We went to  China in March 2017  to celebrate Sharon's 60th Birthday.

We have published photos and some details of what we did on each day of our trip.
The celebrations began a couple of days earlier with a get together with Sharon's friend Susan who was also about to turn 60.

Here is a map showing where we will be going on our trip.

15TH MARCH

Today, we were invited, along with our friend Maureen, to Bluesky Lodge at Cantraydoune near Cawdor. The invitation came from our friends Susan and Robin. Susan is one day older than Sharon and had hired the lodge with their family for the week. We were asked to join them for birthday celebrations once their family had left.

The lodge was very modern, spacious and fabulously well appointed.

The visit started in splendid style with a glass or two of champagne.

Presents were exchanged and the two birthday girls seemed very happy.

Then, after more champagne and nibbles, we braved a howling, freezing gale to leap, or perhaps more accurately, clamber, into the hot tub. Now we know what the weathermen mean when they go on about windchill factors.

Robin and Bob risked the wind to run the 5 yards to the sauna, where they soon managed to warm up their cheeks.

We and Maureen had a wonderful time, with a really nice steak dinner, cheese and fine wines. It was very generous of Susan and Robin to host us and to get us well prepared for our trip away.

16TH MARCH

After a fine breakfast and a chat, we left for home taking Maureen with us. After dropping her off, we got home, unpacked and then started proper packing for China!!

The cases are now packed and as far as we know we are ready to go.

17TH MARCH

After Elain and the boys came to see Nana and gave her a photo frame from all the grandchildren, of all the grandchildren, it was time for us to head for China. The taxi was on time and everything went well until we actually got to the airport. Our flight to Amsterdam was delayed and then delayed again. 

Once we left, about 50 minutes behind schedule it seemed we would miss the flight to Shanghai. However,  the cabin crew suggested we would be ok as some time had been made up on the flight. Yeah right, we thought when it turned out we had to get across the terminal in less than 20 minutes.

We did it despite the threat of a heart attack on Bob's part and were given a round of applause by the airline staff at the gate. We were the very last people to board the plane.  So, off we flew overnight to Shanghai.

18TH MARCH

10 hours later we arrived and below is a photo announcing Shanghai airport.

We met up with some other Viking cruisers and then were bussed to our hotel. The photo below shows the sum total of the clean clothes we have with us.

Yep, our luggage could not move as fast as us and is now somewhere between us and Amsterdam. We hope to be reunited tomorrow!

The view from our room on the 17th floor. Thank goodness the lift was working. 

So, after a quick shower and a change into clean pants we got back into our travelling clothes and went for lunch in our hotel because we were too hungry to walk anywhere else. A good decision. Singapore noodles for Sharon and Nasi Goreng for Bob. Excellent. Nice waitress, and a cold beer.

Then we were off out into the city, which, by some accounts, is the biggest in the world - 24 million people live here. We were to find out later that Shanghai is actually not the most populated city.  It was certainly busy. Lots of young people, hardly any older people about. Lots of money and confidence. Big cars, expensive shops, but still signs of old China.

Bob looking cool in downtown Shanghai.

From the shopping street we quickly made our way to the Bund. This is a famous promenade along the river with views across to the Pudong skyline. The promenade is elevated and this is Sharon at the bottom of the walk. The wall is finished in real flowers!

This is the skyline. Despite appearances, the building on the right is supposed to be the second tallest in the world. Shanghai is growing so fast, that none of this existed before 1995. It was all rice fields and farms.

After a lovely Chinese meal, we went back to see it at night, when it is a must-see sight for anyone visiting Shanghai.

19TH MARCH

Sharon's birthday!
We had an early start to the day after a good sleep. It was onto the bus and off on our first excursion - Old Shanghai.
Shanghai is growing very quickly, but there are still parts of the old town left. Whilst these areas are very big tourist attractions, they are also living parts of the city. There are some fantastic old buildings like this one below.

After a walk about part of the old town we visited Yuyuan Gardens immediately next door. To get to them you have to walk along the zig-zag bridge on the left of the photo. It is built this way because evil spirits can only move in straight lines and are confused by the zig-zag.

 We made it across!

Just to prove that we had gone on holiday together, here we are in the gardens. Note that we are still wearing the clothes we left home in. Note also that no-one is standing near us!

Another view of the gardens. They really were beautiful and our guide was full of useful information that we would never have been aware of. Chinese gardens are full of symbolism and protocol. We now know which side of the door men and women should use and where to place our lions at entrances to ensure good luck!

Before our Chinese lunch, we visited a silk picture gallery. We watched a lady - and they are all women - sewing with very thin silk thread on a silk base cloth. They make what can only be described as silk paintings. They are absolutely exquisite and expensive!

 Everything in the snow leopard picture below is made of hand sewn silk threads. It is quite astonishingly life like.

We really liked this forest scene. It is hard to tell from the photo, but this is more than a metre wide. These "paintings" take about a year for one woman to make - yours for about £4500. We didn't buy one.

After our lunch we visited the Shanghai museum. There were 4 floors of exhibits and lots to see. Of course, we had to see a Ming vase and here it is.

There was also one exhibit of really beautiful Chinese furniture. Whilst we wouldn't have this red lacquered table and stools in the house,  the carving was amazing. You can't see it here, but hopefully the next photo gives an idea of the detail of the workmanship. 

This is the top if one of the stools.

After the museum we went back to the hotel and those with clothes could freshen up and change. We could only freshen up. After an Italian buffet (!!), we took the bus to see the Shanghai Acrobatic Troupe. This was amazing on a day of superlatives. Absolutely breathtaking. Unfortunately, photography was not allowed, so here is an image lifted from the web.

Near the show there was a mile long, tree lined road. Every tree was hung with lights and it made a dazzling spectacle.

Once we were back at the hotel, we took a walk with another two couples to the Bund again. These are the older, colonial buildings on the city side of the Bund - mainly banks and offices, but also some hotels and restaurants.

We visited the Peace Hotel, where Presidents and Monarchs have gone to listen to the resident jazz band. As they wanted 50 quid from us to go in and listen we went back to our hotel for a nightcap.

Here is the birthday girl with a very large birthday gin. Still wearing the same clothes! However, our cases had actually arrived at the same time as we had left the hotel for the Acrobat show. So we will look different in tomorrow's instalment.

