The Great Wall! 

Sunset on the road to Shanhaiguan 

Beidaihe coastline 

Natural Skylights at Yellow Mountain Caves

Pu Tong Khwa...! (The old language)

I've only been here about a week and here's some of the peculiarities I've noticed in China already. It's a great place most of the time... comfortable, clean and the people are polite... but somethings stand out pretty glaringly... and are often funny for the western traveller!

- One symbolic example: While travelling from Beijing to Beidaihe by train, we chanced upon a volume control panel for the speakers that were piping music into the rail car. Using the term "volume control panel" is a bit of an exaggeration - what it really was, was a single switch with just two settings - 'On' or 'Off'!

- Yesterday while on our way to dinner, we stopped at the Hard Rock Cafe in Beijing to grab something to drink. It was quite obviously an old public building of sorts and carried this huge sign on the front. Now I'm sure they meant it to sound differently when read in Mandarin but the English translation was probably a little too direct: "No Drugs or Nuclear Weapons Allowed!" Delphy couldnt help joke about how he'd now have to leave his backpack outside with the valet - "Oh.. I thought this place didnt discriminate against people with weapons of mass destruction!"

Now you have to understand that Mandarin is a language that deals in concepts - for example 'Taxi' is actually "rented car" and 'Shop' is "products/ goods building". So you're often putting two existing concepts together to make up new ones. They use the words "Steel"+"Ground" to indicate railway tracks and so on and so forth. So these next two examples shouldnt be all that funny to understand. Unfortunately the translations written underneath are often direct english equivalents of what is being promoted and so you have these grammatical gaffes:

- A sticker on the side of an SUV: 'Jeep Off Road Package'

- But my personal favourite was an ad-sign for a new apartment building coming up around the Central Business District (CBD): 'Exquisite platform viewing for far Beijing'

Make Poverty History!

Sometimes the simplest gesture makes the most impact. Do it yourself - you'll see how. Snap your fingers, once every three seconds. Do it about 5 times. It'll only take you 15 seconds. Go on, do it.

Did you do it? Did you snap your fingers five times, once every three seconds? Now do it again, it's only fifteen more seconds... but this time keep this in mind: every snap of your finger is one kid, dying somewhere in the world because he or she is just too poor to live. How long can you keep it going? How long does it take till you begin to understand that there really are children, somewhere in the world, who just died as you snapped you finger?

The Make Poverty History Campaign is one of the most significant movements of our generation. Our generation has the wonderful opportunity to say that we stopped poverty because we spoke out. That we stopped the stupid, debilitating effects of insufficient aid, crippling debt and unfair trade so that millions of people who share our dreams and aspirations to a decent living, could someday in the near future grow with equal opportunties just like us.

For more information on the Make Poverty History Campaign, visit: http://www.makepovertyhistory.org/. Spend some time there to learn more about how you can help. They dont want your money - just your voice.

To watch the short videos of the campaign online, click here: http://www.makepovertyhistory.org/video/

Tolerance... Acceptance... Unity...

There's huge debate going around back in India and there are no prizes for guessing that it's about politics. Why does it annoy me? You have the leader of our opposition party change his mind about something he's believed in from the time he was a young man. He was brought up to believe that Mohd. Ali Jinnah - the man believed to be responsible for thousands of deaths, 58 years ago and tens of thousands more, even today, was the enemy. That it was because of his vision - a separate state for Muslims - Pakistan; that India still finds itself trapped in the ongoing Kashmir issue with its neighbour. For over 6 decades, Mr. Advani believed that Jinnah was wrong all along. But today, he believes that Jinnah had a grander vision. And one that we should all aspire to!

So what annoys me is not that Advani has reversed his words. What annoys me is that when someone of his stature and of his political background has a change of heart, to strengthen, ease and promote peace between the two countries, everyone is up in arms over it.They say that he has betrayed them. Yes, he has - from their point of view. But as long as we continue to fight over who's political ideology remains supreme, as long as winning a war of words is prioritised over winning hearts and minds, we can never have peace.

