"We're the three best friends that anyone could have.."

"and we'll never ever ever leave each other!"

.......even if we wanted to.

So, you know that quote: "Do one thing every day that scares you"- I think that during my spring break trip to the mountains, I made up for every day in my last 20 1/2 years of existence that I have not obeyed that phrase.  

Despite that inspirational introduction, this is not a self improvement blog post.  Just about my CRAZY trip to the Chinese Meili Snow Mountain, where i saw snow for the first time, hung out with some yak, and went without a shower for a week.  Preface: this is pretty long. But there are LOTS of pictures! 

I love Tibet.  I've dreamed of going to Tibet.  Unfortunately, during the month of March, Tibet is closed to foreigners.  So, we had to settle for going  as close to Tibet as possible-to the Meili Snow Mountain that is half in Tibet, half in China. I was beyond thrilled to finally immerse myself in the culture that I had fallen in love with through my studies in Central Texas.  Our 6 day backpacking trip actually turned into a 10 day adventure with a 5 day stop in a less than thrilling town, with some pretty extreme highs and very drastic lows.  

Saturday March 19th:
Kiersten, Stephanie and I arrived in SHANGRI-LA. Not the mythical destination, but a Tibetan city in China. We went to some Stupas, a Buddhist Temple, and a huuuuge prayer wheel. Tibetan prayer flags were everywhere!

Oh and this is me running Tibetan Bay Watch style after posing next to some Yak just walking down the road



Tibetan Buddhism says that if you turn this wheel 3 times, its equivalent to 37.2 billion prayers! The way my trip went- I obviously needed more than 37.2 billion prayers....

This picture is not, in fact, me in my signature teal jacket. Its a local Tibetan woman in her traditional clothing spinning the prayer wheel!

Sunday March 20th:
We departed for some of "Heaven's Villages".  Villages around the Meili Snow Mountain are called Heaven's Villages because the clouds linger making it look like the villages are in the sky. This bus ride was 80 miles and it took us 11 hours. The road was ROUGH. I'm being generous when I say it was about 5% paved. It was a one way road, along the CLIFFS of the mountains. We had to get out of the bus a few times because it wasn't safe enough for the passengers. If China says its not safe, its REALLY not safe. 

During our splendid 11 hour ride we also got caught in a blizzard. This is one of the times we had to deboard the bus, because we came head to head with another truck. There were literally inches between our bus and the truck. Half of me thought the bus was going to not make it across and tumble down the mountain.

Monday March 21st:
We woke up in the mountain town of FeiLai Si (fay-lie-suh) to a winter wonderland! It looked like Christmas!  From FeiLai Si, we made our way to MingYong. Another very small village in the valley of the mountain that is home to the MingYong Glacier- the lowest altitude glacier in China. On our way down there, we passed a Y in the road. The left went to MingYong. The right? TIBET!

We were only a few dozen kilometers away from the border. It was so exiting to physically be soooo close- we considered bribing our driver to smuggle us into Tibet. Just kidding... kind of. 

We hiked to the foot of the glacier and it was absolutely the coolest natural thing that I have ever seen. The pictures of the glacier are not that great because the white snow and ice blended in with the sky and clouds

Because we are traveling during the off season for tourists, the village of Mingyong was a Ghost Town. We were the only foreigners, and only saw one person on our whole hike, who was a local Tibetan woman who showed us a short cut. But we saw plenty of Yak and horses roaming the streets.

Tuesday March 22nd:
On Tuesday morning, we went on another more intense hike to get closer to the glacier. About an hour into the hike, we ran into a small problem.  Well a rather large one. A yak. A wild one. One of our professors gave us 4 words of advice for this situation: "RUN FOR YOUR LIFE". We did exactly that. Sprinted down the mountain!

Except for this part, cause I'm right on the edge. I won't lie I thought I might fall down the side of the mountain during this one.






Tuesday afternoon we arrived back in Deqin to buy our bus tickets to return to Shangri-La. This is where we heard for the first time of many: we were snowed in.  The mountain pass was too snowy and dangerous to let us out of the city. 

Wednesday March 23:
7:30 AM we arrived at the bus station to receive the bad news again that it snowed overnight and the mountain roads were still way too dangerous.  The only other way out of the town was through Tibet.

