Building Capacity

2009 09 19 – Days 85 – near Datong

My CITS tour group for the day was an eclectic mix, consisting of a French couple and Spanish lady all about the same age as me and an older Chinese couple who didn't speak any English. The six of us fit tightly but neatly into a little minibus with our driver and English-speaking guide.
The drive to the Hanging Monastery was a little less than two hours and mostly unremarkable. The road was in decent condition for the most part, there was little traffic to compete with and the countryside rolled by offering little to the eye, with the dust and smog I'd grown accustomed to draining the colour and life from the world.

However, there was one noteworthy event of the journey – a thought – a powerful and scary thought.
About an hour into our journey, we had to negotiate some road construction works. Nothing remarkable about that as there are construction projects everywhere you look in China. The new road was at least double the width of the one we were using, no doubt it would become a motorway with three or four lanes in each direction. Again, not a particularly noteworthy observation, but as we were driving away, I wondered why they would build such a big road when our much smaller road was far from full? What vast volume of traffic would it take to fill the new road? And what did that say about the expectations of car ownership and usage in China?

Considering the already terrible air quality, the prospect of such a huge road being filled with traffic, and car ownership becoming normal for the many millions of Chinese people, was a profoundly scary thought. How can the environment cope with such punishment?

About Turn! - Westward Bound

2009 09 17-18 – Days 83-84 – trains to Datong via Beijing

Just a few days earlier, leaving Beijing, I had thought that after Dandong I'd go further north and east to hike in a large national park, but my growing appreciation of the sheer size of China, and the realisation that it could be unwise to go hiking solo in an unknown mountainous area in autumn (off-season), forced me to make some more cuts to my possible destinations list and led to an overnight train to Beijing.

Stopping just long enough to buy a ticket and wait for the train, I was soon on a standing-room-only train to Datong, a short six hours to the east.
My standing status wasn't to last the full six hours though, thanks to the effervescent Shar Shar (aka Sarah) sat in front of me:

It came as no surprise that she normally worked in Beijing's infamous tourist trap The Silk Market, as she proceeded to assault me with her enthusiasm, transferring her everyday sales skills instead to social interaction. Surrounded as I was on all sides by other passengers, there was no escape from her verbal barrage, so it was of huge consolation that she was so smiley and good-humoured. It wasn't long before she forced her seat upon me. I tried to resist, but there's only so many times you can refuse someone's hospitality before you cause serious offence. I did manage to add in the clause that I would take it for only an hour and then she could have it back by which point she was actually quite pleased to sit down again. Although Shar Shar was a lovely person, friendly and fun, I wasn't too upset that she wasn't going all the way to Datong as her lack of interest in pausing for breath lead to one of the best demonstrations I've seen of what it takes to literally talk the hind legs off a donkey! Although she was a funny and engaging person, I was exhausted by the time she got off.

Much of the journey had been winding our way around under and through steep-sided mountains, but the last couple of hours were mostly over level terrain and I had a seat and conversation free calm to enjoy view.

As the sun set over the iconic yellow earth, it occurred to me that, throughout the entire six hour train journey, we'd never once escaped the smog! Could it really be that such poor visibility over such a large area was entirely man-made!?

I supposed it probably was, sadly, both possible and probable.

Around Dandong

2009 09 16 – Day 82 – Dandong

After a comfortable overnight train from Chengde, I arrived in the industrial city of Dandong which sits on the Yalu River that defines the border with North Korea.
The sun seemed to be fighting a losing battle with the smog.

Not particularly keen to spend more than the one night necessary to see all there was to see, I managed to buy a train ticket away for the next evening and then set about finding a place to stay. Happily, that didn't prove too difficult, as Lonely Planet's information proved accurate.
It was quickly becoming clear that Dandong was far less prepared for international travellers than Beijing or a more obvious tourist destination like Chengde. This was emphasised when, as I was heading out to explore, I accidentally broke my key in the lock of the door to my room! I found a cleaner and showed them the problem, neither of us understanding a word the other was saying. After that, all I could do was wait as a succession of people came to try their hand at fixing the problem. Had I been in an English speaking hotel, I would have felt comfortable leaving them to fix the door while I went out, but limited by our mutual lack of language, I wanted to do more to be sure my stuff was secure. Eventually, thankfully, the bit of key was extracted and I was able to move my stuff to a different room and head out to explore. The staff were very pleasant throughout the whole incident. I had worried there would be shouting and finger pointing and demands of money, but there was none of that and they even returned my full deposit when I checked out the next day.
Despite the setback in time and the blanket of smog enveloping the city, there was still light enough to explore:

The Yalu River side

The North Korean side of the river is visible in the background. There is supposedly a city on the other side, but the horizon was mostly a tree line, with the occasional building just about discernible. Maybe on a clear day there are more buildings visible... if they have clear days.

This a tourism jetty. You can take tours along the river and close to the North Korean side. I gave it a miss.
Behind are the two bridges on the river. One of the bridges only extends part way into the river as it was not repaired after the Korean War. The complete, China-North Korea Friendship Bridge, carries rail and road traffic between the two countries. I saw plenty of trucks crossing from China into North Korea, but no other type of vehicle and nothing coming back the other way.

