Category Archives: China

Guiyang and Anshun

April 26, 2014 testtest Leave a comment

We are well and truly off the beaten path now…English is virtually non existent and every little action is becoming more and more challenging. We checked into the best hotel that we have stayed in since leaving Australia when we arrived in Guiyang. Sadly it also had the worst wifi since we left too.

While the hotel was lovely there are a few elements that make it uniquely Chinese and a little odd to say the least. There does not seem to be any service elevator so guests share the elevator with staff going about their business. As we have noticed throughout China if you wait…you lose…so people push and shove to get onto buses, taxis, trains etc. that is just China and you get used to it…but when a cleaner races a guest to the lift and pushes door close so that the guest has to wait for the next lift well that is another story. And this goes for the laundry dudes filling the lifts while you stand waiting to use them, and the restaurant staff taking food to the kitchens etc. The service staff however do allow guests first use.

The hotel was right next to an amazing food street which we spent most of our time eating at. Great food, dirt cheap…the only trouble was getting access to coffee and ordering in a town with little or no English. The town is also home to one of the largest statues of Mao Zedong across the road from yet another stunning park and square (something China does like nowhere else).

We spent a day hiking around the 1000 acre park in the middle of town which was essentially a massive forested hilly area. Having schlepped it up most of the mountain Jill decided we could catch the cable car back (why we didn’t catch it up was apparently my fault)…so we started on a journey of stairs up the mountain. Half way up we met some locals who said there was nothing at the top. I stopped…Jill kept going…20 minutes later she returned regaling me of the beauty that was the mobile telecommunications repeater tower.

Next we headed for the town of Anshun which has even less English but is the launching point for the Longgong Dragon Caves and the Huangguoshu Waterfall which is the tallest in China. We looked at the caves and they are quite expensive and as tackily commercialised as a thing could be… so after some thought we decided to boycott the caves. We aimed to hit the waterfall and headed for the bus station…after much walking we failed. So we got our return train ticket to Guiyang extended by a day, hopped a local bus and headed for the inner city sights.

We made it to the lake and the Confucius temple…now most of you would know that I am an avid studier of the writings of Confucius and as such I sought to educate my wife by advising her of some of his better known teachings. This did not go well. I think things went wrong when I advised her that “Confucius say…man who go to bed with itchy bum…wake up with smelly finger”.

The next day came and we took another crack at getting to the falls… Success. About 5 bus rides, well over $100 in park fees etc, much gesturing and no food or drink…we made it to the falls. It must be said that our lack of Chinese is really proving to be a detriment as we get into the back blocks of China.

The area is actually a series of waterfalls with the Doupotang falls being the first that we hit and the Huangguoshu being the biggest. The area is similar to Guilin and Yangshou and is full of karsts (lumps for those who have been following). The falls were stunning…a great little walk that could be (and was) done that took you behind the falls into caves that had the wall of water cascading past you…very cool.

Similar to the stone forest near Kunming, there had been a bunch of drug affected geologists who were given naming privileges in the area. As such there were very grandiose names given to rock formations such as the “Stone of Evolutionary Spirit” and the “Nine Dragon Rock”…none of these things could be seen within the rock formations without the use of mind altering hallucinogens. But anyway that was their names.

The journey to get to the waterfall was monumental…but the effort was well worth it. On the positive side…after hiking down several kilometres worth of stairs to get to the base of the waterfall and traverse in behind it in the caves with the water curtain…you find yourself at the bottom of a large mountain with the daunting task of hiking back up all of those stairs. But no…the Chinese have built a pair of extraordinarily long escalators which for about $6 will save you the pain of the climb…each escalator ride goes for about three minutes (time your next ride at a shopping centre for some perspective)…we paid.

As there is a public holiday in early May in China we were killing a bit of time so as not to be in Chengdu (the global home of the Pandas) during the peak holiday time. So we headed back and had another couple of nights in Guiyang. Our hotel while odd, backed directly onto a shopping mall with the most amazing indoor aquarium in one of its central openings. About three storeys high and full of eels, rays, gropers, turtles etc.

