Back to the topic at hand… Jeonju is just 3 hours away from Seoul, enough to get there in the morning, have lunch and dinner and then come back before midnight, which is what I’m going to do.

At the Express Bus Terminal, the bus leaves from Central City terminal about every 10 minutes. There are two classes of bus, but I’d go for the more expensive service that cost 17,900W one way. According to the map, it is just about 200km away, but as usual, traffic jam plus heavy rain means that the trip took 3 hours. There will be a break half way to Jeonju, and the rest stop i surprisingly well equipped. There is a small supermarket, and plenty of shops selling sit down meals or korean junk food. They even have toebokki and sundae (korean blood sausage, not ice cream).

Highway rest stop: Korean junk food… and it is good!

The bus ends up in Jeonju’s Express Bus Terminal (전주고속버스터미널) in the north of the town. By now it is already quite late in the afternoon, around 2pm and I’ve not have my lunch yet along the way. At least it’s time for a proper lunch. There are plenty of taxis waiting at the bus terminal, which is convenient.

Seungmidang Restaurant
First Bibimbap mission takes me to Seongmidang restaurant (성미당) close to the Gaeksa landmark. It is hidden in a small street, but with a GPS you will never be lost looking for location 35.817413, 127.145264. Even at 3pm there is a queue here. The couple in front of me are Japanese, which makes this restaurant famous in Japanese guide books too. Normally I would avoid places like these, but maybe there’s no harm giving it a try.

Seungmidang Restaurant exterior. I was so hungry I didn’t spot the “high end audio” shop next door.

Entering the restaurant

There are 2 types of bibimbap here on the menu, raw beef and normal. It is not cheap at all. But at least the banchans are plentiful and not too bad tasting. And soon the main dish arrives in a brass bowl that is heated so much that the stuff inside sizzles. You mix is around and get the beef sort of cooked. The rice is already mixed with the gochujang sauce, unlike most bibimbaps I’ve had in Seoul. And the hot bowl creates a layer of hardened rice where it contacts the bowl. They call this nooroongji 누룽지, which I used to hate, but started to like after some time. What’s important is that the dish smells great.

One way to tell a good restaurant is the sparse menu. This one is not the simplest one I’ve seen, but it still screams quality

Bibimbap at Seongmidang: before mixing. The red stuff is the beef. Gochujang is already mixed into the rice under all the toppings.

After mixing, and pre-diving in… I could still smell the dish while writing this up.

One sentence reviews the whole dish: its damn good.

The gochujang sauce that they use is on the sweet side. Not terribly spicy, but the whole thing just balances together. I eat very quick. And best part of it all, the layer of burnt rice at the bottom with the burnt gochujang sauce. I notice locals pouring soup at the end to soften the noorongji, but I quickly developed a way to scrap the crunchy bits off the bottom. And it was good.

Well, I’m here as a tourist…
… so I better do what tourists usually do. After the nice late lunch, its time to walk around to let the food settle and get ready for dinner. Just a street to the north of the restaurant is the Gaeksa. Wikitravel describes it as an ancient hotel. It looks like a small building with an over engineered roof but I don’t see how it could be a hotel for a town. There are maximum of 3-4 rooms, so perhaps it is for VIPs only. Locals are just hanging around here having a picnic.

Gaeksa

More Gaeksa. And so I lied. There were not that many people here today. Perhaps it was forecasted to rain?

A few streets to the south east of the Gaeksa is a park where Gyeongijeon (경기전) shrine is located. I believe the attraction here is the portrait of Taejo Lee, the founder of the Joseon dynasty is placed. In the central building, there is indeed a portrait. Otherwise the buildings look very chinese inspired. In fact, I wouldn’t be able to tell that this was in Korea if I saw the exact building in China. Other than that, not much more I can say about this place. There are plenty of photo groups walking around with large lenses (I don’t know what’s with these people, walking around a park with a 70-200 f2.8. If they are shooting birds, I can think of better places than parks… not to mention they probably need a 600mm for all these small birds).

Strange logo at Gyeongijeon park. I don’t understand Korean yet, but it doesn’t look like “toilet” to me.

Now this looks more like a park

I suppose this must be one of the shrines…

… and yes it is, and this is the portrait people came to see. Perhaps photography is prohibited here. Anyway.

Time to move east to the Hanok Village. Short review: I thought that I would be looking at old buildings. What this is, is a mash of old and new reconstructed buildings. The attraction here seems to be more the shopping than the building. There are restaurants, shops selling handicraft, a nice shallow granite “stream” on the walkway and even an Italian restaurant. Nice place to take a walk, but disappointing historically.

Traditional meets modern

On the way to the Hanok Village, there are more bibimbap restaurants than any other

Smack in the heart of the Hanok Village. And I’m sure you were expecting some old stuff too…

For the benefit of doubt, lets assume this is a renovated old house. This is an inn. Which I presume is getting healthy business.

Why should I complain too much. The aim was to walk enough so that I can go on to the next restaurant for more bibimbap around dinner time before going back to Seoul. By the time I was done with the Hanok village, my watch registers 7pm. Sounds like dinner time to me. I backtracked using the cookie crumb feature on my Garmin and back to Seungmidang Restaurant as there is supposed to be another competing restaurant near by that is just as popular.

Evening in Jeonju, enroute to the next meal destination…

Gajok Hwegwan Restaurant
This restaurant is located at the south west corner of the intersection at 35.817154, 127.146157. The korean name is 가족 회관. You have to go up one flight of stairs to the second floor and enter an entrance full of pots of ingredients. This place is more of a factory than the first restaurant. Everything is piled high, waiters and waitresses with trolleys with banchan arranged and stacked up on trays ready to unload onto new tables very quickly. And the bibimbap arrived very quick too. Everything efficient.

Restaurant’s army of ajummas at work.

Le Banchans

and more Bibimbaps

How did it go? I loved the banchans here. Probably better than Seungmidang. Too bad the Bibimbap was normal tasting. Still quite ok, but nothing magical like Seungmidang I believe it could be because of the gochujang here doesn’t taste as good. But overall it was a good meal, rescued thanks to the banchans. At least that’s how I feel.

Then again two bibimbaps in the span of 4 hours is probably too much for a day. After dinner, it was time to take a taxi to the bus station for the 3 hour long trip back to Seoul. I guess I’ll have to come back again to do the other restaurants in the future. And I think I might have tasted what is definitely the best bibimbap so far. And that’s a big feat for a small town!

Ticket back to Seoul

Night bus. Man, that TV screen is tiny from the back!

Resulting path that I took around downtown Jeonju

*End of Post*

Pingyao Old Town

Yamen Government Complex

Pingyao City Wall

Group of senior citizens relaxing outside the city wall

Street seller on south street

Main tower on Pingyao’s south tourist street

I blame a previous issue of Silverkris. I tend not to take any more airline magazines as they all turn out to be paper weight after it leaves the plane, but now with a camera phone with enough resolution, I can take a picture of the page and read it later. And so it was, one edition had an article on Pingyao. That’s in Shanxi, Shanxi with single “a” and not the one where the terracotta warriors are located. It was not a long article, just one page, and something about not being affected by the cultural revolution and the fact that this small town was the first financial hub in China about a hundred years before Shanghai. And so during the long weekend in May, when I was out of ideas of where to go, Pingyao came to mind. Wouldn’t be that bad to decamp over there for a few days just to chill out.

The only issue is getting there. One idea was to go to Beijing and then taking a train, but that seems to take a whole day. Another way is to go through the capital of Shanxi Province, Taiyuan, just about 2 hours by bus. I like the chinese bus. Dirt cheap (though train would be cheaper) and full of locals. So… mind made up, and ready to go.

5 May 2011:

Taiyuan airport. Can’t get a better shot than this. Blurry picture a combination of bad chinese air and dirty aircraft windows.

Maybe its a new airport, maybe it is just underused. TYN.

Bus ticketing booth and a waiting airport bus to take passengers to the city.

