Hostel Intentions
A sojourn into the heart of Chengdu's backpacker planet.
Written by Tom Carter
Monday, 02 October 2006
That's PRD

As a veteran backpacker of both hemispheres currently traveling extensively throughout all 32 provinces of the People's Republic of China, this writer has come to depend heavily on hostels. Without them I could not financially (or emotionally) last the 10 months I'm expected to be on the road. As such, I've brooded on the etymology of the word.

Hostel: a term that has become synonymous with world travel. From the Medieval Latin hospitium, it has been co-opted by over 80 different countries, beginning in 1912 Germany whence originated the idea of the modern youth hostel. Yet in spite of its global popularity, hostelling has continued to remain a relatively underground experience.
Budget backpackers, considered at once hipsters and hobos, rely on hostels for their comparatively affordable accommodations. But youth hostels are also a retreat from the road; a refugee camp for foreigners journeying abroad.
China might have opened its doors to westerners, but we are still strongly urged by the national tourism bureau to check in to pricey hotels while economical boardinghouses, luguan, are for locals only.

Hot destinations, however, like Beijing, Yangshuo and Dali are renowned for their selection of lively hostels. I've been to them all, and I've seen it all (there ought to be a reality TV series called 'Backpackers Behaving Badly). There is one hostel I shall especially never forget, where the vibe was so deliciously laid back that my intended two-day stopover turned into seven.

DAY 1: Arrive 8pm in Chengdu, Sichuan's sweltering capital city, and check into the 'Stir-Fry' hostel. The attractive Chinese front-desk staff in short shorts confirms what I've heard about Sichuan girls. Get a bed in a 6-bunk dorm and immediately crash out. Woken at 2am by five inebriated Australians returning from a disco vociferously complaining that Chinese girls spend all day playing online dancing games at internet cafés, but at a nightclub they just stand against the wall.

DAY 2: Browse the three-story hostel premises, drying laundry whipping in the wind like the flag of the backpacker. Take a stroll around Chengdu then return to find my previous bunkmates replaced by a guy named Pickle from Hawaii who road a motorbike across Sichuan. Pickle's first words to me are "Mind if I smoke a bowl?" At 5am a drunk Dutch girl falls into her bunk and passes out in nothing but her g-string. The next morning she tells us "I dreenk haalf day un sleep other haalf. I need to sleep less so I caan dreenk more." I would be stupid not to stay another day.

DAY 3: New guy in our room, a University of Oregon grad named Sven (who looks nothing like a Sven). Pickle wakes up at 2pm and suggests our little American clique have lunch at a Tex-Mex restaurant across town. I feel guilty not eating Sichuan hot pot like I'm supposed to, but my conscience is quickly lost in a world of melted cheese and refried beans. Nighttime at the Stir-Fry is hopping, the open-air courtyard crowded with people from every country imaginable sitting around drinking and chatting, their accented conversations invariably beginning with "Where are you from?" followed by "Where are you going?" Happy laughter is a constant. Our world leaders would do well to study life in a hostel. A British bloke wearing a polo shirt with an upturned collar alternates between hitting on the Chinese front-desk girls (now uniformly wearing size-too-small summer skirts) and asking everyone "Are you going out tonight?" Me, Pickle and Sven opt for watching the Quentin Tarantino blood-and-breasts fest "Hostel" on the lounge DVD player. It's almost like the Stir-Fry…except everyone gets killed.

DAY 4: Said British bloke, his collar now only half-upturned, is passed out drunk on the lobby couch till late afternoon. He was supposed to have caught an early-morning flight back to the UK, the receptionist tells us, but they couldn't wake him. Evening at the Stir-Fry once again turns out to be quite the social scene. A French guy with tribal tattoos and a Vanilla Ice haircut queues up a jungle drum & bass mix on the lobby sound system and everyone at once stops what they are doing to dance and bob their heads, like a scene out of some musical. A blonde girl with a nose ring unabashedly drinking backwash out of beer bottles littered around the courtyard convinces Pickle to go with her to a local café named the Pot Palace. I shouldn't be surprised that such an establishment exists in a province where weed grows wild as a weed. Pickle returns at 4am floating. The last he saw of the drunk nose-ring girl she was fighting with a Chinese taxi driver before running out of the cab without paying.

Day 5: It's too humid outside so I beeline to the air-conditioned lounge, where we watch seven pirated DVDs (technically only four because they kept skipping). During this time we visit Africa, various regions of Europe, Los Angeles and prison; it's almost like traveling! An Italian girl comments, "I shoulda be outsidea meeting Chinesea people anda doinga Chinesea things," but then settles back in the sofa when the next movie begins. At night I chat with a pair of Israeli girls who confide, "We come China to experience culture, but here have too many Israeli backpacker; we can't escape ourselves!" And meet a young American beatnik double fisting bottles of Snow and Tsingtao ("Dude, they're both, like, water!") trying to round up a group to go to the Pot Palace. It dawns on me that while all these kids are literally blazing through the world looking for a good time, I've somehow remained the consummate professional. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I'm ten years older than the average backpacker. At midnight Sven comes in jovially exclaiming that he found the local pink-light district up by the train station. I've wondered where he's been disappearing too lately.

Day 6: Tex-Mex again for lunch (fifth day in a row!), followed by the Japanese classic 'Battle Royal.' A German guy who hasn't left the DVD room in ten days says that the lazy hostel life is sucking him in. I realize myself that as I still have 12 more provinces to go, I need to either get back on the road or establish permanent residence at the Stir-Fry. It's a hard choice, but I ultimately opt for the former. Pickle is having his own dilemma. He had been trying to sell his motorcycle, but the local buyers he lined up cut their offer in half at the last minute. "I'll be damned if I give in to those thieving b*st*rds. I'd rather drive my bike into the Chengdu River!" he shouts as he revs off down the street. I don't know if he's serious, but we never see the motorbike again. At 11pm I watch a baijiu drinking game between one of the Chinese front-desk girls and two Brits who have been living at the Stir-Fry for half a year while working as English teachers.

Day 7: Blearily wake up at 6am for the first time in a week and go downstairs to check out. No receptionist to be found, I look around and find the three multinational baijiu drinkers from the night before on the hallway floor. I shake them awake, one Brit crawling off to puke while I turn in my key. Stepping out of the Stir-Fry for the last time I look back to see the still-drunk front-desk girl and the other English lad checking doorknobs for an empty room, then stumble in arm in arm. Manchester – Goooooaaaaal!

YOUTH HOSTELS IN CHENGDU

MIX HOSTEL
10RMB (with YHA membership) for a dorm bed.
Near the train station. 23 XingHuiXi Lu at RenJiaWan, 028-83222271, http://www.mixhostel.com/.
Only a couple years old but already a backpacker's favorite, complete with pristine dorm rooms, 24-hour hot showers, free wireless internet, restaurant/bar, maps & extensive travel information, complimentary train-station pickup.

SAM'S GUESTHOUSE
50RMB for a dorm bed
Next to the Rongcheng Hotel. 130 Shanxi Jie, 028-6099022, http://www.samtour.com.cn/
One of Chengdu's longest-running hostels, Sam offers simple rooms attractively set in a tradition Chinese garden (though the noisy Chinese hotel next door is cause for complaint). Basic services include a restaurant, laundry, bikes for rent, internet and tour booking.

HOLLY'S HOSTEL
20RMB for a dorm bed
Near the Wuhouci Temple. 26 Wuhouci Daljie, 028-85548131, http://www.hollyhostel.com
Sam's sister or wife or daughter or something, this family-run establishment boasts 90 beds in 26 air-conditioned rooms, kitchen, free internet, tour service and complimentary pickup from the train station.

