Around Pingyao and various China observations

Hi all--

After our train event, we happily spent a couple days wandering around the ancient and well-preserved town of Pingyao, in the Shanxi Province south of Beijing. The old, walled area of the city is incredibly well-preserved (let's hear it for ancient economic downturn!) and a delight to walk around in. The streets are closed to vehicular traffic (except bikes and electric bikes), and everyone sits on their porch steps in the evenings. Every household has red paper lanterns hanging outside (think of the film "Raise the Red Lantern", which was filmed nearby), and gracefully curved roof decorations. We stayed in a hostel located in the former mayor's house. It had several courtyards with rooms surrounding each one (see the photo). The ancient city walls are intact, and it's possible to walk around the entire thing (though we didn't because it cost $).

Where is AAA when you need them?

On our second day there, we rented bikes and went on a ride out into the countryside to check out the Shaunglin Temple. It was rough going and not very scenic nearer the new part of the city, but that soon gave way to farms, fields, and trees. We were about 4 kilometers out of town and almost to the temple when Sarah's bike chain decided to fall apart. We pulled off to the side of the road and attempted to fix it with no tools. Eventually two police cars (with 5 people in each) pulled up, and with lots of advice from all of them, one took charge and tried to fix the chain..... using a large rock. That obviously didn't work, so eventually they told us (through lots of hand gestures) that we could get the chain fixed at the temple. So we walked our bikes down the road (which turned out to be a really nice walk) and gave them over to the guys hanging out front. We toured the temple, which had some amazing painted statues and well-kept grounds. When we got back out, the chain was "fixed". We got about 500 meters down the road before it broke again. Pretty much immediately, a couple guys on motorcycles pulled over, and ended up spending the next hour working on the chain. Eventually, one of them took it into town and got a couple new links put in. After that, we were able to get it back together with no problems. One thing about the Chinese, many of them are incredibly nice and will go completely out of their way to help, even for strangers who can't speak their language.

That was pretty much the main excitement around Pingyao. I did try to go birding at the river one of the days we were there, but it turned out to be a cesspool of sewage and trash. I was kind of expecting that, but it was pretty disappointing to come upon it anyway. The main birds I saw that day were in cages at a "pet store" enroute: Bluethroats, Rubythroats, buntings, Starlings, Hwamei, Leothrix, Great Tits (yes, this is a bird), etc. The Chinese think it's good luck to have a bird in the house, so all of these birds I mentioned are wild caught (and in this case, in horrible condition); some so freaked out they were beating themselves to death against the sides of the cages trying to get out. They seem to be a little better taken care of once they are in a home, but they are still in small cages. They get them to sing a lot by getting two males and putting their cages fairly near each other, so that the birds constantly feel the need to defend their "territory" by singing. Pretty sad...

So yesterday we jumped on a bus and headed toward Xi'an. Luckily, the bus ride was way more comfortable than the train ride. Sarah is trying to kick a head cold she must have picked up on the plane when we flew to Beijing, so we've been trying to take it easy since then. Our reason for heading to Xi'an was to see the Terracota Warriors and to catch a flight out to Lijiang, in the Yunnan Province. More on that in the next post.

OK, so a few observations thus far in China:

1. China is one of the safest feeling countries we've ever travelled in. Even in the back alleys of Beijing it felt safe. This is echoed by pretty much every traveller we've met. It's a refreshing feeling compared to places where you have to constantly be wary and on your guard. Here we still pay attention and keep ahold of our bags, but there isn't the feeling that everyone is eyeing your bag.

2. Smoking is extremely popular in China (at least with the men). People light up everywhere -- the most annoying times being on the buses and trains. Yesterday we were eating in a little mom and pop restaurant and their son (who couldn't have been over 13) was puffing away on a little smoke break from washing dishes.

3. Spitting. They hack and spit -- all the time. Apparently this is less common than it once was, at least in the cities. The authorities have started fining people for doing it in public vehicles and on the street.

