Sarah & Richard's Travels

We've just had a crazy three weeks in China - it is a huge country and one thing we realised as we rushed around from place to place is that we'll be back! A country the size of China is just not possible to see in a month.




Not realising you get fixed entry and exit dates in Vietnam we applied for our visas to enter the country a week earlier than we wanted so rather than giving up time in Vietnam we've rushed through China and will come back another time to see the rest another time.





Our route through China went Beijing - Pingyao - Xi'An - Chengdu - Tiger Leaping Gorge - Shangri La - Guilin - Yangshuo - Nanning - Hanoi, all in around 3 weeks!



Beijing was a pretty amazing city - I coulnd't believe how modern it was and apart from the smog and air pollution it was actually pretty clean (until you got to some of the old Hutongs). The streets were wide and lined with trees, the buildings huge and the infratructure in general pretty good. This was the one place where we saw virtually no one spitting (thank god).



We did all the touristy sites, Forbidden City and the Pagoda at the end of it, which is up and a hill and you are supposed to get a great view from. The day we did it though the smog was so bad we could hardly see across the road to the forbidden city! It was crazy. We spent some time wandering around the Hutongs whichare the old traditional Chinese streets with little courtyard buildings they all used to live in. Some of them have been poshified now with funky little cafes and boutique shops. We walked down one of these one day and couldn't find one place to eat that had a Chinese menu - it all had Western food - ahhhh! Finally just before we left the Hutong there was one little place, so we ate there and the food was great! We were seated by the tanks of fish which I assume go into some people's dinner! haha. Until now I though pictures of the food was something only western Chinese restaurants did, but I was wrong; even some of the restaurants in China have pictures of what the food will look like.



We went out to the Great Wall of China on one day (and I have the sweatshirt to prove it as it was sooo cold to begin with I had to buy something - lol) and walked the four hours from Jinsinlang to Simitai. There are four sections of wall that are easily accessible from Beijing including Badaling, which is very touristy and Mitanyu, which is slightly less touristy and then Jinsangling and Simitai which are much further out, but less people go, so we took this route. The two sections either side of Jinsanling and Simitai had both been restored and were relatively easy to walk, although steep, when we got further however the climbing got a lot more precarious. Half the wall had crumbled away in some places and all the proper steps had gone and a lot of the side walls too. It was pretty hard work climbing on the steep, stoney surface and at some points it was really high and exposed. Some of the towers were completely missing or had several walls that had fallen down, whilst others had been partially restores. The weather wasn't great - drizzly rain and a cold wind, so it was pretty slippery at times. I kind of wondered why they bothered to build the wall as the mountains on either side looked like pretty tough terrain as it was! We could see the wall stretching into the distance and going in and out of the mist and clouds which looked pretty cool and after awhile the weather cleared a bit. Despite the fact that it wasn't a very touristy part of the wall we still had hawkers following us trying to sell us books and tshirts and who knows what else. Some of them were pretty old and would have been so fit to climb that wall everyday with thier heavy loads of goods. By the end of the day my knees were shot and Richy's ankles were playing up, so how they do it everyday I don't know. Anyway, the wall was pretty cool and if you get the chance, I'd climb this section again and maybe stay the night out there so that you can explore more (it takes around 3 hours to get here from Beijing, so staying the night would mean more time to take it all in).



We had some fun at the Silk Markets which is basically where you get all the fake clothes and anything else you can think of. They start ridiculously hight with thier prices and tried to sell Richy a pair of 'Armani' jeans for 125 pounds!!!!! Eventually he got them down to 20, but this is still apparantly too expensive. They are soooo persuasive though and have sayings like 'you're killing me, so cheap' all the time and 'looky look'. They one good thing I have to say is though if you agree on a price of say 50RMB and pull out a 100, they will give you the exact change and don't try to get anymore out of you. We've now realised that if we state the price we want to pay and walk away if they don't want to give it to us we get it anyway 90% of the time, so this is our new technique. If we have gone too low then we're prepared to let it go as there are plenty of people around trying to sell stuff! Richard had one lady try to sell him watches in the street. At first he was interested and had a look at a few and then decided no, he didn't want one. So, not giving up she followed us a few steps and says 'ok, no watch, how about socks!'. haha.



