China

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China Mainland To Hong Kong

As I leave Singapore on an 8am flight to Beijing via a connection flight to Hong Kong for a journey which will take in total around 7.5 hrs, I muse over what may lay ahead in a country which boast the world’s highest population at over 1.3 billion people, with one of the few workable remaining communist administrations and a region which boasts one the fastest economic growths and commercial developments.

With a total of 60 hrs/four overnight sleeper trains to endure taking me of 15,000 kilometres from Beijing to Xian; Shanghai to Yangshuo; the rice terraces of Longji to Hong Kong little did I know how fascinating and westernised this oriental region would be.

I land at Beijing airport at 5.30pm local time and take a shuttle bus into the city, where I am greeted by a bicycle tuk tuk driver who agrees to take me to the Beijing City Central Hostel where I hope to obtain a couple of nights accommodation before the intrepid Roam China Tour starts proper. We agree on a price of 50 Yuan (about £3.20) and after loading my luggage he takes me through a series of small and dark back allies in the old part of Beijing known as the Hutongs, eventually he drops close to me destination which opposite the Central Railway station where he tries the old trick of trying to charge me 50 USD?? But after a rye smile and a handshake I pay the agreed local price and walk to the Central area.

Here I am bombarded with a number of street vendors offering cheap hotels rooms. I insist that I wanted to find the City Central Hostel but with little English spoken locally I eventually am persuaded to stay a couple of nights in a local Chinese hotel….my adventure now begins at the lowly price of just 100 Yuan a night (£6.40)! Before I am taken to my room I am sold an all day trip where I will see all the main city centre sites where I will receive a 4.30am early morning call to join. I am literally the only Westerner staying at this hotel and very little English is spoken, so my hotel street seller takes me to my room, which is fairly basic but ensuite, no sooner I get settled the phone goes to ask me whether I would like a ’Miss’ for the evening?! Thanking them for their offer I quickly declined the offer and got ready for bed after an exhausting day.

As promised at 4.30am I was awoken by one of the night staff in order to join my local tour. I quickly showered and join a small mini bus which was to be a feeder for a larger coach. Once I arrived a the coach area I then realised my dilemma I was about to join a local Chinese tour where no one seemed to speak any English. Then I realise why we are up so early as we head for Tiananmen square to see the 5.45 dawn raising of the National flag by a platoon of military, whilst witnessed by a few thousand Chinese tourists held back behind barriers…welcome to China!

The rest of the tour took me to The Forbidden City an ancient walled city positioned behind Tiananmen which epitomises the oriental architecture of the Dynasty Empires. Next we went to the Summer Palace a beautiful lakeside complex via the new Olympic Birds Nest Stadium and after sharing a Chinese buffet style meal with my fellow travellers we visit a historic enamel factory, the Bell & Drum towers and the Temple of Heaven before heading back towards town…this is when I discover my big mistake as the coach drops everyone back into the city centre not at our starting point and with no shuttle mini bus to take me back to my hotel…sh*t, having arrived late and started my day early I had no idea of the name of my hotel or where it was and although for security I had carried around my laptop and passport for the day I had to find my hotel to reunite my with all my luggage!

My first plan was to find my way back to the Central Railway station area and try to find the hotel street vendor who would surely reunite me with my hotel and luggage?! In trying to navigate myself around the city I discover how few local Chinese people speak any English…and then I am approached by two local students who approach me to practise their English and with their help I find out that a paper receipt I have for the tour I have just enjoyed has a clue to my hotel name written in Chinese…the students translate for me and point me towards the central station area. When I arrive I speak to a number of the hotel street hawkers who with little English don’t at first recognise the hotel name, but after a while I am given a bit more of the address. I make way to the taxi rank where I find the first taxi driver which speaks no English doesn’t recognise the hotel name and address (although written in Chinese for me) and then I am approached by a private hire driver who is learning English via a tape in his car and agrees to take me to the hotel. After around half an hour we appear to be very lost, so the driver gets out of the car to have a cigarette and we then both go into the main reception of a four star hotel and with the help of the staff and the internet have the final directions which gets me back to my hotel…uric a! Once again exhausted I crash into my bed and before putting my head to pillow at 9.30pm the phone goes in my room, where I am offered a massage…I decline the offer, where I am told that it is very comfortable Sir! Not knowing what I would be letting myself into I once again decline their very kind offer and then sunk into my slumber…to dream about my first full day in China!!

