Beijing One Day, Berlin the Next

The folds of undulating green mountains gave way to the flat expanse of orange that is the Gobi Desert. Towards the Mongol-Russian border green returns in vast swathes of Taiga forests. After many hours the landscape becomes ordered into a patchwork of fields. Europe. Wind turbines, the shimmer of sunlight across a solar array, an autobahn, a city; Berlin. Touchdown.

Europe brought a radical change in scenery. Why was everything so clean and the streets were free of cows and other misplaced farm animals. Berlin is a lovely city, it may lack much of the historic architecture of many other European cities (All these were reduced to piles of rubble by British and American bombing), but i guess that gives the city a more youthful vibe, free to reinvent itself as a modern city.


Berlin is a city of museums. In the first three days I went to eight! From the Gates of Babylon (poached from the middle east and reconstructed here) to the famous bust of Queen Nephrotiti to important works of modern and contemporary art, many of the worlds cultural treasures are housed here. Some of the museum buildings are artworks in their own right, such as the Jewish Museum whose hard, angular geometry of concrete and metal speaks of the pain and brutality of the Holocaust.

The sign over Checkpoint Charlie 

Over the 20th century Berlin has undergone many transformations. From the cosmopolitan cultural capital of the early 20th Century, to the centre of the German Reich's European Empire in the 40s, to it's almost complete annihilation at the end of the WW2. From the ashes rose a city, and a country divided, in time by an infamous wall. The city I visited has only existed since 1989, when the wall came down and east and west were reunified. The wall still has a presence, with sections preserved for posterity, one painted as an outdoor art gallery. The famous Checkpoint Charlie, the crossing between the American Sector and East Berlin, still stands. Yet instead of the barren "death strip" of no mans land it once was, the area is now the bustling centre of the city. It's so hard to imagine when I freely walk across the city what it must have been like to live in such a prison city.

One of my favourite parts of the city was the massive park, Tier Garten. From the dome of the Reichterg ( the German parliamentary building) it looks like a vast forest in the middle of the city. Walking through the grassy glades between the woodland and the city can neither be seen nor heard.

The Memorial to The Murdered Jews of Europe 

The East Side Gallery 

I left Berlin on the slick German rail system for Dresden, beginning my European rail journey. Dresden had a very different feel to Berlin, it's old centre was reconstructed after it was firebombed in WW2. That evening I left for Prague.

Photos for Europe will now be uploaded here: http://photobucket.com/gap2012. Or Just click on the Europe Gallery tab above. 

A Short Wrap Up of the Past Three Months

From South Asia to North and across the Himalayan mountains, the past three months have taken me through a diversity of physical and cultural landscapes. Starting in the dirty, crowded, bustling cities of India then up into the alpine tundra of the Himalayas. China's big cities present an abrupt cultural change. Then all of a sudden I'm leaving Asia.


Travels The Past Three Months Map

India

India is a vast and diverse destination. It's many states posses as many cultures making it hard present a single image. Contrast the laid back beachside towns of Goa with the filthy, overcrowded and sometimes maddening cities of Utter Pradesh. Or the modern, cosmopolitan city of Mumbai with the ancient desert forts of Jaipur.

Nepal

Nepal was culturally similar to India but I found it a little more subdued, a little less in your face. Most of my time here was spent in the mountains, a truly awe inspiring landscape. Every day seemed to bring more and more dramatic scenery as we climbed higher and higher.


China

China was a radical change from south Asia. Everything here was built on a massive scale, roads, airports, rail lines. Still I'm conscious that the China we saw was urban china, I'm sure life in the provinces is not all bright lights and bullet trains.

Highlights From India, Nepal and China

• Lazing on a beach in Goa
• Meeting my Mum and Brother in Delhi
• Sunrise on the river Ganges
• Three weeks trekking to Everest Base Camp
• Shanghai at night
• Chinese Gardens
• Climbing the Great Wall 

Cities within Cities, walls and the Beijing Opera

Beijing stews in a photochemical soup. It's hot and muggy and polluted in the Chinese capital.

Mao watches over the crowds

On our first day Tianenmen Square, the centre of the city, was blocked off. Apparently Vladimir Putin was on a visit to China to inconvenience our sightseeing. I actually didn't find the famed square as impressive as its reputation makes it out to be. It's rather cluttered with statues, security fences, giant screens showing propagandist films and then there is Mao's mausoleum, taking up a great deal of space. Inside the soviet style building lies the preserved body of Chairman Mao (who was 70% right and 30% wrong according to the official party line ), resting in a glass casket for thousands of Chinese to file past and pay their respects each day.


