Travel, Theatre, Music, Cricket, Tennis, Writing, Life
While in China, I did a great deal of thinking about the planned book which became Clean Business Cuisine. Here are the notes I made while on that trip. I shall not try to translate them.
30th Nov Hong Kong – Half day orientation tour early (after Breakfast at Kens) – up (Peak tram to) Victoria Peak in the rain – saw nothing…
…then on to Stanley Market followed by Aberdeen Fishing Village including a Sanpan ride…
On return went across to Kowloon to drop off D&P and then went home to rest in jacuzzi. In evening walked round temple market and back along Nathan Road – got home quite late.
Perhaps I need to explain what D&P was, for any younger readers. Back in the day, photography was done on film – much of it on negative film. In order to see the photographs, you would take (or send) your completed rolls of film for developing and printing (D&P). Some people (like me in the late 1970s) even did their own at home – although I never got past doing that in black and white. My dad made his living by having a photographic shop, much of which was about selling D&P equipment and/or being an agent for D&P services.
I remember loving the large rooftop jacuzzi at the New World Harbour View. The hotel seemed very modern and luxurious compared with anything we’d encountered in China. Currently (2018) I think that hotel is the Renaissance Harbour View. Still highly regarded.
29 Nov. Guangzhou -> Hong Kong – Early start off to railway station for grueling journey – train surprisingly good once you finally get on it. Long wait to get through immigration at Hong Kong – rested in afternoon once we got to hotel. Then met up with Phillipa, Clive & Berni – had sandwich supper & then nipped across to Kowloon for a while – early night.
Janie and I both only have limited recall of this day. There was one older member of our tour who was really quite poorly by this stage – I remember the tour party needed to look after him on the journey and try to arrange for him to get medical attention on arrival. Word reached us that he was fine in the end.
We had been given a detailed briefing about our crossing from China to Hong Kong…
Hong Kong Briefing 26 November Ahead Of Transfer From Guangzhou To Hong Kong 29 November 1993
…so we shouldn’t have been surprised by the grueling and wait-strewn nature of the journey.
I’m trying to recall Phillipa, Clive and Berni. I am pretty sure the latter pair are the red-headed couple on the right hand side of this picture from Shanghai – I think Phillipa is the youngish woman wearing a dark pullover in the middle of this group:
I remember that Janie had a crazy craving for some western food and in particular a club sandwich – hence the sandwich supper. I’m guessing that the others had a similar craving so we agreed to go on a club sandwich hunt together on that first post-tour night.
Our hotel in Hong Kong was the New World Harbour View, which was very pleasant.
All the photos we took in Hong Kong during our four night stay – by which I mean all 34 photos – can be seen in raw form in the Flickr album below:
Three blithering pages of notes on how to go about transferring from our tour ending in Guangzhou to the unguided part of our holiday, starting in Hong Kong.
Perhaps some need reminding/informing that Hong Kong was still a British protectorate in 1993 – the “one country, two systems” transfer to Chinese rule thing was still at the planning stage.
To be fair, only the first page-and-a-half was really about the tortuous transfer – the rest was about what we might do in Hong Kong once we got there.
I won’t decipher my hieroglyphics in this piece but might extract some elements of them in my reports of our transfer to and then our time in Hong Kong.
I’m not sure why I generated lists of pseudo awards for our China tour. Perhaps it was at the suggestion of the Kuoni guides for some last night of the tour fun.
Perhaps it was my own idea and/or something I did purely for my and Janie’s own amusement.
I have peppered / am peppering the main pieces about this trip with transcriptions and explanations of the individual awards, so I shall not transcribe them again here.
28 Nov Guangzhou – Half day tour in morning – Temple Of Six Banyan Trees & Pagoda & then Chen Family Academy with rice-sized carvings etc.
Temple of the Six Banyan Trees
…and Pagoda…
Chan Family Academy
I honoured the guide on our (Sally’s) coach in Guangzhou, who had the unfortunate name of Dhung, with:
The Neil Kinnock Award For Repetitive Speech
No photos from the latter half of the day.
