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Published: February 24th 2008
The measurements of the top bunk of a hard sleeper train are roughly .7 meter wide, .8 meter tall and 1.6 meters in length. While traveling on the train you are not required to remain in your bunk for the duration of the trip, however, a very large portion of your travel will find you hunkered down in your little area: listening to music, sleeping, or munching on some snacks. For a quick 12 hour overnight journey this works out just fine because you board the train, grab a quick dinner of Ramen noodles, read for a while, then, lights out at 10pm for sleep. The morning comes rather quick, pack up your stuff and hop off into your new city. Not bad. For a 30 hour train ride, after about hour 18, you start cursing your decision making skills and wonder why you didn’t just buy the airline ticket for a few dollars more and spare yourself the pain. Your butt goes numb trying to get comfortable in your bed, your 6th meal of Ramen gets a bit exhausting, and the batteries in your MP3 player die, forcing you to listen to the onboard music entertainment. Our 30 hour ride
from Guilin to Shanghai played out much like this and we arrived in Shanghai at 2 am completely exhausted only to be taken advantage of by some jerk cab driver… he was kind enough to charge us 20 yuan to drive us around the block only to let us know that he didn’t know where our destination was, dropping us off in a location unknown to us…not a good start for Shanghai.
Once we finally found a reasonable hotel, we settled in quick and everything took a turn for the better. Our hotel (Charms Hotel) was very nice, however, at 8 times more expensive (400 yuan/night) than our cheapest hotel stay in China, it was obvious straight away that Shanghai was all about money. Fruit prices, meal prices, rides on the subway, taxi rides and everything else was more expensive than Beijing, Xian, Chengdu, and all other cities in China that we traveled to.
Walking around Shanghai after spending over a month in numerous other cities in China sort of takes you by surprise. One of the first things we noticed was the relative orderliness of traffic and pedestrians, rivaling, and perhaps even surpassing, Beijing. Pedestrians, by in
large, followed crossing signs (with the aid of traffic officers) and vehicles, both large and small, seemed to obey traffic lights and signs. This was refreshing as other cities saw us dodging cars in crosswalks and jumping out of the way for motorcycles driving on sidewalks (in Jinghong, a bus we were riding on ran into a bicycler!!!...fortunately, she popped back up relatively unscathed). The subway was incredibly busy, especially at rush hour, however, there was significantly less pushing and body rubbing as compared to Beijing. Other notable differences include a heightened sense of fashion (especially among women), and, of course, distinctively French and neoclassical architecture much like something you would see whilst tramping around Manhattan. The Bund looks straight out of New York City and offers an interesting contrast when walking along the river looking over at the skyscrapers of Pudong. The architecture of the French Concession will have you scratching your head, wondering if you are still in China, and, watching old Chinese men and women bicycling by wearing berets will undoubtedly bring a smile to your face. Above all though, Shanghai is newfound Chinese capitalism at its most extreme, and finding Gucci, Rolex, and Prada is as
easy as finding a shop selling 20 yuan bowls of noodles. Be prepared to cough up mucho deniro if you plan to live an opulently traveling around Shanghai.
Beyond walking the streets to view the architecture and checking out the craziness of Nanjing Street, the other must-do activity in Shanghai is a walk thru Yuyuan Gardens. The gardens are one massive work of art; every building, window, door, wall, the walkways, the carved ponds, ancient bonsais, absolutely everything, was a hand-crafted work of art and visually stunning from every angle. The weekend crowds were a bit much, but well worth it to see these amazing gardens.
And now, the highly anticipated toothbrush segment of the blog. As I mentioned in a previous post, nearly every single hotel/hostel we stayed at (with the exception of all International Youth Hostels) had what Rozy and I began to refer to as the “standard set”. This toiletry set included, 2 mini bars of soap, 2 packets shampoo, 2 packets bath foam (even if we didn’t have a bath tub), 2 shower caps, 2 plastic combs, two glass cups, 2 tea cups (with lids), 2 packets of green tea, one tiny roll of
toilet paper, one large hot water container, and two individually wrapped toothbrushes each with its own tiny tube of toothpaste. Thinking that the toothbrushes could be useful on future train, plane and bus travels, I began collecting the toothbrushes each time they appeared. Over the course of our travels in China, I became rather addicted to collecting the toothbrushes and accumulated 26 of them in total. The overall collection includes 6 different designs, varying in color, shape and bristle configuration with 5 designs wrapped in clear plastic and 1 design wrapped in white paper with a sticker seal. Rozy thinks I’m stupid for collecting and that I’m toting extra weight around…apparently she can’t appreciate the satisfaction that comes with being the proud owner of such a rich collection of foreign toothbrushes. Simpleton.