Opposite all that stands for the revolution in Tianenmen is all that stands for China's deeper past as an empire ruled by supremely wealthy and powerful emperors. The forbidden city, once forbidden is now a hive of tourist activity. Swarms of sightseers can make wandering this vast city of huge palaces and room upon room of ageing artefacts an exhausting task.

The Forbidden City

China's most famous sight however must be the Great Wall. A short bus ride away, snaking it's way along the ridge lines of the cool green mountains. It makes for pleasant walking, just ignore the crowds. At one point we were trapped in a full on people jam.

The Beauty of the Wall

And the Crowds...

Probably the only place we could go for peace and serenity was the summer palace. One can loose themselves of the city in this vast complex of parks and lakes, once the private domain of the imperial family. A sanctuary from the city. Chinese gardens are designed according to a beautiful aesthetic, with water, rocks, plants and buildings arranged in harmony. These lush and immaculately maintained places have been some of my favourite in China.

On our last night we treated ourselves to the Beijing opera. Yes, some of the singing was as if by a cat being strangled, but the costumes were amazing, as was the acrobatics and dancing. Translations were provided, sometimes with humorous consequences.

Mandarin presents possibly the most bizarre and humorous direct translations as seen on signs and menus everywhere. Even the official signs are rife with errors. This road is "closded" today. Here are a few appetising menu items I have seen, taken from places such as "chafing restaurant."

Spicy chicken gizzard explosion
Mushroom rape
Does the pot carp(?)
On floor grilled fish
Acid noodle soup
Head bubble bread
Gluttonous frog
Clear soup sheep son of karma
Pimple soup
Dry Grass
Blasting can Chineese
Surprise belly cut
It like honey!
Cluck old meat
Fried hair

6660 Steps to Heaven

Tai Shan, the holiest of holy Tao mountains lies between Shanghai and Beijing. To climb one must ascend a giant staircase, all 6660 steps. We have climbed mountains in the Himalayas, but this mountain seemed a tougher challenge. Perhaps it was the heat, or the pollution.

As the only westerners on the track amid crowds of Chinese we recieved many stares. A few people came up and began chatting away in Mandarin to us, oblivious to the fact we didn't have a clue as to what they were saying.


Travels So Where Is Tai Shan?

The mountain was straight from a classic Chinese landscape scroll, a graceful assembalage of limestone boulders and fir trees, shrouded in mist. Except that mist was actually photochemical smog. The view was obscured in an orangey white haze.

We had arrived by sleeper train that morning, a comfortable ride. We left by seat train that night, an sleepless and exhausting experience. The train pulled into Beijing Railway station at 5am the next morning. We checked into a nice room and slept the rest of the day.

Shanghaied

Shanghai has been an unexpected delight, despite never intending on visiting it until a week ago when we were denied entry to Tibet. The Shanghai skyline is my favourite part, especially at night. Across the river the futuristic buildings illuminate, advertisements scrolling across their LED embedded facades. On the opposite bank the future is faced by buildings from Shanghais past as a quasi-colonial outpost of various European powers. Contemporary Chinese architecture is met by the classical European. Huge crowds line the boulevard, eager to have their picture taken with the pretty lights.

My favourite building is the Shanghai World Financial Centre. At almost 500m it is the tallest building in continental Asia. Wanting to avoid the outrageous fee for the observation deck on floor 101, we instead snuck into the 87th floor bar of the Grand Hyatt. In the lift up our ears popped. Our time on the 87th floor was limited to a few minutes, and we couldn't get near the windows without waiters coming at us with uber expensive menus, but it was a fun experience none the less. Next door they are building a skyscraper that will be even taller.

Shanghai has some wonderfully parks and gardens, beautifully landscaped according to Chinese tradition. We have spent the past few lunchtimes in a park or garden with some street noodles. The food in China has been a bit of a challenge; they try to put pork in just about everything.

Shanghai is a commercial capitol, the streets are lined with high end fashion labels and the streets buzz with shoppers. In an officially communist country, shanghai oozes with capitalism. The China of today seems so far removed from it's turbulent day's under Mao. I sometimes look old faces in the street and wonder what it must be like to have lived through the cultural revolution, the famines, and end up here, beneath the billboards for diamonds, near the crowded Apple store full of fashionable young Chinese. How their country has changed (and yet the government remains the same).

Slick bullet trains now cross a country that just half a century ago was instructing peasants to smelt steel in backyard furnaces. I wish we could afford to ride on those bullet trains, they are so shiny and fast.