Edit: I will only do 2 stories for now, and will write more when I have more time. Update just happens to be long overdo, although its not finished yet. Also, it seems I forgot to title the post.
Men With Knives (a.k.a. The Robbery)
It happened in Dali. It was late night, perhaps 2:30 in the am. I had just come back from hanging out at a bar with some friends I made while travelling. I was on my way back to my hostel admiring the sights in the darkness. Dali is an old city. The main part of the city is surrounded by ancient walls that protected the city against any invaders. My friends had chosen to stay at a different hostel than I. Their hostel was very close to downtown, while mine happened to be just outside the city walls. To get outside the walls, you have to walk through a big tunnel that leads beneath the walls. As I entered the tunnel, I noticed a couple guys hanging out at the other end. As I reached about the half way point, they started walking towards me. That’s about the same time I heard someone behind me say “Hello.” It was a friendly hello. The kind of “hello” that you typically hear followed by “where are you from?” I turned around and saw 3 guys. The one that said hello was standing on the right side smiling. Instead of the typical statement, the words following this “hello” were “Please follow.” The other 2 guys had just about reached me at that point, and I began to get an inclination of what was going on. I said to the guy “I am very tired and want to go home.” At that point, the man said something in Chinese, which made his 2 “associates” draw long 8-12 inch knives from beneath their jackets. “Please follow.” I did as I was told.
The men led me just outside the city gate, where they had me stand in (there is no other word for it) a dark corner. The man said “Give money.” I took out my wallet and gave him everything in it: about 400 RMB. I then proceeded to take out my "small money” wallet (where I put in anything under 100 RMB) and handed them another 150ish RMB. The man then said something along the lines of “Don’t hide money, or things go bad.” I decided that money wasn’t worth the risk of getting stabbed to death in a Chinese city, so I opened up my stash and handed it to them. About 490 dollars and another 500 RMB. The guy counted the money. He then took out a 100 dollar bill, two 20 dollar bills, and 300 RMB. He then handed them to me. I was confused. I didn’t understand why he had handed me back some money. He then said something in Chinese to one of the guys, and one of them pulled out a small bottle of bijou (Chinese alcohol. A poor man’s drink) and a glass. A shot was poured, and then handed to me. I don’t normally drink, but I thought to myself ‘If you’re ever going to drink, there seems like no better time than now,’ so I drank. The guy then said “Thank you” to me, took back the glass, and they all walked off, leaving me standing in the dark thinking ‘What the fuck was that?’ I made my way back to the hostel and filled out a police report. Later that night, as I lay in bend, I couldn’t help thinking that it could have gone much worse. I had my camera gear, and they weren’t even interested. They gave me back about 30% of my money. Hell, they even gave me a drink. It dawns to me, looking back at the situation, that is was the best robbery I had ever heard of.
Tiger Leaping Gorge
Legend states that a long time ago, a tiger was running from a hunter. As he was running, the hunter managed to corner the tiger and put its back against a large canyon. With nowhere to run, and desperate to escape, the tiger decided to leap over the gorge in order to evade his pursuer. What legend doesn’t say is if the tiger made it or not. I assume he didn’t (its a rather large gorge).
Tiger leaping gorge is located near the lovely city of Lijiang, in the Yunan province of China. The adventure began at 8 a.m. in the morning. A number of us left the hostel and loaded into mini vans for a 2 hour drive to get us to the starting point of what would be a 2 day trek. On the road, I became friends with a couple of really cool cats: 1 woman, from Spain, and 2 girls and 1 guy from France. When we arrived, we were instructed to pay the 85 RMB admission fee, but being a cheat and a no good liar, I decided to try to pass off the good old student I.D. card, which yielded me a 40 RMB discount. So far, so good. There are two routes that lead through the gorge. There is the lower route, which is the route that the majority of Chinese tourists take. This consists of a bus ride to the gorge itself, and a short 2 hour hike down to stand next to it. Chinese tourists have a tendency to be lazy. They go, they pose for a picture (with the mandatory peace fingers), and then they get back on the bus and go about their merry way. Don’t do this route. You’ll miss out on the good stuff. My compatriots and I began the hike taking the high route. The high route, as previously mentioned, takes 2 days of walking, but is definitely worth it. The hardest part is called “28 bends”, but I do believe that the Chinese definition of a bend is different than ours, as I counted more than 35 bends. Reaching the top, though, is amazing. Whenever you are exhausted on a hike and manage to reach the highest point of your trip, it feels incredible. To have that “I’m on top of the world” feeling combined with beautiful scenery… well, you just can’t ask for much more. You get a beautiful vista of the surrounding areas, in addition to having gorgeous snow capped mountains in front of you. At the top, there is also a direct view down into Tiger Leaping Gorge. There was a man at the top who told us that its free to walk to the viewpoint, but if you want to take a photo, you were required to pay 10 RMB. Being the cheat that I am, I took photos and didn’t pay. Shooting from the hip FTW. That night, we slept at The Halfway Guesthouse (which is more than half way). The view there is magnificent. I don’t think I have ever stayed anywhere with a better view from the rooms (see star trail image [10 min exposure f4.0 ISO 200, in case you are wondering]). The next day we hiked down to the gorge itself (6 more hours of walking) and made our way back to Lijiang. All in all, one of the best things I’ve done in China.
Coming soon…
No Money, No Food, But I Can Play Guitar
The Bamboo Sea
Birds, Birds, Birds
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