Oops- I guess that was the punchline!
but yep, we're leaving tomorrow morning at 9:10am. To Lhasa form Zhongdian (where we are now), its simple to travel and get permits, and while we need to say we are part of a group, a group of 2 or even 1 is ok, and more people speak English in Lhasa than in the other parts of China where we've been! So here we go.
You may remember that no less tha n4 days ago we said we'd be offline for 10 days. Plans change. Well, the truth is that after 2 nights in Tiger leaping Gorge, we decended to a small town (10 homes) where we thought we'd be able to find a guide to lead us for an additional 2 or 3 day hike, and discovered that (1) the hike was super wicked steep, and (2) the guy who knows about guide was well, as my dad would put it, "mean spirited" and we didn't want to deal with him. So we split a car with 4 Israelis and 2 british foreign corrospondants to go back to the town where our hike originated. From here we were told we could go to Zhongdian, where we are now.
But I want to tell more about the British foreign corrospondants. I think they might be famous. Of course I cant' remember their last names, but one is the cheif economics editor for China, Hong Kong and Taiwan for Reuters (which is mostly a financial news source), and the other is the woman on the ground in China for the London times (at first she said "the times" and we said oh, the New york times? and her husband kinda smirked and said "no. The ORIGINAL times". and us: "oh, London" (doh!). She's been in China for 20 years. So they decided we were ok, and let us share their taxi from Qiaotou to Zhongdian. IT was awesome, because even tho they were on vacation, they are journalists and couldn't help investigating a little local buz/scandal happening at Tiger Leaping Gorge. See, they explained to us, there are two issues. First, it is unclear where the water level will rise to when they build the dam (part of the government's Three Gorges Project to produice hydroelectric power, much to the detriment of millions of people and the natural world). So the locals don't know exactly where to build and where not to build. Many are just building anyway because this area is a new tourist hot spot, even though in 2-3 years their buildings will be up to 200 meters under water. And they don't know where theyl'l go. Even the ones whose homes won't be under water will be effected because the towns where they used to do buisiness will be gone. They currently hike down what took us 6 hours to hike up every day to do business.
So scandal number two is that now you have to pay 50 Y to get in to the gorge, and there is dispute about what happens wit hthat money. So right in front of the ticket office there are groups of men hanging aroudn and smoking and trying to intimidate the people selling the tickets by sheer force of numbers. The funniest thing (not that any of this is very funny, actually), is that Margo, and Australian who owns a guest house across the street, is in hysterics about it because sometimes the guys hang out on her steps and intimdate the tourists instead. She's also worried about the locals getting their fare share of all the tourism, so here heart is in the right place, even though she was really quite a scenario. She did, however, have a VERY cute grey cat who looked a lot like Talkeetna, which was quite therapeutic for both of us.
but back to the britts. They were totally fascinating, and know a TON about china and the current issues it faces, especially in relation to the rest of the world. Its so interesting, and of course we peppered them with questions on the 2.5 hour car ride. They live in Beijing and told us to call when we were back in town. I thinmk they were just being polite, but it is super tempting. Amazing to get their insight into a world we've been confused about for the past few weeks (well, I guess I've been confused about China for much longer than that).
So now we are in Zhongdian. Supposedly Zhongdian is Shangri-La. Cool, eh? Except neither of us really knows what that means. Does anyone else? Like heaven or something? We might google it. So, its pretty nice, although its still a lot like other chinese cities, and fewer english speakers so we're having a little trouble getting around. Luckily the owner of our guest house, Kevin, is super helpful, young, and speaks english. We're way up high- about 3200 meters, and we just feel so close to the sky. It is blue blue blue. And they left some of the trees up (or logged them so long ago they have recovered somewhat), so the hills are green. Today Kevin took us to some hotsprings where the locals go, so we sat in piping hot water looking out over pine trees freshly dusted in snow. Amazing to think that 7 days ago we were boiling in Vientiane, Laos. Kevin told us a lot about his family on the drive, which was also fascinating, since he is our age and knows our world as well as the way China used to be, and of course knows how the cultural revolution impacted his family (father was from a landlord family, so he was shipped ot the farms and kept out of school, and his mother was from a "good" family (i.e. poor as dirt), so she got to work for the military (really, a good thing relatively). but once that business was over, they both went to college. Incredible stuff here. He remembers growing up when his family's one bicycle and one watch (yes, a watch) were the most expensive items his family owned. Now, at 28, he runs a hotel and takes foreign tourists to Tibet and has a nice big SUV that he bought last year. What a change.
Today for lunch we decided to go where the locals go. No english menu, and I forgot the phrasebook (oops). So we just pointed to what other people were eating, and ordered that. Worked out wonderfully, and it cost us about 6Y, which is less than a dollar and was more than we could eat. We normally pay aroudn 30Y for lunch bc we go to touristy spots with english menus. So if you're coming to China, learn Chinese first. Right.
So that's a big long blog. hope I don't lose it. We still can't see if our posts are going up, but at least they are being saved.
I hope you all are doing well. Feel free to email us- it helps us feel like we haven't fallen off the planet! Though sometimes there's nothing we can do to keep from feeling that way. :)
Take care,
Betsy and Eric
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