Advertisement
Published: July 12th 2010
Our first stop in China was Nanning in Guangxi province, a common stop off for those travelling between Vietnam and China. We caught the night train from a station outside Hanoi after arranging a brief taxi ride through our hotel. We decided on going for a soft sleeper option as we wanted a comfortable first sleeper train journey, it ended up being very simple and pain free despite a few obvious concerns beforehand - Are we going to the right destination, is there more then one train etc?
We shared our carriage with a friendly chinese guy who didn't speak a word of english but gestured politely. We had gotten comfortable in our bed seats quickly but before long we had to leave them to clear Vietnamese Immigration, swiftly followed by the Chinese. Once we were at the Chinese end the train stopped for over two hours and initially we feared we would have to spend this in the station - in actual fact after a rudimentary security check we were back in our beds and asleep until we woke up later that morning with China out the window! Limestone peaks and bamboo trees are what you would imagine there
to be and it did turn out that the landscape was as stereotypically Chinese as possible and very stunning.
We had prebooked our hostel beforehand but unfortunately neither of us thought to check out it's location on the map, relying only on an English spelt name and address. Presuming that the road name would be in the Lonely Planet didn't work out either as the road was small enough not to be deemed listworthy. This left us with a predicament, no-one spoke very much english and we didn't know where we were headed! First of all we had no money and spent a while finding a ATM which accepted VISA's, we then used said money to buy a street map - unfortunately the first one seemed to be of the province and not the town and was all in Chinese characters! Next map was more helpful, english road names but no Shanghai Road as we were looking for. We were quite a cause for attention, two westerners standing outside the train station for quite a while looking bemusedly at chinese language maps. Just as we were about to pluck up the courage to ask for help in bad mandarin
an old man took pity and tried to help us out, even though he could barely understand us. We had circled the train station on the map and possibly he thought this was what we were looking for and directed us to the information desk, very nice to try and help but unfortunately no more helpful than our other failed attempts. At the desk the attendant said "I don't speak English" in perfect english but a few young chinese men came to our aid when they saw we were in trouble. They called the hostel for us and managed to write down the address in Chinese for us to show to a taxi driver. Of course the taxi drivers shook their head when they saw it but seemed to have an idea where it was as they stuck their hand out to somewhere in the distance. A hotel clerk managed to mark down roughly on our street map where they thought it was but this took us to a road that was being torn up. Finally we asked in bank and one of the customers overheard and asked us to wait for him dso he could take us. We weren't
sure what to make of him at first but he was very friendly and walked with us for a few minutes around the corner until we made it to the place. What should have been a 5 minute walk from the station ended with us walking in 2 hours after leaving our train!
Luckily the hostel in Nanning was very good, comfortable and cheap (we stayed in dorms) with free internet, movies and even a Wii on which we chilled for a while with Guitar Hero! Lunch was large pots of instant noodles which you can find everywhere and in the evening we headed out to find a restaurant we knew had an English Menu. On the way we came to a park just off of the main road, Chinese people young and old were congregating here to dance the night away - be it Salsa style or elderly couples ballroom dancing! After a search we fund the place we were headed to and ordered a chinese feast accidentally. The size of the dishes seem intended to be shared and we had ordered 3 plus some pork buns. You do see all parts of animals used in some of
their dishes and so we avoided those with offal and cocks testicles and the like! We had fried pork and orange sauce covered ribs, along with a huge portion of thai style rice. We were absolutely stuffed and went back to crash before spending the next day trying to sort out onward travel. We could only get a sleep bus to Hong Kong for a day later than planned but this meant we just spent some more time watching some movies and socialising in the hostel common room's comfy loungers. Nat even found out that she went to the same school as one of the british travellers there - small world! There isn't very much of note in terms of sights in Nanning so we the next day wasn't very event filled - we were getting excited about seeing Hong Kong and so just relaxed before setting off in the evening for our sleeper bus. This was definitely the most comfortable of all of the one's we have taken so far with spacious bunks but not necessary all of the legroom needed.
One very sound sleep and uneventful journey later we found ourselves piling off the bus along with
everyone else and quickly in and out of immigration. We weren't really sure how the process would work with our bus, however a helpful American man pointed us the righ way to get a shuttle bus ticket towards our destination - Mongkok. The shuttle bus emptied out and so we quickly followed and before we knew it we were in Northern Kowloon looking for our hostel. A few moments were needed for orientation however it turned out we were only a few minutes away and we found it with relative ease. On the way we saw Langham Place, the posh hotel which Toe's Mum and Step dad stayed when they were there only a few months previous, very swish! Maybe our digs weren't quite so swish, we were dying for a shower but first breakfast was needed as they weren't quite ready for us. Whilst we did really want to sample a Hong Kong dim sum breakfast at the restaurant recommended by Chris and Paul in the Langham Mall, we figured our bedraggled forms wouldn't fit in with the rest and opted for the easier option of Mcdonald's Mcmuffins! When we returned we were originally told that we couldn't see
a room until 1pm but a friendly Singaporean named Kevin intervened and offered us him room in which to shower and freshen up. However when we reached his door the elder female owner came huffing and puffing up behind us to say that we could have a room just made available.
