3.10.19

In keeping with our determination to avoid Madame Tassauds and Ripleys Believe It Or Not etc, we continued to tick off items from Meg’s bucket list.
Just opposite Euston Station is the Wellcome Medical Museum.


In the early 20th century, good old Henry Wellcome amassed one of the largest museum collections of the time, of “stuff”. Spanning continents, cultures and centuries, the objects reflect his interest, (read obsession), in medicine and the human body. Henry made his money from flogging pharmaceuticals, and as well as donating heaps of money for scientific research, he was driven to capture the art and science of healing through the ages. So he spent a lot of money on buying “stuff”. There were lots of obstetric forceps and hacksaws for limb amputations.


There were replacement eyeballs, artificial limbs and enema syringes. Ouch!


An ornate snuff container in a ram’s head was a real conversation starter. Shoving snuff up your nose was supposed to ward off colds and alleviate the symptoms of cattarrh.


A first aid kit was recovered from Scott’s expedition to the south pole. Why didn’t they paint it red?


Florence Nightingale’s slippers sat comfortably beside Napoleon’s toothbrush.



Especially for the ladies was a chastity belt and an iron mask called a Scold’s Bridle that could be locked over a woman’s head to stop her from talking.


Kind of weird that they look alike!

A black Madonna even turned up in a painting of ‘The Virgin of Guadalupe’. What has she got to do with medicine I wondered? Apparently this virgin attracted many pilgrims looking for both grace and good health.


But being a royalist at heart, my personal favourite was a lock of hair belonging to King George lll (known as ‘Mad King George’).
Scientific testing has since discovered the hair contained unusually high levels of arsenic, which is guaranteed to send you nuts! It all makes sense now!


Before we knew it, half the day was over. But it was onward and upward to the Sir John Soame museum, on the boundary of Lincoln’s Inn Fields Square which had a very pretty structure in the middle, and where I saw my first squizza!

Sir John Soane was even more insane than Henry Wellcome when it comes to collections. John was a neo-classical architect in the 19th century. He bought 3 houses on the Square, demolished them and promptly rebuilt them pretty much the same, then proceeded to fill them with “stuff”. Three houses across five storeys, linked together by galleries and passageways. It was an internal  maze filled with treasures and antiquities.


Soane’s drawings and models of his architectural projects, and collections of anything else that took his fancy filled the rooms.

Plaster sculptures seemed to be a favourite, along with a sarcophagus or two, furniture, paintings…you name it!Photography was forbidden, so the last 3 pics are from the guide book. Luckily, on my way out I paid a visit to the loo, and stumbled upon a real antique.

An original crapper! It doesn’t get much better than that!

Feeling very smug that I’d managed to sneak a photo in forbidden circumstances, we made our way to St Paul’s for Evensong. Perhaps I was hoping for forgiveness for my photographic misdemeanors?


More like a tourist destination than a church service, the music and singing was still devine despite the constant comings and goings of backpackers and shoppers.
We hightailed it back to Angel to join Katie and Chris for dinner at the Island Queen, a very atmospheric pub  close to the canal.

2.10.19

We love London! This will be our 7th visit here and it never fails to thrill. I think it must be those hundreds of games of monopoly played in childhood that have ingrained those landmarks in my brain! We’re staying at The Angel, Islington, for goodness sake! Right in the game, albeit at the less “effluent” end of town, according to the monopoly board.

Our Airbnb host Meg, was on our wavelength. She had left an extensive list of ‘alternative’ things to see in London, along with a list of sights to avoid like the plague. The plan was to tick off as many as we could.

We woke on our first morning to a miracle! Sunshine and blue skies!

Top on the agenda was to find a good coffee, so tour guide Chris showed us the way to Camden Passage which hit the spot. (London red bus icon spoiler alert)

It’s a little narrow pedestrian only passageway filled with antique shops, coffee shops, cafes and nicky nacky stuff.

The coffee was good!

Close by is the Regent Canal, so we wandered along the towpath, so peaceful, pretty and quiet.

There were even some tiles Jen….this one’s for you!

We zig-zagged our way through to The Barbican Centre, an unusual complex of theatres, galleries, public housing, restaurants, parks and water features.

At the entrance to the underground carpark, quite unassuming, was a Banksy!

Skirting the rear of St Paul’s for a different view of this amazing structure,

we stumbled on Leadenhall Market. Never heard of it before!

Beautifully restored, full of classy restaurants and bars, and apparently a popular place for Asian wedding photography!

Just around the corner, the ‘Gherkin’ dwarfed the historic buildings below.

