China - Beijing, Xian, Shanghai and Hong Kong

Beijing

After a 4 hour flight from Tokyo to Beijing we had an interesting experience just outside the airport. We had thought we were in a taxi queue with a man in the front, wearing an official looking jacket, controlling things. Turns out it wasn’t really a queue and the man in front wasn’t actually controlling anything. He was just getting the taxis to stop and park up behind each other and that was where his job ended. As soon as the taxis arrived it became a free for all as the people behind us pushed passed us and jumped in to the next taxi! When we finally managed to muscle our way over to one, Steve was putting the bags in the boot, and I gave the driver the address of our hostel which we had written on a piece of paper. To which the driver just laughed and just shook his head - he couldn’t read or speak any English. Pity that, as we couldn’t write or speak any Chinese, and the hostel had sent us the address details in English. We then had a bit of a heart failure when the driver started to pull off with our bags still in the boot. We ran after him shouting our bags are in the boot, which he wouldn’t have understood one word of. Turns out he was just pulling a ways forward to let other taxis get by. Luckily we also had a map with the nearest subway station (Dongsi) circled on it, so we gave him that and after a couple more minutes he agreed to take us there instead. So he dropped us at the subway station and we had to walk the rest of the way to the hostel following their sketchy directions e.g. turn left at the next big building. After a scary 10 minute walk down a dark alleyway we managed to find the hostel and it was a good one. They made an English breakfast there and had a half decent restaurant. It was just a shame that China didn’t have a no smoking indoors rule, as people were smoking in the bar with the windows closed (cough cough).

The next day we headed to the Forbidden City, which was a 20 minute walk away from the hostel. I should mention that on the way we quickly found out that crossing the street in China is actually taking your life in to your own hands. Having read about the number of pedestrian deaths in China every year, we waited for the pedestrian walking man to appear and then cautiously stepped out, only to be nearly mown down by a man that was turning across in to the street. It would seem that even when the green man is showing, cars still cross and they still have right of way over pedestrians. So after an eventful 20 min walk we arrived at the gate of the Forbidden Palace which is surrounded by a moat. We headed for the gate and made the mistake of pausing to take a photo of the entrance, which allowed a number of very aggressive Chinese men to run up and offer us a rickshaw ride. After saying No about 5 times we decided it would be easier to just head inside immediately rather than being harassed anymore. First impressions of the Forbidden city from the outside were fab.

We decided to get an audio guide of the grounds that came with a sort of electronic map. For those not in the know the Forbidden City is actually a palace museum. Or rather the palace of various emporers over the years that has now been turned in to a museum, and the grounds are massive. We were there for 4 hours and we only managed to walk up the middle from one end to the other, so we didn’t have time to see the stuff on the left and right of the main trail. The Imperial Garden and some of the buildings in there are really stunning, and we stopped to take loads of pics despite the bitter cold.

Then we walked back to the hostel and saw a number of men hakking up and spitting on the side of the road, which I was totally disgusted by, but it is completely acceptable in mainland China. No wonder you need so many vaccinations before you go to China. After the spotlessly clean streets of Tokyo, the streets of Beijing are dirty by comparison. We had a nice dinner of peppered beef on a sizzling hot plate when we got back to the hostel. Then for the next surprise - why did nobody warn us that Facebook has been blocked in China - arrggh! So no Facebook access for the next 3 weeks. We would have to go cold turkey!

The next day we’d arranged arranged a tour to see the Great Wall of China (Mutianyu section which has been restored). We met an austraulian and a kiwi on the bus and spend the whole day with them. The Great Wall was really awesome. We took a chair lift up to the top, and then first walked right to see the different types of forts, and then back to fort 6 to go left and walked along that side for a while. The right handside was a harder walk, as it was quite a steep climb with some big steps. I was expecting the great wall to be flat like a yellow brick road so that was a bit of a surprise. The left handside was an easier walk and was flat / paved in parts. There where people selling snicker bars and drinks every now and again, so we stopped to buy one. It was pretty cold on the wall, and the snicker bar was frozen solid, so we almost broke our teeth when trying to eat it, but it was still a welcome snack. Although the weather wasn’t perfect we still got some great shots with the wall in the distance and we actually managed to bump in to a couple of saffies on the wall as well - Lekker! Afterwards we got a toboccan down to the bottom which was good fun and then we stopped on the street to barter for a terracotta warrior . We managed to get it down from 500 to 120 yen wohoo. Then it was on to Mr Yangs for a buffet lunch with the group, before getting the bus back. What was surprising is that we had expected the smog of Beijing to clear a couple of hours outside the city, but it just never cleared. The smog is really bad in China. That night we made pork and leek dumplings in the restaurant at the hostel, and got chatting to a young Aussie couple that had just gotten engaged. It was a great hostel for meeting other travellers and comparing travel notes.

