Nov 22, 2010
Nov 19, 2010
About Yangshuo - Day 30-35
Wrote this in Kunming, day 38, but didn't publish it before now. Some of the things I write feel a bit untrue now, since Lijiang was quite a similar 'tourist town', where we hung out a lot with other foreigners. But before Yangshuo it was mostly us and the Chinese, (a lot of them) so Yangshuo was a bit of a turning point in our journey.
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I have an hour at the hostel before we have to start looking for the bus that'll take us to Lijiang. Sleeper bus this time, instead of train.
But thought I'll write some more about Yangshuo, since it contained several highlights of our journey so far.
When we first arrived at Yangshuo (had actually planned to stay in Xinping, but as more often than not on this trip, things didn't go exactly as planned) we where overwhelmed by the hoards of foreign tourists. Before Yangshuo we were used to seeing maybe 1-10 non-asian people a day (sounds like a lot perhaps, but is not. There are a lot of people in China, 1-10 is not even 1 percent of the people we meet everyday.) and know they where everywhere.
This also means most restaurants had English menus and Western foods. Even the Chinese food tasted rather Western in our opinion - less spicy.
All this bothered us when we first arrived, but you got used to it.
For the first time since arriving to China, you actually met people several times. This has happened no where else, since the cities are so big and everybody just 'disappears in the masses'. In Yangshuo we even met our French roomie from Guilin again! At the end of our stay we knew most people we met on the street, and it sort of felt like being back home in little Kauniainen. After all the cities with millions and millions of inhabitants, the 'smallness' of it all was wonderful, and being in Yangshuo felt like being on vacation from travelling.
On our 'vacation' we forgot all about trains and subways, only biking, walking and taking the bamboo rafts from one place to another.
Getting stuck in Yangshuo is so easy you don't even realize it happening. If you wanna live cheap ( - for free) you can work as an English speaking volunteer, which also gives you a unique chance to poke around in the minds of the Chinese.
We didn't do this since we liked our free time too much, and didn't want to give up our bike tours in the countryside. The English corner we got to take part of was truly amazing though. If some young students walk up to you and invite you to their school - go! Never did we think we'd spend several hours taking photo's, talking and dancing 'letkajenkka' with 200 energetic girls the first night we arrive in Yangshuo.
If you, however, are thinking about skipping Yangshuo because of the tourists and the tourist-ness of it all, don't. The countryside is worth it all, and you can easily escape all the humdrum by living outside Yangshuo, in the Giggling tree for example. This is what I wish we would have done, since then you could have enjoyed the amazing landscape all the time. But living on a farm isn't all too handy when you're a vegan.
When living in Monkey Jane's, on West Street, in the middle of it all, we decided to take advantage of that instead and tried out pretty much every bar on the entire street. Turns out all Westerners like keeping together and hang out in Bar98, not on West Street, so most of the time we where the only girls, the only foreigners and definitely the youngest. But we had fun, al though the partying wasn't too crazy, and bars close early. Don't expect to get a lot of peace and quiet if you live close to West Street though.
So, if in China I definitely recommend Yangshuo (even if just because it's the only place in Chine we've had good weather so far...). Rent a bike and just choose a path and go. Be prepared to bike through people's yards, tiny paths through fields and get lost. Constantly. There are no good maps.
Hiking was less fun, since the routs are a bit tourist-y. Didn't meet that many other hikers, but lots and lots of sales people.
But as Ruut and Sophia wrote, at least you have someone there to help you when you get lost. Again.
//H
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I have an hour at the hostel before we have to start looking for the bus that'll take us to Lijiang. Sleeper bus this time, instead of train.
But thought I'll write some more about Yangshuo, since it contained several highlights of our journey so far.
When we first arrived at Yangshuo (had actually planned to stay in Xinping, but as more often than not on this trip, things didn't go exactly as planned) we where overwhelmed by the hoards of foreign tourists. Before Yangshuo we were used to seeing maybe 1-10 non-asian people a day (sounds like a lot perhaps, but is not. There are a lot of people in China, 1-10 is not even 1 percent of the people we meet everyday.) and know they where everywhere.
This also means most restaurants had English menus and Western foods. Even the Chinese food tasted rather Western in our opinion - less spicy.
All this bothered us when we first arrived, but you got used to it.
For the first time since arriving to China, you actually met people several times. This has happened no where else, since the cities are so big and everybody just 'disappears in the masses'. In Yangshuo we even met our French roomie from Guilin again! At the end of our stay we knew most people we met on the street, and it sort of felt like being back home in little Kauniainen. After all the cities with millions and millions of inhabitants, the 'smallness' of it all was wonderful, and being in Yangshuo felt like being on vacation from travelling.
On our 'vacation' we forgot all about trains and subways, only biking, walking and taking the bamboo rafts from one place to another.
Getting stuck in Yangshuo is so easy you don't even realize it happening. If you wanna live cheap ( - for free) you can work as an English speaking volunteer, which also gives you a unique chance to poke around in the minds of the Chinese.
We didn't do this since we liked our free time too much, and didn't want to give up our bike tours in the countryside. The English corner we got to take part of was truly amazing though. If some young students walk up to you and invite you to their school - go! Never did we think we'd spend several hours taking photo's, talking and dancing 'letkajenkka' with 200 energetic girls the first night we arrive in Yangshuo.
If you, however, are thinking about skipping Yangshuo because of the tourists and the tourist-ness of it all, don't. The countryside is worth it all, and you can easily escape all the humdrum by living outside Yangshuo, in the Giggling tree for example. This is what I wish we would have done, since then you could have enjoyed the amazing landscape all the time. But living on a farm isn't all too handy when you're a vegan.
When living in Monkey Jane's, on West Street, in the middle of it all, we decided to take advantage of that instead and tried out pretty much every bar on the entire street. Turns out all Westerners like keeping together and hang out in Bar98, not on West Street, so most of the time we where the only girls, the only foreigners and definitely the youngest. But we had fun, al though the partying wasn't too crazy, and bars close early. Don't expect to get a lot of peace and quiet if you live close to West Street though.
So, if in China I definitely recommend Yangshuo (even if just because it's the only place in Chine we've had good weather so far...). Rent a bike and just choose a path and go. Be prepared to bike through people's yards, tiny paths through fields and get lost. Constantly. There are no good maps.
Hiking was less fun, since the routs are a bit tourist-y. Didn't meet that many other hikers, but lots and lots of sales people.
But as Ruut and Sophia wrote, at least you have someone there to help you when you get lost. Again.
//H
Behind the Blog - China
As I hope you realize, this blog doesn't "really" convey what life's like over here, not even close. We write perhaps, um, one out of a hundred things that happen/we do/we see/we think. We blog when we feel like it and have time, and about what we feel like blogging about, censoring a lot of stuff on purpose.
One thing we've held quiet about is our health, but since it actually explains a lot of the choices we've made considering our destinations on this trip, we thought it's time to let you know.
When leaving Finland, Hanna had a cold which didn't leave her be until the first days in Nanjing, after a day spent at Union Medical College Hospital in Beijing. The pain Hanna had all summer in Finland (but the doctor said she was good to go, just had to fly back if it gets worse) sadly resurfaced, although she'd been good since Moscow, so in Nanjing Ruut and Sophia mostly adventured on their own while Hanna got to know our roomies. This also meant we had to cancel our trekking and plans to head out towards the countryside, and therefore settled for Shanghai.
In Shanghai it was Sophia's turn to catch a cold, but other than that we were doing fairly decent, we think (we're having trouble remembering), so we headed for Wuhan.
On our way to Wuhan poor Sophia got an infected cut, which lead to her face swelling up to double the size. For some reason she avoided being photographed in Wuhan. Luckily Hanna, our pharmacist, gave her a bunch of drugs and creams, and soon she was back to normal.
On the way to Guilin Ruut both burnt her finger badly (still bleeds occasionally) and caught a cold which she didn't get rid of until Kunming, so she had to take it easy in Yangshuo. In Kunming Hanna's stomach cramps also finally ended, after being a pain in both Guilin and Yangshuo. Too much partying almost cost us a day of biking in Yangshuo, but we made it. In Kunming, however, Hanna caught a cold again, and had to lay low while Ruut and Sophia tried out the Kunming food - which led to Ruut feeling sick for a couple days.
In Lijiang Hanna was still not feeling on the top of her game (survived Tiger Leaping Gorge, however!) but then, on the way to Jinghong, we all where actually doing well, for pretty much the first time on the entire trip. (well, Hanna was carsick and hungry and didn't sleep at all, but that does obviously not count)
Sadly this changed in Jinghong, and for the first time one of us was seriously sick. This being Sophia who threw up most of the night, and then had to survive the heat, bus rides and border crossing the next day. She was a champ though, and is luckily all well now, after passing on what ever she had to Hanna.
Hanna's planning on being well tomorrow though, so it's all good.
And we're not planning on becoming more careful when it comes to cheap food in empty restaurants and street vendors, I mean fine, we'll miss a couple of treks and adventures, but at least we get to try all kinds of delicious foods without spending a fortune.
If you know us, you know that that's all that matters.
One thing we've held quiet about is our health, but since it actually explains a lot of the choices we've made considering our destinations on this trip, we thought it's time to let you know.
When leaving Finland, Hanna had a cold which didn't leave her be until the first days in Nanjing, after a day spent at Union Medical College Hospital in Beijing. The pain Hanna had all summer in Finland (but the doctor said she was good to go, just had to fly back if it gets worse) sadly resurfaced, although she'd been good since Moscow, so in Nanjing Ruut and Sophia mostly adventured on their own while Hanna got to know our roomies. This also meant we had to cancel our trekking and plans to head out towards the countryside, and therefore settled for Shanghai.
In Shanghai it was Sophia's turn to catch a cold, but other than that we were doing fairly decent, we think (we're having trouble remembering), so we headed for Wuhan.
On our way to Wuhan poor Sophia got an infected cut, which lead to her face swelling up to double the size. For some reason she avoided being photographed in Wuhan. Luckily Hanna, our pharmacist, gave her a bunch of drugs and creams, and soon she was back to normal.
On the way to Guilin Ruut both burnt her finger badly (still bleeds occasionally) and caught a cold which she didn't get rid of until Kunming, so she had to take it easy in Yangshuo. In Kunming Hanna's stomach cramps also finally ended, after being a pain in both Guilin and Yangshuo. Too much partying almost cost us a day of biking in Yangshuo, but we made it. In Kunming, however, Hanna caught a cold again, and had to lay low while Ruut and Sophia tried out the Kunming food - which led to Ruut feeling sick for a couple days.
