Dear Family and
Friends,
In his 1933
classic, Lost Horizon, John Hilton described a utopian, idyllic valley he
called Shangri-La. Inspired by the
real life exploits of George Leigh-Mallory who lost his life in 1924 attempting
to climb Mt. Everest, Shangri-La was somewhere in the Tibetan Himalayan
mountains. Shangri-La was a place
of peace and security; living was not a struggle but a lasting delight. People did not age; there were no wars. The society was based around a 'Lamasery'
(a Tibetan Monastery) in a beautiful, snowless, sunny, fertile land called the
Valley of the Blue Moon.
Ever since the
publication of Hilton's novel, people have speculated as to the actual
whereabouts of this wondrous place.
Wonder no more. The Chinese
government, always eager to adopt anything that will bolster tourism, has now
proclaimed Shangri-La is, in fact, the old city of Zhongdian (in the Diqing
Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Northwest Yunnan Province). So, Zhongdian no longer exists, and
thus I found myself in Shangri-La.
(The local Tibetans don’t give a shit what the Chinese call their city. They call their home Gyelthang. It never was Zhongdian, and it won’t be
Shangri-La.)
I have now been
home for two weeks, so I must finish these letters on my 2003 Tour. To conclude then, I arrived in
Shangri-La on April 2nd having completed one of the current 'don't
miss' attractions in China, the trek through Tiger Leaping Gorge. After leaving Dali, where I left you in
my last e-mail, we headed to the town of Qiaotou, the starting point for the
trek through the Gorge created by the Yangtze River. The Yangtze rises up in the nearby Himalayan Mountains and
cuts a gorge 16 kilometres long between the Haba Shan and the Yulong Xueshan
Mountains.
The first day our
trek on the ‘high trail’ led us up, and down, but finally up, some 900 metres
to the 2,700 metre level (8,400 feet) where we spent the night in the small
Tea-Horse Guesthouse. (Tea-Horse,
not Tea-House; it is so named as it is on the centuries old route for Tea Horse
caravans reaching west to Pakistan and beyond.)
For me it was a
very arduous climb, not Adam's Peak, but Adam's Peak less two steps, and I
arrived at the guesthouse quite exhausted. As we all know, the scenery we have in Canada takes second
place to few places in the world. But
this was simply breathtaking. The
trail clings to the side of the mountain.
Often one side of the trail is a shear precipice down 3,000 feet to the
river, and a rock face on the other side soaring several thousand feet up to
the mountain peaks. From the river
to the mountain peaks is a dizzying 12,000 feet.
Our guide is
Sean, the Tibetan who was instrumental in developing the Tiger Leaping Gorge
trek some ten years ago. Sean is
about five feet tall and has a seriously disabled left arm and partially
disabled right arm. I liked him
immensely. Sean and other guides
have marked the trail with painted arrows for independent trekkers to follow. The arrows were a help as we tended to
spread out on the trail, but in some ways the guides were unclear on the
concept. Often at the narrowest
points on the trail, with a shear drop on one side, and a shear face rising up
on the other, someone would have dutifully painted a red, blue or yellow arrow
to tell you to go straight ahead. At
many points where trails did diverge, the arrows would be conspicuously absent.
The others in my
group range in age from 18 to 45. Unlike
me, they had all apparently read the trip dossier describing this portion of our
tour. Consequently, they were
generally properly outfitted and prepared with trekking boots, thermal fleece
clothing, mountaineering packsacks, all with names like Himalayas, North Face,
Kathmandu. The 45 year old member
of our group is an Aussie tri-athlete who wears a 'camel back' water system to
carefully measure his water intake.
He's an accountant. I
secretly suspect he measures his urine to calculate input versus output and
thus ensure the correct electrolytic balance.
I'm wearing my
Canadian Tire jacket, my Etonic walking shoes from the Bay, I have my day bag
and a little goddamn rucksack Gary Brown gave us fifteen years ago to carry a
towel and suntan lotion to the beach on one of the Shell boondoggles. But I made it. I was almost too tired to eat, but I
did manage to get some food down, then it was off to bed for a well needed
sleep. The trek will certainly be
one of this trip's highlights.
The second day
was a much easier walk and it took us back down the mountain to the highway at Walnut
Garden. In all, we hiked some
forty kilometres to cover the sixteen kilometres as the crow flies. At the end of our two days, we stayed
in Sean's Guesthouse, a welcome stop, and with a menu worth commenting on. The last page has the message
"If you are our friend, you can have or get really good Stuff for smoke in our place. But if you don't or Whith out ask, we don't give you, so don't worry if you don't like!" (Sic)
On the other
hand, if you would prefer not to smoke the dope, on the Pizza page it points
out "If you want to add anything with Happy, 2 Yuan." Of all the
pizza topping additives I have ever seen, 'Happy' would seem to be one of the
most interesting, and by far the best bargain at 40 cents.
