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Videos from our trip in China are ready to be enjoyed on Khrystube.

Off to Chengdu to see giant pandas. There is a nice park area with a lake and lots of bamboo, where you can see pandas. We were a bit unlucky as the weather was so hot, the pandas were mostly inside or just sleeping, and we didn’t see the small ones playing. But we saw very tiny newborns, and all of the pandas were cute of course. The red pandas were a bit more active.
One evening in Chengdu we went to see Chinese opera in a traditional tea house. The singing wasn’t perhaps so much to our liking, but the mask shows were impressive, they changed the masks and even clothes incredibly fast. Other thing we really enjoyed there was a shadow play show by hands.
We got to try a local food speciality, hot pot, with some Brits who could speak some Chinese, so they took care of the ordering. Hot pot is a metal pot with normally spicy or very spicy stock inside. The stock is kept simmering at the centre of the dining table through the dinner. The ingredients are placed into the pot and cooked at the table. One can order different meats, fish and vegetables to be cooked in the pot. We got some interesting things on the table such as inside of a cows stomach and a full flat raw fish, which we cooked just like that: boiled in the pot. Interesting dish to try. Remember to order at least half of the pot less spicy (yingyang style), or prepare to sweat a lot! :) By the way Netta almost became vegetarian in China, as you never know how they serve you the meat. Might come with more fat than actual meat, or for example chicken is sometimes served with everything, skin, bones, liver etc. Mixed with noodles for example I mean, in pieces, not as whole.

   
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From Chengdu we took another trip to see Le Shan giant sitting Buddha. It is the largest carved stone Buddha in the world (71 meters high). The place was packed with people, and it would have taken us over four hours to queue to go down to the feet of the statue. Instead, on top of paying the entrance fee to get next to the face of the statue we paid also a cruise to see the whole Buddha from the boat. In the same area is also a huge Sleeping Buddha statue. We didn’t see it as we got misunderstanding with this, plus to see it we would have had to pay a third fee. The cruise boat advertised that you can see the sleeping Buddha from the boat. But this was a joke to us as according to the Chinese, this is another sleeping Buddha, which is few islands that remind a sleeping Buddha. Whatever…

   
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Via Kunming (where we applied for Vietnamese visa) we travelled to Lijiang traditional city. Very beautiful buildings, which can be fully enjoyed early in the morning when there is nobody in the streets. Later, the place transforms into market place full of tourists.

   
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We noticed our mood regarding Chinese people changing daily. People were mostly extremely helpful, even with very limited English they were not afraid to try to help us with language issues. We even got our bus fare paid few times by a local just simply because they wanted to help and be nice.
Sometimes we felt like rock stars. Chinese find foreigners interesting looking, and many wanted to get theirs or their children’s picture taken with us.
But things that we got annoyed with included that Chinese are very loud. Netta even got convinced, that there must be a law in China that everyone has to get up at 6 o’clock, because every morning she woke up at that time for customers or the staff of a hostel/hotel talking loudly in the corridor. Or for car horns. The traffic in China is fairly chaotic, and the choir of horns never seems to stop. Chris wanted to buy one of those horns you use in sports events and to honk at every car which almost run over us on a walk way when we had green lights. We don’t know why traffic lights exist in some countries, seriously…
Also the habit of pushing other people and systematically passing them in a queue or sightseeing place did not get our understanding. Luckily spitting everywhere on the streets, hotels, trains etc. has been forbidden lately, so it doesn’t happen all the time anymore (although still very often). But really interesting to us was that small children don’t seem to wear diapers in China. They have a huge cut in their pants, so they can just do their thing on the street or on a train station floor… handy. Well, then again, it surely would be a big pile of waste if 1 billion people would all use disposable diapers…

After spending time mostly in crowded cities, it was absolutely wonderful to get to go for few days on the mountains, where there was no loud Chinese tourist groups. Chinese tourists travel only by bus, as they think walking is for peasants. We headed to Tiger Leaping Gorge, one of the deepest river canyons in the world, for a two day hike. We started the hike in Qiao Tou. In a group of six people, happily talking and nobody reading the instructions properly as everyone thought the other people did, we managed to get lost in the first hundreds of meters. Wondering and complaining about the bad sings on the route, we still kept going wrong way because the locals were showing us to go here and there. Locals want you to pay them to guide you, and unless you do, you cannot be sure about their instructions. Finally after few hours realizing we had to be on a wrong way we ended up paying few euros for a local old man to show us the way to the mountain hostel. The old man, probably in his 70’s was basically flying up the steep mountain wondering why young tourists need to rest every now and then. Makes you feel very good and fit you know… The hike and sceneries were magnificent. At times we had to pass waterfalls, which are formed on the path during the rainy season.

