Our World Wide Adventures: August 2004

Ian and I at the Terrecotta Warriors

Terrecotta Warriors at Xian

Xian - China

Xian (pronounced "shy-an") is a walled city, and the capital of the Shaanxi Province. We were there for 2 nights solely to see the Terracotta Warriors. We had a hotel only a 3 minute walk from the station, and a hotel travel agent that called himself "Jim Beam". He actually had business cards with it on it.

As usual we spent our time firstly trying to book tickets to our next destination. Jim Beam was going to charge us 50RMB commission per ticket, so we spent much time walking around without much luck, trying to get a better deal. Once again the Lonely Planet guide book didn't give an accurate map, and what I thought would be a lovely small city to walk around, it was not the case. In the end we went to a large hotel and used their booking service. Of course we ended up paying the same commission (and had the hassle of getting all the way back there to collect our train tickets), but we had decided that along as long as Jim Beam didn't get our business (or of course find out that we had paid the same).

There are actually many things to do in Xian, that we didn't see such as the Muslim quarter, Mosque, temples, bell and drum tower, days trips to Huaquing springs, and Banpo village. What we did was take a public bus 5 RMB (30p) to the Terracotta Warriors 90 RMB to get in. The hotel tried getting us to pay 50 RMB each for a car or 200 RMB each for a tour. Do they think we're mad! The Terracotta Warriors are an absolute must see!!!!!!! There are 3 pits (different buildings), with only one that houses the largest collection of 8000 soldiers, archers, cavalryman and chariots. The figures are 1.8m tall and and built of 7.6cm thick terracotta clay. The faces of each warrior is distinct, and they used to hold weapons. There is a great 360 degree movie that you can watch, which is a reenactment of the Emperor Qin Shi huange, from 259 to 210BC and having the Mausoleum constructed. The construction commenced when he was 13 years old and continued for 36 yrs. It is a 56.25 kms square underground palace with stables, and an inner and outer city. Over 700,000 conscript and slave labourers built the tomb to hold the numerous treasures within, rivers of mercury, constellations of pearls and gems embedded in the ceiling, plus an assortment of soldiers, concubines and servants; plus the artisans who worked on the mausoleum so that they couldn't reveal its secrets. The unopened vault, is 1.5 kms from the terracotta warrios and 30 kms from Xian, and still guards its secrets. This very same guy was the one who enlarged, repaired and extended walls built by individual states to form the Great Wall. The Great Wall was constructed by 500,000 laborers, most of whom were prisoners of war and it is believed that 70% died from exhaustion or starvation. And he also ordered the burning of many of China's earliest classics and burned alive 460 Confucian scholars who critised his politics. It's really interesting that we have also been able to go to these places and then learn about the connection. In 1974 peasants were digging a well when they uncovered the Terracotta Warriors, and have been finding things over the last 30 years. Archaeologists predict it will take another 200 years to unearth.

Relaxing park in the city

Shanghi skyline

Shanghi

Shanghai - China

Shanghai means - go to sea in Chinese. It is divided in 2 by the Huangpu Piver. The populations is 16 million; of which there was a growth rate of 2000% from 50,000 to a million by 1900. Popular place. Just for some extra info. in 1949 brothels and opium dens were shut down, child labour was banned and slums were apparently eliminated. We stayed in the oldest hotel for four nights (near the Garden Bridge) which was built in the 1860's, and is now the no. 1 back packers hotel. Apparently Charlie Chaplin and Einstein stayed there. Jacque, Jason, Ian and myself shared a room (cause of the price), so we got to know our NZ traveling companions even better. Interesting sights: The Bund - which is a strip along the river. At night the lights are good to look at. There is a bizaare Bund Sightseeing Tunnel which goes under the water. I thought we'd have to walk it like in Greenwich, London, but you get in a closed in cable car. It is quite psychedelic with flashing lights. Memorial Underground to the People's Heroes - Bund History Museum, has a collection of photos. I read the minutes of a meeting from 1863, which was the formation of the Municipal Council. It recorded giving Britain, France and America a free hand in administrating and governing Shanghai, and talked about the Chinese not being allowed into some of the parks. The more we travel and learn about different countries history, the more you learn about England for example taking over places and enforcing there own rules. Bloodly English. They also had a hand in bringing opium into China! Or France (in Vietnam) - Bloody French. Or the Americans. Well what can I say! Jin Mao Tower - 420.5m, 4th highest in the world was initially marsh land. It has a great 360 view from the top. There is another tower called the Oriental Pearl TV Tower, which we didn't go into. They are both apparently 2 of Asia's highest towers. It is on the other side of the river, of which are lit up at night. Shanghai Museum - pretty interesting, but we were rushing around abit before closing time. Nanjing Rd - claims to be the most famous pedestrian strip. Yu Garden and Old Town - A walled city built in 1553, and was used to fend off Japanese pirates. It has a nine bends bridge (9 which is an important thing in Chinese culture), it has a Tea House which the Queen visited. Beautiful willows and fish in the pond. A tip for the train station is to get air con!!!! There are millions of people cramped into the waiting hall for their train, and it is as hot as all hell - dripping we were, just lovely. Some other observations are that the Chinese, apart from loving their green tea, carry it around in plastic clear bottles, and when ever they come across hot water, get it filled up. And also in a dense city there are exercise / circuit areas of which you see older people going through their paces. It has to be said that the older generation are as fit as, whether its working in the fields all day, or riding tourists around on bikes. Here we extended our one month visa for an extra 30 days.