The flight lands in a nice new airport that is being extended at least at this moment. Couldn’t see too well anyway, the usual chinese smog/fog or manchurian dust storm clouds it all. Whatever it is, I could see the airport terminal in Taiyuan, and it reminds me immediately of a flattened Sydney Opera House. It did look big, at least for a regional airport. Then again Taiyuan is not a small city, a few million people live here. They must fly a lot too. However the luggage reclaim area looks smaller (just a few conveyor belts) than I thought and when you get out of it, a bus ticketing booth sits in front of the exit. To make it quick, since I want to dedicate more of this page to Pingyao: board bus bound for the train station, pay 15 RMB, and 9km later I’m dropped off at a junction, about 500m walk away to Jiannan Bus Station. It was easy for me with a GPS, but ask the driver and he will tell you where to get off. Paid 26RMB for the bus and walked to the parking lot to look for the usual conveyor bus system that they have in the provinces. There’s a queue of buses sorted by destination. When a bus is full it leaves. Simple. Next one comes up and fills up again till the closing time, which I was told is about 6:30pm.

Jiannan Bus Station in Taiyuan

Bus ticket to Pingyao

Just walk to the back of the terminal and all the buses are waiting there

Its late in the evening when I got on the bus, so there was not much of a scenery. You go through the large outskirts of Taiyuan city, then some smaller towns and before long the bus drops everyone off outside Pingyao city walls. I knew which direction it is, but it is a fair bit of walk away. Jump into one of those motorcycle taxies and 2RMB later you’re dropped off at the Northern Gate. I asked for the price to the hotel close to the Southern gate and they quoted 20RMB. Well, 2RMB to Northern Gate, and 2x the distance I have to pay 10x? I didn’t like the math. So told the guy to sod off, I’ll take a walk thank you.

Dropped off outside the northern wall, trying not to be run over by cyclists

My first glimpse of Pingyao’s city wall

Had a quick glace at the imposing city wall, about 4 storeys tall and punctuated with watch towers every 150m or so. After passing through the small Northern Gate, I’m greeted by a well preserved old town but all the shops at this entrance and all the way to the hotel is converted into the typical chinese souvenir store and restaurants. I took the North Street, then West Street and then South Street before hitting Yamen Jie towards Zhengjia Hostel.

Now there are two units next to each other. One is a Hostel and the other is a Hotel. I booked a small single room so I’m supposed to stay at the hotel wing a few shop entrances down the road. The hotel, like many buildings within the Pingyao city walls, is a refurbished former ancient residence complete with the old courtyard. Decorative lanterns hang on the roof to make it look nostalgic. Rooms all surround the courtyard. I’m glad I chose a place to stay that’s far away from the main North and South street where traffic would make things less than comfortable given the Chinese’ penchant for sounding the horn at every step, and not forgetting the 2 stroke vehicles that crowd rural cities like this one.

6 May 2011:
I think the trip to Pingyao was proving a little more epic than I hoped for. For once I am really not trying to wake up early. After having chinese breakfast made up of 2 buns, and egg, some vegetables stirfried in chilli flakes and a bowl of corn soup, I’m staring at 11am start. I will have two full days in Pingyao and in that two days I plan to walk the whole town, even the small streets to see what life is like here. From Yamen Street, the most logical place to start is at the Yamen complex, an old government building built in the same architecture as usual chinese complexes, with all the courtyards, halls and to the side, rooms for more usual purpose like living quarters.

Yamen Government Complex:
At the ticket booth, a 150RMB ticket gets me around for up to 3 days. This is sufficient for most of the sights, but not all. I take that to mean that I get to go into official sights and the other places that require additional payment should be private venture. 150RMB is not that expensive given most UNESCO sanctioned place in China start at least around 300RMB per entry. Who cares about the multi-day ticket, statistically I’m sure they know that most tourists are here for a day trip and do the usual express in and express out itinerary.

The Yamen is a bigger complex than I expected. I sometimes follow a tour group, and sometimes I just wander around the place in reverse order. Architecture is a little different from other places I’ve been to, some rooms have this arched ceilling, and I dont think I’ve seen it in this part of the world before. Part of the facade reminded me of Anhui province, then again it was some years ago so I might have mistaken it a little bit. I spent almost 2 hours at the Yamen complex. Going through all the rooms and gardens and courtyards. For details check other websites, at least I’ve seen many describing this place.

Upon exiting the place, a big wall with inscription awaits and it looks popular, so much that they named the road leading southwards something like the mural road. Its also a place where people wait for others, and the usual tourist photo enterprises congregate. You can take your photo dressed as a traditional Pingyao-ian, or sit on a decorated rickshaw pulled by an old man. Its not my cup of tea, and I’m wondering who in their right mind would want to use it. Then again, as I always said, if its there, it means someone is paying for it. Anyway on to the next destination…

Small gate marking the entrance to Yamen Complex

Main Entrance to Yamen Complex

All entrances come with these turnstiles

Yamen Complex: Main courtyard

These half buckets are ingenious and are everwhere in Pingyao. I think they’re fllled with a bit of sand.

And they make good photographic object!

This old guy was going around inside the complex, I believe asking if tourists wants to take pictures of him. For a price I’m sure.

Now this is an interesting architecture. Don’t think I’ve seen it like this with arched roofing in China.

This is a big courtyard inside the complex, with the foundations of a previous building still visible.

Guard’s Room close to the entrance to the complex.

A small altar I’ve found inside the Yamen Complex. The head of the small statue has been lobed off.

There are many gardens inside the complex. This is one of them, and is close to the exit.

New tourists coming in, while I’m leaving.

This is one of those signs in english that I just don’t understand fully.

Lei Yutai Residence:
This house belongs to the guy that started Rishengchang financial house. Its located to the south of Yamen Governmental Complex, and pretty close to the southern wall. On the map, there are quite a number of notable residences close to the Southern Wall, which makes me derive that most of Pingyao’s rich prefer to live in that part of town. The residence is in a part of town that is a little quieter than the bustle of the main streets. Other than the presence of a large performance centre, Lei Yutai’s residence is unique in that it doesn’t come with its own souvenir stand outside of the entrance. In fact, the guy taking care of the place is quite laid back as well. When I got there he was in a small booth and just signalled me to just wave the ticket’s barcode where the reader is. All venues that are covered by the main ticket will have an electronic turnstile that works through scanning a barcode on the larger than necessary ticket.

So once I get in, most of the residence is on the left. Got greeted by a golden bust of the man himself. Otherwise the rest of the residence is just that. To me it all looks the same here in China. You’ve seen one? Then you’ve seen them all. Alleyways, chambers with chairs facing in the same direction for receiving guests, and symmetrical architecture. I have yet to spot an ancient toilet though. I dont think I’ve even seen one at the Forbidden City in Beijing, much less this one. There is a part of the house where one could get up to the second floor but there’s not much of a view here. The private chambers with the cave like arched ceilings are quite unique to this place too. I don’t think I have ever seen one of those in China. At the entrance of this place, I’m reminded that the owner of this place based it on Chinese architecture AND his own personal taste. So that explains why.

These barriers are all over, forming a parameter around the core of Pingyao, preventing vehicles from going in, but with a cutout for cyclists to go through.

There are all these signs for public toilet. Its basically someone’s home and it doesn’t look too clean.

Lei Yutai’s residence and a bust of the man

This is one of the meting rooms where guests could either sit on a chair or on a platform (left)

Exit of the complex. No idea what the word in chinese meant.

Temple of Guanyu:
This one is a little bit off the map. I was hoping to find it smack next to Lei Yutai’s Residence but looks like the place is closed off and the roofing looks in disrepair. Roof wise, it looks like the old way to construct a roof is to first have some wooden beams, then place thin mats or thin planks after which the workers would put a layer of mud combined with straw and use the same thing to stick the final tiles together. Some of the worn down roofs show all these contents. I have had the chance to see some workers build a new roof and workers were shoveling chunks of combined mud and straws from ground level up scaffolding to the top of the building to be used as roofing agent.