In Lijiang Hanna was still not feeling on the top of her game (survived Tiger Leaping Gorge, however!) but then, on the way to Jinghong, we all where actually doing well, for pretty much the first time on the entire trip. (well, Hanna was carsick and hungry and didn't sleep at all, but that does obviously not count)
Sadly this changed in Jinghong, and for the first time one of us was seriously sick. This being Sophia who threw up most of the night, and then had to survive the heat, bus rides and border crossing the next day. She was a champ though, and is luckily all well now, after passing on what ever she had to Hanna.
Hanna's planning on being well tomorrow though, so it's all good.
And we're not planning on becoming more careful when it comes to cheap food in empty restaurants and street vendors, I mean fine, we'll miss a couple of treks and adventures, but at least we get to try all kinds of delicious foods without spending a fortune.
If you know us, you know that that's all that matters.
The land of the Elephants - Day 45
As Sophia wrote, we arrived in our 3rd country yesterday!
Not planned, but things on this trip usually just sort of roll on, and everything 'fixar sig' (works out) and suddenly we where in Laos. Probably a good thing, since we had about 5 days on our China Visa left.
But now that we're here, I want to go back. China was loads cheaper, less tourists and well... China. Mostly I miss the food I suppose (dumplings and tofu!) but also the ease, you could be yourself (feet on chairs were okay for example) and the fact that we were a lot of the time the only Westerners.
But a great plus in Laos is the nature, and that the bigger towns are still just that, towns, not huge cities. Figuring out the money is still a problem, and we have no idea what we should try to bargain on. Well, we will learn eventually, I suppose. Let's just hope we have any money left then. (Yes, we are upset that our cute cottage -hotel room costs 40 000 KIP a night, we are used to paying 25 yuan for better.... around 25 000 KIP)
Since we're not doing to well, we decided to take it slow today, and then head out for a few days jungle trek/kayak trip.
So... pictures (AND LOTS OF THEM) coming up in the Picasa album, Ruut and Sophia are working on it at the moment.
And since I am ill, again, I thought it's time to reveal how we've really been doing, when the blog's been all chirpitty-chirp-happy.
We've been as happy alright, just not as well as we've let you believe.
Not planned, but things on this trip usually just sort of roll on, and everything 'fixar sig' (works out) and suddenly we where in Laos. Probably a good thing, since we had about 5 days on our China Visa left.
But now that we're here, I want to go back. China was loads cheaper, less tourists and well... China. Mostly I miss the food I suppose (dumplings and tofu!) but also the ease, you could be yourself (feet on chairs were okay for example) and the fact that we were a lot of the time the only Westerners.
But a great plus in Laos is the nature, and that the bigger towns are still just that, towns, not huge cities. Figuring out the money is still a problem, and we have no idea what we should try to bargain on. Well, we will learn eventually, I suppose. Let's just hope we have any money left then. (Yes, we are upset that our cute cottage -hotel room costs 40 000 KIP a night, we are used to paying 25 yuan for better.... around 25 000 KIP)
Since we're not doing to well, we decided to take it slow today, and then head out for a few days jungle trek/kayak trip.
So... pictures (AND LOTS OF THEM) coming up in the Picasa album, Ruut and Sophia are working on it at the moment.
And since I am ill, again, I thought it's time to reveal how we've really been doing, when the blog's been all chirpitty-chirp-happy.
We've been as happy alright, just not as well as we've let you believe.
Nov 18, 2010
Jinghong, Mohan and Luang Namtha - Day 42-44
While Hanna and I were sleeping in our room in Lijiang, Ruut glanced at the map and decided we'd head towards Jinghong (a city pretty near the border to Laos). So we got ourselves tickets (hrm, well actually Mama got the tickets for us...) and, as earlier said, weren't too excited about the 15h bustrip ahead of us.
When we were seated in the bus (only more horizontal), and had been on the road for about half an hour, Ruut decided it was time to share the fact that the bus ride would probably take more like 19h. Apparently the 15h estimated time did not include traffic... Ruut thought that four hours here or there, what's the difference?
For some time we thought we'd missed our stop, and had already started planning what to do when we arrived wherever we were going when we spotted a sign that read 'Jinghong 30km'. And some time later we arrived in Jinghong as intended. The next hour we spent finding our way to a hotel (no hostels in Jinghong). One night cost us 100yuan (about 10e), for all of us. That's a pretty good deal.
Then Ruut and I went searching for a cheap place to wash our clothes while Hanna took a much needed power nap (she didn't get as much sleep on the bus as me and Ruut). Imagine our surprise when the laundry lady strew all of Ruut's dirty clothes on the foor and started counting them. Apparantly you pay per item, 4 yuan for a shirt or a pair of pants and 1 yuan for underwear. But 50 yuan for only Ruut's clothes was too much and while the curious crowd grew larger and the lady started to individually tag Ruut's underwear we tried to scoop up her clothes as fast as possible and politely but firmly decline their service. Somehow we made it out of there with most of our clothes, the lady came running after us with the rest of them. Instead for the overpriced laundry service we bought a bag of washing powder for 3 yuan and washed our clothes ourselves! To give Ruut some credit, she actually washed all of them, while Hanna and I were out buying bus tickets to Mohan and exchanging money. (We were told that you have to pay for your Laos visa in USD but it's actually possible to pay in yuan as well.)
Our last meal in China we ate at a small restaurant in Mohan, a 4h busride from Jinghong and pretty much on the border to Laos. The sun was shining and we were suffering in the blistering heat of 30 degrees. How we'll ever survive going south from here is beyond me. We'll have to take it slow and let our bodies get accoustomed to the heat.
The border process was as following: First we had to depart from China then apply for a Laos visa and finally enter Laos. The whole ordeal took us about 30min (not 90min as the LP suggests). We paid 111 USD (3*300 yuan) for our visas and entered Laos without problems.
The minibus dropped us off in Luang Namtha, a very touristy Lao town about an hour from the border. Because of all the tourists the prices are high, Hanna and Ruut just spent 24 000 kip (about 24 yuan) on two bags of chips and a box of Oreos. And I paid three times as much for a steamed sweet potato as in China. For a double room, where the three of us will sleep, we paid 40 000 kip each. Goodbye cheap...everything!
//S+R
Oh, and by the way, since we're out of China there's no more Internet restrictions. Which means hello to Blogger (we haven't beem able to see our blog until now) and Facebook!
So now we've finally been able to read your blog Ica! It's great to read about what you're up to and see some pictures from Finland!
When we were seated in the bus (only more horizontal), and had been on the road for about half an hour, Ruut decided it was time to share the fact that the bus ride would probably take more like 19h. Apparently the 15h estimated time did not include traffic... Ruut thought that four hours here or there, what's the difference?
For some time we thought we'd missed our stop, and had already started planning what to do when we arrived wherever we were going when we spotted a sign that read 'Jinghong 30km'. And some time later we arrived in Jinghong as intended. The next hour we spent finding our way to a hotel (no hostels in Jinghong). One night cost us 100yuan (about 10e), for all of us. That's a pretty good deal.
Then Ruut and I went searching for a cheap place to wash our clothes while Hanna took a much needed power nap (she didn't get as much sleep on the bus as me and Ruut). Imagine our surprise when the laundry lady strew all of Ruut's dirty clothes on the foor and started counting them. Apparantly you pay per item, 4 yuan for a shirt or a pair of pants and 1 yuan for underwear. But 50 yuan for only Ruut's clothes was too much and while the curious crowd grew larger and the lady started to individually tag Ruut's underwear we tried to scoop up her clothes as fast as possible and politely but firmly decline their service. Somehow we made it out of there with most of our clothes, the lady came running after us with the rest of them. Instead for the overpriced laundry service we bought a bag of washing powder for 3 yuan and washed our clothes ourselves! To give Ruut some credit, she actually washed all of them, while Hanna and I were out buying bus tickets to Mohan and exchanging money. (We were told that you have to pay for your Laos visa in USD but it's actually possible to pay in yuan as well.)
Our last meal in China we ate at a small restaurant in Mohan, a 4h busride from Jinghong and pretty much on the border to Laos. The sun was shining and we were suffering in the blistering heat of 30 degrees. How we'll ever survive going south from here is beyond me. We'll have to take it slow and let our bodies get accoustomed to the heat.
The border process was as following: First we had to depart from China then apply for a Laos visa and finally enter Laos. The whole ordeal took us about 30min (not 90min as the LP suggests). We paid 111 USD (3*300 yuan) for our visas and entered Laos without problems.
The minibus dropped us off in Luang Namtha, a very touristy Lao town about an hour from the border. Because of all the tourists the prices are high, Hanna and Ruut just spent 24 000 kip (about 24 yuan) on two bags of chips and a box of Oreos. And I paid three times as much for a steamed sweet potato as in China. For a double room, where the three of us will sleep, we paid 40 000 kip each. Goodbye cheap...everything!
//S+R
Oh, and by the way, since we're out of China there's no more Internet restrictions. Which means hello to Blogger (we haven't beem able to see our blog until now) and Facebook!
So now we've finally been able to read your blog Ica! It's great to read about what you're up to and see some pictures from Finland!
Nov 16, 2010
Lost in Lijiang and Tiger Leaping Gorge - Day 39 - 42
Took a sleeper bus from Kunming to Lijiang four days ago. The bus ride is definitely cathergorized under the 'it was an interesting experience' -cathegory. I think we all prefer trains.
The first thing we did in Lijiang was get lost. And that's what we've been doing ever since, because the old town, where our hostel, Mama Naxi's is located, is a maze of cute old houses, narrow cobble stoned paths, bridges and canals. A bit tuoristy, but really charming, especially at night.
And, somehow you always find your way in the end, although I've spent hours walking around old town alone without a map or adress (to show the locals, it's not like there would be any streetsigns), trying to find my way back to Mama's.
Mama and Baba take good care of us though, and it feels like being at home.
Day 40 and 41 we spent hiking in Tiger Leaping Gorge with Cian (American, although pretending to be Irish, cinsidering the name). Down here in the village it's been really cold (around 3-14 degrees) but up in the mountains it got really hot when the sun was shining. We couldn't have wished for better weather, and of course the view over Jade Snow Mountain was rather impressing as well.
