Traveling Chinese busses and trains

Veröffentlicht am 25. Oktober 2014 von Steffi

Getting into the Chinese public transport is a completely new chapter in the book. You can actually find long distance busses that are modern, clean and seats can put almost into a horizontal position (Less modern version unfortunately also exists). The only weird thing while traveling by bus is that they stop for no apprehend reason for 3-4h in the middle of the journey and that the air condition is set to 17dg making the journey a little uncomfortable.

Going and coming from Tourist sides by bus on the other hand isn’t really fun. The loneyplanet usually gives good advice for transport but practically it is not always obvious were busses go from and to and the chinese signs for destinations aren’t really helpful.

Asking around usually helps, but sometimes (as everywhere) you just get pointed in the wrong direction. We had special fun going back from the Terracotta Army. We thought that we just hopped into one of the normal busses, Bus 914. Not really. The conductor was all the time screaming at people to get into the bus. We spent more than half an hour picking up people somewhere to fill up the bus and when the police drove by everybody in the aisle had to kneel down (still pretending to at least know the rules).

While going by train, getting into the

train station is fun by it self. You need a train ticket to get inside meaning you can’t just pick up your wife when she comes back from a journey. Than you get in a big waiting room where you have to stay until the check in begins (no we are not in an airport). Finally you get checked a third time by the conductor at the train. By now you ticket had three stamps. The trains are like the busses very comfortable, but take consideration to Chinese travelers. Meaning again air condition is set to autumn temperatures and toilets are just wholes in the floor.

Weather forecast perspective change

Veröffentlicht am 14. Oktober 2014 von Steffi

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One of the first things you learn when coming to China is that you no longer check the weather forecast in the morning but the air quality index, especially the pm 2.5 value (The amount of particles smaller than 2.5 µm that are able to get very deep into your lungs ad causing lung cancer, isn’t it nice.) We were very lucky, when we came to Beijing having a few days of good and moderate conditions, but the rest of our time in China we spent in rather unhealthy ‚weather‘. It can feel it a little in the lungs (especially when you already suffer from asthma) and their is something brown and smily that you cough up from time to time.

Bejing AQI of the last 30 days. Luckily we have been south during the last week.

Where it comes from? Mainly from coal-fired power stations, we heard. However, in general people don’t seem to be to bothered. The fewest are wearing masks and people are burning the garbage everywhere even in the city on the street. I fear this is mainly due to lack of knowledge, because there exists a working recycling system.

Guangzhou local waste management.

Anyway, the most irritating fact about the smog in China is that it fucks up nearly every landscape picture. I got a little choice for you from the non processed pictures (and we didn’t encountered the worst conditions a recently in Beijing).

Great wall – you could barely see the second mountain in the row.

A sunny day in Pingyao.

Guilin’s hazy cast mountains.

Sunset in Hongkong. The sun is gone half an hour before sunset.

Pinwin English

Veröffentlicht am 13. Oktober 2014 von Steffi

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I think everybody is aware of, that the highest percentage of the Chinese inhabitants have some troubles with the English language. However, we found our selves in the comfortable situation that most sign directing you somewhere, prohibiting something or warning you to do something were translated into english. So even though you don’t understand a bit of the written or spoken Chinese we traveled safely and sometimes quite amused. The following is a little choice of the signs we encountered in the last four weeks. We hope this will spread a little smile.

Train toilet form Xi’an to Guilin.

Xi’an park area around the terracotta warriors.

Park area in Guilin.

Fire extinguishers in a hotel lobby.

Underground train Guangzhou.

Train station Guangzhou.

Rice terraces Tiantou.

Walking path to the great wall.

On top of a cast mountain in Guilin.

ATM in Guilin.

Stairs t the city wall in Pinyao.

Top of a cast mountain in Guilin.

Craftworker shop for signs in Guangzhou.

Park area in Nanning.

In front of a construction side in Nanning.

