samedi 22 décembre 2007
Made in China
Last days in China before heading to Laos... Last trips on Chinese trains as well, which nonetheless constitute a great experience! Sharing for some 18 hours a small living space with Chinese people is very fascinating: how much they can eat, what they eat, how much they can sleep, how easy for them it is to create new links and chat for hours with total strangers... (sometimes hitting and scoring as well ;) I am going to miss that, especially now that I know that my next trip by bus to Vientiane will take 40 hours...
So my final words about China...
# Chaud patate pour:
- The trek on the Great Wall from Jinshaling to Simatai for 4 hours with barely no tourist that day on the wall. A magical moment, wonderful view... memories that I will have to bear in mind for ever since I had lost all the pictures...
Down Town Packpackers in Beijing 85 Nan Luo Gu, Jiao Da Kou 220 yuan/person
- The horse trek to the Ice Moutain and the Tibetain villages.
Shun Jiang Horse Trek in Songpan, Shunjiang Beilu
# Pas Chaud Patate pour:
- Very frustrating not being able to interact more with the Chinese due to the language barreer.
- Datong, the grey and ugly city. The only moment so far I got the blues while traveling alone... And unlike what I had said in a previous post, there is no absolute need to go there. They are other Bouddhas in other places and much more impressive (i.e Leishang).
# Accomodations:
- Beijing: Elinor's GH, the best place to stay in Beijing ;) Merci encore Linette!!!!!
- Datong: just don't go. My advice.
- Pingyao: Harmony GH 85 Nan Dije.
- Xi'an: Shu Yuan Youth Hostel (closed to the South Gate) 30Y/bed in a dorm
- Chengdu: Dragon Town Youth Hostel 30Y/bed in a dorm
- Kunming: Camellia Hostel 30Y/bed in a dorm
jeudi 20 décembre 2007
Elle a des manies ma nana...*
Two things that makes that (and except the language obstacle...) I am never going to live in China ever...
1. People spitting, all over, all the time, on trains, in restaurants, in the streets. And they are going far deep in their throats to get it... Disgusting.
2. L'usage du portable. Indeniablement, les chinois ont un seuil de tolerance sonore qui depasse tout entendement. Lorsque leur portable sonne, au rythme d'un sonnerie de 240 de decibels (l'equivalent d'une discotheque), ils se gardent bien de deccrocher immediatement... s'offrant le plaisir d'ecouter un peu de leur sonnerie, si melodieuse. Ensuite, apres avoir entame la conversation d'un "Wei!" bien bruyant ("allo" sans doute), ils se mettent a beugler comme des phacocheres dans leur telephone... Et comme tout chinois, meme au fin fond de sa montagne, possede son portable... Epuisant.
3. (Yes I know that makes 3 things, but this one is for free...). The noise they make when eating, slurp slurp and slurp. Even when eating a simple apple they manage to do it... Fascinating.
For the rest, I love China! :))
* Si vous reussissez a tomber sur l'extrait de Patrick Timsit chantant "Elle a des manies ma nana"... ca vaut son pesant. Comme quoi, on peut commencer une carriere dans le ridicule le plus total... et ne jamais s'en sortir. Exemple a ne pas suivre. Conseil de vie.
mercredi 19 décembre 2007
Le pied a l'etrier
Being sick, I have no shame considering it to be justified that the 2 following posts will be in French (and mostly directly copied from my notebook... ;)
Me voici de retour de 5 jours en randonnees equestres dans le Sichuan du Nord, la ou les premiers villages tibetains se dressent sur les flancs de montagnes entre 2500 et 4000m d'altitude. C'est donc plus ou moins armee de tous mes vetements sur le dos (mes 4 T-shirts) que je suis partie affronter le grand froid. Bien sur, comme cela devient une habitude maintenant (comme de systematiquement me retrouver derriere celui ou celle qui est malade en bus...), je me retrouve avec le plus farouche des canassons et il n'a pas fallu attendre plus de 45 minutes pour que je me retrouve face contre terre, litteralement. Mais les paysages traverses sont magnifiques et coupent le souffle. Un silence apaisant regne... Malheureusement, pas enormement de photos car entre l'Art et la Vie, j ai fait mon choix, fermement cramponnee a mon cheval sur les chemins escarpes et enneiges...
Mon guide, Chow Mi (?), musulman pas tres orthodoxe, ne se prive pas de s'afonner son demi-litre de whisky en route, ce qui le rend particulierement loquace apres coup. Arrive la sempiternelle question (are you married?), a laquelle je suis particulierement rodee maintenant... je me suis meme permise quelques petites variantes dans le scenario de base ;)
Je passais mes nuits dans une maison tibetaine. Experience tres interessante, meme si humainement moins riche qu'au Kyrghyszistan. Paradoxalement, les femmes ne me pretaient aucune attention tandis que les hommes me proposaient friandises, cigarettes, la meilleure place au coin du feu, etc. Cela dit, alors que ces derniers glandaient comme des porcs a longueur de journee, les femmes se tapaient la corvee bois, eau et cuisine trois fois par jour. Ceci explique peut etre cela... La barriere de la langue a certainement joue un enorme role, vu que comme je ne maitrise que 5 mots du vocabulaire chinois, oublions le dialecte tibetain... La vie se fait en communaute, tous ensemble (j ai d ailleurs toujours du mal a dire qui etait la mere, la soeur, la fille, le pere. Le grand-pere, ca se voyait quand meme sur sa tronche que c etait un grand-pere...) autour du brasero tronant au milieu de la piece commune qui sert de salon, salle a manger, cuisine. Tres comique aussi de voir une maison typique tibetaine, les gens en costume, les banderoles de prieres partout... et tomber dans ces lambes de traditions sur une enorme TV et des portables...
