It is Sunday, September 3, 2006. Pat and I are on a Japan Airlines flight that is taking us across the International Dateline to Tokyo and then on westward. It is late Monday evening when we land in Beijing. This is the starting point for a buffet of people and places, sights and sounds. From here we will crisscross China on foot and by air, rail, bus and river cruise ship. We will see very old, brand new and links that bind them together. We will participate in the life of a country that is rooted in history and moving into the future faster than almost any other country in the world.
There are several ways to approach this site. One is to read the article. Another is to read the article and click to links to photos as you read; links to a limited number of selected edited photos are followed by a 
. If you want more photos, there is a link to selected, un-edited photos at the end of every section; these links include the words "photo album." The heading to every major section provides a link to "coordinates" which provide additional information about many of the topics and places in that section. Select an approach that works for you or mix several approaches and enjoy.
For several years we have looked at trips to the Three Gorges of the Yangtze River before they are flooded by the massive new dam. Two recent trips with Overseas Adventure Travel(OAT)were outstanding so we have decided to travel with them even though the trip takes us back to several place we have already visited.
Because we are visiting places for a second time, this trip is like a stage play in two acts that are running concurrently rather one after the other. Act One is the current trip. Act Two is our reaction to the rapid and massive changes that are shaping China.
Allen Chen, who will be our tour guide for the entire trip, is waiting for us when we clear immigration. Members of our group have been arriving throughout the day. Allen gets us to our hotel and organized for the evening.
After breakfast Allen has arranged a room for a group meeting. There are the usual introductions and brief sharing of travel experiences. Allen gives us a briefing about our total trip and especially the next four days in Beijing.
In each city Allen is assisted by a local guide. Our first local guide is Hang. We are off by bus to the Forbidden City -- the home of the of the Qing Dynasty, the Empress Dowager Cixi and the Last Emperor Puyi until 1912. It provides a good introduction to China and some of its history. The Forbidden City and most of the other historical sites in Beijing are being spruced up in anticipation of the 2008 Olympics.
Our second full day begins with a bus ride that takes us past some of the major facilities that are being built for the Olympics.
We stop at a cloisonne factory and watch people convert designs on paper to designs on copper vases and other object d'art. Small thin strips of copper define the design, almost like the lead in a leaded glass window only much finer. Artisans then flow colored "paint" into the areas defined by the copper strips. In some areas they add a second color and blend them where they join. The object is then placed in a kiln for a few minutes to melt and bond the color to the copper. After it cools it is polished.
A representative of the factory shows us the difference between the results of the traditional process and cheaper imitations. We then have an opportunity to try our hand at applying color to a small dish, and we gain an appreciation for the required artistic skills. There is, of course, an opportunity to see and purchase cloisonne items ranging from trinkets to museum quality pieces of art.
Here we can listen to the wind and see the Wall as it was built. Some sections are very steep as they flow up and down the ridge line. The steps are irregular and sometimes quite narrow. There are birds soaring overhead. We climb along the top of the wall to a spectacular viewing point and try to imagine the effort it took to build the wall in this rugged terrain and the loneliness of standing guard against potential enemies from the north.
Our bus takes us back to the where most of the tourists go -- from the restaurant we can see them lined up along the top of the renovated Wall.
Day three begins with a visit to the Beijing Municipal Opera School. We have a chance to visit several of the classrooms and watch the students practicing some of the broad variety of skills it takes to be an opera star in China. Sing loudly enough to be heard without a microphone. Dance in costumers that include very high platform shoes and six foot long feathers sticking out of your head-gear. Fight with sticks and flow through acrobatics. Chinese Opera used to be all male. Now there are women in some of the female roles. We are told that many of the skills learned at the Opera School serve graduates well in popular music careers.
Allen takes us to a carpet factory that specializes in silk carpets. The store has four looms where we can watch people weaving. A representative gives us an introduction to silk, the common story about how it was discovered and how it is prepared for use in carpets. Members of our group buy a couple of carpets -- they are beautiful.
This afternoon there is an optional tour of the Summer Palace and this evening dinner and then the Opera. Pat and I have done that so we opt for some browsing through small shops, large department stores and flea markets in alleyways.
