As our time in Hangzhou was over we
bought train tickets to Hong Kong. We tried to buy “hard sleeper”
class because they’re cheaper but there were only soft sleeper
tickets available. As we boarded the L139 train for our 23 hour
journey, we were thankful to have the soft sleeper tickets. The soft
sleepers are four person cabins with comfortable pillows and
blankets. The cheaper hard sleepers consist of a dorm style sleeper
car with bunks stacked 3 high and no separate cabins.
We shared our cabin with two elderly
Chinese men who, because of their age, were given the two bottom
bunks. They were friendly and we were able to communicate that we
were both getting off at Shenzhen and then taking the local train
into Hong Kong. After a few minutes they decided to lie down and so
we climbed up to the top bunks. There we would stay for most of the
23 hours, there not being anywhere else to sit except the smoky
dining car.
The two men below us had the following
provisions with them for the trip: glass jars of Longjing green tea,
sunflower seeds, dried green beans and a peeled pomelo. They munched
on them the whole time and never had what I would consider a “real”
meal. They shared some of their tasty pomelo with us. All I could
offer them was some Ritz crackers, which they politely refused.
The train arrived in Shenzhen about an
hour late because of construction on the track. Shenzhen is a Special
Economic Zone of China and is basically a giant shopping mall for
Hong Kong residents. Apparently, many Hong Kong tycoons also
maintain a mainland mistress there. It is pretty much devoid of
culture and travelers rarely stop there except for shopping. From the
train station it was really easy to clear customs and buy a train
ticket on the KCR fast train to Hong Kong. We were in Central Hong
Kong about 45 minutes later.
We arrived at Marlboro guesthouse where
we had made reservations online. It
was on the second floor of an
apartment building which had a sign out front that clearly stated “No
Guesthouses Allowed”. Not a good sign. When we got to the front
desk we were informed that they had received our reservation and
deposit but that they had no rooms available. Not to worry though
they would send us to another guesthouse. Too tired to argue with
them we followed a man a couple of blocks through the busy streets of
Causeway Bay in Hong Kong.
He led us into his own apartment where
his wife and yappy dog greeted us. We were shown to our room, which
we soon figured out was in fact the master bedroom. The last thing
we saw before going to sleep was his wife spreading a blanket on the
floor of the living room for them to sleep on. We decided to leave
first thing in the morning.
There is a Chinese saying that states "Rather go 3 days without salt than 1 day without tea". Most Chinese carry with them a thermos or glass container with brewed loose leaf tea – I think that it is comparable to the plastic water bottles that everyone carries in North America. To better understand the Chinese tea culture, we visited Hangzhou and the surrounding area.
Hangzhou is a beautiful city that caters primarily to Chinese tourists. The highlight of the city is West Lake. The lake, which is in the center of the city, is surrounded by trendy restaurants and cafes and by a boardwalk that is free of cars and scooters. Also, the streets of the city and the boardwalk are lined with large trees. I particularly liked the weeping willows that line the boardwalk and that dip slightly into the lake… In my mind, Hangzhou has earned its tourism slogan of being the "most beautiful city in China".
The other main attraction of Hangzhou is tea. The Longjing area of the city is very famous for its Old Dragon Well Longjing Green Tea. The tea is grown in the mountains that surround the city and was the imperial tea for one of the Chinese emperors. Our quest to understand the tea culture took us to the China National Tea Museum. The museum was informative but what was most impressive was the area around the museum. The museum was surrounded by tea plantations and by beautiful gardens with ponds filled with carp (look like big gold fish).
We decided that the next step was to actually try some Longjing green tea. We headed towards the Dragon Well Tea Village that our guidebook recommended for tea tasting. Unfortunately, due to the fact that we do not speak Chinese and that our taxi driver had her own agenda (i.e. take us to her friend’s tea house for a tasting), we ended up somewhere in the Longjing area that was not the tea village. As we walked the small streets, we found the Imperial Tea Gardens. For 10 yuan, we visited the gardens which once again were exceptional but 100% man made and manicured. It was the perfect place to relax and enjoy a cup of Longjing tea, which is exactly what we did!
Longjing tea is made to be enjoyed first with the eyes and then with the tastebuds! According to custom, the tea should be served in glass cups in order to allow the person drinking it to see the beautiful tea leaves float in the water. We were served our tea in ceramic cups but that was OK! We did find that the tea had a great mild taste that was very refreshing.
Still in search of the tea village, we continued to walk around the Longjing area. Due to the fact that it has a total of 3 streets and tourist maps were available every few hundred meters, getting lost was not a worry. On our walk, we saw a couple of ladies picking tea leaves. We went to take a closer look and the ladies took a few minutes to show us what they were doing. I think that they were amused by us being there and taking pictures of them!
