China Polution takes center stage in various news/media publications

All of a sudden articles about China’s pollution problem are sprouting in multiple publications. Here is the latest one — this time in Wired magazine (although they are also quoting Los Angeles Times) …

Interesting to watch how all this is bubbling to the surface now — when China is starting to gather more noticeable economic strength. Those who have lived in China over the past 10 years know that China’s environmental problem is no news — on the contrary — it has been a big issue for residents of that country. (See also earlier postings in this blog)
However we also recognize that the issue is very closely linked with the rapid pace of modernization and manufacturing — at the end of the day it is all about the $$$ — or how to make those. Usage of low capital investment - i.e. read not advanced and environmentally clean technologies has generated huge profits but also strained the environment in China.

The question now is “What will the Chinese Government do about it”??????

Do you want to go on a Safari in Beijing ? — a Trip to the Beijing Wildlife Park

Just recently someone asked me — “Is there a place to see wild animals in Beijing?” Of course most people’s natural reaction is — “Go to the Beijing Zoo…!”

Well, I have something else for you — you may want to go to a place a bit off the beaten track (for China / Beijing) — the Beijing Wildlife Park (also referred to as the Beijing Safari Park). The park is located on the Badaling Expressway — the same road that you may take to go to the Badaling section of the Great Wall. If you are driving yourself — look for big signs to exit from the highway and follow signs to the place.

My family and friends of ours actually visited the park in the winter — it was a sunny, but cold day (you can see the snow patches on the ground — on the photos below) — but being relatively cold had its advantages — there were hardly any people in the park.

Once you get to the park you will have to stop your car and go and purchase entrance tickets (about RMB70 per adult and 50 for students, kids below 120cm as usual gain free admission). Near the entrance you will also see a sign advertising the purchase of various small animals to “yes, you guessed it” feed the tigers and lions….

The park has a wide array of animals including some very rare White Siberian Tigers (see the photos above).

While in the park you can also have a glimpse of a section of the Great Wall — added bonus :-)

And the final piece of information — you will be glad to know :-) that you can drive your own car through the park — it is quite unnerving to slowly inch your way among several lions or tigers but it is also pretty exciting. We felt relatively safe as we were one of the few people in the park and there were guards / park employees (you can see their jeep in at least one of the photos) near some of the electric gates.

At any rate, if you want to experience the thrill of having a lion, tiger, or a bear within an arm reach, this is the park to visit. Happy travels!

Our visit to Veliko Tqrnovo (Велико Търново)

Well, following our stay at the Black Sea coast (we liked the Kempinski hotel :-) no joking….it is a nice place), we decided to take the Northern Bulgaria route to get back to Kazanlak (on the South side of the Balkan range). That meant we were going to travel from Zlatni Piasqci –> Varna –> Shumen –> Veliko Tqrnovo –> to Gabrovo –> cross the Balkan range via the Shipka mountain pass, and arrive in Kazanlak. On this trip our main objective was to stop in the town of Veliko Tqrnovo.
Why stop there — well take a look at these photos and you will see the reason — it is a beautiful and historic place:

The town which used to be the capital of the 2nd Bulgarian Kingdom is located on several large hills on both sides of the river Iantra (река Янтра). The 2nd Bulgarian Kingdom lasted between 1185 and the end of the 14th century at which time the Ottoman Empire conquered Bulgaria. One of the key places to visit while in Veliko Tqrnovo is the restored fortress on the Tzarevetz hill.

(me at the gate of the Tzarevetz fortress)
Some directions of getting to Tzarevetz — we approached Veliko Tqrnovo from Shumen. As you enter in the city look for signs (in brown color — denoting a national park) for Tzarevetz. There will be plenty of those. Eventually you will pass through the new town and enter the older part of Veliko Tqrnovo. This is the more interesting part anyway, but the streets are quite narrow, so if you are driving pay attention to oncoming traffic. In some cases you will have to move to the side (behind parked on the street cars) and wait for the oncoming traffic to pass. Sounds tedious, but this is part of the fun :-)

Once you get to the parking lot right in-front of the Tzarevetz fortress entrance you could visit a small restaurant located right in-front of you if your right hand shoulder is pointing at the entrance of the fortress. I cannot remember the name of the restaurant, but you won’t miss it — the parking lot is tiny. The fee for parking by the way should be in the range of 2 leva for 3 hours.

