Speeding to a Halt

Formula 1 is the sport that I follow and Sunday 15th was the day of the Chinese Grand Prix. Although we didn't have many TV channels in the cabin of the Yangtze river cruiser, and all were in Chinese, I had some hopes that the local race would be covered. Vain hopes! There was no wi-fi on the boat and mobile data, though working excellently whenever I tried it, was expensive. Hence I didn't even find out the result (Rosberg's maiden win) until the next day.

The day was supposed to complete with a talent show, but we gave it a miss and lounged in our cabin. Around 10pm I looked out of the window and all I could see was a sheer face of concrete a few feet away. We'd reached the ship locks early.

A flight of five huge ship locks carries shipping from the top of the Three Gorges Dam to the bottom. Normally, the height of the water above the dam is 175m above sea level, but currently it was only 163m to allow space for anticipated spring floodwater. Hence, for the whole cruise, we were looking at a 12m-high pale stripe at the bottom of every cliff, washed clean by the water and contrasting starkly with the dark grey expanses above.

The water below the dam is maintained at 62m above sea level at all times. Hence the ship locks normally bring ships down 113m in five steps of about 22.5m each.

The lock compartments are HUGE. Our cruiser was five stories tall, probably fifty feet wide and a couple of hundred feet long, and each lock could hold SIX ships that size.

Most people saw the ship through the first lock and then went to bed. Color, the river guide, told me that because the water was low above the dam we'd only be using four locks. Since it took about 35-40 minutes for the set of six ships to pass through each lock, I did a quick bit of maths and decided to stay up for the whole process. I don't imagine I'll ever do this trip again, and all I'd miss for my bit of lock-based "geek porn" is a bit of sleep.

I should have done the maths above (with answer 22.5m, which is more than 12m by which the water was low, because that means it would have been pretty unlikely that we could have missed out a lock). I didn't, and consequently was disappointed when the "last" set of huge gates opened and revealed they'd been the last-but-one set and my bed was still three-quarters of an hour away. D'Oh!

At the end (circa 1am) there was the pretty sight of the big suspension road bridge across the Yangtze, all lit up in the night with picturesque reflections. No regrets.

Monday morning saw our visit to the Three Gorges Dam. Huge and impressive, but not great to photograph - near to it's just a lump of concrete and further away it's obscured by the thick, polluted air - foggiest in the mornings and clearing later to varying extent.

The guide provided by the dam repeatedly pronounced "ship locks" as "shplocks", which must attract giggles from every English-speaking group she has - poor girl.

A final hour of cruising brought us to the outskirts of Yichang, where we transferred to a coach and went into town for a great Sichuan lunch, probably the best of the whole trip. We then had a four hour drive to Wuhan, which we only visited in order to get on the high speed train there the next day.

The route took us through the Chinese countryside, giving an opportunity to get an impression of how things are done there and how people live (as far as is possible whilst passing at speed). Most of the houses are similar - two-storey, well-built and modern. There are small buildings by some of the fields where farmers rest during their work, so shouldn't be confused for dwellings. However, there were some with obvious signs of more extensive, full-time habitation, reflecting a fair degree of poverty for at least a small percentage of the population.

Wuhan, even as a waypoint, did hold some interest. We saw old, fairly run-down areas, and I was just about to comment on the contrast from so many new buildings we'd seen elsewhere when I saw that the next area along was being demolished. We proceeded past many flattened areas and then past more where rebuilding was in progress (rows and rows of tower blocks, of course).

It's the same story everywhere - China is exploding!

We rounded off the day with the last included meal of the tour, unfortunately probably the worst - bland and with the gristle and bone that I'd feared we see throughout but thankfully have seen little of. Then on to the worst hotel of the tour, fortunately just one night and close to the station.

The rest of the tour was a whirlwind. On Tuesday we took a three-and-a-half hour bullet train trip to Nanjing. Designed for 350kph, we saw 303kph indicated on the display in the carriage as we enjoyed more countryside views - tiered fields, paddy and otherwise, all with little surrounding earth lips to facilitate irrigation. Sprinkled widely are little clusters of graves and shrines, where people have been buried beside the fields they worked in life.

In Nanjing we treated ourselves to lunch at Pizza Hut, chosen because Clare thought she was having a reaction to eating rice at every meal. Interestingly, the tip we offered was declined, here and at a few other places later. We visited the Confucius temple and a museum commemorating the "Rape of Nanking", when Japanese troops murdered 300,000 people (1/3 of the city's population) in six weeks at the end of 1937, and thousands of rapes were committed.

