Soul Searching in Shangri-La pt. I

(Note: The next 48 hours of traveling, or so, works best as a contiguous unit, but is also around 14 or 15 pages of text in MS word. So, I’m chopping it up in three sections that will be posted in rapid section. It should be easy to figure out where to start)

So there we were, aboard what was for all of us our first ever overnight bus. I can safely say it is not what any of us were expecting. During my time in Japan, I had glimpsed a variety of long haul tour buses, and they came equipped with double decker chairs that would recline in an almost bed fashion, that looked relatively comfortable. They had toilets.

I should have known, that was Japan, and this is China. What we had instead was, yes, a double decker, but a double decker of capsule beds, and at the height of a normal bus, not double decker in the sense of big British buses. These things were built for standard sized Asian people, not myself. Each bed was probably two inches shorter than it needed to be to fit me comfortably. The way the beds were arranged were in three aisles, one row of beds straddling each wall of the bus, and two rows squished against each other going down the middle, with a teeny bit of walking space in between the wall beds and the middle beds on either side. In the back end of the bus, the rows converged, turning into a platform of beds, with the two levels. To make it a little more clear, if you were on the bottom level, such as I was, you couldn’t quite sit up all the way before hitting your head on the next level. This bed deck I refer to was directly behind me, I was at the end of the split up rows. Christine took the spot beside me, Jing was in front of me, and John was to the right of Christine, and I think the Kansas Kids and Sarah were on the top of the bed platform, while everyone else was scattered around on the top level in the front. Here's a couple of pictures from the interior:

Behind me, on the lower level of the bed platform, was some poor Chinese family, both in terms of financial holdings and levels of empathy you’d experience in being in their position. Also, they didn’t smell very good. In fact, very little about this bus smelled good. It basically smelled like we were laying in a big vat of trash, according to the olfactory senses of my friends.

We all settled in and cozied up, doing our best to mentally fortify ourselves to the experience that was laid out before us. I specifically had chosen a window seat so that I could have a bit of ventilation and reprieve from the odor wafting throughout the cabin of this bus, and tried to lull myself to sleep through the tossing and turning of its carriage. No more than thirty minutes after our bus took off for grander pastures, we were pulled to the side of the road, and informed that a police search was being conducted aboard our bus, as it had been reported that someone’s cell phone had been stolen on it. Which really makes no sense. Anyhow, as best we could understand, they really basically thought it was this one guy, but he kept arguing against it, and I guess their case against him wasn’t strong enough (is it ever, in China?), so they didn’t actually drag him out, but this police situation continued unabated for definitely over half an hour. Jing even had a hard time following what was going on, despite being Chinese herself and therefore entirely capable of understanding what they were saying. One of the things that was holding us up in particular was the constant arrival of more police vehicles, and it all ended in a more or less uneventful and anticlimactic way. Soon enough we were on our way yet again, and once again I tried my best to sleep.

For those who don’t know, I have a really hard time falling asleep in the best of situations. Not quite capable of being classified as an insomniac, I have nevertheless found it necessary to ply myself with sleeping pills on more than one occasion in my life just to get a night’s basic rest. So it was a pretty silly idea for me to think that I’d get anything resembling a reasonable amount of rest, but I’ve never been a stranger to fruitless pursuits.

I did get sleep, in a fashion, but the most motley unsatisfying sleep you could ever imagine. At one point, Lauren woke me up, because her purse was missing. I had no idea what to do, and was groggy beyond belief, so all I could struggle out of a response was to ask Jing to ask the driver what was up, or something. I’m not really sure what happened. At some point, shortly after, Lauren found out that the driver had apparently held on to it at his seat. She had no problem taking it back, but its hard to understand how this transpired at all. Jing said that it’s pretty common for the driver to be in league with thieves, so, maybe that was the idea. There are major problems with thievery on the road in western China, especially with slitting open bags and the like. Thankfully, this was the only encounter we had with that phenomenon.

