Trans Siberian Onwards

Onto the Steppe

daveonhols — Thu, 11 Sep 2014 22:48:00 GMT

Crossing the border to Mongolia was a hum drum affair, enlivened only marginally by the changing of the train's wheels for the wider Mongolian tracks. A young, cheerful Chinese lady collected our passports, a few people bought cheap booze, and we re-boarded for the trip to the wheel changing factory. I had expected giant cranes, swinging us to and fro, up off one set of wheels and down onto another. I had visions of us dangling, swinging and swaying in mid-air. It was not like that. Huge iron rods were inserted below us and we were raised by huge motors, lifted imperceptibly into the air. Imperceptible it definitely was. I intended to video the whole process for posterity, but a more boring scene would be hard to imagine. But for the workers scuttling beneath us, occasionally hitting our metal undercarriage with giant mallets, arguing, or pretending to argue - but for the human element, the video could only be titled "Stiil Life in a Locomotive Factory". The noisiest part was uncoupling the carriages and, as we discovered the next day, swapping the engine for a Mongolian one with a picture of a horse.

Done and dusted, we rolled over the border into Mongolia. Passports returned and collected, forms filled in. With only two pages left in my passport, I wondered if there would be any questions or complaints. I wondered how much space the Mongolian officials would use up. Would they start a new page? The good news was they stamped me through without batting an eyelid, the bad news was they started a new page. Just one blank page left, facing my Russian visa, which the Russians would surely stamp. And then, where to put the full page Belarus visa which I will later need? A question for another day.

As we got back our passports, the doors opened and into the train poured Mongolians. Our peaceful, half empty, four person carriage gained a slightly rotund Mongolian lady with vast quantities of luggage. A chain smoking Chinese man that we had already bumped into at the duty free shop helped her to carry it. Were they related? Married? He clambered up and around, somehow helping her to secret her cargo into the walls and floorboards themsleves. She could speak Chinese, about ten words, and better English. Her son was working in Beijing. She had bought a phone there which didn't work in Mongolia. She tried to teach us thank you in Mongolian. It involved sounds and noises my mouth and brain were not prepared for. I usually make a point to learn at least to say think you in the language of every country I visit. Gam urn in Vietnamese. Ar goon in Cambodian. Shock ran in Arabic. An Egyptian man taught me - it's like you got an electric shock, then you ran away - "shock ran". I'll never forget. But Mongolia - I'm here for five nights, and I'm not sure if my tounge can be reprogrammed in that space of time.

It must have been after two when we moved off finally. I slept straight away in the hard bed. The dorm bed in Beijing was hard as well, and I was looking forward to a proper bed in UB. I woke early, excited to discover what scenic delights lay behind the curtain? Desert or steppe? Desert! We were in the Gobi. Yellow, brown, wide and flat under the dim dawn sun. I have travelled through the Gobi before in China - Gansu province, and I didn't feel the need to get up and examine its well documented vastness one more time. I went back to sleep and awoke a few hours later. This time, my preconcieved notions of Mongolia came to life in an instant. Steppe. Half an inch of curtain and window, followed by grasslands as far as the eye could see. Mostly flat, sometimes undulating, like a carpet from us to the horizon. The carpet was a dry yellowish brown, not evenly laid like a lawn or a field, but rather tufts of grass sprouting up, calf high, knee high, from a dry barren earth. Occasionally there were small bushes, the size of a footbal, green or brown, but sometimes with a pink-ish hue. Sometimes splodgies of brown grass amongst the rest, forming a darker patchwork with the ligher yellow tufts. The steppe, with its dry yellow look didn't appear very nutritious, and it is hard to imagine that Genghis Khan fed an all conquoring army of men on horse back with the produce of this land. Perhaps the grasses grow stronger and thicker in the spring than now, the early autumn. Perhaps it was the eternal promise of greener grass in the next valley that led his horses galloping to all corners of the then known world.

The steppe had a featureless, abstract beauty about it. A swathe of light yellow in the foreground, darker yellow behind. The sky providing a brilliant blue back drop. The thin black curve of a telephone wire strung from left to right, hoist up by a vertical pole, sagging under its own weight between this pole and the next, sagging again, then hoist by the next pole, sagging and hoist, sagging and hoist upwards by the poles as the train whizzed by. Apart from the grass, the poles, the wire and the train, everything else was the brilliant blue sky. It struck me that photoraphing the steppe would be difficult. Someone once explained to me that a good photograph should have a foreground, mid-ground and background. For the most part, the steppe had no fore, mid or back ground - it really was just grass and sky.

