Minority Village and Bipeng Valley

     Last weekend we went on a field trip to the Taoping Qiang Village and Bipeng Valley.  We were just gone for two days but it was a great trip.  The Taoping Qiang Village was in a Tibetan area.  It was pretty touristy but it was supposed to show you how the local people lived.  It looked pretty new but I guess it was a replica of the traditional houses.  The area we were in was badly damaged by the earthquake in 2008.  Over 90,000 people died during the earthquake and it was felt in Chengdu as well.  The damage in Chengdu was nothing like the damage experienced in this area though.  One of the towns we passed had to be completely rebuilt after the earthquake.  We were only at the village for 2 hours but it was kind of cool.
     We drove a few more hours to our hotel and then had dinner.  Our hotel room only had a squat toilet so I wasn't too happy about that.  After dinner, a group of us walked around town and explored for a little while.  As we were walking, we saw some fireworks so we decided to stop and watch.  There were a bunch of people out dancing and there was a little fire going.  We ended up dancing with them.  Everybody was holding hands and dancing in a circle so we joined and it was so much fun!  Garrett bought some marshmallows and we roasted them over the fire and then continued dancing.  We found out a little later that it was a wedding reception we had crashed.  We had the best night dancing and talking with these people!

     The next day we got up early and went to Bipeng Valley.  The line to get in was madness.  Chinese people don't believe in lines so it was a massive crowd of people pushing and shoving for at least an hour.  It was crazy!!  Once we made it to the valley though we were surprised by how beautiful it was! Chengdu is so polluted and we rarely ever get to see the sky so it was refreshing to be able to breath in unpolluted air and see the blue sky!  We had a few hours to walk around and there a bunch of trails to hike.  It was just what we needed.  The mountains were snow capped and the leaves were changing colors.  I felt like I was out west in the United States.  It was beautiful and I wanted to stay there longer!  It was such a wonderful day!  We headed back to Chengdu that afternoon and I think it took us close to 7 hours to get home.  Apparently a bus was broken down on the road in front of us and it was smoking really bad so nobody could go past it because they were afraid it was going to explode.  It was pretty crazy and we were stuck for a few hours.  Everybody got off the bus and just hung out on the road.  We ended up getting back pretty late that night and I was exhausted but it was great to get away from Chengdu for the weekend.  I like Chengdu but it's full of concrete and there's no grass anywhere so it's nice to get away every now and then.

Tiger Leaping Gorge

     Chinese National Holiday was this week so we had the entire week off from school.  A group of 8 of decided to go to Tiger Leaping Gorge to go hiking for a few days.  The group included my roommates Anna and Lauren and then David, Kyle, Gillian, Garrett and Max.  Max went on Semester at Sea in the spring of 2011 which was the semester after my voyage!  So cool!  We left Friday afternoon and took a 22 hour train ride to Kunming.  When we got to Kunming we checked into the hostel and tried to book tickets to get to Lijiang.  We couldn't get tickets to Lijiang for the next day so we ended up spending 2 nights in the hostel in Kunming.  The hostel was really nice all 8 of us fit into one dorm room.

We walked around and explored the city a little and then ate dinner.  The next day we went to Xishan and hiked to the Dragon Gate.  It was a really pretty hike but it was a lot of walking up stairs and I was kind of sick of stairs by the end of it.  The views were great and it was a pretty hike.  It took us most of the day to hike up it.

The next day most of the group decided to rent bikes but Anna and I went to the zoo.  It cost like $3 to get in and see the aquarium and the zoo.  We saw a seal show and a mermaid show at the aquarium.  It was kind of a joke but we were pretty entertained.  The mermaid show was in a really small tank where a couple girls would swim back and forth one at a time.  We walked around the zoo and the exhibits were pretty small and sad.  We saw a raccoon exhibit though, which we thought was hilarious.  We definitely got pictures with the raccoons.

