Abu Dhabi

This is a brief stop,breaking up the journey back. Slightly strange place, downtown is a mix of interesting gardens, modern buildings and what appears to be 70s/80s buildings which are gradually being pulled down. Not the sort of place that you can simply walk about, take in sights and stop and grab a drink somewhere (particularly in the heat). Seems very much work in progress and similar to my only brief visit to Dubai around 10 years ago.

The one main highlight is the mosque, and i get a good view of it from my hotel. I arrived in time for the free 10am guided tour which was very interesting. The lady guide was very keen to share not only the history of the sites and the religious workings, but also welcomed questions on the local/religious customs. For example why men/women prayed separately and why women dressed covering up. The mosque itself is quite stunning and has a "Taj Mahal" type feel to it.

The hotel is top quality, good pool and choice of restaurants. I tried the Marco Pierre White restaurant which was excellent - with a price to match.

So that's it, flight back to London tomorrow and back to work Monday. Before then i have a few (!!) photos to load onto Picasa.

Flight to Abu Dhabi

Have plenty of time before flight,  so the shuffle list has the potential to delve into the embarrassing depths of my musical "taste" - but i may be saved by the battery running out. So here goes:

Still cant - The Cranberries

Burn down the mission - Elton John

Another nail for my heart - Squeeze

Broken arrows - Jose Gonzalez

Let down - Radiohead*

I was made to love her - Stevie Wonder

Against all odds - Phil Collins

Small blue thing - Suzanne Vega

Beautiful Feeling - P J Harvey

Loose fit - Happy Mondays

The lady is a tramp  - Buddy Greco**

Undeveloped heart - Deacon Blue

Layla - Eric Clapton

Have i told you lately - Van Morrison

Beetlebum - Blur

Freedom Road - The Divine Comedy

Shame - Eurythmics

Imitation of life - R.E.M

Will you remember - The Cranberries

Aint that a kick in the head - Dean Martin**

Baby its cold outside - Tom Jones and Cerys Matthews

Dont let the teardrops start - Deacon Blue

Ready for drowning - Manic Street Preachers

Accidents will happen - Elvis Costello and the attractions***

Cherry oh baby - UB40

Caravan of love - The Housemartins

A certain smile - Johnny Mathis**

Surely - Supertramp

Eee-o-eleven - Sammy Davis Jr**

Endgame -R.E.M

It does not have to be (the boop oopa doo mix) - Erasure

Building up and tearing England down - The Dubliners

Patience of Angels - Eddie Reader

Undertow - Suzanne Vega

* this falls into the list of "i probably should have one of their albums in my collection" so i bought Ok Computer and probably listened to it once
** from compilation album, eg Music to watch girls go by... but in the case of Buddy Greco (yes who?) my favourite version of the song
*** its starting to look like i have not bought any music since the millenium, i dont think that's the case, but wait i have probably not added to my Ipod for 5 years or so (got bored struggling to move itunes from one pc to another.

Shanghai Sunday

As i had a full day before i flew to Abu Dhabi, i thought that i would find out what the locals do on a Sunday. I headed off by metro (6 stops for 4 yuan - ie 40p) to Century Park which is the largest of its type in Shanghai. A bit like central park, large open spaces, some sculptures, a couple of lakes and it seems a place that all the family go to on Sunday. Lots of families take their own tents and use them to protect themselves from the sun.

Close to the park is the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum, which was an interesting place to spend an hour or so. Then i decided it was a nice day for a walk and strolled down Century Avenue to the riverfront. It took a few hours, but was a straight road, with gardens along the way and some stunning views (and hopefully photos) of the Shanghai skyline. Stopped off for lunch along the way and then returned to hotel, to grab a shower and get ready to leave China.

The trip seems to have gone very fast. You are probably never going to get to know China as a tourist, you probably need to live here, and speak the language to really get to grips with its history, culture, politics etc... That said the trip has been great and whetted the appetite for returning.

Favourite cities

I quickly decided that i preferred Shanghai to Beijing. This got me wondering why you prefer one city in a country to another. Sometimes it can be obvious, sometimes due to a particular experience or memory you have from one rather than the other, sometimes down to who shows you around. I guess generally i go for more relaxed over bustling cities, for older places rather than newer but there are always exceptions. So for example i prefer......

