China - Final Thoughts

China surprised me in many ways. I think perhaps the biggest surprise to me was the food. I went into the trip scared to death that I would starve. I have never been one to like rice and the very few culinary experiences, besides pad Thai into Asian/American cuisine had left me running. But in the end and after over two weeks in China, I believe there was only one dish on the entire trip that I did not totally enjoy (the meat pancakes in Beijing). The food takes a little getting used to, but I thought it was absolutely delicious. I'll be interested to try the American version at home sometime. I may yet still run from it, but the real authentic Chinese food was great.

China also surprised me by showing just how modern it has become. The days of Chairman Mao and the hardline Communist economy is over. China is moved as warp speed into the 21st Century. It is happening so swiftly that even the Chinese government or the rest of the world knows where this will lead. The world needs to take notice because China is quickly becoming a superpower.

But with China's swift and unfettered growth, the pollution was everything I imagined. China truly has an environmental catastrophy on hand. Much of the country reminds me of Los Angeles on one of its worst days. Clean air is difficult to find. Clean water is no different. Desertfication threatens to claim Beijing and the country has major water shortage and other environmental issues over vast areas of the country. How will China cope as they continue to grow at a 8 - 10% clip. How will they manage as the population becomes more affluent and the number of vehicles double, triples, etc, over the next few years?

And I'm not even touching the subjects of news censorship, the heavy handed rule of many of the minority groups and religion freedoms.

I feel like I barely touched the surface of China knowing there are so many favorable places to see within the country, but at the same time I have learned and have experienced so much.


Canada's Baffin Island and the Arctic Ocean from 35,000'

Kunming

Kunming was to the final leg of my journey. The 20 hour train ride in the overnight couchette/sleeper was to be the final train leg. I thoroughly enjoy train travel and especially the overnight trips. They are a great way to wind down, enjoying both the countryside at a leisurely pace and also a chance to just sit back and read, eat, play cards and chat without any worries. It's also a great time to catch up on blogs and to also for the next few days and their activities.

Our group arrived in Kunming early on Sunday morning. Kunming is located far into the South of China, very far inland from the Pacific Ocean and not all that far east of the Tibetan Plateau. It seems the further south you travel in China, the more relaxed the pace is. Kunming is another Chinese megacity of 6-7 million people. The air here in Kunming was cleaner, the traffic more peaceful and the pace of life slower. I wouldn't compare it entirely to the West, but it is as close as I've seen it so far in China. Kunming is very ethnically diverse. There are 26 different distinct Asian ethnic groups that reside in the area. It is not far at all from the borders of both Laos and Thailand and has a sub-tropical climate that they call an "eternal spring" both due to the low latitude and also the city's elevation (6,200').



On our final day, our group took had a local driver take us out into the countryside to see the Stone Forest, which was recently named a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The "forest" is made up of colorful limestone ride spires that reach up into the sky. Most of the rock spires were of various light colored shades of blue. The spires were a bit surreal and reminded me of fake-painted toy rocks...maybe a creation you mind find in a theme park. The park was crowded, but most of the groups were guided and we quickly broke off to explore the windy and twisting paths among the maze of spires on our own. Once we got off the main trek, it took over an hour to find the path back to the throngs of tourists. In one of the main assembly areas, there were ethnic dances and music being performed by some of the locals dressed in colorful costume.



That night, our group of five got together for a delicious final meal and to say our goodbyes. We had clear, blue skies that evening after an afternoon thunderstorm and it was perhaps the only time on the trip we could see the bright blue sky from the clouds or the smog. Kunming certainly was a pleasant one day stopover.

Ahead of me, I had a grueling day of travel ahead of me. I left the hotel at 5:30a on Sunday, taking a flight from Kunming back to Beijing (over 1000 miles and 2.5 hours). I had to clear Chinese customs and recheck my bag again. The flight back over the northern polar regions was another 13 hours. Which also followed more US customs checks and another security bag rechecking in NYC and then a final leg to Atlanta after a 4+ hour layover in NY. My flight didn't make it back into Atlanta until 11p the same day, all daylight and covering 30 hours from the time I woke up in Kunming. And yet, I still had the four hour drive back to Knoxville.