The Sino-Japanese war started in 1931 and the conflict became part of the Second World War, so they'd date the war as 1931-45, where Europeans would say 1939-45 and Yanks 1941-45.

In the evening we continued our "Western" theme with dinner at McDonalds and a trip round a Carrefour supermarket, of which there seem to be a fair number here.

On Wednesday we had another bullet train ride, this time just 1 hour to Suzhou. Our local guide was a real old-timer called Mr. Tang (all our other guides had been introduced by adopted "English" names - Benny, Jimmy, Sophia, George, Peter). Although it was nearly the end of our trip, Mr. Tang acted as though he was taking charge of the whole trip and one of our Bangkok-based teachers said "I wouldn't treat four-year-olds like this". Mr. Tang started talking about "Shoe" (not even Mr. Shoe) and it took everyone a while to work out he meant national guide Jason.

Suzhou styles itself as "the Venice of the East" and we took a canal boat trip, wondering how true that was, since many of us had been to Venice. There was a smallish narrow section which was reminiscent of Venice, tastefully decrepit, other bits more Amsterdam, but most of the trip could have been on a river anywhere.

Apparently the most picturesque parts are due for renovation because they have few amenities, such as non-public lavatories (emptying chamber pots into the canal being de rigeur), and very few younger people will live there. A bit of a shame, in the sense that it's hard to imagine it'll be done in a way that preserves any of the current charm, and so they'll kill the goose that lays the current tourist egg. Still, I don't suppose the people living there see much tourist gold.

Lunch was great; a big bowl of noodles with pork vegetables for just 90p in a real working-men's lunch-spot. Then we were on to a silk factory where we were amazed by a machine that unwinds silk from eight cocoons and spins that into a single thread, being done tens of times side-by-side.

We finished at the "Humble Administrator's Garden", a beautiful arrangement of oriental walkways, cloisters, low pagodas and pergolas weaving their way across and around a patchwork of small lakes.

This was beautiful, but everyone was exhausted with the pace of the last few days since the Yangtze cruise, and just longing to have free time in one place for a few days.

Dinner was at McDonalds yet again as we waited for Clare's tummy to right itself.

On Thursday 19th our wish was granted. A last 35-minute bullet train ride took us mainly through built-up areas into Shanghai. Reaching our final hotel in China our local guide used all our cameras in turn to take a last photo of the group. We celebrated our freedom by doing nothing for the rest of the day.

Dinner was in the hotel, at a bar table with the Aussies, from the minimal western menu. I ordered sirloin but got something rather more like a thin cross-section through a side of ribs. Someone else ordered ribs and got a respectable lump of meat with no bone. Damn.

Xi'an to the Yangtze

Terracotta Warriors

We left Beijing on the 10 April by overnight train.  The cabins held four people and could only be described as cosy!  We shared with Helen and Steve, the guys taking the upper bunks.  It also took some organisation getting all the luggage stowed away.

We settled into our cabin, having brought wine, beer and snacks.  We had a good evening chatting with Steve and Helen, who are about the same age us ourselves. At around midnight we went to bed, although for me it was not a good night's sleep.  I woke at 6am after a restless night on a very hard bed.

The trained arrived in Xi'an about 8.45am, where we disembarked and picked up our coach for the short journey to our hotel, where we had breakfast and then went to our room for a welcome shower.

An hour later we were back on the coach for our trip to see the Terrcotta Warriors.  We were joined by Benny, our guide while we were in Xi'an, a jolly character and he gave us some info about his home town and the Terracotta Warriors, which were discovered in 1974 by farmers who were digging wells.

The background to the Warriors relates to Emperor Chin who started preparing for his funeral when he was 22, employing workers to build the warriors who would protect him in the afterlife and would be a symbol of his  power and wealth.  Emperor Chin died suddenly at the age of 50, his tomb being about 1.5 km from where the Warriors are. I guess there could have been a significant higher number of Warriors if he had lived another 20 years!

We arrived at the site, which is divided into three pits. Pit 1 is where there are nearly 7,000 Warriors, a pretty amazing sight seeing them all lined up.  They are very lifelike and all with different facial features, so no individual Warrior is alike.  It is said that the workers modelled the facial features on themselves.  The Warriors were originally all painted according to their rank, so they must have looked pretty amazing in their original state.  There were also  plenty of horse statues.