We have a leisurely morning to pack -- tonight we will be going to Xian but more about that later.
We head for the hutong which is an ancient residential area near the Forbidden City. The streets are winding and narrow. Some of the homes are being restored and we are told that there are regulations to protect the historic culture of the area. We wander left and right down the narrow streets and arrive at the home of an acclaimed artist and this wife. We tour their home and meet their dog.
Our hostess gives some of us an opportunity to roll dough into small pancakes and then fill them and create little dumplings that will be served with lunch. Our host shows us some of this paintings and awards.
After dinner we take our carry-on luggage and head for the train station. Our larger luggage has been picked up and we won't see it again until we arrive in our next hotel.
There are three classes of service on the train but they are not referred to as classes in a "classless society" like China's. There are "hard-seat" accommodations -- six to a compartment with only a thin mattress. There are "soft-seat" with four to a compartment and "executive." The train is relatively new and quite clean. The brochure says there are 18 cars that accommodate 592 people. The journey takes 11 1/2 hours and is 1,200 kilometers (745 miles).
OAT has arranged one soft-seat compartment for each couple; four beds for two people. In each compartment there are two lower berths and two upper. There is a television screen and headset for each berth; however, all of the programs are in Chinese. There are a number of foreign travelers in addition to Chinese. The mattresses are reasonably thick and relatively hard.
As it is getting light there is a knock at the door. We assume it is Allen and say loudly enough that he can hear us, "Thank you, we are awake." But the knock continues. It is 6:30 and the attendant has our tea. In a few minutes she returns and asks us to say we made it ourselves if anyone asks. About 7:00 the waiter from the club car comes through selling tea. We tipped the attendant as we left the train; the spirit of entrepreneurship is obviously alive and well in China.
There is a bus waiting to take us to the Xi An Hotel. We check in. Our large luggage is in the room and a morning shower feels good. The hotel has a Tai Chi master on staff who leads us in a group lesson. White guys can't jump and most of us are neither limber or graceful but the stretching feels good after a night on a hard mattress.
We visit the Shaanxi History Museum. It is a modern structure finished in 2001. Chinese history dates from the 16th century BC. The year 221 BCE marks the beginning of the Chinese Empire. All of it is represented here in the museum. Our visit provides an introduction to some of what we will see as we travel through China.
This evening we walk through the Muslim quarter of the ancient walled part of Xian. There is a mosque that is 1,360 years old. The main street caters to tourists -- Chinese and foreign -- and the food and shopping is different than we have seen to this point. There are chestnut roasting over a street vendor's fire and aromas that bring back memories of Paris.
We walk through the center of town surrounded by a mix of very old and very modern architecture. Dinner is in a restaurant specializing in Mongolian Hot Pot. We like Chinese food but lunch and dinner is almost always served family style. There are a limited number of popular dishes so it is common to have several items at lunch and the same items for dinner for several days in a row. The Mongolian Hot Pot is a welcome break.
Today is the day to visit the Terracotta Warriors. We take a bus to the site of the warriors and begin our tour with a 360 degree movie about the construction of the warriors and the site. There are more than 8,000 life size generals, officers, infantry, archers, horses and a carriage or two. They were buried with the first Emperor of Qin (Qin Shi Huang) in 210-209 BCE. Construction of this mausoleum began in 246 BCE and is believed to have taken 700,000 workers and craftsmen 38 years to complete. We were told it was broken into just four years after his death.
You can get a sense of the enormity of the collection from photos After the tour we go to a nearby restaurant where we have some of the best chicken I have ever had. It is served with toffee potatoes (caramelized rice sugar) that is surprisingly good but not nearly as good as the chicken.
On the way back to town we stop at a wholesale Chinese medicine market. Large bags of herbs in various forms and dried and preserved animal parts.
Tonight dinner is a "dumpling" dinner. Round after round of dumplings are served family style in shallow baskets. Each round of dumplings is different and most are delicious. During dinner there were other guests in the restaurant, but they leave after dinner and we have a private performance of the Tang Dynasty show. We have seen a lot of local-culture performances in our travels and this was one of the best. It is performed by the "Tang Dynasty Song & Dance Troupe," a branch of the "Shaanxi Provincial Song & Dance Troupe." More including a video of the "thousand hands" dance.
