Researching my recent trip to China, I happened upon Modern Gonzo’s video of Mount Huashan in Shaanxi province. Huashan, meaning Flower Mountain for its five separate petals/peaks, is one of the four sacred Buddhist mountains. It is known in China as the Number One Precipitous Mountain Under Heaven due to its steep paths and sheer drop offs.. Modern Gonzo aka Robin Esrock, trembling with the cold and quaking with fear, called it The World’s Most Dangerous Hike. I watched Gonzo’s video several times before moving Mount Huashan to the top of my must-dos.

I am a Colorado girl and, as such, I’ve climbed my share of tall mountains. I know the key to a successful hike is preparation—food, water, gear, first aid, specialty clothing, and a variety of high-tech gizmos. Unsure what to expect from Mount Huashan, I boarded a van in Xi’an armed with layers of wick-dry clothing, Smart Wool socks, Moleskin and Ducktape, a water-filled Camelback, a collapsible titanium monopod/walking stick, and the latest pricey grip-tastic footwear.

I arrived at the foot of the mountain and was ushered into a crowded building where we intrepid travelers listened to medical personnel warn us of the possibly-fatal dangers of high altitude trekking and instruct us about the life-saving power of the natural herbs and roots in glass bins encircling the room. Afterward we were directed to another part of the building where we could have a (possibly last) meal, stock up on snacks and sun protection and, to my quite obvious surprise, purchase Keds knockoffs to wear in case we had inadvertently worn street wedgies or flip flops to the mountain. The long queues at the counter indicated to me that a number of my Chinese tourist companions had done exactly that.

I won’t say much more about hiking the Number One Precipitous Mountain Under Heaven. I’ll share a few of my pictures from beautiful Mount Huashan and leave space for you to close your eyes and create your own adrenaline moments using the power of a vivid imagination. Like I did that day.

See more awesome travel photos at DeliciousBaby’s Photo Friday!

Check out other awesome travel photos at DeliciousBaby’s Photo Friday!

I found this rock in Costa Rica, wet with seawater and the color of red jade, on a miles-long stretch of sand. A heart-shaped message, escaped from the somber rainforest, presented to me – I think – by Cupid himself.

Check out fellow travelers’ photos at DeliciousBaby’s Photo Friday!

Check out Photo Friday at DeliciousBaby for more photos!

“We are preoccupied with time. If we could learn to love space as deeply as we are now obsessed with time, we might discover a new meaning in the phrase to live like men.”
~Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire

Check out other travel photos at DeliciousBaby’s Friday Photo!

You don’t have to have traveled much to know that, compared to other countries, American culture is defined by excessive consumption of everything and anything. From the time we are toddlers, we’re conditioned to think we need things we don’t and encouraged to work (or plead) like crazy to have the money to buy them. Most of us are too busy to stop and enjoy the view, too cluttered to sit comfortably and think, and too stressed to care. This is especially true during the holidays when an extra layer of “have tos” is added to our already-miles-long list of things to accomplish. This is the season of giving, so we’re told. But what are we really doing?

Consumerism allows us to create the illusion of giving without having to sacrifice anything personal. Buying loads of useless or unneeded crap, wrapping it up in mountains of toxic paper and ribbon, presenting it, often by mail, to recipients we rarely see seems to be doing a whole lot of nothing much.

Studies have shown that Americans, despite all our wealth and freedom, are less happy than much of the world. As travelers, we probably have a better sense of this than most do. Wherever I go I see people walking together, sitting down for a meal, taking a siesta, living life at a more leisurely pace—with less material wealth to be sure, but often with more apparent joy.

Of course people living in poverty face obstacles we can hardly comprehend, like a lack of fresh drinking water—the leading cause of death in under-resourced countries. Almost 2 million people die each year from water-born illnesses, nearly 4,000 children every day. It’s estimated that $10 billion would solve (solve!) the world’s fresh-water crisis. $10 billion. Then consider that Americans spend $450,000,000,000 on holiday gift giving EVERY YEAR. What the hell?

