China proves a challenge well worth the taking

By Travel Editor David Bray

We really should know as much as possible about China, right?. One-day visits don’t qualify the tourist to deliver serious advice about the politics and economics of a nation and its big cities. But if you do your homework there’s plenty to be learned and in this case perhaps usefully passed on to others planning to follow.


China is a challenge. Never been there in many years of travel and here we are arriving, with many hundreds of “moderately-affluent older people” (as we are told) aboard the world’s biggest liner, at Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong . Queen Mary 2 provides excellent lecturers about all three cities, one dealing with history and politics, another with the specifics of tourist attractions and how to make the most of them.
First impressions of China are not brilliant. Xingang port for Beijing : A big, grey wharf, deserted except for a couple of officials and a police car. Bleak compared with the previous port, Osaka’s, welcoming children’s marching band.
The bus ride around Tianjin into Beijing is through unlovely grey landscape, in which workers tend millions of new trees, then industrial sites and grey, unlovely high rise apartments. Interestingly, plenty of road signs in English: Keep Space – rear end collision; No over speeding; Waste discarding prohibited; Change lanes – notice behind.
Lucia, our excellent guide, fills the two hours-plus with interesting details of family life, cost of living, problems of keeping a car. First stop a shopping centre opposite the Temple of Heaven. Nothing appeals here, so out to a little coffee shop which is overwhelmed by the influx that we end up taking our “toasted sandwich” onto the bus.
Then and two-and-a-half- hour walk along the side of Tiananmen Square, jumping a long queue into the Forbidden City. An impressive compound , representing a complicate social structure, some of it breath-takingly beautiful.
Then to general relief, the bus. Main impression is the inescapable crowd and the almost always present squads of uniformed young men. Reckon the people of Beijing are quite afraid of their government, very wary of ubiquitous black Audis with blacked-out windows.
Shanghai (main picture) feels happier. Its port, said to be the biggest and busiest in the world, is still a long drive from town. But the town, in its day described as the Paris of The East and Queen of the Orient , is fascinating – vibrant, lively, historic, going places. The Bund is no longer riverside, with land reclaimed to make life more attractive for the recent Expo.
Spectacular new buildings contrast with traditional elements. The Shanghai Museum, opened in 1996 is good, well worth some time. We battle our way through Old Shanghai Market, advised by our guide that if we become lost to stay where we are and he will find us.
Warned not to eat at Chinese stalls or restaurants, we and many, many other tourists swarm into a Starbucks. Disappointing. They have lots to learn.
A short walk, battling always with crowds, sees us cross a zig-zag bridge into beautiful gardens. Next stop, not altogether enthusiastically supported, is a silk factory which turns out to be quite rewarding. The worms revive memories. The spinning off is interesting, the finished products attractive, so much so that we buy one of their duvets.
Both these huge old Chinese cities swarm with busy people, exist under fearsome smog and are on their way to dominating world trade, along with India, if not just yet the world.
And so to Hong Kong, last seen when it was British, It has not surprisingly changed somewhat but is retains plenty of its former appeal. As reported previously, we can’t score a berth, anchoring out in Junk Bay, 40 minutes by tender to Central.
We take the Star ferry (who doesn’t?) and head off towards the Museum of History but get kinda sidetracked and end up having a quiet drink at a pleasant bar on the promenade, walking back to the ferry and heading back to the welcome of the ship.
Next day we leave her after four weeks. Luggage goes straight to the Marriot Courtyard hotel, which we discover in due course to be suitably comfortable and to have an outstanding dining room.
We are whisked off for a standard Hong Kong tour: Sampans at Aberdeen with ancient and feisty women at the tiller, Repulse Bay, Stanley markets, no change at all so far as we can tell in many years, ordinary food in the waterfront cafes, a jewellery factory visit which is neither more nor less than a sales job, then Victoria Peak which is completely different, a major shopping mall and from which no view of Hong Kong is possible because of heavy fog, natural rather than smog. The tram ride down is fun, as always,
Our last day we work out how to use public transport to the Museum of History and it is well worth the trouble, excellent displays, some interactive. Bus to the airport which has none of the weird attraction of the old one (flying in among apartment buildings), but works very well.
Which concludes both the Hong Kong tour and a fine cruise.
A points-paid upgrade sees us fly home in comfort.