Today's tour begins with a trip to a lacquer furniture factory where we learn the fine art of applying spectacular designs to furniture and then polishing them to a high gloss shine.
Our next stop is the top of the wall around the ancient city of Xian. They have recently completed the restoration of the wall. You can now walk or ride a bicycle around the city. Allen explains the multiple levels of protection provided by the wall and gates.
After lunch we visit the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda. It was built in 652 and was a major part of the importation of Buddhism from India to China. Allen takes us to an area at the base of the pagoda an instructs us on the lighting of a candle and, if we chose, saying a prayer.
This afternoon we board our bus and head out of town -- this evening we will be staying with two farm families. On the way we stop at a Chinese super market that is on the third floor of a multi-floor shopping center. It compares very favorably with a large US super market and is every bit as modern. The don't have "Two Buck Chuck" but they do have a liter of Grand Dragon for $1.65. Their wine selection goes from there to $150 dollars. We buy some wine, fruit juice and fruit and then get back on the bus.
We arrive at the village and are met by our hostesses. Four of us stay with one lady; the other six with another. We have a chance to visit one of the other homes where OAT trips stay. All of them were fairly new, very clean and have several TVs. We were told before we left the US that we needed converters to be able to plug in any small appliances. Every place we stayed had plugs that took the US two blades. Even the TVs in the farm houses have standard US plugs.
This is a working farm village. There are ears of corn drying in the street. We pitch in and help pull the shucks off. We put the corn back on the street to continue drying and put the shucks in a pile. We are told the shucks and are sold for fuel.
Our hostess let's us help fix dinner. Our experience in the hutong in Beijing comes in handy as we roll dough to make pasta. Dinner is very good. We never get around to opening the wine.
This evening the women from the village go to the school yard where there is a little bit of light and recorded music. They get together several times a week and dance. We join them and have a bit of exercise and a few chuckles. Several of the ladies in our group take it on themselves to teach Allen how to dance with two left feet.
The village is being built one house or two at a time and people are moving from the adjacent old village. The old village is still standing but only two families live there. We are told there are plans to move them to new houses and then replace the old village with tourist facilities. The old village homes are a sort of adobe with tile roofs and are all in a state of advance disrepair.
We start the day with a walking tour through the old village. Beyond it there is another new village with an elementary school that serves both of the new villages. The children are standing in the school yard doing stretching type exercises. The youngest children are free to run and most of them attach themselves to the us. They have a good time and so do we.
Throughout China we were surprised by the level of awareness about ecology. Here in the school there was some artwork and lettering -- or "charactering" given the nature of Chinese writing. Allen translates it as, "I love the earth the way a mouse loves rice." Awareness of the need to protect the environment is a good place to start.
This is an area of China where "farm paintings" evolved and art is a major interest for the students. We visit a classroom and watch what looks like large scraps of paper turn into respectable drawings. The school has a display of some of the students' work that would have looked at home in some galleries in the US.
On the way out of the school we stopped for a group picture with some of the teachers. Several little boys were being little boys. I grabbed one of them and held him up in the back row and
the photographer got the shot. A most unlikely addition to the group.
Walking back to the village we stop at the gallery/workshop of a local "farm painter" who has earned a number of awards: Wang Nai Liang. He gives us a demonstration of his art and the painting he uses for the demonstration is sold to one of our members before it is completed.
As we come back into the village there is a new noise. There is a tractor-like machine knocking the kernels off the corn cobs and making a racket doing it. We pick up our bags and say thank you for dinner, dancing, a good night's rest, the opportunity to meet our hostess and neighbors and to explore the surrounding villages.
Back on the bus to the airport at Xian then via Hainan Airlines to Chengdu.
Chengdu is one of the places where the sun seldom shines. Our local guide says they get 80 days of sunshine a year and today is not one of them. We are off the the Chengdu Panda Breeding and Research Center.
