Shangri-La to Tiger Leaping Gorge

[Note: I am on the slowest internet connection in the world. More photos to follow soon]

I think I did not emphasize enough in my previous post how cool of a little town Shangri-La was. It's really small Tibetan village, with stone streets, little shops and restaurants and the occasional hostel, and two very cool monastaries - one on a little hill in town and one that we cycled to. There is also a big square where there is some sort of Tibetan dance party nightly. A little touristy, but still pretty cool. Some photos:

Monday morning I woke up in Shangri-La with no real plans, looked outside, saw that it was overcast but not raining, and decided to go do the Tiger Leaping Gorge hike. This is one of the most famous hikes in Yunnan Province, and runs through a gorge that is over a mile deep.

I left Shangri-La on the 10am bus for the little town of Qiaotou ("Chow-toe") where the hike starts. The bus was fairly nice - better than Ecuador, worse than Peru. I dozed off for a bit and woke up when the bus made a stop and then started again. Confused, I asked the guy next to me "Qiaotou?". He said something. Ｉasked again. He said something that seemed like yes. I yelled to the driver "Qiaotou?" He stopped. I hopped off, got my bag, and trudged back up the hill to Quiatou.

The Gorge hike is around 20 miles long. It starts around 1000 feet above the river at the west end of the Gorge. It then climbs up 3000 feet in the first 5 miles, then goes up and down and eventually descends back down to 1000 feet above the river over the last 15 miles. Top altitude is around 8500 feet. At the end of the hike, there is an optional 3 hour excursion down to the river.

Since the rainy season makes hiking tricky, my plan was to hike for as long as possible when it wasn't rainy too hard. I started around 1:00. As the weather rotated from light drizzle to steady rain but was never a downpour, I hiked until it started to get dark - about 6 hours. It was tough going, and quite slippery and wet, but a really cool hike. The mountains that surround the area are even higher than the gorge - their peaks are over 16,000 feet - and their tops poked through the clouds every so often like I was in the Lord of the Rings.

The weather scared away many travelers so I did not see very many people. But I also had a goofy wide-brimmed hat which I could tell made everyone I passed super jealous. I totally sunburned my newly exposed forehead, neck, and scalp while cycling outside Shangri-La. High-altitude sun and newly short hair do not go well together.

Most people I passed on the trail though had hired a guide with a horse. I hate horses even more than bikes so I did not. Still almost everyone I passed were also saoking wet and had mud-covered spots on their butts (like I did) from falling on one of the slick rocks. But I managed to find my way even though at times the trail was

not well marked:

crowded:

unclear:

probably not that safe:

and definitely wet:

But in the end, it was definitely worth it. The hike got progressively better, and it was awe-inspiring by the time I arrived Monday night at a little guest house that offered dinner and a place to crash for less than $4.

I woke up early and hiked the rest of the trail Tuesday morning, then trekked down to the bottom of the Gorge and climbed out on Tiger Leaping Stone in the middle of the river.

At the bottom of the river, I met a nice Chinese traveler from Guangdong province. As he was the only other person I saw on the 3 hour trip down to the river and back up, we chatted a bit and took a photo together. He took off first, I stayed a bit on the rock, then went up a few minutes later. As I was sweating and out of breath about half way back up, I ran into two guys who were headed down to the water. They mentioned that there had been a landslide in the road and that travel out of the gorge would be "challenging". That was an understatement - I will elaborate on the adventures that followed in the next post.

But the hike was exhausting, I was soaking wet for two days, but it was very cool, had great views, and was a great way to re-connect with nature after spending a month in the very urban lifestyle of Shanghai.

Shangri-La

It's been a whirlwind 48 hours since I wrote last so I will try to describe a few of the things that have happened.


First, Friday was my last day at Kijiji. Everyone gathered to take a photo (below) as I was leaving which was very cool.


Then I went out with the GSB crew to great Cantonese dim sum and then to karaoke with a bunch of Shu's friends. I knew it would be an interesting experience but it was crazier than I imagined. The place felt sort of like a nice casino, with big marble floors and high ceilings, chandeliers, great service, and fancy private karaoke rooms. Everyone was so in to singing it was crazy. I expected that, but it was more intense and more fun than I thought. Kind of like Lost in Translation, but with bigger, nicer rooms. Our GSB group sang Sweet Home Alabama, though I mostly banged on the tambourine to drown out my voice.

I left bright and early Saturday for Kunming, Yunnan. I have decided that Yunnan is equivalent to Colorado, and Kunming is Denver. There are mountains all around, a pretty unique culture that is not like California and not like the East Coast. I am probably not explaining this analogy very well, but the point is Kunming is a pretty cool city, especially for China. Very little pollution, a really nice downtown, some great pagodas and temples and a great lake. I spent a very pleasant 6 hours there, then hopped on a plane to Shangri-La.


