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BACK TO CHINA July 30 – August 21, 2005 As our three weeks spent in
China in 2004 were nowhere near enough to cover even a fraction
of the country, Sabine and I decided to return for another three
weeks to continue where we left off.
This was to be a whirlwind trip.
I took a total of nine flights, of which five domestic, and
we covered six provinces and municipalities (Shanghai, Yunnan, Sichuan,
Chongqing, Hubei and Zhejiang) in the short space of three weeks. Saturday, July 30
Like last year, I took the 09.45
Air France flight to Frankfurt (330 Euros return) to meet Sabine. We had an Air China flight booked departing
that evening at 19.00 for Shanghai (850 Euros return). As Sabine was completely disorganised last
year, she’d taken Friday off this time to get herself organised. There was some hope yet! I was greeted by the Sabine limo pick-up service,
who cheerfully announced that, contrary to last year, she was packed. However, there remained a few things to do:
she would have to pop by the office (it was Saturday!), do some
shoe shopping and possibly cook nectarine, cherry and redcurrant
jam within the next six hours because she had a load of fresh fruit
at home! So much for getting organised on Friday… Fortunately, the jam cooking
idea was later dropped, as we preferred to get to the airport early
and drink champagne in the Lufthansa business lounge!
We brought the cherries along to eat though. The Air China flight took off
on time. The one criticism we had this time was that there seemed
to be a problem with the onboard oven.
The food was not hot. Sunday, July 31 The plane arrived on time at
11.25 at Shanghai’s Pudong airport, 40 km from the centre. We took a taxi (150 Yuan = 15 Euros) to the
four star Novotel Atlantis, 728 Pudong Avenue, tel. +86 21 50366666
which I had booked in advance for one night at my company’s preferential
rate of 600 Yuan (60 Euros). We
had a room on the 31st floor overlooking Pudong.
We wandered the Pudong area that evening.
The humidity was too much and we dived into the Golden Anchor
restaurant, 186 Hua Yuan Shi Qiao Road, tel. +86 21 58872899 for
Shanghai roasted duck for 71 Yuan (7 Euros) and air conditioning
(everything is air conditioned in China – thank god!), followed
by cocktails in the Novotel’s bar. Monday, August 1 We had an 11.45 Shanghai – Kunming
(in the Yunnan province in southwest China) flight with Air China,
which I’d booked in Paris (200 Euros) and the duration of which
was three hours. We landed in Kunming (which seemed to be a rather
fast landing) and had collected our bags and were in a taxi and
at the hotel all within 30 minutes! I’d pre-booked by e-mail the
Camellia Hotel,
96 E. Dongfeng Road for one night. We had a standard room in the
old quarters. It had the backpackers’ look about it. And the décor
hadn’t been done in a while. But
still, we couldn’t complain at 120 Yuan (12 Euros) a night. Kunming
(3.5 million inhabitants) is like any other major town in China.
Yunnan
province, which touches the borders of Myanmar and Tibet
on the western side of the country, is at altitude, which means
the climate is different. It tended to be around 20-25°C while we were there and it rains
quite a bit in this region. A
third of China’s ethnic minorities live here too. That evening we ate at Mama
Fu’s restaurant, near the Camillia Hotel, for 53 Yuan (5.3 Euros).
It’s renowned for its apple pie, which I can confirm is very good. We expected a quiet night in
our hotel room that night. Not quite. I got up to go to the bathroom,
switched on the light and was confronted with a “giant thing” sitting
on the bathroom floor, which greatly resembled, although I’m not
sure, a cockroach. It was huge. I switched off the light and went
back saying “Err, Sabine…..”. This sent Sabine into a panic, screeching,
“I knew this was a cockroach hotel, it has that cockroach look about
it, I’m going to call the manager!” with one hand on the phone.
It was then decided that I was to be assigned the job of
going back and hunting it down. Wearing my sexy little negligee and donning
my socks and trekking shoes, I cautiously returned to the bathroom. The “thing” had disappeared without a trace…
thank god! I promptly covered the drain hole in the bathroom floor
with the flask of hot water (something that is often left for guests
in hotel rooms so that you can make yourself some tea) just in case
it had come from there and left the bathroom light on all night.
This is the greatest deterrent ever, as cockroaches don’t like the
light. Tuesday, August 2 We’d booked through the Camellia
Hotel a bus trip (70 Yuan = 7 Euros) leaving at 08.00 for Shilin Stone Forest,
120 km southeast of Kunming, which is one of the main attractions
in the area. The entrance fee is in addition (80 Yuan = 8 Euros). Although it’s very touristy, it’s well worth
seeing. 200 million years
ago, the area used to be a sea.
Now it is a mass of grey limestone pinnacle rocks. We met a Dutch couple who were travelling on our bus. They were travelling throughout Asia Pacific for a year and had already experienced over a week on the trans Siberian train (where incidentally there are no washing facilities onboard). Their trip, not to mention other trips of backpackers we encountered along the way, put our three-week holiday to shame… We discovered that evening that
the Camellia Hotel provides “breast strengthening and hair peeling
treatments”. We didn’t try
them as we figured we didn’t need them… And the hairdresser in the
vicinity offers a “wash, shear and blow.” Kunming is also the place to
find the cheapest bottled water in the whole of China: 1 Yuan (0.10
Euros). Wednesday, August 3 We took a taxi to the outskirts
of Kunming to have a wander around the bamboo temple (entrance fee:
6 Yuan / 0.60 Euros). It
was around 11.00 and we noticed all the monks were eating around
the courtyard. Wherever you go, the Chinese are always eating
at any time. The taxi driver waited for us
and we returned to the hotel to pick up our bags with a view to
going over to the bus station.
We got an express bus ticket Kunming – Dali for 90 Yuan (9
Euros) by showing the Chinese characters for Dali.
We were surprised that the ticket girl spoke English! A bus
was leaving shortly. Apparently, the road and bus systems in Yunnan have greatly improved
in recent years, as an expressway has been built and air-conditioned
coaches have been introduced. What
used to take around twelve hours now takes four hours. And you get
given a bottle of water. However no onboard film was shown this
time. The advantage of taking a bus
is that you get to see the fabulous scenery along the way. It’s very lush and is not short of a few rice
paddies. The expressways
can be compared to our motorways, with the great advantage being
that there is very little traffic on them.
You spot more people walking along them or even risking their
lives and crossing them! And as with all roads in China, every driver
honks to let you know that he’s passing. We stopped off at a service
station for a break and went to the toilet.
Forget that! Without
going into graphic detail, the only thing that remained clean was
the ceiling. We immediately did a U-turn and went out leaving
a Canadian woman to take her chances. “When you’ve got to go, you’ve
got to go”, she said. That’s
the one thing about China, you have to strategically plan, especially
where women are concerned, when and where to go to the toilet next!