Day 3

We went to the post office to post the terracotta warrior back to the UK. And I must say that they have a really fantastic postal service in China. We simply handed over the warrior and the lady at the counter bubble wrapped and boxed it up for us. Fingers crossed it arrives in one piece. There was actually a post office lady sowing up a pillow for one man, Lord knows what was inside, but a pillow seems to be an acceptable way to post things in China. Then we went to see Tianamen Square, which was pretty unimpressive. Its basically just a big open square. So after about 2 minutes there we made a quick trip to the Beijing Zoo to see the Giant Pandas. It was a bit sad to see the panda sitting up against the bars, as it looked like he was trying to get out. They were very cute though. Then we went on a mission to find some Peking Duck. We found a place in the book and then walked about an hour in the cold to find it. The duck was pretty good, but not sure it was worth a 2 hour round trip. We had asked the hostel to book our train tickets for Xian. However when we came to collect them that night, it turned out they had booked the wrong bunks (middle and top instead of middle and bottom). However they couldn’t be changed, so we were going to find out just how small that top bunk would be.

Day 4

We went to see the Summer Palace which is where the emporers would go in the summer and frolic. I thought it was a really beautiful place and has a lake, gardens and a large white marble boat. We walked around for about 3 hours, and still hadn’t seen the whole place. For me it was prettier than the Forbidden City. While we were there one local woman came up to me and wanted to have her picture taken with the foreigner, so I thought what the hell and made her day. Then we took the subway to try and find a tea house. Eventually we found one and each had a flower tea. Mine was a crysanthemum and opened to reveal white and pink petals - it looked beautiful but didn’t have a very strong tea taste. Steve had something that opened to twice its original size, and tasted more strongly of tea. Then we walked in to a restaurant that happened to be offering hot pots. So on Sue H’s recommendation we ordered a beef hotpot, and it was totally delicious. Easily the best meal we had in our three weeks in China. Hotpot is a bit like a fondue, there is a large copper pot that has hot coals in the middle and ours had a kind of mutton broth boiling that we cooked our beef and vegetables in. Delicious! The following morning we bought some food for our dinner on the train, and then headed for Beijing West train station in a taxi.

General notes on Beijing
The subway is very good;
They actually project adverts from the train on to the tunnel walls;
I’m afraid the general public arent as groomed or as stylish as those in Tokyo;
The people are not as helpful as they were in Tokyo. In fact I would say they can be pretty aggressive towards foreigners;
The spitting is totally disgusting. Period. There is just no getting used to it.
After walking around outside all day I have a lump in my throat…presumedly from the layer of pollution, which is perhaps also why everyone is spitting on the street.

The train station was an interesting experience. I reckon it’s a good thing we caught a taxi there, as there where no signs anywhere in English to indicate that we had actually arrived at Beijing West train station. We saw a lot of buses outside, and a lot of people going in entrances, and figured we must be in the right place. So after queuing to get in and having our bags security scanned we came upon a large departures board that was showing the different train codes (ours was T41) and the waiting room number - 9. We mistook this for the platform, however upon getting to T41 we saw there were 3 different platforms inside and a sign up signing T41. So we queued up and then managed to get down to the platform where the train is. Our ticket, rather confusingly had the number 134 on it, and then an 8. We didn’t know exactly what these numbers stood for, as the rest of the ticket was in Chinese. So we headed to a lady near a carriage door to ask her which carriage we belonged in , and she pointed us left towards number 13.

We got onboard on first Chinese train and pushed passed a number of locals that had already taken up their seats alongside the window, but we couldn’t find the number ‘4’ that was on the ‘134’ on our tickets. So we showed our tickets to some locals, who then sent us off in the wrong direction, when we were actually in their bunk area (on purpose I wonder?). Another lady sent us back the same way, and so we eventually found our bunks next to number 8. We were in the middle and top bunks of the ‘hard sleeper’. We got on the train at around 17h00, so we sat on the bottom bunks (the end of someone elses bed) for an hour or so playing cards, before we moved up to our own bunks to read for a bit. I should mention that all the locals on the train seem to bring pot noodles on board for their dinner, as the train supplies boiling hot water from taps (what an excellent idea). However not exactly trusting the water supply, we had brought along some rolls and some chips and juice for our dinner. The ‘hard sleeper’ wasn’t as hard as I had anticipated, so it wasn’t too bad, and they did supply a pillow and a duvey (looked clean enough). Although we did subsequently speak to an Aussie guy who said that he woke up with a tick on his face on another train - yuck!

It was automatic lights out at 10pm, although we didn’t know that as all we heard was ‘blah blah’ in Chinese over the intercom, and then the lights went out lol. I did manage to get a bit of sleep in the middle bunk until the man in the bunk next to mine starting snoring like a chainsaw connected to an electric speaker. He was sooo loud I cant understand how he didn’t wake himself up. Steve said that he had worse problems on the top bunk as all sorts of funky smells were drifting upwards lol. One other odd thing on the train is that a woman came around at the beginning of the journey and exchanged our tickets for some plastic cards. Then when they woke us up abruptly at 04h00 by switching the overhead lights on again, she came around again and exchanged the cards for the tickets again. I think she was keeping the tickets, so she could come around and tell us when to get off the train. All in all the Chinese trains were a lot better than we had expected. They were relatively new and relatively clean.

