Despite signing up for one 28 day tour, the tour has actually been split into 2 separate tours although most of the group are doing the full 28 days. Trying to do any blogging or emailing whilst on tour is almost impossible - one, because we never seem to have any time as travelling alot (longest journey has been 30 hours non stop!!!) & second, using internet here in China when everything is in Chinese. Have managed to find a couple of hours whilst in wet Shanghai. This is likely to be the last update until we return to the UK on the 5th May. Hope Gordon Brown will have fixed the economy by then!!
Our trip agenda for the first 14 days has been as follows:
5th to 6th April - Hong Kong: Arrive Hong Kong from Bangkok. Meet up with Alice (who we met in New Zealand) on the evening of the 5th. She brings me a little birthday cake. Weather is wet, but we still go up Victoria Peak for the view over HK (not as good as last time we were here). She then takes us to eat local delicacies (dried fish skin being one, which was delicious) & then later she took us to a pudding shop (gill loved this idea, that there were places that just did puddings). We then visited Ladies Market & Temple Market (but not tempted to buy as seemed quite pricey). We finished off the evening in a HK bar - Bad experience as the entire China budget was blown on one warm beer & 2 fruit juices!!!!). Alice - if you do ever look at the blog, many many thanks for a very enjoyable evening & the pleasure of your company & for my cake . On the 6th, weather was bad again & we spent most of the day trying to find somewhere with US$s for the local balance for Intrepid (this took about 5 hours as it appears all these international banks in HK can't do US $s (even the American banks!!). In the evening we met up with our fellow tour travellers - 3 Brits, 5 Aussies, 1 Kiwi, & 1 Canadian. Our tour guide was a young Chinese girl called Amy (you will see here mainly in pictures where alcohol is involved!).
7th April - Macau: Had a brief one night visit into Macau (get more stamps for the passport)crossing from HK by ferry, before moving into mainland China on the 8th. Basically explored town & the main tourist spots which is the remain front wall of St Paul's Church. Macai is like a mini Las Vegas with 38 casinos. Have a bottle of Portugese wine in the evening for a cost of about 3.50UK pounds.
8th to 11th April - overnight train to Guilin & then bus onto Yangshuo: First overnight train journey was a mere 11 hours, with a couple of bus rides on either end before we got to Yanshuo (a trendy tourist resort surrounded by limestone hills - a bit like Halong Bay in Vietnam but with no water). Main activity here was cycle ride through the paddy fields with a farmhouse lunch. The excursion alos included a climb of half moon hill where we were harresed by local women all the way trying to sell drinks. They climbed all the way with their cool boxes & got very agitated when no one bought any ( they charged too much!). Gill also did a Kung Fu class with the rest of the group (I didn't participate due to doing high kicks not good for the hip & just kept busy as the photographer with 6 cameras). Much of the rest of the time was spent shopping (now have a T shirt with 'No Beer, No Happy' on in Chinese). First shop wanted 20 UK pounds for the T shirt, eventually paid 2.50! All the shops & markets really try to rip you off (more so than the rest of Asia - usually the price is 20% of what they first quote). One evening we went to the famed sound & light show, which was the creation of the guy that organised the opening & closing ceremonies for the Bejing olympics. This was done on water with the limestone hillocks behind.
11th / 12th April - overnight train to Yichang, via Liuzhou: A mammoth 30 hour journey, starting with a coach from Yangshou to Liuzhou (brief stop here for a noodle lunch with sweetcorn & a drink for all of 80p). Then an 18 hour overnight train ride, before another coach took us to our boat on the Yangsi River.
12th to 14th - Boat trip on the Yangsi River: Had 3 nights on the boat in all. Set sail about 4pm (all fast asleep when we finally set off having arrived at the boat in the morning. Amy had nicely warned us to buy booze before getting on the boat as prices were high in the bar (they were - 3.50 UK pounds for a small can of beer). We discovered Chinese 'vodka' which is about 70p for a 1/2 bottle which kept us all going for the 3 days. Although some weakened and bought beer. On the boat trip we also had excursions to the massive dam project as well as the 3 gorges. Main experience of the 3 days was meal times, particularly breakfast & lunch which was a 'bun fight' with the locals in a self service buffet. The locals have no patience & don't care who they push our the way!!!
15th / 16th April - Chengdu: Visited Amy's home town on the way to Chengdu, which was Chongqin. Had a hot pot (HOT!!!!!!) lunch & then caught the train to Chengdu. Here we visited the panda reserve, so loads of pics of pandas. In the evening we went to the Sichuan Opera.
16th to 20th April - Shanghai: First few days in Shanghai were hot, but the weather has now turned. First night we went to the Acrobat show which was excellent, particularly the Wall of Death with 5 motorbikes going around in a small cage. Visited sights around the city & had our farewell dinner with Amy, as technically start another tour with another guide for the next 2 weeks as we head north to Beijing. Last night got to see the Chelsea / Arsenal FA Cup semi final at 12.00 to 2.00am. Unable to find T shirts, we resorted to buying little John Terry & Van Persie figures for Gill & I to show our support. Woke up to find JT in Gill's bed ! - she missed the Chelsea winning goal & crashed out about 1.30. Alos got to hear about Chelsea's great victory over arch rivals Liverpool in the Champions League but never got to see the game, sadly.
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