Slept at the 'Half way Guest House', which we strongly recommend, if just for the view from the bathroom. Standing on the balcony from our dorm, watching the starlit sky wasn't too bad either.
In a couple of hours we'll jump on another sleeper bus, this one taking us all the way to the south of Yunnan, to Jinghong. Since we only have 6 days left before our visa runs out, we figured we better get a move on, and we wouldn't mind if it got a bit warmer as well... we are not looking forward to spending 15 hours on a bus though.
//H
The first thing we did in Lijiang was get lost. And that's what we've been doing ever since, because the old town, where our hostel, Mama Naxi's is located, is a maze of cute old houses, narrow cobble stoned paths, bridges and canals. A bit tuoristy, but really charming, especially at night.
And, somehow you always find your way in the end, although I've spent hours walking around old town alone without a map or adress (to show the locals, it's not like there would be any streetsigns), trying to find my way back to Mama's.
Mama and Baba take good care of us though, and it feels like being at home.
Day 40 and 41 we spent hiking in Tiger Leaping Gorge with Cian (American, although pretending to be Irish, cinsidering the name). Down here in the village it's been really cold (around 3-14 degrees) but up in the mountains it got really hot when the sun was shining. We couldn't have wished for better weather, and of course the view over Jade Snow Mountain was rather impressing as well.
Slept at the 'Half way Guest House', which we strongly recommend, if just for the view from the bathroom. Standing on the balcony from our dorm, watching the starlit sky wasn't too bad either.
In a couple of hours we'll jump on another sleeper bus, this one taking us all the way to the south of Yunnan, to Jinghong. Since we only have 6 days left before our visa runs out, we figured we better get a move on, and we wouldn't mind if it got a bit warmer as well... we are not looking forward to spending 15 hours on a bus though.
//H
Nov 10, 2010
Kunming - Day 36
After a 18 h train ride we arrived in Kunming today, and that's pretty much all we have time to say since other people want to get on the computer as well. Any suggestions on how to get from here towars the Northeast of Yunnan?
Nov 8, 2010
Yangshuo - Day 30-35
Yes, we're still alive. There's just been so much to do here in Yangshuo that we haven't had time to blog. And Blogger has been playing tricks with us, making it difficult to access our blog. But enough excuses!
We left Guilin, traveling by bus and bamboo rafts to Yangshuo. The rafts weren't actually made of bamboo but plastic, and they had an engine, which killed our fantasies of 'a peacful drift on Li River' (but later we were glad that it had an engine, because otherwise the almost two-hour-ride would have taken forever). Later we got the chance to take "real" bamboo rafts though, and if you ever happen to visit Yangshuo it'll be quite hard not to take one at some point. Everywhere you go, they yell: "Hello, hello, hello!! Bamboo raft! Bamboo raft!!".
Arriving in Yangshou we were surprised by all the tourists (even though we'd prepared ourselves that we wouldn't be an unusual sight anymore). There are Americans everywhere and remarkably many families with small children. It cranks up the prices in some touristy areas, the only way to survive is by bargaining.
The Chinese really have a sense of business. When they see a laowai, they smell money.(We've heard them exclaim "Hello money!" upon seeing us... I felt I was their piggy bank waiting to be emptied of savings. Bargaining was a pain in the beginning, but our skills are improving exponentially. Our tactics have consisted of threatening to walk away from the deal, start off with a ridiculously low price and thus offending the sales person or just simply complaining. "That's soooo expensive!!") Virtually every Chinese knows at least one phrase in English: "How much?". The rest is handled with charades or by writing with a stone in the dirt.
Even in the countryside, when you think you're alone, you'll soon be trailed by a so-called "hello"-entourage (people trying to sell you their services or goods). When you're lost, it's kind of helpful to have someone to consult. We're not that annoyed so far.
So far we've visited a local school's 'English Corner', biked up Li River, walked between Yangdi and XingPing and visited our first beach (where we actually swam! ...although the water in Li River isn't the cleanest). More details of what we've done coming up later.
The countryside is amazingly beautiful, with green peaks and blue rivers. No wonder it's such a popular destionation for both Chinese and Western tourists alike.
Our hostel, Monkey Jane's, is pretty well located in an alley right off West Street (the biggest shopping/bar street). But ironically enough, though this is the warmest weather we've had so far, this is the coldest hostel we've lived in (second after that freezy one in Beijing). And it hasn't helped that the shower indicates that for warm water turn left and for cold, turn right. This has led to that only this morning did I understand that the labels were wrong and until now we've been showering in ice cold water, thinking we've turned the handle to hot when we'd actually turned it to as cold as it gets. Not nice.
Tomorrow we are headed towards Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province. It borders to Laos and Vietnam in south and Tibet in west. We figured it might be time to start hauling our butts in that direction, since our visas won't be valid forever. There's so much to do in Yunnan, so it'll probably be a close call. Kunming's an 18-hour train ride from Guilin, so luckily we got hold of hard-sleeper tickets this time. Let's keep our fingers crossed and hope it's a train less nasty than the last one...
//R & S
We left Guilin, traveling by bus and bamboo rafts to Yangshuo. The rafts weren't actually made of bamboo but plastic, and they had an engine, which killed our fantasies of 'a peacful drift on Li River' (but later we were glad that it had an engine, because otherwise the almost two-hour-ride would have taken forever). Later we got the chance to take "real" bamboo rafts though, and if you ever happen to visit Yangshuo it'll be quite hard not to take one at some point. Everywhere you go, they yell: "Hello, hello, hello!! Bamboo raft! Bamboo raft!!".
Arriving in Yangshou we were surprised by all the tourists (even though we'd prepared ourselves that we wouldn't be an unusual sight anymore). There are Americans everywhere and remarkably many families with small children. It cranks up the prices in some touristy areas, the only way to survive is by bargaining.
The Chinese really have a sense of business. When they see a laowai, they smell money.(We've heard them exclaim "Hello money!" upon seeing us... I felt I was their piggy bank waiting to be emptied of savings. Bargaining was a pain in the beginning, but our skills are improving exponentially. Our tactics have consisted of threatening to walk away from the deal, start off with a ridiculously low price and thus offending the sales person or just simply complaining. "That's soooo expensive!!") Virtually every Chinese knows at least one phrase in English: "How much?". The rest is handled with charades or by writing with a stone in the dirt.
Even in the countryside, when you think you're alone, you'll soon be trailed by a so-called "hello"-entourage (people trying to sell you their services or goods). When you're lost, it's kind of helpful to have someone to consult. We're not that annoyed so far.
So far we've visited a local school's 'English Corner', biked up Li River, walked between Yangdi and XingPing and visited our first beach (where we actually swam! ...although the water in Li River isn't the cleanest). More details of what we've done coming up later.
The countryside is amazingly beautiful, with green peaks and blue rivers. No wonder it's such a popular destionation for both Chinese and Western tourists alike.
Our hostel, Monkey Jane's, is pretty well located in an alley right off West Street (the biggest shopping/bar street). But ironically enough, though this is the warmest weather we've had so far, this is the coldest hostel we've lived in (second after that freezy one in Beijing). And it hasn't helped that the shower indicates that for warm water turn left and for cold, turn right. This has led to that only this morning did I understand that the labels were wrong and until now we've been showering in ice cold water, thinking we've turned the handle to hot when we'd actually turned it to as cold as it gets. Not nice.
Tomorrow we are headed towards Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province. It borders to Laos and Vietnam in south and Tibet in west. We figured it might be time to start hauling our butts in that direction, since our visas won't be valid forever. There's so much to do in Yunnan, so it'll probably be a close call. Kunming's an 18-hour train ride from Guilin, so luckily we got hold of hard-sleeper tickets this time. Let's keep our fingers crossed and hope it's a train less nasty than the last one...
//R & S
Nov 3, 2010
Last day in Guilin - Day 29
Stairs, once again.
This time when climbing up a hill after visiting the Reed flute cave.
Took a bus (number 3, 1 yuan) out to Reed flute cave, where we realized they'd changed the entrance fee to a rather pricey one (90 yuan) compared to the what it said in Lonely Planet China, 2009. Although we weren't planning on bringing any LP's along, we somehow ended up with a couple, and boy are we thankful.
Even though a lot of the info is outdated, especially prices, we can't survive without it.
Anyways, the cave was impressing, but all the Chinese tourists and guides were not. There where plenty of interesting looking caves and holes to explore with our torches, but far too many 'No attendance' signs.
So if you've been in a huge, over 180 million years old cave, with 'stunning rock formations', don't bother.
Ate dinner at a Chinese restaurant ( we were the only guests for most of the time, but what else is new) where no one could speak English. (Once again, what else is new) Thankful for our vegan passports we pointed at different pictures (carrot, corn, rice, cabbage, beans, potato...) and repeated one of the few words we know: 'doufu' - tofu. And we got served exactly that, while the little kids were keeping us entertained. How will I ever manage to live in Finland after this, when I've gotten all too used to getting delicious food wherever, whenever and ridic cheap?
It's a bit funny though... the Chinese often think there's something wrong with us when we don't understand what they say. Often they then ask us to write or read, in Chinese of course. When we're not able to do this either they shake their head, lean forward, and shout in our ears. To their dissapointment, we don't seem to understand even then, and we keep on speaking nonsense. We must really be utterly deaf and mute.
Now we should start packing, tomorrow we're heading for Li River, so let's hope for good weather!
//H
This time when climbing up a hill after visiting the Reed flute cave.
Took a bus (number 3, 1 yuan) out to Reed flute cave, where we realized they'd changed the entrance fee to a rather pricey one (90 yuan) compared to the what it said in Lonely Planet China, 2009. Although we weren't planning on bringing any LP's along, we somehow ended up with a couple, and boy are we thankful.
Even though a lot of the info is outdated, especially prices, we can't survive without it.
Anyways, the cave was impressing, but all the Chinese tourists and guides were not. There where plenty of interesting looking caves and holes to explore with our torches, but far too many 'No attendance' signs.
So if you've been in a huge, over 180 million years old cave, with 'stunning rock formations', don't bother.
Ate dinner at a Chinese restaurant ( we were the only guests for most of the time, but what else is new) where no one could speak English. (Once again, what else is new) Thankful for our vegan passports we pointed at different pictures (carrot, corn, rice, cabbage, beans, potato...) and repeated one of the few words we know: 'doufu' - tofu. And we got served exactly that, while the little kids were keeping us entertained. How will I ever manage to live in Finland after this, when I've gotten all too used to getting delicious food wherever, whenever and ridic cheap?
