I've been considerably resentful of myself for the format in which i start off this day by day blow of what I'm at. I had some faint hope that it would be somesort of personal diary for myself along the way that i would maintain it with consistent fervour......But let's face it, exciting stuff doesnt happen everyday and if I'm bored to my teeth after two weeks of writing it, i can't imagine how boring it is to read.Owing to that fact, i've decided to approach this in a much looser format, one which fits within the constraints of my will power...which many of you can vouch, is very little indeed. Let's continue.......
I have to say in hindsight, that Beijing is an exceptionally charming place...In most parts. Our hotel was in the Hutongs, which are the old alley ways that surround the Forbidden City, the epicentre of Beijing, China, The World, The Universe, Amen.The hutong dwellings appear unreasonably small but we figured they don't have any toilets as there are public toilets at the end of each block. These are kept meticulously clean but i can imagine making your morningly deposit and having a chat with your neighbour at the same time? But toilet issues don"t seem to be too much of a private matter here. Just to note, our hotel DOES have a toilet, with a door and walls even, thank you very much.We spend the first day between the Forbidden City and Tiananmen square. It's a sunday, scorching hot and packed. It looks exactly like you'd imagine from the movies and we're excited as hell at the prospect of walking around, getting lost and checking out all the werid and wonderful nooks and crannies it supposedly has. Unfortunately for us and our ill-timed visit to Beijing, all the palaces and buildings of any particular interest are closed for refurbishments in prepartion for the Olympics. Bummer. Still, it's a pretty amazing place, it would be best to see it early in the morning when its quiet and peaceful like i'd imagine it was before it was in time of yore!'Tiananmen Square is big and exceptionally ugly. Those Commie architects made a right ol hash of the place.The most interesting thing about the place is the Chairman Mao memorial Hall in which he's perfectly preserved body is lying in state. It's too late to go visit him today so we decide to come back another day for a very respecful gawk. The funniest thing about this place however is the amount of Chinese coming up and asking to get their picture taken with us,it was pretty weird to start with but when a queue started forming at one point, we started backing away at high speeds. They took a particular fanscination to our Lisa, probably as she is so beautiful :)
This was followed by five days of lots of pointing and giggling. We asked one guy with very good English what was the fascination and he very diplomatically said it was our height (giant) and our facial features (round eye). I think if you're Chinese and you come to Tiananmen Square, it's custumary to get your photo taken with a foreigner, sort of like coming to Dublin and doing a big cheesy thumbs-up with the Molly Malone.We did come back another morning to visit Chairman Mao. The story goes that when he died, he wanted to be cremated, but as a big giant screw you Mao, his successor had him perserved and puts him on show for the world to see in a very plain glass box, surrounded by full height, bullet proof glass walls. Ok, i don't know if the walls are bullet proof or not but what of some minor embelishment?! He is kept in a freezer and is brought up and down twice daily for the public to file past and pay their respects. Seemingly his left ear fell off once so they superglued it back on.....I can sincerely say i tried to approach this with an open mind.We have to check in our cameras before we enter through security and are whisked past him in two lines and immediately find ourselves right into the official Mao Souvenir shop. All i can say is that it was the bizarest sight, he had this bright orange light illuminating his face, he looked like a glow worm.I'm assuming the reason you don't get to dawdle is so too close an inspection isn't possible.....And do i think he's real? The three of us agree we've seen more realistic Jackie Chans in Hong Kong.
