South East Asia

This article is from Angie Whitehead. Check her website at http://www.srilankaundiscovered.co.uk

Sri Lanka–Shanghai (via Malaysia, Borneo, Philippines,Thailand) Feb-April 2008)

Malaysia/Borneo

(exchange rate 1 US$ =3.50 MYR;1 GBP=7 MYR;1 Euro= 5 MYR
                                                                                             Malaysian Ringgits MYR)
I flew from Bandaranaike Int’l Airport, Colombo to Kuala Lumpur with Sri Lankan Airlines 7.30 am flight.  This took 3 ½ hours but with a time change of 2 hours we arrived at 13.30.  Malaysian visas are free and valid for 3 months.  A shuttle bus costing 1.5 MYR took me on the one-hour journey to LCCT airport, the terminal for Air Asia.

Air Asia is a budget airline and this terminal was crowded and basic, not smart like KL international.  After a fish burgher meal at the omnipresent East Asian McDonald’s (cost  7 MYR) I checked in for Kuching (City of Cats), the capital of Sarawak, and the plane left at 17.00.  It was growing dark when we descended towards Borneo, the sky was stormy looking and the jungle-clad coastline looked ominous.  A special landing-card was issued free, good for my stay in Borneo.  I took a taxi into town to the Ko Phik hotel, recommended by Lonely Planet.  The room had a private bathroom but was noisy and cold (it was the rainy season in Borneo!) and cost 50 MYR.  The next day I moved to the Fata Hotel, where I had a large room with a/c, TV, private bathroom and view over a park, all this for 62 MYR.  It was a Chinese-owned hotel with an attached restaurant for breakfast and other meals.  (Chinese are the majority group in Borneo)

A pleasant Chinese receptionist named Mary arranged for 2 trips – the Orang Utan park and a Dayak longhouse on the Kalimantan border and then a visit to the Cat Museum and 2 National Parks – Gading and Matang.  I took these individual trips since the various travel agencies in town did not have enough tourists to get together any trips! 

Semanggoh Wildlife Centre is a breeding area for Orang Utans and the public can watch them swinging down from trees to feed at a large wooden table in the forest.  It was raining when I went and only 4 orang utans came down to feed here.  23 orang utans actually live here and there is also an area where they rear crocodiles to see.   I then visited 2 long houses near the Kalimantan (Indonesian) border.  These are collections of houses built on wooden platforms and all joined together where extended families live in groups. 

The Cat Museum was excellent, housed  in the Civic Centre, on a hill overlooking the town .  Everything conceivable to know about cats was here!  Matang Wildlife Centre was interesting and involved an hour-long walk through the jungle to view various animals on the way.  I was the only person here!  Later on in Gading  National Park I attempted to walk up to a volcano and met 2 other people coming down; but they said it was too far and they couldn’t reach the volcano, so I also turned back without getting there!  It was not raining but there were lots of leeches about as the ground was damp! 

Kuching is a pleasant city on the banks of the Sarawak river with an attractive waterfront (having restaurants, cafes etc and even a display of local dancing).  The Cat Statue in the town centre opposite McDonalds is well worth a photo and a boat ride across the river takes you to Fort Margarita, close to the residence of the white Rajah James Brook.  This area is noted for its Malay kampong houses, built of wood and painted in pretty pastel colours. 

On an early evening cruise down the Sarawak River I met Art from Canada and Ray from UK .  We had dinner together – the Malaysian staple of Nasi Goreng (fried rice with assorted vegetables and egg)  and the next morning I joined them on a trip to Damai to see the Sarawak Cultural Village. 

The entrance fee of 80 MYR included a performance of Dayak dancing  and demonstrations of traditional arts and crafts in traditional houses.  I also had a swim in the South China Sea from the nearby beach, fringed by small islands and backed by tropical jungle.

