Just an hours drive away from Yabian’s capital Yanji, there’s the sleepy little border town of Tumen. Tumen sits on…anybody?????….anybody????????? BUELLLER???? Yes the TUMEN river. And just across from Tumen on the Tumen river lies…NORTH FUCKING KOREA.

The riverfront has been somewhat developed on the Chinese side, it has a long park, apartment complexes and a public square. On the other side lies nothing but thick brush and the occasional North Korean soldier taking a peek and/or escape from reality.

Honestly, while the novelty of getting close to North Korea is amusing for about 15 minutes, the fact is there’s fuck all to see. There is a small town on the North Korean side, but the derelict buildings are nothing you won’t see in any second or third tier Chinese city. Human beings are scarce. There is the bridge, but when I went, foreigners were deemed inadmissible by the bitchy ticket booth wench. Instead we took one of the many boats available for hire and got within feet of North Korea.

According to our captain, it was just a few days earlier that the Supreme Leader himself, Kim Jong-il-fitted to rule a nation, had rolled along the railway bridge just down the river. While this was neat at the time, as you all know, the fucker is now dead.

So yeah Tumen. Go for the chance to see North Korea, stay for the…are you kidding me? It’s an isolated border town filled with geriatric Korean Chinese and bored military officials. Look at the photos below and you’ll have seen everything there is to see without having to endure the mind numbing travel through Dongbei.

I’d wanted to ride in China for a while, I mean, the shear geography of the place meant there had to be some decent slopes somewhere. The country is roughly the same size as the States area wise, and is home to the tallest mountain rage on earth (the Himalayas), surely there’d be a ski bums paradise hidden away here.

Our thorough research, which consisted of googling for ski resorts in China, somehow winding up looking at trail maps of places in Europe, followed by deciding what bars would have the most attractive members of the opposite sex that night, lead us to Yabuli Sun Mountain as our best chance for international quality runs.

My friend happened to have some contacts up in Shenyang, a city only a few hours away from Harbin, a former Tsarist Russian outpost that now plays home to China’s largest snow and ice festival. So what the hell, with all these places being roughly in the same geographical void of nothing, we figured after our snowboarding excursion, we catch a train over Harbin for the ice fest.

The ice festival has gone totally mainstream in China, and I suppose it’s on a billion plus bucket lists, because the prices attached to everything Harbin for that time of year are pumped up like Arnie circa 75’. For that reason, we decided to fly into Changchun, then take the overnight train into Yabuli saving the cost of a hotel and letting us start the morning fresh on the slopes.

Now it’s time for some helpful travel tips. If you decide to travel anywhere by train in China, especially closing in on Chinese New Years…buy your tickets in ADVANCE. Here’s what happens when you don’t. We flew into Changchun, and foolishly took a 45 minute taxi ride to the train station. There’s actually a brand new train station right outside the airport (Longjia Stn.) that takes you downtown in about 15 minutes for one tenth the price of a taxi. Our planned train from Changchun to Yabuli was to leave 1:50am, which was fine, because we also planned to sleep during the 6 hour ride. These plans were shattered into a million tiny ice fragments when we discovered that the only tickets available were standing room. Not only would we not have beds to lie down on, we wouldn’t even have fucking seats. That ladies and gentlemen, was not a comfortable train ride.

Apart from the small time crooks who made the bad choice of trying to steal from an army guy, the ride was uneventful. Four hours into the journey, the train lurched through Harbin, and enough people got off that I could finally get a seat. Sleep would have been nice, but by then, then sun was rising, and the snow covered wasteland was reflecting light into the carriage making any attempt impossible.

On arrival at Yabuli Station, we were greeted outside by touts trying to lure us to whatever resort they were on commission for. We told them to bugger off, and hopped into a minibus to take us to the mountain. For some reason I didn’t quite understand because I was physically and mentally exhausted from lack of sleep, the touts jumped into the mini bus with us and off we went.

Longing to emerge from the sooty winter days of Qingdao, I happened on the opportunity to go treasure hunting for some Yuan Dynasty ceramics in the south half of the country in a place called Jingdezhen. Hangzhou was the city I would fly into. A good friend of mine who works in Anji, an hour north of Hangzhou had invited me down numerous times before, and I promised him that if I was ever in the area I would slide by. Going to just one random city in the Chinese hinterlands barely satiates my appetite for chances to see the unknown these days, so I decided I would pay my friend a visit.

