China, the most populated country in the world is extremely diverse in terms of both people and landscape. I spent 7 weeks in the country and saw green rice patty fields in the south, a frozen wonderland in the north east, grasslands and plains through the central north, desert and dunes in the far west and snow-capped mountains as I headed south west towards Tibet.The change from undeveloped South East Asia wasn’t gradual but instant as soon as I crossed the border. The infrastructure of the highways and cities is impressive and would put many countries in the west to shame. The cities are incredibly rich but the rural areas are incredibly poor. The conditions that some people live in we wouldn’t consider fit for an animal.
Change is coming quickly, too quickly for some as cities infringe on villages and dramatically change the life style for which they have been accustomed to for many years. When in the country and talking to the people outside of the cities you hear of protest and outcry at the government over development that we never hear about in the West. The government holds a tight reign over its people and even today the minority groups, especially the Tibetans, are oppressed and don’t have the freedoms that we take for granted such as free speech, uninhibited religious practice and even the ability to travel outside our countries. The only way most Tibetans can leave China is illegally through Nepal and onto India, a long, arduous and dangerous journey by foot through the Himalayas.
Despite this whether it be the Han Chinese, the Mongolians, the Uighurs, the Tibetans or one of the many minorities, the people of China were always warm, friendly, happy and very hospitable.
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The Chinese border control was a lot different to what I had just left behind; it looked like an International Airport terminal had been built on the border. Inside there was an automatic “check-in” that scanned my passport and printed out my arrival and departure cards, it was then straight to immigration where my visa was checked and they stamped me in.
From Mengla I was able to get a bus straight to Jinghong, and then from there a bus to Kunming. It was a relay of buses that got to Kunming at 12am that night.
Kunming
The first thing I did in Kunming was head to the train station with Song, a young Chinese guy I had met on the bus. It was 1am but because the Spring Festival was fast approaching he recommended that we buy the ticket now as the station would be crazy the next day.
I managed to get a hard seat ticket to Beijing for a train leaving a few days, it was the only option. Song unfortunately wasn’t able to get any ticket for his onward journey home to Sichuan.The next day was Australia day so after going with Song to the bus station so he could buy a ticket home I went in search of a pub with some Australians – I didn’t find any. I was however able to stream the J’s and have some beers back at the hostel so it wasn’t all bad.
There are a few sights to see in the Kunming area and the city itself wasn’t too bad. The highlight was getting to see my first group of exercising oldies dancing in the park. Some of them were really getting into it, others just doing their best. Chinese checkers and Mah-jong was also a popular past time of the oldies throughout the parks and tea shops in the afternoons.
I stayed a few days here but within the Yunnan province I also visited Dali.
Dali
Dali (Old City) is a beautiful town, bordered by mountains and a massive lake named Erhui Hu, the town is about 4 hours north west of Kunming by bus at an altitude just under 2000m. The town is still set within the original old city walls, with impressive gates that offer great views across the town and onto the surround villages. The streets are cobblestone and there are irrigation streams criss-crossing the town. I stayed just outside the city walls at a great hostel called the Lilypad, the manager Erin was really helpful and all the staff spoke great English.The Chang Shan Mountains lie just to the west of town and I spent a day exploring them. You can hike up easily from town in about an hour, the whole way up is paved but if you not up for that there are two chairlifts that will get you up there in about 20mins. The initial track up and the chairlifts only take you about half way where there is a paved walkway that stretches north to south for about 12kms. The views from here are breathtaking. Because it was late January there was a bit of snow around and large sections of the walkway were completely covered and as a result extremely slippery and dangerous.
The villages were set within farming land and were often lowset or two/three-story dwellings. Narrow cement or dirt laneways ran through all the villages, each village set along the lake and separated by about a kilometre of farming land. I had plenty of time so decided to cycle up to the next town that was 18km’s away. This place was much the same and it was the worst choice I could have made as the ride home was gruelling. It was hot (mainly because I had a massive jacket on and couldn’t take it off) and extremely windy. The head wind would come and go and was so strong I could barely ride forward; trucks and cars would then fly past and nearly blow me off the road and down a 2m drop to the farming land below. I considered hitching a ride or hailing a bus or cab but I persevered and eventually made it back to town, sweaty, smelly and exhausted.From here it was back to Kunming and then a 38hr train ride to Beijing.
