Washington DC

The Washington DC photos are now all up. If you looked at them the other day, scroll down since I hopscotched around in history when posting.

Google hits = goat testicles

Google allows me to track non-feed-readers who visit my blogs. Visitors include friends and friends of friends, as well as an increasing amount of search engine traffic. A lot of people come here looking for images of oceans and continents [sorry to disappoint - try my images across the earth photoblog or just use more specific search terms], as well as traffic relating to specific experiences/destinations. What amuses me is that recently we have received visitors looking for goat testicles. Really!

Just to be sure I googled goat testicles and sure enough Peter's culinary story shows up as hit number nine on the first page of results.

What I want to know is... why are these people googling goat testicles??

Recent Travels

Our most recent trips were to Tucson for Seline and Dylan's wedding, and I went to DC to buy an application form for a new passport. The latter is a long story...

On the topic of Tucson, we missed our original departure from Boston to [Dallas Fort Worth] Tucson due to the never-ending delights of the TSA. There must have been at least three hundred people in the security line: even the airline staff were wondering out loud what the heck was happening. People ahead of us whose flights were due to depart after ours were allowed to skip the line, but we were told to keep standing in the queue... and eventually raced to our gate to see that the jetway had just been pulled back from the plane. The people who'd been allowed to cut the line (whose flight was due to leave ten minutes after ours) ended up with a delayed flight, so they had to wait airside too. Fortunately the staff of American were helpful, and Peter's BA status got us into the Admirals club lounge, where a star by the name of Maureen re-routed us through Chicago. We arrived only a couple of hours later than originally planned: good thing we were booked on one of the early flights [though if we had been flying later perhaps the TSA would have been more manageable?]

As for DC, the passport tale isn't done yet so rather than jinxing myself I'll wait to tell the story until I am able to travel internationally again. The upside was that I saw one of my business school classmates, Faheen (and her eight month old son Zain), and after all the embassy hoo-ha had a beautiful autumn afternoon of wandering around DC to see the White House [tourists + protestors] and war memorials [more tourists + a massive school group]. I have posted some photos and will post more over the coming days.

Oh, and there was *no* line at the TSA in DC, though I had hours of time to spare before my flight. The TSA staff manning the checkpoint I went through told me they'd been on duty for almost an hour and I was the first person they'd dealt with that day [they were a few checkpoints down from the end of the line]. Perhaps Dulles could send some of their extra TSA staff and scanners to Logan?

Regatta, Rugby, Red Sox

While Peter was in soggy Vancouver I had a very sunny weekend of sport in Cambridge.

• The 43rd Head of the Charles regatta was held on October 20th and 21st (photos).
• The Springboks won the Rugby World Cup... I had to text score updates to Peter who was turned away from apparently the only pub in Vancouver showing the match. I am very impressed that he turned into a rugby fan after only watching a couple of matches - goes to show he really is an african at heart.
  
• The Red Sox came from behind to win 4 games in a row and turn a 1 - 3 deficit into victory in the ALCS.

The Red Sox are playing again tonight - Game One of the World Series.

(even as a baseball fan, I still think it's daft to call it the World Series when only [north] American teams compete)

Prague Photos (complete)

The Prague photos are all up now - let me know which ones you like best.

I'm also glad to say that all the South African miners made it out of Elandsrand.

Gold Mines

... just before I go back to bed, saw this story on Google News:

Thousands trapped deep inside gold mine in South Africa
More than 3000 miners were trapped a mile and a half underground in a South African goldmine after the lift shaft was shattered by falling equipment. ...

This is why we only went down to level eight the last time (Peter's first time) we visited Dalny Mine in early 2004. Dalny is Zimbabwe's deepest gold mine: 40+ levels / 1 mile down - shallower than many of the big mines in South Africa. We had to be able to climb out in case the mine experienced one of the unfortunate but increasingly frequent ZESA outages...

I hope all the miners get out okay. The Elandsrand mine is 2.2 km (~1.5 miles) deep, there's limited oxygen, and deep mines get really HOT at lower levels. There were parts of Dalny where the miners set to work wearing only gumboots and safety helmets. Really! While the miners were generally delighted to have visitors, females - including the occasional lady geologist - were not made welcome in those areas.

And part of me wonders what the heck the Elandsrand management were thinking with a mine that deep having only a single personnel-ready lift shaft.

“They are still in good condition but are angry, hungry, frustrated and want to get out of there,” Mr Boqwana said.

Indeed.

Prague Photos

Most of our Prague photos have been posted, and I hope to post the remainder in the next day or few.

Somewhat inconveniently for the viewer, I have not been publishing the posts in chronological order i.e. an 'older' post might appear on the site after a 'more recent' post - so something published tomorrow may be further back in the blog's history than what's already there. (I hope this makes sense... it's 4 am and it's not clear if I'm perfectly coherent).

Apart from innate disorganization there are a couple of reasons for this:

• Collating pictures - we went to the same spots on several days so I took multiple shots of whatever-sight-it-was (e.g. the Astronomical Clock, the Church of Our Lady before Tyn, etc) - to spare the viewer deja vu I've collated the shots for each of these.
• Choosing pictures - I still haven't decided which of the umpteen shots of Prague Castle at sunset to post, but we're getting closer.
• Binning pictures - playing with the new lens I took an awful lot of experimental and simply awful photos. It takes stamina to go through 800+ shots, even when a lot of them are simply junk.

... thanks for your patience gentle readers.

As a side note, even in the shoulder season of early September, Prague was heaving with tourists and Irish soccer fans. This made it tricky to take clean shots - either a tourist/s would pop up in the frame, or there would be a mob of people elbowing for position to take their own shots. The Astronomical Clock is pretty cool, but every hour there would be a horde of people waiting for Death to do its dance - being crushed by a mob is not my idea of fun. From a safe distance it was amusing to watch a gathering crowd of people wait for ages - 20 minutes or more - only to disperse within a couple of minutes after the hour. Clearly marking off boxes on the must-do Prague checklist.

The crowds also explain why I won't be posting too many shots of the old town square or of Charles Bridge as a whole, and why my Týnský Chrám (Church of Our Lady before Tyn) shots are not of the famous front of the church, but rather from around and behind... these angles are more interesting than the usual bog-standard postcard shots anyway.

Oddly while the major sights were overrun with people, there were some very cool spots that were simply deserted. I stumbled on David Černý's Hanging Out entirely by accident, and there was absolutely no one around. The only people in my later shot of the scene are my two companions - i.e. Peter and a Czech mate.

okay, my brain has obviously melted - back to bed for a few hours' sleep.

Prague Leprechauns

Upon our arrival in Prague we went out to Cěrný Vůl and took a nap, then went into the city to the main square Staroměstské Nám.

A surreal sight greeted us: a heaving sea of emerald green- (and sometimes flag-) attired young men. That evening Ireland was playing the Czech Republic in a qualifying soccer match for Euro 2008.

Peter, Nora and Jason decamped to a cafe serving strong Turkish coffee, and I wandered through the Irish crowd. The good-natured slightly drunk young men took me back a dozen years to nostalgic memories of my bartending days in Cork City. Though the Czech police were keeping watch there didn't seem to be any trouble beyond the occasional drink accidentally knocked over.

The Irish fans sang songs, kicked plastic soccer balls around and generally had a good time. They were just happy to be there, with a great atmosphere and no malice in mind. Contrastingly, I doubt I would ever choose to walk through a similar crowd of English soccer fans... Though Ireland lost 0-1 to the Czechs, quashing their hopes of advancing in the tournament, we didn't hear any reports of subsequent bad behaviour.