Local Household

Back streets Pingyao

With the walls to the left of the car, some of the corridors are really narrow for cars.

Roofing in Pingyao is sometimes still made the traditional with straw reinforced earth used to stick the tiles together on the roof.

Cheng Huang Temple:
I don’t know why I bother having this one in this blog. I looked for it next to a fashionable hotel after the Confucian temple but this place eludes me. Perhaps it has some secret entrance which I didn’t manage to find. Needless to say I didn’t find it. Anyway, after a while, every temple looks the same and I can’t really recall what I saw in there other than the usual celestial inspired layout and a folklore and legend or two told by tour guides, sometimes very specific instructions and reward, as though its a veiled method to keep tourists occupied: if your coin lands there, then you will get good luck for 1 year, etc. I’ve heard so many of it I think they’re all made up. Come on! Ancient Chinese can’t be that petty and gullible!

Yingxun Gate:
This is the south gate to the city. Its renovated, and the main valid ticket is require and after you do the obligatory swipe of the barcode on the turnstile, you get to walk up a ramp to the top of the wall. This gate also comes with a tower and a complex set of gates below it to let carts and vehicles to get outside the town. There is a temple somewhere here but again I never managed to find it. Then again I was not trying too hard to find it. There is a respectable view of the South Street from here, but unfortunately pretty obscured by some trees some inconsiderate soul planted. Definitely require a 100mm or longer lens to do it since there’s a clearing between the gate and the start of the South Street. From here it is possible to take a walk along the wall, but I’m not sure how far. Considering most of the people coming here are tourists, I don’t think it will be possible to wander off too far. By the way, I found out that the ticket is only valid for one watch tower even though there are a few of them in the town. Once you visit one, it will not work any more for the other towers.

Entrance to gate

Stairs going up to Yingxun Gate

View of the main South Street in Pingyao, obscured by a strategically placed tree.

But it is still possible to take some compressed shops of the old town.

All these statues are on the gate’s platform.

And this is the view looking outside the walled old city of Pingyao

Yingxun Gate is supposed to have a temple. This has to be the entrance.

Confucian Temple:
After a long bit of wandering around from Lei Yutai’s Residence, mostly around the southern city wall, I got to the Confucian Temple. This is one of the major attraction here, seemingly the place where imperial examinations too place or where they celebrated, I guess modern sense, that’s where graduation happened. The main entrance is the usual you’d start to expect here. Turnstiles, and scanning the ticket barcode gets you in. This temple also comes with a big stone facade facing the entrance, and you can tell you’re in the right place by the number of electric carts loitering outside fishing for tourists. I’d go in here and get out in the northern exit.

This is easily the most spacious temple in Pingyao, at least the one I’ve seen so far. Just about everywhere, there are little wooden red blocks that tourists and I guess devotees could buy, write something and hang it on every crook and cranny and railing one could find. Good I guess for that bokeh laden picture. There are places to pray, places to walk around and exhibition on imperial examinations. Right before the northern exit, there is a big rectangular metal cauldron that seems to serve a decorative purpose back in its days and now just a place for tourists to throw money into. Oh yeah, I was more attracted by the naked wooden spacers that is used crisscrossed to support the heavy roof. Those must be hundreds of years old.

In one of the inner square, local tourists would hop over a little arch with a raised platform, probably for good luck. They would do this, then circle back to the starting point and do it again a couple of times. I find it amusing, though I forgot to count the number of times they would do it. I would guess something like 7 or 8 times since that’s the usual good luck number.

Somewhere deep in the complex is a photographic exhibition including local and 2 halls displaying Ansel Adams and Robert Capa. Not sure the theme of the exhibition.

Close to the Confucian temple at its Southern entrance

Which looks like this…

Right after the gate is this bridge, and when there’s a pool of water, tourists will throw coins at it, so the caretakers build these small platforms for them to miss, perhaps to throw more money at it!

Just about everything here has these red amulet thingy stringed to it. Has to be for good luck.

English signs are everywhere, although it doesn’t usually make sense.

I’m still wondering what the small platform is. If I had to guess, I think its for little people to go over the steps.

I like these old style roofs where they stack spacers to support a heavy roof

This is obviously an important piece of writing. However the plaque it was reproduced by the student of the guy that originally made it, whatever.

This is a temple. Not a temple without idols and a kneel pad.

Take your photos, and they will print it out to you onsite on this magic concealed inkjet printer.

Obviously they still know how to make the stuff the old way.

Jumping through the gate

Imperial examination mock up.

Yet another altar and idol.

Photographic exhibition area inside the temple

I like this facade somewhere close to the north exit.

Temple renovation in progress

I did spend some time standing here looking at how they did the roofing. The guy on the ground mixes earth with straw, then haul it up to the mid platform, and the second guy scoops it up to the roof. Just put it in between the roofing tiles and the lower layer of the roof.

North exit. That tour cart driver is having a siesta.

Qing Xu Guan Taoist Temple:
I don’t know if its because it’s starting to be late, whether its Friday today, or whether this place is out of the way. But at least there are no Chinese tour group and their loudspeakers and strange antics to bother me here. That makes this place one of my favourite location today. I think you know the drill now, swipe entrance ticket, go through the turnstile, admire the poster of the ticketing agents at work today all decked out in formalwear, walk through a big entrance and remembering not to step on the platform built to keep low level bad spirits from getting into the building and then being greeted by a big courtyard with some insignificant buildings to the right and left and the main hall directly in front.

The condition of this temple is a little more raw. Not much renovation has happened and what you see looks like the temple in its natural state. Wooden beams are no longer straight (if they were straight when new) and doors are starting to crack and requiring repair very soon. I prefer it this way rather than a building that’s listed as a few hundred years old but looking like it was just constructed yesterday and just happen to share the same location as the original building.

Taoist temples happen to have a little less figures to pray to. Buddhist temples are tops for statues. Anyway this is a nice place to go to get out of the tour groups and just to relax. At least the entrance fee is already included in your 150RMB ticket.

Main entrance to the Taoist Temple after passing through the turnstiles.

Main courtyard

When I was processing my photos, I noticed this guy is quite a number of photos, always in the same pose…

And here he is again.

There is this small area where old doors and statues are stored, perhaps due to renovation. Makes for good texture shots.

Temple. Idols.

Exit, not too flashy. In fact, this could be one of the least flashy exits in Pingyao.

Armed Escort Agency:
This place on the main East Street is a museum located in the place where the first Armed Escort Agency is located. To be precise, my map said that its the first in North China. Its a little to precise to have any meaning anymore. But I think its the first time I’ve seen an ancient armed escort. Armed escort agency, not the ones with pretty women for rent for social events. The whole complex means business. You walk in, discuss deals and then wait for mercenaries to pick up their stuff from the armory and join the gang. The whole place is pretty compact, not too much room to move around, but at the back there is a space where I guess practicing would have taken place. At this modern era, the square has been turned into a archery range where for 10RMB one will get to shoot 5 arrows from a toy gun at some straw target.

Which brings me to my next rant. I think I might have mentioned this before. It looks as though in China, whenever you work in a tourist attraction, the central government tells you to collect this much money and you send that much over to the central coffers for maintenance but you get a free will at everything else revenue generating. Depending on how creative the owners are, sometimes you get the usual drinks stall, sometimes a little more specific souvenirs and disneylandesque shop exit. This place has an archery range! Oh, and just about every main attraction in Pingyao has a lacquer shop closeby, usually at the exit once you get out of the complex. I guess a Chinese home that has just visited Pingyao would have quite a number of these sitting on their shelves.

I realised I don’t have that many pictures of the Armed Escort Agency. Perhaps I was getting tired at this point.

Archery section of the museum.

