A Month in the Middle Land

OK, first some important preliminary finals, I mean details.

This chapter describes our month of travelling through southern and western China. Unfortunately, it is proving very difficult to get our photos online, so those will have to follow as soon as we get to an internet cafe that can support our software and hardware. Yatter yatter boring boring.

Becky and I postponed our flight from New York to Hong Kong by two days, so we could watch the Sinney Swans win their first grand final since 1933, when of course they were South Melbourne's Blood-Stained Angels. A proud moment for both of us, especially for sometime Bloods supporter Becky -- all brought us courtesy of the Fox Soccer channel, which we would like to recommend to any of you who may be travelling through the United States and/or Canadia.

Enough footy -- for now -- on Sunday 25 September we got on a Cathay Pacific plane for Hong Kong. Being a Chinese airway, Cathay Pacific has really good food and rather cramped leg-room.

In Hong Kong, we stayed mostly at one of the many hotels occupying apartment space in the Mirador Mansions, Nathan Road, Kowloon. Each day we found a different trip to make the time pass a bit quicker, but the truth is that the harbour end of Kowloon is very hard to get bored in. Great food from many different nationalities, good shopping and browsing, a never-ending stream of Indian traders trying to flog off copy watches and tailoring services, and the hairdressers are pretty exciting too. Not quite the same for downtown HK across the water, but there is plenty going on there too (especially the high-rise architecture, which is staggering from any angle you view it).

On our first explore, we took a look at the zoo and botanical gardens, another day we caught a touristy tram up to Victoria Peak, we made a daytrip to Macau (where, casinos aside, Portuguese architecture and cuisine have adapted to the local climate and geography in really distinctive ways, and where the espresso is of a north Mediterranean standard). We caught ferry and bus to Tai-O on Lantau Island, where



we can recommend the Good View restaurant very highly (dirt cheap seafood, and they will cook anything that you bring them from the markets across the town stream). Macau and Hong Kong each have a terrific museum of art and history.

While in Kowloon, we learned that Becky's brother Ben and his Canadian girlfriend Jenn had become engaged to be married. Very exciting news, and we were both feeling sorry not to be there for it.

The last two nights in HK we stayed with my father's great friend and colleague, David Parker (as well as wife Helen and son Tim) on the campus of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. This is in the New Territories, where most HK residents actually live. A very different, probably much more realistic, pace of life than the bustle (and hustle) of Kowloon. During this time I submitted two job applications and Becky had one telephone interview, so it was not just tourism all day every day.

On Tuesday 4 October we caught the Cross-Border Express Coach from Kowloon to Guangzhou, where we stayed for one night. At last we were heading into mainland China, and in my case into a bit of first-hand feel-it-for-real communism. The most noticeable features of China, I reckon, are: (a) the pandemonium on the roads (traffic is much worse than Morocco, or even Split); (b) the extraordinary pace of construction going on in every city, town, and village; (c) the very high ambient levels of noise, litter, and mud; (d) the beautifully cute uses of the English language -- Chinglish -- that constantly crop up in the most delightful places; and (e) the food culture. Probably (e) above all, but lovers of (d) are advised to bring a notebook and keep it nearby at all times. (Eg. our very comfrortable hotel room in Chongqing had a sign in the bathroom advising guests to 'CAREFULLYSLIP!').

It is particularly helpful in mainland China to speak some Mandarin, of course. More so than other countries we have visited, the knowledge of foreign languages is not high outside HK, Shanghai, and I guess Beijing. Fortunately, Becky is something of a sinophile, and has spent several years learning to speak (as well as dine) in Chinese. Although frequently protesting that her language skills were rusty, Becky actually got us through almost every situation we encountered. It became three weeks when Becky did the bulk of negotiations and arrangements. In fact, most of the places we visited after HK were places Becky had previously been to. The one exception was Xi'an. Combined with her language skills, this prior knowledge made Becky as much a tour guide as a companion. I was being introduced to some of Becky's favourite bits of China, shown around, and given the background. I am sure Collette and Simon felt something similar when we hooked up with them for a week on the Yangzi and in Shanghai. Very tiring, I reckon, but I know she was also satisfied to prove herself in that context as well.

More time in Guangzhou might have been nice, but we had a nice walk around Shamian Island, the old French Concession, where lots of Americans stay when they are trying to adopt Chinese bubs. It all seemed pretty relaxed. We spent a pleasant enough night there before catching the next bus, a 10-hour express service to Yangshuo.

Yangshuo is a very very beautiful town, and its international tourist economy means you get a lot more English and see a lot more Whities than elsewhere in mainland China. Like Guilin, which is four times the size and 65km away, Yangshuo is on the Li River, set among spectacularly beautiful limestone peaks. Pickpocketing is a real issue in touristy towns in China, especially walking in big slow crowds. We headed off one attempt in Yangshuo's night markets. Another problem, when we first got there fairly late at night, was the hotel tout who pretended he was working for the hotel we wanted to stay at (Lisa's Cafe and Hotel) so he could lure us to his own much less impressive establishment.

Yangshuo has tons and tons of 'Tintin and the Blue Lotus' memorabilia, for those who are interested. It also boasts a truly brilliant traditional calligrapher and engraver called Huang Guan Hua, working two doors up from our hotel. (He is about double the price of everyone else, especially if you try to haggle with tham all a bit, and that price difference really shows in the quality of his work.) We explored a very mysterious cave complex, of which there are many around about, during a day's bicycle tour of the local countryside arranged by our hotel. On our third night, we went out on a boat along the river to watch the cormorant fishermen ply their trade. This was core business for me in this trip, a key performance indicator, and I am glad to say the beauty of birds at their work and the immense sense of age about it met all the benchmarks for excellence in tourism.


From Yangshuo we caught a bus to the Dragon's Back (Longji) Rice Terraces near Longsheng. These are mountains that the unloved intellectuals of Mao's cultural revolution were required to turn into arable farming land using handtools. Maybe not always the tools bit. The hills are sprinkled with sadly graceful tombstones. But the countryside is full of life. We arrived midway through the harvest, when there were people working everywhere, as well as corn cobs drying on strings hanging from many rooves and rice heaps drying on every flat slab of concrete. Our bus brought us into Dazai, where the Lonely Planet says you can really get away from it all. 'It all' does not include people doing everything in their power to get you to buy things you do not want. There was a lot of pushy marketing while we tried to eat lunch. On the other hand, the pushy marketers were dressed in the most spectacular local fabrics, and their village was in an extraordinary location. But our next stay was much nicer generally...

The bus then dropped us off in a village called Huangluo, whence we spent 2 hours walking up a very steep hill to Ping'an. There is a bus alternative, we later discovered, and it is not a very expensive bus at that. But it was still worth the walk just to get to Ping'an. I hope Becky's photographs give you an idea of how gorgeous the landscape in the area, and the view from our hotel room were. The hotel is worth recommending. It is called the Countryside Cafe and Hotel. If you ever go there and need a room for two, be sure to book room 203 for stunning view of the sunrise across the valley. Accommodation in this village is outrageously cheap, at about $5 per person per night.


From Ping'an, we caught a bus to Guilin, then a 28 hour train trip to Xi'an. Xi'an is north of the rice-line, meaning much of its food is made from wheat flour. Bread is good, and noodles are hearty. At the head of the Silk Road, it is also the seat of China's largest Muslim community. Becky and I walked through the many gorgeous courtyards of the Great Mosque, admiring the Chinese architecture and calligraphy as well as the Arabic devotional motifs, and wandered along the market lanes of the Muslim Quarter -- where, as if for the pure abstract joy of markets and prices, everything for sale is both a fake and a rip-off simultaneously. We also took a day trip out to see the first emperor's army of Terracotta Warriors (the Terror-Cotter Warriors to some). Xi'an is a very laid-back town. We felt less under pressure from shonks and pickpockets than in Guangzhou, Yangshuo, or Guilin.

After three nights in Xi'an, we caught another sleeper train to Chongqing. This is one of China's biggest cities, with about 12 million people, located at the confluence of the Yangzi and the Jialing Rivers. Here we had arranged to meet Simon Kent and Collette O'Neill for a 3-night riverboat cruise through the steadily flooding Three Gorges section of the Yangzi to Yichan. Here we stayed in the cheap, clean, and generally praiseworthy Fuyuan Binguan. We twice ate the local specialty dish, Huoguo (hotpot, also known as the fire pot), which Becky has diligently and enthusiastically photographed from several angles. It involves dipping whatever you have ordered into a boiling pot of oil filled with raging hot chillies and anaesthetically spicy Sichuan pepper, then dipping same into a cool bowl of sesame oil and crushed garlic, then sprinkling seasoned salt on top to taste, then putting same into your mouth and consuming same. Then reaching for your beer, with dignity if at all possible. Apart from the chillies, Chongqing is another fairly relaxed city...


