<![CDATA[EARTHLOOPING

<![CDATA[EARTHLOOPING - Blog]]>Thu, 06 Apr 2023 03:39:45 +0200Weeblyen-usnoBlog<![CDATA[Relax, paragliding and chocolate creppes in Pokhara]]>Sun, 05 Jul 2015 19:50:02 GMThttp://www.earthlooping.com/blog/relax-paragliding-and-chocolate-creppes-in-pokhara

Me paragliding over Pokhara!

The days in Pokhara, the second biggest city of Nepal, were like being in a totally different place from Kathmandu. Like day and night, Pokhara is just calm and peace, without pollution, without traffic, without noise... and located in a perfect setting between a lake and the Annapurna Range. If to this you add some paragliding and the best chocolate creppes I've have ever had, the days in Pokhara were some of the best ones so far.

After the Holi festival in Kathmandu, we jumped into another long distance bus. This time our destination was Pokhara, the second biggest city in Nepal and meant to be a quiet place good to relax by a lake, have views of the Himalayas and practice some paragliding.

The bus ride was as always. The road linking the two major Nepali cities was just a curvy road where the average speed of the bus was about 27kmph. The journey took around 6 hours including a few stops and the view from the windows was as nice as always: rivers, mountains, rice paddies... but still, Nepali bus rides are really a pain in the ass.

View of Pokhara while paragliding.

As we were approaching Pokhara we hoped to have a glimpse of the Himalayas, as the Annapurnas and the Manaslu are visible from the road in clear days, but we had no luck and the sky was quite cloudy that day. Anyway, we arrived in Pokhara and as usual we headed to hour hostel, located in the main touristic area, the one by the lake.

The first impression of the town was good: no traffic, no pollution, no noise. So maybe it was true and Pokhara was an oasis of tanquility. What we suffered, though, was the high heat for the first time in our trip. We left the backpack in the hotel and went to explore a bit the town and to inform ourselves about the paragliding thing.

Pokhara is supposed to be one of the best places in the world to practise this sport, and as we had never tried it, we were really looking forward to it. We went to a few travel agencies and they all had the same prices and conditions, so what we did, like in Chitwan, was to book the activity through the hotel, finally.

The Annapurnas seen from Pokhara Lake

Besides booking the paragliding, we spent the rest of the day exploring a bit Pokhara, basically the lakeside part of it. The lakeside is the Thamel of Pokhara: plenty of bars, restaurants and outdoor sports shops selling all kind of fake trekking gear. The main difference is that, unlike Thamel, the lakeside is a really quiet and peaceful area. Here there is no pollution, no heavy traffic, no noise, the roads are paved... so it was true: Pokhara has nothing to do with Kathmandu, it is totally the opposite. And we quite appreciated it.

Besides, the setting is really privileged: there's a lake where you can rent a boat or a kayak to sail a bit, a promenade along the lake in which to have a walk and stop for a beer in one of the cosy bars right in front of the water and on the other side of town you have the Annapurnas, which we didn't see due to the clouds at that time of the day.

Pokhara is like this, don't go looking for monuments or big sights, it is a place to relax, to practice kayaking or paragliding, to have a beer by the lake, some good Western food and a good base to start your Annapurna trekking.

Pokhara from The Pagoda

Japanese Pagoda

The rest of the day finished with a big discovery: Metro. This is the name of the place we visited every day in Pokhara. It is a tiny little space close to the lake with a rooftop terrace and where they make the best creppes you can have. I've tried creppes in a lot of places, but the ones in Metro are something else, especially the chocolate ones: big, good and cheap. Not to miss! After Metro, we went back to the hotel to have some rest having a really good feeling about Pokhara, the antithesis of Kathmandu.

The following morning was going to be devoted to visit the nearby Japanese World Peace Pagoda (set in a hill accross the lake) and to stroll around town. And the day began with something unexpected. When we looked through the window we could see the whole Annapurna Range in front of us! Amazing! The previous day it was so cloudy that nothing was visible, but now the sky was clear blue and we had in front of us the famous Fish Tail, and the four Annapurnas.

Literally flying over Pokhara!

Pokhara was even better with that view, so we just went out, had some breakfast and prepare to go to the Pagoda. The main reason to get there was to enjoy the views of Pokhara and the Annapurnas, so we started walking and it took us less than two hours to reach the top, not without getting lost and needing the help of a local boy to find the correct path up. The walk, though, was through a quite nice forest and we were all the time accompanied by a dog.

Once up there, we noticed that the pagoda has actually nothing special and that the views were quite disappointing, or not as beautiful as we expected. It was around midday and the sky above the Annapurnas was fully covered by clouds. It was like this all the days in Pokhara: a clear sky early morning, and then clouds started appearing and hiding the mountain range.

Anyway, we had nice views of the lake and of the city, and it was just a small taste of what we were supposed to see the following day while paragliding. We just hoped for a clear sky!

The Annapurnas and a paraglider

We went down the pagoda, and as we didn't want to walk all the way to the lakeside we decided to take a bus. The poblem was that we had no small money so we went to a nearby caves, paid the cheap entrance fee and visited them to get some spare change. Well, those caves were probably the worst place I have ever been to. Dirty, stinky, humid and something they call a waterfall in the end, which was actually just a bit of water falling down from somewhere. So you know, if you need spare change, go wherever but not to these caves!

After the experience we finally got back to the lakeside, went to have a creppe, a pizza in a quite creepy place and to sleep hoping for a blue sky the following day and a great first paragliding experience.

We woke up early in the morning and waited for a driver who picked us up. Jumped in the car, went to pick up another guy (it turned out to be a nice Spanish guy) and we drove to the nearby hill from where the paragliders start.

The Annapurnas are hidden in clouds after midday every day.

The ride to the hill took some half an hour. Once up there, the views of Pokhara were really impressive, and the feeling that in a few minutes we would be literally flying was exciting. But the best was the weather: we had a perfect clear blue sky and right in front of us the whole Annapurna Range. Let's fly!

If you have never tried paragliding, the first time you need, obviously, an instructor. In my case, it was a Nepali guy. He gave me a few instructions on what to do for the take off (basically just run and lift my legs up) and in a blink of eyes I was wearing a helmet and the paragliding harness, which is like a seat attached to the instructor and to the "wires" that control the moves of the whole thing.

As there were quite a few other people waiting to start and only one paraglider can take off at the same time, we had to wait for a few minutes before starting the fun. When my turn came, he just said "run" and in 5 seconds I was literally flying. The feeling is undescriptable. At the beginning it is a bit scary, you're literally floating in the air, but after a few seconds you just start enjoying everything.

Starting Place of Paragliding

Paragliding

You enjoy the flying, the feeling of moving by the air, the hearing of the air... and the views. The views are just impressive. You have Pokhara and the lake below you and right next to you the Fish Tail and the Annapurna Range, clearly visible and almost touchable. The flight lasts for about half an hour and most of the time you are turning around and playing with the wind currents, you go up, down, left, right... and everything is smooth. The instructor was talking a bit, explainigng what was this and that and then we started to descent slowly. We were landing in a grassy area next to the lake, and the landing was as easy as the take off, you just have to run a bit after touching ground.

There I met again the Spanish guy who, as me, was totally excited about the experience. Actually it was one of the best experiences ever, it is the closest you can get to flying and definitely a thing I want to try again!

End of Paragliding at the landing place

After the paragliding, we were driven back to the center of town, went to the hotel and then out again to have some food, a creppe and a beer right in front of the lake. Later, at the end of the day, we met the Spanish guy and went for a beer and some live music in a pub. Pokhara is like the craddle of all Nepali music bands, and you have free live music almost in every pub you go.

Our last day in Pokhara was devoted to explore a bit more in depth the lake, so we rented a kayak for one hour and went to the lake. It was nice, although hard to control the kayak, but somehow we made it to the other shore of the lake and we could enjoy nice views of the Annapurnas and even of the Daulaghiri, another of the eight-thousanders visible from Pokhara.

Kayaking in the lake with the Annapurnas in the background.

The kayaking was the last activity in Pokhara, a city in which we felt really well and fully recommendable to anyone visiting Nepal and especially to those with a few months on the road. You will find nice people, relax, calm, nice bars, good food and the opportunity of paragliding, a really must-do if you visit the town!

Now it was just time to spend the rest of the day relaxing and prepare to abandon Pokhara. The next activity was going to be the highight of the trip to Nepal: The trekking around the Annapurna Circuit!

If you're planning on visiting Pokhara, don't forget to check my Travel Guide and for more pictures, the complete Nepal Picture Gallery!

]]><![CDATA[Happy Holi!]]>Sun, 05 Jul 2015 08:53:45 GMThttp://www.earthlooping.com/blog/happy-holi

Enjoying Holi at Kathmandu Durbar Square

The Holi festival was supposed to be one of the highlights of the visit to Nepal and it really was. The whole city stops for one day to celebrate this Hindu festival to say goodbye to the Winter and welcome to the Spring. Even if it was still a bit cold, the experience of being in Durbar Square surrounded by thousands of happy Nepalis and having the face totally painted with colorful powder was amazing! An entire day of celebration, of saying 'Happy Holi!' to everyone and ending up covered by dozens of different colors made our day!

We had the 5th of March as a special day in the calendar. It was the annual Holi festival day in the Hindu countries and we didn't want to miss it. So we took another painful bus from Chitwan National Park back to Kathmandu, stayed at the same hostel we were the first time and prepared to enjoy a day of total celebration.

The Holi takes place once a year among the Hindu community, especially in India and Nepal, although you can enjoy the Holi in some other places of the world. It celebrates the end of Winter and the coming of the Spring and a lot of different celebrations take place, like sacrificing buffalos, having special meals... but the most famous one and the one we wanted to live is the tradition of buying colorful powder and painting the faces of people you meet saying 'Happy Holi!'.

A street vendor selling the famous powder.

So the day we arrived in Kathmandu (one day before Holi), we went to look for some cheap second hand clothes and also for some bags of colorful powder. They were aleady selling these bags almost everywhere, and the choice of colors was vast. We decided to buy 4 small bags and see how was the situation, as we didn't know exactly how much powder we would need. And the clothes, as you get covered with the colorful powder, it's better to just throw them away after Holi. We found a shop where we could buy a shirt and pants for some 2 USD, exactly what we were looking for.

The following morning, with our brand new clothes and our powder bags we woke up and asked the people at the hostel what was going on. They told us to go to Durbar Square, the place where people gather to celebrate. At that time of the day there was still nothing going on, it looked like a normal day, so we just had breakfast and went out. The first unusual thing we noticed was in the temple next to the hostel. There was a few people outside it and a water buffalo tied there. We asked around and they told us they were sacrificing the buffalo that day (besides offering me a teaching job in Kathmandu which I nicely refused). It would still take quite a long time to see the sacrifice, so we just left the place and walked towards Durbar Square.

