Tashi delay.

Forever a source of amusement to us (and because we have a secret admirer that is also very interested :) - we bring you more food photos :)

A typical Chinese breakfast - sloppy rice porridge (this one has a few mung beans added for extra flavour), pickles (pickled radish with chilli in this case) and deep fried twists of bread. We had 2 orders of the fried bread and the whole meal - for both of us - was only 4 Yuan! That is about 35p UK or just over 50 cents US!


One of our dishes in the Muslim area of Xi'an. This is thick hand cut noodles with green pepper, green beans, spring onion, chilli oil and a few token pieces of beef (already devoured by K at this point). Then we selected 2 plates from their selection of vegetables - green beans and snap peas (with a bit of seaweed on top)on one plate and cucumbers and cabbage on the other. We also had some bread that was reheated over the fire with some spices on the ouside, it was very similar to Cajun spices. This meal was amazingly delicious, it was the second time we had been there, the first time Julia took us :)




Now for the amazing variety of meat available at the grocery store :) They have an entire asile of packaged meat and then a section in the cold case and then the occasional end of aisle display of meat products!

The meat aisle, with some of the available "meat candies"




From the end of aisle display you had a choice of meat sticks (we see people eating these all the time!!! On the buses and trains especially)

...and this sausage "meats" every mountainbikers needs :-)


And from the cold case...some chocolate cheese (not meat, but still very strange :), some chicken feet and one of those flattened duck :)




Again, we laughed ourselves silly in the store, but it was all in good fun :)

Later!

Tashi delay!

I had a terrible nights sleep last night, it was very lively as I rolled over again and again often suffering from a few aches here and there. I awoke with a puffy face this morning and look like I have been crying. I am not sure if this is an effect of altitude or whether it is allergies. Anyhow, we are still taking it easy and ensuring that we acclimatise properly.

I really want to get on and talk to you about Lhasa but I still have unfinished business with the rest of the trip in China and really need to blurt this out. Besides we really have not been doing much here - although there is never a dull moment because everything is so new...

Random thoughts regarding China...

It is not uncommon to see people excitedly playing Mahjong or Chinese chess in the street. Normally the two players will be surrounded by an onlooking crowd that will shout out instruction or react energetically when an intelligent move has been made or when someone is facing certain defeat. It is great to watch the crouching people often dressed in suits, sliding the circular flat game pieces around a makeshift board. It also seems that a pack of cards in ones pocket is as invaluable as carrying a hanky. We regularly see people of all ages playing cards, sometimes they will be sitting around a table on the street or in the entrance to a business as time is passed whilst awaiting custom. Game playing was apparent in India too and adults would not be ashamed to get together in the fresh air and challenge one another to strategy games. I do not see this in the UK.

Happy grandmothers at dusk - in the cities and towns, as the sun sets, grandmothers and their grandchildren flock onto the streets. Amongst the hustle and bustle of migrant workers, consumers, motorbike taxis, tourists and street vendors there would be a grandmother trying to relax the child for it's nights rest. I found it interesting to watch them searching for peace and relaxation amongst the crowds on a busy street. The grandmother would often hold the child in her arms and would walk around in circles, pacing up and down in the street, in a one way conversation trying to make the little one sleepy with her soft words. Occasionally she would point at something in response to the child who would suddenly, in a moment of resistance try to fight heavy eyelids. Sometimes the child may be in a buggy and grandma would trot back and forth pushing patiently awaiting the movement to entice the toddlers sleep. I like this scene that I have seen many times. It makes me think of how close the ties are amongst the family members. That grandma lives with or near the parents and is able to be so involved with the family. We do not have the time or there is too much distance for many families to be like this in the west. I remember when I was young, my grandparents were always around. Now I think that times are changing but I could be wrong.

There are things that you see when you travel that make you think about your own life and your memories become more vivid than ever. I love this reflection.