We spend the next few days in Beijing checking out the beautiful summer palace and hanging out in this deadly tiny roof top bar in the Hutongs close to our hotel. We watch a series of awful B-rate movies, shown nightly in the bar in our hotel, chilling out and having a laugh.Oh and we went to a Beijing Opera, which was spectacular if possibly a bit short. Possibly my favorite persuit yet came when we hiked the Great Wall. This is the section we walked
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jinshanling
Jinshanling is roughly about 3 hours from Beijing so we set of early with a tour from another hostel. We all had this vague assumption that we were taking a 3 hour stroll along the wall and would get the bus back later that day.....WRONG! This section of the wall has some of the steepest climbs and the first hour is sheer agony as it's mid day and the sun is beaming down. We slog on and hit some sections that are really perilous and dangerous. Our 'guide' has fecked off and leaves us to our own devices, which is alot of sweating and ass-crunching climbs. When we finally reach the rope bridge that signalled the end of our hike, we're pleased as punch with oursleves for having completed what we had. The scenery was amazing and i had to keep on pinching myself to remind myself that i was really on the Great Wall of China. Despite the heat I enjoyed everysecond of it. My Nike Air Force Ones, gifted to me by the lovely Lauren Kavo, stood up to the test and made mince meat of that wall! Yay!
As we're getting the overnight train to Shanghai, we decided to rent bikes on our last day and go check out the lakes near the hutongs.Nice and relaxing. At about five o clock we stop and get a coffee and the sky suddenly starts to darken. We decided to wait and hope the rain will pass in a few minutes. We wait and wait and bit by bit the tunder and lighting would become more frequent. Eventually when it does start raining it buckets down for nearly 40 minutes more with no sign of stopping. We realise we're going to miss our train to Shanghai if we don't go soon and set off cycling in rush hour traffic back to our hostel. We can't see a thing in front of us and the lighting is coming down around us. Aoife assured me the rubber on the wheels of my bike would prevent me from getting hit by lightening, a personal fear embedded in me my overzealous worrywart mother....I don't know how true that is but it was enough for me anyway. It was the craziest, scariest feeling ever but bleedin DEADLY! Thankfully we didn't have to go too far and were completely soaked to the bone. We made to wade our way through rivers of yucky brown hutong juice...yuck yuck yuck. The lovely people in our hostel gave us towels and dropped us to the train station (for a charge!) just in the nick of time.we get on our train and set off on our merry way to Shanghai! Yay!
Friday, June 27, 2008
Week 2- Xi'an, Terracotta Farrior, Shaanxi Province
Day 7
Another funny bus incident later , we leave Yangshou and arrive in Guilin. It's a pretty grim city and the only reason we're stopping here is to see the Longshen Rice Terraces which are about 2 hours north up in the mountains. Ourt hostel organises for a taxi bus up to Longshen. This is probably some of the nicest scenery i've ever seen.The mountains and forests we drive through get greener and lusher as we ascend. It would have been even more pleasant if our crazy driver wasn't weaving all over the road and playing this awful,awful Asian techno they seem to love here, on repeat, at full volume. He didn't speak any English so when there appeared to be a problem with the car battery we started to sweat a bit. Our favorite song from the CD was entitled Sex Crime...Lisa managed to find it on the web....with some other various dubious findings also.I don't think the driver understood the lyrics, at least i hope he didn't as he had some small kids with him in the car at one point. I know i mentioned this previously, but the driving system here intrigues and scares the living Christ out of me. They overtake three cars at a time, It feels like they are all playing chicken with each other but nobody seems to stress out about it. I was doing an awful lot of the fake breaking - hand on dashboard thing that my mam does when i drive. Anyway, the battery, nor us, didn't die before we got to Longshen. The rice terraces are pretty spectacular and we end up having dinner in some locals sitting room, that we thought was a restaurant. It was really good food though. Infact, so happy we were there, we didn't even mind when the couples one year old peed all over the floor. The hawking again is really intense though, our driver stops and dumps us into a group of local women for five minutes to sell us more tat. They seem to have a system of helping each other out in this department and it's really begging to tick us off. Back in Guilin, Aoife gets chased around a shopping centres by two sketchy ladies so we're really glad to leave the next day.
