Pan-China travel, 15 May - 6 June 2019
Robert Tyabji, Shah Alam, June 2019
Hootoksi and I had been wanting to visit China together ever since her visit in 2006. So, when our Seattle friends Beroz and Siegi were talking about their prospective trip to China in May 2019, Hootoksi and I grabbed the opportunity to travel with them. Because we had lived in Bhutan (4 years) and Nepal (2 years) we were quite familiar with Tibetan culture, so we just had to include Tibet in our itinerary! Hootoksi found travel agencies in China and worked out a 3-week pan-China itinerary that included Tibet, starting in Beijing and ending in Chengdu. The tour gave us 3 days in Beijing, 3 days in Xian, 3 days in Hangzhou, 5 days in Shanghai, 6 days in Tibet, and 3 days in Chengdu. The trip included overland travel in two bullet trains, the high altitude train to Tibet, extensive road trips especially in Tibet, and air travel between Lhasa and Chengdu.
Obtaining our China visas was simple. I visited the visa office located on an entire floor of a tower in Kuala Lumpur, completed a form and after a short wait, handed it in along with our passports and the visa fee of MYR 200 ($50) for each of us. I returned two days later to collect
our passports with the visas stamped in. The entire process took less than an hour.
As you will see when you read on, our visit was epic. We crossed the country in two directions, first southward from Beijing to Shanghai in high speed trains, then west all the way to Lhasa, Tibet, this time in conventional as well as the famous pressurized Tibet train. In Tibet we just couldn't resist the urge to see Everest from the China side (as it was quite a familiar sight for us from the Nepal side and Ma had visited the first Everest base camp there) so we took the stunningly beautiful drive from Lhasa to Everest Base Camp (EBC) and back. Finally, we flew Tibet Airlines from Lhasa to Chengdu.
Overview of our itinerary
Beijing, 15 - 18 May 2019
Xian, 18 - 20 May
Hangzhou, 21 - 22 May
Shanghai, 22 - 26 May
Lhasa and environs, 28 May - 3 June
Chengdu, 3 - 6 June
Siegi and Beroz Ferrell joined us in KL a couple of days prior to our departure. Their plan was to travel with us and return to Seattle on the day we were to leave Shanghai for Tibet. Air Asia transported us efficiently to Beijing International Airport, where we were received by Jeff, our guide, an articulate and well-spoken young man, and our driver, in a minibus. All my preconceptions of Beijing were debunked in the 40 minutes' drive to the hotel! There was no discernible pollution at all. Our car was surrounded by others, all of us moving forward in orderly fashion at a good clip, and there was no tooting at all. Jeff told us that the city has been expanding exponentially and the eighth ring road had recently been completed. We were driving towards the sixth ring road along a 10-lane expressway which is lined all the way on both sides by 20-foot-wide beds of mostly red roses behind which are wide belts of tall trees. Were it not for the cars it was just like driving through the countryside!
Our three days in Beijing included visits to Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven, and a drive-by to see the Bird Cage Olympic stadium. We spent half a day on the Great Wall and in the evenings took in two blockbuster stage shows and dinner at one of Beijing’s famous Peking Duck restaurants.
We got from our Beijing hotel to the Great Wall in a private bus, then to the staging area in an electric bus, and finally by cable car into the mountains to one of the ramparts of the wall itself. Siegi opted to return to the staging area using one of the sleds and rocketed down, the sled careening along the inside of a metal channel. Hootoksi, Beroze, our guide and I chose the more sedate cable car!
Siegi is an avid photographer. Beroze sent us a video of some of his pics of Hootoksi and me...
