Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Lord of the Flies

Day 26 - We land at Sydney late morning and are picked up by our hostel's free airport pickup service. There are flies everywhere - not the ones that hover on food and rubbish (there aren't any rubbish anyway - the place is spotless) , rather these ones seem to settle on humans - I suspect we are no different to them than cattle.

After checking in our hostel, we have lunch at a cafe nearby. I accidentally order a burger (I'm so jetlagged I forget burgers are usually made of beef - go figure..). Anyway, I think wasting the poor cow's life by not eating it just because of buddhist beliefs would be the bigger crime...I have to be honest though, after so many years of not touching beef, that was the best burger I've ever tasted.

Sydney...



I loooooooove Sydney. I wouldn't call it cosmopolitan (London is cosmopolitan as it has every race under the sun in it), rather just full of whites and chinese. Food is spectacular (their seafood is still the best in all of asia) and both western and southeast asian food is both affordable and best of all, authentic.


Harbourfront...


We meet JD's old friend whom he's not seen for at least 10 years, who takes us around. We do the usual stuff - Harbourfront, Opera House, National Park, dim sum at Chinatown, beaches and aquarium (Nemo is big here). We didn't have time to see kangaroos, although I did eat one (texture like beef, has an end taste of liver)... Skippy tastes good ;P

Sydney Aquarium...


Nemo and Bubbles!...

Jellyfish...

Sydney Harbourfront...

Sydney Harbour Bridge...

The Opera House...



Inside the Opera House...

View from lookout in Royal National Park...

No point looking at pics of JD and mate - they're old. So girls, here are some cute bikers instead!

Fish and chips by the sea - yum!, east coast...

Tube...


I actually try (but fail) to see the Coriolis effect in the bathroom sink but I suspect the angle of the sink prolly counteracted any visible effects. Anyway, with their current drought crisis, I think emptying the sink more than 10 times just to see the water drain would be a little naughty...

From hereon guys, it's family and friends all the way to Singapore which would just bore you anyway, so we think it's time to sign off for now. Here are a couple more pics. Anyone for South America next??

View from ferry to Manly...

Manly beach...

Olympic Walk - those are Olympic medallists displayed from one end of the beach to the other. Somehow I cannot imagine England having one... snrghh snrghh!

Beach at Sentosa, S'pore...


Vivo City (overlooking Sentosa island)...

Orchard road by night, with my Dodgy and Gabbana bag from Beijing...



Katie Melua is a Liar

Day 23 - We reach Templeside at about 7.30 in the morning. They very kindly open the door (in their PJ's) and let us to our room.

After a few hours' sleep, we set off looking for the infamous Silk Market. Traffic is horrendous and they are laying a new road in the area near our hostel. If you, like me, still have this romantic image of Beijing full of bicycles, times have changed - there are definitely more cars and buses on the road than bicycles.

At the Silk Market, JD finally gets his Tag Heuer (latest model as sported by Brad Pitt ... ahem!) although I think I overpaid for that. Next I haggle for a pair of silk pajamas for 135 yuan (not a bad price, as I later find out in Singapore) and a fake Dolce & Gabbana handbag for 80 yuan (= a fiver!.. I think I'd warmed up by then!).

Then it's off to Quan Jude, Beijing's oldest and most famous Peking duck restaurant! We take the tube this time and there are signs in the underground telling us which exit leads to the restaurant. Set over 7 floors, they send you to a specific floor depending on the number of people in your party. We get sent to the top floor. A lady armed with a walkie talkie, gives us a computer printout with a number and we wait several minutes in the 'lobby' area with a few other groups of two's or three's.
Can you see her walkie talkie?

Seven floors of duck... certainly pays for the shop sign in the tube station
You get to your floor via a posh gold and black lift btw...

