China
Getting There
Laos
used to be your only overland option, but the border with Vietnam is now
open:
From
Vietnam, Laos and Burma
Since the late 1980s, China has become ever
more accessible from its Southeast Asian neighbours, many of whom have cultural
ties to the People's Republic. Vietnam, which until recently was actually at war
with China, now has two crossings – Dong Dang, 60km northeast of Hanoi, and Lao
Cai, 150km northwest – both open daily 8.30am–5pm. Vietnamese border guards are
notoriously officious, and though just about any problem can be resolved with
some US dollars, things are much easier if your documents are all in order. The
most costly situations arise if you have either overstayed your Vietnamese visa,
or don't have it validated for the particular border crossing you're trying to
use; both will set you back US$20 or more after some hard bargaining.For Dong
Dang, there are good rail and road connections from Hanoi to Lang Son, from
where a minibus can take you the last 5km to the border. Once you're over,
there's an afternoon train (¥40) taking five hours to cover the 170km northeast
to Nanning, Guangxi's capital. Similarly, there are daily trains from Hanoi to
Lao Cai, eleven hours away in Vietnam's mountainous and undeveloped northwest,
where you cross into Yunnan Province at Hekou. An erratic train service runs
from Hekou to the provincial capital, Kunming, but buses are far more reliable –
the sixteen-hour journey costs about ¥90.Crossing into China from Laos also
lands you in Yunnan, this time at Bian Mao Zhan in the Xishuangbanna region.
Formalities are apparently very relaxed and unlikely to cause any problems, and
there's a regular supply of inter-village minibuses for the 220km from here to
the regional capital, Jinghong, with a likely overnight stop in the town of
Mengla along the way. Entering China from Burma is an interesting possibility
too, with the old Burma Road cutting northeast from Rangoon (Yangon) to Lashio
and the crossing at Wanding in Yunnan. It isn't officially open, however, though
the country's tourist situation is very volatile and it's certainly worth making
enquiries when applying for your Burmese visa.
There's some decent info
about trains/buses in the above paragraph, but it's probably best to have a
backup plan in case it doesn't work out. In fact, I'd strongly suggest going by
a Vietnamese consulate before you leave India to check that the border is still
open. (Of course if you go through Laos you can visit the Plain of Jars on your
way, I would love to see that someday.)
General Info
Bought
my fair share of DVDs and North Face gear. I must have got hit up by at least
500 people to buy DVDs. We had some very tasty food as well. It was interesting
to see some of the places that were in the last Amazing Race, especially the Yu
Yuan gardens.
Lastly, the traffic is worse than anything I've ever seen.
Complete chaos. Cars, bikes, pedestrians, etc. Manhattan is tame compared to
Shanghai.
I was in china back in '91. the bik traffic was horrendous back
then and I'm sure the car traffic is 100 times worse than it was. China is
definitely a place I'd recommend though, and I'd love to go again some
day.
Overview - We traveled in China for two and a half weeks,
from October 28 to November 14, 2005. We visited Beijing, Luoyang and
Xi’an.
Guidebooks – For Beijing, we relied mostly on The Rough
Guide to Beijing. For the rest of the trip, we used Let’s Go China 2005. Both
were well-organized and informative, though the maps in Let’s Go were not
terribly accurate.
BEIJING
Getting There – We got
tickets through http://www.skyauction.com/home.do,
which worked very well. We flew from Denver to Portland, OR, to Tokyo, to
Beijing. Overall travel time was about 16 hours. There are ATMs in the airport,
which seems like the easiest way to get cash upon arrival. We traveled by taxi
to our hostel (see below), which was near the city center. There are lots of
people claiming to be taxi drivers waiting for you just outside the
international arrivals area, but you’re better off avoiding them. Signs in
English direct you toward the taxi rank outside. Uniformed police will direct
you to a cab and may also be helpful in telling the cabbie where to take you.
Our taxi driver got us directly to the hostel with very little fuss. It cost 105
RMB; 95 for the fare, plus 10 for the expressway toll.
