After staying in Beijing, it was time to go to Shanghai. I needed a quick stopover because it was just too far in one shot. So I decided to take the train to Shanghai and stop halfway at Taishan for a day to break up the trip and climb a mountain. Supposedly it was famous so I said why not. The train pulls into the city at 10pm and I again have no where to stay and it is late and I am tired. I started to walk around the city to look for a hotel but I couldn't find anything reasonable. Something was strange though. There were so many chinese tourists walking somewhere. I eventually followed them to see what all the excitement was about. As it turns out, they are all climbing the mountain to reach it by sunrise. What a crazy idea.

I later found out it is the thing to do. So having no luck with hotels, I decided I had better join them. And maybe because of the dark I could avoid any stupid entry fees. Of course the first obstacle was to find if the mountain had a wall around it. Of course it did. And the second.. yep, it has a paved path and road all the way up so high heel Chinese tourists could get up. Arrrrgg. Somethings never change. Anyway, I scampered up the mountain and made it to the top by about 4:30 am. I relaxed a little and watched the sunrise. Nothing special. It sure drew a crowd though. Everyone was cheering so I guess it was worth it. -steve

I of course had to see the great wall before leaving China and this was my chance (staying with my buddy in Beijing). I was advised to go to some re-made part of the wall bla bla bla. I read on the internet there was a place called the Wild Wall where you could get into for free and hike on the old wall (not rebuilt). So I went there instead. This part of the wall was awesome. It was dangerous in many parts but the best thing of all were these chinese men who set up camp in the towers and try to charge you a toll to cross. Haha like they built the wall or something.

I come to this one tower and another group is having a rough time with this one toll booth guy because he is throwing rocks at them for not paying. He had a good setup. If he didn't pay, he wouldn't let people use his ladder to get past a certain part. I just took off and ran through the people, lunging for the place where you need a ladder. I hoisted myself up and our little asian toll booth guy was all peeved because I got up without his ladder. I scurried away as he threw a couple rocks my direction. Another time I pretended to get out my wallet and then just took off down the path. This time it was a lady trying to make some money. She ran after me screaming for a bit but I finally got far enough away and she turned back. I met up with this guy from England about that time. He was walking back so he could get home before dark. I told him I had a tent and if he was interested, he could stay in it with me. He thought that was a great idea so we kept walking until sunset.

When it got dark, we set up the tent and watched the sunset over the great wall. It would have been better with a girl but what can you do? That night the temperature dropped drastically. We didn't get any sleep because we were too busy making fires. I dosed off once or twice but woke up when I couldn't feel my limbs anymore. After that night I was done with camping. I packed up the tent and left it on the wall (Go use it if you want). We kept walking along the wall until we ran out of food and water. A couple of days later, I came back and continued walking by myself until I came to a rebuilt section. I checked that out for a bit and then walked out through the entrance toll booth!! Woohoo. I guess they can't keep you off the whole wall. Although I wouldn't put it past them to build a 15000 kilometer wall around the great wall and then charge admission.

Kevin and I had enough of Xiahe. Been there done that.. Way too many tourists. The first thing to ruin our day was that there was a stupid Gansu foreigner insurance fee that we were supposed to pay. Of course that was too silly. I mean, like the drivers in China are going to drive anymore safely when there is a stupid insurance fee. And besides it was 40 RMB and we were trying to get out of Gansu. So we did what we always did in transportation conflicts - start walkin'. And 5 minutes later along the main path one of the drivers picked us up. He asked for our Gansu travel insurance and we played dumb and got around it. We paid him money to take us all the way to Lanzhou and off we went. Now the real fun all started in a town called LinXia. The bus pulls into a bus station and everyone gets off.

We just sit there and finally the bus driver realizes we need help. He takes us over to another bus and tells us (or so I deciphered) that we were transferring to another bus. We jumped on the bus and everything is cool. We are on our way again. 5 minutes later the new bus money collector comes back and asks us for money. NOOOOO!! we tried to explain in our broken chinese that we gave money to the last bus driver and he told us to transfer. The new guy obviously didn't care and told us we were on his bus and we had to pay again or get off. We argued for about 20 minutes and he went right next to my face and yelled at me. Then he backed off for 10 minutes before coming at us with another round of shouting and pointing to his wallet. More arguing. Then he asks us for our Gansu travel insurance. More playing dumb. Then he left us alone. Then he came back demanding money. As this went on Kevin and I winked at each other ("Hey, lets drag this on for as long as possible"). The best part was that the bus was driving the whole time!! Anyway, it wasn't too long before the bus broke down. It was probably good timing too because the bus money collector guy was about to start a fist fight. I guess we could have given him the piddly money but looking back, I regret nothing!