High, higher, Hongkong

Veröffentlicht am 13. Oktober 2014 von Steffi

The face of one of the densest populated cities of the world is dominated by shiny high skyscrapers mixed with old pink-grey mansions. One of these mansions was going to be our home for the next three nights and perfectly reflected living conditions. You still have to pay an enormous rent for the tiniest apartment.

Shinny sky scrappers over grow the old mansions.

Our room 2x2m basically consisted of a bed and a toilet room with view to the dirtiest slot, but equipped with air condition, TV and the fastest internet in china. Air condition actually is a standard in this subtropical climate causing condensed water dropping on your head all the time when strolling through the city.

Our tiny little home. But quite good value for Hong Kong.

Our window …

… and the view from our window.

Actually we did not lived in Hongkong but Kowloon. Hongkong is only the half located on Hongkong Island. Though easily accessed by ferry while admiring the impressive skyline (If you overhear talk about a light show of the hong kong skyline at night, it’s only five our six buildings taking part in that, so not a big deal).

A ride n the almost 130 year ferry boats including a outstanding view of Hong Kong skyline, costs 0.25 Euro.

The skyline at night is impressive tough the light show wasn’t more than a few blinking sky scrappers.

Apart from that Hongkong is a very western city with shopping malls, bars and restaurants, but missing all the nice parts and the nice cheap food of other Chinese city’s.

Even these reminders of Denmark could be found in Hong Kong.

Also some British traces could be found in the city.

Instead of spending our whole time in freezing cold shopping malls, we headed for the Hongkong trail just a 15 min bus ride from the city enjoying the mini jungle that is surrounding the city accompanied by beautiful butterflies and other nice guys (I am reconsidering whether walking trips in southeast asia are a good idea.).

Reaching the beach on the opposite of Hong Kong Island required some stripping.

Isn’t he sweet. Just about the size of my hand.

Coincidentally we arrived in Hong Kong just after the first demonstrations for more democracy ended and the second began. But even though the news stated that only two dozen demonstrates are left on the streets we still met quit a few more in the blocked streets. Strange atmosphere and an impressive reminder of the comfortable life in europe.

The umbrella revolution waiting for discussions with the government.

The journalist stating only two dozen demonstrators remained on the streets missed at least a factor 100 in y opinion.

An idyllic bike ride along the Li river.

Veröffentlicht am 7. Oktober 2014 von Steffi

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The route, for GPS details please ask Tom.

The idea to bike around in china actually rise already in Beijing when we that it is possible and bikes are rather cheap in china. However we could not really find a good solution to transport our bags and we already doubt it to be a good idea when we felt the heat in Guilin. So we settled on renting to bikes take a day pack and ride the 65 km along the Li river to Yangshuo. The evening before we tried to find a good description if the trail. The possibility that we found in our navigation app was indeed 92 km long. But hey still doable away from the big road, decently close to the river and we could still take the bamboo boat back.

And suddenly there was a biking highway in the middle of nowhere.

Yeah sometimes expectations are quite high. Half of the time travel busses were taking up almost all space on the road covering us and our lungs in dust. We were most of the time far away from the river though it was idyllic anyway. We were climbing exhausting hills than just biking relaxing on the shores (my butt really hurt after half a day). When we arrived in Yangshuo they explained us that rules where just changed and there was no bamboo boat going back (tried unsuccessful anyway). The route in our navi did not worked out either, roads were rather tiny paths to small for the bikes and just ending in the water without any bridge.

We were lucky to get a water cab, when the road suddenly ended in the river. Including a very wet butt.

Finally after almost two days unbearable heat it started raining and we arrived completely drowned and dirty back in Guilin.

Just a little wet and a little dirty.

But there also where the time points when we suddenly found us on a broad asphalt road riding through beautiful valleys without any cars, pomelos and madarines growing next to the road, and many friendly people greeting us along the way. Pretty fun trip, but we skip the biking in china for this time anyway.

Here they are. Pomelo, really growing on trees and not bred by a crazy chemist in a lab.