Finally, when we went back to our room, there was a little Happy Birthday cake from Viking or tour company. We shared that and it made a fitting end to a really great day.

20TH MARCH

Today we were able to wear clean clothes for the first time in what seemed a long time.

We then had an interesting breakfast that included noodles for Sharon and chips for Bob! We were taken to the airport to fly to Wuhan to join our boat, the Viking Emerald. Our luggage had been taken away by our tour guide, Kobe, early in the morning. He had arranged for it all to be checked in and had got boarding passes for all 24 of us in his party. We did not see our luggage again until it was delivered to our stateroom on the boat. Fabulous service. The flight was good and on time. Once we landed we just got on the bus and set off  the boat.

When we got to the ship we were greeted by a Chinese dragon and a cup of Jasmine tea. Jasmine tea is the tea traditionally drunk by most Chinese. Sharon was less than impressed by the tea, but loved the dragon. For some reason, Bob was reminded of his mother-in-law!

We were quickly shown to our stateroom, which was very pleasant. There was a bottle of bubbly from Calum, our travel agent, waiting on ice for Sharon.

Bob sat on the sofa and looked at it longingly, but Sharon decided not to open it yet.

Our room was really nice, with plenty of space as you can see from the photo below. There was also lots of cupboard room for our new found clothes.

There was a small veranda, from where you could see the the skyline of Wuhan.

Wuhan (pronounced Oo han) has a population of only 10 million, so is only the ninth largest City in China. It is the point at which most river cruises on the Yangtze begin or end.

More importantly for the Chinese, Wuhan is where the popular uprising that resulted in the overthrow of the last emperor began in 1911.

Instead of drinking the bubbly in our room, Sharon insisted that we have a look round the ship, which we did. We freshened up, then went for dinner, which was very good indeed.

We both started with Thai fish cake with mango salsa. Sharon then had a crepe stuffed with Mediterranean vegetables and Bob had a tenderloin steak with herb Chimichurri sauce. We both had cheese to finish. The red wine was good and our glasses were filled as soon as they were empty. We shared dinner with a couple called Ray and Margaret from LLandudno. Ray was actually from Dalbeattie. We chatted for quite some time over the wine and so missed a performance by local folk musicians.

As seems common in Chinese cities, the skyline of Wuhan was lit up at night to pretty good effect.

A nice end to our first day on the Viking Emerald.

21ST MARCH

Unfortunately we were not up at 0630 to take part in the Tai Chi exercise class. We did make breakfast, however, and after that we were onto the bus for our first shore excursion to the Hubei Museum. Wuhan is the capital of Hubei province and so is the the site of the provincial museum. 

I can tell that you are thinking that another trip to a museum is not going to be that exciting. Well you could not be more wrong. Hubei museum is famous for a set of artefacts discovered in the tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng, who died some 400 years before Christ.
The picture below was taken from the bus by Sharon on our way to the museum after we had left the traffic mania of the city behind.

The museum itself was built in 1953 and is modelled on buildings of the so-called Warring States period which lasted from 475 to 221 BC.

This is what the Marquis Yi looked like on the basis of a reconstruction of his skull. He looks quite ordinaryl, but what he did for his tomb was quite extraordinary.

First of all, this is his coffin. It is made of bronze and survived being underwater for a couple of thousand years. So too did the lacquered wood coffin inside the bronze one. There were other wooden coffins which contained the bodies of his concubines. 

The hole in the coffin that you can see was to allow his soul to get out so he could be resurrected for the afterlife. 

Basically, he built an underground house. His concubines, who had been poisoned were all in one room. It was thought to be an honour to be buried with the Marquis.

 He also built an armoury and a kitchen.

The kitchen contained objects like this wine cooler/heater. Rice wine was either heated in winter or cooled in summer. The whole thing is made of bronze and the workmanship is exquisite.

This wine container is as big as a person and still contained wine after all this time.

However, the most amazing thing was the fact that he had built a music room and inside that room was a set of 65 bronze bells. These represent the largest bronze musical instrument in the world. The bells weigh from 5lbs in weight up to 32 stone. They cover 5 octaves of sound and have different tones depending on where the bell is struck. Since being discovered, they have been played on three occasions - one of which was for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The set is made up of 64 bells and the 65th was actually a gift to Marquis Yi from the King. They are truly magnificent and much bigger than you might think.

When the tomb was originally opened it was flooded and this lacquered wooden duck was floating on the surface of the water. This was actually the key to allowing the bells to be played in modern times. The duck, which was thought to belong to one of the concubines was inscribed with an explanation of how the bells were played with different hammers and long poles.

The Marquis also had some gold objects buried with him, which was the first time gold was found in Chinese tombs. This gold and bronze bowl and spoon were really very beautiful and ornate.

An amazing visit with the only disappointment being that we could not hear the bells being played. A replica set had been made and is played every day, but the building housing them is being refurbished, so we missed out on that.

After that it was back to the boat where the staff were ready to help any old or infirm people to negotiate the gangway.

This is the ship moored behind the dock at Wuhan.

We had a proper look round the boat when we got back. This is the central atrium which is open from the ground floor deck to the 5th floor.

Sharon on the stairs.

Not long after we arrived back from the museum we set sail up the Yangtze.

Construction is going on everywhere in China as you can see from this partially built bridge over the river.

The Yangtze is the 3rd longest river in the world. It flooded regularly and still does. You can see the layers of silt in the banks of the river. The catastrophic flooding of the river was one of the driving factors behind the building of huge hydro power dams 

The river carries huge amounts of silt and is quite muddy brown for most of its length. There are lots of dredgers on the river like this one.

You can see the huge buckets used for lifting up the silt from the river bed.

In the afternoon, Sharon went to a talk on Chinese medicine whilst Bob had a little nap. He was up in time to get to the welcome toast in the Observation Lounge and the short explanation from Programme Director Ben about what we could expect form the trip and excursions. He was a really nice, funny Chinese guy who also told us all about the Yangtze after dinner.

Dinner was Chinese themed and Sharon had scallop with garlic and glass noodles followed by  Sichuan Kung Pao chicken. Bob had crisp duck breast with black pepper sauce then Sichuan Kung Pao chicken. Sharon had a green tea ice cream, Bob had Mango pudding.