DRAGON TOWN
15RMB for a dorm bed
Near the Mao statue. 27 KuanXiangZi Lu, 028-86648408, http://www.dragontown.com.cn/
Located in a dilapidated hutong, this antiquated courtyard looks intriguing at first, however the dark, hot, cobwebbed attic that serves as a dorm room just can't compare with more modern facilities.

SIM'S COZY GUESTHOUSE
15RMB for a dorm bed
Next to the WenShu Monastery. 42Xizhushi Lu, 028-86914422,
http://www.gogosc.com/
Set in a preserved 100-year old Sichuan-style residence, Sim's is an ideal location to relax, with several patio lounges, a bar and entertainment area (including Ping-Pong and a movie room) and 24-hour hot showers.

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Tom Carter of San Francisco is an internationally published freelance photographer and travel writer specializing in the People's Republic of China. Tom has traveled extensively throughout all 33 Chinese provinces and autonomous regions and currently resides in Beijing.

This article originally appeared in an October 2006 edition of That's PRD magazine.

Keeping A Lid on Crime
By TOM CARTER
Beijing Review

Perhaps the single most reassuring fact about travel in the People's Republic of China is its remarkably low crime rate.

The Ministry of Public Security (MPS), the principal authority of domestic criminal procedures, earlier this year announced a 15 percent decline in violent crime (4.5 million reported cases for 2005), while common property infringement incidents such as theft, fraud and robbery, which account for 80 percent of all cases, rose by only 1 percent.

Cosmopolitan cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, which annually attract tens of millions of overseas visitors on business or holiday, applaud themselves for providing public order and relatively safe city streets where one can walk at just about any hour in relative safety.

But all is not necessarily quiet on the home front. In an uncharacteristically candid public admission, the MPS has reported a pandemic of illicit drug trafficking in China led by an increasing number of foreign crime syndicates, reportedly from the African regimes of Nigeria and Liberia and triads from neighboring Asian countries.

Moreover, violent crime on the southern shore is notoriously rampant in Guangdong, making it the only province in China's mainland to arm police with guns.

Nor is this to say that Westerners are entirely exempt from either being the victim of, or committing, more serious crimes.

I have found myself in several situations while traveling extensively throughout China. I fondly remember the street gang who confronted me in a darkened alley in Inner Mongolia, or facing off with a pickpocket in crowded Qianmen hutong in Beijing with a baying crowd of onlookers taking great delight in watching a 196cm waiguoren vigilante.

Then there was that time in Chongqing. Not exactly heralded as a top tourist destination, the interior municipality of Chongqing, located on the rusty banks of the Yangtz River, uncannily resembles a lawless early-century port-of-call of maritime merchants, hardened dock laborers and waterfront brothels.

An overnight stay in a small hotel on the outskirts of China's largest, and hottest, city, turned into a midnight brawl after a polite request on my part to ask three obviously drunk men loitering in the hallway to settle down, was met with a hostile response.

A push on their part led to a not gentle shove on mine, sending one of the men flying back into his two friends. The next few moments were a feral blur, and for a short time I laudably held my own. But six bare fists can infallibly do more damage than two. The tough guys retreated into the night, leaving me breathless and battered.

The police arrived thereafter and took me to the Public Security Bureau to get a statement. It was determined that the hotel security guards failed to serve their purpose, and it was also found that the hotel did not follow strict municipal protocol in copying the three perpetrators' identification cards before accommodating them, which would have assisted the police in their investigation.

This meant that it was my right under Chinese law to demand an immediate financial settlement from the hotel proprietor—for my troubles, you see—though it hardly made up for the bang up job those inebriated gentlemen did on me.

To be sure, the aforementioned incident is an isolated one, with a great majority of expatriates being lucky, or not, to see so much action during their stay in China ("I was overcharged!" seems to be the leading complaint).

With only one police officer for every thousand residents in a population of 1.3 billion, and more than 40 percent of mainland precincts having fewer than five officers, compounded with a general lack of funding, resources or state-of-the-art technology, China's police ought to be commended for maintaining an impressively low national crime rate.

Let there be no mistake: Xinhua News Agency has reported that there were twice as many reported criminal cases in 2005 than in 1990, and six times that of 1980. But compared to hyper-violent icons of the wild West such as Los Angeles and New York, it is no wonder that China is witnessing an increasing number of foreigners residing in its gleaming municipalities. China remains one of the statistically safest countries to visit, and the rest of the world would do well to take notice.

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Tom Carter of San Francisco is an internationally published freelance photographer and travel writer specializing in the People's Republic of China. Tom has traveled extensively throughout all 33 Chinese provinces and autonomous regions and currently resides in Beijing.

This article originally appeared in a November edition of Beijing Review magazine.

NO FOREIGNERS ARE ALLOWED!
What would compel a vacant guesthouse to turn away a paying guest into the night?
By TOM CARTER
Beijing Review

Anyone who has spent time in the People's Republic of China is obviously aware of the sheer number of hotels and sundry boardinghouses located in even the smallest city.

What patronizing Western travelers frequently encounter at the front desk, however, is a sudden expulsion by the proprietor conveying in Chinese that NO FOREIGNERS ARE ALLOWED!

What would compel a vacant guesthouse to turn away a paying guest into the night?

The answer is found in a longstanding police statute that prohibits the majority of these establishments from accepting non-Chinese guests or risk the penalty of a fine; only guests with Chinese identification may patron an independently run boardinghouse, called luguan.

Considering no Westerner could meet such a requirement, what this restrictive policy translates into is a concerted effort to urge foreign travelers to stay at more expensive, government-designated hotels.

Following the nation's accession into the World Trade Organization, metropolitan cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, along with the country's most popular holiday destinations, have eased their lodging restrictions to accommodate greater numbers of overseas tourists. But anyone intent on regional travel will be hard pressed to locate an appealing choice of legitimate budget accommodations outside the major cities.

Indeed, having passed through the most remote parts of China on my extensive journey across the country, this writer recalls spending many an uncomfortable night on a Chinese sidewalk or train station floor after being turned away from its only affordable lodging.

A strict budget prohibits me from frequenting any hotel with a room rate higher than 30 yuan, which dramatically reduces my chances of ever finding legitimate accommodations. One night in a three-star hotel is equivalent to a week's worth of frugal travel.

Lest one draw comparisons to myself with a stray dog, I might add that I'm not always so submissively destitute.

I vividly recall a recent experience in Yinchuan, capital of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region in the northern interior. With only two accommodations to choose from in the immediate vicinity-an overpriced luxury tower or a simple guesthouse with dormitory-style rooms and a shared water closet-I of course sought the latter. As it was, the unapologetic front desk clerk would not admit me.

I looked and did not find the requisite posted official notice stating that foreigners were unwelcome; perhaps she was just intimidated by any interaction with a non-Chinese. I put up a good argument until a police officer was called to intervene. The officer summarily sided with the hotel.

In an act of good diplomacy, the kindly police officer not only escorted me to another hotel, but also paid my tab.

Grateful as I was, I pressed the police officer for an explanation of this policy of excluding overseas visitors from certain hotels. His only explanation was "Luguan are not safe for foreigners."

There may be some truth to this. The average boardinghouse, located in the less appealing neighborhoods that invariably surround transportation hubs, are dimly lit, unsanitary and inadequately constructed of mere particleboard. Nor are the typical luguan guests always the most upstanding of character.

