Coming to you from Hong Kong

Can't believe how much time has flown - today is the last day of our China adventure! We're in Hong Kong at the moment, and getting ready to fly back to Beijing and catch the train first thing tomorrow to Ulaanbattar in Mongolia, the first stop in the Trans-Mongolian railway. Very pumped indeed!

But just to keep you updated on just what we've been doing since the last post...

Before leaving Yangshuo, we stayed for a few nights in Chaolong (about half-an-hour out of the town itself) at a pretty cool little hostel nestled in amongst all the limestone mountain ranges. Very quiet and peaceful, and given that it was raining pretty much non-stop for the whole time we were there, it was a great chance to relax and take a break - played some pool, huddled up by the fire and watched a few DVDs, got a lot of reading done, and pretty much just bummed around, taking in the awesome scenery. They had a cooking school there, so a few of us decided to try our hands at preparing some Chinese cuisine. Turned out quite a few tasty dishes indeed - my fave being 'beer fish' - which, as the name may suggest, is fish cooked in beer (with a few mixed vegetables thrown in) - very tasty indeed!

The next stop from Yangshuo was the Longji Rice Terrace region. So two public buses (again, another experience in itself - it's amazing the random people you meet on China's public transport!) and a few stops later, we arrived in Dazai to and trekked for about an hour up through the rice terraces to our guesthouse (followed the whole way by some very enthusiastic Yao women - Yao being one of the minority communities in the region - very colouful, friendly, and, it seems, deleriously happy people - they just laughed at anything an everything we said, even though they couldn't understand a word!). The guesthouse had amazing views of the valley, and the rice terraces look absolutely amazing, being carved into the mountains over hundreds of years, they give each hill a layered effect. The next day we trekked for five or six hours through the mountains and rice terraces to get to another guesthouse (in Longshen, amongst the Zhuang minority villages). It was cold, wet, muddy, and very slippery, but we were pretty much the only people out there, and found ourselves amongst some of the most amazing scenery we've seen so far - the view every time we got to the top of a rise was simply extraordinary.

Both guesthouses in the rice terraces were VERY basic in terms of the accommodation, but it made little difference - we had an amazing time mixing with the friendly locals, and getting out there and exploring our surroundings.

Then it was on to Hong Kong - after heading back on the bus and spending the afternoon in Guilin, we caught the overnight sleeper train to Shenzhen, walked across the border to Hong Kong, then back on the train to Kowloon, where our hotel was situated. It was also our last night with the group (which happened to coincide with St Patricks Day, so after exploring a little bit of this frantically busy city (and walking down the 'Avenue of Stars' - Hong Kong's tribute to their film stars such as Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan) we found an Irish Pub and celebrated in style!

Steph and I had a few extra days in Hong Kong after the Intrepid trip officially ended, so we've been making the most of it - exploring the shops on Nathan Road and Hong Kong Island, took the Peak Tram to Victoria Peak to get an awesome view of the city's hundreds of skyscrapers, did a lot of walking around Hong Kong island, including a massive walk down from the peak (who needs a tram!), visited a few of the bars and restaurants in Lan Kwai Fun (very funky and popular entertainment district on Hong Kong Island) and revisited the peak last night to check out the view at night - and it's at night when you really appreciate the beauty of this city - there are some incredibly imaginative lighting themes on the buildings, and the colours and effects make for a pretty impressive sight.

Well, I guess that's it for now. China's been amazing - as you can probably tell we've been loving it. Hope everyone's enjoying the updates, and who knows, for those that have never been here, maybe I've provided a little inspiration to come on over and check it out.... :)

So the adventure continues. To Mongolia... and beyond!

One more quick update...

We're in Yangshuo at the moment, a great little (well, kinda little) backpacker's town in the south of China. In a about an hour we're set to leave for a country guesthouse in a real country area, so we won'thave access to Internet for a few days- so thought I'd post a quick update and a few more photos to keep you all going. :)

This place is great - really geared for backpackers with lots of bars, restaurants, shops, adventure companies etc, and amongst some absolutely stunning scenery - you'll see in some of the photos below that the place is surrounded by massive limestone krasts.

