I’m writing this from a seedy internet bar in Shanghai (is there any other kind?), and apologise for not having blogged regularly since the Heavenly Lake – I intended to, but then was thwarted by utterly unreliable internet.

Let me catch you up on my last few weeks in China.

Class ended, my friends went home, and I found myself in a Dushanzi that was rapidly becoming empty of things – the college was becoming empty of people, the apartment was becoming empty of foreigners (we never really see Dave that much – he’s a busy man, and Aussie Pat’s moved on), and my apartment was becoming empty of things. The walls had been stripped of the paintings that had hung there for a year; the couches which had once been draped in Uyghur and Tibetan cloth had been stripped naked.

Then came one of the hardest things – emptying my house of my cat. The trip to Borla was a long drawn out affair, and a little stressful I fear, for my darling boy. We had originally planned to take him on the train, a relatively short, easy ride over smooth rail tracks – only 4 hours away. The only train from Dushanzi to Borla left at about 3am – you read right: three in the morning. So the four of us – Christine, Cameron (Mushuk’s new carer/acquisition), Mushuk and I trekked out to the Kuytun train station, about a 20 minute taxi ride from our home.

However, luck was not on our side, as we discovered when we went to buy the tickets, me getting more and more stressed by Mushuk’s irate and scared caterwauling from inside his box. He was actually so loud and scary sounding that the Chinese people around were actually jumping backwards in in fear.

I put his box down on a ledge, and was about to go join Cameron in the ticket line, when a rail police woman asked me in Chinese “whose cat is that?” I smiled ruefully, and said, “he’s mine.”

She shook her head, and said something that sounded suspiciously to me like “you can’t take a cat on the train!”

Alas, my Chinese is getting better, because that was indeed the correct translation.

So here we were, all ready at 3 am to take the cat to Borla by train, only to discover that Chinese bureaucracy would not allow it.

“That’s it,” I thought to myself. “I have to find him a home in Dushanzi within just a few days – there’s no way I can get him to Borla.”

But on the way home in the taxi, it seemed that all three of us had the idea at the same time – we could hire a TAXI to take us to Borla.

So we did. We got a good night’s sleep that night, and the next morning, I packed up the Darling Mushuk in a sturdier box – he’d managed to claw his way out of the one the night before. We negotiated with taxi drivers at the bus station, and came to an agreement with one, to take us there for 450 yuan – divide by 8 for USD, by about 5 for AUD.

Now, if I was inclined to downplay events, I’d tell you that the road was bumpy. The prize would go to me for the understatement of the year. There was SOLID road works between Kuytun and just outside of Borla. Poor Mushuk, even though he had a nice big computer monitor box with holes punched in it, even though he had a lovely soft cushion to sit on… It seemed to me that with every outward breath, he cried. *breath in – MEOW – breath in – MEOW – breath in – MEOW*

His crying got less spirited the further along we got. He really only cried for four of the five hours. But at least the car was airconditioned.

When we finally reached Borla, Cameron directed the driver to his family’s “town house”. His family has a “town house”, a “village house” and a “farm house”. They are farmers, and Hui, which is a Han-looking muslim minority in China – I feel safe leaving Mushuk with them, because I know that chances are he won’t get eaten by them – Muslims don’t eat cats.

Cameron’s family’s “town house” consists of a building with three rooms on one side – a large square kitchen, connected to a living/sleeping room with a raised platform for sitting on and eating from a low table, cross legged. When it’s time to sleep, they clear off the small table, and sleep on the platform. The third room is Cameron’s room, large and square with a red brick floor. The bed is larger than any kingsized bed I’ve ever seen, and I think that when his brother goes to stay at the town house, he also sleeps in that bed. Cameron works very hard at studying for uni, and so his holidays will be spent studying in that little room (“I like it, because it is quiet”), and helping his father on the farm.

On the other side of the small square block that the town house sits on, there is a small stable where there are two cows and their calves. We had fresh milk that day – my first and only fresh milk in Xin Jiang.

I put Mushuk’s box in Cameron’s room, and opened it up. An exhausted Mushuk cautiously creeps out, and then before any of us realise what’s happened, he’s zoomed under the very large bed. There’s just enough room under that bed for a cat, but nowhere near enough for a human to go under to coax the cat out. I shone my torch under there, but all I could see were two great glowing eyes. Those eyes were the last I saw of my Mushuk – he refused to come out, and I had to go. I’m getting teary as I write about it, so I shall move on.

