A Blast of Wind in your Ear

After the nightmare of the previous week, we got off the boat and heading for Wuhan, just for an overnight stop. The next day we hightailed it as quickly as possible to Shanghai. Impressions of Shanghai are that it seems to be completely different city to any other Chinese cities we have been to. It’s so much more modern than any other as well with stricter laws..they don’t have the same level of markets as the government has outlawed them so they have gone underground..a guy meets you on the street, shows you a brochure and expects you to follow him down a dark alley or down into the basement of another store to see the good..we decided not to… When you walk down to the Bund (reclaimed land beside the River) it’s like walking onto a movie set. The buildings look almost surreal in some cases with the most dominant being the pearl tower which looks like a rocket ship. We went up to the top of it..and got some more photos.. Due to time constraints on our visa we had to get out of China within a day or so with Hong Kong the preferred destination.

Why Hong Kong, well..it doesn’t count as part of China from a visa perspective. And more importantly it has Disneyland..John has wanted to buy a pair of Mickey Mouse Hands for the past number of months..so needs must..what a difference it was..it was 27 degrees during the day..absolute heaven after the freezing cold of the past two and a half months.. anyways we met up with a pair of Aussies in the hostel and off we went…John turned into the biggest kid in the world..unfortunately though there was only one adult ride in the place…Space Mountain…so we were obliged to do it to death…we went around as well getting photos with the Disney characters…Pluto didn’t like it when I grabbed him in a headlock for a photo..Mickey and Minnie Mouse were impossible to get a photo with, with queues of over an hour for them…they had a massive Xmas parade and for the first time I realised how close to Xmas it was..

One of the last things we did was go to see The Golden Mickeys..it was not as nefarious as the name sounds but was a stage show of Disney movies from the past and was magic..granted it was in Chinese but we enjoyed it none the less..at one stage when doing the little mermaid they filled the theatre with bubbles.. John the numpty saw the bubbles and looked up to see where they came from which resulted in bubbles then bursting into his eye and an evening of pain ahead.. we ended up spending the night in Murphy’s bar trying to throw tips through a hole in the centre of a dart board..if you landed three successfully in the bucket the far side you got a round of drinks for free…a wee Chinese lady called Li must have spent a fortune.. her English husband had to drag her outta the place before she bled him dry! Twas a good night that ended early in the morning singing karaoke songs on the subway home with many odd looks coming from the poor people heading to work.

Hong Kong can only be described as the China you see on TV. The place is lit up with neon shop lights covering the entire streets even over the centre of the road. You can buy nigh on anything at reasonable prices, they have streets dedicated to sporting goods, electronics and even a ladies market street. We’ve gone up Victoria peak by tram which goes up the side of the peak at least at 45-50 degrees and is quite unnerving..we got some great photos at night as from the top you get a phenomenal panoramic view of Hong Kong..the tallest building looks like a head shaver!!!!..we had dinner at the top in a place called Bubba Gumps..a themed restaurant on the Forrest Gump movie…john ordered the most enormous crab claws ever…one of them was the size of a babies arm…

After that it was back into China. Shanghai and Hong Kong most definitely were a welcome return to normality and warmth..from Hong Kong we’re heading to apparently Chinas answer to Hawaii, Hainan Island for Xmas and New Years.. Sun, Sand and Sea here we come…

I’ll put up photos soon..
Happy Xmas and New Year
Hughie

So we left the debacle of Chengdu behind and headed to Lèshān to see the Giant Sitting Buddha; a 70 odd metre Buddha carved into a cliff. On arrival into Lèshān we grabbed a taxi to the central bus station to where we could deposit our backpacks and then get a bus to the Buddha. The city was possibly the smoggiest place I have ever seen. It was nigh on impossible to breathe properly. Thank god we were only spending 4 hours in the town. Anyways it started with the taxi driver..the bugger drove all the way around the city just to drive up the cost of the journey. We had a map and could see that he was driving around the ring road which he didn’t need to do…just one of those things that piss you off but can’t do anything about. He did get some amount of abuse though..

