Guilin, Yangshou and Chengdu

Oh. Now it was a long time since I wrote my blog. Some of you might have gotten an e-mail or two about what I've been doing and if you've been checking my pictures you know a bit as well, but I'll try and retell those days a bit here as well.

Ok, so after writing the last blog entry we went for a nice dinner in a Chinese restaurant. It felt a bit like a upper-class place, but the prices were good so we decided to eat there anyway. It was kinda late, so there weren't very many left in the restaurant. After we've ordered rice porridge - the only vegetarian food they could offer a Singaporian guy starts talking to us and he seems especially interested in talking to Rachel. He buys us some beers and then go back to his table and leaves us alone. After a while he gets back though and explains that he's working in Guilin at the moment and that at the other table is the boss and the big-big-boss for his company. They would like Rachel to come over and talk to them, they were appearantly interested in talking to foreigners (but only Rachel). The whole thing seemed kinda dodgy and wrong, but she couldn't really say no (and he was very clear all the time with the fact that they didn't want anything from her, just talk for a while). So she went to the next table and we kept a close eye on them all the time. When she gets back it turns out the big-big-boss is like really owning more or less the whole town and that he wants to give us stuff, especially pearls to Rachel. He wants to give her one tonight and if we call them tomorrow he'd give her many more. Very dodgy indeed, so we leave the place after a few mishaps. We're not sure what he wanted really - most likely someone that could smuggle pearls into England... No, we didn't call them the day after and no - so far no troubles with the mafia... In hindsight it was a interesting experience though...

After having a really nice night at our somewhat dodgy hotel (see the picture "please pull in case of security when you go to bed") we left to Yangshou. We did plan to take the bus to Yangshou, which would have been 10 yuan, but after haggling down the price for a boat ride from 500 yuan to 80 yuan each we took the boat. The boat was really cold, but there we're some really nice views and it was well worth the extra time it took.

The cold is a problem though. Arriving in Yangshou we realized that it was like 6 degrees and raining, which made us spend the evening in the warmest restaurants drinking hot chocolate and eating really good mexican food. I have bought a warm jacket (North Face - good winter jacket with fleece inside) for 250 yuan (less than 230 SEK) and some mittons - so now the cold isn't that big a problem anymore. They told us that one week ago (before the rain came) they had 27 degrees in Yangshou though, so we're still a bit disappointed that we missed out on the nice summer weather.

Yangshou is supposed to have some really good views and it must be amazing when you get here when it's warm enough to do stuff. All the places in town have bikes for rent so you can bike around by yourself, there are loads of tours to caves, peaks and mudbaths - of we ended up doing nothing. We saw a few of the peaks that are actually in the town, but we never went up to them. It simply was too cold! Instead we spent the days wandering around town, trying out more than a couple of bars and cafes and having a good time. At night time we had our dorm room with five beds all by ourselves. The first night it was soo cold and we wanted to watch a movie (you rent a DVD player and then buy a movie for 10 yuan), so we moved together two beds into one large one and just huddled up to keep warm. That was a great idea - warmest nights ever!

Yangshou was great in many ways. It was really nice to see, the town had some charm even though it was a bit too touristy (I'm glad we were there on off-season - otherwise it would have been mad I reckon). But the cold drove us crazy! The last night we did a cooking course which was really nice, we learned how to do pork dumplings, sweet and sour-chicken and ginger, garlic and chili beef. Really good and the lady showing us the things were very nice.

On the next day we took the bus to Guilin which took us one hour and from there we took the bus leading to Chengdu. We had soft-sleepers, which means you have a small bunk (literally to small in all directions - you can't really sit up, I was too tall and my shoulders are too broad to fit in) where you spend all the time. At night they would have the bus dark and quiet, which was really nice, but as soon as they thought it was someone awake they would play loud Chinese karaoke, play some action movies in Chinese or blast away with semi-Western music and videos with gogo-dancers. Very surreal experience... The bus ride was supposed to be 22 hours long, but turned out to be 24 hours, so we came to Chengdu at around 4 pm.