Although big improvements are being made on the toilet situation
in touristy places and you can always pop into a fancy hotel to
use its toilet, there aren’t many of these along an expressway. Some time later, the bus driver
pulled off the road and came to a halt in a shelter. We weren’t
sure what was going on until we realised a driver changeover was
being made. In the shelter, we’d parked over a concrete
trench covered in a red carpet, with steps going down in front of
the bus. We weren’t sure what that was in aid of.
Still stationary, the first driver kept turning his steering
wheel left and right as if he was testing it. The driver then got
out his toolbox, got off the bus and with the second driver, they
went down the steps under the bus.
The next thing we hear is hammering coming from under the
bus! Bloody hell, they were doing a quick repair job! They got back
in, put the toolbox away and the second driver set off, with a steering
wheel that worked we hoped! One thing that European bus
drivers don’t do is come off at an exit in the middle of nowhere,
go through the tollgate, drop someone off and go back on the expressway.
That’s what our driver did. We finally arrive at
Dali
(480,000 inhabitants). It is important to note that there are two
Dalis: a new Dali and an old Dali where the tourists go and which
is quite a way up the road (don’t ask why!)
All buses drop you off in the centre of new Dali, so you
then have to get another bus or a taxi to go to old Dali. We were lazy and took a taxi
(without a meter). Old Dali
is very quaint with pedestrian streets.
The taxi driver suddenly pulled over and turned the engine
off. After a lot of jabbering in Chinese, we figured he was going
to walk us to the hotel that we’d chosen in the Lonely Planet.
After a five-minute walk, we arrived at the hotel and the
driver asked us for 100 Yuan (10 Euros)!
We were ripped off but we paid. The taxi trip cost more than
the four-hour bus ride! We picked the two star Jinhua
Hotel, Fuxin Road, tel. +86 872 2673343/4/5 right in the centre
of the town. We were able to have a luxurious
standard room for 260 Yuan (26 Euros) instead of 360
Yuan (36 Euros). And very nice it was too. We popped round the corner to eat at the Tibetan Café (83 Huguo Road) where we sampled Tibetan lamb, chicken hotpot, traditional Tibetan yak butter tea and freshly squeezed fruit juice. The yak butter tea was OK but we weren’t any more enamoured than that. I’ll stick to my English cuppa with normal milk any day. China however can make up some very nice freshly squeezed fruit juices. You can have any fruit you like: mango, watermelon, pineapple, banana, apple… and in this region for only 5 Yuan (0.50 Euros). It beats the standard orange and lemon juice you get in Paris. Thursday, August 4 There was a woman in the travel
agent’s just next to our hotel who spoke English. We decided to get a job lot of bookings done: Three hour Dali – Lijiang bus
(50 Yuan = 5 Euros) Air China flights: Lijiang – Chengdu (970 Yuan
= 97 Euros) Chengdu – Jiuzhaigou – Chengdu
(1580 Yuan = 158 Euros) There was a lot of telephoning
going on with her contact and we managed to get the dates we wanted.
She explained to us that flights are more readily available
and cheaper in June and September. Like in all Chinese travel agents out in the
boonies, they only accept cash as payment.
We had none left except for US Dollars.
We gave the woman a 100 Dollar bill as a deposit and she
told us to come back that evening after 20.00 to collect the tickets.
We nipped over to the Bank of
China to change our traveller’s cheques – we find it’s convenient
to travel around with a mixture of US Dollar traveller cheques and
cash and have had no problems in changing them.
We were also pleasantly surprised that we could withdraw
money from the cash machine at the Bank of China in Dali. According
to reports, international cards don’t always work everywhere in
China, even if the Visa or Mastercard symbols, for example, are
displayed. We had a wander around the town
the market and watched a few old men play mahjong.
There were Chinese tourists everywhere and only a handful of foreigners. It’s a very popular place with the Chinese.
You can also pick up a few bargains such as pashmina/silk
scarves and bags. That evening we ate in a vegetarian
Tibetan restaurant (opposite the Tibetan Café) that had been recommended
by a French girl the night before.
This was very good too. Friday, August 5 Today, we had to catch a 08.30
bus to Lijiang (300,000
inhabitants). The journey was to take three hours. There was very
nice scenery along the way such as mountains, rice paddies and lush
greenery. The bus station is situated
outside the old part of Lijiang town. A female taxi driver took
us to the outskirts of the old town for 7 Yuan (0.70 Euros) as the
inside of the town is pedestrian streets only.
We weren’t going to be spending the night in Lijiang as we
had a Lijiang – Chengdu flight booked that very evening. We just
wanted to leave our backpacks with a hotel for the day. The female taxi driver walked
along with us to any hotel. We spent 10 minutes trying to explain
to two young girls in the first hotel we crossed what we wanted
to do. To no avail. They, as well as the taxi driver, had no clue
as to what we going on about, so we gave up and moved on to the
next hotel, Mu Mansion, where we finally managed to get some sense
out of someone who spoke a few words of English. Not only that,
we were able to leave our bags at no charge. We had a quick lunch in the
hotel which consisted of a Lijiang savoury pancake and snow mountain
rice – Lijiang is overlooked by a giant mountain which is sometimes
snow capped. The dish consisted of a mound of rice with
a fried egg on the top. Not
bad. There were hordes of Chinese
tourists wandering around the town. It was also raining, so you
spent most of the time trying to dodge the umbrellas.
We also spent a while trying to figure out the hand drawn
map of the town – although there were street names indicated on
the map, there were no names mentioned in the streets.
I later read the comments of a foreign tourist about this
self same map. He was of the opinion that it had been drawn by someone
who’d downed a few glasses of Tsingtao beer. We also tried local Naxi food.
One dish consisted of egg
with “flower herb”. We weren’t sure what it was. Lijiang suffered serious damage
following an earthquake in 1996. There is quite a bit of new hotel
construction going on in the outskirts of the town. Early evening, we returned to
Mu Mansion Hotel to collect our bags and order a taxi to take us
to the airport. We had a flight departing at 22.40.