Durbar Square during Holi.

Here we started noting that it was not a normal day. The streets were quite empty and the shops were closed, with the exception of some street vendors selling the colorful powder. But still no painted people, until just by accident we met the French couple we had first met in Trabzon (Turkey) and then in Yazd (Iran). It was quite a big surprise meeting them again in Kathmandu! And they were already with their faces covered with all kind of colors! We talked a bit and they confirmed us that the place to be was Durbar Square, so there we went.

And on the way to Durbar it was when we first got our face powdered! Being tourists, all Nepali people are waving to you and so on normally, so during Holi we were even more attractive to them. We met a group of young boys who were carrying bags full of powder and who politely asked us if they could paint our faces (it was quite surprising, I was expecting that they would just throw powder to you but they first asked, probably because we had no color at all, yet). We of course agreed and with the first "Happy Holi!" we painted each others' faces. That was the official start of our Holi!

The Buffalo about to be sacrified

Starting to have a colorful face

Holi!

From that moment on, it was just a matter of a few minutes to have our faces totally painted. As we were getting closer to Durbar Square we started meeting more and more people, both locals and foreigners, all of them with their powder bags and already fully painted. And it was all the time like this: "Happy Holi, Happy Holi!" and you painted the face of the guys and viceversa. There's also the tradition (quite new, I think) of throwing water from the balconies and also from the street using water pistols. Of course, we got also wet, which was not as funny as getting painted due to the cold, but still it was not that bad and we also had fun with the water.

Finally we reached Durbar Square already with a hundred-color face and what we saw there was crazy. The square was literally full of people and they had two big stages where a Dj was entertaining the crowds with music. It was like a big party with people dancing, drinking, taking pictures, recording... crazy.

Crazy Holi party at Durbar Square!

We joined the crowds, we danced, we drank and we threw powder all around. At some point our skin was totally invisible, just colors. And it went like this the rest of the day. We went from one stage to the other, stopping for a beer sitting on the stairs of the temples, watching the locals throwing powder to foreigners, hearing "Happy Holi!" everywhere and enjoying the party till the end. The end came around 4 in the afternoon, when the concerts finished and people went home to get dressed nicely and prepare to spend time with their families.

We then just went back slowly to our hostel, seeing on the way plenty of people (especially foreigners) covered with thousands of colors. A quick snack and back to the hostel to have a good and long shower. It's not really easy to wash your face and hair when they are covered by powder!

Nepali children celebrating Holi

After the shower and after that day. we can now say that we have experienced one of the most important Hindu festivals from inside, and the experience was better than expected. Seeing the crowds go crazy at Durbar Square was something special, as it was seeing everyone on the street painted with different colors. Besides, the party and everything was really good, not even a single problem as you could expect when there are thousands of people in one place. Nepali people were really nice and we had a really great experience with them!

Happy Holi!

For more picrtures of the Holi Festival, you can check my Nepal Picture Gallery.

]]><![CDATA[In search of Rhinos at Chitwan National Park]]>Sat, 04 Jul 2015 18:51:12 GMThttp://www.earthlooping.com/blog/in-search-of-rhinos-at-chitwan-national-park

A Rhino in Chitwan National Park

After spending almost two weeks in Kathmandu, we decided to go to Chitwan National Park, located in the South of the country and said to be one of the best places in the world to spot wild rhinos. In addition, it is also one of the few places in the world where you can go on a walking safari, which made it a plus. We spent two days there, took the walking safari and also an elephant ride to fully use the entrance ticket, although this last activity is not something I would recommend. Oh, and yes, we saw rhinos!

Recovered from tiredness, sickness and used to Kathmandu's hectic life, we jumped in a bus at 7 in the morning that should take us to Chitwan National Park. It was our second experience in a long-distance Nepali bus and this time it was a bit better. But just the bus (not as crowded, not as old). The road confirmed that Nepalese roads, and consequently bus rides, are one of the most painful in the world.

The trip took us around 6 hours, although the distance was just a bit more than 100km, so you can imagine the average speed. Winding roads, traffic, stops, queues... not really an enjoyable thing. Nonetheless, the beautiful landscape and the few stops for a snack made the journey a bit more bearable.

The first crocodile we spotted while the safari

We had already booked a hotel in Chitwan, and for our surprise, the guys were waitig for us at the bus station to drive us to the place. We got there, checked-in and had a welcome juice. Nice! The place was also nice: a big garden surrounded by the rooms like small bungalows, it really gave you a feeling of being in the middle of nature, that was actually where we were.

After leaving our stuff in the room, we went out to explore a bit the small town and to try to book a safari for the following day. As we had not booked anything, we could go around and compare prices. We talked to a lot of guides and agencies before deciding that everywhere they offered the same thing, so we decided to just book the safari in our hotel.

The thing was paying an entrance fee to the park valid for two days and then hiring a guide for the walking tour. We opted for a 7-hour walking tour in the jungle together with a couple staying at the same hotel.

A local man riding an elephant. They are still used for daily life.

With everything arranged, we spent the rest of the day having a look at the town, which is actually just a few guesthouses and restaurants and a main street. By talking to people they told us we could see the elephants at a special place they are living in, and there we went, although the view we had was quite sad. A few elephants chained and a few more (the old and retired ones) eating around some stables near the river. In Chitwanthere are a few wild elephants and quite a lot domesticated ones used by locals either to work or to carry tourists. When the elephants are too old, they just live in those stables and walk around a bit. In my opinion, not really the best way of taking care of the animals.

What we liked, though, was the landscape we could see from the shore of the river. The town is right next to a it and on the other side is where the Park starts. And guess what: from right there we could see the first crocodile! Yes, a crocodile lying by the shore right in front of us. The thing looked promising for the following day!

After a bit of looking around and taking some piuctures, it was getting dark, so we decided to slowly go back home, this time instead of following the road, following the river, so we walked along the shore and we could enjoy a really beautiful landscape, although no more animals that day (they told us sometimes rhinos can be spotted from there but we had no luck).

A moment of the jungle walk. Krishna helps the British guy to cross a river.

Some dinner at the hotel (not many options in town) and soon to bed, as the next day we had an early wake up to go to the safari, or jungle walk as they call it. We woke up, had breakfast, met Krishna (our guide) and set off together with the couple to the riverside. In there, we jumped onto a boat which took us for an hour until we reached the place where we started to walk. The boat ride was nice and we could start seeing a bit of the Park's wildlife: spotted deer, monkeys, peacocks...

But the fun part started when we got off the boat. It was somewhere in the middle of the jungle and Krishna gave us some instructions, like how to behave if a rhino is charging, if we see some animal and so on. Actually it was a bit scary to be there walking with the only protection of a bamboo stick Krishna was carrying, but ok, if this is the Nepali style, we'll follow it.

The closest we were to see a tiger.

And there we went. Accompanied by Krishna and another young guy (by law, you must be with two guides all the time inside the park) we started walking in the middle of the jungle. And it didn't take us very long to start seeing something. As it was early morning and we were by the river, there was quite a lot of activity there, and the first thing we saw was a huge crocodile outside the water. Then we continued walking until the moment came: a rhino! Yes, the guide spotted a rhino next to the river and there we went. It was only a few meters away from us and we could see it perfectly from the distance. Of course we were excited and started to take pictures and so on. It was by far the best moment of the safari.

After the rhino hid himself into the high grass we continued the walk. On the way we saw a lot of birds, monkeys, deers, buffalos, peacocks, wild boars and even one more rhino, this one from further. What we didn't see, though, was any tiger. There are tigers in Chitwan, but they are quite difficult to see and we were not the lucky ones. The closest we were to a tiger was when we saw a tiger footprint, but not the author of it.

A view of town

The Boat Ride

The jungle walk went on, with a stop for lunch where we met another couple (this time an Australian girl and a Canadian guy) who had spotted the same animals as we had. After a bit of talking we moved on but no more big moments. And to be honest, after 7 hours walking in the jungle, we were ready and willing to go back home, which we did after a short boat ride to cross the river. We said goodbye to Krishna and had a bit of rest.

The jungle safari was good. It was not the best experience of my life and neither the best safari but anyway it is something I would recommend to anyone visiting Nepal. You will probably not see big things (if you're lucky to see a rhino it will be a highlight) but you will enjoy the landscape, the wildlife and the thrill of being walking in the middle of a jungle where you know there are wild animals. In addition, you are almost alone there, no crowds and everything is enjoyable. Just don't go expecting to see a lot of tigers and rhinos, you may see them, but I would have it as a bonus, not as a must.

That day, after the safari there was not much more to do, just another walk along the river (no rhinos again but a few water buffalos) and we also decided to book an elephant ride for the next day. That was not something very enjoyable and willing to do as I could imagine the experience, but as the entrance ticket to the park was valid for two days, the elephant thing was the only activity you could do.

Buffalos

And well, it was not what you really want to do when visiting Chitwan. While it is true that we almost saw the same wildlife on the elephant as on the jungle walk (except no rhinos), the activity itself was forgettable. Full of loud Chinese people jumping on the elephants, the animals walking one after another... a circus, a bad one. If you go to Chitwan, please, don't ride any elephant, you will not enjoy it, and I don't think the elephant will, either. If you want to experience how it is to ride an elephant, you have plenty of other very good options, especially in Laos, where I enjoyed a mahout (elephant driver) course a few years ago and where elephants are well taken care of. That is an experience and not the one in Chitwan!

The activities in Chitwan came to an end after the elephant circus, and the rest of the day was just devoted to walk around town, visit a nearby village and having a beer by the river. There was not much more to do there, just waiting for the following morning to go back to Kathmandu. However, there was still some time to go and see the daily Tharu festival in the local theatre.

It takes place every night and during one hour you see a representation of the traditional Tharu dances. Note that the Tharu are the people living in the area. The experience was... well, nothing you will always remember, but still good to spend some time.

A chained old elephant at the stables

Our second rhino!

The experience in Chitwan was positive. Although it was not the best in our lives, it is a recommendable trip if you happen to be in Nepal and you have some extra time, but it is not a must-do. You'll be close to nature, to animals and you will experience village life. For us, after Kathmandu, it was like an oasis of peace and calm, we could see a bit more of Nepal and make sure that Kathmandu is just an exception. Nepal is relaxed, calm and quiet, it's just Kathmandu that is crazy. But now it was time to go back to the capital, as in two days the Holi festival was taking place!

You can check now all the Nepal and Chitwan picture gallery as well as the Chitwan National Park Travel Guide, with all details you need to know if you're planning a trip there!

