First Photos from Mumbai

This is how we got here: tired out from travelling again.

Mumbai is a very big city, with many very small internet access places.

And we found your taxi, Sati!

Hooray for India - Heather's all excited

We're in India - hooray!!!!

Leaving China was sad because we were leaving our dear friends Hongwei and Yujin, who have been so kind to us. However, I was ready to come to a land with a culture, cuisine and language that I know and love. I hardly slept the night before we came and last night because I was so excited. The kids think its funny because I am so happy and bouncy and want to go out all of the time. It's such a contrast to the last time I was here 20 years ago - not sure what's changed, mostly me I think.

The kids weren't too impressed with our room last night - a bit grubby and run down, but today we have moved to nice hotel and are in a large, clean and comfortable family room - nice to be in together again. Everything is nearby and I am loving Mumbai - great food, shops, sea, people etc etc..... and it makes me feel close to my Indian friends - just wish some of you would come out and take us to the Gujarat - hint hint!!! (Although I have had it pointed out to me, quite rightly, that not all of my Indian friends are Gujaratis!)

I am also itching to get to Kerala and the beach - but at the moment I'm just so happy to be here - I feel so at home. Today we booked our train tickets for a 32 hour down to Kerala, leaving on Sunday, we can also get our Kenyan plane tickets much more cheaply here.

We took a boat trip to an island with temples and monkeys - fun but very hot. Then off to our favorite coffee bar, air conditioning, great latte, cakes etc, very cheap. Yesterday Melissa and I shopped until we dropped and bought loads of cheap clothes to wear - some better than others, tomorrow we are off in a taxi for the day for a sightseeing and shopping trip around Mumbai. Last night we took our Larium, no ill effects for any of us, but I slept very badly (for the 3rd night running), partly over excitement and exhaustion, partly fear of getting nightmares I think, everytime I nodded off and started to dream - I always dream a lot - I woke up with a start fearing that it would be a nightmare. Hopefully I can get a couple of good nights sleep before our mammoth train journey as I seem to be running on adrenaline at the moment.

Hope you are all well and happy too even though you don't have the sun and fine fun of India - lots of love - Heather

- Heather

Safe in Mumbai

Just a quick note to say that we're safely installed at Godwins Hotel in Colaba, Mumbai, 200 yds from our first hotel, and much cleaner and nicer, where we'll stay for a couple of days before heading south to Kerala. Tonight we begin our five months of weekly anti-malarial mefloquine (lariam) tablets (purchased today from a chemist outside Bombay Hospital at a fraction of the UK price) - we'll let you know how wierd our dreams get. It's hot, the food is great, there are a lot of people, some are very poor, many are very friendly - and it's a whole lot more British than China.

Wrong times - Oooooops!

D'oh! The times in the post below this one for when we'll be in our hotel rooms are a load of cobblers, I'm afraid. We'll be there from about 7:30am or so (UK time), definitely till 10am and maybe up to 11am (or possibly up to noon: depends when our hosts have organised dinner for us) - sorry if that means we missed you! You could try between 3 and 4pm, too, when we'll be back from eating.

Call us on Tuesday morning!!

We're off to India on Wednesday morning - if any of our devoted readership wants to say hi tomorrow (Tuesday) between 9am and 1pm British Summer Time, we will be packing in our hotel rooms and can be telephoned like this (if from outside UK, start from step two):

• 08444 390390 (this gets you 3p/minute call rates to China)
• 008610 84214250 (our hotel's automated switchboard)
• then type in ext 8311 (or 8316 for the other room if engaged)

We'd love to hear from you!

Lots of new pictures below

Meanwhile, scroll down for new words and pictures: we managed to get lots more photos uploaded, so we've posted more blog entries with photos in, and they're (mostly!) dated when we wrote them, not when we typed them in. So there are new entries, as of yesterday and today, going back to September 21st.

We still can't edit once we've posted: so please forgive dumb bits of layout, broken links and stuff that's in the wrong order.

