Iran Part I: It's not pronounced I RAN

Where does one even begin? Visiting Iran solo was such a daunting and liberating experience that I am not sure that I have the memory or vocabulary to pen my thoughts on this astonishing place. Be that as it may, I must attempt to immortalise and make sense of the bizarre events of the past weeks - hopefully for both your reading pleasure and my own posterity. This could be long, perhaps a cup of tea is in order? If you want the authentic Persian experience, drink it while it is so hot it burns your mouth and oesophagus. Anything that is just hot, warm, lukewarm or (heaven forbid) cold just won't do; push it aside as it was poison like a good Iranian!

At this point in time, telling people you are going to visit Iran evokes only one of two typical responses in Australia: "wait, what?!" or "why?!". People would look at you as if you are either intending to join a terrorist movement or you are walking into guaranteed kidnapping of some kind. Iran is wedged between some really crazy places (Iraq and Afghanistan) and thus everyone in the west assumes it can't really be different and must be heaving with terrorists. It's also portrayed as an imminent atomic threat to the entire planet and worthy of gun pointing and sabre rattling. It goes without saying that all of these views are foremost in your mind when visiting here but like a Persian cat, curiosity always somehow gets the better of the travelling soul and when you look at a map of the world and see these strange lands that seem so forbidden to you then can be no sating that wanderlust but to go there. Arguably the most dangerous zone on Earth is the comfort zone. You have to get out of it when you can!

To quote a popular idiom, "The mind is like a parachute; it works best only when it's open." and it certainly takes an open, albeit nervous, mind to set off to such a place and see how it truly was and is, and to perhaps also, given the limited interaction between these spheres of the world, give a view in return of your homeland to those there. It was time to put the best foot forwards again to the Middle East; once more the Vegemite Ambassador badge of office called.

Firstly, let me detail some of the difficulties of Iran travel. Iran has some pretty major issues right now; international economic sanctions targeting the country are crippling in many ways. Iran is effectively isolated from the world; you can't fly there directly from western countries (only via a select few countries that still maintain ties with Iran), no bank cards or credit cards work there due to being cut off from the international banking system, foreign mobile phone SIM's will not work there (nor can Iranian phone SIM's work overseas), and most useful travel websites for finding a place to stay and booking flights etc have all Iranian entries removed. To say that tourism here in general is difficult is an understatement.

To make matters worse, getting a visa is a real lottery. You can try to apply from home, but you need an official sponsor and getting one organised can be a case of real trial and error in an industry full of shonky operators. The other option is to simply show up at the airport and as an Australian you should get a visa on arrival - assuming you have sufficient funds, a planned itinerary, a return flight booked, accommodation booked for at least your first night, travel insurance, no Israel stamp in your passport, no alcohol in your bags (which do get searched), you are not a journalist by trade (especially since election time looms near) and you have 70 Euro exactly for the visa. If the immigration office likes the cut of your jib, is confident you will not promote your non-Islamic religion and you meet all of the above conditions you can get in and don't have to fly back home.

Money is the next real issue to face. Largely because of sanctions, the country suffers from rampant inflation as the foreign value of the Iranian Rial plummets each day before your very eyes. While it seems like it is good news for a would-be-traveller at first, it means the prices for goods and services are extremely unpredictable. Anything that requires or involves foreign imported products and services can be dramatically more expensive than expected and local goods can be dramatically cheaper than expected. Guidebook or internet information on the price of anything is pretty much out of date the moment it goes to print, which means you have to constantly stay on your toes and makes budgeting quite a challenge - especially given you need to bring all the money you think you might need with you ahead of time due to the cash only economy. The knowledge that tourists have to bring in all the cash they need on them makes you feel super comfortable too around the dodgy sorts.

Ultimately what this volatile economy means is that you are completely unsure what your money is really worth when paying for anything and to make matters worse, prices can be quoted in Rial or Toman: Toman being Rial divided by ten. Some places only ever quote in Toman, some in Rial, some just indicate the number of hundreds of Toman required. You are just kind of expected to know what will be quoted where. It's just absolutely bonkers to a tourist and due to the typically huge denominations of either Rial or Toman required for any transaction, many a time are you left slack-jawed, thrusting massive wads of cash at people that can be way too much money for a payment, or an insultingly short amount of money for a payment. Either way you will always be confused and the payee usually more so as to why you are struggling with what is obviously such a simple system.

Overall, Iran is a very cost-efficient place to travel and your money, especially if it is in the form of crisp, unfolded $100 US notes, will go a long way. Especially once you meet the Iranian people. And trust me, you will meet them.

The people of Iran make Iran. End of story. They are quite simply THE most amazing, kind-hearted, generous and welcoming people you could ever have the pleasure to encounter as a tourist. To Iranians, the guest; the traveller, is a gift from god. Sharing their life and house/office/shop and everything in their pantry with you, continuously and simultaneously, is a blessing from above for them and you both. My experience at the airport visa and immigration office was the very first taste of the character of the people and worth describing as an example.