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I was fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to experiences all the different classes of rail travel that China has to offer. They have Unreserved (No Seat), Hard Seat, Soft Seat, Hard Sleeper and Soft Sleeper. No Seat is as it sounds, no seat, Hard Seat is usually a seat with a straight back and a couple of inches of padding, Soft Seat is pretty comfy for maybe up to 12 hours, Hard Sleeper is great, nice bed in a group of 6 bunks, Soft Sleeper is almost luxury, soft bed in a separate room of 4 bunks.My Trips
- Kunming to Beijing. 38hrs – Hard Seat
- Beijing to Harbin. 10hrs – Soft Seat
- Harbin to Bautou. 29hrs – No Seat
- Bautou to Lanzhou. 19hrs – Hard Seat
- Lanzhou to Xining. 3hrs – Hard Seat
- Lanzhou to Jiayuguan. 10hrs – Soft Sleeper
- Turpan to Lanzhou. 20hrs – Hard Sleeper
My last two trips were by far the most comfortable and after having travelled in the other classes I kind of felt like I was cheating. Both Hard and Soft sleeper classes were clean, comfortable and a nice way to travel. I felt like I was staying in a nice guesthouse. Hard Seat and No Seat however, not so comfy.I was travelling through China during the entire Spring Festival period. During this time the whole country seems to be on the move and it is BUSY! The ticket halls at the train and bus stations are filled with people day and night. If you can get a ticket at all you’re doing well and if you get a ticket in less than half an hour you’re doing very well. Given I was travelling at this time I just had to take what I could get.
The hard seat carriages on the long haul services start off relatively clean but it is a completely different storey by the time you arrive at your destination. Rubbish and food scrapes cover the floors, people spit on the ground, smoke in the carriages and I won’t mention the condition of the squat toilets. The aisles are full of people who couldn’t get a reserved seat but the atmosphere and manner of everyone is really good. People get up for those standing to rest their legs and to eat, people share food and everyone is really friendly.My journey from Harbin to Baotou with no seat saw me seating on a bucket for the first 8 hours using my scarf and beanie as a cushion. A nice Chinese man insisted on sharing his food with me and ensured I followed every mouthful of pickled mushrooms with a swig of his rice wine. Thankfully at midnight a lady came and got me as a guy was getting off and I scored his seat for the rest of the journey. It still wasn’t the most comfortable trip as these seats are quite close together, you have to weave your legs between the person sitting opposite you and the back of the chair is not adjustable and it’s at a 90 degree angle…
I never saw another foreigner whenever I travelled by train, I’m sure they were somewhere but not in my carriages. Often when I would wake up it would be to a number of people just staring at me. In the Hard Seat carriages I was definitely something of an attraction, I never went hungry and I was never without a new friend.
I spent almost a week in Beijing, it was a nice city and there was plenty to see and do. I stayed in the Dongcheng district at 9 Dragons Youth Hostel which had a great atmosphere and a great crew of travellers. The guesthouse was fairly central, next to the subway, an easy walk to the North Gate of the Forbidden City, close to shopping, food and markets and not too far from the Sanlitun night club area which ended up being a little dangerous with a couple of huge nights out.
I was there for Chinese New Year which is really just a family holiday so not too much goes on. The guesthouse put on a party for all of us there; we made dumplings and joined the locals in letting of fireworks in the streets. The fireworks are on sale on every corner and for the next two weeks, especially in Beijing, it sounded like a war zone as the fireworks and fire crackers didn’t stop, night and day, it was constant.
I was there for Chinese New Year which is really just a family holiday so not too much goes on. The guesthouse put on a party for all of us there; we made dumplings and joined the locals in letting of fireworks in the streets. The fireworks are on sale on every corner and for the next two weeks, especially in Beijing, it sounded like a war zone as the fireworks and fire crackers didn’t stop, night and day, it was constant.
Over the next week I really just checked out some the tourist sites with a few of the people I met at the guesthouse.
I walked around Tiananmen Square which is huge, it is after all the largest public square in the world. There is a memorial to Mao and among other things an array of TV’s near the centre – The TV’s were playing different clips from around the world with the first thing I saw on them being an Aboriginal dance to the Zorba the Greek song, it was pretty funny and defiantly unexpected. 
Holly, Tracey, Rudy and I ventured out to the Badaling section of the Great Wall. Although I had read that this was the most touristy place to visit and even though our guesthouse had a great tour to a secluded section of the wall, we still decided to go here. Given it was Spring Festival and all the locals are on holidays it was especially packed. The lines of people heading up the wall didn’t stop and this area was defiantly made for tourists. There were two cable cars, a hotel, KFC, Pizza Hut and a number of other restaurants. Despite all the people it was still really impressive to see the Wall snake along the mountainside far into the distance in both directions. We did it all fairly cheap using public transport and also claiming student price (half price) entry for the Wall using our driver’s licenses.
