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CHINA TRIP - OCTOBER 9 - 24, 2005
Basil J. Whiting ’60
In a phrase, the China trip was beyond superlatives in almost every respect—the trip of a lifetime. I’ll say more below on the tour company (Vantage) and the largely alumni group we went with. Suffice it here at the outset to say that Vantage was superb and the trip was nicely paced and wonderfully varied, with two to four nights in each of seven locations. Below are the itinerary and its highlights, followed by some general observations:
Itinerary
Fly to Beijing (day 1, Oct. 9): Thankfully uneventful, and with the gentlest landing I’ve ever experience in a huge 747.
Beijing (days 2-5, Oct. 10-13, four nights), where it seems everything is under construction for the 2008 Olympics. We endlessly walked Tian’anmen Square, the Forbidden City, the Ming Tombs, and the Great Wall. We saw an abbreviated version of the Peking Opera; had lunch in an old-town family’s home; and visited a fresh water pearl jewelry factory where our guide opened a huge fresh water clam to find almost two dozen pearls inside! And, naturally, many of us bought some pearl jewelry.
Xi’an (days 6-7, Oct. 14-15, two nights), a handsome, fully walled city an hour-and-a-half’s flight west of Beijing, where we saw a first class Tang Dynasty dinner show, visited a pagoda, toured a government-run jade carving center and shop (exquisite carvings and jewelry, leading to more purchases), had a memorable dim sum lunch, and spent an astonishing afternoon at the nearby massive terra cotta army museum.
Hangzhou (days 8-9, Oct. 16-17, two nights), back southeastwards near the coast to the south of Shanghai. We cruised lovely, famous West Lake, visited a tea plantation and Buddhist temple, and had lunch at a farmer’s home that doubles as a neighborhood restaurant.
Shanghai (days 10-12, Oct. 18-20, three nights). We traveled by train to China’s largest city (18 million population), its most modern, sophisticated, and Westernized—and the financial powerhouse of China. (This city merits more comment, below.)
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Kelly Wei, the peerless Vantage tour guide |
While there we visited a charming children’s day care and supplementary education center, then toured the Bund on one side of the Huangpu River, a district of pre-World War II buildings built by the then occupying Western powers. Across the river, where 20 years ago there were only rice paddies, is a new, huge, spectacular sector, Pudong, of high rises in a flashy, almost science-fiction, neon-lighted style. |
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We spent too short an afternoon at the magnificent collections of the Shanghai Museum (jade, ivory, porcelain, copper, brass, stone, etc., reflecting up to 10,000 and more years of Chinese history). Our visit to a silk factory took us from worms munching mulberry leaves to pulling silk fibers off cocoons floating in boiling water (always wondered how that was done), to spinning nine fibers from as many cocoons into thread, to finished products of lustrous silk, some of which we, of course, bought. One afternoon was free and many of the group took Reflexology therapy to sooth aching feet and lower legs. Finally, we rode the world’s only operating magnetically levitated train from Pudong to Shanghai’s spanking new airport—at speeds up to 250 mph! (“Oh, everything’s up to date in Shanghai city; they’ve gone much further than you might expect”)
On the Yangtze River (days 13-16, Oct. 21-24, three days and four nights) on a cruise ship of the American-owned, mostly Chinese-staffed Victoria Cruise Line. This began at the largest hydroelectric dam project on earth, the Three Gorges Dam. It is in the late stages of construction and has already impounded a several-hundred mile long lake behind it. It already generates 6% of China’s electric power and makes the Yangtze fully navigable from Shanghai to Chongqing, flooding out what were hard-to-pass gorge rapids.
The project displaces 1.2 million people, most of whom have been or are being moved up the river slopes to new cities of high rises built for them. We traversed the four of the planned five locks that are now working (when the dam is finished and water rises further, the fifth lock will come into play).
This cruise was a welcome respite from walking and floated us through the spectacular scenery of the famed Three Gorges, with side trips each day, one to a set of “mini-gorges” that we explored via motorized sampan, another to a famous “Red Pagoda” rising to a mesa-top Buddhist temple (which we climbed to). The cruise was a high point of the trip, with entertainment by the ship’s staff each night, lectures on Chinese medicine and other subjects, Tai Chi each morning for those so inclined, and a long, open Q&A section with the river guide (a Victoria employee) on Chinese politics and anything else anyone wanted to bring up (and we brought up a lot).
Chongqing (day 17, Oct 25, not an overnight): We landed at and explored this bustling city at the western terminus of the new Yangtze lake. We saw five pandas at the zoo and some of us actually patted one while it was munching apples. One expects them to be fluffy; actually, I can testify that their fur is rough and coarse and feels like stroking a doormat. But cute anyway! And we visited the World War II headquarters of famed General “Vinegar Joe” Stillwell, now a museum, before flying that evening to Guilin.
Guilin (days 17-18, Oct. 25-26, two nights). This is a lovely “small” city of only a half million located in the fantasyland of humpty-dumpty mountains that are iconic elements in so much Chinese art. I’d seen such oddly shaped mountains in Chinese paintings all my life and thought they must be imagined. But no, they’re very real. We spent a day on a river cruise through this stunning landscape.
That cruise turned into a hoot. The dry season was coming and the river seemed to have more cruise boats than water. We repeatedly got stuck and had to wait often for long times as cruise boats like ours lined up to negotiate shoals. But, the crews were intrepid, pushing us with long rods off the shoals and forward, and sometimes turning the ship backwards so that the propellers would have more purchase and maneuverability (a wag in our group called it getting “front wheel drive”). The mountains are limestone and honeycombed with caves; and we visited the massive Reed Flute Cave, reminiscent of Carlsbad or Howe Caverns in the U.S.
Hong Kong (days 19-21, Oct. 27-29, three nights). While now under Chinese jurisdiction, much is the same as under the British former colonizers because of a 50-year extension agreement to maintain “one country, two systems.” You go through China exit and Hong Kong entry immigration and customs to get there, where driving is on the left and the Hong Kong dollar reigns. Indeed, Hong Kong is capitalism rampant, a world-class, sophisticated city with the very tallest residential and commercial buildings we encountered on the trip, marching up and down their San Francisco-like hills. We took a funicular up Victoria Peak, visited a fishing village and an open-air market, and shopped, shopped, shopped.
Flying back to the U.S. (day 22--plus). “Plus” because, well, you fly through the night, crossing the international dateline, so you leave on one day and arrive the next, but they’re both Oct. 30. It is the aforementioned 24 hours of travel time from hotel in Hong Kong to pulling up in front of our stoop in Brooklyn.
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