Beijing - Day 4: The Great Wall of China -- and Home

Our last full day in China! And what a better finale than a visit to the Great Wall of China. There is 10,000 miles of it and the section we visited was called Badaling. (About 5,500 miles of the wall is still well preserved.) The wall was started in the 7th century and variously expanded and maintained until the end of the the Ming Dynasty.

A funicular carried us to a place in the wall between two peaks. We walked up to the peaks in each direction, but went no farther as the inclines down (and up to the next peaks) would all have to be retraced. We're not masochists.

We're on the Wall.

A close and a long view of the wall, which stretched not only in both directions but meandered from mountain top to mountain top as far is the eye could see.

Note the slope of the walkway. The steeper slopes were both with and without steps.

Our travel group for the entire trip since departing the Yi Dun. There were several such groups, with different guides and often staying in different hotels. I believe our group lucked into the best possible hotel accommodations, perhaps because we had a veteran guide. The guide's job is not easy. Besides all the detailed planning and execution required, some travel group members are, shall we say, needier than others. Accommodations for some, particularly for those frequently needing wheelchairs, were a constant requirement. Our guide Richard (in the red jacket) handled it all expertly, although he admits that for two days after the end of these tours, he doesn't even try to speak with his wife while he decompresses. He earned his tips, for which I hope our contribution was satisfactory.

After a final Chinese lunch we had one more adventure before returning to the hotel that last night. We stopped at the Sacred Way of Ming Tombs, where thirteen of the sixteen Ming dynasty emperors are  buried. (Only one of the last fourteen is not buried here. Why that one? Our guide related to us that the politics of these dynasties makes "Game of Thrones" look tame in contrast.) Mostly, we strolled down a tree-lined avenue guarded by elephants, lions, camels and mythical beasts and admired the marble gateway known the the Great Red Gate, more than 400 years old. It was a tranquil end to the day's excursion and an end to our China adventure.

Left: We visited a jade production and sales shop. To the left the artisan is producing jade balls within balls. For better or for worse, many of our lunches were in establishments that were shops and an associated restaurant. Quite a few of our group purchased products and I, as always, was tempted. To the right, our last group lunch. We got to try a schnapps-like liqueur that I quite liked. I went for a second round, despite warnings about its potency.

A monument to the Ming emperors, enhanced, oddly, during the following Qing (Manchu) dynasty. The Qing dynasty sought legitimacy (being Manchurians rather than Han Chinese) by respecting its predecessor dynasty. The Qing dynasty did not overthrow its predecessor. Rather, the Ming dynasty ended with the Peasants' Revolt and the Manchu took advantage of the power vacuum by invading and taking control.

Elephants, lions, camels, mythical beasts and imperial advisors line the avenue. The picture on the left includes my own imperial advisor.

The tree-lined avenue and the 400 year old stone-arched Great Red Gate.

The next day we had a late afternoon flight back to the U.S. (SFO), so we wasted our last morning in our hotel room doing as little as we could. We succeeded. For our late breakfast I ordered my last Asian meal in Asia.

Getting out of China was as tough as getting in, with the usual lines for a tight security screening and immigration check (weren’t we emigrating?) and a packed airport tram in between. The United lounge is the Air China lounge, at the wrong end of the terminal, so that journey was our exercise for the day. Our flights were on time, early even, but we did not get home until 1:30 a.m. in the morning. We paid extra for Uber Comfort transportation and were picked up within four minutes of our request. Nevertheless, we are home, safe, tired, happy and once again going through the dreaded time zone readjustment that will disrupt our normal sleep patterns for a week.

Lessons learned: VPN, at least NordVPN, did not work at all in China and thus was a waste of money. I've cancelled our service. Plus, one gets inundated with upgrade options. On the other hand, cellular worked fine and, once I got hotspot set up, we had all the connectivity for both the iPhone and both our iPads that we needed, without restrictions. Hotel WiFi in China isn't worth connecting to as we could not get to anything useful on the internet. The exception was on the cruise ship. The connections in that case varied from fair near ports to nearly non-existent on the high seas.

I set up Alipay to use for purchases in China. It was easy to do, but I only used it once. Others in our group used it more often.

We've mixed feelings about Viking. The extensions, Mongolia at the front and China inland after the cruise, were excellent experiences. The tour directors for both extensions were outstanding. The cruise itself was also well done, although the all-Chinese crew put a different spin on the experience than one would get with the more typical international crew. Viking has more add-on costs than most higher-end cruise lines, which is an aggravation, but we went in knowing this was the case. (Viking is somewhat less expensive to book than cruise lines such as Regent, but the cost evens out when Viking extras and crew tips are included.) Our biggest complaint was the mediocre "included tours" as opposed to the extra-cost tours. Those extra-cost tours were generally excellent. Viking Air, for its part, needs to start talking with the rest of Viking. Still, we like Viking well enough to keep our reservation for a coming cruise.

We undertook this adventure with only carry-on luggage and modest backpacks. Nevertheless, we ended up checking our carry-ons for most of our flights, which more or less negated the advantages of limiting ourselves to such minimal luggage. Our suitcases were pretty stuffed, which had the advantage/disadvantage of leaving no room for purchases. Frances, in particular, is no longer an aggressive shopper. I am much more vulnerable to shiny baubles, especially expensive ones. There was this beautiful figurine I was eyeing, but the shopkeepers would not ship the purchase and it was too fragile to hand-carry for the rest of the trip and home..

While China is an authoritarian state, this did not manifest itself in our daily tours. Yes, security at airports and at most tourist sites was strict, particularly in Tibet. (You would not believe how many times we had to show our passports at attractions, particularly in Tibet and Beijing.) In all cases for us, the Chinese were friendly and welcoming, if they had any reaction at all to our presence. After all, we were just a small part of China's huge and growing tourist industry. China, at least the parts we saw, is a modern, fast-moving juggernaut of technology and and progress. Yet Frances would probably point out that the vast majority of women's toilets were still "squats", which she and the other women travelers in our group weren't ready to embrace. The saving grace was their use of the handicapped facilities, which had western toilets. The "bottom line" is that China is safe and inviting to visit, independent of national and international politics.

One slight negative was getting used to the "pushiness" of crowds, done without apology when contact is made. It's the Chinese way. I learned to cope, "when in Rome...", while Frances struggled with this throughout the trip.