In places the land was utterly flat, in places it undulatd and formed small hills. Here there were no mountains, never brooding in the distance. Just occasionally, a hill here or there. Sometimes the lay of the land meant we couldn't see but a few hundred meters, sometimes were were on a hill ourselves and we could see for countless dozens of miles. Perhaps hundreds. There were no features, no scale or reference to judge the distance. We could have been looking past the end of the world itself for all I knew. After some time we passed by a ger in the very distance. A nomads home. Everything that family owned in one round tent. It was naught but a fleck of dust half way to the horizon. Their livestock, the reason for their nomadic lifestyle, a few more specks dotted around. Those few dots, almost invisible to us, but their entire lives, seemed to be the only traces of humanity for hundreds of miles in any direction.

Of course, there was one more obvious scratch of human activity running through this part of the steppe. Us, and our train. And logistics being as they are, a paved road, telegraph poles and an occasional power line, always following the same route. At times this corridor of human activity was no more than fifty meters wide, at times a few hundred or half a kilometer. If one wanted the perfect view of the steppe - unsullied by human touch - one just had to jump off the train and walk the fifty or two hundred meters past the road, and then before you would be nothing but grass. Or better yet, mount that next little hill and see further, deeper into Mongolia. It occurred to me that this is what has always driven me to travel, the urge to see more. Over the next hill, into the next valley. It was the same in Iceland - a place of extraordinary beauty, where volcanic crags leap up practically by the side of the road. I would always wonder, but what is over that peak? Can we not just rush up and have a look? It is an urge that has driven me far.

Gradually, we drew closer to UB. We passed more gers, more human settlements, small at first, just a few colourful houses, then more, small villages. We saw horses, standing around, drinking from a pond. Closer to UB the land was hillier, we cut through ravines, trees appeared, then, suddenly, the sprawl of UB itself. UB is not a large city, about 1.2 million, but it appears to have an incredible sprawl, you can practically see colourful buildings climbing out of the valley and dragging themselves up the surrounding hill sides. Perhaps it is the lay of the land, below the railway line, or the low buildings stretching out but not obscuring the view into the distance, but somehow UB looked much larger, sprawling and more colurful than a city of twice its size. Suddenly, the station platform came into view. The Beijing - Moscow train we were on would rest here for an hour, so there was no rush, but we leapt from the train with the excitement of travellers arriving in a new, alien, fascinating, not just city but country.

The wheels are rolling to Mongolia

daveonhols — Wed, 10 Sep 2014 00:46:00 GMT

We've passed through fifty four tunnels on the way out of Beijing. Rumour has it that we will psas through over sixty in total before we are out into open country.

The sky is blue, with only a hint of grey-ish smog overhead. We pass through valleys and gorges. Yellow rocks, craggy, marching upwards to the sky. Green grasses, trees. No fields. Very colourful and pretty. It is still just about summer, and the land is relatively dry. Occasionally the valleys are punctuated with a turquoise river, flowing down or at least dampening the floor of the valley. The rocky hills, not mountains, are stratified, with 45 degree seams. In places, erosion has created a very regular, tessalating almost digital patern.

Again, I am in a four person berth, but for now only one other is occupied - by an English guy, an English teacher from Vietnam. He's already got a bottle of Chinese baijiu out. Great.

It's not long before we see our first wind turbines. In Gansu and Xinjiang they are everywhere, gigantic lorries carrying them down dusty highways were a constant obstacle. China is embracing renewable wind power at rate unparalleled around the world. They need to keep it up if blue skies over Beijing are going to become more common again, because despite all the wind turbines, China still also burns coal at an unparalleled rate.

Occasionally we pass through a suburban train station. A Han Chinese - of course, we are barely out of Beijing - stands to attention, red and green flags in hand, in an odd perspex walled cabin on the platform. I hope there is more to his job than that. In China it is not uncommon to see people doing mind numbingly boring jobs. Whether the younger generation can find enough jobs to satisfy their aspirations is still an open question. There are many young graduates, and many job openings, bu the overlap between the jobs that graduates want, and the positions on offer, can often be too small. Many are likely to be disappointed. In contrast however, this is still a generation whose parents or grandparents knew famine and starvation. Perhaps unmet expectations are a relatively small burden for this generation to bear.

We trundled through shacheng (sand city?). We couldn't be at the Gobi yet. It seemed like a place of some importance, with a dozen or more tracks passing ours side by side. For all the coal trains it was hard to count. We passed a passenger train headed to the famed (notorious) Jiayuguan - once the most western outpost of the old Chinese empire. For that reason, it's signifcance derives from being the location of the first fort on the great wall, strategically placed in the Gobi desert in a narrow valley - the Hexi corridor. There, at the edge of the empire was where soon to be exiles were brough to be cast out into the wilderness. To be cast out of the last fort at Jiayuguan was a fate that instilled real fear. Western tourists were on the train, but I doubted that they would be going all the way to Jiayuguan - for all its significance in Chinese history it is not widely known of in the west - more likely they were heading to Xi'an, famed former capital, located in Western China, and home of the terracotta warriors.

