Jamming in Xiamen

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Hello all,

The next stop on the Rich and Al world tour was Gulangyu, a small island off a slightly bigger island (Xiamen). To saves ourselves going through an epic 22 hour train journey we splashed the cash and flew from Shanghai in just over an hour. We then took a short bus journey to the ferry port in Xiamen. When we got off the bus the heavens opened and by the time we ran the 200m to the ferry port we were soaked to the skin. They don't do anything in half measures in China, not even rain.

In the two days we spent on the sleepy islet of Gulangyu I only saw 2 other westerners. This meant that we were as much of a tourist attraction as the many small temples statues on the island and led to us being the victims of supposedly secret photos. Some of the Chinese tourists were a little more confident and just ask us to pose for photos.

Many of the worlds greatest pianist hail from Gulangyu due to its colonial past and there is a museum on the island housing around 200 pianos. It wasn't particularly exciting but it kept us out of the rain for a while.

There are no cars on the islet, the only four wheeled transport is stretch limo golf carts. Again there was a lot of construction going on and the labourers used human drawn carts to shift their gear around.

As this little island didn't have much to offer us thrill seeking gentlemen, we cut short our stay so we could spend more time at our next destination, Hong Kong.

Al.

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Photos

Gulangyu
View from the ferry port at Xiamen