Horse Trek from Hell - Part 2

So we’re on horses now, ambling across the coal truck road, down a small alleyway, squeezing between two houses and across a bridge. The fence line breaks and the harsh landscape explodes in front of us, opening up to massive mountains and deep valleys, tall pines and prickly scrub. Goats and bulls and yaks are peppered across the horizon, moving at an indeterminably slow grazing pace so that from far away they appear to be standing up but dead. The occasional bleat or moo or grunt (repectively) can be heard surprisingly clearly, echoing through the ranges, so it sounds like it’s coming from everywhere. As if there are animals all around you. Five minutes into the trek I realised that actually this is because there really are animals all around me.

The initial path from village to mountaintop is treacherous, strenuous and tiring. I imagine the horse I was on top of also found it difficult. We finally came to a long plateau and my fingers released the knuckle-whitening grip on the reigns, allowing my mind and gaze to finally wander. I looked out at the sight in front of me. It was a strange kind of beauty, really. Very unsettling. I spied a small traditional tent on the mountain next to ours. A small wisp of smoke rose from between its folds, and two goats were tethered nearby. I asked our guide, in Chinese, ‘Who is there?’

      ‘Where?’ He replied, looking out over the hills.

‘There.’ I pointed, ‘in that tent over there.’

      ‘What is it?’

‘A tent…’ I was confused as to why he was confused.

      ‘I cannot see anything.’ He said, and turned back.

‘That tent! Just down and over there!’ I was pointing straight to it. There was a tent, with a wisp and some goats, I was sure of it.

      ‘I cannot see.’ He said calmly, not even looking at me or my irritated, indicative gestures.

‘What do you mean you can’t see it? It’s right there! Who is in the tent!?’

      ‘No.’ He shakes his head.

‘What!?’

      ‘I cannot see that far.’

‘Oh. Yeah. Ok. Sorry. Right. Sorry. Doesn’t matter anyway. I’m sure it’s nobody. Probably nothing. ’

What an idiot, I shake my head to myself. I feel absolutely rotten. This man can’t see properly and doesn’t have glasses, and his profession is climbing treacherous mountains with idiots on horses. I am soon absolved of my error though, when he turns to me with a black, rotten grin-

‘Are you married?’ He asks in English.

I cringe and sigh, considering my current situation. I am on a horse, riding in the opposite direction of the last outpost of civilization for a long, long time. Nobody really knows where Songpan is, let alone where the heck I am right now, let alone where the bloody hell I will have gotten myself to in eight hours time. I have no phone reception, no food or water, and my only guide is a man who can’t see who wants to know if I’m single.

It’s not like I’m seriously worried about my personal safety, there are three of us travelling after all, but my exasperation is more coming from a place of extreme physical and emotional discomfort. My ass hurts because I’m not normally a horse-affiliated person, I toggle between sweating and freezing depending on the sun deciding to show its face, and parts of my body take it in wondrous turns to just go numb and then get pins and needles just to remind me they’re there. A dull ache in my skull is peeping through the panadol I took just half an hour ago, and every now and then I catch myself blinking a lot. Like, blinking way too much. And I’m not entirely sure why.

So what I don’t need right now is exactly what I get:

‘My boss also thinks you’re interesting.’ Says Mr. Rottenteeth, doing the raise-my-eyebrows—suggestively-with-smirk.

I think back to that man with the gnawed-down filthy black fingernails on his fat fingers that he licked to keep counting cash. In all his greedy, pufferfish glory. I begin to wonder what countries actually have pufferfish, and how many people have died from stepping on one. I am considering how dissatisfied I would be if I died from a fish. What an anticlimax that would be to my life so far. And how I would be found in my swimwear, presumably because I was at the beach, and how I hate swimwear. So then I start planning what I want to be wearing when I die, and all I know is that I want it to be Doc Martins, and then I start thinking of what would be a cool way to die and-

‘SHIT!’ I scream out, as my horse screams too, trying to regain its footing from the greedy edge. I quickly throw my body weight to the path-side. The horse is scrambling for a steady foothold, the dirt and rock at the edge of the path falls away. I turn back in time to see a large rock loosened, plummeting down the cliff face further than I can see. The horse’s head is thrashing side to side, panicking and neighing urgently. In vain I try and pull the reigns away from the edge, my body almost toppling off the saddle. I realise that he still has both back legs on solid ground and I shift my weigh backward, off of the scrambling front legs. One short blink, and my steed has found his footing again. I can almost still hear my cuss echoing over the mountain ranges, and the horse and I take a moment for a deep breath. As we continue down the path I continue with a different train of thought. Grateful to be alive, I ignore the fact that my eyes are kind of swimming now.

