June, 2010: Revoluntionary Road III: Hefei to Beijing, China

The road came to an end for Sun Yat-Sen in Beijing.

While he was in his death bed, the war between western medicine and traditional chinese medicine was still raging. Earlier, another heavyweigh of the young republic, a Mr Liang QiChao, was diagnosed with kidney disease. He went for western medical treatment, going under the knife to have the diseased kidney removed. But, holy shit, the doc remove the wrong kidney (the working one).
Sun, too, admitted himself into a hospital in Beijing and went for western medical treatment, but his condition never improved. He turned down any suggestion of trying out TCM. We would never know if that would have made a difference. In any case, the son of Guangzhou, father of the republic passed away in Beijing.









Now back to the Trans-Siberia trip...
I have been thinking of this trans-siberia trip for quite a few years, but when it comes to actually doing it, everything came together at the last minutes.

I have made a call to the China International Travel Service (CITS) before leaving for China to check on the availibilty of ticket from Beijing to Moscow. While they confirm there were seats, they were pretty vague about refund procedure should I have problem taking the trip. And CITS does not accept payment by anything other than cash or via PayPal. No credit cards.


Since I will be in China for about 1 week before arriving in Beijing, I reckon I can hold on to buying the ticket after I arrived in China. But thing aren't as easy as imagined. Once in China, I realised that, while there are branches of CITS in almost all major cities in China, only the Beijing one handle the Siberia train ticket. I called up in WuHan and AnHui and all was puzzled about what I wanted.


So, once in AnHui, I thought I will call up the Beijing branch and make a reservation, hoping to let them agree to help me reserve a ticket while I make payment only when I reached Beijing. Too bad, the Dragon Boat festival threw a spanner in the works. I was told on Monday that I cannot make a reservation but have to confirm my seat, and proceed to make payment. Another thing, they will be going on a 3-days Dragon Boat holiday from Tuesday. And by 'they', it meant everyone in the CITS Beijing office. This is absurd, for a travel agent to actually shut down during a long national holiday when their target customers are most likely to go for a holiday. I remembered once in a Sydney restaurant during lunchtime, I was told that I may have to wait slightly to be served because the cooks are having their lunch. What?! This probably rank high up in terms of absurdity with the SYdney incident.

It is Friday by the time CITS came back from their holiday. I called up and they confirmed seats are available for the K3 (Beijing-UlaanBataar-Moscow) the following Wednesday. If I want that seat, I will have to make payment with PayPal. I went to my PayPal account and then promptly realize that the amount of about S$770 for the ticket is above my PayPal limit. I can't believe things are turning out to be so difficult. I decided there and then I will just travel to Beijing the following Tuesday. If there are no more trans-siberia ticket, I will just go for the QingHai-Tibet train trip and go home from Beijing or even Kunming.

With that, I left for HuangShan, where I mostly have no internet access to contac CITS and sometimes have no mobile coverage to call them. On the following Monday, I called up the CITS and was told that there are tickets available. It sounds like the tickets ain't selling fast. That was reassuring. What's better, the price quoted by them was slightly lower. So it was on a Monday evening I left for Beijing from HeFei on a overnight train. Even earlier on Monday, I was still planning on the Plan B of getting to Tibet, until a friend reminded me that Wednesday is the last day of my visa-free stay in China. If I don't leave by then, I will be accused of overstaying. I looked up the Trans-Siberia. The schedule show K3 leaving China for Mongolia at the Inner Mongolia border at almost midnight of Thursday. If I made the K3, I wouldn't be thrown into jail for overstaying then.
That set, I made a to-do list (of things to accomplish on Tuesday) on the back of a receipt in my bunk on the train:
1) Call the CITS office to check about ticket. Let them know I am staying within walking distance and will be at their offic with the cash;
2) Go on SIA website to redeem my frequent-flyer miles for Moscow to Singapore;
3) Go to CITS to buy my train ticket;
4) Get to a bank to change some Russia rubles;
5) and lastly, find a supermarket to stock up on my provisions for the coming 5-days train trip...over 3 countries, 2 continents and 5 timezones.


Once out of the train, I shot for the nearby hotel that I know have good internet connection (I have been there the last time I was in Beijing.) Item 1 was easily accomplished. But I ran into problem with item 2. I was able to find a seat available back home from Moscow. However, there was some problem with the website, and I was not able to complete the transation. I was only able to do it with a call back to SIA office. The lady at the other end of the call, after getting my membership number said:"Sir, you were trying to complete a redemption? But it could go through because you were making too much attempts and it is blocking up your queue." Well, mdm, I was making so much attempts because each preceding ones never well through on YOUR system.

