Thailand's Floating Market

An easy hour drive west of Bangkok brings you to an interesting tourist entertainment spot: Thailand's Floating Market. It is modeled after actual markets of old when the best, if not only, method of transportation was by water. Nowadays, they sell fresh vegetables, T shirts and anything else a tourist might need. It is a great place to let your camera lens feast. There are many bright colors and people shouting in a friendly fashion as the little boats try to maneuver around each others to take their tourists on a complete circuit of the little shopping area. You also can see it quite well by walking and there is a conveniently placed bridge for photographers. With a little luck you can get lunch during your tour of the Floating Markets, cooked for you on one of the Floating Kitchens in the Floating Market while you watch.

The Un-Restored Great Wall of China

No first tourist trip to China could be complete without a visit to the Great Wall of China. Our trip to the Great Wall was very special. We tramped one morning all over an un-restored section of the Great Wall. This is a section that the tourists do not usually see. When we were there, the only people walking this section of the Great Wall that day were those in our group of 16 plus one lone Chinese man. He came from ahead of us and skipped briskly along and kept on walking the Great Wall, as if this were just a walk in the Summer Palace. In any event, a walk along an un-restored part of the Great Wall of China is really special. Most tourists do not get here. Now we did hear that Bill and Hillary Clinton came here when they were in China, but most of the diplomatic guests go to the restored section of the wall at Ba-Da-Ling and do not visit the unrestored section of the Great Wall. A trip to the un-restored section of the Great Wall begins with a ride into the countryside. This un-restored section was also in the Ba-Da-Ling section, about 20 miles from the restored section to which most tourists are taken. We went past a number of army units drilling on the drive to the site. Just above is a picture of the entrance to the un-restored section of the Great Wall. There was no one really guarding it but then, who would they guard it from? We then walked on a pleasant hike up to a hole in the Great Wall, walked "through" the hole in the Great Wall and climbed up onto the walkway of this un-restored section of the Great Wall of China. Wow. It takes your breath away. This guardhouse was visible to us from a long way away and we felt we had really climbed quite a distance when we got to the foot of it. Soon, however, we had climbed up the walkway on the Great Wall enough so that we were even with the guardhouse and then high above it. It was awesome Truly, you have got to see this. The marvelous engineering of the Great Wall is eye popping. Its spectacularly beautiful setting - all on mountaintops, afterall, provides vistas that are a rival to any hiker's dream. The hiking was rough. You had to watch carefully where you stepped as many stones, laid centuries ago, had gone awry. But we were not in a hurry and it was well worth the slow climb on one of the wonders of the world. There was one other person on our trip. He was someone from the Chinese Army. They did not seem worried that we would "take pictures" of that military fortress, the Great Wall. So, we wondered why he had been there to greet us when arrived at the un-restored section of the Great Wall. It soon became evident. He helped everyone climb the un-restored sections. He would help one person, dash down, then help another. He had boundless energy and enthusiasm and we all appreciated having him along. We decided that he was the Chinese Good Will Ambassador to these 16 tourists. And quite a good Ambassador he was, too! We did go to the regular, restored section of the Great Wall at Ba-Da-Ling. Truthfully, it is quite awesome itself. It has, however, been painstakingly restored--probably is in better shape today than when they were worried about the Mongol hordes! There were hundreds of tourists on the restored section. That, to me, made the experience less remarkable than when we were by ourselves with the natural beauty of the un-restored section of the Great Wall. So, how would I rate the restored section of the Great Wall, with its tourists and giant Olympic slogans ("One World One Dream") ? It was spectacular. Not to be missed. But, of all the parts of the Great Wall of China that we saw, the UN-restored section was the best!

Shanghai's Jin Mao--Wow!

Shanghai is a beautiful place from which to start a tour of China. At least, that is what we did.

I asked around the hotel to find out which tall building is the best one to go up for a grand view. This is an important inquiry because Shanghai has many tall buildings and I always like to climb up to see the best view, whether in a cathedral, castle, town or big city. The consensus was that I should try the Jin Mao Tower. It was great advice. The 88th (top) floor is devoted entirely to tourist space. Thus, you can have a 360 degree view of Shanghai, the Huang Pu River and Pudong. This is, of course, fabulous.

The Jin Mao Tower is the third largest building in the world, 420.5 meters tall. It was built in 1999.

One of the most spectacular views anywhere is the view from the top of the Jin Mao Tower--from the 88th floor--down the INSIDE of the tower.

Here it is!

You can see down hundreds of feet and lean over to get a good view! Don't worry--you can't fall in, but it is not for the faint of heart!

