Tag Archives: China

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What ELSE to See in China

What to see in China? Beijing, Shanghai, the Great Wall…But when you’re done with those, what else should you see in China? Here are five ideas.

We spent seven weeks in China in 2011. We traveled up the South-Eastern seaboard and right across the country from Beijing to Far West China. It was an incredible experience but even as we planned our route we had to make choices about where to go and what to see. We had a fantastic time and, I think, got a tremendous perspective on the country and history of China. Of all the many things we didn’t see and places we didn’t visit, here’s some of that are on my bucket list for a return visit to China. Enjoy!

What to See in China: Harbin Ice Sculptures

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Held in chilly North-Eastern China in January, the Ice Festival is an international display of art constructed of ice and snow (and yes, some construction materials). It’s supposed to be otherworldly.

What to See in China: Hike Tiger Leaping Gorge

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We only had time for one overnight hike while we were in China and the hike we did (Emei Shan) was challenging and given that we were hiking from temple to temple up a sacred Buddhist mountain, a truly unique experience. That said, I’d love to do the more rural, more rustic, Tiger Leaping Gorge hike.

What to See in China: Li River Guilin

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We spent two months traveling through South-East Asia before going to China so it was an easy decision to cut the southern Chinese province of Yunnan from our itinerary since the karst scenery in Yunnan is very similar to Northern Thailand and Laos. That said, I’ve heard enough other travelers claim that Yunnan is the most beautiful region in China so I’d go back to see for myself.

What to See in China: Cultural Revolution Museum in Shantou

what-to-see-in-china-cultural-revolution-museum-shantou
We spent a lot of time in China learning about Chinese history through the Dynasties and sadly no time at all learning about the period since 1945. So, when I read about the Cultural Museum in Shantou I had to put that on my China Bucket List.

What to See in China: Hangzhou and Suzhou

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We almost made it to Hangzhou and Suzhou. Almost but not quite. As two beautiful cities in Eastern China I’d love to go there and see these up-and-coming Chinese vacation destinations.

If you have a favorite place in China not mentioned above, do leave a comment below!

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Photo credits in order:
kenpower, hectorgarcia, jackfrench, afiproject, milos.kravcik

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Hostel Review: 7 Sages Xian

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We stayed for four days at the 7 Sages Xian youth hostel, one of the prettiest and most welcoming hostels we stayed at during our year of travel.

Xian Youth Hostel: Review

I picked up a flyer for 7 Sages Hostel in Xian at the Rock and Wood Hostel in Shanghai – also a YHA China hostel. The 7 Sages caught my eye because the property flyer advertised it as one of the world’s most unusual hostels. With private room rates of US$12 per person per night, it seemed like we just had to stay here.

The 7 Sages hostel is in central Xian a short walk from the train station and inside the old city walls.

This Xian youth hostel is in a class Chinese row house. The building were remodeled at the beginning of the 20th century. They were once used as the Eight Route army Xian Office where the red army stayed in Xian. The hostel is situated around two courtyard areas with charming circular-arched doorways and a courtyard planted with trees and shrubs. There were row house on this very site, dating back to the Tang dynasty in 618AD.

The young staff of the YHA China hostel was cooperative, friendly and helpful. Language was never an issue and when there was a problem (we accidentally check out a day early), they were eager and ready to help.

There’s not a lot of room in the basic eight-person dorms in this Xian youth hostel. The shared bathrooms were clean – mostly. But, at $24 per night for private rooms, we felt like we were in backpacker luxury. These spacious rooms are simply decorated with modern furnishings with western-style ensuite bathrooms.

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We arrived in Xian in mid-afternoon after a very early flight from Nanjing – we were hungry. We took a seat at one of the tables in central courtyard and ordered snacks from the onsite restaurant. And that, basically, was all she wrote. We spent a lot of our time in Xian lounging in the sun in that courtyard and eating at that little restaurant. It was a relaxing break from the hustle and bustle of backpacker travel. The food was tasty with plenty of local and western-style choices.

We were able to book tours to see the Terracotta Warriors through the hostel and this was only one of a varied menu of activities on offer. Many Xian youth hostels offer sightseeing tours. We were very satisfied with the ones we booked through 7 Sages. This Xian youth hostel is also a great base for exploring central Xian.

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Crossing Irkeshtam Pass from China to Kyrgyzstan

China-with-Children-Irkeshtam-Pass-ChinaAs we left Kashgar for Osh in Kyrgyzstan I expected a long but fairly uneventful travel day. The reality didn’t deviate too much from my expectations but even with that the experience couldn’t have been further from mundane.

It started when the Chinese taxi driver dropped us at the China-side border post. The broad two-story building looked like an architectural joke, like someone had been designing a building for downtown Urumqi and then, on a whim, had placed it instead in the mud on top of a mountain pass.

The soldier gating the entrance checked out passports and waved us inside. That was Passport Check #1.