Day 8
Instead of getting the 26 hour train journey to Xi'an in the north, we unanimously decide to screw that idea and book flights instead. They only cost about 90e and we get an extra day in Xi'an. Our hostel here is lovely, it's got a bar and we get the opportunity to meet some other people travelling. China doesn't appear to have the same amount of back-packers as other countries in Asia and up until now we really haven't met any other people. We end up in this awful American-themed bar close by, they had an open-mike night when some local guys do covers of American Classics. I asked them for some Bruce Springsteen, who they've never heard off.........WHAT? Alot of people here don't know where Ireland is but not knowing who The Boss is..... well...that's just backward.
Day 9
We check out Xi'ans Muslim quater the following day. It's inside the old city walls and we spend hours here in the markets, buying loads of stuf we don't need but can't put down as its so cheap. The girls seem to have the haggling technique perfected and are coming up with all sorts of elaborate ways of getting more money off. I'm pretty rubbish at it to be honest, i just don't have the balls and feel intensly guilty about the whole thing.The people here are much more relaxed and friendlier than the south. The kids are disgustingly adorable and wave and say hello all the time. We go to a bird market in the back alleys of the city, it's bordering on the cruel side the amount of birds they have confined in one cage but interesting as hell. It's hard dragging ourselves away from this place and decide to come back later for food. In the meantime, we hire bikes and cycle the perimeter of the old citywalls, hight up on the parapets. It measures about 22km in total the whole way around and as it was really peaceful up there. I get a good look at the bamboo scaffolding they have on all their highrise building, it's unbelievable. It seems to be just knotted together with twine but i assume it's perfectly safe. Lisa has a deadly photo of some construction workers wearing bamboo hats with hi-vis peaked caps on top.That'll save you from some falling depris alright! I don't think they have the compo-culture we have in Ireland here....somehow.
Day 10
If anyone ever reading this decides to come to China, avoid getting yourself into any organised tours. They invariably are rubbish, over-priced and unnecesary. The public transport here is top notch and cheap and it's much pleasanter, we've found, not being part of groups and to do things at your own pace. Today was a good example of where we should have taken our own advice. We join a tour from our hostel to go and see the Terracotta Warriors that also includes a trip to the crazy emperors grave, who built the warrirors, to protect said tomb in the afterlife. I've been really excited about this as the whole thing sound completely barmy. Aside from being shovelled about by our guide like a first year school trip, it's raining and us girls are inappropriately dressed. We stop off at an ancient neolithic town remains first. I'm unconvinced about the validity of the whole place...to start with. There just a real sense of stuff not really being like it appears here. It's probably a throw back to the communist regime, but facts and details don't add up. Me and my big cynical head carry on in this manner for the rest of the day. The Terracotta Warriors are impressive, or at least the work they are doing is extremely impressive: they are piecing an estimated 6000 broken warriors back together, in what must be the world biggest jigsaw. Unfortunately, after 20 years they have only completed 1000 and the rest of the complex is a very elaborate excavation site. The complex was build in the 1970's and sort of remembles what went up around the Shrine in Knock....if anyone of familiar with that architecural beauty? I had this romantic impression that we would be able to walk amongst the warriors, in some sort of cave. You really actually view them from a balconey about 20metres away. BORING! They have self-appointed this the 8th Wonder of the World. Note the word self. To top the whole thing off, our trip to the tomb, does not infact turn out to be the tomb, but an impression of what, they believe, the yet unexcavated tomb might look like. What we behold is a Miniature golf-style model, in a Community Centre with blinking Christmas lights all over it. It's completely nuts! Some crazed lunatic obviously got a grant from the equally crazed government to commision this and pass it off as a valid historical commodity.We're breaking oursleves laughing but our guide is taking the whole affair very seriously. I want to get into the model and re-enact some scenes from Beetlejuice.
Day 11
We don't do mcuh today but chill out and book our train to Beijing, leaving later in the evening. We're really excited about leaving and moving on. Three days seems to be the most we can hack in anyone place. We get another overnight train with comfy beds and arrive to a bustling Beijing at about 7am.
