Route through China

Children playing on the banks of the
Li River

Li River near Yangshuo

Lunch in the home of a local farmer
in Yangshuo

Kids with bike near Yangshuo

Kid with bike

A luxury liner on the Yangtze

Our "luxury" liner

"I'm the king of the world"

1st-class private cabin decks

Abandoned town on the Yangtze

Pandas in Chengdu

4-day old panda

Underground funhouse in Chengdu

Giant Buddha at Leshan

Sage advice in any language

Start of hike up Emei Shan (mountain)

Rest on path up Emei Shan

Damn Monkeys!

Clandestine drinking after bedtime at Hongchungping Monastery

Trailside restaurant on Emei Shan

Sedan chair and lazy tourist (me)

Guard station (now souvenir shop)
atop South Gate of Xi'an city wall

Genghis Ken

Zhong Lou (Bell Tower) in Xi'an

Muslim Quarter in Xi'an

Terracotta Warriors near Xi'an

Lifesize Warriors

Aboard train to Beijing, happiest people in 2nd-class

Sea of Wisdom Temple at Summer Palace in Beijing

Clare & Ken donning crown-of-torns... er, uh... wreath of flowers for National Day

Beijing acrobatics show

Pedestrian street traffic

Tiananmen Square traffic

Temple of Heaven

Starbucks inside the Forbidden City

The Great Wall of China

Chinese sparkling wine on the Wall

Paul & Clare (and me in the middle)

Yangshuo, Guangxi province September 18, 2002

Amid spectacular, postcard-perfect karst limestone mountains, Yangshuo is a good base from which to explore Guangxi's famous rural topography.  This small country village on the Li River, just south of Guilin, has become a bit of a backpacker mecca.  Drawn to its surrounding scenery and a laid-back city center that caters graciously and attentively to foreigners, wayworn backpackers find their way here for relaxation in a charmingly rustic and rural setting. The main street, Xi Jie (West Street), is lined with guesthouses, streetside cafes, festive lighting, and bars pumping out Western music.  The stores carry camping gear, rucksacks, books, and toiletries for the traveler who needs to restock.  Yet, despite its popularity with backpackers, Yangshuo is still unmistakably a rural Chinese town.  Side streets are teeming with local markets that sell locally produced foods.  Farmers move about on foot, saddled under bamboo yokes that balance heavy baskets.  Roads are clogged with rickety bicycles and exhaust-piping tractors.  Just beyond the city center, locals work their fields and fish from the Li River.  Tourism has not kept the township from relying on daily subsistence farming. :: 7:15pm. Bar :: I'm sitting at an open-air bar outside my hotel.  I've just finished an impromptu English class for five young schoolgirls.  Sitting here alone -- an obvious foreigner -- I was approached by a 15-year old girl who asked if she could practice her English with me.  Within 10 minutes, four other girls joined and, for an hour, we worked on their pronunciation of basic English vocabulary.  They seemed genuinely interested in learning English and in performing well in their English class at school, but it should also be said that simply being an American here seems to earn you celebrity status; no one seemed to be asking the New Zealanders across the road for English lessons. We arrived here yesterday morning and, in the afternoon, went on a boat trip down the Li River, stopping at smaller villages along the way.  Walking up cobbled streets, children rushed out of doorless, stone houses to wave excitedly at us.  Everywhere we have gone, we have been greeted with smiles and "hello's" from children and adults alike.  We are a curious form of entertainment for them. Today, a few of us went out in the morning for a daylong bike excursion.  We were guided by Liang Su, a local farmer in her fifties, who at midday took us back to her home, where she and her husband cooked us a feast of local specialties (beer fish, Li River snails, cabbage, and pork-filled omelets.)  Sitting at a table outside above ground that had been sprinkled with corn feed, we ate with the chickens, sipped home-brewed rice wine, and learned about local village life.  Liang Su even painted our names on scrolls in calligraphy. After lunch, we started off again on bikes.  From meandering trails that carve the countryside and riparian walkways that follow rivers and rivulets, we enjoyed an afternoon of stunning scenery -- of rustic farmlands dotted with limestone pinnacles that rise out of the earth like fingers grasping at the mist. The highlight -- or perhaps lowlight -- of the day had to come when I was bicycling along a narrow trail through one of the many small farming villages outside of Yangshuo.  To my left was a wall of overgrown brush; to my right were rice paddies sunk some four feet below the trail.  Coming into a blind turn, I nearly ran into a water buffalo that was approaching in the opposite direction.  Startled, reaching for brakes and losing sight of the trail, I flew off the elevated passageway into the rice field.  Fortunately, a thick bed of mud cushioned my fall.  The passing farmer, who had been walking his water buffalo, laughed heartily as I pulled myself up out of the rice field, covered in mud. We leave Yangshuo tomorrow afternoon.  I suspect that I will miss this place -- its warm people and enduring natural beauty.  In the morning, before we leave, I've arranged for a cooking class that will begin at the local market and end with lunch.  The chef from a restaurant up the street will take me and one other person from my group back into his kitchen (which may turn out to be a mistake), and teach us how to prepare a few selections from his menu.

