29/04/2010

(Thursday)

Arrived in CHENGDU. 

Hideous day. Began with an awful train trip. I’m sick and I'm tired and had to hunt around for food and an ATM. The staff sent me on a wild goose chase looking for one – when there’s a bank on the other corner of this very street.

Getting a bit annoyed. The hostel is quite nice though, and once I discovered that the hot water really does have to run for 10 full minutes before it gets hot, I could have a shower and get into bed content.

Sketch Map of Chengdu

 With the hostel clearly marked. It's in a tourist area with lots of pedestrian streets, restaurants, tourist shops, etc.. It's on a pedestrian street itself. Very nice. Note the big BoC marked nearby.

Hostel doorway

 The fellow sitting in front of it is offering an ear cleaning service which is quite common and popular here. You even see people sitting at restaurant tables with a guy sticking a long rod into their ear and excavating wax. It's a bit off-putting at first.

Restaurant Pool

In the foyer of the hostel. The fish are, I hope, purely decorative.

30/04/2010

(Friday)

Hmmph. Wasn’t able to get any decent amount of sleep last night despite being exhausted. Just lay there listening to every noise – including some very inconsiderate French and an Italian – until about 5 am. Then I woke up about 8. Nevertheless, I feel a bit rested and the fever has gone, but I’m left with a nagging cough.

Tried to buy a ticket online, but the Travel China site kept insisting on a US address for some stupid reason, and then insisted that they had to phone me to verify the details. So now I have, perhaps, bought a ticket. Of course, if I now buy a ticket at the hostel I will surely wind up with two of them – so I’ll have to wait for this process to play out. And now, according to an email I’ve received, I have to fax them my passport and card images. I’ll have to sort this out tomorrow.

On a related note, I have to find out why my phone keeps on dropping out of contact in roaming mode. It’ll go back if I force it, or make it seek externally for a network, but ten minutes later it’s dropped again. Useless piece of junk.

On a slightly happier note, I walked into town looking for Tianfu bookshop and found only a building site, but I went there via People’s Park, which was good. It was most certainly not a park where you would go to relax. There were hordes of people and the place was just shaking with the competing blaring music of a dozen or so different singing or dancing groups. Many of them were obviously some kind of ethnic thing, and I’m reminded that Chengdu is pretty close to the edge of real (Han) China . (In fact, this city was part of Tibet for a time when that was an independent country – might even have been the capital, I can’t recall.) Other groups looked like amateur theatrics of an operatic nature, and one was evidently a nostalgic review of communist revolutionary arts – lots of ladies in blue boiler suits striking revolutionary poses. Quite fascinating. There were also lots of people playing badminton in a very social way. Several pairs were using the same net, they were all playing in the same area. It really was impressive. We could never do that here.

Blue Guards

I suppose there are still people who think that Mao was just trying to do what was right. Anyway, we were happier in those days - all working together in harmony. Life was better before we became obsessed with money. Blah, blah, blah.

I find their smiles offensive.

Badminton in the People's Park

The best thing today was going to the Sichuan Opera (Y120,) and that for two reasons. In the first place, the opera was a huge amount of fun – even better than the Beijing Opera which I also liked. This was really much more like a variety show with about 10 short acts. There was singing, an instrumental (on the erhu – very nice,) a puppet show, fights with three heroes (great acrobatics,) beautiful girls (I mean, really beautiful girls,) a comedy routine of a hen-pecked husband (the subtitles were unintentionally hilarious too – ‘Something is wrong with wife. Usually she is termagancy,’) fire-spitting, and face-changing, and a final solo song.

The face-changing was amazing. There was no indication of how they did it. Sometimes they changed when their hands didn’t seem to be anywhere near their faces at all. A couple of them even did complete costume changes instantaneously behind a waving flag. And then the puppet lady came on and her puppet did face changes too. The only downside to this was that as soon as the singer came on large numbers of the Chinese got up chatting and started to leave. They really are a rude and thoughtless bunch.

Scenes from the Sichuan Opera

In the second place it was in the van taking us to the opera that I met Nori and Shirley, a Japanese guy and Chinese girl (She’s from Tientsin; I don’t quite recollect where he’s from, possibly Tokyo .) They were both very pleasant company and could both speak some passable English – thought she also spoke good Japanese and was learning Spanish! He’d spent a year in Sydney . The best thing about meeting these two was that we were able to have more than the normal travellers’ conversation. We actually had some interesting discussions about science, Western vs Eastern medicine, China ’s water problem (he seems to be doing some sort of environmental engineering here,) and so on.

