Shopping

After five weeks, I was pretty eager to leave cold and wet China and get on over to Vietnam. In order to save time, and skip going on a sleeper train for the one last time, we decided to fly. Buying our tickets however proved to be yet another example of how Chinese can often be poor sales people. Although sometimes it felt like many people would have sold us their own mother for a decent price, on other occasions, we were met with blank expressions and blatant lack of service. Eventually, we worked out the pattern, an individual would sell you anything if they were getting the benefit of the cash, but good luck if you want to buy anything from a department store or corporation. So, one piece of advice, if you ever set up a company in China, then be sure to offer a bonus system.

In this case, the first travel agency we went to informed us that in order to fly to Hanoi from Chengdu, we'd have to travel via Amsterdam. I don't think so. I tried to explain that Vietnam was just over the border and even offered to point to our destination on a map (which they mysteriously didnt have any of...), but no, we'd have to go to Europe and back. So, we left in search of the Southern China Airways building where we were again initailly met with protests that they didnt fly there but after some persuasion we were finally offered a quote. This we accepted to their shock and amusement. In fairness, it wasnt particularly cheap (we could have bought a few gourmet meals for the price) but definitely preferable to getting a long, sweaty train across the border in the middle night.

Anyway, after much time and frustration, we finally got our tickets and were off to Hanoi. Hurrah.

China's abandoned places

30th November - Chengdu, China

It seems that there are few outdoor spaces in China where you can go to be alone. Across the country people live their lives on the street and this makes for a vibrant experience. Thus it came as a bit of a surprise when, in Chengdu, we stumbled on a couple of places that were completely deserted.

Chinese cities often possess many of the qualities that I would look for if I were trying to persuade someone to vote for the Green Party. Having experienced a fair number of these, I can say that Chengdu rated really rather well and was a pleasant place to spend our last days in the country.

One of the nicer places in the city is the Wenshu temple. It appears to be an O.A.P. hotspot for those of you who like a nice cup of tea and a blanket over your legs. The vegetarian restaurant is run by monks and serves up some fantastically named dishes including; 'Jade and Crystal World', 'Dance of dragon and phoenix' and 'Treasure land'.

Another of the city's highlights, Remnin Park, does 'park' like it should be done, by including a host of different attractions. As a result, it bustles like a street market as people play mahjong, practice ball room dancing, sing opera music or practise their 'wax-on, wax-off' moves in the exercise area.

However, the one area of the park that was totally devoid of locals was the funfair. Like another episode of Scooby-doo, the aged rides lay motionless and rusty in the late afternoon sun. Even the sound of traffic seemed too distant and for the briefest of moments, it was as if we were no longer in China. As quickly as that feeling came, it departed; someone hacked up behind us and we were back in Chengdu.

A day or so later we were again graced with another deserted place; this time it was a shopping mall. Not many years ago, this large and impressive structure must have hosted more than 50 shops. Today it holds but a handful, thinly spread between countless empty glass units; a living example of retail death.

The coldest place on earth

November sometime - Songpan

Songpan is a little village that sits in a valley some 2,800m above sea level and a popular hub for visiting the mountains and nearby national park. The impression it left on me was that of a Chinese ski resort without any skiing; undoubtedly it has been influenced by the tourist trade and a number of boutiques can be found on the pretty main street. But this is China after all and so quite normal for sheep to be herded down the street in the middle of the day and probably explains why there is no heating.

One of the main attractions of this 'o so cold and I'm a boy' place is to take a horse trek into the mountains. We (and when I say that I mean I, with Helen under duress) settled on a 3 day trek to Ice Mountain. It all sounded so Thundercats.


We might even have made it up there, but, in predictable fashion, the weather took a turn for the worse and towards the end of our first night we were greated with snow. I like snow; it's a still a novelty and good for snowboarding.
But it turns out horses don't. They care for neither snowboarding nor skiing. Indeed graced as they are, with long legs and small hooves, on snow, they have the confidence of a woman in stillettos. This I found out on a number of occasions as my horse slipped, slid and fell up and down the narrow mountain tracks. It even had the nerve to throw me over the handle bars into the snow.

On the second day, we made it to about 3,800m before our guides decided that it was too dangerous to continue and so we returned early to our tibetan homestay. The scenery was breathtaking but harsh - this is not an environment that yields anything easily and you respect those who live there for it.


