Embarking at the port we approach a splendid craft, dining-room ablaze with chandeliers, and a white-uniformed and helmeted brass band blaring away on the quayside. Surely our budget does not stretch to this opulence? Indeed it does not. We slope on despondent to the furthest dark reaches of the dock, and pile on to a fleapit of a boat. Fleas would have been the least of our travails. Within minutes of entering our ghastly dingy berth David has killed our first cockroach, gallantly. And then came the rodents. Difficult to know if they are modest rats or supermice, such a scuttling and scrabbling is there in the ceiling. We pull the foetid bedding closer around us, and I remember with horror the Sukhavati Rat. It entered, unbidden, our Buddhist community in Bethnal Green, and caused havoc for days. One night I returned and everyone on my floor had decamped to other quarters. The rodent had last been seen on my bed! I went to sleep tremulously. At some stage in the night I imagined ,or actually felt, a creature run over my head, and my screams woke the neighbourhood. How many Buddhists does it take to dispose of a rat? In the end we fudged and summoned Tower Hamlets Pest Control.
Was history to repeat itself in this riverine context?
On our last evening aboard our sordid craft we see evidence of a visit. A dropping or two, and macaroons scattered cavalierly about the room. David goes storming about asking the startled staff (who speak little English) what their 'rat procedure' is. We are assured, after much miming and leafing through a dictionary jabbing at hieroglyphics, that mice bring luck ( the rat word is never mentioned). Chinese smiles and titters (what are these whitefaced creatures making such a fuss about?) David, enraged, decides to dismantle the antique central heating system, from which we have heard much scuttling. I retire to my top bunk, wanting only to read my novel, a very good one by Xiaolu Guo who almost won the Orange Prize last year. The rat has clearly scarpered by now, seeking respite from this unwelcome and unaccustomed attention Our pleasant roommate reassembles the heater.As I gingerly go to sleep, I am less concerned with the tectonic plates far beneath me shifting in the night ( some scientists claim that the Three Gorges Dam, which is downstream from us, is responsible for recent earthquakes and will certainly precipitate further ones) than with whether ratus ratus will choose tonight to gnaw its way through the plasterboard above my bunk.
Apart from these inconveniences (I'm sure Colin Thubron would not have made such a fuss) we had a lovely time, although grey-glaucous sky like phlegm hung over us for the duration, and the waters of the Yangtse were a ghastly glabrous green.. We passed hideous vertiginous cities, sprouting high-rises which clung to the steep slopes. Belching chimney stacks wafted thick smoke over the river. Improbably, heavily- laden orange trees and bananas flourished here too. We stop at Ghost City. An empty place. The river will have risen a staggering 175 metres when the filling behind the dam is complete. There are only 3 metres to go! Hundreds of thousands of people have been rehoused in other provinces, while remaining communities creep further up the mountainsides. At Ghost City you see roads and lines of lampposts disappearing into the water, and muse on these massive displacements of populations, which seem to characterise our times.
The folk on the boat, apart from half a dozen of us Europeans, are all Chinese. And mostly men in large groups, returning from training trips. We befriend a few.
'John', who works for the Government speaks bizarrely excellent English, although he has not practiced for five years and has never been to Engand and on his wage is unlikely to for 30 years, and is our articulate guide to contemporary Chinese reality, for which we are very grateful. He is charming, and once he has the linguistic bit between his teeth is unstoppable.
The Gorges were great , and the Dam itself stupendous.
We are now apparently in Wuhan. I have just had to ask David, as with all these displacements over huge expanses of terrain, I had lost the plot. I'm not sure where we are going to next , but there is a train to catch in the afternoon, and mosquitoes are in evidence and it can't be long till we start on our anti-malarials. The joys of travel!
