Hong Kong

Hong Kong is one of the best places I’ve ever been to in my life. I just wanted to get that across nice and early.

Hong Kong was a British colony until 1997 when it was handed over to the Chinese, however it still governs itself in a few areas most notably in having its own currency and controlling its own immigration. This has lead to Chinese to coin the phrase “One country, two systems”. I left Guilin on an overnight train however had to stop at Shenzhen just outside the Hong Kong border to deal with customs and immigration. This took quite a while and resulted in a lot of queuing, where I noticed an unfortunate German girl had finally made it to the front of one before being turned away for not filling in the right form. Having finally passed through into Hong Kong I boarded another train to take me to near my hostel.

Although all considered Hong Kong the place actually consists of many different islands (of which one is called Hong Kong Island) and an area attached to mainland China. My hostel was in a district called Kowloon on the mainland directly across a short span of water from Hong Kong Island. While waiting 7 hours at Guilin Station I realized I hadn’t booked anywhere to stay in Hong Kong so had get on the phone with Mum who sorted me out somewhere. I easily found the hostel in a building called Chongqing Mansions which was a 16 floored building containing about a dozen hostels per floor but which in no way justified the use of “mansions” in its name. The first level was an amazing maze of shops and stalls all ran by Indians serving some great looking Indian food which I would definitely be trying at some point. Despite having booked into the Germany Hostel I was actually put up in the Paris Hostel as all the different accommodation options on the seventh floor seemed to be owned by the same people.  Amazingly I found I was sharing my dorm with the German girl who was initially turned away at immigration. This was by quite a way the worst hostel I had stayed in so far, given that the rooms were incredibly small and you had to sit on the toilet in order to have a shower. But the Indian guys who ran it, although fairly slow and unaware of my booking at first, where a good source of entertainment.  Shame it cost over twice as much as anywhere I had stayed before, but seeing as it was actually the cheapest accommodation in the entire of Hong Kong I was happy. The high price of a tiny shared room was a warning of the massive price hike after crossing the border from China.

Hong Kong Island skyline seen from the Kowloon side of the water

I had selected my train from Guilin to make sure I arrived in Hong Kong with enough time to find my hostel then locate a sports bar in which to watch the first race of the Formula One season. I had found one on the internet but it wasn’t nearby and meant I had to get the subway to Hong Kong Island which would take up time I didn’t have. Although I arrived 20 laps into the race it was very enjoyable as I could also watch the Hong Kong Sevens (a three day rugby tournament being played just a few miles away) on a second screen while I enjoyed a very western lunch. I returned to the hostel in the early evening to find a sports bar almost immediately next door.

Unlike all previous destinations I chose to abandon my trusty Lonely Planet guide and instead relied on information from the parents who are big Hong Kong fans, especially seeing as Dad used to live there as a wee lad. My first full day would be based around the cities sightseeing bus as it provided three routes around different areas and included lots of additional extras included in the ticket. To get to the bus I had to take the Star Ferry from Kowloon over to Hong Kong Island, which as well as being as great way to cross the water is also as much an attraction. Having bought my 24 hour ticket I boarded the Green Line tour which would take me out of the city and to the south side of the island. Here I got off at the last stop in a town called Stanley and visited the famous Stanley market where I bought a Chinese rugby shirt having been caught up in the excitement of watching the Sevens the previous day. Stanley was very nice to wander round as it still features some colonial architecture as well as more modern restaurants and bars.

The view across Stanley Bay

Following Stanley I boarded the tour bus again and, having passed through Dad’s old neighbourhood of Repulse Bay, got off in Aberdeen. I haven’t been to the one in Scotland but I’d be prepared to guess that this Aberdeen is a little nicer. Here I could use my first added extra from my bus ticket to take a tour of the town’s port on a traditional sampan boat, where I got the delight of American group who felt the need to photograph everything, including zoomed in shots of the water, and who moved around so much the driver was worried about the boat flipping over.

The sampan pulling up in Aberdeen Harbour

Late afternoon I ended my first tour and so immediately got on the Red Line tour which would take me round the high rise business and shopping districts of what could be considered central Hong Kong. The island is split by a mountainous peak (imaginatively called The Peak) and included in my ticket was a trip to top using the funicular railway, so I got off the bus at the relevant stop and joined the queue for the train. After almost an hour, half spent in the wrong queue, I took my seat on the train which takes an incredibly steep route up the Peak resulting in quite a few worried Chinese people. From the top the view was breathtaking and I really didn’t feel like going back down anytime soon, but if I didn’t I would miss out on seeing things before I left the following day. However, moments before boarding the train back down I decided Hong Kong was too good to rush through so would stay an extra day, and consequently stayed up the Peak for a couple more hours. This time included having dinner in another very western restaurant – Bubba Gump’s Shrimp – but I could sit at the bar directly overlooking the skyline which was great. Eventually I felt I should go back down and following another long queue, reached the city again. On the walk back to the Star Ferry pier I visited the Mid-Level escalators which are a series of combined moving walkways which would transport me to the pier about 10 meters above the ground. This made covering the distance very easy as you never have to pause to cross at level crossings. On arriving back at the hostel I was asleep pretty quickly as I was well and truly shattered after a thirteen hour day.

