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.
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.
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!
