Week 5: Chongqing, Guilin, and Hong Kong

Week 5: Chongqing, Guilin and Hong Kong

This was our final week in China as we move southwest to Vietnam. We got off of the train from Tibet in Chongqing, a city of about 20 million people. After a less than exciting time in Lanzhou, we thought this massive city would be similar, so Chels and I booked our flight out the same day we arrived. Our cab ride through the city revealed that this place was much more interesting that we had originally thought. The city is built on the hills fall into the Yangtze River, much unlike Lanzhou. We had several hours to walk around in the city and found ourselves on a very busy commercial street that seemed to be the most everyday street life that we had seen since arriving in China. The street food looked amazing: potatoes, fried ANYTHING, dumplings and a variety of cakes. (I was too chicken to try, many of you know of my experience with food sickness in Egypt, I don’t ever want to relive that). We made our way to the airport which had wi-fi and at this point I realized I had skype on my computer and called everyone whose number I could remember (which sadly is only my parents, grandpa, sister, and random extensions at work) and then boarded our 2 hour delayed plane to Guilin.

Guilin has a population similar to Indianapolis, but like everywhere here has a higher density. Running through the center of Guilin is the Li River. From Guilin we were able to take a raft down the river. The raft was made of pvc tubes and tires with a wood platform on it with bamboo benches. It was high enough to stay buoyant but low enough that any big boat’s wake would flood the floor. The scenery was like nothing I have seen before. The mountains in this region are quite unique due to erosion from carbonic acid, created when carbon dioxide in the air reacts with rainwater. We rode down the river for about 3 hours seeing people cart various crops up and down the river, water buffalo in the river and huge boats of tourists who sprung for the fancier river cruise. We got off at an offshoot where we boarded a 3 row golf cart which took us down a very bumpy dirt road past fields of pummelos, persimmon trees, and cattle to get to a bus to take us back to civilization. Our golf cart was packed and the bumps in the road made for quite an experience as we bounced from side to side trying to stay on!

We left Guilin and flew to Guangzhou which is the cheapest airport in Hong Kong’s “vicinity” (it ended up being a little farther than I had remembered, about 100 miles away). We made our way through the flashy neon of the 20 million people metropolis to the train station where we were to board the train to Hong Kong. While there I realized that I had Winnie’s address in English, but I didn’t know if that would work with a cab driver when we got to Hong Kong. While waiting for our train, I was able to walk around with my laptop and find wireless, use skype to call Winnie, and then use Wikipedia to find the Chinese characters for Blue Pool Road and Happy Valley. It worked like a charm and at the stroke of midnight we found ourselves in the ultra luxury apartment of Winnie Cheng. Technology truly is amazing!

Although it would have made more sense to visit Hong Kong first to not backtrack as much, it was a nice break 5 weeks in to stay with Winnie in an apartment with laundry, the best shower I’ve ever used, and a kitchen stocked full of food. Hong Kong, like Chongqing is a metropolis built into a mountain side, but much more dramatic. Seeing a New York skyline with a mountain behind it creates quite a beautiful contrast between nature and the built environment. Winnie was an incredible hostess and took us all over Hong Kong and Kowloon: we had champagne at the top floor of a hotel overlooking Victoria Harbor at night, dinner at the top of the Peak another night overlooking the harbor from the other side, wandered through markets, had traditional Hong Kong dim sum, visited a temple and museum and toured her office as well. I even got a suit made thanks to Winnie’s boyfriend who sent me to his tailor!

We left Hong Kong again for Guangzhou and took off for Hanoi. We got to Vietnam last night and are here for the next 8 or 9 days. I’ll post about it next week!

01 Raft, Li River

02 Raft, Li River

03 Laundry, Li River

04 Man with birds, Li River

05 Water Buffalo, Li River

06 Air Conditioners, Hong Kong

07 Mao and his Friends, Hong Kong

08 Signs, Hong Kong

09 Crazy Taxi Cab dashboard, Hong Kong

10 Me and Winnie! Hong Kong

Week 4: Tibet

I remember as a kid running my hands over a globe that had topography, with the large raised Tibetan Plateau being my favorite part. I didn’t really understand anything about it, where it was, the culture it contained, but being a kid who liked textures and running his hands along anything, it was the biggest raised chunk and therefore the most interesting. That was my first connection to the “roof of the world” as Tibet is called by many.

