The X-Factor

So I'm sitting in our hostel in Xining, getting ready to leave for Tibet, with Jen and I having just enjoyed some well-deserved R&R in X&X - Xi'an and Xining. First up (after a train journey so special it has been the subject of its own entry) was Xi'an - China's ancient capital and the gateway to the legendary silk road. It's fair to say that the city's real glory days have long passed but the history of the place still shines in places like the fascinating Muslim Quarter, the Drum and Bell Towers (now surrounded by traffic islands and shopping centres, just as they must have been in ancient times...) the Old City walls lit up at night, and the fantastically named Big Goose Pagoda, complete with daily fountain show.

Of course, the big drawcard of Xi'an is the world-famous Army of Terracotta Warriors which lies just outside the city. The importance of this site from an archaeological and historical perspective can't be overstated, while as an achievement for its time it was nothing short of extraordinary. That being said, seeing the warriors themselves reconstructed and arranged in formation from a distance inside several huge metal sheds is - dare I say it - ever-so-slightly underwhelming. Though the practicalities of security and preservation of course make it impossible, you do get the feeling that they would be more impressive if able to be seen in the open air and up close.

After Xi'an, another overnight train - which this time was a Hard Sleeper at least - brought us here to Xining, which is to be our jumping-off point for Tibet. At 2,275m above sea level the city is higher than the highest point in either Australia or Britain, though is still considerably less than half the altitude we will eventually reach in Tibet. Despite having more than two million people, Xining has the feel of a provincial city and so has been a nice, relaxing place to do absolutely nothing for a few days.

The highlight of Xining has undoubtedly been Jen's birthday - we were hoping to have been in Tibet for the occasion but the timings didn't quite work out so instead I took her to Xining's famous "28th floor Rotary Western Restaurant" - which means that it's a restaurant of the revolving kind. And the menu was unquestionably one of the most brilliant things I've ever seen - pure Chinglish at its finest.

So tonight we board the train to take the world's highest railway (yes, officially) to Lhasa in Tibet, and hopefully an adventure to remember. Stay tuned, dear readers, to see if the reality lives up to the expectation...

BT10_Xian 11-14 Aug 2010

BT11_Xining 15-20 Aug 2010

It's been a Hard Seat's Night

It is said that, at any one time, there are more than 10 million Chinese people travelling on a train somewhere in China. Of these 10 million I’m reasonably confident that at least 7 million were not only on the train with Jen and I out of Beijing, but were also sharing the very same carriage. You thought the tube got crowded during rush hour? Ha - by comparison to this train it is an exercise in spaciousness and solitude.

There are four general types of train tickets in China. The most luxurious and expensive are the Soft Sleepers. Then there are the Hard Sleepers –half the price of Soft Sleepers but generally comfortable, particularly for an overnight trip if you are on a budget. Soft Seats are the third type – only found on short-haul services. Finally, there is the chair of the masses, the seat of the people, the Hard Seat – this is the only type of train ticket that the average Chinese person can afford so, even despite the fact that these carriages are much more common than any other, out of a major city they are still packed to the rafters. And because of ticket supply and budget issues, it is by Hard Seat that Jen and I made the 16 hour trip from Beijing to Xi’an.

Let me paint a picture for you dear readers. First of all, imagine a train carriage where each and every seat is full. Then add about a 50% increase to capacity for the seated passengers alone. So by this I mean that if there should have been two people on a seat, there were three. If there should have been four people, there were six, and so on. Then add people sitting on laps, corners, tables and the like adding what must have been another 50% (at least) to the carriage capacity. Then add the babies and infants, being carried, held and precariously positioned all over the carriage – indeed, one “mother” went so far as to leave her small child sleeping on my backpack while she found her way up the carriage to an empty piece of floor under a seat where she promptly curled up and got herself a few hours sleep! So far so crowded, but such forced intimate human interaction was just the beginning of the fun. For, you see, people stood in the aisle. And when I say “stood in the aisle” what I actually mean is that I'm pretty sure that every person standing around minding his or her own business anywhere near Beijing West Train Station was railroaded (no pun intended) into the train to stand in the aisle whether they had a ticket or not. So by my estimation, if the carriage had an official everyone-in-a-seat capacity of 100 people, there were somewhere between 400 and 500 souls somehow crammed into this one.