Shanghai is a wonderful city to explore. The subways are clean, graffiti-free, air conditioned and easy to navigate (all the signs are in both Chinese and English). Moreover, whenever we looked puzzled (or like Westerners!), someone came up to assist us. It was marvelous.

A nice place for a walk is along the Bund. This is a long walk along the Huang Pu River. Shanghai is on one side of the river. Pudong is on the other. Sixteen years ago, Pudong was farmland; now due to a shift in government policy it has many huge skyscrapers, including Jin Mao Tower. One of the fellows we met told us that 5% of all of the world's construction cranes are working around Shanghai. I believe it.

This last daylight picture is from the Bund looking across the Huang Pu River traffic to the skyscrapers in Pudong.

Another fun thing to do is to see the Pudong River at night. We did it from the Jin Mao Tower--we arrived about 45 minutes before sundown and stayed for two hours. It was fabulous. Here is what you can see at night along the Bund.

If you are lucky, you can follow that up with a nice tourist boat ride along the river and under the stars. We did.

They are continuing to build spectacular new buildings. Here is a picture of the architect's idea of the Shanghai World Financial Center. It is now under construction, with completion scheduled for 2008. Like the Jin Mao Tower, it is located in the Lujiazhui financial district in Pudong.

The elegant 101-story skyscraper will be (for a moment, at least) the world's tallest when completed in early 2008. One of the biggest challenges of building tall is creating a structure that can withstand high winds.

The architects devised an innovation solution to alleviate wind pressure by adding a rectangular cut-out at the building's apex. Not only does the open area help reduce the building's sway but it also will be home to the world's highest outdoor observation deck -- a 100th-floor vista that will take vertigo to new heights.

And I was nervous looking down the inside of the Jim Mao Tower!

If you go to China, you must go to Shanghai. Don't worry, you'll love it.

Dragon Ships on the Yangtze River

Not every ship on the Yangtze River is a dragon ship--or has this much fun. In any event, a cruise along the Yangtze River in China is a beautiful experience. We traveled in October and had perfect weather and a very interesting time. One thing we enjoyed was just watching the shipping go by us, headed upstream, while we went downstream. It is a very busy river and the traffic is carefully spaced, too, because many of the areas are too narrow for "passing lanes." For passengers, there are the cruise ships, like the dragon ship. There are many of these along the river, providing a variety of tours and services, but all showing the visitors the beauty of the Three Gorges and this portion of the Yangtze River. The other principal type of craft for passengers is a hydrofoil. We saw a number of these, too. One day, a hydrofoil went past us, just as it was also passing a freighter. There is also a variety of smaller craft along the Yangtze and its tributaries. Here are a number of small craft waiting to take tourists up one of the smaller gorges These new, smaller gorges have actually been created by the rising level of the River behind the Three Gorges Dam. Before we took one of those small craft, however, we had departed from our Victoria Lines cruise ship for a medium sized cruise ship that took us up this smaller gorge. The views were spectacular and the gorges re very steep. I wished I had had a wide angle camera lens with me! As one travels through the gorges, there is no let up to the vessels coming up stream. Their cargoes are quite varied: container ships, trucks loaded onto huge ferries, freighters carrying grain, iron ore and other products. There is no disputing that this is a major transpotation method between Shanghai and Chungqing. Finally, here is a picture looking downstream in one of the Three Gorges, with a freighter in the distance coming toward us. We spent 4 nights on our Yangtze River cruise and had a ball.

The Black Pearl

At first, all we saw was the shadowy shape of an old sailing ship,hidden back in the island by the fog and the mist. What is it? Then we saw the crow's nest and, as we stopped our car and peered inland, we could see that the fog was moving away. But the ship was still cloaked in mystery.

We were near Freeport, Grand Bahama, on a little trip over to visit a nice Bahamian island from Florida.

We had rented a car and were enjoying a ride around the island. We had been out to West End and had a beer and a snack at the little restaurant there.

On our way back, we saw the ghost ship. It was like seeing the FLying Dutchman materialize in front of your eyes!

It was far away on the other side of a canal that had been dug with future real estate development in mind. We hopped back in our car and drove around dirt roads for a while looking for the road down to the canal of the ghost ship.

Suddenly, there she was, right in front of us. Why it was just as if Jack Sparrow himself was welcoming us to his version of the Caribbean. But Jack was nowhere to be found. Instead, there was a young man. "It's the Black Pearl," he announced. "You know, from 'The Pirates of the Caribbean.'"

"Shiver me timbers, lad!" is what I thought. Yes, it was the Black Pearl. The real Black Pearl. Well, it was the real Black Pearl from the movie.

The young man gave us a long and thorough tour of the Black Pearl. Actually, it was a movie prop. It was floating on a barge and was a steel, wood and plastic mock up the Black Pearl. Even the broken window panes were plastic--as was the sludge that had grown on the Black Pearl during her years under water.

