Enter the Dragon: Exploring China in Two Months...

Ni Hao, my dear friends!

It’s August again and I realise that I’ve been away from home for more than a year now… Fortunately, while reading my previous messages on this site again, I can look back at a great year full of new countries, new cultures, great new experiences and many new friends around the globe.

When I left you last time, my brother had just arrived in Beijing. We were taking it easy by then in a nice hostel in one of the city’s old quarters (‘Hutongs’, as they are called) and as a matter of fact, I’m writing to you from exactly that same place now, one and a half months later :-)

Sander and I started exploring China’s capital city by visiting the Forbidden City: world-famous of course and well worth half a day of our time. We chilled out another day in the Temple of Heaven Park and strolled down several Hutongs during the evenings, looking for a nice place to eat. For the next four weeks, we would travel around China to see some of its highlights and ‘Base Camp Beijing’ turned out to be a great place to consider our options and to make a travel itinerary. Our next destination would be Xi’An, a city with a great history. Not only was it the capital of some of China’s most important dynasties, it was also the final stop of the legendary Silk Roads, which started off in Europe and North Africa.

However, when we got off the night-sleeper-bus (which is an experience on its own), the first thing we planned to visit was the Army of Terracotta Warriors, a World Heritage Site which I’m sure most of have heard of before. Our trip to the three ‘excavation pits’ just outside Xi’An, containing around 8.000 terracotta warriors, horses and weapons did definitely not disappoint and during the next days, we explored the rest of Xi’An’s attractions: its city wall (rebuilt) and its ancient Muslim Quarter (interesting to see Chinese Muslims). One of the things we learned very quickly is that historical sites in China are often a lot less authentic than what you would expect. Many sites have been restored, repainted or totally rebuilt, in such a way that it is hard to believe that the building (or whatever it is you’re looking at) is much older than twenty years…

Time for our next destination: Chengdu, home to the world’s largest concentration of the endangered Giant Panda and a perfect base to explore the area, which is supposed to be: “the closest you can possibly get to (neighbouring) Tibet, without actually going there”. We decided that this was also the time to try China’s famed Railway system: making the huge distances in this enormous country seem short and bringing you comfortably from one place to the other… well, that’s what the advertising slogans at the station wanted us to believe … our train was supposed (sup-pos-ed) to leave at 4:00PM and because it was unclear from the beginning from which platform our train would leave, the few western travellers on the train station soon got together and waited for further announcements.

Hours passed without any information and although we had a great time listening to each other’s previous travel experiences and by observing the restless and loud (yes, especially LOUD) Chinese commuters, it was getting later and later… “Shall we go? Nah, we’ve been waiting already for so long, it would be a waste to leave now. Here, have some more instant noodles and some rice wine! Okay then, two more hours…” In the meanwhile, it was 00:00AM and no information or whatsoever... 06:00AM… 12:00PM... “That’s it, let’s take the bus instead!” :-)

Arriving at Chengdu’s bus-station, we walked straight to our hostel, which was situated in the Tibetan Quarter and our first mission was to have a great Tibetan lunch. On the other side of this disputed region, I visited the North of India before (where the seat of the Tibetan Government-In Exile is) and Nepal (which has a huge Tibetan community as well) and I truly enjoyed the ‘Thukpa’ (noodle soup), the ‘Momo’ (filled dumplings) and the ‘Yak Meat’, which I had enjoyed so often at the start of my trip. We visited the Giant Panda Research Base (great to see these strange animals), we met up with the other travellers from the train station in Xi’An for a drink (at 8:00PM, just below the gigantic Mao Statue) and we soon set off for the beautiful green hills of Songpan.

One of the things that I really wanted to do was a horse trekking in the beautiful highlands around Songpan, which would closely resemble the landscape of Tibet and (to a lesser extent) that of Mongolia. It turned out that the bus trip to get there – through a beautiful area and over a mountain pass of more than 4.000 meters high – was already worth the effort. The next day, we left Songpan on our small horses with two guides (no English at all) and a French couple: great company! Talking about good company: I enjoyed Sander’s company very much and I consider it as very special to be able to live these kinds of experiences - just like the time we spent together in East Africa, two years before - with my brother :-)

The horse trip brought us what we were hoping for and a few days later, with two short stops in Chengdu and in Wuhan, we arrived in China’s financial capital: Shanghai, a city whose name recalls both a great past and a promising future. China’s biggest and most developed city offers a mix of modern architecture and towering skyscrapers with historical quarters, built when Shanghai was a prosperous trade settlement on the banks of the Huangpu River. In the few days that we spent there, we often strolled down the famous Bund (which is historically the most important street, lined with many imposing buildings in colonial style, looking over the city’s futuristic skyline), we did some shopping in the old quarter, met up with a friend of mine (from McGill) for dinner in the French Concession and we spent two afternoons visiting the World Expo 2010.

