After two pretty hectic days of travel in Thailand (more on which later) we finally stopped in one place for long enough for me to update my blog finally! So here it goes...
After a much more manageable 4 hour flight (SO much shorter than our other international connections) we made it to Kuala Lumpur and jumped into a taxi to our hostel. We had booked into a place in Bukit Bintang and were dropped right in the middle of backpacker-central once more! In China as foreign backpackers we were in the minority but KL saw travellers and holiday makers from all over the world. I was struck instantly by the blend of cultures in Malaysia - Ethnic Malays, Chinese Malays and Indian Malays living amongst one another and in KL particularly a number of western and other immigrants. We took advantage of the mix and enjoyed some northern Indian cuisine - Alice and I opting for a chicken korma at the restaurant just up from our hostel! We pretty much just went to bed after an exhausting day travelling. The next day after a lie-in we headed out for a full day sight-seeing. We found the Petronas Twin Towers and the TV Tower with little problem but our less than effective map, torn from a magazine and missing its centre, meant that finding the rest of out quarry was more difficult! Having apparently walked right past the Central Market and Chinatown we made it to the National Mosque - a beautiful modern building of azure blues, pure whites and shimmering silvers we donned the necessary robes to cover our insufficiently modest tourist clothes and got some amazing photos! We then moved on to the National Museum where I got a feel for Malaysian history (Islam arriving in the 14th century, the Portuguese in the 16th and independence from Britain achieved in the later 20th century followed by a number of years of peaceful reorganisation and formation of the country we know today) and then headed back to the hostel for dinner. Afterwards we headed back to the Petronas Towers for a free concert 'Twin Towers @ Live' where we watched Colby O'Donis and the Malaysian Prime Minister launch Petronas' new petrol product. The latter was rather bizarre as he and the 'first lady' were greeted by rapturous applause - I doubt whether any British PM, even when they have achieved a level of public enthusiasm, such as Blair in the early years, receiving such a welcome at a gig, particularly if they were pushing a new product fur some company - but clearly the Malaysians quite like their political leaders!
The next day we headed out in the afternoon, after Ben and I had our hair cut (myself by some Algerians for 25RM about £5) to Chinatown and the Central Market that we had missed the previous day - thus time opting for a taxi to take us straight there! The girls got some new hand luggage (which they have since filled with more buys!) and Ben some new shorts but I was unable to find the aladdin pants I had been searching for bur enjoyed a nice hazelnut frappaccino at the indoor Market!
We got up early the next day and headed to the bus station to get on one to Penang. 5 hours later we arrived at the island and took a taxi to our hostel - they insisted we had two with all our bags which was a bit annoying as the driver in KL who took us to the bus station had a much older car which still got us there fine - but we had little choice and so headed off. Penang gad a strong Chinese influence with lots of Chinese script and communities around - and indeed our hostel, the Red Inn was run by Chinese Malays. We had dinner at the Malaysian food court not far from the hostel, my Laksa was a bit disappointing but I finished off the girls' biryanis (apparently I'm turning into my grandfather as the group's human dustbin lol!) and then bought a waffle with ice cream, peanut butter and chocolate sauce which was delicious!
The following morning we took a look around Georgetown taking in all the sights including the Town and City halls, Fort Cornwallis, the beautiful First Anglican Church, the Catholic Cathedral of the Assumption, Little India and a Chinese Ancestor Temple! The girls and I opted to rest in the hostel in the afternoon as Ben went out to take in more of the area - we still hadn't quite adjusted to the heat! That night we headed to little India for a curry and then to bed ready for Thai New Year the following day.
We got up in the morning - took advantage of the free breakfast the hostel provided again (toast, noodles, pancakes, banana cake!) and then headed to the port to book our ferry to Langkawi. We then took a taxi to the Burmese Temple with a funny driver who thought at first we were mad to be going to the Temples but then laughed as we explained that we wanted to experience the madness - which ensued quickly! Barely out of the taxi and we were drenched as the local Buddhists took great delight in chucking water on us, plastering us with flour and talc, getting us dancing, shaking out hands and taking photos with us! We were celebrities fir the day as group after group came up to us and asked for photos with us - even when we had sat down on the curb to relax with a beer for a minute - creating something of a photo-spot! It was all so much fun and frankly I have never been as drenched before in my life or had more different colognes and deodorants sprayed on me! I smelt like a $2 rent boy lol! that afternoon after a quick change of clothes we headed out to the Chowrasta bazaar - which was a bit of a busy except for the books that Alice bought and that I found me some aladdin pants for 25RM - using my excellent bartering powers ;) (in reality I said I wanted to spend about 15RM ideally and the guy wanted 35 so we instantly met in the middle - but I'm still chalking it up as a win!). Enjoyed some Malaysian street food in the form of a 'Prawn Mee' for tea.
