Pictures

A quick message just to say that I've put up a larger album of photos from Russia on facebook.com. Photos from Mongolia and China will follow soon.

Pictures from Shanghai

Pudong at night time. At the moment they're building one of the world's tallest buildings here. Less than twenty years ago the view from the same spot would have been of a few warehouses and paddy fields apparently. The scale of development here is mind boggling.
Old and new; the older one is the Shanghai Gallery, which had some nice exhibits.
People's Square, the centre of Shanghai, and a very funky monument.
Shanghai Theatre, even more impressive at night.
xkcd.com

Pictures from Beijing

Here it is, the Great Wall of China, this is pretty near the start I think, you can tell by how good kip its in.
This is what about two thirds of what we walked looked like, the "Wild Wall'.
This is Beihei Park, next to the Forbidden City, very beautiful. The white thing on the hill in the background is a Buddhist Stuppa which was gifted by some past Dalai Lama to one of the emperors.
Dim in the Forbidden City.
Initially I thought this was a picture of the Temple of Heaven in Tiantan Park, but upon closer inspection it turned out to be the cast shot for Battle Royale 3.

Beijing and Shanghai...er

Lo all, I haven't posted in a while, so thought it time. We've been In China for around a week and a half at this stage, so I feel happy enough to talk about my impressions of the place at this stage I spose.

Beijing first. One of the weirdly cleanest city's I have ever been in. Largely spotless, and largely shiny too, the effort they've put in before the Olympics is immense, which very handily meant that getting around with English was a breeze. We had ten times the trouble in Russia than we had here. Also quite beautiful, especially their parks, of which they have a multitude dotted around the city, many containing temples and pavilions left over from Imperial times.
Walking through any time of the day we found people exercising, dancing together and choirs practising. Its also probably the largest city I've been in, so spread out, nothing is clustered together.

Shanghai, I think has left more of an impression on me though. The scale of the place is just amazing, and the architecture too. Art deco skyscrapers from the 20s and 30s sitting next to 50 story glass towers, stately looking art gallerys next to ultra modern theatres, walking around here is an activity all in itself. The have and have nots are much more obvious here too, much more people shoppinga nd lounding around in nice cafes, but also alot of beggars and homeless people.

Shanghai has also left a deeper impression because of the annoyances it has exposed though. People here have been very friendly, several people stopping when they could see we were lost, but unfortunately alot are also out to screw you over. In both Shanghai and Beijing youe're warned that people who just want to chat to you are scamming you, in several different schemes. About a dozen people wearing the fakest smiles I have ever seen have tried to stop us to 'just chat', the blatantness of it is just annoying.

Shanghai is also the first time I've read a newspaper, which turned out to be a mildly disturbing experience. We've noticed already that the internet is indeed heavily blocked; BBC news, wikipedia and, oddly, the philosoph website all wont work here, and we cant view blogs here. And that, I suppose, aint cool, but the newspapers just disturb me more. Taiwan is clearly part of the mainland, and authorities there are stirring up discord that none of the Taiwanese people support, the Dalai Lama is apparently posing as a Buddhist leader and no statement issued by the government is questioned. Editorials are also by Communist Party members. The internet, as the song goes, is just for porn, but newspapers defanged so much in any society affect me more, because newspapers are supposed to spend all of their time bitching about the government, its just the way they're supposed to work.

Don't get me wrong though, this is an amazing country and I definitely feel more comfortable here than I did in either Russia or Mongolia, the atmosphere is just nicer I think
and the place does have the energy of a country on the rise.

At the moment we're trying to sort out where to go next, Hong Kong seems like alot of hassle, and not the best for our budget, so we're thing ing of heading inland to Kunming, which is fairly close to the Vietnamese border. So that may turn out to be an interesting change, we shall have to see.

Pictures soon.

Pictures from Mongolier

Dim riding his horse off into a Mongolian sunset
This is a not particularily good picture, curse my camera, of the inside of one of our ger tents. 'Tent' is a very misleading word, considering the bed and the wardrobe, also the very cool stoves.
One of the temples at the Buddhist monastery at Karkhorum.
What Dim assures me were roughly 140 horses.

Mongolier

After a month we finally left Russia and got into Mongolia. Our experience here has been very different from the rest of our trip so far and will probably be very different from the rest as well. On Connie's advice we booked a tour outside of Ulaan Bataar for three days, to see the countryside, so for three days we had our own guide and personal driver, which was odd to say the least, but well worth it. The roads here are being upgraded at the moment so lots of the time we were driving on crazy dirt track roads, and for a minimum of three hours each day. (round trip we drove just under a thousand kilometres)

On the first day we went horse riding for a few hours, which I had never done before, which amused our guide greatly when I told her. The scenery here is spectacular, so rugged and barren, so it was really beautiful. At one point we were riding along with nothing in front of us but a plain ringed by hills, with yak grazing off to the sides when a small herd of camel crossed in front of us in single file. The moment was ruined somewhat by our horse guide riding past me waving his mobile phone around to try and get reception. It also took a little bit of a downturn when the horse I was riding stopped after about 40 minutes to take a crap and the horse guide just took the reins and started leading me, so for the whole way back to the camp I was just left watching the scenery in what Dim referred to as my 'fairground pony ride'.

The other two days we first went to visit a camp inside a national park with the last species of wild horses left in the world, and the second day we went to a four hundred year old buddhist monastery, something I had never seen before. It was quite beautiful but also quite sad, the entire monastery was ringed by a massive external wall, but about three quarters of the space inside is barren, most of the temples were destroyed in the 1930s in Communist purges. From a height of 1000 monks, there are now just 60.

Just driving along we also saw a herd of over 100 camel strolling past and on the second day a hawk or some other type of bird of prey which was at least five foot from wing tip to wing tip glided low over the car. On the last day when we stopped to have lunch next to a small lake a herd of what Dim counted as over 140 horses just wandered over the rise and started drinking and splashing around. The breadth of wildlife in this country is just amazing.

The day before yesterday we got into Ulaan Bataar, we havent seen much yet because were being a bit lazy, but were planning on a bit more of a wander today. Then tomorrow morning we get on the train bright and early for the crossing to China, where we spend the next three weeks.

The missing home has hit me just a little I think. I miss people and Ive also started to get my first twinges of longing for St Andrews, which hadnt hit yet over the Summer. I think it was looking at photos of the first meeting that did it for me, I wish I could have been there. (could someone tell James Hoobler to shave the mutton chops by the way).

Anyway, more goings on soon. I hope everyone is good. Send me news.

T