Next no one spoke English..so we were not certain which bus to get so we went to grab another taxi, thinking that it couldn’t happen twice..especially as the route to the Buddha was signposted. Well we came out of the station and a guy offered us a taxi..we agreed a price and then went down to his taxi..it was blocked in by 10 other taxis..we were going nowhere..so we picked another driver. He brought us out and in true rip off style dropped us at the wrong gate, so we had to walk half a mile to the correct gate. We went in, saw the Buddha which was impressive. Considering the thing was carved back in the 600s it was amazing what people could do. The Buddha is getting destroyed though. The pollution is causing the shell to disintegrate badly. Anyways back to the city on the bus and time to get a bit of food before moving on..more fun…you asked for something and was told the price..then as soon as you went to pay..the price would triple..extremely frustrating. We ended up having to go to a supermarket and just buying crap to see us through the bus trip to Chongqing.

We arrived in Chongqing and the bus driver dropped us off on the wrong side of the city. Even though the bus was scheduled to go to the bus station which was a short walk from our hostel we had no choice but to get off. We soon discovered the bus drivers plan, there were a load of taxis waiting to take us wherever and none were willing to go on the meter for the journey..another scam…so to stick it to them we flagged down a taxi, and went with it..it ended up costing a lot less that the other guys were negotiating..justice for the “stupid tourists”..

Chongqing was a really nice modern city..unfortunately we only had a short while there which was a pity as the street food there was easily the best we had experienced so far in China. We booked a 4 day river cruise down the Yangtze River through the hostel..another rip off..it was meant to be an all in trip (excluding food) but every place we stopped more ancillary expenses were thrown in.. a charge to go on deck, a charge to use the pub on the boat, buses from the boat to the sights, or in one case, a charge just to go on shore. Added to that more of the same crap from Lèshān with quoting one price and then another when it was time to pay. As well as that the fog was awful so the gorges that we had wanted to see from the boat were nigh on invisible.. it did clear on the penultimate day but by that stage we were just not in the mood. As for the sights..we went to the Ghost City (greatest pile of rubbish ever) and the White Emperor City (second greatest pile of rubbish ever). They were both just recent manmade attractions for extracting cash from tourists.

Leshan and the Giant Buddha
Leshan and the Giant Buddha

It was a relief to get off the boat in Yichang then a 6 hour bus trip to Wuhan where we stayed the night…
Next on the list..Shanghai…

To date our travels across China have been fantastic..we have met loads of people and the Chinese have been fantastic. The hostels as well have been excellent and nothing so far would stop us revisiting them again..that is..until we arrived in Chengdu.

We arrived at the hostel and immediately a warning bell rang in my head..i ignored it and ploughed on. The hostel was extremely open (roof, doors, windows) and it was freezing cold. The Hostelworld reviews said to watch out for rats but we crossed our fingers that we wouldn’t see them. First night down and no problems bar the bloody cold. The main reason for visiting Chengdu was to go see the Pandas..the hostel had an organised tour but after speaking to an Irish couple we discovered that it was a complete rip off. They were charging 80yuan for a trip that we did ourselves for a sum total of 42yuan each. This was the first example of barefaced overcharging. The hostel was definitely in on it..as when you asked where to get a bus from to the Pandas they claimed they didn’t know.

Anyways the Pandas were definitely a highlight. I have never seen such human like creatures..they were eating all the time, lazing about the rest and then beating the crap out of each other all the other times..their play area was raised up off the ground and they would take great pleasure is shoving each other off of 6-8 foot drops..one was hanging down from a wooden pole and another came along, grabbed his legs and dragged it to the ground..check out the photos..

Later that night we had the local hotpot. Imagine a pot on top of a gas fire bubbling away what can only be described as an inner ring of a reasonably hot spiced broth and an outer ring of raging hot, burn your mouth off, lose all feeling in your mouth spiced broth - into which you throw meat and veg and they cook in seconds.. not realising the heat of the outside ring I threw in some meat and tried to eat..i lost all feeling in my tongue for 5 mins and had steam coming out my eyeballs. I should also say that it was on Johns advice that I tried it…if I had only been more observant I would have noticed that his face was redder that a tomato with the heat of what he had just eaten..once figured out though the food was lovely but ring burningly hot.

Anyways back to the hostel and it happened. John walking out of the room had a big bloody rat run by him…telling the staff just caused them to burst out laughing. An Irish couple we had met had actually left the hostel due to the rats eating their food..so it was bad…then John spotted 2 more rats..not good at all..
In the morning we checked out and legged it to Leshan for the day…thinking…surely it cannot get any worse….boy were we wrong.

