China

It is no surprise to us that China is full of surprises, but even we were amazed to be having a full blown haute cuisine dinner on board the Orient Express in Guangzhou...


When we left our 'family' on the banks of the Yulong River in rural Yangshuo for the modern city of Guangzhou we entered a sophisticated world of bullet trains and futuristic railway stations, of snazzy shopping malls and fancy hotels.
However, in the midst of this bustling ultramodern city of 16 million on the banks of The Pearl River in southeast China there is an island of calm. The island of Shamian is home to many historic buildings erected by banks and foreign trading companies during the early part of the 20th century when Canton, (as it was then known), was a conduit for trade between China and the rest of the world...
And nestled in a mansion's tropical garden, surrounded by orchids and banana palms, is an original Orient Express railway coach that once carried well-healed passengers from London and Paris to Venice...

The food served in this historic dining car is absolutely superb. We had breast of duck, cassoulet and grilled prawns – all so superbly cooked, exquisitely presented and professionally served that we would have sworn that we were dining in the most exclusive Parisian restaurant...

Guangzhou, like many Chinese cities, is a conundrum. On the one hand it is as modern and chic as any western city. The young Chinese professionals dress elegantly, dine extravagantly, and leave their Mercs, BMWs and Audis lining the streets...

But just across the road from the Orient Express is a vast hospital devoted entirely to treating people using traditional Chinese methods and it is surrounded by a teeming market of hundreds of stores selling ingredients for traditional remedies...

Herbal medicines by the sackful may appear out of place to us in the 21st century, but judging by the amount and variety on sale here here there are no shortage of believers...

There are huge amounts of dried fruit, flowers, leaves and bark, but most popular seem to be dried fungi and mushrooms, along with all manner of antelope horns which have been sliced, diced and pulverized in a dozen different ways. Dried seafood of many kinds may cure any number of ailments but we couldn't figure out what we should do with a few thousand seahorses...

Guangzhou is still known as a major trading centre and this is where the world comes to buy all manner of manufactured Chinese products in bulk. Today is our last day in China so we will be hitting the shopping malls in search of a Chinese trinket or two for our friends back home – anyone need a genuine plastic back scratcher or two?

This tea plantation in Guangxi Province is the last stop on our trail of tea in the Orient. Here, high in the limestone karst mountains above the River Li, only the tenderest new leaves are plucked from the camellias to produce oolong tea – both black and green.
The scenic tea plantations also provide an excellent backdrop for the wedding photographers and their entourage of dressers, make-up artists and lighting crews. It takes at least half a dozen professionals to take every wedding photograph in China...

These are our final few days on the banks of the Yulong River surrounded by a fascinating landscape of karst mountains and by our adopted Chinese family. But, as much as we have adopted them – they have adopted us. These are our adopted 'daughters' Suzy and Amy, the receptionist and manager of the Tea Cozy Hotel...

We gave Suzy her anglicized name a few years ago and it stuck. So now we are officially considered relatives and their children call us Uncle and Auntie.

Although we are now beginning our journey home via Guangzhou and Hong Kong we will miss our Chinese 'family'. We will also the miss the fabulous views of the river and the mountains from our balcony at the Tea Cozy...

Our week here is at an end, but before we leave we must take you on a tour of the new Tea Cozy Resort in a nearby village. James's newly trained staff are hard at work preparing the boutique resort for their first guests and this is Lulu, Annie and Anna getting to grips with a fancy Italian cappuccino machine...

Our friend Curry and his business partners have taken 'boutique' to a higher level at their new resort hotel. Each room features enormous beds, the very latest Japanese style toilets, and many of them have round wooden ofuro soaking tubs – being modelled here by Amy...

The entire resort is nestled into the foot of a mountain within an ancient village, and it is housed within a number of refurbished village homes together with some authentically designed new buildings.
No expense has been spared in the creation of this resort hotel, from the handmade furniture to the enormous swimming pool and the beautifully landscaped gardens with fishponds and a giant waterfall...

This is Curry treating us to the delights of hotpot style dragon fish – absolutely delicious...

Our next stop is the bustling modern city of Guanzhou, but we cannot leave before we have taken a final look at the beautiful River Li landscape and the mountains of Guangxi...

Now we know that we will return to this beautiful land. And we know that our Chinese 'family' and friends will be waiting to greet us with open hearts and open arms – just as we will greet them.

Today there is very little difference between our lives and the lives of most Chinese. Many live in comfortable modern houses and apartments; they drive Fords, BMWs and Audis on excellent multi-lane highways, (with lots of speed cameras); they travel 1st class on super high speed trains; their stores are stocked with everything that we would expect at home, (somethings at astronomical prices); and they are very keen to learn about the world. Perhaps the most striking difference is in the way that we eat. Eating in China is always a communal affair so all dishes are meant to be shared...

Everything is cooked fresh when ordered and it comes to the table when it is ready So, while you may think that you are going to start with a soup or an appetizer, if the main course vegetables happen to be the fastest to cook that is what will appear on the table first. These might be followed 5 minutes later by some chicken or pork and, just as this is getting completely cold, with some rice or noodles. Now, just as you are beginning to think that the soup has been forgotten it will turn up. If you happen to get your food hot it is more by luck than judgment.