Shanghai over Beijing

Paris over Nice (no surprises there)

Chang Mai over Bangkok

Hanoi over Ho Chi Minh

Melbourne over Sydney (that's a real close one, just edged by memories of some arrogant Aussies in a casino in Sydney after the third lions test in 2001)

Christchurch over Auckland

Chicago over New York

Madrid over Barcelona

Edinburgh over Glasgow

Berlin over Bonn (although my memories of Bonn are very dated)

Thoughts on China

........in no particular order:


Scale - you quickly get used to people saying, "this is a small city.....only 4 million people";

Open - i have been to other Communist countries such as Vietnam and Cuba over recent years, and with both of them you felt more state influence everywhere;

Closed - having said that, the state clearly have control. I can publish this blog but i cant read it, there seem to be a number of websites which suddenly don't work when you are in China;

Sometimes uncouth - the first time someone spits on the ground, not at you but without really checking they
will miss you, comes as a surprise. It not a regular but not an unusual sound/sight. However I think its a generation/class thing, you see it mostly from men (but not exclusively) and mostly from middle age + so it will probably die out over time;

Sophisticated - i have only really just come to understand how advanced China was in ancient times, and they have managed in most areas, despite the odd revolution or two, to maintain some wonderful historical sites;

Powerful - ok so i thought that China was emerging as a super power, but no they are emerged and have the potential to dominate world economy and therefore politics in a way that the US could never have imagined. Make sure you remain friends or its going to get tough;

Still learning about tourism - they are nearly there. They are naturally polite, languages are taught in school and university and they have so many attractions to offer. There is less begging than in London, travel is easy and so they have a lot going for them. They are still learning about the finer art of customer service and are in places too tip reliant/expectant but this will come very quickly;

Pollution - for the sake of China, and probably for the world, they need to cope with pollution issue. The level of smog in some areas is very significant and reflects a wider problem. They are not alone, i have not spent much time in LA but no doubt the position is still bad there. We will see how successful their plans are, such as plans for more dams, its probably important for everyone that they get it right;

High rise - everywhere you go, they are going up. Not one or two tower blocks, but 10/20 at a go. This is all state development, and is encouraging the growth of cities, and presumably the movement of people from smaller locations. Lets hope they make a better job of high density housing than we have and don't follow us in knocking it down 20 years later.

Religion - probably more powerful than i expected, for all the guides i met religion was important to them. Perhaps the tolerance behind the main religion - Buddhism - is the main aspect that allows such a diverse and large population to survive together.

Len Goodman would be a god here - every evening as you walk around you find groups of retired ladies
& gents dancing what appears to be Chinese ballroom. I have had to stop myself from shouting " 7" and running away.


.........and all the time fascinating



ps this post was drafted in China but published in Abu Dhabi, did not want to risk the chance that big brother really is watching.

The Three Gorges Dam Project

Around 10-30pm on the second evening of the cruise, we arrived at the Three Gorges Dam, the largest in the world. I had only visited Hoover Dam a few years ago, and whilst it sounds a bit sad found it very impressive and fascinating. This was, not surprisingly given its China, on a far grander scale and more impressive.

The Dam site consists of a series of locks, an elevator currently being built which will ultimately transport smaller freight boats and the dam itself. In the evening we went through the five locks, descending 22 metres in each and therefore 110 in total. Most people, like me, watched us go through the first lock (about 40 mins) and enter the second lock, and then retired to bar or bed.

In the morning we awoke to a mooring just down from the dam and were transported by bus to get a closer view of locks and dam. Those facts (that i can remember as there were a lot) were i think:

- built over 17 years, with a couple more to go before the elevator is complete;
- cost of 28bn dollars, 45% of which was the cost of resettling 1.4m people;
- at the height of construction, 30,000 people worked on the site; currently 2,000;
- it produces 5% of China's power requirement;
- its the largest of its kind in the world.

Shanghai

Around 6pm we arrived at Shanghai, which meant a trip to the hotel in the dark. As you got closer to Shanghai the view began to get more impressive with bridges and buildings lit up in a range of colours. Perhaps a tad unfair to Beijing, but at that stage i knew i was going to prefer Shanghai.

