is there poodle in my noodle

Yangshuo is China’s premiere rock climbing destination; a region gifted with a multitude of limestone cliffs that offer climbing at all grades. The region is off the tourist route for Westerners and more a holiday destination for the Chinese and also European dirtbag crag monkeys.

As we headed down towards the tropics, the weather stabilised, with sunshine forecast everyday 🌞 On arrival, our host at the Climbers Inn, Lilly, recommended we take a walk down to the river with a beer to admire the jaw-dropping views. It took minutes before we were mobbed by students, rapt as Jem explained the rules of backgammon.

The Lijiang River is exceptionally warm, and pleasure boats regularly chug past, flanked by bamboo outcrops and peculiar dramatic peaks.

There is also a population of courmarants that reside in the region. Since the 9th century, fishermen in southern China (and widely in Japan) have used trained courmarants to catch fish. To control the birds, the fishermen tie a loose snare near the base of the bird’s throat to prevent it from swallowing larger fish. When it has caught a fish, the fisherman brings the bird back to the boat to regurgitate its prey.

Though cormorant fishing was once a successful enterprise, its primary use today is to serve the tourism industry, and they still demonstrate this technique in Guilin, about 1.5 hours north from here. Apparently, this traditional fishing technique was even used in France and England for a short period.

Today, the courmarants are the background stars of the local trade; photo shoots of young girls in traditional dress who flock to the river with an army of professional photographers. At first, we couldn’t quite believe how compliant the birds were. Until we discovered they were all tethered to the boats for aesthetic reasons.

China is really quite barbaric in terms of animal welfare. We have seen many poor turtles, hamsters, chicks, and terrapins amongst others shoved in small boxes mostly upside down, with the poor sods doing everything in their power to escape. It was some relief to see the courmarants were released at night and didn’t have to balance on their stands 24 hours a day.

Our host Lilly is one of those people who knows everyone and can get hold of anything. We got ourselves some dirt cheap electric scooters, £3 each a day, and it was climb time.

Having not worn a harness for fun for quite some time, we started out on some very low grades. Despite this, it took some kind of herculean effort and much grunting to get to the top of route one, and we wondered if spending three years running had withered our puny pistons into oblivion. We had our pathetic asses handed to us on a plate.

We later found out that Yangshuo is sandbag heaven and not to be too ashamed. Having checked thecrag.com, we discovered a hilarious list of routes deemed vastly undergraded, and we happened to have chosen them all. Hurrah! Day two provided more success…. onwards and upwards.

Yangshuo is really superb. We have met so many people and have spent the day today climbing with new friends. The town is crazy (even more so than the Muslim Quarter in Xi’An), and there are even proper clubs where people go dancing! So we cancelled all of our plans until November 4th and decided to extend our stay here until we fly to the Philippines via Shanghai. More climbing adventures coming up soon.

It has taken almost two weeks to not feel overwhelmed by the alien systems here; to not get shafted by inconsistent prices including the inevitable ‘tourist tax’, to consider the incessant surveillance a comfort rather than a threat, and to take advantage of the order and efficiency when there is so much chaos.

Firstly, the cost of living has been something of a rollercoaster. In a country where a hearty bowl of noodles away from the tourist trail costs about £1.20 and a tray of bao buns costs 50p, it is an eye-watering event to order two flat whites for the princely sum of £7.50.

This week, after three ‘organic’ beers each and a bit of food, we were charged more than it cost to spend two nights in our hotel; £22. Undoubtedly, they had our tourist pants down, but alcohol is expensive here with beer and wine very similar to UK prices. Outraged, Jem had to remind me that it equalled the cost of four beers in the UK and to suck it up.

There are many ways to keep costs down by using the apps that locals use. This morning, a taxi on the national Uber service Didi cost £2.50 for a 20-minute journey across town. Now we have discovered Didi, I am having to force Jem onto the bus with every tactic going, including a twist around the ear and failing that a red hot poker 😆 (and resist saying ‘its not the destination, its the journey….’)

You would also expect to pay about 80p for an hour’s bus journey, £65 for a 4-hour 1,000km bullet train in economy class, and £40 for a 7-hour 580km journey on the slightly slower D-class train. All on time and immaculate.

Similarly, it has taken time to adjust to the omnipresent CCTV and law enforcers; outside every travel hub and on many street corners (particularly in Beijing), you will see a panda winnebago with police creating a bottleneck requiring everyone to show ID and have bags scanned. On our bus yesterday, there were no less than six cameras pointing at the driver and passengers.

Mass surveillance has multiplied in recent years. In 2019, it was estimated there were 200 million surveillance cameras in China; as of August 2023, the country had over 700 million, according to online data.

