Just prior to dinner we visit an art exhibition. If you guessed that all the paintings are on a single theme, you would be wrong. There are several themes: The Great Leader, The Dear Leader, the army, agricultural production, industrial production, and tigers (no doubt metaphorical). After seeing so many depictions of The Dear Leader offering "on the spot guidance" in laboratory, factory, farm and field, I wonder why he hasn't yet invented the luggage ramp. which the hotels conspicuously lack.

Tuesday. Our last day in country.  We drive to Sonbong, the neighboring, smaller sister city of Rajin.  It, too, is a port, which we visit.  There is a monument commemorating the visits of Kim Jong Suk, “mother of the nation,” who hailed from these parts.  (She was the wife of Kim Il Sung and mother of Kim Jong Il.)  Like every city in the DPRK, Sonbong boasts a Revolutionary Museum.  When we enter the main hall Mr. Creepy snatches the hat off my head.  Why?  Because were approaching a portrait of the Great Leader.  The pride of the museum is a set of tree trunks with anti-Japanese slogans carved on the trunks carefully preserved in humidity-controlled cases.  Curiously, new ones bearing worshipful inscriptions to Kim Il Sung are being continually discovered, curious because at the time he was an unknown major in the Red Army stationed in Siberia (which is where Kim Jong Il was actually born).  There are a dozen or more rooms devoted to the exploits and achievements of the Great Leader, but we are subjected to only two of them.  Afterwards, Mr. Creepy goes around asking us if we agree that Kim Il Sung was the greatest person in history and what the people in our home countries think of Him.  When he does not get the answers he expects, he seems completely befuddled.

After a last lunch, delicious seafood again, we drive to the railroad station near the border.  There are lots of locals waiting for the train, but we are segregated in the VIP waiting room.  The exit formalities begin.  All our paperwork is in order.  Luggage inspection is cursory. (What could we possibly smuggle out?)  What they are really interested in is inspecting the photographs we have taken.  Since everything is digital now, we have to scroll through our memory cards.  They are looking for photos that show the country in an unflattering manner, but I think this exercise is mostly symbolic: no one is forced to delete more than one or two pictures.  What are the offending images?  Ox carts and old people.  I lose one: a shot of a guy leading an oxcart down the main street in Ranjin.  (In retrospect, I am certain it would have made the cover of National Geographic.)  A couple in the group had the foresight to download their photos to their laptop and delete any questionable ones from the camera memory.

The train consists of two cars: one for Koreans and one for foreigners.  With us are the Russian railway workers against whom we played soccer yesterday.  Our mobile phones are returned and everyone frantically takes advantage of the signal from the Chinese network before we leave its coverage area.  The Russians have a better idea: they break out the vodka.

It’s a very short train ride, just a few minutes: across the frontier and over the Tumen River to the Russian town of Khasan.  Our guide, Julia, has come from Vladivostok to meet us. Just as well, because no one else speaks English.  She has never been here in her life. The Russian border officials are quite surprised to see us.  We are the first tourists ever to have come over from North Korea.

We drive for two hours to the seaside resort village of Andreevka, where plastic palm trees line the beach.  (They insist that this is not Siberia, though the distinction may be too fine for us to draw.)  We have advanced two time zones, so the sun more closely correlates with the clock.  It is near the solstice and we are far north, so after a late dinner there is still daylight to look around.  There are two well-stocked markets; in true Russian fashion, about half the shelf space is devoted to beer, wine, and liquor.  An ATM gives us access to rubles.

Our activity the next day is a boat ride to Furugelma Island, almost all the way back to Korea.  Formerly a defense installation, it is now a nature preserve.  Getting there requires almost two hours on not very calm seas, but when we arrive we have the place to ourselves.  We hike up into the hills amidst blooming wildflowers and abundant birdlife.  There are soldiers’ graves, abandoned housing, and rusting guns overlooking scenic coves.  Punctuated by a picnic lunch on the beach, the day passes quickly.