My next stop was Kota Kinabulu in Sabah, which I reached with Air Asia again on a short flight.  It is not far from the airport to the town centre and I took a taxi to the Kinabalu Daya hotel.  My room on the 10th floor had private bathroom, a/c, TV and a view of the harbour.  Breakfast was included for MYR 137.  I dined on the waterfront in an open air café with benches and tables – mee goreng (fried noodles with vegetables and egg) cost MYR 2. 

Malaysia is famous for its night markets and Sabah is no exception.  I made my way back to the hotel through piles of goods of all description.  There are not many great sites in Kota Kinabalu apart from a typical British clock-tower and a view from the hill-top over the harbour and the islands.  These islands form Tunku Abdul Rahman national park and I took a boat out to visit one called Manati.  This was more a tourist resort than a national park with lots of locals ( and a few foreigners) on the beach. 

There was a turtle museum and a walk through the jungle to a lookout point, which took about 1 hour.  At this point I realized that my ears were finally blocked up  so in the evening I went to a private clinic recommended by the hotel to see a doctor.  She unblocked one and gave some drops for the other, suggesting I consult another doctor to unblock this one in the Philippines (my next stop).  For this she took MYR 100.  By the way she was Malay and wearing national dress of lunghi (long skirt) teamed with matching blouse.  (Malays and Indians often wear traditional clothes, Chinese western clothes.) But when I saw the state of the Philippines next day I decided to leave the other ear blocked up for the moment!

Comment :  Malaysian Borneo (Sarawak and Sabah) are very modern and
westernized, although Islamic in religion.  English is  well spoken everywhere and the majority of the population are of Chinese ethnic origin.  In the parts I visited (near the coast) the infrastructure was good, although in the interior you have to get small planes to penetrate the jungle areas.  Costs are reasonable compared with the West, though Sabah is more expensive than Sarawak (maybe because it is next to the Sultanate of Brunei!).  It was cloudy and raining on and off in Sarawak with temperatures of around 24 – 27 deg. C, but  dry and sunny in Sabah with slightly higher temperatures.  Time zone is Hong Kong minus 1 hour so sunrise is at around 6.30 am and sunset around 7 pm. 

Philippines

(exchange rate 1 GBP = 80 PHP; 1 US$ = 40 PHP; 1 Euro = 60 PHP Philipino Peso PHP)

After a 2 hour Air Asia flight from Kota Kinabulu over a sea flecked with numerous islands, I arrived in Manila mid afternoon and was given a 3 week visa free at Clark International Airport.  There are no ATMs at this airport so I changed some US $ for cash to pay the Philtranco coach into Manila city centre.  The  smart air-con coach was waiting outside and left at 5 pm.  The journey of 70 km took 3 ½ hours, starting through pretty paddy fields and finishing in horrendous traffic and poor-looking suburbs in the dark.  I was dropped at the Philtranco depot and the driver helped me to get a taxi to my hotel at Ermita, near Manila Bay waterfront.

Pensionne Natividad was behind locked gates with an armed guard and homeless people camped out on the pavement outside.  My room was very basic but did have a private bathroom and fan and cost US$ 20  or 1000 PHP.  They don’t normally provide food other than breakfast but rustled up an expensive  toasted cheese sandwich for me.   Morning arrived and Manila looked far worse in the cold light of day.  I walked past the homeless people on the pavement – naked  children were being washed at a roadside tap, beggars were groaning and cocks were crowing (the national bird of the Philippines as they enjoy cock fighting)

A threatening atmosphere seemed to hang over the place, such as I had not experienced before on my travels.  I spent most of the day walking about, visiting  areas of interest, such as Rizal Park (pretty gardens with fountains), Malati and Intramuros  (Manila Cathedral, an old Spanish Fort and museum by the River Pasig, opposite which  the bank was covered with shacks overhanging the river).  Pursued by traffic fumes I returned to the hotel; here they had cooked a special dinner of mixed rice with tofu. 