A few things we've done while we've been here:

• Tai Chi lessons from Henry, a Tai Chi master-in-training (one of his masters is the number one Tai Chi fighting champion in the world - and I had no idea it is actually a fighting style!). The guy was amazing - at one stage we were all trying to push him over, and he was standing as still as a rock (it's all about focus, control, and using your Chi... or something),and he was only a little guy!
• Had a river cruise-where we met some crazy people (drunken man riding a buffallo, a hell-bent boat driver who was trying to jump every wake, and at one stage his windows smashed from hitting the water too hard) and had an adventure on a mini bus back into town, where I think the driver had been challeneged to fit as many people as physically possible in for the 50km journey!
• Stocked up on DVDs - $1.20 each, you can't go wrong!

And a handful of pics from Yangshuo:


Around the town and on the river:




Yangshuo by night:

Getting in touch with my Chi - a bit of Tai Chi in the morning :)

Anyway, best be off- will probably update this blog next when we reach Hong Kong. Until then... take care!

China update (part 2)

OK, for the secnd part of my update: Shanghai...

We were in Shanghai for a bit over two days - an incredible city, very Western, and nothing like the rest of China (which makes sense, given its history as a community formed by the British, French, American, Italian and Japanese, before China gained control of the city). In fact, one indication of how western itactually is is by the fact that it is the only city in China to have its own 'Chinatown'!

It is a massive and crazy city, with such a vast contrast in architecture, from traditional Chinese style, colonial style, to crazy futuristic style (I swear at night, it was like being in the movie Bladerunner!).

Lots of bicycles too - there were so many times we'd be crossing the road and turn around to see an army of bicycles bearing down on us!

We also got a taste of the Shanghai nightlife - we checked out the 'Cotton Club' (the oldest and most famous jazz bar in the city - with a great band made up of jazz musicians from all over the world) and a Mexican bar called Zapatas (full of expats - top night out).

One other highlight of Shanghai was taking a trip on the 'Mag Lev'- a magnetic-levitation train that gets to a top speed of 431km/h (the fastest in the world) -it gets to the airport (30km away) in 8 minutes!


Here are a few pics from Shanghai:

Nanjing Road (a massive shopping strip - the biggest shopping centres we've come across so far):



Chinatown (which actually featured at least 3 or 4 each of Starbucks, Maccas and KFC - very Chinese, hey?):



The MagLev leaving the station (approaching warp speed):

Shanghai by night - across the river in Pudong district (the big tower is the Pearl TV tower):

And this one is of a guy we met on the 28 hour train trip from Shanghai to Yangshuo (which was an experience in itself) - he was travelling with a pet crab, which he felt the need to show us!:

X'ian photos

Inside the Great Mosque (in X'ian's Muslim Quarter):

One of the 'houses' in a cave-dwelling community on the outskirts of X'ian:

Awwwww... cute puppy (the cave-dwellers had lots of puppies):

A close-up of a group of Terracotta Warriors:

...and there are a few of them (this is one of three pits in the complex):

The drum tower in the centre of X'ian (at night, obviously):

The city square was alive at night - here are some of the locals playing some crazy flashing spinning-tops that you keep spinning by belting the crap out of them with a whip:

China update (part 1)

OK, so it's been a while since the last post - but since Beijing and the Great Wall, we've spent a few days in X'ian, and then a few more in Shanghai, with some fairly long train rides in between. But now we've arrived in a town called Yangshuo, and I've finally found realiable and cheap Internet access, and I have a bit of time before we have a Tai Chi lesson (which I'm guessing will be interesting!!!) I can try and get back on track...

So I'll start with X'ian...

X'ian was a bit of a surprise - huge city (much bigger than I expected), with some parts being very modern and glitzy with lots of designer shopping malls, nightclubs etc., but still with the original city walls (16km length in total) surrounding the main part of the city, and some more traditional Chinese communities.

The Islamic element that exists in the city was interesting too - the Great Mosque is an interesting mix of Chinese and Muslim style architecture.

We also managed to stumble across a great bar in a backpackers hostel, with ridiculously cheap beer and a great live band that plays some nights. The lead singer/guitarist was amazing (the Chinese Eric Clapton) and he could belt out all the classic rock songs (and although he couldn't speak English very well, he was spot on with the lyrics of every song!).

