Travelog
This diary tracks our progress along the Silk Roads, with episodes appearing in date order, most recent first. You can get to earlier entries by turning pages at the bottom of the screen.
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- Written by Andy Stone
- Category: Travelog
I believe that in some parts whirlwinds are known as dancing devils, which sounds very apt to me at the moment; we have seen so much in such a short space of time with Nic that we are all a bit stunned, although it has been fantastic and we shall miss her a lot when she departs tomorrow - such good company to travel with.
We took the train from Chengdu to Kaili as planned, and decided to head to a small village 2 hours north of there called Chong-an, still in Guizhou province. We found a great guesthouse by the river amongst manderin trees, really welcoming run by a a guy who cooked us great food and made a very lethal hooch (in fact 2 kinds - one from his oranges and another that approximates sloe gin) that of course I helped him with. We used the place as a base from which to explore nearby villages of some of China's minority peoples, in particular the Hmong, which was amazingly interesting and a good antidote to the city experiences. We also saw on the river some ancient stone water mills still in operation and used to grind wood to make the stuff that coats incense sticks. Now there's something I hadn't considered before.
Another bus ride from hell (marginally better than the one that got us there as it only almost killed us with dust and dirt, rather than impending vertical descents down mountain-sides) took us into Kaili again which has absolutely no redeeming features, and on to Shenzen on the Hong Kong border via Guangzhou. People go to Shenzen for the shopping, much cheaper than in Hong Kong itself, but as a bit of a shopaphobic myself I found it pretty dire. The 2 expert shoppers I was with reliably inform me that it was indeed a fairly bad example of the art. The experience was broken by a laughingly bad Peking Duck lunch and on the whole I cannot say I shall harbour many longings to return. The train took us on in early evening through New Terrritories to Kowloon, and a short hop in a taxi brought us to the fabulous Intercontinental Grand Stanford where courtesy of Nic we are again living the high life. Hurrah, especially for the room view straight across Victoria Harbour!
Our first full day in Hong Kong was spend mostly exploring the local area, and in my case gawping at all the shiny things. Its a kind of China Lite, or England Weird depending on where you're coming from: after so long in China it was a really odd feeling to see the same kind of place with all the immediately visible pollution removed, no honking of horns or voluminous gobs of spit everywhere, London busses and signals on the left-side roads and an almost universally spoken and written English language. Cake shops abound much to mine and Nic's pleasure, and on the whole it has been an absolute breeze to get anything done. Being the awkward guy that I am however, I must say that I am already missing the all-China vibe of before and the problem-solving opportunities presented therein. We took a bus up Hong Kong Peak and admired the view, and came down again by a fernicular-like tram. We shopped. We plotted. We admired colonial stuff.
Mostly we plotted our trip to Macau, which we managed yesterday. It was a very good place for a day trip, an unusual fusion of Portugese and Chinese cultures with a big dose of laid-back. I really loved visiting for the day and can find nothing to criticise, certainly the people were friendly and the old-world mediterranean feel of the place was really great, although I am surrised that one day felt like enough: we had previously considered staying there for a week or so but I don't really want to - one day was enough for me.
Nic goes back tomorrow at a ridiculous hour in the morning, which will at least ensure that we get to see most of the day. Maybe we shall go to Lamma Island for a few days for some peace and quiet...
Christmas is frighteningly close, and I know that this will be a vulnerable time for us. The trip continues to be amazing and we don't want to come in yet, but Christmas day will take some planning as we miss you all so much and need some hearty distractions. Suggestions on an (electronic) postcard please.
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- Written by Andy Stone
- Category: Travelog
In Wanzhou we managed to secure same-day tickets to Chengdu, and after a somewhat surreal tea-infused wait in the lounge of a nearby hotel courtesy of the very kind (and now 50 yuan richer) owners followed by some great almost-street food in the adjoining almost-cafe we were on our way. A reasonably good night in hard sleeper passed uneventfully and we were met at the station by our new abode Sim's Cozy Hostel (thoroughly recommended if you come here). As it was about 6:30, too late for sleep and too early for rushing around, we took a trip to a panda breeding centre (Schezuan province is one of the last remaining panda habitats and has a number of breeding and reintroduction schemes up and running). As ever it was pretty grim to see animals in cages but the cages were a good size, with well managed and interesting habitat and the project at least existed primarily for the conservation of the species being held captive - Giant Pandas and Red Pandas. Incredible animals both of them though Ellen is right: the Giant Panda especially seems to excel at stupidity, laziness and unwarranted aggression. For one thing they are carnivores but refuse to eat anything other than bamboo leaves and shoots - which their digestive systems are just not geared up for so they have to consume vast quantities of the things. It seems that neither of them may be bears and are certainly not closely related to each other, but it doesn't seem to bother them being mostly solitary creatures in any case. We finished the day by exploring a magnificent nearby Buddhist temple complex (Wenshu Monastery) and eating at its comically awful vegetarian restaurant. Avoid unless in good humour.