Anyway, while the bus driver was repairing his bus, we felt it was an opportune time to leave. We grabbed our stuff and started walking. The money collector shouted at us a bit more but finally gave up and left in a huff. We laughed and waved down another bus. Luckily we were more than half the way to Lanzhou - we slipped the driver some cash and we were on our way. Then the newest bus driver asked us for our Gansu travel insurance... AAHAHHHH! Give us a break man. More playing dumb.. And finally we arrive in the dirtiest city imaginable (wow even worse than Guangzhou!)

-steve

We walked into Langmusi and were instantly hit with delight as Kevin and I experienced our first little Tibetan style village. This was probably the closest we were going to get to Tibet so we planned on enjoying it. We were also here for a sky burial. Basically whenever someone dies in the Tibetan culture, they are chopped up and offered to vultures. The best part about it - in Langmusi they supposedly let foreigners come to their funeral sessions. This could definitely not be passed up. As soon as we started talking to people it was apparent that we had just recently missed a sky burial. No worries, we just had to wait around for someone else to die. Rumor had it that someone died every 3 days or so.

To pass the time Kev and I did some sweet hiking around the town. We got some good pictures and had some great times of relaxation. All the while we kept one eye open for vultures. Every morning we would get up early to survey the sky burial site. The monks kept saying that people had just died and any morning now they would be offered up. This went on for a couple days and we finally couldn't stay any longer. We thought there may be a chance to catch one later so we hit the road. It was too bad that we missed the ritual but we did check out the nasty death site to poke through the old bones and possessions.

-steve

Starting the Big Mac Yak Attack Challenge

Langmusi has one more thing to offer other than sky burials. Although the sky burials are a rare event that not many witness, anyone can go to Lesha's cafe and have a Big Mac Yak Attack Burger. This thing is gargantuan. If you can eat it in 5 minutes you get 100 bucks. If you eat it in 10 minutes you get the meal for free plus a desert. Of course we had to take on the challenge. We started the timers and started off.

This was no ordinary burger. First of all, the bun was Tibetan style which means it was more like two huge slabs of condensed bagel. Inside the plate sized burger, they stuffed potatoes and onions which were very filling. Not to mention the tough yak meet which is like eating chewy poorly-cooked stake strips. 5 minutes rolled by, then 10 minutes, then 30 minutes. Around 45 minutes of straight eating, we finally finished the burgers. I think that finishing it was an accomplishment in itself. You couldn't have paid me to eat a desert after that. We did get to sign the burger-finisher guestbook. Kevin threw up his burger on the street outside after but he won't tell you that. I kept mine down but I wished I would have left it on the street. Anyway after that it was off to investigate sky burials!

-steve

Scenery around central China

Well, Kevin and I pull in to Zoige and we see nothing special... It was time to move on to Langmusi. As usual when we get this itch, the bus tickets are all sold out for the day. This of course was the case on this particular day. So we decided to do what we always do. Walk and pray. Just get on that main route and pray that someone will pick us up. This time we didn't have to wait for 20 mins before a tourist bus stops and asks if we are lost. We begged them to take us to blabla.. Of course this was a private bus (you know, everyone with the same little Asian tourist hats). I don't know if it was our charm or are choppy facial hair but they let us on (FOR FREE!!!) and took us all the way to Langmusi. Of course the bus broke down for three hours along the way. It wasn't too much of a surprise. We had been traveling and living in China long enough to know that rarely anything goes according to plan.

-steve

Good bye Chengdu and the best looking girls in China!... Ok so after focusing back on traveling - we are headed to Songpan from Chengdu. Now this bus ride is no short trip. 8 hours long and this guy is not stopping for nothing. Here's the bad part. We are 1 hour into the trip and I am starting to feel birth pains. That's right, a number two. I have got to go now. But I can't - I will hold it. So I am sitting in pain and Kevin is wondering if I am going to live. I just kept pressing into the seat hoping that it would pass. And it would for about 5 minutes but then I would get the insane birth pains. Seriously they just kept getting worse. I had to go... now. After some quick observation, I noticed that the back 2 rows were completely empty. I headed to the very back row and sat down. After a few minutes I stopped getting the weird looks and just pretended I was enjoying the back seat. That's when it happened. I quickly contorted my body to hover over the front of the seat while making it look like I was enjoying the view outside. And after whipping the plastic bag out of my pocket, the deed was done. After laying the massive dragon I quickly whipped it out of the window. The funniest part was that no one even noticed!!! I just sat there and laughed. Oh except Kevin. While it was going on, he was giggling like a schoolgirl. Probably good timing too because he was drawing attention away from me. I guess there is some lesson to be learned here...

-steve