The immigration officer was a chubby chap sporting a heavy moustache. He sat at a wooden desk surrounding by a sea of paperwork. It was a warm day and he had a sweaty sheen that the fan situating some five metres above him could do nothing for.

"There is problem with your passport." he said sheepishly as he tried his English on.

It's the last sentence you ever want to hear at an airport on landing, especially if you are the only tourist on the plane and consequently now the only person in the arrival hall. He explained that my passport expires on the 6th of December, which meant it *actually* expires on the 6th of June due to a bizarre six month pre-expiry date expiry date. This super special expiry date fell two days before the end of a standard Iranian 14 day tourist visa, even though I had planned to fly out before this threshold. There were several moments of awkward silence and innocent, sheepish looks to follow. I was confident I had done the right thing, he obviously wasn't confident a 12 day tourist visa was possible.

"Come, sit."

He motioned for me to go around the side of the wall and enter the immigration control office. There I sat, amongst important looking documents, stamps and a pile of money while he proceeded to call what I assume was the embassy in Tehran. Much arguing on the phone followed for 20 minutes and it didn't look good when it culminated in him slamming the phone down and sighing. He then turned to me slowly and I braced myself for another 14 hour flight.

"Friend, do you like to take tea?"

It wasn't what I was expecting at all. We were friends already? I nodded and he went into another room and came back with a silver tray with some freshly brewed tea and sugar crystals on it. Momentarily stunned by what was possibly the kindest and most welcoming border control I have ever seen, I forgot to begin drinking. He took that as an indication that I had no idea how to drink tea and began to demonstrate to me the technique for which I am glad I waited. You don't put the sugar IN the tea around here, you put the sugar crystal against your front two teeth and suck the tea around and through it, much to the satisfaction of dentists in the country everywhere I would imagine. He then cheerily hopped back on the phone and continued intermittent yelling for nearly another 30 minutes or so while I sipped tea nervously, worried for the enamel on my incisors.

*SLAM*

The phone call had been terminated violently again, followed by the same sigh. I thought this time exodus back to Australia was a certainty.

"My friend, do you like to take fruit?"

He left me again and I heard chopping sounds come from the other room. He returned with another platter of fruit, nuts and dates. I casually leaned forwards to enjoy the second course of the immigration office smorgasbord. He urged me to enjoy and eat as much as I liked while he got back on the phone and began his yelling contest again. I ate as peacefully as I could, laughing a little at just how bizarre this all was and suspecting that he gets even less tourists than even I had originally thought. Actually, I do remember the air stewardess on the plane also being completely shocked to see a solo Australian flying to Iran, not for work or journalism, just to backpack. Her disbelief, combined with the fact she had handed her resignation in, allowed her to basically ignore serving the other passengers to sit on the seat next to me to talk about why the hell I was doing this. She told me she had just quit her job for Emirates Airways, and she was to become a mining truck driver; I replied to her "you will also be entering a very foreign and daunting place too then!".

Two hours later the surly immigration man had achieved the impossible. He hung up the phone one last time, leaned back in his chair, arms folded behind his head, smiling slightly. He had did it. The satisfaction on his face was priceless; one man, had taken on the establishment in a class action and had emerged triumphant over bureaucracy. He poured me another tea and we shared a drink, he gave me his email address and the printer produced the golden ticket. I emerged from the immigration office refreshed, well fed, with an extra bag of bonus dates, free to enter Persia ... no more waiting, all that stood in the way was a final passport check ... at a border control that was now no longer manned because everyone had gone home. Ok, turns out there had to be a little more waiting then ...

This initial flurry of hospitality, in what is normally one of the scariest and most nerve-wracking parts of any country entry, was a glimpse of what was to come. The first afternoon in Tehran was spent with two new friends and then another new friend that night. The next day with another new friend and then two more in the afternoon, followed by an overnight stay at another new friend's house after a big dinner in the mountains with even more new friends. In fact, the remainder of the trip was spent encountering and getting to know new people at every turn and then staying with them. It became embarrassingly difficult to remember whom I was staying with and what their names were. This absolute whirlwind of generosity and friendship, all offered by these wonderful people to a total stranger, a friend of a friend of a friend, was completely and utterly humbling. To complete the maximisation of my level of guilt and unworthiness, I found it almost impossible to pay for anything anywhere I went. I would give money to people and they would give it straight back or give it to someone else to give back to me later so that I could not reject it. It was just so damned frustrating that everyone was so damned awesome.

