Tibetan monks, monasteries and towns

So here I am, in the land of Tibetan monks and monasteries, otherwise known as the city of Xiahe. It's technically still in China, the border with Tibet is still several hundred kilometers away but the landscape completely changed: no more of the strange Chinese landscape mix of industrial sites and farming land, no more spitting Chinese men with their shirts raised to their necks so their fat unattractive bellies are showing. Instead wherever I look I see monastery towers, monks between the ages of 12 and 112 in their deep crimson robes (there are 3000 monks living in the monastery next door to our hostel), amazing Tibetan food and not so amazing Tibetan men staring intensely at my
 blond hair and blue eyes (yesterday at dinner in a local Tibetan restaurant a local man was staring and smiling at me so much that my lovely fellow travellers attempted to sell me off to him for 10 pigs and 20 sheep. Luckily the transaction failed and I'm allowed to continue my journey). We visited 2 monasteries today: Labrang monastery with its amazing brown and white buildings, hundreds of monks out and about engaged in their usual daily business: walking around, cleaning the houses, going to group prayer. We were even allowed to observe their group prayer (understandibly, no pictures were allowed) - the mix of loud repeated prayer lines, chanting and drum beats was truly powerfull and literally made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Some people in my group even started crying... And then we visited the Tsewey Black Hat monastery where monks were not as freely mixing with us nonbelievers but one of them showed us around and even allowed us to take pictures of the temple insides and their school and library. We finished the day with a visit to an amazingly old and rural town of Gan Jia Tajiao surrounded by an old rock wall, which is 2000 years old. It's amazing how traditionally people in this town still live - we didn't see a single person dressed in Western clothes, it's all farming and having babies and being completely independent on the outside world... I think that this Tibetan area of China is my 2nd most favourite experience of China so far after the Great Wall of China.

Luxuries of Xian

What a change from the “interesting” experiences of hostels, yurts and toilets of questionable quality that we’ve been experiencing so far. Our accommodation for 4 nights in Xian was Bell Tower Hotel, which – while by no means being the fanciest hotel I’ve stayed in – is a dramatic improvement from our Chinese experience of last 3 weeks. Bell Tower Hotel is modern, clean, has comfortable rooms and beds, clean bathroom with a toiler that flushes (bonus!) and hot water (extra bonus!!) and a bath (heaven!!!). But the real paradise of this hotel is the breakfast buffer. Truck crew has been talking about it for days. It’s heaven of the hotel breakfasts: every imaginable kind of breakfast food, both Chinese and Western with all-you-can-eat process to it. Each day we have been devoting at least 45 min in the breakfast restaurant.

However, everything that’s good comes to an end, we are in Xian no longer, and the crew warns us that the quality of accommodations goes pretty streadily downhill from here... Oh well, I don’t mind. That’s what overlanding is all about.Night out in Xian Chinese style (evidently): oh my God, talk about cultural experiences of China! On Friday night we decided to hit the clubbing scene in Xian. Ended up in a place called Salsa Disco expecting reasonably civilized salsa club atmosphere. Well, it was civilized allright however nothing salsa about it. As soon as we walked in (after going through security screening delivered by uniformed guards and xray gates) a very loud wall of Western club music hot us: anything from The Queen to Sugababes with anything you can imagine in between. An unexpected but very nice addition was a big stand with promotional cocktails and shots of all sorts – all free in unlimited quantities. We had such a blast on the dance floor. I quickly discovered that tall Western girls with blue eyes are quite popular with Chinese men. Let’s just say I couldn’t complain about a lack of

dance partners! But the best part was still to come: about midnight these 2 Chinese guys invited our whole group (about 8) to their VIP booth where a waiter started serving bottles of whisky, jugs of beer, platters of fruit and boxes of icecream with (weirdly) “good luck on your examinations” written on them. When we learned that one of these Chinese guys was a professional dancer, a

night of salsa moves to Lady Gaga songs followed. It was a brilliant night and I’m afraid that some of my fellow travellers have pictures to prove it

Overlanding through China as amazing life lesson about relationships

Who knew that my Big Trip would already from the start provide me with such a valuable visualization of how successful long term committed relationships work.

