Perhaps the thing I'm most afraid of in everyday life is one of the most common. Not terrorism, not violent crime, not air crashes. No, cars. I hold that no matter where you are in the world, it's cars that are the biggest danger.
A recent World Health Organisation report states that 600 a day die on China's roads. I'm surprised it's so little - 219,000 a year or just 0.017% of the population.
That's equivalent to about 10,000 deaths per year in the UK in percentage terms - the real figure in Britain is actually 3,500 each year, so compared in real terms to fatalities in China it's a third.
There's more interesting stats in the document. They reckon there'll be half a million deaths per year by 2020. But I don't agree with the following:
Reducing road injury is not difficult. The World Report on Road Traffic Injury Prevention has compiled and summarized the best evidence that suggests that road crashes and injuries can be effectively prevented through implementing simple strategies such as safety belts for adults and children, legislating and enforcing speed limits and drink driving statutes, and increasing the visibility of vulnerable road users such as pedestrians and cyclists.
I reckon the best way to reduce deaths in Chinese cities at least is going to be to enforce common sense. Only yesterday, for example, I saw a man on a scooter drive directly in front of a car as it was turning into a road, causing the car to brake heavily. People regularly run in front of buses. Cars regularly jump traffic lights as if they're not even there. But they are there - and there for a reason, which is to control traffic and prevent accidents!
In fact it's amazing the figure is so low. I assume that people are so aware of the insanity of their fellow drivers that they are perhaps more alert than they would be in the UK - ready at every moment to brake suddenly to avoid an accident.
The only way to prevent traffic fatalities here is somehow to imbue people with common sense - it seems to me that they don't even value their own lives, let alone those of other people. The release concludes well: Road safety is no accident, and the choice lies in our hands.
Half of Shanghai is underground.
So it seems when you view it from below, lying in the back of a removals van. Girlfriend Simona moved her belongings from storage in my flat the other day to a plush new pad in the Huashan Lu area, but there wasn't enough space in the vehicle cab for me so I was relegated to the back with all the boxes of superfluous shoes and make-up.
There I lay, looking up through the van's skylight. It was a clear day - the skies have been unusually blue these days up until the recent bout of rain. And almost everywhere you drive, you are under a second roof.
It seems that half of Shanghai is an elevated road. The city is so dense that they had to build it twice - one on top of the other. Though the standards of construction may well be shoddy, it's still a marvel of engineering. The roads twist and turn above your head, lined with straggles of vegetation, putting Birmingham's famed 'spaghetti junction' to shame. Let's face it, we're in the land that invented spaghetti and Shanghai's roads are one big bowl of noodles.
At dusk, look up towards the flyovers and you may see the darting shapes of the bats that live in the eaves, jinking and diving as the hunt.
In so many ways, Shanghai is the true-life city of Bladerunner - shining skyscrapers, flickering advertising, rampant traffic, constant darkness and the oriental contrasts of rich and poor set against the backdrop of a many-tiered urban landscape.
Gripe as I do, it's a fascinating place.
One country, two systems. One that works and one that doesn't. So it seems to me at least.
Hong Kong is the ultimate contrast and complement to Shanghai. It's what Shanghai would be like had they got it right, and it's what it could yet become if they can get their act together.
And it's got to be said that Hong Kong's history is written in blood. It's not something that is yet on the British national curriculum - the role that the territory played in the Opium Wars of the nineteenth century.
Nowadays it's Afghanistan and Columbia that take all the stick, but back in the bad old days Britain was the original nation state drug dealer. Unable to balance the trade deficit with China, they turned to underhanded methods, deliberately engineering mass drug addiction among the Chinese in order to have something to swap for luxury goods like silk and tea.
But on the other hand, it's pretty clear to the observer that despite its inglorious history, the Brits got something right here. The subway is an immaculate conception of hi-tech passenger service. Cars stop at traffic lights, and people - though numerous - don't spit, push, shove and selfishly ignore anything that might get in their way, for example other people. All kinds of goods are readily available (at a price, of course). Everything is neatly and accurately signposted. Business is booming, or at least so it seems on the surface.
The biggest difference is in, I emphasise, the people. They're - how can I put it - same same, but different. Generally far politer, friendlier, and much more helpful than the everyday Shanghainese I'm afraid.
If Shanghai and Beijing really want to become international cities of commerce and tourism, I suggest the entire directorates of the cities camp down here for a week or two and then simply copy what Hong Kong has done. And don't tell me they haven't got the money, because with all the sound and fury surrounding the 2008 Olympics they clearly do.
Before I start putting together my own travelogue from recent days, I really feel obliged to tell you to get off this site and read Dan Washburn's instead.
He's doing what I couldn't - taking a real trip around the real China. Something I haven't had the contacts, guts or endurance to do, plumping instead for a tacky English company tour with my Mum around the 'China Highlights' - interesting in itself but not like this.
In my defence, I was planning to take a trip down to lesser known Guangxi to visit a former student but for various reasons it all fell through and I was stuck in Shanghai for the best part of July.
Dan's writing is remarkable, especially considering he's still on the road, and it's my vote for site of the year.
With a stinking cold and two hundred spam comments to delete on this blog.
More later when I get the chance, but I've just had a very different kind of China experience, that has actually changed my view on some things. China is not actually a place of surly ticket booth attendents, poor restaurant service, sneaky taxi drivers and rampant over-charging if you have the money to go on an organised tour.
Though this isn't much use to me in my everyday existence, it has renewed my confidence a little in China's potential for tourism. If you've got the dough, it's the place to go.
Of China's many mysteries, perhaps the train system is one of the most unfathomable to me.
Every ticket office I've seen has been computerised - no mean task for a system as huge as China's. Yet what I fail to understand is the methodology for booking tickets.
Back in the UK, for example during the busiest period at Christmas, all you have to do is go to a station a few weeks in advance, tell them where you are going and when you want to come back and hand over the money. But this doesn't work in China.
For a start, you can't get return tickets. You have to buy singles, so you can only buy a ticket to return to your original point once you have reached your destination. Second, you can't book tickets more than ten days in advance. And with the legendarily high ticket demand of the railways this often means that if you arrive somewhere you are not guaranteed to be able to get back.
The only explanations I've heard for this is that the demand is so high that the system can't cope, and that the railway doesn't want to sell return tickets to people who might not be able to take them up. This doesn't make much sense to me, especially considering the system is now computerised, so if there are any explanations I'd love to hear them.
