Nick's Worldwide Wanderings!

After two weeks of “off-the-beaten-track” travel on the Sichuan-Tibet Highway, I was ready to rejoin the tourist track once more. I wanted western food. I wanted beer. I wanted coffee. I wanted to speak English wherever I went. And most of all, I wanted to lay around all day without a care in the world…Yunnan province, China’s tourist Mecca, seemed the perfect place.

I never saw any of the tourist sights in Lijiang, my first stop in Yunnan, except for one, the famous “old town”. Then again, it was kind of hard not to visit that one, as almost every youth hostel and guesthouse in town was located inside it. Originally built more than 600 years ago, the old town stretches for kilometers in every direction, a twisting maze of cobbled streets, goldfish-filled cannels crossed by quaint little bridges, and more tea shops than one could possible desire. It is indeed a beautiful setting for my daily migration from the hotel room to the convenience store, and despite my intention not to see a single tourist sight I spend more than a few hours wandering through these lovely streets.

The only problem with Yunnan is the weather – it is too good! The sky is a brilliant blue each day, with barely a single cloud to be seen, and the afternoons are the perfect temperature for being outside, which is a shame for tired tourists who just want to spend the whole day inside. Every day, the sheer beauty of the weather forces me outside, to wander the old town or even take a bicycle out to one of the outlying villages, which is well worth the effort. The scenery on the way is as good as the weather, with the towering Jade Dragon Snow Mountain lying serenely in the distance, and the endless green fields and blue skies are a sight good enough to make even the weariest traveler glad that he got out of bed.

While in Lijiang, I decide to embark on one last adventure; hiking the length of the nearby Tiger Leaping Gorge, one of China’s most famous treks. I pack my bags with sunscreen, litres of water, and a huge amount of snickers bars, my absolute favourite hiking snack in the world. I have a map, I have a mobile phone and a first aid kit for emergencies. When I arrive at the gorge after a two hour bus trip from Lijiang, I have absolutely everything I might need…except I have forgot my money.

DAMN DAMN DAMN DAMN DAMN! I have a grand total of 110 yuan, but the 50 yuan entrance fee quickly brings that amount down to 60 yuan. One nights accommodation will cost 20 yuan, the bus back to the start of the trek will cost 20 yuan, and the bus back to Lijiang will cost 20 yuan…in short, I have absolutely no money left for the luxuries of the trek, like food and water. There is no ATM in town, not even at the bank for some reason. Margo, a lovely woman who runs a café at the beginning of the trek, suggests I go on anyway, sure that I will find someway to manage it along the way. I know if I go back to Lijiang to get my money, I will never come back here to try it again. It is now or never. I set off along the dusty path, penniless, with the mountains in the distance beckoning me toward them. Soon I forget my troubles, and lose myself completely in the stunning scenery of the gorge...

Of course, Margo knew exactly what would happen. From the moment I let news of my situation slip to another backpacker at one of the stops along the way, the news escapes into the general community, and I am surrounded by people offering to lend me the money. I accept gratefully, and continue my trek on a full stomach thanks to their hospitality.

By this point, I definitely need it, as the trek is far more demanding, and far less touristy, than I had assumed. The high point of the trek is a lofty 2600m altitude, reached by climbing a full vertical kilometre in one day up the winding mountain path, and I am completely exhausted before I am even halfway. By the time I haul my lifeless body to the top though, it is completely worth it; the vista is amazing, from the raging Yangtze river snaking through the canyon some 1000m below, to the soaring, snow-capped mountains reaching impossibly high into the sky above, and the sight of an unbroken wall reaching from so far below to so far above is like nothing I have ever seen before. I stand at Tiger-Leaping Stone at sunset, looking out over the gorge, and all is quiet, except for the puffing of my breath.

After the sun sinks behind the gorge, an even more beautiful sight begins to manifest. With the sun gone and the moon not yet out to play, the night now belongs to the stars, who put on the most dazzling display I have ever seen in my life. At high altitude, with no moon, no clouds, and no pollution, not to mention almost no moisture, it is like nothing I have ever seen before; thousands, millions of stars crammed into every possible piece of sky, shining and shimmering majestically. The galaxies and planets float above, blocked only by the sillhoutte of the sleeping mountains; all of a sudden, I feel very small. The next day the stars disappear, there is just as impressive a sight to wake up to; the strangest clouds I have ever soon are hovering over the mountains. We eat breakfast slowly, as backpackers always do, and by the time we are ready to go the clods have dispersed, leaving the sky perfectly, endlessly blue once more.