Very soon after, we are told to dismount and that we must walk for a while until the path becomes more solid. I was unsure of what he meant by this until we started travelling downhill a short while and found that our path had transformed from dirt and rocks into a big mud slip’n’slide. This was the pivotal moment when the ‘horse trek’ turned into a ‘trek’ for which, once again, I was unprepared.

Horse Trek from Hell - Part 1

A lot of hype surrounded the Songpan horse trekking “experience”. This hype was compounded by an insatiable mysteriousness brought about by constant “road blockages” preventing people from even going there. Advertised as a great way to see “real” China, it was one of the main drawcards for travel to Sichuan. We were assured by the hostel manager in Chengdu, before setting off, that the trek would be “awesome”.

Ha. Ha. Yeah, sure.

Really awesome.

Totally awesome.

The most awesome thing ever.

Ha ha ha ha ha.

Lol. No.

The bus dropped us off at the same place he dropped everyone else (read: three other people) off at – a dirt patch on the side of the road near his house. We had faith that we were somewhere near Songpan at least, and so we just followed the not-much-of-a crowd until the density of buildings reached a level of presumed inhabitance. We were off to Emma’s café.

‘Who is Emma’, I hear you ask?

Its so funny that you presume we know these things.

We find Emma’s café not because we have a map (we don’t) and not because we ask (nobody speaks Mandarin here) but because we know it’s supposed to be on the “main” street of this town, and it turns out that the “main” street takes approximately eight minutes to walk down. No buildings are higher than two stories, minimal proof of present human activity can be identified, and you can see the monstrous mountain ranges towering toward you as you stand on the sidewalk.  It is kind of almost snowing (read: we’re getting soaked from ugly sloshy wannabe snow that’s actually just really cold rain) and open-topped trucks of coal rush past us threatening to soak us with collateral muddy sleet. I would give this town about a minus twenty out of ten.

We stumble upon Emma’s café and are all ushered inside by a woman who reached my shoulders but outstripped a sea otter for energy and cuteness. Turns out she is Emma (stunning deduction skills on my part, thankyouverymuch) and we are informed that the horses are already waiting for us. But we haven’t eaten. So we eat. It is whilst I am chewing that I notice a strange feeling in my head. Being ever the optimist, I tried to convince myself that the feeling was simply “strange” if not unsolicited, and continued on with vigour. Yes, I ate my omelette with vigour – we thought food on the trek might not be crash hot. Having finished said omelette, we excitedly stowed our belongings away and went out to meet our horses and guide.

I have always had an admiration for horses, indeed also for the horse-affiliated people. People who can ride horses, I guess is what I mean by that. They’re pretty cool really. It must just come from my heavily cinema-influenced youth, but if you have a horse as an animal friend, you might just cut it as a member of the Fellowship. People who can wield swords at the same time get bonus points, but I understand the lack of relevance of heavy armory these days. I digress.

I guess what I mean, is that I always wanted to ride horses. The horse and I would have a seemingly psychic connection. Its name is Rafael. Rafael won’t let anyone else ride him. When we’re travelling and cold around campfire under starry sky I sleep near his rump for warmth and feed him food from my own stores. It’s that image of galloping across the countryside on dusk, endless expanse of green and golden fields, single tree on the horizon line, setting sun as my point of reference, lover awaiting my arrival, hair billowing, strings coming to crescendo with horn section. A life directed by Lucas.

What we find, waiting by the side of the coal truck highway, is a fat man smoking a squished cigarette, counting ripped money, swearing at other men, all of them shifting uncomfortably in the cold, hawking and spitting, shoving gritty fingers up their noses and picking their underwear from their dirty asses. Three horses wait as far away from the men as their straining reigns will allow them, evidently embarrassed by their “masters”. I can tell that none of these horses are named Rafael. I can tell that I will not have a spiritual connection with any of them. I can tell that our guide is not a handsome horse whisperer. A glance around me and I realise that this scenery is not at all similar to that found in Elizabeth: The Golden Age, nor is the temperature. I come to the conclusion that no lover is waiting for me, that I do not have a philharmonic orchestra accompanying me on this trip and my hair won’t even billow because its shoved under a goddamned beannie.

Why am I here? I hear me ask myself.

It’s so funny that I presume I know these things.