After succeding to find a cab that knew how to get to our hostel (we had the name in Chinese and a map - none which seemed to help very much) we checked into a small dorm (four beds), booked a panda tour for the following day and went out to see town. I mailed some friends that I met in Vang Vieng, Laos, who lives in Chengdu and said that I was here. One hour later or so, just when we were looking for a bar to go to they called and told us about a good bar to start at. After some troubles with finding the place (same things - name and map doesn't seem to help really) we met up with Eoin (pronounced Owen) and Megan and some of their friends. It was a nice bar, full of westerners and expats gathered to see the rugby game between Ireland and Scotland. He told us some interesting facts about Chengdu, for example that there are only like 600 expats in the whole Chengdu, while the population is close to 11 million now. My guidebook says 4.5 million - but that was 3 years ago and it was probably a bit unupdated already then. The cities here grow with immense speed - they say that Beijing went from 7 million to 14 million in less than five years. I can't believe that speed - it's just... unbelievable how a city can grow that much.

Anyways, we had a good night out. We started at this small bar, drinking a bit of beer, playing pool and eating some reaaaaally good pub food (best one I've ever had I think) and after that we went to the Babi Club which is full of Chinese people dancing and partying and we were more or less the only Westerners (together with two Dutch guys who joined us). We decidsed that this was my birthday party - I will probably be somewhere with the monks or on a horseback on my birthday so this was the last chance to party. It was great! Babi Club sold bottles of whiskey really cheap and then you got tea to blend it with. At first I was skeptical, but tea really hides all the wiskey taste more or less. Interesting and a bit dangerous - it was easy to drink a bit too much. After being in Babi Club for quite a while I followed Eoin and Megan to their home together with a few others and we ended up sitting there playing Nintendo (8 bit - the original!) and table soccer the whole night.

At half six I took the cab back to the guesthouse to get on the panda tour with the girls that started at seven. No sleep tonight, but after 24 hours of sleeping and resting on a bus that doesn't feel like a problem really.

The panda tour was great! We went to a zoo/breeding ground for pandas and saw lots of them. They are really beautiful, like teddybears but with something human in them as well. The way they use their hands, the way they look at you and the way they just sit and eat makes them feel very intelligent and ... humanlike in some way. It was really amazing and I've uploaded loads of pictures from this (and the party night as well).

Anyways, now I'm heading for lunch and some sightseeing in town! My plans are a bit blurry right now, but I'll probably be away for a couple of days doing tours around here, so don't expect any updates on the blog. First I'll probably try to go to Emei Shan which is a mountain area nearby where you can do some trekking and sleep in monastaries with the monks. After this I might go on a horse-riding trek for a couple of days in a place that is on the border to Tibet and that people say is more or less like Tibet (but closer). I don't know if I have the time to do both though, so I'm not sure what I'll end up doing...

Guangzhou and Guilin

After doing some Internet in Guangzhou me and Rachel, the Brittish girl, headed back to the guesthouse to catch the others. We ended sitting in the dorm for quite a while, talking and drinking some beer before going for a really nice dinner at a muslim place along the riverside of Guangzhou together with Nikki, Francois from Canada and of course - Gregory (our local tour guide you could say). That was a really nice dinner, we had shitloads of barbequed lamb (you pay like 3 yuan = 3 SEK per stick and five was more than enough per person) and some other kebab-like things. Very nice!

After the dinner we continued along the riverside until we decided to take a cab to one of the bar areas in Guangzhou. This was a small street with a couple of lounge-looking bars, probably run by the mafia for money laundry (or so Greg said at least). After a beer and some talking we went for a small walk in the really expensive neighbourhoods of Guangzhou - large houses for ridicolous prices (really ugly though) with their own guards outside each building.

The following day me, Rach and Nikki spent walking around town and having a great time. We all were going on the night train at night, so we spent the day just walking around without a goal at all. Guangzhou is a beautiful city in many ways - there are lots of small alleys that are just wonderful. There are Chinese old men sitting along the streets more or less everywhere, playing Chinese checkers, go or mahyong (spelling?). It was interesting to watch them play and they almost everytime wanted me to sit down and play with them.

