China Overland October 2014

China Overland

When the Amsterdam arrived in Tianjin, we disembarked for an excursion through China with friends we met on our World Cruise in 2013.  We traveled to Beijing by a private coach and upon arrival we were met by our guide, Leo, who first took us to the Temple of Heaven.  

Having missed breakfast that morning, we were all hungry and it turned out the highlight this first day was going to a Hutong, a neighborhood of poor residents in the city center, to visit with a family who opened their small home to us and served us a wonderful meal of stir-fried meats, dumplings and roasted peanuts.  Traveling through the neighborhood via pedicabs, we found homes were quite small and the owner explained his mother was preparing our lunch in the kitchen next door.  We visited with her afterwards to thank her and compliment the meal and she was delighted we wanted to take her photo. 

Next we visited the last Chinese Emperor’s summer palace and later went to an area of the city known as Happy Valley to see a fabulous show by the Golden Mask Dynasty that was taken from the closing ceremonies of the 2012 Olympics.  The show’s name was “Sanxingdui” interpreting the prehistoric chaos of the Mother River.  Water flowed, acrobats flew above the audience and the performance reminded us of Cirque du Sole

On the 2nd day we visited Government-owned factories, one that made cloisonné and the other designed beautiful jewelry pieces out of Jade.  Next we visited Emperor Ming’s Tomb and part of the Great Wall located alongside a lake about an hour outside Beijing.  The Great Wall was built more than a thousand years ago to help protect the Chinese from Mongols who invaded from the north.   It was never finished as one structure, but rather it is a series of unconnected walls that extends across much of northern China.

We marveled at its expanse just in the portion of the Great Wall we visited.  That evening we enjoyed ourselves dining on Peking Duck at a restaurant named, Da Dong, that our guide said was the best new place in Beijing that serves this specialty.

The 3rd day we visited Tian’anmen Square and the Forbidden City in the morning.  It was a public holiday and throngs of tourists and locals created very long lines, but we enjoyed seeing these two historic landmarks.  Then we transferred to the Beijing Airport for our flight to Xian in far western China for two enjoyable days.

Xian has its own wall built around the city center and we visited many colorful temples.  The highlight on the 2nd day was visiting the famous exhibit of the terra cotta warriors. 

We departed early the next morning by air connecting again in Beijing before landing in Guilin in southern China.  We visited a nature park with its hillside tram ride and then a walking tour inside a large cave.  Steve opted to stay above ground anticipating there would be low ceilings he would have to navigate.  Tom, on the other hand, sallied forth but was disappointed with the cave attraction, saying too many colored lights were used as an offset to the cave’s natural beauty.  

Next we drove to the Li River that flows alongside the city for a view of the natural rock carving that locals insist looks like the head and trunk of an elephant.  You can see it for yourself perhaps in the back of the photo of Steve posing with a woman on her raft.

That night we watched hungry Cormorants catching fish in the dark waters of the river for local fishermen who had mastered the “training” of the large birds.  Each bird would duck underwater, staying sometimes up to 3 or 4 minutes, before resurfacing with a fish in its gullet and then, shaking its wings in celebration until it heard the trainer’s bell, it would expel the fish onto the boat deck in front of its trainer.  How was this possible?

The training secret was the wire tied around each bird’s throat that kept the birds from swallowing the larger fish they caught.  The birds were motivated anyway because they learned that each time, after catching seven fish for their master, they would receive a reward of a handful of smaller bait fish they could easily swallow.  Steve remembered his having seen a similar feat with Cormorants when he toured Vietnam 13 years ago.

The next morning we returned to the Li River where we boarded a craft to sail past the famed limestone hills that many artists use in their drawings of the Chinese countryside.  

Transferring back to the airport, that afternoon we flew to Shanghai where we again boarded the Amsterdam for an overnight stay.  In the morning we traveled to Hongzhou on a bullet-train that reached speeds of more than 300 kilometers-per-hour or 190 mph. 

We toured the lovely West Lake and its large park and the Mei Jia Wu village, famous for its locally grown tea.  It was here that Steve and our friend, Fred, each bought six month supplies of an all-natural supplement made from tea leaves.  They were told by the young girl who pitched the product that taking the pills daily promotes health and beauty.  It is feared by Tom and our friend, Ken, that the two mistakenly thought this meant their health and beauty would benefit hmmm, we’ll see?

Returning to Shanghai and the Amsterdam that evening on another high-speed train, the four of us dined with table mates, Jack and Dan, who winter in Florida.  They will disembark in Hong Kong in just a few days and their leaving makes us sad, as they have become new friends we met on the ship.  But we all enjoyed many laughs that evening and we know we’ll stay in touch and perhaps see them again when we’re back home in Florida.

Tom and Steve spent the next day in Shanghai looking for an embroidered Chinese jacket that Steve hopes he can wear on formal nights in the ship’s dining room.  No luck finding a ready-made jacket for someone his size, and there isn’t time to have one made by an overnight tailor.  A plan to have one possibly made during our overnight stay in Hong Kong was made, but then the ship’s cruise director, Gene, that evening in an astonishing gesture of kindness offered to give Steve one of the many Chinese jackets he had bought for “only 5 bucks” earlier in the cruise.  Saying he was out of storage space in his cabin, Gene had the jacket cleaned and delivered to us the next day.  Steve can’t wait to don his gifted jacket and you’ll for sure see it in our next post.