I was reading Theroux's "Riding the Iron Rooster" and enjoying the views. The trees I had earlier thought more likely than not to be poplars, he said were. There was also something like a silver birch lining many of the roads, with it's bright white bark. Fields of corn grew everywhere, occasionally dotted with sunflowers. Those gleaming yellow faces looked like weeds, popping up their heads randomly, here and there in and around the obviously cultivated maize. But I know the Chinese like to eat sunflower seeds, and I have seen vast, radiant, magnificient fields of sunflowers being cultivated in Western China, so they may not be weeds at all. I even saw a horse, black, standing by a tree. We were still very much in China proper, so I could only suppose there is no Mongolian heritage to it.

Through Hebei provine we rattled on. More coal trains. I gave up counting one after thirty, fourty, fifty wagons, its hulking mass extending off into the distance. Coal was piled up by the railway in places - we passed coal depots, and more gargantuan coal trains. A coal fired power station pumped smoke into a once again ashen sky. The route from Inner Mongolia, Hebei and into Beijing is a huge coal transit route; bringing the black stuff from the mines closer to the cities where the electricity is need. It was once reportd that this route was the site of "longest traffic jam in the world", a result of of countless coal trucks backed up for hundreds of miles.

I took a break from the Iron Rooster to find the dining car. I had missed the official lunch time by more than an hour and was growing hungry. My Chinese was good enough to convince the staff to re-open the kitchen briefly, and rustle something up for me. Mostly rice and green beans, but I did count three pieces of chicken meat amongst the vegetables. One thing I will miss when we cross the border into Mongolia is the convenient benefit of speaking the local language fluently. I suppose someone in Mongolia can speak Mandarin, but for the most part I will be just another wandering tourist who cannot communicate. If they do speak Mandarin, I wonder what sort of accent they have? I may not even be able to understand it!

Wandering the Hutongs

daveonhols — Tue, 9 Sep 2014 15:39:00 GMT

As with Shanghai, this was not my first time in Beijing, and I have already seen the main sights. I decided to spend the first day wandering the old lanes and back alleys, known as "hutongs", to get a feel for the ancient fabric of this historic city. Under a brilliant blue sky, I set off.

My guidebook mentions in passings a few hutongs which were renamed in according with the ... winds of change ... blowing during the cultural revolution. So I set my bearings for what was once known as the "Study the teachings of Mao" hutong and headed off. Little did I know that the small little hutong mentioned briefly by my guide book would actually be the epicentre of an ultra-gentrified tourism hotbed - which was on this public holiday (mid autumn festival) rammed with local Chinese visitors. This is what the Chinese would call “人山人海” - characters which mean litterally "people mountain people sea", but which is an idiomatic phrase meaning a place overcrowded with people. I wandered the hutongs, saw old houses converted to cute cafes, art spaces and some from which trinkets were being sold. I found an old lady, 85, who had lived in the hutong for twenty years,. Unfortunately, the residents were not keen to be photographed. In contrast to many places in China, this was an area in touch with the changes wraught by the cultural revolution - a period which is not often discussed openly, but here, many of the hutongs had bilingual information boards recounting at least the names of the hutongs changing, and then changing back, during and after that turbulant phase in China's recent history.

My other main goal for my first day in Beijing was to collect my ticket to Mongolia from the agents office. Perhaps today being a public holiday should have been a warning. Perhaps the dark, empty corridors in the agents office should have been a clue. Yes, they were closed. In my defence, I had made a point of asking the ticket office lady in Qingdao if she would be working through the mid autumn festival, and she said she would - it is not a particularly large holiday in China, not like the near year's Spring Festival, and not even a "golden week" either. So I fancied that the agent would be available today. It seemed I was wrong. My train was to depart two days hence, so I didn't have a huge amount of time to waste chasing down my ticket. For Spring Festival, China would shut down for two weeks, for golden week, as the name implies, I might be stuck for a week. For this festival - defined by the eating of round mooncakes, said to represent the roundness of the autumn full moon which is the reason for the occasion - I supposed they would be open again tomorrow. Probably! At that moment, a glimmer, or perhaps an echo of hope. A Chinese voice could be heard gently in the distance. I tried to position it. It was getting closer. From around the corner appeared a small Chinese lady. Optimistically, I assumed she had to be here to issue my ticket! She wasn't. But seeing my plight, she made a phone call. Things were discussed. Filing cabinets were rifled through. A passport was mentioned. Mine! I just had to show it to her and in return, my ticket to Mongolia. I pulled the almost full maroon brown document from my money belt. I signed some scraps of paper. It could have been my last will and testament, but in return I got my ticket to Mongolia. A ticket to mystery and adventure, and the first part of my ticket home. For while my time in China has been pleasant, I am more than familiar enough with the land, people, food, language, places and culture to say that my time here is just a preluede to the real trans mongolian, trans siberian adventure, which starts the day after tomorrow.

