Catch Up

Last night i slept like a log for 10 hours. I needed it.
The 3 nights b4 then i had only a few hours sleep each night, being on the super-fast train from Beijing, getting up at 4am for my flight, then making the most of one night in HK b4 getting up early to collect my spanking new visa. And in the 36 hours b4 that 10 hour sleep i'd taken 2 international flights, 5 taxi trips, 2 airport express trains and half a dozen subway rides, not to mention spending 5 hours walking the streets of Hong Kong, mostly in pouring rain...
I'd been to Hong Kong for a visa trip, arranged through the company EF. Fortunately this big company had arranged for a luxury room at a hotel on HK island, where we were treated like VIPs (in that room relaxing was where i spent the rest of my time, i can't see how one man can need 2 x big screen TVs....?). It was my first trip outside of the Chinese mainland 10 months, and it was refreshing. The difference with the mainland could be felt on the streets, and i don't think it was just a difference of prosperity. The people had a relaxed feeling about them on the streets, in the subways, it just felt more open, more accepting, less dark and suspicious...
This trip also marked my changeover from the business F visa that i'd been working on as an AYAD volunteer in jiuzhaigou to now be using the Z (working) visa which can be hard to comeby... Only companies and institutions like EF which have some 'guanxi' with the authorities are able overcome the stricter interpretations to get working visa for their employees. As i've said before, the rule of law is still getting established in China. Thank the heavens, at least it's on the way.

But of course, this is a 'ecotourism' blog, so i will end this diversion and get back to explaining about the last days of my time at the beautiful Jiuzhaigou national park...
looking back, it's been a long time since i posted and alot happened at the park during my last month and a half. Most significant was a meeting with the park directors and several vice directors and other observers, which i had approached the director to arrange as a way of discussing important issues such as the AYAD- JZG NP relationship and future Ecotourism plans.
After this meeting, we were allocated some full-time staff for our ecotourism projects, and a few days later set off on the long-awaited survey expedition around the sacred zhayizhaga mountain which i envisioned could be the centrepiece of the ecotourism marketing at Jiuzhaigou. During the expedition, our local guide was a former hunter, perhaps it was thanks to him and his associates that we saw little wildlife along the route. They also liked to tear down trees to light fires for every meal, going totally against the park regulations. But these are the local people, the guide also being a local village leader, and they must be respected and reasoned with.
We also encountered illegal medicine hunters on the journey, many of their makeshift huts and platforms, the remains of a dead pheasant (supposedly a protected species) near one of their cooking fires. So there is a long way to go for Jiuzhaigou. After this survey, our subsequent work has led to this route being opened up to tourists- which should discourage medicine hunters and poachers, while we are of course encouraging the awareness of tourists and their participation in conservation activities.
So- tell your friends and relatives- Go to Jiuzhaigou for an amazing ecotourism adventure! if you can manage a uphill hike, all kinds of plants, animals, mountain views, Tibetan shrines, waterfalls and rocky peaks await exploration!
marketing BS aside, the variety of quality of sights and activities has gotta put Zharu Valley up there with some of the best eco-adventures in Asia. I've done enough of them, i ought to be able to say that.