]]><![CDATA[Namaste, Nepal! (a few weeks before the earthquake)]]>Sat, 04 Jul 2015 16:06:22 GMThttp://www.earthlooping.com/blog/namaste-nepal-a-few-weeks-before-the-earthquake

Earthlooping at Kathmandu's Durbar Square

Unfortunately I'm writing this post after the earthquake that devastated Nepal last April. We were lucky enough to leave the country 15 days before the tragedy, so we could enjoy this beautiful country and see all the impressive monuments. Now, most of the places we saw are just gone or are a pile of ruines and a lot of people we met are still suffering and trying to recover. However, Nepal is a really beautiful country full of lovely people, so the best thing you can do to help is go and visit it. Even after the earthquake, it has still lots of things to offer for the traveller. No doubt about it!

This is how we saw Nepal a few weeks before the earthquake.

The crossing from Tibet into Nepal was quite a shock. After the thrilling drive along the Friendship Highway, we just crossed the Friendship Bridge and we were in a total different culture: Women dressed in colorful sarees, English widely spoken, friendly people... and chaos, quite a chaos everywhere if only being a small border town.

Kodari, the border town with Tibet, is just an unpaved road with a few shops, guesthouses and restaurants around and a bus stop at the end of the road. The first thing we did was to have our Nepali visa stamped valid for 3 months in a small office in Kodari, and after that we went straight to the bus stop to take the first bus heading to Kathmandu.

The initial idea was to spend a couple of days in the surroundings of Kodari, as there's a good river for rafting and a good bungee-jumping bridge, but being low season and still a bit cold, we decided to head straight to the capital.

And so we did. We jumped in our first Nepali bus and we tried our first Nepali road. And it was official: we were in a total different country, nothing to do with Tibet or China. It was an old bus literally full with people, with windows you could hardly open and even if it was a bit cold outside, it was hard to breathe inside, even more with our winter clothes from Tibet.

Kodari: Our first impression of Nepal

The trip to Kathmandu was a pain in the ass: the bus was supposed to take 3 hours but it took 5, the road was the worst ever, it was stopping everywhere... and we were totally destroyed after having woken up at 4 in the morning in Tibet. Still, the views were quite nice and we had a first impression of what Nepal had to offer: rivers, mountains, rice terraces, small villages... But make things worse after the bus ride, once we arrived in Kathmandu we had to deal with the chaos of the city: dust, pollution, traffic and noise everywhere. Not the best welcome into the new country but somehow we made it to the hostel and soon afterwards we went to have something to eat, we were starving!

We were located in Thamel, the main touristic neighbourhood of the capital of Nepal. This had good things (nice bars, Western food which was quite appreciated after months on the road and the monotonous Nepali food and shops and supermarkets to make your life a bit easier) and bad things (touts everywhere offerring you all kinds of tours and things, tourists everywhere and higher prices than in the rest of the city).

After a good pizza and finding out that in Nepal everything is quite cheap except beer, we went back to our hostel to have some good rest. We planned to wake up late the following morning but the owner of the hostel told us there was the annual Hindu festival at Pashupatinath Temple that day, and we shoud go and see it, as it is a very special celebration. OK, no long sleep, then.

Pashupatinath Temple and... yes, a corpse.

As recommended, the following day we went to the temple, and yes, it was a really special thing: full of people, celebrations, saddhus (these holy men that live from donations and have long beards and dreadlocks) and monkeys for the first time in our trip. But probably the most impressive thing was to see for the first time how Hindu people deal with death: they wash the corpse in the river and then they cremate it. Shocking. We spent almost the whole day there (we were also "painted" with the Hindu Tika, this paint or dot they wear in their forehead as a third eye and sign of protection) until the place was too crowded, when we decided to go back home, which was quite an experience, too. We jumped into a minivan prepared for 6 people but in which we were 12. In Kathmandu, you have different options of transportaion, and you never know which one you will take. It is a matter of stopping Tuk-Tuks (3-wheelers), buses, minivans or whatever it looks like a public transport and ask if it goes to your destination.

The following days in Kathmandu were devoted to rest, sleep and take everything easy. Actually Nepal was the first country we didn't have to rush. We had a 3-month visa, so that allowed us to have days without doing anything, just go for a walk, try some Nepali food (basically momos and dhal-bhat) update the website a bit, go to the Western supermarket, etc.

Pashupatinath Celebrations

Kathmandu Downtown

Kathmandu

And that's what we basically did. In the meantime, we discovered a place with really good chocolate doughnuts and another one with a mouth-watering lassi, we confirmed beer is expensive, we saw the biggest amount of tourists in the whole trip, and the biggest concentration of fake outdoor sports shops in the world, probably, which would be good to make some shopping if we planned to go trekking in the Annapurna Range.

Besides resting and eating, we also did some sightseeing and visited the landmarks of Kathmandu and of the Kathmandu valley. We spent a total of 12 days in Kathmandu (if you just want to sightsee, 2 days are more than enough) and in that time we got used to the city and everything related to it. And without having been yet to India, the feeling was that the Nepali capital could well be an Indian city (not only for the fact that most of the people are Hindu, though). Kathmandu is full of dust and pollution, most of the people wear facemasks to protect themselves, the traffic is heavy, when it rains it rains dust and it is almost impossible to walk on the street, you have to get used to the loadshedding (power cuts of 13 hours every day) and live without electricity more than half of the day...

Monkey Temple

But Kathmandu has also positive things: people are nice, much nicer than in China, for example, most of them speak a good English, they are always willing to help... and even if being a chaos and having the feeling that you can die at any moment driven by any of the vehicles in the city, exploring Kathmandu on foot and visiting its landmarks is a really good experience.

During these 12 days, we went to the Monkey Temple to enjoy beautiful views of the city, to Durbar Square to be impressed with the ancient temples and palaces, to Pashupatinath Temple to enjoy the annual Hindu celebration, to the surrounding villages in the Kathmandu Valley of Patan (the most beautiful Durbar Square in Nepal plus the experience of being blessed by the local Kumari or living goddess), Bouddha (the biggest stupa in Asia) and Bhaktapur (a realy nice Durbar Square and an even more beautiful pottery square) and we just got lost in Kathmandu's alleys discovering stupas, temples and small shops.

Boudha Stupa

Patan Durbar Square

Bhaktapur Durbar Square

And it was everything beautiful and worth. Especially, after having visited a lot of Buddhist temples before, visiting Hindu ones for the first time was quite interesting. However, most of the temples share a common thing, here: they are really impressive from outside, but when you get inside there's almost nothing but a small hall and a small God to pray to.

Anyway, we enjoyed everything there, especially the Durbar Squares of Kathmandu, Patan and Bhaktapur. But we have to say that there's a quite big downside of sightseeing in Nepal: you have to pay for everything. Literally. And as a foreigner you have to pay a lot, which is in my opinion not fair at all. How in the world you have to pay 8 USD to visit Kathmandu's Durbar Square? Or 15 USD for Patan's? Please, I agree in paying, but reasonable prices. Nepalis have everything for free and you, just by being a tourist, have to be ripped off. Government of Nepal, think a bit, please. Tourists come to your country, spend money in accomodation, restaurants, shops, etc. You can charge them an entrance fee to museums, temples or whatever, but charging them astronomical prices to visit a public square? I don't get it.

Bhaktapur Pottery Square

So with this politics of charging for everything what they got from us was making us think how to sneak in all of the places. And that's the good thing: even if you are supposed to pay for everything, you can always sneak in. Always. You just have to find the street or the place with no ticket control and you're in. And that's what most of the people do. Sorry, but we don't like to feel like idiots, if we were charged a reasonable price, no problem, but like this, no way. Tourists and foreigners are just people visiting a country and special places within it, no idiots who can pay whatever price for anything.

Black Shiva. Kathmandu Durbar Square

Anyway, the days in Kathmandu and in the Kathmandu valley were very profitable. We got used to a new country, new culture, we were even sick with fever for two days (probably due to the change of temperatures all time from China to Tibet to Nepal) and now it was time to move from the big city for a few days and go to Chitwan National Park, in the South of the country and supposed to be one of the best places in the world to see rhinos. We will get to see a bit more than the capital of the country and check if it is as chaotic and the roads are as bad as the one from Kodari to Kathmandu. After Chitwan, the Holi festival was waiting for us back in Kathmandu!

If you're planning to visit Nepal, you can have a look at all the Nepal Picture Gallery as well as at the Travle Guides of Kathmandu, Patan, Boudha and Bhaktapur. And remember, even after the earthquake, Nepal is without any doubt, a really recommendable destination!

]]><![CDATA[Want to feel like in a movie? Go to Tibet!]]>Sun, 22 Mar 2015 08:29:07 GMThttp://www.earthlooping.com/blog/want-to-feel-like-in-a-movie-go-to-tibet

Earthlooping at the Potala Palace

We only spent 6 days in Tibet. We had to join a tour to go there and the guide was the worst ever. We couldn't visit some of the most important sights due to a heavy snowfall. We suffered some headache because of the altitude. And the whole trip was really expensive. However, and despite all these, Tibet is one of the best places I have ever been and, by far, the best place visited during the whole trip so far. So, imagine how beautiful, authentic, untouched and out of this world is the highest country of the world.

After spending two days in Chengdu we were finally ready to board the highest train of the world and go to Lhasa, in Tibet. We went to buy some food and in the evening to the train station. In there, after waiting a bit we jumped in the train. We were expecting a quite special train but actually the train looked exactly the same as all the other ones we had taken in China. The only difference were the oxygen outlets you found next to every seat or bed. They are like a small box you can open and there's a valve inside from where to attach a plastic tube and breath some oxygen in case you need it.

Besides that, a normal train but full of Tibetan people, who look totally different from Chinese. We occupied our bed and carried on the normal life on the train for the first 30 hours or so. Until that time there should be nothing special, but from then on the train would be going at an average altitude of more than 4000 meters above sea level almost all the time, reaching a maximum of 5100 m.

We went to sleep and woke up the following morning (the day we were arriving in Lhasa) with actually any special feeling because of the altitude. Later we found out that we had already been in the highest train station of the world (5100m) and that most of the oxygen outlets of the train were on, so that's probably why we didn't feel much the altitude.

We went for a walk to the other carriages of the train and there we started to see the real Tibet: plenty of Tibetans cramped on the seats, some of them breathing oxygen from the outlets and they looked like taken from out of a movie, with their dark skins, traditional clothes, smells... quite a view.

First Tibetan views from the train

The rest of the train trip till Lhasa was devoted to enjoy the beautiful Tibetan views from the window (basically grasslands with hundreds of yaks grazing and some snowcapped mountains) and to get ready to get off in Lhasa, at 3600 m, which we did at around 5 in the evening.

The train trip was an experience in itself, and it is a masterpiece of engineering, as it runs over permafrost and they had to build special "bridges" not to melt the permafrost. the views you have are really stunning and prepare you to what you will see once you get off. On the way we were also asked for our Tibetan permits, mandatory for all foreigners visiting the country.

