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Published: October 5th 2009
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Bird's Nest
Like to see them get that into a soup bowl! Sitting in Wuhan, the 'city in the middle of China', drinking a Tsingtao .... it's almost possible to forget the imposition Mao Zedong has put on this culture. Then we remember we never wanted to stay in Wuhan, let alone for two days or worse more!
While the hassle for us started on the 18th September, the beginning goes back to 1st October 1949 and the creation of the Peoples Republic of China. Without wishing to jeapordise our chances of future visas to China, it would be safe to say that Mao's rise to power and his subsequent Communist teaching and laws aren't neccessarily a good thing. Upon his death, the party line was that he probably got 30% of it wrong. Pretty sure the 45 million (at a conservative count) who died needlesly during his tenure might think he got it a little more awry. But those who survived (despite the saying that every one of one billion Chinese people knew someone who died because of him) still revere the man - or at least follow the party line and what it stands for.
Which brings us to our present predicament. On the 60th anniversary of Mao declaring
The Carpenters
Singing along to 'Yesterday Once More' a People's Republic they are having a party ... for a week. Now, with the world watching, that takes some planning. Remember the Olympics? Same scale but all over the country. In Beijing they were practising all through the night for weeks before 1st October and to get the space for enough people who would sing and dance in Tiananmen Square requires shutting off a large amount of Beijing at a time. On 18th September 2009, that place happenend to be the road outside our hostel. House arrest from 4pm until 6am the following morning. Not even Colin, an Irishman with the gift of the gab, could convice 3 coach-loads of armed guards that we wouldn't cause any trouble if they turned a blind eye to 5 westerners sneaking out for a night on the town.
Nevertheless, we did eventually see Beijing. It is vast. Three blocks from Tiananmen Square took 45 minutes to walk - metros only after that. At Tiananmen - where you have to go through metal detectors (guess they don't want anther 04.06.89, it would make them look bad) - there's a picture of Mao hanging from one end and his mausoleum at the other.
Great Wall
As President Nixon once commented .. 'this is a great wall'. People everywhere are carrying PRC flags in a national furvour that puts the US of A to shame.
Despite the wholesale razing and rebuilding of Beijing, its not all at the hands of the communitsts. The Qing dynasty also enjoyed frittering away the populations money. It mainly looks great, but that's because it's mainly been built in the last 130 years. To be honest it doesn't detract from the attraction of the city. The Temple of Heaven Park is a lovely respite from the fumes. The Forbidden City is spectacular. The Summer Palace is beautiful. The National Centre of Performing Arts is wonderfully futuristic. The Bird's Nest and Water Cube are truly fit for an Olympic stage. The Gate of Heavenly Peace (Tiananmen) though, is far from peaceful.
Now, talking of rebuilding, most we can forgive but not the Great Wall. For 7KM we enjoyed stumbling up and down sharp inclines and scaling staircases with half the steps missing. Then we found neatly paved walkways, perfectly repointed turrets and well spaced footholds on the steep stretches. This was capped with the finale of a zip-wire from the Wall to the car-park. Despite looking, we never found the Disney
Terracotta Warriors
The Porcelain Platoon on parade. trademark. We were thankful for one man-made addition. The cable car at Jinshanling saved another 2 hours of torture on the knees - even though there was music blaring from the support towers, the Carpenters no less!
From Beijing we caught the overnight train to Xi'an. We found the Chinese far more friendly and interested in the weird looking people than most Russians are on trains. We had nearly 3 hours of interrogation. From 16 million people in one place to a mere 3.5 million, or 3 Birminghams if anyone can stomach such a thought. The traffic was similar to the M6 junctions 8-10 at rush hour. Having seen the Porcelain Platoon (Steve, apologies for the plagarism) on day one we pretty much become recluses in the Shuyuan Hostel, a fantastic retreat in Xi'an.
Walking the backstreets of the Muslim Quarter we negotiated a bag from 15 pounds (no pound sign on a chinese keyboard) down to 3 but still walked away from the deal on the grounds that it was still too expensive. Subsequently we found an ipod store and spent 180 pounds on an iTouch plus bits and completely blew the budget.
On to Chengdu.
10 quid well spent
Look at the grin ... I tried to get him in my rucksack but his tail was too long :o( Population 4.1 million people, a dozen red pandas and 25 giant pandas. Its a zoo, dressed up as a breeding centre, but it is a zoo where you can cuddle pandas! They say the money spent by tourists (120 pounds to cuddle a baby giant panda!) goes towards their survival in the wild. With the population up from 1000 to 1600 in the past 5 years it is possibly true. However, no panda bred in captivity has been released into the wild, so lets say scepticism reigns. Not enough for Nic not to fall for the charms of the little red fellow though!
A game of scrabble on the trip from Chengdu to Chongqing brought more stares from those around us resulting in a side game of charades to explain the meaning of the words on the board. Not great when one of the words Paul decided to use was 'poo'! Nice boy.
Chongqing with over 5 million people was our 4th multi-million smog ridden city in 10 days - and we love the place. A normal city by day, it really comes into its own when the neon gets switched on. A walk down 'local food street'
Yangtse River Trip
Paul enjoying his cruise! does exactly what it says on the tin. Spicy kebabs were the order of the day followed by a Macdonalds ice cream (believe me Macdonalds is 'local' in China, they are everywhere) to cool the tongue down. No wonder they were laughing at us when we added the spices to our kebabs, with a paintbrush, as Chongqing is the capital of spicy food.
Being the at the confluence of the Jialing and Yangtse rivers makes it geographically spectacular with views across rivers giving the crowded city an open feel. The Chinese government are throwing loads of money into the area which was to our benefit. Sitting on the top deck of our boat waiting to leave on our river cruise we had front row tickets for the 60th anniversary fireworks display. Half an hours worth of fireworks from 3 different locations from the country who invented them was pretty amazing. It was hard to know which way to look.
The river trip itself was a different kettle of fish. In a word... disappointing. A boat with 300 people, 5 of which were Westerners. Various trips all with Chinese speaking guides (admittedly our choice as we booked a Chinese boat). Everything geared for tourism but nothing geared to natural beauty - Neon lights on a Buddist Temple, need we say more! 3 Gorges, 2 done in the dark!
Which brings us to Wuhan, famed mainly for being the final nail in the coffin of Chinese Emperors (and apparently a zoo with Lions jumping through fire burning hoops)...
... and we can't get out as it is the bloody National Holiday!
The Gate of Heavenly Peace (Tiananmen) though, is far from peaceful.
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Chris
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This gets more like Jeremy Clarkson on Tour every blog. Keep it coming.