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Published: October 14th 2016
Tian an men Square
First taste of culture and officialdom. Don't mention the guy who stood in front of the tanks...The first couple of days... Sorry this is a long one, and there are more photos at the end.
We were up at 6.00am and were heading for the airport parking by 7.00am. The traffic was bowling along and we could not believe that we had arrived at the off-site parking in Tullamarine in 55 mins! Off to the airport and we were through the check-in in a very short time and so with nothing else to do, we headed into the Departures/customs area. Apart from the serial international terrorist, that little old lady otherwise known as Margaret, managing to entrap Geoff into the dangerous chemicals test area for a swab, we were off to join our first queue for the day. It seems obligatory that they swab Margaret at every opportunity – not sure what they are trying to tell me. And then there was the waiting, and waiting, followed by…more waiting. Eventually we boarded the China Southern airplane on schedule and commenced the journey. We had paid a small excess to get into premium economy for the legs to and from China, primarily to get some extra leg-room for the 9 ½ hr flight. It needs to be
Forbidden City
Each tier is nine steps, 9 being the highest single number and the reserved domain of the emperor pointed out at this stage that Margaret had been suffering from a sore right knee(that was the better of the two) for the last couple of weeks.
Two hours was shown as the transit time at Guangzhou with the plane scheduled to arrive at about 6.00pm (local), but by the time we had taxied half way around the city, it was down to 1hr 20 mins from when we got off the plane. Tensions were running high, and not helped by our first experience of the Chinese security. They wanted Geoff’s camera and the contents of the camera bag out and in a tray, then it was the wallet… Not happy Jan! So we cleared that hurdle and found that there was an electric shuttle buggy to take us to the domestic terminal. In the scheme of things, that was not completely re-assuring. Dumped at the domestic terminal, we found ourselves conveniently at the right terminal finger for our flight. Hurry (can’t you move any faster Margaret!?!) we got to the departure gate to find that the flight was postponed till 11.50 pm! Holey sheet, the flight to Beijing was scheduled to be 3 hrs and we were advised
Forbidden City
In the gards as we left that there was a 2 hour travel time to the city… Just as we were arriving at the gate the attendant was organising a number of people who were already waiting to be moved to a local hotel to rest/freshen up/ whatever. We joined the group and off we went on a 3 mile hike through the terminal, passing back through security (not that they were interested in the backflow) and eventually to some waiting buses. With not just a little foreboding, the group of mainly Aussies climbed aboard and off into the night we went. About 20 mins later after travelling through fields and forests we arrived in an area that had shops and hotels. What a relief it was to see the LED glitz of that town! Checked into a hotel where no one knew what was going on and did not speak English anyway. After an hour in the room, Geoff could not get his travel sim to connect with the tour company emergency number so went to reception and asked them to dial it, and he reported our situation. He also asked if we were staying or going back to the airport and was told “bus
Forbidden City
Dragons are everywhere at 10.00pm”… right.
Back at the airport and through the palaver of the security screening, we eventually got to the gate and waited. And waited…and waited some more. Time does move slowly at the end of the day. Eventually a plane arrived at our dock, but nothing happened for ages. Eventually we boarded and pushed back at midnight. Just to let you know, China is 3 hours behind Melbourne at the moment and we had risen at 6.00 am to commence the journey, so we had now been awake for 21 hrs and we still had to get to Beijing. The flight was now out of schedule and it to over 30 minutes to taxi to the take-off area; believe it or not there were still plenty of planes taking off and landing at Guangzhou at 12.30 am. We got to the hotel in Beijing at 5.00am and got 4 hrs of sleep before starting the tour. Jet lag? That’s for wimps!
So now we are refreshed and ready for whatever Beijing can throw at us. It turns out that there is only 10 on our tour; 3 couples from Adelaide and a couple from Melbourne (and us).
Great Wall Walk
What you see is just a teaser. 5 days before my legs were back to normal Our tour guide had rescheduled the Tai Chi from this morning (Saturday) to later in the week, so our first destination was Tian an man Square. We got a sense of the politics of life in China when some of the group asked about the man who stood in front of the tanks. The response was ‘shoosh with a finger pointed skywards’ and we quickly moved on… What we saw was not a square as we would know it, but a large open space with a few govt. buildings and a couple of large and beautiful floral features. At one end there was the President’s building with the omni-present beaming President Mao looking out along the square. Then it was under the road to the Forbidden City.
The Forbidden City was the home to the Ming emperors and consisted of line of several walled areas each with a key building and buildings to the left and right that were used for separate functions e.g. washing house or office house. Each main building was at the ‘back’ of the square and lead to the next area. There was a total of five areas, the second last being the one for
Great Wall Walk
Haven't even got to the first fortress... the concubines (referred to as honeys) before reaching the emperor’s compound. This was quite a lot more lavish and featured more symbols of power, wealth and good fortune.
