Having arrived in China we quickly discovered that our suspicions were confirmed, Facebook, Blogger and any other social network-style websites are banned by the government. Weird bunch of commies. So forgive me if this post is lacking on details, as it is going to cover our whole six weeks in China.
The first stop was Beijing: really expensive and we all got ill... so we started off pretty badly and were all a bit fed up. Had a couple of good nights out though. Whilst here we saw The Great Wall, which was without a doubt one of the highlights of the trip so far in terms of the sights, also to get up and down we took and roller-coaster cart... great fun. We finished up in Beijing by exploring the markets and eating weird things like scorpions and other creepy crawleys.
Next we ventured to Xi'an for the Terracotta Warriors, but having checked in to a hostel with a lively bar and met some fun people it took eight days before we saw the Warriors (Pete and Tino still decided not to see it), these eight days were a bit of a blur. We planned to leave Xi'an for Chengdu to see pandas but left it for another day as we had hangovers, turns out someone was looking down on us, because the train we had booked had fallen off a bridge which had been hit by a landslide. Hhmm, we decided not to attempt fate and chose to take Chengdu off the list of things to see.
We got a train to Yichang instead with our new best buddies: Jay and Neil from Kent who we will be travelling with now for the best part of Southeast Asia. We got there late at night to the worse city we've seen so far and were scared shitless when our taxi dropped us off at a dark alley to where our hostel was supposed to be. It turned out to be the right place and we checked in. The next day we walked around trying to find where to get a boat to see the Three Gorges River but by the time we found it was getting dark so decided against it.
Next stop was Yangshuo via Guilin. We took a river cruise to travel between the two places which was pretty and looked a lot like Jurassic Park. Luckily no dinosaurs were there. We had booked four nights in Yangshuo but it turned into a twenty day stay. Yangshuo was definitely the highlight of China for us, a beautiful town surrounded by karst peaks with plenty to do which could be compared with Queenstown, or possibly even Magaluf. Unfortunately due to the party scene we did not do a massive amount of activities, but we made good friends with the hostel owners and pretty much took over the place, in particular the rooftop bar. We were also asked to organise a beach party which attracted a good two or three-hundred guests.
We finally left Yangshuo for Vietnam to get to some good weather and cheaper prices. Our six is now seven as we are being accompanied by a crazy Irishman named Neal. China was fun, but we were glad we cut down the three months we had planned there down to six weeks: not everywhere in China was our cup of tea.
Friday 17 September 2010
24.07.10 - 03.08.10
Arrived in Varanasi late at night and checked in to what appeared to be a zombie prison, the gaumless staff showed us to our windowless rooms and once we shooed out the cockroaches we settled in. We made our way up to the rooftop bar and sampled the famed 'Bang Lassis'. Having highly underestimated the potentcy of them we realised we could not move our legs and spent a good deal of time up there in our seats and laughing at our surroundings... i needn't elaborate on what the last ingredient was along with yoghurt and bananas.
The next day we went on a sunset tour along the Ganges. Watching the burning ghats where the Hindus cremate their dead was interesting and it was strange to see the locals swimming and drinking the water of a river filled with corpses. We made our way to the other side of the river where the bank was a beach with grey sand where many bones were washed up, we were debating wheather it would be insensitive to pick up the bones just as our guide through a femur at us and went on to ask us if we fancied a of football... with a skull. On the way back down the river there was a religious festival going on which we stopped to watch, after we had enough of the bells and creepy chanting we made our way back to the zombie prison.
Next stop was Agra for the Taj Mehal. The first day there we went and saw it just from the outside. It was quite a beautiful building, but without sounding too ignorant for something which is supposed to one of the seven new wonders of the world it wasn't all that wonderful, I could probably name seven more wonderful things... and cheese sandwich for instance. The next day we had planned to wake up at sunrise to appreciate it in a different light and venture inside, but after having overslept we decided to sack it off, if the outside was this disappointing we were unlikely to be impressed with the inside for a ten quid entrance fee (extortion for India prices).
Last stop in India was back to Delhi again to catch up the Heather and the Kashmir Crew. We spent a couple of days working for their tourist company trying to lure poor unsuspecting tourists, much like us on our first day, into the office to book tours. We all got rather excited at the promise of big wages and nearly extended our flights to begin careers in the tourism industry. After two days of what was supposed to be work we realised the only fun of it was chatting to random strangers and taking them for drinks, which we will doing in different countries for the whole trip, so we stuck to our plans and left for China when originally scheduled.
All in all India was a funny old place, an experience to say the least. The locals were on the whole very friendly people (some a little too friendly), but it took some time to get used to some of their habits, for example the strange head wobble they do which seems to mean yes, no or maybe. Also the fact that nothing runs on time and random power cuts which often occur, particularly annoying when watching football! Cows everywhere was something we adjusted to as well: in the roads, in the rivers, even in some folks houses.
So we had a blast! Got off on a good start to our travels... so let's see what China has to bring us.
The next day we went on a sunset tour along the Ganges. Watching the burning ghats where the Hindus cremate their dead was interesting and it was strange to see the locals swimming and drinking the water of a river filled with corpses. We made our way to the other side of the river where the bank was a beach with grey sand where many bones were washed up, we were debating wheather it would be insensitive to pick up the bones just as our guide through a femur at us and went on to ask us if we fancied a of football... with a skull. On the way back down the river there was a religious festival going on which we stopped to watch, after we had enough of the bells and creepy chanting we made our way back to the zombie prison.
Next stop was Agra for the Taj Mehal. The first day there we went and saw it just from the outside. It was quite a beautiful building, but without sounding too ignorant for something which is supposed to one of the seven new wonders of the world it wasn't all that wonderful, I could probably name seven more wonderful things... and cheese sandwich for instance. The next day we had planned to wake up at sunrise to appreciate it in a different light and venture inside, but after having overslept we decided to sack it off, if the outside was this disappointing we were unlikely to be impressed with the inside for a ten quid entrance fee (extortion for India prices).
Last stop in India was back to Delhi again to catch up the Heather and the Kashmir Crew. We spent a couple of days working for their tourist company trying to lure poor unsuspecting tourists, much like us on our first day, into the office to book tours. We all got rather excited at the promise of big wages and nearly extended our flights to begin careers in the tourism industry. After two days of what was supposed to be work we realised the only fun of it was chatting to random strangers and taking them for drinks, which we will doing in different countries for the whole trip, so we stuck to our plans and left for China when originally scheduled.
All in all India was a funny old place, an experience to say the least. The locals were on the whole very friendly people (some a little too friendly), but it took some time to get used to some of their habits, for example the strange head wobble they do which seems to mean yes, no or maybe. Also the fact that nothing runs on time and random power cuts which often occur, particularly annoying when watching football! Cows everywhere was something we adjusted to as well: in the roads, in the rivers, even in some folks houses.
So we had a blast! Got off on a good start to our travels... so let's see what China has to bring us.
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