The temple is currently being re-furbished and there are gingko saplings lining the road and the stairs up to the main temple complex. The complex itself seemed deserted until I banged on an old bell, rousting out the abbot who then scolded me for being a heathen. Most visitors are photographers coming for the colors: yellow leaves, red tiles, green leaves, and white cliffs. Some photographers have put together amazing shots, like Lao Yan, who visited in 2008.

There is little tourism here because the whole area is beautiful in a simple clean way. There are no major tourist attractions to draw the developers and their theme parks so a trip out to the deeper reaches of Dayi or Chongzhou is always rewarded with good air, good food and simple quiet pleasures. Below are my best efforts at capturing our trip (thanks Charlie for editing these):

Cuancuan and Xiaogui lead their moms up the mountain to the temple

Xiaogui takes a break on the way up

Zhuang and my youngest son, Damian

Man climbing up the steps towards the sunlight

Playing under the tree

A gingko branch hangs down over us

Trees accentuate the yellow and red of Tibetan Buddhism

This is the type of place I could sit in forever

There were prayer flags hung all around the temple

Imagine waking up every morning to gingkos and silence

I love the way the golden leaves look against the Sichuan sky

This blot of gold just burst out of the surrounding green leaves

Cuancuan makes a run for it

Baiyan Temple is Sichuan's only Tibetan Buddhist Temple outside of traditionally Tibetan areas

View Baiyan Temple in a larger map

Conclusion

I had a blast visiting Baiyan Si and considering it’s not far from Chengdu, it’s worth a visit. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments below.

Free Harvest Season Giveaway

Chris has been kind enough to offer a free copy of his book to Chengdu Living readers. To get Harvest Season for Free, just leave a comment below saying you’re interested in the book and we’ll select a reader at random on Saturday to receive the free copy. If you’re outside of Chengdu but in China, you’re still eligible and we’ll ship the book to you. Good luck!

Every single traveler basically relates the destination to his own soul and comes out with a conclusion about mankind and himself. In many straight travel books the “locals” are treated as one (or at the most two dimensional) foils for the exploits of the main character. Harvest Season on the surface might seem like a book about one character’s dealings with place and populace, but what it actually contains are the last choking gasps of a traveler’s delusions about who he is in relation to the destination. And this traveler fights to the bitter end — in his own way — like the last adherent to a dying faith.

As the end nears for our hero Matt in Chris Taylor’s first novel, two fates begin to merge: a devastating collapse in which Matt crumbles along with his hopes and a slow resettling of the dust as time and place march on despite the protestations of one lone man. Chris has got all the tools needed to tell this story. He’s been up and down the beaten path long before it was beaten and he’s seen entire scenes emerge, flourish and then get swallowed up only to re-appear as something altogether different and yet sadly familiar.

Blowing up the Spot

Cover art

Chris is in and out of Kunming in Yunnan Province and the fictional town that he creates in Harvest Season could be a mixture of places ike Kunming, Dali, Chiang Mai and others like it that are popular with backpackers. Towns of extraordinary beauty and charm; towns that attract foreigners looking to escape the world they come from and melt into a new home and become someone new. The problem is, as soon as the backpacking circuit has made a place chic enough to retire in, then everybody wants to go there.

“You don’t see as many dreadlocks in Kunming as you did before,” said Chris, referring to the dusty Kunming Laowai I described in this post. “The closing of the Speakeasy there was pretty much the end of an era. Kunming is truly on the cusp of a big change as more and more students and families move in  … I’m not concerned as much as interested to see what will happen as Kunming becomes more and more popular.”

As soon as everyone goes there, then the adventurous fringes of society recede or cut their hair or move on to an even more remote place. And even though Harvest Season isn’t filled with hreadlocked hippies, the same characters can be found between the covers: Strangers in a strange land desperate to preserve what they’ve found.

“Matt in Harvest Season wants to save this place and the girl,” said Chris. “He is delusional about both. What he finds so hard to accept is that the community doesn’t need Matt’s help. Foreign characters think this is some pristine paradise but the truth is that people live here. Every single one of these tourist towns has an established society that might reach back thousands of years.”

Helplessly watching it happen

That is the tragic irony that any long term traveler faces. Not the strange commune politics of the Beach, but the real heartache one experiences watching towns, regions even entire cultures succumb to the very consumerist nightmare that many of us are fleeing from. Just today I was walking through Shanghai and lamenting the destruction of the old lanes to make way for sky scrapers and malls. I remember lamenting the disappearance of back alleys and small shops because they had so much character.