One night the four of us also checked out an acrobatic show which was amazing! It was bird themed and began with a crazy bird man and a couple of huge parrots that flew in. We then witnessed a range of acts that included; Acrobats being launched into the air with a seesaw type device, girls stacking on top of each other in back breaking positions, guys doing some extraordinary strength based balances and a number of other awesome acts that I can’t begin to describe. Defiantly recommended and well worth the money. Somehow we also ended up with the best seats in the house, second or third row from the front, in the middle, with no one in front of us and we only purchased our tickets when we rocked up.
Another night we hit up the night markets and tasted the Topoo (Disgusting, black, toilet smelling Tofu). The oil from the Tofu ran down my hand and arm and then reeked of sewerage until I could scrub my arm with hot water and soap. The other delicacies that they had on offer included scorpions (often still squirming), bugs, lizards, seahorses, starfish and tiny birds (plucked, looking like teeny weeny whole chickens) all on skewers.
The final place I went to visit was Longquan Temple located about 2hrs from central Beijing by public transport in the West Mountains. The setting here was beautiful with monastery set against rugged rocky mountains and a clear deep blue sky. I really wish that I had of had another day to explore the area as I didn’t really get a chance to look around. The main complex was impressive and has only recently been reconstructed. A large number of monks and volunteers rebuilt the temple according to its original design. It is filled with classrooms, plasma screens and projectors. It is now a state of the art Buddhist Learning centre completely run by lay volunteers and monks. They had a special program on the day I visited and I was shown a couple of videos on the temple and then joined a Q&A session with one of the masters (monks). Given the long travel time and the program it took up my whole day so I unfortunately didn’t get to see the surrounding area that has trails and other sites to visit in the mountains.
I saw a few other things around the city and on the whole had awesome time largely as a result of Rudy, Holly, Tracey and the entire crew from the guesthouse. I could have spent another week there at least but it was time to move on, next stop, Harbin.
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Harbin is a unique city with an assortment of culture, religion, architecture and a turbulent history of war and revolution. The province borders Russia and after the development of the Chinese Eastern Railway in the late 1800’s a flood of Russian immigrants followed and left a distinct impression of the city which is still visible today within the culture and architecture. Russian Orthodox Churches and Russian chocolate shops are dotted around town. Saint Sophia’s is the largest and most impressive of the churches while and my guesthouse was actually a converted church as well.Another important point that I need to mention was the temperature while I visited here. The average temperature ranged from negative 13 during the day to negative 25 in the evening, so it was pretty damn cold. The reason I braved these ridiculous temperatures was to visit the annual Snow and Ice Festival.
It was all great to see but it was extremely cold, whenever I was outside my feet felt like they were frozen although I was wearing two thick pairs of socks and hiking boots. My hands stung from the cold when I would take them out of my pockets for just for a minute to take a photo with my gloves still on and when you first step outside it would even hurt to breath as the air was so cold.
Despite the cold one night we ventured out to celebrate my birthday. I was with a group of American guys and one English guy that were staying at the same guesthouse. After playing some drinking games with beer that ended up costing only 38 cent a can, we hit up a Russian nightclub, drunk some Vodka (Russian of course. Although it was Russian nightclub there were only a few actual Russians, the place was dominated by local Chinese. It was a good night out and a great way to spend my last night in freezing cold Harbin.After the comfortable 29 hour train ride I mentioned above I arrived into Baotou at about 9pm. I headed for a couple of guesthouses noted in the Lonely Planet but they were no longer there. No one in this town spoke English and the first two places I found were full. The third had a vacancy and I took it despite the price being 3 times what I had paid at any other time on my trip, to be fair, it was still quite cheap compared to home. Baotou isn’t really a tourist destination; it is an industrial city in Inner Mongolian so it doesn’t really cater for foreign tourists. After checking in I walked back to the train station to buy my next onward ticket and once again, only hard seats were available – better than no seat though.
The reason for my visit here was to travel out to Wudang Zhou Lamasery located about an hour out of town in the surrounding grasslands. The journey out to the monastery was through some rural, poor, dilapidated looking Mongolian villages. Many of the homes were made of mud brick with iron roofs fixed in place with stones and bricks. You wouldn’t think by looking at them that people even lived in some of the homes but there would be smoke coming from the chimney.
