Day 01 – Beijing on our own

View Full Album

We arrived in Beijing a day earlier than planned because of a landing rights dispute between American Airlines and the Chinese government. Scrambling to get re-routed a couple of days before your trip is very, well, exciting. We flew to China by way of Tokyo. That did wonders for the frequent flier miles and the early arrival wasn’t all bad since this gave us an extra day to get over jetlag and allowed us to explore the city a bit on our own. 

The first thing we needed was a good map of the city in English, which we found in a nearby shopping area. Some students stopped us on the street to practice their English. They were very cute and some of them spoke English quite well.

After our “cultural exchange,” we headed for the Forbidden City/Tiananmen Square and ended up walking along one side of the Forbidden City, reaching Beihai Park, an old imperial garden to the northwest of the Forbidden City. It was beautiful.

The smog from the 4+ million cars in Beijing was absolutely incredible. We choked on it. Imagine LA at its smoggiest during the ‘60s and then double it. That would approximate the smog in Beijing. After a day of walking around breathing it, I felt as if I smoked a pack of cigarettes.

We finished the day at the Night Market on Wangfujing St, where you can buy deep fried scorpions, starfish, and sea horses (very endangered, I might add). We opted for less exotic fare, like a spring roll. It was a very inexpensive way to have dinner and was a lot of fun.

Day 02 - Chengde

View Full Album

Jennifer Xu, our guide, picked us up in Beijing and we drove to Chengde on a new highway. The Yunshan Hotel was a huge step down from the Grand Hotel in Beijing. For one, the rooms were a bit dirty and the bed was rock hard. In fact, the bed contained a box spring without the mattress on top. The people of Chengde are a hardy people! Fortunately, we are only here for two nights.

We visited the Imperial Summer Palace, which is essentially a pretty, public park now. Most of the buildings were modern reconstructions, but the complex must have been beautiful at one time.

Day 03 - Chengde

View Full Album

After breakfast, we visited the Puning Temple and the smaller Pule Temple. Again, we were faced with rather clumsy modern reconstruction and restoration. Sadly, China appears to have lost a lot of its cultural heritage between the Japanese invasion, the civil war, and the Cultural Revolution.

In the afternoon, we returned to the Imperial Summer Palace for an open cart ride through the hillside of the park on an extremely narrow and winding park road. We stopped at one point to walk on the park wall. They had a lovely sign warning us not to score on the wall, which had me in stitches. We could see the mini Potala Palace in the distance. We are visiting that tomorrow.

Dinner was a hot pot. which was wonderful. All the meals in Chengde have been fabulous, but this one was the most fun.

Day 04 - Chengde

View Full Album

We went to the Putuo Zongcheng Temple this morning, otherwise known as the mini Potala, although the complex is really a pastiche of Tibetan and Chinese architecture. The two styles obviously clash, but that was the point. The Emperor Qianlong built the Putuo Zongcheng Temple to accommodate visits by the Dalai Lama of Tibet. However, Emperor Qianlong wanted to make it quite clear that he was in charge by slapping Chinese elements on top of the austere and simple Tibetan building. I hope that the point was made, because I’m not certain that the building works as an organic whole.

After that, we went to the Xumi Fushou Temple. This temple was built to house the Panchen Lama and suffers from the same schizogenic nature. Once again, the Emperor wanted the religious leader to know who was in charge by adding Chinese architecture elements to a copy of the Zhashilunpu monastery in Tibet.

We had a small detour going back to Beijing. The brand new highway was shut down due to a serious crash. Instead, we took a country road for some distance before we could get back on the highway. There were some fierce potholes along the way, but our bus driver was undeterred by them. There were several occasions when I found myself airborne.

Day 05 – Back in Beijing

View Full Album

We met with our national guide, Wen Tong (Wendy). She took us for the obligatory visit to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. Security at both places was very tight. In fact, I had to send my purse through an x-ray just to get into Tiananmen Square. Obviously, the Chinese government is very sensitive about things in Tiananmen Square.

Unfortunately, all that security was not tight enough to prevent one of our group from losing a wallet to a pickpocket while viewing the Imperial Throne. The crush to see the throne was immense (wonder if the cricket cage is still there). That crowd was a pickpocket’s delight. The wallet was quickly recovered, minus the cash -- very upsetting, but at least the credit cards were recovered.

After the crush at the Forbidden City and a nice lunch, we took a pedicab ride to Madame Sun Yat-sun’s residence. I recall that there is a statue to Sun Yat-sun in San Francisco, where he is revered by the Chinese community. It surprised me that Madame Sun sided with the Communists since her husband was not one himself. I did not realize that Madame Sun was sister to Mrs. Chiang Kai-shek. That must have made for some interesting family dinner conversations!