New Blog

Rather than cluttering up this blog with talk about technology, I've started another - Testing Testing - http://baobabtech.blogspot.com/ - where I can indulge my inner geek and post away to my heart's content about technology and photographic technique (or lack thereof!). I've been playing with the new Nikkor 18 - 200 mm lens, so there's already material for the photo-geeks in the audience.

Though we haven't been posting much about our travels since China, there are subsequent pictures from Cambridge and elsewhere on Images Across The Earth - http://baobabgallery.blogspot.com/. We are off to Prague soon, and I'll ask Peter to provide his usual witty reports.

New (Web 2.0) Toys

As part of my continuing fascination with maps - and justified by my professional 'need' to be on the bleeding edge of mashups and all things Web 2.0 - I've created a Platial mapkit, which is now visible in the blog's sidebar. The sidebar is a bit squishy, and some people may not like the pop-up widget, so here's the link to the original (larger) map at Platial.

I've started out by adding places we've been to recently / that are relatively nearby. Over time I'll try to dredge my memory for locations that are further away / in the distant past. One cool feature is the ability to embed images and url links, so the map and the photo blog are mutually referential. Platial also offers the ubiquitous Web 2.0 ability to add tags and comments. Since the images and stories were from specific times as well as places (duh - this is a travel blog), it would be great if Platial added a date field. For now I've put dates in the comments.

Click-drag the map to move around, hover over the pins to see where they are and a corresponding image. Clicking on a pin will open up a window with more info, where you can add comments too.

Back on the topic of user feedback (I told you I was using 'work' to justify this), unfortunately I find the Platial widget a little... ugly. Orange, while popular among the web crowd, is arguably my least favourite colour, and it clashes with the style of these blogs. Hopefully over time Platial will allow the user to tune the mapkit's colour scheme.

And props to Blogger, which allows one to hack around with things. It seems daft that Typepad charges hundreds of dollars per year to provide the same level of flexibility. Blogger is FREE!

August update

We haven't been travelling much recently, though April brought a wedding in South Carolina, and July a short jaunt to Montreal for the Jazz Festival.

Peter went to Kentucky overnight for work, and I made a trip to New York for visa purposes - both were all work and no photos. Otherwise I've been puttering around taking photos close to home, often of the earth in bloom. Yesterday we went to a local farm for a glorious if windy day outside. We returned with loads of fruit, and lots of photos of bumblebees busily pollinating sunflowers - quite a feat (for bees and photographer) considering that the sunflowers were waving wildly in the wind. Good to have a fast lens!

As noted before, I've been very pleased with the images from the 18 - 70 AF-S DX Nikkor lens. The Quantaray zoom left a lot to be desired and quite frankly wasn't worth carting around China. So I am very excited (though until it arrives a little apprehensive) that I've just ordered the reputedly wonderful 18 - 200 mm AF-S DX VR Nikkor lens. Apparently Ritz Camera has them in stock right now, though they sell above list and sell out really quickly from all reputable vendors. For Nikon enthusiasts interested in more on the lens and where to buy it, see Ken Rockwell's site.

Photos

Our photos are almost all up - just the Yang Tse / Three Gorges left to go.

Photography notes and wishlist

Taking photographs on this trip was not always straightforward.

In the places where we had a formal guide the guide was often focused on charging ahead through the day's checklist. If you're fortunate enough to have your own guide you can ask them to slow down and give you time. Some are more patient than others.

On boat cruises and long drives controlling the angle, timing and framing can be a challenge. The vehicle moves, the angle is enforced, and on large boats or at tourist attractions there are other sight-seers who also want the best angle. Patience, a rapid shutter finger, and a generous frame (which may be cropped) help. Shooting from a moving car can be surprisingly successful.

The best shots are of evanescent moments. Sometimes they simply can't be captured. These be memories.

Most photos were taken with a Nikon D70, mostly with an 18 - 70 Nikon lens. Some were taken using a Quantaray 100 - 300 zoom. Settings varied from fully manual (including ISO) to fully automatic. We also took some snaps with a Canon Ixus/Elph - see the to-be-posted airport series.

Camera wishlist for future trips:

• A high-quality wide angle to telephoto zoom. Our current 100 - 300 lens isn't great and switching lenses is a pain. As well as the obvious distance shots, the zoom enables candid pictures of people without interfering with the subject.
  
• A lightweight but sturdy monopod. I decided not to take the tripod but wished for it on several occasions. Peter's shoulder worked in a pinch.
  
• A Nikon D2Xs. Maybe someday ;-)

O yes - and a tiny light-weight laptop. We'd decided against taking one of our workhorses because of the weight, but it would have been handy for editing photos, blogging, email, checking on weather/flights, and providing entertainment while ill in a hotel.

Traveller's Notes

Or what we learned...

• Carry tissues - you will be grateful.
• Make good use of individually packed wet wipes - you will reduce the risk of getting sick.
• Fancy hotels = expensive services; cheap hotels = uncomfortable beds but cheap laundry.
• Learn to do your business while squatting.
  
• Keep an eye out for others' business on the streets.
• Wear the provided slippers in your hotel room. Either the carpet is already gross and/or your shoes have gross stuff on them.
• Carry a phrasebook and point at what you want to say.
• Don't expect peasants to be able to read. Charades are the order of the day.
  
• Sit in the front seat of a taxi. Say "ni hao" (hello) and either give the driver the Chinese characters for where you want to go or point at the spot on the map. Then pretend you know where you're heading. Steel yourself (remember, you are sitting in the front seat).
• The Shanghainese have cross-cultural taxis taped - many commercial places and most ex-pats have name cards with both English and Chinese addresses and maps on the reverse.
  
• Failing a name card + map, ensure that you have a local phone number for someone who speaks both English and Mandarin. A mobile phone with a local SIM card can be useful too.
  
• Looking both ways before crossing the street is inadequate. Continuously scan all directions as you cross the street. Expect to feel targeted. Aim for where other people / bicycles / rickshaws / cars / buses will have been (as opposed to where they are or may be going). He who hesitates is lost.
• If you master the Mandarin phrase to ask how much something costs you will be quoted a better starting price. Be prepared for Mandarin numbers in response!
• If your Mandarin numbers are as shaky as mine, barter by writing down numbers / punching them into a calculator.
  
• Make copious use of "Xie xie" (thank you) and smiling.
  
• Blonde hair is a magnet for unwanted touts.
  
• If touts don't get the message when you repeatedly say "no thanks" or shake your head, say "Bu yao" ([I] don't want it) or just "Bu" (no). When all else fails say "bu, bu, bu". The touts may look offended, but they will get the message.
  
• Watches offered for sale on the street are fakes. So are brand name bags. Surprise!

Back in Boston

We arrived home yesterday after a 27+ hour travelling day. Fortunately things went smoothly, with no detours to Hohhot, Newark, or other delightful spots.

The photo blog is now complete from March 7th (Dali) to March 14th (Yangshuo). Photos from earlier and later remain to be uploaded.

