’s impact on the world over the next twenty years.

Urban household data is one way to see the importance of these Tier II cities. Clearly, Chinese urban households are much better off than they were even ten years ago. While only 6% of urban households are classified by McKinsey as “Global” or “Affluent”, 43% of the urban households are classified as upper or lower aspirant – basically middle class. 10 years ago this same statistic was at only 3%.

One consequence of this growing middle class is a tremendously widening gap between rich and poor. The chart below shows this staggering evolution.


The chart below shows high, low, and base case economic projections for 2025 China. A rising middle class of staggering size seems almost certain. The country is just too big and has gained so many resources that it is hard to see the development of a huge middle class stopping. For reference, if 25% of China’s population is middle class, that would be roughly equivalent to America’s entire population.


Another thing in China’s favor is its long-long-long term outlook. Even in the early 1980s, Deng Xiaoping was writing about how China needed to plan for the next 50 to 60 years to become the dominant global power. Today, China’s long-term economic plan projects that it will “realize modernization” overall by 2050 and that every province will reach its modernization goal by 2070. I am positive there are no similar government projections, let alone 20 volume scholarly plans, planning for US economic development between 2050 and 2070.

So what does all this analysis of Tier II cities and the rising middle class mean? Here are my takeaways:

1) There is probably an investment bubble here today. This is not a consensus view, but it is my view. It may not end tomorrow, it may not end before the Olympics in 2008, but there is a bubble. It will burst, likely sometime between 2008 and 2010, and it may not be pretty.

2) There is a chance that if the bubble bursts in a very messy way, China will not be able to hold together politically. The country is so big geographically, economically diverse, and culturally divided that there may be serious political turmoil which effects China’s economic development.

3) I think the most likely scenario is that the bubble will burst but there will be a relatively soft landing. The slowdown will not be politically catastrophic, and the huge forces behind China’s economic growth will largely continue over the long run.

I think some Westerners will make some money in China over the next 25 years. I think a lot of Chinese will make a lot of money in China over the same span. I am hoping for the former, but not expecting much. I have a little bit of money invested in the Chinese market today, but mostly I am waiting and watching. I plan to invest much more after the bubble bursts. And I plan to target the sectors like healthcare, transportation, and recreation (see final chart, below) that will benefit most from the growing middle class in Tier II cities.

The 20th century was dominated politically and economically by events in Europe. The two major world wars, the cold war, and most of the economic expansion was driven western forces. I see no way that will continue. The 21st century may not be the “China Century” but it will almost definitely be the “Asia Century”. America may still be the biggest and most powerful country, but it needs to change its focus and adapt to a new center of the world in the East.

(Sources: Charts in this posting are all from the McKinsey Global Institute November 2006 report: “From ‘Made in China’ to ‘Sold in China’: The rise of the Chinese urban consumer”. Most other statistics are from Chinese census data, or articles in the New Yorker, the Economist, or the People’s Daily)

Chinese Politics

I have had a number of interesting conversations about the political situation here. I think most Americans do not have a very accurate view of the Chinese political system. While I only have gathered a few weeks worth of impressions, here are my thoughts.

First, most Americans know China is ruled by the Chinese Communist Party, the only legal party in the country. But it is important to realize that this party is communist in name only. The party says its political stance is “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics”, but socialism is actually very limited. While there are still some artifacts of socialism (e.g. you cannot own land in China, you can only own buildings and you lease land from the government), free-market capitalism governs the country maybe even more than in the US, especially in the wealthy eastern portion of the country. I think most Americans falsely associate the Chinese style of government with Soviet Communism which it most definitely is not.

Within the local population, the political sentiments are also much more disparate than I once thought.

There seems to be a portion of the population who believes that have a strong, one-party government system is very important and has led directly to China’s growth. India is an oft used example of where democracy has largely failed to effectively run an emerging economy with many similar characteristics to China. Looking at China’s incredibly well managed expansion, the development evidenced at the Shanghai Urban Planning Museum, and China’s rising global influence, this position seems to have some merit.

