Day 47 – Guilin Sunrise and Train Chaos

The day started of very nice and calm with an early start and walk around the lake near my hostel to take pictures of the sunrise.

Guilin is probably nicest early morning and in the evening when you can get some great photos. There are also less tourists and people around in the morning so it’s nicer to walk around and take pictures of the locals doing their exercises.

Once I got to the train station however the calm changed and people were everywhere due to the holiday being over so everyone was heading home. This would not have been a big issue as I had my train ticket sorted already and was just waiting to board.

There is something about trains on Sundays in China as all trains to Nanning were delayed and with my 9:17 train, delayed to 11:25, it would mean missing the connecting train to Hanoi.
Heading to the ticket office, I tried to change my ticket for a fast train leaving slightly later at 10:30 but it turned out this was also delayed till 11:40 and I would again miss the train to Hanoi.
So instead they gave me a ticket for the 7:45 train to Nanning at 10:30 because this was also delayed till 11:05 but according to them it should get to Nanning between 16:00 and 17:00 leaving me with 1:20h to get my connecting train.

I know what you think, I should have just got back to my hotel and enjoy the day in Guilin and travel tomorrow but I am stubborn so I set out on the journey sitting in 3rd class on a seat near where my ticket allocated me, enjoying the company of my fellow Chinese travellers.

It was a fun journey but the train did not only not make up any time, it got even more delayed along the way so I got to Nanning at 17:55 and had to still buy my ticket for the train to Hanoi. You might rightly say I should have bought this in the morning already but I was suspicious if the train would make it in time.
The queues were very big in the ticket office and I would have never made it on time were it not for my knowledge of the Chinese queuing system. If you’re in a rush, just jump the queue and go straight to the front. In the UK this would not go down well but here it seems common and I had the tourist bonus. ;)

Long story short, i got my train ticket and made it on time to get the train to Hanoi with plugs that did not work again. Since it would only be a few hours overnight, this did not bother me too much.

The border crossings were quite efficient although this time everyone had to get off the train with their luggage and have it scanned in the terminal building. Still, it was preferable to the crossing between Mongolia andChina where we got locked in the carriage without water, AC or toilet access for hours.

Day 46 – Guilin

The first task in Guilin after arriving early in the morning was to find a cafe with wifi so I can book myself a hotel and know where to go.
It’s always nice to get to a place early as it leaves you enough time in the day even after you have to roam around looking for a place to stay. The only downside is that most places are not open yet so finding a cafe is not always easy.

At first look Guilin made a very good impression n reminded me a bit of Hangzhou with the lakes in the middle and old bridges crossing over the rivers.

After walking around and going to some of the main sights, I found that Guilin is very commercial. Nothing against commercial but here everything costs and nothing is cheap. Want to see the Elephant Trunk Hill, that will cost you more than the Forbidden City. You could also try to find a spot to see it fee or hire a boat for less and also see it free but the same applies to all the sights in Guilin.

If you want to go and see everything in Guilin, you could easily pay over 500 RMB just for the entrance to places. This kind of put me off the city, as nice as it is, it seems to be more about making money.

Since I did not feel like paying the high asking prices for entry to most sights, I was looking for something you can do that’s free but provides the same kind of views and enjoyment as the pay for places.
In the end I did find something nice to do away from the main tourist area and free. If you head south from the main centre, you will find Pagoda Hill and Tunnel Hill. Both are free and especially Pagoda Hill provides some great views over the city and surrounding karst mountains. You just have to go up the slightly overgrown path but will be rewarded not just with the views but also with being almost all on your own (you can see the hill and the views from there in the 3 pictures above).

As soon as it gets dark, the lights around the lakes come on and transform the city into a very colourful place with people out and about as usual dancing and socialising together.

This is the best part and something you have to see while visiting, just make sure you get out before 23:00 as after that on the dot, all the lights go off and everyone is gone home.

Despite enjoying the evening in Guilin, I decided to stick with my changed plan and head to Vietnam earlier and spend more time there. Tomorrow morning, I will have my train to Nanning and change there for the daily train to Hanoi.

Day 45 – The Big Sleep

My efforts to locate a working plug or to convince the staff to fix the plugs were in vain so it meant I could not use my gadgets and even the cameras I needed to watch out and not go through all my spare batteries.