The Three Gorges Dam September 20-21, 2002

"The dreams of the Chinese people fulfilled through the vision and courage of its engineers." Just upstream on the Yangtze River from Yichang, at Sandouping, the highly controversial Three Gorges Dam is under construction.  When completed in 2009, the dam itself will be 1.3 miles wide (2 km) and 610 feet tall (185 m), making it the largest dam in the world.  The dam will eventually also form the world's largest hydroelectric power facility producing 18,200 megawatts of electricity, providing at least 10% of China's power needs.  The government believes that the dam will also help control flooding and improve navigation safety.  The Yangtze River is prone to disastrous floods that kill and displace thousands of people; floods in 1999 left 14 million people homeless and 3,000 dead.  The hazardous navigability of the river, compounded with frequent fog, has resulted in countless crashes and beached boats.  A higher water level will increase the navigable width of the channel to improve boat safety, while the dam itself should be able to control floods by regulating the water level of the Yangtze. On the other hand, 13 cities, 140 towns, 1352 villages and 650 factories will be submerged necessitating the relocation of 1.8 million people.  Much of the picturesque landscape will be affected with consequent effects on tourism, and some 8,000 unexcavated archaeological sites will be covered.  More serious concerns include questions about the integrity of the dam to withstand earthquakes, erosion or simply the massive pressure of the mighty Yangtze River.  Rupture would prove catastrophic.  Numerous Western engineers have cited these and other concerns, yet the progress of the dam, first proposed in 1919 and championed by ore recent governments of the past two decades, seems to be carried by an inexorable political momentum.  Conquering the river has become a symbol of "limitless power" in China. Rhetoric of its historical significance fills up numerous plaques at touristed sites overlooking the construction. :: Riverboat Stories ::  Shortly after boarding a riverboat that would take us up the Yangtze River through the Three Gorges, across the area soon to be submerged, I met a Chinese journalist who, alongside me on the bow of the ship, was taking photos. She explained that she had been writing about the Yangtze River and the Three Gorges for several years as a freelance (photo) journalist.  After a few minutes of perfunctory chitchat and reverent observance of the grandeur and beauty of the perpendicular cliffs of the first gorge (Qutang Gorge), she began to disclose some of her personal concerns about the dam -- things most people would never hear about on a tour.  She was concerned about the extinction of certain wildlife, the economic impact of such massive debt on the Chinese government from a single project, the unknown ecological effects of creating such an enormous man-made lake, and the loss of important Chinese historical artifacts to submersion.  On this trip, she was writing a piece about the bygone trade of the Yangtze River boatmen.  Up until the late 1950's (before motors), boats were tugged up and down the Yangtze River by dozens of men walking precariously along the sides of the river.  Incredibly narrow trails are carved into the sides of the Three Gorge cliffs (where sheer face mountains rise vertically out of the river).  When she first pointed out these walkways, I could hardly see them (emphasizing just how narrow these walkways were and just how dangerous this work was.) She had purchased a "antique" boat, brought custom-made bamboo rope (as had once been used) from Shanghai, and was heading up the river to hire local men to help reenact the work of the legendary towmen.  She was hoping to save this little bit of Yangtze history through her work.  With reenacted photographs saved for posterity and stories gathered from local descendents recorded through her writing, she hoped to preserve the memories of the towmen she affectionately called the "Heroes of the Yangtze."