When we got off the train, the first thing was going to a police office by the station to register ourselves, and from there out of the station, where we met for the first time our guide. We saw a tiny girl holding a paper with my name and a guy next to her who welcomed us to Tibet. Oh, he must be our guide. But no, the guide was the tiny girl who didn't even say hello and just told us to go to the jeep to be transferred to the hostel we had previously booked. Well, not a really nice first impression of the guide (later that bad impression would be more than confirmed).

Once in the jeep, the driver welcomed us and even gave us a traditional white Tibetan scarf. On the way by jeep to the hostel we could have the first impression of Lhasa new town, which was quite disappointing, as it looked exactly as any other Chinese city. The only thing that broke the monotony of the landscape was the first sight of the Potala Palace. And wow, even if it was from the car, the view was really impressive.

We finally reached the hostel and had a talk with our guide, just to confirm that that Tibetan girl was everything but a guide. She didn't know anything about the plan, she wasn't able tot tell us the best places to see in Lhasa... anything. So we just told her to come back the following morning at 8 to go and visit some temples and monasteries, as it is forbidden to go on your own. The best news were that we could explore Lhasa on our own, we only needed the guide to enter the temples, monasteries and the Potala Palace.

Tibetan people doing the Barkhor Kora

Once we got rid of our "guide", we left our stuff in the room of the hostel and went to explore for the first time Lhasa Old Town. And here started the real Tibet. From the very first moment you enter the old town you are in a complete different world. We left the Chinese part of Lhasa and we started to see narrow streets, tiny little restaurants which instead of door had a big Tibetan cloth to enter, Tibetan shops, Tibetan people.... but the most jawdropping of all was the Barkhor Square, the main square of Lhasa. It is a big square in which the Jokhang Temple is (the most important temple in Lhasa) and where people are all the time doing the kora. the kora consists on going around the temple praying and saying mantras (prayers). You see plenty of people doing it, many of them holding a prayer wheel in their hands and some of them even prostrating (three steps, praying and down to the ground dragging themselves on it. They even wear special clothes and gloves, impressive).

We joined the kora, went all around the temple and it was like being inside a movie, a theme park or a videogame. Everything was surreal, like out of this world, you see this somewhere else and it is something for tourists, but in Lhasa everything is authentic, so authentic that it looks fake.

After exploring in the evening the center of Lhasa and having the first try of Tibetan food (yak momos or dumplings, yak butter tea and a Lhasa beer) we went back to the hostel still impressed by the first sight of the Tibetan capital.

Barkhor Square and the Jokhang Temple

We had a perfect sleep and so far we didn't notice the altitude at all. Lhasa is at 3600 m and they say the first days you should take it easy, drink a lot of water, don't drink alcohol, you will have problems to sleep... but the only thing we noticed was that breathing was a bit more difficult, like you had somehow to focus to breathe, but nothing annoying.

So, fresh and shiny we woke up early morning to meet our guide at 8 in the reception. And guess what... she showed up half an hour later! Yes, that girl was whatever but a guide... but nothing to do, we must be accompanied to visit the sights so nothing to do about her. Anyway, the first thing we did was going to Jokhang Temple, the one we visited the previous day from outside and located in the main square of Lhasa.

The first sight when we arrived there it was even more impressive than the one the day before: hundreds of people prostrating in front of the temple and also waiting to enter it. We, as foreigners, were able to skip the queue and get inside immediately. The temple was full of people but it was really nice and impressive. There was a smell of the butter lamps all around and we were entering the small chapels inside the main room. The "guide" just was with us and explained us about the different Buddhas (that's all she did every day, repeating the names of the Buddhas).

From there, we went up the temple to enjoy sublime views of the square and even Potala Palace and then we were free to continue exploring the streets of Lhasa until 3, when we were meeting the guide again to go to Sera Monastery.

People prostrating in front of Jokhang Temple

And by coincidence, that day was the only day of the year that they change all the prayer flags of Lhasa. Around the temple, there are poles totally covered by thousands of flags, and that day they were changed by new ones, so they put the old ones in the square and people could take them as a memory. And that's what we did, we took a couple of prayer flags from the thousands standing in the square. Then it was just wandering around the Old Town, doing the kora, entering shops, visiting some other small temples... just to confirm that yes, Tibet is something special. It's really authentic, nothing is for tourists, all the people praying, prostrating, all the temples, the monks, the people dressed in traditional costumes, the tiny little restaurants and shops... everything is real.

At 3 we met the girl again and this time we headed to Sera Monastery, one of the most important ones in Tibet. We went there by taxi and again, immediately after entering the monastery it feels you are somewhere hundreds and hundreds of years ago, totally untouched. The monastery is like a small town itself, with only a bunch of tourists, empty narrow streets with only monks walking, prayer wheels and a few small temples. The best of the visit, though, was the monks' debate. Every day in the afternoon the monks gather in a courtyard and they debate about religious affairs. They are in couples and there's one standing and another one sitting. One raises a question and the other one has to answer it. Then they change roles. We stayed there for an hour or so and then went on to explore the rest of the monastery before heading back to Lhasa and going with our companion (not guide anymore) to have some tea at a really nice teahouse right off the Barkhor Kora. Then a Lhasa beer, some Tibetan food in one of those authentic small restaurants and back to the hostel to have some sleep.

Barkhor Kora

Sera Monastery

Tibetan Teahouse

Our third day in Tibet was devoted to visit the famous Potala Palace and the Drepung Monastery. This time the companion was not late so at the expected time we were in Potala Palace. It was the first time we saw it from close, and the building is really massive and impressive, better than what you expect. We crossed the security control, left the earthlooping banner there as it was forbidden, and climbed up the some hundreds of steps to the main entrance.

Inside the palace, what we saw were basically different rooms (each one devoted to a different activity of the Dalai Lama), small temples and the tombs of the past Dalai Lamas (big golden stupas). Even if the visit was really interesting, the Palace lacks a bit of life. As the Dalai Lama is not there anymore, now the palace is a museum, so compared with the monasteries or temples, which are full of activity and life, is a bit dead, like more impressive from the outside than from the inside.

From Potala, we took a taxi and went to Drepung Monastery, another of the most important Tibetan monasteries. This time it was possible to visit all the temples in it, and despite of not having a monks' debate, the Monastery was similar to Sera, like a small town and a feeling of being centuries ago. Beautiful. With all the sights of Lhasa done, we headed back to the Old Town, said goodbye to the companion till next day, went for some food, then back to Potala to do the Kora, take some night pictures (even a more impressive sight at night) and to bed.

The day they changed the prayer flags in Lhasa. People took the old ones as souvenirs.

The next morning we woke up early to meet the companion and leave Lhasa. We were taking the jeep and driving to Gyantse and Yamdrok Lake. Or at least that was the plan. But there was a complication we noticed when we went down to the reception. During the night there was the biggest snowfall of the year in Lhasa! More than 30cm of fresh snow covered the city and it was still snowing. During the whole trip we had only seen snow once in Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan) and now that we had to drive we had the biggest ever... The companion showed up and she said that the roads were closed and it was impossible to go anywhere outside Lhasa. Disaster. We had already had to cut off one day in Tibet because the country was closed for foreigners for the Tibetan New Year and now at least another day because of the snow.

So the only option was to wait for the weather to get better. The companion told us as soon as she had any news she would call the hostel to tell us. And the worst news were confirmed: it was still snowing, the roads were closed and it would be impossible to go to Gyantse and Yamdrok Lake. Shit. Ok, so what we did was going again to explore Lhasa, this time a totally white Lhasa. And that amount of snow really was an unusual thing, as people were playing with the snow everywhere, there were plenty of funny snowmen all over the city... and snow, snow and more snow everywhere. Still, people were doing the Kora and praying, although not prostrating this time, it would have probably been a bit too much.

Finally it stopped snowing and we went back to the hostel to find out that the companion and the jeep driver were there waiting for us with some good news: finally the roads were open and we could leave Lhasa! The bad news were that we had to drive straight to Shigatse and skip Gyantse and Yamdrok Lake, as to get there there is a high pass and it was closed.

Tibetan shop in Lhasa

Potala Palace by night

Snow in Lhasa!

So we spent the rest of the day inside a jeep to get to Shigatse after some 6 hours. the trip was really tiring. In Tibet they have a really weird traffic law which says that you cannot exceed 50, sometimes 40 or even 30 kmph on the road. And I don't get it, it is a perfect straight, paved and wide road, so whenever you were exceeding then you had to be stopped waiting before getting to a police checkpoint, and there ae plenty of them!

Somehow we made it to Shigatse quite tired and with only time to have some food and to go to sleep. Tired because of the trip but also for the first time because of the altitude. Even if Shigatse is at "only" 3800 m, that night we felt a quite strong headache.

We woke up the following morning luckily with no headache anymore and ready to visit the monastery in town and afterwards to go to the Everest Base Camp. It was going to be a quite long day, although right now we were not expecting it was going to be a really longer day than planned. We went to the monastery on our own (the companion and the driver went to arrange the permit for the EBC) and, as Sera and Drepung, this one was also impressive. A massive monastery, full of temples, rooms, stupas, people praying, butter lamps... as all the places we visited in Tibet, it was an experience in itself, unforgettable. The pity was that we didn't have enough time to fully explore it, as at 11 we had to start going to the Everest, otherwise we would get there after sunset.

It took us some 4 hours driving on the main slow road with a stopover for lunch in a really authentic restaurant of a small town on the way before we took a turn left into a gravel road. We were entering the Everest National Park!

From that moment on , the landscape changed dramatically and we went from a paved road with no special sights to an unpaved one surrounded by mountains. And the best of it all came when, after and hour and a half or so of climbing a mountain pass we reached the top of it at 5200m and we stopped there.

The monks' debate at Sera Monastery in Lhasa

What we saw in front of us was one of the best views of all the trip. We had the Himalaya Range, with 5 of the 14 eight thousanders of the world perfectly visible from there. From left to right we were seeing the Makalu, the Lhotse, the Everest, the Cho Oyu and the Shisha Pangma. Jawdropping!

After admiring the landscape and taking a few pictures, we went back to the jeep and continued driving for about one more hour until we had the first close-up view of the Everest. It was like being in another world, a desert landscape, a gravel road and the top of the world in front of you. Finally we arrived at the base camp before sunset, so we got off to admire the Everest and to take a few pictures. despite being really cold it was quite a thing to have the highest mountain of the world just a couple of hundred meters in front of you, and even if it was a bit cloudy and we were not able to see the summit, the whole thing was impressive.

Back to the car and now it was time to drive to the town where we were supposed to stay overnight, so we took a gravel road different from the one before. And here it was when things started to get a bit complicated.

We started driving and the road was getting worse and worse. At some points it was half blocked because of the snow, but luckily the driver could manage to avoid it. Until somewhere. We got to a point where the road was totally blocked because of a snowslide not many days ago. It was already dark, the road was really narrow so, after looking around with the headtorches and trying to find an alternative road the driver decided to go back. It took us quite a long time to be able to reverse but we finally made it. Now it was either going back all the way or finding another road. And the driver opted for the second option, which was also the most stupid one.

