Nihao, pronounced "nee-how" from the Peoples Republic of China. It's a good job I have been able to get on this site as internet is so tightly censored that most chinese have never seen the infamous pictures of Tian'namen Square!
What can we say, except what a country. Honestly, in the last 2 weeks, China has done nothing but knock us out with it's beauty, scare us with it's crazy driving, stuff us with it's cheap food and drink, dumb-found us with it's sheer enormity and surprise us with it's amazing culture. The scenery and sights rival those of NZ and Bangkok and the culture is something of a shock, even after 5 months on the road to date.
Our arrival to China couldn't have been better. After Ryan was kept plied with food, drink and lots of leg room on our 13 hour flight from Sydney to Beijing，we arrived at a huge colosseum of an airport and were promptly whisked away to our hotel, NOT hostel, in the centre of Beijing. The next day was spent ambling round the ancient Forbidden city, home to the Emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasty. This is a city within one of the biggest cities in the world. Not even dear old Buckingham Palace, the infamous White House, the serene Palace of Versailles or even our very own Stormont, has a notch on this place and it was obviously the ultimate of bachelor pads, especially hundreds of years ago when it was first built. Lawrence Llewely-Bowen should visit here and learn what real interior design is as the throne alone was bigger than our house! What to do after an experience like this? Well most seemed not to disappointed to watch Ryan dance infront of a restaurant full of Chinese families, with some exotic belly dancer and a ruddy great big snake round his neck! Not cool, and for poor wee Ryan nor was it good entertainment! Worst of all, this was the first time we got to meet our group that we would be spending the next 3 weeks with and first impressions count. Needless to say, Ryan hasn't been able to shrug of his pansy reputation and our new columbian friend Carlos, immediately offered some dance lessons! Back to Beijing. We spent another few days wandering around the Summer Palace that was another of those examples of pure, unadulterated, expressions of wealth, grandeur and beauty that has yet to be repeated by our tight wallets and health and safety ruined modern age. Although we explored for hours and maybe wandered around half of the palace, we saw only very little of the traditional architecture and beautiful gardens, because of the lung cancer inducing and eye-scratchingly bad smog that threatens to prevent the likes of Australia sending it's Olympic athletes to the games in little over a month away, in fear that they will all keel over, mid-race due to tar filled lungs! Really they're not joking, it's that bad. So bad infact that they plan to set of a bomb way up in the sky to encourage a great big massive thunder storm to literally wash out all the nasties from the black and grey stained sky.
A few quick facts. N.I. has a rough population of 1.6 million, R.O.I, 4 million, U.K. 60 million or there abouts and some of it can be quite cluttered. London for instance, sits pretty at roughly 11 million, and people are reduced to driving smart cars and bicycles as there is no room for anything bigger than a tin of spam. Beijing though is a mammoth sized sprawl, hiding about 17 million people under it's smokey blanket and the thousands of homeless are being "removed" from the city in time for the Olympics to somewhere else. Although China is massive, where do you put them? There are 1.3 billion people cluttering the land and another 300 million that are not "on the books". In order to control the population explosion, China has a one child policy, so that if you have more than one child you are punished with a large fine. For those less fortunate families who cannot afford to pay the fine, their child is not registered and therefore left with no identity, no passport, no school, no possibility of a decent job and no health care. NO FUTURE.... There are an estimated 300 million of these people, thats about 5 times the population of the whole UK (for those who are not close to a calculator), and Lisburn is being called a city?! Not only do we feel insignificant but also so fortunate to be raised in a country free of the problems that China faces. We do not mean to insult the Chinese government or condone all their practises, for within the last year China has faced more catastrophes than potatoes eaten in Ireland, and the government seems to be acting accordingly, or atleast that's how our guide feels alongs with the rest of his countrymen, apparantly. In January, China was crippled with heavy snows, then there was the Tibet crisis, then the earthquakes, then the floods in the south and most recently a Tsunami I have been told although some may have been lost in translation. Still the people are happy and resilient, and either not aware of how much their government censors or simply not worried. How much does our own government do the same which we are simply oblivious to? So the next time it rains at home, put on a coat and get on with things. The next time it snows, defrost your windscreen and go to work. If we ever happen to enjoy a bit of sun, put on some clothes and don't complain of sunstroke after lying about all day in the sun with little more than a napkin protecting your delicate pasty white irish skin and most importantly your dignity. And we thought we were built tough in Ireland!
