I think i will just come out with it right from the very beginning i really have not enjoyed china due to so many reasons its hard to list. I am all for new and different cultures but china really is something you have to witness to believe. Everybody knows china has 1.4 billion people but that is just a number until you are on the ground you dont realise what that feels like especially when they just see you with dollar signs in there eyes. Everything in china involves standing in a queue or waiting around for days because all of the bus and train tickets for some journeys are sold out for two weeks. In xian it took two hours to go 20km due to the traffic. This for a few days is ok but after three weeks i have been struggling, i very nearly couldnt face going to the great wall or the forbidden city. These are cool places but if there were less people it would be infinitely better. Another thing with china is the various customs such as hawking up massive gobs of spit constantly in the street, on the metro just everywhere as well as letting babies relieve themselves at will. On the metro i have seen a woman just stand up and hold the baby in the aisle and let it go. For chinese who are used to this i guess they dont mind but when it is 40 degrees 90% humidity as well its enough to drive you insane.
Anyway enough of the bad things i did spend five days cycling along a really scenic river in yangshou, going swimming, eating great food and drinking on the rooftop terrace. After nearly 5 months of constant sightseeing i was really happy just to do nothing. The train to shanghai was sold out so i had to stay an extra day but after a 24 hour train i eventually arrived and went straight to the expo. I had heard various reviews of the expo but decided to check it out for myself. Ill sum it up two hours to get in, and between 1-3 hour queue for any good pavillions. So instead i took a tour of the turkmenistan pavillion amongst a few other less well known. The highlight had to be North Koreas proudly proclaiming "a paradise for people" it made me laugh a bit anyway. There is really nothing in shanghai apart from a battle against 22 million people so i left for beijing. I stayed longer than expected in yangshou as well as hong kong so i only had two weeks before i had to be in chengdu.
Beijing is really one of the oddest cities i have ever seen. I was walking down a street lined with really expensive shops but due to the smog and the tramps going through bins as well as the decrepit bicycle carts it just doesnt gell, its two alien worlds being forced together. I took one day trip out to the great wall at Mutian yu which was spectacular although it looks like it was rebuilt very recently. The other sights in beijing like the forbidden city really are overhyped and i hate to say it you have seen one you have seen them all. The real highlight for me was the summer palace, the day i went the smog was not so bad and from the pagoda there was a really spectacular view of beijing. I also managed to see Mr Mao to get the hatrick of dead communist leaders.
I only had five days left to see Xi'an and chengdu so i took the first available train. 12 hours standing. It is the worst thing i have ever done. The first hour i could speak to this guy who spoke english then that was it 11 hours crammed into the area where you can stand as moving was impossible. It was so hot, it smelled people still continued to spit and get food and cigarettes everywhere. By the end i was nearly insane as at the same point i hadnt eaten anything for over a day being unable to keep anything down due to my first bout of food poisining. Fortunately i arrived in Xi'an checked in and fell asleep for the rest of the day. I had organised to see the terracotta warriors the next day and i joined a tour from the hostel. The warriors are really not what you think, very few have actually been excavated most of it is just mounds of earth. Its ok but again the stress getting there, the fact the tour guide was trying to rip us off, that the food in the restaurant was revolting and the painfully slow traffic just ruined it.
Anyway im now in chengdu the city that had the really bad earthquake a few years ago. This place is alot more laid back and today i went to the panda breeding reserve. It was a special place as they were really close, although they are only very slightly more active than sloths. I have so many photos but the internet here is so slow as everything is filtered by the government. I am only able to write this using a proxy website.
And tomorrow i go to Tibet. Solo travel is not alowed so with the help of many people i have arranged a tour for the next eight days. I have no idea what it will be like, maybe you dont see the real tibet i just dont know. But taking the highest railway in the world complete with oxygen masks is really cool. For the first time in a while im really too excited!!!!
Sunday 22 August 2010
Tuesday 3 August 2010
From Japan to China
What can you say about hong kong its nothing short of incredible. I had originally planned to be here for four days just long enough to get a Chinese visa. It is already day six in hong kong today and unfortunately i will have to leave tomorrow otherwise i would have been tempted to stay for a few weeks. Admittedly being here for longer than planned is partly due to the fact that UK visas are double the cost and take double the time of everyone elses and hopefully i should have it today.
The last three days in japan were completely mental trying to fit everything i had left to do. From Hiroshima i headed back to kyoto to use as a base in order to visit Himeji castle as well as Nara. The castle unfortunately was under restoration and so only the gardens were accessible but they were the best i saw in japan so no loss there. The next day i day tripped nara which was the ancient capital of japan and has all the temples, pagodas etc set around a big park. Nara is famed for its tame deer which wander the busy streets in big herds and add to the calm and relaxing atmosphere. I also planned to go the baseball at some point in japan and that night Hanshin tigers were playing in osaka which is an hour away from Nara. I arrived about 2 hours before the game and found much to my disapointment it was cancelled due to the weather which had been raining on and off all day. Gutted i remembered there was a game in Kobe another city close to osaka. This story shows how amazing japans transport actually is as from the Hanshin stadium i caught the train back to osaka, ran and jumped onto a train to kobe before navigating accross the city on the subway and making it to kobe just as the game started. Relieved and happy at the situation i took my seat and settled in to enjoy the game and the crazy japanese fans. The team here the Orix buffaloes are pretty rubbish and so there werent that many people there although the chants of 'home run home run in the bag' were loud and pretty comical in there accent. Unfortunately one inning later the heavens opened and this game was also called off so slightly dispondent i went back to Kyoto. The one day in two weeks where it rained was the one where i needed it desperately not too. Theres not much you can do when you have a limited schedule so that remained the only thing i didnt manage to get done in japan.
