Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Longmen Caves

May 6, 2011

Our hostel in Luoyang was not very interesting but it was quiet! That combined with the exhaustion of the previous day provided us a great night’s sleep. Feeling refreshed, we set off for the transit station to buy tickets for an evening bus to Xi’an. Once again, we encountered some language difficulties, but we managed to get our point across and secured tickets for the 6pm bus. That was the bus we wanted anyway, but we were glad we went early in the day since a couple of the other daily buses were already sold out. After breakfast, we packed our leftover beers into our shoulder bags and caught a taxi to the Longmen Caves.

The Longmen Caves are a collection of Buddhist carvings and statues along the banks of the Yi River, about 14km from Luoyang. There are over 2000 caves and niches and over 100,000 statues. Most of the carvings date to c. 500-600 AD. This is one of the many amazing places that I had never heard of before going to China, but after reading about it in the guide books I could not wait to go. I was particularly excited to see the largest Buddha statue, which is over 56 feet tall!

For the most part, I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves. The Longmen Caves were truly awe-inspiring. I don’t understand why no one was hawking tours here when we got off the train! So much better than the Shaolin Temple, and closer to Luoyang, too!
Over 2000 niches




I got a new hat today!


Wow!
Buddha's friends


Now that's a big buddha!
We're going to remember to buy a bottle opener one of these days


Lots of little buddhas

At the Medical Prescriptions Cave
On the banks of the Yi River
Bringing beer to the park: in the running for best idea ever

We had a great day; this would remain one of my favorite places of our Chinese trip. I also got to learn a valuable lesson here: be very careful going to the squat toilets with your sunglasses loosely placed on top of your head. (And yes, I did rescue them.) We left with what we thought was plenty of time to take a cab back to the hostel to pick up our bags and then head over to the bus station. Except we ended up with the world’s slowest cab driver! It was also the only female cab driver I’ve ever had. It felt like it took forever to get back to the city! On the bright side, the slow ride gave us plenty of time to look out the window and appreciate the flowers and landscaping. Luoyang is known for its poppies, and although most of the poppies we saw were artificial, there were lots of other pretty real flowers to be seen. And ultimately, we did make it to the bus with plenty of time.

There was a little bit of confusion about which bus to board. We spent some time studying the Chinese characters on signs in the windshields and comparing them to the characters for Xi’an. This wasn’t getting us very far and eventually someone asked where we were going and herded us onto a bus. We still didn’t feel 100% confident we were on the right bus though, so asked other passengers where they were going. We ended up pointing at Xi’an on a map, and after several passengers nodded enthusiastically, we decided we were probably in the right place.
No... this isn't confusing at all!
 
Propped up with pillows on our sleeper bus

As it turned out, our bus was a sleeper bus, which was entirely unnecessary for the 4.5 hour drive. It also felt ironic after our recent train ride experience, where sleepers would have been awesome. The berths were too short for either Ashley or me to lay down flat on our backs – yet another experience where Megan was the right size for China. They were also a little uncomfortable to just sit up in. We settled into lower level bunks (there were also bunks above us) and prepared to relax for the road trip. Except there was an incredibly annoying guy who would not leave Megan alone! He was seated behind me and next to Megan. His initial communication attempts were a little loud and close, but the really bad part is that he would not give up! His first foray into conversation with Megan was begun with a really long sentence, way past our conversational Mandarin abilities. Fortunately, we had mastered “I don’t understand”; so far, this phrase either stopped people’s communication attempts entirely, switched them to very simple words and gestures, or switched them to crude English and gestures. This guy responded with a different, but equally long and complicated statement in Mandarin. Again, “I don’t understand.” So he tried something else. Over and over and over. Megan tried to just ignore him, so he started to poke her to get her attention. I flipped through the phrase book trying to find something to get him to understand. Perhaps a stern “leave me alone!”? (This was from the often mocked dating section, filled with useful sentences like, “I don’t sing and dance.”) Ultimately, the solution was for Megan to change seats. When she moved, I was nervous his attention would fall on me. I felt him peering over my shoulder several times, but I didn’t move at all, afraid any acknowledgment of him would start him up again. Our friend remained interesting throughout the trip. We had already been introduced to “I don’t need no stinkin’ headphones” from our train ride, but this guy took the cake with playing his radio loudly! Ear plugs were insufficient to block out his noise. I ended up listening to some old school Wu-tang Clan – only rap, played louder than I have ever turned up my iPod before, would drown out his music.

