McChinastruggle

July 16

At airport. I am on the upper deck if one of those huge horrible planes I have had nightmares about so am trying not to panic. It's massive and I can't believe it can possibly take off. 

July 17

I am in Shanghai and I have the most amazing hotel view from 27 floors up right down the river & across to the Bund. Well worth the money! 

I was obviously over excited by the great hotel and the views and over tired by the long journey. I went out, took over a hundred photos of the city lights and then realised I had been pick-pocketed. Fortunately only one credit card and no money as I hadn’t drawn any out yet.  So I called the bank and cancelled the card. Hope I don’t lose my others!

The rest of the hotel is pretty amazing too. The café has 10 different themed kitchens. Scallops or M & M sundaes anyone? The guests are mainly officials from the world swimming championships being held down the road. The president of the association is in the room next to me. I knew this because the security people marauding everywhere told me. At least my room won’t get burgled too.

July 18

Work up this morning and found my credit card exactly where I left it yesterday. Damn. Otherwise I am having a truly horrible time. I am sitting on floor 32 of the Shangri La (say it Shan Gri-La or the taxi drivers don't understand) looking out over the river and all the skyscrapers behind the Bund sipping an applegrass martini. This place has Dubai well beaten and possibly even rivals New York. It’s certainly more colourful. Almost as gaudy as Vegas – they have to ration the electricity during the day to power it all. It’s pretty spectacular- twinkling neon pleasure boats zipping down the river, interspersed with the great black shadows of coal barges. The Bund buildings across the way are more tasteful than the scrapers in Pudong where I am. They are all boxy with white lights. Mostly British built. (I’m wondering if all the best modern cites were founded or developed by the British?)

This is a really eclectic mix of old and new. I’ve been and tried all the teas at the Jade Buddha temple and trotted past Starbucks and McDonalds peeking out of old pagodas. I’ve also visited a lot of malls that look very American from the outside but don’t quite live up their promise. They smell a bit musty and everything is arranged like Primark. Cheap and gimmicky. The Chinese still love their glitter and tack. Otherwise China has changed a lot in 15 years. Or maybe it’s because its more that it’s because it’s Shanghai. Or probably both. They refer to westernization as the McStruggle.

The Chinese are a lot gentler and friendlier than I remember. Perhaps too I’m not so much of a novelty as I was then? And more of them can speak English. They have been chatting to me in the bars and restaurants. Which is just as well as I can’t read the menus -and the pictures they use instead–well not sure they have the Trades’ Description Act here. I ordered some beef fried rice in a mall restaurant- brave. Something very slimy arrived. The drink was delicious though- limeguat-whatever that is?

O and I have also been on the cable car. It runs through a tunnel under the river complete with meteor showers and audio commentary. Probably the tackiest thing here, but fun.

July 19

I had breakfast in the 10 kitchens. The M and M sundaes were still on offer.

Then to the airport for my flight to Chongqing (pronounced Chunking). The plane was late but it was fascinating. They showed a cartoon video in the lounge - how to avoid the terrible swine flu from America. No mention of bird flu. Two different airlines were both flying to Chongqing at the same time and in their infinite wisdom they boarded them both through the same gate. Great fun watching them chivvy all the passengers on and off the wrong planes.

The stewardess exhorted us to have a cosy flight in the cabin. Then they switched on the plastic music. You can’t get away from noise. I’m being ferried everywhere by CTS guides who talk at me incessantly, testing me on my knowledge of the difference between the Republic of China and the Peoples’ Republic of China. It’s so one-on-one I don’t actually get to look out of the window much.

 I imagined Chongqing to be a rural idyll perched on the Yangzi at the beginning of the Three Gorges. It’s actually an urban conurbation of 38 million people with a huge green opera house that looks like a giant tank. The river is very brown and muddy and I’m surrounded by tower blocks. No doubt the pretty scenery will begin tomorrow. The boat doesn’t leave until 4 in the morning, so I’m sitting here in my cabin with balcony (and piped music) watching the boys fishing with looped nets like big lacrosse sticks. I feel slightly deprived. There’s a brass band playing on the boat moored next to mine and the passengers are marching in. However I am diverted by the hospitable signs in my room. ‘We hope you have a comfortable and sweet time dear guests’. It will cost me 3000 Yuen if I want to buy the sofa in my room (or the mattress). Housekeeping will supply me with ‘ice rocks’. And, slightly more worryingly, ‘Please replace the life jackets after use’.

The bad news

·        My suntan lotion has leaked all over everything in my bag- it’s all gone, the whole lot- (it hasn’t done the things in my bag a lot of good either) and it’s pretty hot here. The shops on the boat only sell useful things like pearls and silk paintings.