On day three I did the final tour included in my 24 hour sightseeing ticket which took me around Kowloon including passing by the Chongqing mansions. The pickup point for the tour by the Avenue of Stars which is the Hong Kong version of Los Angeles’ Hollywood Boulevard, as it contains tiles set in the floor with names and hand prints of famous Chinese actors. Needless to say I knew none of them except Let Li, Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee, but was very entertained by the lesser known actors whose names were followed up by the English names they had given themselves like: Ho Kwong Cheong, “Leonard”.

If I hadn’t have added an extra day to my time in Hong Kong I would have had to leave at this point, but instead I could enjoy a trip to Lantau Island. It was quick enough to get to the island via the subway but then you need to take the rather expensive cable car to reach the island’s main attraction, other than Hong Kong Disneyland, which is an enormous metal Buddha on top of the hill. The cable car was fun and offered excellent views of the island as well as some good conversation with some Americans who were just pleased to have something to distract them from the height. The Buddha itself is quite amazing in its height and I enjoyed visiting it a lot, but downsides included the 250+ steps and the fact that, despite what I believed, seeing it wasn’t included in my cable car ticket. It turns out the ticket I bought, which included something called “Walking with the Buddha” didn’t actually mean walking up to the Buddha but meant I could go and watch a very cheesy animated video about how the original Buddha came to be. Not worth the extra £5. In addition I could have gone to watch another one entitled something like “Monkey Business” about a group of animated monkeys who learn the benefits of sharing, but really didn’t feel like surrounding myself with excitable children and their bored parents would add much to my trip. Following this I headed back to the cable car and then to Kowloon for a few hours rest before exploring the local area at night.

The aptly named Big Buddha on Lantau Island

At 8pm every evening the skyline on Hong Kong Island performs a rather impressive laser and light show including all the buildings’ differently coloured lights and green lasers emanating from the tops of the tallest ones. Don’t get me wrong as I did enjoy it, but there was a part of me that thought the choreography was merely all the buildings showing off what lights they had rather than anything organised.

Following the “Symphony of Lights” I headed north to explore the various night markets on offer including Temple Street market and Ladies market which despite its name is not female specific. As I would be heading into Vietnam in the next few days and hopefully away from the grey skies of China I chose to buy some sunglasses following some expertly carried out negotiating. Partly because I wanted it, but also partly because of my previous negotiating success, I later bought a new shirt which I’ll probably regret as it is far from the kind of clothes you need in hot and humid south-east Asia. I returned to the hostel where I joined a group of Indians watching Sri Lanka beat New Zealand in the cricket world cup and bought some sort of chicken curry to take back to my room. I’m not sure the Chinese girl in the room appreciated the smell but I certainly enjoyed my dinner.

A typical Kowloon street at night

On my final day I found myself genuinely disappointed to be leaving Hong Kong which as far I could see was the perfect place. I use the term “place” as it is not only a city, but a beautiful set of islands with stunning colonial towns linked by great transport, offering brilliant attractions, filled by friendly people with the added bonus that lots of them speak English. I could so easily move to Hong Kong.

Before leaving the hostel the owner effectively forced me to review his hostel on the internet while he watched over me. I did enjoy my stay and would have left a good review by choice, but I feel I may have been slightly overgenerous given that he was reading every word as I typed, despite me asking him not to.

I took a different route out of Hong Kong as I had taken in, by choosing to take a 2 hour train to the city of Guangzhou, formally Canton, where I boarded a following train to the town on Nanning further south. I had booked a room for one night in Nanning but seeing as I had spent an extra night in Hong Kong than originally planned I just stayed there a few hours where I could shower and rest before my overnight train to Hanoi in Vietnam. Feeling considerably refreshed, and following an emotional farewell to my Lonely Planet guide to China, I headed back to the train station. The train to Hanoi had to stop twice so everyone on board could get off in the dead of night, with their luggage, to first exit China at their immigration point and then a few hours later to enter Vietnam at their immigration point.

So a month after landing in Beijing I have left China and can now look forward to two months in south-east Asia followed by two and half in Australia and New Zealand. But more importantly, in two hours and twenty-four hours I’ll have someone to enjoy it all with. Enter Linsey...

Yangshuo

Yangshuo had been the place I had been looking forward to the most as I thought it would be a tiny village full of locals going about their daily life surrounded by the amazing karst mountains. To a degree I was right, except the local’s daily lives it seems is in fact to please the many western tourists who flock there each year for the same reasons I did. So rather than small stalls selling near-by grown vegetables and homemade goods I actually found tourist gift shops and neon lit nightclubs. It sounds as if I was disappointed by Yangshuo, but actually I found that although it was very different to what I expected it was in fact one of my favourite places so far. I must have walked up and down West Street, basically the only street in the town, a dozen times just because the bustling atmosphere and clean and friendly setting were so enjoyable to stroll along. I stayed in Yangshuo for three days but did nothing but walk around and lounge around my accommodation, yet highly enjoyed myself.