The whirlwind of activity continued apace today as we rose early and headed off to the (fairly) nearby QingCheng Shan, one of the sacred Taoist mountains that I have been itching to get to. Although things were a little complicated to arrange with our Chinese-only speaking driver, whose patience we tried greatly by turning up late for everything, the day was brilliant - really great to escape the city and be in the hills again. As usual we had bitten off almost more than we could chew so it was a fast day zooming up the front face (lots of temples, lots of tourists), not quite reaching the peak and zooming down again so we could go to the back face, which was totally different - hardly any tourists, a medieval town, and stunning landscapes. Again not enough time to do it justice we did manage the world's slowest cable car journey across Five Dragons Gorge before returning the same way to meet our driver in time (nearly). We all pretty much agreed that we would have liked 2 days there to do both sides justice, and this is the minimum time if any real hiking is to be done, but as we didn't have the luxury of time it was well worth the fast pace and we at least had a taste of something we may be able to come back to in the future. We celebrated our hectic day with a slap-up binge at Peter's Tex-Mex Grill, which aside from the expected nachos and tortillas introduced me to the delights of strawberry margaritas - devilishly wonderful nectar I'm happy to report. Needless to say, given that Nic and I were in close proximity to Really Decadent Cakes, we have taken the precaution of stocking up for the train journey tomorrow; well, a hard sleeper through central China just wouldn't be the same without cheesecake and brownies, would it? This journey will take us south-west to Guizhou province from which we shall explore some of the surrounding villages renowned for still being home to minority hill-tribes, and culturally quite distinct from the rest of China. Expect strange pictures...
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- Written by Ellen Winter
- Category: Travelog
I had:
Starter - artichoke with parmesan, tomato n mozz, aubergine rolled with yummy tapenade-y filling.
Main - Iranian dish 'fit for a Queen' - veggie kebob (sic), jewelled rice, beetroot and pomegranate filo parcels (nicest thing, really delicious), Iranian bread and some other nice veggie things that have already escaped me, given how full my memory banks are currently running.
Dessert - a huge slice of Pavlova, much to Andy and Nic's chagrin as they had gone for choccy plates, which were much smaller. Size does matter.
After dinner we decided to nip over the road to the other really posh restaurant in Shanghai - Jean Georges at Three on the Bund, super swanky and not at all veggie, with a fashionistas-trying-too-hard bar. So having checked out the menu, we disappeared back to Glamour Bar for cocktails for them and Pedro Ximenez for me. Heaven.
We also took advantage of our temporary and entirely illusory wealth to wander around especially onto the roof terrace and admire the classical colonial architecture of the Bund at night and the gaudy Pudong neon across the river from one of the best vantage points. Although everyone was terribly nice to us, here and at the swanky hotel, I did have a constant feeling of 'we're going to get found out!'.
Although Andy was really excited he forgot to say in his article that when we went to collect Nic from the airport we went by Maglev, covering 30km in 8 minutes. The display told us we were going at 431kph. No, they don't have enough things to hang on to.
While I'm at the 'scary things I have done in China' bit, I will mention that our hotel in Shanghai was the 4 highest building around, and in the interests of visiting Nepal, I accompanied Andy and Nic up to the bar on the 65th floor for a nosy. After some reasonably well controlled panicking, they agreed to bring me down again to the relative normality of our room on the 31st floor. As Andy said - at a certain height, waitresses and air hostesses begin to look the same.
Shanghai Museum was excellent, only suffering slightly from coming relatively hot on the heels of the equally good Xi'an Museum. As we were pushed for time I did a highly personalised tour of the early bronzes, the early jade and the minority nationalities galleries. All very fascinating, especially the bronzes, although there are only so many 'ding', 'gong' and 'zun' that a girl can take at once.
