Day 42 - November 15th

Wake up to the boat disembarking! I open the curtains and see a wall of rock! Pretty impressive. I’m happy as no one was moved into my room last night, so I am staying in a double room and paying only the single! It’s drizzling outside!

I go for breakfast buffet, and as Leo (my man in Hong Kong), the food is just okay! I get put with the English speaking group… group Lisa, named after our local guide Lisa! We get on the coach with all these tired old people who are acting like teenagers on board! “Let’s sit in the back and cause trouble” “where’s my woman gone?” and then they start singing too! Oh dear!

The coach takes us to the Great Dam, but the rain means that we could see pretty much bugger-all! I manage to haggle for some postcards from Y20 to Y10. I’m happy! Others in the group start to complain about the standard of Lisa’s (ching)lish! Does take a lot of concentration for even me to understand her, but their tour guide rebuts them by telling them that her English is way better then their Chinese! I start chatting to the guide and help her with her English, picking out things she has said wrong! She is very grateful and I could see her using the words I helped her with in her spiel and a big smile on her face when she knows she has got her pronunciation correct!

I talk to an old Australian couple, saying how it’s a shame that it was raining and we could hardly see the dam wall. “Oh well, we can come back and see it again”… whoops, they went silent and give me a strange look… I don’t think they will be up and about for long!

We get taken though all the gift shop areas and I see some how silly some of the mark-up prices are for souvenirs! A chess set which I brought in Yiwu for the business had a price tag of Y3800. I brought it from the manufacturer for around Y20 a unit! Let’s say that the people here brought it off 2 other suppliers, both doubling the price of it for profit, that’s still less than Y100, and let’s say they try and make a profit of 100% too. That’s only around Y200! The funniest bit is that you know for sure that some idiot would buy it (probably American)!

On our way back to the boat, the guide sings a folk song for us! She told us of her story, how she used to live in the city, but then her father, an engineer moved to the 3 Gorges area to work on the dam. She became very very depressed as she was away from all her friends and couldn’t do all the things you could in the city; go shopping, hang out, find a man! But her father always told her that he was doing some thing very very important and that by building the dam, many people in China will have electricity. Harsh.

Before I get back on the cruiser, I buy some beers from a store. I get 7 beers for Y35. Some weird looking can! I get back on board and then go up to the viewing deck to watch us go through the lock system. I start conversation with the tour manager of the UK group, Gillian. She tells me of all the troubles she has had with this group and all about her line of work. Good research on what I may be doing one day! Her work takes her all over the world, she was in Thailand last week, and regularly goes to Europe and Ireland. This was her first time up the Yangtze! The lock opens and we start the slow process up the system (about 4hours).

We then watch the safety presentation (Chinese one had a total of 4 people turn up!) which wasn’t really that assuring! The riverboat guide didn’t seem to be taking it too seriously and I find it a bit funny that the talk is after a whole night on board the boat! Though Gillian says that it is the same in Germany, up the Rhine and we find out that the boat is supposed to be unsinkable and has bullet proof windows as it was once used by the Chinese President at the time.

I get talking to more of the old folk on board. We then watch a talk on pearls, where I meet two girls from Gunagdong. One was alright looking. We get chatting and I show them all my pix from my travels! Captian’s welcoming party in the evening – free champagne! (for half an hour!) Dinner was followed by a talk on acupuncture and foot massage, where Vincent, the river guide, seemed to be making a lot of it up! We then were treated to a fashion show, costumes through the ages, ethnic minorities, and surprise surprise, clothes from the store on board!

I sit on the deck round the back and play guitar for a bit and drink the beer I smuggled on board… turns out to taste like shit! Never get round to finishing the 7!

Miles walked: 283.653m

Day 41 - November 14th

Toothache! I wake up and arrive at Wuhan. I chat to the couple whilst we get our stuff ready to get off the train and they tell me that I should get a Chinese girlfriend! I then break my glasses! So much for titanium frames! One screw loose and the thing falls apart. I lose that screw! Good job I have a spare pair! I step out of the station and the place looks grim! I do not like it! So I jump on the first bus I can out of there! Apparently the bus station I was at was owned by a Hong Konger. The people’s uniforms looked a lot smarter than local Chinese companies, like air stewards!