We continued walking for another 30 minutes and we finally found the "famous" Tea Garden. The garden is actually a large amusement park with tea as its theme. The place was almost deserted and we did no further tea tasting during our short (35 minutes) visit!
Here’s a video from our last day in Beijing when rented two bikes and rode around for the morning. Biking is great in Beijing; the bike lanes are wide and the city is completely flat. No helmets are provided of course.
Well, what we have seen of the city is very impressive. It has a true New York feel and people are bustling all over the place… Unfortunately, this is all we could say after being in Shanghai for 3 days. After our first night here, Joe and I became ill. It seems that we ate something that did not sit well with our Western stomachs. For the past couple of days, we have ventured very little out of our hotel room and when we did we made sure to stay in close proximity to the hotel in case of the need for an emergency toilet stop!
Thankfully, in Shanghai, we decided to stay in a hotel versus a hostel or guest-house. The rooms are really comfortable and the bathrooms are the best we have seen so far! It has made being sick much easier. Also, with high speed Internet access in our room and a load of recently purchased DVDs, we have been enjoying some down time!
We hope to resume our site seeing today as we are feeling a little better! But I think that we will stay away from the street food vendors for a while…
See the China 2 album for pictures from the Great Wall.
China sent up their first astronaut almost exactly one year ago. When Yang Liwei came down he said that contrary to popular belief he was not able to see the Great Wall from orbit. China announced that in the future all its textbooks would be changed to reflect that. There goes another random fact I learned in childhood!
Despite not being visible from space the Great Wall is one of those sites that no tourist can miss. So we decided to do the 4 hour hike on the wall from Jinshanling to Simatai. We organized through our hotel and the bus picked us up at 7 AM. Who do we see on board but our two friends from the Gobi expedition, Kai and Erik! We caught up a bit on what we’d each been doing and then napped most of the way to the wall.
The wall right around Jinshanling has been restored to its former self. In parts it looks no more than a few years old. The area between Jinshanling and Simatai is covered in steep hills and the Great Wall rises and plunges over them right at the apex of each hill. Every few hundred meters there is a large watchtower where Chinese soldiers kept a lookout for Mongolian barbarians. The watchtowers were also used to communicate across large distances quickly by using signal fires. The signal fires were made by burning wolf dung (I assume wolf dung collector was the lowest job in the army!).
Penny and I set a slower pace than some of the others. The climb in some sections is so steep you
need to use both your hands to help you up. As we left the area around Jinshanling we also left the restored section of the wall. It abruptly becomes old and crumbling. Surprisingly though it is still intact enough that we never needed to get off and hike next to it.
As we walked, middle aged local women would walk next to us and offer to carry our bag or tell us about the wall. We didn’t want one of these unofficial tour guides to latch on to us so we made sure to not accept any of their offers. Other unsuspecting tourists end up walking next to a unofficial guide for the whole 4 hours only to be told at the end that they owe money as a guide fee.
The climb/hike was more challenging than we expected and by the half way point at the 15th watchtower we were quite tired. Luckily the second half of the climb had more downhills than uphills and we ended up at Simatai ahead of the scheduled bus pickup.
My favorite historical anecdote from the day was that in the end the Great Wall was not effective at keeping out the Mongolian warriors. The Mongolians were able to bribe the soldiers at certain watchtowers and got through without a fight.
The hike was tiring and the weather was surprisingly hot but the views of the wall and feeling connected to a historical site that I’ve seen so many time in books and television was definitely worth the effort.
We spent the greater part of a day strolling around Tienanmen Square and the Forbidden City. Located in the center of Beijing, it is an impressive site and a great place to get away from the chaotic driving and incessant honking of the city streets. Unfortunately, the Forbidden city does not provide you any escape from the hordes of people!
The Forbidden city, whose buildings and temples were mainly first built in 1420 (according to the
signs outside each of the structures and brought to you by American Express) housed the Ming and Qing dynasties. According to our guide book, the emperors and their court would rarely stray out of the palace walls, but I cannot blame them!
The Forbidden City is beautiful and has some of amazing Chinese architecture. With loads of flashy red and gold, all the buildings are incredible works of art. Also, the Imperial Gardens within the walls of the city were wonderful and my personal favorite part of the city. There were loads of ancient cypress trees that were so large that their branches had to be supported by metal beams. It seems that this was where the emperor, the empress and his concubines frolicked.
A large section of the north eastern part of the Forbidden City is devoted to the history of the emperor’s concubines. It gives visitors a look into their daily lives and provided insight into the complex and huge hierarchy that existed amongst the concubines with the empress being at the top of the pyramid, obviously! Depending on their rank, the concubines would receive different amounts of rations such as gold and silk.
We have included some of the Forbidden City pictures in the China 2 album. Just want to share some of the beauty with you!
