I'll be journaling throughout the cruise. If they don't have internet, the first blog will be more of a journal than a blog. However, I think that's probably equivalent to the different ways you can say tomato. No matter how you say it, it's still a tomato.

I almost forgot to mention that I have been looking for postcards everywhere we walk (believe me, that's a lot of looking with all the walking we have been doing). I have not been able to find ONE store that sells any. I don't get it. That would be a cash-cow for these guys. I'm still looking and so for those I promised a postcard to, please be patient.

Until Next Time....

written by  akstoltzy on June 4, 2010 from Chongqing, China
from the travel blog: China
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And please everyone, do not play your trumpet here in the park:

They also have statues all around that are related to Christianity and the ten commandments. Thou shalt not kill, covet thy neighbors wife, and so on. Here is one that relates to what happens if you do not listen to your parents:

People are encouraged to 'spank' the statue.

My batteries in the camera were dying so I could not take pictures of all the statues.

This picture show a hotel they are building that is roughly one mile away:

It's not real clear because I had to max out the zoom but you can see that there will be a Buddha's face on the front of it. Reminds me a bit of Mt. Rushmore and the ongoing construction in South Dakota of the Crazy Horse monument being carved out of the side of a hill.

We spent about three hours on this excursion. I had many more pictures but I couldn't remember what they were pictures of. I suppose I could have just put them up but without an explanation of each, it would have been like going on an art gallery excursion without an interpreter. OH WAIT! That's exactly what we were doing!

Tonight, we went to the bar/ballroom for a little show and some games. The staff did some dancing:

Since Eric and I were the only two westerners on board, we were picked out of the crowd to participate in all of the fun and games. No matter how hard we try, we stick out a little bit like albino pandas without round eyes. In any case, Eric tried to shake his booty with a box tied to his hind end. Inside the box were ping pong balls. There was a little hole on the bottom of the box for the ping pong balls to fall through into a basket. It was hilarious! Eric did poorly, ending up 3rd and winning a map of the Yangtze River. Here are a few shots:

I went up to play a version of a game on The Price Is Right. There were cards spread in rows on a board. I had to pick 4 cards and if I picked an ace of any suit, I would win a t-shirt. Well, the t-shirt is in my bag. I also won three beers to go with it and so I made three new friends in the crowd!

The night ended at about 11:30. We have to be up early tomorrow because we are approaching the gorges and we're going to go on another excursion where we will have to transfer two times to smaller and smaller boats. Tomorrow night we see the Three Gorges Dam. Hopefully it is lit up since it will be dark.

written by  akstoltzy on June 5, 2010 from Yichang, China
from the travel blog: China
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The following picture is of a new community that the government needed to provide for those affected by the construction of the dam:

During the construction of the dam, more than one million people were displaced from their homes. The reason: they are all under water now. The construction of the dam caused the Yangtze to rise more than 70 meters from it's previous height. For all the metrically-impaired out there including my life-time membership, that's about 230 feet. We passed several of these communities as we continued down stream.

This next picture shows us entering the narrower portion of the gorge:

We had to transfer to a smaller boat due to the depth of this river decreasing the further we went up river. This is not part of the Three Gorges Dam itself. This is a tributary of the Yangtze River but whose water level also rose.

As you can see, the fog is not conducive to photography.

This next picture shows a little bit more visually the river's depth change:

This body of land is now an island. Previous to the dam being built, it was part of the mainland (a peninsula actually). Now, you can only access this by boat.

The next two pictures just prove that Eric and I were here:

Here are a few pictures from the front of the ship:

Again, detail is difficult because of the type of camera I have and the fog. The peaks of these mountains range from 1000-2000 feet in height.

The tributary/river we are entering actually has a name but I can't say or spell it so you'll just have to take my word for it.

We passed this lady who is either coming or going:

Here is Grand View Peak (the little point in the top left of the picture):

This is the highest peak in the gorge at a little over 1000 meters (3900 ft):

If you look at the picture, you can see high-water marks on the walls of the gorge. This happens every summer. In the winter, the water is allowed to rise to the top water-mark. In the Spring/Summer, the water is lowered to allow flood waters a place to go rather than all over the land. The water-level depth that you can see from level to high-water mark is about 50 meters (more than 150 ft).

This cave is pretty cool (though the photography is not):

It's 100 meters high and about 30 meters wide. It's called Swallow Cave because that's where swallows nest. It is considered bad luck in this area of China to disturb the nests for eggs and so any swallows that nest here are safe from being the main ingredient in soup.

