Chengdu

Chengdu was a considerably different city to the others we'd seen in China so far. It was low rise and spread out, with a trees, parks and other wide open spaces. What was more surprising was that it was a really funky city, and the street our hostel was on had dozens of cool cafes, bars, boutique stores, and of course cheap food. It was really quite unexpected for China, which was great.

We spent four great days here with Annelies, who had holidays over the Easter break. We had an awesome time just relaxing and not worrying too much about trying to see "everything". We hit up the park and had a very Chinese afternoon drinking teas and eating seeds which were provided by our Chinese friend who once he heard we were kiwis wanted to tell us all about his supplements business (sounded dodgy, maybe in the hope we could land him a manuka or deer velvet contract...). 

Adding to the hilarity of the day, after watching some Chinese singing and dancing, Lizzie's clapping was mistaken for "I want to come up on stage and dance with you", so her and Annelies danced around in front of 100 Chinese people whose reactions made it unclear whether they were happy or offended, while I flat out refused and opted for the title of official photographer. That night we went to the Sichuan Opera  (or face changing show), which was at times amazing and at others embarrassingly tacky.

Chengdu is in Sichuan Province - which is known for its spicy food. There are two main types - Sichuan BBQ (skewers of meat coated in spices) and Hot Pot (skewers dipped in boiling chili oil). They're both damn hot, and after trying it, we moved on and opted for something a little more bearable - a Muslim Chinese restaurant which was incredible and about a $NZ1 a dish. We had a long distance train coming up in a few days, and you just can't risk these things...

Chengdu was also an admin city for us. We organised our permits to Tibet from our Guesthouse and spent a lot of time talking about this, organising train tickets, and looking for extra warm gear we'll need. We left for Xi'an on the 5th to see the Terracotta Warriors and will head to back to Chengdu on the 8th to start our tour. We're both pretty darn excited about this one. An 8 day itinerary takes us to Lhasa, Shigatse, Gyantse, Yamdrok Tso, and finally to...Mt Everest Base Camp! The train in is a whopping 40 hours, but is apparently incredible and also the best way to acclimatise to the altitude as it is gradual (unlike flying in). With our bag full of altitude sickness pills we should be right though, and will hopefully be writing in a few days from the "Rooftop of the World".

Chongqing

What to say about Chongqing...? Perhaps what will do is that it is the strangest place I have ever been to! Think of a city shrouded in fog, with a population of near 6 million, almost all high rise, complete with nutcase taxi drivers, and not a Westerner in sight (apart from Annelies that is!). Chongqing thinks Westerners are coming however, apparent by the screeds of empty apartments and resorts waiting to be filled. I don't know what it is that they think will bring us all to Chongqing...

Anyway, it was fantastic to see Annelies, and she made us feel at home in her great apartment - a haven from the madness of otherworldly Chongqing. She showed us the sights at night after work and we had an awesome time (many, many thanks to her for having us!) in what wouldn't have been a very appealing city to be a tourist in. You can't beat local knowledge. We ate and drank away a couple of nights there, marvelled at the madness and talked about experiences in China.

We got on the express train to Chengdu on Thursday night after Annelies had finished work,  bags of chocolate and wine under our arms, ready for a relaxing Easter break. After a smooth 2 hour train ride complete with illogical queueing and loads of staring true to Chinese tradition, we arrived in Chengdu and got amongst.

Yangshuo

Yangshuo was simply stunning. It is a small town set on the banks of the Li River, and surrounded by dozens of limestone peaks. It is the China that most people imagine or see in the movies. The town itself is a bit of a tourist haunt, and one thing we have learnt about China is that 95% of the tourists are domestic. That makes for some pretty entertaining viewing. There is so much junk for sale - the Chinese are consumers, no doubt about that, and they will buy anything.

The area surrounding Yangshuo is really what makes this place interesting. Several rivers flow through the area amongst the limetone karsts and farms. Twice we hired bikes and rode around rice paddy's and small villages - a good way to appreciate how beautiful the place really is. We did a 24km hike along the river which was incredible. Sometimes its easy to put your NZ hat on and say that nothing compares to home, but this was unlike anything I'd ever seen before. I guess the difference being that at home its all in close proximity - in China the good stuff is REALLY GOOD, but so far has been few and far between.

On our final night we did a cooking course out in the country which was heaps of fun. Its the second one we've done now and its such an awesome way to get to know a culture better. In China the food reflects the seasons, and after cycling and walking around in the countryside you realise how important each ingredient is and how much effort goes into obtaining it. Yin and Yang is also represented in the food, and knowing these small facts makes a walk through the market more interesting and certainly gives you more appreciation for what you're eating, rather than just wolfing down a bowl noodles.

Despite a minor blowout in the form of a missed flight (quickly sorted out by the legendary Annelies), we finally left Yangshuo bound for Chongqing. It was an amazing six days and I can recommend it to anyone travelling in China.

Guilin

Guilin promised so much and unfortunately delivered so little. We arrived from Nanning and found yet another amazing Guesthouse (the dream run continues) and set out exploring. This place was very different to Nanning - not very modern and quite dirty. The 'sights' were lucklustre at best, and after two nights we were pretty eager to move on to Yangshuo. I guess this wasn't the polished China we had seen in Nanning, nor was it the relaxed countryside we were about to encounter in Yangshuo.

