September 11, 2003
The road to China
OK, it was the rail to china, but it doesn't sound quite as nice!
Had a bit of a hecktick time replying to emails then getting to the train station at the last minute to check through customes and get on the train to Zhaoqing (pronounced dzow-ching). I ended up with a 6 person compartment to myself. Was a really nice clean train. There were quite a few pretty young Chinese girls in uniforms, sort of stewardesses who came around and served tea and checked tickets, etc. I ended up having long chats with a few of the passengers and one of the "stewardesses". The journey was over in no time (4 hours felt like half an hour.)
I'm incredibly glad I have a Mandarin phrase book with me! It is very exciting communicating with people with very few words in common (maybe 4 or 5 words)... It is also very tiring!
I spent the first day in Zhaoqing drinking tea and exploring town, lots of big modern shopping centers, lots of really run down 60's ish concrete attrocities that seem to be how the Chinese are able to have populations of 4-6 million people in a town that is maybe twice the size of Bouler (130K people last time I checked) and lots of older maybe early 1900's brick buildings... All sort of tumbling on top of eachother.
It took 2 hours in the tea shop to finally explain that I wanted to try Zhaoqing tea, not Fujian tea or Taiwan tea, since I'm going to Fujina in a week and Taiwan after that. I have to say that although Zhaoqing tea was interesting and I did eventually find one that's quite nice, most of it is not at all to my taste!!! One of them tasted almost exactly like the Alfalfa hay Jackie and I used to feed the rabbits. One of them tasted like tea that was brewed in a coffee pot (with residual coffee...) Yuck! :)
In the evening I discovered a rather cool fountain near the hotel that squirts synchronised with classical and marching music. Had lots of colored lights too. My guess is that the show was in honor of the Mid-Autumn festival, which is going on at the moment. In Zhaoqing, everybody and their mother's brother's cousin was out buying moon cakes, which must be a seasonal delicacy. Actually today is the official day for the festival, the only thing I've seen today is people burning "money"... Sheets of paper with fancy gold writing on that I believe is supposed to reresent money to pay of the spirits or something...
The following day, I went to Dangu Shan (a really nice local mountain/nature preserve.) Bumped into two really sweat brits who were in town with a group of university students on a photography course. Nigel, Penny and I ended up spending the afternoon walking through the wood and saw a bunch of realy nice waterfalls (none quite as spectacular as the one in Luang Prabang though :)...
Yesterday I took the train to Shantou (pronounced san-tao -- not dao). I got in at 11pm and took a room in the first hotel I found down town. It was pretty grotty and there were lots of business men with pretty young women checking in at 11pm... So I spent this morning looking around for a different hotel. I ended up in a much nicer place that's run by a Chinese/Thai couple. For only $12 a night... Totally worth it!!! I guess I should wait and see tonight, but it feels much nicer and the staff speak more english and are more willing to work with me messing up my Mandarin :)
I also purchased bus tickets to Xiamen (pronounced shamen) for the 13th. And sussed out how to get to Raoping (pronounced Jow-ping... go figure) which is where most of the local tea here is grown and processed. I don't have any contacts so it's quite likely that I won't get see in any factories, but I figure I'll go snooping around and see if I can charm my way into some tea estates and factories... it's really a bit of an experiement. The other option is to call folks and tell them I want to purchase tea, but I need to see things first... I don't really want to do that though.
My time at this cafe just ran out, so I'll check out now.
Lots of Love!
Posted by binduwavell at September 11, 2003 04:38 AM