The First 6 Week

We have reached our half way point of our Asia tour. We have travelled 8256 kms since landing in Tokyo via all sorts of transport and we have miraculously survived (only just on that damn Tuk Tuk). This distance does not include what we have walked when we have got to our destination which we reckon must be at least 10km per day.

Many thanks for all the feedback on the blog. It seems we have quite a large readership now and most of you are enjoying our travel tales. I have one apology to make to our biggest reader of all…….the Chinese government.

Thanks to an eagle eyed reader (thanks Judith) it looks like the Chinese government have been reading our blogs and making some changes of their own. If you re-read the Beijing and Nanjing blogs you will see sections of text whited out. I have to say they have done a pretty poor job of hiding it as you can still see the text underneath. We are also surprised that the section in Beijing they did not like was about the lack of McDonalds around the centre…..this was actually a compliment! Now that we are out of China we will be publishing some of the stuff we could not say whilst still in the country, so watch this space.

As you all know, Thailand is in a political mess at the moment so we have booked flights from Cambodia to Kuala Lumpur and plan to spend 3 weeks in Vietnam and 3 weeks in Malaysia to make sure we are in Singapore on the 12 July for our flight to Darwin in Australia.

The blog has been running about a week behind throughout this period but now we are with Laptop we hope to be a bit more up to date and with proper pictures rather than the Iphone stuff we have been taking. Out of the 2000 pictures we have already taken we have uploaded around 60 of the best. Just look to the right and click on the picture to see a larger version. And by popular demand we have posted some pictures with both of us in them (just for the record I am smiling and I am not in any pain).

Both of us are very well and still loving the trip and for those interested, no we have not fallen out yet (editorial comment - although we have come close!!!). We have also both lost a bit of weight (as I predicted) mainly through not eating as much and not sitting behind a desk all day. Emma is still convinced that we will still come back even heavier than we started due to the red wine and fab meals we are expecting to have in Australia and New Zealand.

We love the feedback/abuse we get from our readers so please keep it coming. The more the better as it keeps us writing.

The next 6 weeks feature Vietnam, Cambodia and Malaysia before we leave Asia for good to start our travels down under!

Emma & Bill

Hong Kong

After 6 weeks on the road Hong Kong was always planned to be a bit of a break from the Asia madness and a little bit of western for a few days. We also wanted to use this stop as a bit of a re-supply of anything we needed for the next 6 weeks with the assumption that it would be easier to read the labels.

The trip from Yangzhou to the border town of Shenzhen was by overnight sleeper bus. The bus had all its seats replaced with 3 rows of double decked beds. To maximise capacity the beds where slightly inclined so that the persons feet were under the head of the person in front. My sweaty socks and feet ended up under the head of Emma, but Emma’s feet were odorising the head of some poor Chinese fellow! The beds also came with a seatbelt to strap you in, an essential piece of kit on Chinese roads and with the crazy driving. Whilst still getting my bus legs, a nice Chinese lady helped to push me back into bed as the driver tipped the bus round a rather sharp bend at breakneck speed. Clearly my seatbelt needed to be much tighter!

We arrived tired and 10 hours later in Shenzhen and for the first time properly crossed a border. No mans land was traversed via an enclosed pedestrian walkway over a river with armed guards, razor wire and a checkpoint Charlie just like in the films. Once on the other side you are trapped in a train station with the only way out by train into Hong Kong. The border crossing took around an hour with all the passport checks and visa entry forms and of course, departing one boarder control and then instantly entering a new one, but the process was fairly painless considering the boarder we were trying to cross.

From the first minute we got off the train, it felt like we were home. I know its still Asia and the majority of the population are not Western but they follow basic rules and the place seems a whole lot calmer than we had been used to over the past 4 weeks. Within 5 minutes of getting off the train someone said hello to us. I thought they were trying to sell us something, but no, they just wanted to say hello. So as usual we dropped the bags at the hotel and started doing our jobs, laundry, hair cuts and purchasing a laptop. We had intended to use the Iphone wherever possible and then PC’s at hostels but for a number of reasons this had become impracticable and so like everyone else travelling these days we decided to get our own.

Because Hong Kong is so much more western than the rest of Asia we also had the opportunity to eat some western food and have our first curry in 6 weeks (and before you say, I know curry is not western but to me it was like a taste of home!) The guide book recommended a place although the name was a little off putting. So off we went to find Gaylord curry house……the food was great, however was quite expensive which blew our daily budget somewhat but it was worth it.

The accommodation we picked in HK was planned months ago and we got a great deal on a 5 star hotel with a pool, with the intention to spend at least 1 day doing nothing. After spending many hours one night setting up the new laptop at the desk in our room, I noticed a small itch on my leg - thinking nothing of it I went to bed. I awoke to find (at the last count) 50 red lumps/bites all over my lower part of my legs. The culprit we believed to be carpet flees. So much for the upper market accommodation!

Hong Kong is not big on sight seeing but it’s a great city to shop, eat and just wander the streets seeing the city. One of the main visitor attractions is Victoria Peak, which boasts great views of the city. We picked a sunny clear day to do the trip and it was definitely worth the wait. The views of the city are incredible and its amazing to see so many sky scrapers so close together in such a small space.