ShangHai - world city

Shanghai is a maze of architectural styles, reflecting its cosmopolitan history. Strangely, they mesh together smoothly, from the space invader buildings in Pudong to the 1920s European architecture in the Concessions, to the old Chinese quarter, to the grand architecture of the Bund, to modern steel and glass towers. As with Beijing – and in fact all of China – the whole city is bustling with construction. Our guide in Chongqing joked that the crane is the national bird of China, and it’s certainly true…

The one jarring architectural feature in Shanghai was the replacement of the old Chinese quarters with plasticized Disney/Vegas style “old Chinese” buildings. They are unbelievably fake and tasteless, but unfortunately popular in other cities too. While the old quarter undoubtedly needs renewal, it seems more appropriate to rebuild in an appropriately modern yet authentically Chinese style. Fortunately and fittingly, the faux-old Chinese buildings seemed to be confined to the kitsch tourist-trap area.

ShangHai - shopping, jazz and cubans

Peter:

Shanghai is an incredible city. So vibrant. No great museums, temples, or cultural landmarks, but a bustling city of commerce. Like Alice's Restaurant you can get anything you want in Shanghai. Well, almost anything. I followed my wife hither and yon in her relentless quest to find a coffee mug with a picture of Mao on it. Mao busts, Mao watches, Mao ashtrays, but no coffee mugs. Well China is hardly a nation of coffee drinkers (although that may be changing with the ubiquitous Starbucks popping up all over Shanghai). Back to the shopping. In the photos you can see pictures from the antiques market; the pet market where crickets, turtles, kittens, puppies, fish, etc could be had; the live market where you get your food with buckets of live eels, fish, chickens, ducks, etc; to the kitsch market (for want of a better description); to the big clothes market where I got two cashmere scarves for about $7. The clothes market was full of deals if you were willing to bargain. Fortunately we had Vera's friend and professional shopper Jeanne with us to extract maximum value. Some clothes are fakes, some are relabeled versions of designer clothing from Chinese factories, other are the real thing that "fell off the back of a truck". Everywhere we went had touts offering "watch? bag?". You could get impressive looking knockoffs of any high end watch - Rolex, Omega, Breitling whatever, and the same went for bags. It looks like the authorities have been clamping down on the designer watch and bag knockoffs so none of these are on display. But if you express the slightest interest in "watch bag" then the merchants will open the cupboard and show you the stuff.

We spent most of our money at the fabric market. Big building with three floors of stalls. All selling fabrics - cotton, silk, cashmere, wool. Each stall did its own tailoring. I ended up getting 3 suits tailor made along with 2 extra pairs of trousers for about $300. If I had more time I would have got a stack of shirts as well. I guess I'll be the best dressed academic in my new job. Vera had a full length cashmere coat made, a suit for work, and a classic silk cheongsam (qingpao) - the chinese evening dress with the slit up the side.

Staying with friends in Shanghai certainly made the visit more enjoyable. We would never have sorted the clothes out without Jeanne's help. She also booked an excellent restaurant for us on our second night and told us of nearby jazz club. The jazz club was superb. An excellent venue that had a 4 piece (trumpet, piano, bass, drums) with a female vocalist. the band came from New Orleans. The was an 80 yuan charged for the first drink (about $10), so to get value for money we hit the 18 year old Macallan and high end cognac. Smoking is rife in China and the jazz club was no exception. They sold cuban cigars, so I indulged myself with an anniversary Romeo y Julieta. Sipping 18 year old whisky and smoking a cigar while listening to jazz was a great evening and the decor of the place and the music almost transported you back to Shanghai's earlier roaring days of the 20's and 30's.

Serendipity: YangShuo and the Jade Dragon River

We've spent the last couple of days in Yangshuo, a smaller town to the southwest of Guilin. Though it has some wonderful geographic features (barely discernable through the mist), Guilin still has the any-big-Chinese-city feel to it. Yangshuo is smaller, more eclectic and not yet Disneyfied, without the shiny plastic "heritage" feel of Lijiang and other rebuilt scenic spots.

On Tuesday we took a boat cruise down the Li river from Guilin to Yangshuo. Though it was misty, this made it very atmospheric - see the photo blog for images from this trip. There were giant karsts along the way, very mysterious in the fog.

On Wednesday we decided to explore the area around Yangshuo by bike. We duly rented a couple of bikes and bought a map which was more artistic than accurate. Nonetheless we managed to find our way to one of the back-route bike paths out of town, but the track forked in several places, so we had to keep consulting the map. At one such point a passer-by stopped to help us: though she didn't speak English, pointing and nodding helped explain where we were and where we hoped to go. She was heading in the same direction, so told us to follow her. Gradually it evolved into her having appointed herself as our guide for the day - she led us through small villages and winding tracks, pointing out the scenery and telling us the name of each place. Mandarin is a tonal language, and we undoubtedly hopelessly mangled the names when we repeated them.

Though our guide spoke less than ten words of English ("hello", "beautiful", "big", "smallow") she managed to explain that she comes from a place on the Jade Dragon river where they use bamboo rafts. She guided us through fields and past paddies and fishing villages. After a couple of arduous hours (and a couple of tumbles on my part thanks to being distracted by ducks, deep muddy ruts, and a slightly too big bicycle) we wound up at her village. They offered us lunch, but the sight of villagers washing vegetables - and everything else - in the river, along with memories of Dali belly dissuaded us from eating. Instead we just sat in the shade to drink water and catch our breath.

After a rest we debated whether to ride back down the other side of the river or to take the bamboo rafts down. They looked a little flimsy, and the guidebook said that it was best not to go with unlicensed operators, since there had been a boating fatality involving a foreigner a few years earlier. I walked up on the bridge to look upriver and saw a bamboo "houseboat" at least triple the size of the skinny rafts, and thought that that would be okay, so we decided to go ahead with it. Further reassurance came when all sorts of official looking license plates and documents were produced when I paid for the trip.

It turned out that we were going on one of the narrow rafts after all... ten bamboo poles in width, it was lashed together with small gaps between the poles. A couple of deck chairs were wedged in the centre of the raft, our very muddy bicycles were carefully balanced one atop the other behind the deckchairs, and our guide's husband leapt aboard wearing wellies and wielding a big pole for punting.

We did a short turn upriver to admire the beautiful scenery on the other side of the bridge, then headed downriver. It rapidly became clear why there were gaps in the floor of the raft - the river was very shallow, and there were lots of weirs heading downstream, with drops of between one and six feet at each one. Our boatman navigated these adeptly, though the first one - just a few feet - had us rather alarmed. One slowly noses the raft forward over the weir, and it hangs half-suspended until the tipping point is reached, when the front crashes down into the water with much splashing. The gaps in the raft soften the impact and allow water to drain out once the whole raft is down. Very exciting!

The Jade Dragon is very lovely, though on a smaller scale than the Li. We had better weather than for our Li cruise, and had the river almost to ourselves. There was another raft following ours with a couple from Beijing - their boatman was a friend of ours, so the two of them chatted off and on during the two hour trip. At one point our two rafts were passed by the "express service" - a couple of similar but much faster moving rafts zooming by. Other than that there were just fishermen and peasants along the water's edge. A lovely and very relaxing counterpoint to the morning's ride.

Cormorant fishing

Peter:

In Yangshuo we got the opportunity to see the old practice of cormorant fishing. There are a number of photos showing the fisherman and his birds. Cormorants are large birds with long necks about the size of a small goose. The fisherman had about 6 trained birds that he fitted with a collar of string. After dark, he went out into the shallows of the river on his bamboo raft (only 5 bamboo sticks across) with a lantern and a basket. The light attracted the fish and he let the birds go into the water. The birds stayed close to the raft because of the light/fish. The birds would dive and are incredible swimmers. As they caught fish the collar on their necks prevented them from swallowing the fish. The fisherman would use his punting pole to reach out to the birds. The birds would hop aboard the pole and he would bring them back to the raft. The fisherman then tipped the bird up over the basket and the fish fell out. The size of the fish was limited, but the biggest we saw was about 5 inches long and quite thick like a perch, maybe 3 inches from top to bottom. After the fishing the fisherman cut the collars off and fed his birds.
You can see how well-trained the birds are by looking at the picture of me in my pirate pose with the cormorant on my arm.

when you're stuck in the rain in GuiLin...

