New Years in Nanjing

DECEMBER 31ST
NANJING (SOUTHERN CAPITAL) POP: 7,713,000
JIANGSU PROVINCE (LAND OF FISH & RICE) POP: 74 MILLION

Happy New Years!

We spend 3 hours walking around looking for a place to sleep. The problem being: No Foreigners Allowed!
This wasn't racism though, you need a special permit to allow foreigners to stay in your place. We eventually find a place.

Go shopping. Pre-drink in hotel.
Go to Ellens, cheap prices, double-fist.

Spend countdown in cab.

Bar 61, drink Chivas, tip heavy, drinks stronger and stronger, mix? Jacks, meet owner, passin' out, free beer. Feel woozy, puke outside.

JANUARY 1ST

Headache. Recover.
I've run out of my Chinese funds and have to dip into my Russian money. Might run out...? What will I do?
Watch Power of One, books better.

JANUARY 2ND

Visit the grounds of the Nanjing Massacre aka The Rape of Nanking.
-Dec 13, 1937 - 6 week period following the capture of Nanjing by Japanese soldiers.












Visit Sun Yat Sen memorial:
-Founding Father of The Republic of China, Doctor, Political and Revolutionary leader.

Night Train to Xi'An

We arrive back in Chengdu and take an express bus to the train station. We catch the first sleeper train we can and say our farewells to Omri.

The sleeper trains are beautiful, bunk-beds stacked 3 high. The train is warm, clean and quiet. We settle in, have some instant noodles for dinner (each train comes with its own hot water heater) and make our beds (sheets provided).












DECEMBER 26TH
XI'AN City Pop: 3,256,000 Shaanxi (Province) Pop: 37.2 Million

Home of Qin Shi Huang: King of Qin 246BC - 221 BC
Famous for the Great Wall, Terracotta Warriors, unified China and roads.
Also burned books and buried scholars alive.

You wake up on a train arriving at 1215 and begin looking for a place to stay. Your outdated guidebook sends you walking in circles until finally you find an all girls hostel with no windows that will accept you.

You explore the Muslim quarters in your area and try some delicious food. You buy a fake North Face bag after haggling and then being dragged back into a store you're trying to leave.

Good bbq chicken bought on the street.
Try candy-coated strawberries and am impressed.

Cold sesame noodles are good too.









Throw in a kebab sandwich for good measure and you can't go wrong.

Miranda gets sick, I haven't seen a doctor in 4 1/2 years.

I don't like pearls but am served a pearl milk tea and it's warmth against the cold exterior weather warms me to the bone.





DECEMBER 27TH

Miranda is fighting a case of the squirts. I have a local Muslim delicacy in the form of noodles in a delicious broth served with tiny pieces of broken up bread.

We try Baskin-Robbins.


The walls around Xi'An were built in 1370, they are 12meters high and 18meters thick at the base. The total length of the wall as it surrounds the city is 14kilometers.


After searching for a way to climb the wall, we pay are admission and hike up to the top to take a walk. They say you can walk the perimeter in 4 hours. We walk 1 quarter of that, it's really windy.

DECEMBER 28TH

Time to see the Terracotta Warriors: Found in 1974 by some local farmers, there are estimated to be over 8,000 warrior statues also varying in height and appearance. Meant so serve the King in the afterlife.

We walk to the train/bus station to find the bus to the Warriors. A man starts talking to Miranda in Chinese and before we know it we have a deal to see the Warriors and a couple other sights. The deal sounds too good to be true...

It is.

They take us to a bunch of minor attractions, one being a small museum depicting the Wonders of the World, including Hercules...

When we finally get to the Warriors they only give us an hour and then inform us that the price for the attraction isn't included in the fee.Miranda is pissed.
After we get back, bbq chicken, pot o beef.

I find a stall where a guy sells the cheapest/highest percentage beer, 4.3. (Most beer in China is 3.2)

DECEMBER 29TH

Wake. Bus. Supposed to be 4 hours. Breakdown. 5 hours. Finish Dorian Gray.

LUOYANG CITY 1.4 Million in HENAN PROVINCE 9 Million

Windy. Find hotel. No hot water. Eat mediocre food.