Yangtze River September 21-23, 2002

:: Riverboat Cruise ::  We're coming into the 3rd day of a 54-hour cruise up the Yangtze River, from Yichang to Chongqing.  The three-deck boat holds about 400 people (1 or 2 people per cabin in first-class, up to 16 people in fifth-class!)  While there are "tourist-class" boats that make this same voyage, we're on a more basic riverboat that transports area locals and Chinese tourists.  The only white people onboard, and for that matter the only people in first-class, we're a strange lot of stowaways that the crew seems fit to keep isolated in first-class quarters.  Calling this a "cruise ship" would be very generous.  There is no pool, no casino, no buffet, no entertainment, no Captain Stubing or Cruise Director Julie.  Hell, there isn't even a Karaoke bar.  Entertainment has come in the form of cheap beer (5¥, US$0.60) per liter, card games and Yahtzee.  Man overbored.

Chengdu, Sichuan Province September 24, 2002

:: Lost in Chengdu ::  A few of us were dropped off at the Wenshu Temple and monastery this morning with vague instructions on how to get back to our hotel.  "It's about a 20 to 25 minute walk.  Just held sort of southwest."  If we did get lost, we simply had to find our way back to Renmin Square were a 40-foot tall statue of Chairman Mao stands saluting the people of Chengdu.  (The statue depicts Mao in a militaristic stance -- feet together, chest out, head up with one arm raised in a straight-elbow dictatorial salute.)  The hotel would be an easily retraced four blocks from the statue, if we could find our way there.  I resolved to tag along with another couple that was clever enough to bring a map. After wandering around the temple grounds for an hour or so, strolling leisurely through gardens, teahouses, and pagoda temples, I realized that the couple with the map had left me.  I circled the temple grounds two or three more times to confirm this, before deciding to venture back on my own.  No problem.  Just walk in a southwesterly direction for 20 to 25 minutes. Chengdu is the first city I've been to in china that seems to have more cars on its roads than bicycles.  Considering that there are 10 million people living here, you can imagine the congestion.  Cars, bicycles, and pedestrians all fight for right-of-way on streets where no one yields and where neither streetlights nor lanes serve any visible purpose.  There aren't very many tall, distinctive landmarks in downtown Chengdu; the urban center is just a sprawl of concrete and distressed metal buildings.  But even if there were, 200-feet visibility through dense smog would just about obscure anything tall or distinctive enough to use as a landmark. I needed to change money.  The next few days would be spent in monasteries and smaller agrarian villages, where ATMs and money-changing services would be hard to come by.  I was told the Bank of China would be my best bet for cashing in traveler's checks.  After stopping into the Commercial Bank of China, the Agricultural Bank of China, the Everbright Bank of China, and the People's Bank of China -- and being redirected a few times along the way -- I finally found the Bank of China proper.  Two wrong queues later, the third line I stood in proved successful and I finally had a stash of Chinese RMB notes. Walking back out the front doors (stationed with security guards armed with spiked clubs), I skeptically mulled over the directions the bank clerk had rattled off, but by this point, fairly disoriented from bank-hopping, I was in no state to let instincts override the teller's confident instructions.  Four hours later, I made it back to my hotel.  Not an entire waste of time, I saw more of Chengdu than anyone else in my group and learned a few lessons along the way. When the Chinese give you directions, they tend to be very literal and include initial steps that we normally take for granted.  So when the bank clerk told me to "Go right. Then left. Then right. Then right again for 5 minutes," I had no idea that the first three turns were merely intended to get me out through the front door of the bank before walking down the same street for 5 minutes. I also learned that posing like the statue of Chairman Mao in hopes of getting directions to Renmin Square either seriously offends the locals or amuses the shit out of them.  Worse still, I later discovered that there are three statues of Mao in downtown Chengdu and that at various points in the afternoon, I was heading toward each of them. Finally, I learned to always bring a map.  And, if you don't bring a map, have a strong enough male ego to admit that you're lost and hire a taxi.

