China day 15 – Chongqing

Posted on Friday, 10 Oct 2008 by Hattie

It rains and rains and then rains some more and the mist is as thick as ever.  We have booked our boat trip – a three-night, four-day cruise on 5* boat leaving tomorrow evening and arriving in Yichang on Tuesday.  From Yichang we will be able to take a bus to Wuhan where we will stay the night before travelling on to Guilin.  Even though the cost of the trip is nearly £600 we have to pay in cash – cards are not used much here  (we have had to pay for everything in cash including the flight tickets from Beijing to Xi’an).  This presents a bit of a problem as the maximum ATM withdrawal is just over £200 a day.  So we have to resort to making withdrawals from three different accounts.  Just as well be brought so many cards!  We make the bus trip to the Three Gorges Plaza in Shipingba for the second time (3 Yuan – 25p for the two of us) and take the opportunity to do some shopping.  We return about 4pm and as I sit writing this by our open window, night is falling on very grey (note correct spelling, Mike!), wet and murky river.  Only the neon flashing sign and fairy lights of a tea boat moored on the river’s edge breaks the gloom.

Our cruise involves dressing up for a banquet on the last night so as Andy’s wardrobe is distinctly dress-down (no surprises there) with his ‘best’ trousers being a pair of zip-off cargo pants, we go hunting for something smarter.  Well, given all the shopping malls and boutique shops around the Plaza that shouldn’t be a problem.  That is, until we discover that all the shops sell jeans and jean-style trousers to the exclusion of any other kind!   On closer inspection of the crowds this is not surprising given that almost everyone here seems to dress in jeans.  Eventually we find an cheap underground mall which runs  beneath the Plaza and a little stall selling smart-casual trousers that are just the job.  In the meantime, we’ve also picked up a new 8gb flash card (the one we bought in England is corrupt), a belt to go with my black dress (left behind in England) and a new set of headphones with microphone for Skyping (the pair we brought with us have disintegrated).

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China day 14 – Chongqing

Posted on Thursday, 09 Oct 2008 by Hattie

No change in the weather today and we learn Chongqing experiences rain and mist (or is it smog?) most of the time.  The sun is a rare site according to Amy who works at the hostel.  We are running out of cash so our first task today is to find a bank.  The nearest one turns out to be in  the ‘downtown’ area of  Shipingba and involves finding our way by bus.  Amy kindly comes to our rescue as she is heading downtown to pick up some tickets and we are able to take the bus together.  We have to make our own way back as Amy has to go to her university where she is studying Human Resources, so after taking instructions on where to catch the return bus we make our way to the hostel.  We stop on route to purchase some dough cakes at the most popular stall on Ciqichou Main Street.  The cakes here are so good that people come from all over the city to join  the orderly queue; something quite exceptional here where queuing is an anathema.  We spend the afternoon exploring the maze of streets that make up Ciqikou

Shipingba shopping area  is centred on the Three Gorges Plaza which is dominated by high rise shopping malls with a pleasant water complex in the middle.  As with other cities we’ve visited, Chongqing is a mix of the ultra-modern high rise, the rather dowdy older apartment blocks and the even older, back-street low-rise housing where the living conditions seem very basic.  In China the contrast between the new, ultra modern malls with their sleek, western-style designer boutiques seem a million miles away from the China we see all around us and where the average urban wage according the newspapers is around £800 pa.  Who can afford to shop in these stores? Given that the more up-market malls are largely deserted even during the holiday period, it must be a very small minority.  But of course, as we keep reminding ourselves, a small minority here is many millions of people.

Back at Ciqikou and we spend a couple of hours exploring the area.  The streets were built according to Ming dimensions with the roads  and houses in a proportion of 1:1.5.  Away from the bustling, noisy Main Street and the tourist shops and eateries the streets meander around the hillside in the area between the main road and the river.  Here the shops and restaurants give way to the more mundane everyday shops, barbers, hardware, as well as the calligraphers, embroiders and Mah Jong dens.  The latter, frequented mainly by women, are filled with the clickety-click of the Mah Jong tiles on baize-covered tables.  In the street we come across a man gutting fish and a women sitting in her doorway plucking a chicken.  Life is lived on the street and in the doorways although from time to time we glimpse activity in the murky interiors.  The area has a fascinating charm for all that.