It still awes me to see what has been achieved in just the last few decades in China. It makes one feel we, i.e. the U.S. as a nation, are worn out and dysfunctional. I pray that I am wrong, but when we landed at SFO, bypassed the non-functioning moving sidewalk, stepped on a sticky floor in the men's room, and shook our hands dry since the towel dispenser was empty, the contrast is startling. So my advice is: Don't worry about the complex visa requirements for China or of any danger while traveling in China. With one of the oldest civilizations in human history and with a population of over 17% of the world's total, we feel blessed that we finally added China, as well as Tibet and Mongolia, to our long list of experiences we have enjoyed in our travels.

Which brings us to my final comments. I started blogging our travel experiences in 2015 when Frances and I spent nearly six months exploring Europe. That was an adventure! A few of you have been readers of my blog since that beginning. It's come to the point where the effort of creating and posting our experiences is beginning to exceed the reward. That, plus the fact that we are transitioning from independent travel adventures, expedition cruises (think zodiacs), and often taxing land tours to more leisurely cruises and slower paced land excursions makes for potentially less interesting blog postings. Plus, I'm starting to feel my years at 79. (My 80+ year old friends, please quit snorting.) Hence, I'll be phasing out of the blogging business. How quickly and completely remains to be seen.

That doesn't mean we've quit traveling! In January, we again venture to the Mediterranean, this time to enjoy some new destinations to us, such as Malta, Tunisia and Algeria. In May, we stay in the U.S. with a cruise of the Columbia and Snake Rivers. The following year will include a cruise from Istanbul to Dubai (our third try at this), and we've rescheduled an oft-delayed trip to Japan. To quote Clint Eastwood: "Don't let the old man in!" Thanks for following us!

Beijing - Day 3: Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City

I had no idea the Forbidden City was so huge. I expected that of Tiananmen Square, billed as the largest public square in the world, but the Forbidden City was a surprise.

When visiting Beijing and vicinity, the two most iconic sights are Tiananmen Square-Forbidden City and the Great Wall. OK, there are 13,000 miles of Great Wall, but the best preserved and easiest to visit are sections close to Beijing--but that is tomorrow's story.

At 100 acres, Tiananmen Square can accommodate a million people. Once the "front door" to the Forbidden Palace, it is now surrounded by the Great Hall of the People, Mao Zedong's mausoleum, and other buildings and monuments (and a great bed of flowers).

We're in Tiananmen Square, facing north toward the Forbidden City. The crowds, we were told, were relatively modest that morning. Right: The Monument to the Revolutionary Struggle.

Left: The Zhengyangmen Gate Tower, on the south side of the square. This once was part of the city wall. Right: Somehow the "Old Bank Building" survives with some new purpose on the southwest corner of the square.

Left: The Great Hall of the People, on the west side of the square. Right: The Monument to the People's Heroes, a 124 foot tall obelisk, and the National Museum of China.

The Mao Zedong Memorial Hall. Right: The square sported an impressive and immaculately maintained bed of flowers.

There were many children visiting the square. The young lady on the right eagerly took our picture.

More sights in the square. We were cautioned to take only quick, distant photos of soldiers. All that we saw were trim, immaculately dressed and serious.

The Gate of Heavenly Peace with a smiling Mao on the north end of the square. This gate is actually only a first entry point leading to the true southern entry to the Forbidden City, the Meridian Gate.

We entered the Meridian Gate of the Forbidden City, now called the Palace Museum. Within it are 980 buildings and 9,999 rooms. (Some sources claim there are "only" 8886 rooms. I stopped counting at about 10.) It’s all protected by a moat and a 32-foot wall. From the southern entrance, featuring a grand portrait of Mao, we exited an hour later through the Gate of Divine Might, exhausted, and two-thirds of a mile north of our starting point.

It was during the Ming dynasty that the capital of China moved from Nanking to Beijing in 1406. (Beijing had been the capital earlier under the Mongols, then called Dadu.) The Forbidden city was constructed between 1406 and 1420, using one million workers. It remained the home and governing center of both the Ming and Qing dynasties until the abdication of the last emperor, Pu Yi, in 1912. Pu Yi remained in residential quarters in the Forbidden City until evicted in 1924.

While many of the treasures of the Forbidden City were removed and relocated to Taiwan by Chiang Kai-shek's forces, the palace remained remarkedly undamaged during the various wars and revolutions of the 20th century. Even during the destructive Cultural Revolution, a battalion of troops were sent to the city by Chou Enlai to protect it.

We entered through a tunnel leading to the south entrance. Left: Rubbing the door knobs surely brings the good luck promised. Right: I caught the soldieers in a moment of non-cordinated motion. Even from a distance, I'm not sure the one guard was pleased with my picture taking.

Right: Outside the Meridian Gate. Right: The gate is actually a complex. Left: We approach the inner gate.

All the halls and palaces and temples had names such as the Hall of Complete Harmony, the Hall of Preserving Harmony, the Palace of Heavenly Purity and the Palace of Earthly Tranquility. I would fail any attempt to match pictures with the proper names.

I finally got a picture of a couple where both are in costumes. I'm talking about the couple on the right.

Turtle and cistern

Right: The Dragon pavement, a carved, solid marble slab of 250 tons leading to the Hall of Supreme Harmony. The slab was moved from its origin to this location in the winter on a road paved with ice.

A few more pictures of temples:

We exited the Forbidden City at its northern end.

Left: The moat that surrounds the Forbidden City. Right: Perched on a hill overlooking the City is the pavilion of Everlasting Spring. It would have been a good panoramic view of the Forbidden City from that location but, alas, there was no time for that.

The day ended with another meal in the hotel restaurant, where we used out last coupon. We had the best hot and sour soup we have had in our lives. No exaggeration. Another of our travel companions said the same thing independently. 

Only one full day left, but what a day we expect it to be, a visit to the Great Wall of China..

Beijing - Day 2: The Temple of Heaven

Our schedule for our second day in Beijing was remarkedly light, with an unrushed wakeup and excursion not far from the hotel and ciy center. The objective: The Temple of Heaven . Built in the 15th Century during the Ming dynasty as a Taoist complex, the central temple has a distinctive circular design.

The Temple of Heaven is the largest of four related temples in Beijing, along with the Temple of the Sun, the Temple of the Moon, and the Temple of Earth, which we did not visit. These are collectively known as the Four Great Temples of Beijing, which honored celestial bodies in ancient China. The Temple of Heaven was where the emperor would pray for a good harvest. This continued with the following (and final) dynasty, the Qing. Here endeth your lesson.

