Sweet Water mountain village to Gubeiko via Jinshanlin - or Attack of the Shadows
You will remember in my last e-mail I was waiting for the group to arrive back to the house, which after about three hours they did. A couple of them came up to use the loo, and myself and the other lady who had stayed behind because she had hurt her knee, rejoined them to walk down the road for a few miles to pick up the bus. I was still so upset with myself that I put up my hood and hid from them all, I think most people thought I had got a monk on (lovely Yorkshire expression for sulking) but I was just embarrassed with myself, I walked by myself pretty much all the way, which in a way, was a good thing, because I could soak up the scenery undisturbed.
We walked out of the spiral of the part of the village that we had been in and it struck me that although the houses were fairly new, the village felt distinctly medaeval, an almost self-sufficient tight knit community using whatever was around them to survive. These people have nothing to speak of, in the western point of view but obviously live rich and fulfilling lives. All the people we saw on the roads whether stooped underneath a heavy basket of fruit, or driving along in one of their clapped out motorbike pick ups were smiling and having lively conversations and each and every one of them waved as they passed, and said nee hau! (hello) which we responded to with delight, they have such a simple, natural way of life it is not hard to understand why they stay in the villages, the only place I can think on that the people are so happy with their lot in life, is Tully in far north Queensland where I spent (for the most part) such a happy time in Australia (if you didn’t get my Aussie diaries - you missed out!)
You must be assuming by now because of the name that this village has a river flowing through it, you would be wrong, there are so many people living in Beijing and the surrounding areas that there is a severe water shortage, and the effects of global warming are no more apparent in the north pole than they are here. A couple of years ago, a beautiful mountain river flowed through this village, but now it is gone, the bed of the river is now farmed and will never get the water back, I will assume they have wells and sink holes for irrigation but I saw no evidence of either, they must have to grow crops that don’t require very much water or that must be the reason that the persimmons, that have long roots do so well.
Walking through the village, we soon came to what looked very much like a kiddies playground and school, this in fact turned out to be the local gym, yes, there were monkey-bars and swings but there were also sit-up machines (a bit like the ones they sell on t.v. that claim to be ’the easy way to rock yourself to better abs’ by sitting on your arse - yeah right!) and other hard arse ’toys.’ I was having a blue day, so I set off down the road a little bit and soon people were over-taking me. Coming out of the village the ravine/valley sloped steeply up from both sides of the road, and again I noticed the rubbish, it was everywhere, the slight ditches at the sides of the road were filled with it, at one point there were so many polystyrene (Styrofoam) food containers on the ground, that it truly looked like a Chinese take-away had blown up and this was the fall out zone!
A little further on we came across a huge brand new house, this was the house of dreams, for sale, it offered large spacious airy rooms, a magnificent mountain view, and wonderful walking opportunities (or at least, that must have been the sales pitch) not only that, but a village full of people just dying for a cushy domestic job (for little or no money) just down the road! It was explained, that now China is not quite so communist, the ‘have’s’ are buying up or building, large country estates and probably taking advantage of the ’have not’s’, but they are grateful for the work so why not? They get weekly pay and a uniform.
The weather had still not lifted, so the mountain tops were veiled in mist and the colours on the sides of the ravine were still muted but every so often the luminous red of a vine would pitch in, or a shiny peach coloured tree would catch your eye, so much that you would have to touch it, to make sure it was real, and soon enough the walk was over and we stood waiting for the busses, to take us to the next hotel at Jinshanlin.
Now, you will remember Eddie from my previous e-mails, Eddie talks a lot, and that is why I liked being on ’Eddie bus’ rather than ’Jordan bus’ because he will tell you anything you want to know and a few things you don’t. Eddie by his own admission has never been to England or the states and he learned his English in Beijing University, and because of this speaks what he terms ’Chinglish’ and although his ’Chinglish’ is extremely good, he sometimes gets things wrong.
