Hong Kong

I arrived in Shenzhen after over twelve hours on the hard seat, having slept very little - not a good start. Then I had to move through customs to leave China and enter Hong Kong - I still don't quite understand what the deal is with Hong Kong, according to my visa I left China to enter it, and it has its own currency, but is still technically a part of China, I think at least (same with Macau also - more stamps on the passport at least). I just about managed to get out of China after having my passport photo scrutinized for about ten minutes by one of the supervisors at the border crossing. With the help of my driving license he reluctantly accepted it was me and so I proceeded to leave the country by lift.

I caught up with Maddy and her friend Flora who had come to Hong Kong for the weekend from Shanghai, where she was working at the moment. After a short nap we headed out to explore. Wandered around loads of different shopping malls and ended up going to watch the last Harry Potter film - I liked it. I was still pretty broken from the night before so after taking a few photos of the amazing skyline we got a good nights sleep, on a bed, that wasn't moving - bliss.

The next day we headed to one of the main attractions in Hong Kong, the cable car up to the giant buddha statue. The cable car gave some amazing views and was really fun, and the buddha was cool but it was all a bit too touristy - we had to queue for ages to get on the cars which isn't really something we've experienced alot on this trip.

On the Monday we were leaving Hong Kong to head over to Macau for the day. After having so much fun jumping off stuff, I decided to see how far I could take it and set off with the intention of doing the world's tallest bungy jump off Macau Tower! It was quite expensive to get over to Macau, and after I paid for the jump I wasn't getting the money back so I felt obliged to go through with it after that. Despite that when we actually got to the top I was terrified (maybe a tiny bit excited too), it seems alot higher when you're actually up there. After what felt like no time at all I was in my harness and out on the platform being strapped up, before I knew it I was on the edge - no time to think about what I was about to do, probably the best way. The jump itself was intense - going off the edge at the start was utterly terrifying but after that it was quite a euphoric sensation and I couldn't stop laughing. It was all over pretty quickly, I was pleased when I realised I was still alive! To celebrate we headed back to Hong Kong and ate at an amazing sushi restaurant that was all you can eat and drink, with beer included. One of the best restaurants we've been to on the whole trip, sushi is fast becoming one of my favourite foods. Here is a video of my jump.

The last day in Hong Kong was spent doing some more exploring and wandering around. We went up the world's longest outdoor escalator (which, disappointingly, was more of a series of escalators, rather than one big one), checked out some temples, went up the Bank of China tower, ate at the cheapest Michelin starred restaurant in the world (wasn't that great to be honest) and went up the peak tram in the evening. We got some absolutely amazing views of Hong Kong from up there, and some pretty good photos too.

The next day we left Hong Kong to head to Shanghai, thankfully on a sleeper train. Hong Kong was amazing - one of my favourite places we've been to so far but in a different kind of way. I could see myself coming back here to live for a little while, it's quite similar to London, but maybe feels like ten years in the future or something like that. Everything is so clean and the service is so good. Most people speak English here too, it was a massive culture shock to go from China into this which did basically feel a bit like being back in England - bizarre. The touristy things weren't mindblowing, we just really liked the city.

I was revisiting quite a lot of heavy, angry stuff on the ferry over to Macau, trying to get myself fired up and ready to throw myself off a 233m building. Doesn't come much better than this; Refused - New Noise.

Yangshuo

At long last we arrived in Yangshuo and decided to take a day chilling out and getting our bearings, much needed, we were knackered! Me and Benson were now also travelling with a couple of kiwis we met, Matt and Dave. We had met them on the train to Nanning so went through the daunting process of buying our train tickets together - strength in numbers. They were both really cool, two of the most interesting people we had met on our travels, we spent the next few days with them.

Yangshuo was a funny place, it was ultra touristy, but incredibly beautiful. Also despite being so touristy it still held a certain charm - it might have been because most of the tourism was catered around Chinese people rather than ourselves. That said, the streets got so busy at night it was insane - thankfully we had a pretty sweet rooftop bar to retreat to serving up some tasty, cheap local beer.

Hungover and only having had 5 hours sleep wasn't the ideal way to start the next day since we had a 24km trek to be getting on with. Still, there we were - the 2am BigMac the night before must have done the trick.

We set off by getting a bus about 90 minutes up the Li river to the starting point where we had to cross the river to get going. We approached the first boat we saw who offered us a price of 10 Yuan each to cross, this seemed expensive (about £1) and was more than the prices we had been told. As a rule not accepting your first price is a good one, especially when there was an abundance of boats, with their owners sat doing absolutely nothing. We walked to ask another one who basically refused to take us, we went around a bit more and the answer was the same - nobody would take us. Dejected, we returned to the first boat, this time prepared to pay his price. To our surprise this boat wouldn't take us now either. Bare in mind nobody at all spoke any English, so it was really hard to figure out what the hell was going on. Eventually after about 30 minutes of trying we figured out that the crossing was closed for an hour and a half because of all the ferries going down the river from Guilin to Yangshuo. This explained the inflated price before because it was just before the crossing closed.

