Shanghai!

When one thinks of colonial China, the China of rickshaws, Charlie Chan, the Sassoons and teeming masses in a seaport, Shanghai likely comes to mind. It does for me. It’s a huge city of over 24 million and China’s largest seaport (and largest city). The third tallest skyscraper in the world is here, as is the Bund, an area with over fifty colonial area buildings along the waterfront.

Our docking position was special, on a bend in the Huangpu River, in the center of the city and across from the spectacular skyline. The bow of the ship faced the Bund. The river is crowded with ferries, pleasure craft, and smaller cargo ships. We may be the largest ship allowed on this waterway.

The skyline as seen from our ship

Left: Ever been laughed at by a danish? Right: We enjoyed the flute-cello combination, but our preference was for the pianist.

We have two days in Shanghai and for our first morning we participated in the excursion “Shanghai highlights.” Except for the included visit to the Yuyuan Garden, the tour was a disappointment. We really didn’t get much of a tour of the highlights. Still, as I noted above, our ship’s position on the waterfront gave us a great view of central Shanghai, including the Shanghai Tower (2073 feet), the Jin Mao Tower, the Shanghai World Financial Center, the Oriental Pearl TV Tower and the Bund, the former British area of Shanghai. That first evening we enjoyed the brightly lit cityscape, which included well lit ferries and other craft on the Huangpu.

The entrance to Yuyuan Garden, constructed by a Ming dynasty mandarin

In the garden and several of its many rooms:


The shopping area surrounding the garden:

The animals are pure chocolate.


Almost lunch time for the shoppers.

Left: One end of much older and still crowded apartments, mostly hidden from our view.

A couple of asides. English speakers are often inflicted with ums and ers while speaking. Even worse is the dreaded insertion of “like” within every other sentence. Chinese speakers of English have their own common pause filler: “yes” or “yeah” between sentences, as if assuring themselves that what they have just said was useful.

A bit of inside information came to us about Viking’s joint venture with China regarding this ship. The sale of the Viking Sun to a Chinese firm and the conversion of the entire crew to a Chinese one was not, shall we say, voluntary. The remaining westerners in the crew are there to complete the training of their replacements. One can presume Viking’s sole surviving role in the arrangement is marketing and sales. China is feeling its oats.

We blew one excursion opportunity, or at least I did, as I made the reservations. Virtually the entire ship went to an evening performance of acrobats in Shanghai. I, for some reason, overlooked this opportunity. As a consolation prize, we were invited to a hot-pot dinner, served under the eave on a deck just outside the restaurant—during what at times was a heavy rain. Fortunately the wait staff assisted us in determining how long to cook each offering and, yes, we were able to eat the corn on the cob sections with our chopsticks. Frances cheated and stuck a chopstick through the center to hold it. Hint: Don’t wear a fresh shirt to a hotpot dinner. The probability of not splashing an oil drop on one’s clothes approaches zero.

Our hotpot dinner under the eave

The busy river

Left: An evening view, in the rain. Right: The famous Peace Hotel, once the most elegant and exclusive hotel in China, then owned by the powerful Sassoon family. This all ended with the victory of the Communists over the Nationalists. A good book to read on the Sassoons is The Last Kings of Shanghai by Kaufman.

Left : The Peace Hotel, in the daylight. Right: The Jin Mao is tucked between the Financial Center and the Shanghai Tower, but only in 2-D perspective.

Left: The Shanghai Tower from the west. Right: Two more unnamed buildings.

Our tour on the second day was a tremendous improvement over the first. Our guide, a life-long Shanghai resident, was clear in his English, informative and funny. We got the highlights tour we were hoping for, plus tales of his younger days, when four and five families crowded into small, shared apartments, often hungry and, if lucky, getting meat once a month using government-allocated coupons. He said the ideal life is one with an American house, Chinese cuisine, Jewish deep pockets and a Japanese wife. He started to describe the undesirable opposite: a Japanese house and then, hesitating with a laugh, said he couldn’t remember if the next was American food or an American wife.

The Longhua Temple established during the Song Dynasty. Left: Pagodas always have an odd number of stories.

The complex has many temples, each devoted to different buddhas and religious icons.

In the Garden

We all ate in the temple restaurant where the sole offerings were vegetarian. The noodle bowl was excellent, especially after I added some spice.

In the Longhua neighborhood, once the French quarter of Shanghai. It’s now filled with elegant shops and restaurants. Left is the “Red House”, where the Chinese communist party was born. Mao was the scribe.

The best of the area’s buildings have been preserved. These were the homes not only of the French contingent but of wealthy Chinese who preferred to live in a more secure area of the city.

I’d love to end this posting with a short video that shows our night view of Shanghai but the internet connection won’t allow this. So enjoy these stills.

Evening in Shanghai.