Revenue generated by China's hospitality industry is annually estimated at 300 billion yuan, accounting for 2.5 percent of the country's burgeoning gross domestic product. The Beijing Olympics in 2008 and Shanghai's World Expo in 2010 are expected to make China the largest global tourism market in the next decade.

With between 50-100 million inbound tourists every year, those on business or of the affluent leisure set will be happy to spend 400 yuan and up per night on a branded mid-market hotel, which is still considerably less than in the West.

China's National Tourism Administration and adjunct agencies have heretofore been more concerned with revPAR (revenue per available room) growth than the ethics of forcing someone to either spend ridiculous sums of money for a bed or sleep in the streets.

Yet ultimately the administration will need to address the equally impressive number of budget-conscious travelers in the People's Republic-students and independent backpackers with a limited travel allowance intended to stretch from the Yellow Sea to the Himalayas.

Until the police lifts the overprotective policy of prohibiting them from patronizing the same affordable accommodations that Chinese nationals are entitled to, foreigners in China will be dissuaded from provincial travel upon the simple realization that there is nowhere affordably priced for them to sleep.

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Tom Carter of San Francisco is an internationally published freelance photographer and travel writer specializing in the People's Republic of China. Tom has traveled extensively throughout all 33 Chinese provinces and autonomous regions and currently resides in Beijing.

This article originally appeared in a December 2006 edition of Beijing Review magazine.

The Phenomena of Collective Travel
By TOM CARTER
Beijing Review

"What could possibly compel them to do something so… wrong?"

This was the question posed by a group of expats sitting around a youth hostel in scenic Huangshan Mountain, China's beloved mountain range in Anhui Province, discussing the legions of tourists who had disrupted their 72-peak excursion.

As the foreign travelers retell it, what was supposed to have been a heavenly respite turned into an out-and-out circus replete with megaphones, flags and the congestion of untold numbers of tourists with the inopportune desire to see the same thing at the same time.

"We could barely walk up the narrow steps because there were too many tour groups, we couldn't see the view past their florescent hats and we couldn't even hear the birds because of all the noise," complained the foreign travelers.

Such a scene is of course commonplace in China, where 1.3 billion people must contend with both limited time and space during the country's few and far between national holidays.

But where Western travelers, not unlike their world-exploring forefathers, pride themselves on independence, requiring little more than a backpack and a point in the right direction to circumnavigate exotic new countries, the historically communal Chinese tend to have quite a different perspective on travel.

"We like to go where everybody goes," said one Chinese tourist when prompted to explain the disorder of collective travel. "If there are no crowds it means it's not a good place to visit."

An alternative explanation of the chaos that orbits China's favorite attractions is the government's authoritative instruction of where and when the populace may travel, preferring brief, intensive bursts during the national holidays rather than a steady flow.

This quarterly policy may make for impressive economic reports (though Xinhua News Agency reports a growing disfavor with the eight-year-old Golden Week holiday system), but it creates a havoc that is all of dissuading foreigners from extensive travel in China.

Indeed, every summer scores of Western backpackers are stranded in Shaanxi's provincial capital city of Xi'an, home of terracotta warriors, waiting indefinitely for train tickets back to Beijing, often resulting in missed return flights home. The blame for this calamity lies with the tour group companies themselves, who purchase large blocks of tickets (often in advance through personal connection with train station officials), leaving nary a hard seat available for the independent traveler.

And what of the more noticeable effects of those traveling en masse to China's wonderland attractions. To be sure, Jiuzhaigou National Park in Sichuan is a site not to be missed, where emerald lakes reflecting a vertical alpine forest blazing in the autumn with crimson and gold make this protected region the country's premier travel destination.

Unfortunately, what visitors will dauntingly meet with at the park's entrance is a concert of tour buses piercing the surroundings with deafening blasts of their horns and vomiting black exhaust (contributing to Jiuzhaigou's own environmental downfall), while streams of red and yellow hat-wearing, litter-tossing tourists noisily follow a flag-waving guide shouting instructions into a loudspeaker.

When pressed for an elucidation of the social and ecological consequences of collective traveling, a local tour operator rejoins fiscally, "I provide guaranteed transportation, accommodations and discounted entrance tickets, all in one package. Without tour group companies like mine, traveling in China would be impossible!"

To the foreign observer, such logic is the bane of China's heritage, with intrusive tour groups appreciating neither the splendor nor history of the site but rather in a seeming rush to take a snapshot in front of a character-engraved stone before dashing back on their buses to the next site.

But for the Chinese, the constipation and the urgency are indicative of a culture categorically limited in both time and space, where itinerary replaces independence and processed convenience is preferred over pleasure.

"The national holidays are my only chance to spend with my family and see my country," exclaims a Chinese businessman from Beijing on his way to the Yunnan old town of Lijiang, China's third most popular holiday destination. "With a tour group, I don't have to plan, I don't have to worry, I don't have to think."

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Tom Carter of San Francisco is an internationally published freelance photographer and travel writer specializing in the People's Republic of China. Tom has traveled extensively throughout all 33 Chinese provinces and autonomous regions and currently resides in Beijing.

This article originally appeared in a October 2006 edition of Beijing Review magazine.

Hong Kong, city of life and lights
By Tom Carter (Beijing Today)
Updated: 2006-11-14 09:26

Hong Kong! The legendary Chinese city of life and lights, where millionaires rub shoulders with fresh-off-the-boat immigrants, skyscrapers overshadow shanties and class division are as dramatic as the neon that illuminates it all.

Located on the southernmost banks of the Chinese mainland and pressed against the South China Sea, there truly is nowhere else in the world like Hong Kong, for Hong Kong is the World.

It is the best of Beijing and Bangkok, London and Las Vegas, New York and New Delhi; one of the most densely populated dependencies (a landmass of only 1,000 square kilometers for seven million residents), with one of the world's largest revolving multinational communities. Indeed, a stroll around Tsim Sha Tsui (pronounced jimsawjoy), the city's tourist and trade center on the southern Kowloon peninsula, reveals the entire human race in one square block radius: white people in pastel shorts walking side by side with majestically robed Africans, turbaned sheiks haggling with short-tempered Cantonese vendors, and street-corner Hindu hustlers harassing, well, everyone.

The nucleus of TST's international community is found on south Nathan Road, which buzzes 24 hours a day not unlike a third-world beehive. The thoroughfare is lit up with electronics, hazy with Indian incense and resonant with 200bpm Arabic music. It is a warren of the world, a global party, and everyone is invited. As a tailor from Pakistan profoundly puts it, it's the politicians who draw the borders, otherwise we are all friends here.

And speaking of borders, Victoria Harbor seems a good excuse to divide the colorful crowds of Kowloon with the white-collared world of Hong Kong Island, the territory's banking and finance center. It is across these deep, reflective waters, which at night appear as a veritable liquid rainbow beneath the neon of corporate office towers and designer department stores, where the former crown colony's elite live, work, shop and play. English-speaking Hong Kong, which transferred sovereignty from Britain to the People's Republic in 1997, is 9 percent Chinese save for a wealthier class, namely from South Asian countries and the west, who contribute to the Special Administrative Region's economic might with an unparalleled per capita GDP (310,000 yuan compared to Shanghai's diminutive 47,000 yuan) that rivals most of west Europe and is the highest in China.

Hong Kong also happens to boast the most millionaires in the entire Asian continent. They are strikingly handsome or unabashedly beautiful. They attire themselves in dark designer suits with razorblade creases and immaculately shined shoes, or dangerously short skirts and even more dangerous stiletto heels. Every automobile in Hong Kong Island not a red taxi is a Ferrari, new-model Jaguar or a white-walled vintage Mercedes. And lest we forget that they drive on what Americans considerto be the wrong side of the road in the British-influenced Hong Kong, look the wrong way before crossing the street and one could get rolled over by a Rolls.