The pandas are mostly outdoor, mostly sitting or laying down, mostly chewing on bamboo sprouts, and there is something absolutely fascinating about them. We are separated from them by a short wall that drops straight down about 8 feet on the far side and then slopes back up to about our level. They totally ignore us and appear perfectly at home. Despite the overcast it is a photographer's delight. A limited number of visitors can have their picture taken with one of the pandas. Several of our group are lucky. They report that the fur is not as soft as it looks; not really cuddly. But still cute.
Along the way there is a movie about the pandas and the preserve. The preserve shows the Pandas movies that would be X-rated if the subjects were humans rather than pandas. Some of them just can't seem to figure it out on their own. The cubs are very small when born and are often taken away from their mothers because the mothers don't know what to with them.
This evening we have a "western dinner" at our hotel. It is nice to have another break from Chinese, but ... Any culture's cuisine is a mixture of home grown ingredients, experience among the kitchen staff that goes beyond what can be gained from a cookbook, and a set of shared expectations between the chef and the diners. That mixture is hard to create half way around the world. It is a different dinner, but not really "western."
We leave most of our luggage behind and travel with just our carry-on for the flight from Chengdu to Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. The airport is at 12,000 feet above sea level. The airport is about an hour away from the city. Along the way there are new tunnels and bridges and roads. There are also ancient relics and prayer flags draped across the landscape.
Our hotel is in the older part of town just a few short blocks from the Jokhang Temple which is both a religious hub and a center for shops serving both natives and tourists. Our hotel is charming -- this is Tibet. Our room is on the third floor and there is no elevator. Thank goodness we don't have much luggage and, more important, we don't have to carry it up to our room. This air -- what little there is of it -- is going to take some getting used to.
This morning we walk to the Jokhang Temple and our local guide provides some stories about both Lhasa and the temple. Outside we circle the temple and explore the shops and stands selling everything from dental service -- at least the pulling of teeth -- to pool halls, trinkets, fine jewelry, tourist t-shirts, clothing, and ... Most of the people are in their native costumes and many of them are twirling prayer wheels and they walk and shop. The high, dry air of Tibet and the unfiltered rays of the sun are hard on peoples skin but that creates some charming wrinkled faces that are full of character.
This afternoon we visit the Sera Temple, one of a very limited number of teaching monasteries left in Tibet. Debate is a significant part of their training and we have an opportunity to watch.
Today we are scheduled to visit the Potala Palace. It was the historic residence of the King of Tibet until 1642 when the Great Fifth Dalai Lama assumed temporal power over the whole of Tibet and the present form of Tibetan government known as Gaden Phodrang was established. Since then a succession of ten Dalai Lamas, and during their absence or minority lay or monk regents, have ruled Tibet and lived in the Potala. In 1959 His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama sought political asylum in India.
The increase in tourism that has come from a number of sources including the growing affluence of the Chinese and the new trains from the heartland of China to Lhasa are straining the local resources. We are told there are 3 to 6,000 tourists a day coming to Lhasa but the capacity of the Potala is only about 2,000 people per day. When we went to bed last night Allen wasn't sure what time we would be allowed to tour the Potala. Good news this morning, our time is 11 o'clock.
We have to be at the base of the steps leading up to the Potala at 11. We then have up to 30 minutes to climb the 400+ plus steps to the entrance. We have been here two days and the altitude is still very evident to us. Pity the folks who arrive late in the evening and great the new day with that climb. When our group is assembled, the clock starts again and we have an hour go see the Palace. That is adequate time time if you don't spend too long in any one place. Allen and our local guide let us stop when we want to see something special and urge us along in other areas. We arrive at the other end with a few minutes to spare.
A small part of the Potala is a residence. The rest is a cross between a religious shrine and a museum. History lives in places like this. There are statues and relics of ancient leaders. There are oil lamps -- the eastern equivalent of candles. There are buddhas and buddhas and more buddhas, big ones and small ones and more in between. There are manuscripts and a sense of learning and a feeling of power. Back outside, the view of the valley is spectacular. There are parks being built around the base of the Potala and in front there is the Tibetan equivalent of Tianamen Square. A large plaza that presents a great view of the Potala.
From the top floor of our hotel we got a picture of the Potala at night.