I saw a police chase outside of the train station in Xi'an. It made me think of British bobbies. I heard a whistle blowing and some shouting, followed by some more whistle. Around the side of the van in front of me I saw a man being chased by a police officer who was trying to hold his cap on his head. It made me chuckle to myself but also made me become further aware of my own belongings, we had been told many times to keep our eyes sharp at the station due to the threat of thievery. The man was caught judging by the sounds that I could hear but the event was out of my sight and I could not wander away from our luggage. The train station was an interesting place to watch the police. We saw police monitoring the area by driving around in "golf buggies" with the police logo on the side. We saw police women wearing neat navy uniforms complete with jacket, shirt and tie and donning a bright white military style bowl helmet, oddly they wore black high heel shoes and heavy make up too. It was very strange to see and I thought that the whole scene would not be out of place in a movie about a fictional future.

We saw security guards on power trips on a number of occasions. When we were queuing for our Lhasa tickets we were entertained by the following scene...
There is a ticket booth that is reserved for refunds, the queue that accompanies it is the longest in the whole station. Tickets for travel are in high demand and as a result it is very easy to sell them on again should they not be required or you wish to make a little extra cash as a tout. As a result, potential travellers who cannot purchase a ticket due to lack of availability or those who are looking for a cheaper price, will walk up and down the refund queue in order to try and find a ticket for their destination. There is a security guard in place who has the role of preventing this from happening. We watched one guard with sharp, squinting eyes, carefully and meticulously watching the line of people before him. He kept the queue in single file by blasting loudly on his whistle when anyone stepped out of line. Should anyone be brave enough to walk down the side of the queue, either hoping to jump it or to purchase a second hand ticket, they would be blasted with his whistle and then abruptly shouted at. We saw the guard do this over and over again. I watched him chase people away from the queue, he would run behind them literally blasting his whistle in their ear with as much breath as he could muster. I watched him shout at someone, he made them stand to attention as he shouted in their face and blasted more whistle in their ear, the person was then given permission to leave and quickly ran off. I was gobsmacked by this behaviour, I could not believe that somebody had the authority to behave in this manner over such a menial issue. It was such a cultural difference, security guards would never do that in the UK and if they did people would certainly not accept it. It made me think about an ingrained acceptance for authority in the Chinese mentality and how much lack of respect for it that we have in the UK.

A final train station memory whilst queuing for tickets... Regular official sounding announcements over the tannoy sounded more like orders than information for customers. People looked as though they were listening attentively (not that you had a choice due to the high decibels) to words that even in another language made you feel as though you were in year eight at school. I even witnessed K take her hands out of her pockets and hold her head straight and lose any sign of slovenliness :-)

I have seen large groups of school children wearing tracksuits (which is the uniform style), marching in the school grounds at the orders of their mentor. I have seen uniformed employees standing in neat rows outside of their place of employment early in the morning before work as if they were changing watch. They would go through a synchronised range of motions as though stretching each of their limbs and then as if they were greeting a customer with hand gestures. I have even seen groups of employees marching back and forth outside of a shop front. I don't understand it, maybe I suffer from a lack of respect for such orderly behaviour. I just find such militaristic manners to be so out of place in a nonmilitary environment. Another case of cultural differences. They could be team bonding exercises, they could be exercises to awaken employees and to get their blood moving so that they work better, whatever it is, I find it very strange. Maybe people are proud to be part of the group.

Flower displays in public areas or at tourist attractions are orderly like this too, slightly militaristic (if that can be said of plants!). Something that looks like a beautiful flowerbed will upon closer inspection turn out to be carefully positioned rows of potted plants. Hundreds of them, placed on concrete or tiles, the petals still beautiful nonetheless.

Sometimes there is no room for individuality or an allowance for it.

But then...

I see a distinct range of youth subculture amongst the young in the cities. A generation that has been able to reach fashions from other shores. There are kids with big gelled hairstyles cut at wacky angles, donning fashionable jeans that would cost a fair amount of quids in the UK. Skateboarder fashion, American sports fashion, new romantics, boarding babes - it is all there. Guitar wielding young men busking in the streets, rave music blasting out from shops and heartthrobs singing about love over the radio. There as many mobile phones to match your style too.

People in the countryside still use carrying poles balanced over their shoulders which are in turn shadowed by woven bamboo brimmed hats. At each end of the pole hangs a bucket of sloshing water or large baskets of vegetables.

Fast vehicles of authority shoot other road users out of the way with a short siren that sounds like a code for "contender eliminated" like the Wipeout game on the Playstation.

