Chiang-Kai Shek's Den Of Sin

(Or, Weekend Escape To The Coast, Part 2)

As a wannabe history buff and lover of all things old, I was anticipating a wealth of riches in the hometown and birthplace of military and political giant, Chiang Kai-shek. So after a quick dinner and facewash in our hotel, we emerged into the cool night air of Xikou, ready for an evening of curio shopping, late night snacks and bustling town life. Instead, we were sorely, sorely disappointed.

First off, for a place aspiring to be the next big tourist spot, they are missing quite a few things. Mainly, something to do at night. Even a foreigner with 4 years of travel under his belt knows better. There were more things to do that empty Hangzhou Bay Bridge rest area than this place. Aside from a few restaurants, a foot massage place of questionable cleanliness, and some shops selling crap clothing and low-quality junk, it's pretty much a ghost town.

Walking up and down the central strip of town, wandering past dark and empty construction plots heralding the "soon-to-be-complete" tourist center, we finally found the so-called Old Street, site of all the historical tourism wonders. We were greeted by a steady flow of unsavory looking fellows, honking tuk-tuks and motorcycles, and loads of dark nooks perfect for kidnap, rape and robbery. In the distance, we saw a considerable group of people gathered around bright glowing lights and loud thumping music. Could this be a nightclub in the middle of hobunk Xikou? As we neared the crowd, it seemed to be some kind of lame performance. Our hopes were dashed. Having no interest, we passed by and continued to look for fun.

After wasting a good 15 minutes of futile searching, we decided to make a hasty retreat back to the hotel. Passing the same crowd again, we decided to take a closer look. Lo and behold, the boom-boom music and deafening announcer were trying to attract guests to a topless titty show. A titty show! Lord on high, was Xikou importing more than just tuk-tuks from Thailand?! We should have known better, considering the entire mass of onlookers were those aforementioned suspicious males. Chiang Kai-shek would be proud to know that his hometown's biggest nighttime attraction was a den of sex working pole trollops. Next thing you know, his memorial in Taipei will be disrespectfully shat on by an act of misled presidential buffonery. Oh wait...

At that point, we gave up. Stocking up on fresh fruit, local snacks (qian ceng bing - "thousand-layer biscuits" - baked goodies flavored with sesame or seaweed) and cold beer, we retired to our hotel. The clock had barely struck 9PM, but there was just nothing else to do. Even the hotel's entertainment selection was against us: our TV only had 19 channels, forcing us to sit through some very very painful CCTV programming. Gah! That titty show was looking more attractive by the minute.

Time To Roll The Biscuits - Not as fun as the titty bar...

Qian Ceng Bing: Baked On The Side Of A Piping Hot Pot

To top off the evening of fun, I had the worst night ever. EV-ER. It all started when I returned to my room, shared with another single male coworker (for obvious logistical reasons). While I was out frolicking in the exciting Xikou darkness, he opted to stay in the room and be a loser. So when I got back at the ungodly hour of 10pm (control your gasps of horror, please), one knock, two knock, three knock, four - no answer - so I called him from my friends' room. Answering the door in a wife-beater and lovely gray briefs with a playful circle-square pattern, he greeted me with a surly expression and a mumbled grunt. Whatever. As he stumbled back into his bed, I couldn't help but notice that his undies were a little ill-fitting, a slight puff of fabric billowing out from his buttcrack area, like he was smuggling a little balloon or handful of cotton balls. Disgusted, I cleaned off the day's grime, brushed the taro and bamboo stink from my mouth, and was ready for a good night's sleep.

The minute my head hit the pillow, dude had fallen asleep. And I swear to my holy Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, his snoring was the loudest, most consistent, powerful and obnoxious noise I have ever heard come out of a human in my entire 26 years. At first, I laughed it off, like "Ha ha, this certainly can't last all night." But it did. From 10:30 PM to 7 AM, he snored. And snored and snored until I was seriously entertaining thoughts of smothering him with a pillow or that fat dude from the bus. How do I know it was non-stop? Because I didn't sleep all fucking night. Eight hours. I tried putting a pillow on my head, but the noise and vibrations made it through, irking me even further because I was dead tired, nothing would work and I knew that I would not be getting much sleep.

Over the course of that painful night, I managed to doze off for a few sporadic minutes in the early pre-dawn hours, going so far as to fake-cough next to his head to wake his dumb ass up from snoring. No luck though. When the phone rang for morning call at 7AM, I looked like I had just spent an entire night at that titty club: panda eye-bags, confused expression and wild, jittery eyes darting all about. No wonder that asshole was traveling alone; no woman (or man) alive could deal with that on a nightly basis. I stumbled to an underwhelming breakfast, then into the cloudiness of an overcast sky. I could tell it would be a highly enjoyable day.