   
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After the mountains we had to catch a bus back to Kunming and another one to Hekou, at the border with Vietnam, as our visa was expiring. The last bus run over night on a bumpy, curvy road, so forget about sleeping. At 7 am we walked cross the border. Good morning, Vietnam!

After Beijing we had 3 weeks of visa left, and we travelled through China (our route: Worldtrip ’09) by train (plus few busses). Altogether 4700 kilometres. Chris had made lots of work beforehand and planned well the places to visit. The trains were not very fast, they were old and not the cleanest ever, but finally it went pretty painlessly. Occasionally, like the time when we spent 17 hours over night on a hard seat (sleeper seats were sold out, in China it’s good to book seats some days before) in an over crowded train with people standing and pushing 4 people to sit for a space of 3 people, it did cross our mind that there might be easier ways to travel, but hey, you can hardly say you traveled around the world if you haven’t experienced this, right?

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We first headed westward to Datong. There we shared a taxi with German and Portugese travellers to a Hanging temple, temple built into a cliff (75 meters above ground, didn’t feel so safe at places to be honest). There is too many taxi drivers in Datong and few of them got into a fight over who gets us as a customer. The hanging temple is few hours away so even cheap for us, it’s good business for them.
In the afternoon we visited other important site in Datong area, the Yungang Grottoes. In this site there is more than 50000 Buddha statues in different size and conditions, carved in rock caves.

   
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Next destination was Pingyao, nice little old city. There we rented a tandem bike for few euros and biked along outside and inside city walls. In Pingyao excellent, tasty beef (served cold) is one of the food specialties. Also lacquered wood is at its best.

   
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In Tai’an we went to see the most important (most holy) Tao temple in the world. Along with the Forbidden city in Beijing and Confucius temple in Qufu, it is one of the three places in China built according to imperial design. We wanted to also hike on their holy mountain Tai Shan, but turned back as in our opinion the entrance fee, 125 yuan (13 euros) per person was really overpriced for China!
In Tai’an we needed to send home some souvenirs, so we got our second experience of the Chinese post. The first one had been really interesting in Beijing, where we got told in one of the main post offices, that they were out of stamps. What, a post office out of stamps? Yes, please come back next morning, because in the evenings they run out of stamps. Right. So in Tai’an we were wondering how it’s going to go with the parcel. It was not so easy to find the correct place to send a parcel, because in China the post has many many offices in one city, but they don’t all offer same services. Finally the third place was correct. At first the clerk wanted to see everything what we are sending, but apparently it was just to know if it will brake easily or something. After we were very happy for their service, as the clerk packed and taped the whole parcel for us, very efficiently and quickly the whole thing was done. Some countries would have things to learn from this, as sometimes it is painfully difficult just to send a parcel.

   
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After Qufu, the birth place of Confucius, to a very touristic place, Xi’an. The old capital city has a lot of heritage from its golden age, and many of its nice buildings are illuminated at night. At night you can watch a great fountain show around Asia’s highest fountain, in front of big white goose pagoda. The city has also an old city wall, where you can climb to see the scenery or cycle around on top of it. Otherwise the city is nowadays very developed and among old buildings you can find all the expensive fashion shops from Gucci to Ralph Lauren. They are building a lot everywhere in China and one can see and imagine how the country is developing and getting richer at the moment.
Xi’an is also very busy as a popular sight, Terracotta warriors, is closeby. The statues are worth seeing, but the place is a little bit annoying, because just to get in, you have to walk at least a kilometer pass lots of people trying to sell you stuff.