At another point, we came at a longer stop at a Chinese version of a truckstop, which had a 24 hour restaurant that pretty much everyone piled out to. My stomach was feeling awful, so I wasn’t particularly interested, and tried to just sleep through it, at least initially. Eventually I gave up on that idea, too, and so Christine, Jing and I joined the masses, who were well situated on a large round table, eating everything from fried rice to Peking Duck. I couldn’t stand the thought of food, so I decided to go make friends with the restroom facilities that they had. It was at this place that you could make a case for me going native. I took a spell in a squatter trough with walls that were no more than three feet high, and no doors. The way it’s designed, you squat perpendicular to the “doorway”, just so you can be in a good position to wave to every guy passing by to do the same thing, I guess.

Let me tell you, if you had told me just a few months prior, let alone a year or more prior, that I’d find myself loosing my bowels over a shit trench in the backwaters of China without sitting, using napkins for toilet paper and being in plain view of any passersby, I would’ve declared you legally insane.

In any event, we soon gathered back up to go on to the bus, and the rest of the transit from this point to our final destination is a haze that some people long to achieve through the usage of various chemical supplements.

And then there it was. I don’t feel like I woke up, more like suddenly I was conscious of my surroundings, and it was daytime, and we were stopped. We were in Shangri-la.

I stumbled out of the bus carriage in a stupor, and shit was it cold. Prior to this, it had been probably around the high 70s or even low 80s in Shanghai, and all of a sudden there we were in what was probably high 40s, mayyyyybe low 50s in Shangri-la. At first I didn’t know where everyone was, but slowly it started dripping in, and people started appearing from trips to the restroom and what have you.

Apparently, Sarah had had a bit of an accident the previous evening. The bus had made a lot more stops than I ever realized, according to everyone else, suggesting I slept more than I realized, and at one of these stops, Sarah apparently made a trip to the restroom. This wouldn’t be so fascinating if it wasn’t for the fact that she also apparently fell into a ditch of human feces. Apparently she was up to her shins in it, and apparently she was hosed down with freezing cold water at about 3am. I say apparently so many times, as it totally wasn’t apparent when I was standing right next to her. However, a lot of other people had been awake for it, and John had slept with his head near her feet, and complained for quite some time about having had to put up with the stench of that shit.

After getting my laughing fits out to help combat the onslaught of the unexpected cold, we huddled around and gathered our things out of the bus, and tried to hit the ground running yet again. We had two priorities at this point. The first was to find a place to stay for the night, and the second was to make it to the Barley Hostel that had been recommended to us by Jimmy back at the Hump. It occurred to me at this point that I probably could have planned for this part a bit better, but given the circumstances, I feel like I deserved a little slack. David, who I had originally met at the first hostel I stayed at in Shanghai before starting up the school year, was perpetually carrying a stack of business cards featuring a very, very wide variety of different youth hostels throughout China, including one for a hostel right there in Shangri-la, so we used that as a starting point to look for a place to stay. We only had the one business card, so we gathered people into groups yet again and I showed the business card to each taxi driver and we rolled on over, yet again.

I think it as about 7:30, 8am in the morning. We slowly but surely all showed up at this place that was in the back of some random alley in a nondescript part of Shangri-la. Up to this point we still didn’t see much of the place, so it sure didn’t see like paradise or anything else of the sort, but we were bent on more primal needs at that moment anyhow. Thankfully, they had more than enough space for us all, and it actually worked out so that the fourteen of us basically got to have two rooms to ourselves, plus some random Israeli guy in my room. It took a while for all of us to get situated and gather our senses, this time, and I think a few people braved the stark cold waters of this place’s shower facilities to wash the stink of the bus off.

