China and everything thereafter!
Trip Start
Apr 20, 2004
1
9
21
Trip End
Mar 30, 2005
Phuket Island Thailand,
Thailand
Thursday, July 8, 2004
We hope you realise that we are thinking of you all and as such have timed this entry so that you wouldn't receive it on a Monday morning. This is going to be a long travel pod as we have neglected you over the past few weeks when we were bouncing around China and Hong Kong
We have been travelling now for the guts of three months and I have to say that we are both a bit jaded. It felt a bit like work really.
In order to recuperate we have decided to visit a quiet resort called Kata on the Island of Phuket for a week. First impressions are that this is a good call. I know that most of you would not like the idea of lying on a white sandy beach with crystal clear seas but we are willing to put ourselves here on behalf of you. Reading the paper on the plane yesterday I saw that the weather in Dublin has not changed much since I left. I think it read Min 6C Max 16C Rain. It is about 30C + with some rain here but it is actually quite pleasant.
We are going to book some canoe trips and elephant rides today which should be good craic and give us something to do over the next few days. One of the islands that we will be visiting in the canoe trip will be the James bond Island. This was the island used in the filming of the man with the Golden Gun and this is the type of scenery which is everywhere around here. It is quite incredible but we will leave this to another travelpod after we have completed the trips.
Now you know what we are up too I can bring you up to date on what we have been doing particularly in China over the last few weeks.
The last travelpod was from Shanghai. Shanghai was very modern and the only thing that was being built here was bucket loads of bloody big skyscrapers, personally I think that China only wants to build cities bigger than America. Shanghai from our experience was also the city which boasted the worst air pollution in China. There was just a fog that covered everything that never cleared away. I would hate to think of the damage that living in a Chinese city would do to you for any length of time. In Shanghai visibility was down to 150 metres at street level due to smog. The problem is the same all over the country and is predicted only to get worse. China proudly boasts 9 out of the ten most polluted cites in the world. I am glad the winds don't blow from China to Ireland.
The food in Shanghai was excellent and we had some more cracking meals!
I asked our guide to order a local speciality in one restaurant, not knowing what it was. Out came a big bowl with a full chicken, head and all! The bowl was also full of some clear liquid and an eel!
It was also in Shanghai that we spotted the Chinese answer to nappies. The answer is that the babies here don't wear any! You will see a little toddler walking along and the back of their trousers is just a split with nothing underneath which allows them quick access to go to the toilet.
We also some excellent CHINGLISH. For those who don't know, chinglish is the English translations for Chinese signs that are posted in a variety of places. They range from information signs to menus.
Examples in Shanghai included
Taxi sign:
"No Phychos or Drunkards allowed in the taxi unless accompanied by a guardian" This would be a rule Roisins brother Diarmuid out on both counts as who would want to take ownership of him? (I have a photo of this one)
Menu (name of ice cream)
"Penguin lays eggs on side of mountain". Your guess is as good as mine but Roisin in her curiosity ordered it. It was just coloured ice with something that resembled eggs in the form of cherries.
Train
I really liked this one. The sign read. "PLEASE DONT THROW YOURSELF OUT THE WINDOW"
We also learned that tomato is a very bad word in China which includes specific instructions in mandarin for a sex act that involves your mother. It has to be said to--mat--oo. Roisin and a few others took great pride in freaking out our guide by constantly asking him to order to--mat-oo and egg at every opertunity.
I now have an inherent fear about cappacino makers and will find it difficult to order one when I return to the western world. People in China love to spit. Not only do they spit on the street,at restaurant tables, on the train, etc but they really try their hardest to make sure that they clear their entire chest cavity of all mucus to do so. This usually involves a noise which is exactly the same as a cappachino maker frothing milk for about twelve seconds prior to the launching of the projectile. As at any launch site you have to be very careful to stand upwind of the launch in the event of misdirection. This practice is widespread and those involved range from the youngest children to the oldest adult- even sweet little old ladies. Starbucks will never be the same again! The other speciality is the clearing out the nose like footballers during a match. I will leave this to your vivid imaginations but will just say that dog droppings are not the only thing that you take steps to avoid on the ground.
From Shanghai we visited Nanjing and Yichang, and then on to our Three Gorges Dam Boat Trip!
The boat and crew used for our three day cruise on the yangtze river to see the three gorges where fairly crap and entertainment did not exist except for Chinese karoke, even Roisin could not be moved to join in. This was not really as advertised. I have to admit that I did find it funny that a Chinese person would be sitting on their own in the room for Karoke. The room was big enough for a few hundred people. However these poor individuals would be there on their ownsome singing all fecking day, and they where awful. When I first came on board I thought that it was a torture and reeducation centre on board the ship and that we were all in line for extra study sessions.
Added to this the crew took a dislike to our tour group. I don't think they appreciated the fact that we drank them out of beer. In all honesty there where about thirty bottles of beer on the boat which for a three day cruise was not much considering there was a few hundred people on board. We only drank twenty. At times I actually thought it was a religious retreat but it was then that I recalled that we where in China.
