12.5
I haven't written for a while, been doing so much relaxing that I haven't had had the time. What have we been up to? Well, we went to this monastery with a gigantic buddha statue, we went to another monastery that was fairly big, not much to say about it. Oh, and we went to see pandas today. They were kind of cool, although if it would have been up to me we would have left significantly earlier. Event though they are cute and everything, enough is enough.
8.5
Just got back from jogging for the first time in over a week, it was great even though jogging in the middle of chinese morning rush hour is quite an experience.
After a whole day of planning and deliberating, we've decided to go to both nepal and tibet. The train to tibet leaves next thursday( it takes a while to get all the necessary permits). We'll spend five nights in lhasa, after which we will fly to kathmandu. How long we are going to be in kathmandu is not decided. Depending on the weather we either just stay in kathmandu and then fly to south east asia, or we go hiking and see mt everest.
7.5
We had a early wake-up today, at 6.20. Apparently we had not paid enough for the hotel, so the hotel staff decided to wake us at 6.20 and ask for more money. After some long negotiations, which were mainly conducted by our chinese friends, it all worked out.
Off to Chengdu.
We found the hostel, definitely the nicest place I've been to in mainland China, but then again it is also the most expensive. Only thing that annoys me is that many of the other guests dress like hippies.
Me and Annika were disappointed to find out that we can't do both Tibet and Nepal due to that it takes a week to get the necessary permits for Tibet and that doesn't leave us enough time to then travel to Nepal to hike due to the monsoon season. In addition to that, it turns out that Tibet is ridiculously expensive due to that we need a "guide" with us, this because pro-tibet activists have ruined it for everyone. So, if me and annika were to go, it would be RMB3000/each plus transportation, meals, etc. Long story short, we've decided to go to either Nepal or Tibet, we can not do both. Tomorrow we are to decide which one we are going to visit.
6.5
Arrived in chongqing, this mere unknown city inhabited by 10 million. Me and Annika definitely overslept this morning, we thought we would arrive here at 9 am, but the "firealarm" went off around 7, i.e. we arrived two hours in advance.
I'll definitely complain to lonely planet as soon as I get online, all the sites we've visited(which have been recommended by lonely planet) today have been major disappointments. At least we realized before we paid for the first one that its no good. Unfortunately this was not so at the second one, not until after we've paid entrance did we realized it definitely was not worth visiting, I'm expecting lonely planet to reimburse me for this.
5.5
We are so completely lost here, we have no idea what is going on. Due to our bad experience yesterday, we decided to get up in time today, so we got up at seven. We were quite worried that even this was too late because the fire alarm(the fire alarm works as an alarm to pretty much everything on the boat) had gone off already at six. We got down to the mess hall to find out that apparently today there is no program before 3.30, thank you for telling us. We ate some breakfast and then headed back to bed, this because we learned yesterday that you should eat whenever you have the chance because you don't know when you get food the next time.
Just got back from a temple of some sorts, not bad at all. I'll put some pics up.
In addition to seeing the temple, we've made friends with a Chinese family. We met them already yesterday, but we made a breakthrough today. As it looks now we are to do some site seeing with them tomorrow in Chongqing. They seem nice, although I find it quite difficult to communicate with them due to that only one of them knows any english, and that english is shaky at best. But Annika's had the possibility to practice her Chinese, although in my opinion every second thing she tells them is that she doesn't understand.
4.5
We are so completely lost here, we have no idea what is going on. We got up today to go and take some pictures of the sunset, all of a sudden we are told that we are to get off this boat to go to some other boat. Apparently there is not much time, so we ran down to the restaurant to get some breakfast(not very good).
Me and Annika have probably posed with THIRTY different people we've never met in our life today. As a reason one of the Chinese stated that "you are special, like monkeys". I guess there is not a lot of westerners in these parts of china because people seriously stair, and kids scream out loud in "foreigner, foreigners".
Other than being subjected to constant photographing, we saw really nice parts of the Yangzi river, I'll post some pictures.
Again in the evening we were all of a sudden told that we need to get off the boat to go somewhere, so we obey. But once we get off we are told it costs extra, so we ended up staying in the town where they threw us out. We had some food to eat and were amusement to the locals.
3.5
We were told to be at the bus station at 7 for the bus, but as we didn't know where the bus station was and how long it would take us we decided to leave at six. We were at the bus station at 6.20. Turns out the bus didn't leave until 7.40, and it wasn't exactly warm at the bus station.
I can't really say anything else about Yichang than that, its probably the nicest chinese city I've been to so far. Everything is not dirty and past their due date, you don't see kids taking a dump in the middle of the busiest shopping street in the city, and in general the atmosphere was pretty nice to be in China.
The comment about a kid taking a dump in the middle of the street refers to something I saw in Wuhan. A mom was assisting her kid take a shit in the middle of THE busiest shopping street in the city. Thats China.
Did see the Three Gorges Dam before we got to the ship that would take us to Chongqing. The dam was kind of a disappointment, far smaller than i expected.
The boat, well. At first we were pleasantly surprised, until we saw the room where we were supposed to sleep. Annika was handling it, until one of our EIGHT room mates started smoking in the room and offering us cigarets. I can't really say that I blame her, if we are going to stay on this boat for 3 nights I would definitely stay in another room, so we decided to upgrade. After some bargaining we got upgraded to first class. Its the first time I travel first class, and I can't say that it is something special.
2.5
The whole day we tried to get tickets to Chongqing, its not so easy when no one speaks English. In the end we managed to get tickets. We are going to travel first to Yichang, then to Chongqing by boat. We didn't really do anything else the whole day than get tickets for the trip.
I did learn some Chinese though, perhaps most importantly i learned to say in Chinese that something is too expensive. I also know how to buy cold beer.
1.5
Finally, we are out for HK. It took us only 28h to travel from PE to Shenzhen. Apparently the whole of china is traveling now, they have the whole week of due to labor day. We tried to get train tickets, but everything is full today and tomorrow. We decided to see if PRC officials know what standby tickets are, so we took a taxi to the airport. Unfortunately they do not know what standby tickets are. We ended up paying RMB850 for a ticket to Wuhan. As a sidenote it can be mentioned that this price is down from 1050, so apparently you can bargain at the Chinese Civil Aviation Authority.
We arrived in Wuhan some time after dark, took the bus to the city. Once we got of the bus it was raining like crazy. The map we had in Lonely Planet was of zero help, but nonetheless we tried to find some place to stay. After I've been carrying both mine and Annika's luggage for a while we decided to take a taxi and search for a place to stay, I think it was the 8th place we went to that had room for us.