Bref, 5 jours inouis. Je peux partir vers le sud maintenant. Normalement, j'y retrouve Thierry, rencontre a Chengdu.
vendredi 14 décembre 2007
Salvation army
Not that easy to travel in China nowadays. As I mentioned it previously, trains are currently crowded with soldiers heading to their base camps all over the country. To get to Xi'an, I had to take a ride on a tuk-tuk for half an hour, walk across muddy corn fields for a while, before getting to the higway and jump on a bus that was on its way to Xi'an. Again, a very surreal Chinese moment...
The main interest of Xi'an is its terracotta army, discovered by a farmer in 1974. 8000 soldiers were buried with the Emperor in order to protect him after his death. It took 40 years to achieve the whole thing. Now the site is covered by a big touristic complex, unfortunately... Yet, if the statutes are not very impressive, their number is. It is a pity though that you cannot really get closer, barrers prevent you of doing so. We were told the story of a German guy (crazy German) who hide himself a couple of months ago in order to get the chance to touch and take pictures of the statutes... The only thing he got at the end was a huge fine. Don t mess up with Chinese...
mardi 11 décembre 2007
Pingyao
Pingyao, patrimoine mondial de l' Unesco depuis 1997 et ancienne cite Ming, magnifiquement preservee derriere ses remparts de pierres. Dommage que le brouillard empechait de l apprecier a sa juste valeur... cela dit, cela conferait a la ville un air tres mysterieux et fantomasgoresque (si ce mot existe en francais... a force d entendre du chinois et de parler anglais comme un chinois et de ne plus parler francais, j'en perds tout mon latin).
lundi 10 décembre 2007
Froid de canard (laque)
Les premiers neiges sont tombees sur Datong, petite ville provinciale proche de la Mongolie interieure. Principalement productrice de charbon et bastion de l' armee chinoise, la ville n'est pas veritablement attrayante de prime abord. Le froid et la neige n aidant pas (vous connaissez ma passion pour la neige et la glisse...), l' envie de m' y attarder n' etait pas trop presente. Seulement, il est relativement difficile en ce moment de se procurer des billets de trains car en effet, la Chine effectue un changement de ses troupes militaires. A la gare hier soir donc, des centaines de jeunes soldats quittaient leur famille pour trois longues annees... les halls, les wagons, les restaurants bondes d uniformes kakis.
Toutefois, Datong recele tout de meme quelques tresors, dont les grottes du Yunang, renfermant quelques immenses bouddhas, tres impressionnant, de quelques vingtaine de metres de haut. Et malgre avoir rechappe a la mort sur les routes glissantes de Datong avec Julien, Deborah, Julius, Anais et Kim (j exagere a peine, notre mini-van se tremoussait sur la route tel une jeune adolescente sur la piste, de quoi etre legerement angoisses...), le passage par Datong valait le coup.
samedi 8 décembre 2007
Go west
Tonight I am heading to the West, closed to Inner Mongolia, to the city of Datong. I am quite sad leaving Beijing, since I have been positively surprised by it. Indeed, I had never been really keen on big cities and more generally on China but I reckon that Beijing gave me a very good first impression and managed to reconcile both disliked aspects. This is all promising for the future!
So as to Beijing...
Chaud patate pour:
- The Lama Temple, biggest Tibetain temple in Beijing. A very special atmosphere, the smell of incenses everywhere, very colorful temples,... I loved it and went there twice!
- The magnificience and size of all the Chinese ancestral monuments. I thought the Forbidden city was huge, and then came the Summer Palace, and after, I went to the Temple of Heaven... It seems endless. You could walk around for hours without getting bored, watching at the Chinese playing at go, cards, swimming in the frozen lake, drawing calligraphies, singing, etc.
- Getting lost in the Hutongs, small typical streets of Beijing, far from big and crowded avenues and where a real sense of community could be developped amongst its inhabitants.
Pas chaud patate:
- The pollution in Beijing. Smoky. Awful.
vendredi 7 décembre 2007
Beijing 2008
When talking about pictures, photographers and tourists, the Yapenese band style would pop up immediately. Masses of Japenese tourists standing in front of the tiny Manneken Pis gives a pretty good image of their artistic skills...
Well, but have you ever noticed Chinese positions when shooting? Their style is quite impressive as well. Not sure they are part of the Olympic games team, but they could give it a try, don't you think?
mercredi 5 décembre 2007
The long March...
mardi 4 décembre 2007
Permis de tuer
2 things you realise when you arrive in Beijing, is that, if you want to go from one point to another, by not using a car, you incur a even higher risk of dying from a crash. Je m' explique:
If you are a pedestrian, forget about your own safety. Crossing a street requires a concentration tantamount to the one you need when dealing with an official delegation (i.e. meaning a lot). You have to look everywhere for everything. I' ve opted for the "follow-the-0thers" solution. So far, so good but very scary.
Then if you want to take the subway, you are not safe neither. It is a constant struggle to get in or out. It even looks sometimes like no one is neither getting in or out and people are just stucked in between the sliding doors. I' ve seen arms almost choped by doors closing, bags left on the platform because it did not follow the owner who was already in, and people are pushing and pushing. And me? Mmmmh the first time, I behaved as if in Brussels, very civilisely, and waited for the following metro, thinking that there will be less people. That was forgeting that I was in Beijing, so I turned in a fury as the other fellows. And now... I love taking the subway.