Xian

We arrived in Xian at 05h00 in the morning, one hour earlier than scheduled. Apart from the fact that it was the middle of the night (still dark), the early arrival was unfortunate because the hostel was only due to collect us from the train station at 06h00. So we got the map out and managed to walk to the hostel - result! We were very pleased that the hostel had our room ready for our early check in, and pretty much collapsed for a proper sleep for much of that first day. We did come up with a rough plan for the rest of our time in China and also managed to book ourselves on a tour to see the Terracotta Army the following day.

We were due to meet at reception at 08h30. Its worth mentioning at this point that we paid Y310 each for an All Day tour, and there were 3 listed stops (Terracotta Army & Museum, Emporer’s Tomb and Banpo Museum). I did ask and the woman selling the tour at the hostel said that we would have between 2 and 3 hours to see the Terracotta Warriors…

At around 08h40 we woke with a knock on the door, and the realisation that we had overslept (through 2 alarms) and were now late for our tour. We threw on some clothes and ran out to reception to see if we could still catch our bus. Fortunately they were waiting and we went on to collect some other people at another hostel before setting off. Our first stop was a Terracotta Warrior factory (the astute among you may have noticed that this was not actually on the itinerary), where we got a very brief overview of how the warriors were originally made - put some clay into a wooden mold, make a solid bottom, a hollow top and a separate head for stability. Then fire in an outdoor kiln at a couple of different temperatures, and then each one was worked on by hand to give them their different details like faces, hair, outfits etc. They made a different mould for each different type of warrior e.g. archer, cavalryman, artilleryman. And each was given life size real weaponry, which has since been taken off them, I’m guessing for security reasons.

It was around this point that we found out that the couple sitting directly in front of us on the bus had bought a half day tour (Y220 each) and needed to be back at the hostel at 16h00 to catch their shuttle bus to the airport. So we had a somewhat heated conversation with the tour guide on the bus, trying to find out why we had paid for a full day tour, and had now ended up on the same bus as a half day tour. The remaining people on the bus were on a full day tour as well, but from a different hostel, and had paid slightly less than us but at least their price was in the same ballpark. It turns out the half day couple did not have tickets for the Banpo Museum, although they would have to either wait outside for half an hour in the bus, or pay an extra Y35 each to go in. Saying that I was less concerned about the fact that we had paid an extra Y55 each for the same tour, and more concerned about the fact that the 2 - 3 hours we had been promised with the warriors, had now turned in to 1.5 hours to see the 3 pits and the museum. Needless to say we were not pleased and the tour guide was not in the least apologetic and just said that in the low season they had to combine the tours to make it viable for them! Fuming and without the hostel phone number with us, we had no choice but to wait until we returned that afternoon to sort it out.

Trying to claw back some time for the Terracotta Warriors we asked the guide whether we could just take the Banpo tickets, and see it ourselves on another day, but he said the tickets were only valid for that day, so we either had to go inside today, or forgo the tickets they had already bought for us.

So given that choice, the next stop was the Banpo Museum, which is basically an archaeological site for an old Chinese culture, but not really anything to write home about. To be honest at this point it felt like we needed to rush around so that we could get on to the main event, as our time would be limited with the warriors anyway. Then it was on to a quick half an hour buffet lunch (not bad although we didn’t really know what we were eating - perhaps for the best) before we drove on to the Terracotta Warriors Museum.

I would like to say that by this point I had forgotten about the disagreement with the guide, but as nothing had been resolved, I still felt that we had been taken advantage of, so this did overshadow the rest of the day slightly for me. I just wasn’t interested in listening to the tour guide anymore, or asking him any questions.

We got to the Terracotta Museum, and then had to pay an extra Y5 each to get an electric cart from the car park to the actual entrance (and I’m thinking what yet another charge - we‘ve already been ripped off once!?). Then the tour guide whisked us around the 3 excavation pits, and I was annoyed at him rushing us through. We actually had to run after him at points to keep up with the rest of the group. Unfortunately this meant that a lot of the time we missed his brief introduction to what we were seeing, and frankly he didn’t provide us with very much information anyway, which left me wishing I had picked up the audio guide at the entrance so that I would know what we were looking at - garr!

All aggravations aside, the warriors were an amazing sight. Especially in pit 1 which is roughly the size of an aircraft carrier and holds about 6000 warriors (you cant actually see that many as they havent all been excavated yet). The ones towards the front have been restored, and you can still see a pile of broken bodies at the back which is apparently what they looked like before the restoration began. I cant imagine a more difficult jigsaw puzzle than everything being brown fragments of broken clay.

Pit 2 was good because they had a couple of different warriors that were in glass boxes so you could get up close and have a proper look. The detail on them is amazing. Even the soles of their shoes have tread, and the back of their hair has braids in it. The cavalry man’s horse had a detailed saddle, and he was holding a bridle in his hand! No detail has been spared on the warriors, and you can start to understand why it took 700,000 people to complete the work on the mausuleum. What came as a surprise is that the emporer’s mausuleum consisted of much more than just the famous warriors. The emporer practically had a whole city built around his tomb. The museum also shows bronze birds, clay acrobats and shows some of the remains of the quarters that were housing the mausuleum’s caretakers. We didn’t have much time to walk around the museum but we did manage to see the 2 half size bronze horses and carriages which again were very detailed and quite impressive.

