Ni hau - would you like chicken feet with that?

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Well, what can I say about China? Everything's a bit mental here, from the food, to the people (billions of them), to the traffic (deadly), to the weather.

I'll start in Hong Kong where I met up with Pip (hooray, I have a travelling friend!) and we spent a couple of very hot and sweaty days exploring the place. Poor Pip's feet obviously don't travel too well as she turned up with the fattest ankles I've ever seen other than those sported by obese American tourists.

The humidity is something ridiculous like 96% so as soon as you step outside you need a shower.

We did the usual touristy stuff like go up to the Peak to get the views of Hong Kong and took the ferry across to Kowloon where there were at least a few more western people than in the district we were staying in.

We had the compare and contrast moments of tiny alleyways with folks selling fresh produce from little stalls (including pig trotters and live seafood) against the backdrop of huge shopping malls and flashy designer stores like Gucci, Armani and our favourite, Manolo Blahnik - we had to stroke the precious shoes and may have to return on our way home to try on and photograph !!

I can't get across how mad it is. There are billions of people everywhere (not sure why they're not at work) and, believe it or not, almost all of them are shorter than me - Pip looks like a giant and every single one of them seems to be walking straight at us and wanting to push through. There's lots of shoving and spitting goes on (nice) - I don't mean spitting the liquid from your mouth, I mean the full on, bring it right up from your throat making as much noise as you can, hawking type of spitting. On our first night here we did some exploring and ended up in a 'hostess bar' - for this read Western men looking for Asian girls - bit creepy and more Ching Chong than Ting Tong.

We ate delicious dim sum for lunch but evenings are a bit more of a challenge as most of the menus are only in Cantonese/Mandarin. There's a fair bit of pointing and keeping your fingers crossed when it comes to ordering food. So far we've been lucky though we had a close encounter with chicken feet which were being chewed on at the table next to us at a restaurant. The grand finale of this meal came when the guy removed some sliced chicken from the serving plate and the chicken's head was underneath like some kind of special surprise!! I was only surprised that they didn't pick up the head and feet and do funny little chicken impressions across the table as I would have done.

The food varies from region to region but you can always get the same staples in most places, rice and noodles with a variety of sauces. Another common theme seems to be the animal parts - chickens feet are a favourite everywhere, you can even buy them vac-packed in the supermarket. Other delights on the street food stalls are duck necks, ducks heads, whole pigs heads and pigs ears. We've yet to be adventurous enough to sample all of these delicacies but if anyone has a yearning for any of the above, please let us know and we'll see what we can get through customs.

So, once we'd got our visas we were off into China proper and first stop was Guangzhou, a large city just on the south coast. Even fewer western faces and real difficulty in communicating as hardly anyone speaks English and my Chinese only extends to Yat Ding Ho which was the name of the local Chinese in Sea Mills and translates as 'It Must be Good'. We managed to locate a guy called Jim Lee (henceforth known as Jim Jim the Dog Boy) who offered us a car for the day and we jumped at the chance of having an English speaking guide. Didn't quite work out though as he turned up with a driver and then left us to it with a guy who spoke no English atall. Still we did get to see a few temples and pagodas (Pip was not too impressed with having to climb up all nine storeys for the view at the top). For lunch we fled to that beacon of Western Capitalism that is McDonalds and risked the chicken burgers, carefully checking for signs of feet.

We left Guangzhou and got a train to Chengdu - which has even fewers signs of Western-ness. The street names are mostly written in Chinese - they hardly use the Roman alphabet atall so it's hit and miss if we find the things we're looking for. You also take your life in your hands crossing the roads. There are pedestrian crossings but these appear to be only for aesthetic value as drivers pay them no attention whatsoever. The trick appears to be just walk slowly and look straight ahead and hope that the traffic will move around you - it's worked OK so far.

The main attraction at Chengdu is the Panda Research Centre. We were really lucky as they have had 5 baby pandas born this month alone. Two were so tiny that they are in incubators - you could fit them in the palm of your hand - if you had quite big hands - very cute. We also got to see young pandas and a few adults. They were all very playful but looked a bit grubby to be honest.