It's a bit funny though... the Chinese often think there's something wrong with us when we don't understand what they say. Often they then ask us to write or read, in Chinese of course. When we're not able to do this either they shake their head, lean forward, and shout in our ears. To their dissapointment, we don't seem to understand even then, and we keep on speaking nonsense. We must really be utterly deaf and mute.
Now we should start packing, tomorrow we're heading for Li River, so let's hope for good weather!
//H
Nov 2, 2010
4 weeks - Day 28
More stairs.
After spending most of the day reading books we've swapped at various hostels, and eating lunch by the Li river, watching the Chinese swim in the dirty water, and enjoying the sunshine, we headed for Seven Star park. Missing everything that was marked on the tourist map we were given, we ended up climbing up two impressing hills (this is where the stairs enter the story).
On the first hill, called Monkey Mountain by us, we were surrounded by monkeys. Would it not have been for the mosquitos having a feast on us, we could probably had stared at the monkeys for hours on end. Watching them playfully fight and jump from tree to tree, often falling down and hitting the ground, felt like they had put on a private show just for us. But when trying to get down from the hill, the oh-so-cute monkeys where not-so-cute anymore. Suddenly the monkeys where absolutly everywhere, blocking every path, and getting rather aggressive if we tried to pass. With the 'Monkeys, Dangerous' sign at the entrance of the park in fresh memory, we avoided them as best we could, and finally made it down.
On the next hill we had an absolutly amazing view of Guilin, and we sat up there watching the sun go down behind the beautiful hills, and the city come to life, with neon lights starting to blink everywhere. (We don't find this very tasteful, but we seem to be the only ones in this country, since blinking neon lights are... well, everywhere).
This turned out to be one of our less smart moves, since they had no lights in the park, which meant we had to make it down he hill (and the very slippery stairs, if I might add. But I didn't fall. Cough. That often. Coughcough.) and through the park in the dark. Luckily Ruut had her flashlight with her, so we made it. And we got to see a whole lot of bats on our way out, which was cool. Except that I mean a whole LOT of bats.
...
At the moment Sophia is finnishing her blogpost, and Ruut is taking a shower. I'm sitting in the common area of the hostel, impressed by the French girl sitting in the sofa, our new roomie, who seems to be learning Chinese quite fast. Outside, by the river, they're having karaoke night. As every night.
Although we've already been in this country for several weeks, the language is still total gibberish, and everything I learn I forget as fast. Chinese sounds a bit like Swedish (the kind of Swedish they speak in Sweden) and a lot like the 'ching chong' language you used to speak when mimicing Chinese as a kid.
Oh, and today we've been traveling for four weeks exactly.
I'm not sure if that makes me happy or sad. We've seen so much and been so many places, it feels incredible it's only been four weeks. But on the other hand... we've done so little and been so few places, has it already been four weeks??
//H
After spending most of the day reading books we've swapped at various hostels, and eating lunch by the Li river, watching the Chinese swim in the dirty water, and enjoying the sunshine, we headed for Seven Star park. Missing everything that was marked on the tourist map we were given, we ended up climbing up two impressing hills (this is where the stairs enter the story).
On the first hill, called Monkey Mountain by us, we were surrounded by monkeys. Would it not have been for the mosquitos having a feast on us, we could probably had stared at the monkeys for hours on end. Watching them playfully fight and jump from tree to tree, often falling down and hitting the ground, felt like they had put on a private show just for us. But when trying to get down from the hill, the oh-so-cute monkeys where not-so-cute anymore. Suddenly the monkeys where absolutly everywhere, blocking every path, and getting rather aggressive if we tried to pass. With the 'Monkeys, Dangerous' sign at the entrance of the park in fresh memory, we avoided them as best we could, and finally made it down.
On the next hill we had an absolutly amazing view of Guilin, and we sat up there watching the sun go down behind the beautiful hills, and the city come to life, with neon lights starting to blink everywhere. (We don't find this very tasteful, but we seem to be the only ones in this country, since blinking neon lights are... well, everywhere).
This turned out to be one of our less smart moves, since they had no lights in the park, which meant we had to make it down he hill (and the very slippery stairs, if I might add. But I didn't fall. Cough. That often. Coughcough.) and through the park in the dark. Luckily Ruut had her flashlight with her, so we made it. And we got to see a whole lot of bats on our way out, which was cool. Except that I mean a whole LOT of bats.
...
At the moment Sophia is finnishing her blogpost, and Ruut is taking a shower. I'm sitting in the common area of the hostel, impressed by the French girl sitting in the sofa, our new roomie, who seems to be learning Chinese quite fast. Outside, by the river, they're having karaoke night. As every night.
Although we've already been in this country for several weeks, the language is still total gibberish, and everything I learn I forget as fast. Chinese sounds a bit like Swedish (the kind of Swedish they speak in Sweden) and a lot like the 'ching chong' language you used to speak when mimicing Chinese as a kid.
Oh, and today we've been traveling for four weeks exactly.
I'm not sure if that makes me happy or sad. We've seen so much and been so many places, it feels incredible it's only been four weeks. But on the other hand... we've done so little and been so few places, has it already been four weeks??
//H
The Food
We've all come to agree that the best way to experience a new culture and country is by being a very open-minded food tourists. And that we are. Actually, the first thing we did in Beijing was to buy a deep fried piece of dough. They're everywhere and always taste different, so we have to try them in every city.
And China makes it so easy to try out the food. You can't walk down a street without coming across some street stand that sells food (steamed corn on the cob or sweet potato, sugar glazed or au naturel fruits, some kind of pancakes fried in a LOT af oil or a piece of deep fried dough). So no one can blame us for wanting to try all these things, and since they all cost under one euro the price isn't even a problem. We don't have to choose what to eat because it's so cheap we can afford all of it (maybe that's a bad thing, but we don't see it that way). And we've come to an agreement; our food budget will be the last budget we make any cuts on.
Oh, and the supermarket. They have a whole section of tofu(!!). It would be an understatement to say that we go crazy buying food there. We have to try all the different kinds of tofu, the marinated, the fried, the dry, the twisted, the beef-like... You can also mix your own salad or buy steaming hot fried rice or noodels. And after all the fried and greasy foods, nothing tastes better than a fresh orange or those berrie-like fruits that taste just like apples, only sweeter, that are found in the enormous fruit and vegetable section.
But there isn't so much candy here. The Chinese seem to eat dried fruits when they crave a sweet snack. We have found some American candy, but since they taste only of the artificial flavours they're full of, we usually give them a miss. My personal favorite sweet-thing is puffed rice mixed with sugar (rolled into a ball), yumyum! On the train from Russia we were tipped by Lien (also a veg) about one sort of Oreo cookies that we could eat. So now everytime we buy food, a package or three of Oreos always find their way into our basket. Thank you Lien for the tip!
By flashing our Vegan Passports (they're a lifesaver!) we can easily communicate with most venders over the language-barrier. They point out the ingerdients and we (most of the time) know what we're eating. The page with a happy face shows pictures of vegetables, beans and fruits, and the the page with a sad face shows meat, egg and milk products. Most people understand what we want them to do, but some just stare at us in bewilderment and then shout for reinforcment (it's not unuasal for our passports to be surrounded by loads of Chinese no matter whether they are passerbyes or another salesperson, they're all just as curious). At least I think we do a pretty good job at pointing at the, for example, dumpling and then a the passport with a questioning face. Our Chinese knowledge is practically non-existing but one word we DO know is 'mei you' which means 'there's none'. This we frantically keep repeating while pointing at the meat page.
We've come to note that the pictures are better to use, the text is too long (few read it thorougly, we've been served eggs even after they read it) and the word 'vegan' is pretty unfamiliar to most so to just ask if there's meat in it with pictures is better than explaining why we don't want the meat.
Some awkward situaions have come up when the Chinese person actually speaks English. He or she looks at us like we're stupid pushing a picture book in his face and says 'would you like to know what's inside these?'. Since we most of the time feel stupid talking English to a Chinese, who clearly don't understand a word we say, we've started to skip the step where you ask 'do you speak english' and hop right to pictures and hand signals.
They signal numbers quite differently than we're used to. This created some confusment in the beginning, but we're starting to learn. Touching your thumb to your indexfinger, forming a circle, and lifting the rest of the fingers up means three. Making a cross with your indexfingers means ten. We haven't even tried to understand the jians(cents). They lift their thumb up and (somehow) signal with the remaining fingers how many jians. But since they probably lost us at the yuans we have to wait until the seller understands that we don't, and writes the amount on a piece of paper.
I'll give you a run-down of what we ate yesterday, as an example of out eating habits (I know, I know, intressesmurfarna hoppar. Please bear with me, we need to prove to the folks back home that we're actually eating something).
For breakfast we started off with some nuts (okey, we ate the entire bag. 'cept for the plastic), but only to get enough energy to go out and look for some more food. We ended up with some fruits, yes we do eat healthy things too.
For lunch, not long after breakfast, we ate noodles and vegetable soup with "soijarouhe" in our room. Then we walked towards the shopping street (with most restaurants and snack bars centered around it, hehe) and on the way grabbed some steamed corn on the cob.
Arriving at the shopping street we bought a pancake-like thing with a very spicy sauce on it and some water.
We try to drink a lot of water. We have our fancy refillable water 'bags', made of soft plastic so you can fold them up as they empty, which are very handy when you have to carry them around in your backpack.
(Hanna says: See Hanna's parents? We honestly use them ALL the time, and are so thankful we brought them along, so there.)
Then we bought some overpriced apples (as we were on the biggest tourist street in town there's no wonder the prices had sky-rocketed).
At the top of Solitary Beauty Peak we ate (well deserved) ice cream.
While walking back towards the restaurant street, we walked by a man popping popcorn and puffing rice over a fire. When we continued our walk with two huge bags of both popcorn and puffed rice we reflected on the fact that in China popcorn are sweet.
So note, that when you crave salt in China, don't buy popcorn. Even the potato crisps are sweeter than back at home. And with the weirdest flavors, ever heard of cucumber or fich soup chips? When trying out the first one, we found out that the Chinese are far too good at artificial flavours (the chips tasted just like cucumber, and that's two things that shouldn't be mixed).
