The Karsts of South China

We took a one hour bus ride to Mopan Hill Wharf outside the city of Guilin for a 52-mile boat trip on the Li River to Yangshuo. The trip took us through the most surreal landscape I have ever seen, dominated by karst topography (check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karst for a full description of the features). It was a 4-hour trip that had us spell bound with wonder as we watched what seemed like as endless number of these strange looking peaks drifted by our boat.




From Left to Right - Donna, Merrilee, Debbie, Jim (our national tour guide), Joel, and Jeannie, relaxing on the boat trip on the Li River.



River "Pirates" drifted by us and occasionally hooked onto our boat and tried to sell tourist junk off their small crafts. It too was an amazing sight, if for no other reason than the skill it must take to grapple the boat, tie on and try to entice us to buy their wares, all while they stood barefoot on an unpowered bamboo raft no more than a few feet wide.





On our arrival in Yangshuo we checked into the Sovereign Hotel, a lovely 4-star hotel with absolutely enormous rooms. We were on our own for dinner, and we decided to take a "Tuk-Tuk" (their local open air cab) to the city center to eat at a vegetarian restaurant we noticed on the way to the hotel. Our local tour guide called the Tuk-Tuk for us (none of the hotel staff spoke enough English to communicate something this complex), but even there we had an amusing mis-understanding, as the driver thought we wanted a 1-1/2 hour tour of the area, while we only wanted to go about 1/3 mile to the restaurant. She insisted on 250 yuan for the four of us, but we said we would only pay 20 yuan. She took us about 3-blocks, demanded the 20 yuan and kicked us out of the Tuk-Tuk. Jim, our national tour guide was with us to make sure we ended up at the right place, and was as totally flummoxed as we were. As it turned out, it would have been very easy to walk there from the hotel, something we didn't realize at the time.

Dinner was exceptional, and including a bottle of wine from (Argentina as I recall) the bill came to a total of $35 for the four of us. We had to hurry back to the hotel as we were going to an early evening performance of "Lui Sa Jie" directed by Zhang Yimou, who also choreographed the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The show was as magnificent as the river trip on the Li, all performed on a lake with the Karsts forming a backdrop for the production.


These three pictures were taken just before the production began. While hard to believe, the Karsts in the background were stage lit for the performance, and the boaters on the lake formed a few of the cast that totaled over 600 with an additional 250 behind the scenes handling effects and sets.







The actual production was difficult to photograph, but here are a few samples of the lighting and production we saw, all reminicent of the type of mass synchronized movement and lighting of hundreds of actors in perfect harmony and unison.











I hope you can get the idea, but the actual performance was breathtaking. It's performed every day that the weather permits (and ticket sales warrant). The vast number of tourists in the area are Chinese, which is understandable as they are 1.5 billion strong and eager to travel. As their economy continues to grow, we are sure to see them in ever growing numbers as fellow travelers where ever we go.

Dragon Back Terraced Fields of Long Sheng

"The Best Laid Plans . . ." so they say. After arriving in Guilin from Hong Kong on May 29th, the Chinese government must have decided that I was a subversive as they blocked all access to my blog. (To be totally correct, they blocked all access to any website that even had a hint of the word "blog" in it). And while I had some limited success posting through my computer at my office in Bellingham, I discovered that even that avenue was blocked.

I was able to post a few pictures to my Flickr account, but by the time we reached Shanghai, I could not even access Flickr. I hope that it was just coincidence, as I would hate to think that I was responsible for further limitations on internet access in China.

But we are now home, and I can at least summarize the last week of our incredible journey. As we covered so much ground and the days were so jam packed from early morning until late evening, I will keep much of the commentary brief, but I do hope you will visit my Flickr site to see some of the 3,500 photos I brought back.



I'll start with the Dragon Back Terraced Fields of Longsheng County outside of Guilin (which by the way is pronounced "Gweelin" or "Gweeleen" depending on which native speaker we happen to ask). The mountains, about a two hour ride outside Guilin, are farmed by three differenct tribes, the Z'Huang who farm the lowest parts of the mountain, the Miao (pronounced as "Meow") who farm the middle reaches of the mountain, and the Yao, who farm the highest peaks. The practice of mountain farming dates to the days of the Mongolian raiders who periodically raged havoc on the farming communities, which then fled to the mountains. In order to farm they were forced to terrace the fields, most of which are irrigared from water flowing down the mountains to flood the rice fields. The terraces resemble dragon scales, as you can see from the following pictures.





