We’ve just come back from the holiday of a lifetime. We took a slow boat to China … then Japan … then South Korea … back to China … and then climbed the Great Wall and viewed the Terracotta Soldiers, two wonders of the world we can strike off our bucket list. What a trip.
Well first off, it was not really a slow boat. It was the beautiful Azamara Journey, a smallish cruise liner with less than 600 passengers, the ultimate in service and luxury with a selection of restaurants that would make food buffs like Anne Stevens and Erica Platter drool.
There were 17 South Africans aboard, a convivial group which included John and Mary Barton of Mount Edgecombe and Dacre and Christina Brodie of Umhlanga Rocks.
We first set eyes on the Azamara Journey as she lay at her berth in Victoria Harbour, Hong Kong, and it was love at first sight. We sailed on the evening tide with Hong Kong a stunning blaze of lights from the tall harbour-front buildings.
After a call at Xiamen (the X is pronounced sh) and a ferry ride to pretty off-shore Gulangyu Island, we sailed to Shanghai, mooring many kilometres up river from the mouth of the mighty Yangste River in the heart of the breath-taking city of 20-million people.
From the ship’s berth we could walk, mouths gaping, among the most modern of high-rise buildings of all shapes and sizes (many designed by French and European architects) and along elevated pedestrian bridges over highways teeming with traffic. We visited a stunning viewing deck on the 88th floor of one building (those people complaining about the height of the Pearls in Umhlanga would have gone into shock) and marvelled at the fact that only 20 years ago the whole area had been paddy fields.
We sailed on to Kagoshima in Japan with its smoldering volcano Sakurajima, then on to the major port of Kobe, home to the famous and outrageously expensive Kobe Beef. More interesting, however, was the drive to Kyoto, Japan’s cultural capital, to see the Golden Pavillion and Nijo Castle among 500 shrines and 1400 temples. It is where the Kyoto Accord was signed, setting the rules for reducing pollution (to which President George W Bush notoriously refused to adhere). We returned to Kobe on the bullet train, impressive, fast, silent and on time. Very exciting.
Our 14-night cruise ended at Tianjin, a short hop to Beijing where the next day we travelled to the Great Wall. It had been snowing, so it was a beautiful sight, albeit the steep uneven steps now covered in ice and quite treacherous. Some in our party did better than others but whatever, we all now have t-shirts declaring “I climbed the Great Wall”.
There were more highlights to come, Tiananmen Square, a real eye-opener, the Forbidden City, the queue six abreast filing slowly past Mao’s mausoleum, and then at Xian, the astonishing Terracotta Soldiers, discovered only 30 years ago by a farmer digging a well – some 2 000 warriors buried for centuries, an army created by an emperor to guard him in his afterlife, now exposed in trenches in three enormous halls.
We flew home armed with great memories, wonderful pictures and a host of new friends. *
Contact Lyn Bigg who put the tour together
083 6314306