Then up to the bar once again - a pattern was beginning to develop.

22ND MARCH

We missed the Tai Chi again this morning. We did make breakfast and then went to the Observation deck for a lesson in Chinese delivered by Elliot, who looked uncannily like Michael McIntyre. He was funny too. Despite his best attempts, he could not prevent his audience falling apart when he tried to get us to say no in Chinese. Essentially it is pronounced Boo Shi. 
After we learnt to speak fluent Chinese, we were given Mah Jong lessons from Kobe. After a couple of practice games, Sharon and I won. I had not known how competitive Sharon was until another team tried to get the same tile that we needed to get out. She almost jumped over the table to rip it from the hand of a poor man from Gibraltar. Still, we did win a fortune in pretend money.
While we were learning, the ship was making way to Jingzhou where we tied up after lunch. We were to visit a local school here and we made our way to the bus. Unfortunately, there was an upstairs and we sat right at the front. We will never make that mistake again, because all that allows you to do is see how close to death and destruction you are due to the maniacal driving in Chinese cities. Apparently, the bicycle, scooter and other small vehicle drivers think traffic regulations and lights are for cars only. The car drivers think exactly the opposite. A recipe for chaos and disaster, but remarkably we saw only one accident in all the time we were there. Kobe's advice was not to look out of the window and just concentrate on what he was telling us.
We eventually got to the school in one piece and there was an enthusiastic little band of children waiting for us at the school gate.



There was an outside stage in the school grounds and the children put on a show for us. Each act was introduced by this boy, who was a fantastic MC with really good English

There were drums and dancing.

 There was Kung Fu and acrobatics.

The children were really adorable and incredibly interested in foreigners. We were almost like film stars to them.

People even brought their babies along to see us and the show.

The school has 800 pupils and the tragedy for these wonderful children is that they are almost certainly not going to get a university education and will be unlikely to leave their home town or ever see the wider world. It was truly humbling.

After the show, we went in small groups to one of the classrooms, which catered for up to 40 or 50 children. We tried to learn Chinese and they tried to learn English. We sat at their desks and tried to communicate with each other. They wrote their names and we wrote ours. They were so curious about us. 

We had taken stickers and coloured pencils with us and they drew a crowd!

The Chinese really value education. However, all the universities are in the really big cities and it is this concentration of resources like education and health care that has led to such phenomenal urban growth. There is a national university entrance exam, but everyone sits this and the places are always less than the applicants. Those living in the big cities have an advantage in terms of location and connections. Parents of children in cities are also under extreme peer pressure to give their children every advantage. This has given rise to an enormous market in private facilities offering classes for pre-school children in things like English and music. These are only in the richer cities, so these little children are almost excluded from these opportunities right from the start.
As we left the school, there was an enormous crowd of people at the gate. Most of them were grandparents waiting to pick up the children. Parents in China are at work, often away from home in a desperate attempt to provide every possible opportunity for their children.

Somewhat ironically, we left them to their fate and went back to the boat for a talk about tomorrow's programme and then dinner. Bob had smoked duck breast, salad and sweet chilli sauce, then roasted beef tenderloin with black pepper sauce. Sharon had spinach, blue cheese cashews and mango sauce followed by cashew shrimp. Bob had Opera cake, Sharon had cheese. There was lots of wine, again.
Following dinner there was a show put on by some of the crew. This was a dance show exhibiting traditional costumes and dance from various parts of China. Even Bob thought it was pretty good and even more so, given most of the cast had been serving us dinner half an hour previously.

After the show we seemed to end up in the bar again.

23RD MARCH

Another day starts with yet another meal.

We had actually woken up to the ship sailing through the single lock at the Gezhouba dam.

This is us leaving the lock.

From there we sailed to the first of the Three Gorges. This was the Xiling Gorge, which is 50 miles long. It was really a bit surreal. The river was very calm and it was quite misty, lending an other worldly look to the scenery. In a way this was appropriate, because the Xiling Gorge had once been 7 small gorges and two of the fiercest stretches of rapids on this section of the Yangtze before the dams had tamed the river.

The Yangtze is famously navigable for a huge part of its length and there were lots of cargo vessels passing up and down the river, but this one was more attractive and interesting than them.

There were some little villages with boats moored on the shore along the way.

The mist just added to the mystery of the steep sided gorge.

This photo sums up what we were expecting on this section of the trip.

This serenity in the gorge was in stark contrast to the Three Gorges Dam which we visited after lunch. We moored up opposite this nice temple building. This was a facade, however. As we got off the boat to get to our bus, we had to run the gauntlet of the "maybe later" market. There were a heap of stalls selling all sorts of souvenirs that we did not really want. If you said no, the response was always maybe later. They let you know that they had recognised you and would lie in wait for you on your return. 

The mist continued to thicken and obscured the dam. Luckily there was a model in the visitor centre, so this is what it looks like, I think.

There was an observation area up the hill. You can just about see the top and the blossom on the hillside. Luckily you got to the top by escalator and we didn't have to climb.

Sharon at the top.

This odd shaped concrete block is what they used at the start of construction. These would mesh together and eventually they created an immovable barrier to the river.

I think that something has been lost in translation.

 There was blossom and flowers everywhere, which is not something you expect to see as part of a huge engineering project.

From the observation area we could see the bridges of large cargo vessels passing through the locks. Quite strange really and amazing at the same time.

This was the top of the dam. The more spectacular bottom of the dam had been obscured by the mist. There is a huge amount of concrete involved in the construction of the 8000 foot long dam. The steel used to reinforce the concrete was sufficient to build 60 Eiffel Towers!

Construction of the dam had been something of a dream for the Chinese for decades. At the start of the 20th Century the technology did not exist to build something of this size and complexity and construction did not begin until 1994. Whilst the promise of huge amounts of electricity were a major factor, so too was the hope of avoiding catastrophic flooding downstream. In 1954, flooding killed 33000 people and forced nearly 19 million to move.
In terms of electricity, the dam is the largest power station in the world on the basis of an installed capacity of 22500 MW. At the time construction began, it was expected to provide about 10% of China's electricity. By the time it reached full generating power in 2012, that had fallen to less than 2% due to the rise in population and the huge rise in demand for power.
The dam was, and still is, controversial. 1.4 million people were moved as their homes would be flooded by the dam. It also flooded important cultural and archaeological sites. The ecological costs are still hotly debated and the damage done has to be weighed against the huge reduction in coal burning and greenhouse gas production.
What is beyond doubt is that it is an awe inspiring engineering accomplishment. There is nothing about the project that doesn't make you shake your head in wonder.

