Ring Around the Province, Part 2: Won't You Take Me To Monkey Town

Day Three of our trip around the province brought us to Dali, a small city that has been well-touristed for nigh on thirty years now, a very well-established backpacker stop. Four years ago when my family and I went to Lijiang (which is, incidentally, where I am now) the picture that was painted of Dali for me was pretty negative, and so I didn't have high expectations. Dali was indeed full of foreigners, but it gave off an air of being well-adjusted with its new identity as a sort of city-wide backpacker cafe. Very comfortable, very funky and colorful. There may be basically nothing left of the Bai culture that once reigned there, but the entity that has taken its place is tasteful and lacking the hoards of Chinese tourists I'm now finding in Lijiang.

Tania and I set out to see the famous Dali pagodas first. We took a taxi there but were informed that the fee for entrance was an exorbitant Y120, Y60 with our student IDs. Lu Laoshi had told us that it was pretty easy to get close to the pagodas without paying, and so we experimented, exploring the complex. It was fairly easy, indeed-- I went up to the ticket kiosks and pretended to look at a map while surreptiously taking pictures around the side of the divider. There was also a fair view of the pagodas from above the walls-- they are hundreds of feet tall and stand gorgeously formidable against a backdrop of dramatically lush mountains. It's strange to think that they've been standing that way for 1000 years. The view was powerful enough in the modernized valley. I can't imagine how they looked to travellers during the Nanzhao Kingdom era, when Dali was a major trading post. We spent the rest of the evening in Dali window/regular shopping (I got a fantastically Chinglished shirt), experimenting with Bai cuisine for dinner, and having dessert while a rain squall came through.

From Dali we drove about 5 hours to Jianchuan, through countryside dotted with lakes, traditional Bai settlements, and rolling hills. After a quick lunch, we set off up Shibaoshan, a Buddhist/Daoist mountain. The hike was only about a half an hour but it was pretty tough, as we were at yet higher elevation. The monastery was beautiful but very, very simple-- all the girls plus Mike and John slept in one room (much to the faux shock of Lu and Chen Laoshis) on simple cots and it was the first place I've ever been where people permanently live and there is no running water. There were two major distinguishing characteristics of Shibaoshan: 1) the grottos and 2) the monkeys. The entire temple complex is set on a set of cliffs, looking out on virgin-forested hills, and I spent some time with John and Tania exploring the grottos, filled with altars-- some of them very old and high up, some interestingly influenced with Indian iconography. The monkeys also added quite a bit of spice to the situation. Around dusk one showed up on the roof of the monastery and we were all very excited. Then another came, and then there was a veritable parade past the entrance to the monastery. We bought some feed for them and got quite up close and personal-- these are NOT shy monkeys. Case in point: on the way to dinner, I was walking down the stairs and suddenly felt something fly and land on the back of my thigh. My slowed-down brain registered that it was a monkey, interested in the contents of my pocket. I didn't have food in my pockets-- just a package of kleenex, but my pickpocket seemed happy to shred the contents, regardless. Lu Laoshi and John couldn't stop laughing at the face I had made when I realized there was a wild monkey hanging from my thigh.

The adventure with the monkeys went downhill from there. The monkeys got bolder and bolder-- when John, Keera, and Theresa hiked down the mountain to buy snacks they only came back with half of their purchase-- the rest had been looted by monkeys. We were all a little nervous about going to the bathroom, a small building past a path full of sleeping monkeys. John established himself as official Monkey Officer and carried a big stick and flashlight, leading group envoys to pee.

The next morning, after a very Chinese breakfast we drove to a separate part of the mountain to begin a long hike down to Shaxi valley. The hike was gorgeous, with incredible views of the verdant farmland and misty hills, but it was really hard. I fell twice, spraining one ankle, and had to go very slow-- my quads have never been so sore. But it was a very rewarding walk, regardless, and Lu Laoshi called me "Hen bang" (really excellent) for persevering, rather than giving up.

