China day 25 – Guilin

Posted on Monday, 20 Oct 2008 by Hattie

We have arrived in Guilin!  And it is hot and humid.  The hostel is in a great location just off the Li Jiang river and close to a low-rise pedestrianised shopping area, apparently designed by an architect from Birmingham!  The hostel is pleasant enough, we have a large room with two good size beds.  But we have to move to another room shortly after settling in because the loo’s blocked.  Our first priority is to get train tickets for the onward journey to Nanning, so we head straight for the central station armed with our requirements written in Chinese.  We have to settle for hard seats (no soft seats available) at the remarkably low cost of 130 yuan for the  pair – a mere £6 each for a 5-hour journey.  These are the cheap seats.

Guilin is a very attractive city as Chinese cities go, at least around the river area, and we take a stroll along the embankment.  The river is very shallow and  people wadding in search of what, we are not quite sure.  There also a number of bamboo rafts with recliners perched on them waiting to punt people up and down the river, although there are few takers.  Tomorrow we are taking a boat up the river to Yangshou where we are going to stay overnight.  The karst scenery up-river is reputedly spectacular and we’ve come here specifically to see it.

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China day 24 – Wuhan, leaving at last

Posted on Sunday, 19 Oct 2008 by Hattie

Hurrah!!!  The tickets for tonight’s train to Guilin finally make an appearance after lunch.  We have been hanging around the hostel for them all morning and moved out of our room on the strength of the staff’s repeated assurances that they were on their way.  We’ve used the time productively though, researching how to get out of China and into Vietnam.   It seems remarkably difficult to find any information about transport across the border, although we have been advised that we won’t get train tickets direct to Hanoi as there are only 4 sleeper tickets allocated to the Guilin stop.  It seems that the best way to get to Hanoi is to go from Guilin to Nanning and catch an express bus through to Hanoi.  The alternative is to go from Nanning to the border either by train or bus, walk across and pick up a bus on the Vietnamese side.   Oh what fun!!  The train pulls out of Wuhan at 8pm and hour and a quarter late, and we have, at last, escaped.  The Chinese trains are very noisy and jerky affairs, so much so, it feels as if the carriage is either going to fall apart at any minute or fly off the tracks or both, but at the very least will prevent a good night’s sleep.

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China day 23 – Wuhan

Posted on Saturday, 18 Oct 2008 by Hattie

Still no sign of any rail tickets, but the hostel staff seem more confident that they will have the tickets later today for tomorrow’s train.  We can only wait and hope!  There is not much left to see here and so we return to East Lake to explore a bit more of the park. This time we successfully negotiate the bus system and get off right outside the gates.  It’s another lovely day,  the temperature is perfect and we enjoy a relaxed stroll.  We continue to attract a lot of attention wherever we go, mainly due to Andy’s beard – beards not being very common in China and certainly  none as luxuriant as his.  Today is no exception and we are approached for photographs by four people in quick succession.  It seems that it only takes one to ask and others have the courage to follow suit. By close of play, still no tickets …. welcome to Hotel California!

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China day 22 – Wuhan

Posted on Friday, 17 Oct 2008 by Hattie

Aaaargh!!!  We are stuck in Wuhan to strains of Hotel California! We have been unable to get any train tickets to Guilin.  What was intended to be an overnight stop has turned into a potential 5-day enforced sojourn.  Getting rail tickets in China is an immensely frustrating experience, as we are learning to our cost.  The hostel staff have been trying their best to get tickets for us, but to no avail and it is now unlikely we will be able to leave before Sunday.  This afternoon we decided to explore a bit more of East Lake – it is so large that we could easily spend our entire stay there and still not see it all.  But thanks to Andy’s fallible sense of direction we end up at the Yangtze river!  But as serendipity would have it we have stumbled upon the ‘Covent Garden’ of  Wuhan  for here, just under the gigantic two-tier road/rail bridge, there are several performers drawing sizeable crowds.  Further along the embankment there is some serious kite flying underway as well as fishermen with bamboo-and-net contraptions down on the river’s edge.  As night falls we decide to walk back to the hostel and we take in the local night market and ‘snack street’ on the way.