As we walk, the terrain around the track is endlessly changing. We pass through a bamboo forest populated by mountain goats, wander through villages, find surreal white-sand cove and climb our way over boulders and obstacles along the way. I had assumed that the trail for Tiger Leaping Gorge, given that it is a big tourist attraction now, would be quite modernised and tame, like the endless stone staircase of Tai Shan, but this is not the case. The trail is nothing more than a tiny dirt track, maintained only by the steady flow of horses along it, with no amenities whatsoever to protect hikers from the elements. The first element that we have problems with is the wind, as we arrive at an exposed edge over the cliff-face. Earlier in the trek, we had heard what sounded like thunder, inexplicable on a clear and sunny day, but now we realized what it was. This was the noise of the colossal gusts of wind sweeping through the canyon, with such force that they create a thunder-clap, and it seems we are now in the middle of one. Holding our sunglasses and hats firmly, we proceed around the exposed bend, at one stage having to take cover under a rock like a platoon of soldiers under fire, before summoning up the courage to make a dash around the corner to safety. Later, we are attacked once again, this time by water, in the form of a colossal waterfall which has decided to include a section of the trail in its path down to the river below. Fortunately we make it to the other side with nothing more than wet shoes, and take the opportunity to fill up our water bottles and cover ourselves in the sweet, cool mineral water flowing past us, a treat on this warm, sunny day.

Eventually we begin to descend, and before we know it we are at the treks end, after two sweaty days of trekking. Funnily enough, it is the end of the trek where the scenery is the most spectacular, as the gorge itself opens up and is visible from the track at last. The scale of the vista is mind-boggling; from the mountain peaks, kilometres high, the rock face drops sharply all the way to the level of us mere mortals, pausing for an instant before delving endlessly further to meet the river below. Against this sheet of unbroken rock, kilometres high, everything else looks tiny, and us backpackers feel like ants lost in a world of giants.

This landscape of giants is a fitting farewell, for this will be my last adventure in China. Soon, I am headed to Kunming, to meet my travelling companion Alex once again, to prepare for a much longer journey.

Alex and I pack our bags, say our goodbyes to the friendly locals here in Kunming, and board a sleeper bus which will take not only to the border of China, but well past it, into neighbouring Laos and all the wonders of Southeast Asia, all in a mere 28 hours. The bed is too short and the movies they play are terrible, but the sheer novelty of having a bed on the highway makes it all worthwhile. On the way, I have plenty of time that night to reminisce about all my wanderings in China...From Beijing in the North to Hong Kong in the South, from Shanghai in the East to Litang in the West; From Mao’s portrait over Tiananmen Square to the window seat of the Victoria Tram, from the glitter of The Bund to the empty plains of the Tibetan Plateau; from Peking Duck to Dim-Sum, from Fried Rice to Grilled Yak; and most importantly, from new friend to new friend, as both travellers and locals showered me with kindness and generosity wherever I went. When I am finished saying my silent thankyou's, I look from the road behind to the road ahead, and wonder just what adventures await me in the future. As we leave the bus, I find a broken stone on the ground, the last marker of the highway, announcing that we are 3038km away from the China’s capital, at the end of the road at last. I cross over the border into Laos, and start again at kilometer zero. One journey finishes, another begins…

Our bus heads up another huge mountain, winding its way gradually higher and higher, reaching closer and closer to sky. We have been over many mountains already on this eight hour bus trip, but this one is different. When we reach the peak of the mountain, we are greeted by an amazing sight. There is no other side to this mountain, and the bus never descends; we have reached the top of the Tibetan Plateau. The scenery, previously dotted with gigantic peaks, is now strangely flat, with the bald, treeless hills rolling softly and gently into the distance, and perfectly plains stretching all the way to the horizon. The very ground itself is a mountain top, and the clouds drift by so close to the plateau you could almost touch them.

After hours of crossing these bare plains, we spot the first sign of civilization; the small town of Litang, our home for the next several days. The setting of the town could not be more beautiful, sandwiched between huge, snow-capped mountains in one direction and rolling hills in the other, with nothing but perfectly flat plateau-land seperating them. The buildings look strangely small in this huge landscape, meekly standing in the corner, dwarfed by the majesty of the scenery surrounding them.

At 4000m high, we were told Litang would be a freezing cold place, especially in the late autumn. Having worn all my best animal-hair coats and woollen beanies, the first thing I end up doing once getting off the bus is taking all my layers off! Though the air might be cold, the sun at this altitude is blazing hot, and in the middle of the day there is not a single cloud to break the sun's tyranny. As we set about exploring the city, we do so in jeans and a t-shirt, but still carry our jackets in case we find ourselves in the shade.

Our first stop is the main street of Litang, which is colourful to say the least. Maroon-robed monks make their down the road, as do Tibetan men and women wearing anything from denim jeans to cowboy hats to traditional fur-lined robes. Passing yaks are by no means occasional, and seem to enjoy walking up and down the main street, stopping occasionally to look into the shop windows, perhaps thinking of buying something. Most of the shops seem to be hand-making jewellery, quietly engraving patterns into gold-leaf, or welding metal sheets together in the open air. Even the streets themselves are beautiful; almost every door is a work of art, with intricate patterns decorating the walls. People of all ages would greet me on the street, from one year old babies goggling at me from their mother's arms to old men waving to me from the windows of their houses. Most people stick with the standard "Tashi Dele", but some like to show off their English skills by greeting me with "Hello", "Nice to meet you", "Okay!", "Thankyou!", or "I love you!".