Monday, 24 November 2008
Wednesday, 19 November 2008
ps bliss on the battlements
Bliss indeed to walk the eight miles of city wall, high up above the streets, at one remove from the clamour and bustle below. I could stay up there forever....... but there's a train to catch!
terracotta tourism
Xi'an may be the start of that fabled, most alluring -sounding of all routes, the Silk Road, but on a wet misty morning you could well be in Birmingham. (Apologies to my Brummie readers). Our first day here we all have traveller's fatigue. David wants to be back in Sugar Loaf Walk, warming his slippers; I want to be in my garden at Primrose Hill, admiring the autumn colours of all the Acers I planted in the spring and am entirely missing; Joanna nibbles at things all day long.
This is a metropolis of 5 million, and renowned for its textiles. It is a dowdier sister to Beijing, where everything sparkled and gleamed. Here they glister. The Chinese love shopping and the shops remain open long after my bedtime. All the great European Queens are here: Yves St.Laurent, Versace, Louis Vuitton, Ermenegildo Zegna and the newest of them all on the block Alexander McQ...... You can just imagine the whoops of joy on the Champs Elysees and the coffee haunts of Milano, not to mention the Stock Exchanges, when the trade barriers came crashing down. The Chinese learnt in less than 20 years to replace their blue suits with haute couture.
For over a millenium Xi'an was China's capital. We visited the Big Goose pagoda which once stored Buddhist scriptures brought back here here in the C7th from India by a monk Xuanzang, who travelled for 17 years in the sub-continent collecting sutras, and then spent the rest of his life at the Big Goose translating them into Chinese; he was thus responsible for re-introducing Buddhism to China after it had been banned by some mad emperor. Buddhism here never looked back after that.
The next day the sun returned, and with it our 'esprit de touriste'. We book on to a tourist bus (our first) for the day, and in the company of Columbians, two pretty Marseillaises, a Los Angelino and a Chinese-Australian exploring his roots, we set off for the suburbs where we visit first an ancient Neolithic settlement, to whet our appetite for things to come. Then a Disney-esque re-creation of what the mad emperor's (another one) tomb might have looked like. Great fun. Then a vast studio churning out replicas of all manner of thing, from pottery to furniture. Then a vast lunch in a vaster (obviously) dining hall. And then, only then..... do we enter the precincts of the Terracotta Warriors. In the 30 years since the first clay head was uncovered by a farmer digging a well, the site has grown to mammoth proportions and is probably China's prime tourist destination. In spite of this it is absolutely marvellous!
You enter first a vast hangar, which could house several Concordes (remember those? sleek glamorous beasts that flew at vast expense between London and New York - now as dead as a dodo, and entombed in Aerospace museums up and down the M1). And there is a stupendous sight - rows and rows of soldiers and horses, some bathed in sunlight from the glass roof. It does not disappoint. And then two more vast hangars with thousands more of the same. What megalomania created all this? The actual Emperors tomb has not yet been excavated. He had his catafalque, reputedly, placed in a great lake of mercury, to deter visitors. Traces of mercury have been discovered; health and safety panic......!
Last night I walked down a boulevard of petshops - goldfish in vast shoals, a small pig out on the pavement in a cage hardly bigger than its body, all manner of pooch.... and budgerigars in the greatest abundance outside the antipodes. In another Proustian moment I recall Bobbie the blue feathered companion of my childhood. One day when I was at school he dropped off his perch, dead . In a panic to protect me from the truth of impermanence, my mother consulted a neighbour and together they performed a clandestine funeral in the neighbour's garden. When I learnt this I was furious, deprived of due obsequies for my mate. At the time I was incapable of expressing fury. It stayed stored up and festering, being added to over the years, until perhaps 40 years later it erupted in my mother's kitchen in St.John's Wood in a very messy moment of things being thrown around - eggs, flour, china, nothing was spared in an attempt to make my mother HEAR me. It was a terrifying moment for both of us. A very dodgy few months ensued, where sometimes I could not stay in my mother's presence for more than 5 minutes without having to leave, for fear of repeating the brouhaha. A great deal of therapy smoothed out our relations, eventually. But I'm still not sure if she ever really heard me.
