The Giant China post

The past 2,5 weeks we have been traveling around the great red China, a country where you are 100% guaranteed to experience what can be called a ‘culture shock’. Flying out from California, where we had a quick 5-day pit stop, we arrived in Beijing on the 29^th of January. Some things were expected, like the most annoying government censorship over pretty much every single website we use on the Internet, (hence we’ve had to wait until getting to Vietnam to publish this ridiculously long blog post), strange food, and above all, the much reported smog cloud that had been floating over Beijing for several weeks (Ok, years to be precise).

China was exactly what we expected, and more. The amount of pollution was mind-blowing. Not only in Beijing, where it was hands down the worst, but EVERYWHERE we went. The way people shamelessly spit, pee, poop, and smoke in the most unexpected places was also really something to get used to. Perhaps the low level of general cleanliness and local hygiene habits were the biggest shock to us, something you cannot prepare yourself for. Saying this, our experience of China would’ve of course been completely different had we decided to travel with more money, stay in hotels, travel by air and visit highly Westernized cities of Shanghai and Hong Kong. Perhaps fortunately this wasn’t the case for us; we traveled inland of China, by sleeper train and stayed in the cheapest possible accommodation.  Here’s the journey in summary:

Beijing

Things we did and see:

1.     The forbidden city/ Tiananmen Square= a must in Beijing, totally worth going in to!

2.     The temple of Heaven = pretty impressive park, especially if interested in Ancient religion

3.     The famous bar street = guaranteed drunk from Tsing Tao beer

4.     Peking duck = a supposed must-to-eat in Beijing. Prepare to pay Western prices for a portion in a restaurant

5.     And most importantly, the Great Wall of freaking China = we were lucky enough to get a tour to the less touristy stop point, which was awesome! Although the weather was misty and it was freezing, I would say that was totally the time/place to visit it! No other tourists were seen, which made our pictures pretty rare and unique.

Where we stayed: Happy Dragon Courtyard Hostel http://www.happydragonhostel.com/courtyard/en/: Awesome private room and sweet girls working here! £20/private room

The old man behind the good old Chinese communism (not the security guard)

Inside the Forbidden City

This is how far we were able to see in Beijing. This smog was out of this world! ps. This is Tiananmen Square

Having a freezing cold beer at the Great Wall

 Temple of Heaven and the only time we saw the sky in China

Peking duck and Kung Pao chicken

Xi’an

Turned out, it was Chinese New Year this week, which meant the entire population of China was traveling to their homes by train. So inevitably we struggled to get any tickets anywhere. Lucky enough, or unlucky really, as we had to get £80 first-class bullet train tickets in order to get out of Beijing to get to our next destination, Xian.  Good thing was we got there in 5 hours going over 200km/h. On the train we met a group of British/American English teachers (who most Westerners in China turned out to be), who we ended up later going to the Terracotta Warriors with.

1.     Muslim Quarter= awesome buzzing market area with Muslim foods and cheap tourist crap and the Great Mosque, over 1000 year-old still active mosque, which was one of coolest things in the city!

2.     Terracotta Warriors= rented a mini van and a driver to take us there, about 1h from the city. A must in China. We ended up getting a local (Japanese, actually) tour guide, otherwise we would’ve just been staring at a bunch of clay statues without little knowledge about the story behind them. Overall, the sheer number/shape of these life-sized warriors is spectacular. I mean, they have discovered over 6000 of them, and still digging for more!

3.     Walking around the city inside the ancient city walls, a big wall completely surrounding the city center. Also touring the actual wall (14km) on a tandem bike!

4.     Celebrating Tony’s birthday by Tony spending it in the bathroom due to a food poisoning we both (eventually) got from a hostel burger. Oh, and that night enjoying a Finnish sauna on the rooftop of the hostel, where the temperature was kept at 36 Celsius the entire hour we sat there. What a disgrace.

Where we stayed: Han Tang Inn http://www.hostels.com/hostels/xian/han-tang-inn-hostel/13385: Awesome on the inside, atmosphere pretty lame, sauna is SHIT! £4/dorm bed, £16 private room

 City God Temple, a really cool Taoist square in the middle of the city

Sweet ladies preparing us a filled pita bread thing in the Muslim Quarter

 Lots of warriors ready for battle

The ''hot springs'' we paid to go see. AKA DO not go!

 Oh, look what we found in our soup! Thats what you get from not speaking the same language with the waitress.

Tony and his lonely tandem bike on the city walls

Chengdu

After spending an extensive 6 days in Xian we had our first experience on a sleeper train to Chengdu. Only 15-hours long, this truly was an experience. One thing to say, avoid having to use the toilet for as long as you can.  Squat toilet in a train is a recipe for a disastrous mess. Arriving in Chengdu at 9pm on New Year’s Eve, we quickly dropped our bags at the hostel and got some food and drink down before hitting the streets for some fireworks. Once in China, we figured there’s no better way of celebrating Chinese New Year than making a toast with some 60% baijiu, which unsurprisingly came up pretty quick after consumption for some of us. After New Year’s it was Petra’s turn to enjoy the same food poisoning Tony had a few days before. Therefore much of the city was left undiscovered, and the only activity we did was the most anticipated, priceless visit to the Panda breeding centre!

Where we stayed: Lazy Bones hostel http://www.mixhostel.com/lazybones/homepage_eng2.htm: Great food (as it is in Sichuan), good atmosphere for £5/dorm bed

 Happy Chinese New Year!

No words for this one...

Guilin

Straight after the pandas we got on the 25h train to our last stop, Guilin. After those hours we can safely say we have fully experienced the Chinese trains, and will have no urge to experience it again. This dirty, smelly, crammed, loud, foodless journey did take us to Guilin for £30, so I suppose we cant complain.  From Guilin we took a mini bus to Yangshuo, a top backpacker destination with overwhelming landscape surrounding it. Not much to say here, this normally cute little village was now PACKED with tourists mainly from Hong Kong celebrating New Year. Here we experienced our most touristy activity with a bus full of Chinese people touring the famous Rice Terraces. I wont even bother putting a picture of that up, since the visibility up there was literally 0% due to ridiculous fog.  In conclusion, February is definitely NOT the time to visit this place, or China in general to be honest.

From Yangshuo we took a 7h bus to Nanning, a Southern town where we took a bus to Hanoi from after spending 2 nights in probably the worst hostel so far. Nanning is NOT a place to visit, unless you really have to.  

Where we stayed: Not worth mentioning...Although we did end up staying in a sweet, brand new Chinese hotel in Yangshuo for £12/ room...As it was Chinese, theres no way knowing the name of it :)

Me and my McFlurry. Yes, we went to McDonald's.

Us and Yangshuo in the background