West Street with an illuminated mountain in the background

Finding my pre-booked hostel was easy enough due to the size of the town and everything leading off West Street, and within a few minutes of leaving my tuk tuk from my Li River trip I arrived at Monkey Jane’s youth hostel. At just £1.87 per night I wasn’t expecting much but the four bedded dormitory was clean and had its own bathroom, and the building was one of the tallest in the town, so it’s rooftop bar had an excellent view. In the evening I went up to the fourth floor bar to use the internet but ended up finding myself in a four way international poker match with a German, and Aussie and the Chinese Monkey Jane herself. I haven’t played poker in years and even then I wasn’t very good, but somehow managed an English victory beating everyone following some outrageous bluffing much to the German’s annoyance. However, following this Monkey Jane’s all went a bit downhill. As the evening got later more and more unsavoury characters appeared in the bar and I was finding myself more and more out of place, culminating in the moment I realised Monkey Jane was not just the hostess but in fact your friendly neighbourhood drug dealer operating out of her own bar. After my first night I decided I’d spend my poker winnings on a night in a considerably less dodgy hotel and moved to the Holiday Inn just up the road (not the Holiday Inn chain from the UK I must point out). Here I spent one night in my own room for the first time, with a balcony and great view of the mountains which I could enjoy comfortably knowing a large part of the bill was being covered my Monkey Jane. The locals are fully aware it is the mountains surrounding the town that draw the tourists in so at night they illuminate the nearest ones with huge lights which was quite a spectacular sight just beyond my balcony.

The view from my hotel will struggle to be beaten

However, as I was moving by bag from one hostel to another disaster struck. The strap on my backpack, which I need to carry my stuff in for the next five months, ripped above my right shoulder and was just held together with thin fabric. It was clear it wouldn’t survive my next long journey so I needed to fix it. Remarkably, in a situation not dissimilar to finding a needle in a haystack, I found thread and a sewing kit in a town where no one speaks English and there are few shops which aren’t just selling tourist goods. Having never sewn anything in my life I emptied my bag and arranged everything I needed on the desk in my room comparable to a patient in an operating theatre and got to work. Complete success! After a good hour going back and forth with the needle, only stabbing myself once, I was satisfied it would last at least a few weeks provided I was gentle with it.

The rip almost clean through the strap

The following morning I headed back to the bus station where I was pleased to find a coach waiting to take me back to Guilin as opposed to the three wheeled bus I had arrived in. Two hours later I was dropped off at the Guilin train station where I had a mere 7 hours to wait for my train to Shenzhen, where I could cross the border to Hong Kong. I had used the internet connection at the Holiday Inn to download a film onto my laptop so killed some time in the station by watching it. If you would like some advice, if you ever choose to watch a film in a Chinese train station make sure of two things: firstly that you aren’t sitting with your back to a window where half a dozen locals can watch over your shoulder without you noticing, and secondly and most importantly don’t make the film your watching Jackass 3.

Guilin

On arrival in Guilin I immediately found two things: amazing scenery like I’d never seen before and con-artist taxi drivers. From the dozens of taxis I had the option of, I chose one which, as I later found out, decided to charge me three times the amount it would have cost me if he had the meter running. Having said this being charged about £3 as opposed to £1 isn’t going to bankrupt me.

I only planned one night in Guilin as the following day I would travel to the smaller and more spectacular surroundings of Yangshuo just 68km away. The Backpackers Hostel was fairly standard: 6 bedded dorm, internet, good location and friendly Chinese staff, but the best part was for just £2 I could hire a bike to take me round the town for the day. Even better was I found they actually had a very good bike with working brakes, a comfortable seat and even gears for me to use. It was just a shame the handlebars weren’t connected to rest of it. In the end I opted for a safer bike with no gears, hit-or-miss brakes and one and a half pedals.

Having left the hostel and ridden along the side of the river next to it, I came to Solitary Beauty Peak which is a 152 meter high and almost vertical hill. I’m sure there is a better description that a hill, so just take a look at the photo below.

Solitary Beauty Peak from 152m below the temple at the top

My guide book had told me I’d be paying a mere £1.50 which seemed good value until I found out that in fact the 260-step climb would cost me almost £8. I reluctantly paid and entered fully intent on seeing every aspect of the attraction to warrant the money I’d handed over. After a combination of wandering around various rooms of the palace in the surrounding gardens and running away from tourist groups, I began the ascent to find that the view from the top was amazing. So far I haven’t justified my claim early on in this blog that Guilin has scenery like I’d never seen before, but it was up the peak that I really saw it for the first time. The town is in the middle of karst formation mountains which are green peaks which raises out of the ground incredibly steeply and in close proximity to each other. The affect is quite incredible when paired with the mist that surrounds them.

Guilin and the karst mountains surrounding it viewed from the
top of Solitary Beauty Peak

Having left the peak I remounted my bike and headed north in the direction of the North Gate which is the only remaining part of the now crumpled city walls. Through a combination of not paying attention and naivety, I cycled a good couple if kilometres beyond the gates having never seen them continually telling myself that they must be coming up soon. Eventually I gave up and even on my return journey didn’t see them. However on the way back I did spot a very scenic palace and gardens down by the river which looked both amazing and tourist-free. Once again the guide book let me down by saying id be paying about 20% of what they actually wanted from me at the ticket office. This time I pulled out and cycled on.