I got into conversation with an Englishman and a German, both married to Philipinas.  I never met their wives but they chatted on about them and how they had rescued them from lives of slavery as housemaids in Europe.  The Englishman claimed to own an island  but I never saw that either.  He did however direct me to the Swagman Hotel, an Australian owned place which runs tours to Mindoro Island.  So the next day I went up there and booked a trip, which included the jeepney ride and ferry fare.  I visited  the National Museum to escape the heat and fumes, which seemed to contain  mainly Chinese artifacts.  Across the road from this was a park full of homeless people and beggars and then the water front again with a small beach also clogged with homeless ones.  Sadly there seems to be no national dress so these people are wearing ragged western clothes. 

The jeepney (brightly painted bus) to Batangas ferry port took the main highway out of Manila, again clogged with traffic though it was a Sunday.  On the way we passed a volcano, which was nice.  After a one hour crossing we reached the small town of Puerto Galera on Mindoro Island.  A man from Villa Sabang met me and showed me to the hotel, which was built on a hillside overlooking the bay.  Most of the rooms were empty and I had been booked a very large one with attached kitchen and bathroom!  This cost PHP 2000 which I though was a lot.  But this hotel was Australian owned .  There was a restaurant and a swimming pool, mainly used for diving practice.  Puerta Galera is a diving centre with a series of small cove-like beaches and lots of touts.  It is also a centre for male sex tourism and has lots of middle aged and old men with Philipino girls – in fact I have never seen so many men with so many young girls anywhere, not even in Thailand! 

The boat back to Batangas was bigger and more crowded and the road to Manila even more clogged with traffic.  I nearly missed the connecting coach to Angeles City, where I had decided to spend 2 nights (this is close to Clark Airport).   But I made it and arrived  there just before sundown, getting myself a spacious room with bathroom , TV and a/c at the Earth/Sun Hotel for PHP 1000 (the Swagman Hotel in Angeles City, again Australian owned, cost double the price for a small, hot, windowless room).  They even managed to do dinner and breakfast too, though Philipino food seems to be very poor – either fast food western style or some sort  of wishy-washy rice.  And the coffee is that 3 in 1 stuff in sachets straight from Singapore!  Not realizing this was yet another den of sex tourism I wandered out for a walk and then wondered why there were so many girls hanging out in the street…

Next day I wanted to visit a volcano but as the transport cost was so high and there were no tours on offer I settled for visiting S and M.  No it’s not what you thought (after all this IS the Philippines) but an air-con shopping mall complete with Internet cafes and McDonalds.  I caught a motorbike rickshaw back, an exclusive Philipino transport method which lets you breathe in even more traffic fumes for your money.  So it was not without some thankfulness that I boarded Air Asia again bound non-stop for KL – a 3 ½ hour flight. 

Comment :  Philippines has a lot of islands so there must be some nicer ones than Luzon and Mindoro where I went.  It does not seem to have any proper culture, costumes  or customs and a sort of Mexican American English is very widely spoken, which makes for easy communication of course.   I understand the population is close on 90 million and now I see why so many work overseas, sending money home. There seems to be an all-pervasive laziness – it took a travel agency girl nearly 2 hours to change my flight  ticket, with lots of cajoling and a promised tip.  And there is that eternal question found in all poor countries – Philippines good?  Costs are much higher than in other S E Asian countries and value for money is poor.  Weather was hot and mainly sunny,  around 28-30 deg.C. Sunrise is around 6 am, sunset 7 pm.

Malaysia (Peninsula)

It’s a 3 ½ hour flight from Clark Manila to LCCT at KL.  KL’s airports are very far from the city centre so a shuttle bus took me there (around 1 hour) for 9 MYR, dropping me at the Sentral railway station.  I took a hotel in the Puduraya area, having been touted by an Indian, on the make for commission. 

