China 2012

China 2012

Ni Hao China
Arrival in Beijing at 6.30am was rather obscured by the encompassing fog which has not yet lifted - not sure if it is a day-long phenomenon or not. Culture shock was not obscured however and began with my rather ill-fated plan to get a taxi into town. I am beginning to think that public transport has a lot going for it!!!

I thought I would make use of the Wendy Wu rep at the airport, there to meet other tours beginning today, however her directions on where to get a taxi were three floors wrong - how she thought taxis would appear three stories above ground, I do not know! So using my own skill of reading the directions embedded in the floor saying "Taxi", I found my way to the taxi stand.

However some rampant inflation appears to have occurred between the publishing of Berlitz 2011 and the current taxi fares. But by looking shocked at the prices on the cards they were showing me, I at least got offered a fare at the bottom of the scale. Still, that does not mean a taxi will actually take you - something about the look of me set a grumpy woman driver into torrents of angry Chinese at the poor dispatcher. The concept of customer service has clearly not filtered through yet. Another driver took pity on me and rescued me from the tirade which I think was actually directed more at the state of the universe than me personally. More correctly, I think he had spotted an easy target as I was looking very dopey and jet-lagged and very non-Chinese. He insisted that I pay him a rather extortionate amount before the trip which I was rather nervous about, but in the end it all proved OK as I got to my hotel in one piece.

The trip into Beijing perhaps explained a teeny-tiny justification for the high fare, as gridlock takes on a whole new meaning here. Especially when the whole system grinds to a halt for nearly 15 minutes at the peak of rush hour because some important government officials have arrived in their own section of the airport, with its own grand gate and 10ft of barbed wire roll-topped fences. I counted 25 matching Merc-type black limos and 15 buses plus innumerable flashing lighted cop cars for which the whole of Beijing had to stop and wait. (Later discovered this was Angela Merkel arriving in town to convince the Chinese to buy Eurobonds - oh well, I am doing my bit for the GFC...)

The fog made everything look very grey and gloomy so I hope things brighten up a bit on my day's sightseeing. My hotel is as I imagined it, very Chinese, and a bit shabby, but right in the middle of all the things I want to see. Staying out at the tour hotel would have been a nightmare of taxis to get back in to the centre.

I am about to venture forth now armed with my iPhone and Berlitz book to get a feel for the city - always best done on foot. I may even brave using a bit of my stumbling Mandarin! It is all very strange and the most "foreign" place I have been, probably since Tangier in the 1970s, but VERY exciting.

 Turkish Bath, Touch of the Onion Eyes, and Weird Menus

 The "fog" covering the city is like a steamy murk that you cut your way through. The "onion eyes" makes me suspicious of its composition. However, I pounded many miles of pavement today, despite leaving little puddles of sweat in my wake, trying to acclimatize myself to the time difference - and the temperature.

The weird menu was the one from which I selected my lunch of "Manual dumplings" and "Bunsen photometer beer". There was also "Idle concubine chicken wings", "Irritable intestine beef" and pages of similar joy - it was so bizarre I almost suspected they were taking the ....... out of English-speaking tourists. I could figure out that perhaps the dumplings were hand-made but the beer's origins had my biochemistry background stumped. This was in a restaurant on the edge of the lake described below.

I wandered Behai Park which dates back to Kublai Khan and was really rather scenic through the silvery foggy light, as tourists - all Chinese ones- tootled around in little pedal boats beside beautifully painted arcades along the waterside, patches of lotus flowers in the water, and a lovely old temple on an island in the middle of the lake. I only sighted about a dozen white-skinned tourists and the novelty is no doubt why a mother and daughter stopped me, to chatter away indicating that they wanted their photo taken with me. No doubt I will now become part of the "strange sights of Beijing" back in some far-flung outpost of China.

I then trudged miles again around the perimeter of the moat of the Forbidden City (which I will do tomorrow) to the fancy shopping street of Beijing with ginormous Cartier, Hermes, Van Cleef and Arpels etc. They did not seem overwhelmed with custom, so perhaps the GFC has affected this as well. The side street markets were heaving however, with the usual delights of scorpions and locusts on sticks for your BBQ delight, unmentionable (perhaps irritated?)intestines awaiting a similar fate and luscious huge slices of melon that I was dying to try, but was too nervous of the ambient dust that was no doubt coating them. There were also millions of little bangles, teeny ornamental teapots, waving cats and stones with your name on them in Chinese script - well, that is what they SAY is on them  - could be a recipe for irritable intestines for all I know.