I sleep on the bus but wake up to watch Cats and Dogs in Chinese. The journey turns out to take 5 hours, not the 3/4 hours suggested in the Lonely Planet! I get to Yichang and put leave my backpack and then go get something to eat. I forget how much difference there is from inland places and coastal areas. I order some food at a restaurant and a bollock-load of food turns up! I didn’t even get halfway through it! And it was dirt cheap! Although, it was smothered in oil and far too chilli for my likings!

I walk about the town and feel all icky! I’ve not showered in a while and I must smell... run out of deodorant too! I walk pass a square where there is a performance and music. Why isn’t there things like this in other towns? I spend a few hours in a internet cafe. I then find a department store and get some deodorant! Thank god!

I then decide to have a hot chocolate and sit at the square. A group of kids arrive with a teacher. Bit late for a school trip to see performances, it’s 6pm... they then get into formation and then start dancing! They weren’t here to watch a performance, they were here to practice their cha-cha! The teacher was also the stereotypical dance teacher snob too! The kids were well good too! Amazing! All we got at my primary school was gay interpretative dance (I’m a tree) and morris dancing!

Then from the other side of the square, I hear music. I turn and see there are people practising Riverdance! It was amazing! After a while, On another corner of the square, ladies with drums start playing! I love this place! It’s a musical square! At 7pm, the real show starts and the stage is alight with people dancing and performing. I see a midget in the crowd. I don’t know why, but it reminds me of porn... don’t ask! I decide the ethnic minority dancers are fit! And in some ways, the show reminded me of our performance we did at BLCU when my class cross-dressed and sang!

I succumbed to the big M and get a McCheese burger! I sit down in Maccy D's and am surrounded by couples. How romantic! Dinner at McDonalds! I then get a drunken flash back of Shanghai and the Danish guys heckling all the people in McDonalds after our night out in Bon Bon!

I go back to the bus station for my backpack. It’s a close one, as the place was closing! Wouldn’t have been able to pick up my pack 5 mins later! The lady then tries to help me to my pier to get on my boat. She isn’t sure where it is, and calls her friends for me. She finally gives up and then puts me in a cab, but not one which is outside the station, as she says that they are not very honest! My cab driver takes me to the wrong pier at first and then after a few calls, he takes me down some dimly-lit lane and drive right pass the boat! After turning back I am finally arrive at the pier and embark on the Yangtze River!

The cruiser looks fantastic! I feel a little strange, as I rock up with my backpack and probably smelling bad whilst there are loads of middle aged people wondering around. There is a little bit of trouble at the check-in counter, as they had me down as from Hong Kong. It was run like a hotel! Very nice. I get to my room and Do the 3 S’s; Shit, Shower, Shave. I then look around the boat; it’s full of middle aged tours! Not great! I go to the bar and get a drink; Y50 for a JD and Coke. Doesn’t look all that exciting on the boat!

Miles walked: 278.595m

Day 26 - October 30th

Wake up and drag myself up! I’m such a bum nowadays! I’ve woken up the last two days when Max gets back from Uni at midday. I tell him I’m going to the Shanghai Museum and set off to get some foodage! I force the food down me, but I’m not really enjoying it any more! Feel pretty miserable! I talk to Lisa, which cheers me up, and then I decide it’s probably best to just go home and sleep. So I go to the supermarket and get myself some snacks and fruit and then head home.

I sit and watch some more BBC News and then I hear a key rustling at the door. Now, I know Eamonn is at work, and Max had just gone to Chinese class… it’s the third house mate who I have not met yet! She walks in with her mum and uncle; “hello! I’m Eamonn’s friend” I’m glad she didn’t find me in my underwear with a beer in my hand (the thought had crossed my mind… what? No one was in the house!?!?) Was still pretty awkward though! But they left after a bit so I was left on my own again!

Nap!

Wake up to Max returning after lessons. “Do you want to come play football?” My answer? “Hell yeah!!!” So he lends me some shoes and a t-shirt and we’re off to play football with the French. Most fun I have had in a long time!!! Showed my skills and most importantly formed part of the Great Wall of China in front of our goal!

Return home HUNGRY! Have a shower and shave my scraggly beard! Go and have dinner with the French… order the typical Kung Pao Chicken and Sweet and Sour Pork. Get a call from mum and wish her happy birthday. What a great son I am, I make her call me to wish her birthday wishes! The French guys go up to their apartment to have a smoke. I decide against it, as I feel the high is not worth the risk. I was told that it’s not that risky, as most police officers don’t know the smell of weed, so even if they investigate, they wouldn’t know what it was! Though life sentence in China doesn’t sound that appealing for me for a few drags and a high!

