Monthly Archives: September 2014

Asia, China, Travelogue

Travelogue China 5: Xi’An

XI’AN

30 August 2014

Not being ones for early-to-bed, it was too tough to stick to our self-imposed 21h00 bedtime in Shanghai and we were still pretty chuffed to make it by 10(ish).

There was something very unnatural about a 03h30 wake-up call, but we forced ourselves to get up and out and met our driver at 4am as planned for the cross-city taxi to the airport. We got to the airport in plenty of time (in fact, it wasn’t even open yet), which had us first in the queue with plenty of time to argue with the airline about our (very) overweight luggage.

We were disappointed to arrive to pelting rain in Xi’An (literally translated as “peace of the West”). While one half was trying to silver-line the “it could have been like this all holiday”, there was a definite “why today of all days?!” half bringing us down. Fortunately, our (private) tour guide, Bryan, and his sidekick, driver Charlie Wong, shared a very sunny disposition so we were soon optimistic that the day wouldn’t be a complete wash.

Another small town… of 10 million people… Xi’An has been a town of historical significance for being the birthplace and centre for many Emperors’ rule, most notably in the short but important Qin (pronounced “Chin”) Dynasty who ruled Chou (as China was then known) from 220 – 206 BC. The Qins first unified China – hence it was renamed after them – and formalised the Chinese script and currency.

Xi’An remained capital through the “Golden Age” of the Tang Dynasty some 1300 years ago, with a – very substantial, for then – population of 2 million people. The city was renown for arts and culture and sent envoys around the world to bring back artefacts from other countries, including a giraffe from Africa which had been thought to be a mythical creature!

We faced a terrible traffic jam, which extended the usual 23 minute trip to the Terracotta Warriors to almost 2 hours. A little disheartened, we suggested lunch before the Warriors tour as we’d eaten little all morning (since 03h30, it was now after 12 and we’d been treated to meal after meal so far this trip!) thanks to our 5* hotel packing us a very poor takeaway breakfast consisting of 4 crusty pastries, 1 coffee and an apple – to share!

It was a good call, not just to avoid rushing the warriors, but also because serendipitously the hardest rain poured down while we were in our cosy local eatery slurping up a noodle soup and wolfing down a “Xi’An burger” (pulled pork in toasted pita) and portion of pork dumplings.

Spirits a little restored, we entered the Terracotta Warriors complex.

Nothing like we expected, the Warriors were being excavated in large domed warehouses with neat permanent-structure entrance halls explaining what you were going to be seeing and where it all fitted in the (real-life) Dynasty saga.

The Warriors were discovered in 1974, quite by accident by a farmer who was looking for a spot to dig a well and stumbled on some artefacty stuff, which he reported to the government. They gave him 5 Yuan (R8,75) for his efforts and, since all the land in China belongs to the government (the people only have lease on the properties they build on the land not the land itself), their excavation began. The farmer has made himself somewhat of a local celeb though, availing himself a few mornings a week to man a table in the foyer and sign coffee table books. Our morning happened to be one such and we caught a glimpse of this modern day hero in the flesh (but didn’t buy a book since they were all in Chinese).

Emperor Qin’s are located 1,5km from Emperor QinShihuang’s mausoleum, symbolising the main defending force that guarded the capital before the Emperor died (bearing in mind he started building it when he was 25 and died at 39). Their tomb was in place to protect the Emperor’s tomb and be in place for him when he returned to the after-life.

Walking into the first pit, you couldn’t help but catch your breath. It was everything you heard it would be and so much more than the pictures prepare you for! 236 metres long and 62 metres wide, it was estimated to contain 6,000 warriors and horses. Even with only about a third currently excavated, it was visual overload. Rows and rows of soldiers facing forward; each one hand crafted with a unique outfit and face, not a single one moulded or duplicated. Unbelievably sophisticated sculpture on such a large scale for now, let alone 2 millennia ago!

Closer inspection revealed the exquisite detail. Hair styles, headwear, shoes and other detail indicate rank (remember this was an army, after all). Each soldier had fingernails and even palmprints! Most of the soldiers’ expressions were sombre or sad, likely reflecting the feelings of the artists who were forced to create them (all Chinese men were subject to one month a year conscription to perform such projects for the Emperor); the bellies of the higher ranked officers were slightly bloated to reflect their pre-battle “liquid courage” indulgence.