Each tribe has there own distinctive costumes, although we only saw this in the women, the men wearing drab working clothes. In order to augment there income, many of the women offered to have there pictures taken with tourists for a small fee, usually 10 yuan, or about $1.50. One of the most enterprising was a group of women who had set up a tent at the peak and charged 40 yuan for a 5x7 photo that they took with their own digital camera, printed on a HP ink jet printer, and laminated in plastic, all within a time frame of less than 5-minutes. We didn't even see any electric wires in the immediate area.



The picture above is the eight of the twelve in our group that made it to the top. It was a grueling climb to the peak, even with the stone stairs set into the path, and four of our group elected to wait near the restaurant that we were to meet at for lunch just below the peak.

After eating, we walked back down to the shuttle bus that took us from the base of the mountain. It was about an hours climb up from the point that the shuttle was able to reach. Were we allowed, it would have taken 8-hours of climbing to reach to peak were it not for the shuttle from the base to the upper mountain parking lot.

When we reached the bus, we discovered quite a comotion as a group of Japanese tourists arrived with their luggage. They were planning on staying at the mountain top hotel and the only way to get their bags to the hotel was via baskets worn on the backs of women porters. The women were arguing over who would be in queue to carry some luggage, and the Japanese had huge suitcases. I don't know what they were thinking, but I can't even imagine traveling with bags that big domestically, let alone to China.



If that wrap on her head looks like a towel to you, you're right. They've been using towels as head scarves for as long as anyone remembers to keep the sweat from running into their eyes when working in the fields or as porters.

Our day concluded with a stop at the pearl factory, a government run outlet for the cultured and sea water pearls the area is famous for, followed by a visit to Elephant Trunk Park, which features a few rock formations that are supposed to resemble elephants. It seems that the Chinese consider this site as among the country's top three national sites, behind the Great Wall but ahead of the Terra Cotta Warriers. I wouldn'g even place it on the list (although it was a lovely park), but I'll let you judge. Here is a picture of the the most significant of the rock formations. Do you see the elephant?



The park was delightful to visit though, and we all enjoyed the views, including the costumed women who walked in the park to have their pictures taken.







The evening ended with dinner at Long Zhe Tea House, which presented us with a bowl of soup in a turine filled in Ying/Yang pattern of cream and green colors. I know I have a pictureo f the soup, but I just can't locate it at the moment.

Another thing Guilin is famous for is their massage houses. Several in our group ended the day with a foot massage, but Donna and I decided we had had a full day and were ready for sleep.

Rather than post the entire last week in a single entry, I'll continue with a few more postings for the last few days of the trip, covering a river boat trip on the Li River and an amazing outdoor show produced and directed by Zhang Yimou (the man who produced and directed the opening ceremony at the Beijing Olympics, and "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon"), our visit to Suzhou (the Venice of the East), the water village of Tongli, and finally Shanghai (which includes a visit to the old Jewish quarters, synagogue, and Jewish Museum).

Arrived in Guilin

We flew from Hong Kong to Guilin, about 500km away, and 1-hr. by air. The flight was crowded, but we once again got an exit row seat and the flight was very short. A temperature camera showed one of the girls in our group with an elevated temperature and we were delayed at immigration while they rechecked her temperature. Had it proved to be higher than they allowed (whatever that might be) we could have all been quarantined. Fortunately, another measurement was made and it proved okay, so were allowed to enter.

the landscape is unbelievable -- it is the largest concentration of limestone hill formations that look like huge burial mounds from the air, but are caused naturally by the effects of errosion. We're going to climb one of them tomorrow. The weather has improved and we should see sunny skies and temperatures in the mid-80's. We leave at 7:30am for the 2-1/2 ride to the climb.

We had a group meal at the hotel, one of the best we've had in banquet style. The dishes were all fairly hot anbd spicy, but enjoyable, especially with beer. It's now Friday night at 9:30pm and we're getting ready to call it a night. I'll post smoe pictures from tomorrow's trip as soon as I can.