Eating the World (Part One)

New food I have tried

• Scorpion - OK
• Crab - OK
• Fried whole little fish - OK
• Aubergine - OK
• Lotus root - horrible
• Lily bulb - horrible
• Pak choi - OK
• Spinach - nice
• Mild green chillis - nice
• Crayfish - OK
• Octopus - OK
• Cockles - nice
• Sea tubes - OK
• Radish - horrible
• Water-chestnuts - horrible
• Prawns - OK
• Shrimp - OK
• "Chicken hair" (green vegetable) - nice
• Bean-sprouts - nice

Food I haven't tried

• Dog - makes me feel sick, but I wish I'd tried it
• Shrimps in wine - because they were alive, wriggling in the pot, until they got eaten, or got so drunk they died.
• Raw lobster (dipped in soya sauce and wasabi) - which I wanted to try at the big posh seafood restaurant in Jinan, but a man nicked it - he got the waitress to clear it and bag it up for him before I tried it! Mark tried it and liked it.
• Beetles on sticks - no thanks. Mark ate silkworms though.

Some favourite food

• Chips in Chilli - thin chips covered with oil in a big pile of chillies and garlic and spices
• Barbequed Fish - in a restaurant in Huairou that we drove miles to after the great wall, by a river
• Aubergines, Green Pepper and Potatoes - tasty!
• Sour "Skittles" - like English skittles sweets, but really sour and covered in sugar - they're the best!
• Chicken on sticks - 5 Yuan (40p) in the tourist market, where they try to give you the wrong change, or 1 Yuan for halal ones round the corner from our hotel in the Muslim restaurant

- Melissa

Rosa goes rural

Hello!

We've been to a rural area of China. We met a girl called Cui-Cui who was 11 yrs old and liked playing 'Go Fish' with us, although she called it poker (I worked out later that they called any card game poker).

They had a little cat who was three years old but looked like a kitten. They had a white fluffy hen with two fluffy chicks, plus they had a hooligan of a rooster who crowed all night long. I was very good, because I sat in a restaurant for ages whilst everyone ate and I had nothing I could eat [the rice comes last] and I didn't even complain or anything.

We were staying in their house with small pillows and so Melissa used my travel pillow. She lost her pillow in the night and woke everyone up blaming me for stealing it - Mark came in with a light and found it right by her! She said I'd threw it there but I was asleep!

When we were coming back to Beijing there were no sleeper train tickets available for three days so we had to go on a plane from Jinan. We were supposed to be staying in the hotel run by Yujin's ministry, but Yujin's friend decided to put us up in the best hotel in Shandong - which is one of the biggest provinces in China. It was really, really posh, but mummy couldn't sleep because the pillow was too big and she didn't want to order a buckwheat one, which she could have done. The hotel rooms had a bath - which was wicked, because we'd only had showers for ages.

- Rosa

If anyone's posted comments in the last week: we may not have received our copy due to email glitches - but we'll hopefully be able to see the blog (and the comments) directly from Mumbai. The glitch is fixed and we should get any further comments emailed on to us directly.

If nobody's commented in the last week - why is that!!?? Just because we haven't been posting things or anywhere near an internet cafe!!!! What kind of an excuse is that???

news from the countryside ...

Dear all,

Thanks all of you that have written and the rest of you why not! Not really - but I am enjoying getting emails and feeling in touch with my friends back home. Whilst we were in the village (see below) had my first real bout of home sickness - I think it's because I was away from communication (although some of you have texted - thanks) and also we were with our friend and his family in his home town and family and home felt such a long way away with none of the familiar (despised and desired in equal measures) McDonalds, starbucks, chocolate, internet etc.

We have just returned from a few days in rural China which was a real privilege to experience - we would never have done so without our friends taking us there. Yujin's parents live in a village which is typical of normal rural life for millions and millions of Chinese people. It's in Shandong province (where Jinan is too, that Coventry is twinned with). Their house is one of the grandest in the village (because he buys lots for it) with heating, a shower (outside) and a big TV. But the toilet is an outside squat toilet like they have used for centuries, and all around we saw people toiling over the land. Especially now it was a great time to go as it is Autumn, the weather was perfect and the harvesting was being done. Corn and beans lined the streets drying and people were working really hard. It's really hard to imagine what their lives are like, even more so in a way being in amongst them. I really dread to imagine life in the winter when the snow is feet thick and most homes have little heating and certainly no hot or running water.