Panda Photos are on facebook
Panda Photos

hughie

Ni Hao,

After leaving Beijing we went by train to Ping Yao, a journey that I can safely say was possibly the worst train journey of my life. The train is open and each compartment houses 6 bunk beds, 2 rows of 3 high. I was in the top bunk. A Chinese bloke gets on the train and as it was an overnight train went straight to bed. The guy spent the night snoring like a bull and worse was coughing, spluttering and spitting all night. I was woken up on more than one occasion with spit on the back of my neck. I couldn’t believe that the Chinese man with SARS was in the bunk opposite mine…NIGHTMARE.

We landed in Ping Yao, it’s another world heritage site and is apparently a City that hasn’t changed in 2000 years. It was all typical Chinese housing.
It was interesting to see. There is a high wall all around the city that I thought was way more impressive that the great wall. This wall would definitely keep the Mongols out! It was here that I had my first culinary nightmare. I ordered fried sausage and ended up getting pigs intestines. It was actually quite tasty but the texture was of pure fat and made me gag…nasty stuff.. after that ordeal we left Ping Yao with Xi’an the destination.

Just a wee bit on the trains here. As you sleep the train fills with coal dust from trains that pass by…its nasty and extremely hard to breathe at times. The carriages are wide open and unfortunately the toilets are squatters which are beyond nasty.

Anyways we arrived in Xi’an…one hell of a polluted city..the worst so far, Beijing was clear skies in comparison. We immediately left to go see the Terracotta Army. The Chinese really have the tourist side of things nailed.
Everything is setup for tourists. Most sites have some kind of movie explaining about the sites. The army themselves was really impressive. Over 8000 soldiers found to-date and they haven’t excavated the whole place yet.
We also met the guy that discovered the army in 1974. He was only paid 10 Yuan for the discovery (approximately 1 pound). He wouldn’t allow photos and had a big fan that he covered his face with when anyone tried to get a photo of him..I got one though when he was signing a book for John :). I also found my calling in life, the generals were distinguished by having a big belly so its General Hughie from now on!

Back to Xi’an then and we are heading next to climb Mount Hua which is one of China’s Five Sacred Daoist Mountains, and has a long history of religious significance. We will be coming back to Xi’an afterwards to see more of the local sites..

Terracotta Army Photos

talk soon
General Hughie

I’ve been lax in updates and the last email I sent probably was too much for people to digest..so I am going to try and write more frequent and shorter updates..so apologies for the 3-4 emails that are going to arrive at some stage today..

We landed in Beijing …man..its a huge city…15 odd million people..but it doesn’t feel like that..our hostel was in the middle of a Hutong, an old style Chinese street with old style 1-2 storey buildings and was only about 700 yards away from Tiananmen square. Its another place with tons to see..We went to see the great wall..well the section we saw was billed as the secret wall with a 2 hour hike in to see it..It was seriously impressive…see the photos..its part of the wall that hasn’t been renovated and is there in all its original glory..Added to that the scenery was magic..

We also went through all the other sites, Mao’s Mausoleum, the forbidden city (unimpressive to say the least, I was expecting that if a place didn’t allow outsiders in for over 500 years that it would be something special..sadly not), the summer palace (very impressive), the Olympic sites (the Water Cube and the Birds Nest are approx 100 metres apart on different sides of the road.

So what was good about Beijing. The street food was phenomenal, skewers of all kinds of meat (pork,lamb, beef, donkey, squid), spring rolls, pancakes, dumplings and many many more..and yes the duck was magic too..

The BEST thing however was the Silk Market, imagine a 6 storey building full of everything you can think off…all knock off goods with some if you are lucky, originals! For women it’s a paradise with 1 entire floor dedicated to designer handbags and shoes (Ugg boots for 15 quid). Three floors with every type of outdoor gear , shirts, t-shirts, hoodies..you name it..I’ve now decided that I am flying home through Beijing as a new wardrobe can be purchased for buttons..The fun there was in the bartering with the stall keepers…they start off with crazy prices..and you start off with maybe 1/10th of what they say..the trick is to stick to your price and they will slowly slowly come down to it..at one stall I was offered their little sisters hand in marriage if I bought two t-shirts..the top floor was a pearl market where you can buy top quality pearls for approx 1/10th of what they cost at home…christmas pressies are now all sorted after a couple of visits..

