We've been trundling West from Shanghai towards Chengdu since our last report. There's mobile coverage everywhere in China so we're getting your e-mails regularly. It's good to hear from people back home.
Safely landed in Shanghai, we grabbed a bus straight to Suzhou (pronounced SooJoo) which is yet another Chinese tourist town; this time just outside Shanghai ("just" means 95km!). The Chinese week off is over now so the hotels are cheaper and there's marginally fewer people, although you'd have to look closely to notice. Suzhou is famous for its ornamental gardens and two of China's very best are here. It's also a good town to cycle around so we hired a couple of China's finest death traps. Megan says cycling in China is the most dangerous thing she's ever done. More on Oriental road protocol in a future instalment. Of all the gardens, the "Humble Administrator's Garden" was a favourite along with the "Lingering Garden".
These gardens look like you'd expect China to look. Water, spectacular rocks (original Feng Shui), little arched bridges - the sort of stuff which usually appears in blue on those plates. Mind you, most pottery we've seen does not portray the amount of rain we are getting. It seems to start raining about lunch time and then go on for two days before clearing for one day. Unfortunately, this seems to coincide with our moving around so we generally see blue sky from the inside of a train or bus. The 1 Yuan polythene anoraks are working a treat although Steve seems to have bought the only short-sleeved raincoat in the world.
Hangzhou - famous for its lake, silk, tea, scissors and...er... goat fighting! There's a Chinese medicine museum here which details the evolution of the art of diagnosing and fixing people. There's documentation of treatments from 200BC. Going by the stuff we saw being mixed up for prescriptions, they still use the same treatments today! Megan was dead keen to visit the only tea museum in China. It's quite hard to make a museum to tea, even here - what is there to say? Pick leaves, pour on hot water, drink. However, we did hike up into the hills around the museum and ended up surrounded by tea plantations and workers in those funny hats. Great views and sunny to boot.
Hangzhou's main attraction (goat fighting excepted) is the large West Lake, which is used for all manner of recreational pursuits. It's dotted with small islands with the now familiar pagodas. Together with the misty, mountainous backdrop and the sunsets, the views here are picturesque to say the least.
We managed to renew our visas here so can stay in China until 18th June now. That should be enough time to see everything and still give us time in Hong Kong for a shower and decent meal before Thailand.
Leaving Hangzhou, we debated flying to Wuhan to pick up the Yangze river boat but decided to take the long way round via some more scenery and try and get some walking in. First was a bus trip of indeterminate length to Huang Shan. The landscape en route consisted of vertically sided mountains covered with pines and scarred by deep gullies. It's extremely verdant now - and humid. We bounced and jolted through village after village. Strange to see rows of houses where open-plan paddy fields replace gardens! Every inch of land that's not vertical is farmed and we can't figure out whether it's subsistence farming or part of a collective. Suffice to say everyone seems to be out tending the crops. This was what we'd really expected all along; paddy fields being worked by dudes in wide hats splashing through flooded fields in bare feet, driving water buffalo with bamboo ploughs. Stereotyped perhaps but that's the image we're sold at home and it turns out to be at least partly true. A hot and tired 7 hours later we arrived at Huang Shan.
By the way, we didn't see any goat fighting in Hangzhou, more's the pity.
About 300km SW of Shanghai, Huang Shan means "Yellow Mountain" and it's supposedly China's most impressive mountain range. It only reaches 1864m but is spectacular in the extreme. It's actually a range of mountains which you enter by cable car (made in Austria) which whisks you along on your pilgrimage virtually to the summit. Numerous pathways wind around and over the peaks much like our last holy mountain visit. Vertical cliff faces rise up to pointy summits. Pine trees grow at impossible angles - all extreme volcanic stuff. It's as if the whole landscape were designed by a child. /\/\/\
Being a holy mountain, Huang Shan is high on the Chinese tourist itinerary and hordes of coaches turn up each day full of "pilgrims". Each group has a coloured hat and is led by a young girl with a megaphone. On the mountains, it's easy to plan your route despite the poor quality 3D maps. One path will be picked out by bobbing red hats, another by blue ones and yet another, yellow. In the swirling clouds which are characteristic of this area and which lend much of its majesty, you can navigate by the ceaseless amplified gabbling and cajoling of the tour-guides with the megaphones. Every inch of pathway is concrete or stone steps and every inch is covered with a dense mass of people hawking and spitting, coughing and smoking, sweating their way heavenwards - and throwing rubbish everywhere. In fairness, there are also hordes of litter collectors using metre long chopsticks. Mind you, at 130 Yuan (£10) entry fee and another fiver for the cable car (one way), there ought to be! The alternative to that £5 ride is 8 hours of steps. Of course, we are the centre of attention as usual and soon don't even bother answering the constant inquiries "where you from?". Despite the above drawbacks, the mountains are fantastic - the best yet. Not quite as cyclopean as Hua Shan out of Xi'an but all round "bigger".