Yangshuo – a little short

Veröffentlicht am 7. Oktober 2014 von Steffi

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Yangshou at night – they do waste some energy on that.

The destination of our bike trip was Yangshou, a city at the shores of the Li river. Even though we arrived here in China’s national day and lonelyplanet recommended to avoid this place due to it’s tourists herds we found the city quite appealing. This was likely due to our hostel being on the “wrong” side of the river away from the center (anyway reachable by ferry in 2 min). The roof terrace with view over the „skyline“ including a little bar wasn’t a bad feature either (Yangshuo high hostel).

Yangshou high hostel roof terrace.

We could easily have spent one or two more days watching tourist fighting for bamboo boats or illegal pelican fishers, strolling through bamboo forests, eating off the tree pomelo or climbing the cast mountains around. Unfortunately our bus to Guangzhou was leaving the next day from Guilin and we had to head back.

House boats are coating the shores of the river in Yangshou. Very far from the glittering hotels close by.

Fishing with pelicans still popular though illegal. The bind the pelicans to a rope, let them fish and when the pelican caught one they fetch them again and squeeze the fish from the pelicans neck into a basket. Really mean.

There where the rice is grown

Veröffentlicht am 7. Oktober 2014 von Steffi

The rice chamber of china is located in Gunagxi.

Three hours by bus from Guilin are some wooden villages glued to the mountain sides. These villages are home to the rice farmers of Guangxi that shape the land into green layers.

The villages around Longsheng are framed by the yellow turning rice.

No way to reach these islands of rice by any kind of machinery.

It’s incredible for how little money you can buy rice in the supermarket considering that all the work here is done manually under lots of effort. The villages and rice fields are connected by slim stone paths, which is lovely to look at but a burden for transportation. Everything is transported on the horse or human back.

The main transportation form between terraces and villages are braided baskets carried on the back.

The rice is grown on slim terraces, as slim as 0.3m not allowing for any kind of machinery. And then all the tourist that are to lazy to carry up their luggage and beer themselves ;).

Women waiting to carry up the luggage of tourist. The have a very funny way to set their hair. Traditionally the only cut their hair once in their life between 16-18, so gets pretty long. Therefore its is simply curled around the head and made into a bun at the forehead.

However, this place beautiful and you can easily spend a few days hiking around the little paths or just sitting on your hostel terrace enjoying the view. In October, when we visited the rice is turning yellow giving the fields a perfect horizontal stripe look.

Bamboo rice 1: Cut some bamboo wood. Single out compartments. Empty them and prepare stoppers from corn cores.

Bamboo rice 2: Fill the bamboo with a mixture of rice, meat, fruit and peanuts. Close the bamboo and roast it over open fire.

Cut it open (be careful you will get black fingers) and enjoy.

My dinner ended when I found these in the chicken I ordered. Couldn’t keep Tom from eating.

Guilin and it’s cones

Veröffentlicht am 7. Oktober 2014 von Steffi

For our time in Guangxi we made Guilin our base. Already upon arrival we were hit by the heat confirming that we caught the summer again. 30˚C and pressing humidity. Luckily almost all hostel rooms contain air condition.

Guilin seen from the top of a cast mountain.

Guilin has it’s very own charm. This little Chinese town (only 4.5 million inhabitants) spreads it’s arms between forgein looking cast mountains and the syrup like Li river. The water can be found everywhere in the city being home to ancient pagodas, fisher and their boats and in case also serve as a wash for scooter, cloths, babies or dogs.

The moon and the sun pagoda, you may guess which is which.

Fisher at the shores of Li river. Hobby or profession, we don’t know.

Scooter wash. We didn’t dare to try the local fish that are served everywhere in the city.

Two other remarkable things are the bakeries all over town that sell delicious bread (also because it is real bread) and the „Ampelmännchen“ (The only english translation I found was „little light man in traffic lights that indicate when to walk“). When we encountered the first we thought somebody programmed them wrongly because it was rather humpingly jumping than walking. After a while we actually got the impression somebody made a statement for „more tolerance with disabled people“ because each Ampelmännchen had a different kind of motion disorder.(MVI_7483). From here we took a trip to the rice terraces around Tiantou and a idyllic bike ride to Yangshuo along the Li river.

