Dali - Lijiang - and upcoming: Tibet! (China trip part II)

A small update from Lijiang. We arrived here just a few hours ago and basically went straight for an internet cafe. Today we finally booked our trip to Tibet!... and yes, we are very psyched. Since many people told us that booking a trip to tibet would either be very expensive, fully booked, or just almost impossible for foreigners at all due to new regulations, we didn't have too high hopes of getting there. However, in Dali we found our saviour with the name Jack!

Th story goes like this; We arrived in Dali at the 29th of June in the early morning. We had taken a overnight train from Kunming the night before. After arrival we walked around to find a hostel and found one with the name Tibetan lodge (or something). Dali is a very nice looking town, located near a big lake with mountains in de backdrop. When most would think of China, architecture like in Dali would probably come to mind. That morning we had breakfast and walked around to see what's offered. We found one place that offered horse riding tours through the mountains. So we decided to take one of them. One hour later we were taken to the horses and the trip started. And what a trip it was! I have never rode a horse before and it was a cool experience. The trip was really beautiful since the area hosts some nice scenery. Since we were on horses we came at places where no other tourist could be seen, to eventually reach some spots that are selected for tourists to visit. This was nice as well, but the horse trip made the biggest impression for sure! I was impressed by the horses I must say since the climb was real steap and for them to take us down must have been quite a task. But we made it back. The trip in total lasted for around 5 hours. A recommendation for sure!

That evening we had dinner and strolled around the city. In the back of our minds we wanted to find a way to get to Tibet overland. We found a few offers but all were either too expensive or the program didn't really appeal to us. By accident we found a small travel agency and decided to ask there. The guy, who hardly spoke english, presented us one option of a 10 day tour for 500 euros each. This sounded reasonable so we asked about the program. He then called his mate who spoke better English and we tried to get our questions across by means of the phone. Because this was a bit difficult he said we should come over to his office, which suprisingly we overlooked the first time we passed there. The guys name was Jack and he ended up being our hero of the day. His English was still not that great but enough to get the idea across. Because he only had a paper with the program in Chinese he tried to translate it for us. I got the basics and asked if we could take the paper with us. We then proceeded to the restaurant where we ate some hours before. One of the waiters spoke good English and we asked him if he could translate the program for us, while I was making notes. Thanks to him we got a good idea of what the program is. From one other guy we heard in the morning that the road was broken, so we didn't want to book the tour before that was cross checked. The next morning we heard that the road's fine and we decided to go and book the tour. Back at Jack's it took a while because we already booked a mini bus to Lijiang for the same evening. His brother has a office there and he had to make a few phone calls so that it could be settled that we will start the tour from there. After overcoming some minor issues we paid the deposit and went off. We bought the lonely planet of tibet, and rented a bike to make a trip to a little place some 20 km outside Dali. It was a nice day for a bike ride and the scenery was again not one of the worse I've ever seen.

Back at Dali we had dinner again and went to the place where we booked the mini bus. We had to wait for half an hour or so before it came and made our way to Lijiang. Upon our departure, Jack made another appearance, because he had to note down the number of the bus. His brother and a English speaking fellow would await us that evening to guide us to the hostel area and discuss the details about the trip. Jack sure put a lot of effort in it, and made sure that everything was taken care of. He gave us his number in case anything would go wrong. If we would decide not to do it, or something would be troublesome, we could always get our deposit back. This assured us that this was a good deal, and by now we really can't wait to get our asses in the jeep on the way to Tibet!

Right now I am at Lijiang as I mentioned and we will see if we can get a hiking trip across the local mountain area for a couple of days. A lot of travel agencies offer that kind of trip over here and people say it's well worth it, so that is definately a good way to pass the time untill our permits for Tibet are taken care off. Again I was not able to post pictures to illustrate the stories. The old city of Lijiang looks like a fairy tale city at night, I will definately try to make some good nighttime pictures here. Haven't seen it by day yet, but my guess is that it is equally impressive as well. A good place to have a little break from travelling around all the time. I will end this update here since I'm quite tired from everything that happened today. I will try to post within 5 days or so, after we did the hike and before I go to Tibet.

thank you, bye bye!

