Sorry for the lack of posts lately, I greatly like writing them and less like leaving my notepad in Wuhan with at least three finished posts that i cant remember to rewrite. But now we are in Beijing, Annett the master klutz managed to flick her glasses off her head with her own finger, smashing the lens which we have to wait 4 days to be replaced. But it turns out the roads and train are still closed because of the weather, so we have no choice but to wait it out or buy a 200eur flight. I think we’ll do a little of both.

Anyway:

1. China’s freaking huge

Hands up who didn’t pay attention in geography class (raises hand) . Its mindbogglingly huge. China’s that playground kid who does share his toys, is there any possible reason why a country should be this big? I know you and the Mongolians have been noisy neighbours in the past, but why not show them a little love baring in mind 90% of their country is uninhabitable anyway due to the cold. Or give me a little land down near Thailand so I can open my long planned ‘Pieland’ the worlds first pie encrusted country. As ask any English man, nothings as good as when its in a pie.

Just crossing a small fraction of China the colossus is mind-numbingly painful. Want to hop to the next city? No problem sir, you can take the train that will just take 76hrs. I’ve heard of long-distance trains, night trains, china has going to rob you of your entire youth trains. They’re not journeys, they’re full blown pilgrimages.

2. Labour costs are looowwww in china

No wonder everything in the world is made here. There’s an astounding amount of people employed to manage a task here. Do you really need 8 people to run that hotdog stand? I see you’ve had to add a layer of hierarchy and employ a manger wearing a slightly better uniform just to keep track of whose turn it is to rotate the hotdog next. I’m not an economist but is it wise to have your staff outnumbering your product? I used to have a only shop in places where the customers outnumber the staff rule in Europe. Here that would mean I could shop in my bed, and the shower.

To put things in perspective I was told that the average wage for a hotel worker where we were staying in Xian was 600rmb, or 60eur a month. At that rate you can see why they have so many staff everywhere, human labour is a negligible cost.

3. Its cold in winter

I’m not sure how it is normally, but Annett and I arrived full of optimistic smiles and tshirts smack bang into the middle of the worst Chinese weather for 50years. The country has ground to a halt. Imagine China is so hungry every-ones about to eat their own fingers, then someone announced there’s a train sized loaf of bread just pulled into the train station, then you’ll have some of the idea of the chaos that awaited us at Xian train station, it felt like the city was being evacuated. Today was a warm record for our trip so far, 0′c and our first glimpse of the sun in two weeks. Our minibus skidded twice in a circle on the motorway back from the Terracotta Warriors, we luckily missed the central reservation but passed at least 5 cars who weren’t so lucky. This bus I managed to get a picture of managing to miss its bridge:

I’ve experienced brain freeze whilst eating ice cream, but here you can randomly get it walking down the street. The result is momentary bewilderment and a questioning of why the hell you came to China in the first place when there are so many places not located in the frozen section of the world supermarket.

4. Chinese people are lacking in our idea of interpersonal skills

Who just burped in my ear? Ah thanks guy behind me in the queue, but I didn’t order any dessert. As I said in the bus post, these guys are a torrent of odours and saliva, if there’s a hole that something can come out of it will with great frequency everywhere you go in China, there is no notion of privacy here.

5. You haven’t driven until you’ve driven in China

The whole country’s one big banger race. Its just a destruction derby and don’t worry innocent pedestrians you can play too! The red/man green man guide is just a system to help line up the pedestrians into groups to make it easier for passing buses to mow them all down without having to swerve. When driving the horn is your voice, your lover, your battle cry it can say anything from “good day sir”  to “coming through” to “get out of the fucking way” to “i’m going to kill you skinny white man, oh yeas I am, just watch me!”. Car doors open only to allow car drivers to spit more easily, as taxi drivers don’t appear to ever get out of their taxis judging by the smell and trash, except maybe to kill or mame fellow drivers not following the horn blowing rules.

But even more amazingly, in some sort of chaos theory, anarchic way it sort of works. Everyone is expecting the unexpected at all times, and they can react to the ever changing mess of cars and pedestrians wriggling around in-front of them. Nothing quite grinds to a halt despite the tidal wave of people at every street corner waiting to come crashing into the six lane wide road the second there is a glimmer of space.

6. The food is actually not that bad.

Sure if you want to you can swim out the “here be monsters” deep end of Chinese cuisine, to find such delights as sheeps face, fish head, dog etc etc. But actually sticking to menus that have pictures I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the food, perhaps a year of German “chinese food” has helped in lowering my expectations. We only made one mistake ordering “crude chicken” from one English menu. I hoped it was just the translation that was crude, but oh no jackpot time, i’ve had ago at guessing the recipe:

1. Take whole chicken (dead or alive)

2. Fry chicken

3. Add Spit, belch and fart as required for flavouring.

4. Fry some more (actually a lot more)

5. Remove and throw against wall

6. Scoop up shattered chicken parts and serve

I held my first whole fried chickens head in the grip of my disbelieving chopsticks. I’m embarrassed to say I didn’t have the balls to eat walters head  (he has a face, so its only right he have a name), or even feet. But I did pick away at what other part of walters body scared me the least.

