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Published: October 8th 2012
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In order to escape the madness of National Week in China we decided to escape to Xiamen, flying from Shanghai. It became apparent very quickly that Xiamen was in fact an extremely popular destination for Chinese tourists during National Week! We were also very aware that we were the ONLY europeans on the flight and there was not another European to be seen in the sea of people at Xiamen Airport.
Unsure of what transport to use to get to our hostel we decided to ask at the 'Tourist Information Centre' in the airport, unfortunately nobody spoke any English. We jumped into a taxi and set off on the 20 minute ride to our hostel on the seafront. The hostel was nice enough but was literally just a room in a man's house. Slightly awkward set up as he was sat downstairs between 07:30-22:30 every day 'manning reception', sitting in his kitchen. Unfortunately he hardly spoke any English either so he wasn't much use at helping us find dinner. Not keen on eating any street food at the beach (it was grim and sat in the baking sun all day!) we went to the bus stop to head into town.
Walking to the bus stop we realised just how many Chinese tourists were around. The beach was absolutely heaving and the fun fair on the promenade was in full flow! This is when the very intense staring started...if we thought it was apparent Shanghai, we were about to be 'enlightened'.
It is quite probable that some of the Chinese tourists visiting Xiamen had never seen a European before, and certainly not two 6 foot tall ones! We felt like a circus act, people pointing, laughing at us and starring so badly they were practically drooling with their mouths open. Quite a culture shock. At first we felt like celebrities but that quickly passed. Although the attention we were met with was not hostile, it made us feel uneasy. We had an 'experience' in the supermarket, some of the food is just mental! We took a gamble and managed to get enough ingredients to rustle up a stir fry at the hostel.
The following morning, after failing to squeeze onto two completely jam-packed local buses, we took a taxi over to Xiamen University. The buildings were absolutely beautiful, a mix of Chinese and British architecture and covered in beautiful
flowers. Our destination was the Nan Putuo Si Temple, right next door to the University. I don't think either of us has ever seen so much chaos! People, motorbikes, cars and buses running riot EVERYWHERE. We quickly filtered into the trail of people towards the temple, whilst the Chinese visitors lit incense sticks and took photos of EVERYTHING. The temple sat partway up a hill, with a beautiful lily pad covered pond at the bottom. We barged our way up to the temple to take some photos ourselves and realised that everyone wasn't just walking to the temple the were in fact walking to the top of the 200 metre hill it was sat on. In the scorching heat we decided to join them and followed the steep, uneven and punishing path up to the top. The views were beautiful and apart from the constant starring and surprise at Europeans being on a temple hill, we felt part of the National Week pilgrimage to the top.
We took a walk around the local village, sampled some street food which was delicious and I bought a hat to attempt to shade from the sun! We battled the bus home and
what a brutal experience it was, I'm not entirely sure that it is legal for that many people to be onboard one vehicle!
The next morning we got the bus to the harbour hoping to go to the island of Gulangyu. The bus took forever to go such a short distance due to the National Week traffic. When we got off at the harbour and saw the boats crossing the water we realised how much of a mission it was going to be. People were packed on boats like sardines, and at the port of Gulangyu island there were thousands of people battling their way into the island. We decided we couldn't face the hassle and set off for a walk around the town at the port - BIG MISTAKE! (Depending on your level of 'squeamishness'?) We ended up walking through a street market selling food, well I use the word food loosely, most of it was live animals. We saw bags of live toads, live fish swimming in tiny polystyrene boxes, caged chickens/ducks/rabbits/peasants and a swan with a chain around its neck! Chopped up we saw bits of animals we couldn't even recognised and a box containing an
entire crocodile chopped up. The smell of the market was horrific. I held my breath and tried to avert my eyes but there really was no way of avoiding it. All I can say is thank goodness I'm vegetarian, I nearly had another other crying episode but thankfully there were no caged kittens to set me off this time. I held it together.
We spent our remaining time in Xiamen back in and around the hostel. We went and explored the local shopping centres to keep out of the sun and spent a lovely afternoon having a picnic and reading our kindles on the beach. On our last day, we decided to get up really early and walk along the beach - to avoid the crowds, and so that is was less intimidating! We had a beautiful walk along the sand and I even paddled my feet in the warm sea. It was a great note to say goodbye to Xiamen on, we could see why the chinese tourists would flock there to spend National Week.
Off to the airport for our next flight from Xiamen to Guilin...
It wasn't until we reached Guilin that we had
time to reflect on how lucky we were to have spent four days in Xiamen, a part of China completely off any foreign tourist trail. It was great to experience 'the real China'. We saw what China is really like without the pretence of making it pretty or appealing for foreign tourists. There was no English in sight, no translations of anything, nobody spoke any English, it really did throw us in the deep end. Without the tourist facade: people dressed up in traditional chinese dress, locals selling overpriced tourist nick-nacks and signs advertising 'Western Cuisine' we really had experienced 'the real modern day China'.
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anonymous
non-member comment
off the beaten track!
l'm glad you survived! At least you got to see the real china too eh ! xxx