The Last of China, and Zooming Home
Guilin, Yangshuo and Nanning
May 28 – June 12, 2009
As we headed south and east from Kunming, to Guilin, Yanshuo and Nanning, the weather became progressively hotter and muggier. We spent several hours in the middle of the day hanging out in our hotel rooms, fans whirling. We even resorted to using the air-conditioners: they were too tempting!
Guilin and Yangshuo are real tourist hot spots. As usual, Chinese tourists far outnumber western ones, but there were more westerners than we've seen anywhere previously. And there were more signs in English (although still precious few) and way more restaurants catering to western palates.
It was in Guilin that we had our first really good meal. The meals in Yangshuo were even better. So now we can say that we did have some good food in China.
In Yangshuo I also saw Chinese women breastfeeding their babies for the first time. Two of them in one night! The ethnic/tribal women all breastfeed, but so far all the Chinese women I've seen have been using bottles of melamine – oops, formula! Not sure if these gals were breastfeeding due to western influences, but whatever the reason, it was good to see that there are at least a few women who are not only breastfeeding, but breastfeeding in public. Both were in their shops, feeding their babies as customers looked over their merchandise (as it were).
It was also in Yangshuo that I saw many many older women and men with backs bent permanently double. We've seen quite a few throughout our trip here, but there seemed to be an inordinate number in Yangshuo. Hardly surprising given the heavy heavy loads that many people here carry, day after day.
Guilin and Yangshuo were basically just glitzy shopping malls, as all Chinese tourist cities are. But they did have some nice walking streets and parks. And they are both blessed with rivers running through them.In Guilin we were lucky to catch a wonderful martial arts and dance performance put on by about a hundred kids – some very small. They did several long and complex choreographed numbers, mostly pretty high energy. One of the dances was to the tune of Yankee Doodle Dandy, although the words, in Chinese, were likely quite different. They wore very bright costumes – sparkly neon oranges, pinks, greens and yellows. The 'older' kids (maybe 12-14) did a couple of ballroom dance numbers – mostly Latin salsa and jazz dances. Very professional. It's easy to see why the Chinese scoop up the trophies in ballroom dance competitions: they start young!
Right after the show we walked across the main square to watch one of the main attractions in Guilin: the Waterfall Hotel. At 8:30 sharp every night the hotel becomes a waterfall. It is quite incredible. One whole side of the hotel, some 15 stories high, is a sheer black glass wall. It's length is a convex curve, maybe 60 feet long – or more. The waterfall – great gushes of water – comes cascading over the top of the wall. Huge white lights make it look even more dramatic, and there's musical accompaniment to boot. It lasts for about 20 minutes. Towards the end there are 'super-gushes' of water along some sections of the wall that make the whole building look like a wedding cake. Quite a sight.
We also went for a long walk into the countryside around Guilin. Saw lots of great flowers, along with the usual amazing rice paddies and gardens. The Chinese are great gardeners.
In Yangshuo we went for a 'bamboo raft' trip up and down the Li River. The 'bamboo raft' was in fact made of PVC pipe, which the boatman assured us was 'much better' than bamboo. I'm sure it is, in terms of durability, but somehow it just doesn't have the same romantic quality. Still and all the ride, through a landscape of fantastic karsts, was lovely.We also took a nice bike ride in the countryside near Yangshuo, pedaling on dirt paths through karsts and rice paddies.
Nanning had no redeeming features. Just one big modern shopping mall. And because it's not such a touristy place, we were back to the usual fare of yukky cold and tasteless food. I even managed to get a stomach bug there (hardly surprised when the food, most of which is served buffet style, is pretty much cold by the time you get it).
Caught a bus from Nanning to Hanoi. Around 8 hours, including the border stop. Must admit we felt relieved to be back in Vietnam. The landscape, through less developed and certainly with its share of garbage dumped by the side of the road, was somehow friendlier than the Chinese landscape. Everything on a smaller scale, not so monumental. And much less developed.