There is an Australian couple travelling with me. They’re in their 60s but they’re so much younger in spirit and mind than many 20 something year olds I know back home. I have been stealing little peeks at them over the last few weeks and observing their cute relationship rituals (and there are many on display every day – and I mean it in the most affectionate way possible!). They are so clearly very much in love with each other after all these years and experiences that decades of sharing a life brings along. What fascinates me a lot (and makes me just a touch envious) is the great balance they seem to have found in their life between having a true family home back in Australia and actively pursuing their love for travel. They have made conscious choices over the years to go travelling together, save money together for that specific purpose and organize their work and family matters in a way, which enables long travel periods of time away from home. They have been “serial travellers” for many years and still today – in their 60s – are taking 3 months off to travel from Beijing to Istambul on an overlanding truck! Nothing short of amazing in my view. And believe me, long term overlanding can put a difficult strain on you and your relationship. Long driving distances mixed with sometimes very intense sightseeing and physically exhausting activities, and above all being 24/7 with the same people and not really being able to get away for “a breather” for longer than few hours – all this can make the most loved up couple allergic to each other to the point of wanting to sleep in separate tents. Not my Australian friends here. They seem to be impressively experienced hard core travellers who have probably over the years weathered every possible dramatic travel scenario in the book. And they’re still here, enjoying every minute on the truck across vastness of China, excitedly photographing temples and landscapes and, most importantly, absolutely loving doing all that together. After 40 years of marriage!!

I would give a lot to have what they have when I’m in my 60s. Oh well, for now all I can do is to continue discovering the beauty the world has to offer on my own while keeping the faith that one day I’ll find The One who will happily share those hard driving days on an overland truck with me and share my everlasting love for a slightly vagabonding lifestyle.

Chapter 6: weird stories from the road

Small collection of funny and strange stories collected so far from hanging out with this amazing and entertaining group of my newly founded travelling friends... Some days we laugh so hard bellies hurt days afterwards :-)

1) Chocolate happy spot: a Canadian guy travelling with me told this super funny story from his life. Every time someone on the truck is eating chocolate now it causes uncontrollable laughter attacks! Here it goes: this Canadian is a great chocolate lover and developed a special technique of eating chocolate, which evidently (at least to him) maximizes the pleasure: he puts a piece of chocolate in a spot in the back and on the top of his mouth. He calls is his "chocolate happy spot". Few years ago he was having dinner with his parents, his wife and his in-laws (whom he was meeting for the first time). After dinner, instead of desert, he handed everyone a piece of chocolate and said "and now put this in your happy spot". I can only imagine the purplexed expressions of their faces while they were trying to figure out what on earth they're supposed to do with this chocolate now!!!

2) Bananas: an English guy on the truck told this hillarious story, memory of which evidently still lights up the meetings in his office back in London. Sometime ago in some seriously dull business meeting he was trying to lighten up the discussion with some meaningless chitchat. He wanted to say that if he puts a banana in his desk drawer at work overnight, the banana turns black. What came out of his month instead was "if you put your banana in a dark place, it turns black" :-)))

3) It's mine: it's more a game than a story. Everyone on the truck (including the crew) is currently playing the game, which dictates that every time anyone says the phrase "it's mine", they have to drop to the floor - no matter where we currently are - and do 10 push-ups. We've had people (including your beloved friend, the author of these words) doing push-ups in all kinds of weird places all over China to the utter amuzement of the locals: floor in restaurant, dirty ground in city centres or petrol station parking lots, truck floor, hotel lobbies etc etc etc. I did mine (twice in one day!) in the Inner Mongolian grasslands in the rain.