West Street – South Street Intersection:
By the time I finished with the agency, it is starting to get dark. Wandering back to the hotel, I passed by the poshest place I’ve seen in Pingyao so far, called Jing’s residence not too far away. The restaurants look posh to the max, with italian designed lamps and furnishing only a westerner would think is chinese-chic. A couple of locals outside complained that it was furnished to the taste of foreigners, which I cannot disagree, but I guess there would be quite a lot of rich local coal magnate that would love to flaunt their wealth just to shot it off a little bit.

This intersection, however is where everything touristic is located. Just about every shop sells some kind of souvenir. Don’ t ask me as I have no spent too much time in them, no space in my place for souvenirs except for photographs. There are street sellers here too to join in the capitalism. And bars with blaring western pop music and the ubiquitous rows of hard liquor and dark ambience. Looks out of place with farmers roaming outside in their two strokes.

Restaurants in this place also have the same menu outside, advertising local fare. It all has iPhone-style photos of dishes and some Chinglish explanation of what to expect in the dish. The buckwheat noodle dishes are quite good but the pictures make the honeycomb looking dish quite strange. Go local when you’re in Pingyao, when it comes to food. The beef here is quite nice, but they do make quite a lot of use of local vinegar in the local cooking. Most hostels and hotel has western breakfast in the morning, but why come all the way to Pingyao to have your butter and toast? You can have it when you get back home. Go chinese for breakfast.

Buns with no fillings being made for sale.

Jing’s Residence

Night markets spring up on the main tourist streets at night.

7 May 2011:
Rishengchang:
I can’t believe I missed this place on the first day. On the map that was provided to me by the hotel, there was a list of 4 or 5 former financial house, but this one is probably the most popular. I made a mistake starting the day late. At 10am, it was a disneyland. Packed to the brim with middle aged and old local tourists and their tour guide with the wavy flags and belt pack loud speakers.

Front trading hall. Plus plenty of tourists.

Tourists are herded around to “attractions”, leaving some areas in the complex empty.

The Rishengchang starts off with two chambers just after the main entrance, that looks like a pawnshop complete with counters, grills but its the clerks that get the view of the outside while the clients get the inside looking out the window to the main street. There are one on each side. I had my 20mm lens with me and was hoping to capture a shot of the whole counter uncluttered but there are just too many tourist groups there at the same time and they’re all business, herding tourists from one attraction to another as fast as possible. And it’s a conveyor belt of tourists in most attractions, which is why some complain that the historical sights could withstand centuries of wear and tear but no way could it stand up to this tourism mass production line. After the pawnshops are the accountant’s offices and a bunch of rooms for negotiating. In fact, they look like meeting rooms. There are big and small ones, obviously depending on the importance of the clients. There are some rooms for the guests to stay overnight as well, nicely decorated. I saw the kitchen, but as usual, ancient people don’t have need for toilets.

I didn’t stay long here. Couldn’t do so with all the people coming in all the time. I think I was already moving at half the speed of the production line, which is not a good thing with all the tight alleyways and people fighting for position. Just about every shot I make, there’s a tourist in the picture, except perhaps for shots of the ceilling.

Renting a bicycle:
Now, every morning I do my gmail checking and catching up on chat on my iPhone outside my hotel and a shop owner would come out to chat to me about renting a bike. What I know is that it cost a dirt cheap 10RMB for the whole day, and the bike looks heavy enough no one in their right mind would want to cart it away once you lock the rear wheel. So right after Rishengchang, I took the back alley back to the shop to pick up a bicycle for the rest of the day, while dodging electric carts. They’re all over the place in the small back streets in Pingyao.

I’m theorizing without much knowledge that when the government officials came to Pingyao for the first time and floated the idea of turning the whole of the old town into a big monument and charge tourists money, they probably gave the idea that the locals would be rich either opening up hotels, restaurants, souvenir shops or driving one of these electric buggies ferrying tourists around. In fact, I think they have schools to teach them how to drive it. I’ve seen many of them driving the cart in reverse (which is a necessity due to the tight alleys where no three point turn is possible). And if you’ve tried to do a reverse drive, its not that easy.

Getting around in a bicycle. Cheap and safe enough.

City Wall:
Cycling is easy enough, but avoiding dumb tourists is not. They sometimes get jolted by my bell, sometimes no. I start off shooting towards the eastern wall, and cycled along the small alleys where there are less tourists and then along the northern wall all the way to the other corner, and then down on the western wall. In some sections of the north wall, the inside of the wall is made of compacted earth that starts to be eroded a little bit. However all the watch towers are still intact. In fact the best place to take pictures of the wall is along the north and west side and on the outside since there is a nice buffer space between the wall and the new city.

Local at the less renovated part of the city wall.

Construction site

I exit the Western Wall at the Fengyi gate and the whole world just changed, from the tradition of the ancient city to the modern neon and signboards of modern Pingyao.

Shuanglin Temple:
What to do next? I have a bicycle, I don’t mind cycling a few kilometers, and thus, it would make some sense to go to Shuanglin Temple. According to my GPS its 5km or so on the main road and then turning left for another km. Was it a good idea? In a way yes, the way to the temple was downwind but I was fighting a strong headwind on the way back to Pingyao. The main road is travelled by a few tourist on tandem bicycles, electric bicycles, motorcycles, crazy Chinese car drivers that park in the middle of the road if they wish to make a stop, and big lorries carrying heavy load. On the right side of the road is a railway track. The way there is probably pretty dangerous, but my main concern was the heavy pollution on the road. Just about everything I had with me had a cake of dust by the time I got to Shuanglin Temple.

On the highway, cycling towards Shuanglin Temple

Shuanglin Temple main entrance.

There are many halls with many statues in it. Some of them are so dark, it was not that easy to shoot in there, not to mention it is supposed to be prohibited.

Main hall at Shuanglin, shot from the temple wall. This temple is fortified.

Entrance cost perhaps around 25RMB. I forgot the actual amount. There was not too many people there when I got to the temple so the ticket booth is also the security booth. Bicycle parking cost me 1RMB. This temple is surrounded by a fort-like wall. The buildings are not that new, which is a welcome sight. The first hall consists of 4 giant buddhist statues, more like demons. Inside the main hall is a big statue with elaborate ornaments that make the whole thing quite 3D-like, but fenced off by grills. The whole temple has a lot more of these smaller or similar sized halls, all of them with plenty of faded painted statues and carvings. All of them are quite elaborate and not every much restored. There are signs prohibiting photography and fire inside the building. Photography I guess flash photography, but the sign seems to prohibit every kind of picture taking, even with my D3s. Anyway, there are no one enforcing it when I was there. Fire???

As I mentioned earlier, the cycle back was a long hard work fighting the wind and wondering when I will get back to the town. Just for the fun of it, I went back through the new town and it was much more messy, busy, and noisy then the old town within the walls. Shops were all having some kind of promotion playing loud Chinese techno music, what I call the ass-shaker music, particularly useful for people on acid. There is a Dicos local fast food chain but I don’t recall seeing any western chain, hell, not even a KFC which is quite strange. Maybe I was on the wrong street. But in China you get KFCs on every corner!

I stopped for lunch once I got through the west gate, at one of the first restaurants. Ordered up some local stuff, and realised that the price of food outside of the tourist perimeter is almost half the price. Right after I also found the cheapest haircut I’ve seen so far in China, 5RMB, and I thought that the shop owner did a good job at it, pretty confident. I guess for 5RMB she should not be faulted for making any mistake. It was a hot day and I needed a trim and I got it for half the price of a bowl of noodle. A new benchmark has been set in the price of haircut.

Time now to return the bicycle and have a final walk around the small alleys before sunset for a final photoshoot at the City tower in the middle of the town.