Chris reveals the beautiful and sordid humanity of  the community and in doing so exposes the hypocrisy inherent in wanting things to “stay like this forever”. Of all the travel-related books out there, Harvest Season is the only one that successfully shatters the wall between traveler and local and that act seems to affect the visitor to a much greater degree than it does the host.

Chris Taylor, author (photo by Yereth Jansen)

Chris Taylor will talk about all these themes and more this weekend at the Bookworm Literary Fair. Be sure to stop in and check it out.

When I first came to China, that meant routinely strolling to the corner store to buy international phone cards.  After taking off the plastic wrapper and revealing the code by scratching with my fingernail, I’d call a long number, enter the code, and then the number I wanted to dial.

Aside from costing a lot (I paid 100 yuan per card, which sometimes lasted me a week), this method of calling overseas is really a hassle. It takes a long time to initiate the call and you frequently get dropped calls, frustrating everyone involved.

Fortunately there’s a much better way. I’ve been using it recently to contact friends and family in the United States from China for free.

VOIP: How It’s So Cheap

Over the last 6 years there’s been a major shakeup in the telecommunications industry as international calling has been getting swallowed up by the internet. Voice over IP has gone mainstream and the costs of overseas calls are plummeting to ridiculous lows (and in this case, free).

How is this possible? It’s due to a technology called Least Cost Routing. What this does is send your voice over the internet, for free – to a destination nearby the number you’re calling and then converts it to an analog call. Effectively making a call from any internet-connected device in the world a local call.

Google Voice and Gmail Integration

A Voice keypad in Gmail

This summer Google integrated Voice into Gmail, allowing anyone with a Google account to make calls from within their email inbox. Instead of having to register an account and download software like Skype, you could make a call immediately using an account you already have. It took VOIP technology and Google Voice, which was something that few people understood or used, and brought it to prime time with Gmail as a delivery platform. edit: and today, they’ve renewed their commitment to it.

I was excited to see this unveiled since I use a lot of Google products and think they’re pretty great. I’m happy to report that this is no exception: it’s a cinch to use and call quality is fantastic – more clear than an ordinary call, provided your internet connection is adequate.

Here’s how to make calls for free to friends or family overseas for dirt cheap. Or free, depending on where your friends and family are located.

Calling The US for Free With Gmail

Voice integrated into Gmail offers super low prices to begin with. To give you an example, calling China from the United States costs $0.02 per minute – but in this case, we’re most interested in free. The reason this works is because Google offers domestic calls (within the United States) for free. All you have to do is appear to be in the US and you’ll be granted just that.

Here’s what required to make this work:

Requirements

• An internet connected computer
• Gmail account
• A headset or earbuds with microphone, ideally
• Working VPN or proxy connection

It’s a safe to say that the vast majority of people reading this meet the first two requirements already. If you don’t own a headset, you can pick one up and any computer shop in China and look kind of like you’re landing planes as you speak into a protruding plastic microphone attached to headphones. I use the standard Apple earbuds which came with my iPhone for this purpose – they have a microphone build in and are light and easy.

The VPN is bound to be the biggest stumbling block but everyday there are more and better options available. We’ve been using Freedur for the last year to access everything on the internet and it’s been great. But to be clear, in order for this to be free, you need to be accessing Gmail through a proxy or VPN with at least one server in the US.

Step by Step

1. Fire up your proxy. If you’re using Freedur, this means installing the software and hitting the giant “On” button.Otherwise, you’ll want to go to System Preferences > Network (on Mac) and Start > Control Panel > Networks on Windows. From there you can set up a VPN connection by entering the username, password and server address. Your VPN provider will arm you with this information.
2. Load Gmail and notice the Call window seated at the bottom right corner.
   

   Click call phone

   If it’s not there, click “Call phone” in your list of Gmail chat contact in the left column. If it doesn’t automatically detect your settings (it did on my Mac), go into Gmail settings > Chat and select your microphone and speakers or headphones from the drop down list.

3. Enter the number you want to reach and click call. The call connects and everything is seamless. I haven’t had it go any other way yet.If you aren’t going through a VPN or you’re calling another country, the cost of the call will be deducted from the pocket change that they grant you for free to begin with. If you decide you want to add more, that’s easy too.

Now go give your mother a call!

1) You’ve traveled around China before, but what’s the most striking thing you noticed about Chengdu?

万里号 - "The Boat Building"

You mean besides the Boat Building? I think I just noticed how relaxed Chengdu was, especially compared with cities like Shanghai and Beijing. The rumor was that Chengdu people are happy to drink tea for three hours in the middle of the afternoon, and I found myself doing just that.

2) Did the food live up to or exceed your expectations? What are your favorite dishes?

