Day 6 Hiking on Sigunian Mountain (Mountain of the 4 sisters)

The first one is me feeding an apple to a horse on the wooden trail at Siguniangshan, and the second is the old man that was selling goat meat on a stick that was reallllly good, and the last one is the goat roasting behind the tibetan dancers that are at the bottom



October 3, 2007
Today we get up early and take a bus up to the start of the hiking trail to Siguniangshan. We had to rent rain boots because it rained a lot the past few days and it was all muddy and all I had was tennis shoes. So we all wore our rented nasty boots and walked down the 2000 meter wooden trail. It was really nice and it wasn't very cold out which was also nice and the weather was great. We basically just walked on this wooden trail for a while and then at the end of it is where the mud started and there was a LOOOOOT of it, and it was also mixed with equal parts of horse poop. So we walked through the mud for a while then got to a summit of some sort, but some people had harder times breathing and walking in the altitude so they had cans of oxygen for them. When we got there we had a picnic lunch which was kinda gross but it worked. Then out of the corner of my eye I saw smoke and walked towards it and surprise surprise there was meat on a stick!!! It was only 13 cents and sooooooo good I think I had 5 of them. After that me and a few people walked back and rested by a stream and got accosted by a woman trying to take pictures of us with Tibetan clothes who was hitting on me. Then we head back towards the hotel but stopped for some more meat on a stick where we rented the boots.

We got back to the hotel and had our dinner then we had a "surprise" for us afterwords. This was a kinda performance in a tent out front by the girls that worked at the hotel. There was lots of tibetan (and modern and lipsynced) singing and dancing which was fun and they were also roasting a goat (that we saw get killed a bit earlier) and some rabbits and chicken for us in the background while the sang. They also had everyone get up and join and had a few games and it was really fun.

After that we headed back to our hotel and played mahjong all night which was really fun... im starting to get the hang of it haha. and here is a video of a circle dance they did that they tried to get me to do but I didn't really want to haha.


here is a video of some of the dancers


here are pictures! mostly of the mountians

Day 5 Tibetan Jiaju village and lots and lots of high altitude driving on even worse roads (if thats possible)

The first picture is a random bathroom on the side of the road, the second is of normal road conditions for most of the trip, the third is a picture of the road and scenery from the bus, and the last is the yak butter milk tea

October 2, 2007
Today we get up and drive up the mountain to Jiaju Tibetan village which is basically just a small tibetan town that has been turned into a tourist attraction, but its still fun. We went to a house and looked around it and saw how the traditional houses are. Then after a bit of looking around they made us their traditional yak butter milk tea which tasted a bit like warm skim milk with barley and a lot of salt... yum... and they also gave us some little barley cakes to go with it. We didn't stay for very long though because we had to get a move on to Siguniang Moutains (Mt. Four Sisters) which was high up and far away. We left the village and headed to a Tibetan hotel for lunch which was ok but still not very spicy. It was fun at the end though because all the servers came in and sang and danced for us. After that we headed off our our trip of more and more and more terrible roads of getting stuck in the mud and having to stop and help other cars out of the mud so we can get by ect. ect. We also passed through so many small villages that looked like they may have never even seen a foreigner before.

I think the whole trip was about 9 hours and not one minute of it was on a paved road or anything so it was a nice 9 ours of crazy rocking back and forth on the bus. It was so bad you couldn't even do anything but talk or listen to music and deal with it. I heard form someone on the trip too that this was the most dangerous road in the world and I'm not surprised from how it looked from all the falling rocks and everything. The bridges too looked scary, like they would fall and collapse if we drove over them but they seemed to hold just fine.

