Justine and Dylan’s Travel Blog

Well, the backpacking part is well and truly over and we are now on the part of our trip which, kind of worryingly, Justine keeps calling “the real honeymoon” . The “flashpacking” started a few days ago in Bangkok in which we saw no temples, but plenty of shopping centres and tailors (actually just one tailor, recommended by a friend), mixed with kicking back in airconditioned comfort or checking out some stuff on the free wireless at the guesthouse. Hmmm, proper holidays…

I thought it was pretty good anyway… until we arrived at the resort we’re currently staying at on Ko Samui (nice tropical island off the eastern coast of southern Thailand), which kind of upped the ante! Situated on the beach, two pools, two restaurants, all you can eat breakfast buffet, ocean views from the room, etc. Now that’s what I’m talking about… and (perhaps?) the way honeymoons should be

(apart maybe from all the German tourists crowding the aforementioned beach, pools and restaurants. Maybe trekking around Nepal wasn’t all bad… )

After that, the trip was all quite suddenly over. We had a couple of nights in Hong Kong, mainly spent saying goodbye to everyone on the tour and doing some shopping (latest updates have been typed on our new laptop ). We did manage to fit in a quick visit to the Stanley markets, worth it even just to realise (for the tourist like me) that on the other side of the famous Hong Kong skyline, there are a whole lot of trees and really nice beaches. Incredible considering the vicinity to the concrete masses on the harbour side of Hong Kong island. And a visit to The Peak with its famous view over Hong Kong from its highest point. Not bad, but after having seen New York during a perfect sunset from the top of the Rockefeller centre, (and not being that fussed with big cities in general) not overly exciting…

Always figured it would be a bit tricky to get my hands on some english magazines while travelling around China, but wasn’t sure how tricky. So, after having a pretty decent look around Xian (with 8 million people), and Chengdu (with 13 million people) and not being able to find much more than some out of date National Geographics, I was a little disappointed but not overly surprised.

In Japan for instance, English magazines were freely available, but could only be found in a few select bookstores due to the lack of demand (simply not many English speaking customers). In China’s case though I’m thinking it’s not just the lack of English speakers, but its famous control over all media including the entire Internet, aka the Great Firewall of China (see eg. http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jan2006/tc20060112_434051.htm).

Then again, looking at my “magazine wishlist”, I might have been able to guess the outcome…

• The Economist May 3rd 2008, with special Feature called “Angry China” (http://www.economist.com/printedition/index.cfm?d=20080503)
• National Geographic May 2008 “Inside the Dragon” (http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/05/table-of-contents)

Then again, The Economist I have founds generally provides a strikingly balanced view of events in China especially the latest involving Tibetan protests. We also definitely saw the National Geographic in question in a few spots, but in Chinese. Perhaps it is just a lack of demand after all…?

I’m sure we all have images in our minds of what certain countries or areas are like. Mine of rural China (without thinking about it too much of course) was of rice paddies, typical Chinese straw hats, bicycles, etc. I’m sure you’ve seen the postcard. As I mentioned previously, the China we saw everywhere so far was quite different. Modern, hazy, lots of construction, even when getting well out of the cities. We obviously never made it to Inner Mongolia or towards Tibet, but still well and truly into central China, away from the affluent east coast.

So then, apart from the unique landscape (karst limestone hills, steep and towering over an otherwise flat country side) typical for this part of southern China, in Chaolong we finally saw some of the scenery that I had always had in my mind. It was only a few kilometres down the road from Yangshuo, but still seemed as authentic (with small houses and streets and locals turning up on bicycles to work their rice paddies) as Yangshuo is touristy.

Of course things are changing (in Chaolong we stayed at a local guesthouse which had hot water, airconditioning and TV, run by a Dutch guy), but compared to Yangshuo it was very scenic. I guess the problem is (just as it is in Nepal btw), that the locals welcome the advent of electricity, modern roads and everything else, whereas the tourists come wanting to see the place minus all these changes. It’s easy as a tourist to “complain” about these developments as they only have to stay in the place for a day or two. As always, I guess the challenge is to find a balance.

Yangshuo I have to say was incredibly touristy though. A great base from which to see the (very scenic) surrounding area, but not much else. Fortunately, this is what we had planned; the bikeride around the karst hills and the cruise and swim up the Li River were good fun and one of the highlights of our stay in China (and great to not be visiting a place for once to go and see another temple or equivalent).

I’m sure everyone has heard of earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale that took place in Wenchuan, 92 kms northwest of Chengdu on Monday 12th May. Going by current estimates it has killed over 60,000 people, injured many more and made over 5 million people homeless.

We first heard about the earthquake as we were floating down the Li river near Yangshuo (in southern China and obviously at a safe distance). Interestingly enough though, we were in Chengdu no less than 24 hours earlier. If our flight had been delayed by one day, we would’ve pretty much been taking off during the earthquake.

A friend of mine remarked afterwards that if we had still been there, it at least would have been a life-altering experience. I would agree, but it does assume that at the time of the earthquake you weren’t stuck in some dodgy building put together by a less-than-scrupulous Chinese construction company. There are unfortunately quite a few Chinese (school children in particular, sadly) who were.