The next morning I head back to the central station area to find my new tour hotel the Beijing Central YMCA Hostel where I book myself in to find that I am denied access to my room because my room mate for the trip Gary a 20 year old from London is fast a sleep recovering from his jet lag from London.

Eventually after lunch I am able to access my room and I simply dump my bags and then take a bus to Tiananmen Square for a better look around the People Republic’s government buildings and Chairman Mao’s Mausoleum. While I am there I am approached by three arts students who studying in Beijing take me to their art exhibition. Being the same age as my own son’s, I realise how much I am missing seeing Oliver and Josh and with Ollie himself studying Graphic Art a University I buy a couple of pieces as a memento of my visit and given a Chinese calligraphy poster with Oliver and Josh’s names and future success written in Chinese by the students teacher.

The student whose work I bought then spends the next hour showing me around Tiananmen Square giving me a bit of the local history and taking my picture.

During the evening I meet the rest of my Intrepid tour group who I will spend the following three weeks with and our group leader Emma Xing a 25 year old qualified engineer from Beijing. My fellow travellers are Susan from Sidney, Tammy from Melbourne, David and Sarah a couple from Italy and South Africa who both live in London, Claire and Amy travelling together from Lancashire and Yorkshire, Fran from Devises whose friend Sophie joins us later in Shanghai, with Sigrid from Sweden joining us the next day after a day not feeling well. The group are a fun group with a good spread of people in their late teens, early to mid twenty’s, early and late thirty’s and me 42 + 5. We all head off for a very successful group meal where Emma chooses a range of really delicious dishes which we all enjoy.

The next day we all decide to head to the Summer Palace together and being appointed honoury group leader for the day we take the metro system and a taxi to enjoy a really fun day walking around the Palaces where we happened across a Peking Opera stage performance and enjoy a lunch together where after sampling Chinese Dumplings, I order a Chinese cake where I am surprised to be given a plate of around 20 bread cakes to the hilarity of the rest of the group who all help pile our way through most of the cakes.

That evening most of the group head off with Emma to a lakeside restaurant area for a nice meal and on my return I drop off the remaining cakes to a couple of guys living on the streets. The next morning I leave Gary in bed after a boozy evening and after up dating and posting my Cambodia travelblog have a lazy day around the town where I enjoy a traditional Chinese tea at a Tea House. On my return to the hotel around 3pm I am approached by Emma who asked me for my help to get Amy who had fallen seriously ill with gastroenteritis to a local hospital…an experience I wasn’t expecting, I get to see at first hand China’s health system as I give both Amy and Emma my support.

Once Amy has been given several drugs and is put on a hydration drip, I slip away fro a couple of hours to see a traditional Peking opera, where I see the performers applying their make up in their dressing room area and enjoy a couple of their fables, before returning to hospital in time to help Amy back to the hotel.

The next morning we leave Amy in bed to recover from her ordeal take a coach to the Great wall of China where the rest of the group will take a five hour walk across the wall to our next guest house. Although the weather is fairly overcast and the walk quite tenuous the whole adventure is both exhilarating and memorable. On arriving at the start of the hike we are greeted by a number of local farmers who follow us to our lunch time resting place who chat and help us along our route in a hope that they might sell us some Great wall souvenirs. You could say that we all had our own private portable shop?! And of course I book the book, Postcards and T-shirt…but unfortunately during the panic and pressure of the group sales pitch, Sigrid had the misfortune to have her Camera with many of her NZ & AUS photos on…not knowing whether the farmers or other tourists had picked the camera up the whole incident was very stressful and upsetting for Sigrid although I felt that she handled the whole situation very well. With Emma’s help hopefully at least she will be able to claim for a new camera on insurance.

Most people slept on our 2.5 hr coach trip back to Beijing the following morning and having just a few hours in Beijing before we take our first overnight sleeper train to Xian, I take the opportunity to visit Beijing’s under ground city…a series of underground tunnels 10 metres below the city built by Mao after the second world war, including restaurants, theatres and control rooms, which would accommodate 40% of Beijing’s population in defence of a nuclear attack.

Our sleeper train is a new two story high train with very comfortable four bed cabins and with a supply of local beer we party through to about 11pm after experiencing a10pm Chinese train curfew.

Our first day in Xian also happens to be my 48th birthday and I am sang happy birthday first by Sigrid in Swedish and then the rest of the group at the railway station. When we get to the city centre we are greeted by a vibrant modern city with a bustle of local shops and shopping centres where Emma starts by showing us around Muslim quarter, Ming Dynasty City Walls and Drum & Bell towers, before I head off to the East gate Pagoda to witness the amazing music water fountain show the size of three football fields.