After the terracotta warriors, we stopped briefly at a souvenir shop where I managed to get a jade bangle that I had been after, and Steve‘s eye was taken by a rather large Chinese painting that we managed to get for another bargain price of Y150 (at that price who can resist).

Then it was on to another unscheduled stop, to see a short (15 minute) performance of some traditional dancers underneath the emporers tomb, which turned out to be rather good. However we didn’t actually get to walk up to the tomb as expected, we just saw the mound in the distance. By this point I was pretty confused about what should have been included in the tour, and what was still left to see. However as it turned out it was already 16h00, so we just got back in the bus and drove back to town, so that we could drop the airport couple off by 17h00. So on return to the hostel we went back to reception to complain and the manager rang the tour agency (a new one apparently), and later came and gave us each our Y55 back, along with a coke to make amends, which was good of him. Still you cant get the time back, as we only had the one day to see the warriors. I would have preferred to get the public bus there myself and had plenty of time to walk around but you live and learn.

That night we went for a walk to find the Muslim Quarter (good for food) and more specifically the Last Noodle Bar Under the Sun, which makes a 3.8m single strand of noodle. Steve ordered the longest noodle, but I was not keen as it came with a bowl of shark fin soup! I had a shredded beef lamb instead which was tasty, if a bit spicy. I am documenting the noteworthy meals we had, to show that it wasn’t all 2 minute noodles lol.

The next day (Thursday) we went to the train station to get our train tickets for Shanghai. We had asked the lady on reception at the hostel to translate our requirements in to Chinese, however as it turned out when we found the ticket window, the lady spoke some English so we managed to get the tickets without any trouble. Then we went on to the post office to post the painting that we bought at the Terracotta Warriors Museum, and again the service was awesome. They actually cut two different boxes up so that they had one long enough to fit our picture.

Then we went to see the Bell Tower, which is a tower with a large bell in it that they used to strike at daybreak. You can now pay Y10 to strike the bell 3 times, so it would seem its always daybreak, but we declined. We did go inside the tower just in time to catch a short performance of people striking old bells which was pretty cool. Then we walked the 200m across to the drum tower, to see the drums that people would strike at sunset and during the night. I was expecting just the one drum, but there were loads of them there. They also had a tower you could go inside and that one was filled with antique furniture, but not that exciting. We did elect to pay the Y10 to strike the drum there which was fun. Afterwards we went to Starbucks for a sit down, and then decided to try and find a cinema to see a movie.

The woman in Starbucks gave us a map to the cinema (complete with Chinese markings) and we went looking for it. In the end we did manage to find the cinema by asking a local (the top floor in a shopping centre), which was a miracle in itself. However when we got to the front of the queue, the woman said that there were no movies playing in English (boo). So instead we went to a local canteen kind of place for dinner and got some enormous pork dumplings and some prawns wrapped in bread (okay). They had the soy sauce in large vats, like you would have ketchup at Mcdonalds which was cool.

Next day (Friday) we walked to the South gate and hired a tandem bicycle to cycle around the old city wall which was great fun. It takes about 1,5 hours to cycle around the four sides (14 km with photo stops), and the going was easy enough as its all paved and pretty much flat, but you cant see that much on either side, as the wall is in the way. Fun and the first time I had been on a tandem bicycle. Then we went to Subways for lunch (still not as good as Fenchurch street Jem). We asked one tuc tuc driver if he would take us home and he said it was too far, so we ended up walking lol. Too far for a motorbike, but walkable for us.

More random thoughts about China:
- Strangers shout hello at you when you walk past them in the street. Presumably practising their English.
- Weirdos keep staring at us everywhere we go. I feel like I should have a tshirt made up that reads - ‘Take a picture it will last longer‘. Seriously it’s very disconcerting. I wouldn’t mind if they had a quick look and then smiled when you caught them, but theyre just staring and staring for long minutes like weirdos, until we eventually have to look away. Have they no shame? I have taken to wearing my sunglasses on the subway like a celebrity to try and hide at least half my face.
- There are fake goods everywhere. I saw a knock off Gucci handbag in a store for Y190 (£19) and it looked real to me. Everyone is carrying Fendi, Gucci or Chanel bags. Ditto for their shoes.
- All the womens shoes and boots seem to have diamante on them.
- Even if you are clearly toting a very heavy bag, people will Not wait for you to get out of the subway doors, before they try and push their way past you. Its every man for himself in China. Very annoying.
- Chinese people love food on a stick. Sausage on a stick. Scorpions on a stick, Fruit on a stick, you name it.
- What is with the one long fingernail on the pinky finger of the left hand? I’m scared to find out!
- Why is everyone fighting with one another? To the ignorant non speaking foreigner, the short sharp sounds of Mandarin always sound like an argument to me. Heaven forbid we come across 2 people who are genuinely in an argument, as I shudder to think what that might sound like.
-Why hasn’t anyone in China ever heard of South Africa? I mean when I lived in South Africa, I knew where China was. Or perhaps its just that I don’t know what the Mandarin translation for ‘South Africa’ is?

