Flight Zurich - Hong Kong with Swiss International Airlines.
Arrival in Hong Kong Chek Lap Kok Airport. By metro we got to Kowloon which took in about half an hour. Transfer costs about 20 EUR per person. At Kowloon station there's a shutle bus service which provides transport to various hotels. We took the one which went closest to our destination. Stanford Hillview Hotel is about 10 minutes walk away from the Tsim Sha Tsui Metro station which is in fact a huge underground system where people can walk from A to B unter protection from heat and rain. Right below the hotel there's a couple of bars and restaurants (Knutsford Terrace). Kowloon public pier is an excellent viewpoint to Hong Kong Island and its skyscrapers.
Train tickets for China can be bought at Hung Hom station. Booking a couple of days ahead is recommended. We were lucky and got soft sleeper tickets for the other day from Shenzhen to Guilin. The daycard for the metro railway system was not worth the money. If you travel between Kowloon and Hong Kong island you take the ferry which is more scenic rather than the train. There's a cable car at the rear of Bank of China. It transports visitors to Victoria peak from where they have a stunning view over Hong Kong and Kowloon. There's an escalator system along Shelly street in Soho which connects down town to the upper parts of the island. Various bars and restaurants are scattered along the moving stairway.
Staying two days and a half in Hong Kong is enought. There's a lot of shops where you can buy cloths or electronic equipment, but it's either trash and fake material or luxury items on the other hand. So we spent the morning hours on the Kowloon Public pier before we took the metro to the border of China. Border crossing is fairly unproblematic and fast even though we had to pass an H1N1 check. Try to awoid changing money on the Chinese side. All cash machines were out of order so we had to queue up at the only desk for more than an hour. To change 100 USD at the bank costs you about 20 minutes filling in forms, taking copies of passports and handing out hotel reservations whereas milking an ATM takes not more than two minutes. Luckily all other cash machines in China worked well apart from the ones at the border. The railway station of Shenzhen is in the same border building. Attached are a couple of restaurants where you can have a meal before boarding the train. To be mentioned is that ordering food and drinks is not easy at all in China even though being that close to the western world (Hong Kong). Train stations are comparable to airports. You have to have a valid ticket. Your baggage is scanned and people have to wait in departure lounges until arrival of the train. Nobody is allowed to enter the tracks before arrival of the train. Our soft sleeper compartment was very convenient, quite spacious. Big suitcases don't fit under the bed, though.
After having some sleep in the train we arrived in Guilin at about 8 am. Guilin is notorious for its touts. In fact as soon as we have left the train station we get approached by tour-guides. There's buses in front of the station departing every couple of minutes to Yangshuo which is about 90 minutes away from Guilin. White Lion hotel which we have booked ahead in the internet is at the beginning of famous west street, about 15 minutes walking distance away from the bus station. Yangshuo is situated at Li-River, completely enbedded in limestone mountains. First action I took was withdrawing money from the cash machine. And it worked. We had an American breakfast and booked a boat tour on Yulong river with Xiao our tour-guide who we could not get rid of. It cost us 180 Yuan which turned out to be quite expensive in hindsight. Motortaxis brought us to the entry point where we got aboard on the bamboo raft. Maybe a tourist trap, but we enjoyed the trip and jumped into the river a couple of times. In the evening we went to the riverfront of Li river. Lots of Chinese people took a swim and enjoyed the evening hours. To be mentioned is that temperatures are painfully high even after sunset. Yangshuo is a tourist hangout. West street and its nearby alleys are getting packed with people. There's all kind of food, which does not mean that the quality is exceptional. My Li river-fish was far too boney. After rescueing my mouth from dozens of bones a couple of times I gave it up and left half of the fish over.
