China and Vietnam in a Nutshell

Yes for completeness I should finish this blog. I’m now in Sydney airport waiting for my plane back to NZ and finally getting the chance to review each place I’ve seen. Will do it fairly quickly.

Beijing: A great city, who can fault it apart from it’s extremely centrally planned feel. The transportation system rocks because of this. Thank you 2 yuan subway!

Beijing – Shanghai: Took an luxurious soft sleeper overnight train with Simon over new years so that we celebrated the New Year as well as Simon’s birthday (1st Jan) in style, singing system of a down and eating birthday cheesecake with 2 lovely South Africans in our cabin. Shanghai feels like a dirtier version of Hong Kong. There’s lots of shops and xiaolong bao but it feels a lot like any other city. The M50 art district was pretty unique (but has nothing on Beijing’s 798 district!) and Xintiendi, the area designed by Boston architects famous for adapting old spaces into new, is awesome as well.



Hangzhou: Took a 2 hour train from Shanghai to the beautiful Hangzhou – I love this city! The best thing is the tranquil and gorgeous West lake. DON’T get a massage at whatever place we got one it was terrible but amusing nonetheless. Went to an unexpectedly lovely bar with a singer from Inner Mongolia who sounded exactly like Bon Jovi and played dice games with local students. Chinese dice games, I came to learn, are actually quite fun! The next day a friendly old man spotted that I was from overseas by looking at my freckles for ages. I’m not sure if it was just this or if he got the hint from a white guy being by my side also. I’ll never know I guess. Anyhow this man is awesome and showed us around his clean and generally awesome feeling city.


Beijing – Taiyuan: After class finishes in Beijing, I head off in search of the rest of China. This particular train ride is sitting upright for 7 hours next to a giant group of locals (apparently mostly children) from Shanxi who have just been in Beijing for a holiday. The lady opposite me of about 35 years tells me it’s her first time to Beijing. I’m gobsmacked as it’s pretty darn close..

Taiyuan: the capital city of Shanxi province and the industrial heart of China. I love Taiyuan for 2 reasons. a) My friends Minghua and Zhanglei come from there so it has to be pretty cool and b) the city exclaims its seediness with pride. The red light district appears to spread to all districts and there was ample smoking an spitting and adult stores to make it unlike other cities I visited in China.



Taiyuan – Xi’an – the worst train ride I took in China. Hard seaters for 10 hours. Angry antisocial man sitting opposite with really loud radio – heard of earplugs?. Toilet broken so needed to use the one in the other carriage which thank goodness we weren’t travelling in as the lights were broken and the carriage was filled with smoke from people relieving their boredom.

Xi’an : the capital city of Shaanxi province (yes there’s a Shanxi and Shaanxi province in this country of countries) and the former capital city during the Zhou, Qin, Hang, Sui and Tang dynasties (1046BC – 904AD). People told me to be prepared for the pollution but we lucked out and had 4 gorgeous days! The city is actually quite lovely looking and historical and not too crowded. Went to see the infamous terracotta warriors – the scale of the thing blows my mind. Cycled on top of the old city walls (Beijing used to have these before it went and developed in a hurry), and hung out a heck of a lot in our awesome hostel Xiangzimen. Simon got a tattoo to remember our awesome trip by (see picture) and I stood by in horror watching the pain. Met two local girls called Apple and Pear (they like the respective fruits so chose their own names such hmmmm) and Pear ended up showing us around quite a bit.



Xi’an – Chengdu: I left Simon as he headed back to Beijing and spent the Chinese New Year eve on a train headed to Chengdu, Sichuan Province. Seated next to a family that speaks Mandarin with the thickest incomprehensible accent ever I arrive 18 hours later. I look older than I am in China (people always guess 30s for some reason) and the little girl in the family calls me ‘grandma’ by mistake. Hmmm.