A chilly top with Jason and Jacque

The 3 hour walk (see the city from where we began at the top)

The top, after a painfully tiring climb

Jacque, Jason and our Chinese friend at the top of Mount Shai-an

City of Tai-an, Mount Shai-an. We walked this!!

Confusus Temple

Tai'an - China

Our first experience of traveling by hard seat on a train for our 7 hour trip from Beijing to Tai'an, packed with some food and the only Westeners. The seats were surprising padded and the train air conditioned, so it was a pleasant trip. Our Chinese woman companion offered us boiled eggs however wouldn't take anything from us. Ian and Jason entertained the son for a while with an annoying musical spinning thing that they bought from the attendant, who sold everything from food, books, games and socks (giving everyone a demonstration that they will not rip, burn or anything else - it was like one of those annoying television ads that go on forever). Jacque had pre-booked our accommodation in a fancy hotel, at 260 RMB - 16 pounds a night for a room. So we were quite pleased. We had a view of THE MOUNTAIN, which is why we came here. To walk up Mount Tai Shan. The Mountain of the Gods where many make pilgrimage to China's most sacred mountain, where heaven and earth is linked. This is the highest point in eastern China, 1545m above sea level. There was 6660 stone steps. There were temples and calligraphy in the stone. It took two and a half hours to walk from the hotel to the top. It was tough as it was mostly steps, and a third of it was really steep steps so you would only walk for about eight and then have to stop. It brought back bad trekking memories of Peru and me crying on my second day. Bless Ian, as he hung back to encourage me. He was probably getting my not impressed and can't talk look. Isn't it strange that when you finally get to the top and rest alittle that you forget the tortore that your body had just been through! We took the cable car down part of the way, and then walked the last hour. Whole body aching by this time, it still took much concentration to walk down the steps. We took a rest day the following day. Much needed! We stumbled across a fantastic resturant that we went to every night! This was the best place for dumplings, and we had loads. The thing was that we had difficulty ordering, even though the menu was in English because we didn't know how to order the quantity. Therefore one night we ended up with three huge plates of dumplings with different fillings, and decided to just have this and beers. Lov'n the food! We also went to a Jazz Club where the people were really friendly, once again wanted to talk with us and practice their English. There was one student that could write better English than he spoke, so he had Jacque at the bar communicating with a pen and paper. We took a local bus to a town an hour away called Qufu. It is the legendary birthplace of Confucius, China's most infuential philospher, whose impact continues to influence education, politics and thought. Born in 551 BC it was only after his death in 479 BC that his ideas gained prominence. "Confucious says..." We had a look around his Temple and Mansion. The Mansion was very commericilised, with lots of stalls trying to sell things. We arranged for an overnight hard train sleeper for the next part of our journey. And this is what we continued to do for most of our trips. The hard sleeper consists of 6 bunks with no door, so we shared with Chinese people. We stopped buying so much food to take onto the train, knowing that we can buy it cheap on there. We would arrive in the next city the following morning, usually having already pre-arranged the accommodation and having an idea of what we wanted to see. Next.....Shanghai

The Forbidden City in Beijing

Beijing - Sparia our guide

Beijing Hutongs infront of the city

Tiolet Tiger enjoying the view

The Great Wall of China

Or a Starfish maybe?

The Night Market - anyone for fried bugs?