Now you're probably thinking myself and my fellow travellers are a bunch of sorry childish people with nothing better to amuze ourselves but to play silly games and tell stupid stories but believe me, it is immense fun! Plus we have to entertain ourselves somehow on those long drive days through industrial China!

Chapter 5: continued list of most interesting spots I visited in China so far...

1) Yunggang Buddhist Caves: located near Datong

(which I guess most of you never heard of, just as I up to last week had no idea where to look for it on a map). UNESCO World Heritage complex of 21 caves contains over 53000 statues, some of which are the oldest of this kind in China. You can clearly see Greek, Persian and Indian influences in the sculpting of the statues, especially the faces and clothing.

Truly amazing place and, although a bit touristy (again that high tourist season and school vacations in China), absolutely worth a few hour visit.

2) Hengshan Hanging Monastery: it's basically a Buddhist monastery consisting of several wooden buildings... hanging on a cliff in the mountains. It has over 40 different halls / temples / altars and an impressive array of bronze, stone, clay and iron statues. I found it a true masterpiece of engineering (hats off to all those engineers out there who know how to build stuff. Yes, honey, you too). I loved this place, both the architectural design of the structure seemingly growing out of pure hard rock as well as a temple-like atmosphere and spiritual peace glowing from it.

3) Shapotou: hmmm, that was an "interesting" experience. Known as the Disneyland of China. You don't find this place in mny tourist brochures. Somehow manages to be beyond tacky and exiliratingly entertaining at the same time. It's basically an adventure park by, located on the banks of Yellow River, where you can slide down HUGE sand dunes, zip-line across Yellow River, bungee jump, ride camels and horses, raft on Yellow River on a sheepskin raft (basically, you take a dead sheep, you remove all guts from the inside and hair from the outside, and you're left with skin which you inflate into a ballon. Planks of wood attached to several of these sheep skins and you got yourself a raft). Immense fun with Chinese disco music in the background!

4) Gao temple in Zhongwei: it's definitely one of China's most original temples. It's a multi-faith complex for Buddhists, Confucians, Taoists and even Christians. Dates back to the 15th century but was largely rebuilt after an earthquake in the 18th century. A series of restored underground bomb shelters (???) now serve as rooms and corners, where various representations of hell are presented in the form of paintings and sculptures. Very freaky, accompanied by even freakier noises from the sound system of people being tortured, so of course my (normally well behaved) group of fellow travellers turned into a bunch of silly teenages running around and scaring each other in the dark corners of the temple. Fun!

Chapter 4: Some of my favourite travel quotes I picked up so far

“The world is a book and those who don’t travel read only 1 page”

“Fear is temporary, regret is for life”

“Like all good travellers I’ve seen more than I can remember and I remember more than I have seen”

“Some parts of the world you make a conscious effort to visit and others have to wait until fate delivers you there”

“I never think about the future. It comes soon enough”

“Vagabonding is a deliberate way of living that makes freedom to travel possible”

“Those who wander are not necessarily lost”

“A real traveller has no final plan and is not keen on arriving”

Chapter 3: The People

Few thoughts about the people on the truck, who are my fellow travellers and my friends/family/therapists etc for the foreseeable future:

Most of them are going from Beijing to Istanbul, so they’ll be my friends and family for the next 3 months. There are several who will say goodbye to us in China and go trekking into Tibet and Nepal. I am the only one from this lot who continues from Istanbul into Africa. There’s an amazing variety of backgrounds, ages, professions and personalities. Age ranges from mid 20s to mid 60s. There are Australians, Brits, a German, a Swiss, a Belgian. Crew are 2 absolutely amazing Kiwis (Donna and Dion) married to each other for the last 18 years and running overlanding trips for the last 7. Their picture should be in the dictionary next to the phrase “loving what you do for a living” and also next to “how to communicate with your spouse without words” (I swear, in midst of some truck/travel disaster situation when other people may start panicking, Donna and Dion just look at each other and know exactly what needs to be done. It is beautiful to watch this couple). There’s a fire fighter from Melbourne, chemistry teacher from Adelaide, environmental economist from Canada, banker from Germany, and bunch of people on extended sabbaticals (hurray!! More people like me trying to figure out what to do with their lives!!). There’s also an amazing variety of reasons why these people decided to do this trip. Here’s my attempt to psychoanalyse them J

