6660 Steps to Heaven

Tai Shan, the holiest of holy Tao mountains lies between Shanghai and Beijing. To climb one must ascend a giant staircase, all 6660 steps. We have climbed mountains in the Himalayas, but this mountain seemed a tougher challenge. Perhaps it was the heat, or the pollution.

As the only westerners on the track amid crowds of Chinese we recieved many stares. A few people came up and began chatting away in Mandarin to us, oblivious to the fact we didn't have a clue as to what they were saying.


Travels So Where Is Tai Shan?

The mountain was straight from a classic Chinese landscape scroll, a graceful assembalage of limestone boulders and fir trees, shrouded in mist. Except that mist was actually photochemical smog. The view was obscured in an orangey white haze.

We had arrived by sleeper train that morning, a comfortable ride. We left by seat train that night, an sleepless and exhausting experience. The train pulled into Beijing Railway station at 5am the next morning. We checked into a nice room and slept the rest of the day.

Shanghaied

Shanghai has been an unexpected delight, despite never intending on visiting it until a week ago when we were denied entry to Tibet. The Shanghai skyline is my favourite part, especially at night. Across the river the futuristic buildings illuminate, advertisements scrolling across their LED embedded facades. On the opposite bank the future is faced by buildings from Shanghais past as a quasi-colonial outpost of various European powers. Contemporary Chinese architecture is met by the classical European. Huge crowds line the boulevard, eager to have their picture taken with the pretty lights.

My favourite building is the Shanghai World Financial Centre. At almost 500m it is the tallest building in continental Asia. Wanting to avoid the outrageous fee for the observation deck on floor 101, we instead snuck into the 87th floor bar of the Grand Hyatt. In the lift up our ears popped. Our time on the 87th floor was limited to a few minutes, and we couldn't get near the windows without waiters coming at us with uber expensive menus, but it was a fun experience none the less. Next door they are building a skyscraper that will be even taller.

Shanghai has some wonderfully parks and gardens, beautifully landscaped according to Chinese tradition. We have spent the past few lunchtimes in a park or garden with some street noodles. The food in China has been a bit of a challenge; they try to put pork in just about everything.

Shanghai is a commercial capitol, the streets are lined with high end fashion labels and the streets buzz with shoppers. In an officially communist country, shanghai oozes with capitalism. The China of today seems so far removed from it's turbulent day's under Mao. I sometimes look old faces in the street and wonder what it must be like to have lived through the cultural revolution, the famines, and end up here, beneath the billboards for diamonds, near the crowded Apple store full of fashionable young Chinese. How their country has changed (and yet the government remains the same).

Slick bullet trains now cross a country that just half a century ago was instructing peasants to smelt steel in backyard furnaces. I wish we could afford to ride on those bullet trains, they are so shiny and fast.

To Civilisation, Old and New

The flight from Kathmandu to Xian, China transported us between radically different worlds. One day it was a taxi ride through the chaos of dark and narrow lane ways on a street, more pot hole than road to the dingy little airport. The next it was a plush coach down an immaculate new highway from a huge shiny airport. Being so used to the aged , crumbling or non existent infrastructure of India and Nepal, arriving in China was somewhat of a shock. The streets were so clean!

China's development however isn't all shiny and wonderful. There was the endless sea of drab, depressing apartment blocks and the coal power plants and factories belching pollution into the atmosphere. Then there was the apartment development going up around the coal fired power plant. Yes they were building apartments within meters of the thing. With urban planning like that no wonder cancer is the leading cause of death.

The modern metropolis of Xian is located on what was once the Capitol of the Chinese Empire. We had come here to see one of it's greatest relics: The Army of Terracotta warriors. And they were an impressive sight, once we had dodged the tourist trap village of trinket hawkers. Rows upon rows of life sized warriors, standing ready for battle. Each one a unique work of art, detailed down to the pattern on the soles of their shoes. They are an intriguing and beautiful sight, a monument to the god like status of China's first emperor. Such a huge investment of resources to ensure one man's safe passage into the afterlife. Yet it has left us with an awe inspiring sight.

