Traveling is easy these days. Planes, trains and ferries criss-cross the globe, Google maps and GPS can pinpoint your location in minute detail, and thousands of guidebooks, websites and blogs provide real-time information on almost every place imaginable. While this is certainly more convenient, it’s hard to imagine that same sense of exhilaration felt by great explorers doing something for the first time: Columbus setting foot on America; Hillary summitting Everest, for example. Earlier this month, however, I discovered that real off-the-beaten-path adventuresare still possible, if you know how to find them…

Tibetan home in Zhonglu Village

After a painfully early start and an hour’s delay in Beijing, I arrived at Chengdu airport around noon, where I was met by Frederique Darragon. Born in Paris, Frederique inherited a small fortune from her father, an inventor who died when she was 4 years old. Instead of buying things, Frederique chose to spend her money on exploring the world. Despite my tiredness, the 9-hour bucking-bronco journey from Chengdu to Danba, a quaint little Tibetan town in western Sichuan, passed quickly as Frederique wowed me with stories of her travels – hitchhiking across the United States on a shoestring budget, working on a kibbutz in Israel, sailing the Atlantic in the first race from Cape Town to Rio de Janeiro, living amongst the golden eagle hunters in Mongolia, and being rescued by Tibetan shepherds after suffering a stroke while searching for snow leopards on the Tibetan Plateau. She has been a model in Paris, a record-breaking polo player and 8-time thoroughbred racing champion in Argentina, a lauded samba dancer in Rio…
Twelve years ago near Danba, Frederique came across a tall tower made of cut stone, bricks and timber. Thinking nothing of it at the time, she came across a similar one a year later in Tibet, 800 kilometres from the first. The locals she asked had no idea who built them, how old they were, or what they were used for, and further inquiry revealed that despite their abundance in this area (known as the Tribal Corridor), almost no scientific research has been done on them. They are one of China’s enduring architectural mysteries. Frederique was intrigued, and intent on uncovering their story.

Tower of Danba Valley

Over the next decade, Frederique sifted through journals, articles and ancient texts looking for references to the towers. She wandered the area interviewing local people, gathering data from 250 standing towers and over 750 ruins, taking photographs and collecting wood samples for carbon dating, in search of clues. Using the money that her then boyfriend, media mogul Ted Turner, had given her to buy dresses, she set up the Unicorn Foundation – dedicated to preserving the towers and improving the livelihoods of the people in the area. She also published a book, filmed a documentary that aired on the Discovery Channel and put together a photo exhibition to raise awareness of the towers both in China and the West.

The next morning, inspired by Frederique’s go-getter travel philosophy, I decided to make my own way to Zhonglu, a small village 20 minutes northeast of Danba. The landscape was breathtaking. Dozens of square towers and fortress-like Tibetan houses are visible from the hilltop viewing platform, scattered across both sides of the Danba Valley. Villagers in traditional garb were bent over in fields of crops or drove animals along the narrow pathways through the village, and yet, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the experience was not completely authentic. From my perch I could also make out a shiny cavalcade of SUVs parked outside the only guesthouse in Zhonglu, and an old lady in a toll booth had charged me 20 RMB to enter the village.

When I mentioned this to Frederique later, she explained that the landscape’s steep contours means that land for cultivation and building property is extremely limited.

Old buildings, including the ancient towers, are typically knocked down to make space for new ones, and the stones are reused as building materials. Her take on the toll fee is positive: if the locals recognize the value of the towers as tourist attractions, they will be more inclined to protect them. They will also be less reliant on harvesting Chinese herbal medicines and logging timber as ways to supplement their limited income, which reduces the pressure on the local environment. The next step is to convince them to think about long term sustainability and ecotourism, instead of trying to make quick money though mass market tourism. That’s where WildChina hopes to help.

Water-powered cornmill

That afternoon, we drove a little further down the road to another village called Pujiaoding. The road wound up the side of the valley, narrowed then came to dead end. We hopped out of the car and continued on foot along a narrow dirt track, which opened up to a small primary school. This was the kind of authentic, unpolished, and personal experience that would appeal to WildChina’s clients. Schoolchildren were playing basketball on the concrete playground as the school principal showed us the areas in need of repair. Seeing the multitude of little problems that could be solved with a small donation and a bit of elbow grease reminded me how much we take for granted in more developed parts of the country. Frederique’s local friend Abu then invited us into his home where we brainstormed potential projects for WildChina’s education and community service tripsover steaming cups of Tibetan butter tea, homemade cheese and tsampa, a traditional staple food made from roasted barley flour mixed with water.

