I recently returned from a school expedition to China. I kept a blog while I was there, and am reposting it here.
6 April 2007
The last day!
It rained again in the night. The weather is unseasonably cold – to the extent that I was sleeping in my thermal long-johns and a fleece. Most attractive. Unlike the kids, I hadn’t been able to figure our which combination of buttons on the remote control would turn the air-conditioning unit into a heater. Is it a sign of middle age when you can’t work that sort of stuff out? I read somewhere that Chinese characters were based, originally at least, on pictograms. If that is true, then there were some very strange thought processes going on when the characters for heat, cool, dehumidify and fan were invented. The remote just left me confused and irritated. And cold. I consoled myself with the thought that the kids either got lucky or had persuaded one of the Chinese guys to help them.
Our final breakfast was in the Lizard Lounge. The China Climb staff are fantastic – they are always looking for ways to improve things. For the last three days we had taken breakfast at a restaurant nearby. The food there hadn’t been particularly appetizing and it was cold by the time it got to the table. On the first day this wasn’t a problem – students deprived of Western food for a week don’t complain when things like toast, fried eggs, bacon and hash browns are congealing on the plate – they just wolf them down. Such enthusiasm doesn’t last though and yesterday there had been a lack of enthusiasm for breakfast. Scott (the manager of China Climb) had picked up on this and decided to fix it. So today China Cliimb’s own cook, whose only word of English is “Dinner”, had made a huge spread of all the things the students liked best. The result was a feeding frenzy.
We split into two groups again today. Our group went caving and to the mud pool, the other group went to Wine Bottle for their last day of climbing.
I hadn’t been looking forward to the caving. It isn’t a sport that I have ever found particularly attractive, probably because I don’t like confined spaces. The thought of being trapped in pitch black darkness, lost in a myriad of cramped, serpentine tunnels makes my stomach go tight. “And its freezing cold today”, I thought miserably as we walked to the cave entrance. We were all cold. We had been warned that the cave system was very dirty and that the mud would ruin our clothes, so rather than dressing warmly, we had all turned out in shorts and T-shirts. Our guide, Tyson, grinned broadly and said that the cave was warm in side. I had a suspicion that he might by lying, but it did stop our complaining.
We put on caving helmets, collected huge torches and swopped our shoes for “caving slippers”. These were “one size fits all”, which might be fine if you are Chinese, but worked less well for us. It did provide some amusement however. Our group’s foot size varied from a UK 3.5 to a size fifteen and a half... The shoes were a size 8.
The cave entrance was flooded, so we entered the system on a narrow, flat bottomed punt. It felt like we were on a fairground ride and the boys hooted and wailed to scare the girls. As the passage narrowed and started to climb, we were able to clamber out of the boat and walk into the cave. Within minutes we were crouching low, squeezing through a long narrow passage, stumbling on the uneven floor and banging our heads on the roof pressing down on our shoulders. I was thankful for the helmet, for each time I concentrated on my feet, I smacked my head on something. I move elegantly over rock when I am climbing, but in a cave I stumble around like a drunk with concussion.
Deep inside the system, Tyson asked us to stand perfectly still and turn off our lights. In the darkness he then explained how the caves were formed and pointed out some of the features. Pleased that the students could identify stalactites, stalagmites and columns he went on to show us drapery, cave bacon and popcorn.
Draperies are curtains of rock that hang in long pleats from the cave roof. Cave bacon is a thin translucent sheet of mineral deposits. It looks like giant rashers of bacon have been glued to the ceiling and walls. Popcorn is also a mineral deposit – this time formed at the edge of still when the water level is constant.
We followed the cave system through many passages and towering chambers, climbing up and down for perhaps an hour and a half. It was a strangely disorienting experience, leaving me without any sense of direction or time. In a chamber the size of large villa, Tyson explained that one of the main dangers in caving is power failure. We all turned off our lights and he dimmed his. Even so, the light from just one small headlight was enough for us to make out the shape of the passage and find our way around. Then Tyson turned off his light. We stood stock still, waiting for our eyes to adjust to the darkness. We waited. Nothing changed. There was no light for our eyes to get used to; the darkness was total. Suddenly, the seriousness of power failure became real. How would you find your way out of a cave without light when you couldn’t even see your hand in front of your eyes. Never had I experienced such a sense of blindness. I quickly developed a new fondness for my Duracell batteries.
Towards the end of the cave passage there was a large pool of brown water. Apprehensively, and shrieking from the cold, the students started to lower themselves into the pool. Fifteen inches of icy water and then the same of silky smooth mud that squelched between your toes, enveloped your legs and held you in a strangely comforting embrace. The more adventurous gathered huge, dripping handfuls of mud and smeared it over their bodies and faces, and then, inevitably, over those of their friends, producing a scene that should only exist in nightmares or cheaply made B-movies from the 1950s.
Whilst still inside the cave we stood under a gushing hose of icy water and scrubbed away at mud so fine that it would never completely go. Our skin, like our clothes, appeared to have taken on a permanent orange hue. Rather less muddy, we continued through the cave through passages that became increasingly narrow, convoluted and wet until, twenty minutes later, we found an exit at the far side of the mountain. “So this is the secret the other group wouldn’t tell us.” I thought. Soaked, muddy and now very cold, we had to walk back around the mountain to the cave entrance and the comfort of our warm clothing. I had the misfortune to be at the back of the line and behind a number of slow walkers who found it necessary to stop and turn towards each other each time they wanted to say anything. I resolved to bring along a cattle prod for such occasions in future.
In the distance we heard a loud scream, closely followed by several more. The first students had got back to the cave entrance and jumped into the large pool there to clean off. By their shrieks we could tell that the water was going to be cold. It may well have been, but as I got there I slipped on some algae, went for a brief but dramatic flight and crash landing. Time stopped. My forearm struck the concrete. “That wasn’t so bad, bit embarrassing though”, I thought. Then, in after what felt like an age later, my head made contact with the step behind, producing a hollow thud that echoed from the cliff walls. In the daze and sympathy that followed, the chill of the pool was lost to me. As I swam, a large bump grew from my scalp, increasing my hat size by two full sizes.
It was several hours later before I got warm again, although the swelling on my head did subside.
At lunch we met up with the other students who had enjoyed their climbing at Wine Bottle – everybody had managed to make at least one good climb. We had originally scheduled some free time for the last afternoon, but the students had done so much shopping and still had so much energy, that Scott and I decided that it would be better for them to climb one of the karst peaks near town. This wasn’t a popular decision, but everybody cooperated!
To get to the peaks we had to walk through the back streets of Yangshuo. Some of the students were surprised at the quality of the houses there – whole families living in single room houses with no running water or bathrooms. The views from the peaks were spectacular.
We got back to the Lizard Lounge at 3.45, leaving about an hour to collect all the gear together and get ready for departure. As a fantastic trip drew towards its conclusion we exchanged goodbyes and hugs, T-shirts and hats were given out and the last photographs were taken.
The journey home went smoothly, although our first plane was so delayed we almost missed the connection in Hong Kong.
Posted by Nick Hardcastle at 1:34 PM
5 April 2007
We climbed again today at a crag near Twin Gates. The ropes had been set up on either side of large cave. The rock was perfect, rough and steep limestone with good holds, although the routes were harder than we had climbed before. Some of the kids were a little too tired to climb and spent time hanging out in the cave, chatting or sleeping, but the majority climbed and put in a very good effort. Jelle excelled himself again, climbing harder and longer than anybody else. There was one route which involved undercutting a large jug and reaching for two small holds – a hard move that led to many falls throughout the morning.
Just before we left the crag, our guide Abang – one of the best climbers in China – demonstrated his prowess on the overhanging cave roof.
In the afternoon we climbed up to Twin Gates – a huge slot high in the mountain that had once been used by the Japanese for a fort. All that remains from the Japanese occupation are a couple of walls and slots carved in the rock for roof supports. Climbing up to the slot was hard work – the hill was very steep and the path muddy and slippery. By the time we got to the top, the other group had just finished getting their gear together and were heading off to climb.
We were at Twin Gates to do a Tyrolean and abseil. Stretching from one side of the slot to the other were two ropes forming a type of zip line some 70 m or so above the ground. By attaching ourselves to a pulley system and running off the edge of the cliff, we were able to launch ourselves across the void. Most of us got stuck about 30m from the end of the line and had to pull ourselves hand over hand across the rope in order to join Xiao Sai on a ledge. From there we made a long abseil back to the cave floor.
In the evening we had a BBQ at a local restaurant and then went down to the Li River for a firework display put on by the China Climb staff in our honour. After that there was a little time for shopping. Josh and Brendon hung out in the Lizard Lounge with some of the guides. There they discovered a new use for bouldering mats. These mats fold in too and fasten together with Velcro. There is just enough room inside to catch a small boy like a fly in a Venus flytrap. The boys thought this was hilarious and took turns to be trussed up. Once inside the mats they could fall about or bounce off walls with impunity. The guides carried them into the street and then offered them cheesecake or drinks, which of course were not easily accessible whilst wrapped in a bouldering mat.
4 April 2007
Group 1: Climbing at Wine Bottle/Cooking School
Group 2: Cycling and dinner at Café China
Our group was to head out to Little Frog for climbing but the weather was too bad. When the guides went out to set up the topes they found the crag damp and the approach too muddy. After a couple of splash-downs they decided that a change of venue was needed and so we were redirected to a huge crag called Wine Bottle.
Just across the fields from Wine Bottle is a huge cave – a major tourist attraction due to the large numbers of butterflies that fly out of its mouth in hordes, or whatever the collective noun is for a lot of butterflies. A flutter, maybe.
We got the girls to rope up and climb first today. On the previous day’s climbing the boys had been so enthusiastic that they had pushed their way forward and some of the girls hadn’t had enough chance to climb.
Today’s climbing was much more relaxed. Xiao Sai gave a talk on climbing ethics before we started. We wanted the students to rely on the rope only for safety, not as aid to climbing the routes. In free climbing the aim is to get from the start of the route to the top without putting your weight on the rope or pulling on anything other than the rock you are supposed to be climbing. It is hard to get this across to students when they first start climbing.
I explained some climbing terms to students.
Free climbing – to climb without using the rope or protection for aid and assistance. Equipment is used for safety and lowering off or abseiling only.
Soloing – free climbing without a rope. Falling off is not advised; it can give a new meaning to terminal velocity.
Sport climbing – climbing on rock that has been ‘bolted’. “Hangers” that can be “clipped” with a karabiner are attached to the rock permanently with expansion bolts. Lead climbers clip the rope into these as they climb up the route. This gives them protection – if they fall the drop the distance to their last clip plus the same distance below the clip plus a bit more for stretch etc. This stops the climber hitting the ground. Usually.
Top roping – is climbing when the rope is above your head. It is held by a “belayer” at the top of the climb. If the climber falls, he will only fall inches or a few feet at most.
Bottom roping – this is like top roping – in other words very safe – but the belayer stands on the ground. The rope loops up to the top of the climb and then back down to the climber. This is the style of climbing that we were doing with the students.
Traditional or Trad Climbing – in this version of free climbing the lead climber places “protection” in the rock as he climbs up. The “second” climber then follows and strips this protection out.
The routes we climbed today weren’t quite as hard as those at Low Hill and so all achieved a great deal of success.
Following the climb we went to a cooking school. This was set up by Pam, an Australian chef. She saw that nobody was teaching cooking at Yangshuo and so decided to do the job herself, converting an old farm house and its outbuildings into a kitchens and dining areas.
We made four dishes – steamed chicken with red Chinese dates and wolf berries, ginger and ginseng; pork egg rolls; pork with vegetables and pak choi. At this point we were all rather tired and cold, so it is remarkable that we were all able to pay attention to the demonstrations and then cook the dishes.
I am not sure whether the dishes we made were representative of the local cuisine, but the flavours and presentation were very good. We used huge quantities of oil and garlic (5 or 6 cloves in dishes to be consumed by one person!). My fried eggplant was rather black. I think that the correct term is caramelized.
The cooking school has two dining areas – an open area without heating and a small room with a wood burning stove. Everybody tried to cram into the warmer room. There was a guitar in the corner and William immediately picked it up, beginning an impromptu ceilidh. Connie, Will, Max and Verity all played or sang. It was a great end to the day.
