Getting sweaty in Hong Kong and Macau

Well we have to confess to falling off the backpacker wagon somewhat in HK. Note to self - never go back to a place on a miniscule budget that you have previously visited with plenty of dosh three months beforehand.

We did go budget on the room - a 30 pound a night guesthouse/cupboard in Causeway Bay. Visiting some of our old haunts however was a bit painful on the wallet - Delaneys, The Canny Man, Dickens and even bumped into a piggie we met in Phuket in a bar in Lan Kwai Fong.

We caught up with John Koch (Hyder's Commercial Manager and old mate from Dubai and former travelling partner) a couple of times.


We managed to make it up the peak for the first time in many visits for either of us when you can actually see the harbour through the mist/smog.




A day trip to Macau on the Jetcat 1 hour trip was entertaining. We had "Portuguese" for lunch and a wander around the old town and museum. We also experienced the delights of Macau's casino buildings, some of which would even make Dubai's building look classy!

Our Top 10's for China

WE LOVED

The Great Wall

Some of the food

25p pints

The hostels

The culture and the history (we've been a bit deprived in the UAE)

Quality public transport

Being in the minority as a tourist

The train trips

Efficient airports

The people

WE HATED

The hacking and spitting

The toilets - squatters, trenches and communal

Most of the food

The pushing and shoving on the metro

Stinky tofu

Pot Noodles (by the end)

Chinese cruise ships

The smog

Chinese wine

Out of date (supposedly current) Lonely Planets

IN OZ WE ARE LOOKING FORWARD TO

Putting toilet paper in the loo as opposed to a bin

Drinking tap water

Green men at traffic lights which actually mean you can cross safely

Quality wine

Steak

Decent washing machines

Western TV and radio (although it is not that great in Oz!)

Western non propaganda newspapers. The Shanghai Post was as bad as Gulf News

"Chinese" takeaway in the UK sense

Last but not least - seeing all our buddies in Oz

Chinglish

The English and Chinese languages do not always translate as easily as they might plus the sign writers make the odd mistake. Have a laugh at some of our favourite Chinglish signs. We're sure the intention of the translation was genuine but something just got a bit lost along the way!

Slow train to Shanghai

Our 24 hour train ride to Shanghai which began at 5pm was a little painful due to the 18 stops but an adventure all the same. Following previous train journeys we'd stocked up with nosh (pot noodle) and enjoyed the scenery. Now we know how many rice fields it takes to feed 1.4 billion people - every spare bit of land has crops of some description growing on it.


Our 6 week sojourn in China now appears to be shortened to 4 following Tibet, Chengdu, the fact that you have to stay one week in the same place for as visa extension and British Airways. Queensland is now to be graced with an additional 10 days of our presence as a result. No one has the right to complain about BA until they have experienced their Shanghai office which we are well acquainted with following a 2 hour wait there to change out ticket.

The first hostel we stayed in had a common room the size of most people's bathrooms and "free" internet that didn't work. As a result we moved to another hostel which by coincidence was in a fairly expat part of town. This as a consequence has allowed us to do some research into the pros and cons of potential life in Shanghai. We sampled an expat bar complete with the essential Filipino band which reminded us of Heroes in Abu Dhabi.

Trips so far have included walks along the Bund by the river, Shanghai Museum, Nanjing Road where we serenaded with the sounds of "you want copy watch - Lolex, hand bag, shoe, t-shirt" - just like Karama in Dubai. The Museum did not quite warrant the full day as suggested in Lonely Planet, however, we now know why we call china, china (as in crockery). They have been making the stuff for the last 6000 years.



It's much more cosmopolitan here than in Beijing and despite similar populations it does not seem quite as frantic, despite the barging on the metro. This usually entails smaller Chinese people attempting to get into the carriage before you get out. This doesn't work too well when faced with Jenny and Bryan and 20kg of rucksack each in no mood to surrender.

We are currently enjoying the last night in our hostel with a takeaway and pint bottles of beer for 20p (1.5AED) each. We fly to Hong Kong tomorrow before which we catch the Maglev (train to the airport) which travels at 430km an hour (YES - 430km!). Our next post will be about the pluses and minuses of travelling in China.

Tour de Yangshuo

Our next destination was Yangshuo. It's a city of a whole 300,000 people, but to be honest it feels more like a small town of 10,000. It is surrounded by absolutely stunning limestone pinnacles known locally as 'karsts'. They gave the place a surreal feel.