Beijing - Pingyao



We spent a week in Beijing because we were waiting for our Vietnamese Visas to come through so hadn't booked any onward travel. The day we got our visas back we went straight to the station to try to get tickets to Pingyao and they only had hard seats left (it was a 12 hour overnight train ride), so not wanting to stay in Beijing longer because we mucked our visa dates up we took it and it was an interesting experience.



The train stations in China are pretty organised. You're not allowed into the actual station unless you have an actual ticket and once you're inside you're hearded to waiting areas specific for your train. This is great, because I can't imagine the pandemonium there would be if anyone was allowed in and you all had to push to get through! Anyway, we pushed our way onto the train and made it to our seats where some others were sitting. Luckily we had reserved seats because there were loads of people hanging about the floor and aisles as the train was packed. Immediately everyone started looking at us and trying to talk to us. We of course, not understanding any Chinese, had no idea what they were saying and didn't get very far. Eventually we got our guidebook out and started pointing to things on the map and using the phrase book at the back (well, showing them the written Chinese), so they kind of got the idea. The conductor of our carriage understood a bit of English as was speaking to us, especailly to Richy about Holland. Richy spent over an hour trying to explain how the traditional windmills of Holland worked as the conductor thought they were for electricity. Richy was explaining no, they used to be used to pump water out to keep the land from flooding and the modern 'windmills' are for wind power. So for around 2 hours and about two pages of diagrams later the condutor finally got it! Hooray!!! A little while later I was half asleep and the conductor comes to Richard and says 'come, we go for chatting', which I thought a little strange, so poor Richy had to sit and chat with him for around two hours in his little conductors cabin, it was wierd.

We got virtually no sleep on the train as it was loud, the lights never went off and obviously the seats didn't recline at all, plus it was jam packed!



So we arrived in Pingyao which is half way between Beijing and Xi'An at 5.30am in the pouring rain and very tired. We we took up the hostel guys very persitant offer of accommodation at Harmony Hostel for a night even though we'd planned to head to Xi'An that night. Pingyao was a gorgeous little town, although I've heard plans that they're going to wreck it, all for the sake of tourists. Ahhhhh. There are so many new 'Ancient Towns' that have been built everywhere that it gets a little frustrating and though it's nice, there's always that lack of authenticity hanging over it.



So Pingyao is set in the old Ming era city walls and is basically all stone and old courtyard buildings with the traditional Chinese tiled rooves pointing up at the corners. It was a really chilled out place to spend a day and night especially after the night on a train and a week in Beijing. There wasn't a lot to see, other than climb around the walls and the old Bell Tower and also go into all the old courtyards which now house beautiful gardens and cafes etc, so we spent the day wandering, checking out the few (half touristy) shops and drinking tea in the cute little cafes in the courtyards.



The government now plans to evict most of the people out of the centre, except for those who are working in tourism and want to introduce a special 'Pingyao Currency' and make everyone living in the old town area to dress in traditional Chinese costume. I personally think this is ridiculous and would actually destroy the place, as it's great at the moment to see all the locals go about thier daily lives on thier cyclos, selling vegetables, cooking, playing Majhong etc and taking this away will make it like Disneyland!



Pingyao to Xi'An



We took the bus from Pingyao to Xi'An which took around 5 hours and as usual arrived at a bus station that wasn't on the map (although we didn't realise this at the time) and ended up walking for miles until a hotel said best to take a taxi. We tried this however no tai would take us. We had about 5 stop for us, look at where we wanted to go and then drive off again, so we continued to walk and eventually got to some sort of shopping street where we stopped to ask a group of locals. They didn't really seem to understand, but said to us take a taxi. We said we had tried, but no one would stop, but again they didn't seem to understand. So we tried to get taxis again and when they saw them stop and drive off again they stayed with us and tried to help us, however same thing happened when they were there. Eventually one taxi driver stopped to get out and have a cigarette, next thing we knew we were being told to get in the taxi and the guy helping us got in the taxi and drove us to the hostel! We have no idea if they knew this taxi driver or if they just asked him if they could borrow his taxi or how it worked, but we eventually got to the hostel, thank goodness!



