Guilin- Limestone!

The physical setting of this charming hamlet (750,000 – it is like the Wyalusing of China) was sublime. Spectacular karsts erupting in fantastic shapes surround the city and the lovely jade Li River flows through the heart of town. The river banks are very well developed with beautifully landscaped promenades. There are a couple of pedestrian centers – these actually prohibit cars! We booked the bamboo raft excursion to Yongshuo – it must really be the place since 50,000 taxi and bus company touts were pushing it so hard as we walked anywhere.

 



I would have photographed this formation but I couldn't see it





Who's thirsty?



As we didn’t arrive until almost midnight, we made a late start on our initial exploration of the city. We decided to head out to Reed Flute Cave. This is the most extraordinary cave we have ever seen – not for its size, shape or geologic formations, but because you can touch EVERYTHING. Everything – the stalactites, cave shields, drapery, the pools, good lord the pools! We saw everyone dipping hands and feet and then people filling water bottles and then proceed to DRINK from them!!!!!! DRINKING THE CAVE FOOT WATER! We must all pray it never comes to armed conflict between the US and China, because we are completely convinced of their absolute invincibility. Nukes would only make the stronger – and glow-in-the-dark.

The cave was also the most Vegas-tastic thing ever. Everywhere in China we have seen that passion for fun and fruity lighting effects – neon rain down the sides of skyscrapers, glowing sidewalks, color shifting city walls, and now this cave. Adding to the “fun” was the ear-splitting chorus of thousands of plastic whistles purchased by tour groups from the hawkers at the entrance. Once upon a time they sold actual reed flutes – for which the cave was named. One hopes they won’t feel the need to re-christen it plastic trash flute cave. The cave is a non-smoking environment, but as the tour lasts about an hour, they realize this may be unrealistic and have liberally provided ashtrays throughout.



Next morning, we were up and out early taking a bus to the pier and then boarding our “bamboo” – pvc raft. Some pilots in quest of verisimilitude? Or succumbing to irony, had painted their pvc pipes green. Whatever, this was an absolutely idyllic way to travel – the river was gorgeous, the scenery lived up to its billing, the fresh breeze and quiet were the first of their kind since??? Corpus Christie? San Fran had cool breezes, but we haven’t had any quiet in a couple of months.

We drifted down the river, relaxing and enjoying the scenery in company with two women from Berlin. They were charmed to discover the bear was a Germanophile with a bit of a crush on Tomas Mueller. We saw herds of water buffalo grazing on the river banks and then at one point a herd drifted into the river right by us – swirling eddies of muck flowing from their hides and back ends making us more careful about avoiding splashes of river water!

The last section of the river into Xiping was still lovely, but less peaceful as we had caught up to a large group of families – all of whom had purchased the wretched water squirters from the ubiquitous peddlers on the shore. They filled these with river water and were joyously hosing down all their friends and other family groups – sadly for us, a couple of groups of young boys thought it would be fun to spray the laowai with the buffalo poo water. They were shocked when everyone on our boat shrieked at them to stop. We have tried to be friendly, nice Americans, however much we cry-baby in this blog, but the feces water was a bridge too far – yes, people were dipping water bottles into the river and drinking here too.

We caught a motorcycle tram into the town of Xiping from the “pier” – a word which here means rock-strewn landfill with a tumbled pile of concrete blocks precariously leading to the road above. A bus took us the rest of the way into Yangshuo. Here at last was the tourist trap of our dreams! Real pedestrian zones with NO vehicles, stall after stall of tacky trash Westerners want to purchase in China, not 2,000 blankets with socks, pirated DVDs and rhinestone barrettes. The streets were lined with adorable cafes, teahouses and restaurants – miserably overpriced, but all offering ice cream and filter coffee! The spell cast by the variety of actual vegetarian options was almost enough to allow us to overlook the three year old boy who dropped his pants in the middle of a row of café tables and let go right there. His family has clearly raised the young prince in the firm conviction that the world is his toilet, and the rest of us should count ourselves blessed to have beheld him in all his glory.

The way back to Guilin was charmingly rural with more water buffalo and rice fields in various states of harvesting. Our aviation based poverty and general fed-upness with trying to get around led us to hunker down in pretty Guilin until we moved on to Hong Kong.

Chengdu- I’m holding a panda!



PANDAS!!!



This is the staging point for trips to Lhasa – we had two major things here: Pandas and Tibet. Alas, the Chinese government was still “celebrating the 60th anniversary of Tibet’s liberation” so no foreigners invited. Heartbreaking.