So it was that the 12-hour return from Kaifeng had to be on hard seat - which is effectively 'third class'. No sleepers, just rows of upright chairs. Bearing in mind a 20-hour hard seat journey from Qingdao I took back in October it wasn't a prospect I relished at all.
On the good side, despite the crowding in the carriage once I laid claim to my seat no-one took advantage of me and tried to grab it while I used the toilet at any point. It's pretty noble considering that some of the seatless may already have been standing up in the aisles for several hours.
On the bad side, before even getting on the train there was the typical bunfight at the door which inevitably slows things down for everyone. I wish people would just grasp the concept that if you wait your turn instead of trying to get through with physical force then it would work out better for all.
And once on it, despite the general decency of most of the other passengers I had to restrain myself from twatting the teenage boy who insisted on spitting on the floor at regular intervals. (I got into a conversation about the spitting issue back in Shanghai later that day but have still yet to hear an explanation.) The general mess and littering is also diabolical.
But all this being said, and despite the lack of sleep and chronic buttache, it got me from A to B in one piece, so I should be grateful for that...
China's had a few capital cities in its time, and about 1,000 years ago the title went to a place in modern-day Henan province.
Today Kaifeng is a refreshingly quiet city, compared to the urban mayhem of Shanghai at least.
In the north east corner can be found its main attraction, Tie Ta, the 'Iron Pagoda'. It's not in fact made of iron at all but glazed tiles, each of which is decorated with Buddhist carvings. Surrounding the pagoda is a park, complete with a boating lake and lily-covered ponds around which dragonflies go about their business.
Kaifeng is one of the few places with a surviving city wall, though it's not maintained as a tourist attraction. Scrambling through the undergrowth in Tie Ta park I was able to climb the earth mound that backs up the wall, but couldn't for the life of me figure out how to get to the other side.
Elsewhere in Kaifeng are a couble of notable temples - for example Da Xiangguo Si, the highlight of which is an octagonal building lined with picaresque statues in storytelling mode. At the centre is a gold-covered sculpture of Guanyin, the thousand arms arrayed around the four-sided figure like angel's wings.
Just outside the city wall near the train station is Fan Ta, a much older stone building again covered with Buddha images within and without.
However, but for another temple and a dreary museum dedicated to Liu Shaoqing, one of the also-rans of Chinese politics, there's not a lot to do. Due to the frustrations of the train system I was stuck there for two days, only one of which could be filled by sightseeing.
On Friday afternoon I happened on a very tastefully decorated cafe which served milkshakes, steak sandwiches and other Western type items. While I was there I spotted one other foreigner in Kaifeng, who I presume was the owner or manager of the cafe.
I often wonder how these people end up in lesser known places like Kaifeng. It's like the American couple I came across in Qingdao who were running a small TexMex restaurant. What possesses them to set up shop in places like this - do they really do good business there? Of course, not everyone wants to hang out in Shanghai and Beijing and I don't blame them at all. But it seems bizarre where foreigners sometimes settle, especially given the lack of foreign tourists outside the main attractions.
Packed off girlfriend and two friends at Shanghai's airports this week, and said goodbye to another. Suddenly feel very alone.
Instead of ruminating on the partings, I'll stick in a couple of observations on the airports.
Shanghai Pudong (PVG)
An incredibly modern architecturally exotic exterior belies a remarkably poor interior. By this I mean the airport shops and restaurants. It amazes me that after spending so much on the building, there's so little here to entertain the visitor, just a grotty selection of grotty and overpriced mini-marts and a pathetic little restaurant corner. You may as well be in the bus station.
I suppose that the philosophy is that if you're on your way out of Shanghai, there's no point trying to please you. However, I was surprised to find a copy of Newsweek (priced at RMB 45 or about US$5) with a front page article on 'Hong Kong Gets Political'. Right after the 1 July demos. Interesting.
Shanghai Hongqiao (SHA)
On the other side of town, though a bit easier to get to, there's the decrepit old domestic airport - though the 10 foot sign that labels it as an 'International' travel hub is yet to come down. That's all I've got to say - there's basically nothing here at all. It's also a very confusing place - try finding your flight check-in counter and departure gate behind all the false walls.
Up and running as of now right here! Please take a look.
Two notes to bear in mind:
1. Scan quality is abysmal: it's a symptom of using a $100 scanner to scan slides taken with equipment worth well over $1000. So take them with a pinch of salt. The originals look much better.
Many of my total of 300 photos actually didn't come out so well due to my occasionally ignorant use of the cameras plus my befuddled state from altitude sickness. But what you see are the pick of the bunch, and some of them are still pretty neat.
2. Politics. From a liberal Western perspective Tibet is an independent country invaded by China and colonised and governed against the will of its people and their leader-in-exile, the 14th Dalai Lama. From a Chinese perspective, Tibet is and has always been a part of China, and is now a self-autonomous region.
The photos are apolitical - they're just nice pictures - so I've included them in both the China pages and the general gallery.
Meanwhile, I'm working on the Nepal photos and getting a new website - postcampus.com - up and running. (Don't click the link until June 2004, it's not ready yet!) Watch this space...
It's been said of climbing mountains that you should do it "because it is there". Not so Huang Shan, Anhui province's Yellow Mountain. I spent my weekend here because it was free.
It's also been said there's no such thing as a free lunch, and so it proved. But when your employers offer to take you on a 'jolly', some kind of special treat for the animals, you take it. After 15 hours on a train and another hour with a minibus driver who seemed to shift up the gears around hairpin bends we were there.
Where was it?
In the midst of heavy fog, the mountain was obliterated. Clad in plastic cycling macs we dutifully ascended the cable car to find that even at the top of the mountain it still wasn't there.
And so it remained for the next 24 hours. Washout. Perhaps for about an hour we caught a glimpse over the karst formations, but on the whole it might have been better to stay at home and stand under a cold shower for 60 minutes.
Can't even say that there were compensations. The food was atrocious. The overpriced (glad it was free) hotel was substandard. And on top of a mountain what is there to do but look at the mountain?
Having arrived in Shanghai on Monday morning just in time for work, our luggage finally arrived today. Great.
Simona had seen them in of all things an Enigma video, and had been talking about them for months. Today we finally saw them.
The eyes.