Chengdu: The capital city of Sichuan and the most polluted city I came across in China. People here speak with an interestingly incomprehensible dialect and the women all like to perm their hair and then put oil through it to get that ‘wet’ look. My local friend Song Zhe picks me up at the train station and we have Sichuan’s signature dish, hotpot, for lunch This is possibly my favourite food in China. REALLY spicy soup with a thick layer of oil and you dip in raw meats and vegetables to cook them at your leisure. So good. Best things in Chengdu: Hotpot and Pandas. The Panda research centre nearby houses more Pandas than you could dream of and you can go and watch them hanging about - it’s far more entertaining than it sounds. I also visited Dujiangyan, an ancient irrigation system, but this consisted of a confusing day on the bus, and a partially closed off natural reserve because a lot of the related structures were damaged in last year’s earthquake.



Chengdu – Lijiang: The longest and most painful journey of my trip. I’m getting a cold from the pollution in Chengdu and 12 hour train to Panzhihua and a 9 hour bus from there to Lijiang. The train ride is dodgy as a guy opposite sees my iPod and decides he wants it so changes seat to sit closer to me. I get paranoid the whole trip, move all my important valuables near me and take shifts sleeping and keeping guard with the friends that I make in my seating arrangement. They leave me at 2am however, and I’m left to fend for myself until 6am. I get a bus at 7am to Lijiang. The bus is ok, but the road is not, and we spend the ride getting thrown over each other as we cross potholes.

Lijiang: An old Chinese town in Yunnan province where the population is mainly of the Naxi minority group. This is a group known for its matriarcha traditions, and there is a village nearby where the mainstream Chinese notions of marriage and male dominance are turned on their heads. Instead, the women never marry and simply invite whichever men they fancy into their homes for ‘an evening’. Any children that are born belong to their mothers, and their main role models are their mothers’ brothers. Anyhow Lijiang was one of my favourite stops in China – it’s a quaint old village nestled between mountains with gorgeous old style architecture. The reason why it was a favourite though is because we stayed at a sweet hostel called Mama’s. Mama is a Naxi woman who knows how to run an amazing hostel. She cooked us fantastic and cheap meals everynight, took care of us like her own children, and bossed Papa around to also meet our needs. We visit nearby villages and an old lady invites us into her house off the street to drink tea and dress up in Naxi costumes.



Tiger Leaping Gorge: This place is spectacular to look at. Unfortunately their building comprehensive dam projects within the water which will change the landscape forever. We did a two day hike here and it was beautiful but I recommend to anyone to do it quickly before it disappears.



Lijiang – Dali: 5 hour mini van ride. Papa sends me off with a special magic medicinal gift from Mama.

Dali: Also a small village in Yunnan, famous for its weed and handicrafts. I didn’t stay here long but hung out with a French girl Emilie that I met in a café there. We watched the latest Paris Hilton movie together out of boredom and exhaustion and spent some time at the most popular tourist bar in town, thick with smoke from a variety of things.

Dali – Kunming: Another 5 hour bus ride. Met some local Yunnan boys on the bus and one gives me his hat made purely out of paper. We watch a bad kungfu movie and eat the classic bus snacks of mandarins and sunflower seeds.

Kunming: I love Kunming! It’s possibly the coolest city in China. Pretty grungy but an excellent expat community. I stayed with Julie from Portland (as mentioned earlier) and hung out with her friends for most of the time. I was mildly ill but managed to enjoy the delicious local fare of deep fried red beans, fried cheese (tastes like haloumi, soooo good) and spring rolls. Yunnan food is yum! I think Yunnan became my favourite province in China - maybe because I spent a lot of time there, but also because it has such a laid back culture.



Kunming – Sapa – Hanoi: Talked about these interestingly arduous journeys in my last entry. On to Hanoi!

Hanoi and Halong Bay: The capital of Vietnam is a great city full of life –people are eating and talking everywhere. You can get beef noodle soup anywhere at anytime for a ridiculously cheap price. Also you can see Ho Chi Minh’s former house and his body (supposedly, though he gets sent every year to Russia professional taxidermists doubt that the real Ho Chi Minh could have remained this well preserved until now) though I never got up early enough to catch it. In general a laid back city with nice architecture and people that don’t harass me as much as other tourists because they think I’m Vietnamese! My camouflage works a treat again. Halong Bay is beautiful. The perfect way to end my trip was to take a boat out and spend two days kayaking and swimming amongst the stone peaks rising out of the water.