Entry into the temple complex

These two temple buildings, now a museum, surround the central temple. Inside the museum is both a history of the temple and a history of its restoration efforts.

Left: Photographs of before and after the early 20th century restoration. Right: A model of the temple's structure.

Pictures of three emperors: one MIng and two Qing. I think.

A more distant view of the temple and a closer one.

View of the inside of the temple. We were not allowed to enter this day.

Left: The altar inside the temple. Right: A view of one of the entry gates.

As always, I've included pictures of the costumes worn by other visitors.

After our visit, we all had a late lunch, in the now familiar format of courses served family style on a lazy susan. And, as always, despite how good the food was, the quantity was too much for us to consume. No one ever goes away hungry. Beer was offered (no additional cost) at these lunches. While Frances and I are not regular beer drinkers, the brews were quite light, so were excellent at helping us wash down these meals. Right: Yet another view of the skyscrapers near our hotel. Omitted from my blog are the many classical and otherwise attractive buildings in Beijing that we passed.

For our evening meal, we had not signed up for the optional cost Peking duck experience (we had Peking duck several times already this trip), so used one of our coupons in the hotel's restaurant. For the first time on the land portion of this trip, we went western, each ordering a hamburger meal. Well, almost western. The meat was Wagyu beef and it was (with the accompanying sides) too much to eat for Frances. I had no such problem.

There remained two major excursion for our stay in Beijing. The first of these, Tiananmen Square and The Forbidden City, awaits us for the next day.

Beijing - Day 1: The Summer Palace

Our final stop in China is a four-day visit to its capital, Beijing. This time I’ll spare my long-suffering readers and post each of our four days in Beijing separately. Just too much has been seen and done to stuff it all into a single narrative. With luck, by the time I compose the last installment, the fog of memory won’t have caused me to have forgotten everything, not that this would be possible with all that we have seen and done.

First, our accommodations. I thought our hotel in Chengdu, the St, Regis, could not be matched, but our suite in the “China World Summit Wing” comes close. Our room may not have had the classic decors of the St. Regis but it made up for this with a 73rd floor view of Beijing, including a 109 story skyscraper, the vessel-shaped Zun. Beyond a minor complaint about the inconveniently (and, in the case of the USB port, non-functioning) sockets, the room was perfect, from shower and sinks to bed and living area. The hotel is from floors 64 to 76 or so, with restaurants and other hotel facilities above this to the 80th. (The ground floor bank of elevators go from 1 to 64 and to the top floors. At level 64 one changes to a separate bank of elevators for the hotel rooms. All elevators were quick to arrive, so the arrangement was fine.

Day and night view from our 73rd floor suite.

The Zun and the “underpants building”, our guide’s description, from street level. 

Left: Inside Beijing’s newest airport. Right: On the way into town, we passed the “Bird’s Nest”, of Beijing 2008 Olympics fame.

But back to day one. We arrived in the late morning from Xi’an at Beijing’s newer Daxing airport, farther out of town than the older Capital International (from which we will fly out of in four days). On our way into town we stopped on to tour the Summer Palace. This is China’s largest (at 720 acres) and best preserved imperial period park and the summer retreat for the imperial family and court during the late Qing dynasty. (This was China’s last dynasty, the Manchus, for those trying to keep track.)

At one point, Empress Dowager Wu Zetian (perhaps most commonly remembered as the Dragon Empress and quite literally the power behind the throne, curtain and all) diverted much of the navy’s budget  to enhance the garden and palace.

The Seventeen Arch Bridge and the Buddhist Fragrance Pagoda

Left: The Marble Barge of the Dragon Empress, actually wood painted to look like marble. Right: An entrance to the walkway 

The undersides of the walkway structure roofs were strikingly painted. Right: The opera house.

As always, I enjoy viewing the costumes worn by visitors, although Richard, our guide, said that most of the costumes were of Manchurian and not Chinese heritage.

Our first evening’s supper was taken in the 80th floor bar, where the free flow of alcohol and platters of hors d’oeuvres were sufficient for the evening’s meal. We did not use two generous coupons for an ordered meal we were given. Little did we know then that these coupons would more than suffice for the two other evening meals not scheduled to be provided by Viking. 

Up for the next day, the Temple of Heaven. 

Xi’an

Prior to our flight from Tibet, we were given a box lunch, KFC chicken sandwiches. Frances passed but I thought the sandwich was reasonably good. Lunch was also served on the flight. Frances again passed. I again didn’t. The noodle dish wasn’t too bad although I did my best not to eat it all. Again, the seats were miserably tight but, again, the passenger in front of me kept her seat upright. Thank goodness for small favors.

Xi’an is the capital of Shaanxi Province in central China and yet again a large city, with a population of thirteen million. In the days of the Silk Road, this city was its eastern end. Xian (I’ll drop the ‘ here on) had many eras of greatness, being the home to four of China’s great dynasties. (The Zhou, Qin, Han and Tang dynasties, if you’re curious.)

The City Wall

Before going to the hotel we were taken to  Xian’s city wall, the only complete city wall remaining in China. The most recent version of the wall (ignoring modern renovations) was initiated in the 14th century during the Ming dynasty, but under the Tang dynasty (beginning the 7th century), it was at its greatest extent. Today the wall is 8.7 miles in circumference. We entered through the Hanguang (west) gate. Told there was a great view from a tower some distance away, I left Frances in place and marched toward it. Fifteen minutes later I swore the destination tower was no closer than when I started. Walking at a fairly swift pace (it was nice being at a reasonable altitude again) it took me 55 minutes round trip with perhaps 5 minutes consumed at photo stops. I had worked up a sweat.

Was it worth it? Meh. You decide.

Left: A map of the Silk Road in the gate museum. Right: Our guide, Richard, describing the Xian walled city.

Left: A cross section of the wall. Right: On the wall. My objective was to reach (for a supposedly great photo) a building too far away to see in this picture.

The view from the wall, (left) inside and (right) outside.

An intermediate structure on the wall and (right) my objective.

As elsewhere at tourist sites, the wearing of costumes by (mostly) young women was common.

Left: The Xian bell tower. Right: Another view inside the wall, both of these taken at the turnaround point.

The Terracotta Army

So why were we in Xian. The Terracotta Army, of course, a world wonder.