Hong Kong is a very expensive place even by western standards but definitely worth a visit. The people are calmer than China and we never felt unsafe even at night in some of the back streets (no Gaylord jokes please!) HK has a great vibe to it and we both said how great it would be to come back and work for a while here. Not sure that will ever happen but a nice idea anyway.
Next Vietnam.

Yangzhou

Yangzhou is only an hour by bus from Guilin and would be our final stop in China. Being slap bang in the middle of the limestone peaks and on the banks of the Li and Yulong rivers, this place is a magnet for Western as well as Chinese tourists. The main street is closed to traffic which makes a change in China and is a 100% tourist trap with hundreds of shops, restaurants and neon fronted bars. As you walk down the street you are pulled and heckled to come into my restaurant, my bar, buy a hand fan. Ironically, after the chaos of the rest of China and even with this constant pressure we fell in love with this place. As soon as you get away from the tourist streets the place is far calmer and shows a more rural side to the rest of the China we had seen.

Upon arriving at the hostel we booked our bamboo boat trip down the Li river which was to meander for nearly 2 hours through the incredible scenery with just the two of us and the helmsman aboard. Whilst inspecting the construction of the boat (something we often do) Emma thought that the white bamboo was actually bamboo painted with white plasticised paint, where I concluded that it was in fact fake and made entirely of plastic. This debate raged on for some time with Emma promoting the benefits of using real bamboo against plastic. The helmsman was in no position to help us conclude the debate as he spoke no English. Finally it was ended by the only means possible…..the touch test which confirmed that it was indeed plastic fake Bamboo. Victory to me…..for once!

Once the boat ride was finished we were dropped on the bank near a village where we made our way into the village on foot taking in the incredible scenery. Paddy fields, people’s homes that were little more than shacks and these limestone towers covered in vegetation. The village was very rural and after 30 minutes of wandering we eventually found the bus station for the local bus back to Yangzhou.

The weather in Yangzhou was the hottest so far with very high humidity, a prelude of things to come, however with very little actual sun. With the exception of the odd day this has been a relatively common theme throughout China - solid cloud cover.

Our trusty guide book also recommended a bike ride along the Yulong river which took in some of the more dramatic landscape of this area. So for the first time in this crazy country we braved the roads and cycled out of the town. After a few wrong turns (rubbish map and no road signs) we found the road we were looking for and started down the track. The view from the bike was incredible and thankfully the track was relatively flat. The temperature was around 30 degrees with humidity around 90%, so making it ideal cycling weather! We rode for about 4 hours in total before having to give up due to the heat so even though we did not complete the trail what we saw was amazing.

Other than that we ate, drank, rested, meandered the streets and met up with Kevin and Chloe (the couple we met in Guilin) for dinner and drinks.

Next stop: Hong Kong and we had two options for transport, train or night bus. So far on this trip due to budget we have had to balance the cost of transport with the cost of accommodation, mostly trying to combine the two by using overnight transport. With the train involving much more messing about and travelling through the day we opted for our first experience of the night sleeper bus, more on this next time.

Guilin

With our visa running out and fixed dates in Hong Kong, we turned our journey south from Xi’an towards Guilin. Due to the distance between these two places we decided that a 27hr train journey was not a good use of time and instead would fly with Southern China Airline.

The journey into Guilin from the airport allowed us great views of this very special landscape. The land is flat except for the limestone towers that are dotted across the horizon. These towers are only a few hundred meters high and look like someone has sprinkled jelly tots randomly across the landscape. It is this scenery that draws people to this part of China and so we followed like sheep.

Guilin itself is not a great place. Its purpose is as a jumping off point to see the great sights around it with no real merits of its own. The town definitely had a English seaside town look about it, lots of concrete buildings built in the 1960‘s starting to decay and lots of neon however without the draw of a beach.

Our hostel was the usual fair close to all the action and this is the location I chose to teach Emma a new trick, burglary. Looking at the gap between the door frame and door, I bet Emma I could break into our room without using the key. Slipping a credit card between the gap in the door frame, the door suddenly sprang open. This method of opening the door turned out to be, ironically, easier than using the proper key!

With only one full day in Guilin we decided to take a bus tour into the mountains to see the terraced rice fields. Now I have seen some driving in my life and I have also been driven extremely quickly in all sorts of vehicles, so because of this it takes a lot to scare me but this bus driver was not right in the head. He overtook at high speed on blind bends and if something came along he would pull in and push whoever was on the inside out of the way. I have never seen a 50 seater coach drive as fast or as dangerously as this. Emma took the most sensible solution to the fear…..closed her eyes and went to sleep.

First stop of the tour was high in the mountains to see a village where some women with very long hair live (and when I say long I mean down to their feet). We were also told about this village that there was not much of a gene pool as they all had the same family name, obviously the cause for all the women having the same long hair trait. We didn’t think we should ask what other genetic abnormalities they had!

Next they dropped us further into the mountains at the bottom of a hill ready for the climb to the best view of the rice terraces. On the way up the tour guide took us to a restaurant for lunch where they served a local delicacy which is various food cooked inside bamboo on a fire. We ordered chicken, rice and an aubergine dish that was not cooked in the bamboo. The chicken once opened looked like they had take a whole chicken (skin, bone, sinew) and using a lot of pushing made it fit within the hollow section of the bamboo. Thanks to this interesting local delicacy I had my first bought of botulism for this trip (ok a dodgy stomach). Emma had sensibly kept to the vegetarian option.

