SUNDAY 13TH MAY 2012 ­ BST +7HRS ­ Flying Home!

This has been an amazing trip, full of highlight afterhighlight and affording a remarkable insight into the China of today and yesterday. Shanghai, Xian and Beijing are attractive modern cities and wherever we have been the Chinese people have been friendly and welcoming. I cannot and do not wish to fault Viking River Cruises – the organisation and service was superb.  A big thank you also to Paul Liang our tour escort for his frank and interesting commentaries throughout the two weeks.  My only regret is that I hadn’t booked the extension to Tibet – another time perhaps.

 

Sad that in the bus to the airport which I shared with a couple from Ireland and Denmark – but luckily not from my bus group – they rubbished every aspect of this tour:

• It was advertised as 5 star throughout but the first transfer from the airport was a people carrier
• The packed lunches were disgusting – its a developing country and were certainly far from inedible
• The Peking Opera was rubbish – well it was optional, they were warned it was highly stylised and they didn’t have to go
• There wasn’t enough time for shopping or to explore on their own – the fact that they needed the hotel or guide to write in Chinese the destination for the taxi driver seemed to pass them by plus the fact that luxury goods are hugely more expensive in China because of a heavy import tax and round the corner from the Beijing hotel was a massive internal market with hundreds of small traders selling all kinds of high quality designer goods.
• And the last and best – why did we have to climb up all those steps to get from the boat on the Yangtze!  I can’t remember how many times we were told that this is the dry season when the huge lake behind the Three Gorges Dam is at it lowest!

I suppose there is just no pleasing everyone and I made very sure I was nowhere near them on the aircraft.  For me it was an inspiring and intriguing trip and I still want to go to Tibet!  I leave you with a photo of sunrise over Fengdu after the tropical storm until my next adventure!!

SATURDAY 12TH MAY 2012 ­ BST +7HRS ­ The Summer Palace!

Refreshed after lunch we set out for the short drive to the Summer Palace, once the summer retreat and playground for the imperial family and royal court during the late Qing Dynasty.  Considered to be one of the finest Chinese architectural gardens theSummer Palace is spread over 700 acres. Set on a beautiful manmade lake that covers 2.2 sq.km and which now acts as a reservoir for Beijing it was refreshing to feel the breeze and admire the many trees and pagodas.

A key feature of the garden is the Marble Boat (See Photo) that an Empress had constructed so that she and her courtiers could take afternoon tea.  The upper balcony is backed by a huge mirror to provide even more reflected drama.

Another feature was a Lily Pond which reminded me greatly of Monet’s garden at Giverney.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_Palace

The afternoon ended with a Dragon Boat ride across the lake to our waiting bus and a view of our last highlight the impressive Bird’s Nest Olympic Stadium. 

SATURDAY 12TH MAY 2012 ­ BST +7HRS ­ The Forbidden City Back Exit!

This is really an excuse to post a blog to show one of the magnificent towers that sit at the 4 corners of the rectangular compound that forms the Forbidden city that boast intricate roofs with 72 ridges.  Equally impressive are three pagodas that sit atop the hill at the rear of the Forbidden Palace reputedly built just so the Emperor had something to look at when leaving his private apartments!

Our exit was more of a full body massage affair!  We had to walk along the roadway beside the moat besieged by street vendors and surrounded by thousands of Chinese tourists all looking for or waiting for their bus and there were nearly as many buses!!

Again good team work between Paul our tour escort and one of his many brothers – the bus driver - ensured that we were in the perfect position on a busy cross roads to jump on the bus.  More spectacular was the U-turn performed by the driver in the centre of this chaos to avoid a traffic jam!  A bit of an ordeal but nobody got lost and a cool beer and Chinese and western buffet lunch was most welcome after another morning of ‘highlights’.

SATURDAY 12TH MAY 2012 ­ BST +7HRS ­ The Forbidden City

At last it has stopped raining and the sun has come out.  Completed in 1420, the Forbidden City, another UNESCO World Heritage Site is the world’s largest palace complex and home to many buildings with 9999 rooms!  Now known as the Pace Museum, the Forbidden City was the imperial palace during the Ming and Qing Dynasties where outside visitors were forbidden for five centuries.

 

I will not repeat here what is very well explained in Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbidden_City

 

Suffice it to say that the first few courtyards in the outer or southern section are where civil ceremonies took place and the northern sections or back palace is the emperor’s private quarters and garden.  The buildings are all constructed in wood and highly decorated in blue, red and gold and are absolutely magnificent so do take a look at Wikipedia. The importance of a building is marked by the number of dragons and mythical beasts that guard the gable ends of the roofs (See photo).  The most import buildings are guarded by 10 figures.

Water management and storage was important to this huge complex and many of the walls and buildings are protected by gargoyles thatissue their water into underground storage reservoirs or great iron (Bronze?) vats. Fire has destroyed  many of the buildings on at least 3 occasions in former times but in each case the buildings havebeen restored too their former glory.

From the exterior of the buildings are very impressive but inside the artefacts and rooms are not so well preserved and certainly don’t reflect the colourful costumes that we have seen in the Tang Dynasty Show and the Peking Opera. The gardens are pretty but as expected very similar in design to the Yu Garden of Peace that we first visited in Shanghai.

Exiting the Forbidden City was a full body massage affair – see the next blog!

SATURDAY 12TH MAY 2012 ­ BST +7HRS ­ My last Full Day Already Tiananmen Square

As I am sure you know this is the largest square in the world occupying 100 acres and capable of holding 1.25m people – there must have been 250,000 on the square this morning!  Today the square has a number of Olympic floral displays celebrating the Beijing Games o 2008 and long queues of Chinese tourists waiting to enter Chairman Mau’s Mausoleum.  Although many Chinese resent the events of the Cultural Revolution – many of which were committed by the so called Red Guards – Chairman Mau is revered for uniting China and putting it on the road to its current status today.

Apart from the military parades the square is famous for the ‘man with the shopping bag defying the tanks’.  Paul our tour escort tells us that he was in the square until about 3 days before this dramatic event.  The students were in fact not protesting against the Government but about some of the inefficiencies that existed in parts of the administration.  The man who defied the tanks was only out doing his shopping when he found himself defying the tanks!

But here are still the two huge LED screens that every so often show Government messages amongst the adverts!

A brief and again wet visit before crossing the road to the famous entrance to the Forbidden City (See photo).