The food in Chengdu was easily as good as everyone said it would be, but more important for me was to learn how people eat—how fiery dishes are accompanied by simple, almost bland, but delicious things like kai shui bai cai or a little bowl of mian shui. Some dishes, though, I already miss intensely: yu xiang pai gu mian from a place near my hotel, the bai rou at Orange nongjiale, a gan guo with duck tongue. Some I can try to replicate at home, others… I’ll just have to come back one day!

3) You wrote The Frugal Traveler column for years, published in the NY Times – how does Chengdu fit into that theme?

Well, I stopped writing Frugal Traveler in May. (It’s been taken over by the talented Seth Kugel.) But like the rest of China, Chengdu is, on a very basic level, affordable. You can have a great bowl of noodles for 4RMB, stay in a more-than-decent room for 100RMB, and take taxis whenever you like. I can hardly imagine how I might’ve spent more money than I did!

4) Anything you can’t stand, were baffled by or couldn’t wait to write about?

I went jogging as many mornings as possible, so I immediately noticed the air quality. Or really, the lack of air quality. And there is still that Chinese attitude that gets interpreted as rudeness by Westerners: the willingness to push and jostle, to stare at misfortune, to run you down in a truck without a second thought (or even a first thought). My solution, of course, is to jostle back, to gape indiscriminately, and to throw a few choice curses in Sichuan hua at misbehaving cars.

5) I understand that regional varieties of Chinese food are currently popular in NYC (Xianese and Sichuan among them) – how do these compare to the real thing in Mainland China?

A lot of the tastes are similar from NYC to China (we have just about every ingredient China does), but what’s different, and what makes NYC (and American) Chinese restaurants suffer by comparison, is that over here restaurants are pretty much required to serve everything. Whereas in China you’d have a shop that only does a couple kinds of noodles, or mala huoguo, or freshwater eel, in America the menu usually has to include all of the above, which means no one can specialize and perfect recipes. Also, in China I can go to a noodle shop, sit down, order a bowl, eat it and be gone in 10 minutes. In America, the service culture means it takes longer and costs more.

6) Any China author or bloggers that helped you or that you recommend?

Leave Me Alone Chengdu, by Murong Xuecun

Before coming to China, I read a couple of Peter Hessler’s books, River Town and Oracle Bones. He’s a fantastic writer, able to take a half-dozen disparate subjects and tie them all together. Oh, I also read Murong Xuecun’s “Leave Me Alone, Chengdu,” which was fabulously entertaining—a view of modern Chengdu I wouldn’t have gotten anywhere else.

7) Are there any travel stories about China that you’d love to read?

I’d be very curious to read stories in English by Chinese writers traveling through China: what do they make of regional differences, of the way the country is changing (or not), of the enormous size and diversity of the place they call home. Know anyone like that?

You can keep up with what Matt is up to by checking out his “Getting Lost” series in the New York Times roughly every two months, and his stories for Saveur and Afar magazines appear intermittently. He also writes a biweekly column called “The Voyager” at GetCurrency.com and you can follow him on Twitter or visit his website, WorldMatt.org.

My Affinity With Chengdu

All my friends in China refer to Chengdu and me in the same breath and I am proud of that. Wherever I go, people say I speak Sichuan dialect and I am proud of that too. I am an alien in China and for me having a place that feels like home is important.

I have been moving from place to place all of my life and I fear that I will never find a place that I can truly call my home, but when I fly into Chengdu’s Shuangliu International Airport, breaking through the cloud blanket onto dusty south Chengdu, I feel good. I start beatboxing to myself, find the nearest cabbie and start spitting my dirtiest Sichuan hua. The cabbies are awesome because they take it in stride and just hand me a smoke.

I love Chengdu. But I gotta go.

I took a job editing Chinatravel.net in the antithesis of the ‘Du: glitzy, glamorous Shanghai, hereafter known as The Hai.

Representing

You know how you can tell a German apart from an Englishman or from an American with just a glance at his bearing, clothes, facial expression and the look in his eyes? The same thing exists for laowai.

When I see a Kunming laowai walk down the street I know it when I see it and he knows it too. He might be a little bit dusty and his dress code screams “Fuck a 9 to 5!” and when he swings his head around at the scent of Southwest cuisine a lone dreadlock might crack a passerby in the jaw. I know he is from the Spring City and he knows I am from the ‘Du.

When I see Beijing foreigners walk around I can usually tell that too, because although they tuck their shirts in and most likely do not sport dreadlocks, there is a grittiness about them that bespeaks underground clubs and a circle of friends dominated by thinkers. Laowai from the provinces inbetween Chengdu and the coast have that special lost look about them that says: I may have forgotten my mother tongue and my stomach can’t handle Mom’s cooking anymore.

