Guanzhou

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This used to be called Canton, which is where Cantonese food comes from. I can't really tell the difference between the food here and elsewhere, although no doubt Sinophiles could explain it with ease. No matter, it's all good. China is an endless culinary festival.

Guanzhou doesn't seem to offer much in the way of tourist sites to visit, so I've just been hanging out on Shamian Island. This was a British/French concession in the 19th century, a teardrop-shaped island in the Pearl River that you can walk around in about half an hour. Architecture here makes me feel at home. Big, leafy trees shade the streets while neo-classical buildings from the colonial era line it. Plinths, columns, arches, balustrades, all distinctly European. But there's an odd juxtaposition here as Mandarin characters adorn the stone fronts and girls in voluminous white bridal dresses pose for photos in what is evidently a favoured location for this.

Outside of this, it’s a heteroclitic style of 20th century construction, a mishmash of stodgy old sixties boxes and newer, more considered buildings. In some neighbourhoods the apartment buildings are amazingly close together. Romeo and Juliet construction: neighbours on opposing balconies could lean out and kiss.

Also wonder why it's called the Pearl River. The Chinese love poetic names for places and landmarks, so maybe it used to have something to do with moonlight on the water, which these days is a mud-brown sewer. Barges, boats and ferries sail endlessly up and down the waterway and, at night, it's another neon festival. Picturesque, but people I met didn’t see why anyone would come here as a holiday stop. I think I understand why, although I’m sure there are some things worth seeing here.

But it's crushingly hot and humid. Step out of air-conditioned buildings and the sweat stands right up in droplets on the forehead and arms, runs in trickles down my sides and back. No desire to make the effort in this heat to run around seeing things. I’d be better off at the beach, lazing by the seaside, plunging in occasionally to cool down, or at least wash the sweat off.

Time to move on to more enticing locales.

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Photos

Guanzhou skyline
The Pearl River, with some of the Guanzhou skyline on the other side. The city straddles the river, so this only shows some of it.