The rest of the bus ride was relatively non-eventful, except for witnessing some weird police activity. Not too far from Xi’an we went through a toll both and then pulled over out of the traffic lanes. A police car zoomed up with its lights flashing and circled the bus before stopping next to us. Then a large bag was removed from the bus cargo hold and transferred to the police car. Then we left. Hmmm……

When we arrived in Xi’an, our bus driver motioned for us to get off at a small bus stop on the outskirts of town. We were expecting to be dropped off at a large transit station, so this seemed a little weird. It was almost 11pm, we didn’t know where we were, and there was very little traffic. Fortunately, our bus driver was not abandoning us. He negotiated with a passing taxi to take us to our hostel.

After check-in, we were looking forward to taking advantage of some of the famous fun at the Shuyuan International Youth Hostel. Dumpling parties. Bar downstairs. Free welcome coffee at check-in. And a free beer each night! The place was definitely hopping, with lots of foreigners of all ages and nationalities hanging out. As we settled into our room, I finally admitted to myself that the hotness I’d been feeling all afternoon just might be a sign of sickness. I took my temperature, and with my fever confirmed, I opted to stay in and rest while Megan and Ashley went to the bar. I wanted to be in good shape to see the Terracotta Warriors the next day!

Friday, June 10, 2011

Shaolin Temple

May 5, 2011

Our hostel in Luoyang was within walking distance from the train station, so we set off to find it on foot. There were many people hawking Shaolin Temple tours as we left the busy transit station. Although that is where we planned to go that day, we needed to get to the hostel first to put our bags down and get some breakfast. (Plus, I have a natural aversion to buying anything that someone is really trying to sell me. This is something you have to work to get over in China.) As we walked along, we definitely noticed that we garnered more attention as foreigners than we had in Beijing: more staring, kids saying “Hello!” and then giggling, and of course, as the day went on, more pictures taken of us because we were American. Luoyang is a smaller and more out-of-the-way place than Beijing but it is still a big city; it was actually suggested to us that we should get more cash while in Beijing, just in case Luoyang didn’t have ATMs! For a city with an urban population of over 1 million and surrounding population of over 6 million, this just seemed silly, but we took the advice and got out more cash, just in case. For future reference, Luoyang does have ATMs.

After settling in at our hostel and grabbing a bite to eat, we headed back to the transit station to get a bus to the Shaolin Temple. There were actually two bus stations, basically on opposite sides of the train station from each other, and it wasn’t entirely clear which station we should go to. Our guide books were helpful but didn’t entirely answer the question. One station seemed to be more for local buses and one was for long distance buses… or something like that. We were also encountering more language difficulties than we had in Beijing. In Beijing, lots of young people spoke English and it was pretty easy to find someone who could at least understand enough of your problem to point you in the right direction. We were doing our best to learn some Mandarin, but this was early in our trip and we were not yet experts with our knowledge, our pronunciation, or even where to flip to in our phrase books.
Clock tower outside the Luoyang train station

So we did some wandering around the transit station, looking at our guide books, discussing things, pointing, thinking, and asking for help without much success. All of the Shaolin Temple hawkers of a couple of hours ago were gone. This didn’t go on too long and we were no where near the point of giving up but it was definitely a little frustrating. And then we met XQ! This nice young guy had picked us out of the crowd as people who clearly needed help. XQ had a longer name but quickly offered up this shorter version, which was definitely easier for us to say, but it also appeared he might have preferred the shorter version himself. He was a college student and one of the many incredibly nice Chinese people who went out of their way (usually literally) to help us get where we needed to go. In short order, XQ found out what we wanted, walked us to the correct bus station, and helped us buy tickets. He did all this when he was already running late to meet his girlfriend – a truly nice guy! We got his phone number in case we needed more help during our brief Luoyang stay.

The bus tickets we bought were to Dengfeng, from where we could get a taxi to the Shaolin Temple. Our bus was leaving right away, so we hopped on for the hour or so ride to Dengfeng.
On the bus to Dengfeng

The Shaolin Temple, a Buddhist monastery, is the original home of Chinese martial arts. An Indian monk developed a series of exercises there c. 527 AD that became the basis for Shaolin Boxing. In addition to the monks, the monastery is now home to a martial arts school. Many martial arts devotees go there to develop their kung fu skills. So it was no surprise that upon our arrival, we witnessed hundreds of students marching out to perform their daily exercises.















