Changsha, the hometown of revolutionary old boy Mao Tse Tung, has funded the building of a 7meter statue of Mao for the Tibetans.

How generous. I always felt the Tibetans were missing 2 important aspects in their lives–a leader and a big tacky icon for their land.

Going through the small archives last night, I realized some of the posts about China were never published. They were still sitting there waiting to be uploaded. Half a year later, you can read some of the adventures in
the Far East.
Of course, the pics are always available

I’m not a fan of the Travel Channel offerings. The Poker World Tours, top Hawaiian secrets and haunted hotels shows are flat offerings and do nothing but make me switch the channel. Every now and then, they’ll air Globetrekker that keeps my attention until the first commercial break.

Last night the channel aired a show called “Are We There Yet?: Hong Kong” which was geared towards the traveling American family. It suceeds in the idea, but the actual show is a dud. Unless you and your family are part of the Town and Country set, the “tips” they offer are completely useless. Do you really need to recommend high end hotels such as the Four Seasons or The Peninsula? The starring family hired nannies to babysit while the couple went out on the town each night. Apparently all the the kids need to remember about their HK experience was the Chinese nannie.

While there was the constant reminder that they didn’t want to do anything touristy, and their desire to fit in with locals was really forced. The starring mom talked up the Sampan ride, Star Ferry, HK Disney as too tourist.? No, you don’t say?! Being a local was walking through Stanley Market–the market designed with the non-Asian in mind. Not once did they even mention the Lady’s Market, the Bird Market, or Temple Street. This is a family show, so maybe Temple Street isn’t a good fit. But the Bird Market or the street lined with goldfish would certainly appeal to their little brats. There was no mention about the Teddy Bear store complete with oversized bears and video games that was down the road from the Peninsula. Rather than a public double decker bus, they recommended the sightseeing double decker as an inexpensive way to see the city. Their transport tip also fail to mention the state of the art prepaid passes they use over in Asia that allows the people to pay for their rides without using cash. Those cards also doubles as debit cards in Watsons and convenient stores all over town. Their idea of high tea is at the Peninsula. Please! Give me the real HK high tea with yingyang tea with “baw-law bao” in a “cha-tan-teng” anyday.

Someone please send the Discover folks a copy Hong Kong Rocks!

Like the rest of China, there’s no shortage of unscrupulous characters preying on tourists. We ventured into a temple that was part of the visitors pass to check it out. We bowed to the deities and all like our parents always told us. Out of nowhere this dude comes out with incense for us to burn. That’s cool and all. Turns out he wants 100yuan from me and 10yuan from karen for the incense. That’ like $12. He gave no warning about the price and shit. Fuck that! I think he was yapping about the worthiness of my donation. In my broken mandarin, i told him the gods would not like you extorting cash from me and just walked out.

Since that incident and a massive funeral procession that happened by the hotel, Ping Yao turned into some creep heeby jeeby town. We then wandered to an old admin bldg that was a site of celebrations with a decent courtyard. There was also a prison there and gave us the chills. The doors were open and DARK and the torture items were hanging along the place as if they were prides of joy. The Chinese sure know how to torture people. Add to that, the place was open for centuries until like 1960!

Ping Yao in Shanxi province will probably be stuck in time for the rest of it’s existence. Well at least the city inside the city walls will be. The city was designated a UNESCO world heritage site recently so it’s protected from the greedy Beijing hands knocking everything down to put up pointless skyscrapers. Ping Yao was the city where the modern banking system was invented. Ironically, there are no banks to be found. In typical chinese fashion, the stash is probably stored in an old cookie tin under the bed, next to the packed away blanket and flip flops.

The city outside the wall is like any other Chinese city. It’s bustling with people, street markets filled with fresh foods, clothing stores, beggers, hustlers, smoke belching buses, bootleg dvds, electronic stores, and LeBron James Nike posters. It’s what’s inside the walls that’s the main attraction.

Always ready for profits, the Chinese know how to milk Ping Yao. There’s a cottage industry of hotels and budget accomodations that boast hot western food, hot showers, bike rentals, running water for 24hours, hot coffee, and internet. The knick knack shops sprawled around all have signs in English–not Chinglish, English. They even have a 3 day museum pass. Figuring out how to validate it is a bit confusing but can save you $$$ if you want to see all the temples and museums. While the museums are somewhat interesting, they kinda get repetitive after the third one. There’s the master bedroom, guest room, the eldest son’s room, the kitchen, the room displaying the outfits from the old days, and the room where the statues of deities are kept. The courtyards all start to look alike, and you become certain that it’s all the same museum because that tour group was just there with you at the other museum.

We left for Da Tong in Shanxi Province on an 23:25pm train out of Beijing West. Every waiting room was packed with travelers heading home or migrant travelers heading out to seek their next job. As we waited to board, we took a seat across from this American looking couple. Funny how I wanted to sit near a white American couple. It was finally boarding time and everyone made a mad dash to the line, pushing, shoving, and crushing anything in their way to the ticket collector. I didn’t see the point in the rush since our seats were assigned. We “splurged” and purchase private compartments. It wasn’t really private since we had to share with 2 other folks. Private just mean a locking door.

Once the train started pulling out of Beijing, 2 ticket collectors came in to the compartment to do what they have to do. They said something to me in mandarin, to which I stared blankly. The guy at the bunk above karen screamed out “passport.” Passport? what the fuck? I showed them, they made some snarky–and I detected some envy–remark “oh, meiguoren, noo yauk.” Passed it back to me, closed the door and they were on their way. I had a good nights sleep. No one else was there to wake me up until we got to Da Tong. It was the cold coming in from the window that kept me from sleeping through the night. All in all, not bad a ride at all.

At around 7am, we arrived in Da Tong all groggy and ready to look for a taxi to the hotel. This dude from the CITS office pointed us out and said “CITS.” Must’ve been my hat hair that gave it away. We followed him and made arrangements to see the Hanging Monastery (above left) and the Buddhist Grottoes (above right). Got into a taxi, checked in at the hotel, washed up, downed some watery coffee, and headed back out to the CITS office at the train station. The dude recognized us and had us wait at the vestibule. Two Brits Simon and Matthew came out, and I let out a hello, they said hello, I asked if they’re on the CITS tour, they said yes. Now we’re on our way. Nice. It’s always a pleasure to meet other travelers who are friendly and share the same adventure spirit. Both are on their round the world trek and have been traveling together for a couple of months after meeting up in China.

We spent the whole day with them checking out the two sites, eating lunch, sharing laughs over some beer and chips, and deciphering the menu at a local noodle shop. We even thought about checking out this odd looking porno shop. It would’ve been great to have traveled on with them, but I’m sure we’ll see them whenever they hit New York. Or when we hit London or Leeds again.