Although the world heritage designated gardens in Suzhou were good, they were such a different style to English gardens. The Chinese classical garden is all intimate courtyards and walkways full of big holey stones and small trees in between pavillions of 'distant fragrance' or 'reflecting pagoda' that we came to the conclusion that any Chinese visiting, say, a Capability Brown effort in the UK, would be at a total loss, and stare around thinking "This is soooo boring, it's just grass with a few trees."
After the biggest breakfast buffet ever (I had scrambled eggs, grilled toms, hash browns, pain au chocolat, brioche, and fresh fruit, including rambutan and dragonfruit with blueberry yogurt and almonds, but I could easily have had bircher muesli and prunes, followed by sushi, smoked salmon omelette, emmenthal and brie, Chinese dumplings, and pancakes or muffins to finish off.) we went off the Pudong via the tourist tunnel, and then abandoned Andy and grabbed a taxi to Yuyuan market for a spot of shopping. Except we spent about 10 minutes in the tourist corral of Yuyuan before heading to the nearby local market to rummage for bargains.
We 'just happened' to bump into Andy in the expensive cake shop in the bottom of our hotel building (the hotel started on the 9th floor I think) buying goodies for the 29 hour train journey, and so supplied set off for Yichang on our way to the 3 gorges.
Current book: Just finished Last Secrets of the Silk Road by Alexandra Tolstoy **/***** Useful background reading, but some obviously tough, capable women come out seeming very young and self-centred. Am currently reading all the UK newspapers Nic kindly lugged out with her.
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- Written by Andy Stone
- Category: Travelog
Our Shanghai adventures have taking a turn for the positively luxurious, thanks to Ellen's sister Nic who flew out to be here for Ellen's birthday. Thanks to a very kind heart and a large number of air-miles she has enabled us all to stay in the ultra-swanky just completed five star Le Royal Meridien overlooking People's Square, about 10 minutes stroll from The Bund. It is incredibly sumptuous and palatial, with back-lit agate walls, carpets you could loose ferrets in and the biggest, most fluffy bed I have ever been in. Absolute luxury that has enabled us to experience yet another facet of the world in the most international of cities, and we are especially grateful as we would never have been able to add this kind of variety ourselves. Thank you for making our trip even more magnificent, Nic!
The three of us have had great times here, including a visit to one of Shanghai's few active temples, Jade Buddha Temple, and a day trip to Suzhou - a dirty, noisy, uninsiring Chinese town on the outside, studded with some real gems on the interior. We ostensibly went there to explore the famous Ming dynasty gardens but for me the highlight was certainly strolling through the well-preserved mazy alley-ways that accompanied a complex network of canals and waterways, equally well preserved despite the industrialisation that has ruined the exterior. We also managed to eat on the famous M On The Bund for Ellen's birthday, courtesy of her mother, and it was a real treat: very good quality European food in a wonderful Victorian setting right on The Bund, overlooking the river. A very suitable way to spend a birthday in this most high-rolling of Chinese cities.
Today we leave for a 28 hour train journey to Yichang on the Yangtze, from where we hope to travel by boat along the Three Gorges region and on to Chengdu. The Yangtze is another of those fabled places I have wanted to visit for a long time and so I am really looking forward to it. Let's just hope the glorious weather (high twenties and fairly constant sunshine, if you're interested!) continues...
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- Written by Andy Stone
- Category: Travelog
Just a quick note to let you know we have made it successfully from Xi'an to Shanghai, and have well and truly landed on our feet again. Out hosts Fang and Bin have given us a pretty central apartment of our own from which to explore until Nic arrives on Saturday, and they are both great people with whome we are to go touring the city tomorrow night. We only arrived this lunch time so I have not seen much, but it has a unique flavour here - much more cosmopolitan that Beijing or Xi'an, probably thanks to its British and French history.
I certainly know the true meaning of "to be Shanghai'ed" though: it was not to be slipped a mickey finn and wake up between a pair of oars getting sea-sick, that was just the excuse given. I think the real meaning was to come here, take one look, and never want to leave! I am so overjoyed to be here in China and especially Shanghai that I think the last 2 weeks have been the most amazing of my life. I cannot say why, it is dirty, smelly, jostly, loud and some times excluding, but it just fits right. The people here are so kind, robust, and with a high lust for life that it kind of sweeps you away...