The Shanghai Vibe

Shanghai is different from the rest of China in a way that isn’t exactly cool, although laowai in Shanghai would say that Shanghai is by far the coolest city in China.

There are a lot of ex-frat boys and MBA grads here: East coast boarding school cats with trust funds and famously rich grandparents and I have never identified with them or their hand-me-down sense of superiority. The Hai also has a large population of young, beautiful foreign women. This is a very unique thing in China, because as we all have noticed, beautiful foreign women don’t often venture out to Chongqing or Urumuqi. They tend to stay where the living is easy and the shopping diverse.

Way back in the day I read The eXile book: Sex, Drugs and Lies in the New Russia , founded by Mark Ames and Matt Taibbi and they mentioned a phenomenon known as “expatella,” which refers to Western women trying to live in places like China and Russia.

Western women tend to lose out to local girls in one-on-one confrontations over men, for a variety of reasons that I don’t really care to get into right now. So, in order to distinguish themselves from local girls, Western women tend to adapt a somewhat bitter, perhaps wary attitude towards Western men, maybe they go ahead and give local guys a shot, maybe they go all out and try and be the party girl, but basically, they change a bit in order to compete with local girls. No disrespect, I’m just calling it how I see it (and others have seen it as well).

Now in Shanghai there is a Western woman population with some confidence and some style — they might still display a few expatella traits, but its not the same as the Western girls out in Chengdu. Its interesting and merits further investigation.

Shanghai's cityscape is like a sprawling labrynth of new construction and development

Shanghai has a bit of Gotham to it, with all of the high rises that block the views for most people, but at the same time there are shopping districts like Xintiandi and the like where you can watch trophy ladies strut their stuff in high heels, swinging tiny little brand name shopping bags as they saunter by. Off the boat Europeans and rich Middle Eastern families are on display.

There are a lot of hot, nice cars cruising up and down the French Concession and you can hear them revving up and down the boulevards late at night, no doubt filled with laughing harlots in Daisy Dukes and ketamine addled rich kids who just don’t give a damn.

Every morning when I head to work, I take the subway (Line 10 to Line 2) and the 9-5 crowd really trips me out. I feel like a lurid observer, but then i look down at my key card dangling from my neck and realize separation is an illusion. I remember laughing haughtily at tales of stuffed subway cars and bobbin’ my head to Del’s Bob Dobalina (Youtube blocked? Freedur has the key!) track and now I find myself elbowing fat sweaty dudes out of my way so I can get to the escalator 2 seconds quicker.

Its just one of those types of towns: up and coming, flush with office workers, fast cash and loose women. The city feels like it is trying to prove to itself and to everyone else that it truly deserves to be mentioned along with New York and London and Tokyo by doing all the things expected of an up and coming city. Whatever I might think about offices and suits, you gotta give propers where propers are due: Shanghai is goin’ global and doing it in style.

Urban Analysis

Now, Hong Kong has a similar environment — riches, hard dialect, good shopping — but the vital difference here is history. Shanghai has the French Concession and a history of being the Pearl and such, but the Hai is constantly re-inventing itself. It lives in the trendy moment, just a hair’s breadth behind Tokyo and a length or two behind Paris or New York.

But Shanghai tries so hard to be those cities and that smacks of fakery and pretender-ism. Hong Kong has an elegance that permeates the trendiness of this Fall’s coming fashion, whereas Shanghai seems to be constantly  re-designing its own identity. It’s a fashion-money-sex city in many ways, but its the fashion of the 20-something sex kitten, constantly changing her hairstyle, not the more mature diva, whose honed style influences the kitten.

What is the Hai Exactly?

I am not sure yet. I go on the impressions I built in my many stays here. I have friends here that can fit in anywhere and will be my friends for life, transcending any No Coast – East Coast rivalry that really only exists in my head anyway. It is one heck of a leap, from down low country living to a 9 to 5 in the big city, but I remain adaptable and life here will most likely proceed according to Sascha Time as it always seems to.

I hope that over the next few months I discard my “Chengdu Spy in the Belly of the Beast” mentality and just be a missionary of Southwest culture out here or — which is much more likely — just accept the fact that repping your spot stems from fear and enjoy this new chapter of my life: Dirty ‘Du Veteran Chillin’ in the Hai.

That was then. Today Forever bikes are literally a dime a dozen on the streets of nearby Dujiangyan and San Sheng Xiang. Forever began as a bike dealer and now peddles everything from bridges to bowling balls; the bright orange bikes lined up at rental stands around town are part of the Forever Corp’s big move away from the sale of individual bikes — which is plummeting across China due to automobiles and thieves — and into public transportation. The project is high-class, high-tech version of a traditionally low class, low tech transportation option: rent-a-bike.