Back to our food diary, we then bought a cup full of very spicy tofu slices and six deep fried dough pieces (mostly made of sweet potato). This because we had lost hope in finding the dumpling restaurant where we'd been planningt on eating dinner.
But then we stumbled across a street kitchen kalled 'Little Brother's Bbq' and, some moments later, found ourselves sitting on very small and very low plastic chairs eating deep fried vegetables and pieces of tofu that we'd picked out ourselves (much like Megabite).
A swedish couple walked by looking for a place to eat and went to check out our place. They gave the place a glance and exclaimed 'definitivt INTE' ( definitely NOT) and walked away. Quity picky people, we thought, since the place didn't look any shabbier that the rest (on the contrary it looked fairly decent) and the food looked fresh, except the meat (which attracted all the flies). But since we wouldn't eat the meat and everything would be deep fried we didn't think twice about eating there.
Back at the hostel we ate what candy we had left, the puffed rise and a bag of chips.
Content, and unable to lay on our bellies, we then went to sleep.
So to all you worried parents out there; I hope this has set your minds at ease. Maybe you are now worried that we over eat. Well don't, when our clothes get too tight we'll lay back on the chips (for a while at least).
Actually the only time we feel bad when food is concerned, is when we've eaten too much and can't possibly eat any more, but we see food all around us that we'd love to try, but can't. Still, the next day at dinner we make the same mistake again (in a restaurant we just have to try everything they have). And as most restaurants and snack places (luckily for us) have picture menues or food out on display we see every delicious course and have to taste it.
//S
Ps. Mamma, the fact that there's so much food here doesn't mean that we don't want the Christmas candy I asked you about. We long for a bag of assamix or marianne!
And China makes it so easy to try out the food. You can't walk down a street without coming across some street stand that sells food (steamed corn on the cob or sweet potato, sugar glazed or au naturel fruits, some kind of pancakes fried in a LOT af oil or a piece of deep fried dough). So no one can blame us for wanting to try all these things, and since they all cost under one euro the price isn't even a problem. We don't have to choose what to eat because it's so cheap we can afford all of it (maybe that's a bad thing, but we don't see it that way). And we've come to an agreement; our food budget will be the last budget we make any cuts on.
Oh, and the supermarket. They have a whole section of tofu(!!). It would be an understatement to say that we go crazy buying food there. We have to try all the different kinds of tofu, the marinated, the fried, the dry, the twisted, the beef-like... You can also mix your own salad or buy steaming hot fried rice or noodels. And after all the fried and greasy foods, nothing tastes better than a fresh orange or those berrie-like fruits that taste just like apples, only sweeter, that are found in the enormous fruit and vegetable section.
But there isn't so much candy here. The Chinese seem to eat dried fruits when they crave a sweet snack. We have found some American candy, but since they taste only of the artificial flavours they're full of, we usually give them a miss. My personal favorite sweet-thing is puffed rice mixed with sugar (rolled into a ball), yumyum! On the train from Russia we were tipped by Lien (also a veg) about one sort of Oreo cookies that we could eat. So now everytime we buy food, a package or three of Oreos always find their way into our basket. Thank you Lien for the tip!
By flashing our Vegan Passports (they're a lifesaver!) we can easily communicate with most venders over the language-barrier. They point out the ingerdients and we (most of the time) know what we're eating. The page with a happy face shows pictures of vegetables, beans and fruits, and the the page with a sad face shows meat, egg and milk products. Most people understand what we want them to do, but some just stare at us in bewilderment and then shout for reinforcment (it's not unuasal for our passports to be surrounded by loads of Chinese no matter whether they are passerbyes or another salesperson, they're all just as curious). At least I think we do a pretty good job at pointing at the, for example, dumpling and then a the passport with a questioning face. Our Chinese knowledge is practically non-existing but one word we DO know is 'mei you' which means 'there's none'. This we frantically keep repeating while pointing at the meat page.
We've come to note that the pictures are better to use, the text is too long (few read it thorougly, we've been served eggs even after they read it) and the word 'vegan' is pretty unfamiliar to most so to just ask if there's meat in it with pictures is better than explaining why we don't want the meat.
Some awkward situaions have come up when the Chinese person actually speaks English. He or she looks at us like we're stupid pushing a picture book in his face and says 'would you like to know what's inside these?'. Since we most of the time feel stupid talking English to a Chinese, who clearly don't understand a word we say, we've started to skip the step where you ask 'do you speak english' and hop right to pictures and hand signals.
They signal numbers quite differently than we're used to. This created some confusment in the beginning, but we're starting to learn. Touching your thumb to your indexfinger, forming a circle, and lifting the rest of the fingers up means three. Making a cross with your indexfingers means ten. We haven't even tried to understand the jians(cents). They lift their thumb up and (somehow) signal with the remaining fingers how many jians. But since they probably lost us at the yuans we have to wait until the seller understands that we don't, and writes the amount on a piece of paper.
I'll give you a run-down of what we ate yesterday, as an example of out eating habits (I know, I know, intressesmurfarna hoppar. Please bear with me, we need to prove to the folks back home that we're actually eating something).
For breakfast we started off with some nuts (okey, we ate the entire bag. 'cept for the plastic), but only to get enough energy to go out and look for some more food. We ended up with some fruits, yes we do eat healthy things too.
For lunch, not long after breakfast, we ate noodles and vegetable soup with "soijarouhe" in our room. Then we walked towards the shopping street (with most restaurants and snack bars centered around it, hehe) and on the way grabbed some steamed corn on the cob.
Arriving at the shopping street we bought a pancake-like thing with a very spicy sauce on it and some water.
We try to drink a lot of water. We have our fancy refillable water 'bags', made of soft plastic so you can fold them up as they empty, which are very handy when you have to carry them around in your backpack.
(Hanna says: See Hanna's parents? We honestly use them ALL the time, and are so thankful we brought them along, so there.)
Then we bought some overpriced apples (as we were on the biggest tourist street in town there's no wonder the prices had sky-rocketed).
At the top of Solitary Beauty Peak we ate (well deserved) ice cream.
While walking back towards the restaurant street, we walked by a man popping popcorn and puffing rice over a fire. When we continued our walk with two huge bags of both popcorn and puffed rice we reflected on the fact that in China popcorn are sweet.
So note, that when you crave salt in China, don't buy popcorn. Even the potato crisps are sweeter than back at home. And with the weirdest flavors, ever heard of cucumber or fich soup chips? When trying out the first one, we found out that the Chinese are far too good at artificial flavours (the chips tasted just like cucumber, and that's two things that shouldn't be mixed).
Back to our food diary, we then bought a cup full of very spicy tofu slices and six deep fried dough pieces (mostly made of sweet potato). This because we had lost hope in finding the dumpling restaurant where we'd been planningt on eating dinner.
But then we stumbled across a street kitchen kalled 'Little Brother's Bbq' and, some moments later, found ourselves sitting on very small and very low plastic chairs eating deep fried vegetables and pieces of tofu that we'd picked out ourselves (much like Megabite).
A swedish couple walked by looking for a place to eat and went to check out our place. They gave the place a glance and exclaimed 'definitivt INTE' ( definitely NOT) and walked away. Quity picky people, we thought, since the place didn't look any shabbier that the rest (on the contrary it looked fairly decent) and the food looked fresh, except the meat (which attracted all the flies). But since we wouldn't eat the meat and everything would be deep fried we didn't think twice about eating there.
Back at the hostel we ate what candy we had left, the puffed rise and a bag of chips.
Content, and unable to lay on our bellies, we then went to sleep.
So to all you worried parents out there; I hope this has set your minds at ease. Maybe you are now worried that we over eat. Well don't, when our clothes get too tight we'll lay back on the chips (for a while at least).
Actually the only time we feel bad when food is concerned, is when we've eaten too much and can't possibly eat any more, but we see food all around us that we'd love to try, but can't. Still, the next day at dinner we make the same mistake again (in a restaurant we just have to try everything they have). And as most restaurants and snack places (luckily for us) have picture menues or food out on display we see every delicious course and have to taste it.
//S
Ps. Mamma, the fact that there's so much food here doesn't mean that we don't want the Christmas candy I asked you about. We long for a bag of assamix or marianne!
Nov 1, 2010
Guiling - Day 27
Stairs.
Feels like we don't do much else in China but climb up stairs (or sit in trains). Whether it be the endless stairs of every metro station in Beijing, Shanghai and Nanjing, the crooked 'stairs' of the Great Wall, or the stairs we climbed today, the ones leading up to the Solitary Beauty Peak of Guilin.
When arriving late last night in Guilin, we could already sense we'd come quite a bit South from Beijing. Although dark and closer to midnight, people where up and about, while Beijing usually went silent when sun set, around 5 or 6. We didn't need to wear doubble layered pants, and tripple layered shirts anymore either, which had been a neccesity in Beijing and Shanghai during the days, not to mention in the middle of the night.
Waking up this morning and being able to hunt for breakfast (ie. walk along the streets hoping to find a food stall with something eatable, perhaps even delish. Sophia will write more about this later) in shorts and little else, felt, well, unbelievable. We thought we'd never escape the cold, since it hasn't really gotten any warmer since Moscow, until now that is.
Later on it felt almost a bit too warm, sitting and sweating in the sun, reading a book (and being forced to pose with the businessmen walking around the pond in groups), in the park of the Sun and Moon pagoda, while Ruut and Sophia were hunting for lunch, water and shade.
It didn't get any cooler climbing up all the stairs that were mentioned earlier, to the Solitary Beauty Peak (entrance fee 70 yuan, for that you don't only get to climb mentioned Peak, but also see the replica of what used to be the home of a prince, the Peace Cave, and a lot of Uni students playing hoops). But it was definitely worth the climb, as we got a good view of the city, and the beautiful mountains surrounding it.
So far we like this city, and we especially like our hostel.
A bit far from the 'food street' (that we adore, of course. More of this later on, as said...) but right by the Main Road, and only a walking distance from the train station, our Xiao Yang Lou IY hostel has proven out to be worth every 2 euros and 27 cents we pay per night/person. It's extreemly new and clean, definitely fresher than any place we've stayed in so far. So if you like it clean, this is the place for you. Oh, and did I mention our beds are about two metres wide and our quilts made in heaven? However it sorta lacks character in all its steralized whiteness(especially compared to our last hostel, Pathfinder in Wuhan), but in a way that's a nice contrast to the city, in all it's colourfullnes and sounds and smells.