After the brief scare, item3 and 4 got nailed down (there was no way to exchange my RMB to ruble at all, so I just got some USD, which is supposed to be accepted on the train all the way to Moscow.) By then, it was almost 3pm, and I finally found the appetite for lunch.
The rest of the day was spent getting the provisions. By the time I left Walmart (and I left Walmart only because it was closing for the day), it was past 10pm.

So, everything is done for the trip other than turning up at the platform for the k3 before it pulls out at 7:47am the next day. I decided I will not trust the alarm or wake-up call, but rather stay up for the night. It wasn't that difficult as there were World Cup matches playing the whole night long.

And so it was, that I turn up at 7:10am on a Wednesday morning at the Beijing train station for the K3.

June, 2010: HuangShan, AnHui, China

Being such a huge tourist attraction in AnHui, it is easy to sign up for a tour from HeFei to HuangShan. We booked one in AnHui, which will pick us up by bus on Saturday morning, take us to the town of TangKou at the foot of HuangShan, followed by a trip up the mountain the next day.
Once you reach TangKou, one of the townfolks (the local tour rep) working with the AnHui tour agency pick you up from the bus, persuade you to eat at her restaurant (which we did), buy a disposable raincoat (which looks strangely similar to a trash bag) and a walking stick. Before sending us off to our hotel, we need to decide if we will be leaving our luggage with the tour rep or with the hotel. This is when I realize thetour will be quite different from what I have in mind when signing up. I have imagined that we would get to reach the summit of HuangShan on a tour bus, even if need to get off and hike, we will get to leave our luggages on the bus. The tour rep explain that we will be walking most of the way up, carrying whatever you can. So, the lighter our luggage the better. I decided to leave everything that is not valuable with the rep, but insist on carrying the laptop with me.

The afternoon we can pick a couple of scenic sites to visit or activities to participate (like tubing down a stream). Not wanting to get wet, we pick the scenic sites. One of it was Lover's Valley.
Years ago, some youths were trapped in the valley in bad weather. Having been through the hardship in the valley, when they made the way out of the valley, a few couple fell in love and eventually got married.
So a bridge here is not just a bridge, they have to name it the lover's bridge.
And the Chinese characters for "Love" are found on faces of stone. On one, a total of 99 of this same character were inscribed in different script. The space for the 100th on the lower left corner is left blank. According to the guide, this last character is found in everyone's hear.
My theory is that the 100th Love character found its way to Taiwan. Go ask the heaven, the heaven will probably say I am right.
Somewhere in this valley is where they filmed a scene from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. If the guide had offered this nugget of info the year Tiger came out, I would be pretty excited. But not after all these years, with all these WuXia films with sword fights over bamboos and crystal clear lake.
The tour guide also mentioned that it is at the foot of HuangShan that you will encounter a temple. Any higher up, and burning joss-sticks in temples are off limit. The next day, on the hike up HuangSHan, it is obvious that the rule to not litter is neither strictly observe nor enforced. But the rule to not smoke unless in smoking area is strictly enforced.
The next day, we woke up to a wet morning. The guide picked us at the hotel lobby. I remember it's a 3-star hotel. The guide warn us that later in the evening, the hotel (as part of the package) we will be booking into is nowhere near 3-star. It sounds like a suggestion to seriously consider paying for an upgrade to a better hotel.
Ticket to the mountain is not included in the package, so it was a pleasant surprise that they were going for half-price. It was World-Expo week, and the discount is to attract those who went to Shanghai to make a detour to HuangShan. After the guide made sure that we were really walking up the mountain instead of taking the cablecar, we were off. It was not a downpour, but still wet enough to require waterproofing the laptop I was carrying up.
Luckily, the rain never did get any heavier and eventually stop. The sun came up but it was still pretty cool in the mountain.


We were given about 3 hours to make it up to White Goose Ridge, where we meet up with those who make it up by the cablecar, and refill with some food. It is also here that the guide remind us about the hotel upgrade. The hotel we upgrade to will be right on the summit, and we get to sleep all the way till sunrise. Otherwise, we stay at one lower on the mountain, wake up about an hour before sunrise, make our way in the dark to the summit and join the rest for the sunrise before making our down the mountain, on a different face from that which we came up. I was sold on the "making-your-way-up-in-the-dark" part.
After White Goose Ridge, the way to the summit was a more enjoyable walk. For one thing, there was no more time limit of 3 hours; for another,
while it is obvious we are going up, it is no more one flight of stairs after another. And it is at this stretch that HuangShan shows you why it is the attraction of AnHui: the sea of mist (thanks to the earlier rain), the craggy mountain faces, the sheer drops and dizzy height that made my legs goes weak.