Another funny bus incident later , we leave Yangshou and arrive in Guilin. It's a pretty grim city and the only reason we're stopping here is to see the Longshen Rice Terraces which are about 2 hours north up in the mountains. Ourt hostel organises for a taxi bus up to Longshen. This is probably some of the nicest scenery i've ever seen.The mountains and forests we drive through get greener and lusher as we ascend. It would have been even more pleasant if our crazy driver wasn't weaving all over the road and playing this awful,awful Asian techno they seem to love here, on repeat, at full volume. He didn't speak any English so when there appeared to be a problem with the car battery we started to sweat a bit. Our favorite song from the CD was entitled Sex Crime...Lisa managed to find it on the web....with some other various dubious findings also.I don't think the driver understood the lyrics, at least i hope he didn't as he had some small kids with him in the car at one point. I know i mentioned this previously, but the driving system here intrigues and scares the living Christ out of me. They overtake three cars at a time, It feels like they are all playing chicken with each other but nobody seems to stress out about it. I was doing an awful lot of the fake breaking - hand on dashboard thing that my mam does when i drive. Anyway, the battery, nor us, didn't die before we got to Longshen. The rice terraces are pretty spectacular and we end up having dinner in some locals sitting room, that we thought was a restaurant. It was really good food though. Infact, so happy we were there, we didn't even mind when the couples one year old peed all over the floor. The hawking again is really intense though, our driver stops and dumps us into a group of local women for five minutes to sell us more tat. They seem to have a system of helping each other out in this department and it's really begging to tick us off. Back in Guilin, Aoife gets chased around a shopping centres by two sketchy ladies so we're really glad to leave the next day.
Day 8
Instead of getting the 26 hour train journey to Xi'an in the north, we unanimously decide to screw that idea and book flights instead. They only cost about 90e and we get an extra day in Xi'an. Our hostel here is lovely, it's got a bar and we get the opportunity to meet some other people travelling. China doesn't appear to have the same amount of back-packers as other countries in Asia and up until now we really haven't met any other people. We end up in this awful American-themed bar close by, they had an open-mike night when some local guys do covers of American Classics. I asked them for some Bruce Springsteen, who they've never heard off.........WHAT? Alot of people here don't know where Ireland is but not knowing who The Boss is..... well...that's just backward.
Day 9
We check out Xi'ans Muslim quater the following day. It's inside the old city walls and we spend hours here in the markets, buying loads of stuf we don't need but can't put down as its so cheap. The girls seem to have the haggling technique perfected and are coming up with all sorts of elaborate ways of getting more money off. I'm pretty rubbish at it to be honest, i just don't have the balls and feel intensly guilty about the whole thing.The people here are much more relaxed and friendlier than the south. The kids are disgustingly adorable and wave and say hello all the time. We go to a bird market in the back alleys of the city, it's bordering on the cruel side the amount of birds they have confined in one cage but interesting as hell. It's hard dragging ourselves away from this place and decide to come back later for food. In the meantime, we hire bikes and cycle the perimeter of the old citywalls, hight up on the parapets. It measures about 22km in total the whole way around and as it was really peaceful up there. I get a good look at the bamboo scaffolding they have on all their highrise building, it's unbelievable. It seems to be just knotted together with twine but i assume it's perfectly safe. Lisa has a deadly photo of some construction workers wearing bamboo hats with hi-vis peaked caps on top.That'll save you from some falling depris alright! I don't think they have the compo-culture we have in Ireland here....somehow.