The other two pits, 2 and 3,  were not so impressive, being more at the early stages of excavation.

Obviously, many statues were broken when discovered due to the roof of where they were rotting over time and also to grave robbers who destroyed them and took the weapons the Warriors were holding.

Many statues have and are being painstakingly restored to their original state, minus paint .

Camera (East) Gate

On Thursday 12 April our second day in Xi'an, we were taken to the city wall, which is 13 kilometres (8 miles) in length, with a choice of walking round or riding a bike. We opted for bikes, although it had been a few years since I had been on one.  However, the wall was pretty flat and very wide.

We set off and initially my legs protested having been put through walking up The Great Wall, a fair amount of walking generally and when we saw the Terrcotta Warriors.  However, it was good fun, and  Shona, one of the Aussie ladies frequently overtook us and she is 70, so put us to shame!

We stopped at various points to take pictures,  enjoy the magnificence of the wall and also for me to rest my legs!

We were just coming up to completing three quarters of the 8 miles and either my legs were getting very tired or there was something wrong with my bike.  Dave took a look, but all looked okay, but we decided to swop bikes as Dave's had gears and this might make it a bit easier for me.

We set off again and came up to the East Gate where there was a tower in the middle of the wall, which meant cycling round either left or right. We chose to go left, it was slightly narrower because of the tower and there were a group of Chinese tourists blocking the way.  I slowed down and also shouted for them to move.  I obviously realised that they would not understand what I was shouting, but for anyone that knows me, knows that my voice when raised can be somewhat loud (!) and I expected the group to turn round and move to one side.  When I realised this was not going to happen, I applied the brakes.  I did not 'hit' anyone, but nudged a guy who was holding his camera at arm's length, the camera being about a 1-2 feet  from the ground.  Unfortunately, he dropped the camera onto the ground.  There was obviously an immediate reaction and outpouring of Chinese, and hand gestures.  Dave and I stopped, and then Dave gestured that we should move on, however the Chinese group would not let us go.

The chap who dropped the camera would not pick it up to see if it was still working as Dave gestured he should do.  A couple, cycled past and stopped, she was Chinese and spoke English and she said the guy did not want to pick up the camera and wanted a professional to come and look at it (we were not sure what he meant by this).  Then some officials who worked on wall came up and things became a bit clearer, we had also prior to this rang our guide, Jason, who was on his way.  It turned out that the chap had borrowed the camera from a friend for his trip, so we did understand his concern, but could not understand why he would not pick up the camera to check it.

Jason arrived and he managed to persuade the guy to pick up the camera to check if it was still functioning.  The guy took several snaps and all seemed okay, however, he was not prepared to assume this and insisted we go and get the camera professionally checked.  We, along with Jason, therefore ended up on their tour coach and were taken to a camera shop, where we went to a Nikon stand to speak to a sales assistant.  There was much discussion between the assistant, Jason and the guy (who had brought a friend from the tour with him).  The assistant seemed to indicate that the focusing was not working and there was again a lot of picture taking.  Dave then took the camera and realised that it was set to manual and not automatic focusing and explained this to Jason.

However, the guy was still not happy - at one point it was suggested we would have to buy a new camera, at a possible cost of £800.  The assistant then suggested we go to a Nikon service office and gave the address,  although at this point Dave and I were not sure what was going on, we just followed everyone out of the shop.  Jason hailed a couple of cabs who did not know where this place was, but succeeded on about the fourth cab.  We had to split up and get two cabs.   We turned up at what looked like an office block and went to the 8th floor where the service office was.  The camera was given the once over and was deemed to be undamaged save for the ultraviolet filter, the guy looked a little disappointed by this, I think he was hoping perhaps there would be more damage, hence needing more compensation from us.

We then had to find somewhere to buy the replacement filter, so off we went again, although we did not have to go far and it was within walking distance.   The place we ended up at was more like a photo studio than a shop, but we obtained the filter, which Dave said was a slight upgrade to the damaged one, but they could not fit it, so back we went to the Nikon service office, where it was fitted.  The total cost  to us was £36, £23 for the filter and £13 to fit; it could have been a lot worse.  The two guys went off, only the friend of the guy with the camera gestured to us his goodbye.  It was a genuine accident, and I would have been mortified if there had been serious damage to the camera.  The guy also told Jason that I had been going at some speed -- I don't think so - and this did irritate me, as it was so untrue.  However, I have to say that Dave was (as always great) and Jason our guide brilliant in helping resolving a potentially sticky situation.

