I am the Luckiest Loser in the World.

I was really looking forward to my last day in Kunming. A day to relax, recharge, and prepare for my first foray in Southeast Asia the following day.

We ate a leisurely breakfast, caught up on emails, and prepped info for the next legs of our respective trips over creamy cups of coffee. Yep, it was shaping up to be a good day. When we finally headed out on the town around 11:30am, I was feeling good.

Hm. Go to the Yunnan Museum, or take a little stroll in the Muslim Neighborhood?

Wait. Better check to make sure my wallet and phone are still in my pocket. Yep. Both still present. Very good.

Okay. Here’s the game plan: Lunch in the Muslim Neighborhood, then a trip to the Museum. Perf.

Better check the pockets again, just to make sure. Yep, phone’s here, and here’s my….

Wait.

Where’s my wallet?

I dig a little more vigorously around my cavernous North Face pockets. It’s got to be in here somewhere. I just had it. Nope. Not there. It must be in my backpack then. More frantic scrambling. Nothing.

Oh no.

Panic-stricken, but trying to maintain calm, I turn around and start retracing my steps. It must have slipped out
of my pocket. I must have dropped it just now. It must still be there.

No wallet in sight. We ask street cleaners and passersby if they’ve seen a little green wallet with a ID of a goofy-looking brown-haired foreigner in it. Nobody’s seen anything.

Hope is slipping away. All my money…I’m supposed to go to Laos tomorrow….

We finally ask a street vendor if he has any info. He advises me to call the police, and very helpfully does it for me. Within three minutes, a Chinese cop car pulls up to the street, blue lights flashing.

“Are you the foreigner who’s lost the wallet?” they ask me very official-like in Chinese.

“That’s me, unfortunately.” I reply.

“Come with us.” They turn and head back into the cop car.

So, one minute I’m contemplating what yummy Muslim meal to enjoy; the next minute, I’m in the back seat of a cop car. Lights still flashing.

I’d be kind of intimidated. Except that these cops are legit.

“So, you guys have any friends in Kunming?” they ask Tae and me casually.

“Nope”

The cop points to a shady looking bar. “Go there. You can find friends there.”

Hahaha. Awesome. Nightlife recommendations from China’s police force.

Right after, one cop points to a pedestrian sporting a scarf on his head, then turns to his partner, and says,
“Taliban.”

So much for political correctness from China’s finest. This day was getting more and more interesting by the second.

At the police station, I registered the loss/theft of my wallet. The cops were all jovial, and highly interested in learning more about the wide-eyed foreigner who was silly enough to lose all of her money. We left after 15 minutes with their reassurances that they’d try their best to recover my qianbao.

But, with every passing minute, I was feeling more and more hopeless.

It’s okay, I told myself. I’ll just go to the Kunming branch of my Chinese bank, cancel my old card, open a new one, and use that money to get around SE Asia until I can get the replacement cards for my American bank accounts.
Nooo problem.

Only, there was a huge problem.

The nice lady at the bank told me that the only way for me to get a new card would be to go the exact same bank branch from which I originally opened the account. Yep. That means I have to go all the way back to Hangzhou just to get a new card. All the way across the country. And, to make matters worse, I may not be able to get the card until 5 business days after I registered for a replacement card.

This is a nightmare. My own personal hell.

I called my boss back in Hangzhou, almost in tears, hoping that he could use his Chinese to persuade the Kunming bank to give me a card.

Nope. “You must cancel all of your travel plans, and come back to Hangzhou,” he said.

Bleak. All hope lost.

So, I go back to the hostel, completely defeated, and cancel my flight to Laos for the next day, book a flight to Hangzhou, and go through the painful process of freezing my bank accounts and applying for new ones—all over the staticky Skype phone connections.

What if I can’t go to Southeast Asia at all? What if I have to stay in Hangzhou allllll winter break?

I go to bed that night super depressed. I wake up the next morning, still depressed, although I was trying my hardest to stay positive. I wanted to enjoy my last few hours in Kunming.

At 1:30pm, five hours before my flight to Hangzhou, my whole world changed.

As I sat lounging in the hostel café, recounting my woes to Nick, a fellow PiAer, Tae comes rushing over to the table, all excited.

“Chandler, was this in your wallet?” He holds up a piece of printer paper with photocopies of my UGA Student ID and Georgia Driver’s License on it.

Oh. My. God.

“………..Yes.”

“Someone found your wallet! They’re on the phone with the hostel right now.”

Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god.

I rush over to the reception desk. The staff-person tells me that the person who found my wallet was coming to the
hostel at 3:30pm to return it to me.