Our lasting impressions of China were formed in the first few days:
- We experienced no discomfort from air pollution at any time during our 3-week stay;
- The streets everywhere are very clean. In Beijing, there are teams of well-equipped, uniformed cleaning staff stationed every 300 meters along the main roads;
- The people are well dressed, with happy dispositions, and some speak English. Clearly, the population is well educated, reasonably prosperous, polite and disciplined;
- The number of cars and vehicles of all kinds is staggering, but the majority are either fully electric, or hybrid. Everyone uses e-bicycles which are seen everywhere; all that’s needed to use these is an app on one’s phone to unlock them. The roads are wide, well maintained and well lit. Each of the billions of LED streetlights is individually solar powered. Throughout our travels, solar panels were evident everywhere, and we also passed vast solar farms;
- Everyone uses smartphones. Payments for purchases and services of all kinds are via WeChat or Alipay. Credit cards are dead here! Google, Facebook and other international social media platforms are not available in China, but VPNs can be downloaded and used to access these quite easily. We bought our SIM cards at Beijing airport and a free VPN app was included;
- Places of interest are swarming with local tourists. There must have been thousands of people visiting the Forbidden City that day, but in an orderly and well-managed way;
- I never saw a policeman. But surveillance cameras are ever-present! Every street crossing has them, so I suppose Uncle Xi is watching everything and everybody, all the time, everywhere. By 2020, the number of surveillance cameras in mainland China is expected to reach 626 million (Wikipedia).I had heard of China’s social credit system aimed at moulding the citizenry’s behavior. The Skynet system utilizes millions of networked surveillance cameras country-wide and an AI facial recognition system. I suppose this helps eliminate street crime which is often an urban problem in other countries;
- The elderly are well catered to and taken care of. Elderly people can be seen in their hundreds in taichi groups, or line dancing in the parks and city squares, or playing mahjong, and many play musical instruments just for the joy of it. No buskers here!
- I had read about ghost cities mushrooming throughout China. Most people live in huge apartment complexes comprising dozens if not hundreds of high-rise apartment blocks, called residential districts. Traveling though China by rail and road, we passed scores of these residential districts still under construction, and I realized that they are meant to accommodate the millions of people who would soon be arriving as workers and staff for the industries, businesses and townships that are proliferating everywhere. Could these be the “ghost cities” I read about?
- I saw many high-tech public toilets in the cities. I recently read that a new waste collection system is being tested in Beijing. Residents are being trained to sort their waste into seven categories and use QR-coded bags. These are then placed into bins equipped with QR readers and facial recognition, ensuring that waste is inserted by known residents, in the correct bins. Wow!
- We watched two stage productions, The Legend of Kung Fu and The Golden Mask Extravaganza and both were quite astounding. The casts were huge, with elaborate costumes, creative lighting and ingenious stagecraft. In one scene, the stage was suddenly transformed into a raging torrent of water cascading over boulders! (click to watch).
- We took bullet trains from Beijing to Xian and Hangzhou to Shanghai. These trains race along silently and smoothly at upto 350 kmph and are a pleasure to travel on. Over 2,800 pairs of bullet trains run daily, connecting over 550 cities in China and serving 33 of the country's 34 provinces. The stations are huge, ultramodern complexes fitted with the very latest amenities and automation needed to efficiently move millions through them every day.
Highlights of the trip
Beijing
The Great Wall, the Forbidden City and the two stage productions (above).
Xian
The terracotta warriors, Muslim Street, the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda and adjacent park;
Hangzhou
: West Lake, the ferry cruise, Meijiawu Tea Village
Shanghai
:
We stayed with our Malaysian friends Sharmin and Jeff Teh who are now posted in Shanghai. As their guests, just hanging at home with them and Dylan was enough to make our trip! But, being the wonderful hosts that they are, they spared the time to take us around amazing Shanghai, to drinks and dinner at the waterfront and a day trip to the Zhouzhuang Water Village.
Chengdu
This is the capital of Sichuan Province and home of the famous Sichuan peppercorn and spicy hotpot dishes. We stayed in a beautiful hotel in the old part of town. We also visited the Giant Pandas. A real treat! These pandas are slow, cumbersome creatures. I filmed one who’d been napping. He got up, wandered over to a pile of bamboo stalks, ate a few, backed away, took a dump and staggered to the nearest tree for another nap. Take a look, click here.
