Hi from China, our last two weeks in China,
我们过去两个星期在中国
We have just finished travelling through China, and so have left the Silk Road as it branched off from Kunming and one branch headed southwest towards India.
beautiful parks - Black Dragon Pool
If we hadn’t had to change our route from through Tibet, Nepal and India (due to not being able to visit Tibet in our time frame – as the border was closed) we would have really missed a large part of China that we have really enjoyed. Although we are still eating lots of rice and noodles. We did see a change in the people and architecture of the buildings as we travelled across the country. Near Kyrgy was lots of Russian, then more Chinese, then the Mongolian of Tibet as we neared the provincial border and then eastern Chinese. Someone told us there are over 400 different dialects in China and of course many different cultures.
Now that we are located more central and to the south in China the landscape is changing. Sometimes it almost feels tropical with it’s high humidity and lush surroundings. Almost all the big rivers are very brown. We don’t see many people out on the lakes or along the rivers and creeks playing in the water in the hot sunshine. Haven’t seen a campground yet – don’t know if it’s just not the right place or they just don’t camp. We were told they like their hotels but for us, we have found the beds really firm, to the point of, maybe the floor is actually softer.
As we drove into Xi’an I couldn’t believe this western style city. There was a Wal-Mart, KFC, McDonald’s, Subway, Pizza Hut, Dunkin Donuts etc. I’ll be honest though, the KFC tasted mighty good after all our noodles of late. The food was certainly not cheap and it was far more than we paid for our Chinese food but the place was packed with customers. When we enter a big city with Calypso our truck, it is difficult to blend in with the traffic to find our hotel. The police don’t even let trucks into town with the traffic so we become a ‘bus’, much to the disgust of Jim our driver who cringes every time someone calls Calypso a bus. Our guide, George jumps ship, and gets a taxi which we follow the best we can with the truck. This saves driving around and around looking for our destination with bumper to bumper cars and scooters. Some of the cities we’ve stayed in have over 6 million people which certainly adds to our driving time.
In Xi’an we went to see the Terracotta Warriors (life size pottery figures that originally were brightly painted – guarding the Tomb of Qin Shi Huangdi). In 1974, a farmer was digging a hole for a new well when he shoveled up some pottery shards – thinking that he had dug into an old grave he wasn’t going to mention it. He believed it might bring him bad carma. After looking at the pottery closer he realized it was really old and did report it to the officials. Then they started excavating the area and they believe there will be +/- 7000 soldiers and archers plus horses and wagons – all standing in formation. Archeologists have been coming from around the world to help with the dig! They have left 2 sites for future digs as they can’t handle all they have found so far. There is also rumors of high mercury counts in the area, and pools of mercury underground which would scare me.
Russ with a warrior
warriors in the pit
While in such a western city we went out looking for running shoes. Russell had no troubles but the female runners only went up to size 7 not my 8 ½ (I didn’t think my feet were very big for my height). They kept taking me over to the male shoes! Then I thought I needed a new bra – but too little and too much stuffing!!! (I felt like a turkey with it all out front when I tried one on)
Next city was Chengdu to see the Panda Reserve. Feeding time was at 0830 and the panda’s would be more active then – so off we went. The pandas eat 35 -65 lbs. of bamboo daily but only digest 20% of that. Therefore they end up lazing around to conserve energy and digest the food they have eaten. They usual live alone for +/- 25 years. The female has just a brief window for breeding every spring and is very choosy about whom she mates with. The male is known to have a small penis for his size and so therefore at the reserve they have been showing panda porn to get everyone in the right mood. AIl in the name of the game if you want to have baby pandas. The babies are only 3 ½ oz. when born and the mom holds them the first 90 days – not even going for food. The reserve was quite an awesome spot and we saw the red pandas as well which I had never seen before.
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Panda resting in a tree |
Also in Chengdu we went to a camera shopping centre. There were at least 20 -30 Canon shops and started our bargaining process and came out with a beaut. I’m sure we still paid a white man price but… It was supposed to be for our birthdays but I haven’t held that camera yet!!! On my 60th B-Day everyone was full of good wishes and lots of prezzies. I had an awesome day and topped it off going to the Chinese Opera (read more like a variety show). They had entertainers doing singing, shadow imagery, different instruments i.e. a banjo with 2 strings, a trumpet looking thing that wounded like birds, string puppet and fire eating dragon show where they changed the color of their outfits and faces with the blink of a fan. Haven’t a clue how that was done but sure was spectacular. We all thoroughly enjoyed the show.
elaborate costumes
faces and clothing change colour!!