Chengdu

After another 16 hour train ride, we arrived in another massive city. Chengdu is the fourth largest city in China with about eight million people. It's the capital of the Sichuan province, which is very well known for it's hot and spicy food. They do love their hot chili peppers here. Chengdu is considerably more laid back than the other cities we had visited to the North. People are more relaxed with their free time. It's less about business and more about fun. The traffic isn't as aggressive either. You can actually cross the street without the feeling that someone is gunning for you. And as we continue to move further south, the climate is a little warmer still (60s to 70) and continued wetter. Chengdu is somewhat close to the Tibetan plateau and gets alot of the cloud cover and showers that come out of the mountains.

Chengdu is also the focus of the conservation effort to save the giant pandas. It features a world class center, much like a nice zoo, where you can view the pandas and also red pandas. We took a guided trip to the center and saw about 15 of these giant pandas and also about ten of the much smaller and raccoon-like red pandas (the Knoxville zoo actually has a couple). Giant pandas are down to about 1500 in number world-wide and the center in Chengdu has about 80 in captivity, where they successfully breed pandas and they also live about ten years longer than they do in the wild.





We also had a hot pot dinner in Chengdu, much like the one in Zhongwei, but with a much spicier heat option in the center boiling bowl. I was afraid to even put my chopsticks in the center ring in fear that they might burst into flame from all of the chilis floating inside. Hot pot can include just about anything meaty or any vegetables that you can imagine. Think of it as a giant boiling soup and you just pick out the items that you want to eat.



Another activity in Chengdu took us to an ancient village that has been spruced up. The Chinese have also discovered the tourist trap and have dressed up this village much like you would expect from a Gatlinburg (but more tastefully done). There was lots of shopping and snacks along the streets.

We also finished our visit to Chengdu off with a stop at a Chinese disco on the final night. Disco isn't much different than a noisy smoky bar for the younger crowd. I think I was the oldest person there. It was very, very noisy and boisterous with lots of Chinese pop music. I was mercifully thankful that we got kicked out after 90 minutes because we weren't spending enough money to satisify the local establishment. The Chinese have just recently been getting their freedoms since about 1990 and have jumped into the new modern culture headfirst.


a little open air dentistry

Xi'an

I am at the midway point of the trip as our train pulls into the city of Xi'an. Unlike Beijing and Zhongwei, it is a bit greener here in Xi'an as it is a little warmer and considerably wetter. Xi'an was an ancient city of tremendous importance back around 1000-1500 years ago. It was the terminus of the famous Silk Road that traveled inland from Europe all the way to China. Xi'an at its peak of importance was the largest city in the entire world with a population of over 2 million people. The modern Xi'an still retains a few of it's ancient past, but like most of China, it has grown up into quite the modern city.

We had two full days in Xi'an and three of us got together to ride bikes along the top of the ancient city walls. The entire central area of the ancient city is encircled by this enormous wall that takes nearly two hours to ride by bike. And unlike the city, the wall was nearly deserted which made for a nice peaceful ride and several great picture opportunities.





My original plans were to visit the ancient/holy mountain of Hua Shan, with some of its daredevil steps and walkways, but it rained the entire day and daredevil stairway climbs aren't the brightest thing to attempt on rain-soaked steps. Instead, our entire group went for most of the day to visit the famous Terracotta Warriors. The very first Chinese emperor, Qin, is buried in a tomb nearby over 2200 years ago. He was the first to unify the Chinese nation and built the original 4500 mile section of the Great Wall. He thought of himself as a deity and desired to have immorality and to extend his rule into the afterlife. He had many of his officials and comcubines buried alive with him. And for protection he had over 500,000 help him build an army of stone, called the Terracotta Warriors to protect him in this afterlife. Over 7000 individuals "soldiers" have been discovered since the original discovery was made back in 1974. The warriors are lifesize and made of stone and built in great detail. They surround the tomb in military formation with horses and chariots, archers, calvary and infantrymen. Each was a reallife representation of an actual soldier and were each individually handpainted. Not all of the soldiers have been uncovered yet and archelogical digs still continue.