And then we got the crowning glory, the piece de resistance – the food trolley was wheeled in. How it even got as far as our carriage is beyond me, given that we weren’t at the front of the train and everywhere forward of us was just as packed, but come through it did to be greeted by an extraordinary display of chair climbing and roof hanging by literally hundreds of people to allow it to pass. It was like the parting of the Red Sea. But with snacks.

After all that, it goes without saying that the trip wasn’t comfortable, but somehow it ended up being immensely enjoyable and this was all due to the fact that the rest of the carriage treated us like absolute celebrities. Foreigners aren’t often to be found with the masses in the hard seats and so they adopted us as their own with the kind of wonder and fascination that the Chinese so often display when met with westerners. A group of young girls decided we would be great to practice English with and they did just that incessantly, eventually telling us that Jen was pretty and I was cool. So they scored 50% right. Others vigilantly looked after our bags and offered their snacks (turns out the nuts they gave us had to be peeled first – cue much amusement when we didn’t realise this and ate them whole), while almost everyone who got off at any stop on the journey said a personal goodbye to us, even if they’d been sitting (or standing, or hanging) at the other end of the carriage. It was local hero superstardom, and you couldn’t help but lap it up.

Sadly, all good and wildly cramped things must come to an end, so after 16 hours of frivolity and a complete lack of blood flow to the lower parts of our bodies, we alighted our train…and found that Xi’an South station is about as close to Xi’an as London Stanstead airport is to London.

F*$@ing Chinese trains...

N.B. As we were in cattle class, and I mean really cattle class, we felt it somewhat inappropriate to be taking out our brand new camera and flashing it around, so I'm afraid there are no pics for this entry. You'll just have to use your imagination and/or take our word for it.

To Beijing or not to Beijing?

When you're met from the train station by someone as lovely as 'Emma' our hostel contact, then you can't but help immediately love the place you're visiting. Not only did Emma met us, but she also paid for our few stop bus ride to our hostel - green AND hospitable (considering that you're paying peanuts for the hostel itself).

So good arrival, good hostel and as it turns out - good location. We were hungry on arrival so headed out for the mandatory Peking Duck, only to find a big place on our corner with many ducks hanging succulently in the window and with many locals chowing down inside on this tasty dish. And it didn't disappoint. Sod the lonely planet recommendations that were 4km away - we found a great place for half the price on our doorstep.

So after a day or two just hanging out and settling in, Beijing was primarily about the following major attractions - Summer Palace, Forbidden City and Great Wall.

First up for us was the Summer Palace. We hopped on the (working, air-conditioned, lots of space) 'London Underground equivalent' and found ourselves a comfortable 20 mins later several km out of the city centre Summer Palace. This place is massive (as you will find most of Beijing is with one block normally being 1km in distance). We arrived around midday and found ourselves wandering around until closing time without even having visited all the parts yet.

A couple of observations. This place would be so much nicer without the constant grey pollution haze that now seems to dog it - you can imagine Empress Cixi parading around in the summer sun. It would also be much nicer without a million Chinese tourists - OMG - they are everywhere, they are loud and they have no idea what the verb 'to queue' means.

There is some amazing architecture here regardless, from the marble boat (built by crazy Empress Cixi instead of modernizing the navy at the time), the bridge with all the lions on it (where every one is in a different pose) and the other crazy bridge that is so steep that it's really hard to walk on!!!

Next was the Great Wall. Our hostel had a great tour out to a part of the wall that Lonely Planet says is technically shut to the public - hooray said we!!!! A nice quiet area without tourists!!!! So off we trundled and we had the most amazing time. The weather was scorching, but we bought along plenty of water and a good attitude and we scaled some really steep parts of the wall, conquered one corner that made us (all 12 of us on the tour) feel like we were kings of the castle and then chowed down into some amazing Chinese food at this very local place on the edge of the wall where we'd first started out climb. This was a great day - and the views (as the photos will attest to) were incredible!

