nǐ hǎo...! Everyone...!

That was to be my first word in what turned out to be my favourite country. I hope over the next few blog entries I can show you why..!

There's a lot to the China blog entries...but...I promise they'll be of interest...! So lay back with a Jasmine T and let me transport you to the wonderful world of the orient...

First up...It was March when I arrived...which meant my T-shirt and vest was a bad choice of atire on arrival and would get me about as far as a Panda on Valium...it was about sub zero or felt like it outside the airport...!!! burrrrr

For most of my stay in Beijing (1 week) I stayed with Fei who was a great host...!(and I'll be expecting you in Edinburgh at some point within 5 years...I'm counting the days!!!) A big thank you to Leng as well... cheers for all you help and the Intro to Beijing!)

First stop...The forbidden City...!

Managing to avoid the Chinese T scam where attractive local girls come up and say they want to practise there English in a T house where the cup of T ends up costing anywhere between 50 and 80 pounds...! they bring out the bouncers if you don`t pay up...!

The Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial palace from the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty. Located in the middle of Beijing it now houses the Palace Museum. (which in itself was a spectical!) For almost five hundred years, it served as the home of emperors and their households, as well as the ceremonial and political centre of Chinese government. Its also where they filmed ´the last emperor´

Built in 1406 to 1420, the complex consists of 980 buildings with 8,707 bays of rooms[1] and covers 720,000 m2 (7,800,000 sq ft). The palace complex exemplifies traditional Chinese palatial architecture,[2] and has influenced cultural and architectural developments in East Asia and elsewhere. It also has the largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world.

Afterwards I walked staight out of the Forbidden city and into Jingshan Park... a very layed back park that had a great viewpoint back over the Forbidden city...The park was dotted with mucians and interesting groups of Jianzi players...some of whom were easliy in their 70's and were arguably more skillful than Ronaldo...! (doesn`t matter which Ronaldo!)

And then onto the Great Wall where I was to be Scamed...! bloody taxi drivers...!

The bus was to take 2 hours to a small town where I would then take a bus costing 15 RMB (1.5 pounds) to the wall...What actually happened was after about an hour the bus stopped, a random guy came on and pointed to me to get off...I must also add the driver agreed with this gesture...! having to put my shoes on as I`d taken them off for comfort...and tidying up my lunch which was a desginer ´pot noodle´ with tubs of sauces...nightmare...! I stupidly got off the bus where I was confronted by a swarm of taxi drivers (quite literally buzzing all over me) giving me different prices....! B#$&*+s!!!
I had to take one of them in the end feelling cheated I payed him half as much as they had originally offered...I Later met some American guys who I climbed part of the wall with...one of them could speak chinese...and translated what the driver was trying to tell me...

"there aren´t any buses for your return jounrey so I´ll meet you back here at 6pm"?!

This was a lie..! again...! could you believe it...! anyway the Wall turned out to be more than worth it...!

The Great Wall of China "long fortress" is a series of stone and earthen fortifications, located in northern China, built originally to protect the northern borders of the Chinese Empire against intrusions by various nomadic groups.
Several walls have been built since the 5th century BC that are referred to collectively as the Great Wall, which has been rebuilt and maintained from the 5th century BC through the 16th century.
One of the most famous is the wall built between 220–206 BC by the first Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang. Little of that wall remains; the majority of the existing wall was built during the Ming Dynasty.

The Great Wall stretches from Shanhaiguan in the east, to Lop Nur in the west, along an arc that roughly delineates the southern edge of Inner Mongolia. The most comprehensive archaeological survey, using advanced technologies, has recently concluded that the entire Great Wall, with all of its branches, stretches for 8,851.8 km (5,500.3 mi). This is made up of 6,259.6 km (3,889.5 mi) sections of actual wall, 359.7 km (223.5 mi) of trenches and 2,232.5 km (1,387.2 mi) of natural defensive barriers such as hills and rivers.

Ofcourse I remeber all the figures above... I started and ended at the `Sumatia´ gate one of three...although I really didn` go that far...I could appreciate just what a Marvel this man made structure is...the surrounding lanscape was truly blissful...

(it cannot be seen from space for those of us (me) that thought it could...)!

written by  willrob on March 8, 2010 from Beijing, China
from the travel blog: Rob Williams 'a year in the making'
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Towards the end of my time in Beijing I visited the 'Summer Palace' (above) and the 'Temple of Heaven,' they were great places to walk around and discover...but I just can't fit it all in...!
(I've choosen to mention the Summer Palace as more happened for me there...although the Temple of heaven is a must if you go to Beijing...!)