We have returned from our trip to Mongolia and are spending a few days in Beijing before heading south. Just wanted to let you know that we decided to fly from Ulan Bator (UB), Mongolia to Beijing, China this time. Instead of 3 days, the total journey took 1 and 1/2 hours on a Mongolian Airlines (MIAT) jet. Much to our surprise, the Mongolian airlines jet looked relatively new and the service was exceptional on board!
If anyone has to make the journey to UB from Beijing, we would recommend the plane route (budget permitting)!
The nomadic family we stayed with on our last night in the Gobi desert usually arranges for their visitors to ride horses. However, the man of the family had died two weeks prior and there was no one to take us out. On our last full day in Mongolia we managed to combine two of the things that we wanted to do; ride Mongolian horses and see the famous wild horse of Mongolia; the Tahki.
The Hustai National Park, about 100 km west of Ulan Bator, has 190 horses, the largest concentration of truly wild horses in the world. We organized to get a car and driver for the day from UB Guesthouse where we are staying. The cost for the car, driver and petrol was $60 US that could be split among the passengers. I put up a posting on the guesthouse message board looking for two others to join us but no one came forward. Since we’ve been spending significantly less than we budgeted in Mongolia, Penny and I decided to splurge a bit and pay the full cost ourselves.
The driver picked us up at 9.30 AM and we took off through UB traffic. The rule of the road in UB seems to be that the driver with least regard for the safety of himself or his car has the right of way. After about an hour of reckless driving we arrived at a rest stop where the driver got out, said "lunch" and walked in. It was 10.30 AM. Penny and I looked at each and waited. We had eaten breakfast at the guesthouse and weren’t hungry. It was 45 minutes before he ambled out. Whatever he ate didn’t agree with his stomach and he started passing gas a few minutes later. Then, just 2 km from the entrance of the park he pulled over, grabbed his roll of toilet paper and ran out into the bush. Again we waited for our driver.
We finally arrived at Hustai National Park and were greeted by the guide. We were the only tourists there that day so we had the place to ourselves. She put in a video for us to watch that explained about the Tahki and how the wild horses were in fact reintroduced to the area after they had become regionally extinct. The park hosts researchers from around the world. In fact, just two months prior the park had hosted the wonderfully-named, "Asiatic Wild Ass Conference".
The guide drove with us through the park and in total we saw three of the wild horses. We were lucky to see that many, some tourist don’t get to see any during their visit.
After returning to the park complex we saddled up for an hour riding on regular Mongolian horses through the steppe (not the wild Tahki). The horses are quite a bit smaller than any I’ve ridden before, but they are strong and it felt like the horse was ready to break into a gallop at any time. Riding through the steppe on a Mongolian horse in the afternoon sun was an experience I’m glad to not have missed.
Although we don’t usually make posts like this we wanted to keep a record of what we did on a daily basis during our trip to the Gobi Desert. Check out the new Mongolia photo album, there are a ton of photos there.
Day 1:
Our 7 day trip started early on Thursday, October 5th. In the morning we met our three fellow travelers. Kai and Erik are two Dutch university students who are traveling for 3 months before graduating. Ian, is the Australian firefighter who we met on the train to Ulan Bator. We also met our driver, Yong Dong, a 28 year old native of the South Gobi and a man of few words. Last but not least we were introduced to Tsegii our charming and sociable guide/translator.
We loaded up the Russian van with our packs, tents, sleeping bags, cooking equipment and food to
last several days. At last we took off and drove out of the city. About 45 minutes into our 6 hour drive the paved roads came to an abrupt end and we started on the dirt tracks we would drive on for the rest of the trip. We quickly learned that the bumpy track required our full attention so we could know when to hold on to something.
The first day exposed us to the beautiful but stark Mongolian countryside. We saw herds of goats, sheep, cows, horses and camels roaming freely. We stopped for a lunch break at a ger cantine where Erik, Kai and Joseph sampled some traditional salted milky tea. Before reaching our final destination for the day, a small tourist hotel, Tsegii showed us a vulture nest perched in the hills. We scampered up for a closer look.
That night we stayed at a basic but comfortable hotel and cooked our own meal of pasta with vegetables and sauce. For a meal cooked on one gas burner of our portable stove it turned out quite well.
That first night we also realized how drastically and quickly weather can change in the Gobi desert. Tremendous winds woke us up in the night as the hotel rattled.
Day 2:
We awoke to find that Erik had become sick during the night. As the only one who drank a full cup of the traditional milky tea from the day before we thought we knew what the culprit was. He would be out of commission for the entire day.