Finally - after some rather curious issues trying to advance book our Tibet permits with the wonderful aid of Ismena Clout, without whom it seems our visit to Tibet would not have been possible - we made our way down to the Forbidden City. Again - without the hoards of Chinese Tourists or the searing polluted heat this place would be a quiet mystical amazement. As it is, the main central part is just a crazy rampage of pushing and shoving. If you make it up the right or left sides, however, to the clock display or the palace rooms then you get a much better impression of how life in the City would have really been. And this place is also massive. It's just ironic that all the most important rooms are named things like "place of heavenly peace and tranquility" and whilst you're viewing it you're surrounded by a million loud mouthed Chinese tourists with their guides howling over their loud speakers.....

Regardless of all the manic-ness - we loved Beijing. The people are friendly (and pushy and loud), the food is incredible (forget the major tourist priced hubs like Houhai and head for the streets just off them to the north and you get noodle soups and Peking Duck for incredible prices), the Hutongs have a brilliant sense of community (little side streets basically where every one lives) and the hospitality of China is (in 2010) above reproach - they want to make sure you have a good time and will do this at their own expense - how the Chinese appear to foreigners is the very core of their national pride.

Other things that I'll remember about Beijing:

• That the men have a habit of wearing their shirts tucked under their chests thus showing their midriffs - and this happens regardless of physique

• Tiananmen Square - You'll all be familiar with this infamous place because it was right here, in June 1989, that absolutely nothing happened. At all. To be honest it's not as vast a space as I was expecting, mainly because of the big buildings that have been erected in the middle of it. You have to ask if it really qualifies as a square if there are buildings in the middle. Oh, and it was also surrounded with very heavy traffic and pollution

• That women carry umbrellas always - open above their heads come rain or shine - frankly this step back to the fashion of the parasol is something that I reckon should catch on the world over! Though Sean would argue the point of the obvious tall person disadvantage...

• That spitting is common, but not as much as I was anticipating... And they're polite about waiting for you to pass before they spit the phlegm out - how nice of them

• Baoze - such wonderful steamed dumpling goodness!!!! And for pennies!!!

• That everything works here - the trains, the buses, the public toilets - it's all just as you think these public services should be. So far, 10 out of 10 for China. But this was only their capital. Who knows how the rest of the country will measure up?

We would find out soon enough, as we boarded the train to Xi'an...

BT9_Beijing 6-10 Aug 2010

Trans Siberian - An Addendum

DEAR READER: YOU MAY HAVE NOTICED OUR BLOG ABSENCE FOR 4 WEEKS. THIS WAS DUE TO CHINESE FIREWALL RESTRICTIONS AND THEIR DETESTATION OF EVERYTHING GOOGLE. WE WILL NOW UPDATE OUR BLOGS FOR THIS PERIOD, AND BACKDATE THE POSTS SO THAT THEY APPEAR IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER. WE, AND THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT, APOLOGISE SINCERELY FOR "CONCERNED OPPORTUNITIES OF SADNESS AND BAD FEELING".

I take it all back.

We travelled from Mongolia to Beijing on a Mongolian operated/serviced train from Ulanbaataar. I now understand why everyone else didn't quite feel the same way as me about the Trans Siberian. This train had mini TVs, was sparkling clean, and had conductors that cleaned incessantly every 10 minutes. It appears that my advice about TS travel should be that you ONLY go on Russian or Mongolian operated services!

As you cross from Mongolia to China, you have to have the undercarriage and wheels changed. This is supposed to be a horrid 6 hour experience. I actually really enjoyed it! The train carriages are separated and shunted into these sheds. Each of the sets of wheels are unclipped from the carriage above (literally by one clip per undercarriage) and the carriage is then lifted on hydraulic platforms. They then push out all 12 or so of the wheel sets one end (the whole underside disappeared) and then push in the new ones from the other way, lower the carriage and clip you back onto it - and hey presto off you go. The train is then put back together again and you're away. Was really cool to watch (I now admit to being very sad indeed).