Spend an hour and a half trying to find credit for my phone and panicking so that I could call Olivia and meet up for drinks tonight. Her mobile wasn’t working, so I was relying on her calling me, but you can’t receive calls in China unless you have credit. Gay system! I finally get credit at around midnight and receive call from Olivia. It was only her 2^nd attempt to call me! As usual, she wasn’t even ready or packed (her flight leaves tomorrow at 6am). We decide to meet at 1am! Girls ey?

We go for drinks and stay out until around 4. No sleep for her tonight! Taxi home was pretty scary, the driver was actually falling asleep at the wheel! I decide to talk to him to keep him awake!

Miles walked: 173.083m

Day 24 - October 28th

Hung over! Write-off day! Done nothing apart from watch the Discovery Channel, a DVD and the football!!!

Shortest entry I’ve written!

Miles walked: 153.076m

Day 23 - October 27th

Wake up to piano playing from upstairs. Would sound real cultured and cool if I could say what was being played… but I’m not cultured and cool! Look out the window and see children playing in the park. Big contrast to what had happened the night before. I go to the living room and turn on the TV. They have satellite! I watch Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back! I also find that they have BBC News! Quality!

Have dim sum lunch with Martin. Was alright dim sum, nothing on the stuff back in Hong Kong! Eamonn takes me to the French Concessions and a swanky place called Shin Tian Di. There are soo many fit girls, both Chinese and Western! Eamonn leaves me to go help a friend with her English… apparently she has fit friends!

I walk around the French concessions and it feels like being back in London! There’s enough whiteys, though they all speak French! I walk a good few miles and get tired so I decide to go home via the metro. I take it the wrong way and get lost twice! It’s a silly system! People seem so much savvier here in Shanghai. Very un-Chinese!

Get home and upload a bollock-load of pictures! So much faster here and using a decent PC! Go to a ramen place for Dinner; one of my favourite places when I was in Hong Kong. Meet Eamonn again and the drinking starts! I won’t get into too much detail of the night out, but we went to a place called Bon Bon (all you can drink for Y120) and ended up with a Danish passed out on the sofa, whilst Eamonn had to escape the clutches of Helgar, the German who was after his Irish bits! Return home at 6am!

Miles walked: 151.316m

Day 10 - October 14th

Not a great night’s sleep. I kept on being woken up by knocks on the door and phone calls asking if I needed any ‘special services’. By the time it was midnight I get pissed off and tell the lady on the phone to fuck off! Dodgy dodgy dodgy!!!

I wake up in a windowless room. First time I’ve ever slept in a windowless room. It’s strange because you just don’t know what time it is. It’s just dark! I also have to let you all in on a secret. I’m afraid of the dark so whenever I stay in a hotel on my own, I will always leave the TV on. My TV was turned off this morning and I don’t remember waking up to turn it off (it would have been a mission as the remote didn’t work so I would have had to get off my arse).

I go to a book store to pick up a few reads for my journey. The selection in the biggest book store in town was pretty lame. Just kids reading books or business ones! I take a two hour bus journey to Tai'an, the town at the foot of Tai Shan (the most sacred Taoist mountain in China). They show a Bollywood MTV on the journey.

I’m greeted in Tai'an by a taxi driver who almost convinces me to stay a night in a hotel in town and climb tomorrow morning. He argues that it will cost a lot tonight (weekend) and that there will be many people on the way up. He almost had me, but I was sticking with my guns. He still seemed awfully nice and I gave him a nice big smile and wave when I drove past him on a motor taxi! He wouldn’t take me to the place I wanted to go even though I requested he take me!

I decide to leave my backpack at the bus station and then do the traditional route for climbing Tai Shan. This started off at a temple at the foot of the mountain called Dai Temple where I brought some incense for my journey up. I wanted to retrace the steps of the old emperors and leave offerings at every temple I pass on the way to the top. I buy a ticket for the first temple and I give the lady in the ticket booth a big smile. Her face changes and she has an even bigger smile back! I doubt she has had anyone smile at her in a long time.

At the foot of the mountain I also meet two Chinese students. They turn out to be the soundest people I have met. They were so hospitable and offered me everything they had like a friend. I am so pleased to have met them on the journey up the mountain! We walk four hours up to the midway point where they negotiate a stay in a room for Y100 between the three of us. I was probably going to go to a hotel for Y200 upwards! The original plan was that we sleep outside… okay for me, as I had a sleeping bag, but I don’t know how they would have survived! I decide to buy them some Tai Shan baijiu (rice wine) for us to drink. First impression… not bad! Second shot… hmm?!?! Third shot… get that shit away from me! I end up having to leave the bottle outside out room as even the smell of it made me welch!

