China

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The border crossing between Vietnam and China was fairly straight forward and uneventful but slightly bizarre being herded between checkpoints in huge grey concrete buildings in small electric carts, we also get our first taste of the Chinese queuing system which is to swarm the counter and push your way to the front and stay there until you get someone’s attention! The first road in China on our bus journey to Nanning was reminiscent of a motorway in Europe and quite strange after dodging potholes and on coming traffic for 4 months in South East Asia.

After a stop over in Nanning and just about managing to get some train tickets, we were on our way to Guilin, about 180miles North East and a fairly pleasant 5 hours on a train through rural Guangxi province country side. Guilin is supposed to be one of China’s greener, more scenic sights surrounded by karsk mountains but the rapid economic growth and booming tourist trade seems to have taken any charm away and replaced it with more concrete sky rise apartments and shopping malls.

By now we are feeling that China is not how we imagined it to be, we genuinely thought it would be like to many ‘China towns’ we have been in so far - busy, chaotic with an atmosphere but in reality it turns out to be quite soulless. We also have huge problems with the language barrier, nothing like we have experienced so far and trying to get accommodation resulted in drawing pictures of stick men to represent 2 people, moon & stars for 2 nights and always confusion over how much it actually cost. This place is so far removed from western society and it’s not a good sign when some hotel receptionists actually hide behind the counter and giggle because they can not face talking to a westerner.

A short hop south on a 1 hour bus journey got us into Yangzhou, a lovely small touristy town which has managed to hold onto it’s charm despite the authorities knocking down old buildings and replacing them with modern one’s made to look old. We hired some bikes and made a fantastic loop of about 25km to a very old town called Fuli, along the way we met a Chinese girl on her own also doing a similar ride, lucky for us because we would never have found our way or negotiated a boat across a small river. It was great to ride through more rustic villages, waving to local kids along the way following a dusty dirt track along side a mostly dried out river amongst karsk mountains, we finished off the day with the local dish of beer fish.

The night bus came back to haunt us once more, our only way of getting further south to Guangzhou. It was a very long 8 hours, the pot holes also made a return and the whole journey seemed to be through a dusty building site along mountain passes, and all the time we fear for the driver falling asleep. As usual the bus pulls in at 6:30am into some obscure back street parking area with dodgy looking people hanging around, everyone off the bus makes their own way and we start walking across town. We decided on the journey to not spend any time in Guangzhou and head straight down to Macau, so we find the bus station to make the 2 hour connection to the border of China / Macau. Including queuing at the border for about 2 hours and getting to a hotel on a local bus, the whole journey from Yangzhou to Macau took about 22 hours.

We really enjoyed Macau and spent a great few days walking round the sites, a real change from a bleak China to lovely colorful Portuguese style architecture and tones of history immaculacy restored and maintained. Macau is a fascinating fusion of Mediterranean and Asian peoples, lifestyles, temperaments and food and considering up until now we only ate dim sum and noodle soup in China, we deserved our Portuguese lunch with a bottle of red wine!

From Macau we took the fast ferry 1 hour across the mouth of the Pearl River to Hong Kong, where we met Vanessa’s parents - Rob & Ang. We were so pleased to see them after talking about it for so long and amazed that we managed to get there on time considering the route we took. We decided to celebrate with a ‘full house’ English breakfast round the corner in a lovely café. We spent a great few days in Hong Kong with Rob & Ang, generally catching up, using the facilities in their posh hotel and also some site-seeing round Kowloon, Wan Chai and Causeway Bay. Vanessa’s brother - Andy has an old Chinese wooden junk boat in Victoria harbor which is in a state of renovation but perfectly habitable and became home for us for a while before setting off with Rob & Ang to Lamma island for a few days of walks, nice food and general relaxation. Lamma is a small island, part of the outlying Hong Kong islands and a great way to escape the hustle and bustle of urban Hong Kong. Back on Hong Kong Island we jumped on a bus for about 30km North to the special economic zone of Shenzhen in southern China to meet with Andy and his partner Dina for a fantastic family Christmas.

For this part of our trip we did not really have a plan, all that was on the main flight itinerary was a flight down to Singapore on 4th February, it gave us about 4 weeks to see a bit more of China. After spending some more time on the boat in Hong Kong helping Andy with his renovations, some researching and general relaxation in Shenzhen we made a plan, which in this huge country is a mind boggling experience. We booked an internal flight from Shenzhen to Beijing and planned an overland route back that would cover most of the major sites in Beijing, Xian, Shanghai, Hangzhou and back to Shenzhen.