There is a China that I am isolated from. I have read about it in many books - I often think they have made me closer to this far eastern land than actually travelling here. A lack of language means that I am out of touch with an essential part of understanding this other culture. It frustrates me because I know that it is there, it is before my eyes and I see the clues but I am only a partially sighted observer who has cloth for ears. I sometimes feel completely clueless. We know that there is an ancient culture here, China is famous for it, a history that is not only seen in architecture and art etc but is also ingrained in the language and customs. It is also in the everyday classical serialisations that we see on TV, stories and legends that are part of this culture. Formalities are swamped by it too. I am just so distant from it. There are times that something will slip through the net though. Meeting Chinese people that speak English is key to this. Spending a few hours with someone can bring the culture that much closer to you. Maybe if K and I had chosen guides at every opportunity we would have learned so much more but then we would have forfeited the experiences that we have had. Thankfully meeting Julia and the Lama for example has given us both some invaluable insight that we would not have gotten from any guidebook... I wonder though, has the learning of English and interaction with western culture changed the way that they view China... To get the understanding that I want of this culture would require years of study, some of which I have already done but without the language I am always relying on somebody else's interpretation.

I think that it is very easy to misinterpret China especially as a foreigner. It is has an amazingly diverse and rich culture, one that I cannot judge but one that still remains as curious to me now as it was before I had even arrived here.

Thanks for reading :-)

Xi'an...

I will apologize in advance, as I am not going to say much about Xi'an because I am too excited about Tibet, but I will give you the highlights and A will have some things to say for sure. It's not because it wasn't great!!!! We had some amazing experiences in Xi'an.

We arrived in Xi'an on a bus and it wasn't much different than our other bus journeys except that it was over an hour later than we expected. The bus guy tried to stick us for some extra cash and make us pay for extra luggage, but we weren't having it (we are seasoned travellers and we know better :) - and he tried as we loaded them and as we unloaded them, the cheeky boy! :) We put the bikes together and a very helpful drunk fellow tried to take my bike for a spin as we moved on to putting A's bike together, but he couldn't get his leg over....

We loaded the bikes and rode into town. First, we were impressed by the modernity of the city - it was very fresh! Secondly, we were very much thinking of D&B back in MK and thinking about them having been in this very same town not all that long ago :) We found the first hotel that we liked the look of in the Rough Guide and went in to see if they had anything in our price range - the book lists them in our price range, but it was looking very posh! We sorted a room and my decision was made not on the price (which was not cheap! but it wouldn't break the bank) but that it was rapidly getting dark and that there was some fabulous food in the downstairs restaurant :) They had no bicycle parking but they immediately agreed to let us keep the bikes in the room....yes, it was a nice place and we had to walk them in through the restaurant in ground floor (hilarious! :)

The food was excellent - one whole wall of the place was food on display and there was immense variety - one whole section of steamed buns and dumplings in both meat and veg varieties (can you see A smiling? She was in heaven! :) Then we went out on the town! We walked towards the center of town and stumbled upon a youth hostel. We went in and asked about Tibet permits (the first thing on our mind!) and ended up having a beer in the bar and booking in for the rest of our stay in Xi'an (we didn't want to stay in the posh and uninspiring hotel).

Ok, enough about all that, the rest is highlights! Let's see...the first night in the youth hostel we were woken by some rustling in the room (well A was, I sleep like the dead but she woke me up to listen :) and after a few bouts of turning the lights on and having a look around I spotted the cause with a quick flick of the light switch - there was a rat eating some biscuits on the desk!!! We were both rally unnerved and went downstairs to ask to change our room...it was 4am. They had no other rooms!!! So we went back upstairs and lay there with the light on until the morning. We then went down and got our room changed. Wow, that was an experience!!! Now, this is not a bad thing to say about the place at all, the youth hostel was very clean and the people were very friendly and helpful....I have no idea how it got there and we did leave the biscuits out.

We got our act together to get the Tibet permits quite late on the Saturday and since the one place to get a photocopy was shut we were led to another hotel to meet a travel agent that would sort it all out for us. Everything was going smoothly, the guy was really helpful and he faxed off the permit applications for us, but when we went to leave we couldn't get out - the area of the hotel is locked that late at night. The travel guy called the front desk and we waited...no one showed up, he called again...no one showed up. Twenty minutes passed and we were running out of conversational topics :) The lights were on motion sensor so we spent most of the time in the dark...what if there had been a fire???? Finally someone showed up and the travel guy gave her a piece of his mind (rightly so, I thought) and we were on our way back to the hotel...it was nearly 10pm!