Walking off the main street for a few blocks, the buildings thin out, the road turns to dirt, and the city finally fades away into...nothing. A vast plain, without so much as a single tree or building on it, stretches infinitely to the mountains far in the distance, with only a few munching yaks to break the bare monotony of its surface. For the next several days, it becomes my favourite hobby to join the yaks in their wanderings, mulling around the plain in the evening as my shadow grows longer and longer. I never get very far however; it seems that whenever I walk near one of the small earth-coloured buildings scattered near the city, a family waves me over and invites me inside. These families are generally yak herders, and the first thing I am greeted with upon entering their home is huge chunks of yak meat lying on the floor, waiting to be sold at the markets. They serve me endless cups of yak butter tea, boiling it in the simplest way; just place the kettle inside a parabolic mirror, and wait until the scorching sun turns it glowing white and smoking. The first thing most people want to talk about is the Dalai Lama, who is regarded very highly in these parts; it is illegal, or at least not wise, to have a picture of the Dalai Lama, as this is still a part of China, but in the confines of their home they at least have the freedom to say whatever they like about him. Some of the men have even been to Dharamsala, the home of the Tibetan government in exile, where many of them learnt English. They tell me their stories, and I tell them with mine, as we sit and sip tea until the sun dips below the mountains.

Though the mountains in the distance are by far the most breathtaking part of Litang's surroundings, it is the hills behind the city that prove to be the most fascinating. The most obvious feature of these hills is a huge monastic complex, filled to the brim with copper and gold Tibetan statues carved in the most amazing detail, and intricate paintings currently being completed by the local monastic population. A thousand stupas line the walls, while in the centre, the main halls of the lamasery rise high into the sky, crowned by a huge golden image of the eightfold wheel. The monastery is not the only spiritual place in the region though; a number of small monuments dot the area, with piles of prayer flags, statues, carvings and scriptures, and even the shabbiest looking buildings seem to serve as warehouses for the spiritual treasures of this region.

However, no temple, monastery or mountain of prayer flags will remain in our minds as vividly as a bare patch of earth hidden amongst the hills surrounding the city. Though there is nothing to look at, this is indeed a sacred site; it is the site of the Sky Burials, an ancient ritual central to the Tibetan religion of this region. Such sites exist all over Tibet, but are almost impossible to visit in Tibet itself; in Litang, witnessing a Sky Burial is suprisingly easy. We rise early one morning and set out toward the hills, for what will prove to be, without hyperbole, the most incredible experience of our lives.

The contrast with a western funeral is striking, even before the burial begins. The people attending are gathered around a campfire, drinking beers together and grilling food for breakfast as they wait for the lama to arrive, strangely relaxed for a funeral. When the Lama does arrive, and the mood becomes slightly more sombre; there is silence as he brings the body out, punctuated only by the noise of the large birds circling high above. There is no procession of palbearers, no funeral march, just a potato sack with the body inside, the head lolling sickeningly from side to side...Then they heave it out, naked, on the dusty, sun-parched plain. I had expected an old man, killed peacefully by the slow advance of old age, but instead the body that comes out before me is that of a 20 year old woman, only two years older than me, who died the previous night in a car accident. I am shaken already, and the burial has not even begun.

The Lama begins chanting as he removes his knife, which he first uses to cut her long, black hair. I look away for the next part; after the hair, he takes the scalp as well, cutting away the skin all the way to the skull. Then comes the rest of the body, which he cuts into efficiently and with little hesitation, slicing open first the torso, then the hands and arms, then the legs and feet. While we watch silently, a much noisier crowd is gathering near us. Huge vultures, as big as eagles, are gathering nearby in huge numbers, watching the procession with great interest.

Soon the Lama moves away from the body, and the moment the vultures have been waiting for arrives. I take a few steps back to avoid getting in the way of the torrent of birds streaming toward the cut-up body, completely blocking it from view in the feeding frenzy that follows. It is not until the Lama shoos the last of the birds away that we can behold the terrible efficiency of these creatures; after about five minutes, what was once a woman's body is now a skeleton, with not a scrap of flesh remaining.

They are not finished yet, however. The Lama then proceeds to take the bones, place them on a block of stone one by one, and smash them with an axe, breaking the marrow out from the centre of them. Eventually he reaches the last of the bones, the skull, which he breaks with a few carefully aimed hits, then proceeds to open, removing the brain from inside. The brain, and the skull itself are then similiarly mashed up, until there is nothing left of the skeleton but what looks like a pile of red dirt. The vultures quickly resume their place, and soon even these remains have vanished, and what was once a human body has now disappeared completely from the face of the earth.

Many consider this practice to be nothing more than grotesque barbarism, as is the case for the Chinese government, who banned it for several decades before finally relenting. To attempt to understand a sky burial however, one must first attempt to understand the Tibetan people themselves. Tibetan buddhist beliefs maintain that the body is nothing more than a vessel for the spirit, and once the spirit has left it people should not remain attached to the empty sack of flesh by revering it or attempting to preserve it. Another important part of Buddhism in general is the virtue of compassion, and it is believed that by donating one's own body for food after death, the person not only performs a good dead but also gains good karma, which ensures a better rebirth in the next life.