The project began in 2009 in Shanghai and there are currently about 20,000 bikes for rent in Shanghai. Each stand in Shanghai is no more than 200m away from the next stand and many of the stands are linked with the city’s subway system. Forever plans on having around 100,000 bikes in Shanghai.

San Sheng Xiang has 500 bikes and Dujiangyan has 2,000. The project in Dujiangyan was actually a gift from the city of Shanghai, because the two cities were paired in the “partnering scheme” that brought in many different parts of China to help with the Sichuan post-earthquake reconstruction in 2008. Forever plans to have around 5000 bikes in Dujiangyan and maybe 1000 in San Sheng Xiang and even more in the city proper later this year.

How it Works

If you want to rent one of the bikes, you have to register with one of Forever’s offices in San Sheng Xing or Dujiangyan. The office in San Sheng Xiang is tucked away deep in the Dong Li Ju Yuan section of Flower Town (028-84676466). Here you will have to present ID and 10RMB and with that ID you get a card. The card comes with 100 points and allows you to swipe on of the stands, unlocking a bike.

Each stand has an RFID chip that contains information concerning the bike (bike number, when it was rented, for how long, when it was returned, who rented it) and employs an ingenious locking mechanism that makes it very difficult for the bike to be stolen. When you want a bike, you swipe your card and the bike is yours to take. If you return the bike within one hour, you gain one point. If you return the bike between after 3 hours, you lose 10 points. If the bike is gone for more than 24 hours, you lose 100 points.

Best Bike for the Buck

The bikes are high quality aluminum with tube-less tires that help to prevent flats. The rentals also come with a hotline for those who have lost, broken or otherwise incapacitated their bikes (4008201898). If the bike breaks, Forever takes care of it. If it is stolen, you will have to pay 300RMB for the bike. It might be possible to talk your way out of the fee, but if it was stolen on your watch, while you were renting it, then you should take responsibility. Each stand has a map and several stands in one region will also include a GPS system that allows you to get out of sticky situations and locate the swimming pool you were looking for.

Forever put together a very slick website explaining the rental process, the fees, the concept, the design of the bikes and other features, check it out here. (Chinese language only)

What do you think: is this the kind of service you’d take advantage of if it were available to you?

If you didn’t know: Kunming is one of the major hubs of Western China, being another provincial capital along with Chengdu, and is for most visitors the gateway to sunny and beautiful Yunnan province. It’s quick and easy to get to, and Kunming has long been established on the Western China tourist trail for good reason. Yunnan Province is a unique region with a natural beauty that’s stunning and endearing. The many well-preserved local and minority traditions scattered around the Province are all easily accessible from Kunming. It’s not quite as easy to get there from Chengdu as Chongqing is, but there are several options which make this a relaxing trip for anyone who wants to enjoy all that Southwest China has to offer.

The Kunming Canal, one of the principle arteries into the city which connects with nearby lakes

How to Get There

When traveling to Kunming you have two choices: a 90 minute flight, or a 12 hour train. On my recent trip to Kunming to perform at Disco Death, a friend and I took a flight to Kunming and returned to by train. Both have their advantages and downsides and I’ll share what our experience on this recent trip, highlighting the changes that have occurred over the last few years.

Fly to Kunming

The quickest way to arrive in Kunming is to take a flight from Shangliu Airport (双流机场) in Chengdu to Kunming Airport – a trip that’ll take 90 minutes in the air, but about 4 hours of total travel time including taxi’s to and from airports, security checks, and so on. The cost of this flight varies greatly depending on a number of factors including season, day of the week, time of day, carrier, and when you book your flight. If you book in advance (I recommend booking online with Ctrip or eLong) you can find flights for under 500 yuan, but if you wait until the last minute you’ll be paying over 1,000. A taxi to downtown Kunming isn’t  expensive and will cost around 25 yuan, or you can take a bus for 10 yuan.

Take the Train to Kunming

The fastest train to Kunming currently takes about 12 hours, which is twice as fast as this particular trip used to take. Over that twelve hours, you’ll get an eyeful of Sichuan and Yunnan scenery, save some cash, and have the opportunity to make some new friends on the train. Booking a night train is probably the best option – you’ll board in the evening and can get a snack in the dining car (where the food is not bad and is reasonably priced) and arrive in the morning. The train operators begin to lull you to sleep at 9:30am with traditional Chinese “sleepytime” music before turning the lights off at 10pm. A hard sleeper ticket costs about 250 yuan and is quite comfortable. I’m almost six and a half feet tall but I sleep well and find that the rocking motion of the train along with the ambient noise puts me to sleep quickly. The train features air conditioning and the temperature is very agreeable, but the stench of cigarette smoke hangs in the air, especially the dining car where police officers chain smoke cigarettes late into the night. Bring a book or something to pass the time – on our trip we enjoyed a few games of Scrabble on iPod touch, handing the device back and forth to pass the late evening hours before going to sleep.