Walking around the moat of the Forbidden City also gave some concept of its enormous size, and a truly wonderful thing to have managed to retain through all of China's upheavals. It seems incredible that the Cultural Revolution or Boxer Rebellion or some other incursion did not see it destroyed. Perhaps it is like the Red Guard leader in Shanghai who covered up the beautiful marbles and frescoes in the Bund buildings to preserve them. The walls are 12 feet high, and no building in Beijing was allowed to be taller than this, so no-one could look in in the Emperor - quite a town-planning restriction!

 Blundering onto a bus on the way home to ease my tired feet, I annoyed the bus driver by only having a 5yuan note ($1) when the fare is 1 yuan(20 c). A kindly young Chinese man paid the fare for me and refused to take my 5 yuan note, so you see, the stories about Chinese revering old people are all true!!! Especially crazy old ones .....

 My hotel this evening is full of yammering Austrians(!!!) who are having a farewell for one of their staff in the courtyard restaurant, so apparently this hotel is rather well-known amongst the "locals". I will see if I can score some free drinks by mingling and mumbling auf wiedersehn or edelweiss (or is that Swiss?). No, actually I plan to find the nearest busy local restaurant and use the time-honored approach of pointing to pictures on the menu, then collapse into my (hard) bed.

Tomorrow I will spend the whole day at Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. The tour does a few hours there but I would like to have more time to absorb it slowly. If today is anything to go by, the distances my little feet will cover will be considerable, and I only circuited about half of it. Perhaps I will get there by bus, rather than walking, and make sure I have a supply of 1 yuan notes this time! In the evening I will visit "Ghost St" which is the restaurant strip, then the following morning I will taxi (hopefully with less drama this time) to the tour hotel then visit some old areas of South Beijing near that hotel. I hope the fog is not a permanent fixture, or the Visine will be getting a work-out.


I am very pleased with my choice of hotel for its location in the middle of everything. My room is quite charming though very tiny, and the desk staff are helpful with bus directions. There is a nice foyer area to sit in for free wifi use, and a pretty courtyard. Apparently this is what the original better class hutong houses were like, built around a central courtyard before the Cultural Revolution, when most of them were split up into tiny one room apartments, with the original family allowed to stay on in a tiny corner of their former home. Quite how this survived I don't know - perhaps it stayed on a a hotel during that era. Later, wandering around the hutongs I was most impressed by the regular signs for "Public Toilets". I thought this was a legacy of the Olympics, for the benefit of tourists. I later discovered it is because most of the hutong houses have no sewage, and the public toilets ARE the toilets for everyone. I have not quite got used yet to using that little basket in the corner of the bathroom for my paper, though ........


Zai jian everyone.


 Forbidden City

I'm not even trying for a catchy headline for this one - it is so overwhelming it leaves me wordless. It must be the largest palace complex ever built and just seems to be one enormous courtyard and walls and halls and lavish red, gold and embellished structure after another. It definitely wore out my little feet and left my head spinning - which may be partly due to the dense crowds as well. Katy - you would think you were in Florence, there are so many Chinese tourists everywhere. White (or rather, red)-faced tourists are very much in the minority and swarms of Chinese ones flow in all directions. (Note the large brass cauldrons everywhere throughout the City - these were the fire control system, filled with water to protect the largely wooden buildings. The surfaces are all scraped where the foreign troops entering the City after the Boxer Rebellion scraped the gold off!!)

I almost missed Tiananmen Square on the way in - the smog was so murky that I failed to see the enormous space disappearing into the mist on my left as I got off the bus (right money this time). I had to double back through the gates once I consulted my map and realized what I should have seen. I took a picture but it is rather like Dad's under-exposed pictures of Africa - that could be a giraffe / elephant / picture of Mao  for all anyone knows. I think pictures of Beijing must be like the ones of the Parthenon without scaffolding - taken an awfully long time ago on a clear day.