After the museum, we had an odd visit to a small private home in a nearby hutong, and then, we tried to see the Temple of Heaven, a building from the Ming era. Unfortunately, we were too late to get in. While that was mildly disappointing, the temple had been so heavily restored from the outside that I think I would have found the visit disappointing anyway.

We had Peking Duck for dinner at the Dadong Restaurant, which was excellent.

Day 06 - Beijing

View Full Album

Walked the Great Wall at Mutianyu today. It was so, so hot. Even with the heat, we had to run a gamut through vendors. They were quite persistent.

You could walk up to the top or opt for the cable car ride, which our group did in the interest of time. Paul and I walked out to the left, almost to the top of this section. The smog, even here, was impressive.

On the way back into town, we stopped at cloisonné factory. We had a tour of the factory. The amount of work that goes into even a simple design is incredible. Of course, this was one of the few times that we didn’t bring a lot of cash or our credit cards with us. Maybe it is just as well.

We also had a brief stop at the Beijing Olympic site. The Beijing National Stadium (or Bird’s Nest) is visually stunning, but already showing signs of deterioration due to the climate and/or pollution. I was surprised to hear that the stadium was basically a Swiss design, although headed by a Chinese lead. Originally, the design called for a retractable roof, but that design was abandoned. In the summer heat, that stadium must cook.

Back to the hotel and more traffic jams. Does any major city on Earth avoid them nowadays? Beijing’s are on an impressive scale and are a symptom of their economic leap forward (and probably a major source of the air pollution). Twenty years ago, Beijing was a city of bicycles. Now, bicycles are in the minority and you risk life and limb to ride one in this traffic.

I still can’t get over how casual drivers are about obeying traffic lights or even staying on their side of the double line! As a friend mentioned once in Mexico, traffic rules are “just a suggestion.” It’s amazing that there aren’t more accidents or even more dents on the cars.

Dinner was in the Beihai Park at the Shanglinyuan Restaurant. It was a beautiful setting and we reached it just at sunset, which was spectacular.

Day 07 - Lhasa

View Full Album

Flying to Lhasa today. Wow! China’s TSA is even more thorough than ours. We can’t carry ANY liquids – forget the 3.5 oz. rule. They x-rayed everything in my carry-on TWICE and then made me take everything out anyway.

We have to fly to Lhasa via Chengdu, which makes for a long day, especially when the Chengdu – Lhasa segment is delayed. The flight over the mountains of Tibet is impressive. (And, no, you can’t see Mt. Everest from the plane. Everest is over a 100 miles away and on the border with Nepal, in case you were wondering.)

When we arrive in Lhasa, we are given a white scarf by our local guide, Baima, as a greeting. On the way to the hotel, we stop by a Buddhist shrine painted on a cliff. There are lots of white scarves on the hillside by the Buddha, given as an offering.

At the hotel, we are greeted with more white scarves and a small group of singers. I feel the altitude (11+K ft). We are taking Diamox to help with the adjustment, but that med, combined with the altitude and a profound lack of sleep, knocks me out. I sleep through dinner and wake up the next morning for breakfast.

It’s a busman’s holiday for Paul. He ends up doing rounds on our group. Lots of people are feeling the effects of the altitude. I notice that the rooms are equipped with emergency oxygen cylinders. I can understand why.

Day 08 - Lhasa

View Full Album

I definitely feel better after sleeping for 11 hours. Reducing the Diamox dose by half helps, as well. The original dose is way too much for my body size. Even with rest, climbing a short flight of stairs feels like a workout.

This morning we visit the Drepung Monastery. It is placed on a hill, like most Tibetan monasteries. They are rebuilding the road up to the complex, so we need to pick our way carefully.

Drepung was one of three Gelukpa university monasteries. The other two are Sera and Ganden. We will see Sera later today and watch a disputation. Gelukpa Buddhist is also known as the Yellow Hat sect, which I think is the Dalai Lama’s branch of the religion.

This sect was founded by Tsongkhapa in the late 14th c and we will see a lot of his statues in these monasteries. His emphasis was on universal compassion and realizing that nothing possesses essential, enduring identity. Plato said as much in his philosophy that objects of perception have no inherent existence.

But, I digress.

The monastery reeks of history and incense. We saw monks chanting in the gloom, but my favorite part was seeing a monk walking with a cellphone glued to his ear. Another young monk was wearing Doc Martens!

