Hainan – China’s Hawaii

Hello all – celebrity blogger Fran again. We arrived in Hainan on a sleeper train from Guangzhou which was an experience in itself. We got caught in a massive downpour and flooding in Guangzhou which resulted in Rich wading through knee high rain water (mixed with overflowing drain water – nice!) to find an ATM. I was nice and dry in the train station guarding the bags – thanks Rich. Unfortunately, it took about an hour to find an ATM that would accept our card which left us with about 20mins to buy a ticket and get on the train. Being without our STA tour guide at a train station with no English anywhere and no logical system was a bit frustrating. We finally made it onto the train with no ticket as a helpful ticket lady decided to escort us all the way through the security checks and barriers and shoved us on the train minutes before it left. Luckily we were able to buy tickets for two beds from the conductor.

Hainan is an Island off the bottom of China. There is no land connection so ingeniously the train is dismantled and put coach by coach onto a ferry. This involved quite a bit of shunting at 7am in the morning and sadly no view of the crossing other than looking into other train carriages – the next carriage got a shock seeing Rich and I in our pyjamas when we opened the curtains!

The train carriage inside a ferry – not something you see everyday!

Hainan itself was great. Everywhere in mainland China was very busy. They have so many people crammed into each city. Hainan was far less crowded though the traffic in some villages was still appalling!

How to get one family on a moped – who needs a Chelsea tractor!

The capital, Haikou, was impressive and modern with its smart buildings and wide avenues. As with all of China, people live in high rise apartment blocks but in Haikou these were less crammed in. John & Susu’s apartment was lovely – large open plan living area and two bedrooms. The living area was double aspect with a balcony either end. The position of the block was good too being adjacent to a water inlet from the sea and one block back from the sea front. The view took in other parts of Hainan, the sea and the impressive suspension bridge that was lit up at night.

The view from John & Susu’s apartment

On the first day, after Rich and I had freshened up, John and Susu took us to our first beach of this trip. It was great to feel sand under foot and the sea lapping at our ankles. We enjoyed a drink of fresh coconut  juice on the beach front before heading to a lovely new Thai Restaurant overlooking the sea. We had great seats outside on the balcony which had a glass balustrade so our view of the sunset was not interrupted. The food was fantastic and after stuffing our faces and leaning back in the comfy chairs to watch the sunset I instantly had that warm relaxed holiday feeling – heaven!

 

Enjoying a coconut

The Thai Restaurant looking in…

…and looking out at the sea.

The next day was an early start to drive in land to go white water rafting. The central parts of the Island were beautiful and lush with tree covered hills and valleys. The journey took a little longer than expected with a puncture and a few wrong turns but it was definitely worth it. The rafting was awesome fun! The setting for the long water course was stunning. We went down some pretty scary rapids (I did quite a bit of screaming) and we had to empty our boats of water three times. The gentler parts of the route meant you could relax and soak up the surroundings of high green hills, terraces of rice plants, the odd small house, trees hanging over the river and the sounds of birds and crickets. It was almost like being in the tropics. It was very relaxing – well until we hit the next rapid!

The view driving inland

The first rapid…

The guivs imitating lego men

The calm sections of the river

and the not so calm sections

John & Susu make it alive to the end!

We definitely earned another meal at the Thai after all the paddling. Rich and I really enjoyed the walk back from the restaurant along the seafront. All the locals hang out here in the evening and it was the place to be with people chatting in groups, meandering along on mopeds, looking out to see and best of all – dancing. Groups of women of all ages gathered with a portable music system and started doing a group routine. It appeared anyone passing by could join in. Often there were forty or fifty people dancing. It looked like a normal community activity. No one batted an eyelid at what was going on. Sadly, I suspect such an outdoor communal activity would be ridiculed in the UK.

On our final day with John and Susu we enjoyed some Chinese tea served the traditional Chinese way. We then boarded our night bus (which again went on a ferry) and headed to Nanning on mainland China.

Time for tea

Hainan had a quieter pace and was more relaxed than mainland China. It was definitely prettier and cleaner with far less spitting (hallelujah!). No wonder the Chinese consider it to be China’s Hawaii.