On the way back to our ship we passed one of the locks. They can hold up to 4 big cargo ships. We would be passing through the locks that night. There is a set of locks for going upstream and another set for going down. There is also a ship lift, but that is not large enough to accommodate the Viking Emerald. Passage through the locks is free of charge.

Before dinner time on the ship we had to go to the Lounge for cocktails and nibbles courtesy of Viking. For dinner Sharon had Tuna and Crab salad followed with Chinese beef with broccoli. Bob had Greek salad, then rack of lamb. We both had cheese and endless glasses of Malbec.

Later in the evening, we started to go through the locks at the dam. We went out onto the deck to watch this happen and they started to serve mulled wine. This proved disastrous to Sharon, who had to take to her bed in a bit of a hurry. The passage through the locks was pretty impressive. We were in the lock with 3 cargo vessels.
This was us approaching the lock.

The cargo barge that was our neighbouring boat at the back of the lock.

Note that Bob doesn't have the cup of mulled wine that was to prove so disastrous.

Sharon did have the mulled wine and fell in love with her towel.

The end of another day.

24TH MARCH

Ooops we woke up too late for the Thai Chi once more. It was a reasonably early breakfast as we were off the boat to get onto a small boat to take a trip into the Goddess Stream, a narrow tributary of the Yangtze.
This was really quite spectacular and very photogenic.
This was the type of boat we were using to get up the gorge.


Here we are trying to take photos in the drizzle.

This is our guide, who is a member of the Tujai people. They are the 8th largest minority group in China with about 8 million people. She lived locally and had gained the tour guide job due to her English, which she had learned watching American TV shows like Desperate Housewives. She was utterly captivating. Her village was one of those moved to higher ground on construction of the dam. Only the older people and very young people had stayed. She and her 2 sisters stayed as they were too young to leave on their own and they looked after her parents. She could not find a husband due to the shortage of young men and those that were available did not want to look after her parents. She stayed near the mooring point otherwise it was a 2 hour hike up and over the steep gorge sides to get home.

It was a hard life in the gorge and she and other younger people had wanted away to a better life in the cities or even abroad.

She wanted a husband with glasses, because that indicated learning. She really explained a lot about local life and traditions and she even sang to us. A real delight.

 The Gorge was quite narrow and very steep. It was everything you would expect a Chinese gorge to be.

We could have stayed for much longer, but we had to get back to the ship as we were setting sail again for Shibaozhai before lunch.

We started sailing in the Wu Gorge, which translates as the Witches Gorge. It is 25 miles long and the scenery is again quite spectacular - more cliffs, mountains and mist with the odd temple thrown in for good measure.
It had started to rain a bit by now although it did clear up reasonably quickly. This is the rain pouring down the steps from the upper deck.

A general view up the Gorge.

Ancient mausoleums.

This is the house of the last family to live in the gorge. The government were happy to move them when the dam was built, but they would not move and the father and grandfather still live there. The younger residents had left for the city. They have only recently got electricity. There are no roads and they rely on boats. They grow much of their own food, but the government sends a boat once a month to take them to a nearby town for supplies.

The Goddess temple, near the Goddess stream. There is an hotel halfway up the mountain for pilgrims, although it is not much used these days.

We were soon into the shortest and final Gorge - Qutang. This is only 5 miles long and the sides can be vertical and bare. It is in these steep slabs of rock that the Ba people who were the forebears of the Tujai buried their dead in hanging coffins. The coffins did not actually hang, rather they were half in and half out of caves in the rock. There are none left in situ, they have all been removed to museums. This cave is where the most famous of the coffins was placed.
It is thought that they got the coffin into place with a system of pulleys and ropes from both above and below the cave.

Once we were out of the Gorge, the river widened out and there were some nice views back to what they call the Qutang Gate.

Just to prove we were actually both on the boat at the same time.

The steep sides of the Gate.

There was another temple at the end of the Gorges.

Later in the afternoon there were presentations on pearls and on China Today. The latter was fascinating and detailed the phenomenal growth of the country following on from the upheavals of the communist rebellion and the cultural revolution. Nowadays, the country is hugely important to the global economy. Every company in the world seems to want access to the huge market that the country represents. The Chinese are embracing technology. They have one of the highest rates of smart phone ownership in the world. They use their phones for everything, especially for payments. They don't use cheques or plastic cards, it is all done by phone. Where they go with technology the world will follow.
Cocktails before dinner, then a talk on tomorrow's activities and disembarkation procedures.
Dinner was a Chinese banquet. We had Beef rolls, Tiger Prawns in chilli sauce, Spring rolls Pepper beef, Sesame chicken and fried noodles. There were chicken feet, pig's tails. pig's ears and jelly fish available, but we did not try them.
As we sailed through the darkness towards our next destination, we passed under this bridge which had some amazing illuminations.
It was almost like fireworks.

Another great day.

25TH MARCH

When we awoke we were moored at Shibaozhai. People were washing their clothes in the river in front of the temple which is what we were there to see. So, after an early breakfast we left the boat to get to the temple. That involved another gauntlet running from the souvenir sellers and there were a lot of them!
Here is the local steamie.

This is the temple.

Everything in the village apart from the temple is new. It was all flooded at the time of the dam, so a new village was developed. When I say village, it actually is home to 750000 people! A wall was built around the temple to protect it from the rising waters.
The temple is actually a pavilion built to allow pilgrims to get access to the Buddhist temple at the top of the rock. Before the pavilion was built pilgrims were hoisted up by rope. Not a single nail was used in it's construction.  It is held together by dovetail joints and wooden pegs. The rock where it sits is reputed to be one of the stones used by the Goddess Nu Wa when she was mending the sky.

A closer view of the pavilion.

This proves we were there.

This is the entrance to the pavilion and it was very busy as you can see.