Eddie had said to us that the hotel at Jinshangling was the most beautiful hotel we would stay at, and the nicest. Because we had stayed at a four star hotel in Beijing, this conjured up images of big warm baths, fluffy white towels, soft beds, and basically LUXURY - AHHHHH!
What we came to would have surely beautiful in the summer before the flowers died. A large pool of dead water lilies greeted us out front, which would have been truly magnificent when they were still alive, and we progressed through a large Chinese wooden gate which you had to step over the threshold that was at least six inches high (to stop the evil spirits from getting under the gate, you have to physically step over the threshold - it didn’t stop me. I wonder why?) Again this hotel was divided into courtyards with rooms all around, and the architecture, was, if you looked closely, beautiful, all the walkways around the rooms were covered, and all the upright timbers had been hand-painted with individual paintings, as in turn, had the cross timbers, with paintings of birds and animals, in turquoise, deep dirty golds, dusty pink and greys there was a little fish pond in our courtyard that had an ornamental bridge over it and coi carp - although little bigger than goldfish, swimming in it.
Even though we were surposed to be staying at the most lovely hotel along the route. We were surprised to be made into groups of three for this wonderful luxurious hotel, it became very apparent very quickly that Eddies ’Chinglish’ had been wrong and rather than the most beautiful hotel (and it was pretty) this was in fact, the most traditional hotel.
Soft beds, there were not, instead the traditional Chinese three in a bed system, although this was slightly padded rather than tiles, it was going to be a cozy night again, not only would we sleep on the bed, but all the furniture in the room sat on it as well. To the left sat a coffee table holding a lamp to the right was a large wardrobe, which I slept next to. The bathroom had a western toilet but only had about a twenty five watt bulb above the mirror to light it, and was a wet room (which in theory is good, but in practise means you get a wet bog seat and paper).
The water however was hot and welcoming, but before I went for a shower I made a Lemsip (which sadly, I love) and went outside for a gossip with one of the girls. It was only after a shower that I started to feel a bit funny, my eyes started watering uncontrollably (which if you have just applied liquid eyeliner is NOT cool) and I started getting sniffy. My normal quick fix for feeling a bit rubbish is to apply as much make-up as my face will take, in the hope that if I look good, I will feel good, most of the time that works, but not today, I picked through my dinner which would have been wonderful at any other time, and struggled through one beer (now you can tell I was sick) before, not just wanting to go to bed, but physically having to. I retired to the hard three in one bed with my clothes on, feeling like there was no better place in the world.
The next morning I found out that I had missed out on the best night of the whole trip, full on party, with karaoke, and drinks so late they had been turfed out of the bar! Bummer!!!!
The morning yielded the same sort of crap for breakfast but this time, the bread had been toasted, and they had marmalade (which I don’t do, but most of my table were thrilled with!) and there, tucked into a basket off the side were - CHEESE SLICES! I have never been so pleased to see a floppy, plastic wrapped, cheese slice in my whole life, I had four with my boiled egg, and snaffled a whole handful into my trouser pockets for later!! I still had nearly a whole packet of ritz crackers from the day before and I was imagining the tasty lunch I would have. After picking up a pear and my water for the day, I quickly ran back to the room to steal the English portion of the hotel ‘welcome book’ which had the do’s and don’t’s of the hotel listed very nicely in Chinglish in the back. I stole this, so I could copy it verbatim for you all, but I managed to lose it so here are the good bits (in Chinglish)
No dangerous articles in rooms such as guns and ammunition
No electrical items in rooms, such as electric furnaces
Do not hang washing from light fitting
Do not sub let room
Do not allow prostitute in room
No illicit sexual behavior
No fighting
Do not bring toxic, nuclear material or radioactive substance in room (I kid you not!)
No drunken behavior
No excessive drinking
No taking or selling of drugs from room
The list went on, And this wasn’t the half of it!
