kez & hay travels 06

Arrived late Sunday and was great to see the hundreds of looming tower blocks with their dancing lights as we taxied our way to friend's (Gary) flat.  So nice to have, again, a flat with washing machine, kitchen and "Friends" and "Best of Peter Kay".  In the next few days we explored the great night life of down-town HK, took the tram up to the Peak, visited a local island (which was quite sereal as was only 30 minutes away by boat but was the opposite of life in HK - i.e peaceful!).  One of the highlights was taking the ferry over to HK mainland and watching the night show on the island - about 30 of the huge sky scraper buildings took part in a 15 minute show where lazers and lights would jump from one building to the next to the rhythm of music - Fantastic.

After leaving Ping'An we headed straight down to the south of Guilin to a small backpackers village called Yangshuo, (apparently this means "Kerry" in Chinese).  Yangshuo sits on the Li River and is surrounded by hundreds of Karst hills (see photos).   We bartered our way to a cheap river cruise up the Li River, which was very idyllic and Hayley got snappy happy with the camera. The next 2 days we planned bike trips galore, but unfortunately it poured down so we replaced the cycling excursions for brunch and a dvd. Kerry also did a Tai'Chi class to find her Ying and Yang, and we both did a 1 hour calligraphy class - we were told that the art of calligraphy promotes a healthy life style, we didn't really understand how but the class was very relaxing. After a couple of days of not doing much we boarded our first overnight bus trip - Oh what joy - this has been the worst trip yet. With beds up front of the bus we tried to settle down for a 12 hour journey of neverending bumpy roads, ..... Eventually arrived in Macau to a heavy downpour and we got our "Entente Cordial" macs out - you'll be pleased to hear Kevin! We met Jim (Kerry's flatmate at Uni) who has been living here for the past 3 years, and stayed at his for 2 nights. Glued to the sky tv for a lot of the time, we did do some sightseeing! We saw the Portuguese fortresses, 17th century Baroque churches and sampled the Macanese food and Portuguese port. Macau is a weird combination of European style buildings surrounded by collosal Casino giants. Casinos are continuously popping up making way for the Las Vegas of Asia. Getting ready now for the bright lights of Hong Kong.

Arriving at 2.00 am at what we thought was Guilin train station we spent a few minutes arguing with the taxi man about the correct route to our hostel.  He won though when we realised our departing station was actually a few miles outside of Guilin - ooops.  After spending the last part of the morning sleeping we boarded a minibus for a 3 hour trip to Ping'An, a small hill-top village surrounded by one of the most extraordinarily extreme rice terracing that exists in China.  The rice paddies stretch for miles on top of enormous hills.  We did a 4 hour trek across these hills (which I'm sure was 90% uphill) - enough exercise to last us a couple of years!  We encountered many Zhuang women (the local community) who are apparently internationally renowned for having the longest hair in the world!

Our next destination should have been Guilin, but with no available train seats we took a detour to Guiyang.  With only half the distance of most of our previous trips we went at half the speed so once again we had a 18 hour train ride.  However we went through some amazing scenery at the foot of hundreds and hundreds of lime stone hills. We also made friends with our neighbours on the train who were a large group of teachers from a school in Guiyang.  Consequently we were invited to visit their school.  So when we arrived at Guiyang the next day we found their school and were greeted as if we were royalty.  We went around the school which had 1000 pupils for 50 teachers!!!  The children were very excited to see a couple of "foreigners" at their school and we soon had our own entourage!  We were then invited to lunch with 2 English teachers and the headteacher who spoke no english but was very talkative to us all the same.  In the afternoon one of the English teachers, Zhouting, gave up her free afternoon to be our personal tour guide around Qiangling Shan Park.  This park was beautiful with a large working Monastery at the top of the hills.  The park was also inundated with monkeys. We then went back to the school to say our goodbyes and we were invited yet again for an afternoon snack of cold noodles and chili - suprisingly very good.  The friendliness of the school made our trip to Guiyang very memorable.  Thanks again Dong Shan Primary School.

