Just catching up

Of course no entry would be complete without the requisite image of a plant or two and, in catching up with my botanical art group, I’m spurred to visit the Botanical Gardens.

We’re doing a project to record some of the highlights of the gardens for an exhibition which will celebrate their 125^th anniversary in 2012.

So plenty of material to get stuck into.

.

And sadly, a lost fairy crown…

I also get a chance to visit Lacock where a falconry display is taking place, but there’s a bit of a hiatus when one gets bored with all this demonstration stuff and takes off.

Right then, better go and get him

Now you see me

Now you don't

Gotcha

There are some very large birds. And I mean large.

Who's a pretty boy then...

In one of the rooms in Lacock Abbey there’s wallpaper from the 1700s which has been inspired by Oriental birds and flowers– no doubt brought back by some of those intrepid Plant Hunters. Funny old world.

I’m also keen to catch up on what’s been happening with BOG – Bath Organic Group – since we successfully got Lottery funding for a whole heap of improvements last year including better disabled access paths, a teaching tent, bigger and better ponds for bigger and better wildlife and an earth oven for lovely home-made pizzas and things after a long day digging.

The friendly way to make daub

and plaster it on the oven

A big new pond needs a big new platform...

It’s great to see the results of all their hard work during the last year – while I was so far away and safely off the ‘volunteer rota’.

Back home…

I fly into Heathrow along with the dawn that has grown beautifully bold outside my window, slow hour after hour, as we course our way over the top of the world.

It is not a comfortable flight. I had made the mistake of selecting a window seat – great during the day when you can gaze out over extraordinary vistas, but a bad choice at night. The window is a freezing bed-pillow, and I can’t get out to pee. Easily. Without waking other people. Which isn’t what I want to do.

So, as I said. A bad choice.

We land early, just after 6am, and already it’s full-on day. China already feels a million miles away. And then the absolute wonder of driving through the fresh green English countryside where the Ox-eye daisies along the motorway verges, like a froth of Victorian relatives waving their white handkerchiefs to speed you on your way, is a home-coming like nothing else.

I stay on the outskirts of London and see family and friends I have missed for a year.

But there's still a sunset in England

As with any adventure – for coming back home can be just as much a voyage of discovery as going away – there are moments which are “captured” emotionally, as much as they might have been by a camera: holding my great-nephew just two days after his birth; hearing a cuckoo; glimpsing the very last of the early bluebells. Or the night the fox got the chickens…

And the excitement of small boys as they unwrap their presents and find blow-pipes inside! Of course we play with them in the garden and, as far as I know, no-one has lost an eye yet…

All too soon, it seems, it’s time move on. To pick up the pieces of a family that the last year has ridden roughshod over, and to figure out where we all go from here.

I hit Bath at the beginning of the Music Festival, Fringe Festival, and various other cultural events which make me realise that my cultural experience in China is one of how people live their lives, rather than what they do – a more anthropological view than academic. And I feel like I’m jonesing! I pore over the programmes, soaking up the delight in going to live music events that I can better relate to, art shows, street theatre and just hanging out in my old pub haunts catching up a year’s worth of gossip and several pints of real ale.

I hadn’t realised, until I left China, that just being there was such hard work. But having said that, I am aware that there are many more opportunities there for someone with initiative, than there are in England. The middle class is growing exponentially: they are conspicuous in their consumption and they are investing heavily in art.

My arrival “back home” is made all the easier by an invitation to stay with friends, as I’d given up my rented country cottage and put everything in storage when I first went to China in 2009. However, their wholesome farm-house cooking is forcing me to consider gym membership. And none of this is helped by my discovery that if you leave your clothes in storage for a year, the waists shrink.

But that hasty visit to the lock-up supplies me with the necessary “winter” clothing now that I’ve missed the scorcher of spring. The brolly is coming in handy almost daily, but I haven’t needed the wellies yet. But then, I’m not planning on going to Glasto this year. Rock on!

Borneo

Where did those three weeks go? Here I am again at the airport, waiting to fly back to Kota Kinabalu, then Hong Kong, and finally England – nearly a year after leaving.

The fabric of the last 10 months in China is fading in the stronger light of Borneo – but maybe I’ve woven a different cloth: the one made of tourism that I have avoided up until now.

Initially there is an urgent thirst to head off into the National Parks and jungle to paint exotic plants. But as I read more about the land I realise that there is more here that could nourish me than this one drive.

It takes several days – and Becky’s gentle persuasion – before I relax enough to enjoy this new approach. And the camera is always at hand. Although a bit of a purist only wanting to draw from nature, I do realise that it’s quite possible to use photographs as a source…

First we did a day trip to Manukan island, a short boat ride from KK. After having been “land locked” in China for so long, I was desperate for some sea…

The far end of Manukan Island

Not much to do...

Except reflect...

Wonder at the strange fruits...

And have a drink with Becky back at KK

But the real adventure starts at Samporna with the 18^th Annual Lepa Boat Festival and snorkelling in some of the world’s finest coral reefs.

We stay at Dragon Inn, right on the water, and watched the flotilla from the cafe. The traditional boats are festooned with flags and all lit up at night. It’s a big event with many local dignitaries attending the judging – particularly of the beauty contest.

Dragon Inn by day

And night

Watching the boats pass by

Getting up close

Awaiting judgement

The score is all hand-written

All lit up

A bevy of beauties

Now that's a unique hand-basin!

Meanwhile, behind the scenes...