A view back from the pavilion towards the river cruisers all moored up, which is why it was so busy.

Sharon crosses the little bridge, which you need to do in an odd number of steps, but less than 10. If you do that you will find the love of your life. Quite why she felt the need to do this, I cannot imagine.

This was the entrance to the Buddhist temple at the top of the rock.

After the celestial joys of the temple we had to get out onto the streets to get back to the boat. The streets were very clean and this was true of everywhere we went. This was down to the huge number of street sweepers that were cleaning up with little brooms like this.

The locals wanted to sell you everything and they could be persistent.

I'm not sure what this woman was making, but it did not smell too delicious.

This stall was selling pig's noses and beer - the ideal combination.

Luckily we made it back to ship without buying any pig extremities. We set sail soon afterwards and lunch was served. 
We skipped the wheelhouse tour and the lesson on how to make dumplings due to snoozing in the stateroom. We made it up in time for the Captain's cocktail party and raffle. We did not win anything, but our money went to the Viking Schools support fund.
Then it was dinner again.Bob had marinated salmon with potato cake and caviar cream followed by beef tenderloin then chocolate mousse cake. Sharon had Potato cream soup and the beef followed by Mango and Coconut cake.
After dinner we hit the bar again. Bob and Ray ended up playing paper, scissors, stone with the barmaids in the Emerald Lounge until quite late.

26TH MARCH

Today we had to leave the boat after a very comfortable and pleasant cruise. Once again someone else took care of our luggage and flying details. We just walked off the boat after farewells to some of the staff who had been really magnificent. On our way up the gangway into Chongqing (pronounced Chonching), we passed porters carrying our cases on bamboo poles over their shoulders.

Chongqing is enormous - home to over 33 million people! It had also been the capital of China during the war with Japan. It had grown fantastically after the war and especially in the last 20 years - 10000 skyscrapers built in that time. It is a hugely important city to the Chinese economy. It is the centre of much heavy industry including car building. All the main Chinese brands are built here as well as brands such as Jaguar, BMW and Volkswagen and many American cars.

Here are some photos to give you a feel for this enormous city, including the top one showing the monorail train.

It is also home to a large number of captive bred Pandas. It is hugely successful at breeding Pandas for return to the wild or to support breeding programmes elsewhere in the world. They were our next destination and we were lucky enough to see 9 of them. They are notoriously lazy and will not always come out of their dens, but they were out in force today.

The zoo was really a very nice space, with lots of trees and ponds as well as animal enclosures.

 People also use the space for Tai Chi.

There are not only the Pandas you think of when you think of China - there are Red Pandas as well. Pretty cute, but not really as cute as the real thing.

Daddy Panda.

Mummy Panda.

Teenage Panda - well actually about 18 months.

Sharon with a Panda in the background.

Really lazy Panda on a bridge.

A nice pond.

Sharon about to be eaten by a giant crocodile.

From the zoo we travelled by coach to a very smart hotel for lunch. This is the entrance hall! It would have to be said that the hotels that we stayed in or ate in were all built in a grand style - I guess this is what sells in China.



Bob showing considerable expertise in the use of chopsticks.

After lunch, we were taken to the airport to catch another flight to another city - Xi'an.

The flight was on time and, once again, all the arrangements and the luggage were taken care of. The cases were delivered to our room at the Sheraton in Xi'an. The hotel was very comfortable, but we did have a few issues. First Bob locked the safe and couldn't open it due to an inability to read the instructions carefully. Then the toilet would not flush. Then we could not turn down the air conditioning. These were all sorted and we managed a nice dinner at the hotel in the evening.

27TH MARCH

After an early breakfast we went by coach to the museum of the Terracotta Army which is enormous. It was a beautiful sunny day. We were taken from the car park to the museum by golf cart.

This is Sharon sitting in the sunshine outside Pit Number 1.

Nothing can prepare you for just how big this is (750 ft X 200ft). There are up to 6000 warriors and horses within this pit. They are laid out in the way that the Emperor Qin Shihuang and his generals would have disposed a real army. They face West as that is where the Emperor's enemies lay. The Emperor was the first to unify China and he gave his name, which is pronounced chin, to the country. He also built the first Great Wall and opened the Silk Road, which terminated in the city of Xi'an.

The figures are actually a little taller than life size. Evidence suggests that they are about 10 centimetres taller than the average Chinese living at the time the tomb was formed about 300 years before Christ.

The tomb originally included horses and chariots. However, the wooden chariots have rotted away and nothing remains of them today.

The warriors were not cast in a mould. They are all different and were made by various masters and apprentices, whose marks can still be found on each piece. They differ from each other in terms of their armour and hairstyle, which indicated their rank. Beyond that they actually differ in their faces as they are all individual - just like any few thousand people you might see in the street today.

I took close up pictures of some of the heads to show how they vary.

It is astonishing, isn't it?

Even the horses are formed individually.

Just to prove that we were there.

This is the front three rows of the army. They were poorly armoured infantrymen. 

What is truly astounding is that this part of the tomb had been destroyed not too long after the Emperor had died. It had been burnt and all of the statues had been smashed to pieces. Every soldier that you can see today has been painstakingly repaired and put back where it was found!

Really? That's what I thought, but it is true.

Inside Pit Number 1 building, they have the army field hospital where this resurrection of the soldiers is carried out. There are hundreds of soldiers being repaired as we speak.

Apparently cling film works a treat.

You can see clearly how much damage was done when the tomb was destroyed.

It must take forever and a day as well as the patience of a saint to do this job. Just like doing jigsaw puzzles for a living.

The warriors and the horses were actually hollow. They were made using a pottery technique called coiling. Essentially they are built up from the bottom.

The bodies are made in one piece and a hole is left at the top for the individual head to be slotted into.

All of this has happened since the warriors were discovered by farmers digging a well in 1974. We actually saw some of the warriors and other artefacts in London a number of years ago. However, the Chinese government has decided that some historical remains are so valuable to the country that they will never be allowed to go abroad and the warriors now fall into that category. So too, do the bells that we saw at Hubei museum.

4 pits have been excavated, but pit one is the best restored and largest of these at the moment. 

This is pit 3, which represented the command post with high ranking officers and a 4 horse drawn war chariot.

