Chengdu
Where to start, that’s really tricky with this one…We were only there for literally four hours thanks to the PSB (Chinese Police) – as it turns out, if you come from Tibet they won’t extend your ‘permit’, and so with great pride they gave us 2 days to leave China. That was that. Frantically we booked ourselves on a train to take us to Hong Kong and get us out of China (the fines are pretty big if you overstay your welcome!). For two days we sat on a train watching China pass us by, and after the sum total of 52 hours, we arrived in Hong Kong…

Hong Kong
Before we got to China we had decided not to go back to Hong Kong as we were there just 10 months ago, but after the above, we had no choice! All that being said, Hong Kong is a fantastic place and it has grown on us a lot more the second time around (we’re now considering getting jobs and living there for a while).

Most of you know what we did on honeymoon and we basically did the same again, only spent more money and stayed in a place ten times cheaper!

A quick summary should do the trick I think so here it is; we wandered through Temple Street Night Market, and then remembered it was boring the last time we did it… We watched ‘The Festival of Lights’, and this time we had a camera that turned on so we managed to take a photo for you all! And then we walked down ‘The Avenue of Stars’, and then had a coffee (a common pastime of ours in Hong Kong, well, that and McDonalds!) and then took a photo of Bruce Lee (the metal version). Next up was Victoria Peak and of course we took some photos of the Hong Kong skyline (again…), and then a walk through the streets and skyscrapers (more pictures – quite good ones we think!) – and then (for those of you who have seen ‘Dude Where’s My Car’ you’ll appreciate the numerous ‘and then’ sections we have so creatively added, we thought it was pretty funny and we had to really add them in being in China and all, well, a strange part of China that you don’t need a Chinese visa for!) and then a first for Hong Kong – getting drunk!

Now the getting drunk part is the most interesting, for us anyway! We decided to go back to the bar in Lan Kwai Fong that we had gone to on honeymoon, only for a quick drink before dinner, the way all of the best nights start… There was a group of western guys in there already who were absolutely hilarious – the dancing to Wild Thing was some of the finest I have seen in a while, we started talking to them later only to find out they were US Marines and Navy, which made the funny dancing even funnier! Wine for me, beer for Jon, wine, beer and so on for a while and I was off, dancing to my hearts content, and you all know Jon well enough to know he doesn’t, oh but he does in Hong Kong, like a little disco dancer!! I had been dancing with one of the US Marine guys called Joe, and Jon had made some new Hong Kong friends, and with all of us gathered around, off Jon went with us clapping him on as he strutted his stuff for a few moments, and then, very calmly, he just sat back down and carried on drinking his beer, classic…The night went on and I think I lost about 2 stone in total, joint fat and sweat loss from the dancing, and by 3am I was done, one too many wines, I managed to say bye to everyone and get in a taxi with Jon back to Kowloon, only to have my head stuck out of the window the whole time so I could puke – nice eh? Good night anyway, we have a video of the US Marine guys dancing, but we’ll save that little treasure for when we get home.

That was Hong Kong, and it was time to head back to China, the blessed country that had kicked us out a week before, yay!

Shanghai
We did one thing of partial interest in Shanghai, lost our Ipods… Oh, and we went to Yuyuan Gardens which were quite nice, pictures below, but not as nice as the Chinese Gardens in Sydney! Go figure… That’s pretty much all we did in Shanghai, not our cup of tea is probably the most polite way of putting it. Off we headed to Beijing.