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China day 13 – Chongqing

Posted on Wednesday, 08 Oct 2008 by Hattie

After yesterday’s sunny and hot day we wake to miserable, rainy weather and a heavy mist hanging over the river Jia Ling Jiang obscuring the opposite bank.  So we take the opportunity to catch up with the blog and do some washing.  During a break in the rain we take a short walk to the Bao Lun Buddhist temple in the next street.  The small, steep entrance hides a deceptively large temple complex, which rises up the hill side and contains some magnificently painted statues of Buddha and a wonderful pagoda.  Back in the hostel bar we get chatting to a Dutch couple, Rens and Maaiki, and in one of life’s freaky coincidences, it turns out that they had also shared a compartment with Daan and Lynn on the Trans-Siberian (see earlier blog) and recognised us from a picture Daan had shown them!  They know almost everything about us including all about Hattie and our blog!

Chongqing is at the confluence of the Jia Ling Jiang and the Yangtse (known as the Chang Jiang or Long River in China) and our hostel is situated on the banks of the former in a small ‘village’ called Ciqikou in the district of Shapingba.  Chongqing is made up of five districts, covers a total area of 31,800 square miles and has a population of 30 million.  The largest and fastest growing city in China and, apparently, the world.

Despite Ciqikou being a stop on the tour itineraries, we find it relaxing here and have decided to stay for two more nights.  The ‘village’ is a warren of cobbled back streets lined with timber-framed one story buildings.  It dates back to to the Ming Dynasty and the living conditions for some residents don’t appear to have changed much in the intervening six centuries!  Food is prepared, cooked and eaten on the streets as well as in the scores of restaurants that line the main street.  There is some evidence of restoration work and some new housing has been incorporated in the traditional style (but unfortunately not using traditional materials).

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China day 12 – Chongqing

Posted on Tuesday, 07 Oct 2008 by Hattie

We are woken at 7.30 am by our Chinese companions getting up and having their pot noodle breakfast.  The overnight train ride has been bumpy and jerky and so we have had a disturbed night’s sleep.  The Chinese sleeper cars aren’t as modern as either the Russian or Mongolian equivalents, but comfortable enough.  However, using squatty toilets on a moving train is an interesting experience!   We arrive in Chongqing at 2pm and are met by someone from the hostel.  We travel to the area we are staying by public bus – a very dilapidated and rust-ridden one – but the 20 minute trip only costs 4.50 Yuan (37p)  for the three of us.  Our room has huge windows opening onto a superb view of the river, and is the biggest room we’ve had so far.  It would do a 3* hotel proud and costs less than £11 a night!

The scenery from the train is mountainous and dramatic and we pass through numerous tunnels, in fact the whole line is a feat of engineering.  But not content with that another line is currently under construction alongside involving the most enormous pillars to take the elevated sections across the mountain valleys.  Presumably part of the current programme of infra-structure expansion designed to open up the country.  As we near Chongqing the hillsides are covered with terraced rice paddies and small villages.

The train is very clean and the toilet is spotless.  The carriage attendant sweeps out our carriage twice during the journey.  Although we have a sneaking suspicion that the bed linen is used more than once, as the attendant refolds it and places on the top bunk as we are leaving the train!  Chongqing station is almost empty – none of the bustle and crowds of Beijing and Xi’an.  What a pleasant surprise.  The people on the bus look at us in disbelief as we squeeze all our luggage to the back of the bus.  Is it ‘cos we foreign?

The old village is an historic area which is protected by the government.  It is also a tourist destination and the streets are full of craft shops, restaurants, street vendors and the bustle of crowds.  Is this Chongqing’s Covent Garden?  But despite this, or maybe because of it, the area is attractive and interesting and definitely a complete change from Xi’an and Beijing – just what we need.  The hostel is in a superb location just by the river front with its outside cafes and restaurants and we have a view to die for.  The staff are extremely friendly and helpful, there is a bar with soft seating, pool table and free wifi!!  What more do you need?

After settling in, having a shower and something to eat, we take a walk around the evening streets.  China doesn’t operate summertime, so it gets dark around 6.30 pm and by the time we get out many of the shops are closing.  But we take in the relaxed atmosphere and wander along the elevated river promenade which is not far from the hostel.  I should imagine it’s quite ugly from the river, but it makes for a  pleasant walk and it is possible to hire various kinds of two- and four-wheel cycles which trundle backwards and forwards along its length.  We come across people lighting  huge paper lanterns which drift eerily into the night sky  – a romantic gesture for the one you love.