The three of us approach the fat man (he is clearly the boss, in case you haven’t seen everysinglegangstermovieevermade) and introduce ourselves. He doesn’t care who we are, which is not surprising, until he finds out that we payed a deposit for the trek to someone other than him. On receiving this apparently unreasonable information, he stands up as tall as he can, inflates his shoulders, blows out his boozy red cheeks and punches his nose in the air as if it were his fist. Looking down on me and yelling, this attempt at intimidation is unsuccessful because all I see is a striking resemblance to a puffer fish. I reply in a very loud, clear and slow (read: patronising) voice that we will not pay the deposit twice. Condescension appears effective, if only because he is baffled that a young woman is speaking directly to him. One of my travelling friends, of the three of us, was male, and it had not escaped my attention that people would address him instead of one of us females when decisions were to be made – as if we were some polygamous patriarchal travelling threesome. As it was, I was the most assertive in the situation simply because I don’t like pufferfish.

We hand over some crispy Mao (fresh cash) (because Mao is on EVERY unit of money) (even though he was communist) (FAIL). And now we are being shown over to our noble steeds. They are truly “amazing”.

Seriously though.

Not.

The first introduction I get to our guide, is a nice ass-grab as I get up onto my saddle. At the time I tell myself that his fingers were not bent into a cup-shape so as to enjoy the support and that I did actually need help up, however hindsight reveals to me in incredibly clarity, that he did cop a feel, and consequently I am now feeling physically ill. Speaking of ill, the exertion of mounting the horse made my blood pump a little more, and I notice the “strange” feeling in my head was getting less “strange” and more painful…

I had done a less-than-adequate amount of reading into altitude sickness. Because Songpan is about 3000 meters above sea level, it falls into the category of potentially-seriously-messing-you-up. Just google it. I dare you. The last time I was up high was trekking in Rwanda to see Gorillas, and I passed out, woke up, and kept going. I presumed that having fought the altitude monster once before and won, that I would consequently be stronger for the second round. Turns out that people with the genetic predisposition to altitude sickness (it has nothing to do with fitness) actually get affected worse and worse with every climb.

If there was ever a time when lack of preparation would bite me on the ass, it would turn out to be this time…

Jiuzhaigou Nature Reserve

Jiuzhaigou was easily the aesthetic highlight of our trip to Sichuan. It takes a special level of picturesqueness to make people think that somehow, someone has photoshopped real life. I'm not sure what that says about the world we live in, and the generation I come from, but when you stand in front of these lakes and waterfalls and valleys, you feel like you've floated into some kind of surrealist dreamland. The colours are like an oversaturated 1950's television. They also don't make sense. 

Most landscapes I have ever seen follow some kind of colour scheme. Either it's the dark green pines with rich brown earth and a plethora of squishy moss which is a mix between the two. Or it's the bright blue sky of Australia with bright green grass and brightly coloured flowers. Or it might be the dull grey tones of the bush in winter, when everything seems to be covered in a wash of dust and dormancy. I had always thought that landscapes had specific palettes. Jiuzhaigou shattered this preconception.

To begin, you are allmost assaulted by how white the snow is. The purest and brightest I have ever seen, no doubt. It blankets what it chooses to, and leaves you with amazing focus points, as if the panorama was a blank sheet of paper which had only certain things in certain places drawn on it. Shin-length wheat-like grass covered a wondrous expanse of flat land, and was the colour of golden dreams. The richness of the yellowy blades was straight out of an Anne of Green Gables paperback cover - the straw on her hat. This grass came to an abrupt halt at the edge of a bed of silvery rocks and pebbles. Look at the shiny lead in the core of a pencil, and you would see the rain-slicked rocks at the edge of the lake. They clashed horribly with the warmth of the grass, but you almost don't have time to ponder it before your eyes are drawn to the next clash - the vast dark green pine forest blanketing the mountains. A green so rich and dark with prosperity and fullness that it is almost black. Straight from the Swiss Alps, my northern European friends remind me. Yet the forest is here, in the middle of China, next to fields from Canada and rocks from English marshland... and a lake. A lake that could only be from the imagination of a pixie on LSD.

The blue is mesmerising. If it were in the eyes of a young man, you would fall in love. If it were an alcohol we would all be drunkards. If it was paint your house would be no other colour, and if it were an emotion it would undoubtedly be incredulation. As a song, it would only be sung by sirens, as a meal it would be your last request before certain death. With a visible yet immesurable depth, the corpses of massive trees lay on it's bed, their leafless branches reaching up to you as if frozen in ecstatic screams. Covered in a kind of white death, the trunks are bigger than cars - like trophies the lake will keep forever as a testament to it's sheer enormity.

Not much can be said when you are standing on the edge of such a lake. You become almost numbed to the hundreds of tourists pushing past.The cold biting at your face is somehow forgotten, the ache in your climb-weary legs is pushed aside. It's difficult to speak because, for one of the first times in your life, there is nothing that needs to be said. What can be seen speaks for itself. A thousand times over.