We rejoined the rest of the group at the Big Wild Goose Pagoda and carried on with our tour.

Chongqing and Cruise on the Yantze River

On Friday 13 April, we flew from Xi'an to Chongqing, a flight of just over an hour.  The flight was due to take off about 3.50pm, but was delayed, we finally took off about an hour late, which Jason said was pretty good for an internal flight.  We were again picked up by coach (our luggage was taken separately to the boat) and driven through the city to where we were due to have dinner.

Chongqing is a pretty amazing city, the size of which as we drove in from the airport we found staggering.  The  population, we were told, is 33 million, so half the UK population in one city - mind blowing! Lots of high rise apartment blocks on the outskirts and as we got towards to centre, these turned to high rise office blocks and shopping centres.  It was very hard to take it all in.

We arrived at the restaurant (Chinese of course!) but as it turned out, we both felt that this was one of the best Chinese meals we had eaten so far.

A little over an hour later we were back on the coach to make our way to the harbour to board the cruise boat.   We made a couple of stops on the way, one was at the main square where we had only about 15 minutes to look around and enjoy the sight of hundreds of Chinese doing some form of exercise e.g. line or ballroom dancing, aerobics, etc.  The last stop was a supermarket to buy water, alcohol and snacks.  As we drive to the harbour, seeing the city lit up was stunning - we both said we would have liked the opportunity to spend more time in the city.

We arrived at the harbour and after a short cable car trip down, we boarded our boat, which was a lot bigger than I had imagined.  After getting our cabin keys, and depositing our luggage, we had an introduction talk by our River Cruise Guide, Color.  I think Dave would have preferred this to be later as he was keen to take photos of Chongqing as we left it behind and by the time the talk had finished, Chongqing had disappeared into darkness.  We were also told by Color that light music and an announcement re breakfast would wake us up early each morning - we soon switched that off in our cabin, but unfortunately you could still hear it in the corridors!

Our cabin was not large, but more than adequate, although again we had single beds (we have yet to get a double) with our own bathroom and balcony and even a fridge.

By the time we woke up in the morning, we had docked.  The weather outside was dull and wet. Breakfast was a buffet, with a pretty good choice of food, I stuck to crossiants, butter and jam, definitely no rice first thing in the morning for me!

There were three trips included in the cruise package, the first one we thought was in the afternoon of the first day, but this turned out to be incorrect and was, in fact, the morning excursion.  However, we had both already decided that we were going to chill out and stay on  board.

We went to see an acupuncture demonstration, which was quite interesting and then I decided to have reflexology.  I have this done regularly back at home, so I was interested to have a session here.  It did vary in that they spent a lot of time massaging your legs from the knees down as well as working on your feet - it was bliss though and very relaxing - apparently I am very healthy, although it turned out they said this to everyone who had this done!  I said to Dave he should try it, which he did later in the day, and he thoroughly enjoyed it too.

That night after dinner the crew put on a show, which was fun to watch and mainly consisted of songs and dancing.  They also included musical chairs and asked for four volunteers; Jean from our group gamely volunteered and that was a laugh to watch.

We went through two gorges, and the scenery was stunning.  The cruise boat had a sun deck, where we went to view; it was a shame that the weather was misty and drizzling with light rain, but it did not diminish too much what we saw.

Next day was a trip in a sampan, which involved an hour on a ferry from the cruise boat to get to the river where the whole group then transferred to a sampan.  This was then rowed by two guys up the river - pretty hard work for them.  We had a guide, Carol, who gave us some history and information.  This was a lot of fun and we passed lots of other sampans on the way, so lots of waving to other tourists.   A highlight of this was seeing the guys get off the sampan onto the bank and physically pulling the sampan by rope, and then pushing off the bank and turning it around for the return journey.  The river scenery was pretty amazing on the sampan and also on the ferry journey.  Along the ferry journey is a 'hanging coffin', this is literally a coffin suspended high in a cliff crevice on what looked like wooden poles.  This kind of ritual is not now used, but the thinking behind it was because they thought they would be nearer to heaven.  The weather also improved on the ferry journey back, with the sun making an appearance.

Meal times on the boat were very fixed and quite early (much the same in the hotels too).  Breakfast ended at 9am, lunch began at 12.30pm and dinner at 6.30pm.

Beijing

The flight to Beijing was in two 7-hour parts, with 2 hours in Abu Dhabi between. We found a bar and made extensive use of the Internet, not knowing what access we'd have within China.