Part of me couldn't help feeling we'd really screwed ourselves over by haggling since we missed our window to get across and now had to sit around doing nothing for an hour. We were also aware of the fact that the trek would take a while and the last bus back to town was at 6.30 - we'd have to keep a good pace. There was a bigger part of me that definitely felt the Lonely Planet had really screwed us over by not putting that information in - it seems like a pretty big ommision, but then that wouldn't be the first time.

Even more dejected, we sat and waited. In normal circumstances I'm confident someone would have taken us across the river but there was a massive police boat sat by the side of the river, and another one in the middle of the river. Somebody else did offer to take us across the river, for 100 yuan - about £10. He was sat with some police while he offered us this, so presumably some of that would go to them, not happening though. He proceeded to start mocking us by offering us a plastic bag and making swimming motions with his arms. He and his pals all had a hearty giggle, we weren't amused.

We also watched some people coming back across the river but the same drivers wouldn't take us the other way. There was definitely a way to make it happen, language was certainly the barrier here though. Eventually some other westerners turned up and we collaborated. We explained about the guy offering the crossing for 100 yuan. Now with the masses we were prepared to pay his dirty money - we just wanted to get across. I said I'd go and ask the guy again, to which one of our new amigos asked me if I spoke Mandarin - obviously I don't, but it turns out he did. Now we're rolling. Eventually, we sorted out a boat to take us all across for 15 yuan each, more than we wanted but again at this point we just wanted to get across. Sadly, our plans were thwarted again when we came to a standoff on the boat. They weren't prepared to leave without all of our money up front, we weren't prepared to pay until we were on the other side. The boat people got angry, so we got off the boat. Again it's the difficult position between being stubborn and naive - I could just see them taking the money and not moving until midday, at which point the crossing would reopen and we could cross with anyone else for cheaper. As it turned out the boat did cross as soon as we got off it, so we watched them unloading their supplies from the wrong side of the river.

We were resigned to waiting til midday at this point and that is what we did. Eventually, just before midday we crossed for 10 yuan each, the same price we could have crossed for an hour and a half earlier. This part of the story is long and drawn out because so was that part of our day. Maybe now that this part of the story is over, you have an idea of the relief we felt to finally get across the river?

Anyway, we were off. We would have to cross the river another two times on our journey, the first of which was only about half an hour after the initial crossing. The walk itself was incredible. The scenery was beautiful, maybe the best I've seen in all of Asia. It was really hot and incredibly humid, but manageable - though because of the season the visibility wasn't great - I'd love to go back when the sky was clear, and I imagine I definitely will.

We carried on with our walk when we were stopped by a local woman trying to get us to come and eat some food, we presumed, at her restaurant. Thankfully we had bumped into the other group with the Mandarin speaker at this point because the woman was a farmer who took us back to her farmhouse and was going to cook us something up for a small fee. It wasn't an ideal situation, and we'd have never got through it without our translating friend, but there weren't many (any) restaurants about so we took the plunge. She killed a chicken for us and cooked up a couple of other dishes. It was a great experience to be honest - real local food with real local people, we've not been too far off the tourist path really so it's not something we encounter often. The only annoyance was that killing, plucking and cooking a chicken took a fair amount of time and we were now well of the pace. If we were to make the last bus we would need to pick up the pace again - if the walk was 24km that is, Lonely Planet we're looking at you.

Turned out we made it back with plenty of time, we reckon the walk was more like 15km than 24km - though we had a little help from our last boat driver who took us from before the actual crossing (though we didn't realise that at the time), so skipped out about half an hour or so. We passed some amazing scenery, saw some goats being herded and some donkeys carrying lots of things. It was a good day. We rewarded ourselves with some pizza, and plenty of beer.

The following day we got back out there, this time on bikes. There was another route suggested in the Lonely Planet, apparently a 10km cycle path up the Yulong river to a bridge called Dragon bridge. It wasn't really about going to see the bridge, more that the scenery was again meant to be great - which it was. We set off slightly later than the day before (though again hungover). We didn't follow the path exactly and ended up crossing through loads of little villages and rice fields that we probably weren't supposed to, but the cycle to dragon bridge was more like 20km than 10km. Lonely Planet, you have excelled yourself once more.

When we got to the bridge we jumped off it a couple of times - this was alot higher than the boat in Halong bay and was actually pretty scary. I think about 8m altogether, these things are always higher when you're actually up there though. Afterwards we had some lunch down on the river when a boat passed by with a newlywed couple on it. The groom was completely disinterested shoulders slumped, looking at the ground smoking a cigarette with his back to the bride. It was so bizarre. The picture is pretty amusing though.