After lunch we went to a traditional Tibetan hospital, where one of the practitioners gave us a rather confused lecture about traditional medicine. Galen would have loved this, because there was a parallel of Galen’s idea of the four humours in Tibetan medicine. This medical system seems to be based on a lot of nonsense. I had to try awfully hard not to be rude. Certainly, if I had an infection, a bout of antibiotic would do a lot more for me than knowing whether I was a hot or cool person. Each to his own.

In the afternoon we went to the Sera Temple to watch the monks holding mock debates in the courtyard. Since they are students and young, these debates are quite energetic, as one monk will slap his hands together in a certain way to indicate that he agrees or disagrees with the answer given. There is at least one senior monk that walks around watching the debates (and maybe to keep order). Frankly, the students looked as if they were having a good time and blowing off a bit of steam after being in class all day. I was surprised at the number of monks who were wearing Nikes! That company must be making a killing in China if its products reach Tibet, as well.

Day 09 - Lhasa

View Full Album

We saw the Potala Palace today, home of the Dalai Lama. Or, rather, I should say former home since I think that the Dalai Lama left here in 1959 after the Chinese “liberated” Tibet. He hasn’t been back since. No one ever explained what exactly Tibet needed liberating from and Wendy, our national guide, asked us not to pose questions like that to the local guide.

The Potala Palace is pretty much a museum now, but the religious context for the place is obviously still a touchy subject. We weren’t allowed to take photos inside. That’s understandable. The palace is held sacred by the Tibetan Buddhists.

Today was the start of a holy month for the Tibetans. Thousands of them were making a circuit of the palace (in a clockwise direction only), most of them holding prayer wheels. A couple of older people had some beautiful prayer wheels that were obviously antiques. I wonder how they survived the Cultural Revolution since so many religious artifacts, statues, etc. were destroyed then. Most of the statues that we have seen in the Tibetan temples are cheap, tacky, modern copies – very sad.

Tibet’s place in China is a touchy subject with the Chinese, too. There are Chinese soldiers in force everywhere. You can’t go anywhere in Lhasa without seeing packs of them. I guess that the Chinese government does not want a replay of 2008 when riots disrupted Lhasa. The Chinese soldiers were so jumpy that George couldn’t even put her knapsack down for a moment to change her camera lens. Were they afraid that the knapsack contained a bomb? Apparently, it was okay for one of us to hold the knapsack instead while she rummaged around looking for her lens. Go figure.

Things that make you go, “Hmm…!”

After lunch, we went to the Jokhang Temple, otherwise known as the House of Religious Science. I wish that our guide could have explained things a bit more to us, but most of her talks were very basic and lacked in any detail. I don’t know if this was a language problem or a political one and I wasn’t about to rock the boat by asking.

Anyway, this temple has its foundations in the 7th c, although it was sacked more than once by the Mongols, and probably trashed by the Cultural Revolution. Somehow, their huge collection of rare metal sculptures survived. Not sure how.

While there, we saw two groups laying down new flooring. It is done strictly by hand, or rather, strictly by foot. Crushed rock is pounded into the floor by stomping on it. The end result is like an artificial marble. It was interesting to watch, but must be back breaking work. The workers sang as they pounded the rock in place.

We finished up the day with a visit to Norbulingka, which is the Dalai Lama’s Summer Palace (now unoccupied, of course). Not sure why it is called the Summer Palace since it is within walking distance of the Potala Palace. The temperature difference can’t be that great.

There were a lot of birds in the surrounding park, but the biggest surprise was a flock of parrots! Paul managed to get a shot or two of them. I wonder if they migrate? How can they survive the Tibetan winter?

Day 10 - Chengdu

View Full Album

Up early to drive to the Lhasa airport for Chengdu. The airport security is not as rigorous as in Beijing. In fact, it seems downright casual in comparison. When we arrive, we are met by our local guide, Sammy Li.

Sammy was with a zoo group in Wolong when the earthquake hit in 2008. That must have been quite an experience.

We visited the Chendu Giant Panda Breeding Center after landing. The park itself is very nice, but the animals seem overcrowded and stressed.

Some of the Red Pandas were in seriously bad shape. They are either rescue animals or they are being fighting with one another. One poor little guy had no ears. They had been ripped off. His tail was denuded of hair, again either due to fights or stress.

All of the Red Pandas exhibited stress reactions and were pacing. One animal had a huge, fresh gash on its side. It was very sad to see, even though the cages were clean and the food/water was fresh.

The Giant Pandas looked in better shape, but I was surprised that they were in group enclosures. Giant Pandas are solitary animals and it is very unnatural for them to be housed together. Maybe the earthquake that closed down Wolong is to blame for the overcrowding, although I thought that someone had said that all of those pandas were moved to Bifengxia.