DECEMBER 30TH

Take a trip to try and see the Longmen Caves. $110 RMB. We decide for caves that seems a little steep and decide to spend our money on other things.
Walk around.
Coffee at KFC.
Night train to...

The Songpan Horse Trek

Wednesday, December 22nd
Northern SICHUAN

0730 bus to

SONGPAN city

pop: 71,650
1500 arrive

Coldest yet, elevation is about 4000, many people speak Tibetan dialect.

I'm here for a horse trek. We check into a place called the Hua'er hotel which is the name of the lady who runs the place. Miranda sees snow for the first time in her life.

No heating, but heated blankets and hot water.

The horse trek is 200 RMB (100) per day more than I expected. So instead of doing a 3 day trek we decide on a two day. It is the middle of winter after all.

I eat yak stew.









Thursday, December 23rd

We meet Omri a fellow traveler from Israel and it turns out he is on the same trek as us. He tells me there is a restaurant in town that serves good Israeli food (shakshuka).

We meet at 1000 that morning and they bring over our ponies. And they constantly fight throughout the whole trek. Trying to bite each other and cut each other off. We travel up into the mountains and come across a local goat herder who sits on the trail feeding the young while the rest graze. We come across a couple of young girls with baskets full of horse apples (manure). We go up, we go down, and finally we make it to our destination.

We get charged for a National Park, and go on a nature walk to some natural hot springs, the waters luke. However Miranda and Omri see ice for the first time and are skeptical about standing on it for fear of breaking through. I show them it's quite safe and traipse out into the middle and begin jumping up and down like a madman, until it spider-cracks and I haul ass back to the walkway.








Back at our one cabin room we have some tough yak chunks for dinner and they begin to feed us baijiou (Chinese white liquor). Drink it slow they say. I'm surprised when a driver shows up with more liquor and a girl who doesn't speak English. At first I think she's a prostitute but that's just my imagination gone wild. The guys joke and say she's their girlfriend but when I ask her in Chinese she says she isn't.

Two of the guys step outside and are gone for a little bit, I hear banging against the outer wall only to find out that they were fighting and one of the guys broke his hand and a couple of ribs. I guess living out there all by your lonesome takes its toll. And then around an hour later they go out and do it again. Ah the joys of liquor. As part of our initiation into the drink we go around the circle and all have to sing a song. I of course sing a Christmas song to my Israeli friends delight. When it comes time for bed we sleep next door on the floor amidst a bunch of animal furs/jackets and tangled sleeping bags. Next door more arguing and yelling ensues and I giggle myself to sleep.

Friday December, 24th.

We head back to the city and along the way my co-pilot Chiao Chiao's horse almost falls into a creek. It turns out horses no matter what kind of shoes they wear can't tread too well on ice. After seeing this Omri and myself quickly disembark our ponies. I don't tell her how close to death she was. And if she survived the fall, she can't swim.

After we arrive back into town we reserve a driver to take us to the beautiful area of Jiouzhaigou for the next day. Then I try the Israeli food. Delicious. We then find a jar with a baby deer inside that you can choose to take a shot of which 'make man strong' good for his libido and all sorts of ailments.

That night we go to a Chinese karaoke bar for kicks and some of the locals give us some meat-on-a-stick and cigarettes to welcome us, very thoughtful. The music they sing isn't.
On the walk back home a blizzard has started. I pretend to enjoy it and tell them Canada is like this all year long.



Saturday December, 25th.

Merry Christmas,
Our taxi to the famous nature preserve is a no-go, he won't take a chance on driving even though we are paying him well. A Chinese turning down money??? Guess he's serious.

We run to the bus station and find out that a bus is leaving back to Chengdu. Now. We ask if he will wait and run back home to grab our bags and pack. We meet him as he's pulling out of the station and jump on-board.
I hope the lady at our hotel doesn't mind that we paid an extra night for a room we'll never use. Shrugs shoulders. (don't worry I left the key in the room)

On the drive back to Chengdu at a road-side pit-stop, we are positioned by a frozen lake and the Israeli guy asks if our hockey rinks in Canada are similar in size, I tell him they're a little bit bigger.

Sichuan famous for Szechuan

SICHUAN PROVINCE (4 Rivers, Pop: 84 million)

CHENGDU city
pop: 11 Million
famous for spicy cuisine.

