So back in China, we were pleasantly surprised by the relative warmth compared with freezing Mongolia!! It was really weird to look around and see everyone fully rugged up, while we were quite comfortable in a lot less. Determined to actually see China this time, but without any real idea of where we were going, and being chased by the cold, we set off to see as much as we could. China isn't really a “doing” country, like Thailand or Laos, or even Cambodia. Its more a “seeing” country. The scenery is beautiful and extremely diverse. One minute your train is zipping through a sprawling city full of sky scrapers, and the next you are in bright green rice fields, blink and you are surrounded by brown mountainous plains, of course with a few factories in between! So I apologise in advance for the lack of adventure in this blog. We visited and saw a lot of places, but we didn't really “DO” much... (^0^)
With more time to explore BEIJING, and actually understanding where we were this time we set out to see the sights whilst taking time to catch up with friends as well. First stop was the Summer Palace – a massive palace with vast green gardens surrounding a lake originally built as a summer retreat for the royal family and his harem, and now used as a pollution reprieve for Beijingers. Despite the crazy number of Chinese tourists it was nice to sit and relax in some nice parks with lots of big trees and even pollution free lakes! Next on the tourist trail, the Great Wall. We visited the Mutianyu part of the Wall, a place Roh had always wanted to visit. Mutianyu is one of the easier accessible, yet less touristy parts of the wall (although it does still have a cable car and toboggan!) and we were surprised to find it pretty much empty! The whole wall is situated on top of a mountain range and is about 10m high, and makes you realise just how amazingly strong man was back in the 12th century. We spent hours walking along the walls and looking out at the beautiful scenery on both sides, and we even ventured off the trail and into some of the yet-unrestored, -crumble under your feet- sections which was simply stunning and amazing to picture Chinese Warriors running up and down the steep slopes close to 1000 years ago..
So with all the sights covered, and with the Beijing cold starting to affect us now, we decided to head south hoping for a little warmth. And so another reliable Chinese night train took us to XIAN, home of the Terracotta Warriors. Although nobody knows for sure, it is thought that the warriors were created by a ruler who was paranoid about not being able to rule after his death, so he commissioned a massive army be made out of terracotta, including horses and carriages to carry them. Each warrior is completely different to the rest with a different pose, facial expression, build, face, or hairstyle, and the detail in each is amazing. Every single hair has been individually carved, along with the fibres on the clothes and even the sole on their shoes. You could spend hours just looking at the intricate detail of one warrior, yet there are simply thousands of them, buried in 3 pits. It wasn't until quite recently when a farmer digging a well uncovered them that they were discovered and it was interesting to actually be able to watch part of the excavation process. Another little known fact about Xian is that it is home to China's very own Pyramids! 10 of them in fact. They are just outside Xian and are burial tombs of ancient Emperors and Empresses. These tombs too, contain thousands of pottery horses, carriages, pigs, chickens, cows, people, and even the skeletal remains of their real counterparts. It seems Chinese Royalty were really superstitious or paranoid.
After Xian we headed further south to CHONGQING, a surprisingly funky town with street markets on every corner selling everything from buttons to knitting needles to of course chickens feet. From there we jumped on board an extremely dirty and dodgy boat that didn't resemble the pamphlet picture in any way whatsoever for a 3 night cruise down the YANGTZE RIVER through the 3 GORGES. With the damming of the Yangtze, about 175m of the gorges are now under water and occasionally you can see a part of a building sticking out from under the water. But with the water level still rising we were really surprised to see so much construction along the waters edge. But I guess that's China! We also got to see lots of factories, and lots of colourful “water” running from them into the river, oh and not to mention the mist! Chinese people are obsessed with the Gorges and describe them as “covered in a beautiful mist,” and there are even signs nailed onto the gorges themselves to remind people to take photos of it, but alas, all that roh and I saw was plain old pollution.. Morning, day and night as the Chinese were photographing the mist, roh and I were shaking our heads at the amount of pollution in the air, and of course water. Quite disheartening really, especially as the gorges themselves are really very beautiful, but I guess we have noone to blame but ourselves. Those factories are built by the west, for the west after all. Overall we were left pretty disappointed by the Yangtze cruise. Not so much because of the pollution or the filthiness of the boat (mould on the pillows!) but at the fact that in order to shuttle the rest of the boat to see the Yangtze River Dam during the daylight hours, most of the travel through the gorges themselves was done at night even though we were assured it wouldn't be, and then of course nobody would take any responsibility. Oh well.