Shangri-La is in the very Northwest corner of Yunnan/Colorado. Despite it's technical location in Yunnan, Shangri-La is a Tibetan town. All the people I have met have classified themselves as Tibetan, they dress and eat Tibetan food, and many of the local people are monks at one of the local Tibetan Buddhist Monasteries. [A quick note on Tibet, the people that we met here say that Westerners falsely associate the Tibetan culture with the Tibet SAR that is designated by the Chinese government. There are many Tibetan villages in the provinces that border that border Tibet SAR.]


I checked in to my hostel last night the same time as two Dutch travelers, so the three of us went out to check out the town and grab dinner. The town has a really cool monastery on the top of a little hill which was great. Then we went out and had a surprisingly good dinner of dried yak meat, pickled potatoes, and barley noodle balls.


Today we rented mountain bikes to explore the area. I will not write more about my dislike for the act of biking but I survived off road biking in the Himalayas on my first day at altitude (the town is at 3200 meters, surrounding area is higher) with only one bleeding knee.


But the best part of biking was that we got to see all sorts of off the beaten path things. We met a monk who took us into one of the monastery's kitchens and had yak tea with us (absolutely gross but amazing experience). We went through all sorts of gorgeous valleys with flowers and yaks and yak sheppards and Tibetan people going around the daily work. Everyone was super friendly and yelled "Hello" or "Nihao" to us. We went to the biggest monastery outside Tibet and hiked all around it, went through its dozens of cool temple areas, and trekked up through some of the hills and villages around the monastery. Finally we ended up in a huge lake bed and chilled in the fields.


That's all I can write for now. I will upload more pictures to this post later.

Moving Day / Posting Update

Today is my last day with Kijiji and in Shanghai. It has been absolutely amazing, and I am sad to leave.

I am taking a circuitous route over the next few weeks to get to Bangalore to start work with Softbank’s Venture Fund. I look forward to sharing what I am sure will be many interesting stories from this trip.

• First, I am going to Yunnan province, China– visiting Shangri-La, Lijiang, and Kunming for about a week. I hope to do some hiking, see some mountains, and avoid the rain.
  

• Then I plan to spend July 13^th – 16^th in Hong Kong and Macau. Hopefully I do not lose all my American Dollars playing Mah Jong.
  

• Then I fly to India on July 16^th. I will spend 12 days in northern India touring around Delhi, seeing the Taj Mahal, and visiting Ladakh province (Leh), and Rajasthan province (Jaipur and Pushkar).
  

• Finally, I fly to Bangalore on July 29^th to start work there.

I do not expect to have regular internet access until I start work again but I will blog (can it be a verb also? On my blog, the answer is yes) whenever I can.

For those feeling empty and lost inside, wondering what to do for three whole weeks without new blogs from me, I have uploaded some emails I sent around last summer from Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, and Argentina. They can be found in the July and August 2006 sections. Consider this the summer re-run season.

*This is my 19^th move since graduating high school - way too many.

Final Shanghai Thoughts

First, wrapping up some loose ends:

I have been meaning to write about an interesting conversation I had with Jian Shuo about Chinese naming. But he beat me to it and explained Chinese naming much better than I could.

Second, I got a haircut today. A bold move I realize, since “not too short” was not one of the mandarin phrases I have learned. But it’s very hot, and I can’t go the whole summer with no haircut (when I have a job). It was a nice place though, and it is a good haircut, just too short. I look a bit like a white, 5’11” Yao Ming (no disrespect intended for Yao Ming or his hairstyle).

Finally, Beijing is planning to ban 1 million cars from the road for two weeks to test its effect on reducing pollution (Thanks Susan!)

Now, on to some Shanghai thoughts.

I was very surprised when I realized this week that I am not at all ready to leave Shanghai. As everyone knows, I am always ready to move on to try new adventures. But my time here has been great and I wish I could stay longer.

I have been going through and trying to hit some hot spots in my last few nights here. I went to the top of the Grand Hyatt in Pudong for some drinks (although my shorts and flip-flops kept me from the bar on the 87th floor, the view was still pretty cool). I have been back to 3 on the Bund and had drinks at the roof café there overlooking the river. Probably my favorite place in Shanghai. I went back to Xiantiandi and to People’s Square and walked around and ate some food. I went to Yueyuan and bought some souvenirs. I took some pictures from the office and from the walk to and from work.

I think Shanghai is a great city. People complain that it is too much about spending money. They say it’s like New York, but without the cultural and artistic side (though some would say the real culture has been pushed out of Manhattan and into the boroughs anyway). Most local Chinese think Beijing is a better place to live because there is “real culture” there. Apparently there are 10 artists in Beijing for every 1 in Shanghai. That may be true, but I would pick Shanghai over Beijing for sure.

Another common complaint is that Shanghai is too western. I think Shanghai may be western-friendly but it is decidedly non-western. There are definitely McDonald’s and KFC’s and Starbucks all around. But there are countless more tiny restaurants and shops and local establishments. Somehow, the colonial influence of the French Concession and the modern skyscrapers with neon lights work together and give Shanghai a feel that is not western, and probably isn’t Chinese either, but is something all its own.

