So our journey kicked off badly again, we found that Carol needed a visa so we took a decision that I would travel on and Patrick and Carol would go to Cancun to get one from the Cuban embassy and catch a later flight. After arriving at the homestay, sometime later I realised that I had given them the wrong address. I had no way of contacting them and their flight had arrived, so together with Flavia , the homestay manager we waited with baited breath at the wrong address. All was well, they had arrived at the correct address. The Roger effect had kicked in again.
There’s no WiFi or internet in Cuba, one stands in a queue and purchases a card with a password to be used at hot spots usually in front of hotels where you find clusters of people .We can only conclude that the Government finds it convenient not to develop a network because it’ not in their interest to.
We stayed in homestays, we made friends with the owners and we often woke up to the sounds of children at school and street hawkers calling out their wares either walking, on a bicycle or on a horse and cart.
What to say about Havana and Cuba? Wonderful Spanish architecture, narrow streets, old classic American cars by the hundreds , ruined derelict buildings next to smart classic restored ones , little squares and great vistas. The Malecon sea front is a long stretch of ruined buildings, anywhere else it would be classic expensive houses and apartments. People of all colours, long legged girls, school girls in impossibly short skirts, some huge men but overall an impression of poverty. We stayed the majority of the time in a suburb next to the Revolution Square but spent one night in the old quarter in a house renovated by the Spanish, Cuban owner. This was nicely done but was just the ground floor and the upper floors belonged to other tenants and the roof was completely open to the elements in one area. You could look up and see the man upstairs brushing his teeth. During the night it rained hard and the water just poured in to the stone passage below. The owner pumped it out and then got a squeegee and finished the job. There are very few shops, we witnessed people queuing for bread, jam packed into old decrepit buses . The roads are potholed and the few old cars on the road pick their way around them. We went to the Museum of the Revolution and looked at the political dogma and propaganda that’s on display there. Notwithstanding the will and determination needed to overcome Batista and co you can’t help wondering if this is the best that the revolution can achieve after 60 years. Yes American sanctions haven’t helped but China, Vietnam and others have successfully negotiated a change to a capitalistic market system within a Communist country quite successfully. We discovered there is no real incentive to progress in fields, wages are hopeless, for example a doctor or a teacher earn about $25/month. We saw many young and older men just sitting around staring into space. Old people have a small pension and if their children can’t look after them then they resort to begging. Although medical care is free medicines have to be paid for and they are expensive. Education is free. Tourist books like Lonely Planet don’t paint a true picture of a country. Behind a crumbling, beautiful facade can live a life of poverty and desperation. So with the help of Flavia we made our reservations to travel around the island.

The Roger effect continued to click in , Patrick’s Uber wouldn’t work and mine was not connected to my credit card , so we did some frantic in putting of data before getting a taxi. On checking my passport details and ticket names didn’t correspond and I had an anxious one hour whilst I was shuttled back and forth from one airline to the next before receiving my boarding pass. We’ve found it important to check in 3 hours before a flight in case of hiccups.
When we arrived in Cancun there was no arranged driver to meet us so we caught a taxi to our homestay. This was in pitch darkness and nobody around seemed to know anything about the owners. The taxi driver took us to a hotel in town and we enjoyed grabbing something to eat at a local café next door.
The next morning it was pouring down with rain and we caught a bus to Tulum , a holiday town down the coast with very little charm. At the apartment where we stayed we were met by an Argentinian girl called Macarena , would you believe , from Argentina , another economic refugee from that country. We walked around the town with its tourist shops and cafes and broken pavements . We talked in the evening to an American retiree who came to Tulum twice a year to escape the harsh American winters. Its cheaper than USA and much warmer. Tulum has a bit of a reputation for being a hippy community and I liked the fact that everyone was walking about and using bicycles.
The following day we did the same and hired bikes and discovered why people come here. The Caribbean is gloriously turquoise and the sand white and fine. But the weather wasn’t really for the beach, so we rode on to the Maya ruins nearby, but beat a hasty retreat as it was horribly crowded. We decided to go back the next morning when it opened and we had the place more or less to ourselves. The Mayan ruins are beautiful , set on a cliff above the ocean and surrounded by bush and nice birds. As we were leaving the crowds started to pour in.
The next day we rode to a cenote , and swam in a natural pool formed by limestone , collapsing and forming natural underground clear tranquil water. The bicycle hire guy showed us a drawer full of unclaimed driving licences and passports of people who had lost bicycles. over the December and January period he collected 70 of them. The mind boggles.
So we took the bus back to Cancun , stayed in a nice homestay almost next door to the original one we wanted to stay at and went to the airport the next morning early. What fate would greet us this time?