Chengdu, Sichuan Province September 25, 2002

:: The underground funhouse at Renmin Park (People's Park) :: Just southwest of the city center, People's Park is an enclosed oasis of manicured gardens, playgrounds, lagoons, teahouses, and assorted monuments -- all very nice, but the real reason to come here, as I discovered accidentally on my way out of the park is the underground amusement train ride that traverses a converted air-raid shelter.  You have to have a strong appreciation of kitsch to enjoy this; it was unequivocally the weirdest experience I've had in China thus far. I had been poking my head into various buildings all day.  So when I saw a staircase descending from the open door of a pagoda, I naturally explored.  I reached the bottom -- some 30 flights below ground -- and from down a long, dimly lit corridor, an old man motioned for me to follow him.  He took me down several corridors until we reached a cashier.  I handed over 13¥ (US $1.60) without knowing what exactly I was buying.  Ticket now in hand, I was told to continue into the next room where another man led me down yet another set corridors.  Having passed numerous fish tanks, coral and seashell displays, and a leashed whining baby pig, we finally reached an 8-car children's carnival train.  The only passenger, I boarded the first car and the subterranean ride began. Traveling at what couldn't have been more than 5 miles per hour, the train plodded along a quarter-mile of track through what looked like a mining shaft festooned with colored lighting and a seriously bizarre collection of costumed dolls and mannequins. It was only afterward that I realized I had passed through four or five different "worlds" or themed sections -- an outer space world, a western frontier world, an undersea world, and one or two other worlds (or underworlds!) with themes that still elude me. Someone had obviously been to Disneyland. It was as if someone had been rummaging through the discard bins of toy stores and costume shops, took their finds down into a mining shaft, hung decorative lighting, converted an old carnival ride, and started charging admission... one naïve Westerner at a time.  Regardless, it was worth every cent.  I got to see cowboys & Indians, astronauts, Godzilla, a mermaid (I think), and E.T., the Extra Terrestrial.  Perfect.

The Sacred Mountain of Emei Shan September 25-28, 2002

:: Rickshaws and Sedan Chairs :: Back in Chengdu, on our last night in the Sichuan province before traveling into the nearby sacred Buddhist mountains, we went to see a traditional Sichuan cultural performance.  A panoply of disconnected variety acts, the show featured acrobats, Sichuan opera, shadow puppets, hand puppets, juggling, and a couple slapstick comedy routines that seemed to get a good chuckle out of everyone but us.  The venue was an outdoor theatre which sat at least 500 people and was set amid several acre fairgrounds. After three-too-many cups of tea, I went in search of the restroom, which was explained to be at the other end of the theatre grounds -- some 1/4 mile away or longer.  Before nearly deciding to pee back into my teacup, I saw a sign offering free rickshaw services, tips optional.  Hmmm.  Teacup or exploitative bourgeois coach service on the back of a trotting emaciated boy?  I got out my whip.   At first, this form of human taxi service appears to be degrading drudgery that smacks of class oppression, but then you begin to realize that these porters are just aspiring capitalists who are willing to work incredibly hard for your money.  They want your business (or in this case, tips.)  And they're thrilled when you accept their service.  In fact, the touristy areas of China seem to have a disproportionate numbers of rickshaws, leaving me wondering, are we exploiting them or are they exploiting us?  Well, I tipped the rickshaw driver 4¥ (US 50¢), which returned a toothy appreciative smile.   The next day, we bused to Bagou Monastery at the base of Emei Shan, the sacred Buddhist mountain.  From here, we would trek about 10 miles (some nearly vertical) on cobbled steps to Hongchungping Monastery, nestled in small gorge a third of the way up the mountain, which peaked at 10,165 feet (3099m).   As physically demanding as the work of the rickshaw drivers in Chengdu appeared, it couldn't prepare for what I saw on Emei Shan.  Nearly everything that was used, sold or consumed on the mountain had to be carried up.  I saw men carrying 40 bricks each on their backs.  Others carried 2 ten-gallon drums of kerosene.  Still others lumbered under the weight of baskets filled with beer (five bottles of which found their way into my hands at the Hongchungping Monastery.)  In fact, hundreds of men earn their daily keep carrying up food, construction material, varieties of petroleum, and the occasional lazy tourist.  That's right... pairs of porters will carry tourists up or down segments of the mountain in "sedan chairs" -- seats fitted on bamboo stretchers.  Mules would earn sympathy for this kind of work.  In my case, two porters earned 20¥ (US $2.50) each for a fifteen minute staircase descent.  (I would have tipped them as well, but they joked between pants for air that I'd have to pay for two people.)    :: When Monkeys Attack :: Just before the final steep ascent to Hongchungping Monastery (1257 steps -- someone else counted), we passed through a section of the trail besieged with Tibetan Macaque monkeys.  Local mountain residents have trained the monkeys to feed from the open palms of tourists or even to climb up their shoulders for pictures.  But, as you can imagine, this kind of encouraged behavior leads to other less invited assaults from these rabid primates.  As our group tiptoed through, I guarded the rear, waving off encroaching monkeys with a stick.  They chased us up the trail at least a 100 feet, wanting to mount us for food.  I had never seen a wild monkey.  Growing up in America, I had only been exposed to romantic depictions of monkeys like Curious George.  The ones at the zoo seemed so playful and cute.  In case you are also holding onto to any similar romantic delusions, let me disabuse you of them now.  Monkeys are filthy, nasty beasts -- bipedal, hirsute rats that we should all be ashamed to call our evolutionary ancestors.

