Hello Blog readers.
This is a very late summary of our China Trip in August 2018. Australia was flooded with cheap package tours to China this year. Some of our friends had tried them and said although you were shuttled around from morning til night, and taken to at least one tourist shop a day, you got a lot for your money, so off we went.
We left Sydney on Sunday 2 September. Our flight arrived in Beijing at 1:00 am and we did not get to our hotel until about 2:00 so jet lag was the order of the next day.
We had an unexpected day at leisure the first day. Being rather slow and finding little English spoken we played it safe and took a taxi to the Beijing Zoo. Saw the pandas and found that we were a bit of a tourist attraction ourselves. Bill had an Australian leather hat on and Chinese families kept saying “Crocodile Dundee” and trying to get their children to pose for photos with him. We also saw the aquarium show which was glitzy and noisy and very sad. Two beluga whales were part of the trained animal acts and were subjected to a horribly noisy performance arena and kept in small tanks considering their size.
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| Dinner time at Beijing Zoo |
Driving through Beijing was fascinating. Apartment blocks of all ages and sizes lined the streets. Single family houses are rare. The old buildings have air-conditioners outside of each unit with a spider web of electric wiring running up and down the exterior walls to service them. The city is ringed with massive expressways that are well signposted and have occasional signs in English.
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| Even new apartment buildings have external wiring for air-conditioners |
Dinner at our hotel was confused and the service disorganized due to little English being spoken. At one point we had two Russian hotel trainees who spoke fairly good English trying to communicate with their Chinese peers via iPads. Their translator programmes must have been better than ours as they got some of the requests understood.
Our first day of tours in Beijing was an introduction to Chinese bureaucracy. We could not do the Monday schedule as the Forbidden City was closed, and the Temple of Heaven and Tiananmen Square were off-limits due to a pan-Asian conference. So we got a trip to a pearl “factory” (read “shop”) and then lunch in an industrial size restaurant over a cloisonné factory. There must have been 20 tourist buses, some Chinese, some international, in the same parking lot. Very average food but lots of it and one free glass of weak Chinese beer for lunch. 20 yuan ($4) for an extra bottle.
The afternoon got better as we drove about 80k to the Great Wall. We went to the North Gate, one of the sections they have reconstructed for tourists so you can walk on the wall. The reconstruction is incredible and went on over the hills and valleys as far as we could see. We made it up steep rock steps to the 11th Fort, with stunning views back as far as the city. Unfortunately, the city was rather hazy, primarily due to air pollution.
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| Great Wall |
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| Great Wall looking back towards Beijing |
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| Street Musician in historic shopping area |
Our second day in Beijing was jam packed with all of the things we missed yesterday. The Temple of Heaven is a beautiful pagoda type tower in the centre of a large, elevated plaza. It is stunningly painted in blue and gold. The square courtyard symbolizes earth and the round temple the sky. The farmers prayed for good harvests here. It looks very authentic but being wood was burned down in the 1920’s and rebuilt for tourists in the 1970’s. We found that very few so called “historic” buildings were original; most had been reconstructed numerous times due to fire (timber construction and various wars and insurrections) and earthquakes.
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| Temple of Heaven Bejing |
Next we walked along the edge of Tiananmen Square (still close due to the conference) and on to the Forbidden City, the former residence of the Emperor, the Empress and the concubines. All workers in the royal or purple were eunuchs. The Forbidden City has miles of uneven pavement, gates, rises, staircases and ornate buildings with Chinese decorated tile roofs. Much of the Forbidden City is rebuilt, although the Dragon Lady Empress’s apartments were still furnished as they were in the early 1900’s and interesting to see.
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| Roof detail, Forbidden City |
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| Forbidden City |
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| Forbidden City Gate |
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| Private Apartments of the Dragon Lady Zushi |
The crowds were massive and the noise omnipresent. When we finally left we were taken to a Hutong (traditional housing area) and given a rickshaw ride to a Chinese restaurant in two tiny rooms in someone’s house. The houses in the Hutong were mostly quite run down, apart from a few that had been newly renovated. Apparently a tiny house there costs a fortune to buy as separate dwellings are so rare and the area is very near the downtown.