You can get a much better, complete and accurate description of the Terracotta Army using Wikipedia, but here are a few facts. Discovered in 1979 by several peasant farmers, this army of 8000 clay soldiers and horses was constructed by 700,000 conscripted workers starting in 210 BC. Three pits have been uncovered, each now housed under huge buildings, first opened as a museum in 1979. The “army” was for Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China. The area is part of his mausoleum. It’s estimated that only 20% of the army has been unearthed.

Reconstruction of the figures has been intentionally slowed, in recognition of the fact that, once unearthed, the colors painted on the figures quickly disappears. The curators are waiting for the technology necessary to preserved the figures better. The soldiers, by the way, are generally slightly larger than life and face east toward Qin Shi Huang’s enemies.

I must have taken 150 pictures within the three museum buildings, but I’ll spare you all but a couple of dozen.

Emperor Qin Shi Huang at the museum entrance—and the entrance. Our guide said the crowd weren’t too bad this day but I would not want to visit when they are worse.

Museum building #1, opened in 1979 and containing the most uncovered soldiers.

Close-ups. Every face is different. It is speculated that the workmen used each other as models during the construction.

Hairstyles, hats and helmets indicate rank. The hat on the far right figure indicates that the subject is an officer.

More views. This is the condition of the soldiers when first unearthed.

The chariots for these horses were of wood and leather, long decayed.

Left: A crossbowman, the crossbow long gone. Right: The reins and bit obviously were added to this display.

In building #3 (opened 1989) the excavations are just being uncovered.

Left: A General. Right: A commander. These are in building #2, opened in 1994. Chinese crowds being the pushiest I’ve ever encountered (with no acknowledgement of their action), it was difficult getting close to the figures.

We departed the museum and passed through an extensive collection of shops and stores. The advice to not look a vendor in the eye when approached was sound. It worked.

Some shops put a lot into their storefronts.

Who knew the warriors wore glasses?

To get to lunch we passed through a higher end shop. The items for sale were spectacular.

Craftsmen make reproductions.

If I were in a collecting mood and rich, there was much I’d love to possess.

Left: Only $100k, but that included shipping. Right: How about a pair of these guarding our front door!

I was awed by these silk “paintings”, or whatever one would call the constructions, all are pure silk.

Our hotel was the Intercontinental. Physically attractive, it was not our favorite hotel this trip for the arrangement of the room, especially the lighting. What was most surprising is that in all the higher and midrange hotels we have stayed in all our travels, this is the first one where not a single staff member we interacted with spoke a word of English, even at the reception desk. Whenever we asked a question, the staff member would whip out a cellphone with a voice-input translation app and point it at us ready for us to ask our question. This didn’t work the first two times they tried it, so I pulled put my own iPhone and used Google translate. That worked. Frances got her hair dryer and the room a few more clothes hangers. Google products, by the way, are generally banned in China, but not if using a cellular connection.

We did not join the rest of the group for the evening dinner and show. It was an optional add-on. (Viking has way too many of these. If one pays for an extension, then such excursions should be part of the extension.) Instead, we ate in our hotel room, the prime course being the birthday cake our guide, Richard, had sent to our room. I spent the rest of the time putting together my obnoxiously long blog posting on Tibet. My excuse is that I’ll be giving a talk on Nepal and Tibet to a travel group in October and wanted to record my notes while the exaggerations, er, experiences were fresh in my mind.

It was an early wake-up for our final domestic flight in China, Xian to Beijing. Security in the airport was its now familiar strict process (including a very complete pat down). On board we survived the usual close-pack seating in steerage, but the flight was less than two hours long. The terrain (I had a window seat) was hilly, even mountainous most the way to Beijing, a final four-night stop on this incredible journey. 

Lhasa, Tibet

Air, air, give me some air! Lhasa, at 11,995 feet (not counting the coming climb to Portola Palace), has a third less oxygen than at sea level. We are taking a generic form of Diamox to reduce the effect of the altitude and we even passed on our usual evening libation. Still, that first night we wondered if we would make it to our hotel room, which was a healthy (or unhealthy) walk from the elevator. There were seventy rooms per floor and our suite was near one end, with the elevators near the other. We even stopped to rest on a convenient couch half way to our room.

A dozen years ago we were at a similar altitude for a few days in Cusco, Peru (visiting Machu Picchu) but, well, we were a dozen years younger then.

China invaded and took control of Tibet in 1950 under the logical (to imperialist minds) concept that the Mongols once collected tribute from Tibet and the Chinese now consider the Mongol period of control of China as just another Chinese dynasty, the Yuan dynasty. Ergo China has rights to Tibet. In fact, our guide suggested “Inner Mongolia”, now part of China has more claim to Mongolian heritage, than does “Outer”  Mongolia, now the independent country of Mongolia, given that country’s subservience to the USSR until 1990. From my all too superficial visits to the two regions, my impression is that Mongolia and Tibet are moving (or being moved) in opposite directions. Mongolia was slow to shed its Communist past but is doing so steadily, as seen by the effort to teach in school the writing of the Mongolian language in its original Indo-European script, close in many ways to Tibetan writing (both influenced by India). In Tibet, meanwhile, at least in Lhasa, Mandarin is fast superseding Tibetan. Most signage has large Mandarin script with the Tibetan in smaller script, or, as in traffic signage, is entirely in Mandarin. The People’s Republic of China flag flies over even the Buddhist temples.

I hope talking about the weather is not too boring, but our lucky streak continues. Even here in Tibet, at the end of September, 45 degrees feels like 65 and the temperature rises fast with the sun. Many in our tour group have never abandoned short sleeved shirts and even shorts. (I didn’t bring a single pair.) Anticipating cool and even cold weather in such places as Tibet and the Gobi desert, I packed a jacket, a Patagonia, a sweater and a rain shell. The Patagonia and rain shell go unused. I wore the sweater twice, only to strip it off mid-morning. The one time so far I have started off with a jacket I ended up tying it around my waste. We have Xian and Beijing to go with this trip, so I hope I have not jinxed the trend.

Warning. This is a long blog. Our days and evenings were packed with sights and activities. Fortunately, my long suffering readers, much of it will be pictures.