Ever since the train ride Ruut described, we're a tad sensitive when it comes to the smells... but hopefully that'll pass.
Oh well, off to brush my teeth and check if our laundry is done. Have to let Sophia write a very important blog post about the thing we love most when traveling: the food.
//H
ps. Since blogspot is off limits in China, we can not see our blog nor reply to your comments (luckily we see your comments though, and are able to blog, once again thanks to Ninjacloak) so I'll just have to reply here, for now. Varsogod Mona! Nice to hear that you liked it, wanna give me your e-mail or sum, so I don't have to reply here in the future? We love getting comments from you, abogal! Hugs!
Feels like we don't do much else in China but climb up stairs (or sit in trains). Whether it be the endless stairs of every metro station in Beijing, Shanghai and Nanjing, the crooked 'stairs' of the Great Wall, or the stairs we climbed today, the ones leading up to the Solitary Beauty Peak of Guilin.
When arriving late last night in Guilin, we could already sense we'd come quite a bit South from Beijing. Although dark and closer to midnight, people where up and about, while Beijing usually went silent when sun set, around 5 or 6. We didn't need to wear doubble layered pants, and tripple layered shirts anymore either, which had been a neccesity in Beijing and Shanghai during the days, not to mention in the middle of the night.
Waking up this morning and being able to hunt for breakfast (ie. walk along the streets hoping to find a food stall with something eatable, perhaps even delish. Sophia will write more about this later) in shorts and little else, felt, well, unbelievable. We thought we'd never escape the cold, since it hasn't really gotten any warmer since Moscow, until now that is.
Later on it felt almost a bit too warm, sitting and sweating in the sun, reading a book (and being forced to pose with the businessmen walking around the pond in groups), in the park of the Sun and Moon pagoda, while Ruut and Sophia were hunting for lunch, water and shade.
It didn't get any cooler climbing up all the stairs that were mentioned earlier, to the Solitary Beauty Peak (entrance fee 70 yuan, for that you don't only get to climb mentioned Peak, but also see the replica of what used to be the home of a prince, the Peace Cave, and a lot of Uni students playing hoops). But it was definitely worth the climb, as we got a good view of the city, and the beautiful mountains surrounding it.
So far we like this city, and we especially like our hostel.
A bit far from the 'food street' (that we adore, of course. More of this later on, as said...) but right by the Main Road, and only a walking distance from the train station, our Xiao Yang Lou IY hostel has proven out to be worth every 2 euros and 27 cents we pay per night/person. It's extreemly new and clean, definitely fresher than any place we've stayed in so far. So if you like it clean, this is the place for you. Oh, and did I mention our beds are about two metres wide and our quilts made in heaven? However it sorta lacks character in all its steralized whiteness(especially compared to our last hostel, Pathfinder in Wuhan), but in a way that's a nice contrast to the city, in all it's colourfullnes and sounds and smells.
Ever since the train ride Ruut described, we're a tad sensitive when it comes to the smells... but hopefully that'll pass.
Oh well, off to brush my teeth and check if our laundry is done. Have to let Sophia write a very important blog post about the thing we love most when traveling: the food.
//H
ps. Since blogspot is off limits in China, we can not see our blog nor reply to your comments (luckily we see your comments though, and are able to blog, once again thanks to Ninjacloak) so I'll just have to reply here, for now. Varsogod Mona! Nice to hear that you liked it, wanna give me your e-mail or sum, so I don't have to reply here in the future? We love getting comments from you, abogal! Hugs!
Wuhan-Guilin (The Train Ride of Horrors) - Day 26
As we had bought hard-sleeper tickets for our 10 hour train ride to Guilin,I suppose our pampered minds were set on something similar to what we experienced on the train from Shanghai to Wuhan (Clean, half-empty, nicely quiet, helpful staff. Just extremely comfortable.)...
However, when we finally hauled our backpacks and our tired selves onboard the (alreday delayed) train we were greeted by a peculiar and vomit-inducing combination of smells, which slapped our faces like a wet glove; tobacco, sweat, pee and strange foods made for a harsh reality check.
The original departure station being Beijing, the Chinese on the train had already made themselves extremely comfortable: Phlegm was flying from every direction, food scraps were thrown carelessly on the floor, little babies (aided by their tired mothers) peeing in corners and garbage cans, snoring men scratching their butts in their sleep and people getting sick in the toilet.
The sheets in our upper berths were soiled with strange dark flecks and greasy stains. The loudspeakers as well as our fellow travellers were blaring out their incomprehensible language at noise-levels far exceeding the acceptable. The floor was sticky and damp.
Having a flu and already harboring a slight feeling of malaise, I literally thought I would not survive the day (aka the 10 hours that turned out to be a good 12 hours...). To make matters worse I burnt my finger on the leaking hot water tap. At that point I would not have been very suscpetible to all the claims of travelling broadening one's views and blah blah.
Somehow we still got through the ordeal of getting from point A to point B without developing a trauma, too terrible to cope with.
We blocked the loudspeakers with pillows and quilts, held ourselves to the very last minute in order to minimize familiarization with the train's lavatories, listened to our own music, comfort ate cookies and tried to read our books.
Curling up in fetus position and putting on a blindfold, were things that helped me get through the long grueling hours of that memorable train ride. As much as I would like to forget all about it, I can't deny that it was yet another instructive experience, albeit not a nice one.
I guess we'll all be able to laugh about it one day. Someday.
//R
However, when we finally hauled our backpacks and our tired selves onboard the (alreday delayed) train we were greeted by a peculiar and vomit-inducing combination of smells, which slapped our faces like a wet glove; tobacco, sweat, pee and strange foods made for a harsh reality check.
The original departure station being Beijing, the Chinese on the train had already made themselves extremely comfortable: Phlegm was flying from every direction, food scraps were thrown carelessly on the floor, little babies (aided by their tired mothers) peeing in corners and garbage cans, snoring men scratching their butts in their sleep and people getting sick in the toilet.
The sheets in our upper berths were soiled with strange dark flecks and greasy stains. The loudspeakers as well as our fellow travellers were blaring out their incomprehensible language at noise-levels far exceeding the acceptable. The floor was sticky and damp.
Having a flu and already harboring a slight feeling of malaise, I literally thought I would not survive the day (aka the 10 hours that turned out to be a good 12 hours...). To make matters worse I burnt my finger on the leaking hot water tap. At that point I would not have been very suscpetible to all the claims of travelling broadening one's views and blah blah.
Somehow we still got through the ordeal of getting from point A to point B without developing a trauma, too terrible to cope with.
We blocked the loudspeakers with pillows and quilts, held ourselves to the very last minute in order to minimize familiarization with the train's lavatories, listened to our own music, comfort ate cookies and tried to read our books.
Curling up in fetus position and putting on a blindfold, were things that helped me get through the long grueling hours of that memorable train ride. As much as I would like to forget all about it, I can't deny that it was yet another instructive experience, albeit not a nice one.
I guess we'll all be able to laugh about it one day. Someday.
//R
Oct 30, 2010
Wuhan - Day 25
Okay so visiting Wuhan is a must; if only to sleep in the amazing beds in Pathfinder Youth Hostel, 6 room dorm. We slept like babies for 13 hours straight.
After finally getting up, (the showers here ACTUALLY have warm water. It's not just something stated on their hostelworld website) we jumped on a bus (no subway system here yet, but most of the time we don't mind walking however far it is... When not thinking twice about booking a 14 hour train ride every other day, your perception of distance get's a bit twisted. Bus 2 yuan, and taxi, which is simpler as long as you have your destination written down in Chinese, since you just stand by the side of the road and wave your hand until a taxi stops, costs about... 6 yuan per 3 km?) Oops, got a bit off track, but as said, we jumped on the bus which took us to "Snack Alley". Sort of like Megabite (see earlier post) but genuine. And just as delicious.
In China there is food and public toilets everywhere (except for in Shanghai, where we actually had to look for food, but when finding it there was plenty, didn't see many public toilets though) which suits us fine, since now we never have to walk around hungry, and we honestly lust after the food here. If only we'd get hungrier more often, so we could try out even more of the food.
After eating we wandered down to the Yangtze river in the sunshine (Yes! Sunshine! It was actually rather warm today. Bliss.) and planned how to spend the rest of the day: sightseeing.
But those plans were soon forgotten, when we were approached by a group of University graduates: 1 guy from Singapore (who knew quite a lof of English) and 1 guy and 3 girls from Wuhan. They all work with testing different computer software. After talking to them for a while (and posing on a bunch of pictures, which is why they approached us in the first place) we decided to join them on the ferry to the other side of the river, wander back and forth on a shopping street for a while (some big Chinese celebrity made an appareance there as well... it was "rather" crowded) and then spending the rest of the day at KTV with them.
KTV. Every Chinese youngster seems to live there, at least that's how it feels when talking to them. Bars and nightclubs are apparently not as popular as getting a bunch of friends together, booking a KTV room, and spending the night drinking, eating snacks and, most importantly, singing Karaoke(or "sing song" as they keep saying). Ever since hearing about KTV's for the first time in Beijing, we've wanted to try it, and now we got to.
(So no worries parents, didn't get robbed this time. It was our suggestion to tag along, and they didn't let us pay zilch)
It was... interesting. Like having a karaoke night at home with your friends, except that you had people in suites serve you popcorn and chips, and the rooms were oozing 70's glam. Pictures and videos will come up.
Eventually we got tired of singing along to Britney Spears, Taylor Swift and Avril Lavigne (which are the English songs they chose for us...), and listening to them sing sombre Chinese lovesongs, so we excused ourselves and took a ferry back to the other side of the river.
Ate at a Taoist temple (sadly the temple was already closed, we hadn't realized we'd been that long at the KTV, luckily the restaurant was not) and now back in the familiar internet lair.
We decided the warmer weather and the amazing scenery in the south tempt us more than a 4-day boat ride with a bunch of Chinese and loud speakers (and a fee to be allowed on upper deck!) even though it would have been very interesting to see the fought over damm, the "ghost towns" and the gorges. However, we now have train tickets to Guilin, the train departing from here tomorrow morning and arriving at Guilin already tomorrow night. Sophia and Ruut are trying to book us a hostel for tomorrow, so I still have a little time to blog before we head back to the hostel and our heavenly beds...
In Shanghai there where quite a lot of Western looking people, so we didn't feel all to special. But in Wuhan, it's back to 'normal'.