On the way back to the hotel we were approached by two women, one spoke English. She was a teacher of English and it seemed that she wanted to demonstrate to her student that she could in fact speak English to foreigners. But we were having such a good conversation and the student went on her way....we had just met Julia :) We were both really tired and we arranged to meet up with her the next evening for more conversation and dinner....which we did.

Then we went out to see the Terracotta Warriors....we wanted to ride, but the route finding was more troublesome than we expected and we had done 20kms and still had at least another 30 to go and we were running out of time (and I was feeling the effects of a potential cold) so we turned around and headed back to the bus station where we parked the bike in the bike barn and hopped a bus :) The warrior experience you will see in photos - we took a ton :) Suffice it to say that it was tourist hell - that mass market scene that the Chinese have chosen - of a huge mall shopping area, very channeled routing of the masses to see the sight, followed by another trip to the shops. Ugh. That said, the Terracotta Warriors are indeed an amazing sight - they have done a really wonderful job of protecting them from the huge crowds and also letting you see them, which is a huge task. There are three big buildings covering the three very different groupings. You can see that this is still very much a work in progress - there is a lot (the vast majority) that they have not started uncovering. In building number 2 they have also put several of the different warriors and some of the artifacts recovered in the pits behind glass - museum style so you can really see them up close. I was totally impressed by the high-tech crossbow mechanism that was so well preserved and the warriors are truly amazing up close - so close you could touch him if the glass wasn't there. It was well worth being fodder for the tourist machine :)

Once we got the Tibet permit - which was a fax with 4 names on it, 2 of them ours (of course :) for which we paid 500 Yuan each! We went to the train station, as we were told to do, to buy the tickets. We queued at window 1, as we were told to do by the guy at the hostel, for 10 minutes when upon reaching the window we were sent to window 4. Great. We then waited about 15 minutes at window 4 when the window closed and we all had to find a new queue. We are no dummies, windows 4 was the foreigner window so we looked around and found that window 10 was also the foreigner window, so we queued there. Twenty minutes later we reached the front of that queue and were told that they only had tickets for travel to Tibet today (all the trains leave in the morning, so they probably didn't have any :) and tomorrow...we wanted the day after! So we left empty handed after an hour's queueing. The next day we came back and the queues were enormous! We queued for nearly a half hour at window 4 and we finally got our tickets - 2 middle bunks in a hard sleeper cabin, woohoo! We were going to Tibet :) Now to arrange for the bikes to go with us.

We found the cargo area and tried to find out what we needed to do. No one would give us a form so we could take it away and fill it out - they told us we needed to have the bikes. It was frustrating, but my handy dandy Rough Guide dictionary provides a translation for "can you get someone that speaks English?" :) So they took us went next door and chased someone up for us. We spoke to a very helpful woman whom we eventually convinced to give us a form but we promised not to fill it out - we would let the professional next door fill it out when we arrived with the bikes the following morning....at 4:30 am!!!!! She said we had to be there 4 hours before the train departed to put the bikes in for shipping and the train left at 8:48 am.

We then hooked up with our new friend Julia and went off to see the Great Goose Pagoda - we have both been reading Monkey, about Tripitaka's journey from China to India to return with Buddhist scriptures and this is where the scriptures were stored on their return. A Chinese reader/speaker is great thing to have on hand when all the information is in Chinese! :) She read some of the information panels to us and even conversed with the monks in the library :) While A went up into the pagoda Julia helped me with the translation of the shipping document that we had picked up at the train station. That was a great help, too. Then we headed over to find the bike shop that has Trek bikes, which just happens to be near the pagoda. Again, we were very thankful for Julia's presence as she did all the translation for us.