Hostel – We
stayed five nights at the Far East International Youth Hostel, which was very
nice. It’s in two different buildings, a newer one and an old courtyard house.
We stayed in the old building, which was charming but had certain
eccentricities. The toilets are out in the courtyard, but they keep the toilet
paper in the kitchen. The rooms are clean and have sinks/mirrors and probably
had the most comfortable beds we slept on during our trip (save one). Lockers
big enough for our backpacks were included with our basic deposit, which was
also a plus.
The ambience of the courtyard was interesting, though it was
a bit cold for us to hang out outdoors at night. The shop/tourist office in the
courtyard was quite handy. 1.5 litre bottles of water for 3 RMB, 1 liter bottles
of Tsingtao for 2 RMB – can’t beat that.
We also ended up staying one
night in the Great Wall Sheraton, which was kind of odd after spending so long
in the hostel. It was fancy and like any Sheraton anywhere. A Filipina lounge
act plays nightly downstairs, and the rooms are as comfortable as any upscale
hotel. It was free for us (long story) but I think the rooms cost something like
$225 US/night.
When we returned to Beijing before heading home, we spent
two nights in the Saga HI Youth Hostel. We’d heard a lot of good things from
other travelers, but it wasn’t very close to anything of interest or close to
the subway. The rooms and beds were fine, though the showers were a little
weird. One of the attractions to Saga is the proximity to the airport shuttle
bus – we had to get to the airport really early in the morning, and it was a 10
minute walk from our hostel to the shuttle stop.
Sights/Activities
– We joined up with a tour group through the hostel to the Great Wall. The tour
we chose was for a hike from Jinshanling to Simatai,
about 10km, which was absolutely amazing. It was 90 RMB per person for the
round-trip bus (though the very next day, November 1, the price dropped to 70
RMB, the off-season rate), which was about a three-hour ride, plus 60 per person
for admission to two sections of the wall and 5 per person for a bridge
crossing. After a short hike, we didn’t see any tourists other than the other
people from our bus. On the Great Wall, there are tons of locals who will try to
sell you water/Coke/beer, postcards/books/t-shirts, or appoint themselves as
your tour guides. Most of them speak enough English to understand a basic “No,”
but a few choice phrases in Chinese can help a lot.
For such a big city,
Beijing is surprisingly easy to explore on foot. Much of our time there was
spent simply wandering – just watching day-to-day life in the hutongs
is a fascinating way to while away an afternoon. We spent quite a while doing
that, just wandering and observing city life. When we weren’t walking we were on
the subway, which has a limited reach, but is convenient to use.
We
visited two temples in Beijing – the first was a Tibetan Buddhist temple, Yonghe
Gong, also known as the Lama Temple. It’s an interesting place, but a little too
touristy to feel especially spiritual. The highlight is the 18-meter tall
Maitreya Buddha, carved from the trunk of a single sandalwood tree. It is to say
the least, impressive. The second temple was Baiyun Guan, the
White Cloud, a Taoist temple. This one is much quieter, more peaceful. During
our visit, we only saw one other Westerner, and most of the people there seemed
to be devotees.
We spent a lovely afternoon in Tiantan Park, which
contains several museums and the Imperial Vault of
Heaven, the Temple of Heaven, the Echo Wall, and The Hall of Prayer for Good
Harvests. The latter was undergoing repair while we were there (as were aspects
of many of the attractions we saw – everything is being gussied up for the
Olympics).
The
Forbidden City is impressive, definitely a must-see, though in my opinion,
it doesn’t really warrant the entire day that guidebooks seem to insist it does.
I donno…I might have been more into it if we had gotten the Roger Moore-narrated
audio tour and gotten more in-depth info on what I was seeing. Still, quite a
sight, overall. It’s kind of interesting just in that it feels like a huge
series of temples, but you also know that the emperor and his wives, concubines,
and eunuchs actually lived there. (Mle’s favorite part was the Imperial Garden
on the north end). I also got my best
photo of the whole trip there.