This pattern of events happened for the rest of the trip. We would stop in relatively touristy spots, particularly at night, but just around the corner there were hidden gems to be discovered: a tiny village that still uses the power of falling water to grind corn into flour; little old ladies that have never seen tourists, let alone foreign ones; unspoilt fields of rainbow coloured wildflowers beyond the pastures. The five days I spent with Frederique highlighted how I will approach all my travels in future, with an open mind, engaging with local people and proactively searching for experiences and adventure.

School in Pujiaoding

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Author of this post Samantha Woods is a manager at WildChina.  To learn more about Danba and journeys to this area, please contact us at info@wildchina.com.

A few posts ago, we announced the opening of the commercial high-speed rail that connects passengers between Beijing and Shanghai in less than 5 hours: a remarkable feat. Before the high-speed rail opened on July 1, 2011, the fastest journey via train took 9 hours and 49 minutes. Now, due to trains which travel at an average speed close to 200 mph, the time it takes to travel to Shanghai has been cut in half.

This past weekend I had the pleasure of exploring Shanghai for the first time. Of course, I packed a long to-do list from WildChina’s China Classics Shanghai itineraries, but I had to try to condense everything I wanted to do into a single weekend adventure. I took the high-speed rail from Beijing to Shanghai on a Friday morning, then hopped on the train and rode it back to Beijing on Sunday afternoon. I knew I wouldn’t want to deal with the hassle of flying, which made the rail an attractive alternative.

My experience was fantastic. The seats are comfortable and there’s much more legroom than a plane offers. The attendants were helpful, and everything was very clean. All in all, this train makes travel to Shanghai a piece of cake.

At the Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station after disembarking the high-speed train

If you’re looking to take a weekend journey to Shanghai, but not sure what to do once you arrive, here are some suggestions.

1) Yu Garden

Visit this site in the morning to avoid crowds. After a little searching for its entrance in the bustling bazaar outside the garden walls, you will find paradise on Earth in this classical Chinese garden. Commissioned in 1559 by Pan Yunduan of the Ming Dynasty (1368AD-1644AD), the gardens were meant to be a gift to his father for him to spend his old age in peace. Yu Gardens showcase the Southern Chinese garden style: carp-filled ponds, dragon statues, lucky stone mosaics, and bridges are tucked away in the luscious greenery of this famous garden.

Afterwards, stop and grab some snacks and milk tea from the vendors in the bazaar and visit the local artisans hard at work in their stalls.

2) Xintiandi

The site of the first Communist Party meeting, Xintiandi’s historical significance blends gracefully with its modern development into upscale shopping and dining. This modernized area is composed of renovated shikumen, or “stone gate” houses located in narrow alleys. The numerous cafés and the wide range of dining options make Xintiandi an ideal spot for lunch, dinner, or drinks. Most restaurants have outdoor and indoor seating which makes people-watching easy while you relax. Stop by the Museum of the First National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party to learn more about the first Communist Party meeting.

3) Pudong: Jin Mao Tower or the World Financial Center

Head across the Huangpu River to Pudong, China’s emerging financial center. Though most tourists head to the Oriental Pearl Tower for a view of The Bund and Shanghai, Jin Mao Tower and the World Financial Center offer incredible observation decks and a dramatically thinner crowd. Jaws drop as soon as the elevator doors opened on the observation deck on the 88th floor of Jin Mao Tower (also home of the Grand Hyatt Shanghai, one of the highest hotels in the world which occupies the tower from the 53rd-87th floor).

Jin Mao Tower

4) Fuxing Park

Hidden among the charming, tree-lined streets in the French Concession district, Fuxing Park exudes a lively aura thanks to the locals who sing, play board games, dance, practice tai-chi, and relax in the park. Immediately upon entering the park, Fuxing’s I passed an older Mao-suited gentleman carrying his lucky cricket in its cage as he ambled on his way through the fragrant rose garden.

5) Urban Planning Exhibition Center

The six-story Shanghai Urban Planning exhibition Centre includes archived photos, information on proposed forms of future transportations, and a computer-generated flyover of the city projected onto a 360-degree movie screen. The most incredible part of the museum, though, is the centerpiece of the entire exhibition center: an expansive scale model of what urban Shanghai is predicted to resemble in 2020.

