COAT EXPOSURE TOUR OCTOBER 2011
What a fabulous tour!
We saw much of the best China has to offer - and spent five full days with the beautiful children and staff in our Eagles' Wings homes in JiaoZuo, Henan Province. Many thanks go to Claire and her staff at Uplift Tours and Travel for the vision and hard work in getting this trip off the ground.
We really appreciated being met from each flight (and the train) by a guide brandishing a 'Helen Wong'
flag who then looked after us and guided us through the sights of their city.
We met almost as a group of strangers at Brisbane airport on 9th October - and very quickly bonded as we packed donated vitamins, knitted clothes, toys and toothpastes into spare corners of our luggage before checking in.
Over the next 24 days we explored Hong Kong, Guilin, Xian, JiaoZuo and Beijing.
In Hong Kong, we peered through the smog (made in China) to see what we could of what could be wonderful views from The Peak and the Big Buddha. We rode on buses, the Peak Tram, a fast boat across the busy harbour from Central to Lantau Island and the cable car from Ngong Ping to Tung Chun station at the bottom of the hill. Lunch was at the restaurant of the Po Lin Monastery - a vegetarian meal that was absolutely superb. For some of the group, it was the first time using chop-sticks for the trip. So - a very full day in Hong Kong and then a flight to Guilin early evening!
Guilin: a truly beautiful place and our first taste of rural China, being hassled to buy things, and bargaining. We spent a lazy morning travelling on the Li River past the iconic karst mountains and then enjoyed a drive in small electric 'buses' through the farmland and small villages near Yangshou. On our return to Guilin, some of us opted for a massage and some of us opted to go on a tour to see the traditional way of fishing at night using cormorants and lights and then we toured some of the night lights of Guilin.
The following day we visited Elephant Trunk Hill, so named because it looks like a giant elephant 
drinking water with its trunk on the Li River bank; a cave in which there are a thousand (or more) Buddhas - some tiny where the monks learnt how to carve and some destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. Our last stop at Guilin was the amazing Reed Flute Cave - with colourful lighting on the limestone formations which seemed to add rather than detract from the beauty of the place. The cave was much larger and more spectacular than the Jenolan Caves.
We had another evening flight - this time to Xian. By this time, Faith had introduced us to her hand-puppets and then proceeded to keep our fellow passengers amused in the airport waiting lounge.
Our day in Xian was even more packed than that in Hong Kong. Our guide told us when she looked at the itinerary, she thought we must be a group of students ? most of us had grey hair.
We had two major highlights in Xian - seeing the Terra Cotta Warriors (and the farmer who discovered them) and riding bikes on the ancient walls at sunset. It was just so peaceful above the traffic. Some of us walked rather than rode! As well, we visited the Big Wild Goose Pagoda and the Bell Tower (and the factory that makes imitation warriors and sells heaps of other hand-crafts).
We had had a very long day and it was quite late when we got back to the hotel for dinner. Chew Gim and Bev (who runs Doves Wings Homes in Xian) were still waiting patiently for us for dinner. Early the next morning, we headed to the railway station and its huge waiting room for our fast train (up to more than 300kph) trip to ZhengZhou - the capital of Henan Province. A wonderfully relaxing trip! Once again, it was great to see a Helen Wong guide to accompany us to JiaoZuo.
Jiao Zuo! - We were finally tasting the 'real' China. Up until this we had been more or less isolated with in our tour group - although we had ventured away from our hotels from time to time to forage for our evening meals.
In Jiao Zuo we enjoyed exploring the shops without being hassled by the vendors. We found these at the tourist places fairly trying. In YangShou, one lady had followed us on her electric bike and tried to sell us stuff every time we stopped.
Most of all in JiaoZuo, we enjoyed the opportunity to see the homes, play with the children and to take
them out. The children with mobility problems were taken to parks or to the aquarium and the blind children to an indoor playground in a shopping centre. On Sunday, we and some of the children from Eagles' Wings 3 joined thousands of people in the JunTai Mountains. The children were so good as we shuffled (couldn't do much else in the crowd) down and then up hundreds of steps. The scenery is spectacular - so it is no wonder it is so popular.
The children in Xi Wang Li Yuan (the school) put on a little presentation for us. Not too many dry eyes from the ladies of the tour group by the end of that!
The time in JiaoZuo seemed to be a lot less pressure packed as the children all took naps in the middle of the day - so most of us headed off to explore - or to nap while they napped. Our time here went far too fast! Two teams from the World Race were there at the same time and a couple of them made a wonderful short video for us - Eagles Wings 720p on You tube. Quite a few members of the team 'star' in this.
And then it was off to Beijing: smog, Tiananmen Square, The Forbidden City, smog, the Summer Palace, the hutongs, smog, the Temple of Heaven, the Sacred Way, the Mong Tombs and more smog. We walked up to and on to The Great Wall! And we attended a spectacular evening performance of the Legends of Kung Fu. We also visited several factories and the crowded Silk Markets.
For our last day in Beijing, we had blue skies! 
Meals were always an interesting event. We sampled many Chinese dishes, had a banquet with some City and Orphanage Officials, and found wonderful little, cheap noodle shops and street food that the locals enjoy. We paid less than $AU2 for a huge bowl of noodles and a soft drink! After some of the huge meals in the middle of the day, many of us resorted to snacks in our hotel room in the evening.
In the bigger cities, breakfast buffets were mainly Chinese food - but some western food too. In JiaoZuo it was all Chinese. Most of the time, we were provided only with chopsticks and the little soup 'spoons' that are common in China. Shopping by picture for food was quite fun! Despite the experimentation with street food, no-one had more than a minor tummy bugs. We suffered more from the hay fever, asthma etc in Beijing's pollution.
All in all, a really great trip!
Will I do it again? YES!! But not in 2012. Maybe 2013. Anyone interested in joining me? Then please email me at mishu@coat.org.au to let me know of your interest.
Margaret Mason
COAT Administrator
