Tag: travel

The Polar Express to Suzhou and Shanghai

Before I go further, lets get this straight, Suzhou bought no warmer weather.

Tuesday. 24th November

The train from Xi’an was an interesting experience. The train station was busy with many policemen wondering around. Frank, the babe of a tour guide (genuinely – what a nice guy) informed us that the station was often subject to terrorist attacks and stabbings. Good start to the long journey!

We sat in a dingy waiting room to wait for our train. We were very early so got some seats but it very quickly filled up with the loud locals. When the train finally arrived there was a mad rush together on which seemed extreme until not much sooner after we were on the train with our bags, the train began to pull off and start its ~800 mile journey to Suzhou.

To put it nicely, the train was cosy. We had 6 beds in two, three bed high bunks in the cabin. Joined with all our luggage, breathing space was limited – but it’s all part of the adventure hey?

Train left around 8pm and lights out at 9:30pm. I lay down to read but was convinced I felt travel sick so forced myself to sleep. By 2am I was wide awake listening to the trains honk at each other as they passed. SO LOUD.

Eventually it was 8am and time to get up as we assumed we would be arriving at 9. We assumed wrong. Franky boy came to tell us we had slowed down due to the snow so we wouldn’t get in until half 11. I was bored of this train now so went back to sleep.

The upside to the train was that the toilet wasn’t as bad as it could have been – it didn’t smell great but it appeared clean. I also scored a bottom bunk so no climbing for me. Life could be worse.

We finally arrived in Suzhou. It was cold. We went to the Garden of the Master of the Nets which is considered to be one of Suzhou’s best preserved gardens. It was laid down in the 12th century and was left to die but was restored in the 18th century as part of the home of a fisherman (hence the name). It’s very pretty but given it was so cold, it was hard to enjoy the outdoor space so many of us headed back to the hotel after the garden for a decent sleep after last nights journey.

Thursday.

We caught an early bullet train to Shanghai. Top speed hit was 297km/h. I however was less speedy in taking a photo to show the speed!

We arrived into Shanghai to sunshine and blue skies. We checked in and went for a walk down the Bund for our first sight of the Shanghai skyline.

We had bought tickets to an evening acrobat show at the Shanghai Circus World which did not disappoint. The metro there was an experience – China in rush hour is crazy! Acrobat show was amazing though. Who mine you could fit 8 motorbikes into a caged sphere?

Friday.

Last day with the group. We walked back down the bund to the Yuyuan Gardens which were large markets that sold souvenirs and various bits of tat. It’s all in a nice setting though.

After a local lunch at Maccies, Lindsay, Hayley and I headed to the Shanghai Museum which is a large museum of ancient Chinese art. It was interesting but I’m glad it was free.

We then decided to head to an observatory tower. Given that we couldn’t access wifi we just guessed which metro station it was likely to be near. How wrong we were. Given that we didn’t know the name of the tower we wanted – just that it was known locally as the “bottle opener”, I couldn’t even attempt to find it on google maps. It is one of the tallest buildings in Shanghai, so you can imagine our surprise when we could no longer see it when we left the metro. Absolute mare. We guessed which way to walk and headed over. An hour or so later we finally arrived. Whilst writing this I have since learnt it was actually only a twenty minute walk – just shows you need to research where you are going first!!

We went all the way to the 100th floor at 474m high. It’s the tenth tallest building in the world and since we were fortunate to a clear day, the views across Shanghai were spectacular!

Dinner was the last supper. Last meal on tour. We all decided to get a taxi, which required 3 different taxis, and naturally, the three were taken at different times as they were hard to flag down and we all got dropped at different locations. However we did finally make it which was the best part of a miracle! After dinner a few of us walked back down the bund to see the skyline at night.

We made a detour via a bar for a well earned drink to celebrate a good week.

Saturday.

I had a final day in Shanghai by myself. I took myself off early to the Yuz Museum to see a new art installation called the RainRoom. It was a large room where 1800 litres of water fall from the ceiling every minute and yet you can walk through without getting wet.

It was amazing. It is all done through motion sensors and 3D cameras. The rest of the museum wasn’t hugely exciting but the rain room was well worth a visit.

I headed to the French concession for some lunch and a general wander round the area. Back then the hotel for an early night as I’d decided to brave the metro to the airport at 6am.

The journey to Guilin from Hong Kong

So I awoke at the crack of dawn to get the train from Hong Kong over to mainland China.