We decided to hire some scooters from outside the hostel the next day, which proved a great move. Ben and Alice as the only licence holders took on the driving as Charlotte and I rode on the back respectively. It was amazing way to take in the island seeing the Toy Museum, the Floating Mosque, a tropical fruit farm where Charlotte and I shared an amazing plate of fresh fruit with the most flavoursome watermelon I have ever eaten and visited the Snake Temple! Navigation was difficult with the maps we got from the hostels but we made it round the island just about - well including an unplanned diversion over to the mainland via the Butterworth bridge as Alice took something of a wrong-turn! We made it back in one piece in the end and after a go driving the scooter up to the fruit farm I want one when I get hone now! That evening we headed back to Little India for the best curry I have ever had - a delicious lamb Rogan Josh!
An early start the next morning (6am!) saw us head off to the island of Langkawi, a beautiful piece of paradise off the west coast of Malaysia and not far from the Thai mainland. We arrived about midday-ish and checked in before getting some lunch. The girls and I spent the early afternoon shopping - myself for some swim shorts that wouldn't fall down every five seconds (plumping for some super-cool Snoopy ones for only 15RM and a beach towel for only 12RM - before I headed to the beach to join Ben! That evening we enjoyed some take away burgers and watched Glee, Fashion Police and some awful reality TV on E! in our hotel room! The following morning I headed out to the beach early to get some sun before the heat of the day and the other guys joined me later. We broke for lunch at 2pm and I spent the rest of the afternoon watching pop-star bios on E! deciding to make the most of the luxury of satellite TV and unable to take the heat any longer haha!
We had to get up early to make our connections over to Koh Phangan - on the opposite side of Thailand from the mainland reached from Langkawi - in what was supposed to be upwards if 12hours of travelling to make it to the island the night before the Full Moon party. When we arrived into the port at Satun in Thailand we were assured our mini-bus would be along in an hour. Nearly 2 hours later we were packed onto a bus with a driver who was unsure where he was going - or so it seemed as he was constantly on his mobile. We were transferred onto another van in Satun town only to have to change onto another one just outside of Hat Yai! It seems they merely chucked us on the first bus to Surat Thani as after hours on the bus dropping off locals at their doors on the way we finally made it to Surat Thani port. However, we were an hour late for the last ferry straight to Koh Phangan and at the wrong port (the day port being about 90 minutes away at Donsak) and so didn't even have to option of getting a speed boat to the island to make our booking! We ended up getting the night ferry - which meant a night sleeping on a crammed ferry right next to each other and some complete strangers on a bed about half the size of a single laid on the floor! We decided to embrace it as 'all part of the experience' but not after a much needed bottle of Tiger beer! I slept a lot better than I had expected and arrived at Koh Phangan at about 5am. After about a hellish hour or so looking for our hostel - with little help from the locals who merely pointed in unspecific directions, we made it to our hostel and slept til midday ready for the party in the evening! After lunch, dinner and a power cut we finally managed to get ready and donned some fluorescent paint before meeting up with some friends from Australia and heading to the beach! The Full Moon Party was so much fun dancing all night on the beach and enjoying some incredibly alcoholic buckets we made it til about 5am before heading to bed!
We paid for our revelry the next day as we got up for our transit back down south to Krabi which took about 10 hours. Happily, except for an hour without a seat from Donsak to Surat Thani all things went a lot more smoothly and we made it to our B&B in Ao Nang, Krabi in the late evening! After a well needed lie-in I headed out to do some laundry and then set about writing this blog post (which I've done on my iPod Touch so I apologise for any randomly incorrect words and typos) deciding I needed a chilled day to sort myself out! The next few days promise the Phi Phi islands and a trip to Hua Hin to see the Thai King's Palace - more on Thailand soon - here's hoping my impressions improve! Lol!
Wednesday, 20 April 2011
Saturday, 9 April 2011
China, the second...
Waking up early we headed to Xi'an airport ready for our flight to Hangzhou - all included within our trip and accompanied by a complementary on-board breakfast of either rise or noodles! I chose noodles but as Charlotte deemed rice an unsuitable food for breakfast I also ate hers. Finishing off the girls' meals became a near daily practice in China and I feel that weight I may have lost in Australia has creeped back on =( We arrived mid-morning in Hangzhou noted as an earthly paradise second only to the heavenly one and indeed it was a very beautiful city. Our tour-guide Andy took us across the city to the lake where a number of our group took a boat ride. Because we knew we had to return to Hangzhou to fly out we opted to walk a little round the lake and take in its beautiful views, as well as watching some of the locals dancing outdoors and performing some traditional Chinese folk music. It was a popular visiting spot for couples as legend has it a boy sailed across the lake and fell in love with a fairy! Unfortunately it wasn't my day to meet any fairies but we did have a nice coffee break at one of the cafes - even though we almost forgot to pay and sent Ben running back with the money! The lake was exceptionally beautiful and even the habitual spitting of the locals and a few dodgy singers didn't ruin the ambiance of the place.
