Welcome to Hong Kong?

Hong Kong – our last stop. The End. The Big Finish. The rousing chorus of Rule Britannia at the end of the evening. The fireworks display at midnight. The last gong from Big Ben. Or, in our case, the 10% service charge you didn’t know you were paying that takes the shine off the lovely meal you’ve just had.

I’ve been to Hong Kong once before but, strangely, don’t remember a lot about it. I do remember really liking it though and thinking it would be great to come back here and, being a student at the time, preferably with a bit of money in my pocket cos Hong Kong has got to be one of the most expensive places in the world. I also agree with the Lonely Planet, that everyone should stay at the Peninsula Hotel at least once in their lives. Unfortunately, the cheapest room there is £400 a night, so that was somewhat out of the budget this time, but the plan was to treat ourselves a little bit and stay somewhere a bit nicer than the hostels in China, after three weeks of trundling from place to place.

I’m too old for the likes of Chunking Mansions and am just not into the backpacker thing any more, so the search began for a mid-range hotel back in July some time, somewhere a bit more expensive so that we could have a really nice last 2 days, with a teeny tiny bit of luxury. Finding a hotel was a nightmare – I didn’t know where to start looking, asked for advice from everyone I knew but the sort of thing I was looking for was turning out to be a lot more expensive than I’d planned. There’s every kind of hotel for every price you can imagine in Hong Kong so my worry was that we’d end up paying over the odds for something that just wasn’t worth it but to be sure of the getting something really good we’d have had to spend more than we wanted to. I wanted to find somewhere affordable where you got as much as possible for your money. In the end, the trusty old Lonely Planet came to the rescue again, picking out the Minden as their special recommendation. Here’s what it says:

“The boutique-ish Minden is a welcome injection of charisma to Hong Kong's midrange hotel gang. Packed with Asian and Western antiques, curios and furnishings, it's an eclectic mix that works.”

Sounds good, right?

Imagine my horror, then, when we checked into our room to find…the same hotel room you would see in any Travelodge/Holiday Inn Express/No Name Motel anywhere else in the world. Beige walls (Where’s the charisma?). Non-descript furniture (Where were the curios?). And a god-awful smell (Maybe this was the eclectic bit?). I thought it smelled as if something had died under the bed, Gav thought it smelled of damp. We were on the 17th floor so that would be some damp, but whatever it was, it was deeply unpleasant. Welcome to Hong Kong!

It’s hot in Hong Kong most of the year round and water is a must at all times. Throughout our trip, all but one hostel provided bottled water for free. I wouldn’t expect such frivolity in Hong Kong – they’d charge you for the oxygen you’re breathing if they could, but I did feel that £6 for the bottle of water placed in each room was a bit steep. Was it special holy water? Hand squeezed from the rocks on Hong Kong Island by virgin princesses? I doubt it.

After a very smelly night, we decided to ask to change rooms. The decidedly personality-free receptionist click-clicked around on her computer only to tell us they were full, so no room change possible. However, I’d checked on the internet and knew that there WERE rooms available in the next price bracket (an extra tenner on what we were paying, going from a standard to a deluxe double). I’d have expected her to upgrade us at no extra charge. Or a discount, maybe? Silly me! No such offer ensued and we were stuck with our stinky quarters. Welcome to Hong Kong!

On arrival, we were given a little card that said, “Welcome to the Minden. Please go to our bar to claim a complimentary welcome drink.” Finally, we thought. Something approaching service. So off we went to claim our drink before heading out for dinner. The barman was very attentive and explained that we could have the house red, the house white, beer or soft drinks. We opted for a nice cool Tsing Tao beer each and weren’t greatly surprised when we were handed the teeniest bottles of beer possible, but hey, it was free, right? Cheers and here’s to a nice evening. Beers downed, we were ready to head into the city to explore the harbour and find something scrummy to eat.