Where the hell were we staying? A place where gun toting, prostituting, drug dealing, nuclear arms making, people would drink, fight and turn on their electric furnaces to dry their washing whilst it was hanging from the light fittings!!!! All whilst they were committing illicit sexual acts!! OH. MY. GOD! I really hope this hotel was covering all possible bases!
Earlier on in the trip we had been warned about the people known as the Shadows. These were people that would follow you up the wall trying to ‘help’ you in return for money, they would ask to carry your bags we were told, and in return for a fee, would do so. We were also told that they would try to infiltrate the group by talking to you, and walking by your side and try to befriend you. After the general consensus was that we did not want them, we were told, not to look at, or speak to them, as this would encourage them, and if they spoke to you just to give a firm and resounding ‘NO!’ because they understood that and would go away.
We did our morning excersizes which our Chinese guides still found hilarious and then made our way to the gate of the hotel compound.
What greeted us was a yelling, Screaming, grabbing, rabble of what must have been well over fifty or sixty people. One lady grabbed hold of my arm so tightly that I had to grab her wrists and forcibly prize her off my arm with a loud ‘get OFF me!’ and even that didn’t stop her, I had to bat her away even after that. The only thing I can liken it to would be those pictures of the Beatles getting out of a car in 1960’s America, getting mobbed by all those fans. I now know why really famous people have minders because it is scary, truly, truly, scary. Even after we got them to let go, they walked with us down the road, constantly and aggressively trying to get us to hire them. When we reached the village where we would climb into the hills once more. We stopped in a bottleneck in the road, and all the men of the group (although there wasn’t many of them) stood shoulder to shoulder, as Eddie informed the rabble ‘if they did not leave us alone the police would be called’, this didn’t seem to make a lot of difference, but as the men from our group let the women through, nobody made a move to follow us, and soon we were away into a tiny rubbish strewn village where the chickens ran wild and the pigs rooted around in their tiny, dirty little sty’s, one of which was leaking an extremely smelly pool of slurry all over the track that we had to climb to get up into the foothills of the mountain.
The entire group seemed to have developed funky coughs by this point, and the quiet of the previous night had been punctuated by the sound of myself Diedre and Shirley (the girl that had bunked in with us) all coughing, but by this point mine seemed to be getting progressively worse, to the point where every so often, I would be doubled up coughing, but we carried on and before long hit the wall.
The portion of the wall we were walking that day is known as deconstructed wall, in other words it has broken down in places, or bricks have been removed and the farmers have lovely brick built terraces and very nice sturdy brick built houses even though it was deconstructed, it is still incredibly high on either side, at a guess, fifty to a hundred feet high at any point and the few people who found they had vertigo needed constant reassurance as there are no walls at the side of you to keep you in and the wall was rough underfoot, in some places the wall had only a couple of feet usable walking space and the drops on either side were sheer. Again, the two thoughts running through your head were ‘how the hell did they build this wall?’ and ‘ If I fall, I will die.’ there is no wonder that our guides from Discover Adventure (the English firm that works hand in hand with Alzheimers on these trips) carried climbing ropes with them at all times, because there would be no other way of getting to you, if you did fall.
The day that day was hazy, and because of this, NONE of my pictures turned out, which is a shame because I thought I had got some good ones, all you could see was the dragon stretching out in front of you and behind, snaking its way across the landscape up he mountains to impossible heights and dipping down into the valleys. The wall had a luminescence to it that I had not seen on the other parts and glowed an orangey yellow in the warm autumn sunshine and again I was struck by the awesome beauty of the Chinese countryside, cloaked in its beautiful firey colours, its pale blue sky embellished with a few filmy clouds, and the strength of an ancient wall that had stood the test of time. It had captured my imagination, I had lost my heart to it, but as we all know, hearts can be broken.