Cameron invited Christine and I out to the farm, and we finally got to see a bit of the rural China that we’d previously only seen from the train, or from the freeway. The whole thing was nauseatingly picturesque – the land a patchwork (I have to use that description, because it’s just so apt) of different crops – corn, wheat, potatoes, and my favorite, sunflowers. Gorgeous sunflowers in full bloom, sometimes whole fields of them, sometimes just at the boundary markings of some of the other fields, fallen seeds which have been allowed to grow, because they don’t pollute the neighbouring crop. Chris and I took plenty of silly photos together in the fields, which I will post once I have access to a computer with a CD drive.

Cameron’s family were the epitome of hospitality, cooking up a wonderful dinner at their village home – freshly slaughtered chicken, home made steamed bread, and more dishes than we could hope to finish. We ate outside, under a trellis with grape vines creeping up and over, and listening to the sounds of the cows in the nearby stables. It was maybe the most pleasant afternoon I can remember, and certainly the loveliest outside dinner I’ve had in years – the last one I can remember that evoked the same feelings of contentment was the evening I met Katie in France, when my host family and hers had dinner in her host family’s back garden. I was happy that this family would take good care of my kitty, and so life became all of a sudden less stressful.

But too soon, it was time to go. The train trip home took place in the wee hours of the morning, and I really don’t want to think too much about it – that was one LOOONG day.

To avoid keeping you in suspense, I’ll jump briefly forward in the story, to tell you that I called Cameron just the day before yesterday, and he told me that Mushuk is happy, and is sleeping ON the bed now, not under it, and is happily eating and drinking. So all is indeed well.

Another one of the many goodbye sessions was to my friends in Kelamayi. I went there, just for one night, and had a fab time with the very good friends that I’ve made there – Pat, Stu, Rob, Krystal, Maggie, Sophia, Faruh, and the newbies who seemed so very cool, Gary the New Crazy Canadian (ridiculously awesome guy, I just wish I had got to know him better), and yet another Aussie Christine.

Pat and I had a superb jam in the afternoon, and that night, got up on stage at Culture of September, and played the best mini-set that I think we’ve ever done. Pat, mate, I can’t wait to hear what you do to that song once you get home – you know the one I mean.

So then, all that was left was to pack up the remainder of my apartment. The time passed all too swiftly, and it was time for my final farewells to my remaining friends in Dushanzi – Barbara, Yilham, Scandar (the not-so-little-anymore boy from the night market) and Robin. It was a quiet affair at the night market, nothing as rowdy as Aussie Pat’s last goodbye, where we had to keep adding new tables as more of his students showed up. I’m not much of a one for goodbyes. I hate them. I much prefer, as Mr Wickham and the French would have it, Aurevoir.

Soon, it was time for Christine and I to make our way to Urumqi, where I said goodbye to my wonderful boss, Kang Laoshi, and then said goodbye to Xin Jiang.

Christine and I took the sleeper train to Xi’an, and were met there by a sunny faced man, the driver that Kang Laoshi had organised for us. He drove us through hot and muggy Xi’an to one of the swankiest hotels in town, something we were not at all expecting. We began to think that the driver had taken us to the wrong place. We got in there, only to discover that they only had us booked in for two of the three nights that we were due to spend in Xi’an, and what’s more, the money that Kang Laoshi had given me for accomodation in Xi’an only covered two nights at this place anyway.

We were a tad unhappy about this whole arrangement, but our driver offered us a tempting alternative. We could go stay at the hotel where he was based, for three nights, for less than the cost of two nights at the swanky place. After agreeing that we’d at least go and LOOK at his hotel (and after confirming that it had airconditioning), we were chauffered again through Xi’an’s confusing grid of one way streets. The alternative hotel, as it turned out, was infinitely better than any Holiday Inn style hotel could have been – we found ourselves in a suite with a lounge room with comfy couches, three bedrooms, a private bathroom, and an arctic blaster of an airconditioner.