My final sights to see were the Twin Pagodas in the centre of town, which quickly became my favourite pagodas. This is quite a statement as the only thing I haven’t seen more of, except Chinese gardens, are pagodas. To reach them I could either take the main car filled road or a very pleasant pedestrianised street running along the lake. It wasn’t until the end of the lakeside street that I realised bikes were banned and I could have been quite heavily fined. The twin pagodas stand in the middle of the lake I had illegally cycled round and are painted to represent the sun and the moon. I started to question how old the pagodas were when I found out to travel between them you have to take the underwater tunnel, but my suspicions were confirmed when I found the Sun pagoda contains a lift. The lift however did go some way to making it a stand-out pagoda as I had easily had enough of stairs by this point. The view of the town and Solitary Beauty Peak were great and it was just a shame I had to listen to another microphone-wearing tour guide while I enjoyed it. I am normally not surprised to hear them, however when you’re on the eighth floor of a pagoda and you can hear them from the ground floor of the next pagoda it can be different.

The Sun (left) and Moon (right) pagodas in the middle of the lake

I returned to the hostel to book by transportation to Yangshuo the following morning which could either be done by bus along the main road or my bamboo raft down the Li River. Easiest decision ever. The next day I was picked up in a rather swanky black saloon which would take me to a small fishing village to board the raft. I was accompanied by an elderly American couple and an English lad from Windsor who was also 3 weeks into a six month trip who had arrived in Beijing on the same day as me. I was sitting in the front and this, coupled with the fact I was last to be picked up, meant it was quite hard for me to get involved with the conversation. However the Americans had just asked the Englishman if he was excited about the royal wedding and I took this as an opportunity to get involved. Before continuing with this story I need to explain some of the background. A couple of days earlier I was reading on the BBC news website about the tragedies in Japan when I noticed, under the title “Most Read News Stories” a headline reading “Prince William and Kate Split” which I chose to read without noticing that the story was in fact from 2007. So when the topic of the royal wedding arose I took my chance by spinning round and confidently announced that it was off as they had broken up. At which point the Americans were quite stunned and almost heartbroken and continued to question me on it for quite a while. So my plan of getting involved with the conversation worked at least, shame it was based on a horrendous lie.

Our bamboo raft with our friendly captain

It turned out our bamboo raft had been updated from the original ones that used to motor up and down the Li River as it was now made from plastic imitation bamboo, but it still looked awesome and, for just £12, was easily my favourite mode of transport to a new town. The Li River is simply spectacular as its clear water weaves through incredible karst mountains for mile after mile. I also had to option of one of many cruises down the river to Yangshuo but as I saw the occasional huge and packed cruise ship pass our much lesser raft I was so pleased I didn’t choose one of them.

One of many photos I took riding down the Li River

Although the scenery was mind blowing the highlight was when our raft captain pulled up on the side of the river to show us his tiny village and take us inside his home. I get the feeling he doesn’t do this for every group he takes down the river but just ours as the American woman spoke Chinese and they got on quite well. His wife seemed very happy to see us and offered us various fruits and a glass of boiling water to drink as well as a tour of the house which didn’t take long given the size of it, but was quite humbling.

Our captain and his Mrs.

After this we continued down the river and passed more breathtaking scenic spots such as the mountains used as the image on the back of a 20 Yuan banknote. Five hours after setting off we reached the end of our two hour trip which culminated in a “bus” ride which seemed closer to a tuk tuk ride that James may have been more used to in India, which was highly entertaining. As we bounced along in our three-wheeled bus we all discussed our plans in Yangshuo and where we were all heading next, although this was of course when I wasn’t being pressed for more details about the royal split.

Shanghai

Arriving in Shanghai I was pleased to find a complex underground system for the first time since Beijing meaning reliance on taxis and buses wouldn’t be necessary. For the first time I had been too late to book my original hostel choice but had to settle for the Mingtown Etour Youth Hostel (owned by the same company who owned my Suzhou hostel). It was at least in an excellent location next to People’s Square tube station which appears to be the Waterloo of Shanghai, so getting there would be easy enough. This didn’t however stop three locals insisting they accompany me all the way to make sure I didn’t get lost. It’s possible their excitement at being able to help actually slowed me down but I quite enjoyed it. Having left the original three at the exit to People’s Square station, I was almost immediately presented with three new ones with equal excitement except this time, as there was nothing they could help me with, they just invited me to have tea and go to the theatre. Part of me wanted to go with Alex, Kate and Lisa (not their original Chinese names) but I didn’t really fancy lugging my 20kg bag to the theatre and so instead politely declined and pressed on to the hostel. So far a very friendly start to China’s biggest city.

That evening I wandered around the local area to marvel at how amazingly different in was to the quiet canal town I had been in just a few hours ago, where even overpasses are lit in garish neon. I found a restaurant to enjoy my first duck in China. I never worked out how to de-bone it with only chopsticks.

Shanghai is a massive city and with so many things to do I found it hard to plan a route the following day, so instead paid £3 for the open-top bus tour which would take me everywhere and allowed me to jump on and off at interesting places. Shanghai is split into Puxi and Puding, along the Huangpu River, with the later being the financial district with a very impressive skyline including the third tallest building in the world (the World Financial Centre). Puxi is the main district in the city and includes The Bund, an area of historical importance along the Huangpu River, which is where to tour bus headed first as you get to see the famous Pudong skyline. This, of course, is provided Shanghai hasn’t decided to engulf itself in seriously low cloud meaning just the other side of the river is hard enough to see. With a thoroughly disappointed busload, the tour moved on to Yu Gardens where I chose to get out for the first time. The gardens themselves were just more gardens and im starting to question why I keep paying to enter them, but surrounding them was an excellent bazaar with shops selling everything, only slightly lessened by the presence of three Starbucks’.