Iran and its people reaffirm my faith in humanity, purely by their ability to be SO kind to a lost and lonely soul in their land. In my view, if you ever do go to Iran, you'll probably come to see archaeological and cultural wonders like I did but you'll leave knowing the same thing as I - it is the people that really make this country a true spectacle and in many ways I want to encourage everyone to visit, but in some ways I only want a few people to visit, and those that do visit to be so respectful and be SO grateful for what they might experience here. I really never want paradise found to become paradise lost anywhere, especially here.

So for all the people that made this journey brilliant (especially if you are reading this and the entries to follow), from the immigration officer in Tehran airport, to my myriad of amazing new friends in Iran, to the numerous food vendors that continuously gave me and my friends free food, to the armies of random people that excitably said "Hello, you are welcome in Iran!", to the teenage kids who are willing to be free tourist guides for hours on end, to the bus drivers who would actually bother to get up and wake me up at my stop, to the underground metro police officers who never seemed to care if I had a valid ticket, to the children who persisted in teaching me Farsi despite my inability to master the "kh" sound, and even the dude in Dubai airport passport control who high-fived when he saw I came from Iran for tourism; I say thank you. Thank you for making this trip so special and allowing me to be so welcomed. How beautiful a thing is this distant and misunderstood land.

This is me signing off for this instalment, but don't worry, there is more to come about Iran, I have so much more to say but I really couldn't start without getting this first part off my chest. My level of guilt has now dropped a notch, maybe.

Dubai or not Dubai

That is the question.

For a pretty damn long time Dubai, and the other Arab Emirates were little more than long lost desert outposts that pretty much no one cared about. That is until they found lots of black liquid hydrocarbons under the shifting sands. Now, Dubai and the other Arab Emirates stick out of the desert like a big shiny, expensive sore thumb; oil money coursing through the veins of overwhelming shopping centres.

To most Australians (including myself) Dubai, for all its glory, is considered as practically little more than a super fancy stop over point for long haul flights to Europe and other destinations. Yet, despite this highly practical function, the emirates are pretty keen to make cities like Dubai to be a worthy destination in their own right. Dubai in particular is home to many of the biggest-of-their-kind objects in the world from the Dancing Fountain to the ludicrously big Burj Khalifa to the humble 12” camel sub.

Therein lies the paradox; the conflict between a very strict and conservative religious population and complete saturation of western style consumerism. It feels odd to be in a part of the world that is generally known for despising western culture, yet is embracing the same western consumerism many claim is the root of all the world’s evil. Oh well, I guess if you really are a distinguished Dubian man and must shop for your many wives then you might as well do it in style.

On that point of clothing, when it comes to traditional garb, Arab men really do have the sweeter deal. Wearing loose, long, flowing white cloth in a country with over 350 sunny days per year and 40 to 50 degree desert heat in summer is amazingly practical and when I foolishly walked the streets during the day (I felt very lonely) and was exposed to said heat I suddenly found myself envying their cool looking outfits. But the women wearing all black? Come on, where is it in holy scriptures that says that women must melt in a pool of sweat in the desert sun to maintain modesty? I touched the black fabric of one of these outfits in a shop on the street in full sun and it was like caressing fire. It really just doesn't seem that fair or nice to me but I guess the black is really nice in the winter! No, wait. No advantage there ... there must be some other pro for all black? Ahh yes, it is easier to keep clean then all white when chowing down on a McArabia: the burger of choice for all oil tycoons and their ilk.

Dubai is actually surprising green for somewhere that has a climate similar to hell. The greenery therefore defies all logic, until you realise that pretty much every plant in the city has its own dedicated irrigation channel supplied by water from massive water desalination plants. Basically the entire city's plant based life is on permanent life support and there it shall stay ever green ... well, until peak oil is hit I guess.

The Emiratis are most definitely not afraid of shaping the land to their needs. In case you haven’t seen, look at Google Maps of Dubai. You’ll observe the many man-made islands of the coast places in the middle of the Arabian Gulf (or Persian Gulf depending on whose side you’re on). These islands take all sorts of fanciful shapes and while they look pretty cool, the water around them doesn’t look so great. Nobody read about tidal water stagnation I think when coming up with these grand designs.

Dubai has a varied population, there are many, many ex-pats from all over the world. But one ethnic group dominates all others: the Indians. This city is fundamentally powered by Indians. Without them and their hard work Dubai simply would not work. In fact, the Indian people are often referred to as the fathers of Dubai. While interesting, the main advantage of this I see is simple: access to awesome Indian curries and that my friends is always a beautiful thing.

Dubai, like other Muslim countries in this region, isn't real big on public displays of affection. Should the affection police catch you getting a bit too comfortable with a hug or daring to connect lips then you'll be on the express lane to some desert prison which I think won't be as shiny and well invested. Oddly enough though, despite this hardline stance against the evils of public affection, the area where I stayed seemed to have quite a few prostitutes loitering around. I guess sinning is morally acceptable at home, just not around town.