This conversation we mostly had over dinner, where they kindly helped introduce me to some Sichuan style foods. We had spicy duck’s lips, some sort of octopus (with pork?) spicy fish, steamed oyster, and 4 bottles of beer. And all that for just Y70 each. We started our meal – in the kitchen, by the way, for there were no seats in the restaurant available – at about 10:30 and finished at 12. We just got back in to the hostel as the gates were being closed.

 Nori and Shirley

Nice folks

And while I was making these notes at 4am, since I am still unable to sleep, I’ve killed the 3 mozzies who were living in here. Everything is just perfect.

01/05/2010

(Saturday)

Spent the greater part of today just trying to organise my onward movements; a task made considerably more difficult by the fact that it is now a major holiday in China . However, everything now seems to be organised. I’m leaving tomorrow evening (getting a refund on the night I didn’t stay here) I’ll go by train to Chongqing, then I’ll be driven to a hostel, stay one night, be driven to the bus station, travel by bu to Wanzhou, catch the ferry/hydrofoil to Yichang, arriving there on the 4^th of May at about 6:30 pm. I’ve booked a hotel in Yichang and the airline ticket from there is approved. I just need now to print off the receipts for those last two. I can do that tomorrow.

02/05/2010

(Sunday)

This morning I went off to see Da Fo at LESHAN. 

Not a great problem you would have thought: it’s a major tourist attraction and must be very well signposted. Not a bit of it. The taxi to Xinanmen bus station was the only time I felt fully confident about where I was going. I got into the bus – which bus? If you don’t know Chinese you’d better find someone who speaks English a bit to ask. Travelled for 2 hours with the driver blasting his horn every 5 seconds (and that’s’ not an exaggeration) almost the whole way. Arriving in Leshan, you are again abandoned without clues. Close questioning reveals that a bus #13 will go to Da Fo from the street. From where on the street? Who the hell knows. Walking between the stops gave no clues. No notices made it clear. Still, I caught it by following other apparent tourists. Arriving then at the site of the sight, the ticket office offers a range of different tickets, with no clear explanation of what the differences are. The non-explanations are sort of in English. We know the prices and the names of the tickets. I took the advice of a French girl who knew some Chinese that #1 was best, but she wasn’t sure why either.

Where is Leshan in Sichuan?

Note lots of other places worth visiting on another trip here.

Map of Leshan

The bus terminal looks a lot closer on the map than it seemed to be on the trip in

DaFo

Big Giant head

The park itself would have been nice – full of greenery and paths and hidden temples and so on – but it was absolutely full of people because, as I discovered yesterday, this turns out to be a major holiday in China . What timing! I gave up on the attempt to climb down to the base of the statue because the line was ridiculously long and wasn’t moving.

Steps to base of Da Fo

That line ain't movin'

Xiao Fo?

Steps to a small temple

Apparently unused

Inscription

Bush view

River view

The exit from the park leaves you nowhere. I looked for a bus and found a #3. That took us (myself and other lost tourists) to a different long distance bus station from the one we’d arrived at. More confusion and anxiety. And the long distance bus took us two honking hours to God knows what bus terminus in Chengdu . I got home by taxi and have really no idea where I’d come from.

I was exhausted and fed up by the time I got back to good old Kuan Lane . Had a refreshing coffee and apricot danish at Starbucks and went back to the hostel to pick up tickets. (Only a train ticket? Huh?) and off to Chongqing at 8:26.

Excellent train trip (the train travelled pretty consistently at ~200 km/h,) but the waiting room was a pain as usual. Pestered by kids who couldn’t speak English and wouldn't speak slowly enough for me to understand even the simple things.

Arrived at CHONGQING

Got off the train expecting as per instructions to find someone waiting for me, and  … no-one. She ( Vienna ) appeared after 15 minutes: apparently, there are two entrances and she waited at the other one. Most unnerving, since I only had a scribbled note to take me onwards.

Map of Chongqing

 Purely for interest. I cannot say I've seen this city.

The hotel tried hard, but it was very old and dirty. It’s the sort of place you feel rather sorry for. I desperately scoffed a meal of those hideous boxed noodles and to bed at 12:30-ish. Not, all in all, a great day. It's one of those days that will be better to look back on than to actually live through I think.