My heart sank when the barman stopped us leaving and said, “Sorry, you have to pay.” “??? The card says free drink. Is there a service charge?” “No, madam. The card entitles you to one free drink. You had two.” Silly old me for presuming that when booking a double room for two people and you’re handed a card saying you can have a free drink that you might be entitled to a drink EACH rather than having to share a 200ml bottle of beer between us! A 200ml bottle of beer at the bargain price of £5.50. Thanks. That makes me feel really warm and cuddly inside. Welcome to Hong Kong!

Hong Kong now had a lot of grovelling to do so we headed down to the harbour, which is a pretty spectacular sight during the day but just impossibly romantic and wonderful at night. At 8pm every night, Hong Kong does a bit of a display in the harbour – something like the biggest permanent light installation in the world. We could expect a huge show, apparently, with lights and pictures projected onto the buildings on the Kowloon side from the Island. We picked a spot on the harbour to sit, lots of other people were there for the same thing and there was a hint of excitement in the air. As we drew nearer to 8pm, the street lights on our side dimmed slightly to an “oooooh” that rippled through the crowd. Here we go.

8pm – several buildings on the Island switch off their lights. The street lights on our side go off. The tension mounts. Cue tinny speakers with dramatic drum rolls and music, welcoming us to…the Symphony of Light! Fairly naff Chinese music pipes in and the buildings across the harbour start vaguely flashing in time with the various peaks and falls in the hum. Ooh, look, a green laser from the top of the Bank of China building (the impressive triangular one with antennae on top). Ooh, another green laser. I kept turning around to see the marvellous projections on the buildings behind us. Except there weren’t any. Bloody Lonely Planet – I’m starting to think they just make it up. The music was starting to grate a little now and the buildings across the harbour were just sparkling slightly more furiously than they normally do, with no sense of drama, or building up to a climactic finish. Very Chinese, not very Hong Kong. To be honest, the harbour’s a more impressive sight without the amateur dramatics. Welcome to Hong Kong!

One of the big attractions in Hong Kong is obviously the shopping. We’d seen various bits and bobs throughout our travels, but most of the stuff you can buy in China is tat. Of the most spectacular kind. We’d seen some really good fakes in Beijing but had decided to wait till Hong Kong to buy stuff so that we didn’t have to lug everything around for 3 weeks. Hong Kong’s markets are legendary! I particularly had my eye on a fake Longchamp handbag or three. I’m not into designer labels at all – in fact, until I tried to buy myself a Longchamp bag having seen someone on the tube with one and thinking, ooh, that’s practical, I didn’t even know they WERE designer – but I do like handbags. Especially if you can buy them in lots of different colours. And sizes. We saw hundreds of the bloody things in Beijing but, like I said, Hong Kong was easier.

‘Cept none of the bloomin’ markets there had any, did they!! I did spot some on one stall, but the fakers were so lack-lustre that they couldn’t be bothered to try and get the zip fastening right and just bunged any old one on there. I may not be into designer stuff, but if I’m going to buy a fake, I’d prefer it was a good one. I dragged poor Gavin around more markets than is strictly necessary throughout our two days in Hong Kong and there wasn’t a single Longchamp in sight. Nor was there much else. Finally, in Stanley Market, I found a lovely, friendly stall holder who said they had Longchamp, but in their other shop just down the alley. So off I trotted and lo and behold, there was a small selection of handbags. And they had a 2 for 1 offer on. Bargain. Except these stall holders refused to bargain, no matter how hard I tried and were generally extremely unpleasant. “No! It’s buy one get one free today. No bargain.” “But you’re charging 30 quid for them. That’s almost what they cost when they’re real! They cost a fiver in Beijing!!!” “Buy one get one free, take it or leave it.” And they didn’t even have the colours I wanted. Or the sizes. Harrumph. I should have left it but I hadn’t traipsed all around Hong Kong to leave empty handed! I am now the proud owner of two fairly poorly faked, overpriced Longchamp handbags. Welcome to Hong Kong!

So basically, Hong Kong = a bit of a disappointment. However, there were some good bits, so I’ll put those in a nice, shiny, clean, new post, where they can’t be contaminated by the crappiness mentioned here!

