Back to Macau

The journey back to Macau was rather tortuous as the only direct flight from Guilin did not fit my schedule. The first leg form Yangshuo to Guilin Airport by taxi was interesting. We appeared to be taking a cross-country route on roads that got narrower and narrower. Eventually we ended up on a single lane dirt track for a mile or two. I was getting worried about what I would find at the end. Amazingly, we passed through a gate and found ourselves in a large modern airport. Presumably there is a more conventional route via a proper road.
The flight from Guilin to Shenzhen went smoothly enough. Both these airports seem to have all the facilities you would expect from a modern international airport. The final leg of the journey was by high speed ferry from Shenzhen ferry port to Macau.
Once back in Macau, I had the opportunity to explore the city in more depth, this time in daylight. The architecture is interesting, mixing Portuguese colonial style with Chinese. There were several old Portuguese buildings, including a fort which housed the Macau Museum.. This turned out to be very well presented, and gave an interesting account of Macau’s colonial history, which predates that of Hong Kong’s by several hundred years. Macau is certainly worth a day or two's visit - more if you are a gambler!

More pics of Macau at:

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/rajbooth/Macau?authkey=Gu9Y6d1APvg

Now enjoying the hospitalty of the BA Executive Lounge at Hong Kong Airport, before flying homw.

Silver Cave, Yangshuo

My plan for my last full day in Yangshuo was to go on a cycling tour in the countryside surrounding the town. Unfortunately, it was raining quite heavily and I did not fancy the idea of getting that wet. My guide advised that the best dry option was to do a tour of the nearby Silver Cave, another of the limestone caves dotted around the region, and similar to the one I had already visited at Yiling, although considerably larger. I decided to take this advice and so ended up doing yet another cave tour, this time with a much bigger crowd of people. The formula was much the same as Yiling, but the overall scale was certainly more impressive.

More pictures of Silver Cave at: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/rajbooth/SilverCave?authkey=K_S987wdYrs

In the evening I ate at the best Chinese restaurant in Yangshuo, which features a cookery school and a very varied menu of local specialities. I drew the line at dog stew, but went for pig’s trotter soup followed by duck and local river shrimp. Very tasty indeed.

Li River

One of the highlights of any visit to Yangshuo is supposed to be a cruise on the Li river, on who’s banks the town sits. There are several ways of doing this cruise, the most common being to take a large flat bottomed boat from Guilin to Yangshuo. However, I was advised that this was not the best option in March as the water levels are still too low after the dry season to permit the boat to travel the full length of this stretch of river. Apparently my best optional to travel to a village called Xingping a bit further up-river from Yangshou, and pick up a small bamboo boat that would take me from Xingping on a two hour cruise up river past the most spectacular bits of scenery on the Li River. The trip form Yangshuo to Xingping involved a one hour journey on a local bus, which was quite an experience in itself. Now at last I was able to se rural China close up. The bus filled up with farmers returning from market carrying all sorts of purchases, including live chickens. We passed though a countryside of paddy fields, grazing buffalo, and sugar cane. Most of the rural population were dressed in blue tunics and even wearing the stereotypical conical Chinese hats. Many had their front teeth rotted away, presumably from the sugar cane which they all seemed to carry around and munch as a sweet snack.
Xingping is a relatively untouched rural village, with its main street containing wooden house-workshops over 300 years old. Passing though this village, we got to our bamboo boat and set off up river. The bamboo boat was not quite what it seemed at first sight. The bamboo had been replaced by plastic drain pipes bent and painted to resemble bamboo. Apparently more durable than the real thing.
I have to say that the cruise was slightly undewhelming. The scenery was spectacular enough, but the effect was diminished by the poor visibility, which meant that the Karst hills appear rather grey. The photos of this countryside are therefore rather disappointing. Apparently on a clear day (do they ever have these in China?) it is much more spectacular.

More pictures of Li River at: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/rajbooth/LiRiver?authkey=lvcH11DaZKg

I the evening, back in Yangshuo, I went to a spectacular show called Impressions (of the Li River), which was held on a massive lake in Yangshuo park. I didn’t really understand much of the story line, but it seemed to involve a princess, local fishermen, and hordes of sprites. The lighting and choreography were indeed stunning. Apparently the director and choreographer of this show are part of the same team that will be producing the opening ceremony for the Beijing Olympic Games. On the basis of this performance, I can predict that this will be the most impressive opening to date.
More pictures of Impressions at:
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/rajbooth/Impressions?authkey=DV-aQ6fw38k

Guilin and Yangshuo

Time now to leave Nanning and head off to Guilin, which used to be the capital of Guangxi province before Nanning took over this position. Travelled on an inter-city coach, which was pretty comfortable even though the journey was over four hours long. I decided not to linger in Guilin for too long, even though it apparently boasts a mini version of the Forbidden City, and was soon on another bus heading off to Yangshuo., a nearby town on the river Li than links it to Guilin. The scenery on this sector of the trip was quite spectacular, featuring numerous rocky outcrops of Karst limestone hills jutting vertically out of an otherwise flat landscape of rice paddies and sugar cane fields. Yangshuo itself is surrounded by these Karst hills and looks nothing like what I would call a typical Chinese city. It features a pedestrianised street that used to be the centre of the town when it was a simple fishing village on the Li River. This has become the centre of the local tourist industry, but they have managed to do it in a reasonably tasteful way, with a mix of low cost guest houses, gift shops selling mainly genuine local crafts, and several restaurants and bars. This all adds up to a very lively atmosphere, particularly in the evenings when the bars get going . The only disappointment from my point of view is that most of the bars catered mainly for young Chinese, with an off-putting mix of overloud music and eye burning laser lighting. The best bars seem to be the ones catering for the climbing community, which uses Yangshou as a base to explore the local mountains. Overall, I can see why Yangshuo is on most tourist must-see lists when visiting China.