At least none of these animals looked as if they had been fighting and none looked particularly stressed. They had some babies in a cage. One little guy was obviously sick and while he was housed in a separate cage, his cage was in direct contact with the other small guys. It made me wonder why they didn’t isolate the sick one.

In the evening, at George’s suggestion, we went to the Sichuan Opera in the Chengdu Cultural Park. It was fabulous, like an old vaudeville show with a series of short acts. There was a puppet master, several musicians, a shadow master, an excerpt from a tradition opera and a long skit, all in Chinese, of a man coming home late at night having lost all of his money gambling. You really didn’t need to know the language to understand what was going on.

The pièce de résistance was a group of mask dancers. It seems like magic, but they change their faces before your eyes. I’m not sure how they did it, but I suspect that the masks are on some thin material that is stretched so much that it retracts quickly when moved slightly. Whatever the trick, it was very impressive to watch. I enjoyed the evening greatly and am so glad that George suggested it.

Day 11 - Bifengxia

View Full Album

We left Chengdu early for Bifengxia, home of many captive pandas, but before we left, we walked down to Starbucks for one last cup of joe and to buy some souvenir coffee cups. The irony was that the cups were made in Seattle.

Chengdu still has a lot of bicyclists and electric mopeds. They even have separate lanes for them. So, while the streets are clogged with cars, there is still a sizeable two-wheel component.

The bus ride to Bifengxia is almost two hours and on the way Sammy tells us about her experience in Wolong with the zoo group when the earthquake struck the area. It’s quite a tale and she is an excellent storyteller. Her story is doubly impressive since she is telling it in English for us.

Bifengxia is in a rural area. The big panda breeding center up is in the mountains. The road up to the reserve is winding and long, but very beautiful. Finally, at last, I could see the China depicted by landscape painters like Wang Hui. There was even a fogfall cascading over a distant mountain range.

We had a brief meeting with the head of the panda reserve. I’m not sure that he was a scientist, but more of an administrator. He told us the aim of the center was to release the Giant Panda back into the wild, although he didn’t address how they were going to reverse the habitat destruction or prevent the intrusion of man into the panda breeding areas. Logging is a big issue and it appears that the Giant Panda needs old growth trees for den sites.

However, habitat destruction isn’t the only obstacle for a wild release facing this center’s pandas. The way that the panda reserve houses the animals is a cause for concern, too. Here, as in the Chengdu park, they have the babies living communally. They are taken from their mothers at about six months so that the center can breed the adult females again, rather than allowing the cubs to remain with their mothers for more than a year and a half. All these factors are bound to produce unnatural behaviors that might be a detriment to captive animals released in the wild.

The center also allows tourists for a fee to enter the cages and pose with the animals or play with the babies. How can these animals ever adapt to the wild if they are habituating to humans?

Certainly, using some animals as ambassadors for public education is a reasonable thing to do, but then label them as such. To give lip service to the idea of releasing any of these animals into the wild is absurd and as far as I’m concerned just a eco-talking point to make foreign tourists feel that they are “helping” the pandas.

No doubt the Chinese biologists know that if they want to be serious about reintroducing the Giant Panda back into its habitat they will need to minimize all human contact with these animals when they are in captivity. That includes limiting the contact of the pandas with the keepers, as well as, the tourists. The animals will need to be housed individually since they are by nature solitary creatures and they will need to change their breeding schedule to allow the mothers to remain with their cubs for much, much longer. I suppose that some of the overcrowding in this panda reserve might be due to the closing of Wolong after that devastating earthquake in 2008.

I wish that I saw a greater emphasis on basic research on the pandas in the wild, rather than an expansion of these tourist parks. There are large gaps in our knowledge about the Giant Panda’s natural history. Funding basic research might prove more important than ramping up a captive breeding program.

Right now, more than 15% of the world’s Giant Panda population are held in captivity. If logging resumes in the panda’s habitat, the wild population numbers may decline further. In that case, it is going to become especially important to replicate natural conditions for the captive population.

Don’t get me wrong. The animals are well cared for at the panda reserve here and the keepers seem absolutely dedicated to their animals, but most of the adults and sub-adults showed signs of stress, probably due to crowding and human contact. In fact, it was telling that of the two sub-adult animals chosen for the optional photo shoot, only one could be used. When our group entered the compound, one of the pandas came down out of his tree and bit his keeper on the ankle. That animal had to be kept away from the people taking the photograph with the other panda. I can imagine that the center wouldn’t like a panda to take a chunk out of a tourist.

The whole setup saddened me. I know that everyone means well, but, as Mark Twain once said, “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.”