Last night too, as for the previous couple of evenings, I stood outside the China Construction Bank, watching the dancers cavort on the pavement with fans and parasols like Geisha girls (whoops, wrong country!), and that was just the men! Who are they, these ordinary folk, whom you see everywhere, practicing their Beijing opera arias, scraping away at strange instruments, blowing on their hurdy-gurdies? Were these after-hours bank employees letting their hair down after a day at the tills? Or a group which chose the venue for its acoustics, a vast wall of plate-glass, reflecting the cacophony and high spirits out onto the boulevard? The music rises to a tremendous climax of kettle drums and cymbals, which sets off several car alarms; a hallucinatory hubbub, Dervish-like. And then its over. No applause, although a big crowd has gathered, and clearly appreciated the event. A lot of smiles, and shaking of hands, and people slope off into the evening, satisfied. Me too.
This evening we set off on another night train to Chong Qing, south of here, where we embark tomorrow for a three day trip down the Yangste, to visit the Three Gorges. I'm putting my sea legs on...now I'm off round the city walls, 12 kilometres of them!
This is a metropolis of 5 million, and renowned for its textiles. It is a dowdier sister to Beijing, where everything sparkled and gleamed. Here they glister. The Chinese love shopping and the shops remain open long after my bedtime. All the great European Queens are here: Yves St.Laurent, Versace, Louis Vuitton, Ermenegildo Zegna and the newest of them all on the block Alexander McQ...... You can just imagine the whoops of joy on the Champs Elysees and the coffee haunts of Milano, not to mention the Stock Exchanges, when the trade barriers came crashing down. The Chinese learnt in less than 20 years to replace their blue suits with haute couture.
For over a millenium Xi'an was China's capital. We visited the Big Goose pagoda which once stored Buddhist scriptures brought back here here in the C7th from India by a monk Xuanzang, who travelled for 17 years in the sub-continent collecting sutras, and then spent the rest of his life at the Big Goose translating them into Chinese; he was thus responsible for re-introducing Buddhism to China after it had been banned by some mad emperor. Buddhism here never looked back after that.
The next day the sun returned, and with it our 'esprit de touriste'. We book on to a tourist bus (our first) for the day, and in the company of Columbians, two pretty Marseillaises, a Los Angelino and a Chinese-Australian exploring his roots, we set off for the suburbs where we visit first an ancient Neolithic settlement, to whet our appetite for things to come. Then a Disney-esque re-creation of what the mad emperor's (another one) tomb might have looked like. Great fun. Then a vast studio churning out replicas of all manner of thing, from pottery to furniture. Then a vast lunch in a vaster (obviously) dining hall. And then, only then..... do we enter the precincts of the Terracotta Warriors. In the 30 years since the first clay head was uncovered by a farmer digging a well, the site has grown to mammoth proportions and is probably China's prime tourist destination. In spite of this it is absolutely marvellous!
You enter first a vast hangar, which could house several Concordes (remember those? sleek glamorous beasts that flew at vast expense between London and New York - now as dead as a dodo, and entombed in Aerospace museums up and down the M1). And there is a stupendous sight - rows and rows of soldiers and horses, some bathed in sunlight from the glass roof. It does not disappoint. And then two more vast hangars with thousands more of the same. What megalomania created all this? The actual Emperors tomb has not yet been excavated. He had his catafalque, reputedly, placed in a great lake of mercury, to deter visitors. Traces of mercury have been discovered; health and safety panic......!