Guilin - Yangshuo - Xingping - Kunming and future plans (China trip part I)

Reporting from Kunming, Yunnan province right now. How it all started:
So we finally took off for the big China trip last monday. We were planning to apply for the Russian visa but we find out it would take us another two days in Hong Kong. We will now apply for it in Shanghai in July. I was supposed to meet Jamie at the ferry terminal in Kowloon. Ofcourse there was a communication problem we ended up at two different terminals! Off to a bad start. A couple of hourse later we met and went straight for Shenzhen to take the train to Guilin. The train would leave at around 6 pm and we were wondering if we even could have tickets since we were in Shenzhen around 4 pm. Chinese people like to exagarate because we heard from different people that it would be very difficult to get train tickets in de high season. We found out it was actually quite easy and we had train tickets (hard sleepers) straight away. We then had dinner and headed back to the train station to catch the train. I've never been in a Chinese sleeper train before so I wondered what to expect. They are really clean and the beds, altough hard sleepers, where comfortable enough to have a good nights rest.

The next day we arrived in Guilin at 7.42 am (according to Jamie's well kept notes) and after inspecting the lonely planet we decided not to stay there. After buying tickets for Kunming for the next days evening, we took the bus straight to Yangshuo, a smaller place and more a laid-back backpackers resort, than the busy (and to be honoust, really ugly by the looks of it) Guilin. We arrived there around eleven and checked into a hostel straight after arrival. The hostel costed only 2.50 (euros) per person and that's for a double room! Viva la China!
After that we took the bus to Xingping were we took a boat tour along the Li river, which boasted some incredible scenery. The tour lasted for almost one and a half hours and we took plenty of pictures (as soon as I have a chance I will try to upload them to the photo album). The dock for the boats was a bit outside of the city and we decided to walk back because we had some time to kill. Bad choice on our side, because of 15 minutes walking it started to rain. It was really a tropical sudden rain and in no time we were completely soaked. After the rain cleared we walked further but our clothes never really gotten dry again. We had lunch in Xingping again and headed back to Yangshuo. Back at base I was happy to take a shower and change to dry clothes and take a nap. Appearantly I slept for 2 hours and there was no way for Jamie to wake me up. Appearantly she tried various methods, including holding a ringing alarm next to my ear, but with no result. So now I'm very proud of my napping abilities, and I'm willing to share my secret (mail me for current rates!). That evening we had dinner at a street restaurant, which was quite ok, but I was still not that hungry after the nap. We walked around a little bit more but it started to rain again, so we headed back for the hostel. Jamie fell straight a sleep and I read for an hour or so before sleeping. This marked the end of day 2 of our trip!

The next morning we woke up early because we wanted to make a bike trip through the surroundings of Yangshuo and eventually go to a local mountain called the moon hill, but of course we ended up taking the wrong road. To make to best out of bad situation we wanted to bike back along the river, and therefore we had to find a bridge to cross it. This seemed easier then that it was and we needed some locals help to find it. Arriving at the bridge we found it's under reconstruction but we were offered a temporary ferry-ish service which would costs us 10 yuan. Of course they tricked us because none of the locals paid for it. Bastards! Ok, I guess we are easy targets but still...

So after reaching the other shore we headed in the direction of Yangshuo again but eventually got stuck because the road was inaccessible and we could continue. I must say that where we got stuck the scenery was absolutely stunning, even better than what we saw during the boat trip the day before. Although I'm so far talking about mountains all the time, it's not really doing them justice. They are more very steep rocks emerging from the ground, perhaps not even high enough to be mountains. I guess pictures will explain it better, and I advice using google to find out more, but if not, wait for the pictures, since I have plenty.