We booked the Panda trip for the first thing next morning. After the earthquake the pandas were moved from Wolong to Bifeng and are still there. We went to the Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding and Research Base – this is where they make the pandas and you can hold them. It is a really beautiful center – lots of well landscaped grounds and a variety of sizeable enclosures. They are careful to put the panda chow up by the barriers so that people can spot the pandas easily. We first saw a group of 3 two year olds having breakfast. Pandas are unspeakably lazy. They loll about like emperors at a roman banquet; pulling the branches down so they don’t have to expend the energy to sit up. They are so beautiful! There was also an adult in the enclosure, but he did not associate with the whippersnappers. Like most bears, they are solitary in adulthood.



cute



grumpy



Next we moved onto the area that is home to the largest population of captive red pandas – again precious, adorable. They were much more active and apparently get on like a sack of cats – lots of them showed signs of battle and one guy had completely lost his tail. Red pandas are not really pandas but have earned the name because they are red and eat bamboo.



The next stop was an indoor enclosure (hooray for AC) where 6 three year olds were having their breakfast. Apparently the pandas are kept inside quite a bit in summer because their typical habitat is above 2500 meters and Chengdu is much lower so the weather is too hot for them. Like the others, these pandas were also shockingly adorable. At this point we were becoming antsy about holding pandas. Our tour guide Zhen Zhen had sent one of the drivers ahead to make a reservation for us. The group was led to the panda nursery but we were told to wait a minute. After sending everyone else ahead Zhen Zhen took us to the back of the building and dragged us to the head of the line to hold a panda. We had to wait a bit while other tour guides tried to cut us off. The driver who made our reservation watched over us and eventually put his foot down with the gatekeeper woman and after handing over a 3,000 RMB ($500) “donation” we were given plastic gloves, shoe covers and draped in blue hospital smocks and taken into the panda holding room.



Zada Is Holding a Panda!!!



Brad Is Holding a Panda!



Inside there was a polished wooden bench with a guy in the same hospital get up as us and a couple of helpers. There were also a couple of tourists finishing their turn. Basically it goes like this: the person before is holding the panda, you go sit next to them and the guy in hospital clothes picks the panda up and plonks it down in your lap. You then have 60 to 90 seconds to take all the pictures you can. All the while the panda is munching on a steady supply of apples that one of the helpers keeps shoving on him. Pandas are extremely furry. Their hair is rather coarser than I expected but I suppose that’s for keeping warm in the mist cloud forest that they are supposed to be living in. We all agree, holding a panda is perhaps the best thing ever.



Kimberly Is Holding a Panda!



The rest of our time at the panda base was less exciting. We watched a video about the work they do making pandas and toured a sad museum the signs told us was being renovated. Then there was a gift shop and the ride back to the hostel. We showered (Chengdu has Houston weather in the summer) and then ate. Flush with our success with the pandas we booked the Sichuan Opera teahouse performance for that evening.



The performance was excellent as was the theater (though it was open air so it was a bit steamy). When we sat down we were served cups of jasmine tea which were constantly refreshed throughout the performance. This was not just a Sichuan opera performance as it also featured other forms of performance from the region. There was a puppet show in which the puppeteer made the puppet throw and catch things. There was something called “rolling light” in which a man prances and crawls around the stage with a lit lamp on his head. Most exciting to Zada was the hand shadow display. Ever since, where ever a shadow is cast, she is trying to recreate the flapping birds or the owl or the dog. Then of course there was the actual opera. It seems to me a little less shrill than the Beijing version. The costumes were spectacular and the traditional instruments sounded great. One of the best things was the face changing. Dancers wearing masks twirl around the stage and every so often the will change masks faster than blinking. It was amazing to watch, especially when they would put masks back on then off and then on again. That part also included a guy breathing fire which is obviously the coolest.

 Sadly, we discovered that our ugliness about mainland Chinese being the most obnoxious audiences in the world wasn’t just shrill spitefulness because Beijing was so disappointing. Here again, no one shut up for a second – the people in the row behind us going so far as to “sing” along. Kimberly had a flashback to her worst ever experience at HGO when in the middle of Mimi and Rodolfo’s first duet she became aware of some bizarre sound and whipped around to discover an elderly Chinese man singing along with Mimi. Flames and venom shot from her eyes and if a single one of her prayers were answered he is now living in a leper colony somewhere. It was like that, but as it was the whole audience, there wasn’t anyone to look daggers at. Ah well. This is doubtless why both performances were just about loud enough to make you bleed from the ears.