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| Hutong (old residential area) Bejing |
After the Hutong we went to the Beijing Bell Tower on the Dragon Line and had an interesting and delicious tea tasting. Although they were selling, it was fun. The teas were excellent, and the salesperson spoke fluent English. We then drove by the deserted Bird’s Nest and Water Cube buildings from the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Apparently, the pool in the Water Cube leaked so it is empty and unused, and the Bird’s Nest is now a music school/performance space. Bit of a waste.
To continue our marathon day, we headed for the Summer Palace of the Dragon Lady Zushi (who only died in the early 1900’s, just before the last emperor was dethroned in 1911). I liked it much better than the Forbidden City. It is set on the edge of a large man-made lake with the 17 Arches Bridge, beautiful swathes of Lotus flowers, little boats and bird life. There are many large trees, areas of grass, topiary and shaded walks. The longest corridor in China, following the edge of the lake, is an outdoor, covered walk with paintings the entire 750+ metres. The roof keeps it cool in summer and warmer and dry in the winter. Very lovely finish to our day.
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| Lotus fields at the Summer Palace, Bejing |
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| Gardens at the Summer Palace |
The third day in Beijing started with a visit to a Chinese Medicine Centre. We a got a “free” herbal foot massage (for a 10 yuan tip) and a free consultation with a Chinese Medicine doctor who found something wrong with everyone who consulted him. Whatever was wrong could be cured with from $350-$1000 worth of Chinese medicine. I decided to live with the poor circulation, digestion and liver problems the doctor diagnosed by looking at my palm. Besides, he missed my real problem, chronic asthma. Bill, however, paid $300 for a month’s worth of herbal pills to protect his constitution. He is, as yet, undecided if they have made any improvement to his well-being. I think the only improvement is in the size of the doctor’s bank account.
The rest of the day was taken up with a very delayed flight to Shanghai, where we arrived about 10:00 pm.
Thursday was our only full day in Shanghai. We started with a walk along the Bundt, which is the old downtown and waterfront. It is a beautiful, elevated walkway that stretches along the river waterfront. We watched the many ships going up and down the river and marvelled at the contrast of the old colonial buildings and the new skyscrapers, each attempting to be more outrageous and wildly original in construction than its predecessor.
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| New skyscrapers, Shanghai |
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| Shanghai Harbour |
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| The Bundt, Shanghai |
The rest of our day included a visit to a silk factory and shop, where they demonstrated making light, warm silk quilts from a sort of felt made of the silk cocoons. They also sold reasonably priced silk quilt covers, sheets and pillows, and yes, we fell to temptation.
We also visited a gallery where they made silk embroidered pictures which were incredibly vividly coloured and detailed. It was fascinating to watch the workers doing such tiny and meticulous stitching. We also visited the Shanghai Museum, which was enormous and very crowded. In our hour and a half we saw the Jade, Ethnic Clothing and had a quick look at the Furniture Galleries. And that was only one floor of this massive 5 storey museum.
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| Stretching a silk cocoon to add a layer to a silk quilt |
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| Shanghai Museum |
After dinner we enjoyed a traditional Shanghai acrobat show. The acrobats were very good, the staging and presentation professional, with little “story” vignettes highlighting individual performers linked by clowns and magicians. Very energetic and good value for money. Spectacular tricks and moves.
Friday we were mostly left to our own devices. Most of our tour group took a ride on the Maglev, the superfast train to the Pusan Airport. It travelled at speeds of up to 430 kph, sort of low-level flying as it is held off the elevated railway by magnetic force. We did a round trip just for fun, then ended up in the rebuilt old Shanghai “Chinatown”. Yes, a tourist trap but also for local tourists. We had a delicious street meal of skewers cooked in a hotpot broth. There were choices of various meats, mushrooms, seaweed, fish and tofu.
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| "Chinatown" Shanghai |
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| Maglev Train to Pusan Airport |
That evening we left Shanghai by plane and landed in Yichang, the jumping off point for our cruise up the Yangtze River through the Three Gorges. After a long bus ride from the airport, and a bit of kerfuffle about “optional extra tours from the cruise boat”, we headed to bed about 2:00 am!!