OK, I’m off my soapbox. And, yes, the babies were very, very cute. They are right off the standard cuteness scale. They are charming as only young animals can be.

The beds in our Bifengxia are rock hard. I think that we are lying on box springs without a mattress on top. There is also an interesting assortment of bugs parading through the room.

Day 12 - Bifengxia

View Full Album

After a rather sleepless night on that rock hard bed, we gather for an early breakfast. You can tell that we are off the normal tourist beat. It’s quite an experience to eat a fried egg with chopsticks. Arlene comes up with an innovated solution, she makes an egg sandwich.

We spend the morning back at Bifengxia Panda Reserve. The highlight is to suit up in blue surgical drape, complete with plastic gloves and shoe covers, and to go into one of the panda kindergartens to play with the baby pandas. We go in small groups for about 6 minutes of playtime. Paul and I feed bamboo to a quiet cub sitting on a wooden platform. The babies’ fur is surprisingly coarse. When we are about to leave, one of the smaller cub throws his paws around my ankle. I’m not sure if he just wants to play or he misses his mom. The keeper gently extracts him from my ankle and holds him as I leave.

It’s interesting to see how various people react to the cubs. Some are very intimidated by the animals. Others appear overly aggressive with them. Cindy, everyone decides, is a secret panda whisperer. She seems to have a calming effect on her chosen cub, who happily sits in her lap eating bamboo shoots. She missed her calling. I think that she would have made an excellent veterinarian.

We go back to the hotel for lunch and then take a short tour of the Bifengxia National Wildlife Park. It is one of the stranger tours I’ve been on. Our bus takes us through three multi-acre enclosures, housing lions, sun bears or tigers. The bus is fitted with iron slats, where you hold food on slim bamboo skewers through the slats. The animals come up to the bus and take the food. The cats, especially, move suddenly and almost attack the bus, which causes some of the passengers to scream every time they reach up for the food.

After that, we return to the panda reserve so that some of our group can purchase more “play time” with the panda cubs. Again, Cindy impresses all of us will her animal handling abilities.

Back to the hotel and our uncomfortable beds. Our guide has requested a couple of extra duvets to pad the bed, which makes it marginally more comfortable.

The room has now a different parade of bugs, some of them quite pretty. Fortunately, none of them seem particularly interested in us, so if they leave me alone, I will leave them alone.

Day 13 - Shanghai

View Full Album

We had another uncomfortable night in our Bifengxia hotel, followed by a very early start this morning. We have to drive all the way back to Chengdu (~2 hours) this morning to catch a flight for Shanghai. It might have made more sense to spend the night in Chengdu, instead of Bifengxia.

Everyone is getting very tired. I know that I’m feeling very cranky today.

Shanghai’s is a city of contrasts. There are scores upon scores of skyscrapers everywhere, as in most major Chinese cities, but there is still a bit of human scale left to the place. For one, there are lots more trees and greenery. Some of the buildings date back to the time of the European and American concessions, so the architecture is very familiar to our Western eyes. (For those who don’t know, the “concessions” that the West extracted from China in the mid-1800s is a shameful part of our history.)

Sadly, like other Chinese cities, the smog is overwhelming and the streets are clogged with cars. Our hotel was a pleasant surprise. We are staying at the Ritz-Carlton. I feel decidedly underdressed for such an upmarket hotel. The rooms are beautiful and we have a panoramic view of the city.

Unfortunately, we don’t have much time to spend in our room. We can only throw our suitcases in the closet and have a very rushed dinner “on our own”. Then, we hop back onto the bus again and are driven out to the Expo site.

The Expo is on both sides of the Huangpu River. We had to take a small ferry across the river to reach the various countries’ buildings. Once the sun went down, the Expo site becomes a fairy land of colored lights.

The lines for the important countries were impossibly long for the short period of time that we had. So, we skipped the most popular country buildings and went into the smaller countries’ exhibits, instead. One of them was Lithuania’s, which was good fun. We sat there, had a Lithuanian beer (excellent), and just talked.

After walking around for a few hours, we just ran out of the steam. Even though the Expo was supposed to stay open until midnight, most exhibits started shutting down around 9:30 PM. The Caribbean exhibit was closed by 9 PM. At that point, we decided to leave.

Since we were close to a subway line, it made sense to take the subway back to our hotel. I’m so glad that we did. The metro was beautiful and everything was signposted in Chinese and English, making it was extremely easy to navigate. The ticket price was a bargain, too,only 4 Yuan a piece (~60¢). The other nice aspect of taking the subway was that we got back to the hotel quickly. I think that the trip back took about 10 minutes, as opposed to more than 45 minutes on the surface streets.

