Day 15

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 bags. All was in good order and we were then quickly on the coach heading for the Chen Family Ancestral Temple in Guangzhou. The traffic was shocking and it took us about 1.5 hours to get to our destination. Once again the smog was quite bad.




The temple of the Chen family was impressive. It is 100 years old and is the best preserved and best decorated building in Guangzhou. It now houses the Museum of Guangzhou Folk Art. They had grains of rice with minute writing on them that we could see through the magnifying glass. 


Following our visit to the temple we drove onto Zhongshan. This took about 1.5 hours and we passed hundreds of fish farms and acres and acres of low-lying small farms with a range of vegetables and trees and banana plantations. We also passed many rivers. 




Our room at the Sheraton which is on the 25th floor has a fantastic view over the city but as it is very smoggy so the photos are hazy. 


Dinner was at The Sheraton Hotel and it was a buffet. It was delicious and there was a great selection. It's the first time on the trip that there was Western food for dinner as well as Chinese. Henk and I and quite a few others went straight for the mashed potato and Irish Stew. We really enjoyed it. The chocolate fondue couldn't be resisted either! 


Tomorrow is Hong Kong. 

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