At first, this felt extremely oppressive. For me, it is a similar phenomenon to Amazon’s Alexa allegedly listening in on your household conversations; while I don’t consider myself interesting enough to be a target for surveillance, there is also a looming sensation of having civil liberties slowly eroded. A feeling that, if left unchallenged, it would result in the unconscious pacification and compliance of society by Big Brother.

Perversely, as time has passed, the CCTV has become something of a reassurance. The crime rate here is notably low; the murder rate is around 0.44 to 0.50 per 100,000 people, compared with 1.2 in the UK and 5.9 in the US. Not once have we felt threatened or at risk of crime.

This has ignited many discussions about a reasonable price of admission to live in a society where a level of safety and respect is almost guaranteed, especially as a woman. What Western constitutional and human rights, such as freedom of speech and individual expression, would be worth sacrificing to deny a platform to poisonous far-right extremists like Tommy Robinson and Andrew Tate? Especially in a prosperous capitalist society like China, where the government invests billions in infrastructure and runs the spotless and affordable state-owned facilities like clockwork?

It is a moot point, really; as a Westerner, one can not overestimate how intrinsic individualism and self-expression are to our psyche and culture. The government here maintains tight control over media, speech, and civil society, stifles dissent, and restricts freedoms of expression and religion. Zipping through the country as a tourist, one can have a rose-tinted view of what it must be like growing up and living here. But behind the scenes, self-expression is near non-existent, and the government is feared.

Northern China is experiencing its fair share of rainfall this week, and this morning’s trip up Tianeman Mountain (‘Heaven’s Gate’ Mountain) was, by all accounts, a bit of a washout.

Rainfall is higher than average for this time of year. It is lucky then that there is a vendor selling shoe sheaths and plastic raincoats on every corner.

The cableway to the top of the mountain claims to be the longest in the world; a total length of 7,455 metres, and an ascent of 1,279 metres.

Had the weather behaved, then this is what we would have seen.

As we descended the mountain, Jem was mobbed yet again by old ladies who flock to him like moths to a flame. I mean, they are only human, but his celebrity status is becoming something of legend (in his mind). Before the final descent, an insistent mother threw her protesting child at him for his third photoshoot of the weekend.

Yesterday in downtown Zhangjiajie, which is just off the tourist trail, we were both followed, photographed, and pointed at, like some kind of mobile side show of British freakery. School children crowded around us, reciting random English words and staring at my jazzy leggings.

But it wasn’t just the punters following us around town. In every shop, we had a dedicated shop assistant who would walk six inches behind at all times, observing every movement, picking up everything we looked at, and putting it in our hands.

Another urban peril includes the treacherous zebra crossings, which signify that drivers should accelerate towards you and brake at the very last minute or swerve around you with inches to spare.

Dining can also be an exciting game of Russian Roulette, where menu translations provide little insight into the meals on offer, and the accompanying photos resemble your communal garden beef or chicken (but are definitely not). One thing is for certain; we have MSG coming out of our eyeballs.

We continue our adventure to Yangshuo tomorrow, seven hours south on the train. The sun shines, and limestone towers offer some of the country’s finest rock climbing.

After the intensity of visiting two of northern China’s mega-cities (exceeding 10 million inhabitants), we were elated to find ourselves back in our natural habitat. We breathed a sigh of relief as we drove up the mountains, surrounded by vegetation, altitude, and our kindred primate spirits.

Zhangjiajie National Forest Park is a national treasure, hosting almost 20 square miles of unique pillar-like formations. Climbers reading this may assume these gravity-defying towers are made of limestone, famously seen in, for example, Guilin in China, Ha Long Bay in Vietnam, and even the Peak District.

The pillars are actually made from quartz sandstone, and amazingly, the result of environmental physical erosion. Deposited and tightly pressed together over millions of years, sandstone was turned into hills and mountains due to the uplift of the earth’s crust. These were cut into parallel stone peaks under the force of weathering, primarily expanding ice in the winter. If this were not a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it would definitely be a world-class rock climbing destination!

The weather is damp year-round, which enables the dense foliage to grow so jungular. It was indeed moist during our four-day visit, and so we dressed up like big bananas and wore podiatry Durex to fit right in with the locals.

One of the park’s pillars, the 1,080-metre Southern Sky Column, was officially renamed Avatar Hallelujah Mountain in honour of the movie Avatar in January 2010. The director and production designers drew inspiration for the film’s floating rocks from mountains in Zhangjiajie.

Another notable feature of the park is its massive elevator; the world’s tallest outdoor lift at 326 metres.