The horses waiting patiently for the order to advance.

Pit 2 is more chaotic and shows what pits 1 and 3 would have looked like when they were opened up.

You can still see archaeologists at work every day on the site.

Some of the outstanding figures have been preserved in glass cases.

This one is a general

This is a charioteer and his horse.

The standing archer.

The one that really captured the imagination, however, was the kneeling archer. The detail on this figure is astonishing. Not only that, he was the only one who was found in one piece. This is thought to be because he was kneeling and so did not suffer when the burning roof caved in.

You can see the detail and colour on his armour. The colour is interesting in that all of the warriors were coloured and lacquered to some extent, but as soon as they are exposed to the heat and air, the colour is lost within seconds. It is only since a German company invented a chemical spray that the archaeologists have been able to save the colour. 

The maker of the warrior even marked the soles of his shoe. How amazing is that?

Details of his leather hat.

He is so proud, even to this day.

Not only did the Emperor have a whole army to protect him in the afterlife, he also was buried with some very fine bronze pieces. You will remember the Marquis Yi's bronze wine coolers, well the Emperor went a bit further than that.

He was buried with bronze horses, chariots and carriages. The workmanship on these is amazing and they are about half life size.

The sun may have been shining outside, but we certainly dazzled by the treasures that we saw here today. A real highlight in a trip of highlights.

Here we are out in the sun.

We had to walk back to the bus as the deal between the local farmers and the government was that a shopping/restaurant street was built to allow the locals to derive some economic benefit from the millions of tourists who visit here. There were lots of little noodle places where the chef was making the noodles by hand. This involves stretching the dough by banging it on a flat surface. It was like walking down an alleyway full of drummers. In China these noodles are known as bang bang noodles. The Chinese character for bang is apparently very complicated and one of the most difficult to write.

Here is the noodle maker.

This is a close up of the character, which seems unnecessarily complicated for something like bang.

Finally, at the museum we passed a lovely sculpture of horses. The Chinese, at the time of Emperor Qin were using Mongolian ponies and these were highly prized.

Well away from the warriors you can see the actual spot where the Emperor is buried. It is under this fairly nondescript mound. His whole tomb complex covers an area which could extend to 38 square miles. Yep, 38 square miles. His burial mound has not been excavated mainly because it is highly toxic. He apparently had mighty rivers and the Pacific Ocean created out of Mercury. No doubt one day the world will get to see what must be a truly astonishing tomb.

We went for lunch at a factory where replicas of the warriors are made along with copies of bronze objects and other artefacts found at the site. They will even make a full sized copy of your head, mount it on a full sized warrior body and ship it to your house!

From there it was back to the hotel to freshen up and get ready to go out to what was called a Tang Dynasty show and dinner.

This was a musical show about how a young concubine had become a Tang Dynasty Empress, and the only female Empress of China in 690. It is a story of intrigue and underhand dealing. The version we saw would seem to romanticise the way in which Empress Wu Ze-tian came to power. History would suggest she was ruthless and manipulative, while the show suggests she was a young girl who toughened up in the face of palace intrigue. She fell in love with the Emperor's son and when the old man died the young new Emperor restored her to a position of power, no doubt because she threw herself in front of him during a battle and saved him from the arrows that would have brought his short reign to an abrupt end. When he eventually did die years later, she became a popular Empress. This all sounds more exciting and heroic than the historical version of wheedling her way to the top by ruthlessly eliminating any opponents.

Anyway, the show was very colourful and the dinner was a bit different. We had a set menu of chicken with chilli and steamed pork dumplings, then black mushroom consomme. This contained a couple of unidentifiable ingredients that we all were a bit unsure of, but ate anyway. Then we had crispy king prawn and fish with honey glazed cashews, sauteed beef in sweet and sour sauce. There was also fruit and tea and an endless supply of sweet and sickly rice wine. Most worrying of all we had an orange sago surprise. This was no better than it sounded and seemed to consist of sago and pineapple covered in orange juice. It still brought back some fairly horrific school dinner memories.

After a night of intrigue and sago, it was back to the hotel for a well earned sleep. 

28TH MARCH

After breakfast we were picked up again and off to the airport for our final internal flight - this time to the capital, Beijing. As with all previous flights, this went well and on time. We arrived in a warm and sunny Beijing at about 2pm. 

This time we did not go to our hotel, but to a Hutong. These are neighbourhoods of Beijing which are characterised by narrow alleyways and low-rise buildings. Hutong can translate as sweet well or as narrow alleys. They are areas of the city that were once occupied by officials of the Emperor, so they are old and reflect bygone housing arrangements. They are composed almost entirely of what were quite large family courtyard houses.

Before we toured round the Hutong by rickshaw, we were treated to a Hacky Sack demonstration. Basically this is keepie-uppie with a rudimentary shuttlecock. The guy who showed us how it was done was pretty talented and could keep it moving for a long time and balance it on his nose and head. Quite impressive, really,

There were no takers when he asked us to have a go at the end of his demo.

If you are going to go round a Hutong by rickshaw, you must first find your rickshaw. So, we did. Our driver looked lean and fit at the start, less so by the end of the trip.

Soon we were racing through these really narrow streets, dodging pedestrians, dogs, children, stalls, old ladies, other bikes, scooters and even cars. It was quite difficult to take pictures, but here are a few to give you an idea of what it was like.
This is container gardening, Hutong style. 

There is almost no green space, although there are a lot of individual trees.

This house had been demolished, but it should be rebuilt. You can see the electric meters hanging by the wires while everything else is pulled down.

Watching the world go by.

A glimpse up an alley. who knows what secrets lie behind all the doors.

You could tell how many families were living in each of the courtyards by counting the meters - 10 in this case.

Bikes are the transport of choice here, but we did see a few cars trying to negotiate the narrow streets.

As I said before, these used to be the houses of officials of the Emperor. So that people could tell how important the occupants of the houses were, there were certain signs to look for. This is a representation of a drum. That means that the occupant was an officer in the army.



You can see the sign at the top of the door. On either side of the sign are depictions of stars. With only two stars, the officer was only low or middle ranking.

This door has four stars, so the occupant was of much higher rank.