As at IT professional, I feel it is my duty to complain about the state of the Internet in China. No matter what city you are in, the Internet is mind-boggling slow, and, The Great Firewall of China is actively blocking sites in an incredibly inconsistent approach to information control. The infamous “The connection has timed out” message appears if you are using Firefox or, if using
Internet Explorer, “Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage”, when attempting to access something forbidden to make it appear that there is an issue with your web browser, or, with the site in which you are trying to connect. I know this is one of billions of complaints out there regarding access of the Internet via China ISPs, however, I feel compelled to voice my concern. Some sites are blocked 100% such as Wikipedia.com, bbcnews.com, greatfirewallofchina.org, Amnesty International’s website and anything Falun Gong related. Other sites seem to be partially blocked based on the type of content you attempt to access (eg: try search terms like “Tiananmen Square”, “Falun Gong”, or “democracy”) allowing the list of results to return but no access to the source page. This is especially obvious on google.com. While in China, search for “Falun Gong” in Google and see if you are able to access anything…I doubt you will have success. I played around with the connection in a couple different cities and was amazed by the inconsistency of the information filtering from city to city. I’m sure there are folks out there who have done detailed studies on information access abilities from various Chinese cities…something to
research at a later date. A Harmonious Society, it seems, is only achieved by mass control of information by a few dry old men…unfortunately, remnants of Mao Zedong are very much still prevalent in China.
Our last day in China was back in Beijing (probably shouldn’t be here with a posting on Shanghai) in order to catch our connection out to Bangkok. All the hard sleeper train tickets had been sold, so, we snatched up a soft sleeper and rode the train in luxurious style. Wow, what a difference!! The Chinese soft sleeper rivals European trains; the sleeping rooms are 4 person, have much larger beds, personal lights, temperature controls, very clean Western-style toilets with toilet paper, and hand soap at sinks. We also happened to be on a Z train, so, the train traveled non-stop at a pretty good clip. Rozy ended up staying awake half the night talking with a new friend she made. Twelve hours later we arrived fresh and ready for our final day.
We got incredibly lucky on our last day in Beijing as one of my mates (Harriet) from Uni popped in to visit family in Beijing unexpectedly. Harriet, one of
the sweetest girls I’ve ever met, was kind enough to take us around Olympic Park which was still buzzing with construction. She brought along her sister and brother-in-law and we spent the afternoon checking out the incredible Olympic buildings and feasting on Xinjiang food. No doubt, the “Water Cube” and the “Bird’s Nest” buildings will be the focus of many architectural discussions come August 2008. I didn’t bother to post any of my pictures of the Olympic buildings as the areas surrounding them are still under construction…best to wait till the games kick off in order to view the buildings in their final state…they will impress…guaranteed! Thanks again Harriet (and sister/brother) for showing us around…it was great catching up with you and we look forward to seeing you again soon!!!
So, in summary, China is, from our brief surface scratching, complex. Five thousand years of civilization, emperors & dynasties, Western occupation, grassroots Communism to a crushing cultural revolution, and now, a communist flavor of capitalism. In our travels we experienced a proud China, rich in history, vast in its natural offerings, and comprised of a patchwork of cultures, customs and beliefs that have existed and evolved over thousands of
MY DEBUT NOVEL AVAILABLE NOW!
Visit me at www.danielshortell.com for purchase information.years. A China that can assault a Westerners sense of manners while simultaneously charm and intrigue the intrepid traveler. A China that can tickle the taste buds (too many to list) or summon the gastric juices (animals brains, bugs on sticks, etc). A China that delights and a China that irritates. All up, China was an amazing experience and an incredible opportunity to learn more about a country so vast and a people so diverse. I think it is fair to say that, from a Westerner’s perspective, China is not an easy, relaxing holiday. That being said, China is an incredibly rewarding trip for a traveler prepared to take on a country where familiarity is oftentimes only available in a can of Coca Cola.
STATISTICS
- Flights taken = 3
- Intercity trains rides taken = 7
- Intercity bus rides taken = 26
- Times lost = 7
- Total instances of diarrhea = 3
- Total number of requests for pictures with Daniel = 2
- Total megabytes of pictures taken = 9,780
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Rani
non-member comment
Awesome ending
*And the crowd applauses*...awesome way to end the China blog dude. Also, whats a beret? And if you run into Lena the elephant in Bangkok....please feed it sugar cane and say hello for me. Btw, l love the pics man...sometimes l wish there is more...hint hint.