We had hoped to see a yak in Tibet, given its important in Tibetan culture. We never saw one except perhaps from a great distance while traveling from the airport to Lhasa, an hour’s ride. The local mountains also blocked any view of the snow-capped ones that dominate the country. This trip could have used an extra day for a trip into the countryside, perhaps to visit a Tibetan village, but perhaps it is politics and China’s security concerns for Tibet that preclude this option.

The major goal when visiting Lhasa, or at least our goal, was to visit Portola Palace, home (once) of the Dalia Lama and king of Tibet. The Chinese government likes to advertise that there are two senior lamas of equal religious “rank” (the Dalia Lama and the Panchen Lama), but only the Dalia Lama was the ruling king. The Panchen Lama is obedient to his Chinese overseers, perhaps not a bad move given the original reincarnated 11th Panchen Lama conveniently disappeared at age six after a visit from Chinese authorities. Read the recent Wall street Journal article on the Tibetan Buddhist who spent ten years before escaping to India to learn how the Chinese government treats at least some of the Tibetans who refuse to renounce their religion.

A rainbow greeted us on our arrival at the airport. Despite the clouds, there was no rain.

In route to Lhasa. Lower right: Our first view of Portola Palace in Route 

Lhasa

Lhasa is a neat, clean, attractive city, without the skyscrapers that dominate the other cities in China we have visited. Motorbikes continue to rule the streets, although automobiles still crowd the roadways.

In the streets of Lhasa. Right: A monk prepares to ride a motor scooter.

Our greeting in the Shangri-La Hotel. Right: We’ve seen these robots in restaurants before, but not (as here) making deliveries to hotel rooms.

The next morning started a full day. The first was a visit to the Jokhang Temple, 1,300 years old.  It dominates Lhasa’s Barkhor Sauare, where pilgrims make reverent clockwise circuits around the temple, some on their hands and knees.

In route to Barkhor Square.

Outside Jokhang Temple. Left: Mass prayer. Right: Some worshipers would drop to their knees and then to a prone position, followed by rising (having advanced a foot or two), then repeating the drop and rise. (A few outside the circulating group would perform the act expecting to receive a donation, a form of begging.)

In the temple entrance.

No pictures were allowed once in the temple. These I took from the internet. (I hope I have not confused the shown Buddha’s and saints—we saw so many.)

We’re back outside the temple, but still within the temple compound.

The wearing of traditional costumes was quite common, particularly by young women posing for boyfriends.

The marital status of women was obvious. Wearing of an apron over the dress meant the woman was married. If the apron was of one color, this meant the woman was a widow. There is no similar distinction for men.

Left: More costumes. Right: After leaving the temple, I tried to flow with the pilgrims around the temple. It was a long walk so I decided to take a shortcut into a side street.

Left: My shortcut led into ever more narrow and unpopulated alleys until I reached a dead end. So much for the shortcut. Right: Frances patiently waited for my return.

Then it was off to visit the Tsamkhung Nunnery, but not before passing through market stalls and shops.

After a group lunch we walked through a shopping area. Curiously, all the manikins have western faces, even those displaying traditional clothing.

The entrance to the nunnery.

The nuns at worship. Yes, all are women.

In the nunnery

All the images are of women saints.

The day was not done. We were next treated to a dinner and show.

Left: A bit out of sequence, left is our local guide, with her husband and son. Right is our dinner before the show. These were our table mates.

While the show could have dumped the Viking display behind it, it was quite entertaining. The costume yak was as close to one as we would get.

A bit of an aside on yaks. The term yak, for Tibetans, means the male yak only, hence “yak milk” and “yak butter” is a bit impossible. (Not yak meat, though, a Tibetan staple.) Female yaks are called a dri.

When we returned to the hotel, we traipsed up to the hotel’s patio to get an evening view of the next day’s objective, Portola Palace.

We slept reasonably well that second night, but not deeply, often waking for a while, along with the usual treks to the bathroom). This, I presume, was a normal high altitude symptom.

Portola Palace

Portola Palace was first built in the seventh century and was the home of the Dalia Lamas until 1959, when the 14th Dalia Lama abdicated his throne and fled to India, along with most of the Royal Family. (With them went the majority of Lhasa Apsos, bred as palace guard dogs. They are now rare in Tibet.)

There are over 1000 rooms and 10,000 side chapels and shrines in the palace, with temples devoted to past Dalia Llamas (including most of their tombs, normally a non-Buddhist disposition of bodies), to Buddhist saints, and to other religious activities, and with all the offices, rooms, dormitories and the like normally associated with a governing monarch’s palace. Our visit viewed a small fraction of the rooms, obviously.

The climb to the palace began mid-morning amidst a considerable crowd. Much of the initial climb is outside or on the palace walls, a combination of inclined stretches and steps. At about the 60% point in the climb was a decision point. To attempt the final climb up some very narrow steps and stairs, you had to commit to complete the whole trip. No turning around thanks to the narrowness of the passageways, and the exit was on the opposite side of the castle. Unfortunately, no photos were allowed from this point until the interior of the palace was exited.

Right: We’re about to start the climb up to the palace. Do we look fresh?

The steps.

Resting in route, as did the monks. 

Still in route.

The last turnaround point. No more pictures allowed after this.

These are internet pictures of a few sights we saw. Left: The stupa-tombs of eight of the Dalia Lama’s are here, this large one (the largest), covered in gold, holds the remains of the Fifth Dalia Lama, the most revered. Right: This is the Kalachakra Mandala.

The altitude of the Portola Palace at the top level (for visitors) is 12,306 feet. (Actually, it’s 12,300, but I’m was breathing or, more accurately, panting a few feet higher.

Left: Exiting the palace. As elsewhere in China, the Chinese are extremely pushy in crowds. One shoved into me and I in turn knocked Frances down. Fortunately, she was not hurt. Right: We made it to the bottom.

I was pleased with how I did, given my less than grade A heart, although I was dead tired during the afternoon. Frances had a really tough time with the climb but hung in there all the way up and back down. She did pass on the afternoon’s monastery visit when we learned it included a long trek up an inclined road to get to the core of the monastery.

Sera Monastery 

The entrance to Sera Monastery. The monks were “off” this week, many visiting family and friends.

Dormitories for the monks. Right: Many dogs were present. They are given meat to eat by the monks. Tibetan monks traditionally are not vegetarians. Until modern times, when meat, mostly yak meat, was virtually the only food available, a monk would have starved otherwise. The influence of Indian Buddhist is slowing changing this.