   
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Beijing is an interesting city, with a mix of lots of old buildings, beautiful gates, and hutongs on one hand, and on the other hand new buildings. The city most likely looks very different now after the last year’s Olympics. We ended up staying a week in this Chinese capital, as there is so much to see, and transportation to some of the places takes long.
It was very hot when we were there, and there was lots of Chinese tourists, as it was summer holiday time.

The first day we visited the famous Forbidden City (Imperial Palace) and TienAnMen square. We woke up a bit late and had about 4-5 hours for the Forbidden City before closing time. It was barely enough, as the place is huge (800 buildings). It is listed by UNESCO as the largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world. In the evening a local guy we contacted via couch surfing joined us, and advised us to stay in TienAnMen square until the flag ceremony. Every evening lots of people gather there to watch the flag lowering from the flagpole. Nothing very amazing, but why not since we were there.

   
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The following day we visited beautiful Imperial garden, Beihai park. Very nice place, but a hint for the cave there, it’s tiny and all destroyed, not worth paying extra for it.

   
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Next morning early wake up as it was the day for the longest total solar eclipse to occur in the 21st century. Well, the eclipse was total in Shanghai area, east coast of China, but as we were this close, we were supposed to see 80 % eclipse, so worth waking up. Unfortunately the day was so cloudy, that we only got the last glimpse of this special event when entering the Temple of Heaven. Temple area is a funny place, there you can see local people playing games, dancing and singing. Retired people get in for free, so they like to spend time there. In the afternoon we headed to the Summer Palace, which is located further away. UNESCO has declared Summer Palace as the masterpiece of Chinese landscape garden design. In the evening we stopped by at the famous food market street in center of Beijing to have a look at delicacies such as cockroach, sea horse and bull testicles. We tasted some sea star and snake. Chris would have tasted also scorpion, but found the price too expensive.
Of course in Beijing we had to eat Beijing duck. That was tasty. The chef brought to table a whole roasted duck, and sliced the meat. We wrapped the meat slices inside little pancakes, and enjoyed them with onion, cucumber and dark sauce.

   
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We had some adventures when trying to get to the Great Wall of China. It is not easy to know what is the best way to get there. Many people visit Badaling section of the wall when first time in China. Of course our concern was how crowded this section is going to be. One can take a train there from North train station, but that train station was a bit far for us. Public bus is another option, but one has to be careful as there is also many fake busses with the same number, who might or might not take you to the right place (there is also a fake Badaling section of the wall), and will charge you much more money than you are supposed to pay. The organized tours are recommended to be booked via hostel/hotel, as there is scams around those too.
We ended up renting a private car and a guide with a French couple we met the previous day, so that we could be at the wall before the crowds and take our time there. Well, next morning we woke up early and the guide arrived. She knew nothing about what we were supposed to do that day, she thought we were two people instead of four, and she started to change the plan and the price after we got upset that the car was too small for us. Finally nobody was happy and they turned around and we cancelled the trip with them. It was ok for us to get a resting day as my stomach was not feeling too well. So the following day we booked a normal organized tour to the wall, even though we knew that they would not spend much time at the wall, would take you to tourist shops and that it would be crowded. But finally we ended up having a very nice day and good group in the bus. The tour guide tried to get us to take a cable car to the wall, which was not included in the price, but we insisted to walk. At the wall we chose to go different direction with most of the people which was good decision as we got to be at there sometimes almost by ourselves, plus got great pictures over the other side. It started to rain after an hour so finally few hours there was quite ok time. Surely one could spend there much much more time admiring the landscape and to visit different sections. It is a great place, definitely one of the things in the world to visit. On top of the wall the tour takes you to one of the Ming-tombs.

   
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In Beijing we still went to one of the largest and most important Tibetan Buddhist monasteries in the world, the Lama Temple, and to the Imperial Academy, which was the national central institute of learning in ancient Chinese dynasties.

   
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Sorry for the huge amount of pictures from Beijing, we understand you might get bored. But as this page also works as a journal for us, and as a storage for our pictures, we need to send them all.
Just skip when you are bored…

Videos from our trip in Korea are ready to be enjoyed on Khrystube.