3 April 2007
The last time I was in China I spent several very interesting and rewarding mornings walking around the local parks watching people taking their morning exercises – tai chi, wu shu, karate, dance etc. The locals had been very welcoming and had great fun at my expense by encouraging me to take part. I was keen for the students to experience this too, so Scott and I agreed to go for a run at dawn to scout the best location.
The hotel security guards were asleep, one on a bench in the lobby, the other on the counter behind reception. The doors were padlocked, so I coughed loudly with the intention of waking them gently. The guard on the counter woke so suddenly he fell off the counter. Trying hard to regain his composure he unlocked the door and muttered something about Moon Hill being free at this time of day.
Out in the street it was still dark and very cold. I thought about returning to my room for a fleece, but the door was already padlocked and the guard buried under his duvet. I jogged on the spot and waited for Scott.
We ran for an hour along the Li River. It is a beautiful place and very peaceful just after dawn. I had expected to see hundreds of people doing their early morning exercises, but we passed but a single old man doing tai chi. I was disappointed, but thought perhaps the students wouldn’t mind so much as they wouldn’t have to get up so early.
We split into two groups again today – Group 2 went climbing at Baby Frog and Group 1 went mountain biking.
We picked the bikes up just across town – good quality American imports, complete with racing saddles (ouch) and front shocks. My cycling helmet wouldn’t fit properly and persisted in rocking towards the back of my head in a manner that I thought looked cool, but in actual fact made me look like an imbecile.
Riding single file through the back streets was good fun. There was little traffic and so the occasional wobbles and steering errors caused no problems. By the time we got out into the countryside, everybody was riding quite well. It was a good job – once we left tarmac the tracks got progressively more narrow, bumpy and muddy.
Riding through the farmland was fascinating. Farmers were preparing their rice padies – walking behind simple ploughs pulled by water buffalo. Hundreds of ducks were feeding in a flooded field. We shared the road with a constant stream of farm traffic. Each time something appeared, a warning shout would be passed down the line of cyclists: “Bike!”, “Car!”, “Horse!”, “Water buffalo!”, “Old lady carrying buckets of sh*t!”. A calf blundered into the road and I almost hit it broadside. Fortunately I remembered that the front brake was on the opposite side to my UK bikes and avoided going ass over calf.
We stopped briefly to explore the Lee family house and shrine. Before the Cultural Revolution, the Lee family had been the well-to-do governors of Yangshuo. Their house had been spectacular, with fine carvings in stone and hardwoods. Now it is a a sad place, falling into ruin and occupied by several families that appear to be squatting there. The local government has made sure that the beautiful wood carvings haven’t been looted, but they have made no efforts at preserving or maintaining the building.
At lunchtime we stopped by a picturesque five hundred year-old bridge. Simple bamboo rafts crowded the riverbank. It was a peaceful place, until we got there anyway. The locals were too busy gambling at cards and dominos to pay us much attention, even when Itch, Verity and our guide Andrew leaped the 8m from the bridge parapet into the freezing waters below.
(When Group 2 cycled later in the week some of their students also jumped from the bridge. Inzy will remember this well as he landed on his bottom bruising it badly. As he had earlier landed somewhat painfully on the crossbar, cycling then became intolerable and so he and Gill returned to Yangshuo in style on one of the bamboo rafts.)
After lunch we split into two groups. Diane led the girls on a shorter route back to Yangshuo and I headed off for a long, fast ride with Team Testosterone. We had a fast and exhilarating ride through the fields, gradually building up more skill and confidence to deal with the muddy and rocky trails. At one point our guide said that we should walk across the narrow bund between two muddy fields, but all rode. Poor Itch ran off the path and landed in the mud.
For the last couple of hours we rode as fast as we could, arriving back at Yangshuo early, but with aching shoulders and wrists. It had been a cold day and I soaked for an hour in a hot bath to get warm again.
After a splendid dinner at Café China, we all went for a foot and shoulder massage – great after a hard day’s mountain biking.
Before bed we had a couple of hours for shopping. You have to bargain hard here. Diane and I looked at an embroidered panel that we thought might make a nice present. The asking price was 480 Kwai. When we finished bargaining the price was 75 Kwai.
Posted by Nick Hardcastle at 10:21 PM
April 2nd
We are now back in Saudi. Over the last few days we did so much that I was too tired to blog once the kids had gone to bed. I did continue to write though, and I will post the entries in the next day or two. Looking back over the last few entries, it is obvious that the keys on a Chinese keyboard don't translate so well when posted on Blogger. I'll go through and do some proof reading when I get a chance.
I am in the process of editing photographs and sound clips too ... so watch this space.
Anyway, here is the entry from April 2nd, our first day in Yangshuo.
2 April 2007
We began the day at the Lizard Lounge, China Climb’s headquarters. It is a great venue just to hang out in. There is a bouldering wall, places to lie around or sit chatting, a cosy balcony where you can hide out and relax. Drinks are free from the fridge and there is a huge collection of music on the lounge’s computer. The guides hang out there too and chat with the kids, answering their many questions, joking and sharing anecdotes.
In the morning we were to hold a Rogaine, a word and activity I hadn’t come across before. As we left the Lizard Lounge it was still raining slightly. Tyson, a long haired guide with a mischievous grin, long hair and a rugged look about him, led us on a short walking tour of Yangshuo. There had been a lot of development since my last visit back in 2001. We finished at the end of Western Street, well known amongst travelers in China for its good shopping, bars, restaurants and coffee shops. Tyson lined the students up just opposite KFC – much to their excitement – before explaining that they were not allowed to eat KFC whilst they were in Yangshuo. When the groaning and moaning subsided, he handed out sheets containing a series of questions about China and Yangshuo. Working in groups, the kids had to search for the answers by looking around town and talking to local people. It was an excellent activity. By the time we all met up for lunch, the kids were buzzing with excitement and enthusiasm.
While Group Two went caving with Beverly and Gill, our group headed out to Low Hill for rock climbing. We had been scheduled to climb at a crag called Baby Frog, but as had rained heavily in the night we needed to change to a more overhanging location. For most of the students this would be their first taste of real rock climbing and the mention of the word overhanging led to a general nervousness that was palpable.
Three minibuses took us along the narrow village roads to Low Hill. Just a little way out of Yangshuo and all Western development and signs of modernity had vanished. The dirt roads wound between rice fields and tiny farmers’ houses, past slowly lumbering water buffalo and pigs searching for food. As we parked an old woman carrying postcards appeared from nowhere and tried to cash in on our visit.
Low Hill is massive, a towering limestone karst that rises perhaps 500 feet from the rice fields. It overhangs considerably, which although rather intimidating, does mean that it remains dry. Four of the guides were already there, having gone ahead to set up the belay ropes. There were four routes for us to try graded from 5.8 to 5.10b, using the American grading system. Xiao Sai gave a brief talk about climbing safety and made sure that everybody was fitted with harnesses and helmets. He suggested that we begin with the easier routes before trying the 5.10b.
Chris, flushed with the enthusiasm and confidence of an 18 year old boy, ignored Xiao Sai’s advice and quickly launched himself on the hardest route. He climbed well until he reached the crux at about 15m, a strenuous move involving a layback crack around a bulge. There the crag spat him out … repeatedly. When, after a good many attempts and a considerable amount of tension applied to the rope by his belayer, he did conquer the crux, he proudly and loudly told us that he had made it after he had “rested for a second”.
The other students found the climbing hard too. If you have learned to climb on an indoor (or outdoor, in our case) climbing wall, your first visit to real rock can come as a surprise. You might have learned good techniques and developed your finger and upper body strength, but the absence of colour coded holds is quite bewildering. On a climbing wall you do the same routes time and time again, developing muscle memory and honing your technique. On a crag you must do everything ‘on sight’, at least at first, and so it takes a little time to transfer your skills to real rock climbing.
Twenty two metres above the belay ledge and at the top of one of the routes there was a small hole in the limestone. By crawling through a narrow cave passage further along the crag, I was able to access this and take photographs of the kids as they climbed.
Whilst they were waiting their turn on the ropes, Diane and one of the guides took a group of kids though a cave system from one side of the mountain to the other. When the students reappeared, they were somewhat grubby but very happy.
By the end of the day all the students were climbing well, and although not all had made a route successfully, everybody was pleased with their attempts. Matthew and Jelle did particularly well. Tired and generally feeling very pleased with ourselves we headed back along the narrow bunds between the rice fields to the waiting minibuses.
Group 2 was already at the Lizard Lounge when we got back to town. They were grinning hugely and the chaperone’s eyes were gleaming with enthusiasm. “Brilliant” is all that they would say about their day, for they had been sworn to secrecy by their guide Tyson.
1 April 2007
The students were too tired to remember that it was
April Fool’s Day. They set about breaking camp at
6.30. After a breakfast of porridge and tea we
shouldered our heavy packs once more and set of for a
full day’s hike ¨8 hours or so we thought. It was
hot and humid, the kids were tired from the day before
and the walk wasn’t easy. After about an hour’s
trekking we decided that three of the students should
take an alternative route as they didn't appear to be
up to the full trek. Beverly and Xiao Sai walked off
with them to return early to Yangshuo. The rest of us
enjoyed a spectacularly beautiful trek through the
rice fields and karst scenery - truly a landscape
from the wildest of dreams.
We stopped twice on route to help local farmers with
their work. Oranges and pomello are the main cash
crops grown here. They have to be carefully pruned
and pollinated. Near Yangti Meadow we helped pollinate
pomello by taking flowers from a bucket, nipping off
the petals and stigma and then carefully rubbing the
stamens onto flowers on other trees. Later we helped
another farmer prune his orange trees by nipping out
the new growth without flowers. The orange groves
smelt divine.
We had lunch on a huge boulder in the middle of a
meadow beneath towering limestone cliffs. As the
sandwiches were prepared, some of the students
searched for frogs and land crabs.
By the time we finished the trek at Xingping we were
all very hot, dirty and soaked with sweat. Some of us
had been in the same clothes for 5 days. Others had
changed at least 4 times a day no wonder their
packs were heavy. Some girls had even managed to carry
eye liner on the whole trek.
We had planned on having dinner at Xingping, but as we
were a couple of hours early we changed our plans.
Yangshuo was but a short drive away and the call of a
hot shower was just too much to resist.
All the rooms in the Venice Hotel were ready, apart
from mine. As the students rushed off to shower and
change, I stood in the hotel lobby and tried to
pretend that the bad smell wasn't me. Eventually, I
persuaded the manager to find me an empty room to
shower in whilst my room was prepared.¡¡No sooner had
I undressed but the lights went out and I was plunged
into darkness. I played with the switch and the
lights came on again. I got into the shower. The
lights went off. I gave up, found my headtorch and
showered by the light of that.
After a briefing at the Lizard Lounge, China Climb''s
headquarters, we sent the kids off on a mission to buy
food for a pot luck dinner. Three groups each had an
envelope with a list of items that they had to buy and
an amount of money. An hour later and a feast was
being spread out at Lizard Lounge.
Although the kids were very tired from the trek, they
were too excited to go to bed and so we sent them
shopping. Yangshuo is very popular with Western
tourists and there is a lot of shopping here. Over
the years, I have found that our students are avid
shopper. They had a great deal of fun.
Tomorrow, climbing and caving more of which in my
next post.
Oh before I forget. I was telling the kids how
criminals are executed here in China ¨in a public
execution with a bullet to the back of the head,
following which the family of the condemned man is
billed for the cost of the bullet. Inzie's immediate
question "How much do they charge for the bullet?“
31 March 2007
It was a short walk through the rice fields to the
road-head below Dai Zhai. The path was narrow and our
progress fairly slow. Two minibuses were waiting to
pick us up, along with many ladies in minority dress
selling fruit, silver bracelets and trinkets. They
were keen to collect empty water bottles too, for
which they can collect a small deposit - about one
pence.
On our way to Yangti we stopped at a tea plantation,
where we had lunch following a short tour of the
hillsides. The hills here are small rounded mounds,
and the close cropped tea bushes give them the feel of
elaborate topiary gardens.
At Yangti we crowded on to the river bank to collect
our gear for the Yangti - Xinping Trek. The scenery
here is fantastic. Huge limestone towers rise from the
riverbanks and rice fields. Grey and orange cliffs,
some of which must be 500 feet high, hang ominously
overhead. There are hundreds of these ‘karsts’.