But all that is gold does not necessarily glitter. Beyond Central's escarpment of skyscrapers and scattered about the region's subtropical perimeter lay over 20 lesser islands that seem to jump back centuries. Lantau Island on the West Lamma Channel preciously hides the rustic minority village of Tai O and the Tanka people, descendants of Hong Kong's first settlers.In stark contrast to Hong Kong Island and Kowloon, there is no place in Tai O for finance, fashion or frenzy, where Ferraris are replaced by fishing boats, peasant bags are more useful than Gucci bags, and flip-flops take preference over Prada. The sleepy fishing community of slat-wood, tin-roofed shanties is built completely atop stilts and interconnected by arched bridges occupied by old timers in reed hats whipping their cane rods into the placid delta waters.

Of course, most visitors to Hong Kong will invariably choose Mong Kok to minorities and 500 dollar dim sum to five-dollar fish balls. The compulsion of capitalism, the passion to purchase and the addiction of appearance-it is what Hong Kong has come to be known for, and frankly, to what it owes most of its charm. "Our lives are just like anyone else's," chirps a manicured blonde, the wife of a Hong Kong banker, shopping in an upscale boutique in the Soho district, "but with a few more attached."

Regional cuisine

HK is the dining table of the world: from traditional Cantonese dim sum to Indian curry, New York delis to Mexican tacos, Thai cuisine to Krispy Kreme, not to mention an overflow of McDonalds (150!) and 7-11 (600!). But be prepared for the prices¨CYIKES.

Transportation

If you don't drive a BMW, don't despair. Hong Kong's public transportation is highly efficient, with the Mass Transit Railway (MTR) and Kowloon-Canton Railway (KCR) spanning throughout the New Territories, Kowloon, Lantau and Hong Kong islands. Double-decker trams and buses ply above ground while jetfoils and HK's beloved Star Ferry continuously whisk commuters across Victoria Harbor. Or just hop in one of the thousands of red taxis.

Accomodation

For budget-conscious travelers, there is no better (or cheaper) place to absorb HK's multicultural ambiance than the infamous Chungking or Mirador mansions on south Nathan Road in Tsim Sha Tsui. Dorm beds in any of the mansion's hundreds of claustrophobic guesthouses starting at 60 yuan.

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Tom Carter of San Francisco is an internationally published freelance photographer and travel writer specializing in the People's Republic of China. Tom has traveled extensively throughout all 33 Chinese provinces and autonomous regions and currently resides in Beijing.

This article originally appeared in a November edition of China Daily newspaper.

Yunnan, a kaleidescope of culture
by Tom Carter (Beijing Today)
Updated: 2006-11-01 10:34

While China's northeastern parts such as Beijing and Shandong may represent the historical heart of the People's Republic, it's in the west where we find a unique cultural diversity that is so attractive to travelers.

Nowhere else in the country might one uncover the splendor of China's varied minority population than 'south of the clouds,' Yunnan. Situated on the southwestern corner of four other provinces, Yunnan also shares borders with three countries (not quite including Thailand and India), its proximity resulting in the highest concentration of ethnic groups in all of China.

However, with the northern Naxi city of Lijiang having become China's hottest holiday destination for tour groups, nearby Dali a laidback retreat for younger backpackers, and Zhongdian a jumpig off point for Tibet, south Yunnan remains a relatively unspoiled region.

From the concrete jungle of the provincial capital city of Kunming into the rain forests of Xishuangbanna, this writer bypassed the more popular route towards Laos and Vietnam for the less-explored areas around the Burma perimeter. My timing was perfect, as I arrived in the village of Menghun just before its Sunday market.

A quiet community accented with stilted wooden homes and a hilltop monastery overlooking the surrounding rice fields, the day's drizzly weather served to enhance the village's reticence. But through the gray I caught glimpses of color that revealed thselves to be the region's multiple ethnic minorities.By mid-morning, Menghun's relatively small marketplace, abounding with freshly slaughtered pig heads, brilliant fruits and vegetables, plugs of tobacco and a rainbowof textiles, became a veritable kaleidoscope of culture unlike any I have every witnessed. I was first met by the silky glory of Xishuangbanna's majority population, the Dai, a 2000 year-old culture that fuses HinayanaBuddhism with elements of Thai. The Dai dress attractively in shimmering attire, but it is the younger Dai girls in their formfitting pastel sarongs who catch one's eye before teasingly runing away like nymphs.

Further illuminating the otherwise dark day were the Akha people, known as the Hani. Like a resplendent yet elusive jungle bird, the Akha appear from the deep lush hills only on market day, whence they adorn themselves in heavy layers of black brilliantly highlighted with intricately embroidered patterns. Descendants of the nomadic Qiang from Tibet, each Hani subgroup wear a different colored headdress to signify their tribe, not unlike the plumage of a proud bird, and lavishly accessorize in silver-studded bracelets and leggings, patchwork satchels and antiqued coins stretching out their earlobes. Tumpline baskets around their heads and teeth stained red with betel nut are commonplace.


Especially weary of outsiders, they timidly skirted all my advancements, however friendly persistence coupled with a sincere interest in their lifestyle soon granted me access to a tight knit Akha clan. They spoke very little Mandarin, and of course no English, so we relied simply on gestures and smiles in an attempt to learn about each other.

By noon the market had cleared along with the rain, the streets now lined with vivid knots of indigenous folk awaiting tractors to take them back to their respective outlying villages.

My continued journey through Xishuangbanna Autonomous Prefecture would take me deeper into the surrounding tropical jungles, including a 50km trek from Bulongshan to Damenglong. But those are stories for another time. For now I will reminisce over that small yet colorful town of Menghun, for nowhere else have I ever witnessed such a definitive representation of China's beautifully proud ethnic minorities.

Tom Carter, a freelance writer and photographer from San Francisco, has lived in China the past two and a half years. He is currently backpacking through all 32 Chinese provinces.

Transportation

1) From Kunming's main bus station on Beijing Lu, express leeper busses to Jinghong, capital of Xinshuangbanna, daily at 6:30pm (150yuan, 15 hours).

2) Shuttles from Jinghong to Menghun leave the No.2 Bus Station every 20 minutes between 7am and 6pm (15yuan, 2 hours).

Accomodation

In Mengun there are several small boardinghouses, luguan, located on the main street near the bus stop (20 yuan each). A backpacker's favorite is Baita Fandian (White Tower Hotel, 10 yua for a bed) on the outskirts of town and overlooking a lily pond teaming with fish and frogs. Directions are complicated so it's best to ask locals to point you there

Regional cuisine

Rice is the staple diet of the Dai people, who were the first in the history of the world to cultivate rice as a food. Sticky rice baked in fragrant bamboo is a specialty. Xishuangbanna locals also enjoy nibbling on grilled pigtail from street vendors, and perpetually chewing on betel nut (binglang) mixed with lime, which gives off a light narcotic effect while staining the mouth red.

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Tom Carter of San Francisco is an internationally published freelance photographer and travel writer specializing in the People's Republic of China. Tom has traveled extensively throughout all 33 Chinese provinces and autonomous regions and currently resides in Beijing.

This article originally appeared in a November edition of China Daily newspaper.