Guilty blog upon leaving China

I am sitting in Hanoi in a backpackers after being on THE most uncomfortable train journey on my travels thus far. Vietnam's rail system unfortunately doesn't exhibit the flair of China's but it was nonetheless filled with interesting people. People draped themselves across wooden slat seats 6 at a time while a baby slept on the floor next to me on newspaper with his/her grandmother (it was a most strange looking asexual baby). People randomly spitting and caressing their feet which seems to be a favourite pastime, and some possessing squatting abilities far exceeding the average Chinese person's.

I sat with my friends Bien, Twam and Phu, of which only shy Phu could speak english or chinese and so would somehow translate between those languages and Vietnamese for me what the others were saying. Bien had a strange desire to pat my head while I slept so he did that while I took a most uncomfortable nap. Anyhow 9 hours later and I arrrived in Hanoi at 4.30am. A bike driver at the train bargains with me in Vietnamese and I get on his bike, to be stopped by the police about 50m down the road. They check his license and bike and deem him fit to go, and he delivers me without issue to a street that I tell him. Anyhow so I'm now waiting for 8.30am to tick by so I can check in so taking this opportunity to write.

Vietnam is very different to China, and this was evident as soon as I came over the border yesterday, which consisted of a foot bridge across the mouth of the Mekong. Apparently people here try to rip you off more, which I should be more aware of as I found out on my first day. A Pham, a car driver with kind eyes who taught me how to count in Vietnamese charged me an extortionate rate to go from Lao Cai at the border to Sapa for the day. No matter though, it's still relatively little by my standards and I've learnt my lesson for later.

Sapa was beautiful, a misty village on top of paddy-carved hills where you can take a number of treks to surrounding villages and markets. I went for a 2 hour walk to Cat Cat village and met some friendly Adelaidians along the way. They instructed me on the correct prices of things in the country and we did a swift exchange of Lao-Vietnamese cash in front of a homeless boy who was following us making grunting noises disconcertingly. I then made my way back to Lao Cai and boarded the lovely train that brought me here to Hanoi today.

Ok I apologise for not having written in this blog which was supposed to be about China until now when I have left China but it is just that I was rarely in the mood for writing and when I was, I was more in the mood for reading so did that instead. I'll write a bit about my trip working backwards however and also referring to the present, because I think chronology is overrated.

So my last stop in China was Kunming a couple of days ago, and I stayed with Julie a lovely couchsurfer from Portland Oregon (a fantastic city!). Julie, Dan and their friends made me fall in love with the grunge and people of Kunming, and I think if I was to choose a place to live in China next it would be this city! In general the city is small, but there is a decidedly cool expat community and nice cafes, restaurants and parks to chill out in. It's got a layer of grunge about it that though less sanitary than Beijing, is a little cooler. My sleeper bus from Kunming - Hekou at the Vietnamese border was one of the more interesting transportation options I've taken. A sleeper bus has three rows of bunk beds in it, and a nice combined row of 5 beds side by side at the back of the bus. I think I was allocated the worst possible seat which was the second bed in of 5 in the back row on the top bunk, but I sneakily slid across to the window and let the lady who came after me take up the piggy in the middle spot.

We at the back were privileged with being next to a slightly obese man with smelly feet and a tendency to snore extremely loudly. To my delight the man in front of us turned round angrily partway through the journey and thrust a plastic bag at smelly's shoes, telling him to capture the smell in there so it wouldn't disturb the rest of the bus. For the 13 hour journey I nestled under the lady next to me's armpit and thought happy thoughts. Woke up in Hekou with huge amounts of condensation running off my face and smelling horrific (a smell that I am still yet to shake off).

I'll write about the rest of my journey on the next entry! a little in the future and a little in the past.