Shanghai nights

It took me 15 minutes of attempting to decipher the Chinese characters on Shanghai's metro map before seeing the large and clearly labelled "ENGLISH" button. Jumping onto the tube I alighted at the central People's square where I was promptly hijacked by a couple of "students" also "visiting" Shanghai.Why so many bunny ears? I was sceptical all along, but as always when being scammed I like to see things through to the end. So these students claimed they were on their way to a Traditional tea ceremony and insisted I join them. I went along, the company was charming and the tea delicious, the price extortionate... I think. Was it infact a big con and a reasonable price even for Chinese to pay? The price could be compared to some other teas I have sampled from perfectly decent tea houses, but being a novice I couldn't really tell the quality.


My doubts were confirmed the following day when I recieved a few identical offers from different groups to join them for tea ceremonies. Of course they were pretending to be customers, pretending also to buy the pricey teas, probably then getting a refund and no doubt a commision for lurring fools like me through their doors. Ah well, I was happy with my tea.
So later in the day, determined not to be conned or pressured into buying unwanted junk, I marched down the main shopping street just to absorb a bit of modern atmosphere. Soon enough I was being led down a back alley, into a shop, through a concealed door in a shelf and shown a vast range on Genuine copy designer handbags. "But I don't have a girlfriend!" I exclaimed, that didn't matter and I was shown several more rooms stacked with Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Prada etc. Eventual I escaped the handbag show room and managed to leave with just 2 genuine copy Polo t-shirts, for a fiver so I wasn't too fussed.

My next scam was the classic. Reported in all guide books, "the student art gallery", I was ready for this one. Two rather attractive young Chinese "students" who seemed pretty genuine started chatting to me and eventually invited me to their gallery. I made it quite clear that I was not going to buy anything, but said I'd go along to have a look anyway (because they were hot). Yes, it was usual mass produced traditional art work found everywhere in China and no amount of persuasion could get me to buy their stuff. Hahahaha....! Chinese scammers 10 - Alastair 1 The consolation goal had arrived.

So I didn't spend my whole time in Shanghai being scammed. In amongst various offers of lady sex, hashish and going to party; I had a swollen head from various compliments: being told I'm so tall and handsome with beautiful blue eyes, and after escaping the grasp of the persistant beggars guilt tripping you into donation by carrying a hungry looking kid with them, I did see some sights.


A large number of delicious skyscrapers puncture the sky around the city, blasting a flourest glow into the clouds at night fall but looking absurdly spectacular. An old french concession, the grand British Bund, Japanese concession and probably a few areas formerly of other foreign claimants make it necessary for this ultra modern Chinese city to have it's very own China town, which was nice. The Shanghai museum provided a very similar experience to most other museums in China, while the tourist Sight seeing tunnel was an all together ridiculous experience. Travelling under the river in a pod on a rail, fairy lights, lasers and inflatable knob men lined the way, whilst various words were stated from a speaker inside the pod... "asteroids, superstella, wonder". Atmospheric I think not.



So yeah, enough about Shanghai. Let's catch the world's fastest train, a 430 kph maglev created by Siemens, to the airport and go to Japan.

The Middle bit of China going east

My next destiation was Wudang Shan, however getting there from Yichang proved rather difficult and amusing. A communication break down at the train station had landed me with an unreserved seat and a change, sure enough this meant no seat and a very crowded carriage. The first leg passed smoothly with the odd curious look at why the westener could not afford to travel more luxuriously. After my change, on the even busier next train I recieved a whole lot more attention.

Shouts of "Hello!" from up and down the carriage rang out, where it is the only English word alot of Chinese people know. Already many people were out of their seats looking in my direction, being such a novelty and all, but when the attendant invited me down to her cabin so that she could practise her English and to show me her rabbit, a whole lot more started looking. Feeling slightly uneasy with this attention, I invited even more looks upon myself when I decided to buy some food... "The westerner can use chopsticks???" At least 100 people in the carriage looked in my direction amazed as I scooped up some rice with my chopsticks, made to put it in my mouth and missed... All over the floor! "Ah, the westerner can't use chopsticks!"

Bidding farewell to almost everyone in the carriage I arrived at Wudang Shan, birthplace of Tai Chi and home to Taoist Kung Fu. For once accomodation was no problem, before I knew it I was ushered into a hotel and given noodle dinner. Intending on climbing Wudang mountain, the following day I was disappointed that know-one knew where the path was and so I was directed to the bus via numerous Kung Fu weaponary shops. The day was spent wandering the various temples and trails on the misty mountain, having my photograph taken numerous times by curious Chinese folk, and then a chance meeting with my cabin-mate from the Yangzi cruise, still communication was impossible so we jus shook hands for a few minutes! Disappointingly there were not any Kung Fu masters or Ninjas jumping from roof to roof fighting for honour.