Food – As we’ve mentioned
elsewhere, we ate a lot of street
food in China. Jianbing is the local Beijing street food specialty – a
pancake and egg with scallions, cilantro and sesame seeds wrapped around a bit
of fried dough, and absolutely delicious. There are lots of places to find a
variety of pastries, too.
As far as restaurants go, our biggest night out
was at the Hepingmen branch of the Quanjude Roast Duck restaurant. I’d heard the
term “Peking Duck” before without really knowing what it meant; it’s definitely
worth seeking out. Pancakes, roast duck, plum sauce and onions all wrapped up
together…yummy!
The language barrier can make eating out a bit tough.
Even places that advertise an English menu aren’t always easy. We went to the
“restaurant of Muslim” in the hutong near our hostel that had an English menu. I
ordered “fried mutton” and got a salad plate of mutton, onions and peppers. Mle
ordered “chicken with pastry” and got an enormous serving platter loaded with
chicken, veggies, sauce and a yummy pastry, which could have fed six
people.
Shopping – Bargaining is the order of the day, of course.
Silk Alley, the most famous and touristy shopping center, is an overwhelming
experience. Everyone shouting at you, “Hey, sir, lady, come look!” You can’t
show the slightest interest in anything without being harassed. They don’t seem
to understand that the aggressive hard-sell is really off-putting to a lot of
Westerners. We had a slightly better experience at a lesser-known market in
Sanlitun near Worker’s Stadium, but it was still fairly aggravating. We probably
could have gotten some reasonable deals on clothes if we’d had the energy for
bargaining hard, but their starting prices were way too high and many merchants
weren’t willing to drop especially low. We got the feeling that many Westerners
either don’t bother to bargain or think “it’s Chinese money so it must be cheap”
without doing the math. We weren’t as easy marks as some others might have been,
and there are always enough other tourists who will pay the outrageous
prices.
We got lots of good deals on souvenirs and gifts, though, mostly
at the Panjiayuan Market in the southeast of the city (only open on weekends).
Start low, stand your ground, and don’t betray too much interest. We had a lot
of luck pointing out how many other places we could get the item we were looking
at.
LUOYANG
Getting There – We took an overnight
train from Beijing, which got into Luoyang an hour or so late. We went with hard
sleeper berths, which worked out well. According to other travelers we spoke
with, soft sleeper berths aren’t a whole lot fancier, but quite a bit more
expensive. We were quite happy with two top bunks – a bit more privacy and
access to luggage storage.
Hotel – We stayed at the Lijing Men
Hotel, which is built into the base of the old city walls. The room was
adequate, though the bed was very odd. Rock-hard in some spots, soft as foam
rubber in others, and source of dozens of weird noises. Still, it was a private
room with a western-style toilet for 100 RMB a night (about $12.50), so it’s
hard to complain too much. And the location is
great.
Sights/Activities – We were in Luoyang for two reasons –
the Longmen Grottoes and the Shaolin Temple.
The Longmen Grottoes are
amazing – thousands
of Buddhas carved into the cliffs, ranging in size from a few
centimeters to 17
meters tall. Many are missing heads, but even that can’t detract from the
mind-blowing grandeur of the place. It’s easy to get to from the city – bus #53
or #81 will get you there. It’s the last stop on both lines, and pretty much
impossible to miss.
The Shaolin Temple was not really worth it, in my
opinion. Getting there isn’t too hard – you can book a bus from the city’s bus
station, which cost us 14 RMB each. We thought we were getting round-trip
tickets, and we may have, but the return bus charged us 14 more, one way or the
other. The Temple itself was kinda-sorta fun, but too expensive at 100 RMB a
head. The mountain
setting is a nice way to escape the pollution of the cities, though. The kung
fu exhibition comes free with admission and is the best part of visiting
Shaolin.
We enjoyed just walking around the city of Luoyang and spending
time in parks, watching people live their lives and play with their children.
Children have the most interesting reactions to tourists – brave ones even said
“hello” to us before giggling and/or running away. The old city of Luoyang
(inside the walls) is also a nice place to see people living as they’ve lived
for generations, and great for people-watching.