China

Shangri-La and Dali

April 17, 2014 testtest Leave a comment

Shangri-La After tiger leaping gorge and the 1600 meter each way climb and descent we found ourselves 2 days later in agony. Thighs and calves were burning and shaking. Walking up stairs or squatting to get something from our bag was murderous. Jill has decided that she wishes to head to Tibet to hit the northern base camp of Mount Everest….just to say she did. Everyone who goes here gets altitude sickness it is just a question of how badly. Altitude sickness strikes randomly with no rhyme or reason. 20 year old marathon runners can be debilitated while 70 year olds may only have a mild headache. We headed up the mountains to test the altitude and specifically how I held up at altitude.

The two previous times that we went up the mountains I was ill but they were both in India and at least one of these was food related. So how I would react was a little unknown and the Tibet trip would be expensive so we did not wish to waste the money if we would be crook the whole time. So to test this we headed up the heights. The northern base camp of Everest is at 5150 meters (16,900 feet) which is obviously considerably higher than anywhere else I have been. There is a southern base camp on the other side in Nepal. For context Mount Kosciuszko the highest Australian point is at 2228 meters (7,310 feet). Darjeeling was 2045 meters and Shimla was at 2200 meters. Shangri-La took us up to 3200 meters (10,498 feet). Got here…not an issue for either of us…it was the dodgy Indian curries that got me…not the elevation.

Shangri-La was renamed in 2001, from Zhongdian, after the fictional land of Shangri-La in the James Hilton novel Lost Horizon, in an effort to promote tourism. The town had a massive fire in January this year which destroyed about 2/3 of old town…where we were staying. Looking at the buildings it is no surprise as everything is wood and one stray spark will start the inferno. This is being rebuilt as we speak but the place is fairly well decimated at the moment.

There is a fantastic monastery right next to the square that is stunning. It has a fully functioning Tibetan prayer wheel that is about 30 meters high and is in glimmering gold. Every evening at 7 pm the locals dance around the square in traditional gear and co-opt anyone who stands still for too long. After a while there are hundreds of people prancing around in a circle trying to copy the choreographed moves of the locals. Quite a sight to see. a bit further down the road is the main monastery of the area which is both huge and hugely impressive.

After Shangri-La we did an 8 hour bus ride to Dali which is one of the major tourist destinations of Yunnan province. Thankfully we did it in a faster time because I had a small screaming child behind me…accompanied by his grandmother who shrieked more than the child…and beside me I had the bus-sick woman who vomited at least 6 times and continually spat into the bucket in the aisle between us. A charming ride. It was minus 3 degrees when we got on the bus in Shangri-La and was 28 degrees when we got off in Dali. We were rugged up and sweating like pigs.

Dali was an absolute pleasure…good accommodation…great food…well priced…lots to see. We arrived just in time for the Bai Festival (one of the 32 Chinese ethnic groups) which meant the place was packed and totally nutty with bedlam aplenty. On Easter Sunday we walked to the 3 pagodas just down the road (3.1 kms) from us…to take a quick photo. Upon arrival we found it was an entire complex and not just the 3 pagodas. So we paid and entered what was about a 3 km long complex of temples, pagodas and funky parks and buildings. Added to this distance was in excess of 2000 stairs (which of course we walked them all…and I counted) and then walked back.

Feeling tired and thirsty we popped into old town for a cold drink and a meal…after this we found the fish feet person. For the uninitiated there are fish tanks where you put your feet and little fish feast upon all the manky bits. Bec Ballinger and Jill were planning to get this done in Hong Kong but missed out…Tickles like hell but was kinda fun. The next day Jill signed us up for a Chinese cooking class. We met the lady outside the bad monkey bar at 10am and then proceeded to wander the markets as she explained certain items to us.

We did the slow wander up the hill to her house where she set us up for our cooking class. We made a dried tofu salad, fish flavoured eggplant and Gongbao chicken. Myself and the Israeli guy also doing the course tripled the amount of chilli in the chicken dish. We spent a really nice five hours cooking and learning how the various ingredients combine together to make the dishes. Believe it or not the Tofu dish was the nicest of the lot.