The homestay was an experience in itself - our hosts numbered more than 8 and covered 3 generations. For them, the experience of tourists in their home was not unusual and with a couple of exceptions, they carried on with their daily routine. A routine that, I suspect, has not changed in generations. In the evenings, we would all sit around the table drinking tea, eating the hearty (if meet free) food and sipping some filthy rice wine. This social gathering included joking, singing and listening to one guy play his guitar. Their kids; a couple of young brothers, divided their time between collecting wood, acting the goat and torturing their two 3 week old kittens (much to Helen's distress).

Who's a pretty boy then?

Panda sanctuary outside of Chengdu - end of November

Having been in China for a few weeks and not seen anything cuter than Ed in the morning (not a pretty sight), we headed to the panda sanctuary. We set out in the early morning darkness in order to arrive in time for their morning feed and were lucky enough to see a giant panda within a few feet of us. Having taken a whole load of pictures of this beauty up close, and a video, we moved on round the park. I read in the guide book that you'd be lucky to see five pandas during the visit, well, luck must have been in our stars, and I counted twenty. Giant adults, adolescents, cubs and red pandas.

I loved the giant pandas but must say that the cubs were my favourite. On spotting them, I suddenly turned into a soppy girlie girl and started cooing with delight. They were just soooo cute!


All of the pandas we saw were either eating or chilling, in trees or on the ground, which may lead you to thinking that they're lazy and greedy. However, despite being classified as a carnivore, the panda's diet is primarily herbivorous, and they almost exclusively eat bamboo. This is an recent evolutionary adaptation and is pretty unfortunate as they can't properly digest bamboo to get sufficient energy and therefore have to spend most of their days this way. If only Ed had such an excuse.

Feet of clay

Mid-November 2006 - Xi'an

Along with Beijing, Hong Kong and the Yangtse; Xi'an was one of my top China destinations. However, being such a vast country and with limited time, we very nearly didn't make it up there but with a bit or re-routing and a couple of extra days spent on the train, we managed to squeeze it into our trip. And I'm so glad that we did.

The main attraction lies about an hours drive outside of the city; the Terracotta Army. This is a collection of currently over 8,000 life-size terracotta figures which were buried near the body of the first Emporer of Qin. The Emporer ordered thousands of craftsmen to create an exact replica of his army; if any figure didn't look like the soldier it was modelled on then the craftsman was killed. Slightly obsessed with the after-life I think. Anyway, it makes for an impressive tourist attraction.

When entering the first excavation site, you can't help but be overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the place and the number of figures. To put it into perspective, it's in an aircraft hanger the size of two football pitches.

The site was discovered in 1974 by local farmers digging a well. The superstitious among them stupidly ran off thinking they'd seen a ghost but one lucky chap got his trowel out and the rest is history. Despite being illiterate, he's learnt to sign his name and offers book signings to get even more cash from his discovery. He's now a very rich man, and who can blame him; it beats selling dog meat to unsuspecting tourists.

Censorship

A note to the reader

The blog, as some of you may have noticed has been updated with little regularity over the past month or so. This is not a sign of us having too much fun nor does it signify that we are wandering in the countryside without a map. It is mostly a reflection of the rather haphazard nature of internet connections here in China.

Saturday, for example, is block all useful western sites day (hotmail, blogger, photobox etc). Indeed, it is not possible for us to view our blog directly, which my explain why some of the entries look like they have been arranged by 8 year olds (alas this does not excuse the poor quality grammar). I looked up 'censorship' on wikipedia but that site was blocked too.

This morning I turned on the TV (CCTV no less) to see a group of people exercising in front of the camera. It briefly crossed my mind that I should get up and join in or risk the TV telling me off.

Carry on cruising

Still November, getting colder - Chongqing to Yichang on a boat

After our idle time down south, we idled it up a notch by flying to Chongqing to begin our voyage through the Yangtze's famed three gorges (or as I now like to refer to them, the 2 gorges, but more of that later).

The taxi drive from the airport was superb because A) our taxi driver drove like he was in the film Taxi and B) the night time approach to the city over a long bridge looks like something from a manga. However, 'qing was shrink wrapped in low cloud, cold rain and was, as a consequence, crap. No worries; we were only there to get onto the boat.