I am here for a couple of days - given my flight on Sunday happens to be late evening, but only a half day tour is arranged. That said, from what people say travelling around the city is easier than Beijing so it should be easy for me to see some more sights. The half day tour consisted of the Jade Buddha Temple, the Bund (waterfront) and Yu Yuan gardens. All were different to previous experiences on the trip and combined really well.

Cruise down Yangtze

Thinking about this, its probably the first proper cruise i have been on. I remember going on the Rhine as a child, but i think that was really a coach trip. There was also a Norfolk broads trip (i remember we ended up mid broads one morning due to some dodgy knot work) and i have many years ago been on the Woolwich Ferry and across the channel......but none of these count as proper cruises.

The boat itself is plush for Yangtze, we have passed some that looked like they would struggle to survive the whole journey, but from what i have heard it is not really on a par with Cunard or other main cruise companies. Its functional, safe and food is good, although there is no sight of any midnight buffet.

Having upgraded to the smaller restaurant, the table is an interesting mix of Canadians (4 - from Toronto and Quebec), Irish (2 from Cork) and London (x 3 including me). The strong southern Irish accent, has amused the north American audience - you can take the couple out of Cork, but you cant take Cork out of the couple.

There have been a range of excursions, i have been to both afternoon trips, which has left the mornings for relaxing, reading and watching the world go bye. The view has varied from large cities (high rise apartments covering the skyline like all of China) and the main attraction of the three gorges where the skyline is more stunning. Many of the cities are new, as the creation of the Three Gorges Dam lifted the river by something like 90 metres, flooding old towns and the agricultural land which had previously been the local economy.
The government resettled numerous communities, providing some compensation to individuals.

Tomorrow we arrive at the dam, with a tour early morning, checkout lunchtime and mid afternoon flight to Shanghai.

Cruise

The flight from Xian was delayed by an hour or so, so there was less time to see Chongqing than planned, that said the guide managed to pull together a quick tour of the old town - full of facts about this small city of c 33 million people. Boarded around 6pm and boat left around 10pm.

Next few days are spent cruising down Yangtze, with some included and some optional excursions. This is the relaxing part of the trip. The boat holds around 300 passengers and has normal range of services, and plenty of additional sales opportunities. Within 30 mins of getting on, i was offered opportunity to:

- upgrade cabin
- upgrade restaurant
- buy the 3 day wifi package
- opt for the cheap laundry option
- opt for the "all you can drink" package
- sign up for the optional tours

Passengers appear to be c 75% overseas tourists, with a significant level of American accents to pick from.

Travel to Chongqing

Today consists of a short flight to Chongqing, followed by a short town tour ahead of picking up the boat.
Wait time at airport was shorter, so the shuffle list is similarly more limited:

Wiseman - James Blunt

The whole point of no return- The Style Council

Shoplifters of the world - The Smiths

Drowning Man - U2

New Year's Boy - U2 (so much for random shuffle)

I am still remembering - The Cranberries (i forgot how great a voice the lead singer has)

Once upon a lifetime - Ronan Keating (oh god, Blunt and Keating in the same list how embarrassing)

Intermission - Kathyrn Williams

For Tomorrow - Blur

Stone on the water - Badly Drawn Boy

Smith of Bristol - The Dubliners

Friday Night - Lily Allen

Your nobody till somebody loves you - Dean Martin (ok now we are buzzing)

Sunny afternoon - Tom Jones with Space

Little Bird - Annie Lennox

The joy of a random shuffle, as to be honest i don't think i have heard some of these before, being random album tracks for artists that i either thought i should buy a greatest hits or one of their "well known albums". With downloads being so easy these days, people forget that sometimes you bought an album with little knowledge of what was on it, often on the back of one single released. Sometimes you found out its the only track you liked:). I once bought an All About Eve album on the back of one track i heard in a friend's car - crikey that was a mistake.

ps with some of these i struggled to name the artist in five, let alone name that tune.

Small world

Midday flight from Xian today, so late breakfast and then off to airport.
I go to breakfast, start thinking about what to have and notice that a couple are looking at me. Flies checked (ok) , i had noticed the toothpaste on my cheek in the lift and wiped it off so cant be that, its not the couple i keep bumping into at various sites, so what?

As the man walks towards me i recognise him. He says he is on holiday, but just in case he is pulling a big sickie i wont reveal full details (Steve A from B) someone i have worked with and against for many years back home - but probably not seen for a year or so. Travelling around Asia for a couple of weeks seeing both his sons along the way.