Actually, it probably took us more time to walk from the metro stop to our hotel because we kept taking photos of the street. All the trees were lit by lights and many of the building were dramatically illuminated, as well. It was a lovely walk home.

Day 14 - Shanghai

View Full Album

We went to the Shanghai Museum. It is an exquisite building, housing an amazing collection. Since we only had a few hours to see it, I’m afraid we had to run through the museum. There simply wasn’t enough time to look at everything very carefully.

After lunch, we decided to forego the silk factory tour. We were both exhausted and, frankly, it sounded like a shopping trip more than anything else. I can’t say that we did anything exciting with our free time. We sat and read and tried to catch our breath a bit.

Before dinner, we visited a Children’s Palace. Basically, it is a type of boys and girls’ club where children can study music, art or dance. The children were utterly charming and some quite talented. Nevertheless, it was not clear why this place was a stop on our itinerary. It had elements of the old “friendship meetings” when visiting the Soviet Union.

At the end of the tour, we were led into a large shop without a seeming exit. We were told that the things were made by either the students or the teachers. Since I had seen several of the items for sale in other places, I’m not certain how accurate that statement was. After everyone made their purchases, the shop people revealed the hidden doorway to the outside.

The building itself was well worth a look. It was a classic example of an Art Deco building.

After dinner, we headed for The Bund, which is a walkway along the river in the old International Settlement. The place was stunning with its lights, but the fog/smog was so heavy that our automatic focus had a difficult time taking a photo of the buildings, even though they were dramatically lit. It also felt as if all of Shanghai was there that evening. The place was mobbed. It started to rain, although the rain didn’t seem to clear the air any. It was still difficult to see across the river at times.

Tomorrow, most of the group is flying home, but six of us are pressing on for the post-tour to Xi’an and Yangtze River Cruise.

Day 15 – Xi’an

View Full Album

Our post-tour didn’t start well. We won’t have a national guide with us. Rather, there are going to be a series of hand-offs between local guides. It all sounds fine, in theory, but none of us speak Chinese and the local guide can’t go beyond the security barrier. I’m glad that I bought a local SIM card. I have a feeling that we may need it. It is very foggy/smoggy today at the airport and we are flying to Xi’an.

The flight was delayed in boarding and once they closed the doors, we sat on the tarmac for long time. Of course, most of the announcements were in Chinese, but one of the attendants did make brief announcements in English, which was helpful and for which I was very grateful. They were very vague about when we were leaving and I’m not sure why they were in such a rush to board us if they couldn’t take off. When they went through the cabin to serve us drinks and later a meal service, I took it as a bad sign. I assume the fog/smog caused flight delays. After a long wait, the plane was finally cleared for take off (in mid-meal I might add, so the food was hastily yanked away from us) . We arrived in Xi’an hot, sweaty, and about two or three hours late.

Once we collected our luggage, we had a big change in our schedule and headed not to Qin’s tomb with the life-size terracotta warriors, but rather to the Hanyangling Underground Museum, which displays some of the burial pits surrounding the tombs of another emperor, Jingdi (188-141BC) and his wife Empress Wang of the Western Han Dynasty. The burial pits include miniature terracotta figures (~3’ high) with weapons, court women in Han costumes, and countless animals, all set up to attend to the dead emperor.

We were rushed through the museum because it was going to close soon, which was a shame. The museum was an impressive presentation. If the photos are grainy, it is because the light is kept very low and the temperature is kept cool to preserve the figures.

We drove into the city of Xi’an, often bumping along on an access road that paralleled a perfectly good highway. I’m not sure why, but I suspect that the driver was trying to avoid the road tolls.

Xi’an is a fascinating city. It stills retains its intact city walls (recently refurbished from the look of them). Historically, Xi’an was an important city, serving as the capital for 11 Chinese dynasties. There is even a Muslim section in the city that we were supposed to visit, but the tour was scrapped. Again, I’m not entirely sure why. I’m sure that our late arrival messed up our tightly packed itinerary and the Great Mosque was closed, although I didn’t quite understand why we couldn’t walk around the historic area, as scheduled. Maybe it wasn’t safe to do so; I really don’t know.

Instead, we were hurried into a restaurant a bit ahead of schedule and had a hasty meal of dumplings, which is the local specialty. The dumplings were great, but after 18 different types they were all starting to taste alike to me. They also served a type of rice wine, which reminded me of sake.

It was a relief to reach our hotel and take a shower.

Day 16 - Chongqing

View Full Album

We had to get early this morning and pack everything after less than 14 hours in Xi’an. Somehow, we are going to cram in a visit to the terracotta warriors of Emperor Qin’s tomb before we hop onto yet another plane, this time, bound for Chongqing.