Friday Dec 17th

Our train pulls into the station. Getting cold.
We wait in line for a taxi outside the train station in the bitter wind.
Our taxi driver doesn't know where our hotel is even though we give him the address. He drops us off in the general area and then we walk around asking locals, who point us to a new hotel.

We walk to the area and see a bunch of buildings that look like apartments with guards at the front desks. We ask one and he tells us to go up to the 8th floor. For what we ask? For rental apartments. Okay.
We do and they run a kind of business hotel system for traveling businessman. The only catch is they don't accept foreigners.

*SIDE NOTE: I thought this was racist at first, but as it turns out you need to have a special license/permit which costs extra in order to accept foreigners to your premise, weird. (I run into this problem several weeks again in Nanjing). Luckily Chiao Chiao is Taiwanese and she is accepted even though I'm with her. And we are given what turns out to be the best hotel yet. With two double beds, hot water, a heater, tv, fridge, a washing machine and a kitchen. All for around $18 a night. We quickly settle in, throw some clothes in the wash and head out to try the local delicacies.

We head next door to try some spicy hot pot and even though it's freezing out and the door is open it's still good enough to keep us warm. This stuff is spicy. The legend is true. We order 2 dishes full of all sorts of veggies and they do it to a 'T'.
We go back several times.

Sat Dec 18th

Hit the town and do some exploring. I look for Mao but can't find him. I try to ask some army guards on a post in the vicinity but they look at me sideways.

Off to the People's Park Miranda gets her fortune told and we get to sample some bottom-less cha (tea).

The monument to the martyrs of the railway protection is nearby. There was an uprising of the People against the government when they found out that corrupt officials were skimming off the top.

Try to find a restaurant in the guide book but no dice. Instead find the 'hiking gear' section of the city and begin to get myself outfitted.
Another 5 weeks in the country then Mongolia and Russia, figuring the flip-flops I brought from Australia won't help me I need to buy a winter coat.
I do, wool socks and some gloves as well. I have The Chiao lend me some money. She knows I'm good for it.

Sat Dec 19th

Breakfast:
I find the best noodle dish of my life 'fan qie jiang dan'. Best Chinese breakfast ever. Bowl of noodles with diced tomatoes and sauce and two fried eggs thrown on top. It heats my soul.

After that we head off to the Pandas.
10 km north of Chengdu.
March and May is the falling in love period. Sweet sweet panda love.
Pandas have an early feeding time as they like to eat in the morning. And the afternoon is perfect for naps.

Pandas are lazy, they've adapted their diets to bamboo which isn't very nutritious and it shows. All they do is eat mass quantities of the stuff and roll around in slo-motion.

I understand what Jack means when he says he wants to put a bullet into the head of every panda who won't screw to save its own species.

Hey I'm a tourist I do my thing. Click click.

After we leave we're trying to figure out how to take a bus to get back into the city when a random guy pulls over and asks us if we want a lift. After we negotiate a decent price we hop in and get to where we want to go without too much of a hassle. He wins by getting a little extra cash and we win by getting to where we want to go. A good system.

Still not content with missing Mao I set out to find him. And do...

Then we head to the 'Green Ram Temple' - the oldest Taoist temple in Chengdu. Lao Tzu the original founder of the temple was a supposed to meet a friend one day and was surprised when a boy showed up with 2 goats and thought "Hey my friend is trying to play a trick on me and is the young boy!"
So anyway now it's a temple and there are two statues of the goats, one of them featuring all of the characteristics of the 12 animals of the zodiac.



Then we're off to Leshan to see the Biggest Ever Buddha In The Whole Wide World (stone carved). He's a whopping 71 meters, 233 feet, and one of his feet measure 8 meters. Chiao Chiao gets scared on the stairs on the way down as they're very vertical, so I throw her over my shoulder and fireman carry her. He's got some big earlobes too!


Sun Dec 20th

We take a bus to a place called QingChengShan
65 km West of Chengdu.
1600 meters.
Holy Taoist Mountain.

