Weekend Update

Friday Rick and I left the house early (he stayed here to watch baseball with Sam the night before) and made it to the bus station by 8:10. Unfortunately, the bus was sold out so we went to another bus station and caught a bus to Ya'an. Once there, we took a van to Shangli, a village on a river. Ancient Shangli is just a couple minutes up the road but we walked through the modern village and then down a track through some cornfields. It was hot and muggy, especially with our packs. We came out on a hillside track and walked straight into a pagoda. It overlooked the plain, filled with rice paddies and cornfields running into each other. A line of white houses stood out on the horizon in front of the hills rising through the mist. It was a pretty incredible sight. Rick and I took a breather there and then walked toward the town, crossing a pretty bridge and then walking along the main street, paved in large stones and with tables in front of the various tea-houses, restaurants and guest-houses. We walked around for a bit, found a tomb of the Han family and ate lunch. We then got a room in a guest-house for 40RMB/night, with two single beds. Our room opened onto a balcony overlooking another old brick bridge and the main street.

We walked out along the river for a while and then followed a road into the hills. The road became a gravel road, then dirt, before ending in a pile of rocks and becoming a paved footpath. We wound our way through a hamlet, with occassional houses on either side and the common cornfields where the forest had been cleared. Luckily we didn't have our packs with us and the afternoon light was beginning to drop behind the hills so it was a nice little hike. Our trail followed the stream faithfully an d became a muddy track dotted with rocks. As we turned a corner, a woman with a small hand scythe told us we had to turn around. After trying to explain to her that we were just following the path, she menacingly gestured with her scythe and we decided to just turn around.

As we walked back into the dispersed hamlet, she asked us to her house for some hot water. Never one to decline a drink, Rick and I followed her across a small stone bridge to her house, a modest yet sturdy building standing amid a copse of trees. The hills began to rise almost immediately behind it and the property was ringed with corn. The woman pulled out a couple of stools and we sat outside while she brought us bowls of hot water. She also pushed some cucumber on us, peeling the skin off and then handing us each half of a giant cucumber. It was a pretty funny moment, sitting on this woman's porch, drinking hot water and eating cucumber like an ear of corn.

Soon her husband came out and we were introduced to his mother as well. Then his twin brother showed up, introduced himself and we found out he lives in Chengdu but just came down for the weekend. At this point they demanded that we stay for dinner and offered to walk us home in the dark with flashlights. It was very nice and soon we all came inside to watch the opening of the Olympic Games, sitting on short stools and watching on a new, large TV inside a house in the woods in a hamlet outside an ancient town. You literally would not be able to get a truck within 500 yards of this house. It was pretty cool.

So we watched the opening ceremony, which was really terrific, ate a massive meal (there's a picture of it on my photo page) and drank many toasts of beer, again drinking out of bowls. I also understood the Chinese habit of throwing trash and bones under the table – the cats and dogs get to eat that way. Even in the city, it is absolutely customary to spit and drop bones under the table. It's totally a holdover from a rural existence, where those animals also serve other purposes (dogs – security, cats – kill mice). The twin brothers walked us home and we fell into a deep and peaceful sleep. It was a great first day in the country and the air quality difference was awesome. Also, it was great to see beautiful hills with the characteristic Chinese mist.

On Saturday Rick and I got up, ate some lunch, walked along the river and then hitched a ride up the road to a spring. We hiked up to a few shrines on the hillside and walked around the complex, taking some pictures. A couple of Chinese mothers took pictures of their kids with Rick and I and then we got a ride back to Shangli with them. Once back, we played some mah-jong with them and drank tea as the rain started. They went back to Ya'an and we walked back to our guest-house.

We spent the rest of the afternoon reading on our balcony, overlooking the river and listening to the waterfall. Rick taught me a new word – bishu – meaning to escape the summer heat by chilling in the mountains. It was so rainy and cold that we put on pants and sweatshirts and enjoyed the downpour.

We ate dinner at the guest house and then walked around town, checked email and ended up playing do di ju with some Chinese guys, who ended up videotaping us as we drew a crowd of onlookers. Then we walked to another bar, in search of cold beer, found a place and talked with the owners, who gave us the beers on the house. A quiet day but a good one, complete with rainy chilling.

Sunday we woke up and caught a bus to Bifeng Gorge, or to the entrance. We started hiking up a winding mountain rode and after about fifteen minutes we caught a ride with a couple and their young son. At the top we bought tickets and walked to the scenic spot and took a long elevator down to the bottom of the gorge. There's a picture of this huge elevator on my flickr page.

We hiked through the gorge, walking around waterfalls and the stream, passing vendors camped beneath small overhangs. We hiked all the way out of the gorge and then walked to a temple. Or to what we thought was a temple. We hiked about 40 minutes straight up the mountain, walking through a pine forest and up an endless series of steps to a beautiful temple on top of the mountain, overlooking the plain below. We chatted a bit with the caretaker and then hiked back down. We took a bus to a panda research station and then walked around a bit and actually saw some pandas outside of their cages, in the forest. It was nice to see them that way.

We waited for a bus for a while and went back to the main entrance and took a bus back to Ya'an and bought some bus tickets. To waste the time before the bus, we ate lunch and watched the Argentina-Lithuania basketball game and drank a beer. Then we took our bus back to Chengdu. As we were pulling in we could actually see the sun setting behind the mountains, a rare sight from cloudy Chengdu. It looked just like I imagined it would, like the Rockies, a jagged chain rising from the plain. We even got home early and watched the US destroy China in basketball and then played some do di ju before bed.