Our destination was Aldgate Station, where we were to meet Pete for an Unseen Tour of the Brick Lane area.

Unseen Tours are an initiative to assist homeless people, who are your guides, to make a few bucks and show you a little of ‘their world’ from their perspective. In 2016 we’d really enjoyed an Unseen Tour of Covent Garden with Viv, so we thought we’d try another one.

Unfortunately Pete must have gotten a better offer and was a no show. Despite phone calls and emails, we are none the wiser as to what happened to him, and also £30 poorer!

No matter, there was still plenty of daylight left and beauties like this to photograph! (Red phone box icon spoiler alert).

It was time to cross the river past the Tower (been there done that), over Tower Bridge

and walk along the Thames towards London Bridge. Hays Dock, recently restored, used to be where the tea clippers loaded up and has now been ‘trendied’ into an upmarket shopping and restaurant hub. Pretty cool sculpture called The Navigator in the middle!

A little further on was Southwark Cathedral, on Meg’s list, small as Cathedrals go, but with some interesting features.

One was a beautiful stained glass window dedicated to Shakespeare (we’re in his neck of the woods), depicting scenes from his plays. Oh, and a snail. Can you find it?

There was some modernist stained glass and an impressive 12th century carved altar screen.

It was well and truly time for a liquid refreshment so we hunted out another of Meg’s suggestions, a pint by the fire at The George Inn, circa 1676.

Perfect!

But wait!

A ride in the front seat up the top of a London bus.

Even perfecter!

Sydney-Dubai-London

This is the third time we’ve caught the insanely early 6am Emirates flight out of Sydney. To soften the blow of getting up at 3am, we’re staying at Rydges hotel about 50m from the terminal. As we both sat in the dining room with mess still all around us at 4pm on the afternoon before our flight, we agreed it would just not work leaving earlier in the day!

Checked in at Ridges and hopped in the crowded lift where John decided to have an eBay moment.”Pooh” he said as we entered, “Cigarette smell”!A lady we’ll call ‘Ros’ who was crushed in the corner bravely confessed it was her…”Sorry just couldn’t stand it. Had to duck out for a ciggy”. The captive audience enjoyed the joke at John’s expense!

https://youtu.be/eJHgPN9T5jM

John will claim that he thought the smell came from outside the lift and whooshed in when the doors closed, but honestly, don’t pick on Ros, John!

Loved the view from our room,

but not the kind message left by hotel management!

Doesn’t matter we thought, we’re up at 3am anyway!

Trekked over to Cooks River Rowers for dinner, quite popular with the locals and really going upmarket with social media!

Enjoyed a nightcap at the rooftop bar,

then headed to bed.

First leg to Dubai packed like sardines, but relatively smooth. We had just enough time to say hi to our camel friends and a genie or two,

then it was off to find our next departure gate.

Getting into the mood and in preparation for our canal barge trip around the Manchester area, we both chose the same movie to watch.

Pretty amazing story! But not much of a movie!

Luxuriating in a whole row to ourselves, we managed to get some kip before touching down at Heathrow.

We had great directions from Katie and Chris about getting to Kings Cross

and they were both there to meet us for the short walk to their little London bolthole. It was SO SO good to see them!

Day 10

A very early start today with a 6am departure, as we knew check in and security would take us a while. This is the only pic I have of the airport as the guards were armed!

The trip home was bumpy most of the way, and as we were sitting at the back, we swayed around like an elephant’s tail. But it gave time to reflect.

Tripadeal- was it too good to be true?

It would be easy to say yes, because so many things didn’t happen as we thought they would. But when you travel, the key word is ‘flexibility’ right? It certainly wasn’t Tripadeal’s fault one flight was cancelled and part of the Yangtze River was temporarily closed. Probably the only thing we wished we’d known beforehand was the ability to upgrade our cruise package. And as we were able to do that with no problem, it wasn’t an issue.

As with any travelling, you get what you pay for. The food and accommodation was fine, our fellow travellers were a hoot, and what we saw in China was an eye opener. Our guides tried hard, and within the parameters of what they were allowed to say, most of our questions were answered!

I can definitely say we’ll book with Tripadeal again. Maybe not next year, but who knows??

Day 9

Our day started with a calligraphy lesson which was much harder than it looked!

Our teacher told us us children in China have to learn 5000 of these characters at school.

This is John’s attempt at writing ‘Go Swannies’, or so he said!

Our next stop was the Wild Goose Pagoda. High security to get in. Built originally in 707AD during the Tang Dynasty, it has lost several of its 15 storeys due to earthquakes. It’s most recent renovation was in 1986.