A famous little mountain that we're traveling to when they pull over and tell us to get onto this smaller bus where it seems like nobody knows what they're doing. We drive into town and park for awhile and wonder what is going on when some guy finally runs out. Feels like a drug deal or something. Anyway they drive us up the mountain and the guidebook says the entrance is busy. Well wherever we are isn't the entrance as there are only a couple people selling their wares, I think they must be family and there's a toilet carved out of the ground where you have to pay 40 cents I save my money and wait til I'm 2 minutes onto the mountain trail.
We pay a discounted amount to what the guidebook says. I know why as we have to find our way to the front up and down the mountain trails through the peaks. What an adventure. It rewards some great views and exercise.

Along the trail my Taiwanese co-pilot feels the strain of the trails and decides to change her clothes. Right there on the path! Oh those crazy Taiwanese.







We finally make our way back down after a couple of hours and see some locals carrying up supplies on their backs, like the guy with cement tiles for roofing or the little old lady with a basket full of cement on hers. Impressive, I couldn't picture my grandma doing this.












Mon Dec 21st

I change some travelers checks, already over budget. Shrug my shoulders and buy a military style back pack 'ba-yi' 8-1, is written on the back which I later find out stands for August 1st when the Communist army first came together.
Unlike the Party, my new backpack is falling apart within the week.

Train To Hell

Back To GUILIN
pop: 670,000

Buy ticket for Chengdu (really cheap, wow, great, China has really cheap travel), eat some dumplings, noodles and soybean milk tea by the station and catch our train.

December 16

We grab our bags and head onto our train. It must be a local train because it makes all the stops. ALL THE STOPS.
For some reason I have it in my head that the trip will only last 19 hours. The carriage is packed with all walks of life. I soon realize why the tickets were so cheap. We are on the locals train. They are spitting on the floors and chewing seeds and spitting those shells into a big bag except it's missing the bag and hitting the floor. Shells everywhere. Once an hour one of the workers comes through with a mop and swishes around the dirt. We are seated at a small 2 foot by 1 foot table which we soon find out is our bed. The train is cold and doesn't have any heat. The smoke from the smoking section drifts back into our drafty compartment. The washroom floor is constantly wet for some unknown reason. And now there are people coming on with no place to sit.

Now this is the real China and I couldn't be more excited, finally a chance to mingle with the locals.

So after a fitful sleep of table / shoulder / heads on arms / arms falling asleep and waking every couple of hours to re-position ourselves we finally see the cracking of the dawn. And then it thins out miraculously as some people leave. And we manage to score our own individual seats. Things are looking up. Then we reach the 19 hour mark and then another 30 minutes and then an hour. And then it turns out that my co-pilot understood that this might indeed be a 26 hour ride. Hey what's another 7 hours on a hard seat. We've made it this far.
Luckily we bring snacks along, vital for any train trip and pull into Chengdu at roughly 1700. It's windy and cold, time to look for a place to sleep.

A Rainy Yangshuo

Monday December 13, 2010
YANGSHUO, GUANGXI

Pop 300,000
Famous for backpacking, limestone peaks and trips up/down the Li River.

We arrive by bus at 5am, stepping out into the bitter rainy darkness all we want to do is sleep.

Arriving when it's pitch black is one of my least favorite things when traveling. I love being at the touts mercy when I don't know East from West. And they know this too and don't give you a moment to think, or discuss what to do next.

Fine, fine, fine take us to your damn hotel, bend me over the counter and pound the dollars outta me, see if I give a lick. He makes us take a covered bicycle carriage to his hotel which is about a 5 minute walk. He himself walks and meets us there. Getting taken advantage of already, things are looking up. Oh well it's good for the local economy, after all wouldn't you help your brother out?

After he finds the right key we labour up 5 flights of stairs and introduces us to our 3 bed room. "This is all we have right now." He assures me, when people check out later this afternoon you can change rooms. I think the room is the same temperature as outside. How about heat? Turns out it's 30RMB extra. About 5 bucks Canadian. At least we have hot water.

We pay for 3 nights, 90RMB / night. $13 Cdn.

Turns out he's the manager and he starts into us immediately about how many days we want to stay and what kind of tours we want to go on. I look outside and say I'm not going anywhere unless that rain lets up. So you best come back when the sun is out, and it's 5am, can we please talk about this later?

He's back at 9am, and it's still raining.