Pine trees are also a big deal here. The guy in uniform here is not from the police to maintain order (although it would be a good idea if he was, what with all the pushing and shoving to take photo near edges to those sheer drops) but an officer from the fire department to enforce the no smoking rule.
We check in to the Guang Ming Ding Hotel. Got a double room with in-room toilet. Although there are dorms housing about 30, there were even double-deckers out on the corridor just outside our room. If I remember correctly, this dinner for two came up to about US$12.
Still, up in the mountain, we get Slovakia playing Paraguay.
Well, you need to know that with no road access up the mountain, this is how the ingredients get carried up.
The next day, everyone from every tour group who came up to the hotel to catch the sunrise, which duly cancelled its appearance. You can imagine the crowd at the breakfast shop and the toilet. And amongst the mass going down the narrow stairs were tired legs who wish there were a bus to carry them down. For those who can no longer walk down, they can pay to get carried on these ratten chairs. A granny did, so did a young lady who probably sprain her ankle on the way up.
Once we came to the first cablecar station, we made the choice to get down by cable car.



At the foot of the mountain is a statute of Xu XiaKe, one was the earliest travel writer (who was unique amongst his contemporary in that he travelled for the sake of travelling instead of pilgrimage or as diplomat of the royal court). His travelogue made the earliest reference of HuangShan.

June, 2010: Hefei, AnHui, China

I arrived in Hefei on the day Japan plays Cameroon.
It was June and the city is celebrating the Dragon Boat festival with a three days holiday. World Cup fever is on, too.
If you can't catch it in the hotel, there is still MacDonald's and beer gardens dotting the city. Here, Argentina plays South Korea on the giant screen, right before the floodgate opens on the Korean's goal. The beer garden was serving up mini lobsters, the kind I was thinking of having in WuHan but never got around to it.
AnHui is considered one of the poorer province in China, and its main tourist attraction, HuangShan, is pretty far from the provincial capital of HeFei. Other than going for classes at the HeFei TCM hospital, the only places of interest (to me) in the city were the tomb of Justice Bao, and the old family house of Li Hong-Zhang.
A park is built around the Justice Bao tomb, with ponds (the type you can find paddleboats on), a well-kept garden, a temple with Bao as its main deity, and a pagoda, amongst other things.




















There is a underground passageway leading to tomb, where Bao's coffin (the glossy black solid heavy-looking type you see in Chinese vampire movies popular in the 80's) is displayed behind glass panels. No photoes allowed, and I wasn't interested in taking one, just in case some abberation shows up on the pictures.
I knew Justice Bao is a real person from back in the Song dynasty. And his exploit is well known to Chinese the world over, just like Qiu Yuan, another of those legendary righteous officials
whose death gave us the Dragon Boat festival.
But the more I walk around the tomb and the parks, the image of Bao that we knew is more like a symbol than what he really was. He is righteous all right, but looks at what the displays in the park says about him:
He was born so dark-color that his own mother hated him. He was abandoned by mummy on a lily pad and was saved and adopted by an auntie. And he had a birthmark on his forehead the shape of a cresent moon.
Well, I don't really buy any of that. He had to be made dark so as to symbolize that, while a court official, he was closer to the farmers and labourer of lower status than to the nobles. He had to be abondaned on the lily pad because, the lily, growing so surprisingly clean and bright out of muddy pond, has longed symbolize those righteous men who are firm and untainted by corruption going around them. And that cresent moon birthmark of his on the dark forehead, that symbolize a man with no skeleton in his closet.
Away from the Justice Bao tomb, on one of the busiest shopping street in HeFei, is the old family house of Li Hong-Zhang, looking out of place between the malls.
Li can't be more different from Sun Yat-Sen. He was well-established in the court while Sun is just a fledgling. He served a dynasty while Sun fought for a republic. Sun is known more for his ideas while Li was a man of action. He was something of a iron chancellor of the east then. What could be common between them could be that both believe that westernization would be good for the nation, even here they would have disagree on how deep and extensive this should be. It is no wonder then that Li was also a proponent of railway in the country.
Li had his fingers in quite a few pies: the military, financing the nation's coffer, health reform, foreign affairs amongst others. The thing about doing so much is that, the more one does, it is more likely that one would screw up along the way. And the tragedy is if the rest of the world choose to remember you for your follies than your successes. When the Qing navy lose at the hands of the Japanese, it fell on Li to lead delegates to Shimonoseki in Japan. The agreement signed by him saw China ceding land, sovereign right and money to the Japanese. For this, he was seen as a traitor. The display in the old house showing the site of Li treaty-signing, and the photo of the same street taken when I was last in Shimonoseki.















Fortunately, Li did not live to see the demise of the Qing dynasty, thus sparing him the possible agony.
Before leaving HeFei, it is worth noting that the HeFei TCM college, which the TCM hospital is affiliated to, runs a AnHui TCM museum. It is not large but well-run.
It's just too bad the museum is not open to the public.