Hike up the garden path

After our slightly soggy experience yesterday, we started attempt number two to appreciate the truly incredible surroundings we were in. The hike from Yangdi to Xingping (about 25km) is generally thought to be well worth the footwork, taking in the most scenic parts of the Yulong river. The weather forecast was for just light rain, so we were hopeful.

The  view featured on the 20 Yuan note.

The first change of plan came early on in the day – the hostel was having a hard time finding taxis to take us into town (not sure if that was due to the weather or because all the taxi drivers had hangovers from the moon festival celebrations…) and asked us to share with a couple who were going on to Xingping. “Aha!”, I exclaimed. “That’s sort of where we’re going, we could save money by sharing the cab all the way there and then do our walk backwards.” And so it came to pass that we arrived in Xingping just as it started to rain again. We had wet weather gear with us, but this hadn’t proven overly successful in Fuli so we decided to go native and buy umbrellas. The Chinese use umbrellas all the time – to keep dry in the rain and to keep the sun off when it’s warm. Sun = tan and tan = peasant, so generally they’ll use anything they can get their mitts on to shield their skin from the rays, lest they get mistaken for a country bumpkin of low social standing. (If you’re lovely and pale, you’re obviously rich enough not to have to do any hard yakka in the fields).

We weren’t sure exactly where our walk started having just a two paragraph description from the Lonely Planet to go on. We headed for the river and soon came across little maps showing the river and surrounding villages. We were also met with what we later called bamboo attacks – you just could not move for people shouting “Bamboo! Bamboo!”, wanting us to take a boat. You get fed up of saying, “No, thank you,” but ignoring them doesn’t work either. They seem to think you didn’t hear them the first time so follow you for longer. Trying the truth doesn’t work either. “No, thanks, we’re walking.” “Oh, no! Too far! You can’t walk!” “We can get there in 5 or 6 hours, right?” “Yes.” “Well, that’s fine then.” “Bamboo!”

We found what we thought was the right path and I started asking people we passed at regular intervals whether or not we were on the road to Yangdi. We thought the trail might be marked seeing as, when you start it from the Yangdi end of things, you have to buy an entrance ticket which covers the three river crossings you have to make on the way and because the LP described it as a “hiking trail”. No signs in sight, so we just pushed on, sticking close to the river. Everyone we asked confirmed we were heading to Yangdi, so all was well, if increasingly damp.

We set out on our walk ready to get a little bit wet – we knew the weather forecast and bravely thought, “Pah! We don’t mind a little rain! We’re British!” What we’d completely forgotten to take into consideration is that it had p***ed it down all day the day before and we were in the countryside, where asphalt roads aren’t the norm. So it wasn’t long before we were doing a merry little dance on our tippy toes, trying to find solid bits of road between the puddles. Our shoes were soon completely caked in mud and getting heavier by the second. We had to keep stopping to scrape the worst of it off. We also splashed a not insignificant amount of mud up the backs of our legs, for added effect. And the rain got heavier. “This isn’t little rain,” I thought. “This is big ole fat rain a la Forest Gump!”

And so it continued. We finally got to a slightly firmer bit of road, which made walking easier, but we’d also walked quite far away from the river by this point. The odd person we did meet did still confirm we were heading for Yangdi so on we fought. We got to a busier section again, where the familiar shouts of “Bamboo!” awaited us. The main problem with these bamboo shouts is that when I asked “Is this the way to Yangdi?”, the standard reply was “Bamboo!”. “No, I don’t want to take a boat, thank you. We’re walking to Yangdi. Is this the right road?” “Oh, too far. You’d better take a boat.” “No, really, we’d like to walk. Is this the right way?” “Bamboo!” [SIGH]

We’d reached the river again by this point and the chap I’d chosen to ask for directions spoke with a very strong local accent so I couldn’t really understand what he was saying. He struck me as a slightly shifty sort and kept pointing to the river and telling me we’d have to go that way. I couldn’t tell if it was one of the river crossings we had to make or if he was just trying to get me onto a bamboo boat come hell or high water, but he was adamant that the river was the way to go. We spotted a bigger boat ferrying people from one side of the river to the other, so decided this must be a crossing.  I tried checking with some younger people also waiting for the ferry, but they turned out to be the local ASBO/Hells Angels and weren’t very friendly so I left that at that.