When summoned, we are led into the restaurant area and seated. I hang my jacket on the back of my chair and strangely the waitress whips out a seat cover which she pulls over both jacket and back of the chair like a sock. This time, JD orders a whole duck. It was good but not spectacular. A pot of tea costs 80 yuan (that's £5!) .. illegal really considering they sometimes don't even charge you for tea in Chinatown, UK. Oh, and you also get a postcard which tells you the number of your duck - apparently the one we ate was duck #172352 since 1864. As far as I can tell, there are no locals in this place, save for the odd chinese accompanying groups of gwailos. I'm sure the locals get their peking duck fix elsewhere but as we didn't hunt around, I can't recommend any to you.
All eyes on the duck

Days 24, 25 - We spend our days exploring and shopping for presents in Xidan (where the locals shop). I have developed a taste for pig organ soup noodles (liver, pig's blood and bits I cannot identify... sounds gross I know but it tastes really good).

We board our night flight to Sydney, Australia.

Monday, November 27, 2006

Terracotta warriors

Day 21 - Early start today. We set off at 8 on a tour purchased through our hostel which includes a visit to the Terracotta warriors.

First stop - the Relics Museum of Zhou and Qin dynasties (which houses a model of the tomb and the Terracotta warriors) , followed by a visit to the palace at the Huaqing hot springs at the foot of Mount Lishan. Prolly not particularly interesting to those less familiar with chinese history, but this is the palace where Yang Guifei, the famous concubine of the Tang dynasty emperor Xuanzong bathed (there is a white marble statue of her in the gardens and you get to see her humongous bathing pool). There is a man made lake and several pools amidst the palace buildings and gardens. The natural spring water is lovely and warm (our tour guide tells us it's about 42 degrees, we had to pay 5 mao pp to splash our hands in it). This is also the place where Chiang Kai Shek (the dude who founded Taiwan) got captured by the communists. I think the local tourists were more interested in this than we were.
Palace grounds

Chiang Kai Shek's quarters (that's his marriage pic there)


Statue of Yang Guifei (Hmm I wonder what he saw in her?)

After that, we visit Qin Shihuangdi's mausoleum (..the first emperor of China, built the Great Wall. The BBC did a programme about him a while ago - the one where they think his tomb contains a model of China with rivers and seas of mercury). Anyway, there isn't much to see though... all you see is a huge mound in the distance. Fortunately we took a golf cart ride around the tomb ... the perimeter was about 3 km. The visit culminates in a performance of dances (as there really isn't anything else to see or do here) with really bad english commentary (we didn't have a clue as to what they were saying).
Yup.. that hill is it
Another view of the tomb


Performance


Next we get driven to a really expensive restaurant in the middle of nowhere. Fortunately, we had heard about this from other hostellites the day before and brought packed lunches. However we thought we'd have a look at the restaurant anyway. An average dish (typically written in a separate English menu) costs about 60 yuan (highway robbery as a dish in an average restaurant costs about 5-15 yuan in Beijing). I politely ask our tour guide and the waitress if there are smaller dishes as there's only two of us and they just keep on pointing at the bloody expensive pomegranate chicken dish. Irritated, I tell our tour guide point blank that this is a rip off (which from her red face she acknowledges) and much to their chagrin (I think it's a chinese 'face' thing) we walk out to have our lunch in the van (well, 60 yuan may not be that much to us but out of principle, I refuse to be ripped off by another chink). Our driver nodded in agreement when I told him the prices were too steep and he (bless him) even showed us where we could get noodles from a roadside stall. Our packed lunch was fantastic though (we had gone out the night before and typically, had no idea what we were ordering and ended up with more food than the family of five next to us). The chinese family that toured with us return to the van after their lunch. The wife is pretty angry and I can just make out the words 'chicken' and 'price' in mandarin.

Last night's dinner (btw there are about 100 chillies there!)