The gardens were beautiful, an escape from the city so close by!

A popular museum within the gardens was busy. It’s minimalist exhibits showed ancient treasures. Calligraphy, Jade and sculptures.

We then drove to our lunch spot, a fabulous buffet with freshly made dumplings.

Once we had all finished, a hostess came to our table to try and flog us souvenirs! Everything only 20 yuan! Check out the look on our faces!

I’m not sure if we all felt defeated or just wanted to offload our small notes, but she made a killing!

We bought the lot!

With one final look at the wall, we made our way to the airport and onto Guangzhou for the night.

As now a self-styled gang of 10, we remembered the lessons and tricks our previous leader Robyn had taught us last time we were in Guangzhou. Half went up to the transit hotel booking area while the other half watched the bags. Attack in a group and they deal with you quickly!

Our less than salubrious hotel was close by thank goodness, as we had a 9am flight the next day. We adjourned to the Wild West bar next door for a final Chinese beer or two with our mates Judy and Ian.

Day 8

It’s hard to know where to begin today! So many contrasting emotions!

We left our hotel early, expecting to go to the Win Shi Huang Terracotta Warriors site, but we found ourselves stopping at the Terracotta Warriors Reproduction Factory first (read ‘shop’).

We were taken through the process of how the reproductions are made. To be honest it was a bit creepy seeing bits of warriors littering the floor.

You could buy a reproduction in various colours in any size you liked.

You could even get a warrior made with your own face depicted on it!

The factory also made lacquered furniture. Absolutely stunning but not my cup of tea.

After parting with 100 yuan for a 10cm kneeling warrior (we’ve hidden it in our garden), we thought it best to actually move on and see the real thing!

Unearthed near Xian in 1974, the site comprises 8000 life sized sculptures of soldiers, chariots and horses covering 20,000 sqm, housed in 3 covered pits. With different facial expressions and weaponry adorning each soldier, the Terracotta Warriors were believed to have been created to accompany the Qin Emperor into the afterlife.

But wait! First we had to visit a pavillion where one of the farmers who first discovered the warriors, sat signing books. No pictures allowed unless you bought a book, so no pics! Interesting to note that the government gave each of these farmers 20 yuan for their discovery, about $5.00 in today’s currency. Generous!

Pit No1 is the largest and best preserved. The crowd was enormous and it took some effort to get to the front of the main viewing area. But when we did, the scene was truly amazing.

Lots of the pieces were broken and being painstakingly restored.

Pit No2 had much less uncovered.

And Pit No3 looked like not much work had been done at all.

John chose to look through the pavillion with the golden chariots, but I couldn’t face the crowds. I waited outside and ‘chatted’ with a grandma, mum and baby who were doing the same thing. Bonny babe was 6 months old! So cute!

John told me I’d made the right decision as they saw nothing of the chariots at all.

We made our way out of the complex to enjoy a late lunch which was massive.

Downstairs, we were shown how a traditional tea ceremony was performed, tasting a range of tasty and not so tasty teas. My favourite was the Lychee tea, fruity and sweet.

Our day was far from over!

Xian is a walled city, and we were eager to walk along it. Our guide said it was closed for the day and dropped us all off at the hotel. Undeterred, John and I walked the 15 minutes or so to the nearest part of the wall from our hotel, and found we had about an hour left to explore. The wall was originally built in 582AD, and is the largest and most ancient in China.

Lots of locals were enjoying the fading sunshine of the day, riding or strolling along what was a very wide wall!

Among the crowds, we came across this little princess reciting a poem for her mother!

We walked a couple of kms along the wall before descending the inner wall and passing through a gate to the outside. Beautiful gardens and paths took us all the way back to our original starting point. Locals were playing sports, with others just wandering along like us, enjoying the coolness of the shady pathways.

As the light faded, we walked back to another focal point of Xian, the Bell Tower. We found a strategic perch and started people watching, waiting for the ‘illuminations’ to be turned on.

A family next to us were very curious about the European looking people beside them and the two little kids started giggling and taking sneaky photos of us on their mobile phone. I gestured to them to come and get a selfie and the little girl jumped at the chance.

Amazing that, despite the thousands of people watching the light show, there were only a handful of people in the crowd who weren’t Asian. It has actually been the same everywhere we’ve been, come to think of it! Maybe most tourists visit China in cooler weather!

By 8pm, it was finally dark enough for the lights to be turned on.

Simply stunning!