Rushing through the terracotta warrior site was so frustrating! This museum is the most amazing display I’ve ever seen and the scale of Qin’s tomb is breathtaking. I’m sure that we saw the main bits of the exhibit, but there were many more buildings that we simply did not have the time to see. (Funny how we always had time to visit the gift shop, however.)

Not having a guide with us really became important when we reached the airport again. The flight was delayed, and after we sat in the waiting room for about an hour, the airline announced a gate change in Chinese. Fortunately, one of the gate agents took pity on us as we all were blithely sitting there and told us in English where the new gate would be.

After finally reaching Chongqing, one of the ugliest cities we had seen to date, we made a visit to General Stillwell’s Museum, which turned out to be closed for refurbishment. (One would think that someone somewhere should have checked on this before wasting our time.) Our local guide talked us into the place for a brief 10 minutes visit. There wasn’t a lot to see anyway, so it probably didn’t matter much that the visit was truncated.

Then, we were taken to the Chongqing Art Institute and Galleries. I’m not quite sure why this was a stop at all. We had to pay to get into the Great Hall, which was just a large, not particularly impressive, auditorium and the “Institute” appeared to be just a venue to sell tourists prints of well known paintings. It was a total waste of time. Doubly so, considering that the Three Gorges Museum was just across People’s Square from the Great Hall, where there were some important pieces of art and artifacts of the people displaced by the Three Gorges Dam. I’m afraid I was barely polite and walked out of the institute immediately to the bus. My frustration level was reaching new heights.

After a very nice dinner, we were driven to the docks to board our boat for the 3 day Yangtze River cruise. It was quite a trek down to the boat since the drought has lowered the river drastically.

Our boat, the Victoria Jenna, was brand-new and our stateroom was lovely. Thank God!

Day 17 – Yangtze River

View Full Album

The boat was very comfortable, although the food was unremarkable with the dining room service inattentive and slow. Fortunately, we were only held captive by the dining room staff during dinner since breakfast and lunch were buffet style. So, most of the time this poor service wasn’t an issue. I liked our stateroom very much and our cabin steward was very good and very efficient.

The biggest disappointment is the river itself. The scenery must have been awe inspiring at one time, but the devastating pollution of the air and of the water, plus, the incredibly ugly and depressing towns that we glide by, are extremely disheartening to view. It made we wonder why anyone would pay money to see this.

This ravaged land is a prime illustration of China’s great leap forward. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not being a smug American here, because the Lord knows we have devastated our landscape, too. However, you would have expected China to learn from our mistakes. They haven’t and are left with streams that run red with silt and city/industrial waste. People appear to treat the river as a dumping ground, too, since incredible amounts of garbage float by each day.

We had a shore excursion to the “ghost city” of Fengdu. Most of Fengdu was moved across the river because of the flooding caused by the Three Gorges Dam. The temples left at the top have become a type of tacky tourist attraction.

The passengers were separated into smaller groups. Our group consisted of our six post-tour participants and a collection of European/Australian tourists. We were urged to take the chair lift for 20 Yuan up to the top. Since the line for the chair lift was enormous, we elected to walk up, although we were discouraged to do so by our guide. She claimed it would be an incredibly difficult climb of 600 steps. We ignored her.

As it turned out, the walk was dead easy. If the road had 600 steps, they must have been very small ones. The walk took perhaps 5 minutes. In fact, we beat most of the people who stood in line waiting for the lift. What a scam.

The collection of buildings are a necropolis modeled after the Chinese Hell in Taoist mythology. The guide claimed it was built over 1800 years ago and I have no doubt that the foundations could date back to that period, but many of those buildings are of much more recent vintage and the pagoda structure is absolutely brand-new. The biggest tip off that this was a tourist attraction had to be the guys doing new construction as we toured the place.

After enduring about half of the tour, with lots of shopping opportunities along the way, we bailed out and returned to the ship. Need I say that there was the usual gamut of souvenir shops, etc. on the way back? It was a total waste of time, although I guess the exercise was worthwhile.

Day 18 – Yangtze River

View Full Album

The boat sailed into two of the Three Gorges (Qutang and Wu). We will do the final gorge, Xiling, tomorrow. They were spectacular, but at times the combination of mist and air pollution made it very difficult for the auto focus on the cameras to work.

Our ship excursion was a visit to the Long Men Gorge. We transferred to a small ferry, and later, briefly to a sampan. It was very hot on the boat and all the Westerners were stuck on the top of the ferry under a simple metal roof, which afforded little protection from the sun. In fact, the effective temperature was higher under the metal roof than away from it. I got sick from the heat and it wasn’t until I went downstairs that I felt any better.