X'ian was a bit of fun, and has provided some of the more interesting highlights of the trip so far. on one random day we managed to fit in the following:

• A visit to a cave-dwelling community about two hours out of the city - this was a little bizarre but actually not that uncommon in the surrounding areas (though a lot of people are starting to build houses in these communities, there are still quite a few that live in caves) - they are basically just houses cut into dry embankments on the side of hills. Quite spacious, well ventilated, and with a few creature comforts (one even had a playstation 2 set up!). This was also a great chance for us to mix it up with the locals - all the kids came out and followed us around, and we were ushered into their homes to visit their families, pets etc.
• At night, we hit the square in front of the city gates to play badminton and fly kites. We actually drew quite a crowd with our badminton game - the locals must have thought the sight of westerners playing badminton on a sunday night a bizarre sight indeed, because we drew a crowd of fifty or sixty people. We eventually got some of them involved in the game, and kept going until a trio of musicians set up in the corner of our badminton court, which kicked off a spot of conga-style dancing (which of course, we got involved in as well!).
• Then, to top the night off, we went to a Karaoke bar called Haoledi - which seems to be a bit of institution in the major cities here. And that was weird - as soon as you go in there you get guys with snappy suits and white gloves ushering you through to buy drinks, then escorting you up to a private room with a big screen tv, three microphones, tambourines, disco balls etc. The western selection of tunes was not so up-to-date, but after a while I think we'd belted out more than enough Elvis, Beatles, Bee Gees and way too many 80's rock ballads!

All in all a very strange day!

The next day we took a trip out to the Terracotta warriors - an archealogical dig that's been turned into a big museum. There are hundreds of lifesize terracotta warriors (each carved with a unique face) found standing vigilantly at guard to an Emperor's Tomb, which was only discovered thirty years ago. There are three pits in total, and there's still excavations taking place to find more of this terracotta army. It wasn't bad, and great to see one of the most famous attractions in China, but if I had to be honest I'd say I had expected it to be a little more impressive... a lot of it is actually just mounds of dirt and sand with signs saying 'more warriors are buried here', but as I said, still kind of cool to see it all.

And after that, we caught a relatively comfortable overnight sleeper train to Shanghai.

Running out of time, so stay tuned for part 2... :)

Great Wall Photos

A handful of pics from our trek on the Wall...







And a few photos from our dawn escapade...

The Wall

Back in Beijing for a few hours, so got some time for another post...

Yesterday took us a few hours out of Beijing to explore a stretch of the Great Wall, a lesser-visited part between Jingshanling to Simatai. Talk about a totally exhilerating experience! Firstly... it's just bloody cool that you're on the GREAT WALL OF CHINA! But add to that some of the most breathtaking scenery I've ever seen - pure 360 degree views of rolling mountains, and amazingly every time you looked up, the view was better than when you looked before! And it's also such an amazing feat of construction you're standing on - it's just mind-blowing to contemplate how they could have built such a magnificent structure in such challenging terrain that would stand the test of time. Not an easy walk though. The first few kms aren't too bad as it's mostly restored there, so the paths, steps and sides of the wall itself are somewhat even and intact, but after that, when we hit the parts that weren't so restored, it became quite an arduous little trek! Each watchtower we passed through seemed to present a more fun (i.e. challenging) stretch - the steps were incredibly uneven, there was a lot of climbing (and sometimes sliding) involved, and at various times we were tackling 70 degree inclines!

But everyone handled it well, and we had a little help along the way from a group of Mongolian farmers and their wives, who literally pick you off one-for-one at Jingshanling and become your buddy for most of the walk - they help you up and down the tricky bits, provide some entertaining conversation (so much fun with their limited English and our frightfully terrible Chinese!), and even a bag full of Great Wall merchadise to peddle to you at the end (and how was I going to refuse to buy a 'I Climbed The Great Wall' t-shirt after my buddy - a tiny, 48-year-old farmer's wife - had trekked that whole distance alongside me (making it look relatively easy, I might add!).

To top it all off, we were up at the very unnatural hour of 5:30am to hike back up to the wall to watch the sunrise - and that was a totally surreal experience in itself. Even though it was bloody cold and my brain was barely functioning from being up so early, it was totally worth it to be up there all by ourselves as the whole mountainside slowly revealed itself for a new day. So cool!

Time to go - got an overnight train to catch to X'ian (our first China train experience!). I'll try and post some pics of the wall soon (this computer's pretty dodge - my last few attempts to upload some photos crashed the system) - hopefully in the next few days.

Until then, hope everyone's safe and well. Check back in soon!