A room with bathroom (faulty plumbing with WC flooding the floor when flushed, indicating the hotel ownership!), a/c, TV and window with view over the street.  I mention this as some cheaper Malaysian hotels are noted for their lack of windows.  The hotel served no food so I ate at a nearby South Indian restaurant (vegetable thali and a bottle of water cost 7 MYR) ; not surprisingly I was the only female customer.  I know KL fairly well so I took a stroll round nearby ChinaTown and then bought a bus ticket to the Cameron Highlands for the next day.  Puduraya is the name of the main bus station, by the way. 

The morning bus took  4 ½ hours to  reach the Cameron Highlands, a hill-country area about 150 km north-east of KL.  As it meandered through jungle, we passed many wooden houses built on stilts, busy small towns and, as we climbed higher, tea estates.  End of the line was a larger town in a wider valley , where another Indian tout took me to the Cameron Inn (this was in fact run by Chinese).  I had a small, dark room with private bathroom for 60 MYR, with a light bulb as dim as those in Ethiopia and what seemed like the hotel laundry outside the window!  The guest house was full of tourists, both western and Malay, as was the whole town.  I teamed up with 2 ladies from Singapore to walk (trek would be the modern term) to a waterfall (called Robinson’s Fall – the British influence is omnipresent in Malaysia) on the edge of the town.  The tourist board gave us maps for 4 MYR and we passed a blackberry farm (!) on the way.  I stuck to South Indian food again for dinner – this time thosai (a large spicy pancake) and vegetable curries  for 5 MYR. 

Malaysia has a good range of foods –  South Indian, Malay, Chinese and western. – and restaurant prices are reasonable.  The bus back to KL took 5 hours (it was an old bus which broke down on the way and we had to change buses) and upon arrival I checked into a better standard hotel – the Puduraya which is on 13th floor above the bus station and cost MYR 105 (room with fantastic view of the city, bathroom, TV and a/c, even breakfast was included).  It is a business hotel and I appeared to be the only western person staying.  A taxi to KL International Airport (took 1 ½ hours) set me back 90  MYR and a shuttle train took me from the check-in to the departure terminal.

 
Comment :  Peninsula Malaysia has much more of an ethnic mix than Borneo and there are a lot of South Indians in KL and in the Cameron Highlands.  My visit coincided with the run-up to elections and the atmosphere was more tense than usual; other ethnic groups (Indians and Chinese) seem to feel they are disfavoured by the Malays who hold most of the government posts.

 
Thailand

(exchange rate 1 GBP = 62 Baht; 1 US$ = 31 Baht; 1 Euro = 52 Baht)

In Bangkok I stayed at the Sathorn Inn in Silom, not far from the main shopping street and the Skytrain station.  This cost 950 Baht for a room with private bathroom, TV, a/c and balcony.  Breakfast was around 50 Baht extra and other meals could also be taken in the restaurant.  As it’s a Chinese-owned hotel  there was some fuss about payment – Chinese establishments often want the whole payment in advance, but we came to an agreement! 

Bangkok is always very hot and this visit was no exception.  I spent most of the first day researching onward travel to China, then arranging for visa and tickets.  What free time was left  I spent  sitting in the shade in Lumbini Park (this has a pleasant lake with duck-shaped boats on it) and walking round the Pat Pong area – 2 small roads off Silom which were once the red light district of Bangkok but now look somewhat innocuous as they have been overshadowed by one of S E Asia’s ubiquitous night markets, which begins around 5 pm.  Even vegetables and fruits are sold at these and the pavement was slippery with water and mud (although it was the dry season – this was due to the veges and fruits!).  I slipped and fell on my knees, didn’t go back to the hotel quickly enough to slap on the septex (excellent Sri Lankan antiseptic) and suffered with septic knees for the next 3 weeks! 