Buying rail tickets in China is a difficult and prolonged affair, at least in our experience.  Tickets are released 10 days in advance of travel and are only sold in the town of departure.  This makes planning onward travel quite tricky and it’s turned out to be impossible to get tickets for same-day or next-day travel or over the weekend.  And because of our lack of Chinese we have to rely on hostel staff to get tickets for us.  We did attempt to purchase tickets ourselves at a local agency which had ‘Train Ticket Agency’ displayed prominently on the outside of their office, only to find that no-one inside understood ‘Train Ticket Agency’ and certainly didn’t speak any English!  So we are resigned to an extended stay here until at least Sunday.

The performers on the embankment turn out to be very entertaining if massively over-amplified and we take in each in turn.  All are singers performing a variety of Chinese pop and traditional singing styles (the latter performed by one singer in an ear-piercing pitch), including one singer accompanied by a group of  dancers fluttering large fans.  The Chinese, curiously, don’t applaud;   instead they shower the performers with one yuan notes during the performance, or hand them flowers which are thoughtfully provided by the organisers specifically for the purpose.  The flowers being returned to a bucket at the end of each set to be used again for the next. .

Meanwhile on the opposite side of the road three groups performing Chinese opera are drawing a distinctly older crowd.  The performers are drowned out by the noise blaring out from across the street, which is probably just as well as Chinese opera is a acquired taste for the Western ear.  But the costumes and make-up are exquisite and the stylised acting is an intriguing spectacle in itself and we sit a while to watch.

As the performers begin to pack up we wander on.  There are fishermen down on the river’s edge using large nets attached to bamboo poles which they periodically hoist from the water in the hope of catching their supper or perhaps something to sell.  In the silt a man has created a small, single-terrace kitchen garden and is busy showering it with water from the river.  A little further along there is some seriously skilful kite flying going on.  Middle-aged men work their kites with amazing dexterity, getting them to soar so high they look like birds in the far distance and skimming them inches above the ground as they reel them in.

We walk back from the river as dusk falls and make an unplanned diversion down ‘snack street’ and into the night market.  This doesn’t have quite the buzz and pizazz of the Beijing equivalent and  some of the more exotic foods are absent.  Nonetheless we are still left wondering what’s in most of the dishes on offer.  We chicken out of trying anything – hygiene standards leave a lot to be desired and with Andy’s dicky tummy fresh in our minds we content ourselves with some mildly spicy peanut brittle.

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China day 21 – Wuhan

Posted on Thursday, 16 Oct 2008 by Hattie

Another gloriously sunny day despite a haze hanging over the city.  Andy is still unwell and finally resorts to taking the antibiotics we brought with us.  Today we pack up our belongings in anticipation of our departure this evening for Hangzhou,  We ask the hostel to book our on onward accommodation.  But there’s a hitch, all the hostels in Hangzhou are fully booked!  The weekend is coming up and Hangzhou is a popular weekend destination for those living in Shanghai plus it’s been heavily advertised on the television as a tourist destination.  So we have had to rethink our plans.  If we can get rail tickets, we are now planning to go straight to Guilin either tomorrow or Saturday.  This afternoon we take the short  bus ride to Huanghelou (Yellow Crane Tower).  The tower is perched on the She Shan (Snake Mountain) in the Wuchang district and affords a magnificent panorama of the city.  The surrounding landscaped gardens contain several buildings which have been rebuilt in the traditional style.  It isn’t too busy and we have a pleasant afternoon meandering around them.

City roads in China are chaotic and those in Wuhan are no exception.  Crossing the road is a hazardous affair for the novice.  Whilst the locals take it all in their stride; weaving in and out of the moving cars, buses, bikes and mopeds coming from all directions including diagonally across junctions even when the lights are on red.  Pedestrians share the crossings and often the pavements, with cyclists, scooters and mopeds carrying several passengers including young children or any manner of  loads from huge cans of paint to 4-metre long poles.  A ‘green man’ here means proceed with caution!