The rest of my time in Beijing was relatively uneventful. I saw more hutongs and stumbled up on a lady advertising an art festival. Last time in Beijing, I also met a lady in a hutong advertising an art festival. This one, again, was distributing around the surrounding area and you had to follow a map to find the pieces. I also followed a canal and saw men fishing. I hunted in vain for Chinese dumplings - shui jiao. One restaurant had a sichuanese chef, so I switched my order to a regional classic at the last minute - huiguorou, twice cooked pork- no regrets. I tried again to order dumplings in the heart of the qianmen district - disaster! Worst dumplings ever! Their milk tea was also an abomination - giving extra credence to the idea that tourist restaurants invariably have bad food. Relying on location to bring in customers rather than reputation and taste is a recipie for bad food unfortunately.

That was that. No dumplings, no return to quanqude for roast duck. I visited a muslim restaurant where all the han chinese were uncomplainingly eating hot pot. These few days were not a roaring culinary success, but for a few evenings gorging on grapes. Large, green and purple globes with a body so much softer than its skin that the innards can easily be sucked out in a delicious squidgy mess. I nibbled on these as a I pondered my upcoming trip - tomorrow to Mongolia.

It starts tomorrow

daveonhols — Tue, 9 Sep 2014 00:31:00 GMT

11:22. The departure from Beijing. Train K3. 847 miles. Twenty Eight hours. The real adventure begins. Through the great wall, into inner mongolia, the Gobi desert and across the border into Mongolia, over the vast grasslands of the steppe and into Ulaan Bator. I still haven't figured out how to spell or pronounce that properly yet, so I'm calling it "UB" from here on. If China was really just a prologue, this is where chapter one of my new adventure really begins.

Mongolia was originally just a curious stop off point on the way from Beijing to Mosco, but dy by day, the intriue has increased. The gobi, the steppe, the yaks, the yurts (known as gers locally), nomads with their horses. Not all are completely aien to me - yaks I have seen in Yunnan. The Gobi I have stood on in Gansu. But this should be a very new experience. The other interesting thing about Mongolia is the chance to see the "other side" of certain parts of Chinese history. Beijing, the imperial Chinese capital was originally made the capital of China under a Mongol - Kublai Khan in the yuan dynasty. The Mongols of Genghis, and his grandson Kublai, were apparently quite busy with their own empire, but what is known to Chinese as the yuan dynasty was apparently a Mongol invastion. It will be interesting to see how this period of Chinese hisotry is depicted from the Mongolian side.

I'm expecting quite a rush when I arive in UB, before heading out to the steppe, to the UNESCO recognised Orkhon Valley, but I need to pick up my train ticket to Mosco in UB before heading out. The train ride, at 28 hours, is not ashort one, but with my many hours of planning, buying books, downloading videos etc, I should be well prepared enough. I wonder who my bunk mates will be. And a single McDonalds, which I do intend to buy, will not keep me going. So I hope there is good food on the train.

All roads lead to Beijing

daveonhols — Mon, 8 Sep 2014 01:11:00 GMT

In the west we have a saying - "All roads lead to Rome". The Chinese these days have the same saying, but I have been told that in older times, the Chinese equivalent was "All roads lead to Beijing". For me on this day, that seemed apt. The first road was a bus taking me back to Qingdao railway station, then the train would whisk me off to Beijing itself.

From Shanghai to Beijing via Qingdao I covered about 860 out of over seven thousand miles of my journey. More than ten percent of the distance, but at only 11 out of 186 hours of travel, proportionally much less of my journey has been completed in time. The fact that the distance covered is much greater than the number of hours ticked off is a testament to the fact that China's new high speed rail network is much faster than others internationally through Mongolia, Russia and Europe. Sit on a modern Chinese high speed train and the miles will be gobbled up in a deceptively speedy blur.

Dispite not taking an early train, I slept again on the way out of Qingdao. I attribute this fact to the free breakfast beer I enjoyed in the morning tour of the TsingTao beer factory. The factory itself was a reasonably interesting insight into the age old craft of brewing. The modern bottling and canning operations were a whizz of hypnotically automated mechanisation, as bottle after bottle, can after can, sped to and fro, hither and tither, in the process of being filled, labelled, capped and finally boxed. The only disapointment was the laxidasical way in which the free beer was doled out. I have also enjoyed alcholic beverages free of charge at the guiness factory in Dublin. And while the people at Guiness pour every pint to perfection, in what can only be seen as an atempt to show their product in the best possible light, the TsingTao beers were practically thrown into glasses with narry a care in the world. Two thirds full, three quarters full, four fifths full; a centimeter, two centimeters an inch of head - any combination was possible, and in ten glasses, no two would be the same. The lack of desire to present their own, award winning product in a positive and compelling way was curious to say the least. Having said that, it was delicious. Free beer is always the best, and in terms of taste, this was the best of the best.