He comes back at noon, and it's still raining, and the price is dropping substantially, and he's now making himself cozy on the corner of one of our three beds. And I'm still telling him that I'm not riding a bike or taking an overpriced ferry ride in the rain.

He calls my room a couple hours later and asked if we've made up our mind. I tell him yes I have, no thanks.

Not much to do in the rain so we buy some umbrellas and go for a walk down main street find a cafe, buy a coffee and check our mail. We find out that it's true, access to facebook, wikipedia and youtube is forbidden. Find out later that about 10% of all sites on the internet are actually blocked.

The next day it stops raining for a couple of hours so we rent some bikes and drive into the country, starts raining turn around and go back.



We stay our three nights in the rain and move on. Never end up going on any treks.

And on our last day, the day we're leaving, wouldn't you know it, that big ball of burning fire came out to wish us off...

Back To Guilin...

The Chinese Connection

Friday Dec 10, 2010
HONG KONG

After standing at the wrong gate waiting for my co-pilot to show up, she finds me. I stutter and apologize and she just looks at me sideways. I tell her the electronic arrivals board told me to wait at Gate B, how was I to know she would come out Gate A? After she forgave me we moved on.

Caught a bus to:
GUANGZHOU, GUANGDONG (CANTON)

Apparently has the most restaurants per capita in all of China. We're surprised at how clean the streets are, after all this is China.

Population 3.24 million

When leaving Hong Kong you have to check out of customs which entails you getting off of the bus and going through a building, showing your passport to an offical who's indifferent (it's always easier to leave a country) and then getting back on the bus. Driving 3 minutes down the road and then getting off of the bus again to enter into 'official' China.

(sidenote: So Hong Kong has it's own currency, government, flag and borders and it's still considered a part of China? Sounds a little like Taiwan to me, except for the whole ROC thing, which is just China showing it's girth.)

For official entry into China for once in my life I was in the short line versus the 'residents' line. I beat my Taiwanese co-pilot who has been issued a 'special' passport.
Although the customs official did decide to have a bit of a jab at me.
"So I see you've studied some mandarin in Taiwan?" "Uh well yes I did study there for a bit." "Really? Could you speak some to me please?" "Uh sure (I ask her how she is and say Thank You) She says that's a bit easy and if I can say anything a bit more difficult. I then ask here where she lives and tell her I'm Canadian. She then asks if I was using Chinese as an excuse to pick up girls.
This is the most forward immigration officer I've ever come across in my travels and I've been to a bunch of different countries. I tell her my girlfriend is in the other line and she's from Taiwan. The woman becomes all business again. I thank her in Chinese as she hands me back my passport and I'm on my way. We take the bus the rest of the way to the city of Guangzhou where the asian paralympic games are taking place.
We jump off the bus and immediately meet a tout. And I'm thinkin' so this is how it's gonna be is it? But he was legit. He says he can get us a hotel room for $188 Yuan, about $28 Canadian, not bad when you're splitting costs. We drop off our bags and then head out to explore.
Bowl of noodles less than a buck Cdn.
600ml of beer for $0.50 Cdn, after living in Australia for a year let me tell you this comes as a bit of a shock and I have to hold myself back from buying up the whole store.

Saturday Dec 11, 2010

I wake her up early and drag her out onto the street. We visit SHAMIAN ISLAND, known for its colonial history of the British and French, each being stored at one end of the island and being kept in with iron gates.
We then head to QINGPING SHICHANG (MARKET), famous for kittens, puppies, bats, owls and monkeys held in tiny cages ready for human consumption. I was a bit disappointed to just find some baby cats and dogs who looked more like they were being sold to the locals as pets. What a drag.
A little north of there and we hit a huge shopping district. HAIZHU GUANGCHANG (SQUARE). Where I load up on some bargain winter clothes. Long underwear for $4? Yes please.
Make our way home, some guy can't understand Miranda's accent when we ask about dinner so we walk away.

Sunday Dec 12, 2010

Visit Yuexiu Park to see the Five Rams Statue, five immortal goats quintessential to the finding of Guangzhou

Mausoleum Of The Nanyue King - tomb of Zhao Mo an unsuccessful ruler who was covered in thousands of jade tiles to preserve him and make him immortal.

Night bus to Yangshuo...