Xi’an’s best known attraction is probably the Terracotta Warriors. So we went there, and took plenty of semi-illegal photos. It was pretty cool, but nothing like the Great Wall, or the Heavenly Lake. For me, the other highlight of Xi’an was the market – the Chinese knickknack shopping was probably as good, if not better, than the Qianmen alley markets of Beijing, just south of Tian’anmen Square. I bought far more than I can sneak through the airline’s weight limit (I guess the 300 dvds in my suitcase don’t help either), AND I managed to get my Kasghar painting – the one with the camels and the donkeys – mounted onto a scroll. It is just gorgeous, and the guy in the store who organised it for me – Modest Liu was his name – said that the “teacher” who mounted it said that it was very fine work.

Impressions of Xi’an: a pretty cool place, regardless of the rain. Everything that is not obviously new is old an quaint, and it is one of the only cities in China where the city walls are still visible – Xi’an was the ancient capital of China, and I read somewhere that within the city walls, which had a circumference of 14 kms, was the Forbidden City of the Tang dynasty, which was at least three dynasties ago (four, if you count the current one as the Mao Dynasty). Chris and I took a stroll along the top, which was wide enough for perhaps six or seven cars to drive along in line, and leaned over the inside edge to watch the world go by.

One thing I’ve noticed out here in the East of China, which I had thought was just something the Xin Jiang people said to justify their living out in the boonies – Eastern Chinese people, at least the ones in Xi’an, just aren’t as nice as a whole, as the Xin Jiang folk. In fact, some of them were quite rude, mocking even, of us westerners. It’s one thing to be stared at in Xin Jiang – it’s quite another to not be stared at in the East, but instead be given the cold shoulder without the benefit of the doubt. I guess that Westerners come through Xi’an regularly – I think I saw more there than anywhere else on my travels in China, even in Beijing. They stare at we westerners in Xin Jiang, but at least once you engage them in conversation, they are almost always warm and welcoming.

So then, the final farewell, yesterday afternoon, to Christine. She headed back to Friendly Xin Jiang, and I boarded my train to Shanghai, where I barely said more than a handful of things to my train folk. From Xin Jiang, you can’t get them to shut UP, to stop asking you questions. But no, they left me blissfully alone to contemplate the rest of my journey. There is noone here in Shanghai who I know, so I suppose the goodbyes are all over, thank god.

Now, all that is left is the (HOORAY!) going home part. I’ve made the decision to NOT live it up in Shanghai, to save the last remaining Chinese money I have to pay what may turn out to be HUGE excess luggage fees. People are estimating that my suitcase is 45 kilos, 25 overweight. I shall suck it in, and put all the heavies that I can into my carry on luggage…

I’m not sure if I’ll blog again from Shanghai, so this may well be the final chapter in this blog. I shall bulk out this entry within the week, adding photos once I’m back in Australia, but I imagine that unless something amazingly exciting happens, this is the end of my Chinablog.

But it is not the end of the blogging – oh no, it is just the beginning. For now I have the taste for the blog, and will be sharing with you all the juicy gossip of my return, the reverse culture shock, the reminiscing, and general tomfoolery of my new beginning of my old life.

Thank you, friends, for listening. Your kind comments and emails have helped me keep a handle on my flimsy sanity, and I hope to see many of you soon. And the rest of you, within the next 18 months – Browncoats will converge, then I shall attempt to get to the UK once I have time and money…

Love, Peace, Out.

Charlotte

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I’ll start again with a legend. In Chinese mythology, it is said that one day, a Chinese goddess was washing her feet in heaven. When she was done, she tipped out her basin of bath water over part of the Tianshan mountain range, and the water pooled in a long valley, to form Tianchi, or Heaven’s Lake.

And Heavenly it certainly is. I just got back from three days hiking and horseriding around the lake and in the mountains above it, and I have to say that life back on the ground seems pretty dreary by comparison.

We dropped Aussie Pat off at the airport on our way to Urumqi, bidding him farewell and safe journey – he’s doing Tailand and India before going to do a semester at Georgetown in Washington DC. But by the time we got INTO Urumqi, it seems that all the buses for Tianchi had left already, so Christine and I had to hire a car to take us up there. The driver was not too talkative, which was actually a blessing, because it meant that we could enjoy the countryside heading up into the mountains.

Xin Jiang has returned to how it was when I first arrived – fields of sunflowers and corn, tall poplar trees marking the field boundaries in gorgeous green. I remember the euphoria I felt when I first arrived, and it brings on a kind of bittersweet melancholy when I think about it now. But at the time, I was excited to be heading up to the beautiful lake, and looking forward to staying plenty of time there, rather than when I’d visited it almost a year ago with a Chinese tour group.