On to Guillin

We trully enjoyed our only full day in Hong Kong yesterday. As it continued to rain, we decided to eat at the hotel's chinese restaurant, and it was quite good. Had a crispy chicken similar to the one we had our first day in HK, but this one was cooked in rock salt. It was very moist and tender. A bit more difficult to eat as they simply cut a half bird in sections leaving all the bones on. We also had a seafood sweet & sour soup, curried vegetables (which was the only dish we could have done without), a stir fried noodle dish plated and served tableside, also very good, and a real surprise -- a scallop and other seafood beautifully wrapped inside a Japanese eggplant and baked. It was a speciality of the restaurant, and we were told it was in the Shanghai tradition of cooking. for dessert we had a hot tofu which we were surprised to discover was tofu pudding exzactly like we buy in Seattle, but without the ginger sauce they serve in Vietnamese restaurants. Instead they serve it with brown sugar. Very tasty. We also shared a bean paste and coconut pudding that was firmed like a gelatin. Karen and Donna didn't care for it, but Merrilee and I liked it.

After dinner we enjoyed a glass of Taylor 10-year old port in the lobby bar while listening to a piano and singer doing western songs together. Not too bad. the bar was pusinging their dessert buffet and would not sell a single dessert to us, so I returned to our room to bring down some chocolate we had there. It went well with the port.

Today we have to leave our luggage outside the door for pickup at noon, and we leave by bus for the airport. As has been the case in every city we've visited, China Spree provides a full sized bus for the twelve of us, giving us a lot of room to relax and enjoy the ride. We arrive in Guillin tonight and have a full day there tomorrow, leaving the following night. As we still have several hours before we leave, we're going to visit the flower market and bird park again. If it's not raining too hard (it is raining lightly at the moment) we'll also take a walk to the jade market, about a 30-minute walk away.

I'll try to post again from Guillin. Also, ignore the posting date and time. It is actually 8:55AM on 5/29. My computer is still on Seattle time.

Arrived in Hong Kong - Internet Access Again

Panda in Chong Qing at feeding time.

Arrived in Hong Kong on Tuesday night from Chong Qing, the end point of our Yangtze River trip. We had no internet access while on the Yangtze River, but now that we're in Hong Kong, we have both internet access, and I can access my blog site (which was blocked on the mainland).


Our tour group at Victoria Peak.

We went to Victoria Peak on Wednesday and had incredible luck as the rain, wich had been severe, stopped and the views were stunning.


View from Victoria Peak.


Flower Market directly across the street from our hotel in Hong Kong.

I lost the charger to my computer, and but was able to buy a universal charger in at the computer Center in Mong Kok (a neighborhood near our hotel, and famous for its specialty streets) so I can use the computer once again. It rained torentially on the way back from our half-day site-seeing, and continued to rain throughout the rest of the day. We were fortunate that the rained held off when we visited Stanley Market, Repulse Bay, and Aberdine for a junk boat ride on the harbor. We went to the harbor last evening on the hotel shuttle which lets you off at the Penninsula Hotel, the most upscale in Hong Kong. We made our way to the bar on the 28th floor at Felix's, their high-end restaurant. We passed on eating there (the fixed price dinner ran $1,500 HK (about $200 US) per person) but sat at the bar and watched the light show accross the harbor on Hong Kong Island. It rained during the show, but even without the rain the show would be so-so. Not at all what we expected -- just a lot colored of lights on the buildings that flashed on and off in changing patterns.

Our hotel is spectacular, just a few blocks from a massive shopping area, each street with its own specialty, i.e., electronics street, women's wear street, sporting wear street, etc. Crowds are unreal, the weather in the 80's, humidity in the 90's, and traffic like I've never seen.

The Yangtze River trip was interesting, but it would have been better to cut a day out of the trip and added it to Hong Kong. We had three excursions off the ship, including one at the three gorges Dam, another on a tributary of the yangtze where we were rowed up the river on small native canoe like boats with 12 passengers and 7-oars men. the boaters are known as Trackers, and before the advent of the dam, they would pull boats accross the mud flats during the dry season naked. Since the dam, thee are no longer mud flats (the river went from an average depth of 10 meters to 60 meters), so they now row tourists up and down the river to earn some extra money. the views were spectacular, and it was one of the more pleasant excursions I've been on.

The last excursion was to the ghost city of Feng Du, which we really could have skipped altogether. It rained most of the day, and the city is more carnival like than of historical interest. The people were relocated well before the advent of the dam due to seasonal flooding, and there was a lot of superstition associated with the temples which have a lot of demon characters carved and maintained there. We left the tour early to get back to the ship.