Day 10
If anyone ever reading this decides to come to China, avoid getting yourself into any organised tours. They invariably are rubbish, over-priced and unnecesary. The public transport here is top notch and cheap and it's much pleasanter, we've found, not being part of groups and to do things at your own pace. Today was a good example of where we should have taken our own advice. We join a tour from our hostel to go and see the Terracotta Warriors that also includes a trip to the crazy emperors grave, who built the warrirors, to protect said tomb in the afterlife. I've been really excited about this as the whole thing sound completely barmy. Aside from being shovelled about by our guide like a first year school trip, it's raining and us girls are inappropriately dressed. We stop off at an ancient neolithic town remains first. I'm unconvinced about the validity of the whole place...to start with. There just a real sense of stuff not really being like it appears here. It's probably a throw back to the communist regime, but facts and details don't add up. Me and my big cynical head carry on in this manner for the rest of the day. The Terracotta Warriors are impressive, or at least the work they are doing is extremely impressive: they are piecing an estimated 6000 broken warriors back together, in what must be the world biggest jigsaw. Unfortunately, after 20 years they have only completed 1000 and the rest of the complex is a very elaborate excavation site. The complex was build in the 1970's and sort of remembles what went up around the Shrine in Knock....if anyone of familiar with that architecural beauty? I had this romantic impression that we would be able to walk amongst the warriors, in some sort of cave. You really actually view them from a balconey about 20metres away. BORING! They have self-appointed this the 8th Wonder of the World. Note the word self. To top the whole thing off, our trip to the tomb, does not infact turn out to be the tomb, but an impression of what, they believe, the yet unexcavated tomb might look like. What we behold is a Miniature golf-style model, in a Community Centre with blinking Christmas lights all over it. It's completely nuts! Some crazed lunatic obviously got a grant from the equally crazed government to commision this and pass it off as a valid historical commodity.We're breaking oursleves laughing but our guide is taking the whole affair very seriously. I want to get into the model and re-enact some scenes from Beetlejuice.
Day 11
We don't do mcuh today but chill out and book our train to Beijing, leaving later in the evening. We're really excited about leaving and moving on. Three days seems to be the most we can hack in anyone place. We get another overnight train with comfy beds and arrive to a bustling Beijing at about 7am.
Week One - Hong Kong and Guanxi Province, Southern China
Day 1
So i arrived in Hong Kong on my super comfortable BA flight from London. As predicted, the new Terminal 5 problems in Heathrow insued yet again and my bag never arrived off my flight. I decided not to panic just yet as the nice people in the airport seemed to have it all under control and go find Lisa and Aoife in our Hostel. Hong Kong, at this time of the year is like walking around in a swimming pool, fully clothed. It's pretty gross and from the minute i stepped of the plane i resigned myself that i was going to rememble a very pale Tina Turner for the next few days. As our hostel room resembled a cell, we immediately left and got on a boat to check out the amazing Hong Kong skyline at night. There's an hourly light show on the hour and it's pretty spectacular. First day holiday cocktails by the pier then back to the cell for some kip. Bag arrived by taxi in one piece, panic over. Phew.
Day 2
As we are now spending most of our time trying to tame our hair in the humidity, we thought we might as well take it a step further and get a tram up to the highest point in Hong Kong. When we got there, we were in a cloud. Got some pretty cool photos of us inside the cloud, which i have to say i really enjoyed, i'd never been in one before. Couldn't really see much of Hong Kong though. We spent the rest of the day getting trams across the city. The skyscrapers dominate most of the waterfront with dingy, grotty alley ways of Old Hong Kong right in between. There's a stark difference between rich and poor. Consumerism is just shoved in your face in the most extravagant ways. There are massive shopping centres everywhere, with designer shops that i've only seen before in Frame magazine. I'm in my element. Everything is made really accessible, most likely as practically everyone i encountered spoke perfect English. Eating and drinking is quite expensive so we naturally did lots of that. Got a reflexology foot massage.....just cos. It was massive.