My time here was short, and most of it spent trying to find my place to stay since they have no working street address system. Dubai is interesting, but not particularly social or historical and overall people wear too much musk. But it has some amazing modern sights and I am pretty sure it is the only desert in the world where you can go skiing. For some this place would be paradise, but it's not really my thing I must say and I certainly was one of the shoddiest looking travellers in the city. Perhaps in my case the Arab saying, "How sweet a visit is a rapid raid." holds particularly true.

Cantonnes of Concrete

This "special administrative region" post comes hot on the heels of a whirlwind voyage through the Cantonese super cities of Hong Kong and Guangzhou (Canton to some). Hot being the operative word too; it is about 30 degrees and 99% humidity in this neck of the woods each day and night, converting you to a walking sweat factory within seconds of leaving your air conditioned city hovel. You can walk around the streets, dreaming of cold rain all you want, instead the only showers you'll receive are from drip drying clothes and air conditioning units above as far as the eye can see.

I'll start first with the accommodation: the (in?)famous "Chunkhing Mansions", where seemingly every other cheap traveler in the city goes. When reviews of your accommodation include statements such as "ignore the blood on the walls in the stairwell, it's actually pretty safe", you know you're onto a budget winner. Needless to say it's not worth spending a great deal of time hanging around the hostel enjoying the surroundings. Unless you're interested in buying a cheap "Rolax" watch or being fitted for a tailored suit.

Hong Kong, due to it's British colonial heritage and western influence feels very much like an Australian city on steroids to me. It sports things other Chinese cities can only dream of such as an incredible metro system (complete with London-style "Mind the Gap" warnings!), recycling bins everywhere, a relatively high level of public order and consideration, a lack of spit and (disappointingly) predominantly correct English translations (although the word "fook" comes up enough times to make me giggle). All in all it's a pretty sanitised and slick Asian experience, but whatever you do, don't hire a car. You'll probably want to gouge your eyes out with chopsticks while battling endless armies of Toyota Crown taxi's and Jetson's sounding bikes to go anywhere. And everyone knows better than to get involved in a land war in Asia, even if it's just a traffic one.

Ultimately why would you drive anyway when the city has gigantic escalators throughout AND you get metro credits for walking! Kick ass!

Actually, while I am on the topic of cars, they drive on the left side of the road in Hong Kong, but on the right side in mainland China. I wonder if they meet each other head on and pile up in endless destruction at the border? I guess not, but the slapstick comedy potential in the scenario is too big to ignore for this blog writer.

Anyway...

For a city as effortlessly cosmopolitan and advanced as Hong Kong you still see glimpses of Asian-ness shining through. Walking through the city in the morning is like walking through the Matrix due to the number of people moving in Tai Chi slow motion, in the evening tiny little ramshackle snack huts permeate the cracks of the histogram-like skyline, there are monks walking around the streets trying to bless people for cash, there are vines and weeds threatening to reclaim the city in a few days if not held at bay, gleaming sky scrapers under construction are still surrounded with ever precarious bamboo scaffolding. There is certainly enough of Asia there to give you a taste, but it's covered up pretty well in modernity.

On the other side of the Shenzen boundary is Guangzhou. Another megalopolis, but with a distinctly more mainland China flavour. This place is definitely an architect's wet dream compared to Hong Kong however as it appears to be some sort of sand pit for trying out new and wildly funky building designs, all in the same spot. It was fortunate to visit during the mid autumn full moon festival where people hit the streets in droves to walk around, look at the moon and eat a lot. Especially mooncakes, sometimes filled with raisins, sometimes with white lotus paste, sometimes with pork jelly. The latter was experienced at a family dinner with a friend. It was a real honour to attend, leaving with epic bags of tea that will probably be destroyed by Australian customs.

Now I am aware that I spent basicially an entire blog post previously talking about the weird and wonderful foods encountered, but it was probably premature to go to press given Canton had not been encountered yet. They well and truly eat anything here ... in fact they have a proud saying, "If it has legs and it is not the table, if it has wings and it is not a plane, if it has fins and is not a boat or submarine, the Cantonese will eat it."

From black medicine jelly made from turtles that supposedly helps clear throat phlegm (a common problem as you would know by now), dried crispy fish skin, seaweed dessert, weird noodle soup made with the famous "thousand year old egg", fried chicken feet, steamed cakes and bread, horse lungs to "Pheonix milk" - Canton has it all. Here I was thinking the Pheonix was just an imaginary animal, not so, it's very real. And it produces milk, apparently.

