Circumventing the censors

Hi all, turns out since my last visit Beijing has clamped down on Blogger so I won't be updating this blog after all. (I had to get my dad to post this.) We're having a great time, and we'll see you all once we're back. Jason

Off again

Hey all,
As most of you know Donna and I are heading to China. I figured I'd revive this clunker of a blog to keep everyone up to speed on where we are. So retro in the world of Facebook and Twitter.
Unlike my last trip, I don't expect to write much. This will mostly be for photos and quick updates. 
Keep in touch

I'm back

UPDATED with a pic of the world at 430 kph for M.F.

What a trip. Sitting here in my home office in Vancouver at 4:30 a.m. on Monday and thinking back over the last five weeks, the whole thing is a bit of a blur.

Over the weekend I decided to see if I could catch one of the Air Canada flights to Vancouver ahead of schedule. In the end my friend Dean wasn't able to make it up from Hong Kong. It would have cost way too much for just a two-day visit. I'm kicking myself for not planning things better so I could visit with him.

I took the Maglev high-speed train to the Shanghai Pudong airport. I opted for the first class ticket, which wasn't that much more expensive. It gives you a seat in the front car and I had it all to myself. There was a digital clock and speedometer on display. At exactly 12:20 the engine roared up. My jaw fell open as the digits racked up the speed. 100km/h, 200km/h, 250km/h (this is as fast as I thought it went) 300km/h, 400km/h, 430km/h. I couldn't believe it. The world was whizzing by so fast I couldn't focus on anything. The trip that takes roughly 45 minutes by taxi was over in just 8.

Air Canada was good about the stand by ticket. There was no extra cost, and my luggage was accepted. I grabbed a final meal at the airport restaurant, a noodle soup of grilled pork and vegetables. The flight lifted off at around 5 pm on Saturday, and touched down in Vancouver four hours earlier at 1 pm Saturday. Donna was waiting at the airport for me, very happy to see me. I was overjoyed to see her there.

I've unpacked now, and tried to get back into a normal sleeping patter, but with the clock at 5 a.m. that's clearly not working yet.

Pics

I'm at the Astor in Shanghai. My room is twice the size of last time. The web works wonderfully. So, finally, from China, a few pics of India:

Rant! Rant!

Only read this is you feel like hearing me rant.
 

Finally a pic

I booked into the Taj Palace hotel. very swank. Great pool. I was just riding up on the elevator and one of the staff, who I'd never met before, said "Good evening Mr. Kirby." Of course, in keeping with all Indian hotels, the Internet service is expensive and crap. I can't maintain a connection long enough to upload to Blogger. So only one pic, of me in front of the Gateway to India in Mumbai at night.

Most of the day was spent in and around Connaught Place, a series of ring roads that's at the heart of Old Delhi. It was the first place I went to when I got to India last year, and where my hotel was, and I now realize it's not representative of India. A foreigner can't walk 10 feet in CP without being accosted by beggers, rickshaw drivers, touts hawking chess sets/napkins/maps and guys trying to play friendly to lure you back to their stores. While other parts of India do have all of those, no where is it as concentrated as here. It really wears you down.

My penultimate day in India

I haven't posted a great deal since I got to India (partly because of the lack of quality internet connections.) I've also been in go-go-go mode, which hasn't left much time for sight seeing. Tomorrow, my last day here, I have vowed to try and do a little bit of playing tourist. I haven't been taking many photos either, since sitting in the back of cars only affords so many photo-ops.

As most of you know this is my second visit to India. I was here in April 2005. For that reason, many of the images that made my jaw drop last time seem almost second nature to me now. I have spent a total of 6 weeks in India, which isn't a lot compared to some of the one-year journeys some travelers undertake here, but it's enough to get used to the cows and the beggars on the roads.

Ok, scratch that. You never really get used to the beggars.

