Twenty minutes outside of Macau, we arrived at the border with mainland China. Both Macau and Hong Kong are considered Special Administration Regions for China and neither require a visa for US citizens. Bill and I got off the bus and were required to walk across the border, stopping first at immigration and customs. We thought that it would be a difficult transition because of the language barrier, but it actually was very easy. As we stood in queue, however, we both started to get nervous because we both were travelling with political, religious and guide books, all of which can cause problems. We got through without any issue and both gave a sigh of relief.
A couple of hours later, we arrived by bus to Guangzhou, formerly Canton. We paid too much for a crappy room, but we were happy with the location on Shamian Island, an area of town formerly inhabited by Europeans during the 19th century.
We took a walk around and ended up crossing through a market that was closing en route to a pedestrian shopping street. My jeans had been one of the casualties of the laundromat fiasco in Hong Kong, and I needed a new pair. Although I am considered a relatively tiny person at home, I am a mammoth next to Asian women. There also appears to be little standardization to Asian sizes and so it became quite a debacle to try and find jeans that fit. I had given up in Macau and was about to do so again when Bill and I walked into one last jean store. These two wonderful women gave me tons of stuff to try on. They started with a small size and I realized that I couldn't even fit my leg into the jeans. Knowing only the basics in Chinese, I had to do hand gestures to indicate that I needed bigger. Much bigger. Finally we found the right size and then they gave me a ton of jeans in that size to try. I finally found a pair that Bill and I both liked and we were off.
We found an excellent Cantonese restaurant and ended up ordering based on the pictures. Actually, that isn't exactly true. The truth is that we attempted to do this, but the waitress would not accept our order and informed us that we would be eating duck that night whether we wanted to or not. OK, that's one dish down. She gave us a few options on vegetables and another meat dish, so we settled on roasted duck, chili pork, and mushrooms with Chinese cabbage. Oh wow. The fungi in Chinese is highly recommended. There are so many types of mushroom and they are all yummy. All kidding aside, we were happy that she was looking out for our best interests. She seemed eager to make sure that we had a good experience there and we did.
There are four regional cuisines of China (Cantonese, Beijing style, Hunan and Sichuan)and Cantonese is reputed to be the best. Guangzhou is supposed to have the best of the Cantonese, so we were in good hands.
In case you didn't get the memo, the Chinese make quite a ritual out of making tea. We had a couple of pots on our table and didn't really understand what the heck was going on. Our waitress politely showed us how to continually add and mix the hot water to the tea.
We stopped the dim sum lady and her cart and asked her what she had. Most people will open up their baskets and show you. She just pointed to the sign in Chinese on her cart. That did not help us. I asked for shu mai (the only dim sum item that I can recite off the top of my head) and to my amazement, she understood me and we got just that.
Most of the restaurants in Guanzhou had these tanks of fresh items for you to examine as you enter
The next day we took the metro to the Nan-Yue tomb. The tomb housed Zhao Mo, the grandson of the western Han dynasty's founder, Zhao Tuo (whose own tomb has not yet been found). The tomb was found in 1983 when some construction workers found it while digging for the foundation of a residential estate. Great discovery for the world, horrible find for the propective home owner.
The Nan-Yue tomb as discovered from above ground
Because the tomb was never found, it has never been robbed. The highlight of the collection is a suit sewn of jade tiles and red silk. The silk had disintegrated by the time of the discovery, but has since been replaced and the suit restored. It is simply stunning. The Han believed that jade could help to preserve the body, hence the suit was fitted around the entirety of the body, including glove-shapes around the hand.
The remains of 15 people's bodies are also in the tomb. Apparently once the emperor dies, all the important folks get sacrificed. Perhaps you should quit your day job in this case. Anyhow, some of the folks included an assistant, two guards that were found at the entrance, a favorite musician, the cook and three concubines.
Afterwards, we headed to Sanyuan Gong, or "Three Purities Temple". It is the largest and oldest Tao temple in the city and was consecrated in 319. It's nearly impossible to spot from the street, but a security guard down the street pointed in the direction for us.
The next day, we headed back to Qingping market just to check out the wares. There were dried mushrooms, starfish and snakes everywhere. There were also many rubber bins filled with live scorpions. You could buy them and they would fry them up for you right there. More on that in a future Beijing entry.
Some of the items available in the Qingping market
The pet market was quite depressing. A dead, discarded kitten awaited disposal in the gutter which made me very sad. Later, I was looking at the beautiful live Siamese cats when the ornery shop owner kicked me out.
After such a fine welcoming, we felt sad to leave. Not. We headed over to the jade market and perused some of the hundred or so stalls. After navigating a bunch of small streets around the market, we found Hualin Si, a temple founded in 527 by the Bodhidhama, the man who founded the Chan movement (a.k.a. Zen).