China

The stone forest and LiJiang

April 14, 2014 testtest Leave a comment

After Jill finally got the assignment finished we got back on the road and returned to Kunming (the site of our Chinese New Year escapades). We tried a different hostel which was ok without being startling and made plans to hit the stone forest (Shilin) which is a 350 sq/km area of limestone rock formations. This place was spectacular but was also the most expensive day that we have had since arriving in China. The site is 120 kms from Kunming so by the time you pay for the cab to the bus staton, the bus to the site, the entrance fee and the electric shuttle bus fee and then the return journey, the numbers got very big quite quickly (by China standards).

That said, the park was brilliant with stone and rock formations as far as the eye can see and you basically had free reign to explore as you saw fit. There was the electric busses that followed a loop but you could get off at any time and explore away. We got the bus initially but ended up walking the whole way so that we could check out all the sights.

Leaving Kunming we hopped a flight to LiJiang and set up camp in the heart of old town. Having spent a week in the Xiamen old town I had an idea of what to expect…boy was I wrong. The two were poles apart. Xiamen had authentic alleys where people lived and worked as the would have 200 years ago and was dirt cheap. LiJiang was the pretty tourist area with nothing but shops, bars and restaurants charging a premium on any item you even paused to look at.

LiJiang is without a doubt the most expensive town we have been in within China. By way of example, a 650 ml beer normally costs between 10 and 20 RMB…in Xiamen we were getting it for under 3…but in LiJiang they were trying to charge over 50 RMB. This extended to the food and coffees as well as the touristy junk that we did not get. On arrival we stopped for a coffee on the way to the hostel and paid 68 RMB ($11-14) for Jill’s latte and 45 ($7-9) for my long black.

As an extra bit of excitement while we were in old town the building across the alley from where we were staying caught fire and had flames leaping about 20 meters into the air. Old town is essentially all made of wood and a fire is needless to say devastating. All hell broke loose as every man and his dog donned their fire fighting equipment and got to work in putting out the blaze. The chefs from the restaurants were running away from the blaze carrying the gas bottles, the smoke was billowing and we were prepped for a rapid departure should it be needed.

About three hours later all was calm and the fire was out. It was actually a very efficient exercise and in a wooden tinderbox part of town it was beautifully contained to just the one building. The next town that we are to hit (Shangri-La) had a similar incident and 2/3 of the place went up displacing over 3000 people.

LiJiang is the launching point for places such as the Tiger Leaping Gorge, Dali and Shangri-la. Jill had been wanting to go to tiger leaping gorge since the first moment she read about it. My response was along the lines of the nomenclature is false advertising…and that if I did not physically see a tiger leaping across the gorge then it was a waste of our time and money and I would be disappointed.

Anyway as a good husband we went to tiger leaping gorge…you guessed it…no tiger…no leaping…but there was a pretty spectacular gorge. And a shed load of walking down and then back up a 1600 meter vertical drop to the water level. My calves burned on the way down and my thighs on the way up. Until I gave up and paid to ride a horse the last 3-500 meters of the vertical climb section…Jill walked the whole way and found me waiting for her at the top with a cold drink.

The first thing to mention was the drive to the gorge. It was alongside a super steep vertical drop in a bus that barely fit on the road…with sections of the road that had crumbled away under earlier avalanches. At one point Jill claims that she saw a car in the water below that had obviously missed a turn. All of this while our bus driver was chatting away on his mobile phone and belatedly jerking into corners.

The next bit was the trail…1600 meters down…on a track that would trouble most goats. Upon reaching the bottom you see the rock that the alleged tiger leapt to. To get there we paid an extra 10 yuan each to wander across a rope bridge made out of balsa wood. We then stood on the rock amongst the rapids as they raged past us…then braved the bridge back to the trail upwards.

As we huffed and puffed our way up the path there was a ladder that cut out a big chunk of the zigging and zagging as we climbed. This was a vertical ladder with rungs at double the normal height…that was quite frankly terrifying…that we both climbed. Thankfully you were facing the cliff so did not see how bad it could have ended.

