our stay in china was relatively short. we first went to beijing to meet up with the north korea tour group. my longtime friend cressica was in town and we met up with her for dinner one night. unfortunately she was extremely busy so we didn't get a chance to actually travel around with her and add to our random china adventures.
after we got back from north korea we took a 32 hour train ride from beijing to chengdu. the china trains are much nicer than the russian ones but the boarding process is also a lot more crazy and chaotic. shared the cabin with a mother and her 2 year old daughter one day, who had lots of energy and was running around trying to get into everything.
hung around chengdu a couple days and got to meet up with our climbing friend alice, who was in town for a conference. it's nice seeing familiar faces after being away for so long. also went to see the panda breeding and research center in chengdu which was really interesting. the pandas were extremely cute, of course, and after
learning more about them it's amazing they've survived so long.
originally we were going to go from chengdu to yangshuo to climb a bit but the weather in yangshuo was really hot and humid which would've made miserable climbing conditions. so we decided to stay in sichuan to explore. found a couple areas with big mountains (mt siguniang) and tibetan villages (danba) but unfortunately all the roads to the to places were closed from the earthquake.
we decided to go to songpan, an area famous for horse trekking instead and hike around. the bus ride there was probably the worst bus ride we've been on. the 8 hour trip took 13 1/2 hours. all the roads were under construction from the earthquake and continual rock and landslides. we had to wait at a few places for a total of a couple hours while they cleared the road. many sections of road were one lane from construction or slides. then at night when the bus pulled over to let someone off it was hit by a truck trying to pass, so we were there for over half an hour while the drivers sorted it out. driving up we saw a lot of the earthquake destruction, entire towns being completely rebuilt (using the same brick architecture) roads, bridges completely destroyed, a car completely smashed by rockfall and abandoned. of course large crews of workers everywhere repairing the roads and clearing everything by hand. pretty crazy.
songpan is actually a nice little town, restored city wall, a restored main area which isn't tacky like many touristy areas, blue sky (rare for china), and a decent number of Tibetans and Chinese Muslims wandering around the city still dressed in traditional clothing. went to mounigou valley (a national park an hour west of songpan, aka mini- jiuzhaigou) one day which was actually really nice. very clean
and well maintained, pretty scenery, and best part no people! we saw two other groups the entire day, something i did not expect in china. we saw zhaga falls (the worlds largest tufa falls), erdao lake (colorful pools of water) and drove through Tibetan villages and two monestaries on the way. very nice day trip.
the bus ride back to Chengdu wasn't as bad, only 12 hours. one blown tire (sidewall blew) which was changed quickly by some guy with a huge pneumatic wrench, lucky it blew as we were driving through a village. the bus driver did not instill confidence though, it seems like he could barely drive (better than the Mongolian monk though). he stalled the bus 7 to 8 times including going into the Chengdu bus station, ground the gears, would shift into the wrong gear or would drive in the wrong gear, all while chain smoking. fun. can't say we'll miss china bus rides, with everyone smoking even though they're not supposed to, people blaring music very loudly because they either don't have or choose not to use headphones, people hawking and spitting into the aisle, and people yelling (talking) at each other for hours.
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