Day 3
We got a slow ferry across to Lantau, the biggest but least inhabited of the Hong Kong islands. Following a what we thought at the time was a fairly hairy bus trip (we've since then had, much, much worse in China) we got up to a Buddhist monastery in the hills. There they have the biggest free-standing Buddha in the world. Here he is......http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Buddha Following a tasty veggie meal we climbed the steps up to his feet. Zen, cloud, rain, thunder, lighting, zen gone. As it's now Friday we head on out. After a few ropey bars full of sleazy English men cheating on their wives, (and i have the authority to say this as we got a front row view of a really awkward interaction between an English Expat, his visiting wife and his local barmaid 'friend' )we stumble across a deadly place that's playing music we like! The girls end up going to a deadly underground electro club that was still going strong at 9 in the morning. You took an elevator down to the basement and the doors opened right into the club. Deadly.
Day 4
Leave Hong Kong in a drunken mess and get a train to Guangshuo to catch our sleeper train to Guilin in the Quangxi Province. Here was our first taste of real China. I had my only meltdown so far, here, trying to find the metro station in Guangsho. My bag, which will now be referred to as The Beast, turned out to be pretty heavy. As my dad had galantly carted it around dublin Airport and it got a taxi by itself to my hostel in Hong Kong, this was my first experience having to carry it 17.7kgs. Such an idiot. If i'd had any sense, i would have practiced carrying my bag in a sauna for about an hour and then eliminated the doubles of everything i do not need. Sleep like a baby on the train and wake up bright and early in Guilin.
Day 5
Get shovelled onto a bus to a small town called Yangshou where we're spending the next few days. It's probably a good time to mention the extreme hard-sell tactics the locals have towards stupid white westerners. It was non-stop from the moment we arrive. For instance when we get off our bus, we're brought to a cafe by a guy who claims to work for our hostel. We buy breakfast in his restuarant, allow him to sell us tours for the next two days then realise he's the most annoying person we've ever met in our lives. We're booked in for a trip down the river on a bamboo raft later that day so head along. After getting passed over between about 5 different people we finaly get to our boat in a town who's only income i reckon are those boat trips. The region is dominated by these really sharp limestone karst peaks, the scenery is extraordinary. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yangshuo I'll have my photos up as soon as i can find a computer with English settings. Everything here is stupidly cheap, which is making up for the massive amount of money we spent in Hong Kong. The food is great, the eat alot of brazed dog here. I'm not sure what the name of the dog is but they are yellow and sort of resemble a husky. I've taken a few photos of some puppies but, bear in mind, those happy little chappies are probably going to be on somebody's plate by now. We came across a guy with a basket of kittens and pups on the back of his bike.....he didn't strike me as an animal lover....or a travelling pet shop. Also popular to eat is fried turtle, eel, snake and Pupa. I haven't tried anything yet.....I'm holding out for a cocker spaniel.
Day 6
We ditch our annoying tour guide and hire some bikes by ourselves to explore the country side. We explore 9 km's in the wrong direction and end up in a really provincial town, completely lost. As you'd imagine, everyone cycles here, but a slow and steady pace. The rules of road appear to be there are no rules. They honk their horns instead of indicating. Infact, they honk their horns to say thanks, get out of the way and how's it going. It's hard to tell the difference. Our intention was to visit some local mud caves, looking completely lost we're approached by a sweet Chinese lady and her old dear of a mother......They seem to know what direction we should be going in so we follow them. They bring us to a small village about 3 km away by the edge of the river. The roads are getting narrower and we seem to have fallen off our map. The nice lady, it appears, is a shrewd entrepenuer!! And her mam is a total hag! Realising the only way out of the village for the stupid lost white people is on one of their excessively overpriced bamboo rafts, we decide we can do this by ourselves. We leave the hagglers and continue, thinking we can follow a bike trail along the river, getting directions of two old men on which way to go..... We meet a dead end in the middle of a paddy field and have to go back. And what do you know, the hag and her daughter are waiting for us along the way, casually eating fruit and having a good ol'sneer! It then transpires the whole town was in on the deal. Practically chased out of the town with the haggling,the wagons in us are having none of this so we cycle the whole 12km back in the direction we came. We then continued on to find the caves for the second episode of the day. We're tired by now, and getting increasingly wary of people trying to help us. Finally finding the caves, our guide is waiting patiently for us. We're under some impression we're going to see Aliwee caves or something. Here's what i'll be telling my mother what happened. 'Went to see some caves today, pretty amazing, lots of staligtites and staligmites in all sorts of formations' (there was some that looked like boobs, i took photos for all the boys) .......And here's what really happened. We went pot-holing, with no harnasses, in dresses and flip flops. We did have some rather fetching hard hats, With a girl taking pictures of our every move, no doubt to sell them to us after.After about 4 hours of cycling in the heat, we weren't prepared for this. We had to wade through water pools and squeeze in through tiny dangerous gaps.It took about and hour but i have to say i really enjoyed every second of it! But it was so dangerous. When we get back out and take a look at the photos, we realise the hilarity of the whole situation and practically wet ourselves laughing. We buy the whole cd of snaps! Such toursits! They have the whole deal sewn up here. After some showers, we head out for some food and some beers on our last night. What a great day.