Xinjiang, China's final frontier
By Tom Carter (Beijing Today)
Updated: 2006-10-24 10:09

"He's from Pakistan.""No, no! He's Japanese." A lively group of Uyghurs orbiting around me at the Hotan marketplace in southern Xinjiang were vociferously debating the nationality of the 196cm foreigner standing before them.

I am in fact a first-generation American of a hybrid Scandinavian-Mediterranean-Hispanic lineage, my dark brown features and unkempt travel whiskers often causing confusion amongst Asians who can't quite place my nationality. Ironically, Han Chinese often mistook me for a Weiwuerzu someone from Xinjiang.

If there is one province unlike any other in the People's Republic, it would have to be Xinjiang. Categorically different from the rest of the country in every conceivable way, the Muslim-dominated Xinjian in the distant northwest is at once China's most intriguing and intimidating travel destination.

Xinjiang Autonomous Region is China's largest, sharing international borders with Pakistan, Afghanistan andcentral Asian countries. This geographical proximity resultingly accounts for over half of China's 12 million Muslims, perhaps Xinjiang's most obvious characteristicMuslim followers of Islam, the second largest religion in the world, are a devout people who believe in the oneness of God, called Allah in Arabic, as opposed to the Christian doctrine of a holy trinity. Muslim adherents can be seen throughout Xinjiang carrying venerated copies of the Qur'an (Islamic holy scripture) and faithfully dashing off to he mosque five times a day for a congregational series of Mecca-facing prostrations and prayer.

Xinjiang's predominant nationality is the Uygur, a vibrant and outgoing culture of Central Asian descent whom this writer affectionately likes to refer to as The Desert People. The Turkic-speaking Uyghurs traditionally attire themselves in simple, loose-fitting robes to accommodate the harsh climate, with the men wearing either plain white or brilliantly embroidered dopi skull caps and the women veiling themselves in a hijab headscarf. A shaved head and long beard further distinguishes the Uyghur men while the ladies take pride and pleasure in dyeing their hands red with henna.

Geographically, Xinjiang offers starkly different topography and climate throughout the vast region, ranging from the cool alpine mountains of the northern Altay region to the arid southern sands of the Taklamakan, the second largest desert in the world. And while Urumqi, Xinjiang's capital, is a gleaming northern metropolis of skyscraprs and department stores, the remote cities bordering the south-western Tarim Basin, including the famed Silk Road oasis of Kashgar, are known for their more traditional way of Muslim life.

Attractions

Situated directly on the borders of Mongolia, Russia and Kazakhstan, the spectacularly sapphire-blue Hanasi Hu Lake in the mountainous region of northern Xinjiang is a popular tour group destination. To the south, the massive Sunday markets in Kashgar and Hotan are not to be missed, though the latter is arguably more authentic.

Transportation

1. From Beijing to Urumqi, 10 flights daily between 8am and 9pm (four hours, 2,410 yuan)


2. To Hanasi Hu, a group tour arranged by any Urumqi travel agency is often suggested for its feasibility, however a majority of time is spent in transit (four days, 500 yuan, including accommodations and entrance tickets)

3. To Kashgar, overnight trains leaving daily from Urumqi at 1pm and 5pm are the most convenient and comfortable way to travel (30 hours, 170 yuan).

4. From Kashgar to Hetian, busses depart from Renmin Donglu almost hourly between 7am and 6pm (eight hours, 50 yuan).

Accommodation

Xinjiang disappointingly offers very little as far as budget accommodations or youth hostels, and due to immigration from neighboring nations, smaller boardinghouses are strict to only allow Chinese nationals. In Kashgar, the Uyghur-run Noor Bish Hotel near the famous Id Kah Mosque is a backpacker's favorite (30 yuanfor a dorm bed).

Regional cuisine

If China is famous for its cuisine, then Xinjiang is responsible for half its success. Heavily seasoned lamb kebab (yangrou chuan), spicy lamian noodles topped with peppers, tomatoes and garlic, deep-fried fresh fish (how did they get fish in the desert?), goat's head soup, golden pilaf rice and fragrant peaches and watermelon, all washed down with refreshing cinnamon tea. There may not be as much bread (nang) in the whole of China as in Kashgar, with lightly seasoned loaves and sesame seed bagels being pulled hot out the oven by the minute.

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Tom Carter of San Francisco is an internationally published freelance photographer and travel writer specializing in the People's Republic of China. Tom has traveled extensively throughout all 33 Chinese provinces and autonomous regions and currently resides in Beijing.

This article originally appeared in an October edition of China Daily newspaper.

Hainan Island,on the edge of the earth
by Tom Carter (beijing today)
Updated: 2006-11-06 10:13

It is interesting to note that while the island of Hainan in southwest China is the country's number two holiday ravel destination (in between Jiuzhaigou National Park in Sichuan and Yunnan's Lijiang), most foreign tourists and expats living in the People's Republic have never even heard of Hainan Dao, let alone been there I used to be one of the guilty parties. Despite residing in China for an extended period of time, it was not until I began my epic travels across the country that I was introduced to what is in fact its smallest yet most exotic province.

Hainan's most popular season is, of course, Spring Festival, when legions of mainlanders shuddering from sub-zero winter temperatures spend Chinese New Year on the invitingly temperate beaches of the tropica island.

Conversely, sweltering summers turn Hainan into a veritable Hades (reclusive sun worshipers take note: you will literally have the beach to yourselves). It is not surprising, then, that Hang Dynasty exiles were once banished to 'The Edge of the Earth' as fatal punishmentHainan island has made significant progress over the centuries, from remote settlement to popular tourist attraction by way of repeatedly falling in and out of control of neighboring provinces until at last being granted provincial status in 1988 (disputably along with some 200 surrounding South China Sea islands) and declared a Special Economic Zone to spur investment.

Resultingly, the colonial capital city of Haikou on the north end of the island has become its commercial center, brimming with transportation hubs, department stores and enough hotels to accommodate all of China (which it literally does during the holidays).

Those wishing to remove themselves from the urban commotion will find rustic serenity on the central coastline around Xiangshui Bay, the only traffic being farmers in coned hats and grazing cattle. There, crystal waters lap at the shores of a brilliant expanse of sugary sand, where one may sip on coconuts, feast on fresh seafood and lay undisturbed beneath the whispering palm trees.

For a more cultural experience, the lush Limuling mountain range in interior Hainan is home to the island's reclusive indigenous peoples, most notably the Miao and the majority Li minority, a colorful ethnicity whose proud elders contine to embrace their traditional customs, native dress and intricate body and facial tattooing.

But it is Sanya, 'the Hawaii of the Orient'that is the island's headlining attraction. Developed along Hainan's southerniphery, the bustling port city is framed by attractive beaches, a lively city center teaming with tourists gaudily attired in matching florescent beach wear, and a harbor congested with fishing vessels, the docks a blur of tangled netting, malodorous hauls of fish and salty dogs preparing for their next seafaring voyage.

Beyond the Sanya peninsula, Yalong Bay is a remarkable 7km stretch of white beach edged by a citadel of luxury hotels glowing in varying shades of pastel, their well-tended guests lounging poolside to the soothing sounds of Kenny G (on repeat), cocktail in hand.

No matter what your tastes - ridiculously overpriced or beach bum 1.5 billion people agree, Hainan Dao is the tropical escape everyone shohuld treat themselves to at least once during their stay in China.

Tom Carter, a freelance writer and photographer from San Francisco, has lived in PR China the past two and a half years. He is currently backpacking through all 32 Chinese provinces.