Our first Chinese meal in Beijing - cheap, cheap

Beijing - China

Met by our city leader, this time a female by the name of Sparea. Not her Chinese name, but one given to her by a friend. Most Chinese do appear to have western names, and even on official documents it will ask you firstly for your name, and then Chinese name. Our stay here was for six days (two of which were the end of our tour - being over 9000 kms from St. Petersburg to Beijing) and allowed us to see many sights and also plan for where our travels would take us next. To begin with some useless facts, the population of Beijing is 9.4 million. Genghis Khan (remember him from Mongolia) marched into China in 1215, sacked the city (as you do) and proceeded to rebuild Beijing as his capital. But his Mongol empire fell in 1368. And that's that. Tiananmen Square was our first stop, the place where in 1989 over 2000 students and workers (all civilians) were killed and the famous pictures of the one student that stopped the army tank. It's huge! So they built a huge Mausoleum for Chairman Mao. In 1949 he declared the foundation of the People's Republic of China in Beijing. As in Russia (but the biggest one we have seen) people will line up to view this embarmed body (the line is huge but flows steadily) and pay to put fake flowers down as a sign of respect. I'm sure that the flowers are recycled! The Forbidden City / Palace Museum / Imperial Palace (all the same thing) is at one of the ends of the square. It is over 70 hectares and has 1000 buildings. It was erected by the Ming Emperor in the early 15th century and thereafter was the home of 24 more emperors. Our guide whisked us through here in a couple of hours, but you could have spent a lot more time here. We basically went straight through the middle, and to me it all looked very similar. Outside the opposite end that we entered we went to Jingsham Park. We climbed some steps to have a birdseye view of the city. Unfortunately it was quite misty and not good for photos. It was also very hot and muggy, making it slightly uncomfortable when you were just walking around, without exerting much energy. The highlight here though was partaking in a traditional tea ceremony. In tiny heated ceramic cups we tasted a number of teas. There was a really nice mixed one of some flowers and black leaves, and although Ian and I bought some tea to mix from a market, what we thought was the right one, wasn't. Bummer. The most interesting tea, not necessarily for taste, but to look at was a small ball (like a marble) that once in hot water uncurled into an amazing looking flower. This tea was supposed to help with losing weight if you drank about three cups a day. Not far from our hotel was the Houhai Lake. In the evenings the restaurants lining the shore were lit up with lights and was a pretty sight. Although we had some beers here, we usually kept to the cheaper areas around the hotel. For example, at the lake a small beer cost 25 RMB (close to 2 pounds), whereas, we were used to only paying 3 RMB for a very large beer. the exchange rate is 1 pound to 15 RMB. We were having some amazing feasts of Chinese food and a couple of beers for a pound!!!!! Also in this area was the Drum Tower, where we listened to the drums beaten at a fixed time to mark the time of day. It also had a birds eye view of the surrounding area. The local "hutongs" - living communities enclosed within a warren-like maze of narrow lanes, with the large city buildings on the horizon. We had the chance on our Rickshaw tour (Ian really wanted to hire bikes but we couldn't find them, so we resorted to someone else peddling), to go inside a hutong and see how the Chinese lived. It was a courtyard enclosed by buildings on each side, each of differing heights, dependent upon whom within the family occupied this area and whether they were male or female siblings. It was really lovely, but I doubt it it was typical, because when you look down some narrow doorways leading to other houses, they do not look neat, clean and tidy. The Acrobatics Theatre was really entertaining! 10 girls on a bike was pretty impressive, and I found myself ohhing and ahhing with the crowd. Recommended. The Temple of Heaven was yet another huge sight on 273 hectares. Should have taken a packed lunch. It was where the Emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties would worship heaven and pray for bumper crops. UNESCO in 1998 recognised it as "one of the human heritages of the world". By this time I had enough of large sightseeing things. So when we went to the Lama Temple it was a pleasant change, as it was small and compact. Here was an 18m statue of a Buddha carved from one piece of sandalwood, which is in the Guiness Book of Records. It was a tranquil spot. The Chinese like to burn incense outside each temple, and here they had huge handfulls of incense. It must take them a long time to get around the whole complex. Our 3 hour crazy bus ride to the Great Wall, 108kms from Beijing, and the Jinshanling part (there are other parts that you can go to), consisted of a 15 kms, 4 hour trek between this point and Simatai. It was knackering!!!!!!!!!!!!! But amazing!!!!!!!!!!!! There were parts that were really steep, no I mean really steep. Parts that you had to be careful where you stepped, and others that was an easier walk. At the end we opted for the flying fox over the river instead of walking down to the bus. Other areas of the wall, not so far from the city, gives you the options of cable cars and a toboggan. There were several sights suggested that we didn't go to in Beijing, which included the Summer Palace and the Mong Tombs. If you want the feeling of getting out of the city, although you are still in the heart of it, we spent some time at Liuyin Park. It was tranquil, with waterways, lotus, and weeping willows. It was actually recommended in a travel book we purchased on China. Get this - for some reason we hadn't already got a Lonely Planet guide book for China, or really hadn't thought about what we wanted to do when we got here. Upon trying to find an English book shop and get one, they didn't sell them. All we could find was an Intercontinental Best of China Book - so for those who don't recognise this, "Intercontinental" means a top hotel chain. Consequently it only has four and five star hotels, talks about airports and taxis, and not the practical side of getting between cities. It is though a lovely book of big coloured pictures and has much information about the cities and sights. The Night Market is a must. Full of interesting food on skewers, goats testicles, silk worms, maybe dog (I don't know). Ian ate a star fish which as you would think was crunchy and tasteless. There was other nice food that we had. We had met some great people along the way whose tour itineries were similar, and so we would bump into them often. Because this was the end of the tours we had arranged to meet up a couple of times for dinner and goodbyes. We had amazing food and lots of laughs. Each time finding it hard to believe that we had hardly paid anything for a night out. Our tour buddy Kym had left back for Perth. The Birmingham crew consisted of Lisa, Beccy and John. They had been doing last minute market buying and were leaving in a couple of days back to England. And we were about to start a new chapter traveling through China with our new New Zealand pals, Jason and Jacque.