A little while later, feeling much fresher and clean, we decided to head straight for the bottom of Kowloon so that we could see the famous skyline and catch the star ferry to Hong Kong Island. First however we stopped outside the famous Chungking Mansions in Tsim Sha Tsui which we had heard a lot about. Whilst it looked like a hive of activity, the touts outside would have probably made it quite a tiring stay - this is where a lot of budget accommodation is located in HK. But the room we got in Mongkok was the same price as a lot of the other hostels located in the Chungking Mansions so were pleased with our choice of hostel. We made our way down towards the star ferry and got swayed by the amazing view of Hong Kong Island across the river. Hong Kong island looked very
westernised, with a lot of sky scrapers and very tall office buildings. We took lots of pictures and admired the view, and went up some stairs to the viewing deck to get a more clear view. It was extremely hot that day so the sun was quite intense! We went and bought an ice lolly from the 7-11 before going to get tokens for the Star Ferry. The tokens were only 3 dollars, which was 50 cents more as it was the weekend, but was still sooo cheap working out at only around 25p! We boarded the ferry and enjoyed the brief ride across the river to Hong Kong Island.
We explored Hong Kong island first off by going into an impressive IFC shopping mall and checking out some of the nearby shopping streets which had every brand and high street stores like h+m from home. We went looking for lunch and ended up in a local fast food chinese restaurant which still served authentic chinese noodle dishes and soups. Toe got a shrimp dumpling noodle dish and also decided to try out hot Cola and lemon for a beverage. Toe thought it tasted quite nice but like something
you would have before you go to bed. Nat had the shrimp in wanton soup with noodles and a lemon ice tea which is found everywhere. In every restaurant you will get a cup of jasmine or green tea before you order also as a welcome. After we were nice and full we went to the mid level escalators, a huge set of escalators through the central district which ferry the locals to work every morning before working in reverse for everyone else for the rest of the day. We had been on our feet for quite a long time so when we arrived at the ferry station to take us to the top of Victoria Peak a huuuge queue promptly changed our minds. We found a quaint garden in and amongst the skyscrapers where people can retreat from the city hustle however we didn't stay long as mozzies started to amass rather quickly. That night we were asleep by 8:30pm, having worn ourselves out in the heat and a very similar day was to follow.
Next morning we felt fit enough to pay a visit to the Guangzhou garden restaurant in the mall nearby and excitedly ordered a
dim sum breakfast. We had rice porridge with meat - a chinese traditional dish called congee along with large tasty shrimp dumplings and bbq pork and vegetable buns. Our other choice was chilled sesame rolls which was a sticky black spongy substance rolled up in rolls, tasting like sesames but also charcoal like with an interesting texture. We weren't huge fans of this but overall it was excellent and very filling for the rest of the day. We focused much more on Mongkok itself, passing through the Fish Market, where every shop is full of all kinds of pet fish and many species of Terrapins and Turtles to take home with you. Other stores also sold all kinds of accessories for keeping fish and you could see families out with children evidently picking a first pet. Afterwards we headed north and passed the fragrant flower market on the way through to the Bird Market where gentlemen took their pet birds for a walk and some feathery socialising. As with every day in Hong Kong it was roasting hot without even a big whisp of wind to show for the usual summer typoons. When Toe asked to take the picture of
a gentleman who had a parrot on each shoulder he turned away, but only because he wanted us to get a picture of the birds and not him. He even plucked one up and dropped in on Toe's hand but the bird wasn't a massive fan and didn't stay around too long. Shortly after we stopped in a nearby cake shop for a custard tart and cheesecake respectively, something entirely unnecessary but nice nonetheless!
