We're baaaa-aack! We returned from China on Wed. p.m. I really regret the big gap in my web log about our trip. After we left Xian I had a lot of trouble hooking up to my weblog while we were on the road. Then when we got back, I got so busy catching up with my email, laundry -- plus recuperating from a cold I caught during the second week of our trip. At any rate, we had a great time -- though the trip was not without its frustrating moments. There is so much to relate about our experiences during this trip I'll try to hit upon some of the highlights:
On Wed. Oct 16, we flew from Xian to Chongqing where we stayed one night. We didn't do much sightseeing there, just wandered about the center of town near our hotel and had a fabulous spicy meal (Chongqing is in Sichuan province). Chongqing (prounounced by our guide as "Tzchongching") is very hilly and as a result there are not many bicycles there, as in most Chinese cities. We saw many men carrying loads simply with the aid of a bamboo pole about 4 feet long and two inches thick. More evidence of the lack of modern conveniences: workers toiling in the streets with pick axes.
We got up bright and early on Thursday morning for a 45-minute drive to board our cruise ship, The Princess Jeannie. We would spend the next 3 days cruising the Yangtze River enroute to the Three Gorges Dam Project. The Dam must be the largest public works project in history. It began in 1999 and will be completed in 2009. When it is complete, the water level will rise some 160 meters through the areas we cruised past, submerging many of the existing towns. The residents have been busy tearing down the towns that are on low ground (without the aid of machinery) and relocating and rebuilding on higher ground. We passed through some stunningly gorgeous scenery on our cruise. One excursion found us in "pea pod boats" -- narrow wooden boats that hold up to 20 people and are hauled up a shallow stream by four "trackers" -- men who walk on the shore and haul the boat by ropes. Again, beautiful scenery and Brad spotted a kingfisher! We had wonderful lunch and dinner companions on the cruise: Piet and Ingrid from Belgium. Piet had been a pilot with Sabena and Ingrid, his wife, a flight
attendant. Then there was an older couple from Rochester, NY, Alene and Jim. They were kinda hip for their age and have traveled extensively -- to the Antarctic, a month in Australia, East Africa. Our meal times were enlivened with engaging conversations. I celebrated my birthday on the last day of our cruise, which happened to be a cold rainy day. I was presented with a birthday cake at dinner time after the crew turned out the lights and everyone in the entire dining room sang Happy Birthday.
The cruise ship pulled into Wuhan on Sunday morning. We spent another cold rainy day seeing a few of the sights in Wuhan (a buddhist temple and a museum with a fantastic display of artifacts from a 2,000-year-old tomb). That evening we boarded a flight to Shanghai. Nothing had prepared us for the fantastical skyline of Shanghai as we arrived worn and weary that evening. Shanghai was the most modern city on our itinerary -- and is filled with many western-style buildings, some of them traditional and others quite fanciful. One of the best things about our stay in Shanghai was our hotel. We stayed in the Peace Hotel, which proudly claims to be one of the most famous hotels in the world. It was built in the 1920s, originally named the Cathay Hotel, by Victor Sassoon, a wealthy Brit who made his millions in the Opium trade. It is a beautiful specimen of Art Deco design, down to every detail. In the fifties it was taken over by the Chinese govt. (the sketchy customer service is evidence of that) and renamed the Peace Hotel. We were delighted to find out that we had been upgraded from a superior room to a suite! How nice it was to spread out after the cramped quarters on the cruise ship.
While in Shanghai, we attended a jaw-dropping performance by Chinese acrobats, shopped in a Chinese-style bazaar, visited the mazelike Yuyuan Garden, strolled along the stylish Bund (the embankment along the Huapong River), rode the Shanghai subway, and visited the extensive and impressive collection of antiquities of the Shanghai Museum. Some of the notable things about Shanghai have nothing to do with the those sights, however. The traffic was horrendous! It was a life-threatening act just to cross the street. There were cyclists everywhere, none of whom pay attention to traffic signals -- they just edge their way through intersections whereever they see an opening. Cars do not yield to pedestrians, who must also be forced to wend their way across the street, dodging vehicles and cyclists in the act. Street hawkers, present in every city we visited, were extremely persistent in Shanghai. We would step out of our hotel and hear "Hello. Rolex watch. $10" "Postcards. $1." A little girl followed us for blocks, trying to sell roses. We even saw a guy trying to hawk a tiger pelt. For some reason, the Shanghainese wanted to take pictures of themselves with Westereners and Brad was once roped into the middle of a group of Chinese people for a photo op.