The eyes of truth. The compassionate eyes of the Buddha. They adorn the top of the Bouddhanath, at 36m one of the largest stupas in Asia, and therefore the world since Asia is the only place they build stupas. The Nepal tourism website tells you it's said to "entomb the remains of a Kasyap sage venerable both to Buddhists and Hindus."
The eyes peer at you with a creepy ambience from each side of the monument, whether sunlit or shaded; the question mark between the eyes (the thing that looks like a nose in the picture) invites you to question yourself.
As in the Barkhor at Lhasa, the devoted clap, mutter and prostrate themselves. Prayer flags cut across the sky like the washing lines of nirvana.
Unfortunately the Bouddhanath is also surrounded by souvenir shops which took up a lot more of our (Simona's) time. Arriving at the hotel to find a message from the tour company, we phoned immediately.
They said they'd booked us on indirect flights to Shanghai via Bangkok. Could we pay $300 each please?
What?
A few angry calls between Kathmandu and the tour company in Shanghai sorted out the situation, but the fact that they even dared to suggest that we pay for the tickets that they themselves had failed to book a fortnight ago when we paid the fee was beyond comprehension.
Kathmandu's primitive airport received us shortly afterwards, and despite a near scuffle with the zealous security personnel who confiscated my clearly Maoist-terrorism linked Duracell batteries, we boarded the plane.
Business class to Bangkok (the only tickets they could get). The pilot thoughtfully elected to tell us during the approach that he had offloaded some of the baggage because he was worried that he wouldn't be able to take off.
And just as the plane touched down for my sixth visit to BKK International Aiport, my bowels exploded. Faintly embarrassing as I ran through business class and dived into the toilet.
Fact: women like shopping.
The day was meant to be a cultural visit to Bhaktapur, the ancient city nestling beside Kathmandu. And I do have to admit that I invested in a set of khukris (Gurka knives) for myself and others.
But the tour around the old town turned into more of a chaotic shopping spree for some of the party, which was exaperating for others.
Nevertheless, having spent so much time and money visiting ruined ancient cities it was refershing change to see the way they may have looked 500 years ago, with a living population worshipping, working, shopping, chatting and just generally getting on with it..
Just a bit of a shame that I couldn't pull off the 'my dad's a Hindu' act to gain permission to enter a certain part of a temple housing a unique sculpture. Never mind.
You can take a look at the photos on the Nepal page when they're ready, but I'd better admit that I have no clue what any of the buildings are.
At lunchtime, it was eventually broken to us. The tour guides had been holding onto our passports for 24 hours, the reason being that no ticket had been booked for us to get back to Shanghai and they were having great trouble finding one.
Would we mind staying in Kathmandu a bit longer? Why not. Nothing we can do anyway.
Off round the tourist market for more shopping and to the tourist restaurant for more eating and rather bland traditional dance. Then to the Shangri La hotel (no second night in the Hyatt allowed).
Perhaps the most surreal moment of the trip: guided to the Orwellian room 101 the door was opened to reveal... nothing. The room hadn't yet been installed with a bed.
They say that to live in China you need to get out once in a while. So we did.
But for a possible misunderstanding involving our Malysian friend Dilph - who may have been mistaken for an escaping Chinese dissident and was nearly impounded - the border crossing was relatively smooth.
If only this could be said for the road, which was in an unadvanced stage of reconstruction. The landcruisers were called on to do their 4WD drive thing once again, and for the last 500 metres our bags were carried by an army of youths.
Welcoming us literally with open arms was the new guide, Shree, whose bubbling enthusiasm was at first a welcome change but eventually began to grate.
Some examples from the bus journey to Kathmandu...
Me: "Can you explain some differences between Hinduism and Buddhism?"
Shree: "Yes, please. In Hinduism there is Brahma, the creator, Vishnu the preserver and Shiva the destroyer..."
Me: "What's that river?"
Shree: "Yes, please. It is a very holy river. In Hinduism there is Brahma, the creator, Vishnu the preserver and Shiva the destroyer..."
Shree: "Observe! On your right there is a temple. In Hinduism there is Brahma, the creator, Vishnu the preserver and Shiva the destroyer..."
Me: "What time will we get to Kathmandu?"
Shree: "Yes, please. In Hinduism there is Brahma, the creator, Vishnu the preserver and Shiva the destroyer... So you must not worry about these earthly things."
Get the drift?
I mock, but the journey was an exquisite treat. In stark contrast to barren Tibet we drove through lush, emerald valleys, past a bungee jump, a wedding party and countless farms and farmers.
Kathmandu was the riot of the traffic, dust, malingering cows, sounds and smells that I'm used to from my experiences in India as a boy. It felt like I was there again, coming full circle from where I started in November 2002 - the Khmer civilisation of Cambodia - and on to the temples of Borobodur and Prambaram in Java, the Cham cultures of Laos and Vietnam, the conflict of old and new in China and the cradle of Buddhist culture in Tibet.
It was an ephiphany of sorts. I must get back to India soon.
Another epipahny was the Hyatt Hotel. Fantastic. Especially after a week of characterless food and accomodation in Tibet. In my enthusiasm I watched BBC for three hours (bizarrely seeing old acquaintance David Mulholland from Jane's and former Oxford college Master Sir Roger Bannister at Pembroke among other things).
There was even a disco and a cover band.
The Prime Minister of Nepal had resigned just as we had arrived; another factor in the mix of an eventful trip.
Illness aside, we had been remarkably lucky. The peak of Everest is generally only visible for three weeks every year. Today was the third in a row we had had the privilege of looking at the highest point on Earth, 8848m above sea level. Perhaps there is such a thing as karma, or the dao, after all.
The day's ride from Base Camp to the border took us across almost every environment imaginable. Bouldered desert valleys, punctuated by sparse grey tufts of vegetation. Snowy plains, fording shallow streams in four-wheel-drive mode; one mistake and game over. Past the peaks of the Himalayas, Everest fading into the background, Sheshi Bangma taking its place. Then finally into Balkanesque forested valleys plummetting steeply to the green-blue-white of the foaming rivers at the trough.
From nothing, conifers appeared, and made way for deciduous trees within the space of a couple of hours. The vehicles paused under a waterfall for an impromptu carwash and continued to Zhengmu, the final call in Tibet.