Day 7

We were supposed to travel from Fengdu to Chongqing on the river overnight. Heavy rainfall upstream meant water levels were fluctuating too much to allow shipping to operate. So we stayed where we were overnight, and were bussed to Chongqing, a journey of about 2 hours, in the morning.

Once again we sped through tunnels, across bridges, past fake road signallers

and enjoyed a pit stop at the communal toilets.

The road followed the swollen river most of the way, and sure enough, there was nothing moving on the water.

Chongqing has a population sitting on 33 million…well over the entire population of Australia!

The city is very hilly, and we took an hour of driving through high rise buildings to reach our destination, the Porcelain Markets in the Old Town.

An experience that would end up being one of the highlights of our trip, was about to be begin.

Although named the Porcelain Markets, we only saw 2 shops that actually sold porcelain! In reality, the markets were narrow alleyways filled with hoards of people,

exotic food and unfamiliar sounds. Chilli pastries, BBQ octopus and skewers…….the air was thick with delicious cooking smells.

Don’t ask me what this purple stuff is the bloke is straining through a sieve, but he was doing a great job!

These ladies were trying to entice you into their shops with their amazing outfits.

We even bought some postcards and negotiated our way to buy stamps at the local post office (spoiler alert Jen).

There were SO many people!

Amid the chaos were a few quiet corners.

We loved it!

But sadly, it was time for our tour group to split up. 10 of us were going on to spend some extra days seeing the Terracotta Warriors, and the others were winging their way back home.

We were whisked to the station in time to catch our high speed train to Xian. In a city this big, the station size and crowd was immense.

Lucky for some, there was time for a relaxing massage before the journey.

Our train was a big improvement on our last rail experience, but the crowds were also bigger!

After a 5 hour trip to Xian, we were on our own at the station, and it took some time to find our guide. Not too impressed about that, but eventually she found us (we weren’t hard to spot), and we drove through this amazing city at night to our hotel. Very nice!

Day 6

On our last full day on the Yangtze, we travelled through the mountains of Eastern Sichuan. The juxtaposition of switching from rural scenes to massive high rise cities, separated by only a river bend, was crazy!

Interspersed with landscape watching, we enjoyed the onboard entertainment. Hubert was keen to teach us all how to play Mahjong.

It was tricky, but lots of fun.

Our shore excursion in the afternoon was to Fengdu, an ancient city known as the ‘Ghost City’ to most Chinese people. According to superstitious legend, the dead come to Fengdu Ghost City and the devils go to hell. Since the Tang Dynasty, 48 temples have been built on the site, which sits on top of a mountain. We were moored out from the river bank, once again attached to several neighbouring ships. To reach the shore, we had to traverse an unusual floating boardwalk that connected several pontoons to an enormous flight of stairs. In the heat of the day, not for the faint-hearted.

Once up on the footpath , a golf cart took us to the bottom of the mountain.

The thought of climbing the mountain in the heat was daunting, so it was wonderful to see a chairlift operating!

Once at the top, we started by climbing 33 steps, called the ‘Ladder to Heaven’. As you climb over each step you get closer to heaven and if you climb all 33 steps you reach the Heavenly Southern Gate and get access to the Cloud Palace of Golden Arches where the Jade Emperor lives (Not Maccas).

The cluster of temples were certainly in a beautiful area. But before we could enter, we had to cross the ‘bridge of marriage longevity’, which coincidentally had a photographer on the other side.

The sign next to the bridge told another story. It was actually the bridge between the human world and the nether world. If you’d been kind in the living world you’d pass over the bridge easily. A sinful person on the other hand, would fall into the bloody abyss below.

The Jade Palace was colourfully painted inside and out, filled with statues of different ‘Ghost Kings’.

I always thought temples were like churches and we’re quiet contemplative places of prayer, but this one had a souvenir shop, icecream shop and waffle shop INSIDE!

As we were leaving, all the Chinese people were stepping into a stone pit and balancing on a stone sphere, on one leg, for 3 seconds, before exiting. Right leg for women, left leg for men. Not sure why, but it looked pretty funny!

We made our way back down via the lookout for one more view of the surrounding hills, then headed back to the boat.

We saw these cuties on our way back. Ah! Sisterly love!

Day 5

It was good to finally get moving on the river yesterday afternoon and we immediately started making our way down the remainder of the Xiling Gorge. We woke up to find we were docked at Badong, only 500,000 residents, so just a small township! The “town” is built on both sides of the river, joined up by an impressive bridge.

To the left of the picture there is a tributary of the Yangzte called the Shennong Stream, and our tour today saw us transferring to a smaller boat to explore it. The orange coloured building to the left of the bridge is the Holy Family Charity Primary School sponsored and only kept operating through funding by the cruise company!