Etihad have a video-on-demand system just like BA, so this was another sleepless trip for me.

We arrived at Beijing airport early on Friday 6th and nervously approached Immigration, our passports bearing the stuck-in whole-page visas that had involved so much form-filling and evidence-printing. Obtaining these had seemed to fill the period between Legs 1 and 2, but had probably taken about a full day, spread over that period. As it was, we entered pretty quickly and completely smoothly. Ultimately, an imagined storm in my own teacup.

We were met by Jason, the slim, bespectacled, guide who would stay with us for the whole tour. We found him very easy to talk to, immediately and for the rest of the trip.

I learned a lot from the taxi drive from airport to hotel, as I wrote previously. It's funny how much one can learn from just setting foot in a country and seeing it oneself. I know from my own experience that one only photographs "interesting" or picturesque things, not stuff that looks exactly like at home. Hence any "picture" formed just from photos is likely to be distorted.

After our 15-hour flight and before our 15-day tour, we treated ourselves to the rest of the day lounging in bed, and dinner in a chinese-speaking restaurant within the hotel, ordering from a big picture book. The only highlight was our futile attempt to order a glass of white wine for Clare (they seem to have even less white wine here than in South America).

Although Saturday 7th was technically the first day of the tour, nothing was actually organised. We went for a walk all afternoon, visiting the Natural History Museum and then the "Temple of Heaven" complex, a large park containing various historic temples and such like.

We rounded the day off with a meal for two in the other restaurant within the hotel, posher-looking but no dearer. This time we did manage to get white wine (only a whole bottle) by showing the result of a translation I'd done on my iPhone by popping out to where there was a wi-fi signal.

In the morning of Sunday 8th we started meeting the rest of the group. First, in reception, five English twenties who teach in international junior schools in Bangkok. Then, at breakfast, two English ladies in their late 50's. Then four Aussies (couple, brother, wife's friend) of that age or older. Finally an English couple who we eventually found out (because I spotted some clues, rather than them volunteering it) were involved with Royal Navy chaplaincy work.

We turned out to be a very happy and sociable group, mixing in various combinations and enjoying the time we spent together.

Our first stop was Tianenmen Square. You have to pass through security checkpoints to enter the square, and it was notable that they were rather less interested in Caucasians than in local-looking people.

We were told that this was the largest square in the world. Unfortunately, ones appreciation of this is somewhat spoiled by two large walls down the centre, with huge video screens on one side. I asked how long they had been there (imagining that, as eyesores, they might be temporary). I was told both "ten years" and "since 1989", so a permanent feature in either case. Shame.

There were various security forces in the square. I expect some in plain clothes too, perhaps some of the Chinese who hung around near our guide to listen when he was talking to us?

We went on through the Tianenmen (Gate of Heavenly Peace) which gives the square its name and into the Forbidden City - so called because the Emperor and family lived there and only certain people were allowed to come to see them. It covers a huge area, with zones dedicated to only men or women.

The buildings have yellow roofs - a colour reserved for the Emperor, and which anyone else could be executed for wearing. The roofs have layers of eaves with varying (I suspected, status-related) numbers of small carved animals along the lowest ridge- seven on buildings where foreigners or businessmen were met, nine on the Emperor's private hall, and eleven on the big hall where he held audiences. I spotted just three on a little roof over the doorway to the ladies area, but up to seven on buildings within.

We were shown the quarters of the Dowager Empress Cixi - one of thousands of wives who cleverly used her womanly wiles (initially singing as he passed) to get prime position with the Emperor and then the power behind the throne when he died and left his child son on the throne.

Leaving the Forbidden City, we went on to a Hutong. These are walled compound areas representing the historic accommodation of Chinese cities - now being torn down wholesale in most cities to allow the building of tower blocks. The compensation paid to residents isn't enough to live in the replacement building. 

We went into a private house in a hutong, belonging to a Kung Fu master, for a plentiful lunch. I kept trying to get our guide to tell the master that I'd learned Kung Fu for a couple of years, but he wouldn't pass it on. Perhaps he was worried I'd get asked for a bout if he did?

Next we went on, via another hutong visit, to a rickshaw ride round an old city area near a lake which would obviously have good nightlife.

We rounded off a ridiculously long day watching an excellent Acrobatic show preceded by a meal. No matter how gripping the show, it couldn't stop me dropping off for microsleeps even while a guy was risking his neck balancing on a tall stack of eight or ten chairs. Shame.