Everything that isn’t overhanging or vertical is
covered with trees, creepers and mosses. It is as
though you have spent a lifetime looking at Chinese
paintings of mountains and suddenly your imagination
has been able to fill out the detail.
As we stowed tents, sleeping bags, food and water for
two days, old ladies crowded around trying to sell us
oranges and peanuts, collect our water bottles and
steal the empty cardboard boxes. A cormorant
fisherman, precariously balanced on a raft made of 5
long pieces of bamboo pulled alongside the dock in the
hope that the kids would give him money in return for
taking photographs. Bizarrely, A small van was
floating in the middle of the Li River, or so it
seemed. A concrete jetty extended into the middle of
the channel, hidden just beneath the surface. A small
boy was washing there too, naked and happy. The sight
of 47 foreigners all carrying ridiculously large
backpacks and boarding a small ferry to cross the
river held no interest whatsoever.
The trek to our campsite in a beautiful mountain
meadow above Yangti took about 2 hours. It was quite
steep and a little slippery. None of the kids would
have had any problem with it if it hadn't been for
the packs - but with a full load, trekking had taken
on a new dimension. It was hard and there was a
certain amount of winging.
At camp, our guide Dan gathered us in a large circle
and asked the kids about camp craft. They knew a lot
and he was able to draw out all the information he
wanted without much prompting. Following that setting
up camp was a breeze. Some erected tents, some
gathered firewood, others cooked. The tents up and
dinner underway, a group of boys did what boys seem to
do naturally ¨C destroyed something. Not satisfied
with dragging down huge dead trees from the forest in
order to make seats, they found a large branch,
perhaps 3 inches thick, and set about dismembering it
with little more than a rock and brute force. It kept
them busy for a couple of hours.
Dinner was pasta cooked in huge pots over the camp
fire. Delicious.
30 March 2007
The long hike from Ping’An to Di zhai Guest House
With little more than a spare T-shirt, their
waterproofs, lunch and water, the packs felt light as
we climbed steeply from the village to a viewpoint 500
m above the guest house. The view was spectacular –
mountains, endless rice terraces and small villages
half hidden by folds in the hills. I thought it would
make a great location for a film like the Lord of the
Rings.
Thousands of bangers (long strings of Chinese
firecrackers) were being let off in one of the
villages. Depending on which way the wind blew, the
tiny explosions sounded like heavy rainfall on a tin
roof or a spaghetti western shoot-out on an old
televisions set. On the other side of the mountain
there was a slowly moving procession of villagers all
dressed in white. They were carrying a man to his
burial site. Last night, we had watched a stone mason
carving lettering on his tombstone.
The hillsides are dotted with elegant graves, each a
stone tablet carved with many Chinese characters, held
vertically in a carved footstone and caped with a
protecting lion. These final resting places have been
chosen with great care, enjoying superb views over
the rice fields and mountains. Many of the headstones
had been gruesomely smeared with a dismembered
chicken, bloodied feathers, torn flesh and shattered
bones inside a blood stained circle. Twice a year the
villagers feed their ancestors in this way.
A group of local Yao minority women followed us until
lunch. The Yao are famous for their long hair. They
cut it only once in their lifetime, when they are 18
years old. From then on they let it grow, washing it
every three days in a shampoo made from rice water.
They wind their enormously long hair into a gently
twisted pony tale that starts at the forehead, before
tying it in a natural turban. Five of the ladies
unwound their hair for us to see; it reached their
shins. A lady from Ping’An, we were told, holds the
world record for the longest hair.
By mid-afternoon, the light packs were feeling heavy
but the kids managed to get to the guesthouse ahead of
schedule nevertheless.
In the evening Xiao Si put the students into four
groups and gave them an hour to prepare skits. There
was much laughter at the camp humor that followed.
29 March 2007-3-30
Today was mainly taken up with traveling as we had to
fly down to Guilin in order to start our next trek. A
small lunch was served on the flight with that rarest
of luxuries here, a bread roll. There were many small
deals made as students and teachers swopped treasures
from their plastic trays. Mrs Little was delighted to
exchange cucumbers for tomatoes and some of the larger
boys did all they could to persuade others to give up
their food.
There were two busses waiting for us at the airport,
one to take the excess baggage down to Yangshuo, the
other to take us to Longsheng. We had to stop part
way there to change to two other busses that were
small enough to make it round the short roads up to
Ping’An.
Ping’An has a population of perhaps 800, with large
wooden houses clinging to the steep hillside and
surrounded by small rice terraces that stretch along
the slopes like the contours on a map. There is a lot
of building going on in the village at the moment.
The main structure of the houses appears to be made
without the use of nails. It is a fascinating place to
walk through. The narrow paths between the houses are
covered with polished, roughly shaped paving stones,
made slippery in places by the deposits of passing
ponies or seepage from the paddy fields above.
It was a steep walk from the road head to our guest
house. Some of the students’ legs were obviously still
tired and there were a few groans at the number of
steps involved.
We had been invited to look around the local school –
four classrooms and a small boarding house overlooking
the mountains. The classrooms were simple, with a
blackboard and rough wooden desks and chairs, but it
smelt and felt well cared for. Joined by two athletic
local students, the boys played basketball for a while
in the playground.
Our guesthouse looked very new and still smelled of
freshly cut wood. Four floors perched almost
impossibly on long stilts and shaky foundations. This
isn’t an earthquake zone … I hoped. Looking at some
of the similarly constructed, but obviously old,
buildings in the village put my mind at rest.
Sound really traveled in the guesthouse – we could
hear every footstep, every whisper. This notwithstanding, many of the students said they got their best night’s sleep yet. Maybe it was something to do with the air.
My bathroom (well, the one at the end of the
corridor), was a squat toilet. I overbalanced and
grabbed the sink. It came off the wall, much to my
horror. Emergency plumbing whilst squatting isn’t my
forte. Sadly, I did exactly the same on two subsequent
visits, which made me question the gradient of my
learning curve: flat, obviously.
After dinner the women from the village put on a show
of traditional dancing and singing in the school yard.
They were dressed beautifully in traditional
costumes. There were dances about the yearly
agricultural cycle – planting, harvesting, tending,
grinding, winnowing. They encouraged the staff and
teachers to get up and dance too. The whole group
participated in a courtship dance, where they linked
hands and ran around in a circle. A boy in the middle
had to select the girl he wanted and then, carrying
her piggyback, had to try and escape the circle. A
bamboo dance caused much amusement. The students had
to step up and down quickly between long bamboo poles
that were being slapped together by parallel rows of
women.
28 March 2007
Many of the kids didn’t make it to breakfast this
morning, having ignored or slept through the early
morning call.
We drove back to Chengdu, some three hours away. Once
there we visited Jin Li Cultural Street. This street,
very popular with Chinese, is really a recreated
version of the sort of places I found in Beijing when
I went their in the 1980s, except that all the shops
are aimed at tourists. It is a pleasant area and
great for souvenir shopping and snacks. The kids no
doubt thought I was mean when I told them that they
couldn’t go to KFC, Starbucks or any of the other
western fast food joints further up the road. Later
though, having tried the local snacks, they seemed
happy enough. There was some delicious food on sale
and at very reasonable prices. Once they had finished
their shopping, we let them raid Starbucks.
After lunch we visited the famous Wu Hoa Temple. Many
of the students are getting really interested in
photography and they spent two hours wondering about
the peaceful gardens and buildings taking photographs.
Digital cameras are great – they really encourage
students to look at the things they are visiting,
especially when there is come competition to get the
best shot.
We had a couple of hours to relax at the hotel (Wen
Jun Mansions again) before dinner – a ‘traditional
Sichuan BBQ’. The restaurant was large, loud and, to
my mind at least, more American than Chinese. Waiters
came around the tables with huge skewers of barbequed
meat and sliced pieces directly onto our plates. The
food was good, and although I found the experience
painful to say the least, the students loved it. They
ate huge quantities and there were a number of
dangerously extended bellies by the time we left. One
of the guides ate so much that I doubt he will be able
to climb for a month.
27 March 28, 2007
If they don’t shut up soon, I will have to go and speak to them. The girls were talking in whispers –
the sort of whisper that carries over half a mile. It
was only the effort of getting out of my sleeping bag,
getting dressed and putting my boots on again that put
me off. They went on and on and on … and then I fell
asleep.
The monastery was very peaceful until the kitchen
staff got up to make breakfast, then there was a
chorus of hoiking and snooking and the clashing of
pans. Breakfast wasn’t greeted with any great
enthusiasm, although one or two of the kids are
developing a fondness for the white steamed buns,
taken plain or dipped in thin orange jam. There were
four small brown cubes of what could have been tofu on
each of the round tables. The portion was
exceptionally meagre, considering the size of the
dishes that had been served. My appetite isn’t
terribly adventurous first thing in the morning and so
I ignored its existence. Just as I was about to leave
the table, Xiao Sun, one of the guides, came over and
asked if we had tried it. Saad was with him,
grinning. Something was afoot. Dutifully, I armed
myself with chopsticks and picked one of the cubes up.
“No, just a little!” Xiao Sun said quickly, and so I
took the barest morsel. The intensity of the flavour
was incredible and I pulled a face. Saad, poor chap,
had eaten a whole cube and was still scarred by the
memory.
It was a short walk from the monastery to the waiting
busses. Every so often we had to leave the path to
allow ponies carrying stones and cement to pass by on
their long journey up the mountain to where the steps
are still being constructed. The animals didn’t look
very happy about the steps, but they were even more
wary of the foreigners I their way. As we neared the
road, the stalls selling straw overshoes (for the icy
weather), plastic trinkets (monkey, monkey), snacks
and drinks (water, water) and walking sticks became
more common.
Back at Emei Shan we checked into the hotel, before
walking into town for a local meal in the food
market. Amongst the local dishes we tried were
bull-frog and baby eel. The food here was fresh.
Indeed it has been swimming around as we placed the
order.
In the afternoon we went to Lin Xiu Hot Springs.
After visiting hot springs in Borneo last year, I was
not enthusiastic. There the pools had been dirty and
unattractive. At Lin Xiu though I was pleasantly
surprised. The facilities were excellent – well run,
attractive and spotlessly clean. I think that quite a
few of the students were surprised too. They had been
expecting something quite downmarket and these springs
wouldn’t have disgraced any western spar town.
One of the highlights of the hot springs was the fish
bath. Here hundreds of small fish, between 6 and 12
cm long swarmed over your feet, knees and back,
nibbling off dead skin cells. The sensation was rather
strange, especially when they went for the soles of
your feet or the more ticklish parts of your body.
In the evening the students played games in the local
park before writing postcards home and having an early
night.
26 March 2007-3-27
Qingyin Monastery – Wannian Monestery (1020m)
The students weren’t particularly happy about the
hotel yesterday evening. Perhaps it was the generally
run down air of the place of the spiders in Casey’s
room. I suppose they were rather large. Or it could
have been the rudimentary plumbing – the pipes that
stuck out of the wall and the ancient, rusted switch
boxes that had once controlled the hot water boilers.
Mind you, such plumbing was reserved for the better
rooms. Some had no toilet at all. The worst room was
the one with the Western style toilet. It hadn’t been
plumbed in, but it had been used. Not much chance of
putting a bucket of water down it either – there
wasn’t one. Still, the beds and sheets were spotlessly
clean and it was a good place to sleep. Sometimes you
have to rough it a bit.
Before breakfast I decided to take a walk down to the
monastery. A pipe had been dripping all night and I
thought that the path might be slippy, so I took
special care. Thirty seconds later and I was flying
down the stairs, camera held high in the air to save
it from damage.
If you were to ask the students about today’s walk
they would, I am sure, shout “Steps, thousands of
steps.” We followed a route through the forest past
small tea houses and mountain monasteries, each linked
by beautifully crafted granite steps. Thousands of
them. This area is very popular with Chinese tourist
groups and as each one passed we were regaled with
dozens of “Nee How” greetings.
Well dressed in cheap suits and following yellow flag
bearing guides, they were a cheerful lot. They
weren’t carrying packs. They weren’t swearing and they
were going down hill. Nevertheless, they were kind
enough to keep on telling us that we were strong.