What this does mean of course is that if the competition are down here, then i must be able to put the trip down as "research" , so that's going to be a big old expenses claim when i get back.

Xian - Terracotta Army

Today was a full day trip around a number of Xian sights (Pagoda, Walls, Mosque), but was dominated by the main feature, the terracotta army.

So it goes like this
:
You are born into quite a decent family, and become emperor at the age of 13.

You decide that you want to unify China, which takes a bit of time, but you achieve that by age 38.

You embark on political and economic reform, and start a few large projects.

One happens to be quite a large wall the length of China.

Whilst this is all going on, you give some thought to life after death and at the age of 13 you start building a mausoleum and of course as part of that you build in some protection - over 8000 soldiers crafted in Terracotta, reflecting some of the troops that have enabled you to conquer your neighbours and unify China, and each unique.

You die age 49.

The next emperor struggles to control the country and there is a peasant's revolt which includes damaging (all but one) of the statues and stealing weapons. Over time the statues pits get overgrown and forgotten, until found by a local in 1974 - over two thousand years later. I guess that got a few archaeologists excited.

Now a combination of restored, to be restored and to be unearthed objects, it is an amazing sight. Something of such scale and at the same time such detail. I cant think of anything which really compares.

Travel to Xian

Today is a travel day with a short flight to Xian. The trip to the airport was surprisingly quick given the traffic over the last few days, an easy check in and walk through security left me with a couple hours to wait - reading and "shuffling". Ok so a random insite into my musical "taste", the songs on my ipod came out (and i am not cherry picking to improve my street cred - although that's probably easy to work out when you read them):

You bring the sun out - Randy Crawford

Starman - David Bowie

Eleanor Rigby - The Beatles

One Million - Athlete

Gypsy - Van Morrison

Would i lie to you - Eurythmics

With or without you - U2

World where you live - Crowded House

Emotional Rescue - Rolling Stones

I used to love him - Lauren Hill

Its beginning to get to me - Snow Patrol

The saints are coming - U2

Jacqueline - Franz Ferdinand

Against all odds -Phil Collins

Black and white boy - Crowded House

The lady is a tramp - Frank Sinatra

Nothing at all - Santana

The boy with the thorn in his side - The Smiths

See my friends - The Kinks

On every street - Dire Straits

Say it again - Badly Drawn Boy

Luv - Travis

Beijing

So how does the capital compare to other Asian cities i have been to like Delhi, Ho Chi Minh, Singapore, Hanoi, Bangkok. All of which are on my - yes i would love to go back - list.

Its big. Any city that has six (yes 6) ring roads is big. Everywhere you go you see lots of high rise apartment blocks and that means a lot of people. But there are not hoards of people on pavements or coming out of metro stations, they are not hanging on the outside of buses, there are not thousands of scooters or tut tuts. So where are they? They are in cars, lots of them. To be fair roads are very wide, lots of dual carriageways with 3/4 lanes either side. But this is a second gear city because the volume of cars is immense. I have only skirted around LA but i guess it is similar.

Scale means that despite being here three days i have still not got my bearings, cant quit understand how it fits together. I have seen amazing historical sites similar to those other cities (well perhaps not the case in Singapore) but i have not found its soul. That means at some stage i need to come back, not because i have fallen in love with the city but because i don't really know it. I need to give it some more time to flirt before i  can decide whether i have fallen for it. That just me, always playing hard to get.

Great Wall and Ming Tombs

Whilst you spend a full day at each, today was a combined trip. This is logical given they are close to each other and given you kept seeing the same faces i was not the only one with this arrangement. If you have plenty of time, i would probably recommend staying a couple of days near one of the locations and avoiding the two hour + journey each way therefore being able to spend a bit more time at each.

I was slightly nervous about seeing the wall. I have been lucky enough to see quite a few famous world sites, such as Uluru, Grand Canyon, Taj Mahal and they have all had the wow factor that goes with the reputation. Before coming to the Badaling stretch of the wall, i had read that it was the touristy one and that "purists" recommended other parts. So i slightly feared seeing hoards of people walking along with their kfc/macdonalds wearing kiss me quick hats.

Not to worry. It was busy, being a Saturday after all, but not uncomfortably so. And yes it passed the wow factor test. You feel quite insignificant walking such a small part of the wall and you can only imagine the effort and imagination that went behind its creation. The views are stunning, but many locations also benefit from that, here in the context that makes it even more special.