We went to a Tibetan Buddhist store where all three of us purchased Tibetan Prayer Flags! I bought SO many. Partially cause I love them, and partially because a small bit of me thought that maybe there was some kind of Tibetan prayer to make snow melt faster.

Oh and I also found a little piece of GOLD in Rural China

Thursday March 24:

 7:30 AM we arrived at the bus station to once again receive the news that we wouldn't be leaving Deqin that day.  On the scale of worst cities to be stuck in, Deqin is definitely near the top.  It is a 1 1/2 road town.  The one road is probably about the length of a football field, maybe a little bigger. Besides the surrounding mountain scenery that we COULDN'T see because of the bad weather, i think its safe to say its a rather unattractive town.

To put this in perspective, we got excited when we were able to eat food that expired in December 2010. Literally. We would call out dates to each other trying to find the least expired items, getting excited and cheering when they were as close as last December and January.  One good thing happened on this great day of Thursday March 24th- a shower! The first shower for all three of us in 6 days. The only one during our whole trip. Solid. 

As I stated in earlier blog posts, buildings in China don't have insulation or heat. The only
source of heat is the heated blanket that comes with every room. Problem: Mountain villages=unreliable electricity. Every single night we went to bed and woke up in the morning seeing our breath in front of us. Our heated blankets were our life support during our extended mountain stay.  Upside: Chinese only drink hot water, so my boiling hot water would turn ice cold over night. Downside: cold toes, and any clothes that got wet from snow or sweat, had absolutely no chance of ever drying.

I feel like even if I had on as many layers as this baby, I STILL would have been cold. 

Friday March 25:

7:30 AM. No bus.  We were supposed to be back in Kunming for class at 2:30 this day, but since we obviously didn't make it, our professor asked us to skype (video chat) into the class discussion.  Easier said than done.  There were plenty of places with internet; however foreigners are not allowed to use them.  One time we walked into an internet cafe, with probably about 20 ancient computers. He took one look at us and said all of his computers were broken. Really?! Really.....he could have just said no. It was obviously a lie because he was ON a computer. 

At this point. We desperately wanted to go home, not just to Kunming, but back to America. Our high spirits about being immersed in the Tibetan culture slowly declined, as the temperature stayed low, and the homesickness and chocolate intake levels spiked.  We contemplated exit strategies through Tibet, as we began to ration our money, run out of clean clothes, and dream of worlds with heaters and food that had not passed the expiration date. 

Saturday March 26th:
7:30 AM. No bus. We weren't the only ones stranded. Lots of locals were trying to get out of town as well as hundreds (literally, we counted) of trucks lining the road waiting to leave.

In this picture you can see a fraction of the trucks waiting to leave. If you look closely you can see orange cones set up to block the road from anyone trying to get out. If you were able to bribe the police to let you out, they made you sign a waver that they weren't responsible for your life. No thank you.

Sunday March 27th:
7:30 AM. VICTORY! We got tickets on the first bus out of town! After we bought our bus tickets, we were so happy we walked back to our hostel singing. 

I thought 11 hours on the bus ride in was bad? Psh that was nothing. This return trip took a mere... NINETEEN hours. 80 miles in 19 hours. There was one time were we were sitting in the same place for 5 1/2 hours. That 5 1/2 hour break was not all bad, I made my first snowman!

The roads were horrible, as expected. There was snow everywhere, and it was a one way road, with hundreds and hundreds of trucks and busses trying to make the drive on the first day open. This resulted in countless standoffs and forced problem solving when busses and trucks came head to head on the snowy one way road along the mountain roads. After riding on this bus, nothing on a bus in China will ever surprise me again. People transported chickens on our bus. CHICKENS. Clucking next to our seats.

Monday March 28th:
11:30 PM finally we returned to campus with class the next morning and no homework done. Apparently this is the first time in the 17 years of the program that anything like this has happened to students.  At least we made history?

Next to the snowbank on the side of the road. Almost as tall as me!

Although my tailbone might be bruised from going airborne on the unpaved mountain roads, I took only 1 shower the whole 10 days, I was perpetually cold, and I had the most severe homesickness that I have experienced in China- I am so grateful for the experience. It was something I've never done, and I honestly think I learned more about myself during those 10 days in rural China, than I have during this semester so far.  I really surprised myself, and did some brave things that I would have never expected City Christina to do. It is something I'm going to remember forever: the time I was stranded in a mountain town in rural China.