                    

It is still early as we board our bus and start our tour. Geographically, the city resembles San Francisco, situated on hills at the end of a peninsula. Although the city is small and compact, getting around on the bus is slow going because the streets were not designed to handle the current crush of private vehicles.  Interestingly, although in Russia they drive on the right, almost all the cars have steering wheels on the “wrong” side.  That is because they are from the streets of Japan, where strict inspection laws effectively force the retirement of cars more than a few years old.  Regular ferry service across the Sea of Japan keeps the used car supply replenished.

Our first stop is the Eagle’s Nest, a hilltop viewpoint overlooking the city below.  There is a funicular railway (the only one in Russia), but we drive.  Then, back to the embankment for a quick look at the war memorial and the triumphal arch commemorating the visit of the Tsarevich Nicholas in 1891 and a tour of submarine C-56, a WWII boat turned naval museum. In 1942-43 it crossed the Pacific and transited the Panama Canal to join the Northern fleet. It didn’t actually sink anything; its principal accomplishment was not getting sunk itself, for which it was awarded a Red Banner.

The main street, Svetlanskaya, used to be called Lenin Street.  His statue still stands across from the railroad station, the terminus of the trans-Siberian railroad.  Completed in 1903, it departs three times a week on the six-day journey to Moscow; arrivals are on alternate days.  The ornate station and its murals have been restored.  Outside there is a US locomotive, commemorating US aid during The Great Patriotic War (WWII), and an elaborate marker for kilometer 9288, the distance from Moscow.

                    

Dinner is at a restaurant named “Nostalgia.” It’s a tourist place with menus in English, but the food is good.  The décor includes portraits of the Romanovs and White Russian generals, but I don’t think that many locals long for the tsarist days. A more authentic nostalgia can be observed in a nearby downscale cafeteria decorated with a huge map showing the vast reaches of the Soviet empire in a single color simply labeled “C.C.C.P.”

Vladivostok is an anomaly: a Slavic island in an Asiatic sea.  I was expecting a mix of Europeans, Siberians, Chinese, Koreans, Japanese, and assorted others, but uh-uh, it’s Slav City. The only orientals I see are the Chinese tourists in our hotel.  To underscore the point, almost all the local gals are blond or bleach their hair that way.  They are strikingly good-looking: tall, thin, and dressed in tight clothes, short skirts and high heels. 

We are staying at the Hotel Vladivostok, a concrete hulk that in commie times was operated by Intourist as the hotel for foreigners. Typical of those relics, it’s utilitarian but well located. Chiefly for lack of alternatives, it continues to capture the tour group trade (nowadays mostly Chinese). Renovation of the rooms has been haphazard, but at least there is wifi.  Adjacent to the hotel is a gentlemen’s club, cover charge $50.

The next day is a free day.  My first stop is the museum to see the stuffed Siberian tiger battling a stuffed bear.  It is the acme of both poor taste and the taxidermist’s art.  It is roped off, so the idea is to sneak up as close as possible to pose for a photo until the lady notices and yells at you.  There are three floors of other exhibits, but after the tiger and bear it’s all anti-climactic. 

                    

There are no Scottish restaurants here; the local place of renown is Magic Burger.  Disparaging words from our leader are insufficient to deter me from an authentic Vladivostok culinary experience.  The eponymous product is pre-made and wrapped in saran wrap.  When you place your order they microwave it in front of you, leaving the wrapping on to fully infuse it with that rich plastic flavor.  When done, it looks and tastes like a meatball that’s been stepped on.  Yet customers are lined up out the door.

Two days in Vladivostok is just about right.  While most of the group attends an evening soccer match (in which I can’t even feign interest) I spend the time up catching up on the web.  We have just emerged from internet-free North Korea and I will soon be once again behind the Great Firewall of China.

We have to leave the hotel at a ridiculous hour for our early morning flight back to Beijing (“Peking” in Russian, and, for that matter, every language except English).  The Soviets liked to build airports an hour distant from town even though there is nothing in between. 

We travel on Vladivostok Air, which gives me my first experience in a non-vintage Russian aircraft.   The modern Tupelov they fly is comparable to Airbus and Boeing products.  Beijing is 800 miles and three times zones away, meaning we arrive an hour before we depart.