“Did they say what was in it?”

“No. They just sent me this photocopy.”

Don’t get too excited. Your IDs could be the only things in there. Someone could have easily taken everything else, and you’ll still be stuck in the same boat as you in are now. Don't get excited yet.

So, I spend the next hour and a half in nervous anticipation.

At 3:15pm—four hours before my flight to Hangzhou—two men enter the hostel, and ask me to come outside with them and sit down.

At the table, one of the men ceremoniously places his fanny-pack on the table, and pulls out my beloved Vera Bradley wallet.

It looks fat and full. It looks like still has stuff in it.

It does. Everything. Even the cash I’d kept in it. It was all there.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

“Now wait a minute, we want to tell you that we’ve been looking for you since noon yesterday,” the man says. “We work at a TV station, and a student in our audience found your wallet on the ground outside the studio. She gave it to us, and we’ve been looking for you ever since. We searched for you on the internet, tried to find an address or phone number for you, but couldn’t. Finally, we called the police station to see if you’d reported it missing. You had, and they gave us the number of this hostel. We are so happy to have found you.”

Oh my god. So much effort, for someone they didn’t know at alllllll.

“I don’t know what to say. Thank you so much.”

“Don’t thank us. Thank the woman who gave us the wallet. If it weren’t for her, you would not have it. I can give her a phone call, so that you can thank her.”

Touched by their humility and kindness, I graciously took the phone and thanked her myself.

Would this have happened in the States? Would someone have gone through that much trouble and effort to return a wallet to a stranger? I really don’t know.

I was in a state of euphoria. For the next two hours, I reactivated my cards, canceled my flight to Hangzhou, and booked a morning flight to Laos. Right now, its Wednesday night, January 13. I’m going to Southeast Asia tomorrowwwwww.

What a whirlwind 24 hours. All is right in the world. And I have renewed faith in the kindness of people. Wow.

A Hiker's Deeee-light. Or, How I Conquered Tiger Leaping Gorge

I can do this. I can do this. I can do….ahhh no I can’t.

I quickly stepped back away from the slippery rock and repositioned my heavy backpack higher on my shoulders. The winding, narrow path of boulders, dust, and rocks had taken us along the edge of the 10,000-foot deep gorge, pressed us against jagged edges of exposed granite and limestone, and had now brought us to the precipice of a steep cascading waterfall. Nope. Nowhere to go but across the slippery rocks and rushing water, mere feet from the waterfall’s edge.

One wrong move, and over you go. Becoming one with the waterfall. Plummeting to an aquatic death.

I tried again, slowly and deliberately placing my foot upon a relatively dry and secure boulder, and shifted my weight onto its surface, wincing with the knowledge that it could easily loosen, and I could easily slip. And I could easily go tumbling over the edge, Humpty-Dumpty style, into the rushing currents of the Yangtze River below.

Slow and steady wins the race.

After a few more tense moments of staring death in the face, I somehow managed to make it across the waterfall. Turning back to take in my feat, I thought, Yep, lived to survive another night in the Gorge.

If you know me at all, you know I appreciate dramatic effects in a story. But, I’m not really exaggerating the risk involved in tackling the wild, crazy Tiger Leaping Gorge. And, now that I’m safely back in Dali, sipping Yunnan coffee and nursing a pair sore legs and a twisted ankle, I feel like I’m in a good position to document my 3-day, 2-night, 14-mile hike up, across, and down Yunnan’s famed Tiger Leaping Gorge.

We started out as fresh-faced, excited TLG novices, marveling at the first sights of the impressive Snow Mountain in the distance and the web-like alluvial fans reaching across the low-lying lands along the Yangtze’s edge. The hike started out easily enough with a gently inclining dirt path up one of the gorge’s shorter mountains. As we excitedly made our way up the first trail, a woman from the Naxi minority community in Yunnan began not-so-subtly following us with her horse. Every time we stopped to take pictures of the vista, she stopped, pretending to let her horse graze. And every time we resumed the climb, she gestured for her horse to continue its climb, as well.
This continued even when we stopped at the first guesthouse along the path for a short break and a snack. Finally, after an hour of awkward silent stalking, she approached us with a map, emphasizing the exhausting and hazardous nature of the approaching “28 bends” portion of the hike (a steeply inclining and admittedly exhausting collection of 28 switchbacks leading up to the crest of the mountain—the highest point in the hike.)



“I can carry you to the top on my horse, no problem. You will be so tired if you try to climb it yourself, especially with your heavy backpacks.”

At this point in the day, I was feeling a little fatigued. The ascent up heavily bouldered, narrow paths was already doing a number on me, and the increasingly heavy backpack on my shoulders was not helping matters.

