China

It’s taken me weeks to sort through far too many photos. I have been off travelling again – this was something that’s been in the planning for more than a year. My old friend Sylvia from Perth told me she’d booked a cruise and would I be interested. 

Yes, sure, I said. Where to? So that’s how it started. 7 days from Singapore to Shanghai. 

And then we decided that as neither of us had been to mainland China before, we shouldn't waste the opportunity to see a bit of the country. And it sort of ballooned from there. 

The cruise was an interesting experience – a first for me. Amazed at the scale of things – a shopping street, a three level monster of a dining room, and the sheer numbers of passengers and staff. We were actually sailing through the waters off Vietnam where the initial search was taking place for the Malaysian plane. And as were able to see onto the bridge of the ship, it was rather poignant to see the horizon being scanned with binoculars, on the lookout for wreckage. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience but don’t think it will take the place of land-based travel, at least not for a few years yet.

I found China incredibly interesting. The historic sites we saw – the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, the Terracotta Warriors, Tiananmen Square – were fascinating. The cities were huge and a little overwhelming. But having said that, I loved Shanghai. The old and the new, the wide avenues (some French influence) and the general buzz and vibrancy of the city makes it a city I’d be happy to spend more time in.  We start and ended in Shanghai and finished on the last day with a food tour ‘Oodles of Noodles’. Delicious – as was most of the food we had there. Only one food disaster comes to mind – the hot pot we ordered in the Szechuan area. Mild, medium or hot. We figured we could do a medium. Huge mistake ….

Apart from the wonderful sites we saw, the thing that I found most amazing was the development and scale of everything that’s happening in China. Nothing I’ve read or seen on the TV prepared me for seeing it firsthand. Forest of skyscrapers – towers in the cities, but mostly towers and towers of apartment blocks. While we didn’t actually get out into the countryside to see any ‘ghost cities’, we saw that most of the new apartment blocks are either empty or only partly occupied. Far too expensive for everyday people to buy. And still they go up.  Also staggering was the size of the airport terminals and railway stations, all constructed within the last couple of years and with many more in the pipeline. I swear one of the railway stations was so cavernous it could have held all of Heathrow terminal 5. 

The pollution was a bit of an eye opener. Every day - except for a few clear mornings when there had been strong overnight winds – was extremely hazy, as some photos will show. We were lucky there were no ‘dangerous level’ days where it was advised not to go outside, but certainly you were aware of it. 

New Shanghai - beautiful but a little foggy

Old Shanghai

A street of bric-a-brac - a fine selection of Chairman Mao figurines

Beijing night food markets - yum - starfish on a stick

Snake, scorpions, millipedes, spiders and grubs on a stick!

Beijing - Tiananmen Square

Just a selection of some of the delicious food - duck was the best I've ever tasted

The Great Wall of China

The Terracotta Army - Xian

Street scene in Chengdu - popular pastime of "Picking Ears"

.... and the delightful explanation - car cleaning/picking cars/ears 

A little chilli with your tofu

A visit to see the pandas was pretty special - just so cute! 

Arts Centre Building, Chengdu

We came across a rehearsal (I think it was a rehearsal as they weren't in costume) of Chinese opera - definitely an acquired taste, I think ...

Our suitcases heading down to the boat for boat trip on the Yangtze

Newly constructed towns and cities on the banks of the Yangtze - populated by the inhabitants whose homes are now 180 metres underwater since the construction of the Three Gorges Dam

Some canyons of the Three Gorges

Fengdu temple - if no incense available to make an offering, seems like a ciggie will do the trick.

Fengdu

The Three Gorges Dam

The incredible 5-lock system to move boats through the Three Gorges Dam

A selection of the noodles we tried on our food tour.

On the way to the airport - Shanghai. Still hazy!

Bize Patrimoine does it again ….

Tuesday’s walk was in two parts – first to visit the site of a dolmen which has been recently cleared by the Bize Patrimoine. It’s called la Mère de Dieu (Mother of God). Looking for more information about this particular dolmen, I came across this comprehensive English-language site – seems there’s a lot more of them in the region to be visited.

We then drove to the second stage – a long and hot walk up and down the gorges of Les Causses. In fact the exact same walk we did a year ago when someone fainted. And I reckon I wasn’t that far off – I’ve decided no more hot afternoon walks for me. Though we’ll be starting morning walks soon, followed by picnic lunches. But again, we were rewarded at the end of this walk by wine tasting at the Domaine Marcon in the hamlet of Barroubio (St Jean de Minervois) and I bought a couple of bottles of their highly rated sweet muscat. Before coming to France, I couldn’t abide sweet wine at all, but have certainly developed a taste for this local sweet muscat as an aperitif. 

Latest purchase

Shopping list for last weekend’s vide grenier was interesting coffee mugs and white soup plates.

The Trembling Rock

Another achievement of the local Heritage Club (Bize Patrimoine) has been the clearing of the undergrowth around an interesting landmark. It’s known locally in the Occitan language as “Roc Tremblaïre”.

According to the legend, if single girls walk around the rock three times on either the 24^th June or the 24^th December, they will meet the person they will marry within a year. And yes, the rock is supposed to tremble!

And this is where we went on our walk today – much more pleasant now that the clearing has been undertaken, and you don’t need to fight your way through the undergrowth…

I didn't notice anyone going around more than once.