When In Doubt, JUMP!

Xikou's Old Street is lined with a number of historic sights related to the Family Chiang. An ancestral hall, an old house, temples, this and that. Sad to say, but I've seen it all before. I felt a little guilty for not caring more, this being the place where young Chiang was born and raised, but this stuff is starting to bleed together like one, big, undistinguishable clot of seen-one-seen-it-all boredom. Shame on me, but I was disappointed. I had more fun watching the ladies do their laundry in the nearby river stream bisecting town.

Pass The Fabric Softener!

For those potentially interested in visiting Xikou, I will say that the family compound, ancient salt factory and temple were interesting. From what I glimpsed from the doorways and turnstiles blocking my parsimonious ass. But for the 135 RMB combined admission price? Totally not worth it at this juncture of my China travel life. I haven't lost complete interest in this stuff, but I'd much rather use 135 RMB towards a plane ticket to somewhere interesting.

Not Too Shabby: Chiang's Childhood Home

Let Sleeping Pups Lie

By the time we rolled out of town, it had started to sprinkle. Our attempts to buy locally grown mini-taro was thwarted, the supply supposedly depleted from the winter snowstorms that nailed China this past year. No matter; it was just one of many disappointments on our last day. The final stop of the trip, Dongqian Lake, was still a few hours drive through Ningbo city, thus allowing me to get reacquainted with my tubby bus buddy. I admit that the left side of my body missed that comforting crushing feeling.

To save our precious time (I have a quick BM to take care of), I will summarize the highlights of Dongqian Lake with two words: lunch and golf cart. OK, that was three words. But you get the point. If those two nouns don't drive home the point that this place is ultra boring, then I pity the unfortunate traveler who gets tricked into wasting time here.

Aside from a rather filling lunch of fresh snails, clams and other local produce, there wasn't much to see in the unfinished Dongqian "resort" area ("fantasy island" and hot springs expected to be complete by 2010, the new magic number in post-Olympiad China). The rain didn't help much either. Wandering around and passing the time with some jumping, the most excitement we had that afternoon involved a speedy golf cart ride towards the exit gate that hurtled over a steep bridge, rollercoaster style, almost hurling me onto the pavement as I bounced out of my back row seat. Yippee.

Street Fighter: Dongqian Hu Alpha Edition

The Latest Member of the X-Men: Condom Girl (With reservoir tip!)

Waiting around for our tour's eventual departure was excruciating. Like being stuck in rush hour traffic on the way to work or in the It's A Small World line at Disneyworld: the time wasted is exacerbated by the fact that there's nothing really great waiting for you at the end of the tunnel (no pun intended). Funtime had ended the day before when we left the canyon and now we were just waiting for the cold grip of Death to save us from the numbing void of boredom.

Inventing Games To Pass The Time:
This One's Called "Pretend Liu Xiang [or equally hot guy] just walked by"

As we crossed the Hangzhou Bay Bridge for a second time, I gazed across the expanse of silty, poop-brown ocean and hazy white sky. The view hadn't changed much from the day before, even though the sun had been replaced by steady drizzle. Feeling truly reflective, yet sadly without a journal to record my thoughts, I pondered long and hard. It's a sad day when such an anal retentive traveler such as myself doesn't bother taking a single note while on an excursion. It's even more troubling to imagine that I hadn't even bothered to do any research beforehand. I know, I know, the Rapture is upon us. Indeed, after 4 years of traveling through China, it has finally come to this: I'm officially bored with the small things, these little gateway trips. I need something bigger and better - apologies in advance to those recovering addicts in the audience - the hard stuff. While these escapes from Shanghai are nice, I really need to buckle down and go for the big guys: Tibet, Xinjiang, Sichuan. It's about time. Sure beats jackhammer snoring and titty clubs.

More pictures here.

Thieving Buddha And His Nutsack of Tricks

The Trip To "Ningbo"

(Or, Weekend Escape To The Coast, Part 1)

After finishing all 5 seasons of The Wire, I had no reason to spend time at home with my now-useless DVD player. So when my company advertised a 2-day weekend excursion, I needed no persuading. I'd actually been waiting quite a while for the chance to see Ningbo, a bustling port along the Eastern coast of China. Excited at the prospects of visiting the city, most especially because it was the site of one of Zheng He's shipbuilding operations, which crafted the megaships used on his pre-Columbus global voyages, I had built up a sizable adventure in my imagination that was unfortunately too grand to be realized.