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China day 11 – Xi’an to Chongqing

Posted on Monday, 06 Oct 2008 by Hattie

Still sunny but the smog has started to descend again.  Today we are leaving Xi’an on the 22:18 overnight train, the ticket saga having been successfully resolved.  We are planning to spend a few quiet days in an old riverside village within the city area of Chongqing, before taking a boat down the Yangtse to Yichang.  We check out of the room at noon and spend the day shopping and looking around more of the Muslim and artists’ quarters.  Catching the train turns out to be something of an experience and at first we end up in the hard seat/sleeper waiting area until, with the help of some friendly Chinese and a railway attendant, we discover that we are actually entitled to wait in the soft sleeper waiting room.  It is sheer luxury in comparison, with a television, plush seats and toilets. Not to mention separate and crowd-free access to the platform and sleeper carriages.

The ticket saga took another turn this morning when we went online to check the arrival time of our train.  According to the online timetable our train ticket for the K165 didn’t go to Chongqing but to  Kuming.   A call to Jackie this morning resulted in one of his colleagues appearing at the hotel, thinking we wanted to buy boat tickets!  After explaining the problem he is also confused by the online timetable, further investigation reveals that the timetable had changed – the K165 now goes to Chongqing!

Jackie has organised a pick-up at 8pm to take us to the station, but come the allotted time, there is no taxi (why are we not surprised?)  We wait 20 minutes and then get a cab on the street.  Contrary to Jackie’s advice, we  needn’t have left so early as the queues of a few days ago have dissipated and we get into the station with minimal delay.  Now the holiday is over everywhere, including the station, is much less crowded.  But it still seems chaotic in the station, which to confuse matters is on two levels.  After baggage scan we are directed up to the 2nd floor (there is no ground floor in China.) and after several redirections we find our way the the soft sleeper waiting room and relative calm and normality.

On the train we are sharing with a Chinese couple who seem friendly but can’t speak any English.  They allow us to stow some of our luggage under their seat and we share some of their unshelled sunflower seeds, but they won’t accept anything from us.  The wife is a consummate and unself-conscious burber – better even than Andy, but at least there is no clearing of throats or spitting.  Bed-time is determined by our companions who turn in shortly after we leave Xi’an.  The husband already has his PJs under his clothes which he wears all the way to Chongqing.

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China day 10 – Xi’an

Posted on Sunday, 05 Oct 2008 by Hattie

Today the smog has lifted!  We have blue skies ad sunshine.  We were planning to leave Xi’an today but because of the holiday Jackie had only able to get hard sleeper tickets (six berths sharing).  Not what we wanted, so after some discussion and repeatedly stressing that we want only soft sleeper (four berth sharing) tickets, we are expecting Jackie  to change them and hopefully get us the right class of tickets for departure tomorrow.  Today we had an easy day, we wandered around the market in the streets by the  South Gate of the city walls and then hired a tandem bike and cycled round the top of the walls.  A very pleasant and relaxing day!

One of the more bizarre things we have seen whilst shopping here are live mannequins either sitting in shop windows as part of a display or actually on the street outside the shop.  It must be something of a novelty here because it is still drawing crowds.  One mannequin even waved at us!

One English word that all Chinese seem to know is ‘hello’ and everywhere we go we get children in particular calling out ‘hello’.  And Andy’s beard attracts a lot of attention.  So much so that people think nothing of openly staring at us in the street and in restaurants, to the extent of turning round in their chairs and just looking! They take photographs of us too!  We’ve even had people  ask to have their photo taken with us.  Now we know what it feels like to be a minor celebrity!

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China day 9 – Xi’an

Posted on Saturday, 04 Oct 2008 by Hattie

We hired a car and driver to go to the Terracotta Army, the Qin tomb and the Great Goose Pagoda.  The Terracotta Army is only part of the much larger burial site call Qin Shihuang Ling built by the first Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi.  We hire an official English-speaking guide to tour the Terracotta Army which, given the crowds and the size and complexity of the site is a good move and is definitely the most effective way to navigate it.  The warriors were guardians of the Emperor’s tomb and we drive the mile or so the Qin Tomb itself.  The tomb has never been opened but it is possible to climb to the top and walk around the gardens at the base.  The Great Goose Pagoda, which we visit on the way back, is a Buddhist temple – very different in style to the ones we visited in Mongolia and simpler and less ornate than the palaces and heaven worship temples we visited in Beijing.

