From Zhangjiajie we shared a cabin on the overnight train to Zhengzhou in Henan province with a very pleasant, softly-spoken woman and her twenty-something daughter. The daughter had just completed her accountancy studies at the Zhangjiajie University and the mother had come to accompany her back home. The daughter spoke good English and told us she had spent a year at the University of New South Wales as part of her studies.
The mother asked us whether we had heard about the tragic Wenchuan earthquake in nearby Sichuan province that had struck earlier that day. We hadn't. We would have been out walking in the mountains at the time of the quake, and fortunately we had not felt anything. With no English TV or radio in this area, and keeping to ourselves at the time, we hadn't heard anything either. But over the next few days we watched a lot of Chinese TV, with many of the 57 channels Chinese people have to choose from devoted to the quake and its aftermath. There was a big emphasis (apparently well-deserved from what we saw) on publicizing the effectiveness of the response by the government and the People's Liberation Army, and segments designed to stir national pride and sentiment.
On our arrival in Zhengzhou at 3.30am, we left our travelling companions sleeping peacefully in the cabin, and spilled out into the large, and still-bustling despite the hour, city square at the front of the station to start looking for a hotel. Fortunately there were several in the square itself, and we chose the second one we looked at. Sleep time.
Zhengzhou is a city of over 6 million and is a major transport hub in this part of China. The latter is the reason why many people, including ourselves, arrive in Zhengzhou. Our intention was to connect with a long distance (several thousand kilometres) train to Urumqi, the capital city of Xijiang province in the remote far west of China. But we first took the opportunity to have a look around town, and to catch a bus about an hour out of the city to see the Yellow River. The section we saw was a vast expanse of the silt-laden water that gives this river its name.
Tonight we ate the last of the Haigh's chocolates so now we're really on our own.
The mother asked us whether we had heard about the tragic Wenchuan earthquake in nearby Sichuan province that had struck earlier that day. We hadn't. We would have been out walking in the mountains at the time of the quake, and fortunately we had not felt anything. With no English TV or radio in this area, and keeping to ourselves at the time, we hadn't heard anything either. But over the next few days we watched a lot of Chinese TV, with many of the 57 channels Chinese people have to choose from devoted to the quake and its aftermath. There was a big emphasis (apparently well-deserved from what we saw) on publicizing the effectiveness of the response by the government and the People's Liberation Army, and segments designed to stir national pride and sentiment.
On our arrival in Zhengzhou at 3.30am, we left our travelling companions sleeping peacefully in the cabin, and spilled out into the large, and still-bustling despite the hour, city square at the front of the station to start looking for a hotel. Fortunately there were several in the square itself, and we chose the second one we looked at. Sleep time.
Zhengzhou is a city of over 6 million and is a major transport hub in this part of China. The latter is the reason why many people, including ourselves, arrive in Zhengzhou. Our intention was to connect with a long distance (several thousand kilometres) train to Urumqi, the capital city of Xijiang province in the remote far west of China. But we first took the opportunity to have a look around town, and to catch a bus about an hour out of the city to see the Yellow River. The section we saw was a vast expanse of the silt-laden water that gives this river its name.
Tonight we ate the last of the Haigh's chocolates so now we're really on our own.