Food – We had one
of the best meals of the trip in a tiny noodle house in the Old City; two giant
bowls of noodles, veggies and broth for 6 RMB total. That’s a very satisfactory
dinner for two for about $0.75. We ate mostly from grocery stores for our brief
stay in Luoyang. Dairy products are still fairly new in China, and they’ve got
the hang of yoghurt pretty well, but I’d stay away from Chinese
cheese.
XI’AN
Getting There – It’s a shorter trip
from Luoyang to Xi’an, so we took a day train, with Hard Seat tickets. The ride
was fun and fairly uneventful, but not without its oddities. Our tickets were
for assigned seats, but when the train began boarding, everyone shoved to get on
like Christmas shoppers going after the last Cabbage Patch Kid. Maybe they just
dig shoving, I don’t know. Anyway, we got through the mob and found our seats
and settled in for the five-hour ride. On the plus side, we were surrounded by
women, so it was a rare cigarette-smoke-free moment. On the minus side, we were
sitting right next to the toilet, and people kept leaving the door open, sharing
special smells with everyone in the vicinity.
Hostel – The hostel
in Xi’an, the Shuyuan Youth Hostel, was probably the best of the trip. It’s easy
to reach from the train station; just hop on the #603 or #608 bus and listen for
the announcement for the Nanmen stop. This hostel is close to the south gate of
the city wall and in walking distance to a good many of Xi’an’s attractions and
shopping. Like the hostel in Beijing, it was built in an old courtyard house.
Unlike the one in Beijing, it had an indoor lounge where we could hang out
without freezing our butts off. The beer wasn’t quite as cheap as in Beijing,
but it was fun to meet the other backpackers and a few locals who hung out there
to practice their English. We spent our first evening chatting with a girl who
teaches English to middle schoolers, and who wanted us to explain the lyrics of
Celine Dion’s timeless classic, “My Heart Will Go On” to her so she could
explain to her students. It took a while, but I think we finally convinced her
that it’s just a stupid, badly written song, and it doesn’t really make any
sense in English or Chinese.
Sights/Activities – Obviously, the
biggest draw of Xi’an is the Terra
Cotta Army, and it doesn’t disappoint. It’s easy to reach on the #306 bus
from the train station, roughly a 45-minute ride. It’s a bit more expensive than
many attractions at 90 RMB, but it’s worth every jiao. The site is divided into
three vaults – Vault #1 is the most impressive. There’s not much to see in Vault
#2 apart from a few soldiers that have been put in glass cases, which allows for
a great close-up view. The guidebooks say that there’s a war chariot in Vault
#3, but if it’s there, it’s well hidden, because we didn’t see it.
The
Terra Cotta Army isn’t the only site worth seeing in Xi’an. We spent an
afternoon on rented
bicycles riding around on top of the city walls, which was great fun. Bike
rental was 15 RMB for 90 minutes, though I suspect that they know you’re not
going to get all the way around the 14km circumference of the walls in the
allotted time (unless you just tear through and never stop to see the view, take
photos, or make out behind guard towers), so they’re all but guaranteed an extra
5 RMB when you go overtime. Admission to the wall is 40 RMB, and you can just
walk around if you don’t want to rent a bike. Definitely worth doing.
We
also checked out the city’s two famous pagodas, the Big
Wild Goose Pagoda, which is in the middle of a park filled with interesting
art and pay toilets, and the Little
Wild Goose Pagoda, which is actually bigger than the Big Goose. For an extra
10 RMB on top of the 18 to get into the park, you can climb to the top of the
Little Goose, which is fun, although there’s not all that much to
see.
Xi’an marked the eastern end of the Silk Road, and as such it has a
large Muslim population. The Muslim quarter is fun to wander through, and the
little alleyways are easy to get lost in. The main street and main alleyway in
the Muslim quarter are much more touristy, both with Western tourists and
Chinese tourists, than we were expecting. It wasn’t exactly super authentic, but
still fun to peruse the shops and restaurants. Follow the red signs to the Great
Mosque, which is definitely worth the 12 RMB admission price. It’s an
interesting mix of Chinese architecture and Muslim symbolism, and remains a
place of worship. The alleyway leading to the Mosque is a great place to shop
for souvenirs and trinkets. Again, bargain hard for
everything.
