Chinese Conspicuous Consumption

There has grown up, in some of the larger cities of China, the practice of hiring fake foreign servants - thus saying "I am so rich, I can afford to employ foreigners to do things for me". This has led to a whole industry of foreigners, mostly students filling these roles; agencies specialising in providing people to fill the jobs; and agents who find people jobs play acting these jobs. Thus if I were signed up with one of these agencies, I might get a call from the agent saying - tonight you are an Indonesian chef. And I would go along to a rich Chinese's party (typically) and play act being an Indonesian chef. Generally, but not always, you need no knowledge of the role being acted. Sometimes though the actor is expected to put on a highly credible performance, and persuade the audience that they are, in my example, a real Indonesian chef. These acting roles pay well enough that if you are a regular on the circuit, you can earn a good living by western standards, let alone Chinese ones. This practice has been spreading westwards (from the capital to the provinces). It has reached Chengdu, but not yet Xining.  It is of course a form of prostitution, but it also strikes me as peculiarly Chinese.

There are of course other things that can act as warning signs when one is in a strange place. One I recently encountered was taking a taxi to a place in Xining. I got into the cab and negotiated the destination. Then I noticed the steel tube behind the passenger side front seat. This tube, apparently was welded to the floor, but was secured to the side of the car using the bolt that holds the seat belt in place. It became evident that this piece of tubing was not only holding the passenger seat in position, but was also holding the side of the car in. There was a gap at the base of the door frame, between the door frame and the floor of the car. And as far as I could gather this was a perfectly legal taxi - his licences were up to date; he was using the meter; and, by Chinese taxi driver standards, was a perfectly competent driver.

The other warning sign I have come across, was in talking to the only Russian traveller I have encountered on my travels. This is a doctor from St Petersberg, of mixed Belarous(?)/Ukranian origins. One of her grandfathers had sought asylum in West Germany; had been enticed back by stories of what was happening to his family; to be slapped into a camp in Siberia for a good number of years. Her parents, her father particularly, had gone through the break up of the Soviet Union, and persecution for being Ukranian. She had encountered difficulties in getting qualifications because of the remnants of the Soviet bureaucracy and its insistence on controlling the exact residence of all its citizens.

So when a person with this background describes Chinese bureaucracy as "without common sense" (incidentally the best definition I have come across of bureaucracy); and describes Chinese control of its subjects (but especially control of people visiting the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR)) as "very Soviet"; I tend to take more notice of her comments than those of some other (particularly American) travellers. This was all prompted by the recent changes to the regulations concerning who can visit the TAR. It has been the case for a long time that to visit the TAR, you need to be a member of a group; have a driver, car, and be part of an organised trip. However, when I set off, a group could consist of one person, though the rule about being a member of an organised trip were taken very seriously. The rules have been changed eight times while I have been in Xining, and now a group has to be of at least five people; and they all have to have the same nationality (or rather the same national passport). This has made it very difficult for backpackers, and independent travellers of all sorts, but doubly so for such a rare traveller as a Russian. She has had to completely alter what she is doing.

What is the Mandarin for "Monday, bloody Monday"?

Out of the Gobi desert into China and the mountains

Finally arriving in China, and Beijing, I reflected on the shocks that await the unwary (and the wary) traveller, that I have encountered so far. The first was on booking into my hotel in Moscow (10 days ago!) and having a bath. There then followed that lacunae when one realises that there is a live, large, insect in the (just evacuated and emptied) bath. There is that knife edge of wondering - did I bring that in from my last means of transport? - Metro for me - or was it there previously? Did it share a bath with me or not and why have I only just noticed?

Then there is the jolt on arriving at Beijing Railway Station (the main one) to realise that it is eight or nine years since I was last in China. Since then, China has enjoyed massive growth for each of those years, and has held the Olympics. I am ascribing the absolutely stunning change I observed to these two factors. Amazingly, it appears that - at least on one day at one railway station in Beijing - the Chinese have learnt to queue - for taxis if nothing else. I was in the queue for a legitimate taxi, rather than a gypsy one, for about three quarters of an hour. During that time I observed queue behaviour that would do justice to a bus queue in Clapham. In the 45 or so minutes, there was only ONE fight between would be taxi passengers.