As is the norm for trips where there is a small number of outnumbered westerners we started chatting to this nice English couple, Kevin and Chloe and very quickly realised that we had a lot in common. Not only had they landed and started their trip in Tokyo a few days before us, but had pretty much followed the same route as us through Japan and China for the last 6 weeks. And they were also going onto Yangzhou which was our next stop too. Also, they were from Chippenham which is where Emma‘s Dad grew up. After more talking we discovered that we will be doing the same route going forward however theirs is over a much longer time scale - circa 3 years!

Next stop: Yangzhou and a bit of well needed R&R

Tracy beaker is gone, now with straight hair, one night only.

Xi'an

Hello all, Emma speaking here.  So far it is fair to say that my role in the blogs has been a very key editorial one, so Bill thought it was about time I put down on paper some of my thoughts and words about our trip. I hope you are all well and all is good back in Blighty. Anyway that's it from me.....back to Bill for more tales and jokes. Only kidding!

 

I have been assigned the Xi'an blog so what can I tell you about the place. Well, firstly what I want to talk about is bread!  I had the best round of toast this morning since leaving home. Now to you this may sound unimportant but as you will probably know from holidays abroad the bread is just not the same (the only exception being France who do great bread).  Bread abroad is just so sweet, however this morning the bread served in the hostel was just like mama used to make.....and proper butter!  Heaven.  It is amazing that only after 6 weeks little things like this can be such a highlight to ones day.

 

So back to the trip.  To anyone who has been to Xi'an, I think it is fair to say that you would not come to this place were it not the springboard to the Terracotta Army.  Its not that the place is horrible but it is really just another huge city with a handful of historical relics none of which surpass those to be found in Beijing.  We decided to get to the Terracotta Army via a trip organised by the hostel.  We could have made our own way there but both felt that the convenience of being taken there and shown round far outweighed the hastle of local bus and touts.

 

Our guide, a lovely Chinese lady called Jai Jai (who was not annoying like the Star Wars character) who spoke at the speed of light, seemed to take a instant shine to Bill or should I say "Biwl" and he became the partner of a great double act routine that provided much amusement to the rest of the bus.  So we could follow Jai Jai in the crowded halls she carried a material flower which she waved above her head.  At one point Biwl was asked to hold the flower whilst she got the tickets....hence the photo of Bill looking very uncomfortable with said flower.  By the way Helen...good comment...I couldn't tell which the pansy was either!

 

The Terracotta Army was first discovered in 1976 by a farmer who found one of the heads.  He was given 10 Yuan for this find (1 pound to you and me).  Since then they have gone on to find over 8,000 statues and we were told that just one of the paving stones alone (that the army just stands upon) are worth millions of Yuan.  The army figures themselves are priceless.  I bet that the poor farmer wished he had held out for a bit more, although he now has a permanent job at the site signing books and shaking the hands of tourists.  We both shook his hand and I have to say that it was rather lack lustre but I'll give the guy a break seeing as he has been doing it for over 30 years and he is now in his 80's!!!

 

At the site you visit 3 pits.  The first shows more of the site as it has been found.  Massive channels were built and paved on which the army were stood and then wooden roofs were put over before they were covered in with soil to keep them hidden.  The most interesting and saddening fact for me was that because the Emperor didn't want his enemies to find out about the Army he was building (which was to protect him in the afterlife) any worker who made the statues were killed to protect the secret.  Therefore they have also found mass graves buried along with his army.  Also, the faces of each soldier is actually modelled on the people who made them (each face is unique) a fitting epitaph considering they died for their art.  I found this quite poignant....like a very personal memorial to the dead.

 

The other thing that you cannot fail to be impressed by is the detail on them, right down to folds in the cloth of their clothes, studs on their shoes, rivets in their armour, braids in their hair.  They also were originally in colour but the paint just fades when brought into the light.  It is just completely amazing that again this is over 2000 years old.....not surprisingly the Emperor who ordered this to be built is the same one who built the Great Wall.  He clearly had a thing for doing things big!!!

 

The final part of our day was a trip to a Xi'an temple.  Now this wasn't anymore spectacular than the ones we have already seen but more interesting because Jai Jai was able to tell us about it.  One of the displays talks of Chinese prophecies based on the year you were born.  Everyone went through their years and were told various good news stories.  We get to mine and she checked with me twice that I was showing her the right year before telling me that I need to be really careful as 2010 is a very bad year for me!  Great....not only do I have limited good fortune but now I am going to be away from home for 8 months in a year that is bad news!!!!

 

We also learnt that as part of a Chinese religious ritual, the Chinese burn fake paper money to send up to dead relations for wealth in the afterlife.  Jai Jai said that they burn everything from paper money to paper houses and paper BMW's!!!  I have to say that I wondered whether you were actually supposed to burn the real McCoy to send it up properly and that all those Chinese ancestors were up there with loads of completely useless paper objects!!!

 

We are off to Guilin next in the south of china and managed to get a flight for 60 quid. Yes it is more expensive than the train but neither of us could face the 27 hours it would take.  So in case I don't get to speak to you for a while (Bill is rather good at this blogging malarkey)....keep safe, be happy and really enjoy your toast!