After a sea day, our next port of call is Quindao.

Zhoushan, Mount Putuo and a Day at Sea

Sunset over the islands of the Zhoushan archipelago

Yesterday and today are our “let’s be slugs” days. In the port of Zhoushan, the only excursion we signed up for was an evening outdoor performance set against the natural landscape of Mount Putuo, on the main island of Zhoushan. Mount Putuo is one of four mountains sacred to Buddhists. (The mountain is dedicated to Guanyin, the goddess of mercy, for the detail-oriented readers.)

The performance, called Impression Putuo, was designed and directed by Zhang Yimou, known for the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. The performance blended dance, drama, cutting-edge lighting and sound technologies to communicate legends, Buddhist culture, the island’s maritime culture and a dozen other themes that mostly went over our heads. It’s all in Chinese, of course. During the performance, our seating area, holding at least a thousand, rotated from scene to scene. Viking passengers were perhaps half the patrons, all the others being mostly Chinese. All in all, an impressive show, however little we understood of it. (The main character becomes an enlightened monk. I got that part.)

I start pictures of our trip to see the performance with a shot of our transportation. The steps into the seating area were as high as ones on an English double decker although there was but one level to the bus. Right: The entrance to the theater.

The following are random pictures from the performance, some of the immediate stage, some projections on a high cylindrical screen at the back of the stage that opened and closed, some of the hillside beyond the stage, and some of the surrounding mountains. Between act, the entire seating area would slowly rotate to the next scene.

Here are a few more pictures of sites within the Yi Dun.

Left: This display area was in Chinese only, a reminder that the ship is predominately a Chinese one. Right: This shot is one side of “The Restaurant”, one of seven plus venues where passengers can find food. The two main restaurants are set up in a U shape, avoiding the typical cavernous dining area normally found on cruise ships. The food offerings are a mix of western and Chinese. We eat both, sometimes during the same meal.

Left: We attend one or two talks a day, more on sea days such as we are having as I write this. You will have to look up Ming Admiral Zheng. His voyages were remarkable. Right: The central sun deck/pool area has a retractable roof.

An aside on the Silk Road: It was (and currently again is) the Belt and Road. The “road” is the sea routes to Europe and the Americas. The “belt” was and is the overland routes. The three main exports of prior ages were silk, porcelain and spices. For obvious reasons, the porcelain went by sea, the weight and fragility of porcelain not being conducive to camel transport.

As I stated above, the visit to the island of Zhoushan was followed by a sea day. There must be a logistical reason for this sea day as we are not that far from Shanghai, our next port of call. 


Dongtou and the Wanghai Tower

Even after our tour and an internet search, I am not sure as to the history of repairing and rebuilding the Wanghai Tower. I know the original tower was built in 434 A.D. under the governorship of Yan Yanzhi. I know the Chinese (as well as several other Asian cultures) tend to consider place as more important as a historic landmark than any current physical structure. Nevertheless, this impressive 118 foot high structure sits atop a high hill, overlooking the Dongtou archipelago and the East China Sea.

Left: No striking skyscrapers this stop, but these apartment tops are interesting. Right: The entrance to the Wanghai Tower park.

The grounds are beautiful, with several nearby pavilions. The tower contains exhibition halls of artifacts and depictions of the area’s heritage and customs.

Pavilions on the grounds.

Two views of the tower.

Before we entered the tower, we visitors were entertained by a women’s drum troupe, dancers and a male singing group.


The drum troupe and dancers

Left: Fishermen would burn off barnacles and other unwanted attachments to a ship’s hull.

Two of many exhibits of local traditional culture.

Views from the tower’s fourth level, the highest we could go. The day was not clear, in fact threatening a rain that did not come. Nevertheless, the views were enjoyable despite the misty air.

Left: Yan Yanzhi, builder of the original tower. Right: These cliffs, as seen from the towers fourth tier are likely not them, but nearby is a set of cliffs called “Half Screen”. Legend has it that the other half is located on Taiwan, separated by the gods.

The cruise is moving along, with the next port of Zhongshan just south of Shanghai. 

Pingtan

The city of Pingtan straddles the boundary between the East and South China Seas, just across the straits from Taiwan. The islands in the region are called the “Maldives of China”, but I have no clue why. It’s an attractive area but nothing like the Maldives in appearance.

Our destination for the day was the Haitian Ancient Town, a construction in the architectural style of traditional China, particularly of the Ming and Qing dynasties. In the town is the Haitian Coastal Defense Museum, which includes maritime exhibits and, as the name implies, the history of the defense of the area from pirates and other invaders.

Sights in route to Haitian Ancient Town. No post this cruise is complete without a picture of a city’s modern architecture.