From there it was a brief trip to visit a friend in HONG KONG to get yet another Chinese Visa, before heading back to NANNING for a week of washing, wine in the garden, and catching up with friends, before heading West to visit another friend, Gabe, in KUNMING, Yunnan Province. Gabe lives in an awesome area in Kunming, just near all the universities with streets lined with funky cafes, restaurants and arty shops and galleries, and we even briefly considered getting jobs and staying there ourselves. But we'd heard lots of good things about our next destination, DALI, so said thanks to Gabe and left. Dali was such a great place! A beautifully restored old town with cobbled streets and lots of funky shops selling lots of cool stuff. We found a great guesthouse owned and run by the craziest yet most normal Chinese guy we met the entire time and ended up aimlessly wandering the town for a week. Tone (GH owner) recently rode his pushbike from Chengdu in Sichuan, China, through Tibet and overland, all the way to Ethiopia!!! He was super interesting and it was great to hear interesting stories from a well-travelled Chinese person for a change. Eventually we left and kept heading west to SHUHE and LIJANG. Along the way we passed fields of super interesting crops that Roh and I were amazed to see being farmed. But it wasn't til we spotted some of the plants growing behind the toilet sign during a break that we actually believed it was what we had thought. Marijuana!! And fields and fields of it! Apparently because Yunnan is populated mainly by Chinese minority groups who eat the seeds and traditionally use them in cooking its completely legal here!! Most travellers love Lijiang (maybe partly for the local produce?!) but for us it was just a sterile, more expensive, less atmospheric and way more touristed version of Dali, so we explored the surrounding villages instead, stopping to take photos of the “plants” growing happily along the side of the road, or as hedges, or in some places, even on the medium strip!
Even though the weather was absolute shit, cold, raining and even sleeting, we decided it would be a great idea to hike the TIGER LEAPING GORGE! Most people take 2-3 days to hike around the gorge, stopping at little villages along the way for cups of tea and to dry off, but running out of time, we just did 1 day. Compared to the 3 gorges, it was definitely a lot more impressive! The river running through the gorges was sooo full of power you could hear its roar from 800m up on the ridge where we were. The walls of the gorge felt so close, and yet the sky so far away that it had a definite eery feel to it. It was also most definitely a challenge, especially the uphills along barely recognisable paths. After a nice ice-cold shower back at the guesthouse and roh sliding down the stairs and adding a massively bruised arse to his aching limbs, we headed on to SHANGRILA (Zhongdian). Rumoured to be the “Shangrila” as described in (I cant remember his name!)'s book, Shangrila has become quite a tourist destination. However, at a breathtaking (literally) 3200m, it's also a popular place to start hikes into the surrounding Tibetan regions. We really liked Shangrila, the people were a really interesting mix of Han Chinese, Expat,Tibetan and Li and we had a great time dancing at a Tibetan Disco and drinking Tibetan tea with our Host. The town itself was also really pretty and well maintained, and didn't really have a massive “over-run by tourists” feel which was nice. But a warning to anyone contemplating a visit, dress warmly! Shangrila is usually covered in shade, even in the middle of the day, and most of the accommodation isn't heated.... Brrr...Needlesstosay, although we enjoyed our time there, we were really looking forward to leaving and thawing out our bones as well...
With more time to explore BEIJING, and actually understanding where we were this time we set out to see the sights whilst taking time to catch up with friends as well. First stop was the Summer Palace – a massive palace with vast green gardens surrounding a lake originally built as a summer retreat for the royal family and his harem, and now used as a pollution reprieve for Beijingers. Despite the crazy number of Chinese tourists it was nice to sit and relax in some nice parks with lots of big trees and even pollution free lakes! Next on the tourist trail, the Great Wall. We visited the Mutianyu part of the Wall, a place Roh had always wanted to visit. Mutianyu is one of the easier accessible, yet less touristy parts of the wall (although it does still have a cable car and toboggan!) and we were surprised to find it pretty much empty! The whole wall is situated on top of a mountain range and is about 10m high, and makes you realise just how amazingly strong man was back in the 12th century. We spent hours walking along the walls and looking out at the beautiful scenery on both sides, and we even ventured off the trail and into some of the yet-unrestored, -crumble under your feet- sections which was simply stunning and amazing to picture Chinese Warriors running up and down the steep slopes close to 1000 years ago..
So with all the sights covered, and with the Beijing cold starting to affect us now, we decided to head south hoping for a little warmth. And so another reliable Chinese night train took us to XIAN, home of the Terracotta Warriors. Although nobody knows for sure, it is thought that the warriors were created by a ruler who was paranoid about not being able to rule after his death, so he commissioned a massive army be made out of terracotta, including horses and carriages to carry them. Each warrior is completely different to the rest with a different pose, facial expression, build, face, or hairstyle, and the detail in each is amazing. Every single hair has been individually carved, along with the fibres on the clothes and even the sole on their shoes. You could spend hours just looking at the intricate detail of one warrior, yet there are simply thousands of them, buried in 3 pits. It wasn't until quite recently when a farmer digging a well uncovered them that they were discovered and it was interesting to actually be able to watch part of the excavation process. Another little known fact about Xian is that it is home to China's very own Pyramids! 10 of them in fact. They are just outside Xian and are burial tombs of ancient Emperors and Empresses. These tombs too, contain thousands of pottery horses, carriages, pigs, chickens, cows, people, and even the skeletal remains of their real counterparts. It seems Chinese Royalty were really superstitious or paranoid.