During the evening we all meet up for another excellent group meal, where I am presented with an amazing chocolate birthday cake with an animated firework tree candle which delights us all. After which we all head off to a karaoke night where we share a room together for my birthday…yes I am in heaven! At 12.30am some of the group headed back home when some of the youngsters were ready to continue the evening at a club called ’Friendship at 8.30pm’. A romantically lit club with cabaret style tables, it wasn’t long before we made friends with a group of Chinese people from Shanghai who insisted in sharing their local whisky with us, after much fun with little English spoken we exchanged mobile numbers. With Karaoke also available at the club I had requests from the group to sing My Way to great applause from the audience and ended the evening playing drinking games with another group and some of the hostess staff who would provide additional services if you were that way inclined…and although it was my ’Birthday’ yet again I am happy to say that I went home alone…

The next morning we all set off on a local bus costing just 50p on an hours journey to see the famous Terra cotta Warriors. Discovered by a local farmer in 1974 these life size statues are a testament to the military power of the Ming Dynasty empire.

The final day I spent most of the day with Sigrid where we cycled around the city walls which took around 100 minutes to complete in warm sunshine before spending sometime buying a few souvenirs around the Muslim quarter. Unfortunately it was my turn to experience some local crime after being asked to pose for pictures with some local Chinese with Sigrid I and then making our way back to our hotel I discovered that my camera had gone missing/stolen. After re tracking my steps I wrote off the idea of seeing my camera again and decided to replace it.

I explained my predicament to Emma at the hotel and having only have an hour before our next sleeper train to Shanghai, Emma rang the local Police to register my loss and will pick-up a form for me on her next visit to the city.

After booking into our hotel we are taking for a walk around the Shanghai’s city centre, when I break off from the group to try and find out what was appearing at Shanghai’s Grand Theatre boasting the largest stage n the world? Although sold out I managed to buy a ticket from a guy selling at 20% below ticket value foe a performance of Swan Lake by Russia’s State Ballet for the following evening, whilst the rest of the group would head for the Acrobat Show.

During the evening we all met up to head towards Yu Yuan Garden area for Dumplings returning with David, Sarah and Sigrid along the riverside Bund to our hotel. The next morning I joined them again with Emma to visit an Antiques market and Yu Yuan Gardens proper and also Shanghai old town.

After lunching in a Japanese restaurant I left the group to head to the theatre where on the way I met with three separate local groups of people two of which invited me to join then for a tea ceremony and a couple of local students. It took a walk around the Grand Theatre Gallery and Park before enjoying a western fusion meal before buying a new jacket to complete my trip to the theatre.

The next day having spent a few hours around the town, we all met up for our marathon 22 hour train ride to our next destination in the countryside - Yangshuo.

The natural beauty of the limestone hills that are abound in Yangshou is its overriding feature which has been enjoyed by the Chinese for thousands of years and even features on their 20 Yuan notes. The tow is small and friendly and makes for a welcome break from the big city’s…even Xian has a population of 6 million people. With highlights from our visit including a lakeside sounds and light cultural show and a boat trip up the Li River.

The next couple of days were spent at the Outside In farm in Chaolong which we cycle to and around before we head to Longji Tea Terraces where we spend a couple of days hiking from one accommodation to the next providing some magnificent countryside views and pictures.

Our last destination in Hong Kong where we enjoy our final evening eating at the night market before ending it at the Irish Bar on Nathan road.

My first full day in Hong Kong I discover it is the Tin Hau Temple festival and manage to find my way to the New Territories where I find I am the only Westerner amongst 100’s of local Chinese enjoying Dragon, Lion and Drum dancing and processions. This for me was amazing and exciting day which I finished off by witnessing the world’s biggest ‘Victoria Harbour Hong Kong’ sound and light show.

This Peoples Republic Nation of over 1.3 billion population, is very much apart of the modern world where improving infrastructure and commercialisation blends the old with the new well. China is and will continue to be one of the world’s most successful and powerful countries. To be embraced within the Western World and not feared. China is Great!

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Photos

Long Haired Yao Minority Group
The Woman Only Cut Their Hair On Their 18th Birthday and When They Get Married

Tianaman Square
Early Morning Duty

Enamel Ming Style Vases
A Visit To The Factory