When we first heard how cheap Nexus Holidays’ China
Delight tour was, Karen and I suddenly developed a yen to see the Middle
Kingdom, something we had never felt much urgency about before. What can I say?
We’re suckers for a bargain.
The all-in price, just over $5,000 for both of us,
included return flights from Toronto to Beijing, flights from Beijing to
Shanghai, Shanghai to Xi’an (for the terracotta soldiers) and from Xi’an back to
Beijing. Plus 11 nights accommodation in four-star hotels, virtually all meals,
English-speaking guides everywhere and transfers. Our price also included four
evenings of optional theatre entertainment, boat tours and other extras.
How could they do it for so little? My speculation:
the government subsidizes the price as a way to promote tourism, and to create
opportunities for propagandizing westerners. Even if this was true, though, we
didn’t see why it should bother us. A bargain is a bargain. We had no illusions
about what China was or what it represented, and were unlikely to be persuaded differently
about it. We just wanted to see the sights.
Cathy Basile, the retired social worker-cum-travel
agent who sold us the package, had been on the tour the previous year at the
same time. She assured us the accommodation was excellent, truly four star, not
some tawdry third-world approximation. The food was acceptable, sometimes
very good, and the entertainments and extra tours were “fabulous,”
“stunning,” not to be missed.
Our one reservation was that China Delight was billed
as a “shopping and sight-seeing”
tour. We’re not shoppers. But it appeared the shopping events weren’t purely
for shopping. (Appearances can be deceiving.) In each case – a silk factory,
pearl farm, cloisonné factory, pottery workshop, tea plantation – we were promised
demonstrations and tours. We thought we could tolerate that, might even find it
interesting.
So we signed up, along with our friends Ralph and Pat
Lutes – and, as it turned out, 30 other Londoners, including Cathy Basile, her
husband Nino (both comped, I’m guessing), and some friends and friends of
friends of Pat’s.
We drove down to Toronto with Ralph and Pat and met
the rest of the group at Pearson. Check-in was reasonably civilized, although
Pat ran into a slight glitch because Nexus had spelled her name wrong on the
ticket. It didn’t match her passport. This was particularly galling because she
had already had to pay to change the ticket once after she initially provided incorrect information. In the end, it was sorted.
Karen and I, for whatever reason, were waved into an
express line for security, so got through very quickly. And the plane when we
got on, more or less on time, was surprisingly roomy and comfortable, with a
modern seat-back video entertainment system. It appeared to be a very new
aircraft. This all seemed to augur well for the trip.
The flight, however, was as grueling as might be
expected. Thirteen hours is a long time. Neither of us sleep well on planes,
especially Karen. I might have dozed in snatches for an hour or two, Karen
less. I watched one Chinese movie, Mountains
May Depart, about small-town family and marital relations, and politics.
It’s set in three different periods: 1999, 2014, 2025. The last part is set in
Australia, where two of the characters have emigrated. To me, it had something
of the feel of French New Wave films of the 1950s and 1960s. The food was,
surprise, not very good.
When we arrived, at about 8 p.m. the following evening,
we were zombies. Our “national” guide, the guy who would be with us for the
entire trip, “Leo” Li (Li Wen Xiang), was there to meet us and shepherd us to the
waiting bus. Leo turned out to be a really lovely guy, incredibly conscientious,
hard-working and solicitous of his charges. We figured he must be in his mid-
to late thirties. It’s often difficult for us to tell with Chinese; he looked
younger. His English was accented and simplified, but perfectly understandable
most of the time.
The Beijing hotel was a suburban Ramada – all the big
chains are here – in a commercial strip along a service road just off the motorway.
I’m not sure it was four-star, but it was fine: quiet, big bed, more or less clean.
The tap water was not potable, however. We were warned to not even use it for
teeth cleaning. The place had the look of a business hotel, but seemed more full
of tourists, mostly Chinese. Leo had taken our passports, as he would before
arrival at each new hotel, and checked us in en masse. We waited in the lobby, like school kids, until he came
and handed out our key cards. Welcome to tour-group travel!
We were in bed and asleep – drugged – by a little
after ten.
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