I visited China in November 2004 with Derek on a Solo's holiday. China is awesome! Don't ever fall into the trap of thinking that China is a poor, backward, communist country - It's not! They're developing and growing fast, and it wont be long before they'll be putting the west in it's place!
Starting in Shanghai, we did all the main sights:
Day 2 Arrive Shanghai China’s most westernised and cosmopolitan city, known as the ‘Paris of the Orient’.
Day 3 Shanghai Our included full day sightseeing reveals layer after layer of intrigue. We visit Yu Yuan Gardens, Jade Buddha Temple, the famous Bund waterfront and the Children’s Palace.
Days 4 – 7 Beijing Morning flight to the magnificent capital city of Beijing. Our stay includes a tour of the Ming Tombs and the stunning Great Wall – built between 400 and 220 BC and at one time 6,000 miles in length. We visit the imposing Forbidden City, Summer Palace and renowned Beijing Zoo, famed for its giant pandas. A visit to the magnificent Temple of Heaven, a remarkable masterpiece of 15th century Chinese architecture, is also included.
Days 8 & 9 Xi’an Morning flight to Xi’an, where we include a full day tour to the astonishing 3rd century BC burial site of Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi and its amazing army of 8,000 life-size terracotta warriors. We also visit the Banpo Ruins and Huaqing Hot Springs. Other highlights here are the imposing Big Goose Pagoda, City Wall and Museum of History.
Days 10 & 11 Guilin A short flight to ancient Guilin, where our tours include a leisurely cruise along the beautiful Li River and a visit to the fascinating Elephant Trunk Peak.
Day 12 Evening flight from Guilin to Chongqing to board our Yangtse River cruise boat for three nights. The Yangtse is flanked by steep cliffs in places and offers scenery of extraordinary beauty. All excursions are included during the cruise.
Day 13 Sail to Fengdu, known as ‘City of Ghosts’, with many beautiful temples and shrines.
Day 14 An exciting excursion on ‘pea pod boats’, drifting along Shennong Stream, where we may see remains of ancient civilisations and even some rare animals.
Day 15 Disembark after a memorable cruise at Yichang, followed by a fascinating coach journey to Wuhan for an overnight stay.
Day 16 Fly from Wuhan to Hong Kong for the overnight flight to London.
Shanghai is China's modern commercial capitol of around 17 million people.
This is really impressive city of tall skyscrapers, wide bridges and modern
roads and communications.
We stayed in on old Victorian styled Peace Hotel on the Bund waterfront (near right). An excellent location if ever your thinking of visiting Shanghai.
Just opposite on the far bank of the river is the illuminated TV tower (far
right). The advertising, lights, lasers are most impressive, and nothing
like the average Westerner (i.e. me) would have expected from a so-called
communist country.
The plan was to visit the Yu Yuan Gardens, Jade Buddha Temple, Bund
waterfront and the Children’s Palace. Instead of
visiting the Children's Palace a group of split of to take a ride of Shanghai's
newest form of travel; the magneto "hover" train, the fastest train in the world
travelling at 431 Km/hour.
Beijing, formerly Peaking when under British rule, was our next stop. This is the cultural capital of China which is an absolute must on any tour itinerary. Here is the famous Summer palace, Forbidden City, Tiananmen square and the secret underground city which is open for tours! Just a few miles out there's the Great Wall of China - the only man-made object which is visible to the naked eye from space. An important fact to remember in case you ever find yourself orbiting over China!
Our first
stop from the Airport was Beijing Zoo to see the giant pandas.
Unfortunately, the Pandas are in their own little annex, so Pandas was all we
saw. However, there were several demonstrating the various positions in
which Pandas can sleep! One was good enough to get up and have a chew on a bit of
cane.
Panda toys were a souvenir must for most of the group!
The Great Wall, was originally built 2000
years ago by the Qing dynasty it was a sturdy 'No Trespassing' sign directed at
neighbouring kingdoms. In the18th-century Europeans, infatuated with progress
and artifice, appended a 'Great' to it and sat back to marvel at man's
prehensile capacity to build Bloody Big Things. The majority of visitors climb
the wall at Badaling.
Beijing does test to have a pollutions haze hanging over it, but on one of the
days while we were there, a strong wind blew up. This cleared the haze
making the views from the wall the more spectacular.
The Forbidden City, off-limits to most of
the world for 500 years, is the best preserved cluster of ancient buildings in
China. The old world of beautiful concubines and priapic emperors, ball-breaking
(and -broken) eunuchs and conspicuous wealth still hovers around the lush
gardens, courtyards, pavilions and great halls of the palace.
Most of the
buildings are post-18th century; there have been periodic losses due to an
injudicious mix of lantern festivals and Gobi winds, invading Manchus and, in
this century, pillaging and looting by both the Japanese forces and the
Kuomintang. A permanent restoration squad takes about 10 years to renovate its
720,000 square metres, 800 buildings and 9000 rooms, by which time it's time to
start all over again.
The Lama temple, Beijing's largest temple
with its beautifully landscaped gardens is an enlightening sight, ornamented
with intriguing statuary, stunning frescoes, tapestries, incredible carpentry
and a formidable pair of Chinese lions. Perhaps most impressive of all is a
18m-(60ft) high sandalwood statue of the Maitreya (future) Buddha in the Wanfu
Pavilion, carved from a single tree.
The temple is a working lamasery so it's
closed early in the mornings for prayer.
The Summer Palace was once a playground
for the imperial court. Royalty came here to elude the insufferable summer heat
that roasted the Forbidden City.