Next time: My "rural" homestay; I get flaming bai jiu (rice wine) rubbed on one body part-- guess which on!; an amazing Market

Banna Goes Wild, Part 1: Countryside Goose Chases

Our story continues:

Diana and I made our way down the mountain after the Dai wedding accompanied by David, an environmentalist who works for an international NGO in Kunming, from Maine. We decided we wanted an adventure-- a woman from a backpacker cafe in Jinghong had heard that I wanted to go to Menghun and had written down a place I should go while I was there-- in Chinese. She had written the name of a town-- Mengzhe-- and then four further characters, two that Diana and I recognized and two that we did not. We decided to try our luck, anyway, and asked someone where we could find the thing on the paper. We were directed to a micro bus that would take us to Mengzhe. While we waited for the microbus, I was again accosted by an Aini woman seeking to sell me something. When I assured her that her wares were beautiful but that I didn't want to buy anything she went as far as to put a bracelet on my wrist. It was only Y1 (about 11 cents) so I bought it, but then promptly changed tacks. I asked her her name, and that was all it took for her to forget her sales pitch. She started to tell me about her village in the hills and her two children, one of whom works in Jinghong and whom she misses a great deal. That was an important moment for me, realizing that I have control over the "authenticity" and personalization of the travel experience. I can control how people view me (as a really interested person or as just another tourist) and that I can also affect my own experience as a tourist. A really important lesson.

Diana, David, and I boarded the minibus to Mengzhe not long after that with instructions to get off "at the bridge" and catch a second minibus even farther into the countryside. The ride was incredibly bumpy but it went through some really breathtaking scenery-- rolling plains, rice paddies with tethered water buffalo, hills humping into mountains in the distance. We got off the bus at the same stop as an old lady also going to Mengzhe, but she was illiterate and couldn't read the mysterious characters at whose mercy we found ourselves. The second minibus went farther away from the "center" of Menghun-- as Diana remarked, the entire trip to Banna constituted a journey away from the center, constantly redefining what we thought of as "central" and "developed." First Kunming, a city of 4 million people, then Jinghong, a provincial city. Then Menghun, a little town... then Mengzhe, the middle of essentially nowhere, wreathed by rice paddies, featuring women getting on and off the minibus carrying baskets of chickens. On the minibus, we passed the famouns Jingzhen 8-sided pagoda and debated getting off to look but ultimately decided to come back. When we got to Mengzhe, we started showing people the paper and asking them where the attraction was located. At first we were told 4 kilometers and decided to walk it, but after 2 kilometers or so when we asked again we were told there were 4 more kilometers left. We hailed the first bicycle taxi, where the taxidriver quoted us the price of "liang jian" which sounded to us like "liang jiao" or, essentially, 2 cents. We were in awe of the cheapness of this price and accepted, but when we finally got to our destination (which was, indeed, the Jingzhen pagoda back from whence we came) the driver wanted Y20, a definite ripoff. We couldn't talk him down, however, and unhappily paid him.

Meanwhile, however, we managed to solve the mystery of the Backpacker Recommendation. The first two characters were those for "Jingzhen Pagoda" and the second two were "bus stop"-- we had been directed to go on the Mengzhe bus to the pagoda but had accidently gone to Mengzhe itself. It had cost us some extra money, but ultimately the adventure, very reminiscent of The Amazing Race, was worth it, and the pagoda was quite beautiful. We caught the last bus of the day back to Jinghong and had dinner at that same backpacker cafe.

There, I made a last-minute decision. I knew that it would be hard to get back from the Wild Elephant Reserve, one hour north of Kunming, in time for my morning flight Tuesday. It was already dinner time and there were no more public busses, but I decided that given that the cost was much lower than I had expected, I was willing to pay a taxi to drive me the 40 kilometers. We made the arrangements, I said goodbye to Diana, who was heading back to Kunming, and I set off.

Next time: elephants and rainforest and baby monkeys, oh my!