This meant that it was a long and boring day, I spent most of it sleeping and lying around. It was not bad as I needed a break but I would have rather have a break somewhere more comfortable and with some electricity.

The landscape was nice but most of the day I hardly paid attention and was just lying and listening to the train music program as this was the only entertainment to be had.
This and trying to communicate with the girl in my compartment, which did not really work out very well.

Getting to Nanning, I headed straight to the ticket office in the hope to catch the twice weekly train from Beijing to Hanoi but it was due in Nanning only tomorrow.
The original plan was to head to Guilin for a few days anyway before I decided to change it and spend more time in Vietnam. Since I had to spend the night either here on on a train, I decided to board the train to Guilin and head there anyway.

Lucky for me, getting soft sleeper tickets also allows the use of the soft seat waiting lounge so I found a plug there and could charge my gadgets.

Day 44 – Transfer in Xiamen

When I woke up in the morning and stepped out on deck, I could see China and all the big container ships departing or heading towards Xiamen port.

People were also out on deck enjoying the sunshine, dancing and chatting. Since there were a few tourist groups on board it was busier than on the way to Taiwan.

Using my knowledge of the Chinese queuing system, I manage to be one of the first off the boat and at the immigration desk. The immigration procedures were very fast and smooth and put the UK immigration to shame, where it always takes ages despite me having a EU passport.

The first task in Xiamen was to head to the train station and get my ticket for Nanning sorted or find a place to stay in case the train was full. I got my train ticket without problems for later in the afternoon and was set for a 28h journey to Nanning.

Since I had a few hours to spare, I headed to a nearby park and went for coffee after.

Once I boarded the train to Nanning, I had to find out that none of the plugs in the train worked so it meant 28h without power for my gadgets which were in need of a charge after being used during the day.
This put a damper on this journey as it meant not being able to do sort through my photos and try to make space on my drive. It also promised to be a very long and boring journey but I still had hope to find a working plug somewhere.

Day 37 – Nanputuo Temple and Ferry to Taiwan

After sorting out some laundry and my hotel in Taipei, I had enough time to spare before my ferry left so I decided to do a bit of sightseeing. Nanputuo Temple is recommended for a visit so this was the destination I was headed.

The first thing I realised more today than yesterday is that Xiamen feels quite different than the other cities in China I have visited. Somehow it feels a bit more like Hong Kong and it being a Special Economic Zone might play a part in it or maybe it’s just because it’s a different city and ever city has it’s own character in a way.

Nanputo Temple is a very nice temple near the Xiamen University and one of the must see sights in Xiamen. It is also well worth seeing as the temple itself is nice but you can do a bit of hiking to explore some caves full of different deity statues and also get some great views over Xiamen.

It was quite a hot and stuffy day so it did not help that I had to rush going back down the mountain to make it back to the hotel and pick up my luggage before heading to the ferry port. The views and temple were worth it though so I was glad to have done it despite the bit of rush.

After getting to the port and checking in, I realised they did give me a 6 berth cabin all for myself as they have done to the other two westerners. Not sure if they do this to foreigners or just split the cabins based on the group you’re travelling with but since I was happy to have my ticket and did not mind at all the extra space, I did not enquire their reasoning further.
There are also some deluxe cabins and some couple and lover’s cabins but I think the standard ones do the job just fine. The ferry was not very full with only a few smaller tour groups so there should not be any problem to get a ticket and cabin for yourself if you’re travelling alone.

After seeing a nice sunset from the boat, clouds gathered over Xiamen and a storm was brewing with lightning visible in the sky. I did set myself the challenge to try and capture the lightning and after a fee attempts I managed to get 5 pretty decent pictures.

Tomorrow morning, I will arrive in Keelung and will head straight for Taipei to meet a friend in the afternoon.
The weekend is still open so I will see what I feel like doing and where I will end up.

Day 36 – Xiamen and Gulangyu Island

After missing the ferry yesterday, my first task was to go to the ferry port and sort my ticket out. Since my hostel was quite far out, I had o take the bus and then walk for a bit before I got there.
Once there I managed to find the counter to get the ticket from and sort out my journey for Thursday the 12th at 18:00, looks like their website is quite a bit out in terms of the time.

Once this was sorted, I walked to the ferry pier for Gulangyu Island, this is a small island that is a must see when in Xiamen. You can buy a cheap return ticket or opt for an all inclusive ticket to see all the parks and museums on the island. I did opt for the later as it seemed good value.