Lunch at a local restaurant was followed by a visit to an acrobat show. Not looking forward to that one, but it turned out to be excellent. Geoff was particularly impressed with one act which I think is called the ball of death. It involves a huge round steel ball (about six meters in diameter). A motor bike rider goes in through a gate which is then closed and drives around and does loops. Marg stopped watching when there were 3 bikes in the cage, but they got up to a total of five in going around together on different levels!
Day 2 we were off to the Great Wall, but not before a stop at a Jade factory. A short talk on the finer points of the jade industry and into the showroom with allthe circling piranha. The Great Wall looked daunting, but was even more difficult to climb. We were given 2 hrs to do the walk/climb however Marg had overdone the walking on day one and chose
to stay at the start point – which was a challenge to get to in the first place. Geoff was the only one of our group to get to the top. The terrain was extremely steep and the steps were uneven. Some were small 400mm. It was about 1000 mts vertically from where we started to the top; Geoff’s legs were screaming (and still screaming the second and third days)! Next stop was a flea (read knock-off) market. Marg was not interested, but Geoff paid an exorbitant amount for a USB cable because he did not bargain and take Marg’s advice.
Day 3 and it was off to the silk factory to see the amazing transformation of the silk cacoon to silk fibre and products. It is amazing to think that the unwinding of each cacoon is manually started and it produces 1km of fibre. When it is completely unwrapped the pupa is then used to make skin cream. The things you learn in China. Time to take in the niceties of the tea ceremony where we were shown the main types of tea consumed here, and for only $80 you could buy 500gms
Silk factory
This photo captuures the holographic feature of the weaving. Dark from one end, light from the other. It only took 18 months to weave. of tea. Moving on we sought solace at the Heavenly Temple. The temple is perched above the Forbidden City on ground that was excavated to make the moat around the F.City. By today, the smog was starting to get really thick and even though the temple was only about 300 l/mts from the F.City, the smog really made it difficult to see far. The temple is set in a wonderful park with many old cedar and pine trees, not to mention beautiful flower gardens. There are several very large walled parks around the city and the public make very good use of them. We visited 4 or 5 parks and they were all crowded with retired locals, walking, singing, playing instruments, brush writing with water on the pavement, practicing Tai Chi or exercising in some form or another.
Our last touring day in Beijing started in such a park where we participated in a Tai Chi session. That put us in the mood for a visit to a Beijing Institute of Chinese medicine ostensibly for a foot massage, On arrival we learnt that we would also be seen by some of the professors from the institute who would give
Temple of Heaven
When in Europe you get a bit of Cathedral overload. The Chinese have their own version. us a free diagnosis of our state of health while our feet were being massaged. The difference between Western medicine and Chinese/Eastern medicine is that Western medicine treats the symptom, whereas Chinese medicine looks at the organs and force lines which are the root cause of the ailments in the body and treats those. After our foot massage and diagnosis we could buy a course of herbal medicine that would cure the root cause of our conditions for the special cost of $400 for each medicine and he prescribed 2 for Geoff and 3 for Marg. In your dreams! Bit hard to weigh up between the $5.60 we pay for drugs that are not treating the route cause and ones that will…
Onwards to our last temple/palace and it was the Summer Palace last used by the dragon lady who was the last emperor of the Qing (pron: Ching) Dynasty.
Tomorrow we go to Shanghai by bullet train. Observations so far: the vehicle and pedestrian traffic work on the chaos theory, but it just keeps moving. The horn is the most essential piece of equipment and is used to signal everything from “I am beside you so you
cannot merge now”(beep), “coming through”(beep, beep and maybe another beep), “you have definitely done the wrong thing” (extended long sound), “pedestrian look out” (longer beep). Pedestrians have no rights whatsoever on the road, you must stop for any vehicle. Bicycles and small 3 wheel transporters, give way to everything else on wheels; motor scooters (electric and petrol) give way to anything with 4 wheels; cars give way to anything with dual back wheels; little buses give way to coaches and trucks, and above all do not stop moving – “if you have commenced a manoeuvre, keep going as I will go behind you”.
Observations:
1. He who has the loudest horn wins, (notice how carefully I worded that),
2. You can fit a 20 seater bus into a space 1.5 mtrs long,
3. You can fit a standard small car into a 35cm space,
4. Road rules do not exist, but there is a good understanding between road users – always give way to the bigger party, ‘cos he is not going to give way to you,
5. The Chinese do not speak English
6. 16million people in a city means leads to
Lunch in a private house in the Houtong District Historical area of Beijing
Houtong means courtyard and it is the historical way of living i.e each family has a plot with a courtyard in the middle. The whole lot would fit on our block at home, but it supported 4 families (all related). BTW lunch was good,but dining with a chinchilla was a bit disconcerting... We had to ask if it was a pet. great distances needing to be covered to get anywhere
7. You can only house 16m people if you use high rise flats (about 4 million of them)
8. You can survive on a plate of green leaves after it has been walked past a cooked chicken.
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Ron Astall
non-member comment
Colour and Movement
Makes our travel experiences look fairly tame. There's not much worse than insufficient time between transfers.