Author: brianlaurance

The Bund Shanghai

Zhujiajiao old town Venice

Heaps of these vertical growing plant walls at the Bund

The Yangtze is the third longest river in the world, at almost 4,000 miles. A pecking order of the Amazon and Nile ahead of it. Commencing in the mountains of Tibet and flowing out to sea at Shanghai, it passes through some of China’s most spectacular scenery, some of which has been lost due to the Three Gorges Dam.
The concrete and steel dam is 7,661 feet long, almost 600 feet high and used about 510,000 tons of steel – enough to build the Eiffel Tower sixty times. They say the structure is visible from the moon and similarly you could say so is the hole in the ground where the WA iron ore came from for this project.
The power generated by the 34 generators is enormous, providing more than 10% of China’s enormous appetite for power.

Isabel and Wendy admire floral arrangement on Century Sun.
This is a spectacular working river, busy at every time of day and at night. When we boarded the vessel at night, water was flowing downstream at about 10 knots. One misstep embarking and you’d be swept away like a leaf on a swift stream. (Wendy’s minor misstep nearly had her bag arrive at the dam wall several days ahead of her)

The very fine scenery is reminiscent of NZ’s Milford Sound or the Norwegian fiords. Being elevated above sea level the Yangtze is cloaked in a Harry Potter misty cloud. Our cruise ship is not exactly Princess, but is comfortable–when the air conditioning is not switched off!!

Entering the first of the 3 gorges on the mighty Yangtze River

More gorgeous gorges

Without exception, the staff are gentle courteous, ever smiling and obliging, while the management are sticklers for the company rules and shepherding the sheep (passengers) via oft- repeated PA announcements to the cabins. Although Achtung! is softened and replaced with “ladies and gentlemen” the “vee vill ask the questions” is constantly reinforced.

Plenty of grub at the buffet. Nice food too! But one must assume the best cuts of meat go to the Great Hall of the People in a Beijing, with the bony ‘fag-ends’ the favoured preserve of tour boat operators.

On our approach to the first let down of the evening; lock No 1
Navigating the Three Gorges Dam is truly the capstone of these three nights on the river. Sunday night at 9.30pm we entered the first of 5 locks, dropping us 22 metres each time (110m) to the lower river level. What excitement, sharing the lock with a couple of other similar sized vessels.

Our journey ended at what appeared to be a river village, Yichang, which turned out to be a small city of 1.8million. Like everything in China is humongous, filled with thousands of 30 storey apartment buildings. We flew from Yichang to Shanghai, arriving at the Bund Hotel about 6o’clock.

A quick dinner up the street and Isabel and I walked on down to the famous Bund. A very pleasant wide boardwalk on the river with neon illuminated tourist boats plying their trade.

Today we travelled to Shanghai’s answer to Venice, a quaint 600 year old village, Zhujiajiao old town with its canal waterway streets. This afternoon after lunch all but me are doing the Pearl TV tower and silk factory while moi does the blog and grab some shut-eye before the Shanghai Circus tonight at 7.30
Confucius say… who wants to kill a circus troupe, should go for the juggler

China is gigantic behemoth of a country. Everything is gargantuan; our tour company mission statement “you are never alone with China Odyssey” is frankly redundant. Alone? Wherever you find yourself in this country there are millions of people around you with whom you can talk ( or mostly gesture) and both come away laughing. Great fun! Kids particularly also want a picture.

In Perth the construction indicator is the number of cranes on the city skyline. Here we’ve seen hundreds. Thirty on the right side of the road and turn the corner and there’s another 30 or forty on the left. And it is high- rise apartments everywhere beneath the cranes, each about 30 stories and there is literally hundreds of them being built. Where else to house over a billion people?

Friday night in downtown Chongqing ( Chong-Ching) the place is jumping. All the usual 5 star hotel chains, tens upon tens of brilliant new eating places, Prada and Cartier, thousands of excited effervescent young people and massive gaudy garish colourful TV type screens and neon to light up the frivolity, What a buzz! A few years ago this city needed a bridge or two over the Yellow and Yangtze rivers. Voila! Today they have 22 and all as big as Sydney Harbour Bridge.

The Chinese are warm and friendly, smiling, courteous and every last one of them industrious to the very core of their being. How fascinating to think all these people don’t get to vote and get the government they don’t want, while we get the vote and still end up with the government we don’t want!