The fortress museum is open daily till 7pm. It is an interesting place to visit and also a place where you could do some serious hiking up and down the trail along the fortress walls or climbing the hill to the church on top of if. Here are some more photos from the town:

View towards the old town from Tzarevetz;

Varna, Golden Sands, Kranevo area of the Black Sea Coast - useful information

If you are planning a trip to the North part of the Black Sea coast chances are you will be visiting the Golden Sands area. My family and I just spent several days in the area and wanted to give you some input on:

* Ways to get to the area (via Car)

* Places to Eat (and which to avoid)

* Hotel info

We embarked on our journey to Varna and Golden Sands from the area of the Valley of Roses (the city of Kazanlak). We started driving towards Burgas - our plan was to travel via Nessebar (we had planned to meet someone briefly in Nessebar). Along the road, once you approach the town of Karnobat you will get on a nice new divided highway. As you travel along you need to pay attention for the signs for Varna, Sunny Beach. That exit will be about 20 miles after you get on the . We missed the exit and had to turn around and travel about 15 miles before we can find an exit to turn back towards Burgas.

Once you exit you will travel for about 3 miles on a small road, and eventually you will see signs for Sunny Beach. This is a small road as well (in not very good repair) but it will save you tons of time (if you end up going to Burgas and then heading North to Ravda and Sunny beach it won’t be the end of the world but you will have a lot more traffic congestion)

After Nessebar and Sunny Beach the highway starts going through the Balkans — you need to cross the mountains on your way to Varna and Golden Sands. You should plan on one and a half hours at least from Sunny beach to Varna.

We had reserved room in the Kempinski hotel in the Golden Sands resourt. Here is a map to its location

The hotel is one of the three Kempinski locations in Bulgaria. Last year we stayed in the Kempinski in Bansko (here is a link to my blog entry from last year). We were very happy with the hotel last year so, why not :-) , we decided to be guests of the chain again…..

The hotel is very nice, the grounds are beautiful, just one word of caution, the included breakfast (included in the room rate) is not that great. Turns out all rooms have the breakfast included. As a result it is relatively generic one — eggs, hams, cheese, bread, vegetables, juice….but not the best quality. It is filling just not that exciting. The breakfast at the Bansko hotel was much better.

Some photos from the Kempinski
With regard to place to eat (outside of the hotel) you may want to avoid the promenade just between the Kempinski and the beach. There are plenty of restaurants there but they are just overpriced and not that good. Yes, they are convenient (if you need to have a quick bite at lunch while near the beach), but in the evening you may want to head to Varna or to near by Kranevo (north of Golden Sands).

Here is a good restaurant — Restaurant Milev. To find it just head along the road towards Kranevo, Albena, Balchik. It will be on your right hand side in a restored old house a few hundred yards after you enter Kranevo.

Here are some pictures from it:

All in all we had a pretty good time in the area. Spend three days at the beach, managed to see some of the surrounding area, had good food… Following the stay at the Golden Sands we decided to return to Kazanlak via the Northern route — Varna to Shumen to Veliko Tqrnovo (the capital of the second Bulgarian kingdom), to Gabrovo and across the Shipka mountain pass to Kazanlak. More on that and of course great pictures from Veliko Tqrnovo in the next posting. Stay tuned… :-)

Polution in Beijing and the approaching 2008 Olympics

For those of you who have spent any considerable amount of time in Beijing, it is probably very apparent the issue that is facing the upcoming Olympics — the issue of air pollution. It used to be that the air was filled with smoke in the winter as the farmers around Beijing would burn the fields in preparation for the planting season.

I remember vividly the day my family and I arrived in Beijing (a couple of years back) on my third stint in China. It was a dark winter evening and the Beijing airport was covered in slightly blue smoke — there was so much of it that it even permeated the plane as we were waiting to disembark from it…..Then as we entered the airport terminal it was felt as well….At the time we thought “No big deal, this is a temporary issue…” And it was (sort of) — in the Spring things improved. Then last year the weather and pollution were quite a bit heavier — there were days when the sun was just a silver disk in the sky (behind the haze)….