On the last morning in Xi'an, a couple of us went to visit the Wild Goose Pagoda, which is an ancient 7th century towering Buddist Temple.



Traffic in Xi'an is pretty spectacular. The ride back from the pagoda featured some really bad congestion. Chinese drivers and pedestrians are just daredevils. It's frequent to witness some amazing manuevers individual drivers will make. You really have to be on your toes crossing the street and it's really difficult to watch when you're riding in the taxi. Chinese drivers make up about 3% of the vehicle traffic in the world, but they make up a staggering 25% of the traffic fatalaties.

Desert Safari

This morning we met up with our hired locals for an overnight camel safari into the desert. I wasn't sure how authentic the experience would be since the surroundings in Zhongwei are really dry, but they used the land extensively for farming. We met up with the two local farmers/guides on the edge of one of this greenhouse farms where eight camels were waiting for our group.



There weren't any lessons necessary as we hopped right onto our camels and were off. Camels aren't the smoothest ride. I don't even care for riding on horses, but they are pretty manageable to work with. We worked in caravan style...one camel tied to another in a line. We rode out of the farm and were into sand dunes within an 30-45 minutes where we spent the rest of the next 24 hours...totally in isolation and the surroundings very much like you might envision in the Sahara with lots of sand with an occasion dry shrub.



We rode for about 4-5 hours with a one hour stop for lunch, mostly fruit. Camels are very tiring to ride. We had plenty of padding, but camel riding uses leg muscles you would never think about using. When I would get off of mine, I could barely even stand.

We pulled up to our campsite around 4p...in a bowl surrounded by high dunes in all directions to block out the wind. We played cards and had a great feast that night. Our feast consisted of pork and veggies and rice, all Chinese style, which is hard to describe how tasty it was. We also had grilled tofu and sweet potatos and spiced lamb and pork on the grill that night.



It got a little chilly during the night, but our campfire kept us warm until bedtime. Thankfully we didn't freeze. I think it got down to about 45 degrees.

Who would have thought of a camel safari in China?

Earmarks

So as the Chinese discovered capitalism in the 90s, they have also discovered government earmarks. Maybe they are indeed becoming more and more like the West. I'll explain why later.

We freshened up on Friday morning after a long train ride at our locate hotel in Zhongwei (population of about 100,000, which is "small" enough not to register on a Chinese map when there are nearly 100 cities of over 1 million people). We discovered the quickly that the city was not the tourist attraction, but WE instead were the tourist attractions. Zhongwei probably isn't visited very often by Westerners. The Chinese probably have not seen too many of us to often, so this group of five are quite the oddity in the city. The older population in particular had a fascination with us as we got total stares and all eyes were upon us as we made the brief walk to our hotel (no hostel this time). I, being the only male in the group, get an entire room to myself at each stop. That's a pretty nice luxury since I can dump the entire contents of my 40+ pound backpack and 10 pound daypack all over the room.



We cleaned up and had lunch. Again, we had some locals peering into the window initially when we were seated to see this fascinating creatures huddled around the table. Our meal was hot pot. I had no idea what hot pot was before today. It's essentially a big table with a stove in the middle and a big pot of water and some really good food is dumped inside to cook. Ours was loaded up with lamb, beef, lotus flower roots, some green stuff that was good, bamboo shoots, among other things. It was very good. I'm getting better with my chopsticks. My friends, Haiyi and Joel, will know how honorary Chinese I am if I can prove my chopsticks worth when I return.