Upon arrival in Chong Qin we immediately went to the zoo to see the Panda's. We were told that if we arrived early, we would likely see them at eating time when they are active. We really lucked out as they were just being fed and were incredibly active. We actually saw one of the younger ones climb a tree, which our guide said she had seen them do only once before. I have a lot of great photos to share from that visit. After lunch at an excellent restaurant in a large apartment complex, we went to the airport for our flight to Hong Kong.

Today was our only full day on our own in Hong Kong before we return to the Mainland. Flights between HK and the Mailland are international and we have to pass thru immigration, as do all Chinese. We took the Star Ferry to Hong Kong Island and back, just wandering through the shops near Hollywood, the antique area. We ate at a wonderful French Brasserie, Le Fauchon in that neighborhood.

When we returned to Kowloon on the Ferry, we spent about an hour andering around the Arts and Crafts Center near the Ferry Terminal. The offerings were exquisite, and expensive. It was fun to look, but we bought nothing.

It started to rain again, so we cabbed back to our hotel (The Royal Plaza) about 15 minutes away without traffic. We learned that today is a national holiday, so traffic has been mercifully light. We haven't decided what we'll do tonight for dinner, but if the rain keeps up, we may just eat in the hotel. Tomorrow we leave for the airport at 1pm, but there are some interesting markets accross the street to visit -- the flower market and bird park/market. Men actually take their caged birds to the park, hang them on branches of trees, and spend tme talking with one another.

I'll try to post more when we return to the mainland, but access to the internet (and especially this blog) is difficult.

Catching Up - Arrived in Xian

Posting to the blog is getting more difficult as I can only update through remote access to my office computer. We met the rest of the group, eight others and our national tour guide (Jim) and local tour guide for Beijing (Robert). I can't say enough good things about Jim. He watches over us like a mother hen, as if his whole existence depended on our pleasure. Our visit to Beijing was brisk, with little(no, no) downtime. Starting at Tianamin Square, on to the forbidden City and Imperial Palace, lunch in a local house in a "Houtang" or old neighborhood where locals all share common bathrooms and wash houses, a visit to the Olympic Site to see the Birds Nest, and Water Cube, and finishing the day with an unexpected performance of the Art of Kung Fu. It was a full day and we were all exhausted. I really felt sorry for the rest of the group that jsut arrived the nite before.

We were at it again with breakfast at 6:30am the next day for our ride to the Great Wall. Donna and I climbed the steeper side up to the first watch tower. the others in our group continued the climb to the very end, another two watch towers up a very steep incline. Donna and I went back and discovered the Great Wall Museum that was both interesting and enjoyable. the museum is fairly new and our tour guide was not even aware of its existence.

After lunch we were held captive for a tour of a local jade factory. Prices were exhorbitant for mass produced articles, none of whcih was appealing. And considering that a pair of earrings cost upwards of $2,000 US, the decision to pass on purchases was an easy one.

In the afternoon we visited the Summer Palace, taking a Dragon Boat ride across the man-made lake to the Imperial Buildings. We spent 90-minutes there but would have been just as happy (happier) with a 30-minute tour. It's all beginning to look alike.

We had our special Peking Duck dinner in an okay restaurant. Peking Duck restaurants are everywhere, and the one selected by China Spree was adequate, but not great. Our group is great and everyone we have all become very friendly. Other than two sisters (each pharmacists), who are young, the rest are couples near our own age.

Today we checked out of the hotel, said goodby to our luggage, and went to visit the Temple of the Good Harvest, a magnificent pagoda style building, enormous in scale, built in 1530 during the Ming Dynasty by the Emperor twice each year to pray for a good harvest. In the park outside the Temple there are hundreds of locals practicing various forms of excercise including structured movements while balancing and throwing a ball caught and held on a paddle. I have dozens of great photos that I will try to download to Flicker, os please check out my flicker site with a link shown in an earlier posting.

Today we flew to Xian and visited the nite markket in the Muslim area inside the City Walls. An incredible electric lite setting of vendors peddling everything imaginable in an outside market so crowded with onlookers that it was difficult to walk through. We bought a few electric lite spinning tops for our grandchildren, bargining down from an asking price of 20 yuan to 15. As we left the market we found other vendors selling the tops for 10. And that was their asking price, which could have probably been bargained down even further. But what the hell, we're talking about the difference of about $1. But half the fun is in the bargaining. We're such easy marks that there is no way we'll ever beat the vendors to the price a local would pay.