Last night I walked down a boulevard of petshops - goldfish in vast shoals, a small pig out on the pavement in a cage hardly bigger than its body, all manner of pooch.... and budgerigars in the greatest abundance outside the antipodes. In another Proustian moment I recall Bobbie the blue feathered companion of my childhood. One day when I was at school he dropped off his perch, dead . In a panic to protect me from the truth of impermanence, my mother consulted a neighbour and together they performed a clandestine funeral in the neighbour's garden. When I learnt this I was furious, deprived of due obsequies for my mate. At the time I was incapable of expressing fury. It stayed stored up and festering, being added to over the years, until perhaps 40 years later it erupted in my mother's kitchen in St.John's Wood in a very messy moment of things being thrown around - eggs, flour, china, nothing was spared in an attempt to make my mother HEAR me. It was a terrifying moment for both of us. A very dodgy few months ensued, where sometimes I could not stay in my mother's presence for more than 5 minutes without having to leave, for fear of repeating the brouhaha. A great deal of therapy smoothed out our relations, eventually. But I'm still not sure if she ever really heard me.
Last night too, as for the previous couple of evenings, I stood outside the China Construction Bank, watching the dancers cavort on the pavement with fans and parasols like Geisha girls (whoops, wrong country!), and that was just the men! Who are they, these ordinary folk, whom you see everywhere, practicing their Beijing opera arias, scraping away at strange instruments, blowing on their hurdy-gurdies? Were these after-hours bank employees letting their hair down after a day at the tills? Or a group which chose the venue for its acoustics, a vast wall of plate-glass, reflecting the cacophony and high spirits out onto the boulevard? The music rises to a tremendous climax of kettle drums and cymbals, which sets off several car alarms; a hallucinatory hubbub, Dervish-like. And then its over. No applause, although a big crowd has gathered, and clearly appreciated the event. A lot of smiles, and shaking of hands, and people slope off into the evening, satisfied. Me too.
This evening we set off on another night train to Chong Qing, south of here, where we embark tomorrow for a three day trip down the Yangste, to visit the Three Gorges. I'm putting my sea legs on...now I'm off round the city walls, 12 kilometres of them!
Friday, 14 November 2008
footsore and fancyfree
This is our last night in Beijing. We spent it at the Chinese Theatre watching some very inscrutable goings-on, interspersed with wild acrobatics and spectacular high jinks. It was great fun, although I kept dozing off during the quiet bits only to be woken judderingly by falsetto shrieks, and flame-throwing.
I'd spent the whole afternoon walking round the Olympic site, I who have had no interest in sport since David Beckham left England, and little before that. It was magnificent.
I'm afraid I can only come up with superlatives to describe this city. It has blown me away, and that is just the fabric of the place. The people are something else. If the Russians were unexpectedly friendly, and the Mongolians friendlier, the Chinese have been friendliest. And that still surprises me. Where is the fabled inscrutability? Where is the dour dress, and drab uniformity? This place sparkles.
Although I've had the Internet in my room at the Bamboo Garden I've hardly been at home to use it, wandering as I have. Perhaps things will quieten down in the provinces. We leave tomorrow on the night train to Xi'an, which is south-west of here.
ps for Erin and Sam: I can't get into my email tonight - another gremlin perhaps, so here's a public message. I wish you both well on your journey, and will follow your blog attentively. Thanks very much for your comments on mine. If you are still in Beijing and looking for English books, go to Wangfujing Dajie just a couple of big blocks east of the Forbidden City. There are two huge bookshops there, and one is called Foreign Books Store just down from Dong'anmen Night Market (which is worth a visit anyway, even if your stomach heaves at the sight of what they sell there). The other is huger, and magnificent, and further south on the East side of the street. Happy reading and bon voyage!
I'd spent the whole afternoon walking round the Olympic site, I who have had no interest in sport since David Beckham left England, and little before that. It was magnificent.
I'm afraid I can only come up with superlatives to describe this city. It has blown me away, and that is just the fabric of the place. The people are something else. If the Russians were unexpectedly friendly, and the Mongolians friendlier, the Chinese have been friendliest. And that still surprises me. Where is the fabled inscrutability? Where is the dour dress, and drab uniformity? This place sparkles.
