CHINA!

So after a great time in Borneo with our friends, they headed off to a 5 star resort and we travelled to China, a country that has a star on its flag. We only spent just over 2 weeks in China but saw some amazing things and had some awesome experiences. Here are some of the highlights and my general thoughts on China.

Top of the list just has to be seeing and walking along the Great Wall, it really was just amazing. Having seen so many pictures of this icon in books and on T.V etcetera it felt really surreal to actually see it and even more so to spend the day walking along it. We decided not to go to the part of the wall closest to Beijing and instead, in an attempt to avoid millions of Chinese tourists, undertook an eight hour return bus journey to a more remote section! Our efforts paid off and we were able to walk along a 10km stretch of the amazing wall which was virtually tourist free. It was huge and more spectacular than I could ever have imagined, however, Ellie wouldn’t let me take a bit of the wall home as a souvenir.

We'd seen a travel programme about Xian which showed people riding bikes around the city walls - it looked fun so we decided to go along and give it a try. When we got there we discovered that you could also rent tandem bikes - awesome! Riding around the city walls was pretty cool, although very hard work. Ells insists that she was peddling all the time on the 10km ride but I’m really not that sure. AD HOWEVER FOUND IT VERY AMUSING TO STEER IN SUCH A WAY THAT THE FRONT WHEEL MISSED THE POT HOLES BUT THE BACK OF THE BIKE (WHERE I WAS SITTING) ENDED UP IN EVERY ONE – OUCH!!

We travelled to and from Shang Hai by train but decided that riding the MAGLEV was definitely worth the trip out to the airport for. . . . and it was definitely worth the effort. This train reaches the staggering speed of 431km (270m) per hour, simply fantastic. It took us just 8 minutes to travel from the airport back to the city center. The down side was it took us an hour and a half to get to the airport by road!

We managed to find a bar in Hong Kong that offered a drinks buffet. This meant that for 4 hours you could drink as much as you wanted of whatever you wanted! The evening of the drinks buffet was amazing (although I can’t remember getting home) however the following day was not quite so great. I had the worst hangover since we met up with my mates in Bangkok and we had to walk across Hong Kong to catch a 26 hour train to Shanghai. We didn’t drink again for almost 2 weeks!

Seeing the terracotta warriors was another must visit icon when in China and it didn’t disappoint. I had always thought that the warriors were small, I could not believe it when I saw the thousands of warriors that are all LIFE SIZE! There was a WBA fan standing next to me who had never seen such a crowd, although he admitted that he was used to seeing 11 useless statues week in, week out.

Ho(s)tels in China were always interesting. Quite often the receptionist didn't speak a word of English and so miming (involving sleeping and washing routines to discover what facilities the room had) became pretty routine, but obviously never lost their amusement factor! In Xian we found a pretty nice and really cheap hotel without too much stress and so left to go sight seeing feeling very pleased with ourselves. When we returned it was dark and it was at this point we realised why the hotel was so cheap. The street that we had presumed was just quiet had transformed into the sex shop capital of China! While fetching some water later on in the evening I got dragged along the street by several short skirted ladies trying to get me into their shops for a “massage”. My shoulders were quite sore from carrying my rucksack so it could have been quite interesting if I had been gullible enough to go with them!

Eating authentic Chinese cuisine was . . . . . .different! Why when you have the whole chicken to choose from would you order the feet, or my personal favourite, chicken stomach on a stick! And these tasty options weren't just available in dodgy back street stalls, oh no, you could get them everywhere! Seriously though, we had the best duck pancakes I have ever tasted in Beijing, and they gave us the ducks head for free - what a bonus!

In general the people in China were fantastic. They would all try and help you even though most of them don’t speak a word of English! We arrived in Shang Hai by train and before heading off to find accommodation I decided to go and get some cash, leaving Ellie with the bags. This task proved slightly more difficult than expected and when I returned I was concerned as Ells was no where to be seen. I did however notice a large group of about 50 people standing pretty near where I had left her. Panicking now I began to run towards them and as I got closer I realised that they were all “talking” to Ellie and helping her find the hotel that we were trying to find on a map, the only problem being that between them they spoke about five words of English!

In Beijing we visited the Forbidden City, of which most was surrounded in scaffolding, being renovated in time for the 2008 Olympics. Our sightseeing was livened up when we agreed to let a guide that was practicing to be an English guide show us round for free. We became very good at translating sentences such as “woo wee a woof o a gate pwawis i gwowed a errri errri evi! (You can see that the roof of the great palace is made from gold and is very very heavy!)

China was an absolutely amazing place and despite (or maybe because of?) the difficulties in communication and hotel rooms with original features such as open sewer pipes in the bathroom (certainly unique!) is definitely a place that we will be coming back to!