Part 2 - Trade delegation flight to Beijing
A great holiday so far
Karen and I agreed that our Silk Road tour was a great success at every level. The tour was primarily about culture, history and scenery.. on that level our tour organiser did a great job and I’d thoroughly recommend both the tour operator as well as our choice to as two couples. We travelled in a large mini van and by high speed train. We had a chauffeur and a tour guide. In fact four different guides each expert in their region.
With the exception of the museum at Turpan which was closed our tour hit the highlights and seemed to us very well organised.
The hotels, we had asked for 4 star, were all of good standard, equivalent to a good European or USA hotel, and I have stayed in many.
And this leads into the second outcome, that the standard of living for the Chinese people seems good maybe with the exception of housing which I didn’t investigate. I did see that house prices in the cities in the region range from 5,000 RMB-10,000 rmb a square metre and ranged in size from 70 square metres to maybe 120 square metres in size.
At least two of our tour guides had been young children in the cultural revolution and therefore have lived through all the changes in China in the past 30 years. In fact Karen and I went to Beijing about 28 years ago and I can see for myself the changes. Not just in the East but in rail, road, housing and other infrastructure. The standard exceeds Australia or at least most of Australia.
And yet for an Australian the cost of living is low Our guide in Turpan drives coal, in an electric truck mind you, to a coal generation plant in Winter. He does one trip a day for 300 RMB. Another mine and coal station it’s two trips a day and 400 RMB (A$ 80) or less than $20 k a year. Half a litre of beer was about $1.
Tourist sights were generally very well patronised by domestic tourists even though the summer holiday season has not yet started.
And from the third perspective I saw a massive amount of energy infrastructure and observed ev penetration and charging infrastructure in regional China.
Now it’s on to the Official more controlled phase.
Ive been invited to the China International Supply Chain Expo Official Gala Dinner. Trouble is that only gives me two hours to check in and get stuff in order.
However in hopefully my last major bludner it turns out I booked my Urumqi to Beijing flight to the other Beijing airport. My hotel is 200 metres from the airport I should have gone to and 60 km, 2 hours and $100 from where I landed. So I missed the dinner. On the plus side I was able to order and send Didi driver my location from within WeChat. Total trip time 7:45 AM to 5 PM
Here in Beijing prices are much higher than in the West. And it’s much harder to get around.