Food – Again, a lot of street food and grocery
shopping. It’s worth mentioning that Chinese apples are, without question, the
best apples ever. The Muslim quarter is swarming with places that make strange
little red hockey-puck-sized fried pastry things, which are delicious and, like
a lot of what we got from street vendors in China, hard to describe, especially
since we don’t know the proper name for them.
We went out one night with
a guy from the hostel for hotpot, which was excellent. For those who are not
familiar, each table in a hotpot restaurant has a propane burner in the center,
on which they put a pot of broth – in this case divided into spicy and
not-so-spicy halves. You choose from a wide selection of skewered veggies,
mystery meats, bread and tofu, then drop it into the boiling broth to cook. I
was a big fan of the fish balls, mostly because it was a source of endless
humor. Hee hee. Fish balls. Hee hee. At the end of the meal, they count the
number of skewers you took and charge you accordingly. The restaurant charged us
for napkins, dipping sauce, and pretty much anything else they could think of. I
don’t think they charged us for chopsticks, but they probably would have if they
thought that they could get away with it. One of the delights of being a
Westerner in China, I guess.
We ate lunch one day at a place called
Chinese Fast Food Restaurant, which was pretty good, and worth visiting just for
the name. MLE had some soup very much like minestrone with a few added
ingredients.
Curiosity drove us into KFC
for dinner one night. Not all that different from KFC back home in the good ol’
USA, which is to be expected. They do have a really tasty orange drink, which
tastes like real orange juice with a bit of passionfruit or something mixed in
instead of the Hi-C orange drink you’d get at an American fast food place. We
got better fried chicken (on a stick, no less) from a small vendor next door to
a KFC. At least, I’m pretty sure it was chicken. Could have been rat, I guess,
but it was deep fried and brushed with a spicy sauce, and it was damn tasty.
After that, we ate a poo
log on a stick.
Shopping – Xi’an is very, very commercial;
much more commercial even than Beijing seemed to be. There’s shopping of all
kinds and all price levels to be done just about anywhere in the city. As
mentioned before, the market in the Muslim Quarter near the Great Mosque is the
best place to go for knickknacks and tchotchkes and geegaws in Xi’an. Pretty
much every vendor is selling replica Terra Cotta Warriors in a wide variety of
colors and sizes. There’s another outdoor market area between shops selling
mostly art supplies east of the South Gate. Several of the vendors will carve a
name seal with the Chinese version of a Western last name – again, bargain
down.
Language Issues – We didn’t have too many problems with
language. We stumbled through with our phrasebook, and people who really needed
to convey something were able to get it across mostly with pantomime and
pointing. I think knowing some Chinese would make the trip more enjoyable, but
it’s surprisingly unnecessary. There are quite a few people who speak pretty
good English, especially younger people. There were a couple of occasions where
we had people write out things in Chinese characters for us, which was quite
helpful. This is very handy for taxi drivers, or when buying train tickets.
Vendors in markets also generally speak enough English to bargain
effectively.
Navigating is generally pretty easy. Most street signs are
in Chinese characters and Roman letters. Signage at tourist attractions is
usually in Chinese and English, as well.
Cultural Issues – The
biggest culture shock issue is the Chinese lack of a concept of privacy. They
will quite openly stare at Westerners walking down the street. In Luoyang, we
were the only Westerners in town, which made us the subject of a lot of stares.
Even in the much more touristy cities of Beijing and Xi’an, we got constant
stares. This lack of privacy extends to some public bathrooms – some bathrooms
have stalls with no doors.