No photos for a few weeks, the great Fire Wall of China restricts access to such things.

UPDATE: (Unless you use a proxy (: ) 

CCP Says No

The downside to organising a trip to a country under occupation by a foreign, authoritarian one party state is that that state from time to time changes it's mind on wether it wants foreigners visiting it's controversially held territory.

People travel to Tibet all the time. The only way in is a tightly controlled tour, but we were willing to take it to see this mysterious and beautiful land beyond the mountains. We booked months ago and were all set to go when last week, the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) decided it would shake things up a little and rewrite the entry requirements. Apparantly they do this periodically every so often, or whenever there are signs of decent within Tibet. The new rules stated that to enter, four people with passports of the same country of issuing must travel together in and out of China. Unless Emme and I multiplied this wasn't going to happen.

Our tour cancelled and with no way of entering Tibet our plans were now in upheaval. It was stressful, but we scrambled together a new plan of action and rushed to get last minute tickets and visas. Tonight we fly to Xi'an.

And not a minute too soon either. In Kathmandu a political storm of it's own is brewing. At midnight tonight the deadline for an agreement on the New constitution is due. And with the parties currently in political deadlock, it's likely Kathmandu will be plunged into yet another round of strikes and protests and confusion over just who is running the country after the Constituent Asemmblies's mandate runs out. Thankfully we leave 45 minutes before this happens.

Off to a nice, stable one party state where power has been in the same hands for over 60 years. No protests will stop our busses or planes in China. In China, they have a way of 'dealing' with such inconvenient voices of opinion.

Here are some photos of our time in Kathmandu.

Prayer Wheels

Pigeons in Durbar Square 

Emme Relaxes in The Garden of Dreams 

Mountain Flight

Everest Trek Day: 22

With Gathering speed the tiny 14 seater plane hurtled down the hill towards the cliff. With just meters to go we took flight from the worlds shortest runway and what I'm sure is the only one on a hill. The plane banked left, flying down the valley we walked up two weeks ago. I could see the trail out my window, not far below us, but at eye level. The mountains reached up arround us. It was so strange to look out of the plane window and see land up above us. The high Himalayas were glistening with snow and ice in the early morning light.

Lukla Airport 

The trip down took far less time. In one day (a long day) we walked down the equivalent of five days up. With every step more oxygen filled our lungs. It was great to get down from high altitude. We spent two days in Namche Bazaar, enjoying not walking, before the final push to Lukla. After a relatively incident free three weeks on the last day I managed to fall through a suspension bridge. In stepping to the side to let two people pass, my left leg slipped through a small gap where the steel walkway meets the wire mesh of the side. I caused a kerfuffel with my leg dangling off the side. I was soon free and escaped with only a small graze. And I thought suspension walkways dangled over raging mountain rivers were completely safe.

But we were leaving such adventures behind. Soon the scars of roads were appearing upon the landscape. Back to civilisation. That's when I noticed a pair of doleful eyes peering from the backpack of the woman in front of me. She was carrying a puppy. Apparently it had been brought to her as she was working in a medical clinic after being found half frozen in the ice. The lucky puppy was lucky enough to be heading to a new life in America.

The sprawling mess of Kathmandu came into view in less than 20minutes. Touchdown. Back to the smog, the chaos and hubbub of Nepal's unrelentingly ugly capitol. An amazing three weeks in the mountains, definitely one of the greatest experiences of this year.

The Highest Day

Everest Trek Day: 17

We made it! After two weeks of trekking through the Himalayas we finally reached our goal, 5364m above sea level, a little camp of yellow tents.

The walk from Gorak Shep took us over a steep and rocky moraine, mounds of rubble thrown up by the moving glacier. At every bend our goal moved into sight, a field of little yellow dots on the edge of a perilous looking ice flow. High above us Everest could be seen, peaking from behind other peaks. As we descended from the ridge it disappeared from view, you can't see Mount Everest from Everest Base Camp. A short meander through melting ice fields and we were there, in the town of Mountaineers, perched atop a glacier.

