Published on June 6, 2005

From East to West: Beijing to Chengdu and a few treats in between

Sunday morning I had put on my graduation gown and sat in the Comcast Center at University of Maryland for three hours for a chance to shake a few hands and receive congrats for completing a degree I was not sure what I will use for.

Park in Beijing.Less than 12 hours later, I had put on my long distance travel pants and hiking and headed for the airport with only a 30 something pound backpack that was going to serve as my closet for the next 11 weeks. I was headed for China and its Great Wall, for Tibet and its temples, for Vietnam and its UNESCO Heritage sites, for Singapore and its ban on gum, for Malaysia and its highest peak, for Thailand and its tsunami ridden beaches. I was headed for Asia and a lot of unknown.

Tian Anmen Square in Beijing.Our itinerary included Beijing for a week, Xi’an just for a day, Chengdu and it’s surroundings for another week or so, followed by Tibet and finishing up in Shanghai.
Beijing in itself is very polluted, at the point that visibility is considerably obstructed and traffic...wow, it's never been such a quest crossing the road. Traffic light or no traffic light, the traffic patterns here are merely a suggestion and not a rule.

The Entrance to the Forbidden City.We have also found that people are somewhat rude, which got us all frustrated at times, especially when they literally scream in Chinese at us, knowing we have no idea what they are saying or what they want.

If your idea of Chinese food is that orange or Kung Pao chicken are the staple, you could not be further from the truth.

Here is my list of “Seven things I learned the hard way about Chinese food”:

(1) it is incredibly greasy,
(2) they eat more pork than Romanians (and we eat a whole 100+ kg pork per family of 4 per year at least),
(3) chicken meat seems to be inexistent,
(4) soy sauce is not a condiment but a cooking seasoning,
(5) rice is considered a poor’s man food and looked down upon if ordered in nice restaurants,
(6) a lot of food is deep fried so don’t go to China while you’re on a diet,
(7) it is possible to live on fried rice and steamed vegetables for a whole month…I did.

The Forbidden City.Luckily, all my travel companions are biased enough against spending too much time in big cities so after we visited all the sites that could possibly make a 'top ten" list, including the Forbidden City, Tian Anmen Square and everything of the sort we started scouting for day trips we could take. The highlight was the Great Wall.

The Great Wall.Jinshanling, Simatai and Badaling are the three different hikes you could take. We did Jinshanling and part of Simatai, that was challenging enough to make it worthwhile, offered a good mix of up and downhill, and some amazing views. The hike takes about 4 hours, with crowds of "guides" at our heels trying to sell us everything from water and beer to shirts and posters. It was aggravating and saddening in a way how pressing they were and unfortunately the more they insisted the less inclined I was to buy something.

The Great Wall.I am still split about this touts situation. In a way, I can’t blame them, there are probably dollar signs floating above our heads and a little for us can go such a long way for them.

However, it’s somewhat infuriating when you stumble on people at every step acting like they are entitled to pester you until you agree to buy something from them. And if we do give in, if we end up being generous, we don’t bargain for anything, buy as much as we can carry... doesn’t that just encourage them to keep up this annoying habit of following you around, tapping you on the shoulder every time you stop and say “buy me” (they really meant to say “buy from me”).

The only other downside of the day trip was how overcrowded it was. I think it’s so easy sometimes to forget the historical and present value of the places we visit, of the cobble stones we step on, of the ruins we take pictures in front of and then frame to show we’ve been there. I sometimes think that the only reason I keep writing down all the details, smells, colors, textures I want to remember is so that I feel I took in as much as I could of the places and people that I have met, that I did not spend time and money to reach the same end goal as if I would have turned on the Travel Channel.

After Beijing we took the night train to Xi'an for the only purpose to see the terracotta Warriors, which were impressive in terms of historic value but that's that.

The overnight train was not too bad at all, even the toilets didn’t get much complaining from Jay and Tien who so far have been refusing to spend any night in a hotel with no western toilets.

When we reached Xi’an, it was gloomy enough that none of us were in the mood for a full day of walking around.

So, we got on a bus with some locals to pass the time since we had more than 12 hours to kill until the train for Chengdu. The tour bus we got on included six stops, out of which only one, the Terracotta Warriors, had any significance to us. The rest were a series of museums and Jade shops where we had no idea what we were looking at, given nobody spoke anything but Chinese.