The views in Mongolia and China were also incredibly interesting and beautiful - the final two days of the TS kick the ass off the first 5 going through Russia!

BT8_Trans Siberian Addendum 5-6 Aug 2010

Testies Survival Training

You may remember my Monday night netball team's farewell post. Well one of the presents this team, called Test Eagles, gave me was a 'Testies Survival Kit'.

My aim is to use each of the 13 contained items on this adventure and post them on this blog with photographic evidence of said usage.

In Mongolia I had the opportunity to light the stove in our Ger with the matches or the flint, to use the glow stick to light my way to the loo 100ft away in the pitch black or even sew on the button that fell off my trousers.

But I didn't dear readers.

Because I learned the first lesson of survival. Your survival kit is useless if you don't have it with you.

They ride horses, don't they?

First things first - Mongolia's capital of Ulaanbaatar is not going to win any city beauty contests. It won't come second either. In fact I would bet with supreme confidence that even the Miss City Congeniality title would be well, well out of its reach. On initial impressions the whole place has a very run down and unattractive feel to it, with crumbling or half finished buildings, lots of roadworks, plenty of smog and pollution, and a depressing lack of green. Worst of all, there is a state-enforced rule that alcohol is not to be served on the first of each month. We arrived on August 1. We were not pleased.

But UB (as the locals call it) - and indeed wider Mongolia as a whole - is very much a place that reveals itself in layers, and Jen and I had the pleasure of peeling off those layers in three particular experiences:

Firstly - Carl McIntyre, an Aussie expat currently living and working in UB (thanks for the hookup Steve) doing international development work with the Mongolian government with a subset of AusAID. A top bloke, and a very smart one too, he gave Jen and I a fascinating insight into life in Mongolia today, the economic and social developments going on there and the kind of projects that he and other expats have had the opportunity to be involved in. There's a sense of real accomplishment behind what the local government and the expat community are working together here to achieve and it was fantastic to get a first-hand account like we did. Hell, I even feel inspired to get into something like that myself. I mean, they pay the same in developing nations as they do in London, don't they?

Secondly - Our delightful run-in with a couple of locals at a restaurant. We'd finished dinner and drinks and were about to leave when the very large man at the next table, who had clearly been drinking since about the previous Wednesday, beckoned loudly for us to join him and his much, much more sober female companion, who was very usefully also a translator. We learned that this great big bear of a man, by the name of Aruka Ariunbold, was a former Provincial Elephant - the second highest title in the very prestigious world of Mongolian wrestling (seriously, it's a huge deal here). He then trained special forces at the Police Academy and is now security officer at a gold mine working 8 weeks on, 2 weeks off - and by God he was enjoying his two weeks off. He also introduced us to a very smooth Mongolian vodka, before his lovely companion who wasn't in any way his wife took him back to a hotel, presumably to attempt to sleep with him. If that actually happened - he took at least five minutes just to stagger his way out of the restaurant - I have new respect for both of them.

Thirdly - Our trip to Terelj national park for a couple of days in the Mongolian countryside (under the expert guidance of "Bik") where we got to see the raw beauty of the country up close and personal. A particular highlight was our 3-hour horseriding expedition - compulsory really, given that Mongolia is famed as a nation of nomadic horsemen. The latest figures tell me that the current population of the world is 6,860,158,644. Of that number I am pretty sure that approximately 6,629,182,755 are better horse(wo)men than I am, and the remainder are under the age of 1. And if they could actually pull themselves up onto a horse then I'd back them to be at least be roughly on my level. That being said I took to it with as much gusto as I could (Jen's enthusiasm was infectious) and it was quite exhilarating galloping through the Mongolian countryside and up mountain trails to survey the gorgeous plains and valleys below. When you think about it I was pretty much just like Genghis Khan* without the sheepskin coat, cool manicured beard, vast empire and ability to ride a horse. And at my current rate of recovery I am hoping to be able to sit down without pain again by mid-September. 2013.

