robertrankin.org

I’ve been attracted to Chinese paintings for a while now. My favorites are usually those of landscapes, bamboo or flowers depicted in as few strokes as possible. Last week I visited the very wonderful Shanghai Museum and saw the following flower and leaf series by Wu Changshuo.

My Job in China is different than in Vietnam and Southeast Asia. In Vietnam, we, as tour leaders have loads of support. My company’s main Asian office is there and if I have any problem’s I just call Queen Hang in the Saigon office and miraculously she fixes everything. I gave her that nickname because she is that good.

In China we, as tour leaders are on our own. We don’t have an office here and it’s expensive to call to Saigon. So we have to think on our feet. Our suppliers provide our local guides and transport, but not much else. In short, in China, we have to be proactive and manage everything. In Vietnam if we forget to do something, someone will catch us on it. In China, if we forget to do something, no one will catch it, and it usually means some very unhappy passengers!

The main difference though, is commission (shopping) stops! The local guides are so eager to push the group into a silk shop, or a pearl shop, or a wood carving shop, or an antique shop and so on, where they get anything from 10% - 40% commission! Sometimes it’s hard to actually find time for the touring itinerary with all the shopping stops! OK, it’s not that bad.. but it’s annoying.

Fun with translations in the Middle Kingdom

See below. And check out my Flickr Chinglish category.

WTF?

A small city by Chinese standards, Xian is home to 8 million people. It’s on the map because of its Terracotta warriors. 2000 years ago, Emperor Qin Shi Huang decried that several thousand life size Terracotta warriors be created and buried near his tomb to protect him and his treasures in the afterlife. Some years after his death, the tomb was raided and the crypts where the soldiers were buried were burned and destroyed. The soldiers were destroyed and buried for centuries. In the 70s, a farmer was digging a well and struck oil and wealth in the form of some bits of Terracotta. The People’s Government took control of the land and his discovery and started unearthing and piecing together the bits and pieces. (The farmer now signs books for a living, earning hundreds of yuan a day). Today it’s a HUGE tourist site, with restaurants and shopping plazas. There are even government-sponsored Terracotta warrior factories where one can buy life-size warriors and have them shipped home.

More interesting to me, Xian is also the only city in China to still have intact its original surrounding wall and moat (though original in China is a bit misleading, since rebuilding and repairing happen often, while still retaining the original tag). The wall stretches for 14km around the city and can be walked or cycled. The gate-houses and sentry towers are also intact and quite beautiful. Indeed the whole thing is lit up at night and is spectacular.

“The wall is only as strong as the weakest man”, said Genghis Khan about the wall. Indeed, the great wall, planned to defend China from the Mongols, never really worked. Guards along the wall were easily bribed and passage was granted. The wall did function well as a line of communication, where messages could be sent from east to west, over the 5000km length of the wall at great speed, considering the distance. Today much of the wall is in disrepair, given to time and the harsh elements.

There are several spans of the wall which are open to tourists (and have been repaired to nearly their original conditions). I saw the wall at Mutianyu, the name of the small town nearby. It’s about 90km Northeast of Beijing.

From the bus park, you need to climb to reach the wall. It’s a 45 minute climb up some steep steps, so naturally the Chinese have built a cable-car, which for 35Y whisks you effortlessly up the mountain. Not bad!

Once on the wall you easily spend half a day on this span. There are a dozen or so sentry towers to explore, and loads of postcard-photo ops with vistas of the wall snaking up and down over the mountain-top. It’s huge.

Now that you’re at the top, how should you get down? Why not try the toboggan? 45Y will get you a ticket for the 2 minute toboggan ride to the bottom!

Like a flashy, sparkly, technicolor dream, the skyline of Shanghai’s Pudong neighborhood comes to life at dusk and commands notice. Currently home to 2 of the 5 tallest structures in the world, when the World Insurance building is complete later this year, the skyline will hold the tallest, the 4th and 5th tallest buildings — The World Financial Center at over 550m, the Oriental Pearl TV Tower at 468m and the Jinmao Building at 421m, respectively.

Shanghai, one of China’s 4 municipalities (along with Beijing, Chongqing & Tianjin; municipalities are an administrative division on the same level as a province) stretches nearly 100km east to west and 60km north to south. It’s home to 17 million Shanghainese.

Its central area is situated on both sides of the Huang Pu river. The western side is the older section, and contains the area known as the Bund. The Bund is a stretch of riverfront where the French, British and American businesses set up their East-Asian operations (after the 2nd opium war). The buildings are all sort of 1920’s style neoclassic buildings and look remarkably like the buildings in downtown New York City. Today they house China’s biggest banks.

Pudong, the Eastern side of the Huang Pu River was all farmland and undeveloped until the early 1990s when the People’s Government decided it would be a good idea to put some buildings there. Seeing it today, it is simply amazing to see how much development has happened in less than 20 years. Today it has the tallest buildings (see above), a huge international airport, huge shopping malls and millions of residential units.

I’ve been in China for one month now. I arrived on 27 March and went straight into training with Phil, another tour leader. Training was great and despite all the drinking I could not get over my cold brought on by the sudden change in weather (hot in Vietnam and COLD in Beijing). I was sick for 2 weeks.

On 8 April I started my own tour. My pax were OK… take ‘em or leave ‘em kind of pax. Like… I wouldn’t be too upset if they missed the flight… and the rest of the tour. They were OK, but not my favorite bunch of people in the world to spend 17 days with.