03/05/2010

(Monday)

The Three Gorges

This was positively the worst day of the trip so far. It’s just as well I’ve had a day of rest before I wrote this up. I had to get up at 5:30-ish to get a taxi at 6:30 (meaning I had little sleep and no breakfast.) When I did get to the supposed rendezvous point there was no-one obvious there and the building was closed. I was eventually taken in by a group of people who were also going to Wanzhou, as far as I could tell, since no-one spoke English. It turns out this was my group meeting across the road. OK, So at 7 am we all walked for half an hour up and down steps to the bus station where I was given mysterious bits of paper and told ‘bushi, bushi.’ Good. The bus to Wanzhou, I had been told, would take 10 hours, but in fact it took 2. It felt long enough though, because once again the bloody bus driver was blasting his horn every 5 seconds. Yes, again! Not pleasant.

It was about now that I began to have two worries:

(1) That I was going toget to Yichang a day early and have to spend 2 nights there – and perhaps my hotel wouldn’t be able to put me up; and

(2) that when I got to the end of the bus ride (if this was even my bus) there’d be no clue as to how to get on to the hydrofoil, and no-one to know I’d bought a ticket.

The second concern was eased when the bus actually arrived at the hydrofoil wharf and the group leader ushered me into the rightroom. I’m glad she did, because I couldn’t see any indication (not even a sign in Chinese) that this was where to go. It turns out that those mysterious bits of paper I was given earlier were actually hydrofoil tickets.

On the other hand, the hydrofoil itself was a big mistake: it was hot, dirty, crowded, uncomfortable, full of smoking peasants (despite the signs,) and most of all loud. The engine was roaringfor a solid 6 hours. My ears are still ringing from it. And the windows were dirty so you could hardly see out of them. I got a few photos from a small open space usually occupied by smokers and deleted many later as being pointless.

The hydrofoil front and back

Gorgeous views. Note the smoke out the back of the boat.

By far the most impressive views I had were from the narrow bus (again, difficult to navigate with my big bags) that was, it seems, waiting for us at the wharf, which is some considerable distance from town. Unfortunately, it was really not possible to get photos out the window, so I couldn’t record the little village back yards, the huge crevasses, and the mountainsides terraced into paddy fields. It’s tempting to go back by taxi just to get pictures of it all.

Oddly enough the bus cost nothing, and when I shared a taxi to the hotel with some lady, she insisted I needn’t pay, so that made me feel good about people. 

So now I'm in YICHANG

Map of Yichang

The hotel is located on Dongshan Ave., just a bit north of the train station.

There was some inevitable confusion at the check-in desk, but that was all easily sorted, and I wandered into the streets seeking food. I eventually found a place that looked non-disgusting and pointed at one of the meal pictures on the wall. The girl said ok and went to get a turtle from their aquarium. I gave my best attempt at no don’t kill the turtle (not something the guidebook prepares you for) and asked for fish instead. So, they hoiked a couple of fish out of the tank for me. ‘Da bo? Da bo?’ ‘Yeah, sure.’ What? Apparently, that means takeaway (‘dai bao’? I must ask.) Wound up with two boxes of fish gutted and fried and lightly sprinkled with diced vegetables and a box of rice. The fish was full of bones and barely edible, the rice was impossible to eat with chopsticks so I wound up using fingers. Not a great success. Also, it started raining while I was out, so I was soaked by the time I got back.

04/05/2010

(Tuesday)

More confusion at the desk as I tried to check out and to check back in again (as per the instructions from last night.) All is ok now though. Drop off laundry for tomorrow. We’ll see. Couldn’t face the prospect of more random food for breakfast, so was very pleased to find a Macca’s. Had a burger and hash brown (a real one,)  chips, and a coffee. Most satisfactory . And I saw a KFC too. Joy!

Just wandered the streets today. Not much to see really. I’m just filling in time while I get resynchronised with the travel arrangements. Still, a day of rest and relaxation is worth having just now.

05/05/2010

Wednesday)

Another day of travelling. Checked out from Qing Jiang after some confusion (surprise!) I thought they wanted me to pay another Y466, but what they really wanted was to credit me Y122 on my card. I notice my laundry cost Y100, which I think is a bit extravagant.

I got a bus from the hotel itself to the airport (Y20) and getting onto the plane at this small airport was also easy and hassle-free. The plane took me to Shanghai . Walked to the long distance bus (10 minutes – this airport is big.) Bought a ticket to Suzhou (Y84) and left at 8 pm. When I noticed that the bus didn’t get to Hongqiao airport until 9 pm I began to worry that we were going to be dreadfully late getting to Suzhou ; but no, at 10:30 we got to the last stop (which was nowhere useful) and a taxi got me to the hotel in10 minutes. Too easy. See, that’s how travelling should be done.