After Xian we headed further south to CHONGQING, a surprisingly funky town with street markets on every corner selling everything from buttons to knitting needles to of course chickens feet. From there we jumped on board an extremely dirty and dodgy boat that didn't resemble the pamphlet picture in any way whatsoever for a 3 night cruise down the YANGTZE RIVER through the 3 GORGES. With the damming of the Yangtze, about 175m of the gorges are now under water and occasionally you can see a part of a building sticking out from under the water. But with the water level still rising we were really surprised to see so much construction along the waters edge. But I guess that's China! We also got to see lots of factories, and lots of colourful “water” running from them into the river, oh and not to mention the mist! Chinese people are obsessed with the Gorges and describe them as “covered in a beautiful mist,” and there are even signs nailed onto the gorges themselves to remind people to take photos of it, but alas, all that roh and I saw was plain old pollution.. Morning, day and night as the Chinese were photographing the mist, roh and I were shaking our heads at the amount of pollution in the air, and of course water. Quite disheartening really, especially as the gorges themselves are really very beautiful, but I guess we have noone to blame but ourselves. Those factories are built by the west, for the west after all. Overall we were left pretty disappointed by the Yangtze cruise. Not so much because of the pollution or the filthiness of the boat (mould on the pillows!) but at the fact that in order to shuttle the rest of the boat to see the Yangtze River Dam during the daylight hours, most of the travel through the gorges themselves was done at night even though we were assured it wouldn't be, and then of course nobody would take any responsibility. Oh well.
From there it was a brief trip to visit a friend in HONG KONG to get yet another Chinese Visa, before heading back to NANNING for a week of washing, wine in the garden, and catching up with friends, before heading West to visit another friend, Gabe, in KUNMING, Yunnan Province. Gabe lives in an awesome area in Kunming, just near all the universities with streets lined with funky cafes, restaurants and arty shops and galleries, and we even briefly considered getting jobs and staying there ourselves. But we'd heard lots of good things about our next destination, DALI, so said thanks to Gabe and left. Dali was such a great place! A beautifully restored old town with cobbled streets and lots of funky shops selling lots of cool stuff. We found a great guesthouse owned and run by the craziest yet most normal Chinese guy we met the entire time and ended up aimlessly wandering the town for a week. Tone (GH owner) recently rode his pushbike from Chengdu in Sichuan, China, through Tibet and overland, all the way to Ethiopia!!! He was super interesting and it was great to hear interesting stories from a well-travelled Chinese person for a change. Eventually we left and kept heading west to SHUHE and LIJANG. Along the way we passed fields of super interesting crops that Roh and I were amazed to see being farmed. But it wasn't til we spotted some of the plants growing behind the toilet sign during a break that we actually believed it was what we had thought. Marijuana!! And fields and fields of it! Apparently because Yunnan is populated mainly by Chinese minority groups who eat the seeds and traditionally use them in cooking its completely legal here!! Most travellers love Lijiang (maybe partly for the local produce?!) but for us it was just a sterile, more expensive, less atmospheric and way more touristed version of Dali, so we explored the surrounding villages instead, stopping to take photos of the “plants” growing happily along the side of the road, or as hedges, or in some places, even on the medium strip!
Even though the weather was absolute shit, cold, raining and even sleeting, we decided it would be a great idea to hike the TIGER LEAPING GORGE! Most people take 2-3 days to hike around the gorge, stopping at little villages along the way for cups of tea and to dry off, but running out of time, we just did 1 day. Compared to the 3 gorges, it was definitely a lot more impressive! The river running through the gorges was sooo full of power you could hear its roar from 800m up on the ridge where we were. The walls of the gorge felt so close, and yet the sky so far away that it had a definite eery feel to it. It was also most definitely a challenge, especially the uphills along barely recognisable paths. After a nice ice-cold shower back at the guesthouse and roh sliding down the stairs and adding a massively bruised arse to his aching limbs, we headed on to SHANGRILA (Zhongdian). Rumoured to be the “Shangrila” as described in (I cant remember his name!)'s book, Shangrila has become quite a tourist destination. However, at a breathtaking (literally) 3200m, it's also a popular place to start hikes into the surrounding Tibetan regions. We really liked Shangrila, the people were a really interesting mix of Han Chinese, Expat,Tibetan and Li and we had a great time dancing at a Tibetan Disco and drinking Tibetan tea with our Host. The town itself was also really pretty and well maintained, and didn't really have a massive “over-run by tourists” feel which was nice. But a warning to anyone contemplating a visit, dress warmly! Shangrila is usually covered in shade, even in the middle of the day, and most of the accommodation isn't heated.... Brrr...Needlesstosay, although we enjoyed our time there, we were really looking forward to leaving and thawing out our bones as well...
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