Naturally, the images stick in my mind for many days after, and I have plenty of time to ponder what I have seen while wandering around the bare surface of the plateau. I look to the city, where a woman walked just days ago; and to the hills, where a patch of dirt still bears the smattering of dust that used to be her body. When I die, will I be anything more? The Western process of burial may be nicer about it, and a lot slower, but the end result is still the same; whether buried, cremated, or devoured by hungry vultures, one's body inevitably decays and crumbles, until it is no more than dust.

Sunset now, and Alex and I are on a mini-van once more, off the Sichuan-Tibet highway and onto a dusty road headed to the province of Yunnan. Our vehicle seems to rise into the very heavens themselves, floating to the 5000m mark over snow-covered mountain passes, on the very top of the roof of the world. The sun sets in distance, but at the very same time, the moon rises in the opposite direction, and we make the rest of our journey by the soft glow of the full moon, bathing the surreal scenery in silky white light. We eventually descend from this heavenly afterlife back to realm of the living, arriving in a city named Shangri-La. This town is nothing but a tourist town; I am sure the real Shangri-La lies hundreds of kilometres behind us. I sleep soundly that night, my mind filled with images of the place I have just left. Over the mountains, Litang too is sleeping soundly; the yaks munchquietly, the Lamas rest within the monastery walls, the vultures feed their young, the prayer flags blow silently on the hilltop, and the long dusty road stretches endlessly into the distance...as I fall asleep that night, I know there is no place I have been luckier to travel to than Litang, and no road I have been more blessed to travel than the Sichuan-Tibet Highway.

Mention Tibet to any traveller in China, and their eyes will light up. The roof of the world, a mysterious land of grazing yaks, chanting lamas, and plains stretching far into the distance, as endless as the clear sky above...the perfect destination for adventurous travellers. There's only one problem; adventurous travellers rarely have any money, and going to tibet now seems to require a lot of it. Since the government re-opened Tibet to foreigners, their policy has been that they only allow give permits to those travelling with tour groups, where one must pay hundreds of dollars a day for the pleasure of being herded around Lhasa by a person with a flag and megaphone. Like most travellers, when I heard this I gave up, and resigned the dream of travelling to the roof of the world to just another dream...

But there is still a way into Tibet for budget travellers. The Chinese government's cartographers made a slight mistake when drawing the borders of Tibet, seemingly forgetting the entire Eastern third of the Tibetan Plateau. Known to the Tibetan as "Kham", this region has all the yaks, lamas and endless plains one could ever dream of, and is populated almost entirely by ethnic Tibetans, but as far as the government is concerned, this is all part of Sichuan province, not Tibet. The door to Tibet may have been closed for me, but it seems a window has been left open...I meet a travelling companion, Alex, a 22 year-old Chicagoian, and together we pack our bags in Chengdu, and set out along the Sichuan-Tibet highway.

"Welcome to Tibet" says a cowboy-hat-wearing man in the grocery store. After eight hours of clinging perilously to a cliff-face, we have arrived in our first stop in the Wild West, a small town called Kangding, but which this man would probably call by its Tibetan name, Dardo. Is this Tibet? I cannot help but feel that we have indeed entered a very different land. The ambling rivers of Chengdu have given way to the raging, freezing, ice-blue streams making their way back toward civilization, and the dusty hills have given way to towering mountains, stretching high into the clear blue skies above.

Naturally, the first thing we want to do is gaze awe-struck at the scenery, and there is a hill conveniently right next to the town for just this purpose. At the top comes a sign that we are not out of China just yet; a ticket booth on the top of the mountain, demanding an entry fee to access the peak. Fortunately, they offer student admission at a far reduced price. Unfortunately for me though, I have no student card. However, I have the ability to convince her I am a student by other means. When she asks for a student card, I reach into my money belt and pull out my passport. "Here is my student card" I say to her in Chinese. She scrutinizes it closely; yep, it does indeed have a picture of me on it, and a lot of fancy looking holographics. It must be a student card then. Alex is more honest, and gives her his International Student Card, the gold standard of student admission worldwide. She refuses it, and in the end he gets out his passport as well, which seems to satisfy the woman.

Like almost every mountain around here, this mountain has a great religious significance to the local residents, which they have celebrated by dotting the entire area with Tibetan Prayer flags, which seem to be manufactured in their millions. On the top of the mountain, a Chorta (Tibet style Buddhist Stupa) stands majestically, looking out over the mountains above, and the valley below.

And the scenery is not the only thing to get excited about. After all the plastic, disneyland feel of Chinese cultural sites, the Tibetan culture in these parts feels refreshingly authentic, as we discover on our first trip to a Tibetan Lamasery. Instead of shuttle buses running backward and forward, we reach Nanwu temple by foot, following a dusty dirt trail up a hillside, guided by a rusty sign. Instead of the noise of herds of Chinese tourists being led around by a shepherd with a megaphone, we are alone with the silence of the inner sanctum, punctuated only by the gentle chanting of a nun in the corner. Instead of an astronomical entrance fee, we are free to leave a few yuan at the foot of the statue of Maitreya buddha as we quietly take in the statues and murals surrounding us. And instead of bored looking security guards, we are greeted by maroon robed monks, who give a friendly "Tashi Dele!" to the foreigners wandering through their home and temple. Bright blue and green deities smile serenely from the roof high above, and Tibet suddenly doesn't seem so far away after all...