We caught the Amtrak overnight train from Portland to Salinas which was a good experience. Like everything in USA it’s big , it’s a double decker with an observation car, dining car , sleepers but we chose coach and it was perfectly adequate with reclining seats and we slept quite well. But the railways appear out dated to us, manual systems , old stations , late trains which travel at a leisurely pace, which is great for sight seeing and have long stops at stations. We nearly didn’t get out at Salinas because we thought that the train had stopped at a signal and had a mad scramble out of the train before it restarted. But it was nice to feel the warm sunshine after the cold of Portland.
Our journey was not without drama as somehow Patrick managed to drop Carol’s passport on the floor and only discovered this when we were checking in to the hotel. After a number of phone calls and some tense hours we learned that the passport was found and returned to Salinas station the next day where they picked it up.
Monterey is a small fishing village with a lot of charm and one of the nicest places we have visited .We spent time strolling around the beach front and harbour and enjoying the ambience. A perfect place to retire except for the high cost of living. There are numerous medical facilities to cater for the retirees but Carol had a difficult time trying to renew her script for her medication and suffice to say expensive. USA has the highest medical costs in the world, another reason to think carefully about living there.

We took a bus to Carmel , a very exclusive town with a beautiful beach next to Pebble Beach golf course. Cannery Row , where John Steinbeck wrote the book is another attraction but not much remains of those days and now it’s full of tourist shops, restaurants and up market hotels.
We had two days of rain which cramped our style somewhat but we were able to sort ourselves out and generally observe life. Its noticeable that everywhere in USA that white , well kept men and women take what we would consider to be mundane jobs , supermarket check out clerks , cleaners, bus drivers etc.. and do it cheerfully and give good service. Drivers are careful, courteous particularly in relation to pedestrians. Around the bus station are all types of eccentric people , unfortunately mainly the dropouts of society . There is a noticeable gap between the haves and the not haves.
I also took a trip whale watching and saw grey whales , sea lions, sea otters , pelicans and lots of sea birds. The harbour area is infested with jelly fish.

We travelled by bus to Santa Barbara and then were delayed for over an hour there waiting for the train which was delayed due to the previous week’s mud slide which had killed twenty people in the area.. The train eventually took us to Union Station Los Angeles and then we caught a bus to the airport through ten lane highways at walking pace due to the worst traffic I’ve ever seen. I cant help wondering why USA has such a love affair with the motor car and has allowed its public transport system to deteriorate to such an extent.

We had a homestay in a family home in Playa del Rey , near to the beach and unfortunately a bit too near to the airport. By now the weather was warm and sunny and we took a  ride on rickety bikes to Venice Beach which  appears to cater to two types, the well heeled with beautiful condominiums and the less fortunate with tacky shops. Hundreds of people were exercising in the sunny weather, running, walking and cycling and everything in between. USA is energetic, exuberant, easy to engage and fun loving. The next day we took a ride in the opposite direction, South , and had a coffee at  the big .surfing area Manhattan Beach .

So our USA visit was at an end. Thank you to Carol and Patrick’s relatives and friends for a wonderful stay. A trip across USA would be a great adventure one day.