The border town improbably clings to the side of the near-vertical hill, winding its way around hairpin bends. Different ethnic groups, languages and cultures mingle together; Tibetan, Han Chinese and Nepali all together in the illicit bustle and confusion of the final outpost.
We pushed past the trucks, already too wide for the narrow streets for a last night in Tibet. And as the altititude decreased so the sickness lifted only to be replaced with the most familiar travel ailment of all...
From Shegar, the journey to Base Camp is another ride of endurance rather than enjoyment. The state of the road shakes your dried-up brain around your cranium like a pae in a whistle. Not what you need when the altitude is already encouraging a pounding headache.
Approaching Quomolangma, Everest, the mountain itself looms almost too close. Having had enough of the low pressure, a cigarette lighter exploded in my pocket. Then the vehicle stops at the point of no return (step any further and you cough up the $10,000 fee for climbing the peak).
Set on a cold, rocky, windswept plain, Base Camp North is an unassuming huddle of tents, portacabins and a lone stupa. Though you can sit in the warm and drink tea in an overpriced refreshment stall, it's no holiday resort. People have died here and people have died on their return.
That night I woke up reciting the text of a virulent article designed to bring down the CCP. The secret police rapped on the door, entered without invitation and began to interrogate. There was no way out. I was in big trouble.
Some of the above may not have been entirely true but in my by then delirious state I was in no position to question the feverish hallucination. Hardly able to walk, I had to be helped up the steps twice by the long-suffering Simona only to find I couldn't even pee.
Altitude sickness is no joke. That was the nadir.
Another rough drive took us past remains of monastaries sacked during the Cultural Revolution rising like broken teeth from the jaws of the landscape, and then to the highest pass in the world.
At 5200 metres, the Tongla pass is a bleak place to stand. The wind scars your eyes and face with red dust and another jumble of worn prayer flags strains against the fastenings.
We took lunch in a sheltered valley greened with the rare sight of grass. The site of a bunch of foreigners scoffing chips out of polystyrene boxes soon attracted the attention of a band of goatherd boys and their animals.
As the children nervously extended their hands to receive proffered sausages and bananas, you could see their skin chapped and crackled like the mud of a dried up river. It's a harsh place to live.
Then, rising above the horizon, the first real glimpse of the snowy caps of the Himalayas, Everest itself assertively pointing out its presence, a grey shard among the jagged slates on the roof of the world.
Surrounded by hilltop fortifications, a small wall of China, Gyantse's Kumbum stupa is perhaps the largest of its kind in Tibet. Stationed beside is a monk employed to wash vistors hands with yellow water (?) from a large teapot. Explanations in the comments section, please.
In the temple by the stupa are more and more Avalokitesvaras and Tibetan thankas, cloth murals hung in a building for good luck. As in the Potala, the walls of each of the sub-shrines are lined with hundreds of boxed sanskrit scrolls pigeonholed into the wall.
Devotees stoop and creep along the low passageway beneath the scrolls; to walk under such learning bestows further qualities of the mind.
A short and painless drive from Gyantse is Shigatse, and perhaps the foremost remaining highlight of the Buddhism trail.
Along the way, the usually soporised Guide Mk.2 told a perhaps aprocryphal story of Tibet's killer yaks. "The normal wild yak, the domardic," he explained, "just eats grass. But in the mountians there is the wild duong. It's been known to eat meat. If you see one coming you lie down and look small. It's the only way to avoid it."
At Shigatse, the Tashilhunpo monastry is the sprawling domain of the Panchen Lama. Despite the inevitable droves of other tourists, it is here that that you finally feel you are in Tibet.
Yellow hat monks adorned with the oversized plumes of their order go about their business in a labyrinthine complex of mediaeval alleys and passageways. Circles of them sit in the courtyard oblivious to the foreign presence while they prepare tomorrow's offering of yak-butter candles, representing the eternal cycle sun and moon. The smell, not unlike rancid cooking oil pervades every corner.
Besides the thrones and stupas of the Panchen Lamas, the monastry also boasts the world's largest Maitreya, or 'Future' Buddha, a golden effigy smiling enigmatically over the onlookers below.
Despite the nagging altitude headache, I felt I was here.
This picture sums it up. Simona having a marvellous time, me stricken with headache, fatigue, dizziness and a malaise removed from altitude sickness itself, a sense of foreboding.
Lacking appetite for breakfast, a restoratory packet of M&Ms was sufficient to perk me up enough to board the Toyota Land Cruisers for the next leg of the journey to Gyantse.
Packed into the vehicle with Frederick the tall Swede, his tall wife Yongyan and a surly driver it was on to the highway. Minutes out of Lhasa we were subjected to two checkpoints: first by the army; second by the police just a kilometre down the road. The military presence in Tibet is subdued but hard to miss; you can't forget what kind of state you're in, at least near the major cities.
The tarmac petered out soon enough dirt track winding past the squat and square Tibetan dwellings dotted around the barren countryside. A few months ago, there was a smattering of press reports concerning missions to Mars. They could have saved their money. It's here.
Tibet is a Mars-scape, elevated thousands of metres above and thousands of kilometres from the rest of the world. It's difficult to see how anything can survive in this ferrous red wasteland, but evidently it does.
All but a Toyota Land Cruiser, which conked out after two hours of juddering road. No walkie talkies, medical kits or mechanical spares in sight. We were on our own.
Fortunately the other vehicles in the convoy picked us up, though after a misunderstanding I had to tramp two hundred metres in the deoxygenated air to retreive my cameras from the breakdown. Felt like two thousand. Simona's careless mishandling of my Pentax further blackened my mood, hence the photo.
At least I felt better than Frederick, also going down with the altitude. Halfway through the juddering, bone-shaking, brain rattling journey he was heard to cry: "Just get me out of this place, I don't want to die here." Some holiday.
But no pain no gain. Far from urban influence we were visiting one of the least visited places on Earth. Beside us ebbed the crystalline Yamdroktso Lake, crystalline and spiritual in its purity; before us rose the first snowy hint of the Himalayas. Tibetans regard this as a holy place; let hope it is spared the damnation of the planned dam.
At the Semola pass, a glacial patch on one of the mountains glittered in the sunlight while a spider-like edifice of prayerflags whipped and cracked in the wind. Meanwhile, women demanded payment for photographing their yaks; the scenery changes but some things never will.