A few final photos:

Views from the office

Pudong

Xujiahui (taken on my commute)

Kijiji - final thoughts

This morning I went through my morning routine at Kijiji for one of the last times:

I arrive at the office, absolutely covered in sweat and dripping wet. (This has happened 17 of the 19 days – I took a taxi successfully once and unsuccessfully yesterday to escape the heat.) I drop my bag off at my desk and immediately head for the bathroom to try to clean up and dry off. I then search around in vain for a cool area, but wind up back at my desk still sweating. Then the battle begins. I can’t do anything productive until I have some coffee. But I am way too hot to have coffee. So I sit and stare at all the emails I got from the previous day in the US until I am a reasonable temperature.


Last night I took some people from work out to Bubba’s Texas Bar-B-Q to celebrate the 4th of July. Bubba’s was an amazingly authentic BBQ place. If I was in Houston, I would think it was only good, but it was probably better than any BBQ I had in New York or California. And since it was in Shanghai it made it more amazing. We had Budweiser, margaritas (not really American, but still better than green tea and whiskey), pulled pork sandwiches, beef brisket, yellow bbq sauce, red (vinegar) bbq sauce, pork ribs, hush puppies, French fries, corn bread, baked beans, and cole slaw.

And, like a typical American restaurant on the 4th of July, the service was really slow, and the place was packed with loud and obnoxious Americans (at one point, a version of the Star Spangled Banner broke out that was painful even to my tone-deaf ears). Still it was a lot of fun, good food, and I think everyone here enjoyed trying an American restaurant that served something other than just hamburgers and fried chicken.

And after dinner we promptly returned to China and went to get foot massages.

Coming to America

From the WSJ:

EBay Opens U.S. Classified Ads Site

Online auctioneer eBay Inc. has quietly opened a classifieds Web site in the U.S., its first foray stateside into an area that has been dominated by the scrappy Craigslist Inc.

On Friday, San Jose, Calif.-based eBay opened a U.S. version of Kijiji, the online-classifieds site it launched overseas in February 2005. Until now, Kijiji was available in certain countries in Europe and Asia, as well as in Canada, but not in the U.S.

Kijiji, available in 220 cities in all 50 states, looks barebones compared with the main eBay site. While that site is covered with images and links, Kijiji features mostly text, calling out sections like "for sale," "community," and "jobs." For now, anyone can post an ad for free, said eBay spokesman Hani Durzy, though the company plans to explore ways to make money, for instance by charging for display ads or premium services for sellers.

The U.S. site puts eBay in closer competition with Craigslist, the Web-classifieds site that was founded in 1995 by a San Francisco resident named Craig Newmark and has since expanded internationally.

EBay in 2004 bought close to a 25% stake in Craigslist from a former Craigslist employee and has closely watched that company in recent years to learn from its success, Mr. Durzy said. EBay has been "very happy with the financial and strategic returns" from the investment but sees room for more Web-classifieds players in the U.S., he said.

"We look at Kijiji as being competitive with Craigslist as well as the other classified platforms in the U.S.," Mr. Durzy said.

EBay owns other international classifieds sites, including Marktplaats.nl in the Netherlands, Loquo in Spain and Gumtree in England, Australia and New Zealand, and Mr. Durzy said eBay plans to look into expanding those sites into the U.S. as well.

More miscellaneous China thoughts

Language
I am quite proud of my Mandarin development over the past few weeks. I can now do such useful things as: get the waiter and the check (fu yen, my dan), say I am feeling “ok” (ma ma hu hu), and of course order ice cream (bing ji ling).

I can also very consistently tell a taxi driver where I live (near Xujiahui, at Tianyaoquio Lu and Nandan Lu). This morning, it was raining, and I had left both my umbrella and map at the office. I had not successfully taken a cab to the office without the map but I felt confident and hopped in a taxi.

My office is at Guanyuan Xi Lu and Huashan Lu. I struggle with the Yua and Hua sounds. But I tell the driver the address and think I get the point across and we set off. 20 minutes later we are at Guanyuan Lu and Hengshan Lu. Not right. I try again, and we set off again. 10 minutes later we are at Guanyuan Xi Lu and Hongqiao Lu. Not right either. Finally, I convince the driver to just go to Xujiahui. Going to Xujiahui, we pass my intersection. I tell the driver to stop and he says “Oh, Huashan Lu!!” 45 minutes later, I am at the office.

Pollution
The World Bank released a report on pollution in China today that is summarized in the Financial Times. They claim 750,000 people die a year due to the air pollution, though Beijing forced the World Bank to cut that statistic from the final version of the report, saying it would cause “social unrest”. It does say the China has made improvements at curbing pollution over the last few years.

Sino-Japanese relations
I think most people know that Chinese people and Japanese people do not get along. But I did not appreciate how tense the relationship is. Many Chinese truly hate Japanese people after the war crimes that were committed in WWII. In Xi’an, one of our friends joked that he was Japanese and that was why he didn’t speak Mandarin (he actually is from Hong Kong and speaks Cantonese). It went over very badly. Our friends told him to not even joke about that. I have also on several occasions seen World War II referred to as “The War of Defending against the Japanese Invasion”. I don’t think it was used as lightly as the War of Northern Aggression is sometimes used today in the US.