The main assembly area of the monastery. One of the buildings is the old age home for retired monks.

The Buddhist circle of life. We saw these in Nepal.

The prayer area. Each monk has an assigned seat (and hat). Donations placed in a seat are kept by the monk.

In the temple.

Left: A Dorm door. Right: A newly renovated dormitory.

We have now left Tibet, a truly unique country and unique experience.

A last view of Tibet in route to the airport.

The flight from Lhasa to Xian a close-pack affair, on an airbus 319 with negative knee room (i.e. seat pitch minus thigh length). The woman in front of me was a bouncer, and kept jamming my knee. I’m guessing she was objecting to my knees in her back by bouncing against her seat back. Lose lose.

My summary of our visit to Tibet? An ‘A’ for exotic, for sure. It’s one of the reasons (the other being Mongolia) for selecting this Viking land-cruise combination. Making it to the top of Portola Palace was especially satisfying. I’m sure as I age that the altitude of the highest point we reached will grow. This whole trip has created memories of experiences to last a lifetime. Of course, at our age, this isn’t saying as much as it used to. 😊

Our hotel, the Shangri-La, is the newest luxury hotel in Lhasa and overall excellent. Its food (all buffet style) was mediocre compared to our other stops in China and many of the dining chairs had collapsed cushions. Maybe too many of us American-sized patrons? Often I opted for the Chinese rather than Western offerings. Rooms had oxygen and at least four emergency call buttons for those who couldn’t cope with the altitude. (I’ll insert here a correction from my last (Chendu) post. That fabulous hotel was the St. Regis, not a JW Marriott.)

Our local guide, Gouguo (I think, but pronounced “go-go”) was one of the better ones and worked well with Richard, our guide for the full post-cruise trip. Gougou is her full name. She explained that most Tibetans have but one name and, worse, there are only a handful of the more common ones, including the names for the seven days of the week. As a result, in school, there may be ten students in class with the same name and thus are referred to, as an example, Gougou One , Gougou Two…

Thus ends our adventure into Tibet. It’s off to Xi’an, home to the Terracotta Soldiers.

I was in an aisle seat, so passed my iPhone to the woman in the window seat. She took these photos of Tibet’s mountains for me.






Chengdu

We’re a long way from the sea, 1200 air miles from Dalian, in fact. Our flight from Tianjin Airport (near Beijing) to Chengdu took three and a half hours, marginally survivable for me in a middle seat near the rear of the aircraft. This is the price one pays for journeys such as ours and one we’ll likely pay three times more before our final in-country stop in Beijing.

We’re in a group that is participating in the Chengdu-Lhasa-Xian extension to be followed by the Beijing extension to the extension. None in our group was with us in Mongolia, so by my awesome powers of deduction, Frances and I are absolutely the only ones associated with this Viking trip to sign on for the full monthlong experience. The irony is that we are also the only ones getting along (barely) with carry-on luggage only. We used the free laundry service on board the Yi Dun three times, but that won’t be an option these next eleven days. (As it turns out, it is still more convenient to check the carry-ons than not.) AirTags keep us confident that the bags are making the trips, probably with as much space as we have in steerage. (I’m too harsh. Meals and beverages are served by efficient flight attendants and, so far, the occupants in the seats in front of us have minimized the seat back lean—as we have for those behind us.)

Our leader for the extension, Richard (his English name—all the guides have one), is an experienced guide and speaks relatively clear English, for which I am grateful. I only miss half of what he says. Hopefully, Frances hears the rest, but is as unable to retain the information as am I. So far, we haven’t been left behind.

We were kicked off the Yi Dun as scheduled at 8:30 a.m., were driven the hour and a half to the Tianjin airport, survived the long flight to Chengdu and arrived at the city’s new airport. Long corridors, four escalators, and a train may have been the longest transit distance ever in an airport. Another 90 minutes through chock-a-block traffic to our hotel finally delivered us there in time for a rushed twenty-five minute dinner before we reboarded buses to attend the Sichuan Opera. It’s a good thing the opera was a wonderful experience or we may not have survived the evening without falling into a coma.

The skyline of Chengdu as we entered the city. There are fewer skyscrapers here, despite the city’s size, and the tallest is under construction.

If we have a regret it is not having more time to enjoy our hotel, the St. Regis. Because the next morning we were to be on the bus again by 7:45, we had only a few awake hours to luxuriate in the room.

Find the TV (other than the one in the bathroom). It pops up from the desk.

The dinner and breakfast offerings in the hotel matched the rest of our experience. I would love to have had another hour to over-eat.

Chengdu is a city of 21.5 million and the capital of Sichuan Provence, known for its moderately spicy food. (Go to Hunan province for the full fire.) A few decades ago, the population moved about town on bikes, as did all of China. Now? There are 6 million cars registered in Chengdu. I believe most of them were on the highways our bus was attempting to transit.

On to the opera.

In route to the opera. Tai Chi?

Tea (unstrained) was served throughout the performance.

There were six acts. In the bottom left, lower left corner is the shadow master. I saw a similar performer decades ago in Paris.

The comedy skit was a bit too long, given we couldn’t understand the repartee, but the several clever stunts were delightful. The green-masked performer changed his mask at least a dozen times, each in less than a second. How he did it is a mystery.

Returning to the hotel, we caught a quick glimpse of Chairman Mao, an unexpectedly rare sight in our China travels. 

So why did we stop in Chengdu for one night. It was not to see the opera, as fun as that was. It was to visit the Panda Base Chengdu, the largest and most populated  panda nursery, breeding and captive dwelling place in China (which means in the world, of course) for both giant pandas and the unrelated but equally cute and fuzzy (but smaller) red pandas. We got the desired panda fix all visitors seek. Time for a slug of panda photos.

The entrance to Panda Base.

Now for the pandas, starting with the red pandas.

The red panda may not be much like the giant pandas except they both like to sleep in trees a lot. Lower right: We arrived at a time when the pandas were being fed.

On to the giant pandas. We saw about a dozen of them, including some older cubs.

A cub, a mother and a grandmother, all resting

From Panda Base we were bused to lunch (a lazy susan for tables of nine affair) and then bused to Chengdu’s older (and closer) airport for our flight to Lhasa, Tibet. China airport security is the strictest and most thorough since Egypt and flying to Tibet required a pseudo-visa as rigidly enforced as the China visa itself. 