It's very easy to idealise the life because at this time of year, the family plots of land look very much like well-kept allotments - no big agricultural businesses, just smallholdings, but when you think that they really are having to support themselves off that land it really makes you appreciate the easy life that we lead.

The food in Shandong (and China generally) has been rather challenging for us all in different ways. We've all eaten far too much, as much of it is very delicious and our hosts make sure that we have a huge variety of food at each meal. For me and Rosa the challenge has been the variety of meats that get served - dog is a common dish in Shandong as are silk worms and scorpions. Mark and Melissa have taken up the challenge and tried most things (not dog, which Melissa now regrets - but she has eaten a massive load of new foods which I think she will post about on the blog). Rosa has eaten mostly egg fried rice, but rice was not so much available in Shangong though they do have delicious bread. I was a bit off-colour for a couple of days and didn't eat much but fruit - which was probably just as well - but there are a lot of very nice vegetables and tofu cooked in lots of different ways. I don't enjoy the Chinese breakfasts though, lots of savory stuff..

The dogs, as well as being eaten, are treated rather badly in the rural areas to our delicate western standards and Rosa and I were very upset by it a couple of times. People mostly look healthy and well fed and are friendly but the life is definitely not easy. We went to a country produce market and walked around like celebrities - everyone staring and giggling at us - many haven't seen foreigners before. Melissa gets a lot of attention - they think she is beautiful, they think Rosa is big and much older and they think I'm old and Mark is young (not very good for the self esteem I can tell you) and they have no social norms about not asking or talking about age so they tell you to your face too!! I feel old here and I think that I look older than when I left Coventry (but it might just be psychological)..

We left rural China and drove to Jinan, where we were put up for the night in a luxury 5* hotel - amazing place, we were taken to eat in an incredible seafood restaurant (luckily I was still off my food anyway) then flew home to Beijing - from one extreme (almost) to the other.

We're here now for 6 days until we fly off to India - getting excited about that now.

lots of love to you all

- Heather

Mark's Journal: Oct 6th

Up earlier than breakfast was ready (first time here!) and a last morning with Yujin's Ma and Ba, Cui-Cui, an aunt, an uncle, and one of the 30-odd cousins. Such lovely people. Ma, who doesn't read, taught Heather a Chinese song last night, then got Cui-Cui to write it down for her - and then laughed when she realised of course Heather can't read Chinese.

We went to the local "free market" which happens every fifth day (lunar calendar) to collect twenty-five Shandong-style roast chickens for Yujin to take back to Beijing. I could have spent all day there: all kinds of things for sale at hundreds and hundreds of stalls - whole skinned goats, live rabbits, superglue, doughsticks, fertilizer, spices, dried alted fish of all kinds and sizes, wet fish, wool, shoes, baskets, shoe-repairing, nets, bottles, offal ... We have officially left the "developed world" - there was a stall selling the innards of a single pig, and you just don't get that in Coventry.

We were film-stars or a freak show, with lots and lots of people staring, some open-mouthed, at their first non-Chinese people. A smile and a "Ni hao" from us would result in anything from a returned smile, to an amazed stare, to a fit of giggles, to blank incomprehension, to one guy who followed me for ten minutes, sure he could get me to talk Chinese if he tried for long enough. Never anything unfriendly, let alone aggressive, but still a tiny window into how Sati and Mo get treated on, say, Bournemouth beach: I could tell I'd want to know the Chinese for "what are you looking at?!" after a day or two of even this benign staring.

Mark's Journal: Oct 4th

Home-style breakfast today meant yesterday's restaurant dinner leftovers, hard-boiled eggs with crushed raw garlic to dip them in, bread (just for us), pickles and rice porridge with bits in. Yujin had us scheduled, so we headed off to visit the dam that his father used to work at. Very pretty - square fishing nets and what look like floating sheds or very small houses dotted all over the water. Then off to the Zhous' favourite restaurant again - we passed on the dog and on the raw garlic but the rest was good!