No surprise when the ferry captain demanded payment for taking us across. “If we’d bought a ticket in Yangdi, this would be included, wouldn’t it?” Not on your nelly. So for the princely sum of 40p, we got ferried across to the other side of the river. Here there was a fork in the road. I’d barely got the words “Yangdi” out and one chap was already pointing which way to go. After that, we didn’t meet anyone for quite a while. And the river got further and further away again. And the rain got heavier. And then there was a big hill – we were pretty knackered from our holiday so far and two days of illness and hills had not been part of the deal!

Another fork in the road and some friendly holiday makers who assured us we needed to continue on up the hill to get to Yangdi. (“You should take a boat. It’s too far to walk.”) Up the hill we went. We were getting a bit suspicious by this point cos it just didn’t seem like a hiking trail any more – we were pretty much walking on the road. A village loomed up ahead with a crossroads and signposts. Aha!

Unfortunately, the signposts only pointed us back to Yangshuo and three other places we didn’t want to go. No mention of Yangdi. Three sullen looking chaps were lounging around in the local shop. “Is this the way to Yangdi?” “Where?” “Yangdi.” “Never heard of it.” Eek.

We picked the direction opposite to Yangshuo and decided to ask the next people we met instead. The next people were two little old grannies sitting in their doorway, highly amused by the laowais approaching them with wary smiles. “Is this the way to Yangdi?” Old Lady 1: “Where?” “Yangdi.” Old Lady 1: “Yakayakayak.” “Pardon?” Old Lady 1 “Yakakayakyakayak.” Old Lady 2: “Yikety-yak yak.” Bums. I couldn’t understand a word either of them was saying. But they said a lot of it and were obviously trying to be really helpful. At one point they decided that Yangdi was that way. That way being the direction we’d just come from. In the end, I called our hostel (Chinese mobile phone network to the rescue again!) so that they could talk to one of the English speaking girls who would then translate for me. But we were in such a remote place with no obvious landmarks that the girl at the hostel wasn’t much help either. She couldn’t tell where we were and therefore couldn’t tell us where to go. We had to give up. It was raining pretty heavily, we were both cold and wet and fed up. But this was a teeny tiny village. No buses here. Back to the shop we went to reacquaint ourselves with the sullen chaps and see what price it would take for them to drive us to the next town on their motorbikes. We had to agree to whatever they said and luckily they only wanted Y30 each (about three quid).

But the back of a motorbike with a bloke who’s not that pleased to be out in the rain isn’t a very comfortable place to be. I was scared stiff most of the time, particularly when my driver sped off with me, leaving Gav behind. I tried to turn round to make sure I could still see him, but ended up with a comedy twisted raincoat look where I just looked at the inside of my hood. Classy.

The ride did end up being quite fun in the end and the chaps were an awful lot friendlier when we handed over the cash, telling us where we would have to go to catch a bus back to Yangshuo. And it’s something to tell people, innit. Far more interesting than “had a nice walk in the countryside, all went smoothly.”

 

Charming Fuli

Having both been ill for our first two full days in Yangshuo we really wanted to get out and see this marvellous countryside we were surrounded by. Unfortunately, the weather was somewhat against us as we started out for Fuli, a place famous for its painted fans. A quaint old town, the Lonely Planet calls it. A village full of charm, according to the guidebook at the hostel.

Either we didn’t get to the right bit, or there’s another town somewhere called Fuli cos what we saw was about as charming as a small newtown outside Wolverhampton.