The bazaar outside Yu Gardens including one of many Starbucks'

Back on the tour bus I progresses to one of Shanghai’s few historical attractions – the first meeting place of the Chinese Communist Party who have been in power since 1949 and are the longest running political party in the world. Chinese museums are always hit or miss as you never know whether there will be any English descriptions but this time I was in luck, so I left the free museum and hour or so later pretty satisfied. Shame it took about an hour to relocate the bus stop afterwards.

For a city expanding at the rate the Shanghai is, they feel it necessary to have a permanent museum entitled the Urban Planning Exhibition which is simply there to show what will be happening to the city in the years to come. Other than a computer animated fly-through of the Shanghai of the future, the highlight was undeniably an amazingly huge scale model of the city. Covering almost the entire second floor, the model showed the full width of Shanghai in amazing detail including all the famous areas but also the expansive suburbs. Thinking about it now, the model was so big that other than the famous areas of the city they could have just made up the rest and I doubt even the locals would notice.

Shanghai scaled down in the Urban Planning Museum

That evening I returned to the hostel to find my Chinese roommate in a particularly giving mood. Those reading this may be aware I’m not a beer drinker and if anyone were to offer me one I would usually politely turn it down. It’s just when you’ve watched someone painful pry a bottle open using their teeth it’s very hard to do anything but except it and just get over it. The same had to go for the entire handful of peanuts he gave me after he’d gone and found me a bin for the shells.

I had been putting off going to the high rise area of the city that is Pudong for as long as possible, so maybe the Shanghai clouds could part and allow me to see the tops of some of the most impressive skyscrapers in Asia. The next day was unfortunately no different and I was seriously wondering when I’d next see the sky. Having done little during the day I spent the evening walking along the Bund taking every opportunity to photograph the skyline over the river when it seemed the clouds were relenting. Having initially walked way beyond it I finally found the ferry terminal to take me across the river, where I was easily entertained by the Pixar short films on offer for the 5 minute trip.



The Pudong skyline looking very impressive even in the clouds
(the Oriental Pearl tower is on the left and the World Finacial Centre is the one half in the clouds just to the right of the centre)

Out of the three considerably higher building which all offer observation decks I actually chose the shortest, the Oriental Pearl Tower, seeing as the other two were still in the clouds. To reach the top I had to pay £15 which was one of the highest ticket prices I’ve had to pay so far. This turned out to be a massive con.

Having squeezed myself into a lift with an entire Chinese tour group I reached the observation deck at about 290 meters for some pretty good views of the city especially of the illuminated Bund on the other side of the river. It turned out my ticket included entry to the deck at 350 meters where I could get away from the tour groups which were each lead by a microphone-using guide. A fairly small enclosed observation deck is no place for several of these tour groups, however it was the higher deck that was the first example of why my more expensive ticket was a con. If a building’s main attraction is its observation deck then don’t make the glass red! On my way down I was made to pass through an arcade where it turns out there’s an incredibly out of place rollercoaster. This too was included in my ticket, so in an effort to make the £15 worth while I gave it a go. Having waited almost 20 minutes, trapped under by metal safety bar, it finally started as the attendant decided that more people were unlikely to join me. Thirty seconds later it was clear nothing was going to justify the £15 and I left the building Shanghai is most famous for.

The Bund as seen from the top of the Oriental Pearl tower

My options for getting back to my side of the river were the cheap ferry I had already taken, the fairly boring subway or the bizarrely named “sightseeing tunnel”. I had read both very good and bad reviews of the tunnel but my intrigue got the better of me and, following the tower I had just left, I ended up wasting a further £5 on it. The tunnel included riding in a glass box along a track with light displays intended to represent different environments. In reality I found myself alone in my cube as a cheesy American pre-recorded voice shouted things like “Magma Volcano” and “Deep Space Vortex” at me while standard 12 volt light bulbs changed colours outside. If you want to experience the sightseeing tunnel but don’t fancy paying to come to Shanghai then a similar experienced can be achieved by standing in your bathroom and flicking the lights on and off very quickly.

I awoke the next day to find, after days of waiting, clear blue skies. I got to enjoy them all the way to the tube station around the corner from the hostel before I was underground and unable to see the sky again until I was at Shanghai train station on my way out the city. Of course from the station I had no chance of a final and, more importantly, clear view of the Pudong skyline. Oh well, Google Image search will have to do.

I was becoming quite the experienced overnight train rider now so found my carriage and top bunk easy enough, where I found I was sharing with an entire Chinese family off on holiday. One of my few purchases in Shanghai was a protective case for my iPod which I put to immediate yet accidental use when I dropped my mp3 player from the top bunk all the way to the floor. The case was a complete success and the iPod remained in full working order. Shame I had already dropped it in Chengdu resulting in a rather large crack. Next stop Guilin...