The Wall

Although the Great Wall was visited from Beijing and thus should have been included in that section, we both felt that this day was worth its own blog.

 

Ever since the release of the seminal album by Philip Bailey "Walking on the Chinese wall" I have also wondered what it would be like.  Today we got our chance (for those not old enough to know what I am talking about - google it).

Instead of picking the typical tourist tour we opted for the Secret Wall day trip organised by our hostel in Beijing which promised unrenovated sections and no other tourists.....it did not disappoint.  The bus trip to the wall was nearly 3 hours (should have been 2 but the damn traffic again!) and we passed the more tourist sections of the wall.  From the motorway you could see the thousands of people all climbing the very steep sections.  Our feeling was this was not how we wanted to see the wall.

We eventually arrived at our destination and were dropped in the middle of nowhere where a very old, very small woman wearing a suite and some deck shoes, who spoke no English, met us.  From the gestures of our driver she was to be was our guide for the afternoon.  After the long drive and with only 4 of us on the trip we all needed to use the facilities....except there were none.  The only building for miles around was a small hut which had no roof and no door.  So it soon became clear that this was going to be a back to nature job behind the hut.  We let the other lady go first to allow her some privacy, but our guide, then realising that everyone needed a toilet break, grabbed Emma's hand and proceeded to walk her round to the side of the hut being currently used as a female toilet. Once around the other side the guide stood and watched!

 

Realising this event may happen on our travels I had bought Emma a small present some months ago.  Its called a Sheewee, a device that allows women to pee like a man and keep some dignity.  Emma attempted to use said device but the guide was fascinated by this and kept moving round to get a better look at the bright pink contraption.  Suffice to say stage fright took hold and the deed had to wait until a later time.

The start of our guided walk took us up hill for around 45 minutes through light forest and blossoming tress.  After pretty much all city scenery since our trip began, it was so nice to be out in the countryside and to hear nothing except the sounds of nature (or not in the case of Emma).  As we climbed up we were soon to be presented with this incredible sight of the wall snaking across the hill tops way into the distance.  The first sight of the wall will go on the "most amazing things we have seen" list as number one (so far!).  What it must have taken to build this wall for thousands of miles in the mountains taller than Snowdon......quite astonishing.  On reaching the wall we walked for 4 to 5km along it taking hundreds of pictures, every new corner or new angle presenting ever more incredible views.  And not another person in sight!  This is one thing the Chinese had not over-hyped.  

 

The wall itself, although sold as the unrestored sections, in many parts were still almost as good as new although this would be fragmented by other sections that were fallen down or had fallen into a greater state of disrepair.  Nonetheless it was still incredible that it was over 2000 years old and still standing. 

 

Every so far along the wall were what looked like turrets.  Many of these were in ruins or looked like they were about to collapse, but the final one on our trip along the wall was much larger and looked nearly complete.  As we came nearer we could see a Chinese flag sticking out of the top and a man standing in the doorway wearing military clothes.  As we approached he waved and shouted hello in his best English and he called out to us as we climbed the stairs.  On reaching him we realised he was not military but still could not work out who he was until we entered the turret.....yes, you've guessed it....he had set up a souvenir shop selling junk to tourists!!  Considering we were the only people we saw for 3 hours you have to give him 10/10 for dedication.  I was so impressed with how entrepreneurial he had been I bought a bottle of orange pop from him (well over priced).  As we stood talking to him, we asked him how old the guide was.  We learned that HE was 69 - ow you should have seen the girls faces!  Emma was just glad that he only got a good look at her Shewee!

 

We estimated that we saw over 30km of the wall meandering off into the distant mountains.  We only spent 3 hours on the wall and could have spent days walking and exploring this incredible structure.  As you can imagine we have taken loads of pictures between us and when we get some half decent IT and un-restricted internet we will post the best.

 

Amazing sight and great day.  We always wanted to see it and it definitely did not disappoint. 

Beijing

Beijing the cultural, political, religious and centre of China's universe. At a population of 16 million also one of the biggest cities in China and on our trip the most north our journey will take us.

We pick up the story after a 16 hour train journey and not a lot of sleep.  Beijing would house the first hostel we have stayed in since Kyoto and our longest stay in one place so far.  Not only because there is lots to see but we needed to just be in one place for a while.  The hostel was conveniently next door to Tiananmem Square so as soon as we arrived we dumped our bags and went for a walk.

Tiananmen Square is world famous for both good and bad reasons and is one of the biggest squares in the world (I hope you have noticed a theme in the blogs by now....everything is bigger and better in China....according to the Chinese of course!).  So after 30 minutes of walking around looking at government buildings and watching the biggest TV screens I have ever seen, we both asked the same question, so where is Tiananmen Sq?  After a look in the book and more wandering we realised we had been in it for the past 30 minutes at which point I said very loudly "Is that it!" (probably dangerous bearing in mind we are in a communist country and there were lots of Chinese tourists around).

Next was the Forbidden City, the home to a number of Emperors and closed to anyone but them for 500 years.  That's why it's called the Forbidden City. The book suggested that you could spend days looking round the buildings and museums.  After 3 hours we had done it and again a little underwhelmed.  Don't get me wrong, it is very impressive and it's not that we are getting blahsay about this stuff, but some of these sites are very over-hyped and massive tourist traps designed to make money rather than reward the visitor.