What do you notice in these pictures of the entrance to the town? Few people. The town was constructed ten years ago with the intent of attracting Taiwanese to visit. About the time the construction was complete, relations with Taiwan deteriorated. If privately developed, undoubtedly the developers went bankrupt. Just as assuredly, the government must be keeping the complex afloat.

The righthand picture is the museum we visited.

Closeups of facade detail

Street sculptures

Left: A sedan chair

Left: A full sized warship. Right: A wagon. The exhibits included beautifully constructed models of warships from the various nations involved in Chinese coastal combat. As a wooden ship model constructor, I was envious of the builders’ talents.

Armor and clothing, not reproductions

War planners at work

Left: A canal in the town. Right: It was a hot day, so we made use of some of our yuans. Two healthy servings? About 80 cents each.

Our ship continues north. The next port? Dongtou.









Xiamen

I’m composing this blog three days after the event and the coastal towns we’ve visited are beginning to run together in my mind. Yet, what we have seen in each place is quite different. Xiamen is an attractive city of four million. For seventy years it was a British-run treaty port (until 1912, and then called Amoy). Like Shenzhen, it was an early designee as a Special Economic Zone (as of 1980). It has prospered since but maintained its attractiveness.

Once again, we were greeted with interesting modern constructions.

One can pick only one excursion and we opted for the “included” one, a visit to the Huihe Stone Cultural Park.

We’ve seen several Chinese Coast Guard ships but no Chinese Navy craft. The hills along the coast are dotted with hilltop military outposts, including radar installations. Right: The skyline in route to the museum.

Left: On entering the museum, we were confronted with this large photo of Premier Xi greeting Putin. Right: One of the museum guides.

A theme I will get back to several times during the trip is that 1) much of what we are seeing is relatively new. So much was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution of the 60’s and 70’s that the museums and historic architecture we are viewing are reconstructions and not original. Salvaged artifacts are now placed in museums such as the Huihe Stone Cultural Park. Thus far there has been no mention of the disaster of the Great Leap Forward, during which tens of millions starved to death, nor of the devastation of China’s cultural heritage during the Cultural Revolution. I doubt this will change.

By contrast, there is a clear obsession by the Chinese of two things. The first is the “Century of Humiliation” for the period between the 1st Opium War (1839-42) to the victory of the Communists in 1949. The second obsession is, of course, Taiwan. I can’t tell you how many times we have been reminded by guides that Taiwan is “part of China”. Likely, this is more true of this coastal region of China, where we are not far from Taiwan.

Here is a random selection of sculptures and art we viewed in the museum. The exhibits are a mix of historic and more recent art.

There is a heavy Buddhist emphasis in the artifacts. Today, in China, more than 200 million Chinese still practice Buddhism and Taoism.

The museum includes more modern works. The moon goddess in the righthand picture is by a Chinese sculptorbut clearly Western in form. In fact, several similar sculptures were not only ancient Greek in style but had classic Greek faces.

We watched a demonstration of a traditional tea ceremony. This was followed by a puppet show in classical Chinese style. Each puppet was operated with two hands inside to give it more detailed motion.

What we missed in our tour was a view of Xiamen’s picturesque colonial architecture. A nearby island is a UNESCO world heritage site. One can’t see everything.

Our next port? Pingtan, just across from Taiwan. 

On Board the Shang Yi Dun

We’ve not sailed on a Viking ocean cruise ship before, so the size and facilities on the ship are new to us. The passenger capacity is 930 guests, but it’s carrying just 533 passengers this cruise. We normally prefer smaller cruise ships but we’ve become quite comfortable with the Yi Dun. I’ll not bore you with many pictures of the ship’s  layout and amenities. That is better done with an internet search.

Perhaps more interesting is the history of the ship. It was launched as the Viking Sun in 2017. In 2021, however, it was sold to the China Merchants Group and registered as a Chinese vessel. It’s now operated as a joint venture between Viking and the China Merchants Group. The crew is almost entirely Chinese. (An odd exception: The head chef is a Mexican woman.)

While almost all the passengers are American, with a few Canadians, Australians and Brits mixed in, perhaps a third of the passengers are Americans and Canadians of Chinese ancestry. Some are from Hong Kong and Singapore.

All the crew who interact with the passengers have some proficiency with English, but less so than on other cruise ships. I attribute this to the fact that on most cruise ships there are twenty or thirty nationalities represented amongst the crew. Hence, the common language even among the crew members is English. On this ship, it’s Mandarin. This likely slows improvement in English proficiency. Nuanced statements are error prone. I passed an Asian noodle station on the way into one of the restaurants and stated the noodle dish (dan dan) looked good. Later, sitting at a table in the restaurant, eating a course I had selected from the buffet line, I was brought a bowl of the noodles I had apparently inadvertently ordered. They, in fact, were good.