With the after effects of that free beer slept off, I awoke to the flat plains of what must hae been Hebei province. Passeners came and went, terrible buns were eaten. Dreadful food on trains seems to be universal. The other reason to rouse me from my slumber was ironically that I had no place to sleep that night in Beijing. I had settled on Leo's hostel, had emailed my requirements ahead (a private room, not a dorm) and been asked to phone to confirm. It was a strange conversation, alternating between Chinese and English, and complicated by the buzz on the train - however the phrase "no dorm" seemed to be understood. In the end, the booking was confirmed at eighty yuan per night. Cheap! Strangely cheap... Upon arriving in Beijing and tracking down the hostel - great location, just by Qianmen - I discoverd why the price was so cheap - I was in a dorm! In Chinese "Four person" and "Private" sound almost identical. It was late and I decided to run with it because I was too tired to do anything else. I could change rooms the next day. Anyway, every cloud has a silver lining, my companions in the four person dorm were three delightful Swedish ladies! I decided to stick with the dorm afterall. With hindsight, I couldn't recommend Leo's Hostel highly enough. Cheap, clean and welcoming. Ironically enough, the staff speak great English, better than you would find at most hostels or even hotel anywhere in China, truely impressive. The cause of the mix up was my own shabby Chinese. Anyway, with my new Swedish friends for company I settled in, giving them tips for their backpacking adventures around South East Asia and offering my now questionable Chinese speaking assistance if required. Of course they checked out early the next day, but I slept well that night!

Blue Skies Over Qingdao

daveonhols — Sun, 7 Sep 2014 00:36:00 GMT

It was an early start, and the sky was still a dark slate gray. The plan was a simple one, take a taxi to the train station. For whatever reason, the taxi driver decided to negotiate. We should wait twenty minutes first, and he would drop me off halfway and let me take the subway instead. How about no? After convincing the driver to drop his suggestion, we were on our way to Hongqiao, literally "Rainbow Bridge", and a homonym for "Red Bridge".

We arrived in good time to buy a quick breakfast McDonalds and wait for the train. I have a habit of eating McDonalds on long train journeys, something which goes back a number of years to the "Johor Bahru Incident", also known as the "Eight Hours Hungry Confusion". It all goes back to a long distance train journey I once made from Singapore to north Malaysia. In a rush, but already hungry, I only had time to grab a few small snacks - a bun and some crisps (chips) - to keep me going on the train. It turned out that the bun was contaminated with some bizarre plasticised cream under the guise of "flavouring", and worse yet, the crisps I had picked up were durian flavoured. Within minutes of leaving Singapore we had crossed the causeway to Malaysia and were pulling into the Malaysian city on the border Johor Bahru, or "JB". The cream bun had just made me hungrier, the durian chips were obviously a hopeless purchase, and with me facing the prospect of eight hours travel ahead, onto the train poured countless Malaysian passengers, Big Macs in hand. I hadn't known before, but there is apparently a McDonalds either in or very close to the railway station in JB, and it seemed as if each and every one of our fellow travellers was feasting as they seated themselves around me. My starved mind may have started playing tricks on me, but I was sure they were mocking me with every bite, with every painful flourish, as chip was extracted from carrier bag and delivered to mouth with salty, grease stained hands. As every chubby Malaysian cheek slurped on sugary syrup flavourd water, it was brutal punishment. Ever since, buying a McDonalds for a long distance train journey has been a necessity for me.

So, Big Mac in hand, I boarded the train and proceeded to fall asleep. I awoke occasionally to gaze out at the views from the window. Mostly flat fields growing maize, with some rocky outcrops, and a few smatterings of tall thin trees. To me they looked something like poplars, but a bit more short and stocky than the taller and thinner varieties I know from back home in Yorkshire. The sky had turned from the slate grey of dawn to a battleship grey, even flirting with the idea of having a blueish hue at one point. This was my seventh day since landing in Hangzhou and I had not seen anything even approaching a blue sky since getting off the plane. Unfortunately polution rather than bad weather was the inevitable reason. The air in Hangzhou that day was a horrible yellowish grey, thick and all too obviously present at the back of your throat. I sometimes worry that Chinese children will grow up not knowning that the sky is supposed to be blue.

After a few more fitful attempts at sleeping, I cleared my mind to realise that the train had slowed for the run into Qingdao. Qingdao lies on the east coast, a former foreign concession somewhat closer to Beijing than Shanghai. And while high speed rail links those two power centres of modern China, Qingdao lies somewhat off the mainline route and is only finally reached at slower speeds. Whether by design or by accident, the last few miles were an absolute dawdle through the residential suburbs of Qingdao before pulling into the over 100 year old central station. On exiting the station I was greeted by a pleasant surprise - blue skies! For the first time since leaving Singapore.