City wall exterior

City tower:
I don’t know if there is another name for this thingy. Its in the middle of Nan Da Jie and is the local landmark, the tallest structure in the old town and where one could get the iconic picture of the old houses lining Nan Da Jie. Entrance is to one side of the street, where a lady is only glad to receive 5RMB from me to climb up two sets of narrow, steep and dark staircase to the second floor. There is no way for ordinary people to go up to the third floor. There are some stairs going to the third floor but the ceilling doesn’t look like it is strong enough. In the second floor are some buddhist statues but the reason to come up here is the view. All rooftops of the town is visible here, though only some of the entrance towers are visible, and I can’t recall seeing the city walls from here. I spent at least half an hour up there waiting for the sunset. There is a heavy cloud cover so sun disappears behind it 2-3 degrees before it dips below the horizon, which means that I will not get the amber sky that I wanted. The current light would be all I would get, cameras out, grab a few shots and time to go down before it gets dark.

Sunset on my last day in Pingyao

8 May 2011:
On my final day here, I’d wake up earlier than normal, before 7am and took a walk along the old streets, before the weekend tourists come in. Friday was much better than the weekends and it is possible to see the dramatic increase in number of tourists during weekends. What a shock it was, even at 7am, before the attractions are opened to public the tour groups starting shuttling into the centre of the town via electric carts packed with noisy local tourists. There are some pockets of calm, but it is not possible to take any pictures without tourists at this time. Maybe 5am would be a better time.

After a quick breakfast, and a free shuttle to the bus station provided by the hotel, I’m on the 26RMB bus to Taiyuan. It is packed by the time I got there, and there’s no space at the back of the bus to put my bag so I just dumped my backpack next to the driver and proceeded to squeeze into a window seat next to a guy too engrossed watching a local supertyphoon disaster movie.

Along the way there were periods where the road is just jammed, and no way for me to determine if it was accident or some official inspection, just that there were truck drivers chatting on the road side and some munching on melon seeds. Obviously I could see this only because my bus driver doesn’t queue up, and we took the oncoming lane to bypass the traffic. Before long the traffic was smooth again and I go back into my nap. The bus took a reverse route similar to the one that I took to Pingyao a few days back and stopped at Jiannan bus station. As usual in China, you could request for any stop along the way and it does drop off passengers that way.

Zhengjia Hotel central courtyard

*End*

Flamingoes on Lago Argentino

6 January 2011

El Calafate is the largest town here at Parc Nationale de Glacieriares but it is still a small town with tens of thousand inhabitants. It is named after Calafate berry that is close to blueberry and make very good jam and sorbet. I know because I’ll be on a lookout for it at every meal. This is where the airport is, a port of entry\ for most tourists to this region of Patagonia. As you would expect, tourist shops and fancy restaurants with Argentinian themes are all over the main street and once you step off one block away it dies down to the feeling of a small sleepy town. There is even a casino, just in case tourists are sick of the mountains and decided to go back to something more “exciting”.

Welcome to El Calafate, I guess.

The Casino

The drinking hole…

… and some local souvenirs…

Not to mention some shopping places.

Old trucks

Lago Argentino

Outside the western end of the city is a nature preserve with flamingoes standing on one leg. They looked pretty far away, even with a 600mm telephoto you’d probably get just a pink speck. The water is not deep at all and i don’t think it is worth wading in it to get close to the flamingoes. They would just fly away anyway. But there is probably nothing much more to do other than to look at the tourist shops and buy a fridge magnet or some artisanal chinese-made souvenir, so the best thing to do would be to take a good walk to the lake. It is, after all, a place for some R&R.

It is a pretty long walk. A few kilometers at least, and takes me through the heart of the tourist El Calafate. The main street is full of tourist memorabilia and outdoor shops, parilla-style and italian restaurants plus a casino smack in the middle of it all, clearly intended to be the centre of attraction. The prices of the restaurants on the main street is comparable to the ones that you find in Buenos Aires, which is normal I guess. Off the main street the prices seem to drop somewhat. There are pockets of area where the shops seem a little more upscale, kind of like the place where rich tourists would visit. I don’t get the idea of looking for a quaint shop in the middle of a town that is obviously not quaint. Its like looking for local hamburger in the provinces in China. It just doesn’t fit in, but you see that in every tourist town. Perhaps that’s how you tell a tourist town from a real functioning town with its own economy that doesn’t really bother with tourist dollars.

Parilla, how could I resist…

Saying the people here are carnivores is an understatement. This is a platter for 2. 2!

The cars here are a mix of old and new. The old cars here are pretty old and badly maintained. It’s probably not such a bad thing since this town is so small people don’t drive faster than what is required with a first gear anyway. I did see some speeding along a secondary road but most cars were going 20kmph at the most. Even at that speed it takes 15 minutes to get from one end of the town to the other end. Then on the other end of the spectrum are the fast cars, and I have no idea where they are planning to go in such a hurry.

We get to the nature preserve and noticed that while there is no man made barrier between us and the birds, one would have to go over marshes and mud to get close. And don’t let the distance fool you, it looks quite far away, but in actual fact it is even farther than that. So I’m happy enough to stay close to the main road and hope to get some shots of the flamingoes from there. There are some birds around closer to the main road as well, so I take those as easy prey. The flamingoes get to escape from my camera this time. I figured out if I could get close enough and getting mud all over me from doing so, there is no guarantee that it will not just decide to all fly off at the same time. I think flamingos could fly.

Generally there is not much to do here. But considering there are not too many towns in the vicinity, El Calafate would make a good base with Moreno glacier less than 2 hours to the west and Cerro Torre and Fitzroy 3-4 hours drive away around Lago Argentino and Viedma to the northwest. Next, bring on Chile!

Waking up to sheeps outside the hotel window!

Southern Lap Wing

Proceed to Torres del Paine National Park, Chile…

Perito Moreno Glacier in the hot summer sun

This picture gives a sense of how big this glacier is

Tourists on the glacier

On the glacier

More lenticular clouds

Perito Moreno Glacier early in the morning before sunrise

4 January 2011
Leaving El Chalten this morning on the paved Ruta 40 down south past Lago Viedma and Lago Argentino, leaving behind Cerro Torre and Fitzroy. I’d say that I have been lucky to be in El Chalten and having a few days of clear skies. Today as we leave El Chalten, the peaks are already obscured by low clouds. It would have been depressing to come all the way to not see any of the amazing peaks at all, so I’m thankful to the weather gods.

Highway 11 brings us to El Calafate in time for lunch. El Calafate, named after a local berry (which makes a very nice breakfast jam, very close to blueberries, raspberries but a little more tangy sour) is more like a large camping ground. With a casino. Its a brainless way for bureaucrats to stimulate a boring local economy with a casino. For lunch, a local pizza place served up a large portion of food, do people here eat a lot… Even North Americans think the portions are too big. I ordered a special sandwich with bacon, egg and I think a small slab of steak, and it was filling enough I had no more space left for desserts.

For the short drive along highway 11 to Perito Moreno, the bus went along the banks of Lago Argentino. There are a few glaciers that feed into this massive lake, and every once in a while (more like every few hours) a large chunk of ice breaks off the glacier and floats on the lake. Imagine seeing ice bergs in a lake in summer. This, I was told, was mostly coming from Glacier Upsala which is melting the fastest of the lot. I don’t remember but this could be one of the glacier highlighted in “An Inconvenient Truth” as being a fast disappearing glacier. Perito Moreno Glacier is one of the largest in the region. Supposedly larger than the space occupied by Buenos Aires, 35km across and at the point where it meets with the lake and the part that is easily visible, 5km wide and it is supposed to be stable and in equilibrium.

Entrance to Perito Moreno Glacier National Park

At the entrance, checking up on cars

Nothing much in term of view on the way, until the bus got to the entrance to the glacier park where there was a little problem with the Hosteria forgetting to tell the entrance guards that a bus load of photographers were going to stay that night and not to charge entrance fee. The road ends at a look out broad-walk, and every car that goes in is required to pay an entrance fee. There is a hotel inside, not cheap, but with one of the best views of the glacier from every single room. This is the one that we are headed to.