Once we reached as far as our car could take us, we switched to the cable car, up a steep slope of temperal forest. The ground below was green, and dotted with pine trees. To one side was the river, whooshing down and swollen with snow melt. Here’s me and Chris, showing our happiness:

Once we got to the end of the wire, we began to walk the rest of the way to the lake, perhaps a 15 minute walk. An old Kazak man began to walk with us, asking us if we wanted to ride a horse, or if we wanted to stay in his yurt. But we’d studied our Lonely Planet, and in the short section on Tianchi, there’s a mention of one Rashit, a Kazak who’s been hosting travelers in his yurt for years and years. I told the old Kazak man who was walking with us that we had plans to meet friends at Rashit’s – Pat The Crazy Canadian and friends were up at the lake, and we had arranged to meet up on the one night of overlap of our stays.

Anyway, this old Kazak dude knew exactly who we were talking about, and told us that that was fine. Then he promptly asked again if we wanted to ride horses round to Rashit’s (a good 45 minute walk around the lake), at only 30 Yuan a pop. Christine and I consulted a little, and then we eventually drove him down to 10 Yuan each. Silly me, though, I had not anticipated a horse ride on the first day, and had worn a skirt that morning. So here I was, riding this horse with my skirt hiked up around my knees, baring my pearly white (unshaven!) legs for all to see. Have you ever tried to climb onto a horse with a skirt on? Suffice it to say that Christine was considerably more dignified than I… But I did feel a little like a troubadour though, with my guitar on my back and my bag tied to the saddle knot. I wish that guitars were smaller, so that one could easily spin them round to the front and serenade the forest. I suppose they call small guitars mandolins. Or perhaps ukeleles…

A twenty minute horse ride later, through forest that was strangely reminiscent of Myst Island (have any of you played that game?), and we were greeted by Rashit, who’s English was waaaay better than I had imagined. He’d been told of our coming by the Kazak folk at the entrance to the lake area, and had come out to meet us.

Let me just say, that Rashit is The MAN. He’s open, and friendly, and interesting, and funny, and helpful. He understands western humour (a rarity in China), and has the language skills to appreciate irony, sarcasm, and even the self depreciating Australian humour. We liked Rashit a lot.

Here he is, at the front of the lake. His village is in a cove sort of just below his left ear. His left, not yours.

Anyway, Rashit’s village is tucked into a cove about halfway around the lake, and as he walked us the short way from where the horses dropped us off, he asked if I could play the guitar I had slung behind my back. I demurred, saying that no, I was not such a good player, but that our friend who we were meeting at Rashit’s that night could play up a storm. We got to comparing notes, and Rashit told us that Pat and co had indeed been at his village the night before, but had left that afternoon. Christine and I managed to contain our disappointment somehow… (Pat, you piker! *grin*) As it turns out, the guitar did not go to waste – there were a few other backpackers hanging out who could pluck a note or two, and Rashit is quite a lovely player himself.

We rounded the final corner, and there we saw Rashit’s village, made up of round yurts in the traditional Kazak style, and more functional square ones, covered with tarpaulin to keep out the rain:

There was only one other guest at Rashit’s that night, a German bloke called Stefan, so Chistine and I got a whole big round yurt to ourselves, and Stefan would sleep in the other, smaller one. We were served with tea at an outside wooden table, and Chris decided that it was time for her to brave the icy waters and go for a swim. I couldn’t actually see the shoreline from where I was sitting, writing in my diary, but I did hear the screams that told me just how cold the waters of Tianchi really were. Brave lass, that.

After Chris had dried off and regained feeling in her toes (perhaps I’m exaggerating a little…), we took a walk around the lake, to the far end where it is fed by the rivers of melted snow. To give you an idea of just how big the lake is, Rashit is more than a quarter of the way round the full circuit of the lake, but with the two hours that we had to stroll around and get back in time for dinner, we didn’t even make it to the beach at the far end. Granted, we did stop to take lots of piccies:

Dinner that night was Lamian (lah-mee-en), which is just a type of flat noodle, kinda like linguine, with ratatouille type sauce, a traditional Turkic people’s dish.