The scenery all along the three gorges journey was absolutely fantastic and we have some fantastic pictures that I cannot wait to post. We also visited the little three gorges which where absolutely stunning. We took a smaller old style chinese wooden boat through the beautiful dark blue waters flanked on either side by massive huge cliffs, again we have lots of great pictures we can't wait to share.
During the trip we saw the infamous three gorges dam at night and it is absolutely monstrous. We had to go up via five locks and a total of a hundred and ten metres just to reach the level of water on the other side of the dam. It is going to be a hell of an environmental disaster. We visited many towns that where going to be flooded. They are working like mad all along the river to build new houses bridges above the proposed water line.
After the cruise we moved on to Xian, which is another big city in the south of China. It was fairly bloody hot here with no breeze and we were lucky enough to hit it in the middle of a heat wave. Temperatures where usually above 40C after midday to about 8 O Clock when it would cool down to about 35C. Lucky us eh? I have to say at times I was praying for some really cold Irish weather to descend upon us!!!! Xian was a lot less polluted and you could see patches of blue sky through the smog which was a relief!
One of my main memories of Xian is the hotel that we stayed in. The hotel itself had a beautiful reception. But as in most Chinese hotels this is a con. When we got to the rooms I discovered possibly the only room in the world that had been cleaned less than my bedroom in Dublin. It was so filthy that I am sure students would not live there!
Anyhow it got better as during the night at all hours the phone in the room constantly rang, everytime I lifted the receiver the woman would start to speak in Mandarin. The next day I mentioned this and everybody else had encountered the same issue. However in the rooms where a female had answered the phone the woman never spoke and the calling stopped. With this information I recalled something that I had read in the lonely planet where it stated that calls from hookers where common in rooms that contained westerners. From then on I had the perfect excuse to let Roisin answer the phone! In truth we had no option but to unplug the lead from the wall as the buggers where so persistent.
During our visit to Xian we took in the Terracota Warriors. This was very impressive and a trip that I thoroughly enjoyed.
Our next stop after this was a place called Yangshou which is further south again. This was a really cool place and somewhere that I could have stayed for a few weeks. There was lots of things to do such as rafting, abseiling, canoeing trekking, mountain biking etc. The scenery here was absolutely stunning with limestone karst rocks littering the entire area. As well as all this there was the small matter of their being lots of pubs which sold the local beer in a 640ml bottle for 70 Cents which was a bonus which I for one appreciated.
Whilst here we took a mountain Bike Ride on a very hot day. As part of the trip we got to visit and dip in a beautiful crystal clear lake. We also had to stick our heads under the waterfall at the end of the lake to cool down . It was almost as refreshing as a bulmers with ice on a hot summers day!
Also in Yangshou we had the opportunity to sample more dumplings as market research for our previously mentioned dumpling store. We told the owner of a hotel that we where staying in what our plans where. We must have been convincing after four beers because he started to ask us how much was a LB of pork? How much was rent? How much would people pay etc. These questions threw us a bit and I had the sudden realisation that making Dumplings may not be the money spinner that we first thought! Neverless at the owners insistence we learned how to make dumplings the next day in his restaurant. We now know all the insider secrets and secret ingredients required to make the perfect dumpling.
Throughout the entire trip one thing that was consistant all over China was the Japanese tourists. The best way I can describe them is that they suddenly appear from nowhere like a regiment of troops or army ants. Each tour party is clearly distinguishable from the next tour party by their identical baseball caps. Not only can these guys go through more memory cards and film than anyone else but they have another talent in that they can devour a tourist site in a similar speed to that which a cloud of locusts could devour a crop.
Finally we headed for Hong Kong. We arrived in hong kong via hydrofoil from mainland china after a long night on a sleeper train this was the end of our organised tour and we where now on our own again. The trip on the hydrofoil was fairly boring as there was a lot of fog and we couldn't see much and I just read my lonely planet. At first glance Hong Kong looked mad and it was. Hong Kong is literally packed to bursting point. I have never seen a place with so many neon signs. When you leave your room at night you would swear that you where walking into a midday sun, it was so bright.
We liked it but it was the most uncomfortable place weather wise we have been in our entire trip. It is by no means the hottest but all the concrete and air conditioners combined with the humidity really wear you down. It never cools down here a the concrete and tarmac absorb the heat and then release it at night. It was 36C one of the days (it felt much hotter) with 100% humidity. I have never sweated so much in all my life. The best way to describe Hong Kong is as a sauna and I have never been in a sauna for six days before.
During our stay we embarked on a day trip to Macau which is a former Portuguese colony, this turned out to be a fairly disappointing trip and I would only recommend it to buffs who are interested in colonial history of Portugal and the Catholic church in Macau. What was entertaining was all the people throwing up in what I can only describe as calm seas. We have never seen so many sick bags filled up so quickly. The all must have had massive breakfasts!
Which brings us up to date, we are now relaxing in Thailand before embarking on the next phase of our trip. We will update you shortly on our adventures in this tropical paradise.
bye for now
Martin and Roisin