When this had our local taxi guide and driver take us out into the desert for a view of the desert landscapes and a view of the Yellow River. We are far inland so the mightly Yellow River is not quite so mighty from here, but it is still powerful. It is the second longest river in China and holds an unimaginable quantity of silt from the desert and other places (not to mention the pollution as well).



We took a sheepskin raft float trip for a few miles down the Yellow...Class I only. The sheepskin raft was a rickety framework of "sticks" held together and floating on top of several "balloons" of sheepskin podlike things. You'll have to look at the pictures to get an idea. Let's just say we had a day to kill today.



We then visited a local outdoor amusement desert(ed) theme park. The Chinese had this brilliant idea recently to invest money in this area to help bolster their economy. Maybe it was stimulus money or a government earmark but the brilliant idea was to built some tourist infrastructure to bring people out into the sticks...er...sand to visit. I'm not sure if this park was a result, but the results were pretty humorous. The Chinese have built this little desert-like park with gates and turnstiles and attendants and a complete staff to man it...and yet there is hardly anyone there. They called it a 5-AAAAA tourist attraction. I suggest they stick to promoting their ancient cultures. They had dune buggy rides in the "park" (pay extra). They had camel rides (extra), which we are already doing tomorrow anyway. There were safari rides on top of jeeps and ATVs (extra) on top of the fees you already paid to enter and walk on the sand dunes. The worst part is that at each station you were greeted by Chinese attendants in military desert camo and ladies in blue hotel-like suits that would try to talk you into trying out each of the new different adventures.

I tried the buggy ($6) and got to ride for about 3-4 minutes covering two laps of their park. I wasn't about to try more.



The other side of the park had a chairlift descent down the dunefield to the Yellow River where other "attractions" awaited and there was also a zipline descent to the river along with a bungee tower. We left!

It was an interesting couple of hours trying to figure out what we had just seen. Proof that we didn't miss much..there were no tour buses of Japanese tourists pulling up to snap pictures of this AAAAA attraction in the outskirts of the Gobi Desert.

Train Travel

We left Beijing on Thurs morning headed deep into the interior of China and the outskirts of Inner Mongolia and the Tenneger Desert (or the edges of the famous Gobi desert). To get there we had to endure a 22 hour train ride in an overnight "hard" sleeper car. I had done several overnights when I was in Europe but was not sure what to expect in China. Ended up that our "seats" on the train were in fact the six person sleepers. Our group of five got a "room" about the size of a king bed (really) with three berths on the left side stacked to the ceiling and three to the right side also stacked to the ceiling and a tiny aisleway in the middle about about two feet wide. There was a tiny compartment for luggage under one bed (about a foot and another tiny compartment near the ceiling. That was it! We were to spend the next 22 hours together in this room with our luggage starting at noon and going until 10a the next day. Just be thankful you were the lucky #6 that got to share the room with us on the trip, which a couple of fortunate souls got to do on a couple six hours shifts. The train had an aisleway outside of our room that ran the length of the train car and was about 30" wide...that was the loitering area outside of the room unless you wanted to go visit the dining car or the haze-filled smoking area between cars. I was very thankful that the interior of the cars themselves were non-smoking. Consider that China inhales 1/3 of the entire cigarette consumption in the world and you can imagine what the streets and restaurants are like.



Oh, and let's not forget that we have restrooms too. Each railcar had a bank of three sinks in a room where the sink drains inexplicable drained right into the floor at your feet. So if you stood to closely while washing your hands or brushing your teeth, you went back to your sleeper with sopping wet shoes. The Chinese find Western toilets a foreign concept. I've been told they see them as unsanitary because they are used to not find the restrooms cleaned frequently. You can understand that you would would not want to use a infrequently cleaned toilet seat either. Of course, the alternative is the "squat toilet". They are not as widespread in China in the tourist zones since the Olympics came about but they can frequently be found in almost all other areas. Trains are heavily used by the locals and by few tourists, so we were fortunate to be served 22 hours with the squat toilets. Thankfully I took care of pressing needs before the train. A squat toilet is nothing more than a hole in the ground emptying out onto the tracks. Don't cringe too much at that. Eastern Europe trains do the same with their wastes. You just aren't allowed to visit the potty when you are approaching a station. If you have riden a train with any frequency you can imagine the difficulties of performing the squat while the train is in motion. Good luck indeed. Oh, and when you are done, there is a bucket of fresh water to wash away any of those who didn't quite hit the target precisely.



