Since the Eyjafjallajökull Volcano is disrupting flights into the UK I am currently stuck in the rather warm city of Dubai. At least with the regular updates on airspace closure, we know when we are not leaving, which gives time to explore a country I was only expecting to transit through in 90 minutes.

My brothers were in Australia for new year and we spent a week up near Cape Tribulation in Far North Queensland where these were shot.

Suggestions welcome, I have some time – my flight doesn’t leave until 2010 (ish)…

Well, that was fun.

In the unlikely event of the plane ditching at sea, the brightly coloured life jackets will help people find the wreckage and your laminated passport photo will be handy for ID purposes.

Hell, there’ll couple of minutes before impact so there will be time to hit the duty free alcohol you bought, get naked¹ and do whatever else you want.

It was tempting to have a look at my work e-mails when I got back to civilisation but since they have recently changed our web-mail system I could not even remember how to log in correctly. Looks like I am not that much of an internet junkie after all.

Oh, and Cornwall was great. Highlights including surviving four hours on a fishing boat (from where we coincidently got to watch Sunday service at the Minack Theatre), and watching a enactment of the ‘Battle of Trevavo’ by the Sealed Knot (complete with cannons).

As for the Tate St. Ives, what it really needs is an influential caucus of art critics lead by Brian Sewell and Robert Hughs to walk in one day, walk up to some paintings, looks at them, look at each other and go:

‘John Hoyland, he’s not very good though is he.’

Abstract shmabstract.

The follwing day a bus got us to the town of Tangkou at the foot of the mountain and a short taxi ride took us to the start of the Western Steps, roughly 800m above sea level. From here it is a five minute cable car ride to the top. The alternative is 1000m vertical metres of stairs, which allowing for some downs on the way up is about equal to 7,000 steps. Amazingly, we kept getting overtaken by porters carrying large loads hanging from split bamboo poles. The majority of the steps have been literally carved from the granite and in places the trail lead through fissures barely wide enough to squeeze through sideways.

After 3.5 hours we had climbed 900m to the Jade Screen, the location of the upper cable car station, which just left the unsettlingly vertical steps to the 1863m summit of the Lotus Peak. Many people choose to stay the night in one of several (expensive) hostels on the mountain in order to get up early and watch the sunrise (the clouds fill the valleys, leaving the ridges and peaks exposed). We chose instead just to enjoy the view as it was and then be on our way. From the summit the view was stunning, rows of ridges and peaks fading into the blue horizon, and in the town of Tangkou barely visible as a grey smudge. The highest point itself was rather small and after lingering for a few minutes B and I set off again.

Needing to get back to Tangkou for the last bus we descended via a different route to the cable car station. The way back passed through more dark tunnels, across a bridge between two mountains and along a stone walkway cantilevered off a vertical wall. Reaching the cable car station we were suprised to find no queues at all and jumped into the next available pod. Rather disconcertingly, the car trundled sedately through the boarding area before accelerating over the precipice into several hundred feet of open air. After the initial shock, it was a pleasant descent to where we had started several hours earlier.

We need not have worried about finding a bus though, a whole army of minibusses were camped out in the carpark and it was not difficult to find one willing to take us for a good price and we made it back to Tunxi in about half the time of the outward journey (it was downhill).

Previous China Diaries: Map, Beijing, Shanghai

Across from the Bund, lies the Pudong area. Originally marshy farmland tasked with feeding the people of Shanghai, it is now home to major financial corporations, hotels and the curiously shaped Pearl Tower. We had planned to go up the tower for a view of the city, but on recommendation from the Lonely Planet guide, decided to visit the bar on the 87th floor of the Grand Hyatt instead. Unfortunately, there was a motor race being held round the area and by the time we had finally made it past all the diversions to the building, we had covered about 4 miles in the midday sun. There was something satisfying about being a sweaty, sun reddened, travel creased person, taking marble trimmed lifts to a bar in a hotel where one night would cost more than a weeks travelling budget. It may have been only a bar, but at 150m higher than the top of Canary Wharf, one to remember.

We also found time to explore the French concession area, where the streets are wide, lined with Plane trees, relatively quiet and flanked by a surprisingly large number of surviving original colonial buildings.

Joining thousands of others, B and I spent a morning queuing across Tiananmen Square to file past the in-state Chairman, who I thought glowed rather creepily (apparently he goes to visit Lenin once a year for a cup of tea and a touch-up). Where Mao once viewed parades of 1,000,000 troops and a unknown man halted a line of tanks, families now go to fly kites or throw frisbees.

Imediately north of Tiananmen Square lies the the Forbidden City. A vast 3 palace complex, one mile long and 1000m wide, off limits to everyone except the Imperial Court until the early 20th century. Although packed with tourists, it was not difficult to imagine it being occupied solely but the Emperor and his retinue, living in luxury and bound to ritual, isolated from the lives of the people.

Eschewing the tour groups, we chose to visit the Old Summer Palace, whose remains, having endured several rounds of demolition, burning and looting, now lie in largely overlooked grace. Although less manicured and visually impressive (than the Summer Palace), the abscence of great flocks of people made a welcome break from the noise of 13 million people going about their days.

Finally in Beijing we visited the Great Wall, something that you can’t really not do when in China. Out of convenience and chance we ended up at Badaling, where the wall has been reconstructed for the privellage of visiting dignitaries and the like. Luckily, the majority of visits choose to climb the easier east side of the valley, leaving the steeper western wall in relative peace. By the time we reached the top of the 400m climb, we were still undecided on the number who must have died to build the wall along knife-edge ridge, and how futile it was as the defensive capacity was never tested.

A trip in a Beijing would be incomplete without a ride in a Xiala ‘Bullet’ taxi. An experiece to give you the feeling that you are a passenger in a stock-car race (but one where buses and bikes are compete too). One day I could see our driver thinking ‘theres a car in lane 2, and one in lane 3, but lane 2.5 is clear’, followed by me asking B what the city speed limits were (40kph), as the speedo hit 100.

Bejing seems to have a buildings from the very beginning to the present with Hutongs (traditional courtyard/terrace housing) lacking heating, running water and sanitation, to the marble-and-glass Nike-selling Wangfujing Centre. However, change and westernisation are catching up with Beijing, and quickly. Huge areas of Hutongs and other ‘undesirable areas’ are being leveled and replaced with tower blocks in time for the 2008 Olympics (building works run 24/7). McDonalds and KFC’s are springing up like weeds and there is even a Starbucks in the Forbidden City.

Hopefully there will be enough of the ‘old way’ left to dilute the changes and prevent Beijing becoming less of a city.