When push comes to shove I was always of the opinion that it was a Chinese mastery. But not so!
In the crush of a crowd the orientals are very adept at filling even the smallest void ahead of them. If you see them coming, take a half-a-step back and gesture that they should go ahead and lo, they smile courteously and insist you go ahead before them.

The same is not so when driving. You must hold your nerve at least until a fraction of a millimetre of paint comes away from either car. Wimps and the faint hearted do give way to every determined forced entry. Tourist coaches intimidate Mums’ pushing prams on a cross walk, scooter riders never live beyond 22 and the very very old Chinese man pulling a decrepit old fully laden wooden cart, with iron wheels, ignores all and meanders at will across the busiest of intersections

The country roads we travelled out of Yangshuo back to Guilin were once concrete but today are a patchwork of potholes, ruts and ravines with occasional glimpses of axle busting elevated concrete portions. And being wrapped in a shroud of early morning fog, one needs keep a sharp eye out for the occasional farmers market using up the 1st lane and oncoming traffic and trucks appearing out of the morning mist without the headlights switched on.

In every city the roads are usually dual carriageway, (fenced in the middle to stop pedestrian access), beautifully tree lined for mile upon mile, and spectacularly landscaped with alternating colourful hedges. Hedges that are all trimmed by hand, thus creating more jobs. Road and pavement sweepers are everywhere. Another rich source of jobs for all; a workforce with untrammelled right of passage, against the lights, across the biggest city intersections and wide footpaths populated by the masses.

Remember how frightening it was as a kid riding the Ghost Train at the Royal Show? At Guilin airport PA announcements are not exactly mellifluous–sweetly sounding or smoothly flowing; contrarily the voices are always female at about 160 decibels, preceded by a dinner gong and shrill sounding like short-wave radio static which reverberates throughout the lounge area like a sideshow ghost ride.

We have been fortunate to have fine temperate weather each day but humidity can be quite oppressive at times, although there is plenty of air conditioning for hybrid orchid types like us westerners. A word of caution: fitness is mandatory to negotiate the thousands of steps and ancient cobblestones, all with the odd loose flagstones and nary a handrail to be seen anywhere.

Confucius say: Wherever you go, go with your heart

Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights will be spent on the Century Sun and WiFi is an unknown quantity. Until then keep up the emails, for we get off the ship from time to time
Spent today in Chongqing City. Never heard of it before but it is only a city of 8 million with surrounding population of 32 million. A real eye-opener with its own harbour bridge and Opera House. Quite spectacular!
Pictures will follow once we can download them.
And then I am going to sleep in until at least 10 tomorrow morning.
Confucius say… man who keep feet firmly on ground have trouble putting on pants!

Terracotta Warriors recently unearthed in Winthrop

Chinese tea ceremony at the Heavenly Temple in Xi’an

The lady of the 300 year old house in Yangshuo

Sew and crow lesson time, this time in silk embroidery in Guilin

China touring party with our guide Henry Li, a native of Guilin
Confucius say… friend is someone who thinks you’re a good egg even though you’re slightly cracked.

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The blogger with pinkie up-cups at the Xi'an airport

The people of Guilin appear quite nonchalant about their surrounding countryside, ever so accepting of the limestone pinnacle mountains that abound in this area. It was pictures of this area thirty years ago that first sparked our interest this wonderful part of the world.

And at last Guilin, a small city of only 800,000 which we flew into from Xi'an. From our aircraft we could see that the day was going to be a mountainous surprise packet. We had the usual cave tour, south China pearl museum ( and retail sales!) and a leisurely stroll by the lake near our hotel.

But the genuine reveal came today on the Li River on a tour boat following the course of this ancient waterway through a maze of spectacular scenery. I will let the pictures do the talking.

We are now in the little river port town of Yangshuo and closer to the people; mainly shopkeepers on both sides of the every narrow streets.
Even got to visit an elderly couple who open their 300 y.o. home to tourists. The hand-pumped water well, grinding stones to make tofu, wood burning stove with the obligatory woks and not to be outdone a TV.We got on famously, they being a year older than us at 72

A view out of hotel room window

The mountains come to Isabel complete with rice for good luck
Confucius say… trouble with bucket seats is that, not everybody has the same size bucket.

