A River Runs Through It

The Yangtze river is the biggest river in Asia. Except it isn't actually called the Yangtze River. That name is an anglicization of the river section between Yangzhou and Shanghai. The entire river is actually called Chang Jiang, or Long River. An appropriate name given that it stretches from the Qinghai-Tibet plateau all the way to Shanghai - a total of 3966 miles. I got to travel on 1290 of them.

First Day on the Chang Jiang

A month ago, I decided to drop some dollars on a cruise trip up the river from Nanjing to Chongqing. Being on a cruise, with day excursions, would not only ensure that I had a comfortable ride, but also that I actually saw the scenery. A lot of the cheaper boats travel through some of the sights at night, and I wanted to make sure I didn't miss a thing.

One of the many factories on the river

The first leg of the journey from Nanjing to Yichang, was not particularly scenic. The river is lined with factories, and the landscape is pretty flat. But all that changes once you get to Yichang. First, river boats have to pass through the single Gezhou dam ship lock. Then, it takes five ship locks to cross the Three Gorges Dam.

Three Gorges Dam at sunset

The Dam itself is an impressive structure, and currently operating at full capacity. It provides electricity and hydropower for millions of people, but the flooding of the reservoir destroyed several significant archaeological sites, changed the famous scenery forever, and displaced over a million people. When we visited the dam, the road was blocked for several hours by farmers, presumably still protesting the project. Much like my visit earlier this year to the other biggest dam in the world, the Itaipu Dam on the Brazil/Paraguay border, I found myself torn between admiration and disgust. On the one hand, people need electricty, it is one of the more significant ways to lift people out of poverty. On the other hand, what has been lost is incalculable.

Three Gorges

Even though the river is now 175 meters high in the Three Gorges, they are still gorgeous. Steep limestone cliffs, pockmarked with the reds and greens and yellows of autumn vegetation.

Autumn colors

Even the three little gorges, steep cliffs on the Danang tributary river, are breathtaking. The water is naturally a vivid green, and the river traffic is much calmer.

Little Three Gorges

Danang River

Water level in the Three Little Gorges

Monkey in the Three Little Gorges

A sampan ride offered the chance to get into some of the more narrow channels for an up close look. Along the banks, the tops of trees from the recently flooded cliffs are still visible, poking through the surface of the raised river.

Sampan ride

We travelled first through the Xiling Gorge, then the Wu Gorge, and finally the Qutang Gorge over the course of two gloriously sun-filled days. I can only imagine what it all looked like when the river was at its natural level and the Gorges truly towered over the river boats. But I was still very happy to get to see what is left.

Sunset over the Chang Jiang

Mountains and Lakes and Temples, oh my!

There are many places that I visited on this trip to China that deserve a mention but not an entire post. Cue a montage-a-palooza of random things cunningly disguised as a legitimate blog entry!

Huangshan

First up - Huangshan, or Yellow Mountain, in Anhui province. I went here as part of an organized tour so I didn't really get to explore as much as I would've liked, but even just spending a couple of hours up there was magical. Jagged granite peaks, tenacious pine trees and breathtaking views abound.

Pine trees clinging to Huangshan

For most of the year, the mountain range is shrouded in mist or covered in rain so I was very fortunate to visit on a crisp and clear mid-November day. And even more fortunate that it was off-season, so the much-vaunted crowds were almost non-existent.

Cable Car at Huanghan

Moving from mountains, to lakes. As one of the favorite places for recreation in Chinese cities, lakes are second only to parks as prime people-watching venues in my opinion. Unfortunately, when I snuck off to see the famous West Lake in Hangzhou, just a 45-minute high-speed train ride from Shanghai, it rained the whole time.

West Lake, Hangzhou

I had better luck at the Xuanwu Lake in Nanjing, in neighboring Jiangsu province. This tranquil pond is bordered on two sides by the remnants of Nanjing's Ming dynasty city walls and it provides a lovely respite from the city itself.

Xuanwu lake, Nanjing

I was really looking forward to spending a couple of days traipsing around Yunnan province in the south-western tip of China, but was sadly laid out by food poisoning. That meant staying put in the lovely spring-like city of Kunming, where I recovered enough to wander down to the Green Lake Park to enjoy the annual sight of locals feeding huge flocks of red-beaked seagulls.

Green Lake Park, Kunming

Finally, temples. They were almost everywhere I went in China, and some of them got pretty specific in focus. In Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, the largest Buddhist temple in town is the Wenshu Temple. It is dedicated to the Bodhisattva of Wisdom and, like so many religious complexes in China, was a lovely dot of tranquility in a hectic city.

Wenshu Temple, Chengdu

In Fengdu, the Ghost City on the Yangtze river, most of the old town is now underwater thanks to the Three Gorges Dam. But the temple complex on Ming Mountain is intact. There, you can pass over the Nothing-to-be-done bridge with three arches that grant you wealth or health, and test your worthiness for the afterlife. Or you can enjoy visions of hell at the Tianzi Palace, or the temple dedicated to the god of the underworld. All grisly good fun, and made even more enjoyable if, like me, you've read World War Z.