This is the other side of town.

Our guide on the cruise Lee, was fabulous. She kept the commentary going all the way.

The Shennong Stream is also home to the Hanging Coffins, ancient coffins that contain the remains of the descendants of the minority Tujia people. No explanation was given on how they got them up there!

The stream wound its way through several little gorges including the Mianzhu Gorge, Parrot Gorge and Longcangdong Gorge.

Flatter land dotted with little cottages appeared every now and then.

Just as quickly civilisation disappeared and thick jungle came right down to the waters edge.

Then suddenly around the next corner was this amazing bridge. In the middle of nowhere!

I thought I’d sneak down to the lower deck where most of the Chinese tourists had stayed, to see what was happening. A karaoke session was in full swing, interspersed with lots of talking.

We found out later they were actually trying to flog a brand of tea! Which would be funny except our gorgeous guide Lee was doing exactly the same to us on the top deck!

A couple of people in our group warned that Australian Customs would be the eventual beneficiary of the tea, so we resisted.

Once back on the Yangtze 2, we lost no time getting on the move again continuing up through the remaining two Gorges. Hubert the Cruise Director, gave us a lecture about what we’d see.

From Badong we would travel through Wu Gorge, supposed to be the most beautiful and finally the stunning Qutang Gorge.

At one stage in the afternoon, the passageway between the gorge sides were so narrow it was one way only. Once relying on signal posts, it is now all automated, complete with riverside video screen.

From this isolated mountainous area, once again, we’d round a bend to be confronted with massive cities.

Our entertainment onboard tonight was loosly called a ‘talent show’. Along with the crew and our fellow passengers, the Aussies and Kiwis participated. The Aussies chose our song, ‘Waltzing Matilda’, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the 6 Kiwis would have no idea what it was about! The crew were by far the best!

Taking a last walk up on deck for the night, the bridge we were passing under was all lit up and looked quite spectacular. A great day!

Day 4

In the light of day, we could fully assess our surroundings. We were 30 Europeans on a ship of 350. The ship was docked beside 2 others, much like a sandwich, with us being one slice of bread. It was a bit confronting to be so close to our neighbours!

We had been expressly forbidden to hang any laundry to dry on our balconies, but the locals obviously didn’t get the same message!

The ship’s interior was very seventies, very nice.

Our cabin was huge, king bed, bath and shower, hot water. All you needed!

The dining room was glamorous and very civilized, and the lounge area perfect for Karaoke.

But without realising it, by some of the group choosing to upgrade our cabins, we had effectively been divided into the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’. It was kind of like the elephant in the room. We were curious as to whether we’d been ripped off by upgrading and they were curious as to whether they should have been ripped off!

Let’s just say we were glad we made the decision we did!

Our first day excursion was to the Three Gorges Dam.

It was a scorcher of a day, so naturally everyone wanted to avoid the 500 steps and take the cable car. Trouble was, everyone from all 3 ships left at the same time. The queue was extensive, with umbrellas being the accessory of choice.

This young lady dressed for the occasion!

The attrition rate in the heat was high! We drove through the town which was as neat as a pin. Motor bike drivers had great sun protection devices.

Security at the dam entrance was tight, but their screening system was down pat. Bus drop off on one side of the building, through the x-ray machine and out the other side of the building where our bus was waiting. Guards everywhere. Our guide Max, was very enthusiastic!

Beside the dam is a massive lock system, with each compartment capable of taking 6 tankers. It takes the ships 6 hours to travel through. A bit different from the Hatton Flight!

For smaller passenger ships and boats, a lift system operates. A giant crane system using counter weights lifts the vessels up in their pod of water and spits them out the other side.

A mandatory stop at the exhibition room showed us the magnitude of the site, from whence we were transported to the viewing lookout by escalator (no photos allowed).

At the top of the escalator was this sign.

The view from the top was amazing.

The lookout area was extensive, with an impressive bronze relief depicting men wrestling with the elements which symbolised the struggle endured when building the dam.

There was even a giant book, telling us that the Three Gorges Dam project had made the long-cherished dream of the Chinese people come true.

We walked down the other side of the lookout hill, past beautiful gardens filled with gerberas, and another model, then piled into little golf carts that took us back to the bus parking area.

We left the site awestruck at it’s enormity and engineering genius.

The 2.8km dam wall dominated the scenery on the way home.

It had been a great day, and the first taste we’d had of the massive injection of funding into developing infrastructure this huge nation had embarked on over the past 20 years.