The absence or scarcity of small children is quite noticeable, with very few seen anywhere. My four little ones would create quite a stir! Old Chinese ladies also seem to think it is their prerogative to berate officials in queues at the top of their voices - I rather like that one. We had to wait in a stationary queue outside the Forbidden City for about 20 minutes for no apparent reason. Most people accepted it in a Zen- like manner, except for the afore-mentioned old ladies who let rip at the gate officials. (Turned out to be Angela Merkel again. visiting amd messing up my itinerary...) Many army chaps also lined up on guard at the entrance, including apparent recruits who don't have uniforms yet and all wore jeans and sneakers and T-shirts with slogans That i am sure gave the Mao picture overhead severe indigestion. One fellow in the middle of the line also had a large 1950s fire extinguisher beside him for no clearly discernible reason - perhaps in case a tourist spontaneously combusted from the heat.

Off for a nap now before venturing out for a Chinese feast of some sort.

Love to all - zai jian.

Tour Begins - Fancy Hotel, No WiFi

This email is a bit delayed and is now coming from the Business Centre of the hotel at a nasty price, as although the tour hotel has vast marble floors,and the rooms have fluffy white robes in the wardrobe, and unmentionable items on sale for 15 yuan, or super-duper unmentionable items for 35 yuan, there is NO BLOODY WIFI.

Ensconced in this plush hotel waaaay on the outskirts of town, I am happy with my hutong decision for the first days as I would have been marooned out here - traffic jams run in all directions. I now also know that i was truly ripped off by the airport taxi run, as a similar length of trip out here from my first hotel, only cost1/10th of the amount!!! Oh well, karma will deal to that rat weasel of a cabdriver, and I will generate many traveller's tales out of my experience in compensation.

The pollution here in China in the air is ghastly so I can see why they are hammering on the doors of other places to live if they can, meanwhile the industry creating the pollution is where all the new money is coming from. And the people do not yet have enough voice to protest about it, or tie themselves to trees as we do in NZ. At home I do not see myself as a greenie, but a few days here is beginning to change my mind. Strangely though, the Chinese at a personal level are very tidy, and the streets do not have lots of rubbish as you see in other Asian - or even European- cities, and despite the steaming heat there is not that funny smell of slightly off food and dodgy drains that you get elsewhere in tropical countries. Fortunately, it rained this morning, so now the air has cleared somewhat and for the first time I am not mainlining Visine.

The first tour day was a repeat for me of the Forbidden City, which I was glad to do a second time, hearing different stories, and taking in different aspects. I could also take some photos which were not white murk.

Tonight is Peking Duck Dinner, and tomorrow is off to the Great Wall, so I am ticking all the China boxes. The tour group are all friendly and very well travelled, as I don't think China is the first place you venture to on overseas outings.

Love to all, as time runs out on the internet clock. Aparently other hotels will have wifi. The other problem is that I have not yet got my phone to work, and am emailing Telecom unsuccessfuly so far.

Great Wall, Summer Palace and Heavenly Temple.

 Beijing last days were a whirl of great sites and sights. The Great Wall was clambered up, and when there were just too many more steps for my puffing body to manage, I veered off to a little shop for an ice-cream and a more peaceful contemplation of the view, plus the purchase of some obligatory panda toys.

 The Heavenly Temple park is an example of the communal way of life that many Chinese live outside of their homes. There were groups exercising, either traditional tai chi, or Western gym equipment, women doing fan dancing, old men playing a version of hacky-sack with a badminton shuttle-type thing, many groups gathered around makeshift card tables, grandparents with babies chatting together, and Red Song groups nostalgically singing for the good old days of Chairman Mao. The Temple itself, of course was oohed at suitably.

We then drove past some of the amazing Beijing architecture on our way to the Olympic village...

then on to the Summer Palace, built around an enormous man-made, or coolie-made, lake. The prize sights are the beautiful covered walkway around the lake, leading to a huge marble boat (the Empress built it with money that was meant to be spent on the Navy, and as a result the Japanese beat them- I'm not sure which book of naval strategy she read that said a marble boat on a lake could beat the Japanese at sea.....), 

Food seems to be a large component of our tour as twice a day we descend on a restaurant to have the ubiquitous Lazy Susan loaded with an alarming array of tempting dishes. The guide says he loses his job if we don't all gain weight, and I think his employment is quite secure. The tour is a very smooth operation and they seem to have pre-ordered a selection that is 80% different at each place, with about 10 dishes to choose from plus some local beer. This is far better than my own rather feeble attempts to order for myself.