When I arrived at the monastery I enquired about staying at the guesthouse for the night but either because it was winter (off season) or perhaps because of the Spring Festival, the guesthouse was closed so I only was able to stay for a couple of hours as the last bus back to town was at 1.30pm…The monastery belongs to the Gelug tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, the same tradition as HH Dali Lama. It was an important site along the pilgrimage route between Tibet and Mongolia and at its height was home to more than 1200 monks until much of it was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. It has since been rebuilt but is now more of a tourist attraction than a place of study and prayer; it is now home only to about 40 monks.
The architecture of the Gompa’s and residences were all of Tibetan style. Inside, the Gompa’s were beautifully decorated with tradition Tibetan Buddhist artwork, murals and thangkas. The complex was set in the mountains and snow littered the ground. It would look stunning in summer when the vast grasslands would be green but today under the shadow of clouds it simply looked dry and brown. I managed to checkout most of the complex but would have loved more time, I boarded the bus as snow started to fall to head back to Baotou.
A couple more photos
A couple more photos
Lanzhou is a dirty polluted city on a rail-hub connecting 3 or 4 different lines. I had to pass through here on three separate occasions, each time only staying for a few hours as the haze of pollution that clung to the city from the numerous petrochemical plants made it a little difficult to breathe. There are a few sites to see but I didn’t really bother, instead I just got the next bus or train that was heading in the direction I was going. From here I travelled onto Xining on my first stop-over then to Jiayuguan on my trip north west to Turpan and then finally back down to Xiahe for my second visit to the Amdo Tibetan region. 
Xining was really just another jumping point for me into the Amdo region although I had every intention to use it as my launching point to Lhasa and Central Tibet. I travelled to Xining earlier in my trip than I originally intended as I wanted to discuss my options for taking the train to Lhasa and then from there travelling overland to Nepal. I had learned that Tibet would be closed to foreigners for all of March as the 10th and 14th were important anniversaries of turbulent times in the region; most recently in 2008 when a number of Tibetan’s were killed, actual numbers have never been confirmed largely due to media restrictions. I hoped that I would at least be able to travel in the region up to the 9th crossing into Nepal on that date but this wasn’t the case. The government wasn’t issuing any permits for travel for any of March so my only options were to either leave in the next couple of days, cutting my time in China short by 3 weeks, or skipping Lhasa and Central Tibet for the time being. I ended up making the decision to stay in China and fly to Kathmandu with the intention to come back to Xining and finish the final overland leg of the journey on my way home to Australia in January next year. This meant I also had to alter my trip for China as I would no longer have time to make it as far west as I planned. In hindsight however I couldn’t have made a better choice as the two weeks I spent in the Amdo region turned out to be the highlight of my trip thus far.
I did spend a few days in Xining and at the guesthouse I met a couple of French Canadian guys who were heaps of fun and an awesome crew from an International Art School in Germany. The crew from the art school even bought me a delicious cake for my birthday which was the week before, I also scored a sweet party hat AND they even organized a HUGE fireworks display, although that could have been because it was the last day of the Spring Festival, but it did start at about the time they brought out my cake so I’m claiming it…
A little polluted city in the middle of a barren waste land pretty much marks the end of the Great Wall. I arrived in the early morning by train and I should have departed that evening but I stayed the night. The accommodation in town isn’t the best but if you search a bit beyond the Lonely Planet recommendations I did find a cheap option that was pretty good. I’m pretty sure I was the only foreigner in town and no one spoke any English. The two sights to see here are the Ming Dynasty Fort and the Great Wall, both of which can be done in a day by peddle power.The Fort is located 5km west of town so it was an easy flat ride out there. The Fort itself was pretty impressive and on a clear day when the pollution from the surrounding smoke stacks doesn’t cloud your view it is supposedly possible to see the snow-capped Qilian Shan peaks and Hei Shan Mountains. Built in 1372 the Fort was the last major stronghold of Imperial China although their territory often extended much further.
It was pretty quiet at the Fort, there were only a trickle of Chinese tourists around. I spent about an hour looking around and also checked out the museum that was onsite. The Great Wall extended beyond the Fort north towards the mountains and South towards what looked like the middle of nowhere. It was about 9km to the Great Wall from here and it was another easy flat ride. It was a pretty barren ride out to the mountains and the last few kilometres of the road ran parallel to the Wall.