After our explanation of the protocol of doors, we went into one of the houses for a cup of tea. The house had once belonged to one of the Emperors officers. However, the houses had all been requisitioned by the communists after the revolution. The families were paid a small amount of compensation. The houses had been subdivided to provide accommodation for more people. More recently the houses were given back to the families which originally owned them, but only in part. So, the house we visited was now owned by the granddaughter of the officer, but she only owned a small part of the courtyard. She had made tea for all 24 of us in a very small space. She explained the history of the house. She had been a painter, but had now passed that skill on to her niece. She now painted the inside of very small bottles!

Here we all are squeezed into the living area of the house for tea.

This is the kitchen where the tea was made.

Sharon inspecting the painted bottles.

You can see how small the bottles are. Painting them requires a right-angled brush made with wolf bristles. The niece was so good at this, that she was chosen to represent this skill at a craft fair held along with the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

The houses did not have toilets. Instead there were public toilets used by the residents at numerous locations in the Hutong.

After tea we got back on to the rickshaws and off we went.

These are old liquor jars set into the wall of the local bar.

A quaint little house and bike.

Health and Safety is not quite the issue it is at home.

We got off the rickshaw and the driver breathed a sigh of relief while we walked round the corner to the central square at the heart of this part of Beijing. On either side of the square are the Bell Tower and the Drum Tower. The Bell told people the time of day, while the Drum Tower was used to raise the alarm.

This is the Bell Tower.

This is the Drum Tower.

Like all city squares the world over, old men play chess - in this case, the Chinese version.

 Little boys with their toys.

We went into the Drum Tower for a tea ceremony and tasted a selection of different teas, some of which were nice and some not so.
After that it was on to our final hotel of the trip - The Kerry Hotel in downtown Beijing. It was certainly the best hotel we stayed in and was very nice indeed. Sharon found the automatic toilet interesting. It included front and rear washes and warm drying!

We slept well after diner at the hotel and such a full day.

     29TH MARCH

We were up very early for the drive to see the Great Wall at Badaling.

We had actually seen the wall on the flight into Beijing and Sharon had managed to photograph it.

Now we were going to see it close up and to walk on it. You could get some tantalising glimpses of it from the bus to the Badaling site.

Before we went to walk on the wall there was the obligatory stop at the rest rooms next to this sign.

This was the first time I have ever seen a numbered urinal.
This was number 10 urinal in the toilet outside the West gate! I am not sure if it took photos so that the security people knew exactly where I had been!

It was a beautiful day, but quite cool at the start. This photo was taken before we actually started walking up the wall. Note the layers of clothes.

This was the north side which most people go up. It is very busy and also very steep. We decided to go up the south side, not because it was allegedly less steep, but because it was less busy. Honest.

A long distance view of one of the defensive towers along the wall.

It stretches as far as the eye can see.

Our goal - the 4th tower on the south side.

Onwards and upwards.

Here we are a good bit further up. Note the layers are being shed as we begin to feel the heat of the exertion.

 A panoramic view from the wall. Sharon was really taken with the blue hazy hills.

I was not needing the body warmer by this point!

Less steep, Kobe had said! Goodness only knows what the other side would have been like.

We made it to the 4th tower and the wall still stretched into the hazy distance. After we regained the ability to breathe we set off back down. We took fewer photos then because we had to spend a lot of time looking at our feet to prevent ourselves rolling all the way down!

Once we made it back to the bottom it was time for a sit in the sun with an ice cream.

Very good it was too.

Here we are with Ray and our guide Kobe. We were able to breathe and talk by then.

Chairman Mao once said that you could not be true hero until you had walked on the wall. How right he was!

Kobe did not provide much commentary on the bus back to Beijing on the basis that almost everyone was sleeping! In my case, I think it was because of the early start and nothing to do with our exertions on the wall.

That was not the end of our walking that day. Once we got back to the city we had a more leisurely stroll down the delightful Sacred Way of the Ming Tombs.

This was a long straight walk through willows. We actually walked away from the tombs towards the sacred gates. Walking towards the tombs would have been too long and up into the hills.

The Sacred Way was guarded by sets of very large 600 year old statues. They were in pairs and represented the Ming Emperors' officials and sacred animals and mythical beasts. There was the same statue on each side of the way and then the next statue was of the same subject at rest or sitting down. It is thought that the standing statues were to stand guard during the day and the resting ones took over at night.

Here are a selection of them. Don't forget they are 600 years old and quite remarkable.

The detail was amazing.

The willows were beautiful, just coming into full leaf.

We ended our walk at the Red Gate which contained a huge bronze turtle with a pillar on its back. This was supposed to bring luck if you touched it, so we did.

Looking back to the Red Gate. Happily our bus was waiting for us here and we did not have to retrace our steps.

Once back on the bus, we headed to the Olympic Park. We only drove through that to get a sight of some of the amazing buildings erected for the Olympics. All the facilities have been used since and some are open to the public for daily use.

This was actually opened after the Olympics and contained among other things, an Olympic museum.

All these skyscrapers need to have their windows cleaned and this is how it is done in Beijing.

No windows here in this sports hall.

The swimming pool.

The Bird's Nest stadium.

This was just a colourful sculpture.

 Next stop, the hotel. The Kerry Hotel is right in the central Business District and close to this iconic building which is known locally as The Big Shorts.

After a quick wash and brush up we were out again, this time to a local restaurant for a Roast Peking Duck dinner. It was really fantastic and so was the free flowing wine.

We had a drink back at the hotel bar, then went to bed happy but exhausted. 

A really fabulous day.

30TH MARCH

Not quite such an early start this morning. We were off to see Tian' anmen Square and the Forbidden City. This was only a short bus ride away and we were there by 9am, but already there were hundreds of people about.

This is the biggest public square in the world and you can guess that just by looking right and left when you are there.

It just stretches off in all directions.

 It is also supposed to be one of the most monitored places on earth and this is how. There were 10 CCTV cameras on this lamp post.

The Square was where the Student's Rebellion took place in 1989. It was not actually in the square that the student was famously filmed standing in front of the tanks. That took place in one of the streets approaching the square. Nobody knows what happened to the student. He was ushered away by men in worker's suits and his fate is unclear. He is often rumoured to be a history teacher in Taiwan.