We left a city called Lanzhou for our 27 hour train ride to Lhasa. We were fortunate enough to buy our train tickets well in advance and had first class sleeper cars which were amazing: TV (all in Chinese, but they showed Forrest Gump!), power outlets, beds that were long enough that I didn’t have to be in the fetal position, etc. The night on the train was clear and I was able to lay with my head on the windowsill and stargaze for about an hour before falling asleep . The only light that I could see was from the front of the train when we were on the occasional long-curve piece of track which made it possible to see both the front and back of the train. We passed a train that had about 30 tanks on it, which was even more eerie as only the night sky created enough contrast to make out the form of them. I awoke about 5 minutes before a spectacular sunrise broke over the mountains of snow and partially frozen small pools of water. Clouds in the sky were so low that it seemed like I could touch them if I were able to go outside and jump. We were at about 5000m at that point, the highest point of the trip, and the highest point of any railroad in the world.

Tibet is a land of devout Buddhists who lead simple lives. It only made sense that as we approached Lhasa (which in Tibetan means Holy City) that a detachment from material possessions should take place: both my computer and Ipod died shortly after sunrise as the altitude was too high for the harddrives to properly function. The landscape was so fascinating outside that it didn’t bother me as much as it would had it happened at home. We passed snowcapped mountains, freshwater lakes, including the highest freshwater lake in the world, and numerous herds of yaks and sheep. Around 6pm the day after we got on the train we looked out the window and saw a city, but it seemed way too modern to be Lhasa. It was in fact Lhasa, just not the one that we knew from readings and “Seven Years in Tibet”. We were met by our 29 year old energetic guide, Ngawangchoepel, who seemed to know everyone in town. He took us to the Potala Palace (the winter residence of the Dalai Lama, prior to the current Dalai Lama’s exile to India), sacred temples, monasteries and a nunnery which was really interesting to see. We went out of Lhasa for a day and toured the first Palace in Tibet, the oldest temple in Tibet as well as the first farms that were established in Tibet. These were 3 hours outside of Lhasa, which for me, the car ride was the best part. It was as beautiful as what we had seen on the train, only we could get out and photograph when we wanted to stop.

Tibet has undergone a lot of changes since becoming part of China 50 years ago. Lhasa is much more modern, many original buildings have been torn down to make way for large boulevards and Chinese shops. The main street is called Beijing Road, which was a little depressing. All of the religious buildings outside of Lhasa were destroyed in the 60’s and then finally after 1985 when Tibetans were granted limited religious rights were they rebuilt. The important buildings in Lhasa had survived, but it was sad to visit “the oldest _____ in Tibet” only to find out it had been rebuilt in the 80’s. Building techniques are still similar to what they were, so although not aged, the construction is authentic.

Our guide very determined to make sure our experience was Tibetan and not Chinese. I ate a lot of Yak and potatoes, which is the traditional Tibetan meal. Our guide took us to a restaurant that was through an alley and up a stair and contained no tourists. It wasn’t a chain but it had booth seating and simple dishes that makes me think it is comparable to Denny’s. It was really good, and although we were stared at by the giggling girls at the next table, it was an enjoyable experience. Our guide told us about his family: he has 3 brothers and a sister. The province he’s from is called Shigatse, and apparently many women have multiple husbands there. Two of his brothers are married to the same woman. His mother had 3 husbands. I guess it is sort of a version of reverse polygamy, but still very strange. He said crazy stuff happens in Shitgatse. It sounds like when ‘Big Love’ ends on HBO they could start a “big Tibetan love” series!

In order for us to get the full Tibetan experience, our guide took us to a Tibetan nightclub on Friday night. We were excited when we got there to see our friends from LA who we had met the previous day. Their guide was friends with ours, and it just worked out that we were both brought to this on that night. The club was very different from a US club experience. The room was rectangular with tables around a large stage. Our guide told us that the stage was where the dancing would take place around 10:30. He ordered 10 cans of Lhasa Beer for Chels, myself and the 3 others which are served with little shot glasses. You drink your shot glass of beer as fast or slow as you want and then someone at the table refills it. At 10:30, a string of performers came out and did various traditional Tibetan songs (almost sounded like German folk music). Some were very amusing, others were like watching American Idol. When a performer was really good, people from the audience would put a white scarf around them that the waitresses had, which was to wish them a long happy life. It turns out they don’t really have an open dance floor. They have some performers who sing and then people get up and dance on the stage while the performer is singing. For fast songs they do a line dance of sorts, these two guys who weren’t paid performers kept springing up from their seats to lead the masses. We tried once but didn’t do so well, but I got good video footage of it. When the performers did slow songs, I think I was the most amused: single girls would waltz with other girls and single men would waltz with other men. A completely heterosexual experience, yet it was the full on one-hand-clasped, one-hand-on-waist type deal. We left the night club around midnight because we needed to leave our hotel at 7 for our out of Lhasa trek the next day. When we were picked up the next morning, our Guide told us he stayed out till 4am! He slept most of the way in the car while I went back and forth taking video and still shots.

