Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China

We took a train to Hangzhou for two days away from Shanghai. Hangzhou is supposed to be the most visited tourist sight in China by the Chinese.
Lots of blossoms
We booked into a lovely hostel on the edge of West Lake. The staff were very friendly and helpful but the 4 bed bunk room we had had the thinnest mattress we have ever slept on- about 1' or 25mm! It was so hard we knew where our bony bits were! Most Asian beds have hard mattresses but this was really hard.

We hired bicycles and joined the throngs walking and biking around the lake. It was a glorious day and such a clean place it spend time in.
Tori (gate) by the lake
Above the lake is a 5 story pagoda that has collapsed several times but has now been rebuilt over the original base and with a lift and interactive information screens. Some men carried models of their religious idols to the pagoda.


Kerri managed to buy a long winter coat to take home so she was thrilled.


We even managed to bike around the city at night without helmets or lights and survived the ordeal! The night market was interesting with dishes of duck tongue, frog, quail, and whole steamed chicken (including feet and head).

Shanghai, China

From Wuhan we booked a sleeper train to Shanghai. At about 5am the local travel agents go to the train ticket office and buy up all the soft sleeper tickets so you cannot purchase them at the station. They can only be bought through a travel agent or through your hotel- for an exorbitant fee of course! Entrepreneurship is alive and well in China!
Shanghai main station
There are only 4 berths in a soft sleeper cabin and we were lucky enough to have the whole cabin to ourselves. It was pretty new with a TV screen playing about 8 DVDs-American films dubbed in Chinese. There is hot water in a thermos and a hot water tap in the corridor so we could have a hot drink or heat up instant noodles in a styrofoam pot. They also supply disposable slippers for each person. It was a quiet, smooth, and comfortable journey into Shanghai main station.

The hostel we booked was difficult to find and the 7 minute walk they said it would take took just under 2 hours! The locals are so helpful- if they have a cellphone they will ring the hostel and ask them for directions and then tell us. Even with all that help it was still difficult to find!
Yu garden
We would like to have stayed closer to Renmin Square(People's Square) but there were no hostels with 3 bed-rooms there.

Our daughter Kerri flew in for her Easter holidays and John went off to meet her flight as Lil was unwell with a bad cough and chills. They caught the Maglev- a magnetic levitation train from the airport to the start of the metro stations.

We ended up going to an English speaking Medical Centre and getting some medication for giardia and some antibiotics for the cough and things began to improve.

We bought tickets to see the Acrobatics Show in Shanghai and it was amazing. There were lots of 'oohs' and 'arhs' from the audience as the actors performed some loose rope walking, juggling, plate spinning, and flips across the stage. The contortionist held stacks of wine glasses on her hands, feet, mouth and head and was able to twist around without them falling! She was amazing.

Kerri was able to get in some shopping and bought some glasses- with only a 20 minute wait and a fraction of the price they would cost in NZ.

It is difficult to buy larger sized clothes here as the Chinese are so small. The label shops like H&M, CA or Levis seemed to e the same price at home if not more expensive.

John bought a golf bag, clubs and shoes so Kerri could take them home for him!

It has been easy to catch the metro around the city and see the sights. The smells of the city have made an impression on Kerri as they prepare food on the side of the footpath and toss rubbish every where.
The Jade Buddha Temple, Shanghai

She has been fascinated with the toddlers in their split pants squatting any where to pee and poo.
Shanghai walking street where Kerri honed her skills for dealing with the touts who want to sell copy watches and handbags as well as various toys!
We took a day trip by train to Suzhou and visited some of the local temples there and an ancient pavillion that was used by followers of Confucius.

We also managed a river cruise to see the lights of The Bund by night. It was a rip off as the company sold us a ticket then took us by bus to the start of the cruise but weren't there to pick us up at the end and return us to the office. We managed to flag a local bus down and return to the office by ourselves but others who were with us had to try to find a taxi in the dark as they were too scared to take a bus in case it took them the wrong way.

It was great to see Kerri after a year and we decided that we would not rush around and spend the whole time travelling so it was a relaxing time and she managed to do all she wanted. We only had one wet day so that was a bonus for springtime in Shanghai.

After Kerri left we caught up with Xie (Cher) and Apple (Song) whom we had met last year on Thai/ Laos Border. It was great to see them again. They are both fun ladies and if anyone knows any eligible bachelors please let us know. Apple would prefer a cherry farmer!

Wuhan, Hubei Province, China

The very friendly staff at Wuhan International Hostel.


Spent some time in Wuhan to break our journey back to Shanghai. Lil ended up unwell and had a bad cough and chills so John visited the local sights. A pagoda named the Yellow Crane Temple is the main sight to see in Wuhan and just a short walk from our accommodation. At least it looked a short walk on the map but to find the entrance to the park took a bit longer.
Wuhan is China's 6th largest city with 8.3 million people and is a major port on the Yangzi River and has a history of foreign trade with historic enclaves of Britain, Germany, Russia, France and Japan along the waterfront.
The Yellow Crane Temple was full of Chinese tourists and some came up and asked to be photographed with John the foreigner. The temple was built on a ridge overlooking the Yangzi and has been rebuilt a few times, usually from destruction by war or fire and has good views over the city.
( If they ever have such a thing a pollution free day! )
Mao was born in the region and he spent a lot of time staying near Wuhan. The Yellow Crane Temple has been the inspiration for many Chinese poets and writers and there are pavilions in the park with their writings.

Three Gorges Dam, Hubei, China

The Three Gorges Project has been the biggest engineering works since the building of The Great Wall. The dam, now the world's largest, is over two km. long and 185 m. high and banks up the Yangtze river for 550 km. flooding three great gorges on the river.
A system of locks has been built so ocean going ships can travel into the undeveloped interior of China. Over 1.2 million people were moved as the waters rose and new housing built for them. The dam is now functioning and has the hydro electric equivalence of 18 nuclear power stations.