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Women of Kashgar

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One of the things which I found endlessly fascinating in Kashgar, China was the variety of womens’ dress. In the photo above, you can see plenty of Uzbek ikat-patterned sik in blue and purple. Every woman is either wearing a long skirt or has leggings on to cover her legs. Yet even as you notice this, look at the little girl on the left, she’s in a frilly, flouncy red dress.

Curious, the next day I took myself and my camera to the main square. It took a little time to find a spot in the shade in front of the mosque given that this is where the town elders seem to congregate. They stared a little as I sat there snapping but returned to their own conversations pretty quickly. For all I know, they could have been discussing the people I was photographing walking across the square.

kashgar-china-women-2The young women in the photo to the left were most typical of the women who passed by that day. Conservatively dressed in rich but heavy fabrics, heavy tights and with scarves of the most outrageous colors tied back to cover their hair. Many of these women wore the tails of their scarves over their shoulders maybe as a replacement for the plaits that were tied up behind.

I found the woman in the photo on the right most intriguing. Her clothing is very stylish and she’s wearing high heels but the only the upper part of her face is visible. I wasn’t sure if the white mask was for religious reasons or just to keep the dust off.

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In the heart of Old Town Kashgar most women are dressed like this: with an overdress and a heavy brown woolen veil over their heads. I had a hard time not staring: how does she see? that wool is not even close to transparent. And check out the pink frilly skirt just showing beneath her overdress and her daughter’s brightly-colored dress and pants. I think this is a woman who likes pretty things. How sad that she can’t preen when she’s out in public.

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The Road to Pakistan: Upal to Tashkorgan

In the Upal market a man driving sheep passed by. We followed him out of the market proper towards the livestock area. There were three or four guys in white coats sitting by the entrance. Odd, I thought. The lady taking entrance fees waved us through since it was pretty obvious that we weren’t buying or selling livestock. Small dusty animals were tied up along a wall or under the few spares trees for shade. The calves were on our right, sheep and goats on our left in two aisles. Most of the lots were small – no more than four or five animals – with the odd person leading a single sheep or goat.

I think I was the only woman in the animal market, not that anyone noticed. The men, in a uniform of dark pants, dark suit jackets and flat peaked caps, were busy examining animals.

“Mart and Market”, said Murph. I nodded.
BigB, ever the little pitcher wanted to know what we were talking about. We explained that when we were his age Ireland was still a mostly agricultural economy and that we’d been used to hearing about small livestock fairs like this on a TV show called “Mart and Market”.
You could tell that these stories about us growing up anywhere close to small farmer livestock sales did not at all jibe with his mental image of his high-tech, computer-loving parents.

We stopped in front of a line of sheep, neatly in a row facing the entrance, bottoms towards us. We must have looked a little foolish staring at the sheep. It’s a good job that the chances that anyone could understand our conversation were slim because our discussion was even more ridiculous. We were confused about the gender of the sheep in front of us – the protruding bumps on their behinds appearing most odd and sexually out of place. But the rear end of a sheep doesn’t warrant that much attention so we moved on, back out of the market.

The men in white coats caught my eye again and suddenly I wondered if they were butchers. We’d seen chickens killed in restaurants in other parts of China. It wasn’t a huge leap to imagine a housewife or restauranteur buying an animal at market and having it immediately slaughtered. Maybe by the end of the day those white coats wouldn’t be so white.

Once back in the car we continued west. Konghur Tagh and Muztagh Alta were visible from base to 7,000m peak against the blue sky. At Lake Karakul we stopped and looked down from the road at this small lake with such immense mountainous guardians. We were immediately approached by locals selling rocks, jewellry, Kyrgyz felted hats and rides around the lake – by horse or camel. One young man – he can’t have been more than 20 – was particularly insistent but in a friendly way as if he couldn’t decide which he wanted more: to practise his English or to sell us a pony-trek. Murph took his name and promised to look out for him the next day when we’d been returning and planned to stop and explore the lakeside.

It took two more hours to get to Tashkorgan. Once a bustling town catering to weekly hoards of backpackers and locals traveling along the KKH between China and Pakistan, the town is now a pretty bleak place. The small local population is mostly Tajik. There is a cluster of near-empty hotels and some sad little shops which, from the signs outside, look like they might stock interesting ethnic crafts but where when you look in, you find only cheap, mass-produced clothing or basic groceries. Abdul Wahab had told us that in 2000, he’d been working as a tour guide based out of Tashkorgan.
“We were really making money”, he said, quoting annual revenue figures in the hundreds of thousands.
“And then, in late 2001, the tourists disappeared. The tour companies closed, one of the most popular hotels was practically abandoned by the owners and everyone left.”
The impact of a War on Terror half a world away and yet just across the border.

Out of nowhere, the wind had whipped into a demonic frenzy. Trees were bent almost to touch the streets. A roof-sized portion of metal sheeting blew past the window as we ate dinner. Dark clouds hid all the mountains and even most of the valley from view. We decided to wait until the morning to visit the stone fort after which Tashkorgan is named.