Speaking of bathrooms, let’s take a moment to
consider the sublime beauty of the squat toilet. I’ll try to spare you the gory
details – suffice to say that finding a western toilet is all but essential, if
possible, for certain eliminatory functions. And bring your own toilet paper,
because they don’t stock it in public restrooms. Also, the sinks only sometimes
work, so we were very glad of our little bottles of hand sanitizer. The worst
bathroom was in one of the train stations and consisted of stalls built over a
trough in the ground that had some water running through it; however, not enough
to wash away anything that had been done before, so it was about as fun as
peeing over an open sewer. MLE nearly barfed.
Spitting is unavoidable. It
was at its worst in Beijing, but fairly common in the other cities, too. You
can’t go two minutes on a street without hearing someone hawking up something
foul, and sidewalks are a little like minefields.
Smoking is equally
popular, at least amongst men. When Mle moved to Colorado from California, she
was a little shocked to go into restaurants and be asked “Smoking or non?” In
China, they won’t ask that question, but for the opposite reason: there’s
essentially no such thing as non-smoking. They smoke in restaurants, on buses
and trains, in stores, while cooking… It’s everywhere. The pollution is bad
enough, but wading through constant clouds of cigarette smoke on top of that is
a special treat.
Safety – We never really felt threatened at all
during the whole trip. There was a moment where I thought a kid might be trying
to pick my pocket, but I revised my opinion of that. Crime was never really on
our minds. It’s quite safe for a tourist to go just about anywhere or do just
about anything. MLE would have felt fine going anywhere at night by herself. The
worst that might happen would be to be aggressive panhandling or being ripped
off by having to pay too much in a cab (make sure you tell them to use the meter
and always look at it before they stop the cab). There are some scams, mentioned
in the guidebooks, but nothing to make one feel personally unsafe.
Well,
that’s not quite true. Being a pedestrian is a matter of taking your life into
your own hands every moment. Chinese drivers are batshit crazy. They basically
do anything they feel like doing, and honk their horns constantly while doing
it. Green lights and walk signals are far from a guarantee of safety while
crossing the street. We found that the best strategy was to cross when everyone
else did – the safety-in-numbers theory. That said, we actually only saw one
minor traffic accident during our entire trip. They’re crazy and scary as hell,
but they make it work somehow. When riding on a bus or in a cab, it’s best not
to watch what the driver is doing, because you will go insane if you
do.
Also, sidewalks are being torn up/replaced or nonexistent in some
places, and highly uneven in others. MLE nearly broke her leg stepping on a
manhole cover that wasn’t actually stable and will probably have her bruise ‘til
2006. Watch your step!
In Conclusion…
We saw a tiny little
bit of what China has to offer. We’re already thinking about what we’ll see when
we go back. Ultimately, I hiked six miles on the Great Wall of China. Everything
on top of that is gravy. Mle saw the Terra Cotta Army, something she’s wanted to
see for her entire life. How can you beat that?
The main reason we went
to China when we did was because it’s changing incredibly quickly, not only
Beijing preparing for the Olympics (although that’s a huge part of it), but also
that the country is trying to industrialize and catch up to the rest of the
first world as fast as possible. Things are disappearing and changing so
quickly. We wanted to see what it was like in Beijing before the Olympics
changes the city forever.
Also, we really like Chinese food.
Of
course, there, they just call it food.That's a fun report and brings back a lot
of great memories for me. Yes, there is a good reason that non-Chinese can't
rent cars in the city...who in their right mind would want to? Being a
pedestrian there is a lot like playing frogger. Wait for an opening and go for
it.
Re the beggers/panhandlers: I only saw one in both Shanghai and
Beijing. I've read that THE MAN cracks down on them big time and probably sends
them to work (re-education) camps. In Shanghai I saw an undercover cop strong
arm a knock-off watch peddler along the river. I bet that guy isn't having a
good time.
Yeah, the streets are filled with the lovely sounds of people
coughing up lung cookies.
Yeah, the bathrooms can be truely frightening
and the Chinese seem to have no modesty. I remember being in Shanghai at the
famous Yu Yuan Garden and seeing a kid (about 5) being directed to pop a squat
in the planter right next to a busy walkway.