6) Nanjing Road

If you’re looking for shopping, Nanjing Road, one of the world’s busiest shopping streets, has it all. Renovated in 2000 by the Chinese government in an effort to pedestrianize the street, Nanjing is very easy and accessible to navigate.

7) Din Tai Fung Restaurant

Though this chain is actually of Taiwanese origin, Din Tai Fung in Shanghai promises incredible xiaolongbao, or soup dumplings, a local favorite. Din Tai Fung’s excellent service, fantastic prices, and, of course, delicious cuisine have all contributed to its immense popularity. There are numerous locations throughout the city.

8) Walk Along The Bund at night (before 11pm!)

The Bund, with its European-style Neoclassical and Art Deco buildings, portray the beginning of Shanghai’s financial prowess that began during the British concession in 1842. Commercial houses and banks line the Western edge of the Huangpu River, giving Shanghai the nickname “Paris of the East.” After the sun sets, the lights from the buildings drench the walkway on the bank of the river in a warm glow.

The lights from Pudong across the Huangpu River are dazzling and bright, and represent Shanghai’s constant development and urban renewal. Arrive before 11 pm to make sure you catch a glimpse of the city lights before they’re shut off for the night.

Pudong at night from across the Huangpu River

To prepare for the ride back to Beijing, Purchase some food from the Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station before you head back; you can pay for a meal or snacks on the train, but the cuisine isn’t always very appetizing and prices are high. Relax! After a busy weekend, you can lean back your chair and sleep comfortably in the well-cushioned chairs.

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To see more activities in Shanghai, check out the itinerary for our four-day journey to the city, here.

Patti Waldmeir, WildChina traveler and Shanghai correspondent for the Financial Times, divulges her interactive experience in China’s Guizhou province with locals and WildChina guides who helped her family embrace the history and pride of the region.

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“Mommy, please don’t eat the brown one!” My 11-year-old daughter was pleading for the reprieve of my lunch: a hunk of stir-fried dog haunch that I was determined to stomach, whatever the consequences to her psyche or to my digestion.

Brown-coloured dogs, it seems, are tastiest – or so we were told on our recent trip to one of the least visited, but most spectacular, tourist destinations in China: Guizhou province, a land of karst and culture unique in an increasingly tourist-glutted mainland. Shanghai, Beijing, Xian and Chengdu are rapidly becoming staples of international tourism but Guizhou is an altogether different kind of China: older, friendlier, prouder, and purer. For those who enjoy tourism but hate other tourists, it is a paradise.

One glimpse of Xiao Hong’s dog diner, in the Guizhou town of Panjiang, where almost every restaurant is a canine one, is enough to dramatise the difference. Eating dog is controversial in the rest of China – in April, animal rights activists liberated nearly 600 dogs bound for the wok after ambushing a lorry just outside Beijing – but, in Guizhou, dog is still a valued delicacy. Dog meat from Guizhou’s Huajiang town was recently declared part of the town’s “intangible cultural heritage” and the provincial government promoted Guizhou dog meat at last year’s Shanghai Expo.

My host, the tour company WildChina, does not normally offer dog on its menu of visits to the karst mountain scenery and ethnic minority villages of Guizhou. But I insisted: if dog is good enough for the people of Guizhou, it is good enough for me. Then I told the children.

I had already warned my two squeamish pre-teens that this would not be our usual China trip: a tour of famous temples and sacred mountains by way of low-rent video game parlours and seedy Chinese amusement parks. This time, we were going to visit the “real China” – Tiger Mom could not have said it any better.

So I left one child cowering in the back of WildChina’s minivan – sucking on a Sprite, munching Oreos and refusing to look out of the window – and marched the other one straight past a wok of simmering puppy paws to the counter where Xiao Hong was waiting to carve up some dogmeat.

I was half hoping she would offer something other than brown dog: in the rigid hierarchy of Guizhou canine cuisine, brown comes tops but is swiftly followed by black, Dalmatian and white dog. But brown dog was what she had, so I banished thoughts of our own brown mutt back at home in Shanghai – the infelicitously named “Dumpling”, himself rescued as a puppy from a cooking pot – and tucked into a fragrant canine casserole laced with mint and garlic shoots, “smelly beans” and Guizhou chilli sauce.

