Haiku for the week

War zones and deserts

The hard reality of maps

On which dreams founder

I had been trying to get 'serious' about the crazy plan I hatched at this time last year to walk home from China to the UK, following the ancient trading paths of the 'Silk Road'. Tracing the route on Google Earth, however, soon becomes deeply dispiriting. For one thing, it's hard to determine a single definitive route, since there have been numerous variations over the centuries. And then, of course, the terrain is pretty extreme: one tries to skirt the deserts and mountain ranges, but they can't be avoided altogether. Even more importantly for me, the most commonly followed parts of the route have usually evolved today into major highways, which don't make for very pleasant walking. (Hitch-hiking might be a more realistic way of approaching the journey; but I had my heart set on walking, dammit!)

And then, of course, on the 'home stretch' the last three capitals you pass through are Tehran, Baghdad, and Damascus. With luck, the Syrian civil war should be over long before I'd be attempting this. And Tehran, though challenging, should be survivable, I think. Iraq, however, is likely to remain a death-trap for the solo Western traveller for years to come.

I haven't completely given up on the idea. But finding a route that is actually walkable - 'cross-country' rather than on the hard shoulder of busy roads - is a big problem. Finding a way across Iraq without getting mugged, kidnapped, or blown up is, strangely, a slightly lesser concern at the moment. If the rest of the trip starts to seem doable, I might just take my chances there. After all, attempting to traverse Asia on foot (apparently, it's 4,311 miles from Beijing to Damascus, as the crow flies - probably rather further, as the Froog limps) is in itself recklessly self-endangering, just in terms of the physical challenges posed by geography and climate - without the additional risks of the human violence one might encounter along the way. Recklessness is exciting, invigorating, up to a point; but I'd draw the line at 'suicidal'. I don't mind facing danger after a rational calculation of the risk, but I wouldn't want to be putting myself in any situations where the chance of death is starting to look more likely than not.

[Unfortunately, it's the first leg of the journey that would probably be the biggest hassle of all. China is very safe for foreign tourists, but it's not amenable to extended solo travel. Outside of the major cities, foreigners are still a rarity, and apt to provoke suspicion and panic in the local authorities. There are many areas of the country where it is still supposedly 'illegal' to travel as a foreigner; and many more where that is de facto the case because the local policemen aren't comfortable with the idea. The physical hazards waiting further down the road may start to seem appealingly straightforward after a few weeks of trying to progress through the bureaucratic minefield that is China.]

Haiku for the week

Walking everywhere,
Familiar journeys shorten:
Ten miles become one.

Following my frivolous (?) inspiration a few weeks ago that I would like to walk back home (to England, that is), I have been thinking that, if I am to start moving this notion from the realm of idle fantasy into that of the realisable, I should probably undertake a few demanding but less extreme trials, some long-distance walks to destinations in China. And for even that much more modest objective to become realisable, I need to improve my fitness level quite a bit. Well, I need to improve my stamina quite a bit: I think, with something like very long-distance walking, it's mental determination as much as physical robustness that you need to cultivate. And so, over this past week or two, I have taken to walking everywhere. Really, everywhere. I haven't taken a taxi since I got back from my holidays. I am walking a minimum of 10 miles every day, sometimes 20 or more.

The phenomenon of long journeys seeming shorter when you've done them a few times (walking back from Sanlitun, and beyond, three nights out of four this week: 6, 7, 8 miles), is not, I think, a matter of increased pace or diminished fatigue: it's that you stop paying attention to things along the way. It's nicely meditative, but probably not really what you want if you're journeying through novel terrain, hoping to soak up the experience of new places.

There's also a strange counter-phenomenon. Quite often - with the walks that I do most frequently - weariness and impatience to get home (it's late at night, and I've had a few drinks) can make a relatively short distance seem intolerably elongated.  The brain - it's a funny thing.

Scarily prescient

Last Friday's haiku, that is - one I'd written and 'pre-posted' some three weeks earlier. I depicted my life as a steep cliff-face on which I had lost my grip... little realising that I was soon to be confronted with such a terrifying scenario for real.

Ten days ago, some of my adoptive in-laws (my Chinese friend JP is very insistent on extending 'family' privileges to me) took me on a pleasant Sunday morning ramble in the countryside. I have in the past scoffed at the Chinese propensity to describe any country walk as 'mountain climbing', even though it's almost invariably on a road or path and seldom very steep.

