hello blog, now i really am in the last days of my travels. on sunday i took a 7 hour bus to hailuogou glacier, in western sichuan. unfortunately, when i woke up monday morning to head up to the glacier, the entire town and surrounding mountains were covered in a dense fog. i and the israeli girl who was also staying in my hostel decided to wait till the next day, but i was a bit worried about that because on tuesday evening i had to be in kangding to meet up with a couple i'd met in chengdu. so after an inspirational nap, i decided that we should try to make it up that day, even though it was around 12 oclock. so we headed out and bought student tickets without a student id. this was the last stroke of luck we would have on our five hour journey. the travel book at our hostel had said that it wasn't necessary to buy tickets for the buses that shuttle you from camp to camp, so we started walking, and hitched a ride with a guy in a truck. but when he reached a checkpoint at camp 1, they discovered that we didn't have the ticket and so we ended up having to pay for it anyway. so we got on a bus at camp 1, and headed for the top. but then, at camp 2, the driver told us we had to get out and he was turning the bus around. when i asked why, all he would say was "traffic."
exasperated, we started walking, but it was still about 12 kilometers to the spot from where lonely planet recommends starting the 1-2 hour hike to the glacier. so we walked for about 6k, complaining the whole time about how much we hate chinese people (this was after two more buses had driven past us without stopping). then a bus picked us up, and we rode to the hiking point. by that point, we were at a fairly high altitude, so the 1-2 hour hike was more difficult than we expected. at the end of this hike, we discovered that the path we were on did not lead to the top of the glacier where you get a guide to lead you around and walk on the ice, but to the very bottom of the glacier where you could not. so we headed back. the only other stroke of luck we got was that we caught the last bus down the mountain, so we didn't have to walk the 30k back. on second thought, i bet there were some after that, but the other bus driver had told us the last bus was at five, so i'd like to believe we did have some luck. oh, and then the driver's steering wheel broke and we had to wait a half hour in the dark and cold for another car to pick us up. but we did discover that what the driver had meant by "traffic," was a car accident. still though, he could have said that. grr.
anyway, this morning i headed to kangding, where i've decided that i'm feeling to crappy to continue along the tibetan highway to litang, which is at 4012m altitude. so in about three days i should be on a train back to beijing, and thence east.