The taxi driver delivered the next blow. Lulled by the substantial, but imperceptible, skills of the railway attendant, I had gained the impression that my Mandarin might have a very restricted vocabulary, and that my pronunciation might well be laboured and slow, but that it was fairly correct. Faced with a cabbie, it rapidly became apparent that my pronunciation was so slow and laboured that the effect was exactly the same as if deliberately mangled. However, after three goes, and a look at my hotel voucher (printed in English) we were in business. Then the only thing left was finding the hotel. Beijing is a very big city; the last I heard, it only has nine ring roads, and even having an address is no guarantee that one comes off the right ring road exit. Again, a saving grace - the voucher had the hotel phone number on it, and he used this to obtain directions.

Then to the hotel, to face the sinking feeling when the hotel denies having a booking for you; and does not recognise either of the two company names printed on the Airmiles hotel voucher. The day was only saved by the hard work of the duty manager, plus a bit of serendipity on my part - spotting in the very (very) small print of an internet produced voucher, a company reference that the hotel (sort of) recognised, and was able to track back within their systems to the company, and then forward to the booking.

Just one final piece twist of the knife of traveller's woes. There were no rail tickets waiting for me, for my onward journey to Xining. This is the situation that arose on the Trans-Mongolian Express. On the first or second full day onboard, I received an email saying that Mastercard had blocked my payment for the tickets. This was after the same thing had happened when I went to pay for the tickets in England, and resulted in (supposedly) Mastercard lifting the freeze; me having a long talk with the security people at my credit card who informed me that:
1 I had triggered an extra alert on the security front, because my card had been used over the internet, to purchase long distance travel in a foreign country (and one a very long way away).
2 They would release the payment.
3 I was best advised to give Mastercard my itinery (which I did), as a way of ensuring that this would not happen again.

So when the travel agency re-presented the credit card voucher ten days before I am due to travel (the earliest the tickets can be booked in advance) the same thing happened again. I spent some hours on the train, and spent about $50 dollars on connection charges, for both data and voice calls, to get it notionally sorted. I am in possession of confirmation from the travel agency that they have received my payment and that they would be delivered today to the hotel. So of course no tickets. I am not a completely happy bunny, and my vocabulary (in any language) about Mastercard security would set fire to the Channel at 8000 plus miles (only joking, the Channel is safe in my hands).

And this was Monday.

So what happened to yesterday?

I was a little surprised to see that I had apparently done nothing yesterday; no pictures, notes, memories, or whatever. I am reliably prompted by the ways of the world, and by past history, that yesterday did actually take place - it was not cancelled or if it was no-one told me. I just have a void there, with nothing to mark it distinct or special. This is the case even though we actually passed through the border into Mongolia. This inevitably took time; whilst immigration did its thing and customs searched our compartment. At least we were spared the hassle of luggage searches, an imposition reserved for the hard sleeper end of the train. Both the Russians and the Mongolians seem to work on the same principles for customs officers and immigration officials. A very large majority of them were women; in smart uniforms - all starch, knife edge creases, and impressive badges and decoration; many of them exceedingly attractive; trained extensively in sternness and the searching look; and generally very tough cookies. One gets the impression that they have been trained to deliver the same level of intimidation as that felt by Russian aviators in Afganistan - who prayed (sic) that if shot down and survived; they would not be handed over to the women.

I have taken very few pictures on, or from the train. I also realise that I have not really described the journey or the train. The causes are similar. It is a VERY long train journey - our 6th day so far and counting. There are all the normal limitations of photography from a train. The windows and doors are locked. The windows are all dirty. Reverse panning to counter the movement of the train is extremely difficult, especially in one wants to avoid the framing of the picture arbitarily curtailed by the frame of window or door. Yesterday and today we have been passing through Mongolian scenery (and now parts of the Gobi Desert). I love the Mongolian terrain, though I am not sure why. It is fairly monotonous; is a large terrain (though smaller than some); mostly rolling hills rather than mountains; very little scrubby, apparently dead vegetation; colour scheme, a limited palette of sandy gray and brown; an empty landscape; the most frequent sight, groups of bactrian camels - about three of four groups of around 15 animals per time, then lone horsemen, separated from each other by scores of kilometers; and very little else. But it is strangely attractive and has its own virtue. I would not count it in my top three terrains in the world, but it's certainly up there in the top ten.

The infamous samovar complete with engineering drawings.