It’s a Mini adventure

As you may or may not know, all Minis are made in BMW Mini’s Cowley plant in Oxford. As we started our travels in Oxford, we thought we’d set ourselves the task of Mini-spotting as we crossed the globe (sad I know but keeps the homesickness at bay)! As I type this we’re just on the train to Vietnam and I’m happy to say that we’ve spotted (and photographed!) a Mini in every country we’ve been to so far (apart from France but we didn’t actually stop there so it doesn’t count!) – woohoo! I think we’ll be incredibly lucky if we see any in Vietnam or Cambodia but we like a challenge! Anyway, here is the list so far…

Brussels, Belgium (this one’s a Dutch one)

Brussels, Belgium (this chap is Belgian)

Cologne, Germany (loving the Union Flag)

Copenhagen, Denmark

Stockholm, Sweden (why do all the Scandinavians have convertible Minis – it’s blooming freezing most of the time!)

Helsinki, Finland (another convertible!)

St. Petersburg, Russia

Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia (had to sprint down the road like a man possessed to get this one – literally only saw one Mini over the 5 days we were there!)

Beijing, China

Shanghai, China

Kowloon, Hong Kong

Nice!

It’s all gone a bit Hong Kong!

The border crossing into Hong Kong at Shenzen station is quite a bizarre affair – you go upstairs in what appears to be a nineties shopping plaza and emerge in a customs hall. The Hong Kong authorities are still super paranoid about swine flu so all the staff had masks on and we were scanned with one of those heat cameras to check that we weren’t even slightly ill before they let us in! Having filled in yet another arrival card, our passports were stamped and we were let through. Strangely, our Chinese tour guide had to apply (and pay for) a visa to get into Hong Kong (now a Special Administrative Region of China like Macau after Britain and Portugal handed them back to China in 1999) and only got a 7 day visa – we were automatically given 180 days as British citizens which was nice (even though we were only there for 3)! We hopped on the MTR (Hong Kong’s metro) and headed for our hotel on Kowloon Island, changing at the amusingly named Hung Hom station. Loads of the roads have British names like Waterloo Road plus they too drive on the left - it was nice to sense a little bit of old Blightly again even though it is most definitely still China!

Hanging around in Hung Hom

After the last of our ‘orientation walks’, we ended up at the harbour overlooking Hong Kong Island. Smog is still quite prevalent in Hong Kong, apparently as a result of some less-than-eco-friendly factories in a neighbouring province on mainland China. Despite the somewhat murky atmosphere, the skyline is still impressive both during the day and at night when it is illuminated in-sync with some painfully cheesey nineties synth-pop during the Symphony of Lights. We popped for a last supper with our tour group before going our separate ways – it was strange thinking that we would be on our own again, and that we actually had to think/navigate/order food for ourselves once more!!!

Lots of big buildings

Smog? What smog?

Neon lights everywhere

Our bunch of reprobates at the harbour

HK by night

We decided to stay an extra day in Hong Kong to scope out Hong Kong Island and to head to Lantau Island to go on the Ngong Ping 360 cable car (thanks Gareth and Marine!). The trip on the MTR to Lantau Island for the cable car took an eternity, however it was definitely worth the wait as the views were spectacular. The cable car sweeps you up through the tree-covered hills near the airport, terminating at the foot of the steps to what turned out to be the world’s largest bronze outdoor seated Buddha (quite a specific title but pretty impressive anyway!). It was pretty windy and at times it felt like we were going to be blown into the sea but that only added to the excitement! As we passed through one valley the cloud was whipping through it, seemingly enveloping each cable car that passed through! We didn’t have time to climb the steps to the Buddha as we had to get back but it looked pretty impressive in the distance!

Cabin for two!

Extreme!

The Guivers and a huge Buddha

Sunset over Lantau

We had an enjoyable trip across the harbour to Hong Kong Island, taking the MTR under the harbour and the thoroughly old-school Star Ferry on the way back. HK Island is the heart of the commercial district – all the big names in world finance vie for the accolade of having the tallest tower! The main high street is crammed with Western brands (as is the southern tip of Kowloon) and we were overjoyed to find an M&S for a welcome break from Chinese food for lunch (though it’s been delicious)! Fran has an addiction to Percy Pigs (amazing strawberry sweets from M&S) so was extremely excited at the prospect of eating some again – see photo below! The trip back over the water on the Star Ferry was a great experience – whilst the majority of human traffic now passes across the water on the MTR or through the road tunnel, the way to make the crossing is on one of the early 20th century steamers (now diesel powered) for the bargain price of 25p! The journey takes about 10 minutes but in that time we passed container ships, fishing trawlers, old Chinese junks and a scary looking grey powerboat containing the Hong Kong armed police, all against the backdrop of towering skyscrapers with lush green hills in the background (ignoring the smog for a second!).