Gyantse, an unremarkable hole of a town. Feeling in need of a haircut I ventured into the hotel barbers for a crop and found myself having to give instructions on how to use scissors and clippers. Clearly the staff had never done it before; "what do you think this is, a barbers' shop or something?"
Everewhere in the world, 1 May, Labour Day, is a time for celebration or protest. In Tibet it was the day the government and army take over the tourist attractions for jollies.
The situation was exacerbated further by the fact that our erstwhile guide, Samuel, discovered that his license had expired in April. Without this we were not allowed inside the Potala Palace.
While this was being sorted out, we diverted to the Jokhang temple. Inside, the low-ceilinged candlelit darkness offered a taste of what we were to see for the rest of the trip. Bundles of monk's garments were strewn carefully on the floor, guarded by a variety of Buddhas and Avalokitesvaras.
Outside fulfilled expectation of unchanged theocratic Tibet. The devout prostrated full-flat on the ground, theor hands protected by wooden clapper boards which they struck before they fell. Some, evidenced by the grimy bruises on their foreheads, may have been doing this for miles.
Others, mainly walnut-faced women clad in the reddish-brown hues of the Tibetan soil shuffled clockwise around the Barkhor square surrounding the temple, murmuring mantras as they span their hand-held prayer wheels.
Between two columns of prayer flags was an unassuming underground cellar; a glimpse inside revealed a thousand candles flickering in the gloom. By the entrances cleaners clinked and fussed as they wiped the black, smoky film from brass candleholders.
It was a scene that could have been placed at any point in the last millenium. There wasn't even a McDonalds.
Due to some crafty negotiation by Sinophone Swede Frederick, we were able to gain access to the Potala Palace. We passed the scuttling crowds and spinning the thousands of prayer wheels occupying the walls around the building and ascended the hill upon which the white and brown palace is set.
Led by the anonymous backup guide no.2, we were shown the unoccupied throne of the Dalai Lama, plus stupas containing the remains of his predecessors all surrounded by thousands upon thousands of the boxed and sealed scriptures that lined the walls.
The way was lit by pungent candles, not the stick-like kind but trays filled with yak butter and interspersed with wicks for the flames. These, we were told, were to guide the way of souls visiting the halls.
Aside from the spiritual essence of of the living Buddha, the Palace was also populated by rat-catching cats and trainee kitten tied to the window frames with string.
They in turn were watched over by steely-eyed Han Chinese guards, determined to assert their presence in this most symbolic of places. None of them had removed their hats as a sign of respect as visitors wre instructed to do; it was as if they were making a statement of ownership.
When in Tibet, do as the Tibetans do. Against the advice of the guides we opted for a Tibetan dinner and were duly driven an hour out of the city to a dusty village. Here we were treated to yak butter tea of both the sweet and palatable kind and the salty and wince-and-spit variety.
The yak meat was predictably inedible and altitude sickness was beginning to take its toll. My appetite was waning and my head was pounding.
Another hour of hellish bumping and shuddering on the uneven road back and I'd had it. I was not the only one to be suffering; Alida, the Swedish lady had not emerged from her room for two days and Frederick had also had a hospital visit.
Escorted to a clinic, I was jabbed in the arse with glucose and then attached to a drip and oxygen cylinder for an hour. "Wrap up warmer," clucked the admonishing nurse. Yeah right, as if being 3700m above sea level isn't the reason. So far so good.
(Mum - looks much worse than it really was.)
Rising at 3.30am, it was clearly going to be a tough day.
With perhaps 900 people waiting at the airport hotel to get on the next flight to Lhasa, it was decided that we should hire our own buses to get us to check-in in advance. An effective tactic considering the mayhem that ensued. However, Linda's competence shone through and we bundled ourselves into the departure lounge.
As we approached Tibet, isolated peaks of the Himalayas poked through the landscape of puffy cloud. "Stupid mountain," said Simona, and was told to apologise. Don't mess with the mountains.
The aircraft touched down to a surreal smell of fish and the sound of 'Rule Brittania' played over the PA system. The air palpably but not uncomfortably thinner, we were met by the guide, Samuel and driven the 90 km to Lhasa itself.
Despite a hairy moment squeezing the bus into a three metre opening into the fenced off street the journay was uneventful. This being an acclimatisation day, we were told to rest. This did not stop Simona, who insisted on taking a browse around the markets. Already my head was beginning to ache and I was only too glad to lie down again. She didn't buy anything/
Thank heaven for the aeroplane. Jet travel has made the world a smaller place; in the last few decades it has brought nations and people closer together than ever before.
Just a shame it's still subject to the occasional balls up.
For a few blissful hours all was going smoothly. We arrived at Chengdu relatively on time with a fairly narrow but comfortable margin with with to catch the connecting flight. On arriving at the check-in we found a short girl with a board embellished with the tour company's logo, enabling us to meet up with the rest of the group. So far so good.
Upon reaching the front of the queue, on the other hand, we were told that the flight had been cancelled. "Sandstorms in Lhasa," sighed the airline staff. Inexplicably the tour company representative had known this all along but chose not to inform us.
After a couple of hours of negotiation and counter negotation, one of the group emerged as a leader (Linda, herself in the travel business). We ditched the board girl and eventually were taken to a shabby airport hotel complete with honeymoon suite, or at least a bed with a wooden heart above the pillows.
Here we remained, day one of the holiday down the squatee.
Publication of my article on Qufu in That's Shanghai and That's Beijing. Click on the links to view.
Curiously, the feature appears almost exactly as I wrote it in That's Beijing, but has clearly been edited in That's Shanghai. This is true of the online version at least .
I'm particularly pleased with the high res scan on the pictures though: click on the photo here to enlarge.
In the absence of anything to write about since I've been sitting in my room all day, here's a pretty map of all the countries I've been to. Idea stolen from another blog (Gweilo) and this site here.
Click on the pic to enlarge.
Confucius, he saaaaay..... "mei you Shanghai dao piao".
In Qufu, the trappings of tourism are all around you. World weary ponies haul gaudily decorated sightseeing carriages, vying for road space with the squadrons of orange and green pedicabs charging five kwai a ride. Like many another Chinese city, the sky is blackened around the edges by the stain of pollution. Yet here in modern-day Shandong province was born a man whose influence has lasted for millennia.
If only the great Confucius had applied his scholarly wisdom to the Chinese transport ticketing system. By this time, the money (and the magnetic strip on my bank card) was wearing thin and I needed to make my way back.