Earthlooping at the Everest Base Camp with the top of the world behind me!

He decided there was probably a side road somewhere near where we had to stop so we could avoid the snowslide. And he was probably the only one in seeing something similar to a road there. Actually it was just a place full of stones and big rocks. But he didn't give a shit, he drove the Nissan Patrol like crazy in the middle of the dark and into the middle of the rocks and... stuck. Of course, we were stuck like hell. It was dark black, freezing cold, at 5000 m and we were somewhere in the Himalayas stuck. Great. As there was no possible way of continuing there, now the main objextive was to somehow take the car out from there. And it was not going to be easy. The driver couldn't move the car so we started pushing, taking rocks out of the way... at some point we really thought we would spend the night there and then be rescued the following day, or go walking to the nearest village or I don't know, but it was not a really nice feeling.

After one hour trying to get out from there, finally the driver could take the car from the rocks and it was a miracle nothing got broken. The situation was really tense and even the driver (with his hands bleeding because of the rocks) was nervous and sweating, so when everything finally ended he could breathe relieved. It was by far the most unpleasant situation of the entire trip and once back on the road we decided to go to sleep to the nearest village. It was impossible to continue the plan and we were tired like hell it was almost midnight, so the only option was going to a tiny little village to have a rest in a guesthouse. And this was another experience in itself.

5 of the 14 eight thousanders behind me! Makalu, Lhotse, Everest, Cho Oyu and Shisha Pangma

When we entered that place it was like entering the movie set of any Hollywood film. It was a bar/restaurant/guesthouse authentic at the most. There was a whole family there dressed in Tibetan clothes, with dark faces, drinking beer... out of this world. We were really exhausted but being there was something undescriptable. We ordered some food and around 1 in the morning we went to bed in the upper floor. Surprisingly, sleeping at more than 5000 meters was no problem at all and at 5 in the morning we woke up (yes, only 4 hours of sleeping) to continue the trip to the Nepalese border. It had to be that early ecause the driver and the companion had to go back in the same day to Shigatse (I'm not taking tours normally, but I thought in them the customer is always the first thing, am I right?).

Anyway, before 6 in the morning we were back in the Nissan (I must admit that I was really impressed with the previous day performance of a Nissan Patrol from the 90s) driving on the same gravel road and again asking for directions to get to the main road, which we took after a couple of hours. Finally, it seemed that all problems were over. We took the road and ahead of us we had some 5 hours until reaching Zhangmu, the last Tibetan village before Nepal.

Shigatse Monastery

The place we slept in the Everest

Road to Nepal

And this being Tibet it couldn't be a normal road. It was probably the most scenic road I have ever been to. We started driving uphill and the timing was perfect, as with the sunrise we reached a mountain pass with the Shisha Pangma, one of the 14 eight thousanders, right in front of us. Beautiful. We stopped for pictures and then continued driving downhill. Even if it was freezing cold inside the car, the views we had were something we will never forget: mountains, rivers, gorges... it was like being in a painting. All this, though, driving on a snowed and slippery road which gave us more than one heart attack. At some points we were driving protected by snow walls at both sides of the road, but when there were no walls it was just a deep cliff on you right. But still, that road is a once in a lifetime experience.

After a couple of hours we started the dramatic descent to Nepal, along a twisting road downhill following the course of the river and passing by some small villages until we started seeing the first Nepalese trucks parked and queuing on one side of the road. Nepal must be close! And it was, indeed. A few more kilometers of bends and we got down to the gorge, to the river. That was Zhangmu. We got off the car, took our stuff, exchanged some yuans into Nepalese rupees, said bye to the companion and the driver and went to the border to clear the Chinese customs. We were saying goodbye to Tibet (and China) and we were about to cross the Friendship Bridge into Nepal.

The Shisha Pangma in front of us on the road to Nepal

Tibet has been, by far, the most beautiful and exciting destination of the trip so far. Even if the tour and the "guide" we had were a complete disaster, the country itself is some of these places you have to visit at least once in your life. It is almost untouched by tourism, it has amazing monasteries, really nice people, stunning landscapes and roads and a capital that it is so authentic that looks a movie set.

If you have the minimum chance of visiting Tibet, don't hesitate, go for it no matter what and if you can afford it, spend as many days as possible, just don't book your tour through Mix Mix Hostel in Chengdu! You won't regret!

Don't forget to check the complete Travel Guide of Tibet and all the pictures from the Tibet trip!

]]><![CDATA[Trekking the Tiger Leaping Gorge]]>Thu, 19 Mar 2015 04:29:42 GMThttp://www.earthlooping.com/blog/trekking-the-tiger-leaping-gorge

Earthlooping at the top of the Tiger Leaping Gorge

2 days spent doing the most famous trekking in China. They say it is one of the best trekkings in the country and it really is. Walking all the time with a jawdropping view of a deep gorge next to you made the trekking one of the best experiences of the trip so far.

The bus from Lijiang unexpectedly took us less than 2 hours to reach Qiaotou including a small break for lunch some 20 minutes before getting there. There were plenty of Tibetan people in it going to Shangri-La, so we could feel a bit of Tibet before going to the real thing.

Once in Qiaotou, we went to buy the mandatory entry ticket to the Tiger Leaping Gorge and then to the nearby Jane's Tibetan Guesthouse to leave the backpack. You don't really want to carry a big backpack while trekking and we were able to leave it there until we came back.

We took a map and around 2 in the afternoon we started walking. The first part is not really trekking, as you just walk along the road to reach the point where the real trek starts. It took us around one hour under the heat to get to the starting path. And oh my god, the trekking was starting quite strong: what we saw from there was a really steep and narrow path going uphill with a few goats and shepherds on the way. Wow, if this is only the start, we can die, there...

On the way to the start of the trekking you can already see stunning views of the mountains

We ate a bit of fruit and started climbing the path. And yes, it was really steep and tiring, plus quite funny going in the middle of the goats and the shepherds. Once we reached the top of the hill the views were impressive, though. From there we walked a bit more and it came the first problem: right or left. We had no clue where the main path was, so we started looking around and after a while a kid called us from the top of a hill. We went there and after the typical difficulties to communicate a guide appeared and showed us the correct way, so there we went. The thing was walking past some brand new fences to the main path. But the problem was that we were totally unable to avoid walking literally next to the fences. It must be that they are so brand new that if you follow the signs you end up walking right next to them, which is not really enjoyable, as they are really huge.

The beginning of the gorge

Anyway, after wasting one hour trying to find the correct way we finally made it to the end of the fences and we met a young Chinese trekker with whom we went to the village where we slept the first night. All in all it took us around 4 hours to go from Qiaotou to Naxi's Family Guesthouse, but the effort was really rewarding, as the village was beautiful, set in the middle of the fields with stunning views of the mountains.

When we got there, the first thing was recovering by having some food and tea. The guesthouse was really beautiful, with a nice courtyard where to chill out while enjoying awesome views of the mountains. After the rest, we left our stuff in the room (a simple one but with beautiful views from the widow) and went for a walk around the village before it got dark.

Naxi's Family guesthouse, our hostel the first night

It was a really small village, so in 20 or 30 minutes it was totally explored. But it was nice like hell. Set in the slopes of a hill, with some rice terraces, small paths instead of streets, tiny houses and a few animals scattered around. The typical postcard village.

As it was getting already dark, we came back to the guesthouse to have some beers and to chat a bit with the Chinese we met on the way. He spoke some English and told us to join him and a couple of more friends the following morning to go trekking together. Ok, we thought, at least this way we won't get lost that much, as they could speak Chinese and ask for directions.

Later on, some Westerners came to the guesthouse and we had a chat with them, too. In this case, they were from the States and New Zealand and they were camping outside the guesthouse (quite a thing, as at night it was really cold) and they told us they had the same problem with the fences at the beginning (good to know we were not the only idiots trekking attached to fences)

With one of the Chinese trekkers after having finished the 28 bends

After a bit of talking and enjoying the full moon over the mountains, we just went to bed, as the following day was supposed to be a whole day of walking including the famous 28 bends, a steep uphill path of 28 sharp turns.

So we woke up around 8, had some breakfast and started walking with the Chinese we had met and two more trekkers (Chinese ones, too). It was quite cold, but the first part of the trek was quite pleasant, as we were walking in a flat area. In a couple of hours, though, we reached the 28 bends. It is a narrow path going uphill and every turn is marked with a number. Actually it's not that hard, and in less than one hour you are done with them. We only had a stop to rest in the middle and sooner than expected we were at the very top of the whole trekking enjoying one of the most beautiful views of it. We were sitting in a wooden shed and admiring the gorge, the mountains and the river, which was far far away below us.

A few pictures and again to the path. Now it was a really pleasant walk of one or two hours until the next village. The views were not that impressive but still it was very nice, When we reached the village, we had lunch, we rest for an hour or so and back to the trail for a couple of more hours until another village, this time for a beer. Now it was only two hours until reaching Tina's Guesthouse, the end of the trekking, but we didn't know it was probably the toughest part of the trekking.

Some waterfalls on the way

With the Chinese Trekkers

Trekking

The toughest but also the most beautiful part. From that last village until you reach the path down to Tina's we were walking all the time right next to a cliff with the gorge on our right-hand side. We crossed bridges, passed by waterfalls... amazing. At some point we reached the trail going down to Tina's, and here started the worst: a really narrow and stoney path that destroys your legs and in which the biggest worry was not to have a sprained ankle.

We followed the path for about one hour or more until we finally reached Tina's and the end of the trekking. All in all were some 7 hours of walking which really were worth the effort. Astonishing landscapes, beautiful villages and the sense of being in the middle of nature made it one of the highlights of the whole trip.

Now, however, the main concern was coming back to Qiaotou. After having some noodles at Tina's we found out there were no more buses going to Qiaotou, so we and the Chinese decided to start walking along the main road and hitch-hike.

It took us some half an hour to find someone who took us back to Qiaotou. We jumped in the minivan and drove the 10km or so back to Jane's guesthouse. And wow, we though the amazing views were over and it was just to get as quick as possible to Qiaotou but what we saw on that road was comparable to the views of the trekking. The road goes along the river in the middle of the gorge and what you see is really impressive. It was almost sunset and it made it even more special, really really nice.

But it was just some 20 minutes until the driver dropped us by Jane's and we said goodbye to the Chinese trekkers. A bit of food, talking with some people that was starting the trekking the following day (and advicing them about the infamous fences) and to sleep as we were quite destroyed after the last 2 days.

The Tiger Leaping Gorge from the road to Qiaotou

Once the trekking was over, now it was time to go back to Lijiang and from there to Chengdu. We woke up, had some breakfast and from there we went to the main road to try to stop a bus heading to Lijiang. First we met a woman with a minibus looking for more passengers. As she was not really successful, after some half an hour a bus stopped and so we took the backpacks from the woman's minivan and jumped into the bus.