Monday saw us walking on the Great Wall of China for 3 hours. It deserves its ranking as a wonder of the world - stretching off into the distance, twisting across the hilltops like a snake. The top surface gets steeper and steeper until you can't cope any more and then turns into steps. It may be hard work climbing up, but you'd do yourself more mischief if you tried to stop whilst walking down! A fabulous, so memorable experience (aided by taking a thousand photos).

Earlier on, we'd agreed to go that evening to a theatrical production based on Kung Fu. As the day wore on we grew more concerned about this decision. In the end I missed more than I saw, due to falling asleep. We were both disappointed because the martial arts stuff was quite incidental to a very weak story, rather than being the focus as we'd hoped. 

The show didn't include a meal, so when we got back we went in search of a McDonald's marked on our city map, to make a change from Chinese food at every meal. It was a building site, and - at just 9pm - the hotel had no food on offer, so we went to the native Chinese restaurant across the road and had a perfectly acceptable meal once we'd made ourselves understood.

Tuesday was our last day in Beijing. Beijing means "northern capital", because the capital has moved around a bit over the dynasties. We eventually visit Nanjing, the "southern capital". Incidentally China means "central kingdom" or "central state".

We were taken to the "Silk Alley" Market - an old name but a new six-floor building full of individual vendors' booths selling different things on each floor. We arrived at the same time as the Turkish prime minister, taking time off from an official visit to shop in her convoy of half a dozen black cars. 

We saw some nice Chinese-style jackets and found one that suited Clare well. We were told that the proper price was 6000 Yuan (£600) but the asking price was 3080. Fortunately, before asking the price we'd decided what it was worth to us (£30) and wouldn't go above that, even under severe, prolonged bargaining - OK we did go up £5. At one point we decided to walk away but the saleswoman clung on to Clare's arm and we had a little tug-of-Clare until I prised the woman's fingers off. I think both sides were OK with the final price, but (standing there emotionally drained by the intense experience) we were staggered to be asked whether we wanted another jacket too.

We recovered with lunch at McDonalds, then were driven out to the Summer Palace (where the Dowager Empress loved to hang out, having huge banquets prepared for every meal and just picking at one table - ah, power!)

At one stage I got "lost", spending so long taking atmospheric photos over the lake that I missed where the group had gone and had to telephone them.

That night we were off to Xi'an on the sleeper train, so we had to grab snacks for overnight in a supermarket and dinner on the run (McDonalds again - some brave world travelers we are!)

Be-jetlagged in Beijing

Just a quickie (Darling), to say that we're successfully ensconced in a hotel in Central Beijing. We've been dreadfully naughty and headed straight for our (single) beds upon arrival - a major world-traveller sin in my book, but I'm sure I'll forgive myself ;-)

Because we've travelled so close to Easter, we booked and paid for the Leg 2 flights and tour before we left on leg 1. Hence all that money has been "hostage" to us getting home safe and getting the Chinese visas. We've now happily delayed booking Leg 3 until we're home again and ready to leave on it.

Unsurprisingly, really, all my stressing about getting visas and then entry was for nothing, as both went without a hitch.

I've decided that the excellent video-on-demand in-flight entertainment on modern airliners is a two-edged sword. It does stop you getting bored, but also removes some incentive to try very hard to get a nap when your body isn't at all interested. I've scarcely had a wink on any of the flights so far!

I feel like I've learned a lot just from the one car ride from the airport to the hotel (although the Olympics were only not-quite four years ago here, and this will have been the main route, so I'm reserving final judgement).

- Everything appears very well looked after - none of the mouldering and gentle decay normally seen on the outskirts of most major cities.

- Many road signs have some English on them, and "Latin" letters are used on car number plates and road numbers.

- Flying in, there were SO many big groups of tower blocks, each group on its own huge rectangular plot, often well away from the next plot and with blocks staggered like the 5 dots on dice. Beijing is 20 Million people, and they all have to live somewhere.

- Most of the traffic has been made up of cars, rather than the scooters that throng Vietnam or the bicycles one might have imagined (mentioned as a litmus test of economic development).

I've gone on too long now for the landed-safe quickie I intended, but what sort of traveller would I be if I weren't fascinated by experiences of brand new places?

Away 2

Here we are again at Heathrow. Terminal 4 this time, my first here since BA left for T5.

We're both a bit tetchy this morning after a shortened night's sleep(lessness). We've also read articles about China that make us very excited/curious/wary about what we'll find and feel there.