But I wanted to have the bragging rights of being able to say that I had done this on my own.

“No, thanks. We don’t need a horse.”

The wowan looked at me as though she knew that I couldn’t make it.

“Okay. But I’ll be here when you need it. 80 yuan, I’ll take you up.”

Talk about ye of little faith. Do I really look that incapable?

So we continued, up the dreaded 28 bends. And oooooh it was dreaded. And to make matters worse, there, always 20 feet behind us, was that woman with the horse, tempting us with an end to the pain.

Noooo. I’ve got to do this myself.

And so we forged on, up, and up, and up. I finally had to resort to my iPod to take my mind of the pain. And I breathlessly panted the lyrics to “Eye of the Tiger” and “Livin’ on a Prayer,” we continued to climb.

“It’s the….eye of the tiggerr…” Nope. Not going to make it. I will die of exhaustion. “Tina works the diner…all day…..” I’m going to take that lady up on her offer. Survival on a horse is better than death on foot.

But all of the sudden, the incline slackened. The path flattened, and we could see the clear blue sky hugging the summit of the mountain. I’d made itttttttttt.



And what a view. The bright snow-capped peaks of the Jade Snow Dragon Mountain towered before us, and the broad expanses of rock and forest disappeared into the rushing water of the Yangtze below. It was, in a word, incredible. Words can’t do it justice.

That night, we stayed at the Teahorse Guesthouse, in a room overlooking the mountains. We lounged outside and, over beers, marveled at the twinkling canvas of stars that unfolded over our heads—probably more than I had ever seen in my entire life. I even saw three shooting stars! It was absolutely beautiful. I didn’t even mind that I had to walk 100 feet to shower in a dark community washroom. The view was worth it.

And, thus, for two more days, we hiked the length of the trail—from start to finish. We lost fellow trekkers along the way—those who either lacked the time or the desire to finish the hike in its entirety. But we had made a promise to ourselves that we would finish.

A few highlights from along the way:



•Discovering my Doctor Dolittle-like ability to talk to the mountain goats that grazed along the mountain trails. I’m not kidding. All I needed to do was utter a little “Baaaaaaaa” and they’d look up from their grassy feast, give a complementing “Baaaaaa” in return, and then trot over to me as if we were old goat friends. Legit. (BTW, I credit my mastery of the Wicked soundtrack, and the song “Something Bad” for my mad goat language skills. Just saying.).
•Sharing my Oreos with two young girls we met in a village along the way. I’m always a fan of spreading my bounty of processed junk food.
•Falling face first along the flattest, straightest, safest part of the trail. Just call me Grace.
•Meeting a real, live Man of the Mountains—a gregarious and eccentric Italian expat named Marco who lived with “his woman” in the neighboring town of Zhongdian and who hiked the trail regularly, spreading his chorus of Italian words of wisdom and jovial chuckles wherever he
roamed.
•Realizing that the final quarter of the trail consisted of an unmarked hike into a rural Chinese mountain community…complete with a bevy of ambiguous forks in the road, paths that ended in one location and picked back up at random spots hundreds of yards away, treks through active Chinese construction sites, and a lively climb up, over, and down a collection of human-sized boulders.

After a barge trip across the Yangtze, we crossed to the other side of the gorge, and took a bus back to civilization in Lijiang, where we’d left the majority of our luggage a few days earlier.



So. I officially conquered Tiger Leaping Gorge. I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t feel a sense of accomplishment for completing this physically and emotionally challenging hike. If you didn’t think I had it in me to go a few days without showering, travel without my straightener, and live without my Bare Escentuals (Mother, I’m talking to you), I have just proved you wrong ☺. But beyond this physical feat, I am even happier that I got to see one of the most beautiful environments I have ever witnessed. The gorge is absolutely breathtaking, and the incongruous assortment of landscapes, vistas, and geological features along the way is truly amazing.



Again, words can’t really express.

One Afternoon in Dali

Dali endeared itself to me on two very different fronts: its raw meat market and its music.

Allow me to explain.

After a relaxing Western breakfast of fried eggs, toast, and hash browns at one of Dali’s several Western cafes, we decided to explore the city and get away from all of the tourism and “fakeness.” So, backpacks on our backs and cameras in hand, we took to the streets, through alleyways and down unmarked roads.

Upon coming to a bustling food market in the outskirts of the Old City, we decided to go in and peruse the food selections.
Ooo, this will be great. I’m pumped to take some quaint, colorful photos of oranges, bananas, and pineapples.




