Day 21 photo

Day 21

Started the day well with a good sample of fish from Cangzhou in the bay of Bo Hai (south east of Beijing). We left early but got caught in one of these gigantic traffic jams. Our driver decided to take the motorway the "wrong way" to try and go back to the previous exit. It was the most frighting 15 minutes for a long time! I even took a shot of a giant green truck passing by... Anyway we are all alive and back on track although we have lost 3 hours of our schedule which means that tonight we are only in Xingcheng, a local coastal town not far from the North Korean border. The good news is that we had time to stop and see the Great wall of China, it is Gate number 4 right at the start of the wall (near Qinhuangdao). With the mountains as a backdrop and the tourists gone it was a very relaxing moment.So tonight we stayed in this little hotal on the coast and I am getting bitten by a hoard of mosquitos! Tomorrow we should be reach Dandong on the North Korean border. We will try to get some fish from there as it is a small coastal river flowing to the pacific ocean. From a scientific point of view it is interesting as all these little coastal rivers and the Amur basin used to be connected before being geographically isolated at a later stage. Today the temperature rose up to 41oC with a beautiful blue sky but in the car it was sauna for all despite our air conditioning being on at full blast. On the menu tonight there was dog and other exotic meals...I have to say it will be relaxing back home to go to dinner without having to be apprehensive...unless it is my wife cooking (he he, just joking she is the best cook in town!).

Day 20

Today we have tried to catch up with our schedule and have driven over 850 km. So far we have driven 9723km and we should have another 5000km to do before our return to Beijing. We are now in Cangzou in the South East of Beijing. Our destination is the North Korean border where we have one of our sites. Tomorrow we will pass the start of the Great Wall near Qinhuangdao. Today on our way we crossed another section of the Great Wall near Jingxing. It is always worrying to see Yah our driver to drive for so long with the heat (37°C), I am always worried that he is going to nod off so I try to keep awake at the back, looking in the mirror for some early signs of fatigue… We stopped on our way to Taiyan the capital of Shānxī Province to have the car serviced. It’s good in China, there is no need for an appointment, you arrive, they do the job on the spot (filter + brakes in our case) and you have a room with TV and a bay window to look at the mechanics mending your car. It gives you more confidence that they are actually doing the job they say they do, not like in England!
Today all our discussions were about the defeat of Argentina, we have redone the match more than once. There is no other way of seeing it, Germany played really well. Rob pointed out that England at least scored two goals which made the defeat more respectable. I received a text from Bernd at 00.30 blowing his trumpet from his hotel in Beijing (fair play). I have to say that Rafa said it all along but I just didn’t believe him. Now the last few matches will be in the middle of the night for us so we will see the highlights during breakfast. I have a PhD student who is now in S. Africa instead of doing his fieldwork. Sui , I know you are following us from down there, come back!
Finally, a month before we were at Guilin university (where I gave the lecture) there was a visit of Gerardus’t Hooft nobel prize winner in Physics and his wife. He wrote “to the children of Guilin, please be curious about the world you live in; dream about your future, and plan to excel in whatever your ambitions will be”. I found it so beautiful that I wanted to share it with you as it is also so close to my thoughts.
Rudy

Day 19

Today we caught some fish in a reservoir. The day didn’t start very well as we didn’t find any fish in the market and by 10 we were still empty handed. We finally found a little reservoir and local owners who allowed us to set some traps. A couple of hours later the first two traps were empty, the third one had 5 fish and the last one had 24 fish! Hurray.
Yahui originally made a deal with the local owners that he would buy the fish and stay at their place for lunch but for arguments that would escape any wise western scientist he refused to pay them and went back to town for lunch…I think he was keen to get a specific type of soup that he spotted there last night.:-)
Anyway now we are back on the road trying to catch up with lost time. There is a feeling in this expedition that we are always running after time, a sort of race against ourselves and the demands from referees when we will try and publish the results. I can see the comments, you have only caught 30 fish which is on the low side or why didn’t you get another sample from that location etc…
Today the weather is cooler with a 29 °C max and no sunshine. We have a mutually interested discussion with Yahui on the need to have free access to the internet. His view is that internet freedom is dangerous and a good example is when you see student s using guns in America for mass killings on university campuses. For example, in China you have a limited access to international news and “live” radio programmes are broadcast with 12 hour delays… Not for me to judge.