[As an aside, the recent book, The J Curve, might agree with this stance. It was written largely about democracy in the Middle East, but its point could be applied elsewhere. It can also be summarized in two sentences. If you plotted the benefit / effectiveness of democracy on the x-axis and a country’s level of development on the y-axis, that chart would look like a J. Since the plot is curved, that suggests democracy can actually have a negative (though short-term) effect on a country if it is still in an early stage of development.]

There also seems to be a portion of the population who is frustrated less by lack of freedom of the one-party system but more by the ineffectiveness of the government at providing some public services. This would include the poor healthcare system, grinding pollution, water shortages, etc. They might prefer a multi-party system, but more because it might be more effective in improving bureaucratic processes and enforcing political accountability.

At least some portion of the population here resents the government intrusion into every day life. This includes everything from blocking websites, to limiting personal freedoms, to enforcing the one family-one child policy. This group is most interested in political freedom and democracy. While China has radically evolved economically over the last 20 years, politically the country has evolved hardly at all, and there are consistent calls for more open political choice.

This last group – which I think is the view that Americans expect all Chinese have – seems smaller, less passionate, and more frustrated than I expected. I also think this group is also fairly hopeless that meaningful change will occur.

Finally, one of the biggest political surprises I have seen is how un-powerful the Central Government here actually is. Yes, it may be able to control the weather, police the internet, and suppress political choice. In major issues that are truly important to the Central Government, central politics is unbelievably important. But almost all the time, the real power in China is in the hands of the local and provincial governments.

The local party officials who run the jails (and make prisoners play video games to earn money for themselves), take bribes from local factory owners, grant or deny building permits, and manage most of the day to day affairs of the country are extremely powerful. They are the authorities who bulldoze through poor areas to make room for new high tech development centers. They have the tightest grip on the one-party system and the most to lose if the system changes.

I think few Americans have a good understanding of this complexity between local and central Chinese political authorities.

Lijiang, China wrap-up

To elaborate more on the Colorado analogy from earlier, if Kunming is Denver, then Lijiang is a weird version of Aspen and Shangri-La is Durango, or Moab Utah, or something like that.


Lijiang may be the weirdest place I have ever been. It is at least in theory an ancient Chinese town home to the Naxi minority tribe. In practice, it is a bizzare cross between Disney World, Las Vegas, and Williamsburg Virgina, except in China.


But still, I have spent a pretty chill couple days here and have enjoyed my stay.

Thanks to Shu, I am staying in a really cool tea house owned by one of her friends with an amazing view over the city. I am the first white traveler to stay there. Last night, the owner force-fed me beer until 1:30am as we sort of communicated through hand gestures and laughter for a few hours.

I have spent lots of time walking around the old town and chilling in cafes (amazingly, I had french toast at a place this morning that was playing a Miles Davis cd)

I got a 2 hour massage from a blind man that was largely phenomenal but at times more than a little uncomfortable.


And now, today, my legs and back ache. My forehead is peeling from sunburn in a ridiculous checkerboard pattern that would probably not be considered attractive. My clothes are filthy. After six weeks here, I have breathed pollution equivalent to smoking a pack of cigarettes every day for 5 months.

But I am happy.

This morning, I saw bright blue sky for the first time in China. It seemed appropriate that this comes on my last day, here in Lijiang, one of the most difficult places to understand in all of China. While I am headed to Hong Kong and Macau for the weekend, this is my last day in the "mainland".

At times, China has been unwelcoming, frustrating, and baffling. And at other times, it has been unbelievably friendly, spectacular, and amazing. I think China and I battled at least to a draw, or maybe even I came out slightly ahead. In any case, it has been extremely interesting and rewarding. I already can't wait to come back.

Landslide!

I think the best way to start this story is with a description of my luggage. You will see why this is relevant shortly.

