Chengdu, Emei, Xi An and Beijing
26/07/2011
Generally in an update like this I have talked about what we have done and what it was like, however, since leaving Lijang for the second time we have spent almost all our times in big Chinese cities (Chengdu, Xi An and Beijing) and somehow Chinese cities deserve a different approach to the rest of our travels. I don't know if it is the benefit of 6 months (!!!) travel that makes me feel differently about these places, or the places themselves but what ever the reason, the result is the same.
Since leaving Lijang - where we spent a few days recovering from our trekking and doing little more then eating too much and sleeping even more, as expected - we have done the following:
- We've met Maidis and Matias who were great travel companions, making us laugh, teaching us more about Denmark and a number of new card games, in return I like to think we introduced Maidis to the (wonderful?) world of KFC. However we also said goodbye to Tyler who we had enjoyed travelling with over a month by the time we left him to start his mammoth overland trip from Xi An to Bangkok.
- We have seen Giant Pandas and Red Pandas in the Giant Panda Breeding Research Base in Chengdu. Giant Panda's are amazingly cute and the reputation they have as one of the worlds most incredible animals seems deserved even though I still can not explain quite why. The Red Pandas are basically a lot smaller and a lot more feisty then their giant relatives - I liked them a lot too!
We saw the Terracotta Army in Xi An which is exactly like you see in the pictures, and no less impressive for being just so. There is a slightly disappointing video about the history of the army but the work involved in discovering and restoring this amazing find is quite inspiring. I recommend anyone who finds their job time consuming, repetitive or painstaking to take a look at what the archaeologists are doing here... It is just an uninformed guess but the patience of the people who work here struck me as almost more impressive then the result of the work done all those years ago to create the army in the first place- In Beijing we went to the homes of the former emperors, The Forbidden City and the Summer Palace. Despite the rain when we arrived, the Forbidden City was impressive in size and presentation (and packed with Chinese tourists), although sadly for me there was little indication of what life would have been like for the people who lived here. That said we somehow liked being here and can particularly recommend paying the extra to see the jewels as this actually gives you access to a whole section of the city that at least some of the tour groups seem not to go to. The Summer Palace on the other hand was just a mass of fog when we saw it so was a disappointment and after a walk around part of the lake we were glad to call it a day.
Following our theme of trekking whenever possible we also went to the Great Wall of China. Sadly the fog that clouded our vision of the Summer Palace did the same for the Great Wall but we decided to brave the elements and loved the experience, even taking (creating?) the opportunity to sleep in a watch tower on the wall. What an experience. The views may not have been what we had hoped for but the experience was (although the people sitting near us on the buses and trains the next day may have had something else to say on the subject!)
All that said, and with all these great experiences in hand, what makes Chinese cities, Chinese is something else and isn't so easy to put into words, so instead here are a few anecdotes that I hope will draw you a little picture of life visiting China...
- You will see in the list of places we visited in this time that Emei is mentioned, but I don't tell you anything above about what we saw there. We saw nothing. The guide book describes a little village on the edge of mountain where you can go trekking. The reality is a fairly large town where you can go trekking, but most people just catch a bus up to the top of the mountain, take some photos and come home again - not exactly the Annapurna Circuit Trek made worse by thick fog and expensive entrance fees that we weren't prepared to pay just to see fog. Instead Seth, Tyler and I spent the time in a very nice guest house watching the fog get worse for a few days, browsing the internet and watching films, oh and playing cards of course.
- Buying train tickets in China is a nightmare. Apparently it is just because of the time of year (holiday season) but without thinking we turned up at Chengdu train station on Saturday lunchtime to book a variety of tickets. We waited about 20 minutes in a long queue that was meant to be for "foreign travellers" (but seemed to include a lot of chinese people too) only for the person serving to disappear. When she still hadn't returned 10 minutes later to server the Japanese family stood at the front waiting to buy their tickets, we enquired what was going on only to be told she had gone for lunch and would be back soon (anything up to an hour!). We changed queue and after a total wait time of 1 hour we got our tickets - the Japanese family were still patiently waiting for the first lady to return from lunch. Although we got some train tickets, We never did get train tickets to Beijing, even after being at the front of the queue only 15 minutes after they came on sale! We gave up and got the bus instead.
- Crossing the road in China is possibly one of the most dangerous activities out there. As far as we can establish, the green man in this country purely means that there is a SLIGHTLY reduced risk of you being run over if you cross now. I know that in some ways we should be grateful for having traffic lights at all, but in this case I really can't see how helpful they are
- Before we came here I had been told that Chinese food in China (locally known as food!) is nothing like the Chinese food we get from the takeaway at home. This isn't quite true. It isn't the same, I admit that, but it isn't that far from it and is very good - and the dumplings are fantastic value. However, the meat can be scary (you have no idea what it is most of the time and finding bones or feet in your food is just a standard hazard). The lack of English or pictures on menus can be daunting but that shouldn't put anyone off coming to China. When all else fails, there seems to be McDonalds, KFC, Subway, Burger King or Pizza Hut within shouting distance in all the major cities
- The buses and trains are very good but the habits of the people on the buses in particular can make them less then a comfortable travel experience. All buses are non-smoking (it seems) but this doesn't actually mean that you can't smoke on the bus. Equally spitting in the bus and train isn't allowed but doesn't seem to stop anyone. One man on one of our over night buses spent so much time spitting that he made himself sick! Again though, the spitting in reality isn't as bad as we had been warned it would be and is no reason to avoid China
- Conversations with Chinese people can be confusing to say the least. Of course, it goes without saying (I hope) that we do understand that English is not the first language for the people we are talking to, and honestly we do understand that much of the confusion is purely that they are trying to help us but the translation (either of what they understand we have said, or what we understand they have said) is lost, but sometimes their logic also seems lost us - for example, we spent quite a lot of time trying to work out why we had to leave a £5 deposit to leave our bags at the hotel while we went trekking on the Great Wall - and for some reason we never worked out, if the bags contained anything valuable we wouldn't get our deposits back, but if they didn't then we would... However, almost everyone we have met here in China has been amazingly helpful as far as they can be. One man made us follow him for 15 minutes while he showed us the way to the hostel, we later realised he was making it up as he went along and had no idea how to get there. If he had done it would have taken him less then 5 minutes from where we first met him. Frustrating as that was for us at the time with our heavy backpacks there is no doubting the kindness of the man trying so hard to help us without a single word of language in common.