Day 18

Day18
We visited the early market but as we thought their was no wild caught fish as local rivers are dried up. Then we went to the airport to drop Bernd and got stuck in a giant traffic jam. Xi’an is a huge city but they are currently building a town within the town for about an additional 350000 people (as much as Bournemouth and Poole together!). We have our eyes wide open and we can’t believe what we are seeing, it seems as though its from a bad science fiction film and difficult to imagine where the resources (i.e. water, electricity etc.) will come from. It is clear that conservation of natural  systems is not a priority and puts all of our occidental views into perspective…
The northen part of the country is poorer and it is clearly noticable when going through the different towns & villages. The soil is dry and there is a constant smog giving a yellow colour to the air and the surrounding landscape. The Yellow river is gone in this part of China making the sampling of our fish impossible. We will try to get out of this province asap as we have still a lot to do in the Northen part and the Amur river towards Russia. Then we will go down  to sample on the boarder with North Korea (the river is the border line). Tonight we stopped in Sanmenxia, a very industrial city which saw its glory years during Mao with one of the first large dam's built in China...not anymore.

Response to Rafa: I have to say that when Rob & Bernd play majong it's a bit fishy! As for Spain meeting Germany, no chance with the Messy & Tevez they will eat the Germans alive for breakfast ;-)

Day 17

We stayed in DanJiangkou four hours south of Xi’an, the terracotta army town. We found some aquaculture ponds outside the town where we set up our nets and went for breakfast, packed up our bags and looked at our traps, processed 15 fish then set the nets again went for lunch, back to the traps for an additional 15 fish. Then we had to hurry as we drove up to Xi’an through the mountains. Temperature when processing the fish reached the 40s and Yahui had to use his new fan to give some breeze. The salty drops of sweat pearling down our forehead into our eyes made processing the fish challenging. It was also the 2nd birthday of my little girl Miriam (the same date as the aniversary of the birth of the communist party in China!). It was difficult not to be with her on that occasion and on the phone she seemed so far away…I guess she was. Tonorrow Bernd is taking the plane back to Beijing where he will spend the weekend. It is sad to finish the trip without our red giant but on the bright side we will have a welcome increase of space in the car!!!
From Danjiangkou to Xi’an you pass a small chain of moutains and on the other side the climate is totally different. Still very hot but no water (Mediterrenean type). All rivers are dried up. This is typica,l too much water in the south and not enough in the north!
In the evening as we arrived very late we were restricted to where we could eat for our last meal with Bernd. We found a little street restaurant (barbecue, few salads and a cold beer ;-) and I started a game where we had to think of an emotion and draw a picture to express it. It was to see if we could communicate our emotions without the language barrier. It was great fun, and the people in the restaurant took part. It doesn’t seem that cultural differences were a barrier to communicating our emotions.He is fascinated by our size and took a picture of us saying that when his son is older he will show him the picture and tell him about this trip and make all possible for his son to go to university. He also said that us all being together was fate…
After a nice evening together we went back to our scruffy hotel where a dead rat was lying on the stairs. Never mind, we are so tired nothing will stop us sleeping.

Message from Rob

Thanks everybody for the kind words on England's unfortunate defeat. I think we all agree that the best team won on the day - i.e. the team of officials in disallowing our goal! Anyway, there is no point in being bitter and good luck Germany in the next round, as I'm sure they'll need it!

At the time, the football provided some welcome relief from the constant rain we were enduring last week but now it is blue skies and bright sunshine, including the morale of the team as we have been finding our fish once more. So unlike my nation's football team, we refused to be beat and are marching on!

Rob.