What to See in Kunming

Boats waiting for passengers, Cui Hu "Green Lake"

Once you’ve arrived in Kunming, there’s no shortage of local sights to check out, whether you’re interested in strolling around picturesque lakes (I recommend Cui Hu, a 400-year old park located in the NW of the city) or one of the city’s many Buddhist temples. Whether you arrive in the Kunming airport or the train station you’re not far away from a city guide which will have updated information on local destinations, and the internet will also yield whatever specific information you’re looking for. If you have time and interest, the Stone Forest (石林) two hours outside Kunming is a UNESCO site of incredible karst geography. Don’t forget your camera!

Kunming's Stone Forest is two hours outside of Kunming. Entry costs 140 yuan, or about $20 US.

Have any questions or comments about Kunming?

The remnants of that southern Taiping rebel army scattered to the hills and according to local legend, helped develop a martial arts culture that fused with and influenced the nearby Emei Mountain Gong Fu style. To this day, Hanyuan has a disproportionate number of traditional martial arts schools which help man the police forces and mafias of Sichuan Province. Hanyuan people drink hard, play hard and fight hard and for the past 10 years, they have been fighting a losing battle with the government’s plans to develop the region. The long struggle was renewed recently when farmers and migrant workers once again violently challenged the government’s re-location scheme last week.

Pubu Gorge Dam

The Pubu Gorge Dam is one of the nation’s bigger hydroelectric projects and upon completion will generate 3,300 megawatts of power annually and is key to the Sichuan Provincial government’s goal of 15,000 megawatts of total output from the Da Du River by 2020. In contrast, the Three Gorges Dam alone is expected to have an installed capacity of 18,200 megawatts. The Pubu Dam project is part of the central government’s 15-year plan to develop energy resources for the entire country under the “electricity from the West, money from the East” program, referring to the vastly untapped energy resources in China’s poorer Western regions and the wealthier and electricity starved benefactors along the eastern seaboard

The reservoir created by the dam will leave most of Hanyuan Town underneath a lake. The local government has a re-settlement plan for the locals who are affected by the Pubu Gorge Dam, but as with most such plans in China, corruption robs the re-settlement fund of the required cash and promises made by officials are never kept. The apartment buildings meant to house the farmers who have lost their land are shoddy and will not last more than a few years, according to Hanyuan residents. The money that was supposed to last until 2008 — when the Dam was scheduled to be completed — has run out and the Dam is far from completed.

In 2004, farmers rose up against the local government, surrounding the local Party office and demanding appropriate compensation for lands, homes and crops they lost when the government forced them to relocate. The stand-off in 2004 forced newly appointed CPC Boss Hu Jintao to send in the military to quell this most recent rebellion — this translation of an essay by He Qinglian is a good analysis of the political scene at the time. What exactly happened is unclear — foreign media were thrown out, domestic media were brought to heel and the locals adhere to a code of silence. According to some eyewitness reports that made it out of Hanyuan, the soldiers massacred the rebels and their leaders. Whatever the truth is, the protests in Hanyuan went silent and the central government temporarily halted construction on the Pubu Gorge Dam to wait for everything to blow over.

The relocation process was again delayed by the earthquake in 2008, but is rumbling back to life this week over the trampled bodies of locals fighting for their livelihoods.

The Most Difficult Highway in the World

The last leg of the trunk highway from Kunming to Beijing runs right passed Hanyuan. This part of the highway, called the Yalu Highway, is more than 50% bridges and tunnels including one tunnel more than 3 miles long — one of the longest in the world. The elevation of the bridges, the depth and length of the tunnels and the fact that more than half of the Yalu must be dug out of or span the peaks of western Sichuan makes it the most difficult highway in the world to design and build.

Just like with the dam, the highway also requires a mass relocation of poverty stricken locals. These people have been bullied, cheated and lied to by the government and have repeatedly sued and marched for justice. All to no avail; the Hanyuan authorities are as brutal as they are corrupt and after Hu Jintao ordered the military to quell riots in 2004, the government has the green light for violent dispersal of all rebels and protesters. The long-term plan is to use modernization, relocation, repression and a bit of wealth generation to stomp out the rebel streak. In the short-term, local crooked politicians and their allies pocket relocation money, construction money and anything else that isn’t tied down and then appeal to the Provincial and Central governments for more money and more resources to complete the relocation process and to quell any riots that ensue. Its a dirty business and towns like Hanyuan are fighing (and losing) this type of battle all across the nation.