I have another ten days before my flight home.  If I had my druthers I would be moving on the same day, but it’s not so easy to get a train ticket, particularly on weekends.  There are something like seventeen trains a day to Inner Mongolia, but the next available is noon the next day.  Even then, the only “seat” I can get is a sleeper berth, available because Chinese are reluctant to pay the extra cost for a non-overnight trip.  The journey is about ten hours.

A few hours from Beijing the Blade Runner weather ends.  Instead of rainy and hazy it becomes sunny and clear.  The terrain is rolling hills, sparsely populated.  Sharing my compartment are an engineering student who speaks a bit of English and translates for the others, a Mongolian woman, and a Chinese guy.  All think that I am the most exotic person they have ever met.  I am the only big nose on the train.  Little kids point and stare.

Hohhot, the capital of Inner Mongolia, was, until recently, a small Mongolian city, but it has undergone breakneck expansion and is now a medium-size Chinese city, i.e., the population of a small nation. Huge apartment blocks and shopping malls are under construction everywhere.

I arrive at night and check into my hotel, where there is ample proof that Chinglish is alive and well.  On the back of my room door: ”Please don't worry if a fire is occuring we hotel have owned succor scattering facilities to sure you transmit safely.  Point profess your excellency seat.”  At least have some idea what they are talking about; often, if you don’t know the subject, the message is a complete mystery. 

The next day I set to see the sights of old Hohhot.  First stop is the Dazhao temple complex, home to the Tibetan lama community.  There are close religious ties between Mongolia and Tibet, and the head lama here is considered a living Buddha. There are more Buddha statues than lamas -- the prayer halls contain only a token few monks chanting. I guess these days people prefer seeking riches rather than enlightenment.  Because this place is not on the standard tour bus itinerary, I am pretty much the only visitor. 

In contrast, the parking lot at the Xilituzhao temple complex across the street is packed with tour buses, and a hefty admission is charged (the other one is free).  I don’t know why there are two separate temples, but this one seems more Chinese.  It’s been renovated with bright, garish (but probably authentic) paint and gold leaf.

Still another temple is Wu Ta, or the Five Pagoda Temple, built in distinctly Indian style.  It’s small but elegant.  On the walls are more than 1500 carvings of Buddha, all different.

Finally, there is the Great Mosque, notable for its fusion of both Chinese and Arab architectural style.

I get all these done on Monday. On Tuesday morning the eye-popping new Inner Mongolia Museum reopens.  It is state of art in its displays, but lacks tigers fighting bears.

The first hall I visit is “Underground Treasures.”  Lip service is paid to the “friend of the earth” and “harmonious development” mantras, but the real message is “Inner Mongolia has loads of mineral resources and we’re going to exploit them.   As a sop to the people whose land is being raped, the captions are in Mongolian as well as Chinese and English.

China’s space program is based hereabouts, and the next gallery is devoted to rockets and cosmonauts.  Did you know that the local herdsmen were proud to surrender tens of thousands of square miles of their grazing lands to help contribute to the development of China’s national defense system?

There are numerous galleries devoted to arts and artifacts, with special attention to local hero Genghis Kahn and his band of merry Mongols.

And who doesn’t like dinosaurs!  Huge skeletons are regularly found in the Gobi Desert, so it’s dinos galore.

The big thing to do when visiting Inner Mongolia is a grasslands tour with overnight in a ger (yurt in Turkish), but I’ve already had my ger experiences (in (Outer) Mongolia, Uzbekistan, and Krygyzstan) and am limited on time, so I decide to move on.  I get a sleeper berth on the afternoon train to Pingyao, ten hours or so south.

When reach Pingyao well after midnight, I am the only one to get off the train.  Despite the hour, the station is fully staffed: a ticket checker to check my ticket, guards who won’t let me leave through the entrance door, and a ticket seller who won’t sell me any tickets (all my choices are coming up “not available”), I disappoint the waiting taxi drivers by walking across the street to the hotel facing the station, where the entire staff is roused from slumber to check me in.

It’s goodbye to the clear, blue skies of Mongolia and hello to the gray haze that blankets industrial China.  Pingyao, a well-preserved Ming walled city, would be very photogenic if you could see more than ten yards.  Even the pictures in the guidebooks look like they were taken in heavy fog.