There is more to this region than just the Tibetan culture however. Another civilization, the Qiang, once lived here, and their descendants and the relics they left behind still remain in the villages dotting the hillsides. Danba, a four hour bus ride from Kanding, contains the most stunning of these, a collection of huge, thousand year old watchtowers, and archaeologists have had a merry time trying to figure out why they were built and what purpose they actually served. Getting to these watchtowers is as easy as catching a taxi, so long as you are prepared to accept the blatant extortion of the taxi drivers in these parts, who will ask for 40 yuan to cover the same distance that would cost you 3 yuan in the city. I decide to walk instead, and set off from the edge of the city toward a village some 7kms along the mountain road, eventually reaching the village of Suopo.

The village itself is picture-perfectly rustic, with plenty of mud-brick walls and fortress-like stone buildings, and all the pigs, oxes, winding dirt paths and mountains of corn one could possibly desire. On my way through the village, a small boy with his puppy introduces himself to me. Luckily, he speaks Chinese, as I have no idea how to communicate in the Qiang language used around these parts, and he offers to show me the way to the guard-towers. When we reach the watchtower itself, the boy offers to show me inside. Inside the thousand year old watchtowers? It seems that anything is possible for this young lad, and he and his friends quickly find the guy with the key and show me in.

The inside of the watchtowers is an archaeologist's dream. Every aspect of the watchtowers has been left exactly how it used to be, with floors made of nothing but dirt and hay, ladders consisting of a single log with slits cut into it, and historical relics scattering the floor from place to place. The kids run around the place enthusiastically, climbing up and down the ladders while showing me the sights on all the different floors. Here is the kitchen, with hand-made pottery still lying about like so much rubbish. Here is the bedroom, with the yak-skin blankets still waiting dutifully to be used by the guards. Here is the temple, with six-hundred year old buddhist paintings lining the walls. Here is the watchtower, and the spot where the guards used to sit and while away the night...Using my iPod as a torch, the kids explore some of darker corners in this ancient watchtower for the first time, having the time of their lives. Archaeologists may not know what these towers were originally built for, but I know what they are used for today; this is China's most ancient playground, a maze of ladders, corridors and secret rooms which would keep any child entertained for weeks.

Of course, there is more to our travels in this region than just one amazing adventure after another, and with travelling off the beaten track we inevitably meet the trials that go with it. The first, and most obvious, is the cold. Appropriate clothing helps; after my first day of shivering a lot, I promptly go out and buy a beanie, a scarf, a set of thick thermals, a pair of gloves, a pair of socks so woolly they let off sparks when I turn them inside out, and an animal-hair jacket which smells strongly of yak. The food here also helps; cups of sweet, salty yak butter tea, and bowls filled with tough, chewy yak meat, and plenty of restaurants specializing in Sichuan's most famous dish, tongue-scaldingly spicey hot-pot.

The bus rides are another frequent trial. The "Sichuan-Tibet Highway" is more of a small mountain road than a smooth black freeway, and many parts of the road are potholed beyond recognition. The bus driver does his best to avoid them, swerving this way and that as he rockets around the mountain bends, but when combined with the hairpin turns of the cliff-side road, one has a sure recipe for mass motion-sickness. The people with a window seat vomit out the windows. The ones without a window do so in plastic bags or even just on the floor of the bus, as is the case for the child next to me on one of the trips, forcing me to breath through my mouth for the next few hours. Some of the Tibetans on the bus distract themselves by chanting quietly, whilst the bus driver does so by playing his favourite Chinese techno-pop tracks at full volume. I need nothing to distract myself with, as I am fully preoccupied with the beauty of the mountain scenery drifting by my window, which makes all the chaos inside the bus worthwhile. Each early morning yields another amazing mountain sunrise, and each windy, bumpy, noisy, smelly bus trip is a journey through paradise, taking us further and further into the wonders of the Wild West.

After leaving Pingyao, I head toward Xi'an, the Mecca of historical China. Once the site of the ancient city of Chang'an, which was the capital of the nation during some of China's most amazing historical periods, modern day Xi'an is so awash with history you need a snorkle just to try to breath above it all. Or so I had heard. To be honest, no matter how I tried to look at the city, I could not see it as anything other than disappointing.

Firstly, the city itself. I was disappointed to find out that Xi'an is not actually the ancient Chang'an, but rather another city rebuilt on Chang'an's ashes. The newer city of Xi'an does quite a few drawcards, some left over from Chang'an, like the big goose pagoda, and some being a part of the newer city, such as the city walls. Unfortunately, whatever beauty these places might have had was completely taken away by the pollution, which was far worse than that encountered in Beijing, settling like a grim fog over the entire city for the entire duration of my stay. I refuse to take photos of anything; even the most beautiful city walls are ugly when covered in thick grey smog.