When planning this trip we allotted time to make the journey to Tibet. We knew it wasn’t looking good even before we left home but we held out hope that the mercurial powers that be who decide when Tibet is and is not open would open it up in time for us to go. We arrived and found that we were doomed to disappointment. So our thoughts turned to what to do with the surplus time we found ourselves with. We decided to take an extra day in Chengdu to sort it out. We investigated the trains again and found that trains going to places we wanted to go had only hard seats available for at least a week. So again we took to the skies booking passage to Guilin and a few days in the Flowers Hostel. Just a plug here for the hostel in Chengdu – Sim’s Cozy Garden Hostel was fantastic. The staff was incredibly well informed, competent and genuinely helpful with everything.

They need to send this sign to the good people of Xian

Xian- a more or less completely successful day

We got to Xian, collected our luggage and headed to the train station. Ironic I know since we’d had hopped all along to arrive there by train. The train station is where the buses that go to the Terracotta Warriors Museum leave from. An important note about Xian is that many things that are supposedly in Xian are really not in Xian. For example, the airport is more than 40 km from town, so it’s about a 50 minute bus ride to town. We got to the station where we found the left luggage office (which looked like all of China was storing a bag there) and quickly found the bus to the warriors. FYI: the Warriors are not actually in Xian either. Like the airport, they’re some distance from the city, about 35 km.

The Xian train station was a seriously old school Chinese train station – thousands of travelers with their random assortments of odd packages, bins, buckets, boxes and the like sitting all over a pavement roughly the size of a football field. The remaining pockets of space were monopolized by vendors of socks, fried critter on a stick and other oddments. The “Patriotic Stop Spitting Everywhere and Chain Smoking” campaign clearly hasn’t resonated quite as strongly out here in the sticks (only 4.5 million or so).

So, another hour later we were in line buying tickets to see the warriors and trying to get 400 pushy tour guides to leave us alone. Like everything else in China that is worth seeing, the Terracotta Warriors are surrounded by a flea market. One thing was saw there and have seen nowhere else in China is dog pelts for sale. I mean like, that’s a german shepperd, and that one is a collie, and that’s a rotweiller. The whole thing was pretty unpleasant. I don’t mean to sound like some militant vegetarian or anything and know that the Chinese have a different relationship with dogs than we do but I don’t see the appeal of a dog skin rug. We put that behind us and walked a long way to the actual entrance to the site. There was the usual elbowing and general lack of line to get through and once inside it took some time to find where anything was.

The terracotta army was ordered by the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty. He was a brutal tyrant who led the Kingdom of Qin to victory over the neighboring states in about 220 BC. He standardized weights and measures and writing and basically created the idea of “China” and a unified whole which has lasted for 2200 years now. He also burned lots of books, had a large number of scholars buried alive and executed anyone who looked at him funny. Curiously, there were several attempts to assassinate him which made him paranoid and obsessed with becoming immortal. So he commanded thousands of slaves to create a life size replica of his army in clay to protect him in the afterlife. The figures are so detailed as to have different faces. It is thought that there were 8 generic heads that the artists then went about individualizing, probably using the faces of the actual army as their models. It is interesting to look at the faces and imagine that you are looking at the portraits of people who lived more than 2000 years ago.



Headless Cocktail Party



Eventually we stumbled upon “Pit 2”. This is a collection of horse drawn chariots and archers but it is mostly unexcavated so there’s not much to see there except a few specimens behind glass. Next we found “Pit 3” which they suppose was the command center of the army. There was a bit more there, numerous statues, most without heads, right hands out clutching spears long since rotted away. As the picture shows, they look like a headless cocktail party. Finally we came to “Pit 1” where the bulk of the army is buried. This is the place where the scale of the undertaking really hits you. All the pits are covered with buildings but Pit 1 is covered by an aircraft hangar. I’d say it is 300 yards long, or more. And there they stand, hundreds of the warriors in long lines, staring at you from across 2 millennia. There are parts of Pit 1 where you can see people digging the pieces out of the ground and a place where you can see the warriors being reconstructed. When you see the state most of them are in when they come out of the ground it is astonishing how many they have put back together.

The pit also featured the requisite jade shops, photo booths and a “have your own features cast on a terracotta warrior” shop – tempting!

We made it back to town on the bus and after some digging with a flashlight the folks in the luggage office surfaced with our bags. We went to our hotel which was not the easiest to find because it was in this walled compound with the Sofitel and some other hotels. The hotel was lovely and the whole compound was scented! We wanted to go out into the city for dinner and asked the concierge for a vegetarian recommendation. This landed us at a gorgeous restaurant that boasted lovely ground floor aquariums with sea turtles and other exotica. Aquariums – that pleasant thought held for almost 20 seconds while I my brain slowly processed that this was the menu – not the décor. Back out into the streets – seafood is very popular in Xian and by refusing to slow down next to anyplace with a tank in/on/near it, we had almost no options. We did find a place at last and the food was excellent – very spicy and had to be sent back because the tofu was floating next to big hunks of beef at first, but in the end, delicious.



Fabulous as it is, it does get a bit exhausting



Shanghai- Here comes the sun



View from our hotel room



Were we all glad to be leaving Beijing and there’s no better way to feel like you are putting some serious distance between you and a place than by taking a train that goes 192 miles per hour. The bullet train was not our first choice but when it was Brad’s turn at the window to buy tickets his Chinese proved unequal to the task of asking for the overnight train. The bullet train line between the capital and Shanghai is fairly new and has had several “incidents” which we didn’t know about until later. Watching the countryside rip by at almost 200 mph is a bit jarring, like trying to watch a TV show on fast forward.

So a few hours later we found ourselves in Shanghai which the Lonely Planet guidebook had warned us contained no English speakers. Phrasebook in hand, Brad approached the subway ticket counter ready for battle. The young woman behind the glass looked at him and said, “Which station?” So much for Lonely Planet. We got into the city quite easily and found the neighborhood with our hotel. We went the wrong way however and found a Starbucks, (yes, more child bribery – the vanilla frappuccino and cake ball) so it turned out to be the right way. Inside, more supposedly non-existent English speakers sold us coffee and told us how to get to our hotel. We found it without any further detours and got checked into our room on the 17th floor with its wonderful view of the city.



Fish!



Shanghai is where our travel plans unraveled. Our intention had been to take trains across China. Inquiries at the local travel agencies and at the concierge desk in the Peace Hotel (from where the Gang of Four orchestrated the destruction of China) proved that there was no room on any train going anywhere we wanted to go for at least 5 days. As wonderful a Shanghai was, we couldn’t really spend the week. After much hemming and hawing we settled on flying around which is still somewhat affordable in China. Not train affordable, but at least we could get a seat. We later discovered that the reason behind the lack of train space is that school holidays began July first. Tip: if you are planning a trip to China in the summer, go in June. Also use a travel agent in your homeland who can arrange your train tickets before hand.

That first evening in Shanghai we walked along the waterfront to admire its collection of colonial architecture. It’s a mash up of neo-classical, art nouveau, and gothic buildings. This area is called the Bund and it’s where all the European merchants set up shop in the 19th century. As the sun went down we saw that at night Shanghai is lit up like the Strip in Vegas. Every skyscraper has lights flashing up and down its sides. There was more than one building that had stock market updates and advertizing 50 stories high on all sides. We walked over to Nanjing Road which is like a Chinese Times Square for dinner and dessert and then back to our hotel.

The next day we went back to the Bund and had breakfast in a café while we decided what to do. We settled on the Yuyuan Gardens. They were first built in the late 16th century by a wealthy Ming Dynasty official and, though roughed up a few times during the Taiping Rebellion and World War 2, look wonderful. To get to them however you must brave a bazaar of unbelievable greatness. The problem with shopping in China is that you cannot be “just looking”. If you even slowdown to look at something in a shop the proprietor will swoop down on you and attempt to make you buy it. There were many amazing things to see but we soldiered on through the shops and found the entrance to the gardens, across from a Starbucks! Shanghai’s weather is such that it calls to mind Houston in late April so we were glad to get a cool drink before heading into the tranquil gardens. The garden was indeed quite wonderful. Narrow path wound here and there through forests drooping pine trees and bizarrely weathered rocks to pavilions with delicately carved window panels and brightly painted walls and ceilings. There were pools teeming with fish and turtles with little bridges across. Another thing about Shanghai is that relative to Beijing, the air is pristine and completely breathable so walking around was quite pleasant.



Jasmine Fairy - $10(USD)!



After the gardens we went for a giant plate of noodles with spinach and rice and then to a teahouse in the center of the bazaar near the entrance to the gardens. It’s perched over a pond full of goldfish, ducks and turtles and is reached by a zigzagging stone bridge. It was an old school teahouse where the teas all have amazingly fruity names and they bring you a little plate of snacks like boiled quail eggs and baked tofu with your tea. We all enjoyed our tea while watching the seething mass of people below wander around the bridge trying to get a picture without a 100 other people in it.



This is the teahouse - we were on the second floor



Shanghai was a wonderful restorative after the misery of Beijing. Oddly relaxing when you consider that 23 million souls call it home – almost twice the population of Beijing. It was clean, incredibly easy to get around and everyone spoke English. We are not the kind of people who feel that we have the right to expect anyone to speak anything but their native tongue, still it was very nice. But it was time to move on so we headed to the airport and made our way to Xian.