My hotel lacks wifi as well as character, so the next day I move to a guesthouse in the old city that has both.  For transport I rent an electric bicycle.  Boy, this sure beats pedaling!  With it, I tirelessly cruise the streets of the old town otherwise closed off to vehicular traffic.  The old city is devoted to tourism and this place is very popular with Chinese tourists, but western visitors are mostly the backpacker set.  The ambience is great, but I don’t bother with the 140 yuan ($21) ticket needed to gain entry to the dozens of museums – to me, one Ming interior is pretty much the same as the next. 

My powered chariot effortlessly takes me the three miles south to Shaulin Si, a temple famous for its Buddhist carvings so lifelike that they are kept in cages.  (Either that, or you are not supposed to touch them.)  The dinginess of the buildings and interiors makes one appreciate the value of a coat of paint.  Another misplaced World Heritage designation.

I sign up for a day trip to two area attractions.  The first is the Wang Family Courtyard, a walled village built around 1800 by wealthy merchant brothers.  The buildings and decoration are very ornate but all dun colored, making for boring photographs.  My theory: the compound was designed prior to color photography -- for the monochromatic real estates brochures of the time, paint would have an unnecessary expense.  With no architectural variety, it’s a Qing-era Levittown.

The Courtyard (actually, there are 35 courtyards within) is now entirely a museum. Half the buildings are occupied by souvenir shops.  They are filled with the tacky stuff the Chinese buy, not the truly glorious kitsch that interests me. There is English signage identifying the Honesty Room, the Moral Character Room, the Good Fortune Residence, the Residence of Examples, The Lasting Culture House, and so forth, but nothing that answer my question: what happened to the Wangs?  Were they executed by Mao as class enemies?  

The menu at lunch includes sparrow, “oild boar,” and “wild-eaten hens egg.”   I stick to comestibles that I can more or less recognize.

In the afternoon we visit the Zhang Bi Underground Castle, a 1500 year old complex of military tunnels that lies beneath Zhang Bi village in a layout that carefully corresponds to the zodiac.  The full extent is six miles, although only about a mile is now open to visitors. There are three levels of tunnels up to 60 ft deep with offices, meeting rooms, horse stables, communication tubes, booby traps and other defensive measures.  There is no evidence that it was ever actually used in wartime until the Japanese occupation in the 20th century.

I am improving my travel plan on the fly based on the availability of train tickets.  No luck in getting anything traveling in the direction of Shanghai, where I need to end up, so I book a sleeper to Luoyang, site of the Longmen caves.  

To quote from the UNESCO World Heritage designation: “The grottoes and niches of Longmen contain the largest and most impressive collection of Chinese art of the late Northern Wei and Tang Dynasties (316-907). These works, entirely devoted to the Buddhist religion, represent the high point of Chinese stone carving.” 

I check into a hotel across from the train station and grab a bus to the caves. There are, according to the guidebook, 2300 caves and niches and over 100,000 Buddha figures carved into the cliffs on either side of the Yi River. They are indeed impressive, as is the admission price, 120 yuan ($18), a huge sum by local standards.  The site is built for Chinese-style tourism: to get from the parking lot/drop-off to the actual entrance you must walk through a half-mile of souvenir stands.  Ahead are construction cranes – are they building new grottoes to meet the demand? 

The other regional tourist draw is Shaolin monastery, home to the original Kung Fu masters.  It’s a couple of hours away and considered a tourist trap even by Chinese standards, so I don’t.  I need to be getting to Shanghai.  The trains are all sold out, so I take a bus to the provincial capital of Zengzhou and, from there, a sleeper bus.  The roads are good, but the journey is not as comfortable as a train.  I arrive in Shanghai the next morning.

I’ve been here many times before, but I’m back for a look at Expo 2010.  Due to the fair, all the reasonably-priced hotel rooms are long since gone, so it costs me a budget-busting $60/night for a decent place.  I figure that today, Sunday, is probably the most crowded, so I wait until evening for the crowds to thin and the admission prices to halve.  According to the official website, so far today, as of 2:30 PM, 426,000 visitors have come through the turnstiles.