The people at the bike shop were beyond helpful!!! They did not have any spare mech hangers in stock, but they offered to remove one from one of their bikes for sale so that we could have it (that is above and beyond - it would take them 3 days to get a replacement and the bike is not usable/sale-able until it has a mech hanger). We declined their generosity, but they provided us with a few more water bottles and a cage (my bike has 2 cage mounts but we only put one on in Beijing and I was carrying water in my pack - better to put the weight on the bike). They also gave us some t-shirts, which we will wear in a forthcoming photo :) then, to be even more generous, the manager of the shop invited us out to eat! He took us to one of the famous eateries in Xi'an where we had some fabulous noodles (cold, hand cut noodles with chili oil and a little broth that you have to mix all together) and I had the most amazing pork sandwich, which is their speciality. Then we went off to a small place near the southern wall (Xi'an still has it's ancient walls) and drank Corona and talked about foreign tourism to the US. It was a wonderful evening and it would have been impossible without Julia translating for us, so we are indebted to her and we are very glad that w made some friends in Xi'an.

Ok, my little "problem" with the US as it deals with foreigners. Ugh. People have to prove that they have ties outside - whether to their own country or somewhere else - before they can get a tourist visa to enter. In China they have to have an interview with the US Embassy. It takes 3 months, so apply well before you go. Getting into a US University - be it Harvard or Podunk U - is not the challenge, even if you have been accepted you have to show that you have ties outside and that you will come to the US, get educated and then get the heck out. Being the only male son (in China there is a one child policy, so you are the only child) and have to come back and care for your parents is not enough. What sort of ties do you have when you are 18 years old? You don't have a job that you have to return to, or a business that you own....the family dog? Hardly! We even met a very educated Chinese man that owns his own business, drives a very (very very) nice vehicle and he is afraid that if he applies for a tourist visa to the US that he will be denied because he doesn't have enough ties. It is scary. We checked the UK and it doesn't seem to be as harsh. Here is a scary thought...if A wasn't a Brit and able to come to the US as a tourist via the visa waiver program then she would not be able to visit as a tourist....

Anyway...we have had a spectacular train ride across the rooftop of the world and we are spending our days acclimatizing and grinning like idiots in awe of our surroundings. Catch you later!

Hey all...I have a lot to say, so bear with me :) It's just general commentary to get out of the way before I tell you about Tibet!

The drivers - they are a little better than India, but not much :) We have been in some taxis and on a few buses now and it is, at times, a scary experience. They drive in the middle of the road, in the passing lane when there is no other traffic, they take a right turn on red as if it's a green for them :) In the UK there is no right (or more appropriately left) turn on red and in the US it's a right turn on red AFTER STOP...that last bit obviously hasn't made it through the translation here :) It's the thing we have to watch for most when crossing the street on foot or on the bicycles. They also like to drive and talk on their mobile, or if they think that is a bit dangerous, they just pull into the cycle lane and drive really slowly while talking on the phone. They drive in the bike lanes which are often separate from the main road by a median strip, sometimes even the wrong way down the bike lane! Ah, it keeps us on our toes :)

Let's talk toilets (obviously my favorite subject:) They are everywhere!!!! They are not always pleasant, but there is no shortage of them. We occasionally see the men using a wall, but it's rare compared to India. In Louyang they have signs on the streets about every 100 meters telling you there is a toilet up ahead, just on your right or behind you, so pull a u-turn. We used toilets in petrol stations or rest stops while we were on the bus (the driver would pull over every couple of hours) but we could also see tons of roadside toilets where drivers could pull in and relieve themselves - always a boys and girls room, but most were very basic, roofless latrines, often with a weird fake rock motif as if the loo was carved out of a big boulder :) You have to bring your own paper, too. And you have to put the used paper in a bin provided for this purpose, or risk blocking the pipes (when the toilet has pipes, which is only in the nicer places). A is quite talented at clogging the toilet up - she forgets to put the paper in the bin as it's not our habit...but we no longer have a problem communicating what assistance we need to the hotel staff :)

Tree planting. Wow, someone has put a bee in their bonnet here!!! On the ride down the length of Shanxi we saw that, literally, millions of new trees have been planted in the last year, many of them within a month of our passing by. They are planted quite close together, only feet apart in many cases, and many rows deep lining the edges of the roads. The rows of trees encroached on planted fields in many cases as well. We also saw many hillsides planted with trees. Many of the trees were what looked like poplars - their tops were cut off and they looked like staffs had been planted, but we could see some of the older ones had new branches coming out of the tops. As we got further south they were planting evergreens - small pine trees. As as we got further south it got a lot greener! Everything wasn't so brown and things were really growing. Xi'an amazed us with it's greenness and beautiful flowers everywhere - it was definitely Spring!