Peter:

We've left Yunnan province (highly recommended) and are now in Guilin in Guangxi province. This is the area of karst rocky outcrops and picturesque rice paddies. One big postcard! Unfortunately its raining today and the weather does not look good for the rest of our time here. We've found a massive internet cafe with literally hundreds of terminals (and a fast connection) so Vera's been uploading some photos.

Of snake wine and goat testicles

Peter:

Southern China, more than the north is renowned for its culinary catholicism. The joke we heard was "we'll eat anything with 4 legs that isn't a chair, and anything with 2 wings that isn't an airplane". By all accounts this is true. One of our guides mentioned a delicacy for some (though definitely not for her) of eating live newborn mice. They are dipped in spiced soy sauce and downed in one go. Of course I grew up with seal flipper pie, happily slurp raw oysters, and in Zim they eat flying ants, so no one is passing judgement here.

One of the trickiest moments for me came in Kunming. It was after my "Dali belly" experience and I was feeling very fragile. I had just gone 48 hrs with hardly eating and we had gone back to Kunming and had early check in at our hotel. It was a decent hotel - [Chinese] 4 stars and I thought it would be my best bet for getting safe food. I went off in search of some soup or some noodles in chicken broth - something to start my road to revival. The hotel had a Cantonese restaurant and I went in for lunch. It turned out this was a real high end place with very expensive and exotic dishes. I opened the menu and the dishes were presented as pictures. I immediately opened to "goat's testicles" and there they were looking up at me. My stomach did a somersault. After swallowing I looked further past the shark fin dishes and beyond "bull penis soup" and eventually found a simple noodle bowl containing, hopefully, no genitals.

In Guangxi province where we visited Guilin and Yangshuo, snake was very popular and written on most of the menus. Most impressive was snake wine. We took a boat from Guilin to Yangshuo and the boat provided lunch but also offered regional specialties that could be purchased as well. As we floated down the river, the waitresses would come on top deck with various Guilin delights - a bowl with prawns swimming around; osmanthus flower wine (famous in Guilin); and my favorite, snake wine. "Would you like some snake wine sir?" She was holding a large glass gallon jar, like a pickle jar. In the bottom curled up was a blue snake with a mottled pattern covered with a clear liquid. It looked like it belonged in a natural history museum and for all I know it was covered in formalin. Although based on my caterpillar fungus wine experience I suspect it was 50% alcohol or higher. I politely declined. Surprisingly, so did Vera.

KunMing-ling

Peter:

After Lijiang we returned to Kunming. Kunming is the capital of Yunnan province and called the city of eternal spring because its high elevation and subtropical location keep it pleasantly warm and in bloom year round. Unfortunately Vera got a touch of my stomach bug [Vera's note: "a touch" - hah!] the last night in Lijiang so when we arrive in Kunming we go straight to the hotel and manage an early check in. Our Yunnan guides have been so helpful in getting us through this difficult time. We spend day in the hotel, mostly sleeping and watching bad movies on HBO.

At least the hotel in Kunming had an english channel with movies. When I was laid up in Lijiang the TV was all chinese. I was too ill to read, so I lay there watching the chinese sports channel. Tremendous array of sport: English darts, English snooker, Chinese basketball, Asian curling, World ping pong. Still, it took the mind off the belly.

Our last day in Kunming our guide picked us up again. Unfortunately I'd had a relapse of the bug and it was a very gingerly day for me.

We went first to the Minorities museum. The people westerners think of as "Chinese" are the Han people, the overwhelming majority in China. But there are many minority groups as well such as the Tibetans, various central asian groups (Tajiks, Kazaks, etc), and others. In mountainous Yunnan province which borders Tibet, Burma, Laos, and Vietnam, there are many more such as the Dai, the Yi, the Bai, and the Naxi. The Minorities museum is a huge museum on the outskirts of Kunming with displays of dress, language, art, etc. There was hardly anyone there (Sunday morning) and one of the museum workers gave us a personal tour. I found this fascinating. The traditional dress, especially, was incredible and what struck me was the sense of aesthetic. There was an exhibit there of traditional clothing that was shown in Paris and this could easily have been this year's collection rather than traditional dress.

After a morning at the museum we went to Green Lake in the center of Kunming for a leisurely stroll and some lunch. Lots of people at the lake on a Sunday. Check out the photos of the kids in the giant plastic bubbles! The park also brings out groups of musicians - mostly middle aged men and women who perform in orchestras. All manner of instruments - bowed, plucked, woodwinds - and traditional singing as well. From there it was on to the old city gate of Kunming, flanked by the pagodas from the 9th century. Check out Vera's shots of city life on this Sunday

LiJiang

Peter:

I was really impressed by my limited time outside in Lijiang. I'd love to go back and explore and especially climb some of the hills in the area, including Jade Dragon Snow Mountain. Lijiang is a UNESCO world heritage site and you can see why. It is home, mainly, to the Naxi people who are believed to have been in the area for the last 1400 years. The Naxi have a polytheistic religion called dongba with led by shamans. The Naxi also have their own pictographic language (think hieroglyphics) with about 1400 characters. They also have unique musical instruments, although similar to traditional chinese instruments, and a unique form of music.

Naxi society is matrilineal. Inheritance passes from the mother to the youngest daughter and women typically control the money and trade at the markets. In some villages there are no husbands. The man just comes to see the woman late at night after everyone has gone to bed and then leaves by morning. Relationships can be monogamous or polygamous. The father has not responsibility for the child. Children are raised by the mother and her siblings/parents.

Naxi houses are made of timber. In some ways the old town area of Lijiang reminded me of the Swiss alps. The timber homes look a little like Swiss chalets, although chalets don't have bamboo roofs. The town itself is nestled in hills and on clear mornings the spectacular mountain called Jade Dragon Snow Mountain rises over the town. There are cobblestone streets and a pretty river flows through the town. It is a very touristy area, but despite this it retains its charm and beauty.

DaLi Belly

Peter:

Well, I knew it would happen. I dodged the bullet of street food in Beijing, yak butter tea in Lhasa, but something in Dali laid me really low. After an anniversary dinner in a　ＶＥＲＹ DODGY restaurant (we'd walked around too long and were too hungry to make a rational decision), we stopped for a drink in a cafe. I noticed something called "caterpillar fungus wine" which of course I had to try. Turns out the "wine" was 50% alcohol with some tibetan fungus extract. I don't know if it was the fungus that hit me, but something sent my GI tract into an uproar. Vera, fortunately, was not afflicted and has been a tremendous nurse. So Vera will have to post on the beauty of Lijiang. I can only comment of the hotel porcelain.

Pagoda/Vigoda

Peter:

Dali is famous for its pagodas. Pagodas are used to provide spiritual protection to an area. I have some wierd association of the actor Abe Vigoda (Godfather, Barney Miller) whenever I hear the word pagoda. Strange mental images...