Well, anyway, we had to head back for the ferry and take the same road back. This time we didn't pay anything, and nobody was complaining, so another problem solved. We got back in time prepared for going back to Guilin that afternoon. We had lunch at a local Chinese place and at for 30 cents, 15 cents each! We than ordered some more food for take away so we would have something to eat at the train (which costed us another 60 cents, oh boy!). We took the bus at 2.30 pm that day and headed back to Guilin. We had a train waiting at 16.50 pm that took us to Kunming.

In the train Jamie found out that her money was taken from her wallet, 260 euros! Of course this came quite as a shock and we are still figuring out when it happened. Two hours before she paid in a supermarket and now it was all gone. Probably in the bus back to Guilin when we both were sleeping. At that point every Chinese that would anoy us shouldn't come too close because we were seriously pissed off. Nothing we could do about it and the next day (today) we just went on with our planning.

Arriving at Kunming we bought train tickets to Dali for this evening. The train will leave at 10.14 pm and thats one and a half hours away from now. Today we went to a local minorities museum first, which was really interesting. After that we went to an English bookstore where I bought three books (harry potter I & II and 'fear and loathing in Las Vegas'). After that we walked to temple which was probably the most impressive temple I've seen so far. It was quite big and the buddhist monks were holding a ceremonie at the time. Something I would recommend to anyone. After the temple we walked to a local travel agency to inform about possibilities of getting to tibet, but the agency closed 5 minutes before we arrived (it was an hours walk). I have the number now and will try to call to call them tomorrow and see if we could settle something. Right now I'm sitting in a restaurant where we just had pizza (yes, we did!). The plans are to stay a few days in Dali before heading for Lijiang in northwest Yunnan and see if we can do a hiking tour from there. Appearantly, the scenery is beautiful there. In Dali we will try to get us permits for Tibet and a overland tour to Lhasa which would take eight days. It seems to be really expensive so we want to share it with other people. I heard there are always other backpackers that want to do something similar, and perhaps it's possible to share the costs, which would make this option quite feasible. More on that later of course. For now I'm off to catch the train to Dali, where we have a few days to relax. Perhaps I can upload some pictures there, we'll see...

Thank you, bye bye!

So much Dutchies!

This is now my fifth day in Hong Kong and I am liking it a lot. This is basically the last week I can take it easy before we embark on our trip trough China. This trip was originally due on next sunday (the 24th) but changes had to be made after we heard that the visa for Russia can only be applied for in Hong Kong and not in Beijing as we hoped and expected. This gives us a delay of one day since the local consulate will not be open on sunday and we have to wait till monday. That evening we will then go to Shenzhen to either take the train or bus to Guilin, so it means only a one day delay. Because we now don't have to apply for the visa in Beijing, we can arrive there one day later and basically nothing really changes. Since it's friday now, anticipation is growing. '

However, I am certainly not bored here in Hong Kong. Patrick and Bart are great guys and I am really apreciative that I can stay at their place and use their amenities. I have had a good time so far since there is a lot to do here. The first day, like I mentioned before I basically just slepth through, but in the evening we want to a bar called 'stick your finger'. There were two live bands playing and although the setlist wasn't that thrilling, Patrick assured me that normally they are more fun. However, since we were with a group of six we had enough fun and so the first day of my stay was a good one. The next day was a national holiday so basically the whole of Hong Kong were off from work. Patrick and Bart took me to Victoria's peak where a great view of the city can be enjoyed. Ofcourse it is one of the biggest tourist places of HK and it was full with them, it still was impressive to see the city like that. I tried to make a panorama picture there, so when I get I will try to stitch them together and see if I can post some good panoramas from that view as well as from the skyline.
After that we went to an area called 'Stanley' were dragonboat races were held. There we met up with Eva, Milou and there parents. I also got introduced to some of their friends and together we want to a Thai restaurant and had an excellent meal. Yes, the Dutch equipe is well presented here in HK! By that time Bart left the group to meet up with his girlfriend. After the meal we went to the appartment of Eva's parents to play some poker. Since it gotten late at one point and the metros weren't running anymore, they offered me a bed. This was really nice of them, especially since I was basically still on a 'jetlag' from the trainride from Shanghai. I slept like a log for almost 12 hours.

