China - Xi'an

From Yichang, it was off to Xi'an to see the Terra Cotta Warriors. Although we went to Xi'an to see the soldiers, we quickly became quite impressed by the city itself - in fact, it was probably one of our favourite cities that we visited on our entire trip.

We took a taxi from the boat to the train station for our overnight trip to Xi'an. We got to the train station with enough time to check out some of the downtown area. This vendor was wandering the streets selling a wide range of items.


The view from the train station. The McDonalds where we ate lunch was just around the corner... we're so adventurous.


Our train from Yichang to Xi'an. Our first overnight train experience in China - and a good one. The bunks were quite comfortable and our cabinmates seemed nice enough and more importantly, they didn't snore.


The dining car on the train. The food was ok - although we weren't quite sure what we were eating. We decided on our meal by pointing at the stirfry on the table next to us and pointing to the word for "Chicken" in our Rough Guide... it's amazing how handy those things can be!


Xi'an is an ancient city - over 3000 years old and has a population of over 7.5 million. It marks the Eastern end of the famous Silk Road and was the capitol of China during the Zhou, Qin, Han and Tang dynasties. It's downtown area is surrounded by walls, with turrets every 200 meters or so.


When we arrived, we decided to spend our first day taking a walking tour of some of the major sites of the city... resulting in a good 15-20 km of walking. The city was dotted with quaint little parks like this one all over the place.

A small temple in the park.

A busy intersection in downtown Xi'an. Notice the lack of traffic lights and the traffic cop standing in the center of the street.

This is the Bell Tower in Xi'an built in 1384. It houses a huge Bell which was wrung at dawn to tell the cities inhabitants the time. This was coupled with a very similar tower a few blocks away, called the Drum Tower, built in 1380. The drum would be struck at dusk. The bell and drum are no longer in use, except in times of war as a warning system.

A game of Mah Jong. We ran into a number of games like this near one of the markets. They tried to show me how to play, but my lack of knowledge of Cantonese/Mandarin made it rather difficult.

We decided to check out the Stele Forest (aka Beilin Museum), which is a museum of over 3000 ancient steles and sculptures dating back to the times of Confucius. This is a collection of all the old hitching posts that used to be throughout the city and have been moved to the museum grounds.

The top of each hitching post was intricately carved.

One of the steles carved with the works of Confucius.

One of the workers making an ink rubbing of a stele.

The old market area of Xi'an. A very cute area with lots of tiny shops.

China - Yangtze River (Three Gorges Dam)

Our final stop on the Yangtze was the Three Gorges Dam. We all know about this huge project to dam the Yangtze, but here are some intersting facts about it:
1. When complete, it will be able to power a city 4x larger than L.A. (about 3% of China's energy needs)
2. It is the largest dam in the world - 5x larger than Hoover Dam
3. It officially cost $25 billion US, but has been estimated at over $100 billion US
4. Millions of residents in the flooded area were forced to move into government housing - often to new land of much poorer quality
5. The building of the dam will negatively affect the environments of several endagered species (Chinese river dolphin, Chinese paddlefish and Siberian Crane)
6. An estimated 1300 archeological sites will be flooded by the time the water has fully risen in 2009.

Here is some of what we saw there:

We went through the locks at around 1am. I got up to check it out, but quickly grew bored/tired after it took 40+ minutes to go through one lock (it takes over 4 hours to go through the 5 locks).

The next day we got a tour of the grounds. Here's a view inside the last lock.

They made a park at the dam site... but there wasn't much there - except for tourists.

The dam. The last piece of structural work was completed less than a month before we got there (9 months ahead of schedule).

Fishermen at the foot of the dam.

China - Yangtze River (Shennong Stream)

Our second outing on the Yangtze was up a small tributary called Shennong Stream. In order to make it up the stream, we had to switch to a much smaller boat. This made the scenery around us even more impressive...

When we started heading up the stream, we happened to look up to see a couple of... acrobats???... random people with a death wish???... you decide. As far as I know, these two people RIDING A BICYCLE across the gorge on a wire weren't actually part of the trip, they were just enjoying the thrill of it I guess.

When you look closer, you can actually see that one guy was dangling below the bicycle.

This gives you an idea of the scale of some of the mountains. The boat in the picture is similar to the one we were on for this part of the trip.

Some local fishermen

This is a picture of a hanging coffin. These coffins are a source of mystery to the Chinese. At various locations on the river, there are coffins that have been wedged into crevices on the cliffsides. These coffins were placed there anywhere from 1000 BC to 400 BC to help protect the remains from beasts as well as to bless them eternally. The mystery comes from just how the ancient people were able to get the coffins placed in these crevices. It would take too much manpower to build a mud ramp and there is no evidence of stake holes drilled into the cliffs. The current theory is that they were lowered into place with long ropes, but it is still up for debate.

A closer view of a coffin. The coffins themselves were often carved from one peice of wood.

As we neared the source of the stream, we had to transfer into smaller boats carrying around 15-20 passengers, rowed by a crew of 5.

When we approached the rapids, the crew were no longer able to row the boat and were forced to get out and pull the boat along. Remember that it was around 35 degrees at this point... After we made it to the head of the rapids, the crew got turned the boat around, got back in and tried to avoid crashing into the rocks as we rushed back downstream... (and yes Jess, they did a better job of it than I could).

China - Yangtze River (Fengdu: The Ghost City)

We had 3 excursions on the Yangtze River. The first was to Fengdu - The Ghost City. This is an extremely mythological place in China. A combination of Taoist, Buddhist and traditional folk legend, it is said to be the place where all spirits go after death. It is here that the spirit is judged and either sent on to paradise, or are sentenced to purgatory where you must repent your sins and are then reborn in another life.