Although I've had the Internet in my room at the Bamboo Garden I've hardly been at home to use it, wandering as I have. Perhaps things will quieten down in the provinces. We leave tomorrow on the night train to Xi'an, which is south-west of here.
ps for Erin and Sam: I can't get into my email tonight - another gremlin perhaps, so here's a public message. I wish you both well on your journey, and will follow your blog attentively. Thanks very much for your comments on mine. If you are still in Beijing and looking for English books, go to Wangfujing Dajie just a couple of big blocks east of the Forbidden City. There are two huge bookshops there, and one is called Foreign Books Store just down from Dong'anmen Night Market (which is worth a visit anyway, even if your stomach heaves at the sight of what they sell there). The other is huger, and magnificent, and further south on the East side of the street. Happy reading and bon voyage!
Wednesday, 12 November 2008
as sick as a parrot
Last night just as I was putting finishing touches to a compendious account of our stay in Beijing thus far, it vanished into thin air! A gremlin? Perhaps someone from the 'Philatelic Society' wielding the stick. I went to bed as sick as a.........
( note to Oiuna: hello! in future I'm not going to alert you anymore to English idiom. Your English is very good, and if you don't understand what I'm writing about the chances are I am using idiom; if you have a butcher's {this is in Cockney rhyming slang which is different from idiom, and means 'to have a look', as it rhymes with ' butcher's hook' etc. etc. etc.......who said English is easy?} in your new Oxford English-Mongolian dictionary you may find it explained; if not just email me; lots of love to you and Elisa!)
So just some vignettes; besides I can't, and won't even try to, do verbal justice to this magnificent megalopolis.
Even after several days here it still seems strange to see dogs. I don't mean the feral canines that have dogged our steps from Moscow to UB, either cowering against walls expecting the boot rather than caresses, or like the overbearing Mongolian hounds trying to make love to us as we peed in the snow and ice. I mean the boulevard dogs - the primped Pekinese, perky poodles, intolerable chihuahuas and spoilt pooches of all types, taking their owners for walks through park and down avenue, quite oblivious to travellers' tales of dogs being served up for dinner.
Today we walked sections of the Great Wall (what the Rough Guide calls 'that pointless product of state paranoia'), about 50 kilometers north of the city. We got there by bus and taxi and cable-car, and finally Shank's pony. Pointless or not, it was an eerie experience following it as it melted into the November mists.
Enough; time to turn in and hit the sack
( note to Oiuna: hello! in future I'm not going to alert you anymore to English idiom. Your English is very good, and if you don't understand what I'm writing about the chances are I am using idiom; if you have a butcher's {this is in Cockney rhyming slang which is different from idiom, and means 'to have a look', as it rhymes with ' butcher's hook' etc. etc. etc.......who said English is easy?} in your new Oxford English-Mongolian dictionary you may find it explained; if not just email me; lots of love to you and Elisa!)
So just some vignettes; besides I can't, and won't even try to, do verbal justice to this magnificent megalopolis.
Even after several days here it still seems strange to see dogs. I don't mean the feral canines that have dogged our steps from Moscow to UB, either cowering against walls expecting the boot rather than caresses, or like the overbearing Mongolian hounds trying to make love to us as we peed in the snow and ice. I mean the boulevard dogs - the primped Pekinese, perky poodles, intolerable chihuahuas and spoilt pooches of all types, taking their owners for walks through park and down avenue, quite oblivious to travellers' tales of dogs being served up for dinner.
Today we walked sections of the Great Wall (what the Rough Guide calls 'that pointless product of state paranoia'), about 50 kilometers north of the city. We got there by bus and taxi and cable-car, and finally Shank's pony. Pointless or not, it was an eerie experience following it as it melted into the November mists.
Enough; time to turn in and hit the sack
Tuesday, 11 November 2008
flâneurs unite
Mussy, Mauricio and Claus! Many thanks for your encouragement! I went to bed as sick as a parrot, thinking I'd failed to convey the essence of the flâneur. I wake to your messages, and feel accompanied in the world!