We arrived in the rain, trogged through the town in the rain and started asking locals for directions for something interesting to see in the rain. They kind of pointed us in the direction of the river and lo and behold, there was one sorry looking little street with a couple of stalls selling dirty antiques and – aha! – a fan shop. Once at the river, we thought things might improve, but this was just the launch pad for the omnipresent bamboo boats that take tourists up and down the river. We decided to walk around a little more and did manage to walk up a narrow street where an old lady stopped us to demand a Y3 entry fee, so we thought we might have cracked it.

We turned the corner to find…more of the same. There were supposed to be pretty houses and cobbled streets, but we just saw ordinary people’s homes on ordinary (if very old) streets. This in itself was interesting, of course – the front rooms nearly all had a small niche in the back wall where people burned incense and had photos of their ancestors, an old Confucian tradition. In stark contrast was a big picture of Mao in nearly every living room. During the early days of Communism, these villagers would have been in a heap of trouble for continuing to worship their ancestors rather than give absolute authority over their lives to Mao but, as with Christianity before it, Communism had to allow the Chinese to make it their own and accept it alongside their older traditions, rather than instead of it (it took a while but that does seem to be how it works now).

We came across an older lady making fans in her front room, but she didn’t want us to take her picture.

Punctuating our visit were bursts of mini-explosions as people lit fire crackers outside their homes – today is Moon Festival (also called mid-Autumn Festival). It’s a bit like Chinese New Year only slightly less important, but people light firecrackers (back to the whole “noise is good” maxim), burn incense both outside their homes and in the mini-alters for their ancestors and it’s generally a time for family. You’re supposed to get together with your family for a big meal (lots of people around with either chickens, ducks or geese ready to take home and cook). You also eat moon cakes – a small pastry cake filled with both sweet and savoury fillings ranging from beef to sticky bean paste. So it was interesting to see people preparing for that, but otherwise Fuli’s charms totally evaded us.

We decided to give in the constant shouts of “Bamboo! Bamboo!” and take a boat ride back to Yangshuo. The bamboo rafts are actually made of some kind of metal or fibre glass made to look like bamboo and on a sunny day it must be a lovely thing to do to float down the river. Whilst the boats do have canopies to keep the worst of the rain off, ours was an altogether more soggy experience. The landscape is incredibly either way though, rain or shine.

Cookery School

Since before we had even decided to come to China, I’ve been saying I’d like to learn how to cook proper Chinese food. I do my own approximation of some stir-fry dishes at home, and they taste nice, but they’re not really very authentic. I’d actually love to do a whole cooking holiday, doing nothing but learn how to cook but that will have to wait for another time – today we had three hours to learn 5 dishes and that would have to do me for now.

School started with a visit to the market to see what ingredients are available here. It was pretty much like a market at home really – interesting smells, noisy (though the traders weren’t shouting their wares the same way they do at home), just some ingredients we wouldn’t see normally. We saw lots of chillis, too many types of cabbage to name, various roots, then everything we’d already seen but dried. This market also sold fresh livestock so there were lots of people walking around with a chicken in their hands. Lots of people buy them live and butcher them at home themselves, to keep them really fresh. Other meat was available pre-butchered and yet more was available live for you to point at “that one” and it would be prepared for you then. Including dogs. We didn’t go to see that bit. I’ve eaten dog on a previous trip and don’t really have a problem with that, but I don’t need to see one skinned. There were also frogs, lots of different types of fish, and river snails, a local speciality.

Our teacher for the day was Leo. He told us what everything was and answered all our questions about how you cook this or slice that. Once at the school, we were each assigned a work bench, a fetching blue apron and a meat cleaver – the fun bit. We all gathered around Leo’s wok to watch him prepare each dish before we went back to our bench to have a go ourselves, with Leo shouting instructions from around the room. First off we cooked steamed chicken with mushrooms, which I won’t bother with at home cos it was pretty tasteless (I’ll blame it on the recipe, not on my culinary skills…)

Next up were pork dumplings a la Yangshuo. Normally dumplings come in a coat of dumpling dough. We, however, were using a beaten egg so you ended up with a little omelette style shape filled with yummy minced pork. These will definitely make it onto the menu at home. It’ll take some practice to make them into perfect little half-moon shapes like Leo did, but my misshapen ones tasted lovely all the same!

