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Asia » China » Guizhou » Guiyang
December 11th 2007
Published: December 11th 2007
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LoversLoversLovers

Guiyang
Our room is on the eighteenth floor of a twenty-two floor hotel and the place we are to get married is on the fourth floor - very convenient. Also housed in the same building is a Massage Hospital! Would newly weds need this I wonder?

Our room is spacious with a great view of night-time Guiyang and in the distance is an illuminated temple. The room has two large single beds, just what we need for our wedding night!

The reason why we have come to Guiyang to get married is simple, it is the only city in the province that has offices where foreigners can get married to Chinese nationals and it is also the only city in the the province which has an airport.

Tuesday 13th November

We both sleep well in our spacious beds. For once there being no noisy neighbours and no sound of traffic.

I am disappointed however in the morning to look out over the city to see that it is shrouded in heavy mist. What can be clearly seen though is the grey skeletal carcass of an even bigger hotel being built right next door.

The restaurant of the hotel is on the twentieth floor, so after breakfasting on noodles, rice dumplings and boiled eggs, we set off to find the translation services who will translate the declaration I had made in the UK. This declaration stating who I was, my age, passport number and that I was single cost me ten quid to download a template from the Internet (to make it sound legal and jargonistic), twenty-seven quid and a trip to London for the Foreign Office to stick a label on it and a further thirty-two notes for the Chinese Embassy to stick their own stamp on it. All this and never once was my passport checked to see if the information I was giving was correct!

We left the declaration with the smiling man at the translation agency and was to call back at lunchtime.

On our return to the hotel, we travelled a different route and had to cross a dual carriage which dissected that part of the city. It was not possible to cross the road here and so had to descend down some crumbling stone steps to go beneath. What we discoverd below the road was for me a complete
Monster nextdoorMonster nextdoorMonster nextdoor

New hotel being built, photo taken from our 18th floor room
joy. An enclosed great market running several hundred metres under the road in two passages. This however, was not a food or clothes market but one that sold second-hand books, art, caligraphy brushes and paintings, antiques and sundry goods. Also down in this subterranean world were shops selling plants, exotic fish (not for eating) and fish tanks and paradoxically next door, shops selling fishing equipment. The whole place had a musty tranquility about it, the sort of place you could browse for hours. What was more, the shop keepers were happy for you to browse at your ease, no heavy sell like in Shanghai.

We return at midday to the translation services on the twenty-eighth floor of the office building and pick up my declaration translated and duly stamped.

We return to our hotel room and prepare ourselves for our marriage. I put on my new blue suit but Crystal doesn't wear her new red dress. She is saving for a celebratory gathering in Zunyi. So off we go. Before we do however, we joke with each other about now is the time to back out. It is all a bit bizaar and understated, we have no guests,
Street under the roadStreet under the roadStreet under the road

Surprisingly peaceful and great when it's raining
not even a witness to be there for us, just me and Crystal.

The office we are to do the deed is windowless and poorly lit. It has silk flowers on modern glass furniture and stuck on a wall, a heart made of silk flowers. The clerk who is to check my documents and give us our wedding certificate sits behind a high desk; her face rigid and unsmiling. You would have thought at least she could have made an effort? I am a little anxious that all will be in order. We both have to make our signatures and also require a joint photo to go into the passport like certificate and so go off into another room to have this done. We are then asked if we want some photos taken together be placed into a small album; we say yes. We pose in front of the flag of China and some silk flowers, and a young pleasant woman asks us to confirm who we are and that we are willing to marry the other - click click, more photos. We then return to the other room to await our certificate from Miss Stony Face. The photos in front of the flag cost us 425 yuan and the one to go onto the certificate costs 35 yuan - the actual certificate costs us a mere 9 yuan! It is cheap to marry in China and Crystal tells me it costs the same to get divorced too!!

And so it is done - no family or friends, no congratulations, no confetti and no reception. I hope one day when Crystal can come to England we can do it all again but this time properly.

Earlier Crystal and I had spoken about the differences between British and Chinese weddings and I was supportive of the fact that in the UK, couples make a vow to each other, whereas in China they don't. Crystal responds by saying "But in the your country, the divorce rate is much higher." She was probably correct and I couldn't argue. Perhaps it takes more than words to ensure marriages last?

