Travel report #15
China - Changsha, Zhangjiajie, Hangzhou, Shanghai and Nanjing
Wednesday March 14, 2001
Walking across the border and into mainland China was almost as walking from the US into Mexico. We could sort of sense that we came into something very different!
In HK almost all signs were in both English and Chineese. Not here - only Chineese as far as we could see. This city, Shenzhen is not much of a sight, so our plan was to get on the first train for Changsha.
Luckily for us, it is low season for tourists and a local guide (Xiang Fang) that spoke good English "forced" himself onto us and showed us the nearest ATM and fixed train tickets for us. He then wanted to guide us the 3 hours we had to wait, but we said no thanks...
We walked into town and visited a park/square were we relaxed. Lots of people staring at us! And saying "hello"! We bought pineapple from a lady in the park, whom a few minutes later ran off hiding (from the police we had to assume). She reappeared later with all her collueges...
Our first meal in China was at Pizza Hut(!?!) after seeing all the alive turtles, snakes, chickens and fish that were trapped outside the restaurants...
Boarded the train at 6pm, on a "hard-sleep" ticket meaning we had one beach each upstairs in an open compartment together with a Chineese woman with a baby and a 10-year old son. We had to keep our backpacks by our feet, not much room left. No place to sit except on a sort of bench in the walkway. Almost 12 hours on a train. And people smoking everywhere allthough it was not allowed. Luckily for us Chineese women cannot smoke (we later learned that a smoking woman is concidered as a prosititute...), so we had a smoke-free cabin.
Thursday March 15, 2001
Arriving in Changsha gave us a little shock. We belived that not knowing Chineese would be a small problem as many spoke English. But not so in Changsha. We came out of the train station around 7am and on to a square looking precicely as a Communist Country Square should be. The weather helped some as it was gray, misty, a bit of rain and cold.
Not a single english sign (as expected), but not a single Pinyin sign either, and that left us blind! We did not manage to find anyone that spoke English (except all those that said "Hello!").
Two gentlemen with nice suits tried to help us, but they spoke no English. We pointed in the guidebook and the phrasebook and eventually we found a hotel that was ok and could accept foreigners. The two men were smoking all the time, spitting here and there and followed us all the way almost into the room!!
Nice hotel, but a bit expencive. But after a night on a train with little sleep we enjoyed the luxury and had a long sleep in.
One of the gentlemen later returned with a lady that spoke some words in English, he wanted to sell us a guided tour...
We were hugry and took to the street, finding nothing but Chineese restaurants that were not very appealing. Ended up with bad tasting nudles, and ok Chineese cabbage...
As we walked along the streets we leared a lot. The two nicely dressed gentlemen were nothing special, they all dress like that here! Even the construction workers fixing the local park had a nice suit and matching shoes!!
We also learned that Chineese banks cannot be trusted, they might have a VISA sign, but that is no guarrantee. We walked for hours before we got cash from China Merchants Bank:-)
Wanted to visit a museum with some Mao stuff, but were told something at the entrance, and the woman pointed at a sign. We never learned what that ment other than it must have been closed for some reason...
In the main street we found KFC and McDonalds, when they are here they must be everywhere!
Internett has also arrived in this remote city, and it was cheap. But sitting together with smoking, spitting and noisy Chineese...
Chineese money are all notes. So far we had not seen a coin (later learned that they have so in bigger cities, but no bigger than Y1), they have notes valued 0.2 Yen (20 oere!)!!
Staying in a Chineese hotel is interessting. We never had a key to our room, a woman at each floor opens our door (had keys later in some hotels). In the bathroom we got a toothbrush each, a comb, and the standard shampoes and soaps and towels. And slippers! Every hotel is exactly like this!
Friday March 16, 2001
Changsha is a big city, more than 6 million people here. Mao is from a nearby village and studied to be a teacher and later worked as a teacher here. We got on a local bus (costs only Y1=1.1NOK) to visit the Number One Teacher School where Mao studied and worked.
We sat on his chair in the Class 8 classroom and visited his study room, reading room and dormitory.
As this is a university level school, we were approched by two nice girls that spoke English! Finally!! They studied English and were more than happy to guide us around. They showed us all the Mao sights and even the dormitories they live in now.
We visited the attached primary school were Mao worked and we were like pop stars, the kids were all over us saying "Hello" and "my name is ..."! Mao got married here, his father-in-law fas his tutor. Ofcourse a bit Mao statue by the running field.
We belived the day to be special as students were washing and cleaning everywhere, but we were told that it was very normal, they did this every day!
Saturday March 17, 2001
The hotel reception helped us with train tickets and we headed for Zhangjiajie. Nice train trip, got to see some of the Chineese landscape. Yellow and green farm fields, almost all houses the same cubic form.