We booked a cycling trip with Xiao for 150 Yuan, that included 3 bikes and the guide. First challenge was to cycle accross the city but we mastered all junctions and finally got to the countryside. Two hours cycling along rice paddies, through little villages up Yulong river always surrounded by steep lime-stone mountains until we got to the dragon bridge. There we had to repair a broken tire which was no problem as people in the villages are allrounders. Repairing a broken tire for a couple of yuan is always good business. After the bridge we paddled the way back on the other side of the river. The summer heat was unbearable therefore we took a few stops at the river and got our t-shirts wet. After another two hours we got to the 'base-camp' of moon hill. We left our bycicles with Xiao and hiked up the mountain to the big arch which gave the mountain its name. The walk up there took about an hour, another 20 minutes and we were on the very top. The sight over hundreds of lime-stone hills was breathtaking. The whole trip cost us at least 5 liters of sweat. We had dinner at Minnie Maos Café at the pond opposite Mac Donald's. It's one of the few eateries which we can recommend
Took the bus at about 10 am to Guilin. At the bus station we booked a ticket to Huaihua for the day after next. A guy was there who translated in Chinese. He also tried to persuade us to take a minibus to Pingan. He did not succeed and we got on the public bus which was faster and cheaper. The entrance to the Longji Terrace scenic area cost each of us 50 Yuan. Pingan is situated high above the valley in the middle of rice terraces. There is no access to the village by car, motor cycles neither. For our heavy suitcases we had to hire porters who cost 20 yuan each. It was about half an hour's walk up to our guesthouse. The views from there over the rice terraces were fantastic. The rooms in the guesthouse were quite basic, pit latrine, a few cockroaches and all for 100 yuan a tripple room. At least we had an aircon and could make the creatures disappear. There's quite a few restaurants in the village. Most of them had a terrace on their roof. Dinner was not very tasty but the starry sky and the village ambience paradisiac.
After the nightly fight with the cockroaches I got up early for a sunrise foto shooting session. Unfortunatuly the sky was not that promising and the sun rose behind the clouds. After breakfast in the village we headed up to platform 1 with the aim to reach Dazhai and walk the same route back. From platform 1 we left the rice terraces behind us and took a road which was not that scenic with direction of Zhonglin village. A local woman was following us and wanted to convince us to have lunch at her home. After a strenuous walk in the heat through forests, cementries and rice terraces we finally reached the village of Zhonglin, let's say 3 hours later. We bought some drinks and continued towards Dazhai. From there, it took us another 2 hours. But finally we got to the JinKeng Terraces. To combat the heat we had a bath in one of the canals which are built to irrigate the rice fields. Once you got to JinKeng you could walk up to Platform 1 which was not that scenic. We did the hike and lost another hour before we went down to Dazhai. To be mentioned is that we had fabulous dumplings in a restaurant on the way down to the village. The rice terraces were fantastic at the last part of the walk. Getting into Dashai at about 4:30 pm. there was no way to walk back. So we took the bus to the junction to Pingan. For 20 yuan we got a ride to the village, otherwise we would have waited another hour to get the next bus which was also the last one.
We had breakfast on the terrace of a French restaurant and left Pingan in order to catch the two o'clock bus in Guilin leaving for Huaihua. After waiting about an hour in the unbearable heat of the bus station we got on the Huaihua bed bus. They are not as comfortable as the bed buses in South America but at least you could travel in a horizontal position. A couple of passengers opened their windows, so it was incredibly hot inside. Not far from Guilin in direction back to Longsheng the road was blocked by a truck which had an accident. That was three hours waiting time until the cranes could make the road passable again. The journey took about 13 hours and we arrived at Huaihua bus station at about 3 am. We spent the following hours napping in the waiting hall together with a couple of weird characters.
We left Huaihua at 7 am in a completely overloaded bus and arrived in Fenghuang (city bus station) at about 10:30 am. Fenghuang had a nice old town which was built along a river. There was an old bridge combining both parts of the city. Buildings, water towers, boats and bridges were very scenic. The old town indeed was packed with tourists. Sadly there were no restaurants where you can sit outside and have a coffee or beer. There were either noisy disco bars or food stalls. Fenghuang was not used to Western tourists, we were the only ones. In spite of the nice hotel, which we accidentally found right at the riverfront, we decided to leave the other day. Main reason was that the train up North K648 was fully booked for the next couple of days. Possibilities to travel to Xian from Fenghuang and Huaihua were very limited, in fact
Breakfast at a foodstall in Fenghuang cost 3 Yuan for all three of us. And we were sated. Taxi to the bus station which was outside Fenghuang cost not more than 5 Yuan. Same price an hour later in Jishou from the bus station to the trains. We took the next train to Changde, got three seats in the hard seater. There was no chance to get an onward ticket from Changde up North. During the five hour trip we had enough time to take a decision which was interrupting our trip in Luoyang rather than travelling as far as Xian. Changde was a typical Socialist's Republic city out of nowhere with a couple of monuments and plattenbaus. So we tempted our destiny and bought standby tickets to Luoyang. The train left at 10:30 pm. and as standby passengers we got some standing room in the doorway between two coaches. The heat was unsupportable and people were standing and seating all everywhere, blocking the entire aisle. Nontheless passengers wanted to move from one coach to the other treading on feets and other soft parts. The nightly train trip was hell. Not for the Chinese people. The more unpleasant the condition was, the happier they were, smoking cigarettes, eating chicken claws and spitting bones on the floor or deeply asleep with their heads on our shoulders.