I arrived in Kunming with 3 bags. One large duffel bag with my work clothes. One midsized day pack full of souvenirs and hiking supplies. One large backpack full of stuff for my week in Yunnan. I left the large duffel bag and the mid-sized pack at the Kunming airport when I flew to Shangri-La.

At the start of the hike, the weather did not look very good. I knew the trail was steep and slick, and I did not have a cover for my large pack. I had bought a tiny pack for US$8 in Shangri-La (where a bunch of North Face gear had "fallen off a truck" and was being sold for cheap). After much internal debate, I decided that I would leave my large pack at a guest house at the start of the trail, fit whatever I could into the small bag, and go with that.

So in addition to what I wore and had in my pockets, I brought for the hike:

1 spare pair of socks, 1 spare pair of underwear, a poncho, 4 clif bars, 4 half liter bottles of water, a book, my passport, a few pages describing the hike torn out of the Lonely Planet, about Y600, and a couple credit cards.

Notable items not on this list include (among other things):

Head lamp, advil, celebrex, spare clothes, a knife, dry shoes or sandals, my wallet.

The last object is particularly noteworthy since I was paid by Kijiji in cash (no electronic payments possible from China to US). So I have a few thousand dollars cash balled up in the bottom of my pack. I decided to leave it in my big pack because my day pack had absolutely no place to hide it. I decided it would be safer stuffed in the bottom of a dirty old pack at the start of the trail, since the Lonely Planet mentioned that solo foreign travelers should beware of thieves.

Until the avalanche came, scattering my belongings all around Yunnan to save weight seemed brilliant. But the landslide blocked the only road between the end of the hike and the start of the hike. Note the map below: The trail is in gray, the only road in black, the river through the gorge is in blue, and the landslide is in red. I am at the end of the hike. My stuff is at the start of the hike. I need to go to Lijiang.

It quickly dawned on me that I was in the middle of nowhere in Yunnan China, knew nobody, had a cell phone that didn't work, did not speak Chinese, was soaking wet, and all I had with me was about $50, a pair of dirty socks and underwear, and 1 last clifbar.

I hiked as fast as my tired legs would go uphill to a little cafe at the end of the hike. I got there around 12:30. There were 7 other travelers there including my new friend from Guangdong Province, another guy who turned out to be from Beijing, and 5 Israelis. I immediately attached myself to the hip of the two Chinese speakers.

After about 30 minutes of discussing the situation, we decided to hire a car for Y5 each to take us to the landslide. We would see if we could walk through it. If we could, we would hire a car on the other side to take us to the start of the hike. This seemed like a reasonable enough plan, so I hopped in a minivan (sidenote: the chinese word for minivan is loaf-of-bread-car) with the two chinese guys. The Israelis argued for about 20 minutes and finally 3 of them decided to come with us, leaving the other 2 temporarily at the cafe.

We headed off on the crazy, windy road with no guardrails and 2,000 foot sheer drops towards the landslide. Along the way, we passed about 3 small landslide areas any one of which undoubtedly would have closed any road in the US. We barely slowed down to avoid the boulders and waterfalls. Then, we saw it: the entire road was covered for about 30 yards with huge boulders. Definitely no cars getting through.

We got out to inspect the situation. It might have been possible to scamper through the landslide to the other side. The big problem was that there was still rocks that kept falling. Little rocks and dirt were falling continuously and would have made the ground very slick. Rocks about the size of a person's head fell every few seconds. They could probably be avoided, but if they hit you, they would definitely knock you off the cliff. And every few minutes, person-sized boulders would tumble down.

After discussing the situation for a few minutes, we decided to turn back. To punctuate the decision, a huge rock fell about 10 feet from where we were standing on the road. We quickly got back in the minivan and returned to the cafe. A mid-sized rock bounced off the side of the van as we drove off.