Hot water! This is the drinking kind and the bathing kind. Everyone in China - local and visitor alike - knows that they have to boil the water to drink it. This is excellent, as it means that we are not the only ones concerned about the health of our insides and we don't have to worry so much in restaurants. In India the locals would drink anything (and wash dishes in anything) so we were always vigilant. We still buy bottled water in China but we also have water in the hotel rooms. Sometimes it's a kettle and I boil water to put in our water bottles. Sometimes it's a flask of hot water that they provide and we have to ask for it to be refilled. The last method is a like a mini water machine - similar to what you get in a lot of offices - a water bottle upside down into the machine and water taps out. The machine boils the water and it comes out a hot water tap. We use this only for making coffee in the morning as it's very small - it would take forever to fill a water bottle, it can barely do 2 cups of coffee at a time! :) We don't know what water has gone into it - if the cold is safe to drink - so we don't drink it. As for the hot water....we don't have to do a hot bucket wash, we always have a shower, but the quality of the shower hardware varies greatly! That said we have had some great showers and the water is usually hot. Just as in India, though, the consistency as to whether hot is to the right or the left is trial and error :) Many places have had 24 hour hot water and some places only have night time hot water. We are keeping clean :)

As a continuation of the water concept...there is a serious drain smell problem here, as in India. I think a bit of bleach would go a long way to solving this problem :) As in India, it's the bathroom floor drain but also the open drains in the streets. It's an easily recognizable smell, but I don't remember ever smelling it in the US or the UK. A says she has smelled it in Spain once, but not in the UK. It's pretty foul, and one of our hotel rooms had a pretty vicious case of it and we had to keep the bathroom door shut the entire time. Yikes!

Living where you work. We saw this a lot in India, but we have seen it quite a bit in China, too. In the hotels there are floor women (they were all women, we didn't see any men...more on that thread in a minute :) and they had a room to live in so they were available to the guests all the time. As did the person that watched over the back of the hotel and the bike barn - we could see a little room at the back. We also could see that people were living in their shops - in Beijing, in Wutai Shan, in Louyang.

On to the roles of women :) In India we thought that women, for the most part, were hidden from the public view - this was not just the Muslim women but *all* women, except, of course, the westernized/urban women. I know I found this a bit depressing, and I think A did, too. Women in China are more visible, which we think is great :) but for some reason I was surprised to see women as part of the Chinese ruling class on the news on TV last night...hmmm for some reason I have picked up that weird idea (if was great to see that India had a lot of women in power....am I contradicting myself????). Chinese politics has always seemed to me to be very much and "old boys club", a bit stuffy and conservative. Anyway! The roles of women. Like on co-ed softball teams where women play certain positions and men play certain positions and it's rare to see it differently, women hold certain jobs and they don't hold other jobs. For example, all waitstaff are women. We have yet to see a male waiter. All the floor staff in a hotel are women. There are crossover jobs - we have see bus boys and bus girls and both male and female bus drivers. In India we saw many women working construction and doing road building and we have seen the same here although the women here seem to be treated equally unlike India where there were obvious inequalities amongst the workforce.

The last bit of commentary I want to share is about the vehicles. We have done our share of riding behind vehicles and breathing the fumes :) and sometimes we are pleasantly surprised....mmmm, that smells like wood :) They have solid fuel combustion engines! We have smelt wood and coal exhaust in addition to the standard diesel, petrol and 2 stroke exhaust smells. Many of the vehicles are not so much air polluting as they are noise polluting - the engine noise of some of the three wheeler pickup trucks and tractors is enough to knock me off my bike! They are incredibly loud...as are the horns of some of the trucks as they honk at us while passing, causing me to shout back at them "UNNECESSARY!!!!!" but I am sure they don't care :)

Later!

Tashi delay from Lhasa :-)

Firstly - we are both well and are acclimatising gradually, we have not had any need to buy any oxygen either. We have both had the odd headache or two and certainly some breathlessness but we are taking it easy and allowing our bodies to adapt to the environment.

Now, I could write a post about how absolutely amazing it is here in Lhasa but I am not going to - this is because I have not yet finished with the rest of China and I have some more photos to share...