Also on the menu were stir fried pork with vegetables, fried greens with garlic and either duck with ginger or fried eggplant. I went for the eggplant, Gav went for the duck. We got to eat all the food we cooked and were absolutely stuffed by the end of it. Leo was an excellent teacher and we can’t quite fathom how they make any money – the whole three hours, including taxis to and from the school, ingredients, free water/tea and stuffing your face all morning and we only paid £12 each. We’d have happily paid double, I think. We also left with all the recipes of everything we’d cooked – a definite highlight of the holiday for me.

I’ll gloss over the fact that I was violently ill when we got back to the hostel… Gav had been ill the day before and a bug swept through the rest of the guests for the rest of the week, so I think we can safely say it wasn’t my cooking that poisoned me!

Dazhai Rice Terraces

We’ve come to one of the most beautiful parts of China – Guangxi province – the home of inspiration for millenia of bamboo paintings and indeed the picture on the 20 Yuan note depicts a landscape here. Our main destination is Yangshuo, our bit of R+R at the end of our holiday, but we made a quick detour via Guilin to the Dragon’s Backbone rice terraces. Getting there was a bit of an adventure in itself and another example of how organised chaos works.

According to the trusty old Lonely Planet, we would have to pass through the town of Longsheng to get to our destination – Dazhai, home to a minority people whose women who never cut their hair and pile it on top of their heads in a sort of turban affair. So off we trotted to the bus station. “We’d like to go to Dazhai, please.” Ticket printed. “Do we have to change anywhere?” “Yes, you change in Heping, buy your onward ticket there.” “Oh, I thought we’d change in Longsheng.” “No, no, Heping.” “Hmph.”

Once on the bus, we enlisted the help of the two friendly ticket ladies, asking them to let us know when we reached Heping. This seemed to cause a little confusion, because they checked more than once that we wanted to go to Dazhai, and not to Ping An, another ancient town in the region (more touristy). “No, no, we’re going to Heping and taking a bus to Dazhai.” Much conferring ensued, including mobile phone calls.

We arrived in Heping and one lady said, “We’re here”, whereas the other one said, “No, we’re not.”

More phone calls and busy looks and we continued in the same bus on the road OUT of Heping. Another bus came our way, which caused the bus we were on to honk loudly and slam on the brakes. Turns out we needed to take the other bus in the other direction, so we hopped off in the middle of a country road, ran across and boarded the next bus, which transported us a full 500 yards before we were dumped onto the next one. That got us where we needed to be.

We were on a bit of a tight time budget because most buses stop running at about 6pm and we knew we had to change at least once, so I was constantly asking people when we could get a bus back. If we missed our connection, we’d be stuck and return tickets are a foreign concept (as are through tickets. See above!). Anyhoo, we got to Dazhai and I had two business cards in my pocket from two people who assured me we’d be able to get buses back.

Dazhai is a little village nestled in the karst mountains, surrounded by rice terraces. As we’d left Guilin a little late, we needed lunch on arrival. A long-haired lady engaged us in conversation on our way into the village and asked if we’d like to eat at her place. We thought, why the heck not. Worst case scenario we’re being pulled into a tourist trap. Which it wasn’t, although I was immediately attacked by more long-haired ladies wanting to sell me jewellery. I made the mistake of looking interested. If that wasn’t bad enough, I bought something without haggling very hard, which really upset one of the ladies. Turns out I’d bought three bracelets from three different women, but not from her, which she thought was terribly unfair and she was extremely difficult to shake off!

After lunch we walked up the hill to get in amongst the terraces, which took us through the rest of Dazhai. Country life here pretty much goes on as it always has – I’m not sure if the long-haired women would dress up in their traditional black pleated skirt and large silver hoop earrings every day if there weren’t tourists around, but at the end of the day they all have to make a living. Without the tourists, they’d be farmers stuck on or below the breadline and it’s not like they make a fortune either way. Why not earn your pennies by showing your traditional culture to people who find it interesting?