4. There has been a massive, apparently country-wide tree-planting campaign in the last few months. There are millions of pole-planted willows, cottonwoods, and other trees lining all of the highways and roads for about 15 meters out on each side. They even did these tree plantings in ridiculous places, such as terraced cliffs. Not sure if this effort was a PR attempt for the Olympics or not.

5. People here are very friendly. We are constantly being greeted with a big smile and "hullo!" from all sides. It's almost never mocking or unfriendly (as it often is in Latin America), but genuine and open. We've been asked to be in pictures several times -- apparently foreigners are as interesting as the tourist sites!

6. Dogs -- There are almost no big dogs in China. Most, even the strays, seem to be little (as in lapdog size). For the most part, they are well-cared for, too. I have great memories of a little Pekingese who ruled the street in Pingyao.

Alrighty! Next post will be about the Terracota Warriors. Later.

-matt!

The Train to Pingyao

Our fantastic day at the Great Wall was followed by a less successful day of searching for a grocery store. Once we finally found one though, we had a great time perusing the aisles for odd foods (prepackaged chicken feet, for example). We'll get photos later. We did manage to leave the store with some important money saving items, namely peanut butter and jelly. We also picked up some snacks for our upcoming overnight train ride out of Beijing to Pingyao.

We tried to get a couple spots on the sleeper car for the 13 hour ride, but they were sold out. Instead, we got seats on the only thing that was left: the "hard" seats. We should have known... I should mention that we had to have our hostel do the booking, since doing so in Chinese is completely beyond us. We rode the subway out to the Beijing West Train station and walked the 1.5 kilometer there. The train station was unlike anything I've ever seen. It was seriously the size of an airport, with streams of people crossing raised walkways over the highway into it. And this was only the WEST train station. There were people waiting around outside all over.... for what we had no idea. We arrived an hour ahead of time, and entered into the waiting room for our train, only to find that 1000 other passengers had already beaten us there. We crammed ourselves into the surging line (OK, so Chinese don't LINE up... they just push forward and cut ahead of anyone they can) and eventually fought our way to our train car (bypassing all the fairly comfy looking sleeper cars). Watch the video for a little clip of that. Our seats were waiting for us, but weren't what we were expecting. They were straight-backed, backward facing seats grouped in sixes -- three facing three, so we had to lace our knees together. Not only that, but the aisle also filled up with people who had tickets and no seats -- they stood the entire 13 hours. People were smoking and shoving their stuff anywhere they could; people even filled up the bathroom with their belongings. Speaking of bathrooms, they were so filthy (especially by the end of the trip) that we dehydrated ourselves so we wouldn't need to go in there the whole trip -- and we didn't! The air was pretty foul with various smells, including cigarette smoke, so Sarah wore a bandanna over her mouth and nose the whole night; an extremely good idea. Sarah's journal entry that night began: "We boarded a train to Pingyao with about 1,000 Chinese people pushing and carrying luggage and bags of food and holding children's hands and peering around... and peering at us. And so began what could prove to be the most physically harrowing night of my life thus far!"

All this being said, it definitely could have been worse. We actually managed to catch a little sleep; Sarah hunched over on my lap and me trying to keep my head up. One nice thing is that the train provides hot water for ramen, which everyone on board knew about except for us. They all had their ramen cups ready! This was like a Guatemalan chicken bus ride on steroids, and a memory that will stick with us for quite a while.

We're in Pingyao now, and will do a little exploring of this beautifully preserved Ming and Qing dynasty town in the morning.

Much love to you all!

-Matt!

The Great Pall of China

Hi all.


