China Part 1: Another World

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A vast, ancient civilisation, stretching from the freezing northeast to the deserts of the west to the subtropical south, there is a climate and environment to suit every wish list. China to the uninitiated is somewhat intimidating, at least it certainly was for us. The visa process alone was almost enough to put us off going, made all the more difficult for us by applying from Japan (and the list of countries I've been to that aren't exactly popular in the eyes of the Chinese authorities). Add to that the scrutiny and surveillance of the controlling government, perceived or otherwise, left us feeling apprehensive for our visit.

We headed off for mainland China early on the fast train from Kowloon. This was our first experience of China's high speed trains. Leaving from a modern station, the sleek train travels at 300 km/h, speeding past cars going at full speed on the highways that run alongside the tracks. We had to transfer at Guangzhou Station, which is absolutely ginormous. These high speed train stations are more like airport terminals. You have to go through identity checks and security to even get into the station, where you have to walk for miles to find the gate that you need to leave from, and then wait on the seats nearby before being called down to the platform when the train arrives. The size and organisation of these stations is an indication of just how many people are moving around China, i.e. a lot.

Our first destination was Yangshuo in southern China’s Guangxi province. We changed onto another high speed train, which was again very efficient, albeit a bit noisy - a lot of Chinese people have a habit of watching things on their smartphones on full volume rather than using headphones, competing to try and drown each other out. One guy near to us was exploring his list of ring tones one by one at full blast! The train blasted through the countryside, the flat plains beginning to make way to a dramatic karst landscape dotted with rice paddies as we approached Yangshuo. Getting off the train was like stepping into a perfumery - the air was unexpectedly thick with the scent of jasmine. The delicate smell was everywhere in Yangshuo.

Straight away in China we discovered that almost everyone uses WeChat (the Chinese equivalent of WhatsApp) to pay for absolutely everything. And I mean everything. From buses to telescopes at scenic points to toilet paper outside the public WCs. Even street sellers and buskers use it. And it's all down to the ubiquity of smartphones and the use of QR codes. All the seller needs is to print off their own personal QR code on a sheet of paper, which the buyer scans on WeChat and types in the amount to pay, and the transaction is complete. It is a stroke of genius as it removes any need for expensive card equipment, and means that anyone with a smartphone can use it easily. Why is this not a thing in the UK?

Another surprise in China was the quality of the accommodation, particularly in the south. For around a tenner you can stay in a private room with ensuite in a modern hostel. We checked into one of these in Yangshuo and set about exploring the area. We set off for the nearby town of Yangdi, in order to float down the Li River through the karst landscape on a bamboo raft. One of the problems in China is that it is developing so fast that the maps can't keep up. Google Maps, not being accessible without a VPN (due to The Great Firewall, which blocks anything on the Internet that the Chinese authorities want to keep off limits to the general population), is understandably a bit unreliable. But to be honest Apple maps wasn't much better, and the open source ‘maps.me’ led us on many wild goose chases. Every city in China has several train stations, and several bus stations, all servicing different areas. So trying to find the right one is a total nightmare, especially when the maps are inaccurate. This happened to us straight away in Yangshuo, where we were led all over town, finding bus stations to have been demolished or moved and having difficulty finding the right places! After a few false starts we eventually made it to Yangdi by lunchtime. We got on one of the bamboo rafts (actually these are now made of PVC pipes with a motor strapped to the back, so not quite the authentic bamboo experience), and headed down the river surrounded by the beautiful peaks covered in lush green forest. As soon as we got off the raft I was set upon by a Chinese woman holding a long stick with a cormorant perched on either end. As I was taking off the compulsory life jacket she kept putting her bamboo sun hat on my head and trying to put the birds on my shoulders. I was bit tied up with my backpack and life jacket, and whenever I replaced the hat on her head it would magically reappear back on mine again. Eventually I gave in and posed for a photo with the birds on my shoulders and gave her a few coins. I suppose these are old birds that have been retired from the ancient practice of cormorant fishing, where the birds catch the fish for their masters without swallowing them and are repayed with a portion of the day's catch (we didn't actually ever see this though).