Then it's off to what I can only truthfully describe as a shop dubiously called the National Geological Museum. We gather at the entrance for a few seconds whilst they assemble us into groups. A member of staff takes our group through some displays of gemstones and minerals (amethysts, jade etc). He whizzes ahead, barks sharply at our fellow tour buddies for dwawdling and after a 'guided tour' of about 3 minutes long suddenly loses interest in talking to us just as we come up to the entrance of the shop. Btw, according to most tourists we meet, if you are taking tours beware as these are usually 1% tour and 99% shop/factory activities. We've been doing our own exploring so haven't been exposed to too much of this. So after a few sad rocks in a couple of display cases, we are now faced with rows and rows of glistening jade bangles and jewellery. I buy a pink jade pendant and JD buys a terracotta horse for 25 yuan.

We finally visit the Terracotta warriors! Btw, you can easily do the Terracotta warriors yourself. Just take bus 306 (green bus, make sure it's the public bus though... there are several smaller tour buses which deceptively attach the number 306 on their vehicle) which takes you to the entrance itself. If you are, like us, not really into chinese history, the other places visited can be missed.

There are 3 pits - Pit 1 and 3 are the best. Pit 2 is still being unearthed so you only see mounds of soil. Pit 1 is really vast (see pic). The buildings housing these pits resemble concert halls. There is also a museum on the grounds which has several really well preserved terracotta warriors (the archer and horse are JD's favs) and (surprise surprise) a shop. Don't bother buying stuff from here - a souvenior horse similar to JD's costs about 600 yuan (apparently because it's made from the clay from the digs.. *cough)... I'm thinking who'd buy that?? ..no one can be that stupid can they??
Pit 1
Pit 3




We return to our hostel late afternoon. It's pomegraneate season - there are rows and rows of stalls temporarily set up in front of the orchards, stacked with the fruit. There are also boxes and boxes of persimmon, also in season. I buy 6 for 1 yuan to try.

Day 22 - We take an overnight train back to Beijing. As the sleepers were all booked up, we had seats instead. Fyi - you can only book tickets from the location you depart from and there is no such thing as a return ticket. Consequently we were not able to purchase our return tickets from Beijing. Seats are cheap though (300 yuan in total for 2 of us as opposed to the 800-900 yuan for sleepers) but really hard work especially if like me, you get cranky without sleep.

The train is serviced like an airline. There is a steward who organises and arranges everyone's luggage in the overhead shelves in a perfect line. On both sides of the train, seats are arranged 3 in a row, with every 2 rows facing each other. We sit with another chinese gentleman and 3 female students, and play a variation of chinese poker with them all night. Everyone eats pot noodles on the train (I bought one from the trolley guy -- they're much nicer and more substantial than the pot noodles we get here). Towards the end when everyone is trying not to succumb to sleep, JD lets the chinese guy try his Sodoku, causing the poor man 2 hours of continual sighing and tapping his fingers on his forehead (he did solve it mind you..).

Friday, November 17, 2006

Around Xian

Day 19 - The train pulls in at Xian station at about 9 in the morning. The nice young man gets directions to our hostel for us and even carries my rucksack (er.., so much for roughing it out... I haven't once carried my rucksack yet so far. JD's been carrying ours..). Btw, if you're anything like us and thinking of doing a similar round trip, I recommend getting those rucksacks that come with wheels. These look like normal luggage bags (so you won't stick out like a bloody tourist). Plus if like us, you're not really backpacking all the way, this works out better as you blend in (very handy as touts abound at stations) and you always have the option to carry your luggage as a rucksack should you need to. Btw the train we took actually continues all the way to Lhasa (2 or 3 days from Beijing to Lhasa I think), so you could actually do Beijing, Xian then make your way to Nepal and then India and Southeast Asia. Alternatively a flight from Xian to Nepal costs about 50 quid.

We check into our hostel (called Seven Sages) and sleep till noon. The hostel is another traditional looking quarters, once used as army barracks (the front portion of the building has been converted into a museum of some sort and there are pictures and information posted outside that seem to suggest this place had some significance in fighting the Japanese invasion. We booked our accomodation via hostelworld.com. I would NOT recommend this - our room was dank and there is rising damp on the walls. The bathroom is raised and with electric plugs right next to the shower head, we faced possible electrocution every time we showered. There is the smell of stagnant water everywhere and the cobbles in the courtyard are slippery with green mould. The staff keep on sprinkling some pungent garlic smelling liquid around the compound. As all the air fresheners in the room look about 10 years old (completely empty and dusty), I throw them all out. We buy an air freshener spray on day 2.
Our hostel
Electrocution chamber

We walk to the town centre, pay a visit to the Bell Tower, take some pictures and eat at a food court nearby.