Like termites, caterpillars, mopane worms, goat guts and all the other gross things I have eaten in my life, once was enough for me for dog meat: the taste just isn’t good enough to outweigh the notion of eating Lassie. But once will not be enough to visit Guizhou: I have been wandering the world for nearly 40 years but seldom have I had the sense of travelling so far back in history.

All the guidebooks drone on about the intricate embroidery and elaborate hairstyles of Guizhou’s many ethnic minorities – members of the 55 minority cultures recognised by the Chinese government (and celebrated whenever Beijing wants to trumpet its diversity). I imagined an endless array of fake cultural artefacts, produced by minority tribesmen pretending to engage in authentic traditional practices, right outside the tour bus stop.

But that was before I met Xiao Zesheng, our WildChina guide – a Guizhou native with no more tolerance for counterfeit culture than I have. He marched us off through the rice fields – balancing precariously on narrow dikes separating paddies of mud and dung and water – right into the farmyards and courtyards of villages apparently untouched by much technical innovation since the water buffalo. In the process, he showed us plenty of traditional embroidery and elaborate hairstyles but they were all worn by women chopping wood and planting rice fields.

Guizhou women sport intricate hairdo's, even while performing hard labor

Xiao and Nancy Tan, who is WildChina’s Chinese-American guide and has a broad Tennessee drawl and an unerring knack for keeping pre-teens happy, squired us from the realm of the “Old Han” and the Bouyei people, to sample a few of the sub-groups of the Miao (known in the west as Hmong), described graphically by their dress or headgear as the Long Skirt Miao, the Short Skirt Miao, the Long Horn Miao, the Big Flowery Miao and the Gejia (officially, a Miao subgroup).

The Huangguoshu waterfall

They collected us in the provincial capital of Guiyang, about a two-hour flight from Shanghai. The highlight of our half day in Guiyang – a relatively charmless city, like most of China’s minor metropolises – was watching city workers dumping mud into the Nanming river as part of Guiyang’s attempt to be named one of China’s cleanest cities. After a lightning visit to the 78m high Huangguoshu waterfall, we drove to Kaili, a convenient if unprepossessing base for three days visiting the minority villages of south-east Guizhou. No one goes to Guizhou for the hotels: ours, the Heaven-Sent Dragon, was the best in town (even if hotel housekeeping seemed to think vacuuming the rugs to be an unnecessary luxury). Our last night, at the newly built Leishan International Hotel in Leishan confirmed the impression that Guizhou people would rather dump mud into a river, than take it out of a carpet by vacuuming.

Leaving Kaili one morning – Kaili means “let’s go to the rice paddy field with the water buffalo” – Xiao took us to do just that: scarcely 100 yards off the main road, we came upon a group of women, knee-deep in a field of mud laced with dung, planting rice seedlings. “Come in and join us,” they shouted – so we did, stripping off socks and shoes to slip and slide into the muck beside them.

Patti and girls planting rice seedlings

After marvelling at the squeamishness of my Chinese-American children – adopted as infants from unknown Chinese birth parents who may also have been farmers – the seven planting matrons collapsed in laughter at our urban inability to insert a handful of rice seedlings upright, at the right intervals, under water. “Don’t waste,” scolded the matriarch of the paddy field, gently, as one child dropped a precious seedling without realising that it would yield half a pound of rice at harvest.

Patti's daughters exploring terraced fields

Soon the children were scampering off to watch a farmer ploughing with water buffalo and to stomp in cow pats with bare feet. After a pit stop at a local farmyard, where an octogenarian villager welcomed us in to wash at his water tap, we had to spend several minutes politely declining the planting ladies’ invitation to lunch. For in Guizhou, hospitality is the default: from almost every villager, a smile, a greeting, an invitation to rest or chat or drink water. One diminutive grandmother of the Old Han minority, descendants of Qing dynasty warriors sent from distant Nanjing to defend the empire’s borders in Guizhou, even thanked me for taking her picture. After nearly three years in Shanghai, with its relentless focus on the making and spending of money, I can think of nothing better than plunging knee-deep in an agrarian cesspool, with such friendly natives.