In the evening we opted to walk to Tsim Sha Tsui instead of the MTR, which took a whole hour and was quite a good workout as we were in a rush to make it for the daily Sound and Light Show which plays at 8pm. We made it just in time to see the buildings on the shore opposite lit up in time with some suitably cheesy music pumped out front speakers all along the Kowloon seafront. Nearby is a series of Museums, we weren't in time to check these out but followed the path along until we found the Avenue of the Stars - Hong Kong Cinemas version of the Walk of Fame. Here you can see the hand prints of actors like
Jackie Chan and Jet Li, whilst Nat was especially pleased to see the star of Wong Kar Wai who directed several films based in the areas of Hong Kong we were visiting. Also here we found the famous Bruce Lee statue where you practically need to Kung Fu fight to get into place to get a photo taken in front. After this we again stretched our legs to the Temple St night market, however it was one of the very first restaurants we stopped at for a late dinner. This time we sampled some very tender fried duck, chicken and cashews and a plate of noodles. We are learning to minimize the number of plates we order and even this was more than enough for two! The bottles of beers they sell are pretty big and just one of these each (San Miguel) was enough to have us both a tiny bit tipsy and we wandered around the market briefly before finding our beds, a little bit later this time.
Next morning we were feeling rather lazy after a very active two days and ended up having a lie in watching a movie on Toe's ipod. When we finally
surfaced in the light of day we headed to Kowloon park which we intended to explore a little more actively, instead we spent a relaxing hour sat by a large fountain where we saw some children playing. An internet cafe proved to be quite difficult to find in Hong Kong, we were looking for somewhere to use Skype, however the whole place is so well wired that the use for one isn't really felt by many. As such this search ended in failure this time and we instead turned into a small cafe restaurant not far from Chungking Mansions for a tasty traditional dinner of rice and noodles. We headed again for the water but this time didn't quite catch the light show, instead we turned into the Cultural centre which houses a theatre as well as some performance and exhibition spaces. There wasn't a huge amount on show but there was some interesting school art projects and we spent a fair time chilling by the fountains and clock tower out between the centre and the water.
A lot of travellers talk about going in and out of air-conditioning and humidity and both of us were feeling under the
weather a bit. Toe had another crappy cold building up and spent most of the 4th day in bed with Nat pretty much acting as food and drink slave! Turned out to be a good thing that we had decided on one more night beforehand, we did feel like we had seen a lot up until then so it wasn't too bad - at least we hadn't arrived as rough like in Cambodia! We had sorted out a bus ticket to Guilin in China before we had visited Kowloon park so didn't feel too much need to rush either. Finally on the 5th day, because we felt that we hadn't enough, we caught the awesome Star Ferry over to Hong Kong island. Toe had finished the Stieg Larsson trilogy and having read 7 books so far on the trip felt the need to pick up some more reading material. We both spent quite a long time in a book store in the mall near to the ferry station, finally settling for One Flew Over The Cookoos Nest for Toe. One thing we haven't done yet is back up our photos and whilst we were fairly eager to do this, we
weren't as eager with the prices on offer and the store wouldn't back up our videos as well as images (should've tried in Kowloon - doh!) so decided to wait until China. We mulled around for a long while but it wasn't long before we were back in Mongkok. Whilst we were feeling like we could do with some pretty hearty salads at this point we also remembered about a cool japanese burger chain which had a restaurant in Langham place, called MOS Burger. We'd been wanting to check out this place in Asia and having only just remembered about it we had no choice but to check it out or miss it out altogether! In fact it was one of the healthiest tasting burgers either of us have had - Chicken Teriyaki with Peanuts, yum! - and we checked out the impressive mall, only stopping to buy some jelly marshmallows in Muji. Before we turned in we found a really cool internet cafe seconds away from our guesthouse, sod's law we guess!
Next day we made sure we were all sorted to get out of Hong Kong. No trains run from there to Guilin and we had bought
a ticket from Shenzen just over the border, all that was required was to pick up our bags from the guesthouse later in the day and get one of the MTR lines all the way to the border. After formalities there we would just have to find the corresponding bus that evening. This left us with a morning to fill... you guessed it! Wanting to sample a HK cinema we hit another Mall in Eastern Mongkok where we saw the newly releases Predators movie. Nat hadn't seen the first Predator movie so Toe had to fill her in in whispers about Arnie and booby traps etc! We also had a demonstration of 3d Tv at a SONY stall which showed us some world cup clips in 3 dimensions. Later that evening we were in Shenzen with relative ease but it wasn't without the help of a bus station guard to walk us 50 yards down the road to the right bus stop without a moment to lose. We're writing to you from beautiful Yangshuo in China having spent a couple of days in Guilin, in another two days we will stop very briefly in Kunming on the way to Dali.
This we'll fit into one blog if needs be but for the meanwhile we will leave you with our pics from Hong Kong! Lots of love, Toe and Natalie. xxxxxx
Advertisement
Tot: 0.045s; Tpl: 0.016s; cc: 10; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0189s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
chris/mum
non-member comment
great pictures...
as always esp. like 14014! all brings back happy memories of march - lovely to see you both looking so well (if a little hot!) hope you are over you cold Toe, and that you are both enjoying China and staying safe. Big hugs xxx