Suzhou

Having reached the end of my brief train journey from Nanjing I was pleased to find Suzhou was one of few stations so far to have managed to organise a taxi rank. So, after negotiating a town map off a hawker and avoiding the swarm of beggars, I easily found a taxi to take me to the Mingtown Youth Hostel. Normally if a taxi dropped me off a kilometre short of my destination I wouldn’t be overly happy, but it turns out my hostel is down a pedestrianised lane which is also one of the oldest and most pleasant in the town. So I didn’t mind the walk to the hostel as I could enjoy the canal running alongside me and the historic descriptions of each of the humpback bridges as I passed. Once again I had arrived fairly late in my new town so just spent the evening exploring the local small streets in what has been described as the “Venice of the East” due to its canal population.

Pingjiang Road and the canal which ran alongside the hostel

The following day I planned to hire a bike to take me around town but I needed to give the hostel a deposit larger than id paid for anything so far in China, so spent a good hour searching for a cash point which would actually give me money. It seems not all Chinese banks like me and I’m starting to build a knowledge of which ones it’s just not worth trying. While I was heading south from the hostel I thought id stop by at the Twin Pagodas but initially failed to find them. It seems a plan of going down any street that seems interesting will often pay off, as just like in Xian when I found the Great Mosque, a busy looking alleyway also led me straight to the Twin Pagodas in Suzhou. However they didn’t prove to be such as good find as the mosque. To start with the man in the ticket booth was asleep and then when I entered it looked like I had just walked into someone’s back garden that just happened to have two pagodas in it. I left feeling id not got value for my 50p and that I should have just let the man sleep.

In Xian I had hired a pretty basic bike to cycle round the city walls but this wasn’t an issue as I wouldn’t be coming up against traffic or many other people. However in Suzhou, complete with manic drivers, impatient scooters and no law it seems regarding which lane anyone used, my bike was simply tragic. The wheels were tiny, it genuinely had no brakes and lacked in the most important feature in China – a bell. Luxuries such as gears were well out of the question although I did manage to convince the hostel that a bike lock may be a good idea. Despite all these flaws, the bike turned out to be the most fun and convenient method of transport I’ve had in any country and definitely won’t be the last time I hire one.

Suzhou was used as a town for the rich in centuries past as a place to build houses outside the cities with luxurious gardens around the canals. Now equipped with my wheels I headed off to visit some of the gardens which made the town famous – The Couple’s Garden, Lion’s Grove Garden and the Humble Administrator’s Garden. In addition to these I thought I’d try a garden which wasn’t listed in Lonely Planet in the attempt to find one off the beaten track. I’ll probably stick to the guide book in future as East Park turned out to be a children’s park filled with climbing frames and kids parties, and me walking around just looked a bit weird. I tried to get out via a different exit but ended up getting told off by a guard for trying to sneak into the backdoor of Suzhou Zoo.

One of many pools in the Humble Administrator's Garden

The gardens on the whole were very nice and with the exception of the Humble Administrators Garden (one of the towns top attractions) they were fairly crowd free. The design of the gardens all used huge rocks brought down from the mountains which were meant to look like various things, in particular the rock formations in the Lion’s Grove Garden were, unsurprisingly, meant to look like lions, the protectors of Buddhism. I could have sat in front of those rocks for days and still not seen a lion in any them.

Three gardens were enough for me so instead I tried to liven the day up with a museum trip. It didn’t work. The admission to the Suzhou museum was free and it was next to my latest garden, but unfortunately the exhibits were slightly lost on me as the bulk of them were only explained in Chinese.

Im starting to think this blog may be coming over a bit negative, which is odd seeing as Suzhou was actually my favourite destination so far despite the fact that I haven’t really described anything that optimistically. It was more the pleasant surroundings, friendly people and my terrible-yet-amazing bike that made the town so enjoyable. The attractions were, compared to other cities, quite average. But if you fancy one last fairly standard attraction then read on.

Following the museum I cycled to the North Pagoda seeing as I felt I hadn’t hike up enough stairs that day, where I was please to find nine-stories of ridiculously high ones. Having reached the top though I did get an excellent view of Suzhou but unfortunately did get to see what happens to a town when it becomes the world’s leading manufacturer of laptops – smog. 

Suzhou featuring authentic Chinese smog

Before entering the pagoda I had been tempted by a lady selling some amazing looking vegetable pancakes. They were thin pancakes, which an unidentified battered object placed in the middle with various vegetables and an egg cracked on top, which was all wrapped up together. The other ingredient being a dangerous looking red spice she offered me. Following my failing with a similar situation in Chengdu I was very clear in saying id have a little bit, only to watch her lather it on in multiple layers. The final product looked bloody good but I only risked a small mouthful at first. I was pleased to find that despite the taste of searing flesh I could still make out the pancake, which turned out to be one of the nicest things I’ve eaten so far.

Having been too late to visit the “must see” Suzhou silk museum I returned to the hostel to find a local restaurant to eat in. Although I was sitting on my own I spent most the meal talking to a friendly Chinese man on the table next to me who was fascinated my travels. The only person more amazed than him was his 8 year old daughter who was doing her best to take subtle photos of me while I wasn’t looking. It would have been easier for her if the flash didn’t go off every time. In the end the dad just asked if the two of them could have a proper photo with me, which I enjoyed up until the point where the dad showed me the photo and said “look, you are very cute!” It was all going so well.