Nope, that title isn't a typo. More about that later. After our day checking out the highlights of downtown Beijing, we decided to do what every person who visits China HAS to do: visit the Great Wall. Being the cheapskates (read very thrifty) travelers we are, we were determined to do this trip as cheaply as possible. We bypassed the hordes of "guides" approaching people for tours (and the hostels slightly more reputable version of the same) and settled on a more local tour with a sight-seeing company that does trips for Chinese tourists. It was a third the price of the tours (100 yaun per person, or about 14 dollars) geared to foreigners, so it seemed the thing to do. When we got there, the tour we wanted (NO SHOPPING) didn't start selling tickets until later, so we sat outside and weighed our options (while looking out on Tiananmen Square and listening to the Kenny G Christmas album piped over the bus station). Then we made the decision we should have made in the first place: roll like we usually do, with no tours. So we took the subway across town, found a local bus going the right way (after much confusion), and were on our way to the Wall! We even had a fantastic tour guide on the way there who had quite a sense of humor -- or at least we think so: the other passengers were laughing a lot, but we don't speak Chinese.... Best of all: it only cost us 12 yuan ($1.50) to get there!



We met the Wall at Badaling -- the most well restored and touristy part. It lies about 70 km (45 miles) from Beijing. We had some serious trepidation about visiting the part that everyone and their dog visits due to the crowds (they are serious when they say that there are 1.3 billion people here), but were in for a serious surprise. After some more confusion about where we got dropped off (it is really a hindrance to speak no Chinese), we found the entrance to the section of the wall. There were indeed hordes of visitors there (buses and buses and buses full), but for some odd reason they all were heading to the east when they got up on the Wall. So of course we turned West. We pretty much had the wall to ourselves from that point on. What a fantastic experience! Also, what an amazing piece of human construction. Altogether, the various walls (no, it isn't one long wall, but many sections) stretch almost 30,000 kilometers (17,000 miles)! It snakes along ridges through the mountains. I know you have seen photos, so you know what I am talking about. We hiked (some sections were really steep) until we came to the end of the restored section, then sat and had lunch. Then, as we were finishing up, Sarah noticed the HORDES. Whatever was causing people to go the opposite way at the beginning no longer applied, because they were coming. We said our goodbyes to an amazing, quiet experience on the wall and started back. Apparently, the busiest time for visits to the wall is also the hottest. Go figure.

Now, a brief word about the title of this post: we were 45 miles from Beijing at that section of the wall, and the air was still so smoggy that we could hardly see the wall stretching up the next mountain. I have never experienced pollution like this. We read that breathing the air of Beijing is like smoking 70 cigarettes a day. I would have to agree. The cars clogging the roads are one thing, but most of the pollution comes from 18.5 million Beijingers burning coal for a lot of household uses. We both certainly noticed the effects. By today I was starting to get a nice cough.

Anyway, this is already pretty long so I will sign off. Tune in next time for our adventures on the train out of Beijing!




-Matt!

Is bathroom Forbidden City?

OK, so most of you won't get that title at all... It's probably better that way.

Anyway, we spent most of the day today in the Forbidden City. What an amazing place. The grounds cover over 170 square kilometers, and house some amazing buildings, courtyards, passageways, thrones, gardens, etc. Some of the courtyards are big enough for the emperor (or Chairman Mao) to have reviewed up to 100,000 troops at once! In the afternoon we climbed a sizable hill just outside the grounds that has a temple on top and is totally covered in trees. It was hard to believe, but the whole hill was artificial; it was made with all the soil dug up to make the moat around the forbidden city!

Tiananmen Square was also amazing, if only for the history and the sheer size of it. On the north end, Chairman Mao's huge painting still hangs on the Gate of Heavenly Peace. Tomorrow we might stop by to see his body lying in state after we get back from the Great Wall.

Something I've found interesting is the number of Chinese tourists here. In Latin America, it's very rare to find a tourist from the country you are traveling in, or even from another Latin American country. In China though, the Chinese can't seem to get enough of visiting all the amazing places in their own country. The majority of the visitors to the tourist sites we've visited have been Chinese.