For a glimpse of this town’s character, check out this video clip made by local B-Boys days after the 2008 earthquake ravaged parts of the town:

Why Go to Chongqing?

Chongqing has long been Chengdu’s sister city, albeit there’s a definite competitive air between Western China’s two economic powerhouses. While it bears a vague similarity to Chengdu, Chongqing has a style entirely its own. Hotpot restaurants adorn every nook and cranny of this hilly metropolis and rivers divide the half dozens sections into distinct parts. Unlike Chengdu, which features a concentric circle urban design with Tianfu Square at its center, Chongqing is a sprawling city which features an exploding population significantly higher than Chengdu’s. Few places in China feature the huge crowds, raw energy, and mysterious charm of Chongqing. You never know what’s hiding around the next corner.

Comfort & Speed

If you’re taking the trip to Chongqing, don’t bother with anything but the newer He Xie train. The trip takes just over two hours and the entirety of the trip is fast and smooth as you’d expect a bullet train to be (as I write this I’m on a clickity-clackity train going to Chengdu from Kunming. Seats are large and comfortable and in each car there’s a readout which displays current speed and indoor/outdoor temperature. It’s fun to see the landscape whizzing by as the train approaches its 250km/h top speed. I distinctly taking a 12 hour seated train from Chongqing to Chengdu in 2005 – how far China’s infrastructure has come in those five years.

Book in Advance

I’ve personally made this mistake recently, assuming that tickets were available until a day before I depart, to find that they’re in fact sold out. If you find yourself in this situation, your options are the bus (which departs from Wugui Qiao bus station in Chengdu) or a private car. I opted for the latter, paying 120 yuan to sit in the front seat of a Chinese sedan driven by a young man who pulled over to the side of the road to swap the license plates on the outside of the car twice. The Chinese couple that traveled with us agreed that he resembled a Chinese 007 as he camouflaged his car to appear as if it was registered to a Chongqing local. This was an effort to reduce attention from local police, although anyone who’s seen how Chinese drive will testify to the leniency of local traffic laws.

Buying Tickets

He Xie train ticket

As always, you can buy tickets at the North Train station (成都北站) from which the train departs, but this isn’t the best option since the lines are dreadfully long. On busy weekends you can see a queue of hundreds or even thousands, playing games on their cellphones (or just yelling into them) as they wait to get tickets. A better option is to go to one of the many train ticket offices around the city which show you a computer readout of all the tickets available, making the choice easy. One such office, where I always book my tickets, is across the street from the US Consulate on Lingshi Guan Lu (领事馆路) marked by a sign that says 火车票 – Train Tickets. You pay a meager fee for the convenience of saving an hour by going to the train station, but it’s worth it. If you aren’t in the south of Chengdu, you can go to one of the dozens of other locations which sell tickets, just ask a shop keeper or taxi driver where to buy them. Try this phrase: 哪里可以买火车票?

Have you taken the He Xie to Chongqing? If so, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Restoring the Region’s Infrastructure

National Highway 213, which connects Chengdu with many pillars of northern Sichuan tourism, was closed for much of the late spring and summer during the heart of Sichuan’s peak travel season. Nearly two years later, highway 213 is plagued with traffic jams as countless trucks ply the road carrying away earthquake debris and delivering new construction materials. Meanwhile, a new brand of “earthquake tourists” begin to stream into the region, further straining the regions’ precious resources. While tourism strongholds along 213 including the Wolong Panda Reserve, Songpan and Jiuzhaigou were negatively affected, a new route through Mianyang County which leads into eastern section of the Min Mountains will allow some formerly largely unknown destinations to receive newfound attention.

Celebrating the Legacy of Li Bai

Heading northeast out of Chengdu it’s a 3 hour drive along comfortable highways through Sichuan’s eastern plain until you can stretch your legs at the Li Bai memorial at Jiangyou. Li Bai is traditionally regarded as one of China’s two most famous poets along with Tang Dynasty counterpart Du Fu. In stark contrast to Du Fu’s writings of hardship and struggle for the peasant class though, Li Bai is known for his wild imagination and positive philosophies towards life. Once past Jiangyou, a familiar northern Sichuan scene re-emerges: steep roadsides lined with temperate forests give way to foggy and mysterious ridgelines above. Slithery mountain roads knife through the mountains alongside rushing waterways draining the surrounding peaks.