We head to sleep around 9pm. I forget my toothbrush!

Miles walked: 66.446m
Steps taken: 69,076

Day 8 - October 12th

Worse wake-up ever!!! People slamming doors and cacking outside. The horrid cacking, clearing throat sound that the Chinese all seem to do! I go and have breakfast… disgusting slurp and preserved shit! I eat a few of the plain buns and an egg. That reminded me of my cat Chairman Mao who likes to eat eggs. Strange! I then go to find some place to wash my clothes. Turns out it was going to cost Y100 because they measure it in the pieces of clothing rather than weight and I had a lot of underwear! I walk away… it’s going to be a bad day.

On the way back to my room I bump into an American guy called Owen. I ask him if he knew of anywhere to get clothes washed. He seems in a happy mood as he has just got his done at the same place and thought it a bargain! I decide to get my clothes washed for Y100. To top it off, it was drizzling outside which continued all day!

On my way out, I bump into Owen again and we spend the rest of the day together seeing the sights in Kaifeng. We see a lot that day as we hop from destination to destination via rickshaws. We visit the Temple of the Chief Minister, Shaanshangan Guildhall, Longting Park (old palace) and Tieta Park to see the Iron Pagoda. The pagoda is claimed to be the best (number one) in China! It is pretty cool and we climb to the top to find a group of men stinking of booze and giggling! Why didn’t I think of that? There is also this strange system in Kaifeng where if you tell the people of the ticket offices that the rickshaw people took you there, they get Y2 for food money! Pretty cool system I think! Everyone’s a winner!

Owen turns out to be a pretty sound guy and was working/studying in Hong Kong for the last year and really got into the local music scene there, something which I didn’t manage to do! I guess the Americans who usually leave the country are always the sounder ones!

We then decide to go to the Sacred Heart of Jesus Church. Looks like a Catholic style church.. Seeming that we had done two of the worlds major religions we decide why stop now? We walk half a block to see a well which is what remains of the old synagogue (Kaifeng used to have a large Jewish population). It is situated in the boiler room of the number four People’s Hospital. Walking through the hospital was one of the most messed up things I’ve done in a while! We walk past a room where it seems a patient (Owen informed me later that it was a lady) who just looked grim and had a sort of stand and cloth looped around her jaw, keeping her head up. I really don’t know what the hell it was but I walked away as fast as possible! Messed up! Owen decides to go back for a second look! We walk into the boiler and find a well… not much to it!

We then walk to Dongda Mosque via the Muslim quarter. Not as nice as the mosque I saw in Xi'an but had the same hallmarks… looks just like a Chinese temple! So four major religions in a day! Can’t do that in many cities, I tell you!

We then walk past a shop which has a load of kegs in the window. We stop in to have a few bevys! German beer… expensive, but you have to treat yourself sometimes! I also find the nicest smelling portaloo I have ever had the pleasure to use!

Have dinner in the night market. We sit down and order our food and then a lady with a guitar and a mic sits down on the table next to ours. We decide to invite her over and Owen asks her to play a few songs that he has on his iPod. No luck… too contemporary! So we ask her to play her favourite song and then I also play a song. I rock! I then ask her to play ‘The Moon Represents My Heart’ a classic Chinese song which I really like. No one else in the street agrees with me… too cliché maybe!

Owen suggests that I should record and play some Chinese folk songs and package it in a way for western audiences. I tell him my time came and went long ago…

Miles walked: 54.355m
Steps taken: 38,310

Day 2 - October 6th

Wake up bright and early to go see my Nan. It was a sorry sight. I don’t really want to talk too much about it, but let’s say that I don’t think there’s much of her left in that body. She was like an empty vessel. The date on her name tag said she was born in 1916, but my uncle says she is probably a few years older than that.

The plan for today was to meet my friend Gary who was heading up from HK and go to the safari in Guangzhou. He slept in and doesn’t arrive until 5pm. We get massages instead and then go on a cruise up the Pearl River. Go out to a bar and finish a bottle of whisky between us. The rest of the night becomes a haze, although I remember Gary getting on stage, and a man knocking over our drinks and coming back with a fruit platter and bowl of chips to show he is sorry!

Miles walked: 8.784m
Steps taken: 22,353