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