To know Tracy was to know a committed optimist
An ever smiling young woman with a chuckling cheeky laugh
Warmly supreme characteristics that always abided within Tracy
Negotiating the drive to Perth from York was a challenge she overcame
She courteously accepted her dismissal from the local pharmacy
And proudly stepped up and won a place at the York Council
Even the mean-spirited nastiness of a near neighbour failed to dampen her resolve
Tracy always quietly beavered away; confidently determined to succeed
Her journeys through life were always onwards and upwards
Oh how she confounded so many!

An ever smiling young woman with a chuckling cheeky laugh

But York could no longer fulfil her life’s ambition
To Fremantle she proceeded —- and succeeded
To further complement a well-rounded future
She met and sashayed a shy young Angus
Who relished his life’s partner to be
And together they exclaimed their betrothal at a lavish party
Oh how she confounded so many!

But sadly her future was shattered; and not of her own making
Tracy, we ache for you and your youthful inspiring spirit
And this, written with a pen dipped in tears

An ever smiling young woman with a chuckling cheeky laugh

Bill and Wendy, Isabel and Helen our ( rare Jade) quality guide above the eastern gate of the original walled city of Xi’an. Day by day the continuing sunshine and blue skies necessitates umbrellas.

Xi’an is a small city of eight million and the one time capital of China. Xi’an was the origin of the Silk Road. Silk was the prized commodity and the domestication of pack animals (Chinese Camels) enabled vast quantities to be carted over long distances.

The main traders during antiquity were the Chinese, Persians, Romans, Armenians, Indians, and Bactrians (Northern Afghanistan) and from the 5th to the 8th century the Sogdians (Uzbekistan). During the coming of age of Islam, Arab traders became prominent.

Though silk was certainly the major trade item from China, many other goods were traded, and various technologies, religions, and philosophies, as well as the bubonic plague (the “Black Death”), also travelled along the Silk Routes.

Terracotta Warriors and Horses is a collection of terracotta sculptures depicting the armies of Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China who was based in Xi’an. It is a form of funerary art buried with the emperor in 210–209 BC and whose purpose was to protect the emperor in his afterlife.

The display of 2,000 figures were discovered in 1974 by local farmers near Xi’an. The figures vary in height according to their roles, with the tallest being the generals. The buried Terracotta Army held more than 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses and 150 cavalry horses, the majority of which remain buried in the pits nearby Emperor Qin Shi Huang’s mausoleum.

As a warm up we visited a ceramic factory where copies of the warriors are made today along with the obligatory retail showroom which included silk embroidery which Wendy and Isabel admired.

Confucius say… if you turn Oriental around, he become disoriented.

Sitting here in the Beijing airport at the Lei Cafe (as in Hawaiian thingos around your neck) and an hour with which to update our Great Wall day of wonderment.

This monumental structure was built 2,400 years ago and there was a similar number of steps to negotiate to get on top of it. But what a champion feeling to walk along an ancient structure, the hard fought, sweated labour of indentured coolies.

Like all walls, the irony is it failed to keep the marauding Mongols out of the big city; Hadrian’s Wall in a similar era fell short of subduing the wild Scots, the Berlin Wall seemed unable to secure east Berliners and even the outstanding Australian rabbit- proof fence came to naught.

At this Wall there was a nodding acquaintance to modernity in the form of Pizza and Arabica Coffee, Subway, Baskin and Robbins stores and free WiFi!

We also saw the Ming Tombs and dolefully the Jade Factory and enamelware works, that both harboured glitzy retail shops with free tea to corral the male species leaving wives un encumbered to be shepherded from counter to counter

The drive home took 4 and a half hours thru kerb to kerb, bumper to bumper Sunday traffic, but our driver (who drives in demolition derbys at the local speedway,) gave a thrilling display of forced entry, lane- changing.

Our guide Selena has been a gem over the past 4 days and it would be remiss of me not to mention all the top drawer restaurants we have enjoyed.

Flight MU2106 China Eastern awaits at gate 59 ready to whisk us to Xian and the terracotta warriors.

Confucius say… getting sick at the airport, could be a terminal illness.

A little rain on the window in the early hours of the morning brought a clear and sunny Beijing Sunday morning.

A rarity, but oh what a bonus and it lasted all day for our visit to the Great Wall. WOW! And many other delights.

But more tomorrow, for today is well and truly spent. Sufficient to note that Beijing is clean, with well manicured hedges and lawn area, brilliantly unique architecture, terrific roads and the very latest Beemas, Mercs, Buicks, Lexus’ and Audis to gridlock the hot mix.

‘Til tomorrow

Confucius say… if you continue to live in the past, your life is history.