Blown Away by China

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We began our 20 days tour through China in Hong Kong. We arrived a day before our tour started and spent a night at Guodadong Guesthouse in the infamous Chungkung Mansions. Our room was ultra compact but very clean and had just enough room for a TV. The ground floor of the mansion was manic and great for people watching. There were West African businessmen in dodgy Savel Row suits, pushy Indian touts and lost and bemused backpackers searching for their digs in the maze of different blocks, stairwells and elevators.

The air in Hong Kong was dirty and visibility was poor, so we skipped the obligatory visit to the peak until next time. We went exploring around Kowloon and Hong Kong Island. It was the familiar rather than the new that had us most excited though. Gemma read Now Magazine, while Tom salivated over the fact they had Paxo stuffing in the supermarket, as he munched on a Pret B.L.T.

We met up with our tour group in the evening and they were all sound. By coincidence two other couples had lived and worked in Auckland at the same time as us and we had all lived within 1/2 mile of each other, frequenting the same pubs and restaurants.

We got a train to the Chinese boarder before crossing and transferring onto an overnight train to Guilin. Toms first purchase in China was a McDonalds whilst waiting for the overnight train. We got 5 overnight trains during our trip in China and despite them invariably lasting between 12 and 18 hours, they were actually quite fun.

Beers were only 50p for a large bottle and with 15 of us travelling together, there was enough games and idle chat to keep us amused through the long journeys. The locals seemed bemused by us though, in particular when we stuck pieces of paper to our heads whilst playing 'who am I'. The highlight though was when Jane in our group tried to improvise 'mission impossible' whilst playing charades. Her demonstration of the missionary position kept our group and the rest of the carriage thoroughly entertained.

From Guilin we had a short bus ride to Yangshuo. Yangshuo is a popular tourist town and it's easy to see why. The whole region is covered by 2500 small mountains that stand like dominos on the flat terrain. They were apparently formed by coral when the area was at the bottom of the ocean a few billion years ago. Or they were made by God 6000
odd years ago, depending on what book you believe.

Unfortunately the region is also home to thick low lying mist and like the rest of China, smog. Therefore the views and pictures of the landscape aren't as impressive as they should be. We spent a day cycling around the countryside and walking up Moon Hill, named after the large moon shaped hole at the top of it.

It was in Yangshuo that Tom discovered a love for Chinese steamed dumplings. Pork, beef, shrimp, yak and even indescript meat dumplings, they're all good. It was also in Yangshuo that we tasted dog for the first and last time. In the evening after the bike tour we went to a cooking school. The cooking school included a tour of the local market where you could buy dog or even cat. Apparently stir fried moggy is a summer dish that some Chinese people like to have with a jug of Pimms.

Now dog meat's not cheap, it's about 4 times the price of pig, so it's not something you'll be served up unwittingly. We had to ask our cooking school chef to make it especially. She didn't eat it herself as apparently mongrels don’t taste nice. She was right, it was foul. Dog dumplings are probably the only dumplings Tom would pass up on.

We passed up on the chance to go on a river cruise and bitterly regretted our decision not to go. The people on our tour who did, spent the afternoon being chased up and down the river by the police. The villagers river cruises are apparently illegal. Only the government run boats are allowed to ship tourists about.

While our new friends were enjoying the shenanigans on the river, we went looking for some genuine imitation knocked-off Nikes, as Tom's trainers were starting to evolve. No shops had Tom's size, Chinese men's feet apparently not going above a UK size 9. Tom's feet size was a great source of amusement for the shop workers. At one shop the lady burst into hysterics when Tom showed her his feet size. She then called an assistant over and asked Tom to show her his trainers. The second lady found it even funnier and Tom was laughed out of the shop.

On our second evening in Yangshuo we went to the Light Show. The performance included over 600 fisherman and was choreographed by the bloke doing the opening ceremony for the Beijing Olympics. It was awesome and blew us all away. Without doubt one of the highlights of China.

We left Yangshuo and headed to Chongqing to start our cruise down the Yangtze River and Three Gorges. Never heard of Chongqing, neither had we, but it is apparently its China's biggest city and home to 32 million people. We didn't have time to explore it though as we were already holding up the boat's departure.