That left me with a day in osaka which everybody had said wasnt great although their aquarium is amazing. It has to be one of the best in the world and it had a huge seven story central tank with whale sharks as well as a tiger shark. It was well worth a trip to osaka just on its own. The final night i tried out a capsule hotel which is a really interesting experience. If your my height its fine but people who are over six foot must struggle. The capsule hotel is only really for business men who missed the last train but mine had a gym, tvs and was really comfortable. Thats another month gone already nearly half way :-(
As i said before hong kong is great its more like i would call proper asia but has all the trappings of home as well. For me japan was too sterile a country and suprisingly i found it not particularly interesting or exciting but as soon as i was in hong kong its more like proper travelling again. I had a couple of days exploring the various areas of the city as well as lantau island the home of a spectacular cable car ride as well as the worlds largest seated budha. Hong kong has everthing you could possibly want from beaches and mountains to the best skyline both in the day and night i have ever seen. Hong Kong has the world record for the longest running light show but honestly it is appaling and the city without the show is much better and the view from the star ferry going between the island and kowloon will stick with me for ever. It really must have been the jewel in our empire. After a couple of days i met up with Ben a friend i met in Russia and we had a couple of days just chilling before joining a pub crawl with some others from our hostel on our last night. For what it is Hong Kong is really expensive maybe like 10x china where i am now. Drinking was around 6-7 quid a beer but somewhow for a tenner we got free drinks and entry galore. My night was cut short as i have another cold due mainly to the chinese obsession with near freezing air con in any indoor area. A week of going from 40 degrees to 20 then back into 40 really messes you about.
Another long one but i have had so little access to computers recently. Im now off to take a dip in the river in yanshou in southern china (the scenery from the HSBC cormorant fishing advert) which is stunning and also a legendary backpacker retreat.
The last three days in japan were completely mental trying to fit everything i had left to do. From Hiroshima i headed back to kyoto to use as a base in order to visit Himeji castle as well as Nara. The castle unfortunately was under restoration and so only the gardens were accessible but they were the best i saw in japan so no loss there. The next day i day tripped nara which was the ancient capital of japan and has all the temples, pagodas etc set around a big park. Nara is famed for its tame deer which wander the busy streets in big herds and add to the calm and relaxing atmosphere. I also planned to go the baseball at some point in japan and that night Hanshin tigers were playing in osaka which is an hour away from Nara. I arrived about 2 hours before the game and found much to my disapointment it was cancelled due to the weather which had been raining on and off all day. Gutted i remembered there was a game in Kobe another city close to osaka. This story shows how amazing japans transport actually is as from the Hanshin stadium i caught the train back to osaka, ran and jumped onto a train to kobe before navigating accross the city on the subway and making it to kobe just as the game started. Relieved and happy at the situation i took my seat and settled in to enjoy the game and the crazy japanese fans. The team here the Orix buffaloes are pretty rubbish and so there werent that many people there although the chants of 'home run home run in the bag' were loud and pretty comical in there accent. Unfortunately one inning later the heavens opened and this game was also called off so slightly dispondent i went back to Kyoto. The one day in two weeks where it rained was the one where i needed it desperately not too. Theres not much you can do when you have a limited schedule so that remained the only thing i didnt manage to get done in japan.
That left me with a day in osaka which everybody had said wasnt great although their aquarium is amazing. It has to be one of the best in the world and it had a huge seven story central tank with whale sharks as well as a tiger shark. It was well worth a trip to osaka just on its own. The final night i tried out a capsule hotel which is a really interesting experience. If your my height its fine but people who are over six foot must struggle. The capsule hotel is only really for business men who missed the last train but mine had a gym, tvs and was really comfortable. Thats another month gone already nearly half way :-(
As i said before hong kong is great its more like i would call proper asia but has all the trappings of home as well. For me japan was too sterile a country and suprisingly i found it not particularly interesting or exciting but as soon as i was in hong kong its more like proper travelling again. I had a couple of days exploring the various areas of the city as well as lantau island the home of a spectacular cable car ride as well as the worlds largest seated budha. Hong kong has everthing you could possibly want from beaches and mountains to the best skyline both in the day and night i have ever seen. Hong Kong has the world record for the longest running light show but honestly it is appaling and the city without the show is much better and the view from the star ferry going between the island and kowloon will stick with me for ever. It really must have been the jewel in our empire. After a couple of days i met up with Ben a friend i met in Russia and we had a couple of days just chilling before joining a pub crawl with some others from our hostel on our last night. For what it is Hong Kong is really expensive maybe like 10x china where i am now. Drinking was around 6-7 quid a beer but somewhow for a tenner we got free drinks and entry galore. My night was cut short as i have another cold due mainly to the chinese obsession with near freezing air con in any indoor area. A week of going from 40 degrees to 20 then back into 40 really messes you about.
Another long one but i have had so little access to computers recently. Im now off to take a dip in the river in yanshou in southern china (the scenery from the HSBC cormorant fishing advert) which is stunning and also a legendary backpacker retreat.
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