We boarded the train back to China (I like to think of them as independent from one another) and were put in a sleeper car with a Malaysian man and his middle aged daughter. They spoke English and we talked about a variety of things. The woman asked us “Do you like Obama? You can be supportive of a black President?” Chels and I made it clear we both admired him a great deal. Considering this isn’t the first time on this trip that this question has been asked to us, it makes me wonder if the foreign news frames US citizens as being racist, or if racism in other cultures makes it seem unbelievable that a non-minority person could be proud of a leader who is a minority. She thought he was wonderful too, very thoughtful and a big contrast to the “aggressive” (her word) president before.

The second morning on the train I woke up again to sun over mountains, and to my delight, my ipod and computer both started working again. I had never been so excited to hear Diana Ross’s ‘aint no mountain high enough’, because in this case, she was wrong. The Tibetan plateau, in its height and glory was high enough to silence her for 5 days! On to Guilin and then Hong Kong at the end of the week to see Winniecheng!

00 The sunrise over the Tibetan Plateau, between Golmund and Lhasa

01 Around 5000m, the highest point on the trip, between Golmund and Lhasa02 Highest freshwater lake in the world (I can’t remember the name), between Golmund and Lhasa03 Pilgrims praying before entering Jokhang Temple, Lhasa

04 Traditional Tibetan Architecture, Barkhor district, Lhasa05 Tibetan Monk, Sera Monastery, north of Lhasa06 Tibetan Nun printing pages of the Tibetan Holy Book, Barkhor district, Lhasa07 Pilgrims walking along turning Prayer Wheels, outside Potala Palace, Lhasa

08 Pollution masks are all the rage due to engines polluting more because the air is less dense, near Tsedang09 We had to stop a lot for cows and sheep, between Tsedang and Lhasa10 I think this is a yak, but it could be a bull, or some sort of mix between the two, between Tsedang and Lhasa11 Nightclub performers, Lhasa

Week 3: Beijing to Pingyao to Lanzhou

This has been a week in transit as we have been making our way west to Tibet. We left Beijing on Wednesday afternoon on a 12 hour train ride to Pingyao. We didn’t know what an adventure we were in for. As the national holiday is winding down, everyone was leaving the city the same time as us, making it extremely hard to get train tickets. When we first tried, they were sold out of seats and they could only offer standing room. We were ecstatic that we were able to find another train which got us seats, having abandoned entirely the idea of getting sleepers. They kept showing the trailers for The Devil Wears Prada and The Last Samurai in the waiting hall prior to boarding the train, which for some reason seeing Meryl Streep eased the fact that Chels and I were the only foreigners in the room of hundreds of anxious travelers ready to depart.

Boarding the train was pretty easy for two reasons: they use our number system, and I took a photo of my train ticket and emailed it to Wade, Dafeng, Brooke and Jamie with the note “what does this say?”. Isn’t technology amazing? Despite our efforts to pump ourselves up for the train, it was a rough night. The car was packed: every seat was taken and there were people standing as well. The ends of the cars were even more packed as people crammed in from when the train made stops. Even though there were “no smoking” signs posted, the conductors didn’t seem to enforce it. A group of kids played a radio almost the entire night. We made friends with the girl sitting next to us who had a 15 hour train ride ahead of her. Another guy came along about 6 hours into the ride who wanted to be my friend because I spoke English. He had a 12 hour ride standing, which he didn’t complain about once. If he could do it, I could suck it up despite my back starting to ache and not wanting this to be my first encounter with a public eastern toilet. When we got off the train, there were people sleeping in the aisle that we had to step over with our 20kg of luggage, one guy was asleep under the benches with his head under one bench, butt in the aisle, and legs under the bench on the other side of the aisle. We got off in Pingyao at 5:30AM and it was pitch black outside. There was some light from the station but beyond that was absolute darkness. We were able to get a taxi/ 3 row golf cart, and we were off to our hostel in the dark. There were no street lights. After about 5 minutes we could make out the slight contrast in the night sky of the medieval wall which was really interesting to see, went through the gate into the old city. Complete darkness, the sudden view of a massive castle wall, being in a golf cart and my lack of sleep made it seem as much like a backtour lot at MGM studios tour as anything else. It was quite an experience and I was very happy to be able to check into our room at 6AM and go to bed for a couple hours.