The trip started with my usual attention to detail in planning (buying the air ticket the day before and flying down hoping to get the bus/hotel situation sorted after arrival). My goal to rival the Griswolds was realized when things started to unravel as before the plane touched the ground. As is usual practice in China, upon learning that we would be making our decent, I turned on my phone to let him know that I had arrived, landing and radio equipment be damned. I was informed by the kind Chinese robot voice on the line that my phone had run out credit. Fiddlesticks!

You would think that selling cellular minutes like every other commercial establishment in this country would be something that an airport out in the middle of munchkin land would consider. Besides Kentucky fried foul and pickled plums, this place was as useful as “duck and cover” in the event of a nuclear attack. Not having a phone was a problem because I needed to call my friend to confirm my arrival and find out what bus station to go to. Not wanting to be a lollygag around this lame excuse for a modern air hub I jumped into a cab and told him to take me downtown for 100 kuai, where I would presumably be closer to the bus station and I could find a place to get money for my phone.

Since the Hangzhou airport really is out in the sticks, and I didn’t want to waste any more time than I had to, as soon as I saw a China mobile place I told him to stop. The meter read 71rmb, so I got the cash ready and then proceeded to get into an argument about “our deal” for the 100 kuai to downtown. “Well guess what bud, I’m not even close to downtown, and you were on the meter anyways! Go suck on a rotten sea cucumber, ya prick!” is exactly what I should’ve said to him, instead I tossed him the 71rmb and ejected myself from the taxi in haste.

I made my way to the China mobile shop where I bought a 100rmb recharge for my phone. After dialing the number and following the instructions I remained hopelessly without a useful phone. Without trying to look like a foreign retard, and failing miserably in that regard, I asked the shopkeeper for help. They tried a few times, until they finally asked me where my number was from. From Qingdao I replied, and then they said that the recharges only work on Hangzhou ones. Awesome! In times past I’ve recharged my phone all over the country with these same little recharge cards so perhaps we can conclude that China Mobile in Hangzhou is managed by simians. Unable to return the recharge card I had just bought, the shopkeeper directed me to the large China Mobile center that was “Just over there at so and so road.” An hour later and possibly in some kind of Bermuda triangle of Hangzhou, I decided it would be wise to abandon this quest to find the large China Mobile center and concentrate instead on buying a new phone number. This would also prove difficult, as it seems I had been walking for an hour in the direction of absolutely nothing. An hour later I was back where I started and I hit up the first mobile shop I laid eyes on. The nice thing about China is that mobile calling is infinitesimally cheaper than in Canada, and new number can be up and activated for as little as $15.

Once I had finally got all that monkey business out of the way, I was able to get in touch with my friend who directed me to the Hangzhou North bus station, where I was able to board one of the buses that leaves every 15 minutes for a mere 27 kuai. One interesting (titillating?) thing of note about the Hangzhou north bus station. For the first time in China I actually saw on display real deal porno mags, just out in the open on the news stands, no covers or anything to shield my innocent eyes! I don’t know what that’s about but I guess Hangzhou isn’t a complete bust (or is it?!)

If you’re flying from Toronto to Beijing, make sure to get on the direct flight. The airplanes are the most modern in the fleet and every seat has its own standard electric plug and TV. Compare that to flying with a connection through Vancouver where you’ll be on jets that feel like Russian hand me downs. Before you get to the Beijing airport, stock up on all necessary goods. Once inside the giant liquor and cigarette warehouse that is PEK, you won’t be able to find any decent food, reading material or batteries, which I learned the hard way. You will be able to find lots of overpriced but duty free booze, and 4 stores selling the exact same Olympic merchandise adorned with the rainbow gremlins.

I noticed all the usual things once back in Canada, for example the streets are quiet, the air is so clean, everyone is obese, etc. There’s also some other things that I noticed that probably aren’t as normal. The service here blows. In China I do find it mildly irritating having a chorus of “欢饮光临” everywhere I go, but I never realized not having it and being totally ignored would be so much more annoying. There’s no hustle. People cross the streets whether or not they have the right of way as if they were immortal beings and time didn’t exist. Back in the PRC, they scurry across like little squirrels trying to avoid the onslaught of poorly built and poorly driven vehicles. Finally an obvious one: everything here is absurdly expensive. $2.75 to take the bus, are you kidding me? I can take the bus twenty freakin times for that price. Tonight I just had dinner for $30 and it wasn’t even that great. For that price I could have dinner for two at the fanciest restaurant in town OR I could eat so much street food that I’d need to see a proctologist.

