Category Archives: Uncategorized

Guilin, Uncategorized

Day 45/46 – Long Ji Rice Terraces

After a 4 hour long taxi ride from our great week in the Giggling Tree Guesthouse we arrived at a misty and rainy Ping’an, a mountain village in the LongJi (Dragonbone) Rice Terrace scenic area. To get to our hotel we had to go on a long step road, luckily we found some old ladies who carried our luggage.. they are really fit!

 

The weather was not the best, but fortunately at the end of the first day the mist cleared here and there a bit, enough to make some great photos.

After our stay here, where we had quite some rain, we went back to Guilin for two more nights before we will leave the ‘normal’ China on the 27th of May and cross the border to Hong Kong.

 

Guilin, Uncategorized

Day 36/37 – Guilin

Just a quick photo overview of our two days in Guilin, where we had both very warm and moist weather as well a pouring rain (our first in China so far, so we cannot complain).

Now we’re off to Yangshuo!

Kunming, Uncategorized

Day 33 – Trip to Kunming

Travelling day again, so we got up early and walked to the bus for the train station. After asking several of the many busses who stopped we got one that went to the train station and hopped on.

At the train station we changed our tickets, as the last experience with the hard seat made it clear that this mode of train travel was ok for under 3 hours, but for a 6 hour trip to Kunming it would be really hard. Luckily there were still soft sleepers available, so we had a very pleasant journey. Due to the fact that we were still not all 100% healthy this was a very good decision.

As we arrived in Kunming the station as chaotic. So far all the train stations in China we’ve arrived were well organized, when you come out it is clear where a taxi line is etc. Here we had to look hard for a taxi and had one of the nice ignorant taxi driver experiences, as we asked one driver if he could bring us to our guesthouse he just kept staring forwards, ignoring us and then just driving away. Normally not an issue, but with a 40lbs backpack, hot, sweaty and tired those are the moments you do not like the Chinese at all. Especially if a group of touts behind you is making fun off you.

As it was clear we were not getting a taxi here we walked a bit towards the center and found a nice lady with her taxi who drove us to our guesthouse. And then everything was good again, the room was great, the roof top terrace just in front of it and nice and quiet. So we used the time to have our laundry done, look around a bit near the green lake of Kunming and went for dinner in a restaurant that was recommended nearby.

Well, that restaurant visit was not the best. The dishes were all so spicey that none of us could really eat it, the service was (even for China) very unfriendly and lousy and the prices very high. After we paid the bill there was a 78 rmb for the tea on it, later we found out that this was a rip off method more had experienced in this place. Annoying, but again, that is part of travelling.

 

Chengdu, Leshan, Uncategorized

Day 19 – Visiting the Giant Buddha of Le Shan

Today we checked out in time and went to the Chengdu East Railway station to get the bullet train to Leshan. As we will return to Chengdu we decided to split up our stuff and leave one backpack at the railway station with the left luggage, also a primer for us to try this out. So after handing over the backpack and ensuring multiple times to the lady that we would be in time to get it back (she closes at 9pm) we got on the train and went to Leshan.

Arriving after a mere hour ride we were already there. Time again for some logistics, as we wanted to take the bus in the evening to EmeiShan we took at taxi to the XiaoGao bus station and dropped the second big backpack off there with the left luggage. Then it was on to the big Buddha park, and we were amazed. Everybody is always talking about the Buddha, but there is much more to see. There is also a big Oriental Buddhist Park which contains thousands of Buddha statues, unfortunately we did not have enough time to see those. So if you go to Leshan, you can easily spend two days there, and enjoy the bit less crowded parts of the area.

For the Buddha we just let the pictures below speak for itself, after leaving the park we walked through a small fisher village where we had a well earned drink (there are a lot of stair to be done here) and Charlotte had noodles again to show off her chop stick capabilities. And of course the mandatory Lao Wai pictures..

Then we took the bus back to the main bus station to get a long distance bus to Emei Shan, as our hotel there should be right next to it. Well, that went a bit wrong, as we’re standing at the ticket desk and want to buy the tickets we got the typical Chinese “Meo”, as in we do not have tickets anymore. Shit!

Now what, ok, good to have 3g on  the mobile phone in China, a quick check showed that there were still train tickets available. It was 17:14 and the next train left at 17:48. Get a taxi!

Somehow the taxi driver understood we were in a hurry because we were going at much too high speed through the city, only slowing down when there was a speed trap. At 17:28 we arrived at the train station, thanked the driver and went to get tickets. Again shit, a long queue in front of us. This was already where we decided to take one train later and then everything was relaxed again. We go out tickets, waited about an hour for the train and arrived after 15minutes of bullet train and 5 minutes of taxi ride safely at the Teddy Bear Hotel.

 

Uncategorized

Final packing

We managed to get everything we (think we) need into our backpacks and are now ready for the flight to Beijing. The check in is performed, we have 3 nice seats at the end of the plane and can sit next to each other without anyone else bothering us 🙂

Here the result of our several days of packing, unpacking and deciding what to take with us:

Now we will spend the last evening in Germany with a nice diner together with our family in our favorite Italian and then it is a last night sleep in our own beds for the next 3 months.

 

Uncategorized

Sabbatical BLog

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The new blog is just started, at the moment I’m trying to get the route we’ve planned for China documented in here – see Travel Route.

The last weeks were filled with planning the trip through China, we booked the flights but due to the visa regulations we must ensure we have our complete itinerary planned and booked, as the consulate wants to see a complete plan with confirmed reservations for all hotels if you are travelling individually. Normally you would show a flight in and out of the country, but we’ll leave through Hongkong by land – that that will be interesting.

Also we’re working on getting a new passport for Charlotte – as hers is not valid long enough.