Our final dose of China

Our very short trip to Taiwan was over all too soon, and it was time to re-enter China for the final month of our visa. We got the ferry back to Xiamen and decided to spend a couple of days there before moving on. It’s actually quite a nice coastal city with some tasty street food, but the main tourist hotspot is Gulangyu, an island just across the harbour. We got the boat across one day and spent a few hours walking around – there are no cars or motorbikes allowed which was a welcome relief from the incessant traffic and resulting fumes in China. It’s a pretty small island so walking isn’t a problem, but it is extremely popular with Chinese tourists which can mean there’s a lot more people than you might expect depending on what time of year you go. It wasn’t too rammed when we were there, but it must have been wedding season as we saw no fewer than five separate wedding photo sessions. We also saw a lot of couples in matching outfits, which is a very disturbing trend in many asian countries.There are a few things to see on the island, such as a big statue, gardens, museums and a cable car ride to a lookout rock, but of course they all cost. We were happy to just walk around and check things out ourselves instead, like some of the huge and impressive buildings built by the Europeans, Japanese and rich overseas Chinese who lived on the island when it was an international foreign settlement back in the early 1900’s. Being such a tourist mecca the food is pretty shit and expensive, so we stayed until our stomach’s told us it was time to leave.

Street food in Xiamen

Gulangyu Island

Kurt was interested in seeing the Three Gorges Dam, the world’s largest power station, so we hopped on an overnight train to Yichang, the closest city to the dam. The most popular way to see the dam is to do a multi-day river cruise, but that was way out of our budget so we did it backpacker style instead – local buses to the nearest point from which to see it and get some zoomed in photos for free. Of course it was hazy so visibility wasn’t great, but we could still clearly see the massive scale of the dam from a distance – it’s almost 200m high and over 2km long. Despite the fact that in building the dam, archaeological and cultural sites were flooded, over 1.3 million people were displaced and it’s increased the risk of landslides (among many other ecological effects), the government of course thinks it was a raging success.

Next up was an escape to another national park about 400kms south. Zhangjiajie National Forest Park is a short drive from Zhangjiajie city, which is where we stayed for a few nights first. The city itself isn’t much to write home about, so once we’d figured out our plan of attack for the national park we headed off there for a night and a couple of days of walking. Zhangjiajie National Forest Park is one of several national parks in the Wulingyuan Scenic Area, and is famous for the pillar-like formations which formed over many years of erosion. These distinctive pillars are also the inspiration for the floating mountains seen in the movie Avatar, and one pillar in particular has been officially re-named ‘Avatar Hallelujah Mountain’. There’s even a figure of the main female Na’vi character on the path overlooking this mountain. 

There are miles and miles of pathways to walk in the park, so it’s a good idea to stay overnight if you can. We stayed at the sister hostel of the place we stayed in Zhangjiajie city (Zhangjiajie Bajie Youth Hostel), but despite having electric blankets (which barely worked) it was bloody freezing. Like, sleep in your thermals, beanie and gloves kind of freezing. However, staying in the park overnight meant we could get up at sparrow’s fart and walk a short distance to watch the sunrise over the valley which was quite beautiful. We could then get in another full day of walking before we left. One thing to be aware of if you’re ever thinking of going there – there are a lot of steps. And I mean thousands upon thousands. Over the course of two days we figured we walked up and down over 15,000 steps. Fuck the Stairmaster. Also, there were a couple of vicious, rabid looking monkeys at one particular lookout point, which made climbing along, up and down the precarious ladders a bit nerve-wracking to say the least. The situation wasn’t helped by the local tourists laughingly taunting the fuckers before we could climb out of the way. Nevertheless, we made it out in one piece, albeit pretty exhausted. On our way out we met and chatted to an English couple, Cliff and Joyce, who were heading in the same direction as us. In the backpacker world this meant we’d more than likely run into them again.

Still heading south, our next stop was Fenghuang, meaning ‘Phoenix’. Nestled in a beautiful mountain setting along the Tuo Jian River, the exceptionally well-preserved ancient town is a peaceful and relaxing place to stay for a few days. We found a nice cheap place right on the river and spent a week just chilling out and doing nothing but wander the streets and eat. Despite being absolutely freezing it was still very picturesque, with many of the riverfront buildings built on rickety old stilts. There is actually a fee for entering the ancient town, but this is easily avoided by simply walking a street or two over and strolling in where there’s no-one checking tickets. We were lucky enough to be shown this trick by two local girls we met at the train station in Zhangjiajie, and who kindly helped us find somewhere to stay the first night and took us to a local noodle joint. During our daily amblings around the town we inevitably ran into Cliff and Joyce. We arranged to meet up one night for drinks and proceeded to get slaughtered on local rice wine which came in a teapot in varying lurid colours. None of us remembers getting home but from what we do remember it was a great night. Unfortunately for Cliff and Joyce, they had to get on a bus the next day. Luckily for us, we didn’t.

After a week in Fenghuang it was time to go and freeze in another town. Yangshuo is a popular tourist spot near Guilin, in the south. As with every other town that’s on the tourist map it’s grown over the years, which isn’t always a good thing, but one thing that hasn’t changed is the beautiful scenery. Yangshuo is surrounded by dramatic karst mountains, winding rivers and lush green surroundings. Again, we found a nice cheap place to stay and we spent our final nine days in China in this town. The most popular things to do are hire a bike and explore the local countryside, go rock climbing and take a bamboo raft down the river. Because it was still freezing cold, the only thing we did was hire bikes and ride around. As has always been the case when we hire bikes, one was fucked, which we only discovered after riding for about 20-30mins. But after returning to get it fixed we made it out for a decent ride around the countryside and the mountains which really were quite stunning.

Our first month in China was spent in the large cities which were dominated by pollution and crowds, and therefore left us less than impressed with this country. But during our second month we went to much smaller, cleaner and prettier places which were so much nicer to be in. We still won’t be rushing back to China though, so we were more than ready to cross the border into Hong Kong where we were spending Christmas with my cousin, her husband and son.