If you don't feel like fantastical bird milk, you can drink copious tea here. In fact this is arguably where it all started for China in terms of tea drinking so naturally making tea is a complex, ancient ceremony and pretty serious business. Making tea involves pouring hot water OVER the tea pot to warm it up, then pouring hot water into the tea pot, pouring the first tea brew into your cups but just using it to warm and wash them, throw that first brew out, pour hot water in the pot again, scoop off the bubbles at the top, pour hot water over the pot to clean it, pour the second brew into the cups - getting each last drop and alternating between each cup per drop rapidly. Overall it's a wet and convoluted process, but very special and cool. I for one certainly feel shortchanged with the crappy tea bag experience back home.

Before I wrap this up, I should make a special mention here about how impossibly difficult learning Sino-Tibetan languages is. Mainly because of the concept of using tone/pitch to change the meaning of words - a concept that is completely foreign to Westerners where tone/pitch is used to denote questions or emphasis. Get the wrong tone and you have just said a totally different word, making your sentence complete gibberish. People don't seem to be able to join the gaps either if you get the wrong tone, meaning blank stares a plenty are waiting for you.

Reading the script is even more difficult given there many thousands to remember - although I am told you really only need a few thousand to "get by". Some of them are pretty easy as they almost look like what they represent, thus it is easy to make up mental stories for them. But not are all like this. Here are some examples below ... I provide a story for each one to help you remember it, as you go down the list it demonstrates how progressively tenuous and desperate this technique becomes.

火 = fire

It looks like a little fire with some embers flying off it.

山 = mountain

It looks like a mountain with three peaks.

油 = oil (edible)

It's a little olive tree with a barrel of olive oil next to it.

麵 = noodles

This is a little noodle stand on the right, with an absolute mess of noodles to the left.

恨 = hate

The little dude on the left hates it when someone breaks the leg of his exercise equipment and then doesn't bother to fix it properly, instead just leaning it on the broken leg.

钍 = Thorium

Erm, it kind of looks like a chemistry set, with some ... umm ... Thorium on it. Yeah, that's it.

豬 = pig

It looks like maybe, erm, ahh, FRACK IT ... I give up.

Their Ping Pong, Their Zen, Their Ying and Yangese

I’m not sure if I mentioned it, but there are a lot of people in China. Whether they be farming tea for the world or farming gold for the world of Warcraft they will sooner or later need to travel from A to B. When they do they will form your competition for any mode of cheap transport, this makes getting tickets for anywhere a real challenge all the time. Buses are generally the easiest tickets to get hold of, and for good reason; they have a certifiably horrendous safety record. It’s not difficult to imagine why either having now travelled on them several times; the drivers weave roads the size of runways like they are driving a rally car, not a 20 tonne bus. The sheer amount of good luck charms hanging off the mirror also don’t do much for your confidence and in reality simply end up interfering with the driver’s vision and hitting him in the head. On top of all of this, you’ll have to mentally deal with the fact that there is a “spit bucket” on the bus sitting beside you so that folk can carry on coughin' up phlegm during the trip.

If you don’t like the bus idea, you can try the train however these are typically impossible to get tickets for unless you book days or sometimes weeks in advance. When you book you can choose from several types of tickets: there is the legendary “Soft Sleeper” which is akin to a golden Wonka bar. I have never seen anyone acquire this ticket; it represents a level of comfort most westerners might recognise, but ticket scalpers clean those out the moment the train tickets become available and then charge like a wounded bull for them. Next up is the “Hard Sleeper” ticket, which is a bed that is in an open hallway, this is probably the best way to travel you can get though you will have to deal with a complete lack of storage for luggage and strangers deciding they will sit on the end of you bed “for just a little while”. Next you have “Hard Seat” which means you have a seat to sit in. This sounds OK but again you’ll be crammed into a tiny room with a lot of people and luggage for typically over twelve hours. Lastly you have “Standing” which is exactly as it says on the tin, you are allowed to board the train and then it’s up to you to find a nice place to stand for the entire trip.

Naturally you will want to sit down at some point though, for this you have three options; sit on a little stool that you bring with you, sit on the ground in a sea of used hot pot noodle packets and other garbage, or weasel your way onto the end of a bed and pretend to be deaf. In any case you’ll be guaranteed to block a through-way and have to shuffle yourself around constantly to let people through for twelve hours.

If you are extremely lucky (and in a big city), you can catch one of China’s sleek, high speed trains which are springing up throughout the country everywhere. These are amazing though don’t get too comfortable; you see they seem to like everyone to face forwards on the train and that means when the train pulls into a station and then heads back out in reverse you will need to spin your entire seat row around on it’s base to face forwards again. There is no warning for this in English either, so that means all of your food, books and other stuff you have connected to the seat in front of you is about to go bye-bye unless you can pile it all into your lap fast.

There is also the fancy-schmancy maglev train that hits 450+kph. In what is probably the greatest example of ironic, economic contrast, these things glide effortlessly over impoverished rural countryside via monstrous rail viaducts with velodrome-like corners. The experience is definitely one of a kind, seriously scary when you pass another train and probably the nearest I will get to driving a Bugatti Veyron at top speed. Oh and if you ever ride one and want to take a photo of it, take a photo BEFORE the train leaves the station fresh, not AFTER it has arrived and is now covered in bird blood.