The next day we head off for the tiny reef island of Sibuan which lies about 30-minutes north of Samporna and is habited by Filipino sea-gypsies: a straggle of around 20 coconut-palm huts with a swarm of nut-brown children.

No health-care, no education. The boat pulls right up to the sandy beach and a small child makes a very half-hearted attempt to sell us a shell.

The outpost

As we walk around this little spit of land, we are startled to find a small military outpost with a bored soldier nursing a rather large gun. This island, along with all the others in this cluster, has a police and army presence (3-weeks on, 3-weeks off) following the hostage-taking of 20 people, including a number of foreign tourists, by Filipino gunmen on Sipadan island back in 2000.

In-between dips

We spit in our masks, pull on our flippers and within a few short strokes are above the coral and oh! What a sight.

In a state of stunned astonishment, we glide in the slow, warm current, seemingly just feet above this wonder-land along the edge of the island reef. There are pink-tipped coral, blue-tipped coral, crinkly green coral and huge brown brain-coral; blue “bean-bag” starfish and pink fat star-fish with black spots; clown fish, parrot fish, exquisite angle fish with yellow strips and thin, pointy noses, a puffer fish, box fish and a small fast-moving stingray – and a myriad others whose names I will never know. Oh, and an exciting glimpse of a turtle drifting away into the darker, deeper water. And a thick black, yellow and white striped sea-snake which we keep well away from. There’s also a scattering of small jellyfish with four green spots (resident algae I assume), most of which I manage to evade. The stings smart a bit but don’t last long.

Despite having severely burned the back of my legs (1 out of 2: remembered sun cream on the shoulders…) the next day I’m out again to Mabul island, some 45-minutes away. The burning sun has gone and it’s cooler with heavy rain. It’s also much deeper out here, the reef-fish larger and the current stronger – a wholly different experience.

Approaching the island

The island is much larger with a Scuba Junkie (!) resort. Apparently an English guy started up the operation quite some years ago and it’s grown and grown, providing PADI courses in all shapes and sizes, and covering all tourism bases with a bar, restaurant and budget accommodation – which is less than ‘budget’ on the island…

Looking out to the pier

The local island village

Tourist chalets...

The boat takes us to three different snorkelling locations around the island, and we’re accompanied by divers – we skirt the reef and they plunge down into seeming darkness, their location marked by streams of silver bubbles wobbling rapidly up towards the surface. As soon as I’m in the water I see another turtle and this one hangs around for a while longer before gliding out of sight.

One of the best locations is, surprisingly, the artificial reef abutting the stilt-chalets and wooden pier: shoals of silver large-eyed jack fish; a shimmer of “glass-fish” that confuse and distort until I pick out the individual, thin blue slivers, that move as one – I’m reminded somewhat of the watery features in James Cameron’s ‘Abyss’. Scorpion, or lion fish float surprisingly close and I back away from their fragile feathery fins wondering if they are indeed as poisonous as they look. (Later – apparently they are!)

Then floating mesmerised above some coral, listening to the Parrot fish scrape away at the surface with their sharp beak-like teeth.

Sadly I have no under-water photographs – I could have rented a camera for £20 but first it didn’t occur to me, and second I think it would have diminished the experience.

Back on terra firm we head off to the Sepilok Jungle Lodge for the night – where I’m finally able to photograph familiar territory!

Next morning we visit the Orang-utan centre, a vital rehabilitation project where orphans are trained to fend for themselves – which can take anywhere from five to 10 years.

Just hanging around...

Once competent to cope alone (they are mostly solitary creatures) these wonderful, semi-wild primates have the security of knowing they can return to the feeding station at the centre if forest fruits are scarce. Some return regularly, some never return. And there’s no guarantee that on any given day, any will turn up. Although it’s pretty much guaranteed that the aggressive Macaques will.

Adults at the feeding station

Mum and young 'un

Sepilok Orang-utan Centre

Becky heads back to KK (she’s already spent two weeks doing a whole host of jungle-trips) and I pick up a river-cruise to see Proboscis monkeys, Macaques and Silver-leaf monkeys in the wild, and a whole array of birds including Kingfishers and various Hornbills – the symbol of Borneo Malaysia – a wild cat (well, the eyes of one shining in the dark), a snake, various small brown frogs and more kinds of insects than I care to mention, or name. There are some flowers too…

Osmoxylum lineare

The canopy walkway and bird tower

The evening walk around the Tropical Gardens takes me up onto the canopy walkway, where we wait until dusk – and are rewarded with large red flying squirrels gliding silently across from one tall tree to another – and a torch-lit one much closer, munching away on some leaves. We also see a Slow loris but it’s too far away to take a photo.

Flying squirrel - torchlit

On another, rather less-successful, night walk in mud and rain – and leeches – I see sleeping birds roosting on thin branches. In retrospect, would rather have settled down with a beer, but didn’t want to miss anything…

The boat to our chalet

Chalet accommodation

The chalets were fine, but there was a power cut, so no air con. And no fan either! It was hot and humid and pitch, pitch black with lots of strange jungle noises during the night…

Stork-billed Kingfisher

Macaque monkey

Proboscis monkeys

Returning to chalet

Um - frog...

Then back to KK and the noise and thrust of the city – and Labour Day weekend. After having “missed” various European Bank Holidays in China, it is a shock to realise that Malaysia actually celebrates these. The place is teeming with local tourists and most of the accommodation full.

I had plans to walk trails in Kinabalu National Park to see Pitcher plants and the Rafflesia, the world’s largest flower but with all the beds taken, I’m rather stuck with nothing to do.