Now that we are married, we will travel to her home city Zunyi and so we head for the station to buy tickets to travel the following day. Travelling by train is not like the UK, you can't just book online,
Calligraphy artistCalligraphy artistCalligraphy artist

Under road shops
and if you turn up on the day you won't get a ticket, so you have to go to the station to buy them.

We take a taxi to the station and it is the same as getting a taxi in Shanghai - mad!

The station is heaving with people and their possessions. Crystal queues at one of the few open ticket offices. It always seems a hostile world buying a ticket in such places and no place for the meek. I remember on my first trip to China, watching in some amazement how at a particular queue, three men all trying to get served at the same time and none were holding back. It is no wonder the women ticket clerks sit behind glass screens and seem to bark through an intercom at the person enquiring about tickets.

Crystal eventually comes away with two tickets but she has had to settle for the last train of the day at 13.48. We go the the huge information board on one wall to search out what time our train will arrive. I am a bit shocked to find out that the arrival time in Zunyi is 18.35. Five hours on a train! I am filled with dread. Crystal had told me it should be three hours but this is an additional train because of major reconstruction on the road and the road journey would be very long' so more people are travelling by train instead of bus. Trains in China have two classes, not first and second but soft seat and hard seat, and apparently we were on the hard seats. Now I don't have much meat on my backside and the prospect of five hours on a rock hard seat was none too pleasing.

I've never particularly liked train travel since I used to travel weekly from London to the midlands. Not only that but memories of a previous train journey in China where people were filling the isles with their bodies and possessions was none too warming. Oh well, better this than the other train journey we could have taken by train - from Shanghai to Zunyi - thirty-two hours! It had been the topic of conversation the day we met Crystal's friend Jenny. Plane costing around 140 quid for both of us or train costing 40? A saving of one hundred precious pounds; considering Customs had just robbed us of two hundred smackers and that we had spent nearly a week longer in Shanghai than anticipated. Funds were running down. I don't know why, correction I do know why I couldn't face thirty odd hours on a train, even if it did have a narrow sleeping birth with a small curtain for privacy - I would just go mad! I had been stressed out enough and the prospects of living on a crowded train for a day and a half, whose toilet facilties are worse than one's on Networt Southeast seemed all too much to bare. I needed comfort and I needed to get to my destination quickly. Fortunately our decision was just about decided for us in Shanghai as we happened to pass a large travel office and we went on it to buy our flight tickets.

Of course, thirty-two hours on a train is a doddle for Chinese folk. Crystal had told me of a journey she had made from Shanghai to Zunyi with only a seat and a bottle of water - fifty-five hours! It is beyond the bounds of my imagination. Yes, I am soft westerner who likes his
Artist undergroundArtist undergroundArtist underground

Pity about the hand shake
comforts and a bit a space. What is more, I don't know what I would do with my mind all that time? I mean, there is only so much of the time you can sleep, read or gaze restfully out of the window. It would be okay if one could just drift off into some timeless meditation but fifty-five hours!!

So from the railway station, not wishing another taxi ride back to the hotel, we decide to walk and I had seen some interesting places out of the taxi window and wanted to see a little more.

I spot a vendor selling fried potatoes, reminiscent of chips, so I ask Crystal to buy some. What I was not prepared for was the liberal coating of chillie that was to be on them - wow!

In front of an impressive modern building is an equally impressive stutue of Mao silently waving to all passers-by and across the road from him, a very large grassed open space for public enjoyment and the flying of very high kites. At each corner of the grassed area, are large glass structures, two rectangular and two triangular. On the rectangular one by the footpath is a sign say Wal-mart. We want to buy some juice and some cakes but where is Wal-mart? We walk on, Crystal gazing around to look for the superstore. At the second rectangular glass box structure is another sign for the American giant relailer directing us round the corner. We walk on and there under the big glass triangle is the entrance; the store is down underground. It must have been the thinking of the town planners, that they didn't want the statue of their great leader of Communism, looking out onto a great leader of Capitalism - Wal-mart - it would be too ironic.