1) Some treat this as a normal longer-than-usual holiday (i.e. after this I go back to same job, same house, same routine)

2) Some treat is as an extremely cool and adventurous way to see parts of the world you wouldn’t normally set out to see and do things you normally wouldn’t have a chance to do (overnight in your sleeping bag on the Great Wall of China!!!). They are probably planning to return to the same jobs, houses and routines but (crucial difference to group 1) they keep an open mind to what other things they could do with their lives. If they stumble upon something amazing (new career, new country they just fall in love with and want to live here etc), they have the courage and passion to go for it.

3) And finally, some treat this trip as part of the extended soul-searching journey they have been on for a while. This adventure has been calling for a while and they finally answered. To them it’s not just a holiday, but rather another opportunity to dive into the richness of the world and seek answers to some of those important questions we all have inside of ourselves. After this trip they don’t necessarily plan to dutifully return to their jobs and daily routines, but rather to consciously consider the options, soul-search into what they really want, and hopefully arrive at the destination equipped with some answers and the courage to choose the life paths (work, home, relationships etc) they really want instead of those that just happen to be available. They don’t just want to live a comfortable but shallow existence. They want to live their lives consciously, fully and without regrets.

Chapter 2: The good, the Bad and the Ugly: first impressions of China

Here is a random collection of my top impressions (and some pictures) of China after a couple of weeks in this vast country (so may still be unfair and I reserve the right to correct them later):

The spitting: there are men everywhere who are expert “spitters” (if that’s even a word). What I mean is that they spit everywhere and all the time. And believe me, it’s not any normal spitting I’ve ever seen before. This is some kind of advanced spitting university: they clear their throat very loudly (a sort of pre-warning that something is about to happen) and then spit out this ball of green, sticky phlegm, which can fly quite a distance in an unpredictable direction. Disgusting and fascinating at the same time. It’s been a time-consuming game for me to learn to avoid the spit landing on me. I consider it a small personal success that so far it only landed on me once, and just on my shoes and not my nose.

The internet: the rules of the game known as “internet access for foreigners” are entertaining and frustrating at the same time. Technically (as I’ve been told) foreigners should have no problems accessing internet cafes providing they show their passports at the front desk. Well, the reality is proving quite different. I tried 3 internet cafes in 3 cities so far and got 3 different experiences: first time I got in after showing my passport, second time I got in even without showing my passport, and third time I didn’t manage to get it at all (they required a Chinese ID, which they can scan a special machine and record who accessed what and when on the internet). So, my dear friends and family, if you don’t hear from me for extended periods of time, it’s most likely not because I’m dead but because the authorities in China didn’t warm up to my amazing personality just yet and refuse me entry to internet cafes. Oh, and one more thing, even at those rare instances when I do manage to get into an internet cafe, Facebook is not allowed, so please don’t send me anything important that way...

The food: in one word – amazing. Small restaurants in obscure alleys where only the locals eat prove to have much much better tasting food than the expensive touristy stuff. Quick observation on food prices (which will dictate my diet for the next month and a half): to give you an idea how food prices work here, I’ll say this: Starbucks coffee is 30 Yuan (about 3 British pounds). Huge bowl of Chinese soup or a simple but plentiful meal starts at 3 Yuan (about 30 British pence). 600 ml bottle of beer is 2 Yuan. I think we can safety deduct what I’ll be living on for the foreseeable future J Thank God fruit is cheap as well...