A backstreet in Zhaoxing in Guizhou

Of course, it is easy to confuse poverty with charm in Guizhou. Its people are among the poorest in China. They farm on seemingly vertical hillsides, terrace their fields nearly to the top of every available mountain, and plough by hand or with a draft animal – backbreaking work. They carry crushing loads by shoulder pole; beat laundry with a stick in oft-polluted waterways; and every grandma seems to have a sturdy toddler strapped to her back – offspring of the children she has lost to labour as migrant workers in a distant city. And they eat dog, not just because they like it – but because starvation is not something distant and medieval but a part of living memory. Many Guizhou people lost family members in the man-made famine of China’s Great Leap Forward; they still bring it up in conversation.

But more noticeable than the poverty, is the pride: in one village, a young man is making paper, from bark stripped from local trees. A blacksmith makes an axe; a middle aged man beats cotton to make a bed quilt; a potter, the sixth generation of his trade, fires bowls from clay glazed with charred rice bran and quicklime from the nearby hills. Outside every doorway is an old man or woman stripping bamboo shoots for dinner, or knitting, or sharpening a scythe with a whetstone; an Asian version of the world according to Bruegel.

But this is China, the land of economic development on steroids, where highways and railways and whole cities spring up, where yesterday there was nothing but paddy fields. Maybe next year, the sight of ladies planting rice in their embroidery will be gone from Guizhou. Maybe later it will be the water buffalo and, eventually, even the dogmeat. Either way, this is a world that cannot last for ever.

Patti and her daughters

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To read this article in the Financial Times online, click here. To learn more about our journeys to Guizhou, please visit our website or email us at info@wildchina.com. You can also watch this video, which introduces our guide Xiao.

Photos from Financial Times article, by Nancy Tan, a marketing associate of WildChina, and by Patti Waldmeir and her daughters.

The following is an excerpt from Jeff Fuchs’ Tea and Mountain Journals, a blog by explorer, photographer and writer Jeff Fuchs.  Jeff is the 2011 recipient of WildChina’s Explorer Grant.  He and friend Michael Kleinwort are currently traveling through unknown portions of the Tsalam route in Qinghai. Below is the last piece from their journey…

Early morning wind upon an Amne Machin ridge

An avalanche’s disintegrating power has rearranged the land in front of us. A brutal black surge of turned earth, stones and newly formed shaped forms that stretch kilometres across the valley. It has only served to enhance in many ways an already formidable scene. Five years earlier Amne Machin released a colossal chunk of itself upon the land below and we are now grinding our way over this ‘reconstructed’ surface. We, for the first time on this portion of our journey, are steadily descending and with this knowledge comes an exhausted nostalgia and a twinge of sadness – we are exiting the main protective body of the Amne Machin range which fades to our right. ‘Civilization’ is coming closer step by step, though admittedly we still have much distance to cover…Michael is feeling this glumness as well. I am doing everything in my limited mental powers to stay in each progressive moment and not to let the mind jump ahead out of the now. I keep wondering at how we came to this point, where we are about to end….

Our caravan making its way out of the main Nom'sho valley

The yaks seem impatient to get home pushing ahead, as strong and steady as ever. Peaks become rounded hills, and the snowline dissipates as we continue. We are descending through a valley that splits the highlands and even the air around us is somehow diminishing in power.

Our stout mates for the entire trip - no better transport method, anywhere

Michael sitting for the first time in a week something other than frozen ground

We are both silent, and I feel in me a longing to bolt back into the mountains’ sanctity. A last night spent in the village with locals and a huge meal….tomorrow begins for us the slow and inevitable return to the provincial capital of Xining and a number of thermoses of tea to throw back, just to stay sane.

Jeffers trying very hard to remain seated indoors...the urge to bolt was only kept down by the mug of tea in hand

 

The following is an excerpt from Jeff Fuchs’ Tea and Mountain Journals, a blog by explorer, photographer and writer Jeff Fuchs.  Jeff is the 2011 recipient of WildChina’s Explorer Grant.  He and friend Michael Kleinwort are currently traveling through unknown portions of the Tsalam route in Qinghai.

Below is a piece from their journey…

ne of the practical necessities of a journey in Mother Nature’s realm – a solar charger

Fire upon the frozen earth is the first priority of our day – followed by tea, footwear-warming and then a thawing out of the bones

Frost covers the back of one of our yak with nighttime temperatures plunging

We once again pass the 4,500 metre barrier. Our days have at times been an unending series of ascents and dips – climbing up only to descend around the next desolate bend. It is in this way the land dictates the pace entirely.

A laser-like sun is bouncing off of the ice, ratcheting up the heat. We haven’t seen the colour green in a week – all that we have seen is coming out of its dry winter shell.