Vigoda

Pagoda

Culinary adventures

On our last evening in Tibet we ventured one block - and a universe - away from the three or four standard tourist restaurants with nondescript food. Peter had a recommendation for a Tibetan restaurant which was down a dark deconstructed street, right at the end after a series of hole in the wall kitchens and street food vendors. It seemed rather dodgy.

Once we ducked through the door hanging it was clearly a cool spot: low-slung tables with carved legs and painted tops, bench seating with embroidered cushions, a painted ceiling, candles everywhere, a bar with funky looking drinks, the young Tibetan hip / artsy crowd at the tables around us. Though none of the waitstaff spoke English they had an English menu and good food - it could easily have been in East Van or some other bohemian hangout... except for the scarlet-robed monk at the next table who was happily chowing down on a whole sheep's head.

Yak Redux

Peter:

More yak yak from Tibet. Another meal of yak - noodles with yak, yak dumplings, and I thought it a good time to try yak butter tea. Yak butter tea is pretty much what you might expect. I think my cholesterol jumped 20 points. The next day I told our guide that I tried the butter tea. He said "you should only drink a small amount of this as it can cause diarhea". I'd had three cups... Fortunately my body seemed to handle it OK. For our last evening in Lhasa we went to a very traditional restaurant and tried hard to find something on the menu that wasn't yak. We tried ordering some "vegetarian" dishes but these were just dishes with vegetables and yak. There was even a "deep fired yak with yak" on the menu. True story. At the airport the next day we could have bought some "Freshly brewed yak". Not quite sure about that one but Vera has the photographic proof.

Landscapes and Yamdrok Lake

Today we left Lhasa for the first time during our stay. The city itself is mostly not inspiring: the western half is like any other Han Chinese city (immigrant Chinese outnumber native Tibetans in Lhasa), and the Tibetan quarter is filled with small windy alleys, street vendors and small shops - if one changed the accent and outfits it wouldn't be unlike parts of London and other old cities. The city is ringed by mountains, and the centre of the city is dominated by the bizarrely moonlike Potala Palace, which is faced by a giant square in typical Chinese style - apparently last year a lake was paved over to celebrate 50 years of Chinese rule.

Outside the city the Potala Palace makes more sense. Millenia ago the Tibetan plateau lay at the bottom of an ocean, and it remains an arid barren moonscape interspersed by stunning blue waters. It's not difficult to understand why Tibetans hold lakes and rivers sacred. Water is a precious commodity. Today we drove up to Yamdrok Lake, one of Tibet's three sacred lakes, at almost 5,000 m. [Lhasa is at 3,600 m]. Though Lhasa is relatively warm and water is running, as we drove higher all the streams were frozen. We passed a man chipping away at an icy stream: he would melt the ice to make tea before resuming work. The road we took leads to Everest Base Camp, and is remarkably good - apparently it's two years old, winding up and up and up and up and up and up and up: millions invested for the benefit of tourists.

Bizarrely, at the pass marking the highest point we reached there were vendors selling prayer flags which we duly invested in and tied to a high point for good luck, blue for the sky at the highest point. Another couple of vendors had placid yaks, brightly dyed and dressed up in tapestries. We were coerced into spending another 5 yuan each (about 60c) for the benefit of taking photographs of the yaks. We weren't too keen, but thought we should reward the vendors for their massive hike up from their home village down the hill. To our surprise they insisted that the poser sit on the yak: see Peter on the yak. These vendors had odd brocade and fur "carpet" hats, which they insisted that the poser wear as well. My favourite tribal look is the Kampa men, who have long braids with red ends which they wrap around their heads. I've been teasing Peter that he should grow his hair and dye it red, but somehow the carpet hat isn't quite as sexy :)

We convinced our guide to take us down to the shore of the lake, which was thinly frozen over with breaking ice caught up at the edges. We took some photos that should be wonderful - more promises.

Tibet - People and Places

On Friday afternoon we arrived in Tibet, where apart from all the yaks (see Peter's post) we've been incredibly fortunate with our timing. This year the Chinese and Tibetan New Year coincided. Saturday was the last day of the Tibetan New Year festivities, and a very important day in Tibetan buddhism. We visited the Potala Palace that morning, and the Jokhang Temple in the afternoon. It's the low season for western tourists, and high season for pilgrims from all over Tibet. We were virtually the only westerners at the Potala Palace, seeing only three others among the masses, and definitely the only westerners in the crush of pilgrims at the Jokhang Temple. There are three important circuits for Tibetan pilgrims: through the Jokhang Temple, around the Jokhang, in the Barkhor circuit, and an eight kilometre circuit around Lhasa city. Each circuit - and every visit to any chapel or monastery - must be completed in a clockwise direction for good luck. Some pilgrims prostrate themselves with every step, travelling thousands of miles in this manner. Young and old, monks, city folk, and nomads, the sense of faith and devotion in the atmosphere was palpable.

Within each monastery there are thousands upon thousands of statues of various Buddhas. After several monasteries it becomes a bit like the oversaturating "Maddona and Bambino" effect in the churches and art museums of Italy. Buddha doesn't come in just one flavour, but in several important ones: past Buddha, present Buddha, future Buddha, Buddha of Longevity, Buddha of Compassion, and many subflavours. There are also important monks, Taras, characters who were close to Buddha, and various fierce protectors. Four monasteries later I am dreaming about the various buddhas...

The New Year pilgrimage brought many nomadic tribal folk to Lhasa, and I could spend a month here simply looking at and photographing the people. It seemed that for many of the out-of-towners I was one of the few blonde women they'd ever seen, so I attracted a lot of attention on the circuit, with many people smiling at me, saying hello (in Tibetan "tashi delak") or asking if I would take their photograph. One old lady insisted that I sit with her and her friends for a group shot :) The townsfolk are far more cool, though they will also smile and say hello if they catch your eye. The kids are especially funny, shouting "HELLO" as we pass, then the bashful ones hide behind their siblings as we turn. A few more proficient in English have come up to us and started asking canned questions like "what is your favourite animal, what is your favourite sport?" One little girl who spoke great English was astounded to see Peter's green eyes, thinking that all westerners had blue or black eyes.

Yaks

Peter:

Yaks are everywhere in Tibet. Driving into Lhasa you pass a huge golden statue of 2 yaks. I've already had yak curry, stir fried yak with peppers, yak and onions, yak dumplings, and last night yak cheese on a pizza. Quite tasty meat - best described as gamey beef? There is also the famous yak butter tea which I've yet to sample. We've spent the last 2 days visiting monasteries (more later) where everything is lit by yak butter lamps. Pilgrims carry in thermos bottles filled with purified yak butter to top up the candles. Keeping the candles burning with pure butter is good for your next life apparently. After 4 monasteries the yak butter and the incense is really grabbing teh back of my throat - quite acrid. Then today we almost had a couple of nasty spills coming down steps at the Sera monastery where someone had spilled yak butter. Slippery stuff. Not only can you eat of the yak, use it to light your path both now and in the next life, but of course you can also wear it. Yak wool sweaters, jackets, and other textiles like rugs and blankets. You'll never want if you've got a yak.

21 hours in Chengdu

More from Peter (the Chinese-only version of blogger means we don't know how to set up his own account)

After the massive hotpot lunch in ChongQing, we took a short commuter flight to Chengdu. Chengdu is the capital of Sichuan province, the most populous province in China. Chengdu is famous for its food and is known for spicy foods. Its also famous for teahouses where denizens sit and talk, play cards or mahjong, and drink tea. We arrived in Chengdu around 3:30 in the afternoon and had a flight to Lhasa, Tibet the next day at 1pm. By the time we reached our hotel and checked in and picked up our travel docs for Tibet it was already 5pm.