Having another day to spare in Bangkok while I waited for my China visa I took the wonderfully clean and modern Skytrain  to Sathorn Pier (only 4 stops I think) on the Chao Praya river, where I caught a boat along with lots of western tourists (there are always lots of tourists in Bangkok by the way whatever the season) to Wat Arun, the Temple of the Dawn.  You can climb right to the top of the pagoda but I only made it half way, but nonetheless got a good view over Bangkok.  Taking  a  boat back across the river I landed near the Emerald Palace and Wat Po, lunching on  vegetable fried rice with egg (my staple food in S E Asia) for 80 Baht in my favourite café.  (You can get this cheaper but this is the main temple tourist area).  I wandered wound Wat Po and talked with a cat and some Indian tourists.  Returning to Silom to collect my ticket and China visa I stopped off to get my teeth cleaned – an excellent job was done for 900 Baht in a smart, modern clinic.  Oh the wonders of Asia!

My flight to Guilin in South East China with Bangkok Airways (Asia’s Boutique Airline with a Boutique-like price also!) was in the late afternoon so I had plenty of time to admire the wonders of Suwabhamuni, Bangkok’s relatively new and much criticized airport.  Taxi to the airport cost 300 Baht, which included the motorway toll.

Comment :  It is always nice to visit  Bangkok, a charming blend of old and new, rich and poor, western and eastern cultures.  There are so many foreigners here from all over the world that you never feel out of place.  Traffic fumes are the downside of course and it is better not to get the brightly painted tuk-tuks (open taxis) as they often cost more than proper taxis.  Temperature is around 30-34 deg C, slightly less at night (the sun is not there), but humidity is high. Sunrise is at 6 am, sunset at 6 pm. 

China

(exchange rate 1 GBP = 14 RMB/Yuan ;1 US$ = 7 RMB ; 1 Euro = 10 RMB)

It was dark and raining heavily when I arrived in Guilin, South East China, after a 2 hour flight and a 2 hour time change to put us on Beijing Time (good for the whole of China).  The luggage took a long time to arrive and then my credit card got stuck in the only ATM – not a very good start.  The tourist information counter was English speaking and got me a taxi into town.  I paid cash – the lady driver accepted 20 US$, which was probably too much.  Hotel Fu-bo, opposite the Li River, had been booked by the Bangkok travel agency and I had a voucher for it.  I noticed that the price quoted on the wall by the reception desk was more than double what I had paid and later found out this is standard practice in all this part of eastern China; I guess you are supposed to bargain?  The room was excellent  (large with private bathroom, TV ( with Channel 9 – China World Service in English), a/c/heating, amazing lights and so on, all activated from a central console by the bed; be it Tibet or Thailand,  Shanghai or Kuching, wherever you find a Chinese hotel, you will find this same format – so easy for travellers!    Downside -  the room cost around US$ 40, more than twice what I usually like to pay when travelling.  And it was so cold I needed heating not a/c and this did not seem to work properly!  Breakfast was not included in the price and cost 65 Yuan extra – I was the only person in the dining room, not surprisingly. 

Well, Guilin is China and China is hustle and bustle and huge Chinese tour groups everywhere, so that is what I found when leaving the hotel and crossing to look at the world famous Li river flanked by limestone pinnacles.  The whole world seemed to be here, but of course it was only a tiny part of the Chinese world….Modern China hit me in the face as usual – a parody of the west adapted to their own needs and taste.  And below on the riverside path remained the old China – women washing clothes in the cold water of spring-time, men trundling carts of coal and wood (for heating and cooking I suppose).  Spring was here, I had left the tropics behind during that 2 hour flight north-east from Bangkok.  Another world was here, another climate zone, another way of life.  OK local people wear western clothes in Thailand but they are summer clothes, here it was winter clothes.  (Summer clothes don’t come out till Mid-May in China, even if you get a warm spell of weather.)  So I rushed back to get my fur-hooded, padded, waterproof jacket, bought in Beijing last Spring for 4 Euros.  And it was windproof too against the freezing draught which blew across the river. 

