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Bangkok, centrally located as it is, is the logical gateway to China. Think about it. With Thai Airways International connecting Bangkok to 71 destinations around the world, and with eight direct destinations in China, what more can the traveller want? And now with all the activities China has planned for 2008, Bangkok will be even more in demand as a stopover in the coming months.
What is so ironic about China’s bulging tourist trade is that it wasn’t so long ago that China opened her doors to the outside world. For almost forty years, since 1949, China had closed her doors to the world. For those forty years foreign travellers could not set foot on the Chinese mainland. If we were to judge China by her past history, it could be several centuries before she again opened her doors. It was in the 15th century, after Admiral Zheng He returned home from his seventh voyage of trade and exploration throughout the waters of South East Asia and the Indian ocean, that China’s adapted the closed-door policy, for the emperor, fearing foreign influences might destroy the country, closed China to the world. For three centuries, until the Opium Wars of the mid 1850s, when Britain forced China to open her ports to trade, China remained sealed off from the world.
China today is wide open, for both business and travel. For the traveller, the tourist looking for new places, China is without doubt one of the great travel destinations of the world. But being a big country that she is, the question arises, where should one who has never been to China before go? There are so much to see, and so many places to visit, it’s a most difficult decision to make.
For this week’s travel feature, I would like to tell readers something about a few of those destinations, with Bangkok serving as the hub, that are well worth visiting, and at the same time tell readers about the China that I knew and came to love.
It was chance that took me to China the first time, as a very young man, but it was my learning experience. It left me with indelible impressions I can never forget. When World War II ended, instead of being sent home, my US Marine regiment was sent to China to repatriate the Japanese forces. While other kids back home were going to football games and taking dates to school dances, I was exposed to a culture that completely empowered me. In a sense I grew up in China. I attended a language school in Peking, or Beijing today, and remained in China until the Communist takeover in 1949. I made my exit from China, and from internment, by swimming out to a passing junk and eventually was able to reach Shanghai. That’s a story I told in my book Take China. Down through the years I never thought I would return to China. When China did open her doors, I was one of the first foreigners to line up at the Chinese embassy for a visa.
The only way to get to China in days past was by ship, and that was by travelling in Shanghai. To reach other destinations, travel was by river steamer and coastal ferry. It was slow, uncomfortable and very time consuming. Schedules were difficult to keep. Our modern jet age has changed all that, and thanks to Thai Airways International, an airline that inaugurated one of the very first international flights to Beijing, Bangkok has become The Gateway to China. THAI now flies to eight destinations on the mainland, including Hong Kong. Also, seeing the need to assist travellers, where such help is so important, THAI’s Royal Orchid Holidays has made travel to China much easier by establishing travel programmes in many key cities.
My introduction to China will be brief here, but over the months to come we will travel in depth into China and discover some of the country’s secrets. Let us begin in Beijing, and let us start at Tiananmen Square. There can be no better introduction to China.
When you stand at Tiananmen Square and look out over the vast expanse of open parade field, you can feel the power and might of China. Tiananmen radiates China’s strength, and you feel in every pore of you body, down to the very tips of your fingers. Stand at there and let your imagination run, and picture this marvelous city that has survived the ages, the centuries of great art and culture, the centuries of wars and tyranny. Picture Genghis Khan with 100,000 fierce, mounted horsemen sweeping down on the city in the 12th century, and laying waste to the city and slaughtering everything that lived, and then making it the capital of the Tartar world, which he called Peiping, the Northern Capital. There were, of course, other khans and emperors and warlords who followed, each grand and magnanimous in his own style and manor, and with each who left his mark.
When I left China ion 1949, I feared returning for I knew there would be many changes. My great disappointment was to find that the magnificent wall that had surrounded the city, some 4,000 years old, had been torn down to make room for a motor beltway; but my disappointment soon passed when I found the rest of the city in tact. Even the Hutongs, the infamous back alleys, were still there. And for walls, Beijing continues to be a city of walls. Within the city there’s the wall that encloses the Tartar City, and within that wall another that surrounds the Imperial City, and in the very centre of this, the most grand wall of all, the wall around the Imperial City. Then there’s the Whispering Wall of China, and another wall around the Temple of Heaven.
All these sites are tourist musts, and certainly the Great Wall of China that is only a few hours’ drive from city centre is included. What has changed is the infrastructure of the city, with many new and grand hotels that look like imperial palaces themselves. In deed, Beijing is one of the great cities of the world.