But that's the way your soft, big city folk talk. They're made of hardier stuff out in the countryside. My 'brother-in-law' kept describing the expedition as a 'walk', but in fact it pretty much was 'mountain climbing', at least in parts. Dawu County in northern Hubei province is not really mountainous, more hilly; but although the elevations aren't that great, it's pretty rugged, rocky terrain. I found myself trekking up a steep and often trackless river valley to check out this remote scenic spot below, the Yanqing waterfall (as I believe it's called; Google Earth is unavailable to me at the moment).  The last quarter of a mile became particularly gruelling - and anxiety-making, for me - because we had to scramble up a few near-vertical stretches of path, using tree-roots and so on for handholds. My gammy legs (loose flap of cartilage in the right knee, and mysterious muscle-wasting problem in the left thigh) just can't bear any weight when bent, so I was finding this a real trial. And I was wearing an ancient pair of trainers with just about no tread left on the soles - that didn't help, either. I had a couple of very unpleasant moments, finding myself slithering helplessly down a slope, literally clawing at the earth with my fingers to try to regain a grip.

Still, it was worth it when, after 90 minutes or so of arduous clambering under a baking sun, we arrived at this charming little spot and were able to cool our feet in the rockpools.

Unfortunately, our guide (a local mayor - friend of 'the family'... and a serious mountain climber) decreed that the only convenient way to bring our expedition to a conclusion and return to the road was to continue to the head of this valley. Yes, he wanted us to climb up this waterfall.

Now, in fact, this wasn't so bad. Just out of frame to the left of this picture there's a tumble of boulders which enable you to get about a third of the way up the cliff quite easily. Then there's a path of sorts through the adjacent underbrush - very nearly vertical, but not nearly so bad as some of the sections we'd covered just before the waterfall. But then came the point where we had to traverse the rockface to get back down to the riverside above the waterfall.  We had to get across about 7 or 8 feet of the cliff (not sheer, but very, very steep), edging our way along a narrow crack in the rock (it didn't protrude more than an inch or so from the cliff above, but provided a ledge about two inches or so wide if you managed to jam your feet in under the overhang). I'm not sure if the place is visible in this photo or not: it would be right up in the top left corner, somewhat above the top of the waterfall. One by one, we shuffled gingerly across this gap, pressing our bodies flat against the gently curving cliff-face, trying to get as much of our shoes as possible on to the narrow ledge (scarcely more than half the width of our feet), trying not to look down (at the 50 or 60 ft drop into a very shallow rockpool).

It was a dumb thing to do, but we didn't seem to have any choice. Without proper climbing shoes, or ropes, or any kind of safety equipment - it was a sickeningly dangerous thing to do. I would imagine that a 'walk' like that - never mind the cliff traverse at the end - might produce a significant injury at least one time in ten. The stunt on the cliff could well lead to a fatality rather more often than it is comfortable to think about.

But, oh yes, it felt mighty good to have survived the ordeal.

Although I didn't recall my foolish little haiku at the time, I did briefly wonder, while in the midst of crossing the cliff-face, what I'd do if I lost my foothold - would I see how much I could slow my descent by scrabbling at the cliff, or would I just give up.... and try to enjoy the fall?

Choose your next metaphor carefully, Mr Froog. It may be your last.

Haiku for the week

Travel disappoints:

The world's big for weary feet,

But smaller than the heart.

Perhaps I should more properly have said 'holidays'. There's an ephemerality and triviality about a holiday that robs it of any real sense of adventure or discovery. With proper 'travel', there may not be any definite destination, and certainly no firm end date: you are removing yourself from your familiar world in order to fully experience another.

Holidays are like the micro-blogging version of the true travel experience.

I've realised I don't want a holiday. I want to bring an end to my current life, and walk all the way back to England.

Yes, there are major issues of practicality. I am pondering them.

The Beijing I miss

It being a particularly gorgeous day today (autumn seems to have arrived two or three weeks early; only fair recompense for the non-occurrence of spring this year), I decided to walk home from a morning recording gig up in the university district - a matter of some 8 miles; 10 or 12 if, as I did, you take 'the scenic route'.

It's the first time I've done that in a year or two. In fact, it's the first time I've undertaken a major ramble (outside of the familiar hutong districts near where I live) for ever such a long time. And it took me back to my early days in Beijing: simple pleasures, chance discoveries, going with the flow.

I wandered through the gorgeous little strip park along Beitucheng Lu (I think I probably haven't been there since before they gave it a major facelift ahead of the Olympics), discovered a great little open-air market alongside it, got happily lost for an hour or so in the maze of decaying '60s apartment buildings around Rendinghu Park (Is there an exit to a main road through this courtyard? Er, no...), tried - and once again failed - to pick up some of the intricacies of mah jong from a streetside game, and generally chilled out to the ramshackle charm and the unhurried pace of community life you can still find in the city's unreconstructed neighbourhoods.

There isn't very much of this within the 2nd Ringroad any more: far too many ten and twenty storey apartment blocks, far too many garish new office buildings, far too many sprawling shopping malls (which, if the developers took my advice, would all have catchy English names like 'White Elephant' and 'Hubris'); not so much of the deep, deep shade of the narrow back streets and cluttered alleyways, and everyone just hanging out on the sidewalk, passing the time of day.

It's good to venture a little further afield once in a while; good to reconnect with that sense of why I used to like living here.