Saturday was for tours out of Yichang. The first tour was to the Folk City of the Tribe of the Three Gorges, run by the minority Toudia people. It started with a long drive through the hills and along the Yangtze River to a beautiful green valley where a stream came down to meet the River in the Xiling Gorge. As it is south of Yichang City and below the Gezhouba Dam, it is the only large stream and older settlement area not affected by the Three Gorges Dam flooding. The Folk City was absolutely packed with Chinese tourists as it was Saturday, and we had to fight our way through and kept losing our guide. She told us all about their July “Valentines” day when the young, single Toudia girls wear a small basket filled with flowers on their back. The young men approach and ask how much the flowers are. If a girl likes him, she will say a good price and that allows him to be her boyfriend. He must work on the mother’s farm for 2-3 years to prove he is a hard worker and worthy of the girl. At any time the mother may send him packing if he is not a good enough worker. When a girl marries, she gets a bigger basket to carry goods or babies.
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| Xiling Gorge, near Folk City of Toudia People |
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| Old river craft, Folk City of the Toudia People |
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| Traditional singer, Folk City of the Toudia People |
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| Local boats, Folk City of the Toudia People |
In the afternoon we visited the Three Gorges Dam and ship locks. We took a number of long, outdoor escalators to the top of a lookout hill with massive fountain to view the dam and ship locks for the big freighters. The dam has 32 Turbines and produces 2% of China’s power requirements. It took 20 years to build, required the moving of many cities and towns, and the flooding of the old narrow gorges where they used to whitewater raft. Before the flooding, men called trackers worked in the nude, pulling boats upstream through the rapids. The dam is a technological triumph and probably an environmental disaster.
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| Three Gorges Dam from Tourist Lookout |
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| Entering the Ship Lift at lower side of dam |
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| Ship Lift from the upper level |
That night our cruise ship started up the river, and we passed through the lower sections of the first gorge in darkness. Our comfortable cabins opened onto little balconies where we could watch the changing scenery on the river bank. All night we passed tiny settlements and interspersed with larger cities and industrial areas on the banks.
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| Our Yangtze River Cruise Ship |
Sunday morning we took a side trip in small boats to a scenic, steep and narrow gorge called the Goddess Stream. Our perky guide, Juju sang and danced for us. She was a member of the Toudia minority who live in the mountainous area there. She lives in a high mountain town, accessible only by foot and walks up and down to work about 2 hours every day. She is the youngest of 5 children and the only one who finished middle school. He father had been employed up until the 1970s as a tracker, one of the men who physically pulled boats upstream through the rapids before they were flooded by the first of the Three Gorges Dams.
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| Yangtze Sunset |
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| Cruising on the Yangtze River |
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| The Goddess Stream |
In the afternoon the ship got underway again and cruised through the Wu Gorge, and continued cruising through the Qutang Gorge. We passed many beautiful mountains, one giant town, steep farms, lonely houses, and many pagodas and temples, including one with a cannon and monkeys.
We docked at Kuizhou and walked through the old (rebuilt) fortifications. When we returned to the ship, the whole city and fort were beautifully lit up. The amount of electricity used for display lighting was amazing in Beijing and Shanghai, and positively incredible here. There were also fireworks over the city during dinner. We sailed all night.
Cruising up the river was very relaxing, watching the passing farms, undeveloped land, occasional pagodas and tiny settlements. Then you would round a curve and a huge city with soaring apartment towers, numerous suspension bridges, cable cars, downtown areas ship yards and industrial areas would appear. Other recreational activities on the ship included a small swimming pool, shops, a spa and flying kites off the top deck.
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| The Red Pagoda |
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| Laundry Day, docks at Shibozhai |
We cruised all of Monday night, and during breakfast on Tuesday we docked in Chongqing, the regional capital of Szechuan. It is a regional city of 32 million, 8 million of whom live in the city proper. We had a day of desultory activities there, including a visit to the zoo in the pouring rain to see pandas. Three two-year-old pandas were in one enclosure and played rough and tumble with each other. The rain did not bother them at all.
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| River City, Chongqing |
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| Another Panda, Chongqing Zoo |
We also visited various civic buildings such as the Main Square and the Great Hall of the People, a reconstruction of a late 1800’s guild hall for helping immigrants from the country adjust to the city and the old town market, a pulsating, crowded, narrow street with small traditional shops and food stalls. It was very popular with the locals, but the smell of much of the food turned my stomach.
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| Great Hall of the People, Chongqing |
The day ended with our final (thank goodness) flight to Xian.