That night the girls weren't feeling too well but Ben and I headed out with the group to experience some authentic Chinese dumplings. The place looked like a bit of a dive at first and everyone seemed a little apprehensive, not least as it was merely the front of someones house and we essentially walked through the kitchen; which probably wouldn't have passed UK health and safety regulations! When the food arrived we were pleasantly surprised however. It was delicious - the pork and leek dumplings in particular! The family were also really sweet - and at something like 40Yuan each we thought £4 a bit of a bargain for the meal. Such little bistros and family-run restaurants, Andy assured us, were common in China and we tried a few others ourselves later in our travels.
The next day was Ben's 22nd birthday and the girls had been clever enough to get him some chocolates to celebrate the night before when we had been scoffing down dumplings and a bizarre birthday card of sorts! It seems China doesn't celebrate them in quite the same way! We then headed out in the morning to the traditional water-town of Wu-Zhen. The setting for a popular Chinese soap it drew a lot of local bus-groups. Despite being essentially a show town and tourist attraction run by the government, it remains home to a number of residents who refused the offer to move and accepted the many tourists who pound the pavements everyday. We strolled around with our group, trying to avoid the irritating Chinese tour leaders with their mega-phones as Andy pointed out a few notable sights, including the brewery where we sampled some traditional Chinese wine - which is more like a spirit and something like 40%+ to boot - as well as taking a boat ride down the river and being welcomed to China by some school kids! Afterwards we jumped back on the bus and headed to Shanghai.
The built up metropolis a head of me was the first sign that we were getting into Shanghai and was followed by some familiar sights - including weirdly enough a Carrefour supermarket - and then a great view of the sport's stadium. We decided as a bus that the best way to celebrate Ben's birthday was to first take a trip on a boat down the Bund and then head into town to find a nightclub. So once we checked into the hotel we grabbed a quick bite to eat - roadside pancakes with egg, 'tenderloin' and bacon (delish!) and then grabbed a bottle of Chinese liquor for pre-drinks whilst we showered and got our glad rags on. The liquor went straight to our heads and gave us the giggles all the way to the Bund, but the views from the boat were amazing. it was a little chilly in just a shirt but well worth money as we saw Shanghai lit up in the night's sky and got plenty of photographs - Charlotte evening buying an professionally taken one of the four of us! After getting off the boat we jumped back into the mini-bus we had hired and headed out to the former French Concession. The bars, we decided were ridiculously over-priced, and so after a failed attempt to get into the nearest club early (it turned out it was being renovated!) we scoured Shangahai for a good nightclub! We took a recommendation to us (via our ever helpful guide Andy) by a local and headed to a club called Richbaby, which offered a 100Yuan 'Free Flow' for foreign passport holders! We all secured wrist bands and tucked into our Vodka orange juices/Whiskey cokes/Gin and tonics respectively and set about a game of 'I Have Never' #groan# - revealing a number of our fellow travellors to be sexual perverts haha, as well as the birthday boy's desire to 'motorboat' a particularly large-breasted Swede who was on our tour group... Apparently it was her 'party piece' and she enthusiastically allowed him to abuse her to the bemusement of a number of Chinese people! Needless to say mixing vodka, whiskey and gin was not a good idea and I remember little else of the night, except a lot of dancing and excitable Shanghai locals! A good night was had by all as the hangovers the enxt day attested...
The 'free day' we had the follwoing day was well needed and I headed out to the local Maccy's like the stereotypical western tourist I am to grab me a hangover cure! 20Yuan (about £2) for a meal and a sundae seemed reasonable enough for me and was an excelelnt accompaniement to festering in the hotel room wathching Shanghai International Channel! That evening we headed out for our last group meal #sob# and had an amazing Chinese banquet in a swanky hotel down the road from our own. Sfter stuffing ym face for the second time we headed out to see a acrobatics performance which was excellently done - including a terrifying 'Cage of Death' where five motorcyclisits risked their lives performing jumps and formation drivinig in a relatively small round metal cage! Alice was more pretrified than they were! It was a fun evening not least as each act was preceeded by a less than auspicious introduction, either in terribly constructed English to which end the meaning was totally lost on us, or by giving the acts rather mundane sounding names such as 'Playing Straw Hats' and 'The Boy with the Pot' for feats of balance and coordination that were incredible. In our semi-delirious hungover state we found this pretty amusing, and laughed a whole lot, including once again at the horified look on Alice's face whenever someone in the audience hocked up a greenie in their seat! Returning to the lobby we said our goodbyes to our fellow travellers as we were all leaving at different times and headed for bed for some much needed sleep!