Night finally passed by and we dragged our crappy bodiees to a hotel which was close to the train station of Luoyang. Staff at Mingyuan hotel was very friendly and in fact their English was perfect. Rooms were spacious. Luoyang's population was something more than 1 million, one of the smaller cities in China. After a long siesta we went to the old town, not spectacular but interesting. A perfect spot to take some pictures of men playing board games, people cycling through the aleys and the market vendors. Should I mention, that we had dinner at KFC? We were actually fed up with unpleasant food experiences, and we didn't want to have another one after that nightmare of a traintrip.
We booked an excursion to famous Shaolin temple. What we did not know was that minibuses leave all couple of minutes from the railway station to the site. But we had to wait nearly an hour until the last passenger was on board. We had some hefty arguments with the tour-guide. She wanted to sell us overrated tickets which included sites which we were not interested in. At the end we made the driver stop in front of the Shaolin temple entrance and let us out of the bus. The ticket to the site cost 110 Yuan but was defenetly worth the money. The temple itself was huge. Accross the main temple there was a smaller one with dozens of 'happy' monks, funny characters. There was a so called pagoda forest, a cluster of pagodas, most of them about three to five meters high, others smaller. Every hour or so there was a performance of the famous martial art. Visiting the area takes easily 3 hours. Back in Luoyang we had chicken soup for dinner. The whole chicken was boiling in the soup, no feathers, but head and claws. Giblets were served uncooked in a plate. We happily left them aside.
We had the entire morning available for visiting Longmen caves. The bus took a bit more than half an hour to get there. From the station there was another half an hours walk to the caves. The site itself was a limestone cliff along a river. People have carved hundreds of caves and Buddha figures. Ancestor Worshipping Temple reminded of Egyptian sites at the Nile. The central Buddha was 17m high. After lunch time we went to the bus station to catch the coach to Xian. Our booked seats were already taken by other passengers. We had an argument with the ticket collector and finally got three seats in the rear. Local passengers who had to pass their seats were not happy at all. The trip took about five to six hours until we finally got to Xian. At the station in Xian we tried to flag down a taxi but it was not possible at all to get one for a reasonable price. Tourists had to pay about three times more than residents. We could finally bargain down to 20 yuan to get from the train station to the bell tower square. Xian was the most touristy city after Yangshuo so far. We got a room for a reasonable price in a business hotel right at the famous square. Dumplings at De Fa Chang were very tasty
We left for a two day excursion to mount Hua Shan, one of the five holy mountains in China. It was said to be the steepest. Our plan was to hike from Hua Shan Village. Buses left from outside Xian train station nearly every half an hour. The trip took one hour and a half and cost less than 10 yuan per person. Arriving at the feet of Hua Shan we first had lunch. The staff at the restaurant recommended to take the cable car, which we did. Entrance to the park was 120 yuan per person. The ride for 80 yuan to North Peak shortened our ascent significantly. In fact it was a good decision. God knows how to climb those vertical rocks and the heat was unsupportable once again. We were not the only pilgrims. In queues we walked uphill over the spectacular Green Dragon Ridge to the hostel below East Peak. The hike took about 2 hours from the cable car station. There was still room in the dormitory, no need to make a reservation before 4 pm. Leaving our stuff there we climbed South Peak (2160m), the highest one and went to West Peak to see the sunset. We were just a few people up there. It took us half an hour to get back to the hostel which was fully booked at the time. The place was packed with people. Chinese people were spending the night outside waiting for the sunrise spectacle. We hardly closed an eye because of the turmoil outside.
Five o clock in the morning, wake up time. Let's say we were awake anyway. East Peak was packed with people waiting for the sun to rise. After the event we walked back down to North Peak and from there we took the trail down to Hua Shan village. It was extremely steep and we finally arrived in the village at about 10:30 am. We had lunch and went back to Xian by bus
After having coffee and muffins at Starbucks we went to the train station from where we took the bus to the site of the Terracotta army. There were buses every fifteen minutes or so. The entrance fee to the world heritage site was 90 yuan per person. The terracotta soldiers were exposed in three halls. The huge number of warriors was impressive, sure. But to be honest we were expecting to be deeply impressed which we actually weren't at the end.
We had one more day left for Xian before taking the night-train to Beijing. First we visited Big Goose pagoda. Once again the site was packed with tourists. So then we went to see Little Goose pagoda, a lovely and quiet place inside a park. Back to the hotel we went for our suitcases and tried to flag down a cab. Hardly any chance to negociate with the taxi mafia in Xian. Finally we found a guy who brought us to the station for a slightly exagerated price. The trip to Beijing in the soft-bed compartment was very relaxing and we had a perfect sleep.