The grinding of our past days has taken relatively minor tolls on us. Michael’s feet are in dire condition, though, with his nails falling off in his socks and an entire layer of his sole slowly peeling off, but he has been powering through the constant discomfiture with stoic tenacity. It is only one night when I see the extent of surface damage that I marvel.

Michael’s feet show the physical price of intense days on the road

 

My single ailment was ‘received’ this morning while loading the yak. My four-legged friend twice cracked the identical spot of my left ankle within four minutes with a solid blow from a hoof. They were shuddering blows that resonated down into the frozen earth below me. There is a strange twinge in the left foot just below where the hoof hit, though nothing that affects motion (yet). It has given me cause to be wary of the massive hooves of our black and white friends.

We haven’t yet glimpsed the Amne Machin range on this day as there is layer after layer of mountains that obscure or long view but at one juncture Gamzon shouts something that gets taken by the wind. She repeats, “Nom’sho” pointing further northwest.

Moments later, while trudging through melting snow, she looks over to Michael and I nodding…and there it is.

The hallucinatory space of Nom’sho valley

 

A numbing view of a valley (Nom’sho) that is so vast that it seems to continue to expand as we take it in. I need to swivel my head back and forth to take it in, to fit it in to my mind’s eye. To the left a powdering of snow rests on stone peaks, between which are shimmering rivulets that wink with the sun’s blaze upon them. Another valley to the left – massive and flat careens off west. What holds us is the great funneling valley and passageway ahead with Amne off to our right. There is that ever-present urge in me to flit across to its base and begin the long ascent up its cloaked flanks…it is an urge that has been fulfilled many times, but will never cease. A friend once termed this “the eternal hunger”, this often tunnel-vision desire to climb.

Michael quietly pads up beside me and speaks of this space. “There is nothing at all here to muddle this space, besides us”. While he contemplates this stunning vastness I’m dreaming about ascending a not so distant crest on the mountain, but knowing that to do so will be to offend the deities that the locals hold dear – akin to a kind of sacrilege. The two tongues duel it out in my head, one a desire that courses through every vein, another of enormous respect for the locals and their precious animistic mecca’s.

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For the full post, please visit http://www.tea-and-mountain-journals.com/

Images: Jeff Fuchs

The following is an excerpt from Jeff Fuchs’ Tea and Mountain Journals, a blog by explorer, photographer and writer Jeff Fuchs.  Jeff is the 2011 recipient of WildChina’s Explorer Grant.  He and friend Michael Kleinwort are currently traveling through unknown portions of the Tsalam route in Qinghai.

Below is an update from their journey…

So often it is the elders who remember tales through their time spent recounting orally the comings and goings of the past

Breakfast often brings realizations – some stimulated by the first thoughts of the day and others brought to life from without. Tucking into bowl after bowl of milk tea this morning comes with a nugget of information imparted almost casually, which reminds me very clearly of what is key to this journey. It has to do with salt.

Muscle pain is thrown aside as this new tad of information settles in. We are nine people tucked into a square room no more than three metres square. Two beds, a wood stove, a makeshift altar and Michael and I trying unsuccessfully to shove our legs and filthy boots somewhere where we aren’t tripping people up.

Our breakfast room where information is imparted over countless cups of tea

My question comes amidst a full mouth of tea and tsampa (barley powder) and there are subsequent sprays of powdered barley as I bark out my query about salt.

“Was salt transported here by caravan”?
A middle-aged man with tawny eyes and large hands issues the answer and it is straightforward.
“Of course. Salt was always being moved around and there used to be a tsaka (place of salt) close to here”, he continues, “Traders often used these pilgrimage routes as trade routes”.

Mornings started with tea followed by collecting our various animals

Like many good-byes within the Himalayas, our own from this little home is disjointed, sudden and without any pomp. Gamzon, our guide is perky from her time with family and clearly energized. Terrier is his usual self, though slightly impatient to get on with it. I share his neurotic need to press on and get out of this warm valley, which is slowly strangling me. In the village we have picked up yet more noodles and some strange lumps of glutinous rice candy for the road.

We cut south down a valley that will take us to a divide with one route heading directly south and another cutting back west and then north. We will take the later cut-back, which will take us around the bulk of Amne Machin and hopefully to my old friend the wind.