There have been two great evening shows, one a Shaolin monks Kung fu show, and the other the most amazing acrobatics show. This was a mixture of apparently dainty little Chinese girls doing impossible things with their bodies, and spinning plates, and balancing balls, plus some men doing all sorts of macho things, the most amazing of which was a large iron mesh sphere inside which first one  motorcyclist roared around inside, upside down, and round and round, then was joined by another, then another, then another, until impossibly FIVE of them were zooming around inside. A camera could not possible capture it, and crashing seemed inevitable but did not actually happen, of course. Try watching it on this YouTube clip - it is quite amazing :  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4ovXYabnh0

The acrobats are on YouTube too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LLw7hPNg0w

Off now for a dumpling dinner, the local specialty - with more acrobats and Chinese performers

Today we have arrived in Xian, the ancient capital of Beijing, and tomorrow is Terracotta Warriors day. The camera will no doubt get even more of a work-out.

Xian and Contradictions

 Dumplings of unlimited persuasions were gobbled down last night, followed by a Tang Dynasty music and dance show. The costumes were a fantastic glitter and glitz extravaganza with many more beautiful Chinese girls dancing and doing the usual impossible acrobatics. Tourism is clearly a large economic contributor here, as 50% of the audience were following the guide flag of some tour company or other.

China has embraced tourist opportunities in many ways, but absolutely, totally does not get the point in others. Yesterday we  visited a huge marbled museum of the ancient treasures of Xian which was the starting point of the Silk Road. There were ginormous columns, vast staircases, glittering audio-visual displays, fabulous treasures beautifully displayed, plus the most ghastly stinking malodorous toilets I have struck anywhere in the world of my travels!!! Now I am not talking a bit grubby, with a rather nasty whiff - these were modern looking squat variety loos, but the stink was so bad I don't think a mop and disinfectant had been seen there since they were built. In any Western establishment, SOMEBODY in the place would have thought - oh gosh, these toilets may be giving a bad impression to people who must pass them on the stairs on the way to our beautiful museum displays on the next floor. Maybe we should find the cleaner who is meant to be seeing to this, or even, heaven help me, grab a bucket and mop and see to it myself. I have managed long drops with buzzing flies, and dodgy Turkish operations, but none of them had me holding my breath and gasping like these ones did. Go figure........

Beautiful displays from this museum below. The little figures are a smaller version of the Terracotta Warriors retrieved from another tomb.

The standard of this tour's accommodations is way higher than I usually frequent on my frugal travels, but the luxurious baths in even more marble surroundings at the end of each day are rather welcome. Wendy Wu Tours has quite a presence here as there are 11 tours of 20 people here in Xian at the moment, so I suppose they do a good deal with the hotels. I may find it hard to retreat to my usual 2-star life after this. And all this is for what even I consider a reasonable cost.

The other point about touring in China is that you are so blatantly obviously a tourist that there is no point bothering to try to blend in and hide your camera! In Italy I feel obliged to try to look a bit stylish, and in New York I try not to gawp with my neck craned upwards all the time, but here, as the only white face within a hundred meters, I just hang the camera around my neck, and get on with it.

Off to climb on my obvious tourist bus to the Terracotta Warriors now.

Xian to the Yangtze

 The Terracotta Warriors were fantastic, as one would expect. A message to future rulers, however: the cruelty of the Emperor who created it, with his 750,000 "volunteers", meant that one year after his death, the peasants revolted and smashed up the whole site. I had not realized that only ONE of the 8000+ figures has been found undamaged - see below.

Reconstruction must be a horrendously tedious task. However, these nasty rulers (eg also mad King Ludwig of Bavaria) were ghastly at the time, but have reaped huge tourist benefits for today. The little farming village where the first shard was found in 1974 is now a prosperous town, and Mr Yang who found it has lived off the fame ever since. And I do mean ever since - he was there yesterday signing the books of the site!!!!