As yesterday, the group spread out quite a bit, but
nobody was particularly slow. We reached Wannian
Monastery in good time, dumped the packs and had an
early lunch.
Rested and refreshed we set off to walk to the next
monastery up the mountain, but this time without
packs. There were no complaints until the top of the
first major flight of steps. Then, or so I heard
later, the complaining began. The steps were steep and
seemingly never ending. No sooner had we reached the
top of a flight of 300 or so than we would round the
corner and see another impossibly long flight soaring
skywards. Quite intimidating. Some of the girls who
hadn’t made much attempt to get fit before the trip
were suffering a little, but their difficulty was, I
felt, more lack of determination than lack of ability.
This was confirmed when they reached the monastery
only 2 or 3 minutes after everybody else, and with
huge grins on their faces.
At the monastery, we split into two groups, the slower
students and the ones who didn’t feel like tackling
any more steps went back down. The stronger walkers
continued upwards, covering about the same distance
again, to the next monastery.
The steps are, in places, still being built. They are
quite an achievement, as each stone and bag of sand
and cement has to be carried up on the backs of men
and ponies. Hard work, especially as the labourers are
paid by the kilo transported.
Returning to the Wannian Monastery, where we were to
spend the night was no easy feat. We had to return the
way we had come. Going down is often harder than going
up, and there were quite a few wobbly and stiff legs
by the time we got to the bottom.
The Wannian Monastery is a glorious place, so peaceful
despite the bustle of tourists, monks and monastery
staff.
Having spent sometime stretching in an effort to avoid
stiffness after the climb, I walked around the
monastery grounds taking photographs.
We ate wonderful vegetarian food in the monastery
dining room – once more tofu and soya produces
prepared to seem like meat.
IN the evening we had the students go off and find a
quiet place to sit and write and think for half an
hour. They seemed to enjoy this and so we let them
take longer. After that we all gathered in an open
pavilion and asked the Chinese guide questions about
Buddhism, Chinese culture and politics.
We finished the evening by learning to count in
Chinese – this time to 41.
The monastery accommodation is clean and basic -
dormitories in a beautiful old wooden building. The
walls don’t go to the ceiling however and I could hear
every thing that was being said in the building …
25th March
Breakfast was a mixture of Chinese and Western food,
with delicious dumplings, rather sweet bread and eggs
boiled and fried. Liam excelled himself and ate 8 eggs
without obvious ill-effects.
The trek up Mount Emei Shan began from the hotel.
After 5 minutes we stopped by the pagoda at the top of
the road to do warm-up stretches and exercises, much
to the amusement of the Chinese onlookers.
Mount Emei Shan is a sacred mountain and home to many
monasteries and temples. People come from all over
China on pilgrimage, and so the trail up the mountain
has been paved. There are thousands of steps that lead
up and down the tree covered slopes.
For some reason, a number of the kids decided to wear
huge amounts of clothing this morning – long johns,
water proof over-trousers, fleeces and down jackets -
all this despite the fact that the morning was quite
mild. Within an hour or so they began to realize that
the teachers and guides were right and that a light
pair of pants and a T-shirt would have been better.
Having removed their waterproofs and down jackets,
they literally steamed.
Today’s walk wasn’t particularly long but the steep
flights of stairs up and down the hills between the
Buddhist temples were tough.
We passed a monk on pilgrimage. When I first saw him
he was prostrate on the ground. He picked himself up,
placed his hands together in front of his head, took
three steps, knelt and prostrated himself once more.
A tough way to travel and not one that I could ever
see me finding the urge to try.
During the course of the day we split into two large
groups – one fast and one a little slower. Although
there was some groaning about the number of steps, all
the students did really well.
We reached the Qing Yin Monastery about 3pm, dumped
the bags and then headed further along the trail,
where it entered a steep sided gorge. Although there
was quite a bit of shrieking as we crossed the river
on the stepping stones, nobody fell in. Nevertheless,
there were several cameras at the ready to catch the
decisive moment, should someone be unfortunate enough
to put a foot wrong.
Near the top of the gorge there is a complex of
elegant wooden pavilions linked with pathways of faux
logs – carefully crafted out of concrete. For years
tourists have been coming here to feed the monkeys
that come down to the paths. They are now completely
without fear – to the extend that each party of
tourists that visit can only do so with a guide
bearing a large stick to ward off over-enthusiastic
animals.
Some of the older males were battle scared, reminding
me of boxers several rounds past their sell-buy date.
There were mothers too, with tiny babies clinging to
their bellies.
Across the gorge were several suspension bridges with
chain supports and sides. They swung alarmingly as we
crossed. Signs warned us not to swing from side to
side and stand whilst crossing. Some of the signs here
use rather unusual English.
We had dinner at the monastery. The vegetarian food
was quite remarkable. Tofu had been prepared in
different ways to give it the flavour, texture and
appearance of pork, beef and chicken. Even more
remarkable were the prawn dishes. The ‘prawns’ –
totally soya based, were so realistic that I wouldn’t
have known that they weren’t real. The same was true
of the ‘fish’ which, even had a blackened skin. All
quite delicious.
In the evening the guides had prepared a trivia quiz
for the students and tried to teach them to count in
Chinese. Whilst they did that, I sat in the courtyard
trying to write this journal. It was a difficult job.
Every paragraph or so, either a student or a local
would come over to chat, ask me a question or peer at
my writing. Eventually, surrounded by about a dozen,
local men, I h\gave up and instead got them to teach
me how to write the numbers in Chinese.
Quote of the day: “Mr Hardcastle did you hear? Itch
farted and it made Josh’s nose bleed!”
Posted by Nick Hardcastle at 8:49 AM
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Day 2 Expedition
The day started with a very loud knock on the door at
6.45. Now when I say loud, I mean that you could hear
it across the street. Once wasn’t enough to shift
most of our students though and the China Climb guys
banged and banged away until somebody got out of bed
and opened the door. All very amusing as I was
downstairs eating breakfast already.
Chengdu is surrounded by distant mountains and this
has an interesting effect on the weather. It is hazy
almost all year round. The light before dawn was
strange and diffused, making the street outside look
even more like a film set.
Some of the kids don’t deal with the cold well.
Whilst the local Chinese were walking around in shirt
sleeves and pants, the students were appearing in
long-johns and down jackets. Goodness knows what they
are going to do when they get into the mountains. I
had one or two repack their bags after breakfast –
some had more things swinging from the outside of the
bag than they had inside.
First stop today was the Chengdu Panda Base and
Research Centre. Now Pandas are cute. And lazy. They
mainly sit down, lay back and eat bamboo. They are
also extremely well photographed. Kodak never had it
so good and you should look forward to seeing
thousands of rather blurred white and black cuddly
bears. The Chengdu Centre has a very successful
breeding programme. Last year alone they managed to
raise 9 babies successfully. From what we learned at
the centre it is not surprising that the Giant Panda
is an endangered species. They are solitary animals
and, in the wild, live in their own, huge territory.
Once a year they become amorous and decide to go in
search for mate. Even if they manage to find one, it
seems as though they don’t make particularly good
parents. We watched a video of a young mother giving
birth for the first time. As the baby popped into
existence and landed on the floor, it screamed and
squirmed. The poor mother looked most surprised, as
though a large maggot had just popped from her but.
So she smacked it. Hard. Twice. Fortunately for the
baby, a brave keeper dashed into the pen and rescued
the cub before it suffered any serious damage.
In one pen we watched as nine baby pandas were brought
out by their keepers for a bath. They were behaving
like naughty children, none too keen on the idea of
getting clean. In the wild they don’t take baths, but
in captivity it is apparently important that they are
washed regularly. Once bathed they clambered over
wooden frames, swings and bridges; falling about, off
or over anything that got in their way, pausing
occasionally to bite the Wellington boot of a keeper
or two.
Red pandas are much more active than their larger
cousins, and quite the performers too. Whilst the
Giant Pandas had largely ignored all their admirers,
the Red pandas waved, stood on their hind legs and
appeared to be smiling at the audience. Very cute.
From the Panda Centre we had a rather long bus journey
to the Post Office Hotel at Emei Shan. It was a
welcome opportunity for the kids to catch up on their
sleep.
Before dinner we went for a short walk to a pagoda and
fountain where there was a relief map of the mountain
we are going to walk tomorrow.
Dinner was traditional Chinese and enjoyed by all!
Posted by Nick Hardcastle at 10:19 AM
1st Day of Expedition
23 March 2007
Dhahran – Beijing – Dubai – Hong Kong – Chengdu
I knew that this was going to be a good day when I
arrived at school at 9.30. The busses were already
there waiting for us. With a group of 41, there is
always a fair chance that somebody is going to be late
or forget something vital like a passport, so it was
with a sense of amazement that I greeted the last
parent to arrive at 9.59, one minute before the
deadline. Twenty minutes, the passports checked
against the manifest and one or two tearful goodbyes
later and we were off.
The causeway and check-in all went smoothly and fairly
quickly. Having the Chinese visas in the passports
before we set off was a big help. There was none of
the last minute negotiation with check-in desk
official about who does or does not need a visa.
We took over the fast food restaurant in Bahrain
airport and I spent the most I have ever done on junk
food. Some of the boys found items of considerable
interest to them in the magazine store and were quite
excited about their purchases, talking loudly and
indiscreetly. Sadly, or luckily, these were
confiscated by security in Hong Kong, as indeed were
large quantities of shampoo, makeup and deodorant.
Once we had completed business at the transfer in Hong
Kong we broke into small groups and explored the
shops. I really wanted to buy something, anything
really, but couldn’t find anything I wanted. The
students found plenty that they wanted to buy, but as
I had their spending money ….
For lunch we gave everybody fifty HK dollars and sent
them off in groups to find food for themselves. Most
avoided Burger King and Starbucks and went to a
Japanese noodle store.
By the time we arrived in Chengdu we were all very,
very tired. It is always difficult to sleep on the
start of a school trip – there is just so much to talk
about. The aircrew handed out landing cards, customs
cards and health declarations on the plane. It was
quite a task to get them all filled in and checked
before we landed. The bags all arrived intact and on
time and the China Climb team was just pulling up in
the busses to collect us as we came through customs.
We have six China Climb guides with us. They seem
great – all really enthusiastic and keen to help.
The bus dropped us at our hotel – Wen Jun Mansions, on
a street in Chengdu that looks as though it was built
as a film set for a Kung Fu movie. The hotel’s rooms
open onto long balconies that overlook a small
courtyard.
We took dinner at a superb hot-pot restaurant just
down the road. In the middle of the tables there was a
large vat of hot liquid, soup on one side and water
full of spices and chilies on the other. The
waitresses, and a very large number of them there was
too, brought plate after plate of meats, leaves,
mushrooms and vegetables for us to cook ourselves. The
food cooked in just one or two minutes, after which we
trawled it out with chopsticks, dipped it into a bowl
of oil and crushed garlic and then burned our lips in
the hurry to get it down. Everybody is using
chopsticks and doing really well. Huge quantities of
food were consumed.
After dinner we walked briefly around a sculpture park
on our way to the Sichuan Opera. We were a little
early for the performance and so were able to watch
the dancers putting on their makeup and costumes. I
was impressed by the way they could do this whilst
being photographed by 50 people, some of whom were
getting very close indeed.
As we took our seats for the opera, ladies carrying
the most extraordinary teapots came around to fill the
cups that had been laid out before us. Made of
copper, these teapots had meter long spouts, so
enabling the waitresses to serve tea at a distance.
It looked a risky business, with huge potential to
scald the audience, but it was all accomplished
without a drop spilled.
The teapots figured in the first dance performance
too, with two men demonstrating how you could dance
and do acrobatics whilst pouring tea. A strange skill
to develop, I thought, but entertaining nevertheless.
I am sad to say that many of us were so sleepy by this
time that we tended to drift in and out of
consciousness during the show. It was impressive
though, with some superb costumes, music, singing and
dancing in the traditional Sichuan style. There was
also a puppet display, where the master managed to
coax a remarkable amount of expression and very human
emotions and movements from his master. The students
were, I think, most impressed with a shadow display.
Using nothing more than his hands the performer made
shadows on a circular white screen on stage. Birds,
horses, dogs and rabbits that appeared so lifelike
that the audience applauded spontaneously.
As I walked around the hotel to check people were OK
and in their rooms, all was quiet. It was 10.15. The
end of a hard day.
