EKotze

Our last days in China, before leaving for Hong Kong was spent just relaxing and soaking up the atmosphere. We had a absolutely great time so far. This is for sure not the best time to travel in China, since the temperature barely goes down to 28 degrees. But besides that, it is an awesome place to see. Language can be challenging some times, so patience is needed and a good semse of humour added, makes for some interesting days. Make sure you get a aircon room to sleep in, and drink plenty of fluids, and it is plane sailing. We left for Hong Kong very early in the morning, so had to get up at 4 am to catch the taxi ride of 90 km to the airport. Our plane left at 8 am for ... read more

This is one of the most scenic areas in the province. We took a local bus from Yangshuo to Xingping. It is only 25 km and cost about 7 yuan. Passing through villages along the way, we arrive in Xingping, only to be swamped by local touts who pester you with nagging to go on a bamboo ride. Of course their prices is highly inflated, and since you do not know the system or understand or read chinese, this makes it very difficult and frustrating. There is actually a very simple system, once you have figured it out, but these woman try their best to distract you from finding out how it works. After some very frustrating negotiating, we decided first to go for lunch and try to loose these pestering woman. What a great decision. ... read more

Some more photos of Beijing!!... read more

Our first decision to get to Xi'an from Suzhou by overnight train had to be changed due to the summer holidays in China. All trains were fully booked and so we decided to fly to Xi'an, or actully we did not really have any other choice. This meant we had to take a fast train to Shanghai from Suzhou and then fly. The flight was 2.5 hours long and we arranged with our guesthouse for a pickup at the airport. By train it would have taken about 13 hours. Xi'an is also a big city with huge buildings being constructed everywhere. The population is about 7 million. In the centre of the city is the old city which is surrounded by a big wall. The lenght of the wall is about 14 km. This city used ... read more

This is indeed a Great Wall!! This is totally not overrated. The wall was definately worth the visit, and something we will forever remember. We started the day with a trip we organized with a hotel across from where we are staying. The girl could at least communicate in english with us, so we decided to book the trip with her. Our hotel also do trips, but because of the language barrier it is just not easy to explain, so we chose the path of least resistance. This was such a good decision, because we really did this in style. We were picked up by our tourguide and driver at 7:30 the morning. We thought we were going in a mini-van, but no we had a grand black Buick all to ourselves. With aircon, wich turned ... read more