While they worked at that, I moved into the café that fortunately had wireless internet on it, and set about finding the address of the Barley Hostel. It was a quick enough find, so as soon as everyone was ready, and after I asked the owner of our hostel how to reach the other, which was sort of in walking distance, we decided to head out on foot. Here’s a picture of what I saw immediately after leaving our newfound home (note the very distinctive colors the Tibetan women are wearing):

We took a right, and I think pretty much everyone was hoping to see a bank. We were obviously on a main drag, such as it was, so we held our hopes up that we’d find an accessible bank. We were also starving, so in addition to the bank, we were holding our hopes up for a place that looked halfway reliable to eat. The latter turned up before the former, and we sat down for some reasonable noodle soup, taking up pretty much the entirety of a restaurant that was certainly not expecting fourteen foreigners to turn up all of a sudden. After that, we continued the way we had been headed to begin with, as at the end of the drag was a beautiful fountain and some sort of palatial building just beyond, as you can see from this picture:

We never did find out for sure what that building was, as our plans ended up taking us elsewhere. At this point, some people spied a China Construction Bank across the pond, and we headed over in that direction, as Bank of America has a special relationship with CCB that allows us to withdraw without any fees. I also had to find a place to reload some minutes on my phone, as all our phones here in China are pay as you go, and you have to frequently buy extra chunks of minutes to keep topped up. What we found out while in Yunnan is that you do in fact pay roaming fees, as your Chinese SIM cards are still attached to specific locations, so if you’re far from that location, the cost of placing calls and text messages is in fact higher. Being the leader of the group, this meant that I ended up running out of minutes no less than three times while on the trip, and paid a hell of a lot more than everyone else with me to keep it filled.

Old town Shangri-la was right around the corner, and that’s where the Barley was supposed to be, so in we went, and it sure was a wild looking place. Here’s even more pictures!

The guy in the Oxford sweater is David, and Ariel is the girl just next to him.

Almost everyone was blindsided by the bevy of touristy shops that sold all kinds of furs, which were probably not faux, and so I forged ahead a bit to find the Barley, and then came back and told everyone to go when they were ready. With that said, I sauntered in, and introduced myself to this guy who was working there, that I could never quite figure out what kind of relationship he had exactly with the place. He wasn’t the owner, he said he wasn’t even an employee, but apparently some sort of volunteer? But he definitely had a commanding presence within the building itself.

I introduced myself, and told him that I had been recommended both the facility as well as him by that guy Jimmy, who he certainly knew well, and I explained what we were looking for. He set me up with some Vietnamese coffee, which was really a blessing at this point, and then sat me down before launching immediately into an idea of what we should do with our time in Shangri-la, which, ultimately, is exactly what my group ended up doing. He recommended that we hire a couple of minivans, and have them take us out to this one Tibetan Buddhist monastery that was a few hours away, and along the way, check out a variety of scenery. The minibuses would each be able to seat seven, and would cost 450 RMB, or about 68 dollars, each, or about 10 dollars per person, which all told, wasn’t so bad. It was more than I had projected in my estimated budget for the trip, but still not too rough.

Once everyone came in to the almost conference room sort of place where the guy was going over my options with me, we ran it by everyone, and sure enough, everyone thought it was a fine idea. Seemingly, almost as soon as we had showed up, we were being whisked away in these minivans, as one of the drivers was hanging out at that hostel anyhow, though not before trying to figure out who all owed the hostel for the Vietnamese coffee that many of us had partaken in. Only one person, Tyler, stayed behind, and he really ended up missing out on the next part of the trip.

This here is a picture taken from the interior of the van I'd be spending a big chunk of the next 24 hours in, featuring, from left to right, John, Ariel, and Jill.