On Wed. Oct 16, we flew from Xian to Chongqing where we stayed one night. We didn't do much sightseeing there, just wandered about the center of town near our hotel and had a fabulous spicy meal (Chongqing is in Sichuan province). Chongqing (prounounced by our guide as "Tzchongching") is very hilly and as a result there are not many bicycles there, as in most Chinese cities. We saw many men carrying loads simply with the aid of a bamboo pole about 4 feet long and two inches thick. More evidence of the lack of modern conveniences: workers toiling in the streets with pick axes.
We got up bright and early on Thursday morning for a 45-minute drive to board our cruise ship, The Princess Jeannie. We would spend the next 3 days cruising the Yangtze River enroute to the Three Gorges Dam Project. The Dam must be the largest public works project in history. It began in 1999 and will be completed in 2009. When it is complete, the water level will rise some 160 meters through the areas we cruised past, submerging many of the existing towns. The residents have been busy tearing down the towns that are on low ground (without the aid of machinery) and relocating and rebuilding on higher ground. We passed through some stunningly gorgeous scenery on our cruise. One excursion found us in "pea pod boats" -- narrow wooden boats that hold up to 20 people and are hauled up a shallow stream by four "trackers" -- men who walk on the shore and haul the boat by ropes. Again, beautiful scenery and Brad spotted a kingfisher! We had wonderful lunch and dinner companions on the cruise: Piet and Ingrid from Belgium. Piet had been a pilot with Sabena and Ingrid, his wife, a flight
attendant. Then there was an older couple from Rochester, NY, Alene and Jim. They were kinda hip for their age and have traveled extensively -- to the Antarctic, a month in Australia, East Africa. Our meal times were enlivened with engaging conversations. I celebrated my birthday on the last day of our cruise, which happened to be a cold rainy day. I was presented with a birthday cake at dinner time after the crew turned out the lights and everyone in the entire dining room sang Happy Birthday.
The cruise ship pulled into Wuhan on Sunday morning. We spent another cold rainy day seeing a few of the sights in Wuhan (a buddhist temple and a museum with a fantastic display of artifacts from a 2,000-year-old tomb). That evening we boarded a flight to Shanghai. Nothing had prepared us for the fantastical skyline of Shanghai as we arrived worn and weary that evening. Shanghai was the most modern city on our itinerary -- and is filled with many western-style buildings, some of them traditional and others quite fanciful. One of the best things about our stay in Shanghai was our hotel. We stayed in the Peace Hotel, which proudly claims to be one of the most famous hotels in the world. It was built in the 1920s, originally named the Cathay Hotel, by Victor Sassoon, a wealthy Brit who made his millions in the Opium trade. It is a beautiful specimen of Art Deco design, down to every detail. In the fifties it was taken over by the Chinese govt. (the sketchy customer service is evidence of that) and renamed the Peace Hotel. We were delighted to find out that we had been upgraded from a superior room to a suite! How nice it was to spread out after the cramped quarters on the cruise ship.
While in Shanghai, we attended a jaw-dropping performance by Chinese acrobats, shopped in a Chinese-style bazaar, visited the mazelike Yuyuan Garden, strolled along the stylish Bund (the embankment along the Huapong River), rode the Shanghai subway, and visited the extensive and impressive collection of antiquities of the Shanghai Museum. Some of the notable things about Shanghai have nothing to do with the those sights, however. The traffic was horrendous! It was a life-threatening act just to cross the street. There were cyclists everywhere, none of whom pay attention to traffic signals -- they just edge their way through intersections whereever they see an opening. Cars do not yield to pedestrians, who must also be forced to wend their way across the street, dodging vehicles and cyclists in the act. Street hawkers, present in every city we visited, were extremely persistent in Shanghai. We would step out of our hotel and hear "Hello. Rolex watch. $10" "Postcards. $1." A little girl followed us for blocks, trying to sell roses. We even saw a guy trying to hawk a tiger pelt. For some reason, the Shanghainese wanted to take pictures of themselves with Westereners and Brad was once roped into the middle of a group of Chinese people for a photo op.
posted by lenora at 8:39 AM
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