Our female taxi driver had left us a business card, so the
hotel called her. Whilst
waiting, I popped to the toilet, which was the usual hole in the
floor. Except that while
squatting, I accidentally dropped our precious toilet roll in the
toilet, managed to quickly recuperate it intact, removed a few wet
sheets thinking that Sabine wouldn’t mind (you can’t be too picky
when you’re backpacking!), I then came out of the toilet and skidded
on the wet tiles. A father and his two children were laughing because
I was carrying a toilet roll! Fortunately
for Sabine, she’d been to the toilet before me… The taxi driver eventually arrived
and walked us to her car. Her
husband was at the wheel. We
all found ourselves conducting Chinese and English lessons on the
way to the airport, which incidentally is about 25km outside of
town out the boonies. The taxi ride cost 80 Yuan (8 Euros). We arrived at the posh new looking
airport, probably in the middle of the rice paddies (we couldn’t
tell because it was dark). We checked in and went to the waiting
room. This was the most happening waiting room we’ve
seen out in the boonies, and so late at night. There were people and children everywhere. Three large TVs were on full blast. The children
were glued to some kind of Chinese Pop Idol programme. Despite the
bedlam, the souvenir sellers were asleep slouched over tables. Our 22.40 flight arrived late
at 23.15. A new A319. The turnover was very fast: Passengers disembarked in 5
minutes. Everyone then boarded and we
took off in 10 minutes. Once arrived in Chengdu (9 million
inhabitants) sometime after midnight, we were disembarked within
3 minutes and had collected our baggage in 5 minutes. We needed to find a hotel, as
we hadn’t booked one. A
hotel booking service at the airport was about to close.
We were their last clients.
They recommended one hotel at a rate of 260 Yuan, the Yuzheng
Business Hotel, 44-9 Yuefu Street, Chengdu. They had a six-seater
minibus service to take us to the hotel for 100 Yuan (10 Euros).
As it was very late, we didn’t have much choice. What we didn’t realise was that the same minibus
was going to be transporting the hotel booking service staff home. Sabine and I had got in, then four guys including
the driver and there was no more room left for the female member
of staff who was left standing on her own in front of the airport.
None of the guys were gentlemanly enough to give up his seat for
her. Typical men! One guy was dropped off first
on the way, then us at the hotel.
They almost forgot to collect the 100 Yuan from us until
one guy realised and came rushing back into the hotel. Saturday, August 6 Being too late for breakfast
at the hotel, we asked reception if we could just have a cup of
coffee. We understood that we could. After 10 minutes of waiting in the reception
area and no sign of any coffee, we double-checked with the hotel
staff, only to be told that there was no coffee!
With Sabine unable to live without her morning coffee, we
popped over to the supermarket to get our coffee substitute, cold
Nescafé in a can. Today we were going to visit
the Panda
breeding and research centre in the Chengdu area.
This was an absolute must; nobody goes to China without seeing
a panda. We did not regret our decision, one of the highlights being the
getting there. We hailed
a taxi and showed the driver the place we wanted to go to in the
Lonely Planet. It was raining that day. We drove for quite a while, until suddenly
we came face to face with a brick wall across the middle of the
road! The driver said something in Chinese – something
along the lines of bloody hell, there are road works, the road has
been closed off and I didn’t know!
We didn’t need to have any knowledge of Chinese to be able
to understand. There were a lot of blokes hanging
around in front of the wall sitting in their motorised pedicabs. We were soon to realise why. You will always find a Chinaman where there
is money to be made. Our
taxi driver talked to one of the guys.
It was soon clear that the pedicab guy was going to take
over from the taxi driver. We paid the taxi driver, negotiated a 10 Yuan
(1 Euro) rate with the pedicab driver and got in. We thought he was going to drive off the way
we came. But no, he was
going to drive through the minute gap in the wall! There were all
sorts of people to-ing and fro-ing through the gap with bikes.
With the pedicab, the crossing required precision driving
as I think we had about a one-centimetre margin to get through while
queues of people formed either side. We finally made it through,
only to be confronted with a muddy road full of potholes! Being in a pedicab, this made the ride very
uncomfortable. We had to hold on for our dear lives and I also had
to be careful to avoid my head banging on the roof as we went over
each bump. The ride reminded me of Steve McQueen on his motorbike
in the film The Great Escape…. I think the pedicab driver was going
just as fast. If I reminder rightly, Steve McQueen didn’t have many
potholes to contend with though. After spending ages in the pedicab
and going round muddy back streets watching families cooking and
hanging up laundry, we finally arrived at the panda centre in one
piece with muddy trousers and sore bums.
Well what do you expect for 10 Yuan?
One can’t complain! At
least we got to our destination. Visiting the centre is well
worth its 30 Yuan (3 Euros). The
pandas seem to live in conditions that are as natural as possible. They are free to wander around outside in cordoned
off areas and there is plenty of bamboo. We spent about three hours observing the same four giant pandas
that spent all their time eating, sleeping and roaming around. One of them was even quite entertaining for
us human visitors. He had a way of looking at us. He knew we found
him cute. You also have the possibility
of standing next to and stroking the giant pandas while they sit
eating bamboo on a wooden seat for 400 Yuan (40 Euros). You have
to don an overall and plastic gloves to avoid transmitting any diseases
to them. Considering they’re an endangered species,
we found it strange they let humans near them.
But then I guess it’s their way of raising money for the
centre. In the end, Sabine and I had the possibility
of holding a three
month old baby red panda for 50 Yuan (5 Euros).
They are so cute! We reluctantly left the centre
at closing time and indicated to a taxi driver that we wanted to
go to a particular Sichuan restaurant in town.
We are not sure that he dropped us off at the right one,
but I can confirm it was a Sichuan restaurant.
We immediately had VIP service from Vikki
dressed in a very nice red silk dress.
We ordered pork and ended up with pigs feet floating in an
extremely spicy sauce in a big bubbly pot…
It was a bit too spicy for me so I let Sabine nibble the
pigs’ toes… Sunday, August 7 We had a 08.30 fight booked
from Chengdu to Jiuzhaigou. We hailed a taxi in the street to take
us to the very nice Chengdu airport. Our flight was displayed on
the board, but no check-in information was given.
We had plenty of time before departure so we had a coffee
in the nearby restaurant/bar. This
was to be the worst tasting coffee and the most expensive in the
whole of China (58 Yuan = 5.80 Euros)! Time ticked by, but there was
still no check-in information displayed.
Sabine went off to make enquiries and came rushing back announcing
that we were in the wrong bloody terminal!
Because we were taking a regional flight, we should have
been in the old terminal next door.
A nice woman kindly checked in our bags for us where we were
(we hoped they were going to transfer them to the right terminal)
and were told to take the shortcut between the two terminals instead
of going back outside. We
speeded up a bit and arrived at the right departure gate in plenty
of time, only to find that we were the first passengers to be there! Soon the other passengers turned
up and we boarded the plane, which departed 10 minutes early! Not only that, it was another brand new A319
and the flight only took 40 minutes. Now you’re all probably wondering
where the bloody hell is Jiuzhaigou.
Well, we didn’t know it existed until a French colleague
of mine working in Shanghai said to me that we absolutely had to
go there. All we could find was about five lines written
about this place in the Lonely Planet.