The blue skies may just be a contributing factor to Qingdao's reputation as one of China's more livable cities. The world famous TsingTao beer factory probably helps too. So do the pleasant sea breezes, beaches, leafy winding avenues and colonial architecture. The tour of the beer factory and a wander down "Beer Street" are must see highlights of any trip to Qingdao. But is it not strange that Qingdao the city, and TsingTao the beer appear to have almost the same name, but not quite? This comes from the age old problem of rendering Chinese characters in phonetic alphabetic script. The modern, government approved "pinyin" system renders the Chinese name of the city today as Qingdao, but this is a relatively recent invention, definitely post dating the German colonial era beer factory's original inception. In those days, romanisation of Chinese was a hit and miss afair, and instead of Qingdao, we somehow ended up drinking TsingTao instead.

Other highlights in Qingdao included a walk by the sea front, a coffee relaxing along the leafy lanes surrounding the university, as well as the old church and other, sometimes completely ivy-clad colonial buildings. I would stay in Qingdao for less than twenty four hours, but it ws enough to get a sense of its peaceful charm. One place lacking in peace however was, like most Chinese cities, the train station. I needed to buy my ticket on to Beijing, so I decided - wisely - to try my luck not at the train station but a satellite office closer to my hotel. Pro-tip for train travellers in China. If the train station is a horrible crowded mess, and you trust your ability to speak Chinese, ask around and buy your ticket at a "dai shou chu" instead. You'll queue probably for one minute rather than hours at the station.

A Lion's Head in Shanghai

daveonhols — Sat, 6 Sep 2014 23:57:00 GMT

Vast, grand, cavernous. Our train pulled into Shanghai's Hongqiao station. Newly built, but next to the old airport, Hongqiao is typical of the probably dozens of new, huge, railway stations being built across the country. China's central planners have launched a huge program building mile upon mile of high speed rail, from north to south, east to west, criss-crossing practically the entire country. Parts of the network have already been completed, although much remains to be done. However, China's existing railway infrastructure could never have have coped with the increase in passenger numbers that high speed rail is predicted to bring, so the lines are supported in most cities by huge - usually located on the outskirts and probably over engineered - new stations. As edifaces of China's economic rise, these beasts are easy to spot, not least because they contrast so sharply with China's older, crumbling and definitely more crowded stations. For example, my next stop in Qingdao will be at a station over one hundred years old. All of China's new high speed rail stations must have been built in the last five years or so.

"Airport like" is how some describe them. Wide open, spacious, gleaming marble halls is what they are. It would not be a surprise if they were all designed by the same architect, and cast from the same mould. They do have pseudo-airport like security, but they also tend to have too few shops and a lot more platforms than might seem necessary. Regardless of any excess platforms, Shanghai's Hongqiao is strategically located alongside the domestic airport and two metro lines, and despite arriving during the rush hour, I was wisked to my accommodation in no time. On my way out of the metro at my final stop, an old lady even stopped to advise me on the best route out of the station to my destination. I'm not sure what inspired her to believe that her instructions in Mandarin would be understood, but understood and appreciated they most certainly were.

I would be staying with a friend in Shanghai, so rather than the typical backpacker hostel I would be putting up in a reasonably central private apartment block. China's overheated property market is practically the stuff of legends now, and this was my first look behind the door. Juding by the fake crystal chandaliers and ornate seating, this was an apartment tring to pass itself off as high end. Juding by the mosquitoes and stained upholstery in the lobby, it was not quite succeeding. Like many things in China, the superfiicial appearance was impressive, and was probably an attempt to bestow "status" on its occupants, but the attention to detail and intrinsic quality was a notch below.

I have been to Shanghai at least twice before, so unlike for many fresh of the boat here, this would be no mysterious voyage in the Orient for me. Familiarity however did not prevent my first day in Shanghai from being something of a blur. The bund was a building site the last time I had visited, due to preparations for Shanghai's hosting of the World Expo, so this time I wandered by the river, admiring the contrasts between old and new. On the west bank, the bund itself, with old colonial buildings, banks, trading and financial houses from the days when Shanghai was a treaty port. On the east bank, towering modern sky-scrapers built to house Shanghai's modern financial district. On the river lumbered old, slow, hulking cargo ships - dark and blackened enough to betray that their cargo was coal. And amongst them scurried much smaller, newer, faster, shining pleasure boats carrying tourists here and there on the river for a pleasant hour or two voyage.

After a brief nap in Costa, I wandered north to an old, renovated and now repurposed slaughter house. Being a former slaughterhouse had bestowed the building with a strange concerete internal structure of wide sloping alleyways up and down which cattle could be herded, and narrower doorways, steeper stairwells and the occasional overpass - up, down and along which people could rush, to do the herding. If you didn't know what purpose this building originally served, you could while away a few hours trying to guess what it was all for. The current occupants - smart restaurants, bric-a-brac shops and the Shanghai Ferrari owners club - would not give many clues.

