China Part 7 - Hainan Island:

After Hong Kong:

We left Hong Kong with the vague plan of heading for Vietnam, but we were still to early to meet up with Christiana and Richard. While on the train to Shenzen I was looking through the Lonely Planet when I remembered about a place that Simon had mentioned called Hainan. Apparently it is sometimes called “The Hawaii of Asia”, that was just what we needed so we booked our ticket to Ghangzhou, from where we could get a train to Hainan.

In Ghangahou we had no problems booking a sleeper train but it did leave us some time to spare so we had a look around the town. Its a bit of a strange place and has a lot of wholesale shopping outlets that seem to provide most of China with its cheap tourist tat. Both myself and Fran had commented that we had a strange feeling wandering around Ghangzhou (we only had small rucksacks on as we left our big bags in storage at a hotel) but we both thought at different points that someone had been following us. Just as we were getting back to the station I heard Fran shout out, I spun around to see her confronting a man whose hand she had caught in her rucksack only moments before – I started shouting at him to cause a scene, luckily we could see he didn't have time to get to any of her belongings and he made the wise decision of snaking away. Good on Fran for catching him in the act though! That was enough of Ghangzhou so we hid out in KFC until the train was ready to go.

Hainan Island:

As Hainan is an island the train to get there is rather special. We caught a regular sleeper train but when it arrived at the coast, they put the whole train on a ferry, which took it across the channel to the island, where it continued its journey! Only in China! It took most of the day to get around the island (its almost as big as the Northern part of Vietnam!) but we eventually arrived at the station, and got a taxi to Sanya. We were staying at Peters place – Blue Sky International Hostel, but we had a bit of trouble finding it. A few calls to Peter later and one of his staff met us and lead us to the hostel. It is a very friendly place only minutes away from the beach and Peter (his English name) the Chinese owner is a friendly, funny guy.

The beach in Sanya doesn't disappoint, with near white sand stretching out in front of an aqua-marine sea fronted by palm trees and sun loungers. The resort is packed with Russians, it is also growing in popularity with the Chinese who seem to think it is essential to dress as if you are in Hawaii, with matching shorts and shirt floral combinations! It does make you laugh to see whole family walking around in the same print. We spent our time sunbathing and relaxing, and eating great, cheap local food (Fran had lots of seafood). Unfortunately on only the second day I managed to nearly brake Fran's little toe when we were messing around on the beach, she spent the rest of the time hobbling around in pain. At the hostel we had met some great fun people and especially became great friends with 2 girls – Marlene from Germany and Astrid from Austria. We all hung around together most of the time.

Our original plan had been to stay on Hainan for maybe 3 or 4 days, but as it was so nice it became 5 or 6, then a Typhoon hit the island and we couldn't get a ferry so we ended up staying for over a week! I can think of worse places to get stuck though. There were a lot of friendly people staying at the hostel and one night Ian and Ping convinced half the hostel to go to a Karaoke bar! We had a great time singing for a few hours before moving to an odd dance club that had a spring loaded floor!

I have to cut into this story here and give you a bit of insight as to how good the food actually was here, it was not really Chinese food as we came to know it (all bones and no meat so to speak), it was varied, cheap, fresh and delicious. We had two favourite haunts, a local restaurant on a corner with plastic tables and chairs for furniture which you would not look twice at but for the hoards of locals eating there all the time. The second haunt was more touristy and was called the Summer Food Court which was a series of stalls selling fresh seafood and other goodies for such reasonable prices! Marlene, Astrid and I share a love of seafood and twice had huge seafood platters complete with crabs, sea snails, calamari, prawns the lot for only 60 yuan (about 6 quid!).

Our whole week was spent either eating, drinking or talking about food and although basically all we did was go to the beach, we will always remember Hainan as the place where we forged some great friendships. I really do think that when we look back on our travels, it's not just the places that spring to mind, but the great people that you meet! We are now keen to explore lots of places in Europe that we hadn't thought about visiting before simply because we have made some great friends who we want to make sure we meet up with again.

Next stop - Vietnam!

China Part 6 - Hong Kong & Maccau:

Hong Kong:

We caught our very first sleeper bus from Guilin to Shenzen, which is the departure point into Hong Kong. The experience was not a good one as firstly the horrible hostel workers in Guilin failed to tell us we could catch this bus from Yangshuo, so on the day in question we travelled the two hours back to Guilin, only to catch the bus back to Yangshuo before it continued on it's way! The bus drivers were on some kind of delivery racket which meant that we could not put our bags underneath in the storage compartment, and we had the seats on the floor at the back of the bus and the aisles soon got crammed with everyone's luggage. My seat was in the middle, was the smallest on the bus and was directly over the engine with no air con, bags on either side and I was feeling more than a little claustrophobic! I vowed I would never catch a sleeper bus again!

When we finally arrived the bus dropped us to the wrong part of town so we shared a cab to the train station with some nice English guys we met up with, one of which had a huge Chinese hat which he had bought as a souvenir for his dad. The thing was bigger than him, and he still managed to nearly leave it at the travellers bureau, luckily the girl ran after him to return it!
Hong Kong is a world apart from China in every single way, the trains were spotless and on time, we made our first faux paux when took to eating a snack lunch, wondering why everyone was staring at us, only to realise about two days later that eating is prohibited on the train! That afternoon we trailed around the famous HK cheap electronics stores and Karl bought me a camera for my birthday from Mr Li's store. Some sight seeing was in order so we wandered around the town and it's strange because there are so many westerner's who all speak English, the architecture is mostly modern with some old stuff thrown in there and you could easily imagine that you are walking around the back streets of London.