The next day, I got a few other views of the city

Above are some of the few older buildings in the central area, before Dandong, like most Chinese cities it seems, became more vertically inclined.

There is quite a Korean feeling about parts of the centre and certainly plenty of Korean influence in the places to eat.
Some shops more obviously welcomed Koreans than others.

I See No Sea

2009 09 14 – Day 80 – Shanhaiguan

I rose early with ambition to climb the nearby section of The Great Wall, hopeful of a grand view over Shanhaiguan and out to sea, before checking out some of the touristy stuff in town and a visit to the shore before heading on to my next destination at the end of the afternoon. Seemed feasible.
A short but wobbly ride in a three wheel red Reliant Robbin wannabe got me to the Great Wall park before anyone else, including, it seemed, the park staff! At first, I was being told by my driver and others hanging around outside, that it wasn't open yet and I couldn't enter, but the gates were wide open and my persistence eventually revealed that actually it was just the chairlift that wasn't operational yet and if I was crazy enough to walk up, then of course I could enter! Which I did. At that point, of course some staff did materialise from round some corner or other to make sure I paid my entrance fee.

Didn't look too bad a climb.
Before I knew it I had my own personal Great Wall climbing coach:

Waddling up to my side and then bouncing on ahead, then pausing to grin back at me – come on Martin! It's enthusiasm was infectious. I'm not quite sure how it managed to bound up stairs twice the height of it's legs, but it was inspirational!

As the climb got progressively steeper I started to worry for my little chum, who now needed more regular breaks, lungs clearly working overtime, visibly heaving. But the panting pooch would not give it up... Until the onward path was a ladder into a tower:

Or so I thought! Down the other side of the tower and re-joining the wall, there was pooch, waiting for me! Clearly the little bounder had been this way before.

Entering the wooded crest of the hill I began to encounter beasties:

Spiders with leg spans of about 15cm, and possibly the hairiest caterpillar ever:

Good thing the temple at the peak had some guardians:

Over the other side, the scenery was quite different and the sun began to power its way through the smog, giving me hope of a fine view:

But time wore on and sun and smog seemed to reach a stalemate and I had to return to the town if I wanted to fit everything in.
By the time I was most of the way down, the smog had won and, though I had a reasonable view of the plain between mountains and sea that Shanhaiguan protected, I would not have the view to the sea that I'd hoped for.

But a wedding or two is not a bad substitute!

One of the two couples enjoying a photoshoot with the greatest of walls on their special day.

Back in town, visiting the First Pass Under Heaven, I got a consolation prize:

At last! A view of the sea!
Ok, not quite what I'd hoped for, but a fine artistic depiction of the strategic significance of Shanhaiguan and its position between mountains and sea.

Green Beijing

2009 08-09 – Beijing

Beijing is not blessed with an abundance of greenery, but it's far from a concrete wasteland, possessing a reasonable scattering of trees and a few quality parks in the centre of the city.

Grass(!) in the small park around the remains of the Ming Dynasty city walls

The Botanic Gardens are a green escape.

The lake of Beihai Park.

View from Beihai Park to Jingshan Park

View north from Jingshan Park.

Grey Beijing

2009 08-09 – Beijing

Beijing is probably the greyest city I've experienced... except perhaps Aberdeen. Whereas Aberdeen's grey comes from its granite buildings and naturally overcast skies, Beijing's grey is a mixture of grey brick buildings and unnaturally fogged out skies.

This should have been a clear day methinks!

Beijing's air pollution became an internationally newsworthy subject of scrutiny during the buildup to the 2008 Olympics, but drastic measures and favourable weather saved the day. My experience of its poor air quality consisted of an almost perpetual grey and unnatural fog. Despite the poor air quality, Beijing felt more colourful than Aberdeen thanks to the people, the street life and energy of the place... but conceivably that was just me projecting my excitement onto the engaging new culture I was exploring – it's easy to dismiss the familiar as unexciting.

An orange makes a good point of reference to just how grey Beijing is!

China from a Train Window

2009 08 10 – Day 45 – train to Urumqi

My first Chinese dawn.

One night on the train and the view outside had changed significantly.  The big difference between the Kazakh and Chinese sides of the border: the evidence of man's impact on his environment.  On the Kazakh side, the landscape appeared fairly untouched.  On the Chinese side, almost everything you looked at had been in some way defined, designed or shaped by man.  The scale, organisation and implementation of agricultural works were particularly noticeable.

The Saddest of Seas

2009 07 29 – Day 33 - Aralsk

The Aral Sea, which has been steadily shrinking since the 1960s, is another 30 mins drive from the ships graveyard and is like no other sea I've seen before: it's not so much like a big lake as like an enormous puddle. The incline to the shore is extremely shallow, and the sand at its edge is a saturated mud that threatens to swallow my feet and prevents my reaching the waters edge. Perhaps that's best, as this is a mournful shore. Despite the couple of ducks within sight and the handful of small birds that zip about after insects, the place feels dead.

It's a strangely quiet environment, the air is still and dry enough as to not really feel its touch. The sun is an impassive observer... there is nothing to 'do' here than contemplate the capacity of human 'development' to break the systems that created and sustain us.