I've picked two short passages which I believe are so relevant to the issue today.

The first is by King Ehtelbert, a pagan, Saxon ruler of Kent, around 597 A.D. He met the monk Augustine as he set foot on the shores of England. Neither could speak the other's language and the priests who accompanied Augustine stepped forward as interpreters. After listening to Augustine's message, Ethelbert, seated on the bare ground addressed the group of 40 monks who faced him.
"Your words are fair, and your promises - but because they are new and doubtful, I cannot give my assent to them, and leave the customs which I have so long observe, with the whole Anglo-Saxon race. But because you have come hither as strangers from a long distance, and as I seem to myself to have seen clearly, that what you yourselves believed to be true and good, you wish to impart to us, we do not wish to molest you; nay, rather we are anxious to recieve you hospitably, and to give you all that is needed for you support, nor do we hinder you from joining all whom you can to the faith of your religion."
Augustine would later become the first Archbishop of Kent

The second, even more relevant, is from Jinnah himself. While standing up before the newly formed Constituent Assembly, to set forth the ideals upon which he envisioned Pakistan to function, he made, what according to me is among the most significant speeches on tolerance.
"If you change your past and work in a spirit that every one of you, no matter to what community he belongs, no matter what relations he had with you in the past, no matter what is his color, caste or creed, is first, second and last a citizen of this state with equal rights, privileges and obligations, there will be no end to the progress you will make. I cannot over-emphasize it too much. We shall begin to work in that spirit and in course of time all these angularities of the majority and minority communities, the Hindu community and Muslim community ... will vanish."
To this day, communal tensions tear at and divide the region.

If India wants to begin playing a more dominant role in global affairs and the global economy, we need to begin to look at how the world percieves what is happening in India. An article in the Financial Times of London talks about the latest political debate in India: http://news.ft.com/cms/s/c7019a64-d884-11d9-8fa7-00000e2511c8.html

Chang Chung & Lao Tong Tai

I was the last to wake up and consequently the last to reach the foyer of the hotel. We took a taxi from Shanghaiguan through the old city until we reached the foothills upon which the Chinese built their wall 600 years ago. Now at first glance, it seemed like a nice 1-2 hours walk up the hillside along the wall, until we reached the peak. I assumed we'd then get bored and then walk back down again. I definitely wasnt prepared!

about 30 minutes into the climb, my body was straining from the effort of having to pump blood to my aching legs and dizzy head (through 6 feet of lard!). It seemed like the Great Wall had won round 1. I vowed to fight it another day. So I sat down on the side of the wall and waited with two of the girls in the group while the other 6 had their fill. About ten mins later, Oliver (Canada) scampered back down and said that there were apparently some pools up at the top of the climb which we'd be able to swim in. Now I was sweaty and hot and tired and a nice cool mountain pool sounded like just the antidote for the condition I was in! So I laboured on, up the wall until we got to the top of the hill we were on. Now let's pause to recall that nursery rhyme from school - "The bear went up the mountain, the bear went up the mountain, the bear went up the mountain and then what did he see?" In that little ditty, the bear saw another mountain and having nothing better to do (and in our case, still no pools in sight!), "He climbed the other mountain, he climbed the other mountain, he climbed the other mountain....." And what I thought was going to be a quiet two hour hike wound up grinding on for nearly twice that time!

BUT! It was BLOODY WORTH IT! Anyone who's stood up on the great wall and gazed around them for miles upon miles of country side will tell you that single most rewarding experience is that last step before your breath gets taken away from you by sheer force from watching some of the most beautiful countrysides in the world from atop one of the most awe-inspiring man made wonders still around today. The reaction is pure adrenaline! TRY IT!

We then made our way down the hill on a 30-min cable care ride, 2 to a car. I sat with Sybil (Sui) who had spent the last ten years making her way around South East Asia, Europe & North America until finding some time to settle in China to learn Mandarin. The ride was so quiet, we could hear what was being said in the cars 30 meters behind us! At the end of a really interesting conversation, we boarded a bus shaped like a toy train that took us to a natural cave formation. Following a short hike through the caves, we called for taxis to take us to the Old Dragon's Head.