As I said on the last update the Chinese are into their road making – big time!. Now we are seeing a whole new dimension. The bridges curve around all the hills and valleys and if they can’t go around it they tunnel through it. One stretch we must have drove through 40 kms of tunnels, let alone the miles of bridges. Whole cities pop up to produce concrete for the construction of that section of road. They do skirt some beautiful gorges. Although a lot of the creeks and rivers are basically dry as the water is diverted for irrigation and the cities. The tunnels entrances are all artistically designed ie carving of trees or landscape etc. when we aren’t on the new expressways we are checking it out from the old roadways. We try to figure out where it will pop out of the mountain side next or what valley it will come out of.
On a piece of the old road we came upon an accident (can’t believe we haven’t run into many more) – the traffic was at a total standstill and not going anywhere fast. The cars all lined up 5 abreast on each side of the accident so they can be first through, beeping their horns, not even thinking that no one will get through at that rate. So all the guys hopped out of the truck and did some traffic control and we actually moved on fairly quickly and the traffic was sorted out. Now there was a policeman on the scene and he didn’t take over from us - he just watched!!! The local police are pretty much ignored. They have so many different levels of police you learn who has the authority and toe the line when necessary.
We drove through the mining area of this part of this province of China. There was a mine on pretty well every hillside. This is the largest titanium area in the world but also a ton of coal and opals as well. The area was found in 1965 – and the city developed accordingly up to a 1 ½ million people in this steel/mining town.
built in 713 AD to safe guard passage of boats on river
Next we hit the real tourist area of Lijiang (supposedly the most tourist visited city in the world – not sure by whose calculations) and Dali. From Dali we had a tour of some Bai villages. Did the usual tea ceremonies
elaborate tea ceremony
and a couple of markets
frogs ready for the dinner table
multicoloured corn
– saw the chicken from live, to being killed, dunked in boiling water and being de-feathered in the washing machine tub to being butchered in cuts you want. Talk about fresh!!! The Chinese, when preparing a chicken dish just chop all the chicken bones and all, into the pot - to the point that I am off of chicken till the next country. It only took about 8 minutes per bird. On the tour we stopped for lunch and I asked for a bathroom or WC. I was taken up a road and down an alley to the local hospital for the washroom!! And if the bathroom was anything to go by I am glad I didn’t need the hospital. Next stop was the cormorant fishing. They send the cormorant off the boat, beating the water with a big stick to make the fish rise or get the cormorants interest and then when the bird finds a fish they use a fish net to scoop up the bird. Of course the bird doesn’t want to give it up – some even swallowed the fish but the fisherman still got them out of his mouth. The birds are supposed to have a belt or clip to stop them from actually eating the bigger fish. Found the whole fishing demonstration quite interesting.
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| birds of a feather |
A China festival – Sister’s Meal Festival: in April/May amid 3 days of drinking and dancing – the teenage girls choose their husbands. The man offers a package of sticky rice which the girl will return with either a pair of chopstiks buried in the rice for YES or chillies for NO. Maybe that is why we have so many chillies in our food, they are left over from those girls accepting the proposals.
Bamboo: culm (stem) used for pipes, hats, furniture, mats, cooking utensils, the shoots of certain types are cooked and eaten. The shoots can grow 2 feet per day until they are full height. They only flower every few decades or just once a century after which they die back. Bamboo has become part of the religion, philosophy and culture of the Chinese. Meaning devotion, righteousness – the segments on its straight stem symbolize the steps along the straight path to enlightenment and its strength, grace, and longevity have made the subject of a great many poems and paintings.
In China with the heat most men roll up their t-shirts to cool off –now I could understand it if they had a 6 pack for abs but not a beer belly!!
Road signs – don’t drive when fire overtaking prohibition
On a hill – slow down, black spot
Driving now phone while
Toilet – piss here
We don’t mind leaving China as we are beginning to feel like movie stars. We would sit down for a meal and people would come and sit beside us, while we were eating and have their picture taken with us and them in it. Maybe it was because of how we use chop sticks!!!! Tourists are certainly an oddity here and many of the local people have not travelled out of the country so we are the next best photo. Also for the next country we can use the internet without being blocked or censored although some have said that Vietnam we will be back with big brother watching us. We enter into Vietnam after Laos so will soon see and you might not here from us again for a few weeks.
- Next stop Laos and using forks again
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