As we descend down the escalator, the fishy smelling humid air reaches up to greet us and we enter into a vast cavern of retail America - China style. It is not a place I wish to linger, so we make our purchases and get out but not before I hear being piped through the store speakers - I'm Dreaming Of A White Christmas and Silent Night. 'Oh no not here too!' I complain to Crystal. She tells me a lot of people in China celebrate Christmas, even if they don't recognise the
Entrance to Wal-martEntrance to Wal-martEntrance to Wal-mart

and high flying kite
reason for it - sounds like in the UK!

It is good to be out in the relative fresh air. Further on we come to a park I had noticed from the taxi. It is not a big park but what is parculiar is that all the pathways are lined with many rows of potted flowers, thousands of them. Unfortunately at this time of year when they are past their best but still very impressive; they must take some watering!

It is dark when we get back to our hotel and we are both weary; we dine at the restaurant next door and enjoy an evening watching TV and relaxing, as all couples do on their wedding night!

Wednesday 14th Nov

Before we are to depart, we meet up with one of Crystal's friends, her name is Wany; she doesn't have an English name, that is purely optional. Wang takes us to a bar over looking the river. The bar has armchairs around low tables - very relaxing; we dine together. As the pair chat away, I gaze out of the window, watching the walnut sellers move up and down the street; their two baskets hung from a pole over their shoulder. One seller is a woman from the country, short stocky build and dark skinned; another is a man wearing a dark suit, he appears to be in his thirties. They seem to be together. Then I see that the man is using his mobile phone. Now I don't know anything about the life of a walnut seller but like all those who ply their trade on the street selling oranges, snacks and walnuts etc., it all seems a pretty tough life and a poor one at that. Seeing a walnut seller with a mobile phone struck me as out of place but then, who doesn't have a mobile phone these days?

Lunch finished, Wang drives us to the station. Driving in her new Nissan is cautious and slow, and who can blame her surrounded by snarling taxis and buses.

Crystal and I take our bags to the x-ray security check but how on earth the man watching the monitor can spot anything when litterally thousands of cases are going through each hour I'll never know.

We go to the departure 'lounge' and fall in behind a small queue waiting to pass
Vase shopVase shopVase shop

What size flowers would you put in those?
through a steel gate to get to the train beyond. On duty checking the tickets is a young women, dressed in quite possibly the smartest uniform I have seen in a long while. In fact all the railway staff are similarly attired. They wouldn't look out of place on a parade ground or working for an airline - not Easyjet however, who wear quite the scruffiest uniforms going.

I am just about to pass through the gate behind Crystal when an old woman pushes in front of me. She is clearly a lady from the country and has a basket on her back in which is a young child. However, she doen't get far. You uniformed ticket checker stopping her and turning her back, something was wrong with her ticket or maybe she was trying to catch the wrong train? Serves her right for pushing in, ha!

The train is a massive beast, made to look even bigger because there is no raised platform, which makes getting on with suitcases no easy task. Eventually we haul ourselves aboard and find our allocated seats. The train is filling up but there are no standing passengers, so it all feels confortable, as do the seats; they are not hard at all.

On the dot, the train moves, moves very slowly out of the platform at a good walking pace. I guess a train of this size must take some pulling by the loco up front. Eventually the train gets up to speed, I reckon around thirty miles an hour and then starts slowing down; it is another station. Oh god this is going to be slow. Although nothing more than a hole in the hedge, the trains waits quite a while until it gets going again. Now we are really moving, must be at least doing forty.

The steady rocking motion of the train is soon bringing down my eyelids and I nod off. I hadn't felt tired but such is the effect of the lumbering train. It's not a proper sleep, it never can be for me sitting up. My head drops down and then pops up again, and that's the way it goes but this intermittent sleep passes a little of the five hours. We are now travelling steadily through the countryside but it not long before we are slowing to stop again but this time not for a station but to allow an oncoming train to pass and this is the way with this train. Because it is an additional service, it has to give way to everything coming in the opposite direction and these stops are really long and tedious. It is no wonder the journey takes five hours but is only probably a couple of hundred kilometres long.

