China used to have 6-day workweeks and just 1 day off for the weekend. It wasn't until 1995 that they switched to a 5-day system and enacted the national holiday break (Golden Week).
It's a nice chance for people to travel or go back home to visit family, but getting around can be pretty crazy. Think touristy places around spring break, except much worse because it's as if ALL OF CHINA went on spring break during the same week. So to avoid the mad rush this past Golden Week (first week of Oct), we decided to get off the beaten trail and do a very cheap and very unplanned tour of the Sichuan province. I basically left Shanghai with a one-way ticket to Chongqing, a Lonely Planet, and a very large backpack. (picture not to scale :P)
Oh yes, and these are my travel buddies, Evan and Hana. Pictured here en route to the airport on Shanghai's Maglev (magnetic levitating train: the fastest one in the world!)
Our first stop was Chongqing, literally the biggest city in the world. Also probably the most polluted. Visibility is less than a mile in the middle of the afternoon on a normal day. I was talking to a professor about my trip just today, and he described Chongqing as a city that "looks like Hong Kong would if someone had dropped a dirty bomb on it." We ate some spicy hotpot, wandered around downtown, saw a few of the landmarks, but nothing too eventful went down.
If you look carefully you can make out a bridge and a skyline through the haze.
Next we trained to Chengdu, where we stayed at an awesome hostel before going on to Songpan. The ride there was one of the most terrifying 10.5 hours of my life -- we were winding around the mountains on a bus that was blaring some unintelligible traditional Chinese soap opera and honking every 2 minutes. Also, be warned that the yellow line in the middle of the road is more of a "suggestion" in China than it is a rule.
Our only consolation: the beautiful scenery. (photo actually taken from the bus)
Our final destination was Songpan, a sleepy little backpacking town that's famous for its horse trekking. We spent 2 days being guided through the mountains by a local Tibetan family. They didn't really speak Mandarin, or English, but they were some of the nicest, most hospitable people I've ever met. They took care of the horses, pitched the tents, cooked the food, and were generally awesome. Sleeping in the mountains though was..interesting. It rained on our only semi-waterproof tent, and a horse chewed a hole in it during the middle of the night. (we also didn't shower for 4 days, but that's another story..)
Our amazing Tibetan guides.
Definitely an amazing experience, but it's good to be back home. Shanghai sweet Shanghai!
6 comments:
that last picture is amazing.
and somehow it would be awesome if you were really dragging around such a monolithic backpack haha
sweetness. i would have just hopped on the backpack and made it carry me instead.
trekking through mountains, riding around in levitating trains while we spend night after night in van pelt... boy are you missing out.
your blog makes me excited to go abroad. :) nice photos!
Ahhhh man, it looks like so much fun!! I'm so jealous! D:
of course, you're trekking through native china with your massive camera. I can only imagine. =)
danggg tiffie looks like so much fun. i love the giant backpack. is that like yao ming size or something? haha we miss you come backkkkk =D
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