And now that the Olympics are approaching the local government is concerned and acting. I am sure there will be a drastic reduction in manufacturing and construction activity several months prior to the August 2008 date. This should allow the construction dust to settle. Factories are being relocated (this has been going on for a couple of years now), and car traffic will be heavily restricted…..

I have no doubt that all these measures will help and make the Olympics successful. But there is a need (a drastic one) to make changes. One example of that is the adoption of alternative energy sources and engines…. Here is an example of some really new and interesting one and I also try to cover developments in new / hybrid vehicles in my automotive related blog.

Living and driving in China you get to see how congested roads are and you start to appreciate how important impact hybrids and alternative fuel could have on China….both on emissions, greenhouse gases, and also on cost of driving (alternative fuels could reduce the strain on resources and the resulting run up on prices)….

For those of you who are not sure if you have seen the Beijing haze, here is a look…:

More on the Rental Car Options in Bulgaria

Recently I was browsing through some of the travel Forums on-line and came across some strange information about car renting in Bulgaria. Per the writings there “most of the car rental companies in Bulgaria used old cars and were fronts for foreign rental companies who did not want to reduce their rates….”… Yes, there are local companies that contract with Hertz or Alamo for example but Alamo in the US is clueless about their availability of cars in Bulgaria — I speak from experience. Two years ago I tried to rent from Alamo (I have tons of business with Alamo) and they promised me (reserved ) a car for me and gave me the contact info for their office in Bulgaria, then when my wife called the local office they had no record of any reservation etc.

I would recommend the car rental company. They even waited for us at the Airport when our flight from the States via London, was delayed by 10 hours! We arrived 1am in the morning…!!!

Rental Car Experience in Bulgaria

Last week we completed our trip in Bulgaria. I will be posting material from that trip gradually, but in the mean time I wanted to post on our experience with car rental companies in Bulgaria. This was our second time with renting a vehicle from Global Rent A Car — and the experience has been very positive.

If you are arriving by plane at the Sofia airport, Global Rent a Car will even wait for you at the airport. This time around we had trouble with our connective flights in London (ended up flying from London to Sofia via Munich) and as a result we were delayed by over 12 hours — we landed in Sofia around 23:15. A guy from the rental company was waiting for us though.

If you plan to rent a car, one option is to initially put the car on your credit card (for ease of handling the initial procedure) then upon completion of your rental you can pay by cash and get a 10% discount.

We rented a SUV vehicle and ended up paying 726 euro for a 13 day rental period. (That was after the discount for paying in cash)

Real Estate and Bulgaria — Going Up, Going Up…..

Over the last several years Bulgaria has become a magnet for many real estate buyers, retirees, real estate investors and speculators. In 2006 my family and I visited Bulgaria and were surprised to find real estate agencies targeting specifically UK citizens for example — in the town of Bansko (Southwestern Bulgaria) there were a number of developers and agents promoting villas, apartments, etc. to buyers from the UK (and other Western European countries). This year, the situation is continuing to progress. Investors from the former Soviet Union republics, as well as Western Europe are driving prices up.
Some statistics (from mediapool.bg — published in the Bulgarian newspaper IMOTI):
Just in the last 3 months (April, May, June 2007) prices for apartments in Varna (on the Black Sea) have risen 3.9%
In Burgas (another big city on the Black Sea coast) — the increase is 4.1%
In Sofia — the increase is 3.8%
Average prices for apartments are:
Sofia — US$1152 / square meter
Varna — US$1196 / square meter
Plovdiv — US$771 / square meter
(These prices were calculated based on exchange rate of US$1 = 1.43 Bulgarian Leva)

Here I have listed the prices for the major cities in Bulgaria, but even the small and unknown cities like Haskovo, Stara Zagora, Gabrovo, Smolian, Silistra are exhibiting strong price increases — in the range of 6% - 8%. Of course those increases are from a much smaller base, but they show the impact of increasing demand and focus from multiple sources of investors.

If you just consider the new construction and list / advertised prices, the prices are even higher. I came across many offerings in the range of 580 Euro to over 1000 Euro per square meter (For reference 1 euro is 1.95 leva), so higher than the averages given by the statistics above. A studio apartment in the Vitosha suburb of Sofia with area of 46 square meters has a starting price of 33600 euro! That would be 730 euro per square meter ==> or about US$1000 per square meter ===> or US$100 per square foot! How about that…?!?!