Final month in China - Beijing

After Pingao I visited my last new destination in China: Beijing.  Here I stayed in the Hutong district, behind the Forbidden City.  The location was ideal, and there were parks and interesting streets nearby.

Hutong district

Of course, still being summer there were many tourists and this showed when I visited Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City.

Tiananmen Square

The Forbidden City is impressive, and I liked hearing about the Emperor’s lives there.  Not much is said about the wives and concubines but I had read books on this before so it was nice to put things into context.  

entrance of Forbidden City

inside the Forbidden City

inside the Forbidden City

From one of the parks behind the Forbidden City I climbed up to the top of a hill and was able to get a good view of the Forbidden City, within its walls.

Forbidden City

You can’t go to China without visiting the Great Wall… and of course I made sure I did.  There are a number of places where you can visit the wall, the closest being about half an hour out of Beijing.  However, in an effort to avoid the mass tourists and tourist sites, I went to Jinshanling (built during the Ming Dynasty) which was about 3 hours away.  It’s very impressive to see the vast expanse that the wall covers, and how high it was built.  Some parts have been restored, though some ‘old wall’ remains.  We went mostly to the old part.  The usual guides were there to ‘show’ you the way.  These were mostly Mongolians. (Inner Mongolia is on the other side of the wall).

The Great Wall of China

The Great Wall of China

The Great Wall of China

The other ‘must’ for Beijing, or Peking, was to eat Peking Duck.  I went with a few of the guys from the hostel and we shared a table with other Chinese tourists (the restaurant we went to is one of Beijing’s oldest ones and there was a long queue of people waiting for tables).  They serve the duck skin first, with a bowl of sugar, which you eat together.  Then the duck comes, with its various accondiments.  The sauce is a little different from the Hoi Sin sauce we get in the west, not as sweet, but it was nice.  We were shown how to serve a portion, using chop sticks the whole way.

Lastly I took the bullet train from Beijing to Shanghai (travelling at over 300km/h most of the way) for a final few days in Shanghai before leaving China and returning to Europe after 18 fascinating months in China.

map of journey:
https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=201580203090844665640.0004c82bb675c842cd874&msa=0&ll=43.389082,110.830078&spn=38.5866,68.554688&source=gplus-ogsb

Final month in China - East China: Xi'an, Pingyao

I did leave Shanghai as there were many more places to see.  I went to Xi’an where the Terracotta Warriors are.  

one of the 3 hangers that protect the terracotta warriors

soldiers and horses

These were pretty impressive, partly due to how many there are but also because it’s hard to fathom how the archeologists dug through the rocks to find them, many being kept intact.  

how did they not break them when excavating?

it was pretty hot there!

Apparently they were discovered when a local man was digging a well and came across one of the soldiers in 1974,  They are still excavating today, hard to imagine how many more they’ll find.

excavation site

some of the many soldiers

From Xi’an I was back on the train to travel to Pingyao.  I was on a ‘hard’ sleeper this time but to be honest this was still comfortable (still a mattrass and a duvet), the main difference being that a ‘soft’ sleeper has 4 berths in a cabin that closes and the ‘hard’ sleepers are in an open carriage and have 6 berths.  I didn’t enjoy being in the top one – where you can’t sit up without hitting your head!  The conductors switch the lights off about half an hour after the train leaves and people keep pretty quiet (apart from the odd snorers…).  You also get woken up about half an hour before your stop you there's little risk of missing your station.

Pingyao gate

Pingyao is ‘the best preserved old towns in the North’.  Southwest China seems to have more of these, I guess the Northeast was modernised earlier.  Pingyao is a walled city and you can walk along the walls.  I stayed inside and preferred to walk along the streets, stopping at various street food stalls along the way.

vats of vinegar

A local produce they made lots of in this area was vinegar and you could see vats of this in many of the shops.

city performers

Most evenings the town put on a variety of performances.  Sometimes it was individuals performing.

drummer

decorative Pingyao

I also visited the 'Wang courtyard residence' (a luxurious residence built during 1762-1811 by the descendants of the Wang Family, one of the Four Families of the Qing Dynasty in Shanxi Province).  There were many courtyards and buildings as well as some pretty artwork.  