Guilin is a very big town – city in fact – as all Chinese towns are.  It is attractively laid out with lovely parks – spring flowers, waterfalls, lakes and so on. – as well as loads of shops, banks (lucky for me as I needed some cash), cafes and (surprisingly) travel agents.  There were so many travel agents I was spoiled for choice but no actual tourist office.  I was planning to stay longer and needed to change my room so I did this via an English-speaking travel agent and moved to the Golden Elephant which cost Yuan 200 for a room with bathroom, TV, a/c and view over another building!  My neighbours were all Chinese and in true Asian way left their doors open most of the time so they could run in and out of each other’s room and chat!  No western food was served in the Korean restaurant, called Arirang (in honour of Ariane my daughter?) . After an awful dinner (I really don’t like East Asian food) I gave breakfast a miss and bought biscuits to eat in my room with the ubiquitous flask of water and jasmine tea bags provided in Chinese hotels. 

Right opposite the hotel was Elephant Hill Park, a very attractive area overlooking the Li River.  The Chinese are good at everything but especially parks!  I chose another travel agent and arranged my onward travel tickets with Robert, a fluent English-speaker and probably from Hong Kong (this place is not far away and probably accounts for the high prices in this area of China).  He even managed to get me a flight to Paris from Shanghai (usually in China you have to go to the place from where you want to start the journey, i.e. Shanghai in this case). For the price of Yuan 4000 (Yuan 5000 had been quoted at another travel agency). I was so pleased that I bought an excursion ticket to visit Longmen rice terraces and villages of the Meo ethnic minority.  This was a great excursion – a coach with mainly Chinese and a few foreigners so at least we got some input in English.  I teamed up with an Australian couple on their way to Cambodia and we hiked/trekked for 2 hours in the hills, helped on the way by persistent old women with bright pink socks and bright pink sashes around their knee-length skirts and carrying large baskets attached to bright pink bands around their heads (swathed in turbans as they never cut their hair).  After a performance of local dancing and another trek across a rickety swing bridge we returned to Guilin.

The next day I took the boat to Yangshuo, a  4 hour journey in a tourist boat especially set up for foreigners (cost Yuan 400 which included an insipid lunch which I shared with an Indian family from Hong Kong who were also vegetarians!).  The scenery of limestone pinnacles was magnificent but the rain was often quite heavy.  At Yangshuo it was raining very heavily and  the hotel booked by the agency was nor good.  Having paid in advance as usual I stayed for one night and then moved to a lovely place called  River View.  Indeed I had a great view of the Li River (Li Jiang), large room, private bathroom, heating (not working), TV including Channel 9 and balcony.  This cost Yuan 150 and was worth it!  Food was excellent – western and Chinese.  Yangshuo is a  very large town, although described in the Lonely Planet as a sleepy small place!  Part of it is very commercialized and aimed at tourism both Chinese and International.  There are heaps of shops and restaurants and hotels and everything, including street markets and so on.  Green Lotus Hill Park gives a good view over the whole area and good walkers can get around most places on foot.  To go a bit further I hired a bike for Yuan 10 per day. I cycled along the river bank and out into the countryside – through paddy (rice) fields past small farms and villages and orange groves and barking dogs, the whole reminiscent of Andalucia in Southern Spain.  The weather was cool (18-20 deg) but fine for cycling. 

My next stop was to be Xian and I got a taxi from Yangshuo to Guilin Airport – this was provided by the hotel.  As usual in China if you get a good hotel/guest house with an English speaker everything will be fine because they arrange onward and local travel for you; all this can be a problem if you don’t speak much Mandarin. 
The scenic journey, spoilt again by rain, took 2 hours and cost Yuan 200.  At the airport I was able to recover my lost credit card from the bank in whose ATM it had got stuck and then was on my way to Xian. 