There are many wonderful websites on the 'flâneur'. Here they are mostly blocked, which is very interesting. Innocent enough fellow the flâneur, you think, strolling around minding his (and possibly her) own business. But of course he is the archetypal loner, individual, spectator and commentator, and clearly seen as subversive. Enough. I don't want to push my luck, or push the boat out too far, and certainly not stick my head my head above the parapet (idioms for Oiuna) or you may not hear from me again. Mum's the word........I passed a very strange building on my walk yesterday. It claimed to be the Chinese Philatelic Society. It was VAST, filling a whole city block, faceless, and a guard stood outside...........
ps Baudelaire coined the term, and Walter Benjamin wrote extensively on shopping arcades and the flâneur. Benjamin, who is still read in art schools today, was a Berlin Jew who fled to France and in 1940 found himself at the little fishing village of Port Bou on the Mediterranean, just on the border with Spain. Thinking his papers to cross over to Spain and safety were not going to come, he committed suicide. His pass came the following day.
There are many wonderful websites on the 'flâneur'. Here they are mostly blocked, which is very interesting. Innocent enough fellow the flâneur, you think, strolling around minding his (and possibly her) own business. But of course he is the archetypal loner, individual, spectator and commentator, and clearly seen as subversive. Enough. I don't want to push my luck, or push the boat out too far, and certainly not stick my head my head above the parapet (idioms for Oiuna) or you may not hear from me again. Mum's the word........I passed a very strange building on my walk yesterday. It claimed to be the Chinese Philatelic Society. It was VAST, filling a whole city block, faceless, and a guard stood outside...........
ps Baudelaire coined the term, and Walter Benjamin wrote extensively on shopping arcades and the flâneur. Benjamin, who is still read in art schools today, was a Berlin Jew who fled to France and in 1940 found himself at the little fishing village of Port Bou on the Mediterranean, just on the border with Spain. Thinking his papers to cross over to Spain and safety were not going to come, he committed suicide. His pass came the following day.
Monday, 10 November 2008
flâneur in beijing
Today I walked around the city, alone, for eight hours with scarcely a break. This solitary walking is a reflection of a deep need that goes back decades. There is a kind of opening to chance, to adventure. I feel myself in a lineage of 'flâneurs'. Edmund White writes beautifully about the 'flâneur' in his book, not coincidentally, on Paris. He describes him as someone in search of aesthetic and erotic delight.
The 'flâneur' was born in Paris in the late C19th. Baron Haussmann had torn down great swathes of Paris, to build wide boulevards (that troops could swiftly enter in case of popular insurrection) full of bourgeois apartment blocks and shopping arcades, and thus created the first recognisably modern city (I simplify!). Ancient neighbourhoods were broken up for ever.............I have decided its quite impossible to describe the 'flâneur'! If you are one, you may recognise yourself. Let me know.
I don't know if women can be 'flâneuses'. A woman in search of aesthetic and erotic delight might attract a different and less flattering epithet. A woman, besides, cannot slip as easily as a man, alone, through the interstices of city life. (Do prove me wrong, girls!) There have however been some great women photographers of the city, Berenice Abbott to mention but one, so I guess a woman behind a camera must count as a 'flâneur' - 'flâneuse' as a word is just too hideous, and perilously close to 'floozy'.
The baser elements of Eros, fortunately, play much less of a part in my life than hitherto. My interests and explorations on my solitary perambulations are largely aesthetic, but having now exhausted myself trying to explain the 'flâneur's' impulse, after a hard day's walking, I need to turn in, hit the sack. ( More idioms for you, Oiuna!)
The 'flâneur' was born in Paris in the late C19th. Baron Haussmann had torn down great swathes of Paris, to build wide boulevards (that troops could swiftly enter in case of popular insurrection) full of bourgeois apartment blocks and shopping arcades, and thus created the first recognisably modern city (I simplify!). Ancient neighbourhoods were broken up for ever.............I have decided its quite impossible to describe the 'flâneur'! If you are one, you may recognise yourself. Let me know.