We arrived to rain in the knowledge that only days previously the town had suffered its worst floods for more than 50 years. There was still some evidence of the floods, ie, the raging river with the tops of a few random bushes poking out, which by the time we left had reappeared as an island following a 2-3 metre drop in water level and complete now with grazing horses!!

It had a completely different feel to anywhere else in China partly because of its size but primarily because of its reputation as a magnet for Chinese and Western tourists. There was therefore plenty to keep us entertained. Our first activity involved (and you may not believe it of us!) a 20km cycle ride and a hike up 1251 steps to the peak of Moon Hill. A week later a certain young Welsh lady's bottom is still a bit tender!! We declined lunch after our descent which could have included snake, rat, dog and frog amongst others!

We had a fantastic trip to the Longji rice terraces which are 600 years old and clinging to the side of a mountain! We stopped off on the way up at a Miao village, the women are famous for having long hair (around 1.8m !!) as they are not allowed to cut after they turn 18. It was nice that we were in the minority again as Westerners but it continues to amaze us that the Chinese are so happy to be herded around.

Lunch at the village was also worth a mention, rice and chicken cooked in bamboo trunks, shame about the bones, feathers, feet etc. It was all worth it though for the view of the terraces.

We met some good people on the trip, and at Monkey Jane's roof top bar in Yangshuo with stunning views of the area. Four of us drunkenly decided that it would be fun to do a Chinese cooking course. Amazingly we all remembered to turn up at 4pm the next day at the Half Moon Bistro and we cooked dumplings, sweet and sour chicken, beef with ginger and garlic and Chinese veggies. Clearly we'll be inviting you all around for dinner when we get back (wherever back may be).

Cruisin' the Yangtze

We were spoilt with a whole soft sleeper cabin to ourselves from Xi'an to Chongqing (11 hours), so a good night's sleep was had.


We were met at Chongqing station by our hostel where we dumped our stuff and headed into town for a wander around. Everywhere we've been so far in China has a population in excess of 5 million people, so bigger than the UAE or Wales!! This is quite hard to get your head around.

At 4pm we started our 4 hour bus ride to Wuchang to catch our 'cruise ship' for two day trip through the 3 gorges of the Yangtze river. We were on a Chinese ship as opposed to one that caters for Westerners with about 120 people on board 12 of which were Western. Our 'first class' (and we use the term very loosely) was a tad on the small side and the bathroom was far from glamorous. The food on the boat was so bad that even the Chinese weren't eating it, the beer was warm and then they ran out!

We used our initiative to put some money back into the local economy wherever we stopped, buying sweetcorn, spuds, noodles and of course cold beer (at a whole 25p or 1.5 AED a bottle).

We met a great bunch of people including Wally from Oz, Alistair from Sheffield and Tina and Tommy from Ireland and we had a riot. Although we're still not sure what the Chinese made of us!

The scenery was very impressive, it must have been even more so before the 3 gorges dam was built. We were however expecting the visibility to be better outside of the major cities but the ever present smog was always there.

Xi'an and the Terracotta Army

We're now in Xi'an courtesy of the Chinese Rail Network. We took an overnight soft sleeper from Beijing which involves 4 beds to a cabin, and mountaineering skills if you're in the top bunks (which we were!!). It was really good, bar the Chinese walrus snoring away on the bottom bunk!! Who could have thought that such a small man could make so much noise?

Our hostel is great with views of the ancient Bell Tower. The door to the bathroom appears however to have been salvaged from a sauna so we have the pleasure of seeing each others outline whilst 'using the facilities' shall we say!! There is a bar/restaurant with a free pool table. The Chinese and Western food is fab and we've even indulged in salad three days in a row following a craving for vitamins and minerals.

We're not far from the Muslim quarter of town which has some very unusual looking mosques compared to what we're used to seeing in the Middle East. There are plenty of restaurants and stall selling 'Karama tat' including Top Trumps of Iraq's Most Wanted!!!

The Terracotta Army didn't quite have the WOW factor we were expecting it to, but was good nevertheless. We did however have a slight disagreement with our tour guide who didn't seem to understand that backpackers do not want to buy life size marble Terracotta warrior replicas, silk duvets or lacquer furniture!! They just want to see stuff!!