China

Hong Kong Date - 19 May Weather - Overcast, warm Accommodation - Nina Towers, Kowloon, Hong Kong  We had a quiet day. We didn't book the optional tour of Hong Kong as we are familiar with the city having been here quite a number of times including in June last year. It was good to have a late breakfast and take it easy. We stayed in the Kowloon area and did a bit of window shopping and had a late lunch. We met some of our group at seven o'clock and found a local restaurant to have our last meal together. Final Impressions:  This blog has documented our wonderful eighteen day tour of China from 2 May to 20 May with Sinorama Group, a Canadian travel company. We had an experienced tour leader who stayed with us from our arrival at Beijing Airport to our departure from Hong Kong.  Along with 35 other tourists from Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand and the Netherlands we saw the major highlights including Tiananmen Square, The Forbidden Palace, The...

Guilin - Guangzhou - Zhongshan Date - 17 May Weather - Warm and smoggy Accommodation - Sheraton Hotel, Zhongshan It was a big day of travel involving a bullet train and coach travel. We have now moved from South East China and have positioned ourselves for moving onto Hong Kong tomorrow. When we caught the bullet train at 11.00am we were given a packed lunch.  The trip to Guangzhou, a city of 14 million people and therefore considered a small city, took two and a half hours. The top speed which was maintained most of the way was 245kms per hour and we initially passed the unusual Guilin mountains which were heavily wooded and alongside many small crop farms. It seemed very isolated.  On arrival at Guangzhou we had exactly four minutes to get off the train and make sure that our bags which were kept in a separate area of the train had also safely arrived. Mike had us all organised with quite a few of our men including Henk and the porters on the platform collecting our ...

Zhongshan - Macau - Hong Kong  Date - 18 May Weather - Overcast, hot and humid  Accommodation - Nina Towers, Kowloon, Hong Kong  We had a transfer day today from China via Macau to Hong Kong. It involved a lot of passport and visa checking and four changes of buses to clear all the immigration security.  As we set out in our coach Mike was nostalgic as he reviewed our trip and it's highlights. It made us feel the same. We have covered over 10,000 kms and we have seen so much in such a short time but there is much more to see as the country is vast and varied. Mike encouraged us to visit Tibet as there is no industrial pollution and their customs are quite different. Mike is a Buddhist and wears his prayer beads all the time. He thanked Buddha for "His arrangement" over our past days together. He thought we were "great tourists" compared to some "troublemakers" who have different opinions or different cultures!  This year, the Canadian-based Si...

Yangshuo to Fuli Village to Guilin  Date - 16 May Weather - Sunny and warm Accommodation - Grand Link Hotel, Guilin We continued our sightseeing around Yangshuo first starting with a fifteen minute coach ride to a small river-side village called Fuli on the Li River. This village is known as the hometown of painted fans. We watched a short demonstration on the making of the traditional fan and this involved a lot of pasting.  From the village we took a very pleasant  and peaceful hour's raft ride on the river. It was advertised as "White Water Drifting". Each raft which took four people was made of eight wide PVC pipes bound together and on top was a light-weight aluminium structure with a covered hood.  They were powered by small outboard motors. They were simple but effective. We saw many river birds, water buffaloes and a lot of very tall, thick bamboo along the edge of the river. Apparently when Chairman Zhour Enlai visited many years ago he said the area wa...

Shanghai to Guilin to Yangshuo  Date - 14 May Weather - Sunny and warm  Accommodation - Jasper Hotel, Yangshuo Our early morning call was 4.00am and Henk and I had our bags down in the lobby for 4.45am for the bus. With the exception of two of our party not getting the early morning call it was all very efficient and we were given breakfast bags with juice, fruit, muffin and croissant. Barb and Michael were given assistance packing by the hotel staff and they were on the bus in no time. Once again we had to go through security and passport control. Even domestic travel requires passport checking. The plane trip took two hours from Shanghai to Guilin and we immediately on the bus heading to the city centre of Guilin where we had lunch. After lunch we spent two hours on the coach driving through picturesque countryside with large limestone outcrops onto Yangshuo calling into a tea plantation on the way. The plantation, a government-owned experimental farm, was on a flat...