We got up the next day at a reasonable hour and headed to the supermarket for some lunch supplies as we were cheking out of the hotel at 1pm and into the hostel at 2pm so thought we'd take it with us for a speedy meal. The hostel was an easy ride on the metro and was really nice. A new build the Rock and Wood International Youth Hostel was very tranquil and very clean and offered free use of the washing machine and dryer as well as a good selection of breakfast, lunch and dinner meals. That night we headed back into Shangahai to indulge Alice's desire for some western food. Not huge fan of Chinese food even t home we thought it only fair to have one meal she would actually enjoy fully and so headed to Pizza Hut before picking up our tickets from the hotel we had been staying at for our train back to Hangzhou in a few days time. The next morning we treated ourselves to an English Breakfast in the hostel and then headed out to see Shanghai, visiting People's Sqaure gardens where some young Chinese people asked us a load of questions about where we had come from and where we had visited in China so far, as well as telling me that my blue eyes were 'magic' and that English men looked like 'gentlemen' -quite the ego boost! Haha! We all went on to Shanghai museum and then Ben and I checked out the Bazzar whilst the girls got a manicure. We returned the next day to visit the Yuyan Gardens, beautiful traditional Chinese gardens situated in the heart of the city.
The next day we got up early and headed to the railay station to grab our train back to Hangzhou where we were flying out of. I almost made us late for the train waiting on my breakfast dumplings but we got there in the end and spent the next three days chilling out in Hangzhou - in more ways than one as the weather turned pretty nippy. We visited the bazaar and then lake again and the girls visited the zoo one of the days, which except for the panda exhibition was a bit of a sorry affair. We felt we needed a few days to recuperate after running around China and waited out our time discussing our plans for south east Asia. On the morning of the 8th we woke and headed to the airport to catch our flight to Kuala Lumpur - featuring in my next post!
That night the girls weren't feeling too well but Ben and I headed out with the group to experience some authentic Chinese dumplings. The place looked like a bit of a dive at first and everyone seemed a little apprehensive, not least as it was merely the front of someones house and we essentially walked through the kitchen; which probably wouldn't have passed UK health and safety regulations! When the food arrived we were pleasantly surprised however. It was delicious - the pork and leek dumplings in particular! The family were also really sweet - and at something like 40Yuan each we thought £4 a bit of a bargain for the meal. Such little bistros and family-run restaurants, Andy assured us, were common in China and we tried a few others ourselves later in our travels.
The next day was Ben's 22nd birthday and the girls had been clever enough to get him some chocolates to celebrate the night before when we had been scoffing down dumplings and a bizarre birthday card of sorts! It seems China doesn't celebrate them in quite the same way! We then headed out in the morning to the traditional water-town of Wu-Zhen. The setting for a popular Chinese soap it drew a lot of local bus-groups. Despite being essentially a show town and tourist attraction run by the government, it remains home to a number of residents who refused the offer to move and accepted the many tourists who pound the pavements everyday. We strolled around with our group, trying to avoid the irritating Chinese tour leaders with their mega-phones as Andy pointed out a few notable sights, including the brewery where we sampled some traditional Chinese wine - which is more like a spirit and something like 40%+ to boot - as well as taking a boat ride down the river and being welcomed to China by some school kids! Afterwards we jumped back on the bus and headed to Shanghai.
The built up metropolis a head of me was the first sign that we were getting into Shanghai and was followed by some familiar sights - including weirdly enough a Carrefour supermarket - and then a great view of the sport's stadium. We decided as a bus that the best way to celebrate Ben's birthday was to first take a trip on a boat down the Bund and then head into town to find a nightclub. So once we checked into the hotel we grabbed a quick bite to eat - roadside pancakes with egg, 'tenderloin' and bacon (delish!) and then grabbed a bottle of Chinese liquor for pre-drinks whilst we showered and got our glad rags on. The liquor went straight to our heads and gave us the giggles all the way to the Bund, but the views from the boat were amazing. it was a little chilly in just a shirt but well worth money as we saw Shanghai lit up in the night's sky and got plenty of photographs - Charlotte evening buying an professionally taken one of the four of us! After getting off the boat we jumped back into the mini-bus we had hired and headed out to the former French Concession. The bars, we decided were ridiculously over-priced, and so after a failed attempt to get into the nearest club early (it turned out it was being renovated!) we scoured Shangahai for a good nightclub! We took a recommendation to us (via our ever helpful guide Andy) by a local and headed to a club called Richbaby, which offered a 100Yuan 'Free Flow' for foreign passport holders! We all secured wrist bands and tucked into our Vodka orange juices/Whiskey cokes/Gin and tonics respectively and set about a game of 'I Have Never' #groan# - revealing a number of our fellow travellors to be sexual perverts haha, as well as the birthday boy's desire to 'motorboat' a particularly large-breasted Swede who was on our tour group... Apparently it was her 'party piece' and she enthusiastically allowed him to abuse her to the bemusement of a number of Chinese people! Needless to say mixing vodka, whiskey and gin was not a good idea and I remember little else of the night, except a lot of dancing and excitable Shanghai locals! A good night was had by all as the hangovers the enxt day attested...