The soldiers were made, hollow around a clay coil, off-site and transferred to their positions down the ramps found in each corner of the pit, dug to about 5 metres below ground level. They were placed – interspersed with a few warhorses and chariots (which were made of wood, but can be seen in the fossilised remains) – in rows of 4, each soldier on their own tile stand, on a road made of bricks that are still in tact (2,200 years later!) and bear the imprint signature of their producer! The corridors are divided by clay walls that supported the huge wooden pole rafters covered with mats, earth fill and tilled earth that sealed the Warriors’ tomb and completely concealed them from above.

Sadly: enemies at the time looted the pits for their bronze weapons; the pits collapsed and crushed lots of the soldiers; over time the local people had been using the ground above for burial plots and tombs; and the initial excavation had revealed painted soldiers, but exposure to the light and air made the paint peel within a fortnight… so much of the history is lost to us forever.

… but…

The archeologists had done an incredible job of puzzle-piecing the remnants together (and maintaining the integrity of the pieces in their repair jobs) so it was still a very worthwhile excursion AND they have stopped unearthing more soldiers until they get a handle on how to preserve the paint, so there’s something to look forward to in the future when they get that right.

Pit 2 was just as interesting – if not just much less spoken-about. Located 20 metres from Pit 1, Pit 2 was in an L shape, 124 x 98 metres, covering 6,000 square metres. The contents were a mixture of the military forces – archers, war chariots, cavalrymen and infantrymen – who appear independently, but could presumably assemble to constitute a complete battle formation when required, as was the distinct style of the Qin military strategy.

While the soldiers were slightly larger than life (to appear stronger and more powerful), the other objects are only proportions of real-life since they believed at that time that the Emperor would come back half size in the next life. So, Pit 2 was a collection of half-size horses and carriages. Or maybe, my sceptical nature says, the half-size superstition suited the frugal Emperor as he made the soldiers from cheap terracotta, but the carriages and horse accessories were all bronze, silver, gold, alloys…

Pit 3 was a 520 square metre U shape 29 metres long by 25 metres wide. From its contents, it was surmised that this was the army’s Command Centre. Sadly, it was badly destroyed in history, so reveals only 68 pottery figures, 1 chariot and 34 bronze weapons. Swords had chrome plating with a thickness of 10 to 15 micron to act as a protective cover, which is interesting seeing as the Germans and Americans only “invented” chrome plating in 1937 and 1950!

The last thing to visit was the Emperors Mausoleum, with its 81 satellite pits with all sorts of treasures and resources. Offsite (but only 10 minutes away) the Mausoleum Museum was a bit lacklustre after the Warrior pits (which is probably why it only costs 90 Yuan and the Warriors cost 150).

The view in the pits was from above, through glass floors, which was kinda cool, but the lighting was very low (ostensibly to preserve the artefacts) so you couldn’t see as well as you could in the Warrior pits. There were lots of very well laid-out glass case exhibits, but the artefacts were quite unexciting (crockery, decor, tools, stamps etc) as compared.

It was estimated that the population of China back then, 2200 years ago, was about 30 million people. 1 million were soldiers and of the rest, about 700,000 people’s national duty conscription was dedicated to this project… which is estimated to have cost as much as one third of the country’s GDP. He had a fully manned and functional palace above the ground – even after his death, with servants continuing their duties and serving food to his empty seat at the royal table “feeding his soul” – and an impressive ready-for-action battalion below the ground. The Emperor does seem (from today’s pragmatic perspective) to have been a bit cooked, allocating all that time and resources to setting everything up for his next life. But thank goodness he did – it’s a spectacular worthy of its arguable title as “8th Wonder of the World”.

It was a pity that the rain and the traffic jam cost us seeing the other sights of Xi’An from our original tour plan. I don’t think it counts that we saw lovely pictures of the bell and drum towers, city walls, Big Goose Pagoda, Muslim Quarters etc from a delightfully detailed pictorial article in the inflight magazine on our way back to Beijing!

Almost a good enough reason to go back and spend another day with our friendly tour guide, Bryan Bai, and his affable driver, Charlie Wong.

See more on Bryan Bai (historytourguide@gmail.com) or on TripAdvisor .

Asia, China, Travelogue

Travelogue China 4: Shanghai

SHANGHAI

28-29 August 2014

With a name translating to “high sea” for its coastal positioning, Shanghai is a city of 26 million people (bigger than Beijing) concentrated on 80,000 square km (the size of Suzhou) so very crowded. Driving into the city from our 3 hour commute from Hangzhou, we could see right away that Shanghai was very different to the other cities we’d seen.