It’s nice to see everyone again, which is the principal reason I came back. It’s good that I’m only around till next Friday though, cause with my world class whining, I’m sure they’re already counting down the days. Finally I’d like to announce to the world my discovery that jet lag is a bitch. I’m sure the scientists of the world have been waiting for such a breakthrough announcement. No matter how many sleeping pills you pop, no matter how soft your bed is, you’re still sure to screwed by random intervals of exhaustion and waking up in the night from sweet sweet dreams of cars honking and people horking.

Thanks to Mark for the turkey.

]]> http://dragonhunting.com/2007/re-entry/feed/ 1 http://dragonhunting.com/2007/train-ride-to-lhasa/ http://dragonhunting.com/2007/train-ride-to-lhasa/#comments Fri, 23 Mar 2007 09:49:26 +0000 james http://dragonhunting.com/?p=11 The train from Beijing to Lhasa leves Beijing West (Beijingxi huochezhan) Station at 9:30pm. For some reason we were recommended to arrive like 2 hours early because it was such a big station and we would need it to find our way around and all that bullshit the travel people tell you. Realistically, you could get here about 20 minutes before your train is set to leave and walk on.

Once outside of the station there’s really only one way in through security and as expected it’s a vortex of people funneling in through one set of doors and a bag xray machine. They don’t even bother putting you through a metal detector or doing any body searches so I have no idea why they even have the machine. They’re pushing people through so fast that someone could smuggle a patriot missile through and they would just assume it’s a model rocket.

Although Beijing West is a pretty big station, leaving to Lhasa on platform 2, basically you just go up the escalators and then hang a left and go through the first set of doors into the soft seat lounge. They have food and drinks in here, and it wasn’t so packed. There’s another room right next door which leads to the same platform, which is more packed, and doesn’t have as comfortable chairs, so why you would wait in there is beyond me. They didn’t check our tickets going into the waiting area.

Having previously taken the overnight train from Beijing to Shanghai, I was going on with some expectations, mostly because this was a brand new train and is supposedly a pride thing for China as it’s the highest altitude train in the world or something to that effect. The train ride from Beijing to Shanghai is pretty decent, as it’s 16 hours, you get a soft sleeper with 2 beds to a cab and you get your own washroom and meals. This was different. There are 4 beds to a cab in soft sleeper and 6 beds in hard sleeper. There are community washrooms on each car, one of which is a regular western toilet; the other is one of those hole-type things. There were no showers. This is a 48-hour train ride. I’ll admit I’m no stranger to not taking a shower after such an interval, but I’m sure things got pretty nasty back in the cheap seat cars.

Leaving from Beijing, there really isn’t much to do but drink, then passout and sleep. You can’t see anything after you get outside of the city because it’s pitch black. There is the occasional bonfire, and by bonfire I mean entire building with no roof flaming up, but other than that it’s comatose. There is one stop around 11pm in Shijiazhuang I’m not sure if you can get on and off at this stop. I’m also not sure why you would want to if you could, the city is the Chinese butt-fuck-nowhere.

The next day on the trip, the morning was rainy and overcast, so there wasn’t a whole lot to see. We started off the day by traveling through Shanxi province, which I will remember as having the most colourful and steamy piles of garbage I have ever seen. There is a stop at around 9am in Xian where you can get on and off, which is nice cause they have real (MSG percentage was probably under 50%) snacks and food on the station platform. Speaking of food, the food on the train was classy. If you ever take this ride do yourself a favor and bring cases of food. Don’t rely on the warm wet bread and microwaved eggs for breakfast to keep your stomach from imploding during multi-day ride. Luckily the beers are relatively cheap, at only 10 yuan for Beijing beer (brewed by Asahi I should add). I tried to order a drink, but for some hilarious reason they only sell the booze by the bottle, and they only sell 26ers. So it’s like, “well we’ll sell you some vodka, but you’re gonna have to get smashed”.

Later in the afternoon, the rain cleared away, and the sunshine made a damned fine effort to penetrate the smog that seems to cover all of china all the time. We made our way through Guanxi province, stopping in Lanzhou. At this point it was real backcountry China. The cities and towns are basically mud and brick shacks, the roads are mud, and the people of the countryside must really hate the train because they dump all their trash along side of it. Lanzhou is the last million plus people city on the way to Lhasa. It consists of hundreds of commie blocks, and a bunch of factories spewing out gases ranging in colour from leprechaun green, to black hole black. Past this magnificent example of industrial development gone awry, the mud and brick shacks become mostly mud shacks and people are using tools and animals to farm instead of machinery. I can’t help but wonder if they’re happy in their less than developed conditions. I see the kids playing, seemingly happy, and some people wave to the train with one hand, while the other hand throws back a bottle of baijiu, so I guess they’re alright.