The 'free day' we had the follwoing day was well needed and I headed out to the local Maccy's like the stereotypical western tourist I am to grab me a hangover cure! 20Yuan (about £2) for a meal and a sundae seemed reasonable enough for me and was an excelelnt accompaniement to festering in the hotel room wathching Shanghai International Channel! That evening we headed out for our last group meal #sob# and had an amazing Chinese banquet in a swanky hotel down the road from our own. Sfter stuffing ym face for the second time we headed out to see a acrobatics performance which was excellently done - including a terrifying 'Cage of Death' where five motorcyclisits risked their lives performing jumps and formation drivinig in a relatively small round metal cage! Alice was more pretrified than they were! It was a fun evening not least as each act was preceeded by a less than auspicious introduction, either in terribly constructed English to which end the meaning was totally lost on us, or by giving the acts rather mundane sounding names such as 'Playing Straw Hats' and 'The Boy with the Pot' for feats of balance and coordination that were incredible. In our semi-delirious hungover state we found this pretty amusing, and laughed a whole lot, including once again at the horified look on Alice's face whenever someone in the audience hocked up a greenie in their seat! Returning to the lobby we said our goodbyes to our fellow travellers as we were all leaving at different times and headed for bed for some much needed sleep!
We got up the next day at a reasonable hour and headed to the supermarket for some lunch supplies as we were cheking out of the hotel at 1pm and into the hostel at 2pm so thought we'd take it with us for a speedy meal. The hostel was an easy ride on the metro and was really nice. A new build the Rock and Wood International Youth Hostel was very tranquil and very clean and offered free use of the washing machine and dryer as well as a good selection of breakfast, lunch and dinner meals. That night we headed back into Shangahai to indulge Alice's desire for some western food. Not huge fan of Chinese food even t home we thought it only fair to have one meal she would actually enjoy fully and so headed to Pizza Hut before picking up our tickets from the hotel we had been staying at for our train back to Hangzhou in a few days time. The next morning we treated ourselves to an English Breakfast in the hostel and then headed out to see Shanghai, visiting People's Sqaure gardens where some young Chinese people asked us a load of questions about where we had come from and where we had visited in China so far, as well as telling me that my blue eyes were 'magic' and that English men looked like 'gentlemen' -quite the ego boost! Haha! We all went on to Shanghai museum and then Ben and I checked out the Bazzar whilst the girls got a manicure. We returned the next day to visit the Yuyan Gardens, beautiful traditional Chinese gardens situated in the heart of the city.
The next day we got up early and headed to the railay station to grab our train back to Hangzhou where we were flying out of. I almost made us late for the train waiting on my breakfast dumplings but we got there in the end and spent the next three days chilling out in Hangzhou - in more ways than one as the weather turned pretty nippy. We visited the bazaar and then lake again and the girls visited the zoo one of the days, which except for the panda exhibition was a bit of a sorry affair. We felt we needed a few days to recuperate after running around China and waited out our time discussing our plans for south east Asia. On the morning of the 8th we woke and headed to the airport to catch our flight to Kuala Lumpur - featuring in my next post!
Wednesday, 6 April 2011
Goodbye Australia Ni-Hao China!
So it's been far too long since I've posted once again and have loads to catch you all up on! Luckily enough Cairns was a rather uneventful few days, taking a few days out to relax before our big flight to Beijing and the start of our Asian leg of the trip. The first two nights were pretty similar; the first saw us arrive in Cairns at about 7pm so we ate our free meal and enjoyed a night's sleep in the air-conditioned bliss that was Gilligan's hostel and resort. The second day we moved over to Coronas, explored Cairns a little bit and then enjoyed at free meal at the Woolshed (which in classic stupid-Michael fashion I repeatedly referred to as the Woolpack until Ben corrected me haha!) and then hit the hay pretty early again. Unfortunately Coronas didn't have air-con but we struggled through, made all the easier in the knowledge that we were only paying $10AUS a night - our cheapest nights to date I think...