Millions of Chinese tourists go there, but we had the impression
that not many foreign tourists know about it (yet). Jiuzhaigou is actually a valley
made of nine villages, mountains, turquoise coloured lakes (due
to a high concentration of calcium carbonate) and waterfalls covering
an area of about 240 km², possibly a lot more.
Tiebtan and Qiang people inhabit the region. We can confirm,
like my colleague, that it is absolutely beautiful and was well
worth the trip. Jiuzhaigou airport is a very
recently opened airport situated on the top of a mountain. You literally
land on a shaved off summit and find yourself surrounded by mountains
and clouds. Before the construction of the airport, the only way
to get there was by hours of bus travel on winding roads.
And once arrived at this desolate airport, you then find
out that you have a one and a half hour bus or taxi trip to get
to the valley! It wasn’t easy trying to make ourselves understood
what we wanted by the travel reps who greeted us on our arrival
at the airport. We created
quite a commotion as nobody understood if we wanted to go to Jiuzhaigou,
Huanglong (another scenic spot) or both. At first, the bus was going
to both places. Then suddenly there was a change of plan and it
was going to Jiuzhaigou only. We somehow ended up with a 45 Yuan (4.50 Euros)
bus ticket to Jiuzhaigou. One and a half hours later after
driving through very nice scenery, we finally arrived at Jiuzhaigou. Jiuzhaigou town as such is not really a town.
All you see basically is one hotel after the other and the
construction of hotels is continual. This is where the fun started, as we hadn’t
booked a hotel. It was high
season and looking at all the coaches parked in front of the hotels….
we had doubts as to whether we could get a room.
We checked out a few – they were all full.
We were approached by a young hotel tout offering a room
for 150 Yuan (15 Euros). We had doubts about that and continued
checking out other hotels, which were all full. The hotel tout was still following
us around. He drew a picture of a room for 150 Yuan (TV, bed, shower).
We decided to go with him to check it out, the backpacks
getting heavier all the time on our backs. We were shown a room on the ground floor. It
kind of had that “cockroach look” about it (certainly the bathroom),
but we decided to give it a go for one night.
We needed a room. The
guy indicated to us that we would be staying in a room on one of
the upper floors. We were
a bit wary, so I stayed in what was probably his “showroom” while
Sabine went to check out the other room.
I heard a commotion going on and Sabine’s loud voice as she
came back downstairs. Oh dear, the room upstairs was in an even worse state. Sabine was
telling the guy that we were going to take the ground floor room
whether he liked it or not. He
tried to dissuade us otherwise, but eventually gave in as I was
squatting the room with our bags. We had two and a half days in
Jiuzhaigou. The afternoon was dedicated to checking out the entrance
fee to the valley and maybe finding another hotel.
We discovered that a lot had changed since 2002 when the
five lines were written in the Lonely Planet.
You could no longer stay in the villages inside the valley
and there is a high entrance fee to pay to get inside: 220 Yuan
(22 Euros) plus an optional 90 Yuan (9 Euros) for unlimited bus
transport, which is necessary if you do not feel like walking for
kilometres. Private vehicles
are not allowed in the valley for ecological reasons. You get a second day’s visit for free. Just as well, as you definitely need two days
to get round the place. We had lunch in a small restaurant.
Although one young guy spoke a few words of English, communicating
was difficult so I had to go to the kitchen to choose the food.
There was a lot of activity, fires roaring and stir-frying going
on. I played it safe and
chose a few vegetables and noodles.
The bill came to 36 Yuan (3.6 Euros). Our next mission was to try
and find a decent hotel. We
found one that was available: the MCA which is a chain.
It was a very recent hotel, clean and a lot better than the
one where we were staying. We booked the following night and the
one after. We paid a deposit. The fact that we asked for
two nights created a few maths problems for the youngsters behind
the desk, but things were sorted out in the end.
A young Chinese soldier came in to watch as he was intrigued
by what was going on. By
the way, did you know Chinese soldiers wear a military uniform and
trainers without socks? We headed back towards the valley
entrance. It was around 17.00, i.e. closing time. Once piece of advice: do not leave the valley
at 17.00. There was a mass
exodus of Chinese! We stopped off for refreshments
at a five star hotel next door, were served by Naomi who spoke the
best English so far in the whole of China and had a siesta in the
sofa in the lobby. We figured we needed an early
night (who knows what kind of trekking was in store for us the next
day) and headed back to the “cockroach” hotel.
Some early night that was going to be.
We left the light on in the bathroom, just in case there
were any cockroaches lurking. Next
thing we know, people seemed to be congregating outside our door
and making a right noise. Suddenly
our doorbell rang several times. We opened the door (the doorbell
still ringing) to find a group of people standing in front of the
hotel room door opposite ours. They were ringing its doorbell which
in fact rang in our room(?!?), they were banging on the door opposite
and were talking very loudly. We came to the conclusion that they couldn’t get the door open with
the key they had. We slammed
our door shut. So much for a nice, peaceful
sleep. The banging and talking
continued for about half hour.
Combine this with the hordes of departing tourist coaches
honking non-stop in the road outside and the odd person spitting
outside our bedroom window, no comment! The crowd outside our door finally
dispersed. We weren’t sure if they’d got the door finally open or
were transferred to another room. Monday, August 8 We had an unwanted wake-up call
at around 06.00…. twice! This
does occur on the odd occasion in hotels in China.
You just have to put up with it. To make economies, some hotels
only have hot water available at certain times of the day. We’d been informed that we’d be having hot
water between 08.00 and 10.00.
Well, the water was bloody freezing!
Forget a shower, we were moving into the MCA! On leaving the hotel, Sabine
turned round and gave a thumbs down sign to the girl behind the
reception desk. Once checked into our very nice
MCA hotel, we took advantage of their hot water system and took
a shower, after taking a while to figure out how it operated and
having to ask a cleaning lady to demonstrate. We popped down to the Tibetan
Café for breakfast and ordered straightforward toast, eggs and coffee,
making a point of indicating the Chinese characters in their English
and Chinese menu. First
of all we were served with extremely strong instant coffee.
I couldn’t drink it. The
chef seemed to take ages to prepare the toast and eggs.
We were looking more and more impatient. Loud voices were coming from the kitchen – the waitress was telling
the chef to hurry up. Forty-five
minutes later we were served with two deep fried chicken legs!
There was certainly a problem with the translation of their
menu… After a big fuss,
we returned the chicken legs and were told there was no bread for
toast. We ended up with
one fried egg each and disgustingly strong instant coffee. We’d been there an hour. The valley is really beautiful.