In an hour and a half we were back in the fairytale town, we went to the same hostel and devoted the day to wander around Lijiang again. As we had already seen everything, it was a quite relaxing day just waiting for the next one to go to Chengdu.

And so we did. The following day we woke up, went to have breakfast and to the bus station after stocking up on goods for the long bus trip. At one in the afternoon we had the bus, and this time it was not a sleeper one, but a normal seating bus. And from the very first moment we jumped in it we realised it was going to be quite a tough trip, this time.

And it was. Actually it was, by far, the worst road trip so far since we started in Istanbul. The bus took 24 hours to reach Chengdu, as planned, but the worst is this strange tradition they have in China to stop for sleeping. This time we stopped for 7 hours, yes, 7 hours!!! somewhere on the road next to a hotel. The drivers went to the hotel and the passengers were left inside the bus. This only confirms my opinion that most of Chinese people are stupid. Yes, they are. They have 2 drivers, so why the hell they have to stop for 7 freaking hours to sleep? why don't they do like everywhere else and take turns so we don't have to be stopped 7 hours and we can save this time? I don't get it, really. And of course, we were provided with only one blanket, so it was freezing cold in there. But drivers were enjoying their hotel at the same time... stupid.

Some relaxing time in the middle of the trekking

The worst of the trip, though, was not the 7 freezing hours stopped trying to sleep. The worst of all were people. Yes, the Chinese people sharing the bus with us. Besides being rude and dirty, these people like to be loud, especially when you try to sleep, so imagine being in the middle of nowhere stopped during 7 hours trying to sleep with Chinese people being loud like hell next to you. Impossible.

And you know the best? They are not only loud, rude and dirty. They are disgusting. We had a man seating in front of us who started spitting from the very beginning of the trip in a bucket meant to be used as a rubbish bin. And when I say spitting is not exactly accurate. That bastard was spitting till the point of vomiting there. It is the most disgusting thing I have ever seen in a public transport. This time I even went to the driver and told him I couldn't live like that. I was also about of vomiting thanks to that ¿person? They told him to go spitting or vomiting to the window, which he did, but only for a while.

I'm sorry, but most of Chinese people are like that. They can say it's a cultural thing or whatever, but most of Chinese people (of course not all) are stupid, rude, loud, dirty and disgusting, very disgusting. They don't care at all about other people, they just keep spitting around and doing whatever they want, and this time it was really too much.

The Tiger Leaping Gorge

So the best of finally reaching Chengdu was getting rid of that bus and especially of those Chinese people. And now, the two days in Chengdu were spent making the last arrangements of the tour to Tibet, doing some pending challenges and going to the "traditional" streets for a walk and coffee. The days in China were coming to an end and soon we were taking the highest train of the world, which should take us from Chengdu to Lhasa in 48 hours.

The part of the trip in China was nice. We only visited Chengdu and Yunnan, a province I had not visited during my first trip 5 years ago. In these 5 years, though, I have noticed some differences: China is more developed in terms of infrastructures, prices have grown up, Internet speed has gone down, it looks like they are finally trying to do something with pollution (all motorbikes are electrical)... but they still have a lot to do, especially with educating their people and their manners.

You can now check the Travel Guide to the Tiger Leaping Gorge and all the pictures of the trekking!

]]><![CDATA[Feel like in a fairytale in Lijiang]]>Thu, 26 Feb 2015 13:07:51 GMThttp://www.earthlooping.com/blog/feel-like-in-a-fairytale-in-lijiang

Earthlooping at Lijiang's Market Square

After being in Dali and reading about Lijiang, we didn't really had much expectations about the town. But the first impression was totally opposite, as it was the rest of the stay there. Lijiang is full of tourists, souvenir shops, restaurants and so on, yes. But still, it is so beautiful that you don't really care about that. Walking around its narrow alleys and being surrounded by such a beautiful architecture was like feeling in a fairytale village for a couple of days. Lijiang is how you imagine a traditional Chinese village. Touristified, yes, but worth the visit anyway!

The day we woke up in Dali to go to the train station and catch a ride to Lijiang was raining cats and dogs. Anyway, we put the raincover on and went to the station to buy the ticket. We still had to wait for a couple of hours, so went for some dumplings to kill some time.

We finally got on the train and this time we were just seating, as the trip lasted only for 2 hours. Once in Lijiang, the station is quite far from the center, so we had to take a local bus that after some 20 minutes dropped us in the new city but in front of the old one.

One of the streets in the Old Town

Lijiang new city is as any other Chinese one: traffic, people, big avenues, tall buildings, lights, etc. But when we entered the old town the situation totally changed. From the very first moment you enter the cobblestoned streets you feel you are somewhere out of this world. In a fairytale, in a theme park... yes, even if every building is either a souvenir shop, a restaurant or a hotel, still its is really beautiful. Besides, we arrived there in the late afternoon, so there was not much activity, which made the place even nicer.

small river runs all along the Old Town

As usual, the first thing we did was looking for our hostel. There are literally thousands of them in Lijiang, in every street, so finding ours took some time, but after a few asking we finally got there. It was Casamia Inn, hidden in a very small alley in the middle of the old town. The guys there didn't speak any English, but by calling someone we could somehow communicate.

The hostel was nice, with a small courtyard and a clean room. It was cold at night as in the rest of places of China but here the Internet connection was great! Can you imagine? Normal and fast internet in China! Unfortunately we didn't have much time for internet as we were only staying two nights, so we could only upoad a few pictures.

What you see from the upper part of Lijiang: full of black roofs!

After leaving our stuff in the hostel, we went straight to sightsee a bit the surroundings, basically the market square and a few streets. Lijiang Old Town is actually quite big, so you can spend a full day or two just getting lost there.

We started walking a bit and yes, the first good impression was confirmed. Lijiang is beautiful. It is full of tourists, souvenir shops, restaurants, bars... so imagine how beautiful it is that even with all these we like it. It was Saturday that day and at night, it gets quite crazy, The buildings in the market square are most of them restaurants/bars and at night they transform into nightclubs. And it is quite surreal. Every bar has a singer surrounded by dancers and people are seating in the tables and clapping, waving balloons or making noises. Outside the bars, the touts try to lure you to go inside. If you decide to go in, you can have a table, beers and whatever you want while enjoying the surreal show, but at really expensive prices.

The main streets are crowded with Chinese tourists. Still, if you get off them, they disappear.

As we were not really in the mood of spending hundreds of yuans there, we just went to the nearby streets. Yes, Lijiang is exactly as you imagine a Chinese traditional town. Every single building is beautiful, made from wood and with the traditional black roof. Most of them have courtyards and to make it even nicer there's a river (or stream) going all over the town. The center was quite busy but if you go off it, you can have streets and alleys for yourself.

Last thing we did before going back to the hostel was trying to find a place to eat. There are a lot of them but we just opted for a small restaurant close to the hostel and we had some noodles and a beer. End of the day!

Food stalls selling Lijiang snacks.

Next day we got the news we were waiting for from Chengdu. And these were good news, as they told us we had a permit to go to Tibet! Unfortunaletly we would have to cut one day of the tour because from the 16th of February Tibet is closed to foreigners, but anyway we were really happy!

This meant we had to shorten a bit the days in Yunnan and book a trip back to Chengdu to be there on the 8th. So, instead of visiting Lijiang, the morning was devoted to go first to the bus station and then to the train station. After comparing prices, times and everything, we booked a 24-hour bus direct from Lijiang to Chengdu. And this time it was not going to be a sleeper one but a normal seating bus, so the journey looked like quite painful. The problem was that we had no choice, it was either this bus, a train from another town but standing (all tickets were sold out) or going back to Kunming and then change train there if there were tickets.

Besides the 24-hour bus, we also booked a bus ticket for the following morning to Qiaotou, the town where the Tiger Leaping Gorge starts. We had now still almost all the day to visit Lijiang, so there we went! First we visited the local market, where mostly Naxi woman sell their products.

Lijiang Main Square

The two big waterwheels

Old Town Lijiang

After the visit to the market, we spent all day walking through Lijiang streets and alleys, climbed to the top of the town for beautiful views of the black rooftops, followed the river, visited the square where two big waterwheels are and even came accross a really nice Buddhist temple with not even a single tourist. Actually we noticed that most of the tourists are around the two main squares, so if you just go off them a little bit, you have plenty of places for yourself and you even get to see local people doing their daily life.

Besides, we could even try some of the famous Lijiang snacks. I would say they are the Chinese version of Spanish tapas: small portions of different kind of food served either on the street or in special covered restaurants full of "tapas" stalls. And they are really good! Oh, and yes, we also tried some kind of deep-fried grasshoppers for a challenge the students from Barcelona asked me to do.

You have images like this all the time, in Lijiang

A few beers and a coconut juice (oh, coconut juice is a must in Lijiang!) and some more strolling around and we went back home to rest a bit. The following day we were going to the Tiger Leaping Gorge and the trekking was supposed not to be easy!

And so we did. We woke up in the morning, went to the market to buy some food for the bus trip and headed to the bus station. At 12:00 we had a bus going straight to Qiaotou, from where the trekking starts!

The experience in Lijiang was much better than expected. After visiting Dali we thought Lijiang would be really worse. But no, compared to Dali it is a really reccomendable place to visit while in Yunnan. Dali is totally faked, the city has been rebuilt and it has no charm at all. On the other hand, Lijiang is touristry, there are plenty of shops (especially annoying are the shops selling African drums. They are all playing the same music and there's always a brainless person pretending playing the drums. Crazy. And the worse is that there are hundreds of them!), plenty of restaurants... everything aimed at tourists. But still, the town has a lot of charm. All the beautiful buildings, streets, the river... we loved LIjiang!

You can now check our Lijiang Travel Guide and the complete set of pictures!

]]><![CDATA[Why you should skip Dali and head straight to Erhai Hu]]>Mon, 23 Feb 2015 04:28:03 GMThttp://www.earthlooping.com/blog/why-you-should-skip-dali-and-head-straight-to-erhai-hu

A bit of Erhai Hu

The reason to stop in Dali was mainly because it was on the way to Lijiang and the Tiger Leaping Gorge further north. After reading a bit about it we didn't have much hopes for the old town but some for the Erhai Lake. And we were right: while Dali old town is totally spoilt and focused towards Chinese tour groups, the Erhai lake and its surroundings were a beautiful surprise, so the point is going straight to the lake, renting a bike and give pedals around the lake and through its beautiful small villages.

It took us quite a while to get from the rice terraces in Yuanyang to Dali. One hour to Xianjie, another one to Nansha, 3 more hours to Jianshui, and waiting there 4 hours to take a 12-hour train to Xiaguan. The train ride was again overnight in a hard sleeper, only disturbed by the hordes getting on it in Kunming on the way to Dali.

