C.J. Neff

Sorry, once again, for the out-of-order storytelling. I was in Kashgar for ten days just before Hotan. I rarely stay in one place for that long, but it was a mixture of being sick(-ish), needing to take it slow for a bit, and meeting truly wonderful friends.

I met five bicyclists (among other awesome people) there, and let’s just say, for the sake of brevity, they’re all on long journeys (10,000+ kilometers). I think I might hop on a bike myself next year, once the weather warms back up. There are three reasons why: first, I love bicycling (isn’t that reason enough?); second, I want to hit up some spots that aren’t otherwise easily accessible; third, and this one is a big one for me, I want to stop talking about reducing my carbon footprint and actually reduce my carbon footprint (it’s kind of ironic that talking about reducing your carbon footprint literally increases it!).

Oh, right, I went off on that tangent because I wanted to say that I almost bought a bike in Kashgar. I had my pick of routes and partners, all experienced and awesome people. In the end, however, it was a touch too much risk for me. You see, Kashgar is the westernmost metropolis in China. It would have taken me a month just to bike my way back out of Xīnjiāng (the province where Kashgar is located). By then, it would have been the end of the year (i.e. even colder!), and there wouldn’t have been many places along the way to change my mind about bicycling. Next year, for sure!

Kashgar, though, was amazing. It’s the center of Uyghur culture in China, and you can feel it. Your Mandarin isn’t going to do you much good here!

What remains of the real old city is absolutely stunning. I’ve never seen anything like it in the world. Clay bricks and mud fashioned into humble abodes haphazardly piled several stories high. Pure, beautiful, organic chaos!

You approach via an old-looking (more on this in a bit) bridge:

From up close, you don’t get as good a sense of how chaotically the residences and rooms are arranged inside. The picture below is quite pedestrian because I’m too low. The view from the bridge above is better, but it’s too far away (perhaps it’s finally time to start using a real camera; zoom would be awesome!).




The next photo, though, captures the character of these adobe abodes pretty well. Look how many stories there are! The doors and windows are so randomly placed! Why are there so many different types of bricks! You can feel the history spilling out of these walls!




Just fantastic! My enthusiasm, however, was quickly abated. As I walked back through the other parts of the “old town”, I realized they weren’t old at all. They’ve been rebuilt. So many of the actual old buildings are presently being torn down to make room for the new, old buildings.

And then there’s the People’s Square, an enormous concrete square with a giant statue of Mao. Nothing could be more out of place here, and you can’t help but think they “paved paradise and put up a parking lot”! It nearly brought me to tears to think what has been lost here.

I can’t say whether Uyghur culture is better than the Hàn’s, or vice versa, but it’s about respect. Each person ought to be able to live the life he or she desires; respect tempers that freedom ever so slightly. Respect means that your freedom can’t impinge on the freedom of others. I can live my life however I want, with the exception that I can’t tell you how to live your life.

That giant “parking lot” in the center of town? I don’t know, man.

Location:Kāshí

Are you a job?

Are you a sport?
Or hobby?

Are you a place?
Are you the places you’ve been?
The places you’re going?

Are you an age?

Are you your friends?
Your family?

Or are you some combination of these?

Or something else entirely?

Are you a soul?
Or something “spiritual”?

Or are we all the same?
Are you me?

Is it possible for me to get to know you through some series of questions? Or is “you” too ephemeral? Are you something I need to just experience?

The only sentence I can say for sure about you that doesn’t end with a question mark is: I don’t know.

But here’s what I think: you are your experiences; you are the hard times and the good times all together; you are always changing. And that is beautiful; it’s the infinity that lives inside us!

Lately, I’ve been downloading a bunch of Disney ballads, a little embarrassing, I’ll admit, but nonetheless true. These songs have been stuck in my head since childhood, and when my brain decides to resurrect one, it feels only natural to download the whole song so that I can get the lyrics right (my 25 year old memory of the lyrics is rarely complete or correct).

“Colors of the Wind” is the latest addition to my catalogue, and it’s fitting given my upcoming itinerary.

I’ve always listened for the “voices of the mountain” whenever I’ve found myself in the mountains (quite often, in fact, given my predilection for climbing rocks). But I don’t think I’ve previously paid much attention to the “colors of the wind”.