The countryside is getting interesting now because the train has been constantly climbing and the terrain is hilly and will become mountainous. What is so interesting is that every spare inch of land is given over to the planting of crops and right up to the railway edge too. Where the land is sloped or uneven, it is cut into flat terraces, sometimes with supporting walls. There are no big fields here with tractors moving across, all is done either by hand or by the use of oxen pulling ploughs. It is like stepping back in time. Whole hillsides, usually only fit for sheep in the UK are cut into flat parcels of land and upon which are planted various crops. And although we are well into autumn, there are abundant crops growing, including rice in water fields.

Inside the compartment, soft music is piped throughout, young people are playing cards and food vendors are moving up and down selling their wares. It all has a very comfortable feel to it, not what I had expected and time is becoming irrelevant. Then comes the time to use the hole-in-the-ground, except is the hole-in-the-floor and I am glad I only have to stand. It is not a place to hand around - phew!.

The train slowly snakes its way up through the mountains and the views become even more impressive, deep gorges, steep slopes. The sun is bright firey disc in a heavy mist. Views of the new road become apparent and it is clearly a major undertaking, cutting alongside steep rock faces, traversing deep valleys, tunnelling deeply where it cannot go round. At one point we pass over a deep ravine and there in the mist I can make out three roads crossing the same gorge. The closest is the lowest of the three, the second is higher up the mountain slopes and the third, barely visible in the mist is the new road almost in the heavens. I can just make out its arches, spans and gaps where they have still to lay some spans. Low in the sky is the sun, a bright silver disc. It is an impressive watercolour scene.

The train trundles onwards and upwards. I go to the connecting corridor, the only place where anyone can smoke and light up one of my cigars. The rattling clanking of the carriages as the wheels move over the joints in the tracks is much louder here and you can feel the life of the old girl as she steadily moves on. The journey is turning into a pleasure rather than an endurance.

The afternoon sun disappears behind the mountains and dusk turns to night. Around five hours into our journey and I am peering out of the window to see anything of the approaching city. Lights appear, more and more; we are getting close. However, there is to be another stop before reaching the station and our train waits alongside two great locos pulling dark dirty ore wagons. As we move off, I casually count the wagons as they move past the window - fifty. I reckon than must be around a quarter of a mile one long - China's hungry economy takes a lot of feeding.

The train slides into the station and after some while, we emerge onto the platform. Crystal's brother-in-law will me meeting us but first we must queue to have our tickets checked again as we leave the station.

....... greets me with a handshake but no other acknowledgement. He is a tall stockily built man, who's actions speak louder than his words. We are soon speeding through the darkened streets of the city with me trying to take in as much as I can of the city that will be my new home. There is not much to see but what I do see is that the roads are shiny and its not been raining. ...... takes us to a small noodle shop and Crystal and I are giving two steaming bowls of rice noodles, meat and vegetables. It is a welcome meal.

I am now more eager than ever to see our new home, the apartment Crystal's sister has arranged for us and soon we are off again to find out. ....... VW stops outside a block of flats, of which there are many around and we climb the four floors to our apartment. The stone steps are in darkness until a vibration sensor picks up our approach and a light comes on; it is generally a case of stamping ones feet at each new flight of stairs. The door to our flat is opened and I peer in. First impressions are good; the living room is large and well furnished with two leather sofas and two leather armchairs. There is also a decent coffee table and a good hifi unit/TV stand with floor speakers. On top is a large TV but apparently it doesn't work.

Anyway, we are here at long last. The bedroom has a double bed and to my relief a proper mattress, not the usual hard base. There are plenty of built-in storage cupboards and curtains at the windows, and there are two other bedrooms. The bathroom is a bit basic with lots of pipes running here and there but there is a bath and of course the hole-in-the-ground. The kitchen is also a little on the basic side but at least there is a microwave from which I am able to make a cup of coffee.

I'm not disappointed however, in fact I am quite pleased. There is an open view out of the back windows even though there are flats all around. What is more, when I awake in the morning I will see the trees on the mountain slopes very close indeed. This will be a good place to live.










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