At the complete other end of the speed spectrum, if you are in the city and have a carefree view on your personal safety, you can opt to hire a rickshaw transport. This is typically a ramshackle bike come wheelbarrow driven by a man or woman with disproportionately thick legs and an arse of steel. The rickshaw adventure is always guaranteed to excite as you ply traffic resembling more of an asteroid field then a flowing river. Don’t forget your ear plugs too, truck and bus horns are at your ear level and it’s pretty much guaranteed you will be in their way all the time.

The other thing you will notice at ground level in the rickshaw is just how many bikes there are on the roads in China, it even puts Amsterdam to shame. It’s absolutely nuts to see what people carry on their bikes with them too, everything from a one year old baby on their lap to a box or bag that is three times wider than the bike. Personal protection is pretty much optional and, even if present, usually a whimsical façade. I saw one guy on a motorbike wearing a toy plastic “Bob the Builder” helmet for protection as a great example.

Now, imagine all this transport (bikes, cars, trucks, whatever) kicking it across China every day. Add to this the fact that China, by being the ‘workshop of the world’ has massive amounts of industrial by products being pumped into the air. Add more smoke for crop and garbage burning. Chuck in seemingly endless burning of incense and napkins in temples, firecrackers for any event and cigarette smoking as a national sport for good measure and you have a level of air pollution that figuratively and literally takes your breath away.

The smog here is so serious it actually makes it difficult to breathe on hot days, acid rain is a legitimate fear and it’s normally impossible to see the horizon. In the north it gets even worse as there are massive coal mines and refineries everywhere. In fact when we caught a bus from Beijing to Datong, we descended from the mountains into a yellow haze, into which the silhouettes of metal factories and steam stacks rose amid flames and columns of smoke. I thought for a moment this certainly had to be the exact same industrial inspiration Tolkien had found for Mordor.

At some point you just begin to accept that this pollution is everywhere and it’s not going away. It’s a sad moment when you make peace with the smog; when you realise that seeing more than a few hundred metres is a fantasy, when you realise that visions of splendid sunsets are folly and that you can look directly into the pinkish sun without fear for retina damage. On top of this, at some point you also make peace with the endless hordes of Asian tour groups at every possible interesting thing to see. Only once you have shed the shackles of unrealistic expectations of peace and tranquillity, are you free to appreciate what China has to offer in the sightseeing department. And trust me, that offering is plenty, China is so jam-packed full of absolutely stunning things to see that I could easily induce suicide in you if I described it all in detail, so I’ll just describe a little about the top highlights.

First up is China’s Mongolian Maginot; the Great Wall. It’s a must see when you come to China and deservedly so. Originally the goal was to venture to a remote and original section of the wall at Simitai, however it was closed so instead a more restored section at Mutianyu was the fallback. It was never-the-less exceptionally impressive, the way the wall hugs the contours of the mountain escarpment is beyond words and walking along it gives you the feeling you are in some sort of MC Escher painting with a weaving path and stairs at all sorts of weird angles. The “viewable from space” thing may have been revealed to be BS but the scale of this structure can only be seen to be believed. As icing on the cake, you can ride a slalom kart from the top of the wall to the bottom too: bizarre.

Second on the kick-ass list is Pingyao, a perfectly intact/restored ancient Chinese walled town. The cobbled streets are lined with intricately carved wooden houses, roofed with black tiles and lit by red lanterns. You can enter many of the houses too to see wonderful interiors sometimes three or four courtyards deep. Here is also China’s first bank and a superlative example of a traditional government house complete with an old style prison. Used in countless movies, I guarantee you that Pingyao is exactly the vision of a medieval Chinese town you probably have in your head and so much more.

Third is Huangshan. I can’t convey how spectacular this mountain is. It is comprised of an unfathomable complex of jagged granite massifs each covered in oriental pine trees and vines. Up in the mountain, otherworldly mist swirls in and around you from every direction, constantly revealing new summits and masking the ground far below in a rolling sea of cloud. From cable cars that span jaw-dropping chasms to paths that are little more than slabs of stone sticking out of a cliff, you’ll be clenching your rectum continuously in fear and astonishment. It’s absolutely ethereal, feels about as close to heaven on Earth as you can get and therefore no wonder that so much Chinese nature art is based on this mountain. It’s the most beautiful mountain I certainly have ever ascended and one thing you could never see enough times.

Fourth are the old traditional Huishui villages such as Hongcun, Xidi and Mukheng. The first is a stunning collection of stone homes laid out around a river in a quite odd way, the second is a maze of ancient homes and temples, the latter a farm village in the middle of a gently swaying bamboo forest. Actually the bamboo forest fighting scenes of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon were filmed here though the closest you can come to jumping from treetop to treetop (as in the movie) is a super cool flying fox ride over the forest canopy.