Beijing- Where the sun don’t shine

Happy Birthday Communist Party!

Ming Dynasty Barbie and Ken - this is new since our last visit

If you were hoping to see China someday then I have some bad news for you: it’s too late. Everyone knows about the phenomenal growth that China has been experiencing in the last several years. What you have not seen on 60 Minutes or Dateline is that all that money flowing into China has created a middle class, and they go on vacation. In a way that’s great. Just as in the US we want people to go to the Smithsonian and the National Parks and to generally enjoy the nation’s cultural and natural heritage, the Chinese government seems to be pushing that too. Unfortunately, China, big as it is, has very little natural space set aside. Much of its cultural heritage was destroyed in the Cultural Revolution so you have many, many Chinese flocking to see relatively few things. The result is that at sites like the Forbidden City you have a sea of tour guides carrying little flags for a busload of people all wearing the same bright orange visor to follow. Now imagine 3000 such groups, all of them flowing past the same 5 things that everyone else, including you, came to see. Your kindergarten teacher told miserable lies – sharing isn’t great.



Pooh with the Chairman



Next, the Chinese are in serious need of a crying Indian/ Woodsy the Owl anti-littering campaign. We watched a young woman on the Great Wall wipe grime off her shoes with a napkin and then throw the soiled tissue over the side, while standing 2 feet from a trash can. Why not? Everyone else was lobbing plastic bottles, snack wrappers and indeed whole ramen bowls off the walls. This utter lack of respect for cleanliness or for preserving cultural relics by not touching/scratching/climbing/spitting on them was alarmingly rampant. At the Forbidden City we watched person after person put their hands on the huge bronze basins that were kept full of water to fight fires back in the Emperor’s day, right in front of a sign telling people not to touch the relic. (To be fair, we could only read the English on the sign. It is possible that it told the Chinese to touch all they wanted since the laowai were not allowed to.)Then there are the marble carvings that appear to be melting in a way I can tell you they were not 8 years ago. The bricks in the large courtyards are being pounded to dust under the weight of millions of feet. If it were just the crowds then possibly one could deal. The true horror is the neglect that so many parts of the Forbidden City and the Great Wall are suffering. It is clear that the outer areas of the Forbidden City got a fresh coat of paint for the Olympics. However, beyond those places the deterioration is extreme.

Finally, the sun truly does not shine in Beijing. What passes for sunny skies is a yellowish pall through which the sun is able to cast dim shadows. It is exactly like the post-apocalyptic sky in all those cornball movies. The sky in any case has no definition. You cannot look up and see clouds or blue. It’s a permanent fog. I suppose that we should be glad it’s not worse considering how many more cars are on the road in Beijing now.

On the plus side, there seems to be a lot less substance to the air. My previous recollections were of its utter and absolute un-breathability. The bikes are gone, replaced by thousands of electric scooters and motorcycle carts. Sadly, these drive all over the sidewalks – but we sometimes saw cars doing the same. Understandably, as the traffic is truly horrendous. Other post Olympic improvements include dramatic decreases in smoking and spitting. The signs extolling the “Patriotic Health Campaign” are still here and there and we met some people who told us in the feverish preparations leading up to ’08 the government actually sent texts reminding people not to spit everywhere. There is still a plague of little boys peeing on street corners, but if the Chinese ever embrace the disposable diaper I imagine the Earth could not possibly support the weight of it. The need to water the sidewalks wherever and whenever is rendered slightly confusing as the city now boasts free public toilet facilities every couple 100 meters or so.

All in all, Beijing was not an auspicious beginning to our time in China. When we arrived we immediately got in a fight with our cab driver who took us on an enormous circle tour of the city but eventually to our hotel. That night we managed to find the theater where they do Beijing Opera which was excellent. Kimberly was disappointed that the tables where they used to serve tea and snacks had been replaced by more seating – all obstructed view. We were all disappointed that the Chinese apparently do not know how to sit quietly through a performance. Most of them were just talking in normal conversational tones, but one guy got in an argument with the usher and absolutely refused to shut up for several minutes. (This was the first of several scenes that showed us that there is no longer a sufficient military or police presence in China. Another was at the airport in Shanghai where a guy actually threw one of the x-ray trays at one of the security screeners after screaming and yelling for several minutes and they let him through! Imagine doing that at an American airport.)





Our working theory is that when order has been maintained by a rifle pointed at your head for 90+ years, people aren’t about to follow directions or take anything from other ordinary citizens. There seems to be a real sense of uncertainty about how things are to be handled. No one feels any inclination to do as they’re directed by clerks, sales people or monitors. We have not seen hardly any military anywhere – it makes us somewhat nervous. Where are they? What are they doing? Can they all be censoring online content? Creating World of Warcraft avatars for profit? We thought that was what they used prisoners for. Anyway, we all enjoyed the parts of the performance we could hear. The costumes were particularly fabulous.