All things considered a great (but exhausting) day.

China

Fuzhou and Xiamen

April 10, 2014 testtest Leave a comment

We got ourselves off the tourist track to try and experience what China proper was like to do this we hit Fuzhou. We thought that getting away from the public view places may reveal another side to our adventure and show that the public façade was different to the reality outside of the main cities. In fact it is just like everywhere else in China but with less English and less to see. The infrastructure that has been built in the big towns is the same as that which exists in the smaller (1.2 million) places. The rural communities obviously are quite different but China’s growth and development has spread far and wide and is not contained to the industrial or tourist hubs.

The main roads are 3-5 lanes wide, the smaller side roads are 1-3 lanes wide and they are all beautifully asphalted, curbed and guttered. The footpaths are unthinkably wide (but need to be shared with many more electric bicycles and motorcycles than in the bigger towns). There is the same fascination with brand names that exists everywhere in China and it is quite funny to see a small street vendor selling 5 dumplings for a buck wearing Dolce and Gabbana jackets. Obviously there is a healthy knock off market here as the prices for the legit stuff here is the same as it is back home.

Xiamen and Fuzhou are much like all other Chinese cities. However we stayed in old town within Xiamen which offers a taste of what life used to be like many years ago. There are no big roads once you step inside. There is a labyrinth of alleys, houses, markets, etc. The owners of the hostel were commenting that there is a push for old town to be demolished. The Chinese have a fixation on everything new and the cultural preference is to destroy the old and replace it with the new wide crisp clean roads that exist almost everywhere throughout China.

Having spent a couple of days in old town there is a certain manic charm to the way things used to be. To get to our hostel we got off the (2 lane) bus only freeway and stepped onto the (4 lane in each direction) road directly underneath the freeway and headed up a tiny set of stairs into old town. The stairs were choked with people cleaning fish, cooking food, selling wares and just generally trying to traverse the narrow alleys.

Fifty metres further down the main road we came across the main wet market entrance which began the chaos that was to follow. The first section was the seafood which had tubs of live seafood of every variety laying all over the road as vendors squatted by their boxes trying to sell the items. I have decided that I like the concept of having turtles as pets…so seeing them as meat was a tad disconcerting.

The funniest bit was watching the live prawns leaping out of their boxes onto the ground and the women chasing them around with chopsticks to put them back in the water. There were eels the thickness of a mans arm, sharks, stingrays, shellfish, molluscs, crabs….you name it. Further on was the fruit, then the mystery meat puzzle, and the caged live animals like ducks,chickens, quails, rabbits etc. then the random items that every market tends to have.

Jill had an assignment to do as part of her masters so we needed to stay put for about a week to allow her to get it done. Xiamen was the chosen destination as there is heaps of food options for me and she can settle in to a comfortable place to do her readings and the assignment.

We did head over to Gulangyu Island for a day and cruised around eating street food and seeing the tourist sites but this is about the only touristy thing in Xiamen. I found the Taiwan food street (a pedestrian road choked with food stalls selling just about anything) and discovered the peppered steak sizzler. Steak, egg, pasta all smothered in a spicy pepper sauce served on a sizzling platter. All good.

The highlight of the island was having the special Kopi Luwak which is the coffee beans that have been ingested and excreted by the Asian Palm Civet. This is then processed into the finished coffee product which is, quite frankly, ordinary. The greatest bit about all of this was the local menu descriptor as photographed above.

This is the longest that we had spent in any one town since Beijing. Alas there was not enough going on here to keep me occupied for such a length of time and reading and editing Jill’s assignment on clinical governance was not as thrilling as it sounds.

That said we have now officially been gone from Australia for six full months now and on reflection we have had some amazing experiences both good and bad along the way. The funds look like they will last through until at least the end of this year, however consideration is being given to what next?