After the Tiger
Leaping Gorge we spent two nights at the Snow Mountain Guesthouse in Haba, a
nearby Naxi village. The Naxi
people are a matriarchal society, descendants from Tibetan nomads. Less than 300,000 Naxi remain. The society has been characterised by
flexible arrangements for love affairs by the young women of the villages. Parents facilitate liaisons by building
a 'boudoir' for their daughter to entertain their various suitors. Children born out of any of the
relationships belong to the woman; she raises them with support from the father
(although apparently not a lot of time is spent trying to establish paternity). If the relationship ends, so does the
support. All property belongs to
the woman and disputes are adjudicated by a group of elder women. One interesting aspect of the society
is in their language, a derivative of Tibeto-Burman language. Nouns enlarge their meaning by adding
the word for 'female' and diminish it by adding 'male'. Hence 'stone' plus 'female' conveys the
meaning for boulder. Adding 'male'
would denote pebble. Naxi women
wear bright blue blouses and trousers covered by blue or black aprons. They wear a small cape on their back,
obviously for protection from the baskets they are usually carrying. And, they are almost always wearing a
blue cap.
While in Haba we
trekked up some 2,000 feet to another village, this one of Yi people. This was one of the most interesting
visits I had with locals. Yi
people tend to live highest in the mountains, and this village was at the 3,200
metre level, nearly 10,000 feet. (As
a point of reference, Mt. Robson, the highest mountain in the Canadian Rockies
is about 12,900 feet high.) Yang
Xu Lan, our hostess at our Haba guesthouse, came up with us, carrying a basket
of food for our lunch on her back.
Although the pack weighed close to fifty pounds, Yang Xu Lan whistled,
hummed and sang, with a most beautiful voice, as she skipped her way up the
mountain with us.
The villagers
(most of them, including the men, were in traditional dress) greeted us with
considerable interest and real hospitality, and very soon mats were spread out
on the ground and we ate Yang Xu Lan’s lunch supplemented by roast potatoes
provided by the villagers. A group
of ten young women dressed in their brightly coloured traditional ‘finery’ soon
arrived and we were treated to a dance display. The most notable item of traditional Yi dress is the very
large head-dress worn by the women.
It is similar to a graduation mortarboard, but much larger, up to three
feet across. The head-dress of
young women is colourfully embroidered both top and bottom, married women have
embroidery only on the underside, and grandmothers have a head-dress totally
black.
Without question
the folks in this village have not had a lot of contact with anyone outside
their region. But this is quickly
changing. A new highway to Haba
was just completed three months ago.
And while we were visiting the village, a satellite dish was being
hooked up. How long can
traditional dress and dancing last once they have been exposed to Much Music
Channel?
And with that,
our visit to The Tiger Leaping Gorge area was over. And after a five hour bus ride going up through high pine
forests, there I was in Shangri-La.
On our way here, we spotted many yaks and yows (yak and cow crosses) and
the housing became more substantial indicating we were close to Tibet.
Now here’s the
thing about Shangri-La. The thing
is, it ain’t. The folks here do
not appear to be living a life of everlasting delight. Rather, it seems life is a struggle for
them, and many of them look bone weary old.
But it was
certainly an interesting place to visit, just 50 miles from Tibet and at an
elevation of 10,200 feet. We
stayed at the Tibetan Shangri-La Hotel, which surely has the most ornately
decorated lobby of any small hotel I have ever been in. It was quite lovely. On the other hand, there was no heat in
the hotel and the temperature was minus 3 degrees Celsius when we arrived. That was the outside temperature. Inside it felt colder. Fortunately, the beds are all equipped
with electric blankets under the bottom sheet. The covers consist of a wool blanket so thick it makes a
Hudson’s Bay blanket look like a sheet, a fat duvet, and a bed spread. It was not difficult to make the bed
toasty; but it was an act of will to turn off the hot water to dry after a
shower. I have also been very
aware of the elevation the past number of days. Often I find myself taking several deep breaths to catch up
to what my body is telling me I need.
The Government is
encouraging Han Chinese to move to this area, so the character of the city is
quickly being changed. Everywhere
I have been in China, the new buildings are box-like concrete structures with
white tile facing on them. Totally
characterless and really quite ugly.
One of my
favourite things in China is reading the ‘Chinglish’, the often amusing,
sometimes bizarre, translations of signs, menus, handouts, etc. How about the polite little admonition
on a sign at a park, "Please Litter Considerately".
One of the best I saw was a warning sign at the bus station in
Shangri-La. In part, it read,
"NOTICE FOR FOREIGN FRIENDS
…Many lawless persons always fix their shifty eyes on you. Their black hands always put into your pockets at all times…. So we give you special remindEY for your safety...."
I’m sure you will
agree it is impossible to ignore that warning.
From Shangri-La
we went to Lijang, a five hour bus ride away. The temperature went from zero degrees to plus 25, and
culturally we went from an off-the-beaten-path-Tibetan-town to one of the most
visited cities in Yunnan, if not all of China. Lijang is set in a beautiful valley, with the spectacular
Yulong Xueshan, Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, at 17,000 feet, towering over the
city. The Old Town is a maze of
criss-crossed canals, narrow, cobbled streets, and old rickety buildings. It is full of great little restaurants. It has a feel like Banff, or Disneyland
without Mickey. And the city is
overrun with tourists. China’s
newly rich middle class love to come to Lijang and swan around flaunting their
wealth in front of the locals, most of whom are Naxi.
Lijang was pretty
much the end of my tour, and this report is surely getting longer than most of
you can bear. So to finish it, we
caught an overnight sleeper bus (an experience in itself) back to Kunming and
from there we all dispersed. It
has been an exciting and interesting three months. The highlights for me were definitely Borneo, Myanmar, and
The Tiger Leaping Gorge. But, I am
very happy to have Savary to go home to and I hope to see you all there at some
time soon.
Merv.
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