The boat was a smaller and more primative version of a cross channel ferry; grubby and judging by the food, chef had 'been to Iceland'. The cruise lasts for 3 nights and 2 days and travels down stream through the gorges. The scenery was mostly restricted to the 2nd day, the first being a conveyor belt of low hills heavily scarred by human stupdity.

The gorges, when they came, were good enough; they impose themselves on you through their scale alone, although we saw them from 150m above the original water level of the river prior to Chairman Mo's dam nonesense. We also took a smaller boat cruise up a side gorge, which provided further vertigo inducing cliffs (one of which has some coffins placed in caves several hundred feet up...).

But despite all of the fine scenery, the trip was slightly marred by the Chinese tourism experience. The basics of which are as follows:

1) Wherever you go, get a photo of each of your party obscurring the fine view and pulling the same face.

2) Why walk or queue, when you can run and form a mob. This will save minutes in the long run and you never know when the world will end.

3) Never spend more than 5 minutes at any one site. As above, this will gain you extra minutes back on the bus/boat.

4) Each site of interest should be accompanied by at least one gift shop, if not more. This point is very important.

5) Behave like sheep - get herded, make lots of noise and don't take any notice of your surroundings.

6) Try to observe at least one of the gorges at night, when you are asleep.

The above was demonstrated on a number of occasions, but best when we toured the dam project on the final day. Despite driving along the top of the dam in a golf cart (tick off another one of my ambitions), it was about as much fun as sniffing a builder's 'pit whilst travelling to work on the Northern line.

Purple hills

Sometime in November, sometime ago - Yangshuo

I think there was more than a little reluctance in our leaving Kong. The place, as Hels mentioned, is so easy on every level, that the lazy man in me was inclined to stay for the winter.

No fear though, a few hours back in China and we're on a night bus to Yangshuo. The night bus, as you are probably aware, has half reclined beds which are more than comfortable if you are about 10 years old and small for your age. I found the experience a little like when you see some child-sized chairs and think it would be funny to sit in one, until you get your ass stuck in it. Anyway, thoroughly uncomfortable, guess-work required to get off at the right stop and only one person got their wallet stolen. Sweat on!

Fortunately, YS is a most relaxing and interesting place to unwind for a few days (says man on a 6 month holiday). We checked into a fancy hotel and lowered our ambition to 'doing sweet FA'. Unfortunately we failed in this and almost became 'busy' by cycling through rice paddies, cruising down the river and climbing hills.

The little town was once a travellers' haunt but now is also frequented by middle aged tour groups who seem determined to lose all self
respect by doing congas in the street whilst singing Old Lang Syne. I would have done my bit, but I didn't have fragmentation grenade to hand.

The area is famous for its karst hills - limestone formations that look more than a little familiar if you've ever played the original
DOOM PC game. If you haven't played it, go out and get a copy now, check out the moonscape and then you'll know what I mean. Or look at the photos (weak option). Close up, during the daytime, the hills are thoroughly uninspiring, but given a little distance, a river perhaps and a setting sun and we are talking 'kodak moment'.

King Kong

5th - 9th November

Hong Kong is relativley clean, civilised and spit-free. It even has Pret-a-manger. A nice respite from the rest of China.

We spent our time doing the usual touristy things; taking in the impressive high-rise city from Victoria peak and Kowloon pier, hiking up to the big buddha and a boat trip along the river. Being with jet-set G and Will we also had an excuse to blow our budget somewhat and enjoy 4 nights out on the trot. I think that's more drinking than we did during a whole month in Japan.

Will even managed to convine us to revisit a karaoke box. Seeing as he was only visiting for a few days, Ed and I obliged. Despite the selection of English songs being at the detriment to the vast array of canto pop, a good few hours were spent singing away. As you can see from the picture, the boy's got soul.

Birthday on train

4th November - a date for your diary

Little to be added. It was my birthday and almost all of it was spent on a sleeper to Hong Kong. I spent most of the time lying down and avoiding annoying, nonsensical conversations with locals where they speak loudly in Mandarin and I reply in English with classics such as 'I don't want any duck intestine' and 'Go away, you're making my brain hurt'.

Luckily, lying down is one of may top 5 passtimes and Helen was ace and sorted me out with some unimpeachably fine loot.

Shanghai

31st October - 4th November

Taking the Maglev train from Pudong airport, we arrived in downtown Shanghai at speed, 430km/hour to be precise. That's faster than Superman. And Ed wasn't even wearing his tights.