Then home for a rest and to play with pois for a while, until it was time to watch Mrs Zhou force-feed the dying puppy (not in the photos) she's trying to save for the second day running - a spectacle that this time reduced Heather and Rosa to tears: so I took them off to cry for a bit. Melissa grabbed the cards and went to play Go Fish with Cui-Cui, and the three of us had a few minutes of noticing how much there is to get our heads round as white people in the "developing world" (not that there's much less for Mo to get her head round!).

Then back to the lake, where we were taken in and fed by some transport magnate with the biggest private house we've seen, overlooking a corner of the lake that he rents for his use, and with a very fine cook indeed: lake fish and shrimps, and five different egg dishes in our honour! We skimmed stones for a while, and the lady of the house (who looked like Cher) took us for a boat ride.

On the way home we passed the inevitable result of general road anarchy - a bike under a lorry (and Yujin said also a body and lots of blood). If it wasn't for the excellent Chinese law which declares that when a car or lorry hits a person it's always the drivers fault, no matter what, there'd be a lot more of this.

From Mark's Journal: Oct 3rd

Lying on my firm double bed in our quiet "suite" - three whole sections for us four.

Yujin's mum and dad have the best house in the best village in all of this county, he tells us, and I can well believe it. Eight sections in all, south-facing with just tiny high windows on the north side, their house has been rebuilt in concrete since Yujin was a child here: like most others in the village.

The three sons all work in Beijing now, and send money and bring stuff home - but there's little clutter here. The covered verandah all houses have on their south wall has been glazed in; the entrance to the yard is a fancy red old-style door (first one in the village) between the kitchen and the loo/shower outhouse; the shower has solar heating and even a power-shower set-up for winter; Yujin built a metal vine trellis last spring and the new vines are doing well; there are all kinds of small, dwarfed or bonsai'd fruit trees in the yard (pomegranate, kumquat, Asian pear, plum, something like a crab-apple, lime, etc.); there's a 30-inch TV; and the main sections of the house even have central heating. All this, plus it's really clean and tidy as Yujin's parents don't farm a plot of land (Mr Zhou worked away at a dam and hydro plant before he retired) so haven't got as much working stuff to store, or dirt to tramp in and out.

I love the garden in their courtyard. Vertical, layered, multi-storied: with chickens, a little cat for the mice, a dog for protection, some caged birds for song, and flowers and shrubs for prettiness as well as utility.

Around here, each member of a family owns, on average, around half a mou of land - which is quite low, so people want to get the most from their land. They use old (I think one year old) night soil, pig manure and chemical fertilizer, but no chemical weedkillers or pesticides, apparently. In the past, the winter was a time to relax and stay in to keep warm - now people use polytunnels to extend the growing season, and/or get other work in winter. People grow corn, aubergines, rice, corn, peppers, radishes, corn, chinese leaves, beans, cucumbers, onions, corn, garlic and corn. Roads, roofs and courtyards are currently filled with drying corns and beans: and the drying waste, too, for later use as fuel.

Strolling around is great! People stare a lot, and we say "Ni hao" and they laugh, or say "hello, hello," or smile, or just keep staring. Everyone (adult) works hard here, and the children hang out with the adults working, or join in: if I was here a little longer, so would I.

- Author

Qufu photos

Confucius's home town

We got a horse taxi, visited a temple and a crowded museum, where we sat down for a rest, and then stood by our astrological years

China's holiest and busiest mountain

We arrived at Taishan City at 5:30am on National Day (Oct 1st) after a night on the hard sleeper from Beijing with what seemed to be most of China - to be met by Yujin's businessman friend Mr Chen, who brought us to our 11th storey rooms in the Shandong Taishan Huaqiao Hotel. Time for a quick nap and then breakfast before heading off to the summit of Taishan mountain - 6600 steps above the plain.

There's a whole village at the top of the mountain, dedicated equally to the Azure Cloud Goddess, and to feeding and fleecing the thousands and thousands of Confucian and Buddhist pilgrims who make the climb, particularly on National Day. Busiest mountain top I've seen, with by far the worst-smelling toilets ever (like being inside an over-ripe Camembert) - but great views, great air (mostly!) - and it made a change to be chilly!

(And this is how we really got up the mountain:)

- Mark