So i arrived in Hong Kong on my super comfortable BA flight from London. As predicted, the new Terminal 5 problems in Heathrow insued yet again and my bag never arrived off my flight. I decided not to panic just yet as the nice people in the airport seemed to have it all under control and go find Lisa and Aoife in our Hostel. Hong Kong, at this time of the year is like walking around in a swimming pool, fully clothed. It's pretty gross and from the minute i stepped of the plane i resigned myself that i was going to rememble a very pale Tina Turner for the next few days. As our hostel room resembled a cell, we immediately left and got on a boat to check out the amazing Hong Kong skyline at night. There's an hourly light show on the hour and it's pretty spectacular. First day holiday cocktails by the pier then back to the cell for some kip. Bag arrived by taxi in one piece, panic over. Phew.
Day 2
As we are now spending most of our time trying to tame our hair in the humidity, we thought we might as well take it a step further and get a tram up to the highest point in Hong Kong. When we got there, we were in a cloud. Got some pretty cool photos of us inside the cloud, which i have to say i really enjoyed, i'd never been in one before. Couldn't really see much of Hong Kong though. We spent the rest of the day getting trams across the city. The skyscrapers dominate most of the waterfront with dingy, grotty alley ways of Old Hong Kong right in between. There's a stark difference between rich and poor. Consumerism is just shoved in your face in the most extravagant ways. There are massive shopping centres everywhere, with designer shops that i've only seen before in Frame magazine. I'm in my element. Everything is made really accessible, most likely as practically everyone i encountered spoke perfect English. Eating and drinking is quite expensive so we naturally did lots of that. Got a reflexology foot massage.....just cos. It was massive.
Day 3
We got a slow ferry across to Lantau, the biggest but least inhabited of the Hong Kong islands. Following a what we thought at the time was a fairly hairy bus trip (we've since then had, much, much worse in China) we got up to a Buddhist monastery in the hills. There they have the biggest free-standing Buddha in the world. Here he is......http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Buddha Following a tasty veggie meal we climbed the steps up to his feet. Zen, cloud, rain, thunder, lighting, zen gone. As it's now Friday we head on out. After a few ropey bars full of sleazy English men cheating on their wives, (and i have the authority to say this as we got a front row view of a really awkward interaction between an English Expat, his visiting wife and his local barmaid 'friend' )we stumble across a deadly place that's playing music we like! The girls end up going to a deadly underground electro club that was still going strong at 9 in the morning. You took an elevator down to the basement and the doors opened right into the club. Deadly.
Day 4
Leave Hong Kong in a drunken mess and get a train to Guangshuo to catch our sleeper train to Guilin in the Quangxi Province. Here was our first taste of real China. I had my only meltdown so far, here, trying to find the metro station in Guangsho. My bag, which will now be referred to as The Beast, turned out to be pretty heavy. As my dad had galantly carted it around dublin Airport and it got a taxi by itself to my hostel in Hong Kong, this was my first experience having to carry it 17.7kgs. Such an idiot. If i'd had any sense, i would have practiced carrying my bag in a sauna for about an hour and then eliminated the doubles of everything i do not need. Sleep like a baby on the train and wake up bright and early in Guilin.