The final must see tourist site we went to was the Summer Place, a little way out of town but was used as a summer retreat for the Emperor living in the Forbidden city. I have to say that these Emperors had a good thing going.  They could build what ever they liked, wherever they liked and used thousands of peasants to build them. The Summer Place has a very large lake which according to the book was dredged deeper by thousands of peasants.  What they tend not to tell you is that in building a lot of this stuff, many people died and became part of what they built.  We really loved the Summer Palace.  It was a beautiful sunny day, there was lots to see in amazing surroundings and just a nice place to sit and watch the world go by.

 

Being in a hostel has many advantages, one being that you are around people you could talk to. The last few places we have stayed we were the only Westerners for miles around so it was really nice to hear familiar language.  One night having dinner in the hostel we overheard a guy telling the story of his first few hours in China and Beijing....very loudly I might add.  He had been walking Tiananmen Square when a very attractive Chinese lady approached him and began to talk to him.  As they chatted she suggested they went somewhere for a cup of local Chinese tea.  Being just of the plane and open to friendly locals he agreed and followed the girl to the place of her choosing.  Once in the tea house and given the tea he came to pay the bill and was presented with a $200 bill.  Not knowing if this was normal he paid it and left.  Back at the hostel he told the receptionist about it at which point he was told he had just been scammed by quite possibly the oldest one in the book.  It was, in fact, in the book under the heading Scams!!  When he was telling this story he was getting more irate that someone could do such a thing and how he thought she was just being friendly.  Apparently he went back to the place and after much shouting and arguing with several very large Chinese gentlemen he got some of his money back (I know....I was surprised too). Cruelly myself and Emma sat in the corner listening to this trying not to laugh.  We'll leave it to you to guess where this chap was from ;) 

 

We really enjoyed our time in Beijing and even after 5 days we were sorry to leave and felt we could have spent more time there. It was far calmer than all the other cities we have visited in China so far. The guide book warned us it was far more communist.  We did not feel that in fact the only sign of that was the lack of western shops close to the political centre - no MacDonald's in sight and perhaps the size of their government/public buildings which were very grand and the architecture very Russian in style.  Overall, Beijing was a really nice place to wander around and explore with loads to see and do.  Definitely the best place we have been in China so far.

 

Next stop Xian and the Terracotta Army.

Muslim quarter Xian

Rice fields near Guilin

Guilin at night

And who said the meat wasn't fresh.

Nanjing to Beijing

So another one of the must do's before I die is a very long train journey.  At 16hrs and covering 1,800 kms I think this one is well and truly done.  The journey starts in Nanjing after a few days delay due to the bank holiday and the first available tickets.  We took these tickets only knowing the date and time of departure and not knowing if we had a sleeper seat or the dreaded hard seat or how long the journey was.  The language barrier at the train station made just getting the tickets tricky never mind trying to get the answers to these questions so we accepted that it would be what it would be! 

 

We got kicked out of our hotel at 12 noon and so had a few hours to kill.  We decided to do our favourite past time....people watching, a sport that never gets boring in China.  Eventually the time of departure arrived and the mad rush for the train starts. I find it helpful in China to be carrying a 20kg rucksack and go for it like a native as they tend to move out of the way when I am swinging my European bulk and rucksack in their direction.  This is the only time they do move out of the way I hasten to add.  Its every man for themselves here!

So we progressed with purpose to our carriage and upon arriving at said carriage my face dropped when I saw the scene.  Imagine a hot summers day, the Silverlink train back to MK from London on a Friday afternoon but in addition to this cram of people were chickens/cats/dogs and bags that make my rucksack look like a handbag (ok so I exaggerate about the livestock but you get the picture).  Bugger, this was not going to be fun....and for 16 hours.  Arggghhhhh!!!  Emma of course had read the ticket properly and kept walking to the correct carriage and the soft sleeper!  What a difference (I must remember to not show my reaction on my face.  Emma could not stop laughing at the completely shocked and devastated look).  Our actual seats were in a small cabin with 4 bunk beds with clean white linen and a little table with vase and flower.  Ah, that's better.  We stowed our kit and like dogs made our nest for the journey.

 

The Chinese scenery from the train was pretty much the same, a flat delta as far as the horizon with lots of rivers and wet areas punctuated by large towns.  Most of the towns we saw had in the centre very modern gleaming towers surrounded by large numbers of high rise flats which look like they should have been pulled down years ago.  Most have bars on the windows which made me wonder whether this was to keep people out or keep people in!  When I say large numbers we are talking 20 or 30+ all the same design and clustered very close together. Then in between this in any available spaces are the shanty houses, brick walled buildings with plastic sheet or corrugated iron for a roof.  Interestingly most with a satellite dish to pick up the TV....you have to get your priorities straight.  There are not as many shanty houses as in India but still enough to remind you of the gap between the rich and poor.

Many come from the countryside to try and find jobs and a better life.  The book says that nearly 10 million a year are deserting the rural areas for the cities making it the biggest migration of people in human history!  This migration and China's history goes some way to explain why the Chinese are the way they are, more on this when I am outside China!  Big brother and all that!!