As we walked the country paths, we saw donkeys go up and down carrying their owners’ loads, chillis and corn being dried, terraces being mended, daily life completely oblivious to the big noses walking around with their cameras.

The scenery is just indescribable. Even the photos don’t really do it justice. I thought we’d have to walk for ages to really get into the thick of things, but it was just a short climb up more bloomin’ steps and below are the views we were met with. I would say it’s peaceful, but there are other tourists on the trail (both foreign and Chinese) and there was terrible unk unk music coming from the main pavilion in the village, where they were doing some kind of dancing, which then reverberated around the valley. Kind of ruined the rural idyll, but the Chinese like a bit of noise, so make as much as possible most of the time. Hardly anything is allowed to happen without being accompanied by either terrible elevator style music or ear-grating techno trash. We managed to escape it by hiking on to the next viewing point, letting the incumbent tour group pass and then just soaked up the views. Bliss.

Our lack of time meant we had to make sure we were back in Dazhai village in plenty of time to catch a bus, particularly as we didn’t know when one would be leaving. We had someone’s card that said they’d leave at 4.30pm, so I thought I’d be clever and call him from the top of the terraces (you can get mobile phone reception EVERYWHERE in China. No black holes or dropouts here!) to let him know we definitely wanted to take that bus and could he hold two places for us. He told me there wouldn’t be a 4.30pm bus today. But as this was organised chaos, he said he’d help me find another one, we should just make sure we were back in the village by 3.30. So that’s what we did. As it turns out, there was a bus ready and waiting to go when we arrived at the bottom. You just never can tell. There always seems to be a coach, a bus, a minibus or a van going somewhere, but the second you rely on it to plan your day is when you get stuck in the back of beyond and have to sleep in a cowshed.

Our journey back to Guilin followed the same pattern as our journey there – tell people where you want to go, they’ll call a mate, two buses will magically find each other on the road and you get booted out of one to take up your place in the other. It works!

Once back in Guilin, we had more taxi troubles – the drivers here are averse to using their meters so you have to haggle over a price. We’d met two other travellers on our bus who were staying at our hostel so decided to try and share a ride back. We couldn’t find a taxi for love nor money so thought we’d try and walk, but we didn’t really have a proper map and had no idea which side of the bus station we’d emerged on so didn’t know which street we were on or which direction we should head in. Gav spotted a police car and sensibly suggested we ask them where to go. Which I did. The policeman and his friend in the passenger seat scratched their heads for a bit, trying to decide if they knew where it was or not and then told us to hop in, they’d give us a lift! There was only room for three on the backseat, so one of our companions leapt into the back bit (car terminology is failing me – this police car was a pick-up truck so, you know, the outsidy bit) and we were driven home in style! The policeman and his friend were very interested in us and where we were from. When they dropped us off, he gave us his phone number and insisted we call if we have any problems. I’d like to see an English Bobby do the same!

Emei Part 2

On our second day in Emei, we cheated again by taking a bus only half way up the mountain and chose to walk downwards in one of the more scenic parts of the mountain. The weather was clear, it was baking hot, and our legs were sore.  But it was STILL worth it.

Though slightly templed out at some points of our journey, we saw a couple of really nice ones on Mount Emei. I used to know the significance of the padlocks, but I’ve forgotten. No doubt they bring good luck or fortune or a good after life or summat. Some lovely views along the way as well, with pavilions overlooking lakes and streams. And hordes of people, of course. We didn’t have any trouble finding the pavilion pictured below – we just had to follow the incredible roar of several hundred Chinese tourists stopping for a peaceful rest. Gav got roped into a group shot for someone’s photo album (we should start charging, really) and we continued on our merry way.