There are two sections of the Wall that can be visited here and are right next to each other although both charge separate fees, the most northerly of the two is the most impressive. Coined the Overhanging Great Wall it runs from the Fort and the flat plains below up into the rocky, jagged mountains. Again some spectacular views are supposedly visible from here but not today, it was a clear day but very hazy. The construction of the Wall here is much different to that close to Beijing. Rather than stone brick as I had previously seen, this section is made from mud, straw and mud brick. I had the Wall almost to myself here, the opposite to my experience back at Badaling, I came across only 4 other tourists, two of which wanted a photo with me. It was a peaceful ride back to town where I scored some good Muslim-Chinese food from the bazaar and chilled out until my bus to Dunhuang the following day.
The other main drawcard for the town is the Mogao Caves which is one of the world’s greatest stores of Buddhist Art. The first cave dates back to around 366 AD and many of the paintings have been very well preserved. The only way to view the caves is on a tour, the English tour the day I visited consisted of just me and my guide. You get to visit 10 caves which were all quite amazing and the guide gave a great commentary on all of them. 
I spent a few hours here and after the tour checked out the museum which has some replica caves and artefacts on display. I also went for a walk into the desert from where you can see the whole expanse of the caves which extended for hundreds of meters along a currently frozen river.
I also headed out to the Western Thousand Buddha Caves that are about 35km from town. These weren’t as impressive but were still good to see. I was the only tourist at this place and I actually had to climb the gate to find the staff to take me on a tour which again is the only way to see the caves as they are each individually gated. The setting here was stunning with these caves in the walls of a huge gorge and the desert dunes visible in the distance. 
Scattered throughout the town and surrounding villages were specially made drying houses for the grapes as they are mostly dried to last out the winter. The other main crop is melons, also the best in China according to one of the locals I met and they grow cotton too. Oil wells and pumping stations dot the desert landscape just outside of town much to the dismay of the driver.
Tuyoq, a pilgrimage site for Muslims for centuries is a traditional Uighur village about 70km from Turpan set at the base of the Flaming Mountains. The village is surrounded by vineyards, and would look stunning in summer when the grape vines are green and lush but had yet to be planted as I was visiting in winter. The buildings are all constructed from mud apart from the Mosque that was the centre piece of the village. Just up the gorge there are a number of Buddhist caves dating from the 3rd century but these were unfortunately closed.
While in Turpan I also visited the ruined city of Jiahoe, a Chinese garrison town established during the Han Dynasty. It was a relatively flat 13km bike ride along one of the main roads out of town. The ruins were vastly different to those of Angkor in Cambodia, the only other ancient ruins that I have seen, constructed from mud and mud-brick rather than stone, this place was not as well preserved but impressive all the same. The houses can be just made out as old dwellings but the government centre and the Buddhist Monasteries are much more discernable. There was also the remanets of a Stupa Forest that originally contained 101 Stupas.More Photos
From Turpan I retraced my steps all the way back to Xiahe for my second visit into the Tibetan region of Amdo.
My time in China had almost come to an end but on my way out of Amdo to Chengdu on route to Nepal I spent 2 days visiting Jiuzhaigou Nature Reserve.
This place is one of the most beautiful national parks I have visited. The park is pristine and immaculately maintained despite the fact that 1.5 million people visit here each year and it isn’t that big. The only way to explore the park is by foot or on one of the many shuttle buses that run up and down the park all day long. The park is 32km in length so at some point you really need to jump on the shuttle bus to reach the upper levels of the park. It is ideal to spend one day in the lower region and another in the upper which can be very expensive in the peak season but during the off season when I visited it is only a fraction more to spend two days here. As it was the off season many of the walkways were closed but in most cases you could quickly get around the gate and explore in solitude. Reasons seem to vary as for the closure with some staff saying the pathways are snowed in, others because of extreme fire danger and others because they were under construction. Although it was the offseason there were still a lot of Chinese tourists visiting the park and I cannot imagine what it must be like during peak season.
The Jiuzhaigou Valley area is also Tibetan and the national park is dotted with “Tibetan Villages”. The villages along the road of the park are more of a tourist attraction rather than a real village and the last time that these Tibetan’s would have had the opportunity to live a traditional way of life would have been a long, long time ago. You’re not supposed to be able to stay within the park itself but if you hang around the Tibetan Villages near closing time and speak to the right people you may be able to arrange a homestay which is what the two American guys did that I had been exploring the park with. I was leaving early the next morning which prevented me from doing the same, I also didn’t get to see them before I headed off so I can’t say how it all went. I think that the best way that I can describe this place is through my photos rather than my words… Hopefully I captured at least a fraction of the real beauty of the place within them.
More Photos
More Photos