One abiding memory of China will be the ubiquitous spitting and the horrendous noise that precedes it.  Spitting is a national pastime and it is undertaken everywhere;  not just in the streets, but on buses, in restaurants and other public places, even, as we witnessed on board the cruise ship, indoors.  Nowhere seems to be out of bounds.

Another unpleasant habit we have come across is that of allowing young children to relieve themselves wherever they please.  Today we saw a child pee-ing on the floor in the Yellow Crane Tower in full view of everyone.  Children of nappy-wearing age are dressed in one-piece suits which have a large slit between the legs specifically, it seems, for the purpose.  Often you will see these children sans nappy with their bare bottoms on full view courtesy of this gaping slit.

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China day 20 – Wuhan

Posted on Wednesday, 15 Oct 2008 by Hattie

We wake to a sunny and very warm day.  Andy is still ill and I have developed a cold and ache all over.  Nonetheless we organise our laundry – the hostel do washing for 90p a load – and we also get the hostel to book our sleeper tickets for Hangzhou leaving on 16th October.  Hangzhou is not far  from Shanghai and has been recommended to us by Anthony and Vivien as a beautiful spot.  In the afternoon we take the bus to Dong Hu (East Lake) which is situated in a huge park.  It turns out to be very picturesque and we stroll along its paths taking in the view across the whole (enormous) lake.  The park has a number of traditional Chinese buildings, formal gardens, a boating lake, lily pond, sampans on the main lake and marble arched bridges.  There are several brides and grooms having their wedding photos taken.

The bus journey isn’t as straightforward as we expected;  the bus driver misunderstood where we want to be and drops us at the university, so we resort to a taxi and for just over £1 we eventually made what turns out to be the second half of the journey.  Taxis, like most things here, are incredibly cheap – and plentiful.  But buses are ridiculously cheap with a standard fare of between 1 and 1.5 yuan or 8p to 12p depending on the standard of the bus.

Wuhan, like the other cities we have visited, is a mix of new and not so new high rise residential blocks, gleaming skyscrapers and and rather run-down low-rise older housing, but cleaner.  It’s roughly half-way between Chongqing and Shanghai at the confluence of the Chang Jiang (Yangtze)  and the Han rivers.  It has some 8 million inhabitants and consists of three districts:  Wuchang (where we are) on the right bank of the Yangtze, Hankou and Hanyang on the left, north and south of the Han river respectively.  The 1911 Nationalist movement began here and the city is now a major industrial centre and transportation hub.

The hostel is off the main road, set amongst some residential apartment blocks in a traffic-free area.  Despite this, it is not particularly quiet and we can hear the constant hum of traffic from the main road a short walk away.  Our room is a reasonable size with enough space to accommodate a sofa and overlooks a courtyard which is pleasant place to sit when the sun is out. The staff are friendly and helpful and speak reasonably good English. The only drawback is the wet room complete with Chinese (squat) toilet.  It’s  a strange experience  showering whilst standing over the toilet, but it does save on plumbing!

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China day 19 -Yangtze River cruise and transfer to Wuhan

Posted on Tuesday, 14 Oct 2008 by Hattie

An early start today – breakfast at 6.30am as our trip to the Three Gorges dam leaves at 7.30am.  It is misty when we arrive at the Dam Centre which would normally offer a panoramic view of the whole complex.  Nonetheless it is still an impressive view of the dam and the 10 locks – five for upstream traffic and five for downstream.  Andy is very ill today with a bad tummy and all that entails.  So he is struggling with the trip and looking very sorry for himself.  Vivien offers to provide him with some Chinese herbal medicine which her parents have with them and hopefully that will do the trick.  We return to the boat around 10am in time to finish packing before we sail through the last of the three gorges – Xiling Gorge.  This is the largest of the gorges and the sun is out so the views from the deck are wonderful.  We disembark at Yichang at around noon and then the fun begins as we start our transfer to Wuhan four-and-half hours downstream by bus.