Wednesday started off not so well, with visits to a jade factory, a pottery factory that makes “official” terra cotta warrior copies and souvenirs, and a lacquer and furniture factory. I think this was padding as the tickets to see the terra cotta warriors are either morning or afternoon and we had afternoon ones.
The grounds of the Terra Cotta Warriors are huge and well laid out with large pavilions built over all the diggings. It seemed very crowded to us but good according to our guide it was a weekday and not as bad as a weekend. We had from 13:30 to 16:30 and it was as lots of time to be overawed and see everything. The scale of the whole site and the army is incredible and is one of the highlights of the tour. There has been an enormous amount of time spent unearthing the site and reassembling the statures, and I am sure there is still twice as much to do. See photos.
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| Terra Cotta Warriors, main excavation |
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| Detail of individual terra cotta warriors |
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| Terra cotta horses and warriors under repair |
Our evening activities were a Tang Dynasty Dance Evening and Dumpling Banquet. The dumpling banquet was excellent with 16 varieties of dumpling (all vegetarian for me) and an excellent soup. Apparently Xian is famous for dumplings. The walnut and mushroom ones were my favourite.
The dance show was somewhat less inspiring. Chinese music and singing that sounds like cats fighting do little for me. The Las Vegas style costumes on the dancers were very glitzy and glittery, and I did not realize that Tang Dynasty costume embraced bare midriffs and bell-bottoms.
Thursday morning saw us on the train to Longyanglongmen. (The Peony City). Once again we had to deal with ongoing Chinese security as we have on the whole trip. Train or plane tickets must have names and match passports. Our luggage and handbags have been scanned at least twice at every airport and also getting on and off trains. They should glow by the time we get home. Hotels also keep passports overnight and I am sure scan or record every detail. Government is very intrusive in Chinese travel.
We had a wet drizzly day for our visit to the Buddhas at Longyanglongmen. The Buddhas are carved into soft limestone rock and caves that follow the river. There are paths and walkways up the sides of some of the cliffs to see into the higher caves. Apparently there are over 100,000 Buddhas carved into the cliffs and caves here.
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| Buddha Cave, Longyanglongmen |
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| Overview of Buddha Caves site from across the river |
They also have carvings in a beautiful hard black stone with floral like white crystal inclusions called peony jade. Bill bought a tiny turtle ornament carved from this attractive and unusual stone.
The rain never let up and probably limited our interest in this historic site.
Friday was the day for our visit to the Shaolin Temple, home of the fighting monks. Shaolin means “Temple in the Woods”, and it is set in a beautiful hilly site surrounded by trees.
The nearby town has 18 Kung Fu schools, where the children board and go to school. School costs about $2000.00 US a year. They do a half day of Kung Fu, and half a day of study. The school of the Shaolin Temple alone has 30,000 students. I asked the guide what do all these Kung Fu students do when they graduate? She said they go into army or police or teach Kung Fu. I just cannot imagine a career path for that many Kung Fu students every year.
We watched the temple show. The children were very acrobatic and there were impressive displays of breaking boards and bricks with bare hands and feet. The temple grounds are large with many outdoor incense burners that made it difficult to breathe at times. Much of the temple had been rebuilt due to fires and destruction by an early 20th century warlord who did not like Buddhism. One new building was being constructed, and you could donate to buy a roof tile and have gold calligraphy done on it to recognize your donation and I guess acquire some kind of merit.
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| Inside Shaolin Temple complex |
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| Shaolin Temple King Fu School |
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Shaolin Temple Performance |
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| Shaolin Temple Acrobat |
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| Kung Fu School in city near Shaolin Temple |
Our bus met us at the temple exit and took us to Zhang Gho to catch the fast train to Beijing. We had one more night in Beijing, and a short time the next day (Saturday) to wander around the park near the hotel before we left for our flight to the airport.
We saw small shops set up to do shoe repair and mending and alterations to clothes on the sidewalks. In the park, old men were doing whip-cracking!! as a sport, children were roller skating and skate boarding, and a heavyset man had a motorcycle with a stainless steel car body and big speakers and was blasting music into the park. Week-end in Beijing.
Our transfer to the airport was early, and we wasted quite a bit of time sitting around after we check in, but were glad to be on our way home.