;

China

Hangzhou

March 18, 2014 testtest Leave a comment

Hangzhou is the tiny (size of Sydney) tourist destination by the lake about 200 Kms from Shanghai. We hopped a metro for 70 cents each to the train station caught the BMU train (fast train) for the 200 km journey including the five stops along the way. Imagine our surprise when an hour later we were in a cab on our way to the hostel having arrived the 200km. This thing travels alongside the 4-5 lane (each way) freeway leaving cars doing 100km plus as if they are not even moving. Slow down and stop for a couple of minutes at the station (5 times) then off again…the entire journey done in an hour. I spent the entire journey staring out the window wondering how it is that Australia’s roads, trains, public transport could be in such a pitiful state when this sort of technology and efficient service delivery exists.

The train stations are on the outskirts of each city and are serviced by a metro system that will drop you within 2 kilometres of any point in the city…almost any city…at negligible cost. I guess a stable government, a long term plan for the future of your nation and non-privatised essential infrastructure can really work. But in Australia we have privatised all of our essential services meaning that such improvements will never occur unless it is economically profitable…and with a small population alas these things will never be seen.

Hangzhou is a city around a lake much like Sydney is around its harbour. The city sizes are comparable however every man and his dog from Shanghai flocks here each weekend swelling the population by about 120% extra. Like Shanghai, every brand name is available and our walk from the hostel to the restaurants took us past the Aston Martin, Audi, Ferrari, Maserati, and Porsche dealerships.

With such a huge population there is a need for leisure activity and China does public parks like nowhere else I have seen. Massive expanses of clean open usable space, highlighted by bridges, water, pagodas, dancing squares, music and singing spots. I must admit that while I am generally loving China there are a few points that are really not doing it for me.

1. The main issue is that all Chinese learned to whisper in a helicopter and have never heard of an inside voice. They do not seem to grasp the fact that you can speak softer if the person is a metre away in a confined space as opposed to 20 metres away in a crowd. The same tone and volume is used in every circumstance so at times blood emanates from your eardrums within the confined space of a metro cabin etc.

2. The other issue I have is Chinese singing and traditional music. I have heard these on numerous occasions and in a variety of settings but I have to say that these are nothing more or less than cat strangling to my ears. The high pitched whine of both the instrument or the voice just never seems to stop and is once again one of those things that will bring a trickle of blood from your poor unsuspecting eardrums.

China

Shanghai

March 12, 2014 testtest Leave a comment

Wasn’t sure what to think about this one before we came. We had run into a number of people who had been to Shanghai or had lived here and they almost all hated it, claiming it to be one of the worst Chinese cities. Granted it is the largest city in China with a population greater than all of Australia. And it is the worlds largest shipping port and therefore has all the banking, finance and infrastructure that goes with that.

Admittedly it is not very Chinese…there are a few traditional temples but in reality it has been a cosmopolitan trade hub for over a century and has evolved with this. You can find every brand name on the planet here (and their much cheaper namesakes…(ok knockoffs). The main city part is basically a series of shopping malls which can very easily be avoided for those like me who really don’t care.

It is a true mega city and is spectacular. The city is spotlessly clean, the footpaths are unthinkably wide, the roads are huge, the traffic is calm, the metro is cheap and regular, the busses are cheaper and more frequent, the river is a feature and the architecture is different everywhere you look. The whole place is a model of efficiency and a plan beautifully executed.

Shanghai has a HOHO bus (hop-on, hop-off) to buzz us around to the various sights which we happily used over a 2 day period. Seeing the Oriental Pearl Tower (Dongfang Mingzhu), walking along the Bund (waterfront), Jade Buddha Temple, Jing’An Temple, cruising the Huangpu River in the early evening and checking out the city from the 88th floor of the Jin Mao Tower.

The key selling point for me was the food…this place is a foodies paradise. Having been a major trade hub for so long, Shanghai has embraced every possible food style and delivers it flawlessly, cheaply and everywhere. The one that has sunk Jill (and would in all honesty put my mother away too) is the custard tart shops…the little yellow bundles of goodness that cap off a Yum Cha meal perfectly. They are everywhere…I mean everywhere…selling the warm tarts for 4 for 12 yuan (less than $2).