Day 20 - We visit the Muslim quarter of Xian and walk around its pretty extensive maze of streets. It's slightly strange to see all these people who otherwise look and sound just like the other chinese, but wearing white 'songkok'-like muslim hats. There is food everywhere, in stalls and in eating shops alongside the road. Butchers sit alongside vegetable sellers. Lots of shops selling tea and souveniours.
Muslim quarter
JD is looking for a fake Tag Heuer watch and a seller we approach takes us to the back of his shop and lo and behold, there are drawer fulls of TH's, Rolexes, Omegas, the lot. Btw, their 'starting price' is about 700 yuan, which is (ridiculously ) at least 7 times the amount they'd go down to (I think...). We didn't buy anything from him though...

Btw you need to be careful as there are pickpockets and snatch theives around. A girl at our hostel said a kid tried to snatch her purse at the market. Also, check when getting your change back - the chinese note for 5 yuan is similar to the smaller 5 mao note. 5 yuan and 5 mao is analagous to 5 dollars and 50 cents respectively. The same lady at the hostel got burned. Fortunately, we didn't encounter anything of this sort (perhaps we blended in and conversed in mandarin when buying stuff, or we were just lucky...)

From the market, we walk to the town centre and look at the Drum Tower from across the road (we didn't bother paying admission and going in, assumming all chinese Bell Towers look the same anyway). We pass a local hotel and see a lot of office workers buying pack lunches from the entrance. In a moment of inspired 'backpacker-frugality', we purchase a pack lunch for 5 yuan to share. They must have thought we were really poor (an average lunch or equivalent rice dish costs 5 yuan which is about 30 pence, even locals splash out on more per meal) . The seller very kindly tells us we can even eat upstairs. We walk up to find a section of the hotel restaurant where people can eat their purchased lunches in air conditioned comfort. Lunch was really good.

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Xian

Day 18 (PM) - Our driver very kindly drops us off at Beijing West station, wishes us a safe journey and even shows us where we can buy dinner. All the locals here buy pot noodles to take along (we didn't realise till later that the train has hot water dispensers in every carriage which the locals use for making tea and noodles).

The station is big (although not as big as Beijing Central) and houses several food courts and 2 mini-market/dept stores which sell everyday stuff ranging from soaps to dried roast duck. There is a large waiting room for every platform, housing rows of seats for about a hundred people, each self-contained with its toilets, stalls selling food and cigarrettes, hot water and big screen tv. The train numbers are clearly displayed in the large LED screens at the top of the entrances to these waiting rooms. The air is smoky and as usual there is the constant sound of spitting (I shall devote an entire blog section to spitting one of these days...).

After finding our waiting room, we decide to have dinner in the food court (fyi there are 2 food courts - there is a cleaner one further away from the train platforms which offers freshly made noodles. We only spotted this later). I have major problems trying to buy our dinner (WHY is it I can communicate to mongolians, explain a rather complicated itinery, schedule a meeting at a specific date and address and get the officer's name, post, mobile number and days when he will be in the station, and yet cannot order duck rice in chinese?? *&^%$**!!!). Fortunately, the girl working behind the counter takes pity on me and very kindly walks to the front of the counter whilst I point at the images overhead. She somehow tells her colleagues and miraculously I get my rice and noodles. They are all giggling behind the counter as I drag her from one end to the other in order to get my particular orders (JD as usual, wants stuff that is not exactly standard order grrrrr...)