The train trip to Guilin was a nice one as well. The hard sleepers we had was reaaaalle nice - although I'm like 5 cm to tall for the beds and it was a bit cold when we woke up. But it was a nice trip all in all - took 13 hours and from 1 o'clock we slept really well (at least I did - I don't know about the girls really). The first hours we spent in the restaurant carrier, eating our take-away food from KFC, drinking beer, playing cards and generally just having a really good time. These girls are hilarious, it's so easy just to hang out and have a good time with them!

Today we've been walking around in Guilin. First we got a really nice hotel room with three beds. The guidebook says that there are no cheap places to stay - but that's obviously not true during low-season. We met a guy on the street who showed us his hotel. It was a two-star hotel, really nice and clean enough. The room-rates on the wall said 420 yuan for a three-bed room, but after a bit of haggling we got it for 60 yuan. Yes, 20 yuan each! That's less than I paid for the lunch at KFC (yes, we're a bit lazy sometimes)! After checking in, walking around a bit, seeing some nice temples (the temple of the moon and the sun) and eating lunch to get warm we went for the Solitary Beauty Peak which is a 66 meter high pinnacle with a temple on top in the middle of the town. The peak is surrounded by a temple area with temples and other buildings built hundreds or years ago for one of the princes. The three of us had an English-speaking guide showing us around and it was really interesting and amusing at the same time. The cold made it a bit hard to really enjoy the view though - it's less than 10 degrees here right now.

Anyway, now we're heading out for some dinner I think. Perhaps try some snake soup or wild cat - they are supposed to have really strange food in this town!

Also trying to upload pictures now - I hope it's working, so check them out!

Last night in Hong Kong and Guangzhou

So, I finally succeded in leaving Hong Kong. Today I took the bus from Hong Kong to Guangzhou, where I just arrived. The bus trip was great - probably the best I've had so far. The bus had air con, soft seats and more than enough leg space. Crossing the border was no problem, it took like three minutes in total - very effective.

Yesterday was a great day in Hong Kong as well. I had a slow start - sleeping to 11 or so (which I reckon I really needed) and then I showed Aleks (my new German roomie that I literally picked up from the street :) to the great Internet place before I went to lunch with Carey. We went to a Korean restaurant which was really nice - especially the fact that you did the barbequeing by yourself on a small grill in the middle of the table.

After the lunch me and Carey went around in the Wanchai area and she showed me some of the "old areas" of Hong Kong. Those blocks only had like five-seven floors and they all looked really old compared to the brand new office towers surrounding the area. But it was all about to change. The area was officially closed down, so noone was living there and no shops were open - they were about to tear the whole area down within this year to make room for new office buildings and skyscapers. I'm glad I had the chance to see this before it's too late. We bought a Mandarin phrasebook for me which I reckon I will really need here in China - especially when I get to smaller places where noone speaks English. After this we found a building with 66 floors and a rotating restaurant in the top. We didn't want to go to the restaurant, but we figured we could just go up with the "observation elevator" that was on the outside of the tower. I'm really happy we did - that was a great experience - to see the town just disappear under you while you go from floor 17 to floor 59 in less than half a minute. We ended up going up and down two or three times! :)

After this I met up with Aleks again to show her to the Victoria Peak which I saw just two nights earlier. It was really great - we came there just before sunset and saw a amazing sunset over the outskirts of Hong Kong. After this we ate at Burger King (cheap cheap) and then went for the walk around the peak which shouldn't take more than half an hour. If you stop to look at the view and take lots of photos it takes more like one-two hours we found out. Anyway, after this we did some more shopping and sightseeing on the peak before taking the tram back down. When we got down we slowly walked through the town back to the ferry terminal and went more or less directly to our guesthouse when we came to the other side. The plan was to find a Internet place and then get a drink somewhere, but after failing to find it for 15 minutes we went to bed instead - we were both really tired I think. :)

Today I only went to some lunch, did some Internet and then took the bus. Now I've found a great dorm here in Guangzhou on the Shamien Island and in a short while I will go for some dinner. Tomorrow I'm going to Yangshou with a Brittish girl I just met in the hostel - we're taking the same night train, so I'll have the day tomorrow to actually see anything of Guangzhou.