I am going to rewind back to Louyang and our bus tour to the Shaolin Si - this is the infamous temple from which the Shaolin kung fu style originates from. I have to say that having been a martial arts fanatic in the past, I was bouncing off the walls with excitement. We had planned to take a normal public bus (and all the complications that go with it due to our lack of Mandarin) out to the site but when we asked the receptionist at our hotel she told us that there was a tour there for thirty yuan and that it would take in some other sites too. At such a fair price we could not refuse - we also had a free breakfast thrown into the equation. We had expected to be on a tour bus packed with foreigners but much to our amusement we were escorted at 8am the next day to another hotel to board a coach that was full of Chinese tourists. We were the only English speakers.

We found our seats on the back row of the coach which was now full. To our left sat a pair of middle aged women who were dressed very smartly and to our right sat an old cadre who donned a flat navy blue cap and wool coat. We assumed that he was an old cadre because he had a special ID card that was in a red wallet with the communist insignia on the front (similar to the Red Book covers of Mao's sayings that we have seen), there was a photo of him as a young man inside too and with this he could get a discount into all of the attractions en route. In front of us to the left sat a pair of incredibly happy grandparents who were in their fifties and to their right on the opposite side of the aisle sat their daughter and baby grandchild. It was an interesting journey for us. Firstly before the coach even left the child needed to pee. The mother sat the child on her lap and spread it's legs apart, with the ease of the spilt pants the child could then pee all over the floor of the coach. The encouraging mother and happy grandparents then moved the lino on the floor over the wet patch that had been made and the matter was over and done with. This happened on several occasions. Later on in the journey we would watch the happy family suck on vacuum packed chickens feet and peeled apples. Occasionally the grandmother would spit out the window and I would think of the cyclists that may have been in it's path. The pair of seats that the grandparents sat on was not bolted to the floor of the coach and when we went up and down the switchbacks in the mountains later their chair would tilt left and right and take them by surprise every time. The grandparents were so proud and loving, the mother was gentle and entirely focused on her baby, they were obviously having a special day out together. The old cadre to our right had a kind and sincere face with soft lines from age, he would stare out of the window peacefully looking content, he had a wonderful smile. Other people on the coach - there was a twenties something couple who were very much in love and hugged the whole time, they would also return to the coach later than everyone else and nearly got left behind on one occasion. There was another couple with their young toddler son who was highly energised due to the amount of sweet things his parents kept giving him, he was double trouble as a result and after acts of mischievousness he would be reprimanded and would bawl his eyes out. This couple did not seem to give their son much affection which is quite unusual to see here. There were other people who ate vacuum packed sausages and spat seed shells on the floor, hacked up a lung or two, spat out the window or talked animatedly.

When we thought that no more people could get onto the coach seats were flipped out into the aisle and thus created another row of seats which were soon filled. There was so much going on in this coach that would contravene any number of health and safety regulations in the UK, it would be a risk assessors nightmare. With a packed coach we eventually got on our way. The young female tour guide was full of information and talked constantly and loudly into a microphone in Chinese, there was a lot of response from the people on board, unfortunately we were not part of the fun. In fact, although the tour guide could speak a little English, she would often forget about us and we would not know where we were or how long we had to wonder around the sites. K was great and chased her up for information every time, she would beeline it through the thicket of camera wielding tourists in order to talk to the tour guide, with her mission accomplished we were free to abandon the group.

Onto the photos...

Our budget tour coach :-)


A view from the back row - you can just make out the seats in the aisle.


Our first stop was at a temple, we chose to not go inside because we did not know anything about it, we were also told by the guide that it was a minor site. So we sat outside in the sun and enjoyed the fresh air and freedom from the cramped coach and enjoyed our surroundings...

The temple was adjacent to a small hamlet and was surrounded by fields. Most agricultural land is terraced as is shown in this photo.


In a field there was a man crouching whilst attending to his crops, surprisingly he was wearing a suit. This is a typical sight in the countryside where people meticulously grow vegetables and crops.


Villagers were sitting around gossiping and watching the tourists.



It seems that many villages or residential areas have a blackboard near to their entrance. I assume that this shows the latest pricing or yields for crops although I am not entirely sure and can only go by what I have read in the past.


The village comprised of two very narrow lanes.


Some of the doorways to the houses... I wondered what histories belong to the families that have lived behind them.