After our Great Wall experience we decided that if we had our own driver we would be able to set the itinerary and dictate the pace.  How naïve we were! The driver seems to have different ideas and keeps telling us that the Great Goose Pagoda is a different tour and that the Qin Tomb isn’t worth visiting.  Only after much insistence on our part and a call to his office do we get what we want, but we still end up at a factory producing models of the warriors and lacquered furniture. Quite interesting, but the inevitable conclusion is the sales pitch.  We are strong and walk out empty-handed much to the disappointment of our factory guide.

The warriors have been excavated from three pits of varying sizes all of which are open to the public.   The largest and most impressive of the pits is the size of an enormous aircraft hanger and this is where the vanguard and most of the ordinary soldiers are found.  A fourth pit is empty suggesting that the Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi died before the project was completed.

Some 7,000 warriors have been found so far, lined in military formation four abreast and separated by walls which originally were covered with wooden beams and matting before being buried under  earth.  Over time, the wooden beams have rotted or been burned by looters destroying all but one of the warriors – a kneeling archer.  The rest of the warriors on display have been restored from the broken remains.  There is a major, on-going restoration project to put all the warriors back in their original positions.

Apparently there are thousands of warriors still buried and won’t be excavated the technology is available to preserve the original colours of the statues, which fade and disappear on exposure to the air.

The Qin Tomb  is a 154-foot-high man-made mound covering 22 square miles and containing, according to historical records, a splendid necropolis depicting the whole of China in minature.  The tomb has never been opened and so it’s only possible to climb to the top (from which the views must be splendid if it were not for the enveloping smog) and walk round the gardens at the base.

The Great Goose Pagoda turns out to be a full blown monastery set in landscape gardens in a modern part of Xi’an.  We climb the pagoda for a panoramic view of the city and wander the gardens which, rather than being the tranquil place you might expect, are filled with blaring pop music!  The Chinese don’t seem to be able to live without noise.

Today has given us a different perspective of  Xi’an.  Outside the city walls there is an extensive building programme in progress creating dozens of high rise apartment blocks as well as some low-rise housing and the regeneration of public spaces, which is resulting in a much cleaner, modern and altogether more pleasant Xi’an.

Some background on Xi’an:

Xi’an and the Shaanxi region are the centre of early Chinese civilisation.  The Zhou dynasty (from 11th century BC) was established here and was followed by the state of Qin (pronounced ‘Chin’) which unified China.  The Silk Road linking China to central Asia also began here.  Xi’an served as the country’s capital for more than 1100 years and it was from here that the Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi unified China.  During the Tang dynasty (618 – 907) it was the biggest city in the world.  Today it is home to 2.6 million people.  The old city is surrounded by a reconstructed wall 40 foot thick (dating from the Ming dynasty).  The streets in the old town still retain the classic Chinese pattern running straight north-south and east-west intersecting at right angles.

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China day 8 – Xi’an

Posted on Friday, 03 Oct 2008 by Hattie

The city is continually shrouded in smog obscuring much of the cityscape.  But it is warm; warm enough to go in T-shirts even in the evening.  There is no let up to the crowds and noise.  This morning we are woken at 6am by blaring music as a precursor to the chimes of the local clock tower!  Today is an organisation day – we are planning to leave Xi’an on Sunday – don’t think we could stand it any longer – to go to Chongqing where we want to pick up a river boat down the Yangtse.  We also need to organise tomorrow’s trip to see the Terracotta Army.  So the morning is spent researching on the internet, having breakfast (dumplings for Andy and noodle soup for me), organising laundry and visiting the travel agent.

Jackie, who runs the hostel, also arranges tours and apparently should be in the lobby everyday, but of course when you want him he is nowhere to be found.  So we head across town to another agency near the station.  Taxi’s are incredibly cheap and the journey only costs 75p!  We manage to hire a car and driver to go to see the Terracotta Army but train tickets prove more difficult – the national holiday is continuing to restrict availability.  So we take a motorised rickshaw to the station.  What an experience!  Dodging in and out of the traffic, playing chicken it seems with on-coming buses and weaving across the junctions, all the while feeling slightly unstable.  Not an experience to be repeated in a hurry, but Andy thinks it’s great fun!  When we arrive at the station the queues for tickets fill the concourse in front of the station and there is no foreigners ticket window to be found.  So we come away empty handed.  Hopefully Jackie will be able to help us after all.