Shanghai has many nicknames - whore of the orient, Paris of the East etc. I'd probably just call it a building site, on a grand scale. The city is evolving and being develped at such a pace that even Lonely Planet make an apology for out of date details. They were right. On our first day the restaurant we wanted to go to was closed for refurbishment, the bookshop and market bulldozed down and the aquarium closed.

The city is very much in two halves; one moment you are walking along the Bund admiring skyscrapers, the next, you're down some dirty side alley back in 'old china'. During one of my walks around the city, I stumbled upon the Bird, Flower and Insect market. Jars of bugs, stick insects and who knows what line the aisles. After about 15 minutes in the place, I had to get out, it gave me the creeps. I left empty handed, despite Ed's approaching birthday.

Back to China

31st October - Shanghai

As someone travelling around some of the finest and most interesting parts of the world for a whole 6 months, there should not be great scope for moaning.

However, those of you who know me understand that when it comes to complaining about something, I never let and opportunity go to waste.

And a fine opportunity, in my eyes, was flying back to China (think noise, dirt and greasy food) from Japan (think tranquil and civilised, with extremely cool futuristic stuff thrown in for good measure).

But when we got off the plane in Shanghai, I was more than impressed by the 430kmph Maglev train that takes you into the city and then the modern metro journey that followed. Was I back in Nippon? No. I was in China and alas, some new infrastructure a developed country does not make.

Vindicated in my moan. Damn.

Azure Cloud Temple

27th September

Today we climbed Tai'shan, arguably China's most sacred mountain. At a mere 6000 steps and about 1500 metres, it was a snip compared to our recent 3 peaks nonesense. Yet I can comfortably say that racing up this hill is not advised.

The ascent is picturesque, with bridges, temples and fine views scattered along the way. Just before reaching the summit, you are faced with a bad boy stairway to heaven affair where the steps seem to disappeer into the sky. The top is dotted with fine temples and is truly fantastic.


Later, back down in town (Tai'an), the true China is revealed. Although a small city by their standards, its 600,000 inhabitants and industry have done a fine job of covering the city in smog. This evening we had Tai'shan chicken and I when faced with it, I had to refer to that age old saying 'I ain't eating no chicken heads or feet sucker!'.

Cattle train

26th September

We experienced our first chinese train today in real style - hard class. Basically a crowded, noisy carriage full of character. I was boxed in by the window, Ed and a 28 inch screen tv a few centimetres from my nose. This made doing anything tricky except doze in and out of conciousness when the hawking quietened down for a rare minute.

However, 4 hours into the journey our companions with the tv left and I then joined Ed with the constant staring, smiling and laughing at by the locals. It also meant that I was now subjected to their friendly food offerings of eggs, duck intestines and crab apples. I ate half an apple but managed to resist the rest. The locals were really inquisitive; trying to read our books, ask questions and Ed even had his photo taken. Despite the language barrier we managed a bit of communication and were given a grand farewell at our stop, Tai'shan.

Cycling Proficiency

24th September - on bikes spanking it around Beijing.

Cycling around Beijing is so stupid that it is fun.

We picked up our bikes from the hotel, nice old school brutes not dissimilar to the model that I had back at college. Once aboard, myself, Helen, Caroline and Maxine hit the streets and began what can only be described as a 6 hour game of chicken.

Recently, China has toughened up laws on running down cyclists and it is probably much safer than London. However over here, no one pays a great deal of notice to traffic lights and you often find yourself having to cross 4 lanes of moving traffic by just going for it. Awesome fun (although Helen has asked me to mention that it was scary), and you cannot beat riding down a 20 lane road, with a cycle lane that is 3 lanes wide, as you pass Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City.

The Great Wall

23rd September

Up early this morning to be driven 3 hours out of town to a less-touristy part of the great wall. Was definitely worth the lack of sleep, as apart from a group of charity walkers and hawkers, we saw few tourists during our 15km hike from Simatai. The wall really is impressive; you've all seen pictures but to appreciate it's magnitude you really do just need to go and walk some of it for yourself. It was a tiring 4 hour undulating trek but luckily an obscure short cut to get back down was spotted - a zip line across a 200m wide lake. I was a bit hesitant at first but eventually agreed to get strapped on and enjoyed the ride down.