As we got ready to leave the driver went to fill up on petrol in a nearby town. We waited and waited. Finally, Tsegii marched out in search of our driver. Turns out that Yong Dong, a man with a voracious appetite, had been delayed because he was waiting for a marmot barbecue they were having at the gas station. We had a good laugh and set off for another long drive to our next destination.
That night we stayed at a very remote (even for the Gobi) ger camp. There was nothing around us as far as the eye could see. Not even a dirt track led to the place. We wandered around and discovered the skull and bones of a baby camel, which provided loads of entertainment (see photo album).
The four of us who were feeling well went off to some nearby cliffs to watch the sunset. The view was spectacular.
Upon our return we were served a local meal of noodles and horse meat. Tasty. We settled into our sleeping bags, loaded the ger stove with wood and went to sleep. The night was freezing cold and the residual heat from the stove only lasted a couple of hours. It made sleeping diffucult.
Day 3:
We had another long drive to the town of Dalanzadgad (pop. 15,000) an important town in the South
Gobi. There we were able to replenish our supplies and take a much needed shower in the public bathhouse.
We stayed with a local family who had two gers for tourists but they themselves lived in a dilapidated brick building. That night we joined up with another van of tourists staying with the same family and went out with our drivers and guides to a local nightclub. After a couple of rounds of giant Korean beers the locals dragged us onto the dance floor. One local woman in particular did not take no (or oogwie in Mongolian) for an answer and pulled on your arm until you were dancing.
Day 4:
After another drive we arrived at Gobi Gurvan Sayhan national park to visit the famous ice valley. The national park contains a deep canyon the is shocking to the senses after days of flat terrain. We took a 2 km hike through
the canyon, walking along a stream that was iced over in parts. Although there was less ice than we expected it was still a beautiful sight in the middle of the desert.
We drove to another local family with two little girls. The family, who lived next to large sand dunes, raised camels for milk, meat, hair and riding. We made friends with the two little girls by sharing our chocolate snacks and making them balloon animals.
Day 5:
We woke up in the morning and got ready for a camel ride out to the dunes. The mother of the family led us there and waited impatiently with the camels as we climbed the sand dunes. Getting
up was tough work but the view made it worthwhile. Getting down was pure fun. Dune running could be a new extreme sport.
On the ride back to the family gers, Erik’s camel slipped in a small stream and fell on its side, slightly injuring him in the process. We all wanted to get off our camels to help Erik but none of us could remember the command to get the camel to kneel (souk – for future reference). Ian, the firefighter, jumped off the tall camel and made sure Erik was OK.
After another drive we arrived at the Flaming Hills. A site made famous by the discovery of over 100 dinosaur fossils. These include a pair of dinosaurs that were killed while fighting when a sand
dune collapsed on them; one of the dinosaurs has the foreleg of the other in its mouth. The pair sit
in the Ulan Bator museum of natural history. Aside from its importance to paleontologists the Flaming Hills are a beautiful sight with their red sand cliffs blazing in the afternoon sun.
That night the weather was mild and we decided to camp near the hills in an area with woody bushes that provided fuel for a fire. We had a meal of pasta and ketchup (which we thought was pasta sauce – the downside of not being able to read Mongolian labels). We sat around the campfire to keep warm, had a few drinks and when the firewood we collected was used up we went to sleep in our tents. The silence of the place was incredible, there were not even any insect or bird noises.
Day 6:
We now began the two day drive back to Ulan Bator. We passed through familiar terrain and ended up at the ger of a local family. The hospitable family raised goats, sheep and horses. The father had passed away only 2 weeks prior to our arrival and so we tried to be as unintrusive as possible.
That night the women of the family herded in the female goats from the fields to milk them. It being considered a woman’s job to milk the animals, Penny and Tsegii tried to help the family with the milking duties. The women of the family had a laugh at Penny’s slow milking technique, but still seemed to appreciate the help.
After a tasty meal of noodles with mutton we sat in our ger and played cards into the night. Our manure-burning stove kept us warm. And the smell of the manure smoke was surprisingly pleasant.
Day 7:
The last day consisted of a long 300 km drive back to Ulan Bator. On our way we dropped off the daughter of the family at her kindergarten class in a small town about 20 km from the family gers. She went to school happy; with a balloon dog in hand and a belly full of chocolate treats.
We arrived back at Ulan Bator and were completely unprepared for the chaos, noise and pollution of the city. We wanted to get out again as soon as possible.
At the guesthouse we said goodbye to our driver and guide and all quickly rushed to the showers.
Overall we had a great time during the tour, in no small part due to the fun people we got to travel with.
By the time you read this we will be some days into a week-long tour of the Gobi desert. We will be posting about that and put up another batch of photos when we get back. Our next update of the blog will be on October 11th or 12th.
Bonus photo: We see lots of confusing signs around here. Here’s one of my favorites from a street near the embassy section of Beijing.
One Year Away 