It was over here where our journey would end. We'd climbed for 4 long hours along a 4 kilometer stretch of the Great Wall. We'd scaled about 1500 meters of vertical height and had hiked for another 2 hours across diverse terrain to get to this one spot - where the wall met the ocean. The best part about it was that the adventure wasn't over yet! We managed to find a local guide who said that he would make the experience different for us. He delivered on his promise. Ten minutes later we found ourselves screaming at the top of our lungs, bouncing all over the place, strapped into life vests and being driven across the open sea in a motor boat! Our "guide", who knew a trick or two with the powerful motor in the back decided that a several sharp swerves over the rolling waves were just what these Lowai needed to give them their money's worth. He did however pull us to a stop just meters from where one of the greatest architectural marvels of the world ended quietly in the sea.

Our boat sat bobbing on the waves for several quiet minutes as we tried to take in everything that had happened to us over the last 48 hours. We'd swam in the Pacific ocean and sunbathed along a quiet beach for a whole afternoon. We then drove for about an hour to the next town where a star-spangled night on the beach was followed up with some boisterous KTV. A long, painful but spell-binding hike up the Great Wall preceeded a peaceful almost cathartic ride down a cable car and several hours after that, we had arrived at the place where it all supposedly began - at the edge of the Pacific Ocean in a small motor boat. 9 travellers from 9 countries who had bonded over the last two days over our common love for discovering.

I hope that Adam, Sybil, Fahti, Fadis, Hannah, Oliver, Ralph & Sheila find what they are looking for. Some of them I may meet again, but for some I might never have the pleasure of sharing another fascinating story with, but I know that it is with them that I began my journey in faraway China - and for all the years to come, I will know that It is with them that I learned that a real reward will always be in the journey and not the destination.

Travelling through the old country!

Close your eyes, breathe deep and think about China. You'd probably be thinking about the Great Wall or the Forbidden City or for those in love with food (and there are many of my kind!) you'd probably have pictured the world famous Peking Duck or noodles. And you'd probably think of a hundred other things before images of a sunny beach with blue waves lapping at the coast crosses your mind. Come to think of it, they probably never would have! Yet I find myself irresistably drawn to China's eastern coast just 2 days after I touch down in Beijing!

My journey began at 6:30 a.m. on the 4th of June. A three hour train ride from Beijing took our group of nine to Beidaihe along China's east coast. Now I must explain some of the compulsions behing agreeing to go to a beach in China when there's always places like those i mentioned above to check out. Especially since I'm half-goan. (To the uninitiated - do an image search on google for "Goa"). The truth is, i've never really spent much time on any beach, anywhere...! And now would have been as good a time as any! So here I was, at the end of the world, well almost, staring out into the vast Pacific ocean, going into the water every now and then and coming back to the shore to dry off under the warm sun. This went on for about 4 hours... maybe it was more, but I wouldn't have known either way because when you're with a group of travellers who have covered virtually every corner of the globe, you don't stop sharing stories or asking questions about what it must've been like to climb pyramids or scuba dive around corals or make a spiritual pit stop at Varanasi!

But it ended and so us Lowai (foreigners in Mandarin) hired a taxi to take us to Shanghaiguan, about an hour away - and where the Great Wall meets the ocean! A great dinner of traditional Chinese fare was followed up by a visit to the shore at about midnight! (Duck is GREAT!)

It was all so surreal for me! At the end of my third day in China, which i'd spent sunbathing on a quiet beach, I was now standing at the edge of the Pacific Ocean listening to the waves come in while I looked up at hundreds of thousands of stars filling up the sky. It couldn't get any more peaceful, and it didnt! We decided to do some KTV (or Karaoke). A local nightclub called Nasa, filled with posters of who seemed like China's 2nd most famous citizen after Chairman Mao - Yao Ming would keep our spirits up (literally!) for a few more hours. Good drinks, great music, lousy voices!

Sleep came at about 3 in the morning. Tomorrow I would see the great wall!