Final Comments

We are home and adjusting to the colder weather. For those readers who don't know already I was totally unable to maintain this blog from China due to the blocking of the Blogger web site and VPNs. A big thank you to my friend Ruth and my son David who did the posts for me in Melbourne after receiving emails from me. The first blog post is from Hangzhou but before that we also went to Shanghai and Suzhou. Suzhou is highly recommended - it's only 30 minutes by high speed train from Shanghai and has the best gardens in China.

Now for some comments on China from Graeme:

So it is goodbye to China.  Kitty has somehow avoided her sentence of the death of a thousand cuts for hassling a few million Chinese (and one Australian).

China is still a place where people will bump you out of the way to get ahead. No sorry, no apology.  However if you stop them to ask a question they are the most helpful people you could meet. An enigma. Staff at train stations and airports are extremely good at pointing out the right direction if a westerner looks confused- not like Melbourne.

At no time were we restricted from going where we wanted. However security checks are everywhere.  Every metro station has a security check with x-raying of all bags.  In the key buildings around Tian’anmen square security is super tight.  At the museum a dozen guards form a line at the entrance and wave their scanners over every inch of every person. Every pocket must be emptied.

Otherwise China people seem very westernised.  Women wear very short mini skirts. McDonalds, KFC, and Pizza Huts abound - as do shopping malls fll of designer brands - Cartier, Armani, Nike, Louis Vuitton and all the others.  Transport technology leaves us for dead.  China is very different from the past.  To a visitor it could be a non-communist country. If only they spoke and wrote English more!

So how did we survive?

1. by Kitty organising almost all the hotels beforehand and having their names and addresses in Chinese. Plus flights and printouts of timetables for all planned major train trips.

2. by Chris Avram literally forcing his Android mobile phone technology on Kitty. It was invaluable as a phone, a translator, a web browser, a gps and a travel guide.  Having Metro tickets in advance for Shanghai and Beijing subways was also a great help.

3.By using my compass. Also invaluable in cities where you never see the sun.

4. Good gut instinct and navigation skills also helps. Like a few of the Walking Clubs senior leaders (who never use a compass) Kitty unfortunately tends to fall a little behind here.

5. develop strong legs.  You walk an awful lot.  But doubly so in Beijing where the planners seem to think making you walk far further than necessary is good for you. And where seats in public places are a rarity (and don't try sitting anywhere else !).

And a few more comments from me:

1. After bad queuing behaviour, the next annoying habit is spitting.  They spit in the street, they spit into rubbish bins, sometimes they even spit onto the train floor. On one memorable taxi trip our driver must have spat 20 times out of the window in a 12 km trip!

2. Entry fees to top attractions (like scenic areas of Huang Shan, Jiuzhaigou) are very high, compared to normal entry fees to (say) museums.  Over 60s should always show ID as often there is a 50% discount (even if your hotel tells you that is impossible).

3. We read that the average salary for graduates is 3700 yuan a month ($600). There must be millions earning way more than that as how else could they afford the attractions mentioned in point 2.

4. The food is good and varies hugely in price - you can buy noodles in soup for about $1.50 on the street, or pay $30 for squirrel shaped mandarin duck in a good restaurant.

5. We were frequently asked to pose with locals for a photo.  Apparently we are enough of a novelty that our age and lack of beauty did not matter - they simply loved being photographed with us.  In fact they love being photographed full stop, and they take SO long to take their perfect shot.

6. Hardly anyone uses seat belts even when provided. Most taxis have a seat cover on the back seat, which obscures the seat belt buckle.

7. The smoking rate is very high and still allowed in many restaurants. More so by older people rather than younger.

8. Transport infrastructure is fantastic. In big cities the time between metro trains is 2-3 minutes.  The high speed train network is very extensive, and the trains are very clean and comfortable. Cost - about $40 to travel 700 km first class.

That's all folks.

Beijing 3

34 max today and sunny, which made for hard work sightseeing the huge Forbidden City, so called because the public were excluded for over 500 years. It was where the emporers, their concubines, and court lived and ruled. It had over 8000 rooms. Opposite the Forbidden City is Tian'anmen Square, with Mao's mausoleum.