Well, Xian at night makes Auckland look like Taumarunui on a wet Wednesday. It has the most complete city wall left in any city today, and its 30ft high by 50 ft across by 16km circumference is all floodlit and outlined in lights. 

In the north of the the city there is an avenue of about 1km which has a central garden of enormous historical statues, plus colored LED trees lit up in various colors. This leads to a plaza with another huge emperor statue, flanked by huge columns with changing brightly colored visual projections. 

Then further on there is an enormous stepped water fountain area which plays a nightly water show. It is about 150meters long by 40 meters across with water jets set into the ground that play to accompanying classical music for about 30 minutes with floodlights and colored mood lighting. Quite something!!!

Today we set off for the Yangtze to our cruise boat by some combination of bus, plane, bus, and I will be out of wifi range for about 4 days, so your email in-boxes will have a bit of a rest.

Yangtze and the Gorges

The Three Gorges have way exceeded my expectations, as much of the literature talks of them in comparison to what they once were, but since I have never seen that, I think they are fantastic!

Our boat was sailing up-river, so entered the Xiling Gorge first. A heavy mist meant that this was rather like Milford Sound on a rainy day - very moody and evocative, but hopeless for photographs. Many of my photos from that day will probably be discarded, with just a few kept for misty moodiness.  But in any case, photos just do not do it justice, as the scale and surroundings are impossible to capture.

We then entered the first of the enormous locks, five of which raise our rather large boat up 95m, about 15-20m each time. They cram about eight ships in at a time, depending on sizes. There were two big cruise ships plus six assorted cargo carriers in our cavalcade, all jammed in side-by-side and end-to-end.

Today fortunately dawned clear, ,and we have had a fabulous day of scenery through the next two gorges - Wu and Qutang, plus almost as good was a side excursion on a smaller boat, then a sampan into the "Lesser Gorges" which, because they are narrower, make the overhanging cliffs seem even more majestic. My camera was snapping madly.

The geology is amazing, with varied strata and streaks of different colored rocks on huge rock faces plunging into the river. What has perhaps surprised me most is how wild and untouched it all seems. Most of the cliff sides are almost vertical, with trees and vegetation clinging wherever they can and no sign at all of human habitation.

The only exception was on the side excursion where the locals seem to think we want a bit of Disneyland thrown in, so as you come around a corner of a beautiful "untouched" river, a little Chinese man on the hillside starts to play his long horn with rather bagpipe-type results. He does this each time a tourist boat appears, apparently placed there by the boat company for our amusement. Around the next corner is a little boat with four singers, complete with portable microphones, who burst into song for our entertainment. All this in the middle of nowhere!!

Our next stop was to climb 450 steps to the top of a hill to the Ghost City, where apparently Chinese spirits must pass a variety of tests before admission to the afterlife. Assorted crossing of bridges and touching of statues can assure health, wealth or happiness.

 The final gorge, the Qutang is the one the Chinese regard as the most beautiful -  I found all of them marvellous. Villages and towns (1.3 million people) have been moved from the flooded valley to the hills above, and statues and inscriptions carved off th cliffs and shifted above high watermark.

We now have a day of more regular riverside scenery on our way to Chongqing, which as you have probably never heard, is the largest "city" in the world. Its 35million people don't actually all live in the one city - only 17 million do - the rest live nearby but are all under one local government, hence the claim. However it is still rather humbling to think that a city four times the size of NZ is one I had never even heard of, 35 million or not.

Off the boat and on to dry land

Disembarking in Chongqing, and onto another trusty bus. We are now in Chengdu after a four hour bus trip through very lush misty scenery. The soil looks very fertile as road cuttings seem to cut 50 feet deep through rich red soil.  Tonight we are going to a Chinese opera,magic and puppet show, then tomorrow will be Giant Buddha day, then pandas on the day to follow. Quite a busy schedule as you can see, but the boat trip allowed time for leisurely snoozing to recuperate a bit. So far no funny tummy, and the hand sanitizer is getting a good work-out. Shopping has not been a big feature so far as clothes are not in sizes that relate to Kiwi shapes, so little souvenirs have been the main purchases. I have great hopes for Guilin and Shanghai.