We stayed in Tangkou; at the bottom of the mountain, which is a moderately unpleasant town inhabited by a bunch of grasping rip-off merchants - our hotel turns off the electricity daily until 5pm. Here we met (or rather were found by) the mythical Mr Hu who's mentioned in some of the guide books and who materialised mystically beside us as we stood on the bridge wondering where on earth we could get a meal that wasn't 90% pig-fat and 10% lard.
Mr Hu speaks excellent English and seems to be on a mission to annoy all the local hustlers and hawkers by giving Western tourists value for money and reasonable advice. We ended up eating chez Hu where Mrs Hu fed us admirably [considering what we'd seen in the market earlier]. Next morning we "bumped into" Mr Hu, who advised us to visit the site where "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" was filmed. This turned out to be an excellent recommendation as it wasn't very popular with the tourists who were too busy pounding their way to heaven at Huang Shan. We sat alone by emerald pools and realised that, for the first time in a month, we couldn't hear gabbling voices. We ate our bread and bananas (the only food you can get in the supermarkets) accompanied only by the roar of waterfalls - bliss.
Apropos bananas, on the hike back down through bamboo forests, we were surrounded by monkeys of some variety. We stopped to observe them after arming ourselves with stout bamboo rods as the critters can be a bit feisty and we could see young monkeylets which would presumably need protecting from large, round-eyed, white creatures like us.
As if by magic, Mr Hu appeared when we got back to town and offered to find us the bus we needed the next morning to leave Tangkou.<,p>
All in all, our meeting Mr Hu made us much more kindly disposed to Tangkou than we would otherwise have been. If you're ever passing through Tangkou and are a bit stuck, look him up. More likely, he'll be standing beside you already!
A voyage along the Yangze River had always been a must on the itinerary and since the 3 Gorges Dam is supposed to come into operation mid-2003, this was our only chance to see the gorge in its present form. We trekked on up to Yichang where a mere day's effort resulted in a cabin [first class, for Megan] on the ferry "Tian Jin" headed for Chongqing. Everyone does the trip in the opposite direction as it's quicker, but we're not in a rush and the boat is slower against the current which makes for better views.
The trip took us through the massive lock in the Gezhouba Dam, which could have taken about 6 cruise liners, and then on past the construction site of the infamous 3 Gorges Dam. When completed (2003 apparently, although it didn't look even half built to us), the water level upstream will rise 175m. Ships will pass through a 5 stage lock. All along the gorges are signs showing where the water level will reach. We sailed past whole towns which have been relocated higher up the gorge sides. At Wushan, we landed and took a bus up to the newly constructed town passing through ruin and dereliction as we climbed up through the old town. It seems that all buildings that will end up under water are being pulled down. It looks like the same raw materials are being used to rebuild above the projected water line. We also took a side trip up the lesser three gorges which will be largely flooded. It's difficult to judge the effect the dam will have. From a scenic perspective, the govt line is that the tours will still run and that we will need to come back as the scenery will have changed. True enough, and the gorges are deep enough that 175m won't make much difference, but it will be much more like a massive lake than a series of gorges. Environmentally, it looks like towns, coal mines, factories etc. will all be flooded as cleaning up before June 2003 looks like a tall order. It's clear that many people are still living below the flood line and much subsistence farming is still going on on land to be flooded.
Politics and environment aside, the 3 Gorges is an awesome sight. The vertical (and they are vertical) sides of the gorges must rise 1000m easily. The cross-sections of the rock reveal some very strange formations and colours. Much of the rock is sedimentary but with bedding planes at all angles including vertical. Waterfalls appear out of sheer cliff faces and pour in torrents straight into the river. Vegetation clings to the most unlikely faces and monkeys swing through the treetops. Guide books describe the water as crystal clear but it's muddy brown. The area is supposed to be tranquil, but as we're on a ferry full of Chinese, this is far from the case.