Beijing
I don’t know what it is but our luck has completely gone now we are in China… We were told on our first day in Beijing no-one can get 3 month visas for Vietnam (in China) anymore, so we had to change our plans around again, and I managed to rip my toenail off (not quite all of it and poor Jon had to rip the rest off) so I now have a ridiculous limp – not a great first day for a new city…

The next day turned out pretty much the same, we went to The Forbidden City, the number two attraction in Beijing, and just as luck would have it, the main section was covered in scaffolding so we couldn’t even get a glimpse. The weather is also really bad at the moment, the smog covers everything and then it rains, so not great for sightseeing…

The time had come for the number one attraction, the Great Wall of China. We booked on to a tour that would take us to the Ming Tombs and to the Badaling section of the Great Wall – or so we were told. We set off in our little minibus only to find we were visiting a Jade ‘factory’ – in other words a giant overpriced shop where the tour guides get commission for just getting us through the door. To keep the peace we all went along with it, got the ‘tour’ and then left not buying anything. The Ming Tombs are meant to be quite nice and 3 of them are open to the public, unfortunately we only had time for a whirlwind tour of one of them as our tour guide wanted to take us to another Jade ‘factory’ – apparently to enrich our experience?! This time we all told her there was no way in hell we were going to another one and we wanted our lunch early instead. After a bit of debating she got back in the car only to take us to another Jade ‘factory’, with a restaurant in the middle, what a con…

We arrived at The Great Wall only to find they had taken us to a cheaper part that was certainly not Badaling, but this guide argued until she was blue in the face that it was, and even though we knew it wasn’t we just got on with it and climbed the west section which was quite nice as it was totally deserted (as all the other tourists were at Badaling!!). As we had visited so many ‘factories’ we only had 2 hours to spend there and then we were shoved back on the bus, this time to a Silk ‘factory’. By this time we had all given up hope of doing anything of interest so we arrived, had the tour and left, thinking we were going home, nope. The Tea ‘factory’ was to be the last stop; this one wasn’t too bad as we got free tea! Well that was our tour, 3 Jade shops, 1 Silk shop and 1 Tea shop, oh, and a little bit of the Great Wall and Ming Tombs…

Needless to say the next day I kicked off with the hostel we booked the tour through and got a full refund, and that was that. Luckily we had booked to see the Shaolin Warriors that evening, so ready to see some guy get smashed over the head with concrete and get hit with metal bars, we arrived at the Red Theatre, but alas this was not what we had expected either. A quote from the Irish Ambassador – more energetic than Riverdance… Does that sound like an hour filled with hardcore warriors to you? Nope, it was more like a ballet performance with a little bit of violence every now and again. The show was alright but not what any of us had expected so yet more disappointment.

We have now given up, if China doesn’t get a lot better in less than one week we are just going to go to Vietnam early!

Pingyao
Just as we were about to give up on China, we got to a place that was slightly better. Pingyao is an old city surrounded by Ming Dynasty Walls and is a maze of cobbled streets, quite nice really. We spent two days waking around, smiling at people who actually smiled back and relaxing.

We managed one excursion to a temple just outside called Shuanglin – it wasn’t all that interesting as the things that could be quite amazing had been put behind thick metal bars and a lot had been left to gather dust for six centuries…

The highlight in Pingyao was probably me almost beating Jon at pool, he won in the end of course, but I almost had him! We also got upgraded to a double room with a bathroom as unfortunately the dorm rooms were full – that’s a shame!

Xi’an
Xi’an has cemented our decision to get out of China, we’re not enjoying it as much as we’d enjoy being somewhere else, and so we’re leaving! We haven’t met another traveller here who actually likes it so it’s not just us being fussy – it’s just not good for budget travelling, as we have spent twice as much as we did in India in less than half the time…

We did nothing in Xi’an, I won’t try and make it sound like we did, we didn’t, we watched films in our room! Oh, we went to TNT to send a parcel home, that’s as exciting as it got… No pictures either, sorry.

Kunming
See above!!! We were only here for a few hours before we caught the bus to Dali and applied for our Vietnamese Visa…

Dali
Our last stop (thankfully) before Vietnam, Dali is probably the nicest place we’ve been in the whole of China. Another old city that has unfortunately been over restored to suit the Chinese and Western tourists… The people as a whole have been much nicer here and only a few people stare which is nice! There isn’t anything to do here but relax which suits us perfectly, our preparation for Vietnam!

Sorry this blog hasn’t been very positive but China just hasn’t been our sort of place… Hopefully the next blog we do will be full of happy stories for you all to read, if not, well be back sooner than we thought!