The next day (wednesday) I was supposed to meet Olli, Carl and Liam because they were leaving for England that evening. Unfortunately I couldn't reach them by phone, because of some stupid network problems, thus so much for that plan. Quite a pity though, since I probably won't see them in a while. I am sure that at one point we will meet up again in Europe. So instead of meeting them, I basically took the MTR to central station and wondered around there, just taking it easy and making some pictures. After that I took the same MTR to Mongkok where there is a big computer centre. I was looking for some replacement parts for my headphones, since I lost some on the way here. I couldn't find any in the end and went to a bookstore to buy the latest National Geographic Magazine.
Back home that evening I discovered that I didn't lose the earphone piece at all since it was just lying there on the table... weird...
The next day I basically stayed home all day to chill out and watch a movie (The Illusionist, real good) and surf on the internet a bit. That was quite nice after some hectic and busy days. That day was also the birthday of Ton (Eva and Milou's dad) and we were invited for dinner at their place. The dinner was excellent and we had a lot of fun that evening.
That night I had problems sleeping for some reason and although I wanted to go out today I decided to stay home to try to get a few hours sleep during the day. I needed this since today's Patrick's birthday and we are going to celebrate it at Lan Kwai Fong (look it up, you'll understand that I need to be in good shape for this). So today was quite boring but I'm sure the evening will have plenty of fun ahead to make up for this.

The plans for tomorrow is to be a bit active; I am planning to make some pictures of the skyline at day and nighttime and want to see some parts I haven't seen yet. Also, I promised to make the guys spaghetti, so I'll have to get on it that evening. On sunday we are planning a day at the beach at some place in the new territories where tourists don't come or something. We are now praying for some nice weather, but that should be okay since it have been good all week so far. Monday then eventually I meet up with Jamie again and will eventually set of for the mighty China, so chances are that my next post will be from some place there. I'll try my best to keep it updated, but I am not sure about my internet access posibilities, but I'll find out soon...

for now,

thank you, bye bye!

Shanghai, baby!

I said it before and I'll say it again. The subway is a great invention. In every city I have been so far that had it, they all left me with a good impression. These aren't that many still, but you'll get the idea. I'm currently in Hong Kong and the MTR (the local name for the subway) is a great way of transport. The other cities where I used the subway are London and more recently Shanghai. And this little bedtime story is going to be about that city.

Well the philisophy behind is quite simple; Schools out, let's hit the road! We finished our exams last wednesday and flew to Shanghai on thursday. The sunday afwards we took the train back to Guangzhou which was a 21 hour ride. After that I took the bus to Hong Kong where Patrick awaited me. I will remain under his supervision untill next sunday (if everything goes according to plan) and meet up with Jamie to begin the trip around China.

So ok, back to last wednesday. We all finished our exans and had a dinner party at Jaime's place that evening. The people that weren't going to Shanghai were supposed to go to a karaoke bar afterwards where there was a fourth-years graduation party. This means they sort of hired the bar and if one would pay a 100 dollars (10 euros) one could drink as much as one would want to. And ofcourse the Shanghai crew eventually was convinced to join the crew and headed of for the bar anyway, completely ignoring the fact that we had to get up at 7 am the next morning. We ended up leaving the bar at around 4.30 am and yes, we overslept. I was the first to wake up to my roommates alarm at 8.40 am. That really scared the shit out of me, and I immediatly tried to call Olli who didn't pick up the phone...weird.... After that I called and he took up the phone sounding really tired. At first I thought he was making fun of me but soon found out that I just woken him up. Fortunately I could reach Olli after that call and he and Liam (Carl's brother that was staying at Olli's place). I guess this is what you get when the basic rules of nature are ignored. I couldn't even remember putting out my alarm clocks (yes more than one!). Well anyway, we knew we could still make it since the plane would leave at 11.30 am anyway.