In the evening we wander into the Muslim quarter which has the feel of a Moroccan Bazaar and it just as easy to get lost in.  Covering a huge area around the Grand Mosque it is full of small stalls selling an eclectic mix of  local crafts, mostly jade but also silk, calligraphy equipment, mah jong sets,  terracotta warriors, pashminas etc. There are also many street food stalls and little shops with their goods laid out on the streets, sometimes literally.  The atmosphere is very different from the area around the hostel and makes a change from soulless shopping malls.  We’ve heard that the food here is very good, but the conditions in which it is prepared don’t fill me with confidence so we give it a miss.

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China day 7 – Xi’an

Posted on Thursday, 02 Oct 2008 by Hattie

We flew from Beijing to Xi’an on the 07.55 flight arriving at 10am.   We foolishly packed a penknife and our cutlery sets in our hand luggage (too used to packing for train journeys) and had to go back to check in to avoid them being confiscated!  The flight went smoothly enough but when we got to Xi’an our  pre-arranged  pick us up wasn’t waiting for us.  A bit of a problem in China when you haven’t got your destination written in Chinese and you can’t communicate with taxi drivers.  We manage to find someone to write the address of the hostel in Chinese, but fortunately the driver turned up just as we were making our way to the taxi rank.  It turns out that this driver is only taking us off the airport and he stops in the middle of the road alongside a group of taxis to negotiate our fare to the hostel.  On our way we stop again to fill up with petrol and for some  unexplained reason we have to get out of the car and stand on the forecourt hoping that this driver is not going to drive off with our luggage in his boot!

The hostel is in a good location in the centre of the old town and the heart of the shopping district, directly opposite the opera house.  We are only a few minutes walk from the old Bell Tower and the Muslim quarter.  Apart from smelly drains and almost continuous noise it’s not particularly good value for money at £26 per night.  In fact the hostel  is actually in a three-star hotel, although not  three star by western standards.

Xi’an is a city of 10 million people and the holiday seems to have brought most of them out onto the streets (Think Oxford Street on a Saturday.)   It is incredibly noisy – horns honking incessantly, people shouting, music blaring, slogans and music being broadcast from shops plus all manner of other noises adding to the general cacophony – covered in blanket of smog  and this area is dirty, shabby, smelly.  The smell seem to emanate from the street food stalls which exude a rather unpleasant aroma which we think comes from the fat they use.  There are many modern buildings though, several massive shopping malls and many upmarket designer boutiques alongside a variety of large concession stores specialising in mobile phones, electrical goods and jewellery etc.

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China day 6 – Beijing

Posted on Wednesday, 01 Oct 2008 by Hattie

Today we went to the Forbidden City and it was another long and tiring day! As it is National Day, the crowds were impossibly large and the metro stations either side of Tian’anmen Square were closed, which meant a long walk just to get there.   Later it was reported in the paper that over 100,000 people visited the Forbidden City today!).  It would be easy to spend a whole day here – we managed four hours battling the throng.  Afterwards we made the hour’s trek out to the Olympic complex by metro.  As everything here, it is on an enormous scale and the Bird’s Nest stadium is  stunning but unfortunately we couldn’t get inside.  According to the news there had been some 80,000 entrance tickets for sale and more people came to the  Olympic Complex than to the Forbidden City! (There’s a bit more space to accommodate them here though.)

The Forbidden City was the Imperial Palace of the Ming Emperors from 1421 until  the abdication of Pu Yi in 1911.  The complex has a total of 8,706 rooms in which 8-10,000 people of the royal court lived including 3000 eunuchs, as well as maids and concubines.  All within an area of 70 hectares.  It is a wonderful example of Chinese classical architecture, but like many monuments in  Beijing it is possible only to view the outside of the main buildings; the public are not allowed inside which is disappointing when you’re used to visiting stately homes.  Although it is possible to explore the labyrinth of courtyards and secondary buildings which house the museum exhibits, and to get completely lost in the process!

We made it to the Olympic Complex only by chance – earlier today  we picked up our flight tickets for Xi’an and the agent gave us complementary tickets for the complex.  At the time we didn’t think much of it because we only intended to go and wander around and perhaps buy entrance tickets if they were available.  But as we arrived at the last metro change for the Olympic Complex officials were stopping people going any further and it was here that we need the tickets to be able to continue the journey.  Without the tickets it would have had a wasted journey.

Spitting seems to be a national pastime for the Chinese – everywhere you go you hear men clearing their throats and spitting.  And it doesn’t seem to matter where you are – indoors or out.  Even in restaurants.  Lovely!

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