Park life in Hong Kong

 

These towers definitely look like something out of Robocop

British-style road signs

Crossing the Harbour

Good piratey advice!

We left Hong Kong and headed for Guangzhou, where we were due to board a ‘hard sleeper’ to Haikou on Hainan Island. We successfully navigated the Guangzhou underground to get to the Guangzhou Central station (no mean feat!), however as we emerged we were confronted with a torrential downpour that looked like someone pouring a huge bucket of water solidly for about 2 hours. Donning the trusty Tesco Value poncho, I had the task of wading through waist-deep water (and other stuff that usually should be underground… say no more) to find a cash point that would actually give us some cash. When I returned sopping wet, the train station resembled something out of Apocalypse Now. Attempting to find the ticket office with people everywhere (all staring at the funny people with the backpacks as usual) proved pretty much impossible. When we did find it, the queues were so long that by the time we would have got to the front we have missed the train. Resigned to the fact that we were going to have to find a hotel and try again tomorrow, we were spotted by the attendant we had tried to show our ‘two tickets to Haikou please’ bit of paper to – she whisked us through security, all of the ticket checks and put us on the train without a ticket – result!!! When we finally got going, we were able to purchase a ticket so all was OK – phew! We ended up with a rack of beds to ourselves and were excited about the prospect of our best ever nights’ sleep – this fantasy was soon put to rest when the chap in the rack next to ours set his sights on the World Snoring Record!

So eager to eat the Percy Pigs, Rich forgets to open the packet before tucking in

 

Silly o’clock in the morning in Hai’an, waiting to cross to Hainan

The next post should see us crossing the water to Hainan Island where we’ll be meeting up with Fran’s uncle John and his partner Susu – celebrity blogger Fran will be taking up the blogging reins for that one!

Until then, here is a somewhat confusing photo from Hong Kong…

Going with the flow in Yangshuo

In the last instalment we were eagerly awaiting our boat trip up the Yangtze River through the spectacular Three Gorges. Our journey began with a 2 hour drive (after a 2 hour wait for the bus and the taxi worryingly dropping us off in the wrong place!) to the upper dock - the one in Yichang we were meant to depart from wasn’t in use because there was too much water or something (sounds like a ‘leaves on the line’ excuse to me)! We got there just as night fell, passing by the impressively enormous Hydro-electric dam that redefined the landscape of the Three Gorges in the ‘80’s when it was built. The port itself was a step back in time and the boat a further regression, both in terms of technology and hygiene! We all settled into our small and far-from-perfectly formed cabins and attempted to drown out the noise of the thumping diesel engines and questionable whiff of the en-suite to grab some much-needed shuteye! Not sure whether the couple of chugs of horrendous rice wine (70p for half a litre of 52% volume paint stripper) did us any favours but we eventually drifted off as the boat meandered up the river.

The Yangtze from a minibus!

Old ticket office at the port

 

Retro funicular railway down to the boat (though this was 20p each so we obviously walked the 100 steps instead!)

The Bog of Eternal Stench

As always, our fellow Chinese passengers on the boat were up ridiculously early (anything before 6am should be against the law) and proceeded to ensure that we Westerners joined them in the land of the living with the usual wakeup call of horrendously clearing their throats at top volume and bounding around the boat like schoolkids after one too many packets of Skittles! Once we eventually came to, we had brekkie and made it up to the top deck to see the pretty awesome scenery that surrounded us. Unfortunately the weather for the whole boat trip was pretty dreary so we had to don our particularly snazzy Tesco Value ponchos (no really - £1.50 I think they were – thanks Mum!) to view the scenery. It was pretty spectacular as you can see from the photos – one of the gorges stars on the Chinese 10 Yuan note!

A huge bridge

Another sizeable bridge

Misty morning in the Gorge

Gorge-ous ripples (had to get that terrible gag in there somewhere!)

Later that morning we stopped and hopped off onto another smaller boat to head up a tributary river. We then stopped again and got onto an even smaller ‘pea-boat’ – so called because it was used to transport peas! These boats were propelled by 4 or 5 tribesmen standing and rowing facing forwards, much like a Venetian gondola. Our British/Aussie group of 16 sat on benches in the middle of the boat as the 50+ year old boatmen paddled like crazy to propel us past the other 5 tour group boats who were doing the same! It was a pretty artificial touristy experience but the scenery was spectacular and the banter of cheering our boatmen on and hurling ‘Who are yer?’ and ‘Is that all you’ve got?’ jibes at the other boats was priceless banter – like being back in a boat at Henley Rowing Club!