Not only Shanghai, but the whole of China is proud to be hosting this ‘World Fair’, pushing the city in the international spotlights for its six months duration. The event, which is being organised every few years in a different city around the world (the Eiffel Tower – for example – was built for the 1889 World Fair), is without any doubt one of the world’s biggest events in scale and an incredible amount of time, money and manpower is invested in hosting it. To give you an idea: the city of Shanghai invested about 3 billion US Dollars in organising the event, it expects a total number of 70 million (unique) visitors, not less than 1.7 million volunteers were trained to help out and 18.000 families were forced to move (after all, it’s still China that we’re talking about)… can you believe it?!!

Sander and I ended our trip where we started it: in the characteristic Hutongs of Beijing. When Sander left, I spent three days getting my Tourist Visa extended (which was not that easy) while preparing for my next visitor... Cilem, the German girl who replaced me at my internship in Cambodia some time ago was coming over to visit me and together we would spend about 10 days in China :-) 10 days in China… if I thought that one month with my brother was already (far-) too short, what could one possibly do in just 10 days?! After some planning, it was decided that we would go and see the highlights of both Beijing and Shanghai (once more, for me) and that we would also visit Suzhou, a smaller town not far from Shanghai, often used as a laidback retreat from the hustle-and-bustle of life in the big city.

But first of all, we paid a visit to what is not only China’s, but arguably one of the world’s biggest tourist attractions: the GREAT wall! Some remaining (and well-restored) parts of this once immense wall (in total more than 8.800km long) are to be found around Beijing and we picked one of the less-touristy parts to explore it: Mutianyu. This proved to be a good decision as we spent a great and almost cloudless day there, overlooking beautiful sections of the Wall which were interlinked by enormous watchtowers. Mainly because there were such few visitors, it was a special and relaxing experience – except maybe for the endless steps getting us actually on the Wall itself ;-).

Suzhou was also worth the visit and we both concluded that it surely lives up to its nick-name ‘the Venice of the East’, thanks to the network of small canals and narrow streets... At the World Expo in Shanghai again: every participating country (since I cannot think of a country NOT participating, I think all are represented) has a so-called ‘pavilion’. Most countries have their own where they can basically display whatever they want the rest of the world (i.e. the 70 million visitors) to know about their country, whereas others (as a rule: the less wealthy) share a pavilion with neighbouring countries. This time, we decided to visit some of the less popular pavilions (without the endless queues) such as Pakistan, Iran, Morocco (by far the nicest pavilion!), North Korea (“a Paradise for People!”) and the Joint African Pavilion, which offered us again a rewarding day.

Since all good things come to an end sooner or later, we said goodbye to each other in Beijing last week… I decided that now, there was no escaping anymore, and I reluctantly had a quick look at my bank account… Without going into too much detail, let me say there was little room for further debate: it’s really time to go home now :-P Eager not too spent much more money, there were some doubts as to hów to get home from Beijing. A flight straight back to Amsterdam would have probably been the most convenient. However, I also remembered that once, it was my strong wish to travel back… on the Trans-Siberian Railway! Informing myself about the total costs, I concluded that going by train would only be slightly more expensive… so… I booked!!

Next Wednesday, I will leave Beijing’s Main Railway Station on what is officially called the ‘Trans-Mongolian Express’ or ‘Train no. K3’, with final destination Moscow, thereby crossing (as the name suggests) Mongolia. Mainly for financial reasons, I will do the trip non-stop in 5 nights and 6 days on what is supposed to be a relatively comfortable Sleeper Train, covering just over 7.600 kilometres. Tomorrow, I hope to pick up my Russian Transit Visa and directly after that, I will apply for its Mongolian counterpart. The rest of the week, I will spend reading about the journey, stocking up on noodles and other useful tools while simply enjoying my last few days on the other side of the world… I’m excited and cannot wait!!!

Although I’m not sure yet when I will be home exactly, I will definitely be back for my 25th birthday on the 2nd of October. Well, that’s it for now, thanks again for all your personal updates and I’m really looking forward to finally seeing all of you again :-)

Best of luck from Beijing,

Marijn