Gulangyu reminded me immediately of Shamian Island in Guangzhou with it’s colonial style buildings, cafes and overall atmosphere.
It is well worth a visit and you can see some nice colonial style buildings but also some buildings looking like a ship, including a mast or one looking like the captains deck on a container ship.

It’s certainly nice to just wander around and it feels quite different from Xiamen, there are also no cars or scooters on the island so it’s very quiet. The trees provide enough shade and if you go around the island you can find some nice beaches for a swim.

The all inclusive ticket gives you entry to two of the main gardens, the piano museum, Sunlight Rock, the aviary and the organ museum. I would say it’s probably not really worth it after having seen some of the places, while it will save you money if you want to visit everything, the most interesting parts are Sunlight Rock and Hayue garden with the statue of Zheng Chenggong and if you only go to see these two it will be cheaper not to get the all inclusive ticket.

After walking around the island and seeing the gardens it was already quite late in the day and on the ferry back I got to see the sunset. Overall it was a very enjoyable day on the island.

You might have noticed that I have posted less pictures on this post, I will try to limit my pictures between 10 and 15. I felt like I got a bit sloppy with my editing and selecting of pictures and ended up posting way too man for each day.
This should hopefully mean you get to see a better selecting of pictures and I try to get my Flickr ‘Best of’ set up to date so you can see more pictures there.

Day 35 – A Day of Travel

An old Chinese proverb says that ‘When the crescent moon rises you should travel far distances without reaching your intended destination’. Ok, maybe it does not say this as I just made it up but it could say this and would fit well for today. ;)

To get to Xiamen was a bit of a mission and I had to take three trains, I guess if I would have planned it better I would have stayed in Suzhou first and after in Hangzhou as there are more direct trains to Xiamen from Hangzhou. But anyway, after taking the train from Suzhou to Shanghai Hongqiao, then onwards to Hangzhou East and from there to Xiamen, I arrived here at 18:50.

Now, while this was close it should still give me plenty of time to get the 20:00 ferry, especially after waiting only 10 minutes for a taxi and making it to the port by 19:25.
This looked all very promising and I was certain to make it until I got into the departure lounge.

Well, it was deserted and nobody was there. After finding someone hidden behind a desk I tried to find out what the situation was. After a bit of a struggle, she understood that I was after the Taiwan ferry but said that contrary to the website, it leaves at 19:00 so there is no ferry till Thursday.

This means I now have two days to see Xiamen so I did what I always do when plans change unexpectedly, I was looking for a bar with wifi to get a beer (earlier in the day it would have been a coffee). After consulting my Fonepad I found a few bars in a park nearby according to the maps app I use so I was headed in this direction.

Once I found a bar and I had a cold pint in front of me, I began looking for a place to stay and for things to do in Xiamen. The nice thing was that they also had a really good band playing so this made it even nicer.
If I learned one thing during my travels is that no matter what happens, always stay cool and get a coffee or beer as things will look much better with one in front of you and it will give you time to sort things out.

After enjoying the drink and live music, I set out to the hostel, it was quite far out but was really cheap and got good reviews. Unfortunately the taxi driver did not know how to get there and just left me out in a small side street to try and find the hostel.
After wandering for a while, I ended up at a different hotel where they were nice enough to phone the hostel and have the owner pick me up.
Finding places is quite a challenge at times but it’s always interesting and a challenge.

Tomorrow, I will have time to explore Xiamen and see some more of the place but so far it has a different feel to the other cities and feels a bit more like Hong Kong.

In case you started to miss my pictures out of a train window, this post should have you covered. ;)

Day 34 – The Lingering Shantan Tiger

The weather finally improved and while looking out the window in the morning I could see some blue in the sky. It was certainly promising and I might get some decent light again for photography.

The sun was out indeed and while it was hazy, it worked out much better than the past days for photography. The downside of this was that it was really hot and stuffy so walking outside was not as pleasant as the past days but I don’t want to complain.

I set out to walk to the ‘Lingering Garden’ and then Shantang Street and Tiger Hill to take pictures. On my was there  almost got distracted a few times to go off and take pictures of other things but I managed to stay on track and get to my destinations as planned.