The next few pictures show traditional Chinese culture in these shallow areas of the river(s). We transferred from our smaller boat to these traditional wooden boats that have been used for over 2000 years:

Only 17 or so people can get on one of these boats:

Here is our guide who speaks Chinese first and then gives us two Americans the short version:

They are rowed/paddled by up to six men and a captain. We were rowed about ¾ of a mile up the river. The depth of the river continuously became more shallow.

When we arrived at a point where it was too shallow to paddle, the men hopped out of the boat, grabbed lengths of 'rope' made from bamboo, and pulled us up the river:

That is how it has been done for thousands of years in this area of China!

In this next picture, the man is 75 years old and has been doing this his whole life:

This guy is the only chubby guy among the men.

Don't know why I took this picture:

It's China's flag and hopefully I'll learn soon what the four smaller stars around the big star represent.

As we headed back to our ship, we passed the city of Badong (bow dong):

That's what they told us. There must be another Golden Gate Bridge because I do not see much of a resemblance.

We made it back to the ship and immediately set sail for the Three Gorges Dam. This picture is of our main guide Stephen:

The show in the bar/ballroom that night consisted of more traditional Chinese dancing as well as crowd participation. The little girl in this picture:

Eric decided to go up on stage and show his coordination and MJ moves. Yes, MJ is dead and Eric proved that rather well! The staff had 6-foot long bamboo poles that they would rhythmically slap together or slap on the ground. Eric never quite got it and almost broke his ankles when he should have been in the air (when the poles slapped together) instead of on the ground. Here is a sequence of pictures:
Getting Directions:

Trying with a helper:

On his own:

I was called up to play musical chairs with three other guests. The idea was to 'dance' (I also proved the MJ is dead) around a group of chairs until Stephan stopped the music and announced something that we had to get from the audience. I did well the first round, ripping a shoe off an elderly gentleman. However, the second round required a sock. I went back to the traumatized man whose shoe I had just stolen only to find out he wasn't wearing socks. I then jumped over he and his wife and started ripping off the sock of a Japanese man. I almost took his lower leg with me but when I turned around and saw that the other two had already found their magic sock, I left his leg alone. I apologized to the man as a tourniquet was applied to slow the bleeding. I won a map of the Three Gorges Dam so all in all it was quite fun! I may need a little forgiveness, too.

We hit the Three Gorges Dam at about midnight. The pictures all turned out black due to the rain, fog, and lack of a manly flash on my camera. What I can tell you is that it is ENORMOUS. The Grand Coulee Dam in the US is pretty big, putting out about 800 K-Watts of power through it's four or five turbines. This dam? 22 turbines and 18,000 K-watts of power. I have no idea what I just typed because I don't know anything about electricity. What I do know is that the Grand Coulee Dam is big. This dam is like comparing an elephant and a gerbil. Here is proof that I was there:

Here are pictures from Monday morning right before the cruise ended:

I only wish that the pictures would have been more clear. I learned that if we took the cruise from Yi Chang to Chongqing (the opposite run), we would have gone through the five locks during the daytime. Oh well, maybe next time. This was the highlight so far of the trip and yet I can't show you visually how cool it was. In any case, I highly recommend the cruise if ever coming here. It is worth the money!

After the cruise, we boarded a bus for a 5-hour ride to a hostel in Wuhan (woo h on). We stayed overnight and then caught a train to Guilin. Guess what the metal buckets are for on the floor:

written by  akstoltzy on June 7, 2010 from Yichang, China
from the travel blog: China
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School is now out for summer. Have fun.

written by  akstoltzy on June 9, 2010 from Guilin, China
from the travel blog: China
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OK, now to some travel news and the real reason we are here. It's been a rainy few days here in Guilin. Let me back up a bit. We found our hostel in Wuhan after a little trouble. First off, the bus driver dropped us off in downtown Wuhan. He said something in Chinese and after trying to tell him we didn't understand, he obviously felt that if he said the same thing but 100 decibels LOUDER that we would understand him. So, we shook our heads yes and said thank you. We found a young lady who said we needed to find a cab. I think that's what she said because she immediately started trying to flag down a taxi. It is raining buckets and she is standing under her umbrella and is unsuccessful for about 15 minutes. We 'She uh She uh her (thank you) and decide to flag a cab ourselves. We felt bad that she was trying to help us but was standing in the rain (though she did have the umbrella) and probably had better things to do than flag a taxi for a couple of Americans. So, after another 15 or so minutes in the monsoon, we are finally able to flag a cab. The card we had for the hostel had instructions for the driver written in Chinese. It helped but not exactly. He drops us off on the other side of the street and starts pointing and saying something. We obviously have a dumb look on our face because for the second time in less than an hour he begins hollering in Chinese what he just said at conversation levels. The rain had lightened a little but it was still raining pretty good. We see the sign for the hostel but can't figure out how to get into the building where the sign is. We walk back and forth and then out of the blue, an elderly Chinese man looks at us, says something at deafening tones, and points to a different building. We obviously looked like we were staying at a hostel. As it turned out, he was the only person we never talked to first who actually could tell us where to go. Very ironic. Most of the hostels are tucked into little alleys and way back off the main road where only scooters and bikes can get through. The same was true of this one. After a zig here and a zag there, we found it
When we zigged the first time, we were left with this site:

This is the scene at the train station in Wuhan:

All of the people are not going onto our train. Six stayed back (at least it seemed that way). The line forms to walk to the platform and people will run you over if you don't move forward. Leave an inch between you and the person in front of you and there will be three people fighting for the space. It's like one gigantic mosh pit. Anyway, Eric and I each are in the same carriage and in the middle bunk on either side of each other. Eric is probably 6'3 and a pretty big guy. The middle bunk is probably the worst one he could have. Neither of us slept well. It was a long 14 hour ride between the old guy below me vibrating my bunk with his snoring and the eight plus hours of the guy above me and the guy above Eric talking. Honestly, those two talked non-stop for more than EIGHT agonizing hours. It was like an all day Kung Fu movie with only audio listening to these two. If they had been Americans, I would have sworn they were on crack. Instead, over here, they must have been on tea. A LOT of tea. It was unbelievable.

When we arrived in Guilin at 5:40 AM, I looked at the map on the hostel's card and can see we are very close. We decide to walk and we are glad we did. The hostel, Flowers (peace, maaaaaan), is tucked back, around and then up a few flight of stairs. Here is the sequence of how to get there from the main street in front of the station. Each picture represents either a turn, bend, or flight of stairs:

Now follow the arrow:

Go through the ivy-vine thingy (don't know how to spell trellace or trelice or, well, you get the picture:

Go down the long entryway:

You've made it!

Now to the room:
Go up the stairs and follow the signs:

So here we are. We are heading to Xian on Saturday (a lovely 27 hour train ride through central China; it will be a ride anyway with middle bunks again) to see the terra cottas and then go on a tour of the wall that was built around the city for protection some eons ago. I'll get more accurate info when we get there.

Both Eric and I ate something that did not agree with us and so all day today and last night we have been alternating using the bathroom. We don't have one in our room. It's shared with the whole floor. Eric is upstairs now with a little worse case than I have. I'm eating a monster plate of rice and hope that will help.

Don't know what's happening tomorrow. Hopefully our bellies will let us stray more than 10 yards from a working bathroom.

Until then...

written by  akstoltzy on June 10, 2010 from Guilin, China
from the travel blog: China
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No pictures from yesterday. I went out to just observe. We leave this afternoon for Xian and so this is likely to be the last post until Monday your time. The train ride is 27 hours and so we don't get in until Sunday evening at about 8:00 PM if all goes well. On Monday we head to the terra cotta statues. I'm sure I will have a lot of pictures from their and from within Xian.

I saw a car wreck happen last night. Actually, I didn't really see it happen straight away but I caught it happening out of the corner of my eye as well as with my ears. A cab driver wasn't watching when he was making a right turn from the middle lane and so he got struck by another taxi. They weren't happy with each other. There were a lot of gestures and probably bad words but I can't be sure. The one taxi driver couldn't get out his door and so he is climbing over the middle console and yelling at top volume while trying to get out the passenger-side door. His passenger gets out of the taxi, walks over to the other taxi (while he is yelling as well) and then spits on the windshield. I stood there and just watched but needed to get out of the street because cars were honking at me to move. So I moved.

I have met three people here at the hostel in the past two days. Here they are:

This is Tom from Wales:

It amazes me almost daily the variety of people that I meet in hostels. It's a different blend of people but most are free-spirited and have a zest for life and exploring that we don't normally see in the US. There are no worries and no time-tables for most of them to meet. We have sat downstairs here in the hostel for many hours the past few days just talking. No poitical talk but just life and travel experiences. Talk about no stress! This entire trip so far, with staying in hostels, has been like a big dose of Xanax but with only positive side effects. Being married and having children would preclude you from this lifestyle unless all your kids were out of the house. At the same time, though, I have seen families (one from Germany and another from Canada) with kids traveling here and enjoying the hostel experience. If you want to travel for a good price and don't mind sharing a bathroom and paying 1/10 the price of a hotel room, hostelling is the way to go. My room here costs my 30 Yuan a night. That's $4.41 each night. the beds are comfortable, the public areas are all very clean, and each serves authentic and western food. What more do you need?