We also visited more temples but then went to the People's Park which seems to be where all the OAPs hang out and practice their ballroom dancing and karaoke of an afternoon. We were a bit of an attraction ourselves being the only westerners and attracted lots of stares. People seemed quite shocked when we said Ni hau (hello) to them and then they either said ni hau back and look really excited that a Westerner has spoken to them or just were so shocked they turned away in embarrassment! We have also had much (immature) fun in saying ridiculous things to people in English knowing that they can't understand. If we decide to tip anyone we hand it over with a "here you are darlin', keep the change and treat yourself to something special" (thanks to Raz for that one).

From Chengdu we went to Leshan to see THE WORLD'S BIGGEST BUDDHA - it's 71 metres high and his ears are 7m long! In order to see the buddha and to continue the walk along the river we had to climb up and down thousands of steps in gross heat and there was much sweatiness going on. Whilst at the buddha we asked an elderly Chinese chap to take a picture of the pair of us, but the international sign language was not working and he thought Pip wanted to take a picture of him and struck a pose like he was going to be on the front cover of Octogenarians Weekly!

We went to see a performance of a typical Sichuan Opera which wasn't opera as we know it, but consisted of a range of performances including juggling, fire-spitting (without the phlegm), changing faces (which was a bit creepy) and acrobatics.

We visited to Mount Emei which we tackled in the civilised way given the heat and took the cable car half way up and then walked back down through the forests.

The food in the Sichuan region is really good if you can understand the menu and we've resorted to eating lots of street food cos you can just point at what you want. They use loads of really hot chilli's in their cooking so everything you eat is really spicy and burns the roof of your mouth off - and that's before you've got all excited and rolled your kebabs in the extra dried chilli's that are offered with everything.

We've also become very adept at the Chinese tea drinking and jasmine is our firm favourite although you tend to get a mouthful of twigs and leaves with just about every sip - jasmine flowers might be pretty but they don't look good stuck to your teeth.

What is a surprise is that the streets in China are spottlessly clean down to the hundreds of street cleaners that are employed, so even though people do throw their rubbish it is immediately swept up. We've had a very low cockroach count so far and I'm sure its down to this.

Where they have translated signs into English you get some strange phrases popping up - known as Chinglish. On the expressway for example 'Accident Blackspot' is translated as 'Warning, many accident happen in that place'. I'm not even sure why they've bothered to do this as foreigners are allowed to hire cars but they're not allowed to drive them outside of any town limits. Other examples are 'Please do not turn over' near fences surrounding the Three Gorges Dam which we think meant don't climb the fence.

From Chengdu we took the bus to Chongqing which is the jumping off point for cruises down the Yangzi River. The bus journey itself was OK (about 4 hours) but we did have to put up with the guy across the aisle who thought it was perfectly acceptable to spit on the bus. In Chongqing we wanted to get something to eat before getting on the boat but there were only a few places to choose from so we headed to a bar, which bizarrely had framed photographs of Charles and Di and (even more bizarrely) Dennis and Margaret Thatcher hanging on the wall! They had a drinks menu in English but no food menu so when we indicated we wanted to eat the guy got on his laptop and quickly did a list of chinese characters for food, spent ages translating them and offered a whole list of ingredients. We choose beef, noodles and chilli and to our great surprise got the most delicious beefy/noodley spicy thing.

From here we boarded our boat for the 4 day cruise down the Yangzi. We'd chosen to take a tourist class boat (you have the option of a luxury liner which is aimed at Westerners) but with a first class cabin.

The boat itself looked a bit like an old rustbucket and the cabins were tiny but we were given the option of upgrading to the 'luxury' cabin which at least had more room so we thought it a wise investment of about 30 quid. The only problem was that the 'bathroom' consisted of a shower cubicle which also housed the squat toilet and the sink. You had to be very careful when taking a shower that you didn't put your foot in the lavvy!! We also soon discovered that the foghorn which was let off at any opportunity was located right above our cabin so we were woken at least three times a night by the most dreadful noise that made you jump out of your skin.