I’ll be in Jǐuzhàigǒu two days from now. I’m hoping to spend three days in the park, touted as one of if not the most beautiful park in China. I’ll make sure to keep and eye and ear out for these colors and voices.

I’m already in the town of Jǐuzhàigǒu, but not yet in the UNESCO site itself. You see, even though I’m essentially on a vacation of indeterminate length, I still need a weekend every now and again. Today, I’m lazily making my way through some work, and tomorrow I plan to be even more lazy. The rest is appropriate though; I plan to walk nearly 100 miles over the course of Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

More soon!

Location:Aba,China

Old me, “1%” me, well, not quite 1% me, almost got resurrected over the past two days.

Kailas, the big Chinese climbing company, finally responded to a proposal I sent them about two months ago. I was asking them for a reasonable living wage on which I would travel around for 50 weeks to 50 destinations looking for new climbing in China. I suppose it’s a bit of a long story. Let me rewind a bit.

A crazy idea came to me back in June. I would write a program to analyze Google’s topological maps in order to find places in China with either big cliffs or high concentrations of sport-sized cliffs. That was going to be an utter nightmare, writing code to programmatically read and follow elevation lines, plus how would I download all that data without Google throttling me. Seriously, nightmare, but doable and an amazing idea, so I trudged on. And then, a lightbulb moment. Check the web for data instead of maps; sure enough NASA offers free topological data for every 30 meters across (nearly) the entire globe. Score! I downloaded a few sample datasets and wrote some simple algorithms to locate big cliffs. About 1,000 lines of code later (i.e. not that much for any of you non-nerds out there), the program was correctly calling attention to places like Half Dome, El Cap, Zion, Indian Creek, and more. It was kind of incredible! I was just about to run the algorithm against all of China, and then Abond broke his laptop, so he took mine back. There I was, laptop-less (and broke) for a month, just of the verge of identifying a boatload of virgin climbing destinations in China.

Right before I lost my laptop privileges, Abond had me put together a proposal for Kailas to sponsor me to visit the 50 most promising destinations my program spit out. Had they sponsored me, I would have been able to afford a laptop for the trip, buses, hotels, food. It really would have been exciting.

But, you know what, I finally got to play with that new MacBook Pro with Retina Display at an electronics mall here in Guǎngzhōu. And, is it amazing? Of course it is. The screen is outrageous! I’m happy just to have lived long enough to see a laptop with a screen like this, even if I never get to own one. But you know what I thought when I actually started to seriously considering buying one? Someone’s definitely going to steal this at the type of hostels I’ve been staying at. I mean, I would!

What I was saying, I think, is that hosteling is more important to me than owning a MacBook Pro with Retina Display. And the reason I titled this post “Freedom” is that’s exactly what I have right now. I leave my piece of shit laptop (which I bought a week or two ago in order to keep working (I’ve been doing some transcription work online for the past couple of months; it’s perfect because it’s only a few hours a week and I can do it anywhere)) anywhere, and I never worry about anyone stealing it. No one would want it. I don’t want it! But it’s exactly perfect for where I am in life right now; it’s tiny, lightweight, cheap. Perfect!

So when I went to talk with Kailas today (they’re headquartered here in Guǎngzhōu), I went with mixed feelings. It would be awesome to be able to afford that fancy laptop and maybe even a fancy camera. But, you know what, I’m free right now. I don’t owe anyone anything. I don’t have to be anywhere, anytime. I can’t tell you what that feels like. Nothing feels better!

They told me they’re not interested in finding new destinations right now. They’ve got enough on their radar right now, and they’ve got plenty to bolt in places like Yángshuò and Shànghǎi. They said it’s too early to look for new destinations, which to me means it’s exactly the right time to go. I don’t want to add an incremental number of routes to an established climbing area; I want to discover what’s never been climbed before, what’s never even been considered climbable before.

So, I’m going to keep hitchhiking for a bit, just to continue to get an overview of what we’ve got to work with here in China. I’ll keep learning Chinese; I haven’t found any better way to learn than hitchhiking. And then I’m planning to spend the winter in Běijīng. I’ll finish my little NASA thingee. Perhaps I’ll hop back to the States in early spring when my visa expires, and then I’ll be back in China to go on the 50 places in 50 weeks adventure, presumably hitchhiking that route as well. Freedom, eh?