Back in Yangshuo we had our first experience of Chinese mass tourism. The main tourist road in Yangshuo, West Street, is a chaotic mess of as much gaudy stuff as you can pack into a quaint town in the beautiful countryside. It was packed with Chinese tourists, and it was fascinating to see the Chinese interpretation of tourism. With a burgeoning middle class, domestic tourism is on the rise, and on the rise quickly, and every tourist destination has adapted to their tastes. All I can say is that it is very, very different to what our tastes are. To say that it's commercialised would be an understatement. Bright flashing lasers and neon lights; virtual 5D simulators and mirror mazes stuffed into old shopfronts; loud live music and dance music blasting from bar after bar; the clanking of metal tongs as tourists get their ears picked clean by hawkers wearing head torches. The town had been turned into a Disneyland style resort, completely out of place in its surroundings, but the domestic tourists were lapping it up in their droves. Amy and I wandered round in a state of shock, not quite sure what we had walked into. I don't know what we were expecting of China but it definitely wasn't this! It may have been gaudy and pretty horrible, but it was fascinating nonetheless! The one thing however that I was impressed by were the souvenir shops. Having spent a lifetime buying ‘made in China’ products I wasn't expecting much in the way of quality souvenirs. However the streets were crammed with shops full of handmade products, with various artisans out the front making them. Pounding rice to make snacks, beating molten metal for jewellery, weaving shoes - you name it, someone was making it. It was really great to see traditional craftsmanship still being popular - arts that are often lost as countries modernise. It may have been put on for the tourists, but at least they were actually making the goods and not mass producing them in factories, as I perhaps unfairly had expected.

The next day we rented bikes and cycled down the ‘Ten Mile Gallery’ - touted as a route with many natural sights and not having any vehicles (but somehow still full of cars, coaches and golf buggies transporting groups of Chinese tourists up and down). And this was our first experience of the Chinese admission fee. For a Communist country the Chinese are incredibly good at capitalism. If there is any value whatsoever in a particular sight, they've slapped a ticket gate on it and try and charge exorbitant prices for it. I mean anything with even the slightest bit of value. The Ten Mile Gallery included an old tree that you had to pay to go and see! It is actually quite interesting to see the kind of wealth on display in China - Porsche’s and sparkling white top of the range Range Rovers drive alongside noisy almost homemade looking trucks with exposed engines. It is interesting to note that the god of money and wealth is the one that is most often prayed to. And numbers that sound like the words for 'money' or 'make money' are considered to be the most auspicious. Even the Buddhist temples get in on the action - full of souvenir shops and lucky charms, most of the enlightening is being carried out on wallets, not minds! I would love to understand better how capitalism like this has been justified within the Communist ideology. But anyway, I digress. To save cash we picked off a couple of the less busy and more interesting sights. In China these tend to be the things that don't have immediate access by cable car or electric golf buggy. Basically anything with steps. The highlight for us was the long and sweaty hike up to the aptly named Moon Hill - a spectacular karst peak pierced by an almost impossibly circular hole. And only a handful of other tourists around. The view from the top across this otherworldly karst landscape was quite special. And of course, being China, we noticed at the bottom a couple of huge life-size Transformers with coach loads of people taking photos. In the middle of the countryside. Crazy!

We decided to turn off the designated Ten Mile Gallery route and instead follow a smaller, quieter and prettier road alongside the Yulong River. The karst mountains closed in, and we cycled past fields of yellow flowers, whilst genuine bamboo rafts were punted downstream beside us. It was like cycling through a painting. Along the way we bumped into an English guy who was riding around trying to recreate photos he took here thirty years ago. Needless to say the photos looked very different, particularly West Street which back then was nothing more than a dusty street full of typical village shops.