So we weren't really impressed with Xi'An from the start after our issues getting to the hostel, plus it is a busy, dirty, industrial city, so we decided we'd stay one night and get the train to Chengdu the following evening. We wandered around Xi'An that evening and spent some time checking out the night markets which sold some touristy stuff and also a lot of food, but there were also loads of Chinese out and about eating and drinking which was cool. I'm still a bit suspicious of street food, so not overly adventurous, but Richy tried some quail eggs which had been fried onto a stick and dipped in peanut sauce which were apparantly yummy. The old night markets were in the Muslim quarter which had much smaller streets than the rest of Xi'An and the area was a hive on industry. Most of the buildings in the older areas seem to be two / three storeys high and have a garage type thing on the bottom which is usually where there's a few tables a cook offering food, or loads of car windows lined up for sale, or tailors and often their beds are in there as well, so it was interesting to see this side of life. When they're not sleeping they seem to spent thier whole time working, although the men do seem to sit around playing cards or Mahjong quite a lot as well...



On our only full day in Xi'An we caught a public bus out to see the Terracotta Warriors and what a strange experience. It took around an hour to get out there and when we arrived it was almost like Disneyland (the Chinese seem to be good at this). Once we got through the ticket office there was a huge, wide paved path lined with souvenir stalls, cafes and what else??? KFC and Subway!!!! It was crazy - I couldn't believe they were there. Anyway, you keep walking and eventually get up to three massive air hanger style building which is where the soldiers are housed. There are three pits, all with various stages of exploration going on. The first one has the most excavated with a lot of the soldiers restored and put back together as they would have been back in the day, complete with the horse and chariots. In other pits you could see more of the ruins with pieces of soldiers lying all over, it would have been a painstaking task to match up all the pieces to the right soldier an put him back together. They all went to the 'Army Hospital' whilst they were being fixed up. Anyway, check out the photos when they're loaded, but we were a bit disappointed with the whole thing - something about those air hangers, made the whole thing seem a little surreal...



Xi'An to Chengdu



No more hard seats! We got a hard sleeper on the train all the way to Chengdu (around 20 hours) which bascially has 3 levels of beds, 6 in a partition in an open carriage - much better than Russian Platskertny and much better than hard sleeper! We got to Chengdu and were met at the station by our hostel really easily (pays to book direct with the hostel in advance so you can arrange these things and not spend hours traipsing around with a bad guide book map). Mix was the best hostel we've stayed at so far - clean, great atmosphere, cool common areas and tasty reasonably priced Chinese and Western food. The whole reason of going to Chengdu was to see the Panda bears, so we booked a tour out to the sanctuary to go and see them. We really wanted to go to the Woolong Wildlife Reserve which is wilder than the sanctuary and further out, but it was damaged in last years earthquake and the pandas were all moved. The sanctuary in Chengdu however, was really good as all the bears had the semi wild environments much like all the modern Zoo's have these days. Wehad to go early in the morning and watch them feed as they tend to get lazy and sleep in the afternoon. So we arrived and immediately saw the little ones feeding and mucking around - they are sooo cute. They are so funny, because they move around kind of like humans a bit they way they climb and sit while they're eating, but they seem so lethargic. They don't even seem to be that energetic when they fight with each other. They just sort of rool around with a paw here and there and then give up. One of them covered itself in bambook before it would start eating...perhaps he / she was camera shy?! The older ones were pretty cute as well and again were doing some pretty lazy 'fighting' whilst the others were just sleeping already. We were being led around the sanctuary (which was massive) by the drivers who'd taken us out and at one stage we were taken to watch a video about the sanctuary and the research they were doing etc and of course their 'Hero' panda who had produced around 13 cubs, however the video was shown in a cafe which kind of made us feel like we had to buy a drink or something, but it was interesting to learn about the research and the bears - boy do they look ugly and underdeveloped when they are first born!!