———

The following is an excerpt from Jeff Fuchs’ Tea and Mountain Journals, a blog by explorer, photographer and writer Jeff Fuchs.  Jeff is the 2011 recipient of WildChina’s Explorer Grant.  He and friend Michael Kleinwort are currently traveling through unknown portions of the Tsalam route in Qinghai.

Below is an update from their journey…

We awake with a shudder to mountain cold and the realization that something has changed overnight regarding our ‘team’. Clear air with a hint of blue in the sky as dawn gives way to day waits…. while by the fire a strange figure coaxes more heat from the coals. Our canine friend is stretching out his little limbs to rid them of cold. The larger mastiffs have all disappeared – home I guess. It is the figure near the fire that holds me as I emerge from our tent. Where is our guide Neema?

The figure, however, is clearly not that of our guide Neema, but rather his wife whom we had met upon our arrival to Xiadawu. An ‘exchange of bodies’ has taken place in the night. Little Neema has left in the dead of night and in return his sturdy, bullet-proof wife and her pink turban have arrived.

Our new guide Gamzon atop a horse pauses near Darde Lhatso pass

She explains in a soft voice with the requisite hand signs that Neema the previous day had succumbed to chills, headaches and fever as the cold had been too much for him and as the day and night wore on. He had found enough phone coverage to convey the need for a substitution, so here we were. As she speaks there is the slightest smile around her eyes of apology, as though she has long been aware of his susceptibility to the cold. Looking at her wrapped in her wools with one arm free I suspect that she suffers no such issues.

Michael and I react with shrugs and a bit of disbelief that Neema’s constitution could not hold up. The deep cold that we have encountered thus far, while not extreme, is unseasonal and the fresh snow hints that winter is not yet done with its sermon. Perhaps it is better that this happen now rather than later on.

Moving on from camp each individual body of our group spreads out in a staggered line as we ascend from over four thousand metres ever higher. The snow is deep and heavy and the light in the sky seems content to hang behind a body of low lying cloud. Snow from the sky feels imminent and I am thankful for the litre of bitter tea that now streams through my body warming limbs and insides.

Our caravan making its way east using the valley as an informal route

No bodies appear on the horizon, no migrating nomads and no mythic trade caravans, we are utterly and happily alone. It is too early in the season and there is a feeling that our little group is at one with the elements. As time passes I note with a satisfaction that our present guide, Gamzon, is managing the yak with a gentle precision that her husband lacked. The animals respond to her competence and sanity with more kinship than they did to Neema’s slightly jittery personality. This coupled with the fact that she strapped our tent and gear to the yak’s backs in half the time it took Neema suggests to me that this has been good fortune to have her taking over.

Winds whip up, ice pellets drive into us and the sun plays peek-aboo as we ascend the 4,600 metre Darde Lhatso pass.

Our faithful yak atop Darde Lhatso pass, pause as if to pay homage for their (and our) safe passage.

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For the full post, please visit http://www.tea-and-mountain-journals.com/

Images: Jeff Fuchs

The following is an excerpt from Jeff Fuchs’ Tea and Mountain Journals, a blog by explorer, photographer and writer Jeff Fuchs.  Jeff is the 2011 recipient of WildChina’s Explorer Grant.  He and friend Michael Kleinwort are currently traveling through unknown portions of the Tsalam route in Qinghai.

Below is an update from their journey…

The following is an excerpt from Jeff Fuchs’ Tea and Mountain Journals, a blog by explorer, photographer and writer Jeff Fuchs.  Jeff is the 2011 recipient of WildChina’s Explorer Grant.  He and friend Michael Kleinwort are currently traveling through unknown portions of the Tsalam route in Qinghai.

Below is an update from their journey…

Amye Maqen (Amne Machin, Anye Machin) <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amne_Machin>, the stout, the muscular, and for much of time, the utterly hidden from the outside world…our first glimpse of it is of a snow capped wonder that appears far closer than it is. There seem to be as many ways of spelling it as their are potential descriptives. Neither wind blown sand nor a haze can obscure its brilliant bulk. It seems to hang from the sky as we come in from the northwest towards the makeshift town at its base, Xiadawu (or in the more flavoured local Tibetan ‘Da’wurr’ – ‘Place that is difficult for horses’). In Joseph Rock’s accounts of the mountain and bandit ridden regions back in 1930 he estimated the broad peaks of Amne Machin to be 30,000 feet, a guess that was later proven to be 3,000 metres off.