Location:Guǎngzhōu

Is it cynicism? Of course it is! I’ve simply visited too many places to still have that take-my-breath away moment. I’m not saying there aren’t beautiful places out there; if anything, I would say that the beauty of this world is infinite. I still enjoy seeing the colors, the grandeur, all of it, but there’s something even more incredible I’ve found out there. They’re called people. All it takes is flashing a subtle smile in their direction, or helping them carry their bags to their car, or offering to share a cookie or two, and generally they’ll smile back, then you ask each other where you’re from, and the next thing you know it’s 1 A.M., and you’re trying to figure out how to make time flow more slowly. You see, my favorite places aren’t places at all; they’re just the locations where my favorite people happen to be. I planned to hitchhike for about two weeks, so saying that I’ve spent nearly a whole week in one place speaks volumes. Here, in Lìjiāng, I’ve met friends who make me wish I could stay forever. But, you see, most of them are just passing through as well. It’s the best gift and the worst curse of travel, at the same time. Best hope is to run into them again somewhere else, and then that place will be my favorite.

Location:China

Even though my posting this now will make my dozen or so Xī’ān anecdotes appear out of order, I thought it was important for me to let any of you out there keeping up with my adventures know that I’m not dead and that our first hitchhiking adventure was successful. More than successful actually, it was a transformative moment in my life. I got a true glimpse into what Chinese culture really is. For more than a moment, longer than I’ve ever been able to peek behind the curtain before, all the craziness related to “face”, the government, guānxi (relationships), the crazy driving, all of it, it all made sense. I felt like I had actually arrived in China China.

So, what happened? Well, this was the first time hitchhiking for both me and Morgan, so we did a tiny bit of research online before we fully committed. We learned it’s best to try to pick up a car near highway tollbooths using a sign indicating where you’re going, and that’s exactly what we did.

We thought for a moment when we saw some cops pointing at us and then driving their car over in our direction that we were going to get some government “help”, but they simply drove past us. We waited about 15 minutes until our first car pulled over. It was a cute little family heading to Hànzhōng, and they were down to give us a ride, but they only had one seat. This was the break we needed. The first 15 minutes were gosh darn awkward, but I was pretty certain this would work after that first car pulled over.

We also happened to remember at this point that the Internet told us you can tell where a car is from based on its license plate. The first character, a Chinese character, indicates the province (essentially equivalent to the state in the U.S.), and the second character, an English letter, indicates the city. We had forgotten to look up the letter for Hànzhōng, but we did know that Hànzhōng is in Sìchuān, the next province over. So we started getting more excited, waving our sign around, and waving our arms, when we saw a car from Sìchuān.

Fifteen minutes later, we were in a nice, air conditioned Nissan heading for Hànzhōng, and we learned that Hànzhōng license plates begin with “B”.

We chatted, in Chinese, with our hosts for most of the four hour journey. The driver made sure we stopped for bathroom breaks, and he bought us water. He treated us like kings, but little did we know, at this point, that this was only the beginning.

Here’s a picture of us all after the dinner our host treated us to. It was a delicious hot pot with beef, kelp, and a bunch of local, wild, truly delicious mushrooms, and plenty of beer. The driver, our host, is the guy in the purple shirt in this photo.




Oh, this picture is hilarious. Here we are with the boss of a restaurant in a building our host owned. This guy got a little drunk on báijiǔ (rice wine) when we stopped by for dinner the next night. Yes, we decided to stay a second night because we were having such a good time in Hànzhōng, a place we had never even heard of a day before.




It wasn’t so much the location that was incredible, it was the people we met. Our host made sure we had everything we needed: good food, a cheap place to stay, a ride around town to see the sights, everything. Here’s the best sight in town. This fountain seriously rivaled The Venetian’s in Las Vegas; it was incredible.




But it’s not the fountain or any other location that will stick in my mind; it’s the friendships we made. I hope one day I can return the favor for our host in Yángshuò or the States!

We really approached this first hitchhiking experience as an onsight. We didn’t have any knowledge beforehand of what would happen, but I think, in a way, that’s exactly why it worked out the way it did. Planning is the act of closing doors, and sometimes you want that. But, right now, I don’t want that. Being able to explore the unknown is only possible by letting go a little; you can’t plan to see or experience something you don’t yet know anything about. So I encourage you all out there to take a different way home today; this weekend, wander off somewhere you’ve never been before; plan some time, every week, to do something unplanned. See what happens!

Location:Hànzhōng