Lastly is Shanghai. OK, It may be rammed with foreigners, the street food average, the traditional food sickly sweet, the prices the highest in China and it may not feel anything like the rest of China, but it is certainly an amazing city. Millions of people squeeze around a beautiful mix of architectural heritage from former colonial times to mind-blowing, state of the art skyscrapers built on a solid foundation of Starbucks cafes. You can go to the top of the highest building, the financial centre, via a super rapid 400 metre elevator ascent where due to a lack of loud music you’ll hear a symphony of twenty people swallowing constantly to pop their ears. From the top, perched upon the world’s highest viewing platform, one can see an overwhelming view of this bewildering, vertical city and, after sunset, watch the city come to life in a nebula of Bladerunner-esque neon screens and see the endless traffic on the roads transform into rivers of fire.

China is a noodle bowl full of culture shock, but it’s seriously extraordinary to be part of. It’s easy to see why the Mandarin name for China quite literally means ‘the centre of the world’, there really is so much history, so much to see, learn, eat and do. It’s eye-opening and unforgettable. It’s most certainly not easy travel; there is much population, gastronomic discomfort and pollution to overcome … but exploration and willingness to throw oneself in head first will be rewarded handsomely. 

Ultimately though remember this, if everyone in China jumps at the same time they can knock the planet out of orbit. So show a bit of respect to the Chinese folk next time you visit your local China town. Once you get to know them, they’re cute, cuddly and eager to please.

Maoism, Taoism, I Ching, and Chess

There is nothing Chinese folk like more than to flex their mind playing a game over some good tea in a peaceful park or on the street next to a motorway. There is no shortage of cool games (or tea for that matter) to pick from either. Chinese Chess is probably the most common way to pass the time and it seems to be critical that when you take an opponent’s piece that you do so with gusto. Next most popular are card games, we don’t recognise many of them but they all seem to involve slamming cards down on the table so hard that they fly off it regularly. Chinese Checkers is also popular and again, taking pieces requires considerable theatric effect to be acceptable.

Probably the coolest game however is Mahjong. In the west this is usually played as a really basic memory based game with all the tiles in a stack, but the proper rules are something entirely different. I have to say it’s one of the most interesting and tactical games I have played that combines observation, strategy and interestingly, reflexes. The “simple” version merely has enough rules of battle to make Sun Zu proud, it can get more and more complex based on your desired level of self-masochism.

One of the nicest places to generally chill out and play games are the gorgeous temples dedicated to Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism across China. Most of these were unfortunately trashed pretty heavily in the cultural revolution, but a handful have survived and they are perfectly tranquil and relaxing places in the ever bustling cities of this land. Inside they have cute little gardens and intricately carved stone channels through which water streams flow into big ponds filled with fish. Interestingly they use the same flowing water channel concept in the toilet too, which means as you squat you might also see some number two’s from the cubicle next to you flow past underneath you. God help you if you drop something ... in fact Confucious once said "Man who drop watch in toilet now have shitty time."

These temples also usually have big cool bells and big drums to play on, probably much to the ire of the monks when I bang out another rendition of “the Shredder Suite”.

The monks in these temples, as you probably picture them, are sedate and peaceful men cruising around gorgeous temples in funky coloured robes. Apparently now though the monastic life also involves blessing foreigners and then demanding ridiculous sums of money for doing so. If you don’t pay then some horrible misfortune will befall your family / your business will fail / hell will swallow the Earth whole. So basically monks are best avoided, lest your wallet experience true “enlightenment” well before you ever will.

An important part of Buddhism is to burn incense sticks when you pray to Buddha, the size of the incense stick must have some correlation to the size of the demand or wish in the prayer. Consequently there are ridiculously big incense sticks available at all temples, some almost two metres high. They can only be lit using a raging inferno and once lit, produce so much smoke that the prayer-maker usually asphyxiates slightly mid prayer, only barely stumbling to the incense cauldron in time to desperately throw it in the sand. If that’s not enough, you can grab a bundle of serviettes/napkins and burn those too, or some paper, or a small flag, or some rubbish … whatever. Buddha likes you to burn stuff.

I call the incense holders cauldrons but I am sure they each have some ultra-fancy name, temples always have imposing names for every various site of importance within. Some of my favourites include the “Supreme Earthly Tranquillity Palace”, the “Gate of Military Prowess”, the “Hall of Mental Cultivation”, the “Pavilion of Joyful Longevity”, the “Great Pillar of Heavenly Purity” and the “Cloud Dispelling Pagoda”. Mountains also benefit from most excellent names like “Floating Mound Peak”, “Fairy Capital Peak”, “The Flower Grown Out of a Writing Brush Rock”, “Beginning to Believe Peak”, “The Eighteen Arhats Worshipping at South Sea”, “Double Cock Peak” and my favourites “Immortal Walking on Stilts”, “Immortal Overturns the Desk” and “Immortal Solarise Boots”.