A little guitar playing happened after dinner – Rashit played some traditional Kazak music, some of which I recognized from a Kazak wedding I went to weeks ago. But we didn’t stay out long – it gets cold fast up in the mountains, and Chris and I found ourselves getting to bed before the dusk had passed. But bear in mind that there is still sunlight here at 10.30pm (Beijing time). Rashit’s wife had built us a merrily roaring fire in the little pot bellied stove in the yurt, and that night, sleeping involved kicking off most of the blankets that we thought we’d need.

The next morning, we were awoken to the sounds of wind in the fir trees, horses whinnying, cows lowing, and sheep baa-ing. I ask you, is there any better way to awaken? I lurched out of the tent, pashmina wrapped around me, thinking that it would be cold outside, but the sun was already beating down on the lake, and I found that being cold in the mountains, at least during the day, was not something I’d have to worry too much about.

We spoken with Rashit the night before about what we should do the next day, and Chris and I were keen to do the horse trek up to the snow line. So, we ate our breakfast with Stephan, noodles in a lamby broth, and were greeted by our two Kazak guides. Each of them was standing next to the horses we would ride that day, and Chris and I realized to our dismay that they were planning on *leading* the horses all the way to the top of the mountain.

But we clambered on anyway, and started on the day long journey. Rashit had told us that it could take anywhere between 8 to 10 hours round trip, so we got comfortable, and took in the breath taking scenery. I got to talking to my guide in Chinese (SO glad he could speak Chinese – there are stacks of Kazaks and Uyghurs in more remote areas, or less Han areas, who can speak worse Chinese than I can, like in Kashgar!). His name was, as close as I could understand it, Hkalhkan (I’ll write it Kalkan, cause it’s easier), the “hk” being a back of the throat kinda lurgie sound. He looked about thirty, but we got to talking about how old we were, and it turns out he’s 2 years younger than me, only 23. I guess that the mountains and harsh conditions age people quicker. He was singing a song in Kazak as he walked, and I asked him to teach it to me:

Bileh-shi, bileh-shi, halva hunder tiumeshi
Bileh bileh halva hunder, tiumeshi

All I know is that it’s about dancing, and blinking. I then tried to think of a good Irish song for traveling, but all the “rambling” songs have been crowded out by Chinese. That’s my excuse, and I’m sticking to it.

Our horses were lead around the lake, well above the semi-tasteful concrete path that rings the shore, dismounting at one point to scrabble over a particularly steep rocky part of the path. Then we finally reached the beach, and our guides began to argue with each other as to the best way to cross the river that needed to be crossed, without getting their feet too muddy. Kalkan turned and handed the reins to me, and saide, “you cross by yourself, I’ll go up on these rocks”.

Oh, the JOY, Torgat (the horse’s name) and I finally free to go as we liked. We went on, Torgat and I, and he knew the path like the back of his hoof – he’d been doing this same trek for years and years. Chistine’s guide was a little more anal – at one point, we asked him if he could do the same for Chris and let her ride her horse herself without being lead, and he basically said “no”. I’m not sure if it had to do with a lack of faith in his horse’s capabilities for being sensible, or a lack of faith in Chris’s riding skills – a tad unfounded, cause she’d had plenty of horseriding experience as a kid, just as I had. But at any rate, it wasn’t until much much later that her guide gave her the reins, and then only because he had to cause he couldn’t lead.

The entrance to the long, zigzagging valley that we would follow up to the snow line was broad and flat, and was filled with fir trees and other deciduous trees. There was grass wherever it could take root, all cropped short by goats and cows, giving the place a spotlessly manicured look:

That’s Chris on the horse in front.

Up and up the river valley we climbed, and we were joined along the way by Rashit’s brother (who’s name I never quite got), who was busy trying to train a five year old horse, who obviously was not as experienced in following the path as Torgat was, and was infinitely less willing to carry someone up the mountain. Kalkan decided that if Torgat and I didn’t need leading, he’s jump on to Rashit’s brother’s horse too, so there he rode for much of the rest of the way, sitting on plastic grain sack behind the saddle. At the same time as being joined by Rashit’s brother, a Kazak girl of maybe 17 or so joined us for part of the walk up. The road became steeper, and the valley narrower, and soon we came to a small yurt tucked into the mountain on one side, and an old Kazak couple came out to greet us. The girl, whose name turned out to be Anar (ie Anna) went to each of them and gave them each a hug that said “I’ve not seen you in ages”. Rashit’s brother explained to me that she was actually their daughter. I can only imagine that she’d been at school down the mountain, and had just got back for the Summer break.