The next day I took a wlak up to the Botanical Gardens in Cairns and a climb up Mount Whitfield with one of the guys from our hostel room who was a pilot up in Queensland doing some training to renew his license. Another meal in the Woolshed was followed by an evening out in Gilligan's bar, preceeded by pre-drinking in a couple of our friends' room where being the bad influences they are, they convinced us to drink goon spiked with vodka - it ended up being something of a messy night, including a certain travel companion getting thrown out of the bar for disobeying a barman's order not to drink anymore! As it turned out it was near closing time anyway and everyone was leaving so it didn't mar an otherwise amazing night and a good catch up with loads of friends we had made whilst travelling up the coast! The pictures speak for themselves. The next day I prepared to leave Australia, buying afew essentials and sending some postcards home before an early night ready for the bus in the morning.
We had a bit of a nightmare with the airport shuttle in the morning, having been missed off the list all together! Luckily they are habitually late and one that was scheduled to pick up a half hour after our own came to pick us up and we made it to the airport just in time to check in for our horrendous 24 hours plus in transit! As it turned out the actualy flights were rather short, varying from about 4 to 8 hoursm but we had big lay overs in Sydney and then Kuala Lumpur airports before our connecting flights. Unable to sleep particularly well on the flight to Kuala Lumpur, I caught around 6 hours shut-eye at the airport, despite falling asleep in one lounge only to wake up a few hours to find a whole extended family had moved in around me! When we finally arried in Beijing we jumped into a taxi and headed to the Happy Dragon Hostel to meet the girls. The roads in China were an interesting experience, there seem to be few rules and the driver seemed comfortbale taking our lives into his hands as he avoided crashing into traffic tuning into the road by only a hair's bredth a fair few times! That night we headed to the Hou Hai region of Beijing for our dinner. Our first experience was memorable, sampling 'hot pot' - which saw a number of meats and vegatables cooked in a large metal container filled with hot water and flavoured with herbs and spices. We made an incredible amount of mess but all left full,and determined never to try it again as it was far too much effort. Jet-lagged and ready for bed we returned to the hostel ready to start the tour we had booked for China the next day.
We woke up and checked out of the hostel (at about midday - a much more civilised time than Australia's 9 and 10am check-outs) and headed to the Chongwenmen Hotel, the first hotel on our 6 day tour. We had a free day until the evening where we'd meet the other guys on our tour so headed off to see the Yonghe Lama Temple, a working Tibetan Buddhist monastery in the city and one of the largest temples of its type in the world. We wandered around the complex amongst tourists and devotees, visiting the exhibtions of Tibetan sculptures and the 18 metre stature of the Buddha carved from a single sandlewood tree that even extended beneath the floor of the building which housed it. We also experienced our first culture shocks; the first being people staring at us without even the slightest mark of self-awareness, and the second the habitual hocking up of phlegm and spittle by the locals, again without even the slightest note of embarassment and in fact frequently with as much zeal as they could muster. That night we had an introduction meeting with our guide Andy and then got to know our fellow travellors over some Peking duck and at the karoke bar at our hotel, where I excelled performing Madonna's Vogue.
The next morning we woke up early to head to the Great Wall. Access to the wall is pretty tourist-friendly nowadays and we took a gondola up to the wall itself, avoiding the stallholders cries for us to take a look at their marchandise as we passed. The gondola ride was one of the most terrifying experiences to date, on some rickety old ski-lift God only knows how far above the ground, but I made it to the top eventually and loved the views from the wall. We took a short walk across the wall and I have never taken so many photos in one place in my life! The views were spectacular and we were blessed with good weather. After about an hour or so on the wall we joined the queue for the toboggans and slid our way down the hill to the coach-park and got back onto bus and headed for Hong Qiau market. We were harrassed to buy cothes for a good hour, assured that we would be offered a good price and that to look was free, but Ben came out with a new belt and Charlotte a new scarf so it was a successful trip. That evening we headed back to the hotel and then out for something to eat before we attended a Kung-Fu show, The Legend of Chung Yi. It was a funny show with kung-fu moves strung together with a narrative, but an ionteresting insight into the spiritual culture invovled with the martial art, even though it left us humming the tune for the next few days.