Getting a ticket to where I wanted to go next was tricky. So I arbritrarily chose a destination heading in the right direction (east), which happened to be another of China's summer furnaces, Wuhan.Yet another cock up in getting tickets meant I had to stay longer than I'd have liked in this hellishly hot city. Two days of sweating as I slowly strolled round the sights; a temple or two and the Yellow crane tower, passed pleasantly enough and then it was to the southern capital, Nanjing.


Cursing loudly at my Rough Guide having just booked "the cheapest" accomodation in Nanjing (according to my out dated book), only to walk arond the corner to find a youth hostel, I slowly surpressed my excess rage levels with the welcome sight of Starbuck's. A venti latte and a chocolate muffin later I delved into the former capitals numerous sights. The old presidential palace, a strange mix of colonial style villas and traditional Chinese architecture decorated with many ornate historical artefacts, featured a delightful exhibiton on Japan's "rape of Nanjing" occupation during the war, where according to the Chinese over 300,000 people were massacred (the Japanese question this figure though). Other sights included a closed Ming dynasty tomb where you still had to pay to find ot it was closed and Dr. Sun Yatsen's mausoleum.

Suzhou, a short train journey from Nanjing was to be the last tranquil stop for a while. Known for it's numerous ornamental gardens, two days were spent exploring a frustrating Buddhist Zen rock garden/maze of Shizi Lin, China's tallest pagoda south of the Yangzi and many other serene little gardens.

Cruising down the Yangzi

The moutain city, Chongqing, was my next port of call. Although not really that mountainous, it certainly lived upto another reputation of being one of "China's summer furnaces" with me sweating profusely, locals staring curiously at how wet I am. A heavily industrialised region it also was the perfect example of a polluted Chinese city, with a thick smog lingering over it for my whole time I was there. So I got talking to a local about football and such other idle conversations, he was however eventually trying to sell me a tour, which I went along with because the first time it was something I wanted. Was I being conned though? Seemed like a large wad of cash I had just handed over for a boat trip.

Not having a clue what I had paid for, I turned up the following day to jump on a bus to the port at Wanzhou. Five uncomfortable hours later we arrived at our ferry, I settled in on my rock hard mat(tress) and we started cruising. Drinking companions were easily located, an English couple, an Irish couple and Wally from Oz (everyone else was Chinese), but we were severly disappointed when we had finished all the beer on the boat in a matter of 4 hours.

Approaching 11pm and half drunk we were informed we had a temple to visit... Suddenly out of the pitch black river banks lights started switching on, one by one up the hill to the top where a large building in red neon lights appeared. Yes, it was the most unspectacular, un-atmospheric, rather tacky temple ever to grace the Yangzi river with accompanying junk stalls selling everything from ninja swords to soft porn.


A tour of the Little three gorges followed the next day, with very close cliff walls rising from some of the cleanest water I've seen in China. Although most of the day was spent enjoying the hazey sun from our chairs, it was interesting seeing all the villges that have moved up the hill to avoid the 25 more meters the Yangzi has to rise behind the big damn. Another underwhelming late night temple visit, this time with an adjoined show, in the evening annoyingly kept me up and from vital alcoholic concumption time.


Deprived of sleep, I woke early to the sound of traditional Chinese music and cabin mates hocking up phlegm and spitting. We were quickly whisked away into a side gorge, put into narrow dragon boats and given an ore each. A short race followed before the outboard motors kicked in and took us to a floating platform where we took a short walk into some spectacularly narrow gorges and were treated to yet another bizarre show of mystical ancient chineseness.

The final leg of the trip we were dumped at the three gorges dam, ferried around in a bus to observe it from various angles, from which most were hindered by thick smog. Impressive structure though. Left in the city of Yichang, I somehow ended up sharing a hotel room with an Italian travel snob who spent most the evening preaching to me about the negative impacts of tourism and how he wasn't a tourist! He was above the rest of us somehow.

你好南西中国

(Hello south west China that is, who said learning Chinese was difficult, I'm almost fluent in 2 weeks)

Arriving off the train from Hong Kong in Guangzhou, Alastair was conned almost immeadiately, paying nearly 4 times what I should have done for a taxi. Guangzhou itself wasn't a particularly very nice place, with a really dusty atmosphere and the continual threat of thunder storms my highlight here has to be the nice little Starbucks I found on the old British Shamian island. I say no more on this place.