Last day in Xian
We went to see the Big Goose Pagoda. We hadn’t realised exactly how far it was and took one very noisy tuk tuk to get there. We had thought the man was going to wait for us, but when we got back to the place where he dropped us off he was gone. We had a quick walk around the fountains which were impressive and we could see the pagoda in the distance, which was okay. It looked like it was leaning a bit to the right to me (the leaning tower of Xian?), and then we had to make our way back to the hostel to collect our bags, to catch on train on to Shanghai that night. So we walked over to the nearest junction and put our hands up to try and get a cab. What we hadn’t reckoned on, it being a Sat night and all, was the amount of competition for taxis. One ended up stopping to let people out, and we had to jump in before we lost it to some locals that were trying to steal it out from under us (as I said its every man for himself in China)! Later we got our bags and managed to find the train okay.

It was a bit easier finding our carriage and bunks this time, as we were old hands by that point (train 2!). We both had top bunks this time, as they were the only bunks left. The train was packed and everyone was running to get there, although we are not sure why if they have reserved seats. Despite the lack of heavy snoring for some reason it was more difficult to sleep this time, and we were both pretty knackered by the time the train pulled in to Shanghai station the next afternoon. We got the subway to Luban road, which is where our hostel was, and then pretty much crashed out for the remainder of the day.

Shanghai

The next day we took the subway to see The Bund, which is basically the road and promenade that runs along the river, with the financial district on the other side. Our first impressions of the financial district were awesome. We couldn’t believe how glossy / developed Shanghai was. We could have been looking at New York from the staten island ferry, and it came as a real surprise. Even better than Tokyo.

We saw some great old art deco buildings along the Bund, and then caught the Bund sightseeing tunnel across to the city centre, which was pyschdelic to say the least. Then we went for a walk to the Shanghai World Financial Centre tower which has the worlds highest observation deck at 100 floors, and went for a look out over Shanghai at night which was awesome. There was a bit of job creation going on there, as there were about 10 different people directing us to go left or right to find the next elevator which really wasn’t all that hard!

Day 3 in Shanghai
We spent a rather frustrating day trying to find / book a cruise on the Yangtze River between Yichang and Chongqing. The problem seemed to be that we wanted to go upstream in low season, and there weren’t many boats going upstream in the low season. However we did eventually manage to find a Chinese boat going upstream on our dates, so decided we would try that. I mean how bad could it be right? *Cough*

Then we took the subway to Shanghai South Railway station to buy the train tickets to Yichang. We managed to find a ticket office, that had a number of different and rather long queues at each window, and there were people walking up and down asking something in Mandarin that we didn’t understand. Some guy came up to Steve and looked at our written ticket request (handily translated in to Chinese by the hostel reception again) and said that No we couldn’t buy tickets to Yichang from here, and then tried to point something out on a train board. However trusting no one we just stayed in the queue, and when we got to the front the man behind the glass just gave us our train tickets, no problem. I reckon the people walking up and down the queues were operating some sort of scam, probably trying to sell us alternative bus tickets or something, but as we don’t speak Mandarin we will never know lol.

Day 4
On our last day in Shanghai we just checked out and went to the local Century Mart to get some food for the 24 train journey to Yichang. We decided that we would risk the boiling water provided on the train this time, and get some instant noodles as all the locals do. It does appear to me that everywhere you go in China you can get some boiling water, either by a boiling water dispenser on the train, or a kettle in your hotel room. The Chinese always seem to be carrying these long glass jars of hot water around, so that they can make their tea. And they drink a lot of tea, which I suppose is better for your health than coke. Particularly when they aren’t adding any sugar or milk to the tea. Anyway, so we whipped around the supermarket, which had multiple levels connected at the back by a series of escalators, and managed to get some noodles for our dinner, and then some muffins and OJ for brekky, followed by bread for our lunch the following day, and some fruit. Although to be honest I am a little scared of eating the fruit. I will definitely be washing it with the bottled water first.

That afternoon we caught our train to Yichang okay (KFC in hand) and we even managed to get 2 middle bunks this time (opposite one another) which was a much better choice. A friendly Chinese couple with a young boy got on the train with like 3 massive bags, a pushchair and their daypacks, so their luggage went under both beds, and the tiny table. It was nice to meet some friendly locals, as the father (who was so clearly doting of his son) could speak a bit of English (very unusual in our experience), and the wife kindly offered us some naartjies (again wondered briefly if it was safe to eat them, and then thought aha I can peel this fruit so it should be okay). So we spent a good few hours playing cards (Steve won 10-3 which is unheard of so he was very chuffed), and then read our books for a while, until it was time to make our noodle dinner, which went down rather well.

At 10pm they put all the lights out on the train and we settled down for the night. However the little boy did a bit of crying and then at about 01h00 two new guys got on the train at a station, and made a hell of a noise crackling plastic bags and talking to each other at full pitch, which made it impossible to sleep. You would have thought that the rather silent bodies and pitch dark would have given them a clue, but apparently not. After a fitful 6 hours they snapped the overhead lights on again at 07h00 much to our dismay. We eventually reached Yichang around 15h45 feeling pretty tired out.