The headache has been gone for two days now, so there shouldn't be any problems. If it comes back I might go to the doctor - the guidebook has a listing of English speaking hospitals in every city. Thanks for all the worried mails - that tells me you are actuallt reading what I write and that you are concerned as well. No worries, I'm fine now!

Also put up more pictures from Hong Kong, be sure not to miss them!

Still in Hong Kong

So, I'm still in Hong Kong. This seems to be one of those places that I really can't leave - I like it here and I haven't even done anything much special. Anyway, just writing a short entry now to tell you that I'm fine, that I've had some more headache but that it has mostly been due to last nights activites (although I still feel the original headache - it's there but it doesn't hurt much at all).

Uploaded lots of pictures from Bangkok and Hong Kong as well, so be sure to check them out! The night views over Hong Kong from the Victoria Peak are fabulous!!!

A new journey begins...

I feel as if one part of my trip is ending and that a completely different journey lies ahead. It's exciting and actually a little bit scary as well. The new journey begins in a really good way, but also in a really bad way.

The good thing is Hong Kong - arriving in Hong Kong felt a bit like coming home to Sweden at first. The weather (it's winter here) is like Swedish summer - approximately 20 degrees and a bit overcast. This means I'm wearing my new hoodies - this is cold for me, compared to the last days in Bangkok with 40 degrees and a blazing sun. The second feeling after arriving in mid-Hong Kong with the bus from the airport was that I've been dropped in the middle of Manhattan. Hong Kong is a whole city looking like the famous Times Square on Manhattan, NY.

The other really good thing with Hong Kong is the two locals showing me around and giving me ideas for what to do. The first one is Carey (Clacke's girlfriend for you at home who knows Clacke). She has showed me two really nice Dim Sum places (really good food - it's like a collection name for different types of dumplings and springroll-ich things). She also gave me some maps and showed me where I could get my Chinese visa, etc. The other local would be Fifi, a Hong Kong-born kiwi and a friend of Kim (the kiwi I travelled with in Laos and Bangkok). Yesterday she took me to the pub area Lan Kwai Fong and a small place called Le Jardin, where Carey met up with us after a while. We had some wine (the first good wine I've had in two months - aaah) and ate some Indian food as well. After Le Jardin me and Fifi continued on to the next party area, Wan Chai (perhaps the correct spelling?), where we started by going to an aussie bar selling Long Island Ice Tea in huge bowls for only HK$100 (roughly 100 SEK). After realizing we couldn't finish it by ourselves we went to "the place to be" - Mes Amis, which was crowded, played good music and we ended up dancing the night away there.

The bad start of the new journey is a terrible headache that I got in Bangkok. It's located just above my right eye, so I suspect there's something wrong with my sinuses or so. The first time I felt it in Bangkok it wasn't that bad and it went away after some hours. Since then it has appeared every day to stay for a couple of hours and then to go away again. When it's there nothing seems to help. I've tried all the stuff you should - drinking loads of water, taking a hot shower, blowing my nose, rinsing the sinuses, eating, sleeping, resting, massage, drinking (not water) and taking painkillers/paracetamol. Today I woke up and the headache was there (no, I was not hungover, we didn't drink that much) and it was terrible! I could barely get out of bed, but I knew I needed water, food and perhaps a pharmacy. I've never felt a strong headache like that - tears just kept running due to the pain and my whole body was slightly trembling. I don't mind the pain that much - I can always block it out, but when it makes me cry and shake it's still hard to do stuff. After buying some painkillers and sitting down on McD for breakfast an old couple asked me if they could help me - I could hardly open the box of painkillers and I must have looked like I was in great pain (which I was). An hour after a double dose of painkillers I realized that they didn't help much, except that my whole body felt a bit numb and that I could actually fall asleep after 30 mins more (despite the still horrible pain). When I woke up the pain was more or less gone, but I reckon should go to the hospital if it returns tonight or tomorrow. Let's just hope it doesn't - that was a horrible experience, especially since I was all by myself and couldn't really get any help from anybody.