Here are some quick notes on the most interesting places I have visited so far in China:

1) Beijing:

Beijing is smog, smog and more smog. It gets better outside Beijing but in the city I haven’t seen the slightest bit of sun. At the same time it’s extremely hot and even more humid. I have been to some really hot and humid places in the world (heck, I lived in one of them for several years) but I have never been sweating as much as I was in Beijing. After an hour of walking around the city, top of my infamous green dress (yes, the one that most of you know so well) was completely wet. Thank God for fast drying travelling clothing...

I LOVE LOVE LOVE Beihai Park in Beijing.

It’s a peaceful, green, beautiful oasis right in the middle of the city noise. With a lake in the middle of the park and several temples scattered throughout it, Beihai is definitely my favourite place in Beijing. In the evening a lot of older Chinese people seem to come here for exercise. But what they do is not what we’re used to seeing in the Western city parks: no joggers or bikers. Instead I’ve seen groups doing some sort of Chinese aerobic dancing; old pensioners performing dance, singing and music; couples clapping their hands or shaking their tambourins while walking etc, etc.

I also saw an older Chinese gentleman, part of the park cleaning crew, who was painting on the pavement with the end of his cleaning broom dipped in dirty water. His paintings were quite impressive:

Forbidden City: not a city and not forbidden anymore... Huge and (in my humble opinion) bit uninspiring complex of buildings, temples and LOTS and LOTS and LOTS of (mostly Chinese)

tourists. I realize it’s currently high season and school holidays in China and I realize 1.3 billion people live in this country but I still wasn’t prepared for the overwhelming crowds of people in the city, and the noises and smells accompanying them!

Summer Palace: beautiful and vast complex of breathtaking temples and Emperor housing rooms. Ditto for the above comment on overcrowding though. Maybe should come again in less busy time of year to give Beijing justice.

Great Wall of China: as breathtaking

and beautiful as I ever imagined. 10 km trek in the Jinshauling and Simatai sections of the wall was incredible. First, you have to trek up (very steep and VERY sweaty) up to the wall entrance and then you brave the trek along the wall, which was much up-and-down and much steeper in places than I expected. I kept repeating my Chinese mantra: sweating like a pig is good for my skin. At some point I gave up trying to wipe it off my face to look semi-presentable for the pictures. No point if after 5 minutes it’s pouring down my face (and everywhere else!) again J And another highlight of the day (mind you, of very different kind from the Great Wall) is a luge

(type of a slide) you can take to get down from the wall. It’s similar to those luge cars/slides they have as a Winter Olympic sport. You slide down like a crazed maniac, the faster and louder screaming the better. It was fantastic. I felt like a little happy kid again. The story has it that when Bill Clinton visited this part of the world and was offered a ride in this luge slide, he politely refused. Chicken!

2)

City of Chengde:

Most of the city seems to be taken over by a huge park, which evidently was a weekend and summer retreat for the imperial family and the well-to-do Beijing crowd. Profusion of temples, lake with lotus flowers, Imperial Summer Villa, monasteries with Mongolian and Tibetan feel – beautiful, inspiring and (despite being bit crowded) relaxing to a point I took a long snooze on a park bench. Luckily, my backpack and camera were still there when I woke up!

Sam, one of the girls on the truck, was celebrating her birthday so we hit the town in the evening was some special celebrations. There were Happy Birthday signs, balloons (don’t worry, my Dutchman honey, I didn’t contribute my special balloons you gave me), Chinese birthday cake with insane amounts of whipped cream and cherry tomatoes (??!!) on top. There was even a Hello Kitty crown for the birthday girl. After dinner we ended up in some obscure, typically Chinese karaoke bar that had 3 English songs on the menu. So (don’t ask me how) we managed to do karaoke to Chinese songs. Another proof that after several beers anything is possible...