Our first meal in town was Japanese…tepanyaki… Perfect…beef, chicken, prawn, mussels, rice, veg, crab soup with drinks… In Australia a minimum $60 a head banquet plus drinks…here $30 the lot. Capped off with some egg tarts $2. Next was Yum Cha lunch the next day $20 (I always over order and it was in the heart of the tourist strip so prices were ramped up) with a dinner of beef, veg + rice, a BBQ plate (duck and suckling pig), prawn balls with chilli…about $26 including beers…capped off with egg tarts $2. Steamed and fried dumplings for brunch $3.20, and dinner was a huge bowl of Asian chilli beef and noodle soup for me and a fried rice/risotto style dish for Jill $7. Oh and some more egg tarts $2.

Basically we had a different meal each time, had 6 huge meals including beers and dessert over a 3 day period all for under $100…which is less than what the first meal would have cost us back at home. And we ate like pigs…and enjoyed every mouthful. Did I mention the egg tarts.

China

Chinese New Year

January 30, 2014 testtest Leave a comment

Having left India we landed in Kunming in China’s south for Chinese New Year. The first thing we noticed was the cleanliness, the streets are 3-4 lanes wide, they are fully paved to the edge where they meet with a footpath, there is no litter and people are not urinating in the streets. I put us in a black list taxi that took us directly where we needed to be with no fuss and for the agreed upon price.

The hostel was neat clean and slotted us into a bed straight away. This allowed us to sleep off the fact that we had been awake for 44 of the previous 48 hrs (mostly due to the Kolkata hovel). A few hours nap, up for lunch, down for a nap, up for dinner, sleep overnight…the world is good again.

Hit the few tourist things that there was to do in Kunming, lake, pagodas, mosque etc…got photos. The most had conversation was us revelling in how clean China was and the inevitable response of…REALLY…from every westerner that we met. For all of the dirt in China, the spitting, the smog, the fires, the fossil fuels being burnt every 15 feet…it is spotless compared to India.

Our gastronomic enterprises were not deep fried or curried and surprisingly the chilli content was higher. There truly is something to be said for simple food well executed. A dumpling, some noodles with simple sauce, steamed vegetables with a touch of chilli or sauce. We are loving this break from the curries. There is a local delicacy called across the bridge noodles. This is a huge bowl of steaming broth and a range of raw ingredients that you quickly dump in the bowl in whatever proportions you wish, to cook. A few minutes on and tuck in. It is a great meal but a little bland. It benefits greatly from a dollop (or two) of the chilli that is on every Chinese table.

For those who have not experienced Chinese New year in China then suffice to say it is feral. It goes for weeks and up to a month in some places. We picked a small (ish) town so got the abridged version, but by all accounts Beijing and Shanghai are crazy. The fireworks start very early and finish very late every day. The daytime ones are generally set off by mischievous chefs who run out of the kitchen, stand around like giggling schoolgirls and let off massive bangs…scaring the life out of the waitresses…and then running back to the kitchens giggling madly.

We hooked up with a Brit and a Canadian who speak Chinese and along with a Melbourne girl we all headed out for Chinese New Year’s Eve. Having linguists meant we were not limited in our choice of venue and away we went. After a quite few drinks we left the hostel at 8pm in search of a meal…found a joint and ordered up a storm. We ate, drank, sang, got adopted by the staff…the owner heard we were there and came from his other restaurant to join us…armed with Baijiu (triple distilled rice wine). Anyway…well after 2 am we left after having had fantastic night.

China

Farewell (for now) to China…hello India

November 26, 2013 testtest Leave a comment

Guangzhou was mainly spent doing the tourist visit thing and noshing on at various food stalls. There was a 3 lane road around the corner from our hostel which at night turns into an arcade of alfresco dining, while still trying to masquerade as a road. We found a clay pot specialist that is so cheap that it is ridiculous. One night I had a noodle and dumpling soup followed by a clay pot of pork, rice and veg, while Jill had 2 bowls of noodle and dumpling soup (it is really good) all washed down with 2 x 600ml bottles of Pearl River Lager and when the bill came we had to fork out a total of 45 yuan ($8.06).