The carriage I am in is a very well appointed carriage - a genuine first class, now the Chinese rather than the Russians are running the train. The compartment is two berthed, though since Ulaan Baator I have had it to myself. Wider than previous standard berths, with plenty of storage space under the bottom bunk, and over the door. The compartment has its own little shower room, which sounds a little grander than the reality - bathroom fittings in communal use do tend to get into, and stay in a rather manky condition. The whole carriage is fitted out in polished wood, carpeted throughout with high qualityy fitted carpet, with an attendant (as all the carriages do). It has a drop through toilet at either end, and next to the attendant's compartment is the world famous samovar. The carriages are heated by a coal fired boiler to produce either steam, or hot air (not sure which, though I think it the former). The samovar is just tacked on the back of the hot water boiler, thus ensuring (while the fires are in, which they are not for border crossings) a continual supply of boiling water.

Time and Space

The view above goes on for miles and miles; hundreds and hundreds of miles; and days and days. This induces a peculiar sense of space - the train seems to be endlessly travelling through the same spot; as though it were suspended in space while time unrolls around us.

Time by contrast is a never ending source of interest, concern, and conversation. This is generated by the fact that the train, officially, runs on Moscow time for its entire journey. This is uncompromisingly signalled by the one clock on the train. The printed timetable on the carriage wall splits the journey into Moscow time (GMT+4); Ulaan Bator time (GMT+8); and Beijing time (GMT+8). The locals; provision sellers, and some of the train staff who work only a stretch of the line; resolutely stick to what is obvious and natural - local time. As we are traversing one time zone every 24 hours or so, this generates quite a lot of confusion. Add into the mix that some of the passengers have their clocks set firmly on Moscow time; some on their destination time (Mongolia or China); and some individuals are still on the time zone of their home town - be it Rio de Janiro; London; Amsterdam; New York; Moscow; Ulaan Bator; or Beijing and you can see there is plenty of scope for misunderstandings, debate, and conversation to occupy the journey. Everyone tends to look at the timetable to find out where we are (as I write this we are just approaching Irkutsk). Stops are about every four hours or so, so by the time you have discussed (in multiple languages) the time as you approach the station; discussed it again on the station; and discussed it as you leave the town, it is time to start all over again.

Packing and paranoia

I find it a little alarming when I come to my first major repack, to find that everything fits into my luggage first time, and with space to spare. As it took me three goes to get everything in originally, and my luggage was extremely full, it made me wonder what I had left out, and where the things I had left out had got to. My luggage has been losing weight from the outset, as I got rid of guides; copies of tickets and official documents; and tickets. I did find one pair of dirty socks and a pair of dirty pants that I had overlooked. The bulk of the improvement turned out to be mere practice.


Am I paranoid, or are they really out to get me. Yesterday on my return to the hotel, I became convinced that I had become the object of official observation. I saw what could be a series of unrelated coincidences, but that cumulatively, made me come to this conclusion. First, after checking my list of cyrillic signs I needed to look out for against one of the lists of destinations on the Metro, I emerged from the CCTV shadow of a large pillar to see a man with clipboard and radio, pantomiming to one of the CCTV cameras. The way I interpreted the pantomime was "its OK, he was just checking a sign". As I was the only person who had been checking a sign, and the only person who had been static for a period out of sight of a CCTV camera, I started to wonder. Then, when arriving at my interchange station, a man with a radio seemed to be taking an excessive interest in me. As I overshot my station by one stop, and had to swap platforms to return to my real stop, the same thing happened at the swap over station. Then, at my destination, the babushkya at the foot of the escalator saw me, and immediately got onto the phone while keeping her eye on me. I was at the time separate from other groups of people, and her actions as I passed were distinctly different from those while other people passed. Finally, at my hotel, there just happened to be a man waiting in the lobby, who as I approached started to talk on his mobile phone and then took the lift with me to the top floor, but did not get out of it at my floor.

As to why I might have fallen under suspicion, I suppose I had given lots of potential reasons. When leaving the Kremlin I had entered the Metro at what I thought was an interchange including the line I needed, but turned out to be a different interchange one stop away from mine. To find this out I had gone down to one line, then back up, and down again to another line. Then I had gone to a Metro map and spent some time building my list of cyrillic signs to look out for. I descended to the original line I had visited, checked the signs, and caught a train to the interchange I needed. In leaving the Kremlin, I had put pieces of my camera in my anorak pockets, so they were bulging. I was visually distinct - wearing a bright red fleece under my anorak - and darker skinned than nearly everyone. Bright colours are not a feature of dress for the travellers I saw on the metro. Also I understand that dark skin is associated with Chechnyns, and there is an understandable suspicion of such people.

Or I didn't fall under suspicion and I was making a pattern out of unrelated behaviour. Still made me wonder.