The decor of the ship is Scandinavian with Chinese accoutrements. (An oddity is that one of the restaurants, a small one, serves only Norwegian dishes. When we passed through it to reach a bar where the pianist was performing, no one was dining there.)

Not unexpectedly, the restaurants serve both Western and Asian fare, although the two specialty (i.e. reservations required) restaurants offer mostly Western cuisine.

We have multiple reservations for these specialty restaurants, in several cases sharing with couples we traveled with in Mongolia. One night we inadvertently entered a specialty restaurant instead of the main restaurant. Rather than turn us away, they invited us in, saying it was a light night for customers.

I promised only a few pictures, but here they are.

Left: The senior crew. Right: Our accidental meal in a speciality restaurant, Manfredi’s

There are four lecturers on board, but only one we really like. For the rest of the cruise, we’ll go to her talks and, for the others, if after the fact we hear we’ve missed something good, we’ll watch the lecture later in our cabin. Frances and I have both read and listened to Great Courses lessons on China and we’ve found most of the lectures too simplified to be interesting. The oddest lecturer, to our mind, was the former Mexican Cultural Ambassador. His English is marginal and his lecture pictures generated by AI. As I said, odd.

Our favorite lecturer; Right: Any clue as to what we are drinking?

For this cruise we upgraded our cabin to a junior suite. It’s far from the owners suite we lucked into during our Kimberley cruise, but it’s quite nice. We especially enjoy the double sinks and large shower.

On Viking, unless one purchases the enhanced beverage package, wine is available only during lunch and dinner. This does not prevent us from refilling our glasses several times during meals, then taking the last glassfuls back to our cabin. 😁

The entertainment has been excellent. Particularly outstanding was the performance by the Guangzhou Acrobatic Group.

There are several musicians and musician groups on board, but our favorite is the pianist. She plays classical in the atrium before dinner and more contemporary selections in the evening in one of the lounges. The atrium piano is a Steinway and she does it justice.

The pianist. I thought she played the Chopin a bit fast. Aren’t I the snob? (She’s very good.)

Next, it’s back to our ports of call along the coast as we travel east through the South China Sea, pass between the mainland and Taiwan, then head north through the East China Sea. 

Shenzhen

In 1970, when I got a distant view of the territory that would become the city of Shenzhen, the population of the area was 22,000 to 30,000 people. Primarily, it was a fishing village. Shenzhen now has a population of over 17 million and is the third largest city in China. This is not the place to visit if you are looking for traditional China. It is the place to come to view fantastic skyscrapers. Shenzhen boasts over 440 buildings over 500 feet tall, 21 over a thousand feet, and one, the Ping An Financial Centre, almost 2000 feet high. It’s the fourth tallest skyscraper in the world. Here are a few through-the-bus-window shots. You can get much better pictures from the internet but, gee, these are mine. The top-middle one is the Ping An Centre.

Our first stop was in a public park, which gave us a view of many of the buildings. We were then dropped in a shopping area for a bit. Prices for the goods we viewed were surprisingly inexpensive.

Yes, there was a McDonalds, as well as KFC and a few other familiar fast food joints in the area. Prices were 1/2 to a 1/3 of what we would pay.

I’ve used Google translate often on this trip. Translations can be a little, shall we say, too literal. What looked like Boston Cream Pie had a sign saying “Durian forgets to return.” Our guide said it meant the cake (Durian) was so good you would forget about returning home. On the right is a vending machine selling bottles of plain and flavored waters for 40 to 90 cents each.

The city center is not totally devoid of art and sculpture.

Shenzhen became China’s first “special economic zone” in 1979, the stimulus for its phenomenal growth. “Shenzhen speed” became the description of hyper-speed development. As one lecturer declared: “In China, the government bureaucracy is filled with engineers, who can’t stop themselves from building. In the U.S., the government bureaucracy is filled with lawyers, who can’t help but stop the building.”

Next? We sail east to Xiamen, but not before a welcome day at sea. 

Hong Kong - 1970

If you were to go through our passports, you would conclude we had just visited Hong Kong. We have the entry and exit visa stamps to prove it. In truth, after landing at the Hong Kong airport and passing through immigration, we climbed aboard a waiting Viking bus and drove, with a guide providing commentary, to the border of Hong Kong and the Chinese city of Shenzhen. Given the guide-provided commentary, I’ll claim the visit.

So what about Hong Kong? I have decided to inject a guest blogger, a 23 year-old lieutenant who visited Hong Kong on R&R from Vietnam the spring of 1970.

One of my regrets is that twenty-plus years ago, I crudely converted my slides to blurry digital photos, then disposed of the slides. Dumb move. Nevertheless, I give you Hong Kong, 1970.

Left: Hong Kong harbor (harbour, I should say) from Victoria Peak. Right: The footpath to the peak. I walked up to the peak to save the fare, then rode down the tram, just the opposite of what I would do today.