To fly would have cost £130 and the train would be £21. Although I knew my way to the airport, I knew how to get through customs, I knew I could sleep safely on the plane, I knew the hostel the other end had a free transfer service, I decided to brave the train and save the money for a rainy day (as it turns out though it was pouring with rain in Guilin so maybe that day was today but never mind!).

I first had to make my way to Lok Ma Chau on the border using the subway. Which I needed to get a bus to first. In rush hour. But that was fine. I could cope.

I arrived (finally) at Lok Ma Chau, got through immigration fine and entered no mans land. I still had to get through to Shenzhen and through immigration and customs there. I managed that fine without any speaking, by following the crowd. Happy days.

The problem came when I had to buy a ticket from the border in Shenzhen to Shenzhen north where the train to Guilin left from. Although the machine said there was an English option, it lied. In the end a very nice lady asked if I needed help and bought my ticket for me. I say nice, she was probably too fed up of waiting behind me.

That ticket in hand I got another metro to the next station. To pick up my train ticket I had the instructions written in a handy piece of paper. I had come prepared. I handed that over in silence and the unfriendly lady printed the ticket without a smile. I began to wonder whether being unfriendly was a requirement of selling tickets in China; her, the machine in Shenzhen and the lady in Hong Kong. I kept that thought to myself.

I found my way to the correct platform and started to queue. The Chinese love a good queue. The train wasn’t leaving for an hour yet!

Unfortunately for me I ended up in a queue that ran parallel to a Chinese tour group. You can guess what happened there. One guy insisted on taking photos of me and my massive backpack. At first they were subtle. That quickly stopped as he began to angle it so that he could compare me to the poor 4ft lady in front who definitely could have fit in my bag.

I got on the train hoping I would finally be away from it all. But no. My luck had taken me to their carriage. And I ended up in the seat next to Mr Camera Man himself. Which the tour group found very amusing. Me, not so much.

I couldn’t help but laugh however as they keep talking to me in Chinese and I understood none of it. They clearly we’re loving life as they inspected my backpack and tried to lift it.

As the train pulled out of Shenzhen, they pulled out their lunch which consisted of a large bag of monkey nuts, a bag of dried prawns and a tub of an unidentified meat object. At first they offered some and I said no which they obviously didn’t understand as Mr Camera Man poured a large pile of prawns and monkey nuts on my tray. Tasty.

He then showed me pictures of his family and videos of his house which was fun. He was actually really friendly.

Through the tour of his photos I forgot to look out of the window. We were beginning to see the start of the bizarre Guilin landscape. The mountains are known as Karst Mountains and in the current weather they looked really eerie.

3 hrs and 41 minutes later I finally arrived at Guilin. I just had to get myself through the rain to the hostel!

A waiting game for the visa

Back in May this year when I should have been revising for my final exams I stumbled across this article: How One Man Realized His Dream of Visiting Every Country on the National Geographic website.

I had already been toying with the idea of taking some time out when I qualified but didn’t know how long I’d have or whether work would even want me back.

This guy confirmed that seeing every country was possible and I decided that’s what I wanted to do. I dreamed of living my life all over the world, ticking off all those “100 places to see before you die” (one of which is space?! Richard Branson if this ever reaches you, please know it’s something I’m keen on doing so please do just get in touch) until I realised that my family naturally worry when I’m driving down the m6 on a Monday morning let alone on a plane into the unknown depths of Africa.

As a result I’ve since reined in my wild dreams of every country and just want to live each day as it comes, planning the next trip instead of doing the audit I should be doing. (I jest I obviously always do all my work and I obviously ❤️ audit).

So when I finally qualified I figured I would take some time out. I say finally because a) 3 years of exams after 3 years of uni after 15 years of school slowly kills you and b) because out of the 15 exams I should have taken, I’ve managed to do 18 – exams are so much more fun when you have to do them twice.

It’s now September 2015 and yes I should have qualified but I’ve learnt such things don’t go to plan and I’ll hopefully be qualified when I’m touring Japan. If again that doesn’t go to plan, I’ll just have to take another 3 months off next year, which I’m totally ok with. Fingers crossed that won’t be the case though.

So anyway, I’ve got 3 months off and I fly out on this world tour 2 days after my final final exam. I’m going to have to remember revision > trip planning.

Currently planned for the first leg of the trip are China, North Korea (DPRK as they prefer to be known) and Japan. Obviously I speak none of these languages and I’m about as British looking as they get so naturally I’ll blend in and no one will ever know I’m this lost English kid looking for a bed for the night.

The Chinese visa has finally been sent off though so once my passport is back in my hands – I’m good to go.

I just need to play the waiting game to get it back.