Fisher boats or actually these were rather house boats, since people are living on their boats.

Express Xian

Veröffentlicht am 30. September 2014 von Steffi

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After a night in the train we arrived in the grey an rainy Xian. Since it still was pouring down at late morning we decided to head for the Terracotta Army a day earlier. Surprisingly we found the bus already after 10 min searching. Arrived and after buying a ticket a Chinese women tried to talk us into taking a guide, but we refused. Many other people in this crowded place didn’t and we visited the warriors together with a crowd of Chinese tourist and their screaming guides. Maybe I was just hungry but I can’t say that I enjoyed it very much.

The chinese, the cameras and noisy guides.

The chinese, their cameras and their noisy guides.

Anyway, the warriors were interesting to look at. The poor guys that had to build them more than 2000 years ago must have been as bored as the people that are digging them out again.

Digging for warriors part 1.

Digging for warriors part 2.

Digging for warriors final part 3. They are unique! But whether this is a feature or just comes with their manual creation, who knows.

A funny thing that we observed on our way back were the hundreds of people selling pomegranate and only pomegranate. The area must be quit famous for this fruit.

Back in Xi’an we had a stroll through the famous Muslim market, which was still crowded at 9 pm. The have a famous street food, that everybody calls Xian burger, but in principal is pulled beef stuffed in a roll a bit like kebab. Not a bad choice though, if your are okay with eating in the street.

Xi’an burger or pulled beef in some bread.

Being rewarded with sunshine the next day, we went to the 13km long city wall rented a bike and enjoyed the feeling of rolling along a boulevard.

Biking Xi’an city wall. It is probably the safest place to ride a bike in the whole city.

The whole 13km are decorated with these red lamps illuminating the wall during night. (they have to be changed regular because the red is fading in the sun.)

Pingyao – sleeping like a chinese emperor

Veröffentlicht am 30. September 2014 von Steffi

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The lovely old buildings finely decorated for the tourists.

Pingyao is a rather small Chinese city (only half a million inhabitants) that due to its vanished importance maintained its historical center protected by restored city walls. Former courtyards are transformed into hotels and hostels, but kept the historic interior making us sleep like an emperor from the Qing dynasty. The bed was simply build by brick stones with a thin layer of mattress on top. Pillows felt like filled with rice and the whole thing was framed in pink curtains. We had a perfect night sleep.

Our hostel backyard by night. We got the very last room in the third backyard.

However, as few foreigners as you meet her as many Chinese tourist visit this place and made a point about living inside a tourist attraction (we also seemed to be a big attraction and were saved on many phones and memory cards).

More about being a good subject for photography than actual protecting the stone houses from burning.

A little choice from the souvenir shops framing Pingyaos streets.

Anyway Pingyao is lovely. Our tour around on the city wall was nearly as lonely as in the woods, the courtyard museums are good and short afternoon entertainment (included in the ticket for the wall for 15€!) …

Excaping the crowd. Pingyao city wall.

… and whenever we headed outside the wall we left the touts behind us and were met with a mixture of friendliness and curiosity. Actually eating out get a whole new meaning, since food was a lot better and cheaper outside the walls.

Pingyao side streets outside the city walls.

Chinese street food „Spätzle“ and a very amused chief, when we set down and even wanted to make pictures of him. Look out for him in Pingyao, great choice.

„Spätzle“ are served in spicy soup. Yummy

Steffi and Tom on the Road

With Tommy traveling in the trains of this World.

Archiv der Kategorie: China

Traveling Chinese busses and trains

Weather forecast perspective change

Pinwin English

High, higher, Hongkong

An idyllic bike ride along the Li river.

Yangshuo – a little short

There where the rice is grown

Guilin and it’s cones

Express Xian

Pingyao – sleeping like a chinese emperor