The Exposition site is on both banks of the Huang Po River.  Interestingly, it has been overlaid on to the existing urban footprint of regular streets with multiple entrances on the periphery – the one I choose is a clearing in the middle of fenced-off apartment buildings and retail stores. 

One side of the river has corporate governmental entities exhibitions.  The international pavilions are on the far side. There are long lines at all times for the most popular, but in the evening one can stroll right into the minor ones.  The first pavilion I enter is Turkmenistan’s, which I commend for its excellent air conditioning. (Whoever thought of having a worlds fair here in the summertime had rocks in his head.) Iran’s is all about medical technology, pharmaceutical production, and high tech manufacturing; nothing about nuclear bombs.  Not surprisingly, in Palestine’s you don’t see anything on suicide bombers and sending all the Jews back to Europe, but a whole lot about its capital, Jerusalem, “the city of peace.”  Their view of a peaceful future can be in the scale model of the city -- the Wailing Wall is nowhere to be found.

After dark the fair becomes a visual treat.  The Chinese are really into colored lights, and the illumination alone is worth the price of admission.  I only make it about halfway across the Expo grounds before closing time.

I return the next day for the full day.  The entry gate, where all visitors undergo airport-level security inspection, is only operating at about 5% of capacity, but there is no wait.  Inside, it doesn’t at seem at all crowded, but that doesn’t mean no queues.  The PA system gives frequent updates on waiting times: 6 hours for Saudi Arabia and Germany; 5 hours for Japan and Korea.  The countdown by country continues until, below 3 hours, they don’t even bother.  There are long lines at pretty much all the western countries.  (Last night, near closing time, I was able to enter Australia and New Zealand without waiting.)  Having already been to “the real thing,” I don’t visit anyplace with more than a three-minute wait time.

But for the vast majority of visitors, i.e., Chinese provincials, this is as close to foreign travel as they will ever get.  At each pavilion you can get your “passport” stamped; there are 190 countries represented, and some people seem to be trying to collect them all. The country count is high because many smaller states that can’t afford a separate building are grouped together by region in large exhibition halls. 

Every bit of construction is new but, aside from a few that are architectural statements, most are gussied-up generic buildings that will probably be turned into space for trade shows and conventions.  Inside, one finds displays of the type that the economic development authority puts up in the airport.  Thus, Togo, a small blotch on the African map with barely a functioning railroad, unashamedly exhibits artists’ renderings of bullet trains with “Togo” penciled on the locomotives.

In some pavilions half of the floor space is devoted to gift and souvenir shops.  I think they are supposed to feature items from the home country, but there seems to be an awful lot of cheap Chinese jewelry.  Some places price their stuff to sell; others seemingly want to make sure they will never need to restock.  Cuba is selling cigars at $25-50 each (at those prices, they'd better be real) and overpriced rum drinks.  Indonesia has a coffee bar where you can buy a cup made from beans shat out by a civet cat for $40 – due to limited supply (and an exhausted civet cat), they prepare a maximum of twelve cups per day.

But in general, visitors are not gouged.  Admission for a single day is $27, and there are all sorts of discounts. There are convenience stores and fast food outlets.  Sodas are under 50¢/can; drinking water is free and ubiquitous.  National pavilions have restaurants and cafes, but the prices at those venues apparently include airfare to Shanghai for the chef and his entire staff.

As the day progresses, I come to the conclusion that poor countries are full of smiling, attractive young women in colorful costumes and the richer ones are populated by ugly people and minorities.  Another rule of thumb: the crappier the country, the hotter the babes but the lousier the air conditioning (middle-east counties excepted from both halves of this last rule.)

Oh and there’s the entertainment.  Who doesn’t like Polynesian dancers in plastic grass skirts and coconut shell bras?  No one, me included!  The Chinese especially appreciate one full-figured gal with an ample posterior and the ability to rotate it like a paint-shaker.

By evening I’ve had my fill.  Back to the hotel and my flights home tomorrow.  I have a twelve-month multiple-entry visa for China, so, like Ah-nuld, I’ll be back.