I filched these photos from the internet to show the same sights today. 

The junks in the harbor, plus a few of the hundreds of boats that people lived on in the harbor.


Inside the Walled City of Kowloon. An incredible 35,000 people lived within its 6 1/2 acres. There was no law or government present and control was in the hands of rival triad gangs. It must have been relatively safe to visit, nevertheless, as I certainly did. The city was leveled in the 1980’s. Right: I took this picture of the border with China from an observation tower in the then New Territories. I suspect the area is now covered with Shenzhen skyscrapers.

I recall paying a Hong Kong dollar to the old peasant to take his picture. I didn’t pay anything for a photo of the goofy looking guy on the right. My shirt was truly a 1970’s fashion statement.

My next post? The skyscrapers of Shenzhen, a city I had barely heard of and now the third largest in China. 


The Gobi Desert

We’re in the Gobi Desert, 500,000 square miles of semi-arid plateau with extremes of weather, from -40 degree winters to near 100 in the summer. But for us, while a little warm, the weather was quite nice. The flight from Ulaanbaatar south to our destination was two hours long. There was another hour of driving to get to our lodging.

Our Cessna being rolled into position for loading and takeoff. Right: The view from the Cessna just south of Ulaanbaatar. 

We’re driving to our camp. Our group comprised seven couples. Each couple was assigned a vehicle and a driver for the four days in the desert. There were no real roads, only well-worn vehicle routes and occasionally cross-country paths to our destinations.

This was our yurt, or ger, in Mongolian. Other than a leaky pipe which caused us to use the hand-held vs the shower head, it’s a hotel room-like accommodation. Then again, there were the bugs. Our first night we had an inundation of bugs, one of which bit me in the middle of the night. Our bug-body count reached three dozen. The suite must have been fumigated at our insistence as the next several nights our trophy count dropped to under a dozen.

Our location was well south of Ulaanbaatar, about 200 miles from the China border. Right: An evening shot from our ger.

There were four hours of tortuous driving the first full day. We’re about a hour from each of our morning and afternoon destinations, all over little more than trails. Actually, they were trails, yet the drivers were moving as fast as 60 kph over the dirt traces, and occasionally across untraveled open areas. There were only two passengers per vehicle, so seven vehicles in all. All were Lexus-make Land Rover-style vehicles. I was glad I wore my back brace.

In some areas there were up to eight or nine tracks to follow; in others, a single rutted route. Our driver made many quick decisions as to which trace would be the smoothest. He also maneuvered to stay out of the dust clouds of the vehicles in front. Often there was more than a quarter mile between cars. The seven vehicles kept in a strict order. We were number 4. 

Our first destination of the day was to visit the Gurvan National Park, in the eastern end of the Altai Mountains.

At the entrance to Yol Valley’s Gobi Gurvan Saikan National Park is a museum containing scores of desert animals and birds, preserved in the 1970’s. Outside the museum are specimens of petrified wood.

Hiking up Yol Valley. We crossed a small creek at least a dozen times. We hoped, each time, that our old legs would make the small jump without incident.

Twice we passed bridges to nowhere. The creek has meandered elsewhere.

Left: These piles were once clan boundaries, then shrines. Now one cannot add or take from the piles. Right: The Gobi Desert waterfall, 😊, Mongolia’s answer to Iguazu, Victoria, and Niagara Falls.

Left: Many Mongolians still use gers in the countryside, often with two or three in a home complex. This ger is owned by a nomadic herding family. Right: We all drank fermented camel milk. It’s an acquired taste, as is the camel’s milk vodka we all were expected to try. 

Left: The roof of the ger. Right: The ger owner’s son. The complex had three gers, a “living room”, a kitchen, and a bedroom.

Left: These were our mounts. Right: Yes, we had to wear helmets. The width of the camels stretched our legs, but they were otherwise easy to ride.

The Gobi Desert is a major desert, but sand dunes are not common in all areas. This area is called the Moltsog Els. Still, what camel ride is complete without climbing a dune. 

My kids (several who are quite talented at archery) would have been proud of my archery attempts. I did hit the target several times and impressed our guide (who I don’t think was an expert himself). I admit I did better using the western method of holding the arrow rather than the Mongolian method. Then again, I wasn’t riding a horse and shooting at the same time. Right: Frances and me in uniform. 

More of our group in costume.

We were given a talk by a Mongolian paleontologist. Dinosaur fossils are found throughout the country. At least 92 different species within Mongolia have been identified. The right picture was taken of original film we saw which featured early 1920’s expeditions to fossil sites, led by the United States. Only a fraction of the original footage was salvaged and restored, but what we viewed was fascinating. 

In route to a fossil excavation site, the Flaming Cliffs. It was here that the American team from the American Museum of Natural History discovered the first nest of dinosaur eggs. Exploration at this site continues.