First view of the glacier from the road

Glacial ice, made up of compacted ice, is deep blue in color when light illuminates. Behind the mountains here in southern Patagonia, is the southern Patagonian ice field a large expanse of ice third in size after the two poles. When looking at the mountain ranges, it is sometimes possible to see part of the ice field and what looks like ice overflowing over mountains and pouring into big lakes in the form of a glacier. In terms of the mechanism of how it all works, air coming from the pacific ocean contains plenty of moisture and when forced over the mountains it causes precipitation (or snow), which in turn feeds the ice field. Glacial ice breaks and melts into the lake, but is replenished by the ice field. By the time the air reaches the Argentinian side of the Patagonian range, it is mostly dry, which explains the desert terrain on the Argentinian side of the mountain range. After a few days in this place, that’s my understanding of how things work around here.

View of the glacier from the hotel living room

Hotel room view

Los Notros Hosteria rooms

Hauling luggages up to the rooms

For Perito Moreno glacier, I will spend two nights at Los Notros Hosteria. My room is on the ground floor with a view of the glacier. The window is big enough to be able to climb out through it and I already had some idea to set up a tripod and camera outside for star trails and for the morning shoot of the glacier tomorrow. The lazy landscape photographer.

After a short rest at the hotel, we take a hotel shuttle to the broad walk to get close to the glacier. This is an elaborate set of pathways overlooking the front face of the glacier. There are some steps here and I did notice lift for the handicap. Its an easy stroll mainly and one could spend hours here. The shuttle bus comes back to pick up tourists from the broad-walk after 1 hour. This leaves no time for all the paths but there is no necessity to do it all. There are different color coded paths there, some of them will take a few hours.

The full face of the glacier from the broadwalk

Nice infrastructure here

This picture gives an idea of how close the glacier face is to the broadwalk

Bridge connecting glacier and land where the broadwalk is located

As usual…

Dinner at Los Notros

First thing that hits you the first time you get out to the broad-walk is the size of this glacier. It’s so wide you need a 12mm full frame lens to take the face in one shot. The broad-walk is directly facing the glacier face. Its close enough you feel like you’re touching it. From what I have heard, every 4 years the glacier blocks off a small portion of the lake from Lago Argentino where the level of the lake rises to a point where the pressure is so high it bursts the temporary ice dam. Today, I could see that the glacier has creeped close enough to the side where the broad-walk is and there is an arch with ice touching this side and water flowing under the the arch. I was told that the breach happened recently and everyone is waiting for the ice bridge to collapse and for the next cycle to happen again. There is also a constant roar of cracking ice and fissures forming deep inside the ice. Everyone on the broad-walk would look around every time a loud crack was heard. Again, sound travels slower than light, so we look around a lot for falling ice and making sure that the camera is set so that we can just put it to eye level and snap without doing too much complicated setting. After a while I learnt to see the telltale sign of when a break will be coming… listen to cracks (not splashes) an little bits of ice will usually be seen seconds before a clean break. The path were constructed on an elevated ground on this side to make sure that waves from crashing ice will not wash away visitors, which is a possibility seeing how close the ice is to the broad-walk.

5 January 2011
I spent most of the last evening trying to perfect my star trail shots, but as I am not that well versed with predicting how the stars here move in the southern hemisphere, I almost always shoot in the wrong direction. The morning shoot was centered on a nice lenticular cloud during the magic hour. One second it looked like a space ship, next second it starts to look like a interstellar giant creature. Minutes later it starts uninteresting. Shape shifter.

Back to this morning, the hotel prepared some packed lunch (sandwiches, juice, water and an apple). It comes in a paper bag and a backpack provided by the hotel. A hotel shuttle moves the guests to a pier just downhill, and onto boats that seats at least 50. The view of the glacier is to the right of the boat.

Yesterday was an appetizer. Today, I will get to walk on the glacier with crampons.

Tourist boat pier

View of the glacier from the boat

Boat captain

Destination: A patch of land next to ice that is flatter than the rest of the glacier

We alight at a small pier on the business end of the lake, before the boat starts picking up passengers for the return trip. The trip to the glacier is pretty straight forward, almost in a straight line and on the way back the boat usually goes in front of the wall of ice but still far away not to be dangerous when a big slab of ice breaks off crashing into the lake. First thing to do is to trek up to a locker room to leave the lunch backpack behind, and then a short trek in the woods to an area where land meets the glacier. All these procedures are quite well organized. There’s a professional tour company that manages the whole glacier walk, pretty much a monopoly. As long as they do a good job.

Short trek to the glacier

Back yesterday, the ice on the glacier is made up of large chunks of pointed ice, not something where one could walk on, but this section where the ice walk happens, the ice is a lot flatter, more like rolling hills. No mountaineering skills required. Just put on crampons and walk. While walking around the rocky ground before going to the area where guides put on crampons for the tourists, I loiter around the area hoping to see a large chunk of ice falling into the lake. Every loud crack made me look around for falling pieces of ice, telltale sign of the upcoming break. Since there is a long queue of people waiting to put their crampons on, I think I have about 15 minutes at least to spot breaking ice. I set my camera on continuous shot mode and high shutter speed just in case, and I focus my concentration on one are of the glacier that looked promising. Here, small ice chunks are breaking off quite regularly.

Another piece sliding off. I have about 40 frames of this event.

And sure enough, soon, some movement in the ice face and short seconds later, a chunk the size of a house starts to slide off the glacier. A big splash later, it was bobbing in the water along with a large wake of a wave radiating outwards. Nearby, a tour boat started to turn around so that it faces directly at the wave coming at it and once the first wave has passed, it decided to get out of the little bay and back into calmer waters. I did shoot about about 20 frames, capturing the event on my DSLR. Felt happy my patience was paid off.

Crampons

And putting them on…

Spent enough time on the 20 frame, and time to rush to the crampon zone to put on the metal spikes. Excited. First time on crampons. Guides here tie on world-war two era crampons on tourists’ shoes. These are bare steel crampons without the toe spike so they are only good for walking and not for ice climbing. Its secured by a series of straps tied tight. Not a place to be wearing your office shoes for sure as the crampons will damage the leather. Who would be wearing their best shoe to a glacier anyway.

Walking for the first time with crampons is quite strange. Imagine not being able to flex your forefoot at all, and crampons on rocks is no fun. When walking on ice, it has the feeling of running on a wet grass pitch with studded soccer boots, except again, you can’t flex your forefoot. Our guide demonstrated the Godzilla walk. Its easy enough, and another precaution is to walk cowboy style to ensure one does not impale your other foot while walking with the spikes.

Tourists waiting for the trek on ice

Pool of water with a nice blue hue

Walking on ice

Crevasse with deep blue water. No idea how deep this one goes.

Tables set up on ice to serve glacial ice and whiskey

Ice gaucho giving a climbing demonstration

A guide in action…

The ice that I’m walking on is like medium-sized ice cubes and it has the same texture. Looks like the kind of place that you don’t really want to slip and fall as the ice looks sharp enough to cause some serious injury. Not the astroturf rash kind for sure. Think lacerations. At a couple of locations, one could look down a bottomless crevasse with dark blue colored water falling into the void. All water on this glacier, including small ice pools are dark blue. The guide’s story here is that snow that falls in on the southern Patagonian ice field takes about 300 years to move to this point and ample time to be compacted almost to the point of looking and feeling like ice cubes. So that’s what you get here, crevasses and rolling hills of ice. Highlight of this trip was a private session getting of official guide to climb one of the house-sized ice stalagmites to demonstrate how big it was. But seriously, walking on ice was never that much fun, and I was already thinking about buying a set of crampons for use during winter when I get back!

Waiting for the ferry

An hour or two on the ice was all we got. Back at the locker room the group sat down for sandwich lunch while waiting for the next boat to ferry everyone back to the hotel pier. The wait was almost an hour. Most of it was wasted resting on large rocks overlooking the Perito Moreno Glacier. I set up the camera and my sound recorder, hoping to capture picture and sound of the ice breaking off, but didn’t get a single thing at all in that single hour. But I have already captured enough frames earlier on, so was not utterly disappointed, though it would have been a lot nicer to capture some sound too.

