It’s been two weeks since I arrived in China, and I am only just catching up with my blog! I had very mixed feelings about heading to China, from what had (scarily!) become so comfortable and familiar in India and Nepal, and with a few bad reviews from travellers I had met along the way, I wasn’t sure China was going to be the place for me. However, I have been absolutely blown away by the friendly, caring and genuine people I have met, the experiences I have had, and the many things I have learnt along the way. As the two most highly populated countries in the world, there are definite similarities between India and China, however at the same time, the two countries couldn’t possibly be more different if they tried! China isn’t perfect (for starters, facebook and my blog have been censored by the government!), and there have been countless times when I have questioned my own travels here, questioned the ‘history’ I have read or been told, and countless times I have found myself looking around, wondering if I am the only person to think the latest fact I have been told is actually as disturbing as it sounds, while it is talked up as a fantastic, positive tourism-attracting opportunity. However, while the people may not be as ‘friendly’ as those in India, at least I have some freedom to walk the streets without being called ‘my friend’, and being pressured into a shop, and while I find myself constantly being photographed while walking the streets (or handed new-born children at the zoo to have their photo taken with a tall, western tourist… who cares about the Panda’s anyway!), at least I can travel on public transport without being touched and poked, and without old Indian women admiring my height, before yelling out, “so fat!”. Ah, the things India got me used to!
 |
| Shanghai |
I arrived in Hangzhou (about 2 hours out of Shanghai), sick, exhausted and in desperate need of a shower and a good nights sleep. With accommodation booked in Shanghai for the next few nights, I found myself a shuttle bus (which I was initially concerned drove on the right hand side of the road… until I realised all vehicles in China do!), and settled in for the 2 hour drive through the outskirts of the two cities (even at their quietest, there was still more going on than in and Australian city’s CDB). This first journey, between Hangzhou and Shanghai, was ample time for me to realise the drastic differences between India and China, and the drastic changes I was going to have to make to my spending habits without delay!!! The bus cost $20!!! That’s 10x more than I had paid just days earlier for a bus that took 7 hours!!! Ridiculous – who do these Chinese take me for? The journey (while outrageously expensive) was smooth and incident free, however also turned out to be incredibly boring – with no livestock to share the vehicle, no pushy vendors to sell their wares at bus-stops and traffic lights, no pot-holes or unsealed roads, no chai-masala-urn-carrying-baristas, no rickshaws to cut the bus off on dangerous corners – and no musicians boarding the bus at the most inconvenient times to busk with absolute no talent, ability, or understanding of basic musical knowledge! What was I supposed to do for two hours?
Arriving in Shanghai, I found my way to the subway (a spacious luxury I had almost forgotten), and made my way to my hostel – where I spent the next three days recovering in my bunk – fortressed off from the rest of the cruel world by a barricade of pillows, sleeping bag and a web of mac and iPad cords – my life support system in my time of greatest need!
 |
| Clear footpaths... GASP! |
Three days after arriving in China, I decided it was time to finally get some sightseeing done, and set out for a day of adventure. I spent the morning wandering the streets and parks of Shanghai, enjoying People’s Square, The Bund and Shanghai Museum, and avoiding the plagues of scamming young students keen to lure unsuspecting tourists into overpriced tea ceremonies and café’s, the groups of Chinese tourists keen to subtly capture a shot of the tall white guy in their group photographs, and the hoards of street artists eager to write my name and country in water on the pavement… only for it to soon evaporate… and make me feel even worse about the money I obviously wasted by purchasing such a strange souvenir opportunity!
 |
| That's how you do a Christmas Tree, Adelaide!!! |
With a population greater than the entire population of Australia, Shanghai is a massive, bustling and energetic city. The streets and parks are well organised, planned, and signposted in English, and the roads, footpaths and buildings are clean, modern, and (possibly the greatest shock to me… supplied with 24 hour electricity!). The city is built on the banks of the Huangpu River, with the old city one side, and the relatively new (built on farmland in the mid 1990’s) Pudong district lining the banks of the other. The curve of the river makes the city’s skyline appear to have been built for photos – and the never-ending work of the countless cranes and workmen on construction sites all over the city make it clear that Shanghai does not sleep while there is work to be done. However, wandering the city street, it became clear there is a lot more to the city than big business and construction, and I found myself easily wiling away my afternoons in the small alleyways and markets of the city (Qibao was AMAZING!!!), and the amazing French Concession district – a district Adelaide should (and easily could) work toward recreating, and where (if I was wealthy!) I would still be right now!
 |
| The Yellow Crane Tower |
From Shanghai, I boarded a fast train to Wuhan, a small city (population is only half that of Australia) in the Hubei province, about 850km inland from Shanghai. I arrived in Wuhan with a great plan – I was going to turn up at my accommodation, meet a huge selection of western tourists wanting to head up-stream through the Three Gorges on the Yangtze River, book a cheap, local, non-English speaking boat together, and spend four glorious nights sailing through some of the worlds most amazing river scenery – completely un-phased by our lack of Mandarin language, and the fact we were on a Chinese river boat. Of course, things never go to plan.
- Issue #1 – Arriving in Wuhan, I was greeted with the train station. Now, I don’t think any words of the English language can possibly sum up the experience of arriving in a Chinese railway station… however I will try. Bedlam. Confusion. Chaos. Crowding. Durrie-smoke-in-you-face. Ridiculous. I have never in my whole life seen so many people in a train station!!! On average, over 4 million passengers catch the train daily in China, and I swear the day I arrived in Wuhan, they had all decided that was the place to be!
- Issue #2 – I only speak English. This hasn’t caused me too many troubles so far, however it turns out that inland China, in a city where you are the only western tourist, and not even the street signs have an English translation, this can be a slight issue. Catching a bus from the station, I then had to find my way to my accommodation – a task which saw me playing all kinds of charade-style games with the locals, who then gave me a range of confident hand gestures as to where I needed to go – from continuing in my current direction, to turning around completely, to turning left at the intersection, and even one woman (who spoke a little bit of English) who suggested perhaps I had already walked past my accommodation but hadn’t seen the sign, as it would no doubt have been placed at a height appropriate to the locals. Thanks love, I’m not that tall!!!
- Issue #3 – Arriving at my accommodation (which had outdoor showers… if only China wasn’t so polluted you could stargaze while in the shower!), I was faced with the biggest issue of my plan so far – I was the only western tourist! Sharing a dorm room with a number of students who were obviously living out of the room for an extended period of time, it quickly became obvious my plan to meet a group of people keen on traveling together was getting less likely by the minute, and I instead decided to focus on seeing what I could of Wuhan in the disgraceful pollution and wet weather, and move on in search of some English speaking company.
I spent two days walking the streets, parks, and tourist sites of Wuhan, learning about the history of the Hubei Province, modern art in China, and how very inconvenient travel is when a city has no metro system, tram lines or busses with English translation or numerical routes. The hostel, while I came across no other western tourists, was a great place to stay, and I enjoyed talking to a number of Chinese students with varying levels of English, and was incredibly lucky to be invited into the kitchen one night, to try my hand at making dumplings, meatballs, and a popular soup which reminded me of dirty dishwater. Yum!
My time in China has been eye-opening to say the least!!! From clean, modern city streets, skyscrapers and underground shopping centres the size of an Adelaide suburb, to ancient temples and architecture which makes the Festival Theatre look modern, China is full of the unexpected. The smells, sounds, sights and excitement of the market stalls, alleyways, and shopping districts, the tourist sites, and the public transport never seem to end, and just when you think you have something sorted out, and you have finally managed to get your head around something, everything changes and you have to begin all over again!
No comments:
Post a Comment