There's the "Great Firewall of China" that controls which bits of the web are accessible. It sounds unlikely that we'll be able to reach Blogger (as part of Google) or Twitter. Similarly, access to email (Gmail) and Skype may not be possible.

So if you don't hear from us over the next three weeks, don't be too concerned - it should all appear shortly after we reach Japan.

The Leg 2 itinerary:

6-9 Apr - Beijing, China
10 Apr - Sleeper train
11-12 - Xian (Terracotta warriors)
13-15 - Yangtze River Cruise
16 - Wuhan
17 - Nanjing
18 - Suzhou
19-22 - Shanghai
23 Apr - Tokyo, Japan
26 Apr-9 May - Tour by train, including Kyoto & Hiroshima
10-11 May - Home

Things I've learned in South America

People are Nice

We found pretty much everyone as helpful as possible, given language constraints, and often leagues ahead of what any visitor to London might reasonably expect. We'd thoroughly recommend South America as a holiday destination (but see "Spanish").

For the avoidance of doubt, lots of people in Argentina asked where we came from and not one looked less than delighted when we said "England".

Spanish

I learned Spanish between the ages of 12 and 14. I thought it might be nice to brush it up before travelling in case it helped me read menus, etc. I downloaded a couple of "Learn Spanish" podcasts and found that Beginner was too easy but Intermediate just made me feel I should revise my grammar. Hence I did nothing more.

I'm now here to tell you that I think it's pretty much impossible to do the kind of independent-traveller tour we did without at least as much Spanish as I've got.

Although we booked most hotels online (so bypassing the language issue), when we arrived less than half had anyone on hand with much English at all - and one always has questions, if only "how much?" and "where can I eat?" When driving, there are at least a few police checkpoints during every day's drive, and they won't all wave you through. Then there are the road signs with text instead of pictures.

How well I did in each context depended on whether I knew the nouns and verbs people chose. Hence some interactions went fine and some hit an immediate brick wall. Usually I managed to catch enough to get the gist. The other trick was to work out or look up (Google Translate when I last had wi-fi) the key sentence.

Without some Spanish I think you'd have to stick to an organised tour and/or hotels expensive enough to have multilingual staff - just as we'll be on Leg 2.

Telly

Every hotel room we had with a tv had many satellite channels. As you might imagine, we searched out the programmes in English with Spanish subtitles.

We found that cartoons and other kids programmes are always dubbed, so just surf on past. Long-running series are most likely to be subtitled for locals. Hence we watched A LOT of CSI, Law & Order and US comedy shows. Our favourite ended up as "Two and a Half Men" (Charlie Sheen era), which we had never watched before. We now have the theme as a ringtone on our phones.

Argentina is Huge

I think I found out that the surface area of Argentina is 12 times that of the UK. Big.

My original plan to do a lap of the whole of Argentina and Chile in a month was fatally flawed. I'd have been driving pretty long days most days to do it. The pattern that we fell into - of driving about six hours every other day (plus lunch, petrol, etc.) gave a pretty good balance between getting to places and actually appreciating them when we got there.

Because the land is so big, the scenery changes only fairly gradually during the day. We spent hours on end in the middle of huge, flat areas staring at dead-straight roads disappearing to a haze of reflected sky at the horizon - a stark beauty, but more so in recollection than "toughing it out" at the time to get through another N hours of the same.

I Like Traffic Lights...

... and it comes as something as a surprise to say that. One of the types of road junction they have in the Americas but not in the UK, is the 4-way stop or all-way stop. I have driven in Canada and these work quite well, it's a crossroads and whoever gets there first has priority. If there are lots of cars, then one comes out of each road clockwise until all have gone - nice.

That's not the way they do it in South America. Every city is a grid of quite small blocks so there are LOTS of crossroads. The trouble is that there seems to be some sort of local agreement about which road has priority in each case, but the visitor is not privy to this, so every junction becomes a Russian roulette of glancing left, right, crossing fingers and going, so when there is a junction with traffic lights it's a big relief.

One of the "interesting" things during our journey has been the variety in something as mundane as traffic lights.

In Lima, for example, the lights display a number of seconds in red or green counting down to tell drivers and pedestrians exactly how long until the next change. It seems like such a good idea that I wish we had it at home.

On some fast roads in Argentina, the green light flashes before it turns amber to give you extra warning to stop. In other places the light just flashes amber all the time, which means that anyone can go, but with caution. In other places, they may as well not fit an amber light because it never seems to get used.

