Soul Searching in Shangri-La pt. III

Sorry, two weeks of shoddy internet activity plus sharing my computer with some friends while they worked on their finals prevented me from being able to keep tearing through this stuff.  Now, though, almost everyone I know in Shanghai has returned, more or less, to the United States, and I therefore have far too much time on my hands.

So, we woke up on Sunday.  I guess the shocking events of the previous night wiped me out, as I actually did manage to get enough sleep such that when I woke up, it was all systems go.

We got up to an early start.  Some people took showers, I still avoided it.  At this point I think it had been four days since my previous shower.  It was pretty cold outside, and the small reports I had heard the previous day about the temperature of the water itself didn’t exactly instill a lot of faith in me.  I figured that it could be worse than going another day without rinsing.

Judging from the way I noticed a few people scamper out, it looks like I might’ve had good reason to avoid it.

Anyhow, we had to get our stuff taken care of, and so I talked to the manager of the establishment about it, and she let us know that we could just pile all of our stuff in a corner in a café in the hostel, which I thought was rather nice of her.

Within twenty minutes or so, we were good to go.  The drivers from the day before were already waiting for us at about 9 or 9:30am, so I hung out with them while everyone else finished getting ready. They were their usual ridiculous selves, and in moments we were piled into their vans again, this time to head first to a market or some such.

I forced the drivers to take us to the bus station before the market, so we could have our tickets out of town assured.  For the umpteenth time already, I used my scarce arithmetic skills to juggle the currency everyone in the group had to make sure we came out more or less even.  Immediately after, though, we arrived at the market.  The drivers let us know that we had a certain amount of time to check it out and see what it was like.  The idea, supposedly, was that it was specifically a Tibetan locals’ market, not something for tourists (although there were certainly a few trinkets there).

I was still pretty deflated from the previous night, so I committed myself to wandering around and just being a photographer.  Given that, here’s some pictures I took of my comrades haggling over wares, as well as a couple of photos of the market in general, especially of the butcher’s portion.

There was some food there, as well.  Super cheap, naturally, and I had some bread, and not much else.  I didn’t have much of an appetite but knew that some food would be a good idea before setting off on the rest of the day.  I avoided talking to almost everyone, and time passed.  I fabricated things to worry or care about to make the time pass even faster.

Soon enough though, enough time had passed, and it was time to get going.  As usual, the last person we were waiting for was Sarah, and she was buying an outfit in the vein of what she had played dress up as in the night prior at the one driver’s house.

I saw a dog wandering and gnawing, and Mindy tried to catch a photo of it, but the dog seemed to be a bit photo shy.  I caught a picture anyhow, and another few of us waiting to move to the next point.

 

When Sarah finally got her purchase over with, we rolled out, and this part of the drive was a bit longer.  At this point, I was far too tired to take any real notice of the particulars of the travel, but eventually we wound up at a horse ranch, I guess, for lack of a better description.  We were going to go horseback riding.

Or at least, that was the idea.  For some reason, the head driver really seemed to take to the idea of me being the leader, despite the fact that two other people in our group spoke Chinese far better than myself at least, maybe even three or four. So he talked to me about the prices, and it was a lot more than we were expecting for some reason.  I don’t remember the exact rate, but I want to say it was about 180 RMB (close to 30 US) for one hour of riding.  Now, perhaps in America this isn’t very high (I’d never ridden a horse before, so I’m not exactly an authority), but in terms of general Chinese prices, this was pretty high.

I gathered everyone else’s opinions, and there was a whopping three or four people that still wanted to go.  All girls, for some reason.  So I conveyed our general reticence to the driver, and he tried to press us for accepting the price.   According to him, the price was something he didn’t want to negotiate, because the person who ran the horse ranch was his friend, and he’d feel bad about trying to haggle with his friend or somesuch rubbish (read: mutual racket).  So I walked away, and walked up a small wooden structure where a few other people were standing.  It appeared as though it was nothing other than a two-staircased-structure to support a lookout platform.  I foolishly leaned against the rail and damn near collapsed the whole thing from the top, with a couple of my friends grabbing for me out of fright.  How much of it was well deserved, I’m not so sure, but it sure did seem rickety upon further inspection. 

I came back down, and people were pretty much settled into the idea of not riding horses after all, and just taking a few photos here and there.  To be honest, I didn’t really give a hoot either way.  It was not something high on my priority list, but if everyone else was going to do it, I surely wouldn’t be averse to joining in.

After wandering for just a few minutes, the driver came and caught my attention, and pulled me aside, feigning an attempt to keep things hush hush alongside his friend running the ranch, saying they could give us a good deal on it all, at 120 RMB (maybe 18 dollars) for two hours.  That was about 40% of what they originally said, so when I asked everyone yet again what they thought about it, people were a lot more receptive, and ultimately everyone decided to join in.

Somehow, while I was pushing and pulling money this way and that to get it to all balance out yet again, everyone else got on horses and got going, except for Tyler.  So soon enough we realize that Tyler and I have to get on horses pronto or else it’ll be a bitch to catch up.  And when I say “we realize”, I actually mean I hadn’t the slightest clue, but could put it together pretty easily when the toothless old man cradling a cigarette between his lips grabbed me by the arm and started running (no joke, full on running, not even jogging) headlong to the only horse left on one side of the ranch.  Apparently, from what I could glean, out of the various horses left, it was the only one they thought could support me.

I just ran along with him, not suspecting anything untoward, for good reason, and just got a laugh out of it. I look off to my left and see Tyler being ushered up onto a horse as well.

Then there I was, confronted with the idea of mounting a horse for the first time in my life.  All I could do was get on.  So, that’s what I did.

It wasn’t noble in the slightest, and I fumbled with the stirrups, the saddle, and the cords.  A rope connected to the harness and bit of the horse was grabbed by the toothless Tibetan man, and before I could even pretend to get comfortable, we were off like a shot, and Tyler mirrored me a couple hundred feet off to my side.

Perhaps that’s not what you would’ve been expecting for horseback riding.  The truth though, was that for the next two hour, we were actually led by hand by people from the area, guiding our horses on foot.  So of course we never got galloping too terribly fast, which admittedly disappointed me a fair amount.

The saddle felt like concrete between my legs and underneath all of my sensitive bits.  There was nothing gentle about it, and bouncing along as I was, I worried about the likelihood of me being able to father children in the future.  Tyler and I rode beside each other, and we both had our cameras strapped on.  Here’s the first picture I took of the ensuing hours, and it’s really the last good memory of Tyler I have.

For the next couple hours, the pack of us all moved such as we did, in what was basically a wide circle.  We were never allowed to roam freely, which is probably quite the sensible thing to do, but man, how glorious it would have been to do so.

The weather was fantastic.  The sky was bluer than I’ve known ever else in my life.  The sun shone upon us, and it brought its fearsome power upon me in particular.  I wondered if maybe I should’ve brought some sunblock, despite the fact that it was in the 50s or so.  The answer is yes, but the repercussions weren’t too bad.

Somehow, the fact that I was riding a horse on the Tibetan Plateau also got really under my skin (in a good way).  It was an intangible, wonderful feeling that I couldn’t put in words that are worth a damn, but I felt freer then, while being led by a trotting toothless old man who didn’t even see fit to try to button his pants up or anything, and having in truth no control over my movements whatsoever.

I was able to forget the worries of no more than twelve hours ago, and focus on just enjoying the beauties of the world.  We trotted through an open plain, came to an end at a mountain range (where Jill was encouraged by the locals to drink out of a horse spigot for what they referred to as perfectly clean water.  She doesn’t seem to have developed tetanus or any sorts of hepatitis, so I guess it turned out okay), then through a village at some length, and finally back around alongside a small stream until we had a straight shot to the end of the road.

It wasn’t a full two hours, in the end, but it was still great.

I took some photos at the end of it all, and the main driver asked if he could take photos of everyone as they raced in through the final stretch, almost as if it was one of those cameras mounted to watch the final drop at some amusement ride.

Here’s a gaggle of photos taken from the ride:

It was perhaps not that surprisingly difficult to take photos while riding.  A lot of the time I had to use one hand to keep balance, so I was manually focusing and taking photos with just one hand.  Pretty nuts, and quite a few useless photos in the long run, but I took enough in general that there were still plenty of gems.

While I was waiting for everyone to roll in and get off their horses, my horse took one of the longest pisses I’d ever seen.  Apparently, unlike most of the other horses while we were out, mine decided to be a trooper and hold it in until we got to the finish line.  Other people’s horses relieved themselves a couple times out in the field, and drank some water to boot.  Mine did take a drink one time, and here’s a picture from that:

Apparently though it would’ve been better if it had relieved itself a bit.  Just in general, maybe because of the altitude or something, but the horses are supposed to rest semi frequently, especially when carrying us giant overweight westerners.  Mine didn’t rest enough, and by the end of things, it actually almost collapsed under my weight, but thankfully caught itself.

Guess I should eat a little less fried rice…

Oh, and here's a picture of me on my horse, which was named something like Kunya:

We rounded up and piled into the vans again, and I made the executive decision that we didn’t have enough time to go to this one other market that the drivers originally wanted to take us to, but instead should just go back to the old town of Shangri-la, get ourselves a decent lunch, do some shopping in the area for those who wanted to, and then go to the bus station.  Everyone seemed to think that this was a good enough idea, so we rolled out again.

On the way, my driver informed me most yak meat in China isn’t yak meat, but instead beef.  Only here can you get real yak.

Whatever.  I’m not sure why anyone would suss up beef as yak, when they sell for the same price usually anyhow. He really insisted on this though; I chalked it up to some weird regional pride thing, like, “you want REAL cheese? Go to Wisconsin, forget that California stuff!” or whatever.  He really talked about this for a good fifteen minutes or more.  I’m not even sure how you can talk about this for more than three minutes and ten seconds.  There’s not really a lot of subtleties open to discussion here.  If there’s one thing I’ve learned from dealing with people in China who don’t speak English, and hence water down their Chinese a bit for my sake, it’s that repetition is the name of the game.

We got back to old town, and the first stop was this Indian curry place some people had their eyes on from the night before, but that we hadn’t had time to reach.

Another thing learned from traveling in China, especially with this group of fourteen people: split up and go to different restaurants.  The fact is, these kitchens are not equipped to handle more than about four people in a reasonable amount of time.  Instead, you’ll be waiting a long time, and even then, food will be coming out in shifts, not exactly conducive for eating in a big group.

I ate my food (which was good, nevertheless) rather quickly, and decided I felt like just wandering around a bit, so I left some money and walked out while I still could to enjoy the town, because it was clear we weren’t going to have too terribly much more time.

After a good twenty minutes walking around, I headed towards the Barley Hostel to just relax with a cup of the Vietnamese coffee, and chat with the dude who was there a bit.  I don’t know if I mentioned the last time, but the guy who helped arrange our travels in Shangri-la itself who quasi-worked at the Barley was once a part of the US Navy, and had lived in San Diego, my hometown (if you didn’t know from this blog website address) for a while, so we actually had a bit in common to talk about.

Slowly but surely, people gathered together for the deadline to meet at the hostel, before going back to the bus station.  I think Sarah was again the weakest link, but whatever.  I couldn’t find it in myself at that point to care too much.

When we were all together, we rolled outside to meet up with our drivers where they had last parked.

Only problem: they weren’t there.  We ran all around trying to find them, to no avail.  I remembered I had been given a phone card by the main driver at some point in the previous day, so I called him and asked where the hell they were, we had to be at the bus station in like 15 minutes or whatever it was, and in the typical beach bum kind of fashion he sported, he was liked, no worries! We’ll be right there!

The weird thing was that ONE of the vans was there, and the other wasn’t, and neither of the drivers were there.  He made pretty good on his word, though, and showed up quite quickly, and we raced over to our actual hostel where we slept to pick up our things as fast as we could and make it to the bus station in time.  If there was a byword for the trip to Yunnan, it would be hussle.

We got to the bus station, and had very little time off.  At this point, I don’t know how much of it was imagined within me and how much of it was real, but I knew that I still felt the need to hussle, so I ushered everyone through quickly, and the bus driver opened the below storage compartment, and I personally threw everyone’s luggage in there as quick as could be.  In retrospect, this was probably due to momentum, instead of practicality, because I think we still sat on the bus for about five minutes afterwards before actually taking off.  Ah well.

All of our luggage smelled like shit, too.  And I mean that semi-literally.  To be honest, its hard to describe the actual scent that pervaded our luggage, but it was noticeable as soon as we piled it all in the corner of the hostel that morning; the overnight bus ride to Shangri-la, we theorized, must’ve had some serious funk in its underbelly that got into every fabric of most of our bags.  I noticed it in all of them, but of course I took my own backpack most seriously, which was so rank, I was almost disappointed in myself.

After those five minutes, and a big hug from the Shangri-lese drivers, we were gone, almost as quickly as we had arrived.  You know, people often talk about how things might have all happened in a flash, or a wink of an eye, or a frenzy, or whatever other descriptive term used to describe how packed a short period of time is with bustling activity, but I can easily say that this experience in Shangri-la justifies the use of superlatives in this sense.

The bus rolled out of the station, and we were headed to Lijiang.