Of the town's three tourist offices, none were of any help. I jumped on a bus to Yanzhou, 14km down the road and queued at the station for an hour, only to be laughed at by the woman at the counter when I asked for a ticket.
It was not until the next day, in Jining, another 30km down the road, that I found a bus ticket back home. Home. Suppose I'm calling Shanghai that now.
Still, while not as laid back - backward - as Pingyao, Qufu retains an ancient charm. A friend said that to have a Confucian temple is a paradox; Confucianism is more a philosophy, a way of life, than a religion. Nevertheless, at the birthplace of the man himself you would expect to find the largest Confucian temple in the world, and Kong Miao is not a disappointment.
To get to Kong Miao, you must walk through the southernmost of the city's many gates, a double-walled structure insulating the compound from the great unwashed. Crossing little bridges over a series of dried-up moats, you are confronted by a spacious courtyard filled with trees.
The forestation within the temples seems to be a feature unique to Qufu, making them parks as much as places of thought, and giving them a sense of transcending the banality of urban life.
Passing beyond the trees, some twisted and splintered beyond recognition as trees, the third courtyard is home to gigantic turtles, or gixi bearing stone steles (stone tablets carved with Chinese characters) mottled with rusty lichen and tipped by ornate carvings of the double dragon.
The courtyard is dominated by the first of the main halls, the Kuiwen pavilion. Like many of China's purportedly ancient buildings, though first constructed a thousand years ago, it had a tendency to be repeatedly burnt down and rebuilt.
Then there is the Hall of Integration itself, introduced by the apricot altar from where Confucius is said to have delivered his lectures. Fronting the building are three incense burners and a series of decorated columns. Inside there he sits, the man himself, 3m tall with lips peeled back in a toothish smile, curtained off by a fading gold drape with a blue dragon motif.
On the other side of the temple walls a confusion of hawkers and street stand keepers flog a profusion of Confucian artefacts. It's all here, 'jade', 'bronze', paper cuttings, teatowels and the rest of it. Bearded and benevolent, the souvenirs belay Confucius' iconic status. Here he just seems like a latter-day Colonel Sanders.
'Job done in five minutes', proclaim the banners dangling from the chop-carvers' tables, and by golly, you too can have a mini Confucius with your name engraved on his base quicker than you can say... "rotten wood cannot be carved, nor are dung walls plastered". (Incredibly that was the first thing that came up after I Googled for "sayings of Confucius".)
After passing through yet more city gates and a praetorian guard of yet more hawkers lining the approach, you find yourself in Confucius' burial ground. More than this, the cemetary of all his decendents, or all who claim to be, which includes anyone with the surname Kong who has ever been near Qufu.
Again, the ambience is not of the sterility and sanctity one would expect of a working European graveyard but of a sprawling, unkempt and untended wood. Here and there rise altogether 100,000 barrows, the domes of earth under which the Kongs are buried, alongside numerous (4,000) steles and stone statues of horses, goats and grinning tigers. Wild and atmospheric, it reminds a Londoner of Highgate, where among others you can find Karl Marx.
Confucius himself lies in a pavilion watched over by two brooding granite sentinels. His mausoleum is an underwhelming mound of earth dressed in shaggy grass browned by the dry winter. Beside him is his son, Kong Li, and before him is his grandson, Kong Ji.
As I departed, a cavalcade of pickup trucks, a minibus and a tractor linked to a trailer full of earth squeezed through the second Saint's gate. Most of the people were wearing a white headdress of sorts, and in the back of one of the vehicles a band played on pipes and drums. It was only later that I realised that this was a funeral procession, Qufu style.
Returning to the city, next door to the temple is the Confucius mansion, the complex from where the Kong clan watched over the county. Wandering around the maze of courtyards and peering inside to view the museum displays, it wa easy to feel that the place had only recently been vacated. Oddments left lying around by the staff included a pair of gloves and a facecloth incongruously hanging in the centre of one of the quads.
Calligraphy wall hangings and old-style furniture sat confortably among more modern grandfather clocks. The Hall of loyalty and forbearance, named after Confucius' principle of loyalty and consideration, was notable for its ill-maintained look, the paint flaking away from the wood in ugly strips. Some symbolism here?
Elsewhere in the city are the Yan and Zhou temples, the former predating even Kong Miao. Grab a cab and you can find Shao Hao's Mausoleum. making your way past two enormous gixi with their stone tablets, you come to the tomb itself, a 10m high pyramid topped by a temple the size of a garden privy.
Finally, if it floats your boat you can visit the 'Ancient Lu State', in reality the ultimate tackfest. While there I was accosted by monks (or Butlins redcoats in disguise) and almost forced not only into taking part in an authentic Confucian ceremony but also into a kung-fu duel.
The theme park, for that it what it is, does have some educational value in illustrating how people used to live. The polystyrene pig. The jousting sheep. The broom room. And the final denoument of the practised art of Chinglish... "play dice, guess cock".
By heck, those ancient Chinese knew how to have fun.
Never visit a place you can't even pronounce.
The city itself wasn't too bad, but my run of bad luck continued. Making my way to the bus station, I found that no buses were going to Cangyan Shan, site of the hanging palace I wished to visit. Mei You. Wasted journey.
I was grossly overcharged on my way to CITS to pick up my train ticket, for which I had already been grossly overcharged. The chap was helpful, but there's little you can do if the buses are off for the hols.
Harangued by regiments of blackfaced beggar tots pulling at my coat, I had the worst lunch I remember in a long time and then dawdled out to get some more cash.
Mei You.
After visiting five ATMs I was beginning to panic. Surely not. Yep. My bank card had actually physically worn out and wasn't registering with the machines. Eventually, after a good deal of polishing the magnetic strip and swearing, I hit paydirt and grabbed a taxi to take me to the hotel. He refused to take me, wildly gesticulating. Same happened the next one.
After some analysis, I comprehended that the hotel was not far, but this is of no help if you have no idea where you are, have no map and can't read Chinese. Stumbling round for an hour, I finally found it; I had walked past no less than three times. Fearing the worst I locked myself in front of the telly for the rest of the day.
Despite it's provincial capital status, there's little to do in the city. I did take a walk to the martyrs' memorial park the next afternoon and was pleasantly surprised: small mausoleums and a museum commemorating the efforts of foreign (Indian and Canadian) doctors during the Japanese invasion and resistance campaign.