On every OAT trip there has been something that didn't sound the least bit interesting but turns out to be a highlight. This time it was a trip to an orphanage. A great story of some dedicated people making a difference and inspiring others. There's more about the orphanage and people who have been inspired in Coordinates. Pictures: Tibet Orphanage We take a brief tour through the countryside and stop along the way to look at some houses. There are some men unloading timbers from a truck and they wave a greeting. We walk up and Allen introduces us. They are preparing an addition to their home. Several of us pitch in and help them unload the truck.
Back to town from some last minute shopping including a brief stop at a bakery. Wonderful smell, interesting items and beautiful cakes. We buy some treats for breakfast tomorrow.
Today is a travel day. An hour to the airport, fly back to Chengdu to pick up our luggage, then a five hour bus ride to Chongqing.
There is a "ship's guide" who has a number of roles, one of which is to give lectures on the river, our trip on the river and the Three Gorges Dam. Another role is to periodically point out what we are seeing as we sail by.
Downstream the Three Gorges Dam is nearing completion. The water level behind the dam has already risen to 135 meters above sea level. During our second evening on the river, they will close some locks and the water will begin to rise to 157 meters. It will vary from 157 to 175 meters depending on the season from then on.
There have been massive efforts to move what could be moved ahead of the rising water. Villages have been relocated to high ground. More than a million people have to be relocated; about 800,000 have already been relocated. Resettlement costs will amount to 45% of the total project costs. Roads and shops and homes have been built. Cemeteries and farms have been moved. Treasures have been saved and some have been lost. Work is continuing as the water begins its next to last slow climb up the sides of the river valley.
Today most of the folks on the ship will go to see a temple. Our group has seen temples so we are going to visit a relocation village and a family who lives there. The family has a home on the side of the mountain. The street level is an open air general store. They live in the two floors above the shop. Two levels down there are concrete pig pens with 60 pigs. Allen serves as translator in a conversation with the woman of the house.
She says they received about 70,000 RMB (a little less than $10,000 USD) from the government, had 50,00 in savings and took a 20,000 loan to build this house. They paid off the loan in the first two years they were here. She told us they moved people up to the new village in three groups. First were the wealthy people who got first choice for home and business sites. Next came the middle group of people like her family. The poorest folks were given the farms that others left behind and a change to earn some extra money before they move and, equally important, the country did not lose those crops. Some of them have moved from the lowest areas and others will move in the near future.
Today we continue down river with a major side trip. We transfer from the Katrina to several smaller boats to venture up the Dragon Gate Gorge and then to smaller boats to continue on up the Wu Shan Mini Three Gorges.
Until very recently the ship would stop at the dam and passengers would take a bus tour of the site. They would then return to the ship, sail through the locks and sail downstream. There are two sets of locks, one for up-river traffic and the other for down-river. Each set has four of the planned five locks in operation. They have closed one set of locks to add the fifth or top lock. The other set of locks now must carry both up-stream and down-stream traffic. Traffic through the locks is now limited to through traffic -- river cruise ships cannot go through the locks until they are completed. Our cruise is being cut short and our bus ride will be a bit longer.
A bus takes us around the dam for views of the dam, the locks, the turbines and the spillways. We see construction and destruction where the housing for the workers are being torn down. We see new beginnings where the tourist facilities, including a gold course, are being built.
This is a 19 year project and is on schedule for completion in 2009. Dormitories where workers lived are being torn down and the area is being leveled for a golf course. The golf course is just one of many tourist facilities being built to accommodate visitors. Is a fleet of sightseeing buses, one of which takes us around the site. Security for the bus, the drive and passengers is fairly strict.
In 1990 there were 16 bridges across the Yangtze. By 2008 there will be 99. One of the old bridges we pass under would be just 10 meters above the future high water mark. It will be torn down to be replace by a higher bridge.
There is stone island up river near Fuling City that has low water mark inscriptions on it dating from as early as 763 A.D. There are more than 30,000 Chinese characters describing the low water levels for 1200 years. A building will be built around the island to protect it and provide access.
Like any great undertaking, the plans for the dam were met with claims it couldn't be done and it shouldn't be done. There were concerns for the people, the environment and the historic treasure that would be lost. The expressions of concern were met with plans and action that have met the challenge in many cases and failed in others. The relocation of massive numbers of people was one of the challenges that appears to have been a success.