What we were not quite prepared for arriving in Beijing was the cold, coming from the relative warmth of the sub-tropical Shenzhen and Hong Kong, it was a real shock to be in below freezing conditions with out any proper clothing, we had to make do with wearing pretty much all our clothes at once! One of the first tasks in Beijing was to buy sleeper class train tickets to Xian, which proved almost impossible and we have learnt by now that most Chinese people will just fob you off and you get the standard response of ‘No’ without any explanation, this normally means that the situation has become too difficult and they flatly refuse to help or try to understand. So we adopt the ‘push in and shout’ tactic, as used by most locals and it usually does the trick and we eventually walk out the station with 2 sleeper tickets. Our walking tour of central Beijing took in Tiananmen Square, Chairman Mao Mausoleum and the Forbidden City - all really impressive, vast sights, lots of grey concrete in the largest city centre square in the world. We finished the day watching the sunset over a very misty, cold forbidden city from a hill top pagoda in Jingshan Park. After finally dodging touts surrounding public busses to take us to see the great wall at Badaling, we arrive at one of the sights in China we are most excited about. It did not disappoint, the Great Wall of China is truly stunning and not just something you see once but over a 3.5 hour round trip hike to a watch tower in the mountains, with fantastic views of the wall snaking away in the distance along the way. We just had time to see the Kunming Lake completely frozen over with people walking on the ice at the Summer Palace, a retreat for royalty during the 18th Century.

A 12 hour, 1000km overnight train journey South West in relative comfort in a ‘soft sleeper’ 4 berth compartment got us into Xian in Shanxi province. Arriving to thousands of people seemingly hanging around the massive station, we realized just how far we have traveled when people’s faces change to more Tibetan or Mongolian with their red, rosy cheeks. The biggest attraction for us in Xian was the Terracotta Warriors, the first sight of the warriors in pit 1 was amazing and really interesting to see how they have been preserved underground for 2000 years and only first discovered in 1974. Xian was a lovely place to wonder round the mosques and market places tucked away in back alleys and our first taste of a lovely Chinese garden at the Great Mosque in the Muslim Quarter.

There is not much in-between these huge cities, apart from a lot of industry and sparsely populated, impossible to get to rural villages, most of China’s massive population live in a city. All of the cities we visited had major construction work going on, we were always greeted by a forest of cranes, a thump of jackhammers and the sparkle of welding torches as they cram in one huge space age shopping mall after another. As if the pollution and general noise caused by traffic and construction is not bad enough to create a relatively unpleasant environment, the people do not make it any better. There is one problem that we could never get used to - spitting. If you are not listening to them clearing their throats and spitting at your feet, you are stepping in piles of phlegm in the streets, most mornings we are woken by the reaching sounds as they almost make themselves sick!

Our next overnight sleeper train got us 1200km South East to the Paris of the East - Shanghai. For good, budget accommodation throughout China we used Youth Hostels which so far always provided exactly what we want at good prices, great locations and Shanghai Hikers was no exception - a nice little place just off the famous Bund for 10gpb a night. It was great to stroll along the Bund to actually see some old, interesting 1930’s downtown New York style architecture. From the Bund we crossed over to the Pudong new area using the cycadellic and bizarre ‘sightseeing tunnel’ and up the Oriental Pearl Tower for some great views of Shanghai.

From Shanghai we did a day trip to Suzhou in Jiangsu Province for a look at some Chinese classical history around the old cobbled alleys and fantastic gardens. Originally built in the 12th century, defiantly the highlight of this trip was the Master of the Nets Garden with some stunning examples of Ming style furniture and palace lanterns.

A short hop South West and in just 2 hours we arrived in Hangzhou in Zhejiang province, one of China’s most famous attractions (along with Yangzhou). Despite the cold we spent a lovely couple of days exploring the main attraction - the West Lake and the markets, bazaars and old tea houses. We took a boat trip on the lake for a closer look at the small islands with Pagoda’s and more stunning gardens, this time dressed in snow! After a mammoth 21 hour train journey south from Hangzhou and we arrive again in Guangzhou and again decide not to hang around and jump straight on a train back to the relative warmth of Shenzhen.

China has definitely been the most difficult county to travel in but we are already thinking like India, it’s an experience we will never forget. It’s a harsh environment to be in, the people do not make it any better, coming across rude or abrupt but in fact most of the time they do not know how to handle westerners and so you either don’t have any choice, or get completely ignored. Most of the local habits and customs we have experienced in other countries we have embraced or accepted as part of their culture but in China spitting, shouting, staring and pushing is something we can never get used to or accept as westerners. On our return to Shenzhen we somehow had some time to spare (!) and decided that we had endured enough in China and missed the Thai islands getting to Hong Kong in time for Christmas so booked a cheap flight down to Bangkok. We are currently enjoying some fantastic hot sun and some more action where we feel most comfortable - on the beach in Ko Samet.

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