The Lingering Garden is a smaller but overall very nice garden and in some ways I think my favourite in Suzhou as it has a bit of everything the other gardens have but in a more compact form. This being Monday meant there were a lot less people visiting so it meant I cold really enjoy the garden without having hundreds of people around me at all times with tour guides blaring information out of their loudspeakers. After lingering long enough in the garden, I set out to walk to Tiger Hill.

Tiger Hill was one of the things I managed to see in 2006 so was looking forward to revisit it again. Tiger Hill is quite a nice park to wander in but I do find the layout somewhat crammed as most of the main sights are all next to each other in the centre and the remaining parts are not very interesting but actually make for a nice walk and provide some quiet to sit and relax. It is kind of an island surrounded by a canal and the leaning pagoda in the middle is the feature you will see immediately before even entering the park.

After spending some time walking around the park and visiting most of the different halls there with their sometimes poetic names, I decided to head back and walk along Shantang Street, the street is quite long and follows one of the canals, it’s south end is a tourist attraction while the rest is simply houses and shops.

It’s definitely worth walking it either all the way to or after visiting Tiger Hill as the touristy part, while nice, does not give such a good insight of people’s lives there as the rest of it so I find it more interesting.

Once I reached the end of Shantang Street, the sun began to set so I headed back to get my train tickets for tomorrow.
It should be fun as I don’t have the ferry ticket to Taiwan yet and I couldn’t get the earlier train to Xiamen so have to go from Suzhou to Shanghai Hongqiao, from there to Hangzhou East and from there to Xiamen. Arrival in Xiamen will be at 18:50 and the ferry for Taiwan leaves at 20:00 so it will be a challenge to nit only get to the ferry terminal on time but to find the ticket office, make myself understood what ticket I want and hope there will be one available for me before they close the check-in.
Should this fail, I will have two days to spend in Xiamen before the next ferry to Taiwan departs.

Day 33 – Lion Grove and Evening at the Canals

I started off the morning with a visit to the ‘Lion Grove Garden’, which was a expected packed with tourists and tour groups so it was at times very difficult to find a quiet spot and enjoy the garden. It was still a mostly grey day so again not ideal for photography but one has to work with what’s available.

Afterwards I headed to meet a Friend for lunch, we had a late lunch but were at the restaurant eating and chatting almost till the Chinese dinner time. Thanks John for the great lunch and for your help with everything  before and during my China visit!
It was great to catch up and have a very nice lunch, his meant that I did not do that much photography though.

After the extended lunch, I did head back to Pingjian Street to take some more pictures and try some long exposures at night.

Tomorrow will be my last full day in Suzhou and depending my train schedule might see the last pictures from Suzhou.

Day 32 – Suzhou the Garden City

Suzhou is most famous for it’s many (World Heritage) gardens and canals, this was also what impressed me most in 2006 when I hired a taxi to drive me from Shanghai here and around the city. I only had one day to spend here and kind of regretted not having had more time as I preferred it a lot over Shanghai.

This time I set a few days aside for Suzhou, partly to spend more time in the city but also to meet a friend living here now.unfortunately the dull weather and grey skies followed me here from Hangzhou. While it was not raining, the light was a bit dull for photographing gardens (or most other things really).

Still, after yesterday’s rain it was an improvement and I set out to visit some of the more well known gardens.

I started off with the very nice ‘The Humble Administrator’s Garden’, walked along Pingjian Street to the small but quaint ‘The Couples’ Garden Retreat’ before finishing the tour at the quiet ‘Master-of-Nets Garden’.

This being a Saturday, the gardens were all quite packed with people and tour groups so if you are looming for  tranquil garden experience, don’t come here on a weekend. That said, if you wait till the groups pas, you get a few minutes of peace and quiet to enjoy the spot before another group comes around the corner.

There are a lot of different gardens to see in Suzhou and the best is to actually take a taxi to get between them if you just want to see  many gardens as possible, walking however means you get to see more of the actual city while walking through the different neighbourhoods and small alleys to get to your destination.

After the gardens closed, I went back to Pingjiang Street to take some more pictures, the street is a favourite with photographers taking pictures of models during the day, it it full of cafes and souvenir stalls. In the evening there are less photographers and most cafes are closed but you can still get a coffee or overpriced beers at some of them.

After the first day, I have to say that I find Suzhou to be a lot more touristy and less relaxed when compared with Hangzhou. Suzhou just feels like a bigger city but this could be deceiving since I spent my time around the West lake only in Hangzhou.