Another memory of Chengde I’ll carry (which funnily enough doesn’t have anything to do with the city other than the fact that it occurred there) is a fascinating existential philosophical discussion I got into with a woman on the truck. She’s 32 and seemingly in the stage of her life asking herself all the Big Questions I have been (and still am) asking myself. I guess quite a lot of us are... Career of family? If family, then where’s my prince on the white horse? Even if the prince shows up, how do I know he’s the right one? Should I keep travelling like a maniac or settle down somehow somewhere? Do I do jobs which I happen to be good at but not necessarily am passionate about? What makes me happy? Etc etc etc. There’s a long list of those, I haven’t arrived at any patented answers just yet (neither did Suzanne, the girl I was discussing it with) but it’s good for me to know that other people struggle with these Biggies as well. Sometimes I have a feeling that everyone else is perfectly settled and happy in their lives, and I’m the only loser who can’t figure it out L

3) Eastern Qing Tombs

UNESCO World Heritage site and largely missed by the tourist hordes, who typically visit Western Ming Tombs because of their proximity to Beijing. The eastern tombs are set in the Death Valley area. 5 emperors, 14 empresses and 136 imperial followers have been buried here. The Dowager (mother of the Last Emperor) was the last one to be buried here. Close your eyes, think of the movie “The Last Emperor of China” and you’re starting to get a feel for this place...

4) City of Datong

Completely uninspiring one big construction site. Cranes, other building equipment, half-demolished huts on one side of the road, and half-built residential towers on the other side of the road – that’s the most flattering words I can use to describe the landscape here. We tried to count the number of apartments they’re building here: we gave up counting after about 60 towers of 25 stories each and that was just one apartment complex in a city of God only knows how many millions of people...

Chapter 1: How a most unusual start almost through a spanner in the works...

Years of dreaming about it, months of preparation, weeks of packing, selling furniture and cleaning up my life (to the point that all my material belongings fit into my backpack and 18 boxes in storage in Richmond), and finally days of saying goodbye to all those who are dear to me had gone past. The whole “journey to the journey” had been a great and exciting success. I felt ready to set off into a life changing experience, that would take me out of civilization and out of the comfortable existence that I had been in for quite a few years, and into a great personal Unknown. Eight months with a big orange truck as a home and all my key possessions on my back and in my mind. Simple lodgings (combination of hostels, yurts, camping and home stays) in unknown circumstances and cultures. I was beyond thrilled with the prospect of this ultimate experience.

I was (and still am) extremely grateful for all the support that people gave me and nothing stood in its way. Nothing? So I thought... At very last minute i needed a visa for Kazachstan because the itinerary was adjusted to avoid Southern province of Kyrgystan (a little war going on there!) and instead to go through the Northern province and to include going through Kazachstan. I had to apply for my Kazachstan visa from London. I had exactly five working days to get it before I was due to be off to Portugal with the boyfriend and to Poland to see the family. The visa service in London was supposed to send my visa and passport via tracked and registered UK mail to my parents in Poland. Well…that proved “a bit much” for UK mail. When I got to my parents on 20 July my passport hadn’t arrived yet. UK mail told me it had left the UK on 13 July, Polish mail said it hadn’t arrived in the country yet…no passport means no trip, and I was due to leave for China in 5 days! What then started was a frantic series of phone calls to UK mail and Polish mail. On 21 July in the evening I had given up on getting the passport back, and was preparing for a “plan B”, which would involve reapplying for all the visas with my American passport, which would take weeks. Somewhere during the day I had entered a “Zen attitude”, which meant I realized I couldn’t change what happened, but I could change how it would affect me, and I had resolved to accept my fate.

The next day a miracle happened. Out of sheer despair I phoned the UK mail again (mostly, I just wanted to scream at the folks who lost my passport) and the guy admitted that my passport hasn’t left UK yet. It was due to leave morning of July 22 and arrive in Poland afternoon of the same day! I immediately called the Polish post office to beg that they watch out for the package and keep it in Warsaw airport office until I personally collect it. By the end of the day I think every man and woman in the Polish customs office knew me and was on the outlook, and guess what…at 23:00 hours the redeeming word came: “Madam, we have your package . When can you collect it?”. I flew to Warsaw the next morning and experienced probably the happiest moment in my life few hours later when I held my passport in my hand!!