Laowei, laowei is something we hear quite a lot, and most don't want to pass us without shouting a 'hello', 'nihao' or 'how are you?'. Parents bring their kids to be photographed with us, so they can show the pictures back home, and brave teenagers all want to take pictures with us. Ruut has even been made to pose in different positions (think ballerina and victory signs, nothing dirty here, you pervs).
They're mostly interested in Ruut and Sophia, though, both of them being fairer and more lighthaired than me. And perhaps the Chinese agree with my former classmates: they didn't call me 'Chinese' through high school for no reason. Sophia's length, well, the length of all of us, is also endlessly fascinating.
One of our newfound friends, "Cindy" said: You're like stars. Everyone's staring at you, taking pictures of you. (Not so discreetly if I might add).
We don't feel like 'stars' however, more like the main attraction in a freakshow. How can we be so interesting?
Sometimes we don't mind this at all though, like today, when we didn't find anywhere to sit and eat our lunch bought from the 'snack alley', and suddenly this cute Chinese family, running a little tobacco shop, had pulled out three chairs and a table. While eating our lunches they also offered us nuts and pomelo as dessert, and gave us tips on how to eat with our chopsticks. They were apparently not impressed.
While sitting there we couldn't help but still be amazed by the Chinese. They might find us interesting, but we find them a hundred times more interesting. There they all sat, outside their little shops, and chatted away, shouting to each other from across the street, and walking around in their pyjamas. Then a man walks by, pushing a carriage full of living fish, and suddenly everyone's standing around it, watching him kill and rinse the fish that one of the pyjama heroes ordered.
I don't think there are people anywhere, quite as nosy as the Chinese.
//H
After finally getting up, (the showers here ACTUALLY have warm water. It's not just something stated on their hostelworld website) we jumped on a bus (no subway system here yet, but most of the time we don't mind walking however far it is... When not thinking twice about booking a 14 hour train ride every other day, your perception of distance get's a bit twisted. Bus 2 yuan, and taxi, which is simpler as long as you have your destination written down in Chinese, since you just stand by the side of the road and wave your hand until a taxi stops, costs about... 6 yuan per 3 km?) Oops, got a bit off track, but as said, we jumped on the bus which took us to "Snack Alley". Sort of like Megabite (see earlier post) but genuine. And just as delicious.
In China there is food and public toilets everywhere (except for in Shanghai, where we actually had to look for food, but when finding it there was plenty, didn't see many public toilets though) which suits us fine, since now we never have to walk around hungry, and we honestly lust after the food here. If only we'd get hungrier more often, so we could try out even more of the food.
After eating we wandered down to the Yangtze river in the sunshine (Yes! Sunshine! It was actually rather warm today. Bliss.) and planned how to spend the rest of the day: sightseeing.
But those plans were soon forgotten, when we were approached by a group of University graduates: 1 guy from Singapore (who knew quite a lof of English) and 1 guy and 3 girls from Wuhan. They all work with testing different computer software. After talking to them for a while (and posing on a bunch of pictures, which is why they approached us in the first place) we decided to join them on the ferry to the other side of the river, wander back and forth on a shopping street for a while (some big Chinese celebrity made an appareance there as well... it was "rather" crowded) and then spending the rest of the day at KTV with them.
KTV. Every Chinese youngster seems to live there, at least that's how it feels when talking to them. Bars and nightclubs are apparently not as popular as getting a bunch of friends together, booking a KTV room, and spending the night drinking, eating snacks and, most importantly, singing Karaoke(or "sing song" as they keep saying). Ever since hearing about KTV's for the first time in Beijing, we've wanted to try it, and now we got to.
(So no worries parents, didn't get robbed this time. It was our suggestion to tag along, and they didn't let us pay zilch)
It was... interesting. Like having a karaoke night at home with your friends, except that you had people in suites serve you popcorn and chips, and the rooms were oozing 70's glam. Pictures and videos will come up.
Eventually we got tired of singing along to Britney Spears, Taylor Swift and Avril Lavigne (which are the English songs they chose for us...), and listening to them sing sombre Chinese lovesongs, so we excused ourselves and took a ferry back to the other side of the river.
Ate at a Taoist temple (sadly the temple was already closed, we hadn't realized we'd been that long at the KTV, luckily the restaurant was not) and now back in the familiar internet lair.
We decided the warmer weather and the amazing scenery in the south tempt us more than a 4-day boat ride with a bunch of Chinese and loud speakers (and a fee to be allowed on upper deck!) even though it would have been very interesting to see the fought over damm, the "ghost towns" and the gorges. However, we now have train tickets to Guilin, the train departing from here tomorrow morning and arriving at Guilin already tomorrow night. Sophia and Ruut are trying to book us a hostel for tomorrow, so I still have a little time to blog before we head back to the hostel and our heavenly beds...
In Shanghai there where quite a lot of Western looking people, so we didn't feel all to special. But in Wuhan, it's back to 'normal'.
Laowei, laowei is something we hear quite a lot, and most don't want to pass us without shouting a 'hello', 'nihao' or 'how are you?'. Parents bring their kids to be photographed with us, so they can show the pictures back home, and brave teenagers all want to take pictures with us. Ruut has even been made to pose in different positions (think ballerina and victory signs, nothing dirty here, you pervs).
They're mostly interested in Ruut and Sophia, though, both of them being fairer and more lighthaired than me. And perhaps the Chinese agree with my former classmates: they didn't call me 'Chinese' through high school for no reason. Sophia's length, well, the length of all of us, is also endlessly fascinating.
One of our newfound friends, "Cindy" said: You're like stars. Everyone's staring at you, taking pictures of you. (Not so discreetly if I might add).
We don't feel like 'stars' however, more like the main attraction in a freakshow. How can we be so interesting?
Sometimes we don't mind this at all though, like today, when we didn't find anywhere to sit and eat our lunch bought from the 'snack alley', and suddenly this cute Chinese family, running a little tobacco shop, had pulled out three chairs and a table. While eating our lunches they also offered us nuts and pomelo as dessert, and gave us tips on how to eat with our chopsticks. They were apparently not impressed.
While sitting there we couldn't help but still be amazed by the Chinese. They might find us interesting, but we find them a hundred times more interesting. There they all sat, outside their little shops, and chatted away, shouting to each other from across the street, and walking around in their pyjamas. Then a man walks by, pushing a carriage full of living fish, and suddenly everyone's standing around it, watching him kill and rinse the fish that one of the pyjama heroes ordered.
I don't think there are people anywhere, quite as nosy as the Chinese.
//H
Oct 29, 2010
Tongli - Day 22
Our third day in Shanghai wasn't actually spent in Shanghai, but in a "small town" in the province of Jiangsu (the same as Nanjing) called Tongli. (Or Tong Lii, as it apparently is pronounced... we were corrected 'a couple' of times)
So, we jumped on a bus with a bunch of retired Chinese and sent of to view a 1000-year-old, riverside town, turned tuorist attraction.
The most adventuruos incident, during our 'Tongli adventure' (as I ironically refered to it in a earlier post) was when we, wanting to be rebellious and walk a different way back, almost missed the bus back to Shanghai.
But it wasn't all bad, quite the opposite.
Somehow we managed to loose the crowds, and spent the day wandering the silent, picturesque streets, along the small rivers, eating dumplings and sometimes even getting a glimpse of the rarely seen sun. The old houses and gardens were beautiful, of course, but the highlight in Tongli was definitely The Chinese Sex Culture Museum.
The museum offered both a lot of laughs (our humour is not too developed. I mean a LOT of laughs) and a lot of interesting information about how sex has been viewed in China during different episodes: prostitues, concubines,eunuchs...
The concubine tradition is still carried on by rich Chinese business men handing out their business cards. Accept it, and you become one of his mistresses.
Learning this only yesterday from our roomie, we've happily been accepting a lot of business cards But since we've been traveling third class, there's no need to worry mom.
//H
So, we jumped on a bus with a bunch of retired Chinese and sent of to view a 1000-year-old, riverside town, turned tuorist attraction.
The most adventuruos incident, during our 'Tongli adventure' (as I ironically refered to it in a earlier post) was when we, wanting to be rebellious and walk a different way back, almost missed the bus back to Shanghai.
But it wasn't all bad, quite the opposite.
Somehow we managed to loose the crowds, and spent the day wandering the silent, picturesque streets, along the small rivers, eating dumplings and sometimes even getting a glimpse of the rarely seen sun. The old houses and gardens were beautiful, of course, but the highlight in Tongli was definitely The Chinese Sex Culture Museum.
The museum offered both a lot of laughs (our humour is not too developed. I mean a LOT of laughs) and a lot of interesting information about how sex has been viewed in China during different episodes: prostitues, concubines,eunuchs...
The concubine tradition is still carried on by rich Chinese business men handing out their business cards. Accept it, and you become one of his mistresses.
Learning this only yesterday from our roomie, we've happily been accepting a lot of business cards But since we've been traveling third class, there's no need to worry mom.
//H
Wuhan - Day 24
Hard sleeper vs. hard seat is an easy choice, as we arrived happy and well-slept in Wuhan today, compared with arriving tired and sore in Nanjing...
First we were a bit stressed that we wouldn't get any sleep on this train either, since the other passangers were just as interested in talking with us, as they were on the Beijing-Nanjing train, the only difference being that now no one could speak English. Not even read English. So our conversations weren't that exciting (well, we don't know if they were) and trying to learn Chinese in the middle of the night, without knowing what words you are learning, is not as much fun as you'd think. So when the lights finally were turned off, we were rather thankful. Ever since the Trans Sib, I just don't sleep as well anywhere else than on a train. (Just waking up a couple of times, stressing out we'd missed our station)
Luckily we didn't miss our station, and actually managed to take a bus(!) to our hostel, Pathfinder International Youth Hostel. Which I might add is the most colourful and "hippie-like" hostel we've been in so far.
By the way... how many of you have ever heard of Wuhan? None of us had, and still Wuhan is the equivalent of Finland when it comes to the amount of inhabitants.
...so, what is there to do here then? Or actually, what should we do after seeing what there is to do here?
Do we want to go on a 4-day cruise upstream the Yangtze river (which is what we came here for, since we didn't get to go on our boat trip to the island of Putuoshan, outside Shanghai, because of the strong wind) to the huge city(they're all so huge...) of Chongqing? And from there to Chengdu?
Or should we just skip the boat trip on the Yangtze, although our "new swedes" recommended it, and head south (YES!) towards Guilin? And a boat ride on the Li river perhaps, since we seem to have an obsession about that. And from there on to the Yunnan province....?