Work on the dam started in 1994 although it had first been proposed by Sun Yat Sen in the early part of the twentieth century and later supported by Mao Zedong.  It is the largest hydro-electric project in the world and at a height of its construction it employed 30,000 people.  By the time of its completion in 2009 it will have displaced 1.3 million people – all of whom received 20,000 yuan in compensation and have been re-housed in new towns that have been built above the flood level.  Most were farmers and one of the biggest problems is finding work for them now that their farmland has been submerged.  The dam is 3,035 metres in length and 185 metres wide and the whole complex covers 15 square miles – absolutely colossal!  The water level behind the dam will have risen by 175m by 2009 and created a 600 km long reservoir.

Our transfer doesn’t run as smoothly as we had hoped, but then we should be used to taking the unexpected in our stride by now.   There is a taxi driver waiting when the boat docks, but he promptly disappears to take another fare leaving us to squeeze onto to the bus taking the Dutch group to the railway station.  We’ve paid 300 yuan at the start of the trip for the transfer to the bus station and the bus tickets to Wuhan but so far no sign of the tickets and the driver’s gone AWOL.  But we needn’t have worried – when we get to what passes for the long distance bus station,  the tickets appear to have been paid for;  at least no-one asks us for any money.   We get the impression that the other passengers have been waiting for us and we are bundled onto to the bus with no time to buy any food for the journey.  Eventually we hit the expressway between  Yichang and Wuhan which runs along the valley of the Yangtze where cotton and rice appear to be the main crops.  All seems to be going well as we are entertained with a Jackie Chan movie followed by Chinese stand-up comedians played at full volume on the overhead TV screen.  Until that is, a very loud bang signals that one of the rear tyres has blown.  You might think that at this point we would stop, but no, we limp on to the next exit where a roadside mechanic quickly changes the tyre and we are off again in under 30 minutes.

We arrive in Wuhan at about 6pm, dropped unceremoniously in a street in this huge city with no idea of where we are, other than we have not arrived at the long-distance bus station.  We stop several taxi’s but none can read the hostel address we have had written for us in Chinese.  We resort to phoning the hostel to get them to give directions to the next taxi driver we hail.  But we might as well have been in London as this taxi won’t (or can’t, we aren’t sure) go across the river.  Finally we get a taxi who will take us.  But half-an-hour later and with 35 yuan on the clock (the journey should only cost 10 yuan or so we thought) we phone the hostel again – is this taxi giving us the run-around?  Apparently not, the bus had dropped miles from bus station.  Eventually we arrive in the vicinity of the hostel, which turns out to be down an alley off the main road and after another call to the hostel we let the taxi go and wait on the street corner  to be collected!    And the moral of this tale is ensure that hostel directions are legible and know your arrival point.  Fortunately we had the hostel telephone number otherwise we would have really been in the shit!  Oh the joys of travelling!

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China day 18 – Yangtse river cruise

Posted on Monday, 13 Oct 2008 by Hattie

We arrive at the first of the Three Gorges, Qutang Xia, at around 9 am.  The mist is still very heavy and so we don’t get clear views of the river and surrounding mountains.  Five miles long, this is the shortest of the three gorges on the Yangtze, but according to the guide book, the most fascinating.  Huge mountains rise up from the river creating a dramatic gorge reducing the width of the river  considerably.  Before the Three Gorges dam caused a massive rise in the water level,  the river narrowed here to a one-way passage 100m wide and the gorge was some 135m deeper.  It’s hard, looking at the river now, to imagine just how impressive and dramatic this gorge must have been then.  At around 11am we reach the second gorge, Wu Xia.  This gorge is 28 miles long and equally impressive to my mind, surrounded as it is by 12 soaring peaks.  After lunch we transfer to a smaller boat to take an excursion up the Shen Nong stream a tributary which flows into the Yangtze at Bedong.  This turns out to be  the highlight of the cruise so far as we make our way up the narrow stream transferring to  a sampan on the way.

In the late evening the cruise boat reaches the Three Gorges dam and the five-step two-way ship locks.  This enormous construction of five consecutive locks lowers the cruise boat in stages by some 135m to  the level downstream of the dam.  It is quite an undertaking as we and other five other large boats are squeezed into each lock, so close that we are almost touching, and then rapidly descending as if in an lift!