It was a cloudy day and fairly fresh as we were at about
2000m in altitude. You can get on and off the buses and wander around whenever you
like. There are non-stop
streams of buses. There
were a lot of Chinese tourists though. On leaving the valley, we stopped off at the four-star hotel to have refreshments and chat to Naomi. She’s a student doing finance and economics at Chengdu University. We exchanged e-mail addresses. She even invited us to go and eat with her in the hotel staff’s restaurant next door. We gladly accepted the offer and ate very well (no food problems here as Naomi did the ordering). The
three of us then walked to our
MCA hotel to watch men and women in traditional dress do Tibetan
dancing round a fire that took place there every night. Sabine got dragged into the dancing…. Tuesday, August 9 A very nice day was spent trekking
round the valley. In the evening, we gave the
Tibetan Café another chance and ordered stir-fried rice and stir-fried
chicken. We ended up with
rice, a dish containing chicken that looked raw, and soup we never
ordered. We demanded a discount on the bill, which we
got. That evening there was more
Tibetan dancing going on. We
didn’t stay up too late watching it as we had an 08.50 flight departing
for Chengdu the next morning and considering we need one and a half
hours to get to Jiuzhaigou airport…. We’d asked Naomi if she wouldn’t
mind booking us a taxi for 06.00 to take us to the airport, which
she kindly did. Mr. Yun
the taxi driver would come and pick us up. So much for an early night’s
sleep. For a start, our
toilet was blocked. So we had to re-think our toilet habits (I can
confirm that the whole exercise of going to the toilet in China
does require some strategic coordination, i.e. you have to think
ahead as to when you will need a toilet next as one never knows
what kind of toilet conditions you’re going to find yourself with).
Suddenly at around 23.00, a commotion started in the corridor
outside our room. For half an hour, I heard feet splashing through
water, something being wrung out, a mother telling her child off,
running water and loud voices.
I wonder if they too had plumbing problems….?
The door was eventually slammed shut and I think the family
was transferred to another room.
And that wasn’t all. We
had two unwanted phones calls with someone on the end of the line
saying “Ni hao! Ha, ha, ha!” Wednesday, August 10 We got down to the front desk
just before 06.00 to check out.
Mr. Yun our taxi driver arrived on time.
However, checkout took 20 minutes!
The girl behind the desk was not with it at all at that time
of the morning! She seemed
to have a maths problem too. There
was a lot of receipt shuffling on the desk, receipt stamping and
receipt stapling. She phoned through for someone to go and check
our room to see if it was left in a decent state (we hoped they
wouldn’t check the blocked toilet….).
We waited and waited…. No
one phoned back. In the end, the girl had to go and check the
room herself and rushed off up the stairs, only to return five minutes
later… she’d forgotten to take the room key! We finally were able to leave.
The one and a half hours’ taxi ride cost 220 Yuan (22 Euros).
I had doubts about Mr. Yun’s brakes. They kept juddering. And along the way, streams of tourist coaches were passing us in
the other direction towards the valley.
No doubt hundreds of Chinese tourists who couldn’t afford
the flight, so were doing the 10 hour trip across Sichuan to get
to the valley. We arrived safely at the airport,
boarded the plane at 08.20 and departed at 08.30, twenty minutes
in advance! Once back in Chengdu, we took
a taxi (54 Yuan = 5.4 Euros) to the same hotel as before, the Yuzheng
Business hotel. They had rooms available and at the rate of 180
Yuan (18 Euros), this time without the travel service’s commission
on top. I needed some Western food.
We took a taxi to one place that featured in the Lonely Planet
but we couldn’t find it. It had probably closed down.
Instead we had a pleasant surprise by coming across Grandma’s
Kitchen, 22 Renmin South Road. They have excellent hash browns, omelettes
and apple pie. I’m sure
the omelettes even had mature Cheddar cheese in them.
These were even better than French omelettes. It’s pretty sad that you have to go all the way to Grandma’s Kitchen
in China to get a decent omelette… The rest of the afternoon was
spent wandering around the Wenshu Temple in Chengdu. Thursday, August 11 We decided to head off to Chongqing.
We turned up at the bus station and bought tickets for the next
available coach (85 Yuan = 8.5 Euros each) for a five and a half
hour coach ride down the expressway.
This bus trip turned out to be a bit of a drag. Fortunately,
it was air-conditioned like all coaches. We travelled through “tropical”
rice paddy country. The coach stopped off on the way so that we
could get refreshments and have a stretch.
Sabine and I were greeted by a load of young Chinese lads.
They tried to sell us fruit from their market stalls.
They were also intrigued by my height. One of them stood
next to me and had his photo taken with a mobile phone. The fruit
sellers have better mobile phones than I do! I must also mention the onboard
coach entertainment. We
were subjected to watching two films that kept alternating throughout
the journey: a Bruce Lee film in Chinese and a Sean Connery James
Bond film in English. The Bruce Lee film was very
entertaining and you didn’t need to have any knowledge of Chinese
to understand the plot. The
big fat Western guy kept sending his band of Western men to beat
up Bruce Lee. But Bruce Lee wearing his white vest would single-handedly beat
them all up of course. So
the Westerner decided to call in his martial arts expert to sort
out Bruce Lee once and for all. Guess who suddenly appeared on the
screen? A very young Chuck Norris! There was a showdown between Bruce and
Chuck. But Chuck got beaten up and was even killed! I was so disappointed, Chuck Norris got killed by Bruce Lee…! Once finally arrived in Chongqing
and sick of watching the same two films over again, we headed off
down to the docks. We wanted to check out cruises on the Yangtze
River. This was another must do, especially since
the Yangtze is going to be flooded over the next few years, and
therefore its famous gorges, because of the dam project. The people in the booking office
were keen to show us pictures of the cruise boat and the different
cabins, which according to the pictures looked fairly decent… This particular boat had three classes of cabins.
Third class has eight bunks, second class has four bunks
and first class has two bunks. We ummed and arred between second class and
first class. We decided
to treat ourselves and do it in style by booking first class, with
a departure at 20.00 the next evening.
The cruise to Yichang would take 55 hours and the first class
cabin cost 1022 Yuan (102 Euros) per person + 150 Yuan (15 Euros)
for a mini cruise round the Three Little Gorges.
Any extras for visits to other touristy places (e.g. temples)
you can forget. It’s best
to play it by ear and visit the other places if you feel like it
when the boat docks. We handed over a deposit (we
didn’t have enough cash on us at the time) and asked the staff if
they could recommend a hotel in Chongqing for that night.
They recommended the Square Hotel, 28 Wu Si Road, Jie Fang
Bei Yu Zhong District, tel. +86 23 637 3333. Pleased with themselves
that they’d sold us a first class cabin, they offered to take us
to the hotel. A brand new saloon car with leather seats arrived
in front of the booking office.
The Yangtze River cruise business certainly seemed to be
booming… We checked into the nice looking
hotel right in the centre of town and were offered the room rate
of 200 Yuan (20 Euros). A
silly rate when you find yourself with a huge
modern room with a kitchenette and a high-rise view (Photo
1, Photo 2)!