Dim sum lunch at Friendship Restaurant followed by free afternoon – we just rested – then banquet in evening – food good and fun – went to local bar afterwards and then home.
I honoured one of the waitresses at the Friendship Restaurant with:
The Mr Bean Award For Dexterity
I suspect it was at the end of tour banquet that my “awards” got their airing. Here is a link to a facsimile of all four pages I wrote out:
All the photos we took on that day – by which I mean all 16 photos – can be seen in raw form in the Flickr album below:
27 Nov. Guilin -> Guangzhou. Lie in / late start. Went for walk around Guilin then early lunch…
…outing to reed flute caves (via a hill climb). Caves stunning – wandered around market after and then on to very early dinner (tea) & off to airport.
The notes don’t say so, but I recall that Janie and I were feeling much better this day.
Short flight to Guangzhou – several of our party were nearly run over by a passing plane – straight to hotel – White Swan – wandered round a bit & then early night.
No comment on the near death experience yet again in the hands of early 1990s Chinese domestic airlines.
I did give that China Southern flight second prize in the:
Claustrophobics Anonymous Award For Comfort.
I also honoured that airline/flight with the:
Gatwick Handling Award For In flight Catering for its crunchy water-chestnut drink and Darkie Mints…
…I remember the latter came in distinctly politically incorrect packaging.
All the photos we took on that day – by which I mean all 24 photos – can be seen in raw form in the Flickr album below:
After the excitement of the previous day’s snakes and ladders…
China Trip – From Xian Ladders To Guilin Snakes, 25 November 1993
…it was a bit of a relief to have a more leisurely-sounding itinerary for our full day in Guilin – a cruise on the Li River.
26 Nov Guilin – Li River cruise for most of the day – very picturesque – included lunch – (both Janie and I now feel poorly). Market at the end – returned home teatime – Janie went to bed – I rested a while, then had dinner and cultural show – early night.
This day really needs little more than the above text and some pictures to give the reader/viewer a good idea of what it was like to cruise on that river and observe the beautiful limestone karsts.
The text from my notes infers that Janie didn’t get up for the dinner and cultural show, yet the cultural show photos were taken on her camera and I don’t think I would have taken pictures that look quite like these if I borrowed her camera for the evening. My guess is that Janie emerged for a while at some point in the evening – perhaps between dinner and show.
I do recall that we both felt odd for the last few days in China and indeed that a lot of people on the tour felt a bit poorly by then. Frankly, I suspect that we all had a touch of pollution-poisoning – I especially recall a nasty metallic-tasting cough that didn’t quite clear up until Bali.
All the photos we took on that day – by which I mean all 43 photos – can be seen in raw form in the Flickr album below:
While Xian was fascinating and we had enjoyed a wonderful day there the previous day:
…it was, in truth, a very polluted city indeed back then. The morning fog, which we experienced in several places we visited and which was especially bad in Xian, was, we soon realised, industrial smog.
I honoured Xian, with my metallic-tasting tongue firmly in my cheek:
The Friends Of The Earth Fresh Air Award
Indeed, the smog was/could be so bad, that our morning flight from Xian to Guilin was rescheduled to the early hours of the morning so it could get out of the city before the morning smog descended.
25 Nov – Xian->Guilin. 4.30 wake up call to get us out of Xian before pollution smog grounds us. Plane left on time – only 45 minutes late!). Arrived Guilin – went to hotel and then out to lunch.
The delay for this flight occurred after we had all boarded the small China Northwest Airline plane. It was a “technical problem” which, those of us who were sitting near the relevant wing, witnessed being resolved, whether we wanted to witness it or not. Resolution was achieved by virtue of a couple of men with hammers climbing up ladders onto the wing and then bashing away at something rather vigorously.