We had arranged with the Yangtze River Hotel in Chongqing for someone to collect us from the train station, to take us on to the boat cruise up the Yangtze. And much to our amazement when we got through the exit at Yichang, there actually was someone standing there with a board that read ‘Steve Connellan’. He said Hello and we followed him to a taxi that would apparently take us to a bus. He gave us his mobile phone in the taxi and we spoke briefly to the hostel, who explained in English that we would have to change to a bus, and confirmed that we would need to pay the money over to this guy from the travel agency. The taxi took us to a Business Hotel (where the travel agencies tiny office was rented) and the man asked us to hand over the cash for the cruise, which we did. So we asked him for the boat cruise tickets and he said he didn’t have them, that the girl he was now handing us over to, would give us the tickets when we got to the boat, which clearly we were none too happy with, as we had just handed over our cash to a stranger, and had nothing to show for it. So Steve made the man write a little receipt on a piece of paper, and he gave us his business card (all in Chinese). We tried to confirm that we had paid for a first class cabin and that there would be 3 excursions included (as per the hostels email) but no one’s English was good enough to give us a response. Hmm not a promising start then for the Chinese boat cruise.

So then off we went with the new girl to a bus parked outside the hotel. We put our bags under the bus, and then the girl explained in pigeon English that we had an hour to go and eat / kill time before the bus would leave at 17h30. Well at first she said 17h00, but when we wrote it down on a piece of paper she crossed it out and wrote 17h30 (her written English marginally better than her spoken English). Now you may appreciate that neither of us have ever set foot in Yichang before, and here we are with an hour to kill in the middle of a strange Chinese city. To be fair Yichang was a much bigger city than we had anticipated. So we did the only logical thing. We wandered down the road past the fish tanks filled with live fish and crabs, and the cages filled with live chickens and rabbits, and found a local shopping centre, where we found ourselves some McDonalds. The fact that we were saying ‘Thank God for McDonalds’ at this point, is testament to the fact that we were finding the food in China a bit difficult to stomach. I mean we are okay with noodles and pork dumplings, but we have to draw a line under a whole roasted baby bird on a stick, or a hens claw in a bag as a snack.

So anyway we finished our Mickey D’s and then went back to the spot that we were meant to meet the bus, only to find that the bus wasn’t standing there anymore (ahem our bags were inside it), which of course gave us a minor heart failure, and also got us wandering if we had been scammed and were now up the Yangtze without a paddle. So we went back inside the hotel and asked the travel agency where the bus was (and the lady was very offhand, of course first answering a couple of phonecalls with us standing there), only to finally say that we should just wait another 15 minutes and they would come back to collect us. Which in the end they did, but it still wasn’t a very pleasant way to kick off the tour. At this point we were wondering how long it would take to drive to the boat, as we were pretty shattered and ready for a lie down. And we tried asking the girl what time we would get to the boat, but with her English not being very good all we could get out of her was ‘show’, which didn’t sound very promising, unless that was the name of the boat.

So after a bit of sitting around in the bus on our own (Chinese tour of two?) another bus of Chinese tourists arrived and clambered on board our bus. In fact there were 2 bus loads of Chinese tourists, and the people on our bus were quite taken aback to find us there (the only foreigners on the bus). Anyhow we set off on the bus driving for about an hour and all the while the girl is chatting away on a microphone in mandarin (which we could have done without in the second row), as it was all very loud and preventing us from nodding off.

Then we stopped and half the people on the bus starting getting off at what looked like a hotel. We were starting to wonder if there was ever going to be a boat. Then the tour girl came over to us and asked us if we wanted to pay another 30 Yuan to go and see the 3 gorges dam. We tried to explain that we already had paid for 3 excursions included on our ticket, and tried to check if this was one of them, but she didn’t understand us. So eventually this kind lady got up from the front of the bus and came over to try and translate, as she could speak a bit of English. The tour girl said that the price we had paid didn’t include any excursions, and that we now had a choice to get off and wait with the others, or come along and see the dam at the extra price. We opted to stay on the bus (seemed safest) but were once again irritated and disappointed that what the hostel had sold us had not been communicated to the tour girl or the boat we would be going on. And at a price of 450 Yuan extra each, we had clearly been ripped off for the boat cruise compared with everyone else on the bus.

We asked the tour girl to call the agency on the business card he had given us, and she just said No! So we vowed to call the hostel when we could get to our mobile phone later on. So we went to see the dam by night and had to pay her 30 Yuan each for the priviledge, except when we asked her for a receipt (so we could sort it out with the hostel later) she refused to give us one. The kind English speaking lady explained that this was not an official part of the tour, and the 30 Yuan each was actually their tip for bringing us here ie she wouldn’t give us a receipt as they were making money on the side. Then we drove back to meet the others, where we all got off the bus and went inside to see a free show, which consisted of some dancers, singers and some great acrobats, so it wasn’t all bad. Except that as I mentioned we were exhausted. After that we got our bags and transferred them over to a new bus, which then finally (and mercifully) took us to the boat. The tour girl gave us a small piece of paper with a number written on it, along with some other Chinese symbols that we couldn’t understand. The kind English speaking lady explained that it was our room number along with the name of the boat, so best not to loose it. So we got on board and then followed the crowd to a queue at the reception desk where they were handing out the keys (after a 20 Yuan deposit). With the reception desk not speaking any English either, we were starting to realise what we had rather stupidly got ourselves in for, for the next couple of days by getting on a Chinese boat. It wasn’t going to be easy.

