National Day travels - Huaian, Nanjing, Huangshan

Wow. I have some amazing adventures and experiences to
tell you all about.

I have just had a week off for the national day
holiday and took the opportunity to do some
travelling.

Two of my students kindly invited me to visit their
hometowns. The 2nd of the two students also invited me
to visit Nanjing and Huangshan Mountain with her.

On Friday, I travelled with Smiling Fish (her Chinese
name is Chen Jinyu) to her hometown, Jian Hu. This
town is about a 45 minute bus ride from Yancheng city,
and is part of the Yancheng county. We were
accompanied by her classmate Jordan (his Chinese name
is Hu Wing Peng).

The weather decided to turn nasty on Thursday night.
So Friday was cold, wet and windy. A hint of the
weather to come in Winter!

The bus was a minibus, holding about 24 people in
pretty crowded conditions. As with alot of public
transport in China, smoking is allowed, although it
seemed only the driver was partaking, so it was not
too bad.

We arrived in Jian Hu around 9:00am. Not much to
report about Jian Hu. Just another fairly ordinary
city.

I met my student's younger brother and mother. Her
father works in another province and only comes home a
few times a year. Her mother was very shy and pretty
much avoided me most of the time, although was
apparently honoured to have a foreigner in her home.
The brother is about 14 years old and studies English
in school, but was not keen to practice his English
with me.

My 2 students & I went upstairs into the bedroom and
sat there for an hour or so, talking and listening to
music. The rain had eased, but apparently it was not
walking weather.

Meanwhile, Smiling Fish's mother was downstairs,
busily cooking lunch. Apparently, she is not a very
good cook, so she recruited her neighbour to help her
cook for the foreigner. I did not get to meet the
neighbour though!

Lunch was at about 10:30am! We had 9 dishes! The
dishes included small prawns (shrimps) which were
fried in salt and pepper, still in their shell.
Apparently, these get eaten shell and all. They were
actually quite nice. Crunchy, obviously. I was a bit
worried about eating the shell of the prawn given Hep
A risks, but all seems ok. I must have an iron
stomach.

The mother and brother sat down and ate with us for
about 5 minutes and then left the table. My students
and I were left to finish off the 9 dishes. Needless
to say, there was plenty left over.

After lunch, a taxi arrived to take us to Jiulongkou
scenic area. "Jiu" means 9 and "long" means dragon, so
this is the place where the 9 dragons meet. The
dragons, in this case, were 9 small rivers which meet
in a wetland type area. We had to walk through a small
village to get to the river. As it was national day,
there were lots of families gathered in the village to
celebrate and, once again, the foreigner walking
through the village attracted quite a lot of
attention.

We caught a small motorised boat over to a small
island about 100m out. On the island was a building of
some sort. I am not sure of its historical or other
significance. However, the roof had 9 sides (if that
is possible) and each side had a dragon carving
pointing in the direction of one of the rivers. There
was a restaurant on the bottom floor of the building,
but the rest of it appeared to be having major
renovations. Perhaps being made into a hotel.

There really wasn't much to do, or see for that
matter. We met Smiling Fish's aunt and her 2 children
at the village and they came over to the island with
us. The children played on the island for a few hours.
The island was really, really small. 10 minutes would
have been sufficient to see everything it had to
offer! At one point, we went for a short boat ride
through the wetlands. That was nice.

In the late afternoon, Jordan & I caught the bus back
to Yancheng city, and left Smiling Fish to stay with
her family for a few days.

On arriving back at my apartment, I called Betty (her
Chinese name is Wang Jian), who had arranged to come
over that night to help me pack for our trip away. She
came over with another classmate, Meggie (Wang Jing)
and, with Jordan, they cooked for me and we invited
Max (the American foreign teacher) down for dinner.

I had a bottle of beer and some iced tea in the
fridge. Jordan said that he and Max would share the
beer and the girls could have the iced tea. I told
Jordan that in Australia, girls drink beer too, and as
this was my apartment and my beer, I would be having a
glass too!

After dinner, Betty gave me some packing advice.
Apparently, I had to try and fit everything for 6 days
travel (including clothes for climbing and sleeping
out on a mountain) into one small day pack. I told her
that I could not possibly do this, especially as I was
taking my sleeping bag if we were indeed "sleeping out
on the mountain", and I told her I needed an overnight
bag as well as the day pack. My camera barely fits
into the day pack on its own!

Anyway, the next day, I realised why she had said 1
bag. There really is not a lot of room to store bags
on the buses and trains and excess baggage also
inhibits your ability to push and shove your way
through the hordes of people trying to board.

Saturday dawned bright and sunny. The bad weather had
disappeared as quickly as it had come.