Our hotel is new, spacious and extremely nice. Each room has a separate sitting room with included internet access (although I still cna't get to my blog without going through the remote link thru my office. It's now after 11pm and we have another early day tomorrow. I'll try to post agina tomorrow and upload some of the pictures to Flicker. Goodnite.

Arrived safely - But Blog Site is Blocked from China

This will be a challenge. My blogsite - the one you are looking at - is blocked from China. I'm using Log Me In remote software to post this blog entry. The trip was not too bad. Both flights, to Narita and to Beijing, had the new cacoon pod seats that make into beds with your head surrounded in a had shelled cacoon. We did manage to get a few hours sleep, and finally arrived in Beijing at 10:30pm. Both flights had quarantine police that had to clear the flights before we were allowed to deplane, about 45-minutes in Narita and 15 in Beijing. Our driver met us at customs in Beijing and drove us in a small van to our Hotel, the Joy City Hotel adjacent to the Joy City Shopping Mall. Our location is excellent, about a 30-minute walk to Tianamin Square, the forbidden City, and Imperial Palace.

Yesterday we walked to Wangfujing Dajai, a delightful, crowded street market with endless shops in narrow alleys. The street food vendors, seemingly endless in number, served up some of the most bizzare fast foods on a stick I've ever seen. Live scorpions (I assumed they would be grilled before serving), star fish, locusts, grub like things, and dozens of people eating them like lolipops.

Today, Sunday, we strolled around Liulichang, an old and traditional shopping district, with hundreds, if not thousands, of small shops. Many of the vendors simply lay out theirofferings on blankets on the pavement in alleys and crowds of locals buy their produce snd nick-nacks from them. we then went to the Beijing Zoo. The sun was really out, not much smog, and it was hot. After seeing the giant Pandas, and walking past the tigers and lions, we decided to call it quits.

Tomorrow, our tour begins and we meet our tour guide and the other eight travelers in our group at 8:30am. It will be interesting, as our days have been starting after 10:00am, so now we need to hop to.

I'll try to post pictures to the blog, but the best way to see what I've been able to upload is to visit my Flicker site per the link I've provided on an earlier blog.

And They're Off !!!

Finally finished packing at 8:00am this morning. It's now about 8:30am, and we pick up Karen at 9:00am. Merrilee called and said she's safely secured at the Harbor Steps and we'll meet her at about 11:00am for a limo ride to the airport. We depart Seattle at 2:10pm for Narita, Japan and then on to Beijing arriving Friday night at 10:30pm. Hope to post another entry when we arrive at our hotel in Beijing, the Joy City Hotel. It's located about 1-1/2 blocks from Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City and the Imperial Palace. Lots of Kodak moments.

We Leave Tomorrow

Donna and I finally finished packing last night. While international weight restrictions and the number of bags you can take are really generous, once in China we're restricted by Chinese airline regulations for domestic flights within China to a maximum of one checked bag not to exceed 44-pounds, and one carry-on not to exceed (get this) 11-pounds. My camera and computer weigh nearly 6-pounds together, my daypack carry-on is 2-pounds. I'll have to figure out how to lighten the load by putting as much as possible in the checked luggage which now weighs in at 35-pounds.

This is by far the best we've ever packed for a trip. I know we'll be happy we did once we start to tour. The schedule is rigorous, although we do have a few days to recouperate from the flight to Beijing before we join the tour. The last we heard there were a total of twelve including the four of us, Donna, friends Karen Sloss and Merrilee Kullman, and myself. I'll get a group shot when we meet up on the 18th.



With the weather in the 80's in Beijing, its nice to recall just what it is we're leaving. This photo was taken from our deck just a few months ago.



And this gives you an idea of just how much snow we received. When we moved to Bellingham, we were told that is rarely snowed, and when it did, the snow melted within a day. Believe me, this was not a day melt snow. The snow is sitting on our patio table, which was fortunately covered.

If you care to see more, follow the link to my Flicker Page. Ciao for now.

Just 2-Days to Go

With just two days to go (and I still haven't begun to pack) I'm just setting up a new Blog. I tried one on our trip to Argentina but wasn't able to make it work. My friend, David Cohn, has helped me get started, and I'll do my best to post daily with pictures from the day's events. the pics above were taken a few weeks ago when we had our brief spring. The views are of our new water feature in the rock garden in the front, and the back of the house from the street below, through the apple blossoms. More to come (hopefully). If you want to see more pictures like these, go to my Flicker Page.