Delhi Belly

(It doesn't look like there will be any more pics until I'm back in China. It doesn't seem to matter what kind of Internet connection I get, Blogger just won't accept any photo uploads to the site.)

I arrived in India's capital a couple of hours ago with a receding case of stomach troubles. Unfortunately I got walloped again at Anupam's house. I think it was the sweet lassi.

Home sweet home away from home

I’m sitting at the dining room table at Anupam’s house. He and his wife Kanika are taking a quick post-breakfast nap. We didn’t get in until around 2:30 am last night. Anupam has high speed internet, but Blogger is being a real pain in the ass about posting pics so I'll only get to put one or two up for now.

Crisis narrowly averted

I can't describe how horrible it feels to open your wallet in a Mumbai shop and reach for your credit card, only to realize it's not there. This morning I discovered I was missing my Master Card. Terrible thoughts rushed through my mind. I've never lost a credit card before. I rarely use the thing, since I came well stocked with traveller's cheques. I did a little backtracking in my mind and figured the last place I used it was Leopold's restaurant in Colaba, where they offer tourists a 10% discount if they used their credit cards. That was on Monday. I dashed out of the store, hopped in a taxi and we gunned it over to the restaurant. I had pretty low expectations, but when I asked the cashier if they had my card, he pulled up a stack of credit cards two-inches thick left behind by all the other dumb tourists. Mine was on the bottom of the pile. Phew. That called for a Kingfisher then and there.

Another Long, Long, Really Long Post

Sorry for being an absantee blogger. This will be one of those meandering entries that come in no chronological order whatsoever, leap from topic to topic, and probably put most of you to sleep. It comes with staying in budget hotels in India, whose managers stare at you blankly when you ask if their $40 rooms come with Internet. India has plenty of Internet cafes that are pretty cheap, but they’re awful to Blog from – you go into a sweaty, hot room, the keyboards are buried under years of grime, the computers run Windows ’75, and groups of Indians tend to gather around to watch what you’re doing. I've finally found a place where the computers have USB ports, so I am going to paste in stuff I wrote on my laptop. I just spent 45 minutes uploading four pics, only to have IE crash, so there won't be any images yet.

Quiet period

I won't be posting much over the next couple of days I don't think. I moved out of the pricey Hilton into another hotel, but in doing so I lost my internet access. I've got two days of back to back meetings, so I'll do an update when I've got web access again.

Mumbai day one

I forgot how much I like India. In a lot of my posts I've been worried about functioning here and whether I could hack it after running around China for 2 1/2 weeks. Yes, India does throw up a lot of barriers to make life difficult, as my post about the airport shows. But once you're on the streets interacting with the people, it's great. The thing I most appreciate about India is that it wears its heart on its sleeve. China is all about putting on a good face. In Shanghai the buildings are decked out like Christmas trees. In Beijing the poor and beggars are shunted out of sight. You're left with a sanitized version of reality. India doesn't hide anything. It's all right there for you to see, so you know what you're really getting. For better or for worse. I appreciate that.

Welcome to India, now line up over there

My head is spinning. Partly from the shock of India, partly from exhaustion.
My flight left Beijing at 9 am Saturday and I got into Bangkok around noon. I had some time to kill in the Bangkok airport, so I changed my Yuan to Thai Bhatt and ordered some Pad Thai — one of my favourite dishes — and a Tiger beer from a restaurant. My flight was delayed, and it didn't end up leaving Bangkok until 7 pm. There was an Australian woman sitting next to me who was coming to India for her first time to take a 10-week yoga course or something. She didn't sound convinced that she could handle the place. I tried to reassure her, but I don't think she believed me.

Zaijian China, Namaste India

It's Friday evening, my last night in China for a while. Tomorrow morning I have to get up very early and make sure I catch the 6 am shuttle bus to the airport which leaves from just around the corner.