Anyway, this old couple laid out the welcome mat for us in the form of a rug on that spotlessly manicured lawn, and served us salty Kazak tea with fresh milk, solid bread, and soft white cheese, kinda like pretty hardened cottage cheese. They were really something, these two – they were Russian, but had moved up to Tianchi decades ago.

Christine and I talked a little about what it would be like to live this lifestyle, isolated in the mountains, living in a yurt with no electricity, no running water (unless you count the rapids of the river outside), but with such serenity as could make you cry. What do you get up for in the morning? What do you do with your day? It was like they were living in their own little private time capsule, and I found myself envying them.

We sallied forth again after our break, stopping only once at this amazingly picturesque little area, grass cut short, fir trees giving shade, and the river whooshing by over massive rounded boulders. Here’s Chris with our three guides:

L-R: Chris; Rashit’s brother; my guide, Kalkan; Chris’s guide.

Here’s the gorgeous bloke who was kind enough to carry me up the mountain, the 13 year old Torgan. He was a most obliging fellow, and totally knew his stuff – whenever I was unsure as to which path we should take, I could usually just let him do his thing, and he’d pick the best path.

Here is Chris and the blokes, relaxin’. Chris’s horse is tied to the three in the background, and Rashit’s brothers untrained horse was just hanging around, tethered by a long rope. Torgan was just left to wander around, not tied up at all. He was such a good bloke.

Rashit’s brother, and the “naughty” horse. Rashit’s brother’s horse was a bit of a “scallywag”, as my mum would say. Delighted in doing just what they didn’t want him to. And he was skittish as all hell

It’s not a blog entry without the obligatory self-taken two person headshot…

Next came the really steep climb, and the fir trees just stopped once we got above a certain point. The hillsides were slashed with goat and sheep tracks, and we randomly followed them up the valley’s edge, going higher and higher. The sides of the hills were steep as steep can be without becoming grassy cliffs, and I kept telling myself, “the horse wants to fall even less than I do… the horse wants to fall even less than I do”.

We saw few people, but plenty of goats. These guys looked like they had seen postcards and had been practicing how picturesque they could be:

Finally we reached a point where our guides said, “no more riding, this is as far as the horses can go, cause it’s too craggy from here on in”, and that if we wanted to go further up, they’d wait for us, and have tea in the yurt where we’d stopped. We could just go on until we felt tired, and then come on back down again.

So we did. We started climbing. And climbing. And climbing! The snow line was in view, but every time we came to the top of a rise, another rise presented itself for the climbing. We finally reached the point where we felt on top of the world, even though there was a little more world above us, and here we stopped for water and photos, and general contemplation. As Chris pointed out, there was something surreal about being up there, away from civilization, away from distractions. All that was there was the wind, the sun, the mountains and the occasional goat.

Looking at the photos, you really can’t understand just how high up we were, and how much of the world we could see. But here they are anyway, images from a magic time:

Chris coming up the mountain.

The lichen and moss on a lot of these rocks were so pretty, I couldn’t help myself.

Chris, with the snow behind her, looking serene.

My first foray into the timer function on my camera. Thanks to Aussie Pat for the idea.

Here’s me on the mountain. No commentary necessary. I was awestruck.

These people fed us some bread, hard cheese, and tea at the top of the mountain. Can you IMAGINE waking up to this view every morning?

They also had a camel up there. Chris spent some time bonding with it, from a distance – I’d seen a camel spit several metres in Kashgar, and so we both kept our distance from this magnificent gent:

My god, I just have so many photos that I want to share, but I know that if I make this blog entry any longer, certain people with attention span problems will tune out. So I’ll publish this now. I’ll try to do some more blogging about Tianchi later on, but I’m rapidly running out of time.

Today marks the two weeks mark, until I get home to Australia, and only one week till I leave Xin Jiang. And with the nights I’ve got spent away from home, visiting folk, taking my cat to his new home, or the couple of nights that I’ll be spending in Urumqi, I only have three nights left in this apartment. Wierd…

Cheers, Charlotte

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