We decided to take in a Sichuan opera performance. We manouevered ourselves over to the opera house with the aid of a map that inconveniently omitted about half the streets. After a long walk we found the place and were ready for a cup of tea. The teahouses in the nearby park were closed but there was a "Ten Fu's Teastore" nearby where we could get tea. They have all manner of teas in all manner of prices. We spent an hour communicating (talking is too generous a word) with our hostess who spoke a little English, but infinitely more than our Chinese - it was a lot of fun. Ten Fu's does snacks that are made with tea and are delicious so after trying several we left the shop with a few more sacks and a pack of tea. I will need to hire a mule. Vera says I am the mule.

The opera performance was fabulous and I'm now hooked on all the face changing, fire breathing, acrobatics, music (lots of cymbals), amazing costumes, and of course the singing. Vera was indulgent, but I think if I buy a 10 DVD compilation of Sichuan opera I'll be watching on my own. We watched the performance under an open air tent and there was tea on small tables in front of our seats. The tea cups had tea leaves inside (live tea as my grandmother would say) and the tea ladies would come by and top you up with hot water. The tea ladies used these kettles that were more like flower watering cans with long, long spots. They would stand about 4 feet away and send an accurate stream into the cup. Once you convinced yourself that you weren't going to get a lapful of scalding water it was fun to behold.

We took a cab back to the hotel and were still full from the ChongQing hotpot that we skipped dinner. Cabs in china deserve a special post. The skill of the drivers is impressive as they weave between cyclists, pedestrians, buses, other cars. Fortunately, life in Boston has provided the necessary sang froid to make the journeys relaxing.

In the morning we got up early and went out in search of a coffee shop. Unfortunately none were open before 8am and we were on a mission to see the giant pandas. Chengdu has a research base for pandas on its outskirts. We cabbed out there and wandered round the grounds - a delightful respite from the smog of the city. Early morning is a good time for viewing as this is when the pandas feed. We say all sorts of pandas - many having a good nosh on bamboo. Then we saw some young panda cubs that were very playful. Vera saturated the memory card of the camera. Unfortunately we can't seem to find a decent internet connection (everything is very slow) so I don't know when we will post pictures. We were anxious to get back to the hotel to collect our bags and make the flight but the panda center is on the outskirts of town and there weren't any cabs around. We hired a car from a tout outside the center. He was standing in front of a new black Audi A6 and then after we negotiated a price he went to get his car which was not quite an A6. Buyer beware. Well, it got us there.

Back at the hotel, we had enough time for a coffee and the coffee shop in the hotel (Sheraton) looked quite reasonable based on the prices of the pastries in the window. I ordered a coffee and Vera got a latte and then we got the bill. Vera's 45 RMB = $6 latte. Wow. New York prices in Chengdu. Taxi to the airport and now we're at 3600 meters (~11,000 feet) in Lhasa.

ChongQing

Peter says:

After disembarking from our Yangtze River cruise, we had a few hours in ChongQing. We had a guide and driver in Chongqing as this was part of our cruise package. Chongqing is one of the "Three Furnaces" in China along with Wuhan and Nanjing. It gets incredibbly hot and humid in the summer. We heard last summer there were 40 days of plus 40 degree celsius weather (over 100 in F). Chongqing is a rapidly growing city - metropolitan area is 33 million! More people than in all of Canada. Downtown could be any big city in the world with skyscrapers and luxury shops. Definitely a lot of money sloshing about Chongqing.

Chongqing is a mountainous city where another river enters the Yangtze. During the WW II it was the capital of China as the Japanese occupied Beijing and the coastal regions. This was where the Flying Tigers - American fighter/bomber pilots were based and flew missions. Chiang-Kai Shek's Nationalist government was based here. Our guide's grandfather was a major general in Chiang Kai Shek's army (his army was routed by the Japanese in Nanjing) and the guide gave us a great history lesson. At the highest point in Chongqing there is a beautiful park with spectacular views (we had a rare clear day - no smog). The guide took us to one of Chiang Kai Shek's residences and showed us his escape route to an underground bunker for bombing raids. Of course if you didn't know where to look you would never know, or see this, as the nationalists lost to the communists and the victors write the history. Inside the house (now a store selling artwork), the guide opened a curtain and showed us pictures of Chiang Kai Shek and others during WW II. There was also the American General Stillwell, who I understand didn't particularly like Chiang Kai Shek and referred to him as "the Peanut". Seeing the photos I could understand! Deng Xioping was also from this area and there were photos of him as well.

After a quick tour of the city, the guide asked us what we wanted for lunch. Chongqing and Sichuan province are famous for hotpot, so I thought this was a great opportunity to try since we had an interpreter. I was a little wary because I'd read that they could be quite spicy and organ meets were favored dishes. For those unfamiliar, hotpot consists of a bowl of broth over an open flame on your table and you have a selection of meats, fishes, vegetables, etc and you cook these at your table. You have some condiments like garlic, sesame oil, vinegar, soy sauce, etc to make a sauce to dip your cooked food in. We had a smaller bowl inside our larger one. The large bowl was a water broth with vegetables that was quite mild. The smaller bowl was oil filled with chillies, ginger, and other spices. Cooking things in the oil definitely got the juices flowing. I was glad for our guide - some items looked like tripe (was actually bamboo) or squid (thick white noodles), but others were items on Vera's no eat list. Apparently in the summer when its really hot and humid, you eat spicy hotpot and wash it down with beer and after sweating buckets, you go outside where the breeze cools you down.
Well, we had an excellent lunch with beef, chicken, mutton, fresh and preserved tofu, various vegetables and noodles, and some fine Chongqing beer. Full belly for our flight to Chengdu...

More "Old" posts

Peter's posted a couple of new posts, which we've put into the chronological sequence below. Though the boat has internet access it's wireless (i.e. cell phone) and the signal isn't great because we've been floating between massive mountains. We'll try to post photos from Chengdu or Lhasa...

Before we boarded the boat we spent a morning at the Three Gorges Dam Project. It’s a MASSIVE engineering project – the largest hydroelectric river dam in the world. Unlike Boston’s Big Dig, which is notorious for its time and cost overruns and corruption, they finished the main structural work nine months ahead of schedule. The dam wall is 2 km long and 185m above the river’s water level. While the wall itself is complete, they are currently building ship locks etc. so we saw a lot of impressive looking machinery and construction work. I impressed Peter by knowing about coffer dams, though on a much smaller scale from farm dams!

The filling dam will displace a lot of people, some of whom are already being moved. All along the river there were signs with red marks showing the level to which the water will rise. It was sad to see farms and houses beneath the signs, though of course the official propaganda is that everyone is thrilled to be moving from the places they've lived for generations to new accommodation. The Three Gorges are still very impressive, even though the water has already risen a hundred meters or more. They must have been enormously forboding when the river was narrower and far deeper in the gorges.

Floating on the Yang Tse

After several hectic and fun-filled days in Beijing we are now aboard the Victoria Katarina, cruising up the Yang Tse river through the three gorges. We have passed through the first gorge, and will come up on the second one in about an hour. The miracles of modern technology mean that we have Internet access while aboard. In contrast, finding conveniently-located Internet cafes in Beijing was a challenge.