Our last day in Beijing saw us take in Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. The first a huge outdoor expanse now something of a monument to the Communist Revolution with a number of sculptures and statues to the People's Revolution, Mao's tomb and a monolith dedicated to the martyrs of the revolution. It is also the home of the Chinese parliament buildings, which were interesting to see albeit from the outside. The Forbidden City was amazing and one if my favourite sites on the tour. I wasn't expecting it to be quite as large as it was but well deserves its name, being a seemingly endless complex of buldings and padogas with intricate architecture dedicated to the emperor's private and public life. The dragon, a spirtual creature in Chinese mythology, dominated buildings as the emperors were considered the human embodiment of the beast. It was a great introduction into Chinese imperial culutre and we also learnt that Chinese lions are usually found in pairs to represent the male and the female, the former holding a ball as a symbol of imperial power and the latter a cub as a symbol of fertility.
That night we returned to the hotel to collect our bags and headed to the railway station to get the night train to Xi'an city. A 14 hour train we stocked up on instant noddles and got on board spending the night chatting to the others on our trip and then braving the three-story bunk beds,`punctuated with the occasional jolt as another train passed or we stopped. The girls weren't too impressed at having to travel several carriages to find a western toilet and avoid the squat toilets that are the norm in China but everyone took the trip in good humour.
When we arrived at our hotel we dropped off our bags and headed out to see the famous Terracotta Warriors. A working archeolgoical site we visited each of the pits,the first probably the most famous with the foot soldiers discovered by some farmers in 1974 after almost 2000 years of entombment and obscurity after their commissioner the First Qin Emperor died and the people rose up. Designed to follow him the the afterlife, the greater part of the warriors including footmen, horses and cavalrymen are still buried beneath the pits. There were a number of exhibits which were very intersting including a few which showed the warriors complete with original paint before the light faded that which was left.
On the way back to the city I stopped and took a bicycle tour of the city walls, 40Yuan got me access to the wall and 20Yuan hired me a bike for the afternoon which allowed me incredible views of the city both intra- and extra-mural. The former preserving something of its ancient character with buildings in the tradtional style and the latter contrasting with 20th and 21st century sky-scrapers. Despite a few problems with the bikes two fellow travellors and I made our way round in about an hour and returned in time to meet the rest of the group for some traditional noodles in a local restaurant. That evening I took a look around the Muslim Quarter, after quick visits to the Bell and Drum towers (the first traditionally sounded to indicate the start of the working day and the latter its end) beautifully lit in the night, where I bought a postcard and took a look at some of the souvenirs on offer.
In the interests of not making this the longest blog post in history I'll stop there and update on Hangzhou and Shanghai real soon - it also gives me an opportunity to remember exactly what I have been doing!
The next day I took a wlak up to the Botanical Gardens in Cairns and a climb up Mount Whitfield with one of the guys from our hostel room who was a pilot up in Queensland doing some training to renew his license. Another meal in the Woolshed was followed by an evening out in Gilligan's bar, preceeded by pre-drinking in a couple of our friends' room where being the bad influences they are, they convinced us to drink goon spiked with vodka - it ended up being something of a messy night, including a certain travel companion getting thrown out of the bar for disobeying a barman's order not to drink anymore! As it turned out it was near closing time anyway and everyone was leaving so it didn't mar an otherwise amazing night and a good catch up with loads of friends we had made whilst travelling up the coast! The pictures speak for themselves. The next day I prepared to leave Australia, buying afew essentials and sending some postcards home before an early night ready for the bus in the morning.
We had a bit of a nightmare with the airport shuttle in the morning, having been missed off the list all together! Luckily they are habitually late and one that was scheduled to pick up a half hour after our own came to pick us up and we made it to the airport just in time to check in for our horrendous 24 hours plus in transit! As it turned out the actualy flights were rather short, varying from about 4 to 8 hoursm but we had big lay overs in Sydney and then Kuala Lumpur airports before our connecting flights. Unable to sleep particularly well on the flight to Kuala Lumpur, I caught around 6 hours shut-eye at the airport, despite falling asleep in one lounge only to wake up a few hours to find a whole extended family had moved in around me! When we finally arried in Beijing we jumped into a taxi and headed to the Happy Dragon Hostel to meet the girls. The roads in China were an interesting experience, there seem to be few rules and the driver seemed comfortbale taking our lives into his hands as he avoided crashing into traffic tuning into the road by only a hair's bredth a fair few times! That night we headed to the Hou Hai region of Beijing for our dinner. Our first experience was memorable, sampling 'hot pot' - which saw a number of meats and vegatables cooked in a large metal container filled with hot water and flavoured with herbs and spices. We made an incredible amount of mess but all left full,and determined never to try it again as it was far too much effort. Jet-lagged and ready for bed we returned to the hostel ready to start the tour we had booked for China the next day.