This was the best value for money so far. We ventured out to look for
a restaurant that didn’t do spicy hot pots.
No such luck! Every
single restaurant did spicy hot pots.
Some even had on display pickled snakes in jars…
We opted for a restaurant that was full of people. In the middle of the table was a huge pot full
of oil and hundreds of floating chillies.
Sabine went off to the kitchen area to choose the ingredients,
which you throw into the boiling oil.
I put a tiny spot of oil on my rice and tasted it.
Honest to God, it blew my mouth off!
I have never tasted anything so spicy in my life! I had to drink coconut milk to put out the
fire. Sabine continued munching
away, content as can be. There
was no way I could eat that. I
demanded Western food! Sabine
finished her meal and we headed off to Dicos (China’s equivalent
of KFC) so that I could have something decent to eat. Friday, August 12 We didn’t have to be at the
cruise ship booking office until 18.00.
We left our bags at the hotel and spent the day looking around
the fancy department stores and designer clothes shops.
The prices are the same as European prices, so no bargains
to be found here. The shops
were also fairly empty. We weren’t sure how much business they were
really doing. We also found a China Southern
flight booking office and we were able to book China Eastern Yichang-Shanghai
tickets for 1060 Yuan (106 Euros). We also needed to get basic
food and drink supplies for the cruise as the guidebook indicated
that the little food and drink you get on the boats is expensive. We traipsed around the streets looking in vain
for a supermarket. Until
a young Chinese girl with her boyfriend approached us and asked
us in English if she could help us.
The few Chinese that do speak English always seem willing
to make use of every opportunity to practise it.
The girl, called Amanda, kindly accompanied us to a supermarket.
We then exchanged e-mail addresses and said goodbye. It was time for us to collect
our bags from the hotel and we head off to the docks. But trying to hail a taxi in the street at 17.00 is not easy, like
in all countries at rush hour time.
We eventually got one though. We arrived at the cruise ship
booking office and paid in cash what we owed.
A minibus took a group of us to the boat. You have to access the boat by descending the wharf in a lift for
which you have to pay 2 Yuan (0.20 Euros). This we hadn’t been informed
about. Any old excuse to
make money out of you. We boarded and were welcomed
by the captain in the main reception area. My first impressions
of the boat were “Oh my god, it looks like the Dieppe ferry!” The boat looked like it hadn’t been decorated since the 1970s (more
or less). The flooring was
made of wonky steel and when you walked in certain places, it dented
under your feet, making a clonking sound. At the reception desk, I spied
the cruise programme and noted it down. My comments are in brackets. Friday, August 12: 20.00 Depart Chongqing Saturday, August 13: 06.30-09.30 Fengdu Ghost City
(06.30! We’re in bed asleep at that time! Thank god we didn’t book
this visit). 13.00-14.00 Shibaozhai Pagoda
(We didn’t book this visit). 20.00-21.00 Zhang Fei Temple
(20.00! It’s dark at that time! Thank god we didn’t book this visit). Sunday, August 14: 06.00 Qutang Gorge (Sailing
through one of the great gorges at 06.00! We’re in bed asleep at
that time!) 07.30-12.00 Lesser Three Gorges
(07.30 a slightly better time. Despite the time, this is a must
do trip). 17.30-19.00 Quyan Temple (We
didn’t book this trip). 21.00 Three Gorges Dam (21.00!
It’s dark at that time! Thank god we didn’t book this visit). Monday, August 15: 04.00 Arrival in Yichang (We’re
in bed asleep at that time and it’s dark!) We collected the key for our
first class cabin. We opened
the door. Sabine and I looked at each other.
This did not look anything like the pictures that were shown
to us back at the booking office.
It was a very simple cabin
with two beds and a bathroom, which also had not been decorated
since the 1970s, and it had wonky and clonking flooring.
Oh well, never mind, at least we had a cabin overlooking
the river. There was a knock on the door.
A woman was carrying orange passes in her hand.
She explained that if we wanted to go out on the top deck,
we would have to pay a one off fee of 60 Yuan (6 Euros) each to
be able to access it at any time during the cruise.
Access included free tea and you were able to sit in chairs.
The booking office hadn’t informed us that there would be
an extra charge to pay. Sabine
hit the roof. She said that we were travelling first class
which meant that we should be able to go anywhere we liked on the
boat! We went to check out exactly what the top deck
looked like and then demanded to speak to the manager. We met the manager in the reception area and
Sabine told her what she’d told the other woman. To make sure we were getting our message across, I looked up the
word for “rip-off” (in pinyin: zhàpiàn) in my little French-Chinese
phrasebook (very handy my phrasebook!) and showed it to her.
The manager had a shocked look on her face and said how dare
we say such a thing! Our complaining was fruitless.
We had to pay this extra charge whether we liked it or not.
The whole point of doing a Yangtze cruise is to go out on the top
deck to see the scenery. Tourists
had been ripped off in the past, and they will continue being ripped
off. At another moment, we had again
a knock on the door. It
was a Chinese guy who spoke good English.
He worked for the boat company and was head of tours. He asked us which tours we’d booked during the cruise. We replied the Three Lesser Gorges. He asked us if our tour guide had come to see
us. No was our reply, we
don’t have a guide. “You
don’t have a guide!” he replied in amazement.
“How do you get around?” he asked.
We shrugged our shoulders and replied, “We manage!”
He walked off giving us a funny look. Before turning in for an early
night, we wandered around the boat checking out its facilities. It had a mini supermarket selling awful Chinese
snacks, a restaurant and a bar/dance floor where there was karaoke
every night. The required
minimum drink consumption is 18 Yuan (1.8 Euros). We never saw many
people in there except for a couple of Chinese tourists singing
very badly in a microphone. When you have someone singing very badly and
it’s not in your own language, it’s awful!
We also got chatting to a German backpacker, Marcus, who
was aged around 25. We returned to our room to go
to bed. We were to discover
that we were in for a noisy trip.
Already we noticed that non-stop clonking of metal was to
be heard outside our cabin window throughout the whole cruise… Saturday, August 13 We were abruptly woken up by
an unwanted wake-up call at 05.30, a loudspeaker announcement in
Chinese at 06.00 and housekeeping barging into our room to let us
know that the Fengdu Ghost City visit was coming up.
Not great, especially when you hadn’t booked this particular
visit… We stayed in bed to watch the
sunrise instead. We couldn’t
go back to sleep anyway, what with all the Chinese tourists rushing
along the corridors to their Fengdu Ghost City visit, passengers
spitting outside our cabin door and big boats going by on the river
sounding their bloody horns! Not only do Chinese honk on the roads, they
also honk on the river! We
have to say though that it was peaceful onboard once everybody had
disembarked. We had breakfast in the onboard restaurant. The day was spent leisurely
cruising, sitting on the deck in the shade and watching the scenery
go by. There was a lunchtime stop at the Shibaozhai
Pagoda. All the Chinese
got off again to go and visit it.