Beijing's famous smog was in full force today. I've never seen anything like it. It felt like a cloudy, overcast day, but in reality it was sunny -- the sun just wasn't actually visible through the haze. This made it even more obvious that we were very lucky yesterday, because a rainstorm that kept us from landing on time actually cleared the air enough for there to be blue sky and sun for the rest of the afternoon.

Tonight we ate dinner at the "night market"; a series of (overpriced) street food vendors that sell all sorts of weird meats; almost all on skewers. There were snake, centipede, scorpion, starfish, grubs, and pupas, as well as more normal things like lamb, chicken, beef, etc. We stuck to fried dumplings and corn. =)

Sarah's upstairs writing in her journal, and I think I need to go to bed. The jet lag belatedly caught up with me, I guess. Or maybe it's the 10+ miles we walked today. Who knows.....

Good night!

-Matt!

El Paso to Beijing

We made it safe and sound to Beijing! It has been a long 2 days, and we're both pretty wiped out, but I wanted to get this off so people wouldn't be worried (as if!). I've been up for about 27 hours now...

In the past 36 hours, we've been in El Paso, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Vancouver, and Beijing, and we managed a 20 minute visit with Johnny B in the Phoenix airport, a great visit with his brother Jose and his wife Erica in Los Angeles (thanks for letting us stay at your place!), and got to sightsee over Siberia and Alaska! We also met a new friend, Dave, in the Vancouver airport who was on his way to Beijing for business. He had a driver picking him up at the airport, and offered us a ride to our hostel. What a great introduction to Beijing. Crazy traffic, crazy driving, unbelievable construction, and interestingly, lots and lots of trees. The new airport terminal (the largest in the world!) was pretty stunning, if a little empty. I'm assuming that won't be the case a few weeks from now with the Olympics starting.

For those of you who are interested in this sort of thing, Beijing is 14 hours AHEAD of Mountain Standard Time. I found it extremely interesting that by flying west to get to China, we actually were getting further away in timezones until we hit the International Date Line. Then suddenly we were a full day ahead of where we were just over the line. So basically we flew 10 timezones back in order to get 14 time zones ahead. Confused? I hope so. =)

Alrighty! More to come. I'm excited about this adventure, as you can tell.

-Matt!

ps- for you birders out there, I've seen Rock Pigeons, Eurasian Tree Sparrows, and a Carrion Crow so far, plus a Red-billed Leothrix in a cage. Off to a slow start! Two lifers, though.

Made In China

As Sarah and I have been getting ready for this trip, we've become increasingly aware that well over half our gear was manufactured in China, and is now going to head back to its country of origin on our backs. It makes me think of that family (featured on NPR) who tried to live for a "year without China"; i.e. not use or purchase anything made in China for an entire year. It was apparently extremely difficult to do, since it required extensive background research on all products they wished to purchase. Even if the product wasn't assembled in China, there was a good chance parts it were manufactured in China and shipped to the country where it was assembled. This really highlights just how influential China is on our daily lives, and we don't really think about it much. I certainly plan on thinking more about this impact as we travel and begin to learn a little more about the country where so many of our consumables come from.
-Matt!

The plane tickets

We finally finished buying most of the airplane tickets last week. After extensive research (believe me, both Sarah and I exhaustively research this sorta stuff), we decided not to purchase round-the-world tickets, and instead book one-way tickets to each of our destinations. This had a couple benefits: we were able to search around many different websites for the absolute best deals, AND we were able to continue to change our trip around as we planned.

Now that we've booked all of our tickets (with the exception of the South America portion of the trip, which will be with airmiles), I went back and did a couple searches to see what the cost of booking our final route would be if we had done it in one lump ticket. Amazingly, we saved $1500/person by not booking our tickets this way! Our tickets, when all added up, cost us $2500 each.

Bargain hunting is pretty great; especially considering $1500 is like 3 months of budget travel for us.

We still have to figure out the Latin American part of the trip, but that'll fall into place in the next month or so...

-Matt!