As soon as we started making our way through the aisles of goods, however, we realized this was no quaint fruit market. This was a bustling, raw, down-and-dirty Chinese meat market.

We meandered past buckets of fish lashing around futilely, rows of chicken coops filled with unlucky birds waiting to be handpicked for slaughter, and dirty pig pens. As we rounded a corner, we saw a man gutting a chicken with his bare hands, then handing it off to the lucky purchaser who’d just scored himself an avian meal for dinner. We witnessed a row of pig heads, each attended to by one person whose task it was to break the jaw from the head with his hands in preparation for consumption.
Yep, we were definitely off the beaten path now.

The oddest thing was, we didn’t attract any attention at all. Nobody really looked at us as though we were a novelty, or as though we were out of place in this bastion of traditional Chinese culture. Nobody really paid much attention to us at all. As we meandered past their stalls and stands, they went about their jobs as though we weren’t there. It was as though we were ghosts, moving unseen through the throngs of people jostling for fresh fish and fruit. It was an odd sensation, considering the fact that being a foreigner in China almost always attracts a bevy of attention—both wanted and unwanted.

After we’d had our fill of pig heads and chicken guts, we exited the market in search of more of this raw authenticity that we’d been craving.

We found it in the form of a community park near the north side of the Old City. There, a host of elderly locals had gathered to enjoy the nice weather and each other’s company. Feeling charmed by picturesque scene, we sat down on one of the benches to people-watch. Groups of old ladies, dressed in vibrant clothes of intricately interwoven colored threads, sat in huddled circles, laughing, joking, and reminiscing with each other. Clusters of old men leaned lazily against the park’s stone pillars, dressed in matching blue workers’ jackets and blue berets, dragging on their cigarettes and mumbling short, pithy phrases to each other as they surveyed their surroundings.

But what really drew our attention was a group of elderly men and women who’d assembled near the back of the park. They’d erected rusty music stands and placed crumbled sheets of Chinese music on the shelves. Fine tuning and testing their instruments, they leaned back in their chairs and chatted with one another. Hoping they’d begin play, we sat down and waited.



Suddenly, the cacophony of discordant tunings and testings melted away into a harmonious melody of traditional Chinese music. As the music reached its crescendo, the other park goers took notice and gathered around the spontaneous band. Old women started dancing merrily with each other to the music, and young children wobbled unsteadily on their stubby legs in tandem with the beat. One man joined in with his own hand held clapper instrument, and began a dramatically dancing to the music.



We sat there, entranced and charmed by the peaceful scene we’d stumbled upon. It was music for the sake of music. Happiness for the sake of happiness. There was beauty in the simplicity of the joy we were witnessing. I can’t quite articulate how I felt as I listened to the band, but I do know that we sat there for a nearly an hour, mesmerized by the scene unfolding in a little park in a little town in southwestern China.

A Tale of Two Cities: Lijiang (丽江） vs. Dali （大理）

There’s an old, enduring, and interminable debate between backpackers in Yunnan, China. Which town is better: Dali or Lijiang?

On the surface, they seem pretty similar. Both are popular destinations for backpackers and hikers making their way to Tiger Leaping Gorge in the north. Both have acquired a robust tourist industry, complete with fake Chinese souvenir stalls and persistent locals promising to take you to all of the city’s attractions…for a hefty price. Both have a self-proclaimed, “charming ancient city” that represents the “real China of yesteryear.”

Yet, travelers who’ve stayed in both towns fiercely maintain that one is superior to the other in terms of authenticity and appeal.

Now, that I’ve been to both, I must admit that I’ve become a loyal member of “Club Dali.” Yes, I am publicly stating here that Dali is a superior place to Lijiang. While Lijiang’s “ancient city” seemed to me more like a contrived replication of old China with its unending rows of souvenir stalls and harried crowds of Chinese tour groups, Dali seemed like a real Chinese town that happened to have a booming tourist industry. Add to this the fact that Dali boasted absurdly cheap meals, bountiful WiFi, and the nicest hostel I’ve ever seen, and I was sold.

Chandler's Southeast Asian Odyssey Commences

So, I’ve been a bad blogger. I have the courage to admit it.

But, I have returned to cyberspace. After a whirlwind December of giving and grading final exams, moving to a new house, and celebrating Christmas and New Years “China-style” in Shanghai, I have officially begun my two-month vacation in Southwest China and Southeast Asia. I’ll be visiting Yunnan Province in China, and then trekking down to Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and Malaysia for my first taste of Asia south of Yangtze River. More posts on my maiden experiences with tuk-tuks, authentic Pad Thai, and elephant rides to come. Hollaaaaa.