Frustrated, I go on line and book the next flight out to Kuching, in the southern “state” of Sarawak.

Oh and what a difference! A park-filled city stretching languidly along the wide riverside: a casual city with an unhurried tourist pace. High rise hotels – The Pullman, Riverside Majestic, Harbour View – stretching along the water-front with walkways, small stalls selling local foods and an active bazaar street chock full of tacky tourist stuff and some rather nice finds.

The Sunday Market

Edible flowers from the forest

Wide - rather wet - shopping street

The old...

...the new

Boats on the river

Then there are avenues of Frangipani with their heady scent; colonial museums with Victorian display cases of stuffed birds and mammals preserved as exhibits themselves – “the last example of traditional Natural History displays in East Asia”.

Night time reflections

And a sunset - I kid you not!

And so many other sights I have no time to explore…

Another Orang-utan sanctuary –

- where we witness a fascinating activity unfold, as a large male casually bends to sniff a female and gently, but firmly, pulls her down towards him.

whatever comes naturally

His slow thrusting brings giggles from the watching crowd which grow in volume and amusement as he moves her around the feeding deck into various other positions. And all the while they both nonchalantly munch on bananas and other fruits plucked from the decking.

Eventually the Ranger admonished the crowd: ”Why are you laughing? This is a most natural event…” Shamefaced, they shuffle off, and a few of us continue to watch in wonder and silence. Eventually he asks us all to leave – if these semi-wild Orang-utans can procreate successfully, they have a better chance to survive.

Their native habitat in this part of Sabah is now seriously depleted into a squeezed strip along the riverside – giving one a dubiously “better” chance of seeing them in the wild simply because they have no-where else to go.

The squeeze is due to palm-oil plantations which, seen from the air, spread like a sterile ‘lawn’ across vast swathes of land. On the 9-hour bus ride to Samporna (not to be repeated: back-of-the-bus, next to the toilet, whipping around mountain bends in stifling heat…) I was shocked to watch hour after hour pass through this unchanging scene. Apparently the land was bought up by Chinese entrepreneurs who promptly cleared it of all native vegetation and set up this most profitable business.

Palm oil plantations from a moving vehicle...

How long ago this was, and whether the government was aware of their intentions is not clear to me, as I later learned from a taxi-driver that in Sarawak even second-generation Chinese cannot buy farming land. They can only lease it for a 7-year period, when it returns to the owner. I had wondered why the Chinese, who make up around 30% of the population in Borneo Malaysia, are all clustered around cities.

And then the Rafflesia, a parasitic plant which produces flower-buds with a 9-month gestation period, and a 5 to 7-day blooming. The plants are dioecious, being either male or female, and it needs some training to tell the flowers apart. According to the local guide at the Guning Gading National Park the buds have a very high failure rate, with only around 18% reaching maturity. Whether these large flowers then set seed – or spore? – is unclear, and it seems a great deal more research is needed to understand them fully.

Not the greatest beauty...

The one I saw, Rafflesia tuan-mudae, is on its fifth day of flowering and has had quite a battering. Over 170 people visited it on the Bank Holiday Monday and, positioned between two large rocks, it is vulnerable to damage. To view it more clearly, one had to clamber past it into a small chasm where it hangs 4-feet above the ground. How it lost one of its large petals is not clear. It’s a serious offence to damage or take any of the plant material – but the missing piece cannot be fond on the ground… The buds are (or possibly were?) used in traditional medicine so it’s possible this petal has some value other than trophy-hunting.

Even past its best, and less than intact, it is wonderful to see. Although there are around 50 plants in the park, and they flower year-round, the Rangers never really know when or where they will bloom. Catching one on spec, with just a few days’ holiday, is a very hit-and-miss affair.

Bako National Park, pitcher plants and more Proboscis monkeys.

The journey to the Park involves a bus to a ferry landing on an estuary further up the coast, than a boat trip around the headland.

Fish traps along the coast

Around the headland

Disembark on the beach

Erosion

The rocks on the beach contain iron and form some amazing shapes and patterns:

I had been planning on over-nighting at the park but fatigue – and stories of a dismal dorm and bad food – draws me back to my familiar bed in the Singgahsana hostel.

And resting on the beach...

In retrospect I wish I had caught the 7am bus to the park instead of an hour later: by the time I get there large groups of, er, large Europeans are crashing through the jungle paths scattering everything in sight.

Waiting them out down a quite side-path, I hear foliage dropping around me and look up.

Proboscis monkey feeding

 

There, right above me, is a large, very male Proboscis monkey casually plucking leaves from the tree – and keeping a watchful eye on me.

Apparently its the dominant males that have the big noses, and other things prominently on display…

Great folds of flesh

Then I head up through the rocky chasms, bridges and:

the tangle of roots

wooden steps

deep dark trails

ant highways

and mushrooms

to the…

limestone? plateau

where I’ve heard there are quite a number of pitcher plants – I’m not disappointed.

Resting

 

 

There are tiny green ones creeping across the ground, and large red and green blotched ones with flanges, full of last night’s rainwater, resting heavily at the base of trees.

 

There are vines tangle down in a great mass from the trees, the dried vessels rattling together in the slight breeze.

 

 

 

 

Suspended

Entwined

 

Clustered together

I snap away, trying to shade the bright light with my umbrella, and quietly wish that I had time – and the resources – to paint them.

There’s other spectacular plants and wildlife around, such as the Silver leaf monkey, with their conspicuous offspring.