Our tour of the dam comes to an end. We change from the tour bus for the dam to an over the road bus heading for Wuhan.
Some time ago I started taking pictures of unusual toilets. At a truck stop in Qian Jiang we find a men's room with some of the best artwork I have ever seen in a restroom. Art is in the eye of the beholder wherever that eye might be.
Wuhan is a city of convergences. There are ten lane city streets that anticipate future growth and are already crowded. There are four story European style buildings left from the late 1800's when foreign powers extracted mercantile concessions. Even our hotel has a converging set of names: Wuhan, Hong Kong and Macau Business Center Hotel.
We fly from Wuhan to
Hong Kong's new airport. Large, clean and boring. An OAT bus takes us to our hotel in town, officially known as: Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China
Our hotel is in Kowloon. Allen and our local guide take us for a walking tour of the area. Pat and I take the Star Ferry over to Hong Kong for some sightseeing, shopping and Starbucks. About the only difference between Starbucks USA and Starbucks Asia is they serve cream instead of half & half -- mmmm! This evening we take the group to Jimmy's Kitchen in
Tsim Sha Tsui Allen takes us on the Star Ferry to Hong Kong for a walking tour through narrow winding streets, vegetable markets and a ride on a section of the world's longest escalator. We take a sampan tour of what is left of the Aberdeen Floating Village -- almost everyone has moved on-shore. We end the day with a visit to a Aberdeen jewelry factory/show room. A wide range of beautiful jewelry including jade, a speciality of China.
Tonight Allen takes us to dinner and then to a Chinese night market. Booths with "stuff" of all sorts and prices. Mostly "locals" but a smattering of tourists among the shoppers.
Today turned into a "free day" as everyone wanted to kind of do their own thing. Pat and I had fond memories of earlier visits to Bird Cage Walk. We knew it had been moved and the concierge at our hotel gave us directions via the subway.
We got off one stop too early and found ourselves walking though the gold fish market. Several blocks of tropical fish, mostly in plastic bags of water ready to go. The fish market leads to flower market. Wholesale flowers, bouquets, orchids for several blocks. And finally, Bird Cage Walk.
Tonight the traditional farewell banquet.
Today there are a series of small groups going to the airport to catch flights to various points in the US. We fly Japan Airlines from Hong Kong to Tokyo and then to Los Angeles were -- thanks to the magic of the International Date Line, we arrive back in Los Angeles on the same day we left Hong Kong and about an hour earlier.
Throughout this trip we kept noticing how much almost everything had changed since our visit to China in 1990 and Tibet in 1992. On our first visit to China we bicycled southern China and toured northern China. On our trip to Tibet We started in Lhasa and traveled across the country with a stop at Everest base camp.
We are told that the "one child per couple" rule limited to the population to 1.3 billion people rather than the 2.4 billion that were forecast. That has helped the standard of living of most people but is having an impact on many aspects of Chinese life. The average age of the population is growing older. Chinese families, which have been at the heart of Chinese culture, are now small rather than very extended. Perhaps the most amazing thing is that the country has been successful in making a change of this magnitude.
The Three Gorges Dam is a nineteen year project and it is on schedule. They have used the dam to develop skills and learn from other countries that require sharing of technical knowledge. Everywhere we went they are building U.S. style freeways to move goods and people. They are building and developing skills that can be exported throughout Asia.
There was a headline in the paper while we were there -- I have not been able to find it on the Internet -- that said that more than 50 per cent of GNP is now produced by private, as opposed to government, industries. There is a great deal of capitalism in this nominally communist country.
The farm houses where we stayed were relatively large, well constructed, had indoor plumbing, televisions and small gardens. Only two families lived in the old style houses that were the only type we saw everywhere in 1990.
There are still challenges. Almost all agriculture is on small farms. We were told that many of them are run by women because the men have gone to near-by cities for other jobs. Consolidating the small farms into the larger farms that bring down the price of food will pose economic and cultural challenges. Electronic and payment systems infrastructures need to be greatly expanded to handle more commerce. There are lots of challenges but the Chinese have already moved way beyond what we would have forecast when we were here in the early '60s.