So to the Great Wall then. This is without doubt, the ultimate of Chinese symbols, displaying their past greatness and fuelling a new future for China along side it's world dominating, "Made in China" industry, from the wallets of it's ever increasing tourist industry. It's also the ultimate photograph and the ultimate of memories. Ranks up there so far with the temples of Bangkok, Islands of Malaysia and scenery of New Zealand. A scorcher of a day, we were left as tired as I was after just finishing my thoughts in that last paragraph, after clambering up, down and around a wall that is in some places towering 30m into the blue yonder, and in other places no more than a pile of rubble on a remote hillside. Something like 16,000 kms long, it's pretty darn big. We don't have time to look up another comparison, but we're sure you're all perfectly capable yourselves. (Send interesting comparisons this way please!) Even more impressive, are the 70 year old ladies that make their money aiding the hoardes of tourists by supplying them with ice-cold water and even carrying them up the worst sections on their bent and crooked old backs. Loughview Fold better watch out, Ryan is expecting a lot from them on his return! Our hotel for the night was once again far too nice for the likes of us with air-con, TV, double bed for Rory and a restaurant overlooking a mill pond still reservoir that reflects a soaring mountain ridge, crowned along it's length by the Great Wall itself! Not too shabby ehh?
Unfortunately our bed the next night wasn't quite as luxurious. A little bit more like what we were used to, we were squeezed into a sleeper train with countless others, using toilets that that were little more than a hole in the ground. Ahhhh that's better........ 13 hours later we arrived in Xi'an, or commonly known as the "Evil city" due to the frequent robberys that take place in this, the ancient walled capital city of China. Before we visited the the warriors that put this city on the tourist trail, we had a day or 2 to cycle the walls, get lost in it's markets and trudge up one of the 5 holy Taoist mountains to celebrate Ryan's birthday. 2 kms of steps were near vertical at times, encouraging not so charming amounts of sweat and scaring off hundreds of other tourists that bought their medals at the top after taking the strenuous and energetic cable car to the top! No wonder they didn't look like and stink like we did. Ryan celebrated his birthday in suitable style sucking the brains out of a chicken head like Rory had enjoyed the previous night. Chicken feet were equally as interesting although more useful as a tooth pick as you could find more eating on a cat-walk model. Still the next day it was time to experience another of Chinas trademark tourist hotspots and one of the worlds finest tombs. Built near 200 BC, 6000 life-sized, unique, terracotta painted warriors, line up like their human models did in time of war, in a pit the size of a football pitch. This is only one of 13 pits found so far and the pyramid shaped tomb next door is reportedly the largest in the world. Walking through a working excavation sight like that with thousands of other overwhelmed holiday snappers was quite surreal but also incredibly exciting.
From Xi'an it was another 16 hour train to the colonial style metropolis of Shanghai. 3 days here allowed us to be hounded by countless hawkers, desperate to sell their fake Gucci bags, Breitling watches and Armani wallets. By the time they had all hounded us sufficiently, we hadn't much time left to explore such sights as the quaint old town, complete with oldest tea house in China, Alan Titchmarshes heaven on earth; the Yuyuan Gardens, the ridiculous Oriental Pearl Telecommunications Tower, and Shanghai's most expensive beer and ice-cream, 87 stories on top of the Jin-Mao Tower. Other highlights include escaping tropical rainfall by jumping aboard a bus bound for who knows where, holding our breath as kids defied physics as part of the Shanghai Acrobats, and enjoyed the most typical of Chinese past-times, Karaokee. Frank, our guide for the trip, found what he himself describes as "a 5 star karaokee club" with "100%guaranteed enjoyment" for Kathryn's 19th birthday. Even those toatlly against the thought of making such a fool of themselves, joined in and while Matthew professionally executed songs such as Frank Sinatra's Mr. Bo-jangles, the rest crippled our throats, bruised our dancing feet and crucified songs such as Wannabee, In the Navy, and Senorita. A particular favourite amongst the crowds and cheering fans was a rendition of You Raise Me Up, by Westlife performed by none other than the 3 silly Irish blokes with croaky throats and choreographed dance moves. EMI music doesn't seem to have received their demo recording as yet, but when they do, it's obvious those boys are destined for greatness the likes only The Pogues and The Proclaimers have ever tasted!
A 24 hour train journey was plenty of time to rest and recouperate our bleeding ears and tattered throats. It also happened to deposit us in our current location of Yangshuo, Guilin. A Cathedral of granite/dolomite spikes it is a geographers dream and our home for the next 2 days. Activities such as Kungfu, Tai-Chi, rock-climbing and cooking are all on the cards so our next post should be equally filled with such rubbish and tales of woe as this one. Hope it will keep you all happy for a wee while anyway. Only 2 months of this silly blog rubbish, so we'll do our best to finish it all off in style!
Mie Amigos, au revoir.
xo
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