This was probably the part of the trip that was the most exhilarating, especially for myself, but I feel confident in saying that it was so for most everyone involved, also. I sat in the bench just behind the driver’s seat, sitting astride the window, which I had cranked down as far as I could. In my van was Jing, Sarah, John, Jill, Julie and Ariel. Sarah sat shotgun, and had a ridiculous time with the driver, talking to him as best she could in Chinese, and being her ridiculous normal overly flirtatious self. The driver was a ridiculously outgoing guy, or as outgoing as he could be without being able to speak English (though we taught him some extremely useful phrases, like, GET IN THE CAR! or, Howdy! etc). He also liked taking his hands off the wheels and dancing, like so:

John, Ariel and Jill sat in the very back, and Ariel and Jill were soon enlisted as my assistant photographers, handling the switching of lenses, as I became the company photographer, hanging halfway out the window . . . naturally with no seatbelts on, taking photos of everything that I feasibly could. When I decided I wanted a more zoomed shot, I’d take off my 30mm lens, and hold it behind me, whereupon Ariel or Jill would immediately give me my uncapped 70mm lens, and then put the protective covers on the one I had just given them. It was two hours of hanging halfway through this contraption, with a couple stops at a beautiful valley, and later the first bend of the Yangtze River, with one other stop overlooking a gorgeous lake in between (at this point in particular, the drivers actually urged us to stay out taking pictures longer, as opposed to the other stops, where they tried to herd us quickly back into the vans, as they both had decided to take a pee break, and were a bit at a loss when we decided we’d had enough of pictures and started walking back to the van without their beckoning). The wind snapping through my face in the brisk light of day, with all cares and considerations of the modern world far in the rear view mirror and around the corner of a mountain or two, I felt freer than I recall at almost any time in my life. I was all smiles and life, and I wanted for it to never die. To all those who ever thought high school was the best time of their life, I dare them to try this and not come out with brighter lights in mind. I felt like there was no need to reach for the sky, as the sky was resting upon the road we bore through. To give you an idea of what I’m talking about, here’s some pictures of those three spots I just mentioned:

(Top row, left to right: Lauren, David, Ariel, Varun, Julie, me, Yong, Sarah. Bottom row, left to right: Jing, Christine, Jill, Mindy, John)

(those last three were all at that valley. I'm sure the valley has a name, but we were never told what it was. It was just pretty place #2)

They were actually right in the middle of constructing a large facility for viewing this bend, which you can see us on the staircase of above. Here's a shot of the interior of the viewing pavilion that is utterly unfurnished thus far:

After the Yangtze bend, it was not that much further to the Tibetan monastery. At one point, we crossed a bridge over the fledgling river, and on the other side, a Chinese soldier checked all of our cameras for pictures of . . . something. For those who’ve never travelled in politically sensitive areas, apparently, photographs of bridges in particular are considered to be a no-no. So a few of us had to delete a few photos, but it wasn’t too big of a deal, and we continued driving on, with a splendid vista of the river beside us, and soon we were zipping through a couple of random small towns, with the monastery just on the horizon. Here are some photos of that, as well:

(this was a picture taken of the bridge before we crossed it. The building on the left side was the military station housing the photo-party-poopers).

(Okay, this one isn't of a town, but a random bathroom on the road between tiny towns)

Also, at some point around here, we came across this one ski resort that was totally out of season, without so much as a single snowflake, which made for an interesting site. Here's a picture of that, also:

At the last uphill climb before rounding the corner to reach the monastery at last, I had finally become a bit worn out from taking so many photos, and handed off my camera to Jill and Julie to tinker with a bit. However, soon enough, the other minivan was right behind us, and it was a photographic opportunity that just couldn’t be missed, so soon Mindy, the official photographer of van 2, and myself were having paparazzi wars, which culminated with a scene of me taking a shot of them right as my van was headed for some random frickin yak in the road, which took me by surprise as I turned around to sit back in the van. Mindy had a good shot of that, but I don’t know where it is at the moment. Here’s a couple pictures from the paparazzi wars, starting from when we first passed up van 2 and I got an award winning picture of their driver:

Then, there we were, at the gates of an honest to goodness Tibetan Buddhist monastery. We were given some instructions about rules regarding photography (basically, don’t do it after you’ve entered the compound), and then let loose, with instructions to come back on up whenever we were ready.