We boarded the train for Huai'an at 10:00am. The train
had come from somewhere else and was already quite
full. We were at the back of the crowd trying to push
our way into the carriage. Betty called out to some
young people already on the train and they agreed to
save us seats. We handed our luggage in through the
window to them, which made pushing and shoving our way
through the crowd much easier. No-one seemed upset by
the fact that we had done this.

The train was pretty filthy with rubbish. Shells from
sunflower seeds and empty packets, bottles etc. It
seems that dumping your rubbish on the floor of the
train is the done thing. Better that than on the seats
I suppose!

The trip was about 2 hours and we made friends with
the people standing near us. The kids could say a few
words of English, but mostly Betty translated for us.

On arrival in Huai'an, we caught a bus then a taxi to
Betty's home. I met her parents and her younger
brother. This is their 2nd home in the city. Their 1st
home is in a nearby village. From what I could work
out, Betty's father is some sort of manager for a
construction company.

Another huge feast was laid on for lunch. Betty's
father opened a bottle of red wine and we all had a
small glass. The only unusual dish this time was pork
and bamboo. I have never eaten bamboo before, but, as
with most things I have tried, it is quite tasty.

Betty's parents and brother do not speak any English.
It is such an unusual feeling to be sitting at a
table, feasting on home cooked delights, and not being
able to communicate, except through the stilted
interpretations of your student. It is not
uncomfortable, just different. And the families are so
honoured to have a foreigner as a guest.

After lunch, Betty's parents and her brother headed
back to the house in the village. Betty and I caught a
bus to the nearby town of Chu Zhou (pronounced Chew
Jo) which is the hometown of China's much loved former
Premier, Zhou Enlai (pronounced Jo Enlie). We visited
the Zhou Enlai memorial which is set in beautiful
parklands on a lake. We then went to his former home
which is in an ancient walled area of the city. His
former home does not look like much from the front,
but when you go inside, it is a maze of ancient open
rooms, with intricate wood carved doors and windows,
surrounding little courtyards. This is what I came to
China to see!

We spent several hours at the Zhou Enlai memorial and
his former home, before catching the bus back to
Huai'an and meeting 4 of Betty's friends for dinner.

Huai'an is a nice city with a mixture of ancient and
modern. It is apparently around the same size as
Yancheng, but has more character and is much more
appealing, in my opinion. The downtown area is a
bustling shopping and eating district, lit up at night
by neon, flashing lights. We could not get a table in
the restaurant Betty wanted to go to, so we caught a
motorised tricycle to a quiter area and had a lovely
meal at a small restaurant.

It is difficult to describe the traffic chaos in the
downtown areas of Chinese cities. There just do not
appear to be any traffic rules and bicycles,
tricycles, scooters, cars, taxis, buses and
pedestrians all jockey for position and there is a
cacophony of sound with horns, bells and people
shouting at one another. I love it!

We stayed at Betty's home that night. The next
morning, we got up early to catch the bus to Nanjing.

In Nanjing, we met Betty's cousin (Zhang He Zhou -
pronuouced Jung Her Jo, a boy, and her friend, a girl.
I also called another student, Michelle, whose
hometown is Nanjing. We all met for another early
lunch in a small downtown soup and dumpling
restaurant. I managed to drop just about everything on
my t-shirt. Lucky I had that extra bag with some spare
clothes! The soup was some dreadful concoction of
unidentifiable cow parts with glass noodles. I managed
to avoid the cow parts and just eat the noodles.
Although just how you are supposed to eat glass
noodles from a bowl of soup with chopsticks, is beyond
me! Luckily the dumplings are always good - usually
pork and vegetable filled.

I did not see very much of Nanjing as Betty and her
friend were more interested in shopping than the
tourist sites. I did see the modern, bustling downtown
shopping district. I was then told we were going to a
Confuscian temple. Well apparently it used to be. Now
it has kids amusement rides and computer games inside!
This too, was another shopping district, but more
touristy. There were hordes and hordes of people
wandering the narrow lanes. The buildings in this area
are mostly of the ancient timber style, so I enjoyed
myself looking at the architecture and people watching
while the girls window shopped. The laneways lead down
to a square where there were thousands more people
milling around. The square overlooks a river with
paddle boats floating along. It was an interesting
area and worth a look, if you can put up with the
crowds.

In the early evening, Betty and I had dinner with her
cousin. We had to kill a few hours as our train for
Huangshan was not leaving until 2:00am. However, my
neck was quite sore from all the rock-like beds I have
been sleeping on and this had developed into a bad
headache. So, we went to the drugstore to buy some
Ibuprofen as I had left my trusty Nurofen supply in
Yancheng.

Betty's cousin then arranged for us to go and "have a
rest" in dormitory room of one of his classmates at
his college. He is at a technical college in Nanjing.