Statues of the most prominent, such as Norman Bethune, gazed out over the restful lawns and cemetary. His story was in fact quite inspirational. So I suppose that a foreigner can be accepted here, but Bethune's heroism is somewhat out of the reach of ordinary mortals. The man spent months operating on casualties, spending his spare time teaching doctors and even drafting field manuals and textbooks for them. Ironically he died of an infection after cutting his finger during surgery.
I travelled 200km to take out some of my own money.
Turning up in Pingyao, a smallish town in Shanxi province, on the morn of Chinese New Year was never going to be a clever idea. But, since the ancient city is known for being the birthplace of China's financial industry back in the middle of the Qing dynasty, I thought tracking down a bank wasn't going to be a problem.
Finding the site of Rishengchang, the 18th century proto Bank of China was simple enough. But a bank that would give me money? Mei You. What about Pingyao's biggest tourist hotel? Mei You. Aided by my tramplike guide, Mr Liu, I began to realise what a pickle I had got myself into in this preserved example of old China.
What about the nearest major town, Jiexiu, half an hour away by train? Mei You. The place had but one ATM and it didn't work. Mr. Liu tried a number of hotels and the main Bank of China, but Mei You, Mei You, Mei You. It wasn't even New Year's Day, but 24 hours afterwards. Nothing.
I bit the bullet and seeing off Mr Liu boarded a minibus to the provincial capital, Taiyuan. It'll go in 10 minutes, he said. It's nearly full. Best get on.
Over one and half hours later, the bus stirred into life and began creeping along at walking pace. Had it been five minutes later, I had determined to make my back to the hotel, since the last train back from Taiyuan was in just a couple of hours.
Accosted a taxi driver in the metropolis, which boasted a KFC so must have been fairly cosmopolitan. Demanding to be taken to an ATM and then the station, the driver regaled me loudly and I assume rudely for the entire ride.
First ATM. Mei You. My card didn't work. Second ATM broken. Third ATM... third time lucky. I had been down to my last 100 RMB with no other way of getting money. Two hours on the train back to Pingyao and collapsed in the hotel at about 9.30pm.
This notwithstanding, Pingyao is a delightful town. It's how China, picture-postcard, romanticised-historical China, should look. Narrow cobbled streets, few cars, vernacular courtyard architecture no building higher than 15m and that's the city tower. With Mr Liu, who proved a fair guide and didn't even try to cheat me, I self-consciously stepped into a few of these abodes and made stilted conversation with the residents.
Pingyao's lack of development makes it a refreshing change from the remainder of manically overdeveloping China. The lack of modernity means that life there is similar to that in the hutongs of Beijing. It may be nice to wander around as a tourist, but to the residents it's open outdoor communal toilets (3 jiao if you wish to piss in a hole in the ground I haven't cleaned for a month, dear. Thankyou). With no plumbing and temperatures well below zero, the effluence of hundreds of cooking pots was building up as volcanoes of brown ice around the street drains.
In other words, the place is a slum.
Still, it's a picturesque and photogenic slum. A jaunt around the 6km city wall was highly rewarding, as was my visit to the town's ancient ceremonial and civic buildings, Yaman, complete with prison and a display of torture instruments.
Inexplicably, the nearby city temple devoted a large section to models of various flourescent demons implementing these devices in unspeakable ways on naked papier mache people. Grisly.
Pingyao has to be the highlight of the tour so far, and despite inconveniences Spring Festival was a great time to be there. Everywhere old buildings were resplendent with red lanterns and small boys dashed around letting off big firecrackers. I wonder how many blow their hands off at this time of year.
The people were generally friendlier and less inclined to cheat than others I have encountered, and I'll even excuse the woman who stole an unlit cigarette from my mouth.
Next stop - Shijiazhuang.
The country is closing down. It may have been something of an... error... choosing to travel at this time. But here I am, so here I go.
Last couple of days, something of a waste. Military Museum - closed. National Museum - closed. But, as they say, 'bu dao chang cheng fei hao han'. You're not a good Chinese until you've been to the Great Wall. And so I did.
As luck would have it, a faint gauze of snow fell overnight, transforming the already splendid monument into something more. The Simitai section, some miles outside Beijing, was all but deserted but for a smattering of hawkers, who in their good grace even proved to be a useful addition to the party as we slipped and stumbled on the uneven and icy surface. The day was crisp and clear; the view was magnificent. Wait out for the pictures.
Unphased and not yet knackered, the next day saw me visit the Forbidden City, otherwise known as Gu Gong, the palace museum. Again, hold on for the pictures. Too much to describe here, but the Forbidden Starbucks and hall of intricate and elaborate clocks and watches worth a mention too.
Enough has been written on these for me to stop here. Don't want to bore you. Instead I might emphasise the friendships that I unexpectedly sealed on this extended sojourn in the capital.
These people will probably be reading, so I'll conceal their names to spare their embarrassment. But I felt it was a true privilege to meet and get to know 'B' and 'E'. They are people who can truly be said to have played their part in history.
I wonder if or when my own turn will come. Theirs was a time of revolution: the civil rights movement; Vietnam; the exploding 60's rock scene.
They have nothing but enthusiasm and kindness for China, and moreover the Living on the Planet project. While B is a born raconteur and can spice the air with his passionate views about past and present, E is seemingly more quiet and reserved but just as fascinating a person. They looked after me well.
The young woman who I shall call A is just as exciting to know, and looked after me just as well. Perhaps it was only last night that we 'clicked' together as friends, since I had been in a funny mood on our other meetings.
I kind of feel that A is someone who I can take under my wing, however soppy that may sound. She has a reserve of talent, writing in a language not her own, that needs food and encouragement. Hope I can offer it to her.
Otherwise, she's a sassy, sexy girl, full of energy and ambition. The kind of person who is only happy burning it up on an empty dancefloor, or poking around in someone's mind, pulling out the juiciest fruits she can find. I'm glad I'm her friend, not her mum.
So, thanks to Beijing, A, B and E for a good time. Here's to arriving at Pingyao at stupid o'clock tomorrow and finding a cheap hotel on the worst day in the year to fall out of a train...
Farewell goat, hello...
It was warm within the train, but when I stepped into the alcove between carriages for a smoke, the temperature palpably dropped.