Nanning

We approached the Chinese border with a little trepidation. We'd heard multiple accounts the bureacracy of the officials was of legendary proportions and that a long wait and the confiscation of our guide book (the Chinese do not like the fact Taiwan is listed as a separate country) was a possibility. The process turned out to be rather painless and we were ushered through to our waiting bus for the other half of the journey to Nanning.

The border was immaculate, with marble/granite buildings and paths lined with red flowering trees. The rail terminal looked equally as polished. We stepped onto our bus which was an immediate contrast to anything we'd had previosuly in SE Asia - seats with ample leg room that resembled lazy boys. The theme of contrast continued as we pulled out onto the double lane highway, lined with manicured gardens and concrete edgings, that was as smooth as silk for the whole 4 hour trip to Nanning.

Arriving in Nanning we were shocked to see a massive modern city complete with 3 or 4 amazing bridges (in typical Chinese style, lit up like rainbows with neon lighting) , countless skyscrapers and a flood lit golf course. It was so clean and tidy we could hardly believe it.

At that stage we didn't have any Chinese currency, which made paying for a taxi to our Guesthouse a minor problem. After having our Travelcard rejected from 3 ATM's we finally found one that came to the party and dispensed us some Renminbi. We found our way to the hostel which was run buy an American expat who in time turned out to be quite a weirdo.

The next day we had a walk around and continued to be awestruck by the number of shopping malls and the like. After a brief bit of shopping in order to get some supplies I headed to the 'golf ball-like' Guangxi Province Museum of Science and Technology for a look while Lizzie subbed out. This place was housed in yet another impressive building and had a series of interactive exhibits aimed to educate the young through old on the scientific method, innovation, resource management and clean energies. It was quite cool even though I could only read half the exhibits. I think such a thing would be really useful back home for the NZ public.

That night we went to a street food market - welcome to China. The theme here seemed to be 'anything goes'. There were hundreds of BBQ's, dumpling and noodle stands, and then of course your more exotic foods like goat heads, shark heads, chicken feet - pretty much everything we throw away. It turned out that the specialty of Guangxi province was dog hot pot, so after making a special effort to avoid that we ended up with a grilled fish and oysters (yip...really roughing it!).

Today we said goodbye to our strange American hostel-owner and made our way up to Guilin on another easy bus ride. I don't think for one minute Nanning will be representative of China. As an entry point and economic stronghold for ASEAN trade, it was bound to be polished. However, coming from two months in SE Asia Nanning was definitely a bit of shock to the system - where was all the dust, heat, and general craziness? The sheer wealth and level of consumerism in a modern China was startling. It was not only the gulf in wealth between China and SE Asia that stood out, but even the difference between Nanning and NZ. All this made for a rather unsettling first few days in China while we tried to get to grips with the differences in culture, environment and language.

Censored!

Hi All,

One of the downsides of travelling in China is the internet censorship laws. I had known previously that you could't access Facebook or YouTube here, but I was unaware that I couldn't access my Blogger site, or even view any .blogspot blogs! I think I've found a way around it, posting by email, but I'm not sure how this will affect the layout of any of my posts. Apologies if they come skewed or minus any photos, hopefully I can sort a solution out soon.

A.

Hanoi and Halong Bay

We thought that Saigon was hectic enough, but even though Hanoi is smaller (3 million vs. 7 million), the tightness of the streets and the fact that 2/3 of the population own scooters makes for a cacophony of noise. It really is scooter city. Crossing the road is not so bad though, like Saigon, if you hold your line and move slowly, the traffic will swarm around you. Hanoi has an Old Quarter, where centuries ago the 36 Guilds came together to form an area of commerce. Many of the streets have been taken over by things more modern, and we saw sunglasses street, shoe street, clothes street, and my favourite - shelving and storage equipment street. Imagine trading like that back home - a street full of your competitors!

While in Hanoi we're staying with Matt and Lindy who have been teaching English here for the past 18 months or so. Its so good to see some people from home and they've been amazing - showing us around on their scooters, taking us to amazing restaurants and making us feel at home. Its so nice to be in a house for a change, we have our own room here and have been able to do washing, watch the cricket and Wellington Phoenix, and generally catch up on life.

We took a trip to Halong Bay, north of Hanoi a couple of days ago - another UNESCO World Heritage Site which has almost 2000 limestone Karsts rising out of the sea. The scenery is amazing...if you keep your eyes above the horizon - the water is quite polluted, nothing like clean green NZ. Perhaps I'll tell you what we saw in the water another time!

We spent a night on the boat which was pretty cool, we kayaked around the islands into jungle surrounded lagoons accessible through caves, and there were only two other people on board and so we were upgraded to the "deluxe suite". The catch with these boats is that the drinks are pretty expensive, and I think they were quite upset that we snuck a bottle of vodka ($1.50) on board and dealt to it up on the top deck.

We're back in Hanoi now and organising our bus to China. I'm very much looking forward to this part of the trip, as I find China an intriguing country due to both its history and the rapid change its going through. A new country also brings new food and new people, which I've found helps keep the excitement up when you're on the road for a long time. Hopefully we can get into Tibet, and we also get to see Annelies which is so damn exciting too.