From old to new Shanghai, I spent the next day on a shopping mission around the French concession, exploring various boutique shops and upscale malls. The boutiques were well stocked with stylish fashions and perculiar curiousities. Strange T-shirts appear to be something of an Asian speciality, and here was no exception. A standout number was a luminous yellow piece overlaid with a montage of black sillhoutted Monty Python "silly walk" vignettes. I bought it. The upscale malls in Shanghai, like in the rest of China, are more of an enigma. They always seem to follow the same pattern. On the ground floor, by the enterance, is almost certainly a Gucci, alongside a Prada, Mui Mui and other world famous luxury brands. Spread across the other low level floors will be a similar arrangement of top line fashion brands such as Burberry, Armani etc. The most important feature however is the lack of customers. While it wasn't a huge shock that the Gucci store in Xi'an - a western dust bowl really only known as the home of the terracotta warriors - wasn't doing a roaring trade in high end fashions, seeing the trend repeated on the east coast and even in Shanghai was more of a surprise. I wonder if Gucci et al are not undermining the cachet of their brand (not to mention their bottom line) by being the front door tenant of every desolate shopping mall in China.

After finally finding a shopping mall that would sell something useful like a mobile phone, I was hungry. Hungry enough to eat a lion, and in the end that is what I did - or a lion's head to be more precise. I had only seen this dish on a menu once before, of a Shanghainese restaurant in Singapore, so it might just be a Shanghai thing. But "Lion's Head" is the literal name and, perhaps anti-climactically, a meat ball is in fact what it is. I ordered a lion's head with noodle soup and it was delicious. Not too big of a meatball that you couldn't eat it with chopsticks, but big enough not to be incongrous with the "Lion's Head" monicker. Another successful, not to mention cheap and delicious, "authentic" Chinese eating experience.

My last night in Shanghai would need to be an early one, as the only ticket out to Qingdao that I could get was at seven in the morning, so an early start back to Hongqiao for the next day.

A short hop to Shanghai

daveonhols — Fri, 5 Sep 2014 01:53:00 GMT

If a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, then perhaps a seven thousand mile train journey should start with a metaphorical one hour hop from Hangzhou to Shanghai.

It was arguably a Chinese train that brought me to Singapore, or at least stories of train travel around China, written in Paul Theroux’s “Riding the Iron Rooster”, that inspired me to learn Mandarin. It was learning Mandarin which then – partly, somehow – brought me to Singapore under the impression that the largely Chinese populated island would be an ideal environment to immerse myself in the language. There were other factors of course, but a thread of influence does connect my time in Singapore with that book, and there is some symmetry in my now taking a Chinese train to start my overland trip home. If all goes according to plan, this will be the first of eight trains that I will take. One out of one hundred and eighty four hours of train travel. Zero out of seven borders will be crossed. Less than two hundred out of more than ten thousand kilometers travelled.

Left behind in Hangzhou is the legendary “West Lake”, known to all Chinese and definitely one of the most famous sights in China for local tourists, although it is almost completely unknown in the west. The huge lake defines the city, and is surrounded with numerous sights of historical significance. From ponds and streams to pagodas and peaks, everything is here, and the Chinese usually have a story or poem to go alongside. Such is the beauty of Hangzhou that is not unusual at all to see a parade of half a dozen or more brides in their white, western wedding dresses (with grooms in tow), lined up strategically along the banks of the West Lake for wedding photos.

In contrast to the natural beauty left behind in Hangzhou, waiting for us in Shanghai is modernity, commerce and the drive for personal enrichment that defines China's economic rise in recent years. To get to Shanghai, our newly built high speed train runs on freshly laid tracks, cut through verdant fields, over canals and rivers, as well as past modern apartment blocks. For much of the route the train follows the path of an also newly built highway, over the length of which drivers – and ourselves, while we share the same route – have our vision dominated by endless and uncountable reminders of the extent to which China has broken with its socialist past and embraced a western style consumerist society. At no point along this highway is it possible for one to avoid the sight of a dozen or more huge advertisement boards, probably twenty feet high, and perched another thirty feet up for good measure on giant pillars. These advertisement boards appear to have been thrown up completely arbitrarily, one sprouting up from a paddy field here, another couple alongside a pond and a canal there. I even saw at least one that had been plonked down in the middle of a rubbish dump.

"It does not matter if it is a black cat or a white cat, if it can catch a mouse, it is a good cat." It was with these curious words, known to probably all educated Chinese, that Deng Xiao Ping triggered modern China's embrace of free market principles. Less mystically, these days the Chinese describe their model for economic development as "Socialism with Chinese characteristics". Many in the west would simply describe it as making money. And while many people in China are making a lot of money, it is not obvious that the visual pollution of hundreds or thousands of gigantic advertising boards along the road from Hangzhou to Shanghai makes money for anyone except the companies constructing them. I can only imagine that most drivers tune them out and ignore the seventy third advert for a mobile phone or matress. Regardless, ignored or not - visual pollution or not - endless and uncountable reminders of the extent to which China has embraced consumerism they definitely are.