Luckily, however, Xi'an's biggest drawcard is actually not within the city itself, in a valley located far away from the smog belching power plants. The real reason most people make the trip out to Xi'an is to see the Terracotta Warriors, commonly ranking alongside the Great Wall and the Forbidden City as one of Chinese most amazing sights, and a definite must-see on any traveller's list. Upon leaving, I am absolutely mystified as to why this is.

Ok, I knew there were going to be a heap of Chinese tourists yelling and pushing. And I knew that it would be overpriced ($20 just to get in, 5 nights worth of accomodation in China), and that people would be trying to sell me things at every possible opportunity. I didn't even mind that the warriors themselves were actual reconstructions from tiny smashed up peices, or that the paint had long ago faded and left them stripped of many of their more interesting features. All I expected was warriors, lots and lots of terracotta warriors stretching into the distance as far as the eye could see. I saved the biggest cave for last, expecting to be at least mildly awed by the sight before me...to find a mildly large grouping of soldiers, perhaps a thousand, with only the bare dirt stretching into the distance. Disappointed, I quickly found a tour guide to point out some of the more subtle features of the statues in order to make it more interesting, who explained to me that the vast majority of the 8000 warriors were still unexcavated, in order to preserve them for future generations. I shall make a note to come back in a few hundred years...

My next stopover proves to be more rewarding. The same rulers who had Datong as their capital eventually moved to Luoyang, and here too they carried on their cave-building, resulting in yet another truly stunning series of cave art. Keen to avoid disappointment, I try to get to this one early to avoid the masses of Chinese tour groups which will no doubt descend on the place during the day. Luckily, the caves are for some reason open from 6:30am, and I get up at sunrise to catch a glimpse of the statues in the early morning. By the time I arrive it is 7:30, and I assume I am already to late to catch the statues at their most serene. However, upon arriving, I find that I seem to be the only person keen to take advantage of the early opening hours, and I almost have to wake the ticket collector up to buy my ticket, to be the first person to enter the caves that day. It is a truly amazing experience. A UNESCO world heritage sight, all to myself. No yelling tourists, no flashing photographs...standing inside with the 1500 year old Buddha's, the caves are serene once more.

It is an hour before the tourists start to show up. It is no exaggeration to say that, in the still morning air, they could be heard a kilometre away. There is something about Chinese tour groups that is infinitely worse than those found at most tourist sights around the world. Firstly, the Chinese tourists themselves tend to be more boistreous than their Western counterparts, yelling loudly and spitting on the paths whenever the opportunity presents itself. Secondly, they always travel in huge groups, neccesitating a tour guide with a loud megaphone in order to give the explanation to the group. Thirdly, they are always in a hurry, which means that they cut their way through every tourist sight with an efficiency and brutality that makes most slowly ambling backpackers like myself cringe. By the middle of the day, the place is overrun.

Luckily, however, there is more than one cave in this complex...2345 to be exact. Having seen the key sights, I now roam about the smaller caves which the tour groups have no time for. Standing before the ancient buddha statues, one can capture a glimpse of the spirituality they still manage to retain amongst all the chaos.

The tour groups are rushing through in order to get to the regions other major attraction before dinner time. Their destination is the Shaolin Temple, and, grudgingly, I follow them. I do not go to the temple directly however, but spend a few days in the nearby town of Dengfeng instead. Shaolin may have the fame and prestige, but it is the hills around Dengfeng where most of the kung-fu training is actually done. I spend many an afternoon wandering around this region, taking part in the local pastime of watching the students train. I am far less able to blend in with the scenery than they are however, and many of the students attempt to shout "Hello!" in my direction in between the punches and kicks of their routines.

Having heard the stories of a few ex-students in Beijing, I know that the life of these young kung-fu disciples is anything but easy. Day after day, month after month, of physical training of the most intense variety, with perfectionist teachers demanding not only technical and athletic skill, but also flexbility of the variety that makes the splits seem like a comfortable sitting position. Injuries are quite common; indeed, the students I met in Beijing were ex-students because of crippling injuries they had received during training. But whilst the physical training is nothing short of gruelling, its seems that the mental and spiritual training, once the most integral part of Shaolin Kung-fu, has now been all but forgotten. It is a performance art, an athletic art, and students come here not seeking enlightenment so much as a cut of the huge profits made from Shaolin Kung-Fu shows and demonstrations.

The temple itself only serves to reinforce my image of Shaolin. After paying a huge fee to get into the temple, I find the shaolin temple itself almost laughably overrated. Having been burnt down so many times over the years, much of the buildings are simply modern reconstructions, with dates like "1972" and "1994" inscribed into them. Except for one hall in the back, which has survived since the Ming dynasty. Here, I notice the brick floors have several indentations in them, which are said to be the places where the students feet rested as they performed their kung-fu, gradually wearing down the bricks through thousands upon thousands of kicks and stomps. Perhaps real kung-fu did exist here once before...

Shaolin is said to be the origin of Kung-fu, but more accurately Kung-fu is said to have originated from Bodhidharma, an Indian Buddhist monk who made his way here in the 6th century AD. After spending 9 years meditating in a cave nearby, Bodhidharma invented a system of spiritual exercise to give the monks the physical strength to support their long periods of meditation. And as if creating the world's most influential form of martial arts wasn't enough for him, Bodhidharma also used his profound insights during his period of meditation to form the Ch'an sect of buddhism, later to become known as Zen. Fed up with the temple itself, I begin a hike up into the mountains to see the cave where it all began...