Having woken up slowly the next day, I got lucky in finding James was online in India so had a quick chat accompanied by a club sandwich (I know, not very local eating) before heading off to the train station. So far in China I have resisted whenever possible getting a taxi as they seem to resist me whenever possible as well. However, I was experiencing my first rain so just wanted to get to the station as fast as possible and eventually I flagged one down. It’s never a good thing when a taxi driver resorts to using a map to find the town’s main train station, but when his glasses brake in the process it’s quite hard remain entirely calm. However, this was actually a very entertaining journey as even though neither of us understood anything the other was saying, we still talked for the majority of the trip. He was very pleased when he spotted all my previous train tickets and even more so when he established I was English.

Trains to Shanghai, just an hour away, were very regular but it still didn’t stop any of them being rammed full of locals. Each carriage in China gets its own guard and I could enjoy the presence of a particularly loud and angry one. The highlight being when he kicked off at a woman at one end of the carriage resulting in every other member of the carriage standing up to watch. The show lasted a good 20 minutes and was easily worth the £1.50 ticket. Popcorn would have been nice though.

Nanjing

Having reached the end of my longest train journey so far I always knew I wasn’t going to fancy having to find the latest hostel, but given the instructions on its website I really didn’t fancy it. You have to question the extend of the staffs effort when the detailed instruction on the site say to make your way to Sanshan Jie underground station then “ask a local for directions”. I had spent the last two weeks trying to ask the locals for directions! Instead I consulted my Lonely Planet guide which go t me to the correct location but failed to mention the hostel was in fact a staircase at the back of the world’s smallest bookshop. I must have walked past it four or five times.

The hostel I had left in Chengdu was a bit worn down but made up for it with a cosy family feel where as the Sunflower International Hostel in Nanjing, despite the encouraging name, was just worn down. I didn’t mind as I was only staying one night and I did quite like their “please graffiti our walls” policy as well as the cat. It seems owning a pet is a crucial feature of any Chinese hostel.

When visiting any other country the level of pollution wouldn’t normally be the first thing I identified, but following the mess that was the Chengdu atmosphere, I was very pleased to see some sky in Nanjing and in fact a generally very clean city. 

As I am leading my description of my latest destination with a pollution update it may be obvious that there actually isn’t much in Nanjing. Having left the hostel I visited a park with an excruciating number of steps and then headed for a Buddhist temple. Ive often noticed people carrying their own supply of incense but this was the first time I had been given some sticks of my own. I had no idea what to do with them but the idea of adding any more incense to the air was not one I was going to entertain.

 

It had been a while since my last Drum Tower fix so I headed to the centre of the city to find one. This I managed but despite exploring the extent of the tower I failed to find a single drum that looked bigger than one you might find in an Argos catalogue. Im not sure they could have been used to warn the city of impending danger like those in previous cities.

Another of Nanjing’s popular sights is the man-made 447 meter Purple Mountain but a lack of bus maps and English speaking locals meant my quest to at least get anywhere near it failed miserably . Once again I found myself at the end of the line being shooed off the bus.

I returned to the hostel area to browse the local streets where Nanjing finally delivered. The streets offered traditional stalls where you could buy all the standard things such as t-shirts, souvenirs, bags etc but they also had some more obscure stalls like the animal and fish shops! The most memorable unfortunately being the few which sold rabbits, turtles and even cats and dogs in tiny cages. I’m pleased to report however that when one owner wasn’t looking I saw two rabbits escape out of a cage. Although I’m not sure life on the streets of Nanjing is necessarily better for a rabbit, I wasn’t going to point out the great escape to the owner.

One of Nanjing's canals lit up at night

Over my time in China I have heard and read a lot about Confucius, the innovative Chinese philosopher from about 2500 years ago, so I took the opportunity to visit the Confucian Temple that evening as it was still open and so close to the hostel. Im not sure how the widely respected thinker, famed for lines such as “Hold faithfulness and sincerity as first principles”, would react to the scene inside his temple found today. Following the annual Lantern festival a few weeks ago there are 3D wireframe and silk cartoons all over the temple resulting in children running and screaming everywhere, as well as a Bell and Drum tower which you can ring or beat for a price. Having said this, I had gone about a dozen temples in a row which all looked roughly the same, so I actually quite enjoyed it.

One of many temporary scenes set up in the Confucius Temple featuring the man himself

The following morning I was back at the station I had left under 24 hours ago to continue by journey onto Shanghai, however I intended to stop once more on the way. It would only take four hours to reach Shanghai but I have always planned to see the small town of Suzhou, so I took the relatively short 2 and a half hour train to my next, and by far smallest, destination. As the journey was so short I opted for the lowest class resulting in a lot of staring, a lot of locals trying to communicate and not a lot of space. But I did save a pound.

Chengdu

­Having arrived at the station in Chendgu, the most Westerly point I will reach in China, I found it easy to find a taxi which could get me relatively close to my next accommodation  Sim’s Cosy Garden Hostel which, although I’ve only stayed in three hostels, was my favourite by quite a way.