The late afternoon was for R & R - massage, rest, and dinner at Dadong restaurant, one of Beijing's best. It's signature dish is of course Peking Duck. We also had entrees of smoked salmon wrapped in avocado, and mango stuffed with scallops. All delicious.

- Kitty

Beijing 2 - The Great Wall lives up to its name

There are several sections of the Great Wall one can visit. We avoided the highly touristy Badaling section, instead going to Mutianyu, about 70 km from Beijing. As is typical in polluted Beijing, the visibility could have been better. The wall did not disappoint though.

In the evening we checked out the Olympic area, catching a FINA women's water polo final between Canada and Italy. Inside the water cube they have built a large water park with 13 water slides. It costs almost $30 entry!  Outside the streets come alive with people at night - walking, dancing, singing, roller blading, etc.

- Kitty

Beijing 1

Our ultra high speed train from Pingyao to Beijing let us down somewhat yesterday when 5 minutes from arrival it came to a complete stop and did not move for about 75 minutes. Finally we reached the delightful haven of the Double Happiness Courtyard Hotel, in a traditional hutong. The courtyard right outside our room is so nice, as are the staff and service here. (First 2 photos)

With Graeme suffering tummy problems we had to find something not too tiring to do, that wouldn't attract hordes of tourists on a weekend like some of the main sights. We went to the massive flea market (3000 stalls), the unusually designed CCTV building (nick-named 'underpants' by the locals) and the Performing Arts centre. The centre has a lake in front that is actually the roof of the indoor atrium. The building is shaped like a half egg.

- Kitty

Pingyao

The overnight train from Xian to Pingyao was an experience. We booked the most expensive seats called soft sleeper. That meant we had a narrow hard bed in a room of 2 double bunks. Hard sleeper would have been an even harder bed in a room of 2 triple bunks. So we arrived at 7 am a tad tired and headed to our traditional courtyard hotel, where we were shown to our room even at that early hour. The owner proudly showed us the kang (traditional Chinese bed) and said how soft it was. Hah! Thank heavens I brought a thermarest with me. The courtyard however is delightful, decorated with red lanterns and very atmospheric at night. The film 'Raise the Red Lantern' was filmed in the Pingyao region, as no doubt were many other period Chinese films.

Pingyao has the best preserved city walls in the country. The buildings within the walls all date from the Qing or Ming dynasties. This town is where finance and banking started in the 1300's. Now there are many buildings from that era that are small museums, explaining the banking background. The rest of the old city is all tourism - hotels, restaurants, souvenir shops. You can have a 45 minute foot massage for $5, and rent a bike for a $ 1.50 per day.

Some of the signage here has hilarious English translations. Ming the Step seems quite appropriate since there are buildings from the Ming dynasty here. One sign talked about men being superior and women being 'interior'. Or maybe the translator had a Freudian slip.

Tomorrow we head to Beijing by ultra high speed train - 300 kph.

- Kitty

Xian

Having seen the Bell Tower, Drum Tower, city wall, and Muslim Quarter after flying in on Sunday, the main attraction remained - the terracotta warriors. We hired a driver and guide to take us - a good decision as it was raining hard this morning, and the guide proved to be really informative.

The warriors are amazing. There are 1000's of them, each with different facial features. They were discovered by a group of farmers digging a well in 1974. The farmers barely got any recognition, and of course lost their farmland. There is a lot of stuff online about their shameful treatment.

We have just finished a dumpling banquet prior to a Tang Dynasty show. Then we are off to tiny Pingyao on an overnight train.

- Kitty

Hua Shan (Flower Mountan)

120 km from Xian but only 35 minutes by high speed train is Hua Shan, so called because it's N,S,E,W peaks are like the petals of a flower. We took the west cable car up - a spectacular 4 km trip which at times seemed vertical. We then hiked to the 4 peaks and came down on the north cable car. Once again we were really lucky with the weather. The highlight of the day was walking the plank - a .3m ledge on a vertical cliff face with a sheer drop a long way down.

- Kitty