We woke up and checked out of the hostel (at about midday - a much more civilised time than Australia's 9 and 10am check-outs) and headed to the Chongwenmen Hotel, the first hotel on our 6 day tour. We had a free day until the evening where we'd meet the other guys on our tour so headed off to see the Yonghe Lama Temple, a working Tibetan Buddhist monastery in the city and one of the largest temples of its type in the world. We wandered around the complex amongst tourists and devotees, visiting the exhibtions of Tibetan sculptures and the 18 metre stature of the Buddha carved from a single sandlewood tree that even extended beneath the floor of the building which housed it. We also experienced our first culture shocks; the first being people staring at us without even the slightest mark of self-awareness, and the second the habitual hocking up of phlegm and spittle by the locals, again without even the slightest note of embarassment and in fact frequently with as much zeal as they could muster. That night we had an introduction meeting with our guide Andy and then got to know our fellow travellors over some Peking duck and at the karoke bar at our hotel, where I excelled performing Madonna's Vogue.
The next morning we woke up early to head to the Great Wall. Access to the wall is pretty tourist-friendly nowadays and we took a gondola up to the wall itself, avoiding the stallholders cries for us to take a look at their marchandise as we passed. The gondola ride was one of the most terrifying experiences to date, on some rickety old ski-lift God only knows how far above the ground, but I made it to the top eventually and loved the views from the wall. We took a short walk across the wall and I have never taken so many photos in one place in my life! The views were spectacular and we were blessed with good weather. After about an hour or so on the wall we joined the queue for the toboggans and slid our way down the hill to the coach-park and got back onto bus and headed for Hong Qiau market. We were harrassed to buy cothes for a good hour, assured that we would be offered a good price and that to look was free, but Ben came out with a new belt and Charlotte a new scarf so it was a successful trip. That evening we headed back to the hotel and then out for something to eat before we attended a Kung-Fu show, The Legend of Chung Yi. It was a funny show with kung-fu moves strung together with a narrative, but an ionteresting insight into the spiritual culture invovled with the martial art, even though it left us humming the tune for the next few days.
Our last day in Beijing saw us take in Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. The first a huge outdoor expanse now something of a monument to the Communist Revolution with a number of sculptures and statues to the People's Revolution, Mao's tomb and a monolith dedicated to the martyrs of the revolution. It is also the home of the Chinese parliament buildings, which were interesting to see albeit from the outside. The Forbidden City was amazing and one if my favourite sites on the tour. I wasn't expecting it to be quite as large as it was but well deserves its name, being a seemingly endless complex of buldings and padogas with intricate architecture dedicated to the emperor's private and public life. The dragon, a spirtual creature in Chinese mythology, dominated buildings as the emperors were considered the human embodiment of the beast. It was a great introduction into Chinese imperial culutre and we also learnt that Chinese lions are usually found in pairs to represent the male and the female, the former holding a ball as a symbol of imperial power and the latter a cub as a symbol of fertility.
That night we returned to the hotel to collect our bags and headed to the railway station to get the night train to Xi'an city. A 14 hour train we stocked up on instant noddles and got on board spending the night chatting to the others on our trip and then braving the three-story bunk beds,`punctuated with the occasional jolt as another train passed or we stopped. The girls weren't too impressed at having to travel several carriages to find a western toilet and avoid the squat toilets that are the norm in China but everyone took the trip in good humour.
When we arrived at our hotel we dropped off our bags and headed out to see the famous Terracotta Warriors. A working archeolgoical site we visited each of the pits,the first probably the most famous with the foot soldiers discovered by some farmers in 1974 after almost 2000 years of entombment and obscurity after their commissioner the First Qin Emperor died and the people rose up. Designed to follow him the the afterlife, the greater part of the warriors including footmen, horses and cavalrymen are still buried beneath the pits. There were a number of exhibits which were very intersting including a few which showed the warriors complete with original paint before the light faded that which was left.
On the way back to the city I stopped and took a bicycle tour of the city walls, 40Yuan got me access to the wall and 20Yuan hired me a bike for the afternoon which allowed me incredible views of the city both intra- and extra-mural. The former preserving something of its ancient character with buildings in the tradtional style and the latter contrasting with 20th and 21st century sky-scrapers. Despite a few problems with the bikes two fellow travellors and I made our way round in about an hour and returned in time to meet the rest of the group for some traditional noodles in a local restaurant. That evening I took a look around the Muslim Quarter, after quick visits to the Bell and Drum towers (the first traditionally sounded to indicate the start of the working day and the latter its end) beautifully lit in the night, where I bought a postcard and took a look at some of the souvenirs on offer.
In the interests of not making this the longest blog post in history I'll stop there and update on Hangzhou and Shanghai real soon - it also gives me an opportunity to remember exactly what I have been doing!
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