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The Road to Pakistan: Kashgar to Upal

There were police checkpoints all the way out of Kashgar. Our taxi was stopped and re-directed off the main (paved) road on to an unpaved side road. The driver was not happy. We were just back on the main road when we came to a Y fork. A Chinese driver was waved through but our car was stopped. I couldn’t help wonder if it was because the driver was Uighur. When we were through the checkpoint I asked the driver what was happening. “The bus to Pakistan” was his gruff and unconvincing reply. As we continued on I noticed police in pairs, one on each side of every side road we passed. It seemed a little over-the-top for a weekly bus coming or going to the Pakistani border.

We came into a suburb where there were even more police and it seemed that every business was shuttered. Our driver pulled into a gas station – even though the pumps were barricaded. The owner, who also looked Uighur, waved him away but our driver stopped the car and got out. They chatted, we were waved at multiple times and then a policeman came by. The chat resumed or maybe restarted. Arms were waved left and right. The body language spoke volumes: the policeman really didn’t want to make a big deal but he wanted the driver to move on; the driver dug in his heels – presumably about the right to choose where he could buy his gas; the gas-station owner just looked uncomfortable. Finally our driver gave in, got back in the car and drove off in a huff. Curiously, a little further along the road there was an open Sinopec station. We pulled in, filled up and were finally on the road to Tashkorgan proper.

We crossed the muddy Ghez river. Our driver seemed to have gotten over his frustrations with the police and started pointing things out as we drove along: the Kum Tagh (Sand Mountains), the Tian Shan. Proudly he pointed at the road ahead of the car and said “Karakoram Highway”. I didn’t tell him that I’d already memorized as many statistics as I could find about this cruel and famous stretch of road between China and Pakistan.

We stopped at Upal to buy bread, fruit and water. We’d just parked when Abdul Wahab‘s nephew came over to shake hands. We’d only met him for a few minutes the evening before but he treated us like we were family. Since I knew he could speak English, I asked him about the police on the road from Kashgar. “There was a government official visiting to inspect a new housing development”, he explained.
My first thought was “Wow, that was a lot of protection for one local official” and then I remembered that I’d read about these housing projects in the newspaper just a couple of days before. These new houses were as much as political as a construction project.

The Upal market was just setting up. Wares were laid out on simple wooden tables or on tarpaulins on the ground. Stalls were arranged in “streets” on unpaved, well-trodden ground, dusty but servicable. It was only 10am but the sun was already beating down most especially on Murph’s newly-shaven head. We stopped to get him a hat. As he tried on hats, BigB leaned against me and CAM sat on a wall just watching. The next stallholder over, a young man with sun-lined skin and eager dark eyes tapped me on the arm. He pointed to BigB and then to me in universal “Is that your son?” sign language. I nodded. I pointed to CAM stopped up and came over. The man held up two fingers and I nodded again. He stretched his arm up indicating CAM’s height, taller by half a head than both of us. He gave me two big thumbs up, I smiled back. That’s all a girl needs for a good start to her day: enthusiastic approval of her son-producting abilities from a random stranger in a country market.

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An Afternoon Walk in Kashgar

Kashgar, China. We’d reached the city I’d wondered about for months – reading and learning about its’ history as a trading post between East and West, Chinese, Pakistani, and Central Asian traders for hundreds of years. I wanted to get out, walk around and see for myself. Murph decided to come along too but our boys opted to stay in the hotel relaxing.

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Western China Yardangs and Handynasty Great Wall

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This is a Yardang. A what? I hear you ask? A Yardang is a desert rock formation carved from thousands of years of sand and wind erosion. They look freaky. This one is about three stories tall. I’m so glad I could share that with you, now you won’t have to take a hot, dusty trek out to your favorite desert to see one for yourself.

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Two Weeks In Western China

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This is the map I used to describe our intended China itinerary in my brief “Phase III: China” post in early April. What I didn’t mention at the time was how nervous I was about visiting Western China. Pick a concern (food, language, hygiene, transport, possible ethnic violence) and I’m sure I wound myself up in knots worrying about it – without even once considering changing our itinerary. The adrenalin rush that comes from such stresses is why I am a travel junkie.

Point J on the map is Jiayuguan, point K is Turpan, Dunhuang is in between the two. I dithered about whether or not to stop in Dunhuang. The guidebooks raved about beautiful grape arbors in Turpan while Dunhuang seemed to be getting a travel-writer brush-off with descriptions of a “boring, modern city” even as the nearby Mogao Caves were cited as a must-see stop on any Silk Road itinerary. It was all very confusing really. In the end the physical distance facilitated our decision: we could get a daily bus from Jiayuguan to Dunhuang (5hrs) and then continue on with an overnight train journey from Dunhuang to Turpan. Perfect. We made a half-decision to stop in Dunhuang and see if we liked it and if not to continue on.

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