The city was very interesting. PIngyao’s wall still fully encloses the old city. It was a financial center until the 12^th century or so when it fell into poverty. Because of that its main streets were preserved and never modernized. Although most of the things there cater to tourists, the buildings are more or less original and very interesting to see the life of a medieval town. They had temples, houses and banks that you could tour that were restored as they were in medieval times. We were able to walk on top of the wall which provided interesting glances into current house courtyards. Lots of wash hanging, we saw a recycling place with an enormous pile of plastic bottles and a neatly arranged wall of green glass bottles. We made friends with 2 swedish guys at our hostel who we took another golf cart to a temple about 7km outside of the city. As interesting as the temple was seeing the everyday street life taking place on the way. There were older men playing cards on the sidewalk, fruit stands, street vendors selling dumplings, and many families on their mopeds, honking and beeping through city traffic.

We met a lot of interesting travelers at the hostel we stayed at. A guy from the Basque country trying to figure out how to get to Tibet, Tomas and Jens from Sweden, a german man and his wife who fell when she got off the train in Pingyao and got a stress fracture were among others. Cost at the hospital for her treatment: 130 Yuan (about $19). While talking to the German man I was reading an article online about Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize and all of the political spin on both sides of the aisle about it. I had expected the German man to think Obama was undeserving of the award but his opinion was actually quite the opposite. The German man said “Obama is so popular abroad, it seems like the only place that he is disliked is in his own country”. I had to sadly agree that this did seem true, and made the case that there is a lot of money and an entire tv and radio empire behind the opposition dedicated to his destruction.

We left Pingyao on a 20 hour train ride to Lanzhou where we are catching our train to Tibet. Again we had a problem getting tickets and were only able to get seats, no beds. I was trying to persuade Chelsea to fly but she made me suck it up. About 3 hours before our departure, the woman who ran the hostel was able to get us sleeper seats! She was so thoughtful to try and do that for us, without us even asking. If you’re ever in Pingyao, stay at the Harmony Guesthouse. The staff obviously is superb, and they have pancakes on the breakfast menu! I’m now sitting on my bed in the 18^th hour of our train ride and am very comfortable. We have been going through beautiful mountains, seeing small clusters of housing, drying corn from the eaves of their roofs and green fields on the banks of a river. All is good! Tibet on Wednesday!

1: City Wall, Pingyao

2: Main Street, Pingyao

3: West Gate wall entrance at night, Pingyao

4: Our taxi/golf cart driver through a lane of trees, outside Pingyao on the way to Shuangling Temple

5: I’m getting really good at my secret photo shots, we opted not to get this photo done of ourselves, Pingyao

6: View from the train, en route to Lanzhou

7: My sleeper compartment-mate, en route to Lanzhou

Week 2

London and Beijing:

London was a ton of fun. I got to see Catherine Murphy, Nicole Green and John Jackson all friends from various points in my life who have all ended up in London. I didn’t do much touristy stuff while in London: had a very enjoyable 3 hours in Hyde Park on a glorious sunny day overlooking the serpentine pond, went to a Champagne Bar on the top floor of the tallest building in London, explored Brick Lane and went grafitti hunting, ate excellent market food from a market very close to London Bridge (Hoxton maybe?) and got to see the Anish Kapoor exhibit at the Royal Academy. He is the guy who did the bean in Chicago. His work was amazing and very diverse. What was on display ranged from a cannon that shot wax every 20 minutes into an other room crashing onto a wall (pictures weren’t permitted), to further explorations with reflective surfaces, like the bean in Chicago, as well as work with steel, powder, and plaster. I had half expected the exhibit to be a bunch of Chicago bean type things and was very impressed by his mastery of so many different mediums.