We are currently staying with our 'family' at the Tea Cozy hotel where we have stayed before, but our host, Curry Chen, is opening a new boutique resort hotel in the mountains nearby and James offered to train his staff in the ways of the Western world so that they can help foreigners. Here's James with thirteen of his 'students' ...

And here they are doing practicals...

But, as Anna so rightly said to Yul Brynner in 'The King and I' “It's a very ancient saying, but a true an honest thought, that if you become a teacher by your pupils you'll be taught.”
And so it is that here in the countryside by the Yulong River in Guangxi province we are both teachers and students. Everyday we teach them English and French and the weird ways of westerners and they teach us Chinese customs and dumpling making. Here is Erica, the hostess of the Mountain Nest Hotel in the next village, teaching us to make Chinese pork dumplings from scratch...


We soon got the hang of it and made enough dumplings for all of us and for many of the hotel's guests including a young family from Mumbai...

Throughout this trip we have been hot on the trail of tea – following it back from the Central Highlands of Sri Lanka to the mountains of Yunnan and Sichuan on the Tibetan border to here in Guangxi Province where the local tea is made from the sweetly scented flowers of the Osmanthus tree. Tea originated in China thousands of years ago when a traditional doctor discovered the restorative effects of the dew dripping from the leaves of the camellia trees in the Yunnan mountains. Nowadays, tea is made from many different leaves, fruits and flowers, and here at the Tea Cozy Hotel on the banks of the Yulong River Amy is teaching us the rituals surrounding the making and drinking of Chinese tea...

Here's Amy showing us the proper way to drink chrysanthemum tea...

The weather has not been overly kind to us for the past week or so, but the skies are clearing and we are off to visit the mountains. See you soon.

The Chinese have big happy families and this is just a part of our big happy Chinese family taking us on a cycling tour of the picturesque ancient villages along the banks of the Yulong River in Guangxi Province in southern China.

This is us with Diana, Christine, Anna, Annie, Lulu, Chris and Curry.

As we ride alongside the rivers and streams, and weave in and out of the rice paddies and vegetable fields, we talk of hopes and dreams; of lovers and leavers; of parents and children. They may be young enough to be our grandchildren, but these enthusiastic young people embrace us with the exuberance of siblings. They laugh and giggle like children as we jockey for position along the little used country roads and they delight in pointing out picture perfect scenes like this couple being ferried across the river on a bamboo raft...

Bamboo rafts have been the common means of transport here for centuries and fishing was traditionally carried out using tethered cormorants launched from them. The nearby town of Yangshuo is a tourist hotspot today, and sailing down the Yulong on a bamboo raft is a major attraction, so the fishermen have long given up their cormorants and only fish for tourists today. The slowly meandering Yulong is a one way street for rafts and at the end of their journey they are manhandled onto trucks to be taken back upstream ready for their next run...

Every bend in the river brings us a new view of the mountains and we stop time and again as the morning mist gradually clears to reveal photogenic scenes....

After riding for a an hour or so we reach the ancient village of Jiuxian,where some of the 400 year old houses have been renovated and incorporated into a boutique hotel and restaurant, and we stop for coffee at The Secret Garden, (although some of the 'kids' prefer milkshakes)...

Now as we ride back to our 'home from home' we pass many ancient farm buildings that we hope will one day be restored...

And we watch farmers bringing in fresh vegetables for our dinner...

Now it's time for lunch. And just like any other 'family' on a special occasion we sit down to an amazing feast at Curry's brand new resort hotel just downriver...

Tomorrow we will begin another 'family day' in this tranquil haven midst the karst mountains of Guangxi,

Following our cruise on the Yangtze to the Three Gorges Dam we spent a couple of nights in Wuhan. We would show you pictures but this huge modern city is not a particularly pretty sight. Our next stop, some one thousand kilometres south on a bullet train, was the pretty riverside city of Guilin...

The historic centre of Guilin is dominated by two multi-story pagodas that rise out of the waterway that runs through the city...

Guilin has been a tourist mecca for a long time with good reason. Its shady riverside walks weave back and forth over its many picturesque bridges...

With a scenery of karst mountains and meandering rivers, and its many parks and traffic free areas, Guilin is a relatively tranquil alternative to the metropolises of Wuhan and Chongqing. But just an hour or so south of Guilin on the banks of the Yulong River is a little slice of heaven on the outskirts of Yangshuo in Guangxi province...

We have been to so many wonderful places in the world that it is always difficult to answer when people ask us to name our favourite. It's easy to reel off some of the world's wonders, and many of them are truly stunning, but at the end of the day when we've spent hours trudging through forests, temples, museums and teeming streets, and fought our way through throngs of passengers, tourists and touts, it is the people who make a place truly wonderful. Our finest memories are of the people who make us feel like family when they welcome us into their hotels, homes and hearts. And nowhere in the world have we been more welcomed than at The Tea Cozy Hotel in Yangshuo.
This is Amy, the manageress, and her young son, who would like to say Ni Hao to you...

We will be spending a week here in the idyllic countryside by the Yulong River and we look forward to showing you the sights and introducing you to our Chinese “family”