Days 218-219: The Pink City

A morning bus ride continued our traversal of India's 'Golden Triangle' of Delhi-Jaipur-Agra. Jaipur is the capital of Rajasthan, and widely known in India for its arts and crafts. It also has a few nicknames. Pink City is pretty self-evident when you head through the streets, as most buildings are painted the same pinky-beige colour. It is also apparently known as the Paris of India which is...a bit harder to see. Although the city does have some spots of beautiful architecture, most of what I saw was crumbling buildings, streets full of garbage and refuse, and wild animals wandering aimlessly through the crush of humanity so common in India.

Luckily we had pretty swanky accomodations as we were staying on the ground floor of the home of one of the former Rajasthani royalty, and it managed to provide a nice oasis away from the noise and garbage of the city. After quickly settling in we did a quick orientation of the nearby streets and market and eventually got back on the bus for a ride to the town of Amer just outside the city to visit the Amer/Amber Fort.

The site had a long history as Amer was once the capital of the area, and most of the fort was made/expanded during the 1600s. It has beautiful architecture and design, especially with the sun shining down off the stone.

On the way back to Jaipur we stopped by Jal Mahal, a palace built in the middle of the Man Sagar Lake.

In the evening, we went out to probably the most famous theater in India, the Raj Mandir Cinema. Attending a Bollywood movie, especially at the Raj Mandir, is not like a typical movie experience in the western world. In the lobby before the movie our group got mobbed by people wanting to take pictures with us, and when we finally got seated inside the cinema each change in lighting or screen caused hooting and cheering from the crowd. The film we watched was called "Student of the Year", and I guess I'd call it a college drama. The crowd settled down after awhile, but any scene involving romance or bare skin would cause them to all start up again. Not totally surprisingly most of the noise was from the male audience, but curiously, it seemed to be louder for shots of the half-naked males than the bikini-clad girls. Although most of the movie was in hindi, the plot was pretty self-explanatory and there were occasional random lines spoken in english. The best part of the movie, as with most Bollywood films, was the dancing. It fascinates me that virtually every Indian actor/actress, no matter what type of character they play, will have to dance. It's hard to imagine what our movies would be like if Christian Bale had to break into enthusiastic dance every film.

The next day in Jaipur included a visit to the royal palace, but most of the day was just free time to wander around. Exploring included discovering such things as (very touristy) snake charmers, monkeys roaming the city rooftops, and the usual collection of locals constantly trying to sell you things, and rarely taking 'no' as an acceptable answer.

Day 205: Yangshou Workout

Yangshou is a fun place. The city itself is extremely touristy, with a far higher ratio of foreigners than we'd encountered anywhere else and much wider range and concentration of international restaurants and bars then anywhere else. The landscape in and around the city is one of the most famous of China, and something I've been looking forward to for my entire trip.

We had an active day outside of the city to try to see the most of the surrounding geography, beginning with a bike ride out of town and into the countryside.

We biked to a place by the river full of bamboo rafts, and spent the next couple hours getting poled down the river and over a series of small dams.

After disembarking we biked a bit more until we got to a formation called Moon Rock. Our group split up with some staying down below to relax and some of us doing a hike up to the rock. We all met up for some lunch back at the bottom.

After lunch we split up again as most of the group decided to bike back to town, but 4 of us got our guide to take us on an extended bike ride, leaving the main roads for a long detour down much less travelled back roads.

When we finally got back to town we had a few hours to ourselves, but gathered once again in the evening to go out for a night show. The show was billed as a light show, and was designed by the same person that designed the opening ceremony for the Beijing Olympics. It's a bit hard to describe, but it was series of artistic performances with dozens of performers using lights, fire, music, and careful choreography.

After the show we joined up with some of those who didn't go for some dinner before heading back to the hotel for some sleep after a long and active day.

Days 190-191: National Week

Workers in China don't get vacation days. Instead, they get 3 one-week holidays through the year, all at the same time. During these weeks, the government removes road tolls, encouraging people to travel and see other parts of the country. Through a bout of poor planning/research on my part, the group tour I was in started in the capital city of the most populous country in the world at the beginning of the busiest, most crowded week of the year (the National Holiday). Our first visit as a group was back to the Great Wall - the same section as I had visited before, but much earlier in the morning to avoid the crowds. I didn't mind revisiting the wall, and this time I just turned left upon reaching the top instead of right, so that in total, between the two visits, I covered the entire section open to visitors. It was also a good chance to talk to others in the group and get to know everybody a bit.

After returning from the wall I decided to go visit the Lama Temple, as it was one of the few big places I hadn't seen in Beijing yet. It was a large collection of temples and Buddhas, both of which I'd already seen a lot of already, but it was still worth visiting.

In the evening we went out to a kung fu performance as a group. It had a story, but a very loose one, and the entire thing was dubbed in english and obviously meant to cater towards tourists, which made it all seem a bit gimicky. It was still fairly entertaining, but something I wouldn't really have missed.

After the show we got the unfortunate news that our guide's (Frank) father-in-law had just passed away, and that he would be leaving us for a few days once we got to Xi'an to look after family affairs.

The last day the group visited a few of the places I'd already been to, so I just took things easy on my own and explored some parks. From what I heard, the crowds were immense and a lot of them didn't get a chance to see all they wanted, so I'm glad I checked things out on my own before the holiday started. Ti'anamen and the Forbidden City were particularily packed with people, and the normal high security at the square was considerably upgraded with people in different uniforms everywhere.

In the evening we all headed to the crowded train station to catch the sleeper train from Beijing to Xi'an.