Tibet
The Tibet Plateau, known as the "roof of the World", is situated at an average height of 4,500 mt. above sea level, with a total landmass of more than 2.3 million square kilometres, nearly as large as India. It is also Asia's watershed; its glaciers are the origin of 10 great Asian river systems which support the livelihood of a third of the global population. 40% of India's water originates in Tibet.
Foreigners need a special permit to visit Tibet. Initially, we were very concerned by media reports that China had stopped issuing Tibet permits in anticipation of trouble breaking out on the anniversary of the Tibet takeover. But Passang Dorji, the local Tibet tour agent Hootoksi had identiified, assured us that he would obtain the necessary permits and train tickets (which are in very short supply) for us, and we remained on tenterhooks until a courier delivered the permits and tickets in Shanghai - just two days prior to our scheduled departure!
We were relying on Passang to take us on a tour of Lhasa and a field trip to the Everest Base Camp (EBC).
Tibet was undoubtedly the most memorable part of the trip for me. First, the train journey through the center of China, from Shanghai to Xining, and then from Xining to Lhasa on the specially equipped Tibet train, the highest rail link in the world, was remarkable. The 2-night journey took 38 hours. The first leg was not very interesting as the train traversed farmland and many towns before it started to climb hilly terrain to Xining. I couldn't help but marvel at the highway infrastructure, the tunnels, bridges, interchanges, the solar and wind farms and even the orderly layout of the farms and fields as we sped past them.
At Xining we crossed the platform to the waiting Tibet train. This train carries up to 1000 passengers and makes the Xining - Lhasa run every two days. The entire train is sealed because of the altitude and oxygen is supplied via vents in each compartment, much like in a plane. The railway line includes the Tanggula Pass, which, at 5,072 m (16,640 feet) above sea level, is the world's highest point on a railway, and Tanggula railway station is also the world’s highest. The train passes through many tunnels, including one which is the world’s highest, and another the world’s longest. Much of the track is at an elevation of more than 4,000m (13,123ft), and there are 675 bridges, totaling 160 km (99 mi). About 550 km (340 mi) of track is laid on permafrost.
I missed seeing much of this as the first half of the journey was at night. Sleeping was quite comfortable as we had booked 2-tier “soft sleepers” and crisp sheets and blankets were provided. We woke to a white panorama of snow-covered grassland ringed by white mountains. At times, the train would slow to a crawl as the gradient increased, and at others we’d be moving along at a fair clip, probably around 100 km/hr. We sped for hours through wide panoramas of grassland dotted with antelope and shou (Tibetan red deer, a subspecies of elk), sheep, yak and cattle. For most part the highway follows the track and the number of trucks using the road was surprising.
We had two Chinese companions on the berths across from ours. Though they spoke virtually no English, they were friendly and very helpful. With the help of our translation apps we learned that the lady was a professional photographer, her male companion was the producer and writer, and they were on an extended pan-Tibet photography mission. She showed me her equipment (which was far superior to mine) and we happily exchanged ideas for shots as the scenery sped by.
As we neared Lhasa, we passed homesteads and occasional villages, the land became greener, more cultivated, residential districts came into view in the distance, and the mountains grew higher. One also saw monaseries high on the hillslopes. We arrived in Lhasa around midday and were met at the station by our guide, Tashi. By now, Hootoksi was feeling lousy because of the altitude, and I had picked up a flu somewhere along the way and was stuffed up and suffering a heavy head. Fortunately, Dr. Lee’s clinic was located in our hotel’s lobby, so that was our first stop, before even checking in! Dr Lee examined Hootoksi, gave her a shot in the butt and a 20-minute drip, and she was good to go! I was prescribed Chinese flu medication comprising sachets of a brown powder, which succeeded in banishing my flu in 3 days!
Lhasa, no longer the sleepy, dusty town of yore, is a bustling city with wide streets, traffic, and busy markets. We stayed at the Tibet Gang-Gyan Lhasa Hotel in the old part of the town. The city is ringed by multi storey residential districts and surrounded by snow-capped mountains. The majestic Potala Palace overlooks the park behind it and the city around it. We spent many hours in and around the Potala, and also visited it after dark to gaze at it all lit up.