Left: Our turntable lunch of (near) Chinese cuisine. I did notice that neighboring tables of Chinese patrons got several different dishes. Dumbing down for the tourists?  Right: Some interesting rooftop apartments.

I don’t know when this and following blog postings will be published. I’ve only been able to get full internet access via cellular. (Virtually nothing was accessible via the hotel WiFi and I would lose even nominal service if I tried to invoke VPN.) And by a miscalculation on my part I cannot hotspot our iPads to the phone. (Maybe I’ll bore you with that explanation in a future post.)

So, as I write this note, we’re on our way to Tibet, the country, er, autonomous region, the roof of the world!

(We’re in Tibet and once again, no internet access through the hotel wifi. Our contact with the rest of the world is via my iPhone cellular and VPN. If this note is attached to the posting it’s because I successfully completed a process designed in the third ring of hell: I take my photos on the iPhone and later airdrop them to the iPad. I slightly edit them (I can’t take a level picture) then use a collage maker to reduce their file size. I’d never get them uploaded otherwise. I compose the written part using offline Notes. I then airdrop all the collages and text back to the iPhone, then log into posthaven for the uploads. Sound tedious? Worse than that as I have to do final edits in the iPhone, where my fat fingers attempt to hit one-eight inch square letters on the iPhone keyboard. Oh, forget the editing. I’m not very good at it anyway. But you got this post, at least I hope so.)

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Dalian

China never ceases to awe me. This time, while we were approaching our docking location in Dalian, we were intrigued by the city’s shoreline, a long stretch of low rise buildings in the Western style backed by high rises:

The Liaodong peninsula has long been settled, of course, but the city of Dalian was founded by the Russians as Dalniy in 1898. The harbor was known by the British (and military history fans) as Port Arthur. The Russians lost Dalniy to the Japanese in 1905, but not before designing the town’s layout and establishing its Western and Russian architectural style. The Japanese held Dalian as part of its Manchurian domain until 1945. The Russians moved back in, ceding full control back to China in 1955. The city is now a major port, with a population of seven and a half million.

Our tour bus didn’t transit the area with most of the Russian architecture, delivering us to the Dalian Wushu (Martial Arts) Museum, with artifacts of martial arts weapons through Chinese history.

Sights in route to the museum. Bottom right: The hotel which was the residence of Pu Yi, the last emperor of China. He was forced to abdicate in 1912, then was set up as the emperor of Manchukuo, the Japanese puppet state of Manchuria, nominally ruling from this location. What happened to him? Watch “The Last Emperor”.

In the museum

The Kung Fu show started slowly, with a way overly long introduction, but the show itself was quite excellent. The “master” was remarkedly fluid in his movements.

And, now, here are a few(?) summary comments on our cruise.

As I began this post, I am awed by China. Perhaps our coming inland excursion will modify this impression, but I doubt it. The incredibly fast and overwhelming development from third world status to a state at the very forefront of technology and infrastructure is hard to fathom, especially as an engineer. It’s one thing to accomplish this in micro states such as Singapore or in petrodollar states  such as the Emirates, but in a nation of 1.4 billion that as late as the 1980’s had a GDP less than that of Haiti?

When I asked the best of the onboard speakers (in my opinion) just how this was possible, she suggested it was a combination of debt and a huge trade surplus that funded the change, but this can be only part of the answer. For one thing, the inventiveness, industriousness and energy of the Chinese people has been released. For another, China has been educating five and ten times as many scientists and engineers as has America. We may have a large lead in producing lawyers, sociologists, historians and artists, but few of these can design and build bullet trains.  (My friend William, who transitioned wonderfully from engineer to artist, being the exception. I assume his sculptures won’t collapse.)

Of course, this economic and scientific explosion is also made possible by an authoritarian government which technically owns all land and has no qualms about displacing millions of people for a project. This all works, one might add, only if the government doesn’t overreach or make a major error in its direction.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, we in the West willingly transferred our technology to China (and less willingly our military technology). One can only hope we can learn something from the Chinese, begin with producing more of our own scientists and engineers, and become competent competitors rather than fearful adversaries. And perhaps China itself will find it has too much to lose now to be the initiator of a global catastrophe. Time will tell. Meanwhile, we should start with reestablishing a quality K to 12 education for all our young citizens followed by a university or trade school education where an A means A level work and B is no longer given to someone you would not trust to tighten the bolts on your airplane door.

How about Viking?

As a reminder, the Yi Dun is a Chinese owned and operated cruise ship, with all the positives and a few negatives this implies, the chief example of the latter being occasional communication problems. Port talks were not up to snuff and the lecturers ran the gamut from poor to excellent.

The friendliness and attentiveness of the staff was outstanding. Excursions varied in quality and the “included” excursions (meaning those for which there was no additional fee) generally mediocre. Excursion transportation (typically buses) were roomy and modern beyond, on a few buses, a highly annoying buzz when seatbelts were not fastened. (I blame this mostly on the fellow passengers who seemed oblivious to the cause despite announcements. To be truthful, I could not hear the high-pitched buzz, but it drove Frances and a few others crazy until the offenders surrendered a “who, me?”) 

Food varied from OK to excellent and we enjoyed the variety of restaurants. Frankly, we enjoyed the main restaurant as well as the several specialty ones. The Chinese cuisine is also excellent, I presume a must given the number of Chinese ancestry passengers on board. A Chinese women at a neighboring table complimented my addition to “dan-dan”. In fact, I was having a hard time getting the noodle bowl chef to fix mine like those of the Chinese passengers he was serving. I finally asked the hostess (who knew our names from the beginning, which may or may not be a positive thing) if she could get this desire communicated. She brought me a fully fixed up bowl which, of course, I added to the bowl I already had instead of replacing it. 

Internet access on board varied from adequate in ports to occasionally non-existent out at sea. Thus far we have not had access restriction problems for Google, WSJ, and NYT. We are using VPN but I don’t know if this unrestricted access is due to our VPN connection or to the fact that shipboard wifi is not as restricted as on mainland China. We’ll find the answer to this question when we head inland.

Would we book with Viking Ocean Cruises again. Well, It would be too late for me to say no. We have been long booked on a Med cruise with Viking this coming January. The ships are not too large to feel lost in and are configured to have many intimate settings, including restaurants. We will continue to put itinerary and trip timing somewhat ahead of brand in most cases. This may change as, in the coming years, our itinerary wishlist shrinks and our pursuit of, er, comfort increases. The ideal for us remains smaller ships and small group excursions. Smaller ships also can visit ports unavailable to larger ships.