Our boat had the ominous name Die Misfortune and Gemma was a little more off-put when she saw the chandelier that greeted us. Apparently it reminded her of the Titanic. However we had nothing to fear, the boat was almost new and the cabins were first class. We spent two days cruising down the Yangtze River, taking in the three gorges before passing through the humungous three gorges dam. The locks were 180 metres deep and the loch walls sawed above us.

On the trip we visited the city of ghosts and admired the strange gargoyles that guarded the gates to the other side. The crew also put on a cabaret for us which was hilarious and included musical chairs. Toby, a Swiss bloke in our group, took out a girl with learning disabilities in his bid for glory. She flew across the floor and was later seen being helped back to her room hobbling.

The most memorable part of the cruise though was learning to play Mahjong. A game played on the streets of most of China's towns and cities by countless men and women. It's similar to the card game rummy but played with tiles. The rules differ all over China but its certain no one plays the game anywhere near as slowly as our group. We played the game whenever we could after the cruise but never got any faster.

Our next destination was Chengdu and a trip to the Panda Sanctuary. Panda's must be some of the laziest creatures in the animal kingdom, no wonder they're nearly extinct. They sit around in the morning chomping through 45kg of bamboo and then spend the rest of the day sleeping. When they're young they might climb a tree but they soon realise it's a fruitless activity that reduces the time they've got to eat and sleep. Tom would be a Panda if they ate more meat, he's certainly got a belly like one after all those dumplings.

The Panda's were very cute and you could cuddle a baby one for 1000yen (60 quid). There were also Red Panda's (they are actually a type of racoon) at the sanctuary and you could cuddle them too, a snip at 50 yen. We did neither as we thought it would hamper their integration back into the wild and more importantly it would eat into Tom's dumpling funds.

Chengdu is also home to a large Tibetan community and the Tibetan monks we encountered weren't the peace loving honourable souls we had been led to believe. They were more like Fagan figures, orchestrating their kids to beg and scavenge off passers by. Most of the Tibetans in Chengdu know three words of English, "money" and "give me".

We went to a really good Tibetan restaurant and ate a lot of Yak and Yak by-products. The Yak dumplings were superb. It was the third Tibetan restaurant that we had visited though as the previous two included a stream of Tibetan beggars with every meal. The waitresses calling them in off the street after you had sat down.

We spent a night at the Sichuan Opera. It was more of a cabaret than an Opera and included acrobats, shadow puppets, face changers, singers, dancers, fire breathers and an old bloke playing techno on his traditional Chinese string instrument. It was an entertaining night but slightly spoilt by the Chinese tourists who talked loudly throughout.

We visited the People's Park in Chengdu and got accosted by a large group of Chinese O.A.P's who made us join in with their singing and dancing. We learnt a local dance that was remarkably similar to the hoki koki. The second dance we learnt included a lot of fist punching and chanting and may well have been a favourite of Chairman Mao. We
weren't allowed to leave until we'd participated in four songs and mastered all the dance moves. Afterwards we had to shake everybody's hand, all 40 or 50 of them. They were probably the friendliest people we have come across and there's a good chance that we may have been initiated into the communist party.

The quality of our accommodation decreased rapidly as we spent the next three days at monasteries on Mount Emie, one of the four holy Buddhist mountains. Before we arrived though we made a brief visit to see the Giant Buddha in Lesham who, thanks to the Taliban, is now the biggest Buddha in the world.

We got a bus and cable car to the top of Mount Emie to admire the Golden Buddha and spectacular views. On route we had to walk past some Tibet Macaques, pesky monkeys that rob the tourists. The monkeys would swing down and rob any food or drinks on display by tourists. They could take the caps off bottles and if the drink was water they would immediately throw it back as they had now grown a taste for soft drinks and booze.

One bloke had one of the best jobs in the world. He was paid to shoot stones at the monkeys with a sling shot. The golden Buddha at the summit was quite impressive until somebody asked the guide what century it was built in. "2005" came the reply. It had been built on the site of an old temple in time for the Olympics to attract the tourists outside of Beijing.

We stayed at another more remote monastery on the second night. It was at the top of 1200 stairs and had glorious views over the valley. Tom needed about 20 minutes to recover before he could see anything after those stairs. The monastery had squat toilets that looked out over the valley. It is unlikely that anyone else in the world has a better view for their morning poo.