7. Chinas not an easy place to travel in

- You want to host the Olympic what now? hahaha I thought you said Olympics for a minute there! I have absolutely no faith that they can manage the olympics, from what I’ve seen from the bus nightmare they can barely manage a bridge. They speak the least english of anywhere I’ve ever been, most of the time asking for help will result in people just laughing in your face. Their interpersonal habits would only win a medal in the “least welcoming to the western world” event. There’s just no space here for the estimated 6m people who will come to Beijing for the Olympics, at present they have 600,000 beds available. Its the heart of off-season here, sometimes we don’t see a westerner for days yet the basic things like booking train tickets, finding taxis, finding anyone who can help us with anything, negotiating the purchase of orange juice is bafflingly difficult. Chinese people are not unfriendly, but at the same not exactly all hugs and kisses either and I’ve lived in Germany for a year, I’m comfortable resting my head on a cold shoulder.

8. I still really like it here and would recommend it.

Its hard. Its nowhere near relaxing.  You wont make friends for life. The weathers harsh. But everything here is an experience. Usually a hard experience. But isn’t that what we signed up for? This place is a riot, its endlessly surprising, challenging, shocking, entertaining and for rare moments when it shows its real face to you, when the sun is shining even breathtaking.

I’m glad we did it first, everything will be easier after backpacking in China, I just hope it doesn’t feel too easy.

This breaks the order a little bit, but it turned out to be an eventful stage in the trip so i’ll post this now while its fresh in my memory and then work backwards to Shanghai and the general china posts later.  I’m sitting in the bunk of a Chinese night-bus. Its my first time on a night-bus, i’ll describe the scene for you:

Ever wondered what its like to be a chicken in a chicken coop? You should ride the Chinese night-bus. A mere 20euros will secure you a prime coop for 14 hours of fun all the way from tongkau to wuhan. None of the freedom of free range here sonny, exhaling is strongly discouraged.

Its a normal sized bus, split into three rows. Each row has 7 sets of top and bottom bunk beds with metal frames. Your legs go under the head of the person in front and the back of the bed archs upwards to create a pocket of space for the person behinds legs and feet to fit. In total about 45 of us are on the bus. The aisles are so narrow that I have trouble walking down them and i’m almost so thin i’m 2d. Fat people are not welcome on the night-bus, not that china seems to have any. I’m lying under the green standard issue night-bus duvet. The duvet smells of death, chinese death (cigarettes, and fatty food). When I say lying, i am in fact lying. In England I’m only noticeably tall, because i’m even more noticeably thin, the two combined emphasising each other making people want to buy me a warm meal or two. But in China i’m 2inches or so below the put in a cage and poke with sticks height. My height has caused no real problems in China until now. Climbing into the bunk I feel like that little folding guy in Oceans 11. Perhaps George Clooney will wake me up during the trip to take part in a heist at the mirage. The bunks not designed for anyone over the dizzy heights of 5ft 10′, lying with my legs straight is impossible. I got cramp just looking at the bunk. Climbing in well…let me see if i can just…that’s it…a little more….legs back tiny bit…..wrap them round my head….hip bones connected to my thigh bone…do the hokey kokey….success! Only the third least comfortable I’ve ever been in my whole life. To my right is a window (i’m in the right hand-row). I’m pretty sure its there for the amusement of people looking into to the bus at the passing freak show, than for ours looking out.

I don’t think we’re the most popular people on the bus. Perhaps because Annett has a psychological disorder that requires her to need the toilet two minutes after we waved goodbye to the last one. A clue should have been when I heard her practicing the mandarin word for toilet “cesou” repeatedly as she was getting into her bunk, before we’d even left the bus station, even though we only went to the toilet 10mins before we got on. The crew now look at us like we’re retarded, making such a big deal of signalling and verbalising exactly where the toilet was on the first pee break (her requested pee break) that I thought he was going to follow me, unzip and hold “it” for me, in case i missed.

The head of the crew is the driver, a Chinese version of john wayne, and his crew of 4 helpers. He’s missing the spiky star on the back of his heel, but i’ll forgive him. He looks like he and his crew have pounded rubber on these roads for century’s. We should be in safe hands, as Chinese roads are like nothing i’ve ever seen, “destruction derby” springs to mind (more on that in another post). None of them speak any english so lets hope whats to come is simple and straightforward.