Seeing as I had arrived quite late in the day I decided just to have a wander round the local streets to try and find some food for the evening and not too far from the hostel I found a tiny kitchen which smelt amazing. From what I could gather you just had to point at the meat you wanted (chicken in my case) and she would knock up this incredible looking sauce and mix the meat into it with the only variation being how much of a certain spice she put into it. She showed me a heaped teaspoon of the unidentified spice which I agreed to at which point she, and the customer behind me, laughed. Not a good sign. On the way back to the hostel I picked up a corn on the cob and a pineapple stick. Out of the three items I had returned with it was no surprise the only successful one was the pineapple stick. The corn was unpleasant but the real failure was the chicken I was so looking forward to as it, bones and all, had been hacked up into pieces so not only was my first and only mouthful pure bone, but the unidentified spice also blew my head off! If I was the lady at the kitchen id have laughed too.

On my first full day in Chengdu I headed to Tianfu Square which is dominated by a huge statue of Chairman Mao. Although it’s an impressive square including the statue, many modern shops and a fountain display timed to music, there is no getting away from the fact that my first port of call was the Chengdu Science and Technology Museum on the north side of the square. Nerd. By this stage in the trip I had resigned myself to the fact that I wouldn’t get to see in any Chinese factories like I had hoped so instead had to settle for this. It was actually quite entertaining as the Chinese aren’t too fussed by safety and are quite happy to create meter long lightning bolts and give kids real knifes so they can test out the technology of stab proof vests.

China has 20 of the 30 most polluted cities in the world and, although I haven’t seen the list, I am sure Chengdu has to be high up there! The city’s inhabitants must not know what the sun looks like as there is a constant thick smog around the city to such an extreme that you can only ever see a few building down the street at a time. Ive noticed locals walking around the cities ive been to so far in medical face masks but never really seen the point until now.

Statue of Chairman Mao camouflaged by smog

After this I headed south towards the Tibetan Quarter, following the success of Xian’s Muslim Quarter, which delivered my favourite street in China so far – Jinli Street. It was another cramped and busy lane filled with stall and shops but, although it had only recently been built, was in the style of some of the centuries old temples I had seen. Still gutted at my own failings in Beijing to eat some kind of obscure creature I thought this may be the place to redeem myself, but some sort of meat on a stick was the best I could find. Surrounding Jinli Street were dozens of shops selling hundreds of big and small gold Buddhas, various monk robes and other Tibetan artefacts.

Jinli Street

In the evening I had booked myself onto a tour to see the Sichuan Opera. I realise at this point that it seems the only things ive paid for have been a science museum and the opera which sounds incredibly lame, but I can assure you that Chinese Opera is nothing like normal opera! It included fire breathing, magic, an amazing hand puppeteer and a guy making the weirdest noises I’ve ever heard anything make claiming he was his own instrument! It was an excellent evening which the whole tour group enjoyed. Shame I was the entire tour group.

The next day I was up early to see Chengdu’s biggest attraction – the Panda Research and Breeding Centre. Once again I made up the entire tour group on my own but this was fine as it meant I had the guide to myself. This turned out to be irrelevant seeing as the English speaking/panda expert guide turned out to be the barman from the hotel whose entire knowledge of the centre was “Pandas have wow wow then make baby”. Other than the guide, the centre was excellent and yes pandas are indeed cute, but the highlight for me was just watching the laziest animal I’ve ever witnessed! I actually saw one panda realise he was too far away from his food to reach it with his arm, so rather than get up and walk he reluctantly rolled on his back and over his face to the nearest bamboo.

A panda deciding that its easier to roll towards food than walk

Having returned to the city, in a bus far too big to transport one tourist, I visited the Wenshu temple which is the biggest active Buddhist temple in Chengdu. There’s no need for details as it was like every other temple so far – quiet and humbling yet hard to breathe because of their overwhelming need to burn incense.

The evening I spent in the hostel enjoying a hardly adventurous sweet and sour chicken with rice served to me by my panda guide. The hostel, among loads of other facilities, had a huge collection of fake DVDs they allowed their guest to browse so I freely borrowed a couple before realising my laptop doesn’t have a CD Drive. Sod it. Unfortunately this would not be my biggest issue of the night.

The hostel's amazing smoking area. The one guy I saw use it looked suitable embarrassed

Before continuing I would like to point out that being 22 I am in fact capable of talking to girls and have been in a relationship with one for almost four years, but upon returning to my room to find I was alone with a 17 year old Japanese one I immediately went back to being 12 years old at my first school disco! Even though I had chosen a mixed dorm and the possibility of having to share a room with a girl was always a possibility, some sort of panic ensued. She spoke no English, was just wearing pyjamas and was standing in front of my bed doing her hair, how was I meant to get to my bed without getting suspiciously close to her! Instead I just chose to investigate the curtains on the other side of the room until she moved. Ten minutes later I reached my bed. I must do better next time.

The following morning I was up early as I had to be at the train station at 9am to catch my next train. I had planned to head straight for Shanghai from Chengdu but couldn’t deal with the 32 hour train journey so instead opted to break it up by stopping in Nanjing for a night which was a much more bearable 25 hours. Due to the length of the journey I chose to downgrade from my usual “soft sleeper” class to “hard sleeper” which turns out to be perfectly fine and saved me half the price. The only downside was I had to share my compartment with more people who all fancied a good stare at a Westerner.