More photos at: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/rajbooth/Yangshuo?authkey=EiEIfBQy0TI

Yiling Caves, Nanning

Today I headed out of Nanning to a place called Yiling, which is noted for its network of underground limestone caves. Before you get to explore the caves you are expected to undergo a guided tour of a typical village of the local Zhuang tribe, including watching various artistic performances and sampling their food and drink. This part of the tour was about as genuine as the tours of ‘ethnic’ native American or Maori villages that one gets to see, but it was reasonably entertaining nevertheless. The caves themselves were spectacular and enhanced by coloured lighting (the Chinese do like their coloured lights). Hard to do them justice with photos. Although the guide only spoke Chinese, I don’t think I missed much as apparently most of the spiel was about how various stalactite formations looked like some animal or another.
More pictures at: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/rajbooth/Yiling?authkey=3M1tyLToOtg

Qingshan Park, Nanning

In the morning, did some clothes shopping and managed to pick up some ’new’ jeans for about £8. (I say ’new’ because, in keeping with current fashion, they appeared to have been worn in by a building site worker for several weeks before appearing on the shop shelf). Other stuff was equally cheap in the various small clothing shops.
In the afternoon I went to Qingshan park, which covers a massive area on the outskirts of Nanning. Unfortunately it was not a particularly good choice of day to visit as it was International Womens’ Day. This is apparently taken very seriously in China, and entails a large part of the female population going on outings, with the result that the place was packed. Highlights of the park were the peach blossom groves, the various temples, and the Qingshan tower (bit like the Kew pagoda).
Later, visited one of the several large markets in Nanning, with amongst other things, specialised in jewellery made from local semi-precious stones.
After a grand meal in the evening for a ridiculously low price, I walked round the adjacent department store. This was about the same size as Selfridges or Macy’s with a similar range of fashion outlets, and at London prices. So it is possible to spend a lot of money in China if you need to keep up appearances.
One tends to forget about China being a police state until you try to do things on the Internet, particularly in relation to blog sites. It has been a real struggle to post anything on this blog from within China, and every update takes ages, if it works at all. One can imagine the armies of censors reading every post before it is allowed through the system (Great Firewall of China). Having posted, I can not access the blog to read the end result. Obviously my blog is considered to be too subversive!

More pictures at: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/rajbooth/Nanning02?authkey=kcmnAnRlFJ8

Nanning, first day

Now in Nanning, the capital of Guangxi province. I am not sure quite what I was expecting, but it seems much like many other modern cities. Better in many ways, as it has wide tree lined roads and many parks and green open spaces. I arrived at night and was struck by the elaborate multi-coloured light sculptures that are all over the city. Apparently the Chinese have a big thing about coloured lightening. Also far more cars than I had expected. I guess I had a mental picture of everyone riding around on bikes. There were certainly plenty of those, but many people were driving around in quite expensive European cars, so there is obviously as lot of money around in this part of China at least. I was also struck by the fact that almost everyone is dressed very fashionably - it puts the average suburban London high street to shame. The other thing that was noticeable, from the time I hit Shenzhen, was the smog, which seems to blot out the sky all the time. I don’t know whether this shifts with the seasons, but it makes things look very gloomy. Not sure about its effect on health! My hotel here seems to be of a very high standard, although the bed mattress is rock hard. Hopefully I will get a good seep tonight anyway.

Macau by night

A short stopover in Macau before heading into mainland China. Macau at night is basically all about gambling, a bit like Monaco or Las Vegas transported to China (it even has a street Grand Prix, like Monaco). Not really my scene but it is entertaining to watch the Chinese, who are the worlds greatest gamblers, at play. Macau itself is an interesting cross between China and Portugal, with much of the architecture being in the Portuguese style, and a few Portuguese eating places around. Hopefully I will get a chance to see more when I return via Macao on my way home.

More photos at: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/rajbooth/Macau?authkey=Gu9Y6d1APvg

Tomorrow heading into China via Shenzhen.

Tokyo Joe's Blues Bar, Bangkok

This is probably the best (only?) blues bar in Bangkok and I always try to drop in at least once on each trip. On this occasion the local band Blue on Blue were playing - an excellent set. Also had a good fish and chips!

Bangkok

Now in Bangkok for a short side trip before the main part of my holiday in China. Not much changed since my last time here. Still congested, noisy, etc, but lively at night! Tomorrow back to Macau before heading off to mainland China.