Finally at 9pm, we board our overnight train to Xian. Compared to the Trans Mongolian, this is the Orient Express. The train, as we find out, is brand spanking new (only 3 months old we were told). Carpets are clean and their toilets are like the ones you get on an aeroplane. There is a row of modern sinks along the end of each carriage with mirrors (and mirror lights.. ooo!) which allow passengers to wash up without having to enter the loo. Soft music (Elton John's "It's no Sacrifice) pipes softly throughout the corridors.
View of train aisle, just outside cabins

We had booked Hard Sleepers (There are 4 classes - Soft sleeper, Hard sleeper, Soft seat and Hard seat. The chinks typically don't mince their words - each class is exactly as described, i.e. you get a soft berth in Soft sleeper and a harder one in Hard Sleeper. Hard sleeper is what most people go for and is perfectly adequate. An inch-thick mattress, pillow, duvet and clean sheets are provided). Each compartment has 6 berths, 3 on each wall. There is no door to the compartment but unlike the mongolians, the chinese have more class - they don't peer into your cabin. Utter bliss.

We share our cabin with a nice young chinese man (a student at Beijing uni), his two aunts and another man (a relative). He helps us store our rucksacks on the top compartment. There are staff pushing trolleys with hot food, noodles, fruit (even!) and magazines. JD buys a pomelo which we ask the guy's aunt to choose for us and which we all share.

A glossy local travel brochure (in chinese though) is provided in each cabin (did I mention the train feels like an aeroplane?). The nice young man shows me the pictures in the magazine and explains to me that this is a very beautiful part of China. Other pictures of medicinal plants that only grow above a certain altitude and pictures of locals in the area follow. I do a double take .. the faces look Tibetan.. and ask him if this was Tibet? He didn't seem to recognise the name and then showed me a picture of Potola Palace, explaining to me that this was a remote part of China. And then it clicked -- of course! Tibet only exists to the rest of the world. As far as China is concerned, this is China. So the Mongolians think China is still theirs and the Chinese think Tibet belongs to them. Isn't that ironic?

Monday, November 13, 2006

The Great Wall

Sorry to all the lovely people who have been worried about us going AWOL. Internet here in Singapore (McDonalds provides free wifi internet access) is terribly slow (lots of students downloading homework no doubt.. And did you hear about the poor S'porean arrested for stealing someone's internet connection - this news has actually made it to slashdot btw - sad bastards, poor guy..).

Day 18 - We wake at the crack of dawn to pack our rucksacks and get ready for our trip to the Great Wall. We had booked our ride to Simatai from our hostel (very good value btw) and Bobby the manager had very kindly arranged for our driver to drop us off at Beijing West station on our way back in order for us to catch our overnight train to Xian.

So at 6.30am sharp, we set off in a car along with 2 aussie guys (also from our hostel) and head about 375km out of Beijing. We pass several towns, Miyun being the largest. The roads are smooth and although traffic is busy, there are no traffic jams. The driver is reassuringly careful and beeps the horn every time we are about to pass a cyclist or cart (this seems to be the norm around here). We stop halfway at Miyun to stock up on food and water for our walk.JD and I use the toilets at the supermarket. I'm glad I can still recognise the words for 'woman' and 'man' and so tell JD which toilet to go for. Each toilet is a long tiled room with a row of squat toilets and no cubicles. I think I'm getting used to this now (having used quite a few) and fortunately for me there's no one else in the room. JD was not so lucky - his had a guy who was right in the middle, doing a number one and spitting at the same time ..ugggh.