Our group did quite well surviving our 22-hour ordeal. We had a few informal Mandarian Chinese lessons along the way. I read about 150 pages of a book (Bill Bryson type travel adventure) about Chinese culture and travel as well. We rolled into the next part of our adventure in the town of Zhongwei the next morning. You'll have to look really hard on your map to find Zhongwei. Maybe a better search would be to Google "Yinchuan, China" and that will give you an idea of the location. So that is part I of China train travel down. We have three more overnight adventures still yet to come.


Pumpkin soup

Scams and more scams

Apparently, to learn English fluently in China means a life of professionally scamming tourists. I've never seen such an widespread and effective effort to scam tourists as I have seen here.

Some reasons I believe is because it is easy to decipher who are Western tourists. Anyone that travels this far to reach China obviously isn't poor either.

I have been approached many, many times already. My guess is at least 90% of the times I am approached by a local...it is for scamming purposes. How sad is that? I would like to connect with the locals here in Beijing, but I fear that make that impossible. Trust no one is my new motto.

Scam 1 - this one is very widespread across the entire city's tourist infrastructure. You have random locals just walk and and try to start conversations with you (to test their English or just to make friends while they also are traveling). Westerners are already a curiousity so it makes sense. Unfortunately, in neither case, is that the true intention. The first person was a male and after ten minutes of conversation wanted me to meet his sister (who spoke even better English). They were both very, very chatty and completely took me out of my "schedule". Well...after 15 minutes of this...they request that you join them for coffee or tea. Scam! Why...I'll tell you later. I got semi-suckered on Day 3.

Scam 2 - it's almost always girls that approach you. They are always younger. This one grabbed my attention just hours later in the Forbidden City (that's like getting pulled aside inside of an open-air museum...a safe zone? I think not). They took me into a side room of a restaurant to show me their school's artwork. The young lady did a very fine job of explaining the artwork professionally and what all of the Chinese characters and paintings mean. The spill goes on for nearly ten minutes...and that's when you realize she has invested far too much time in this for it to be "Free". Sure enough, the heavy sells pitch begins and so does the guilt. I ended up with a nice piece of artwork, but it set me back about $40 as well. Good deal...not too bad, but it can be had for cheaper in other parts and certainly on your own terms.

Scam 1 revisited - ah yes, they are persistent. I've had random people try to get my attention many times, but these two particular girls were better than the rest and got me started in conversation when I had nowhere in particular to go. They "oodle" over me and butter me up for awhile and then insist they follow me along to go investigate the shopping scene (my original intent). Sure enough, here comes the punch line to go for some refreshments and I kinda agreed to go (theyed seemed innocent) but with some reservations. We bypassed McDonald's (uh oh) and go up to the second floor of this semi-deserted bar. They asked me if I wanted anything and I insisted I did not. They eventually bought some tea and almonds and said I could share some with them. Thoughout the entire chat they kept insisting that I try some of the tea and almonds and I continued to refuse (onto them? yeah). At the end, I started to get some pressure from them that I was being rude not to drink/eat with them. But then the bill comes...$50!!!

My guess is...their plan was to put the entire bill in my lap, but it made it somewhat difficult since I had not eaten or drank anything at all. So they insisted that I split the bill with them, which I refused as well. Talk about guilt and loathing...they were putting it on me. I finally plopped down $7 and told them that was the best I was going to do for them for their "company" and then proceeded to march off. One of the girls was pretty ticked while the other seemed a bit...well, I dunno, realistic to their failures. In the end, I have no earthly idea what the entire scam was about. Was there a kickback with the restaurant involved? It didn't seem so. Was it a way to get a free expensive meal or a thrill to watch a tourist swirm??? Lame. I dunno. I was approached by a single girl one more time that night and I almost just wanted to flip her off on the spot without another word coming out of her mouth!!!