We flew Air Alaska to Portland and were impressed with the automated check in; simple , quick ,efficient and the result was that two girls checked in the whole flight with no fuss whilst American Airlines had long queues . Compare SAA, masses of people doing nothing. It was cold with snow on the ground and icy roads. The weather here reminds me so much of UK, cold ,grey, rainy and people hunkering down in their houses. We stayed with Davey, Patrick’s son and his wife Robin and they tell you nothing ever happens here. There was a lock down in the area whilst heavily armed police searched for an armed fugitive. You weren’t allowed to leave your houses. He was found two blocks away in a house after a gun was fired. Anyway we had ten guns in the house for protection. Then when we drove out of the house there was a body in the road and crashed cars from an accident and police , fire brigade and ambulances were chasing about with sirens blaring. Nearby is Mount St Helens which blew up spectacularly about ten years . Its OK we are told , it only erupts every 100 years but there was some activity whilst we were there. We took a drive in Dawie’s huge truck along the Colombia River in cold , icy conditions and had lunch at a complex converted from a poor house with bars, a spa, vineyard, theatre , all set in a pretty garden.
We took the train into Portland, a nice city with few high rises and many older preserved buildings. Lots of pubs and restaurants and we ate cheaply at a series of stalls in a square. We also visited a huge thriving book store. There were  a lot of down and outs and some punk kids on the train. The racial profile is very diverse , Chinese, Mexican and whites proliferate and not many black people. Many cute wooden houses , conspicuously without fences and mixed areas but distressingly a lot of homeless people are evident., some very down and out.

A visit to Walmart is a good way to pass the time. as we were checking out an announcement was made, ” Would the jewel thief please return the jewels ” . Some of the      characters you see there are off the wall. The lady in front of us was buying next Christmas’s presents at a knock down rate. One evening we went to the local pub and gaming house, won $40 and paid for our dinner. Americans are friendly and gregarious and a lot of fun..

 

With all the restrictions, checking in at airports nowadays is a nerve wracking affair. Our flight to San Francisco from Kuala Lumpur was via Shanghai with another airline which was not affiliated and to change planes we had to collect our bags and pass through immigration to change terminals. In order to do that we had to have a transit visa for China. We had 5 hours to do this, ample time you would think. On arrival we were shepherded to a queue for transit visas with one officer going through the laborious procedure of finger prints , photos etc. and invariably there were problem travellers. An hour and a half later we got our visas. From there we picked up our bags and checked in for the San Francisco flight. The clerk took ages correlating our passport and visas and waivers and announced one digit was wrong on Patrick’s visa waiver . Patrick went to the Business Centre and after having to pay with cash and sorting out the Chinese computer reapplied for his waiver. normally its a 72 hour wait and we decided that Carol and I would travel and Patrick would join us later. With heavy hearts we just made the check in, were the last in the queue and the flight was closing when Patrick appeared with a big smile on his face as his waiver miraculously came through. We made the plane by the skin of our teeth.
What to say about USA. Well driving around San Francisco is like being part of a movie set , it all looks so familiar. It’s cold but we wrapped up well. The family we stayed with are warm, friendly, loud and generous. Chrissie’s parents moved out of their home to accommodate us ; how many people would do that for a bunch of strangers? The extended family also entertained us for a wonderful Italian meal, Christmas Eve dinner and Christmas day lunch. How’s that for hospitality!
They are also pretty well off, live in well appointed houses and drive nice cars. But it’s not all like that , nearby there’s trailer homes and quite a lot of homeless people living in tents or doorways. We went to Napa Valley for wine tasting and bought some wine at $45 a bottle, toured San Francisco ; walked to Union Square, went down Lombard Street , the steepest hill in the city, Saw the Museum of Fine Arts, and had a drink in Sausalito by the sea. We ran around a lake on one beautiful clear sunny day. USA is the ultimate consumer society , the choice of goods is enormous. Its amazing how one passes from one area to another , we walked through Chinatown and passed into the Italian quarter from one street to the next.

 