BeiJing: Great Wall, performing arts, and street food

from Peter:

All along the watchtower…

We decide to take one of the Chinese tourist buses out to the Badaling Great Wall site. The wall is 75 – 90 km outside Beijing (depending on the site). We'd asked at the hotel about taking a taxi out. My friend Frank Qi told me he'd hired a cab for $40 for the day to go out and see the wall when he was in Beijing a few months ago. The guy at the hotel says the hotel car would cost $125 but he's got a friend that can take us in an Audi for $100. Frank and the guidebook say this is way too much, but I'm too jet lagged to try and organize a taxi on my own for the day so we take this bus which costs us about $22 and gets us a ticket to the wall and lunch. What a bargain! The bus is full and we are the only non-chinese on the bus. We make friends though. Everyone is from out of town – we're just from further afield. The wall itself is incredible but completely overrun with tourists. There are several entrance points to the wall and we've gone into one in the middle so even if we walk 1 -2 km we just hit another bunch of tourists. I don't know how to describe things so vast – just seeing this wall snake over mountainous terrain makes one marvel at the work that went into its creation. But then you consider this is a mere fragment of a construct that stretched for 100's of km across northern China. I can't convey they scale.



Princes kept the view…

I can say that it must have been a cold, lonely existence stationed on that wall waiting for the Mongols to show up.



Women came and went, barefoot servants too…

We get back in Beijing around 6pm and there is an internet café next to the bus stop so we have some tea and Vera starts this blog stuff. We decide to go to a performance at the Lao She teahouse. Lao She was a famous Chinese poet. At the teahouse they have different performances and in the evening at 8pm they have a 2 hr omnibus show. Over tea we saw a shadowbox show, a lighted drum show, a magician, some acrobatics, shadow birds, juggling, Sichuan opera, and a kung fu display.

The shadowbox is like a puppet show behind a screen where the puppets appear as shadows. Traditional music accompanied the story which I could not follow. Some woman (or high pitched man) did a lot of shrieking and 3 blokes on mounts stood round. One was riding an ostrich or some large bird.

The lighted drum ceremony saw a woman holding a candelabra suspended from her cheeks. She had a castanet in one hand and a drum stick in the other. She sang and clicked and beat the big drum. An impressive feat.

[Vera's note - as soon as this lady came on stage Peter commented on her massively defined cheeks, saying "do you think that's makeup?" It turned out to be pure muscle...]

Then we had the magician doing sleight of hand tricks. He looked a bit like Jacky Chan in his later years, but of course had a beautiful assistant.

Then came the monkey king in a re-enactment from the Journey to the West. I don't remember the story – monkey king got into big trouble with king of heaven because he ate all the food before some big wedding banquet and got booted out of heaven and had to wander around. Then two knights come along and try and attack him with their mighty swords but of course the monkey king is too clever and by just using a stick defeats both the knights at once. Lots of cymbals and leaping about.

Next, two big chaps came out whistling birdsong. They then went behind the shadow screen and made shadow bird puppets with their hands while doing birdsong. This was amazing. It sounds silly, but they were really good. They sounded exactly like birds and their puppetry was exquisite. They did another show with different animals – dogs, geese, etc.

The next act was "juggling with flower jar". A big squat chap came out and had a couple of big flower pots. One was about the size of the planters in front of our house (about 2.5 feet in diameter) and probably weighed about 50 pounds. He slung that thing around and tossed it into the air and caught it on his head! Then he balanced it on an edge on top of his skull and spun it round. I have no idea how he managed not to cleave his head open.

Sichuan opera is famous for characters that are masked and change their mask to change identity. The face changes are incredibly fast and you cannot see them make the change. They may spin or wave a fan and hey presto it's a different face. This guy did about 15 face changes over about 5 minutes.

Then came the kung fu guys who showed a variety of different styles. Also impressive but something that we were more familiar with. Still, breaking a stone block with one's head never fails to impress…



Outside in the cold distance…

Our guide book said the teahouse also did meals which was true but not for the performance, so now it was 10pm and we were getting hungry. We wandered back toward our hotel, up through Tianamen Sq and the gate to the Forbidden City. After walking for about 40 minutes we come into a street market. I am now sooo hungry that I throw out my rule against eating street food and tuck into some meat on a stick. Vera gets some stuffed pancakes and the blood sugar returns. Then we get these great fruit on a stick things where the fruit is covered in a sugar glaze like in candied apples. Strawberries, kiwis, pineapple, and some unknown fruit kind of like a cherry but with white inside. Fortunately we hit the hygenic street vendors and no ill effects were manifested.

Beijing vs Hohhot - a world apart

After our misadventures in Boston and en route - and the bonus of seeing Sheena, Philippa, Aileen and family - we finally made it to Beijing on Thursday. From the moment we touched down there was a world of difference between Beijing and Inner Mongolia. There were many other foreign flag-carrying big planes at Beijing; there were many full-size luggage conveyor systems; there was clarity about what we were doing and where we should go; there were many people who spoke English with varying degrees of fluency; we weren't pinned into small areas and long confused queues; and (hurrah!) there was not one but several ATMs in the terminal. The first thing I did was get some cash!

Our hotel was also a world apart... When we opened the door to our room we were a little apprehensive after our experience in Hohhot, only to be bowled over by the incredible luxury of a recently refurbished western-style 5 star hotel. The king-size bed is soft! The hotel in Hohhot had Chinese-style small single beds that felt as though they were literally made of a stack of bricks with a thin sheet laid over the top. Sleeping on the carpet would have been more comfortable, but the carpet was so scary that we were afraid to walk barefoot from the bed to the bathroom - at least ten years old, much spat and spilled-upon and *never* been cleaned. The towels in our Beijing hotel are luxuriantly plush and sensually pleasing vs half-size, threadbare and literally full of fist-sized holes in Hohhot. The staff in Beijing speak English - right down to the guy who runs errands for housekeeping. Not a single person in the Hohhot hotel spoke English - not even "hello" from the front desk staff. The Beijing hotel has a full-size bath tub and a separate shower instead of just a tiny shower cubicle that inevitably leaked all over the floor. We were given a key for our hotel room in Beijing, whereas in Hohhot each time we went out we just shut the door, and when we came back had to go to the front desk, write down our room number and explain via pointing that we wanted Housekeeping to open the door for us. To be fair the hotel in Hohhot was relatively clean (other than the carpet) and adequate (other than the bed), but it is a pleasure to be in the lap of luxury for a few days. It's the week of the Lunar New Year so hotels in China are largely empty, and we got a great deal on the Beijing hotel - and we needed a place to sleep in Hohhot. The rest of our hotels on this trip will probably fall between the two extremes.

Overnight in Inner Mongolia

Things took a lot longer than expected in Hohhot. It took time for the BA flight crew to arrange to have the plane refueled (Hohhot is not a regular BA destination, and I was told the captain had to use his credit card to pay for the avgas...). Though we waited and waited, the fog in Beijing didn't lift. After several hours the crew had to rest and it was decided that we would stay in Hohhot overnight. Then it took time to obtain permission for us all to disembark and go through immigration. It was the middle of the Spring Festival (Lunar New Year) week, so they had to dig up immigration officers during the holiday. We went inside and milled around, and waited, and sort of queued in a very confused manner, and finally went through immigration. Then we waited again for a bus to take us to a hotel (which turned out to be a < 5 minute walk away), where we queued again to check in. There weren't sufficient rooms, so single travellers were told they had to double up. Luckily we had each other ;-)

All in all, not a great introduction to China - it was cold, we were cranky and tired, we had no local money and there was no ATM, we spoke no Chinese/no one spoke English, we were miles from the town center with no way of getting there, we had no idea when the plane would leave, it was a mystery as to what we would eat - and when the food arrived what it was. Fortunately other passengers were very kind. They let us use their cell phones to call our hotel in Beijing to let them know that we'd been delayed and would arrive the next day; they exchanged money with us so we could buy breakfast and coffee; and they provided entertaining conversation during the endless hours of waiting.