The cruise itself was great though the heat was punishing. The average temperature was about 40 degrees, but on the second day it hit 44 and we had to spend virtually all day in the cabin with the aircon on full. While in Chongqing we'd bought ourselves fans which work really well but I suspect we might soon be suffering from RSI of the wrist from all the mad fanning in an attempt to keep cool. We made several stops to see temples and visit street markets and had some great food. We made one stop to see a local performance of a kind of musical that was hilarious only because it was so amateurish. One of the dancers backed into a scenery prop when leaving the stage and it almost collapsed then the lights blew and plunged the whole theatre into darkness for 5 minutes. In contrast a couple of days later we stopped to see another at the point of the new Three Gorges Dam and it was amazing - there were something like 600 performers in an open air theatre and the show included amazing light shows and acrobatics.

On another stop we visited Ghost City which has a palace and numerous temples all dedicated to Hell. Apparently if you are able to cross the bridge to hell without falling in to the river of blood below then you're safe to visit and will be able to leave again - Pip and I have obviously been good girls because we were allowed to return from 'The Dark Side'. In the cellars of the palace is a whole display of models depicting, quite graphically, what will happen to you if you arrive in hell as a result of bad behaviour. This included people being sawn in half, having their intestines ripped out and their limbs torn off, all this against a real 'Ghost House' background of scarey music and lights going on and off. Some of the models even moved and appeared to jump out at you - we held hands all the way through!

The trip itself down through the three gorges was on a smaller boat and was stunning, The gorges are up to 400m high in places. At the end of the third gorge we were put into even smaller boats to see the Three Little Gorges. We felt like Vietnamese boat people as they squeezed 40 of us into a boat that was clearly made for about 20! This trip was fairly special though as it included the boatman giving us an impromptu performamce of a local folk song - after which he tried to sell us key rings. Not sure if it was a reflection of his (lack of) talent but I don't think he made a single sale.

We're lucky to have been able to do this cruise now because the construction of the Three Gorges Dam, which is due to complete in 2009, will result in the flooding of the area and the Three Gorges will then be underwater. The building of the dam will also displace something like 1.5 million people and you can see the markers down the river which shows what the new level of the water will be and how much is going to be lost.

We'd been told that our boat would be docking in Yichang at 2 in the morning and we were to get off and someone would meet us with our bus tickets to take us to Wuhan. So we dragged ourselves up in the middle of the night only to find a deserted bus station. We weren't quite sure what to do so we sat around in the waiting room until we found a bus leaving for Wuhan at 5.30am. We jumped on this and arrived in Wuhan where we were flying to Shanghai. Wuhan itself seems like a nice city - very cosmopolitan for China - they even have a Pizza Hut!! We got our flight out of here to Shanghai which is the most western place we've been to so far, we've even seen real life westerners wandering the streets - unheard of!

We have a few days here in Shanghai exploring before heading up to Beijing and then on to Xian for the Terracotta Warriors. After that we're heading south to Hainan Island where we hope to get some beach time in before heading home. I can't believe I'll be coming home in 3 weeks - it's gone way too quickly, but it'll be great to see everyone.

Take care everyone, lots of love

Carole & Pip
xx

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Photos

Chef's Special
Jamie Oliver made a right pig's ear of dinner (or it may have been a left ear)

Jasmine Tea
Watch for foliage in your teeth!

Ghost City
Pip's bad deeds had caught up with her

Comments

[mylin]

true account!
carol! carol! carol!!!! i can't help but be tickled by the earthly account of this adventure.... i love that way you have written about the very details of your travel... from my own personal experience... nothing writes as truthful and very realistic than this... pls. readers... be encourage to write a more realistic-true-to-life account in your travel escapade.... this will give you the true essence of the place! kudos to you!