Some

So our four months in South East Asia are up. At the end here is a very brief summary of the countries that I’ve visited.
Japan is by far the most impressive country because of its diligence, organization, technology, discipline, tradition and helpfulness towards visitors. Everything works. Malaysia has a higher standard of living than expected but Kuala Lumpur is rather a soulless metropolis and has adopted wholesale the western way of life. Outside KL it’s a different story and there are plenty of cultural activities to see as well as good beaches. The giant China has ugly cities except for Shanghai , high air pollution , clearly an experiment moving people from the country to cities leaving empty tower blocks and farming communities. How long will they be able to sustain their GDP growth with such high borrowing? Hong Kong is exciting , expensive and unique. Macau was interesting to visit with some nice architecture. Myanmar was the least developed country and had much decay of buildings, roads and pavements. Yangon was exciting, Began was a tourist hub with wonderful temples and Mandalay was depressing. Vietnam was a great country to visit but we were surprised at the mass tourism. Home stay was a good experience in Hou An.
The food everywhere was great and cheap with the exception of Japan and Hong Kong. Street food was wonderful and gave us an opportunity to meet people, both locals and travellers. With the exception of Hong Kong we had good clean accommodation normally in the centre of town where everything happened. We never felt threatened safety wise except for Beijing.
The following costs are for two people per day sharing a room with food and internal transport etc; It excludes air fares.
Langkawi Malaysia $70
China $115
Japan $140
Myanmar $56
Vietnam (excludes Halon Bay cruise ) $65

So its next stop San Francisco.

On our first day in Hanoi I had to sort out some banking problems. The place is frantic, with thousands of motor bikes keeping up an incessant roar. Myanmar was bad but this currency drove me crazy. 1 Rand =1600 dong, 1 US $ = 23000 dong. One draws 10 million dongs from an ATM which is equivalent to $43. We went to the Hanoi Hilton , a prison museum where political prisoners were kept by the French and the Vietnamese kept American air force pilots prisoner including Senator John McCain. Ho Chi Minh mausoleum was closed when we visited as was the War Museum for lunch but we managed to sneak around and look at the shot down aeroplanes and bombs. In the evening the area around the lake was turned into a traffic free zone and the people came out in droves to make the most of it. There was dancing , singing, children’s games, skipping and a nice festival atmosphere.
We went to the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum but it was closed,and then on to the war museum which was also closed for lunch but we managed to get round to see the US shot down planes. In the evening the area around the lake was turned into a traffic free zone and the people came out in their thousands. There was dancing , singing, children’s’ games, skipping and a nice festive atmosphere.
We transferred by bus to Halong Bay for a two night cruise. This is a luxury cruise ship with cabins and good food. But the number of boats and the mass of people is quite off putting. We stopped at a beach and climbed up to a view point but the whole thing was a farce with hundreds of Chinese jostling, shouting and taking selfies.
Woke up next morning to a wild scene ,rain and mist but this seemed somehow to enhance the beauty. Halong Bay is a range of karst limestone mountains rising sheer out of the sea in spectacular fashion. We sailed to a floating fishing village, people living on floating platforms and boats in not much more than subsistence level. We then moved on to a cave. I wonder if there are any unspoiled places in the world to visit which haven’t been ruined by tourism. The number of cruise boats and the frantic building of hotels is frightening.. How will this area cope environmentally in the future.
We transferred to Cat Ba Island by speed boat and did some hiking in the area. We met travellers a bunch of travellers of all ages and nationalities. Cac Bar is a nice place, cheap with good food. There is a rash of developments of hotels, most of them seem to be tall, narrow buildings, like China and others they have no sense of aesthetics unlike the Japanese. But where will all the tourists come from, what experiences are they after?
Our hike across the island was tough, up and down rock faces and Carol took strain and a couple of falls and ended up on the back of a scooter.
Time was up for Cac Bar and we made our way back to Hanoi by bus , ferry and another bus. By now the weather was cold and we hadn’t packed warm clothing so keeping warm became a priority.
I enjoy the Vietnamese people much more than the Burmese. They are open , friendly and happy. How resourceful they are after all their woes. Again we heard the refrain of Government control and corruption. It doesn’t matter what system there is it’s the same story.
Travellers never cease to amaze me, to the Polish couple hitch hiking around South East Asia, to the Americans who grabbed a week off to come to Vietnam when they found a really good flight offer.
I would nt like to drive in Vietnam. On the highway they overtake on the inside or outside nd cruise on the outside. In the city it’s chaos, the motor bikes just do what they want, take to the pavements, run red lights , go down the wrong way down the street.
Hou An is a small town midway down the country with quant and historic houses, but its become a tourist haven with the usual mixture of hotels, restaurants , travel agents , coffee houses and anything connected with taking a dollar off the tourist. Nevertheless we enjoyed the experience cycling into town and later taking a tripdown the coconut plantation in a coracle and mixing with the locxals.In pouring rain we went to the market and bought ingredients and cooked spring rolls and fish. We stayed at a home stay, a very pleasant experience with friendly accommodating hosts, it gave us the opportunity to talk to them and find out some of the challenges of living in Vietnam and its history. Ho Chi Minh City ( Saigon ) is a busy city with horrendous traffic and lots to see and do. Its famously full of scooters and motor bikes and they think nothing of taking to the pavements en masse. Crossing the road is a challenge and needs a cool head and nerves of steel. We bumped into the first South Africans we had seen after 3 months We visited the Reunification Palace, the old Presidential Palace, complete with sumptuous furnishings , banqueting halls, bedrooms, and underground bunkers.
We’ve spent time in prisons ,museums ,Vietcong tunnels and seen horrific images of the war. War is senseless, barbaric and affects the innocent and the politicians who instigate it all get away Scott free.