Well, it's off to the train station for our 27 hour ride. We are going to head to the department and grocery store before going to the train. Might pick up a dice game of some sort or a regular deck of cards to help pass the time. We also need to have munchies and water. Each carriage has a hot water (drinkable of course) station and so with tea and noodles packed, we should be set for the journey to Xian.

I'll be in touch as soon as I can. If any of you can download Skype onto your computer (you need a camera and microphone), I would love to talk to you! My username is akstoltzy. Look me up and give me a ring!

Until Monday....

written by  akstoltzy on June 12, 2010 from Guilin, China
from the travel blog: China
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So we are driving in this rickshaw when it dawns on us that this guy is playing Chicken with every car, bus, and motorized vehicle on the road. He goes the wrong way on the highway, pulls u-turns right in front of busses, and drives straight for cars expecting (knowing?) that they will honk but eventually move. If we had them, it would have been smart to change into a pair of Huggies before getting on this motorized suicide machine. He has to stop three times to ask other rickshaw drivers where our hostel is, one time pulling directly into the path of a police car. The police car honks and then drives by close enough to my side that I do not think I could have fit my thumb between his side door and the tire on our rickshaw. We get to the hostel in one piece but have found that our exhaustion has been replaced by an overdose of adrenaline. We are up for the next three hours and go to bed at 3:00 AM.

written by  akstoltzy on June 13, 2010 from Xi'an, China
from the travel blog: China
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Here is a pit that contains the remains of a woman (top) as well as some clay pots. The pots are believed to have been buried at the same so she could use them in her next life:

Here is another burial site with the same idea with the pots:

This is what the inside of the building looks like as they have preserved the site:

It was pretty hot yesterday. Our tour guide said that, "It's only 35 C today." Yeah, well 95 F is pretty dang hot for a couple of guys from Alaska. It's even hotter today. I suppose that it's only 38 C today (100.4 F) so I probably shouldn't complain!

After we visited the old settlement, we were taken to a site that shows what the inside of the Emperor Qin's tomb looks like. It's a reproduction as they have not officially opened that to the public. It's pretty tacky looking so I didn't take any pictures.

To read about the terra cottas themselves, this is a good website to visit:
http://www.chinaculture.org/gb/en_museum/2003-09/24/content_30784.htm

After we visited the tacky 'museum', we went to lunch. We were trying to figure out if we were going to ACTUALLY SEE the terra cottas or not. Our guide spoke English well but it was still not certain (at least that was the consensus inside the van) whether we were actually going to see them or not. So after lunch, the seven of us piled back into the van and headed through traffic to the drop-off point. The drop-off point is probably a half mile or so from the actual statues. It is common here for the tours to start well in advance of the actual place you are visiting. They do this so that you have to walk through a labrynth of shops and vendors. Neat marketing ploy but it does get bothersome.

In any case, we have to take an electric cart that holds about nine people to the actual museum. Here is a picture of what the line looked like:

Just like with traffic and the train station, there are no 'lanes' to follow. You just pack yourself into the crowd and fight for position as you move forward. I was a little testy yesterday as the heat was frying my patience. Plus, all those darn umbrellas kept hitting me in the face. When it was time for our group to get on the cart, people were pushing me from behind so they could get on the cart themselves. I'd had enough by then and so I blocked the left side of the line as these two guys are saying 'GO! GO!' I replied in my best Chinese, 'NO!' It was crazy just to get on the cart.

We finally make it to the site where the statues are being excavated.

These next pictures show chariots that were excavated and then displayed on the main floor of the museum.

These next shots show what the warriors looked like back then.They had archers:

Here is a kneeling archer:

These next pictures turned out dark. I tried to fix them with a program I have on the computer but they didn't turn out real well:

This next one:

Here's a bunch more:

This next picture shows a lady spraying water on the statues:

Here's more:

This last picture is with a Japanese student and new friend that was with our tour:

This museum was very cool. Seeing how distinct each face and body of every statue is quite amazing. All of this was done 2200 years ago and so that makes it even more impressive. This was an awesome experience!

Tonight we ride around on a bike on the top of the wall that surrounds this city. Xi'an (zhe ann) is one of the first capitals in China. They built a wall around the city as well as a moat in order to keep enemies out. The wall is about 14 kilometers long (though shaped in a square) or about 9 miles. We'll do this in the evening when it cools down to ONLY 30 C or so. I hope we get some good pictures.

written by  akstoltzy on June 15, 2010 from Xi'an, China
from the travel blog: China
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