·        The safe in my room is broken.

·        The horrid man on reception says dinner isn’t included on the first night. No-on told me to bring any food and the boat is currently doing a Marie Celeste.

·        There are only two  small lifeboats for over 300 people

The good news

·        The safe wasn’t malfunctioning after all and the guy from housekeeping who came to mend it repaired the broken zip in my bag instead.

·        The nice man on the reception desk got me a free dinner. Enough for 4 people if peppered steak, rice, fish and tomatoes, pork and bamboo shoots, Macedoine vegetables, the thickest mushroom soup you ever saw, melon and wooden green stick all served at once is your thing

·        The man on the tannoy says two lifeboats is plenty as there is so much traffic on the river we are bound to get picked up quickly if the boat sinks. (In the dark?  Before we get mown down by coal barges?)

·        They serve margaritas in the bar though I haven’t quality checked them yet

July 20

Woken at 7a.m.by the tannoy. When I wake up properly I will look for the off switch. I refuse to do a Hi de Hi.

I thought the passengers were roughly half Chinese, half American. However, I have discovered that half the Chinese are also American. The Chinese are seated on one side of the dining room and ‘the foreigners’ on the other. We sail past rural scenes, limestone and bamboo. But these are interspersed with monstrous factories and refineries belching smoke á la Germinal. Concrete villages and convoys of barges chugging in the opposite direction – mostly coal to feed the pollution. The river is pretty mucky – the swirling eddies carry all kinds of detritus, everything from flip flops to tin cans. Everyone here talks about conservation, but in reality recycling means tipping the rubbish into the river. The cruise is not very beautiful yet but it’s certainly interesting. It’s humid and sticky in the breeze, but even so, and notwithstanding jet lag I‘m having awful trouble staying awake today. Have just realised that I took one of my sleepy melatonin tablets when I downed my morning vitamins. Now glugging loads of Coca Cola to try and counteract the effects.

I’ve also been and had acupuncture in the clinic down in the hull. The white coated doctor threw in some moxibustion. I haven’t a clue what it is and I couldn’t see either as I was lying on my back. But it seemed to involve a lot of heat and the burning of some herbs in a tube.

Visit to the ghost city at Fengdu - sorry ‘shore excursion’. It’s a sweltering 100 degrees Fahrenheit  and there are 600 steps no-one has told us about. The funicular isn’t working yet. The jostling Chinese laugh at the mad English lady and share their umbrellas. And the noise pursues us. All the guides have microphones which are set at full volume, so the temples are far from peaceful. Aptly, this is Chinese hell. They believe that every soul comes to this spot when the body is dead and is judged by the Lord of Hell at the top of the mountain. Some of the statues look much kindlier than others. Is that fair? There are also suitably gruesome tableaux of men being eviscerated or pushed off bridges with pitchforks (presumably this is a lesser punishment).

There are views across the river to more sprawling tower blocks. We have travelled all day and we are still in Chongqing.

I eat dinner with a party of Americans, so I get my own back on the noise front. We are definitely the loudest table in the dining room. Chinese massage before bed.

July 21

Well I definitely didn’t take any melatonin today and I’m still falling sleep so it must be the acupuncture. I certainly feel pretty giddy when I stand up afterwards. More Coca Cola. The Chinese doctor has given me a certificate. It says that I had an obstruction of Qi in my back and he has expelled the wind-evil and eliminated dampness.

Today we are sailing through the gorges. Unfortunately it’s so hazy I can only just make them out. The steep walls are impressive, but nothing spectacular. Maybe they were more imposing before they built the dam and the river was 80 meters lower. Never mind, it’s still relaxing, lolling on my balcony and watching all the life on the river. And an eighty year old Canadian-Chinese lady has instructed everyone on how to Photoshop their pictures so that they look ok. She says it’s much easier on a Mac though!

The next two gorges, though less sheer, are prettier than the much lauded first. I prefer the mountains with the stalky green steps of the rice terraces leading up to their pointy peaks. The mist gives the scenery an ethereal beauty. (Though there is still the odd power station or two).

Today’s shore excursion is a trip up three narrower gorges. So we traipse off our big boat and onto a slightly smaller boat that takes us up the gorge until we get on much smaller peapod boats that are rowed and poled in combination by the local Tuja people. They tow us up to and across some shallows, just to show they can do it and then and then the whole thing is repeated backwards. Not so long ago, according to pictures we are shown, they used to do the towing naked, but tourist sensibilities have put paid to that.