The tourist bit

I spent today touring the Kremlin and Red Square. The morning started out very well - snow and melt gone from the pavements; sun shining; and a good day for sight seeing. Afternoon it started raining. The picture is the confection that is The Cathedral of St. Basil, at the end of Red Square. The Kremlin is large and impressive - imagine The Tower of London, five times over, amalgamated into one site. Then add in five copies of Westminster Cathedral, one of Westminster Abbey, and a couple of the larger pieces of architecture on Whitehall, and you have the general idea. The novelty of gilded onion domes does pall fairly quickly, and I did not find the internals of any of the buildings particularly fascinating. St Basil's cathedral was another matter. I paid the extra money to legitimately take photos inside. The results really surprised me - it is kept very dark in the cathedral, partly from the architecture of the place, and partly to protect the icons - the photos are much clearer than the view, and they also show the prime principle behind Orthodox religious art - the very exact placing of light to illustrate the metaphor "Jesus - the light of the world". I am very pleased with the results. Red Square is a fascinating place - the architecture is varied and stunning. All the publicity round the area suggests that first sight of Red Square will inevitably be a "Wow" moment. As always I was perverse - it is splendid, and the architecture is much more interesting - compared to Tienamen Square I was surprised by how small it was.

Restarting travelling tomorrow by catching the Trans-Mongolian Express in the evening. Judging by the train journey here, I will not be posting any updates for the whole time I am on that train, so the next time you hear from me is likely to be in a week's time..

Travel broadens the mind (and narrows the wallet)

In a new country, everything is strange, and forces me to learn many lessons, and to change my habits, rapidly.

I appreciated this when I started thinking that great entertainment, and even fine art, was represented by different fragments of multiple showings of a dubbed version of Casper, the Friendly Ghost. This was the best background that Russian TV could offer.

I had not realised how lazy about foreign languages, and reliant on tour guides and organisers, I had been until forced to rely on my own resources for everything I do. I have been aided by using a Russian phrase book (thank you, Lonely Planet), and today learnt how to say 'hello', 'thank you', and 'green tea'. I went shopping in a nearby shopping centre for groceries, and had a very light lunch there. The waitress was very patient and very helpful with the linguistic fumblings of a complete idiot. Trying out a few words in the language of a new country does seem to generate a friendly response.

One of the things I had sorted out as part of my planning was to arrange my communications - phone and internet - in what I thought was the cheapest and most efficient manner by purchasing an international SIM and preloading it with enough money to cover most, if not all, my trip (five months). This has already provided many lessons. First of all I have to reenable the data connection and SIM PIN every time I use the card. Getting this sorted out has taken me two countries (The Netherlands and Russia), a phone call to the SIM provider service desk, and multiple attempts. I do now know what I am doing in this respect. In addition I have found that I need to completely control how my phone links to the internet - no "always on" data connection; establish a connection only while I need one, and not a second longer; and to be aware at all times of exactly what I am doing with the connection. In spite of these lessons, loading the pictures yesterday completely blew away all my pre-loaded money. I had converted the pictures in my usual way from the camera. This was not a good idea - I need to apply all the size optimisations I know about for publishing to the web. What this means for this blog are that I need to publish less frequently; I need to include fewer photos; and those photos I do include need to be optimised to a very high degree.

I have also learnt that Russia is still very much a cash economy. Most places do not take plastic. In addition my hotel will not put a meal onto the room bill (the first time in any country I have ever experienced this) and required actual roubles. Only some of the ATMs accept Mastercard or Visa - most seem to be a domestic money transfer network only. Eating in a hotel is always expensive, but the cost of meals in Russian hotels seems to be expensive even by those standards. So I had to get out more cash to cover many of the things I had anticipated paying for by card.

Other lessons of the day: going one stop on the Metro, shopping, and then returning by Metro to the same station caused me to get lost. The exit from the northbound line, and that from the southbound line emerge in completely seperate buildings, seperated by railway lines, major roads, and different layouts, car parks, and connections to other places. Addresses in Moscow have a twist that I was not familiar with. The number on the road leads only to the city block, not to a specific building. The buildings in a block are then numbered in an arbitary manner (order they were built?). So my hotel is 41 whatever road, building 7. Just to make life a little difficult, the building number is not printed on any of their publicity material. Then the buildings are very large scale with many, unlabelled doors. This is how I visited my first Russian surgery - the door I went into first when trying to enter my hotel.