Unfortunately, because of the heavy mist none of our photos of the first two gorges come out very well; everything looks so grey! But by lunchtime, the haze has lifted and we have a lovely warm sunny afternoon.  The sampans take about 14 people plus four oarsmen and a helmsman.  The men do the rowing standing up and never break sweat the whole hour-long journey.  Part of the way involved three oarsmen jumping ashore and pulling the sampan along with a bamboo rope.  Not strictly necessary given the depth of the water, but a throwback to when the stream was considerably shallower and faster flowing.  The scenery here is breathtakingly beautiful and the water invitingly warm.  As we reach our return point we are greeted by a man blowing a horn and  wending our way back the helmsman sings a traditional song.  All very touristy, of course –  much to our chagrin we have joined the flag followers!

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Chongqing day 17 – Start of Yangtse cruise

Posted on Sunday, 12 Oct 2008 by Hattie

We boarded the cruise boat, ‘The Three Kingdoms’ last night, but didn’t set sail until this morning.  We have a comfortable cabin with twin beds,  en suite shower and a huge picture window which gives us a great view of the river side.  The weather is terrible;  there is a heavy mist which hangs over everything giving it rather grey and ghostly hue.  Today’s highlighted is a shore excursion to Fengdu also known as the Ghost or Devil town for its celebrated demon statues housed in temples at the top of the Mingshan mountain by the riverside.  The temples are reached either by climbing 700 steps or taking a chair lift.  There are the inevitable souvenir stalls strategically placed at the start of the ascent as well as in the monastery at the top, designed to entrap tourists on arrival and departure.  The stall holders can be incredibly insistent and difficult shake off, following us down the street with their wares.  We buy some beers at 12 for 50 yuan, which is a reasonable price here and a significant saving on the ridiculously expensive equivalent on board.

The boat is supposed to be a four/five star cruise ship but it would struggle to reach three star at home with it’s battered furniture and lack of facilities.  There should be a gym and shopping centre on board according to the sales brochure, but they don’t exist.  The staff are friendly but its billing as an ‘international’ boat with English-speaking staff is a little optimistic and we discover  this actually means that there is one person who speaks English fluently and the rest have very limited knowledge.   Ordering a snack proved quite a challenge last night;  and even after after repeated attempts to explain what we wanted from the English/Chinese menu,  Andy still ended up with sausage and tomatoes instead of sausage and scrambled egg!

At Fengdu we make the mistake of taking the chair lift (which is no good for my vertigo) when we could have easily made the gentle climb to the top.  Fengdu is a typical temple complex with both Daoist and Buddhist temples and and unfinished pagoda which isn’t open to the public.  We are beginning to realise that whilst many of these sites look old and claim to date back to the Ming dynasty it’s not unusual to find that the buildings have been rebuilt several times and as recently as the twentieth century.  It is still an interesting couple of hours and we have a guide to explain all the local superstitions and traditions associated with the site.

The Yangtse and it’s tributaries have all been affected by the Three Gorges Dam which began operating in 2003 and will be the largest dam in the world when it is finally completed in 2009.  The flood waters have already caused the level of the Yangtse to rise 100 meters and consumed much agricultural land, towns and villages on the river banks.  In 2009 the the river is set to rise a further 175 meters and Fengdu will be completely submerged.  It’s hard to imagine a project with such colossal environmental and human impact being undertaken in in the West.  Whole communities here have been re-located to newly built towns. It is argued that not only will the dam address electricity supply needs, but will also improve navigation, boost fisheries and recreational facilities as well as tame the notoriously wild waters of the river.

There are some 300 people on board the cruise boat of which 170 are passengers and the remainder are crew.  We are sharing our table in the dining room with Australian, Anthony,  and his Chinese wife, Vivien, their daughter, Josie, and Vivien’s parents as well as two Chinese ladies.  The passengers on the boat are mainly Chinese;  there are only 14 foreigners including 10 Dutch, 1 Belgian as well as ourselves and Anthony.  The food for non-vegetarians is very good, but unfortunately the chef is not very imaginative when it comes to vegetarian dishes and while everyone else gets a selection of dishes to share, I get a plate of boiled vegetables, usually swimming in a watery liquid.  This despite the fact that the same vegetables are cooked completely differently for the rest of the table.