We spent most of the first morning visiting the Jokhang Temple, the most revered Buddhist place of worship in all Tibet. The oldest part of the temple was built in 652. Over the next 900 years, the temple was enlarged several times with the last renovation done in 1610 by the Fifth Dalai Lama. The temple, considered the "spiritual heart of the city", is at the center of an ancient network of Buddhist temples in Lhasa. It is the focal point of commercial activity in the city, with a maze of streets radiating from it. The Jokhang is 1,000 metres east of the Potala Palace. Bakhor, the market square in central Lhasa, has a walkway for pilgrims to walk around the temple (which takes about 20 minutes). Barkhor Square is marked by four stone sankang (incense burners), two of which are in front of the temple and two in the rear. The whole area swarms with worshippers of all ages and walks of life, from all over Tibet and the rest of China, as well as many tourists. The temple itself is very crowded and we saw hundreds of pilgrims doing penance in the surrounding courtyards.
At Sera Monastery , founded in 1490, we watched young monks during one of their daily debating sessions. Watch the video below.
It may look like the monks are fighting each other, but it's just that the debates become really intense as the monks delve ever deeper into the Buddhist philosophy.
A couple of Swedish lads, Michael and Emile, students at a university in Beijing, joined us for the 3-day round trip to Yamdrok Lake and Everest Base Camp (EBC). The first hour or so of driving was along the mighty Brahmaputra, in China known as the Yarlung Tsangpo, which meanders around the Lhasa plateau but was a raging torrent as it raced through the ravines higher up.
Some 8 hours of driving with stops at Yamdrok Lake and to take pictures on the passes, we reached Sigatse, halfway to the Nepal border, for the night. At one of the stops high up on a pass, Tibetan artifacts and trinkets were on sale and one could pose for photos with enormous Tibetan mastiffs seated majestically on raised platforms. We even came across a biker's group who had stopped by for refreshments.
We set off the next morning for the long drive to EBC. There are multiple passes to traverse, the highest being Gawu-la, at 5,200 m (17,000 Ft). The superb road winds around for an hour, affording wonderful views of range after range of mountains. Everest Base Camp is a motley collection of large, square tents arranged in blocks. Our allotted tent had sleeping platforms around three walls, with a stove in the middle. It was comfortably warm till about 10 pm and then the temperature dropped to about 10 degrees C, approaching the 5 degrees outside! The Tibetan lady in charge was very impressive; she cooked us a wholesome dinner and served a hot breakfast at 8 am in spite of having had to tend to her baby in the middle of the night. The problem for us was the lack of a toilet, running water and a place to wash! We brushed our teeth just outside the tent, in pitch darkness, and used a makeshift squatting toilet on the other side of the camp. Ouch! Breathing was another problem in spite of using our oxygen cans frequently.
One can see Everest from the camp but the best views are to be had about 1 km up the road. A lot of people had a really hard time getting there because of altitude sickness which manifests as severe headaches, extreme tiredness, difficulties in standing and walking and of course, shortage of breath. When we got to the viewing area, Everest and the surrounding mountains were shrouded in cloud, so we waited. After an hour or so, the cloud began to lift and the mountains were slowly revealed, as in a time lapse sequence. Finally, Everest appeared in all her glory!
Driving back the road follows the mighty Bharmaputra for an estimated 350 kms from before Shigatse all the way to Lhasa. For most of its journey here, the river rushes through cliffs on both sides, but as it enters the wide Lhasa valley, it widens and spreads out into a multitude of streams which are of great benefit to the local farmers.
All in all, China was a revelation. I now realize how biased I was before I got there. We are constantly exposed to negative sentiment regarding China. It intrigues me that change there is so rapid, to visit a couple of years later will again be a revelation! In my view as a mere tourist, China is already ahead of the rest of the developed world in terms of technology and infrastructure, and with rapid social emancipation, I can't even guess what China will be like in 10 years. I will surely have to revisit to find out!