Forbidden City - Hironymus Bosch Edition





The dead bird is in a direct line under the handbag



The next day we went to the Forbidden City which we already described as swarming with tour groups. The amount of pushing and shoving we endured coupled with the depressing shape the place is in made it hard to enjoy it. We had planned to spend the day but after a few hours we were most definitely funned out. The final straw was the museum of ceramics next to the burned out hulk of what was once a beautiful palace now disintegrating practically before your eyes. In the ceramic museum there is perhaps one whole piece. The rest is potsherds that would be discarded as worthless on most archaeological digs. This, however, is all that’s left of a once magnificent collection after the rampaging hordes of the Cultural Revolution were reined in. We walked out through the Imperial Pleasure Garden which is littered with candy and popsicle wrappers. There are people sitting in the gardens scratching their names on the rocks and trampling the plants. The “jade ribbon” canal was choked with trash and a rotting dead bird carcass – which did not keep small children from splashing around in its murky shallows.



We spent the rest of that day trying to buy train tickets to Shanghai and to eat. We had to go to the train station to buy tickets since although they have a ticket office that says they book train tickets, the Sha Tan Hotel does not in fact book train tickets. That took several hours because, though there are 80 or more ticket windows at Beijing South Station, only 2 (literally) are open - this despite the fact that there are two hundred people in each line. I guess 400 people in a city of 13 million is not that many. Anyway, next we went looking for a Papa John’s pizza (yes, bribing the child) that the internet claimed existed. This turned out to be false, though in China things that are planned are treated as if they already exist. On our way back to our hotel we were pleased to find a place called Grandma’s Kitchen “American Home Cooking” and it sure was. We had a wonderfully restorative dinner and headed back to prepare for our trip to the Great Wall.



We booked the standard tour to the Wall because we had found that getting around Beijing is far too great a pain so we paid for the convenience of being ferried around. The problem with this tour is that it takes you to several “museums” which are really shops. We were treated to the jade, silk, pearl, and tea museums. The tea place was actually pretty good. The woman told us about the different teas, how they should be prepared etc. and we got to drink the tea. The others were just awful; five minutes of interesting information and 40 minutes of standing around with people trying to talk you into buying something.

The Wall, like the Forbidden City, is awash in Chinese tour groups. From the base looking up all you can see is a brightly colored river of humanity snaking up the mountainside. Climbing up was like being a salmon swimming upstream including the part about wanting to die at the end. The Great Wall was covered by the Great Pall so it was difficult to see very far. The higher was climbed the worse the view got. We abandoned our attempt to get to the top of the section because of the depression brought on by the state of the Wall. Also, knowing that we would be fighting against the tide of sweaty people going up, we’d never make it down in time.



Built to Protect China From the Mongol Horde - the Han horde is too much for it



Another distraction we began facing in China was the tremendous number of people who wanted our picture or wanted their picture or their child’s picture taken with Zada. This did not happen to us in Mongolia but in China everyone seems to want a photo of the wily and elusive person of European descent. On the street in Beijing a few people stopped dead in their tracks and started snapping away like we were celebrities or pandas strolling across Tiananmen Square. Poor Zada must have had her picture taken 10 times or more on the wall. She played along well doing her part to make the Chinese think that Americans are friendly people. What is this about? Our kind were everywhere, surely the fascination should have worn off by now. We are often unique when travelling because of Zada; not this year. We have seen countless intrepid/deranged families towing flotillas of small children all over China. Anyhow, that takes up a bit of time as well. The people who ask are much less funny than those who hunker down and try to get all “wild kingdom” – surreptitiously photographing Zada.



Marxism - A Thriving Economic System



After the rugby scrum at the Wall were taken to the Ming Tombs. Kimberly was there about 14 years ago when it was basically a bunch of ruins and holes in the ground, everything having been despoiled during the Cultural Revolution. At that time they said as much. Now, the site is rebuilt, and the guides do not say that everything was destroyed but that “excavations are ongoing” or “that area is not open to visitors for its protection”. This is representative of the revisionist view of history that most Chinese seem to have. On every street corner there is someone hawking Chairman Mao watches/ tote bags/ key chains etc. I figured that that stuff was for the tourists but the long lines to visit Mao’s mausoleum show that they’re still in love with that nut and think that everything they have today is the result of his forward thinking (sic) policies.