Pea boats heading downriver

Lee from Southampton opening up a barrage of abuse on some unsuspecting Chinese tourists in a rival pea boat!

A well and truly defeated crew!

…gently down the stream

Our guide singing some questionable ‘traditional’ songs available for purchase on DVD, using every musician’s favoured instrument – the megaphone!

Once we had rejoined the mother-ship, we continued up the Yangtze from one gorge to the next, viewing a multitude of tree-covered rocky outcrops with names like ‘President Mao’s Hill’ (a series of peaks that look like a fat chap lying down), ‘Eagle Head Mountain’ (looks like an Eagle’s Head) and numerous other tenuously-named geographical features! As the weather was still miserable, we were soon gorged-out and longing to leave our slightly pongy cabins behind and continue to the next destination – the rural, mountainous idyll of Yangshuo.

Among China’s clouded hills

High fashion on the river

‘Is that a God Dam? Uh hu hu hu!’ – Beavis from Beavis & Butthead Do America

After finally getting off the HMS Bad Odour, we had a two-hour minibus journey, followed by a five hour minibus journey, followed by an overnight train, followed by an hour and a half minibus journey to get us to Yangshuo – this travelling overland malarkey is pretty exhausting! Luckily however the destination more than made up for the marathon journey. Upon opening our weary eyes as we passed through a toll gate on the outskirts of the town, we were wowed by the dramatic hilly landscape and patchwork quilt of paddy fields, and this charming rural paradise continued as we descended into the town itself. We’d arrived first thing in the morning so we tucked into brekkie whilst waiting for our rooms and witnessed a colossal rain storm as we ate – awesome! I went for a much needed run in said rainstorm – definitely a good-to-be-alive moment!

Completely knackered at Gui Lin station

View from the hostel (note huge mountain in background!)

Soggy courtyard

Proper rain storm!

After the rain had abated, we went for the customary ‘orientation walk’ to check out the main bits of town. Though it had taken a fairly big hit from the tourism bat (see below for the most picturesque Maccy D’s in the world!) it still maintained a peaceful, endearing and laid-back vibe (even despite the ubiquitous horrendously chaotic traffic). In the evening we had the option of watching a local fisherman fish with cormorants – you may have seen the HSBC advert on telly with the old chap fishing with a bird catching way more fish than the Westerner with all the gear. Again this was quite touristy but good fun, especially when we found out that the chap we were watching fish was the actual chap out of the HSBC advert! You can tell from my face in the picture below that I enjoyed the moment! The chap was 78 years old and still going strong – the Chinese are impressively active into their latter years!

Reasonable view over the river!

Lovely McView

The main man in action

No fish but plenty of reeds!

Rich and the HSBC man! (No he’s not picking his nose)

The following day we donned our helmets with our group and cycled into the hills. The scenery was breathtaking and it was most enjoyable being out in the fresh air, away from the hustle and bustle of the Chinese supercities. We cycled to Moon Hill (you guessed it – a hill with a rock formation that looks like the moon) and climbed it, trying to shake off the gaggle of local women who followed our every step, trying to sell us soft drinks at vastly inflated prices. We made it to the top and back down again without buying anything despite their impressive persistence, however we gave our lady a couple of yuan for her efforts – all of the ladies must have been at least 70 and made the trip up and down the hill numerous times a day – respect!!!

Nice helmets!

Ploughing the paddy fields

Through the lush hills

Rich’s massive head and a few more hills

Excellent regatta potential on this bit of water!

Moon Hill from the bottom

Moon Hill from the top!

We went out for a few beers in the evening with the group, randomly bumping into Tommy and Kelly again from our Russian train – small country! They’re planning to go to Vietnam next so we said we’d meet up again there – didn’t bother making a date as we’ll probably bump into them anyway!

Before we left Yangshuo, we did a Chinese cooking course which was good fun! The secret of making a good Chinese dish is to have (a) good ingredients in the first place and (b) a gas hob that goes from 0 to hotter than the sun in a split second! When we turned the stoves to max it was like being back at school playing with the Bunsen burner for the first time – scary stuff! We cooked vegetable dumplings, green beans with chilli and pork and kung pao chicken – we both succeeded and ate like kings! Definitely inspired to cook some chinese back home in the old wok, though it might not be the same with a Tesco Value stir fry kit!

All the gear and no idea!

Master at work

Nice dumplings!

Tucking into our creations

We left Yangshuo and headed South on yet another overnight train to Shenzen, ready to cross the border to Hong Kong…