I flew to Beijing on Thursday night and arrived around 1on Friday afternoon. After reading in the NYTimes about people getting quarantined I was a little uneasy about going through the health inspection upon arrival. About an hour into my flight my face felt really hot and wouldn’t cool down. When I asked the French woman next to me if she felt hot, she quasi-coldly replied “if you have the flu you need to tell me”. I sat nervously in my seat for a couple hours and when I got up to go to the bathroom, I looked in the mirror and realized I was sunburned! I tend to get a bit neurotic when in transit, with this being no exception.

We’ve had sun and 70 degree weather every day since we’ve been here which is great. As I had said in my last post, China is celebrating the 60th anniversary of the People’s Republic and the crowds are a bit insane at tourist spots. The only thing I can compare it to is Obama’s Inauguration. We aren’t staying in a touristy area though which is great. We’re about a 30 minute walk from the forbidden city in a Hutong (means neighborhood) called Fangjia. Beijing is a huge grid, with very logical Primary, Secondary and Tertiary circulation established: There are 6 HUGE ring roads which surround the city (we’re staying between the first and second ring). Within the ring roads is a grid of secondary streets which are 4 lane roads for the most part, some bigger. Within the grids are Hutongs, which are basically like alleys that have neighborhoods contained within them. Pedestrians and cars use the same space, and although they are two way traffic we’ve seen a number of times where cars are reversing for 30 feet or so to get out of the way for oncoming trarffic to pass. Within our alley, our hotel sits in a courtyard that has a restaurant, a theater, a coffeeshop and several other businesses. For a westerner, it is bizarre to be moved down to the alley scale and then walk through an opening into a larger open space, but it creates for very intimate public spaces that are all unique from one another. The alleys are not well lit, and yet people are always in them, old people sitting on steps talking to one another in the dark, children running up and down, and motor bikes, cars, modified power wagon all moving with one another to make way.

We navigated the crowds to visit the Great Wall on Sunday. Most foreigners go on tours, taking big buses that leave from hotels or hostels. We opted for the city bus (primarily because it was only $2 each way which isn’t bad for a 70 km distance). After some frustration we found the correct bus (Lonely Planet says to take the 919, what it doesn’t say is that there are about 7 different 919 bus routes) and were shuffled with the masses onto buses. On a bus of about 65, Chels and I were the only two foreigners. The ticket woman on board was very friendly, though we did not speak, we had the exact fare ready and that was that. At the Wall, the crowds, again were intimidating, but we managed to walk the opposite direction of them all on the wall and get to enjoy the wall without too much trouble. The part that we were on was restored and rehabilitated in the 80’s but could see the more deteriorated parts in the distance which were of more interest. Seeing the wall curve up around and behind the mountains is truly amazing. Although it more or less failed with it’s initial purpose of security, it is a wonder that it was able to succeed as a highway transporting goods given how steep parts of it are to walk! Also, American fast food must have a contract with UNESCO World Heritage sites because there was a KFC (and Starbucks..and random non American place called California King Beef Noodle USA) about 100m from the entrance to the wall (similar to Pizza Hut being the closest building to the Sphinx in Egypt…).

My friend and coworker Brooke Xu from SmithGroup was able to put us in contact with two of her friends who were so incredibly hospitable! In addition to picking us up from the airport on Friday and getting us settled into our hotel, one of them is an architect and he gave us a tour of his firm on Monday. Although most businesses are closed down for the national holiday, typical firm, we walked in and there were a few people there working on AutoCAD. After the tour we got treated to a peking duck dinner at an amazing restaurant situated in an old house and through a series of courtyards. We had enough leftovers for 2 more meals, the generosity was greatly appreciated!

Tuesday we did Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City and explored a couple other Hutongs, some very nice and some very impoverished. We got our train tickets for our next city that we’re heading to tomorrow. We’re going to Pingyao which is one of the best preserved Chinese towns of the Ming and Qing dynasties. Also a UNESCO World Heratige site, so I’ll let you know what fast food we find within a stones throw.

PICTURES:

1: Anish Kapoor sculpture, Royal Academy, London

2: London Graffiti, Shoreditch

3: Teaching their son how to worship, holding incense, at Lama Temple, Beijing

4: Trying to get the perfect shot (this picture is much more amusing than the perfect shot) Temple of Heaven, Beijing

5: The Great Wall at Badaling

6: Best meal in China EVER with Brooke’s friends!

7: I’ve accidentally (or purposefully) walked through more people’s photos in the last week than in my life. Tiananmen Square, Beijing