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Offering a fine glimpse of Old China, Fenghuang is an ancient town on the Tuojiang River in Hunan Province. In Chinese Fenghuang means ‘Phoenix’, the mythical bird of good omen and longevity that is consumed by fire to be re-born again from the flames. The town is so called because legend has it that two of these mythical birds flew over it and found it to be so wonderful that they grew reluctant to leave it. Well-preserved and maintained, Fenghuang can be tailored into your China itinerary if coming off of Yangtze river cruise and you are en route to Guizhou.

The war started a couple of weeks ago and orders are to quit for the Olympics on today’s full moon. Firecrackers for New Year, Beijing style I mean. The first day they were exploding against my 12th floor windows and everywhere else right across the city. The sweepers were out early next morn and picked up 50 tons of red paper but I didn’t notice much firecracker waste cleaned on the 1925 sidewalks around town. Casualties were a few. At least one killed by a direct hit, but being mid winter apartment windows were well closed so burn outs only happened in the few where they were so impatient they never got outside in time to light up. Hence the demons are chased away for the Year of the Rat along with most other domestic and the few wild animals left around here.

Too, things look kinder with the temperatures already well above zero and the long Johns off. Still it hasn’t snowed in 2008 and most days have been clear and sunny with the north wind blowing the pollution back down to Canton where it mostly belongs. Its back in vengeance today though with visibly within 100 yards and impaired, minus the firecracker smoke, and the Gobi spring sandstorms are looming to make things worse. So its all forwards to that auspicious 08/8/8 day, 6 months away when things will be more clement and the Olympics start.

So I am guiding it in the style of old China. There is no point being really civilized as this is where the locals will profit most and buy another car to cram these jammed city streets. Communism forget it, pinch pennies, get that new car and go forwards in life. A sad tale given the picturesque big streets crowded with the tinkle of bicycle bells just some 15 years ago.

But the Peking duck restaurants are all still somewhere as is a cheap cold bottle of beer for 50 cents. One could hang around the restaurants next to the foreigner compounds with their western menus and prices and feel like one never left home as most do. The “Wall” will be crowded, but then there are all those other unique places that I have found to get local. Tickets for the Olympics have gone crazy as expected and it takes a professional to work the black-markets and find non-photocopies at a tenth the cost marketed overseas. Better to enjoy other sights along with lamb kebabs on a side street and buy dollar DVDs.

So with the madness of a full fireworks display everywhere just in front of my window its time to sign off. Normality might reign again for the first time in a couple of weeks tomorrow. I am off to see if this Olympic crowd will pay me more than you in the morn. You know they love volunteers.

CHINA PRIVATE GUIDE

Beijing Tours Short China Tours

As India’s economy surges, New Delhi is undergoing construction boom that’s making the city easier to traverse and more tourist friendly. The improved transportation system includes multi-lane superhighways and continuously expanding subway system. The city is lush with a plethora of temples, forts, mosques as well as parks, gardens and beautiful colonial mansions. The strategic location of the city was one of the prime reasons why successive dynasties chose it as their seat of power. Much of the reconstruction going on is to be completed by the 2010 Commonwealth Games with Delhi as its host. Yet despite the modernization it’s Delhi’s plethora of temples, forts, mosques as well as parks, gardens and beautiful colonial mansions that constitute the prime reasons why visit this metropolis and begin your India tour here.Â

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Close to the Forbidden City, the Peninsula Hotel is the best of what luxury hotel can offer anywhere, no exception here in Beijing. Rated among the best hotels of the world, its suites filled with antiques, seek no more for lodging in Beijing. If you belong to the kind wanting to enjoy the top mix of China’s art, French food and wines, spa and marble, Peninsula Hotel has it all - include Peninsula Hotel in your Beijing and China itinerary, book here!

Last year Business Week brought a fine article, Olympic PR Challenge, regarding the rage the summer games sponors face over issues ranging from the Dalai Lama to Darfur. It narrated well how activists concerned about the environment, conditions in Chinese factories, political prisoners, and the fate of Tibet have all said they will use the Games as a forum for their grievances, calling on sponsors to take action as well. Olympic Watch, a group that’s monitoring China’s human-rights record ahead of the Games, noted that if human rights in China don’t improve, sponsoring the games could be a big problem for the image of Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Kodak, Samsung, Visa and other multinationals. The jest of the message was “You cannot as a large multinational trumpet your corporate responsibility credentials, while at the same time indulging China and refusing to criticize it.” The sponsors of course react by stressing that the Olympics should be about promoting global excellence in sport and not a forum for political issues. Well, what else could they say in their own defense… Bottom line is that while in China you can witness creations of one of the oldest civilizations on Earth, learn about nearly all religious and philosophical mainstreams of the Orient, and visit endless historical sites, monuments and ethnic minorities, it pays even for the sophisticated travelers, that contemplate China tour and plan to journey China in high numbers this coming summer, to keep in mind that despite the showpiece of grand achievements that the Olympics promise to portray the host country as, China still has many challenges and ills to overcome most of which are deeprooted precisely in its social experiment of combining communism and capitalism, a combination which although allowing for economic freedom has nothing to do with freedom of the mind.