The tranquil Kunming Lake takes up
three-quarters of the park. The Palace with water, gardens and hills - was the
palace of choice for vacationing emperors and Dowager Empresses. It was badly
damaged by Anglo-French troops during the Second Opium War (1860) and its
restoration became a pet project of Empress Dowager Cixi, the last of the Qing
dynasty rulers
Tiananmen Square at the heart of Beijing
is a vast impressive desert of pavestones for people wander and fly kites.
Though it was a gathering place in the imperial days, Tiananmen Square is Mao's
creation. Major rallies took place here during the Cultural Revolution, when Mao
reviewed parades of up to a million people.
In 1989 PLA tanks and soldiers cut
down pro-democracy demonstrators here. Surrounding the square is a mishmash of
monuments: Tiananmen (Gate of Heavenly Peace); the Chinese Revolution & History
Museum; the Great Hall of the People; Qianmen (Front Gate); the Mao Mausoleum,
and the Monument to the People's Heroes.
The Underground City was started in the late 1960s with a Soviet invasion looming. The shadow city was constructed by volunteers and shop assistants. In ten years about 2000 people with simple tools created this subterranean network, which has now been put to use as warehouses, hotels, restaurants and even a roller-skating rink. There are roughly 90 entrances to the complex, all of which are hidden in shops along Qianmen's main streets. A fluorescent wall map reveals the routing of the tunnel system.
Xi'an, China's first capital is the start of the
old "silk road".
Here we visited the Terracotta Warrior tomb of Emperor Qin Shi Huang, with its rows and rows of thousands of clay warriors.
The city
also crowned with 20 cultural sites of importance, including tombs and
architectural relics that are still being unearthed.
Guilin was founded during the Qin dynasty over 2,000 years ago, flourished in Ming and Qing; used to be the provincial capital of Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region.
 Elephant Trunk Cave |
 Moon Hill is 3 km south of the Banyan tree. There is a hole in its peak. A path winds its way up to the hole. |
 Fishermen on bamboo rafts use lights suspended over the water to attract the fish. The cormorants, which are tethered, catch the fish and then disgorge them for the fishermen. |
 For 10 minutes each evening, this office block becomes the largest man-made waterfall in the world. The fountains below play to music. |
 The Moon (Silver) and Sun (Golden) pagodas. |
Unfortunately, the river was flooded while we were there, so the fishing trips were off!
Chongqing is where we boarded our
Yangtze River cruise boat for 3 nights. It
attracts visitors from home and abroad for its cultural heritage and tourist
attractions. This is where I bough an original painting of one of the gorges.
Other attractions include Dazu Grottoes, carved during the ninth century, which are valuable works of art and not to be missed is the Gold Buddhist Mountain, reputed as a rich repository of diverse animals and plants; and there's the Fishing Town, which is one of the three ancient battlefields in China. Travelling in Chongqing, one will feel fortunate to be able to savour the delicious local food, such as Sichuan cuisine and the world-famous hot pot dishes. Also, the handicrafts made from bamboo have been enjoying great popularity among the visitors.
Chongqing's nickname as the "Fog City" or "Furnace" is no exaggeration. Annual average temperature is 18 C to 20 C, with the lowest temperature of 6 C in winter and the highest temperature of 38 C in summer. One will enjoy a warm winter but a hot summer. Annual average rainfall is about 1000 (39.4 inches) to 1400 (55.12 inches) millimetre. Chongqing has plenty of night rain all year round. So the best time to visit Chongqing should be in spring, autumn and winter.
Fengdu is located on the northern bank of the Yangtze River, about 170 KM
downstream from Chongqing. Know as the "Ghost City" to most Chinese People, it
is a popular shore excursion site on the Yangtze.
Fengdu got its reputation as the "Ghost City" in the Eastern Han Dynasty. Two
officials from the imperial court: Wang Fangping and Yin Changsheng, got bored
with the political life in the court and came to Mt. Minshan outside Fengdu City
to practice Taoist teachings. Both of them later became immortals by carrying
out self-cultivation. This story widely spread and Mt. Minshan became famous.
When combined together, their surnames Yin and Wang, sound very much like "King
of Hell" in Chinese. Hence the people began to call Fengdu the "Ghost City".
The temple on the hill, visited by a cable care ride, exhibits some strange and
evil creatures from Hell.
As
part of the cruise package, we took an excursion on ‘pea pod boats’ along the Shennong Stream, which is
60km long and originates at the slopes of Mt. Shennongjia in the north western
Hubei province. The stream is known for its fabulous sites: ancient plank roads,
hanging coffins, cave, and waterfalls. The young girl guides sing to us
with marvellous voice, as we travel down the gorge in our pea-pod boats.
The Yangtze River Cruise ends at Yichang, Hubei province, which is located in
the east mouth of the Three Gorges. Here we take a fascinating coach journey to
Wuhan.
The three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River is one of the largest construction projects ever undertaken. This great dam, the largest of its kind in the world, will provide tremendous power generation and flood control services. In 1992 the Chinese Government finally gave the go ahead for the scheme, some 70 years after Dr. Sun Yet-Sen, pioneer of the Chinese democratic revolution, first proposed the scheme.
At takes about an hour to pass through one lock, although each can hold about
8 cruise ships, two abrest. By 2008 when the project is due for
completion, and the water level to its full height, there will be five locks to
pass through in series, taking between 4 and 5 hours. Therefore, there are
two set of locks, one for upstream, and one for downstream traffic.
After an overnight stop in the Holiday Inn at Wuhan, we flew on to Hong Kong for our final day.
After depositing our bags, souvenirs, and Solo's rep (Kathy), we headed off to Kowloon for a bit more shopping and a sail to Hong Kong island via the old Star Line ferry cruise.
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