Naturally, climbing this mountain has to involve stairs, as absolutely every tourist sight worth visiting in China does. But an hour or so later, the scenery is definitely well worth the effort...from the peak, one can see the holy mountains surrounding the temples, the fields beyond, and even hear the slightest sound of the din of tourists flocking below. Inside Bodhidharma's cave however, all is quiet. You would think that the cave where Zen began, the cave where Kung-fu began, would be one of China's premier tourist attractions, but the lack of cable car means only an intrepid few ever bother to come see it. Inside, a nun quietly tends to an altar of Bodhidharma's statue, and welcomes me inside to pray there. No guard rails here, no tourist crowds...just me and a nun, chatting away about nothing in particular, in the very same cave where silence reigned for 9 years. Afterwards, I climb to the peak to greet the huge statue of Bodhidharma sitting on the top of the mountain, sternly looking out at the amazing scenery surrounding him.

I head back down to the temple itself around sunset, to check off two more items on my standard-tourist-route checklist. The first is the pagoda forest, the one place where the authentic history of the temple has survived. Over the centuries, pagodas where built here for exceptional abbots and monks, and what survives today is a true forest of pagodas, dating from the 6th century AD all the way until modern times.

The second thing on my list is to get a classic Kung-fu photo, and as luck would have it there is a group of students providing just that. The gold clad Bruce-Lee's of the future strike their poses in front of the Shaolin gate, offering passer-bys the perfect photo opportunity.

Leaving Shaolin, I head for the last destination on my trip. For the end of my journey, I arrive at the beginning of Chinese history; Zhengzhou, the capital city during the China's first dynasty in around 1500 BC. The city itself is now thoroughly modern, except for one peculiarity; a long, high mound of dirt cuts its way through the city, the remnants of the ancient city wall. A wall which stood silently when the first Buddha statue was carved, when Bodhidharma first emerged from his cave into the cool mountain air, when the first thought of a terracotta army crossed the emperors mind... As I walk along it now, the ancient wall still stands silently, looking out over the modern city while the cars and motorbikes whiz around it. The earth spins, the sun sets...another day of history is complete.

History sees every cilivization rise and fall, and China is no excpetion. Though now perceived by many to be the next great world power, it is easy to forget that just a few decades ago China was in every way a 3rd world country. But this is not the first sweepeing transformation to effect China; in ages past, the Chinese people have experienced everything from decades of civil war and abject poverty, to centuries of being the most civilized, cultured, advanced and powerful nation on earth. Far from the modern capital, the ancient works of this great civilization lie dotted around the landscape, just waiting for me to go in search of them.

My first stop is the dusty town of Datong, about an hour from the Inner Mongolian border. Like many small towns in China, ultra-rapid dvelopment has left Datong hanging in the balance between the rural village it once was and the modern city it is trying to become, with taxis blaring and honking past each other while the donkeys drag their carts obligingly alongside. The quirks of the town itself are not what I am there to see however; moments after arriving, I meet two German law students who study in Hong Kong, and together we leave on a road trip toward the dusty hills.

The scenery on the way is nothing short of magnificent, with vast dry plains and canyons announcing our proximity to Inner Mongolia, and the villages we pass on the way blend in with the dusty tones, looking more African than Chinese. Our taxi driver doesn't speak a lot of English, but makes up for it by smiling a lot. Even after we leave the city, he continues to use the same "driving a pregnant woman about to give birth to the hospital" driving technique taught to every Chinese taxi driver, regularly attempting to overtake on blind corners and speeding around precarious canyon bends with a recklessness that suggested he was a rally driver in a past life. If anyone reading this is planning a trip to these parts, learning to say "Watch out there's a huge truck speeding right towards us" in Mandarin would be time well spent.

Having safely arrived at our destination, we headed into the ancient Buddhist caves of Yungang to pray for safety on the next leg of our journey. Though it may not be readily apparent today, Datong was in fact once the capital city of China during the Northern Wei dynasty, during the 5th century AD, during which the government converted to buddhism and constructed a vast series of Buddhist caves to prove their faith.

I step through the threshold between light and darkness, into the hallowed twilight of the first cave. Upon entering, I find myself surrounded by statues of all size and shape, from the angelic Asparas on the roof far above to the legions of serene stone buddhas and bodhisattvas carved into the rock face, with a few stone murals depicting events in the Buddha's life thrown in for good measure. I am told that the cave contains an amazing mixture of artistic styles, with influences from India, Persia, and even Greece, a legacy of trade from the silk road, but most of the subtleties are lost on me. Like most tourists here I am simply amazed by the scale, grandeur, and beauty of the statues themselves. The variety of statues depicted is amazing, ranging in size from the tiny niches covering the "thousand buddha cave" (though I didn't count) to the 17m high Shakyamuni looking down upon us mere mortals, to the hundreds and thousands (51,000, I am told) of other statues of disciples and enlightened beings cut into the stone walls. They make no effort to acknowledge me as I leave; they just sit there, meditating, as they have been for over a thousand years, and as I expect they will until the day I die, and then long after.