Next it was onto the Songyang academy on the mountain of Songshan. If you have time it is worth having a read of this link on Songyang Academy -- The Highest Seat of Learning in Ancient China

The steps leading to the entrance of the academy - we love those steps :-)


The Tang tablet (774 AD) which stands at the entrance is about 8 metres tall.


The gardens at the temple were pretty despite them not yet being in bloom. There was bamboo...


... a rockery that was almost as big as any of the masterpieces that my own dad has created in the gardens of my childhood :-)


...and a peaceful pond with bridge.


The "Two General" Cypress trees are over 2000 years old!




Songyang was a centre of learning for many different doctrines, but especially Taoist.


Next we went to a Sakyamuni Buddha temple, unfortunately we do not have the name for it or any information regarding it's history. It was not in our travel guide and the tour guide did not have time to try and explain in pigeon English any information about it. Nonetheless it was still interesting to see.



There was an abundance of incense burning, it is possible to purchase huge spirals of incense which burn for hours.


The temple was set against a backdrop of mountain cliffs.


Devotees were prostrating and focused on silent prayer in front of the Buddha figure.


An image from one of the temples walls. It shows Sakyamunia and Bodhisattvas.


When we entered the temple we were given a small yellow sticker to wear, upon exit we were to place it inside the outline of a big character. We could not find out what the big character read though.


Eventually we got to the Shaolin Si. It was not quite what I had expected but I was still enthralled to be there.

Firstly we were greeted by this huge statue of a martial artist. I don't think that it was lifesize though...


As we made our way towards the temple we were quite tickled by the decorative phoneboxes :-)


...and this interesting way of separating your recycling :-)


Our first sighting of any martial arts was this group of young monks practising for their showcase. They would take it in turns to run across a row of backs.


Next on approach to the theatre where there were live kung fu performances we encountered more statues sporting different stances and poses. I was getting really excited at this point and was lost in a kung fu nostalgia. If I had come here a few years ago I would have prayed that I would be left here for all eternity!




The Shaolin Si is also the birthplace of Chan (Zen) Buddhism which differs to much of the Buddhism that we had seen in China so far which had mostly been of the Mahayana sect.

The fierce looking Lokapalas guarding the temples of Shaolin.



Some scenes from the temple grounds.




The temple has been destroyed and rebuilt many times, in fact the temple that now stands is a recent rebuild based on information about the original. There were some old steles and one old building at the back where the floor (see below) and some very old paintings have been preserved.



This is pretty amazing - the floor in the old building at the back of the temple grounds has sunken in places due to monks practising their kicks on the same spots. Over time this has created many indentations. WOW!


At the Shaolin academy there are still many thousands of students, some of which are residents, we saw many of them practicing and training as we left the grounds. There were sparring matches, people kicking kickbags, syncronised stretching, punching and going through forms. It was incredible to see.



Overall the Shaolin Si was not what I expected it to be. I did not know that the temple had been rebuilt and I did not know that the whole area had been redesigned to cater for the high volume of tourists which visit each year. I was disappointed by the commercialisation of this great art form and it did not have the spiritualism that I thought it would entail. Perhaps it can be found if you are a student there (or at least I would like to think so) and that the true spirit of Shaolin Kung Fu continues despite the thousands of prying eyes. Still I will always remember my visit to have been a Shaolin adventure park so I will prefer to think of the surrounding mountains and what it may have been like many years ago.

All was not lost.


Our final stop for the day was the Baima, or White Horse Temple which has the claim to fame of being the first Buddhist temple in China. For a temple that is on the tourist trail I was amazed by it's peacefulness and serenity. Perhaps it was because we visited a little before it was due to close that day and as a result the monks were tidying the grounds and winding down for the day which may have added to it's atmosphere. The monks would also say "nia hao" and smile which was very welcoming as well as unusual because at many of the temples I have not experienced this.

We watched monks who whilst chanting walked single file into a main temple.




Keeping the grounds immaculate...


A white horse statue.


In the temple grounds there were some beautiful gardens which were full of Peonies in bloom as well as blossoming trees.






It was a great place to end our day of touring...


Phew, that was good to clear that backlog. There is much more to write and photos to post but heads are pounding and tummies are grumbling - until next time :-)