Xi'an, Shaanxi province September 29 - October 1, 2002

:: The Muslim Quarter :: Question: What’s stranger than buying a Buddha figurine in the Muslim Quarter of Xi’an? Answer: Israelis buying Buddha figurines in the Muslim Quarter of Xi’an. The Muslim Quarter is a small neighborhood located in the heart of Xi’an, inside the fortifying walls that quadrangulate the old city and just two blocks from Zhong Lou, the central Bell Tower. Most of the city’s 60,000 plus Muslims live, work and pray here. It retains a color and character unexpected of an Islamic enclave this far east or in such a touristed city. Tucked-away mosques and busy marketplaces pulse with an energy unique to the exotic conflation of Chinese and Islamic cultures. Backstreets and alleyways are lined with souvenir shops displaying merchandise that spills out from stalls onto the street, narrowing pedestrian walkways. Shopkeepers in white skullcaps or shawls call out to passerbyers to look at their postcards, silk clothing, chess sets, specious antiques, and various Chairman Mao memorabilia. Particularly funny are the regular solicitations to buy a "Mao Rolex." (While the local merchants have a surprisingly strong command of the English language, many seem to still think that "Rolex" is synonymous with "watch.") The bargaining system in the Muslim Quarter is just about as absurd as any I’ve ever seen – the asking price will often be 10 times the price that a savvy negotiator can land. If you just treat it as a game, bargaining can even be fun, albeit time-consuming work. I witnessed one of the more gifted shoppers in our group buy silk scarves for US $3.90 after a half hour negotiation process which involved walking away from the store three times and countless number-crunching sessions on a calculator. At night, the marketplaces make way for streetside dining. Benches and picnic tables are rolled out onto the sidewalks, and barbeques lit up for a long night of grilling. Tonight, crammed together at a sidewalk table, we ate spicy bread and beef kabobs. The kabobs were thinly sliced strips of meat skewered onto iron bicycle spokes (no kidding) and grilled over a blazing barbeque. I wolfed down 36 kabobs, but lost to a Kiwi at our table who managed to eat 52! At 12 kabobs for a dollar (US), it didn’t put much of a dent in my wallet, but as can’t say as much for the bulge in my belly. :: The Next Morning :: I have diarrhea. While I intend to spend most of the day on the toilet, I won’t spend any more of it writing.

