China: Culture and Caves

By Michael Young

March 2012 and there's a monsoon kicking off outside. I'm sat watching the first race of the Formula 1 season and pondering travelling somewhere. Singapore in September for the Grand Prix perhaps. New Zealand is a close and fantastic looking place to head to, maybe...
Then, the answer - a friend has invited you on the Tian Xing, China 2012 Caving Expedition. Perfect.

Fast forwarding a few months (that’s how it felt) and there I am, at the end of August sat on a plane. The strange thing is that it didn't sink in until I had landed in Guangzhou, when there was the sudden realisation that no one speaks English, no matter how loudly and slowly you talk to the locals (point and smile appeared to be the best approach). The first thing I noticed was how expensive things were. I went to order some food but settled on a cup of tea. It turns out that the Chinese really have taken the concept of “airport prices” to the extreme. Thankfully, prices like these aren’t seen beyond the arrivals hall.

I’d soon caught my connection and met the rest of the expedition team in Chongqing airport. We had to taxi it to the bus station, to travel to Wulong, where we would be getting another bus to the remote mountain village of Tian Xing. Sounded good. What followed was possibly the most thrilling, albeit terrifying taxi journey of my life. Chongqing loomed up around us, a megatropolis of high rises, with roads criss-crossing all around the city and the Yangtze flowing through its heart. The traffic is chaos theory in 3D.

Wulong comes alive at night.

We arrived in Wulong in time for lunch, and with the help and knowledge of our contact that lives there, we were taken down some dark steps into a dodgy looking alleyway and into what appeared to be someone’s kitchen. I can’t remember what we ate but the taste was incredible. We ate a banquet for the equivalent of around £5. This was the China I’d been told of. Off to Tian Xing in the morning – perfect opportunity to sample one of many roadside barbeques. The food was brought across to us, a crate of beer was supplied from the place we had eaten lunch down the dark steps and with the still noisy, bustling and outrageous traffic going past we sat and enjoyed another fantastic taste of China. Wulong comes alive in the evening when it’s cooler. Street side market stalls spring up, the tower blocks are illuminated with neon lights and there was a general chilled atmosphere amidst the multitudes of people and vehicles.

The following day, and after more travelling and organising of the expeditions’ equipment (and firework supply) we arrived in the tiny village of Tian Xing. Needless to say the bus journeys are about the same as those in taxis, except these were on winding mountain roads with lots of blind bends – apparently if you sound the horn you won’t hit any oncoming trucks. A strange phenomenon I observed was the amount of people, especially women that cannot help but vomit on the buses. Be warned: sick bags are always handy but I did come across a couple of horror stories involving seats at the back of the bus and open windows at the front…

Tian Xing consists of a few farm houses, the doctors’ place (where we were sleeping), a couple of general stores which also constituted as our local pubs, a school and a tobacco factory. The village is surrounded, as with so many of the parts of China I had so far seen, by terraced fields of crops – mostly paddy fields, maize and tobacco plantations. Pumpkins are grown wherever they can be in-between the fields. After a few days of eating very tasty, though repetitive meals, I learned how the Chinese overcame the poor soil quality to grow their crops. A mixture of pig, cattle and human faeces is used to fertilize the vegetables, which also goes towards explaining how the food was prepared. Various dishes of vegetables, tofu and pork fat were laid out for everyone to tuck in to. Anything left over is later mixed with more of the same freshly prepared food and thrown in the wok at very high temperatures, with residual oils from the previous days cooking. This method means no food is wasted; it tastes great, and although grown in a slurry of human waste, is safe to eat. Only one member of the team ended up with a need for Imodium- he ate food that had been on the table, a no-no I’m told.

I spent two weeks on the expedition; the scenery is incredible, and as a caver, the area was a Swiss-cheese paradise of pot holes. On my final day, I ventured to the nearby Three Natural Bridges. These are awesome to behold – a series of deep connecting canyons with huge limestone bridges across. I was helped by a local man who obviously saw how utterly useless I was at following clear signs, written in English. I spent the day with him and his girlfriend, and upon our return to Wulong, he even bought me lunch. This part of China is truly beautiful, even through the thick summer haze. High and green mountains dominate the area, with wide, fast flowing rivers, massive dolines, gorges and lakes. There’s even a strange beauty in the ridiculous amount of terracing in every accessible place imaginable. That may be out of respect for the fact China can still feed every member of its population. I had expected to see some level of poverty too, but to my astonishment, it simply wasn’t there. The people work hard, and often have relatively little, but they never appeared to be lacking the essentials.

In summary, I found China to be an incredible experience. It’s getting more and more accessible for tourism; the people I met were friendly and helpful, to the point of insisting on giving you the correct change, something that doesn’t always happen in countries with a significant language barrier in place. The food was always of an outstanding quality; full of flavour (careful if you can’t handle spice) and the cost of the trip was very, very low (including the flights). I would at this point tell of an abduction that I went through, but won’t for fear my mother might read this and faint - a story to be told over a beer perhaps. However, I warn the reader to be aware of people posing as airline staff offering free accommodation for overnight transfers…

I would recommend rural China to anyone with a real sense of adventure. It’s not a place for the Benidorm-esque kind of traveller for sure, though on the other hand, you don’t have to be an intrepid explorer either. Well off the beaten track and worth every second of it. You are guaranteed to return home with envy inducing stories. Enjoy.

*For those interested, the expedition was a success. The cave we were exploring connected with the master system below, and around 2.5km more of planet earth has been discovered, surveyed and enjoyed.