I’m committed to changing my consumer habits this year. Trite as it sounds, I’m going to give ‘presence’ this holiday season. I’m going to become more available, give my creative energy and skill, become less fractured and manic, more unified and peaceful. I refuse to spend my portion of the $450 billion on more junk. Instead, I’m going to make a donation to Living Water International (an organization working to provide fresh water wells to undeveloped countries) and a few other worthy causes.

I read today that happiness lies at the intersection of pleasure and meaning. I find very little of either in the buying frenzy surrounding the holidays which is probably why I get somewhat Grinchy from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day. My determination to stop buying this year is less an act of Christ-like selflessness, although I hope there’s some altruism at work here, as it is an attempt to feel happy and relaxed, grateful for family and friends, and able to spread true holiday cheer.

From the moment I arrived in China, I made it my mission to avoid Westerners. Hitting the Beijing historical sites a week before the Olympic Games, then traveling by overnight train to Xi’an (three Chinese and me in a tiny cubicle with four bunks—now that was fun), I found myself immersed in a sea of Asian faces. An odd feeling, but not as odd as being surrounded by only Chinese voices.

The Chinese are a garrulous people, speaking in monosyllabic singsong nasal tones, downright noisy by my standards. Interestingly, though, the sounds didn’t bother me at all. The many voices seemed to blend with the screeching of the cicadas or the chirping of the birds. I certainly heard them, but since I didn’t understand the language, or even the intonation, the noise became like background music to me. Less intrusive than listening to my iPod even because I didn’t feel compelled to fast forward, contemplate lyrics, or sing along.

Avoiding Westerners became much more difficult once the Games got underway. Luckily, I found another safe haven in the hutongs of old Beijing. For several hundred years, the majority of Beijing residents lived in siheyuan, which are housing compounds with rooms built around a central courtyard. The hutongs, or narrow alleyways, run between rows of siheyuan. Hutong has come to refer to neighborhoods set up this way.

Life in the hutongs is a slow and simple affair. Elderly women sit side-by-side on stools barely six inches off the ground. The old men squat around wooden game boards, occasionally laughing at one thing or another. Middle-aged women sew or cook in tiny rooms with open doors, always with their faces to the street so as not to miss any of the goings-on I suppose. Little children do as little children do everywhere. I didn’t see many young men and women in the hutongs. I imagine they were somewhere in the city, straddling the divide between the old and new China.

Wherever I walked, the people stared at me with undisguised curiosity. They didn’t appear friendly, nor unfriendly. They simply watched. I would return their gaze for a moment, bow my head slightly and smile. “Nin hao,” I’d say, hoping that my attempt to singsong the syllables didn’t pain them too much. Without fail, they smiled and returned the greeting enthusiastically. Often they offered me whatever they had in their hands—a piece of fruit, a paper fan, a plastic-beaded bracelet. I would point to my camera, asking permission to take a picture. They would laugh and blush and hide behind each other in protest. I wasn’t sure how to interpret their apparent reticence, but I thought it was best to accept it at face value and photograph the laundry or the bicycles instead.

With the modernization of Beijing, many residents have moved from the hutong to the high-rise. But I found that a few traditional neighborhoods, full of lovely people who remember when, can still be found by a girl on a quest to avoid the West!

Lady, lady, I take you today. No ticket! No tourist!

I’m standing in the town square in Lijiang, China, reviewing my inventory of polite rejections when, lo and behold, my rogue limbic system wrests its way to the forefront and I hear myself saying, “Okay, so where are we going?” An abnormally large Naxi woman emerges from the shadows and sizes me up. “You ride horse?” she asks rather skeptically. “Sure, I ride horse,” I respond indignantly, at once calling to mind a favorite movie, True Grit.

Rooster Cogburn: Mr. Rat, I have a writ here says you’re to stop eating Chin Lee’s cornmeal forthwith. Now it’s a rat writ, writ for a rat, and this is lawful service of the same. See, doesn’t pay any attention to me.
[shoots the rat]
Chin Lee: [Runs into the room] Outside is place for shooting!
Rooster Cogburn: I’m servin’ some papers!

Okay, I know that had nothing to do with anything, but I liked it.