Sabine and I also got off to stretch our legs and got a bite
to eat from a market stool. The locals cook the food in front of you.
It was a baking hot day. We couldn’t stand out in the heat for long. During the day, we also came
across our head of tours friend, who was still concerned that we
didn’t have a guide and wondered how we managed… That evening, we ate in the
restaurant at around 19.30 just before closing with a Dutch couple. The Chinese tend to dine early, around 18.00
and at which time the restaurant is packed, so we had the restaurant
to ourselves. It was peaceful! Sunday, August 14 We were blessed with another
Chinese announcement, this time at 05.00 to probably announce that
we were passing through the Qutang Great Gorge.
I peered through the curtain.
It was dark and vaguely saw the outline of what looked like
a giant gorge! I went back
to sleep. Suddenly, there was banging
on our door at 06.15 – we were told we were docking in five minutes! We were early. The Three Lesser Gorges visit was supposed to be planned for a more
reasonable 07.30! I dived
into the shower while munching on the last muffin mouthful, followed
by Sabine. I’d never got ready so quickly in all my life.
The boat docked next to three other boats.
We had to walk through the three boats via fourth class and
engine rooms to get to the shore. Everybody was transferred to
smaller boats. Nobody really
checked our tickets to see if we’d paid for this excursion. It is a very pleasant trip passing through the Lesser Gorges, home
to golden monkeys. The sky had also cleared up. It was going to be a hot and sunny day. The day before it had been hazy/cloudy which are not ideal conditions
for taking photos. After
a while, we all transferred to even smaller boats. Our boatman
was sweet. We arrived back at our cruise
boat at lunchtime and embarked. The afternoon was to prove very
entertaining. Sitting up
on deck minding our business, there was a group of Chinese tourists
listening to a tour guide rabbiting on in a microphone.
It’s true that it was a pain in the arse listening to all
this rabbiting in a microphone, but what can you do about it?
When in a foreign country, you have to respect the locals. Well, a young female Korean
tourist had a solution. She
persisted in throwing pistachio shells over her shoulder at the
group of Chinese tourists! This
had the Chinese tourists up in arms!
The microphone talk immediately stopped and everybody got
up out of their chairs and piled inside.
I could see there was a big discussion going on.
The boat’s head of tours, the head of something else and
the onboard policeman appeared on deck, followed by the Chinese
tourists gesticulating and talking in raised voices behind them.
There was a big showdown with the Korean girl.
She was told to sweep up the mess on the deck, which she
finally reluctantly did. The head of tours announced to everybody present
on deck that should they have a problem with a tour guide with a
microphone, they should go and see the boat’s manager! The girl was eventually evicted from the deck.
She asked for her 60 Yuan back as she was no longer allowed
on deck (I don’t think she got it back). The head of tours told the girl that she had
very bad behaviour throwing nutshells everywhere. Sabine and I, who were keeping a low profile, found this rather
amusing. In China, it is
acceptable to spit or blow your nose on the floor, but you’re not
allowed to throw pistachio shells! The evening was to prove even
more entertaining. We approached
the dam and docked at 20.00 (one hour early).
It was dark. As usual,
everybody disembarked to go off and visit the dam except Sabine
and I, along with a handful of other passengers.
Once everybody was off, the boat started moving away. We
weren’t sure what was in store for us.
We were soon to find out.
We headed for a lock, which runs
through the dam. We entered it at 21.00. It was huge and not
only that, we had to wait for it to fill up with other boats before
emptying the water. It was
an interesting spectacle to watch from the top deck. Still in the lock, we returned
to our cabin. Earlier that
day, we’d washed a few of our clothes and had left them hanging to dry in the window.
Our cabin was at the same level as the bridge of the boat
next to us. The captain
of the next boat saw us and waved.
We waved back, quickly taking down the drying knickers at
the same time and hoping that he hadn’t seen them.
He must have been bored waiting because was twiddling his
seat round. Suddenly, out
of the corner of my eye I spied a something sitting on one of my
T-shirts drying in the window.
It appeared to be a giant
grasshopper! Sabine started screaming and jumping up and
down ordering me to get rid of it.
The captain was looking at us wondering what was going on. So of course I got the job of capturing it
and throwing it out of the window.
Thank god it hadn’t got into my knickers! Now the thing about this lock
is that there is not just one lock to go through. There are four
of them! And each time you have to wait for them to
fill up with boats. This
is very time-consuming. We
were also subjected to loudspeaker announcements accompanied by
music every time the water was about to be emptied out of the lock.
Come to think of it, Sabine and I had never showered, slept,
insect hunted, or listened to echoing techno music emanating from
the bar upstairs in a lock before!! We were in bed by the time our
boat left the lock at 23.30. Two
and a half hours spent in a lock!
We found ourselves docking at around midnight.
Unable to sleep because of all the horns being sounded, the
sailors’ whistles being blown and the clonking of metal, we deduced
that we were picking up the passengers who had gone off to visit
the dam. We were right, we heard them coming on board, with kids running
up and down the corridor… Now my question is: what the
hell had they been doing for the past FOUR HOURS, especially considering
that they had been visiting a dam IN THE DARK!!! We investigated the next day, but we never did find out. Yangtze and dam information:
the dam is 2 km wide and 185 km high.
An area the size of Singapore will be flooded during this
decade and will wash away the homes of 2 million people. The Yangtze
is 6,300 km long. You mostly see animals suffering from rigor mortis
and shoes floating down the river.
There are so many shoes, you could open up your own shoe
shop. Monday, August 15 At 05.45 we had to endure more
banging on our door. We
were docking in Yichang! This
meant another quick dive into the shower.
We handed in our key to reception, but they wouldn’t let
us disembark because we didn’t have our ticket on us.
It seems reception took our ticket when we initially boarded
and didn’t return it. After some persuasion, we were let off. We took a taxi to a four-star
hotel chosen in the Lonely Planet for its indoor swimming pool:
Taolhualing Fandian, 29 Yunji Lu, tel. +86 717 623 6666.
Our flight wasn’t leaving until 15.30 so we had some hanging
around to do (in the rain). We
left our luggage at the hotel and made use of their breakfast facilities. We were in their breakfast room at 06.45 before
it was even open – that’s a first for us! We also came across two English male backpackers who had been on
the same boat as us. One
of them was studying Chinese in Beijing and seemed to master the
language pretty well after only a few months. After killing a lot of time
at breakfast (we can recommend their buffet breakfast) and hanging
around in the hotel lobby watching a VIP turn up (whoever he was,
he had the police escort, red carpet, and Chinese girls in silk
dresses treatment), our taxi driver from that morning arrived to
take us to Yichang airport. The taxi ride was 25 km away
and cost us 75 Yuan (7.5 Euros).