We’re three hours or so into the journey, me, Chinese John Wayne, 40 or so passengers, and a ranting german girl on my left. “Chinese people are so disgusting” (no-one in China speaks a word of english it seems) she is shouting at the top of her voice, as the man in the bunk above spits into a carrier bag. Not a subtle spit, the full blown hock and release proudly sported by all Chinese people at 5 minute intervals. Theres a “better out than in” belief here in china so its totally okay to spit, burp and fart at will. Particularly spitting, they spit like we breath, that hooocking sound will be the sounds track to this journey as it has been to the past two weeks. The guy on her left snoring loudly and with enough conviction to make me think he would snore through an Armageddon. I’ve already heard the woman behind me burp and fart numerous times. The person behind her is one of those “phone people”, they frequent public transport the world over, you know the sort - i must take this phone call or the world will end. No I’m far to important to not have the volume set at maximum. Shes taken more calls in the last hour than I receive in a year. All she ever seems to say is “ar” (add a Chinese accent for effect), either shes friends with alot of dentists or she has a slightly limited vocabulary. I have a slightly limited patience.

In front is the road, another 11hrs or so of it, snaking through the Siberian like landscape (its freezing in China, there’s snow everywhere, more on that in a later post) resulting in us crossing a depressingly small chunk of China the colossus. Its time for me to count sheep. By the time I’ve counted my way through the baa’ing population of Wales we might be somewhere near Wuhan, the next stop in the China adventure.

Pt 2 of “the bus nightmare” soon.

I’ve been slow on the picture front, but Annetts flickr stream has raced ahead so you can see some pictures here.

Good news, we’re still alive! Bad news we’re 1/25th of the way through the trip. Volcano Schlenker still simmers without eruption. All is good. The first tick was in the box marked “Dubai”. Here is the review:

Of all the places to start the trip, Dubai was a excellent first stop. Its clean, simple and easy to travel around and not that much more of a culture shock than a trip to Brick Lane, if you throw in a little sand, water and religion. Its winter there so temperatures were a perfect 20′c or so at best.

You can’t possible fail to get up early enough to pray. They’ve been thoughtful enough to place deafeningly helpful audio reminders every few hours (or so it seemed). Especially for us, our hotel being located on the front steps of a mosque. Internet research paid off fruitfully here. We ended up smack bang in the heart of the center, of the most important, of the core, of the midst, of Dubai’s backside - in a Moroccan fort in the Old Town. A long way away from the oppressive luxury of the strip. We hardly saw any westerns around are hotel which was nice. They looked as surprised to see us as we looked surprised to not see more people like us. We were surrounded by the hustle and bustle of the little shops, stalls and daily trading. I’m not exactly sure how society there worked, but it seemed too so I kept quiet. I am sure that you shouldn’t balance that much on a cart, bicycle, our children, a lorry though. This place brings a new meaning to ”health and safety violation”.

The most surprising thing was the omnipresence of religion, and the almost total non-presence of women from daily life. If I can borrow language from my university days dubai is a ”sausage fest”. But very quickly you don’t notice that there you barely see women, that no women ever drive, that if you do see a woman you’ll only see her feet and eyes, that every man keeps staring at Annett, much to her annoyance. Its their culture, so you accept it. But i’m surprised that I was so comfortable with it, maybe because I wasn’t the one being oppressed and i’m a secret chauvinist or more likely because we were leaving almost as soon as we arrived, and they had beaches and cocktails and stuff.

The contrast between the old town and the rest was huge. Price wise about 500%, as we paid for our two mains and 5 drinks in our hotel the price of a side portion of rice in s restaurant overlooking the stunningly imposing “7 star” Burg al Arab hotel.

This is the conversation I had with a taxi driver on the way to the airport:

Me: Do you like Dubai?

Taxi Driver: No, not really.

Me: Why not?

Its not my country, even if I lived here for 100years it would still not be my country. I’m from Pakistan, one day I will return there.

Me: I read that’s the most dangerous place in the world right now?

Yes that is true. Many people killing each other. Its the Americans though that made my country more dangerous.

Me: I think the Americans make every country including their own more dangerous.

Yes, I think so too.

Me: I admire your patriotism.

And I did as well, particularly how he spoke about Pakistan. Since then I’ve been thinking about where home is for me, and hopefully one day i’ll speak about somewhere like he did Pakistan. Lets see.

In conclusion Dubai is the quintessential desert mirage. At first so promising and tempting. Then after you rub your eyes, theres nothing really there.  

Now onward. We’re in Shanghai, its freezing, nearly literally, hovering around the 3′c or 4′c temperature mark. We packed for 23′c to 24′c so that left a little cold shock to the senses. More on Shanghai later, for now I’m hungry. Let me try and find some of that screaming monkey brain Alex was telling me about

Hey everyone, here is the first of many new the zig on the road posts. Its going to be shorter than the rest as I already wrote my Dubai review offline, but forgot to bring it with me today to the Internet Cafe. We’re now in Shanghai, its great. We prepared for 20′c and its about 4′c, but aside from thats its a fascinating city of chaos to get lost in. More to come. Hope your all well.