Sadly, the temple has burned down repeatedly over the years and the newer buildings just aren’t as charming as the ancient ones. In addition to the necessary reconstruction, there are many intentionally new buildings and statues on site. Sometimes it was difficult to differentiate between things that were preserved, precious relics and the commercialized nonsense built c. 1997. It was still fun and interesting to poke around here and see different stuff, though.
Heavenly guardian, built in 1981

Reconstruction/construction

Judging by the holes in the bench, we weren't the first people to lose a flaming end of an incense stick

The day went on and we wilted in the heat, and we almost decided to not trek a little further up the hill to the Pagoda Forest, a collection of brick pagodas memorializing important monks. But we decided to do it and I am so glad we did! It was quiet, peaceful, and full of ancient things that were actually ancient.
Real live monks

The oldest pagoda, c. 791 AD

Pagoda Forest and mountains view

Our last stop of the day was to see a kung fu performance. It was amazing! The athleticism and skill of the students was truly impressive; they also put on a good show. I wasn’t sure if we were allowed to take pictures or not (it looked like no one else was) so I didn’t take any. It would have been really cool to have gotten a video!
Ash might move here

We left the Temple just in time to catch a tour bus back to Luoyang. This seemed like an easier and cheaper way to get back than to retrace our steps with the taxi and city bus via Dengfeng. It was easy and cheap; however it took twice as long and seemed to take a really odd route. Our driver’s driving could best be described as CRAZY. There were also several times we questioned if we really did get on the right bus! I dealt with my uncertainty by falling asleep. When we arrived back in Luoyang, we were too tired and hungry to make difficult decisions, like where to eat dinner, so we ended up back at the same place we’d had breakfast at earlier that morning. They were very happy to see us back and we were treated like returning royalty. After dinner, we got several bottles of beer at a convenience store to bring back to the hotel: we would have a chill evening in, drinking beer and playing cards. As it turned out, we barely had enough energy to take showers and get in bed. Between the three of us, we didn’t even finish one beer. It was a long day and the night after our overnight train ride in the hard seat carriage, so we cut ourselves some slack. We also needed a good night’s sleep for the next day’s trip to the Longmen Caves!

Monday, June 6, 2011

Leaving Beijing, Arriving in Luoyang

May 4, 2011

We got another lazy start to our day (although sadly, I was back to waking up at 5am) and asked for a late check out from the hostel so we could repack for our side adventures. We arranged to leave our big bags at the hostel so we could travel with only our backpacks. It was kind of neat: the hostel didn’t have luggage lockers or even room behind the counters. We just left our bags next to the counter and left it on faith that they would be fine. It helped that one of the hostel staff and Megan had become new BFFs, so we felt good leaving our bags with Tracy watching over them.

Cuing up Kill Bill 2 in the Canadian bar
Our first stop after checking out was the Canadian bar next door, where we stopped for some beers and snacks. It was a kind of rainy day and we were feeling a little slow anyway, so we stayed for a while watching their big screen TV. We put in Kill Bill  to get us pumped up for our upcoming visit to the Shaolin Temple.


The Canadian bar's dog
Pai Mei!


Children playing
Beijing hutong
We eventually left the comforts of the bar and wandered around Beijing for a while.


















We ended up at Jing Shan Park, which is an artificial hill that overlooks the Forbidden City and has impressive Beijing city views. The park was actually formed from the dirt excavated to make the moats around the imperial palace. It was a very pretty park and did have great views!
Jing Shan Park

View of Forbidden City from Jing Shan Park

We set off early for the train station. Our train wasn’t supposed to leave until 10pm but we were advised to get there 2 hours early. Not knowing what to expect, we decided to listen to the advice. Two hours was plenty of time, or way too early, depending on how you wanted to look at it. So we ate dinner in the train station and then waited for the train.

We had booked “hard seat” passage, which is the lowest and cheapest train ticket. Since we booked our tickets only the day before, there were no sleeper berths available. To quote one of my guide books: “The cheapest class is hard seat, which seats three people side-by-side on lightly cushioned seats. Although fine for short journeys, spending more than four hours in a hard seat carriage can be quite unpleasant. Carriages are usually crowded and dirty, the speakers blare endlessly, lights remain on at night, and the compartments are filled with smoke.” I was a little nervous about being miserable. But it was only 1 night. And cost only ~$15. And at least we had reserved seats instead of standing room only tickets.