So we all rushed to the border (the plane would leave from Zhuhai), and luckily we could get through quite easily. Eventually we reached the airport at around 10.45 am.

Basically just in time, however the plane was an hour late. Ah well, eventually we got on, and although according to Liam we would all die, we arrived Shanghai after a mere two hours. On the airport (where Carl was still drunk and jumped on the luggage band) we took a bus to people's square and from there on a taxi to our hostel. During the bus ride it already occured to us how huge Shanghai is. The busride took an hour and it was all through urban area. And imagen this was still only on one side of the river that splits the city in two...

Our hostel was great by the way. We paid 7 euros a night for it and we had a four bedroom dorm for it with our own bathroom. The best part of the room were the sheets, which were the best sheets I have felt in 6 months!

That day we didnt do much special. The weather was quite bad and we decided to first explore our neighbourhood (and discovered they were selling kebabs and meatsticks!) and then went to the bund which is probably the biggest attraction of Shanghai. It's probably because of the weather but we didn't find it that special. The buildings weren't lit up and the there were hardly any people, so it was kinda boring. After that we tried to find some bars or clubs but managed to find only one and it was too expensive for us, so we left that one. After that we just bought some drinks and went to a park to hang out there, was quite nice.

The next day we woke up around two in the afternoon and decided to go do some touristy stuff. First we took a cab to the old city of Shanghai. It was a big tourist bubble, but for a reason. It was basically a traditional small chinese town with the houses you would probably first think of when you think of China. All the buildings looked real traditional. They still looked 'new' because they were probably just restaurated.

I bought Mao's red book here and we ended up buying real tourists shirts for 3 euro each and walked around with those shirts the next day; real gweilo style!

After the old city we went to the city exhibition hall of urban planning where we some a maquette of the whole city, which is absolutely huge. This was really cool to see. There were also exhibitions about future plans for Shanghai (They'll be hosting the world expo in 2010 so much changes are scheduled for that year, including the opening of a brand new airport that is able to receive no new giant planes from airbus, the A380), which all looked impressive as did the exposition about old, pre-wartime, Shanghai where I just read a book about (empire of the sun, read it, it's good). Seeing all these plans is kind of what Shanghai stands for; adding the latest things to their city for the sake of having the newest and biggest whats currently available. A perfect example is the Maglev train that runs somewhere in Shanghai. It was the first ever Maglev train in the world and what I heard is that it's so expensive (8 euro's for a 12 minute trip) that basically nobody uses it. Still, China is proud...

Another thing that struck me is that Shanghai is probably the most capitalistic of a city I have ever seen in my life. Certainly when you think about China being the biggest communist country in the world currently... quite ironic. Whereever you look you will see mc. donalds, 7 elevens and other pure western stores and franchises. They love it...

That night we went to find some more nightclubs and we found some. The first one wasn't that great so we were off to find 'babyface,' appearently the 'hottest' place in Shanghai. We eventually found it but we couldn't get in because I was wearing sandals instead of shoes (my shoes are in a box on their way back to the Netherlands). Eventually did Olli and me end in the same club as we were the day before and had some beers in the park before ariving back at the hostel around 7 am.

That day we all got up at 2 pm again and went across the river to the business centre of the city. Some landmarks that are there are the pearl tower and the Jin Mao tower, the biggest tower in China and the fifth biggest building in the world. However, a new building is currently build just next to it and this one will be bigger than this one. How tall, I'm not sure, but it wouldn't suprise me if they want to top the one in Taipei on Taiwan. We wanted to go to the observation deck but found out it is too expensive. We went in anyway and went up to the hotel lobby, which was at the 53rd of the 93 story building. I can say the view was still amazing and we could see well over Shanghai (and witness that the city just never ends).