Our next destination is a bit more far flung, and the taxi driver resorts to loud music to keep him alert. Not the syrupy Chinese pop we are used to however, but rather one continuous track of Indian sounding music (although the driver assures us it is French), carrying on for hours without the singer drawing so much as a single breath. Then again, what is a road trip without music?

Having left civilization behind long ago, we head further and further into the horizon, winding our way through looming granite peaks as we make our way to our destination, the secluded Hanging Monastery. Situated in a valley surrounded by towering mountains in every direction, the monastery was once a place of withdrawal and isolation for its resident Buddhist-Confucian-Taoist monks. However, they made the mistake of constructing it on the granite cliff-face itself, hanging precariously on wooden beams, which centuries later proved to be such a hit with tourists that the place would never be quiet and secluded again. Like many Chinese tourist attractions, it bears a striking resemblance to disneyland; overpriced, overcrowded and stripped of any cultural integrity. We take our photos and leave as quickly as possible. The Indian music begins once more, and we are off to our next destination.

The taxi driver is always keen to show us his cunning in avoiding speed cameras and police cars, so I am hardly suprised when, grinning, he points to the tollgate ahead before making a turn off into a nearby corn field. As we drive through the most amazingly disintegrated roads I have ever seen, we pass a few farmers hand-picking the corn in their field. The scene is gorgeously rustic, and we ask the taxi driver to stop for a moment. No doubt already amused at the sight of a taxi struggling through their corn-fields, having three curious looking foreigners pop their heads out the window and ask for a photo proves too hilarious for them to contain themselves. They are still laughing as our taxi drives out of the field to rejoin the highway on the other side of the toll gate, no doubt with a good story to tell their families that night.

We make our way back to Datong, and leave the city just as quickly as we arrived, on a sleeper train heading South.

When I groggily emerge from the train the next morning, I am in Pingyao, another famous historical city. Here no road trip is neccesary, as the city itself is the main attraction. Unlike many of China's other Ming and Qing dynasty cities, Pingyao had the good fortune not to be bulldozed and turned into apartment locks, and as a result is left today much the same way it has been for centuries. My rickety "taxi" takes me throgh the ancient city walls, marking the coundary between the modern city, and all its concrete and white tiles, and into a very different world of narrow laneways, rustic wooden buildings and swaying lanterns.

Finding history in this city is as simple as checking into your hotel. With the abundance of historical buildings, it is simply not possible to find accomodation anywhere less than one hundred years old. For $6 a night, I stay in a room on the second story of a beautiful courtyard home, which used to belong to the governor of the region, looking more like a temple than a backpackers' hostel. Walking two steps ourside the door of the hostel, I am standing in the middle of a street that looks like a movie set. Such is the beauty of Pingyao.

However, though the main streets may have immense superficial beauty, it does not take long to see the effect that tourism has had on the city. The streets are lined with centuries-old buildings, but almost all have been converted to souvenier stands, and above the swaying lanters blowing in front of beautiful curved roofs make for a fantastic photo, but are almost certainly modern additions to make it look more picturesque, part of the Chinese government's attempts to turn the city into another of its infamous Disneylands.

Leave the main streets however, and it is a very different story indeed. Hopelessly lost one day, I somehow manage to leave the main streets and walk all the way to the outskirts of the city, and find myself in a neighbourhood where the developers and tourists have not yet reached. Here, walnut-skinned farmers lie their produce our on the stone paths for the sun to dry, while in the corners and on the rooftops, huge piles of corn from harvest lie waiting to be sorted. There are none of the movie-set curved roofs and swaying lanterns here; the buildings are all made of stone, with flat square rooftops acting as courtyards for storing produce in. Many of the buildings and streets are in a state of disrepair, with some homes completely collapsed, but still these muddy dirt streets and piles of rubble feel much more like the "town that time forgot" than the shiny movie-set main streets.

In the streets the children sit quietly doing their homework, and upon seeing a foreigner they come alive, souting "Hello! Welcome!" to the smiling figure aimlessly wandering through their streets. Even the wedding procession I stumble upon seems overjoyed to have a lost foreigner in attendance; people wave to me from the back tray of a truck making its way through the dirt streets, occasionally letting off firecrackers loud enough to set off the car alarms in the streets nearby. It seems that an old neighbourhood is not neccesarily a quiet neigbourhood.

Later that evening, I accidentally find what appears to be an unguarded path onto the famous city walls, which are normally accessible only buy an extraordinarily pricey entrance ticket. Once I have clambered on, I amble around the walls until sunset, to capture a few more of my "ancient-wall-stretching-into-the-distance" photos and look out over the city below. Around the centre of the city is the picture-perfect view of ancient China, an endless complex of beautiful curved rooftops...which are still under construction. On the outskirts of the city lies the true ancient China, piles of corn sit on crumbling stone rooftops, the people quietly living out their traditional way of life below...