...around the grounds of the Summer Palace there is a variety of palaces, gardens, and other classical-style architectural structures...otherwise known as the "Gardens of Nurtured Harmony" it is mainly dominated by Longevity Hill (60 meters high) and the Kunming Lake. The central Kunming Lake covering 2.2 square kilometers was entirely man made and the excavated soil was used to build Longevity Hill. The Hill of Longevity is where the video below was shot...

Dancers from the Summer Palace...Check out that Moustache...! male or female..

While wondering the Summer Palace I was in search for the Mable boat which sits on the water almost like any other boat would only it s made from stone...! i asked a random kite flyer who ofcourse didn t know what I was talking about...and then a hansome young Chinese dude, David...who like me turned out to be a tourist and spoke good english (although he would probably disagree...!) We found out the rough direction and headed towards the boat checking out all the sites on the way...he turned out to be great company and not such a bad singer too...! (marble boat in the background)...

As I was running short on time I didn't get to see the Temple of Heaven that day, however I took up Davids suggestion of vistiting the Central Contol Tower (CCT) which was a few metro stops away...we sang, laughed and had a blast...!

on another cold and snowy day...

HOHHOT...!

And if i can squeeze it in...
From Beijing I said farewell to the steamed dumplings... the friends I'd made and ofcourse Fei...THANK YOU for having me...!
...and so onto 'Hohhot' the Capital of inner Mongolia...about a 10 hour train ride West of Beijing... interestingly it is nationally known as the home of China's dairy giants Mengniu and Yili, and as a result was named the "Dairy Capital of China"...! by the China Dairy Industry Association and the Dairy Association of China in 2005...mmmm?!
Anyway...I was greeted with open arms by the staff of the Anda guesthouse who really coloured my experience in Inner Mongolia...I can t say how much I appeciate everything you did for me and sincerly thank you for your hospitality...especially the tradional songs you sang for us on Om s birthday...beautiful and effortless...I think we both had a tear in our eye...truly memorable.

And ofcourse I can t forget it was to be here at the Anda Guesthouse that I was to meet one of the key figures of my travels in China...my good friend and travel companion Om...AKA...Ommy the hommy from the U S of A.

written by  willrob on March 12, 2010 from Beijing, China
from the travel blog: Rob Williams 'a year in the making'
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Ok, Mongolia was never planned but as always the best experiences never are...It was down to Om, (That handsome chap I met in Hohhot) why I had such a precariously awesome time in a country full of wonder, tiny horses, beautiful women, a harsh climate and once home to the great Genghis Khan and of course V O D K A…!

So I managed to get the fastest ever Visa (30 minutes) for 2 weeks…our route was a bus to Eren Hot a smallish border town then catch the Trans Mongolia-express which starts in Beijing and ends up in St Petersburg…! Along the way met some interesting characters…from the dodgey men in the 4x4 that ripped us off at the border crossing to the strange drunk who followed us to our cabin on the train and demanded money from us...to Suhne and Baggi who were the best drinking partners anyone could have hoped for…!

Mongolia was by far one of the best 'off route' countries I visited and mainly because we had to be on the look out for most of it...! We spent quite a bit of time in the hostel in fear of our lives as the Capital is ‘no place for old men.’ Pick pocketing happened on a regular basis, drunks and taxi drivers who pulled a guy out of our hostel and beat him up...plus it was minus 0 C for most of the time…However I don’t want to paint a bad picture…it’s just with a harsh climate life is hard and it proved to be for many of the Mongolians at that time…well the ones we encountered...!

Approaching the border crossing...was the best Introduction to Mongolia we could have hoped for...literally as we made it to the border between China and Mongolia a huge sand storm greeted us...along with a giant artificial rainbow...! (you can't make this stuff up...)

I ve tried to let the videos do most of the explaining...although the train into Ulaanbaatar was definitely one of the highlights....!

We soon hooked up with Suhne and Baggey who offered Vodkha, arm wrestles and were such great company...thank you guys...!

Beginning of our little expedition into the Mongolian countryside...We teamed up with Canadian Chris...who we met at the hostel...he also managed to survive the Vodka..! cheers !

As you can see in the Pic below we enjoyed ourselves but it was exhausting...I have to say nothing happened to us...we weren't robbed and and I survived the most amount of Vodka my body has and will ever consume...EVER...
The only injury I incurred was running into a post when a wolf/dog growled at me and I got scared and ran from it...(check the scar-wound on my forehead in th epic below) other than that not a scratch...

written by  willrob on March 19, 2010 from Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
from the travel blog: Rob Williams 'a year in the making'
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Hey everyone...!

Just a little reminder that I'm still alive and well...in Xian, China at the moment, I leave to Jiuzhaigou National Park today (5/4/10)...

as You tube and Fb are out until I get to Hong Kong I'll wait until then before I get back to the blog...good news is that India is fininished with...well the pictures anyway...

love to all and thanks for all your well wishes..it makes a difference, thank you.