At night, I’m in the cabin with two Chinese people. Both have headphones on and are doing their thing. The guy is dropping ass like you wouldn’t believe, while the girl is laughing hysterically. It sounds like some kind of strange fetish. 24 more hours of this.

The next day I wake up to some sweeping mountain views and a stop at some tiny station where the assman gets off, I thought we were in the clear from there, but the day is marked by the pass through the highest altitude point of the train ride. We make it to over 5000m above sea level. Much before that, the effects of altitude sickness start to set in for everyone. The most common feeling is dizziness and headache, but some are worse off. The poor girl in the bunk above me, must have got serious nausea because she threw up a few times and was moaning in agony most of the way. I definitely felt the dizziness early on, but after a while the worst thing I really had was a headache. I didn’t eat anything but a small bowl of rice all day and had multiple naps so I’m not sure if that made things better or worse. The trip through the Qinghai Pass is a display of an entirely arid, desolate nothingness with big round hills. There is no vegetation, animals, or human settlement which is a huge change from the almost constant civilization that followed us most of the way. There are however these very unnatural grids of rock that a fellow traveler hypothesized might be to block snowdrift formation.

Once we finally made it into Tibet, the scenery changes for the better, there is very light mossy grass vegetation with different varieties of animals roaming about. The mountains turn jagged, like mountains should be. There are Tibetan settlements spotting the vast plains, with much different style of housing than what was in the other parts of China that we traveled through. The houses all look like mini-castles, with tower type things at the corners. There’s lots of random Tibetans hanging out by themselves with their yaks. Because Beijing likes to have the same time zone for the entire country, we don’t see any time difference, so it doesn’t get dark until about 8pm, which is a nice change from the daylight savings nonexistence back east. We arrive at the station at about 8:30pm, which is a bonus because we weren’t supposed to arrive for another hour. The station is huge considering only one train a day uses it. Off I got to the Lhasa hotel, which was formerly the Holiday Inn.

This is the most interesting stuff you will see on the Qinghai Express

After getting to the airport about 2 hours early, the weirdness began. It started with my own idiocy. My dad dropped me off at the very front of Terminal 1 at Pearson. This is the new terminal and it is the size of Donald Trump’s ego…times ten. I’m carrying about 400 pounds of gear so moving anywhere isn’t going to be pleasurable. I get in and notice the gates go from A to Z. Departures to asia are at Z. I’m at A. I manage to navigate my way through the mindless hordes of senile seniors on their way to Florida and get to the gates that go to Beijing. As I get to the lineup for boarding passes, the helper monkey lady asks me where I’m going, to which I reply PKK. She then asks if I’m flying direct, or through Vancouver. I inform her I’m going through Vancouver, to which she tells me that I should be at Gate A. Great, I got my chance to battle through the masses of pastel polyester and golfclub bags once again. But the fun doesn’t stop there…oh no…

I got my boarding passes from the automated machine that Air Canada makes you do now, in some kind of futile attempt at speeding the whole process up. They fail miserably. So I’m waiting in the motionless line and I notice a putrid scent coming from the guy infront of me. Now as some of you may know, I’m no stranger to smells, but this guy smelled like he had just taken a golden shower, minus the shower. Turns out it wasn’t the guy infront of me. A few people farther ahead had brought one of those styrofoam coolers you buy at the beer store and filled it with raw fish. They were hoping to check this in as baggage along with everyone elses stuff. Keeping it closed was two thin straps of tape. This was a classic WTF moment. As in, what the fuck were they thinking? Who brings raw fish along for the airplane ride? I’m sure you can guess where they were going too. Luckily another security/helper monkey lady came along and denied them baggage check before they got to the counter, which is swell because I had no interest in having every piece of clothing I own reek of rotten snapper.

When I finally got to the check in, I had to go through a big deal because when they checked my visa, they noticed that it was valid for 60 days but my return ticket wasn’t until December. They decided to let me go because it’s up to the Chinese to make the final say. So I’m in Vancouver now and I’ve got something great to think about till I get to Beijing…