So when in China, don't go it alone. None of this happens when I'm with the group.

The Great Wall

It's Day 4 now and our last final day in the Beijing area. This morning we are taking a group trip and we are off to see the Great Wall of China. We left the hostel at about 10a and I was a little concerned because I had been told to arrive very early at the wall. This is one of the joys of booking through a small size travel company and arranging a private tour through the hostel using local guides...we visited a little touristed section the Great Wall that was in great condition and which was visited by perhaps a total of 20 other fellow tourists while we where there. How cool is that?!!!



I read some horror stories of the most visited section, Badaling, and the tours originating from Beijing to there. The crowds are suffocating and you can be forced to endure other add-ons such as visits to jade factories or other money-making ventures. Thankfully, our trip was nothing more than an authentic Great Wall experience. This section was completed about 300 or so years ago, one of the final sections completed to keep out the Monguls to the north. The wall was completed in sections, so some places are nearly 2000 years old and barely a trace can be found while others are still fairly new and in their infancy. This section was particularly steep, as I envision most sections of the wall are. We probably walked along the top for about 2 miles and probably ascended 1500 to 2000 vertical feet from the point where we started. The views were tremendous and you could see the snaking wall go on for miles along the ridges and mountaintops in both directions.







On the way back to Beijing and while still in the countryside, we stopped in at a small local establishment and had a very late lunch. The owners and some of their staff were busy outside skinning some unfortunate beast who was probably the tasty meal for some fortunate souls the following day. Meals in China are served banquet or "family-style", which is to say that several dishes are ordered with large portions and it is a free-for-all for everyone at the table to partake. For somebody that was scared of ASian food just a couple years ago, I find most of the dishes to be quite good and this restaurant was no exception. Tofu typically shows on the menu. We had green string bean mixed in with pork. Of course there is rice, and other meaty and veggie dishes (usually one of each mixed together). But the special menu item today was...donkey. Yum! I had my reservations. The meat was served cold and it looked exactly like roast beef. And...I loved it! It's very healthy and a lean meat as well.



Donkey wasn't the only culinary experience of the day. That night, our small group visited the night food market at the center of the city. There are lines and lines of booths hawking tasty unique dishes for the locals and appalled tourists alike. You had your choice of seahorse, locusts, fried strawberry/kiwi, snake and silkworm larvae. I decided to go for most bang for my yuan and give the fried scorpion a try. For about $1.50, you pick a kebab of about five LIVE small scorpions and they deepfry them for you for about 30 seconds so that they are served quite fresh. Scorpion is quite crunchy, as you might imagine. Just be sure to eat it tailfirst, or with the tail broken off, as I am sure the intact stinger might just hurt the tongue a little.

Beginnings in Beijing

I visited the main iconic highlights on my first full day, which was before our group was to meet at 6p. This took me to Tianenmen Square and into the Forbidden City. Tiananmen is the largest public square in the world. It his absolutely huge. Crossing the front is the portrait of the Communist Party's PRC leader when he assumed power in the 1940s, Chairman Mao. There is not alot visible in the square, as I am sure the Chinese government would prefer there not be too many reasons for the general public to loiter there. Security is omnipresent. I found a light security presence visible at most every other major public sight, but nothing overwhelming. One of the first impressions I have had the first two days is how capitalistic the Chinese society has become in many and most respects.



If you did not know or were not aware of the authoritarian government, you would probably find many commercial parts of Beijing bustling like few other places in the developing world. Things change monthly in Bejing and I have heard that visits that occur every year bring about many changes. Used to, Beijing and China were known for their heavy volume of bicycles, which was the main mode of transport. That has been replaced with a new cheap (30 cents per ride) state-of-the-art mass transit subway and thousands of cars. Beijing's population of 17-20 million sales nearly one thousand new cars every day!