Overall, it was too touristy, too hard to get a feel for the city since we could not communicate with anybody. The only English we realized they know in Xi'an, is foul language, since they were screaming it at us as we were passing them.

On the bright side of things though, others treat us like royalties, especially Jay and I, since we are minorities here. Women would randomly come up to us and without saying anything, put their kids in our lap, wait for us to put on a confused, uncomfortable smile and snap a picture. To give you an idea, in a span of couple hours, Jay and I had about 5 different families taking pictures with us...that's what I call super star treatment!

After Xi'an and two days with no access to a shower we took another night train to Chengdu where we spent the day just bumping around and planning the rest of the week.

I was expecting a small town, tucked away in the mountains with tea houses at every corner. We got another cosmopolitan center with excessive traffic and 50+ story buildings. So we knew it: was time to get out. We packed a few things and got on yet another bus heading for Emeishan where we spent three days.

Emeishan is one of the Five Great Mountains in China and only two hours from Chengdu. Tucked away throughout the trails are a couple dozen monasteries where you can spend the night and get a vegetarian meal.

First day we hiked through pouring rain looking out for the monkeys that we were cautioned against and spent the night at Hongchinping monastery, which though a little smelly had showers and some appetizing vegetable dishes.

Unfortunately, I found again that not speaking Chinese is a huge disadvantage since we are limited to talking amongst ourselves and can’t talk to any of the locals, except through Sen…but a lot gets lots in translation.

I woke up early enough to listen to the morning prayers from the inner courtyard as the mist was giving way to a fierce sun. The setting in the mountains, the mist, the growing sun piercing through the roof holes as I was squatting by the stairs leading to the altar, the monks’ voices echoing off the mountain seemed to be in perfect harmony, and it was just this harmony that made that morning divine for me (even now, writing this I still get goose bumps).

At the sunrise we set out for the second day of hiking...what is curious about this place is that the whole hike is just stairs, there are no other paths or alternatives which makes it daunting in a way but easier in terms that there was no chance we could get lost and were able to cover more ground.

Most of the hike was through a dense rain forest, coming on several unspoiled waterfalls, impressive vistas looking over the valley and verdant slopes dotted with red brick monastery roofs.

We encountered some monkeys along the way and I must say they had no reservations to get close and inspect if we had any food or not.

Ten hours later, after we had climbed the equivalent of a couple skyscrapers, we reached the Jinding Peak and the Golden Summit. As we all collapsed in the hotel lobby, the sounds of karaoke coming from the restaurant, not only my legs were hurting but my whole body so I knew it’s been a good day.

Back in Chengdu we booked another 3 day trip to Nine Villages (Jiuchaigou), which actually reminded me a lot of Romania and of our own mountains. The trip there took 12 hours by bus but it was mostly through scenic valleys with mountains reaching as high as 4500m.

Nine Villages is a valley in shape of a “Y”, with turquoise clear lakes surrounded by mountains. The entrance to the park is lined with hotels and restaurants charging exorbitant prices for anything from water to champagne.

Buses run up and down the park every few minutes and each of them has a tour guide that I can only assume gives a short history of the park (no guides speak anything else but Chinese).

The left hand of the “Y” is packed with tourists, especially at the Long Lake and Multi-colored pond. Packed at the point that you can’t event take a picture without being pushed around, screamed at, hit with umbrellas, etc.

The right hand side of the “Y” is much more enjoyable, and tourist free because it requires more walking around and following trails for a couple miles before getting to the real attractions. We roamed through on this side, saw the site of the famous “Hero” fight scene on the lake and managed to avoid most of the 10,000 tourists entering the park each day.

The culture here is said to be a mix between Tibetan and Chinese which was obvious in their "costumes" and looks as well: much tanner skin and round eyes, wearing the traditional earrings and one sleaved jackets.

We've been waking up at 5:30 for the past 6 days trying to make one bus or another, one park or another hike. I miss forks and being able to communicate with people, they speak so little English I was surprised. Is there any other country where you can be a tour guide without having any language skills?!? I guess only in a country as self sufficient and populous as China this could happen.