The flight also received my:
Claustrophobics Anonymous Award For Comfort
Remember the name: China Northwest Airlines – which just a few months after our visit suffered the worst fatal air crash in Chinese history to date. Actually it has long-since mercifully merged into a bigger, hopefully better, safer airline.
We felt quite lucky just to have got to Guilin in one piece. But Janie also felt quite icky by the time we got to Guilin.
Free afternoon. Janie didn’t feel well. I went for a walk through streets – shops/market/park etc.
I had massage, then out to dinner followed by cormorant fishermen…
You cannot go to Guilin without seeing the cormorant fishermen.
This is a traditional symbiotic fishing method on the lake, whereby the fishermen tame the birds and take them out on fishing expeditions with rings around their necks, preventing them from swallowing the fish. The fishermen help the birds to find the fish, the birds gather the fish and the fishermen let the birds eat the smaller fish.
Is that fair exchange between humans and birds? Who knows. Neither the fishermen nor the cormorants looked particularly happy, but then neither did they look particularly unhappy.
…and then snake feast in local restaurant for eight brave souls and several spectators.
Now here’s a story.
Janie and I were particularly keen to taste snake when we got to Guilin – we had been told that it was a local delicacy.
Our Kuoni guides, Chris and Sally, told us ahead of time that they thought it unlikely that we would be able to try snake. They were only allowed to take us to designated tourist restaurants in those days and such places did not serve such local delicacies as snake. They said that they would ask the local guide when we got to Guilin.
The local guide, Nina, seemed reluctant at first. She explained that the group would have to eat at a designated tourist restaurant, so any visit to a local restaurant would be extra, not part of the tour and therefore not really her (or Kuoni’s) responsibility. She also explained that it would be extremely expensive as snake is a delicacy and we would have to buy the whole snake. Nina mentioned the princely sum of FEC200, which was less than £25. I said that I was happy to underwrite that, even if no-one else wanted to eat or pay for snake.
As it turned out, once the idea had emerged as an “it could be done – is anyone else interested?” idea, there were several other people who were willing to join us and offered to pay for their share of the snake. Further, there were several more people – let’s call them anguine voyeurs – who didn’t want to eat snake but wanted to watch.
We ended up with a group of 15 to 20 people interested in one way or another, so it was agreed that one of the coaches would “snake off to a local eatery” after the cormorant fishermen visit, while the other would coil back to the hotel.
As soon as we entered the restaurant, Nina started barking orders at the staff and they started running around swabbing the floors and boiling up water in order to sanitize the cutlery and crockery for us.
For some reason, I was seen as the ringleader of the snake gang, so I was asked to step forward and choose the snake we wanted from a tank full of snakes.
Quick as a flash, like a University Challenge captain stumped by a question but who senses that a member of the team can answer, I said, “I nominate Nina”. Nina chose the above snake.
Next there was the delicate matter of the snake blood, which, to the locals, is the most prized and most valuable part of the snake. It is said to be re-invigorating and life-lengthening. Frankly, after that early morning start, the smog and the scary journey from Xian, I think all of us could have done with a bit of that.
I was the ringleader, so this honour was initially offered to me. But, frankly, I couldn’t stomach the thought of drinking blood and nor could anyone else in our group. I noticed a little old man sitting on a low stool and guessed that he was the patriarch of the family that owned and ran the restaurant. Nina confirmed to me that my guess was correct. I asked Nina to offer the prized blood as a gift to that gentleman, which apparently was seen as a very generous gift and within the bounds of local etiquette.
In those days China was still a non-tipping culture, but a tangible gift of this kind – well – that was different and very gratefully accepted. The little fella looked as though he needed re-invigorating and life-enhancing more than anyone else around, to be frank.
Then the snake arrived, stewed in a medicinal-style broth of ginger and other roots.
Janie, a little predictably, said that the snake tasted like chicken. I didn’t really think it did. Like all reptile, it tastes like light-flavoured white meat, but not really (to my taste) like chicken.
One more time now, let’s give it up for that magnificent snake.