We climbed and climbed, by now my cough had gotten so bad that I could only walk a couple of steps without doubling over with a wracking cough, it became painful to breathe and soon I found I couldn’t, every breath was laboured, and so painful, my throat and chest were on fire, and I was cursing every step. One of the ladies walking with us became so concerned about me that she refused to leave my side and tried as much as she could to help, but me being a cantankerous old sod and the pain in the arse that unfortunately, I know I am, was refusing help, and making a show of myself by doing so, someone offered me a blast on their asthma inhaler but I have always been told that they are bad for you if they are not prescribed for you, so again, I refused help - I read this back now, and I realise what a horrid little person I truly am when I’m sick, (I’m probably ok when I’m tucked up in bed with a lemsip and the telly on, wallowing in self pity) but on the wall I was a massive GROUCH!
Anyway, after a drama queen sit on the floor for a bit, (I actually couldn’t have walked any more at that point) I got up off my arse and slowly, slowly between coughing fits, got up to the watchtower where the rest of the group was having lunch, there was a guy up there selling stuff, and I had a craving for a sprite, but all he had was FAT PEPSI I don’t like fat coke, but I really don’t like fat pepsi it tastes like cheap, sugary, supermarket coke - revolting. So I had what all half dead people should have after walking up a really steep wall - beer! I didn’t really enjoy it very much but it was cold and fizzy and almost a meal in a tin, - I didn’t eat any lunch I wasn’t feeling hungry.
After lunch we were told that we couldn’t walk any further along that stretch of wall because it looks over a military base and the Chinese military DO NOT like people looking at their military establishments so we came off the wall at that point and descended into the valley, there wasn’t much to see walking down, but there was a really cool abandoned house that was thatched and had an old well in the garden it looked really spooky and ancient and was probably one for those old buildings that all the local kids dare each other to go and touch the door and tell each other that it is haunted (there was a local barn where I grew up that was like that and I was absolutely terrified of it - it would probably still give me the willies now if I was to go inside).
At the bottom of the hill we all waited for the group to gather and were again surrounded by the shadows, although this time they kept their distance a little. After we had all gathered we were told that we could go back up to the wall which would take about two hours to reach or walk through the village to the place where the bus would pick us up, and we could take an early mark, I chose this option rather than go back up and about twelve others joined me, we watched the other group go and this time I was not sad to see them leave, I knew I had made the right choice. The walk back was pleasant, the afternoon was warm and the company was good, this village looked more modern than the others, with stacks of orange bricks piled up to make new houses, it still surprised me to see though, that Chinese houses do not seem to have interconnecting rooms, and to get to the living room for instance, you have to go outside and back in, I cant see the wisdom in this but there must be something to it because they were all built in this way.
After a forty five minute walk along a farm track with the ever present rubbish heaped up on either side of it we ended up at a Chinese truck stop, where we sat on the wall and waited for the bus, I was really glad I didn’t need the loo, as truck stop toilets are bad in this country, so I dread to think what these would have been like. All I know was they were housed in a blue breeze block, hovel with no windows. I think I would have rather gone in front of the busload of Chinese people that parked next to us, after all, they didn’t seem to have a problem doing it in front of us (not the women, I saw one quite smartly dressed lady gingerly picking her way down the stairs of the small blue hovel, poor cow!)
We got to the hotel a short while afterwards and were pleased to see that this looked like a really nice place, we were even more pleased when we saw our rooms each one had been built like a terraced house with its own little walled garden in front of it and inside were two separate softish beds with blue bedspreads over the top, a crappy but cleanish bathroom and a heater, which I did faff around with as soon as we got in - I was determined not to have a cold night, but eventually, I had to get the lady from reception to come and do it, and after a bit of scratting around, found the duvets in a cupboard so we were all set for the night.
In the morning over a breakfast of the usual suspects - I was only managing a hard boiled egg and a couple of cups of green tea at this point. The girls in the next room to ours, told Diedre and I about the horrible cold night they had had. They had not managed to get their heater on, or found the duvets and at one point had been so cold that they both got up and jogged on the spot to keep themselves warm they said it had been just like sleeping outside. It was only after they had left their room that they realised that the window had been wide open all night! You shouldn’t laugh but HAHAHAHAHAHA!