Giant Buddha: Fantastic Architecture and Weird Lifejackets

Chengdu has been yet another wonderful example of the bizarre contradictions of China. Our visit yesterday to the Giant Buddha veered from the magnificent to the dopey.

The Giant Buddha is a few hundred feet tall, carved deep into a cliff over the river, and showed the enormous manpower at the disposal of whoever was in control at the time. Fortunately we viewed it from a boat, rather than the tortuous climb on foot up the hill, down the steep steps beside the Buddha, then across in front of it, and the process repeated on the other side - a good few hours, I imagine, but hundreds were doing it (Look carefully - those little dots down the side on the left are people).

Our boat was a delight of the dopey thinking, however. It was a scruffy old tub, with grungy worn-out seats that some person thought would be improved by adding frilled cheap blue VELVET covers that were falling apart at the seams. But even better were the "Lifejackets" which we dutifully issued, and which police patrol boats cruise around checking on. These looked OK from that distance (see above) as they consisted of four cells front and back in a sort of jacket construction, each filled with styrofoam. A few old ones had a tape through the bottom to hold them down into a "jacket" form. But the new ones seemed to have saved money by leaving out this tape, so the four cells just flapped off your shoulders and if you fell in the water would have floated around your neck, probably pushing your face under the water. The speed of the river there is considerable - that was the purpose of the Buddha, to protect the sailors- so anyone falling in the water would be done for.

The trip home went through the new technology zone which has the most fantastic architecture with huge developments with sweeping curved roofs, enormous conference centers and all sorts of glitzy exteriors. The scale of new construction throughout China is huge, with buildings and roads popping up everywhere, but alongside the coolies carrying things in buckets on bamboo poles, and the ubiquitous grotty toilets in the fancy buildings. The main street of Chengdu is awash with high end designer brand stores with prices that deter me, so there is clearly an upper class with plenty of money to spend.

Today is panda day so I shall get my oohs and aaahs ready- I hope it is not too hot for them to leave their air con apartments!!

Pandas

We were so lucky with our visit, as the mild temperature meant the pandas were out and about to play, instead of hiding inside, clutching their ice blocks and watching panda blue movies (I kid you not - they show them videos of amorous pandas to teach them how it is done, and it has improved the reproduction rate considerably - who would have thought! Human pornography to me seems designed to REDUCE the population growth, if anything - procreating pandas must be more appealing. ) We got to see piles of "toddler" pandas rolling over each other, and hanging upside down in the trees, and just annoying the heck out of any panda that looked like it might lie down for a snooze. Just gorgeous!! And all of this just a few metres away.  However I did not fork out the extra $250 for the "baby panda experience" whee you get to gown and mask up, and hold a baby panda for 5 minutes - though two in our group did pay up happily. We also saw some red pandas which were somewhat shyer, and mostly hid in the trees, apart from one eating his apple for morning tea.

In a bizarre twist, the Panda Centre has the most amazing 6-star toilets I have ever seen!!! I am talking heated toilet seats, arm rests, and a menu of hot and cold water spray options that I did not dare sample. Wonders will never cease......

We also got to feed some over the ubiquitous koi fish,, and the duck interlopers......

Fabulous Li River and Guilin
The poor camera is suffering severe exhaustion after the last two days.

We set off up the Li River on a boat two days ago through the most amazing karst mountain scenery. These are eroded limestone hills that see to jut out of the ground, often from a flat base, in layers all around the city of Guilin and up the Li River on its way to Yangshuo. They are like a smaller version of the Three Gorges, but with dozens and dozens of them, of all weird shapes and sizes. We later viewed them from a hilltop, and they almost totally encircle Guilin. The river is very peaceful and is kept totally undeveloped and natural, so is a beautiful four hour trip.

Yangshuo is a favorite Chinese tourist town, and is set right in the middle of several of these karst peaks.