We transferred to Myanmar by Air Asia via Bangkok . People watching in the airport was entertaining. There was a group of 50 women who must be on the ugly, noisy women’s day out. Also I was fascinated by how locals can sit cross legged for hours . The joys of budget airlines, jammed into a seat designed for a Japanese dwarf, paying more for a bag than the actual ticket itself , surly flight attendants and paying for a blanket .I’m sure that Charles and Camilla don’t have to put up with these indignities. But there’s no doubt budget airlines have changed the face of flying forever, now middle class Asians including the Chinese are able to fly at will.
Our first impressions of Yangon were that it is more sophisticated than we expected, the cars are all right hand drive but they drive on the right, men and women wear sarongs, women wear ochre on their faces, there are lots of run down beautiful colonial buildings, barefoot monks walking the streets, people eating at street cafes, poor living quarters but a vibrant community where anything is available.
In the evening we visited the Shwedagon Pagoda which is an enormous complex with a central gold leafed dome. As the evening drew on the pagoda glowed from the lights and we squatted with the crowd and took it all in. It was quite a moving experience, people buy flowers and offer them and pray . It seems to me that this is a common theme for all religions to remain humble.
We had dinner on 19th street , a noisy active crowded area but well organised and delicious food.. Yangon is a kaleidoscope of people , smells ,colour ,people selling everything, men using old typewriters, crowded internet cafes . But everything is run down, the pavements are a nightmare to traverse with holes , open drains , polluted rivers ,litter and everything is run down including the railway station and the trains.
We took a 10hour leisurely bus ride to Bagan through lush countryside. This town has become a tourist haven and is the usual mixture of souvenir shops, hotels, restaurants, scooter and bike hire, travel agents , convenience stores with no prices and with a taste of rip off and greed., but its brought much needed income to the country.
We took a tour with a horse and cart at a slow clip clop pace and visited 5 temples but by lunch time we were wilting in the heat. This is on the lines of Ankor Wat with hundreds of temples scattered around the countryside. The next day we hired bicycles and rode around following a map and visited the more remote temples a bit off the beaten track. This was really nice as often we were the only guys on the road.. Many of the temples have frescoes and an inner four sided corridor with a Buddha on each side. Most date from the 12th century. We climbed up the steep steps of a temple and perched precariously on a ledge with a good view around. Climbing down was quite scary, I went down backwards, like descending a ladder.
We took the ferry from Began to Mandalay, a 10 hour trip along the Irrawaddy River. We saw dawn break , hot air balloons flying over Began and had breakfast and lunch on deck and passed through a lovely approach to Mandalay with temples on the hills.
Mandalay has little to commend it, roaring traffic and pollution, thoroughly dangerous pavements and people who see you as a money target, . We walked a long way to Mandalay Palace, paid a lot of money for a run down ,unkempt shabby palace in the middle of an army camp. The city redeemed itself a little after we visited three more temples .The following day we hired a taxi for half a dayand visited more temples, went up Mandalay hill and a gold leaf plant before tottering along the pavements home. This is the least attractive city we have visited.