Our next stop was Fenghuang, an ancient frontier town on the way heading north. Our friends from Japan were also travelling this route, and so we linked up with them. They had organised the bus tickets through their hotel, so we waited for them at the bus station. As it approached the time for the bus to leave there was still no sight of them, and we began to get more nervous - we didn't want to miss this bus as it was a long journey and no other buses were leaving that day. With only a couple of minutes to go we spotted one of them walking towards us, beckoning us to follow him, away from the station. Bemused we followed him, although he also wasn't sure what was going on. We were ushered into their car, where the driver started driving at speed away from the station, much to all of our confusion. What followed was a confusing Google Translate conversation which left us none the wiser, as he hurtled away from the bus stop for about 15 minutes, all the while letting out crazy laughs and blasting dance music. Well, what can you do in these situations other than just assume this is normal?! Finally we were dropped off at a petrol station, where he assured us the bus would stop. We waited for a while, before an expensive car driven by a very well dressed man pulled over and asked us what we were doing. We explained, at which point he began shouting at the driver in Chinese, explaining to us afterwards that he had told him that he was a police officer and that he better not be up to no good, and then wishing us luck and driving off. Believe it or not, the bus did actually turn up and pick us up, where some money changed hands between the bus driver and the taxi driver. The only explanation I could think of was that he had a deal with the bus driver that allowed both of them to pocket a bit of cash by circumventing the official bus station ticket office, hence why he was so nervous not to be seen there! A slightly stressful start to the day, but funny when we realised what was actually going on!

China is criss-crossed with elevated expressways, and everywhere you look you can see more being built. The scale and pace of development here is just staggering. We drove for six hours towards Fenghuang on one of these expressways, cutting and weaving its way through the tree covered mountains, all shrouded in pockets of ethereal mist, past rivers and steps of rice paddies - that quintessential mystical Chinese look. Six hours of this continuously. China is big, and it is beautiful.

Fenghuang, or Phoenix Ancient Town, centres on the Tuojiang River, lined either side with old houses perched on stilts. The river is crossed by many beautiful bridges (although some of them appear to be modern additions, albeit designed in similar architectural styles), and stepping stones full of teenagers balancing precariously whilst having their photos taken. The town really comes into its own as dusk falls, when the buildings and bridges are all lit up and the thousands of red lanterns spread through the town begin to glow. Punted boats make their way along the river, with only a red lantern at the front lighting the way. A beautiful pagoda sits perched on the waters edge. But commercialised, theme park China strikes again. What we were beginning to realise are a permanent fixture in every tourist spot, the streets were lined with bars blasting live music and flashing lights. There is an unfortunate irony that the places that have become tourist attractions for their beauty are then ruined by the commercialisation that inevitably follows. Victims of their own success. I know this happens everywhere in the world, but it is particularly obvious in China. Despite this, Fenghuang was still a beautiful town and well worth visiting. As we walked around the town we were very much the objects of attention, with people staring and looking us up and down, as there are not so many foreign tourists here. We were stopped many times for photos, particularly by older ladies, and caught many, many people trying to take surreptitious selfies with us in them. It's actually quite funny - sometimes we would be sitting next to people on the bus and you would look over at them and they would be angling their phones slightly so that they could get you in their photo!

We settled in with some beers by the river watching the boats float past, before strolling round the restaurants to look for some dinner. Restaurants lined the river, with the more outrageous places having cages containing some of the most bizarre animals outside, ready to be cooked up fresh for their customers. I'm talking snakes, frogs, ducks and some strange furry animals (perhaps beavers?), along with some other slightly horrifying items such as a dried, skinned pigs face! It was quite sad to see, but fortunately we rarely saw this elsewhere in China, and the food we were served never had anything too weird in it, well as far as we knew… (which was a nice surprise as we had been expecting the worst!).