Last Glimpses of Singapore

daveonhols — Mon, 1 Sep 2014 10:05:00 GMT

Would these be my last glimpses of Singapore?

There was a lump in my throat as the plane lifted off and climbed out of Changi Airport. Would that be my last view of Singapore? The East Coast Park, disappearing through the fluffy white clouds? I had enjoyed many an afternoon either rollerblading or just relaxing on the beach watching the planes come and go.

My last view of a mall being built as we first lost touch with the runway, and what I assume will one day be the "Jewel" in Changi airport's crown? My last view of a HDB? As the plane turned and the little red dot vanished from view?

Last glimpses or not, the were gone in an instant as the plane rolled out and climbed up - a sea full of ships off Singapore's east coast was the last thing I saw.

Planning becomes reality

daveonhols — Mon, 1 Sep 2014 00:48:00 GMT

I love it when a plan comes together. Although I hate flying, arriving at the airport with all the pieces in place is a good feeling. I don’t like to tempt fate, but I have already cleared immigration into China, so the trip has officially started. It was a long time in the making.

T-12 years. The first time a boat trip down the amazon ever crossed my mind was twelve years ago. I hope to make it there this year.

T-9 months. I took a short-term lease in Tiong Bahru, knowing that I may not well stay another year in Singapore.

T-4 months. I started listing out everything I needed to take care of to be ready for this trip. Empty boxes on a list waiting to be ticked off.

T-3 months. Cleared my debts, finalized the dates, planned my resignation and bought travel guides for Central and South America.

T-2 months. Resigned. My boss offered me a sabbatical for six months instead. Sounds great – better than being unemployed at least! Packed many boxes of junk off to the charity (thrift) shop.

T-1 month. Vaccinations, visas, tickets bought. Shippers engaged, lease termination confirmed.

T-1 week. Feels like time is starting to run out. Much left still to do. I'm downloading movies to watch on the ninety-eight hour trans-Siberian train ride. Maxed out my download limit everyday. Did the same to Starbucks free wifi. Bought the biggest iPhone battery pack I could find. Bought a bunch of books – probably way too many – to keep me entertained for the trip. Marco Polo, Paul Theroux, Glenn Greenwald.

T-2 days. The packers came. Split my belongings into those I would need for my trip (one backpack) and those I will not see again for at least six months (everything else). Realised my bag was too heavy and decided to post a few things ahead to the UK which I would only need for the South America leg of my trip.

T-1 day. Cleaning. Leaving the flat in Tiong Bahru, the nicest place I ever stayed in Singapore. Last goodbyes with friends. There may have been tears. I was happy in Singapore, I had some great friends and great memories. Ate my last chicken rice. Went for a last wander around the East side – I was always an east sider – apparently it’s cooler over there. Bugis, Beach Road, Jalan Besar, Bugis, Lavender, Arab Street, Paya Lebar. Retraced my old steps to Lorong 40. The station and surroundings have all been remodeled and I could barely remember my daily route to work, such is the pace of “progress” in Singapore. My window, the river, my first wander in the early days at Paya Lebar down the river in the other direction.

The route back to Aljunied was more familiar, past the temples and clan buildings, the food loft, flower shop, fruit shops, dim sum. The bright yellow vegetarian laksa. Bought a drink from the deaf hawker outside Aljunied MRT. Took the train back to Lavender and slept my last night in Singapore.

A mix of emotions. Sad to leave. Scared to fly. Excited to travel and see the world. I woke early due to a bout of nervous excitement – had I missed my flight? No, the clock said 2am – still another six hours to check-in. I had slept badly for the last week due to the nervous adrenalin rush of preparations and planning for departure. I was looking forward to the first night I could relax in Hangzhou.

T-0. Today is the day. A quick ride down the ECP to Changi airport, check-in and board the plane ...

Preparations

daveonhols — Thu, 21 Aug 2014 00:41:00 GMT

Visas, Passport, Jabs, Bookings, Trains, Planes, Hostels, Packaging, Shipping and Automobiles

A six month trek from Singapore to London via Mongola and Patagonia takes time and effort to prepare. But once the wheels start rolling, the wings flex up, the train doors slam closed, the boat pushes off and the hammock starts to swing, you know it is all worth while.

The previoius few weeks have mostly been spent having my arms swiss cheesed with a variety of vaccinations. Anti-malaria pill popping will start soon too.

This week has predominantly been spent applying for visas. Russia, Mongolia, China and later, Belarus is your starter for ten. Russia is done - 7/10. The Mongolians, bless their yak-wool socks, have granted visa free status to holders of my maroon coloured passport - 10/10. So just China to go. I already have five Chinese visas in my passport, and fingers crossed for no problems with the sixth.

Now, I just have to sort through all this junk I have accumulated during the last five and half years of living in Singapore. It's pointless to spend money storing it, but this old horder finds it hard to throw his rubbish to the Karang Guni man. What if that fourth USB cable comes in useful one day ...