Arriving in Beijing we booked the onward ticket to Shanghai. It was a so called D-Train ticket and cost more than 700 yuan which was about 30% more expensive than a regular softsleeper ticket. At least there was no taxi mafia in Beijing and we payed only 41 yuan for the ride from the West train station accross the city to Red Hotel which was situated in Chaoyang close to Dongzhimen bus and metro station. For the rest of the day we visited the Forbidden City. The site was packed with tourists. We were a bit disappointed. The place itself was huge but the buildings were not really hitting our eyes. Maybe it was the heat and the people and probably the nightly trip which faded our enthusiasm. We had dinner at one of the restaurants in a building not far from the Workers Stadium in Chaoyang. We had Indian food and it was very tasty. We were not always lucky in terms of food, indeed.
Had breakfast at Mac Donalds and then went to Dongzhimen bus station where we took the coach to Huairon. Destination was the Great Wall. We were praying for sun but the dust was too dense. Smog in Luoyang, smog in Xian, smog in Beijing and smog over the Great Wall. Shortly before arriving in Huairon, taxi drivers came aboard shouting 'taxi to Mutianyu'. So we got off the bus and took a cab for 70 yuan to the Wall which was 45 minutes drive. Let's say the site was about 2 hours away from Beijing. I must admit the Great Wall was great. We were walking along the gallery for about four hours. Amazing how the massive construction was crisscrossing the hilly landscape. Back in town we had Beijing duck for dinner. I don't want to mention what kind of side dishes we had.
Another misty day in Beijing. We were getting used to it. At Beijing North train station (Xizhimen) we took the bus to the Summer Palace. We paied 60 yuan each to get inside. There were temples, museums, canals and a huge artificial lake. We started at the North Gate, walked along Suzhou street which was a replicate of a typical Chinese water town. After Suzhou street we climbed Longevity Hill visiting a few temples on the way up. On top there was a tremendous view over the lake. Thanks to the fog we couldn't even see the other end. There were some museums and we took a boat ride to the island from where we walked over the bridge all the way back to North Gate. Summer Palace was defenetly worth an excursion. Back in the city we headed to the hutongs north of the Forbidden City. Hutongs were traditional districts of cities, most of them being replaced by high rise buildings. A famous and touristy street was Nanluogu Xiang, a cosy place with lots of street cafés, art gallerys, fashen shops, whatever fitted the tastes of foreigners.
Beijing was an enormeous city. Even though there was an underground metro system we still had to walk miles and miles to get to the sites. First we went to Lama Temple, then crossed the city by metro to Temple of Heaven Park which was still about half an hours walk away. Next site was Tiananmen Square, one of the most famous spots since the students uprising a couple of years ago. To be honest. I prefered Red Square in Moscow to that one. Unfortunately we didn't see Mao's body. The mausoleum was only open until lunch time. Another site which we completely missed was Bird's Nest stadium which was built for the Olympic Games in 2008. In the evening we went to the Central Train Station where we took a D-Train to Shanghai. In fact, travelling by one of the most modern trains of the world to the most modern city of the world, that was promising.
Arriving in Shanghai we took a taxi to Shanghai Haigang hotel which was at West Nanjing road right at a metro station. The city was spiked with high rise buildings. It could be Manhatten actually. Where there was no high rise building, there was a construction site. We went to Shanghai museum which had one of the most impressive collections of China or even Asia. East Nanjing Road was famous for its crowds which we fully agreed. Unfortunately the bund was one huge construction site. Access to Huangpu river was only possible at the Garden Bridge from where we took pictures of famous Pudong with its high rise buildings; Oriental Pearl Tower, the landmark of Shanghai. We had dinner at a restaurant in French Concession and we were lucky. The meal was very tasty.
One of the few rainy days in China. We were all day around Yuyuan garden and its shopping district. Had dinner at Xintiandi and it was probably our favourite respective to the meals we had in China. Dumplings, mushrooms, meat, everything very tasty. Xintiandi was a good place for people watching and having some drinks in the garden restaurants.
We went to Pudong taking the Bund sightseeing tunnel train which was a tourist trap. At least at that side of the river we could walk along the shore and watch ships passing by.
The trip from the city to Pudong Airport by the so called Sky metro took about 10 minutes. The train was 300km/h fast in the early morning (450km/h during daytime). The flight from Shanghai to Zurich by Swiss Airlines took about 12hrs.