Overall, our time in Beijing was a disappointment. Although it was a little amusing to see them fetishizing their own traditional culture, it was mostly sad to see the Chinese gawking at the shattered remnants of their once great civilization. It is striking when compared with Russia which went through much of the same upheaval in the 20th century. In Russia, they have such respect for their heritage and patrimony that much of the treasure of the Czars has been preserved (or, to be fair, wrested from every corner of their empire – we did see many “gifts” from the people of Armenia, Ukraine, Tajikistan and the like). Meanwhile, in China, they were actively destroying anything that predated the advent of the Chinese Communist Party. I wonder if it hurts them deep down that people the world over come to see the China of 2000 years ago and there’s so little left that they have had to fake it up, or show pottery fragments like they’re some great achievement.



A View of The Forbidden City - Sans Tour Groups



This is all very negative – to reinforce the positives: the Chinese are getting to enjoy their own country, the streets/sidewalks are much enlarged, cleaner and repaved, the subway system is totally redone and is a thing of beauty. In five more years it will be a totally different scene. They will be forced to embrace online booking and develop some sort of real system to manage these tourist sites or they will be ground into dust.

The Wheels on the Train...get switched around

The rest of our Trans-Mongolian experience was largely uneventful until our next border crossing. Russia and Mongolia (as a result of their liberation by Russia) are on a different rail gauge than the rest of the known universe - this necessitates their hoisting the train on pnuematic?/hydraulic? lifts, mechanics scurrying under the carriages to detach the one set of wheels, then sliding the next under and securing them and finally lowering the whole mess back onto the rails to resume the journey. You couldn't feel the lifting, but the process of positioning the train in the hangar, detatching all the carrs and then rehooking them was fantastically jarring.
Border formalities took the usual eon - very oddly the Chinese border station has no ATM or facilities of any kind for acquiring money. the most podunk Russian and Mongolian hamlets ALL had their ATMs front and center. How can you be coaxed into impulse snack buying if you have no immediate access to cash? There was also no ATM in the train station in Beijing. This was starting to seriously weird us out - we know the Chinese are brilliant moneymakers and everything is wretchedly still cah based. It was all very reminiscent of Kimberly's first trip to Beijing with her dear friend Rebecca. They had gobs of Korean won which they discovered after the fact could not be traded in the PRC, the ATM had not yet made an appearance behind the bamboo curtain and the banks were on holiday.
See video of the wheel change on our youtube channel!
http://www.youtube.com/user/beartubalooza

NADAAM!!




The Mongol horde loved Pooh

We were up and out early to get to the opening ceremonies and events at the stadium. We didn’t have to ask directions or consult a map; we just joined the teeming river of humanity surging across town. The grounds around the stadium were like a state fair – thousands of vendors and hawkers, food stands, face painting, but adding to the spectacle were the participants in the procession, dressed in a variety of gorgeous historical costumes and the crowd itself, largely dressed in traditional silk robes.



Archery!



The first traditional sport showcase we found, after some aimless wandering just taking in the scene, was archery. The archers were quite skilled and good thing too, as the score keepers were standing right next to the targets (stacks of cylinders – scores seem to be based on exactly where you hit the stack and how much of it you knocked over). There was also a lovely flower display right in the middle of the green and a little woman tending the roses – completely indifferent to the projectiles whizzing around her head.



Ankle bone shooting


Next we followed the sound of chanting interspersed with loud cheers to find the ankle bone shooting. What is ankle bone shooting you ask? We’re not 100% sure ourselves, so visit our youtube channel and decide for yourselves. If you figure it out leave a comment to let us know. It involves a large group of men sitting in a long oval on these tiny little stools chanting for a very long time; until suddenly the contestant quickly flicks a square tile from a wooden block at two ankle bones set on a small stage about 8 to 10 feet away. The chanting may be ritualistic, centering or trash-talk. When the shooting tile is retrieved it is given to the other contestant by means of tossing all around the ring of men from hand to hand.

We watched a Mongol horde race into the stadium, Tsam dancers with their splendid masks, and a procession of fabulously ornate flag bearers. After all of this we were starving and a little overwhelmed by crowds and fabulous, so we headed out to forage for sustenance and look for more tchotchkes. The search for all things was a bit hampered by so many businesses being closed for Nadaam, but we persevered. We ended up at the Grand Khan Irish Pub, which had the dual benefit of being outside the theater where the Mongolian National Song and dance Academic Ensemble was performing AND having vegetarian versions of several Mongolian dishes. Mongolian cuisine is unbelievably dense and filling – a quarter of a serving and you think you may never eat again.