Frances and me with the Flaming Cliffs behind us. Right: The fossil I am brushing was discovered just the day before by the paleontologist who gave our lecture. This find will now have to be registered and further excavation approved before he can continue. He covered the find with dirt, exposing it just for us. He’ll keep it covered until he gets the necessary clearance to proceed. The skull, all that is exposed so far, looks impressive to me, but the professor said that the protoceratop, which it apparently is, has been “well studied”.

Frances found a descendant of the dinosaur, at least an inch long. While she didn’t find a fossil, she did discover a heart.

We listened to a fantastic concert which featured Mongolia “throat singing”. With throat singing, two pitches are sung at once, low (sometimes a very low base) and a high tone. Often the two pitches are non-synchronous. The woman singer had a similar two-pitch technique. The instruments used were traditional. All in all, a marvelous event. 

Left: Yes, the young performer hit the target, a bullseye. Right: The full, remarkable group.

One event we skipped was a hike to view the Havsgait Petroglyphs. We were advised the hike was rugged. Only half our group braved the trip.

We were entertained by a Mongolian artist, who produced works we could keep. He is also a performance artist. In the righthand picture, he is dynamically painting the screens from the back side. It was fascinating to watch as he produced the drawings.

The flight back to Ulaanbaatar was pleasant and uneventful. We flew in a slightly larger Cessna model this time, with roomier seats.

A view from our room back in the Shangri-La. Right: Our final dinner. The entire group agreed that the Mongolian food we were served that night was outstanding. I had to revised my opinion of Mongolian cuisine, at least the high end offerings. The courses were all served in a giant lazy Susan.

I thought the fourteen of us on the Mongolian excursion bonded well. We’ll look forward to seeing each other on occasion when we get to our cruise ship in Hong Kong.

Our time in Mongolia is over. Despite the confused start, the journey ultimately was quite a grand experience. Our flight out the next morning, scheduled for 6:20 a.m. required us to rise at 2:00 a.m. 2:00 a.m.? Didn’t i once complain that we were forced to take two flights, via Seoul, to Hong Kong that would not get us to our ship until well after midnight? Well, don’t ever deny that nagging and complaining can’t pay off. Led by our hecktering, we were all rebooked on the morning’s flight direct from Ulaanbaatar to Hong Kong, the one we wanted to take in the first place. It was worth the early rise and economy seats. The person in front of me on that flight never moved her seat, for which my knees were thankful.

Next: Hong Kong, sort’a.

Mongolia and China and Tibet, Oh My!

For  those of you who know our trip started on August 29, no, we are not lost, dead or physically disabled. (The jury’s out on mentally.) I’m just dead tired. Neither time nor energy have been sufficient to keep a realtime blog. Hence, I’ll be doling out a well-after-the-fact set of notes and pictures as I am able. Today is a sea day aboard the Yi Dun and there are only five lectures, ten musical events, a dozen special activities, and, of course, three meals scheduled, so I should have plenty of time to start the trip’s first post.

First, some advice. Unless you enjoy my blow-by-blow tedium of the trials and tribulations of getting from A to a distant B, skip down to the second set of pictures to begin reading. I just dumped a weeks worth of notes into the following.

Here are the beginning of my notes, some in the present tense and some using the past:

Getting to Mongolia

Looking ahead to Mongolia, Chinggis Khan and his mighty warrior, Frances, on a Bactrian camel.

We’re really not ready for this trip. I question myself as to why I scheduled two trips to the other side of the earth so closely together. We both have struggled to recover from our return from Australia two weeks ago and facing a grueling 33 hour door-to-ger (Mongolian yurt) transit hasn’t lightened the mood.

I exaggerate. It’ll be 33 hours home to Ulaanbaatar hotel door, if all goes well. (It didn’t. Make that 38 hours, but more on that below.) We’ll be traveling to the ger the next morning. We have scheduled an uber for our trip to the airport on Friday. Our 15-year old Genesis remains reliable, wonderfully so, but one should ease up on pushing the elderly too fast or too far. Advice we perhaps should be listening to ourselves. But not yet!

So why this trip now? Because there were several special attractions that drew us to it. One was the offered pre-trip extension to visit Mongolia. The second is a scheduled journey to Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. A third positive, at least for us, is that thirteen days of the China visit will be on a cruise ship that will travel up the coast from Hong Kong to Tianjin, the closest port to Beijing. The tradeoff will be a shorter time in the interior of China. 

The itinerary is courtesy of Viking Cruises. We traveled on several Viking River cruises, but this will be our first on one of their ocean-going ships, the Yi Dun. We generally like Viking but not as much as a few others, such as Scenic, Regent, Silversea and Seabourn. While we are hoping this trip will up that assessment, as I write this, our assessment of Viking has gone in the other direction. More, too, on this later.