Nothin-to-be-done bridge in Fengdu, the City of Fhosts

And finally in Wuhan, it wasn't a temple per se, but the only place I got to visit as part of a guided tour was the Lute Platform. A series of buildings commemorating the friendship of a local lute player and a hermit who met 2,000 years ago, the platform now serves as a gathering place for local opera singers. Though sadly no-one was singing when I briefly visited in mid-November.

Lute Platform, Wuhan

In Search of Ancient China

Pingyao

Guidebooks positively gush about the town of Pingyao in Shanxi province, extolling its virtues as one of the only authentic remnants of "ancient China". Not only are the city walls intact, but the Ming/Qing dynasty interior is largely unchanged too. The result is a delightful throwback, narrow alleyways with beautiful courtyards and citizens strolling and cycling through the streets.

Parade in Pingyao

The predictable influx of tourists, including yours truly, means that the main drag isn't quite as authentic as guidebooks would have you believe. Every other building is either a junky trinket shop or a western-style bar/cafe. But the side streets still provide a rare and much appreciated window into the old Middle Kingdom.

Courtyard at the Harmony Guesthouse in Pingyao

Outside of town, courtyard aficionados can overdose at Wang's Family Courtyard. A Qing dynasty mansion, the Wang residence stretches across a hillside in a string of intersecting courtyards - a staggering 123 in total.

Wang's Family Courtyard

Behind the mansion, people still live in caves carved into the hillside. But the sprawling complex itself is no longer a home. It has instead been preserved as a museum and tourist attraction.

Cave dwellings beneath the Wang complex

On the road between the Wang Family Courtyard and Pingyao is the village of Zhangbi Cun, which has a bizarre underbelly. Buried beneath the village is an underground castle, a 1400 year old network of tunnels and booby traps.

Entrance to the Zhangbi Underground Castle

Sui dynasty soldiers built this huge warren as a defense against possible invasion but never had to actually use it. Today, English-speaking tour guides can take you through the tunnel complex, which thankfully has been widened and given electric lights. But even that doesn't detract from the splendidly creepy and claustrophobic atmosphere.

Inside the Zhangbi tunnels

Be lookin' good, Warriors

Terracotta Army

The Terracotta Army, thousands of soldiers and hundreds of horses, were built over two thousand years ago to guard the tomb of China's first emperor, Qin Shi Huang. Astonishingly, nobody even knew they existed until 1974, when a local farmer digging a well, drilled into the warrior vaults instead.

Individual Warriors

Seeing the thousands of warriors on display today is incredible. Every face is different, some have beards and moustaches, others are clean shaven and dozens of ethnicities are represented.

Tomb #1

Laid out in three separate tombs, the army has kneeling archers, cavalrymen with their horses, well dressed and well fed generals, and hundreds of regular infantrymen. Originally, these statues were brightly painted too, but the most of the colors faded after excavation. Nonetheless, the intricately detailed statues are extraordinary.

Terracotta Archer

While the warriors are the highlight of any trip to Xi'an, the ancient capital and Silk Road center still holds other charms. It is one of the few cities in China whose ancient city walls are still standing.

Xi'an City Walls

One of the more pleasant ways to spend a few hours is walking or even cycling the 8 and half mile perimeter. But a word to the wise for would-be cyclists - the city wall is uneven and the rental bicycles have pretty flat tires. Your bottom will get a good pummeling.

Cycling on top of the Xi'an city walls

Within the walls, Xi'an has hosted a vibrant Muslim community for centuries, and in the center of it, is one of the largest mosques in China.

Great Mosque in Xi'an

According to Lonely Planet, the buildings inside are from the Ming & Qing dynasty but the mosque itself has been around since the 8th century. It is a surprisingly calm oasis in the middle of a bustling part of the city and well worth a visit.

Great Mosque in Xi'an

Northern Capital

Beijing, or 北京 in Chinese, literally means "Northern Capital". The name was bestowed on this ancient city after the Yongle Emperor of the Ming Dynasty decided to make Beijing his primary home, taking the top spot from Nanjing, 南京, which appropriately translates to Southern Capital.

That same emperor, who had overthrown his nephew to get the throne, is responsible for one of the most iconic and impressive sights in Beijing - the Forbidden City. This massive complex was constructed in the early 1400s and housed Ming and Qing Emperors until the early part of the 20th century. The palace was off limits to the public for five hundred years, but now, visitors can enter through the Gate of Heavenly Peace, adorned since 1949 with a big picture of a rosy-cheeked Chairman Mao.

Gate of Heavenly Peace

From there, it can take half a day or more to explore the 7,800,000 square feet interior, containing  hundreds of buildings with evocative names like "Hall of Mental Cultivation" and "Palace of Heavenly Purity".