During the 1700s, the complex was expanded to include the likenesses of 500 arahats (enlightened people). Chans, unlike other Buddhists, believe that even secular people can reach enlightenment through everyday conversations and actions. Talk about having an aha! moment.
During the Cultural Revolution of the 60s, the statues were ruined but they have since been re-built. The room was impressive and it was amazing to see so many large statues. There was a large idol with accompanying kneeler with Bodhidhama. Sitting on the kneeler, was a young man watching Looney Tunes at full volume on a handheld device. We are still shaking our heads in disbelief.
After another fine dim sum meal, we headed over to the Peasant Movement Training Institute, where Chairman Mao spent some time as a dean. It is a lovely Qing dynasty former temple, but the now-museum was somewhat of a disappointment because we couldn't read anything. I would have been a bit amazed if it would have been in English anyway; it doesn't jive so much wih communism.
One of the rooms was large and Bill was walking through the exhibit at a slower pace than I was. A man who worked there came up to me and seemed to start yelling at me. I was politely trying to figure out what the heck was going on. I immediately got nervous and tried to quietly call over Bill. We were the only people there and the room was big, but not too big. I think Bill was purposely ignoring me (for the record, he disagrees). Regardless, I started to yell louder for him to come over. Finally, I just walked away from the man and went to get Bill. The man walked over to another man that worked there and vigorously discussed us. The other guy didn't seem concerned that we were there and finally the irate guy gave up. I was spooked, so I stuck by Bill and suggested a hasty exit.
We went back to Shamian Island and grabbed a Tsing Tao at Lucy's, a western style restaurant. We had been there the prior day and really liked the vibe. The restaurant-bar is across from the White Swan Hotel where adopting families stay. Guangzhou is a major adoption center and we were surrounded by families getting to know one another. There were many American and European familes and it was really cool watching everyone try and communicate with one another using mostly hand motions.
We grabbed our backpacks and headed to the train station. We gave ourselves an hour and a half, plenty of time for the long metro ride to the train station, or it would have been had we gone to the correct station. This was not immediately apparent and our various attempts to ask people were met with complexing reactions. People gave us a look like, "uh-oh" and then would politely shake their head. Eventually, we went back down to the metro station, showed our train tickets to a metro employee. She walked us over to the metro map and pointed to where we were...and where we should be. The appropriate location was a further ten stops away and we had less than 20 minutes at this point.
Somehow, we arrived with five minutes to spare (although our train actually was 8 minutes late). Yes, we were very lucky.
We had opted or second class and although the carriage was a bit smoky, the berth itself was decorated in a lovely fashion. A little over the top, Victorianesque, but very plush. Curtains, satin hangers, even slippers under the bed - much nicer than we had been treated to on earlier rides. Guilin was a short overnight twelve hours away and we slept like babies - alone in our four-person berth.
Interior of the Chinese train
It was an easy transition from the train station to the Flower Youth Hostel - it was directly across the street. It was 7 a.m., so we slept until noon and then walked over to Elephant Trunk Hill. The hill is actually a limestone karst and the limestone has eroded at the bottom of the hill over the river into a cove. The hill resembles an elephant drinking from the river and legend has it that the elephant was once an imperial baggage elephant that was sick and retreated to the hill. Once healed, rather than return to the army, the elephant opted instead to turn to stone. For us, the most interesting part of the place is the centuries of chinese calligraphy graffiti that dot the hill. Some writing dates back to the Song dynasty (960 - 1271 AD).
Elephant Hill
As we walked along the trails, we ran across a Chinese family several times. At one point, they greet us with an exuberant "hello". They eclipse in laughter and excitement when I answer back, "Ni hao!"
Afterwards, we got lost walking through the pedestrian shopping area en route to Jingjiang Princes' Palace and end up meeting Tom, the friendly tout. As usual, we don't know whether to trust him or not when he says that he's a student and just wants to "practice his English". This is one of the oldest tricks in the books, apparently, but we hadn't gotten that far in the guidebook yet.
Initially, he seemed genuine but we started getting suspect when he came through the gates without having to pay. When he started on the usual lines - how long will you be here? Do you have your tickets out yet? Where are you staying? - red flags went off. We politely got rid of Tom.
The palace was built by Ming rulers between 1372 - 1650 AD, but these buildings were later destroyed by fire and rebuilt. The original stone wall and stairs remain. The palace now houses a university. While beautiful, our visit was overshadowed by Tom the tout.
We hiked up this hill to escape Tom the tout
When we returned to the hostel, we encountered two Brits, Chris and Ceri, that were travelling the following day to Yangshuo. This was our next stop as well and they suggested that if we were interested, we could ride in the boat that they had hired and it would cut all of our costs.
We agreed, and signed up for the 3.5 hour journey to Yangshuo, leaving the following morning.
- Chrissy