Sleepers, snow, and sign language

You CAN change the wheels on a train

Leaving Amsterdam, I was pleased to find that I was in my compartment alone. I had anticipated having to share it. This was fine until 05:30 in Berlin, when the other occupant of the compartment got on, and I had to rearrange all my gear so two of us could fit in. The timing of the journey was such that I didn't see any of Germany, and very little of Poland. Over the border of Belarus they carried out an operation that I knew took place; but that I still found totally odd. They changed the bogies on the train from the standard European gauge, to the bigger Russian gauge. This involved separating out the carriages; removing the couplings; replacing the couplings with Russian ones; lifting the carriage off the bogie; wheeling the small bogies away and the larger ones in to position; lowering the carriage; and reassembling the train.

From the border of Belarus onwards, there was snow on the ground, and external temperatures were varying between 0 and 5 C during daylight. Most people left the train at Minsk, so the run from Minsk to Moscow was a much more relaxed process.

Moscow was mostly as I expected, for initial impressions. Though I knew the Russians use cyrillic script, I had not anticipated it acting as a "false friend" in terms of recognition. Anyway I got to my hotel using a combination of patience and perserverance - not speaking the language; not recognising the script; not knowing anything about Moscow or Russia. It just took about two and a half hours, rather than the 20 minutes it would take now I know where I am going and a slight idea of how the Moscow Metro works. The stations are as deep and as splendid as I had heard, and are very obviously the only form of travel suitable for a complete neophyte like myself.

Visa applications

Having decided to employ a specialist for the visa applications I need, I spent two solid hours yesterday, entering details in web based forms. I had all the information to hand, and was doing nothing but enter data. Plus half an hours specialist advice on points of the data entry process; payment of a very large sum of money for the visas; and nearly an hour processing them with a member of staff of the tourist agency.

Ah well, the outcome should be that over the course of this month, I should receive about 5/8 of the visas I need. Another task to be ticked off.

Reach exceeding grasp - travel planning

My initial plans for a trip next year were fairly grandiose - take the train to Beijing, stopping off en-route in Moscow for a few days and in Ulan Baator for a while. Then from Beijing to Qinghai, where I would spend a substantial amount of time visiting the Qinghai plateau, and many of the tourist sites there. Then back through Beijing before dropping down through Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia to Singapore. There I would use the massive amount of Airmiles I have accumulated over decades (enough for a round the world trip) to fly to New Zealand and on to the Americas (Canada, or the USA) where I would spend time, before returning across the Atlantic.

Contact with reality has soon made significant changes to this.

Firstly, Airmiles are only usable for return trips, starting and finishing in the UK. As without them I cannot afford the airfare across the Pacific, the Americas, and the Atlantic; bang goes the latter half of the trip. The best I think I can do is to get a return ticket from somewhere like Singapore, or Hong Kong, or Japan, and not use the outward leg.

Next, the visa situation in China has changed. As a result it looks as if I cannot get a visa for more than thirty days, with a possible extension for another 30 days. It used to be the case that one could get a multi-entry tourist visa which covered 90 days (with possible extension to 180 days). Nowadays, this is only available as a business visa, which is much more expensive, and requires the applicant to prove, by means of a letter from a Chinese company sponsoring the applicant as a bona-fide business trip. So this changes the shape of the middle of my trip.

Clauswitz's quote springs to mind "No plan survives contact with the enemy".

Travel Planning

Made quite a lot of progress today: a detailed itinerary for the first 13 days; sketching out costs for that period; identifying a critical path task - getting my passport renewed after having had it cancelled earlier this year, due to its loss; coming across information on Tibetan permissions needed; and obtaining a great deal of information from what I regard as THE site for information on railway travel.

Travel Planning

I am currently looking at arranging an extended trip for myself for next year. The planning and preparation for such a trip is extensive and complicated. I am going to keep diary entries of what is involved.

I have started off trying to put together a skeleton itinerary - itself not an easy task. My initial sketch shows that I need visas for 14 different countries; train tickets and a detailed schedule to cover the first month of travel; having to keep track of times expressed in three different timezones (Zulu time; Delta time; and Hotel time - otherwise known as London, Moscow, and Beijing time); and accessing many web resources - visa sites, travel sites, train timetable sites, and software sites.

The software sites are needed because I need computer assistance to put together detailed plans. I have started using Evernote - a generalised notepad that allows collection of miscellaneous notes into a variety of notebooks, along with snippets from the web and other sources. I am also trialling a scheduling application ScheduleiT to assist in putting together a detailed schedule.

So far I have tentatively allocated a start date in February next year; and started to sort out the first two legs of the journey - from Aylesbury to Moscow, and from Moscow to Beijing.