So my last weeks at the national park were spent reviewing our mountain survey and making plans for the opening up to tourists. I've written an around mountain guidebook, which while writing i learnt alot about plants and animals...
I took another trip down to Chengdu where i did a health check, visited the ancient irrigation systems of dujiangyan and an old village of huanlongxi before returning in time for my parents visit... The old road, shorter distance but longer time, past songpan and maoxian, beichuan (heart of the earthquake zone) had opened up again, still in a shocking state of repair and it was this route that the bus took on my way up and down. It took 8 hours to complete the middle stretch of 200kms from songpan to just before dujiangyan, but it could get worse, as we were to see later...
So, in early July, my parents, aunty and uncle came to Jiuzhaigou and enjoyed a couple of days complimentary touring inside the park and viewed the Tibetan Zang Mii opera, before we all departed together in a 'bread van' for the long drive back to chengdu along the earthquake route. Beichuan and maoxian were 2 of the 3 counties most devastatingly hit by the may 12 2008 earthquake, with almost 30,000 people perishing in Beichuan county alone. So it was fairly sobering to see the cracked walls, collapsed, pockmarked and tilting buildings which still littered the landscape. Landslides covered the old highway on the other side of the valley, while our driver reminded us that many vehicles and their occupants remained buried underneath. At one stage on the trip, we were stuck for 2 hours at a traffic jam as 2 lines of vehicles jostled to be first through the one remaining lane, their impatience producing the inevitable gridlock, with hundreds, probably thousands of vehicles lining the valley trying to spot a way through. It took frantic traffic police a long long time to untangle that mess of 4 lanes (2 each way- including overtakers) to wait their turn and squeeze through the one lane remaining. Eventually flow was resumed, but we arrived in Chengdu in the evening and exhausted.
Taking the train to Chongqing the next day, we boarded a luxury cruise ship for the 3-day journey down the yangzte river to the 3 gorges dam. The comfortable ship, designed for wealthy middle-aged elderly americans, was hardly an authentic cultural experience. However, we got to see the steep-sided gorges along the way and stop at a couple of temples while spending plenty of time relaxing in our air-con cabins along the way. One of the temples we visited (the city which had been beneath it was submerged and had now been moved across-river) was known as the 'gates of hell', so we could, while walking through its various gates and hallways, simulate facing demons in the moments after death....good practice i suppose... lol. Another time smaller boats took us up one of the smaller gorges where we saw monkeys scrambling around on the steep-sided and lushly forested gorge walls that surrounded us.
Seeing the dam itself was also an experience, the massive walls a proud symbol of China's development, while the ships guide was anxious to defend the dam and promote China as a friend to the world. The whitewash was too much though, and i had to question some of is nationalistic assertions in the open Q & A session we were invited to. The whole experience was something like that you might imagine after seeing the documentary movie 'up the yangzte'. One of the boat staff who i shared a taxi with to the bus station proudly stated, 'yeah, my boyfriend is a movie star' lol. It was the same girl who had encouraged me to take a 3- bed cabin with my parents because i might have to share with a local person in a 2-bed cabin... The way she said 'local' was so derogatory that i let her have it- saying 'i like the local people!' feeling fire boiling in my eyes... As it turned out i was on my own in comfort...
At the dam, i parted with the family and took an alternate route, via buses to Wuhan, then a train that night (after surveying the town by public bus) to Zhengzhou, and on from Zhengzhou by another train to Luoyang- site of the famous Longmen Buddhist grottoes which i had been long hoping to visit.
The grottoes were no disappointment, thousands of holes dotting cliff-side of the curving river outside the town. This site pre-dated the Dazu caves in Chongqing which i visited (and wrote about) a few months earlier, and seemed to retain more simple majesty in the Buddha carvings. Buddha with his various associates and retinue as mythologized in mahayana buddhism were all featured here, a place that was designed to inspire faith and humility among pilgrims who would gawk at the massive size, scale and transcendent beauty of the carvings. Another site i visted near Luoyang was the White Horse Temple, supposedly the oldest Buddhist temple in China, dating from the 2nd century AD. Its spacious grounds were leafy and attractive, numerous halls housing various blessing and protective deities, arranged in a line one after behind the next in the typical chinese pattern (much like the forbidden city). Outside the main grounds was a newly built replica of the oldest Buddhist temple in the world, the stupa at Sanchi (read about it in my India blog), with one of its famous tora- gateways topping the entrance. This struck me as a hopeful sign of Sino-Indian co-operation and understanding re. this essential cultural and historical characteristic that these 2 great developing nations both share- Buddhism.
Next up was Pingyao, bball coaching, new friends and sightseeing in Beijing, climbing sacred Taishan, English teaching job hunting and finally my trip to Shanghai. This one is getting a bit long so i'll take a break and update u on all those things in the next entry
PEACE OUT