Day 5
Get shovelled onto a bus to a small town called Yangshou where we're spending the next few days. It's probably a good time to mention the extreme hard-sell tactics the locals have towards stupid white westerners. It was non-stop from the moment we arrive. For instance when we get off our bus, we're brought to a cafe by a guy who claims to work for our hostel. We buy breakfast in his restuarant, allow him to sell us tours for the next two days then realise he's the most annoying person we've ever met in our lives. We're booked in for a trip down the river on a bamboo raft later that day so head along. After getting passed over between about 5 different people we finaly get to our boat in a town who's only income i reckon are those boat trips. The region is dominated by these really sharp limestone karst peaks, the scenery is extraordinary. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yangshuo I'll have my photos up as soon as i can find a computer with English settings. Everything here is stupidly cheap, which is making up for the massive amount of money we spent in Hong Kong. The food is great, the eat alot of brazed dog here. I'm not sure what the name of the dog is but they are yellow and sort of resemble a husky. I've taken a few photos of some puppies but, bear in mind, those happy little chappies are probably going to be on somebody's plate by now. We came across a guy with a basket of kittens and pups on the back of his bike.....he didn't strike me as an animal lover....or a travelling pet shop. Also popular to eat is fried turtle, eel, snake and Pupa. I haven't tried anything yet.....I'm holding out for a cocker spaniel.
Day 6
We ditch our annoying tour guide and hire some bikes by ourselves to explore the country side. We explore 9 km's in the wrong direction and end up in a really provincial town, completely lost. As you'd imagine, everyone cycles here, but a slow and steady pace. The rules of road appear to be there are no rules. They honk their horns instead of indicating. Infact, they honk their horns to say thanks, get out of the way and how's it going. It's hard to tell the difference. Our intention was to visit some local mud caves, looking completely lost we're approached by a sweet Chinese lady and her old dear of a mother......They seem to know what direction we should be going in so we follow them. They bring us to a small village about 3 km away by the edge of the river. The roads are getting narrower and we seem to have fallen off our map. The nice lady, it appears, is a shrewd entrepenuer!! And her mam is a total hag! Realising the only way out of the village for the stupid lost white people is on one of their excessively overpriced bamboo rafts, we decide we can do this by ourselves. We leave the hagglers and continue, thinking we can follow a bike trail along the river, getting directions of two old men on which way to go..... We meet a dead end in the middle of a paddy field and have to go back. And what do you know, the hag and her daughter are waiting for us along the way, casually eating fruit and having a good ol'sneer! It then transpires the whole town was in on the deal. Practically chased out of the town with the haggling,the wagons in us are having none of this so we cycle the whole 12km back in the direction we came. We then continued on to find the caves for the second episode of the day. We're tired by now, and getting increasingly wary of people trying to help us. Finally finding the caves, our guide is waiting patiently for us. We're under some impression we're going to see Aliwee caves or something. Here's what i'll be telling my mother what happened. 'Went to see some caves today, pretty amazing, lots of staligtites and staligmites in all sorts of formations' (there was some that looked like boobs, i took photos for all the boys) .......And here's what really happened. We went pot-holing, with no harnasses, in dresses and flip flops. We did have some rather fetching hard hats, With a girl taking pictures of our every move, no doubt to sell them to us after.After about 4 hours of cycling in the heat, we weren't prepared for this. We had to wade through water pools and squeeze in through tiny dangerous gaps.It took about and hour but i have to say i really enjoyed every second of it! But it was so dangerous. When we get back out and take a look at the photos, we realise the hilarity of the whole situation and practically wet ourselves laughing. We buy the whole cd of snaps! Such toursits! They have the whole deal sewn up here. After some showers, we head out for some food and some beers on our last night. What a great day.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)