The student dorms are quite scarey! They really do
live in poor conditions. The room had 4 bunks, 8 beds.
The bunks are just a timber slat with a bamboo mat on
them. No mattress. There is one big table down the
middle of the room and barely enough room either side
to swing a cat. The students washing is hung up
anywhere and everywhere.

Most of the occupants of the dorm had gone home for
the holiday, but there were 3 girls still there. They
were very nice and one of them gave me a traditional
chinese herbal patch to stick on my neck. I rested in
the dorm for a couple of hours.

We had to leave the dorm by midnight, otherwise we
would be locked in. They actually chain the gate/door
to the block!

Betty woke me just before midnight and I went to the
washroom to go to the toilet and freshen up. I could
not see any showers to speak of. The wash room was a
very dimly lit concrete room with long wash basins
down either side. You take your own wash tub and wash
in the basins. The toilets were open cubicles, no
doors and involved stepping up and straddling a drain.
Luckily, my first experience of open public toilets
was near midnight so there was no-one around to watch!

We then took a taxi to the station and waited there
for a couple of hours for the train to arrive. Betty's
cousin was accompanying us to Huangshan.

This time, when the train arrived, we had positioned
ourselves at the front of the crowd. As soon as the
gates opened, everyone pushed through the gates and
started running for the train. Betty's cousin took off
to try to save us some seats.

There are different classes on the train - the top
class being soft sleeper, then soft seat, then hard
sleeper and finally hard seat. We were in hard seat.
But hard seat does not actually guarantee you a seat!

Betty's cousin managed to get us a seat so we did have
one for the 6 hour train journey to Huangshan. The
seats are pretty much as they sound - hard and
upright. At least we had a seat though! Again, much
rubbish accumulates on the floor of the train, but a
cleaner came around every hour or so and swept the
rubbish away.

The next morning we arrived at Huangshan station. (I
had another public toilet experience here, similar to
the dorm rooms, except this time there were lots of
people about and I was being curiously stared at by
the train attendant in the stall opposite me while I
was doing my business!)We then got on a minibus for a
1 hour drive to Yi Xi where Betty's uncle lived. We
met her uncle at the station and it was time to eat
again! We went to a local restaurant for lunch.

In the afternoon, Betty's uncle arranged for a taxi to
take us to Hong Village. This is an ancient village
just out of the city with magnificient ancient
dwellings with carved wood doors and windows.
Apparently, some scenes from the movie "Crouching
Tiger, Hidden Dragon" were filmed here. We spent a
couple of hours wandering around this village.

In the evening, Betty's uncle booked Betty & I into a
hotel near his farm on the outskirts of the city.
There had been some dramas about where we would stay.
He is a farmer and had recently done a harvest of his
crop which was piled up in the rooms of his house and
therefore the house was not fit for a foreigner to
stay! We were going to get a hotel in the city, but
there is a rule that all foreigners must report to the
government and are then directed to stay in the most
expensive hotel in the city. So, we booked into a
hotel near the Uncle's Farm in a village on the
outskirts of the city. Betty was concerned that the
room was not "up to standard" for me, but I assurred
her that during my days as a backpacker I had stayed
in worse. The room was plain and bare, the beds rock
hard, but it had a western toilet and a shower with
good pressure and hot water.

We were invited to the farm for dinner. The only means
of transport was on the back of the uncle's motorbike.
So Betty and her cousin went first and then the Uncle
came back for me. It was quite an experience, riding
on the back of a motorbike through the village and
then up narrow pathways through the fields to the farm
house. It was quite an experience for the villagers
too, who had never seen a foreigner before, let alone
on the back of a motorbike.

The farm came complete with 2 huge pigs in a pigsty,
whose grunts accompanied us through dinner, which we
ate outside under the stars. Betty's aunt was so
excited about having a foreigner in her home that she
would not come and sit down, and when she did, she
kept forgetting to eat. The aunt and uncle were lovely
people. We could not actually talk to each other, of
course, but lots of smiles and nods and laughing and
toasting with small glasses of beer.

The next morning, we got a taxi into town to catch the
bus to Huangshan mountain. The bus trip was about an
hour. We got dropped off at a hotel around 9:00am and
tried to make some arrangements to get taken to the
gate so we could climb the mountain. It had been our
intention to walk up that day, stay overnight on top
of the mountain to see the sunrise the next morning
and then come back down. However, the hotel owner told
us we could not stay on the mountain unless we had
booked accommodation and that it was all booked out.
It was also way too expensive for my student guides.

So, instead, we decided to climb the mountain the next
day. While Betty's cousin took another 1 hour bus ride
back to the train station to try to book train tickets
for the return journey, Betty and I visited Jiulongpu
Falls. It was quite a hike up to the falls, and I was
ill prepared for walking, but at least it was good
training for the next day.