It’s two more hours of increasingly dramatic scenery to the small city of Pingwu, whose central urban area is crammed onto a thin slice of land surrounded by a sharp turn in the Fujiang River. Pingwu is home to a large Islamic Hui minority population, littering the town with lamb and beef specialty restaurants. The city’s main attraction is Bao’en Temple, a Buddhist shrine which dates back more than 500 years. The temple incredibly suffered minimal damage from the 2008 earthquake. Climbing up the stairs in the city park adjacent to the main road quickly offers great views of the city. Likely the most stunning aspect is the mini-city of pre-fabricated homes with plain blue roofs housing countless earthquake refugees along the riverside.

Hidden Gems in the Baima Region

Continuing northward from Pingwu the mountains seemingly shoot vertically upward directly along the roadside. The increasingly heightening scenery races through a narrow river gorge until an unmistakable fork in the road brings travelers to the entrance of the Tibetan Baima region, and the Wanglang Valley. The auspicious scene at the entrance just meters away from Highway 213 is oddly significant of the Baima people’s situation. A noticeably quiet, dusty row of stores selling colorful Baima clothing and jewelry is dwarfed by a modern gateway. The imposing stone gate is adorned with 4 large white feathers and a fantastic facial depiction with exaggerated features reminiscent of Mayan iconography or the Bayon at Angkor Wat. Peeking through the unusual, gaudy new entranceway shows coaxes you around a sneaky mountain pass, but clearly few make the trip.

Improved road conditions, the recent introduction of power lines, and tourism investment at the Wanglang Nature Reserve 60 kilometers beyond the gate encouraged local Baima villages to construct basic guesthouses and other modest facilities with a local Baima touch. However, the earthquake, and likely the region’s remote location along a far less known travel route, have not delivered the anticipated tourism return. A handful of miniature Baima settlements offer vibrantly painted wooden inns, local cuisine, and small Baima dress and song performances along the road between the main gate and the entrance to the Wanglang reserve.

Beating the Odds

The story of just how this miniscule Tibetan cultural subdivision, with an estimated population of 3,000, arrived at the far end of the Tibetan Plateau remains unclear. Both China’s minorities classification system and anthropologists believe they are descended from Tibetans due to language and subsistence similarities, but their unique architectural and decorative styles suggestotherwise.  The Baima practice an animist religion, unlike the majority of Tibetans who are Buddhist. As is evident at the gate, the Baima are most well known locally for a tradition of colorful clothing styles. Older women in particular tend to uphold the custom colorful dress, which often is complemented by a soft cap with a feather in it.

While tourists from around the world flock to Northern Sichuan’s legendary parks, Jiuzhaigou & Huanglong, Wanglang, which shares a border with both parks, remains virtually unknown by domestic and foreign tourists alike. The Wanglang Nature Reserve was founded by the Sichuan Forestry Bureau in 1963, and is likely as quiet and peaceful today as it was upon its creation 46 years ago. While the reserve doesn’t boast the array of massive waterfalls and crystal clear glacial lakes of the neighboring national parks, it offers a keen sense of serenity and impressive environmentally protective measures rarely seen elsewhere in China, such as anti-poaching patrols.

It is estimated that 30 of the less than 1,000 wild Giant Pandas in existence reside within the reserve, which ranges between 2,400 and 4,980 meters in elevation. While catching a glimpse of a Giant Panda is a rare and special experience, visitors who take their time exploring Wanglang’s trails still have a good opportunity to observe other unusual animal species including golden snub-nose monkeys, blue sheep, takin, musk deer, and a wide variety of bird species. Birdwatching is particularly highly regarded during the spring and fall migrations.

Other Regional Nature Reserves

Besides Wanglang, Pingwu County includes two other nature reserves, and the entire county is estimated to be home to 15% of the world’s giant panda population. Wanglang currently represents one of China’s finest eco-tourism destinations.  The reserve includes a comfortable lodge, hiking trails, picnic areas, and naturalists available to guide hikes.  The reserve has worked closely with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to promote environmental sustainability and education through activities, lectures and other resources at the lodge.  The WWF also helped to build two excellent nature trails at 2 different sites in the reserve. Visitors who walk these trails quickly see that the reserve is rarely visited. From the high northern reaches of the reserve it’s actually possible to make a tough 2 day trek into the backsides of either Huanglong or Jiuzhaigou.

Clearly tourism potential exists on the other side of the Minshan range.  As domestic tourism continues to boom across China, it’s only a matter of time until this section of northern Sichuan has its day. In the wake of the Wenchuan earthquake, lesser known destinations are certainly waiting for their due attention and admiration.

What do you think of travel about the Western Sichuan region?