We met a cool Canadian couple in the hostel so wandered around Wenshu temple with them, it was a gorgeous little place, built in the Ming era and still surviving, not having to be reconstructed like most other things seem to have been. The monks were walking off to pray when we first got there so could hear them chanting as we wandered around which was cool. It seemed to be aplace the locals came to chill out as well as there were groups of old ladies sitting around enjoying music and the peace and lots of men sitting around the pond which was full of turtles.



The rest of our time in Chengdu which just relaxed as we'd been going pretty hard since Beijing and really needed to plan the rest of our journey. We couldn't decide between Tiger Leaping Gorge (TLG) and Guilin / Yangshuo and eventually we decided to head to TLG and then possibly back over to Guilin / Yangshuo.



Chengdu to Tiger Leaping Gorge



This was a massive journey. We had to get a 12 hour overnight train to some place called Panzihua, from where we had to take a taxi to the bus station as it was too early for public buses and way too far to walk. We waited to hours before getting a bus to Lijiang which took around 8 hours (and had some awesome ruraly scenery along the way; the first we'd seen except from the train), then it was another bus for 2 hours to Qiatou from where we had to take a minibus in the middle of TLG. The whole journey took around 30 hours and seemed to be crazy, but we were lucky that we got tickets everywhere when we rocked up and apart from the bus to Lijiang which left at 7am and we had to wait two hours for, there wasn't a lot of hanging around.



The scenery in Yunan province where most of the aforementioned places are is gorgeous. Our ride on the bus to Lijiang passed huge big mountain passes where there would be sheer drops on one side and our bus driver would be overtaking trucks or cars before blind corners! WE saw our first rice paddies and loads of corn growing, people hoeing the ground and ox's ploughing fields and pulling along heavy carts. One we were on the way to Lijiang there were huge mountains valleys covered in trees - it was stunning.



Going into the gorge was another little adventure, again a sheer drop on one side, barely enough room to overtake and a massive rock wall on the other. The driver was constantly looking up for rockfall and at one stage there looked to have been a reasonably recent fall as the road was covered in loose rock and the driver stopped for a couple of minutes and study the rocks before we moved on and over the loose gravel. Phew - we made it! We stayed at Sean's guest house inthe middle of the gorge which was ok, though the food was overpriced and not tasty. Had we walked all the way in (we didn't have the time and preffered to spend the day hiking around mid gorge) we would have realised how many other guest houses there were and probably stayed elsewhere. Anyway, it was nice to finally get there and take in the amazing view.



We spent the next day hiking around the gorge and started to head up to a waterfall and bamboo forrest. We followed the markers for a couple of hours until the suddenly ran out (we looked to be about half way up) so decided we'd head down to the high road for lunch and go from there. We stopped at a great little cafe the Bridge Cafe and tried the local Naxi bread which is like a thick flat bread that the local Naxi people (orignally from Tibet area I think) make. It was very filling and pretty tasty with stuff on it. From there I was keen to head right down into the gorge to see the full force of the river coming through so we went down the ladder route which the locals have built and keep maintained. The government gives very little support, so they do all the work and charge the tourists, which I think is fair enough as it was a well maintained track. It started off pretty easy, but soon started to get very steep and we were clambering over the rocks, with drops down one side and again the big rock walls on the other, at one point we had to go down a long longer which was just small bigs of iron welded together, so a little dodgy. At another point there was a huge ladder, however I opted to take the 'safe route' and go over all the rocks rather than this ladder which seemed to overhang! The power of the river at the bottom was incredible, it absolutely thundered through the gorge. The government have been planning to damn the gorge for hydro electricity, but at the moment there is a lot of opposition (rightly so) and I don't think they've got that far which is good. We opted to take a different route up which would take us directly up to Sean's Guesthouse where we were staying. At first we started going through almost like a tunnel carved into the rock with the river on the other side and then it opened out a bit and we had a few dodgy wooden 'ladders' to climb and from then the path opened out into bush and eventually into the corn fields in the valley in front of the guesthouse where we saw a lot of people working.