Transportation

Flights from Beijing to Haikou Airport, four times daily (four hours, 1,800 yuan)

Accommodation

The Treasure Island Hotel chain in Haikou, Xinglong and Sanya are popular with budget travelers desiring resort-style comfort at economy prices (Prices for a double range from 200 yuan in the off-season, up to 1,000 yuan during Spring Festival)

www.treasureisland-hotel.com

Regional cuisine

Seafood on Hainan is plentiful, so prices are some of China's cheapest. roves of street vendors come out at dusk to grill a bounty of fresh fare, including various species of fish, clam, lobster, crab, squid and kelp. For desert, locals enjoy gnawing on sugarcane stalks or any of the abundant fruit. And, of course, coconut milk is an islander's beverage of choice, chopped and chilled for only one yuan.

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Tom Carter of San Francisco is an internationally published freelance photographer and travel writer specializing in the People's Republic of China. Tom has traveled extensively throughout all 33 Chinese provinces and autonomous regions and currently resides in Beijing.

This article originally appeared in a November edition of China Daily newspaper.

Gansu, the mainland's little Lhasa
By Tom Carter (Beijing Today)
Updated: 2006-10-16 10:44

In these over-publicized times of China's new railroad to Tibet, one might be better off avoiding the tourist circus than rnning away with it. Indeed, unless the reader has a certain fondness for overbooked hotels and intrusive, red hat-wearing tour groups, Lhasa is hardly the Tibetan delight that travel agencies continue to bill it as.

Fortunately, lesser-traveled Gansu province in northwest China offers the cultural charm of Tibet without the crowds. Sharing borders with six other provinces except Tibet, it is physically unobvious that Gansu would be home to any kind of Tibetan population. This, coupled with the great shadows cast by the ever-popular neighboring Sichuan and Shaanxi, results in Gansu being one of China's well-kept travel secrets.The narrowly arching province makes it somewhat inconvenient to traverse, yet it is due to this shapely fact that the northern and southern regions offer dramatically different topography, climate and culture, lending to Gansu's uniquely varying harm.

Situated adjacent to both Xinjiang and Qinghai provinces, the small city of Dunhuang in Gansu's Hexi corridor is famed for its mountain-sized sand dunes and ancient Buddhist grotto cave art. A tree-trimmed oasis emmed by a limitless expanse of sand, Dunhuang, once an important outpost along the Silk Road, is now a travel destination as hot as the outlying deserts.

On the theoretically and geographically opposite end of the province, the mountainous terrain of Xiahe provides a cool, quiet respite from both the sweltering sands and disorderly tour groups of Dunhuang. After threading through verdant grasslands grazing with yak, golden fields of wheat and undulating hills of the contiguous Qinghai-Tibetan plateau, Xiahe suddenly appears beneath the surreal blue sky like a monastic vision.

Of the Gannon Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Xiahe is in fact no more than a simple slat-wood settlement along the Daxia River physically and socially orbiting the impressive Labuleng, mainland China's largest Tibetan monastery. Hugged up against the surrounding mountainside, the picturesque state known also as the Labrang Lamma monastery was built in 1710 and accommodates six Buddhist seminaries and over 500 monks of the Yellow Hat sect.


Buddhists from across the region come to worship at Labuleng, contributing to the colorful activity that gives Xiahe its attractive allure. A three-kilometer kora (spiritual walking circuit) halos the area and is heavy with foot traffic from dawn to dusk, whereby crimson-robed monks and natively dressed Amdo pilgrims spinning hand-held mani wheels orbit the monastery while breathlessly prostrating themselves and chanting.

In between turning 1,200 vibrantly painted wooden prayer wheels, the resplendently ornamented nomads rest beneath stupas to chat and sip yak butter tea, a veritable portrait of Tibetan culture.

Visiting the holy capital city of Lhasa on the roof of the world may sound thrilling, but increasing occupation and rampant tourism has rapidly diluted it from the serene getaway it once was. Xiahe, known as Little Lhasa, in the Gansu highlands is a more intimate, and conveniently closer, alternative for those desiring a secluded retreat of unadulterated Tibetan culture.

Transportation

1. Flights from Beijing to Dunhuang Airport, daily at 7:30am (3 hours, 1,880 yuan)

2. From Langzhou to Xiahe, busses leave the North Bus Station at 7am, 8:30am and 2pm (5 hours, 25 yuan).

Accomodation

1. In Dunhuang, the Feitian Binguan located on Mingshan Lu directly across the street from the bus terminal is a popular backpacker hangout, offering dorm rooms and hot-water showers for only 20 yuan.

2. There are a number small inns of varying standards along Renmin Jie in Xiahe, though the Tara and Overseas youth hostels on the west end of town seem to be the preferred choice (25 yuan for a dorm bed).

Regional cuisine

Hand-pulled noodles and thinner beef-noodle soup (saozi lamian) are provincial favorites. Hui-Muslim influences to the north include heavily seasoned mutton/lamb kabob (yangrou chuan), fresh baked bread (nang) and bushels of fragrant peaches and watermelon. Tibetan fare is simpler, including the notorious yak butter tea (po cha), a pungent, thick, salty beverage that Tibetans consume habitually, and Tsampa, a nomadic staple of barley flour kneaded with butter tea to form an edible, nourishing dough.

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Tom Carter of San Francisco is an internationally published freelance photographer and travel writer specializing in the People's Republic of China. Tom has traveled extensively throughout all 33 Chinese provinces and autonomous regions and currently resides in Beijing.

This article originally appeared in an October edition of China Daily newspaper.

Backpacker savant Tom Carter offers his top five "real" China destinations:

Shandong
Where Chinese civilization as we know it began, Shandong is a wealth of history and tradition. From the birthplaces of Sun Tzu and Confucius to sacred Tai Shan, this is Han culture at its most unadulterated.

Ningxia
The smallest and least touristed province, Ningxia is truly one of those places where travelers feel like the only yangren in China. Droves of unemployed workers on the street corners take unabashed fascination in watching you watch them.

Yunnan
This kaleidoscope of culture has the highest concentration of minority groups in all of China, whom appear to us not unlike resplendent yet elusive jungle birds in an effort to preserve their centuries-old customs.

Beijing
Compared to gleaming Shanghai and Hong Kong, we come to Beijing because of its venerable charm, not in spite of it. Amidst the commotion of hyper urbanization, the capital city's remaining hutongs capture life exactly as it has been in China for a thousand years.

Tibet
China's final frontier and spiritual Shangri-la. Lhasa might be destined to succumb to red-hat tourism, but journey to the far eastern or western regions, where nomadic shepherds, colorful pilgrims and remote monasteries have yet to encounter a foreign face.

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Tom Carter of San Francisco is an internationally published freelance photographer and travel writer specializing in the People's Republic of China. Tom has traveled extensively throughout all 33 Chinese provinces and autonomous regions and currently resides in Beijing.

This article originally appeared in the January 2007 edition of City Weekend magazine.

Follow the Dragon's Backbone into the rural solitude of Longji's rice terraces
by Tom Carter

It is hard to imagine anywhere in the People's Republic untouched by civil engineers, the levelers of history. But truly nowhere else in China has life remained perfectly intact - culturally and naturally - as on the Dragon's Backbone in the rural villages of Longsheng county is southwest China.

While Guangxi Autonomous Region's one-two punch of geological wonders are provincial sites that should not be missed - Guilin for the red hat-wearing Chinese tour groups and Yangshuo for Western backpackers - Longji Titian is an ideal place for those who cherish rural tranquility and solitude.

Indeed, to get to the Dragon's Backbone one must ascend dizzying heights (the highest in southern China), and enter a mystical fog that removes everything travelers know about modern China, placing you in a time when people were one with the good earth.

