China 1985

Tourism had just opened up in China. You could not travel on your own, only in organized groups with a Government supplied guide.

1985 was a long time ago and China was a different place then. There was no Oriental Pearl Tower in Shanghai, no Bird’s Nest in Beijing, there were very few cars, most people rode bikes, road work was completed mostly by miles and miles of men with shovels, every ten men there was one wheel barrow and so it went. Scaffolding around newer buildings was made from bamboo. Beijing was not Beijing – it was Peking as far as the outside world was concerned. Airplanes were rattle traps. Buses drove through the night with the lights off so as to not blind the bicycle riders – but the driver always had one hand on the horn. We saw factories of workers spinning silk from silkworm cocoons, men turning wood on a lathe that was powered by bamboo foot pedals, weavers making beautiful silk carpets, hand  painted porcelain figurines and people carving Ivory (you won’t see photos of ivory carving here, please see my Africa photos for ivory where it belongs, on the elephants). Near Xian they were still digging out the Terracotta Warriors which was incredible to see but machine gun toting guards ensured that the no photo signs were taken seriously. That was long before anyone even dreamt of a “smart phone” that you could sneak out for a quickie pic.

We travelled by train, plane, bus and boat from Hong Kong to Canton (Guangzhou), Xian, Peking (Beijing), Badaling, Nanjing, Wuxi, Souchow (Suzhou), Shanghai and then back to Canton and then Hong Kong.

We had an incredible trip.

Almost 25 years later we wanted to go back to see some of the changes and had booked a trip in 2008 that would take us through China on the highest elevation train in the world all the way to Tibet but before we were underway border disputes between China and Tibet shut down the area to all outsiders and we had to cancel the China part of the trip rerouting our plane tickets to Thailand.