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Published: January 25th 2008
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The bus journey to Kunming was indeed 'executive'...well it had reclining seats, arm rests and a TV onboard. Kunming seemed to be like most other Chinese cities except with more of a South East Asian feel. This meant more street food/hawker stalls, dirtier streets, less conservative people and the locals looked less Chinese. A lot of expats and English teachers seem to live in Kunming and there was even Western music, something which we had not heard in China since leaving Hong Kong.
We stayed in a place called the Hump, although we quickly re-named this hostel 'the Dump' because it was over priced, the staff lost everyone's booking and they didn't even provide towels. The hostel even prevented people from taking their own food and drink into their rooms! We had no choice but to stay at the Dump as when we arrived into Kunming we discovered that there was a medical conference on and in reality there were very few places to stay in this city. It was definitely the worst hostel we stayed in throughout the whole of China! Kunming did have a good feel to it and we were even able to get bottom sleeper tickets
for our 25 hour train journey to Guangzhou to complete our full circle journey of China.
We didn't do much in Kunming, so we have decided to sum up our experience of China in this blog.
Our Top 3 tourist attraction highlights: 1.Mutianyu section of the Great Wall - non-touristy, awesome landscapes, impressive section of wall at reasonable value for money.
2.Tiger Leaping Gorge trek - magical and stunning scenery, a fun and rewarding trek and excellent value for money if you do it yourself
3.Chengdu Panda Research base - loveable bears and again good value for money.
Our Bottom 3 tourist attractions: 1.Temple of Heaven - complete disaster due to renovations
2.The Bund in Shanghai - too many shark like tourist tat selling touts
3.Forbidden city - too expensive considering the scale of renovations ongoing which won't be completed until 2020.
Favourite 3 cities visited in China: 1.Beijing - heart of Chinese Communism, still full of authentic Chinese life, just a shame they are knocking down the traditional Hutongs.
2.Guangzhou - not many tourists, vibrant youth culture
3.Yangshuo - good cycle treks, lazy, laid back feel
and great apple crumbles!
Things that surprised us the most about China: 1.How easy it is to travel between places without knowing any Mandarin. The trains are excellent and relatively fast.
2.The difference in character between one city to the next. For example the more Communist feel of Beijing compared with the Capitalism rules of Shanghai and the distinct South East Asian flavour of Kunming.
3.Just how bad the hocking, queue jumping and pushing was.
4.How unprepared Beijing seems to be for the Olympics in August next year, how few people speak English and how few restaurants have English menus...the city really is not prepared for the tourist influx the Olympics will bring!
5.We found China a strange contradiction of Communism and the must be one ahead mentality
6.There was a real lack of Western films, music and media; and how extensive the Chinese Government's internet censorship actually was.
7.How much a 5 day trip to Tibet would cost us with permits, trains and flights...unbelievable
8.How nice the food was...we only had two bad meals in one month.
9.How high the standard of accommodation was in hostels, especially the bathrooms.
10.How staged some of the tourist attractions seem to be (eg Lijiang and Yangshuo). Places have been 'Hollywood-ed' up, as long as you expect this you won't be disappointed!
We had an amazing time in China, we would have liked to have stayed an extra couple of weeks, but not only was our 30 day visa almost up but we were a little fed up with the cold (yes we know it was only a month!) and we didn't think we could get away with continuing to wear the same clothes for much longer! We are glad we visited China now, as the speed of development there is striking and will undoubtedly over the next few years change the country.
So our adventure in China finished with our long train journey to Guangzhou and then a flight out of Macau. We got two cheap tickets on a new airline called Viva Macau which would take us all the way to Jakarta, 4 hours away for $150 or £75 each.
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peter
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i have liked reading your entry, thanks!!!