The bus to our next stop, Zhangjiajie, was another four hours of continuously spectacular scenery, the bus travelling on the elevated expressways as if we were flying low through the mountains. Zhangjiajie is a famous for being the inspiration for Avatar’s ‘mountains in the sky’. We were awoken on the first morning to hear dramatic classical music being played at full blast in the streets at 7.30am - another one of those things that happens in China that has no explanation and so just gets shrugged off. The National Park was an hour or so away from where we were staying, and on arrival it was clear how many tourists they expect to cater for. Huge plazas with fingerprint reading ticket booths guard the entrance gate, whilst crowds of tour groups, clad in matching items of clothing to identity which tour group they belong to, noisily gather together. Ahead and above are the beginnings of huge stone peaks, jutting into the sky everywhere you look. Tall, thin, short, stubby, all manner of peaks towered above us, formed over thousands of years by the long, slow process of erosion. At the base of the park is an oxygen bar, a seemingly pointless fixture considering most people just get a cable car or elevator up to the top where the main sightseeing areas are. After paying the exorbitant park entry fees, we opted to walk through the valley and make our own way up to the top (hence avoiding the crowds and further expensive fees for using the elevator). We started the long climb up the steps just as it began to rain, and we worried that we might not be able to see anything once we reached the top. We needn't have. We eventually rounded a corner and were greeted by one of the most jaw dropping sights we've ever seen. Hundreds of peaks stood before us, with a mist swirling round them. Some truly looked like Avatar’s mountains in the sky, with the mist making it look like they were floating. It was another world. The handrails guarded a dizzying drop of hundreds of metres to the jungle below, a mix of a hundred different shades of green. And amazingly there was not another person in sight. Our shouts echoed round the canyons unanswered. It's amazing what a few stairs do to put people off when there's an easy option. Sure enough, as we continued walking towards the top of the elevator we began to hear the crowds, and by the time we reached the elevator landing point it was utter chaos. There was no space to move, with hordes of Chinese tourists elbowing their way past each other, pushing and shoving, shouting, hawking and spitting. Unfortunately it was the stereotypical Chinese tour group experience magnified several times.

A side note here on this. The natural response to this (and unfortunately the general perception) is that Chinese people are rude, loud and dirty. However I'd like to challenge this, and put these behaviours into some context. Firstly, the vast, vast majority of Chinese people we interacted with on this trip were very friendly and warm, helpful, and honest people. The exception is the tour groups, and we did begin to dread them a bit whenever we went anywhere touristy. But... We began to notice that it was a particular age group that were worse than others, say those in their mid forties and older. Around forty years ago was Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution. During this time, many people went unschooled and uneducated. Now, a lot of these people are now making money and finding that they are able to travel. These are people that have grown up living in close quarters, with limited privacy, and had to fight to get by. Viewed within this context I think that some of these behaviours are understandable. I'm not saying that I like it, but I definitely have more of an understanding of it now and perhaps some sympathy towards it. I think that it's great that people who were once poor are now able to travel and go on holiday. As for the hawking and spitting, well I don't think that we ever got used to that. Again, 95% of the time it was the same demographic, and the women were sometimes worse than the men. The only way we could cope with it was to start rating the hawks out of ten on the grossness scale. Sometimes it sounded like they were being sick, and you had to restrain yourself from going over to check that they were OK! The younger people still did it sometimes, but we noticed they would normally aim for a plant pot or a bin rather than directly next to your foot. But again I think some context is helpful - I've read that it is seen as cleansing the body, better out than in right? And conversely, they think that when we put snotty tissues back in our pockets that that is particularly disgusting. So swings and roundabouts eh? As it happens I think the Chinese government have realised that their tourists have a reputation problem and are trying to do something about it. For example, a few times we saw sign boards in tourist spots that listed a set of rules for domestic tourists, labelled ‘Convention on Civilised Behaviour for Chinese Citizens during Domestic Travel’. These included things like no spitting, queue in an orderly fashion, don't talk loudly in public, don't bare your chest in public, don't sneeze at anyone, and don't force foreign visitors to have their photo taken with you. As we were reading this I think we witnessed almost every rule being broken, but it's a start at least!!

Anyway, another digression. We elbowed our way around the top to see all the main designated viewpoints, and then headed to the other side of the park. The fog however closed in and wiped out any view, so we ducked into the nearest café, which was believe it or not, a McDonalds. At the top of a mountain. I mean if there was ever a more capitalist symbol it would be a McDonalds placed at the top of an isolated mountain, right?? Eventually the fog cleared and we made our way down, once again without anyone in sight, only the sound of running water and birds to accompany us. And these were some of the best views we had seen all day. The most amazing peaks were the thin and spindly pillars with isolated trees perched precariously on the top, surrounded by pink flowers.