The final 36 hours consisted of trundling at a leisurely pace towards Chongqing. We were still seeing the 175m signs showing where the water will reach even 500km upstream from the dam, but they were no longer high above the current water level. Finally, the signs ran out and at around midnight we pulled into Chongqing.
There were 5 other "round eyes" on the ferry, which diluted the staring somewhat and gave us someone else to talk to. All in all the trip was very relaxing, peaceful and, once the morning haze burned off, very hot and sunny to boot. We made the most of the weather; chilling out on deck watching China slide by and revelling in the fact that we had neither travel nor accommodation to organise for 3 whole days.
We've been in China a month now and have spent much of this time off the normal Westerner's tourist circuit. We don't see an Occidental face for days on end and it's very rare to find someone who speaks any English. The incessant shouting, spitting and car horns is very wearing. The cacophony starts at 5am and subsides about 11pm and there's nowhere you can get away from it. However, the trip is going really well and we're both enjoying it immensely. We're just going down with our second colds which is very bad and must be due in part to all the spitting. However, we've had no stomach problems which is surprising and says a lot for hygiene as the stuff we've had to eat has been very suspect at times.
Communicating with the Chinese is interesting. If you ever get a prompt reply to a question, it means no understanding has taken place. Only long and protracted hand-waving, slow speaking and picture drawing results in meaningful communication. Very often the official government tourism organisation for foreigners can't even drum up someone who speaks English. Mind you, the language barrier is only a part of it. On the occasions when friendly locals have tried to help us, they have suffered the same indignities and abrupt stonewalling as we have. An example would be buying rail tickets where the operatives' sole purpose seems to be to stop as many people as possible from travelling at all. Actually, buying the ticket is not the main problem. Finding where to buy it is the tricky bit! You can queue for hours only to be told you're at the wrong window [and "told" is being generous]. Having said that, we have made many journeys by train and all have been more pleasant than their equivalent in Britain (except for the loos). Generally, this is attributable to punctuality and reliability; concepts British train operators have yet to master!
It's difficult to assess how much and how often we're being ripped off, but it definitely occurs. Generally, you get offered expensive hotel rooms when there are much cheaper ones available. Often, restaurant bills don't seem to make much sense and if there is an English translation of a menu, it could be a lot more expensive than the local version. Of course, it's impossible to tell. Often we order food in Chinese without looking at any menu and then you could be charged anything. Quite often, though, it appears that the Chinese tourists are being ripped off too. In some cases, we may even be getting better deals than them as we're more up to date on going rates and have researched other hotels in the area which can be traded off against each other. Bartering is very common and all prices seem to be negotiable apart from state run things like tourist attractions and rail tickets. The haggling is good natured. Face is important to the Chinese though so both sides need to give a little for the bargaining to work. If you offer a stupidly low price for something you need to be ready to laugh it off as a joke when it becomes apparent that no deal is possible. Generally street traders see round eyes and just try it on. I guess we all look like American tour parties who don't know what to pay for anything. As soon as they realise we know what stuff is actually worth, the bargaining starts from a more reasonable position.
Ever mindful of the health problems associated with drinking the water, Steve has been sampling the local pijiu (beer) where possible. Generally, it's of a reasonable standard and invariably cheaper than the bottled water. e.g. Huang Shan's "Wangbeer" (don't ask!) at 2.7% tastes like a hoppy Carlsberg and at 3.5 Yuan (25p) for 640ml, who can complain?
Eating is fraught with danger. A popular snack is vacuum-packed chicken's feet as detailed in a previous report. Menus are almost exclusively in Chinese and you can't just point at random as there's all sorts of strange items we wouldn't even class as food; e.g.Take one broiler, stuff all available cavities with fried pork, smother with lard, wrap in mud and cook slowly, when the mud is dry, smash it on the ground - that's Jiaohua Broiler for you. We found a whole duck's head (including beak) in one dish we ordered. Over all, though, we've been surprised at how similar the dishes and presentation are to what you would receive in a Chinese restaurant at home. Except the braised pig sinews that is!
Menus do provide some amusement on the rare occasions they are in English. Here's a few "tasters" for you:
...still, at least they tried!
Our next [and probably final] report from China should include Chengdu and environs and our travels South-Eastwards to Hong Kong taking in another holy mountain and the famous sights of Guilin. We plan to sail into Hong Kong if we can.