Contents:
Sacred Trek
Mingyong Glacier
Alone in the Dark
Back to Kunming
Sacred Trek
We wake up early Tuesday morning after a night's sleep in the village of Failaishi. I eat a bowl of noodles with a fried egg on top, and then we hit the trail. The Tibetans believe that by hiking around the sacred mountain three times they can go to heaven or something like that. Anyway, just a single time around takes several days, and I don't have time for that. We spend the whole day hiking, first climbing all the way down from Feilaishi to the river far below.
We cross the river on a suspension bridge. Oddly enough, the bridge is covered with cows, calves, and a single small black pig, which is sleeping cuddled up close to one of the calves. The animals seem to like to sleep on the bridge; maybe it's less hot. On the other side Linn and I filter water from a stream and then pick some cactus fruit. We are not very experienced at this, so it is a painful process. We neglect to remove all of the small thorns from the fruit itself before cutting it open to eat, so I end up with tiny but obstinate prickly pear spines stuck in my lips and mouth.
After lunch we continue onward, now climbing quite steeply. Again I have a huge heavy pack, and no one else does, but they still tire faster than me. We pass some people pulling part of a huge tree down the trail, apparently that they had cut up in the forest above. We also pass a man and some boys eating nuts under a nut tree. They bash the nuts open with rocks, then pick out the nutmeat with their Tibetan knives.
For fun I try to catch a small goat, but it's hopeless. The goats are too fast, and their footing on the rocky slopes is incredibly sure. We keep climbing.
Mingyong Glacier
Finally we cross over the ridge and the trail is no longer so steep. We pick wild peaches from a tree by the trail. Around evening we arrive at Mingyong Glacier, supposedly the world's fastest moving, at a speed of 500 meters (1/3 mile) per year. I leave my pack behind and climb up to get a closer look at the Glacier, but it is larger and further away than it appears; by the time I get there it is getting dark. When I get back, everyone is already gone and my pack is missing.
I find a note, scrawled in Chinese characters, near where I had left my pack. I can't even read English handwriting, so reading this is pretty much hopeless. I can make out that is says something about a flight leaving from Kunming. A few minutes later Leah calls and says they've gone to a nearby village and have my pack.
I decide not to head to the village right away, but I tell Leah I'll head there and then hang up and plan my next move. There is boardwalk high up on the cliff face that leads to a lookout from which I should be able to get a better view of the glacier. I decide I can probably run up the trail to the boardwalk, run down the trail to the glacier and get there before it's too dark to see anything.
The path is much steeper and longer than it looks. Sustaining a run on this steep a hill at this elevation is hopeless. I settle for a brisk walk and finally reach the boardwalk after a long climb. The walkway is anchored high into the face of the cliff and affords a wonderful view of the valley below. Many trees overhang the walkway and in some places there are holes in the floor of the walkway to allow the trees to come up through.
The boardwalk is much longer than I expected, but it's also getting darker more slowly than I expected. Towards the end I must climb up dozens and dozen of steps, but I make it to the top in time to get some photographs of the glacier before total darkness sets in.
Alone in the Dark
Now I need to find my way back to civilization all by myself and at night. Furthermore, one of my flashlights has a burned-out bulb, and the other is out of batteries, so I have to walk in the dark. The path back is deep in the forest, and it is cloudy, so there is no moon or star light to guide me. After walking in the dark for two hours, I am relieved to finally arrive at tiny Mingyong village, which is apparently a famous pilgrimage site for Buddhists. Linn and Leah have already left the village to return to Deqin; they were in a hurry to leave because they need to catch a flight leaving from Kunming in a couple days. Linn's China travels are over; he needs to return to the US.
I enter an inn in the village and ask for something to eat; I'm starving. A large group of people has just finished eating, and there are piles of various delicious dishes left over; they let me gorge myself for free. They even provide me with a little whiskey, which is really strong, but which I force down out of politeness. I then get a room in the inn for the night. Before sleeping I send Xiujuan a text message from my phone, but as usual she doesn't respond. I miss her terribly. The sound of the river coming down from the melting glacier and passing by right outside the window is peaceful, but I don't sleep very well anyway.
Back to Kunming
I get up early the next morning and take the bus back to Feilaishi to retrieve my pack, which Linn took and deposited there after losing me at the Glacier. After getting my pack I pay the Feilaishi innkeeper and continue on the same bus on to Deqin and buy a ticket on a sleeper bus for Dali. While waiting for the bus, I walk around some and run into the army guy. We get a bunch of Yunnan grapes, the best grapes I've ever had. I also have some delicious mushroom Baozi and send some Yunnan postcards to friends in Shanghai and the US.
The bus leaves at 4:00 p.m. and arrives in Dali the next morning at around 9:00 a.m. Pretty much the entire trip is on winding dirt roads, which are extremely bumpy and slow; it's impossible to sleep. Sitting up in a sleeper bus like this is dangerous; you can bump your head when the bus hits big bumps. Even though the road is small and unpaved and it is the middle of the night, there is still constant traffic on the road, mostly big trucks.
Once in Dali I take the bus directly to the train station and line up to buy a ticket on the 10:10 a.m. train back to Kunming. I'm getting nervous because the train is leaving in ten minutes and the line is moving vey slowly, as usual. But, five minutes before the train leaves, they allow travelers who want a ticket on that train to come to the front of the line. I buy a ticket just in time to run and board the train. While on the train I use text messaging to arrange with a Hangzhou friend to meet me in Hangzhou over the weekend.
I get to Kunming around 4:00 in the afternoon, but the train to Shanghai, which passes through Hangzhou, has just left, so I have to wait in Kunming for 24 hours. I busy myself making preparations for the 40-hour train trip, sending email, and buying a few gifts to give to friends and family in the US.