Early the next morning we walked back down the valley for one last night in a monastery. On route we came across a mob of more aggressive thieving monkeys. A couple of American girls we had met coming the other way had to beat the monkeys off their backs with the standard issue sticks that you're given. Luckily we had a local guide who took great pleasure in baiting the monkeys before chasing them off with a stick.

Before we headed to Xian on another night train we went into the city of Emei. It had been two weeks since we had left Hong Kong and we hadn't tasted western food since then. It must be said that the food in China was excellent and varied greatly to Chinese food served back home. However after two weeks of chop-stick cuisine we were in need of some home comforts. Emei is home to the greatest named fast food joint on the planet, Dico's. The spicy chicken burgers were top notch and greatly appreciated.

In Xian we visited the Terracotta Warriors. There are four pits currently open and the biggest of them is humungous , home to over 6000 full size warriors apparently (another two are being built, sorry excavated in time for the Olympics). However it took 5 hours to get that far on our tour. We first had to visit a plant where they make replica warriors the traditional way, then we had to see a 360 degree cinematic experience telling us the history of how the warriors came about, then we had to go to a museum that was as uninformative as the cinematic experience, then we had to visit the pit that hadn't been uncovered yet. By the time we got to the main pit we were a bit warrior'd out. The tour was so drawn out it became painful and we were just glad when it was over. Impressive? yes, but self proclaimed 8th wonder of the world? no.

Xian's city wall is fully intact and you can hire bikes to cycle it's 14km length. It take's most people about 90-100 minutes, this giving you plenty of time to admire the views. We got a tandem bike and with drill sergeant Gemma on the back, we did it in under 60mins. Despite this it was good fun as you can peer into people's lives from above.

In Xian we also partook in one of Asia’s favourite pass times, Karaoke. Our group got plastered and then hired a room at a local karaoke bar until the early hours. The song selection was a bit crap but it didn’t stop everybody (yes Tom included) getting stuck in. We also visited the largest musical fountain in the world which was enjoyable for about 10 minutes.

We left Xian for Beijing on our last overnight train. Beijing was probably the cleanest city we had been to in China and unfortunately our last destination. We had five days in the city but there was lots to see and do.

Our visit to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City was spoilt slightly by the rain and the huge crowds of tourists, but the size and stature of both landmarks made the visit very humbling. Our guide was also very comical, especially when describing how the city was going to be ready in time for the Olympics. It is all down to ‘Communist Magic’ you see (Communist Magic being a shed load of cash).

During the evenings we went to see the Chinese Acrobats as well as the Shaolin Monks. Both the shows were again really good and well worth a visit. However Tom was a little bit put off by the Shaolin monks. Apparantly their badass kong foo show included too much ballet and a love scene that made it a bit gay.

We also checked out Beijing’s night life. The bars and clubs seemed a little empty. This we put down to two things, beers were no longer 50p (now £3 for a small bottle) and every bar had the world’s worst band, guaranteed to get rid of a crowd in no time.

While in Beijing we visited the Great Wall of China. We went on a 10km walk along it’s steepest section. You could see the wall snaking across the rolling mountains and over the horizon. The walk was hard work but the views were incredible and the gradient meant there were few people around.

At the end of the walk we could go on a zip line that sped a few hundred feet above a lake. Tom defeated his fear of heights and had a go. He wasn’t keen in the slightest until he realised he’d be the only bloke not doing it. On the way back to Beijing we passed the Olympic Stadium and Aquatics Centre. Both buildings looked finished and their lights illuminated the nights sky.

The last thing to do in Beijing was to visit the Pearl Market and purchase some cheap knock off’s. We both got a pair of fake Nike’s for £10 as well as other ‘genuine imitation’ presents for our family, as we were due home soon.

Before heading to Tokyo, we flew to Hong Kong for one last day. The sky was clearer on our return, so we visited the peak and admired the views over the city. Unfortunately it was a bank holiday so we shared the view with thousands of screaming kids.

Our three and a half weeks in China flew by. The cuisine, culture and people of China were first rate and we will definitely go back. The only small annoyances were the smokiness of restaurants and locals forever clearing their flem. Other than that we can’t recommend it highly enough.

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Photos

Light show
Yangshuo

Paddy fields
Yangshuo

Yangtze boat cruise
the gorges

Gargoles
City of ghosts

Sichan opera
its a puppet

Monkeys
Yep thats snow

Pandas
chengdu

Panda
And we have been lead to believe that Pandas are frigid.

Giant Buddha
Leshan