After about 4 hours' drive, we reach Jinshanling where the guys begin their 12km trek on the Wall towards Simatai. The driver indicates that we are entering the Jinshanling entrance, however the road to the actual entrance itself is a long one (took about 15 minutes). The scenery is beautiful though as the road winds around the hills and every now and again you can see the Wall and its watch towers outlining the hilltops like an elongated cocks' comb. We also pass some streams along the way and the roadside greenery is interspersed with bright crimson shots of autumn shrubbery. Finally we reach the entrance. The tourist car park at Jinshanling is virtually empty as not many people come this far and not many attempt this particular stretch of the Wall (apparently this section is longer but not as undulating as Simatai). I remind the guys to make it to Simatai by 4pm (or we'll miss our train) and to make sure they're walking in the right direction (it's 12km to Simatai and about a few thousand km the opposite way...). Our driver then tells them to be at the Simatai carpark by 3pm ...ooopps :P
Jinshanling entrance
Close up of signboard on left of above pic

After seeing them to the entrance, our driver then drives us to the Simatai entrance located about half an hour's drive away. There are a few more tourist buses here but nowhere as busy or as commercialised as Badaling or the other entrances near Beijing. The driver tells us he will be waiting for us here at 3pm. We have 4 hours.

After buying our entrance tickets (40 yuan pp), we walk through the compound of the entrance building, along a curved paved road, past some restaurants, a small man made lake and finally along a cobbled road which merges with that of the Wall's (i think i have a pic of this). Ahead of us is what I can only describe as a sheer wall of mountain towering in front of us with our path, the Wall leading up and up along its ridges its curves like upturned 'U's in a comic drawing. JD points to a tower about a good 5 storeys higher ahead of us and we give ourselves an hour to reach that point (we reached it in 10 mins, the winding terrain just made it look far).
Simatai entrance
Leading to the Wall..

The Wall is as the aussies put it, AWESOME. There are 2 routes - one which includes a rope bridge spanning a gorge which leads to Jinshanling ( we only found that out when we asked a tourist... er was it me that mentioned walking the right direction earlier? ... oo er!) and the other which leads all the way to the 12th tower and the most amazing sights you'll ever see.
Halfway there...



There is no notion of health and safety here (no one ever succeeds suing the Chinese government anyway) so some walking paths are all completely without barriers, some with a sheer drop down the cliff. The steps range from small shallow ones to steps as high as knee level (I practically crawled my way through these) and come in all widths, some wide and some so narrow you have to walk sideways.
Pant!!



That's ~10 kilos in that bag

Amazingly there are quite a few old people walking here as well with walking sticks. You must have good knees to do the Wall and stamina. JD deserves special mention here as he hiked all the way with at least 10 kilos of supplies and our jackets on his back (I bought way too much food along - water, oranges, bananas, bread, chocolates ... you get the idea..). Anyway, moving on (swiftly), some sections of the Wall have no steps but are inclined nearly 45 degrees, which makes walking difficult especially when the wind buffets you around (the wall here has no barriers so if you get blown off it's all the way down a few hundred km). The most beautiful part is towards the 12th tower (we only made it to the 10th I think) where you can look down on the other parts of the wall below you and in the distance. I can't wait to upload the pictures so you can see it too.




The rope bridge route is not recommended if you suffer from vertigo (not a joke). I practically hyperventilate all the way across the bridge, not least when we spot another sign, having walked halfway, informing us that a 5 yuan fee is required to use the bridge and JD wasn't sure we had the cash at hand. A man is indeed posted at the other end of the bridge and walks along it to collect his toll fee. There are quite a few people patrolling the Wall, some guides (a few employed by the Wall authorities, others private guides) and some locals who live near the Wall. They communicate with one another by shouting to one another across the distance (you also get some chinese tourists doing the same as well just to hear the echoes). The locals living here are quite helpful as well - we see them tell tourists when they've mistakenly walked away from the trail (there are some sections of the Wall where the tower is blocked and you have to walk around it via a trail. However there is a particular section which looks like one of these trails but actually leads further afield to the hillsides around the Wall. The locals helpfully gesture wayward tourists to go back).


Rope bridge
For arrows..
Inside a tower


I definitely recommend taking the extra effort to come to Simatai. If you have the time and are fit, do the Jinshanling and go all the way to Simatai like the guys did. The Jinshanling walk is less steep (we were told) but gruelling as it's far. The guys reached Simatai but didn't have enough time to do much of Simatai. They did however zipline across the gorge - very cool. We are so coming back to walk other parts of the Wall.