Blends in with autumn leaves?

But the boat is waiting to take me back around the headland to the Park entrance and bus station, and then on back to Kuching to drop in my camera for repair. How the small hair got into the body of the camera I have no idea, but there it is, marring my photos: it’s not noticeable on busy jungle shots, but is a distinct annoyance others.

The Village House

The Singgahsana Lodge guest house in Kuching has another place about half-an-hour away which is advertised as “A Total Escape Destination”. Not cheap, but I feel the need for a bit of pampering on my last day in Borneo. It is worth it. A 14m swimming pool with cascading sides, hammocks, comfy loungers, elegant outdoor dining area, art-works strategically placed and wonderful linen sheets and crisp white towels; exquisite food, ice-cold beer and an extensive library. And I’m the only one there. Bliss.

One night is definitely not long enough. Me-thinks I might return…

Kota Kinabalu

The flight takes just over three hours – my first Air Asia experience, and a bit like the old Freddie Laker flights, if anyone can remember that far back: mine, in 1980, when I flew to Los Angeles to attend UCLA’s film school… Since then EasyJet and Ryan Air are the European equivalents. But at least I’m not charged an arm and a leg just to book the flight or use the loo.

No taxi from the hostel to meet me at the airport, but hey, most people speak English. What a relief from the trials of travelling in China!

The dorm room has 10 bunk beds, and the lights are out by the time I get there. I manage to find a bottom bunk – climbing up and down during the night isn’t my strong point….

And am I glad that I’ve booked a room with AC. It is hot and humid, day and night. But the noise can’t come close to drowning out the persistent and sometimes violet noise of motorbikes, trucks without silencers, clapped out cars and the screech of tyres of warriors and other survivors of the road that roar past the thin concrete fabric of the building.

I’m used to hearing loud Chinese voices early in the morning before going off to the fields, or arguing late at night – not traffic. It’s a disturbing exchange which violates. I don’t want to be here, in a city like this.

In the bed next to me is Becky from Wantage. We go out for the day and, watching the sun set over the harbour, we hatch a plan to escape.

Interesting, inedible fruit...

Durian - truck loads of 'em

Harbour side

just hanging out

Fish market

Looking out to sea

Reflections

Hong Kong

Hot and humid…

The lights from Helen’s apartment seem suspended between the hills – a fairy land of high-rise.

Fo Tan at night

This time, I’m spending most of my time on a graphite drawing of Bauhinia for a potential project, so am seeing little of Hong Kong itself. The flowers are coming to the end of their seasons – and the trees are rather tall – but I’m able to grab a few shots.

Bauhinia blakeana

Bauhinia blakeana is a cross between B variagata and B purpurea and is infertile, which means it doesn’t produce the long bean pods of the other two. It is the national flower of Hong Kong.

Bauhinia variagata

Now I’ve packed up all my stuff – leaving some of it at the studio until I return – and am off to Borneo for a few weeks.

Where it’ll be “hot and humid”. With mosquitoes and leeches in the jungle. Yum!

Sai Kung

Feeling a bit graphite oppressed, I take a bus east to the seafood capital of Hong Kong, Sai Kung. It grows darker and darker as we approach the bay – streetlights come on, then headlights. As I get off the bus by the pier there is a torrential rainstorm, with thunder and lightning.

I shelter on the pier where fisher-folk sell an amazing array of seafood to the waiting throng.

Not the idyllic seaside trip I’d expected, but a very interesting light.

Notes on leaving China

Travelling in China can be very, very hard. But sometimes there is a magical parting of the waters and a combination of surprising encounters or events turns the process of travelling into a memorable adventure.

My visa expires once again, on 11 April, necessitating a return to Hong Kong – or simply out of China. Well, “simply” is a bit of a misnomer: getting out of China is no problem – finding somewhere to get a Visa of longer then 30 days is a trial. Both Hong Kong and Bangkok are restricted to this time-length, and Vietnam no longer issues visas for China. Chaing Mai was heard to be giving longer visas but things change quickly, with no notice, and it’s a long way to go… Plus, my original flight route took me Kunming – Hong Kong, HK – Heathrow, so it makes sense to use the first part of the ticket to exit the country.

However, my return flight to England isn’t until May. So what to do? That’ll be a new adventure, but first let me describe the turn of events that have brought me to the French Café in Kunming, where I’m having eggs, tomato and basil, coffee, and fresh, hot, home-made bread rolls.

I had decided to spend my final weeks back in wonderful, tranquil, Shaxi. The weather was superb, dawning crisp and cool with that exquisite shimmer that heralds a scorcher. The mountains across the valley were blue with morning haze and from the balcony of Horse Pen 46 guest house, the glimpse of river glittered between the fresh green leaves of the willows.

I walked into the dusty red hills in search of rhododendrons and completed two more paintings in the “new” style: the looser, more expressive one developed for the up-coming exhibition in Hong Kong.

As my final days approached, so did my birthday; and I was looking forward to spending it with my good friends in Shaxi: Matthias and Veve, and Lily the English writer. Then Bob from Baisha said he would join us, not having visited Shaxi before, and he made the trip directly from Kunming just for the day.

I have never seen such an extraordinary, beautiful cake! We had Thai soup with prawns, fresh salad with olives, and the yummiest pizza Allen has ever made. Then he cracked open a 21-year old bottle of Royal Salute…

Leaving the next day was hard, but Bob was also coming back to Lijiang, and although we had to wait two hours for a bus, the journey was uneventful – apart from the valley-filled haze as a large forest fire obscured the view of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain. Apparently the single Lijiang helicopter had been hard at work since dawn pulling water out of Lasha lake to douse the flames.