R x

written by  willrob on March 27, 2010 from Xi'an, China
from the travel blog: Rob Williams 'a year in the making'
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and my farewells to Hohhot and the Anda Guesthouse...and board my second train in China, an overnighter to Xi'an, the home of the Terracotta Warriors...!

I'd seen pictures and documentary by Dan Cruickshank in his 'around the world in 80 treasures' series, (recommend watching). From what I remember they looked about a meter tall and pretty cool...
I arrived in Xi'an with a bit of time to kill before meeting up with Yuan (my host)...you could say I liked Xi'an from the off with it's bustling city center, food market, Bell and drum towers and pagodas and not forgetting it's nightlife...

Half way through the week I met up with another CS Leon who along with Yuan made my experience in Xi'an pretty awesome...! Enjoy...!

The Warriors turned out to be much more than I expected...after walking around the huge excavated pits the final (pit 3) below was most impressive...i didn't realise the warriors would be almost life size and that there would be literally hundreds of them accompanied with horses...!

Xi'an and the traditional Bell tower dancer/musicians...

some afternoon groovers in the park...

Some restaurants would have staff relay races as means of 'team building' mmm...how would that go down in the UK...?!

The Big goose Pagoda...

a brilliantly funny tranvestite street entertainer...even though I couldn't understand him/her, he/she was hilarious...! and kinda cute...?!

a song to ponder...

Jiuzhaigou national park...

I'd read about Jiuzhaigou in my guide book and seen some unreal pictures of marine and turquoise coloured still lakes with lush surroundings...it was on the way from Xi'an to Chengdu and so I thought...

why not..?!

That question has often led me to some problems along the course of this trip...however fun and exciting the outcome turned out to be...!!!

So I planned to get the overnight train to Guangyuan then a bus which I was expecting would take a few hours at the least...
To summerise...the journey turned out to be one of the best surprise routes of my trip... The train from Xi'an to Guangyuan was as always, relaxing and enjoyable...
So...I get off at Guangyuan, and make my way to the bus depo...some how managed to get my ticket...I met this lady, who went out of her way to help me...only she was speaking Chinese the whole entire time..! pointing and showing money was my only form of comunication....!
So I'm waiting on the bus which looks pretty run down, the everyone nods at me and exchanges a few words amongst themselves to acknowledge that yes I am a foreigner and that I speak no Chinese... but this doesn't bother me as I've come to realise language is just one form of communication and as a result I have become a master of reading body language and gestures...or so I think...

we set off and as always in countries where there are a bazillion people, people frequently boarded and got off the bus all along the way...The road starts to deteriorate and this is where it starts to get interesting...I have no fear as the 40-50 year old driver is a pro and has probably driven this route his whole life...we rise and fall on snake like roads swooping in, out and around the valley floor, through crumbled old villages with residents who have probably never seen cities like Beiijing and have lived in this remote valley their whole life...at one point we stop when the narrow single lane road is congested by oncoming traffic...a work man looks up and with complete shock mouths the word laowai (a derogatory term for a foreigner), I smile and wave to him, hesitantly he responds...

(I'm always shocked to see that multi-coloured tracksuit bottoms can be worn by the youths of today even in the most remote parts of the world...!)

Down below is an intro to the mysterious blue waters I'd be seeing in Jiuzhaigou Park, with odd shaped boats and locals going about their business, fishing and farming...

(check out some of the pictures in 'photos' for this).

The road begins to flatten out and we start to approach a town near Jiuzhaigou in the dark, it's 11 hours since I left Guangyuan, nearly there...
The driver says goodbye and mentions something, but what I don't understand is that I'm still about an hour from where I want to be...I try to explain my situation to the car park attendant who is there with his wife and two very cheeky but adorable daughters...as I tell them it should be a short taxi ride costing around 2 pounds they tell me it's more like 12 pounds...I gesture with my hands that the journey and should be short and that what their suggesting is a 'looonnnngggg' journey...I say the word long in this way...as I do the two girls start giggling and repeat this word with the hand gesture over and over again...each time it gets funnier and we re all laughing at the absurdity of the situation I've got myself in...
I walk into town to confirm and get some clearer info and directions...meanwhile the girls follow me and blurt out all the broken English they know from movies and things they've herd...I walk back with them, giggling along the way...this takes my mind of the fact that I m totally knackered from the two days of traveling...their father calls me a cab and as I pull away...with the window down, hands waving the little girl in the yellow jacket starts crying and tells me she doesn't want me to leave (or something similar)...after the day I've had I start as well...a very special moment, one of many I was so fortunate to have on my journey...

As for the park words can't describe as I seem to prove in the video below...check out how times I say the word 'Amazing'...ridiculous...!

written by  willrob on March 28, 2010 from Xi'an, China
from the travel blog: Rob Williams 'a year in the making'
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