Along the way back to the cafe, I was discussing the situation with my new best friend from Guangdong. I told him that I needed to get back to the start of the hike to get my pack, so maybe I would just hike back. While walking 8 hours back to the start of the trail seemed far less than ideal, I couldn't come up with any better options. He suggested that I call the cafe at the start of the trail and have them send my bag to Lijiang. I was amazed at this idea. He explained the idea to the woman at the end of the trail cafe. She called the woman at the cafe at the start of the trail. After about 10 minutes of discussion, they said that I could pick up my bag that night at "Mama's" Guesthouse in Lijiang. It would cost me 15 Yuan (US$1.95) for the delivery. I quickly accepted the offer. Now all I had to do was get to Lijiang (and hope my bag did too).

Back at the cafe, I stayed as close to the lone minivan as possible. A few more travelers arrived and were also trying to sort out the situation. There were rumors that we could take a car to a ferry, take the ferry across the river, then try to find a car on the other side to take us to Lijiang. The two Chinese guys arranged for the minivan to drive us to this ferry crossing, so I hop in again. The Israeli's again tried to figure out how to split up. In the meantime, I met a white American guy! This was the first American I had met in 5 days in Yunnan. We got to talking and it turned out he is a CS Masters student at Stanford (Sergey) who was traveling with 2 Chinese-American Stanford girls (Carri and Diane)! I told them to quickly get in the van, we ditched the still arguing Israelis, and took off.

We drove along about 30 minutes mostly on these dirt farm roads through some corn fields vaguely towards the river. Eventually, the path ended, and the driver said we should get out. We paid him Y10 each, he pointed off in the distance, and said it is 500 meters to the water. We set off.

After nearly an hour of uncertain hiking (definitely more than 500 meters), we reached the cliffs and followed a winding path down to the river. Across the river, we could see a boat and a few caves where it looked like somebody could live. After a few minutes of yelling, a ferryman woke up, came down to the river, and brought his boat across the river to get us.

We took the ferry across the river for Y15.

On the other side, we climbed up a trail from the water to a dirt road. We followed this dirt road for about 30 minutes towards a cluster of buildings that was supposedly a village. Finally, we got to the first building which was a guesthouse. By now it was about 4:30. The two Chinese guys decided to spend the night at the guesthouse and take a bus the next morning to Shangri-La. The Stanford kids and I both wanted to get to Lijiang. There were no more buses. But the owner of the guesthouse eventually said that the village's one car could be hired to drive us to Lijiang for Y300 at 7pm. We accepted.

Still though, we had almost 3 hours to kill, so we wandered into "town". This was as stereotypical a Chinese village as you can imagine. One dirt road through town with a few shacks surrounding it. Chickens wandering in the street, a few donkeys, etc. The little kids all ran into the street and wave and yell at me and Sergey (I imagine not many white travelers make it in these parts). We did not see any cars for about 30 minutes.

Suddenly, a mini-bus rumbled down the street towards us. We flagged it down. After about 2 minutes of amazing negotiation by Diane, the mini-bus driver agreed to take us right then to Lijiang for Y300. We immediately jumped in and we took off, ecstatic that success was finally in sight.

A few small adventures later (we switched cars once and drivers twice for no apparent reason), we finally arrived after about 3 hours on bumpy dirt roads at Lijiang around 8pm. I found my way to "Mama's" within about 20 minutes, and sure enough my backpack was there, contents entirely intact! I have no idea how it got there.

Total cost of the trip: Y5 (car 1) + Y10 (car 2) + Y15 (ferry) + Y75 (bus) + Y15 (bag) = Y120 or about $15.

We decided to celebrate that night at a local bar which was of course named "The Sexy Tractor". And obviously, the bartender was a Chilean guy who used to live in Brazil. I told him I lived in Sao Paulo for a while, and we talked in Portunol for a bit. He pulled out some Cachaca from underneath the counter and made me an awesome caiprinha. Amazing end to a crazy day.