Once I read the fine print, I noticed that we weren't going to Ningbo city at all (we drove through it though!). Instead, we would spend a good amount of time in scenic nature spots around Ningbo that nobody had ever heard of, with a few historic sights tossed in for good measure. As the old addage goes, beggars can't be choosy. Perhaps I've gotten too accustomed to settling for less throughout these years, because I was just happy to be leaving the confines of the city for a couple days.

Departing from our Soviet-style commune bloc at an ungodly Chinese-tour-group hour, we boarded our bus, overcome with happy anticipation for a weekend of fun and excitement. This feeling lasted for about ten seconds. To my horror, the man in the seat next to me looked to be over 250 pounds, the skin on his limbs taut and smooth, like over-packed sausages about to pop if left on the grill for too long. Dude was solid. Like most large people, his breathing didn't come so easily, requiring a kind of suck-snore that was luckily drowned out by my trusty iPod. This being China, seats on transport aren't that wide, so his glorious girth overflowed to my area, squashing me into the window without even trying. To his credit, he tried to give me space, but he was so damn meaty that those moments of sweet bodily freedom were few and far between. Four hours of this claustrophobic mess was going to be quite a test.

After a couple hours of driving, interspersed with a few instances where the dozing fat man used my body as a mattress, crushing me so far into the window that I was in danger of bonding with the glass, we arrived at our first sight: the Hangzhou Bay Bridge. Opened for service on May 1, 2008, this is the world's longest trans-ocean bridge, spanning about 40 kilometers and taking 30 minutes to cross. And what a bridge it is. Aside from the unfortunately hideous color scheme used on the rails (seriously, aesthetics are about as important as manners in this country...), the cable-bridge is an engineering marvel. Costing almost 12 billion RMB (over 1 million USD) to build and 5 years to complete, it has cut the travel time between Shanghai and Ningbo from four hours to two (and travel distance from 400 km to 80km...). Take that, puny Western bridges: the Hangzhou Bay Bridge is the ultimate stroke of Chinese engineering phallic compensation.

Idiots on Parade

Crossing the bridge, the first thing you notice is just how stupid some people can be. Slowing down to a crawl in middle lane traffic is, needless to say, extremely unsafe. Stopping on the side of a bridge to snap pictures of a brown ocean and white sky is also unnecessary. Hanging out of the window (or skyroof) to take pictures of the nothingness, while your car is barreling along at 60 km/hr, is likewise ill-advised. I was having more fun marveling at the parking lot that had formed in the right-most lane, a procession of people stopping along a fully functional highway to get out of their cars to snap a few pictures of the lovely polluted expanse surrounding us.

Not A Parking Lot...

After about 5 minutes, the wonder of it all gets a little old. Unless you are an engineering nerd or have a strange bridge fetish, a half hour of driving through nothing is super boring. In a fitting twist of disappointment, the rest areas on both ends of the bridge - supposed to offer comfort and refreshment after such arduous driving - were not supplied with anything related to food or beverage. Just bathrooms, empty buildings, and anticlimax.

Our drive continued for another couple hours, during which time, my bus partner and I got to know each other a little better, his armpit sweat slowly soaking into the part of my T-shirt covering my shoulder. Romantic indeed.

We finally arrived in Zhedong, a small valley town in Haining which was surprisingly reminiscent of the Wuyi Mountain area in southern Fujian province. Nestled amongst tall mountains covered in deep green forest, cut by clear flowing rapids rushing into a wide reservoir, the Zhedong canyon was a great surprise, due in large part to the glorious weather. I don't remember the last time my eyes had the pleasure of enjoying an actual blue sky, but I can confidently say it's been months. Combined with the glaring brightness of the sandy boulders, the glimmering streams of crystal clear water, the lush vegetation and the hot springtime sun, it was precisely the scenery we were seeking.

Zhedong Reservoir: Don't know how clean the water is...

Oh Engrish! I just can't help myself

One of my favorite pleasures in life is relaxing barefoot in a mountain stream. Climbing down from the rickety pathway that was barely attached to the hillside, we stumbled along hundreds of white-hot stones burning the pads of pale-white feet, feeling the first blast of icy cold mountain water as we dipped in our toes. A simple sensation that can make you forget about the world outside the valley. On the list of memorable travel moments in my life, these usually rank high on the charts. This instance was no different. The weekend's travels were worth it for that half-hour of peace and solitude.

Precarious Outcrop

Twirling Swirls

Isn't That In America?

Refreshed and content, we dried off our feet and slowly made our way back. Having had a few hours of exercise to burn off lunch, we exited the valley and continued our quest forth to the quiet mountain town of Xikou, the birthplace of Chiang Kai-shek.

Part 2, coming soon...

More pictures below. What good would a trip be without some jumping? =)