We got or room key and made our way up to the 4 th deck to our room. We were pleasantly surprised when we got in there, to find that we had our own room (twin beds) and bathroom. Although they weren’t exactly first class by European standards, at least the room looked relatively clean and we were relieved that they hadn’t got the room type wrong as well. We did walk past the third class cabins on the way up, and saw that they were dormitory style bunk beds. We would have been sharing with the locals as well, which would have meant no privacy. We got a fairly decent nights sleep, only to be woken up at 07h00 the next morning by music playing over the PA system, and then a knock on the door at 07h30 to say that we were leaving on an excursion at 08h00, so we’d better head down for brekky if we wanted some. This was all from the kind English speaking lady, as the tour guide just couldn’t relay any useful information in English.

We went down to the restaurant to find three big tables of people all looking up at us and a board, with presumedly food and prices all in Chinese. The tour girl came and said it would cost us 6 Yuan each for brekky so we paid her, an they gave us each one bowl of rice porridge (tasteless and pretty grim but hot) and then another plate with 2 little steamed dough breads, along with some nuts and some green sliced vegetable we didn’t recognise. Oh and a boiled egg. Yummy! And on top of that we had to eat the lot with chopsticks. I will add that since then, after three weeks of eating in China, we are practically professionals now at eating with chopsticks.

Then it was on to the excursion. Although as we don’t speak any Mandarin, we didn’t know what we were getting off to see. We were just relieved that they weren’t asking us to pay more money for this excursion. The English lady was alone for this excursion and she came and said good morning to us, and told us we had better stick with her, which was kind of her. She was very sweet and we chatted to her about our trip, as she was thinking about visiting South America the following year. Unfortunately her husband was not well, which would influence how much travel they would be able to do the next year.

We got on to another boat and went to see the Little three gorges, which was very cool. Then took a small boat with a fisherman so that people could wear his rice raincoat and take photos. He sang a song in a quiet spot between the gorges which was great. He was quite the character, full of life and fun even though we didn’t understand a word he was saying. The Yangtze river is pretty huge and we got some great views on the first boat as we were going through the gorges and under the massive bridges. The weather was a little cold / misty though and the locals were clearly still surprised to find us on their boat cruise.

Later that day the boat stopped again, and after some overhead PA announcements (erm mandarin) the tour girl knocked on our door and said that the excursion was leaving downstairs in half an hour. So we got ready and went downstairs only to be told (again the kind lady had to translate) that the excursion to the city would cost 90 Yuan, so we decided to give it a miss and went back to our rooms to read. We did try the tv and it had 5 channels, but they were all in Chinese. I managed to finally finish reading Eat Pray Love which was pretty good and Steve finished Bangkok Tattoo, which Dave the Australian gave him at the hostel in Beijing.

That night we went down to the restaurant at 7h30pm to see about getting some dinner (the services book in our room said dinner until 8pm). However the restaurant was all shut up and no one was around. We went around to reception to ask about food and there was a man behind the counter using a hairdryer to dry his dog. He called us over to see his dog (that was very obligingly standing still during this process), but he didn’t speak any English so he was no help. So we found the onboard supermarket and bought some snacks so that we could have some dinner. There was probably some sort of annoucement re dinner that we’d missed as it would have been in mandarin.

Day 2 we got up, had some fruit for our breakfast (we couldn’t face another rice porridge) and then around 11h00 we had a knock on the door to say that the next excursion would leave at 11h30, and that lunch was being served if we wanted any. So we headed down to the restaurant to find three full tables of eyes again, and that there wasn’t actually any food left for us to eat! So we came back to our cabin and had some more snacks. Then at 11h25 we went down to the reception area, and it was oddly quiet. We figured we still had 5 minutes to go and they were finishing the lunch. However 5 minutes later there was still no one else around, so we asked a girl onboard where they all where, and she pointed in to the distance, they had already left (early) without us - humph. So we ran off down the pier, and eventually caught up with them buying tickets for the golf carts, to go up to the Ghost City (some temples on a hill). The HK lady very helpfully came over and told us that we would go up to see the temples, but we had to get ourselves back down to the boat again before 2pm when it would leave. The view from the top of the hill was good, and we walked back down to the pier again in plenty of time. That evening we were subjected to some very loud karaoke from the bar about 2 doors down from our room. It was very loud and it was very Chinese. Not one western / English song we recognised the whole night. Although we did get some funny video footage through the door.