After the river rises to its full height, parts of this 1800 year old ghost city will be submerged, with the remainder being isolated on an island.

When we got off the boat to see the city, we were greeted by many villagers selling fruit and vegetables.

The entrance to Fengdu.

This is the first of three tests that your spirit must pass successfully in order to be deemed worthy of paradise. There are three bridges, males must cross on the left bridge, females on the right and couples down the centre. You must also cross in a specific number of steps (9 for couples) - too many or too few will result in failure of this test.

The pathway after the bridge is lined by statues of the gods which identify unworthy souls. Each god has a specific "skill": there is one to seduce "men of leisure" and one to seduce "promiscuous ladies". This one is the all-seeing god. Being covered with eyes, it can see your every move.

Not quite sure what this one's special ability is... any ideas???

This doorway signifies the second test. Men must step over the threshold with their left foot and women with their right.... or the other way around... I can't remember... Once on the other side of the threshold, you must walk down the hall without turning to look behind you. There will be other spirits calling your name, trying to trick you into turning around and thus fail the test.

This is the third and final test. A worthy spirit will be able to balance on this stone on one foot for three seconds. Although it may look easy, it's actually really tough...

...as Jenn found out...

This was just a neat little pagoda that we saw in Fengdu.

China - Yangtze River

From there we took a bus into Guangzhou, China to catch a flight to Chongqing for our Yangtze River cruise. What we didn't realise, was just how tough it was going to be to communicate while in China. Since there were few people who could speak English, and even fewer (ie zero) signs in English, we were to be limited to hand gestures and pointing to the few phrases we had in our guidebooks...

When we got off the bus in Guangzhou, we went into the nearest hotel to get directions to the airport. It just so happened that they had a display set up for the upcoming World Cup, complete with the actual FIFA World Cup Trophy!!!

It was upon our arrival to the airport that our second major situation occurred:
Our original plan had been to wander around Guangzhou for the day before heading to the airport, but unfortunately the weather did not co-operate. The pouring rain forced us to head to the airport 6 hours early. When we got there, the sole English-speaking ticket agent informed us that there was a problem with our plane tickets. So she brought us over to another booth before she had to go (her shift was over). This made us more than a little worried, since missing this flight would result in missing our pre-paid cruise which left first thing the next day.

We continued to get more and more nervous to longer we waited at the new booth. Being unable to communicate with us, the employees began madly typing on their computers, discussing things with eachother and pointing at our tickets. After almost an hour they handed us some new tickets for a flight leaving 2 hours earlier than our original flight - I've never been so glad that it was pouring rain before!

A couple of days later, I had a chance to check my email and discovered that our flight had been cancelled and the tickets were non-exchangeable. I guess the employees took pity on us after seeing our looks of utter confusion.

So with that mess out of the way, we needed to get some lunch/dinner. This is Jenn's drink - rose tea, complete with actual rosebuds!

Armed with a piece of paper reading "Hi, I have booked a trip on the Yangtze River on the Yangtze Princess. Please call (504302165) to find out which pier the Yangtze Princess is currently docked at. Please take me to the Yangtze Princess," written in Chinese we were ready to find our boat... or so we thought. Time for situation #3.

We arrived in Chongqing at around 10:30pm (our flight was delayed) and began looking for a cabbie to take us to the boat. Unfortunately, we couldn't find anyone who could understand our message. Uh oh. We then met an English-speaking travel agent who was waiting to pick up other tourists, who offered to call the number and find out the proper dock for us. She then led us to a cabbie and gave him instructions for us. With that, we were on our way.

After driving for 15 minutes, the cabbie turned around and asked us something in Chinese. Jenn and I looked at eachother and then point to the piece of paper we had and gave it to him. He kept driving and then pulled up to another cabbie and got some directions. We made it to the docks and discovered that there were many many docks there (Chongqing sits on the crossing of two rivers) and he had no idea which one we were going to. They all had Yangtze cruise boats docked at them and we didn't know which was ours. After stopping to ask various people on the streets, making a number of phone calls and driving up and down the docks for over an hour, we began to get worried.

Eventually we ran into a (probably half-drunk) homeless man who seemed able to help out. He got in the car and continued the search with us for the next 30 minutes or so, frequently turning around to smile at us and give us the thumbs up. After circling the same building a number of times, a man came out of one of them to lead us away. We gave the cabbie and his "assistant" a huge tip and followed our new guide down a dock, across two boats tied to eachother and then down the length of two more to reach our boat hidden in the back. Insane... but again, thanks to the help of strangers, it all worked out in the end.

Jenn was clearly relieved to make it into our room on the boat.

The lounge room on the boat.

One of several sitting areas onboard.

This was the view from the upper deck of our boat the next morning. It was extremely foggy for the first day until we made it into the Three Gorges, where the weather cleared up and gave us some amazing views.

Views of the Yangtze River. We actually have hundreds of pictures like this... every 30 seconds you could point the camera in another direction and take an amazing picture.

This is a brand new bridge built for the rising of the river. It has already risen 135 m and has another 40 m to go. This part of the river used to be so narrow, that boats would have to go through one at a time.

This house was built right into the side of the cliff. It has been abandoned, as it will eventually be partially under water.

Gives you an idea of the scale.

This boat is filled with recycling.

This is Goddess Peak. Legend has it that the Wu Gorge (one of the Three Gorges) was formed when 12 dragons were running amok over the countryside, the goddess Yaoji became upset with them and turned them to stone. Their carcasses formed the 12 peaks of the Wu Gorge. Yaoji continued to watch over the river and help guide the boats, eventually turning to stone herself. If you look closely, you can see the goddess rock: There are two larger peaks on the left. Just to the right is the small goddess peak, shaped like a person standing hunched to the left.