July 22

A damp squibby day. We had to get up at a ridiculous hour for a trip to the Three Gorges dam site where we couldn’t see much of the almost-but-not-quite-biggest-dam-in-the world because of the fog.  As someone on the bus remarked ‘Nothing about a vacation should begin with a 6!’ The view in the last gorge, below the dam, picturesque old wooden villages, gave a flavour of what the scenery was like in the rest of the river before they flooded it. Then a flight back to Shanghai, which was three hours late because there was a thunderstorm above us. So I had to get later train too and there wasn’t any food to buy. The satin was next to the airport but I wasn’t allowed to walk and we had to take a bus to get there and it took 15 minutes to go round the one way system and back again. The train travelled at 350 k per h but nevertheless I was pretty hungry and tired when I arrived at Hangzhou at 10. 30. that night.

July 23

Just realised that all the bathrooms have scales in them. I am going to ignore them. A tour of the best West Lake in China - there are 32 of them. It’s very willow pattern plate, lots of trees, fronds dangling at the water’s edge, stone bridges and koi carp, but hard to see in the fog, which is ever present. The guide says the view is better in the mist, more mysterious.

I have to have my picture taken holding Chinese babies, like a politician. They are very heavy.  The Little Emperors are certainly well looked after. Their parents cater to their every need, including fanning them constantly. It’s still sweltering hot. It’s 35 degrees C and very humid. One of my guides has told me that they have changed the law. If an only child marries an only child they may now have two children. He is thrilled. My current guide not so much. She is one of four, as her parents kept trying for a boy. They got lucky on the fourth go. A boat ride, another temple, some pagodas and a tea plantation. Everyone here says that green tea helps you lose weight. But at £80 a box they can keep it - no wonder Posh Beckham drinks it – and I don’t like the taste anyway. The highlight of the day was when my driver got lost. He was new. We ended up back at the temple when we were supposed to be going to the plantation. The guide had to phone for instructions. A foot massage and an evening wander along the Hangzhou equivalent of Oxford Street, very buzzy. Lots of imitation silk. The way to tell if it’s real is to set it alight I’m told. Silk burns evenly, polyester doesn’t. I wonder what they’d think if I tried?

July 24

 
On the train again to Suzhou. They are still playing the same Ice Age cartoon. I’ve noticed quite a few Chinese wandering around eating cucumbers whole. It seems to be a popular snack. Today’s guide tells me he isn’t sure of the difference between the words cucumber and concubine. Where do I begin? The guide also tells me that this is a small city. It’s population is only six million. A visit to a silk factory, which is quite interesting to see the poor cocoons being collected and boiled, despite the string of shops at the end. Another garden and a cruise through the canals. Some pretty bridges and more weeping willows, but it all looks a bit small and dirty. I return dripping wet again but this time it is because the thunderstorms have followed me, rather than because I am perspiring. So another foot massage is called for. My hotel has a nicer garden than the ancient one. It also has a pub called ‘Jolly Good Time’. The breakfasts are all amazing. You name it it’s available- salad? Pickles? Cakes? 

July 25 

Another high speed train journey. There has been a big crash further up this same line. The lightening from one of the many storms stalled a train on a bridge and the one behind went straight into it.

Back in Shanghai. I love this hotel. I could quite happily live here. This time I have the championship person’s room complete with walk-in wardrobes and Chinese vases. I’ve been attempting to diet again and was very good last night and had salad. So today I went down to the ten-kitchen cafe for a light lunch. But unfortunately they were offering a buffet which turned out to be the best value ever. Whatever you wanted from any of the kitchens for about £25. Well I went bonkers with all the seafood and the sushi to start. Next I looked at Thai, Indian, Chinese and Malaysian, but opted for amazing huge lamb chops with some equally amazing mushroom risotto. I thought I wasn’t doing too badly till I then meandered over to the dessert kitchens. (M and Ms are still there). Men in big white hats were blow torching teeny crème brulees, creating amazing towers of ice cream and presiding over the most artfully crafted patisserie you have ever seen. So I was sunk. I went for a walk and a swim to serve penance. Tomorrow I am on the plane to Indonesia, so hopefully the food will be nasty and I can start my diet again even if I am inert. 

In summary, China has changed a lot in 15 years. The people are friendlier and seem to be quite a bit taller too. Many are positively lofty. Westernisation has turned Shanghai into a dazzling and sophisticated city. It hasn’t been so kind to the other places I have visited. They seem diminished and shabby, the ancient buildings and rural landscapes dwarfed by industrialization and less atmospheric than I would have hoped. The McStruggle has taken its toll. There is a burger or coffee bar on every corner. I have had a good time and it’s all still fascinating, but would I come back? Probably not, except to Shanghai (and the buffet) if it was en route, and especially not in the summer!