About half way on the 5 hours trip we were approched by another tour guide that spoke no English. He found a woman that helped him, but all we could agree on was to follow him to his office were we should meet the guide that spoke English.
After a lot of waiting and mess in two different offices, we finally met "Nancy" (!), a young Chineese woman that were to guide us the following 3 days. It was expencive for us, but as we were a bit lost we were glad to have a English speaking companion.
Nancy, her English name (all Chineese that speak some English have chosen an English name!), helped us get a hotel room and order a proper Chineese meal. She chose fish, not our favorite, but the rest was very good. Finally good Chineese food, it helps with a bit of help :-)
Walked around the city on our own, here we were even more on display, people staring as we had just landed from Mars!
Sunday March 18, 2001
Nancy came to the hotel at 8am and we started towards the Zhangjiajie Nature Park, an UNESCO park area. Enourmous poster with President Jiang welcomed us, Nancy fought for tickets (funny, the Chineese do not know what queing is, they just fight their way to the counter!!) and we were into the park.
And what a sight!! We were met with high peaks, up to 300m high. The area had over 3000 of these!! We saw wild monkeys and walked on paved walkways for many kilometers, up to a top and later along a small river. FANTASTIC!!!
We had very nice wather and had an unforgettable day! The place was full of other tourists, but all Chineese, we still have to meet a non-Chineese person since leaving Hong Kong... Many of the Chineese found us a sight and wanted us in their photoes!
Stayed at a ok hotel inside the park. The village were the hotel was place was unbelievable, peaks everywhere around it!!
(Wild monkeys also live in this park)
Monday March 19, 2001
Another unforgettable day. We walked all day, in between and onto peaks. Had lunch (fantastic food everywhere now as Nancy ordered (and no fish)) at a place that reminded us of Grand Canyon. This was similar, a rim with a deep canyon, only this was filled with hundreds of 200-300m high peaks, close together, many thinner deep down than at the top!!
The Chineese are strange people, at the rim they had a KaraOK bar, facing into the canyon, and people singing the most ugly stuff! What a shame, we could hear it across to one of the peaks we visited :-( Also on the rim, a big statue of a famous General...
We visited the Heaven Terrace, a high peak in the middle of a "sea" of peaks. Unbelievable, we could not believe it was possible to have this sort of nature.
Two places we found monkeys tied up, some looking very agressive and hungry. Sad to see :-(
If you did not want to walk in this park, they had a cable car to one top, a train up a valley and small men with chairs to carry people!
Ended the day just outside the park in Suoziyu. Got a ride with a "car" that did hardly qualify to that name...
Tuesday March 20, 2001
Another nice day. We started by visiting the worlds biggest cave. Fantastic sight, included even a boat ride inside the cave. Saw hundreds of stalagmites and stalactites, one about 10m (?) high had used 200 millions years to grow! Many amazing rooms inside the cave, we spent 2 hours there!
(B got his shoes polished by a local woman after the walking in the mountains)
Later we drove and walked in a valley with more peaks, but we were no longer amazed for some reason... Ended the tour back in Zhangjiajie city.
Nancy invited us for supper at her home, a flat she shared with two friends. They invited many other friends and we were about 12 people. Nice to talk to Chineese youngsters, they are not much different from us when we learn to know them. They all seemed to be for a more democratic China but belived the road to it would be chaos and the current situation is ok, so...
Wednesday March 21, 2001
Almost 20 hours on a train. 6 person in each open compartment, all the men were smoking. No experience worth remembering...
Thursday March 22, 2001
We arrived in Hangzhou early in the afternoon and got a nice, cheap hotel. Had Hot Pot for lunch, Mongolian dish that is common in most of China. A big fondue with very hot oil where we cook raw vegetables and meat as we eat. Fun and good!
Walked along the nice West Lake in the middle of the city. Nice place. Met a nice gentleman (english-name Peter) that spoke very good English, that we chatted with and got useful information from.
For the first time since Hong Kong we met a person, a man, that could not go for beeing a Chineese!! :-)
Friday March 23, 2001
Visited the Silk Museum, interessting, got to see silk production, no easy task... A section in the museum was full of communist propaganda, interessting :-)
Hangzhou is famous for it's silk, tea and the West Lake.
Saturday March 24, 2001
Visited the Lingyin Si, Temple of the Soul's Retreat. It was a rainy day so we had to rush through, with hundreds of Chineese tourists... Most facinating was the sculptures of all the munks, life size with funny faces and setups, more than a hundred of them! Also a huge laughing Budda, nice. As with many places, the 'party' has written the introduction where they praise their own contribution to the preserving of this temple, but not a word about the big fight during the Cultural Revoution where they wanted to destroy the whole thing...