Sabine found herself giving the driver English lessons on
the way. However, every time she gave him a lesson,
he slowed down (on the expressway!)
I suggested to Sabine that she shouldn’t give him so many
lessons, because at this rate, we’ll never get to the airport on
time! Yichang airport is not the most
happening of airports. We
think they must have been making economies on electricity because
no lighting was on. Our China Eastern flight for
Shanghai left 15 minutes early and lasted one and a half hours. On our arrival in Shanghai, we intended to
go by train straight to Hangzhou, southwest of Shanghai. We indicated to the taxi driver that we wanted
to go to Shanghai South Station. He asked us where we were going. He said that there were no more trains to Hangzhou
that day and suggested taking us to the bus station. We were in luck. A bus was about to leave at 18.00. A ticket cost 55 Yuan (5.5 Euros). We were hurriedly directed to
a bus waiting in the middle of the road.
The ride lasted one and a half hours down the expressway. We had to put up with two Chinese men talking
non-stop behind us the whole way.
They spoke loud enough for the whole bus to hear. I mustn’t forget to take my F1 earplugs next
time! We arrived in Hangzhou
(6.2 million inhabitants). The bus seemed to stop anywhere where
passengers wanted to get off. We did likewise and hailed a taxi to take us
to the three-star Xinxin Fanjian Hotel, 58 Beishan Road, tel. +86
571 879 99090 which overlooked the famous West Lake.
We’d previously chosen this hotel from the guidebook. I’d noticed on the way that Hangzhou is a prosperous
town: it has Ferrari and Porsche showrooms. A deluxe suite at 3800 Yuan
(380 Euros) overlooking the lake was way over our budget, so we
picked a room out the back for 300 Yuan (30 Euros).
We dined in the hotel restaurant for only 39 Yuan (3.90 Euros),
which included half a fresh fish from the lake. Tuesday, August 16 It was an extremely hot day
with temperatures reaching 38°C.
Lots of sun cream and a hat required as we were going to
be wandering around the lake today.
We did a boat tour for 45 Yuan (4.5 Euros), which stopped
off at the little islands in the middle. In the evening, I’d arranged
for us to have dinner with a Chinese colleague of mine from my Paris
office, who was visiting her family in Hangzhou.
She came along with a friend and we dined in a teahouse.
You pay 50 Yuan (5 Euros) each and you can help yourself as much
as you want to their food buffet. Wednesday, August 17 In the morning, we decided to
visit the Lingyin Si Temple, which has the highest buddha at 20m,
but this place was a rip-off. First
of all, you had to pay 35 Yuan (3.5 Euros) to get into the garden
and then you are expected to pay an extra 30 Yuan (3 Euros) to visit
the temple. In addition to that, there was not much garden
to see. It was another very
hot day and there were quite a few steps to climb.
We stopped off at a museum on the way up and pretended to
look at artefacts, but were really making the most of its air-conditioning. That afternoon, we headed back
to Shanghai (17 million
inhabitants) by taking a train to Shanghai South Station. We tried the soft seats at 40 Yuan (4 Euros)
for a one hour forty-five minute journey.
In comparison with a hard seat carriage, this was quite a
civilised trip with the odd spitting only now and then. The soft
seat carriage seemed to be generally frequented by businessmen.
A kung-fu film was also shown to keep passengers entertained. We’d already pre-booked our
hotel in Shanghai, which had been recommended by friends: three-star
Nanjing Hotel,
200 Shanxi Road South, tel. +86 21 632 2288.
It is in a great location for its price of 300 Yuan (30 Euros).
It’s situated next to the Nanjing Road main shopping street. Some of the hotel’s English translation was
very amusing. For example,
here are a few descriptions:
We wandered up and down Nanjing
Road and scoffed ice cream, blueberry cheesecake and English tea
at Häagen Dazs. We returned
to our room. Unfortunately,
there were no English speaking channels on the TV. The only programme
we could understand was how babies are conceived, and for that we
didn’t need to understand Chinese. Thursday, August 18 In the morning, we wanted to
check out the fancy five-star Peace
Hotel (formerly the Cathay Hotel) down by the Bund, but
were disappointed by their cappuccino and iced coffee.
The bill came to 92 Yuan (9.20 Euros), a rip-off.
The cappuccino was tepid and the iced coffee was too sweet. Afterwards, we walked along
the Bund (the promenade along the Huangpu River). A Chinese guy approached us. He
started chatting to us in very good English, walked along with us
and pointed out Shanghai’s sights along the way, such as the Oriental
Pearl TV Tower. And boy
did he chat. We couldn’t get rid of him. In the end, I had to pretend that someone was
calling me on my mobile and that we had to go. Next thing we know, the guy is asking us for money because he had
been our so-called guide! “Not
even 10 Yuan?”, he said. “Get
lost!” we said. He must
have been joking. We headed off to the Yuyuan
Garden, which is one of the few remaining old parts of the city. There are lots of shops, as well as places
like Starbucks. In the evening, we wanted to
do a cruise on the Huangpu River.
A ticket at night is 50 Yuan (5 Euros) for a one-hour cruise. This is well worth doing at night. To finish of the evening, we tested out the
Bund Tunnel under the river. For a 40 Yuan (4 Euros) return, you
get to experience a psychedelic light show.
It’s fun. Friday, August 19 Today we took things easy and
had a lie-in (we hadn’t had one of those in a while!) and did some
shopping. CDs and DVDs are
dead cheap, something like 30 Yuan (3 Euros), but you have to be
careful of the DVD zones. They’re not always compatible. That evening, we were having
dinner with a French colleague of mine working in Shanghai, as well
as with an American and a Belgian colleague.
My French colleague arrived with his chauffeur to pick us
up at the hotel and we all headed off to a Turkmenian restaurant.
It was to be an international night, with English, French,
German and Chinese being banded round the table.
Very good food too. On
leaving the restaurant, we were approached by a Chinese man offering
us hash… He persisted with his very good hash for a
very good price, but we declined. Saturday, August 20 Unfortunately, the day had come
to fly back to Frankfurt. We
had an 11.10 flight, which was delayed. We ended up sitting in the
plane waiting for over an hour.
Otherwise, nothing exciting to report on the flight.
Their ovens for heating up the food had slightly improved. Sunday, August 21 Totally beyond my control, I
woke up at 06.00 and was awake at strange hours two nights to follow. I had a 13.50 Air France flight back to Paris. Approximate total cost of holiday:
2,300 Euros per person (1,500 Euros on flights and 800 Euros on
general living expenses). |
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