The park also hosts a population of cheeky and opportunistic monkeys whose job it is to look really cute and then thieve your food/hat/bag/camera (or bite your hand off).

In keeping with China’s mad efficiency, the park’s daily 20,000 visitors are managed exceptionally well, bussed and cable-carred around with a facial-recognition system acting in lieu of visitors’ tickets. 330 free shuttle buses transport hordes of humans from site to site. Queueing can be a real issue here when the park reaches its 50,000 capacity, but this is the end of peak season, and so we had the luxury of hopping on and off without delay.

The Chinese can at first appear to be quite brusque and pushy. However, we came to realise that this is probably a required trait in a country with 1.4 billion inhabitants. Our interpersonal interactions have brought us much joy; we have had so many laughs and jokes with the locals, and they relish saying hello and practising one or two words with huge smiles on their faces.

We have also enjoyed watching tour groups around the park, all wearing matching outfits, breaking into song and dance even in the most inclement of weathers. It is a fascinating nation, and we feel we have hardly scratched the surface. Here’s to more making friends along the way!

We didn’t think anyone would read this apart from our parents! It’s really nice to know it’s being enjoyed by more than a handful of people  😘

Our travels continued down to Zhangjiajie (pronounced Jang-jar-juh) to visit a world-famous national park that you may recognise from the Avatar franchise. Zhangjiajie National Forest Park is comprised of dense forests, deep ravines and canyons, unusual peaks, caves, and pillar-like formations. More on that later!

To avoid a 12-hour multi-public transport challenge, we flew straight to Zhangjiajie in 1.5 hours. All was going well until airport security, where our bags were scanned three times, and each time, more items were confiscated, including four powerbanks that contravened Chinese flying regulations – plus my favourite lighter (stolen from my brother at Boomtown). This presents quite a problem in China, where leaving the hotel requires instant Internet useage; navigation, translation, and payment (it’s an almost cashless and cardless economy here).

Landing in Zhangjiajie was so exciting, the landscape a panorama of misty green peaks stretching into the distance.

Downtown Zhangjiajie was fairly standard, featuring a small vibrant touristy area, high-rise flats, and an exceptionally pristine river, with floating debris fished out by a flotilla of boats travelling up and down.

For all meals, there are typically three items on the menu in different guises; baozi (bao buns/dumplings), jiaozi (known in the UK as their Japanese name gyoza), plus a myriad of noodle dishes.

Breakfast reawakened the extremely contentious Baozi vs. Jiaozi Debate. So which has the edge?

The answer, of course, will depend on the filling. However, the package in which they are delivered can make all the difference! Despite its ability to instantly fill the belly, I find the local bao buns to lack the optimum bun-to-filling ratio. However, the yeast-levened dough is tastier than the flour/water/salt wrapping of the jiaozi. We will have to do more research before presenting the crown. Off we go!

Huashan is one of China’s five great Taoist mountains. Her five granite peaks were formed by huge granite intrusions (volcanic activity) about 100 to 220 million years ago, with the tallest peak reaching over 2000m.

We spent the day summitting all of the peaks and exploring the temples, which incredibly were built on precipitous and inaccessible cliffs by Taoist monks thousands of years ago.

Huashan is considered one of the most sacred Taoist mountains. The first known Taoist temple, the Shrine of the Western Peak, was established here in the 2nd century BC. 

To access the mountain, we booked a transport package which involved getting picked up by a bus at 7am, driving 1.5 hours east from Xi’An into the mountains, before taking a series of shuttle buses and cable cars.

The bus was packed with Chinese tourists who were all taking different routes up and down the mountain. After taking our seats, there was a one-hour safety and logistics briefing in Chinese. Although we missed the gist, Jem managed to translate a fraction of it on ChatGPT, so we at least got on the right shuttle bus. 

Luckily, the Chinese tourists took pity on us and kept us on track, with Jem making many new friends along the way.

The adventure on top was awesome, going from peak to peak and passing temples and catching views through the clouds. The steps had been carved by the monks many centuries ago, and there was a real sense of history and legend on the journey.

We were in awe of the Chinese octogenarians sure-footedly reaching the summit like spritely mountain goats. The same attraction in the UK would surely be littered with red-faced portly units spluttering their way up the peaks. It was no give-away, even for youthful middle agers like us! 😉

We had such a splendid day and couldn’t resist purchasing the obligatory official Huashan photo and fridge magnet. No shame!

Xi’an is one of China’s oldest cities with a history spanning over 3,000 years. The city was the eastern starting point of the Silk Road, served as the Chinese capital for 13 dynasties, and is also famous for being the location of the Terracotta Army. 