Intro to China

Imagine this! You have just arrived in a new country, of over a billion people (nearly 1.3), most of them which seem to be outside the railway station exit as you struggle through the crowds, or at the sights. There are Chinese tourists everywhere! Apparently orderly lining up is not apart of the culture and pushing in is. Rubbish is not a problem - to throw onto the ground that is, and spitting (with the associated bringing it up from the back of the throat as noisily as you can) is a must. There are loads of bikes in wide bike lanes, loads of cars and motorbikes. Some of the motorbikes are actually electric, which means that you can't hear them and they can sneak up on you. All of which tend to use the sidewalks every now and again. You have to be careful crossing the road, even on a green man, as the turning traffic appear to have the right of way, even though you have a green light. The cars like the horn and the louder the better, just to let everyone else know that they are there, even when there is a bike 100 meters away. There is a lot of weaving in and out of traffic and surprisingly no one seems to get hurt. Bigger vehicles have more power on the roads, however, bikes and pedestrians don't seem too worried about edging out onto the road, as the cars will actually swerve around them. The rubbish trucks play very loud music for some bizarre reason. You will feel most of the time that you are actually the only Westeners in China, which isn't such a bad feeling. At the sights you will come across your own kind, but only a hand full. It is important that you carry a Chinese (Mandarin) phrase book as most people don't speak English, and if your taking a taxi you'll need to point to the Chinese name in a book or have your destination written for you in Chinese. This may pose some difficulties booking train tickets at the station, as it's one thing to ask for something by pointing at a book and sign language, but it is another if you are asked something back and you have no idea what they are saying. More often than not you may have to just bite the bullet and pay commission for your hotel / hostel / or travel agent to arrange this for you. You may feel that you are being constantly looked at, and you will get surprised looks when you say hi in Mandarin (Ni how). Chinese people want to take your photo and practice their English skills. They will refer to their English as Ching-lish, and don't believe they are very good at it, often apologizing. The times you may struggle someone tends to come out of the crowd to help you. The Chinese are friendly, forever smiling and helpful, even though they may have tended to think us strange. Babies have their bottoms exposed through a split in their trousers, to enable easy side walk access to going to the toilet. The food is beautiful and everything from dumplings to sweet and sour pork may be part of your daily food intake. A lot of restaurants do have an English menu, if not a small portion of it translated, or you may have to point to other people's meals, or all the fresh ingredients lining the side walk. Things seem to work out. A calculator (or more affectionately referred to as haggle-later) is a must, if not only to try and understand what a price is, but to haggle down a price. And then there is a compass (compy) who will also be a dear friend in times of trying to follow the guide book when you exit a railway station and it says to go south. China's culture is one of the oldest of the world, with fossils of an ancient humanoid dating back 1.7 million years. The 22nd to the 17th CenturyBC is the first dynasty recorded, and the Chinese modern history begins with the 1840 Opium War, which was fought between China and Britain. Under treaties, Western nations were able to strip China of its resources and take advantage of its people. It was during this era that China lost control of Macau and Hong Kong. There was an anti-foreign movement, a revoluntionary overthrow, a Republic formed, an overtaking by a northern warlord, a social revolution in line with a political one, the Communist party and then the Nationalists forming. After the war with Japan in 1937, the Communists defeated the Nationalist who retreated from the mainland to Taiwan. The main five religions include Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Catholicism and Protestantism. The tip is that a 30 day visa in China is so not enough - so we extended ours for 2 months. So begins our travels from the north, to the east, to the west, to the south to the east.

Instead of changing the whole train carriage boggies due to different size tracks in Mongolia and China, it would have been easier for everyone to get off and board another train!