This year marks the first in a decade in which I didn't make the trip to China through Hong Kong. Even after being so close to the mainland for quite some time, I had never been able to do what would seem the most sensible: hop right across the straight to the other side less than 200km away. (Of course politics don't always almost never make sense.) However, peaceful overtures between China and Taiwan following election of the island's new KMT president last year finally lead to establishment of the "Three Links" less than a year ago, meaning it's now possible to travel directly to The Other Side. The ferry between Kinmen (Jinmen/Quemoy) and Xiamen has been open to local residents for a much longer period, but has only more recently become available to anyone as a normal route of passage.

Charles Mann and I were visiting Fujian (again) for some follow-up exploration related to his upcoming book. (Neal Stephenson tagged along for the ride this time, too.) Like our previous visit, the emphasis was on the history of China's maritime trade, though this time it was more about seeing places rather than historians (so I actually have a few pictures!). As you can see, given our purpose it was entirely appropriate that I take the ferry from Taiwan to China.

Compared to the usual 1-2 week journey, this was an especially short trip, so I wasn't dead tired at the end and had plenty of energy left for some additional exploration. On the way back I met up with Kei in Kinmen and stayed for several days to check out the island--definitely worth it, as you'll see/read about in part II (see menu to left).

Start with the first page here.

Here's a map to give you a general idea of the local geography:

Note: We took a ferry to Haicheng, but I didn't include any relevant pictures.

[1 jun 09]