5th August, 2002: Shangri-La - Zhongdian, China
Well, it still feels a little strange but I am in China! I wasn't really sure what to expect; you don't see many tourist images from inside China. Coming from Laos, it seems like the land of milk and honey! Paved roads, more than one bus a day, wow. Had a harsh introduction into the size of the country though. A bus between Mengla and Kunming (in the same province, and an inch apart on the map) took 24 hours in a fast bus. Well it is the world's third largest country after all. The bus had no seats, just bunk beds. Needless to say they were all about 6 inches too small for me as they were designed for chinese people!

Kunming was modern, ostensibly quite wealthy, and fairly attractive. I was expecting dreary communist architecture, empty shops, beggars, crap public services, but the reality was very different: shiny buildings, pedestrian areas, big shopping centres, good public transport. It was a bit like how I imagine a large Japanese city, but with about ten times less people and ten times as many bikes.

The people are a bit strange though; not being rude, but they spit ALL the time. I'm not just talking the odd 'pht', I mean big 30 second hawking sessions followed by a high-powered projectile launch. No-one is immune; in fact old ladies seem to be the worst perpetrators. Also one third of the world's cigarettes are smoked here in China; bus rides require gas masks.

My mandarin is so far pretty limited - numbers, hello, thankyou etc - but I do know how to say: "I don't eat dog", an important phrase as we discovered; when wandering round the market, we found a skinned dog hanging up! Weird language though - no words for yes, no or please.

The food is absolutely fantastic. If the restaurant doesn't have an English menu, and you don't have your phrasebook on you, you are invited into the kitchen to point to the ingredients you want! This point-and-eat approach works fine as long as you know what you are looking at: chickens' feet are pretty easy to recognise and avoid, but the dubious lumps of meat have turned me into a raving herbivore.

I came across the following phrase (from a Chinese regional tourism brochure) the other day which I thought was an amusing summary of China conservation policy:

The giant salamander (grade 1 endangered species) is of great scientific interest and is used for scientific experiments as well as entertainment in the zoo.

I visited Dali, which is an old walled town with fantastic amounts of traditional chinese buildings. Unfortunately there are also huge amounts of tourists (mostly chinese) which does take away from the atmosphere somewhat... But I managed to getaway from the tourists by taking a couple of days to bike off into the countryside. It was great; pottering around markets, cycling through minority villages, and beautiful views of the lake. Lijiang was even better; windy cobbled streets and lots of canals. There was a torch festival on, which meant lots of people wandering around after dark with flaming torches, bonfires in the street, and unfortunately huge numbers of chinese tourists. Taking off to the countryside my Dutch cycling companion and I visited some little villages and monasteries. Patrick soon got himself involved with local football matches and pool-sharking chinese. Bizarrely, we also came across the local croquet club; lots of old men taking it very seriously. We managed to find "the famous Dr. Ho", he of the herbal tea which Bruce Chatwin raved about. I agree with John Cleese; "Interesting bloke, crap tea".

Without wishing to lower the tone too much, I really do have to tell you about the loos in China. A bare room with a rectangular slit in the concrete floor is about all you can expect; squat down and get on with it. However public conveniences are even better. After a lot of thought the Chinese came up with a fiendishly cunning design which any architect would be proud of: several parallel concrete troughs in the floor. No messing around with cubicles or privacy or anything silly like that. I suppose this way it's more conducive to having in-depth political discussions with your fellow crapper. Being able to comment on the state of the others bowels, the prodigious maggot population at your feet etc helps to break the ice, too.

Am in the town which claims to be the inspiration for Shangri-La in James Hilton's 1933 book "Lost Horizon". We are at 3550m altitude, 30km from Tibet, and about to go trekking on a glacier. Bring it on.



Matt

PS Did you know that in the 20th century over 170 million people were killed by their own governments?