Hanoi was, well, Hanoi. Big and bustling and busy. We had some good meals – at last! - and bought some more embroidered t-shirts. We exchanged books. And I uploaded writings and photos to blogspot and flickr, neither of which I'd been able to access during our last two weeks in China. It was nice to be back in a land of (relative) freedom – of information and expression.
It was also wonderful, absolutely wonderful, to be in a land of clean toilets. I took two photos of 'the last Chinese toile, for posterity, and in the hopes that I never see another one:
From Hanoi we flew to Bangkok, jumped on a bus to the Bangkok train station, and got there just in time to catch an overnight train to Butterworth, Malaysia. The Thai train was ... fantastic. Such a difference from Chinese trains.
First: QUIET! No one shouting into a cell phone. No raucous groups all yelling to be heard over one another. No one throat-clearing, hoiking and spitting noisily morning, noon and night. The Thais are such a wonderfully soft-spoken people. We even heard people whispering for the first time in months! Also, there was no loud canned 'music' (patriotic songs and/or screeching Chinese opera), no political nationalistic harangues, and no annoying t.v. sound tracks which, on Chinese trains, played the entire time, until lights out at 10 pm. It was glorious!
Second: PRIVACY! The berths all had curtains, unlike the 'open plan' in the Chinese trains. It was nice not to feel so totally exposed when you were changing, sleeping, etc.
Third: CLEAN sheets and pillow cases. In China the linens on the trains are just folded up and re-used. Yuk. On the Thai train we got sealed plastic bags with fresh linens. A steward came and made up our beds. He brought us drinks and dinner. He was friendly and courteous.
Fourth: TOILET PAPER in the bathrooms, and much cleaner bathrooms, including one western style toilet.
Fifth: ROOM to move. Instead of three tiers of berths, there are only two, so you can actually sit up on both lower and upper berths. And they're arranged along the long axis of the train, on either side, so that the aisle is wider than on the Chinese trains, where the berths are arranged perpendicular to the long access, with a narrow corridor on one side, and silly fold-down seats in the corridor that make it impossible to walk up and down without tripping over peoples' feet and belongings, which are of course stacked in the aisle because there's nowhere else to put them.
Sixth: READING LIGHTS! There were no reading lights on the Chinese trains. Maybe because few people read. On the other hand, the overhead lighting was kept on all night, which was a little annoying. But still...
Looking out the window of the train at the passing landscapes – rice paddies still, but now studded with palm trees – it all seemed much gentler, much less monumental, than the Chinese landscapes. Everything in China is so large scale. Here in Thailand the farming was less orderly – there were lots of untended fields, wild areas. It felt somehow calmer, more serene. I felt I could relax... .
As we approached the border between Thailand and Malaysia a few Malays came onto the train and stashed bags of Thai rice under all of the seats. We've seen the rice smuggling many times before. Thai rice is highly prized. The train guys were clearly in on the smuggling, helping stow the bags behind bags of linens and under seats. Most of this rice is not for sale, but for family consumption. Pretty funny. And relatively harmless.
More serious smuggling was being done by a young Chinese couple (there are many Chinese in Malaysia). Again with the assistance of the train crew, they had stashed large packages of some kind of fabric or clothing (Thai silk?) in the overhead compartments of the train. Once the train pulled away from the border, they started collecting them up and putting them into two HUGE new suitcases and a third very large bag. Clearly this was a business.Somehow the smuggling being done by this young well-heeled couple summed up what I feel is one of the main hallmarks of China and the Chinese: it's all about money. Getting and spending, getting and spending. China is indeed the new Asian America. Chinerica.
Here in Malaysia there are three distinct ethnic groups: Malay, who are mostly Muslim, Indian, who aer mostly Hindu, and Chinese. Despite the fact that they are in the minority, in terms of numbers, it is the Chinese who control Malaysia's economy. They own all of the big, and most of the small, businesses – certainly all the real money-makers. The Malays however control the government. The Indians control nothing, but make up the majority of the money changers on the street, and definitely make some of the best food in the country.