No white tile buildings in sight, the pastoral villages, namely Dazai and Ping'an, are constructed entirely of two and three story wood cabins hugging the vertical mountainside, with spring water coursing through the town's canals. It is here travelers will find accommodations at the simple family-run inns that make up the two settlements.

While one may consider Dazai and Ping'an, located respectively at the northern and southern ends of the peak, as lodging paradises, they are but mere entrances to the wonders ahead. Most visitors are content with the designated "viewpoints" around the towns' terraced fields, but for the nimble hiker, continue on into the lush hillside. Follow a narrow path of mud and stone through a misty forest of venerable trees, dewy ferns and, yes, bubbling brooks.

The rice terraces, with sloping grades reaching 50 degrees, have been sculpted by generations of farmers beginning in the Yuan dynasty to shape the hillsides into grand agricultural pyramids not unlike those found in Guatemala or Mexico. The slopes are infinite in scope and, at an altitude of 1,100 meters, seem to have no bottom or peak. It is simply breathtaking.
The hillsides that have been left uncultivated are threaded with trickling water, channeled from nearby springs to saturate the plots below, and are dotted with tombs of generations upon generations of agrarians, like those you'll see still working on the terraces.

Among them are the dark-skinned Zhaung, Bai and Yao minorities who, not unlike the Mayan Indians of Guatemala, are identifiable by the resplendence of their hand-woven traditional attire. While their men trudge through the muddy terraces sowing rice, the small women roam the paths like little florescent pink armies selling crafts and textiles kept in wicker baskets strapped on their backs. Their pierced earlobes hang with hoops of silver, and their hair, grown long since birth, is kept swathed on their heads. For a small sum though, they will happily undo their knot to show their hair cascading to the soil.

About 10 kilometers between Ping'an and Dazai is Zhongliu, a rustic village of arched stone bridges, dilapidated stables and stilted cottages symmetrically enclosed by terraces, crags and waterfalls. Hikers are approached by cheerful natives who do not hesitate to stop their plowing and ask "Chifan ma?" Their persistence to dine in their homes notwithstanding, what could be more refreshing after an exhausting morning navigating the mountain terrain than a spread of scented sticky rice baked in bamboo over an open fire, greens, salted meat and Longji tea or watery rice wine?

The undulating path continues on, with each bend revealing agricultural grandeurs and vistas of incomparable beauty. Late in the day, when the golden light of dusk illuminates the ribbon-like terraces, travelers encounter Longji's rush hour traffic; farmers descending into the outlying villages with bushels of reeds and firewood slung over their shoulders, alongside the occasional oxen grazing in the path. That's life on the misty mountaintop, where time has stood still for the past 700 hundred years.

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Tom Carter of San Francisco is an internationally published freelance photographer and travel writer specializing in the People's Republic of China. Tom has traveled extensively throughout all 33 Chinese provinces and autonomous regions and currently resides in Beijing.

This article originally appeared in the June 2006 edition of City Weekend magazine.

going round in circles
a kora of good karma around Asia's sacred Kailash Mountain
Written by Tom Carter
Wednesday, 01 November 2006

My path to purification began in the home of Shiva the Destroyer – or perhaps it was just his rubbish bin. The shantytown of Darchen at the foot of Mt Kailash in western Tibet is populated with half-naked, red-cheeked children playing in trash heaps. Teahouses running on car battery power, with dirt floors lined with old pillows, serve as bedding for road-weary pilgrims and backpackers before they start on their kora around Asia's most sacred mountain.

The word kora means 'pilgrimage circuit', or simply, 'big circle'. It describes the clockwise path followed by devout followers of Buddhism and Hinduism in their effort to attain spiritual absolution for the sin of being alive. Throughout Tibet one can see the faithful making koras around temples and other holy places, though none as consecrated as the 52-kilometer circumambulation of Mt Kailash (known in Tibetan as Kang Rinpoche and in Mandarin as Shen Shan).

I began my pilgrimage at dawn (after hesitantly downing a cup of salty yak butter tea for strength) guided by a trail of prayer flags up the misty southern ridge to the Gyangdrak and Selung monasteries, and then following the few stone cairns back down to the kora. At one point the kora branched off, leading to a sky burial site, the place where Buddhists bid farewell to the dead by dismembering corpses and leaving the remains for the birds of prey that form koras of their own far above. The proximity of a burial site is disturbingly announced in advance by the shredded clothes in the vicinity, and more abruptly, by the occasional human bone dropped from the sky by said birds.

I continued my journey, passing a number of resplendently dressed pilgrims watering their horses in a shaded canyon. Before long, I arrived at the Chuku monastery, which hugs the western hillside above the Lha-Chu River, in clear sight of the enigmatic Mt Kailash. Aside from being the most holy Buddhist site in Asia, it is also the source of four great rivers: the Sutlej, which flows to India; the Indus, to Pakistan; the Karnali, which feeds the Ganges; and Tibet's own Yarlung Tsangpo.

I arrived at Mt Kalish at dusk, which in summertime comes at about 10pm; Mt Kailash was bathed in ruby-red hues, a spectacular site, though one soon obscured by drizzling rain clouds. Exhausted, I turned in for the night at a nearby yurt on the grassy banks of Damding Donkhang and soon after I set my head on the filthy pillows, I fell asleep.

I'd been cautioned by a number of experienced pilgrims that the second half of the Mt Kailash kora was the most difficult. And, sure enough, as soon as I passed Dirapuk monastery and crossed the Lha-Chu river the following morning, the route became increasingly treacherous. The steep path eventually thinned out – as did the air – and then disappeared altogether among the large boulders strewn about the Drolma-Chu valley.

I am in my early 30s, but in no time was moving slower than an old woman. Indeed, 80-year-old Tibetans spinning their hand-held prayer wheels quickly out-paced me. Before I had ascended but one-third of the way up the 5,600-meters of evil that is the Drolma-La Pass, I was doubled over with exhaustion. It was then, during this moment of truth beneath the luminously golden face of Mt. Kailash, there appeared before me a vision. Her name was Yang Jing, my own Tibetan goddess of mercy.

One day prior, I had met Yang Jing, a Ngari local, in the company of her grandmother. At the time, both of them were on their third kora in just three days. When she spotted me draped over a large boulder, they were already halfway through their fourth. Carrying only prayer beads and a small pouch of necessities, she relieved me of my burden, a backpack filled with 'non-essentials' – laptop, camera, food, clothes and water.

Embarrassing as it was, a lovely Tibetan woman, eight years my junior, carried my pack the rest of the way around Mount Kailash, simply because I could not. (At the end of our kora, Yang Jing not only refused payment for her help, but offered me a gift – her decades-old yak bone prayer beads; the only recompense I can now offer her is this story).

Though weighed down with my belongings, Yang Jin soon outdistanced me, while I struggled along at the rear, making my way up the bleak Drolma-La, passing the glacial brooks of Shiva-Tsal and the clothing-littered stones and macabre shanks of hair that pilgrims leave to symbolize the expulsion of their old sins. With a light snow frosting the terrain, I finally caught up with Yang Jing atop the scenic pass where she recited her prayers.

Then with the frozen jade waters of Gauri Kund lake below, we carefully began our descent. As we reached the lower level, I was able to breathe again and the remainder of the kora was a delight. We crossed snow banks and passed venerable elders prostrated in verdant meadows fed by small streams trickling down from the mountain's horizontally-banded crystal face. Later, we arrived at a smoky encampment, with chanting pilgrims sitting around yak-dung fires.