We’ll be gone a full month, roughly parsed into four experiences: five days in Mongolia, nearly two weeks on board the Yi Dun, a week inland (including Tibet), and four days in Beijing. A few of these days plus the trip over and back will be consumed with the transits. Oddly, one had to select the Beijing extension to visit the iconic sights of the Forbidden Palace and the Great Wall. 

Preparation for this trip started with obtaining visas. The application is long and detailed and, unless one wants to go to Washington D.C. or San Francisco for an interview at the Chinese embassy, paying a third party is standard to help in the process. You can pay a big fee to get this help or pay an even greater fee to shepherd you through the full process. We (nervously) went the cheaper route, but all ended well. All of those we have spoken to so far chose the more expensive service, awed that we took such a risk. Perhaps ignorance as to the risk was bliss. We now both have ten-year, multiple-entry visas for China—not that we will ever need them again.

There is also a special visa for Tibet, but we’ve submitted the required photos and other information to Viking, who, hopefully, will take care of that hurdle. Mongolia has no visa requirement for U.S. citizens

After some agonizing, we’ve decided to pack using carry-on luggage, not an easy task for me, at least, especially as we will be experiencing weather that will vary from as low as the high 30’s to the high 80’s. Why do I have the problem? Shoes. A second set of shoes, for me, occupies a third of a carry-on. I’ll go without the backup and for both Gobi Desert treks and fine-dining on the Li Dun, I’ll will be wearing my Skecher slip-ins. Tacky, tacky. Let’s just hope the hikes in the Altai Mountains of Mongolia don’t destroy the shoes.

I rather blew the Uber ride to the airport. When the credit card I use with Uber was compromised while we were in Australia, I thought I had changed to a new card for all those vendors for which this compromised card was the primary payment method. But, alas, I must have fumbled the fix for Uber. Hence, the great rate I had obtained when I made a reservation for the trip to the airport was lost when Uber canceled the reservation the morning of our departure. I wish they had informed me earlier, grumble, grumble. The new reservation cost $25 more—but we got to the airport.

Our flight out of Austin, the first of the three legs to get to Ulaanbaatar was 45 minutes late getting airborne. Once again, we stopped on the tarmac while a maintenance issue was addressed. Thoughts of our horrendous travel to Australia in July came to mind (where the troubles begin with a similar delay on the tarmac), but we finally got aloft. I won’t even complain (well, yes, I will) about the man in front of me slamming his seat fully back for the whole flight. Jerk. I was fully prepared to regress into my four-year-old mode and start kicking his seat back, but common sense prevailed. He looked a lot stronger than me.

The seven hours in the Delta One lounge at LAX (make that six hours thanks to the delayed flight out of Austin) went predictably slowly, but pleasantly. We’ve rarely been in such an elegant lounge. We both indulged in the mechanical massage chairs, and I don’t mean a vibrating chair, I mean one that entraps one’s hands and arms, legs and feet, as well as the body. The chair kneads about as deeply as one can stand for as long as one can stand. A minor nit is that I believe the chair is optimized for a shorter person, as it stopped short of a good massage of the neck. Frances enjoyed the experience so much she signed up for another’s round a few hours later.

Our next leg was from LAX to Inchon (Seoul) via Korean Air. When we arrived at the departure gate we found ourselves two of only a handful of occidental’s waiting to board. (Is occidental still politically acceptable? I know, or think I know, oriental isn’t.)

The trip over the pond was on a venerable 747. I haven’t flown on a 747 in decades. The business class seats (“prestige class” on Korean Air) are a bit short for me in the flat position, but otherwise are quite roomy. The seat “pods” are rectangular, now considered inefficient in use of space. We had selected two adjacent pods in the middle, which made conversation between Frances and me quite easy.

As with other non-American and European airlines, the flight attendants are trim and neatly dressed, “like back in my day!” cried Frances, remembering the weight and dress standards from her time as a stewardess/attendant. Curiously, the five attendants in our section, all women and likely Korean (presumptuous person that I am) had matching hairstyles. They were very efficient and attentive. And somehow they knew to look at Frances when talking to me, who would repeat what they were saying or asking. Likely they’ve dealt with deaf seniors before.

Another word on food.  I counted eight major meal opportunities from departure from home to arrival in Chinggis Khan airport in Ulaanbaatar. (There are several spellings of Chinggis, including Genghis and Chinghis. I’ll use all the spellings, randomly. 😏) I count our six-plus hours in the Delta One lounge as only one meal opportunity and did not include the clean-out-the-refrigerator lunch before being picked up for our uber to the airport. I took advantage of, oh, all eight of them; Frances four. Guess which one of us has the weight problem. 