When we arrived in Xiaguan (Dali new town) early morning, we could already see that Dali old town was not going to be a tranquil and peaceful Chinese village. Actually we already knew that by reading the guide and on the Internet. Dali is just a touristified place full of Chinese tour groups, souvenir shops and so on. But as it was on the way to the Tiger Leaping Gorge and we read that the nearby Erhai Hu (or Erhai Lake) is really nice to bike around, we decided to give it a try.

Dali Old Town Gate

So from Xiaguan we took a bus to Dali old town, which is some 40 minutes away. First of all we went to the hostel, in this case 5 Elements Youth Hostel, a quite good one but with all the common problems: no heating and shitty Internet. Hungry as we were we ordered some banana pancakes and chocolate waffles and here it came the first small acident of the trip: my fake tooth fell off. Yes, by eating a simple banana pancake I lost one tooth. Luckily I didn't swallow it but now instead of going sightseeing we had to look for a dentist.

The 3 pagodas and the mountains behind

As the guy in the hostel was totally useless advicing some nearby dentist, we looked up on the Internet and headed back to the new town, went to a hospital and after the usual communication problems they told me that my tooth couldn't be put back again, I needed a new one. False. So again looking for another dentist, which we found randomly on the street. This one looked like a serious place despite of not having electricity that day, but anyway they could put my tooth back. Not a permanent solution, but at least they sticked it and so far it's still standing.

So with my tooth back in its original place we went back again to the old town for second time in a few hours. And that rest of the day was spent having a first look at the streets of Dali.

Dali hordes

And yes, our thoughts were confirmed. Dali is a totally rebuilt city full of Western bars, cafés and restaurants, souvenir shops and Chinese tourists. So not really much to do there than have a look around and head back to the hostel to have a couple of beers and some food before going to bed.

The following day we decided that instead of visiting Dali, we would rent a bike and head to the nearby Erhai Lake. And so we did. We took a mountain bike and went outside the city. The first stop was visiting a pagoda which was near our hostel. We couldn't enter it so we went to the most iconic sight of Dali: the 3 pagodas complex. It is a quite big complex with a 3 pagodas and a temple inside, but the entrance ticket is really overpriced, so we just went around the complex and down to the main road to start heading towards the lake, admiring at the same time really nice views from the 3 pagodas and the mountains behind them.

Surrounding landscape around Erhai Hu

We started biking along the main road to soon take the first crossing right. From that moment you get totally out of the crowds, of the souvenir shops and restaurants and you are in the middle of the nature surrounded by the beautiful Erhai Lake on your right and small villages and the mountains on your left.

Really, the bike ride around the lake is a really nice surprise after Dali and definitely one of the highlights of Yunnan. We went following the road that circumnavigates the lake, perfectly signposted, going through beautiful small traditional villages, stopping in small tiny Buddhist temples... and only seeing a couple of Chinese tourists riding electrical scooters and a few other bikers. It felt like paradise!

A woman praying in one of the Buddhist temples found along the road

We spent 4 hours including stops for lunch, pictures, visiting temples and so on until we reached the village of Xizhou. All the way was really pleasant, the only bad point we noticed was the massive construction of buildings along the road, which unfortunately means that the lake area is likely to become a touristry place soon, so go there before it gets spoilt!

Once in Xizhou, we parked the bikes, went for a beer in the main square and then for a walk around the village and to visit the small temple. Xizhou is a really nice and traditional Chinese village with narrow streets, red lamps and stuff, but is quite in danger of becoming a mini Dali, as we could notice already quite a lot of souvenir shops, a Western restaurant and many Chinese tourists. Still, right now it remains a really nice place to visit.

Peeling off a chicken along the Erhai Hu road

Xizhou

As it was getting late and we still had almost 2 hours to get back to Dali and return the bike, we decided to take the main road and go as quick as possible back to town. It took us 1,5 exhausting hours to get to Dali through the main road, dealing with the wind and the traffic, so totally opposite to what we had previously enjoyed while biking around the lake.

Anyway, once in Dali we returned the bikes, and exhausted as we were, we went for a recovering foot massage. The one-hour massage felt like heaven after the long day, and after it there was only time to go back to the hostel, eat a bit, have a beer and go to bed.

Chinese sheeps following their shepherd

The last day in Dali was devoted to visit the old town. Even if the first impression was bad and we knew that it was a totally spoilt place, once we were there we could check the situation to have a first-hand opinion. We walked through the 3 main streets (Foreigner Street, Renmin Street and Fuxiou Lu) and went up to a couple of main gates to have some views of the town.

And yes, Dali probably was a really nice city in the past in which to relax and so on, but now the only thing you see are shops, restaurants and Chinese tour groups walking like sheeps following their shepherd, who in this case is normally a Chinese woman dressed in traditional local clothes and wearing a speaker and a flag or similar in order not to lose the sheeps. Pathetic.

Dali Old Town

Still, the day in Dali old town was not bad, it is quite something to see Chinese mass tourism and you can even enjoy some banana pancakes, coffee or Western food, quite appreciated after more than 3 months travelling.

The rest of things to do in Dali were to sleep a bit and the following day to go back to the train station to take a train to Lijiang to spend a couple of days there before taking on the Tiger Leaping Gorge trekking. And actually, after Dali, we were not very excited about Lijiang, which according to the guide and the Internet is even more touristified. We will see in the next post!

If you are planning a visit to Dali, I would tell you to skip it and go straight to the Erhai Lake area, but don't forget our Travel Guide!

]]><![CDATA[Yuanyang: rice terraces as you have never seen before]]>Sun, 22 Feb 2015 09:31:22 GMThttp://www.earthlooping.com/blog/yuanyang-rice-terraces-as-you-have-never-seen-before

During my first trip to China I visited the rice terraces in Guanxi. They were really impressive, but what you get to see in Yuanyang is a few levels up. Hundreds and hundreds of rice terraces flooded with water, plus beautiful tiny villages, local markets and hiking opportunities make Yuanyang one of the highlights of the trip to Yunnan.

After the pleasant days in Xishuangbanna we took the bus at 12pm heading to Nansha, which is the capital of the Yuanyang region. This one was not a sleeper bus but a normal one with seats and supposed to last for about 9 to 10 hours. Surprisingly, after a bit less than 8 hours and after a ride through beautiful jungle landscape, we were in Nansha.

The weather there was even nicer than in Jinghong, so after looking for a hotel close to the bus station (it was already dark and to get to the rice terraces you have to go up to the mountains for another couple of hours) we headed for some street food.

Life in Nansha was pretty much as in Jinghong: a South East Asian feel, people walking and eating on the street... but we didn't have much time to enjoy the city life, so a bit of food and to the hotel to have some rest.

A close-up of the rice terraces

The next day we woke up and looked for some transportation to Xianje and Duoyishu, where we had our hostel. We managed to find a minibus going there, but the problem was that nobody else was joining, so after spending some good hour looking for more passengers and even having our driver fined by the police, we started driving uphill to Xianje.

The road from Nansha to Xianje is spectacular: narrow, going all the way uphill and offering impressive views of the valley where Nansha is. Finally, the driver told us he could go all the way to Duoyishu, and so we did, having the first glimpse of the rice terraces on the way. And you can already see how impressive they are.

View from Bada

Duoyishu is a really small village in the mountain, but with a privileged setting as it is in the middle of the terraces. The driver dropped us on the road and from there there's a quite downhill walk to get to tthe village and to the hostel.

This time the hostel was really nice with a perfect location, but with one problem: nobody was there, only a member from the staff who didn't speak any English but who offered us some food, so after eating some noodles and waiting for a while, Richard appeared. He's the owner of the hotel, a young guy from Shanghai who moved here in search of peace. He was stressed like hell, tired, running everywhere... a really strange guy. he gave us the key to the room and immediately disappeared, so we were left alone with no information of any kind.

Duoyishu Village

So, instead of Richard, we asked some guests that were there about where to go, what to do etc. First we walked around the village a bit (really nice one, with Hani people knitting on the street, pigs, water buffalos and chickens wandering around freely...) and visited its main square to have the first view of the rice terraces. Wow! That very first view of the terraces was really a big thing! Impressive. You get a top view of hundreds of rice terraces flooded with water (they are flooded only in winter). Yes, it was a right decision to have come to Yuanyang.

Back into the hostel, Richard appeared again and this time he gave us a bit more of imnformation, enough for the rest of the day, at least.

View from Duoyishu Viewpoint

VIllage Life

Water Buffalos on the road

And that rest of the day was spent going up to the main road, walking along it for a while to enter one of the 4 main viewpoints they have (this one over Duoyishu for better views of the terraces than from the main square), to see a bit of the region life (people working on the field, water buffalos...) and finally taking a local minibus to Bada to watch the sunset over the rice terraces.

We got to Bada viewpoint well before the sunset and what we found there was crazy. If the whole Yuanyang area is quite laid back and relaxed, at the sunset (and sunrise) times, the main viewpoints get fuly crowded with Chinese tourists waiting there for hours with their megacameras and megatripods. They all look like from the National Geographic waiting for the perfect shot to publish it in the cover of the magazine. In my opinion, they are not much more than idiots that are travelling around in group with a photographic kit that weighs twice their own weight. Very smart! The annoying thing is that they quite spoil the whole place, as they put all the tripods and stuff there and you have to find a tiny gap to admire the view.

The Chinese National Geographic photographers wannabes

Anyway, we could find the gap and without paying much attention to the Chinese freaks, we could enjoy the sunset. Actually "enjoy" wouldn't be the appropriate term, better just "see" the sunset, as it was nothing really spectacular. To have a spectacular view you need clouds on the sky, so they reflect the colors of the sun in the water of the terraces, but this time the sky was perfectly clear, so even if the sunset was nice, it was not that big something. Besides, in Yuanyang when the sun sets it gets really cold, so we just headed back to the hostel straight after the Sun went down.

Some more noodles (already starting to hate Yunnan noodles) and to bed after telling Richard that the following day we would like to visit a local market held in a nearby village. For that, he offered us to go with him and with a few other travellers around 11, to what we agreed.

Wanna buy a duck? Go to a local market in Yuanyang!

Next morning we woke up really early to check the sunrise from the viewpoint we had up on the road just a few minutes from the hostel. It was really cold and, again, the hordes of Chinese freaks were already awaiting for the event there. And, same as in the previous sunset, the sunrise was not really spectacular.

Back to the hostel, jumped into a minivan with a Chinese guy, two Italian girls and a Swiss-Chinese other girl and to the market. We drove for one hour to reach a small village close to Xianje. There is actually almost one market every day in a different village and they are following the Chinese calendar. This is, every day the market is devoted to a different animal. In this case, it was the chicken market, and of course, there were plenty of chickens and ducks being sold.