I guess sometimes you just get very, very lucky.

After an awesome few days away from the cities, unfortunately we were back for more. Despite my general prejudice against cities, Chengdu was a pleasant surprise. A few nice parks, some great Sichuan food (spicy!) and an overal far more relaxed atmosphere made this place definitely worth visiting. The highlight without a doubt though was still the Chengdu Panda Reserve. Great opportunity to come close to these rather… uhm, laidback animals. I guess anyone would be laidback if they were forced to spend the majority of the day eating (vast quantities of bamboo) and the rest of the day sleeping it off. The only panda that put on a bit of a show was a 1 year cub wreaking havoc on its poor mum who, although she tried to keep up, was no match for the little ball of energy. Very entertaining.

Then came Huanglongxi, another historic town. Apparently quite old, I found it pretty characterless, with a lot of the old section feeling as if it had very recently been restored. Perhaps getting its house in order for some soon to be expected tourists (sidetripping from the Olympics)? The main attraction (in my mind) was the 1500 year old monastery which I have to admit was pretty interesting mainly because it felt a lot more authentic than the rest. On the other hand, by this stage we had seen our fair share of temples and monasteries…

Anyway, after Xian (the fourth city on our trip which, until the Tibetan protests caused a reroute of our itinerary, was supposed to cover “Nomadic China”), we made our way to Emei Shan (Mount Emei). This is one of the four big Buddhist mountains in China which means it has a very long history of being covered in monasteries with thousands of monks. From a touristy perspective the place is incredibly scenic: the 3000m mountain is covered with rainforests including rivers, gorges and monkeys, interspersed with (excellent) walking paths between the various monasteries, shrines, etc. To add to this it’s often shrouded in clouds or mist, adding to the overal atmosphere.

Especially the Golden Summit (a temple) at the top, reached by a cable car, was particularly scenic the day we were there. It was quite a cloudy day to start off with and was quite misty at the bottom cable car station. The ride on the cable car however was like being on a plane as it ascended up through the clouds to pop out on top in full sunlight. Like being on an island surrounded literally by a sea of clouds.

Another cool aspect is that (as in some places in Japan), you can stay in (basic) accommodation at some of the monasteries. We stayed at two different ones the three nights we were here, one at the base, another one a fair bit further away from it all. I have to admit the being woken up at 4am by chanting monks was not quite my cup of tea, but otherwise it was very cool. Not often you get to sleep at what to me felt like a tourist attraction, but really is (as so many tourist attractions are) a working, living environment which the tourists are lucky enough to be sharing with their usual inhabitants.

That’s right. We’ve managed to join our Intrepid tour and let’s put it this way, they don’t beat around the bush.

Interestingly, our original itinerary was going to go to a few places on the outskirts of the Tibetan Himalaya, but had to be rerouted due to the protests that have taken place there recently. No drama, China has plenty of scenic places to go to.

So after a few hectic days in Beijing, which was still a few days short of what you could easily spend there (managed to squeeze in Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, other odds and ends, a side trip to Great Wall and, I feel just as impressive, Terminal 3 at Beijing international airport on our way in), we were off to Datong and the Yungang caves. Datong is not so exciting. The caves on the other hand are very impressive and worth the visit. Basically a set of Buddhas carved out of the side of a hill. To clarify, that’s about 51,000 ranging in size from a couple of cm to about 17m tall, spread out over about 45 caves. Not bad if that’s what you’re in to.

Then came Pingyao. Not to do things by halves, the entire city centre has been declared a World Heritage site. I agree, why stuff around with a few things here or there when you can just do it properly once We stayed at a guesthouse smack bang in the middle that must’ve originally been the dwellings of a rich merchant or equivalent. Very cool and something different.

Now in Xi’an, famous for the Terracotta warriors (tick), massive city walls (tick), Big Goose Pagoda (tick) and Great Mosque (tick). I’m beginning to feel quite touristy for some reason…

Overall, I’m just amazed though. All the places we’ve seen have been far more modern and western feeling than I expected. Apart from a total lack of newsagencies selling western magazines, it’s almost like travelling through Europe. This might change as we get more off the beaten track over the next two weeks, but still. Construction going on everywhere of course, but plenty of brand new roads, shopping centres and gleaming new sky scrapers already completed.

Lots and lost of smog though, so they obviously still have a few challenges ahead of them. If anyone can tackle them though, I’m beginning to feel it’s the Chinese… I just hope that they tackle them before it’s too late…

Our travel style that is. But we’ve managed to get away with it once more :) In other words, we were able to get our China visas. On the other hand, I’ve had more relaxing stopovers…

As I mentioned in an earlier post we accidentally managed to leave the application for our China visas until the very last minute (at which stage the application process had of course become far tougher due to recent protests in Tibet), so we had to reroute our trip through Hong Kong for a few days. Fortunately, Hong Kong is as efficient and modern a city (with a Chinese embassy to match) as we’ve come across. 48hrs after arrival (and 24 hrs before our flights to Beijing) we were the proud owners of a one month visa to China and able to continue our trip as planned. Phew… I’m going to need a holiday when I’m done with this trip. Apparently Australia is nice this time of year. (btw, on a slightly different note, not long till we’re there!)