The Amne Machin range itself is an eastern extension of the greater Kunlun Mountain range, one of Asia’s longest most legend laden mountain chains. Located in the Golog Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture it is here that the Yellow River (so named because of wind-blown loess that is carried in from Central Asia) rises before winding eastward. At its rounded and almost friendly white peaks it achieves just over 6,200 metres.

Mountains cannot be compared to other of their kind in my eyes. Mountains are landscapes, heaps of stone and snow unto themselves and each has their own thin-aired identity. Sacred to the Golog (Golok) nomads, Amne Machin is almost directly due east of our pristine salt lake near Mado (Mardo) that we’ve most recently left. It also lies on the route that nomads from southwest took to access their precious salt. Few nomadic caravans would pass up the chance to visit and circumambulate the sacred Amne Machin range while undertaking a perilous journey to source salt. Ever practical, the Tibetan traders saw the value of doing both trade for a revered commodity and a little cleansing of past ills.

This mountain that has long played a role in local nomad’s worship of the divine, has withstood weathering seasons and has become more iconic in the eyes of men over time. The fact that it lies as a northwest-southeast diagonal throughway for traders only increases the curiosity for Michael and I. How much is left in memory and physicality of the salt route legacy? How much of any trade route – seldom acknowledged, documented or discussed – will survive? It is in this way that these journeys and explorations are truly ‘exploratory’ with nothing being guaranteed.

The town of Xiadawu, sits in a small cupped valley and is a dusty mess of pool tables, remarkably shabby huts and a main square of errant apathetic dogs that have forgotten their roles. Xiadawu’s decrepit appearance serves as an entry to something far greater than itself, Amne Machin, which erupts to the east. Flowing west out of the mountains past the town, the swerving breadth of the Nam Chu (Nam River) wanders through, over and around valleys in a never-ending search.

Namchu (Nam River)

Our host, Tsering, is to be found out of town – it is he who will arrange our kora/ circumambulation around the great mountain. The ‘kora’ or counterclockwise circumambulation literally refers to a pilgrimage. For many eastern religions this act is believed to be a physical way to cleanse or clear away one’s past sins.

If in fact this is the case it may well take a few more than one rotation for Michael and I to wipe our collective slates clean.

Around us the landscape ripples with Spring’s pending arrival – ridges verging on going from ochre to green. Still though, the high peaks remind in a glance that up here at over 4,000 metres winter isn’t really ever truly ‘over’.

Our host Tsering tells us that, yes, the salt traders came through here as part of their annual travels – more specifically nomadic traders, who, coming from further east, would add the kora of the mountain to their travels to the salt lakes. A kind of double-pronged travel plan: salt for need and profit, kora for life-cleansing benefits.

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The following is an excerpt from Jeff Fuchs’ Tea and Mountain Journals, a blog by explorer, photographer and writer Jeff Fuchs.  Jeff is the 2011 recipient of WildChina’s Explorer Grant.  He and friend Michael Kleinwort are currently traveling through unknown portions of the Tsalam route in Qinghai.

Below is an update from their journey…

Jeff Fuchs coddles white gold

Tsam Tso - Salt Lake, at last

The Watcher

What we see is a shallow lake that is disappearing – we have been told that in the past ten years the water levels have declined dramatically. Quite what made the salt ‘better’ than other is a mystery but this salt was collected by traders from northwestern Sichuan making the two week journey, up to northern Qinghai and even to Lhasa in roughly a month.

A path to the north – a mere wisp – is what is left of the route which yak used to take their precious mineral cargoes to all points. One single nomadic tent remains. The family has been in the valley for generations and is the only remaining nomadic clan in view.

Nomads....gone modern with a much needed solar panel

The family tells us how the lake itself will dry up in time. Thick salt coats the shallow lakes but is unused except by the odd bird that fancies a saline treat. Nomads left the valley when the famed salt dried up. When I ask what made the salt so special that traders traveled through such landscapes to access, the response was vague and simple – “because it was special salt”.

Silence pervades and the wind itself seems to be mindful that this is a valley of quiet – my mind wanders backward in time to when bodies came and went buying and trading for the salt. Traders from Sichuan would often bring special wood, sap and resin heavy pine for trade for salt – bartering has a deep and long running pedigree in these parts.

Some things don't change...at least not entirely

Two structures – salt storage facilities lie forlorn and dilapidated – lie just off of the shallows and saltpans.

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Image: Jeff Fuchs