Quite a few temples have been visited now, and at the risk of temple overload, but there is one temple that I’ve been looking forward to for a looong time and many of you will know why based on my personal yearning for dodgy 1970’s Kung Fu films … the Shaolin Temple.

Now, I’m no stranger to Kung Fu; I’ve been watching these flicks for years and I had already formed a vision in my mind of what to expect. Just like a throwback to feudal China I was expecting we would have to be constantly on guard; everyone would know Kung Fu and your status in society is measured by your skill. A simple greeting should therefore involve testing someone’s Kung Fu out, in fact even greeting a long lost friend is best done by launching into a rapid succession of kicks and punches. Perhaps next time you meet an old acquaintance for coffee, try to do a flying kick to their head rather than a handshake or a hug and show them how cultured this blog has made you.

Anyway, that’s what I expected from Shaolin, what we got was a bunch of monks who walked very slowly and greeted each other and tourists with a little bow. No instant all out attacks to be seen at all. I was perturbed, how could you get to know someone without testing their Kung Fu?

The next thing I expected was to see monks fighting each other everywhere using a whole host of perplexing and highly inefficient Kung Fu forms with cool names like “Eagle Claw”, “Hooked Hand”, “Drunken Buddha”, “Furious Buddha”, “Crazy Buddha”, “Iron Monkey Style”, “Cicada Style”, “Crab Style”, “Antelope”, “Dragons Tail”, “Holy Ghost Fist” and the literally impossible “Walking on Air”. Furthermore, true masters of Kung Fu should be able to combine two or more of these styles at the same time, such as “Right hand, five fingers of pain!” and “Left hand, Buddha palm descending from heaven!”, announcing which techniques will be used before the fight lest they suffer the shame of the opponent identifying them mid-fight and stealing their thunder.

I didn’t see any of these styles BUT I was selected to train with a monk and learn some Kung Fu. I think they were just excited to have a foreigner volunteer to them for it, but as Confucious says "A turtle can only make progress when it sticks it's neck out."

Now do note that my only previous training up to this point was hours of endless frustration at being unable to defeat Bison in Streetfighter 2 on the hardest difficulty setting with Chun Li. I was thus nervous and a little tense I have seen how training occurs in Kung Fu films; I expected an old Kung Fu master sporting a long wispy beard and a bald head to begin by beating the living shit out of me while berating me verbally until I felt worthless. I was expecting that he would continually eat chicken in front of me while all I had was cold rice. I expected to be deprived of sleep and make to walk up and down countless steps. Only once my soul was mercilessly crushed would I be ready to absorb his , or failing that he might expedite teaching if he got his ass handed to him in a fight and wanted me to go on a murderous revenge rampage for him.

What I actually got was an eight year old monk who came up to my waist. He was lithe and fast, he rolled around a lot and jumped through the air way too easily for my liking. He spoke no English so I learnt the basics of what I can only determine to be “Hungry Toad Style” via awkward mimicry. Apparently the most important part of this style is to suck your cheeks in and make funny faces each time you stop for a breath – which for me was quite often. It was all very entertaining to watch I am told and I have a video of it that I am sure will haunt me until I die.

The next thing I expected to see was priceless artefacts that would confer all sorts of wonderful martial arts to people who steal them. I looked forward to seeing the nine jade Buddha’s of Shaolin that would bestow incredible resilience to pain, the twenty four robot horses that “teach” undefeatable Kung Fu, the eighteen bronze bells of Shaolin that once mastered (somehow) allow a warrior to develop new styles of Kung Fu at will. Each of these should be guarded by an old Kung Fu expert, tethered to them as a type of crappy security system.

Instead the actual temple just had lots of stairs, houses, incense pots, prayer halls and a shop. It appeared all so woefully practical. The ceramic shop even looked like it had not been trashed in years – highly unlikely in any Kung Fu heavy temple I know!

Lastly, when Kung Fu happened, I expected to hear sound effects and see gore. When you punch or kick and connect with your target it should sound like a broom hitting a wall, when you fail to connect it should sound like a broom hitting a curtain. If you connect, especially using an index finger to the neck or chest, humans should be revealed to be nothing more than fragile, walking balloons of blood. If death is not instantaneous, I expected some old dude on the side to yell out “FINISH HIM” Mortal Kombat style.

In practice there was no of time sound and when sparring partners connected, the target usually stayed down and needed time to recover. It all just seemed so firmly planted in reality ... Shaolin was awesome though I can’t help but feel my dodgy Kung Fu movie virginity has been taken from. If only someone had warned me.