Kobe explained that this rebellion is not mentioned in school books. If you have a one party state, that state cannot be seen to have made mistakes, so it is just not mentioned. He was happy to talk about this period in history, but not to the extent that he would do so if there were police or soldiers about.

The Square is surrounded by some fairly brutal architecture, most of which houses state bodies, including the National Museum.

 On one side, however, sits one of the outer gates to the Forbidden City - the Imperial Palace complex. This is Sharon in front of the Meridian Gate into the City. The little white square in the middle of the building is Mao's portrait.



This is it a bit closer up. Mao's tomb is actually in the middle of Tian' anmen Square, but it is being refurbished. I wonder if he saw himself as the true successor to the Emperors.

The Gateway is a very nice building in stark contrast to the Square.

Just as we were about to enter, the fountains put on a display for us.

The Chinese are very curious about Westerners and everywhere we went they wanted to have their photos taken with us. Sometimes they just took photos from afar, but often they would ask for a posed picture. It was an odd feeling and almost made you feel like a film star.

If we thought the Square was big, the Forbidden City was vast. It dates mainly from 1420 and is the largest surviving wooden palace complex in the world. It was the seat of power for 24 Emperors for over 490 years. It basically consists of two vast courtyards. The outer court was for ceremonial and state use by the Emperor and his officials. The inner court was the offices and residences of the Emperor, Empress, concubines and children. It contains over 8000 buildings, most of which are richly decorated wooden structures. The last Emperor Puyi was overthrown in 1911, although he and his family were not removed from the inner palace until 1924.

The layout of the complex means that as you walk closer to the centre, the majesty of the place kind of unfolds before you. It is an amazingly beautiful and awe inspiring place.

On the way through the first entrance gate.

Even monks need comfy trainers to do all the walking required.

The main entrance to the outer court.

Even palaces need to get the decorators in now and again.

Inside the outer court.

It really is huge and the use of marble on the square makes it almost European in feel - apart from the buildings that is.

The buildings are immense and really superbly decorated.

Just another view.

The roofs of the buildings are decorated with mystical beasts. The more beasts, the more important the function of the building. This one was used by the Emperor.

This one wasn't. the lowest number we spotted was 3.

Sharon beside a bronze crane outside the Hall of Heavenly Purity.

That was the name for the Emperors private apartments and the place that he would entertain his concubines. One Emperor had 3000 of them. I expect he died of exhaustion and not old age. Apparently the concubines were not allowed to remain in the royal bedroom for more than 4 hours so that he would not be distracted from his duties of state for too long. They were taken by eunuchs to his rooms naked and wrapped up in a blanket. This was to ensure they were not carrying any weapons. Everything about the palace from its design to control of concubines was about ensuring the safety of the Emperor.

Here is the Hall of Heavenly Purity.

This is the Emperor's Throne.

This was the last Emperor's bedspread from his marriage.

As the buildings were largely wooden, there were huge cauldrons filled with water everywhere in the complex. They even had room for fires underneath to keep them from freezing in winter. They are covered in scratch marks. There is a tale behind these marks. The Emperor had asked for gold cauldrons to be made, but the official charged with procuring them used bronze that was gilded. Nobody suspected anything until much later when an invading army had breached the walls and started to loot the palace. They tried to remove gold from the cauldrons, exposing the bronze. By then the official had died, so there was no-one to take the blame. 

A few more pictures.

Eventually you leave the palace buildings behind and get to the Imperial garden. It means everlasting happiness to have your photo taken under this tree.

Here's hoping.

The gardens are a bit of a haven despite the people.

Once you pass through the gardens you reach the moat and the outside world.

What a truly amazing visit this was. Now it was time for lunch and that was pretty good too.

After lunch we went back to the hotel and got ready for our last day and the journey home. 
Before that could happen, however, there was another dinner at the hotel and then out to the Legend of Kung Fu show at the Red Theatre.

31ST MARCH

As we were not going to be flying to Amsterdam until midnight, we had a bit of lie in and then the whole of the day to look about those parts of Beijing near our hotel. It was a lovely day - blue skies and quite warm.

After a leisurely breakfast, we went off to find Silk Alley for a bit of shopping. That gave us some time to take in the street scene on our way there.

As you might expect there were skyscrapers everywhere as we were in the Central Business District.

There was still a bit of blossom about, though.

And some other delicate blooms as well.

The song says there are 9 million bicycles in Beijing. In fact there are close to 13 million. A number of private companies have set up hire systems. You pick your bike up anywhere in the city and pay for it using an app on your phone. You put it back anywhere you want and the app records where and makes it available to other users. So it is not like Boris's Bikes in London, which are centred round particular pick up points. These bikes in Beijing can be picked up and left anywhere - the app tracks their location and use.

We didn't have the app, so we walked.

There are millions of scooters too. The owners have special padded blankets that wrap round the handlebars and come in all colours.

We took our purchases back to the hotel and picked up a picnic lunch then set out to find a park. We were directed to the Ritan (Temple of the Sun) Park, which was quite apt because it was a lovely sunny day. We spent the whole afternoon there in idyllic surroundings. It was quite beautiful and peaceful. It had ponds, pagodas, walkways and areas where people flew kites, children played and people just took in the surroundings. 

Here are some images of our last hours in China.

Isn't this just magical?

This kite was flown by a couple of old gentlemen, who, when they brought it down, started playing cards for pennies with a few of their friends. 

There were lots of schoolchildren at the park with their mothers.

You could see the city, but hardly knew it was there.

It was just what you would expect a Chinese garden to look like.

As always there was some blossom about.

 The pagoda at the top of the hill.

We really loved it and it made a fitting end to our trip to China.



Well it wasn't quite the end, because we went back to the hotel and had along leisurely picky dinner with a lovely bottle of wine until we met Kobe and he gave us our final instructions for the transfer to the airport.

 As with everything he was involved with, the transfer went like a dream, the flight was on time and we eventually got home to Inverness to be met by Elain and Iain with all the grandchildren who were really excited to see us.

This really was a trip of a lifetime. It was full of world famous sights and fabulous moments. We enjoyed every minute, except those spent in our travelling clothes while we waited for our cases to catch up with us.
There were so many highlights and so many more photos to share that we will remember this forever. We really did fall in love with the country.