The boat cruise was a nice set-up for a group of four. 2nd class cabins are four bunks to a room, with (this is the really important detail) a private bathroom. Becky, Collette, Simon, and I watched many a sheer limestone mountain pass us by day, and played many a hand of 500 by night. The boat stops for tourist attractions along the way, and you have to pay extra for these (of course) but they give you time to walk and look beyond the banks of the Yangzi as well.

My personal favourite was the first stop at Fengdu, the ghost city, a heavily Disnified theme park devoted to hell. The terrors and torments were a step up in quality on the wonders of a ghost train ride. For those more sociologically inclined, this stop was filled with the irony of a 'ghost town' theme park situated within a genuine ghost town. As the Yangzi floods to its intended limit of +175 metres, the city of Fengdu will be utterly submerged. (Only the theme park will remain.) We were overlooking huge swathes of rubble, where most of the buildings had aready been destroyed. All the buildings still up are being knocked down brick by brick. The city of New Fengdu, over the river, is where the residents are being relocated to. It is gleaming and white like a Smart cityscape.

Other tourist stops were more pissweak and lamearse for the most part -- as entertaining as this can be -- but there was also a stupendous small boat cruise through the 'Small Three Gorges,' where the photographers among us (Becky and Simon) really swung into gear. The 'small' refers to their width, not their height. In Fengdu, as elsewhere, it was noticable how many local monuments are stressing legends of a local dragon king who ordered the flooding of the Yangzi to swallow up their local township. We spoke to no Chinese who expressed an opinion against the damming, but people clearly have ways of making their feelings known. I could not help comparing it all to Lake Pedder. It is arguable that much more was lost in Tasmania, which was irreplaceable, but try telling that to somebody who tills a line of terraces as old as agriculture.


The boat arrived in Yichang ridiculously early on the 20th of October. Here we spent the day with a Swiss woman called Christa Suter, who we discovered was booked on the same plane to Shanghai as we were. In Yichang we discovered a tea house near the centre of town whose name we have no hope of recounting, where we were treated to a tea ceremony with tasting options that will stick in the mind for many years. If you are into the Chinese teas, Becky, Christa, Simon, and I can strongly recommend the Ti Guanyin variety. A good one should have buttery/pumpkin aroma and aftertaste. Collette was keener on the 7 years old Pu'er and on a very fine jasmine petal tea.

That afternoon we caught a plane to Shanghai. Getting a hotel upon arrival was quite a lot harder than we anticipated, but it came eventually. A 4 star place near the old city and the cloth market called Sai Yuan hotel. Somehow we got it very cheaply indeed, and spent some of the savings on getting taxis to and from the centre of town. Taxis were mostly very good, by the way. Except for some sharks near the railway station, they were all happy to use the meter and give a receipt at the end. Only we had a guy drive us to the airport at 150 km/h as we were leaving the country, which is very scary in the Chinese traffic.

In Shanghai, Collette got some trousers made, while Simon and I got suits made to measure for just under AU$100 each. We wandered through the now-glamorous Bund district. We ate terrific local food and even more exciting stuff from Xinjian province in the Muslim far west of China. We took a day-trip out to Suzhou and wandered into a live concert of traditional music.


Shanghai is a tremendous city. Its skyline is even more impressive than Hong Kong's, maybe even pushing New York City down. It is certainly the most international city on the mainland, and we made some good friends from Italy there, particularly Luisa and Jacopo who feature in one or two of the photos. With its metros and its reliable cheap taxis, it is extremely easy to get around. And its economy is so alive you can smell it. (Shanghai has averaged 9% growth per year over the last 10 years.) A forest of cranes you can barely see for all the skyscrapers. Although, if you want to see them, the Cloud 9 cocktail bar on the 87th floor of the Grand Hyatt
gives you a pretty satisfying view.

Finally, on 24 October, the China voyage was done. We were off to India. Becky and I waved goodbye to Simon and Collette, hailed a criminally insane taxi driver, and raced the maglev train to the airport. The train probably won the race, reportedly covering 30km in 7 minutes, but I am sure our taxi driver won more points in whatever arcade game he thought he was playing. Fark.

China has been a funny place to try and update our blog: it has been impossible for us to read our own blog (or anyone else's, for that matter), although we are able to post materials to it blindly. Now in India, it is quite a joy to look at all our old photos again -- we hope to get you the new ones soon!

Posted by Tom in Agra.