The Oddessey - Part Three

China...

From the dirty streets of Shanghai to the heights of the holiest mountains, from the majestic villas of the Summer Palace to the back streets of the hutong in Beijing. Unified before the rest of the world could spell it, majestic in its opulence, tragic in its revolutions. I love it all. The Chinese love it all. We all love it all. The only difference between us is I don't throw my shit everywhere and spit on it and make it look like a tip. But enough of that, on with the adventure.

Shanghai is grand, despite the excellent pickpockets. The spectacle of the Chinese government trying to prove that they can have an economic success without a century of English rule is truly a sight to behold. Apparently multi story office blocks go from concept to construction in three weeks sometimes. I think the meetings must go along the lines of 'we want it to look like it is from Buck Rogers' or 'that's great, now can you just add a dome to it?'. We stepped out of our hotel, the oldest western hotel in shangers, and wandered the streets in awe of the city that was and the city it has become. The shock of being introduced to Chinese taxi driving was major and the four of us, Jo, Russ, Sandles and I, took it in turns to be in the front, in the thick of it. Much could be written about Shangers and much has. I will say this. The Bund Tourist Tunnel is more than a little underwhelming. It has the feel of a major grade four art project gone horribly wrong. Then you remember you have to get it back the other way.

Shanghai introduced us the movie star phenomenon that is being white. As we have travelled through the land, so far there are about 20 photos of us standing with people we have never met before making their way into albums various. Our main hiccup, wallet aside was that we had to get on a train to Huang Shan a few days earlier than we had planned. But we accepted that we had got the gist of the town and could part on OK terms.

With people telling horror stories of trains in china we approached the station nervously, only to find, like so much of the advice about china, the train was fine. Hard sleeper is a great way to travel. As usual, people are down to their long johns in no time and the top bunk of three is high, but you are out of the way and quiet. There is the obligatory smoking but that was confined mainly to the doorways, and much hocking up phlegm which is as common as breathing. Morning came and we got off the train at Tungxi and had our first true Chinese travel experience, the touts. In the hurry to get our next tickets booked, we missed the cheap tourist buses to Huang Shan (Mountain. In Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Get it out) and were left with one option, Steve. Steve had been trying to get us onto his bus for 10 yuan each earlier and showing us his book of recommendations from tourists but we thought we were cleverer than that. So by the time we had all our tickets for the next train, we realised that we weren't in fact that clever and now had no option but to take Steve's taxi for 23 yuan each. Stung by that Steve told us that we were both stupid for booking a hostel over the internet without haggling, and clever and he liked us because we haggled for the fare, and by the way we could have a hotel room for 70 yuan for a twin with bathroom (as opposed to 140 yuan at the hostel without) just take a look and then I'll take you to your hostel. We were as lambs to his slaughterhouse. But the hotel was great and the strange man-child Mr Hu that Steve told us was his good friend and we should eat at his place stuck to us like a limpet until we relented. Thankfully his wife's cooking was excellent.

Our attack of the mountain was less good. Our fit friends sped off ahead, leaving us sweating and gasping and bitching all the way to the top. Our first Chinese mountain gave us a taste of what was to come. Looking out over the extraordinarily beautiful mountains, serenaded with the dulcet tones of 8 tour guides with megaphones and a couple of hundred Chinese tourists. So after savouring the view for a while it was down the mountain and back to Tungxi for an early train to Tai An, taxi and hotel of course arranged by Steve and chaperoned by Steve's wife.

On the train at 5:40 am, off again at midnight. Hotel tout, etc.

Tai An is a great little town at the foot of Tai Shan, holiest mountain of the five holy Taoist mountains. Big temple, lovely. Cheap hotel, but of course. and an undercover food market that negated any exercise and mountain climbing for less than Australian dollar for us both. I should point out that unless you are a strange outcast student type with more money than sense to spend on zany western style outdoors ware, mountain climbing Chinese style involves climbing well made stone stairs, full business suit not required but a good choice. There are 6,666 steps in Tai Shan. We did about half before sandle's cold and my fitness suggested we take a cable car. We did. Tai Shan has a mere 8 hotels, restaurants and temples and the requisite overnight stay for sunrise watching can safely be shared with about eight hundred other visitors, mainly Chinese, which guarantees an American beauty style sunrise of flying plastic bags, with the obligatory jostling and spitting. Sunrise over, we walked down the mountain, pretending to all that were climbing that we did it yesterday and yes it's a hard slog but well worth it. Mountain done, off to Beijing, city without a good nickname.

Beijing is great. Don't approach it by overnight train in a seat if you have a cold. It's not fun. We arrived at our hostel at 5:30 am to find it was 4 floors underground and a dump. So we walked the streets for an entire block before a hotel tout found us and by 6:30 we were in a lovely hotel above ground. We did what one does in Beijing, sit in Tienanmen Square and think of the students, look at the picture of Mao and think of the irreparable damage he did to the country, think we could knock over the Forbidden City in an hour and find out we were dead wrong, eat, haggle for clothes and shoes, all this and more. We walked the Great wall which is truly great, if totally useless. We saw extraordinary acrobats for peanuts. We smelled extraordinary smells as the sewers heated up of an afternoon, and we ate ducks cooked in such bizarre ways. Then May week hit. Don't go to China in may week. That is unless you are agoraphobic, in which case you can safely venture into the largest spaces without ever having more than six inches of space around you. We took in the summer palace and created our mantra, it would be great if there were no people here. Anne came and showed us five star arty life and showed us how to haggle properly. Then with too much shopping and not enough shopping time, we were off.

30 hours later, Mongolia........