No other stops that night as the boat slowly made it way to Yichang. At 07h00 am the next morning we were very unceremoniously left on the boat (last ones) and had to find our way to the hostel in the rain. You would have thought that the tour guide was have seen us off or something? We didn’t have the hostels address so we walked around looking for some free Wifi so that we could look it up. Then we walked to the hostel and checked in. Fortunately the room was ready, despite the early check in so we got some sleep. That afternoon we went and bought our train tickets to Guanzhou on our way to Hong Kong. I will say that although we were glad to see some of the Chinese countryside, after being in 3 cities, I would not jump to book a Chinese tour again anytime soon.

The following day we had a tea ceremony with the girl in our Yichang hostel. Then we went to catch the 22 hour train to Guanzhou. This was a pretty unpleasant train journey. But it was more to do with the locals, than the train itself. At 5am we were woken by a man doing a 30 min hocking up session (no exageration) - nice. It was very loud and very disgusting, so impossible to sleep through. Although again the man didn’t seem to think that he might be keeping everyone in the adjoining carriages awake with his noise. Once we arrived we got a subway transfer and then a 2 hour train in to Kowloon Hong Kong. Then a subway to our hostel which was in an odd building. It was like a bazaar downstairs, and then a hotel upstairs. Although the room was newly decorated (tiny but new) so was fine for our purposes. Apparently the accomodation in HK is always pretty small.

Hong Kong

On the first day we went shopping for Xmas presents for one another on Nathan Road. More specifically we were looking for new phones, as mine was stolen somewhere along the way and Steve discovered that the screen on his mobile was cracked, and rendered unusable. After much deliberation and shopping around, we had decided to buy iPhones from one particular store that seemed to have a slightly cheaper price (and cheaper than in London), so we went there. However after taking our credit card details, the man behind the counter went on to say that the phones he was selling us were not international versions, but rather unlocked Chinese phones, and that we might encounter problems with software upgrades back in the UK. So after much negotiation we settled on two different phones, which we would squirrel away until Xmas so we would have some presents to open.

Day 2
The following day we had arranged to go to Kate and Justins house for lunch as Kate had kindly offered to make us some lunch, and it was tasty and contained lost of vegetables, which was exactly what we needed after months on the road. It was great to catch up with some friends again, as we literally hadn’t seen anyone we knew in 6 months. After lunch Kate took us on a short hike up over a hill and down to see a reservoir, which was beautiful. This part of HK came as a real surprise to us, as we had pictured lots of city lights, rather than islands and walking trails. But apparently a lot of the locals in HK go hiking as its so hilly. After dinner and on Kates recommendation we went to the Jordan market for some seafood dinner at the stalls and then walked around the night market. I must say that after 3 weeks in mainland China, Hong Kong came as some what of a relief, as a lot of people spoke English again and it was much easier to get around.

Day 3
This was a really touristy day in HK. We went up The Peak Tram for a view over Hong Kong, which was pretty good, except that the weather was a bit cloudy. Then we went to a Bubba Gump Shrimp for surf and turf which was awesome. Afterwards we got the subway to the star ferry pier and took the harbour tour for 2 hours to see the Symphony of Lights show which was fab. The buildings along the bay are lit up with laser beams, and co ordinated with the music on the boat.

Day 4 - Our last day in HK, so we got packed and got the trains to the airport. One interesting thing is that we actually checked in our baggage in the city train station, before we got anywhere near the airport, which was a real novelty for me. They actually put the bags on to a train and send them to the airport for you froo there. Once we got to the airport we caught a local bus 20 minutes away as we wanted to see the worlds biggest outdoor Buddha. What we didn’t realise was just how long it would take to get there and back. As it turned out you have to catch a 30 min cable car to the little village at the bottom, and then climb a set of steep stairs to get to the Buddha, so we barely had time to take a few pictures (that was a very big Buddha) before we had to hightail it back down again. We very nearly missed our flight, as when we got back to the cable car there was a massive long queue to go down, but we upgraded our tickets and managed to get a head in the queue a bit. Then after a taxi back and a major rush, we successfully caught our flight to Hanoi, Vietnam - result.

On reflection we saw some really awesome sights in China, but it has been the most difficult place we have travelled to so far. For me it was a bit of a culture shock, with people being pretty unhelpful, pushing ahead in queues, staring for long periods, spitting on the street and smoking like they’d never heard of lung cancer (even on the trains). The layer of thick yellow smog everywhere we went also came as a bit of a surprise, as it just didn’t lift no matter where we went. That and the food. The food was a real problem most of the time. Half the problem was that we just didn’t speak any mandarin so we couldn’t order easily, and people don’t speak much English (unlike south america where most people speak a little English). I found it particularly difficult that none of the convenience stores stocked chips or chocolate (hens feet anyone?), so we ended up eating a lot of pot noodle. No wonder everyone is so skinny!

However we could also easily see the evidence of China’s powerful economy everywhere we went. Clearly there is a lot of money about, and there was no shortage of buildings going up in every city. Also on a positive note the people in the hostels were super helpful, and we stayed in some of the most modern, well kept hostels on our trip so far. I would say that travelling China independently was definitely an experience and its best to rush in headlong rather than thinking about the practicalities too much in advance!

The next stop would be Vietnam for Xmas and New Years.

Love to everyone at home.
Kirst x