Back in Garden Inn in Lijiang, I picked up my train ticket to Kunming and met a delightful Irish gal called Karen, who was also heading south. We shared a taxi and a hard-sleeper cabin, and then another taxi in the morning to Cloudland Hostel where she was staying for a few days before heading to Lao. She invited me to join her and oh! how I wish I could have done.

But with flights booked, accommodation with Helen sorted, and plans for further travel in the offing, I was rather more committed than I would have liked. Plus my visa expires TODAY, so no time to apply for a Lao visa which takes three days.

I left my bags in Cloudland and here I am at the French Café waiting for my flight to Hong Kong.

Local park in Kunming

The seasoned traveller might find nothing unusual about my final days in China and trip down to Kunming, but I know that I might have done all of this alone – and felt isolated and lonely, tearful even at the thought of leaving China after almost a year, and the good friends I have made here. Instead I had warmth and companionship. The process of travelling alone, or with others, is the same. It’s the experience that’s so different.

Later: just had an interesting experience. Apparently age must have caught up with me despite not feeling very much different. They couldn’t recognise me from my passport photo taken 10 years ago, and placed me in an Investigation room while they did some computer checks! Knew I should have been using those anti-ageing creams after all…

The most amazing birthday cake ever…

It was big and gooey, and had flowers from an indeterminate planet…It had to be specially made to some very strict instructions! Thank you Matthias and Veve!

The cake

Lily and I celebrated at Allen’s with our very good friends of Shaxi and a 21-year old bottle of Royal Salute.

Er – Chinese tradition dictates that you have to celebrate with most of the icing on your face… so we did.

Not a pretty sight

Offa’s dyke to high plateau

Hua Dian Ba – 6 April 2011

I had heard about this wild-flower medicinal-plant meadow back in 2009, but never had a chance to go there. Now, in my final week I jump at the chance as Lily and two Finnish travellers are keen to make the trek.

We leave Shaxi at 8am for Xizhou, a small town on the north-western bank of Lake Erhai, near Dali, and arrive around 12:30. They continue on into Dali old town where the Finns are ultimately heading: they drop off their big bags and Lily hits the bank. The banks in Shaxi and Jinghong, the main metropolis in the area, only service Chinese accounts, which can be a bit of a problem if you’re staying in the area longer-term. Lily, like me, has made it her creative base, to complete part two of her novel current.

Rhododendrons in courtyard

I take the opportunity to drop in on the Linden Centre again and take a poster for Matthias’s medicinal plant garden near Shaxi.

M will be producing postcards of my paintings which they agree to sell in their small shop.

We finally all meet up again and head up the dry, dusty road at about 3pm. It’s later than we would have liked, as we know that the walk will take us at least four hours. But we should be there before dark.

It is hot. Very hot. At the entrance to the mountain path we sign in with officials and read the comprehensive notice about “no fires”. It’s as dry as tinder. Even the large bundles of magenta incense sticks placed at the small local holy sites are left unlit.

On our way up, we meet groups of locals coming down from the hills with huge bunches of Rhododendron decorum – the beautiful white, scented, blooms that are a local delicacy.

R decorum

Although they might be gong to put them in a vase and just enjoy them as is. I would have loved to have painted them, but sadly I’ve now run out of time – it’s now just five days before I leave Shaxi, and China, and I’d rather spend my final days enjoying the tranquillity of the area than putting myself under pressure to start a new project.

We climb up, and up, cutting off huge bends in the road by stumbling along donkey-trails, through small graveyards and deep pine forest. These paths have been worn into steps where the hooves have pushed the earth down into ridges. They’re amazingly even and well-spaced, presumably donkeys having legs of relatively same length…

Donkey "steps"

The road peters out and is only traversable by foot or pack-animal.

Local coming off the mountain

Rhododendron sp

We pass mules, donkeys and horses coming down off the mountain with some rather bemused locals. First it’s another five hours (what!?) then it’s three. We hope we’re misunderstanding them – maybe three miles? – but we are realising now that we won’t make it before dark.The problem is we don’t know what “it” is. We asked Veve to phone ahead and book us into the medicinal plant co-operative for the night, and ask them to prepare dinner for us, but all we know is that once we finish climbing up, it’s at the end of the plateau. Exactly where is a complete unknown.

The path continues climbing and we’re going at a pace much faster than I’d like. The Finns, Ilkke and Henny are both in their 20s, and Lily’s an avid hiker.

I stumble breathlessly along some way behind, grateful for the occasional short stops and sips of water – and a few grabbed photos of flowers along the way.

We know we can’t afford to rest for any length of time.

Rhododendron sp

The path levels out and turns into a wide stone-paved “road” which has a history which intrigues us. Possibly one of the main routes from Dali to Eruan over the mountains? Part of the Tea & Horse Caravan Route?

We’ll have to wait until we’re down to research this – our Chinese is completely inadequate and no-one up here speaks a word of English.

(Note: have since discovered that it was built by the People’s Army – thanks to Chris Horton of Go Kunming, a network and website I found very informative for all ex-pats and other things relating to Marmite or cabbages and kings.)

The long un-winding road...

It reminds me of Offa’s dyke. As it grows darker, we stumble on the loose rocks, kicking and sliding – it’s incredibly tiring, and I’m already exhausted. We walk through a spate of freezing rain and round the mountain into a ferocious wind. Along the plain it settles down, and the clouds clear – but the moon is just a fingernail and casts little light.