Kerala

I know it’s been a bit quiet on here of late and I must confess, it’s because I've been doing a bit of travelling – and I plan to do as much as I possibly can, while I can, and while I'm still based here in France. I was actually a bit reluctant to turn this blog into Deb’s Travel Diary…. But for those who are vaguely interested, I’ll keep updating as I go along … and of course Bize stuff, as and when….

So, in January, I took myself off to India for 12 days. Again, it was a last minute spur-of-the-moment decision – those long winter months/short days, you know. It was to Kerala state, in the south.

I don’t know why I thought it would be any less hot and humid just because it was winter in the northern hemisphere. I guess I hadn't checked just how close to the equator it was. My least favourite weather – hot and sticky! But it was all good and I thoroughly enjoyed it, and a really nice group of 15 people on the tour.

Kerala was a good place for my introduction to India – a few facts: the richest state in India, highest literacy rate (95%), lowest population growth, highest life expectancy and lowest homicide rate! I think we were sheltered from some of the realities of the poverty that exists in other parts of the country, as we saw none at all, and we did cover a lot of ground. The people are lovely and the food was good, though I probably won’t be cooking curry for a while.

As a respite from the heat, we did spend a few days up in high tea-growing hills. And I managed not to get sick until the last day. So all in all, it was a great short break away from the cold. 

Having said that, we’d actually had a very mild winter here in the south, and it’s feeling very spring-like at the moment, with a lot of plants and trees already with green shoots.  

Below, a few photos of lovely Kerala.

There are a lot of converted rice barges, now being used mainly for tourist cruises. Two days and night cruising the beautiful Backwaters was rather special.....

The Backwaters link to the open ocean so a lot of the fishing boats are moored away from the fishing ports.

Casting fishing nets at one of the locks in the Backwaters

A morning trek through Periyar Wildlife Reserve. There are tigers there, but we were assured that there was a 99.9% chance of NOT coming across one, and we didn't!

...but we were very lucky indeed to come across some of the wild Asian elephants that still live in the Reserve. A special experience.

Rubber tree plantation

Tapping a rubber tree for latex

Visit to a spice farm:  Cardamom plant

Cardamom flower and developing seeds

Nutmeg

Pepper

Tea plantations at Munnar

A lot of the tea plantations are extensively planted with Australian grevilleas (Silky Oak) for shade.

 Chinese fishing nets at Cochin

I just happened to have a birthday while I was away, and I was treated to cake for the occasion ....

.... and confetti.....

Lots of meals like this one ..... breakfast/lunch/dinner!

And the odd splurge on these .......

Rejuvenated Tour de Boussecos

This week’s walk started here in Bize, to the Tower of Boussecos. 

It’s a walk many of us have done before, but recently the Bize Patrimoine (Bize Heritage Association) has cleared huge amounts of scrub and bushes, cleared pathways and generally made it easily accessible to all. So I got to see it from the south side for the first time.  

A great job and a really enjoyable walk – the late afternoon winter sun on the rocks was stunning.

Translation of the recently installed information board:

According to some historians , the term  "Boussecos" is an Occitan linguistic distortion of  "cossicos " (Visigoth) - a plausible hypothesis if we consider that the building remains observable today has strong similarities with other Visigoth constructions - for example, one of the oldest towers in La Cité at Carcassonne.

It is also likely that this rocky prominence, so opportunely situated in the middle of the Valley of the River Cesse, has served as an observation post , lookout tower and signal tower from much earlier  times, for the people of the region situated downstream – today the commune of Bize-Minervois.

Archaeologists have discovered in the immediate vicinity of the Tower:

• fragments of Neolithic vases identical to those that were found in the famous “Grottes de Bize” located on the other side of the River Cesse.

• ceramic fragments from the Bronze Age , arrowheads, spears and archers’ thimbles which can be seen at the Museum of Narbonne.

• ledge of bricks and broken vases from Roman times .

• remains of walls and a cistern probably dating from the era of the kingdom of the Visigoths of Toulouse. The Tower of Boussecos was part of the belt of rocky towers along the mountains - among others, the Chateau de Ventajou and the tower recently discovered at Minerve.

• various materials dating from the XVI century. During the wars of religion that took place in the region at that time, the tower served as a lookout .

Listed as a protected monument in 1974, it was cleared in 2013 of the obscuring vegetation by the Bize Patrimoine (Bize Heritage Association), which ensures conservation, with you, the visitors.

Shrew

I had a little visitor this morning – I spotted  running across the rug. I thought it was a mouse, but it turns out it’s a shrew. First one I’ve seen – and it’s not a rodent at all. He (she?) had rather sharp teeth, which I found out the hard way. I put him in a pot, before letting him go in the garden, and got bitten for my troubles! Cute as a button though. 

I know nothing about shrews, but have just read they need to eat every couple of hours or they’ll die – and this little guy immediately got stuck into an old squashed snail – not worried that I was right there taking photos. So I gave him a treat and found him a fresh one. He nearly devoured in just a few minutes. 

I suspect I brought him inside last night in a bucket full of kindling, so I imagine he was starving this morning. Maybe it was a mistake releasing him into the garden instead of somewhere further away – he may become a regular visitor…

Top left hand corner - the walnut I offered him! Not touched - he much preferred the snail.