My (Jen's) turn. Things I will remember:

• Mongolian Barbecue made by placing hot stones into a pot with the meat, potatoes, salt and water and left for an hour on top of the fire until totally yummy!
• Traditional Mongolia games played with the ankle bones of sheep. Sides are named sheet, goat, horse and camel and you can flick two matching pairs to win - most wins wins. Or horse race where you throw 4 bones like dice and if a horse comes up you can move your other bone on one place along the track. Or another game essentially of pick up.
• The dodgy Indiana Jones style bridge to get to the Buddhist monastery.
• Drinking horses milk.... hmmm....
• Sleeping in a 'Ger' - a traditional little tent like thing that loads of families here still actually sleep in. More spacious on the inside than they look on the outside, but still pretty small for a family of 8. Made out of a wooden circular frame, animal fur insulation and felt and cotton outer layer.
• Yaks - they're fluffy.
  

* known locally as Chinggis (meaning big sea/ocean) Khan. Regardless of name Jen says the way the Mongolians love this man reminds her of that song from Wicked where the Wizard of Oz sings "a man's called a traitor or liberator.... it's all in which label is able to persist"

BT7_Ulanbaataar 1 - 5 Aug 2010

Trans-Siberian

Ah - who wouldn't want to spend 5 nights on a train without a shower in a room no bigger than most people's closet with hard wooden beds clearly made for children?

They question in the Lonely Planet if you should go straight through to your final destination or jump on and off at stops along the way. If you're going to do this just in isolation as a holiday - you HAVE to get off.

Our saving grace to what could have been a very dull journey were the friends we made.

Firstly, our next door neighbour that we met on the platform waiting for the train - a Dutch gentleman named Milan who had lived in Germany most of his life named Milan. Having just finished a year in London and about to start his masters in Germany, Milan was spending his final few days of freedom wisely by doing the TS, China and Vietnam. It's worth noting that this platform was the back-end of another much grander station, was outside with no waiting area so everyone just stood around aimlessly. Thankfully this allowed us to meet Milan!

Secondly, our 'cabin mates' Nathan and Matt, freshly out of Marine Biology degrees at Newcastle University. They were taking as long off as their money would allow them to see Asia and South America. We were all about 2 weeks in having tried to get as far by train as we could and as you know dear readers, Sean and I failed from Kiev to Russia, but this clever pair went the long way via the Baltics and managed this task hands down!

We also met several other people on the train, notably Gustavo from Brazil who shared with Swedish beauties Emily and Evelina.

Here is what the journey is like in general. Days 1, 2, 3 and 4 are Russian views of trees, very similar trees, with the odd wooden shack type house/village thrown in. You become thankful for the 20 minute stops to buy beer and freeze dried goods from the various vendors (quality of food on offer varies wildly from station to station). Day 4 at 6am you hit Lake Baikal and have for the first time some great views. Day 5 you arrive in Ulaanbaatar, but only having suffered a few hours in advance a 6 hour border crossing from Russia to Mongolia.

Here is how Sean and Jen's journey went. Day 1 - meet and great with several beers, a fairly civil drinking affair. Day 2 - out comes the vodka for the vodka train, a rather messier affair. Day 3 - when we ran out of beer, the guards had run out of beer to sell us and our only option was expensive restaurant car beer we turned to the rather questionable 'chinese wine' (more like a schnapps type drink) sold to us by the 'providista' who we had affectionable named Chang for lack of any other way of finding out his real name. Day 4 - hang over. But managed to shake that off with.... more beer!!! This evening of course ended at about 8am having decided that restaurant beer would help us stay up to see Lake Baikal (which was a good idea actually). This mission was aided by a card game called 'Ring of Fire' taught to us by Nathan - nice one Nathan! Day 5 - hmmmm, we were very quiet on day 5. No money. No beer. No supply of beer. And a 5am up time the next day for Sean and my departure.

This is described as a 'romantic journey' but it's hard to be romantic when using toilets that are essentially flaps that open onto the tracks, you're so close to two other people and you're unable to wash for days. But it is in the end a must do experience, not least for the wonderful people that you might meet. I hope that since our paths are very similar we have the chance to meet up with the friends we met once more.

BT6_Trans Siberian 27 July - 1 Aug 2010