Oh well, we'll see, we still have one day more here, so plenty of time (cough, cough) to decide where we want to head next.
When hearing our response: 'We don't know', on the question: 'Where are you going next?', all Western travelers respond: 'That's the best way to travel!' while all Chinese shake their heads in bewildernment and consider us as lost, little girls, who have absolutely no clue of what we're doing, and desperately need their help.
I think the truth is a little bit of both, this really is a great way to travel, as you get to make up your mind as you go (although slightly stressed by the fact that China is, well, HUGE, and there is so much to see and do, while our visas will run out eventually...) but at the same time.. you are sort of lost. All the time.
But that's not necessary a bad thing.
//H
First we were a bit stressed that we wouldn't get any sleep on this train either, since the other passangers were just as interested in talking with us, as they were on the Beijing-Nanjing train, the only difference being that now no one could speak English. Not even read English. So our conversations weren't that exciting (well, we don't know if they were) and trying to learn Chinese in the middle of the night, without knowing what words you are learning, is not as much fun as you'd think. So when the lights finally were turned off, we were rather thankful. Ever since the Trans Sib, I just don't sleep as well anywhere else than on a train. (Just waking up a couple of times, stressing out we'd missed our station)
Luckily we didn't miss our station, and actually managed to take a bus(!) to our hostel, Pathfinder International Youth Hostel. Which I might add is the most colourful and "hippie-like" hostel we've been in so far.
By the way... how many of you have ever heard of Wuhan? None of us had, and still Wuhan is the equivalent of Finland when it comes to the amount of inhabitants.
...so, what is there to do here then? Or actually, what should we do after seeing what there is to do here?
Do we want to go on a 4-day cruise upstream the Yangtze river (which is what we came here for, since we didn't get to go on our boat trip to the island of Putuoshan, outside Shanghai, because of the strong wind) to the huge city(they're all so huge...) of Chongqing? And from there to Chengdu?
Or should we just skip the boat trip on the Yangtze, although our "new swedes" recommended it, and head south (YES!) towards Guilin? And a boat ride on the Li river perhaps, since we seem to have an obsession about that. And from there on to the Yunnan province....?
Oh well, we'll see, we still have one day more here, so plenty of time (cough, cough) to decide where we want to head next.
When hearing our response: 'We don't know', on the question: 'Where are you going next?', all Western travelers respond: 'That's the best way to travel!' while all Chinese shake their heads in bewildernment and consider us as lost, little girls, who have absolutely no clue of what we're doing, and desperately need their help.
I think the truth is a little bit of both, this really is a great way to travel, as you get to make up your mind as you go (although slightly stressed by the fact that China is, well, HUGE, and there is so much to see and do, while our visas will run out eventually...) but at the same time.. you are sort of lost. All the time.
But that's not necessary a bad thing.
//H
Oct 28, 2010
About Shanghai - Day 23
This being our last day in Shanghai, I thought I'd compare it a bit with Beijing (and Nanjing) before checking out.
It is said that Shanghai's the place to visit when you're tired of old temples, dusty tombs and small alleys.
I agree, and we are most definitely not tired of 'old China' yet, so Shanghai has left us longing about rural China and hikes in the countryside, or at least a pair of jeans and high heels so we'd fit in.
Shanghai doesn't quite feel like 'China', at least not like the China we're used to. Beijing was huge, but it didn't feel like it - the streets were narrow, the buildings not that high, and little shops everywhere. Even the smallest Hutong street would provide it's residents with everything they needed; fruit market, cloth stores, hairsalons, internet cafes and public toilets. We would not once have had to walk more than 20 meters from our hostel (the same goes for Nanjing) to find everything we needed, and more.
Shanghai on the other hand... Shanghai is a big city, and Shanghai FEELS big. The distance's are long, the roads are wide and never ending, the skyscrapers, well, 'scrape the sky'. And stores are gathered into huge malls instead of being spread everywhere. All in all, Shanghai sort of feels like a big Western capitol, considering the layout.
Oh, and the metro system.... it's huge. However grateful for it's simplicity, we are so tired of the subway.
And, either we've gotten more used to feeling like giants, or people in Shanghai are taller than in Beijing and Nanjing. And wear more make-up as well. (According to one of our roomies in Nanjing, girls rarely wear make-up before turning 25 or 30)
Since we are about to check out, and starting to get rather hungry, we'll write more about our Tongli adventure next time we get to a computer. One thing I will miss about Shanghai is the food. The cheap Sushi (will probably have to stack up with Sushi for the 14 hour train ride), Megabite (which Sophia already wrote about) and our nextdoor Indian restaurant, where we will be heading now.
So long Shanghai, next stop Wuhan!
//H
It is said that Shanghai's the place to visit when you're tired of old temples, dusty tombs and small alleys.
I agree, and we are most definitely not tired of 'old China' yet, so Shanghai has left us longing about rural China and hikes in the countryside, or at least a pair of jeans and high heels so we'd fit in.
Shanghai doesn't quite feel like 'China', at least not like the China we're used to. Beijing was huge, but it didn't feel like it - the streets were narrow, the buildings not that high, and little shops everywhere. Even the smallest Hutong street would provide it's residents with everything they needed; fruit market, cloth stores, hairsalons, internet cafes and public toilets. We would not once have had to walk more than 20 meters from our hostel (the same goes for Nanjing) to find everything we needed, and more.
Shanghai on the other hand... Shanghai is a big city, and Shanghai FEELS big. The distance's are long, the roads are wide and never ending, the skyscrapers, well, 'scrape the sky'. And stores are gathered into huge malls instead of being spread everywhere. All in all, Shanghai sort of feels like a big Western capitol, considering the layout.
Oh, and the metro system.... it's huge. However grateful for it's simplicity, we are so tired of the subway.
And, either we've gotten more used to feeling like giants, or people in Shanghai are taller than in Beijing and Nanjing. And wear more make-up as well. (According to one of our roomies in Nanjing, girls rarely wear make-up before turning 25 or 30)
Since we are about to check out, and starting to get rather hungry, we'll write more about our Tongli adventure next time we get to a computer. One thing I will miss about Shanghai is the food. The cheap Sushi (will probably have to stack up with Sushi for the 14 hour train ride), Megabite (which Sophia already wrote about) and our nextdoor Indian restaurant, where we will be heading now.
So long Shanghai, next stop Wuhan!
//H
Oct 26, 2010
中國 (China) - Day 18
Shanghai - day 20&21
The train trip from Nanjing to Shanghai (the very expensive train
trip) was so comfortable that we all thougt that 75min was too short a
time to fully enjoy it. The seats were soft, there was room for our
legs, nobody smoked and the toilet was the cleanest since we don't
know when! But when the train travels at a speed of almost 350km/h
it's no wonder the distance between the two cities felt so much
shorter than it really is.
When we arrived we somehow managed to find our way to our hostel, only
equipped with the Lonely Planet and the address of our hostel(Beehome
Hostel). The room is big and we have our own bathroom, which always is
a big plus, but when we arrived it seemed as if our roomate had
brushed her hair EVERYWHERE. There were long, dark hairs in my bed, on
the floor and in the bathroom. Luckily they thouroghly cleaned the
room today and since our roomate left for the Expo at 4Am, we haven't
seen her again. So we hope she's left and given no more opportunities
to spread her hairs all over the room. We loved our other roomate
though. Yasmine from Taiwan was even nice enough to let me try one of
her face masks (no words can describe it, you'll have to wait for the
pictures).
We spent the whole day yesterday walking around in Shanghai. Eating
cheap sushi(the leftovers became our breakfast), strolling down the
Bund and looking up a foodplace called Megabite with an interesting
concept. You choose what raw ingredients you want and then they cook
them for you, right in front of you. We ate so mady different kinds of
tofu that we could barely walk. China really is the promised land of
tofu!
..and yes, to you mothers who so kindly suggested that we'd look up
the Expo when in Shanghai; we know that it's here and we actually went
there today. We saw the que for the tickets, outside the area, and
decided that the 200 yuan each could be better spent than queing all
day long. But the Expo is advertised everywhere, so nobody can visit
Shanghai and be ignorant of it.
This morning we booked a day trip to Tongli, "a lovely canal village
where a disappearing lifestyle of slow living still exists". Hmm,
we'll see about that with all the tourists it's attracting... So
tomorrow morning, at 8:30AM, we're heading towards Tongli on our first
bus trip. Exciting.
trip) was so comfortable that we all thougt that 75min was too short a
time to fully enjoy it. The seats were soft, there was room for our
legs, nobody smoked and the toilet was the cleanest since we don't
know when! But when the train travels at a speed of almost 350km/h
it's no wonder the distance between the two cities felt so much
shorter than it really is.
When we arrived we somehow managed to find our way to our hostel, only
equipped with the Lonely Planet and the address of our hostel(Beehome
Hostel). The room is big and we have our own bathroom, which always is
a big plus, but when we arrived it seemed as if our roomate had
brushed her hair EVERYWHERE. There were long, dark hairs in my bed, on
the floor and in the bathroom. Luckily they thouroghly cleaned the
room today and since our roomate left for the Expo at 4Am, we haven't
seen her again. So we hope she's left and given no more opportunities
to spread her hairs all over the room. We loved our other roomate
though. Yasmine from Taiwan was even nice enough to let me try one of
her face masks (no words can describe it, you'll have to wait for the
pictures).
We spent the whole day yesterday walking around in Shanghai. Eating
cheap sushi(the leftovers became our breakfast), strolling down the
Bund and looking up a foodplace called Megabite with an interesting
concept. You choose what raw ingredients you want and then they cook
them for you, right in front of you. We ate so mady different kinds of
tofu that we could barely walk. China really is the promised land of
tofu!
..and yes, to you mothers who so kindly suggested that we'd look up
the Expo when in Shanghai; we know that it's here and we actually went
there today. We saw the que for the tickets, outside the area, and
decided that the 200 yuan each could be better spent than queing all
day long. But the Expo is advertised everywhere, so nobody can visit
Shanghai and be ignorant of it.
This morning we booked a day trip to Tongli, "a lovely canal village
where a disappearing lifestyle of slow living still exists". Hmm,
we'll see about that with all the tourists it's attracting... So
tomorrow morning, at 8:30AM, we're heading towards Tongli on our first
bus trip. Exciting.
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