Not being able to sleep midway through the twelve hour flight to Seoul, the attendant asked if I would like a snack. Snack? It was a full bowl of Korean ramen. And it was hot, very hot. Frances tried one bite (she had just awaken) and couldn’t tolerate any more. I ate the whole thing.

At this point, despite the non-problematic delay out of Austin, all had gone well, or at least as expected. In Seoul we boarded our 330 aircraft, surprised and pleased at the roomy seats. But, out on the tarmac, the dreaded “we must return to the gate” announcement was made. Return we did but, thank goodness, the apparent problem was resolved and we departed only two hours late. When we arrived at Chinghis Khan Airport, we and six others we met up with expecting to be greeted by the Viking agent, alas, were not greeted. This took an hour to resolve followed by the hour trip to our hotel in Ulaanbaatar. Hence, 38 hours from home to hotel.

A first impression as we landed in Mongolia? As treeless as we expected, but much greener. Apparently this has been a good year for rainfall in this country. The green is mostly all pasture land.

Our first night’s stay was at the Shangri-La Hotel in Ulaanbaatar. It’s an attractive hotel and our room quite adequate. What I loved most, though, was the shower. This shower must have the best water flow in a hotel room I have experienced in years.

Ulaanbaatar

A first impression of Ulaanbaatar is that its socialist roots still show. Apartment complex after apartment complex dominate the city’s fringe, many of them under construction. The older ones show the featureless concrete facades one associates with the Soviet era. Newer ones are more colorful. Half of Mongolia’s three and a half million citizens live in this city.

The first sign of the changes since Mongolia’s independence from Soviet control in 1990 is the prevalence of English signage on commercial buildings. We passed an establishment displaying the words “CAR WASH” with no Mongolian subtitle.

The second sign of change was the traffic. The school term has just started so the streets and highways are even more crowded than usual. Families are moving back into the city after a summer in the countryside.

This is not a well organized trip and our next surprise is that after checking in at the hotel, we were off to visit the Chinggis Khan Museum, an activity the original itinerary scheduled for our last day in country. (In fact, four of what would be fourteen of us on this tour extension had not yet arrived.) The museum’s nine floors of Mongolian history, with its 10,000 artifacts, and the tour duration of two hours allowed only a superficial examination of the exhibits. But despite the excellence of the museum, two factors limited our enjoyment. First, there is very little display explanation in English. Google translate would have been useful. Alma, our guide, did the lecturing during the tour. Second, most of us, certainly including us, were dead on our feet.

Left: Entry into the museum. Right: Modum Chanyu, founder of the 1st (Xiongnue) of many empires in the greater Mongolian area, 209-174 BC. (The museum, while new, still uses BC vs BCE.) Steppe empires followed a consistent pattern of a nomadic tribe conquering the existing empire, the  next several generations becoming sedentary and, thus, “soft”, then defeated by another nomadic clan. Displaced clans often moved west, such as the Huns and the Turks.

Sculptures, small and large.

On the top (ninth) floor is the sculpture of Chinghis Khan, made with 250 lbs of gold. Do Frances and I look look a bit tired? Yup.

After the museum visit we made a short stop at Sukhbaatar Square, the heart of Ulaanbaatar and the location of Mongolia’s impressive parliament building. Some sights from the square:

On our return we had our first group meal, our first exposure to the Mongolian staple, a generous and tasty portion of chewy beef. The chewiness we discover was standard. We also enjoyed a cross section of local dishes, including two types of dumplings and various salads and side dishes. More on Mongolian cuisine later, but suffice it to say France, Italy, India, and other homes of notable culinary delights will have little to fear from Mongolian competition. (Jumping ahead, our last night in Mongolia featured a meal that was simply outstanding.)

Our next morning started with breakfast in the hotel. The breakfast buffet is one of the best we have encountered anywhere and ever. We could have eaten from that buffet for all the meals of the day.

We then walked to the Choijin Lama Museum. This was truly a highlight of our time in Ulaanbaatar. A complex of five Buddhist temples and filled with artistic and sculptural works, the Choijin Lama was built in 1908 and converted during the Soviet era to a museum of Mongolian religion.

Here are a few pictures of the temples and their contents:

No overseas trip is complete without a photo of a wedding shoot.

On our return to the hotel we packed up and were transported to what had been the principal airport for the capital until the Chinghis Khan airport opened in 2021. Our group of fourteen plus two guides climbed aboard two nine-passenger Cessnas for the two hour flight south to our destination in the Gobi Desert. Large bags were left at the hotel, to be retrieved after our adventure in the Gobi; carry-on sized luggage was loaded (the night before) on a truck which drove overnight to our destination. We carried only our backpacks with us, stored during the flight in the belly of the plane. I could have used a few more inches of knee room in the cabin, but the flight otherwise was enjoyable. 

Our destination? The Gobi Nomad Lodge.