Loved Guangzhou!

Despite the horrible weather (daytime temperatures ranged from 6 to 8 degrees, and it was always either raining or overcast), it was a great experience.

China's third largest city was a stop between Haikou and Manila. We had just three days, and the usual work rules applied. But you could easily spend a lot of time here. There's really a huge amount to do.

Highlights:

1. Getting there on the train from Haikou. This involves putting the train on the ferry -- our very first experience of such a business. (There used to be cross-Channel train ferries, but they packed up in 1980.) The process of folding the train up to get it on the boat is quite amazing. There's lots of honking, banging, and shunting. You roll on, you roll back out, you roll on again. Now you're separated from the parallel carriages by a couple of tracks, now you're right up against them. And once under way, it's really weird to feel the swell of the sea while you're lying in a bunk on a train... Then you're on the other side, and the whole performance begins again. After which you trundle on to Guangzhou, through the gaps in China's big southern hills.





2. Walking. China's good for walking. And Guangzhou is even better than most places because motorbikes are banned, so you don't have to be constantly avoiding pesky people who have invaded your pavement and expect you to give them right of way... Our hotel was near the river (between Shamian Island and the Jiefang Road bridge). It's a bustling market area, with a constant push-and-clamour of vendors and trolleys and customers, and depending where you're standing at any given time, you are convinced that all the mushrooms in China have gathered here, or all the prawns, or all the nuts. A little to the north is Shangxiajiu pedestrian street. West of that, and a little north again, you get the historic Enning Road area and Liwan Park. All of these are good walking grounds. In a league of its own, however, is Shamian Island, which radiates genteel calm. It's a little bit of Paris that has attached itself to China's eastern seaboard, and along its tree-lined, mansion-studded avenues many a gallery and coffee shop has sprung up. This relic of empire, where Chinese used to be authorized to set foot only with special permits, was the second iteration of Guangzhou's foreign enclave, as the first (the one portrayed in Amitav Ghosh's memorable River of Smoke) burnt down.













3. Eating. Guangzhou is apparently "the food city of China"... It's particularly famous for its dim sum, and we had a yum cha breakfast one day at the venerable Guangzhou Restaurant. Excellent: char siu bao (fluffy buns with a barbecued pork filling); a "spring onion pancake" that was more doughnut-like than pancake-like, but none the less tasty for that; har gow (prawns in delicate rice wrappers); turnip cake; cheong fun (which, unlike in Malaysia, has no sweet element -- just a dash of light soy sauce, and a little dish of chilli for dipping), and copious quantities of tea (the intricacies of which are sorted for you by one of the wait-staff). Our more "normal" meals were also irreproachable: bouncy beef ball noodle soup; big-fat-dumpling soup; breakfast rice porridge, with egg and chicken and peanuts; and noodle soup with fish balls and fish skin (the latter sounds unappetizing, I know, but it's a Cantonese delicacy, and is crispy and delicious).





4. Visiting museums. Guangzhou is museum-rich, but we had time only for two. The first was the Mausoleum of the Nanyue King. This features the discovery of an amazing grave complex dating back about 2,000 years, which shows a mixture of cultures, both northern and indigenous. The second was the Guangzhou City Museum, which depicts very clearly this area's significance in world history. Both were excellent, with interesting artefacts and informative signs in English.



















5. Enjoying the Pearl River. You can't really go wrong with a huge, historic river, but particularly noteworthy experiences were riding the ferry from Huashang Wharf to Canton Tower (it's a nice trip, and costs only 2 yuan), and strolling the banks at night, when the downtown buildings paint pictures in the dark.















Loved Guangzhou...



Postscript: I wrote this early on our last evening. I feel it only fair to add that the clouds miraculously parted in time for us to see the total lunar eclipse. And our last morning's riverside walk was bathed in sunshine, with the high for the day set for 14. So we briefly got to see a blue-skied Guangzhou, and very lovely it was too.