Though disappointed about losing a day in Beijing, we'd been interested in seeing Hohhot itself (top attraction according to our guide book: camel races in June), but unfortunately had no way of getting into the town. When we flew out the next day I did see a temple rising from the dusty plain. This vacation is turning into a tour of unexpected airports - I'll post pictures of Hohhot's in due course.

Unexpected Diversion

(Note - I'm posting notes in a haphazard order, and Peter wants to leave the Internet cafe soon, so next time you read our blog scroll down to read "older" posts that have in fact been posted since you read this - a bit of time travel :-)

Half an hour before we were due to land in Beijing the sun started coming up, but we were flying away from it (i.e. west) rather than towards it. Sure enough a few minutes later the captain announced that there was dense fog in Beijing and all flights were being diverted. We were going to land in Hohhot, the capital of Inner Mongolia, refuel, and continue our journey once the fog cleared.

(to be continued...)

Leaving Boston

from Peter:

A bit after the fact, but Vera asked that I post something about getting out the gate. We had an eventful time of it getting underway. We had noticed some water in the basement on some mornings – a little around the hot water boiler and a little around one of the big drain pipes. We weren't sure where the water was coming from – the boiler, a pipe, or ground water. Well, the week before we left we discovered it was the hot water boiler. We were able to get it sorted on Tuesday before we left and fortunately the whole thing didn't give way and flood the basement. Then on Wednesday evening (day before we leave), Vera was doing a last load of laundry in the basement and noticed more water – this time streaming out of the main drain/sewer pipe for the whole building. We get the plumbers to come back and it's another major job. They show up on the morning of our flight to start the work. That morning was very cold and icy in Boston. We had had a small storm the night before and then things melted and refroze. Before I could get out the door to the airport I had to dig out the gate and door to the basement which had been encased in ice. Finally got the plumbers in and working. This slowed us a little, but the real problem came when we tried to get a taxi to the airport. A couple of taxi companies wouldn't answer the phone and the one that did said "15 minutes". After 20 minutes we called again and were told "5 minutes" but still no cab. Calling again we were told that the driver was stuck in traffic but on his way. Then they just stopped answering the phone. So we waited and called for 1.5 hrs and still couldn't get a cab. Finally we saw a neighbour returning home so we asked if we could pay him to take us to the airport. He said he'd do it for free – this was about 35 minutes to flight time now but we still had a shot at making it if there was no traffic. So we zip off and cut through some side streets to the highway to the airport when, bam! we hit a funeral procession that goes on and on and even had a police escort. Unbelievable. When we finally get to the airport its now 20 min before our flight but the BA desks are all empty and the flight has closed. So – morning of Day 1: 2 big plumbing bills and a missed flight.



Now we're at the airport and after trying to locate someone from BA we find that the ticket desk only reopens at 3pm (its 11am). I call BA and they say that the first flight they can re-book us on out of Boston is the 19th. We would still be able to make our Beijing connection but it would wipe out our trip to Europe to see Vera's mom and sisters. I explained our predicament and they are quite helpful. They say that if we can get to Newark, New Jersey we can catch the 8:45pm flight that evening. This means we'd forfeit our London hotel, but we can still meet up with Vera's mom and then connect with our Brussels flight. So with some phone calls to friends (shout outs to Regina and Phil), we buy two tickets to Newark. The storm the day before has messed up flights on the eastern seaboard, but fortunately there are many flights to Newark and we get on one. We have revolting lunch at Logan (Boston) airport and hope that the trip gets smoother.



On the plus side, the travel insurance that we bought is already starting to pay for itself! And at least the sewer pipe started to go BEFORE we left and not while we were away for 5 weeks. We make our connection in Newark and then it's a glass of wine and sweet dreams as we finally leave the US, head out over Gander and the North Atlantic and on to London.

Ideograms

Hmm. Finally made it to an Internet cafe in Beijing after many adventures, and the Blogger tools are showing up with Chinese characters instead of English words. That's a little challenging since the only characters I recognize are those for Beijing and China. Hopefully I'll be able to figure out how to let Google know I need English instructions and/or I'll make lucky guesses about which links to click when ready to post my thoughts for posterity.

Gadgets, Gizmos and Photos

We tend to use big trips as an excuse to get additional bits of camera paraphernalia. This expedition is no exception, though the new gizmo is very 21st century... an iPod. Yes, that's right - an iPod in the camera bag. It turns out that with a nifty connector one can pull photos from most digital cameras to the iPod. No need to lug a computer or invest in huge quantities of expensive photo memory (i.e. microdrives/flash cards).

The data transfer will probably take time and a toll on the camera's battery, but we have chunky memory and backup batteries, so should be able to plan around that. One annoying feature that I haven't yet been able to figure a hack for is that the connector seems to offer the option of only pulling *all* the pictures off the camera, rather than selecting and transferring/deleting user-defined subsets. If the big card's full it could take a while to shift 4GB of images.

To reduce our katundu we're not taking a laptop - hopefully we won't have any trouble finding internet cafes, where we will then hook up said iPod as an external drive and post pictures to Pixamo / the blogosphere.

Though we're not in China yet I've posted some photos from previous trips to an accompanying gallery (also reached via the Images Across The Earth link at the upper right of this blog).

Time Zones

China is in the GMT +8:00 time zone.

This is equivalent to a thirteen hour time change between China and the US east coast, eleven and a half hours between Newfoundland and China, an eight hour time change from Britain to China, seven hours from continental Europe, six hours between Africa and China, and a whopping sixteen hours from the north american west coast to China.
For China time, unless you're in Japan or somewhere else to the east of China and west of the international date line, just think "later today (or perhaps tomorrow)". If in doubt the sun clock will give you a sense of where it's day or night.

China map

This map of China shows most of the destinations we'll be visiting.
(click to enlarge)

Itinerary

Here's our itinerary for the trip:

fly overnight to Beijing - Tuesday February 20th
Beijing (the week of Chinese New Year) - Wednesday February 21st to Sunday 25th
Yang Tse cruise - Sunday February 21st to Thursday March 1st
Chengdu (panda sanctuary) - Thursday March 1st to Friday 2nd
Tibet (Lhasa and surrounds) - Friday March 2nd to Tuesday 6th
Yunnan province - Tuesday March 6th to Saturday 10th
* Kunming - Tuesday 6th to Wednesday 7th
* Dali - Wednesday 7th to Thursday 8th
* Lijiang - Thursday 8th to Saturday 10th
* Kunming - Saturday 10th to Sunday 11th
Guilin - Sunday March 11th to Thursday 15th
* Guilin - Sunday 11th to Tuesday 13th
* Yangshuo - Tuesday 13th to Thursday 15th
Shanghai - Thursday March 15th to Tuesday 20th
fly home for a looooong day - Tuesday March 20th

En route to China

We've booked our tickets, the British Airways strike has been averted, and we have ~70% of our itinerary sorted out (just a few hotels and tours left to organize). The next step is to write lists and start packing...