ChingChong ChinamenOct 11, 2009
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This am we head off to ChongXing pronounced chongching. And yes, we saw the pandas!!!!
I got some fabulous photos, in fact people are saying I got the best [photos of the day. My camera is absolutely bloody fantastic. The zoom, the ease of use... makes me seem like I know what I’m doing... and yes I do... I point and click. Jason has been watching me like a hawk, and also using the camera. He loves it. Everyone says the zoom is better than theirs... I guess that’s just because its new. It might force me to do a photography course when I get back.
After the pandas we had lunch we yes... another banquet, but David had 2 cup a soups ... his belly isn’t quite up to scratch... that was a shame as it was one of the best ones ever. Kevin wanted a quarter panda with cheese.... he’s so naughty! Another airport and off to Guilin. On the plane they served us stuff that may have been beef jerky... the general consensus was that it was inedible. It had been dried and them marinaded in something... what that something was... nobody knows!
Another bus drive through the most amazing landscape. Everywhere in china there is such development... new buildings, juxtaposed against shanties, slums, derelict buildings. People building things with the crudest of equipment and technology, yet we know they also have the most modern of equipment. Moving soil into big baskets, carrying huge amounts of very heavy stuff on their backs.
Passing basket loads of brick up several stories by ropes.
In Guilin you can see what its going to look like in a few months/years. The weird thing with all this development is that some of it is reminiscent of Morocco. Some of the partially built and newly built buildings look already derelict and abandoned. I don’t understand it at all. Some of the ones they are building look as if they are made of cardboard or hardiplank. It really doesn’t look very substantial at all. Some are clearly temporary. There are multi-story buildings in the middle of lush forest, on their own, or little clumps of multi-story houses... with no apparent infrastructure. it looks like its been all erected with little planning. Guilin is like this too. Not so tropically lush here though... its more forest-y. They have the huge limestone mountains that are very traditionally and commonly portrayed in their paintings.
Another hotel with no working aircon. God, its so sticky...
Their customer service is great though... we haven’t had to do anything with our bags. Wendy Wu organises everything. Porters come and take the bags and they arrive in the next motel. Its great.
Another dinner... really nice, and off on an optional cruise around 4 lakes that have been joined together. Perfect night... balmy... just beautiful, cruising along the banks... the trees were lit up, there was opera being performed, women playing traditional instruments, and then a guy on our boat playing a traditional instrument as well. Its really well set up for tourists. They have a gold and a silver pagoda here seemingly in the middle, but not, I couldn’t quite work it out, called yin and yang pagodas. Just beautiful. All lit up, in ... silver and gold...
We watched a ‘performance’ of the fishermen with the ‘trained’ cormorants. So heres how it works...
You buy the cormorants as babies, and you tie their leg to your bamboo raft with a length of string. You cut their wings so they cant fly away.
Then you train them to fish. When they get older you put a ring around their throats so that they can eat the smaller fish but the larger fish are stuck in their gullets. Lastly you just extract the fish, throw it into a basket and sell them at the market the next day. What do you think of that?
Like some of the other places we’ve been they have tiny children there attempting to steal whatever they can get their hands on under the guise of selling you flowers. Its sad and horrible. Some of them are maybe 2 or 3. They are very young. This is also about 10 at night, so god knows when they sleep.
When we finished the tour I asked if we could do a group shot. So we got 1 taken by Jason with just us, and one taken by our local guide with Jason and our group. On my camera... funnily enough when we grouped up, a professional photographer appeared from nowhere and took our photo as well. I think she was surprised that we didn’t buy it from her, but that just wouldn’t have made sense.
Back to the hotel and it was so lovely that we decided to go to the bank and he shops. We’d been told to go in groups so the 4 intrepid explorers headed off. We walked under the bridge by an underpass that just stunk of urine.
It was nice to get away from there. We didn’t feel particularly safe there as we’d been told that the streets were full of pickpockets so we were very careful. Unfortunately, the bank wouldn’t give us any cash, so our supplies are dwindling.. lastly we went off to the supermarket to get supplies, which is not as easy as it sounds as we never quite know whether we are getting what we think we are buying, but thats part of the fun. Back to the sauna, that is otherwise known as our bedroom. Helen was out like a light, but I haven’t had much sleep.