The absolute highlight however was the water show that evening which almost defies explanation. It is set on a two sq km area of the river outside of town,with grandstand seating on one side of the river and an incredible backdrop of karst hills floodlit on the other side. They look almost unreal, like a created stage set. The show was designed by the director of the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony so you get some idea of the scale of it. There was some general story of a love affair, but the main feature was the incredible choreography of boats and lights and dancers on the water and hidden walkways that appear when needed for the cast of literally thousands to perform across the water with flaming torches and beautiful costumes. One amazing sequence had rows of boatmen "dancing" with enormous banners of red silk symbolizing fishing nets choreographed to music. The oohs and aaahs from one act to the next just kept increasing - see if there is a YouTube clip of it, as words fail me. Think Olympic Ceremony on a smaller scale on water with natural mountain floodlit backdrop and you start to get the idea.

These YouTube clips give the best idea of the show, but even they cannot convey the sense of an enormous stage set:
Part 1:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDKljkdh8Sg
Part 2:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBdfgscyUbQ  (this is probably the best part)
Part 3:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8yMZlb_L3g&playnext=1&list=PL8F5160ED42D4498B&feature=results_video
Part 4:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7LEbR82GGY

Back in Guilin we were off the the Reed Flute Caves and for these, think Waitomo Caves on steroids!!! They are similar limestone eroded stalagmite /stalagmite formations but seem to be several times larger, though no glow worms. They are also very professionally presented with all shades of mood lighting and excellent walkways. Poor camera again had  to work overtime.

Next stop was a knee- testing 450 steps up a holy hill for the view of the encircling hills.

 Then the evening was spent watching some poor half-strangled cormorants fishing for their master who makes them disgorge the fish they catch - a bit gruesome, really, though I am sure far worse things happen out of the sight of tourists.

Then a night-time wander around the city of Guilin which has a pretty river waterfront, and lovely gold and silver pagoda.

This area was not one that I knew about when selecting my trip but I am just so glad that I have seen it as it has provided some of the best scenery of the whole trip, alongside the Three and Lesser Gorges. And the water show was certainly the highlight of all the evening shows we have seen - quite spectacular.

Today is off to Shanghai airport, then a bus to Suzhou, an hour and a half away. The tummy bugs have been striking various members of the tour, but not so badly that they have been totally incapacitated. I think we are all slightly over the food, as although it is all very good, some French bread and butter, and a nice salad seem very appealing. The variety is quite amazing as we often eat two meals a day with 10 dishes per table of 10 people, and there is not a lot of duplication. I think the tour organizers also get them to steer clear of the more exotic possibilities.

Off to pack yet another bag.

Suzhou and Shanghai

This is the business power house of China and the Suzhou / Shanghai area is just pumping. There may be an economic slow down, but this is not obvious from the enormous developments visible from horizon to horizon.

We landed at Shanghai airport but then drove an hour and a half to Suzhou, a very old city that was at the beginning of the Grand Canal that linked across 1700km to Beijing hundreds of years ago - another of the vast Chinese engineering feats. Only 1400km are still usable but the govt is looking at reviving it as a trade route.

 For now it provides Suzhou with a lovely canal network, but it's main claim to fame is probably the old gardens. We saw a smaller one first - the name escapes me:

then the Humble Administrator's Garden which is regarded as the best example of a classic Chinese garden. It is really beautiful and very peaceful with well maintained buildings and intending vistas of ponds, rocks and plants. Note the blue diamond glass designs - in those days, this glass was nore valuable than gold.

But the major feature for me was the road between the two cities which is about 100km of almost constant development. There are 20 - 30 storey apartment buildings, about 5 apartments to a floor, built in a line of 10 beside the freeway, but as you get past, you realize they are 6 deep. Then there is another of these developments, then another, then more on the horizon. And these all look as if they have been built in the last five years, or are still under construction. The industry for which they are providing workers is also all around but is mostly high tech, so not so dirty. It is a bit hard to tell when Shanghai actually begins, as these towns seem to run continuously.

 Shanghai
We did the night river trip last night to see the city lights and these are amazing, as one would expect. However there are a few glitches here, as on the new, Pudong, side of the river there is a huge apartment development where apartments cost several million dollars, and it is only 20% occupied, so even here some developers go a bit mad with it all. However there is obviously plenty of money around for all the rest of it. But our guide says "China only has one Shanghai" meaning that this is not what the other 95% of China is like, and there are still millions living a very UNdeveloped life.