Two weeks of exertion, determination and endurance had led to this moment. It was a great feeling, knowing we had arrived at this place on our own two feet, unguided and unassisted, carrying all our needs in the packs on our backs. We had survived hail storms, impossible slopes, snakes, squat toilets, the cold and the altitude. What an adventure it has been. As the group tours rolled in with their guides (each had a western and two Nepali guides) and their dedicated yak teams carrying all their needs, I felt proud that we had gone it alone. In fact relatively few people we met were unassisted, and even fewer came all the way from Jiri.

We spent arround half an hour at Base Camp, taking photos and reflecting on how far we had come. We didn't want to stay up here two long, I had already suffered a violent altitude attack the day before. On the walk up to Gorak Shep I felt fine, we found a nice lodge and sat down to order a plate of momos. 20 minutes later I was hunched over a toilet, my head spinning, groaning for Diamox (a drug that assists acclimatisation.) Despite our very cautious acclimatisation plan, my body just did not appreciate being starved of oxygen at 5000m. I spent the rest of the afternoon in bed, as did half the people in our lodge.

Everest (Center)

We left EBC, feeling slightly dizzy and so descended to below 5000m that night. The extra oxygen provided instant relief, and it's all downhill from here.

Ascent to Everest Base Camp

Everest Trek Day: 15

From Namche our strategy changed. altitude gain, now the primary concern, constrained the distance we could travel each day. Whereas prior to Namche we were walking 7-9 hours a day, now we were down to leisurely strolls rof about two hours. At first this new speed laboriously slow, but as the air thinned even small slopes left us breathless.

The walk from Namche

With every passing day the scenery became more dramatic as high snowy peaks closed in around us. Unlike the punishing trail from Jiri, the route from Namche gently climbed up the Khumbu valley, following the icy blue river that flowed down from the Khumbu glacier at Everest. The forests thinned, giving way to stunted alpine shrubbery and then to open tundra. Instead of donkeys we were now passed by caravans of yaks. Everywhere colourful prayer flags fluttered in the wind. The trail, winding past sacred rock carvings and cairns of religiously piled stones. Every now and then we would pass a Sherpa carrying a massive load on their back, a cabinet perhaps, wooden beams, gas bottles, fuel. An amazing feat of strength but a telling sign of the state of Nepal's economy. There must be few places in the world where using humans for transportation is still cheaper than animal labour.

Prayer Flags Flutter in the wind

 

It's hard to describe the Himalayas. In Australia we have only hills, gently sculpted by the millennia. Here the mountains thrust into the sky as pointed, jagged walls of snowy rock. They were so close and yet so high above us. Here the forces of nature oppose to carve a dramatic landscape. Tectonic plates push upwards and ice grinds downwards. Every now and then we would spot Everest, there in the distance, an unassuming peak really. It's easy to see why it was not known to be the highest for so long, as it is surrounded by many other seemingly higher (perspective wise) and more dramatic mountains.

As I mentioned, altitude was the enemy. Taking it slow minimised the symptoms of oxygen deprivation to a few minor headaches. The human body has to pull off a feat of adjustment to survive up here. Part of acclimatisation involves the body expelling excess carbon dioxide (building up due to the lack of oxygen) as bicarbonate ions in urine. This leads to an increase in urination, and I mean litres and litres every day. I felt my kidneys pulled off quite a hydrological feat. Then there were the wild and vivid dreams, often dark and nightmarish. All part of normal acclimatisation. At our highest point the atmosphere was only 50% the pressure of sea level.
 
As before we stayed each night, and now some of our days in lodges. Most were nice, with warm dining rooms. One was cold and smelt of urine. After a mornings trek we could spend the afternoon reading, eating, writing, playing cards or wandering about the mountains. It was such a contrast to the first week in which days consisted of walk, eat, bed. As we climbed so did the prices. It was something of a shock for someone who is accustomed to spending $2 on his dinner. $5 shower anyone? I can imagine I smell quite bad.