We pass two homesteads with small burning lights and stumble on, desperately hoping that we’ll come across the lights of a village proper before it’s so dark we can’t see anything. Once we turn on our torches, we will only see the light in front of us, our eyes losing their “night vision”.

Then we come across a light shining from a large complex of buildings – whatever this place is, we can’t continue any further. As we walk through courtyards it looks more and more like a co-operative “factory” – and indeed it is! We have finally made it. It’s 8:20, virtually pitch dark, and we descend on the food and a bottle of beer with enormous pleasure and relief.

The medicinal herb co-operative

Next morning is clear and sunny – but the only wild flowers we can find are tiny gentians, an amethyst fumitory (Fumaria sp) and a few rather indistinct yellow things peeking through the heavily grazed grass.

Partially derelict

Awash with horticultural netting

Fumaria sp

We’re probably about six weeks too early.

In situ plant ID

Do I have competition?

Then it’s another four hours back down the hill – and we’ve started out a bit later than I would like.

Lone Rhododendron...

Again it’s a fast pace but we get down to Xizhou just after 3:30 and I’m on a bus back home, arriving in Shaxi just before 8pm. Utterly exhausted!

Now that's the way to travel!

Snow-capped Cangshans above Dali

Now it’s packing time – my visa expires in just a few days’ time and I must leave China for Hong Kong.

But not before my birthday celebration…

Rhizome

This post is a belated summary of a 2-month period on an arts residency in Lijiang, from December 2010 to February  2011.

It was quite by chance that I stumbled across Rhizome – a large courtyard hosting an arts complex and restaurant on the outskirts of Lijiang run by a French couple, their three children, Gizmo the dog and Alex.

Arriving at Rhizome in December

Undertaking an arts residency seemed like a wonderful opportunity to develop a freer, more personal, style after the intense concentration of working on botanical illustrations.

I was also intrigued by the Naxi minority, their pictographic language, and the Dongba shaman. What clinched it for me was the fact that they made their own paper. Surely I could draw on (!) all these elements, incorporate paintings of their medicinal/ sacred plants, and produce

The courtyard

something new and exciting, which would help to spread the word about their endangered culture – rather than exploit it.

Morning mist from the balcony

So I made the commitment to spend two months there, and hold an exhibition of my work in March, when Mika and Odile returned from a much-needed holiday over the Chinese New Year break.

I had no idea about arts residencies, and discovered that many are actually funded through grants or benefactors – particularly, it seems, in Europe and Australia. But obtaining a grant at this stage was not an option.

My monthly fee would provide accommodation and a studio space – and the support of Odile, herself a professional artist. On top of this I would need to cover food and all art expenses, including transport for research and interpreters.

It was a big financial decision for me as, apart from the botanical illustrations with the German scientist, I hadn’t earned any money since being made redundant in May 2009.

Leaving Shaxi

I said goodbye to Matthias and Veve several times, dragged Allen out of the shower he was having with Willy – only way to ensure his St Bernard kept up some standards of hygiene – and hugged people I hardly knew in my heightened state of anxiety.

Leaving Shaxi was hard.

Farewell Matthias & Veve

And Allen

The truth is I simply didn’t want to swap the beautiful, tranquil, Shaxi, my home for five months, for the tourist mayhem of Lijiang.

And Shirley & Alean from Horse Pen 46

However, the surrounding villages around Lijiang are worth visiting – and Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, which acts as a backdrop to much of the city, spectacular.

Jade Dragon Snow Mountain

As with any new venture – particularly a creative one – I suffered initially from a sense of confusion and self-doubt. That wasn’t helped by the disorientation of moving to a new place. And it was bitterly cold in Lijiang.

Keeping warm - my pixie hat

A note about the North/South Divide…

Traditionally, houses have no heating and the walls no insulation. I guess they figure it’s cold for only a few months of the year, and they just put on more clothes.

I also heard that China suffered a “heating divide” and found this bit of information on someone’s blog – who was obviously experiencing the winter chill factor:

“Since the 1950s, there has been no central heating in southern China, roughly defined as below the Yangtze River – even though temperatures fall below freezing in plenty of southern cities.

Back in the 50s that was a money-saving move because the state provided heat as part of the iron rice bowl welfare of communism. Free heating has ended, but the north-south divide is still in place.”

Here’s a map of China showing the path of the Yangtze. Lijiang is just near the first bend of the Yangtze, under the “h” of Chongqing.

Because of the large balcony and overhanging roof, the room at Rhizome was also much darker than I was used to; but as I intended to spend most of my time working in the studio, this didn’t matter too much. And it did force me out early in the morning to make coffee – one of the best purchases I’ve made in China was a cafetière from Dali.

Green tea is nice and refreshing during the day, but Oh! morning coffee is a necessity.

Modern Dongba paintings

My research revealed that there were a number of artists working with Naxi pictographs locally. These used bright acrylic colours and mainly very stylised depictions – often they were used to tell as story, as the pictographs would have done originally, but were pretty inaccessible if you couldn’t interpret them.

Modern Dongba paintings for sale

I didn’t particularly like them, and it certainly wasn’t a style I wanted to emulate, preferring the sensitivity of watercolour and the connection with tradition of using the Dongba paper. No-one seemed interested in showing the plants, so my approach was unique.

