Advertisement
Published: February 25th 2011
Edit Blog Post
Hong Kong
My room in Chungking Mansions I have returned to China with a vengeance! Flying into Hong Kong on a misty and rainy night I only stayed as long as it took me to get a new Chinese visa. I wanted a six month multiple entry, what I got was a two month double entry with the added rule that after one month I have to leave the country and re-enter it. So a great start to China you could say!
The visa took 4 days to process in the meantime I spent my days in this great city staring moodily at the fog which didn't want to evaporate, looking glumly at the clouds overhead which sprinkled rain on my head as if mocking me and trying my hardest to discern the famous sky-line this town is famous for. To keep me company and my spirits up was Niv who happened to be at the same place at the right time. Niv I first met in Kyrgyzstan, where he famously failed to scale a pass due to a little snow cover, he was of course without his girlfriend then. Maybe if she had been with him he would have made it. Niv needless to say doesn't
Hong Kong
Clock tower at the Star Terminal like being reminded of this failure which is the very reason I am reminding him of it this way. But to be fair he did scale a lot of other passes, so maybe it kind of evened out.
Time passed and I got my visa and left Hong Kong for Macau never having gotten a glimpse of the top half of any of the buildings. Macau turned out to be very pricey. My dorm bed was more expensive than my shoe-box sized room in Hong Kong (but a shoe-box with all the amenities, including shower, toilet and sink). Macau of course is now known as the Vegas of the east, but I found it strangely uninspiring. Vegas has shows and a nightlife, here as I walked down the streets between the casino's I was often alone and it just felt creepy. No late night revelers, no glitzy shows, even the fake Fisherman's Warf was eerily empty! So I took in the sights in the old town, and left for China and since I had to be out of the country in 30 days again before allowed my second entry, I hit the road running
Into Guangzhou I went
Hong Kong
View of the exhibition centre on Victoria Island and out again that same evening. Into Xiamen I went and stayed for two days on Gulung Yu, once an international settlement now a tourist trap and a very popular place to take wedding photo's. The island is nice enough, very leafy, with European villa's some turned into hotels, others in fancy shops, and yet others lived in by scores of Chinese families. A lot are just abandoned and crumbling away, those are probably the most atmospheric of the lot.
After catching my breath in Xiamen I left for Hakka country to visit their famous tulou's. What is a tulou? It is a big mostly round fortress like building which used to house entire villages inside. Some of them accommodated a thousand people. From the top they resemble giant doughnuts with a courtyard in the middle. I was joined by a young Chinese student from Hangzhou who was very handy indeed since my Chinese is limited to 'thank you'. Thank you of course doesn't get you very far, but having a Chinese student named Ling does! He managed to make my life a lot easier for a couple of days. Then he went his way and I mine and
Hong Kong
Misty sky-line views of Hong Kong the good times were over.
My way led up to Wenzhou and from there into Nanxijian a river valley with some old town China charm. I must say I was a little skeptical coming into the first settlement as it was just an ugly concrete conglomeration, but I was mistaken. Down the road behind the big grey flats was the old part of town and once I arrived there it was like I had gone back in time. The sounds faded away, the views were gorgeous and best of all I had it all to myself. Well, there were the locals of course, but I mean there were no tourists, neither foreign or Chinese! Unprecedented! From my room I had a view of a willow lined canal and early morning Tai-Chi exercises in the abandoned stage across the water. Below me a covered cobbled street ran where old timers chatted away, school children ran merrily along and farmers tried vainly to get their herd of pigs to move along. All the while I could here the squeeking of a waterwheel and the chiming of the bells to the wind on a hill-top temple. Bliss indeed. But time doesn't stop
Hong Kong
Nathan road unfortunately, not even for those in bliss, so I must continue. But I have had my first taste of traditional life and I like it. Lets see what else is on offer down the road.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.065s; Tpl: 0.023s; cc: 9; qc: 29; dbt: 0.0332s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
ornella
non-member comment
Very serious business!!!!
I was a bridesmaid at Luna's godmother's wedding in Hong Kong and we had to pose for so many photos, the whole wedding felt a bit like a bridal photo shoot!!! Hours of Photos!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!