Much of our travel is to developing countries because they still have much of what made them unique. We almost never go back because most of what changes moves them away from their uniqueness and toward the homogenization that comes with globalization. China is becoming more like the rest of the world and from a tourists point of view that is sad. But, it is also exciting to see how the lives of their people are improving -- at least economically.
We saw a lot that was new and interesting and were impressed the both the quantity and quality of changes. We are glad we returned.
Day 1 - Beijing
We also walk around Tiananmen Square. On the side furthest from the Forbidden City there is what remains of the old city wall and the south gate. In the center of the square near the Forbidden City there is a flag pole that marks the spot where the Goddess of Democracy reigned for a few brief days in 1989.
Day 2 - Beijing con't
Back on the bus we head for the Great Wall. There is a recently renovated portion of the wall where masses of tourists go at Badaling. OAT has contributed funds to assist in the improvement of access to a section of the wall a few miles away at Shixia Pass. It was at this point that rebellious troops from the north broke through the wall and marched south to defeat the Ming Dynasty in 1644 and found the Qing Dynasty. Almost no one other than OAT goes there.
Day 3 - Beijing con't
Day 4 - Beijing con't
After lunch we continue our walking tour of the area including a visit to several quaint shops. One has an outstanding example of truth in advertising., An old man in the park gives us an opportunity to practice some calligraphy.
We are taking an overnight train from Beijing to Xian. Allen gives us a briefing about security. It is similar to airport security with x-rays for luggage and screening for us. The big difference is it's so mobbed that alarms are ignored by both passengers and officials. We are caught up as part of a fairly large mob and pushed through three security gates. We drop our bag on the X-ray and hope someone in our party grabs it on the other side while we are being pushed through the passenger gate. We all make it with our luggage. The mob spreads out as they head for multiple platforms and trains to all parts of China. If you allow enough time you could probably get from the entrance of the station to the platform for your train by yourself; but, you couldn't do it by yourself as fast as we did with Allen's help.
There is a washroom with three sinks and a large mirror at one end of our car. There is also hot water for tea. There is a western style toilet at that end and an eastern style toilet at the other end. Just to show how modern things are, there is a small basket on the inside of the door to the eastern toilet. There is picture that makes it clear that this basket is to hold your cell phone while you use the toilet.
There is a club car that serves food and drinks and there is a waiter who pushes a cart through the train several times with drinks for sale. Each car also has an attendant. The woman in our car offerers to serve tea in the morning and we accept.
Day 5 - Xian
Day 6 - Xian & Warriors
but they just don't do it justice.
Day 7 - Xian & Farm Village
Day 8 - Farm Villages
Day 9 - Chengdu & Pandas
Day 10 - Tibet
Day 11- Tibet con't
Day 12 - Tibet con't
Day 13 - Lhasa to the Yangtze
In Chongqing we board the Katrina. The ship is very nice and we are on the third floor; again, no elevator. We have a great view and a small patio (or whatever that is called on a ship.) This is our first ever "cruise." An evening, three nights and three days. We sail overnight.
Day 14 - Yangtze River
Day 15 - Yangtze River
Day 16 - Yangtze River and bus to Wuhan
This afternoon we will sail through the three gorges. After lunch and before arriving at the first gorge I managed to schedule a haircut in the ship's salon. On of the best I have had in some time.
Qutang Gorge is the first of the three, the narrowest and considered to be the most beautiful. Wuxia Gorge is the middle one and also known for its beauty. Xiling Gorge is the third, is the longest and historically the most dangerous of the three gorges with frightening whirlpools and strong rapids. The rising water is providing safer and smoother passage.
Day 17 - Wuhan to Hong Kong
Kowloon and walk to the waterfront to watch the evening laser shown on Hong Kong Island.
Day 18 - Hong Kong
Day 19 - Hong Kong
Day 19 - Hong Kong - USA
Act Two: The Pace of Change
Additional information on our trip: Coordinates
Adventure Travel for a list of our trips and links
Lyon, Popanz & Forester's home page
For comments or questions: email: Pat or
Hal
Page created September 29, 2006; revised January 6, 2007
