Taiwan  The tiny island of the east coast of China (mainland). The political atmosphere is tense
and cause of nervousness amongst the Taiwanese. China wants
Taiwan (back) as a province of China but Taiwan wants to be independent. China says she will
result to the use of force to take Taiwan as shown with the annex of Tibet but Taiwan continues to
pursue her independence provoking China. I arrived into Taiwan on the 26th June to some extreme heat and humidity (as compared to the UK).
Only one problem seemed to be in the way between me and the rest of Taiwan, the language barrier.
Using ever increasing volumes of English didn't quite seem to work and so I deduced
that if they can't understand English quietly they are not going to suddenly understand if
it is shouted into their ears. I resorted to the international language of hand signals and
saying my destination - partial success! My main reason of visiting was to participate on a 9-day International Aviation
Camp for College Students organised by the Taiwanese government. This turned out to be great fun,
as well as attending aviation related events and facilities
we toured most of the islands interest and visited some fantastic places. We stayed in 4* hotels and ate 10 course meals.
We toured air force bases, navy bases, engine and carbon fibre factories. After that had finished I travelled around Taiwan over the course of five weeks. I experienced my first
earthquake and became a veteran to typhoons after experiencing two. I climbed the highest
mountain in Taiwan, Yushan (Jade Mountain, 3,952m), became stranded on green island for a 3 days due to high winds
with only the clothes I wore and stayed at the very peaceful Buddhist pilgrimage mountain at Shitoshan.
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China  China, the most populated country in the world. It is also home to nine of the ten most polluted cities in the world and industralising further at an alarming rate.
It just recently started on creating the largest dam in existense along the Yangtze river. When completed it would flood much of the upper valley, displacing thousands
of people, destroying whole cities and submerging the famous three gorges (or san-sha daba) - This is the reason why I had to come
to China, to see the gorges before they were submerged. I landed in Shanghai and almost didn't make it through immigration as after studying my passport very carefully with a magnifying glass
they took it away for some thorough interrogation. Meanwhile I was left to stand on the side and got many a dirty look ("innocent until proven guilty, guys!").
After 15-20 minutes the passport was returned in one peice and I was allowed to enter their country.
I got hastled by a taxi driver who demanded 800 Yuan for a ride into the city, then offered me the
Chinese price of 80 Yuan. I declined
and found a bus for 4 Yuan.
I stayed in Shanghai for a few days where I met Samji who was studying Kung-Fu in China. Whilst he went in search for a monastary to train in I ventured westwards, by train, to Nanjing - a historical city with a bloody past.
After the fall of Nanjing to the Japanese during the second world war, reports say that 200,000 civilians were massacred. |
particularly felt like a mass transport boat. The dorm style cabins consisted of two rows of bunk beds separated with an aisle that spanned the width of the ship. The mattreses on the hard wooden beds consisted of a bamboo mat offering nothing more than the gesture of comfort.
In the searing heat the cabins became ovens and people lay the days away spitting sunflower seeds' husks onto the single aisle. The toilets were even worse, consisting of the traditional ditch to squat beside, with the stench of a thousand shits permeating through every single molecule of air.
After two days one of the ships crew realised I wasn't Chinese and thus a foreigner. He ushered me to collect my belongings before relocating me to second class on the upper decks, which was invitingly comfortable but non-descript.
The boat journey ends in Chongqing and having had enough of boats I decided to take the bus to Chengdu. In Chengdu I heard from Samji who was training Kung-Fu in a monastary just outside Dali in Yunnan province.
So I headed to Dali to see this monastary. I stayed in town but spent everyday at the monastary eating with the master and watching the training.
Finally it was time to get to Beijing for my flight home. Not fancying three days on a train I opted for a flight which gave me a few days to spare in Beijing. I took this opportunity to mount a two day trip onto a part of the 'wild' great wall of china, sleeping on the wall itself with the
scorpions and foliage.
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