Wang Courtyard Residence

Wang Courtyard residence

view of Wang Courtyard Residence

Lastly, I visited Zhangbi Ancient Village which has a network of underground tunnels where the villagers hid from any advancing enemies.
  

underground tunnels

I

Final month in China - Shanghai

I didn’t expect to like Shanghai as much as I did.  It’s a buzzing, modern city, with both new buildings (Pudong) and some traditional parts remaining (Old Town, French Concession).

modern Shanghai

Old Town

shopping streets

I had all sorts of plans to visit places around Shanghai (the Canal Towns nearby for example) but ended up staying in the city when I was there.  I enjoyed the traditional streets, the modern Nanjing shopping street and walking along the Bund at night.  I also found some nice roof top bars where I enjoyed drinks at sunset with fellow travellers.

The Bund by night, overlooking Pudong

Bund view with full moon

On a clear day I went to the top of Jin Mao Tower in the Pudong area to get nice views of Shanghai.

Jin Mao Tower

view of Pearl TV station and Shanghai from Jin Mao Tower

Final months in China - Sichuan Province

Chengdu is one of my favourite places that I’ve visited in China.  It’s hard to explain why as it’s primarily a big city but it’s somewhere I could see myself living if I ever returned to live in China (and not only due to the pandas!).

colourful lake

The main reason I returned to Chengdu (having been there last November) was to travel to the Juizhaiguo national park.  This is also known as the park of colourful lakes as due to the various minerals in the ground the water changes colour.  This is best seen in the autumn, along with the changing colours of the leaves on the trees, but I wanted to visit it anyway, even if it was in summer.  

I wasn't the only one there....

too many people sat down?

we followed this river most of the way up

The journey there was 10 hours on a bus through rural mountain paths.  This is the area that had been hit by a large earthquake a few years ago (2008) and you can still see some signs of this (like a ‘Broken Bridge’ crossing the river).

stunning scenery

In Juizhaiguo I actually stayed in a neighbouring village.  This had a strong Tibetan influence, as can be see from the pictures.

Tibetan house

local boys

Tibetan decor on the doors, and prayer wheels inside.

Chengdu market the end of my time in Southwest China and from there I flew east to Shanghai and modern China.

Final month in China - Yunnan Province

Once I finished my work at EF in Nanning I packed up my bags and got on a train.  2 days later I was in Lijiang, in Yunan province in Western China.  My destination was actually Shuhe, just outside Lijiang.  Both of these places are very touristy, with cobbled streets and horse-drawn karts.

Lijiang

Liiang is an UNESCO World Heritage Site and, if you can look beyond the hordes of tourists (Chinese), it is quite pretty.  I spent the day there, but most of my time in Shuhe which is similar but smaller.

Shuhe

souvenirs

When I arrived at my hostel I was met by one of the owners, who was Dutch.  I always meet Dutch people when I travel!!  He and his Chinese partner run the guest house I stayed in.  She is a great cook and residents and non-residents alike enjoy the meals here, and especially the cakes.

ladies in traditional Naxi dress dancing in Lijiang

I also met an Israeli man who lives in Amsterdam, more Dutch travellers, a British-Iranian girl and a Malaysian man.  I love this part of travelling!

playing zheng instrument in Shuhe

My next stop was Shangrila.  James Hilton wrote a book called Lost Horizons and this is allegedly set in Shangrila.  Certainly this is what the Chinese government is promoting and there is a heavy tourism push along those lines.  In fact, when I was there they were still working on building the ‘old’ town. 

Shangrila

Local ladies

That aside, Shangrila was very relaxing and reminded me a little of a ski resort in summer.  There were plenty of yaks there a (and I drank yak milk and ate a yak burger).

yak

There’s a monastery there, which is similar to the big one in Lhasa, Tibet.  I had wanted to visit Lhasa but about a month ago the Chinese changed the rules to get the permit to enter Tibet and so I was no longer able to do so.

Songanlin Monastery

The area around Shangrila is inhabited by a variety of ethnic groups, of which the Tibetans form a large part.  The décor and items sold were heavily influenced by Tibet.

After a few days there, and a visit to the monastery in the rain, I returned to Shuhe and from there onto Chengdu.  

Chinese tour group climbing up to the monastery in the rain