The rest of the day was for resting. The walk on the glacier was still hard work and luckily for an extra dab of sunblock lotion just about everywhere on my exposed skin (reflection off the ice could also cause sun burn) my already burnt skin did not get additional stress. The last few hours of the walk on ice saw some cloud cover coming in giving a nice light to shoot in. Much more moody then a clear blue sky. Overall, pretty happy with the shootout today. Nice photos, first time on crampons and first time walking on a glacier. Many firsts today and well worth the effort finding my way all the way here. Don’t miss the glacier walk.

6 January 2011
After the glacier trip, the next destination is a long drive into Chile broken up with a night in El Calafate. This is a little like a rest stop. It was possible to go directly into Chile’s Torres del Paine National park but that would have been a whole day of tiring drive, so a rest buffer day would have been a lot better. This marks the end of Argentinian side of Patagonia. Another day and I will be in Chile, some say for the grand finale.

*end*

Proceed to El Calafate, Argentina…

Arriving in El Chalten: Cerro Torre and Fitzroy in the background

Fitzroy in the morning

Rio Blanco from the top of the moraine at Laguna de los Tres

On the trek up Laguna de los Tres

Hikers at the start of trail to Laguna Torre

Cerro Torre

31 December 2010
… Continued from the previous post. After Laguna Azul this morning, and a long drive around Lago Viedma later arrival at El Chalten was perhaps one of the best road trip I’ve been on. From far, the mountains I’ve seen in magazines and pictures start to appear slowly, and while the bus stops in many spots for us to take panoramas, it always seem to look better the closer you get to it. Normally there are not that much traffic on the road, but when the cars do appear they drive fast. Just before the descent into El Chalten there is a look-out point with a nice view that is spoilt by certain inconspicuous large buildings in the town.

Entering El Chalten

This is what I always wanted to do. BMW 1200GS roadtrip.

The bus went straight into El Chalten and out of it, proceeding straight to El Pilar which is just right outside of town. The rocky gravel road leading to the hotel runs alongside Rio Blanco and with mountains to the other side. Mount Fitzroy is visible closer to El Pilar and one or two other peaks. It’s not really a full unobstructed view of Fitzroy from here, but the peak is visible while the base is covered somewhat.

Picture says it all. Also the start of the trail up to Laguna de los Tres and Laguna Sucia.

El Pilar Hosteria

A small stream runs right next to El Pilar, I’d say that this is Rio Blanco or one of its upper tributaries. It looks shallow enough a quick wade is sufficient to get across. I didn’t try as the water coming from glaciers are horribly cold, just an educated guess. I decided that the pebbled stream bed is a good place to be shooting in the morning and the first order of this evening at El Pilar is to scout for a good place for the morning shoot. For this purpose, a nice small point and shoot camera like the S95 is perfect for visualization. At this hotel, there are some rooms with straight views of Fitzroy, which is not the one I had. In fact, Fitzroy is visible from the dining room, the good thing being the diners could see the peaks of Fitzroy while having dinner at 8:30 pm just before the sunset at 10pm (summer).

Arrival at this place was close to dinner time, and for new year eve the chef prepared lamb for mains. There will be a long new year hike to Laguna Torre tomorrow to see Cerro Torre, one of the long hikes of this trip. New year celebration was quick and before midnight it was already time to get into bed to get ready for the next day. The last sunset of 2010 was average. There was no cloud at all, so no spectacular light show on Fitzroy, so there was no camera action at all tonight. Weather forecast for the next 2 days are supposed to be blue skies and very hot, apparently ideal for serious climbing, blue skies and calm winds

Setting up tripod in the morning

The result… Fitzroy in the right, and Poincenot on the left

And another interpretation from the same location.

1 January 2011
When staying at a nice place like this, anticipating a nice morning for shooting is difficult. Talk about sleepless nights, my room was not facing Fitzroy, but nothing stopping me from waking up every hour to check the weather hoping for no rain or low clouds. The weather looked clear this morning, and the alarm would wake me up at 5am and by 5:30am I’m out by the stream next to El Pilar looking for the best spot to set up the tripod. I swear I should have brought my headlight this trip but somehow I forgot it. The morning light that we photographers crave comes out close to 6am and the shooting does not really last for more than 10 minutes if that long. The setup has to be ready minutes before to be sure nothing is missed. Before the first light it out, the mountain looks bland and colourless, and after the good light, what you have is another boring mountain drenched and bleached in bright sunlight. The skies are really clear this morning and I could see the sun’s rays coming up over the mountain behind me and start to illuminate Fitzroy. First both Poincenot and Fitzroy is lighted up while the rest of the mountain middle and base is still in the shadows, and then the amber light hits the middle ground and the peak gets darker (I suspect it is my eyes playing a trick on me) and eventually in a short time, before 6:15am, everything is no longer amber and the morning light show is over. That is also a good time to catch up on some sleep. Long hike today.

What a way to spend the new year. A nice long strenous hike to Laguna Torre close to the base of Cerro Torre, about as far as we amateurs could go without making a fool of ourselves and inconveniencing the rescue team. Early morning, after breakfast and packing up sandwich lunch filled with sliced hardboiled eggs, ham and pickles lettuce, its time to start the long hike.

The bus ride goes back into the heart of El Chalten and to the start of the trail head by the edge of town. Don’t think I’m going to spend too much time describing the whole trek, but in summary, its rolling hills, sometimes in the shelter of trees and sometimes not, and then the first major view point at El Mirador (which I understood stands for “view” in Spanish). The view here is of the valley where the rest of the trek is about to take place. Cerro Torre, Cerro Egger and Standhardt stands in front marking the destination today. The full sun makes the trip difficult as a slow slog. It is hot and feels humid today. The next part of the walk descends into the valley floor along Rio Fitzroy.

Just in case I forgot where I am…

Somehow I trust my GPS more than this dumbed down map

This time without hikers

Magellanic Woodpecker

Cerro Torre from the Mirador

Llama train. Llamas have shorter legs and are domesticated compared to Guanacos.

Valley Floor just after the Mirador

Camp de Agostini

Occupants list at Camp de Agostini

Cerro Torre from the valley floor

There are a couple of streams here at the Mirador where bottles could be refilled with cold mountain stream water that tastes really good with a hint of tree barks. There was a llama train spotted going to the foot of the mountains to haul gear out. A few hours of walking in seemingly repetitive terrain, the path seems to be gaining some altitude. It looks like I’m going up a large moraine that holds Laguna Torre. At the top of the moraine and with a couple of large rocks to climb and avoid, Laguna Torre is just in front. To go any further will require a little more than zero mountaineering skills. The skies are still perfect and cloudless and right in front is Cerro Torre right to be photographed. There are not that many places in the world where you get a cluster of peaks made up of steep, almost vertical granite walls. Time for lunch and plenty of staring at the mountains and make the long strenuous hike worth every single bit of sweat that was shed on the way here.

Moraine holding back Laguna Torre

Setting up at Laguna Torre

… This was the result

… looks good in black & white too

The hike back was the least enjoyable part of the day. The heat is starting to get to me and that makes the hike back feel a lot longer than this morning’s trip to the lake. Everyone seems to be moving pretty quick, probably hoping to get out of this heat wave as soon as possible, but the rolling hills make it difficult to judge the distance. I had my GPS with me, but it just seems to go on and on and even with many refills of the water bottle it was still hot as hell. But at the last of the rolling hills, there was music blaring from the town of El Chalten, welcoming everyone that survived the hike back to town and best of all, was greeted by a big cold box filled with beer. Beer never tasted that good.

El Chalten from the trailhead to Laguna Torre.

And glad not have been devoured by a hungry puma.

Dinner that night was a quiet affair. Fatigue started setting in for most. I had sunburn all over. And this was on top of some burnt skins from Buenos Aires!

The hike today was so tough, an original plan to hike up a tougher route to Laguna de los Tres tomorrow was to be delayed. The weather tomorrow was supposed to be hot blue skies, with good views and visibility, but at the aftermath of this new year hike there was no other choice but to take a chance on the weather for the day after. A rest is required. So gamble we shall.