 

We soon realised that the reason the train would take 16 hrs rather than the normal 9 hrs is that we had got the slow train that stops at most of the big towns/cities on the way.  It was quite an amazing sight to watch them cram ever more people and bags onto an already over filled train.  Luckily they don't allow people into the sleeper compartments unless they have a valid ticket, otherwise it would be carnage with people sitting wherever they like, ticket or no ticket.

 

After a little while I went for a wander in our new environment and after dark the sight that presented itself in the hard seat carriage (cheap seats) reminded me of a scene from the film Aliens. It's the bit when the trapped army guy lifts a ceiling tile to see a hoard of aliens on the
ceiling, walls and floor all coming towards him in a dimly lit corridor.  That's what I was reminded of when looking into the carriage.  The very same carriage I had thought our seats were in!!!

 

We shared our cabin with five other people, yes I know I said it was a 4-berth. One a lovely Chinese girl who spoke good English called Jojo. She was travelling from near to Hong Kong to Beijing to get a visa to travel to South Africa to get married (everyone say ahhh), really nice girl and one of the friendliest we had met so far.  When asked if she was going to miss China she said no!

 

The other two were guys who spoke no English and played cards most of the night.  At lights out time I was rather relived that one of the guys left to go back to wherever his seat was.  I don't think I would have enjoyed watching them spoon all night on what was a very narrow bed!  

 

Now I like to be able to say that the gentle movement of the train and the tiredness brought on from some busy days sightseeing resulted in one of the best night sleep I have ever had.  I can't!!!  We stop-started, shunted all night with the train vibrating at times like a washing machine, much of this probably due to being on the slower track.  Emma was on the top bunk and so every bump was exaggerated for her.  She said that it was like trying to sleep through a 9 hour earthquake.  So needless to say, when we arrived at Beijing at 7am we weren't feeling very refreshed!  All part of the experience....or so Emma keeps telling me! 

 

So when Emma asked me if I still fancy the 27 hr train ride from Xi'an to Guilin, my response was not a chance, we are flying!!!!!! 

 

Next time:  Beijing - population 15.6 million and the political and cultural capital of China.

Don't ask!

Terracotta Warriors - couple photo

By popular demand.

Xian Bell tower

On the move again.

The summer palace

Nanjing

Nanjing was supposed to be a quieter, more rural place a bit off the tourist route.  Population 5.9 million - not again!  Both Hangzhou and Nanjing are very touristy and not with western tourists. Its funny because before we came to China I had no idea how big the tourist industry was here, but from what we have seen it is massive, however its tailored to the local Chinese population which is unsurprising when you have a client base of 1.3 billion.  So why did we decide to visit Nanjing?  Well its the original capital of China, is a walled city unparalleled anywhere else and has lots of tombs and history, oh and its not on the normal western tourist route.  This would become both a plus and a minus.

 

Since the ferry to China we have started to get a lot of attention, well when I say we I mean Emma. It started with a nice Chinese gentleman with his son who wanted to have their photo taken with her on the boat. Shanghai it got a little worse with people stopping in their tracks and pointing.  In Hangzhou she was asked a couple of times to stand and have her photo taken with them, but Nanjing is where it got to a point where it was not funny anymore. The younger people don't seem to be too bad and ask if they want a photo taken with her, but for the most in Nanjing people would just stick a camera in front of our faces and take a photo. They are also very open with their reaction and point and shout to their friends about us.  At first this was funny, but after a while it gets very tiring and makes the hotel room at night a very welcome haven from the gorkers. What with glamorous Emma wafting through the streets and Bill with his baseball cap and dark glasses we must look like a right pair, someone famous and their security perhaps (the famous one being Emma of course).

 

Being Westerners and not understanding the language you have to expect a certain amount of people who don't like you or are annoyed that you don't speak their language, but in China and especially Nanjing this was extremely obvious. It has been obvious to us that the older generation do not like Westerners, and will not attempt to help you.  It even goes as far as to be deliberately rude to you. Its funny even though we don't speak the language you know when someone is not being helpful. The young are fine, friendly chatty and extremely helpful, the older generation especially the woman are bit**es. It got so bad that I had to go to the supermarket on my own after a number of incidents involving Emma, she was about ready to really lose her temper so I went on my own to buy the supplies. To give an example, we had put our stuff on the belt ready to have it scanned and this older woman pushed past Emma (elbows included) and put her stuff at the front of the belt, without saying a word or looking at her. Emma politely picked her stuff up and put in behind ours, this type of thing is not an isolated incident. Another one was this lady was sweeping the steps of the underground, stopped when the Chinese people in front walked past and then as Emma steeped down proceeded to sweep the dust onto Emma shoes and almost swept her off the stairs!!  We have no idea what it is about Emma they don't like and its certainly not us being rude to them.  Its obvious that some are not great fans of Westerners and for whatever reason really don't like Emma!!!