There is a Crew Cabaret Show (pronounced ‘Shoe’ by our the English guide) in the evening that includes a series of international dances such as the Can-Can danced to a cover version of a Slade classic, belly dancing from Spain(?) and an unidentifiable Indian dance and a fashion parade of clothes made from tablecloths.  In between these entertainments the audience is invited to participate in some rather interesting games, including a version of musical chairs, and lucky card game which involves paying 30 yuan for a beer and a chance to win a tacky prize.  The grand finale is karaoke and which point we escape to bed.

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China day 16 – Chongqing

Posted on Saturday, 11 Oct 2008 by Hattie

It rained heavily during the night and this morning it is drizzling.  The fine kind of drizzlethat doesn’t make you wet, just vaguely damp.  We are leaving the hostel today and will be joining the cruise boat this evening.  Although the boat doesn’t actually leave Chongqing until 10 am tomorrow morning. After checking out we continue our exploration of Ciqikou which we are discovering is much larger than just the few tourists streets.  We stumble upon a large courtyard house dating back to the Ming Dynasty, originally home of the procurer of the Ming court and which for the princely sum of 4 Yuan each we are able to look around.  Further on and after a steep climb we come across an open air theatre.  It is 2 Yuan to look round.  For lunch we decided to try the local speciality – hot pot – and what an experience that turns out  to be.  Read on below to find out more!  We wile away the afternoon around the old town ending up in a tea house listening to traditional Chinese music.  Then back to the hostel for some internet therapy before our 6pm transfer to the cruise boat.

Once off the beaten track it becomes apparent that large parts of Ciqikou particularly further up the hillside have been built much more recently and although these newer buildings blend in quite well, they are several stories taller than the older parts and the white plaster and timber frame style which characterises this village has been painted onto the exteriors.  There are no roads in the village (so no cars, a blessed relief from honking horns) instead narrow passages and steeps stairways snake up the hillside from the main street.  Here, as in the Hutongs in Beijing, many (possibly most) houses don’t have sanitation and rely on public toilets.  The streets are filthy, not with rubbish (the many street sweepers keep the main streets litter-free) but black with dirt.

The hostel advertises a local production of  Si Chuan (Szechuan) opera and face-changing on Saturday afternoons and we have been given directions to the venue.  We set off in the morning with the intention of finding the venue ahead of the 2.30pm performance, but can’t locate it.  We do find, quite by accident, an outside theatre on the hillside where we pay 2 Yuan each to explore what we at first think is another temple.  Could this be the venue we’ve been looking for?   It seems unlikely as there is no evidence of an impending performance..

Back at the hotel we can’t get any clarification on whether the theatre we have just visited might the the venue for the opera – the staffs’ English is just not good enough unfortunately.  However, they do recommend a hotpot restaurant on the main road.  We know next to nothing about ‘hotpot’ other than it’s a local speciality which involves cooking the ingredients at the table.  So when we walk into the restaurant we have no idea what the expect.  The staff can’t speak English but they all gather round us and confusion reigns.  There are fresh fish in tanks as well as pre-prepared raw fish laid out – but which do we choose from?  I let Andy make a selection and we hope for the best.  I think the staff must have taken pity on us because one of them spends the whole meal supervising the cooking and shows us what to eat when.  The fish is cooked in what turns out to be a meat broth (I turn a blind eye to this) and then dipped in soy sauce accompanied by a bowl of the broth, which the waitress keeps topped up.  Andy has chosen mussels, squid and what he thinks is eel, plus we are brought some unidentifiable white fish.  All goes well, until the ‘eel’ is cooked.  It is only when Andy pulls out a clawed foot and on closer inspection of the head, we realise that in fact we are eating terrapin!  Terrapin is mostly shell with very little meat (difficult to confuse with eel in retrospect).  From this point on not much more of of the meal gets eaten!  The meal costs £25 which is a small fortune here, where you can eat for about £2 a head.

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