My wife has taken to muttering to herself. She spends large portions of her time with her face buried in a computer screen asking herself bizarre questions. Now being a good husband, on occasion when she articulates the question rather than muttering it, I offer answers to her queries. Now she seems to think that I am not contributing to the planning phases by offering such advice and i on the other hand believe I am providing the answers to vital questions that she clearly needs help with. By way of example this afternoon she was staring at a map of Chennai and asked where is the airport…I promptly responded that it was the place where all the planes land. Apparently this was not helpful to her majesty.

Our last day before leaving China saw a huge cold snap. Temperatures plummeted, it was wet, windy and cold. We hid out in our hostel and made preparations for that which was to follow. We did our last street food hit (back to our clay pot man) who likes us so much he is now giving us the locals discount. He must be. We paid 25 yuan for 3 mains and a beer. On a little side note…we ran into a Sri Lankan couple while in Guilin and were talking about my love for the street food. Their answer to me was…and I quote…”we are from Sri Lanka… we have many germs in our stomachs…we did not even eat the Indian street food”.

I may need to rethink my dietary approaches.

China

Yangshuo to Guilin and on to Guangzhou

November 22, 2013 testtest Leave a comment

We were planning to do the bike ride around the Yangshuo region to check out the lumps up close and personal. Given our affinity for bicycles and our not yet battle hardened bottoms, it was not something we were looking forward to but it really is the best way to see the area. In a series of classic avoidance techniques we (both) dragged the chain on getting out of the room, went for coffee while we posted the rafting post (including mucking around with the pictures), discussed whether we should ride the bikes to breakfast or walk etc.

After walking to and from breakfast (another $7 feast) we bit the bullet and headed to reception to book and pay for our bikes. At this point the girl asked what type of bikes we would like, we inspected the menu…and there it was…the electric bike. About 20 yuan a day more ($3.50-3.80) expensive, same sights but less of that pesky pedalling. Now we had seen these in other cities, you do the first few pedals to get momentum and then relax until you hit a hill or something then you need to give it a helping hand.

We went down to collect our bikes and was told to follow the dude. About 700 meters later after zigzagging the backstreets we hit a dodgy alley and he headed on down it, opened the shed and there they were…fully electric mopeds…charged and no peddling required at all. Now anybody who has spent any time in Asia is aware of the chaos that is the streets and traffic…and China is no exception. A little more ordered than some and less than others. A land where pedestrians, bicycles, mopeds, motorbikes, trucks, busses, wheelbarrows and food carts all try to occupy the same space simultaneously…and we were now motorised.

Our first 5 mins or so were frantic as we tried to head away from the busy areas to get a feel for our hogs. This achieved, we felt brave enough and headed back through town and then generally downstream following the river as best we could. Being a small town we were on the open road in no time and were happily feeling the wind in our hair (no helmet laws here). Cruising the back roads of China amid the lumps…not bad at all. A bit more comfortable on the hogs and we opened them up…I got mine up to 44 kph.

Yangshuo is a renowned destination for “adventure tourists” with many caves, hikes, rock climbing and lump mountain biking. We rode past them all, except we weren’t sweating…it was another great day. We headed back to Guilin for a night (BBQ night again) so that we can jump over to Guangzhou for our next leg into New Delhi, India. We took the bus back which was much cheaper but nowhere near as fun or scenic as the bamboo raft to get there.

We are in China for about another week and it has been fantastic…and we will be heading back a couple of more times…but we are both getting ready for a change. The constant honking of horns grates on your nerves after a while, and the urge to throttle the guy who is heavy on the horn is growing with each passing day. Jill is also starting to pine for real chocolate. China has an odd version that even in pre-packaged items like a snickers bar is very different.