 

We spent a week in Kuala Lumpur , mainly chilling out and in my case getting a new pair of spectacles, eating and watching the torrential rain storms flooding the river on the golf course. We visited Batu Caves , a Hindu shrine achieved by climbing up a long flight of stairs to the cave. The shrine itself is more like a building site but the cave was very impressive.

Then we took an interminable train ride in a vibrating freezing cold train ride to Langkawi past thousands of palm trees. We took a taxi and ferry ride to our hotel which was right on the beach. The situation is rather idyllic , a long sandy beach, palm trees , hot humid weather ; a dreamy location. We spent the day lounging about bemoaning the fact that we don’t have Japanese service anymore.

KL is a mixed area , Malaysian, Indian and Chinese but Langkawi is predominantly Moslem and it’s sad to see the women dressed as unattractively as possible and their shy , off hand and rather abrupt manner of serving in the shops.

The attitude towards alcohol is quite puzzling. In KL one can buy anywhere , in Langkawi alcohol is available in some shops and restaurants but very expensive. In some restaurants they will allow you to take in alcohol. Then we discovered a duty free shop where foreigners , by showing passports ,can buy alcohol at greatly reduced prices. Locals can also buy but must show their I D cards but are rationed to for example 72 beers a month. Duty free shops are only available in Langkawi and things like coffee and biscuits are much cheaper.

I took a boat trip to three islands, one attractive inland lake and the feeding of eagles. Cenang comes alive at night, lots of restaurants, shops and everything busy, busy. We’ve enjoyed eating at the local places, good food and much cheaper. But Malaysia is a big contrast to Japan, the people are easy going, sometimes the service is done without a smile and nothing is finished off properly.

We took another freezing cold ferry ride to Penang in a rather dilapidated ferry. It got a bit rough out to sea and one of the passengers put his life jacket on because he thought his last day had come.

During the afternoon and night it threw it down and the next morning we awoke to a flooded hotel lobby and a city awash. This was the first time that the city had flooded in 15 years. Penang city is a fascinating place, a mixture of Buddhist , Chinese and Indian culture with old rundown chop houses ,restaurants ,temples, all looking poorly maintained but with a unique attraction. Some properties have been done up and are quite up market .Street eating is the order of the day with great food and a chance to meet other travellers.

By absolute luck Prince Charles and Camilla were visiting a puppet theatre next door to our hotel. They arrived in splendour and Carol shook Camilla’s hand and welcomed her to Penang.

 

 

[foogallery id=”453″]

Hong Kong week 5

Arriving in Hong Kong island at our AirBnB we had to lug our cases up 3 flights of stairs to a miniscule non too clean apartment which was so small that there wasn’t enough room to store a suit case. Spartan living but Hong Kong apartment prices are horrendous and we were well located. Our neighbours were a church and a massage parlour.
The next day we took the ferry to Portuguese Macau and found this to have a very European feel with squares and churches except for the masses of people and the heat.
Hong Kong is a great place to walk except for the heat and humidity , there is an escalator going right up the mountain with off shoots for shopping centres. We walked up to the Botanical Gardens, an oasis in the middle of the high rise office buildings. Hong Kong is not ashamed of its colonial past, street names are familiar English ones , statues remain of Royalty and English is widely spoken. Hong Kong definitely sees itself as being different from China.
It’s also very cosmopolitan, restaurants everywhere, and the developments inside and outside the city take the breathe away . The vistas of sea, islands, high rise buildings , bridges and old tenements like we lived in are unique. And everywhere there are people , masses of them, what vibrancy. But live there? I doubt it, real estate prices are astronomical and there’s a lack of breathing space.