In Yichang, down with the old and up with the new!

Changsha, Hunnan, China

At Guilin train station we queued with hundreds of others in one of the 12 or so queues (30 people per queue) for a train ticket. We usually write the destination, train number and departure time on a piece of paper and give it to the cashier as most don't speak English. We can go online and find the details before we get to the station. Sometimes someone who speaks English will offer us some help. As we neared the front of the queue people began to push in from each side of us. John tapped them on the shoulder and with a smile signalled them to the back of the queue. They obeyed him and the Chinese people in front of us were grateful but not willing to do it!

The train was a 4 hour trip to Wuhan - China's 5th largest city with a population of 4.75 million-the world's 25th largest city!

There was miles and miles of agricultural land- rice, duck farms, fish farms, and this yellow vegetable-like a broccoli gone to seed. It was so welcoming in a grey gloomy day!

There are no classes on the trains but there are soft seats and hard seats. The cashier informed us that there were no soft seats so we went by the cheaper hard seat option. At first we thought it might be like the wooden bench seats we had used in India in our younger backpacking days but they were pretty comfortable- 2 seats facing 2 other seats with a small fixed table between.

We were seated next to an elderly couple- he 68 and she 65. They didn't speak any English but we were able to chat with the use of sign language and a few words from our phrase book. We never saw any other westerners on the train at all.


This baby was so rugged up he looked so cute. He had a split in the crotch of his pants and mum just lifts him up and he gos to the toilet in the train aisle- no nappies to wash! We have to be careful where we put our bags, or sit because of this habit and many people also like to cough and spit anywhere too.

Parents love to point us out to the children and teach them to wave and say hello. If schoolchildren see us they also say hello and when you say hello back the whole groups bursts into laughter- they think it is absolutely hilarious and cannot say anything else in English.
A puzzle seller. A seller of lights to detect counterfeit notes.


On the train are sales people who wear a railway uniform and work for the railways but they sell cheap novelties and nicknacks and the commission from the sales goes to the railway. It is amusing to watch even though it is all in Chinese.

This guy sold dynamo torches and later came back with socks.


After 4 hours we took a bus for another 4 hours to Changsha to break the journey and spend the night. Here we stayed in an apartment which we booked through www.hostelworld.com - the city Public Security Bureau has blocked the development of budget accommodation-so we didn't have many choices for cheap places to stay.

Li River, Guangxi, China

Guilin to Yangshuo river cruise on the Li River.

We thought we were booked onto a 30 seater boat like this one but there were about 100 people on ours. We chose to join a Chinese tour rather than an English speaking one and we had great fun.

The Chinese tour guide was also the boat photographer and he bellowed out his interpretations of the karst hills-some he said represented an apple, or wife yearning for husband while others were well known as nine painted horses and the female buddha.

It took 5 hours altogether and lunch was included. We were seated at a table with 8 people. There was a Chinese woman with her parents and Aunt and a Polish man (Edward) with his Chinese friend (Ker Qi Mae). The Chinese family bought extra food and invited us to share it. We ate river snails in their shells cooked in chilli, small fried river crabs (we ate these whole- very crunchy), and river shrimps with a garlic sauce (we ate the shrimp and shells and left the heads).

It's amazing what you will eat when you don't want to offend people!

On thetop of the boat was a large viewing area and a small first-class cabin. We met some ladies from Yunnan in the cabin and they were singing and dancing and so Lil joined in. It was such a laugh!

John was a hit with the husbandless women on board. They wanted to know how old he was and where he was from.

I'm sure we would not have had as much fun on the English speaking tour and the weather was fine !

Guilin, Guanxi, China

The local bus to Guilin was chockablock-there were people on small plastic stools lining the aisle. A very friendly local called Zhuang Jin Liang (Peter) who teaches at the Yangshuo Art School and chatted to us in the bus, invited us to visit his class and help them with their English. Unfortunately were we heading in the opposite direction. He took us to our hotel beside the river.

Guilin was very smoggy and it was difficult to see the karst hills that surround the city. There are many parks in the city centre and it was fun to watch the locals enjoying themselves on a Saturday afternoon.
Guilin is around 4 million people and manytourists come here to take the river cruise to view the karst hills along the riverbanks.

Saturday morning at a busy intersection!

It was wet and miserable the whole time we were in Guilin so were happy to have a hotel with a heatpump in our room and WIFI access in the lobby. A group of Americans were in the hotel doing volunteer work with YWAM (Youth With A Mission) so it was interesting to chat with them.



We tried to take the river tour from Yangshuo but it was not possible so we booked a tour with the hotel in Guilin.

Yangshou, Guanxi Province, China

Everyone loves to play cards!



Bamboo boats.

We had a pleasant bus trip to Yangshuo and as soon as we stepped out of the bus we were conronted by a local tout who didn't want to hear that we had already booked some accommodation as he wanted us to stay in his hotel. He ended up calling us stupid and swore at us- all in English! Business was slow as it was miserable weather!
Cormorant fishing is a popular sight

We stayed in a house that is like a homestay hostel and had delicious meals cooked for us everyday.

Yangshuo on the Li River is surrounded by karst mountains and is a major stop on the tourist route. The main street is cobbled and called 'foreigner street'. We kept away from the souvenir sellers and had a great time walking in the countryside around the outside of Yangshuo. We saw the locals catching watersnails, fishing from their ponds, drying their vegetables, and right behind our hotel was a laundry well.

The packed bus on the way out of town. Washing the silk worms out of the cocoons.