The second city of importance I’d like to recommend is Shanghai, but before I do, I’d like to mention Xian. Xian is not a direct flight from Bangkok on THAI but it is part of an ROH itinerary. (ROH21). Here truly is another great city of Asia, a city basked in history, but one that is little known. Imagine, after lying dormant for more than 2,000 years, the most sensational archaeological find of the century was made. It’s the terra-cotta army, some 8,000 life-size warriors in battle array. Xian itself, one of the oldest cities on earth, was settled perhaps as early as 7,000 years ago. I mentioned my disappointment to discover the Beijing Wall was torn town, but my faith in preserving the past was restored when I saw that Xian has an ancient wall around the city, and it is untouched. I spent a couple days exploring the wall, and even rode a bicycle around it topmost ramparts.
What can one say about Shanghai that hasn’t already been said? To understand Beijing better, I suggested standing at Tiananmen Square. In Shanghai, it’s the Bund. Stand there and look all about you. As far as you will be able to see, up and down river, rises a wall of magnificent colonial buildings: banking institutions, a custom house, hotels, private cubs, government offices; foreign consulates--buildings with clock towers, columns and domes, powerful and elegant, and so un-Chinese. The Bund, part quay, part thoroughfare and part promenade, was once the most famous street in Asia.
The Shanghai I knew in my youth was a city beyond any law; a city that defied human dignity and lived up to the many names people gave it--"Paris of the East," "Whore of Asia," "Capital of the Tycoon," "Paradise of Adventurers," and more. Whatever name one used, Shanghai was the most exciting city in the East. And when I returned after forty years, it was just as great. There are endless things to do in Shanghai, but knowing where to look is the key, and that’s where ROHS24 comes in.
They say Shanghai is modern, but they can also say that in Shanghai time has stopped. Old Victorian buildings still stand, and bits of Paris and London appear at ever corner. Pealing plaster and crumbling stonework are commonplace but through the neglect you find the authentic, the real Shanghai. Gone are places like Blood Alley, the street that got its name from the bloody barroom brawls that were nightly affairs, and one that I remember so well as a young Marine, and also gone is the sign NO DOGS OR CHINESE ALLOWED, but the longest shopping street in the world, Nanjing Road, is thriving, and maybe even doing better than it was before.
Chengdu is another of my favourite cities. Anyone who loves pandas will agree, as Chengdu is home to the loveable panda bears. The city is world known for its panda research centre. Other than for pandas and a reputation as a business centre, what is there for visitors to see and do? Plenty. Chengdu has some unforgettable discoveries. People have lived in Chengdu for more than 3,700 years, and it was the starting point of the "Silk Road." It’s a city of many firsts, from irrigation systems and paper money making to tea culture and relief printing. And hasn’t heard of Sichuan cooking? The Old Town has theatre right out of old China, and the best mask dancers in China.
The attractions of Chengdu go beyond the city limits. What I found most remarkable was the Lehsna Giant Buddha, the worlds largest, at 71 meters high. It's as tall as a 20-storey building, and was carved out of the mountain in 300 AD. In addition, the first dinosaurs were discovered near by on the Gobi Desert, and here at the Sanxingdui Museum you can see some of their remains, including dinosaur eggs. And you can touch a stone that is 800 million years ago old.
As Bangkok makes an excellent gateway to China, the question is what can one do in the capital of Thailand in a day or two during a stopover. Next week I will list ten things to do.
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Gateway to Beijing, city of history and mood,
through Bangkok
When Beijing was Peking. Photo taken by the author
in 1948
Same view by the author taken today
Southern gate. Photos taken in 1948 by the author
Southern gate today
Hutongs, back alleys of Beijing, haven't changed,
but not for long
Modern Shanghai, glass and concrete
There is an old Shanghai that remains
Don't miss old Shanghai for all the glitter of
the new city
The Bund seen here yesterday
Shanghai for shopping at it's best
Qingdao, the author's favourite city, the new
name for Tsingtao, famous for the beer
Free beer for the visitor at the Tsingtao brewery
The ancient wall of Xian, seen here on the top
Chinese cities have respect for bicycle traffic
with special lanes
The Big Buddha, worlds' largest, in Chengdu. Mrs.
Sirikanya from Royal Orchid Holidays in
foreground
Visitors descending the steps to the base of he Big
Buddha
Pandas at home in Chengdu
China welcomes visitors, and Thai Airways takes you
there
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