The next morning we left the hotel at 6:00am with a
tour group to climb the mountain. We started the climb
about 7:00am. It took 2 hours to climb to the meeting
point at the top. It was not difficult climbing as it
was stone paved the whole way. However, it was very
steep and there were thousands and thousands of steps,
so it was difficult in that respect. The climbing does
not stop when you get to the meeting point though, as
Huangshan has many peaks which we spent several hours
walking up and down. The climb was worth it though.
The mountain is magnificent and the views awesome. The
labour that must have gone into building all the
stones paths is unbelievable. It is difficult to
describe so I will try to scan photos and send by
email.

The mountain is often shrouded in mist, which creates
a mysterious atmosphere. However, we had a fine and
clear day, which I preferred as you could see all the
sheer cliffs, stone pathways, hanging pine trees, and
the hotels and temples scatterd around the peaks.

There were thousands and thousands of people on the
mountain. Betty told me 30,000 a day during national
day holiday, but I cannot confirm that. There were
certainly alot though, which sometimes made getting a
photograph without people in it quite difficult.

And yes, there was another public toilet experience on
top of the mountain. This time the stalls did actually
have doors on them, but the doors did not stay closed.
I learnt that holding the door closed while squatting
not only gives you a semblance of privacy, but also
acts as a stabiliser so you don't topple over! I say a
"semblance" of privacy though, because you have to
step up into the stall and the doors only come up to
your waist, so, while you are doing your business, you
can see all the heads of the waiting persons peering
over the top of the door. And there were lots of them
on the top of the mountain! I got a bit of stage
fright at first, but quickly learnt that, in China,
there is no shame when going to the toilet!

After several hours on top of the mountain, we caught
the cable car back to the bottom. It is possible to
catch the cable car up the mountain, but the queues
are horrendous and you have to wait for hours.
Besides, it is part of the whole experience to try to
kill yourself by walking up!

In the late afternoon, we caught a bus back to
Huangshan train station. Another 1 hour bus ride. Our
train was not leaving until 10:30pm, so we had a few
hours to kill. We went to an expensive restaurant for
dinner which my guides could ill afford to pay.
However, they are a stubborn lot and would not let me
pay for anything during the whole trip, apart from
transport and entry fees.

After dinner, we browsed the market stalls in the old
area of the city. Again, these stalls were located in
beautiful, ancient timber dwellings, and there were
red Chinese lanterns hanging in the streets, which
made for a beautiful atmosphere.

So the time finally came to get back on the train for
the return journey. There were, of course, hordes of
people waiting for the train. Because the train
commenced at this station, we were able to get a seat
.... well, at least until we reached the next station
about 15 minutes later. Apparently, in hard class,
they have allocated seats and then they have no
allocated seats. So, if you are lucky enough to get a
seat, it does not actually mean you get a seat if
someone comes along with a ticket for your seat. So,
we got kicked out of our seats. We moved down into the
next carriage and managed to get seats in that
carriage ... for the next 10 minutes until we reached
the next station! By that time, the train was
completely full and there was no chance of a seat, so
we ended up standing outside the toilet. Well, I
lasted there for all of a minute before I said to
Betty that I did not want to stand outside the toilet
for 6 hours. So, Betty's cousin retrieved my overnight
bag and I sat on that in the aisle. I stayed there for
3 hours until a mother and father pulled their young
son onto their lap and kindly offered me his seat.
Mind you, the seat was not that much better and I did
not get any sleep at all.

To make things worse, I had a disgusting spitting man
right near me who had a chain spitting problem... and
all the noises to go along with it. It was making me
physically ill.

The train finally arrived in Nanjing at 5:30am and
then we had to wait until 7:00am for a bus to
Yancheng. Finally got back to Yancheng around 11:30am
and went straight to bed, which is the first sleep I
had since climbing the mountain the previous day.

It was a bit of a nightmare journey home, but I guess
it is an experience to remember and the rest of the
trip was so good, that it did not really dampen the
experience.

Of course, I am now still exhausted and have developed
a viscious head cold, probably from all the germs on
the train. It has taken me 3 days to write this email.
For the icing on the cake, I had to do make up classes
over the weekend, so I have not had any quality time
to recover.

I cancelled my freshman classes yesterday to rest, but
ended up spending the entire day marking journals and
assignments from the advanced writing class.

Now Betty is trying to get me to go to the hospital
for an IV, but I am not keen. It's just a head cold
afterall.

Anyway, that is the end of my adventures in China for
now. I hope you all enjoyed the stories. Some of you
will probably be delighted at the lengthy distraction
this email has provided you with, others will be
cursing me for my lengthy epistles.

Take Care

Zaijian

Meagan