 

The other unique thing to China is the traffic rules, there are none. All the roads are split into three.  Car lanes, bike/scooter lanes and pedestrian pavements. They also have green lights to allow pedestrian traffic to cross the roads, however all the above rules are completely ignored. When crossing the roads the motor traffic ignores the lights so making the pedestrian signal useless.  Not only do they ignore but they do so at speed, so making a crossing very dangerous. At the same time you have to contend with scooters coming at you from every direction doing about 30 miles an hour. Even when walking along a very crowded pedestrian pavement the scooters are coming at you from every direction with your only notice being the horn. This for the first few days was very funny but in Nanjing it became extremely stressful, making a walk down the street a life or death decision. Traffic plus the pointing has made this part of our China trip a bit unpleasant.  I know the guide book said it would be challenging but not this challenging. We have met some really nice people, Chinese learning English who don't want to sell you stuff but the rest................

 

So enough of the rant and back to the sights of Nanjing.  It is the biggest remaining walled city in the world, the wall being 32km long, up to 12m high, made of over 2 billion bricks and each brick has the name of the maker craved/stamped on to it, their manager and the place it was made. This was so that if there was any quality control issues they knew where to go back to and some one to one time on what to do right next time (oh I bet!!!).  I'm sure it meant that people were taking great personal responsibility for the work they were doing making these bricks.  It seems like a great system that should be used more in the west :)  It was a very impressive sight and more so that the Chinese have not pulled in down and used it as building material (like the Egyptians did with the outer stones of the pyramids).

 

Also Nanjing has the only buried Ming emperor outside of Beijing.  This is contained in a massive park and includes a long avenue lined with huge stoned carved animals and soldiers leading up to the tomb and lots of Pagoda's. We spent a very pleasant afternoon looking at all the sights on our hottest day of the trip so far, circa 30 degrees. There was lots more to see in the surrounding area but we ran out of time. This bit of Nanjing was really nice and not very crowded and to be honest is what we needed as by this time we had had enough of people and needed some space.

 

Next Beijing population 16.9 million................

 

Actress: Emma Coates and personal security Codd

Forbidden city

No-I at the forbidden city

Forbidden city

Great wall of china

Great wall of china

Great wall of china

Hangzhou

Hangzhou is 2 hours south of Shanghai and according to the guide book had a lovely lake and stuff to see.  After the massive city and bedlam of Shanghai we wanted something quieter, so Hangzhou it was.  I then read in the book that the population is 4 million - Doh!!

We arrived to another huge (running out of adjectives to describe big) city with the centre indeed containing a large and very beautiful lake. We had planned to be here for 1 day before moving to the mountains (Haung Shan - a popular holiday destination) but after reading some more in the book and remembering it was bank holiday we decided to change our plans.  So we booked another night in the hotel and planned to get the 6 hour bus to Nanjing the next day.  With an extra day in hand we decided to do the lake again this time by boat. Cris crossing the lake was a fleet of boats taking you to all sights and shores and with an open ticket off we went.

We noticed when we bought the tickets that the boats stopped running at 4:30pm so after a full day of sight seeing we selected our final ride to take us back to the shore we had started from, but of course, it did not go back to the side we wanted as we stepped of the boat they shut up shop stranding us on the wrong side of the lake - darn it.

So our options were bus (all full with very long queues), taxi (every one we tried to flag was occupied) or tuktuk!  With book in hand and lots of pointing we finally found a driver who understood where wanted to go (our hotel was near the train station) and we jumped in.  Yes it cost us £10 (the taxi would have been £1.50) and the little motor was screaming like a good 'un with 2 Europeans on board but it saved us a 3 hour walk back. I think I only prayed once or twice and Emma did not open her eyes for the whole of the 20 minute journey, however I did think it a little uncharitable when she kissed the ground when we finally stopped. I am starting to feel a little like Charlie Boorman using different kinds of transport to get across Asia, just less annoying (it's not the same without Ewan in tow).

 

While queuing for the tickets for the bus we saw one of the most heart rendering sights I think I have ever seen on my travels.

 

A woman was begging for money.  Although this is not a uncommon sight in most countries, she was small (around 4ft) and I would guess around 60 years old.  On her back she was carrying a severely disabled boy/man around 20 years old. His body was very twisted and would have been bed ridden if not for

his mother carrying him.  I don't give money to beggars but thought this a special case, a truly saddening sight.  Since then we have seen a lot of beggars in China and many have been quite severely disabled in some way.  I can only assume from this that there is not a system here to help these people.

 

Hangzhou was nice but we again were glad to move on.  The traffic, the huge numbers of people, the size of these places can be quite draining.  Our next stop, Nanjing the original capital of China should be a bit quieter....yeah, right :)

 

Emma & Bill

Shanghai

Shanghai is massive - 16 million population and by the looks of them all they do is shop. Shanghai is split by the river.  One side being the new shiny, commercial district with the sky line you will all have all seen and it looks and feels like a city from the future.  And on the other is the older, more traditional side of the city where we were staying. Our hotel was right in the middle of the action on the Nanjing road.  This was both a blessing and a curse. The street was a pedestrian shopping district with good transport links to the rest of the city. This also meant millions of people passing through day and night.  It was also a favourite haunt for the street sellers and we were asked a thousand times as we walked down the street to get to the various locations we were heading to if we wanted to buy wheelies (wheels you attached to the bottom of your shoes to make them into roller skates).  Ironically we only ever saw one person wearing them (besides the sellers) and he was 9!!!!!  What the hell would we want wheelies for...I have enough trouble staying on my feet as it is (just to let you into that joke, I seem to have developed the tendency of tripping over flat floors which Emma finds hilarious and before you ask it is not because of the drink)!

