balls of steel and eyes in the back of your head. every time i arrive safely at the opposite corner, i kiss the ground shouting, “i’m alive! i’m alive!”

China is chaos. I’ve been pondering that sentence for a while now, thinking abou this crazy country’s potential to become a world superpower. The longer i am here, the more I am convinced that this scenario is further off than i would have guessed. the plain fact is that it’s too disorganised. they wouldn’t know what to dp with that kind of immense power and responsibility if it were handed to them tomorrow. there is often little rhyme or reason to the way things are done here – at first I thought it was just that i didn’t see the logic, but now i think this is a direct outgrowth of an environment which favours survivalism in a country of one billion people. evidence of this is everywhere. new construction of massive hotels goes up across the street from half built buildings abandoned just 5 or 6 years ago. people obsessively sweep cigarette butts or dust, when around the corner, a giant pile of refuse on the street serves as the local public dump. everyone drives without any regard for law or order through jumbled intersections without traffic lights, yet a half mile away you could take a nap in the middle of the smooth, wide, immaculate, well- lit and completely empty interchange.

it’s all veyr baffling and the only explanation which makes sense is that it makes no sense. which is, in fact, a perfect system for a country where people get by only through incredible resourcefulness and assertiveness. everything is scarce, and if you wait around too long, it’ll be gone. if you rely on someone else to tell you how/when/where/why you’ll be waiting forever. so you just do/take/create as needed. when you think about it, it’s perfectly suited. but it also menas there is no consistency, or unifying cohesiveness. perhaps i am misinterpreting – i’m still a novice here. but i shudder to think about the state of their nuclear arsenal. and you would too if you’d ever tried to cross a street in beijing.

(i know there are some who will point out the u.s. also has wild variations in law and custom from state to state. i would still say there is a pretty strong glue at the federal level which makes it quite different from the wild free-for-all that can exist here at times.)

a few more photos up from wutai shan. not all of them, but a good handful. check them out at the photo gallery.

also we’re currently in xi’an, looking to go see the terracotta soldiers today. you can get a little more interactive info through the “where we are now” page. check out pics and info about xi’an, beijing, kunming, lijiang, and guilin (our next probable destinations).

so we’ve been on the road for exactly eleven days. i can’t believe that – we’ve seen and done so much already that it feels like longer. I finally think i’m “settled in” to traveller mode. neither of us has been ill (touch wood) though with all the dust, pollution, and cigarette smoke, my sinuses are in a constant state of rebellion. but we’ve eaten and drunk a whole range of things and not had any ill effects.

food is just everywhere, man. wherever you go, wherever you look, you’re never more than a few meters from food. they’re very fond of meat-on-a-stick, from hot dogs to kebabs. the sidewalks smell like a perpetual barbeque. noodles and pastries are deep fried in woks on the side of the road. and dumplings. i must’ve had every type of dumpling known to mankind – steamed, fried, souped…mmmm. you can never go wrong with dumplings. i am really craving some fresh veg right about now, but a ceasar salad in not in the near future, so i’ll live. the pastries are so lovely – crispy, flakey things, filled with sweet bean paste or lotus seed paste or ground almonds. the other day for dinner, i had a local specialty, pingyao beef. i swear to god, it was the exact same thing as the corned beef my mother makes on st. patricks day. i can’t find it for love nor money in london, but it’s right under my nose in pingyao. and the beer – i have half a notion that the amount of alcohol we’ve been drinking is killing off any incipient bacteria or viruses. but beer is the usual beverage accompaniment for most meals here, so when in china… besides, it’s cheap (at 3 yuan for a 750ml bottle of 9 percent stuff, you can get pretty wasted for about 50p), it’s tasty, it’s filling and it’s sociable. I may soon develop a beer belly. maybe that was buddha’s problem.

my motto is p.p.p. : paper perpetually in pocket. toilet paper, that is. i take off my clothes at night and pull wads of tissue from everywhere. i feel like my mother.

china is *dry*. it’s getting greener the further south we go, but i feel like evry drop of moisture has been sucked from my skin, my hair, my nose. i’d sell my soul for a humidifier.

(I wrote this whole post the other day and about three minutes from the end, the electricity went out. that’s china for ya)

we’ve spent the past two days in the chilled-out, quaint little city of pingyao. it’s so nice to have a chance to kick back and relax after several days of “hardcore” travelling – long gritty bus rides, dodgy hotel rooms, and lots of communication and technical difficulties. all the better that the place to relax is as lovely and charming as pingyao.

there is much about china that is beautiful. and there is much that is not.

having pretty much seen the entirety of the little market town the first day, today we headed a little further afield out the the shaughlin si – a temple full of ancient buddhist sculpture, which until recently had been allowed to moulder away in oblivion.

we decided to walk out there, as it was only abou 5km away and the guidebook described it as a pastoral stroll. in reality, we eneded up following the railroad tracks along the side of the highway, like two lunatic westerners, sucking in all the fumes and dirt and coal dust, waving off the innumerable solicitations by the taxis and tuk tuks who all thought we were nuts. by the end, i was sure they were right.

the temple was once again as paradoxical as the rest of china. irreplaceable sculpture rotting away under a thick layer of pollution and grime, but currently being “restored” with clay replicas replacing the originals. beauty which is only valued once the tourism potential is realised, and the authenticity destroyed in favour of what they think people want to see. unique and incomparable and extraordinary and polluted and exploited and a little sad. just like china.

we took a taxi back.

got to upload the beijing pics, so check them out here.

we’ve taken a short detour from wutai shan to pingyao (via tai yuan and more banking madness, but all’s well that ends well and we finally have some cash in hand).

pingyao is a tiny little ming dynasty village, a walled city which has, for most intents and purposes, been preserved in its original state. we were’nt even planning to pass through, except that someone talked us into it.

and so we’ve stumbled into this tiny piece of another time and place. and it’s beautiful. absolutely gorgeous. we wound up having dinner at a funky little place playing reggae with posters and lanterns and candles. drinking beer and watching china pass by. and it suddenly hit me with the force of a tonne of bricks. this one beer is worth all the months and months of socialising i gave up. because this is *it*. this is what i’ve wanted ever since i first discovered my love of travel. this is my big dream. to go around the world. and i am living in it. i am *doing* it.

it’s mine.

as yesterday was a wash (what with the drama over the banking and getting ripped off) today was the first real day we were able to explore the temples of wutai shan. which, after all, is the only reason to come to this otherwise grim and industrial little town.

as one of the holiest of buddhist sites in china, wutai shan has temples in abundance. multitudinous temples. and as you escape the tack tourist strip, and step into the ancient enclaves, that’s where you begin to feel it. incense thick as clouds. hundreds of monks meandering about in robes of saffron and crimson. the ringing of thousands of bells with each mountain breeze as the devout pilgrims bow, pray, chant and make their offerings. solemnity and peace infuse the high clear air. this is the spiritual connection you were seeking. this is the calm and serenity you so desperately crave, so far removed from the chaos that is chinese daily life. the fluttering flags, the soft gongs, the meditation – they’re all about as far as you can get from the hectic everyday. it’s an oasis. a brief respite. a reminder of purpose, the eternal and the creative force amongst the mudane and wearying details.

it is said that pilgrims used to take up to 2 years to visit all the temples of wutai shan. we had only two days. but it is enough to know that this mountain retreat exists, as yet unspoilt. for now.