After the rest of China that we have seen, Shanghai feels very Western, at least the bit we are staying in. There are 100,000 Europeans here so they can have quite a European ex-pat lifestyle, and the central part of the city is not too different from a Western city, perhaps a bit like Hong Kong. And this is definitely NOT what the rest of China is like.

Off for the day's sightseeing -museums first, then the Bund, then either a high-speed lift ride up 88 floors, or a ride on the super-speed Maaglev train. Love to all.

Shanghaied
Well, almost. I fly out tomorrow, so the last scraps of sightseeing will be mopped up in the morning and early afternoon before trekking to the airport.

We have done a good round of the museums- particularly the wonderful Shanghai Museum which I could not do justice to in one morning.

and had a truly scary ride on the Maglev. 431 kph is the fastest I am ever likely to go on land, and I don't think I would choose it as my favorite mode of transport. The run is only 30 km from the suburbs to the airport, and has quite a curve on it which causes a rather wobbly ride. It accelerates to 432kph for about 70 seconds, then "slows down" to 340kph to allow for passing its mate doing the return journey, so that is a passing speed of 680kph which creates quite a bang.

 The joke is to try to catch it on camera! I don't think anyone has yet, but a few have a blurry video. Then 7 minutes later it is all over. We did the return journey at a cost of 100 yuan - about $20, so I don't think the quarter to half empty carriages are a commercially viable operation. Also, since it is out in the suburbs it is not a very convenient choice to actually getto the airport. The majority on board seemed to be sightseers like us. However, it is a symbol for Shanghai, so perhaps it has value in that way.

Today was spent at some more beautiful classical Chinese gardens, then an hour or two at the adjacent market to catch up on last-minute souvenirs with marginally successful haggling. The competition amongst the tour members has been to get the cheapest Rolexes- the going rate seems to be about 4 for 80 yuan - $16, so those who paid 100 yuan are mocked. The labour costs for those along the supply line must be infinitesimal. Exactly what is going to happen to all of these trophies, I'm not sure- who needs 4 Rolexes?

The afternoon was also spent convincing Wendy Wu China that my plane leaves at 00.35am on Friday, and not on Thursday - the bane of these circa midnight flights that you need to check in for on the previous day!!,


Night time was a last walk up Nanjing Rd to see the people out living in the streets, gathering in family groups, doing ballroom dancing to a blaring radio, or this group of ladies doing something between aerobics and line dancing. Meanwhile, most of the fancy designer shops were empty ........

Off to stuff the suitcase, and looking forward to my own bed, a roast dinner, and seeing all of you - Chinese will be off the menu for QUITE some time ...........  Love.

Last Day
Stephen had recommended Tian Zi Fang as a nice area to visit, so I hopped into another of the $4-into-town taxis, taking my life in my hands as usual in Chinese traffic and headed there. It is a lovely area of shikumen (old houses) deceloped into a very trendy gallery, cafe and shopping area. it is one of the nicest areas I have seen, with lovely items that are not too market-trashy, but not gazillions of yuan either. Unfortunately my shopping brain was out of action, and I could not decide on which scarf or handbag I wanted, with the result that I did not get anything!!! Drat!!!! It is a bit like the French Concession area, but with more Chinese there and not just ex-pats.

After the rest of China, Shanghai  seems extremely Western, and I felt quite at home grabbing a taxi outside my hotel to go where I wanted. However I was not always aggressive enough grabbing the one I wanted to get home on before a local did. I imagine Steve and Anna felt quite at home with this after New York and Hong Kong, but I eventually got one each time.

Last Thoughts
It has been a frenetic 25 days, and I have learned a huge amount. I am glad to be on the plane home and will truly appreciate the clean NZ air, water and food, and the space to move when I get there. I have some concept now of what 1.3billion people means, and am astonished at the pace and scale of China's development. We read and hear of these things, but actually seeing it is a whole new dimension. It was not a leisurely lie-on-the-beach type of vacation, but I would recommend it to anyone with curiosity, stamina, an open mind, and a purse full of hand sanitiser.

Time fordeeper  reflection a bit later.

Zai jian everyone.