After this we head over to the pearl tower to see how much it costs to get up there and found out it's basically just a big tourist attraction with no further function. It's expensive to get up there so we again didn't do that. We eventually decided to sit at the river side and have a beer. After that we crossed the river through some weird tunnel (imported from France, this says it all) and walked around Shanghai before getting back to the hostel.

That night we wandered around our hostel area and basically did the same at previous evenings/nights, drink in the park. This time we were talked to by a park cleaner who knew surprising a lot about Europe and different countries. His english wasn't that good but he seemed very happy to meet some gweilo's and seemed quite clever. We therefore suspect that this guy was actually was the mayor of Shanghai in disguise.

That evening we went to bed at around 2 because we had an early wake up. The next morning we had the train back to Guangzhou at 9.50 am and we took a cab to the south station. We had seats and I was kinda not looking forward to it, because I can never really sleep on seats and from previous experience (read my Vietnam part) I expected it to be a big mess.

The train wasn't that bad. We had a lot of fun, but my fear partly came through; I didn't sleep at all. This is by far the longest I ever been in a train (followed by the 17 hours in Vietnam), and we were just fooling around with the Chinese that were there. They were very interested in us because most of the foreigners take the sleeper cabin when embarking on a trip like this. I don't really blame them for that, but we did have a lot of fun. We for instance met the brother of Jackie Chan (we eventually turned out to be the real Jackie anyway!) and met the Chinese reincarnation of Einstein. I'm not going to explain the jokes, but they just needed an honourable mention on this page. During the trip Liam also got engaged to a crazy chinese girl, so everyone was happy.

Arriving in Guangzhou I was dead tired and couldn't wait to get on the bus to Hong Kong. I got on the bus at 9 am and I just fell a sleep straight away. We arrived at the Shenzen/Hong Kong border at around 11 where I had to go through customs and change to another that would bring me downtown. I had to get off at Kowloon but because I slept through my stop I ended up on central. There I contacted Patrick and got on the MTR back to Kowloon. Patrick was so nice to bring me to his appartment and gave me the key so I could be mobile. I wasn't that mobile, because after checking my email I basically fell a sleep straight away... and since I'm getting a bit tired right now (1.30 am local time) I'm going to finish here and get on with the Hong Kong story another day. Btw for more Shanghai pictures check the photo album section of this page. I uploaden all the pictures from the last party in Macau there as well.

Good Night!

Travel, party and beyond!

It's now sunday, June 10th, 2007. I will be leaving Macau next thursday, and with that my exchange will officially come to an end. However, I will not leave for home yet; China is a big country, and I have some time on my hands now, so I'm currently preparing for the 'big trip'. Officially the trip will not start untill the 24th of this month, when Jamie comes back from the Philipines and we set off for Guilin.

But since that is still two weeks away, I have some time to cover. First of all I still have one exam on wednesday. A day later I will leave for Shanghai for four days from the 14th untill the 19th. After that I will go to Hong Kong to stay with Patrick and Bart. Than finally I will head back for Macau on the 24th to cross the border with Zhuhai and take a bus there to Guilin that evening. The Shanghai trip should be something good. I'll be going with Olli, Carl and Carl's brother, Liam.

It's kinda weird, knowing that everything is going to end now. The five months I've been here so far went fast and I don't have the feeling that these months have actually already passed. More and more people will be leaving now. The two yanks, Matthew and Stephen have left already for their Asia-into-Europe over land trip. We had a good party last friday however, which is the last one before everyone leaves. I've made some pictures that I will put in the photo album as soons as possible. This was only a small update, but I will post a bigger one after Shanghai when I have the time. So untill then... bye bye!