The tombs were similarly unique. 13 tombs from the Ming Dynasty (there were 16 emperors but the first built his near the old capital, the second fled after being usurped by his uncle and the last wanted to do his own thing). Only two are open - upper parts only you cant do your Raiders of the Lost Ark Impression and go underground and once again the scale is amazing. Set flanked on three sides by mountains, with a river crossing the plains, the distance between the first gate took about 10 mins by car to the oldest and largest tomb - you can only imagine how long a procession that would have been.

Photos will follow later - i have managed to download from camera to memory stick but yet to upload to Picasa. This might be one of the sites you cant access on China, so they might have to wait until i get home.

Beijing Full Day Tour

I am only in Beijing for a couple of days and the first full day was spent exploring the main attractions namely,

- Tiananmen Square
- The Forbidden City
- The Temple of Heaven
- The Summer Palace

Tiananmen Square of course brings pictures to your mind that are not necessarily top of the Chinese tourist board's "what shall we put on the postcard list", it was actually quite modest despite being the largest square in the world. There are a lot of impressive buildings on the edges, including the Mausoleum of Chairman Mao (where even at 8-30am there was an endless queue) and thankfully limited numbers of street sellers/tradesman.

From the square you enter the Forbidden City. Built in the 15th century, but updated over the years, it is a combination of buildings spread over 44 (? i really should remember these facts or at least have some idea on size) hectares, used by the various emperors, their wives, concubines, political appointments, soldiers,staff etc.... You get a real feel of scale and history in a country that was no doubt very different to modern day china.

After the city, we have time for an additional stop. Regardless of how friendly, intelligent, sophisticated etc. ... your guide, you know what this means......sales time. On this occasion its a silk factory, which just happens to have a shop as well. Normal set up, brief introduction into the silk worm and silk making process (this bit of the tour is always interesting) and then a gradual move into shop. Guide Amy promised it would not be hard sell, and to be fair it was just a constant soft sell (think 15 mins of tainted love on repeat shuffle and you get the picture) and eventually they worked out they should try their efforts on the next tour party through the door. The goods were all good quality - i have no idea whether good value or not, but i am not really a silk shirt, tie or pyjamas type of guy so they were always going to struggle. Not for the first time i looked at some really beautiful carpets and thought maybe,for a few seconds before remembering it would not fit size or style back home.

After this, off to The Temple of Heaven, a large park used daily for morning exercise, albeit when originally established it was used twice a year by the emperor for ceremonies. The temple itself was impressive,  when we turned up around 11-30am the grounds had turned from an exercise area to a surreal "strictly" as local middle aged couples danced away to what i guess was Chinese  mood music.

Final stop was the Summer Palace. The palace itself, a number of buildings scattered around, is not really the main attraction to this Unesco World Heritage site which has a stunning setting, including large lake, the longest art gallery in the world (the long corridor) and great backdrops.

Tomorrow off to Great Wall, heard that's quite good as well

ps according to wiki, forbidden city is 720,000 square metres, no idea what that is in hectares

Off to China

So i am going away slightly earlier this year (which does mean its only a couple of weeks after getting back from France) but i wanted to try China and most of the trips i looked at starting tailing off in November/December as the weather gets colder. A bit by luck, but after booking most of the reviews have said that October is one of the best times to come over, so fingers crossed.

I went back to Trailfinders again, and after having to correct a slight over-estimation of available budget, i have ended with a trip which combines Beijing, Xian, Yangtze cruise, Shanghai and a couple of days in Abu Dhabi breaking up the return journey.  Abu Dhabi combined a reasonable value flight (Ethiad) and a location i had not been to before.

Flights over were fairly uneventful, extended stop over in Abu Dhabi due to Beijing flight being delayed by 90 minutes, but arrived in Beijing around 10am to find:

- we landed at a massive, almost empty, terminal, which was built for Olympics;
- no queues at immigration, through in 5 mins;
- a journey by car to hotel where traffic was as bad as most large capital cities (but not as chaotic as other Asian cities i have been to);
- the expected smog.

So after checking in, today has been about acclimatisation (not a sensible word to use without benefit of spell check) with main sightseeing starting tomorrow at 8am.