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Published: October 25th 2007
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I had a fantastic experience in China. My favourite places where Pingyao and Hangzhou. The highlights of my trip were the great wall and the three gorges. I loved the food most of the time, even though I wasn’t always sure what I was eating - ignorance is bliss. I enjoyed the challenge of booking journeys & finding my way around, the 25 hour train journeys and dodgy buses. The down sides where definitely the pollution and the spitting (which is just nasty). I also learned a lot, I can now ask for a cold beer in Mandarin (essential for survival), queue the Chinese way (using elbows & all) and to accept that taxi’s if they are kind enough to stop & pick you up will probably rip you off. I was fascinated by the only English newspaper which prints everything is great in China but Jesus we’re screwed in the west! That the BBC didn’t work and you probably where best not trying to get on as the internet café had your passport details and that it all just seemed normal to the general population.
I spent a couple of days in Shanghai by myself before joining up with
an intrepid tour which went as far as Beijing, I then had a couple of weeks to get myself to Hong Kong.
I had a great time in Shanghai before I joined up with the tour. I stayed at the local youth hostel which was really friendly so instead of recovering from jet lag I spent both nights out til late. The bar above the youth hostel was great, lots of comfy sofas and some of the best views across the river to the pearl tower. During the days I took it fairly easy, the day I arrived the rain was bouncing off the street all day so just popped to the end of the road for lunch. When the rain stopped for my second day I had a long walk up Nanjing street (the main shopping centre) up to peoples square, which are gardens that hold the museum & art gallery before having a bit of a wonder around the French concession.
I then joined the tour spent a couple more days in Shanghai, one where I went to the museum and another when I got the metro over to Pudong and went up the pearl tower.
Shanghai - Museum
Laura, Sabri, Alan, Me
Claire, Julianne, Louise The nights where spent getting to know the group (more local beer) and one evening we went to see the acrobatics, which were amazing.
We then moved up to Nanjing for a night, where we to see Sun Yet Suns mausoleum, a temple and a padagoa. Then a few nights in Xi-an where I went to the bell & drum towers and where we saw the terracotta warriors. We also went to see a traditional dance show.
From Xi-an we flew to Yi Chang doing a cruise of the 3 gorges. The plane was delayed due to bad weather & we almost missed the boat. Michael the tour guide almost had a heart attack. The scenery on the cruise was amazing and it’s really nice to be out of the cities. It was a shame that the water was so dirty and I can only imagine how stunning it was before they started the flooding for the dam. Glad I saw it now before the water gets up to its final height.
After that we got the over night train up to Beijing (which took 20 hours) but wasn't too bad with the aid of bad Chinese
Sun Yet Sun's Mausoleum
Louise, Laura, Sabri, David, Bill, Julianne, Johnathan, Alan, Claire, me wine. In Beijing we went to the Forbidden City, it was a shame that one of the main rooms was undercover as part of the big tart up ready for the Olympics but was interesting none the less. The place is massive and as a tourist you only see a little bit of it. We also went to the great wall; we went to one of the sections further out of Beijing to avoid the masses of Chinese coach tours and tat sellers. The section we went up was the steepest but was well worth the climb. The views where amazing, you got some idea of how big it really is. That was then the end of the tour so I moved over to a youth hostel and watched the rain for 2 days. The only other big sight that I had time to do myself was the Temple of Heaven Park which again was good but being renovated.
I then got on the overnight train to Pingyao which was not too bad at about 10 hours, managed to get some sleep so went pretty quickly. Pingyao was great, one of the few towns that actually felt like China.
The centre of the town hasn’t changed for years so you get some idea of what a traditional Chinese town was like. It was definitely worth a visit, I just hope they don't Disney it like they have a lot of other places. Just spent one night in Pingyao (but had 2 days as arrived at 7.30am on the first day and an evening flight out of Taiyuan).
From there I flew to Shanghai but just had one night before getting the morning train over to Hangzhou. Hangzhou was lovely, west lake is really gorgeous. I spent the first day just walking round a section of it and then the following day I took a boat ride out to a couple of the islands in the middle. That evening I got the last train back to Shanghai so that I could catch the plane down to Macau the following day.
The flight was a bit of a drama, when I got to the airport they said that they had overbooked the flight and I couldn't get on (this is the only flight). They said they would send me down to Hong Kong and pay me compensation. After a
bit of a fight though I got upgraded to business class so had a really nice flight down!!
Macau was nice, it is a small town that was originally a Portuguese settlement. There is still a large Portuguese population and all the signs are written in both languages. The town was really nice to walk around but unless you are a gambler there is not enough to keep you there for long. I spent 2 nights (my own room in a hotel!!) and then go on the ferry to Hong Kong. I spent 4 days in Hong Kong which was such an easy city after the rest of China. I went up the tramway to the Peak and walked up to the peak park which had some fantastic views. I also took the star ferry cruise and spent a little bit of time walking round the shops and markets.
Would love to go back and see more, especially in the south of the country and in the countryside. Next time round!!!
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