China's Tax Dollars at Work

Everywhere you look China's massive recent and ongoing investment in infrastructure is evident. We see Beijing's new airport (open one month) and the airport at Wuhan (also open only one month). We see new apartment blocks, new landmark high-rise office structures, new highways, new rail facilities and terminals. And none of these are slapdash efforts. These are modern, attractive, carefully thought out structures incorporating the latest architectural design concepts. In Beijing, on a clear day (?), there are more than 100 construction cranes poking into the sky. Our Beijing guide, Amy, told us they will all be gone in June. I doubt it, but here in China I think almost anything may be possible.
The portion of our trip after the Yangtzee cruise is still somewhat up in the air due to the effects of the massive and tragic recent earthquake centered northwest of Chengdu. Chengdu airport has reopened but there is concern regarding several dams. Landslides have blocked rivers creating lakes which, when they break through, could threaten some dams. They are in the process of draining reservoirs behind some of the dams to accomodate the expected surge. The government is concerned about the safety of tourists and may force another change of itinerary if they deem the Chongquin/Chengdu/Dazu portion of our tour to be unsafe.

Busy, busy, busy!

We've been so busy that I haven't had time to post. That, and I've been having trouble with the internet access at our hotels. It's been very slow and I am using an older laptop that operates slowly as well. So it has been difficult to update our blog. Another curious thing is that I cannot access ANY blogs on the internet from any of our hotels yet. I can access the editing area for our blog but not the blog itself.
It is now 11PM on Thursday, 15 May. We are checked in to our hotel in Wuhan, having arrived about an hour ago from Beijing. The hotel is very classy, with very well-appointed rooms and baths. Yesterday we went to the Great Wall of China near Beijing. It was incredibly smoggy with thundershowers threatened. We were allowed time to climb the wall so I decided to give it a try. Eileen took one look at all the irregular steps and the steepness and length of the effort and decided to go for a cappucino instead. It took me a while to do it with frequent pauses to catch my breath, but I made it to the top. As I encountered the Chinese people climbing along with me they all gave me the "thumbs up" sign of encouragement. I guess they don't see too many old, white-haired westerners very far up on their wall. One old gal in our group, while she was coming back down, was approached by a Chinese man who helped her along as she descended with his whole family trailing along behind. The Chinese we have encountered have all been delightful and helpful without exception.
We got off the wall just in time. As we descended we could hear claps of thunder and saw some lightning flashes in the distance. Near the bottom we caught a few drops of rain. I don't think it's too wise to be on that wall during an thunder storm so I'm glad we were on our way down when it started to open up.
My legs were pretty rubbery after I got back down, but to my amazement, I wasn't too sore this morning - that is until we got to the Emperor's Summer Palace today. There is a tower there called Bhudda Incense Tower that is perched on a hill overlooking the lake. It is incredibly picturesque and beckons one from on high. I decided to pay the extra 10 yuan admission and climb up to it. Eileen decided to let me. On the way up I found all of those muscles that I abused the day before but it was worth it. I got a lot of great pictures from there that I am going to try to post when I can get time to edit and upload them.
Tomorrow evening after a day touring Wuhan we will go aboard our cruise ship for 5 nights on the Yangtzee River. And although I will finally have time there to do some posting I won't be able to because there is no internet access from the boat. I'll have to wait until we get to Chongquin or Chengdu to be able to update the blog.

We're Here!

Uneventful, relatively smooth, lo-o-o-o-ng flight. I tried to stay awake during the flight so that I could sleep well during our first night in Beijing. The Chinese passengers all around us seemed to sense this and did what they could to help out. The fidgety old woman on my right kept pummeling me and stomping on my foot as she fiddled with her carry-on, adjusted her blanket, did her exercises, etc. The guy behind me did what he could by periodically poking me in the back and elbow and kicking me in the ass. We arrived on time at 6PM (3AM our time), wide awake and ready to connect with our national guide and transport to our hotel, the Jiangxi Grand.

Beijing airport, completed just one month ago, is nothing short of awesome.The architecture, colors, materials, layout, everything - come together to produce a spacious, appealing, efficient terminal capable of handling a massive number of people. This massive terminal, incredibly, was built by 50,000 workers in just 4 years, from planning to completion.

Our national guide, Buddy (this is his English name. Chinese name is Sun + something difficult to pronounce), gave us a running commentary as we traveled to the hotel. He pointed out that while Beijing and Shanghai are very modern and progressive, with bright lights, modern skyscrapers, multi-lane freeways and expressways, rural China is quite different. He likened China to an aging woman who, preparing to go out, carefully applies her makeup, perhaps a little to heavily, and chooses her outfit carefully in an effort to appear alluring while hiding her less appealing aspects.

Guilin, Yangshuo to replace Tibet

   Because Tibet has been closed to tourists indefinitely, our agent, China Focus, has revised our tour to include the Guilin/Yangshuo area on the Li river in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Guilin is an ancient city named for the fragrant Osmanthus trees which populate the city. In fact, “Guilin” means “forest of sweet Osmanthus” in Chinese. This senic spot has been a population center since at least 314 BC. Guilin was used as the planet Kashyyyk in Star Wars III.
      Yangshuo has become a center for rock-climbing on the surrounding karst peaks and is very popular with foreign backpackers. Karst terrain is formed by the dissolution of layers of soluble bedrock, like limestone and dolomite. Karst regions display distinctive surface characteristics, such as sink-holes, caves and abrupt peaks and cliffs. It sounds like a very interesting region. We're looking forward to experiencing it!
      Incidentally, Yangshuo has, since 1994, been a sister city to the town of Morehead, Kentucky, USA.

Tibet is OUT!

I've just been informed by our agent, China Focus, that Tibet is now formally closed to all foreign tourists and is likely to be closed throughout the month of May when we will be in China. It will very likely be closed to all tourism until after the Olympic games in August for fear of additional disruption by activists politicising the Olympic games as a means to demonstrate for Tibetan autonomy in opposition to the political domination and exploitation of Tibet by the government of China. This age old struggle has been going on since the 1950's when the Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader, was forced out of the Potala Palace and into exile in India. From time to time the underlying tension erupts into violent demonstration and this is one of those times. Although Tibetan goals in China are generally supported by the Western world, it's unfortunate that the Olympic Games, an international sporting event, are being politicised worldwide by these Tibetan activists.

Count Down

Exactly 8 weeks to go until we leave on our Asian adventure. We are all paid up; we have all our shots (recommended but not required—we got 'em anyway); we've applied for our Chinese visas and are diligently studying up on Chinese culture, crafts and cuisine. The present turmoil in Tibet has Eileen somewhat concerned but I think it will be suppressed (although not resolved) by the time we arrive in Lhasa. At any rate, I don't think it will pose any great threat to PRUDENT tourists. What do you think?