We came back on the next day to explore more of the park that we hadn't seen the day before (it is huge), and caved in and got the cable car up to the top. It felt like a scene from Jurassic Park mixed with Avatar as we were whisked between the peaks with the jungle hundreds of metres below. From the top we took a path that had been recommended by the guide book as a ‘rarely used trail’, which in fact turned out to be basically abandoned (an assumption that became an acknowledged fact when we reached the end of it and found a 'do not enter' sign…). We knew it hadn't been used in a while as you couldn't walk two metres without walking into a cobweb. In fact it was so bad Amy and I were walking along holding huge branches in front of us waving them up and down to clear them out the way. The path hugged the cliff face, with large rocks occasionally blocking the path which appeared to have fallen from the cliff above. It was a bit scary, but at least we were away from the crowds! The path led us to what I think was the best view we had come across the whole time we were there - standing on top of one of these peaks we looked down a long valley covered by blankets of lush green trees, only interrupted by stone pillars flanking the sides, bursting up from the valley floor and casting huge shadows. In the sun it had a totally different feel to the ethereal mist of the previous day, but it was just as beautiful.

We had a very early train journey the next morning to take us to Chengdu, with a connection in Yichang. Any chance of sleep was of course shattered by the cacophony of smartphones, music blasting from the train's speaker system, and loud chatter in Mandarin. The train we were on was a sleeper that had come from Kunming and had been going since 10am the previous day, and it certainly smelt like it. Tickets on the faster train had sold out, so we were on the cheap train, and it was definitely the worst we got in China. From Yichang we managed to change to a high speed train which was much better. That was until a red hatted tour group got on, pushing and shoving and shouting, and possibly the worst of all crimes - eating durian. Anyone that has travelled in Asia will recognise the stench of durian. Widely loved here, it has been banned in many places in Asia on public transport because of its foul smell. And of course the man next to me hawked up and spat right next to my shoe. As soon as they got off the train returned back to normal decency. Once again it was the same demographic perpetrating the same behaviour!

Chengdu is most famous for its panda research base, but it turns out that it has much more on offer than just that. It is in Sichuan province, famous for its cuisine, in particular its spicy food. Once again we were staying at an awesome modern hostel, with great rooms, food and help with travel plans. We decided that we would spend the first day eating our way around town, and set off on a self-guided food walking tour. I couldn't believe how good the food here was. For me, the spice is perfect. It numbs and tingles the mouth, but still allows you to taste the flavours. There's lots of hole in the wall street food vendors with long lines of people queueing up to buy mapo tofu (translated as ‘pockmarked granny’ tofu - a bean curd with spicy sauce and minced beef), liangfen (cold mung bean jelly with chilli oil, peppercorns, sugar, garlic and vinegar - much, much nicer than it sounds), dandan noodles (noodles with minced meat, chilli oil and peppercorns), and san da pao (or ‘triple bang’ - a glutinous rice ball coated in soybean powder and black sugar juice by throwing them against a board with clanking metal saucers three times to attract your attention). We also had a blanket noodle version of dandan noodles where the noodles came in super wide sheets rather than in thin strips. One of Chengdu’s infamous local specialities is rabbit head, and I wasn't going to leave without giving it a try. Lined up in the shopfronts they do look quite gross, especially with the two front teeth sticking out. I opted for a spiced one, and was provided with a couple of plastic gloves in order to rip it apart. Under instruction from the vendor, I was shown how to break the jaw and then rip off the meat from the cheeks and pull off the tongue. It was surprisingly tasty - actually so much so that I would definitely have it again! But perhaps the most gruesome part was when she started indicating that I needed to bite open the skull. I checked a couple of times to make sure I was understanding her correctly, but there was no avoiding it. By this point a small crowd of Chinese people had gathered and were taking photos, so there was no backing out now. I crunched down on the skull to remove the top of the head, exposing the brain, which she told me to suck out. Again, it was really quite tasty! Maybe next time though it would be better if all the gruesome bits could be done in the kitchen and the nice bits presented on a plate?! My apologies to any rabbit lovers that just read that. Although I do think it's good that every part of the animal gets used for food here and not thrown away - these heads are loved by the locals!