[foogallery id=”452″]

China week 4

We took a bullet train for 8 hours to Guilian , for long spells it went at over 300 kms per hour and at that speed it’s hard to focus on anything outside. But it’s mysterious for us to see deserted building sites and derelict half ruined houses. Is this all part of a mass relocation project or is it just the on-going Chinese scheme to keep the GDP growth at 7% by creating engineering schemes.
The train stations are built on a model and all look the same and many seem far too big for their purpose. It’s like putting Shanghai station in the middle of a country village.
We stayed a couple of nights in Guilian but I was suffering again from breathing problems so stayed put. We then moved by bus to Yangshuo to a pleasant family run hotel next to the river. This is the land of the karst limestone mountains , at times it looked eerily like the Chinese landscape paintings, misty mountains, peasants tending the rice fields and a slow pace of life. Patrick and I took a bike ride and proceeded to get lost, we were rescued by a local who poled us across the river on his bamboo raft. We called in at an English language school; it would be very idyllic to teach there in the middle of the country.
There’s an element of interference by the Government here, empty state run buses which charge an arm and a leg and police manning road blocks . The local people resent this. It would seem that some people believe because of the one party state the individual has little say in the running of the country. The Government encourages a movement away from the country villages and that genetically engineered crops mean higher food growth and efficient agricultural system. The Government bulldoze their projects through, there’s little or no negotiation on compensation for building, the Government own the land on a 70 year lease.
We met some climbers from Switzerland who had travelled to climb the steep karst limestone.
Because of the increase in costs there are less foreign visitors who can visit other Far Eastern countries at a lower cost. It seems to us that China charges high amounts for some mundane sights , it’s not a cheap destination any more.
There’s an English school here . It would be nice to teach for some time here.
Walking and riding around in the heat and humidity is energy sapping. I need to keep topped up with water and food.
On our last day in China we took the bullet train to Shenzhen, the metro to the border with Hong Kong, went through customs and immigration , which seems strange as it’s now one country and then the MRT to our AirBnB on Hong Kong Island

[foogallery id=”451″]

China week 3

Xian is a complete contrast to Pingyao , row after row of high rises ,swarms of people and ugly. Patrick was not feeling well so Carol and I went in search of some medicine. The system is different here, pharmacies are inside a nearby hospital and this created a good impression. Clean , prompt helpful service despite the language problem , and we got our medicines. Patrick stayed in bed and Carol and I explored the Bell and Drum Towers and the Moslem market and old mosque. The market was frenetic with countless things to eat, men bashing bread, meat, making nuts , pasta and half the time we had no idea what they were doing or selling. We walked back in pouring rain.
The next day we did the sensible thing and hired a car and driver and visited first an archaeological site from 6000 years ago , living very similarly to remote African tribes today. On to the Terracotta Warriors, an astounding place. 3 digs of hundreds of clay soldiers , each individual in build and face together with horses , chariots . The question is why did the Emperor do this , have this whole army buried with him? Was it megalomania or as some think did he expect to carry on in death as in life , inspecting his army ?
The following hot day we went by public bus to the Large Goose Pagoda, another large temple complex in the centre of the city with splendid views from the top of wide avenues in 4 directions.. Here Carol took a tumble and has been hindered since by a badly bruised foot.
We flew to Shanghai , a painless experience except for having to open our checked baggage all for the sake of nail scissors. There’s a lot of mindless beauracracy in China , one becomes a little tired of bag and personal searches on trains, planes , and undergrounds but I suppose it’s better than terrorist bombs.
By now I had succumbed to the Asian bug and spent one day in our rather disappointing Air BnB . However it was well placed and for 2 days we took a hop on and hop off bus around the remarkable city. The Bund is a pedestrian area around the river with a collection of 1920’s well-preserved bank buildings and across the river in the financial district we went up to the 80th floor in a split second to have wondrous views around the city. Shanghai ranks up there as a major city alongside Hong Kong , Singapore and Bangkok and is far more modern and fresh compared to Beijing.
But you have to ask questions about the sustainability of the Chinese miracle.
A short train ride to Hangzhou and a special in a 4 star hotel which was welcome. A day spent by the lake with a boat ride alongside what seemed like a million other persons.
China never ceases to amaze , this town has an expanding metro , an airport and a population of 6 million, just another town in China.
A disappointing aspect of China is the lack of Facebook, Internet, Instagram due to China’s fear of social media. Their ATM’s are also a bit fear making and the vast railway stations with thousands of people milling about, the stations seem to be carbon copies of each other.
If asked the question “ Is it worthwhile to visit China ?” the answer is a definite yes. We’ve seen amazing sights, wonderful foods and witnessed first-hand a country that has transformed itself in 20 years.