We have moved onto Guangzhou now and spent the first day hitting the Chen Clan Academy, Nanyue King Mausoleum, and the catholic cathedral. Day two hit the zoo followed by the Sun Yat Sen Memorial. Couple of days of ticking the tourist boxes really. The zoo was good but the panda exhibit was as much of a fizzer as Beijing, nowhere near the excellent quality of Chongqing. I did however get fairly close to a panda, but had to watch out for his killer moves (and I smiled for those having a dig). Lots of tigers and lions etc.

The really sad part was the behaviour exhibition hall this was bears walking tightropes, monkeys on bicycles, macaws playing basketball, and a tiger jumping through hoops. This is a throwback to a time long since passed, and rightfully so. We were hoping that these were old animals that grew up performing and were finishing their lives doing what they know. It would be appalling to think that this was still going on today. On the up side they looked well fed and happy enough, but it was disconcerting to watch.

China

Bamboo Rafting and Lumps

November 17, 2013 testtest Leave a comment

Well today was possibly the best day that we have had since we left Australia. We left Guilin this morning to do the 73 Kms down the road to Yangshuo but rather than doing the road trip we did the leisurely bamboo raft ride down the LiJiang River. Now these were not really bamboo rafts, they were eight 4 inch poly pipes strapped together with two park benches on them, all powered by a whipper snipper with the chord replaced by a propeller.

That said, we slowly and quietly trundled down the River past all of the lumps (karsts). Now my main issue in Guilin was that you could not really get any good photo angles on the lumps without people or buildings getting in the way…problem solved. This was about 3-4 hours of ever changing landscapes, on the River, with no obstructions. Wow. At the end of the day we had over 100 photos of lumpy landscapes and had had an awesome time.

On arrival in Yangshuo we checked into the flashiest hostel we have come across. We are paying about $24 a night for both of us to stay in a hostel room that is on a par with and often better than a $200+ a night room in Australia. I certainly had worse rooms while travelling with the AFP and it is better than most novotels. The room directly looks out onto lumps and has an observation deck with almost 360 degree views of the town. We checked in, went for a noodle feed (about $5 worth) and then went to join the next leg of our journey from Guilin.

The next leg involved seeing some of the traditional farming and fishing etc (staged but who really cared) and an actual bamboo raft ride. About 15 km outside Yangshuo is a village where they have a 600 year old bridge and fishermen using cormorant birds to fish for them. Basically they tie the cormorant’s throat shut and send it hunting for big (ish) fish that the birds cannot swallow as their throats are tied. The dude then plucks the fish from the bird’s throat and sends the cormorant off again. Not the way that they still do it but a fascinating watch nonetheless. This was followed by a real bamboo raft pushed along by an old dude with a stick and a feed the water buffalo session. Possibly the most amusing part of the whole day was the sheer terror of a Chinese woman who was trying to feed the world’s tamest water buffalo. She screamed, she squealed, she ran, she cringed… It was almost as if my sister Karin was to hand feed a spider. The poor buffalo just wanted a handful of corn husks.

Now it must be said that Yangshuo is a soulless, plastic, tourist town in the midst of great natural beauty. Everything evil that tourism brings is here, knock-off shops, staged markets, touts, KFC, McDonalds, neon, laser light shows…the lot. Despite this it is clean, neat surrounded by lumps…and you can ignore the other stuff. There is a strip of bars and restaurants claiming to be from every country of the world which are charging obscene prices for everything. The German bar is charging 168 yuan for pigs knuckle and sauerkraut (bear in mind that we had noodles and dumplings for two for 12 yuan). The beers are about 40 yuan each while our ones at the hostel are between 7 and 12.

We wandered the streets for a meal that night and found a great feed in a back alley (as we usually do). On our return journey the bride was in need of the amenities. I have been practicing my Chinese but no matter how many times I told her to ask for directions, she would not believe me that the Chinese word for toilet was “Shi Thou Se”.

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Category Archives: China

Guiyang and Anshun

Shangri-La and Dali

The stone forest and LiJiang

Fuzhou and Xiamen

Hangzhou

Shanghai

Chinese New Year

Farewell (for now) to China…hello India

Yangshuo to Guilin and on to Guangzhou

Bamboo Rafting and Lumps

Travelling the world in a pre and post COVID state