6 April 2007
The last day!
It rained again in the night. The weather is unseasonably cold – to the extent that I was sleeping in my thermal long-johns and a fleece. Most attractive. Unlike the kids, I hadn’t been able to figure our which combination of buttons on the remote control would turn the air-conditioning unit into a heater. Is it a sign of middle age when you can’t work that sort of stuff out? I read somewhere that Chinese characters were based, originally at least, on pictograms. If that is true, then there were some very strange thought processes going on when the characters for heat, cool, dehumidify and fan were invented. The remote just left me confused and irritated. And cold. I consoled myself with the thought that the kids either got lucky or had persuaded one of the Chinese guys to help them.
Our final breakfast was in the Lizard Lounge. The China Climb staff are fantastic – they are always looking for ways to improve things. For the last three days we had taken breakfast at a restaurant nearby. The food there hadn’t been particularly appetizing and it was cold by the time it got to the table. On the first day this wasn’t a problem – students deprived of Western food for a week don’t complain when things like toast, fried eggs, bacon and hash browns are congealing on the plate – they just wolf them down. Such enthusiasm doesn’t last though and yesterday there had been a lack of enthusiasm for breakfast. Scott (the manager of China Climb) had picked up on this and decided to fix it. So today China Cliimb’s own cook, whose only word of English is “Dinner”, had made a huge spread of all the things the students liked best. The result was a feeding frenzy.
We split into two groups again today. Our group went caving and to the mud pool, the other group went to Wine Bottle for their last day of climbing.
I hadn’t been looking forward to the caving. It isn’t a sport that I have ever found particularly attractive, probably because I don’t like confined spaces. The thought of being trapped in pitch black darkness, lost in a myriad of cramped, serpentine tunnels makes my stomach go tight. “And its freezing cold today”, I thought miserably as we walked to the cave entrance. We were all cold. We had been warned that the cave system was very dirty and that the mud would ruin our clothes, so rather than dressing warmly, we had all turned out in shorts and T-shirts. Our guide, Tyson, grinned broadly and said that the cave was warm in side. I had a suspicion that he might by lying, but it did stop our complaining.
We put on caving helmets, collected huge torches and swopped our shoes for “caving slippers”. These were “one size fits all”, which might be fine if you are Chinese, but worked less well for us. It did provide some amusement however. Our group’s foot size varied from a UK 3.5 to a size fifteen and a half... The shoes were a size 8.
The cave entrance was flooded, so we entered the system on a narrow, flat bottomed punt. It felt like we were on a fairground ride and the boys hooted and wailed to scare the girls. As the passage narrowed and started to climb, we were able to clamber out of the boat and walk into the cave. Within minutes we were crouching low, squeezing through a long narrow passage, stumbling on the uneven floor and banging our heads on the roof pressing down on our shoulders. I was thankful for the helmet, for each time I concentrated on my feet, I smacked my head on something. I move elegantly over rock when I am climbing, but in a cave I stumble around like a drunk with concussion.
Deep inside the system, Tyson asked us to stand perfectly still and turn off our lights. In the darkness he then explained how the caves were formed and pointed out some of the features. Pleased that the students could identify stalactites, stalagmites and columns he went on to show us drapery, cave bacon and popcorn.
Draperies are curtains of rock that hang in long pleats from the cave roof. Cave bacon is a thin translucent sheet of mineral deposits. It looks like giant rashers of bacon have been glued to the ceiling and walls. Popcorn is also a mineral deposit – this time formed at the edge of still when the water level is constant.
We followed the cave system through many passages and towering chambers, climbing up and down for perhaps an hour and a half. It was a strangely disorienting experience, leaving me without any sense of direction or time. In a chamber the size of large villa, Tyson explained that one of the main dangers in caving is power failure. We all turned off our lights and he dimmed his. Even so, the light from just one small headlight was enough for us to make out the shape of the passage and find our way around. Then Tyson turned off his light. We stood stock still, waiting for our eyes to adjust to the darkness. We waited. Nothing changed. There was no light for our eyes to get used to; the darkness was total. Suddenly, the seriousness of power failure became real. How would you find your way out of a cave without light when you couldn’t even see your hand in front of your eyes. Never had I experienced such a sense of blindness. I quickly developed a new fondness for my Duracell batteries.
Towards the end of the cave passage there was a large pool of brown water. Apprehensively, and shrieking from the cold, the students started to lower themselves into the pool. Fifteen inches of icy water and then the same of silky smooth mud that squelched between your toes, enveloped your legs and held you in a strangely comforting embrace. The more adventurous gathered huge, dripping handfuls of mud and smeared it over their bodies and faces, and then, inevitably, over those of their friends, producing a scene that should only exist in nightmares or cheaply made B-movies from the 1950s.
Whilst still inside the cave we stood under a gushing hose of icy water and scrubbed away at mud so fine that it would never completely go. Our skin, like our clothes, appeared to have taken on a permanent orange hue. Rather less muddy, we continued through the cave through passages that became increasingly narrow, convoluted and wet until, twenty minutes later, we found an exit at the far side of the mountain. “So this is the secret the other group wouldn’t tell us.” I thought. Soaked, muddy and now very cold, we had to walk back around the mountain to the cave entrance and the comfort of our warm clothing. I had the misfortune to be at the back of the line and behind a number of slow walkers who found it necessary to stop and turn towards each other each time they wanted to say anything. I resolved to bring along a cattle prod for such occasions in future.
In the distance we heard a loud scream, closely followed by several more. The first students had got back to the cave entrance and jumped into the large pool there to clean off. By their shrieks we could tell that the water was going to be cold. It may well have been, but as I got there I slipped on some algae, went for a brief but dramatic flight and crash landing. Time stopped. My forearm struck the concrete. “That wasn’t so bad, bit embarrassing though”, I thought. Then, in after what felt like an age later, my head made contact with the step behind, producing a hollow thud that echoed from the cliff walls. In the daze and sympathy that followed, the chill of the pool was lost to me. As I swam, a large bump grew from my scalp, increasing my hat size by two full sizes.
It was several hours later before I got warm again, although the swelling on my head did subside.
At lunch we met up with the other students who had enjoyed their climbing at Wine Bottle – everybody had managed to make at least one good climb. We had originally scheduled some free time for the last afternoon, but the students had done so much shopping and still had so much energy, that Scott and I decided that it would be better for them to climb one of the karst peaks near town. This wasn’t a popular decision, but everybody cooperated!
To get to the peaks we had to walk through the back streets of Yangshuo. Some of the students were surprised at the quality of the houses there – whole families living in single room houses with no running water or bathrooms. The views from the peaks were spectacular.
We got back to the Lizard Lounge at 3.45, leaving about an hour to collect all the gear together and get ready for departure. As a fantastic trip drew towards its conclusion we exchanged goodbyes and hugs, T-shirts and hats were given out and the last photographs were taken.
The journey home went smoothly, although our first plane was so delayed we almost missed the connection in Hong Kong.
Posted by Nick Hardcastle at 1:34 PM
5 April 2007
We climbed again today at a crag near Twin Gates. The ropes had been set up on either side of large cave. The rock was perfect, rough and steep limestone with good holds, although the routes were harder than we had climbed before. Some of the kids were a little too tired to climb and spent time hanging out in the cave, chatting or sleeping, but the majority climbed and put in a very good effort. Jelle excelled himself again, climbing harder and longer than anybody else. There was one route which involved undercutting a large jug and reaching for two small holds – a hard move that led to many falls throughout the morning.
Just before we left the crag, our guide Abang – one of the best climbers in China – demonstrated his prowess on the overhanging cave roof.
In the afternoon we climbed up to Twin Gates – a huge slot high in the mountain that had once been used by the Japanese for a fort. All that remains from the Japanese occupation are a couple of walls and slots carved in the rock for roof supports. Climbing up to the slot was hard work – the hill was very steep and the path muddy and slippery. By the time we got to the top, the other group had just finished getting their gear together and were heading off to climb.
We were at Twin Gates to do a Tyrolean and abseil. Stretching from one side of the slot to the other were two ropes forming a type of zip line some 70 m or so above the ground. By attaching ourselves to a pulley system and running off the edge of the cliff, we were able to launch ourselves across the void. Most of us got stuck about 30m from the end of the line and had to pull ourselves hand over hand across the rope in order to join Xiao Sai on a ledge. From there we made a long abseil back to the cave floor.
In the evening we had a BBQ at a local restaurant and then went down to the Li River for a firework display put on by the China Climb staff in our honour. After that there was a little time for shopping. Josh and Brendon hung out in the Lizard Lounge with some of the guides. There they discovered a new use for bouldering mats. These mats fold in too and fasten together with Velcro. There is just enough room inside to catch a small boy like a fly in a Venus flytrap. The boys thought this was hilarious and took turns to be trussed up. Once inside the mats they could fall about or bounce off walls with impunity. The guides carried them into the street and then offered them cheesecake or drinks, which of course were not easily accessible whilst wrapped in a bouldering mat.
4 April 2007
Group 1: Climbing at Wine Bottle/Cooking School
Group 2: Cycling and dinner at Café China
Our group was to head out to Little Frog for climbing but the weather was too bad. When the guides went out to set up the topes they found the crag damp and the approach too muddy. After a couple of splash-downs they decided that a change of venue was needed and so we were redirected to a huge crag called Wine Bottle.
Just across the fields from Wine Bottle is a huge cave – a major tourist attraction due to the large numbers of butterflies that fly out of its mouth in hordes, or whatever the collective noun is for a lot of butterflies. A flutter, maybe.
We got the girls to rope up and climb first today. On the previous day’s climbing the boys had been so enthusiastic that they had pushed their way forward and some of the girls hadn’t had enough chance to climb.
Today’s climbing was much more relaxed. Xiao Sai gave a talk on climbing ethics before we started. We wanted the students to rely on the rope only for safety, not as aid to climbing the routes. In free climbing the aim is to get from the start of the route to the top without putting your weight on the rope or pulling on anything other than the rock you are supposed to be climbing. It is hard to get this across to students when they first start climbing.
I explained some climbing terms to students.
Free climbing – to climb without using the rope or protection for aid and assistance. Equipment is used for safety and lowering off or abseiling only.
Soloing – free climbing without a rope. Falling off is not advised; it can give a new meaning to terminal velocity.
Sport climbing – climbing on rock that has been ‘bolted’. “Hangers” that can be “clipped” with a karabiner are attached to the rock permanently with expansion bolts. Lead climbers clip the rope into these as they climb up the route. This gives them protection – if they fall the drop the distance to their last clip plus the same distance below the clip plus a bit more for stretch etc. This stops the climber hitting the ground. Usually.
Top roping – is climbing when the rope is above your head. It is held by a “belayer” at the top of the climb. If the climber falls, he will only fall inches or a few feet at most.
Bottom roping – this is like top roping – in other words very safe – but the belayer stands on the ground. The rope loops up to the top of the climb and then back down to the climber. This is the style of climbing that we were doing with the students.
Traditional or Trad Climbing – in this version of free climbing the lead climber places “protection” in the rock as he climbs up. The “second” climber then follows and strips this protection out.
The routes we climbed today weren’t quite as hard as those at Low Hill and so all achieved a great deal of success.
Following the climb we went to a cooking school. This was set up by Pam, an Australian chef. She saw that nobody was teaching cooking at Yangshuo and so decided to do the job herself, converting an old farm house and its outbuildings into a kitchens and dining areas.
We made four dishes – steamed chicken with red Chinese dates and wolf berries, ginger and ginseng; pork egg rolls; pork with vegetables and pak choi. At this point we were all rather tired and cold, so it is remarkable that we were all able to pay attention to the demonstrations and then cook the dishes.
I am not sure whether the dishes we made were representative of the local cuisine, but the flavours and presentation were very good. We used huge quantities of oil and garlic (5 or 6 cloves in dishes to be consumed by one person!). My fried eggplant was rather black. I think that the correct term is caramelized.
The cooking school has two dining areas – an open area without heating and a small room with a wood burning stove. Everybody tried to cram into the warmer room. There was a guitar in the corner and William immediately picked it up, beginning an impromptu ceilidh. Connie, Will, Max and Verity all played or sang. It was a great end to the day.