Photos as always on facebook

Onward from Beijing to Ping Yao..an old city that hasn’t been overly affected by industrialisation..

It’s been a while since the last update so I thought it was about time I made the effort…it’s a long one.

After leaving Irkutsk we headed to Ulan Bator, Mongolia. The train journey was reasonably uneventful, apart from a 7 hour wait on the Russian border to get out of the country. Once we landed in UB, we immediately set about organising a trip into the Gobi desert. We settled on a 9 day stint. All I can say is that it was magic. Those with access to facebook will have seen the pictures. The bluest sky you have ever seen in the world and it was bloody cold; -20 at night-time. To counteract that we were sleeping in Gers (native Mongolian nomadic tents) and sleeping with one sleeping bag inside the other and the bag zipped up tight…you would still wake up in the morning freezing until the woman of the house would come in around 7 and light a fire with camel dung as the fuel. Who would have thought that we would be looking forward to starting each day seeing camel shit!!

Over the 9 day we hiked, went camel and horse riding…the camels were the laziest animals in the world. No amount of encouragement or kicking could get them to move any faster. Other things were rolling down sand dunes and driving almost 2000KM over crap roads.

We also had to learn how to go native from a toilet perspective, thousands of acres of toilet but make sure you don’t go too near the Ger; I reckon I have massive thigh muscles now from all the squatting. John found this part difficult..well not exactly difficult but it is hard to have a crap when you have an audience of 200 goats, 20 sheep, 15 camels (not the most pleasant creature), a couple of cows and the family dog and all of them taking a interest in the boyo grunting in their  field.. Also as you can imagine there was no running water in the desert so no showers were had for 9 days. ..not a pleasant experience..we did have a funny incident one night with one of the carpenters waking up and realising that he needed to use the toilet badly..it took him so long to get out of his two sleeping bags that he had to run out the door into -20 freezing cold in his underpants..to say that he was blue when he came back in would be putting it mildly.

Overall Mongolia was amazing…the highlight of the trip so far by a country mile.. the nomads were phenomenal, and so welcoming…some people we met were just travelling on their own, knocking on the door of a Ger at nightfall and being welcomed in by the family who share everything..speaking of that..they have this cheese which was made from dried goat milk curds..it was quite possibly the most horrible thing I have ever put in my mouth in my life..One of the nomad families slaughtered a goal while we were there… it was amazing to watch how quickly the boss man could complete the whole butchering operation with only a wee penknife.

Our last night of the trip was in a city 50K south of Mongolia. Our first pub in 8 days. One other thing. Mongolians like to fight. There were 3 fights in this pub with the third broken up by the cops with pepper spray. We had to cover our faces and leave the pub, another not so pleasant experience.

Back then to UB where showers were gratefully used and proper toilets…it felt like heaven. We began exploring the city..we found the black market where you can buy almost anything…however it was a rough enough place..we had planned to get out of Mongolia asap to get to China but didn’t have train tickets so we had to get up early and queue in -20 freezing cold weather for 3 hours to try and get tickets..it had to be the coldest I have ever been in my entire life..utterly horrible…then to cap it off, just as we were getting to the front of the line they announced that all tickets for the next 3 days were sold out…we ended up going across the road where we found a ticket centre that was lovely and warm and booked tickets for us on the next possible train (6 days later) in about 5 minutes..Sickening or what???

The next 6 days were relatively quiet, well apart from the carpenters piercing John’s ear with a dirty great big nail. He was nailed thru his ear to the breakfast counter in the hostel and they would only release him when he agreed to buy 20 litres of beer later on in the night. Before anyone asks yes it did do it willingly and I have a video of same to prove it.

Anyways this is a long email just about Mongolia..I am now in Beijing and will do write up about here in a separate email..I have attached links for those not on facebook to see some photos that I have uploaded.

Keep in touch..