Long Men Gorge has cleaner water and is more rural than the Yangtze River, although it still had garbage floating by occasionally. Nevertheless, we had a glimpse of China as it was.

There were an ancient river people that used the many caves in the soft limestone cliffs to bury their dead. Most of the caves have been emptied a long time ago and some of the artifacts are in the Three Gorges Museum back in Chongqing. I wish I knew more about these people, but very little information was given, except to point out a coffin placed in a cliff.

There were also monkeys and goats on the cliffs. It is amazing that they didn’t fall since the cliffs are almost straight up and down.

Day 19 - Yangtze

View Full Album

Around midnight we went through the lock system associated with the Three Gorges Dam and then docked at a small town. There was a tour scheduled for the dam, but since it was raining and we were a little leery of wasting our time, we opted to skip the tour. Instead, we just rested and watched the groups disembark to the waiting buses. We were laughing  that instead of walking the tourists on the sidewalk to the buses, they were carefully lead through a shopping area. As it turned out, the tour was a bust. The bad weather and mist obscured any view of the dam.

We cruised through the final gorge, Xiling. It was absolutely lovely and exactly what I envisioned our trip should have been. There was heavy, heavy fog, which made seeing the far bank difficult and made everything very magical.

After lunch, we were picked up by the local guide for Yichang for our trip to the airport. If I have to hear one more time the joke about the national bird of China being the crane, I shall start to scream and not stop. There must be a standard speech that all Chinese guides memorize and we have now heard it many, many times. Can you tell that I’m getting just a bit cranky?

As we were driving to the airport at Yichang, the fog/smog was getting thicker and thicker. When we reached the airport, one of our group asked the guide pointblank if any aircraft could land or take off in these conditions. The guide hastily assured us that it was no problem, dumped us at the security gate, and waved good-by.

Of course, it WAS a problem. Our airplane couldn’t land in Yichang, I guess, and I’m really guessing here. Other airlines seemed to get their planes in just fine, but ours couldn’t. I started making phone calls, since no one at the airport was very fluent in English. Apparently, our plane was forced to go to another airport. Maybe our airplane didn’t have the equipment for an instrument landing. I don’t know. Having no guide with us was a real disadvantage here and when you think of it, really, really stupid.

After four hours, without the weather looking much different than before, we finally had a plane and took off for Shanghai. We were all getting a little panicky about ever reaching Shanghai.

After we landed, we were too tired to care about dinner and just went to bed. Adventures in travel.

Day 20 – Heading Home and Final Thoughts

View Full Album

We had a flight late out of Shanghai in the afternoon, so we could sleep late. The view from our room at the Ritz Carlton, as before, was stunning. It was nice just to relax a bit.

The trip home, although long and boring, was uneventful. I fought the urge to kiss the ground when we landed in Chicago. We were home! We even went to McDonald’s to have a hamburger and fries while waiting for our final flight to San Diego.

Having had a bit of time to digest the experience, I’ve come to a couple of conclusions. One is that three weeks is too long to live in a suitcase. If I ever go back to China, I want to visit one or two places and spend more time seeing them.

China, as a country, is impressive, but the pollution and the crowds are very, very depressing. I’m glad that I saw China and I met some very nice local people, but what I saw gave me chills. Is this our future – masses of humanity with heavily polluted skies and limited supplies of unsafe water?

Don’t think that China’s growth problems will stop at their border. Air pollution is something that will spread to the entire world –look at poor Canada choking on our acid rain. Nor will their growing demand for energy lessen anytime soon. We are already reaching the finite limits of fossil fuels. What is going to happen as America competes with China for the remaining oil supplies?

I also think that population growth is the 800 lb. gorilla sitting in the room. No one in American politics wants to talk about this, but any discussion of pollution, climate change, and quality of life needs to address this issue. I know that the Chinese have instituted a one child policy. Even so, their population is going to continue to grow for several more years.

If you want to reduce the burden that we place on the environment, our world population needs to be reduced. In my lifetime, the world’s numbers have roughly doubled.  The prediction is that our numbers are still rising and won’t peak for a couple of decades. What kind of life will we have when water, food, and energy become in short supply?

Do you realize that in a conflict China or India could lose 300 million people and still have a billion left? If we lost that many, we would have an empty country. The scale of humanity in parts of the world is overwhelming and the demands for the energy, water and food are on an unimaginable scale. How all of these needs will destabilize world politics is an open question, but the thought worries me.

Sometimes, I’m glad that I’m old….