The Forbidden City is closeby to Tianenmen, so I went there next. The Forbidden City was home to the Chinese emperor and the nobility for centuries and up until the imperial system was abolished in China's efforts to modernize in 1911. It's amazing to think about how vastly different China is today from the system back then in 1911 to where it is now. In the Forbidden City, the emperor and the nobility lived completely and totally separate from the peasant society. The general public was strictly forbidden to enter.



At the end of the first day, I met my group and we got together to enjoy a Beijing traditional Peking duck dinner at a local establishment. Meals in China are typically served "family banquet style" where many dishes are selected and everyone at the table digs in, with chopsticks of course. The duck was delicious. The other menu items were too as well. The Chinese like their food spicy, so you have to be selective in your choices or you can quickly find yourself overwhelmed.

As for my group, we are small in number. There are five of us in total with me being the only male. Our group leader is Jenny Lu, with her adoptive first name. I'll introduce the others later.

The second day took us on a hutong tour of the Bejing ghettos. The term, hutong, is a Mongolian word, and is used only in Beijing to represent the busy residential areas with small and narrow passageways. The hutongs are very traditional and a majority of the Beijing public lived in hutongs until the Chinese government has made a policy of transitioning into larger residential complexs, with alot less character. The destruction of these hutongs and relocation of the families has been a major controversial topic in China. Unlike the shantytown favelas in Rio, the hutongs of Beijing feel almost completely safe. Also unlike the favelas, the government has complete and total control here, unlike in Brazil's favelas.

I struck out in the afternoon on my own to explore the famed Temple of Heaven Park. This will end up being the highlight of my Beijing city visit. The park is a huge ceremonial grounds for the ancient and semi-recent Imperial sacrificial grounds of the Taoist. I won't claim to know anything about the religion but the Chinese emperor and his processor would fast and abstain from meat, music and sex twice yearly for three days prior to the ceremony. It involved animal sacrific at the park and was meant to bring good harvest fo r the entire nation for the entire year. The ceremony was quite elaborate and any mistakes were always suggestive of a bad omen for anticipated bad luck that upcoming year. The Chinese temples there are some of the largest traditional and most extensive in the nation. Huge throngs of tourist come out to view the monuments. The entire sacrificial system, which was aimed toward the Imperial System, ended when the emperor was forced to abdicate in 1911.





Also, as pictured below, I had some time to visit the Lama Temple, home to the Beijing's Tibetan Buddist population...




Tibetan Buddist monk & a Tibetan prayer wheel

Decisions and the Start - China 2010

It has not been that long since I last blogged from South America. One of the benefits of taking a long trip at the end of a calendar year is that you can take another not too far into the start of a new year. I had originally considered going to Australia this year, but quickly changed my mind knowing that China was a possibility and that the Chinese currency, the yuan, will likely soon revalue. At the present, China is quite affordable for the American, but it may not soon stay that way. I wanted to take advantage of that opportunity while I still had the chance.

This year's journey includes a similar format as the South American one. I absolutely loved the social group trip so I decided to sign up with GAP's competitor, Intrepid Travel, for one of their China itineries that sounded really intriguing, "Backroads to Kunming". I didn't want to just do the standard tourist trail trip in China of Beijing/Xi'an/Shanghai like a number of outfitters do. I elected to go for one that gets you back into some lesser known areas and I hope this itinerary accomplishes that.

I started my trip with a drive to Atlanta and a flight to NYC-JFK and then a direct route from NYC right over the Northern Polar region to Beijing, a 13-hour flight to a new time zone 12 hours ahead of the United States. I was concerned about jetlag but have actually had little trouble so far. I took sleeping pills the first night but have not since. I had no trouble getting to my first night's stay in a hostel either. I took a taxi. Taxis are cheap here. A 20 minute ride cost me about $17 and I think the driver took it upon himself to collect a small tip or it would have been even cheaper.