Shanghai Date - 14 May Weather - Sunny, smoggy and very warm with a cooling breeze Accommodation - Renaissance Hotel We headed out at 8.30am initially for a tour of the city and returned to our hotel room at 10.00pm. It was a long day but once again it had good variety. Our trip seems to be running on drugs to mask the virus. It's working and everyone was very chipper on the bus this morning despite the coughing and sneezing. We drove into the city centre on the middle ring road. The traffic was running well as it was a Sunday morning and especially so for a population of 23 million and with unregistered citizens up to an estimated 28 million. Thomas, our city guide, gave a background on the traffic situation in Shanghai. Because of the pollution there have been no motorbikes for 10 years and they have been replaced with electric scooters. The issue of licence plates is restricted to 2000 per month but more than 10,000 want a plate. Each month an auction is held for the 2000...

Chongqing to Shanghai Date - 13 May Weather - Sunny and very warm Accommodation - Renaissance Hotel  This was a long day of plane travel to take us from central china to Shanghai on the coast. We had the opportunity for a rare sleep-in as we didn't depart for the airport until after our early lunch at the hotel which was at 11.30am. Lunch was a round-table of ten dishes and again it was served with Western chips. Very soon we are going to look like a round table as we are eating well for breakfast, lunch and dinner!  On the way to the airport Mike told us in detail why his wedding day was such torture.  We found it very amusing but it did seem like torture as well as costing a lot of money.  There was quite a lot of coughing on the bus and most of us now have the low-level virus. Some have bought Chinese cough mixture. The flight to Shanghai was late leaving and involved a late change to the gate, a wait where we had to stand in the bus for a stifling thirty m...

Yangtze River Cruise to Chongqing Date - 12 May Weather - Smoggy, warm - 29c Accommodation - Raddison Hotel, Chongqing For the last four days we have travelled west from Jingzhou to the super city of Chongqing. Chongqing  which sits beside the busy Yangtze River has a population of 34 million. The city is China's biggest and was the original capital. We moored at the centre of Chongqing at 6.15am and visibility was very poor as a dense smog covered the city. It is a city known for its fog, mist and being hot. Mike says the people in summer are like steamed Dim Sims. Chongqing will be the furtherest west we will travel. We disembarked at 8.30am and walked for fifteen minutes along the wharf and past a lot of construction to our bus.  Some of our tour group have contracted a low level virus with sore throats etc. It seems to last only a day so hopefully we will stay healthy. We are frequently washing our hands where possible and using hand sanitiser before eating.  ...

Yangtze River Cruise Date - 11 May Weather - Rain Accommodation - "Yangtze Gold Three" This was our last full day on the Yangtze River and most of us woke up feeling quite tired after a broken night's sleep. Overnight there was heavy rain and a storm with persistent lightening and loud thunder which lasted for about two hours. The Chinese can also do huge storms!  Before breakfast our boat had moored near the 12-story 18th century Shibaozhoi Temple and the accompanying Red Pavilion. Both structures sit on a 200m craggy hill. The pavilion has 9 floors of covered wooden steps that hug the hill and lead to the temple which sits high on the hill. The higher one climbs in the temple the more likely your wishes and dreams will come true. With the construction of the Three Gorges Dam the base of the Red Pavilion would have been under water. A dam construction surrounds the base of the hill to keep out the water.  It was raining when we went ashore at 8.30am and it persi...

Yangtze River Cruise Date - 10 May Weather - Sunny, mild Accommodation - "Yangtze Gold Three" We woke to a cool morning sailing close to the bottom of high, steep mountains. We were clearly within the first of the three gorges. We sat on the balcony watching the scenery slowly go by and listening to the many birds hiding in the mountain-hugging trees and shrubs. We could clearly see where the flood line of approximately 15 metres on the banks of the river. It was a very peaceful way to start the day.  At nine o'clock we disembarked and caught quaint small flat-bottomed, glass-ceiling boats and made our way up the Goddess Stream along a very narrow, deep gorge. The high cliffs and mountains came straight down to the water and it was stunningly beautiful.  The gorge has become a tourist attraction since the building of the Three Gorges Project as the dam has increased the water level by 50 metres. This has allowed year-round boat access where previously there has bee...