Beijing October 1-5, 2002

:: National Day :: Every guidebook I’ve ever read for traveling in England overuses the word "quaint" so much so that by the time the author gets to describing the Cotswolds, the word has lost its force. I could easily fall into the same trap in China with the word "crowded". For example, Beijing is... crowded. Beijing at the peak of its tourism season is... very crowded. October 1st is National Day in China (the equivalent of America’s 4th of July.) A couple years ago, in an effort to spur domestic tourism, the Chinese government turned this one-day holiday into a week-long national holiday. Today, everyone in China who isn’t employed in the tourism or retail industries goes on vacation the first week in October. And, where do you suppose over a billion Chinese people go to celebrate their most important national holiday? Why, their nation’s capital city, Beijing, of course. The huge influx of tourists, together with the mass closure of businesses around Beijing, has created a rather remarkable, though temporary, population shift in the city. Once bustling business parks and skyscrapers are empty, while visitor sites like Tiananmen Square and The Forbidden City have been overrun with herds of domestic tourists. It’s crowded, densely crowded. The flow of pedestrians in these massive public spaces begins to look like a stirring of currents and eddies in sea of black hair. Get me to safety before I drown. Officials have estimated that the 1 million-person capacity of Tiananmen Square has at various points this week been exceeded. That roughly translates into 2 million elbows, 1 million cameras, and 200,000 simultaneously-lit cigarettes. Peril abounds. Enter at your own risk. Buffet the waves and watch out for the undertow.

The Great Wall of China October 4, 2002

:: You Little Wonder, Little Wonder You :: There is no single, official list of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World. Instead there are countless, conflicting lists. Popularly published by encyclopedias and almanacs during the second half of the twentieth century, these compilations often agreed on one or two modern world wonders, but never on all seven. The Taj Mahal shows up a lot, as does the Eiffel Tower. Other more questionable top-seven placements in authoritative print have included the Washington Monument (Collier's Encyclopedia, 1988), the Space Shuttle Columbia (Reader’s Digest Book of Facts, 1987), and – this one totally loses me – the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell, England (The World Book Encyclopedia, 1972). But it does seem that every such source regards the Great Wall of China definitively as one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World. Seeing it today, I understand why. Along the most precipitous ridges of steep and craggy mountains and across the treacherous terrain of the Gobi Desert, the Great Wall stretches over 4,000 winding miles. Construction started in the 7th century BC with additions and re-building continuing until the 16th century AD. Built entirely by hand, the wall was erected to keep out marauding nomads, Mongol invaders and other threats for the north. The wall itself is generally twenty-five feet high with forty-foot towers. It is wide enough for wagons to pass each other in opposite directions. Wonder of wonders, the Great Wall is a breathtaking sight, even if you can never actually see it all. :: Paul & Clare :: Paul and Clare are a young British couple from York, who have been traveling around the world together for eleven months. Their journey has taken them from the Hadrian’s Wall in York to the Great Wall in China. In between, they’ve seen the Australian Outback, Niagra Falls, the beaches of Malaysia, the skyscrapers of New York, and a dozen or so countries. We have nearly reached the end of our tour through China. For Paul and Clare, tomorrow is not only the end of their tour through China, it is the end of their tour around the world. When he returns to England, Paul will not pick up his career as a financial analyst; instead, he intends to pursue a job teaching developmentally handicapped children (apparently, three weeks with me did not weaken his resolve or expose the limits of his patience.) Clare, meanwhile, has been studying various Asian therapeutic massage techniques while traveling and intends to put her new skills to good use when she returns, as she practices a more preventive form of healing than was found in her previous occupation of emergency room nursing. It’s midday and we’re inside the seventh watchtower of the Simatai section of the Great Wall. Sunlight streams in through arched cobbled windows, illuminating an otherwise dark cavernous 6th-century stone garrison. In celebratory salvo, we’ve just fired the corks off three bottles of champagne (er, uh, Chinese sparkling wine) out a window and over the ramparts. Paul just proposed to Clare. (And after questioning his earnestness and giddily proclaiming him daft, she accepted.) Twelve people from around the world -- three weeks ago, strangers -- are drinking champagne on the Great Wall of China, celebrating the newly betrothed couple, and already waxing nostalgic about their common journey and the time they’ve spent. The Great Wall really is quite remarkable (with or without champagne), but today it is a little bit more than that -- at the conclusion of our tour, on the sentimental occasion of engagement, and in the glow of bonhomie that certain bottles of champagne produce, the Great Wall is at this moment, in providing our moment, their moment, simply magical.