After a long long long long time we got to our village which I think was about 11,000 feet above sea level and checked into our Tibetan hotel for 2 nights. It was a really tiny town and nothing really to do except hang out at the hotel cuz it was so late. Also it was realllllllly cold at night that high up and it was actually a little hard to breath cuz everything was a walk uphill. Also the hotel didn't have heat which was fun. And they had "western style toilets" which was basically a western toilet over a hole... so it didn't really work, but I wont get into that. Also the shower and the toilet leaked on the floor because the shower was kinda a stall with a floor but the drain in the shower just opened to the floor and kinda flooded the bathroom cuz the drain was on the other side... nice. Also you couldn't walk barefoot in the room because you would probably step on something and get a disease because they don't vacuum or clean. So the first night we just went to sleep because we were all tired from the rough trip and to get up early to go hiking on the mountains.
PICTURES!!!! click here, same as day 4 pictures, tibetan village, and danba
Pictures of Tibetan village and trip on the way to siguniang mountains and the mountains

Day 4 Heading to Danba Tibetan Town

the first picture is of the bridge that Mao crossed in Luding (but we had no time to go on it :o() and the second is infront of my hotel at Danba, and the third is a large portion of our dinner that was too 麻 for us to handle.


the October 1, 2007
On this day we got to sleep in a little and then drive to Danba, it was a little bit uneventful since it was mostly driving all day. Lots of bad roads and driving through small towns and "唱山歌". We stopped in a small town called Luding to get some snacks and water since where we were going next they wouldn't have much of that kinda stuff. I guess Mao and his army crossed a chain bridge in this city sometime during their civil war. We only got to spend a half hour there though because we had to get to a tunnel ( i think they said it was the longest in asia?) before it switched direction ( they make it one way during holidays and switch direction for long times) or else we would have to wait like 4 or 5 hours and would miss something else we were doing. Before we went in the tunnel we stopped yet again to take more pictures, but they also had a lot of vendors who were selling fruit and nuts and things and they had some dried kiwis which were really good. Then we went through the tunnel and came out the other side into the mostly Tibetan area of Sichuan. Mostly this whole time I got lots of scenery shots. We stopped a few more times to get pictures and look at road vendors and then drove down lots more bumpy roads and through more small towns and maybe got stuck in the mud a few times.

We then got to Danba and checked in our hotel that wasn't thaaaaat bad but once again the toilet acted as the drain for our shower, which was also not warm water, but actually boiling and it would switch between boiling and freezing almost every few seconds. We only stayed here for one night though. We had free time in Danba so we went down to the shopping area naturally and went shopping. I ending up buying a nice chinese chess set. Its made of out real (haha yeah right) leather as the guy says, and each of the pieces is also made from leather and the board and the case and its blue. I think I paid about 8 or 9 dollars for it so not too bad. I also bought one of the Tibetan spinners that has the sutra inside that I really wanted. We then went back to the hotel and hung out a bit before going to dinner. We went to some random place on the side of the road and we wanted to eat outside so they brought a huge table from inside and put it outside for us. I think there were about 10 of us total. We got a bunch of dishes like normal but they were 麻麻麻麻麻麻麻 to the extreme. I couldn't even eat the mapodoufu or the fish, even though I didn't really want to. The eggplant was good though (as usual). All in all it was a great dinner and fun being out with everyone. Then after that we headed to the internet cafe for 20 minutes only cuz they were gonna lock us out of the hotel and I manged to check my e-mail even though it took all 20 minutes to load. We made it back just in time and then played charades for a while until we got yelled at for being too loud because you can hear EVERYTHING even if its a whisper through the walls in that place. Then after that I had a boiling/freezing shower and went to sleep to get up in the morning early to check out and head to the Jiaju Tibetan Village with the Tibetan families. There are pictures below to see!

here are pictures!!!!!!!

Sichuan part 3!!! (Hailuogo Glacier park fun and Hot Springs with flesh eating fish)

the first picture is me and my friend jamie in the flesh eating fish and the second is on the ski lift ride to the glacier, and the third is my roommate Yuki and his girlfriend in the flesh eating fish



September 30, 2007
We get our wakeup call and go down to breakfast which is another dismal array of watery rice with some pickled things and a hard boiled egg, luckily our teachers bought us some instant coffee though to get us through it. We then hopped on the bus to get to the other bus station (which took less than a minute to drive to so i dont know why we we didnt walk...). We waited there for a bit then hopped on a bus to go up to the top part of the mountain where the glacier was. the bus ride was kinda scary because they were driving are really high speeds around narrow corners going up. There were also a lot of buses on their way down so every time there was a turn or a curve (or someone in the road or on the side of the road or he for any reason the bus driver wanted to which seemed like every 3 seconds) he would lay on the most annoying horn I have ever heard, and it got old really quick. Everyone in China honks their horns A LOT even when they don't need to.