Chengdu was a nice laid-back city and after checking into our hostel we hired bikes and went exploring.  We found the "People's Park" where we relaxed at the Teahouse by the lake for a couple of hours.  The park was full of locals dancing and singing, and when we found a group doing Chinese style line-dancing we couldn't resist joining in.  After a few dances they asked us to teach them "disco dance", and surrounded by 50 locals we went into a Whigfield Saturday night routine.  Not only did they copy our routine but they probably all think thats how Brits dance back home - sorry guys! 
Next day it was early to rise, despite the fact that we had had no sleep due to 2 very loud male snorers in dormitory room.  We headed to the Panda Reserve next to Chengdu and got there just in time to see them eating their breakfast of bamboo and more bamboo.  The park is a breeding reserve where they rely heavily on artificial insemination as Panda's apparently our reluctant to mate (too busy eating and sleeping), plus the fact the male member is far too small!

Before catching night train to Pingyao we posted our winter clothes onto New Zealand.  Confident that the weather was getting warmer, you can imagine our joy when we woke up to 3 inches of snow at Pingyao.  With no gloves or hat we spent the first 3 hours in this beautiful walled city cycling around looking for an ATM Machine.  Ironically this small city was the first place in the world to bank a cheque but nowadays you can't find a cash point for love nor money!!!  Our hostel was in the centre of the walled city and was a typical Chinese courtyard from the Quing Dynasty.  The bed was wall-to-wall and filled half the room.  Pingyao was beautiful and all the houses within the city walls dated from the 700's.  The people were very friendly and again amused at seeing 2 foreigners riding around on bikes!

Back on the train - top bunk - we travelled overnight to Xian.  Although this is a walled city it is 50 times bigger than Pingyao, and it is quite hard to believe that this huge city has the original city walls still intact.  This city has a large Muslim population and we went to see the Great Mosque (the biggest in China).  The next day we went to the Terra-Cotta Warriors independent of a organised trip, so we were very proud of ourselves for saving a grand total of 4 pounds each!  As you can imagine the Terra-Cotta Warriors were fascinating - there were hundreds of warriors restored and lined up in the vaults, but there were still thousands yet to be restored.  It is hard to believe that these thousands of terra-cotta warriors were hidden from public knowledge for centuries, even though they were only a few metres below ground. 

Next day was Easter Sunday and we had a 18 hour train journey to look forward to.  Despite our efforts we could not find any chocolate to make up for the lack of Easter eggs.  we had to settle for 2 pots of noodles!

Arrived in Beijing and said a sad farewell to our Mongolian companions of the past 36 hours. 
Our hostel, situated in a Hutong north-east of Tian'anmen Square, was a restored heritage home typical of a chinese courtyard hostel - it was beautiful.
We hired bikes and explored the labyrinthine hutongs and somehow ended up riding onto a main road.  There is definitely an art to riding a bike in Beijing.  Firstly, there are no rules, so bikes go both ways down the cycle lane, buses and taxis enter the cycle lane and people walk on the cycle lane.  Secondly, when the traffic lights go green at crossroads, the best thing is to make sure you are in the middle of a crowd of bikers crossing the same way as you, and then let them guide you along.  Lastly be prepared to be laughed at, as fellow bikers appear highly amused to see foreigners riding bikes.
Visited the Forbidden City, Tian'anmen Square and the Temple of Heaven.  All were extremely beautiful especially the Temple of Heaven.  Unfortunately there is a lot of renovation work going on in preperation for the Olympics so this meant that we were unable to see all the buildings.

We took a day trip to the Great Wall at Mutianyu which is a restored part of the wall but less touristy.  The day was quite hazy which was a shame because the mountains seemed to roll on forever.  We walked up to the wall which was hard work in itself and then set off for a couple of hours trek along the wall.  It was incredible to think how this wall was made as it is soooo steep at times, so much so that we had to crawl up the steps.  It was incredible - the photos speak for themselves really.  After so many hours walking we thought we deserved the tourist trap of a toboggan ride all the way down to the foot of the mountain - great fun.

After 4 days in Beijing we took the night train to the small walled town of Pingyao.