I don't know if women can be 'flâneuses'. A woman in search of aesthetic and erotic delight might attract a different and less flattering epithet. A woman, besides, cannot slip as easily as a man, alone, through the interstices of city life. (Do prove me wrong, girls!) There have however been some great women photographers of the city, Berenice Abbott to mention but one, so I guess a woman behind a camera must count as a 'flâneur' - 'flâneuse' as a word is just too hideous, and perilously close to 'floozy'.
The baser elements of Eros, fortunately, play much less of a part in my life than hitherto. My interests and explorations on my solitary perambulations are largely aesthetic, but having now exhausted myself trying to explain the 'flâneur's' impulse, after a hard day's walking, I need to turn in, hit the sack. ( More idioms for you, Oiuna!)
ps re: format
If you are receiving this blog in standard email format you may like to try at serafinski.blogspot.com directly, for the full Monty!
Sunday, 9 November 2008
put in our place by erin and sam
Our companions, from Wyoming, on the train between UB and Beijing, were Erin and Sam. Charmers though they were (hi guys!) they have seriously dented our amour propre. Our hitherto heroic (-seeming) crossing of a continent has been knocked into a corner, pipped to the post, dwarfed, cut down a peg (more idioms for you Iouna!) by their enterprise.
While we have Scrabbled, potnoodled, and gazed somnolently out of the carriage window at the passing scenery, they have been toiling through it on bicycles! They left Kazakhstan in August, and by circuitous routes aim to reach Prague by the early spring of 2010! Snookered! Buggered even.
Why are they on a train? It's apparently very troublesome crossing borders on bikes (officialdom can't cope with cyclists) and besides the Gobi is an inhospitable place at the best of times and in winter unpitying. Only a shaggy camel would survive. As it is we enjoy their company, share cakes and tales, and rejoice together in Obama's victory (they had tippled at the US Embassy in UB the night before).
The Gobi was uneventful, mostly flat with distant swells in the landscape, and quite awesome; I was glad to be watching it unfurl from behind glass. Eventually we passed into China, the military who checked our papers smiled and chatted a little in English to my great surprise, we followed sections of the Great Wall as we breakfasted, went through a series of monumental gorges to debouch into the plain of Beijing.
And here I am at the Bamboo Garden Hotel (Internet in every room) about to walk through the ornamental gardens full of gingko and fruiting persimmon, for a copious breakfast. Then perhaps the Forbidden City.
While we have Scrabbled, potnoodled, and gazed somnolently out of the carriage window at the passing scenery, they have been toiling through it on bicycles! They left Kazakhstan in August, and by circuitous routes aim to reach Prague by the early spring of 2010! Snookered! Buggered even.
Why are they on a train? It's apparently very troublesome crossing borders on bikes (officialdom can't cope with cyclists) and besides the Gobi is an inhospitable place at the best of times and in winter unpitying. Only a shaggy camel would survive. As it is we enjoy their company, share cakes and tales, and rejoice together in Obama's victory (they had tippled at the US Embassy in UB the night before).
The Gobi was uneventful, mostly flat with distant swells in the landscape, and quite awesome; I was glad to be watching it unfurl from behind glass. Eventually we passed into China, the military who checked our papers smiled and chatted a little in English to my great surprise, we followed sections of the Great Wall as we breakfasted, went through a series of monumental gorges to debouch into the plain of Beijing.
And here I am at the Bamboo Garden Hotel (Internet in every room) about to walk through the ornamental gardens full of gingko and fruiting persimmon, for a copious breakfast. Then perhaps the Forbidden City.
kristallnacht
All day as I wandered around the Imperial Summer Gardens in autumn sunshine I thought about the events of 70 years ago tonight, when all over Germany hundreds of synagogues were torched and destroyed. It was a harbinger of things to come. I watched the news tonight. Plus ca change.
We delight at Obama's victory at the polls.
We are alive and well in Beijing, and are making plans to stay here longer as it is so marvellous!
We delight at Obama's victory at the polls.
We are alive and well in Beijing, and are making plans to stay here longer as it is so marvellous!
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