Now it’s on to Chengdu, where we hope to start with an evening of Chinese opera and a morning view of the pandas!

The crew of the Yi Dun waves goodbye. 

Qingdao

I was not familiar with the coastal city of Quindao. After all, with only ten million residents, it’s a mere village compared to Shanghai. I’m being silly, of course. It’s a major port and our first stop in what is considered northern China. It’s famous, at least in Asia, as the home of Tsingtao beer, the second most consumed beer in the world. The brewery was started in 1903 under the guidance of German brewmasters, which is a lead in to the history of the city of Qingdao.

Not unexpectedly, Qingdao was long ago established as a coastal community oriented to fishing. Its most famous native is Confucius, who was born here. But it was during its short period as a German colony, 1898 to 1914, that the city developed its modern identity as a major port and with a distinct German-influenced architecture. That influence did not end in 1914, when the Japanese, allied with the UK and France against Germany in WW I, occupied Qingdao. The Japanese were forced to give Qingdao back to China in 1922 as a result of the Washington Naval Conference agreements. The Germans eventually returned to China and Qingdao as advisors to help modernize China (under Chiang Kai-shek) and its military. That all got reversed again when Qingdao fell to the Japanese in 1937. (The Germans remained as advisors to China while the latter fought against the Japanese invasion during early WW2 until Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941. History can be complicated.) The Japanese did not leave Qingdao until 1945. For a while, Quindao was the headquarters of the  U.S. Navy’s Pacific Fleet. In 1949, the Red Army marched in and the city’s modern history began. Well, that’s not really accurate. The city, as with all of China, began in its modern age when it abandoned a purely socialist economy (which managed to starve tens of millions Chinese to death during the Great Leap Forward) to a “socialist market economy”, which is one of the greatest oxymorons ever coined. Nevertheless, one can’t argue with China’s economic success thus far.

OK, John. End the lesson and get on with the visit. 😁 

The evening of our arrival we were entertained by a Chinese Kung Fu show. The bottom two pictures below I borrowed from a fellow passenger who sat closer to the stage than did I.

It was early to bed after this first day, with the expected result is that I woke very early. I decided to download the most recent Slow Horses book and got well into it before the sun rose. I should have picked a more boring book and perhaps I would have gotten sleepy enough to return to bed.

Qingdao must have the world’s longest cruise port wharf and we were docked at the end of it, despite being the only cruise ship in port. It’s a half mile to the shoreline, a good twenty-plus minutes of walking to get to our tour buses.

Our arrival, and passing the Tsingtao brewery

Once again we had signed up for and participated in the “included” excursion which, again, was a bus ride to a site (two in this case) then back to the ship. This time, however, the commentary during the ride was better than most. Still, this makes me reflect as to why we no longer do what we once did on such ocean voyages. Instead of signing up for a cruise line-sponsored tour, arrange for a private tour discovered via TripAdvisor or the equivalent. We had been pleased with the Viking excursions on the river cruises but less so, as a rule, on this ocean cruise. We’re far from unhappy, mind you, but we could have done better.

Qingdao is considered as divided into three parts. The first is what was the German and, generally, European influenced section of the city. It’s here we are touring. Much of this architectural style continues to be reflected in many of its newer buildings. A second section is the “new city”, which has most of the more recent skyscrapers. Unlike as in Shanghai and many other of the more southern cities, tall buildings have a solid granite base upon which to sit. (In Shanghai and elsewhere south, the skyscrapers sit on muddy ground that has been frozen to give a solid base—and kept frozen! May they avoid a long loss of energy for refrigeration.) The third, and not unlarge, section of the town is military, including a naval headquarters and base. Obviously we did not visit this area, although we did glimpse some of the housing for the families of senior naval personnel, the buildings being former German ones converted to housing.

Back to our tour. After a drive through several interesting parts of the city we stopped at St. Michael’s Catholic Cathedral, built by German in 1934. It was to be a quick photo stop, outside view only, but when Frances and I approached the ticket office to, perhaps, go inside, we were waved through by the attendant. Works for us.

St. Michael’s

When the communists took over the city, the crosses at the top of the steeples were buried to keep them from being destroyed by the new regime. They have now resurrected to adorn the steeple.

Contrasting statues: Madonna, outside the cathedral, and Confucius, taken from the wrong side of the bus as we passed by.

A couple of “magic boxes” with, in some cases, twenty and more spigots for dispensing beer

Our next stop was a visit to the Zhanqiao Pier and surrounding park and beach. The place was busy with tourists, mostly Chinese of course, this being a popular in-country tourist city.

The seashore and the Zhanqiao Pier

Newer construction, presumably sitting on solid bases

For our second day we, for the first time, awoke to cooler weather. For nearly three weeks we have worn short sleeves, wishing at times I had brought a pair of shorts. I suspect, for the rest of the trip, I’ll finally don the several long sleeve shirts we’ve packed. (Not strictly true as for evenings on board I’ve worn a nicer and long-sleeved shirt to dinner. One must keep up appearances, afterall. That, and the dining room could be quite cool.)

German era construction (well, not the ship). Top left was the German Governor’s Office, and still something official.

The Chinese Navy destroyer is now retired and a museum, so no fear of my making a photo of it. Right: The “golden pavillion” at the end of Zhanquia Pier.

More of the colonial era architecture, this taken during the second day’s walk.

A highlight of the second day’s tour was our visit to the Qingdao Postal and Communications Museum, built in 1901 as the German Imperial Post Office. 

I would love to have gotten a decent picture of the display of old telephones, the two walls of it, but the reflections in the glass were terrible. Same with the historical stamp display.

During some free time we were the only two to visit the upper floor of the museum, which had five rooms of China’s and Qingdao’s telecommunications history, including its short time as an American naval base (1945-47).

An odd lot of pictures: A view; a photo of German missionaries who were expected to or decided it was important to dress in the Manchu fashion; and, right, an injured or dying rodent of some type on the sidewalk. We all stepped around.

My birthday is not for another week, but Viking decided we should celebrate it while still on board.

Only one full day on board is left on this cruise. This will be to the city of Dalian, our one stop in Manchuria, now call Northeast China.

Disembarkation instructions have been delivered to our cabin. The end is drawing near— of the cruise, not the trip! 

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.