More than just condensation was forming on the windows; the vapour from hundreds of people's respiration, combined with the steam from the hot water boiler that is the lynchpin of the Chinese transport system, was crystallising on the glass in an organic filigree of fern-like frost patterns.
The train pulled into Harbin, a few hundred miles west of Vladivostok and several hundred miles north of anywhere else at about 4.30am. Never a great time to arrive anywhere, perhaps here especially. But wrapped in my ski gear, mittens, hat scarf et al, all I could feel was a mild bite on my cheeks and nose.
Upon recommendation by a friend, I sought out the railway hostel, who kept me waiting until 5.30 am before they saw fit to install me in a room. After the mei you routine with the ticket officer, who finally sold me the ticket I actually wanted after I had mistakenly asked for and had been refused everything else, I settled in for a nap.
Other than its Russian style architecture, now swamped by the typically austere edifices of industrial growth, Harbin is famed for its annual ice festival. It was to this that I turned first. Just south of the river bank, itself lined with transparent, glistening penguins, dolphins and monkeys already melting in the January sun, a small public park is the scene of the main ice festival.
The first thing that strikes you is how much there is. No connoisseur of ice carving, it surprised me that there was so much. The sculptors themselves hailed not only from China, Russia, Canda as expected but also from some truly far flung places. Places which have never seen snow: Malaysia; Burundi; the Congo. ne wonders how they ended up here, and how ideed they coped with the -10 maximum temperatures.
Aside from the artistic, the symbolic, the trite, the erotic and the obscure, there are recreations of famed buildings; one I suspect was the Tiantan Temple in Beijing; I also witnessed the Acropolis and Coliseum. Another theme was SARS, with images of the mask and the defiant fist breaking through chains of fear and misunderstanding. Occasionally, the pale sun would stretch out a beam to illuminate the sculptures; at night neon bulbs effected the same.
On the other bank of the river, across which you can gingerly walk for a token fee, a larger park boasts the snow sculpture festival. Here again there are artworks in abundances. The largest of which, at about 20m long and 10m high, represented a chariot drawn by dragons and was yet to be completed. Next largest was a bucktoothed cartoon squirrel.
With all landmarks obscured by white - some of it darkened by pollution to black - finding your way around isn't easy. But there's enough in the festival to fill a few coldened days.
Also north of the river, if you can track down the 85 bus (which desn't necessarily stop at the 85 bus stop), there's another area dedicated to the spectacle of the frozen lands. At the bus terminal, for a price a small red tricycle car will pck you up and drive you to the largest Siberian tiger reserve in the world.
The park, seemingly built on an abandoned airfield, is home to nearly 100 of the world's largest land predators. Visitors, if they feel the need, can purchase an animal to feed to the the tigers: it's 600 RMB (US$80) for a sheep but a mere 10 kwai for a duck. Fortunately, no-one appeared to be choosing to indulge in this practice, which can only modify the tigers' behaviour to become too trusting of humans.
Instead, it's best to observe the beasts from the relative safety of a breakneck minibus ride. Don't expect any bars on the windows, though the door is prevented from swinging open by an iron wedge.
Though an individual tiger's range is many times the size of the park, thus rendering it a cramped environment for them, at least the tigers have some space within their fenced-off enclosures. It's the best Asian zoo I've ever seen, for that matter.
Leaving the railway hostel was a joy, however. Not only were conditions not quite ideal: no shower; and proof that even Chinese people can miss a squat toilet was left in evidence for an entire day.
My welcome came to end on my second and last night when the staff began to insist that I paid for a third. Feigining incomprehension and stupidity I did not get out my wallet, but revenge was taken the next morning when I was turfed out at 7.30am.
Yet on the train back to Beijing, I felt that I had achieved a personal goal. I had challenged myself to visit the ends of the earth and survived. A pity that I had not been able to track down the steam trains that I had been told about in a comfortable London suburb, but no matter.
I even survived falling off the ladder while climbing into the top bunk. So the journey continues.
Anyone else with the ineptitude and sheer bloody mindedness to choose to travel during the Spring Festival is going to get to know this phrase intimately.
Below you'll find the first installment of my travels around China this holiday. And forgive the typos and mistakes, this ain't my normal keyboard. In fact it's not a normal keyboard at all.
So where shall we start? Beijing. Might as well. Kept awake all night by a sleeptalker as disturbing as he was disturbed, it was with surprising energy that I took on the first sights of the day, the Bell Temple (Dazhong Si) and Beijing University with its pagoda and icy lake.
First encounter with rudeness outside a duck restaurant. A man appropriately dressed in a white coat leapt out and challenged us with "may I ask you a question?" Startled, my friend and I walked past, to be met with a hoarsely screamed "fuck youuuuuu!".
Had to be a scam - the guy hung around for hours waiting for us, or something, or someone else. Made a change from mei you, suppose.
Next day, Tiananmen Square. Needs no introduction from me. Had a squiz around Zhengyang, part of the south gate that used to be a courtyard until somone built a road through it. Upper floor of the ancient building notable for its playing card collection.
Disorientation next, in search of a subway station. Eventually realised I was on the wrong road altogether. Finaly met up with my coffee companion, about whom more later.
Beijing Natural History Museum a disappointment; Tiantan Park not a disappointment. Photos, well wait out. Might need about a month.
Accompanied friends Hannah and Jonna (pictured, click on thumbnail) to railway station in the guise of a lucky charm. Incredibly seemed to work, and after hours of shivering queuing and barging and blocking tickets materialised.
Regretted not buying my own ticket at this juncture, but a 100 RMB deposit was sitting comfortably in someone else's purse, with as it turned out, no intention of being spent on getting me a ticket at all. Mei you. Had to repeat the performance again the next day. Mei you. But here's one on a different day to the stop past where you want to go. Take it or leave it. Took it.
Summer Palace in the winter? Not as stupid as it sounds. A dusting of white transformed it into... something you can't describe without being cheesy, so I won't. I'l leave it for the photo processors.
And Lama Temple worth a look too, despite further disorientation for an hour, eventually discovering that it was indeed right behind the eponymous subway station. By some freak of nature, however, it appeared from the museum that the Dalai Lama is in fact a fat, smug and wholly unholy looking party official dressed in a yellow robe. Not the one we know and love.
Next stop - Harbin. I'm giving ip on this Internet cafe; it's too dark and the m and l hardly work. Next time.