A paper trail…

One of the main challenges facing me was finding a good source of Dongba paper. Not the

The misleading W lichiangensis sign

poor quality stuff made from a mix of  pulp from various sources including Daphne odora and paper mulberry – with petals – which they sell to tourists in so many of the “tradition” shops in Lijiang, but that made from authentic material: Wikstroemia lichiangensis. Despite signs in the paper shops suggesting otherwise…

I started my search at the Dongba Cultural Museum outside Black Dragon Pool, and found a Dongba priest writing pictographs on some very fine paper, selling at ¥150 a go. I couldn’t bargain a blank sheet down below ¥100, so forked out the equivalent of £10, considering it an investment.

The paper had apparently been made up near Shangri-La: the villagers make a whole batch, then bring it down, selling the entire lot to the Museum. The girl working there – the only one who spoke a little English – didn’t have any contact details: they rely only on the villagers turning up once in a while to replenish stocks.

But I needed to find a much cheaper source: Without good paper my project would stumble at first hurdle – and I wouldn’t be able to do many paintings at £10 a throw…

Then Odile told me about a friend of hers, a Dongba shaman currently living inside the Black Dragon Pool park, whose wife makes paper. Odile’s Chinese is limited so we found a young Chinese student with a reasonable grasp of English to help us.

We took with us the usual gifts: oranges for the wife and, err, bijou for the Shaman. A young, talented man, he seems strangely displaced in the centre of a tourist park, despite it having a strong cultural significance for the Naxi, and a source of sacred spring water.

Over the six years that Odile has known him there has been a deterioration of his health and blackening of his teeth. He’s still in his 30s, a talented, gentle man, but one wonders what the future holds for Dongba shaman now, in this fast-changing world: where the “protection” provided by the UNESCO World Heritage Site for Naxi Culture in Lijiang has produced more of a theme park; where Dongba culture is exploited commercially. Where Dongba “paper” has been patented and is nothing more than cheap pulp.

We made an appointment to go and see the Shaman’s wife make the paper, and what we saw was the real stuff.

The Dongba's wife with the fibre

Where she got the W. lichiangensis branches from I don’t know

W lichiangensis soaking

– but again somewhere near Shangri-La: the

plant only grows in forests at an elevation of between 2600 and 3500m in SW Sichuan and NW Yunnan.

The process requires soaking for several days, mashing to a pulp, straining through a flat sieve, and rolling to remove excess water. We asked what she used for this, and she laughed: one of her husband’s bottles! Ever resourceful.

I promptly bought 20 sheets of pre-prepared paper, and started to experiment.

 

Mixing pulp with water

Smoothing out pulp in rack

Pressing out moisture

It had a really smooth surface and was very

Draining

resilient, unlike the tourist-bought material which acted like blotting paper.

I could blend colours on the surface and build up layers – very different from the Fabriano Artistico I’d used for the botanical illustrations, but an exciting departure.

 

Left to dry

The only “problem” I encountered was the strong visual texture of the fibers which might interfere with the detail.

But what to paint?

The studio space had a large table at a really good height where I could work easily,

The studio space

standing up. The balcony overhang protected the room from rain but restricted the light. With only filtered light coming from a side window it was essential to leave the wooden doors open. What with the bitter cold and strong afternoon winds I worked wrapped up, with fingerless gloves on, a lot of the time.

Of course finding paper to work on is one thing. Finding the right plants to paint was quite another.

And this turned out to be the main obstacle which I never really overcame.

Initially, Odile and I thought of Dr Ho in Baisha. He’s become quite a celebrity over the years: one of the ‘attractions’ mentioned in Lonely Planet guides, visited by the likes of Bruce Chatwin and Michael Palin, and with numerous interviews on radio and TV under his belt. But most of all he knows a lot about the local flora, having spent a great deal of his life collecting medicinal plants from the wild around Jade Dragon Snow Mountain.

Do Ho

It was not a satisfactory visit. It wasn’t that he didn’t understand what I wanted – he simply wasn’t interested. He basically said: “I’m 86 years old and tired. I only want to treat people.” Which I saw him do, at ¥100 a pop for some ground up herbs to a rather startled well-heeled Chinese woman from the city.

I had hoped that I would come away with a list of plants to kick off the project, or at least some sort of enthusiastic support. Instead I felt deflated. It was doubly difficult because my Chinese companion didn’t really understand, herself, what I wanted – her English was minimal and my ideas more complex than she could grasp.

My fall-back was to work on plants that I had painted before – the medicinal plants used by the Bai people, which are virtually all used in Traditional Chinese Medicine and also grow around Lijiang, so likely to be used by the Naxi. I could also work from photos of flowers I had taken – less ideal as I hadn’t studied them as closely. Working from life was impossible during the residency – it was the middle of winter and very little was in flower.

Odile was very supportive, but was at a loss herself to discover a way of finding out about the plants. Plus she had her own commitments: a young family to raise, and her studies several mornings a week learning Chinese at the local University.

But it wasn’t all work, and we managed to find time for some wonderful day-trips.

A time to work, a time to play

We were invited to attend a Tibetan festival at the Zhiyun Monastery near Lashi Hai reservoir and RAMSAR wetland site.

It was an extraordinarily colourful – and fun – event.

Dance parade

A dancer

Photo opps!

Musicians

And a very powerful and moving experience for some.

Devotee

The Address

The whole event went on well into the afternoon: there were food stalls outside, but we were invited to eat from the monastic kitchen in the side courtyard.

Monastic dejeurner

The monastery dates from the 1700s, but a new one was being built above it – from the roof were some really far-reaching views, but one could also see that the construction was being done very fast, and not with the greatest of care.