One of the most famous dishes is skewer hotpot, so we went to a restaurant to try it out. We were faced with a long wall full of skewers of unidentifiable items, the labels all handwritten (so no chance of using the Google Translate camera this time…), and a table full of unknown sauces. The staff weren't exactly rushing to help us out, despite our obvious flapping about what we should be doing. Eventually they sent across a young guy armed with his smartphone and translation app, who had a go at telling us how it worked. They brought over a bowl full of peppercorns and dried chillis (and I mean full), filled it with water and put it on the hob to boil away. Soon it was an intimidating bubbling bowl of pure fire. We selected some skewers, taking the ones we were sure about like quails eggs, chicken breast, tofu, corn on the cob, mushrooms, and bundles of noodles. I took a few of the more appetising looking meat skewers in the hope they weren't anything too weird. Well, it was one of the spiciest meals I've ever had! But because it's that numbing, tingly spice it still meant that we enjoyed it. Especially washed down with a few bottles of the cheap, watery beer.

Chengdu has a nice area around the Wenshu Monastery which has been redeveloped in a traditional style with modern touches, to house lots of nice boutique shops. I must admit that generally in China we were impressed with the architectural renovations and aesthetic sensitivity to the local environment. The crowds and commercialisation might ruin the tourist spots, but the developments themselves were pretty good, unlike in Japan where electricity wires, poor architecture and run down buildings spoil many of the nicest places. Definitely a nice surprise.

The monastery itself was nice, and we settled down in the associated teahouse for a cup of Chinese tea. You'd have thought tea would be cheap in China, but it's not at all! The monastery’s often have big sheets of paper, inkwells and desks for people to practice their calligraphy, and we watched a corridor full of people concentrating hard on making the right brush strokes as we drank our tea. I love seeing people taking pride and practicing traditional handicrafts, and we saw it more in China than anywhere else. Round the back of the monastery was an antiques market. I'm never quite sure if these are full of tat or genuine items, but I think that this one was the latter. There certainly weren't any other tourists looking round it, and the items on offer looked way more legit than any other antique markets we saw in China. It would be easy to fill a house with these things, but once again the size of our bags limited us to just a couple of small ceramic vases (perfect for carrying round in a backpack for the next two months…).

In the late afternoon we headed to the People's Park - and I can't think of a better description of it than that. Reminiscent of the parks in Saigon, the local community are out in force using the park for various means. It is the perfect people watching place, every corner reveals a new scene. Firstly, there were huge groups of old people doing ballroom dancing. Then, there were men practicing their calligraphy with huge brushes, using water as their ink on the flagstones. Boating, badminton, hackey sack - you name it, it was going on. What appeared to be talent shows full of old crooners and big speakers were tucked in between the trees, all drawing large crowds despite the limited abilities. One of the more curious things going on was lots of older men and women crowding round posters that had been fixed to benches, trees and fences, making notes. It took a while to work out what was going on, but eventually it clicked that it was matchmaking. These were parents looking for love for their children. They put up posters with the (perceived) important details such as job, height, if they own a flat or a car etc. and wait for a call from a parent who thinks that they have a son or daughter suitable. So interesting!

One evening we headed to the theatre to see a famous Sichuan Face Changing Opera. Although we'd had an introduction to this at our our brunch in Hong Kong, we thought it best to see one for real and not under the influence of all you can drink champagne. The show was put on for tourists, with some explanations of what was going on which was useful. It was a play with a short story, allowing them to showcase some traditional arts, such as some very impressive shadow puppets, dancers clad in intricate costumes, as well as the face changing itself. The face changing was quite spectacular, with some of them having puppets that also changed face at the same time, and some that spat fire.

For our final day in Chengdu we went to see what we actually went there for - the pandas. We got there early in order to see them at their most active, and sure enough they were up and about, and doing what they are good at, which is eating and looking cute. They just lie on their backs splayed out and looking relaxed, chewing on bamboo shoots. I mean they're going to have to get a bit more fight or flight instinct in them if they're ever going to be released back into the wild! Unfortunately, as with a lot of the main sights in China, it wasn't long before it was just too busy, and not all that pleasant to walk around, so we headed home. It is possible to hold baby pandas somewhere near to Chengdu, but the price tag is extortionate (as in hundreds and hundreds of dollars for a few seconds), so that was just out of the question!

Heading further north, our next stop was Xi'an, before heading on to Pingyao, Beijing and finally Shanghai. I feel like there is so much to say about China I'm going to have to split this blog into two to spare you an excruciatingly long read! So…TBC…

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