We boarded the train only to find people in our seats. No problem, they moved right away when we showed them our tickets - they actually moved to other seats. As the train filled, we figured out the drill. Lots of people did not have assigned seats, so they sat down anywhere right away, in the hopes no one would claim the seat and they would get to stay. Most of them were disappointed and the train was filled with standers as we departed from the station. I didn’t even want to think about having to stand for the 10 hour ride to Luoyang! Fortunately for these people, as the train made stops all night, the crowd thinned out and everyone had a seat by about half way through the night.
Sleeping on the train

Reading on the train


I have to say that the guide book’s description of hard seat travel was spot on, except I would argue that the seats were not “lightly cushioned” because covering a wooden chair with a single piece of fabric does not count as padding it. My butt was literally numb by the end of the trip. The cabins were officially non-smoking, but people could smoke between cars, and since the doors between cars were left open, the smoke went everywhere. It wasn’t worse than your average pre-smoking ban bar, however. There were times where it was very noisy. A guy across from me played an electronic game of Mah-jongg for the first hour or so, so his little Gameboy or whatever screamed out “MAH-JONGG!!” or some other phrase every few seconds. Many people listened to music without headphones. I don’t know if they don’t like headphones, they don’t think they should have to wear them, it never occurred to them they might be bothering other people, or (as it certainly seemed in some cases) they thought other people actually liked to hear their music. It was an interesting cultural experience, for sure. One nice thing about the train was the bathroom. Since the waste was not stored, but rather deposited directly on the tracks as we traveled along, the bathroom was one of the least smelly I visited in China! I did manage to catch some sleep here and there on the train, and we arrived as scheduled shortly after 8am in Luoyang. Thank goodness for ear plugs and sedatives! Despite the noise and the smell and the discomfort, the trip was not as bad as I was expecting. I guess I can thank all the guide books for their miserable descriptions of hard seat travel – it made anything better than truly awful seem ok. I would even do it again if I had to.

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Hanging out in Beijing

May 3, 2011

Overall, I didn’t find jet lag to be much of a problem on this trip. I arrived in the evening, tired enough to go to bed within a couple of hours and sleep through the night. I got up and did something tiring the very first day, so I slept okay the next night. And just like that, I was essentially on China time. It helped that China is exactly 12 hours ahead of time on the east coast (13 hours when we aren’t in daylight savings time) so I didn’t even have to change my watch! The only sign of some sleep disturbances was a touch of insomnia, and my body thinking I should wake up at 5am, regardless of how late I stayed up the night before. However, I also have these problems in America, so it might not be fair to blame it on the time change! Anyway, the first couple of days were truly exhausting, and getting by on less than 7-8 hours of sleep was going to start taking its toll pretty soon. So I was thrilled to finally sleep until 9am on my third full day in Beijing! It was Megan’s birthday and to celebrate, we decided that rather than doing a specific touristy thing, we would have a relaxing day of doing whatever Megan wanted.

Making travel plans in the hostel lobby
After a couple of lazy morning hours, we got our day started by making our travel plans to see something other than Beijing for a few days. We had been kicking around ideas of places to go, and finally settled on Luoyang to see the Shaolin Temple and the Longmen Caves, and Xi’an to see the Terracotta Army. We spent about 2 hours at the front desk of the hostel and made all of our travel plans with the help of the amazing Drum Tower Youth Hostel staff. They gave us advice, tolerated the many side discussions necessary to make decisions, and finally helped us book our trip. For a small fee, the hostel staff booked our train tickets to Luoyang for the following night; we would buy our bus tickets from Luoyang to Xi’an once we were in Luoyang; and we were able to book our own plane tickets online from Xi’an back to Beijing. We also secured hostel lodging in both cities over the phone and the internet. It was so exciting to officially have plans to leave Beijing!

With those plans made, we finally set off to enjoy Megan’s birthday. We had a fabulous day hanging around the Houhai Lake area: eating, drinking, shopping, and wandering.
Rooftop snack and beers in Houhai Lake area


In front of a cool little shop
Showing off my new commie bag (and holding the other bags for a bathroom stop) in a hutong

One highlight was our bike ride! Steering was a little difficult at first, but by the end of our hour rental, we were flying along.
Tandem bike ride
We finished the day at a Sichuan restaurant to try their hotpot. Ashley and I had brought some birthday decorations from home and wanted to decorate something as a surprise, but we weren’t sure how and when we would be able to pull it off. A perfect opportunity presented itself when on the way to dinner, Megan decided she did indeed want some shoes she had tried on at a store a few blocks back. We sent her back on her own to get them and quickly decorated the restaurant booth. The restaurant staff and other diners were thoroughly amused by our efforts: they even helped us hang the banners! Megan was surprised when she got back! We had a great dinner, although it was a little spicy for my wimpy tastes.

Birthday decorations


Admittedly, this was after we'd picked a lot of the food out. But still. So many peppers!

Happy birthday, Megan!
Our plan after that was to go back to the hostel and get ready for a proper birthday night on the town. But we were so tired! Perhaps jet lag was rearing its ugly head… Ashley went down for a nap moments after arriving back in our room. I went down shortly thereafter. We promised Megan to reschedule the birthday night on the town.