Dinner over, we rolled into the theater. All the arts academies are having all kinds of special galas and performances for the holiday. Our program was wonderful! We had been wanting to hear the amazing horsehead fiddle and it vastly exceeded any expectations. The music was incredible – we also heard Mongolian long-song and the throat singing, more Tsam dancers and much more. The traditional music was lovely, but they also played Mozart on the Mongolian instruments and that was tremendous fun. The second half was dancing – all very gorgeous. There was also a contortionist - horrifically good.



We feel like we do this for a living also



The lovely evening took a turn for the worse when we emerged from the theater into a huge rainstorm. We had checked the forecast that morning and it had said there was no chance for rain. The sky absolutely opened, pouring down torrents of icy water and we were almost a mile from our hotel. The thousands of taxis that we had been dodging all day had evaporated – just like the legions of umbrella sellers who had been soliciting our business all day. Did we have our rain coats? Don’t be stupid; of course not!

The roads already don’t drain, in this deluge they become swiftly rushing rivers of filth. We resigned ourselves to flesh eating infections and waded in. About 2/3rds of the way there, it became so intense that we couldn’t see anything but the lightning strikes. We took shelter in a little French bistro – a providential discovery, as it turned out to be a haven of warmth and incredible desserts.

Zada & Pooh on Turtle Rock

Next day, we were up and out early again. We had booked a tour to see a little of the countryside. These things are somewhat cheesy, but much easier than working out our own transport given that we don’t speak Mongolian. We went to Terelj National Park and saw the Turtle Rock and then visited the beautifully restored Aryapala monastery. The Soviets shut down all the religious establishments when they liberated Mongolia from Chinese influence. Buddhism is making a striking comeback. The landscape was truly lovely – smoothly sloping hills carpeted in fresh green and covered in wildflowers periodically interrupted by rocky outcroppings and enormous boulders weathered into fantastic shapes.



See the elephant?



panda!

The monastery looks like an elephants head from a distance due to the 108 stairs leading up to the entrance. It was a bit of a hike up to the staircase as well, but the trip was rendered educational by signposts carrying Tantras translated into Mongolian Cyrillic and English. The vividly painted temple stood out splendidly against the perfect blue sky. We couldn’t have asked for a nicer day. There were all sorts of whimsical architectural details that rewarded closer examination of the structure. The rafters were all brightly decorated and supported by charming carvings of various animals – including a panda. We wandered all over the complex, visiting the school where the monks learn to read the Buddhist script – the Mongolian version is a branch of Tibetan Buddhism and pictures of the Dalai Lama were very much in evidence.

We arrived at a collection of three gers where we were to get fitted out for a horseback ride and have lunch. The pater familias arrived just after us, popped the trunk, and pulled out an enormous sheep in a sack. The sheep was most unhappy with this state of affairs and struggled mightily to free himself. We felt sure things would end poorly for the sheep, and stressed again that we were VEGETARIAN. All the country people seem to be blessed with almost super-human strength. The dad lifted that huge sheep like a loaf of bread and his wife, when Kimberly was looking around for a mounting block, just tossed her into the saddle. Speaking of saddles – Brad got a traditional wooden saddle. He signally failed to appreciate this opportunity to live history.

After riding around the hills and meadows for a while we then headed back to eat. As we rode up to the beautifully painted ger door we noticed a sheep skin casually draped over a post. Ah well, circle of life. We were offered steaming bowls of yak milk to refresh ourselves after the ride – it’s very thick and salty. We were very proud of Zada, who drank and ate everything she was offered. Oddly, the item she had the most trouble with was a dill pickle. They had prepared vegetarian versions of everything. We had potato pies in place of the meat and our soup was minus the ovine bits floating around in the other bowls. Everything was good, but they could have fed a vegetarian army with the amount they had prepared.

Our last port of call was the giant Chinggis Khan statue. This thing was incredible – over 40 meters high set on a ten meter pedestal which houses a museum, café and gift shop. They have a whole elaborate scheme planned out with the planting of 1 million trees and 800 gers. It is already very impressive and it is hard to imagine what it will be like when they finish. We got to go up to the walkway on the mane of his horse – it is an open walkway affording breathtaking views of miles of countryside. We saw 5 or 6 golden eagles riding thermals also.

After that, we headed back into UB, along the road we saw enormous herds of cashmere goats, sheep, the ubiquitous horses and even some yaks. Less expectedly, we saw Bactrian camels scattered about the roadsides – their handlers were selling photo ops. Zada was disappointed to see you just sat on a sitting camel – she had hoped rides were available. We cleaned up and went back to the French bistro for more decadent dessert – we were still too full from lunch to manage any dinner, but there is always room for profiteroles!

Mongolia has been a wonderful experience and we leave here, as from everywhere else, (except Irkutsk) wishing we had more time.