Sadly the agency forgot to pick me up at the Airport but the helpful tourist office phoned them and they met the airport bus (cost Yuan 27) when it arrived at the Bell Tower in the centre of town.  Bell Tower Hostel has private rooms costing Yuan 180 with view over the Bell Tower Square, private bathroom, TV, heating (not working again).  Meals are extra and western breakfast cost around Yuan 22.  Xian is a very big city of around 6 million people and the famous Terracotta Warriors are outside the city limits.  I took a tour costing Yuan 300 and was in a minibus with  Dutch people and 1 Hong Kong Chinese. On the way we visited a factory making life-size stone warriors (priced at 12000 Yuan), the Emperor Qin’s tomb (at 2 km distance from the warrior pits so that he couldn’t be discovered to pillage the tomb).  There are 3 huge pits containing the warriors and their horses, the first one being the most impressive.  The whole is set in a pretty park with mini trains for the lazy to avoid walking. 

Other highlights of Xian include the city walls 13 km long which you can cycle around  and which mark the start of the Silk Road via Xinjiang to the Middle East and so to Europe, the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, dating from 7th century AD, the Forest of Steles (stone tablets) museum, the Hui (Muslim) quarter, complete with souk and mosque (a blend of Chinese and Muslim architecture in a pretty garden with cats, the Bell Tower and the Drum Tower.  It had been my initial plan to take the Silk Road from here back to Europe but finances (or rather lack of them) cut this short, so I took a flight down to Shanghai, which I reached at 23.30 after a 2 ½ hour flight.

Pudong airport may be modern but it was scary at night and I was harassed by touts while trying to get a taxi to town.  I finally found a metered taxi and it cost me the dreadful price of Yuan 260. The drive through concrete tunnels was fast and furious and scary and the hotel turned out to be in a pedestrian street, Nanjing Road.  East Asia Hotel Reception was on the 2rd floor above a tailor’s shop and my room was on the 5th floor – large room, private bathroom, TV with Channel 9, heating (working this time) and view onto a central well!  All this for Yuan 280; costs increase the further east you move in China.  Buffet breakfast was an extra Yuan 25 and here I met Florence, on holiday from Hong Kong with her mother.  Shanghai was much warmer than Xian and after a chilly river cruise on the Huang Ho (I needed my Chinese jacket for this one)  I managed to strip down to a t-shirt to complete the sightseeing. 

The Bund is the path/road which runs along the waterfront and gives superb views of Pudong, the island with all the skyscraper buildings for which Shanghai has become famous.  The road side of the Bund is lined which ex-Colonial buildings from UK such as banks and customs houses.  Shanghai has an excellent museum with free entry, the usual lovely parks and gardens and  I discovered one quarter called Yuyuan which was supposed to be old but looked like a westernized  shopping area to me.  Ah the wonders of progress…With my usual dislike of  East Asian food I ate in McDonalds (fish burgher, chips and coke here I come again for Yuan 15).  Some of the street food is OK though like baked potatoes or Muslim pancakes or doughnuts! 

East Asia Hotel got me an airport car  for Yuan 150 when I left to catch the night flight to Paris with China Eastern – best avoided next time I think, as it was jam packed full and had no in-flight entertainment.  Imagine a 12 hour flight (the longest I have ever done) with no movies, no music, just non-stop screaming babies (why are they always near me?).

Comment :  China is always interesting but the east is a lot more expensive than the west.  Because of this maybe English is much more widely spoken and there are more western tourists about (proximity to Hong Kong makes for this also).  Shanghai is close to Korea and Japan, also high cost destinations.  In general people are quite reserved, like western people, although I have been told that beards on men and fat people in general can attract a lot of attention. Fortunately these don’t apply to me.  Chinese people are generally slim though that may well change if they keep going to McDonalds….Weather was cool and rainy a lot of the time, as this was the spring season.  In general China is a modern, westernized country with pockets of poverty .  Women form an integral part of all life and often it is young women who come forward to speak English rather than young men in the more traditional countries.  All the hotels I stayed in seemed to have females in charge of air con/heating, TV, plumbing and any other such problems!  This is a far cry from the Indian or Middle Eastern way of life….Still diversity is the stuff of life – whoever said we all have to be the same?