Anyway. Except for the headache everything is great and I'm really looking forward to seeing China now. First stop will probably be Guangzhou (spelling probably way wrong), the town formerly known as Canton. I don't know when I'll be going there, but probably tomorrow or the day after.

Bangkok - Hong Kong

Ok, I know - I haven't written that much lately and I don't really have a reason for it, it's not as if they're not hundreds of internet places in Bangkok. Anyway, here we go. The last night with Fra and Kim was really funny. We went back to our hotel room and looked through what we had bought. It was a lot. Shitloads of cloths. I ended up sending home 9 kilosof stuff, which was more or less only cloths. To be a bit more specific I bought 20 t-shirts, 3 hoodies and 2 jeans. And some perfumes. And some other stuff. I love shopping in Bangkok and MBK, I spent less than $150 in total I think, which is good value I must say.

Anyways, back in the hotel room we showed each other everything we bought and then we decided (read: Kim decided) that we all needed face masks and that we should dye my hair. Dark brown it was supposed tobe, but as it turns out I'm really black-haired nowadays. Goodbye sun bleached blonde hair. Noone thinks I'm Swedish anymore though, which is good.

After they left (buhu - no more kiwis...) I thought Iwould be by myself in Bangkok for a couple of nights, but after just one night I met Tina from Germany who I had met in Nha Trang, Vietnam - so we ended up spending the rest of the time in Bangkok together. It was very nice to meet her again, although I was a bit surprised at first to meet her in Bangkok. But then again, the last night I also met the three Israeli girls from Halong Bay and Sapa, so I guess you can never spend a long time in Bangkok without meeting people you know... :)

Bangkok really made a mess of my English. There are so many Swedes there that you here Swedish all the time - no half of my thoughts are in semi-Swedish and thinking in neither Swedish nor English feels natural anymore. When trying to find my way from the map today I found myself thinking "One two tre fyra blocks kvar to go" - confusing.

So. After a nice time in Bangkok with lots of shopping and lots of Indian food, I'm know in Hong Kong. The airline was a bit worried that they wouldn't let me in because I didn't have permission to stay in Hong Kong and I had no exit ticket,but it was no problems at all. Arriving in Hong Kong at night was a great experience, it feels as if someone just dropped me in downtown Manhattan - the city is immense, colorful, modern, loud, bustling and extremely international. I reckon I will have some nice days here - if my budget allows it. I found a nice room for $130 (hongkong dollar - approxiamtely one HK$ on one SEK) - it's expensive but I don't think you can find much cheaper in HK. But the room is great - two beds, aircon, TV, hot shower - I feel liked a spoiled kid at Christmas after all those rat holes in Bangkok and other places. Very nice!

I'll write more tomorrow perhaps, now I have to go to bed. And yeah, also, thanks to Carey for showing me the great Dim Sum place where we had dinner and for giving me lots of great ideas for what to do in HK. See ya tomorrow as well! :)

On my way to China

Okey, now I am on my way to China. More or less at least. From Vang Vieng I decided that I should go to China as soon as possible and to go to China you could either take the plane or the bus from Vientiane. So I went to Vientiane together with Fra and Kim (the two kiwis). Then I really don't know what happend, but I ended up in Bangkok.

To fly from Vientiane to China was possible, but it would mean I had to stay a couple of days in Vientiane which I didn't feel like. And that would only take me to Kunming, which I didn't feel like at the moment. Taking the bus was possible, but it was expensive, would take me to Kunming as well and would take 2-3 days depending on who you asked. Not a good option. So instead I got on the night train to Bangkok from Vientiane together with the two kiwis and now we've spent two days of shopping in Bangkok. I will have to send home a lot of stuff, I've bought t-shirts for at least a year to come and now it's time for some jeans and some hoodies.

New plan is to fly to Hong Kong on Tuesday, which is a bit too late in my opinion but still very good. The price was a bit too high, but still cheaper than going from Vientiane to Kunming.

I'll write more in a day or two and I'll try to upload some pictures from our days in Bangkok. Tonight the kiwis are leaving (going back to New Zealand), so I'm by myself in Bangkok soon. I'll probably do some more shopping and some sightseeing.