Rewi Alley/George Hogg Trip Day 1 15^th July, 2017

Saturday 15^th July, 2017

And so off we set on the great adventure that is to retrace the steps of George Hogg and Rewi Alley. We are the advance guard, the rest of the party arrive either tomorrow or Monday. It does however give us a free day tomorrow to do as we wish.

After an early start (for me at least) a student, Tom, had been sent to assist me with my baggage. At a guess my single suitcase weighs 40kg, mainly because I have my computer with me in order to chronicle the expedition for the university and because I packed certain necessary supplies. Tom did not join us today, he will come on the trip but is following on tomorrow with the main party.

At Lanzhou West train station our group of six was complete. Today's cast are Mr Liu, a consultant at the Rewi Alley research centre. Leanne who teaches sometimes English, sometimes Education. Siobhan who is the director of PR for the university plus her 13 year old middle school student daughter Shirley. I did in fact mistake Shirley for one of our students – she is probably two, maybe three inches taller than me. Mr Guo a music teacher. Finally there is Song, a media student and who very kindly took charge of my excess baggage.

As always with me when I am travelling there were problems, we queued to be admitted past security only for me to get there and be refused. Why, I have no idea but we all had to go to another queue where I was actually allowed in. Then my case was held by security. Song had taken it through the other gate. They wanted to know what was in the bottles in my baggage. I must look like an unsavoury character for the contents were no more malevolent than red wine and jing jo. I showed one bottle of wine but I confess to getting a trifle heated when it was suggested they wanted to see ALL of the bottles! That would have meant emptying the entire case because give or take, I have 20 bottles with me so naturally I resisted. Security relented.

So here we all are, stuck on a fast train for ten hours. It seems as though the girls and myself have brought ample food to prevent having to eat on board.

Day 2 16^th July, 2017

Ten and a half hours on a train, even in company, is tedious. No wonder I tend to fly. As invariably happens with my aged laptop, the moment I removed it from its comfort zone at home, it played up. Thankfully I had films downloaded that would actually play back.

It was after nine when we arrived at Hongqiao and around ten by the time we got to our hotel, my friend Capt Roland was already waiting in the lobby. After checking in everyone went a short way up the road to a restaurant for a late dinner. I had one mouthful of a dish which immediately saw my upper skull being launched into orbit, so that was the end of my dinner! Remembering my camera, I excused myself to return and retrieve it from my room.

Having left the key card in the slot to keep the air-conditioning running (Shanghai is not only hot but as humid as a sauna), I needed to obtain a second card from reception. Not only did the girl on the desk not have any record of my staying but also the hotel didn't appear to have a room 310! At this point it dawned on me that just perhaps I had entered the wrong hotel!! Eventually I did locate where I was staying and did take a couple of photos.

On the way back to the hotel when we had finished I started to have mobility problems. My cursed right hip was playing up and even as I type it is still giving gyp. Luckily I remembered to bring along diclofenac so in an hour or so I should be as right as ninepence. Lord only knows what young Song thought of it all while he was acting as my “crutch”!