After negotiating a chaotic queue for train tickets (wasn't really a queue, more a scrumage) I was curious at how I, speaking no Chinese, can get my hands on a ticket so much quicker than the locals do. Why do they all insist on shouting and arguing with the sales person? Actually this was just their normal volume and manner of talking, something I was going to have to get used to. After a disturbed sleep on an overnight train from Guangzhou, more yelling and early morning phone calls, I arrived in Guilin.

Guilin, a bit of a tourist magnet, was a giant relief after my first experience of China. A relaxed and picturesque city surrounded by sharp limestone peaks, I became rather comfortable in my hostel and was reluctantly persuaded to leave by a fellow traveller. Around the city are some truly breathtaking sights, a cruise down the Li river amongst numerous more dramatic pinnacles of rock lead to Yangshou, a pleasant town where tourists congregate on mass. A trip to the Longji Titian rice terraces provided post card perfect views of a real life contour map, farmed from a local village, Pang'an, which is inhabited by a minority called the Yao. The Yao hold the Guinness world record for being the longest hair village in the world. Impressive, but declined the opportunity to pay to see them get their hair out.

One theme I noticed fairly soon, though it wasn't very subtle at times, is that there is always someone trying to sell you something in China. Be it locals annoyingly following you around with postcards and picture books or someone who you think quite innocently just wants to chat to you on the street, but infact works for the best tour company in town. One must be vigilant and strongly resist these approaches or else money flies out of your pockets before you know it.

Moving onto Yunnan province and the capital Kunming, blessed with a milder climate this modern city has a mix of old and new. Watching older people perform early morning Tai Chi beneath traditional Chinese arches, whilst across the street employees of the baby photography studio do their morning exercise/dance routine outside shiney new shopping complexes. A swift round of temples, pagodas and parks around the city before heading to the bus station and buying a ticket enitrely in Chinese, albeit very disjointed, I got what I wanted.

In the north of Yunnan province I visited Lijiang. A strange city, in a beautiful setting surrounded by mountains, I arrived in a sprawl of dirty new buildings with wide open streets. After a few hours of being lost I eventually stumbled across the atmospheric old town (where I wanted to be), a complete contrast with traditional wooden Naxi houses winding down a labyrinth of narrow cobble alleyway ways, completely traffic free and at night lit up by red latterns. Feeling as though I might have stepped back in time a few hundred years, I settled into a attractive and simple little hostel drank some Lu Cha, before venturing out and realising yes it is the 21st century still. The tranquil cafes that lined the stream by day became haven for drinking and banging house music by night.

After a few days of overpriced world heritage sights around Lijiang, and sweatily ascending a big hill for a good view of Yulong Xue Shan (snow mountain) it was time for a return to Kunming and to see hte rest of China. I jumped on the sleeper bus, with a bed about 6 inches too short and 4 inches too narrow I squeezed in between two Chinese blokes for another unsettled night in transit.

Made in Taiwan

So now on my brief holiday to Taiwan, I was confronted with the fat dirty cousin of Hong Kong in the form it's capital city, Taipei. My first impressions of this giant urban sprawl of city were the massive volume of scooter traffic tearing through the streets in packs and surprise at actually how many people/how much luggage one could actually get on a scooter (5 people was the most I counted, 2 adults and 3 kids hanging precariously on to whatever they could).

After coming to terms with the relatively chaotic roads and negotiating the local metro system I checked into a hostel, where almost immediately I was offered an English teaching job, slightly baffled I politely declined, but later learning infact alot of people out here were looking for such employment it didn't seem quite so odd.

A trip to Shilin night market proved interesting, with a huge array crap for sale in amongst some very perculiar items. The vast majority of shops were selling hats, while food vendors provided fried testicles and other random fried bits of animals and those that a spur of the moment puppy purchase seems reasonable had plenty of choice.

Going to the world's tallest building, Taipei 101, with numerous records in the most mundane catergories possbile was fun, all very hi-tech and I could talk about it's science and engineering for quite a while, but I wont. Combined with the temple rounds, with plenty of gold and garish colours provided a nice contrast.

Movng down the east coast to Hualien, to go walking in the Taroko national park followed. Awoken one morning by a bin lorry playing ice cream van style music I jumped on the bus to some gorge-ous gorges hundreds of meters deep and a few wide, with old tunnels carved into the cliff faces which was delightful. The Thirty five degrees of sunshine crisping my skin however, was not quite so enjoyable.

Unfortunately alot of my time in Taiwan was blighted by some of the heaviest rain I ever did see, stranded beneath a canopy whilst rain waters crept into my shoes for 3 hours was a particular highlight. And with alot of waiting around, my time in Taiwan expired, twas time to venture into proper China...