The next morning, our guide explained, the owners were going to tow the Black Pearl (on its barge of course) over to another Bahamain island. There it was destined to serve the rest of its days not with Davey Jones but entertaining tourists.

We enjoyed climbing all over the ship and having our pictures taken with the ghost of Jack Sparrow. Yes, we climbed all over the Black Pearl and lived to tell about it.

Quite a voyage!

Thai Umbrellas

Traveling around Asia, we encountered a lot of interesting shops and outlet places to sell tourists the souvenirs that we need.

We saw a lot of very nice speciality tourist souvenir places. These varied from places with fabulous teak furniture and wall carvings to stores with jade and other jewelry offerings. We saw ceramic works--and saw how they were made. We visited a silk factory and saw how little cocoons became beautiful silk factory. Each place had its own speciality.

One of my favorites was the place that specialized in umbrellas. Big ones, small ones, or hundreds of the same with your logo on it for that special wedding or company occasion. You could get them any color and with any design, from the King's insignia to an ancient dragon.

This lady specialized in lavender umbrellas. I expected the Three Stooges to jump out from under the pile of lavender at any moment. But, it was just the lady and her lavender umbrellas.

Don't you wish you had one?

Canals and Locks--Thailand and China

When we were in Thailand, we enjoyed a lot of tours on the water. This is what we do everywhere and it helps you to see a country from a different "angle."

For example, in Bangkok you can tour the canals that go through residential areas. In this picture, we are on our narrow canal boat waiting for the guillotine style lock to be raised all the way up so that we can go into this residential canal. This canal is lower than the river that flows through Bangkok; hence the need for the locks, to prevent flooding.

In China, we saw the massive locks they have built for the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River. Each of these locks is the size of a Panama Canal lock. At the Panama Canal, there are two lanes of six locks each. Here, there are two lanes of five locks each--so the lock portion of this dam project is quite a feat itself.

Look how far down they had to dig to allow the locks to be down at the level of the water below the dam--and above it. There are ships in the lock, way down below my left shoulder!

It is a mammoth project.

Closer to Shanghai, we took a train trip to Suzhou. One of the things you can do there is take a trip on the Grand Canal--one designed by a long ago Emperor to connect the moist south with the arid north.

You can tour local canals in Suzhou, too. It is another marvel that this old canal has survived so many centuries.

On the other hand, it appears that the local officials are amazed that the tourists have survived so long with the local gondoliers! Just take a look at the rules that are posted if you wish to take a local canal ride. I like the last line, especially.

So, all in one trip to Bangkok and China we saw some of the world's simplest and oldest canals and locks and some of its most modern.

Artistic Elephants

Riding an elephant is actually fun. This is what we discovered, somewhat to our surprise, when we went riding on an elephant somewhere near Chiang Mai in northern Thailand. It is easy to get into your sedan chair from the wooden platform. After that, all you have to do is to provide bananas and bamboo for the elephant to eat. Now, our elephant did not trundle along too quickly, mind you, but we eventually made a giant circle and arrived back (near the elephant food) where we had started, after about a 45 minute walk. Our elephant was very sure footed when walking up and down rugged terrain. After our elephant walk, the elephant walked around to the "art" area when easels had been set up. Each elephant then painted something on his own easel, using a magic-marker type of pen and holding it in his trunk. It was an amazing display. I did not know elephants were artists! Some other tourists bid for the right to take home their very own Original Elephant painting. We just admired our elephant's ability and will always remember these creative elephants!

The Three Gorges

Recently, my wife, Mari, and I went on a tour of China. One of our adventures was to sail down the Yangtze River as the river was coming up. This required superb boatsmanship, as exhibited by moi in the picture. The hat, well, it came with the ticket of admission! The Chinese have built a huge hydro-electric dam across the Yangtze River. It is called the Three Gorges Dam because it is just below a spot where the river passes through three gorges. The new dam, to be completed in 2009, will generate three times as much electricity as the biggest such dam in the US, the Grand Coulee Dam. The Three Gorges Dam is 1.3 miles long and over 100 meters tall. So they are raising the level of the water behind the dam by around 100 meters, with the final 20 still left to be done in 2009. Over 1.4 million persons had to be relocated to new homes to make way for the rising waters.

This picture is of us boating where there used to be white water rapids--now it is a very deep channel down the gorge. :-) The beauty of these minor tributary gorges is wonderful. The new water level lets you appreciate them from a new, higher angle.

So, you get to combine some marvelling at the engineering, logistical genius and a lot of hard work that went into the building of the new dam, with appreciating a lot of nature's beauty in the greater and lesser gorges.