Anyways we got to the top of the mountain and had to hold off all the Chinese people from cutting us in line to get on the ski lift to the top. The ski lift was really nice because you could see everything there on the way up, but it was also a bit scary. Once we got to the top of course they had meat on a stick like everywhere in China, and I got some and it was gooooooooood, They told me it was goat meat, I hope they weren't lying haha. We then hiked for a bit, only like an hour or so and that was fun and got to go up and touch the ice and sit up there for a while. After that we got back on the honking bus and headed down towards the hot springs (we weren't really supposed to know we were going there cuz it was a surprise but we all already knew it). Before we went there though we ate a a restaurant which of course was again highly disappointing for what was I was hoping for :o(. After that we had a tour of the springs which was basically a huge pool and mini hot tub looking things that have hot springs water pumped into it. They also had one pool that was filled with thousands of little fish that eat all your dead skin cells when you get in and I thought it was disgusting but I ended up doing it anyways. It was really strange at first and tickled a lot, so for the first 20 minutes or so I couldn't stop laughing but then it felt nice and I think between two trips in I might have spent almost 2 hours in it. While we were there they also gave us soft boiled eggs which were basically slightly cooked eggs that you drink, I didn't have any... Then as we left I of course accidentally locked my glasses in my locker and forgot which locker number it was so that was a big ordeal trying to find which one it was and having to ask the girl at the desk for a bunch of keys to try.

After that we got back on the honking bus and headed back to the hotel. When we got there we had dinner at our hotel which was probably the worst dinner of the whole trip, so I didn't eat much and got a lot of grilled eggplant and goat on a stick which was a lot better. So we got that and walked around for a bit and looked at all the same stores of tibetan stuff then found the same little kids as before and talked to them for a bit and then headed back to the hotel to play cards for a while. Then we got bored and got some not so good tasting ice cream ( but it was only 13 cents so whatever) and then went to sleep for our next long trek to Danba Tibetan town.



below is some pictures



pictures of the glacier and hot springs!

Sichuan trip part 2! (Chengdu to Moxigen and Hai luoguo )

(<--our hotel in Moxizhen... little did I know it would only get worse from here... they were supposed to have western toilets but only had squatters haha and the shower was a pipe from the wall with a hole in the middle of the floor)

(^^They attacked us as soon as we got
out of the bus, trying to get us to buy
near rotten fruit for way too much, haha,
i gave the little girl some candy
and she left me alone... until later that night when
she tried to sell me them again)

September 29, 2007

We woke up pretty about 730ish and then went down and had breakfast which consisted of some rice in warm water and spicy pickled cabbage and other things put in it. They also had some bread and hot milk... yum
We then left for our hotel in 磨西镇 (Moxizhen, i tried to find a map of it but i couldn't, i guess its just that small haha) about 9ish. The on the way there the roads started getting questionable, but nothing too bad. We stopped at a random restaurant in a little city called 天全 (Tianquan) but once again the food was unspicy and disappointing :o(. We then continued driving up and up and up into the mountains and stopped a few times at random bathroom places which are usually a small building that you go in that has a trough if you're lucky, if not its a tent with a hole in the ground, and you have to pay to use them, usually 5 mao or one kuai, so thats about 7 - 14 cents. Before we went in a huge tunnel ( i think the longest in asia ) we stopped to take pictures and we got some dried kiwi slices which were really good because that area is known for its kiwis. After more driving up and up we got to the hotel after 7 and were free to find out own food, but once again it just turned up to be unspicy :(. The city itself was kinda boring, mostly lots and lots of little shops that all have the same things, usually consisting of jewelry, yak horns or other things made from yak (meat, carvings from bones, hats from fur ect). It was interesting though because most of the people in the town were Tibetans and a lot of the shops had Tibetan things. So we just walked around after dinner and bought a few souvenirs and then went back to the hotel becuae we had to get up early tomorrow to go hiking for a bit at 海螺沟 (Hai luogou) Glacier Park.

here's a link again to a lot more pictures if you wanna see them
http://www.shanghaijim.smugmug.com/gallery/3603074#204939351


UPDATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
here are pictures to see if you want to see them of this part of my trip! just click here