I'm going to miss China. This was an excellent first visit. Sure, there were a couple of down days when I was either ill or got ripped off by some crooked taxi driver or something. And I won't miss the Big Brother feel of the place. But I met a lot of great people and saw some incredible things. I would have liked to have headed into the rural parts of the nation, since that's where the bulk of the population lives. I'll save that for the next trip.

I met up one last time for lunch with some people I worked with here. We had Peking Duck -- crispy on the outside, fatty and juicy on the inside. Yum!

Should I be offended?

Not to descend into the gutter, but since I've spent so much time talking about the great food I've been eating, I should give some space to the repercussions of all that exotic cuisine. I was laid low by e-coli or some other nasty stomach bug last night and today. I think it was the orange juice at my hotel breakfast, which was basically Tang, probably mixed with Beijing sewer water.

What's worse, I was running low on Imodium, the traveler's best friend. You don't want to go to India without the stuff. So I dragged myself down to the pharmacy next door to the hotel. Imagine walking into Shopper's drug mart, but every character on every bottle is in Chinese. Bewildering to say the least.

I wandered the aisles until a saleslady asked me something in Chinese. I patted and rubbed my stomach. She looked at my belly, and then grabbed a box from the shelf that had a pink stomach on it. Aha, Chinese Pepto-Bismol, I thought. But then she motioned for me to wait and got someone who spoke English. I told this second woman I wanted Imodium and she took the box from my hand and returned it to the shelf. As we walked over to the proper aisle, I asked: "What was that other saleslady going to give me?"

-"Diet pills"

I paid for my Imodium and left the store, my self esteem a few notches lower.

Why I'm a chicken when I cross the road

Some thoughts on not dying when getting from one side of the street to the other. I bring this up, because I think I've finally mastered a technique.

Many major roads are wide, with three lanes running each way and a small divider running down the middle. Yes, there are traffic lights. And most big intersections have guards with loud whistles trying to herd pedestrians around. But the little green man doesn't mean you have the right of way. No. Might is right. City buses, for example, don't appear to have to obey red signals; they regularly plow right through while honking their horns, sending pedestrians diving out of the way. I'm not even going to bother addressing the psychopathic bicyclists.

Many roundabouts don't seem to have any traffic lights at all. So the hapless pedestrian must weave through several lanes of traffic. My expertise at the Frogger game on my old Atari 2600 has come in handy.

When standing at the edge of a fast-moving river of cars I have taken to waiting until someone else joins me. Then I follow them across. Not just anyone will do, though. Teens and younger adults are no good. They dart much to fast. By the time I realize they've gone a motorcycle or minivan is barreling down on me. Instead I wait for children and seniors, because drivers seem to have slightly more compassion for those age groups. Most seniors are ok, because they move slowly and carefully. But others seem to have a fatalist approach to road-crossing, as if they're thinking: "I've had a good life, if it's my time to go under a speeding VW Santana taxi, so be it."

That's why kids make the best guides. They have more to live for. I do to. Lead on, little ones.

Quick question

Is anyone having trouble seeing the pics I'm posting? Meaning does it generate a page of text gibberish when you click to enlarge?

Hutong hits of the 80s and 90s

I'm feeling much better now. The sun came out today. Blue skies all around. The mood in the streets reflected it. People were out in droves.

Up a wall

I'm back online. It took a couple of days, but they found a techie who spoke some English and he set me up.

My head cold has returned with a vengeance. One of the people I met here bought me some Chinese medicines and I'm trying that stuff. It seemed to be working but now I'm feeling crappy again. It probably also has something to do with waking up before 5 am two days in a row.

Last night I found a great kite store and bought a small dragon kite and another hawk kite. Next door was a hotpot restaurant. There's no such thing as boneless, skinless here. You get it all in your pot. As I picked out the chicken feet and neck parts, I knew it was only time before a head would roll over in my broth and look up at me. I wasn't in the mood for beak, so I took it out too. Other than that, another great meal with a big beer for 25 Yuan ($3.)