Under construction

A large paint job...

Puji Si Monastery

One afternoon we all piled into a hire-car and visited Puji Si monastery, about 5km west of Lijiang.

Someone enjoyed the day-trip!

We stopped at the end of a road in a small and walking up through the dusty hillside.

Puji Si Monastery

This small monastery had some really old paintings, but I wasn’t allowed to take photos inside.

They were gilding the roof when we arrived, and they offered us oranges. They were friendly, but weren’t so keen on us just wandering around.

One of the previous art residents at Rhizome had taken some very evocative photos of the kitchen…

Adong’s birthday bashes

On the 17^th of each month, a Taiwanese guy called Adong invites anyone who’s interested to a party at his woody-hippy-commune place on the edge of Lashi.

Adong's recycled wood place

People bring food to share, sit around open fires on chairs made from huge recycled timber.

Anyone who’s had a birthday that month gets a small present and the pleasure of everyone else singing Happy Birthday.

Art previews

We went to an art preview in Shuhu where a French artist worked with materials directly on the land – a metal sheet impressed with the actual rocks from the top of the hill; a glass installation; huge sheets of paper pierced in contact with the land.

I drank some rather good French red wine and failed to understand the Artist’s statement. Can’t remember which came first…

Then there were the parties at Christmas and New Year, when Odile lent me something perhaps more fitting than my walking trousers, Berghous jacket and Tevas.

Then it snowed in Lijiang and there were snowball fights with the children.

Wet snow at Rhizome

Stacey came to see Bob, Bob left, and I spent some time with her on various outings, relishing the company. We went on a few walks – one in a blizzard up Elephant Hill…

New paving up Elephant Hill

Ancient graves in the forest

Snow storm approaching

Getting colder...

Stacey in the blizzard

And came across a few winter flowers.

Primula

Magnolia sp

And some surprisingly familiar ones from Stacey’s homeland:

Eucalyptus globulus

 

Acacia sp

In fact I perhaps spent more time than I should – I even took a few days out to show her my wonderful Shaxi… (andI’ve posted enough photos of that beautiful place).

But the fun couldn’t last, and it was – Back to the task at hand…

I was still exploring all options, but making slow progress on identifying which Naxi plants were important to them.

I spent hours at a local bookshop (many are used as free libraries) poring over a book of Naxi plants and Chinese pharmacology – in Chinese – writing down the Latin names. But what were these in Naxi? Were there pictographs of the plants?

I did find some pictographs, but translations indicated they were for more general plants such as “fir” or “oak” or to indicate a point as “poisonous”

Some plant and medicinal pictographs

I followed up a contact I had for a Naxi woman who works at the Dongba Cultural Museum; fluent English but very limited time. Through her I got to meet He Pinzheng, who has not only translated a large number of Dongba scripts into Chinese, but has published a simple dictionary of pictographs. He’s also an artist, using the pictographic symbols in a very modern style. But he knew nothing of the plants they use, and could give me no leads.

There was also an intriguing display in the Museum of pictographic script including the cover of The Book of Medicine – but I could not access the document itself, nor any translation:

Book of Medicine

Someone put me in touch with Robbie Hart, from the University of Wisconsin. He’s doing research up at Wenhai, the Lijiang Botanical Gardens – well, a field research station really – and he sent me a copy of the pictographs of plants that Joseph Rock had translated. But he was back in the States and not returning to Lijiang until early March.

What I needed was someone who had local botanical knowledge and could communicate in both Naxi and English.

I never found them.

I also heard that I was unlikely to make headway directly through the Dongba shaman as it’s a very male culture – the mere fact of being a woman would be a barrier to them sharing this knowledge. I don’t know if that’s true of not, but the lack of progress I was making was very real. And the whole point of this project was to identify those Naxi plants of value, and paint them on their paper.

Some of my first experiments with painting on the Dongba paper:

Meconopsis horridula

Hypericum bellum

Pharbitis purpurea detail

I was starting to doubt, again, that I was going to be able to produce works worthy of an exhibition. It wasn’t through lack of encouragement – both Odile and Mika really liked my work: it was the complete lack of progress I was making.

Perhaps if I had had a grant to study Naxi plants, through a recognised institution, things might have been different.

I was reminded of the obstacles I encountered when first in China on the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Fellowship in 2009. No-one in the institutions would help me as they didn’t want to take responsibility if anything went wrong.

They don’t say that of course. But if I’d come through Kew Gardens, or Edinburgh Botanical Gardens, or Glasnevin… Well, I didn’t, and things were very tough.

Where to, now?

Towards the end of my 2-month residency Mika and Odile went on holiday to Vietnam. Being on the edge of a tourist city is wonderful if want to be out of the noise and bustle and close to the hills. I had come to Rhizome for lively discussions about art and networking with the artists’ community in Lijiang.

Sadly, I realised that that if that community existed, I was somehow unable to access it. There are individual artists working, and some ex-pats, but they seem to be unconnected. So here was I, also feeling once again the isolation of working on my own, and the frustration of not being able to achieve what I had set out to do.

At that time I was still working towards having an exhibition at Rhizome in March of my new works on Dongba paper, plus the ones I had done in Shaxi.

Then news from England pulled my focus away from my work, and I made the difficult decision to return home to deal with family affairs. When Odile and Mika returned from their holiday, we agreed to put the exhibition on hold until I was able to return.

That will depend very much on identifying a reliable source of information on Naxi plants. And being able to find – and paint – them.