Anyway, thanks to trusty intuition, and the kind attention of my guides Richard and Li, I had a most magical day. I rode a shaggy little horse four hours up a steep mountain trail—the very path that for hundreds of years has linked southwest China to Tibet. At the summit were views of the Yangtze River and the breathtaking Snow Mountains, known to us as the Himalayas.

When the blue haze lifted, I could see all the way to everywhere.

LEFT OF THE CENTER PEAK IS THE MOUNTAIN VILLAGE

ALPINE FLOWERS AND CROPS

MARIJUANA MAKES A PRETTY CONTRAST

THE NAXI VILLAGE

VIEW OF LASHI LAKE

ME LIVING LARGE ON A TEENY TINY HORSE

PEPPER BERRIES


NAXI WOMEN PICKING PEPPER BERRIES

A BOY HIDING BEHIND HIS CABBAGE

AFTER TEN MINUTES OF CAJOLING HE’S READY TO POSE

ALPINE DOGHOUSE

THE MASTER’S CAMPSITE

THE FIRST BEND of the YANGTZE RIVER

LOOKING TOWARD TIBET

MY TRAIL GUIDE

OUR TRUSTY LITTLE STEEDS

MARIE AND RICHARD INCONSEQUENTIAL

THE NAXI MEN AFTER I BLEW THEM A KISS!

I got my visa last week, so the China trip is a go! I was a little worried about obtaining permission to visit because I own a cute Go Team Tibet! scarf and mitten set, and I was sure the Chinese government would know about it and reject me out of hand. Thankfully the Olympic mantra, Amazing Awaits, has become my own.

The holy-geez-it’s-only-a-week-away planning has begun in earnest. As if time pressure and a giant scroll of must-dos wasn’t enough to stomp my excitement into nonexistence, my rather significant Other has decided to offer mounds of unsolicited advice, further muddying already clouded waters. Understand that while I’ve spent the last twenty-something years covered in baby barf and laundry soap, he’s traveled the world—usually with a pretty girl whose name seems always to end with an i (no doubt topped with a cheerful daisy or heart-shaped flourish).

Not surprisingly, Other and I have a difference of opinion as to how I should spend my time in China. It’s a given that, although I’m excited as hell to see the Olympics, I want to see more of China than simply the Bird’s Nest and the National Aquatics Center. I am wringing my hands trying to figure out how I can see as much as possible without running myself ragged, while still giving Beijing its due. He, on the other hand, has been to China and has his own ideas. He spent a month in the south of China, visiting only two provinces, and is pushing the notion of me doing a similar mini cultural immersion trip. Truthfully, I’d love nothing more, but I may not be back this way again soon and I’d like to see more of China than his plan would allow.

Long and short of it. I am ignoring his advice and doing things my way. And he’s fine with that. But I still have hard decisions to make because there are so many things that I really really want to see and do. Horseback-riding and camping in Inner Mongolia (Genghis-fricking-Khan!). The Li River cruise in Guilin. Biking through the rice paddies outside of Yangshuo. The five Sacred Peaks. The Wall. The Warriors. The pandas. Damn.

I’ve narrowed it down to this. I want to hike Mount Huashan, known by the Chinese as The Number One Precipitous Mountain under Heaven. And I want to see the city of Li Jiang and the nearby 18,000-foot Jade Snow Dragon Mountain.

Funny how solo travel helps you discover hidden truths about yourself. You can tell by the name of my blog that I’ve always thought that my travel would be about people, about culture. Turns out it’s all about the mountain for me. Maybe it’s the Colorado upbringing. I tend to feel a bit tipsy below 5,000 feet.

But really, in my defense, aren’t towns and villages, and the people who inhabit them, largely influenced by the surrounding landscape? Haven’t the best hiking guides come from the Himalayas? And is it any surprise that the Jamaicans don’t win the bobsled competition, and the Norwegians kick ass at ski jumping?

The food people eat, the clothes they wear, the houses they build, the instruments they play, even the gods they worship, are inextricably tied to the earth and sky that embrace them every day.

China, here I come!