All the photos we took on that day – by which I mean all 29 photos – can be seen in raw form in the Flickr album below:
24 Nov 93 – Xian – super day! Pan Po Neolithic village excavation plus exhibitions…
-> silk shops & terracotta factory ->terracotta warriors – saw two pits (1 & 3) plus exhibits…
Of course, in those days you could get up close and personal with the 3rd century BCE relics that comprise the terracotta army…
…oh, all right, I just made that bit up – of course you couldn’t get close to the actual relics and you couldn’t even take pictures of them, let alone with them. We were advised to take our holiday snaps in the factory.
-> lunch (nice vegetables)…
One of the advantages of getting deeper into China was that the restaurants were less reliant on westernised ingredients and made do with the local produce. The resulting vegetables cooked in a Chinese style were more to our taste than a lot of the bland meals we’d been served in larger cities. Janie and I were distinctly in the minority on the tour with our praise for this meal.
-> medicine market…
This is one of my favourite memories of the whole China tour. I wanted to buy some Chinese spices to take home, so this “medicine market” was right up my street. In China, the distinction between herbs and spices for food and for medicine is wafer thin.
No-one spoke any English and we didn’t have a guide who could help me to transact. But I was able to recognise, by sight and smell, the components of five spice. My idea was to buy a small quantity of each of those components, mix them up, place them in a spice grinder when I got home and thus be able to cook Chinese food with flavoursome, fresh ground spice that I had personally brought back from China.
I found a patient-looking woman spice merchant. Using pointing and hand gestures I indicated the five spices I wanted and that she could mix all five together.
The only remaining issue was the quantity I wanted.
In those days, there were two currencies in China. The local currency, Renminbi, was not translatable into other currencies, tourists were not even permitted to use it. Tourists were issued with Foreign Exchange Certificates (FECs) which tourists and locals could use and which were, at that time, translatable at 8.5 FECs to the £. Strangely, that rate is quite similar to the rate prevailing today for the single Chinese currency, which is known both as the Yuan and (confusingly) Renminbi.
I tendered the smallest note I had; a 5 FEC note – worth a little under 60p in UK money. I figured I’d get a nice little bag of spices for that money.
The merchant did not recognise the FEC as money at all, so wanted to reject my offer. She showed me her local money and I tried, through gestures, to explain that I didn’t have it and that I couldn’t use it even if I had it.
I knew that the FEC was legal tender for her; she was simply unfamiliar with it, so I gently thrust my 5 FEC note at her again.
She went off with my note to consult with fellow merchants. I could tell that one of them was convincing her to take my money. Presumably, that more knowledgeable friend also told her how much money I had tendered (and/or possibly made her an offer to exchange the note), because the merchant’s eyes lit up, she hurried to grab a carrier bag and started shovelling huge quantities of spice into the bag.
Once she had filled up one carrier bag, she grabbed another large carrier bag and started to shovel spices into the second bag. I tried to stop her – she was very welcome to my 5 FECs without honouring the deal with, in her terms, the requisite quantity of spices. It hadn’t occurred to me that the FEC was so ridiculously overvalued in local terms, that my 60p was a heck of a lot of money to this merchant and therefore worth a heck of a lot of spices.
One and a half carrier-bags-full of spices, to be specific.
I off-loaded some spices onto one or two reasonably adventurous fellow tourists, but still ended up bringing home a ludicrous quantity of spices; I was using that stash for years and years after our return.
->City Wall (bought cuff links) -> food market…
Janie was in her element in the food market, snapping away. This was the first place we visited where the locals seemed quite happy to be photographed in this way. I think Xian was not yet used to seeing lots of tourists, so we were as much a novelty to the locals as the locals were a novelty to us.
-> hotel to change -> mini banquet followed by amazingly naff Tang dynasty show (Janie and I left early).
Janie and I sat through some pretty awful shows on that tour, so that Tang dynasty one must have been especially bad.
All the photos we took on that day – by which I mean all 66 photos – can be seen in raw form in the Flickr album below:
