Leapfrog

Qingdao

I was greeted in Qingdao by a smiling, familiar face. What a new luxury! I immediately asked to take a shower, travel from Kathmandu to China does not make you feel clean, which I did after quickly dropping my stuff in Rui Rui’s room. I was then whisked off to a “hot pot” place. I had never heard of this phenomena, but it turned out to be fun and delicious. A pot of boiling broth is brought to your table and put on the built in electric burner. Then all the delicious ingredients you ordered (for me, fish, tofu, mushrooms, greens, potatoes, and then finally some noodles) are brought to you and you can plop them in the boiling broth, watch them cook and then fish them out and stick them directly in your face. It’s great. We all ate way too much.

We spent the afternoon at the police station, registering me–I wasn’t staying in a hotel but with a family, so the process is a little more complicated. There were many documents involved, and a trip back to the house to pick up something that was missing.

We then explored a night market, a fascinating and overwhelming place lit up with fluorescent and neon lights where it truly looked like you could buy anything. It was chaotic and bewildering and I clutched the lemonade-like drink I had been given tightly and followed Rui Rui’s family as we explored one of the many crowded alleys created by the stands.

We finished up the day at a seafood restaurant, actually in the mall, which seems to be the center of Chinese life, but we were all still too full to really eat much and went home with a baggie of clams.

The next day we explored the lovely mountainous area around Qingdao, notably Laoshan Mountain. We started out at a very cool mountain ski lift-like experience. Just 15 minutes of floating through the pretty mountains, hanging out with an old friend, in the cool air. It was lovely. We then spent some time at a tea house with an amazing view of a mountain-side village, shrouded in mysterious mist. We sat enjoying the view while a tiny Chinese lady performed an intricate tea ceremony, with much tossing of tea back and forth between little glass cups and drenching of the little wooden platform. The tea was accompanied by a little platter of various dried seafoods which I was not-so-gently encouraged to try. There were miniature shrimp and dried cuttlefish and chunks of what looked like herring and other unidentifiable bits-and-bobs. Tasty!

The highlight of the day was the visit to the GIANT, Taoist, Temple of Supreme Purity, supposedly the place where a Taoist leader put his hand through a wall. It is a lovely place, with a giant bronze figure, reaching high into the sky, elegant buildings with intricate and colorful decorations, and thousand-year old trees. The place was beautiful, but there were so. Many. Stairs. I was still not over the stairs from Nepal, and my knee was in a lot of pain. It was worth it though!

We finished up the day by going to a Chinese movie, the theater was in the mall, of course, because everything, including the grocery store, is in the mall. It was an interesting movie, full of insights into Chinese values and surprisingly good american accents.

Beijing

We arrived in Beijing tired but excited to start on our new adventure! We caught the airport shuttle to the neighborhood we would be staying in and promptly realized we didn’t know how to get from the shuttle stop to our hotel. This prompted a march to a nearby bank where my friend had a conversation with the lady I didn’t understand but was informed the result of which was that we should go “That way.” So off we went, and we found the hotel without too much difficulty. That afternoon we headed directly to The Forbidden City, which was spectacular, but I became overheated and a little grumpy very quickly. We still had fun, especially when we took a break to crack jokes about comedic dragons and malfunctioning audio guides.

Day 2 was all about the zoo and the aquarium, again a mixed experience, as the exhibits didn’t seem particularly kind to the animals, especially the small mammals. Nevertheless we had a nice encounter with the elephants and a relaxing duck-viewing session. The real highlight was the aquarium, with its giant shark-filled tanks and screeching belugas. I love aquariums, and Beijing’s was no exception. I was unfamiliar with many of the fantastical fishies, some of which seemed more like children’s drawings than logical creatures.

The next day we headed to The National Museum, which was a China-sized behemoth. We focused in on our interests, going through the Ancient China, Calligraphy, Ink Painting, and Porcelain galleries. It was a long morning filled with informational exhibits and indignant puffs hiding suppressed laughter from my friend at my inappropriate jokes.

We met up with a mutual friend from the U.S. for a very late lunch, which was nice, as I haven’t really seen anyone from home. We all ended up going to the mall together afterwards because we needed some supplies for the trip. After dropping our friend off at his hotel we headed back to ours, totally wiped out.

This picture is a quick glimpse into an odd Chinese ritual. There are several couples all taking their wedding pictures at this lake (in Hangzhou) but these picture taking sessions happened all over the country in some truly baffling locations. The really odd part is that these couples aren’t even married yet, these are pre-marriage photos, and that the dresses, suits, and accessories all rented out just for the photo taking event. The shear number of these posed couples scattered throughout the country at the acceptable “photogenic” spots is incredible. The phenomenon led to one of my most fun, but least proud moments in Hangzhou. We were on a little boat for hire on the lake and I decided the most productive way to spend our time was to drive over to the place where all the couples were taking photos and try to ruin them with a tourist boat right behind the couples. This idea tickled me so much that I incapacitated my self with laughter. Tears were streaming out of my eyes and I could not breath. It was amazing.

It was worth it. So worth it.

That was my immediate reaction to seeing the view at Annapurna Base Camp, the destination of my Nepal trek.

The night before we would reach base camp was the first of the trip I felt the need to set an alarm. 4:30am, since we planning on having breakfast at 5. That whole morning was blurry, an internal sensation doubled by the thick pure white clouds rising up through the valley that we would hike to base camp. We started early, on the trail by 5:40, hoping to get to ABC by 7, our usual start time. The hike was, of course, uphill, the name of the game in the Himalayas, and as we were approaching an altitude of 4100 meters, I could feel the thinness of the air in the shortness of my breath.

The hike started with a treacherous ice slip and slide courtesy of last year’s avalanche and then continued into steeper and steeper inclines that I had to force my body up. Eventually it leveled out a bit and I was able to step outside the constant count in my head I use to keep moving forward when the going gets tough and really look at the magical landscape that surrounded me. The grass was lush and green, cut through by whispering streams that seem to laugh at hapless trekkers. It is spring, and the small mountain wildflowers are in full bloom, many of them seem like familiar miniatures, like the dwarf poppy, but some of them are completely new to me, like the spherical conglomerations of blue flowers that dominate the lower areas.

The thick white cloud followed us up the trail and then gently dissipated into thick mist lining the the rising natural walls surrounding the valley we were still hiking up.

I caught a glimpse of rooftops ahead and then in the distance I spotted a sign. It had to be base camp. We got closer and closer until the lettering was clear enough make out- “Annapurna Base Camp.” I had made it! That moment was one of complete triumph for me, there were a couple of moments on the trek up where I hadn’t been sure if I was going to make it. We took lots of pictures and then kept going up, to the actual camp, not just the sign, and the viewpoint just behind the little settlement.

It was unbelievably spectacular.

The sun pushed through the clouds, clearing the white barrier, but not completely, so the mountains were still demurely and beautifully shrouded in mist. Annapurna rose up in front of us, flanked by an entire range of the Himalayan mountains. You could stand in one spot and spin around, seeing a giant towering above you the entire time. We were surrounded. Each peak was still shrouded in mist, with glowing white caps and dramatic black crags standing out against the blue sky.

It is worth noting that all three of the guys have and are still wearing their down jackets on top of several layers while I stayed comfortably in my t-shirt. It was this hike, and that moment, that the guys started to understand that I had not been exaggerating the extreme effect the heat and the sun had on me.

That was only the early morning of our day, we hiked all the way down to Bamboo, one village farther down than we had hiked up from the day before, and we got there at 3, just an hour past our typical stop time, after our extra early start. I was very proud, and very happy, since the hike, for the first time, had been completely down hill!

I wake up at 5am, not from an alarm, but simply because I go to sleep by 8:30 or 9. I spend the morning repacking my backpack, a task that becomes more and more automatic, and then reading or listening to music before breakfast, which is always at 6:30. Breakfast is a quiet meal, eggs and toast eaten over sipped tea and gentle “How did you sleep?”s.

By 7:15 we’re on the trail, for me, the first 30 minutes are incredibly uncomfortable as I work and stretch my legs which without fail stiffen and lock up each night. Giri, our porter runs lifts up our bags without any visible effort and pulls the strap attached to them down over his forehead while Santosh, our guide, leads the way, walking slow and steady in preparation for the many hours ahead. The terrain varies, except that it also, invariably, goes up. There may be sections that roll gently downhill, or stairs to hop down, but every step down will be matched and then outmatched by the steps up. We are going to a Himalayan base camp, after all. We go for three hours, sometimes more, and depending on how I’m doing, we may or may not take breaks more than once an hour. We usually take breaks.

Around 11 we stop for lunch, which is quite an affair as all food has to be prepared from scratch once you order, so lunch stops are usually an hour and a half or so. Timing is not so exact in the mountains. The afternoon march is usually shorter, and we often reach our next guesthouse around 2. By then I am totally spent, and if the day was particularly hard, a quick nap is a necessity. If not, I’ll take a shower, read a but, listen to some music, or just sit quietly and watch as the view is overtaken by storm clouds. Rain is a certainty in the afternoons, with thunderclaps louder than anything I’ve ever heard. But we never got caught in the rain.

We all come back together for dinner around 6, with Giri and Santosh having their second bowls of Dal Bhat, the national lentil dish, and Florian and I eating whatever appeals on the surprisingly extensive menus. After dinner we sit together until dark and then go our separate ways, sure to get plenty of sleep before the next tough day. The guesthouses aren’t luxury accommodation, power is limited to a single bulb in each room, and I don’t recall ever sleeping on sheets that were stain free, but they are better than camping and are usually pretty clean. It is important to prepare for bed quickly, so the bugs have minimal time to find your light and invade your sleeping space.

Every day on the trail is different but there are some sights that remain consistent. The tried nods and “Namaste”s from fellow hikers, young local boys running up and down the difficult trails with large roughly woven baskets strapped to their foreheads, herds of mules with clanging bells around their necks as a warning that a force capable of pushing you off the trail is coming towards you. Of course, it is also always beautiful. The natural wealth of Nepal is unbelievable.

Nepal greeted me with taxi drivers shouting at me, all trying to get my business, but they didn’t know that I had a secret weapon- a preplanned pickup. I found the sign with my name on it and a man I didn’t know yet but would soon be spending hours with each day, my guide, placed a necklace of bright orange marigolds around my neck. “Welcome to Nepal!” We drove to my hotel where I was dropped off to spend the rest of my day napping and catching up on news with my exciting middle-speed internet. I met the man I would be trekking with, a German political science professor at the University of Idaho, and was given a brief orientation before we all headed out for our welcome dinner.

The next day we took a seven hour bus ride to Pokhara, Nepal’s second largest town, before starting the trek on my third day in the country.

My goal was to get to Annapurna Base Camp. After the first and second days, climbing hours of stairs in the intense sun, I amended that goal to getting to Base Camp without passing out, a distinct possibility for me after keeling over for no reason in Belize early this year.

The heat didn’t make the landscape any less beautiful, with its rolling green terraced mountains and the little villages made of stone dotted throughout, but it did make the hiking more difficult. I really struggled the second day, when the trail was covered in manure from the donkeys and cows and the sun beat down without mercy- there was no cover. But I persevered, and the next day was much gentler, still mostly uphill, but in the forest, where the terrain felt familiar and my lungs didn’t feel like they were about to collapse.

The landscape shifted over the week I spent climbing up and down the mountains, starting with those dappled hills, slowly morphing into the tall snowy Himalayas and then back again. Some of the views made me ache with the foreign foreboding nature of them standoffish places covered in mist and scrub, while the waterfalls were overwhelming with their great height and ferocious roaring, which was often the only sound echoing through the large valleys, drowning out the little mountain birds. The beauty of that place seems angry, untamed, wild in the purest and truest sense. That is terrifying, which pulls youin, exciting you with its mystery and relatively safe danger.We crossed through sections of the mountain totally swathed in mist, like the clouds were resting on the earth, giving the land the ethereal, cinematic quality that fantasy films are so good at evoking.

The mountains aren’t the only source of natural beauty along the trail, although they do dominate the minds of every trekker. We passed through dense forests, walking on trails that were only pretending to be trails, but were really streams, under a canopy of bright green leaves so thick you couldn’t see the sky. The forest here isn’t quite the deciduous forests of home or the lush tropics, but somewhere interestingly in between, with dropped leaves on the ground, rubbery plants hanging from the sides of cliffs and brightly colored and fantastically designed insects buzzing all around.

This is a water rich country, with streams trickling across the trail every few feet and a mighty waterfall with a rickety wooden bridge to be crossed seemingly at every turn. There are different types of waterfalls too, not just the ones that angrily hurl themselves off the sides of the mountains racing towards the ground and stampeding through the valley, but also the long thin model-looking falls who tumble off the edge of cliffs gracefully as if to saygoodbye to the earth and hello to the heavens. There are miniatures, hiding in the cracks of rocks, peaking out at the passing hikers like kittens hiding behind their mama and the rocky falls which are slower, but just as noisy as the water bounces from boulder to boulder, somewhere in between waterfall and river.

On Monday instead of heading to the school like I would have, Caitlin and I were informed that we would be going paragliding, which we previously thought would be on Tuesday afternoon. Right after breakfast we got in the car sent for us and started to drive up.

We eventually came to a little town where we were transferred to a sturdier vehicle and again we headed off, up the mountain we would later be flying down. The windy mountain roads sharp turns and lack of a guard rail in many places occasionally made Caitlin and i turn to each other, wide eyed in both fear and incredulity.

Soon (ish) the ride was over and we had reached the top of the mountain where we could already see other people running off the edge and being lifted up by the giant colorful sails soaring above them.

In no time at all it was our turn. I went first, getting strapped into the backpack-seat combination device and then being told to “Run! Run!” Run I did, and in seconds we were airborne.

It was absolutely spectacular. We rose up, feeling the strong pull of the wind and the sail, and I watched as the ground got further and further away, and the air got chillier and chillier. As we twisted around the top of one of the small mountains in the area and eagled soared up to meet us, its wings catching the same air current we were using. I was happy to share.

I didn’t simply feel “like” I was flying, I was flying in a way that seemed totally real. The cool air brushed through my fingers, through my hair. We swung back and forth at the will of the wind, swaying and sometimes aggressively tilting. It’s sort of like being on a boat in the ocean, and yet completely different.

Then my pilot said something unexpected. “Acrobatics now, yes?” I said yes, of course, I wasn’t going to have gone paragliding in the foothills of the Himalayas and not opt for the acrobatics! So we began, at first with some sharp turns and twists that eventually led to a full on corkscrew. It was dizzying, and I could feel the force of it pushing back the skin on my face.

These movements added life to the already beautiful landscape, specifically reminding me of Van Gogh, a man whose work also feels alive.

And then, 20 minutes from the first leap, I was back on the ground, with shaking legs that had somehow already forgotten what solid felt like. We also visited a Tibetan Monastic School/ Temple, and a Hindu Temple, but neither really held up to the experience of the first flight.