Salto del Chorillo waterfall

Food. El Chalten on our rest day.

Yup. Tourist town.

Small Town. Nice Views.

2 January 2011
Rest day: i.e. do nothing today. That’s not true to be exact. Took the bus down to El Chalten for a bit of walkabout. Nothing much in the town, most of the people walking around are backpackers but in the hot sun there are not too many people nor cars on the street today. How hot? Like the inside of an oven. Dry and hot. On the way back from the town, made a stop over at Salto del Chorrillo, a waterfall close to El Pilar. I found a good spot to take my shot but had to wait long for the sun to get to a point where I get the lighting that I wanted, so I ended up not making the shot at all. The real reason for the laid back day was to be rested for the long hike tomorrow. Glad the hike was not today. However the weather forecast for tomorrow is tough to call… patches of rain, definitely some clouds to be expected, marking the end of sunny days.

This silhouette of Fitzroy was taken during dinner between mains and dessert.

3 January 2011
Contemplation. General sleep problems this morning wondering if I would survive today’s anticipated long walk. Skipped the morning sunrise shoot and it all starts at 8:30am walking along the banks of Rio Blanco up to Laguna de los Tres near the base Mount Fitzroy. The backpack is pretty heavy, tripod, one camera, one wide angle zoom (17-35mm) and a medium telephoto zoom (70-180mm) plus water and lunch.

Easy Trails

No idea how this tree got to be like this…

Private Property? Where?

One looks like a dog. No idea what the second one looks like. Personal squirrels?

Result of woodpeckering on this tree

Lenga Trees

The start of the trail is easy enough, rolling hills and under shade of old lenga forest with trees that seem to have snapped sometimes at the trunk, either by strong winds or perhaps old age. It has the look of a spooky type of forest with trees up to 20m tall in some places. This is the type of place you’d wonder if you want to camp out at night. Trees here seem to just die off and take its own sweet time to rot. There are patches of clearing with shorter trees and patches that are in the clear with just short undergrowth. The last two days were perfect blue skies and we get the payback today with cloudier days and a chance of rain on the evening perhaps on the way back down the mountain. In fact the cloud cover is so low, Fitzroy would occasionally go in and out of the cloud cover.

The walk is punctuated with sounds of cracking roars, chunk of ice from nearby glaciers breaking off and falling into glacial lake. Glaciers here hang off mountains so broken parts crash pretty loud. Since sound move slower than light (if you still remember what you learnt in school), when the sound is heard, its usually too late to see anything. So don’t bother looking if too far away.

Distant hanging glacier, source of all the cracking sound. Glaciar Piedras Blancas.

This was going to be the last time I will see Fitzroy today before the cloud cover came in.

Camp Poincenot

After 3 hours of walking, we walk past Camp Poincenot, a campsite with occupied tents, with personal belongings and laundry hanging on lines. This, I was told is the demarcation line between “nice long walk” and “long hard climb”. Right after the tented area, the path goes down to the pebble river bed, a nice place to refill the bottles for the oncoming sufferfest, and crossing one of those rickety bridge where one person crosses at a time because it is THAT weak. It doesn’t sway at all, but the wooden bridge does creak a bit when I crossed, and the weight of my backpack made it quite unstable for me to cross the bridge. At this point I must be around -49.27916, -72.96525.

River crossing

I feel important already…

The bridge crossing was uneventful enough, but the view of the switchbacks we’re about to go up on is a different story all together. Laguna de los Tres. Steep. Tiring. But I have been walking close to 4 hours right now and turning back would be a serious character flaw. And this is one serious looking moraine that has to be conquered before getting to the destination. There is no tree cover on the switchback, but good that it is a cloudy day because a full sun would have been horribly exhausting. Loose rocks form the ground almost all the way up but they’re not really dangerous unless you decide to fling yourself over the cliff or faint on the way up.

Up the switchbacks

Almost at the top

Panorama of Laguna de los Tres

One step at a time, and eventually we go get up to the top of the moraine. Reminded me of the long high altitude hike I did in Sichuan China which ended with a broken artery in the cornea, so this time I rest when I’m short of breath. The altitude is not that bad here, but the sheer strain from carrying a few kg backpack and steep switchback does sometimes take its toll. On occasions, I could feel the build up of lactic acid in my calves. The problem with moraines are the loose rocks. They are horribly tough to walk up, zapping up energy going uphill.

The small speck on the bottom right are 2 climbers on the ice field across from Laguna de los Tres. Nice weather to climb it seems.

Up here, it is devoid of any vegetation. Laguna de los Tres has a nice blue colour from the melted glacial ice. Unfortunately, the clouds did not lift when I got up there, so it was only possible to see the base of the mountain. There was enough time up there to have my packed lunch sandwich and fruit juice while waiting that the clouds to clear. The winds here are strong, sometimes the weather can change for the better (or worse) in a few minutes. But not today. I made do, photographically, with what was in front of me and tried to take a panorama or two. With a long telephoto lens, I spotted two climbers hiking up a ice field opposite the lake. The footprints in front of them tells me that this is a common path and they’re not the only two going up the mountain today.

Hopping to the cliff edge to have a peek at Laguna Sucia

Laguna Sucia

Over on the left edge of the lake, crossing a little stream that leads to a waterfall that drops a few hundred meters, Laguna Sucia is visible down below. Imagine one lake high up (de los Tres) and a second one (Sucia) below in a steep valley, almost vertical walls. Laguna Sucia itself is quite big but the clautrophobic valley it is located in makes it very difficult to take a nice picture of the whole lake without either a helicopter or me dangling off the side of the cliff. I believe that these two lakes are what feeds Rio Blanco that flows next to El Pilar where we stayed, can’t really confirm it and I’m too lazy to do a wikipedia to check.

This is not the first time in Patagonia, but it always seem to feel like the return hike along the same path feels a lot longer than the way up. I don’t mean to say that it is boring, the views are stunning, but either its strenuous or the craving for pampas-fed steak at the end of the hike awaits every night.

Downhill

On the return trip, the peaks are now covered.

The way down the moraine was quick, while trying to be careful not to bust a knee cap or two when descending too quickly, but the rolling hills in the forest just seem to go on forever. I could feel my knee starting to buckle. Which reminds me that I will need to get a trekking pole next time I do one of these long hikes. And perhaps to lose the tripod and try to hold my camera a little bit steadier. Sometimes times like this you realise that you don’t really need so many gear to shoot a nice photo. Looking at the result at the end of the trip, I think I could have done 90% of the pictures I wanted with a wide angle and a medium telephoto around 200mm range. I want to think that my cheap 200mm f4 AIS would do but I’m not confident to shoot that without a tripod, hell even with a tripod I’m quite wary of camera shake. Anyway. equipment aside, its true the best camera for you is the one that you have with you.

Returned to El Pilar at 6 pm after around 10 hours outside. That’s a long long day. Dead tired and legs are sore. It started to drizzle a bit, and what I didn’t mention is that I do have some raingear in my pack just in case. Weather here changes quickly and you can go from hot summer to cold winter when the wind changes direction. In fact for some parts of the trek today it was drizzling, but that helped to keep the temperature at a bearable 15-20C level which is a welcome respite compared to the trek up to Laguna Torre 2 days ago.

But now back at El Pilar, what better way to cap a long day than a hot shower and a argentinian steak dinner. Food in this place is amazing. I won’t call today a good day photographically speaking. Would have been a lot better to be rewarded with a nice view of the laguna in the foreground and Fitzroy in the background and perhaps some high cloud cover, but it was not to be this time. Even back at El Pilar we could see that it was probably starting to rain up at Fitzroy. The mountain didn’t show itself today, which makes for a good excuse to come back in the future. I shall return.

Tomorrow we take a bus down back past El Calafate towards Perito Moreno glacier.

*end*

Proceed to Perito Moreno Glacier, Argentina…