I was trained on about 2/3 of the places I’d visit on my first tour. And indeed in those places where I’d been trained the touring was relatively easy. However I didn’t have time for training in Shanghai, a huge city of 14 million or something. Shanghai was the hardest bit of touring for me. Of course, I didn’t tell the pax it was my first time — that’s a tour leading no-no. Instead I answered most of their questions with “I don’t remember” and “I don’t know”! It was a hard final 4 days of the tour.

My first tour is complete now, and I did get tipped though not extremely well. Still it is enough for me to spend it on some flight tickets to get out of the city and take a holiday on my 10 days off before my next tour.

Now I’m still in Shanghai where I’ve been for 2 days without pax, and 4 days previously on tour. Yesterday I went to the train station to get a ticket to Yangshuo for holiday, and after an hour in-line, the ticket attendant told me the ticket I wanted wasn’t available. I know it was, but I couldn’t communicate in Chinese well enough to get it. Frustrated, I had a cigarette and sulked outside the station. Then I left, not willing to spend another hour of my life in line. Today I convinced myself my time was worth more and went to a travel agent and booked a flight instead. Ah having money is good.

There are lots of new pics in my Flickr China category. Stay tuned for 7 more articles on China, coming in the next 7 days.

Love and miss everyone,
Rob

Just after Tet, I was riding around Hanoi on a motorbike, and came upon some performances set up on the street. Well, on huge stages which had been constructed on the street.

The roller skating acrobatics:

The Singer (more interesting for the shots of the crowd than for the actual music)

One Grand Adventure
(Or Rob’s report card)

Okaaay… This little verse will take 5-10 minutes to read
At the end you may visit the “happy house” if you feel the need

We, as a group, wish to express our sincere appreciation
You have attended to our needs for the past 21 days with dedication

Born in the year of the snake, and still in your youth
You shepherded us north to south, a group quite long in the tooth

Our start together at the Wild Rice Cafe was a little shaky
Your knees that night might have been somewhat quaky

But you got us all sorted out by the following morning
Took us off to Halong Bay and conducted a maritime rescue with no warning

Very early we learned to trust in your leadership skills
Especially when it was time for our tummies to be filled

We explored caves, markets, temples and villages galore
When we thought we’d seen it all, you still found more

You accommodated the needs of each member of the group
Diets, pictures, trains, special options and quizzes became part of the soup

Sometimes one of our band would feel a desire to linger
You’d have us back in line with a crook of your finger

You worked with three local guides, each with a different style
You accommodated them, too, with grace and your trademark smile

Our unceasing questions were treated as if each one was new
That’s something I’d really like to learn how to do

You seem to have friends wherever you go
And we benefited both from what and who you know

You have been heard on occassion to say
“This job has good and not so good days - this is a pretty good day”

But I’m sure when it came time to deal with the Palace Hotel
You might have a different quote: “some days this job is hell”

So now the time has come for us to part ways
And you’re start back in Hanoi with a new group in a few days

You can tell them from us you are highly recommended
They can rest assured that with you their comforts will be well attended

And as we take with us many fond memories of our Grand Adventure
Know that you’re welcome to visit any of us should you choose to in the future

March 13 ‘07

Rob:
This poem was written by one of my passengers and presented to me at our farewell dinner. Sweet isn’t it?

When we started, I had to deal with pax who were ready to quit the tour because the office screwed so many things up, like selling them last year’s itinerary instead of this years.

The maritime rescue on Halong Bay was a rescue by me of two pax whose kayak had sprung a leak. With my kayak, I towed them to safety at a nearby boat, then ferried them back to our big boat which was anchored a few hundred meters away.

The Palace Hotel has a disco on the first floor. When I checked in my group, we were given rooms on the 2nd floor. The floor and walls shake because of the bumping music below. Not so much fun to manage… the cranky pax and the hotel staff.

Khao Sok National Park

I have just completed my first tour in Thailand. It was called the “Trails of Thailand” and the itinerary was as follows. Bangkok 2 nights, Kanchanaburi 2 nights, Ayuthaya to Khao Yai National Park 2 nights, Chiang Mai 2 nights, Chiang Dao 1 night, Phuket 1 night, Khao Sok 2 nights, Phuket 1 night.

This was a great and adventurous trip. We did hiking, rafting, canoeing, elephant trekking, speed boating, bird watching and more. Of course we also did temples and museums… What’s a trip in Southeast Asia without temples!?

After working in Vietnam for 4 months, it was great to get out and have a taste of another culture for a bit. Indeed, for the past 2 weeks, I have been nearly completely disconnected from my colleagues and staff in Vietnam, as well as the rest of the world (sorry, Mom). It’s been nice to be away, and I feel as if I’ve had a vacation! Which is cool.

The tour went fantastically well, and I got great tips and survey results after.

Working in Thailand is much different from working in Vietnam.. at least in my limited perspective. In Vietnam, things happen. Hotel check-ins happen, drink orders are taken, laundry is completed on time, buses show up when they’re supposed to, etc. In Thailand, while SIGNIFICANTLY more developed and touristed than Vietnam, these things don’t always happen… But the people are so dammed friendly that it all seems ok. One must remember the Thai saying of “Mai pen rai“. Basically “It’s nothing” or “No big thing” or “No problem, dude.. chill out and have a seat”!! Ok, I get it. There are bigger things to worry about.. Like where to have dinner. And what to drink with it.

I was last in Thailand in June 2005, and it left such an impression on me that I knew I’d be back. Having been back, I still love the country. I hope to return soon.