After that we headed back for some more food and beers, a good days work.

The next day we didn't do alot other than kick around and sort out a few bits and pieces and get ready for that nights journey. I was heading to Hong Kong, Matt and Dave were heading to Beijing. Benson would stay in Yangshuo for a few days before heading to Kunming. Yangshuo was a definite highlight of the trip so far. The town itself was really great as well. Good times all round.

This song is by Jonsi, the singer from Sigur Ros. We saw him last year in London and the show was one of the best I've ever been to. They put loads of work into the visual aspect of the show - well worth checking out some videos if you're so inclined. His album is great too.

Welcome to China

As promised, here is an account of a long journey:

• 8am - Depart Monkey Island
• 9am - Arrive at Cat Ba island, get on bus to the other side of Cat Ba island
• 10.30am - Back on boat, make for Halong city
• 1pm - Arrive at Halong city, get on bus back to Hanoi
• 5pm - Arrive in Hanoi, eat, sort bags out for China, wait
• 9.20pm - Get on train from Hanoi to Nanning
• 2am - Arrive at Vietnamese border, get off train, leave Vietnam, wait around
• 3am - Arrive at China border, enter China, wait around, get back on train
• 11am - Arrive at Nanning, buy train tickets to Guilin*, wait around
• 3.10pm - Leave Nanning for Guilin
• 9pm - Arrive at Guilin

Savage - 37 hours of solid travelling. Guilin wasn't even our final destination, we spent the night here though and sat down for a well earned beer and meal before heading to Yangshuo the morning after. This was only a one hour bus though, no complaints.

*Maddy's journey differed at this point, her's went something like:

• 11am - Arrive at Nanning, buy train tickets for Guangzhou, wait around
• 5.20pm - Leave Nanning for Guangzhou
• 6.30am - Arrive at Guangzhou, buy train ticket to Shenzhen
• 7am - Leave Guangzhou for Shenzhen
• 8am - Arrive at Shenzhen
• 8.30am - Get to hotel, sleep

Even more savage - 48.5 hours of solid travelling.

(We had gone our separate ways for a few days because of us both wanting to do different things. I really wanted to see some of the country in the south and Maddy had some serious shopping to do without me slowing her down and moaning about being tired. She set off for Shenzhen and then Hong Kong, where I would catch her up a couple of days after she arrived.)

It gets worse - there are four types of train tickets that apply for most Chinese trains; Soft seat, hard seat, soft sleeper and hard sleeper. Essentially we will only really be looking at hard seats or hard sleepers. Our train to Nanning was a hard sleeper, which despite suggestions otherwise are really comfortable. Hard seats on the other hand aren't. All our overnight trains would ideally be hard sleepers because spending that long on a hard seat is something I wouldn't wish on anybody.

Both our onward trains from Nanning were hard seats - this was obviously much worse for Maddy than it was for me, due to her train being overnight and 6 hours longer. I was thinking on my train about how uncomfortable it was and how I would manage doing one overnight - sadly a few days later I found out. Apparently at any one moment there are ten million people on trains in China. They are crazy busy and the sleepers can book up days in advance. Unbeknown to us, our arrival in China coincided with the students all travelling home - demand was up higher than normal. At the time of writing we have both done two out of the three overnight trains we would have to take in China, one was hard seat and the other hard sleeper. Sadly our final train will also be a hard seat. Not cool. Benson has also done an overnight hard sleeper train that we're yet to hear an account of - and faces the prospect of a 36 hour train from the southwest of China up to the northeast, that's not for a while though so he should be okay for a sleeper.

Anyway, moaning about trains aside, China is incredible. I think we were all feeling a little bit drained towards the end of Vietnam. Despite Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam all being quite different, they are at the same time remarkably similar in alot of aspects. It was here that China was really refreshing, a new challenge for us all that I think gave us all a second wind.

Barely anyone speaks English here, and the western backpackers don't represent the money here either - that would be the wealthy Chinese tourists, so we've gone from being constantly hassled to ignored by touts, which is great! In Nanning especially (the least touristy place we've been in China) everybody was just staring at us. Lots of people would come up and ask to take a picture with us or just of us, for no other reason than us being westerners. Weird, but China has only been letting foreigners into the country for the past 15 years.

Lots of stuff is censored here too. You can't get on facebook, twitter, youtube or this website, which is ultimately the reason these updates have taken so long. We are now staying with a friend in Shanghai who has a proxy set up on her laptop, so this blog post is coming to you from Shanghai, via San Francisco!

 

Been loving this Nirvana tune recently, it's in the film Jarhead which is one of my all time favourites.