 

Our first night in Shanghai we met up with an ex-Ford friend of Emma's who has worked in Shanghai for nearly 3 years and gave us a unique insight into China, Shanghai and the people. An important piece of information we learnt was that the coming weekend was an extended bank holiday in China due to the World Expo and so 1.3 billion people would be travelling. The original plan was going straight to Beijing from Shanghai but after looking in the book we decided to break the 2000km train journey up with some sights along the way.

 

Shanghai's famous sky line contains the third tallest occupied building in the world, the "bottle opener" as we liked to call it. Unlike most sky scrappers it has a unique feature of a bridge between two towers at a height of 480m with a glass floor!!  Very impressive sight (but not for those with vertigo) and it offered great views of the city. It also won our applause for having the best view from a toilet anywhere on the planet (probably).  The end cubical of the ladies loos met the end of the building and was just glass.  Emma said that you certainly wouldn't have needed a book as the view was just incredible to look at.  Words do not do this justice and I am pleased to say that Emma took a picture of said cubical which we will try to post on the site soon.

 

One of the strangest things we saw in Shanghai was the Bund tourist tunnel that runs under the river from one side to the other.  I had read other bloggs about this attraction/event (call it what you will), however nothing can describe the oddness of this ride.  Its an electric train, similar to a cable car carriage that runs in the tunnel, but rather than a boring old concrete tunnel they have lined the inside with the most incredible light show you can imagine.  Not sure of the theme as the soundtrack talks about fire, water and other such rubbish, but as is usual with Chinese boys, they have spent some money on it. They even have inflatable people in the middle of the tunnel flapping their arms around like something on a ghost ride in a theme park, very odd. Again words do not describe this and I have some arty photos of the 5 minute journey.

 

We did think about staying for the Expo which was about a "better city, better life" but with large number of visitors expected for the first month and tickets sold out we thought it better to get out quick.  We had also got to the point that we were struggling to find things to do beside shop.  Unfortunately for Emma this is not something on our list of things to do on this trip!

Next Hangzhou, and some peace and quiet.....or so we thought!!

Statue from Xiaoling Tomb

More from Xiaoling Tomb

Xiaoling tomb of the Ming dynasty, Nanjing

Sorry running behind with the blogs, in Nanjing heading Wednesday to
Beijing.

Planes, Trains and Ferries

We pick up the story in Osaka, another massive city around 500km south of Tokyo. As usual we arrive by train right into the centre of town but this time with a hotel in mind and one that's on the right line for the Ferry terminal. It feels funny today as this is the first time in two weeks we have to be somewhere at a specific time and so a city tour will have to be quick.

 

The best way to describe Osaka is shopping, neon, shopping and rain (well, it was the whole time we were there). At night with the rain hammering down it looks like the city in Bladerunner, and according to our guide book the film is based on this same city.

 

So up the next morning and as usual navigator Coates did a grand job of guiding us via the subway to the correct place to collect the transfer bus to our boat.

 

The ship is a cross between a passenger ferry and a cargo ship and unlike everything else in Japan was delayed by an hour while they completed the loading of the containers. We stood and watched this ballet of trucks and large containers and they were loading a container with one fork lift truck every 45 seconds (and the Japanese efficiency returns).

 

I know that we were supposed to be backpacking around Asia which in most people books means cheap but we decided early on to get ourselves a cabin due to the possibility of sea sickness.  This cabin was nearly double the price of the others and boy was it worth it. When we arrived on the ship we had a little look round and the other cabins on offer were very different. The cheapest being a large room with just mats, no beds, sleeping 15 people or rooms sleeping 4 with no privacy and everyone smoking in their beds - not pleasant. So in our eyes cheap at half the price as they say.  The room was luxury even compared to some of the hotel rooms we have have stayed in Japan.

 

The journey was split into 3 parts:

 

Part 1: Sailing through the Japanese islands.  Very different to the UK islands with far more green down to the waters edge, very tranquil with ever bigger bridges coming into view. I was told that one of these was the longest bridge in the world.  I have no idea which one as they all looked massive.

 

Part 2: Open sea, full day sailing through this region between China and Japan, a little choppy but OK. We used this day to full effect and rested, not realising just how much we had done in the past 2 weeks.

 

Part 3: Awoke this morning to see hundreds of ships all sailing in the same direction, towards China. Several hours passed and you could see the huge cranes of the container ports that line the Chinese coast, and ever increasing number of ships.  Once we entered the mouth of the river you could just begin to see the skyline of Shanghai. A further 3 hours and one of the most spectacular journeys into any city you could imagine. Imagine sailing up the Thames and docking right outside St Pauls cathedral - definitely the way to enter China.

 

 

Next step, the dreaded immigration process and all the possible issues with a Westerner entering a communist country.  A stamp and a smile and we were in - oh didn't expect that (at worst could have been a rubber glove job!)

 

So the big questions I know you are all dying to ask....did we get sea sick?  No, Mike S you would have been proud of us. Did I partake in the ship-borne Karaoke?  No I could not be bothered and the selection was all 80's music (I will leave the jokes to you).

 

Next Shanghai and China, this is going to be interesting.