Sunday March 25, 2001
Bjarte's 30th Birthday! Spent the day walking around the West Lake. Nice day with fresh air but no rain. Had a nice dinner, Hot Pot, in the evening :-)
Monday March 26, 2001
Another relaxing day. Arrange for train tickets to Shanghai the day after, before we met our friend Peter by the lake again. We invited him to join us for dinner and let him make the orders. Tried a couple local dishes, a pork leg thing that had been cooked for 3 hours, extremly fat stuff; and also a cookie-like thing that was quite good.
Nice meal where we got the chance to learn a lot about China. Peter got Polio at the age of 4 and is using a special bike/wheelchair. He got a good education and a job, thanks to Mao. Today he still has the job, but he works only part time as they do not have facilites for him any more... He says he is fairly lucky, most people with disabilities are left on their own with no support. In many respects he miss the Mao period when everybody had a job...
Tuesday March 27, 2001
We took the train to Shanghai (3 hours) where we got installed in a nice hotel again. Visited the centre of town, saw the 'Bund', though not that much to see. Walked up the main street, as any western city street except the use of Chineese characters. Nice, flashy and steril.
Wednesday March 28, 2001
Another dissapointing day in Shanghai, we probably had to high expectations about this famous city. Saw the main square/park with big, nice and new buildings around it, visited the Bund again to see if we missed something or if it really was 'nothing'. It was nothing (only a row of European style houses, maybe weird to see this in China, but...). We took a tourist train thing under the river, a waste of money.
Found a SubWay restaurant. We, and a young Canadian man, were the only guests in sight, cannot be good business to serve sandwiches to the Chineese. But we finally got a good Sandwich again:-)
Frenchtown was our last stop. 'Get lost in the back streets of Frenchtown' our guide book said. We did not manage that, but it was probably a nice place to stroll around. We got cold weather and they seemed to do construction work on every single facade in the area. Probably wanted to make this a even nicer tourist attraction (and by that probably ruin it...!?!?!)
Thursday March 29, 2001
Went to see the Old Chineese City. An extremly touristy place. In the evening we had our highlight in Shanghai. We had tickets to an Acrobat show. Really good and facinating with juglers, flying people and clowns. 90 minutes, a great show, this is something the Chineese really can!
Friday March 30, 2001
Not the best day to take a train in China. We travelled for 5 hours to reach Nanjing, in a train packed with people. Arrived late in Nanjing.
(a Chinglish sign at the entrance of our hotel here in Nanjing)
Saturday March 31, 2001
Nanjing (= south capital, Beijing = north capital) was the capital of China for many years during the Ming dynasty. The city has the worlds longest city wall (33km) and many remains from the Ming period and other times.
We started the day in center of town with a bell tower and a drum tower, nice buildings but not that great.
Continued to the Nanjing Massacre monument/museum. At school we learn a lot about how bad the Germans treated the Jews (and other minorities), but not a word about what the Japanese did to the Chineese. Here we got to see a terrifying documentary of those happenings. Here in Nanjing alone the Japanese killed 300.000 Chinese, with torture, raping and the worse. The museum is built where one of the mass graves where and they had opened parts of it where we could see layer upon layer of skeletons. Very informative museum with lots of photoes (taken by the Japanese them selves). Terrifying. All the way they had English explainations and a lot of 'let us show this to the world and prevent that anything like this can happen again and let us have world peace and a strong united China'.
Visited the South Gate of the city wall. Facinating buildings, an enormous gate! The wall and gates are more than 600 years old!
Sunday April 1, 2001
Wanted to walk on the city wall, but the Lonely Planet guide was no help, we ended up on a overgrown part that was blocked a couple hundred meters down the path...
Visited the Sun Yatsen Mausoleum, an extremly big 'thing'. Sun Yatsen was the 'father' of the Chinese Republic, he founded it in 1911 as he ended the Dynasty rule. But his rule did not last long as a military dictator took power and many years of chaos followed. Then he came back to power in 1925 (approx) but died soon after. They build this enourmous mausoleum after his death in 1926-27. If only Sun Yatsen had not died that young, he might have been able to build a democratic China before the communists got too strong...
The Mausoleum was unbelievable. The entrance had a big gate, then several hundred meters of stairs, about 70m wide! On the top the actual tomb house, with a big statue of the man and behind that the couffin.
Monday April 2, 2001
Our last day in Nanjing we visited one of the proud monuments of the 'party', an enourmous bridge crossing the Yangzi river. Constructed in the 60s it is maybe a achievement, but it did not impress us that much...
We then entered the night train headed for Beijing!