Irkutsk (Russia) Photos

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=67781&l=15875&id=646631196 

Mongolia Photos

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=66579&l=4bf54&id=646631196 

John getting nailed

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=66603&l=8f324&id=646631196

As i am heading to Mongolia tomorrow (-18 there today) I will be off the air for the next couple of weeks..things are going well since we left Moscow..We first hit Novosibirsk following a 46 hour train ride…not a lot to see there but the nightlife was phenomenal…we had to leave after only one day due to the cost.. it’s interesting over here..the Irish bar is seen as being the cool place to go..when they hear that we are Irish they want to know if the bar looks authentic and if the Guinness tastes the same as at home…they are distraught if you tell them that the bar looks a bit daft and that the Guinness tastes like slop so in the interests of international relations we have to tell little white lies  

After Novosibirsk we got a train to Irkutsk..only 32 hours this time. Unfortunately this time there was no food being served on the train unlike the last.., and like idiots we didn’t have any..and had little money…so we could only afford one meal…..luckily some Russians stepped up when the hunger hit with a fair few shots of vodka…that knocked on the head the idea of consuming any food :). The people are very nice…they would give you the shirt off their backs..and want to  share everything…so completely removed from people at home..at the same time though, they can be very rough, shoving you out of the way in queues and trying to walk over you everywhere else.. In Irkutsk we took a trip to Olkhon Island in the middle of Lake Baikal..apparently the biggest freshwater lake in the world. ..finally some part of Russian is picturesque. It was magic..freezing cold but magic.. on the way to the island the bus was short on diesel so the guy stopped beside some roadwork’s, spoke to the guy driving a roller, took out a hose and then siphoned diesel out of the roller into the bus.. he then paid the roller driver…….

We have met 3 German lads… they are journeyman carpenters… they leave home once they have finished their apprenticeships to learn how carpentry works in other countries. They cannot return within 50KM of home for at least 3 years and 1 day. They dress like cowboys…see attached picture..

they are a great set of lads and the 5 of us are going to stick together for the next 2-3 weeks..should be fun.. they carry all their belongings in little bags..and that’s all they carry..it weights 8 kilos and that includes some of their tools…unreal…

We are planning now a 7 day tour around Mongolia with a company…we will be staying with natives and going hopefully to the Gobi desert..

I’ll give ye an update once we reach Beijing in about 2-3 weeks…till then

I thought it was about time I dropped a short note and told ye how things are going..so far it’s going pretty ok..I landed in Prague and met up with John (travel friend). From there we got the train to Warsaw, we then missed our connection and would have had to wait for the next train (the following day) which would royally have screwed our Russian Visa so we were left with the decision on how to catch up with our train…we grabbed a taxi to the airport, got a flight to Vilnius in Lithuania (Hearts Country) and beat the train there by 4 hours..man was it a rough town…the place was wall to wall bums…and filthy dirty…so a couple of 50c beers were required!!! We caught the train from there to St Petersburg..we shared with a Russian couple and their 20 month old child..who now knows how to “hi five” thanks to our little contribution in his upbringing..Tim had some English and wanted to spend the night talking to practise..he taught us a lot of useful Russian phrases and how to count…this has proved useful in a country where if you start a question in English they stare at you as if you are sh1t on their shoe.

St Petersburg is some place…after a night at the hostel we decided to walk around the city..the main street is about 3-4KM long and appears to have no speed limit….lads..the ladies are phenomenal…each and everyone looks like a model…and the worst part is most of them are on the arm of short, fat, balding, ugly Russian men (lee, there is hope for you yet!)…we must have walked 10K a day around the city taking in the sights….a couple of nights in the pub with the odd crazy Russian thrown in…quick tip…DONT MENTION GEORGIA…John did and the response was swift…the president of Georgia was described in some foul Russian which was later translated to mean the son of a black female goat..another night was spent in a pub called Mollies which apparently was the first pub in St Petersburg to be opened..ya got to admire Irish entrepreneurship…

Next we moved onto our current location…Moscow..not half as nice as St Petersburg and very much still looks in desperate shape when you go outside the city centre.. the Kremlin is pretty impressive and intimidating…..will be hitting Lenins tomb tomorrow…the whole country is mad..you can walk down the street at 9 in the morning and you will meet someone with a bottle of beer in their hand…beer is sold from stalls EVERYWHERE…in the evening you look out of place if you don’t have a beer in your hand as you walk along…it’s so hard to fit in over here!!!!!

The language is hard to understand but am getting there slowly…the Russians also have no concept of private space…then literally stand on top of you when queuing and its considered ok to shove them off…..all in all…we are coping admirably!!