We continued past fields of boulders blanketed in thick green moss before taking a rest in a tea tent crowded with jovial Tibetans. Instant noodles and soft drinks were available, but I boldly choose the traditional Tibetan staples of yak butter tea and tsampa, an 'instant' bread made from barley flour kneaded with the tea. Like most Tibetan pilgrims, this was all Yang Jing carried in her small satchel during her multiple koras. Tsampa may be flavorless, though it smells unwashed, but it seems to provide sustenance and energy aplenty for Tibetans to complete 13 circuits.

After our rest, we pressed on through the lush hillsides, tracing the Dzong-Chu river until we came to the Zutul-Puk monastery where most of the Hindus from India had set up camp. I, too, might have spent the night there, but in spite of the searing pain in my legs, I was determined to follow the steely Yang Jing back to Darchen to complete the kora on my second day. My resolve was rewarded when we finally rounded the last bend and met with a stunning vista overlooking the Barkha plains: the Himalayas to the south, aglow under the evening sky.

We walked by a series of mani prayer walls and inscribed yak skulls, together, into the setting sun. It seemed a fitting way to end this epic tale, with the southern sapphire face of Kailash behind us – along with our sins.

Travel Pack
A number of travel agencies and hotels around Lhasa can arrange week-long Land Cruiser expeditions along Tibet's southern route past Lake Manasarovar to Mt Kailash for approximately RMB 4,000 per person. Alternatively, budget travelers can take a three-day sleeper along the northern route, departing from Lhasa's north bus station every couple days to the outpost town of Ali for RMB 700. Water, food and a window seat in the front of the bus is strongly recommended. From Ali's north junction you can hitch a ride on a 'gypsy' jeep to Darchen/Mt Kailash, or catch a lift on one of the trucks from nearby construction sites, or the occasional rogue bus. Permits are no longer required for travel in Tibet and as such no agency should charge you for one.

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Tom Carter of San Francisco is an internationally published freelance photographer and travel writer specializing in the People's Republic of China. Tom has traveled extensively throughout all 33 Chinese provinces and autonomous regions and currently resides in Beijing.

This article originally appeared in the November 2006 edition of That's Shanghai magazine.

July 07, 2006
Local Travel: Seven Days in Permit-less Tibet
The open road into Xizang
text and photos by Tom Carter

The news was shocking!

The ticket agent at the Shangri-la bus terminal in Zhongdian, Yunnan province was happy to tell me over and over, in both Chinese and English, that yes, foreigners can now travel east through the Tibet Autonomous Region to Lhasa … overland and without a permit! I really couldn't believe what I was hearing, but rather than falling down in rapture, I agonized over taking advantage of this new policy or continuing as planned on my already-paid-for, government-authorized, one-week tour across Kham to Lhasa. Ultimately, it would have been silly for me not to choose the latter.

The decade-old Land Cruiser was in surprisingly good condition, having driven through Tibet 99 times. We set out through northern Yunnan to the crags of Feilaisi, finding ourselves at a dizzying 4,000 meters above sea level and nauseously breathless, to stay overnight at a roadside pilgrimage site of sun-bleached chortens, wind-tattered prayer flags and a stunning view of Mingyong Glacier.

Bright (a light so bright it was hard to believe) and early the next morning, we continued into undulating hills. Vistas of incomparable beauty revealed themselves with each bend. The forest was a tapestry of earthy shades, in orange, purple, browns and greens, both light and dark. With the iridescent blue sky and cottony white clouds above us, we traced perilous dirt switchbacks whose collapsing shoulders threatened to toss us hundreds of meters below into the Mekong River; it looked peaceful enough from above, its banks and farmland dotted with eye-catching, whitewashed adobe homes that seemed to beckon us into Tibet.

"Xizang!" our driver called out. In fact we had been in Tibet for half a day, but how could we know without having crossed any sort of border or being stopped by officials asking to see our papers? We had to remind ourselves that entering Eastern Tibet was now a permit-less process and all the checkpoints on our maps and guidebooks were recently abandoned. We celebrated our unbeknownst entry into the TAR (Tibetan Autonomous Region) by spending the day in the small, dusty city of Markham. Winding down from its weekend market, the city was brimming with the splendor of the traditional Khampas population: golden-skinned women with their long striped dresses and colorful plaits, and large-sized men with lengthy braided hair woven with red Chamdo tassels and a solid jade hoop. We were greeted by dozens of red-cheeked, runny-nosed children dancing around us. My European traveling companions were constantly surrounded by a crowd of curious adults, who took turns running their fingers along the thick blonde leg hairs, then letting out a collective fascinated murmur.

Traveling through Eastern Tibet can be compared with experiencing the four seasons in just a matter of days. While we started with clear skies and venerable forests, the next morning took us into icy tundra. Ascending 99 bends into the Hengduan Range, the mountains seemed to freeze over before our eyes. At 5,008 meters we reached the highest altitude of our trip.

At the bleak Dongdola pass we encountered a settlement of nomadic shepherds (drokpas) living in black tents while herds of emaciated yak-cows grazed the surrounding frozen pastures. These gentle people of an inhospitable land were dressed in simple hand-woven attire, but they were extravagantly accessorized in coral, turquoise and silver jewelry. These shepherds had seen few white faces in their lifetime. One drokpa family had yet to see a digital camera and they were mesmerized by the sight of their own images on the LCD screen.

At Pomda, a noise-polluted junction of logging trucks and tractors, we met a bunch of international backpackers and hardcore cyclists sitting at the literal crossroads that connects the northern route of the busy Sichuan-Tibet highway with the less-traveled southern roads. From there, our journey took us through and down into verdant terraced hamlets and patchwork plots of land fed by snow springs, over the Salween River to the unbelievably mint-blue twin lakes of Rawoktso. Dodging Kham's morning traffic of goats, lamb and yak-cows (yes, cross-bred), we pressed on along the boulder-strewn road of the Sundzom Valley, past the Parlung Tsangpo white water rapids and old avalanches of frozen snow to Tongmei, where we encountered our first real obstacle.

Rumors had been circulating amongst the backpackers we'd been meeting on the road about a downed bridge at the Brahmaputra and Parlung Tsangpo convergence, which would prevent anyone from continuing on to Lhasa. It turned out the bridge was fine but a landslide on the other side had literally wiped the road off the sheer mountain face. Anyone wanting to continue on had to either nimbly navigate a narrow footpath or wait a week or longer.

So it was here that we said goodbye to our Land Cruiser and crossed the bridge to meet another driver. The organizer of our trip told us via cellphone from his cozy office in Kunming that the new driver would be waiting "just a short walk" from the landslide. It turned out to be an arduous four-hour hike up a treacherous mountain path above the Rongchu gorge, in the dark of night, under the pouring rain of Tibet's monsoon season. We braved the muddy slopes, deftly crossing washouts and literally dodging falling rocks from above, before finally arriving at a construction workers' tent made from a giant nylon bag. The Israeli and British backpackers decided to stay while my companions and I trekked onward, in search of our new driver.

With our new vehicle and driver, we headed onwards toward Lhasa. Passing vivid fields of yellow youcai flowers, we arrived at the famous Draksumtso, an azure lake and lush Alpine forest which would have been breathtaking had it not been for the sea of baseball cap-wearing tour groups – the isolated beauty of Eastern Tibet was behind us.

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Tom Carter of San Francisco is an internationally published freelance photographer and travel writer specializing in the People's Republic of China. Tom has traveled extensively throughout all 33 Chinese provinces and autonomous regions and currently resides in Beijing.

This article originally appeared in the July 2006 edition of That's Beijing magazine.