The Hani local market

The visit to the market was really nice. You see all the Hani women dressed in their traditional costumes shopping around, as well as other Hani people selling their products. Besides chickens and ducks, they sell clothes, tools, food... even water buffalos!

We had some food in the area devoted to restaurants (just tables and chairs scattered all around) and went back to Duoyishu, this time stopping enroute for some hiking. Richard appeared in the market and told us if we fancied some hinking in the middle of the rice terraces. We agreed and started walking for a few kilometers. It was really really nice, as you see the terraces from a different point of view and you pass by small villages whose main inhabitants are pigs, water buffalos or chickens. It was like being back in time a few centuries!

We finished the hiking at a viewpoint to wait for the sunset, this time a different one than the day before. Richard went to the hostel and we were supposed to be picked up by the driver after the sunset. It was nice, but I wonder who was in the hostel while Richard was away. Probably nobody, this guy is crazy...

So, after freezing to wait for the sunset, we headed back to Duoyishu and went with the guys to have dinner at a local restaurant. The meal was really good and cheap, as it was good having a break from the tiring noodle soup and enjoying some veggies and meat.

We ended up the day relaxing at the hostel and trying to get some help from stressed Richard on how to get to Dali, our next destination the following day.

The days in yuanyang, despite the chaos that Richard is, were really profitable and definitely one of the highlights of the trip so far. What the Hani people built there hundreds of years ago is really impressive and it is a totally reccomendable trip for anyone visiting Yunnan. Even if you have seen rice terraces before, these ones will make your jaw drop for sure!

For more details on how to get there and different stuff, don't forget to check our Yuanyang Travel Guide and the complete set of Yuanyang Pictures!

]]><![CDATA[Summertime in Xishuangbanna!]]>Sun, 22 Feb 2015 06:55:31 GMThttp://www.earthlooping.com/blog/summertime-in-xishuangbanna

Earthlooping at the White Temple near Damenglong

Finally, after the failure of Kunming, we found the Summer weather in Xishuangbanna. Warm, sunny days and the feeling of being in Laos, Vietnam, Thailand or wherever in South East Asia (but definitely not in China) together with a landscape full of jungle and lush vegetation, made the 5 days spent in the South of China a really pleasant ones.

The bus which took us from cold Kunming to Jinghong lasted for 12 hours. Actually the drive was for about 8 hours, but in China they have a strange tradition of stopping for 3 or 4 hours (sometimes even more) in the middle of the night so the drivers can sleep. This is quite annoying, as you are left inside the bus, cold and surrounded by snorers. I don't get it: if they have two drivers, why don't they take turns as in everywhere else?

Anyway, a quick stop for toilet before getting to Jinghong proved that finally we were about to have some warm days. Getting off the bus and feeling some 20 or more degrees on the 20th of January was quite a big thing, especially after coming from Kunming, where it was freezing every day.

Jinghong

The bus arrived in Jinghong at around 9 in the morning. And yes, it was really warm, like in summertime. People in short sleeves, wearing flip flops, shorts... and us wearing winter jackets, long johns, thick socks.... quite a big shock. But first thing we did was going to the first restaurant we came accross to have some food. It was actually a food stall on the street offering some cheap Yunnan noodles (or accross-the-bridge noodles). They put some boiled rice noodles in a bowl with soup and then you add the extra ingredients and spices you like from a nearby table. They were quite good, but later we found out that this was pretty much the only eating option in the whole Yunnan, so we were quite fed up with these accross-the-bridge noodles.

After eating, we went to look for our hostel, so we took a bus and after getting lost a couple of times and asking around here and there, finally we got to the right place. And actually on the way to the hostel we realized we could be somewhere else but in China. Jinghong is a small city and it looks like it is in the middle of the jungle: palm trees and palm trees everywhere. They have big and wide avenues with plenty of these trees surrounding them. You add some coconut trees here and there and yes, you are in the jungle city.

Really feeling Summer in Jinghong

Besides, you have street markets selling exotic fruits like coconuts, lichis, dragon fruits, tiny bananas... everything like in any South East Asian country. Actually, quite normal, as we are really close to the border with Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam, so the climate and culture are similar.

Once in our hostel we checked-in, left our bags in the room and went to explore Jinghong a bit. This time the hostel was more like a hotel, still with a nice courtyard but not the same atmosphere as the one, for instance, in Chengdu. Anyway, the owner was really friendly and helpful and the location was excellent. The only downsides were the Internet connection, which was slow (actually this is one of the things that have changed in China in the last 5 years: Internet speed has got slower and slower, weird, eh?) and the room heating. Even if it was really warm and nice during the day, at night it was a bit cold, so some heating wouldn't have done any harm. But again, the heating thing is a problem they have in all Yunnan.

Bubble Football Barcelona at the White Temple

We changed clothes, put on our sightseeing mode and went outside to enjoy the beautiful weather and Jinghong. We first headed towards a Buddhist temple we had a few minutes walking from the hostel. On the way we stopped in a local market to buy some of these sweet and tiny bananas they have in South East Asia and then we got to the temple. Confirmed: we are not in China. The temple was a Dai one (Thai) and the architecture and everything was Thai, not Chinese. It was a wooden and colorful one and really interesting inside. From there we continued walking to the center of the city. Palm trees everywhere, a feeling of a laid back city, Sun, nice weather... we were really enjoying Jinghong! Even if it doesn't have many special monuments or sights, this city has some appeal, maybe the palm trees, the vegetation, the weather, the hundreds of elephant statues all over the town or the architecture of the buildings (even if they are high blocks of flats, they all have a Dai detail on the roof)... I don't know what, but Jinghong has something special.

Dai Temple

We walked and walked all over the city (with a short stopover for some street food, this time some more noodles with a beer in then midle of the street) passing by the nice main square and a nice and small park until reaching the river. And it is not any river. Jinghong is home to the Mekong (Lancang in Chinese). Yes, this big river passes by Jinghong and you can admire it from the impressive bridge they have. We walked there, we had a beer in one of the many bars and restaurants there are by the shore and we waited to be dark to pay a visit to the local night market.

Jinghong's Main Square

The Mekong River

And that's yet another South East Asian fact of Jinghong. Like a lot of towns in Laos, Thailand, Vietnam... they have their own night market. And it is quite big. A really long street by the Mekong full with shops and food stalls, so we spent some hours just wandering around, buying some chopsticks and having some good skewers and a beer there. but as it was getting colder, we decided to go back to the hostel, having in the meantime a look at Jinghong by night, which looks more like a Chinese city than during the daytime: lights, lights and more colorful lights everywhere. Weird but quite nice at the same time!

The plan for the next day was to take a bike and go to a nearby village to see a waterfall and the village itself, but reading at some guests' reviews and seeing pictures in the hostel, we decided that we could perfectly skip the 6-hour bike ride and instead take a bus to a nearby village to see the famous White Temple. And so we did.

Banana plantations everywhere in Xishuangbanna

We woke up not very early, went for breakfast (spicy noodles, not really appropriate but we had no choice) and jumped on a 45-minute bus that took us through endless banana plantations to the village of Damenglong.

We expected to land in a tiny beautiful village or something similar, but instead Damenglong was a dusty big town with even a shopping mall and no charm at all. We visited a small Buddhist temple and went to try and find the White Temple. And this resulted to be in a nearby village. We walked along the road, visited another nicer temple and went up through the village (this time a tiny and beautiful one) until we reached the temple. After negotiating the entrance price with the guard, we were free to wander around. And it is a really nice complex: a huge white pagoda, an even bigger golden Buddha and nice garderns were to have a rest. Some hour there and back to the main road to catch the next bus back to Jinghong!

The way up to Nannuoshan

Quite tired we reached back Jinghong and the rest of the day was spent having a few beers, some fresh coconut and enjoying the good weather. At night, a visit to a smaller night market in the center of town, some street food and back to the hostel for some more beers, a failed try to updste the web and to bed.

Next day was devoted to Nannuoshan. Nannuoshan is a mountain around half an hour by bus from Jinghong famous for its tea trees plantations. The thing is going there early and slowly climb to the top of the mountain (it should take around 3 hours) to see the tea trees and some villages on the way. That's the right thing to do, but as we are not really morning persons, we woke up quite late, slowly went to the bus station and arrived in the village at the foot of the mountain around 12pm.

The village was really nice and undergoing a local tiny market. A woman invited us for some tea, but we left it for later, as the objective was to get to the top of the mountain, enjoy the views, the villages and the tea trees. They told us it takes 3 hours to get to the top, so we decided to start walking at a quite quick pace, other wise if it was 5 or 6 hours both ways, we couln't make it on time to catch the last bus back to Jinghong. And so we started walking.

Local girl in Nannuoshan

It took us 1,5 hours to reach the top. Yes, we were walking at a quite fast pace, but still I don't get how they could tell us it's 3 hours. Anyway, the walk was totally uphill, so tiring but at the same time you enjoy beautiful views of the green and lush mountains and you pass a couple of interesting villages.

Once on the top we tried to look for the tea trees and we met a couple of Chinese guys who were spending some days with the locals. They were very nice and offered us to take us through the tea trees to the oldest tea tree they have there. We were guided by a small local girl and the two Chinese through the forest and yes, we could see tea trees and stuff, but as it was getting late we decided to come back before reaching the old tree.

One hour walking downhill and we were again in the village the bus dropped us in. A bit of time to look at the local market and also to accept an invitation from a local woman to have some tea.

Mini bananas!

Jinghong's Night Market

Xishuangbanna Landscape

She invited us to her small shop and started with all the tea ceremony. We sat there for some half an hour enjoying the local tea, which actually is nothing special, but the ceremony was quite something. She didn't allow us to pay and from there we went to the roas to wait for the bus back to Jinghong, where we spent the rest of the day relaxing, this time with a nice blind massage (this is a massage given by a blind person, quite typical from the area).

For our last day in Jinghong we asked the owner of the hostel to reccomend us some nearby village. She said we could try Mengyang, a small not touristified village. So there we went. It took us some half an hour to get there through a really beautiful landscape. Definitely more beautiful than the village, which has nothing special at all: a few dusty streets, a local market and that's it. The best thing is a bar right next to the bus station where we sat and enjoyed a beer in the middle of an artificial lake.

The tea ceremony

Back in Jinghong some time to relax , have some food and just wait for the next day to catch a bus at 12pm to Yuanyang, our next destination where we were supposed to see the most impressive rice terraces in the world.

The days in Jinghong and its surroundings were really nice and enjoyable. After the cold in Kunming we really appreciated the perfect weather (even if at night was a bit cold) and despite the villages around Jinghong are not exactly postcard ones, the landscape and the South East Asia feeling you have all the time are worth the trip to Xishuangbanna!

If you're planning to go to the area, have a look at both our Xishuangbanna Travel Guide and our China Travel Pics!

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