SatNav

Clare bought me a Tom Tom SatNav for Christmas. It was mainly to save her having to squint at the iPhone map when we're trying to find somewhere new in the UK ("Is the blue dot still on the purple line, Dear?").

On the off-chance, I bought and downloaded Tom Tom maps for Argentina and Chile. The data sizes were vastly smaller than the data just for the UK, so I didn't expect them to be much cop.

Oh My God! We wouldn't have been able to do the trip at all without it/them. They were great in most cities: knowing all road names, one-way roads (very common) and even house number ranges per block. Out of town they were patchy: very detailed diagrams of many complex junctions, and elsewhere telling you you'd gone a quarter of a mile off the road you knew you were on.

Worst sins were (1) where it advertised a shorter route to Cordóba then showed only a very-wrong single line for the town we got lost in for much of the next hour, (2) repeatedly telling me to turn through the barrier in the middle of dual-carriageways in Valparaiso. Best virtues involved getting us to the very door of so many hotels in towns where we'd have struggled even if we could have found sufficiently detailed street maps before reaching the town (pretty much impossible, especially with no mobile data service).

In summary, a life-saver (possibly literally). Clare loved the Kindle which was my Christmas present to her, and thought it was an equally essential travel aid.

Other Argentine Road Stuff

Speed limits are a confusing matter. You're going along a very remote highway with a 110kph limit when you see a 60kph limit and then a 40kph one. Eventually you work out that these relate in some way to a side-turning, often a rough gravel track used about once a day. Before long you have to pretty much ignore these.

Theoretically there are 60kph and 40kph limits in towns, depending how busy areas are. However, you're happily driving along and see a sign "Urban Zone" (in Spanish) and often need to guess what speed limit applies. When you leave the urban zone (with or without a marker) there's just an 80kph limit sign, and no suggestion of 110kph until a summary sign showing different max speeds for different vehicle types - and that several miles on, if at all.

Cones in the middle of the road

If you see three or four cones down the middle of the road, it usually means a checkpoint. You need to slow down and be ready to stop. They may be manned by police, national guard, agricultural protection (to stop plant/animal diseases migrating via carried products) or nobody at all. Mostly you get asked where you're travelling from and to.

Clare likes snorkeling

She's made it one of her Leg 1 highlights (beside Machu Picchu and the Iguazú Falls). I'm very happy about that, because I love it too - just floating there beside shoals of fabulously-coloured fish, rays and sharks. I'm hoping we'll have some fine times together during Leg 3.

Eating

The Latin Americans eat late. We were usually first in at 8:30pm, and places were often still filling around 10pm when we left.

Insects

Despite visiting five countries (ex-US), from sea level to 13,500 feet, and at temperatures from beachwear to gloves, I have to say that this has been one of the least insect-troubled warm-country holidays I've had.

I'm not saying we weren't bitten, just not so much and not so badly. The story is slightly weakened by one particular bite that Clare had a bad reaction to and we had to call out the medics in Lima. But in general it's true.

Aircon Rain

As you walk around Latin American cities, you'll see numerous little puddles. Don't step over the top of them.

Up above will be an air conditioning unit, with the water it's extracting just dropping straight down onto anyone using the pavement. Cheers!

As almost everyone in some cities wants aircon, this is quite common.

We'd have to imagine an exception for Peruvian cities beyond Lima, as our perception was that neither heat nor cooling was in evidence!

Where We Went

Mainly for our own memories, here's the full list of where we spent each night of Leg 1, with other key events:

18-20 Jan - Miami Beach
21-27 - San Pedro, Belize
28 Jan-1 Feb - Lima, Peru
2-12 Feb - Cuzco (not Amazon), except:
   6 Feb - Ollantaytambo
   9 Feb - Aguas Calientes (Machu Picchu)
13-14 - Puno, Peru (Lake Titicaca)
15-16 - La Paz, Bolivia
17-20 - Buenos Aires, Argentina
21 - La Plata
22 - Bahia Blanca
23-24 - Cipoletti
25-26 - San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina
27 - Puerto Montt, Chile
28 - Los Angeles
29 - Viña del Mar
1-2 Mar - Santiago, Chile
3-4 - Mendoza, Argentina
5-6 - Córdoba
7-8 - Santa Fé
9-10 - Resistencia
11-14 - Iguazú
15 - Posadas
16 - Federación
17-21 March - Buenos Aires