Forbidden City

It gets seriously crowded in there, especially on a sunny Saturday morning, but the tour groups tend to follow the same path straight through the central halls so it is easy enough to find moments of solitude in the less tour-choked parts. And even the constant squawking and shoving at the more popular buildings could not take away from the magnificence of the Forbidden City.

Inside the Forbidden City

The Yongle Emperor didn't stop at building his palace. He also started construction on the Temple of Heaven, a place for the emperor in his role as Son of Heaven to pray for good harvests. The buildings are now tourist attractions while the surrounding park throngs with a delightful mix of mahjong players, card sharps, amateur musicians, tai chi practitioners and Sunday strollers.

Temple of Heaven

As far as actual temples in Beijing, the city is home to one of the most important Tibetan Buddhist monasteries outside of Tibet - the Yonghegong Lama Temple.

Yonghegong Lama Temple

The temple contains a series of elaborate buildings, each holding sacred Buddhist statues and paintings, surrounded by worshippers burning incense and praying.

Tibetan Buddhist Monks chanting

Inside one of the temple buildings, I was fortunate enough to see the Buddhist monks in action, chanting from sacred texts, banging on drums and blowing giant tibetan horns. It was very loud, and not exactly melodious, but strangely spiritual regardless.

Confucius Temple

Across the road from the Lama Temple is the much quieter, and emptier, Confucius Temple. No worshippers here, just an orderly and harmonic garden, and exhibits extolling the life and virtues of China's most famous philosopher.

Ghost Street

There are plenty of places to grab food in Beijing, including the famous Ghost Street lined with restaurants above. But I eschewed the spicy offerings there in favor of the most famous dish in town - Peking Duck.

Peking Duck

The well-regarded duck at the Quanjude restaurant was tasty, though not as crispy as its western counterpart, and came with the standard pancakes, scallions and sauce. Much to my amusement, the waiter, who spoke as much English as I speak Chinese, decided I was clearly too incompetent to compose my own pancake. With a blur of chopsticks and a roll of the eyes, he perfectly wrapped up a sliver of duck, scallion and sauce for me before I'd even registered what was on the table.

Walking the Great Wall

What better way to work off a belly full of roast poultry than a visit to the Great Wall of China? After reading horror stories about tours that spent most of the time herding tourists into crappy trinket shops, I was fortunate to find a perfect tour with the Beijing Downtown Backpackers Association. The minibus dropped us off at the Great Wall at Mutianyu about 56 miles northeast of Beijing, then picked us up for lunch three hours later and drove us back. Not a trinket in sight!

Great Wall at Mutianyu

Chairman Mao once said "He who has not climbed the Great Wall is not a man", which I guess means I've now grown a pair. The wall at Mutianyu, especially for the first 6 watchtowers or so, was surprisingly steep. My calves protested for days afterwards, and my hamstrings went on strike. Anyone with mobility problems would find it difficult if not impossible to become "a man" here, though other sections of the wall are more friendly and step-free.

Steep Steps at Mutianyu

The Great Wall was started in the Qin dynasty more than 2200 years ago. It is not one continuous structure, but rather a series of walls and natural impediments stretching across China. Hundreds if not thousands of workers died making the wall, and much of it was later torn down for building material, or left to erode. It is no longer visible from space, if indeed it ever was, but the parts that are left are more than testament to this incredible piece of Chinese engineering.

Beijing Hutong

The Great Wall isn't the only piece of historical China to suffer through neglect or active dismantling in favor of modernization. Much like New York replaced the beautiful old Penn Station with the monstrosity of Madison Square Garden, and took out whole neighborhoods to build wide roads, Beijing is currently tearing down huge swathes of the old town and its distinctive "hutong" alleyways and building skyscrapers instead. This is nothing new, the Beijing city walls were torn down decades ago to make room for traffic, but for this visitor, who wishes the old Penn station was still around, it was a shame to see Old China subsumed so quickly into New China.

Haze over Tiananmen Square

One constant in most of the cities I visited in China was the air pollution that turned the sun hazy most days. The first day I was Beijing, it was so bad that I could literally taste the chemicals in the air. It was amazing to me that just a month after my visit, when the U.S. embassy rated the air quality as "hazardous", 30,000 people actually ran a marathon through Beijing. I didn't even ride a bicycle for fear of wheezing.

Bird's Nest Stadium

Beijing did manage to curb pollution during the 2008 Olympic games. Today, the famous Bird's Nest Stadium is a tourist site that hosts occasional special events. Visiting it did make me wonder just how many of the new buildings in China, the visible signs of the country's impressive and rapid leap into the 21st century, are also mostly empty. And just what happens if and when the country takes a breather from its break-neck transformation to modernity to deal with the unintended consequences. For an interesting look at what that might entail, I highly recommend reading "When a Billion Chinese Jump" by Guardian correspondent Jonathan Watts. I've read it twice so far on this trip alone.