3 April 2007
The last time I was in China I spent several very interesting and rewarding mornings walking around the local parks watching people taking their morning exercises – tai chi, wu shu, karate, dance etc. The locals had been very welcoming and had great fun at my expense by encouraging me to take part. I was keen for the students to experience this too, so Scott and I agreed to go for a run at dawn to scout the best location.
The hotel security guards were asleep, one on a bench in the lobby, the other on the counter behind reception. The doors were padlocked, so I coughed loudly with the intention of waking them gently. The guard on the counter woke so suddenly he fell off the counter. Trying hard to regain his composure he unlocked the door and muttered something about Moon Hill being free at this time of day.
Out in the street it was still dark and very cold. I thought about returning to my room for a fleece, but the door was already padlocked and the guard buried under his duvet. I jogged on the spot and waited for Scott.
We ran for an hour along the Li River. It is a beautiful place and very peaceful just after dawn. I had expected to see hundreds of people doing their early morning exercises, but we passed but a single old man doing tai chi. I was disappointed, but thought perhaps the students wouldn’t mind so much as they wouldn’t have to get up so early.
We split into two groups again today – Group 2 went climbing at Baby Frog and Group 1 went mountain biking.
We picked the bikes up just across town – good quality American imports, complete with racing saddles (ouch) and front shocks. My cycling helmet wouldn’t fit properly and persisted in rocking towards the back of my head in a manner that I thought looked cool, but in actual fact made me look like an imbecile.
Riding single file through the back streets was good fun. There was little traffic and so the occasional wobbles and steering errors caused no problems. By the time we got out into the countryside, everybody was riding quite well. It was a good job – once we left tarmac the tracks got progressively more narrow, bumpy and muddy.
Riding through the farmland was fascinating. Farmers were preparing their rice padies – walking behind simple ploughs pulled by water buffalo. Hundreds of ducks were feeding in a flooded field. We shared the road with a constant stream of farm traffic. Each time something appeared, a warning shout would be passed down the line of cyclists: “Bike!”, “Car!”, “Horse!”, “Water buffalo!”, “Old lady carrying buckets of sh*t!”. A calf blundered into the road and I almost hit it broadside. Fortunately I remembered that the front brake was on the opposite side to my UK bikes and avoided going ass over calf.
We stopped briefly to explore the Lee family house and shrine. Before the Cultural Revolution, the Lee family had been the well-to-do governors of Yangshuo. Their house had been spectacular, with fine carvings in stone and hardwoods. Now it is a a sad place, falling into ruin and occupied by several families that appear to be squatting there. The local government has made sure that the beautiful wood carvings haven’t been looted, but they have made no efforts at preserving or maintaining the building.
At lunchtime we stopped by a picturesque five hundred year-old bridge. Simple bamboo rafts crowded the riverbank. It was a peaceful place, until we got there anyway. The locals were too busy gambling at cards and dominos to pay us much attention, even when Itch, Verity and our guide Andrew leaped the 8m from the bridge parapet into the freezing waters below.
(When Group 2 cycled later in the week some of their students also jumped from the bridge. Inzy will remember this well as he landed on his bottom bruising it badly. As he had earlier landed somewhat painfully on the crossbar, cycling then became intolerable and so he and Gill returned to Yangshuo in style on one of the bamboo rafts.)
After lunch we split into two groups. Diane led the girls on a shorter route back to Yangshuo and I headed off for a long, fast ride with Team Testosterone. We had a fast and exhilarating ride through the fields, gradually building up more skill and confidence to deal with the muddy and rocky trails. At one point our guide said that we should walk across the narrow bund between two muddy fields, but all rode. Poor Itch ran off the path and landed in the mud.
For the last couple of hours we rode as fast as we could, arriving back at Yangshuo early, but with aching shoulders and wrists. It had been a cold day and I soaked for an hour in a hot bath to get warm again.
After a splendid dinner at Café China, we all went for a foot and shoulder massage – great after a hard day’s mountain biking.
Before bed we had a couple of hours for shopping. You have to bargain hard here. Diane and I looked at an embroidered panel that we thought might make a nice present. The asking price was 480 Kwai. When we finished bargaining the price was 75 Kwai.
Posted by Nick Hardcastle at 10:21 PM
April 2nd
We are now back in Saudi. Over the last few days we did so much that I was too tired to blog once the kids had gone to bed. I did continue to write though, and I will post the entries in the next day or two. Looking back over the last few entries, it is obvious that the keys on a Chinese keyboard don't translate so well when posted on Blogger. I'll go through and do some proof reading when I get a chance.
I am in the process of editing photographs and sound clips too ... so watch this space.
Anyway, here is the entry from April 2nd, our first day in Yangshuo.
2 April 2007
We began the day at the Lizard Lounge, China Climb’s headquarters. It is a great venue just to hang out in. There is a bouldering wall, places to lie around or sit chatting, a cosy balcony where you can hide out and relax. Drinks are free from the fridge and there is a huge collection of music on the lounge’s computer. The guides hang out there too and chat with the kids, answering their many questions, joking and sharing anecdotes.
In the morning we were to hold a Rogaine, a word and activity I hadn’t come across before. As we left the Lizard Lounge it was still raining slightly. Tyson, a long haired guide with a mischievous grin, long hair and a rugged look about him, led us on a short walking tour of Yangshuo. There had been a lot of development since my last visit back in 2001. We finished at the end of Western Street, well known amongst travelers in China for its good shopping, bars, restaurants and coffee shops. Tyson lined the students up just opposite KFC – much to their excitement – before explaining that they were not allowed to eat KFC whilst they were in Yangshuo. When the groaning and moaning subsided, he handed out sheets containing a series of questions about China and Yangshuo. Working in groups, the kids had to search for the answers by looking around town and talking to local people. It was an excellent activity. By the time we all met up for lunch, the kids were buzzing with excitement and enthusiasm.
While Group Two went caving with Beverly and Gill, our group headed out to Low Hill for rock climbing. We had been scheduled to climb at a crag called Baby Frog, but as had rained heavily in the night we needed to change to a more overhanging location. For most of the students this would be their first taste of real rock climbing and the mention of the word overhanging led to a general nervousness that was palpable.
Three minibuses took us along the narrow village roads to Low Hill. Just a little way out of Yangshuo and all Western development and signs of modernity had vanished. The dirt roads wound between rice fields and tiny farmers’ houses, past slowly lumbering water buffalo and pigs searching for food. As we parked an old woman carrying postcards appeared from nowhere and tried to cash in on our visit.
Low Hill is massive, a towering limestone karst that rises perhaps 500 feet from the rice fields. It overhangs considerably, which although rather intimidating, does mean that it remains dry. Four of the guides were already there, having gone ahead to set up the belay ropes. There were four routes for us to try graded from 5.8 to 5.10b, using the American grading system. Xiao Sai gave a brief talk about climbing safety and made sure that everybody was fitted with harnesses and helmets. He suggested that we begin with the easier routes before trying the 5.10b.
Chris, flushed with the enthusiasm and confidence of an 18 year old boy, ignored Xiao Sai’s advice and quickly launched himself on the hardest route. He climbed well until he reached the crux at about 15m, a strenuous move involving a layback crack around a bulge. There the crag spat him out … repeatedly. When, after a good many attempts and a considerable amount of tension applied to the rope by his belayer, he did conquer the crux, he proudly and loudly told us that he had made it after he had “rested for a second”.
The other students found the climbing hard too. If you have learned to climb on an indoor (or outdoor, in our case) climbing wall, your first visit to real rock can come as a surprise. You might have learned good techniques and developed your finger and upper body strength, but the absence of colour coded holds is quite bewildering. On a climbing wall you do the same routes time and time again, developing muscle memory and honing your technique. On a crag you must do everything ‘on sight’, at least at first, and so it takes a little time to transfer your skills to real rock climbing.
Twenty two metres above the belay ledge and at the top of one of the routes there was a small hole in the limestone. By crawling through a narrow cave passage further along the crag, I was able to access this and take photographs of the kids as they climbed.
Whilst they were waiting their turn on the ropes, Diane and one of the guides took a group of kids though a cave system from one side of the mountain to the other. When the students reappeared, they were somewhat grubby but very happy.
By the end of the day all the students were climbing well, and although not all had made a route successfully, everybody was pleased with their attempts. Matthew and Jelle did particularly well. Tired and generally feeling very pleased with ourselves we headed back along the narrow bunds between the rice fields to the waiting minibuses.
Group 2 was already at the Lizard Lounge when we got back to town. They were grinning hugely and the chaperone’s eyes were gleaming with enthusiasm. “Brilliant” is all that they would say about their day, for they had been sworn to secrecy by their guide Tyson.
1 April 2007
The students were too tired to remember that it was
April Fool’s Day. They set about breaking camp at
6.30. After a breakfast of porridge and tea we
shouldered our heavy packs once more and set of for a
full day’s hike ¨8 hours or so we thought. It was
hot and humid, the kids were tired from the day before
and the walk wasn’t easy. After about an hour’s
trekking we decided that three of the students should
take an alternative route as they didn't appear to be
up to the full trek. Beverly and Xiao Sai walked off
with them to return early to Yangshuo. The rest of us
enjoyed a spectacularly beautiful trek through the
rice fields and karst scenery - truly a landscape
from the wildest of dreams.
We stopped twice on route to help local farmers with
their work. Oranges and pomello are the main cash
crops grown here. They have to be carefully pruned
and pollinated. Near Yangti Meadow we helped pollinate
pomello by taking flowers from a bucket, nipping off
the petals and stigma and then carefully rubbing the
stamens onto flowers on other trees. Later we helped
another farmer prune his orange trees by nipping out
the new growth without flowers. The orange groves
smelt divine.
We had lunch on a huge boulder in the middle of a
meadow beneath towering limestone cliffs. As the
sandwiches were prepared, some of the students
searched for frogs and land crabs.
By the time we finished the trek at Xingping we were
all very hot, dirty and soaked with sweat. Some of us
had been in the same clothes for 5 days. Others had
changed at least 4 times a day no wonder their
packs were heavy. Some girls had even managed to carry
eye liner on the whole trek.
We had planned on having dinner at Xingping, but as we
were a couple of hours early we changed our plans.
Yangshuo was but a short drive away and the call of a
hot shower was just too much to resist.
All the rooms in the Venice Hotel were ready, apart
from mine. As the students rushed off to shower and
change, I stood in the hotel lobby and tried to
pretend that the bad smell wasn't me. Eventually, I
persuaded the manager to find me an empty room to
shower in whilst my room was prepared.¡¡No sooner had
I undressed but the lights went out and I was plunged
into darkness. I played with the switch and the
lights came on again. I got into the shower. The
lights went off. I gave up, found my headtorch and
showered by the light of that.
After a briefing at the Lizard Lounge, China Climb''s
headquarters, we sent the kids off on a mission to buy
food for a pot luck dinner. Three groups each had an
envelope with a list of items that they had to buy and
an amount of money. An hour later and a feast was
being spread out at Lizard Lounge.
Although the kids were very tired from the trek, they
were too excited to go to bed and so we sent them
shopping. Yangshuo is very popular with Western
tourists and there is a lot of shopping here. Over
the years, I have found that our students are avid
shopper. They had a great deal of fun.
Tomorrow, climbing and caving more of which in my
next post.
Oh before I forget. I was telling the kids how
criminals are executed here in China ¨in a public
execution with a bullet to the back of the head,
following which the family of the condemned man is
billed for the cost of the bullet. Inzie's immediate
question "How much do they charge for the bullet?“
31 March 2007
It was a short walk through the rice fields to the
road-head below Dai Zhai. The path was narrow and our
progress fairly slow. Two minibuses were waiting to
pick us up, along with many ladies in minority dress
selling fruit, silver bracelets and trinkets. They
were keen to collect empty water bottles too, for
which they can collect a small deposit - about one
pence.
On our way to Yangti we stopped at a tea plantation,
where we had lunch following a short tour of the
hillsides. The hills here are small rounded mounds,
and the close cropped tea bushes give them the feel of
elaborate topiary gardens.
At Yangti we crowded on to the river bank to collect
our gear for the Yangti - Xinping Trek. The scenery
here is fantastic. Huge limestone towers rise from the
riverbanks and rice fields. Grey and orange cliffs,
some of which must be 500 feet high, hang ominously
overhead. There are hundreds of these ‘karsts’.
Everything that isn’t overhanging or vertical is
covered with trees, creepers and mosses. It is as
though you have spent a lifetime looking at Chinese
paintings of mountains and suddenly your imagination
has been able to fill out the detail.
As we stowed tents, sleeping bags, food and water for
two days, old ladies crowded around trying to sell us
oranges and peanuts, collect our water bottles and
steal the empty cardboard boxes. A cormorant
fisherman, precariously balanced on a raft made of 5
long pieces of bamboo pulled alongside the dock in the
hope that the kids would give him money in return for
taking photographs. Bizarrely, A small van was
floating in the middle of the Li River, or so it
seemed. A concrete jetty extended into the middle of
the channel, hidden just beneath the surface. A small
boy was washing there too, naked and happy. The sight
of 47 foreigners all carrying ridiculously large
backpacks and boarding a small ferry to cross the
river held no interest whatsoever.
The trek to our campsite in a beautiful mountain
meadow above Yangti took about 2 hours. It was quite
steep and a little slippery. None of the kids would
have had any problem with it if it hadn't been for
the packs - but with a full load, trekking had taken
on a new dimension. It was hard and there was a
certain amount of winging.
At camp, our guide Dan gathered us in a large circle
and asked the kids about camp craft. They knew a lot
and he was able to draw out all the information he
wanted without much prompting. Following that setting
up camp was a breeze. Some erected tents, some
gathered firewood, others cooked. The tents up and
dinner underway, a group of boys did what boys seem to
do naturally ¨C destroyed something. Not satisfied
with dragging down huge dead trees from the forest in
order to make seats, they found a large branch,
perhaps 3 inches thick, and set about dismembering it
with little more than a rock and brute force. It kept
them busy for a couple of hours.
Dinner was pasta cooked in huge pots over the camp
fire. Delicious.
30 March 2007
The long hike from Ping’An to Di zhai Guest House
With little more than a spare T-shirt, their
waterproofs, lunch and water, the packs felt light as
we climbed steeply from the village to a viewpoint 500
m above the guest house. The view was spectacular –
mountains, endless rice terraces and small villages
half hidden by folds in the hills. I thought it would
make a great location for a film like the Lord of the
Rings.
Thousands of bangers (long strings of Chinese
firecrackers) were being let off in one of the
villages. Depending on which way the wind blew, the
tiny explosions sounded like heavy rainfall on a tin
roof or a spaghetti western shoot-out on an old
televisions set. On the other side of the mountain
there was a slowly moving procession of villagers all
dressed in white. They were carrying a man to his
burial site. Last night, we had watched a stone mason
carving lettering on his tombstone.
The hillsides are dotted with elegant graves, each a
stone tablet carved with many Chinese characters, held
vertically in a carved footstone and caped with a
protecting lion. These final resting places have been
chosen with great care, enjoying superb views over
the rice fields and mountains. Many of the headstones
had been gruesomely smeared with a dismembered
chicken, bloodied feathers, torn flesh and shattered
bones inside a blood stained circle. Twice a year the
villagers feed their ancestors in this way.
A group of local Yao minority women followed us until
lunch. The Yao are famous for their long hair. They
cut it only once in their lifetime, when they are 18
years old. From then on they let it grow, washing it
every three days in a shampoo made from rice water.
They wind their enormously long hair into a gently
twisted pony tale that starts at the forehead, before
tying it in a natural turban. Five of the ladies
unwound their hair for us to see; it reached their
shins. A lady from Ping’An, we were told, holds the
world record for the longest hair.
By mid-afternoon, the light packs were feeling heavy
but the kids managed to get to the guesthouse ahead of
schedule nevertheless.
In the evening Xiao Si put the students into four
groups and gave them an hour to prepare skits. There
was much laughter at the camp humor that followed.
29 March 2007-3-30
Today was mainly taken up with traveling as we had to
fly down to Guilin in order to start our next trek. A
small lunch was served on the flight with that rarest
of luxuries here, a bread roll. There were many small
deals made as students and teachers swopped treasures
from their plastic trays. Mrs Little was delighted to
exchange cucumbers for tomatoes and some of the larger
boys did all they could to persuade others to give up
their food.
There were two busses waiting for us at the airport,
one to take the excess baggage down to Yangshuo, the
other to take us to Longsheng. We had to stop part
way there to change to two other busses that were
small enough to make it round the short roads up to
Ping’An.
Ping’An has a population of perhaps 800, with large
wooden houses clinging to the steep hillside and
surrounded by small rice terraces that stretch along
the slopes like the contours on a map. There is a lot
of building going on in the village at the moment.
The main structure of the houses appears to be made
without the use of nails. It is a fascinating place to
walk through. The narrow paths between the houses are
covered with polished, roughly shaped paving stones,
made slippery in places by the deposits of passing
ponies or seepage from the paddy fields above.
It was a steep walk from the road head to our guest
house. Some of the students’ legs were obviously still
tired and there were a few groans at the number of
steps involved.
We had been invited to look around the local school –
four classrooms and a small boarding house overlooking
the mountains. The classrooms were simple, with a
blackboard and rough wooden desks and chairs, but it
smelt and felt well cared for. Joined by two athletic
local students, the boys played basketball for a while
in the playground.
Our guesthouse looked very new and still smelled of
freshly cut wood. Four floors perched almost
impossibly on long stilts and shaky foundations. This
isn’t an earthquake zone … I hoped. Looking at some
of the similarly constructed, but obviously old,
buildings in the village put my mind at rest.
Sound really traveled in the guesthouse – we could
hear every footstep, every whisper. This notwithstanding, many of the students said they got their best night’s sleep yet. Maybe it was something to do with the air.
My bathroom (well, the one at the end of the
corridor), was a squat toilet. I overbalanced and
grabbed the sink. It came off the wall, much to my
horror. Emergency plumbing whilst squatting isn’t my
forte. Sadly, I did exactly the same on two subsequent
visits, which made me question the gradient of my
learning curve: flat, obviously.
After dinner the women from the village put on a show
of traditional dancing and singing in the school yard.
They were dressed beautifully in traditional
costumes. There were dances about the yearly
agricultural cycle – planting, harvesting, tending,
grinding, winnowing. They encouraged the staff and
teachers to get up and dance too. The whole group
participated in a courtship dance, where they linked
hands and ran around in a circle. A boy in the middle
had to select the girl he wanted and then, carrying
her piggyback, had to try and escape the circle. A
bamboo dance caused much amusement. The students had
to step up and down quickly between long bamboo poles
that were being slapped together by parallel rows of
women.
28 March 2007
Many of the kids didn’t make it to breakfast this
morning, having ignored or slept through the early
morning call.
We drove back to Chengdu, some three hours away. Once
there we visited Jin Li Cultural Street. This street,
very popular with Chinese, is really a recreated
version of the sort of places I found in Beijing when
I went their in the 1980s, except that all the shops
are aimed at tourists. It is a pleasant area and
great for souvenir shopping and snacks. The kids no
doubt thought I was mean when I told them that they
couldn’t go to KFC, Starbucks or any of the other
western fast food joints further up the road. Later
though, having tried the local snacks, they seemed
happy enough. There was some delicious food on sale
and at very reasonable prices. Once they had finished
their shopping, we let them raid Starbucks.
After lunch we visited the famous Wu Hoa Temple. Many
of the students are getting really interested in
photography and they spent two hours wondering about
the peaceful gardens and buildings taking photographs.
Digital cameras are great – they really encourage
students to look at the things they are visiting,
especially when there is come competition to get the
best shot.
We had a couple of hours to relax at the hotel (Wen
Jun Mansions again) before dinner – a ‘traditional
Sichuan BBQ’. The restaurant was large, loud and, to
my mind at least, more American than Chinese. Waiters
came around the tables with huge skewers of barbequed
meat and sliced pieces directly onto our plates. The
food was good, and although I found the experience
painful to say the least, the students loved it. They
ate huge quantities and there were a number of
dangerously extended bellies by the time we left. One
of the guides ate so much that I doubt he will be able
to climb for a month.
27 March 28, 2007
If they don’t shut up soon, I will have to go and speak to them. The girls were talking in whispers –
the sort of whisper that carries over half a mile. It
was only the effort of getting out of my sleeping bag,
getting dressed and putting my boots on again that put
me off. They went on and on and on … and then I fell
asleep.
The monastery was very peaceful until the kitchen
staff got up to make breakfast, then there was a
chorus of hoiking and snooking and the clashing of
pans. Breakfast wasn’t greeted with any great
enthusiasm, although one or two of the kids are
developing a fondness for the white steamed buns,
taken plain or dipped in thin orange jam. There were
four small brown cubes of what could have been tofu on
each of the round tables. The portion was
exceptionally meagre, considering the size of the
dishes that had been served. My appetite isn’t
terribly adventurous first thing in the morning and so
I ignored its existence. Just as I was about to leave
the table, Xiao Sun, one of the guides, came over and
asked if we had tried it. Saad was with him,
grinning. Something was afoot. Dutifully, I armed
myself with chopsticks and picked one of the cubes up.
“No, just a little!” Xiao Sun said quickly, and so I
took the barest morsel. The intensity of the flavour
was incredible and I pulled a face. Saad, poor chap,
had eaten a whole cube and was still scarred by the
memory.
It was a short walk from the monastery to the waiting
busses. Every so often we had to leave the path to
allow ponies carrying stones and cement to pass by on
their long journey up the mountain to where the steps
are still being constructed. The animals didn’t look
very happy about the steps, but they were even more
wary of the foreigners I their way. As we neared the
road, the stalls selling straw overshoes (for the icy
weather), plastic trinkets (monkey, monkey), snacks
and drinks (water, water) and walking sticks became
more common.
Back at Emei Shan we checked into the hotel, before
walking into town for a local meal in the food
market. Amongst the local dishes we tried were
bull-frog and baby eel. The food here was fresh.
Indeed it has been swimming around as we placed the
order.
In the afternoon we went to Lin Xiu Hot Springs.
After visiting hot springs in Borneo last year, I was
not enthusiastic. There the pools had been dirty and
unattractive. At Lin Xiu though I was pleasantly
surprised. The facilities were excellent – well run,
attractive and spotlessly clean. I think that quite a
few of the students were surprised too. They had been
expecting something quite downmarket and these springs
wouldn’t have disgraced any western spar town.
One of the highlights of the hot springs was the fish
bath. Here hundreds of small fish, between 6 and 12
cm long swarmed over your feet, knees and back,
nibbling off dead skin cells. The sensation was rather
strange, especially when they went for the soles of
your feet or the more ticklish parts of your body.
In the evening the students played games in the local
park before writing postcards home and having an early
night.
26 March 2007-3-27
Qingyin Monastery – Wannian Monestery (1020m)
The students weren’t particularly happy about the
hotel yesterday evening. Perhaps it was the generally
run down air of the place of the spiders in Casey’s
room. I suppose they were rather large. Or it could
have been the rudimentary plumbing – the pipes that
stuck out of the wall and the ancient, rusted switch
boxes that had once controlled the hot water boilers.
Mind you, such plumbing was reserved for the better
rooms. Some had no toilet at all. The worst room was
the one with the Western style toilet. It hadn’t been
plumbed in, but it had been used. Not much chance of
putting a bucket of water down it either – there
wasn’t one. Still, the beds and sheets were spotlessly
clean and it was a good place to sleep. Sometimes you
have to rough it a bit.
Before breakfast I decided to take a walk down to the
monastery. A pipe had been dripping all night and I
thought that the path might be slippy, so I took
special care. Thirty seconds later and I was flying
down the stairs, camera held high in the air to save
it from damage.
If you were to ask the students about today’s walk
they would, I am sure, shout “Steps, thousands of
steps.” We followed a route through the forest past
small tea houses and mountain monasteries, each linked
by beautifully crafted granite steps. Thousands of
them. This area is very popular with Chinese tourist
groups and as each one passed we were regaled with
dozens of “Nee How” greetings.
Well dressed in cheap suits and following yellow flag
bearing guides, they were a cheerful lot. They
weren’t carrying packs. They weren’t swearing and they
were going down hill. Nevertheless, they were kind
enough to keep on telling us that we were strong.
As yesterday, the group spread out quite a bit, but
nobody was particularly slow. We reached Wannian
Monastery in good time, dumped the packs and had an
early lunch.
Rested and refreshed we set off to walk to the next
monastery up the mountain, but this time without
packs. There were no complaints until the top of the
first major flight of steps. Then, or so I heard
later, the complaining began. The steps were steep and
seemingly never ending. No sooner had we reached the
top of a flight of 300 or so than we would round the
corner and see another impossibly long flight soaring
skywards. Quite intimidating. Some of the girls who
hadn’t made much attempt to get fit before the trip
were suffering a little, but their difficulty was, I
felt, more lack of determination than lack of ability.
This was confirmed when they reached the monastery
only 2 or 3 minutes after everybody else, and with
huge grins on their faces.
At the monastery, we split into two groups, the slower
students and the ones who didn’t feel like tackling
any more steps went back down. The stronger walkers
continued upwards, covering about the same distance
again, to the next monastery.
The steps are, in places, still being built. They are
quite an achievement, as each stone and bag of sand
and cement has to be carried up on the backs of men
and ponies. Hard work, especially as the labourers are
paid by the kilo transported.
Returning to the Wannian Monastery, where we were to
spend the night was no easy feat. We had to return the
way we had come. Going down is often harder than going
up, and there were quite a few wobbly and stiff legs
by the time we got to the bottom.
The Wannian Monastery is a glorious place, so peaceful
despite the bustle of tourists, monks and monastery
staff.
Having spent sometime stretching in an effort to avoid
stiffness after the climb, I walked around the
monastery grounds taking photographs.
We ate wonderful vegetarian food in the monastery
dining room – once more tofu and soya produces
prepared to seem like meat.
IN the evening we had the students go off and find a
quiet place to sit and write and think for half an
hour. They seemed to enjoy this and so we let them
take longer. After that we all gathered in an open
pavilion and asked the Chinese guide questions about
Buddhism, Chinese culture and politics.
We finished the evening by learning to count in
Chinese – this time to 41.
The monastery accommodation is clean and basic -
dormitories in a beautiful old wooden building. The
walls don’t go to the ceiling however and I could hear
every thing that was being said in the building …
25th March
Breakfast was a mixture of Chinese and Western food,
with delicious dumplings, rather sweet bread and eggs
boiled and fried. Liam excelled himself and ate 8 eggs
without obvious ill-effects.
The trek up Mount Emei Shan began from the hotel.
After 5 minutes we stopped by the pagoda at the top of
the road to do warm-up stretches and exercises, much
to the amusement of the Chinese onlookers.
Mount Emei Shan is a sacred mountain and home to many
monasteries and temples. People come from all over
China on pilgrimage, and so the trail up the mountain
has been paved. There are thousands of steps that lead
up and down the tree covered slopes.
For some reason, a number of the kids decided to wear
huge amounts of clothing this morning – long johns,
water proof over-trousers, fleeces and down jackets -
all this despite the fact that the morning was quite
mild. Within an hour or so they began to realize that
the teachers and guides were right and that a light
pair of pants and a T-shirt would have been better.
Having removed their waterproofs and down jackets,
they literally steamed.
Today’s walk wasn’t particularly long but the steep
flights of stairs up and down the hills between the
Buddhist temples were tough.
We passed a monk on pilgrimage. When I first saw him
he was prostrate on the ground. He picked himself up,
placed his hands together in front of his head, took
three steps, knelt and prostrated himself once more.
A tough way to travel and not one that I could ever
see me finding the urge to try.
During the course of the day we split into two large
groups – one fast and one a little slower. Although
there was some groaning about the number of steps, all
the students did really well.
We reached the Qing Yin Monastery about 3pm, dumped
the bags and then headed further along the trail,
where it entered a steep sided gorge. Although there
was quite a bit of shrieking as we crossed the river
on the stepping stones, nobody fell in. Nevertheless,
there were several cameras at the ready to catch the
decisive moment, should someone be unfortunate enough
to put a foot wrong.
Near the top of the gorge there is a complex of
elegant wooden pavilions linked with pathways of faux
logs – carefully crafted out of concrete. For years
tourists have been coming here to feed the monkeys
that come down to the paths. They are now completely
without fear – to the extend that each party of
tourists that visit can only do so with a guide
bearing a large stick to ward off over-enthusiastic
animals.
Some of the older males were battle scared, reminding
me of boxers several rounds past their sell-buy date.
There were mothers too, with tiny babies clinging to
their bellies.
Across the gorge were several suspension bridges with
chain supports and sides. They swung alarmingly as we
crossed. Signs warned us not to swing from side to
side and stand whilst crossing. Some of the signs here
use rather unusual English.
We had dinner at the monastery. The vegetarian food
was quite remarkable. Tofu had been prepared in
different ways to give it the flavour, texture and
appearance of pork, beef and chicken. Even more
remarkable were the prawn dishes. The ‘prawns’ –
totally soya based, were so realistic that I wouldn’t
have known that they weren’t real. The same was true
of the ‘fish’ which, even had a blackened skin. All
quite delicious.
In the evening the guides had prepared a trivia quiz
for the students and tried to teach them to count in
Chinese. Whilst they did that, I sat in the courtyard
trying to write this journal. It was a difficult job.
Every paragraph or so, either a student or a local
would come over to chat, ask me a question or peer at
my writing. Eventually, surrounded by about a dozen,
local men, I h\gave up and instead got them to teach
me how to write the numbers in Chinese.
Quote of the day: “Mr Hardcastle did you hear? Itch
farted and it made Josh’s nose bleed!”
Posted by Nick Hardcastle at 8:49 AM
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Day 2 Expedition
The day started with a very loud knock on the door at
6.45. Now when I say loud, I mean that you could hear
it across the street. Once wasn’t enough to shift
most of our students though and the China Climb guys
banged and banged away until somebody got out of bed
and opened the door. All very amusing as I was
downstairs eating breakfast already.
Chengdu is surrounded by distant mountains and this
has an interesting effect on the weather. It is hazy
almost all year round. The light before dawn was
strange and diffused, making the street outside look
even more like a film set.
Some of the kids don’t deal with the cold well.
Whilst the local Chinese were walking around in shirt
sleeves and pants, the students were appearing in
long-johns and down jackets. Goodness knows what they
are going to do when they get into the mountains. I
had one or two repack their bags after breakfast –
some had more things swinging from the outside of the
bag than they had inside.
First stop today was the Chengdu Panda Base and
Research Centre. Now Pandas are cute. And lazy. They
mainly sit down, lay back and eat bamboo. They are
also extremely well photographed. Kodak never had it
so good and you should look forward to seeing
thousands of rather blurred white and black cuddly
bears. The Chengdu Centre has a very successful
breeding programme. Last year alone they managed to
raise 9 babies successfully. From what we learned at
the centre it is not surprising that the Giant Panda
is an endangered species. They are solitary animals
and, in the wild, live in their own, huge territory.
Once a year they become amorous and decide to go in
search for mate. Even if they manage to find one, it
seems as though they don’t make particularly good
parents. We watched a video of a young mother giving
birth for the first time. As the baby popped into
existence and landed on the floor, it screamed and
squirmed. The poor mother looked most surprised, as
though a large maggot had just popped from her but.
So she smacked it. Hard. Twice. Fortunately for the
baby, a brave keeper dashed into the pen and rescued
the cub before it suffered any serious damage.
In one pen we watched as nine baby pandas were brought
out by their keepers for a bath. They were behaving
like naughty children, none too keen on the idea of
getting clean. In the wild they don’t take baths, but
in captivity it is apparently important that they are
washed regularly. Once bathed they clambered over
wooden frames, swings and bridges; falling about, off
or over anything that got in their way, pausing
occasionally to bite the Wellington boot of a keeper
or two.
Red pandas are much more active than their larger
cousins, and quite the performers too. Whilst the
Giant Pandas had largely ignored all their admirers,
the Red pandas waved, stood on their hind legs and
appeared to be smiling at the audience. Very cute.
From the Panda Centre we had a rather long bus journey
to the Post Office Hotel at Emei Shan. It was a
welcome opportunity for the kids to catch up on their
sleep.
Before dinner we went for a short walk to a pagoda and
fountain where there was a relief map of the mountain
we are going to walk tomorrow.
Dinner was traditional Chinese and enjoyed by all!
Posted by Nick Hardcastle at 10:19 AM
1st Day of Expedition
23 March 2007
Dhahran – Beijing – Dubai – Hong Kong – Chengdu
I knew that this was going to be a good day when I
arrived at school at 9.30. The busses were already
there waiting for us. With a group of 41, there is
always a fair chance that somebody is going to be late
or forget something vital like a passport, so it was
with a sense of amazement that I greeted the last
parent to arrive at 9.59, one minute before the
deadline. Twenty minutes, the passports checked
against the manifest and one or two tearful goodbyes
later and we were off.
The causeway and check-in all went smoothly and fairly
quickly. Having the Chinese visas in the passports
before we set off was a big help. There was none of
the last minute negotiation with check-in desk
official about who does or does not need a visa.
We took over the fast food restaurant in Bahrain
airport and I spent the most I have ever done on junk
food. Some of the boys found items of considerable
interest to them in the magazine store and were quite
excited about their purchases, talking loudly and
indiscreetly. Sadly, or luckily, these were
confiscated by security in Hong Kong, as indeed were
large quantities of shampoo, makeup and deodorant.
Once we had completed business at the transfer in Hong
Kong we broke into small groups and explored the
shops. I really wanted to buy something, anything
really, but couldn’t find anything I wanted. The
students found plenty that they wanted to buy, but as
I had their spending money ….
For lunch we gave everybody fifty HK dollars and sent
them off in groups to find food for themselves. Most
avoided Burger King and Starbucks and went to a
Japanese noodle store.
By the time we arrived in Chengdu we were all very,
very tired. It is always difficult to sleep on the
start of a school trip – there is just so much to talk
about. The aircrew handed out landing cards, customs
cards and health declarations on the plane. It was
quite a task to get them all filled in and checked
before we landed. The bags all arrived intact and on
time and the China Climb team was just pulling up in
the busses to collect us as we came through customs.
We have six China Climb guides with us. They seem
great – all really enthusiastic and keen to help.
The bus dropped us at our hotel – Wen Jun Mansions, on
a street in Chengdu that looks as though it was built
as a film set for a Kung Fu movie. The hotel’s rooms
open onto long balconies that overlook a small
courtyard.
We took dinner at a superb hot-pot restaurant just
down the road. In the middle of the tables there was a
large vat of hot liquid, soup on one side and water
full of spices and chilies on the other. The
waitresses, and a very large number of them there was
too, brought plate after plate of meats, leaves,
mushrooms and vegetables for us to cook ourselves. The
food cooked in just one or two minutes, after which we
trawled it out with chopsticks, dipped it into a bowl
of oil and crushed garlic and then burned our lips in
the hurry to get it down. Everybody is using
chopsticks and doing really well. Huge quantities of
food were consumed.
After dinner we walked briefly around a sculpture park
on our way to the Sichuan Opera. We were a little
early for the performance and so were able to watch
the dancers putting on their makeup and costumes. I
was impressed by the way they could do this whilst
being photographed by 50 people, some of whom were
getting very close indeed.
As we took our seats for the opera, ladies carrying
the most extraordinary teapots came around to fill the
cups that had been laid out before us. Made of
copper, these teapots had meter long spouts, so
enabling the waitresses to serve tea at a distance.
It looked a risky business, with huge potential to
scald the audience, but it was all accomplished
without a drop spilled.
The teapots figured in the first dance performance
too, with two men demonstrating how you could dance
and do acrobatics whilst pouring tea. A strange skill
to develop, I thought, but entertaining nevertheless.
I am sad to say that many of us were so sleepy by this
time that we tended to drift in and out of
consciousness during the show. It was impressive
though, with some superb costumes, music, singing and
dancing in the traditional Sichuan style. There was
also a puppet display, where the master managed to
coax a remarkable amount of expression and very human
emotions and movements from his master. The students
were, I think, most impressed with a shadow display.
Using nothing more than his hands the performer made
shadows on a circular white screen on stage. Birds,
horses, dogs and rabbits that appeared so lifelike
that the audience applauded spontaneously.
As I walked around the hotel to check people were OK
and in their rooms, all was quiet. It was 10.15. The
end of a hard day.
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