Having a long and mottled history all of its own, Shanghai had been one of the 4 dragons of China (alongside Hong Kong, Macau and Singapore) for economic and trade reasons during wartime, where neutrality was important for continued prosperity. This sustained external interaction has left Shanghai with a dialect all of its own, Shangainese, influenced by Japanese and English, but most of the local people speak Shanghainese and Mandarin (like the rest of China).

Predictably, first order of business on arrival was lunch, which we enjoyed at a stunning traditional restaurant on The Bund (waterfront of sorts), with very tasty food that was very flavourful with seasoning.

Having little perspective, we didn’t realise how well located our restaurant was until after lunch when we had free time to explore and take pictures. Directly above the restaurant was the People’s Heroes column, which was also the perfect vantage point to view across the bay at the skyline that included the distinctive dusky pink Pearl of the Orient Tower and, to me at least, looked like a much bigger version of Hong Kong.

The cool thing was that the next item on the agenda was to head over to that side of the river and go up one of the skyscraper towers to see the exact reverse panorama! The buildings are so so tall that many of then disappear into the clouds! We took the 45 second elevator ride to the 88th floor and could see for miles through the ceiling to floor glass walls. A nice touch was a voucher for a commemorative item – a pearl that was shelled right in front of us. Mine and Mother’s were almost identical (and completely different to our tourmates’!), so I gave mine to her to make a matched set of earrings.

We then had an hour or 2 to wander around the Shanghai Museum, which had some awesome exhibits on jewellery, traditional dress, currency and seals… but, disappointingly, the calligraphy exhibits were closed for renovation and I think these might have been the highlight.

Having not eaten for a whole four hours, we were rushed off to dinner (at 17h30!), in advance of our river cruise from Qin Huang Dao Road Wharf. We were well in time and waiting patiently with our tickets in hand when the gates were opened to let us right to the boat.

Bizarrely, there was a mad rush and seemingly disproportionate jostling to squeeze through the turnstile. I had an old biddy with her elbows in my back (my very lower back as she couldn’t have been taller than my armpit), who sprinted off (relatively speaking) after she cleared the ticket check. All only became clear once we were on the boat – the oldies were rushing for a window seat in the cabin! If only they’d said – we had no interest in being inside with the spectacular views and photo opps on the upper deck.

Mr Lee told us that Shanghai is like a lady, who dresses up and puts on all her make-up at night to look her absolute best. Well, it must take a lot of electricity to power the commitment to neon that makes this lady pretty! But the effect is well worth it – the taller than tall buildings and distinctive landmarks make for a stunning backdrop for our photobook!

It was well after 21h00 when we checked into our hotel, the Four Points Sheraton, which was just as palatial and lovely as we’d been experiencing on the rest of the tour.

… and had the best breakfast buffet by far.

… to fuel us for the lightest itinerary (for some) so far, just shopping.

Fortunately, it was a later start as I’d gone to the bar across the road (the Blue Frog) with some of our tourmates and we’d nattered away until 1 in the morning (not hard to do since we’d only gotten out after 10). And very fortunate that Mother and I are dab hands at shopping (practice does make perfect after all!) so could operate on instinct while in (mental) energy-saving mode.

This shopping expedition was to AP Plaza. Although indoors like the Beijing markets, this one was all on one level. Mr Lee led us into the market to a central hub, where he set us free with a meeting place and time. Rows of shops tentacled from the hub and the centre was as huge as to be expected and followed a similar inventory pattern as the others (handbags, watches, luggage, souvenirs etc), which made it very confusing to retain direction as everything looked the same.

Miraculously we not only fulfilled our list – and stuck only to our list! – but we also managed to find our way back to the central hub… where we found several of our tourmates already waiting. We’d all managed to get this far, but nobody knew how to get from here to the bus! We moved together, set off splinter scout group, left people as markers… everything! But 10 minutes later we were no closer to the exit! Of course, it was as soon as we called Mr Lee to come and retrieve us that we stumbled across the right path.

The next (shopping) experience was more conventional. A downtown CBD, with wide pedestrian paths flanked by tall buildings housing every brand name store imaginable, this was less of the experience that we were looking for on our Chinese adventure, so we skipped the stores completely and (unintentionally) walked the length to get to the station where the slowly snaking trolley bus (decorated as a train, even with a soft “choo choo” periodically) to just soak in the vibe and do some people watching. We were fascinated by a series of really long queues, moving painfully slowly. On closer inspection, these queues were for shop windows selling ‘moon cakes’. Those must be something really special to warrant the wait, which must’ve been well over an hour for the people at the back.

The rest of the afternoon was at leisure, so we attempted to use the hotel business centre to do online check-in for the next day’s flights (unsuccessfully) and buy excess luggage allowance (successfully)… and then faced the daunting task of packing, strategically so that our (substantial) luggage fitted into the total and per-bag weight and size limits.

All packed and ready to go to Xi’an, we nipped across the road into the mega shopping complex to look for something light for dinner. We popped our heads in at a few places, but ended up with the most unlikely of choices – take away moon cakes from the supermarket. Wow! What a great choice! So so good, with a pork centre similar to a sausage roll in a crispy flaky pastry casing. No wonder all those people were queuing like their lives depended on it!

Asia, China, Travelogue

Travelogue China 3: Hangzhou

HANGZHOU

27 August 2014

With the tour itinerary getting lighter, we were able to sleep in a bit and still have plenty of time for our breakfast buffet (including ice-cream!) before the 09h30 departure for the day’s activities.

We settled in our tour bus for the 3 hours of travel from Suzhou to Hangzhou (pronounced “hung-joe”), which passed easily now that the busload was interacting as one group abuzz with exchanges about home and the tour (from the Jenkins kids, if nobody else).

The first stop was lunch at a Hangzhou tea farm. Although it felt like we were perpetually en route to a meal (quite routine 8, 12.30 and 6) and the format of each meal was the same (8-10 courses on a lazy susan), the dishes themselves and the variety of locations kept the mealtimes interesting enough.

We opted not to take the presentation at the tea farm since we’d already had a tea ceremony in Suzhou and figured that since it was all supposedly strictly traditional, you seen one, you seen ’em all. That might have been a bit dismissive as the locals are so passionate about their tea that they eat, drink and cook with it.

This meant we were on course for West Lake, the big drawcard for the area. Our route took us through the magical bamboo forest where the iconic “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” was filmed.

The time at West Lake was free time to walk around and admire the scenery.  was series of loched manmade lakes, with beautiful thick trees on the banks, large clusters of wild Lotus flowers on the water and a path all the way around so that you can amble along. There were lots of benches and decks to sit and admire the view, mostly under the shade of gorgeous overhanging willow trees. Pretty bridges made for other scenic vantage points and lovely backdrops for photos.

As with everywhere else there were so many people – some even with dogs, of which we’d seen precious few on our trip, and always little chocolate brown miniature poodles. And as with everywhere else, lots of requests to have pictures taken with us.

We would be returning to West Lake for the evening’s entertainment, so there was no objection to moving on to get our hotel. The Courtyard Marriott. Wow. What a grand hotel! Breathtaking lobby, beautiful rooms, astounding facilities. Yet another pleasant surprise on our “bargain package”!

Dinner was at the Lily Hotel and quite different to previous. Same format of course, but much tastier. Hard to tell if this was the restaurant – which did seem much nicer than some of the previous, which had typically understated decor – or the palate of the region.

Then back to West Lake for the show, Impression West Lake which was conceived and directed by Zhang Yimou who is famed for doing the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Using the lake, surroundings and an underwater steel stage as props the show was an hour of hundreds of performers and clever usage of lights and sound to create a dazzling epic masterpiece that told the stories of the classical myths and legends of West Lake. The invisible stage made it seems as if the dancers are gliding on the water and the mammoth cast was paled by the magnitude of their stage!

We had the best seats in the house (not to be confused with the disabled toilets, which we’d taken to seeking out as they were always “proper” toilets) – front row seats on the water’s edge – and couldn’t help but be moved by the triumphant soundtrack… even if we couldn’t quite get a handle on the story.

Asia, China, Travelogue

Travelogue China 2: Suzhou

SUZHOU

26-27 August 2014

Monday morning started even earlier than the previous few, reason being that we had to catch the bullet train from Beijing to Suzhou and, as Mr Lee impressed upon us several times, the train waits for nobody!

So there we were, bleary-eyed but well fed, on the bus at 06h50 to cross town from our hotel’s position in the north-east to the station in the south west. As dumb luck would have it, the traffic was on our side and we got to the station with an hour to kill. Rather an hour too soon than an hour too late though.

Mr Lee had prepared us for the getting on and off the train which, in well-oiled-machine Chinese style, was a mere 2 minute window. That’s just 2 minutes at each station for passengers to alight and board! And the train never runs late and never waits for anyone! Miraculously, we Sloth Africans managed to pull it together and get the lot of us and our ever-increasing flock of luggage on board with time to spare.

The train was very comfortable with 15 or so rows of seats in each carriage, 3 to the left and 2 to the right of the aisle. There was a little dedicated luggage space in the front of each carriage and deceptively accommodating shelving overhead, which was more than ample for our carriage’s needs (thankfully our co-passengers were travelling light!). The seats reclined far enough to allow for easy napping and, mercifully, both the toilets that served our carriage had seats and toilet paper. The entire train was pristinely clean and a cleaner still did regular rounds, offering use of her bin bag to clear our garbage and swishing about sweeping as the train hurtled along smoothly and silently at over 300 kilometers per hour.

In 5 hours we covered the 1,400km journey south, to the relaxing part of the tour.

Already the pace had slowed as once we checked into our hotel, the Pan Pacific, we had free time right until dinner. What a relief – the pace had been quite hectic in Beijing!

Our hotel was again top class; quite different to Traders which was a big modern block, Pan Pacific was a beautiful sprawling mega-villa laced around ponds and gardens. An absolute maze on the inside, with our drop-off (and future meeting point) on the 1st floor, our room on the 2nd floor and the lobby seemingly nonsensically on the 3rd floor.

With 2 hours to kill until dinner, we popped out the meeting point entrance to see who our neighbours were. No joy from across the road – a greengrocer and dodgy (closed) pub called BlackJack – so we tried heading right.

A bizarre assortment of very functional shops; the only one of any interest was Holiland bakery. Lured in by the pretty cakes and secured by the soft-serve machine, we endured the cacophony of shoppers and store attendants as well as the painstakingly slow-moving queue – thanks to the cashier also being the packer and the store policy requiring each item to be individually packed in little baggies that stuck to each other and resisted opening – for one reason. Fresh sugar cones.

There was an attendant dedicated to the soft-serve machine, armed with a waffle-maker that she was using to make fresh sugar cones. She had a pre-made batter, thin and runny like a pancake batter, that she was spooning onto the heated waffle iron and spreading thinly. A few seconds of cooking and she’d wrap the toasty flat result tightly around a conical wooden mould. Voila! Fresh sugar cone! It felt the time had stood still… she did it soooo slowly… but it was worth it. The product was a still-warm cone that tasted a bit like Boudoir biscuit, with silky soft ice-cream poured inside and twisted to a peak on top. Yum!

We ambled back to hotel and had a lovely sit before having to meet for dinner.

Quite used to the format now, the only adjustment was to being a smaller group now that splinter groups had gone elsewhere. Being just 13 people (which we were assured was not a bad thing in China as their unlucky number is 4 because it had some connotation with death, which is pretty unlucky) we now fitted around a single table and in the small private dining room at our restaurant which, like all the others, shall remain nameless as the signage was all in Chinese only.

Another lovely meal – getting the hang of chopsticks, getting adept at dishing off a constantly swivelling lazy suzie, getting used to one glass of Coke / beer per meal, getting accustomed to no salt / pepper / serviettes, getting to know the company. Having a feast and having a laugh. All good.

TUESDAY

We finally got to have the first bit of a lie-in this holiday, only having to wake up at 08h00 in order to make our 09h30 meeting time.

The plan for the day was a city tour of Suzhou (pronounced “sue-joe”), which is known as the Chinese Venice because it has over 1,400 canals. It is considered to be a smaller city, with a mere 15 million population so had Mr Lee more relaxed, saying that “it nosso busy so don’t have to walk like sticky rice.”

The bus took us to the famous Lingering Gardens. One of 4 most famous gardens in China, it was built in 1593 and belonged to a series of owners since then, accumulating cultivated gardens, quaint buildings and scenic pathways between interesting relics.

There were exhibits of classic calligraphy and paintings of the national flowers – plum (Summer), chrysanthemum (Autumn), lotus (Winter), Chinese rose (Spring) – which can be seen in the gardens. As we walked into the garden, we were greeted by the lotus flowers in bloom on the pond. They were much bigger than expected with great big round leaves. Stark contrast to the controlled miniatures in abundance in the bonsai garden.

Wandering around gardens is not normally our sort of thing, so we did a once-round and buffered the extra time by going to the shop stalls across the road and buying some real bargain souvenirs.

Next up was the embroidery factory. This was no ordinary embroidery! The Masters (and there are only 4 of them) are able to do double-sided embroidery, meaning they can embroider the picture on the top (and I’m talking better-than-photo quality stuff) AND simultaneously create a (different) embroidery on the reverse side! Really amazing stuff!

We got to watch a Master at work. This old lady was 75 years old and had been working at the same factory every day for more than half a century and she only embroiders fish. All day, every day for 57 years and just fish. They are spectacular! She does the most realistic vibrant fish using the finest of stitching (splitting a single thread into 1/24 so you can barely see it), an expert deft hand and a mirror on her lap to monitor the back picture. Unbelievable. Comes at a pretty price too – since it can take years to finish a detailed piece, it can fetch Y500,000 (ZAR 875,000) or more.

From there we went on the Grand Canal tour. This canal ran all the way from Beijing and through Suzhou, with a total length of 1,800km (9x Suez and 20x Panama Canal). Construction was started in 221BC, intending the canal be for military use and merchant trading (silk and tea). It is the second longest, only behind the Yangzhou River; but it was far from the deepest being mostly only 2 metres deep in Suzhou, nor the fastest since boats may only go at 20kmph.

The canal tour took us through the oldest parts of Suzhou, where the houses back onto the canal and there are steps from their back doors right into the water. Mr Lee got the boat to stop so that we could jump off and nip down an alleyway into the “high street” to see the hustle-bustle of the narrow, noisy, smelly market.

Mr Lee also pointed out Shantang Street (“mountain water” street) was a good place to come in the evening for dinner (for once not included in the package). The area had previously been the city’s red light district, but now all that remained of its dodgy history was the red Chinese lanterns, which are now emblazoned with street names in lieu of conventional signage.

The deal was sealed. We returned to the hotel intent on having a rest and then heading back to Shantang for the evening. We got a little sidetracked though since the maids wanted to clean our room shortly after we arrived back (they seem to clean perpetually, not concerned about what time they do what rooms), so we went for a walk in the opposite direction as the previous night.

The walk (or possibly a debilitating luckless visit to a shoe store) sapped mom’s last energy, so she bowed out of the plan and I went ahead and shared a cab to Shantang with our groupmate as planned.

As always, the city looked very different by night and the journey into town seemed much quicker by cab. The cab fare was cheap too, at Y15 (ZAR 26), which like many other coutries makes it viable to outsource transport, not like at home where the cab fare is more than the night out!

We were deposited at the gate to Shantang, since being ancient and very much pre-car it’s a pedestrian-only precinct. It was so pretty with a big glowing arch entrance and a view down the lively street with all the shops open and marked with red Chinese lanterns.

We’d been given a recommended restaurant by Mr Lee, which our hotel concierge had written in Chinese on a hotel business card to help us to find it. It became a sort of treasure hunt looking for “tent-stroke-kappie-square” which is how we remembered what the first (of four!) characters of the restaurant’s name looked like. We wandered down the first of the side roads – a narrower version of the entrance road, now parallel to the canal – and found the restaurant! It was really busy and the hostess managed to communicate that there was a half hour wait. No mind, lots to see and do, so we said we’d come back.

We took a wander down the canal and over a bridge to circle back on the other side. We encountered a lively looking pub, so decided to stop in for a beer to pass the time waiting for the restaurant. We ordered Tsingtaos and listened to the locals warble on the karaoke. Perusing the menu, it looked really good so we decided to go back to our restaurant and check their menu before deciding where to eat.

The original restaurant was ready for us when we returned, but a brief flip through the menu showed that, while the food looked good, it was much the same as the lunches and dinners we’d been having, so we decided to go back to the pub to have a beer and a snack and repeat the process to make a bit of a pub crawl out of dinner.

It was a good call and we enjoyed delicious chicken pops and wokfried pepper beef at the pub. Then the challenge began. We walked around and about, up one street and down the other and couldn’t find another pub! Try as we might, there simply wasn’t another option.

We were not so desperate as to try a karaoke house, easily located by the wailing and caterwalling coming from them. Strange format, the karaoke houses have small roadlevel reception areas and the hostesses escort you to your own private lounge, dark and kitted with comfy couches around the walls, all facing a large screen and all with easy access to microphones. Even assuming they had some sort of soundproofing, the participants are so enthusiastically loud and proud that the result is cacophonic!

We did get to see the whole of the downtown area though and did stop to enjoy street food at some of the many vendors. The highlight was the mini lobsters although, admittedly, I did think they were cockroaches at first glance!

The streets were a hive of activity – and all very very clean. We wandered around, looking at shops and street vendors, buying the odd beer at the local 711 equivalent, and ended up walking all the way back to the hotel, ending on a 23,000 step day!