We had some hugely overpriced Kronenbourg 1664 in an Irish bar (which we had been missing terribly!) and then braved the outside of the Chongking Mansions looking for a curry house for dinner. The Mansions in a huge building with retail shops and restaurants, but not any conventional building you may be thinking of. Outside there are hoards of Indian guys fluttering their menu's in your face, and the second I took a cursory glance at one, all of them crowded round us offering us special prices on beers and food if we picked them. When we had selected one which we thought sounded good, we followed him up in the elevator and came out to what can only be described as a floor with flats which had been converted into restaurants. Anyone who watches Little Britain will know what I'm talking about; imagine the scene when Walliams comes home to find his Thai Bride has turned their flat into a Thai Restaurant! The food was good though and we had been longing for curry for a long time so we were satisfied!

If you're in HK and need some beach action, head out to Lama Island which is just a 40 minute boat ride away. You can catch the ferry to one side and head out of the other which allows a really nice walk across the island with some stunning views across the ocean to boot. The people on the island were all really friendly and relaxed and although we didn't test the water out it looked sparkly and blue and everyone was having a good time. That night we watched the famous HK light show in which about 20 large buildings across the river “perform” to music by showing off their high tec lasers and flashing neon lights for about 20 minutes, that was pretty cool but we thought it wasn't a patch on the great light and water show we watched in Xi-an, which surprised us as HK is so much more advanced in many ways.

We then decided to absorb some local culture by checking out the Fire Dragon dance festival in which loads of men light thousand of incense sticks and make the body and head of a dragon and then dance it through the streets. They also create huge fire balls and dance around with them. It was a real sight to behold and the locals were loving it but we were overwhelmed by the smell of the incense burning so only stuck around for half and hour or so.

Maccau:

The journey to Maccau takes around 1&½ hours by boat and although it is back on the China mainland it really does feel like you've travelled to Portugal (well what I imagine it to be like anyway!). It was colonised by the Portuguese for many years and they have their own currency and the religion is predominantly Catholic, which means there are some really nice churches to visit and the architecture is very interesting and quaint. The old fort which contains a fab museum all about Maccau's history was so well laid out we really enjoyed it as a refreshing change in comparison to stuffy old museums we had visited. Maccau is mostly known for it's casino's so we took a cursory look around one of the original ones which was all gilded gold and retro chandeliers and mosaics, to be honest the décor made us both want to puke so we just looked around and then used a free shuttle to get back to the ferry dock! It would have been nice to check out the bigger newer casinos on the other side of the bridge but we couldn't really afford to play any tables so we thought better of leading ourselves into temptation and got the ferry back reasonably early.

China part 5 - Guilin and Yangshuo:

Guilin:

We had taken our longest train to date – 18 hours! But it is amazing how quickly you seem to adjust to these things, it seemed to pass relatively quickly. Just before arriving in Guilin we noticed the landscape changing, instead of rice paddies we were seeing sharply pointed hills dotted around the landscape. This is the area that a lot of people imagine when they think of China, the limestone hills covered in greenery, and here it was laid out in front of us ready to be explored. Guilin itself is a nice little town and has a lot to offer, but unfortunately it seems that someone has realised this and anything that is even remotely touristy has an (overpriced) entrance fee, be it a park, hill shaped like an elephant, or peak that overlooks the town. We did part with some of our hard earned cash but the sights just didn't seem to be value for money, rumour was that Yangshuo 2 hours South is the place to be, so we booked our ticket. The evening before we left redeemed Guilin slightly as we had a nice time wandering the night market and then the tastefully lit lakes.

Yangshuo:


A short bus ride and we were in the small town of Yangshuo. The friendly staff from the guesthouse we had booked came to meet us at the bus station. They were really helpful with any questions we had and sorted out our first excursion – a bamboo boat ride from Xing Ping. We had to get a small local bus to get there over bumpy unmade roads past paddie fields and farmers. Our starting point for the boat ride was a famous Chinese spot, as featured on the back of a Y20 note! The bamboo boat turned out to be made of plastic but we didn't let that take anything away from the incredible landscape sprawled in front of us. It was so peaceful and serene, again our timing was good as on the return journey the sun was setting behind the limestone peaks. This was the China I had dreamt of seeing!

That evening we took to West Street, a backpacker haven of bars, restaurants and clubs that doesn't quite fit with the peaceful setting of Yangshuo. While wandering around we met an Israeli called Asaf who joined us for beers. The following day he came to our hotel so we could all go for a bike ride, at this point we were also joined by a guy we had briefly bumped into the night before, Simon from Ireland. So the 4 of us set off out of town into the dirt tracks between paddie fields and limestone peaks. It was nice to be back with nature after so many big Chinese cities, water buffalo wading the rivers, local farmers going about their business, and butterflies fluttering about. Fran and I both picked up punctures on the unmade road, but luckily there was a friendly Chinese man in his shack doing repairs. While waiting for him to fix the punctures we walked to the river and had a swim in the refreshing blue waters. What a great way to spend a day!

While in Yangshuo we also went to a show that is directed by the same man that put together the opening ceremony for the Olympics, the stage is the river that runs through the town and while parts of the show were impressive the time between scenes while they moved around the boats was a bit much. Fran also took a cookery lesson with Nancy from Hong Kong whom we had eaten with the night before, so you can all look forward to home made Kung Po chicken, spring rolls and beef noodles when we get back! Unfortunately we had booked our onward bus journey while we were in Guilin, otherwise we may well have stayed in Yangshuo for longer as there was still much to do and see.