The city walls, which started construction in 194BC and were reconstructed in their present form in the 1500s, are the oldest preserved city walls in the world.

Muslim merchants arrived via the Silk Road in the 7th Century. Nowadays, the city has a vibrant Muslim Quarter and hosts the oldest pre-modern mosque in China, originally built in 742AD.

An evening out in the Muslim Quarter is pretty wild.

It is interesting that in Xi’An, counterculture is alive in comparison to the repressed Beijing. And despite being off the beaten track of the more metropolitan and wealthy eastern seaboard, it hosts its fair share of tourists – and locals, in our experience, speak more English. We have been doing our best with the Chinese and mostly get pitiful and amused looks. I am not yet sure if they are judging our language skills, table manners, or dress sense. Probably all of the above.

I’m not sure if we have been this excited since our wedding day. Today, we were going on a BULLET TRAIN. The 1,000km journey to Xi’An would take approximately 11/12 hours in a car. We would be there in just 4 hours.

We woke up with a frisson of anticipation, navigating the early morning subway to Beijing West Train Station. After the ubiquitous bag x-rays and ID checks, we grabbed some noodles and soaked in the atmosphere.

Beijing West Station was much like a futuristic King’s Cross St Pancras, with vast waiting rooms designated for various high-speed trains, leaving for all over northern China. We could hardly contain ourselves for the next hour.

Riding the bullet train was like stepping into one of those pictures children draw to illustrate what 2050 would be like. Like Beijing, it was spotless and efficient, powering through the Chinese rural outback offering sometimes quite bleak views of the cityscapes and farmlands.

The speeds were electrifying, with nearby geographical features becoming a blur as the train reached top speeds of 217mph (350kmph). Pretty impressive considering that in 1993, trains in China averaged speeds of just 30mph!

On our last day in Beijing we ventured to see the Temple of Heaven, a hall of prayer for good harvest. Originally built in 1420, the temple has been rebuilt 3 times after fire damage as a replica of the original structure.

Downtown Beijing was less captivating, in fact, more a futuristic dystopia, where the lonely skyscrapers sat on deserted streets, like a scene from 28 Days Later. The tallest, the CITIC Tower, stands proud at 528 metres.

The building on the left is the CCTV Headquarters, affectionately known as Big Pants. CCTV (China Central Television) is the national television broadcaster of China, established in 1958. CCTV reports to the Publicity Department of the Chinese Communist Party.

We decided to get back to more fun activities like trying to guess the mystery meats on sale in our local neighbourhood. The Chinese do not shy away from sticking meat on a stick, or ensuring that every part of the animal is consumed. One particular favourite is tripe soup, which they translate on the menu as Exploding Belly. Yummy!

Not wanting to shy away from stuff on a stick we got stuck in to some chicken hearts last night over a game of backgammon. A fairly underwhelming snack if I’m honest, and a tad on the chewy side. But infinitely preferable to a weird stomach lining.

By 8.30am we had entered one of the most enigmatic tourist attractions on the planet; The Forbidden City. This huge complex existed as the central axis of power of China from its beginnings in 1420 until it was turned into a tourist attraction in the early 20th century.

The UNESCO World Heritage Site is the largest preserved palace in the world and measures almost a kilometre long. It consists of 980 buildings, where the Emperor and his family, concubines, servants, and eunuchs resided. The grounds were impenetrable, surrounded by high walls, and a 52-metre wide moat. Any commoner of foreigner found inside the complex was sentenced to death. No one could enter or leave without the Emperor’s permission.

The Forbidden City is truly a mystery. A spectacle so great that modern-day Chinese were literally racing each other to enter as the gates opened. It was like the gun had gone off for the 100m Olympic sprint; elbows came out, and paying visitors did not try to hide their desperation to be one of the first through the huge gates.

What struck us was, over the centuries, how many young women and men would have spent their entire lives incarcerated in this gilded cage, desperate to leave the sprawling behemoth and to witness the world on the outside. Their days were spent in this vast prison, performing daily rituals, attending relentless meetings and ceremonies, servicing the Emperor, and with extreme pressure to bear sons to continue the Dynasty.

Albeit a beautiful and deeply symbolic heart of Chinese history, The Forbidden City was also a place of huge sacrifice to so many generations.

As a working man, Jem was happy to leave the Forbidden City with body and balls intact. We had worked up quite an appetite by lunchtime. It was a relief when even Jem turned his adventurous nose up at the Spiders And Scorpions On A Stick stand, and we opted for Peking Duck rolls instead.

An afternoon stroll revealed more beautiful views, with a trip to the top of Jinshun Park providing vistas of the commercial centre of Beijing and the sprawling residential areas which house almost 22 million people in the city.