We met the rest of the group back at the hostel and ate dinner and then caught a night bus to Lijiang.  The night bus was quite an experience and I was kind of excited because it reminded me of the night bus on Harry Potter.  It was really crowded though.  There were 3 rows of bunk beds and I think close to 35 people fit on the bus.  We were in the very back and the back row was essentially a big bed where they squeeze 5 people.  The crazy thing was that there were 5 beds above us so it felt really tight since you couldn't really sit up.  I was in the middle so I was pretty squished.  The people by the windows kept getting cold and closing the windows but the middle was painfully hot so it was kind of uncomfortable.  Apparently the bus drivers take breaks during the drive and the bus stopped for 2 and a half hours in the middle of the night.  At first we thought something was wrong with the bus but Lauren had been on a night bus before and she assured us it was just the bus driver taking a break.

     The next day we arrived around 6:30 am and we took another bus to Qiaotou, which took a little over 2 hours.  We ate lunch in Qiaotou and then began our hike at Tiger Leaping Gorge.  The first day was definitely the longest but it was beautiful!  The guys ran ahead and hiked pretty fast but Lauren and I took our time and enjoyed the view.  The 28 bends was the hardest part of the hike and it took a few hours to get to it and it was fairly challenging.  We were carrying our backpacks with all of our stuff that we packed for 8 days and they were pretty heavy so that slowed us down.  The views were incredible though and definitely worth it!

There are hostels along the trail and we booked a hostel but it was kind of far away so we tried to see if we could stay at a closer hostel but they were full.  By the time we made it to the closest hostel we were about 2 hours away from our hostel and it was near 5 pm so we had to hurry to try to get there before dark.  We made it to our hostel as the sun was setting and we were worn out!  We ate dinner, showered and fell asleep by 9:30.  We slept for a good 12 hours.  The hostel was nice but the bathrooms were interesting.  It was a trough toilet.  We went a good 3 days without seeing a western toilet.  Fortunately, there were bathrooms along the hike.  Some villagers had outhouses they would let you use, which was convenient.  I definitely saw my share of sketchy bathrooms.  There were a few public restrooms where there weren't even doors on the stalls.  Anyway, it's nice to be back at my apartment where I have a western toilet and I don't think I will be phased by a normal squatty potties anymore.
     The second day of hiking was a nice day.  It was easier than the first day and we hike for about 4 hours.  There were more beautiful views and the hike was mostly downhill that day.  At first I thought that sounded nice but it was a little more difficult to go downhill that I expected.  It was slippery and hard to keep my balance.  I did slip at one point but fortunately I didn't get hurt.  We made it to our next hostel called Sean's Guest House.  We ate some food, dropped off our backpacks and then went out hiking again.  We tried to hike down to the river but didn't make it too far.  Apparently you have to pay if you want to hike all the way down the river but it was getting dark and it wasn't a good idea to hike in the dark.  We hung out with a few other backpackers we met and then went to bed.
    The next morning we were on our way out by 8 am.  We arranged for a van to pick us up and take us back to Lijiang at noon and we had a 3-4 hour hike ahead of us.  The hike was mostly along the road and we were supposed to find a ferry to take across the gorge in order to meet our van.  It was really difficult to find the ferry but we eventually found it and made it to the van.  The van took about 4 hours to get to Lijiang and then in Lijiang we took another night bus back to Kunming.  The night bus took about 12 hours and I actually slept the whole time.  This night bus was much better than the last one because there wasn't a giant bed in the back.  Instead we all had our own beds, which was so nice.
     We arrived in Kunming the next morning and went back to the hostel we stayed at the first couple nights.  We ate breakfast at the hostel and a lot of people showered.  Several of us went out to explore the city a little more and a few people stayed behind and watched movies in the hostel.  I walked around for a little while and then David and I decided to go rent a paddle boat on the lake.  We were so tired and we were avoiding stairs all day since we were sore.  Once we got in the paddle boat we realized it wasn't the best idea since we were sore.  We kind of just floated for a little while instead of paddling but it was still fun and relaxing to be out on the lake.  We met up with the rest of the group in the afternoon and headed to the train station where we caught a 20 hour train back to Chengdu.  The train ride wasn't bad at all.  I slept really well all night and it didn't seem long at all.  We just got back to the apartment and I'm worn out but it was a great trip!  We had tomorrow to do homework and study and get ready for school on Monday.  I have a final in my Chinese class on Thursday so I definitely need to study.  Since I'm taking 9 hours of Chinese we have a final every 5 weeks or so.