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We have arrived back into mainland China after a few days in Hong Kong, and we have extremely mixed feelings at this point: on the one hand we are sorry to say good bye to the luxuries and ease of living that Hong Kong afforded us (see later), but on the other hand we are excited about getting our travelling boots back on and exploring some more of this amazing country.
We arrived into Hong Kong from Kunming, and before that, Dali. Dali is another traveller's Mecca in the Yunnan province, but has a completely different vibe from Lijiang. Whereas Lijiang was the highly polished, finished article, favoured by wealthy Chinese tourists, Dali was a much more laid back and homely place to unwind. The surrounding landscape was so lush - lakes, mountains, rice paddies, and green green grass as far as the eye could see. Dali is still at altitude (2000m approx) so the climate is still nice and cool (mid 20s?), and the air is fresh and clear.
If the climate is clear and cool, Dali living is even more chilled out. There are loads of little coffee shops and bars, each serving varieties of fresh fruit shakes, pancakes,
sweets, western foods, and local Dali cuisine. We can fully understand why people come here and stay a while. There may be one more draw, of course: watch out for sweet middle-aged ladies appoaching you on the street with a sympathetic smile, and the hushed cry of, "smoka-da-ganja?" Yes, Dali has plenty to offer the liberal traveller looking to relax.
We stayed in the No.3 Guesthouse which turned out to be an absolute revelation. Prone as we are to using the Lonely Planet as our guide to where to stay when we get to a new destination we initially headed to Jim's which had top billing and the promise of good cheap dorm accommodation - it certainly deserved top billing, but then again so did it's prices! So we ended up being dragged through the streets by an old Dali local who said we could just "lookey-lookey" at a few other guesthouses, and we ended up at No.3 which the Lonely Planet gave a luke-warm review but has since been completely renovated and was simply superb! It ticked all the boxes in terms of cleanliness and facilities, and the coolest feature were the large wooden bunk beds with concertina screens
which you could pull across to provide you with your own little (actually quite large!) cubby hole.
Although it is a useful starting point it would be impossible for the Lonely Planet to keep up with the rapidly changing and developing budget accommodation market in China - there is a myth(?) that as soon as a place gets a mention in the Lonely Planet the standards drop, but we're not quite sure that's the case.
We didn't see many of the sights around Dali (we spent a bit of time rocking on our rocking chairs on the terrace at No.3!), but we did make it to the 3 big Pagodas, albeit via a slightly unconventional route. We received a tip-off from a fellow traveller, Lucy, that the entry fee was Y100, but was easilly avoided if you cut through the building site on the perimeter. This is probably something that could be repeated at most tourist attractions in China, given that most tourist sights are also currently building sites!
We bumped into a few people we had met in Lijiang - Bob and Linda, the Aussies currently travelling home from the UK to Perth, Australia overland which is taking about
18 months, and Lucy heading home to Wales after a year volunteering for the UN in Vietnam. After a nice Western meal of Spag Bol etc., Lucy and ourselves made for the 'Bad Monkey' Bar. We found the monkey himself, a run-away Cockney public school boy, perched behind the bar surveying his kingdom, which consisted mostly of 'relaxing' travellers and the monkey's dog that kept on trying to attack the one Chinese person in the room! We even managed to get them to cook up chips, cheese and mayo at 3am. Friendly guys. Less friendly were the hostel staff when we realised we were locked out...
Next morning we caught an early bus to Kunming where we were catching a flight to Hong Kong. There's not much we can say about Kunming as it rained the entire time we were there. We were a bit concerned when we first arrived as the bus snaked through the outskirts of the city and passed a scene of indescribable industrial poverty. However, the area around Green Lake is quite pretty, and perhaps on a sunny day the city can be seen in a better light. Maybe our opinion was coloured a bit by
our stunning journey through Yunnan getting to Kunming?
We flew Southern Airways to Shenzhen, north of Hong Kong and arrived just in time to get settled into our hotel room and watch glorious England bomb out of the World Cup - Hooray!! ;-)
We woke to torrential rain, and sweltering heat and humidity - we were definitely close to Hong Kong. We headed for Shenzhen train station from where we walked across the border into Hong Kong, and Alison's hair hit about 7.5 on the frizz-ometer scale! We caught the KCR, and then the MTR to Admiralty on Hong Kong island, and gave the cab driver the address of where we were to be staying: Mount Kellett, The Peak.
Fortunately, Alasdair's friend Crispin saved us from the fate of Chungking Mansions (a crumbling block of dirt cheap hostels) and invited us to stay at his house on The Peak. This is definitely the place to be if you have a few million to spare, but the rewards are incredible. Magical views over Hong Kong harbour and Kowloon to the north, and equally stunning views over Aberdeen and out to Stanley island in the south.
We quickly had to forget about
the relative cost of living in China, and shift up a few monetary gears to get on Hong Kong level. It wasn't so much add a zero, as add a couple compared to what we were paying in China. But the quality was second to none, and we didn't grudge a single dollar spent.
From dining at the Peak Lookout restaurant to driving round Hong Kong in his convertible BMW, Crispin certainly gave us a taste of high-class Hong Kong living. However, the highlight of Crispin's guided tour of his home city must have been when he invited us to meet him at his offices to go to a casting shoot with him. Crispin works as a real estate broker for Knight Frank, but also moonlights as a male model. He had no trouble in making the change from suited city slicker to posing poster-boy, and worked the camera effortlessly. His routine included some freestyle jumping, and questionable scarf embraces with another man. Vintage Crispin!
We were made especially welcome at the Peak by Thilaka, the Dyer family's live-in maid. She was a great friend to us when we were there, and helped us no end when Crispin was at
work.
The view from Crispin's house was sublime, and looked out over Aberdeen and the Southern islands of Hong Kong. We took a day trip down to Aberdeen harbour and on to Repulse Bay (what a name!) where we went for a swim in the sea - a rare treat in China! In fact this was to be our first swim of the day. Later that evening we met up with Crispin's girlfriend (also called Alison) and some other friends for dinner and a few drinks in Lan Kwai Fong, apparently the place to be seen if you are a Hong Kong ex-pat. We closed off the evening by going back to Alison's appartment for a midnight swim - very swish.
24 hours later and we are back in mainland China and the city of Guangzhou. While it would be all to easy to contrast it with Hong Kong, it would be silly to do so. We are staying on Shamian Island, a reclaimed sandbank area upon which there is a collection of beautiful old colonial buildings. Peculiarly the island is interspersed with baby clothes shops, catering for the Americans in the process of adopting Chinese babies (so says the
Lonely Planet!) We did however see quite a few Westerners pushing strollers with Chinese kids, even in the short space of a few hours.
Guangzhou is apparently famous for its fruits, and Alasdair braved Qingping market with its tubs of turtles and scorpions to bring back a haul of weird and wonderful Chinese fruits, which were delicious if not a little challenging to get into!
We have to hurry now, because we are catching a bus to Guilin, where we hope to spend a day or so before heading to Yangshuo and anywhere that's showing the World Cup final! Bye for now :-)
p.s. We only have pictures from Hong Kong onwards because Alasdair's camera broke and we only just got a replacement.
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Phil McC
non-member comment
Everything changes yet stays the same.
Regards to the two temporary expats. It is nice to know, despite the pace and scale of development in HK, that some things will always be so. Chungking Mansions being the case in point (legal speak Al), it was (in the 1970s) and always will be a dive. Glad you are both enjoying the trip. A relatively small number of small scale disasters so far - are you saving up for a biggy Al?