Day two was also a day for the wildlife. We were on a much lower, more humid and damp section of the mountain, much like a jungle sort of feel, so there were plenty of creeping, crawling, jumping, fluttering and leaping things to see. One butterfly took a particular liking to Gav’s hat and was quite difficult to shake off. The largest earthworm I’ve ever seen was slithering down the steps and this poor frog was sat so still that he nearly got Gavin’s foot on his bonce. Luckily Gav spotted him just in time, screamed like a girl and left the frog unharmed. And to finish off, a reprise of my Inca Trail photo album: “pwetty butterfly!”

Luckily we were a bit pressed for time, so when we climbed up this flight of steps, we knew it was our very last. For that day anyway. Phew!

Emeishan

Shan means ‘mountain’ in Chinese and they’re proud of their mountains, the Chinese. Almost every one of them has some deep significance because of folk legends associated with it, or because an emperor went up it and saw a phoenix, or because it used to be a dragon, or because it’s shaped like something interesting, or because its name sounds like something else interesting. Or because it’s holy.

So it is with Mount Emei – a very holy Buddhist mountain. I can’t remember why it’s holy and I haven’t got my Lonely Planet to hand, so look it up on t’internet if you’re interested. (Darn, by looking up that link, I’ve gorn and read all about it which means I won’t be able to stop myself from recounting wot I learnded here!) So, it turns out that Mount Emei is the site of the first EVAAH Buddhist monastery in China, having been established in the 1st Century. What I do know without checking Wikipedia is that the Chinese have always been experts at taking foreign influences and picking out the bits they like, whilst disregarding the bits they find disagreeable. With Christianity, which first arrived in China in about the 8th Century, they didn’t like the fact that you’re only supposed to worship one god. People weren’t willing to give up their Confucian beliefs of ancestor worship so the only way the missionaries could convert anybody was to allow them to keep both their old gods (and there was a god for everything from money to the kitchen) as well as The Almighty and Jesus and all that. Quite what they didn’t like about Buddhism I’m not sure, but I know they Chinese-ified it somehow.

They’ve also managed to Chinese-ify the concept of climbing a mountain. No matter which mountain you climb in China (and there’s quite a few of ‘em), there is only one way to do it – by climbing lots and lots and lots of steps, all the way to the top. And down to the bottom again, which is the real killer for the knees. The path from the bottom of Emeishan to the summit, 3,000 odd meters higher, is about 50km all in all with monasteries and temples dotted along the way. To climb the whole thing takes a good three days, which we didn’t have, so we cheated.

We took the bus up to one of the higher temples and climbed to the summit from there. It was a good steady 2-hour walk up very steep stairs, but it was worth it. The weather was pretty smoggy as we left our hotel in the morning and we couldn’t see much in the way of views as we made our way up. But as we climbed further, we broke through the clouds and ended up above them. Here, there were huge rolling mists that meant everything was obscured one second, and ten seconds later you had piercing blue skies with clouds like a cotton wool blanket beneath you. The speed at which the mist moved was just incredible. We’d turn a corner and see a view so amazing it had you reaching instantly for your camera, but by the time you’d turned it on, the mist had covered the very thing you were trying to take a picture of! Compare and contrast, if you will:

This is the Golden Summit. Don’t think I need to explain why it’s called that. The huge statue of the patron of the mountain (not Buddha, but some kind of bodhisatva with an unspellable name) sits on a large paved platform, reached by yet more steps. There’s a roll of red carpet all around its base and Buddhist devouts were kowtowing around it, bowing three times, then getting on their hands and knees to touch their heads on the ground, lying down completely prostrate and then getting up again a few steps further forward than they had been when they first bowed. Others just walked around (lazy!). People burned offerings in large steaming pots of coal and lots more were tourists like us, taking pictures like loons.

It was an absolutely amazing sight – we arrived with our knees creaking, all hot and sweaty (even though it was a lot cooler at this altitude) and very satisfied with what we had made the effort to come and see. I can only imagine what it must feel like if you’ve climbed all the way from the bottom! Maybe next time…